Just in time for the end of June - LGBTQIA fiction!

Okay! Time for another roundup of interesting and well-crafted YA fiction. As the month of June draws to a close and the dog days of summer begin, I believed it is a perfect time to seek shelter with a fan or an AC and get some good reading in! While love stories are the go-to book for this time of year, I try to keep my lists as diverse as possible - there are too many good stories to just stick with one genre!

This week's focus is centered around Pride, with great works featuring LGBTQIA characters or authors. I tried to pick stories that work to "normalize" characters who are LGBTQIA, and spoke from a wide variety of circumstances and identities. There's a lot of ground to cover this week, so let's get to it!

First up, a superbly written thriller, The Truth About Keeping Secrets by Savannah Brown. Starring Sydney, whose father, the town psychologist, dies in a definitely-not-suspicious crash and June, the town beauty who inexplicably shows up at his funeral. The Truth About Keeping Secrets is an emotive book about grief and a slow-burn mystery that builds through the whole story. Full of intelligent details and little clues, this is a book I found myself thinking about well after I closed the cover, and realizing little things about it days later. The characters are realistically multi-dimensional - a true standout of YA literature which tends to rely on tropes and cardboard standees for people too often. Mix in a bumbling and slow romantic element, and an excellent, excellent book is born.

This is not, however, one of those thrillers that is going to make you nervous to turn the page (well, mostly...) but does some really great things to keep the plot unfolding! One of my favorite reads of the year so far!

Next on the list this week is The Henna Wars, by Adiba Jaigirdar. This is a very cool book, in that it takes a well-worn idea - business rivals falling in love - adds compelling contemporary ideas (prejudice, cultural appropriation, and the difficulties of coming out in different places and families) and strikes the perfect balance between them. The end result is a light, lovely read, in which main character Nishat, who is stubborn and not always likable, grows and develops into herself, complete with a better understanding of the culture she has been raised with and her sexuality. And, while this is a romance story at heart, it touches on so many important themes at great length and detail that the romantic components don't overpower the lessons and ideas it contains. It's the sort of book a person can step into and experience another world - the best kind of story.

Oh, and there's tons of descriptions of delicious food! Bonus!

While we're on the topic of well-worn ideas given new life, check out Date Me, Bryson Keller by  Kevin van Whye. A cute story built on a neat gimmick in which Bryson Keller, through a dare he cannot back out on, must agree to date someone new each week - the first person to ask him any given Monday. When a closeted guy, Kai, asks him out, Bryson agrees, and the familiar trope of fake-dating returns once more. However, Date Me, Bryson Keller is set apart from being a trite Hallmark movie by the strength of the writing, especially Kai's character. Correctly angsty but still relatable, Kai's experiences, thoughts, and humor elevate the book and give it a great deal of depth. While superficially cutesy, the book explores the difficulties of being gay and dealing with coming out with a voice that is surprisingly sophisticated from a love story. Fans of Simon vs. the Homo Sapians Agenda will find a lot to love about this book!

Alright, this next book is something of a cheat, as it's the second book in a series. But, it was so good, I had to include it. It is Sword in the Stars, by Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy, the second of two books in the Once and Future series. Normally, I would recommend the first book to get started, but...well, I didn't care for the first book much at all! Thankfully, in the sequel the authors have corrected most of the things I didn't like, making it a great choice for people who like science fiction and fantasy! I really enjoyed the retelling of the myths of King Arthur and company from the perspective of their time-hopping reincarnations, but even someone who hasn't read Le Morte d'Arthur will get a genuine kick out of this book. This is a loudly-written book with a funny and intelligent main character in Ari, and a great take on Merlin. Just self-aware enough to be humorous about itself, Sword in the Stars accomplishes the rare feat of a time travel story that doesn't get overly mired in the consequences and keeps a blistering pace towards the end. Seriously, this is a book where things happen and quickly, which just makes it a fun way to spend a summer afternoon.

Will you be lost if you don't read the first book? A little, maybe, but get a couple chapters in and it no longer matters. Personally, I'd Google a synopsis of the first book and save yourself the time (and headache...) and get right to the fun part!

Okay, time for something of a tone switch. My next recommendation, Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender, is a story about the titular and artistic Felix, who is a demiboy examining his gender and sense of identity. The conflict of this story - dealing with the aftermath of being deadnamed and being forcibly outed - is impactful and insightful, especially for someone like me who has no practical point of experience by which to compare. However, what really makes this story impactful is the immaculate way that we are put in Felix's head. His internal monologue is so incredibly apt and creates a powerful experience, even when age and experience tell us that what Felix is thinking or planning on doing is only going to make the problem worse. His deepest thoughts and fears are exposed and laid bare, and at times I almost felt like I was trespassing just by reading the book. An incredible book that explores with earnest majesty and potent acumen the experience of being trans in a world that does not know how to deal with it. A true masterpiece.

Speaking of masterpieces, my next recommendation stands right in that same good company! Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo is another story-in-verse that examines the story of two step-sisters, Camino and Yahaira, who only find out about one another after the tragic death of their father in a plane crash. Based on real events, this book is less about romance and more about the compelling power of grief and the holes that people create in the lives of those they leave behind. Like all good stories told in verse, Clap When You Land uses the best parts of poetry to create a story that is raw and tender, with lines and ideas that literally take your breath away as you read them. Full of different plot twists, incredible characters, and a villain that won't be forgotten, this book keeps its readers in constant motion with its power and poise. Readers of my booklists will know by now my adoration for Acevedo's works, and this is my favorite of hers by far. Take a Sunday and read this book.

Okay YA fam! That's it for this week's list. Next week, I'm going to share some of my favorite graphic novels from the year so far! Remember that even though the NFPL is closed for renovations, these books can be checked out electronically through Libby and enjoyed on any e-reader or phone. I hope to see you again next week!

Great YA reccomendations by BIPOC authors

As this weekend begins the transition from spring into summer, I wanted to refocus my attention on fictional books, and use this space to highlight some of the amazing stories being told by Black, Indigenous, and other persons-of-color authors. A few of these selections directly or indirectly deal with the injustices and difficulties of racism and sexism, but a couple of these books are just so good I opted to include them anyway - no sense giving you compassion fatigue with books you're reading in the summer!

Anyway, first up is The Downstairs Girl Stacey Lee. This book is for fans of historical fiction, taking place in the late 19th century. Centered around Jo Kuan, a Chinese-American girl born in Atlanta, this book explores the powerful and horrific systems of oppression faced by so many Chinese-Americans in the South at the turn of the previous century. Jo, for example, cannot become a citizen of the US, even though she was born on US soil, and is relegated to living in a secret tunnel beneath a newspaper office. Jo is a clever and sometimes opinionated girl, whose wit and charm make a story about such dark topics relatively light to read. Her circumstances, however, require her to be nearly invisible, inside and out. As the story goes on, Jo takes on the role of an advice columnist and begins to outpour her strong opinions, especially on race and gender, under the guise of giving suggestions to other Atlanta residents. It's a wonderful plot device, especially the complications it leads to as the plot develops. A great read, full of character, and just enough intrigue, you'll come for the cool late 1800s aesthetic (horseback rides and sweet hats) and stay for the wonderful writing and clever plot twists.

Second, on this week's list is a second Chinese-American with whom no doubt most of you are familiar! I strongly recommend Marie Lu's Kingdom of Back to take up a week of your summer reading schedule. While this is technically another work of historical fiction, this story leans much more heavily on the 'fiction' part, taking place in both 1700s Austria and...well, elsewhere. The book follows the path of the musical genius Wolfgang Mozart and his older sister, Nannerl, who has the same (or perhaps better!) remarkable genius for music as her brother. However, the setting of the book is against Nannerl, who at the onset of the story, wants nothing more than to be remembered for her talent and genius. Lu's beautiful, poetic style writes a quickly-paced story full of equal measures of 1700s drama and magic. The stunning power of music as magic becomes a shifting point of focus through the course of the book, and its conclusion, well...you'll be thinking about it for days. If you enjoy music, or magic, or any kind of history, this book will have something wonderful to offer.

Next up, a book series for my shippers out there - as these books are so full of possible romantic pairings and intense, intense intrigue you cannot help but speculate! I refer to the excellent Shatter Me series, written by Tahereh Mafi, an Iranian-American. I admit to having only read the first couple of books, but this series of stories is excellent dystopian books. Craftily written about Juliette Ferrars, a girl in a post-apocalyptic North America who has the unfortunate power to kill whomever she touches, and a powerful organization called The Reestablishment, who are seeking to rebuild the shattered world. A tense and emotional thriller, with a great deal that centers around the importance of touch (and all the romance that comes along with it!), Shatter Me turns pages and leaves readers guessing, and Juliette is an incredibly written protagonist, avoiding a common trap in these sorts of books of having the main character be empty vessels for readers to put themselves into. She is cunning and full of personality, both for good and, well, not. If you enjoy guessing what's going to happen next, seasoned with the crackling energy of potential romance, these books are must-reads.

Speaking of must-reads, if I were to pull the magic out of Kingdom of Back, mash it into the intrigue of Shatter Me, and set it in a magical version of South America, I might get something half as good as the incredible Woven in Moonlight by Bolivian-American author Isabel Ibañez. A high, somewhat dark fantasy centered around Ximena, who serves as a decoy to the Illustrian royal princess Condesa. However, like all of her people, Ximena has been forced into exile by a brutal usurper, Atoc. As Ximena serves as a decoy, and Condesa starts the book seemingly weak-willed, Ximena sees it as her duty to keep her people strong while planning her revenge. But, when Atoc contacts Condesa, asking for her hand in marriage, things get turned on end! Ximena knows it is her duty to go instead, but she is torn by her conflicting emotions and sense of duties. Her choices open a whirlwind of events dealing with vengeance, magic, and all the wonderful twists and turns that are hallmarks of a real page-turner. Oh, and did I mention that Ximena has rare and powerful magic at her disposal? That she can weave power from the moon into tapestries? This book is an adventurous tale of swashbuckling rogues, dark magics, and a compelling and even empathic villain. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Finally this week we examine a personal favorite of mine from the last year or so, the incredible The Poet X, written by the rising star of literature that is Elizabeth Acevedo, who also happens to be Dominican-American. A book written in verse, The Poet X tells the story of Xiomara Batista, who struggles with growing up as a Dominican girl in Harlem, and addresses the unwanted attention her changing body creates by letting her fists and tough exterior do the talking for her. The Poet X is an incredible read about the power of self-worth and the essential importance of learning to use once's voice. It hums with an energy of change, and the writing flows so smoothly off the page that it is almost better to read this book aloud. And, while I am normally a fan of reading books on one's own, if the thought of poetry is scary, this is one book for which the audiobook does real justice! I cannot think of a better book that so well provokes thought on the problems of objectification we cannot seem to deal with as a society, and the scars it leaves on girls - who have to learn to face it and rise above it. Painful but ultimately uplifting, it is highly, highly recommended.

Okay, that's it for this week! Remember that even though the NFPL is closed for renovations, these books can be checked out electronically through Libby and enjoyed on any e-reader or phone. I hope to see you again next week, where I'm going to wrap up Pride month with some excellent suggestions for LGBTQIA authors and books! 

Tell Your Tale #1

Summer Reading for Teens

This summer the Youth Services Department is offering a number of ways to interact with your library.

For each interaction, you can fill out this form for a chance to win.

Read-Aloud Videos are posted on our YouTube and Facebook pages each week. See your favorite staff members read stories new and old, sometimes with special animation. Check out past videos here, and here.

Read A Book! Fill out the form linked above for each book you read. Remember, ebooks are free to check out from our emedia site here. Reading aloud to younger children, or to the whole family counts as reading for everyone!

Tell Your Tale! Check out our story prompts, posted on our facebook and instagram pages, or here on our blogs. Write a story or create art from one or more of the prompts, and submit it to chrissybraun@newtonfalls.org. Your creation may be posted on our social media.

Selfie Scavenger Hunt! We will post a selfie on Facebook and Instagram of a staff member somewhere in Newton Falls. Find the spot, take your own selfie and send it to us at chrissybraun@newtonfalls.org.

You can fill out the entry form each time you interact with us, and you can do all the activities more than once. At the end of our summer reading program, we will draw names from these entries to win gift cards from local Newton Falls Businesses.

As the situation develops, we may be able to offer more and varied programs over the summer. Be sure to follow us on social media for the most current information.

Building Towards Understanding the Issue of Race in America

As I write this, I have no doubt your timelines and socials are full of images and memes of the incredible displays of protest which have resulted from the death of George Floyd. It can be overwhelming to try and process the extraordinary band of emotions and reactions that these displays capture (and generate!) and without the context of history, a common question lingers long after the images of the protests fade: why?

It becomes natural to want to understand more, to dig a little deeper and see the bigger picture of why the death of one person might spark off a movement of protests across every state of the nation. To help, I have put together a list of books that can help to provide some of that information. Note that this list is not meant to be complete, but you will find every book worth reading. This week, the works are all nonfiction, and I have arranged them, based on my own experience, on their level of difficulty, both in reading and in the knowledge they require to be fully understood.

First up, John Lewis' March series, a three-book graphic novel which beautifully captures the spirit of the Montgomery Siti-ns of the late 1950s, the middling steps of the growing civil rights movement. As an introduction to understanding the ways in which the issue of race has developed in this country, March is an excellent starting point, in that it begins with ground that is likely familiar (the civil rights movement) and shows in painful detail the organized resistance to what appears to us as common sense - allowing black Americans to eat at the same places as their white equals. The first book, especially, shows the level of resilience and patience needed by a group of students to establish even the smallest foothold for racial equivalence. By focusing on a smaller piece of a larger puzzle, we better understand how incredibly entrenched and established the ideas of white supremacy were. In turn, this understanding builds upon common historical information, connecting these lunch sitins with Dr. King, while clearly being written from the current moment of history.

Additionally, I selected this particular novel because of its demonstration of an aspect that is essential to understanding some of the complexity of this issue: time. I believe that to understand the question of 'why?' one must grapple with the variable of time and understand that this is no short-lived issue.

With this historical framing in mind, I suggest strongly Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You: A Remix. Organized as a historical sourcebook, Stamped examines in totality the history of how the relationship between the races developed to where they are today, beginning in the 1400s. As it travels the shameful timeline of slavery and the structural, sometimes subtle, prejudices woven into the very foundation of the country, it discusses ideas for dismantling or disarming some of these hard-coded inequities. As the timeline of our history evolves through the course of the book, it also discusses with candor how lawmakers have continued to make things worse, especially for poor black communities, even into the 2000s. Trust me, this is far more interesting than your Social Studies book! Its commentary is astute, connected, and very earnest. As a stepping stone into a broader understanding, tackling the history of black America is essential.

But, beyond that, I selected this book because the tone, aside from existing to inform and correct commonly held misconceptions about the history of race, glimmers faintly with hope. It sometimes can be in short supply when one looks deeply at the difficult things in the world, and having an excellent resource that also, somehow, remains at least a little hopeful, is a rare thing indeed.

Thirdly, Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between The World and Me. Okay, so this book is cheating a little, as it is not technically a YA book, but Coates' work is all but required reading if one wishes to understand the 'why?' Besides, the book is framed as a letter from the author to his own teenage son, so it's basically YA, right? This book seeks to present as accurate of a view as possible of the experience of black America. In some places, it becomes difficult to read for its sheer bleakness, but like the videos of the protests, if one seeks to understand, one must not look away. This book is powerful, and full of contemplation and history. Its formatting makes it approachable to read, and its description of the Dream - the quiet suburban life that just might be synonymous with the American Dream, makes it a very good place to fully submerge oneself in the quest for knowledge. Removing the veil of anonymity and looking at a particular anecdote is essential to empathy, and seeing through the lens of a black father the lessons a black teenager needs to know to survive and thrive in the white world is empowering.

Finally, for a comprehensive analysis of the ways in which the American justice system disenfranchises black Americans, read The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. Building on the history examined in the previous suggestions, The New Jim Crow targets specifically the prejudiced ways in which justice is routinely denied to black Americans, and the long-lasting political, social, and economic consequences of an America which more frequently and more heavily criminalizes its minority populations. The book is complex and at times uncomfortable to read, but it is directly connected to the spark which set these protests aflame - the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, who should be the first line of a fair and equal justice system.

That's all for this week's list. Even though the NFPL is closed for renovations, these books can be checked out electronically through Libby and enjoyed on any e-reader or phone. I hope to see you again next week!

Project: Escape!

As summertime begins, I can think of no better form of escape from the worries of life (not to mention the quarantine) than falling into a good book. Books with rich settings and worlds that really help distance oneself are the best kind of book in times like these! And, while it is important to read books to be informed, it's just as important to have a place to retreat to.

To that end, this week's list will discuss books with rich, luxurious settings as a major component to the novel - some of them are unsurprisingly popular, but I've tried to include a few older works and hidden gems as well. But, one thing is certain, they are all incredible works of speculative fiction that you'll be thinking about long after you finish the last page.

Firstly, we'll begin with V. E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic series. While stories that are magical and also urban can struggle with creating interesting and engaging worlds, this series devotes itself to building a complex and engaging world of magic and mystery, using four parallel Londons full of nuance and detail that make it easy to imagine and forget where you are. The 'rules' of how this setting works are well-thought out, but not always told to the reader, allowing a clever mind to fill in the blanks, and if you miss something, no worries - you still get the joy of viewing the consequences! This book is a perfect starting point for those looking to escape!

Secondly, I'll point you in the direction of something a little more sophisticated - N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, the first book of her Broken Earth trilogy. This book is a bit more high fantasy, with a serious post-apocalypse feel woven in. This series creates one of the more interesting sets of rules for magic I've ever read, and its gripping, suspense-filled plot will keep you turning pages until the very end! While it might seem a bit strange to suggest a book about a magical world-ending storm as it feels our own world is falling down around us, I believe that sometimes having the power to turn the page in situations where we might feel powerless is a mighty power indeed.

Thirdly, I'll switch gears and offer you something a little bit lighter. This selection is especially aimed at my HP fans and people who enjoyed Children of Blood and Bone. Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch, which follows along the story of Sunny, who in the opening act of the story might be mistaken for another certain glasses-wearing, wand-wielding wizard, being an outsider where she lives, discovering she has a hidden magical ability, and going off to use magic as a way to fit in. However, the book turns down a different road, feeling more like a detective novel as the plot advances, but still maintaining a wonderfully light prose - perfect for those hot summer days where all you want is to pretend you are somewhere else. This particular novel really does transport you somewhere different as much of the novel takes place in a magical re-imagining of Nigeria, tapping into the deep mythology and culture of a different place to establish a complex world outside the sometimes staid and stagnant norms of the fantasy genre.

Speaking of staid fantasy, I would be remiss if I didn't include J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit here as the final book in this week's list. While its world might feel overly familiar if you've read a lot of other works of fantasy or science fiction, there is a good reason - Tolkien's works are a masterclass in building a world. Starring a shy, placatory Bilbo and traveling through the realm of Middle-Earth, The Hobbit is another example of a world into which one can simply dissolve.

That's all for this week's list. Even though the NFPL is closed for renovations, these books can be checked out electronically through Libby and enjoyed on any e-reader or phone! Next week, I'll tackle the important work of becoming more informed about the social justice issues in our country, but for right now, take some time and use one of these great books to disengage and decompress in someone else's world - you've earned it!