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Fiction

Layla and the Bots: Happy Paws

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Cover image of "Layla & the Bots: Happy Paws"Layla & the Bots: Happy Paws by Vicky Fang
Format: Book
Who’s it for: Kids

Layla and her robots are rock stars and inventors! They’re super excited to perform at Happy Days Amusement Park… until they hear that the park is closing down. The whole town has gone dog-crazy, and everyone is spending their time at the dog park. To save Happy Days, Layla and her bots will have to use all their design and engineering skills to create something totally new- “Happy Paws!” the amusement park for dogs. This easy chapter book is a 2021 Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award honor book for Beginning Fiction.

Find it (and other Layla and the Bots books) in the catalog!

After Sundown

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After Sundown by Linda Howard and Linda Jones
Who it’s for: Adults
Format: Book

Sela, the reclusive owner of a general store in the eastern Tennessee Mountains finds safety in solitude, Ben the mysterious ex-military man living alone in the wilds of Cove Mountain may be the only man that can break through her protective shell.  For years, he’s kept his distance from Sela and other not really communicating with anyone in the small town that sits below his mountain top home.  Then one day Ben appears at Sela,s store to warn her about the impending solar storm threat, capable of taking down the power grids in communities across the globe.  Sela must now find the strength and courage to step up and become the leader of Wears Valley, the small town where she lives with her aunt, cousin and a community of people that have known her most of her life.  She and Ben discover that in the dark, cut off from the outside world, danger brings together a community of people determined to survive a new way of life.   Along with two guarded hearts in a battle for survival where there is no more playing it safe–in life or in love.  This story had me thing about what if something similar happened around this community?  Would we know how to survive in this situation or would there be panic and chaos like there was with the pandemic and the threat of gas shortages.

Find After Sundown in the catalog!

 

Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business

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Cover image of "Mindy Kim & the Yummy Seaweed Business"Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business by Lyla Lee, Illustrated by Dung Ho
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Kids

Mindy is NOT excited to be the new kid at school. She and her Appa (Dad) have moved from California, where there were plenty of other Korean-American kids at her multicultural school, to a small town in Florida where she’s the only Asian student. Mindy doesn’t know anyone, and the other kids think her yummy Korean food is weird- at first. But then someone wants to try her spicy seaweed snacks, and suddenly everyone wants to trade snacks! Mindy and her new friend Sally get the great idea to sell the yummy seaweed snacks… but a jealous classmate tries to spoil everything. Soon Mindy’s fighting with her only friend, in trouble with the teacher, and afraid to tell Appa what’s going on. How can Mindy set things right? Mindy Kim and the Yummy Seaweed Business is the 2021 Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award winner for Transitional Fiction.

Find it (and other Mindy Kim books) in the catalog!

The City of Ember

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The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
Format:  Book
Who it’s for:  Kids and Teens

Ember is a city in everlasting darkness and is only lit by its progressively unpredictable electric system.  Other systems are falling apart as well, and stores of food and necessities that have lasted hundreds of years are dwindling.  The city was only meant to last 220 years, and now it has been 241.  But the messages the “Builders” left have been misplaced and forgotten.

Lina Mayfleet finds the messages, but not before her little sister chewed them to shreds. Now she and her pal Doon Harrow must decipher the few disjointed messages before the city falls to pieces.  Their determination leads them to discover long-overlooked mysteries about the creation and purpose of Ember, and what the “Builders” envisioned.  They want to spread their findings with the people of Ember — but only if the shady mayor and his guards don’t stop them first.

Find it in the catalog!

The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains

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The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman
Format: Book, Audiobook, Digital Audiobook
Who it’s for: Adults

“The truth is a cave in the black mountains. There is one way there, and one only, and that way is treacherous and hard, and if you choose the wrong path you will die alone, on the mountainside.”
– A quote from this “tale of travel and darkness” by master storyteller Neil Gaiman

The unnamed narrator of our story is seeking a mythical cave, on a mythical island, that’s purportedly filled to the brim with mythical gold, ripe for the taking, for any adventurer that should be brave (or foolhardy) enough seek it. He’s hired a guide, Callum McInnes, who claims he’s been there before, and certainly possesses riches well above his station as an average border reaver for us to take his word for it. McInnes also claims the cave, and its gold, is cursed, but our narrator is undeterred, and so they begin their journey, and oh, what a journey it is, filled with many unexpected twists and turns.

You can enjoy the story in a print edition, which is complimented by “pictures of all kinds” illustrated by Eddie Campbell, or an audio version, complimented by original music from the FourPlay String Quartet.

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or on Hoopla

Micro

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Micro by Michael Crichton
Format:  Book
Who it’s for:  Adults

On the island of Oahu, a greedy and power-obsessed science mogul named Vin Drake has created a nanotechnology company.  A team of young science graduate students travels to Hawaii to work for Drake’s company.  Almost instantly when arriving on the island, the group gets absorbed in an elaborate scheme that contains cons, killing, and corporate greediness.  This results in Drake turning against the students.  They are shrunk to a size smaller than ants. In this reduced state, they must travel through the island jungle and face challenging obstacles, as the sociopathic Drake attempts to capture them and stamp them out.  I honestly could not set this book down.  This page-turning thriller has you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.

Find it in the catalog!