Fiction
The Children’s Blizzard by Melanie Benjamin. The morning of January 12, 1888, was unusually mild, following a punishing cold spell. It was warm enough for the homesteaders of the Dakota Territory to venture out again, and for their children to return to school without their heavy coats—leaving them unprepared when disaster struck. At the hour when most prairie schools were letting out for the day, a terrifying, fast-moving blizzard blew in without warning. Schoolteachers as young as sixteen were suddenly faced with life and death decisions: Keep the children inside, to risk freezing to death when fuel ran out, or send them home, praying they wouldn’t get lost in the storm? Based on actual oral histories of survival.
Inspiring Non-Fiction
Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone by Brené Brown. Brown has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives--experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame, and empathy. She redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarization. With her trademark mix of research, storytelling, and honesty, Brown will again change the cultural conversation while mapping a clear path to true belonging.
Memoir
American Daughter by Stephanie Thornton Plymale with Elissa Wald. For 50 years, Stephanie Plymale, CEO of Heritage School of Interior Design, kept her past a fiercely guarded secret. No one outside her immediate family knew her childhood was fraught with every hardship: a mentally ill mother who was in and out of jails and psych wards throughout Stephanie's formative years, neglect, hunger, poverty, homelessness, truancy, foster homes, a harrowing lack of medical care, and worse. This is a moving memoir of a troubled mother-daughter relationship and a meditation on resilience, transcendence, and redemption.
Junior Fiction
Out of Time: Geronimo Stilton Journey Through Time #8 by Geronimo Stilton. Geronimo must travel through time again! The mouseum was being awarded a prize when three artifacts went missing and there is only one solution. They must go back into history to find the missing artefacts and bring them back to the present. During the mission they run into Alexander the Great, Queen Cleopatra, Sir Francis Drake and Mozart.
Junior Easy
Eyes that Kiss in the Corners by Joanna Ho, illustrated by Dung Ho. A young girl notices that her eyes look different from her friends’. They have big round eyes and long lashes. The girl realizes that her eyes kiss in the corners and glow like warm tea, crinkle into crescent moons, and are filled with stories of the past and hope for the future – in fact, here eyes are like her mother’s, her amah’s, and her little sister’s, and they are beautiful.
