New for Children
The One and Only Ruby
by Katherine Applegate
Ruby’s caretaker from the elephant orphanage in Africa where she grew up is visiting. Seeing him again brings back a flood of memories both happy and sad of her life before the circus, and she recounts the time she spent in the African savannah to Ivan and Bob.
Bathe the Cat
by Alice B. McGinty
Dad has posted a list of chores for the family to do before Grandma comes, including bathing the cat. But the cat does not want a bath, so she mixes up the instructions, and soon the family is mowing the floor, vacuuming the lawn, and mopping the baby … and the house is in chaos.
New for Teens
M is for Monster
by Talia Dutton
A scientist attempts to bring her younger sister back to life with unexpected results in this Frankenstein-inspired graphic novel about ghosts, identity, and family.
When Doctor Frances Ai’s sister Maura died in a tragic accident six months ago, Frances swore to bring her back to life. However, the creature that rises from the slab is clearly not Maura. This girl, who chooses the name “M,” doesn’t remember anything about Maura’s life and just wants to be her own person. Hoping to trigger Maura’s memories, Frances surrounds M with the trappings of Maura’s past, but M wants nothing to do with Frances’ attempts to change her into something she’s not.
This Delicious Death
by Kayla Cottingham
Two years ago, a small percentage of the population underwent a transformation known as the Hollowing. Those affected were able to survive only by consuming human flesh. The people who went without quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. Luckily, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy their hunger. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal.
Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine, four Hollow girls living in Southern California, decide to attend a music festival in the heart of the desert. But on the first night of the festival Valeria goes feral and ends up killing and eating a boy in one of the bands. As other festival guests start disappearing the girls soon discover someone is targeting people like them. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, no one at the festival is getting out alive
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New for Adults
Dayswork
by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel
In the endless days of the pandemic, a woman spends her time sorting fact from fiction in the life and work of Herman Melville. As she delves into Melville’s impulsive purchase of a Massachusetts farmhouse, his fevered revision of Moby-Dick, his intense friendship with neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne, and his troubled marriage to Elizabeth Shaw, she becomes increasingly obsessed by what his devotion to his art reveals. Her preoccupation both deepens and expands, and her days’ work extends outward to an orbiting cast of Melvillean questers and fanatics, as well as to biographers and writers … among them Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell … whose lives resonate with Melville’s. As she pulls these distant figures close, her quarantine quest ultimately becomes a midlife reckoning with her own marriage and ambition.
The Clementine Complex
by Bob Mortimer
Unremarkable legal assistant Gary Thorn goes for a pint with his coworker Brendan, unaware that his life is about to change. At the pub Gary meets a beautiful woman, but she leaves before he catches her name. He remembers only the title of the book she was reading, “The Clementine Complex.” Then when Brendan goes missing too, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Clementine to get some answers. So begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to find some answers and hopefully some love and excitement in this page-turning, witty, and oddly sweet story.
