New for Children
Ted & Me
by Dan Gutman
When Stosh travels back in time to 1941 in hopes of preventing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II, he meets Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters in baseball history. The book ncludes notes about Williams’s life and career
Chuck Close: Face Book
by Chuck Close
This fascinating, interactive autobiography presents Chuck Close’s story and his art, and a discussion of the many processes he uses in the studio. The question-and-answer format is based on real kids’ inquiries about Close’s life and work and his answers to them. Close, who is wheelchair-bound and paints with a brush strapped to his arm, discusses the severe dyslexia and face blindness he has struggled with since childhood, as well as a collapsed spinal artery that left him nearly paralyzed at the age of 48.
An engaging feature of the book is a mix-and-match Chuck Close self-portrait section. This hands-on component encourages the reader to create new and interesting combinations of Close’s techniques and images
New for Young Adults
Masque of the Red Death
by Bethany Griffin
In this twist on Edgar Allen Poe’s Gothic short story, a wealthy teenage girl who can afford a special mask to protect herself from the plague that decimated humanity in the mid-1800s, falls in love, becomes caught up in a conspiracy to overthrow an oppressive government, and faces the threat of a new plague.
New for Adults
The Casual Vacancy
by by J. K. Rowling
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, and teachers at war with their pupils: Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity, and unexpected revelations?
Telegraph Avenue
by Michael Chabon
In this novel the author takes us to Telegraph Avenue. It is a story that explores the profoundly intertwined lives of two Oakland, California, families, one black and one white. Here Chabon creates a world grounded in pop culture: Kung Fu, 1970s blaxploitation films, vinyl LPs, jazz and soul music. It is an epic of friendship, race, and secret histories. Longtime bandmates Archy and Nat preside over Brokeland Records, a used-record emporium. All is well until a former NFL quarterback, one of the country’s richest African Americans, decides to build his latest megastore on nearby Telegraph Avenue. Not only could this spell doom for the little shop and its cross-race, cross-class dream, but it opens up past history regarding Archy’s untethered dad and a Black Panther-era crime.
