Recommended Reads Books (List)

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I Can't Even Think Straight

Dean Atta

In this emotional novel in verse by the Stonewall Award-winning author of The Black Flamingo, a queer biracial teen confronts issues of race, privilege, class, and sexuality on his journey to falling in love.

Kai knows who he is to others: The good grandson, the reliable best friend, the romantic backup. But he doesn't quite know who he is to himself.

Kai wants to come out at school, but his best friend there, Matt, stays closeted for fear of getting kicked out by his conservative parents--and wants Kai to do the same. Kai unhappily agrees, but when a rumor goes around that Kai and Matt are dating, Matt starts acting differently anyway.

Kai's other best friend, Vass, is proudly nonbinary and thinks Matt is a negative influence--though maybe that's just their crush on Kai talking. Kai has always turned to writing to express his emotions, but when his on-page emotions erupt into the real world, he might just be putting the delicate balance of his life at risk.

Told with Dean Atta's signature lyricism and candor, this deeply feeling story explores the complexities of crushes, navigating identity, and coming out.

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I Can't Even Think Straight

Dean Atta

In this emotional novel in verse by the Stonewall Award-winning author of The Black Flamingo, a queer biracial teen confronts issues of race, privilege, class, and sexuality on his journey to falling in love.

Kai knows who he is to others: The good grandson, the reliable best friend, the romantic backup. But he doesn't quite know who he is to himself.

Kai wants to come out at school, but his best friend there, Matt, stays closeted for fear of getting kicked out by his conservative parents--and wants Kai to do the same. Kai unhappily agrees, but when a rumor goes around that Kai and Matt are dating, Matt starts acting differently anyway.

Kai's other best friend, Vass, is proudly nonbinary and thinks Matt is a negative influence--though maybe that's just their crush on Kai talking. Kai has always turned to writing to express his emotions, but when his on-page emotions erupt into the real world, he might just be putting the delicate balance of his life at risk.

Told with Dean Atta's signature lyricism and candor, this deeply feeling story explores the complexities of crushes, navigating identity, and coming out.

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Solo Stan

Talia Tucker

A queer YA romance about two solo concertgoers and unwitting seatmates who, when the show is abruptly cut short, embark on an unforgettable North Carolina summer night together, for fans of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist.

“These two boys will have your entire heart.”
—Sonora Reyes, , bestselling author of the National Book Award Finalist The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School 

Dakarai (Kai) Barbier was supposed to be at CYPHR’s sold-out show with his best friends. Instead, he finds himself going solo, reeling from the news that they’ve decided to accelerate the next chapter of their lives, leaving him alone the summer after high school graduation.

Meanwhile, Elias Davis has just been sent from New York City to North Carolina to live with his uncle after a last-straw fistfight. Stuck in a town he doesn’t want to be in, and without knowing a soul his own age, he buys a single ticket to CYPHR’s Raleigh show.

When a sudden blackout ends the show early, forcing these unwitting seatmates back onto the streets of Raleigh, they are faced with a choice: get on the bus and head home or take a chance on each other.

They might have arrived alone, but will they be leaving together?

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Ollie In Between

Jess Callans

AN INDIE’S INTRODUCE PICK!

In this modern take on Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, debut writer Jess Callans delivers a tender, queer coming of age story about finding your voice and choosing to live authentically, even when it’s easier to blend in. 

Puberty, AKA the ultimate biological predator, is driving a wedge between soon-to-be 13 year old Ollie Thompson and their lifelong friends. Too much of a girl for their neighborhood hockey team, but not girly enough for their boy-crazed BFF, Ollie doesn’t know where they fit. And their usual ability to camouflage? Woefully disrupted by all the changes around them.

When a school project asks them to write an essay on what it means to be a woman (if anyone’s got an answer, that’d be great), and one of their new friends is the target of bullying, Ollie is caught between the safety of fleeing from their own differences or confronting the risks of fighting to take their own path forward.

Praise for Ollie In Between:

“...An empathetic exploration of identity that will resonate with young readers carving out their own definition of self. Infused with equal amounts serious, topical conversation, and gently humorous observation, Ollie in Between is a middle grade classic in the making. ” —A. J. Sass, award-winning author of Ellen Outside the Lines and Ana on the Edge

"Debut author Callans’ confiding tone leans into Ollie’s flummoxed first-person ruminations with rhetorical questions that probe moments of deep vulnerability and hope . . . . Clear echoes of Judy Blume couple with themes of social adaptation that rely a bit heavily on analogies to the animal kingdom, but a range of readers should relate to Ollie’s sense of otherness. As Ollie puts it, 'Being yourself can hurt,' but awkward and self-aware stories like Ollie’s can help more tweens 'just be.' "
-- Booklist, starred review

“As endearing as it is hilarious, Ollie in Between is Jess Callans’ laugh-out-loud debut about surviving the chaos of growing up and finding the courage to speak up for others, and, most importantly, yourself. This tender, queer coming-of-age tale shows how sometimes the only way to survive is to embrace your weird and choose your own path.”
--Aiden Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of Cemetery Boys

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Let Them Stare

Jonathan Van Ness

From Emmy Award winner Jonathan Van Ness of Queer Eye and #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy comes a bighearted story about friendship, love--and discovering the secrets and beauty of your own hometown.

Sully is ready to get out of Hearst, Pennsylvania. With a fashion internship secured, the gender-nonconforming eighteen-year-old is trading in their stifling small town for the big city. Sully even sells their beloved car, to Bread--er, Brad--the most boring (and maybe only other) gay kid in town.

When Sully's internship goes up in smoke, they're trapped in Hearst with no cash--and no car. Desperate, they go to the thrift store, their personal sanctuary. There, they discover a vintage bag--like "put this baby in an airtight case at the MET" vintage. If Sully can authenticate it, the resale value would be enough for a new life in the city.

But when they begin to investigate, Sully finds themself haunted. Literally. With the ghost of Rufus, a drag performer from the fifties with no memory of how he died standing--no, floating--in their bedroom, Sully's summer has a new purpose: 1) help this ghostly honey unlock his past and move on and 2) make bank--after all, the Real Real doesn't take poltergeist purses.

With Rufus in tow, and Brad--who's looking pretty scrumptious these days--playing chauffeur, Sully delves into the history of the town they're so desperate to escape. Only to discover that there might be more to Hearst than they ever knew.

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Athlete Is Agender

Katherine Locke

Athlete is agender. Athlete can mean anyone. "Part memoir, part manifesto" (Booklist) this book revels in the achievements of strong, passionate, and determined LGBTQ+ athletes across every age, level, and field of sports.

Find your strength in: Adam Rippon's unbelievable journey from figure-skating Olympic alternate to the first openly gay Olympic medalist in his sport; CeCé Telfer's career as a trans track star and her unwavering commitment to run for the future freedom of trans athletes; em dickson's relationship to eir gender identity and how sailing, a sport that doesn't categorize athletes by gender, helped em embrace eir power and identity, and many other invaluable true stories. Featuring testimonies by world-class athletes and award-winning children's book authors, as well as profiles on culture-defining figures like Megan Rapinoe and Billie Jean King, Athlete Is Agender is a lifesaving book not to be missed.

This book is for: 
- LGBTQIA+ kids, teens, tweens, and adults 
- Athletes and sports fans 
- Readers looking to learn more about the LGBTQIA+ community 
- Parents of gay kids and other LGBTQIA+ youth 
- Educators looking for advice about the LGBTQIA+ community 
TITLE IX UPDATE 
Laws are constantly being debated, repealed, and fought for. On January 9th, 2025, a federal court in Kentucky argued that transgender and nonbinary students should not be covered by Title IX protections, rolling back the 2021 order from then-Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona. Right now, schools are currently required to follow the old version of Title IX, which does not include a section on transgender athletes. It's up to us to keep pushing to get those protections back for transgender students. For transgender athletes reading this, the most powerful thing you can do is to be true to yourself, stay informed, and be sure to vote in every election you are eligible for.

A Junior Library Guild Selection

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Sandwich

Catherine Newman

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family's yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and--thanks to the cottage's ancient plumbing--septic too.

This year's vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past--except, perhaps, for Rocky's hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing--her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family's history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.

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A Happier Life

Kristy Woodson Harvey

The historic houses in the seaside town of Beaufort, North Carolina, have held the secrets of their inhabitants for centuries. One of the most enduring refuses to be washed away by the tide: What happened to Rebecca and Townsend Saint James on that fateful night of their disappearance in 1976?

Now, the granddaughter they never knew, Keaton Smith, is desperate for a fresh start. So when her mother needs someone to put her childhood home in Beaufort on the market, she jumps at the chance to head south. But the moment she steps foot inside the abandoned house, which has been closed for nearly fifty years, she wonders if she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Wading through the detritus of her grandparents’ lives, Keaton finds herself enchanted by their southern traditions—and their great, big love. As she gets to know her charming next-door neighbor, his precocious ten-year-old son, and a flock of endearingly feisty town busybodies, Keaton begins to wonder if the stories she has been told about her grandparents are true. 

Keaton’s grandmother, Rebecca “Becks” Saint James’s annual summer suppers are the stuff of legend, and locals and out-of-towners alike clamor for an invitation to her stunning historic home. But, in the summer of 1976, she’s struggling behind the facade of the woman who can do it all—and facing a problem that even she can’t solve.

As Keaton and Becks face new challenges and chapters, they are connected through time by the house on Sunset Lane, which has protected the secrets, hopes, and dreams of their family for generations.

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Just for the Summer

Abby Jimenez

Justin has a curse, and thanks to a Reddit thread, it's now all over the internet. Every woman he dates goes on to find their soul mate the second they break up. When a woman slides into his DMs with the same problem, they come up with a plan: They'll date each other and break up. Their curses will cancel each other's out, and they'll both go on to find the love of their lives. It's a bonkers idea... and it just might work.

Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?

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Summer Romance

Annabel Monaghan

Benefits of a summer romance: It’s always fun, always brief, and no one gets their heart broken.

Ali Morris is a professional organizer whose own life is a mess. Her mom died two years ago, then her husband left, and she hasn’t worn pants with a zipper in longer than she cares to remember.

No one is more surprised than Ali when the first time she takes off her wedding ring and puts on pants with hardware—overalls count, right?—she meets someone. Or rather, her dog claims a man for her...by peeing on him. Ethan smiles at Ali like her pants are just right—like he likes what he sees. He looks at her like she’s a younger, braver version of herself. The last thing newly single mom Ali needs is to make her life messier, but there’s no harm in a little summer romance. Is there?

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My Best Friend's Honeymoon

Meryl Wilsner

Elsie Hoffman has been engaged to her college boyfriend for a year and a half. Ginny Holtz has been in love with Elsie for almost a decade and a half.

When Elsie discovers her fiancé already planned their wedding and honeymoon as a surprise and she’s expected to be in a white dress in seven days, she swiftly realizes she’s let herself become too comfortable with a future she never wanted. She breaks things off, and a week later is on a plane to the Caribbean for her non-refundable honeymoon with her best friend Ginny instead.

Ginny thinks it’s high time Elsie learned how to speak up for herself. So, they make a deal with her. For the next week, Elsie can have whatever she wants, wherever, however, and whenever she wants it, as long as she asks. They never expected Elsie to want them.

What starts as choosing activities and taking selfies soon turns to toe-curling kisses and much, much more. But what happens when the honeymoon is over?

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A Novel Summer

Jamie Brenner

Author Shelby Archer found inspiration for her first novel while living on the picturesque shores of Provincetown on Cape Cod. When she comes to the town to celebrate her new bestseller, she is expecting a warm homecoming. But instead she is confronted with the cold shoulders of friends and neighbors who feel exposed and betrayed.

Heartbroken, Shelby tries to move on and focus on her next novel. But then an unexpected call comes: her dear friend who owns the beloved Land's End bookshop needs help for the summer. Shelby reluctantly returns to the Cape to manage the store.

Back at the beach, Shelby sets her focus on the tiny seaside shop, getting lost in the shelves of steamy romance novels and dusty classics and trying to right the wrongs of her past. With every page turned and every customer served, Shelby comes closer to gaining back the trust of those she hurt. But as her manuscript deadline nears, she is again forced to choose between her own success and a second chance at love and belonging.

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The Guncle Abroad

Steven Rowley

Patrick O’Hara is back. It’s been five years since his summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sit-com comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world . . . professionally. But some things have had to take a back seat. Looking down both barrels at fifty, Patrick is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to again lean on him.

When Patrick's brother, Greg, announces he’s getting remarried in Italy, Maisie and Grant are not thrilled. Patrick feels drawn to take the two back under his wing. As they travel through Europe on their way to the wedding, Patrick tries his best to help them understand love, much as he once helped them comprehend grief. But when they arrive in Italy, Patrick is overextended managing a groom with cold feet; his sister, Clara, flirting with guests left and right; a growing rivalry with the kids’ charming soon-to-be-launt (lesbian aunt), and two moody young teens trying to adjust to a new normal, all culminating in a disastrous rehearsal dinner.

Can Patrick save the day? Will teaching the kids about love help him repair his own love life? Can the change of scenery help Patrick come to terms with finally growing up? Gracing the page with his signature blend of humor and heart, Steven Rowley charms with a beloved story about the complicated bonds of family, love, and what it takes to rediscover yourself, even at the ripe age of fifty.

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The Next Mrs. Parrish

Liv Constantine

Amber Patterson Parrish has come a long way. Hard work and immaculate planning turned her from invisible wallflower to prominent socialite, though there have been bumps along the way. Less than a year after her husband Jackson’s tax-evasion scandal, Amber reigns supreme over the Bishops Harbor community. But with Jackson being released from prison, Amber’s free time—and money—is vanishing.

Meanwhile, Daphne Parrish left Bishops Harbor after her divorce from Jackson, swearing she would never go back. But when one of her daughters runs away from home, desperate to see her father, Daphne agrees to return for the summer for their daughters’ sake. Jackson swears he’s a changed man, but Daphne knows all too well that he can’t be trusted.

When a ghost from Amber’s past emerges looking for revenge, these three figures find unlikely allies in one another. But who is playing who? When all is said and done, they’ll have to fight tooth and nail for everything they have left in this zero-sum game.

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My Friends

Fredrik Backman

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.

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Black in Blues

Imani Perry

Throughout history, the concept of Blackness has been remarkably intertwined with another color: blue. In daily life, it is evoked in countless ways. Blue skies and blue water offer hope for that which lies beyond the current conditions. But blue is also the color of deep melancholy and heartache, echoing Louis Armstrong's question, "What did I do to be so Black and blue?" In this book, celebrated author Imani Perry uses the world's favorite color as a springboard for a riveting emotional, cultural, and spiritual journey--an examination of race and Blackness that transcends politics or ideology.

Perry traces both blue and Blackness from their earliest roots to their many embodiments of contemporary culture, drawing deeply from her own life as well as art and history: The dyed indigo cloths of West Africa that were traded for human life in the 16thcentury. The mixture of awe and aversion in the old-fashioned characterization of dark-skinned people as "Blue Black." The fundamentally American art form of blues music, sitting at the crossroads of pain and pleasure. The blue flowers Perry plants to honor a loved one gone too soon.

Poignant, spellbinding, and utterly original, Black in Blues is a brilliant new work that could only have come from the mind of one of our greatest writers and thinkers. Attuned to the harrowing and the sublime aspects of the human experience, it is every bit as vivid, rich, and striking as blue itself.

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Single Player

Tara Tai

Cat Li cares about two things: video games and swoony romances. The former means there hasn't been much of the latter in her (real) life, but when she lands her dream job writing the love storylines for Compass Hollow - the next big thing in games - she knows it’s all been worth it. Then she meets her boss: the infamous Andi Zhang, who’s not only an arrogant hater of happily-ever-afters determined to keep Cat from doing her job but also impossibly, annoyingly hot.

As Compass Hollow’s narrative director, Andi couldn’t care less about love - in-game or out. After getting doxxed by internet trolls three years ago, Andi’s been trying to prove to the gaming world that they’re a serious gamedev. Their plan includes writing the best game possible, with zero lovey-dovey stuff. That is, until the man funding the game’s development insists Andi add romance in order to make the story “more appealing to female gamers.”

Forced to give Cat a chance, Andi begrudgingly realizes there’s more to Cat than romantic idealism and, okay, a cute smile. But admitting that would mean giving up the single-player life that has kept their heart safe for years. And when Cat uncovers a behind-the-scenes plot to destroy Andi’s career, the two will have to put their differences aside and find a way to work together before it’s game over.

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Lady Eve's Last Con

Rebecca Fraimow

Ruth Johnson and her sister Jules have been small-time hustlers on the interstellar cruise lines for years. But then Jules fell in love with one of their targets, Esteban Mendez-Yuki, sole heir to the family insurance fortune. Esteban seemed to love her too, until she told him who she really was, at which point he fled without a word.

Now Ruth is set on revenge: disguised as provincial debutante Evelyn Ojukwu and set for the swanky satellite New Monte, she’s going to make Esteban fall in love with her, then break his heart and take half his fortune. At least, that's the plan. But Ruth hadn't accounted for his older sister, Sol, a brilliant mind in a dashing suit... and much harder to fool.

Sol is hot on Ruth's tail, and as the two women learn each other’s tricks, Ruth must decide between going after the money and going after her heart.

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The Hymn to Dionysus

Natasha Pulley

A timely reimagining of the story of Dionysus - Greek god of ecstasy, revelry, and ruin-and a captivating queer love story for readers of The Song of Achilles and Elektra.

Raised in a Greek legion, Phaidros has been taught to follow his commander's orders at all costs. But when Phaidros rescues a baby from a fire at Thebes's palace, his commander's orders cease to make sense: Phaidros is forced to abandon the blue-eyed boy at a temple, and to keep the baby's existence a total secret.

Years later, struggling with panic attacks and flashbacks, Phaidros is enlisted by the Queen to find her son, Thebes' young crown prince, who has vanished to escape an arranged marriage. The search leads him to a blue-eyed witch named Dionysus, whose guidance is as wise as the events that surround him are strange. In Dionysus's company, Phaidros witnesses sudden outbursts of riots and unrest, and everywhere Dionysus goes, rumors follow about a new god, one sired by Zeus but lost in a fire.

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The Keeper of Lonely Spirits

E. M. Anderson

Find an angry spirit. Send it on its way before it causes trouble. Leave before anyone learns his name.

After over two hundred years, Peter Shaughnessy is ready to die and end this cycle. But thanks to a youthful encounter with one o’ them folk in his native Ireland, he can’t. Instead, he’s cursed to wander eternally far from home, with the ability to see ghosts and talk to plants.

Immortality means Peter has lost everyone he’s ever loved. And so he centers his life on the dead—until his wandering brings him to Harrington, Ohio. As he searches for a vengeful spirit, Peter’s drawn into the townsfolk’s lives, homes and troubles. For the first time in over a century, he wants something other than death.

But the people of Harrington will die someday. And he won’t.

As Harrington buckles under the weight of the supernatural, the ghost hunt pits Peter’s well-being against that of his new friends and the man he’s falling for. If he stays, he risks heartbreak. If he leaves, he risks their lives.

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The Duke Steals Hearts & Other Body Parts

Elias Cold

A trans teen who steals and ransoms body parts with magic investigates a string of missing girls—falling in love with one of them from afar.

Wielding a magic that allows him to pop off limbs, con artist Phyllis steals body parts and his partner Lucent ransoms them. Everyone who knows about Phyllis’s magic is afraid of him—except for Lucent. But his partner’s love comes with one condition: Phyllis must keep stealing. But when a mark can’t afford ransom for his missing nose, Phyllis loses his resolve. The man claims his sister, Adeline, was taken, and without her money he can’t pay until she’s found. 

Intrigued, Phyllis investigates Adeline’s disappearance, but she is not the only missing girl in their seedy city. To gain answers from the nobility, Phyllis masquerades as a duke—Lord Phillip of Rabbiton—and begins to fall in love with both stories of Adeline and the man he’s becoming to try and find her. Soon, he’s not sure he ever wants to return to Lucent and their life of crime together.

When he finally finds Adeline with another missing girl, it turns out they’re not dead—but undead.

To win Adeline’s heart and break from his toxic past, Phillip will have to scheme to keep his title and master his evolving magic.

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These Vengeful Gods

Gabe Cole Novoa

ALL GODS MUST DIE in this searingly relevant YA dystopian from award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Bargain and Most Ardently. In a world bound by violence, a teen descended from the god of Death must keep their true identity a secret as they fight their way through a gladiator-style competition towards victory and rebellion against the gods who murdered their family.

Years ago, the descendants of the god of Death were murdered. The few that remain are in hiding, including Crow, a teen who survived the genocide and hides their magic to stay alive. After fleeing their village, Crow now lives with their uncles in the lowest part of the city: the Shallows.

Life in the Shallows is tough, but Crow’s even tougher. Hiding their magic has made Crow resourceful, cunning, and unbeatable -- which comes in handy as a fighter in the city's lucrative underground fighting ring.

Then, Crow's uncles are arrested for harboring Deathchildren. 

With fists tightly clenched, Crow vows to set their uncles free. But to do that, they’re going to need to enter a world that threatens Crow’s very existence. Carefully navigating the politics of the wealthy and powerful, they enter the Tournament of the Gods -- a gladiator-style competition where the winner is granted a favor. As they battle their way towards the winner’s circle, Crow plans to ask the gods for their uncles’ freedom as their reward.

But in a city of gods and magic, you don’t ask for what you want.

You take it.

Action. Adventure. Romance. Find it all in Gabe Cole Novoa's novels:
 

  • The Wicked Bargain
  • The Diablo's Curse
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Leviathan Volume 1

Shiro Kuroi

In the depths of space, a group of students is pitted against each other in a brutal battle for survival--a gripping sci-fi survival horror from rising star manga artist Shiro Kuroi perfect for fans of Battle Royale and Attack on Titan

Monster or human . . . What sleeps deep in the darkness?

The Leviathan, an enormous spaceship, drifts in spaces, abandoned in a galaxy far, far away. When looters break into the abandoned ship, they discover the diary of a middle-schooler, Kazuma, who documented the horrific fate of its passengers. Shocked, the looters read on, but as they do, they reach a chilling realization--there is still one survivor somewhere inside!

Along with the looters, the reader will piece together the decades-old tale of an innocent school trip to Earth with a tragic and brutal ending, as sudden explosions destroy the hull of the Leviathan. Trapped in space without enough oxygen left to wait for rescue, Kazuma documents the mental collapse and treachery of his teacher and classmates as they realize that the only hope for survival is the cryopreservation unit at the heart of the ship . . . which can only fit one person. A bloody battle for survival ensues as friend turns against friend, teacher against student, and each survivor is forced to confront the value of their own life.

Is it possible to keep one's humanity when lost in the darkness of space? And moreover, what kind of survivor of that vicious struggle do looters find themselves alone with, decades after the dust has settled?

One of the top bestselling new manga titles in Japan, Leviathan's incredible, brutal illustrations and tightly paced plot will leave readers at the edge of their seats, and linger in their minds long after the last page of each volume. Perfect for fans of Moebius, Star Wars, and Katsuhiro Otomo, Leviathan is sure to be an instant hit.

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I Feel Awful, Thanks

Lara Pickle

2025 Alex Award Winner

"Written from the heart and personal experience, Pickle’s debut is a compelling effort to help young adults feel seen through an imaginative delve into familiar psychological challenges." —Library Journal

"[T]he charming art and worldbuilding bolster the reassuring message that 'it’s okay to not be okay.' Readers will be won over." —Publishers Weekly

A lushly illustrated debut graphic novel that explores the hardfought journey of self-acceptance in a complex world of swirling emotions and powerful potions.

Joana has dragons inside her. Can she tame them before they burn her life down?

Joana is a young witch who secured her dream job with a coven in London, her favorite city, where she can dedicate herself to creating potions, her favorite activity! However, she will soon discover the reality of city life is not so idyllic. Finding a flat is an ordeal, her “dream job” is stressful, and she’s totally alone. Little by little, she makes her place, but fatigue, sadness, and doubts threaten to topple her hard-earned success . . . until she starts talking to a professional who helps her realize in order to take care of herself, she must know herself.

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A Song for You and I

K. O'Neill

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Being a ranger means adventure, action, and protecting the weak. But who protects the ranger when they lose their way? From the bestselling author of The Moth Keeper and the Tea Dragon Society comes a must read MG graphic novel for fans of soft sweeping fantasy romances.

Rowan knows exactly what they want: to be a ranger, protecting their village alongside their trusted flying horse Kes. But when Rowan's eagerness to show off their worth gets Kes injured, Rowan is suddenly unsure if they're capable of being the protector they've always dreamed of becoming. 

With Kes needing to heal, Rowan is assigned a slow and winding expedition across the outlying lands. Paired with a lackadasical sheep hearder Leone, Rowan only finds frustration as they seem to fail even the simplest tasks. But Leone's own struggles, and endless support brings a new possibility to Rowan. Could their unlikely friendship be something more? And if it is, will Rowan be able to leave Leone behind to pursue being a ranger once Kes is healed?

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Star Wars: The High Republic: The Edge of Balance—Premonition

Daniel José Older

A massive, interconnected cross-publisher initiative focused on an all-new era of Star Wars storytelling.

The galaxy has been plunged into darkness as the fearsome Nihil continue their destructive advance from the Outer Rim!

As brave Jedi Knights fight to protect the Jedi Temple on Banchii in the battle against the Nihil, Jedi Master Yoda must find a way to protect the younglings who call the planet home. But the fearsome Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil, has other plans for the Jedi Master, as he unleashes his most terrifying weapon against the champions of justice yet…

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ZomCom'ics

Emi Mena Garrucho

Zom is just your average everyday zombie girl. Enjoy Zom's daily adventures and slice-of-life stories with her spooky roommates and friends in this wordless popular Webtoon turned graphic novel, ZomCom'ics.

ZomCom'ics is a laugh-out-loud, wordless comic collection that follows the everyday adventures of Zom, a zombie girl; Ari, resident vampire; and Theo, loveable werewolf.

Zom and her fantastical friends navigate everything from dating to beach trips to roommate spats in a colorful, engaging world full of ghouls, skeletons, and ghosts. This silent graphic novel takes full advantage of the illustrated format and shows the hearts (literally, in some cases) at the core of even the spookiest monsters. It's great for anyone who likes spooky, funny, and relatable stories.

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Clown in a Cornfield Movie Tie-In Edition

Adam Cesare

Read it before you see it! Now a major motion picture from the teams behind Smile and Tucker & Dale vs. Evil.

In Adam Cesare's terrifying young adult debut, Quinn Maybrook finds herself caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress--that just may cost her life.

Quinn Maybrook and her father have moved to tiny, boring Kettle Springs, to find a fresh start. But what they don't know is that ever since the Baypen Corn Syrup Factory shut down, Kettle Springs has cracked in half.

On one side are the adults, who are desperate to make Kettle Springs great again, and on the other are the kids, who want to have fun, make prank videos, and get out of Kettle Springs as quick as they can.

Kettle Springs is caught in a battle between old and new, tradition and progress. It's a fight that looks like it will destroy the town. Until Frendo, the Baypen mascot, a creepy clown in a pork-pie hat, goes homicidal and decides that the only way for Kettle Springs to grow back is to cull the rotten crop of kids who live there now.

Don't miss this Bram Stoker Award-winning novel from rising star Adam Cesare.

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Maya in Multicolor

Swati Teerdhala

Fans of When Dimple Met Rishi will love this charming, slow-burn YA romance about all the ways you can honor tradition while still giving it a modern flair.

When it comes to romance, Maya still believes in meet-cutes, but she's done with boys wasting her time. After her freshman romance refuses to put a label on their relationship, Maya decides to reclaim her life and completely turnaround her college experience. She's got big plans to throw the most spectacular Holi-a colorful Hindu festival symbolizing rebirth, which Maya feels she desperately needs.

Enter college heartthrob Nishant Rai, an upperclassman, notorious playboy, and well-connected DJ. After the student council makes him Maya's co-planner, she finds herself working closely with the one guy on campus she can't have and definitely doesn't want. He plans to turn the event into #HoliFest, a flashy EDM festival blending old traditions with the fresh new twist of a music festival. As the two grow closer, Maya realizes Nishant is so much more than a pretty face. Is he just wasting her time, or has she finally found her meet-cute?

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They Bloom at Night

Trang Thanh Tran

The author of the New York Times bestselling horror phenomenon She Is a Haunting is back with a novel about the monsters that swim beneath us . . . and live within us.

Since the hurricane, the town of Mercy, Louisiana has been overtaken by a strange red algae bloom. Noon and her mother have carved out a life in the wreckage, trawling for the mutated wildlife that lurks in the water and trading it to the corrupt harbormaster. When she's focused on survival, Noon doesn't have to cope with what happened to her at the Cove or the monster itching at her skin.

Mercy has never been a safe place, but it's getting worse. People are disappearing, and the only clues as to why are whispers of underwater shadows and warnings to never answer the knocks at night. When the harbormaster demands she capture the creature that's been drowning residents, Noon finds a reluctant ally in his daughter Covey. And as the next storm approaches, the two set off to find what's haunting Mercy. After all, Noon is no stranger to monsters . . .

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His Face Is the Sun

Michelle Jabès Corpora

A new reign is coming...Romance, magic, adventure, and horror collide in the start to this lush, epic, Ancient Egyptian inspired trilogy perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sarah J. Maas.

Princess. Priestess. Rebel. Thief.

Tensions run as hot as the Khamsin winds in the great kingdom of Khetara. Rumors of the pharaoh's mysterious illness abound, and with them, murmurs of rebellion grow. Meanwhile, in the quiet desert, a forgotten oracle begins to unfold, setting a dark prophecy into action and drawing together four strangers...

Princess SITA lives in the abundance of the palace, and in a moment of passion, she unmasks a betrayal that will put her life--and the entire royal court--in grave danger.

A priestess-in-training, NEFF strives to understand her intense visions from the gods, except theirs is not the only magic at play in the grand temple.

As a farmer's daughter, RAE knows how much the pharaoh's men have taken from her land, her people. Still, who will step forward to confront the king?

KARIM was raised among the pyramids of the Red Lands and survives on the wealth of the dead as a tomb robber. But amid the spoils, an ancient evil awakens...

Bloodshed is coming. Only together do these four have the potential to save the kingdom from destruction. But when the dust has settled, who will sit on the throne of Khetara?

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The Lost Queen

Aimee Phan

“Lyrical, magical, and haunting.”—Marie Lu, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A heroine like no other, ancient magic unleashed, a fated epic battle--the first book in an enchanting YA fantasy duology inspired by Vietnamese lore, weaving magic, sisterhood, and self-discovery.

Jolie Lam, a high school sophomore in San Jose, is known for two things: her bizarre freakout at last year’s swim meet and her fortuneteller grandfather with visions of dragons and earthquakes. Friendless and ostracized, Jolie's life takes a dramatic turn for the better when she saves the school's it-girl, Huong Pham, during a haunting vision of her own. Taken under Huong's wing, Jolie's world transforms, in more ways than one.


As Jolie and Huong's bond deepens, they unlock long lost powers: telepathic abilities, fluency in Vietnamese, and eerie premonitions. This leads them to a shocking revelation: they have ties to legendary queens and goddesses of ancient Vietnam. While a thrilling discovery, it also sets them on a perilous journey.

The girls must navigate dreams and portals to piece together their past lives and reclaim their immortal elements before their ancient enemies strike again. But all is not what it seems, and Jolie must determine friend from foe, truth from lie, and ultimately right from wrong in this battle for all she loves and the fate of the world.

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Isola

Allegra Goodman

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. Then she is orphaned, and her guardian - an enigmatic and volatile man - spends her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. That journey takes a unexpected turn when Marguerite, accused of betrayal, is brutally punished and abandoned on a small island.

Once a child of privilege who dressed in gowns and laced pearls in her hair, Marguerite finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather turns, blanketing the island in ice, she discovers a faith she’d never before needed.

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Long Island Compromise

Taffy Brodesser-Akner

“Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?”

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives’ successes and failures.

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The Friend

Sigrid Nunez

When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

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A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch Vol. 1

Hiro Kashiwaba

A sweet tale starring a gigantic cat who's summoned to a fantasy world by a lonely, elderly witch.

In her youth, Jeanne was a powerful witch who vanquished the evil Demon King and saved the world - but over time, the people she rescued have forgotten her. Now she is a lonely old woman living in a secluded forest...until she accidentally summons a cat from Earth to her home! The former city kitty is now gigantic and must acclimate to this new world. Can a cat from another world soothe the loneliness of the forgotten witch?

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Dog Days

Wendy Corsi Staub

After attending a family wedding in Chicago, young widow Bella Jordan is returning to the guesthouse she runs in Lily Dale - the quirky upstate New York lakeside village famous for its spiritual mediums - when she catches a glimpse of the impossible at the airport: her late husband Sam.

A former science teacher, Bella is grounded in facts and logic. She doesn't believe in ghosts. But even when she's back home with the competing distractions of her quirky guests, small son Max, resident pet cats and a very unexpected litter of puppies, Bella can't find a good explanation for what she's seen.

The situation gets even stranger when her psychic friend Odelia tells her that she made contact with Sam's spirit and he shared a significant name: Kevin . . . Bacon!

Bella doesn't know what to think, but when she glimpses Sam again and things start to vanish around her, she knows she has to get to the bottom of the strange happenings - even if that means letting go for good.

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Cat + Gamer Volume 1

Wataru Nadatani

Riko, a twenty-nine-year-old office worker with an obsession for video games, finds her quiet life upended when she takes in a stray cat in this adorable manga series!

Her coworkers can’t quite figure her out - she never talks about her personal life, she never works overtime, and she never joins them for happy hour. Is she antisocial? Nope, she’s rushing home to play video games! One day, a stray cat is found in the office parking lot, and before Riko knows it, the cat has moved in with her! Having no experience with pets, Riko uses lessons drawn from video games to guide her in cat care, while her cute companion tries to understand her behavior through a cat's worldview.

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Kafka on the Shore

Haruki Murakami

Here we meet fifteen-year-old runaway Kafka Tamura and the elderly Nakata, who is drawn to Kafka for reasons that he cannot fathom. As their paths converge, acclaimed author Haruki Murakami enfolds readers in a world where cats talk, fish fall from the sky, and spirits slip out of their bodies to make love or commit murder, in what is a truly remarkable journey.

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Healing the Modern Brain

Drew Ramsey

The human brain - the complex organ responsible for our thoughts, feelings, and actions - has long been misunderstood. Dr. Drew Ramsey argues that to heal our brains, we must start considering conditions like depression, anxiety, ADHD and addiction - and the patients living with them - more holistically.

Healing the Modern Brain offers a new approach to revitalizing and protecting mental health and achieving Mental Fitness. Simply defined, Mental Fitness is the knowledge, patterns, habits, and skills that culminate in a more mentally healthy life: an approach to living that takes into consideration the unrealistic demands of modern living, time, choice, genetics, lifestyle, diet, habits, chemistry, movement, rest, and mindset. It is a process that will put your brain in a perpetual state of self-repair and evolution, and ensure it has the support it needs to overcome daily stress, decision-fatigue, and uncertainty.

Clear and straightforward, Healing the Modern Brain provides the knowledge and tools needed to nurture Mental Fitness - bringing together the latest scientific research with results from Dr. Ramsey's clinical practice to show us how we can put ourselves on the road to healing anxiety and depression, and better care for our miraculous, modern brains.

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The Black Woman's Guide to Coping with Stress

Cheryl L. Woods Giscombé

As a Black woman, do you often feel an intense pressure to do it all? To be a kind of "superwoman" who never lets others down? Do you feel compelled to hide your own emotions for fear of being vulnerable or appearing weak? If so, you are not alone. Our culture tells us in many ways that Black women must be strong and unwavering for their community, family, friends, and partners. But at what cost? If you're feeling the effects of stress and burnout, this book can help you find balance.

In The Black Woman's Guide to Coping with Stress, Black psychologist and registered nurse Cheryl Woods Giscombe introduces the innovative, research-based superwoman schema (SWS) framework - five core beliefs that drive Black women's stress - and provides self-care practices grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion to help you live a life of joy and greater well-being.

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Reach Out

Jill C. Wheeler

People experience mental health crises for a multitude of reasons. This book explores what people can do to help others get through such a crisis - including coming up with a crisis plan, offering resources to get professional help, and simply reaching out to those in need.

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You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers

Christine M. Crawford

A growing number of children and teens in the U.S. are struggling with mental health conditions, but parents, teachers, and other caregivers are often at a loss when concerns arise for their own child. Are your preschooler's constant tantrums typical for their age, or an indication of a developmental difficulty? Is puberty or depression to blame for your pre-teen's challenging behavior? Is my child in the wrong school, or being influenced by the wrong friends? Am I a bad parent or teacher, or am I overreacting? What exactly should I do?

In You Are Not Alone for Parents and Caregivers, child psychiatrist and NAMI's Associate Medical Director Dr. Christine M. Crawford provides a comprehensive, compassionate, and practical resource for anyone concerned about a child's mental health. Drawing on her own clinical experience and guidance from leading experts, Dr. Crawford provides a lens through which to understand the many complex factors affecting children's mental health. Analyzing young people from preschool to high school, she shares insights into how mental health conditions may manifest at different ages, what kind of interventions may be necessary, and what to do to help kids thrive. Throughout, the book channels the collective wisdom of the NAMI community. Parents, caregivers, and young people themselves share personal stories about their paths to recovery, ensuring readers know that they are not alone.

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Your Pocket Therapist

Annie Zimmerman

Every day, psychotherapist Dr. Annie Zimmerman meets clients in her private London practice who are struggling with their lives. They're committed to achieving personal growth, making changes - but they're struck at the question stage. They ask her: Why can't I sleep? Why do I keep going back to a bad relationship? Why did I lose my temper? What is wrong with me?

Here's the thing: nothing is wrong with them. It's just that they're asking themselves the wrong questions.

In Your Pocket Therapist, Dr. Zimmerman helps readers delve into their past to identify old, unhelpful patterns and teach them how to unlock the present. The book combines practical tools with anecdotes gleaned from the therapy room, distilling complex psychological concepts with her signature warmth and empathy. Her belief - galvanized by her hundreds of thousands of followers - is that if we learn to understand the roots of our suffering, we can bring about meaningful - and permanent - change in our lives. It comes down to learning how to ask the right questions.

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Reclaiming the Black Body

Alishia McCullough

Licensed mental health therapist, somatic healer, and eating disorder specialist Alishia McCullough understands that for far too many Black women, racial trauma’s seismic impact has disrupted their most essential relationship: the one they have with their bodies - and by extension, with their food. African Americans are disproportionately impacted by disordered eating behaviors, yet their experiences are frequently neglected by doctors and mental health experts. As a result, our most vulnerable communities are forced to navigate systems primed to dismiss their needs, leaving them without proper care, or often even the language they need to identify what’s wrong.

McCullough’s groundbreaking work radically validates the lived experiences and generational traumas of BIPOC communities. As part of a steadily growing movement among clinicians to “decolonize therapy,” her deeply affirming approach seeks to understand disordered eating patterns by examining the psychological wounds left by centuries of racism.

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Your Child's Mental Health Diagnosis

Jacqueline Corcoran

The prevalence of mental health disorders in children is rising in the United States. In fact, recent studies estimate that one in six children ages six to seventeen have a mental health disorder.

Your Child's Mental Health Diagnosis: A Comprehensive and Compassionate Guide for Parents is a valuable resource for parents who have a child diagnosed with a mental health disorder or who are concerned about their child's emotional well-being. Jacqueline Corcoran, an academic and clinical expert with personal experience on the subject, draws back the curtain on how diagnoses are determined in the U.S., the limits of labels, and how labels can help. Then, organized by common mental health disorders, Corcoran provides comprehensive information about each condition's symptoms, frequently co-occurring disorders, contributory factors, evidence-based treatments, medication options, working with your child's school, and insight from parents' own experiences.

Your Child's Mental Health Diagnosis also addresses the overwhelming emotions parents may feel when witnessing their child suffer and emphasizes the importance of parents looking after their own mental health and relationships. 

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The Anxious Generation

Jonathan Haidt

After more than a decade of stability or improvement, the mental health of adolescents plunged in the early 2010s. Rates of depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide rose sharply, more than doubling on many measures. Why?

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

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The Blanket Cats

Kiyoshi Shigematsu

A peculiar pet shop in Tokyo has been known to offer customers the unique opportunity to take home one of seven special cats, whose "magic" is never promised, but always received. But there are rules: these cats must be returned after three days. They must eat only the food supplied by the owner, and they must travel to their new homes with a distinctive blanket. 

In The Blanket Cats, we meet seven customers, each of whom is hoping a temporary feline companion will help them escape a certain reality, including a couple struggling with infertility, a middle-aged woman on the run from the police, and two families in very different circumstances simply seeking joy. 

But like all their kind, the "blanket cats" are mysterious creatures with unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn't really what they need. Three days may not be enough to change a life. But it might just change how you see it.

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I Leave It Up to You

Jinwoo Chong

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.

Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion that he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned - learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 a.m. fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night’s pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James - he embraces new roles, too: that of romantic interest to the nurse who took care of him, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.

There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

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Can't Help Faking in Love

Swati Hegde

Harsha Godbole has never felt love from her family, but she’s always been surrounded by their Bollywood business mogul wealth. Now back in Bangalore after studying in America, Harsha is ready to start her adult life without their money. But that becomes impossible when everything she’s worked so hard for comes crumbling down. Fearful of showing up to her cousin’s upcoming wedding as a failure - and worse, a single failure - Harsha decides to put her trust fund to good use.

Veer Kannan does everything for his family. He even gave up his dreams of becoming a Bollywood star to get a more consistent gig... although working as a barista wasn’t really the big break he was hoping for. It’s a humble life, but a happy one, nonetheless. Then financial aid falls through for his brother’s first year in business school, so now Veer needs to come up with a large sum of money, and fast.

Harsha’s outlandish plan to hire her favorite barista as her fake boyfriend for the weekend-long wedding bash is received surprisingly well by Veer, who hopes this will be his ticket to Bollywood. But Harsha and Veer get way more than they bargained for in this heartwarming journey to finding unexpected love and courage.

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The Black Orb

Ewhan Kim

The object was a black orb, roughly two meters in diameter. Despite its large size, it made no sound as it moved. Although it wasn't chasing Jeong-su fast enough to catch him, it was unrelenting and persistent in its pursuit...

One evening in downtown Seoul, Jeong-su is smoking a cigarette outside when he sees something impossible: a huge black orb appears out of nowhere and sucks his neighbor inside. Jeong-su manages to get away, but the terrifying sphere can move through walls, so he's sure he won't be able to hide for long.

The orb soon begins consuming every person caught in its path, and no one knows how to stop it. Impervious to bullets and tanks, the orb splits and multiplies, chasing the hapless residents of Seoul out into the country and sparking a global crisis with widespread violence and looting. Jeong-su must rely on his wits as he makes the arduous journey in search of his elderly parents. But the strangest phases of this ever-expanding disaster are yet to come and Jeong-su will be forced to question everything he has taken for granted.

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Water Moon

Samantha Sotto Yambao

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones- those who are lost - will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice - by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds. But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own - and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.

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The Rivals

Jane Pek

Claudia Lin - mystery novel superfan and, until recently, clichéd underemployed English major - has scored her dream job: co-running Veracity, a dating detective agency for chronically online New Yorkers who want to know if their prospective partners are telling the truth. Unfortunately, along the way, she and her colleagues - tech savant Squirrel, and the elegant and intimidating Becks - have uncovered a far-reaching AI conspiracy. And the corporate matchmakers may be resorting to murder to protect their secrets.

In the wake of a client’s sudden death, Claudia convinces his ex, an industry insider, to turn on his employer and feed the verifiers information about what the powerful dating platforms are really up to. But even as Claudia starts to get a feel for this new genre - just call her Lin, Claudia Lin - she’s distracted by the possibility of romance with both Becks and a very charming target. She also fears that her beloved older brother is unwittingly being drawn into the matchmakers’ deadly web. And as Becks reminds Claudia: spy tropes dictate that someone you trust will betray you.

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Rental House

Weike Wang

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife. 

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash?  How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

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Sister Snake

Amanda Lee Koe

Sisterhood is difficult for Su and Emerald. Su leads a sheltered, moneyed life as the picture-perfect wife of a conservative politician in Singapore. Emerald is a nihilistic sugar baby in New York, living from whim to whim and using her charms to make ends meet. But they share a secret: once, they were snakes, basking under a full moon in Tang dynasty China.

A thousand years later, their mysterious history is the only thing still binding them together. When Emerald experiences a violent encounter in Central Park and Su boards the next flight to New York, the two reach a tenuous reconciliation for the first time in decades. Su convinces Emerald to move to Singapore so she can keep an eye on her - but she soon begins to worry that Emerald's irrepressible behavior will out them both, in a sparkling, affluent city where everything runs like clockwork and any deviation from the norm is automatically suspect.

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We Do Not Part

Han Kang

One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet - a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal - or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn’t yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness that awaits her at her friend’s house.

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Yin Yang Love Song

Lauren Kung Jessen

Chinese herbalist Chryssy Hua Williams never actually believed in the Hua family curse. In this day and age? It seemed impossible that she - like every woman in the family - would be doomed to a terrible love life. But after Break-Up #9, Chryssy stopped laughing. Now she and her aunties run a special healing retreat center for the broken-hearted. After all, there's nothing a proper cup of herbal tea can't fix.

Only social media is more interested in a completely different kind of tea. Specifically, Chryssy's innocent run-in with celebrity cellist and bad boy Vin Chao that has everyone talking about his heartbreaker reputation. So he offers her a deal: they'll fake-date, he'll "break" her heart (and increase ticket sales), and in return, he'll promote her business. It's like Chryssy's whole cursed love life has been leading up to this moment. But all it takes is one kiss - and a whole lot of unexpected chemistry - to land both of them in hot water.

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Hi, Earth

Jonathan Kunz

This bittersweet but lighthearted book from one of the funniest duos in webcomics roasts our human folly while also creating moments of wonder and appreciation for our beautiful, fragile, messed-up planet.

The webcomics duo War and Peas presents a hilariously irreverent book of comics paying tribute to a subject near and dear to all of us: Planet Earth. Utilizing underrepresented points of view including those of animals, icebergs, anthropomorphized recyclables, the ghosts of trees, aliens, a horny flower, and a teenage praying mantis named Timmy who is understandably terrified of his species' mating process, Hi, Earth packs a Noah's Ark-size cast into just over 100 delightful pages. These sweet and apocalyptic comics celebrate the wonders and weirdness of Earth even as we hurtle toward an uncertain future.

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Raised by Ghosts

Briana Loewinsohn

Set in the author's own teenage years, Raised By Ghosts begins in 1991 with semi autobiographical Briana in middle school. Classes are a bummer, but lunches are worse; either spent alone, or being teased. Traditionally a good student, Briana is not doing well in her academics, but keeps it a secret. Her parents (divorced) are a mess, and largely absent. She spends a lot of time by herself. By high school, she makes friends, and those connections are her only source of happiness as they help each other navigate adolescence. But life at home with each parent remains fraught. When her relationships at school begin to falter, she has no one to turn to, forcing Briana to grapple with her sense of self-worth, her longing for belonging, and her desire for authenticity in her relationships.

Raised By Ghosts is a powerful, affecting graphic novel for young adult readers. The story is told by shifting between Briana's first-person class notes and diary entries. In her understated yet masterful approach to comics storytelling, Loewinsohn eschews dramatic confrontations and overt sentimentality, preferring instead to underscore the idea that sometimes acceptance and love can be communicated through quiet, everyday moments and close family bonds.

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Halfway to Somewhere

Jose Pimienta

New school, new country, but only half a family?! Embark on a coming of age journey with a middle school teen navigating their parent’s divorce while moving to a new country in this stunning graphic novel.

Ave thought moving to Kansas would be boring and flat after enjoying the mountains and trails in Mexico, but at least they would have their family with them. Unfortunately, while Ave, their mom, and their younger brother are relocating to the US, Ave's father and older sister will be staying in Mexico...permanently. Their parents are getting a divorce.

As if learning a whole new language wasn't hard enough, and now a Middle-Schooler has to figure out a new family dynamic...and what this means for them as they start middle school with no friends.

Jose Pimienta's stunningly illustrated and thought provoking middle graphic novel is about exploring identity, understanding family, making friends with a language barrier, and above all else, learning what truly makes a place a home.

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Ephemera

Briana Loewinsohn

Ephemera is a poetic and dreamlike take on a graphic memoir set in a garden, a forest, and a greenhouse. The story drifts among a grown woman, her early memories as a child, and the gossamer existence of her mother. A lyrical entry in the field of graphic medicine, Ephemera is a story about a daughter trying to relate to a parent who struggles with mental illness. Gorgeously illustrated in a painted palette of warmy, earthy tones, it is a quiet book of isolation, plants, confusion, acceptance, and the fog of childhood. Loewinsohn's debut book is an aching, meditative twist on autobiography, infusing the genre with an ethereal fusion of memory and imagination.

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Low Orbit

Kazimir Lee

An atmospheric and profound coming-of-age graphic novel about a Malaysian American teen carving out her own identity in the uneasy space between friends and family.

Fifteen-year-old Azar feels stuck. Her mom's job forced them to move to Vermont, where Azar doesn't know anyone. Her only friends are the next-door neighbors- an aging sci-fi writer and his nonbinary teen, Tristan, fellow misfits in the small-town community. For a while, Azar can escape her troubles by disappearing into the pages of her kindly neighbor's epic novel, The Exiles of Overworld. But when her queerness throws her life out of balance, Azar realizes some secrets can't be escaped forever. Somewhere in the abandoned malls, lakes, and comic conventions that fill her new life, Azar fights to find herself. What else will she discover?

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(S)Kin

Ibi Zoboi

SIX STARRED REVIEWS!

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection!

From award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Ibi Zoboi comes her groundbreaking contemporary fantasy debut--a novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore--about the power of inherited magic and the price we must pay to live the life we yearn for.

"Our new home with its

thick walls and locked doors

wants me to stay trapped in my skin--

but I am fury and flame."

Fifteen-year-old Marisol is the daughter of a soucouyant. Every new moon, she sheds her skin like the many women before her, shifting into a fireball witch who must fly into the night and slowly sip from the lives of others to sustain her own. But Brooklyn is no place for fireball witches with all its bright lights, shut windows, and bolt-locked doors.... While Marisol hoped they would leave their old traditions behind when they emigrated from the islands, she knows this will never happen while she remains ensnared by the one person who keeps her chained to her magical past--her mother.

Seventeen-year-old Genevieve is the daughter of a college professor and a newly minted older half sister of twins. Her worsening skin condition and the babies' constant wailing keep her up at night, when she stares at the dark sky with a deep longing to inhale it all. She hopes to quench the hunger that gnaws at her, one that seems to reach for some memory of her estranged mother. When a new nanny arrives to help with the twins, a family secret connecting her to Marisol is revealed, and Gen begins to find answers to questions she hasn't even thought to ask.

But the girls soon discover that the very skin keeping their flames locked beneath the surface may be more explosive to the relationships around them than any ancient magic.

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Run Away with Me

Brian Selznick

From #1 New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Brian Selznick, a profoundly romantic YA novel about two boys finding each other and falling in love over one summer in Rome.

 

"I'm going to call you Danny. What are you going to name me?"

"Angelo."

Danny is spending his sixteenth summer in Rome. As his mother spends the day at work in a mysterious museum, he wanders the ancient sites and streets. Soon after his arrival, he encounters a shadow... who becomes a voice... who becomes a boy his age. Angelo.

Soon Danny and Angelo are spending as much time as they can together, piecing together stories of the city while only gradually letting their own histories be shared. Attraction leads to affection, and affection leads to both an intimate closeness and a profound fear of what happens next. Danny has never really had a home, or known the love of another boy. Angelo seems to have more experience... but he also has secrets just out of Danny's reach.

Run Away With Me is a stunning creation, weaving words and illustration to tell the story of a transformative love over the course of one Roman summer.

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Meet Me at Blue Hour

Sarah Suk

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Past Lives in this gripping, emotional story of two childhood friends navigating the fallout of one erasing their memory of the other, from acclaimed author Sarah Suk.

Seventeen-year-old Yena Bae is spending the summer in Busan, South Korea, working at her mom's memory-erasing clinic. She feels lost and disconnected from people, something she's felt ever since her best friend, Lucas, moved away four years ago without a word, leaving her in limbo.

Eighteen-year-old Lucas Pak is also in Busan for the summer, visiting his grandpa, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. But he isn't just here for a regular visit--he's determined to get his beloved grandpa into the new study running at the clinic, a trial program seeking to restore lost memories.

When Yena runs into Lucas again, she's shocked to see him and even more shocked to discover that he doesn't remember a thing about her. He's completely erased her from his memories, and she has no idea why.

As the two reconnect, they unravel the mystery and heartache of what happened between them all those years ago--and must now reckon with whether they can forge a new beginning together.

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Love in 280 Characters Or Less

Ravynn K. Stringfield

Black college student Sydney Ciara navigates academics, love, and the online space, in this coming-of-age romance told through her blog posts, messages, and more!

Sydney Ciara Warren is excited as she starts her first year of college, but also nervous. Despite her interests in writing and fashion, she has no idea what path will ultimately be right for her. As she tries to figure out her place on campus and in the world, she finds solace in blogging about her life, putting together outfits with meaning, and spending time online. 

It’s within the digital space that she connects with someone who goes by YoungPrinceX. She may not know “X” in real life, but that doesn’t stop her from developing a crush on him. Except she's also navigating her first romantic relationship, with a sweet boy on campus named Xavier (who maybe could be X???).

Can Sydney Ciara not only make it through her first semester, but thrive in real life, as much as she seems to be thriving online?

Perfect read for those looking for:
*Coming-of-age romances
*New Adult stories
*Black love stories
*Novels told in nontraditional formats
*Main characters who love fashion
*Chronically online characters like in Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao
 

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Watch Me

Tahereh Mafi

Lose yourself in this exhilarating return to the #1 global bestselling Shatter Me universe, the first book in a new series set ten years after the fall of The Reestablishment.

James Anderson had a plan. Or half of one. All that matters is that he managed to do what his older brother, the famous Aaron Warner Anderson, never did: infiltrate Ark Island, the last refuge of The Reestablishment. In the past decade no outsider has breached the stronghold of the authoritarian regime, but James is in. In a prison cell, sure, but as far as James is concerned, a win is a win.

It's been ten years since the fall of The Reestablishment. Ten years since the notorious duo--Juliette Ferrars and Aaron Warner Anderson--led a worldwide rebellion and established the New Republic of the West. But after a decade of unsettling quiet, The Reestablishment is ready to make a devastating move, and they have the perfect person for the job.

Rosabelle Wolff had a plan. She always has a plan. On Ark Island, where constant surveillance is packaged as security, even emotions must be experienced with caution. A trained assassin, her every movement is monitored by synthetic intelligence--and when she's given an order to kill, she never hesitates.

Brimming with pulse-pounding action and torturous romance, Watch Me is an explosive journey through a dystopian landscape where enemies-to-lovers has never felt more impossible. Step into a beloved and breathtaking world that demands an answer to a desperate question--

Who are we when no one is watching?

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We the Gathered Heat

Franny Choi

A beautiful anthology featuring some of the brightest voices in contemporary American poetry who challenge, expand, and illuminate the meaning of the label "Asian American and Pacific Islander" in today's world.

In this thoughtfully curated, intergenerational collection, poets of multiple languages, lands, and waters write against and through the contested terrain of AAPI identity. Too often, Pacific Islanders and Asian Americans are squeezed into the same story. The poets gathered here, and the lineages they represent, exceed this sameness. May this anthology uplift complexities and incite transformation and joy.

Contributors include Marilyn Chin, Joshua Nguyen, Teresia Teaiwa, Haunani-Kay Trask, and many more writers, both established and emerging.

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Spectral Evidence

Gregory Pardlo

Elegant, profound, and intoxicating—Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo’s first major collection of poetry after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Digest, moves fluidly among considerations of the pro-wrestler Owen Hart; Tituba, the only Black woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials; MOVE, the movement and militant separatist group famous for its violent stand-offs with the Philadelphia Police Department (“flames rose like orchids . . . / blocks lay open like egg cartons”); and more.

At times cerebral and at other times warm, inviting and deeply personal, Spectral Evidence compels us to consider how we think about devotion, beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of Black bodies; about justice—and about how these have been inscribed into our present, our history, and the Western canon: “If I could be / the forensic dreamer / . . . / . . . my art would be a mortician’s / paints.”

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The Invention of the Darling

Li-Young Lee

"The poet of rapture and tenderness" (Major Jackson, American Poets), Li-Young Lee speaks these poems with the intimacy and primacy of a whisper, as if from a lover to a beloved, or a believer to God. Each poem in The Invention of the Darling is a mysterious conjunction of spirit and matter, movement and stillness, the divine and the mundane, the sacred and the forbidden. They yearn for holistic union with The Beloved, every sentence another name for The Beloved, every poem another way to say "I love you." Forged in awe of life and love, these poems emerge from the unlit depths of our earthly, material desires and our deepest fears of mortality.

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Sturge Town

Kwame Dawes

The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes's family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States. The poet ranges through time, pursued by a keen sense of mortality, and engages in an intimate dialogue with the reader--serious, confessional, alarmed, and sometimes teasing. Metrically careful and sonorous, these poems engage in a personal dialogue with the reader, serious, confessional, alarmed and sometimes teasing. They create highly visualized spaces, observed, remembered, imagined, the scenes of both outward and inner journeys. Whether finding beauty in the quotidian or taking astonishing imaginative leaps, these poems speak movingly of self-reflection, family crises, loss, transcendence, the shattering realities of political engagement, and an unremitting investment in the vivid indeterminacy of poetry.

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Good News, Planet Earth

Sam Bentley

If you feel like climate change and the state of our planet just keeps getting worse and there’s nothing we can do to stop it then you’ve picked up the right book–because tons of efforts are already underway to save our planet, and we’d love for you to join the fight.

Good News, Planet Earth is your go-to guide to learn about all the amazing sustainable developments that are being put in place worldwide to combat warming temperatures, pollution, deforestation, the use of wasteful products, and threats to our diverse wildlife.

Sustainability enthusiast Sam Bentley takes you on a journey around the world to teach you about everything from the net-free zone established in the Great Barrier Reef, a road that charges electric vehicles while they drive in Detroit, and the opening of carbon capturing plants in Europe that suck CO2 out of the air and store it safely underground.

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The Serviceberry

Robin Wall Kimmerer

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

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Bird-Friendly Gardening

Jen McGuinness

With hundreds of North American bird species facing population decline or at risk of extinction, right now is the perfect time to create a home-based habitat garden that offers birds the resources they need to safely feed, migrate, breed, and thrive.

Thankfully, making your outdoor space a secure and comfortable haven for many different bird species isn’t a Herculean task. It’s a matter of understanding the needs of our avian friends and how native plants, combined with purposeful garden design, can help meet those needs. And that’s exactly the know-how you’ll find here, outlined in a simple-to-follow, actionable format by author Jennifer McGuinness. 

Step beyond the seed-filled bird feeder and suet block, and learn how to further provide for birds.

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What Rivers Know

Basia Irland

What if rivers could talk and tell their stories? What would they tell us? In What Rivers Know, artist Basia Irland insinuates herself as the voice of major waterways as they struggle to navigate their changing relationships with humans and climate change. By hearing what the rivers have to say, Irland asserts we can attune ourselves to the "braided fusion of energies" in our natural world, better preparing us to meet the challenges posed by climate change and human interactions with the environment.

Through these "first-person accounts," readers learn the rivers' histories, current environmental health status, and evolving relationships with humanity. In addition, Irland discusses innovative practices for addressing pollution, recycling wastewater, and what steps--if any--are being taken to remedy their ailments.

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The Boxcar Librarian

Brianna Labuskes

When Works Progress Administration (WPA) editor Millie Lang finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal, she's shipped off to Montana to work on the state's American Guide Series - travel books intended to put the nation's destitute writers to work.

Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state's powerful Copper Kings who don't want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired for the rest of the country to read. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town's mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.

More than a decade earlier, Alice Monroe created the Boxcar Library in order to deliver books to isolated mining towns where men longed for entertainment and connection. Alice thought she found the perfect librarian to staff the train car in Colette Durand, a miner's daughter with a shotgun and too many secrets behind her eyes.

Now, no one in Missoula will tell Millie why both Alice and Colette went out on the inaugural journey of the Boxcar Library, but only Alice returned.

The three women's stories dramatically converge in the search to uncover what someone is so desperately trying to hide: what happened to Colette Durand.

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The Little Lost Library

Ellery Adams

When an elderly Miracle Springs resident, Lucille Wynter, arranges for Nora to deliver an order of books to her creepy, crumbling Southern Gothic mansion on the outskirts of town, Nora doesn’t expect to be invited in. An agoraphobe, Lucille doesn’t leave Wynter House. But when Lucille doesn’t come to the door to collect her books, Nora begins to worry.

Forcing her way into Lucille’s dilapidated home, Nora is shocked to find rooms bursting with books and a lifeless Lucille at the foot of her stairs. After reading a note left behind by Lucille, Nora wonders if her death was an accident. Did she fall or was she pushed by someone seeking a valuable item hidden within Wynter House? Lucille’s children are clearly confident the house contains something of value, because they hire Nora to sift through the piles of books.

Nora’s obsession with Lucille’s collection becomes cause for concern among her friends in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society - she’s even neglecting her bookshop! But Nora does find something valuable deep inside Wynter House - a revelation about Lucille’s terrible past . . . and a secret worth a small fortune. But there’s someone who’d do anything to keep the truth buried amid the moldering tomes, and it’s up to Nora and her friends to track down a murderer before Wynter House’s lost library claims another victim . . .

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Booked on Murder

Allison Brook

Carrie Singleton is ready to kiss the single life goodbye. Her wedding to Dylan Avery is just a few weeks away, and a happy ending is about to be hers. But when a body is found on the lawn of their wedding venue, happily-ever-after is looking deadlier than ever. 

The victim turns out to be Billy Carpenter, a young man recently released from prison after serving time for a bank robbery. The stolen money he’d buried is gone and Carrie and the police suspect Billy’s two alleged co-conspirators, his friends Luke Rizzo and Tino Valdez. But then Luke is murdered and Tino is nowhere to be found. 

With no leads and only a week to go before her big day, Carrie is on the hunt for clues. She hopes to wrap up this investigation with a neat bow before she and Dylan tie the knot. Carrie has something old, something new, and something borrowed ready for her walk down the aisle. Now she needs to find the killer without becoming the ‘something blue.’

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Murder at the College Library

Con Lehane

An invitation from a prestigious liberal arts college to buy their mystery-novel collection comes as a welcome surprise for Raymond Ambler, crime-fiction curator at New York City's prestigious 42nd Street Library. But his pleasure quickly turns sour when the collection's curator - Ambler's friend Sam Abernathy - tells him he plans to fight the acquisition tooth and nail.

The collection would make a fine addition to his holdings, but Ambler's not looking for drama. It's a shame, then, that drama's looking for him. Just a couple of weeks later, one of Abernathy's colleagues is shot dead from the library's roof, and all signs point to the crime-loving professor as the perpetrator of the violent act.

Why would Abernathy kill - and was it for his collection, for college politics, or for some dark secret yet to be revealed? Ambler's not sure his old friend's a killer, but he is sure he wants justice - for both the living and the dead.

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Everything Is Tuberculosis

John Green

John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with hu­manity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John be­came fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequi­ties that allow this curable, preventable infec­tious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.

In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.

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My Adventures with Superman

Josie Campbell

Flying from the screen to the page, it's Superman! The hit Adult Swim animated series gets an all-new comic book adventure--bridging the gap between seasons one and two, and told by the head writer of the show!

In 2023, My Adventures with Superman debuted on Adult Swim, dazzling viewers with a fresh, anime-inspired take on the Superman mythos--while retaining the enduring qualities of the Man of Steel, and his friends and enemies!

Picking up from the explosive end of season one, Clark's about to spend Christmas alone in Metropolis. Though he's feeling a bit down and out, a tip about a monster in the sewers sends Superman, Lois, and Jimmy into action! But what is this monster that can absorb anything it touches, and why is it here in Metropolis? And when a mysterious android is captured by a covert military group, Superman realizes he can't just bust through a government facility and take what he wants--this is a job for mild-mannered journalist Clark Kent!

Written by the head writer of My Adventures with Superman, Josie Campbell, and drawn by Pablo M. Collar, this collection brings the hit show to comics for the first time!

This volume collects My Adventures with Superman #1-6.

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Surrounded

Wilfred Lupano

In 1832, in Canterbury, Connecticut, a " charming and picturesque" little school for young girls opens to accommodate around twenty residents. Educating girls is a bit ridiculous and useless, they think in the area, but harmless enough. Until the day when the " charming school", led by Prudence Crandall, announces that it will now welcome Black girls... . Thirty years before the abolition of slavery, some fifteen young people in the Crandall school are greeted by a wave of hostility of insane proportion. White America is afraid of some of its children. The story of this school and its legal legacy for civil rights cannot be understated. Crandall v. State (of Connecticut) was the first full-throated civil rights case in U.S. history. The arguments by attorneys in the Crandall case played a role in two of the most fateful Supreme Court decisions, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. It catapulted Ms. Crandall into a Civil Rights pioneer.

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We Are Big Time

Hena Khan

SWISH! Cheer courtside for a Muslim teen in this graphic novel—inspired by a true story—as she joins an all-girls, hijab-wearing basketball team and learns that she’s much more than a score.

Aliya is new to Wisconsin, and everything feels different than Florida. The Islamic school is bigger, the city is colder, and her new basketball team is… well, they stink.

Aliya’s still excited to have teammates (although Noura's not really Aliya's biggest fan) and their new coach really understands basketball (even if she doesn't know much about being Muslim.) This season should be a blast...if they could just start to win.

Join Aliya and the Peace Academy on a headline-making season where they strengthen their skills and their Muslim identities--all while discovering that it takes more than talent to be great, and that teamwork and self-confidence can define true success. 

For fans of The Crossover and Roller Girl, this graphic novel goes big with humor and heart as it explores culture and perceptions, fitting in and standing out, and finding yourself, both on and off the court.

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March Comes in Like a Lion, Volume 1

Chica Umino

Rei Kiriyama is a child prodigy. Rei Kiriyama is also an orphan who lives alone in an empty apartment. Rei Kiriyama is a teen working in an adult's world. Life is complicated for Rei. He's an up-and-coming shogi (Japanese chess) player on the verge of turning pro but he has no homelife or much of a life period outside his board game but thankfully with the help of some life-long friends he has an opportunity start all over again.

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Dear Dad: Growing Up with a Parent in Prison -- And How We Stayed Connected

Jay Jay Patton

A stunning graphic novel memoir about growing up with an incarcerated parent.

 

" ...Your dad is coming back home."

As far back as nine-year-old Jay Jay Patton can remember, her dad, Antoine has been in prison. Growing up in Buffalo, New York with her mom and younger brother, she's only been to visit him twice. Instead, the two have sent each other numerous letters -- Jay Jay's letters can take weeks or months to reach her dad, and some never even get delivered. What's it going to be like having Dad home?

This powerful coming-of-age graphic novel memoir tells Jay Jay Patton's life of growing up with a dad in -- and out of -- prison. How she and her dad were able to develop a powerful father/daughter bond and create Photo Patch -- a life-changing application that connects children to incarcerated parents. Because no child should have to grow up unable to engage with their parents. As Jay Jay says: "it's not a privilege for a kid to be able to talk to their parent. It's a right."

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Blue Lock 1

Muneyuki Kaneshiro

A mad young coach gathers soccer players from across the country to compete in a series of bizarre challenges in a high-tech colosseum he calls Blue Lock. It's a no-balls-barred battle to become Japan's next top striker, in this Squid Game–meets–World Cup manga, now available in print!

Anime coming soon!

Are you the world's top egoist?

After a disastrous defeat at the 2018 World Cup, Japan's team struggles to regroup. But what's mising? An absolute ace striker. The Football Union is hell-bent on creating a striker who hungers for goals and thirsts for victory, so Blue Lock -- a rigorous training ground for 300 of Japan's best and brightest youth players -- is created. To survive this battle royale, the last striker standing will have to out-muscle and out-ego everyone who stands in his way!

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A Greater Goal

Elizabeth Rusch

YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award Finalist

More than 250 women have played on the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, and most contributed to the battle for equal pay. This narrative nonfiction book by the award-winning author and journalist Elizabeth Rusch traces the evolution of that fight, bringing this important rights issue in sports and in our culture to the attention of young readers. Features extensive back matter.

With the passage of Title IX in 1972, the doors opened for young women to play sports at a higher level. But for the women on the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, being able to compete at an international level didn't mean fair treatment and fair compensation.

From economy-class airplane seats and inadequate lodging to minimal marketing and slashed wages, the women representing the United States at the Olympics, the World Cup, and other tournaments had reason to be fed up. They were expected to--and did--win, but they weren't compensated for their talent and dedication. With the help of their union and in collaboration with the men's team, they secured an equitable contract in 2022 that ultimately benefited both national teams as well as athletes of the future.

Elizabeth Rusch's A Greater Goal chronicles how members of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team fought to receive fair treatment and equal pay despite the intense pushback they received from U.S. Soccer, the governing body of soccer in the United States. With a narrative that includes player profiles and vignettes framed from team member perspectives, A Greater Goal illuminates the work, support, and grit needed to be treated with equality in a world that often undervalues the contributions of women.

Features extensive back matter, including a call to action, additional resources, and an index.

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The Dead Cat Tail Assassins

P. Djèlí Clark

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.

Nor do they have tails.

But they are most assuredly dead.

Nebula and Alex Award winner P. Djèlí Clark introduces a brand-new world and a fantastical city full of gods and assassins.

An NPR "Books We Love" choice of 2024, Indie Next Pick, LibraryReads Top Ten Selection, Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Selection, and Best-Of Book according to BookRiot

Eveen the Eviscerator is skilled, discreet, professional, and here for your most pressing needs in the ancient city of Tal Abisi. Her guild is strong, her blades are sharp, and her rules are simple. Those sworn to the Matron of Assassins—resurrected, deadly, wiped of their memories—have only three unbreakable vows.

First, the contract must be just. That’s above Eveen’s pay grade.

Second, even the most powerful assassin may only kill the contracted. Eveen’s a professional. She’s never missed her mark.

The third and the simplest: once you accept a job, you must carry it out. And if you stray? A final death would be a mercy. When the Festival of the Clockwork King turns the city upside down, Eveen’s newest mission brings her face-to-face with a past she isn’t supposed to remember and a vow she can’t forget.

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Sunrise on the Reaping (a Hunger Games Novel)

Suzanne Collins

The phenomenal fifth book in the Hunger Games series!

 

When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

 

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

 

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

 

When Haymitch's name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He's torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who's nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he's been set up to fail. But there's something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

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The Davenports

Krystal Marquis

*Instant New York Times Bestseller*

The Davenports delivers a totally escapist, swoon-worthy romance while offering a glimpse into a period of African American history often overlooked.

"The perfect read for fans of escapist historical fiction.” —NBC’s TODAY

The Davenports are one of the few Black families of immense wealth and status in a changing United States, their fortune made through the entrepreneurship of William Davenport, a formerly enslaved man who founded the Davenport Carriage Company years ago. Now it's 1910, and the Davenports live surrounded by servants, crystal chandeliers, and endless parties, finding their way and finding love—even where they’re not supposed to.

There is Olivia, the beautiful elder Davenport daughter, ready to do her duty by getting married . . . until she meets the charismatic civil rights leader Washington DeWight and sparks fly. The younger daughter, Helen, is more interested in fixing cars than falling in love—unless it’s with her sister’s suitor. Amy-Rose, the childhood friend turned maid to the Davenport sisters, dreams of opening her own business—and marrying the one man she could never be with, Olivia and Helen’s brother, John. But Olivia’s best friend, Ruby, also has her sights set on John Davenport, though she can’t seem to keep his interest . . . until family pressure has her scheming to win his heart, just as someone else wins hers.

Inspired by the real-life story of the Patterson family, The Davenports is the tale of four determined and passionate young Black women discovering the courage to steer their own path in life—and love.

"The Davenports has it all: romance, heartbreak, courage." Ebony
"A fresh, utterly enchanting read.” —Ayana Gray, New York Times bestselling author of the Beasts of Prey trilogy
"Deftly written . . . A dazzling debut."Kirkus (starred review)
"Stunningly wrought . . . Presents a cast of take-charge women." PW (starred review)
"It has the compulsive readability of Gossip Girl."Booklist (starred review)
"Compelling . . . distinct and satisfying." BCCB
"Skilled . . . Well-written . . . Sure to please." SLJ
"If this whole series existed right now, I’d tear through it to the exclusion of everything else in my life." —Teen Librarian Toolbox

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Eighteen Roses

Shannon C. F. Rogers

From the author of I'd Rather Burn Than Bloom, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Youth Literature, comes a sharply observed YA novel about friendship, family, and self-discovery, amid a backdrop of a Filipino debut.

Lucia Cruz may be turning eighteen this year, but she is not the debutante type. Everything about a traditional Filipino debut feels all wrong for her. Besides, custom dictates that eighteen friends attend her for a special ceremony on her birthday, and Lucia only has one friend– Esmé Mares. They've stuck to each other's side all throughout high school, content to be friends with only each other. At least, Lucia thought they were content.

As it turns out, Esmé wants something different out of her senior year. And, on top of that, Lucia's mom has planned a debutante ball for her birthday behind her back. She'll be forced to cobble together a court of eighteen “friends” before her beloved lola arrives from the Philippines for this blessed occasion.

How far will Lucia stray from her comfort zone in order to play the role of dutiful daughter and granddaughter? Will she do the unthinkable– participating in a school sponsored activity? Will she discover that her sense of humor can be a way to connect with people, not just push them away?

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Bird-Friendly Gardening

Jen McGuinness

With hundreds of North American bird species facing population decline or at risk of extinction, right now is the perfect time to create a home-based habitat garden that offers birds the resources they need to safely feed, migrate, breed, and thrive.

Thankfully, making your outdoor space a secure and comfortable haven for many different bird species isn’t a Herculean task. It’s a matter of understanding the needs of our avian friends and how native plants, combined with purposeful garden design, can help meet those needs. And that’s exactly the know-how you’ll find here, outlined in a simple-to-follow, actionable format by author Jennifer McGuinness. 

Step beyond the seed-filled bird feeder and suet block, and learn how to further provide for birds. Some of the topics covered in the book include:

  • How to design a bird-centered habitat garden in spaces large and small
  • Advice on providing fresh water year-round
  • Understanding the connection between native plants and insects and the birds that rely on them
  • How to design and plant a fruit garden, a bird seed garden, a runoff-absorbing rain garden, or even a container garden that nurtures birds
  • Meet dozens of trees, shrubs, and other plants that support the insects almost all adult birds need to feed their young
  • 18 step-by-step garden design projects and plant lists for creating a diversity of bird-friendly spaces
  • Tips for preventing window strikes and cat kills
  • Best practices for including bird feeders, nest boxes, and bird baths in your landscape

Whether your “spark bird” was a lightning-fast Ruby-throated Hummingbird, a brilliant Indigo Bunting, or a petite Hammond’s Flycatcher, it’s time to put out the welcome mat for birds in your home garden. YOU can make a significant impact on the lives of thousands of birds, whether they’re just passing through during migration or making a feather-lined summertime home for raising the next generation.

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Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden

Jacqueline van der Kloet

Growing Bulbs in the Natural Garden is a four-season guide to combining bulbs with perennials and grasses in a loose, nonchalant style, from a leading figure in the New Perennial movement. From the earliest snowdrops to alpine violets, tulips, alliums, late autumn crocuses, and many more, bulbs add interest and color to the garden throughout the year. Renowned naturalistic garden designer, Jacqueline van der Kloet, has mastered a casual, magical technique where bulbs emerge playfully among other plants, as if dancing freely among the perennials and grasses. Both friendly and accessible, the book introduces bulbs as essential to any garden at any scale, inviting in pollinators, providing wonderful pops of color and personality, and extending a garden's bloom time in the shoulder seasons.

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Container Gardening

Valéry Tsimba

Permaculture--rooted in centuries-old techniques for growing food with care for the Earth--is the key to producing a bigger harvest than you ever thought possible on your balcony, patio, driveway, deck, and anywhere in between!

With sustainability as her guiding principle, Valéry Tsimba enthusiastically instructs home gardeners of all skill levels and backgrounds in her proven container gardening methods, from start to finish.

  • Use the principles of permaculture to increase your garden's productivity, biodiversity, and beauty by starting small and going slow.
  • Get set up: Pick the best planters and tools for your space and learn how to adapt to natural conditions like wind and sun exposure.
  • Increase your harvest naturally with companion planting, small-space composting, chemical-free fertilizers, and staggered harvests.
  • Learn which plants are best suited to container gardens, from leafy greens and pollinator-friendly flowers to strawberries and even melons!

Containers make gardening more accessible for everyone. Whether you live in an apartment, have a disability or chronic illness, have never gardened before, or are an experienced gardener new to permaculture, Container Gardening--The Permaculture Way brings sustainable gardening within reach.

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Simplify Vegetable Gardening

Tony O'Neill

If you are an intermediate or advanced gardener looking to level-up your growing skills, Simplify Vegetable Gardening is the ideal reference for meeting your goal. Your garden will flourish with the help of Tony’s growing prowess and eye-opening approach to enhancing plant health and yields that relies on a clear understanding of the interconnectedness of Earth’s many systems and how they each affect plant growth.

From the soil food web’s impact on plant nutrition and the atmosphere’s connection to photosynthesis to the effects of the water cycle on plant transpiration, Tony offers a deep dive into the science of growing a robust and sustainable home garden. You will learn how to:

  • Optimize plant health by understanding mineral nutrition
  • Enhance soil tilth by fostering the right microorganisms
  • Maximize plant breeding and propagation techniques to grow more and better-adapted plants
  • Boost production through the understanding of essential plant functions
  • Improve biodiversity and plant resilience by adopting a mixed planting strategy
  • Be a crucial part of your regional food system and enhance community food security

Plus, diversify your garden’s offerings through profiles of 16 plant families that encompass 81 different food crops. Each family profile provides information on how to cultivate these plants based on the commonalities of the plant family in which they belong.

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The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food

Tanya Denckla Cobb

The latest addition to Storey's bestselling Backyard Homestead series, The Backyard Homestead Guide to Growing Organic Food is a one-stop reference for all the key information food gardeners need to grow a healthy, bountiful garden. Author Tanya Denckla Cobb presents key information based on extensive research and years of experience, including when to start seeds for each type of crop (and at what temperature), how far apart to space seedlings, how to tell when a crop is ready to harvest, and notes on preservation. The book features a comprehensive companion planting guide and an in-depth review of the most effective organic pest control practices, including recipes for how to make your own pest deterrent sprays.

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The Layered Edible Garden

Christina Chung

Design, plant, and tend a self-sustaining, high-yielding food garden that saves space by growing plants the way nature intended—in layers. 

Say goodbye to long, straight rows of vegetable plants lined up and waiting for attacks from pests and diseases, and say hello to an interplanted polyculture paradise, filled with layers of edible plants that outcompete weeds, share resources, and grow beautifully together.

In The Layered Edible Garden, author and food gardening pro Christina Chung of @fluent.garden introduces a modern approach to home food gardening that follows nature’s lead by growing plants in mixed communities, instead of in agriculture-centric monocultures.

By intentionally including edible plants from 8 different layers (trees, sub-canopy trees, shrubs, vines, perennials, annuals, ground covers, and edible roots) in your home garden, you’ll be building a mini “food forest” that will produce food for years to come and require less work and fewer resources.

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Complete Guide to Growing and Cultivating Herbs and Spices

Linda Gray

The must-have guide for all garden aficionados! Even if you don't have space for an outdoor garden, this book is packed with practical information for propagating, growing, using, and preserving herbs and spices, no matter the size of your space! Author Linda Gray, who has written more than 50 print and digital books on healthy living, emphasizes clay pot and container gardening, with each plant profile containing growing advice for the herb or spice, including how to prepare the soil, when to sow and plant, when to harvest and gather, and how to use each herb and spice in food. The herbs and spices covered include aloe vera, basil, bay leaves, lavender, lemon balm, lovage, caraway, chili peppers, garlic, horse radish mustard, poppies, saffron, cilantro, cumin, dill, paprika, marjoram, and more. You'll find full-color photos of each herb and spice along with recipes for each one.

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Night Flyer

Tiya Miles

Harriet Tubman is among the most famous Americans ever born and soon to be the face of the twenty-dollar bill. Yet often she’s a figure more out of myth than history, almost a comic-book superhero. Despite being barely five feet tall, unable to read, and suffering from a brain injury, she managed to escape from her own enslavement, return again and again to lead others north to freedom without loss of life, speak out powerfully against slavery, and then become the first American woman in history to lead a military raid, freeing some seven hundred people. You could almost say she’s America’s Robin Hood, a miraculous vision, often rightly celebrated but seldom understood.

Tiya Miles’s extraordinary Night Flyer changes all that. With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman’s life into the fabric of her world. She probes the ecological reality of Tubman’s surroundings and examines her kinship with other enslaved women who similarly passed through a spiritual wilderness and recorded those travels in profound and moving memoirs. What emerges, uncannily, is a human being whose mysticism becomes more palpable the more we understand it—a story that offers us powerful inspiration for our own time of troubles. Harriet Tubman traversed many boundaries, inner and outer. Now, thanks to Tiya Miles, she becomes an even clearer and sharper signal from the past, one that can help us to echolocate a more just and sustainable path.

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Black Women Taught Us

Jenn M. Jackson

Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women’s freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost because of our refusal to engage with our forestrugglers’ lessons?

A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women’s intellectual and political work at the center of today’s liberation movements.

Across eleven original essays that explore the legacy of Black women writers and leaders—from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde—Jackson sets the record straight about Black women’s longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods.

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