Jess Redman

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Iowa

Quintessence is an extraordinary story from Jess Redman about friendship, self-discovery, interconnectedness, and the inexplicable elements that make you you.

Find the Elements. Grow the Light. Save the Starling.

Three months ago, twelve-year-old Alma moved to the town of Four Points. Her panic attacks started a week later, and they haven't stopped--even though she's told her parents that they have. She's homesick and friendless and every day she feels less and less like herself.

But one day she finds a telescope in the town's junk shop, and through its lens, she watches a star--a star that looks like a child--fall from the sky and into her backyard. Alma knows what it's like to be lost and afraid, to long for home, and she knows that it's up to her to save the star. And so, with the help of some unlikely new friends from Astronomy Club, she sets out on a quest that will take a little bit of science, a little bit of magic, and her whole self.

This title has Common Core connections.

Quintessence

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Rachel Smythe

Heavy Paperback (2 to 4 lbs)

Lore Olympus: Volume One

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Kayla Miller

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Act is the funny and honest follow-up to the middle school graphic novel sensations Click and Camp. Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier, Shannon Hale, and Victoria Jamieson.

 

How do you know when the person who can make the difference . . . is you?

 

Olive is excited to start sixth grade: new teachers, new experiences, and a field trip to the big city with her best buds!

 

But when Olive finds out that a school policy is keeping some kids from going on the trip, she decides to act. She's prepared to do whatever it takes to be heard--even if it means running against Trent and Sawyer, two of her closest friends, in the student council election! With intense campaign competition and emotions running high, can Olive make a big change and keep her friends?

 

New York Times bestselling author-illustrator Kayla Miller crafts a genuine and inspiring story about evolving friendships, supportive family, and finding out that you--yes, you--have the power to make a difference.

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Dave Coverly

A Collection of Cat Cartoons to Curl up With

“It’s a bit painful reading Dave’s cat cartoons, because I keep thinking, ‘Darn, I wish I’d thought of that. Darn, I wish I’d thought of that. Darn . . .’” —Jim Davis, creator of Garfield A hilarious and affectionate collection of Dave Coverly’s brilliant cat-themed cartoons from his Reuben Award–winning, nationally syndicated panel Speed Bump. This full-color compendium of hilarious cat cartoons has all the charm of its companion, Dogs Are People, Too. Divided into fun chapters such as “Cats and Their Humans,” “DomestiCATed,” “Reigning Cats and Dogs,” and filled with cat clichés, pop “capture,” as well as reflections from six other award-winning, cat-loving cartoonists, this new collection is a surefire purchase perfect for animal-lovers of all ages. Christy Ottaviano Books

Cats Are People, Too

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Jaimal Yogis

A Graphic Novel (City of Drag Ons #1)

Grace and her friends must protect a newly hatched dragon from mysterious evildoers.

When Grace moves to Hong Kong with her mom and new stepdad, her biggest concern is making friends at her fancy new boarding school. But when a mysterious old woman gifts her a dragon egg during a field trip, Grace discovers that the wonderful stories of dragons she heard when she was a young girl might actually be real--especially when the egg hatches overnight.

The dragon has immense powers that Grace has yet to understand. And that puts them both in danger from mysterious forces intent on abusing the dragon's power. And now it's up to Grace and her school friends to uncover the sinister plot threatening the entire city!

The Awakening Storm

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Karen Schneemann

Lily Williams

Good friends help you go with the flow. Best friends help you start a revolution. Sophomores Abby, Brit, Christine, and Sasha are fed up. Hazelton High never has enough tampons. Or pads. Or adults who will listen. Sick of an administration that puts football before female health, the girls confront a world that shrugs—or worse, squirms—at the thought of a menstruation revolution. They band together to make a change. It’s no easy task, especially while grappling with everything from crushes to trig to JV track but they have each other’s backs. That is, until one of the girls goes rogue, testing the limits of their friendship and pushing the friends to question the power of their own voices. Now they must learn to work together to raise each other up. But how to you stand your ground while raising bloody hell?

Go with the Flow

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Niki Smith

From the author of The Deep & Dark Blue comes a tender graphic novel that explores themes of self-discovery, friendship, and the importance of mental health in a rural setting, perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier, Jerry Craft, and Kayla Miller. Struggling with anxiety after witnessing a harrowing instance of gun violence, Manuel Soto copes through photography, using his cellphone camera to find anchors that keep him grounded. His days are a lonely, latchkey monotony until he's teamed with his classmates, Sebastian and Cayshia, for a group project. Sebastian lives on a grass-fed cattle farm outside of town, and Manuel finds solace in the open fields and in the antics of the newborn calf Sebastian is hand-raising. As he aides his new friends in their preparations for the local 4-H fair, Manuel learns to open up to his friends and family, confronts his deepest fears, and even finds first love. This title will be simultaneously available in hardcover.

The Golden Hour

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Rebecca Burgess





For fans of Click and Brave, this touching coming-of-age middle grade graphic novel debut follows an autistic girl who finds friendship where she least expects it and learns to express her true self in a world where everyone defines her by her differences.

Twelve-year-old Mia is just trying to navigate a world that doesn't understand her true autistic self. While she wishes she could stand up to her bullies, she's always been able to express her feelings through singing and songwriting, even more so with her best friend, Charlie, who is nonbinary, putting together the best beats for her.

Together, they've taken the internet by storm; little do Mia's classmates know that she's the viral singer Elle-Q! But while the chance to perform live for a local talent show has Charlie excited, Mia isn't so sure.

She'll have to decide whether she'll let her worries about what other people think get in the way of not only her friendship with Charlie, but also showing everyone, including the bullies, who she is and what she has to say.

Speak Up!

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Joris Chamblain

Cici dreams of being a novelist. Her favorite subject: people, especially adults. She’s been watching them and taking notes. Everybody has one special secret, Cici figures, and if you want to write about people, you need to understand what’s hiding inside them. But now she’s discovered something truly strange: an old man who disappears into the forest every Sunday with huge pots of paint in all sorts of colors. What is he up to? Why does he look so sad when he comes back? In a graphic novel interwoven with journal notes, scrapbook pieces, and doodles, Cici assembles clues about the odd and wonderful people she’s uncovered, even as she struggles to understand the mundane: her family and friends.

Cici's Journal

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Kelly Fernández

A funny and heartwarming middle-grade graphic novel adventure about friendship, defying expectations, and finding your place.Manu and her best friend, Josefina, live at a magical school for girls, and Manu is always getting into trouble. The headmistress believes that Manu has the potential to help people with her magic, but Manu would rather have fun than fall in line. One day, a prank goes seriously wrong, and Josefina gets angry and wishes for Manu's magic to disappear... and it does. Manu uses a dangerous spell to restore it, but it makes her magic too powerful and nearly impossible to control. Great power comes at a cost, and it may be a price that Manu isn't able to pay!

Manu: a Graphic Novel

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Jennifer Dugan

In this queer, paranormal YA graphic novel debut from the author of Some Girls Do and the illustrator of Wonder Woman: Warbringer, a young witch races to solve the grisly supernatural murders of her coven members before the killer strikes again.

"[This] gorgeously illustrated tale mashes together murder mystery and witchcraft." --Nerdist

Emsy has always lived in sunny California, and she'd much rather spend her days surfing with her friends or hanging out with her girlfriend than honing her powers as a fire elemental. But when members of her family's coven back east are murdered under mysterious circumstances that can only be the result of powerful witchcraft, her family must suddenly return to dreary upstate New York. There, Emsy will have to master her neglected craft in order to find the killer . . . before her family becomes their next target.

Coven

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Sarah Thankam Mathews

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

A Novel

"An extraordinary novel, spiny and delicate, scathingly funny and wildly moving." --Lauren Groff, author of Matrix
 
"Sarah Thankam Mathews' prose is undeniable." --Raven Leilani, author of Luster
 
From a brilliant new voice comes an electrifying novel of a young immigrant building a life for herself--a warm, dazzling, and profound saga of queer love, friendship, work, and precarity in twenty-first century America

Graduating into the long maw of an American recession, Sneha is one of the fortunate ones. She's moved to Milwaukee for an entry-level corporate job that, grueling as it may be, is the key that unlocks every door: she can pick up the tab at dinner with her new friend Tig, get her college buddy Thom hired alongside her, and send money to her parents back in India. She begins dating women--soon developing a burning crush on Marina, a beguiling and beautiful dancer who always seems just out of reach.
 
But before long, trouble arrives. Painful secrets rear their heads; jobs go off the rails; evictions loom. Sneha struggles to be truly close and open with anybody, even as her friendships deepen, even as she throws herself headlong into a dizzying romance with Marina. It's then that Tig begins to draw up a radical solution to their problems, hoping to save them all.
 
A beautiful and capacious novel rendered in singular, unforgettable  prose, All This Could Be Different is a wise, tender, and riveting group portrait of young people forging love and community amidst struggle, and a moving story of one immigrant's journey to make her home in the world.

All This Could Be Different

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Viet Thanh Nguyen

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

A collection of stories written over a twenty-year period that examines the Vietnamese experience in America as well as questions of home, family, and identity.

The Refugees

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George Saunders

Stories

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "One of our most inventive purveyors of the form returns with pitch-perfect, genre-bending stories that stare into the abyss of our national character. . . . An exquisite work from a writer whose reach is galactic."--Oprah Daily
 
Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with his first collection of short stories since the New York Times bestseller Tenth of December.

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, NPR, Time, USA Today, The Guardian, Esquire, Kirkus Reviews

The "best short-story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and exquisitely tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: Here is a collection of prismatic, resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

"Love Letter" is a tender missive from grandfather to grandson, in the midst of a dystopian political situation in the (not too distant, all too believable) future, that reminds us of our obligations to our ideals, ourselves, and one another. "Ghoul" is set in a Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park in Colorado and follows the exploits of a lonely, morally complex character named Brian, who comes to question everything he takes for granted about his reality. In "Mother's Day," two women who loved the same man come to an existential reckoning in the middle of a hailstorm. In "Elliott Spencer," our eighty-nine-year-old protagonist finds himself brainwashed, his memory "scraped"--a victim of a scheme in which poor, vulnerable people are reprogrammed and deployed as political protesters. And "My House"--in a mere seven pages--comes to terms with the haunting nature of unfulfilled dreams and the inevitability of decay.

Together, these nine subversive, profound, and essential stories coalesce into a case for viewing the world with the same generosity and clear-eyed attention Saunders does, even in the most absurd of circumstances.

Liberation Day

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Brandon Taylor

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER BRANDON TAYLOR IS: “A powerhouse.” —Newsweek “An extraordinary cartographer.” —Esquire “A striking new voice with a vital perspective.” —Harper’s Bazaar “A brilliant writer.” —Garth Greenwell Named a Most Anticipated Book of the Year by Time, Elle, Enterntainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, O: The Oprah Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, BuzzFeed, Vulture, Thrillist, The Week, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, The Millions, and Paperback Paris A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually fraught encounters with two dancers in an open relationship, forcing him to weigh his vulnerabilities against his loneliness. In other stories, a young woman battles with the cancers draining her body and her family; menacing undercurrents among a group of teenagers explode in violence on a winter night; a little girl tears through a house like a tornado, driving her babysitter to the brink; and couples feel out the jagged edges of connection, comfort, and cruelty. One of the breakout literary stars of 2020, Brandon Taylor has been hailed by Roxane Gay as “a writer who wields his craft in absolutely unforgettable ways.” With Filthy Animals he renews and expands on the promise made in Real Life, training his precise and unsentimental gaze on the tensions among friends and family, lovers and others. Psychologically taut and quietly devastating, Filthy Animals is a tender portrait of the fierce longing for intimacy, the lingering presence of pain, and the desire for love in a world that seems, more often than not, to withhold it.

Filthy Animals

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NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE, ELLE, OPRAH DAILY, THE WASHINGTON POST, BUZZFEED AND VULTURE “Erudite, intimate, hilarious, poignant . . . A gorgeously written novel of youth’s promise, of the quest to find one’s tribe and one’s calling.” —Leigh Haber, Oprah Daily The Booker Prize finalist and widely acclaimed author of Real Life and Filthy Animals returns with a deeply involving new novel of young men and women at a crossroads In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious dog in need of affection.” These four are buffeted by a cast of artists, landlords, meatpacking workers, and mathematicians who populate the cafes, classrooms, and food-service kitchens of the city, sometimes to violent and electrifying consequence. Finally, as each prepares for an uncertain future, the group heads to a cabin to bid goodbye to their former lives—a moment of reckoning that leaves each of them irrevocably altered. A novel of friendship and chosen family, The Late Americans asks fresh questions about love and sex, ambition and precarity, and about how human beings can bruise one another while trying to find themselves. It is Brandon Taylor’s richest and most involving work of fiction to date, confirming his position as one of our most perceptive chroniclers of contemporary life.

The Late Americans

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Harry Turtledove

The Gladiator

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Lauren Holmes

A "debut collection about family, friends, and lovers, and the flaws that make us most human"--

Barbara the Slut and Other People

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Celeste Ng

The acclaimed debut novel by the author of Little Fires Everywhere. “A taut tale of ever deepening and quickening suspense.” —O, the Oprah Magazine “Explosive . . . Both a propulsive mystery and a profound examination of a mixed-race family.” —Entertainment Weekly “Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Everything I Never Told You

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Naomi Novik

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Uprooted and Spinning Silver comes the story of an unwilling dark sorceress who is destined to rewrite the rules of magic. I decided that Orion Lake needed to die after the second time he saved my life. Everyone loves Orion Lake. Everyone else, that is. Far as I'm concerned, he can keep his flashy combat magic to himself. I'm not joining his pack of adoring fans. I don't need help surviving the Scholomance, even if they do. Forget the hordes of monsters and cursed artifacts. I'm probably the most dangerous thing in the place. Just give me a chance and I'll level mountains and kill untold millions, make myself the dark queen of the world. At least, that's what the world expects me to do. Most of the other students in here would be delighted if Orion killed me like one more evil thing that's crawled out of the drains. Sometimes I think they want me to turn into the evil witch they assume I am. The school itself certainly does. But the Scholomance isn't getting what it wants from me. And neither is Orion Lake. I may not be anyone's idea of the shining hero, but I'm going to make it out of this place alive, and I'm not going to slaughter thousands to do it, either. Although I'm giving serious consideration to just one. With flawless mastery, Naomi Novik creates a heroine for the ages--a character so sharply realized and so richly nuanced that she will live on in hearts and minds for generations to come.

A Deadly Education

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Talia Lakshmi Kolluri

Through nine emotionally vivid stories, all narrated from animal perspectives, Talia Lakshmi Kolluri's debut collection explores themes of environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family with resounding heart and deep tenderness. In Kolluri's pages, a faithful hound mourns the loss of the endangered rhino he swore to protect. Vultures seek meaning as they attend to the antelope that perished in Central Asia. A beloved donkey's loyalty to a zookeeper in Gaza is put to the ultimate test. And a wounded pigeon in Delhi finds an unlikely friend.

In striking, immersive detail against the backdrop of an ever-changing international landscape, What We Fed to the Manticore speaks to the fears and joys of the creatures we share our world with, and ultimately places the reader under the rich canopy of the tree of life.

What We Fed to the Manticore

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Matt Haig

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library. “A quirky romcom dusted with philosophical observations….A delightfully witty…poignant novel.” —The Washington Post “She smiled a soft, troubled smile and I felt the whole world slipping away, and I wanted to slip with it, to go wherever she was going… I had existed whole years without her, but that was all it had been. An existence. A book with no words.” Tom Hazard has just moved back to London, his old home, to settle down and become a high school history teacher. And on his first day at school, he meets a captivating French teacher at his school who seems fascinated by him. But Tom has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life. Unfortunately for Tom, the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: Never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present. How to Stop Time tells a love story across the ages—and for the ages—about a man lost in time, the woman who could save him, and the lifetimes it can take to learn how to live. It is a bighearted, wildly original novel about losing and finding yourself, the inevitability of change, and how with enough time to learn, we just might find happiness. Soon to be a major motion picture starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

How to Stop Time

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Safia Elhillo

A mesmerizing novel in verse about family, identity, and finding yourself in the most unexpected places--for fans of The Poet X, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, and Jason Reynolds. Nima doesn't feel understood. By her mother, who grew up far away in a different land. By her suburban town, which makes her feel too much like an outsider to fit in and not enough like an outsider to feel like that she belongs somewhere else. At least she has her childhood friend Haitham, with whom she can let her guard down and be herself.Until she doesn't. As the ground is pulled out from under her, Nima must grapple with the phantom of a life not chosen, the name her parents didn't give her at birth: Yasmeen. But that other name, that other girl, might just be more real than Nima knows. And more hungry.And the life Nima has, the one she keeps wishing were someone else's. . .she might have to fight for it with a fierceness she never knew she had. "Nothing short of magic...One of the best writers of our times."-- Elizabeth Acevedo, New York Times Bestselling author of The Poet X

Browse by categories

Jess Redman

Quintessence

Rachel Smythe

Lore Olympus: Volume One

Kayla Miller

Act

Dave Coverly

Cats Are People, Too

Jaimal Yogis

The Awakening Storm

Karen Schneemann; Lily Williams

Go with the Flow

Niki Smith

The Golden Hour

Rebecca Burgess

Speak Up!

Joris Chamblain

Cici's Journal

Kelly Fernández

Manu: a Graphic Novel

Jennifer Dugan

Coven

Sarah Thankam Mathews

All This Could Be Different

Viet Thanh Nguyen

The Refugees

George Saunders

Liberation Day

Brandon Taylor

Filthy Animals

Brandon Taylor

The Late Americans

Harry Turtledove

The Gladiator

Lauren Holmes

Barbara the Slut and Other People

Celeste Ng

Everything I Never Told You

Naomi Novik

A Deadly Education

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri

What We Fed to the Manticore

Matt Haig

How to Stop Time

Safia Elhillo

Home Is Not a Country

David Sedaris

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

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