List

Category
Audience

Pretty Perfect Kitty-Corn

Shannon Hale

From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning superstar duo Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham, creators of Itty-Bitty Kitty-Corn, comes another positively delightful kitty and unicorn picture-book story that celebrates the magic of friendship--and the beauty of imperfection--in Pretty Perfect Kitty-Corn.

Unicorn is perfect.
Everybody thinks so.
He yearns to look the way everyone thinks he should.

But when a fumble makes Unicorn feel like a big, ugly goof, he can't help but wonder: if he's not absolutely perfect and majestic all the time, will Kitty even want to be his best friend anymore?

The magical, bestselling team of Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham put their horns together once again for a heart-bursting story featuring an utterly adorable kitty-corn pair, showing readers that it's OK to embrace our flaws and share the messy parts of ourselves.

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Layla, the Last Black Unicorn

Tiffany Haddish

From beloved comedian, actress, and New York Times bestselling author Tiffany Haddish comes Layla, the Last Black Unicorn, a hilarious, original picture book tale about a lovable but awkward unicorn who learns why her uniqueness is her biggest strength.

It's not easy to fit in when you stand out. When Layla arrives for her first day of school at Unicornia, the school for unicorns, she realizes that she's not like the other kids there. They're all pastel colors and know the rules to Horn Ball and none of them come from the Woods like Layla does. Try as she might to make friends, Layla's just . . . different. But when her class gets lost during a field trip to the Fiddle Dee Deep Forest, it's up to Layla to step up and save the day.

Layla, the Last Black Unicorn is a hilariously heartwarming picture book about self-acceptance, self-esteem, and standing up for standing out by New York Times bestselling author, Grammy Award-winning comedian, and actress Tiffany Haddish and Jerdine Nolen, author of the Coretta Scott King Honor Book Thunder Rose.

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You Don't Want a Unicorn!

Ame Dyckman

Be careful what pet you wish for in this hysterical story from bestselling author Ame Dyckman and beloved illustrator Liz Climo, now as a board book!
When a little boy throws a coin in a well asking for a pet unicorn, he has no idea what kind of trouble he's in for. Unbeknownst to him, unicorns make the absolutely worst pets: they shed, they poke holes in your ceiling, and they make a big mess. With a knowing wink from Ame Dyckman, author of Wolfie the Bunny and cheerful illustrations from Rory the Dinosaur creator and Tumblr star Liz Climo, this rollicking story shares all of the ways a pet unicorn can ruin your life, and is sure to have readers in stitches.

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Lily the Unicorn

Dallas Clayton

Lily the unicorn loves making new friends and going on adventures! So when Lily meets her new pal, Roger the penguin, she plans all sorts of fun for them. But Roger is afraid of trying new things. What if he tries and fails? In this sweet story about friendship, Lily teaches young readers that the world is a fun, amazing place. Fans of An Awesome Book! and An Awesome Book of Love! will be thrilled by Dallas Clayton's delightful picture book filled with lively and detailed illustrations.

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Once Upon a Unicorn's Horn

Beatrice Blue

Do you know how unicorns got their horns? Find out in this charming picture book about friendship, family, and magic. (Hint: It's something sweet!)

How did unicorns get their horns? It all began once upon a magical forest, where a little girl named June discovered tiny horses with soft fur and sparkly tails learning how to fly! But there was one poor, sad horsie that couldn't fly at all. And of course, June was determined to help.

Find out how one girl's sweet idea for cheering up her new friend turned into an unexpected treat for unicorn lovers everywhere. Featuring an imaginative little girl who loves to explore nature, this adorable story celebrates family, friendship, and finding the magic within yourself.

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Invasion of the Unicorns

David Biedrzycki

He's just a cute little unicorn who wants to take over the world.

Special Agent Bubble07 is undercover on planet Earth. His mission: to decide whether his team of alien unicorns should invade Earth. Posing as a stuffed animal, he infiltrates the home of Earthling Daughter, where he puts up with dog slobber, tea parties, and show and tell. Will the unicorn blow his cover and call for backup? Or will his alien heart be won over by storytime, snow days, and snuggles?

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The Eyes of the Unicorn

Teresa Bateman

The hunt for the unicorn is under way, for the Duke and his men are greedy for its magical horn. As the nobles ride off on their fine steeds, Tanisa, the exhausted serving girl, finally has a chance to rest. She awakens to two astonishing sights: a pure white unicorn resting his head in her lap and the Duke's son, whose arrow is poised to slay the beast. But the unicorn's eyes possess great powers. If the Duke's son dares to gaze into them, nearly anything could happen.

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Unicorns 101

Cale Atkinson

A laugh-out-loud picture book that finally sets the record straight about unicorns!

Unicorns! You love them, but how much do you really know about them? Join Professors Glitter Pants, Sprinkle Steed, Star Hoof, and Sugar Beard, plus their trusty lab assistant, Pete, as they reveal mind-blowing unicorn facts never before available to the public! For example:

* Buttercup Sparklecheeks was the first unicorn to trot on Pluto!
* At one time in history, there were dino-corns!
* One unicorn accidentally made it rain waffles for a week!
* Unicorns have giant slides inside their homes!
* Rare and exotic unicorns include the mer-corn and the hamster-corn!

Full of eye-popping illustrations and nonstop, sidesplitting laughs--plus a removable Unicorn Scientist diploma at the end of the book--Unicorns 101 will have children eager to enroll, time and time again!

"effervescent . . . enjoyably off-the-wall"--Publishers Weekly

"merits space on every unicorn-lover's reference shelf."--Booklist

"unicorn fans will find plenty to love."--Kirkus

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How To Two

David Soman

From the co-creator of the New York Times bestselling Ladybug Girl series comes a joyful counting book about inclusivity, play, and the thrill of making new friends--from one to ten and back again.

A quiet day at the playground turns into a boisterous park-wide adventure as one boy on the slide becomes two kids on the see-saw, then three jumping rope. Before long, ten new friends are playing like they've known one another forever.

With its deceptively simple text and a rich visual narrative, How to Two is a playful counting and reverse-counting concept book as well as an exuberant celebration of inclusive play, friendship, and community.

"No two ways about it--this one is a delight." --Kirkus
"A joyous celebration of play...Seamless...Diverse." --The Horn Book (starred review)
"Inviting and welcoming." --BCCB (starred review)
"Dynamic." --Booklist
"Exciting." --Publishers Weekly

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One Family

George Shannon

A celebration of diverse families plus a clever 1-10 counting element in this unabridged board book edition of One Family.

Just how many things can "one" be?

One box of crayons.

One batch of cookies.

One world.

One family.

From veteran picture book author George Shannon and artist Blanca Gomez comes a playful, interactive book that shows how a family can be big or small and comprised of people of a range of genders and races.

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One Fox

Kate Read

Counting from one to ten has never been so thrilling in this Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Honor Book and recipient of the Mathical Book Prize from Kate Read!

One hungry fox with two sly eyes is on the prowl . . . three plump hens had better watch out! Rich and colorful illustrations plunge the reader into a dramatic and exciting story set in a moonlit farmyard.

With something different to count on each page, this gripping tale introduces page-turning tension to young readers in an age-appropriate way. Great for early education and read alouds, this fun numbers introduction has a hugely satisfying ending that’s sure to delight! Pluck up this one up for your little math enthusiast today and check out the available activity kit online.

Also by Kate Read: Hey! A Colorful Mystery, a perfect selection on color vocabulary for budding artists.

"Stunning... Count on requests for many readings." —School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Honor Book
Recipient of the Mathical Book Prize Charlotte Zolotow Award (Highly Commended)
Parents’ Choice Gold Award Recipient
An ALSC Notable Children’s Book
A Capitol Choices Noteworthy Book for Children and Teens
Cybils (Fiction Picture Books)
A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year
A NYPL Best Book for Kids
A CCBC Choice

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10 Little Ninjas

Miranda Paul

A charming bedtime counting book about ten sneaky little characters who aren’t ready to go to sleep... until daddy calls the sensei to send them back to bed.
 
It may be bedtime, but these little ninjas aren't tired. They're sliding, swinging, and slipping out of bed! Can Daddy and the sensei ever tuck them in? Filled with mischievous fun, 10 Little Ninjas will take young readers from playtime to bedtime again and again. Kids will love the astronauts, tigers, cowboys, dragons and more!

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One Leaf, Two Leaves, Count with Me!

John Micklos Jr.

This playful counting book shares the colorful highlights of the four seasons in charming illustrations.
 
Count your way through the seasons! In spring, the tree’s leaves appear, one by one. By summer, there’s a glorious canopy. And when autumn winds blow, leaves fly from the tree, one after another, leading us into winter. There’s a world of activity to spy in and around this beautiful tree as the wild creatures, and one little boy, celebrate the cycles of nature. As little ones count leaves, look for animals, and enjoy the changing seasonal landscape, bouncy rhymes and bold illustrations make learning to count easy—corresponding numerals reinforcing the learning fun.

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1 Big Salad

Juana Medina

Juana Medina's ingenious illustrations nearly pop off the page in her new counting book, ONE BIG SALAD. One avocado deer saunters across the spread, two radish mice scurry by, until finally ten clementine kitties prance onto the scene - all of the ingredients in one big salad!

Medina's previous book with Viking, SMICK!, introduced her to the children's book world, and now she's bringing her fresh and innovative take on the concept book form.

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Goodnight, Numbers

Danica McKellar

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Count your way to sweet dreams with help from The Wonder Years/Great American Family star, math whiz, and author Danica McKellar! This New York Times bestselling bedtime book with a math twist is perfect both for getting ready for bed and learning at home.

This deceptively simple bedtime book sneaks in secret counting concepts to help make your 2-5 year old smarter . . . and by the end, sleepier! The first in the McKellar Math line, Goodnight, Numbers gives your child the building blocks for math success. As children say goodnight to the objects all around them—three wheels on a tricycle, four legs on a cat—they will connect with the real numbers in their world while creating cuddly memories, night after night. Loving numbers is as easy as 1, 2, 3!
 
"A winner for bedtimes or storytimes focusing on counting." —School Library Journal
 
"The joys of counting combine with pretty art and homage to Goodnight Moon." —Kirkus
 

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Up to My Knees!

Grace Lin

Caldecott Honor winner Grace Lin celebrates math for every kid, everywhere!

Mei explores measurement as she plants a sunflower seed and watches it grow. The plant starts off as tall as her toe, but soon it's up to her knees, then her waist, then her shoulders. How tall will it get?

Storytelling Math celebrates children using math in their daily adventures as they play, build, and discover the world around them. Joyful stories and hands-on activities make it easy for kids and their grown-ups to explore everyday math together. Developed in collaboration with math experts at STEM education nonprofit TERC, under a grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation.

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Jonny Lambert's Animal 123

Jonny Lambert

A charming illustrated picture book with animals for every number

An illustrated lift-the-flap baby book that helps preschoolers learn to count.

1 chameleon, 2 hippos, and 10... you'll have to lift the flap and see! Children and adults will delight in this magical menagerie of animals from all around the world.

Renowned author and artist Jonny Lambert brings the animal kingdom to life with his charming and expressive illustrations, making this children's 123 book perfect for adults and children to share. With little snippets of information revealing where some of the animals originate and surprises under every flap to discover together, both adults and children will be captivated. A superb early-learning book to treasure and love.

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Sam Sorts

Marthe Jocelyn

Marthe Jocelyn is back with another clever concept book to follow Hannah's Collections, Ones and Twos and Where Do You Look? This time, she tackles counting and categories.


Sam's things are in a heap. Time to tidy up! He starts to organize his things, but quickly runs into trouble. He can make a pile of black and white things. But the penguin also belongs in the things with wings pile. He can make a pile of rocks. But the round rock also belongs in the round things pile. How will he ever sort his 100 things? Marthe Jocelyn takes a fun look at categories and counting in this very cleverly conceived story. Kids will delight in the cut-paper images of everything from a zipper pull to a robot, and Sam's surprising solution makes for a tidy end to this unique story.

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I Know Numbers!

Taro Gomi

How do we love numbers? Let us count the ways: They're on street signs and bus stops, featured on phones, thermometers, chalkboards, and scales. They show the time and the date, and help us to measure distance, sizing, and so much more. This spirited picture book by beloved author-illustrator Taro Gomi will charm and inform the youngest of readers, offering them a unique—and useful—look at a key concept we count on.

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Ducks Away!

Mem Fox

A delightful counting tale about a family of ducks from internationally bestselling picture book author Mem Fox and illustrator Judy Horacek.

 

Count along with Mother Duck as her ducklings try to waddle across the bridge. When a sudden gust of wind sweeps one of Mother Duck's ducklings into the river, she doesn't know what to do. With four ducklings on the bridge and one below, Mother Duck is torn as to which way to go. Suddenly, a second duck falls and Mother Duck grows more panicked. Should she stay on the bridge or fly down to her ducklings in the river? As she paces and frantically quacks, the remaining ducklings playfully plop one by one into the river until all of the siblings are happily floating along. Now that all five ducklings are safely in the water, Mother Duck flies down to join in the fun, relieved to have all her ducklings together again. Mem introduces young readers to the basic math principles of addition and subtraction.

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Feast for 10

Cathryn Falwell

Enjoy this classic counting book and lively read-aloud featuring a family shopping for food, preparing dinner, and enjoying a meal together.

Count from one to ten--then count again! What does it take to make a feast for ten hungry people?

Shopping, cooking, setting the table--everyone in this loving family pitches in to create a colorful and joyful feast. Lively read-aloud text paired with bright collage illustrations.

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How Many?

Christopher Danielson

Talking math with your child is fun and easy with this better approach to counting!

Written by a math educator, this innovative book encourages critical thinking and sparks memorable mathematical conversations. You and your child decide what to count on each page. You have many choices, and the longer you look, the more possibilities you'll notice. There are no wrong answers in this book. As long as you're talking about what you see, think, and wonder, you're talking math!

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Baby Goes to Market

Atinuke

Join Baby and his mama at the bustling marketplace for a bright, bouncy read-aloud offering a gentle introduction to numbers. When Baby and Mama go to market, baby is so adorable that the banana seller gives him six bananas. Baby eats one and puts five in the basket, but Mama doesn't notice. As Mama and Baby wind their way through the market stalls, cheeky Baby collects five juicy oranges, four sugary chin-chin biscuits, three roasted sweetcorn, two pieces of coconut, until Mama notices that her basket is getting very heavy. Poor Baby, she thinks - he must be very hungry by now!

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Baby Goes to Market

Atinuke

Join Baby and his doting mama at a bustling southwest Nigerian marketplace for a bright, bouncy read-aloud offering a gentle introduction to numbers.

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The Vanishing Half

Brit Bennett

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES * THE WASHINGTON POST * NPR * PEOPLE * TIME MAGAZINE* VANITY FAIR * GLAMOUR 

2021 WOMEN'S PRIZE FINALIST

“Bennett’s tone and style recalls James Baldwin and Jacqueline Woodson, but it’s especially reminiscent of Toni Morrison’s 1970 debut novel, The Bluest Eye.” —Kiley Reid, Wall Street Journal 

A story of absolute, universal timelessness …For any era, it's an accomplished, affecting novel. For this moment, it's piercing, subtly wending its way toward questions about who we are and who we want to be….” – Entertainment Weekly
 

From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

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The Paper Palace (Reese's Book Club)

Miranda Cowley Heller

 

REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

THE PAPER PALACE IS:


“Filled with secrets, love, lies and a summer beach house. What more could you ask?”—Parade

“A deeply emotional love story…the unraveling of secrets, lies and a very complex love triangle.” Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club July ’21 Pick)

"Nail-biting." —Town & Country

“A magnificent page-turner.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author

“[An] irresistible placement of a complicated family in a bewitching place.” The New York Times

A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades.


“This house, this place, knows all my secrets.”

It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.

 

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There There

Tommy Orange

ONE OF THE 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEARTHE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

WINNER OF THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE

One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, NPR, Time, O, The Oprah Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, The Boston Globe, GQ, The Dallas Morning News, Buzzfeed, BookPage, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews   


NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLER 

Tommy Orange’s “groundbreaking, extraordinary” (The New York Times) There There is the “brilliant, propulsive” (People Magazine) story of twelve unforgettable characters, Urban Indians living in Oakland, California, who converge and collide on one fateful day. It’s “the year’s most galvanizing debut novel” (Entertainment Weekly).
 
As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland Powwow—some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent—momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss.
 
There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen. It’s “masterful . . . white-hot . . . devastating” (The Washington Post) at the same time as it is fierce, funny, suspenseful, thoroughly modern, and impossible to put down. Here is a voice we have never heard—a voice full of poetry and rage, exploding onto the page with urgency and force. Tommy Orange has written a stunning novel that grapples with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and profound spirituality, and with a plague of addiction, abuse, and suicide. This is the book that everyone is talking about right now, and it’s destined to be a classic.

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Little Fires Everywhere

Celeste Ng

The #1 New York Times bestseller!

“Witty, wise, and tender. It's a marvel.” —Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train and A Slow Fire Burning

“To say I love this book is an understatement. It’s a deep psychological mystery about the power of motherhood, the intensity of teenage love, and the danger of perfection. It moved me to tears.” —Reese Witherspoon


From the bestselling author of Everything I Never Told You and Our Missing Hearts comes a riveting novel that traces the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned—from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren—an enigmatic artist and single mother—who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town—and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.  Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia’s past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs.

Little Fires Everywhere explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, and the ferocious pull of motherhood—and the danger of believing that following the rules can avert disaster.

Named a Best Book of the Year by: People, The Washington Post, Bustle, Esquire, Southern Living, The Daily Beast, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Audible, Goodreads, Library Reads, Book of the Month, Paste, Kirkus Reviews, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and many more...

Perfect for book clubs! Visit celesteng.com for discussion guides and more.

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Olive, Again

Elizabeth Strout

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK • Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout continues the life of her beloved Olive Kitteridge, a character who has captured the imaginations of millions.

“Strout managed to make me love this strange woman I’d never met, who I knew nothing about. What a terrific writer she is.”—Zadie Smith, The Guardian


“Just as wonderful as the original . . . Olive, Again poignantly reminds us that empathy, a requirement for love, helps make life ‘not unhappy.’”—NPR 

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY PEOPLE AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time Vogue • NPR • The Washington Post • Chicago Tribune Vanity Fair • Entertainment Weekly BuzzFeed  Esquire Real Simple • Good Housekeeping • The New York Public Library • The Guardian Evening Standard • Kirkus Reviews Publishers Weekly BookPage
 
Prickly, wry, resistant to change yet ruthlessly honest and deeply empathetic, Olive Kitteridge is “a compelling life force” (San Francisco Chronicle). The New Yorker has said that Elizabeth Strout “animates the ordinary with an astonishing force,” and she has never done so more clearly than in these pages, where the iconic Olive struggles to understand not only herself and her own life but the lives of those around her in the town of Crosby, Maine. Whether with a teenager coming to terms with the loss of her father, a young woman about to give birth during a hilariously inopportune moment, a nurse who confesses a secret high school crush, or a lawyer who struggles with an inheritance she does not want to accept, the unforgettable Olive will continue to startle us, to move us, and to inspire us—in Strout’s words—“to bear the burden of the mystery with as much grace as we can.”

Praise for Olive, Again

“Olive is a brilliant creation not only because of her eternal cantankerousness but because she’s as brutally candid with herself about her shortcomings as she is with others. Her honesty makes people strangely willing to confide in her, and the raw power of Ms. Strout’s writing comes from these unvarnished exchanges, in which characters reveal themselves in all of their sadness and badness and confusion. . . . The great, terrible mess of living is spilled out across the pages of this moving book. Ms. Strout may not have any answers for it, but she isn’t afraid of it either.”The Wall Street Journal

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Black Cake

Charmaine Wilkerson

COMING SOON TO HULU • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • Two estranged siblings delve into their mother’s hidden past—and how it all connects to her traditional Caribbean black cake—in this immersive family saga, “a character-driven, multigenerational story that’s meant to be savored” (Time).
 
“Wilkerson transports you across the decades and around the globe accompanied by complex, wonderfully drawn characters.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & The Six, and Malibu Rising

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, NPR, BuzzFeed, Glamour, PopSugar, Book Riot, She Reads


We can’t choose what we inherit. But can we choose who we become?

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.

Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”? Will their mother’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?

Charmaine Wilkerson’s debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.

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The Underground Railroad (Pulitzer Prize Winner) (National Book Award Winner) (Oprah's Book Club)

Colson Whitehead

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestseller from Colson Whitehead, a magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. Now an original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins.

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.

Look for Colson Whitehead’s best-selling new novel, Harlem Shuffle!

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Educated

Tara Westover

#1 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER • One of the most acclaimed books of our time: an unforgettable memoir about a young woman who, kept out of school, leaves her survivalist family and goes on to earn a PhD from Cambridge University
 
“Extraordinary . . . an act of courage and self-invention.”—The New York Times
 
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW • ONE OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • BILL GATES’S HOLIDAY READING LIST • FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle’s Award In Autobiography and John Leonard Prize For Best First Book • PEN/Jean Stein Book Award • Los Angeles Times Book Prize
 
Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Her family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent. When another brother got himself into college, Tara decided to try a new kind of life. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge University. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.
 
“Beautiful and propulsive . . . Despite the singularity of [Westover’s] childhood, the questions her book poses are universal: How much of ourselves should we give to those we love? And how much must we betray them to grow up?”—Vogue

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, O: The Oprah Magazine, Time, NPR, Good Morning America, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Economist, Financial Times, Newsday, New York Post, theSkimm, Refinery29, Bloomberg, Self, Real Simple, Town & Country, Bustle, Paste, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, LibraryReads, Book Riot, Pamela Paul, KQED, New York Public Library

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Commonwealth

Ann Patchett

#1 New York Times Bestseller

The acclaimed, bestselling author—winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize—tells the enthralling story of how an unexpected romantic encounter irrevocably changes two families’ lives.

One Sunday afternoon in Southern California, Bert Cousins shows up at Franny Keating’s christening party uninvited. Before evening falls, he has kissed Franny’s mother, Beverly—thus setting in motion the dissolution of their marriages and the joining of two families.

Spanning five decades, Commonwealth explores how this chance encounter reverberates through the lives of the four parents and six children involved. Spending summers together in Virginia, the Keating and Cousins children forge a lasting bond that is based on a shared disillusionment with their parents and the strange and genuine affection that grows up between them.

When, in her twenties, Franny begins an affair with the legendary author Leon Posen and tells him about her family, the story of her siblings is no longer hers to control. Their childhood becomes the basis for his wildly successful book, ultimately forcing them to come to terms with their losses, their guilt, and the deeply loyal connection they feel for one another.

Told with equal measures of humor and heartbreak, Commonwealth is a meditation on inspiration, interpretation, and the ownership of stories. It is a brilliant and tender tale of the far-reaching ties of love and responsibility that bind us together.

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Road Builders

Barbara G. Hennessy

Shows the many kinds of trucks needed to build a road, including cement mixers, dump trucks, bulldozers, front loaders, cranes, backhoes, graders, rollers, and stripers.

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Red Truck

Kersten Hamilton

Can Red Truck make it
up the hill?
Red Truck can!
Red Truck will!
ZOOOM!

Truck fans of all ages - but especially the littlest ones - will love cheering on the hardworking red tow truck that stars in this high energy picture book. Mighty Red Truck splashes and zooms through mud and rain to rescue a stalled school bus on the side of the road, and becomes the hero of a rainy day. Eye-popping quirky illustrations and the fast-paced rhyming text will make this truck story a fast favourite.

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Construction Kitties

Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges

Preschoolers can join the Construction Kitties for a busy day on the job. From sunup to sundown, these friendly felines work hard as they operate dump trucks, bulldozers, and backhoes. But it's not all work—a lunch break of sardines and milk hits the spot. Then it's back to the trucks to finish their grand construction. What will it be? A playground for kitties!

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Old MacDonald Had a Truck

Steve Goetz

"A new twist on a classic story and song, this book is just pure fun."School Library Journal

Old MacDonald has some new friends on the farm: Old MacDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a...TRUCK?! With a DIG DIG here and a SCOOP SCOOP there, this classic folk song just got revved up! Beloved machines—the excavator, dump truck, bulldozer, and more—will have vehicle enthusiasts of all ages reading and singing along.

• With colorful, fun illustrations, and subtle themes of gender equality, both parents and kids will enjoy this story over and over again
• Ideal for family and elementary school story time
• Steve Goetz was inspired to write his debut picture book, Old MacDonald Had a Truck, after his son began to sing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" with alternative lyrics

Fans of Old MacDonald Had a Boat and Old MacDonald's Things That Go will love this entertaining read (and sing-aloud book) with a surprise ending.

Recommended for children ages 4-6 years to enjoy any time of day.

• Perfect family read aloud book
• For early and emergent readers in Preschool through Grade 1

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Dinotrux Dig the Beach

Chris Gall

The third book in the original, rip-roaring mash-up of dinosaurs and trucks that inspired the Netflix TV series!
Fed up with steamy summertime Jurassic jungles, the mighty monsters are getting hot and grumpy, and they need a vacation.... Time to roll on down to the beach! Tyrannosaurus Trux might be able to "hang ten" on his surfboard, but not all of the trux feel so at home near the water. Can they organize their skills to dig up the beach and build the best sandcastle ever? Dive into the silliest, splashiest Dinotrux adventure yet to find out!

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Big Rig Rescue!

Chris Gall

Chris Gall gives truck books a fresh set of wheels in a bright story of wreckers, tools, towing, and teamwork.

 

When a semi-truck crashes in the snow, Big Orange is ready. With a crane, chains, a webbing strap, outriggers, and a winch, Orange will get the semi back on its wheels—and when the job is too tough to tackle alone, Big Blue is there to help. Together they get the semi free and upright. Now, Orange is ready to tow the semi back to the shop, but a storm is coming.?.?.?.?Good thing Blue is around to help when Orange hits ice!

 

With lively storytelling and engaging artwork, acclaimed author-illustrator Chris Gall motors through a brave and stormy tale of big-rig gadgets and collaboration.

 

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With Any Luck, I'll Drive a Truck

David Friend

New York Times bestselling illustrator Mike Rex's vivid, vehicle-filled scenes are the perfect match for this enthusiastic celebration of big rigs and big imaginations.

Bulldozers and back-hoes, pavers and plows, trailers and tractors--the world is filled with so many types of trucks! Imagine the fun you could have if you could drive them all! And what if you could bring your best friends along with you? Hop along for a thrilling ride! This playful romp is sure to delight truck lovers everywhere!

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Little Excavator

Anna Dewdney

From New York Times bestselling author-illustrator of the Llama Llama books comes a new character ready to dig his way into your heart!

Here come the BIG RIGS
rolling down the street. 
Thumpa-thumpa
bumpa-bumpa
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!


There's Loader and Dump Truck, Backhoe and Crane. They're ready to transform a vacant lot into a neighborhood park. And who wants to help most of all?

Little Excavator! But are there any jobs for someone so small?

Anna Dewdney's signature rhyming text and inviting illustrations make this a perfect read aloud for for fans of things that go!

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The Little Dump Truck

Margery Cuyler

Meet Hard Hat Pete and his little dump truck as they haul stones and rocks, carry debris, and unload at the landfill. It's hard work, but the little dump truck is ready for action.

Preschool children will revel in the day-to-day activities of this mighty dump truck. The lyrical text, bright pictures, and sturdy pages are just right for budding truck enthusiasts.

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Truck

Donald Crews

centerFollow the big red truck on its cross-country journey in Donald Crew's classic wordless book, perfect for sharing with the very young.

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Drive

Nathan Clement

A little boy reveres his truck-driving dad. A little boy tells the story of what his dad does in his long day of driving a truck. Startlingly vivid graphic images of a big rig rendered in vibrant colors and compelling compositions make life on the road seem exotic and beautiful even as they bring the father and son together at the end of the day.

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Katy and the Big Snow

Virginia Lee Burton

Katy was a beautiful red crawler tractor. In summer she wore a bulldozer to push dirt with. In winter whe wore a snowplow. She was big and strong and the harder the job the better she liked it. When the Big Snow covered the city of Geoppolis like a thick blanket, Katy cleared the city from North to South and East to West.

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Trucks

Byron Barton

The tow trucks, cement trucks, and newspaper delivery trucks pictured here all help people and will fascinate small children.

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Fire Truck vs. Dragon

Chris Barton

Can a Fire Truck and a Dragon be friends? Find out in this new companion to the household favorite Shark vs. Train!

It's the wackiest rivalry ever, when the fire-breathing ruler of the skies and the fearless fire truck go head to head in an epic battle of fire vs water! Who will win?

But wait, is it actually a competition?

Their rivalry takes unexpected turns as these two unlikely friends face off at a campfire, a birthday party, and more with unexpected results. Who will you root for?
With playful illustrations and charming text, Fire Truck vs Dragon gives readers an unexpected twist on a would-be rivalry, turned friendship.

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Mini Mighty Sweeps

Lori Alexander

Don't miss this charming picture book about a tiny cleaning machine with a mighty heart. Perfect for fans of Sherri Duskey Rinker's Mighty, Mighty Construction Site, and Three Cheers for Kid McGear.

Sweeps is a mini and mighty cleaning machine! She's eager to get to work, but the other trucks don't leave any jobs for her. Big jobs are only for the big trucks, they say.

But when a storm strikes, can Sweeps flex her brushes and step up to save the day?

This heartwarming story from Lori Alexander, with inviting illustrations by Jeff Harter, reminds us that heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Sweeps will win the heart of all young fans of construction vehicles.

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Free at Last

Sojourner Kincaid Rolle

This lyrical celebration of Juneteenth, deeply rooted in Black American history, spans centuries and reverberates loudly and proudly today.

After 300 years of forced bondage;
hands bound, descendants of Africa
picked up their souls--all that they owned--
leaving shackles where they fell on the ground,
headed for the nearest resting place to be found.

Deeply emotional, evocative free verse by poet and activist Sojourner Kincaid Rolle traces the solemnity and celebration of Juneteenth from its 1865 origins in Galveston, Texas to contemporary observances all over the United States. This is an ode to the strength of Black Americans and a call to remember and honor a holiday whose importance reverberates far beyond the borders of Texas.

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Everyone Loves Lunchtime but Zia

Jenny Liao

A heartwarming picture book about a Chinese-American girl who grows to appreciate the traditional dishes her parents prepare for her and finds a way to share her lunch with her classmates.

Everyone loves lunchtime. Everyone, that is, but Zia.

At school, the other kids are eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese and crackers, and apples on the side. But Zia's always nervous about opening her lunchbox. Her dumpling and noodle dishes look different and smell different. She dreads lunchtime.

Then, during her birthday week, her parents pack her a different Cantonese dish each day and explain what the food represents: a roast pork bun to bring treasure, soy sauce chicken to bring success, and more. At first, Zia doesn’t want to eat her lunch, but once she starts, she just may realize her food could bring her good fortune after all!

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Eid Breakfast at Abuela's

Mariam Saad

Join Sofia and her mom and dad who spend Eid - the Islamic holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan - with her Mexican grandmother, who is not Muslim but chooses to throw them a festive breakfast which includes traditional Mexican food, decorations, and activities.

The book includes many Spanish words and a glossary as well to introduce the reader to simple words in Spanish and even Arabic.

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Dumplings for Lili

Melissa Iwai

An NCTE Charlotte Huck Award Recommended Book

A Chicago Public Library Best Book of the Year

A heartfelt picture book celebration of food, community, and family—and little dumpling treasures from around the world.

 

Lili loves to cook baos, and Nai Nai has taught her all the secrets to making them, from kneading the dough lovingly and firmly to being thankful for the strong and healthy ingredients in the filling. But when Nai Nai realizes that they are out of cabbage (Secret #8: line the basket with cabbage leaves!), she sends Lili up to Babcia’s apartment on the sixth floor to get some. Babcia is happy to share her cabbage, but she needs some potatoes for her pierogi. . . .

What follows is a race up and down the stairs as Lili helps all the grandmothers in her building borrow ingredients for different dumplings: Jamaican beef patties, Italian ravioli, Lebanese fatayer, and more. Energized by Melissa Iwai’s engaging artwork and kinetic storytelling, Dumplings for Lili is a joyful story of sharing food, friendship, and love in all their forms.

 

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Carpenter's Helper

Sybil Rosen

A warm, wonderful picture book that gently reminds us of the importance of respecting our natural world and highlights the joys and rewards of helping others.

Join a girl as she helps a mama and papa bird build a nest in her bathroom, hatch their eggs, and teach their babies to fly away.
Renata and her Papi are hard at work at renovating their bathroom. Renata can't wait to build castles of bubbles in the deep, old-fashioned bathtub. But one morning, she finds dried leaves and pine needles heaped on a shelf in the corner. How did they get there? She soon realizes that a bird has built a nest on the shelf, and inside it are four rosy eggs! Weeks pass, and Renata watches as the wrens come and go, building a home in her bathroom... until, one day, with a little help from Renata, the birds are ready to fly.

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Can I Touch Your Hair?

Irene Latham

Two poets, one white and one black, explore race and childhood in this must-have collection tailored to provoke thought and conversation.

How can Irene and Charles work together on their fifth grade poetry project? They don't know each other . . . and they're not sure they want to.

Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is Black, use this fictional setup to delve into different experiences of race in a relatable way, exploring such topics as hair, hobbies, and family dinners. Accompanied by artwork from acclaimed illustrators Sean Qualls and Selina Alko (of The Case for Loving: The Fight for Interracial Marriage), this remarkable collaboration invites readers of all ages to join the dialogue by putting their own words to their experiences.

 

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Calvin

JR Ford

In this joyful and impactful picture book, a transgender boy prepares for the first day of school and introduces himself to his family and friends for the first time.

Calvin has always been a boy, even if the world sees him as a girl. He knows who he is in his heart and in his mind but he hasn't yet told his family. Finally, he can wait no longer: "I'm not a girl," he tells his family. "I'm a boy--a boy in my heart and in my brain." Quick to support him, his loving family takes Calvin shopping for the swim trunks he's always wanted and back-to-school clothes and a new haircut that helps him look and feel like the boy he's always known himself to be. As the first day of school approaches, he's nervous and the "what-ifs" gather up inside him. But as his friends and teachers rally around him and he tells them his name, all his "what-ifs" begin to melt away.

Inspired by the authors' own transgender child and accompanied by warm and triumphant illustrations, this authentic and personal text promotes kindness and empathy, offering a poignant and inclusive back-to-school message: all should feel safe, respected, and welcomed.

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The 1619 Project: Born on the Water

Nikole Hannah-Jones

 

The 1619 Project’s lyrical picture book in verse chronicles the consequences of slavery and the history of Black resistance in the United States, thoughtfully rendered by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and Newbery honor-winning author Renée Watson.

A young student receives a family tree assignment in school, but she can only trace back three generations. Grandma gathers the whole family, and the student learns that 400 years ago, in 1619, their ancestors were stolen and brought to America by white slave traders.
But before that, they had a home, a land, a language. She learns how the people said to be born on the water survived.

 
And the people planted dreams and hope,
willed themselves to keep
living, living.
 
And the people learned new words
for love
for friend
for family

for joy
for grow
for home.
 
With powerful verse and striking illustrations by Nikkolas Smith, Born on the Water provides a pathway for readers of all ages to reflect on the origins of American identity.

 

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Bilal Cooks Daal

Aisha Saeed

A Kirkus Reviews Best Picture Book of 2019
An Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book 2019

Six-year-old Bilal introduces his friends to his favorite dish—daal!—in this charming picture book that showcases the value of patience, teamwork, community, and sharing.

Six-year-old Bilal is excited to help his dad make his favorite food of all-time: daal! The slow-cooked lentil dish from South Asia requires lots of ingredients and a whole lot of waiting. Bilal wants to introduce his friends to daal. They’ve never tried it! As the day goes on, the daal continues to simmer, and more kids join Bilal and his family, waiting to try the tasty dish. And as time passes, Bilal begins to wonder: Will his friends like it as much as he does?

This debut picture book by Aisha Saeed, with charming illustrations by Anoosha Syed, uses food as a means of bringing a community together to share in each other’s family traditions.

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Bedtime for Sweet Creatures

Nikki Grimes

Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Year

Kirkus Best Book of the Year

Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year

4 STARRED REVIEWS

Nikki Grimes, Coretta Scott King Award winning author, and acclaimed illustrator Elizabeth Zunon's latest children's masterpiece creates an imagination-fueled and animal-filled journey to bedtime.

"Has the feel of an all-time great bedtime picture book" -- The New York Times

It's bedtime. But Mommy's little one is not sleepy.

He growls like a bear, he questions like an owl, he tosses his mane like a lion. He hunts for water like a sly wolf, and hides like a snake.

Mommy needs to wrangle her sweet creature in bed so that the whole family can sleep. From tigers to squirrels to snakes, the little boy dodges around his bedtime, until he is tired enough to finally sleep. His imaginative animal friends weave their way through the illustrations, eventually joining him in curling up for the night.

For those seeking children's books about diversity, this loving depiction of everyday shenanigans is sure to become a bedtime favorite. Bedtime for Sweet Creatures is an African American children's book that celebrates imagination, playful moments, and the love between a Black mother and child.

"The mother's loving understanding is demonstrated by how she works with her child's rich imagination, never slipping into admonishment. As such, children will engage with the pajama-clad tot's antics and be soothed by the book's positive tone. A fabulous interpretation of an everyday battle."--Booklist, STARRED review

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Baby Goes to Market

Atinuke

Join Baby and his doting mama at a bustling southwest Nigerian marketplace for a bright, bouncy read-aloud offering a gentle introduction to numbers.

Market is very crowded.
Mama is very busy.
Baby is very curious.

When Baby and Mama go to the market, Baby is so adorable that the banana seller gives him six bananas. Baby eats one and puts five in the basket, but Mama doesn’t notice. As Mama and Baby wend their way through the stalls, cheeky Baby collects five oranges, four biscuits, three ears of sweet corn, two pieces of coconut . . . until Mama notices that her basket is getting very heavy! Poor Baby, she thinks, he must be very hungry by now! Rhythmic language, visual humor, and a bounty of delectable food make this a tale that is sure to whet little appetites for story time.

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Anita and the Dragons

Hannah Carmona

A beautifully tender story touching on the range of emotions immigrants may feel when leaving their home countries - excitement and sorrow, fear and courage.

Anita watches the dragons high above her as she hops from one cement roof to another in her village in the Dominican Republic. But being the valiant princesa she is, she never lets them scare her. Will she be brave enough to enter the belly of the beast and take flight to new adventures?

A Barnes & Noble Bookseller Favorite. A BookTrust Book of the Month. A Love Reading For Schools Book of the Month.

"A gorgeous story about the love of one's homeland and the courage it takes to emigrate"--Kirkus Reviews, STARRED

"Anita's courage as she flies off with the dragons to a new land will linger long after the final page"--Girls Read The World

"What a punch this book packs. Hannah Carmona's lyrical narrative is paired with THE dreamiest artwork by Anna Cunha - I'm obsessed with the color palette, and the gentle simplicity of her spreads is calming, yet full of energy"--The Little Literary Society

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Amara's Farm

JaNay Brown-Wood

Amara searches for pumpkins on her farm in this vibrant exploration of gardening and healthy eating, from the Where in the Garden? series.

Amara is hosting a potluck for friends on her farm, and she needs help finding her pumpkins to serve a tasty dish. What do we know about pumpkins? They're large, round, and orange—and, wait a minute, is that a pumpkin? No, that's an apple. Where, oh, where could those pumpkins be? Can you help Amara find them in time for her potluck?

The first title in the Where in the Garden? picture book series stars Amara, a young Black girl who explores the crops growing on her family's intergenerational farm. Playful text guides young readers to hunt for visual clues and compare and contrast the unique characteristics of pumpkins against okra, cauliflower, eggplant, and other produce that grows on Amara's farm.

Artist Samara Hardy brings this multi-layered story to life with vivid, cheerful illustrations created from layers of hand painted ink and watercolor texture. Back matter includes a yummy molasses pumpkin bread recipe for little chefs and their adult helpers to try together.

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A Sweet New Year for Ren

Michelle Sterling

Celebrate the Lunar New Year through a young girl’s family traditions in this charming picture book featuring illustrations by New York Times bestselling artist Dung Ho that also includes a recipe for pineapple cakes!

Little Ren looks forward to the preparation for and festivities of Lunar New Year, but she is always too little to help make the delicious pineapple cakes that are her favorite. She watches family members rolling out the dough and loves the mouth-watering smell. Watching and waiting, when will Ren be old enough?

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A Song of Frutas

Margarita Engle

From Pura Belpré Award–winning author Margarita Engle comes a lively, rhythmic picture book about a little girl visiting her grandfather who is a pregonero—a singing street vendor in Cuba—and helping him sell his frutas.

When we visit mi abuelo, I help him sell
frutas, singing the names of each fruit
as we walk, our footsteps like drumbeats,
our hands like maracas, shaking…


The little girl loves visiting her grandfather in Cuba and singing his special songs to sell all kinds of fruit: mango, limón, naranja, piña, and more! Even when they’re apart, grandfather and granddaughter can share rhymes between their countries like un abrazo—a hug—made of words carried on letters that soar across the distance like songbirds.

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Atlas of the Heart

Brené Brown

In Atlas of the Heart, Brown takes us on a journey through eighty-seven of the emotions and experiences that define what it means to be human. As she maps the necessary skills and an actionable framework for meaningful connection, she gives us the language and tools to access a universe of new choices and second chances—a universe where we can share and steward the stories of our bravest and most heartbreaking moments with one another in a way that builds connection.
 

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"You're in the Wrong Bathroom!"

Laura Erickson-Schroth

This “insightful and instructive primer” debunks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender issues—“buy this book and share it with [your] whole family” (Bust)

From Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner to Thomas Beatie (“the pregnant man”) and transgender youth, coverage of trans lives has been exploding—yet so much misinformation persists. Bringing together the medical, social, psychological, and political aspects of being trans in the United States today, “You’re in the Wrong Bathroom!” unpacks the twenty-one most common myths and misconceptions about transgender and gender-nonconforming people. Authors Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, a psychiatrist, and Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R, a psychotherapist, address a range of fallacies:

• Trans People Are “Trapped in the Wrong Body”
• You’re Not Really Trans If You Haven’t Had “the Surgery”
• Trans People Are a Danger to Others, Especially Children
• Trans People Are Mentally Ill and Therapy Can Change Them
• Trans People and Feminists Don’t Get Along

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Transgender Children and Youth

Elijah C. Nealy

A comprehensive guide to the medical, emotional, and social issues of trans kids.

 

These days, it is practically impossible not to hear about some aspect of transgender life. Whether it is the bathroom issue in North Carolina, trans people in the military, or on television, trans life has become front and center after years of marginalization.

 

And kids are coming out as trans at younger and younger ages, which is a good thing for them.

But what written resources are available to parents, teachers, and mental health professionals who need to support these children?

Elijah C. Nealy, a therapist and former deputy executive director of New York City’s LGBT Community Center, and himself a trans man, has written the first-ever comprehensive guide to understanding, supporting, and welcoming trans kids.

Covering everything from family life to school and mental health issues, as well as the physical, social, and emotional aspects of transition, this book is full of best practices to support trans kids.

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Trans Bodies, Trans Selves

Laura Erickson-Schroth

There is no one way to be transgender.

Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is a revolutionary resource--a comprehensive, reader-friendly guide for transgender people, with each chapter written by transgender and gender expansive authors. Inspired by Our Bodies, Ourselves, the classic and powerful compendium written by and for cisgender women, Trans Bodies, Trans Selves is widely accessible to the transgender population, providing authoritative information in an inclusive and respectful way and representing the collective knowledge base of dozens of influential experts. Each chapter takes the reader through an important issue, such as race, religion, employment, medical and surgical transition, mental health, relationships, sexuality, parenthood, arts and culture, and many more. Anonymous quotes, testimonials, art and poetry from transgender people are woven throughout, adding compelling, personal voices to every page. In this unique way, hundreds of viewpoints from throughout the community have united to create this strong and
pioneering book. It is a welcoming place for transgender and gender-questioning people, their partners and families, students, professors, guidance counselors, and others to look for up-to-date information on transgender life. The content of the second edition of this award-winning resource will be thoroughly updated throughout and will include entirely new stories, artwork, and illustrations as well as dozens of new contributing authors and collaborators.

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Beyond Magenta

Susan Kuklin

A 2015 Stonewall Honor Book

A groundbreaking work of LGBT literature takes an honest look at the life, love, and struggles of transgender teens.

Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of gender preference. Portraits, family photographs, and candid images grace the pages, augmenting the emotional and physical journey each youth has taken. Each honest discussion and disclosure, whether joyful or heartbreaking, is completely different from the other because of family dynamics, living situations, gender, and the transition these teens make in recognition of their true selves.

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Modern Jewish Cooking

Leah Koenig

From a leading voice of the new generation of young Jewish cooks who are reworking the food of their forebears, this take on the cuisine of the diaspora pays homage to tradition while reflecting the values of the modern-day food movement. Author Leah Koenig shares 175 recipes showcasing handmade, seasonal, vegetable-forward dishes. Classics of Jewish culinary culture—such as latkes, matzoh balls, challah, and hamantaschen—are updated with smart techniques and vibrant spices. Approachable recipes for everything from soups to sweets go beyond the traditional, incorporating regional influences from North Africa to Central Europe. Featuring holiday menus and rich photography, this collection is at once a guide to establishing traditions and a celebration of the way we eat now.

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Michael Chabon

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York’s Golden Age of comics—soon to be a Showtime limited series

“It's absolutely gosh-wow, super-colossal—smart, funny, and a continual pleasure to read.”—The Washington Post Book World

Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Decade by Entertainment Weekly • Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Los Angeles Times Book Prize

A “towering, swash-buckling thrill of a book” (Newsweek), hailed as Chabon’s “magnum opus” (The New York Review of Books), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is a triumph of originality, imagination, and storytelling, an exuberant, irresistible novel that begins in New York City in 1939.
 
A young escape artist and budding magician named Joe Kavalier arrives on the doorstep of his cousin, Sammy Clay. While the long shadow of Hitler falls across Europe, America is happily in thrall to the Golden Age of comic books, and in a distant corner of Brooklyn, Sammy is looking for a way to cash in on the craze. He finds the ideal partner in the aloof, artistically gifted Joe, and together they embark on an adventure that takes them deep into the heart of Manhattan, and the heart of old-fashioned American ambition. From the shared fears, dreams, and desires of two teenage boys, they spin comic book tales of the heroic, fascist-fighting Escapist and the beautiful, mysterious Luna Moth, otherworldly mistress of the night. Climbing from the streets of Brooklyn to the top of the Empire State Building, Joe and Sammy carve out lives, and careers, as vivid as cyan and magenta ink.
 
Spanning continents and eras, this superb book by one of America’s finest writers remains one of the defining novels of our modern American age.
 
Winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award and the New York Society Library Book Award

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My Friend Anne Frank

Hannah Pick-Goslar

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER



"Both heartbreaking and life-affirming" (Edith Eger, author of The Choice), the long-awaited memoir of Holocaust survivor Hannah Pick-Goslar, who shares an intimate look into her life and friendship with Anne Frank.



In 1933, Hannah Pick-Goslar and her family fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam, where she struck up a close friendship with her next-door neighbor, an outspoken and fun-loving young girl named Anne Frank. For several years, the inseparable pair enjoyed a carefree childhood of games, sleepovers, and treats with the other children in their neighborhood of Rivierenbuurt. But in 1942, Hannah and Anne's lives abruptly changed forever. As the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam progressed, Anne and the Frank family seemingly vanished, leaving behind unmade beds and dishes in the sink--but no trace of Anne's precious diary. Torn from her dear friend without warning, Hannah spent the next two years tormented by questions about Anne's fate, wondering if she had, by some miracle, managed to escape danger.



In this long‑awaited memoir, Hannah shares the story of her childhood during the Holocaust, from the introduction of anti-Jewish laws in Amsterdam to the gradual disappearance of classmates and, eventually, the Frank family, to Hannah and her family's imprisonment in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. As Hannah chronicles the experiences of her own life during and after the war, she provides a searing look at what countless children endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, as well as an intimate, never‑before‑seen portrait of the most recognizable victim of the Holocaust. Culminating in an astonishing fateful reunion, My Friend Anne Frank is the profoundly moving story of childhood and friendship during one of the darkest periods in the world's history.

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Unstoppable

Joshua M. Greene

Winner – Best of Los Angeles Award's "Best Holocaust Book - 2021"

“A must-read that hopefully will be adapted for the screen. Greene lets Wilzig’s effervescent spirit shine through, and his story will appeal to a wide variety of readers.” - Library Journal

Unstoppable is the ultimate immigrant story and an epic David-and-Goliath adventure. While American teens were socializing in ice cream parlors, Siggi was suffering beatings by Nazi hoodlums for being a Jew and was soon deported along with his family to the darkest place the world has ever known: Auschwitz. Siggi used his wits to stay alive, pretending to have trade skills the Nazis could exploit to run the camp. After two death marches and near starvation, he was liberated from camp Mauthausen and went to work for the US Army hunting Nazis, a service that earned him a visa to America. On arrival, he made three vows: to never go hungry again, to support the Jewish people, and to speak out against injustice. He earned his first dollar shoveling snow after a fierce blizzard. His next job was laboring in toxic sweatshops. From these humble beginnings, he became President, Chairman and CEO of a New York Stock Exchange-listed oil company and grew a full-service commercial bank to more than $4 billion in assets.

Siggi’s ascent from the darkest of yesterdays to the brightest of tomorrows holds sway over the imagination in this riveting narrative of grit, cunning, luck, and the determination to live life to the fullest.

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Antisemitism

Deborah E. Lipstadt

***2019 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER—Jew­ish Edu­ca­tion and Iden­ti­ty Award***

The award-winning author of The Eichmann Trial and Denial: Holocaust History on Trial gives us a penetrating and provocative analysis of the hate that will not die, focusing on its current, virulent incarnations on both the political right and left: from white supremacist demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia, to mainstream enablers of antisemitism such as Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, to a gay pride march in Chicago that expelled a group of women for carrying a Star of David banner.


Over the last decade there has been a noticeable uptick in antisemitic rhetoric and incidents by left-wing groups targeting Jewish students and Jewish organizations on American college campuses. And the reemergence of the white nationalist movement in America, complete with Nazi slogans and imagery, has been reminiscent of the horrific fascist displays of the 1930s. Throughout Europe, Jews have been attacked by terrorists, and some have been murdered.

Where is all this hatred coming from? Is there any significant difference between left-wing and right-wing antisemitism? What role has the anti-Zionist movement played? And what can be done to combat the latest manifestations of an ancient hatred? In a series of letters to an imagined college student and imagined colleague, both of whom are perplexed by this resurgence, acclaimed historian Deborah Lipstadt gives us her own superbly reasoned, brilliantly argued, and certain to be controversial responses to these troubling questions.

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My Own Words

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The New York Times bestselling book from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg—“a comprehensive look inside her brilliantly analytical, entertainingly wry mind, revealing the fascinating life of one of our generation's most influential voices in both law and public opinion” (Harper’s Bazaar).

My Own Words “showcases Ruth Ginsburg’s astonishing intellectual range” (The New Republic). In this collection Justice Ginsburg discusses gender equality, the workings of the Supreme Court, being Jewish, law and lawyers in opera, and the value of looking beyond US shores when interpreting the US Constitution. Throughout her life Justice Ginsburg has been (and continues to be) a prolific writer and public speaker. This book’s sampling is selected by Justice Ginsburg and her authorized biographers Mary Hartnett and Wendy W. Williams, who introduce each chapter and provide biographical context and quotes gleaned from hundreds of interviews they have conducted.

Witty, engaging, serious, and playful, My Own Words is a fascinating glimpse into the life of one of America’s most influential women and “a tonic to the current national discourse” (The Washington Post).

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Sissy

Jacob Tobia

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Transformative ... If Tobia aspires to the ranks of comic memoirists like David Sedaris and Mindy Kaling, Sissy succeeds." --The New York Times Book Review

A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it's like to grow up not sure if you're (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above.

"A beautiful book . . . honest and funny."--Trevor Noah, The Daily Show
"Sensational."--Tyler Oakley
"Jacob Tobia is a force." --Good Morning America
"A trans Nora Ephron . . . both honest and didactic." --OUT Magazine
"A rallying cry for anyone who's ever felt like they don't belong." --Woman's Day


As a young child in North Carolina, Jacob Tobia wasn't the wrong gender, they just had too much of the stuff. Barbies? Yes. Playing with bugs? Absolutely. Getting muddy? Please. Princess dresses? You betcha. Jacob wanted it all, but because they were "a boy," they were told they could only have the masculine half. Acting feminine labelled them "a sissy" and brought social isolation.

It took Jacob years to discover that being "a sissy" isn't something to be ashamed of. It's a source of pride. Following Jacob through bullying and beauty contests, from Duke University to the United Nations to the podiums of the Methodist church--not to mention the parlors of the White House--this unforgettable memoir contains multitudes. A deeply personal story of trauma and healing, a powerful reflection on gender and self-acceptance, and a hilarious guidebook for wearing tacky clip-on earrings in today's world, Sissy guarantees you'll never think about gender--both other people's and your own--the same way again.

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Detransition, Baby

Torrey Peters

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The lives of three women—transgender and cisgender—collide after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires in “one of the most celebrated novels of the year” (Time)

“Reading this novel is like holding a live wire in your hand.”—Vulture

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by more than twenty publications, including The New York Times Book Review, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, Time, Vogue, Esquire, Vulture, and Autostraddle

PEN/Hemingway Award Winner
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Gotham Book PrizeLonglisted for The Women’s PrizeRoxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club PickNew York Times Editors’ Choice

Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.

Ames isn't happy either. He thought detransitioning to live as a man would make life easier, but that decision cost him his relationship with Reese—and losing her meant losing his only family. Even though their romance is over, he longs to find a way back to her. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby—and that she's not sure whether she wants to keep it—Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family—and raise the baby together?

This provocative debut is about what happens at the emotional, messy, vulnerable corners of womanhood that platitudes and good intentions can't reach. Torrey Peters brilliantly and fearlessly navigates the most dangerous taboos around gender, sex, and relationships, gifting us a thrillingly original, witty, and deeply moving novel.

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Stars in Your Eyes

Kacen Callender

The National Book Award-winning author of Felix Ever After delivers a beautifully tender story of two grumpy/sunshine, fake-dating actors navigating their love story both on and offscreen—perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Alexis Hall.

Logan Gray is Hollywood's bad boy—a talented but troubled actor who the public loves to hate. Mattie Cole is an up‑and‑coming golden boy, adored by all but plagued by insecurities.

When Logan and Mattie are cast as leads in a new romantic film, Logan claims that Matt has “zero talent,” sending the film’s publicity into a nosedive. To create positive buzz, the two are persuaded into a fake‑dating scheme—but as the two actors get to know their new characters, real feelings start to develop. 

As public scrutiny intensifies and old wounds resurface, the two must fight for their relationship and their love.
 
A heartfelt, hopeful, and nuanced story about identity, healing, and growth.

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Nadiya Bakes

Nadiya Hussain

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The host of the beloved Netflix series Time to Eat and Nadiya Bakes and winner of The Great British Baking Show returns to her true love, baking, with more than 100 delicious, Americanized recipes for sweet treats.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR BY TIME OUT AND THE KITCHN

When Nadiya Hussain, the UK's "national treasure," began cooking, she headed straight to the oven—which, in her home, wasn't used for baking, but rather for storing frying pans! One day, her new husband asked her to bake him a cake and then . . . she was hooked! Baking soon became a part of her daily life.

In her newest cookbook, based on her Netflix show and BBC series Nadiya Bakes, Nadiya shares more than 100 simple and achievable recipes for cakes, cookies, breads, tarts, and puddings that will become staples in your home. From Raspberry Amaretti Biscuits and Key Lime Cupcakes to Cheat's Sourdough and Spiced Squash Strudel, Nadiya has created an ultimate baking resource for just about every baked good that will entice beginner bakers and experienced pastry makers alike.

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Baking with Dorie

Dorie Greenspan

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Eater's Best Cookbooks of Fall 2021

Bon Appetit's Cookbook Gift Guide: 2021 Edition

Food & Wine's 23 Fall Cookbooks We're Reading (and Cooking from) This Season

From James Beard Award-winning and NYT best-selling author Dorie Greenspan, a baking book of more than 150 exciting recipes

 

 

Say "Dorie Greenspan" and think baking. The renowned author of thirteen cookbooks and winner of five James Beard and two IACP awards offers a collection that celebrates the sweet, the savory, and the simple. Every recipe is signature Dorie: easy--beginners can ace every technique in this book--and accessible, made with everyday ingredients. Are there surprises? Of course! You'll find ingenious twists like Berry Biscuits. Footlong cheese sticks made with cream puff dough. Apple pie with browned butter spiced like warm mulled cider. A s'mores ice cream cake with velvety chocolate sauce, salty peanuts, and toasted marshmallows. It's a book of simple yet sophisticated baking. The chapters are classic: Breakfast Stuff * Cakes * Cookies * Pies, Tarts, Cobblers and Crisps * Two Perfect Little Pastries * Salty Side Up. The recipes are unexpected. And there are "Sweethearts" throughout, mini collections of Dorie's all-time favorites. Don't miss the meringue Little Marvels or the Double-Decker Caramel Cake. Like all of Dorie's recipes, they lend themselves to being remade, refashioned, and riffed on.

 

 

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Sweet Enough: A Dessert Cookbook

Alison Roman

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A simple, stylish cookbook full of desserts that come together faster than you can eat them—from the author of Dining In and Nothing Fancy.

“Filled with no-fuss recipes perfect for quick and easy baking projects . . . blissfully effortless.”—People
 
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED COOKBOOKS OF 2023: People, HuffPost, Delish, Tasting Table
 
Casual, effortless, chic: These are not words you’d use to describe most desserts. But before Alison Roman made recipes so perfect that they go by one name—The Cookie, The Pasta, The Lemon Cake—she was a restaurant pastry chef who spent most of her time learning to make things the hard way. She studied flavor, technique, and precision, then distilled her knowledge to pare it all down to create dessert recipes that feel special and approachable, impressive and doable. In Sweet Enough, Alison has written the book for people who think they don’t have the time or skill to pull off dessert. Here, the desserts you want to make right away, you can make right away. 

Alison shows you how to make simple yet sublime sweets with her trademark casualness, like how to make jam in the oven, then turn that jam into a dessert—swirled into ice cream or folded into easy one-bowl cake batter. (Opening a jar of jam is more than fine, too.) She waxes poetic on the virtues of frozen fruit and teaches you the best way to throw your own Sundae Party. There are effortless cakes that take just minutes to get into a pan. And there are new, instant classics with a signature Alison twist, like Salted Lemon Pie, Raspberries and Sour Cream, Toasted Rice Pudding, or a Caramelized Maple Tart. Requiring little more than your own two hands and a few mixing bowls, the recipes are geared towards those without fancy equipment or specialty ingredients.

Whether you’re a dedicated baker or, better yet, someone who doesn’t think they are a baker, Sweet Enough lets you finish any dinner, any party, or any car ride to a dinner party with a little something wonderful and sweet.

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Thanksgiving 101

Rick Rodgers

Completely revised and updated with new recipes and information, two classic cookbooks to make the holidays delicious, simple, festive, and fun

One of the most popular cooking teachers in America, Rick Rodgers has taught his Thanksgiving 101 classes for years, and now he’s collected all of his know-how, classic recipes, menu ideas, timetables, hints, and shortcuts in one indispensable volume. From shopping through chopping, from making flawless gravy to fearlessly carving the bird, he offers tips, insight, and inspiration every steop of the way. Whether it a tradition holiday feast with turkey and all the traditional trimming, chutneys, and chowders; a vegetarian dinner with just the trimmings; or new ideas for regional classics, including Cajun- or Italian-inspired tastes, Thanksgiving 101 serves up a delicious education for novice and experienced cooks alike.

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What's New, Cupcake?

Alan Richardson

The endlessly imaginative duo who turned cupcaking into a national pastime is back, with utterly new, eye-popping creations anyone can make.
- Create a cupcake race car, a cupcake robot, or ravishing ring bling cupcakes for a birthday party.
- Surprise the family with Chinese takeout dinner cupcakes on April Fool's or serve up a goofy chocolate moose.
- Captivate Mom with a bouquet of long-stemmed mum cupcakes.
- Build sand castle cupcakes with the kids.
All you need are candies from the corner store, cake mix, and canned frosting. So what is new, Cupcake?
- Lots of "EZ" projects that use just a few ingredients--perfect for kids and parties.
- More pictures, brighter colors, bolder designs.
- More faux-food creations--so real you won't believe they're cupcakes!
- More comical critters and the cutest pets ever!
- More irresistible party centerpieces to celebrate hobbies, from golf to knitting.
- More spectacular holiday cupcakes: Valentine's, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. You'll end up with cupcakes so striking that you won't want to eat them--but so delicious you'll have no choice!

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Salvage the Bones

Jesmyn Ward

Winner of the National Book Award

Jesmyn Ward, two-time National Book Award winner and author of Sing, Unburied, Sing, delivers a gritty but tender novel about family and poverty in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.

As the twelve days that make up the novel's framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family--motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce--pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

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The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

David Treuer

FINALIST FOR THE 2019 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Named a best book of 2019 by The New York Times, TIMEThe Washington Post, NPRHudson BooksellersThe New York Public LibraryThe Dallas Morning News, and Library Journal.


"Chapter after chapter, it's like one shattered myth after another." - NPR

"An informed, moving and kaleidoscopic portrait... Treuer's powerful book suggests the need for soul-searching about the meanings of American history and the stories we tell ourselves about this nation's past.." - New York Times Book Review, front page

A sweeping history—and counter-narrative—of Native American life from the Wounded Knee massacre to the present.


The received idea of Native American history—as promulgated by books like Dee Brown's mega-bestselling 1970 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee—has been that American Indian history essentially ended with the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee. Not only did one hundred fifty Sioux die at the hands of the U. S. Cavalry, the sense was, but Native civilization did as well.

Growing up Ojibwe on a reservation in Minnesota, training as an anthropologist, and researching Native life past and present for his nonfiction and novels, David Treuer has uncovered a different narrative. Because they did not disappear—and not despite but rather because of their intense struggles to preserve their language, their traditions, their families, and their very existence—the story of American Indians since the end of the nineteenth century to the present is one of unprecedented resourcefulness and reinvention.

In The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, Treuer melds history with reportage and memoir. Tracing the tribes' distinctive cultures from first contact, he explores how the depredations of each era spawned new modes of survival. The devastating seizures of land gave rise to increasingly sophisticated legal and political maneuvering that put the lie to the myth that Indians don't know or care about property. The forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools incubated a unifying Native identity. Conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is the essential, intimate story of a resilient people in a transformative era.

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Stealing

Margaret Verble

"This powerful novel should join classics like Ernest J. Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Helena Maria Viramontes's Under the Feet of Jesus, and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird."--New York Times Book Review

A gripping, gut-punch of a novel about a Cherokee child removed from her family and sent to a Christian boarding school in the 1950s--an ambitious, eye-opening reckoning of history and small-town prejudices from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble.

Kit Crockett lives on a farm with her grief-stricken, widowed father, tending the garden, fishing in a local stream, and reading Nancy Drew mysteries from the library bookmobile. One day, Kit discovers a mysterious and beautiful woman has moved in just down the road.

Kit and the newcomer, Bella, become friends, and the lonely Kit draws comfort from her. But when a malicious neighbor finds out, Kit suddenly finds herself at the center of a tragic, fatal crime and becomes a ward of the court. Her Cherokee family wants to raise her, but the righteous Christians in town instead send her to a religious boarding school. Kit's heritage is attacked, and she's subjected to religious indoctrination and other forms of abuse. But Kit secretly keeps a journal recounting what she remembers--and revealing just what she has forgotten. Over the course of Stealing, she unravels the truth of how she ended up at the school and plots a way out. If only she can make her plan work in time.

In swift, sharp, and stunning prose, Margaret Verble spins a powerful coming-of-age tale and reaffirms her place as an indelible storyteller and chronicler of history.

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Empire of Wild

Cherie Dimaline

"Deftly written, gripping and informative. Empire of Wild is a rip-roaring read!"--Margaret Atwood, From Instagram
 

"Empire of Wild is doing everything I love in a contemporary novel and more. It is tough, funny, beautiful, honest and propulsive--all the while telling a story that needs to be told by a person who needs to be telling it."--Tommy Orange, author of There There

A bold and brilliant new indigenous voice in contemporary literature makes her American debut with this kinetic, imaginative, and sensuous fable inspired by the traditional Canadian Métis legend of the Rogarou--a werewolf-like creature that haunts the roads and woods of native people's communities.

Joan has been searching for her missing husband, Victor, for nearly a year--ever since that terrible night they'd had their first serious argument hours before he mysteriously vanished. Her Métis family has lived in their tightly knit rural community for generations, but no one keeps the old ways . . . until they have to. That moment has arrived for Joan.

One morning, grieving and severely hungover, Joan hears a shocking sound coming from inside a revival tent in a gritty Walmart parking lot. It is the unmistakable voice of Victor. Drawn inside, she sees him. He has the same face, the same eyes, the same hands, though his hair is much shorter and he's wearing a suit. But he doesn't seem to recognize Joan at all. He insists his name is Eugene Wolff, and that he is a reverend whose mission is to spread the word of Jesus and grow His flock. Yet Joan suspects there is something dark and terrifying within this charismatic preacher who professes to be a man of God . . . something old and very dangerous.

Joan turns to Ajean, an elderly foul-mouthed card shark who is one of the few among her community steeped in the traditions of her people and knowledgeable about their ancient enemies. With the help of the old Métis and her peculiar Johnny-Cash-loving, twelve-year-old nephew Zeus, Joan must find a way to uncover the truth and remind Reverend Wolff who he really is . . . if he really is. Her life, and those of everyone she loves, depends upon it.

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The Removed

Brandon Hobson

"A haunted work, full of voices old and new. It is about a family's reckoning with loss and injustice, and it is about a people trying for the same. The journey of this family's way home is full--in equal measure--of melancholy and love." --Tommy Orange, author of There There

 RECOMMENDED BOOK FROM

USA Today * O, the Oprah Magazine * Entertainment Weekly * TIME * Harper's Bazaar * Buzzfeed * Washington Post * Elle * Parade * San Francisco Chronicle * Good Housekeeping * Vulture * Refinery29 * AARP * Kirkus * PopSugar * Alma * Woman's Day * Chicago Review of Books * The Millions * Biblio Lifestyle * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * LitHub

Steeped in Cherokee myths and history, a novel about a fractured family reckoning with the tragic death of their son long ago--from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson

In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. The mother, Maria, increasingly struggles to manage the onset of Alzheimer's in her husband, Ernest. Their adult daughter, Sonja, leads a life of solitude, punctuated only by spells of dizzying romantic obsession. And their son, Edgar, fled home long ago, turning to drugs to mute his feelings of alienation.

With the family's annual bonfire approaching--an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray's death, and a rare moment in which they openly talk about his memory--Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. Maria and Ernest take in a foster child who seems to almost miraculously keep Ernest's mental fog at bay. Sonja becomes dangerously fixated on a man named Vin, despite--or perhaps because of--his ties to tragedy in her lifetime and lifetimes before. And in the wake of a suicide attempt, Edgar finds himself in the mysterious Darkening Land: a place between the living and the dead, where old atrocities echo.

Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma--a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level.

"The Removed is a marvel. With a few sly gestures, a humble array of piercingly real characters and an apparently effortless swing into the dire dreamlife, Brandon Hobson delivers an act of regeneration and solace. You won't forget it." --Jonathan Lethem, author of The Feral Detective

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There There

Tommy Orange

 

 

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER • A wondrous and shattering novel that follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle’s death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American—grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.

 

 

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Celebrating Diwali

Anjali Joshi

Celebrate Diwali with this fun introduction for kids ages 6 to 9

Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is a five-day celebration of good over evil. It's one of the most popular holidays in India and is celebrated by many different people all over the world. This engaging non-fiction book for kids explains the history, folklore, traditions, and customs of Diwali, and includes interactive activities that encourage kids to celebrate at home or in their communities.

 

  • Diverse traditions—From music and dancing to food and games, kids will learn different ways to celebrate Diwali.
  • Celebratory activities—Kids can explore hands-on festivities like making a popular Indian dessert called ladoos, creating a clay diya candle holder, and crafting a paper leaf garland.
  • Fun facts and pictures—Colorful illustrations and fascinating facts throughout the book bring Diwali to life.


Get little ones excited to learn with this standout among Diwali books for kids.

 

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Binny's Diwali

Thrity Umrigar

Binny woke up happy but nervous. It was her day to share about Diwali, the Festival of Lights

Binny is excited to talk to her class about her favorite holiday. But she struggles to find the words.

Taking a deep breath, she tells her classmates about the fireworks that burst like stars in the night sky, leaving streaks of gold and red and green. She shares with them delicious pedas and jalebis. And she shows them clay lamps, called diyas, which look so pretty all the children ooh and aah.

Featuring a heartwarming story by Thrity Umrigar, enchanting illustrations by Nidhi Chanani, and detailed information about the Hindu festival of lights, Binny's Diwali is a holiday treat.

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Celebrate Diwali

Deborah Heiligman

Beautiful, dynamic photographs and brief, lively text introduce readers to the joyous holiday of Diwali, evoking the celebrations of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains around the world.

In Deborah Heiligman's inviting global odyssey of the Hindu holiday we learn that Diwali celebrates the triumph of good over evil, and of light over darkness. Although celebrated differently in different places, Diwali is universally viewed as a time of great joy, celebrated with fireworks, sweets, and gifts.

Celebrate Diwali brings to life the holiday's traditions, food, and celebration rituals. The informative back matter includes Diwali recipes, a glossary, a Diwali card game, a map, and a resource list of books and Web sites. Also included is a note to parents and teachers from the book's consultant, Dr. Vasudha Narayanan.

National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.

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Diwali

Rina Singh

During Diwali, Hindus, Sikhs and Jains celebrate the legends and stories that describe the triumph of good over evil and justice over oppression. Critically acclaimed author Rina Singh explores her Indian roots as she tells the Diwali stories, which remind us that eventually light will prevail over darkness.

Enriched by personal stories and spiced with festive recipes, including two by acclaimed chef, Vikram Vij, Diwali: Festival of Lights brings to life the holiday's traditions, food and rituals and takes you on a journey to see how this festival is celebrated around the world!

Diwali is the second book in the Orca Origins series, which examines how ancient traditions are kept alive in the modern world.

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Shubh Diwali!

Chitra Soundar

WSRA Children's Literature: Picture This 2021 Recommendation List

The festival of lights is here--time to celebrate the New Year!

Diwali has arrived! Rangoli art decorates the floor, and strings of flowers hang around the doors. Now it's time to ring the bells, light the lamps, and welcome the New Year with family and friends. A sweet introduction to the Hindu festival of lights.

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Love Sugar Magic: A Dash of Trouble

Anna Meriano

"A charming and delectably sweet debut. Mischief, friendship, and a whole lot of heart—Love Sugar Magic has it all." —Zoraida Córdova, award-winning author of the Brooklyn Brujas series

Leonora Logroño’s family owns the most beloved bakery in Rose Hill, Texas, spending their days conjuring delicious cookies and cakes for any occasion. And no occasion is more important than the annual Dia de los Muertos festival.

Leo hopes that this might be the year that she gets to help prepare for the big celebration—but, once again, she is told she’s too young. Sneaking out of school and down to the bakery, she discovers that her mother, aunt, and four older sisters have in fact been keeping a big secret: they’re brujas—witches of Mexican ancestry—who pour a little bit of sweet magic into everything that they bake.  

Leo knows that she has magical ability as well and is more determined than ever to join the family business—even if she can’t let her mama and hermanas know about it yet.

And when her best friend, Caroline, has a problem that needs solving, Leo has the perfect opportunity to try out her craft. It’s just one little spell, after all…what could possibly go wrong?

Debut author Anna Meriano brings us the first book in a delightful new series filled to the brim with amor, azúcar, y magia.

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Dia de Los Muertos

Roseanne Greenfield Thong

It’s Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and children throughout the pueblo, or town, are getting ready to celebrate! They decorate with colored streamers, calaveras, or sugar skulls, and pan de muertos, or bread of the dead. There are altars draped in cloth and covered in marigolds and twinkling candles. Music fills the streets. Join the fun and festivities, learn about a different cultural tradition, and brush up on your Spanish vocabulary, as the town honors their dearly departed in a traditional, time-honored style.

SPANISH DESCRIPTION

¡Es el Día de los Muertos y todos los niños del pueblo y ciudad están listos para celebrar! Decoran con calaveras lo calavera de azucar, pan de muertos y banderas. Hay altares cubriertos de manta con muchas flores, y velas parpadiendo. Musica llena las calles. Hay que unirse con los festivales y abrender una diferente cultura y traduciones y repasar el vocabulario en español, mientras el pueblo honra sus queridos en una tradución con el transcurso y con el estilo del tiempo.

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Funny Bones

Duncan Tonatiuh

A New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year
A Robert F. Sibert Award Winner
A Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Book
An ALA/ALSC Notable Children's Book
STARRED REVIEW *"Playful but informative . . . a fascinating introduction to the artist and his work." ―Booklist
STARRED REVIEW *"Artistically beautiful and factually accessible . . . effectively blends artistic and political content for young readers." ―Kirkus Reviews

Discover the story behind José Guadalupe Posada's iconic Día de Muertos skeletons in this fascinating picture book from award-winning creator Duncan Tonatiuh.

Funny Bones tells the story of how calaveras came to be. The amusing figures are the creation of Mexican artist José Guadalupe (Lupe) Posada (1852-1913). Lupe learned the art of printing at a young age and soon had his own shop. In a country that was not known for freedom of speech, he drew political cartoons, much to the amusement of the local population but not to the politicians.

While he continued to draw cartoons, he is best known today for his calavera drawings. They have become synonymous with Mexico's Día de Muertos festival. Calaveras are skeletons performing all sorts of activities, both everyday and festive: dancing in the streets, playing instruments in a band, pedaling bicycles, promenading in the park, and even sweeping the sidewalks.

They are not intended to be frightening, but rather to celebrate the joy of living and provide humorous observations about people. Author and illustrator Tonatiuh relates the pivotal moments of Lupe's life and explains the different artistic processes he used.

Juxtaposing his own artwork with Lupe's, Tonatiuh brings to light the remarkable life and work of a man beloved by many but whose name has remained in obscurity.

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