People in Merit, Wisconsin, always said Jimmy was . . . you know. But people said all sorts of stupid stuff. Nobody really knew anything. Nobody really knew Jimmy. I guess you could say I knew Jimmy as well as anyone (which was not very well). I knew what scared him. And I knew he had dreams―even if I didn't understand them. Even if he nearly ruined my life to pursue them. Jimmy's dead now, and I definitely know that better than anyone. I know about blood and bone and how bodies decompose. I know about shadows and stones and hatchets. I know what a last cry for help sounds like. I know what blood looks like on my own hands. What I don't know is if I can trust my own eyes. I don't know who threw the stone. Who swung the hatchet? Who are the shadows? What do the living owe the dead?

The Sin-Eater's Confession

Teen & Young Adult

Ilsa J. Bick

Literature & Fiction

Carolrhoda Lab

"You can't walk straight on a crooked line. You do you'll break your leg. How can you walk straight in a crooked system?" Lewis Michaux was born to do things his own way. When a white banker told him to sell fried chicken, not books, because "Negroes don't read," Lewis took five books and one hundred dollars and built a bookstore. It soon became the intellectual center of Harlem, a refuge for everyone from Muhammad Ali to Malcolm X. In No Crystal Stair, Coretta Scott King Award–winning author Vaunda Micheaux Nelson combines meticulous research with a storyteller's flair to document the life and times of her great-uncle Lewis Michaux, an extraordinary literacy pioneer of the Civil Rights era. "My life was no crystal stair, far from it. But I'm taking my leave with some pride. It tickles me to know that those folks who said I could never sell books to black people are eating crow. I'd say my seeds grew pretty damn well. And not just the book business. It's the more important business of moving our people forward that has real meaning."

No Crystal Stair

Nelson, Vaunda Micheaux

History

Jamie and Elaine have been best friends forever, and now they're finally juniors in high school. Elaine has a steady boyfriend, and Jamie could have one―if she'd just open her eyes and see Paul. But Jamie has a bigger problem to worry about. Then Elaine gets "in trouble"―something they thought only happened to "other" girls. Are there any good choices for a girl in trouble? In Trouble is a novel born of author Ellen Levine's interviews with women who came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including those who knew what it was like to be a teen facing a horrible choice. In the decades before Roe v. Wade, a young woman "in trouble" had very few options―and all of them meant shame, isolation, and maybe much worse. Jamie and Elaine's stories are just two among the thousands of stories of teenagers facing unplanned pregnancies.

In Trouble (Carolrhoda Lab)

Levine, Ellen

Historical Fiction

When Janine Collins was six years old, she was the only survivor of a suicide bombing that killed her parents and dozens of others. Media coverage instantly turned her into a symbol of hope, peace, faith―of whatever anyone wanted her to be. Now, on the ten-year anniversary of the bombing, reporters are camped outside her house, eager to revisit the story of the "Soul Survivor." Janine doesn't want the fame―or the pressure―of being a walking miracle. But the news cycle isn't the only thing standing between her and a normal life. Everyone wants something from her, expects something of her. Even her closest friends are urging her to use her name-recognition for a "worthy cause." But that's nothing compared to the hopes of Dave Armstrong―the man who, a decade ago, pulled Janine from the rubble. Now he's a religious leader whose followers believe Janine has healing powers. The scariest part? They might be right. If she's the Soul Survivor, what does she owe the people who believe in her? If she's not the Soul Survivor, who is she?

Believe (Fiction - Young Adult)

Aronson, Sarah

Savannah Grey

Savannah Grey needs to keep moving. She doesn't know why, but she can't let herself get tied down by too many people. It's almost like she's being chased by something. And now something strange is happening with her neck―with her throat. Savannah Grey never thought she'd meet someone like Reece―a guy who seems to understand her. He even knows about her neck. The same thing is happening to him. It's as if their voices are becoming weapons, warming up for some kind of attack. Savannah Grey has no idea what might be chasing her or why her voice suddenly feels like the most powerful weapon on the planet, but she's about to find out. Nature is preparing for battle with the universe's ultimate monster. The time to fight is almost here. The weapon is Savannah Grey.

Children's Books

McNISH, Cliff

Science Fiction & Fantasy

In Trouble

Olivia, Bertucci, and Codman were the trio no one else in high school could quite figure out, an impenetrable triangle of friendship. Now they're graduating and about to start new lives away at college and without one another. Beyond their friendship, there's one thing they have in common: the Circle Cinema, a once-thriving old movie theater now reduced to a boarded up concrete box, condemned and about to be forgotten forever―which is, as far as Olivia and Codman can tell, a lot like what's going to happen to them. So in one last desperate effort to hold on to the secrets they share, Bertucci hatches a plan―an experiment, really. He convinces Olivia and Codman to join him in spending their last night before graduation locked inside the cinema's concrete walls. None of them can open the box before sunrise. Over the course of the night, the trio is then forced to face one another, the events of the past year, and whatever is to come when the new day dawns. Emily Franklin's Last Night at the Circle Cinema is the story of a friendship's end and moving rebirth.

Last Night at the Circle Cinema

Franklin, Emily

The Bourne Identity meets Divergent in this action-packed debut thriller with a Katniss-esque heroine fighting to regain her memories and stay alive, set against a dystopian hospital background. Sarah finds herself in a battle for her life within the walls of her hospital-turned-prison. A procedure to eliminate her memory goes awry, and she starts to remember snatches of her past. Was she an urban terrorist or vigilante? Has the procedure been her salvation or her destruction? The answers lie trapped within her mind. To access them, she'll need the help of the teen computer hacker who's trying to bring the hospital down for his own reasons, and she'll need to evade an army of mercenary soldiers poised to eliminate her for good. If only she knew why . . .

Tabula Rasa (Tabula Rasa Trilogy, 1)

Lippert-Martin, Kristen

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