Library Closure

The Chesapeake City Branch Library will be temporarily closed for updates from Monday, December 1, 2025, through Saturday, January 3, 2026. The Branch will reopen on Monday, January 5, and will be open 6 days per week. For assistance during the closure, please call (410) 996-5600 or email ask@cecilcountylibrary.org.

List

Category
Audience
Book Lists

Spot Weather Forecast

Kevin Goodan

From the unique perspective of a U.S. Forest Service elite, a Type 1 Interagency "Hotshot" Crew (the "SEAL Team Six of the firefighting world"), poems weave together memory, urgency, and the passage of time. Features segments from actual incident reports, forcing readers to witness what it's like to stand before an inferno, walking with one foot in the black. An elegy for the self and the damage one sustains fighting wildfires.

View Details >>

The Long Take

Robin Robertson

Walker is a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder; he can't return home to rural Nova Scotia, and looks instead to the city for freedom, anonymity and repair. As he moves from New York to Los Angeles and San Francisco we witness a crucial period of fracture in American history, one that also allowed film noir to flourish. The Dream had gone sour but - as those dark, classic movies made clear - the country needed outsiders to study and dramatise its new anxieties. While Walker tries to piece his life together, America is beginning to come apart: deeply paranoid, doubting its own certainties, riven by social and racial division, spiralling corruption and the collapse of the inner cities. The Long Take is about a good man, brutalised by war, haunted by violence and apparently doomed to return to it - yet resolved to find kindness again, in the world and in himself.

View Details >>

I Had a Brother Once

Adam Mansbach

my father said
david has taken his own life


Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a #1 New York Times bestselling book—when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual—of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance—where once there was a life.

 

View Details >>

Constellation Route

Matthew Olzmann

Constellation Route uses the form of the letter to explore issues related to contemporary American society: the environment, race, love, grief, friendship, violence, and spirituality. The book is largely a metaphysical tribute to both the Post Office and the act of letter writing as a way to understand and create meaningful connections with the world at large. A collection of mostly epistolary poems and odd poems about post offices

View Details >>

Somebody Give This Heart a Pen

Sophia Thakur

In a powerful debut, rising star Sophia Thakur brings her spoken word performance to the page.

Be with yourself for a moment.
Be yourself for a moment.
Airplane mode everything but yourself for a moment.

From acclaimed performance poet Sophia Thakur comes a stirring collection of coming-of-age poems exploring issues of identity, difference, perseverance, relationships, fear, loss, and joy. From youth to school to family life to falling in love and falling back out again--the poems draw on the author's experience as a young mixed-race woman trying to make sense of a lonely and complicated world. With a strong narrative voice and emotional empathy, this is poetry that will resonate with all young people, whatever their background and whatever their dreams.

View Details >>

Rift Zone

Tess Taylor

RIFT ZONE, Taylor's much-anticipated fourth book traces literal and metaphoric fault lines--rifts between past and present, childhood and adulthood, what is and what was. Circling Taylor's hometown--an ordinary California suburb lying along the Hayward fault--these poems unearth strata that include a Spanish land grant, a bloody land grab, gun violence, valley girls, strip malls, redwood trees, and the painful history of Japanese internment.

Taylor's ambitious and masterful poems read her home state's historic violence against our world's current unsteadinesses--mass eviction, housing crises, deportation, inequality. They also ponder what it means to try to bring up children along these rifts. What emerges is a powerful core sample of America at the brink--an American elegy equally tuned to maternal and to geologic time. At once sorrowful and furious, tender and fierce, Rift Zone is startlingly observant, relentlessly curious--a fearsome tremor of a book.

View Details >>

SoundMachine

Rachel Zucker

Through heartbreaking, often comic, genre-non-conforming pieces spanning the past 10 years, Rachel Zucker trains her relentless attention on marriage, motherhood, grief, the need to speak, depression, sex, and many other topics. Part poetry, part memoir, part lyric essay—and not limited by any of these categories—SoundMachine is a book written out of the persistent feeling that the human voice is both a meaningless sound and the only way we know we exist.

View Details >>

When We Make It

Elisabet Velasquez

Sarai is a first-generation Puerto Rican eighth grader who can see with clarity the truth, pain, and beauty of the world both inside and outside her Bushwick apartment. Together with her older sister Estrella, she navigates the strain of family traumas and the systemic pressures of toxic masculinity and housing insecurity in a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn. Sarai questions the society around her, her Boricua identity, and the life she lives with determination and an open heart, learning to celebrate herself in a way that she has been denied.

When We Make It is a love letter to anyone who was taught to believe that they would not make it. To those who feel their emotions before they can name them. To those who still may not have all the language but they have their story. Velasquez' debut novel is sure to leave an indelible mark on all who read it.

View Details >>

Winter Recipes from the Collective

Louise Glück

Louise Glück’s thirteenth book is among her most haunting. Here as in the Wild Iris there is a chorus, but the speakers are entirely human, simultaneously spectral and ancient. Winter Recipes from the Collective is chamber music, an invitation into that privileged realm small enough for the individual instrument to make itself heard, dolente, its line sustained, carried, and then taken up by the next instrument, spirited, animoso, while at the same time being large enough to contain a whole lifetime, the inconceivable gifts and losses of old age, the little princesses rattling in the back of a car, an abandoned passport, the ingredients of an invigorating winter sandwich, a sister’s death, the joyful presence of the sun, its brightness measured by the darkness it casts.

“Some of you will know what I mean,” the poet says, by which she means, some of you will follow me. Hers is the sustaining presence, the voice containing all our lifetimes, “all the worlds, each more beautiful than the last.” This magnificent book couldn’t have been written by anyone else, nor could it have been written by the poet at any other time in her life.

View Details >>

Black Girl, Call Home

Jasmine Mans

From spoken word poet Jasmine Mans comes an unforgettable poetry collection about race, feminism, and queer identity.

With echoes of Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, Mans writes to call herself--and us--home. Each poem explores what it means to be a daughter of Newark, and America--and the painful, joyous path to adulthood as a young, queer Black woman.

Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering Black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing.

View Details >>

For Every One

Jason Reynolds

For Every One is exactly that: for every one. For every one person. For every one who has a dream. But especially for every kid. The kids who dream of being better than they are. Kids who dream of doing more than they almost dare to imagine. Kids who are like Jason Reynolds, a self-professed dreamer. Jason does not claim to know how to make dreams come true; he has, in fact, been fighting on the front line of his own battle to make his own dreams a reality. He expected to make it when he was sixteen. Then eighteen. Then twenty-five. Now, some of those expectations have been realized. But others, the most important ones, lay ahead, and a lot of them involve kids, how to inspire them: All the kids who are scared to dream, or don’t know how to dream, or don’t dare to dream because they’ve NEVER seen a dream come true. Jason wants kids to know that dreams take time. They involve countless struggles. But no matter how many times a dreamer gets beat down, the drive and the passion and the hope never fully extinguishes—because simply having the dream is the start you need, or you won’t get anywhere anyway, and that is when you have to take a leap of faith.

A pitch-perfect graduation, baby, or inspirational gift for anyone who needs to me reminded of their own abilities—to dream.

View Details >>

Little Blue Truck's Springtime

Alice Schertle

Beep! Beep! Little Blue Truck is out for a ride with his good friend Toad. The sun is shining and the flowers are blooming--it's a beautiful spring day! Who will they see along the way?

Open the flaps to meet all of the sweet baby animals just born on the farm. Peep! Peep!

View Details >>

Spring Babies

Kathryn O. Galbraith

An endearing board book with adorable babies on the go during the spring season
Spirited, rhyming text and colorful, graphic art reveal an energetic cast of babies having an action-packed day of play in the park on a cheerful spring day.
 

View Details >>

And Then It's Spring

Julie Fogliano

Following a snow-filled winter, a young boy and his dog decide that they've had enough of all that brown and resolve to plant a garden. They dig, they plant, they play, they wait . . . and wait . . . until at last, the brown becomes a more hopeful shade of brown, a sign that spring may finally be on its way.

View Details >>

Hooray for Hoppy!

Tim Hopgood

When Hoppy the rabbit wakes up on the first day of spring, he discovers a world full of wonderful things. He uses all five senses to sniff the fresh air, listen to the birds sing, taste the fresh grass, watch the lambs in the meadow, and touch the warm ground. Illustrated in bright, bold collage, this story about seasonal change and sensory perception makes a warm and cozy readaloud.

View Details >>

On the Farm

Jonathan Lambert

Join the animals at the start of a new year on the farm in this beautiful lift the flap book. Follow the seasons as the lambs play in spring, the farmer gathers hay in the summer, the fields are plowed in the fall, and the cows keep cozy in the barn at night.

View Details >>

On a Snow-melting Day

Buffy Silverman

In the early days of spring when the snow begins to melt, plants and animals stir to life. High-impact photos and simple, rhyming text make for an engaging read-aloud while back matter offers more detail about each of the creatures featured in this celebration of spring's arrival.

View Details >>

A Little Book about Spring

Leo Lionni

Spring is a time of budding trees, chirping birds, and croaking frogs. Discover these and more wonders of spring in this delightful board book inspired by the works of legendary children's book author-illustrator Leo Lionni. With sturdy pages and colorful collage-style artwork, this spring-themed book is perfect for little ones.

View Details >>

Spring According to Humphrey

Betty G. Birney

Signs of spring are very exciting to everyone at Longfellow School. Mrs. Brisbane's class has seen flowers poking out of snow and baby birds hatching, and Just-Joey even brought in tadpoles that are growing into frogs. It also means Family Fun Night is coming up, and all of the students' families are involved in making amazing activities.

Humphrey helps in many ways, of course, but he can't stop wondering about his own family. He doesn't know anything about his mom or dad. Luckily, all of his wonderful friends help him see that families come in many shapes and sizes, and Humphrey's might be the biggest (and best!) one of all.

View Details >>

Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

Kenard Pak

As days stretch longer, animals creep out from their warm dens, and green begins to grow again, everyone knows—spring is on its way!

Join a boy and his dog as they explore nature and take a stroll through the countryside, greeting all the signs of the coming season. In a series of conversations with everything from the melting brook to chirping birds, they say goodbye to winter and welcome the lushness of spring.

View Details >>

One Springy, Singy Day

Renée Kurilla

One Springy, Singy Day is a vibrant, joyful story that follows a diverse cast of young children as they play throughout their day. Inspired by the author's "busy bee" two-year-old, this love note from parent to child illustrates the wondrous and boisterous adventure of raising a springy, singy, squeezy toddler.

View Details >>

The Spring Book

Todd Parr

Spring is here!  The Spring Book captures a variety of moments that encompasses this season. From rolling down hills or dancing in the rain, to celebrating mothers and honoring heroes everywhere!

View Details >>

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship—the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.

View Details >>

Happy Springtime!

Kate McMullan

This bright, bouncy, and deliriously colorful picture book is an ode to the joys of spring, encouraging everyone who waits out the slow lengthening of days through the end of winter. From earmuffed crossing guards to sweater wearing dogs, from painters of flowers to planters of seeds, Happy Springtime! celebrates the burst of life following the thaw of winter.

View Details >>

Spring Stinks

Ryan T. Higgins

Ruth the bunny is excited to share the smelly springtime smells of spring with Bruce! But what will Bruce think of all that stink?

View Details >>

More Myself

Alicia Keys

An intimate, revealing look at one artist’s journey from self-censorship to full expression.

More Myself is part autobiography, part narrative documentary. Alicia’s journey is revealed not only through her own candid recounting, but also through vivid recollections from those who have walked alongside her. The result is a 360-degree perspective on Alicia’s path, from her girlhood in Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem to the process of growth and self-discovery that we all must navigate.
 

View Details >>

Fair Warning

Michael Connelly

Jack McEvoy, the journalist who never backs down, tracks a serial killer who has been operating completely under the radar--until now.
McEvoy investigates---against the warnings of the police and his own editor---and makes a shocking discovery that connects the crime to other mysterious deaths across the country. But his inquiry hits a snag when he himself becomes a suspect. As he races to clear his name, McEvoy's findings point to a serial killer working under the radar of law enforcement for years, and using personal data shared by the victims themselves to select and hunt his targets.

View Details >>

Devil's Daughter

Lisa Kleypas

Although beautiful young widow Phoebe, Lady Clare, has never met West Ravenel, she knows one thing for certain: he’s a mean, rotten bully. Back in boarding school, he made her late husband’s life a misery, and she’ll never forgive him for it. But when Phoebe attends a family wedding, she encounters a dashing and impossibly charming stranger who sends a fire-and-ice jolt of attraction through her. And then he introduces himself...as none other than West Ravenel.

West is a man with a tarnished past. No apologies, no excuses. However, from the moment he meets Phoebe, West is consumed by irresistible desire...not to mention the bitter awareness that a woman like her is far out of his reach. What West doesn’t bargain on is that Phoebe is no straitlaced aristocratic lady. She’s the daughter of a strong-willed wallflower who long ago eloped with Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent—the most devilishly wicked rake in England.

Before long, Phoebe sets out to seduce the man who has awakened her fiery nature and shown her unimaginable pleasure. Will their overwhelming passion be enough to overcome the obstacles of the past?

Only the devil’s daughter knows…

 

View Details >>

So You Want to Start a Podcast

Kristen Meinzer

An inspiring, comprehensive, step-by-step guide to creating a hit show, So You Want to Start a Podcast covers everything from hosting and guest booking to editing and marketing - while offering plenty of encouragement and insider stories along the way.

View Details >>

City of Girls

Elizabeth Gilbert

"Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are."

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

View Details >>

A Very Punchable Face

Colin Jost

If there's one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it's being able to take a punch--metaphorically and, occasionally, physically.

From growing up in a family of firefighters on Staten Island to commuting three hours a day to high school and "seeing the sights" (like watching a Russian woman throw a stroller off the back of a ferry), to attending Harvard while Facebook was created, Jost shares how he has navigated the world like a slightly smarter Forrest Gump.

You'll also discover things about Jost that will surprise and confuse you, like how Jimmy Buffett saved his life, how Czech teenagers attacked him with potato salad, how an insect laid eggs inside his legs, and how he competed in a twenty-five-man match at WrestleMania (and almost won). You'll go behind the scenes at SNL and Weekend Update (where he's written some of the most memorable sketches and jokes of the past fifteen years). And you'll experience the life of a touring stand-up comedian--from performing in rural college cafeterias at noon to opening for Dave Chappelle at Radio City Music Hall.

For every accomplishment (hosting the Emmys), there is a setback (hosting the Emmys). And for every absurd moment (watching paramedics give CPR to a raccoon), there is an honest, emotional one (recounting his mother's experience on the scene of the Twin Towers' collapse on 9/11). Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, A Very Punchable Face reveals the brilliant mind behind some of the dumbest sketches on television, and lays bare the heart and humor of a hardworking guy--with a face you can't help but want to punch.

View Details >>

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

Alix E. Harrow

In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut. In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
 

View Details >>

Trees Make Perfect Pets

Paul Czajak

Abigail is determined to get the perfect pet.

So she chooses Fido. He keeps her cool from the sun, stays where she tells him, and even gives her air to breathe. That's because Fido is a tree!

But not everyone thinks having a tree as a pet is a good idea, though, especially when Fido starts to grow. Will Abigail be able to keep her perfect pet?

View Details >>

The Last Kids on Earth: Thrilling Tales from the Tree House

Max Brallier

The kids and their monster buddies are hanging out in the tree house, when Jack launches into an epic, totally-heroic, super rad story of one of his many post-apocalyptic adventures. Of course, after he's finished, everyone's eager to one-up his tale with a story of their own. Soon, Quint, Dirk, June and Skaelka, and even Globlet regale the group with sometimes outrageous, often hilarious details of their action-packed escapades during the monster-zombie apocalypse.
 

View Details >>

The Me Tree

Ashley Belote

Bear just wants a tree for himself. No roommates, no guests, just sweet solitude. So he packs up his things, finds a great listing for a spacious tree, and moves in. At first, it's perfect. Just what he wanted. But he soon realizes that his tree might not be just for him... in fact, there seem to be quite a few residents of this tree. Will Bear learn how to share his Me Tree?

View Details >>

Trees : Kings of the Forest [graphic novel]

Andy Hirsch

In Trees: Kings of the Forest we follow an acorn as it learns about its future as Earth's largest, longest-living plant. Starting with the seed's germination, we learn about each stage until the tree's maturation, different types of trees, and the roles trees take on in our ecosystem.

View Details >>

The Treehouse Series : Book 10 : The 130-Story Treehouse

Andy Griffiths

Andy and Terry live in a 130-story treehouse. It used to be a 117-story treehouse, but they added another 13 stories. It has a soap bubble blaster, a time-wasting level, a 13-story igloo, the GRABINATOR (it can grab anything from anywhere at any time). It is a toilet paper factory, and an extraterrestrial observation center for observing aliens. As it turns out, though, it's Andy, Terry, and Jill who are being observed and then abducted by a giant flying eyeball from outer space! At first they're excited to be going on an intergalactic space adventure, but when they arrive on Planet Eyeballia, they discover it's not at all a friendly place. Will the gang be able to escape, get back to Earth, and write their book before time runs out?

View Details >>

A Green Place to Be: the Creation of Central Park

Ashley Benham Yazdani

New York City needed a park -- a special spot to gather, play, and enjoy nature. A quiet, wild place made just for you. In 1858, New York City was growing so fast that new roads and tall buildings threatened to swallow up the remaining open space. The people needed a green place to be -- a park with ponds to row on and paths for wandering through trees and over bridges. When a citywide contest solicited plans for creating a park out of barren swampland, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted put their heads together to create the winning design, and the hard work of making their plans a reality began. By winter, the lake opened for skating. By the next summer, the waterside woodland known as the Ramble opened for all to enjoy. Meanwhile, sculptors, stone masons, and master gardeners joined in to construct thirty-four unique bridges, along with fountains, pagodas, and band shells, making New York's Central Park a green gift to everyone. Included in the end matter are bios of Vaux and Olmsted, a bibliography, and engaging factual snippets.

View Details >>

I Am the Lorax

Courtney Carbone

The Lorax shares his love of animals and plants and need to "speak for the trees" in this simple, sturdy board book about caring for the environment. Written in rhymed verse, it's an ideal introduction to the story for toddlers and preschoolers too young for the classic picture book. Now everyone in the family--even pre-readers--can take pleasure in the frolics of the Brown Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish and embrace Dr. Seuss's timely message about protecting the planet!

View Details >>

Planting Peace: The Story Of Wangari Maathai

Gwendolyn Hooks

This picture book tells the inspiring story of Wangari Maathai, women's rights activist and one of the first environmental warriors. Wangari began the Green Belt Movement in Kenya in the 1960s, which focused on planting trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. She inspired thousands across Africa to plant 30 million trees in 30 years and was the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Explores environmental and political issues in an inspirational way Vibrant illustrations from print-maker Margaux Carpentier, one of the featured artists in Taschen's The Illustrator: 100 Best from Around the World. 

View Details >>

Weird, Wild, Amazing! Forest : Exploring the Incredible World in the Trees

Tim Flannery

Tim Flannery has the answers. Introducing some of the most spectacular and unusual creatures on Earth, from water to sky and the forests and deserts in between, he offers in-depth and often bizarre facts about extraordinary animals that live in each habitat. Flannery ties concepts of climate change, evolution, conservation, and taxonomy to each animal's profile, firmly connecting the animal and its environment while sparking wonder at its role in the natural world.

 

Did you know that lions once roamed North America, or that albatrosses sleep-fly? Have you ever heard a piranha bark, or wondered how the sloth got its name? Packed with vibrant illustrations and guided by real-life anecdotes from one of our greatest science communicators, Weird, Wild, Amazing! teaches readers to cherish and delight in our planet's ecosystems with Tim Flannery's signature mix of humor and wisdom.

View Details >>

DC Comics : Wonder Woman Saves the Trees!

Christy Webster

Poison Ivy wants to stop anyone who would dare destroy her beloved forest. Luckily, Wonder Woman is there to teach her that working together to help gets greener results than fighting. This Step 2 leveled reader with an environmental theme is perfect for young DC Super Hero fans ages 4 to 6. A fold-out Wonder Woman poster adds to the fun! Step 2 Step into Reading Leveled Readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. For children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

View Details >>

Zee Grows a Tree

Elizabeth Rusch

Born at the same time a Douglas-fir seedling emerges from the nursery bed on her family's Christmas tree farm, young Zee grows up beside the tree as both thrive and become taller throughout the years.

View Details >>

Be a Tree!

Maria Gianferrari

Compares the structures and functions of trees to human bodies, shows the interconnectness and dependence of trees in a forest, and urges readers to communicate, share, and care for one another. Includes notes on the anatomy of a tree, ways to help save trees, and how to help in one's community.

View Details >>

Trillions of Trees: A Counting and Planting Book

Kurt Cyrus

Grab a shovel and get ready to plant some trees! From poplars to pines, alder, apple, peach, and plum, this rhyming story introduces the concept of orders of magnitude and celebrates the importance of planting different trees and preserving diverse ecosystems. Nurturing a new sapling is one of the first steps in growing hundreds, millions, even trillions of trees.
 

View Details >>

The Second Life of Trees

Aimée M. Bissonette

Trees can live a very long time, but what happens when they die? This unusual book describes, in lyrical prose accompanied by colorful and graphic illustrations, that trees have a whole long second life, continuing to contribute to their habitat, the environment, and the cycle of life.

View Details >>

Here in the Real World

Sara Pennypacker

Ware can't wait to spend summer "off in his own world"--dreaming of knights in the Middle Ages and generally being left alone. But then his parents sign him up for dreaded Rec camp, where he must endure Meaningful Social Interaction and whatever activities so-called "normal" kids do.

On his first day Ware meets Jolene, a tough, secretive girl planting a garden in the rubble of an abandoned church next to the camp. Soon he starts skipping Rec, creating a castle-like space of his own in the church lot.

Jolene scoffs, calling him a dreamer--he doesn't live in the "real world" like she does. As different as Ware and Jolene are, though, they have one thing in common: for them, the lot is a refuge.

But when their sanctuary is threatened, Ware looks to the knights' Code of Chivalry: Thou shalt do battle against unfairness wherever faced with it. Thou shalt be always the champion of the Right and Good--and vows to save the lot.

But what does a hero look like in real life? And what can two misfit kids do?

View Details >>

Sprite and the Gardener

Joe Whitt

Long, long ago, sprites were the caretakers of gardens. Every flower was grown by their hand. But when humans appeared and began growing their own gardens, the sprites’ magical talents soon became a thing of the past. When Wisteria, an ambitious, kind-hearted sprite, starts to ask questions about the way things used to be, she’ll begin to unearth her long-lost talent of gardening. But her newly honed skills might not be the welcome surprise she intends them to be.

The Sprite and the Gardener, the debut graphic novel by Joe Whitt and Rii Abrego, is bursting with whimsical art and vibrant characters. Join our neighborhood of sprites in this beautiful, gentle fantasy where both gardens and friendships begin to blossom.

View Details >>

Swamp Thing: Twin Branches

Maggie Stiefvater

Twins Alec and Walker Holland have a reputation around town. One is quiet and the other is the life of any party, but the two are inseparable. For their last summer before college, Alec and Walker leave the city to live with their rural cousins, where they find that the swamp holds far darker depths than they could have imagined.

While Walker carves their names into the new social scene, laboratory, Alex recedes into a summer-school laboratory, because he brought something from home on their trip--it's an experiment that will soon consume him. This season, both brothers must confront truths, ancient and familial, and as their lives diverge, tensions increase and dormant memories claw to the surface.

From #1 New York Times bestselling authorMaggie Stiefvater (the Raven Cycle series) and artist Morgan Beem comes a story of shadows, both literal and imagined--and those that take form and haunt us.

View Details >>

Supersimple Biology

Anne Farthing

Packed with all the core curriculum topics, this biology book for kids 12+ years old is ideal for home and school learning.

From reproduction to respiration and enzymes to ecosystems,
this guide makes complex topics easy to grasp at a glance.
Perfect support for coursework, homework, and studying for tests.

Each topic is fully illustrated to support the information, make the facts crystal clear, and bring the science to life. For key ideas, "How It Works" and "Look Closer" boxes explain the theory with the help of simple graphics. And for studying, a handy "Key Facts" box provides a simple summary you can check back on later.

With clear, concise coverage of all the core biology topics, Super Simple Biology is the perfect accessible guide to biology for children, supporting classwork and making studying for tests the easiest it's ever been.

View Details >>

Where Have All the Bees Gone?

Rebecca E. Hirsch

Apples, blueberries, peppers, cucumbers, coffee, and vanilla. Do you like to eat and drink? Then you might want to thank a bee.

Bees pollinate 75 percent of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts grown in the United States. Around the world, bees pollinate $24 billion worth of crops each year. Without bees, humans would face a drastically reduced diet. We need bees to grow the foods that keep us healthy.

But numbers of bees are falling, and that has scientists alarmed. What's causing the decline? Diseases, pesticides, climate change, and loss of habitat are all threatening bee populations. Some bee species teeter on the brink of extinction. Learn about the many bee species on Earth -- their nests, their colonies, their life cycles, and their vital connection to flowering plants. Most importantly, find out how you can help these important pollinators.

"If we had to try and do what bees do on a daily basis, if we had to come out here and hand pollinate all of our native plants and our agricultural plants, there is physically no way we could do it. . . . Our best bet is to conserve our native bees." --ecologist Rebecca Irwin, North Carolina State University

View Details >>

The Price Guide to the Occult

Leslye Jo Anne Walton

When Rona Blackburn landed on Anathema Island more than a century ago, her otherworldly skills might have benefited friendlier neighbors. Guilt and fear instead led the island's original eight settlers to burn "the witch" out of her home. So Rona cursed them. Fast-forward one hundred-some years: All Nor Blackburn wants is to live an unremarkable teenage life. She has reason to hope: First, her supernatural powers, if they can be called that, are unexceptional. Second, her love life is nonexistent, which means she might escape the other perverse side effect of the matriarch's backfiring curse, too. But then a mysterious book comes out, promising to cast any spell for the right price. Nor senses a storm coming and is pretty sure she'll be smack in the eye of it. In her second novel, Leslye Walton spins a dark, mesmerizing tale of a girl stumbling along the path toward self-acceptance and first love, even as the Price Guide's malevolent author -- Nor's own mother -- looms and threatens to strangle any hope for happiness.

View Details >>

Poison Ivy: Thorns

Kody Keplinger

There's something unusual about Pamela Isley--the girl who hides behind her bright red hair. The girl who won't let anyone inside to see what's lurking behind the curtains. The girl who goes to extreme lengths to care for a few plants. Pamela Isley doesn't trust other people, especially men. They always want something from her that she's not willing to give.

When cute goth girl Alice Oh comes into Pamela's life after an accident at the local park, she makes her feel like pulling back the curtains and letting the sunshine in. But there are dark secrets deep within the Isley house. Secrets Pamela's father has warned must remain hidden. Secrets that could turn deadly and destroy the one person who ever cared about Pamela, or as her mom preferred to call her...Ivy.

Will Pamela open herself up to the possibilities of love, or will she forever be transformed by the thorny vines of revenge?

View Details >>

When Plants Attack

Rebecca E. Hirsch

Science writer and plant expert Rebecca E. Hirsch presents fun and gross facts about a variety of plants along with explaining the science behind why they do what they do. Featured plants include the Venus Flytrap, an African tree that houses stinking ants to protect itself from hungry animals, a "vampire vine" that sucks nutrients from other plants, and fiendishly invasive kudzu.

View Details >>

The Way of the Hive

Jay Hosler

Experience the life of a honeybee in this coming-of-age story about a bee named Nyuki, in this full-color graphic novel by Jay Hosler, perfect for curious kids who are fans of the Science Comics series.

Nyuki is a brand-new honeybee--and she has a lot of questions. Like

  • When does a bee go through metamorphosis?
  • Why does a queen bee sometimes leave her hive?
  • And where does all this honey come from, anyway?!

But Nyuki's biggest question is, "What is this inner voice I hear, and why does it tell me to go forth to adventure?

Follow Nyuki on a lifelong journey as she annoys her sisters, avoids predators, and learns to trust her inner voice as she masters the way of the hive.

And if you still have questions at the end, the back of the book uncovers even more mysteries about the lives of these incredible insects!

Junior Library Guild Selection

View Details >>

Illustration School: Let's Draw Plants and Small Creatures

Sachiko Umoto

Learn to draw plants, animals, and more in the distinctive Japanese character style—and have fun while you’re creating!

Let popular Japanese artist Sachiko Umoto show you simple methods for sketching butterflies, flowers, cactus, bees, birds, fish, and more. Build on basic lines and shapes to create flower petals, butterfly wings, tree branches, and leaves. Discover helpful tips that will improve your drawing skills, such as focusing on how branches grow, differences in flower shapes, and how poses express emotion.

See how easy it is to turn plants and animals into sweet expressive characters by adding facial expressions and clothes. A singing butterfly? Why not! Sachiko’s clear step-by-step instructions for tracing and drawing are perfect for all ages and skill levels. After mastering a few elements, build a composition that shows off your unique style. Draw lovely bouquets, sunny fields of flowers, or sketch a rabbit running by a tree. In no time you’ll be creating doodles and illustrations every day in sketchbooks, art journals—anywhere you can.

View Details >>

Weird Plants

Chris Thorogood

In this little book of horrors, Chris Thorogood reveals the weird, the wonky, and the sinister specimens he has encountered during his travels in the wide world of plants. Far from passively absorbing the sun's rays, these plants kill, steal and kidnap, making them dynamic participants in the ecosystems around them. From orchids that duplicitously look, feel and even smell like a female insect to bamboozle sex-crazed male bees to giant pitcher plants that have evolved toilets for tree shrews to carnivorous plants that drug, drown, and consume unsuspecting insect prey, Weird Plants takes us deep inside the worlds of plants whose imaginative and calculating survival methods are startlingly reminiscent of human schemes.

To guide us through these unfamiliar plantscapes, Thorogood has organized his book into seven categories fit for a horror film: Vampires, Killers, Fraudsters, Jailers, Accomplices, Survivors, and Hitchhikers. These categories take us through a variety of plant life and around the world, documenting the remote corners where many of these specimens are found. Through the combination of Thorogood's oil paintings and botanical expertise, these fantastic plants come alive on the page.

View Details >>

Wild Beauty

Anna-Marie McLemore

Love grows such strange things.

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.

View Details >>

This Poison Heart

Kalynn Bayron

Darkness blooms in bestselling author Kalynn Bayron’s new contemporary fantasy about a girl with a unique and deadly power.

Briseis has a gift: with a single touch she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms.

When Briseis’s aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents hope that surrounded by plants and flowers, she will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they never expected—it comes with a mysterious set of instructions, a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world, and generations of secrets. There is more to Bri’s sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it.

From the bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead comes an enchanting story about a young woman with the power to conquer the dark forces descending around her.

View Details >>

Our Team

Luke Epplin

The riveting story of four men—Larry Doby, Bill Veeck, Bob Feller, and Satchel Paige—whose improbable union on the Cleveland Indians in the late 1940s would shape the immediate postwar era of Major League Baseball and beyond.

In July 1947, not even three months after Jackie Robinson debuted on the Brooklyn Dodgers, snapping the color line that had segregated Major League Baseball, Larry Doby would follow in his footsteps on the Cleveland Indians. Though Doby, as the second Black player in the majors, would struggle during his first summer in Cleveland, his subsequent turnaround in 1948 from benchwarmer to superstar sparked one of the wildest and most meaningful seasons in baseball history.

In intimate, absorbing detail, Luke Epplin's Our Team traces the story of the integration of the Cleveland Indians and their quest for a World Series title through four key participants: Bill Veeck, an eccentric and visionary owner adept at exploding fireworks on and off the field; Larry Doby, a soft-spoken, hard-hitting pioneer whose major-league breakthrough shattered stereotypes that so much of white America held about Black ballplayers; Bob Feller, a pitching prodigy from the Iowa cornfields who set the template for the athlete as businessman; and Satchel Paige, a legendary pitcher from the Negro Leagues whose belated entry into the majors whipped baseball fans across the country into a frenzy.

Together, as the backbone of a team that epitomized the postwar American spirit in all its hopes and contradictions, these four men would captivate the nation by storming to the World Series--all the while rewriting the rules of what was possible in sports.

View Details >>

The Baltimore Elite Giants

Bob Luke

One of the best-known teams in the old Negro Leagues, the Elite Giants of Baltimore featured some of the outstanding African American players of the day. Sociologist and baseball writer Bob Luke narrates the untold story of the team and its interaction with the city and its people during the long years of segregation.

To convey a sense of the action on the field and the major events in the team’s history, Luke highlights important games, relives the standout performances of individual players, and discusses key decisions made by management. He introduces the team’s eventual major league stars: Roy Campanella, who went on to a ten-year Hall of Fame career with the Brooklyn Dodgers; Joe Black, the first African American pitcher to win a World Series game; and James “Junior” Gilliam, a player and coach with the Dodgers for twenty-five years. Luke also describes the often contentious relationship between the team and major league baseball before, during, and after the integration of the major leagues.

The Elite Giants did more than provide entertainment for Baltimore’s black residents; the team and its star players broke the color barrier in the major leagues, giving hope to an African American community still oppressed by Jim Crow. In recounting the history of the Elite Giants, Luke reveals how the team, its personalities, and its fans raised public awareness of the larger issues faced by blacks in segregation-era Baltimore.

Based on interviews with former players and Baltimore residents, articles from the black press of the time, and archival documents, and illustrated with previously unpublished photographs, The Baltimore Elite Giants recounts a barrier-breaking team’s successes, failures, and eventual demise.

View Details >>

Double Wide

Leo W. Banks

After fastball phenom Prospero Stark's baseball career craters in a Mexican jail, he retreats to a trailer park in the scorching Arizona desert. He lives in peaceful anonymity with a collection of colorful outcasts until someone leaves his former catcher's severed hand on his doorstep. Beautiful, hard-living reporter Roxanne Santa Cruz, who keeps a .380 Colt and a bottle of Chivas in her car, joins Stark to help him uncover his friend's fate, a dangerous pursuit that pits them against a ruthless gang of drug-dealing killers.

View Details >>

The Cactus League

Emily Nemens

Jason Goodyear is the star outfielder for the Los Angeles Lions, stationed with the rest of his team in the punishingly hot Arizona desert for their annual spring training. Handsome, famous, and talented, Goodyear is nonetheless coming apart at the seams. And the coaches, writers, wives, girlfriends, petty criminals, and diehard fans following his every move are eager to find out why—as they hide secrets of their own.

Humming with the energy of a ballpark before the first pitch, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League unravels the tightly connected web of people behind a seemingly linear game. Narrated by a sportscaster, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with tales of Michael Taylor, a batting coach trying to stay relevant; Tamara Rowland, a resourceful spring-training paramour, looking for one last catch; Herb Allison, a legendary sports agent grappling with his decline; and a plethora of other richly drawn characters, all striving to be seen as the season approaches. It’s a journey that, like the Arizona desert, brims with both possibility and destruction.

Anchored by an expert knowledge of baseball’s inner workings, Emily Nemens's The Cactus League is a propulsive and deeply human debut that captures a strange desert world that is both exciting and unforgiving, where the most crucial games are the ones played off the field.

View Details >>

Hooked on You

Kathleen Fuller

She never wanted to come back. He never wants to leave. The town of Maple Falls has plans for them both.

Riley McAllister is living the dream in New York City . . . if the dream means being a struggling mixed-media artist, part-time food delivery driver, and having a carefully curated social media to hide all of the above. She refuses to admit defeat and move back to small-town Maple Falls, but when her grandmother breaks her leg sliding into third base during a softball game (she was safe, by the way), Riley reluctantly agrees to go home and help the woman who raised her--while secretly hoping she can convince Mimi to sell her house and yarn shop and move in with a good friend. Then Riley can return to her new life in NYC, on her own and for good.

But Mimi has her own plans, which include setting Riley up with local baseball star Hayden Price, who returned to Maple Falls after an injury ended his major league career. Now he works at his father's hardware store, coaches the church softball team, and worries about the declining town. It's not the life he dreamed of having.

With a little meddling and a lot of kindness from the town, Hayden and Riley find themselves unexpectedly falling for each other as they discover the true meaning of home.

Welcome to Maple Falls, where everyone knows your name and your business.

 

View Details >>

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

John Feinstein

John Feinstein gave readers an unprecedented view of the PGA Tour in A Good Walk Spoiled. He opened the door to an NCAA basketball locker room in his explosive bestseller A Season on the Brink. Now, turning his eye to our national pastime, sports journalist John Feinstein explores the colorful and mysterious world of minor-league baseball—a gateway through which all major-league players pass in their careers . . . hoping never to return.


Baseball's minor leagues are a paradox. For some players, the minors are a glorious launching pad toward years of fame and fortune; for others, a crash-landing pad when injury or poor play forces a big leaguer back to a life of obscure ballparks and cramped buses instead of Fenway Park and plush charter planes. Focusing exclusively on the Triple-A level, one step beneath Major League Baseball, Feinstein introduces readers to nine unique men: three pitchers, three position players, two managers, and an umpire. Through their compelling stories, Feinstein pulls back the veil on a league that is chock-full of gifted baseball players, managers, and umpires who are all one moment away from getting called up—or back—to the majors.


The stories are hard to believe: a first-round draft pick and pitching ace who rocketed to major-league success before finding himself suddenly out of the game, hatching a presumptuous plan to get one more shot at the mound; a home run–hitting former World Series hero who lived the dream, then bounced among six teams before facing the prospects of an unceremonious end to his career; a big-league All-Star who, in the span of five months, went from being completely out of baseball to becoming a star in the ALDS, then signing a $10 million contract; and a well-liked designated hitter who toiled for eighteen seasons in the minors—a record he never wanted to set—before facing his final, highly emotional chance for a call-up to the big leagues.


From Raleigh to Pawtucket, from Lehigh Valley to Indianapolis and beyond, Where Nobody Knows Your Name gives readers an intimate look at a baseball world not normally seen by the fans. John Feinstein gets to the heart of the human stories in a uniquely compelling way, crafting a masterful book that stands alongside his very best works.

View Details >>

Gods of Wood and Stone

Mark Di Ionno

Joe Grudeck is a living legend—a first-ballot Hall of Famer beloved by Boston Red Sox fans who once played for millions under the bright Fenway lights. Now, he finds himself haunted by his own history, searching for connection in a world that’s alienated his true self beneath his celebrity persona. Soon, he’ll step back into the spotlight once more with a very risky Cooperstown acceptance speech that has the power to change everything—except the darkness in his past.

Horace Mueller is a different type altogether—working in darkness at a museum blacksmith shop and living in a rundown farmhouse on the outskirts of Cooperstown, New York. He clings to an antiquated lifestyle, fueled by nostalgia for simpler times and a rebellion against the sport-celebrity lifestyle of Cooperstown. His baseball prodigy son, however, veers towards everything Horace has spent his life railing against.

 

View Details >>

For the Love of the Game

Cynthia J. Wilber

An affectionate, moving, and amusing tribute to the baseball greats of the 1940s and '50s. The 39 players interviewed here--among them Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, Bobby Doerr and Tommy Lasorda--speak fondly of times past, and of a way of life long gone. 50 photographs.

View Details >>

Home Run

Travis Thrasher

Baseball star Cory Brand knows how to win. But off the field, he's spiraling out of control. Haunted by old wounds and regrets, his future seems as hopeless as his past. Until one moment—one mistake—changes everything. To save his career, Cory must go back to the town where it all began. His plan is simple: coach the local baseball team, complete a recovery program, and get out as fast as possible. Instead, he runs headfirst into memories he can't escape ... and the love he left behind. Faced with a second chance he never expected, Cory embarks on a journey of faith, transformation and redemption. And along the way, he discovers a powerful truth: no one is beyond the healing of God. A novel based on the major motion picture starring Vivica A. Fox and Scott Elrod, Home Run is an inspirational story of the hope and freedom God offers each of us.www.HomeRunTheMovie.com

View Details >>

Robert B. Parker's Blind Spot

Reed Farrel Coleman

It's been a long time since Jesse Stone left L.A., and still longer since the tragic injury that ruined his chances for a major league baseball career. When Jesse is invited to a reunion of his old Triple-A team at a hip New York city hotel, he is forced to grapple with his memories and regrets over what might have been.

Jesse left more behind him than unresolved feelings about the play that ended his baseball career. The darkly sensuous Kayla, his former girlfriend and current wife of an old teammate is there in New York, too. As is Kayla's friend, Dee, an otherworldly beauty with secret regrets of her own. But Jesse's time at the reunion is cut short when, in Paradise, a young woman is found murdered and her boyfriend, a son of one of the town's most prominent families, is missing and presumed kidnapped.

Though seemingly coincidental, there is a connection between the reunion and the crimes back in Paradise. As Jesse, Molly, and Suit hunt for the killer and for the missing son, it becomes clear that one of Jesse's old teammates is intimately involved in the crimes. That there are deadly forces working below the surface and just beyond the edge of their vision. Sometimes, that's where the danger comes from, and where real evil lurks. Not out in the light, but in your blind spot.

View Details >>

Singled Out

Andrew Maraniss

On October 2nd, 1977, Glenn Burke, outfielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, made history without even swinging a bat. When his teammate Dusty Baker hit a historic home run, Glenn enthusiastically congratulated him with the first ever high five.

But Glenn also made history in another way--he was the first openly gay MLB player. While he did not come out publicly until after his playing days were over, Glenn's sexuality was known to his teammates, family, and friends. His MLB career would be cut short after only three years, but his legacy and impact on the athletic and LGBTQIA+ community would resonate for years to come.

New York Times bestselling author Andrew Maraniss tells the story of Glenn Burke: from his childhood growing up in Oakland, his journey to the MLB and the World Series, the joy in discovering who he really was, to more difficult times: facing injury, addiction, and the AIDS epidemic.

Packed with black-and-white photographs and thoroughly researched, never-before-seen details about Glenn's life, Singled Out is the fascinating story of a trailblazer in sports--and the history and culture that shaped the world around him.

 

View Details >>

A Season in the Sun

Randy Roberts

The story of Mickey Mantle's magnificent 1956 season

Mickey Mantle was the ideal batter for the atomic age, capable of hitting a baseball harder and farther than any other player in history. He was also the perfect idol for postwar America, a wholesome hero from the heartland.

In A Season in the Sun, acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith recount the defining moment of Mantle's legendary career: 1956, when he overcame a host of injuries and critics to become the most celebrated athlete of his time. Taking us from the action on the diamond to Mantle's off-the-field exploits, Roberts and Smith depict Mantle not as an ideal role model or a bitter alcoholic, but a complex man whose faults were smoothed over by sportswriters eager to keep the truth about sports heroes at bay. An incisive portrait of an American icon, A Season in the Sun is an essential work for baseball fans and anyone interested in the 1950s.

View Details >>

The Resisters

Gish Jen

The time: not so long from now. The place: AutoAmerica. The land: half under water. The Internet: one part artificial intelligence, one part surveillance technology, and oddly human--even funny. The people: Divided. The angel-fair "Netted" have jobs, and literally occupy the high ground. The "Surplus" live on swampland if they're lucky, on water if they're not.

The story: To a Surplus couple--he once a professor, she still a lawyer--is born a Blasian girl with a golden arm. At two, Gwen is hurling her stuffed animals from the crib; by ten, she can hit whatever target she likes. Her teens find her happily playing in an underground baseball league.

When AutoAmerica rejoins the Olympics, though--with a special eye on beating ChinRussia--Gwen attracts interest. Soon she finds herself playing ball with the Netted even as her mother challenges the very foundations of this divided society.

A moving and important story of an America that seems ever more possible, The Resisters is also the story of one family struggling to maintain its humanity and normalcy in circumstances that threaten their every value--as well as their very existence.

Extraordinary and ordinary, charming and electrifying, this is Gish Jen at her most irresistible.

View Details >>

Three Strikes and You're Dead

Jessica Fletcher

Jessica goes out to the ballgame-and comes through in the bottom of the ninth-in a brand-new mystery in the USA Today bestselling series. Visiting her old friends Judge Jack and Meg Duffy in Arizona, Jessica watches their foster son hit the winning run for the Mesa Rattlers in a AA league playoff game. She and the Duffys are thrilled at Ty Ramos's success, but team owner Harrison Bennett is not. His son Junior and Ty are bitter rivals, and the tension at the team dinner later that evening threatens to empty the dugouts. By the next morning, Junior Bennett is dead, and Ty is the prime suspect. Jessica finds it hard to believe that such a fine young man would wreck his life in a moment of anger-and when she starts looking into the Rattlers' recent season, she finds out that for some people, baseball is more than just a game.

View Details >>

Class A

Lucas Mann

An unforgettable chronicle of a year of minor-league baseball in a small Iowa town that follows not only the travails of the players of the Clinton LumberKings but also the lives of their dedicated fans and of the town itself.

Award-winning essayist Lucas Mann delivers a powerful debut in his telling of the story of the 2010 season of the Clinton LumberKings. Along the Mississippi River, in a Depression-era stadium, young prospects from all over the world compete for a chance to move up through the baseball ranks to the major leagues. Their coaches, some of whom have spent nearly half a century in the game, watch from the dugout. In the bleachers, local fans call out from the same seats they've occupied year after year. And in the distance, smoke rises from the largest remaining factory in a town that once had more millionaires per capita than any other in America.

Mann turns his eye on the players, the coaches, the fans, the radio announcer, the town, and finally on himself, a young man raised on baseball, driven to know what still draws him to the stadium. His voice is as fresh and funny as it is poignant, illuminating both the small triumphs and the harsh realities of minor-league ball. Part sports story, part cultural exploration, part memoir, Class A is a moving and unique study of why we play, why we watch, and why we remember.

View Details >>

The Radical Element

Jessica Spotswood

In an anthology of revolution and resistance, a sisterhood of YA writers shines a light on a century and a half of heroines on the margins and in the intersections.

To respect yourself, to love yourself, should not have to be a radical decision. And yet it remains as challenging for an American girl to make today as it was in 1927 on the steps of the Supreme Court. It's a decision that must be faced when you're balancing on the tightrope of neurodivergence, finding your way as a second-generation immigrant, or facing down American racism even while loving America. And it's the only decision when you've weighed society's expectations and found them wanting. In The Radical Element, twelve of the most talented writers working in young adult literature today tell the stories of girls of all colors and creeds standing up for themselves and their beliefs -- whether that means secretly learning Hebrew in early Savannah, using the family magic to pass as white in 1920s Hollywood, or singing in a feminist punk band in 1980s Boston. And they're asking you to join them.

Original stories by:
Dahlia Adler
Erin Bowman
Dhonielle Clayton
Sara Farizan
Mackenzi Lee
Stacey Lee
Anna-Marie McLemore
Meg Medina
Marieke Nijkamp
Megan Shepherd
Jessica Spotswood
Sarvenaz Tash

View Details >>

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic

Rebel Girls

The latest installment in the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series, featuring 100 barrier-breaking Black women and girls who showcase the spirit of Black Girl Magic.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic, edited by award-winning journalist Lilly Workneh with a foreword by #BlackGirlMagic originator CaShawn Thompson, is dedicated to amplifying and celebrating the stories of Black women and girls from around the world; features the work of over 60 Black female and non-binary authors, illustrators, and editors; is designed to acknowledge, applaud, and amplify the incredible stories of Black women and girls from the past and present; and celebrates Black Girl Magic around the world.

Amongst the women featured from over 30 countries are tennis player Naomi Osaka, astronaut Jeanette Epps, author Toni Morrison, filmmaker Ava DuVernay; aviator Bessie Coleman, Empress Taytu Betul, journalist Ida B. Wells, and many other inspiring leaders, champions, innovators, and creators. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic is the fourth volume of the New York Times bestselling Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls series which originally launched in 2016.

Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic is published by Rebel Girls, a global, multi-platform empowerment brand dedicated to helping raise the most inspired and confident global generation of girls through content, experiences, products, and community.

About Black Girl Magic
CaShawn Thompson, a proud third-generation native of Washington, DC, came up with the concept “Black Girls Are Magic” when she was a little girl growing up with her mother, grandmother, and aunts. It sprang forth fully formed from the mind of a poor little Black girl who didn’t yet have the words to describe the brilliance she saw in the women in her family, but had heard countless tales of fairies, witches, and magicians. It was just magic to her. And it still is.

Black Girls Are Magic became wildly popular in 2013 after CaShawn began using the phrase online (it was later shortened to the hashtag #BlackGirlMagic) to uplift and praise the accomplishments, beauty, and other amazing qualities of Black women.

View Details >>

Teen Trailblazers: 30 Fearless Girls Who Changed the World Before They Were 20

Jennifer Calvert

Changing the world may sound like an impossible task. It's the kind of thing only political leaders, business innovators, and celebrities can do, right? But what if that's not true? Just look to these change-making girls who used their voices, their strengths, and their courage to forge new paths to a better future-all before their 20th birthdays. Teen Trailblazers tells the stories of 30 awe-inspiring young women, from historical groundbreakers like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Anne Frank; to history's quiet heroines, like Sybil Ludington, who warned troops that the British were coming; and Claudette Colvin, who inspired Rosa Parks; to today's powerful voices of social justice like Jazz Jennings and Emma Gonzalez. Discover the remarkable change, leadership, and innovation made by incredible girls who overcame huge obstacles to accomplish great things. These pioneers are proof that every girl has the power to speak up, to speak out, to innovate, to inspire, to ask questions, and to challenge injustice. Each of these young women was just a girl until the day she wasn't anymore-until she became a trailblazer.

View Details >>

Stories for South Asian Supergirls

Raj Kaur Khaira

Through the inspirational stories of 50 famous and under-celebrated women from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, South Asian girls will have a chance to dream about lives for themselves that radically differ from the limited narratives and stereotypes written for them by their culture, wider society and the mainstream media.  Stories for South Asian Supergirls seeks to redress the imbalance for young girls of color by empowering them to break new ground for themselves and to inspire others in the process.
Illustrated with striking portraits by ten international South Asian female artists, this is a book for all ages - the perfect gift that will be treasured by parents as much as their children will enjoy reading them.

View Details >>

Corpse Talk: Groundbreaking Women

Adam Murphy

Welcome to Corpse Talk, the chat show with a difference - all of the guests are dead! Meet your host, comic book artist Adam Murphy, as he interviews eighteen ground-breaking women throughout history. Have you ever heard of Khutulun, the wrestling princess from Mongolia? Wondered about Jane Austen's love life? Or asked how Harriet Tubman managed to escape from slavery and help so many others do the same? This graphic novel answers all of your questions about the lives of these significant historical figures, from their amazing achievements to their personal lives.

Bold and expressive illustrations by Adam and Lisa Murphy bring historical events to life, literally, while humorous text makes learning history fun. Full page illustrations give more detail on the bigger picture behind the women's stories, with special features including a timeline of women's rights, a factfile on Chinese junks used by pirates, and a map of a Jamaican settlement created by escaped slaves.

View Details >>

Women in Sports

A richly illustrated and inspiring book, Women in Sports highlights the achievements and stories of fifty notable women athletes from the 1800s to today, including trailblazers, Olympians, and record-breakers in more than forty sports. The athletes featured include well-known figures like tennis player Billie Jean King and gymnast Simone Biles, as well as lesser-known champions like Toni Stone, the first woman to play baseball in a professional men's league, and skateboarding pioneer Patti McGee. The book also contains infographics on topics that sporty women want to know about such as muscle anatomy, a timeline of women's participation in sports, pay and media statistics for female athletes, and influential women's teams. Women in Sports celebrates the success of the tough, bold, and fearless women who paved the way for today's athletes.

View Details >>

Women in Science

Women in Science highlights notable women's contributions to various scientific fields and inspires readers both young and old. A fascinating collection full of striking, singular art, the book features 50 profiles and illustrated portraits of women in STEM from the ancient to the modern world, and also contains infographics about interesting and relevant topics such as lab equipment and rates of women currently working in STEM fields. Profiles feature well-known figures, such as biologist Rachel Carson and primatologist Jane Goodall, as well as lesser-known pioneers, such as Dr. Patricia Bath, the first African-American woman to receive a medical patent, and Barbara McClintock, a Nobel Prize-winning cytogeneticist.

View Details >>

The Radium Girls

Kate Moore

Amid the excitement of the early twentieth century, hundreds of young women spend their days hard at work painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark radium paint. The painters consider themselves lucky--until they start suffering from a mysterious illness. As the corporations try to cover up a shocking secret, these shining girls suddenly find themselves at the center of a deadly scandal.

The Radium Girls: Young Readers Edition tells the unbelievable true story of these incredible women, whose determination to fight back saved countless lives.

View Details >>

Rad Women Worldwide

Kate Schatz

Rad Women Worldwide tells fresh, engaging, and amazing tales of perseverance and radical success by pairing well-researched and riveting biographies with powerful and expressive cut-paper portraits. The book features an array of diverse figures from 430 BCE to 2016, spanning 31 countries around the world, from Hatshepsut (the great female king who ruled Egypt peacefully for two decades) and Malala Yousafzi (the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize) to Poly Styrene (legendary teenage punk and lead singer of X-Ray Spex) and Liv Arnesen and Ann Bancroft (polar explorers and the first women to cross Antarctica). An additional 250 names of international rad women are also included as a reference for readers to continue their own research.

 

View Details >>

Pirate Queens

Leigh Lewis

Meet Ching Shih, a Chinese pirate who presided over a fleet of 80,000 men (by contrast, Blackbeard had some 300). Get the scoop on Anne Bonny who famously ran away from an arranged marriage to don trousers and brandish a pistol in the Bahamas. And there are more!

Each pirate profile includes a dramatic original poem presented against a backdrop of gorgeous full-color art by award-winning illustrator Sara Gómez Woolley. Each profile is followed by fascinating information about the real life and times of these daring (and dangerous!) women.

View Details >>

Alice Paul and the Fight for Women's Rights

Deborah Kops

Alice Paul made a significant impact on both the woman's suffrage movement—the long struggle for votes for women—to the "second wave," when women demanded full equality with men.  After women won the vote in 1920, Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would make all the laws that discriminated against women unconstitutional. Passage of the ERA became the rallying cry of a new movement of young women in the 1960s and '70s. Paul saw another chance to advance women's rights when the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 began moving through Congress. She set in motion the "sex amendment," which remains a crucial legal tool for helping women fight discrimination in the workplace. A true "girl power" book for today's young women, the title includes archival images, an author's note, a bibliography, and source notes.

View Details >>

I Am Malala

Malala Yousafzai

The bestselling memoir by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

I Am Malala. This is my story.
Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school.
Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding the bus on her way home from school.
No one expected her to survive.
Now Malala is an international symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner. In this Young Readers Edition of her bestselling memoir, which has been reimagined specifically for a younger audience and includes exclusive photos and material, we hear firsthand the remarkable story of a girl who knew from a young age that she wanted to change the world -- and did.
Malala's powerful story will open your eyes to another world and will make you believe in hope, truth, miracles and the possibility that one person -- one young person -- can inspire change in her community and beyond.
 

View Details >>

Galaxy Girls

Libby Jackson

Filled with beautiful full-color illustrations, a groundbreaking compendium honoring the amazing true stories of fifty inspirational women who helped fuel some of the greatest achievements in space exploration.  Galaxy Girls celebrates more than four dozen extraordinary women from around the globe whose contributions have been fundamental to the story of humankind’s quest to reach the stars.

From Ada Lovelace in the nineteenth century to the “colored computers” behind the Apollo missions, from the astronauts breaking records on the International Space Station to the scientific pioneers blazing the way to Mars, Galaxy Girls goes boldly where few books have gone before, celebrating this band of heroic sisters and their remarkable and often little known scientific achievements. Written by Libby Jackson, a leading British expert in human space flight, and illustrated with striking artwork from the students of London College of Communication, Galaxy Girls will fire the imaginations of trailblazers of all ages.

View Details >>

Brazen

Pénélope Bagieu

2019 Eisner Award Winner for Best U.S. Edition of International Material

Throughout history and across the globe, one characteristic connects the daring women of Brazen: their indomitable spirit.

With her characteristic wit and dazzling drawings, celebrated graphic novelist Pénélope Bagieu profiles the lives of these feisty female role models, some world famous, some little known. From Nellie Bly to Mae Jemison or Josephine Baker to Naziq al-Abid, the stories in this comic biography are sure to inspire the next generation of rebel ladies.

This title has Common Core connections.

View Details >>

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Adapted for Young People)

Jeanne Theoharis

Rosa Parks is one of the most well-known Americans today, but much of what is known and taught about her is incomplete, distorted, and just plain wrong.  Jeanne Theoharis and Brandy Colbert shatter the myths that Parks was meek, accidental, tired, or middle class. They reveal a lifelong freedom fighter whose activism began two decades before her historic stand that sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and continued for 40 years after. Readers will understand what it was like to be Parks, from standing up to white supremacist bullies as a young person to meeting her husband, Raymond, who showed her the possibility of collective activism, to her years of frustrated struggle before the boycott, to the decade of suffering that followed for her family after her bus arrest. The book follows Parks to Detroit, after her family was forced to leave Montgomery, Alabama, where she spent the second half of her life and reveals her activism alongside a growing Black Power movement and beyond.

Rosa Parks placed her greatest hope in young people—in their vision, resolve, and boldness to take the struggle forward. As a young adult, she discovered Black history, and it sustained her across her life. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks will help do that for a new generation.

View Details >>

Astronauts

Jim Ottaviani

The U.S. may have put the first man on the moon, but it was the Soviet space program that made Valentina Tereshkova the first woman in space. It took years to catch up, but soon NASA’s first female astronauts were racing past milestones of their own. The trail-blazing women of Group 9, NASA’s first mixed gender class, had the challenging task of convincing the powers that be that a woman’s place is in space, but they discovered that NASA had plenty to learn about how to make space travel possible for everyone.

View Details >>

Latinitas: Celebrating 40 Big Dreamers

Juliet Menéndez

Discover how 40 influential Latinas became the women we celebrate today! In this collection of short biographies from all over Latin America and across the United States, Juliet Menéndez explores the first small steps that set the Latinitas off on their journeys. With gorgeous, hand-painted illustrations, Menéndez shines a spotlight on the power of childhood dreams.

From Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to singer Selena Quintanilla to NASA’s first virtual reality engineer, Evelyn Miralles, this is a book for aspiring artists, scientists, activists, and more. These women followed their dreams—and just might encourage you to follow yours!

The book features Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juana Azurduy de Padilla, Policarpa Salavarrieta, Rosa Peña de González, Teresa Carreño, Zelia Nuttall, Antonia Navarro, Matilde Hidalgo, Gabriela Mistral, Juana de Ibarbourou, Pura Belpré, Gumercinda Páez, Frida Kahlo, Julia de Burgos, Chavela Vargas, Alicia Alonso, Victoria Santa Cruz, Claribel Alegría, Celia Cruz, Dolores Huerta, Rita Moreno, Maria Auxiliadora da Silva, Mercedes Sosa, Isabel Allende, Susana Torre, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Sonia Sotomayor, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Mercedes Doretti, Sonia Pierre, Justa Canaviri, Evelyn Miralles, Selena Quintanilla, Berta Cáceres, Serena Auñón, Wanda Díaz-Merced, Marta Vieira da Silva, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Laurie Hernandez.
 

View Details >>

Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb

Veronica Chambers

A picture book biography celebrating the life and contributions of Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress, who sought the Democratic nomination to be the president of the United States.

View Details >>

Wonder Women of Science: How 12 Geniuses Are Rocking Science, Technology, and the World

Tiera Fletcher

The twelve scientists who are profiled here are women from all sorts of backgrounds who are currently rocking science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Each of them has a different story to tell about how she got to where she is today, but the one thing they have in common is that they are truly wonder women of science. Around the world there are many more women doing incredible work and breaking new ground in STEM fields--not to mention girls of all ages dreaming of how they will one day contribute.

View Details >>

Her Epic Adventure: 25 Daring Women Who Inspire a Life Less Ordinary

Julia De Laurentiis Johnston

Thrilling true stories of female adventurers from around the world. Throughout history, women seeking adventure often faced opposition. But here are 25 remarkable women — from pilots to mountain climbers, deep-sea divers to Antarctic explorers — who defied expectations and made history. Included are Bessie Coleman, famously known as the first Black woman to earn a pilot’s license (two years before Amelia Earhart!). But readers will also learn about lesser-known women, such as Diana Nyad, the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, and Arunima Sinha, the first woman amputee to climb Mount Everest. Though their experiences are all different, these women have one thing in common: they didn’t let anything get in the way of their dreams! Watch out world, the next generation of adventurers are about to get inspired.

View Details >>

Baseball's Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of Negro Leagues

Andrea Williams

The true story of Effa Manley, the first and only woman in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and her ownership role in the Negro Leagues leading up to the integration of Major League Baseball"-- Provided by publisher.

Before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947, Black athletes plated in the Negro Leagues, on teams coached by Black managers, cheered on by Black fans. Those leagues owed their existence and success to savvy businesspeople like Effa Manley, the Black female co-owner of the Newark Eagles. Manley was the team's business manager, leading her team to win the Negro World Series in 1946. Williams shows how Manley devoted her life to Black empowerment, invested in community programs, and fought for her team's place on an unequal field

View Details >>

Good Girls Don't Make History

Elizabeth Kiehner

"Good Girls Don't Make History is an important graphic novel that amplifies the voices of female legends from 1840 to the present day. Reliving moments from the lives of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul, Ida B. Wells, and Susan B. Anthony, these inspiring stories are boldly told from one of the most formative eras in women's history--the fight for the vote in the United States." 

View Details >>

Ambitious Girl

Meena Harris

A girl sees a woman labeled as having too much ambition, but when the girl considers its definition she finds herself inspired and realizes ambition is required to make changes to the world and have her voice be heard.

View Details >>