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Death

Hysteria

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Title: Hysteria by Megan Miranda
Format: Book
Who’s It For? Adults and Young Adults

Mallory remembered that her boyfriend Brian was dead. Yet she didn’t remember that she had stabbed him. The police didn’t charge her with the crime. Brian, from his history, was probably the aggressor. If only she could remember. Meanwhile, Mallory took a sleeping pill at night.

To give her a fresh start, Mallory’s parents sent her to a private prep school: Monroe. At first, she was making friends, including Reid. Reid and Mallory’s fathers attended Monroe years ago. Yet, when her roommate moved out, Mallory figured that word of her past had spread. Mallory frequently heard a loud thumping noise at night. And when she woke, her shoulder was bloody and blistered. Was someone tormenting her? Or was Mallory losing touch with reality? She had to find some answers before it was too late.

If you enjoy a suspenseful tale with flawed characters, I highly recommend this author.  While Hysteria is my favorite Megan Miranda book, I would also suggest The Perfect Stranger and All the Missing Girls.

You can find Hysteria here.

The Captain and the Glory: An Entertainment

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The Captain and the Glory: An Entertainment
Format: Book
Who’s it for: Adult

The Glory was a massive and beautiful ship that housed people from all over the world.  Led by a brave, noble captain it welcomed any displaced people found at sea with open arms, knowing that in their diversity they would find the strength needed to continue on course.  The Glory stood for something greater than a ship.  It stood for opportunity and understanding and was a beacon of hope to the rest of the ships of the ocean.  It inspired whole generations to be good people and to respect their fellow human beings.

Then one day, after the brave and noble captain died, it became time to choose another captain.  When the ship’s scholars were busy debating how to choose the next captain a man with a yellow feather in his hair stepped forward and shouted: “Make me captain!”

“Should we pick someone who has extensive nautical knowledge?” asked an older man.

The man with the yellow feather in his hair had no experience running a ship of any kind, no nautical knowledge whatsoever.  Still, he yelled: “Make me captain!”

“Should the next captain be someone that served in the military, someone who risked their life to protect our ship against raids led by the Pirate King?” another scholar suggested.

The man with the yellow feather had never served in the military.  In fact, during the last great pirate raid, he hid in the boiler room thumbing through adult magazines.  Yet he continued to shout: “Make me captain!”

“Maybe our next captain should be chosen by how much they extoll the virtues of our mighty ship?  By how much they know and respect our many laws and ideals?” a small girl recommended.

The man with the yellow feather had seemingly no knowledge whatsoever of what the Glory stood for.  In fact, he had spent much of his life arguing against many of the most revered ideals of the Glory, often directly besmirching the character of almost every captain that had served before. He even spent months loudly arguing that the previous captain hadn’t been born on the ship.  Although there was no sane reason to take the man with the yellow feather in his hair seriously, he still shouted: “Make me captain!”

“Oh! We should pick the next captain based on how well they treat their fellow human beings!” a woman offered.

The only people the man with the yellow feather ever treated with an ounce of respect were mass murderers, liars, and thieves.  It was common knowledge that he and his close group of friends, the “Upskirt Boys”, were known throughout the ship for hanging out under the stairs leading to the women’s room with cameras in hand.  Yet he still yelled: “Make me the captain! MAKE ME THE CAPTAIN! MAKE ME THE CAPTAIN!”

This is the story of how the man with the yellow feather became the next captain of the Glory, and what it did to its people and the ideals that the Glory stood for.

The Captain and the Glory: An Entertainment, by Dave Eggers, is an excellent book about life at sea and any similarities the reader finds with the man with the yellow feather in his hair and the current American president are purely coincidental.

Find it in the catalog.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death

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Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death by Caitlin Doughty
Formats: Book, eBook
Who it’s for: Adults and Teens

Ever wonder what happens to people’s bodies after they die? Well, so do most kids…and the kids aren’t shy about asking those questions out loud!

Caitlin Doughty, founder of The Order of the Good Death and the Ask a Mortician web series, isn’t shy about answering them either. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? contains her candid and witty replies to questions ranging from the practical (What would happen if you died on a plane?) to the ultimate practical joke (What would happen if you swallowed a bag of popcorn before you died and were cremated?)

To learn the answer to whether your eyeballs look like tasty morsels to your favorite furry companion after you die, find it in the catalog.

Rough Patch

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Written and illustrated by Brian Lies
Format: Book
Who Its For: Kids

Have you ever had a super-good friend? Have you ever lost a friend?  In The Rough Patch, Evan experiences both.  Evan and his dog are best friends. They go everywhere and do everything together, in all weather, year in and year out. Their very favorite thing is working in Evan’s amazing garden, where they grow beautiful things to see and eat. Then one terrible day, Evan’s doggy friend dies. He is heart-broken, bitter, angry and alone. What will he do without his best friend? No longer able to stand the sight of their beautiful garden, when he feels so dark and sad inside, Evan chops it all down! He then turns his garden into the saddest, loneliest spot he can, a place that grows only terrible plants with thorns and bad smells, until the day a pumpkin vine creeps in under his fence. He begins to care for it and slowly, as it grows, he begins to remember happier times. That vine produces a HUGE pumpkin and Evan decides to enter it at the Fair, where at last he shakes off his darkness and, very unexpectedly, makes a new friend.

Gloriously illustrated by the multiple award winning author of Bats at the Beach, this is an honest and hopeful book about friendship, healing and the ways we deal with loss. A 2019 Caldecott Honor Book and an ALA Notable Book

Find it in the catalog!