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Calendar of Events Thank you for joining us for over 250 amazing events in January - March celebrating Bridges to Belonging! Please visit us in the fall for a sneak peek of our 2027 season. Events for 2027 will be posted here in January, 2027. If you'd like to watch our 2026 kickoff event with our three featured authors: john a. powell (The Power of Bridging), Keeonna Harris (Mainline Mama) and Annie Hartnett (Unlikely Animals), you can watch it HERE. 2026 Events Mark your calendar! Browse the chronological list of upcoming Silicon Valley Reads events or use the search bar to find specific ones. You can also click a category button to quickly filter events that match your interests. Accessibility Programs Author Visits/Book Talks Music/Movies/Culture Youth/Teen Activities Adult Classes/Talks/Activities Children's Activities Online Events 2026 All Events Tue, Jan 20 Thank You, Neighbor StoryWalk® / Multiple Local Parks Details Jan 20, 2026, 7:00 AM – May 31, 2026, 5:00 PM Multiple Local Parks, 171 W Edmundson Ave, Morgan Hill, CA 95037, USA Enjoy the outdoors with your little ones while reading along to a storybook! StoryWalk® is a great way to exercise the body and the mind. Join us at multiple parks across Santa Clara County! Tue, Apr 07 We Need to Build: In Person with Eboo Patel / Santa Clara University Details Apr 07, 2026, 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA Eboo Patel, author of the 2025–26 SCU Community Read book We Need to Build: Fieldnotes for Diverse Democracy, will be at Santa Clara University for an in-person talk and fireside chat. Refreshments will be available. Free event!

News Room Read the latest news about Silicon Valley Reads. News Articles Select link below to read the full article. February 5, 2026 Panel explores impact of mass incarceration and reforms on Black Silicon Valley residents Read full article February 3, 2026 This year’s Silicon Valley Reads focuses on political polarization Read full article January 22, 2026 Silicon Valley Reads bridges divided times for night of community Read full article Facebook News Feed News Releases newsrelease101222 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 8, 2026 Silicon Valley Reads Announces 2026 Season: 200+ Free Events That Build “Bridges to Belonging” Across Santa Clara County SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. – Silicon Valley Reads is proud to unveil an expansive calendar for the 2026 season. Centered on the theme “Bridges to Belonging,” this year’s program features more than 200 free events for all ages, designed to spark connection through art, nature, technology, and literature. The season begins on Thursday, January 15, at De Anza College in Cupertino with a free, high-energy kickoff event moderated by The Mercury News columnist Sal Pizarro in conversation with the three featured authors: john a. powell, The Power of Bridging Keeonna Harris, Mainline Mama Annie Hartnett, Unlikely Animals The kickoff will be in-person and livestreamed. Register here. Attendees at the in-person event can purchase these books onsite and have them signed by the authors. They are also invited to enjoy the art exhibit, "A Sense of Belonging," at the Euphrat Museum of Art before and after the program. There will be additional opportunities to hear from featured authors, including youth book authors Anna Sortino ( Give Me a Sign ), Kelly Yang ( Front Desk ), and Roz MacLean ( Together, A Forest ). There will also be a special event at Santa Clara University with Dr. Joshua Miele—researcher and author of the recommended read, Connecting Dots —who was blinded at the age of 4. The Silicon Valley Reads programming team, a collaboration of librarians and school representatives, moved the program “beyond the page” through dynamic community engagement, helping residents find a personal bridge to their community. The community is invited to participate in county-wide cultural projects, including: Paper Chains of Kindness: Drop in at select libraries and add links to a physical chain representing our connected community. The Community Cookbook Project: A celebration of heritage and belonging through shared recipes and culinary stories submitted online . “Thank You, Neighbor” Community Video: Add your gratitude in your native language by submitting your video ! The 2026 lineup features robust programming for children and teens, our next generation of bridge-builders. Highlights include interactive STEAM sessions with LEGO challenges, nature-based workshops, and high-energy dance and movement classes. The season also emphasizes inclusivity through an open house at Animal Assisted Happiness, ASL-integrated literacy programs, and multilingual storytimes. The arts serve as a universal language of belonging. Programs that highlight this include the Firebird Youth Chinese Orchestra, adult watercolor workshops, and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s production of Julius Caesar . All Silicon Valley Reads events are free and open to the public. The season officially runs from January through March 2026. For a complete, searchable calendar of events and registration details, please visit: siliconvalleyreads.org/calendar . Media Contact: Reid Myers, Silicon Valley Reads siliconvalleyreads@gmail.com The Silicon Valley Reads community engagement program is presented annually by the Santa Clara County Library District, Santa Clara County Office of Education, and San José Public Library in conjunction with other public libraries, community colleges and universities, and community organizations. Over 150 Events Author talks, book clubs, community events and more! Please join us for many more events celebrating Bridges to Belonging! CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Advisory Board Members of the community that provide guidance to Silicon Valley Reads programs. Jill Bourne Co-chair, Library Director City of San Jose Dr. David Toston, Sr. Co-Chair, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools Santa Clara County Office of Education Jennifer Weeks Co-chair, County Librarian Santa Clara County Library District Nicole Branch Dean, University Library Santa Clara University Clover Codd Superintendent Moreland School District Kelsey Martinez Combellick Chief of Staff, Betty Duong Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors Alicia Cortez Trustee, Gavilan Join Community College Dr. Michael Gallagher Executive Director ACSA Region 8, Santa Clara County Dr. Deborah Gorgulho Assistant Superintendent Santa Clara County Office of Education Tracy Gray Library Director City of Mountain View Margaret Hengel Past President Santa Clara County Reading Council Cindy Hill Board President Los Altos Library Endowment Kara Iwahashi Associate Program Director The Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley Gayathri Kanth Director of Library Services City of Palo Alto Katie Khera Culture & Arts Commission Morgan Hill Library Deepka Lalwani Founder Indian Business & Professional Women Shannon Miller, Ph.D. Dean of the College of Humanities and Arts San Jose State University Reid Myers Director Silicon Valley Reads Alyce Parsons Author and Teacher Sal Pizarro Columnist The San Jose Mercury News Diane Roche Director of Communications & Marketing Santa Clara County Library District Tara Sreekrishnan Trustee Santa Clara County Board of Education Elizabeth Smith Associate VP of Comms and External Relations De Anza College Patty Wong City Librarian Santa Clara City Library

Silicon Valley Reads was started as a traditional "one book, one community" program that selected a book and invited all residents to read it. Over the years, Silicon Valley Reads has evolved into a more ambitious endeavor that uses books reflecting a provocative theme relevant to the region to encourage people to read, think, discuss and engage. Silicon Valley Reads Welcome to Silicon Valley Reads Silicon Valley Reads is a community engagement program that brings people together through books and a shared annual theme. Each year, from January through March, we offer more than 150 free public events for all ages including author talks, book clubs, arts and music activities, movies, hands-on workshops, and creative experiences inspired by our theme. Our 2026 Theme: Bridges to Belonging Our 2026 season ended at the end of March. We hosted over 250 programs through our libraries, schools, and partner organizations. We involved over 12,000 participants and the feedback from the season was overwhelmingly positive. Together, we focused on our shared values and built bridges across our community from building a "chain of kindness" with links in libraries from Palo Alto to San Jose, to reading with animals at Animal Assisted Happiness and Magical Bridge Playground. We had author visits both online and in-person as we explored what community means in Silicon Valley. We are currently working on our programming for our 2027 season and will announce on this site in the fall. Sign up for our mailing list to receive the latest information (no spam). Kickoff Recording Each year we celebrate our theme with a kickoff event at De Anza College. Our 2026 season kicked off on January 15th with all of our selected authors in conversation with Sal Pizarro from the San Jose Mercury News . If you missed this conversation, you can watch the recording HERE . Featured Videos Silicon Valley Reads 2026: Bridges to Belonging Share Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tumblr Copy Link Link Copied 2026 Books We have carefully selected three diverse books that encapsulate the spirit of belonging and encourage meaningful community conversations. Featured Books for Adults The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong In The Power of Bridging, john a. powell offers an essential roadmap for building bridges across our divisions and creating a society where everyone feels they belong. He explains how “othering” and “breaking” keep us apart—casting people as outsiders or excluding them altogether—while “bridging” invites connection, solidarity, and shared humanity. With a mix of personal insight and practical tools, Powell shows how each of us can become a “bridger” in our families, workplaces, and communities. This book is both a call to action and a guide, reminding us that bridging is not just a response to division, but a path toward co-creating a future grounded in belonging. Read More Mainline Mama In this moving memoir, Keeonna Harris shares her journey of building bridges to belonging while navigating the isolating realities of the U.S. carceral system. Becoming a “mainline mama” at just fourteen, she raises her son while her partner is incarcerated, confronting stigma, shame, and systemic barriers along the way. Yet Harris’s story is also one of resilience, love, and community—finding strength in family bonds and solidarity with other women facing similar struggles. From everyday acts of care to moments of radical resistance, Mainline Mama shows how creating connection and community in the face of division becomes a powerful pathway to belonging. Read More Unlikely Animals In this tender and humorous novel, Annie Hartnett explores how belonging can grow in unexpected places. When Emma Starling returns to her New Hampshire hometown to care for her dying father, she is drawn into a community grappling with crisis, loss, and disconnection. Through her search for a missing friend and reconnection with family, Emma discovers that even fractured places can be mended through compassion, community, and the bridges we build with one another. Read More 2026 Books Featured Companion Books for Teens/Children 2026 Companion Books Thank You, Neighbor Join a young narrator and her dog on their daily walk through a bustling, colorful urban neighborhood. They greet essential community helpers—the bus driver, the sanitation workers, the mail carrier—and chat with all the neighbors they know. In the flurry of a busy day, it’s easy to hurry past the people who keep our world running, but this charming book reminds us that patience and kindness can make your neighborhood truly feel like family. Read More Together, A Forest In this visually stunning picture book, Joy and her diverse class explore a forest where every student, including those who are neurodivergent or use mobility aids, discovers their unique connection to nature. Joy is initially anxious about finding her "one thing" for a project, but she soon sees how her classmates' different ways of experiencing the world reflect the complex beauty of the ecosystem. The book compares the essential diversity of trees, fungi, and rushing water to the diversity of the class. It reminds readers of all ages that there is no "one right way" for a mind, body, or person to be, and that our unique differences are what create a truly vibrant, flourishing community. Read More Front Desk Based on the author's real-life experience, Kelly Yang's award-winning novel follows 10-year-old Mia Tang, a recent Chinese immigrant whose family manages a rundown motel in California. While facing poverty, racism, and the unfairness of the American Dream, Mia bravely takes on the role of front desk manager—but her real job is building a community. Front Desk illustrates "Bridges to Belonging" as Mia, her parents, and the long-term tenants ("weeklies") transform the Calivista Motel into a sanctuary for close friends. Through compassion and courage, they stand up for one another against injustice, proving that a sense of belonging is a powerful force created not by wealth or status, but by kindness, solidarity, and finding your voice to fight for those who need a place to call home. Read More Give Me a Sign For years, Lilah has felt suspended in a silent, lonely space -"stuck in the middle" between the vibrant hearing world and the rich, expressive Deaf one. Hard-of-hearing and tired of constantly navigating a world that wasn't built for her, she yearns for a place where she doesn't have to choose or apologize for who she is. That search for solid ground leads her to a life-changing summer where she worked as a counselor at a camp for Deaf and blind teens. It's here, within this community, that Lilah finds peace and a solid sense of belonging. Read More More about 2026 Companion Books Recommended Reading Silicon Valley Reads is pleased to provide a curated list of recommended reading for our Bridges to Belonging theme. Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley is a heartwarming story that proves the most rigid social contract—never talk to strangers—is meant to be broken. Iona Iverson, an eccentric advice columnist, lives by an ironclad rule: ignore everyone on her daily train ride, whom she knows only by self-assigned nicknames like "Smart-But-Sexist-Manspreader." But when a fellow commuter suddenly chokes, a single, life-saving act of intervention shatters Iona's carefully constructed isolation. Watch as this unlikely cast of characters—each dealing with their own private struggles with loneliness, aging, and career anxiety—evolves from anonymous passengers into a found family. This story explores how breaking down barriers of judgment and embracing vulnerability can lead to unexpected, life-altering connections, transforming a train car of strangers into a true community. Connecting Dots The memoir of MacArthur "Genius" award winner Dr. Joshua A. Miele is a powerful testament to finding connection and building a life of purpose in a world not built for you. Badly burned and blinded at age four, Miele refused to be a victim. Instead, his natural curiosity and problem-solving skills led him to the heart of the tech industry—from working at NASA to pioneering revolutionary accessibility technologies like screen readers and tactile maps. Connecting Dots is an unforgettable, funny, and deeply honest journey of a blind scientist who channels his experiences into creations that connect the disabled community to the world. Miele’s life demonstrates that the ingenuity spurred by necessity creates the strongest bridges to belonging, allowing millions to fully participate in a society designed for the sighted. What it Takes to Save a Life: A Veterinarian's Quest of Healing and Hope Dr. Kwane Stewart, founder of Project Street Vet and CNN's 2023 Hero of the Year, was a struggling veterinarian on the brink of burnout when a single, spontaneous act of kindness changed everything: offering free treatment to a homeless man's dog. This powerful, honest memoir takes you onto the streets of California and beyond, revealing the extraordinary bonds of unconditional love between unhoused individuals and their animal companions. For people facing extreme loneliness and invisibility, a pet is their only family, their lifeline, and their bridge to stability. In What It Takes to Save a Life, Kwane Stewart shows how healing these animals is a crucial step in recognizing the humanity of their owners. His journey is a profound reminder that we are all part of a wider community, and by extending compassion to our most vulnerable neighbors—and their beloved pets—we can save not just an animal, but a human soul. View All Adult Recommended Reading Youth Recommended Reading Silicon Valley Reads has selected a recommended read for our youth audience this year. The author of Becoming Boba will be doing some programming with us- please see our events listing in January for more information! Becoming Boba Milk Tea Town was steeped in tradition, and Mindy didn't fit the mold. While the classic brown flavors sipped from sensible straws, Mindy sparkled in green, white, and red. Worried she wasn't "milk tea enough," she dives into their history, seeking a way to belong. What Mindy and her friends discover on this journey isn't a lesson in conformity, but a surprising truth about milk tea's past—a secret that could redefine the entire town and prove that belonging isn't about being the same, but about claiming your own flavor. A delightful, heartwarming tale about self-love and the universal question: What does it mean to be enough? Youth Recommended Reading Thanks to our Donors! Silicon Valley Reads relies on the generous donations of our community partners and donors to run over 150 free events each year. For more information on donating, please visit the Donor Information page . Thank you for financially supporting Silicon Valley Reads programs! Friends of the Cupertino Library Christy's International Real Estate The Michael and Alyce Parsons Education Fund Silicon Valley Library System Cupertino Library Foundation Friends of San Jose West Valley Library Friends of the Saratoga Libraries Santa Clara County Library District Foundation First 5 Magical Bridge Foundation

Gallery of photos and videos promoting Silicon Valley Reads Events 2026 Videos Silicon Valley Reads Play Video Share Whole Channel This Video Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tumblr Copy Link Link Copied Now Playing Kickoff Video 2026: Bridges to Belonging 01:21:56 Play Video Now Playing Author Conversation on Color & Belonging 01:13:51 Play Video Now Playing AI & Ethics in Commerce, Medicine and Journalism 01:25:48 Play Video Photos & Videos 2026: Bridges to Belonging 2026 Event Photos 2026 Videos 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World 2025 Event Photos 2025 Videos 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today 2024 Event Photos 2024 Videos 2023 Journey to New Beginnings View event photos 2023 videos 2022 The Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope View event photos 2022 videos 2021 Connecting View event photos 2021 videos 2020 Women Making it Happen View event photos Play video on YouTube 2019 Finding Identity in Family History View event photos Play video on YouTube 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion View event photos Play video on YouTube 2017 "...and justice for all" View event photos Play video on YouTube 2016 Chance of Rain? View event photos Play video on YouTube 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience View event photos Play video on YouTube 2014 Books & Technology: Friends or Foes? View event photos Play video on YouTube 2013 Invisible Wounds of War View event photos Play video on YouTube

2024Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. All We Can Save shows the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States--scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race--and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. < All Book Selections 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today All We Can Save Edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Jackson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson Audience: Adult Provocative and illuminating essays from women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward. All We Can Save shows the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States--scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race--and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. About the Author Dr. Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, writer, and Brooklyn native. She is co-editor of the bestselling anthology All We Can Save , co-founder of The All We Can Save Project and Urban Ocean Lab , and co-creator of the podcast How to Save a Planet . Dr. Johnson was named one of the Time 100 leaders for 2021 and one of Elle ’s 27 “women leading on climate.” She earned a BA in environmental science and public policy from Harvard and a PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Dr. Wilkinson is an author, strategist, teacher, and one of 15 “women who will save the world,” according to Time magazine. She is co-founder and executive director of The All We Can Save Project, creator of All We Can Save Circles and Climate Wayfinding, and co-host of the podcast A Matter of Degrees . Her books on climate include the bestselling anthology All We Can Save , The Drawdown Review , the New York Times bestseller Drawdown , and Between God & Green . Edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Jackson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson Author's website

2023A young immigrant girl joins her aunt and uncle in a new country that is unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness and a fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk. As the duo strolls through their city park, the girl's aunt begins to tell her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier, so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as a way of saying that the land was full and couldn't accommodate the strangers. Then, the leader of the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced the refugee, welcoming him and his people. < All Book Selections 2023 Journey to New Beginnings Sugar in Milk Thrity Umrigar Audience: Grades 2-4 A young immigrant girl joins her aunt and uncle in a new country that is unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness and a fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk. As the duo strolls through their city park, the girl's aunt begins to tell her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier, so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as a way of saying that the land was full and couldn't accommodate the strangers. Then, the leader of the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced the refugee, welcoming him and his people. About the Author Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of nine novels and three picture books. Her books have been translated into numerous languages and published in over sixteen countries. She is the winner of the Cleveland Arts Prize, the Lambda Literary award and is a recipient of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard. An award-winning journalist, she has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She is the Distinguished University Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Thrity Umrigar Author's website

2026For years, Lilah has felt suspended in a silent, lonely space -"stuck in the middle" between the vibrant hearing world and the rich, expressive Deaf one. Hard-of-hearing and tired of constantly navigating a world that wasn't built for her, she yearns for a place where she doesn't have to choose or apologize for who she is. That search for solid ground leads her to a life-changing summer where she worked as a counselor at a camp for Deaf and blind teens. It's here, within this community, that Lilah finds peace and a solid sense of belonging. < All Book Selections 2026 Bridges to Belonging Give Me a Sign Anna Sortino Audience: High School/Young Adult For years, Lilah has felt suspended in a silent, lonely space -"stuck in the middle" between the vibrant hearing world and the rich, expressive Deaf one. Hard-of-hearing and tired of constantly navigating a world that wasn't built for her, she yearns for a place where she doesn't have to choose or apologize for who she is. That search for solid ground leads her to a life-changing summer where she worked as a counselor at a camp for Deaf and blind teens. It's here, within this community, that Lilah finds peace and a solid sense of belonging. About the Author Anna Sortino is the author of Give Me a Sign, On the Bright Side, and other stories about disabled characters living their lives and falling in love. She’s Deaf and passionate about diverse representation in media. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, Anna has since lived in different cities from coast to coast, spending her free time exploring nature with her dog or reading on the couch with her cat. Anna Sortino Author's website

2015Inspired by actual events, this story written in free verse starts 10 years after the narrator’s family fled the fires of ethnic hatred in Kosova, Yugoslavia – long enough for the narrator to have transformed herself into a typical American schoolgirl. Her parents continue to feel like foreigners, and she grows impatient with what she perceives as their refusal to assimilate. Then an ugly incident in a nearby town changes everything, forcing each member of this refugee family to consider what being an American truly means. The book has received many awards, including: * New York Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age * International Reading Association Young Adult Choices * Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year * Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) Poetry Pick * Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Awards, Honorable Mention * Boston Authors Club, Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist * Maine Literary Award < All Book Selections 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience Something About America Maria Testa Audience: Ages 12+ Inspired by actual events, this story written in free verse starts 10 years after the narrator’s family fled the fires of ethnic hatred in Kosova, Yugoslavia – long enough for the narrator to have transformed herself into a typical American schoolgirl. Her parents continue to feel like foreigners, and she grows impatient with what she perceives as their refusal to assimilate. Then an ugly incident in a nearby town changes everything, forcing each member of this refugee family to consider what being an American truly means. The book has received many awards, including: * New York Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age * International Reading Association Young Adult Choices * Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year * Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) Poetry Pick * Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Awards, Honorable Mention * Boston Authors Club, Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist * Maine Literary Award About the Author Maria Testa was born in Hartford, Connecticut, grew up in and around Providence, Rhode Island, and now lives in Portland, Maine with her husband and two sons. She received bachelor’s degrees in Sociology and American Civilization from Brown University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. After graduation, she expatriated to Dublin, Ireland where she lived at the YWCA and decided to be a writer. She has written five middle school/Young Adult novels, three picture books for younger children, and a book of short stories about baseball. Maria Testa Author's website

2024After years of harsh monsoon seasons, a forest on the river island of Majuli is in danger of being slowly washed away. Jadav, a boy living on the island, is determined to save the forest he loves. This is the true story of how one young boy dedicated his life to creating and cultivating an expansive forest that continues to grow to this day. In a world impacted by climate change, Jadav Payeng’s inspirational story shows how one person’s contributions can make a difference in helping to save our environment. < All Book Selections 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today The Forest Man (2nd - 4th) Anne Matheson Audience: Grades 2-4 After years of harsh monsoon seasons, a forest on the river island of Majuli is in danger of being slowly washed away. Jadav, a boy living on the island, is determined to save the forest he loves. This is the true story of how one young boy dedicated his life to creating and cultivating an expansive forest that continues to grow to this day. In a world impacted by climate change, Jadav Payeng’s inspirational story shows how one person’s contributions can make a difference in helping to save our environment. About the Author Anne Matheson is an author with a deep passion for storytelling that inspires positive change. With a background in publishing and a profound love for the natural world, Anne's book focuses on themes of conservation, sustainability, and the incredible impact that one person can have on our environment. Through her writing, Anne Matheson hopes to inspire children to appreciate the natural world, take action in preserving it, and recognize that, like Jadav Payeng, each of us can contribute to the protection of our environment. Anne Matheson Author's website

2026In The Power of Bridging, john a. powell offers an essential roadmap for building bridges across our divisions and creating a society where everyone feels they belong. He explains how “othering” and “breaking” keep us apart—casting people as outsiders or excluding them altogether—while “bridging” invites connection, solidarity, and shared humanity. With a mix of personal insight and practical tools, Powell shows how each of us can become a “bridger” in our families, workplaces, and communities. This book is both a call to action and a guide, reminding us that bridging is not just a response to division, but a path toward co-creating a future grounded in belonging. < All Book Selections 2026 Bridges to Belonging The Power of Bridging: How to Build a World Where We All Belong john a. powell Audience: Adult In The Power of Bridging, john a. powell offers an essential roadmap for building bridges across our divisions and creating a society where everyone feels they belong. He explains how “othering” and “breaking” keep us apart—casting people as outsiders or excluding them altogether—while “bridging” invites connection, solidarity, and shared humanity. With a mix of personal insight and practical tools, Powell shows how each of us can become a “bridger” in our families, workplaces, and communities. This book is both a call to action and a guide, reminding us that bridging is not just a response to division, but a path toward co-creating a future grounded in belonging. About the Author john a.powell is Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American, and Ethnic Studies at the University of California,Berkeley. He was previously the Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, and prior to that, the founder and director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. john formerly served as the National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He is a co-founder of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the boards of several national and international organizations. john led the development of an“opportunity-based” model that connects affordable housing to education, health, healthcare, and employment and is well-known for his work developing the frameworks of “targeted universalism” and “othering and belonging” to effect equity-based interventions. john has taught at numerous law schools including Harvard and Columbia University. His latest books are Belonging Without Othering, How We Save Ourselves and the World and The Power of Bridging, How to Build a World where we all Belong. john a. powell Author's website Photo by: Nick Bruno

2025Ever since he was a little chip, Robot knew he was ART-ificially different. A funny and heartfelt picture book exploring AI, art, and creativity, the story follows Robot as he tries to fit in at the warehouse. But when he’s sent off for reprogramming, he takes a wrong turn and discovers a world of music, dancing, and art. Struggling to understand and express himself through these creative outlets, Robot eventually discovers a unique ability: he can sense the emotions behind the music and the movements of the dancers. Inspired by this newfound understanding, Robot begins to experiment with his own artistic creations, combining his mechanical precision with his newfound appreciation for art. Soon, the warehouse, once a dull and monotonous place, is transformed by Robot’s artistic creations. The other robots, inspired by his passion, begin to experiment with their own forms of expression. Together, they create a vibrant and dynamic environment where technology and art coexist. < All Book Selections 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World ARTificial Intelligence David Biedrzycki Audience: Lower Elementary Ever since he was a little chip, Robot knew he was ART-ificially different. A funny and heartfelt picture book exploring AI, art, and creativity, the story follows Robot as he tries to fit in at the warehouse. But when he’s sent off for reprogramming, he takes a wrong turn and discovers a world of music, dancing, and art. Struggling to understand and express himself through these creative outlets, Robot eventually discovers a unique ability: he can sense the emotions behind the music and the movements of the dancers. Inspired by this newfound understanding, Robot begins to experiment with his own artistic creations, combining his mechanical precision with his newfound appreciation for art. Soon, the warehouse, once a dull and monotonous place, is transformed by Robot’s artistic creations. The other robots, inspired by his passion, begin to experiment with their own forms of expression. Together, they create a vibrant and dynamic environment where technology and art coexist. About the Author For Author David Biedrzycki, it all started when he was 4 years old. David was hooked when his older brother showed him how to draw a human face. He always loved to draw and create his own stories, and much to his parent’s liking, David was always happy to sit in a corner of their kitchen and draw for hours on end. Not a strong reader in his early years, his second-grade teacher sparked his imagination by reading to him every day at recess. After attending Kutztown State University in Pennsylvania, he moved to Boston, MA, where he now resides. He started his commercial art career in the 1980s but later switched back to his first love, creating his own stories. He now has written and /or illustrated over 30 books and visits in person and virtually over one hundred schools a year domestically and internationally, inspiring students to write and create their own stories. David Biedrzycki Author's website

2017A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law. < All Book Selections 2017 ...and justice for all Unfair Adam Benforado Audience: Adult A child is gunned down by a police officer; an investigator ignores critical clues in a case; an innocent man confesses to a crime he did not commit; a jury acquits a killer. The evidence is all around us: Our system of justice is fundamentally broken. But it’s not for the reasons we tend to think, as law professor Adam Benforado argues in this eye-opening, galvanizing book. Even if the system operated exactly as it was designed to, we would still end up with wrongful convictions, trampled rights, and unequal treatment. This is because the roots of injustice lie not inside the dark hearts of racist police officers or dishonest prosecutors, but within the minds of each and every one of us. This is difficult to accept. Our nation is founded on the idea that the law is impartial, that legal cases are won or lost on the basis of evidence, careful reasoning and nuanced argument. But they may, in fact, turn on the camera angle of a defendant’s taped confession, the number of photos in a mug shot book, or a simple word choice during a cross-examination. In Unfair, Benforado shines a light on this troubling new field of research, showing, for example, that people with certain facial features receive longer sentences and that judges are far more likely to grant parole first thing in the morning. Over the last two decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered many cognitive forces that operate beyond our conscious awareness. Until we address these hidden biases head-on, Benforado argues, the social inequality we see now will only widen, as powerful players and institutions find ways to exploit the weaknesses of our legal system. Weaving together historical examples, scientific studies, and compelling court cases—from the border collie put on trial in Kentucky to the five teenagers who falsely confessed in the Central Park Jogger case—Benforado shows how our judicial processes fail to uphold our values and protect society’s weakest members. With clarity and passion, he lays out the scope of the legal system’s dysfunction and proposes a wealth of practical reforms that could prevent injustice and help us achieve true fairness and equality before the law. About the Author Adam Benforado is a Professor of Law in the Thomas R. Kline School of Law at Drexel University in Philadelphia. His undergraduate degree in History is from Yale University and he graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 2005. He has taught at Drexel University since 2008. In addition to Unfair, he is the author of numerous articles in legal and cognitive science publications as well as major newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Washington Post and Atlantic. He has been interviewed on CNN, PBS, and other radio and TV shows across the country. Adam Benforado Author's website AWARDS AND REVIEWS A New York Times Best Seller A #1 Audible.com Best Seller An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Month A Goodreads Best Book of the Month 2016 Media for a Just Society Awards Finalist A 20th Annual Books for a Better Life Awards Finalist A Greater Good Favorite Book of 2015 A 2015 Green Bag Exemplary Legal Writing Honoree A 2016 Science in Society Journalism Awards Honorable Mention “In this important, deeply researched debut, [Benforado] draws on findings from psychology and neuroscience to show that police, jurors, and judges are generally guided by intuitive feelings rather than hard facts in making assessments...The new research challenges basic assumptions about most key aspects of the legal system, including eyewitness memory, jury deliberations, police procedures, and punishment...An original and provocative argument that upends our most cherished beliefs about providing equal justice under the law.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred “This book suggests that criminal justice in the United States is not a system at all but a set of dysfunctional units that deliver biased decisions that make society less safe. Benforado deftly analyzes actual cases and recent studies in psychology and neuroscience to argue for broad-based reforms...A stimulating critique of today’s criminal justice system with applications to recent cases in Ferguson, MO, and elsewhere...Authoritative and accessible.” —Library Journal, starred “...a well-documented eye-opener.” —San Francisco Book Review (5/5 stars) “As gripping as a Grisham novel, only it isn’t fiction. With captivating cases and razor-sharp science, Adam Benforado puts the justice system on trial and makes a bulletproof argument that it’s fundamentally broken. This extraordinary book is a must-read for every judge, lawyer, detective, and concerned citizen in America.” —Adam Grant, Wharton School of Business, and author of Give and Take “In Unfair, Adam Benforado makes us aware of all our many imperfections when it comes to the judgment of others in our midst. He does so gently and with astonishing knowledge. Learning so much about our subconscious biases and the judicial system that exploits them is fascinating—and deeply troubling. But he goes further: he offers obtainable solutions, ones that we should race to effect, both within our own minds and in the human fates on which we bring our minds to bear.” —Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace “Adam Benforado has written a book that will make you rethink everything you believe about crime and punishment. He gracefully blends science and storytelling to make a powerful case that our failure to bring the realities of human psychology into the courtroom has led to profound injustice. Enthralling and unsettling in equal measure, Unfair might be the most important book you read this year.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive “This thoughtful and penetrating study raises many deeply troubling questions, and even more important, offers humane and very reasonable approaches to cure some of the ills of a system of ‘criminal injustice’ that should not be tolerated.” —Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT “Unfair succinctly and persuasively recounts cutting-edge research testifying to the faulty and inaccurate procedures that underpin virtually all aspects of our criminal justice system, illustrating many with case studies.” —The Boston Globe “In Unfair, [Benforado] argues that most errors in criminal justice stem from the failure to take into account the frailties of human cognition, memory and decision-making…this is a book everyone in the legal profession should read, and the rest of us too, for it is as much about the confounding idiosyncrasies of everyday behaviour as inequity in law.” —New Scientist “Benforado makes a compelling case, backed with reference to extensive scientific research, for [his] point of view in Unfair… Over and over again, Benforado demonstrates that basic assumptions underlying the criminal justice system are not supported by scientific evidence… [He] also reminds us of how far the practice of criminal justice has drifted from its ostensible goals… He is hopeful, however, that the system can be reformed, and the information in this book is offered in part toward that end. Unfair offers an excellent overview of an important body of information.” —PopMatters “Benforado is part of a rising chorus of academics, politicians, and those of us who work in the criminal justice system who are appalled by the fact that this country spends $60 billion a year on prisons and boasts the dubious honor of incarcerating more persons per capita than any other nation. In Unfair, Benforado does a wonderful job of describing the scope of the problem and of thinking creatively about how we can improve our criminal justice system.” —The Federal Lawyer “Insightful… one of the most important books written in a very long time.” —Douglas Blackmon, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Slavery by Another Name; American Forum “Benforado’s book is simply chock-full of eye-opening research and practical suggestions for improvement... Hopefully, [Unfair] will push us to take a step in [the right] direction.” —Greater Good “No one denies that the criminal justice system should be based on reason and respect for our fellow humans, but Unfair compellingly insists that to do that will require accepting some uncomfortable truths. Every lawyer and judge working in the criminal justice system should read this book. Those who take it seriously will sleep uneasily for quite some time.” —JOTWELL “Systems of justice are built by human brains. As such, they’re subject to all the foibles of human psychology, from biased decision-making to xenophobia to false memories. With the eye of a scholar and the ear of a storyteller, Benforado marshals the burgeoning research to illuminate the nexus between law and the mind sciences.” —David Eagleman, Director of the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law, and author of Incognito “Unfair is beautifully written, painstakingly researched, profoundly illuminating, and deeply disturbing. As evidence mounts that our criminal ‘justice’ system abounds with injustices, Benforado lays bare the systemic and psychological sources of its failures, weaving together compelling narrative and recent insights from the mind sciences. Unfair is must reading for anyone who cares about justice and, more important, for anyone who does not.” —Jon Hanson, Alfred Smart Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, and Faculty Director of the Project on Law and Mind Sciences and the Systemic Justice Project “Unfair is an engaging, eye-opening read. By weaving together the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience with real-world stories of justice gone wrong, Unfair sheds new light on how easy it is for unconscious biases to wreak havoc on the criminal justice system and the steps that can be taken to make the system fairer.” —Sian Beilock, University of Chicago Professor of Psychology, and author of Choke and How the Body Knows Its Mind “Unfair is an incisive look at the problems that arise in the legal system because of the way people think as well as the prospects for meaningful reform. Adam Benforado has written an engaging and masterful book on one of the most important issues society has to face.” —Art Markman, Professor of Psychology, University of Texas, author of Smart Thinking and Smart Change “In this provocative critique of the American criminal justice system, Adam Benforado demonstrates beyond a reasonable doubt that unfair outcomes aren’t tragic exceptions--they’re the rule, and human psychology is to blame. Bringing together cutting-edge research with insights from real life cases, Benforado shows us how our hidden biases undermine our guarantee of fairness and equality under the law, and offers much-needed solutions.” —Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect “It’s surprisingly easy to look back at high-profile criminal proceedings and see the flaws, while taking the overall system for granted. Adam Benforado looks across the whole canvas, elucidating through empirical data and scientific research how our own legal structures measure up—or, more accurately, don’t—to our values of justice and fairness. Criminal law in the United States is far from perfect, and Benforado’s thorough, thought-provoking examination is a welcome step in identifying and preventing institutionalized injustice.” —Jonathan Zittrain, George Bemis Professor in Law, Harvard Law School “In this fascinating book, Adam Benforado sheds new light from just about every angle on our criminal justice system. Practitioners, policy makers and everyday citizens will learn much about a subject that demands greater public debate.” —Tom Perriello, former Representative, United States Congress. “Unfair is a beautifully written book that manages to be both engrossing and important—a fascinating blend of psychological insight, legal know-how, and compelling storytelling. If you’ve ever wondered why the legal system doesn’t work as well as it should, Benforado’s intelligent take on the relationship between human psychology and the law will enlighten you—and leave you hopeful that we’re capable of doing better.” —Adam Alter, NYU Stern School of Business, and author of Drunk Tank Pink “An admirable collection of compelling stories about what is wrong with the criminal justice system.” —Christian Century “Unlike fields such as economics or philosophy, judicial theory and practice has largely ignored relevant findings about the human mind coming out of behavioral neuroscience and social psychology. This timely and important book can help us bring our criminal justice system into the 21st Century.” —Edward Slingerland, Co-director of the Centre for the Study of Human Evolution, Cognition and Culture and author of Trying Not to Try READING GUIDE for Unfair Reading Guide – downloadable pdf

2021A cookbook and culinary memoir about growing up as the daughter of revered chef/restaurateur Alice Waters: a story of food, family, and the need for beauty in all aspects of life. In this extraordinarily intimate portrait of her mother-and herself-Fanny Singer, daughter of food icon and activist Alice Waters, chronicles a unique world of food, wine, and travel; a world filled with colorful characters, mouth-watering traditions, and sumptuous feasts. Across dozens of vignettes with accompanying recipes, she shares the story of her own culinary coming of age and reveals a side of her legendary mother that has never been seen before. A charming, smart translation of Alice Waters’s ideals and attitudes about food for a new generation, Always Home is a loving, often funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely written look at a life defined in so many ways by food, as well as the bond between mother and daughter. < All Book Selections 2021 Connecting Always Home Fanny Singer Audience: Adult A cookbook and culinary memoir about growing up as the daughter of revered chef/restaurateur Alice Waters: a story of food, family, and the need for beauty in all aspects of life. In this extraordinarily intimate portrait of her mother-and herself-Fanny Singer, daughter of food icon and activist Alice Waters, chronicles a unique world of food, wine, and travel; a world filled with colorful characters, mouth-watering traditions, and sumptuous feasts. Across dozens of vignettes with accompanying recipes, she shares the story of her own culinary coming of age and reveals a side of her legendary mother that has never been seen before. A charming, smart translation of Alice Waters’s ideals and attitudes about food for a new generation, Always Home is a loving, often funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely written look at a life defined in so many ways by food, as well as the bond between mother and daughter. About the Author Fanny Singer is a writer, editor, and co-founder of the design brand, Permanent Collection. In 2013, she received a Ph.D. on the subject of the British pop artist Richard Hamilton’s late work from the University of Cambridge. In 2015, she and her mother, Alice Waters, published My Pantry, which she also illustrated. Having spent more than a decade living in the United Kingdom, Fanny recently moved back to her native California. Based in San Francisco, she travels widely, contributing art reviews and culture writing to a number of publications including Frieze, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Apartamento, T Magazine, and Art Papers, among others. Fanny Singer Author's website

2004Moving between dreams, memories, and sharply emblematic moments, When the Emperor Was Divine reveals the dark underside of a period in American history that, until now, has been left largely unexplored in American fiction. < All Book Selections 2004 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury Audience: Adult Moving between dreams, memories, and sharply emblematic moments, When the Emperor Was Divine reveals the dark underside of a period in American history that, until now, has been left largely unexplored in American fiction. About the Author A veteran sci-fi author with side talents for poetry, plays and screenwriting, Ray Bradbury has had a long career of provoking thought and a compelling uneasiness in generations of readers. He lives in Los Angeles. Ray Bradbury Author's website SELECTED REVIEWS: AudioFile "Bradbury's novel details the eternal war between censorship and freedom of thought and continues to be relevant today more than ever. In Bradbury's future, books are illegal and happily so—citizens are too busy watching their wall-sized televisions and listening to their in-ear 'seashell' radios to care about the loss of good literature. Guy Montag begins the novel as a fireman who enforces the temperature of the title—that at which books burn—but then transforms and tries to show his society the mistake of censorship. It's a treat to hear Bradbury read his own work, almost as if a wise elder were sharing a cautionary tale. Sometimes the slower pace seems awkward for a novel of such action, but overall the reading does justice to the timeless classic." The Nation "One of the most brilliant overall jobs of social satire." The New York Times "Frightening in its implications...Mr. Bradbury's account of this insane world, which bears many alarming resemblances to our own, is fascinating."

2023The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she is carted hundreds of miles from home to be detained at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth and reimagining her future. < All Book Selections 2023 Journey to New Beginnings The Second Life of Mirielle West Amanda Skenandore Audience: Adult The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she is carted hundreds of miles from home to be detained at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth and reimagining her future. About the Author Amanda Skenandore is an award-winning author of historical fiction and a registered nurse. Her debut novel, Between Earth and Sky, won the 2019 American Library Association’s Reading List award for Best Historical Fiction. Her third novel, The Second Life of Mirielle West, was named an Apple Best Books of the Month and a Hoopla Book Club Pick. She lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their pet turtle Lenore. Amanda Skenandore Author's website

2026Based on the author's real-life experience, Kelly Yang's award-winning novel follows 10-year-old Mia Tang, a recent Chinese immigrant whose family manages a rundown motel in California. While facing poverty, racism, and the unfairness of the American Dream, Mia bravely takes on the role of front desk manager—but her real job is building a community. Front Desk illustrates "Bridges to Belonging" as Mia, her parents, and the long-term tenants ("weeklies") transform the Calivista Motel into a sanctuary for close friends. Through compassion and courage, they stand up for one another against injustice, proving that a sense of belonging is a powerful force created not by wealth or status, but by kindness, solidarity, and finding your voice to fight for those who need a place to call home. < All Book Selections 2026 Bridges to Belonging Front Desk Kelly Yang Audience: Middle Grades Based on the author's real-life experience, Kelly Yang's award-winning novel follows 10-year-old Mia Tang, a recent Chinese immigrant whose family manages a rundown motel in California. While facing poverty, racism, and the unfairness of the American Dream, Mia bravely takes on the role of front desk manager—but her real job is building a community. Front Desk illustrates "Bridges to Belonging" as Mia, her parents, and the long-term tenants ("weeklies") transform the Calivista Motel into a sanctuary for close friends. Through compassion and courage, they stand up for one another against injustice, proving that a sense of belonging is a powerful force created not by wealth or status, but by kindness, solidarity, and finding your voice to fight for those who need a place to call home. About the Author Kelly Yang is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Front Desk series, New From Here, Finally Seen, Finally Heard , the young adult novels Parachutes and Private Label , the forthcoming adult novel The Take , and picture books Yes We Will and Little Bird Laila . Based on Kelly’s childhood experience living and working in a motel as a first-generation immigrant child from China, her debut novel Front Desk was named "one of the best books of the 21st century" by Kirkus Reviews. Her books have earned multiple awards, including the Asian Pacific American Award for Literature, the California Young Reader Medal, the Parents’ Choice Gold Medal, the Strega Prize for literature in Italy, and have featured on multiple best of the year lists, including Amazon Best Book of the Year, Washington Post Best Book of the Year, Kirkus Best Book of the Year, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, NPR Best Book of the Year, and Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year. Kelly immigrated to the United States when she was six years old and grew up in Southern California. She went to university at the age of 13 and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Law School. Today, she and her family live in Los Angeles. Kelly Yang Author's website Photo by: Jessica Sample

2018Lincoln Jones has a life so secret, only his mother knows where he's from, why they left, or the place he's living now. More importantly, none of the kids in his new 6th grade class know where he goes after school. After all, if they think his "Southern drawl" is funny, imagine what they'd do knowing he hangs out at a dementia-care facility where his mother works as a caregiver. To escape the real world, Lincoln writes stories in a notebook. Stories about young heroes with courage and power. Underdogs who somehow come out on top. This is a story of a boy who's closed the world out for so long, he's not sure how to let anyone in. Winner of the Bank Street College of Education's 2017 Josette Frank Award. < All Book Selections 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones Wendelin Van Draanen Audience: Grades 4 - 7 Lincoln Jones has a life so secret, only his mother knows where he's from, why they left, or the place he's living now. More importantly, none of the kids in his new 6th grade class know where he goes after school. After all, if they think his "Southern drawl" is funny, imagine what they'd do knowing he hangs out at a dementia-care facility where his mother works as a caregiver. To escape the real world, Lincoln writes stories in a notebook. Stories about young heroes with courage and power. Underdogs who somehow come out on top. This is a story of a boy who's closed the world out for so long, he's not sure how to let anyone in. Winner of the Bank Street College of Education's 2017 Josette Frank Award. About the Author Wendelin Van Draanen has written more than 30 novels for young readers and teens, several of which have won awards. Learn more about her at wendelinvand.com. Wendelin Van Draanen Author's website

Youth Recommended Reading Silicon Valley Reads has selected a recommended read for our youth audience this year. The author of Becoming Boba will be doing some programming with us- please see our events listing in January for more information! 2026 Bridges to Belonging Becoming Boba Joanna Ho Illustrated by Amber Ren Audience: Youth Milk Tea Town was steeped in tradition, and Mindy didn't fit the mold. While the classic brown flavors sipped from sensible straws, Mindy sparkled in green, white, and red. Worried she wasn't "milk tea enough," she dives into their history, seeking a way to belong. What Mindy and her friends discover on this journey isn't a lesson in conformity, but a surprising truth about milk tea's past—a secret that could redefine the entire town and prove that belonging isn't about being the same, but about claiming your own flavor. A delightful, heartwarming tale about self-love and the universal question: What does it mean to be enough? Featured Companion Books... If you'd like to view additional selections for young readers, visit the Children/Teens Books page ... Featured Companion Books for Children/Teens Over 150 Events Author talks, book clubs, community events and more! Please join us for many more events celebrating Bridges to Belonging! 2026 Calendar of Events

2003At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. < All Book Selections 2003 Breaking Through Francisco Jiménez Audience: Adult At the age of fourteen, Francisco Jiménez, together with his older brother Roberto and his mother, are caught by la migra. Forced to leave their home, the entire family travels all night for twenty hours by bus, arriving at the U.S. and Mexican border in Nogales, Arizona. In the months and years that follow, Francisco, his mother and father, and his seven brothers and sister not only struggle to keep their family together, but also face crushing poverty, long hours of labor, and blatant prejudice. About the Author Francisco Jiménez immigrated with his family to California from Tlaquepaque, Mexico. As a child he worked in the fields of California. He received both his master's degree and Ph.D. at Columbia University and is now chairman of the Modern Language Department at Santa Clara University. He lives in Santa Clara, California, with his wife and three children. Francisco Jiménez Author's website INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR: "Breaking Through" is compelling and inspiring, the sort of book that makes for must reading in explaining a slice of the American experience. Jimenez, 58, director of the ethnic studies program at Santa Clara and the Fay Boyle Professor of Modern Languages, recently talked with Kim Boatman of the San Jose Mercury News about his latest work. Q. How important is it to give a voice to this experience, to those workers we drive by in the fields today? A. In writing the book, I wanted to document part of my own history and my family's history, but more important, I wanted to voice the experiences of many migrant families from the past and the present. Their courage, the hope and the dreams that they have for their children and their children's children are an inspiration. In a sense, those values that they embody are the values that we say are part of the American story. I hear from children and young adults. They see themselves in the literature, and they say, ''That happened to me.'' I've had teachers say some of their children aren't interested in reading until they read the book. Q. There's a moment in the book when you excitedly accept the worn, foul-smelling tennis shoes your brothers find for you in the dump. This means you'll be able to dress out for physical education class. So how is your book received by kids who have closets full of name-brand sneakers? A. I get letters from children, from sixth-graders all the way through junior high, high school, colleges and universities. Some of the letters I get from children indicate they are much more appreciative of what they have. This is from a sixth-grader: ''It made me take a second glance at my life and how lucky I am. It made me feel spoiled. It made me feel the need to jump out of my seat and to make a difference. (''The Circuit'') made me want to find out what would happen next.'' Q. So you had to write ''Breaking Through.'' A. After the first book came out, people were wondering what had happened and wanted me to write another book. That was encouraging, so I decided to do that. Q. What do your three grown children say about the books? How did your childhood affect the way you raised them? A. Well, I used to tell them these stories when they were younger, and we would sit at the kitchen table. And they wanted things the other neighborhood kids had, but I used to tell them, ''You can't have everything you want, and you don't get things you don't need.'' I would tell them, ''We live a comfortable life, and we should be happy with it.'' For instance, we refused to get cable TV. I told them, ''I'll do whatever it takes to help you get an education. That's the best gift.'' Q. The book begins with a Border Patrol officer pulling you out of an eighth-grade social studies class and your family's deportation to Mexico. Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn't made it back to the United States? A. My brother and I do talk about that. One of the reasons we came to this country was because we lived in a very poor part of Mexico, with no electricity, no running water. We came to this country to escape poverty and to find a better life. It's very clear to both of us that our lives would have been very different. We came with hopes of a better life, but for the first nine years we were here, we worked as migrant workers, following the crops, having to miss school, flunking first grade, living in farm labor camps. In Santa Maria at one time, we lived in tents with dirt floors. In some ways, life was a little bit harder here, less settled, and the language barrier was very difficult. Q. So how did you sustain hope? A. I attribute a lot of that to my mother. No matter how bad things were, she always had hope. She would always say, ''God will provide. Things are going to get better.'' I come from a family that is strong in terms of faith. One of the things I learned from my parents was that God has us go through life for a purpose, and even though we might not know exactly what that purpose is, we should work hard to find what life is all about. I see now the purpose of my life is really informed by that experience I had as a child and a young adult. I went through that experience so that I would someday write about it, not just for myself, but to document the experiences of many children and young adults. Q. In some ways, your book is a lovely tribute to the teachers who wielded so much influence over your life. A. I have the highest respect for teachers. For me, I found hope in school, from some of the teachers, like Mrs. Bell, who I describe in the book, who were very sensitive and caring. The success of the child and young adult depends as much on the caring and loving people who help the child break through as it does on the child's own hard work, hope and intelligence.

2023Told from the perspective of 11-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), this coming-of-age novel follows KB and her teenage sister, Nia, as they are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing, Michigan after their father passes away from a drug overdose. Over the course of a single, sweltering summer, KB attempts to get her bearings in a world that has turned upside down. Pinballing between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, KB is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. As she examines the jagged pieces of her recently shattered world, she learns that while some truths cut deep, a new life--and a new KB--can be built from the shards. < All Book Selections 2023 Journey to New Beginnings What the Fireflies Knew Dr. Kai Harris Audience: Adult Told from the perspective of 11-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), this coming-of-age novel follows KB and her teenage sister, Nia, as they are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing, Michigan after their father passes away from a drug overdose. Over the course of a single, sweltering summer, KB attempts to get her bearings in a world that has turned upside down. Pinballing between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, KB is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. As she examines the jagged pieces of her recently shattered world, she learns that while some truths cut deep, a new life--and a new KB--can be built from the shards. About the Author Dr. Kai Harris is a writer and educator from Detroit, Michigan, whose critically acclaimed debut novel, What the Fireflies Knew, is a Marie Claire Book Club pick, Book of the Month add-on, and has been long listed for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Kai’s writing, which centers on the Black experience, has appeared in Guernica, Lit Hub, Kweli Journal, Longform, and the Hilltop Review, amongst others. In addition to fiction, Kai has published poetry, personal essays, and peer-reviewed academic articles on topics related to Black girlhood/womanhood, the slave narrative genre, and Black identity. Kai currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Santa Clara University. Follow Kai on social media @authorkaiharris for a healthy dose of #blackgirlmagic . Dr. Kai Harris Author's website

2014This book started as an Academy Award winning animated short film directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana. What happens when a huge wind comes up and all your books -- not to mention buildings! – are lost? Mr. Morris Lessmore finds out when he goes to work in a library after he loses all of his books. He discovers that sharing books is the most rewarding, proving that “less” is “more.” < All Book Selections 2014 Books & Technology: Friends or Foes? The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore William Joyce Audience: Ages 4 - 8 This book started as an Academy Award winning animated short film directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana. What happens when a huge wind comes up and all your books -- not to mention buildings! – are lost? Mr. Morris Lessmore finds out when he goes to work in a library after he loses all of his books. He discovers that sharing books is the most rewarding, proving that “less” is “more.” Available in Spanish About the Author William Joyce has achieved world-wide recognition as an author, illustrator and pioneer in the digital and animation industry. In February 2012, he won an Academy Award for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, an animated short film about the curative powers of story. In the past two years, he has also written seven hard copy Simon & Schuster children’s books including The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, The Guardians of Childhood book series: The Man in the Moon, The Sandman: Story of Sanderson Mansnoozie, Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King, E. Aster Bunnymund and the Warrior Eggs at the Earth’s Core! and Toothania: Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies. His newest books, The Mischievians and Sandman and the War of Dreams will be released this fall. Named by Newsweek magazine as “One of the 100 people to watch in the new millennium,” William has been heavily involved in the world of digital animation from its full-scale inception at Pixar Animation. His projects have been produced by nearly every major film studio including Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation. His feature films include Rise of the Guardians, Robots and Meet the Robinsons and his television series George Shrinks and Rolie Polie Olie for which he won three Emmy Awards. Additionally, he is the writer, producer, and production designer on the Blue Sky Studios feature film, Epic, inspired by his book The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. Epic was released in the summer of 2013. William Joyce Author's website Kirkus Review: “The story, in a nutshell, concerns the titular book-loving Mr. Morris Lessmore, whose personal library is blown away in a terrible wind but who finds meaning caring for the books he finds in a marvelous library. Filled with both literary (Shakespeare, Humpty-Dumpty) and film references (The Wizard of Oz, The Red Balloon and Buster Keaton), the picture book version of Joyce's story has a quiet contemplative charm that demonstrates the continuing allure of the printed page. Paradoxically, the animated books of the film and app are captured as though in a series of frozen frames. The motif of the bound, printed book is everywhere. Even the furnishings and architectural details of the old-fashioned library in which the books “nest” like flying birds recall the codex. The unifying metaphor of life as story is a powerful one, as is the theme of the transformative power of books. The emphasis on connecting readers and books and the care of books pays homage to librarianship. Rich in allusions (“Less is More”) and brilliant in depicting the passage of time (images conflate times of day, seasons and years), Joyce’s work will inspire contemplation of the power of the book in its many forms. As triumphant in book form as in animated and interactive ones."

2025Someday, Maybe is a vibrant picture book that sparks imagination about the limitless possibilities of the future. Featuring futuristic jobs like intergalactic rock bands with riffing robots and doctors with X-ray glasses, the book encourages children to dream big and envision exciting careers that haven’t even been invented yet. With self-driving cars and commercial launches to space, the future has arrived, and the opportunities are endless. Join a group of intrepid young innovators as they explore the exciting possibilities that await them in this imaginative picture book. < All Book Selections 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Someday, Maybe Diana Murray Audience: Pre-Readers Someday, Maybe is a vibrant picture book that sparks imagination about the limitless possibilities of the future. Featuring futuristic jobs like intergalactic rock bands with riffing robots and doctors with X-ray glasses, the book encourages children to dream big and envision exciting careers that haven’t even been invented yet. With self-driving cars and commercial launches to space, the future has arrived, and the opportunities are endless. Join a group of intrepid young innovators as they explore the exciting possibilities that await them in this imaginative picture book. About the Author Diana Murray is the author of Unicorn Night , an Amazon Best Book of the Year from the bestselling Unicorn Day series, Jr. Library Guild Selections such as Goodnight Veggies and City Shapes , and many other children’s books. Her poems have appeared in anthologies and magazines including Highlights and High Five . Diana grew up in New York City and still lives nearby with her husband, two creative kids, and a dog who loves car rides. Diana Murray Author's website

2024Fire. Ice. Flood. Three climate disasters. Four kids fighting for their lives. Alan Gratz shines a light on our increasingly urgent climate crisis while spinning an action-packed story that will keep readers hooked--and inspire them to take action. In the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Akira and her horse struggle to escape a massive wildfire. In Churchill, Manitoba, Owen and George flee starving polar bears that have been stranded on land by melting sea ice. In Miami, Florida, Natalie fights to keep her head above water–and save her neighbor’s dog–as her city drowns in a hurricane. Though they live thousands of miles from each other and face disparate challenges, Akira, Owen, George, and Natalie will come to understand they are more deeply connected than they ever could have imagined–and in ways that will change them and, possibly, the world. < All Book Selections 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today Two Degrees (5th - 8th) Alan Gratz Audience: Grades 5-8 Fire. Ice. Flood. Three climate disasters. Four kids fighting for their lives. Alan Gratz shines a light on our increasingly urgent climate crisis while spinning an action-packed story that will keep readers hooked--and inspire them to take action. In the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Akira and her horse struggle to escape a massive wildfire. In Churchill, Manitoba, Owen and George flee starving polar bears that have been stranded on land by melting sea ice. In Miami, Florida, Natalie fights to keep her head above water–and save her neighbor’s dog–as her city drowns in a hurricane. Though they live thousands of miles from each other and face disparate challenges, Akira, Owen, George, and Natalie will come to understand they are more deeply connected than they ever could have imagined–and in ways that will change them and, possibly, the world. About the Author Alan Gratz is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nineteen novels and graphic novels for young readers, including Two Degrees , Captain America: The Ghost Army, Ground Zero , Refugee, Allies, Prisoner B-3087, and Ban This Book . A Knoxville, Tennessee native, Alan is now a full-time writer living in Asheville, North Carolina with his wife and daughter. Learn more about him online at www.alangratz.com . Alan Gratz Author's website

Featured Companion Books for Teens/Children 2026 Companion Books Thank You, Neighbor Ruth Chan Audience: Pre-K - New Readers Join a young narrator and her dog on their daily walk through a bustling, colorful urban neighborhood. They greet essential community helpers—the bus driver, the sanitation workers, the mail carrier—and chat with all the neighbors they know. In the flurry of a busy day, it’s easy to hurry past the people who keep our world running, but this charming book reminds us that patience and kindness can make your neighborhood truly feel like family. Read More Together, A Forest Roz MacLean Audience: Elementary In this visually stunning picture book, Joy and her diverse class explore a forest where every student, including those who are neurodivergent or use mobility aids, discovers their unique connection to nature. Joy is initially anxious about finding her "one thing" for a project, but she soon sees how her classmates' different ways of experiencing the world reflect the complex beauty of the ecosystem. The book compares the essential diversity of trees, fungi, and rushing water to the diversity of the class. It reminds readers of all ages that there is no "one right way" for a mind, body, or person to be, and that our unique differences are what create a truly vibrant, flourishing community. Read More Front Desk Kelly Yang Audience: Middle Grades Based on the author's real-life experience, Kelly Yang's award-winning novel follows 10-year-old Mia Tang, a recent Chinese immigrant whose family manages a rundown motel in California. While facing poverty, racism, and the unfairness of the American Dream, Mia bravely takes on the role of front desk manager—but her real job is building a community. Front Desk illustrates "Bridges to Belonging" as Mia, her parents, and the long-term tenants ("weeklies") transform the Calivista Motel into a sanctuary for close friends. Through compassion and courage, they stand up for one another against injustice, proving that a sense of belonging is a powerful force created not by wealth or status, but by kindness, solidarity, and finding your voice to fight for those who need a place to call home. Read More Give Me a Sign Anna Sortino Audience: High School/Young Adult For years, Lilah has felt suspended in a silent, lonely space -"stuck in the middle" between the vibrant hearing world and the rich, expressive Deaf one. Hard-of-hearing and tired of constantly navigating a world that wasn't built for her, she yearns for a place where she doesn't have to choose or apologize for who she is. That search for solid ground leads her to a life-changing summer where she worked as a counselor at a camp for Deaf and blind teens. It's here, within this community, that Lilah finds peace and a solid sense of belonging. Read More Becoming Boba Joanna Ho Illustrated by Amber Ren Audience: Youth Milk Tea Town was steeped in tradition, and Mindy didn't fit the mold. While the classic brown flavors sipped from sensible straws, Mindy sparkled in green, white, and red. Worried she wasn't "milk tea enough," she dives into their history, seeking a way to belong. What Mindy and her friends discover on this journey isn't a lesson in conformity, but a surprising truth about milk tea's past—a secret that could redefine the entire town and prove that belonging isn't about being the same, but about claiming your own flavor. A delightful, heartwarming tale about self-love and the universal question: What does it mean to be enough? Read More Over 150 Events Author talks, book clubs, community events and more! Please join us for many more events celebrating Bridges to Belonging! 2026 Calendar of Events Previous Selections Past selections of books for children and teens. 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Someday, Maybe Diana Murray Audience: Pre-Readers Someday, Maybe is a vibrant picture book that sparks imagination about the limitless possibilities of the future. Featuring futuristic jobs like intergalactic rock bands with riffing robots and doctors with X-ray glasses, the book encourages children to dream big and envision exciting careers that haven’t even been invented yet. With self-driving cars and commercial launches to space, the future has arrived, and the opportunities are endless. Join a group of intrepid young innovators as they explore the exciting possibilities that await them in this imaginative picture book. Read More 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World ARTificial Intelligence David Biedrzycki Audience: Lower Elementary Ever since he was a little chip, Robot knew he was ART-ificially different. A funny and heartfelt picture book exploring AI, art, and creativity, the story follows Robot as he tries to fit in at the warehouse. But when he’s sent off for reprogramming, he takes a wrong turn and discovers a world of music, dancing, and art. Struggling to understand and express himself through these creative outlets, Robot eventually discovers a unique ability: he can sense the emotions behind the music and the movements of the dancers. Inspired by this newfound understanding, Robot begins to experiment with his own artistic creations, combining his mechanical precision with his newfound appreciation for art. Soon, the warehouse, once a dull and monotonous place, is transformed by Robot’s artistic creations. The other robots, inspired by his passion, begin to experiment with their own forms of expression. Together, they create a vibrant and dynamic environment where technology and art coexist. Read More 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World The Wild Robot Peter Brown Audience: Upper Elementary The Wild Robot, a heartwarming and action-packed novel, now a DreamWorks movie, tells the story of Roz, a robot stranded on a remote island. As she battles the elements and learns to adapt to her wild surroundings, Roz forms unlikely friendships with the island’s animal inhabitants. But her mysterious past threatens to disrupt her newfound peace. From bestselling author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a captivating tale exploring the collision of nature and technology. Read More 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Farther than the Moon Lindsay Lackey Audience: Middle Grades From award-winning author Lindsay Lackey, Farther Than the Moon is a heartfelt story about a thirteen-year-old boy named Houston who dreams of becoming an astronaut. When he’s accepted to a prestigious astronaut program, Houston faces a dilemma: his younger brother, Robbie, has disabilities that prevent him from attending. Despite the challenges, Houston is determined to honor Robbie’s dream of space exploration, even if it means making sacrifices. As Houston navigates the demands of the program and confronts the reality of his brother’s limitations, he discovers the true meaning of friendship, perseverance, and the power of hope. Read More 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today To Change a Planet (Pre-K - 1st) Christina Soontornvat Audience: Pre-K to 1 To Change a Planet demonstrates the importance of caring for our planet. Eye popping explosions of color on every page create a stunning visual narrative. Readers follow the same characters through their daily lives- ultimately coming to a climate change march on Washington where the characters come together. Read More 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today The Forest Man (2nd - 4th) Anne Matheson Audience: Grades 2-4 After years of harsh monsoon seasons, a forest on the river island of Majuli is in danger of being slowly washed away. Jadav, a boy living on the island, is determined to save the forest he loves. This is the true story of how one young boy dedicated his life to creating and cultivating an expansive forest that continues to grow to this day. In a world impacted by climate change, Jadav Payeng’s inspirational story shows how one person’s contributions can make a difference in helping to save our environment. Read More 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today Two Degrees (5th - 8th) Alan Gratz Audience: Grades 5-8 Fire. Ice. Flood. Three climate disasters. Four kids fighting for their lives. Alan Gratz shines a light on our increasingly urgent climate crisis while spinning an action-packed story that will keep readers hooked--and inspire them to take action. In the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, Akira and her horse struggle to escape a massive wildfire. In Churchill, Manitoba, Owen and George flee starving polar bears that have been stranded on land by melting sea ice. In Miami, Florida, Natalie fights to keep her head above water–and save her neighbor’s dog–as her city drowns in a hurricane. Though they live thousands of miles from each other and face disparate challenges, Akira, Owen, George, and Natalie will come to understand they are more deeply connected than they ever could have imagined–and in ways that will change them and, possibly, the world. Read More 2023 Journey to New Beginnings Coqui in the City Nomar Perez Audience: Pre-K to 1 Miguel's pet frog, Coquí, is always with him: as he greets his neighbors in San Juan, buys quesitos from the panadería, and listens to his abuelo's story about meeting baseball legend Roberto Clemente. Then Miguel learns that he and his parents are moving to the U.S. mainland, which means leaving his beloved grandparents, home in Puerto Rico, and even Coquí behind. Life in New York City is overwhelming, with unfamiliar buildings, foods, and people. But when he and Mamá go exploring, they find a few familiar sights that remind them of home, and Miguel realizes there might be a way to keep a little bit of Puerto Rico with him--including the love he has for Coquí--wherever he goes. Read More 2023 Journey to New Beginnings Sugar in Milk Thrity Umrigar Audience: Grades 2-4 A young immigrant girl joins her aunt and uncle in a new country that is unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness and a fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk. As the duo strolls through their city park, the girl's aunt begins to tell her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier, so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as a way of saying that the land was full and couldn't accommodate the strangers. Then, the leader of the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced the refugee, welcoming him and his people. Read More 2023 Journey to New Beginnings When Stars are Scattered Victoria Jamieson & Omar Mohamed Audience: Grades 5-8 Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there: never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care Omar knows his nonverbal brother needs. So when Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he knows it might be a chance to change their future . . . but it would also mean leaving his brother, the only family member he has left, every day. Heartbreak, hope, and gentle humor exist together in this graphic novel about a childhood spent waiting, and a young man who is able to create a sense of family and home in the most difficult of settings. It's an intimate, important, unforgettable look at the day-to-day life of a refugee, as told to New York Times Bestselling author/artist Victoria Jamieson by Omar Mohamed, the Somali man who lived the story. Read More 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope The Big Umbrella Amy June Bates and daughter Juniper Bates Audience: Pre-K to K By the door there is an umbrella. It is big. It is so big that when it starts to rain there is room for everyone underneath. It doesn’t matter if you are tall. Or plaid. Or hairy. It doesn’t matter how many legs you have. Don’t worry that there won’t be enough room under the umbrella. Because there will always be room. Read More 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope The Girl in the Gold Dress Christine Paik Audience: Grades 1 - 3 Hannah’s Korean name literally means “Gold Dress,” so why doesn’t she want to be seen wearing her gold hanbok dress? 10-year-old Hannah is facing a big performance for her school’s talent show. The trouble is, she’s ashamed of her dress, the dance, even the music - they’re too different, too Korean! What if everyone makes fun of her? Will Hannah be brave enough to perform, or will she run off stage like she did at rehearsal? First, she must learn about the gold dress she’s wearing and its mysterious connection to her name and her family’s past in Korea: starting with a desperate escape from war and a secret wish hidden for decades in an envelope. Read More 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope SHINE! Chris and J.J. Grabenstein Audience: Grades 4 - 8 Shine on! might be the catchphrase of twelve-year-old Piper's hero--astronaut, astronomer, and television host Nellie Dumont Frisse--but Piper knows the truth: some people are born to shine, and she's just not one of them. That fact has never been clearer than now, since her dad's new job has landed them both at Chumley Prep, a posh private school where everyone seems to be the best at something and where Piper definitely doesn't fit in. Bursting with humor, heart, science, possibilities, and big questions, Shine! is a story about finding your place in the universe--a story about figuring out who you are and who you want to be. Read More 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope Darius the Great is Not Okay Adib Khorram Audience: High School Darius has never really fit in at home, and as he prepares for a trip to Iran, he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they’re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself. Read More 2021 Connecting Parker Looks Up Jessica Curry and Parker Curry Audience: Picture Book When Parker Curry came face-to-face with Amy Sherald’s transcendent portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama at the National Portrait Gallery, she didn’t just see the First Lady of the United States. She saw a queen - one with dynamic self-assurance, regality, beauty, and truth who captured this young girl’s imagination. When a nearby museum-goer snapped a photo of a mesmerized Parker, it became an internet sensation. Inspired by this visit, Parker, and her mother, Jessica Curry, tell the story of a young girl and her family, whose trip to a museum becomes an extraordinary moment, in a moving picture book. Parker Looks Up follows Parker, along with her baby sister and her mother, and her best friend Gia and Gia’s mother, as they walk the halls of a museum, seeing paintings of everyone and everything from George Washington Carver to Frida Kahlo, exotic flowers to graceful ballerinas. Then, Parker walks by Sherald’s portrait of Michelle Obama…and almost passes it. But she stops...and looks up! Parker saw the possibility and promise, the hopes and dreams of herself in this powerful painting of Michelle Obama. An everyday moment became an extraordinary one…that continues to resonate its power, inspiration, and indelible impact. Because, as Jessica Curry said, “anything is possible regardless of race, class, or gender.” Read More 2021 Connecting Maybe Something Beautiful F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell Audience: Grades K - 3 What good can a splash of color do in a community of gray? As Mira and her neighbors discover, more than you might ever imagine! Based on the true story of the Urban Art Trail in San Diego, California, Maybe Something Beautiful reveals how art can inspire transformation - and how even the smallest artists can accomplish something big. Pick up a paintbrush and join the celebration! Read More 2021 Connecting Garvey’s Choice Nikki Grimes Audience: Grades 4 - 8 Garvey's father has always wanted Garvey to be athletic, but Garvey is interested in astronomy, science fiction, reading - anything but sports. Feeling like a failure, he comforts himself with food. Garvey is kind, funny, smart, a loyal friend, and he is also overweight, teased by bullies, and lonely. When his only friend encourages him to join the school chorus, Garvey's life changes. The chorus finds a new soloist in Garvey, and through chorus, Garvey finds a way to accept himself, and a way to finally reach his distant father - by speaking the language of music instead of the language of sports. Read More 2021 Connecting The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon Audience: Ages 14+ This book is inspired by Big History (to learn about one thing, you have to learn about everything). In The Sun is Also a Star, to understand the characters and their love story, we must know everything around them and everything that came before them that has affected who they are and what they experience. Two teens -- Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica -- cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love. Read More 2020 Women Making It Happen The Most Magnificent Thing Ashley Spires Audience: Picture Book This charming picture book is about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has a wonderful idea. "She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!" But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right. The book has been made into a short animated film featuring the narration of Whoopi Goldberg. Read More 2019 Finding Identity in Family History Alma and How She Got Her Name Juana Martinez-Neal Audience: Pre-K to 3 If you ask her, Alma Sofia Esperanza José Pura Candela has way too many names: six! How did such a small person wind up with such a large name? Alma turns to Daddy for an answer and learns of Sofia, the grandmother who loved books and flowers; Esperanza, the great-grandmother who longed to travel; José, the grandfather who was an artist; and other namesakes, too. As she hears the story of her name, Alma starts to think it might be a perfect fit after all — and realizes that she will one day have her own story to tell. Read More 2019 Finding Identity in Family History The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond Brenda Woods Audience: Grades 4 - 7 Violet is biracial, but she lives with her white mother and sister, attends a mostly white school in a white town, and sometimes feels like a brown leaf on a pile of snow. Now that she's eleven, she feels it's time to learn about her African American heritage, so she seeks out her paternal grandmother. When Violet is invited to spend two weeks with her new Bibi (Swahili for "grandmother") and learns about her lost heritage, her confidence in herself grows and she discovers she's not a shrinking Violet after all. Read More 2019 Finding Identity in Family History Picture Us In The Light Kelly Loy Gilbert Audience: Grades 8+ Danny Cheng has always known his parents have secrets. But when he discovers a taped-up box in his father's closet filled with old letters and a file on a powerful Silicon Valley family, he realizes there's much more to his family's past than he ever imagined. Danny has been an artist for as long as he can remember and it seems his path is set, with a scholarship to RISD and his family's blessing to pursue the career he's always dreamed of. Still, contemplating a future without his best friend, Harry Wong, by his side makes Danny feel a panic he can barely put into words. Harry and Danny's lives are deeply intertwined and as they approach the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that shook their friend group to its core, Danny can't stop asking himself if Harry is truly in love with his girlfriend, Regina Chan. When Danny digs deeper into his parents' past, he uncovers a secret that disturbs the foundations of his family history and the carefully constructed façade his parents have maintained begins to crumble. With everything he loves in danger of being stripped away, Danny must face the ghosts of the past in order to build a future that belongs to him. Read More 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion Mango, Abuela, and Me Meg Medina Audience: Grades Pre-K to 3 Mia's abuela has left her sunny house with parrots and palm trees to live with Mia and her parents in the city. The night she arrives, Mia tries to share her favorite book with Abuela before they go to sleep and discovers that Abuela can't read the words inside. So while they cook, Mia helps Abuela learn English ("Dough. Masa"), and Mia learns some Spanish too, but it's still hard for Abuela to learn the words she needs to tell Mia all her stories. Then Mia sees a parrot in the pet-shop window and has the perfecto idea for how to help them all communicate a little better. A 2016 Pura Belpré Author Award Honor Book. A 2016 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Honor Book. Read More 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones Wendelin Van Draanen Audience: Grades 4 - 7 Lincoln Jones has a life so secret, only his mother knows where he's from, why they left, or the place he's living now. More importantly, none of the kids in his new 6th grade class know where he goes after school. After all, if they think his "Southern drawl" is funny, imagine what they'd do knowing he hangs out at a dementia-care facility where his mother works as a caregiver. To escape the real world, Lincoln writes stories in a notebook. Stories about young heroes with courage and power. Underdogs who somehow come out on top. This is a story of a boy who's closed the world out for so long, he's not sure how to let anyone in. Winner of the Bank Street College of Education's 2017 Josette Frank Award. Read More 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion Not If I See You First Eric Lindstrom Audience: Teens Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react--shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened--both with Scott, and her dad--the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken. Read More 2017 ...and justice for all Bear and Bee Sergio Ruzzier Audience: Ages 2 - 5 "When a bear wakes up hungry from his winter nap, a beehive and its honey seem to be the perfect answer to his problem—but what about the bee? While Bear has never seen a bee, he knows they “are terrible monsters! They are big, and they have large teeth, and they have sharp claws, and they never share their honey!” He explains this to a nearby bee. (The “bees” Bear imagines are green alien-looking creatures sporting horns and curling proboscises.) But as Bee points out, one quality per spread, Bear shares all those characteristics with bees, at which point Bear dissolves into tears: He’s a bee! Bee quickly corrects Bear’s mistake and reveals what he is, lack of teeth and claws and all. And as for sharing honey…he is happy to. Short sentences with simple vocabulary and lots of repetition make this a good choice for beginning readers, who can use the illustrations’ clues to puzzle out more challenging words. Front endpapers and the dedication and copyright pages make a pleasing visual beginning to this story. Best of all, Ruzzier’s pacing is impeccable, adding to the suspense of Bear’s discovery and the sweet start of the duo’s friendship. The digitally colored pen-and-ink illustrations are simple and uncluttered, keeping the focus on the two expressive friends and making this a great choice for sharing with groups. The correction of misconceptions has never been so much fun.” -- Kirkus Review Read More 2016 Chance of Rain? The Storm in the Barn Matt Phelan Audience: Ages 10+ The Dust Bowl is sweeping through 1937 Kansas, but 11-year-old Jack Clark still faces life's ordinary challenges: town bullies, a sister with an eye for trouble, and his father's failed expectations. With tensions flaring in the rising heat, Jack catches a glimpse of a sinister figure with a face like rain in a neighbor's abandoned barn. When it never rains, it's hard to trust what you see with your own eyes – and harder still to take heart and be a hero when the time comes. The Storm in the Barn is a graphic novel that has received numerous honors including the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction and Kirk Reviews Best Children’s Book of the Year. Read More 2016 Chance of Rain? Water is Water Miranda Paul Audience: Ages 3 - 9 This poetic story follows two siblings—and all the water around them—through a year’s worth of movements and changes. Includes back matter facts about the science behind the story, with additional info. Awards/Honors/Reviews: Junior Library Guild selection, Starred Review in School Library Journal Huffington Post Book Blog Review. Kirkus Reviews Read More 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience My Name Is Yoon Helen Recorvits Audience: Ages 4 - 8 Her name is Yoon and she came from Korea, a country far away. Yoon's name means Shining Wisdom, and when she writes it in Korean, it looks happy -- like dancing figures. But her father tells her that she must learn to write it in English. In English all the lines and circles stand alone, which is just how Yoon feels in the United States. Yoon isn’t sure she wants to be Y-O-O-N. At her new school, she tries out different names – maybe CAT or BIRD. Maybe CUPCAKE! My Name Is Yoon is a spare and inspiring story about a little girl finding her place in a new country. Read More 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience Dancing Home Alma Flor Ada and Gabriel Zubizaretta Audience: Ages 8 - 12 In this timely tale of immigration, two cousins learn the importance of family and friendship. Mexico may be her parents’ home, but it’s certainly not Margie’s. She has finally convinced the other kids at school she is 100% American—just like them. But when her Mexican cousin Lupe visits, the image she’s created for herself crumbles. Things aren’t easy for Lupe, either. Mexico hadn’t felt like home since her father went North to find work. Lupe’s hope of seeing him in the United States comforts her some, but learning a new language in a new school is tough. Lupe, as much as Margie, is in need of a friend. Little by little, the girls’ individual steps find the rhythm of one shared dance, and they learn what “home” really means. In the tradition of My Name is Maria Isabel—and simultaneously published in English and in Spanish—Alma Flor Ada and her son Gabriel M. Zubizarreta offer an honest story of family, friendship, and the classic immigrant experience: becoming part of something new, while straying true to who you are. Read More 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience Something About America Maria Testa Audience: Ages 12+ Inspired by actual events, this story written in free verse starts 10 years after the narrator’s family fled the fires of ethnic hatred in Kosova, Yugoslavia – long enough for the narrator to have transformed herself into a typical American schoolgirl. Her parents continue to feel like foreigners, and she grows impatient with what she perceives as their refusal to assimilate. Then an ugly incident in a nearby town changes everything, forcing each member of this refugee family to consider what being an American truly means. The book has received many awards, including: * New York Public Library Best Books for the Teen Age * International Reading Association Young Adult Choices * Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year * Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) Poetry Pick * Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding Book Awards, Honorable Mention * Boston Authors Club, Julia Ward Howe Award Finalist * Maine Literary Award Read More 2015 Homeland & Home: The Immigrant Experience The Peace Book Todd Parr Audience: Ages 2 - 5 The Peace Book delivers positive and hopeful messages of peace in an accessible, child-friendly format featuring Todd Parr's trademark bold, bright colors and silly scenes. Perfect for the youngest readers, this book delivers a timely and timeless message about the importance of friendship, caring, and acceptance. Read More 2014 Books & Technology: Friends or Foes? The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore William Joyce Audience: Ages 4 - 8 This book started as an Academy Award winning animated short film directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and produced by Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, Louisiana. What happens when a huge wind comes up and all your books -- not to mention buildings! – are lost? Mr. Morris Lessmore finds out when he goes to work in a library after he loses all of his books. He discovers that sharing books is the most rewarding, proving that “less” is “more.” Read More 2014 Books & Technology: Friends or Foes? Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Chris Grabenstein Audience: Ages 8+, Grades 3 - 7 How do you get out of the library when you’ve been locked in? Our hero Kyle loves winning. He plays with his brothers all of the time. Kyle wants to meet a world famous game maker and he has his chance when Mr. Lemoncello comes to town to open the new library that he designed – with technology like no one has ever seen! Kyle has to use all his smarts to make his way and this game is the most important one of his life. A book with a good puzzle, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library is a laugh out loud fun time. Read More 2014 Books & Technology: Friends or Foes? Reading Makes You Feel Good Todd Parr Audience: Pre-K Reading makes you feel good because... You can imagine you are a scary dinosaur, You can make someone feel better when they are sick, And you can do it anywhere! Reading Makes You Feel Good inspires and encourages young children to delight in the experience of reading. With bright, bold pictures and silly scenes, the book explains that reading isn't something that just happens at school or at home-it can happen anywhere! Targeted to those first beginning to read, this book invites children to read the main text as well as all the funny signs, labels, and messages hidden in the pictures. Read More 2013 Invisible Wounds of War Night Catch Brenda Ehrmantraut Audience: Pre-K to Grade 2 When a soldier's work takes him halfway around the world, he enlists the help of the North Star for a nightly game of catch with his son. Night Catch is a timeless story that connects families while they are apart and offers comforting hope for their reunion. The book has been endorsed by the Military Child Education Coalition, United Through Reading and Army Wife Network. Read More 2013 Invisible Wounds of War Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine and a Miracle Brian Dennis, Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery Audience: Grades 2 - 5 Nubs, an Iraqi dog of war, never had a home or a person of his own. He was the leader of a pack of wild dogs living off the land and barely surviving. But Nubs's life changed when he met Marine Major Brian Dennis. The two formed a fast friendship, made stronger by Dennis's willingness to share his meals, offer a warm place to sleep, and give Nubs the kind of care and attention he had never received before. Nubs became part of Dennis's human "pack" until duty required the Marines to relocate a full 70 miles away--without him. Nubs had no way of knowing that Marines were not allowed to have pets. So began an incredible journey that would take Nubs through a freezing desert, filled with danger to find his friend, and would lead Dennis on a mission that would touch the hearts of people all over the world. Nubs and Dennis will remind readers that friendship has the power to cross deserts, continents, and even species. Nubs is nominated for the California Young Reader Medal, and is the recipient of 10 State Children's Choice Awards, The Christopher Medal, and the National Parenting Publication Gold Award. Read More 2013 Invisible Wounds of War Back Home Julia Keller Audience: Grades 5 - 8 Rachel "Brownie" Browning is thirteen when her father comes back from the war in Iraq. Of course she understands that he has been injured and that he will be a little different, at least for a while. But Brownie doesn't even know the man with a prosthetic arm and leg who sits in the living room day after day. He's certainly not the father who helped her build a fort in her backyard, or played basketball with her sister, or hauled her little brother around like a sack of potatoes. Brownie's mother says that because of his traumatic brain injury, their father needs their affection and patience. In time, he'll be better - Dad will be back. But Dad doesn't seem to be making much progress, or much effort. He doesn't smile. He doesn't talk. He won't even get out of his wheelchair, even though the doctors have taught him how and say that walking is essential to his recovery. And Brownie begins to wonder, will her family ever be able to return to the way life was before the war? A story about an ordinary family forced to deal with an extraordinary loss, Back Home tells the tale of families scarred and the battle just beginning when their wounded loved ones return home. Read More 2013 Invisible Wounds of War Purple Heart Patricia McCormick Audience: Ages 14+ When Private Matt Duffy wakes up in an army hospital in Iraq, he's honored with a Purple Heart. But he doesn't feel like a hero. There's a memory that haunts him: an image of a young Iraqi boy as a bullet hits his chest. Matt can't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in his death. But because of a head injury he sustained just moments after the boy was shot, Matt can't quite put all the pieces together. Eventually Matt is sent back into combat with his squad-Justin, Wolf, and Charlene-the soldiers who have become his family during his time in Iraq. He just wants to go back to being the soldier he once was. But he sees potential threats everywhere and lives in fear of not being able to pull the trigger when the time comes. In combat there is no black-and-white, and Matt soon discovers that the notion of who is guilty is very complicated indeed. Read More 2012 Muslim and American: Two Perspectives It's OK To Be Different Todd Parr Audience: Pre-K From Publishers Weekly: It's OK To Be Different combines rainbow colors, simple drawings and reassuring statements in this optimistic book. His repetitive captions offer variations on the title and appear in a typeface that looks handcrafted and personalized. A fuschia elephant stands against a zingy blue background ("It's okay to have a different nose") and a lone green turtle crosses a finish line ("It's okay to come in last"). A girl blushes at the toilet paper stuck to her shoe ("It's okay to be embarrassed") and a lion says "Grr," "ROAR" and "purrr" ("It's okay to talk about your feelings"). Parr cautiously calls attention to superficial distinctions. By picturing a smiling girl with a guide dog ("It's okay to need some help"), he comments on disability and he accounts for race by posing a multicolored zebra with a black-and-white one. An illustration of two women ("It's okay to have different Moms") and two men ("It's okay to have different Dads") handles diverse families sensitively this could cover either same-sex families or stepfamilies and also on the opposite page, a kangaroo with a dog in its pouch ("It's okay to be adopted"). He wisely doesn't zero in on specifics, which would force him to establish what's "normal." Instead, he focuses on acceptance and individuality and encourages readers to do the same. Read More 2012 Muslim and American: Two Perspectives One Green Apple Eve Bunting Audience: Grades K - 2 From School Library Journal: As a Muslim girl rides in a hay wagon heading to an apple orchard on a class trip, the dupatta on her head setting her apart, she observes that while some of the children seem friendly, others are not. Her father has explained, ...we are not always liked here. Our home country (never named in the story) and our new one have had difficulties. Later, when she puts a green apple into the cider press instead of a ripe red one as her classmates have done, they protest. But the cider from all their apples mixed together is delicious - a metaphor for the benefits of intermingling people who are different. Lewin's watercolors radiate sunlight and capture the gamut of emotions that Farah experiences on this challenging second day in her new school in the U.S. They show her downcast silence and sense of isolation because she can't speak the language, her shy smile when a classmate befriends her, and, finally, her triumphant smile as she speaks one of her first English words, App-ell. Read More 2012 Muslim and American: Two Perspectives My Name is Bilal Asma Mobin-Uddin Audience: Grades 2 - 6 From Booklist: Bilal and his sister, Ayesha, who are Muslim, start school in a new city. At first Bilal tries to blend into the largely non-Muslim environment, calling himself Bill and ducking out of sight when two boys try to pull off Ayesha's head scarf. Encouraged by a sympathetic teacher and his own faith, Bilal finds the courage to stand up with his sister the next time the boys tease her. Bilal and Ayesha point out to their adversaries that they too were born in America and that being American means that they can wear what they want. By standing up for his sister, Bilal earns the boys' respect and takes the first step toward a possible friendship. The story is told in picture-book format, though the text is longer than that of most picture books. In the illustrations, the students appear to be in middle school, but the book is accessible to younger children as well. Appearing on nearly every double-page spread, large-scale watercolor paintings clearly portray the actions and attitudes of the characters. A good starting place for discussions of cultural differences, prejudice, and respect for the beliefs of others. Read More 2012 Muslim and American: Two Perspectives Skunk Girl Sheba Karim Audience: Grades 7+ From a Kirkus Review -- "There are only two types of people who spend their Friday nights in high school at home - Pakistani Muslim girls and future serial killers." Although Nina Khan was born and raised in small-town Deer Hook, N.Y., and has never visited her parents' homeland, she must adhere to their rigid cultural and religious beliefs, including no sleepovers, alcohol or dating. With dark skin, a wide bottom and an overabundance of body hair that makes her a "skunk girl," what are her chances of dating in the predominantly fair-skinned, closed-minded town anyway? But when Italian Asher transfers to her high school, she dreams of romance for the first time. In this debut, episodic novel, rife with smart, self-deprecating humor and set in the 1990s just as a phenomenon known as e-mail is gaining interest, Nina searches for identity and emerging independence while accepting the reality of her home life. Read More 2011 Alabama Moon Watt Key Audience: Grades 4 - 8 After the death of his father, ten-year-old Moon leaves their forest shelter home and is sent to an Alabama institution, becoming entangled in the outside world he has never known and making good friends, a relentless enemy, and finally a new life. Read More 2011 One Kathryn Otoshi Audience: Grades K - 3 Introduces young readers to numbers, counting, and primary and secondary colors by offering the story of ill-tempered Red who got too powerful for his own good and had to be brought down to size by One--a single entity with the courage to stand up for what was right. Read More 2011 Pouch! David Ezra Stein Audience: Pre-K A baby kangaroo takes his first tentative hops outside of his mama's pouch, meeting other creatures and growing bolder each time. Read More 2010 Tops & Bottoms Adapted and illustrated by Janet Stevens Audience: Ages 4 - 7 Large, dynamic double-page-spread paintings are only part of the charm of this very funny picture book. Easily recognizable as a trickster tale (Stevens' source note roots the story in European folktales and slave stories of the American South), this features appealing, contemporary cousins of Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear. Here, Bear and Hare are involved in a gardening partnership, with industrious, clever Hare reaping all the vegetable profits. As usual, Stevens' animal characters, bold and colorful, are delightful. Hare, decked out in a lively gardening shirt and surrounded by mischievous offspring, is the image of determination. It's Bear, however, who wins the personality prize: he snoozes away each planting season squashed in his favorite chair, changing positions with each flip of the page. It's all wonderful fun, and the book opens, fittingly, from top to bottom instead of from side to side, making it perfect for story-time sharing. Read More 2010 Carrot Soup John Segal Audience: Pre-K Rabbit, a very organized animal, loves carrot soup. He spends the long winter paging through carrot catalogs (a full-page spread shows the different colors, shapes, and sizes of eight kinds of carrots). Then he plows and plants, waters and weeds, and waits. Finally it's time to harvest, but when he goes to pick the carrots, they are all gone. He frantically questions all the animals he knows, but not one admits to liking carrots. "Discouraged and disappointed, Rabbit went home," where he discovered a wonderful surprise. Read More 2009 The Liberation of Gabriel King K.L. Going Audience: Grades 4 - 7 For grades 4-7, this is the story of two friends who overcome their fears - one of going to fifth grade and one of racial prejudice. "Full of humanity and humor, this well-paced novel offers a dollop of history with its setting in rural Georgia at the moment local boy Jimmy Carter's presidential bid is gaining momentum. The villains' credibility makes them scary, and both Gabe and Frita's refreshingly functional families are exquisitely drawn..." - Publisher's Weekly Gabriel King believes he was born chicken. He's afraid of spiders, corpses, loose cows, and just about everything related to the fifth grade. If it's a choice between graduating or staying in the fourth grade forever, he's going to stay put - only his best friend Frita Wilson won't hear of it. "Gabe," says Frita, "we gotta do something about you." When Frita makes up her mind she's like a locomotive - there's no stopping her. "First you're going to make a list. Write down everything you're afraid of." Gabe's list is a lot longer than he'd like Frita to know. Plus, he can't quite figure out how tackling his fears will make him brave. Surely jumping off the rope swing over the catfish pond can only lead to certain death...But maybe Frita knows what she's doing. It turns out she's got her own list, and while she's watching Gabe tackle each of his fears, she's avoiding the fear that scares her the most. With wisdom and clarity, K. L. Going explores the nature of fear in what should be an idyllic summer for two friends from different backgrounds. For them, living in a small town in Georgia with an active Ku Klux Klan, the summer of 1976 is a momentous one. Read More 2009 The Other Side Jacqueline Woodson and illustrated by E.B. Lewis Audience: Grades K - 3 This beautifully illustrated picture book for grades K-3 tells a story of a friendship across race. "I wanted to write about how powerful kids can be. Clover and Annie fight against segregation by becoming friends. They don't believe in the ideas adults have about things so they do what they can to change the world. We all have this power." - Jacqueline Woodson From School Library Journal: Clover, the young African-American narrator, lives beside a fence that segregates her town. Her mother instructs her never to climb over to the other side because it isn't safe. But one summer morning, Clover notices a girl on the other side. Both children are curious about one another, and as the summer stretches on, Clover and Annie work up the nerve to introduce themselves. They dodge the injunction against crossing the fence by sitting on top of it together, and Clover pretends not to care when her friends react strangely at the sight of her sitting side by side with a white girl. Eventually, it's the fence that's out of place, not the friendship. Woodson's spare text is easy and unencumbered. Read More

2025Dr. Joy Buolamwini, a leading AI researcher, has been warning about the dangers of biased AI for years. Her groundbreaking work exposed racial and gender biases in AI systems from major tech companies. In her book, Unmasking AI, she discusses how these biases can harm marginalized groups. Buolamwini argues that we need to ensure AI is developed ethically and equitably for the benefit of everyone. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to advocate for algorithmic justice and prevent AI harms. < All Book Selections 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Unmasking AI (NF) Dr. Joy Buolamwini Audience: Adult Dr. Joy Buolamwini, a leading AI researcher, has been warning about the dangers of biased AI for years. Her groundbreaking work exposed racial and gender biases in AI systems from major tech companies. In her book, Unmasking AI, she discusses how these biases can harm marginalized groups. Buolamwini argues that we need to ensure AI is developed ethically and equitably for the benefit of everyone. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to advocate for algorithmic justice and prevent AI harms. About the Author Dr. Joy Buolamwini Author's website

2023 Books 2023 videos View event photos There There Tommy Orange Audience: Adult This shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize. Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American -- grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism. Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable. Read More The Second Life of Mirielle West Amanda Skenandore Audience: Adult The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she is carted hundreds of miles from home to be detained at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth and reimagining her future. Read More What the Fireflies Knew Dr. Kai Harris Audience: Adult Told from the perspective of 11-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB), this coming-of-age novel follows KB and her teenage sister, Nia, as they are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing, Michigan after their father passes away from a drug overdose. Over the course of a single, sweltering summer, KB attempts to get her bearings in a world that has turned upside down. Pinballing between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, KB is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. As she examines the jagged pieces of her recently shattered world, she learns that while some truths cut deep, a new life--and a new KB--can be built from the shards. Read More Coqui in the City Nomar Perez Audience: Pre-K to 1 Miguel's pet frog, Coquí, is always with him: as he greets his neighbors in San Juan, buys quesitos from the panadería, and listens to his abuelo's story about meeting baseball legend Roberto Clemente. Then Miguel learns that he and his parents are moving to the U.S. mainland, which means leaving his beloved grandparents, home in Puerto Rico, and even Coquí behind. Life in New York City is overwhelming, with unfamiliar buildings, foods, and people. But when he and Mamá go exploring, they find a few familiar sights that remind them of home, and Miguel realizes there might be a way to keep a little bit of Puerto Rico with him--including the love he has for Coquí--wherever he goes. Read More Sugar in Milk Thrity Umrigar Audience: Grades 2-4 A young immigrant girl joins her aunt and uncle in a new country that is unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness and a fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk. As the duo strolls through their city park, the girl's aunt begins to tell her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier, so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as a way of saying that the land was full and couldn't accommodate the strangers. Then, the leader of the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced the refugee, welcoming him and his people. Read More When Stars are Scattered Victoria Jamieson & Omar Mohamed Audience: Grades 5-8 Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there: never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care Omar knows his nonverbal brother needs. So when Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he knows it might be a chance to change their future . . . but it would also mean leaving his brother, the only family member he has left, every day. Heartbreak, hope, and gentle humor exist together in this graphic novel about a childhood spent waiting, and a young man who is able to create a sense of family and home in the most difficult of settings. It's an intimate, important, unforgettable look at the day-to-day life of a refugee, as told to New York Times Bestselling author/artist Victoria Jamieson by Omar Mohamed, the Somali man who lived the story. Read More Furia Yamile Saied Méndez Audience: High School/Young Adult In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life. At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother’s shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father. On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she’d get an athletic scholarship to a North American university. But the path ahead isn’t easy. Her parents don’t know about her passion. They wouldn’t allow a girl to play fútbol—and she needs their permission to go any farther. And the boy she once loved is back in town. Since he left, Diego has become an international star, playing in Italy for the renowned team Juventus. Read More

2011 Books The Year of Fog Michelle Richmond Audience: Adult Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason-photographer, fiancée, soon-to-be-stepmother-looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love - all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning - and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and scientific probability - but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all - as the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope - of the choices we make and the choices made for us - The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. Read More Alabama Moon Watt Key Audience: Grades 4 - 8 After the death of his father, ten-year-old Moon leaves their forest shelter home and is sent to an Alabama institution, becoming entangled in the outside world he has never known and making good friends, a relentless enemy, and finally a new life. Read More One Kathryn Otoshi Audience: Grades K - 3 Introduces young readers to numbers, counting, and primary and secondary colors by offering the story of ill-tempered Red who got too powerful for his own good and had to be brought down to size by One--a single entity with the courage to stand up for what was right. Read More Pouch! David Ezra Stein Audience: Pre-K A baby kangaroo takes his first tentative hops outside of his mama's pouch, meeting other creatures and growing bolder each time. Read More

2010Real food -- the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize as food - is being undermined by science on one side and the food industry on the other, both of whom want us focus on nutrients, good and bad, rather than actual plants, animals and fungi. According to author Michael Pollan, the rise of "nutritionism" has vastly complicated the lives of American eaters without doing anything for our health, except possibly to make it worse. Nutritionism arose to deal with a genuine problem -- the fact that the modern American diet is responsible for an epidemic of chronic diseases, from obesity and type II diabetes to heart disease and many cancers -- but it has obscured the real roots of that problem and stood in the way of a solution. In 200 pages, Pollan outlines the challenge and offers a straightforward manifesto -- "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -- as well as practical advice on how to accomplish these deceptively simple goals. < All Book Selections 2010 In Defense of Food Michael Pollan Audience: Adult Real food -- the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize as food - is being undermined by science on one side and the food industry on the other, both of whom want us focus on nutrients, good and bad, rather than actual plants, animals and fungi. According to author Michael Pollan, the rise of "nutritionism" has vastly complicated the lives of American eaters without doing anything for our health, except possibly to make it worse. Nutritionism arose to deal with a genuine problem -- the fact that the modern American diet is responsible for an epidemic of chronic diseases, from obesity and type II diabetes to heart disease and many cancers -- but it has obscured the real roots of that problem and stood in the way of a solution. In 200 pages, Pollan outlines the challenge and offers a straightforward manifesto -- "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -- as well as practical advice on how to accomplish these deceptively simple goals. About the Author For the past 20 years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. He is the author, most recently, of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto. His previous book, The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, was named one of the 10 best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. It also won the California Book Award, the Northern California Book Award, the James Beard Award for best food writing, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Pollan's previous book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World, was also a New York Times bestseller, received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best non-fiction work of 2001, and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon.com. PBS is airing a two-hour special documentary based on The Botany of Desire in fall 2009. He is also the author of A Place of My Own (1997) and Second Nature (1991). A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 1987, his writing has received numerous awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003; the John Burroughs prize (for the best natural history essay in 1997); the QPB New Vision Award (for his first book, Second Nature); the 2000 Reuters-I.U.C.N. Global Award for Environmental Journalism for his reporting on genetically modified crops; and the 2003 Humane Society of the United States' Genesis Award for his writing on animal agriculture. His essays have appeared in many anthologies, including Best American Essays (the 1990 and 2003 editions), Best American Science Writing (2004), and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. In addition to publishing regularly in the New York Times Magazine, his articles have appeared in Harper's (where he served for many years as executive editor), Mother Jones, Gourmet, Vogue, Travel + Leisure, Gardens Illustrated, and House & Garden. In 2003, Pollan was appointed the John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, and the director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. In addition to teaching, he lectures widely on food, agriculture, and gardening. Michael Pollan, who was born in 1955, grew up on Long Island, and was educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University, from which he received a Master's in English. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac. Michael Pollan Author's website SELECTED REVIEWS From The Washington Post Reviewed by Jane Black In his 2006 blockbuster, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan gave voice to Americans' deep anxiety about food: What should we eat? Where does our food come from? And, most important, why does it take an investigative journalist to answer what should be a relatively simple question? In the hundreds of interviews Pollan gave following the book's publication, the question everyone, including me, asked him was: What do you eat? It was both a sincere attempt to elicit a commonsense prescription and, when it came from cynical East Coast journalists, a thinly veiled attempt to trap the author. "Oh! So he shops at farmers markets," we snipped enviously to one another. "Well, easy for him out there in Berkeley where they feast on peaches and cream in February! What about the rest of us?" In Defense of Food is Pollan's answer: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." For some, that instruction will seem simple, even obvious. (It will seem especially so to those who read Pollan's lengthy essay on the same topic in the New York Times magazine last year.) But for most people, those seven little words are a declaration of war on the all-American dinner. Goodbye, 12-ounce steak. Instead, how about three ounces of wild-caught salmon served with roasted butternut squash and a heap of sautéed kale? For many, following the rules may not be so simple after all. Yet in this slim, remarkable volume, Pollan builds a convincing case not only against that steak dinner but against the entire Western diet. Over the last half-century, Pollan argues, real food has started to disappear, replaced by processed foods designed to include nutrients. Those component parts, he says, are understood only by scientists and exploited by food marketers who thrive on introducing new products that hawk fiber, omega-3 fatty acids or whatever else happens to be in vogue. Pollan calls it the age of "nutritionism," an era when nutrients have been elevated to ideology, resulting in epidemic rates of obesity, disease and orthorexia, a not yet official name for an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. "What we know is that people who eat the way we do in the West today suffer substantially higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity than people eating any number of different traditional diets," he writes. "When people come to the West and adopt our way of eating, these diseases soon follow." Part of Pollan's answer to improving our health is going back to traditional foods and ways of eating: Eat leaves, not seeds. Steer clear of any processed food with a health claim. And for goodness sake, don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food. But equally important is changing the way we relate to food. Pollan argues that we've traded in our food culture -- a.k.a. eating what Mom says to eat -- for nutritionism, which puts experts in charge and makes the whole question of what to eat so confusing in the first place. Indeed, Pollan makes a strong case that the "French paradox" -- the way the French stay thin while gobbling triple créme cheese and foie gras -- isn't a paradox at all. The French have a different relationship with food. They eat small portions, don't come back for seconds and spend considerably more time enjoying their food -- an eminently sensible approach. In Pollan's mind, trading quantity for quality and artificial nutrients for foods that give pleasure is the first step in redefining the way we think about food. The rules here: Pay more, eat less. Eat meals, not snacks. Cook your own meals and, if you can, plant a garden. Each of the rules is well supported -- and only occasionally with the scientific mumbo-jumbo that Pollan disparages. But what makes Pollan's latest so engrossing is his tone: curious and patient as he explains the flaws in epidemiological studies that have buttressed nutritionism for 30 years, and entirely without condescension as he offers those prescriptions Americans so desperately crave. That's no easy feat in a book of this kind. What should we eat? The answer is here. Now we just have to see if Americans are willing to follow good advice. From Publisher's Weekly Pollan provides another shocking yet essential treatise on the industrialized Western diet and its detrimental effects on our bodies and culture. Here he lays siege to the food industry and scientists' attempts to reduce food and the cultural practices of eating into bite-size concepts known as nutrients, and contemplates the follies of doing so. As an increasing number of Americans are overfed and undernourished, Pollan makes a strong argument for serious reconsideration of our eating habits and casts a suspicious eye on the food industry and its more pernicious and misleading practices. Listeners will undoubtedly find themselves reconsidering their own eating habits. From Booklist Expanding on a theme from his popular The Omnivore's Dilemma (2007), Pollan mounts an assault on a reigning theory of the relationship between food and health. For Pollan, "nutritionism" offers too narrow a view of the role of eating, confining its benefits solely to food's chemical constituents. This has resulted in an unnatural anxiety about the things we humans eat. To counteract this, Pollan appeals to tradition and common sense. The "Western diet," with its focus on meat as the principal food, produces cardiovascular problems, and nutritionists' attempts to correct this with a high-carbohydrate and sugar regimen has served only to spawn a generation of obese diabetics. Although Pollan doesn't advocate eliminating meat or any other whole food, he wants to place vegetables and fruits in the center of things, reassigning meat to the status of a side dish. Given the continuing fascination with Pollan's earlier work, this smaller tome will surely generate heavy demand.

2017It started out as an innocent day for Martin, but it quickly turned into his worst nightmare – arrested for something he didn’t even mean to do. And five months later, he is still locked up in jail on Rikers Island. Just when things couldn’t get any rose, Martin gets caught in a fight between two prisoners, and his face is slashed. He’s scarred forever, but one good thing comes from the attack – Martin is transferred to a part of Rikers where inmates must attend high school. When he meets his caring and understanding teacher, will Martin open up and learn from his situation? Or will he be consumed by prison and getting revenge on his attackers? < All Book Selections 2017 ...and justice for all Rikers High Paul Volponi Audience: Young Adult It started out as an innocent day for Martin, but it quickly turned into his worst nightmare – arrested for something he didn’t even mean to do. And five months later, he is still locked up in jail on Rikers Island. Just when things couldn’t get any rose, Martin gets caught in a fight between two prisoners, and his face is slashed. He’s scarred forever, but one good thing comes from the attack – Martin is transferred to a part of Rikers where inmates must attend high school. When he meets his caring and understanding teacher, will Martin open up and learn from his situation? Or will he be consumed by prison and getting revenge on his attackers? About the Author Paul Volponi is the award-winning author of 12 novels for young adults. He spent six years on New York City’s infamous Rikers island, the world's largest jail, teaching teens awaiting trial there to read and write. His novel Black and White, winner of the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award, explores the unbalanced scales of the criminal justice system. His novel, Rikers High, an American Library Association Quick Pick Top 10, takes the reader through the hallways and classrooms of the jail with very little fiction involved. Paul, who is the recipient of 11 ALA awards, believes the job of the author is to hold an accurate mirror up to the society and let the readers make their own judgments on what they see. Paul Volponi Author's website

2025From award-winning author Lindsay Lackey, Farther Than the Moon is a heartfelt story about a thirteen-year-old boy named Houston who dreams of becoming an astronaut. When he’s accepted to a prestigious astronaut program, Houston faces a dilemma: his younger brother, Robbie, has disabilities that prevent him from attending. Despite the challenges, Houston is determined to honor Robbie’s dream of space exploration, even if it means making sacrifices. As Houston navigates the demands of the program and confronts the reality of his brother’s limitations, he discovers the true meaning of friendship, perseverance, and the power of hope. < All Book Selections 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Farther than the Moon Lindsay Lackey Audience: Middle Grades From award-winning author Lindsay Lackey, Farther Than the Moon is a heartfelt story about a thirteen-year-old boy named Houston who dreams of becoming an astronaut. When he’s accepted to a prestigious astronaut program, Houston faces a dilemma: his younger brother, Robbie, has disabilities that prevent him from attending. Despite the challenges, Houston is determined to honor Robbie’s dream of space exploration, even if it means making sacrifices. As Houston navigates the demands of the program and confronts the reality of his brother’s limitations, he discovers the true meaning of friendship, perseverance, and the power of hope. About the Author Lindsay Lackey never wanted to be an astronaut when she was growing up. She did, however, want to be an opera singer, a Supreme Court Justice, or an author. She was born in Colorado and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their spoiled dogs. Her debut novel, All the Impossible Things was the recipient of multiple honors and critical acclaim. Her second novel, Farther Than the Moon , launched in 2023 and was shortlisted for several awards, including the OWL Award and the Cybil Award for middle grade fiction. Lindsay loves to sing, is almost always listening to an audiobook, and is now obsessed with space. In fact, if NASA wants to send a children’s book author to space, she will happily volunteer. Lindsay Lackey Author's website

2018Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react--shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened--both with Scott, and her dad--the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken. < All Book Selections 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion Not If I See You First Eric Lindstrom Audience: Teens Parker Grant doesn't need 20/20 vision to see right through you. That's why she created the Rules: Don't treat her any differently just because she's blind, and never take advantage. There will be no second chances. Just ask Scott Kilpatrick, the boy who broke her heart. When Scott suddenly reappears in her life after being gone for years, Parker knows there's only one way to react--shun him so hard it hurts. She has enough on her mind already, like trying out for the track team (that's right, her eyes don't work but her legs still do), doling out tough-love advice to her painfully naive classmates, and giving herself gold stars for every day she hasn't cried since her dad's death three months ago. But avoiding her past quickly proves impossible, and the more Parker learns about what really happened--both with Scott, and her dad--the more she starts to question if things are always as they seem. Maybe, just maybe, some Rules are meant to be broken. About the Author Eric Lindstrom has worked in the interactive entertainment industry for years as a creative director, game designer, writer, and combinations of all three. He has written two Young Adult novels. Eric Lindstrom Author's website

2022Shine on! might be the catchphrase of twelve-year-old Piper's hero--astronaut, astronomer, and television host Nellie Dumont Frisse--but Piper knows the truth: some people are born to shine, and she's just not one of them. That fact has never been clearer than now, since her dad's new job has landed them both at Chumley Prep, a posh private school where everyone seems to be the best at something and where Piper definitely doesn't fit in. Bursting with humor, heart, science, possibilities, and big questions, Shine! is a story about finding your place in the universe--a story about figuring out who you are and who you want to be. < All Book Selections 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope SHINE! Chris and J.J. Grabenstein Audience: Grades 4 - 8 Shine on! might be the catchphrase of twelve-year-old Piper's hero--astronaut, astronomer, and television host Nellie Dumont Frisse--but Piper knows the truth: some people are born to shine, and she's just not one of them. That fact has never been clearer than now, since her dad's new job has landed them both at Chumley Prep, a posh private school where everyone seems to be the best at something and where Piper definitely doesn't fit in. Bursting with humor, heart, science, possibilities, and big questions, Shine! is a story about finding your place in the universe--a story about figuring out who you are and who you want to be. About the Author J.J. & CHRIS GRABENSTEIN are a husband-wife writing team J.J. is an award-winning voice-over and stage performer as well as her husband's long-time secret weapon, reading and editing each one of his 75 published books before anyone else saw them. This is her debut as a co-author. Chris is the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Mr. Lemoncello, Welcome to Wonderland, Dog Squad, Smartest Kid In The Universe, and Haunted Mystery series, as well as the coauthor of numerous fun and funny page-turners with James Patterson, including the Max Einstein, Jacky Ha Ha, I Funny, House of Robots, and Treasure Hunters series. J.J. and Chris live in New York City, with Phoebe Squeak and Luigi, two cats adopted from their local rescue group where J.J. is a volunteer. Visit ChrisGrabenstein.com for trailers, bonus quizzes, and more. Chris and J.J. Grabenstein Author's website

2022By the door there is an umbrella. It is big. It is so big that when it starts to rain there is room for everyone underneath. It doesn’t matter if you are tall. Or plaid. Or hairy. It doesn’t matter how many legs you have. Don’t worry that there won’t be enough room under the umbrella. Because there will always be room. < All Book Selections 2022 Power of Kindness, Resilience & Hope The Big Umbrella Amy June Bates and daughter Juniper Bates Audience: Pre-K to K By the door there is an umbrella. It is big. It is so big that when it starts to rain there is room for everyone underneath. It doesn’t matter if you are tall. Or plaid. Or hairy. It doesn’t matter how many legs you have. Don’t worry that there won’t be enough room under the umbrella. Because there will always be room. About the Author When Amy was a kid she loved to draw and read. She spent the time that she wasn't reading and drawing trying to keep her six brothers and sisters from drawing on her pictures and losing her place in whatever book she was reading. She loved the mountains quite a bit. She grew up and learned to draw a lot better. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her three children and husband. She reads and she draws quite a bit. Amy June Bates and daughter Juniper Bates Author's website

2024Set in a world where Florida faces the relentless onslaught of extreme weather and rising sea levels, "The Light Pirate" is the story of a small coastal town preparing for a powerful hurricane. Divided into four parts—power, water, light, and time—this GMA Book Club pick novel mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the gradual transformation of the world as we know it. It serves as a contemplation of changes that challenge our comfort zones and a reminder of the untamed beauty and strength of nature. < All Book Selections 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today The Light Pirate Lily Brooks-Dalton Audience: Adult Set in a world where Florida faces the relentless onslaught of extreme weather and rising sea levels, "The Light Pirate" is the story of a small coastal town preparing for a powerful hurricane. Divided into four parts—power, water, light, and time—this GMA Book Club pick novel mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the gradual transformation of the world as we know it. It serves as a contemplation of changes that challenge our comfort zones and a reminder of the untamed beauty and strength of nature. About the Author Lily Brooks-Dalton's most recent novel is The Light Pirate , a #1 Indie Next pick for December 2022, a Good Morning America Book Club selection, one of NPR's "Books We Love," and a New York Times Editors' Pick. She is also the author of Good Morning, Midnight , which has been translated into seventeen languages and was the inspiration for the film adaptation The Midnight Sky , and the memoir, Motorcycles I’ve Loved , which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. A former writer-in-residence at The Kerouac House and The Studios of Key West, she currently lives in Los Angeles. Lily Brooks-Dalton Author's website Author

2024To Change a Planet demonstrates the importance of caring for our planet. Eye popping explosions of color on every page create a stunning visual narrative. Readers follow the same characters through their daily lives- ultimately coming to a climate change march on Washington where the characters come together. < All Book Selections 2024 A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today To Change a Planet (Pre-K - 1st) Christina Soontornvat Audience: Pre-K to 1 To Change a Planet demonstrates the importance of caring for our planet. Eye popping explosions of color on every page create a stunning visual narrative. Readers follow the same characters through their daily lives- ultimately coming to a climate change march on Washington where the characters come together. About the Author Christina Soontornvat is an award-winning author, engineer, and STEM educator. Her many works for children include picture books, chapter books, and the bestselling graphic novel, The Tryout . She is a three-time Newbery Honor recipient, most recently for The Last Mapmaker, which was also named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times. Christina Soontornvat Author's website Sam Bond Photography With calm, truthfulness, and beauty, To Change a Planet demonstrates the importance of caring for our planet. Eye popping explosions of color on every page create a stunning visual narrative that invites readers to find and follow the same characters through their daily lives and ultimately to a climate march on Washington, where their storylines converge.

2021Winner of the 2017 Southern Book Prize Winner of the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center Finalist for the John Burroughs Medal Named a “Best Scholarly Book of the Decade” by The Chronicle of Higher Education “In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. I am, in the deepest sense, colored.” From these fertile soils—of love, land, identity, family, and race—emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way to somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity”—to find joy and freedom in the same land his ancestors were tied to by forced labor, and then to be a black man in a profoundly white field. By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today. < All Book Selections 2021 Connecting The Home Place J. Drew Lanham Audience: Adult Winner of the 2017 Southern Book Prize Winner of the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center Finalist for the John Burroughs Medal Named a “Best Scholarly Book of the Decade” by The Chronicle of Higher Education “In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. I am, in the deepest sense, colored.” From these fertile soils—of love, land, identity, family, and race—emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina—a place “easy to pass by on the way to somewhere else”—has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be “the rare bird, the oddity”—to find joy and freedom in the same land his ancestors were tied to by forced labor, and then to be a black man in a profoundly white field. By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South—and in America today. About the Author A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. Drew Lanham is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal. He is a birder, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist who has published essays and poetry in publications including Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in several anthologies, including The Colors of Nature, State of the Heart, Bartram’s Living Legacy, and Carolina Writers at Home. An Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University, he and his family live in the Upstate of South Carolina, a soaring hawk’s downhill glide from the southern Appalachian escarpment that the Cherokee once called the Blue Wall. https://milkweed.org/author/j-drew-lanham J. Drew Lanham Author's website

2020 Books Play video on YouTube View event photos Play video on YouTube View event photos Alpha Girls Julian Guthrie Audience: Adult Alpha Girls is the untold story of pioneering women in Silicon Valley. Described as "Hidden Figures" meets "The Social Network," Alpha Girls is the story of the real unicorns of Silicon Valley -- the women who bucked the system and found ways to survive and thrive in this high-stakes, male-dominated world. The book explores the rise of such companies as Facebook, Tesla, Oracle, Trulia, Imperva, F5 Networks, Acme Packet, ForeScout, Salesforce and more – all through the eyes of trailblazing "alpha girls" of Silicon Valley. The book is being adapted for a television series by Academy Award-winning producer Cathy Schulman and TriStar. Read More The Tenth Muse Catherine Chung Audience: Adult The Tenth Muse is an exhilarating, moving novel about a trailblazing mathematician whose research unearths her own extraordinary family story and its roots in World War II From the days of her childhood in the 1950s Midwest, Katherine knows she is different, and that her parents are not who they seem. As she matures from a girl of rare intelligence into an exceptional mathematician, traveling to Europe to further her studies, she must face the most human of problems—who is she? What is the cost of love, and what is the cost of ambition? These questions grow ever more entangled as Katherine strives to take her place in the world of higher mathematics and becomes involved with a brilliant and charismatic professor. When she embarks on a quest to conquer the Riemann hypothesis, the greatest unsolved mathematical problem of her time, she turns to a theorem with a mysterious history that may hold both the lock and the key to her identity, and to secrets long buried during World War II. Forced to confront some of the most consequential events of the 20th century and rethink everything she knows of herself, she finds kinship in the stories of the women who came before her, and discovers how seemingly distant stories, lives, and ideas are inextricably linked to her own. Read More The Most Magnificent Thing Ashley Spires Audience: Picture Book This charming picture book is about an unnamed girl and her very best friend, who happens to be a dog. The girl has a wonderful idea. "She is going to make the most MAGNIFICENT thing! She knows just how it will look. She knows just how it will work. All she has to do is make it, and she makes things all the time. Easy-peasy!" But making her magnificent thing is anything but easy, and the girl tries and fails, repeatedly. Eventually, the girl gets really, really mad. She is so mad, in fact, that she quits. But after her dog convinces her to take a walk, she comes back to her project with renewed enthusiasm and manages to get it just right. The book has been made into a short animated film featuring the narration of Whoopi Goldberg. Read More Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream Tanya Lee Stone Audience: Young Adult What does it take to be an astronaut? Excellence at flying, courage, intelligence, resistance to stress, top physical shape — any checklist would include these. But when America created NASA in 1958, there was another unspoken rule: you had to be a man. Here is the tale of 13 women who proved that they were not only as tough as the toughest man but also brave enough to challenge the government. They were blocked by prejudice, jealousy, and the scrawled note of one of the most powerful men in Washington. But even though the Mercury 13 women did not make it into space, they did not lose, for their example empowered young women to take their place in the sky, piloting jets and commanding space capsules. Read More Who Says Women Can't Be Computer Programmers? Tanya Lee Stone Audience: Young Adult In the early 19th century lived Ada Byron, a young girl with a wild and wonderful imagination. The daughter of internationally acclaimed poet Lord Byron, Ada was tutored in science and mathematics from a very early age. But Ada’s imagination was never meant to be tamed and, armed with the fundamentals of math and engineering, she came into her own as a woman of ideas―equal parts mathematician and philosopher. From her whimsical beginnings as a gifted child to her most sophisticated notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, this book celebrates the woman recognized today as the first computer programmer. Read More

2018Mia's abuela has left her sunny house with parrots and palm trees to live with Mia and her parents in the city. The night she arrives, Mia tries to share her favorite book with Abuela before they go to sleep and discovers that Abuela can't read the words inside. So while they cook, Mia helps Abuela learn English ("Dough. Masa"), and Mia learns some Spanish too, but it's still hard for Abuela to learn the words she needs to tell Mia all her stories. Then Mia sees a parrot in the pet-shop window and has the perfecto idea for how to help them all communicate a little better. A 2016 Pura Belpré Author Award Honor Book. A 2016 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Honor Book. < All Book Selections 2018 No Matter What: Caring, Coping, Compassion Mango, Abuela, and Me Meg Medina Audience: Grades Pre-K to 3 Mia's abuela has left her sunny house with parrots and palm trees to live with Mia and her parents in the city. The night she arrives, Mia tries to share her favorite book with Abuela before they go to sleep and discovers that Abuela can't read the words inside. So while they cook, Mia helps Abuela learn English ("Dough. Masa"), and Mia learns some Spanish too, but it's still hard for Abuela to learn the words she needs to tell Mia all her stories. Then Mia sees a parrot in the pet-shop window and has the perfecto idea for how to help them all communicate a little better. A 2016 Pura Belpré Author Award Honor Book. A 2016 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Honor Book. About the Author Meg Medina is an award-winning Cuban American author who writes picture books, middle grade and YA fiction. In 2014 she was recognized as a "Latino Stories Top 10 Latino Authors To Watch" and as one of the "CNN 10 Visionary Women in America." Learn more about her at megmedina.com. Meg Medina Author's website

2026In this tender and humorous novel, Annie Hartnett explores how belonging can grow in unexpected places. When Emma Starling returns to her New Hampshire hometown to care for her dying father, she is drawn into a community grappling with crisis, loss, and disconnection. Through her search for a missing friend and reconnection with family, Emma discovers that even fractured places can be mended through compassion, community, and the bridges we build with one another. < All Book Selections 2026 Bridges to Belonging Unlikely Animals Annie Hartnett Audience: Adult In this tender and humorous novel, Annie Hartnett explores how belonging can grow in unexpected places. When Emma Starling returns to her New Hampshire hometown to care for her dying father, she is drawn into a community grappling with crisis, loss, and disconnection. Through her search for a missing friend and reconnection with family, Emma discovers that even fractured places can be mended through compassion, community, and the bridges we build with one another. About the Author Annie Hartnett is a bestselling award-winning author of three novels: RABBIT CAKE, UNLIKELY ANIMALS, and most recently, THE ROAD TO TENDER HEARTS. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Associates of the Boston Public Library. Along with the writer Tessa Fontaine, she co-runs Accountability Workshops for writers, helping writers commit to routines and embrace the long, slow, joyful, terrible process of doing the work. She lives in Massachusetts with her very good husband, perfect daughter, and darling border collie. Annie Hartnett Author's website Photo by: Traer Scott

2020In the early 19th century lived Ada Byron, a young girl with a wild and wonderful imagination. The daughter of internationally acclaimed poet Lord Byron, Ada was tutored in science and mathematics from a very early age. But Ada’s imagination was never meant to be tamed and, armed with the fundamentals of math and engineering, she came into her own as a woman of ideas―equal parts mathematician and philosopher. From her whimsical beginnings as a gifted child to her most sophisticated notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, this book celebrates the woman recognized today as the first computer programmer. < All Book Selections 2020 Women Making It Happen Who Says Women Can't Be Computer Programmers? Tanya Lee Stone Audience: Young Adult In the early 19th century lived Ada Byron, a young girl with a wild and wonderful imagination. The daughter of internationally acclaimed poet Lord Byron, Ada was tutored in science and mathematics from a very early age. But Ada’s imagination was never meant to be tamed and, armed with the fundamentals of math and engineering, she came into her own as a woman of ideas―equal parts mathematician and philosopher. From her whimsical beginnings as a gifted child to her most sophisticated notes on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, this book celebrates the woman recognized today as the first computer programmer. About the Author Tanya Lee Stone is best known for telling little-known or unknown stories of women and people of color. She writes middle grade/young adult narrative nonfiction such as Girl Rising, Almost Astronauts and Courage Has No Color, and nonfiction picture books such as Who Says Women Can't Be Computer Programmers? Her work has been recognized by the NAACP Image Award, Robert F. Sibert Medal, Golden Kite Award, Bank Street Flora Straus Steiglitz Award, Jane Addams Honor, YALSA Nonfiction Finalist, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor, NPR Best Books, and NCTE Orbis Pictus Honors. She is also the author of the YA verse novel, A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl, which was a Top Ten Banned Book. Stone studied English at Oberlin College, later earned a master’s degree, and was an editor of children's nonfiction for many years before becoming a writer. She teaches writing at Champlain College. Tanya Lee Stone Author's website

2006Julia Otsuka's quietly disturbing novel opens with a woman reading a sign in a post office window. It is Berkeley, California, the spring of 1942. Pearl Harbor has been attacked, the war is on, and though the precise message on the sign is not revealed, its impact on the woman who reads it is immediate and profound. It is, in many ways she cannot yet foresee, a sign of things to come. She readies herself and her two young children for a journey that will take them to the high desert plains of Utah and into a world that will shatter their illusions forever. They travel by train and gradually the reader discovers that all on board are Japanese American, that the shades must be pulled down at night so as not to invite rock-throwing, and that their destination is an internment camp where they will be imprisoned "for their own safety" until the war is over. With stark clarity and an unflinching gaze, Otsuka explores the inner lives of her main characters-the mother, daughter, and son-as they struggle to understand their fate and long for the father whom they have not seen since he was whisked away, in slippers and handcuffs, on the evening of Pearl Harbor. < All Book Selections 2006 When the Emperor Was Divine Julie Otsuka Audience: Adult Julia Otsuka's quietly disturbing novel opens with a woman reading a sign in a post office window. It is Berkeley, California, the spring of 1942. Pearl Harbor has been attacked, the war is on, and though the precise message on the sign is not revealed, its impact on the woman who reads it is immediate and profound. It is, in many ways she cannot yet foresee, a sign of things to come. She readies herself and her two young children for a journey that will take them to the high desert plains of Utah and into a world that will shatter their illusions forever. They travel by train and gradually the reader discovers that all on board are Japanese American, that the shades must be pulled down at night so as not to invite rock-throwing, and that their destination is an internment camp where they will be imprisoned "for their own safety" until the war is over. With stark clarity and an unflinching gaze, Otsuka explores the inner lives of her main characters-the mother, daughter, and son-as they struggle to understand their fate and long for the father whom they have not seen since he was whisked away, in slippers and handcuffs, on the evening of Pearl Harbor. About the Author Julie Otsuka was born in Palo Alto and studied art at Yale University. After pursuing a career as a painter, she turned to fiction at age 30. One of her short stories was included in Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops 1998, edited by Carol Shields. When the Emperor Was Divine is her first novel. She lives in New York. Julie Otsuka Author's website SELECTED REVIEWS: From Publishers Weekly This heartbreaking, bracingly unsentimental debut describes in poetic detail the travails of a Japanese family living in an internment camp during World War II, raising the specter of wartime injustice in bone-chilling fashion. After a woman whose husband was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy sees notices posted around her neighborhood in Berkeley instructing Japanese residents to evacuate, she moves with her son and daughter to an internment camp, abruptly severing her ties with her community. The next three years are spent in filthy, cramped and impersonal lodgings as the family is shuttled from one camp to another. They return to Berkeley after the war to a home that has been ravaged by vandals; it takes time for them to adjust to life outside the camps and to come to terms with the hostility they face. When the children's father re-enters the book, he is more of a symbol than a character, reduced to a husk by interrogation and abuse. The novel never strays into melodrama-Otsuka describes the family's everyday life in Berkeley and the pitiful objects that define their world in the camp with admirable restraint and modesty. Events are viewed from numerous characters' points of view, and the different perspectives are defined by distinctive, lyrically simple observations. The novel's honesty and matter-of-fact tone in the face of inconceivable injustice are the source of its power. Anger only comes to the fore during the last segment, when the father is allowed to tell his story-but even here, Otsuka keeps rage neatly bound up, luminous beneath the dazzling surface of her novel. "Exceptional. . . . Otsuka skillfully dramatizes a world suddenly foreign. . . . [Her] incantatory, unsentimental prose is the book’s greatest strength." – The New Yorker "Spare, incisive. . . . The mood of the novel tensely reflects the protagonists’ emotional state: calm surfaces above, turmoil just beneath." – Boston Globe "Prose so cool and precise that it’s impossible not to believe what [Otsuka] tells us or to see clearly what she wants us to see. . . . A gem of a book and one of the most vivid history lessons you’ll ever learn." – USA Today "Shockingly brilliant. . . . it will make you gasp . . . Undoubtedly one of the most effective, memorable books to deal with the internment crisis . . . The maturity of Otsuka’s. . . prose is astonishing." – The Bloomsbury Review "The novel’s voice is as hushed as a whisper. . . . An exquisite debut. . . potent, spare, crystalline." – O, The Oprah Magazine QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION: When the Emperor Was Divine gives readers an intimate view of the fate of Japanese Americans during World War II. In what ways does the novel deepen our existing knowledge of this historical period? What does it give readers that a straightforward historical investigation cannot?Why does Otsuka choose to reveal the family's reason for moving-and the father's arrest-so indirectly and so gradually? What is the effect when the reason becomes apparent?Otsuka skillfully places subtle but significant details in her narrative.When the mother goes to Lundy's hardware store, she notices a "dark stain" on the register "that would not go away" [p. 5]. The dog she has to kill is called "White Dog" [see pp. 9-12]. Her daughter's favorite song on the radio is "Don't Fence Me In." How do these details, and others like them, point to larger meanings in the novel?Why does Otsuka refer to her characters as "the woman," "the girl," "the boy," and "the father," rather than giving them names? How does this lack of specific identities affect the reader's relationship to the characters?When they arrive at the camp in the Utah desert-"a city of tar-paper barracks behind a barbed-wire fence on a dusty alkaline plain"-the boy thinks he sees his father everywhere: "wherever the boy looked he saw him: Daddy, Papa, Father, Oto-san" [p. 49]. Why is the father's absence such a powerful presence in the novel? How do the mother and daughter think of him? How would their story have been different had the family remained together?When the boy wonders why he's in the camp, he worries that "he'd done something horribly, terribly wrong. . . . It could be anything. Something he'd done yesterday-chewing the eraser off his sister's pencil before putting it back in the pencil jar-or something he'd done a long time ago that was just now catching up with him" [p. 57]. What does this passage reveal about the damaging effects of racism on children? What does it reveal about the way children try to make sense of their experience?In the camp, the prisoners are told they've been brought there for their "own protection," and that "it was all in the interest of national security.It was a matter of military necessity. It was an opportunity for them to prove their loyalty" [p. 70]. Why, and in what ways, are these justifications problematic? What do they reveal about the attitude of the American government toward Japanese Americans? How would these justifications appear to those who were taken from their homes and placed behind fences for the duration of the war?What parallels does the novel reveal between the American treatment of citizens of Japanese descent and the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany?Much of When the Emperor Was Divine is told in short, episodic, loosely connected scenes-images, conversations, memories, dreams, and so on-that move between past and present and alternate points of view between the mother, daughter, and son. Why has Otsuka chosen to structure her narrative in this way? What effects does it allow her to achieve?After the family is released from the camp, what instructions are they given? How do they regard themselves? How does America regard them? In what ways have they been damaged by their internment?When they are at last reunited with their father, the family doesn't know how to react. "Because the man who stood there before us was not our father.He was somebody else, a stranger who had been sent back in our father's place" [p. 132]. Why do they regard him as a stranger? How has he been changed by his experience? In what ways does this reunion underscore the tragedy of America's decision to imprison Japanese Americans during the war?After the father returns home, he never once discusses the years he'd been away, and his children don't ask. "We didn't want to know. . . . All we wanted to do, now that we were back in the world, was forget" [p. 133]. Why do the children feel this way? Why would their father remain silent about such an important experience? In what ways does the novel fight against this desire to forget?The mother is denied work because being a Japanese American might "upset the other employees" or offend the customers. She turns down a job working in a dark back room of a department store because she is afraid she "might accidentally remember who I was and . . . offend myself" [pp. 128-129]. What does this statement reveal about her character? What strengths does she exhibit throughout her ordeal?Flowers appear throughout the novel. When one of the prisoners is shot by a guard, a witness believes the man had been reaching through the fence to pluck a flower [see p. 101]. And the penultimate chapter ends with the following sentence: "But we never stopped believing that somewhere out there, in some stranger's backyard, our mother's rosebush was blossoming madly, wildly, pressing one perfect red flower after another out into the late afternoon light" [p. 139]. What symbolic value do the flowers have in this final passage? What does this open-ended conclusion suggest about the relationship between the family and the "strangers" they live among?When the Emperor Was Divine concludes with a chapter titled "Confession."Who is speaking in this final chapter? Is the speech ironic? Why has Otsuka chosen to end the novel in this way? What does the confession imply about our ability to separate out the "enemy," the "other," in our midst?

2006When Louise Steinman was growing up in 1950s there were three rules: 1. Never cry in front of father 2. Never wear black in his presence and 3. Never ask questions about these rules. It was only after her parents' death, when she made a chance discovery that Louise Steinman began to understand why. Hidden among her parents' belongings was an old metal ammunition box. Inside were hundreds of letters her father wrote home during the Pacific War. "Dearest," he writes in one, "After months of dreading nighttime, it is so hard to change. You see I need you to help me get over that type of fear and use the nights for what they were meant for." He wrote this letter after 167 days of straight combat. Louise Steinman was astonished--here was a side of her father she never knew. To her, he was a gruff, practical man--a pharmacist, actually, who worked 13-hour days, and kept mostly to himself. She never knew that he fought in a campaign that set the record for consecutive days of combat in the war. He had never talked about it. He had never told her how, at 24, he was yanked from his young wife who was pregnant with their first child, to fight in a place that was completely foreign to him. His letters home were his only connection to all that he knew and loved--they were his lifeline. As Louise poured through them, she found a Japanese soldier's flag-a souvenir he later regretted sending home. Japanese soldiers carried these flags for good luck. THE SOUVENIR is the heartbreaking and heartwarming story of a woman discovering her father, the men he fought with, and the men he fought against. Because of these letters and this flag Louise Steinman sets upon on a journey that takes her across the world, to the snow country of Japan, to a mountain top in the Philippines, and back home again forever changed. Over the course of that journey, she finds the family of the Japanese solider, Yoshio Shimizu, whose flag this once was, and returns it to his surviving family. Finding her father's ammunition box was a gift--one that unlocked a part of him that was sealed by the trauma of war. And through the act of returning the flag she is able to bring about a kind of catharsis--for her father, herself, and the family of his enemy. < All Book Selections 2006 The Souvenir Louise Steinman Audience: Adult When Louise Steinman was growing up in 1950s there were three rules: 1. Never cry in front of father 2. Never wear black in his presence and 3. Never ask questions about these rules. It was only after her parents' death, when she made a chance discovery that Louise Steinman began to understand why. Hidden among her parents' belongings was an old metal ammunition box. Inside were hundreds of letters her father wrote home during the Pacific War. "Dearest," he writes in one, "After months of dreading nighttime, it is so hard to change. You see I need you to help me get over that type of fear and use the nights for what they were meant for." He wrote this letter after 167 days of straight combat. Louise Steinman was astonished--here was a side of her father she never knew. To her, he was a gruff, practical man--a pharmacist, actually, who worked 13-hour days, and kept mostly to himself. She never knew that he fought in a campaign that set the record for consecutive days of combat in the war. He had never talked about it. He had never told her how, at 24, he was yanked from his young wife who was pregnant with their first child, to fight in a place that was completely foreign to him. His letters home were his only connection to all that he knew and loved--they were his lifeline. As Louise poured through them, she found a Japanese soldier's flag-a souvenir he later regretted sending home. Japanese soldiers carried these flags for good luck. THE SOUVENIR is the heartbreaking and heartwarming story of a woman discovering her father, the men he fought with, and the men he fought against. Because of these letters and this flag Louise Steinman sets upon on a journey that takes her across the world, to the snow country of Japan, to a mountain top in the Philippines, and back home again forever changed. Over the course of that journey, she finds the family of the Japanese solider, Yoshio Shimizu, whose flag this once was, and returns it to his surviving family. Finding her father's ammunition box was a gift--one that unlocked a part of him that was sealed by the trauma of war. And through the act of returning the flag she is able to bring about a kind of catharsis--for her father, herself, and the family of his enemy. About the Author Louise Steinman is a writer, artist and literary curator. Her work often deals with memory, history and reconciliation. Her book, The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War was cited as “A graceful, understated memoir… that draws its strength from the complexities it explores.” ( New York Times Book Review ) and “…an intimate and powerful story of the effects of war.” (James Bradley, author, Flags of Our Fathers ). The book won the 2002 Gold Medal in Memoir from ForeWord Magazine and has been the selection of several All-City and All-Freshman Reads programs. The book chronicles her quest to return a war “souvenir” to its owner and—in the process—illuminates how war changed one generation and shaped another. Louise Steinman Author's website SELECTED REVIEWS: From Publishers Weekly When Norman Steinman a member of the 25th Infantry Division, which fought in the Philippines in 1945 died in 1990, he left behind a box full of WWII letters (more than 400), later discovered by his daughter. Among the souvenirs was a small Japanese flag, inscribed with words Louise could not read. She had them translated and found that the flag had belonged to a Japanese soldier. Obsessed, Steinman began her search for him or his family. This small book, a moving memoir about reconciliation and honor, is her tale of her successful quest, her trip to Japan to return the flag and the friendships she forged along the way. Steinman visited the battlefields on Luzon in which her father battled the weather, jungle and Japanese. This volume contains many of his letters, published here for the first time, that show typical G.I. behavior, attitudes toward the enemy and longing for good food and friends back home. Steinman's visit to Hiroshima helped her to understand the war from the Japanese point of view. In coming to understand her father and his postwar behavior, Steinman discovers how real WWII can become to a survivor's family. From Library Journal Clearing out the family's storage locker after her father's death, Steinman discovered a rusted metal ammo box with hundreds of letters spanning the years 1941-45 that he had written to her mother and a manila envelope with a Japanese soldier's flag. Intrigued by these "souvenirs" of a time and an experience in her father's life that she had never really understood, Steinman, cultural programs director of the Los Angeles Public Library, set out on a quest to return the flag to the family of Yoshio Shimizu, the Japanese soldier. This book is the story of the entwined "gifts" resulting from that personal journey Steinman's discovery of a side of her father that she had never expected to share ("I never knew my father to cry") and the "softly uttered" words of the fallen soldier's mother: "You have given us back Yoshio. The government only sent sand in a box." Steinman comments that from the letters she wanted to "unravel the connection between my father's silence about the war and our family's home life." For many, her account could provide an understanding of how that war changed one generation and shaped the next. KIRKUS REVIEWS "An affecting memoir and a convincing plea for pacifism: Steinman's hypnotizing prose exposes the senselessness of war..." The New York Time Book Review "...an exceptional book that draws its strength from the complexities it explores." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR What most surprised you in your research for this book?Several things. I had no idea of the extent of racism that existed on BOTH sides of the Pacific War. The U.S. propaganda against the Japanese was horrendous-labeling them subhuman vermin-and on the other side, the Japanese people were told the Americans would practically eat them alive. The fighting in the Pacific was particularly brutal because the Japanese had been so thoroughly dehumanized to the Americans. (And also because the Japanese were not allowed by their commanders to surrender.)I was also amazed to hear some Japanese people say that they believed, sadly, that the only way to stop the Japanese military was for the U.S. to have dropped the bomb. I never thought I'd hear that from someone Japanese. But I did. They really thought that if there had been an invasion of the mainland, the country would have been led to a mass suicide. They were making plans for it.After making this long journey to find the Shimizu family and return the flag, what do you think is the most important thing to bear in mind about reconciliation between former enemies?I think you have to look at shared history together. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's absolutely necessary. It was such a missed opportunity when the 50th Anniversary of Hiroshima came along, for the Smithsonian not to have exhibited material about the effects ofa the atom bomb. And it's quite a problem that the Japanese don't teach the whole truth in their schools about Japanese militarism and Japanese aggression and brutality in Asia. The subject of the war is still very touchy in Japan. By letting the Emperor off the hook, MacArthur also made it more difficult for the Japanese to look at their own culpability. To look at history together can be very disturbing, but I think it offers an enormous opportunity to paint a more complex picture and to understand the other.I've also come to have a much deeper understanding of the complexity of apology and forgiveness. I was not apologizing to the Shimizu family, I couldn't even tell them for sure whether or not my father might have contributed to the death of their son/brother/uncle. And they did not apologize to me. But together, we acknowledged our bond and the gravity of what binds us together as human beings. Reconciliation often falls to the next generation. It may be beyond the power of the combatants themselves to forgive. But sometimes that moment of grace can also happen.How does your book relate to your past work in performance and theater?In a way, I see the process of trying to find the Shimizu family and returning the flag to be a long extended performance, intended for as wide an audience as possible. It's "life art" in that sense. The gesture is not created for a proscenium stage, but a world stage, so to speak. What binds the two together is the idea of a ritual gesture. Remember that all kinds of spectacles are "performance"-weddings, funerals, birth ceremonies. Witnessing is a powerful part of the theatrical process. The act of returning the flag, the ceremony if you will, was the most powerful performance I've ever attended. I was both actor and participant.How have American veterans responded to your book?That's been the most gratifying aspect of the book's publication. Numerous veterans have written to me. They express thanks but they also want to tell their own stories. Some of them have sent me stories and all of them have been eye-openers. What these men endured and suffered and in so many cases, never shared with anyone. If anyone thinks that the effect of war ends when the battle ends, they're quite mistaken.

2009For grades 4-7, this is the story of two friends who overcome their fears - one of going to fifth grade and one of racial prejudice. "Full of humanity and humor, this well-paced novel offers a dollop of history with its setting in rural Georgia at the moment local boy Jimmy Carter's presidential bid is gaining momentum. The villains' credibility makes them scary, and both Gabe and Frita's refreshingly functional families are exquisitely drawn..." - Publisher's Weekly Gabriel King believes he was born chicken. He's afraid of spiders, corpses, loose cows, and just about everything related to the fifth grade. If it's a choice between graduating or staying in the fourth grade forever, he's going to stay put - only his best friend Frita Wilson won't hear of it. "Gabe," says Frita, "we gotta do something about you." When Frita makes up her mind she's like a locomotive - there's no stopping her. "First you're going to make a list. Write down everything you're afraid of." Gabe's list is a lot longer than he'd like Frita to know. Plus, he can't quite figure out how tackling his fears will make him brave. Surely jumping off the rope swing over the catfish pond can only lead to certain death...But maybe Frita knows what she's doing. It turns out she's got her own list, and while she's watching Gabe tackle each of his fears, she's avoiding the fear that scares her the most. With wisdom and clarity, K. L. Going explores the nature of fear in what should be an idyllic summer for two friends from different backgrounds. For them, living in a small town in Georgia with an active Ku Klux Klan, the summer of 1976 is a momentous one. < All Book Selections 2009 The Liberation of Gabriel King K.L. Going Audience: Grades 4 - 7 For grades 4-7, this is the story of two friends who overcome their fears - one of going to fifth grade and one of racial prejudice. "Full of humanity and humor, this well-paced novel offers a dollop of history with its setting in rural Georgia at the moment local boy Jimmy Carter's presidential bid is gaining momentum. The villains' credibility makes them scary, and both Gabe and Frita's refreshingly functional families are exquisitely drawn..." - Publisher's Weekly Gabriel King believes he was born chicken. He's afraid of spiders, corpses, loose cows, and just about everything related to the fifth grade. If it's a choice between graduating or staying in the fourth grade forever, he's going to stay put - only his best friend Frita Wilson won't hear of it. "Gabe," says Frita, "we gotta do something about you." When Frita makes up her mind she's like a locomotive - there's no stopping her. "First you're going to make a list. Write down everything you're afraid of." Gabe's list is a lot longer than he'd like Frita to know. Plus, he can't quite figure out how tackling his fears will make him brave. Surely jumping off the rope swing over the catfish pond can only lead to certain death...But maybe Frita knows what she's doing. It turns out she's got her own list, and while she's watching Gabe tackle each of his fears, she's avoiding the fear that scares her the most. With wisdom and clarity, K. L. Going explores the nature of fear in what should be an idyllic summer for two friends from different backgrounds. For them, living in a small town in Georgia with an active Ku Klux Klan, the summer of 1976 is a momentous one. About the Author K.L. Going is the award winning author of numerous books for children and teens. Her first novel, Fat Kid Rules the World was named a Michael Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association, and was included on YALSA’s Best Books for Young Adults list and their list of Best Books for the Past Decade. Her books have been Booksense picks, Scholastic Book Club choices, Junior Library Guild selections, NY Public Library Best Books for the Teenage, and winners of state book awards. They’ve been featured by Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal, Kirkus, and Children's Book Council as Best Books of the year. Her work has also been published in Korea, Italy, Japan, Germany, and the UK, and her novel Fat Kid Rules the World is soon to be an independent film! K.L. Going Author's website Lessons and Discussion Questions Nancy Keane's Booktalks -- Quick and Simple

2025Katalin Karikó, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, overcame countless obstacles to revolutionize medicine. Despite facing discrimination and skepticism, she persisted in her research on messenger RNA (mRNA). Her groundbreaking work led to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, saving millions of lives. Karikó's story is a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of pursuing scientific discovery, even in the face of adversity. < All Book Selections 2025 Empowering Humanity: Technology for a Better World Breaking Through: My Life in Science (NF) Katalin Karikó Audience: Adult Katalin Karikó, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, overcame countless obstacles to revolutionize medicine. Despite facing discrimination and skepticism, she persisted in her research on messenger RNA (mRNA). Her groundbreaking work led to the development of COVID-19 vaccines, saving millions of lives. Karikó's story is a testament to the power of perseverance and the importance of pursuing scientific discovery, even in the face of adversity. About the Author Katalin Karikó Author's website

2013Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team-his brothers-would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor's guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within-the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as "normal"? < All Book Selections 2013 Invisible Wounds of War The Long Walk Brian Castner Audience: Adult Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team-his brothers-would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor's guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within-the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as "normal"? About the Author Brian Castner served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal officer in the US Air Force from 1999 to 2007, deploying to Iraq to command bomb disposal units in Balad and Kirkuk in 2005 and 2006. After leaving the active military, he became a consultant and contractor, training Army and Marine Corps units prior to their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. His writing has appeared in a number of national and regional publications, including Publisher's Weekly, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. Brian lives outside of Buffalo, New York with his wife and four sons. The Long Walk is his first book. Brian Castner Author's website A message from Brian: "I am honored that you have selected The Long Walk for Silicon Valley Reads 2013. The public response to my book has far exceeded my expectations, and I am humbled to have created something that fosters dialogue and touches an emotional nerve. "I initially wrote The Long Walk for my children, four sons, now aged 14 to 3. I was not the father I could have been following my return from Iraq, and I needed to explain my experience - my post-war anxiety, my fears, my actions in combat that haunted me daily, my adrenaline-fueled need to run every day - to both myself and them. I needed to get down in writing, as best I could, what it feels like to come home from a war. I didn't expect a catharsis or cure, simply a record. "Since publication, I have been inundated by emails, thank you's, well wishes, letters of concern, and readers at public events who feel compelled to come up to me and share their own experience. About a brother they never welcomed home from Vietnam. About a niece serving in Afghanistan now. About a boyfriend who tried to kill himself. About a son who succeeded. Initially, I was confused. I didn't write the book to be a spokesman or an advocate, I am promoting no agenda, and I am certainly no mental health professional. I'm just a guy who told a story, and an average story at that. But understanding and gratitude has quickly replaced confusion as I've come to relearn this basic truism: stories are how we humans make sense of this world. "What higher compliment could an author receive than to know that their work helped someone else better understand their own struggles, or a husband, a neighbor, a cousin killed on his fourth tour?" -- Brian Castner REVIEW COMMENTS "At times, The Long Walk...is almost unbearable to read. Not because the writing is bad - it's often excellent. It's unbearable because of Castner's brutally vivid descriptions of the war and the way it tore apart his mind and his life.... [T]his is an important book to read for anyone who wants to get some sense of the long-term human toll of the Iraq war. How many soldiers have been damaged as Castner has? How many lives and families have been destroyed - or will be - by the effects of TBI? The Long Walk brings home in a visceral way the hidden, personal burden of war that many veterans continue to carry."-The Boston Globe "Vivid.... Castner's book intersperses stateside scenes of intense military training, off-hours hijinks and marital strife with vivid, often grisly accounts from Iraq's war-ravaged landscape, where his EOD teams disarmed improvised explosive devices, hunted for the bomb makers or cleaned up after their horrific handiwork while dodging gunfire and angry locals... [He writes] bluntly in describing how he has been changed by the war."-Wall Street Journal "Not the typical testosterone-driven account that plagues the war-memoir genre.... [Castner] gives equal, if not more, weight to the time and effort that goes into readjusting to his family life, and his straightforward, unself-conscious writing paints an absorbing picture of war in the twenty-first century.... [This] memoir forces a reader to empathize with these unrelenting psychic and emotional pressures."-Chloe Fox, www.newyorker.com "Although the stress and terror of war is tough, this memoir shows the return to civilian life presents the biggest, longest challenge.... Castner offers a brutally honest, sharply observed account of life at war.... [His] descriptions are written with a clarity that brings alive not just the stress, terror, and anxiety of disarming improvised explosive devices, but also the difficult stretches of boredom and loneliness, not to mention the glimmers of joy and brotherhood that go along with it. Even more compelling is Castner's account of just how hard it is to return to civilian life. Back in the U.S. with his wife and children, Castner struggles to keep at bay a host of troublesome emotions and reflexes-together denoted simply as "Crazy" in his telling. The Long Walk is both harrowing and poignant-an intensely personal story of what it takes not just to survive war, but also to fully leave behind the nightmare of combat and readapt to ordinary life."-The Daily Beast "Forthright, unflinching.... What makes Castner's astonishing memoir so unique is his forthright, unflinching look at postwar life. To read this veteran's story is to realize that even after returning home, a veteran's hardest battles may still lie ahead."-David Tarrant, Dallas Morning News "There are many memoirs of trauma-affected minds, and there are sure to be more coming as vets keep returning. Castner's is an opening salvo in a defensive war.... [He] maps out this new and sorrowful territory with the skill and focus of someone who has had to defuse a bomb inside his own body."-Emily Carter, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Brian Castner writes like a man on fire in a searing memoir about dismantling bombs in Iraq - and the permanent scars he's brought home.... Then and now, Brian Castner feels like a tightly coiled spring, ready to pop at any time. And his memoir...transmits this sensation with heartbreaking mastery. His book is so viscerally engaging that it's hard to read it without shaking. Castner writes with a keen mind, sharp intellect and literary flair. His powers of observation are extraordinary - just what you would expect of a man accustomed to scanning every little pile of roadway trash for evidence of a concealed bomb. At the same time, Castner writes with the desperate immediacy of a man whose skin has been burned away."-Brad Buchholz, Austin Statesman "'The first thing you should know about me is that I'm Crazy.' So begins this affecting tale of a modern war and its home-front consequences.... Scarifying stuff...[that is] absolutely worth reading."-Kirkus Reviews DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (THE LONG WALK) How does the structure of narrative serve to set the tone of the story? Do you think the non-chronological nature of the book reinforces the themes, or does it distract from them?Was Castner wrong to send his team to Baghdad to get the robots fixed without the permission of his commanding officer? Why or why not?Did you learn anything new about the types of missions conducted by US forces in Iraq? Did anything surprise you about them? Did you find any specific incident particularly disturbing, and why?There are a lot of children in THE LONG WALK, some Iraqi, and some the author's own. How does Castner's experience with one group inform the other?What does Castner learn from the Foot in the Box?In the end, what do you think caused the "Crazy feeling" in Castner? Is it unique to veterans, or are the lessons he learns applicable to a wider audience? Do you find the ending hopeful or unsettling?

2011Introduces young readers to numbers, counting, and primary and secondary colors by offering the story of ill-tempered Red who got too powerful for his own good and had to be brought down to size by One--a single entity with the courage to stand up for what was right. < All Book Selections 2011 One Kathryn Otoshi Audience: Grades K - 3 Introduces young readers to numbers, counting, and primary and secondary colors by offering the story of ill-tempered Red who got too powerful for his own good and had to be brought down to size by One--a single entity with the courage to stand up for what was right. About the Author Kathryn Otoshi is an award-winning author/illustrator, best known for her character-building number/color book series: One, Zero, and Two. She is also the co-author of Beautiful Hands, a book about possibilities and reaching your dreams. She travels across the country to encourage children to develop strong character traits and to help readers find creative methods to engage and connect with their students through the power of reading, art, and literature. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Kathryn Otoshi Author's website Listen to Kathryn Otoshi read One at the annual Project Cornerstone breakfast in 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TGaDSMAS1E

2021This book is inspired by Big History (to learn about one thing, you have to learn about everything). In The Sun is Also a Star, to understand the characters and their love story, we must know everything around them and everything that came before them that has affected who they are and what they experience. Two teens -- Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica -- cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love. < All Book Selections 2021 Connecting The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon Audience: Ages 14+ This book is inspired by Big History (to learn about one thing, you have to learn about everything). In The Sun is Also a Star, to understand the characters and their love story, we must know everything around them and everything that came before them that has affected who they are and what they experience. Two teens -- Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica -- cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love. About the Author Nicola Yoon is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Everything, Everything and The Sun Is Also a Star. She is a National Book Award finalist, a Michael L. Printz Honor Book recipient and a Coretta Scott King New Talent Award winner. Both her novels have been made into major motion pictures. Nicola grew up in Jamaica and Brooklyn, and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, novelist David Yoon, and their family. @NicolaYoon on Twitter/Instagram Nicola Yoon Author's website

2010Rabbit, a very organized animal, loves carrot soup. He spends the long winter paging through carrot catalogs (a full-page spread shows the different colors, shapes, and sizes of eight kinds of carrots). Then he plows and plants, waters and weeds, and waits. Finally it's time to harvest, but when he goes to pick the carrots, they are all gone. He frantically questions all the animals he knows, but not one admits to liking carrots. "Discouraged and disappointed, Rabbit went home," where he discovered a wonderful surprise. < All Book Selections 2010 Carrot Soup John Segal Audience: Pre-K Rabbit, a very organized animal, loves carrot soup. He spends the long winter paging through carrot catalogs (a full-page spread shows the different colors, shapes, and sizes of eight kinds of carrots). Then he plows and plants, waters and weeds, and waits. Finally it's time to harvest, but when he goes to pick the carrots, they are all gone. He frantically questions all the animals he knows, but not one admits to liking carrots. "Discouraged and disappointed, Rabbit went home," where he discovered a wonderful surprise. About the Author John Segal has illustrated many books for children, including Kenneth Grahame's The Reluctant Dragon, retold by Robert D. San Souci, and The Musicians of Bremen by Jane Yolen. His drawings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Gourmet, and Travel & Leisure, and he is an award-winning designer of greeting cards for the Museum of Modern Art. This is the first book he has both written and illustrated. John Segal Author's website

2011Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason-photographer, fiancée, soon-to-be-stepmother-looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love - all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning - and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and scientific probability - but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all - as the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope - of the choices we make and the choices made for us - The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. < All Book Selections 2011 The Year of Fog Michelle Richmond Audience: Adult Life changes in an instant. On a foggy beach. In the seconds when Abby Mason-photographer, fiancée, soon-to-be-stepmother-looks into her camera and commits her greatest error. Heartbreaking, uplifting, and beautifully told, here is the riveting tale of a family torn apart, of the search for the truth behind a child's disappearance, and of one woman's unwavering faith in the redemptive power of love - all made startlingly fresh through Michelle Richmond's incandescent sensitivity and extraordinary insight. Six-year-old Emma vanished into the thick San Francisco fog. Or into the heaving Pacific. Or somewhere just beyond: to a parking lot, a stranger's van, or a road with traffic flashing by. Devastated by guilt, haunted by her fears about becoming a stepmother, Abby refuses to believe that Emma is dead. And so she searches for clues about what happened that morning - and cannot stop the flood of memories reaching from her own childhood to illuminate that irreversible moment on the beach. Now, as the days drag into weeks, as the police lose interest and fliers fade on telephone poles, Emma's father finds solace in religion and scientific probability - but Abby can only wander the beaches and city streets, attempting to recover the past and the little girl she lost. With her life at a crossroads, she will leave San Francisco for a country thousands of miles away. And there, by the side of another sea, on a journey that has led her to another man and into a strange subculture of wanderers and surfers, Abby will make the most astounding discovery of all - as the truth of Emma's disappearance unravels with stunning force. A profoundly original novel of family, loss, and hope - of the choices we make and the choices made for us - The Year of Fog beguiles with the mysteries of time and memory even as it lays bare the deep and wondrous workings of the human heart. The result is a mesmerizing tour de force that will touch anyone who knows what it means to love a child. About the Author Michelle Richmond grew up on Alabama's Gulf Coast. She lives with her husband and young son in her adopted home, Northern California. She is the author of four books of fiction: Dream of the Blue Room, The Year of Fog, No One You Know, and the award-winning story collection The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress. Michelle has received the Hillsdale Award for Fiction from the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Associated Writing Programs Award, the James Michener Fellowship, and the Walker E. Dakin Fellowship, among others. Her stories and essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Oxford American, Salon, The Guardian, The Believer, Best American Fantasy, and many magazines and anthologies. She holds an MFA from the University of Miami and has taught in the MFA programs in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco, California College of the Arts, and St. Mary's College of Moraga. She currently serves on the Executive Council of the Authors Guild. The Year of Fog was rejected by 15 publishers before landing on the desk of a young editor at Random House. It went on to become one of Library Journal's Best Books of 2007, a selection for the Elle Prix des Lectrices, a Kirkus Reviews Top Pick for Reading Groups, a New York Times bestseller, and a San Franciso Chronicle Notable Book. It has been published in 10 languages and optioned for the big screen by Newmarket Films. Michelle Richmond Author's website READERS GUIDE 1. The Year of Fog unfolds as a series of flashbacks and present-tense scenes. How do Abby's impressions of her own past shift as she searches for Emma? What does her research on the neuroscience of memory tell us about the limits and the power of the mind's imagery?2. How much was Emma a factor in Abby's relationship with Jake? After Emma's disappearance, what did they discover about each other? Why was it awkward for Abby to see Jake turn to religion? Why was he skeptical of her insistence that Emma didn't drown but was kidnapped?3. How does Abby's eye as a photographer shape the way she sees the world around her? What does she see that others don't? What kinds of images captivate her the most? What does her approach to photography indicate about her approach to life?4. Are Ramon and Jake entirely different, or was there a common thread that attracted Abby to each of them? What keeps her from sleeping with Nick in chapter 40? What has she needed from men in general at crucial points in her life?5. How did Abby's recollections of her own mother affect her approach to being a stepmother?6. Describing the ancient history of memory studies in chapter 43, Abby mentions the concept of Renaissance "memory theaters" and later has a dream in which her memories are displayed in ways she cannot fully comprehend. If your past were to be categorized in such a way, what would it look like? Which objects would best represent various events? Which of your memories would you most like to preserve?7. Abby struggles with feelings of inadequacy, seeing herself as the sister who often botches her chances at a happier life. What accounts for the tremendous differences between her self-perception and Annabel's?8. How would you describe Lisbeth's wavering, extreme motivations? What would explain her dangerous decisions? How is she able to appear trustworthy?9. For Abby, one of the most difficult aspects of the search is the fact that she doesn't receive full respect as a key figure in Emma's life. Ultimately, how do you define "a devoted mother"? What are the best examples of good parenting in the novel? What determines whether someone has what it takes to be a good parent?10. What enabled Abby to uncover the truth while Jake could not? Was it her intuition? Determination? Hypnosis? Fate? Or simply the deep guilt she felt? What ultimately caused the fog to lift in Emma's disappearance?11. In many ways, the novel is a poignant portrait of coping with grief, in this case a very unresolved form of grief. What is the best way to confront tragedy?12. How did you attempt to solve the mystery of Emma's disappearance? Were you able to hold out hope for her survival?13. Goofy's help leads Abby to the sojourn in Costa Rica. What do both beach communities begin to mean to her? In what way does the landscape, both liberating and treacherous, form an appropriate place for her to come to terms with her greatest fears?14. What is distinct about Abby's storytelling voice? How might the novel have unfolded had it been told from Jake's point of view?15. What did the novel reveal to you about the world of missing children and their families? Did it change your perspective on the real-life cases you encounter in the media?16. As you saw Abby catch a wave in the final paragraph, what did you predict for her future?