Lona recommends: Maddi’s Fridge by Lois Brandt
Genre: Realistic fiction
Reading level: Elementary school
Summary: Sofia learns that her friend Maddi can’t afford groceries, and tries to figure out a way to help her deal with food insecurity.
Lona says: If I was still teaching, I would use this for first grade and do a whole unit with this!
This title is available at Foster Public Library.
Cathy recommends: Winter’s Gift by Jane Monroe Donovan
Genre: Picture book
Reading Level: Preschool
Summary: A man living alone rescues a horse in distress.
Cathy says: It’s a feel-good story. Fit for Christmas, for anyone who loves horses, for anyone who wonders why they help others, and for compassion for the elderly.
This title is available at Tyler Free Library.
Cathy recommends: Penguin and Pinecone by Salina Yoon
Genre: Picture book
Reading Level: Preschool
Summary: Friendships can spring up at any time, but what happens when one friend moves away?
Cathy says: It’s a sweet story of caring and dealing with physical separation of two friends. It also looks at the affects of the passage of time on each of the friends.
This title is available at Tyler Free Library.
Audrey recommends: Piglettes by Clémentine Beauvais
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Reading level: YA
Summary: Three teenagers, brought together by an “ugliest girl in school” contest, make a plan to bike across the country and gate-crash the President of France’s garden party.
Audrey says: The eponymous “three little piglettes,” Mireille, Astrid, and Hakima, are unexpectedly brought together by their classmate’s unofficial “ugliest girl in school” poll. The girls become fast friends, and quickly learn that they each have a reason to disrupt the Bastille Day garden party in Paris. They retrofit an old pickup into a bike-powered food truck and fund their trip by selling homemade sausages on the way. The character interactions are fantastic, the situations are hilarious, and the development that each girl goes through to reach Paris is full of heart. Mireille is the most sarcastic unreliable narrator of all time and it makes an already great story even better.
This title is available at Foster Public Library.
Cathy recommends: The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir (translated by Mary Robinette Kowal)
Genre: Psychological thriller
Reading level: Adult
Summary: One woman’s search for the cause of her chronic fatigue leads to answers she cannot accept.
Cathy says: The reader is brought in with concern for the protagonist’s common malady. One can’t help but follow, with increasing horror, her journey to the shocking conclusion.
This title is available at Tyler Free Library.
Audrey recommends: The Best at It by Maulik Pancholy
Genre: Realistic fiction
Reading level: Middle grade
Summary: Rahul enters seventh grade with one mission: to find one activity that he can be the BEST at.
Audrey says: This quick read was packed with more heart and character than I thought possible. Rahul, a gay Indian-American with OCD, has a lot of reasons he feels like he’ll never fit in, and he believes the only way to overcome these “shortcomings” is to achieve some kind of wild success. Luckily, Rahul has a fun-loving grandfather and a loyal best friend, who both advocate for Rahul when he would rather erase himself. Readers with perfectionist leanings will see themselves in Rahul’s absurd, accomplishment-based logic, and learn to give themselves the grace that a friend would extend.
Cathy recommends: Home Front by Kristin Hannah
Genre: Fiction
Reading level: Adult
Summary: One family’s journey to peace when the soldier mom goes to war.
Cathy says: Kristin Hannah knows how to wring her readers dry of tears! Each member of this family must deal with the mom’s life as a Black Hawk pilot deployed to a war zone. The characters are strong; from the excitable 4 year old daughter to the calming ever helpful mother-in-law. The joy of a best friend, the peer pressures experienced by an adolescent, as well as marital difficulties are addressed in this book as well. An emotional ride.
This title is available at Tyler Free Library.
Cathy recommends: The Love of my Life by Rosie Walsh
Genre: Fiction
Reading Level: Adult
Summary: Well-meaning omissions of the truth will explode at the worst possible times.
Cathy says: It’s a thriller; it’s a mystery which is unravelling one page and one shock after another. This book truly changed and morphed with every revealed factoid. There was never a hint, never foreshadowing, never following to a logical conclusion. This reader could not put it down!
This title is available at Tyler Free Library.
Chris recommends: How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Reading level: Adult
Summary: Three people who are tied to the same drunk-driving accident accidentally meet up at a Portland book shop, and their lives intersect in transformative ways.
This title is available at Foster Public Library.
Anonymous recommends: I Never Said I Love You by Sarah Magee
Genre: Literary fiction
Reading Level: Adult
Summary: A thought provoking exploration of life’s choices.
Anonymous says: Incredibly rich writing, beautiful storytelling, and a book that left me with big questions about life and love.
