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The Next Person You Meet in Heaven

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The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom   
Format: Book
Who’s it for: Adults and Young Adults

 

On the morning after Annie is married, she and her husband Paolo are involved in a shocking balloon ride accident leaving them in critical condition. Paolo needs a lung transplant and Annie donates one of hers.

At eight years old, Annie was the survivor of a terrible accident. A falling amusement car severed her arm.  Eddie, a maintenance man pushed her to safety but was killed by the falling car. Annie’s arm is reattached in a miraculous surgery.

Annie endures a lot of bullying until she meets a boy named Paolo. They become friends until he moves away with his family.  Annie, estranged from her Mom after high school, wonders about the mistakes she’s made and why she survived the accident.

Years later Annie meets Paolo again. Soon they get married.

Annie awakens after the lung surgery but where is she?

The Next Person You Meet in Heaven follows Annie as she meets five people in heaven. One of them is Eddie the maintenance man who saved her. “‘Mistakes,'” Eddie declares. “‘That’s what I’m here to teach you about.”

Annie learns from her five people in heaven that, lives are intertwined in many ways.

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Quiet Please, Owen McPhee!

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Quiet Please, Owen McPhee! by Trudy Ludwig
Format: Book
Who it’s For: Kids

“We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak” Epictetus.
Owen McPhee talks too much. WAY too much, according to his friends, his teachers and his hound dog Hannah! He talks so much that it gets in the way of his listening, with pretty serious consequences for his friends and their science projects… But the next day Owen wakes up with LARYNGITIS! No voice? No TALKING?? What’s a super-chatty kid to do? Read on and see how Owen deals with his laryngitis and learns something about listening and friendship in the process. Make sure to check out Owen’s calendar on the very last page! There are even questions in the back for further discussion with your own chatty ones.

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Where the Crawdads Sing

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Where the Crawdads Sing  by Delia Owens
Format:  Book, Audio, Ebook
Who it’s for:  Adults

 

This is Delia Owens’s debut novel.  It is the story of a young woman abandoned at age ten to survive alone in the coastal marsh of Barkley Cove, North Carolina.  Kya Clark is known as the “Marsh Girl” to residents of Barkley Cove.  Kya lives barefoot and wild.  She is friends with the gulls and very astute to nature and the environment in which she lives.  She has the skills to survive in the wild, but she is not prepared for the relationships of polite society.

In 1969, handsome Chase Andrews is found dead.  Local residents immediately suspect the Marsh Girl.  Rumor has it that Kya has been seen with Chase Andrews.  But could this wild girl be in a relationship with the wealthy Chase Andrews?  After all, Chase is a married man.

As the story unfolds, we learn about Kya’s childhood, her ability to survive on her own, her kindness and caring for nature, and her first encounters with friendship and love.  Could this wildly beautiful girl, who only ever attended one day of school be capable of violence?

Owens has written a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a mysterious tale of possible murder.  You will be mesmerized until the end.

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The Girl with No Name

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The Girl with No Name by Diney Costeloe
Format: CD Book
Who it’s for:  Adults and teens

Lisa is a thirteen year old Jewish girl escaping Nazi Germany after her family has been driven from their home.  She was sent to England with other children and eventually arrived in London, lonely, scared and unable to speak English.  A childless couple took her in and cared for her.  Lisa attended school with many other refugee children and she gradually learned English.  When the Nazis bombed London Lisa escaped to a bomb shelter but she was injured.  She lost her memory and couldn’t recall anything about her previous life.  She was transferred to a children’s home until it also became a target of the attacks.  Another evacuation forced her to find a new home in the country with a kind spinster woman.  If you are a fan of historical novels, listen to this captivating story by Diney Costeloe.  This is the first book in the series.  The next one is The Married Girls.

The narrator, Anna Bentinck, has a wonderful speaking voice and makes this story come to life.  She is a British actress and producer who has done hundreds of broadcasts on BBC, was the voice for an animation series and has narrated many audiobooks.  The author, Diney Costeloe, writes historical novels and also writes romantic novels under the name of Diney Delancey.

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Tradition

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Tradition by Brendan Kiely
Format: Book & Audiobook
Who it’s for: Teens & Adults

Jules Devereux is starting her senior year at Fullbrook Academy, an elite boarding school in New England, and is already counting the days to graduation so she can leave behind her ex-boyfriend, her ex-best friends, and everything she thinks is wrong with Fullbrook.
Always an outspoken advocate, Jules finds herself strangely silenced when she becomes the victim of sexual assault at the annual fall drinking party. Finding an administration unwilling to act, she and her new found friends launch a plan to get everyone’s attention and challenge what is accepted just because it’s always been that way.

I heard the author, Brendan Kiely, speak at a conference and his genuine concern for responsible and respectful behavior made me want to read this book.  It’s thought provoking and made me see how we often let things stay the same for no better reason than that’s how it’s always been. Brendan Kiely also co-authored the 2016 One Maryland One Book: All American Boys.
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Millie Fierce

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Millie Fierce by Jane Manning
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Kids

Millie is such a quiet, ordinary girl that no one listens to her or notices her, or gives her more than a tiny piece of cake at parties. She feels almost invisible, like the smudge left by the mean girls who walk through her chalk drawing on the sidewalk. One day Millie has had enough of being invisible. She gets mad- no, she gets Fierce! Now Millie Fierce stomps about and howls, throws food and leaves muddy handprints on the wall. She even pulls the buds off the neighbor’s peony bush! She is noisy and pushy –and now everyone notices her. But not in a good way. When her wild behavior hurts a friend, Millie begins to rethink her particular brand of fierceness, and finds there is room inside her for both Kind and Fierce.

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