Skip to main content

Staff Picks

Illustrated book cover of "Blue Ethel" featuring a content cat with a black and white coat, standing on a path with flowers.

Blue Ethel

Jennifer Black Reinhardt 

Picture Book 

"Ethel was old. She was fat. She was black. She was white.  And she was very set in her ways." Cat lovers will commiserate with Ethel as she tries to go about her regular routine only to have it disrupted. Will Ethel be able to get back to normal again or will she learn that sometimes it's okay to be different. 

- Emily Stone, Youth Services Coordinator

 

Cover of the book "All the Best Dogs" by Emily Jenkins, featuring a playful dog with a toy, illustrated by Manuel Preitano.

All the Best Dogs

Emily Jenkins 

Juvenile Fiction 

Welcome to the dog park! It’s a playground for dogs in the big city. Here, four sixth graders (and their dogs!) overlap on one hilarious and important June weekend. Ezra needs to find his lost dog. Cup-Cup needs a friend. (She also needs to learn to walk on a leash.) Mei-Alice wonders if anyone will ever understand her. Panda wonders what will happen if she breaks the rules. Kaleb is covering up a terrible mistake. Grover and Lottie are making lots of terrible mistakes. (Some of them are disgusting.) And Jilly needs to make a new life in a newplace. On this almost-summer weekend, a series of surprises, mishaps, and misunderstandings will end up changing all of their lives.

-Delacorte Press

 

Book cover: "After Life" by Gayle Forman. Floral design, woman in jeans, bike illustration, GMA Book Club pick. Quotes by Jodi Picoult, Adam Silvera.

After Life

Gayle Forman

Young Adult 

One spring afternoon after school, Amber arrives home on her bike. It’s just another perfectly normal day. But when Amber’s mom sees her, she screams. Because Amber died seven years ago, hit by a car while on the very same bicycle she’s inexplicably riding now.  This return doesn’t only impact Amber. Her sister, Melissa, now seven years older, must be a new kind of sibling to Amber. Amber’s estranged parents are battling over her. And the changes ripple farther and farther out: Amber’s friends, boyfriend, and even people she met only once have been deeply affected by her life and death. In the midst of everyone’s turmoil, Amber is struggling with herself. What kind of person was she? How and why was she given this second chance?

Quill Tree Books

 

A woman in Amish attire holds a pie in a bakery. Book titled "Who Is Mary? An Amish Romance" by Linda Byler.

Who is Mary?

Linda Byler

Adult Fiction

When her aunt comes for a visit and suggests she return to Lancaster with her to help manage her bakery, Mary sees her opportunity for the change she's desperately craving. But her parents forbid her to go, her father convinced that leaving the family for the busy life of Lancaster will lead her down a path of destruction. Mary is deeply distressed, wanting to honor her parents' wishes and also knowing she can't stay trapped in their isolated community forever. At twenty-one, she's old enough to decide for herself, and yet it's painful to be at odds with her father. Will she go, despite her father's dire warnings? If she stays, will she just continue to disappoint her parents, asking too many questions and never finding a man to marry?

-Good Books

 

Book cover: "When Women Ran Fifth Avenue" by Julie Satow. Features a woman in a black and white photo. New York Times bestseller.

When Women Ran Fifth Avenue

Julie Satow 

Adult Non-Fiction 

The twentieth century American department store: a palace of consumption where every wish could be met under one roof – afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three visionaries who took great risks, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.

-Doubleday 

Join our mailing list