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There Are No Bears In This Bakery

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There Are No Bears in This Bakery by Julia Sarcone-Roach

Publication Date: January 8, 2019
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Kids

Muffin the Cat takes her job providing security for her human owner’s bakery very seriously. Each night, while the baker sleeps, Muffin listens for sounds to alert her to trouble, like the rustle and squeak of mice, or the rattle and clang of raccoons. But one night, she hears a new sound. Is it rumbling? Is it growling? What could it be? Certainly not a BEAR in the bakery?! Read on to see what Muffin finds, what she does about it, and what becomes of the bakery’s stock of treats and sweets in this sweet and funny sequel to A Bear Ate Your Sandwich.

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Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence

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Title: Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith
Format: Book
Who It’s For: Adults

Hannah Green is eleven years old and her parents are separating. Her mother is working in London and Hannah is home in Santa Cruz with her father. She misses her mother, but finds herself missing her father more as, though he is right in front of her, he seems to be lost. She goes through her daily routine – school, homework, food, bed. Her life becomes “horribly, unfeasibly mundane.” Until her father sends her to stay with her world-traveling grandfather for a while in a cabin in the Pacific Northwest and the Devil shows up. The Devil has discovered that he is no longer benefitting from the dark power usually transferred to him when humans commit bad deeds. This might have something to do with a machine Hannah’s grandfather built.

Hannah, her grandfather, the Devil, and an accident imp named Vaneclaw travel to the Behind (a version of Hell you can get to without dying) via Siberia to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Meanwhile, Hannah’s father has disappeared and a man with bad intentions sets out toward Santa Cruz to fulfill an unknown mission. All these individuals come together at a roller coaster on the Santa Cruz boardwalk where the fate of humanity will be decided.

Reminiscent of Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Jasper Fforde, Smith has produced a story and characters that stick with you and leave you wanting more.

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The Adventure Zone

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The Adventure Zone: Here There Be Gerblins by Clint McElroy, Griffin McElroy, Justin McElroy, and Travis McElroy
Publication Date: July 17, 2018
Format: Graphic Novel
Who’s it for: Teens, Adults

A story of three brothers and their dad playing dungeons and dragons is a tale as old as time. If that time also included irreverent humor, wanton violence, and one overly dramatic elf. The hit podcast turned New York Time’s best seller has hit your local library shelf. If fantasy, bad jokes, magical jellyfish, and goblin slaying sound like your kind of fun, welcome to The Adventure Zone! 

Here There Be Gerblins starts off with our three heroes bungling their way into a rescue of their employer from a lair of goblins, and they only make things worse from there. Our champions will encounter perils such as giant spiders, the Zone of Truth, and even tea with a bugbear (heavens!) Magnus the fighter is brash and will charge into any situation, Merle is the cleric who never knew he could heal, and the Wizard Taako who’s more interested in looking good than saving the day. But don’t forget Griffin, our dungeon master as he makes things harder for our heroes, and maybe make a few puns along the way.

Featuring the charming art of artist Carey Pietsch bringing to life these larger than life characters. They even have a section at the end of the comic dedicated to fanart to show off all the different fan perceptions of the characters from when they were a podcast. If you’re looking for a new graphic novel series to invest in, volume 2, Murder on the Rockport Limited, is already announced for next year. So roll for initiative and prepare for goofs, it’s the Adventure Zone!

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The Bucket List

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The Bucket List by Georgia Clark
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults

For the most part, Lacey Whitman’s life is going the way she wants it. She has a job she mostly likes and friends she can sometimes count on. However, everything she knows comes crashing down around her when she learns that she has inherited the breast cancer gene. Now she must make the life-altering decision of whether or not to have a double mastectomy at the young age of twenty-five. Lacey knows this is not a decision to be made lightly and, like any good Type-A millennial, enlists the help of her friends in making a pro-con list. Their verdict? Make a “boob bucket list” and give herself one year to complete everything she wants to do with and for her breasts before her possible surgery. Thus begins a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance you won’t want to miss.

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Calypso

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Calypso by David Sedaris
Format: Audiobook, Book
Who it’s for: Adults

Calypso might just be David Sedaris at his best. It’s a bit darker than some of the author’s previous works (included are stories about his sister’s suicide and his mother’s alcoholism), but his wry humor comes through at every turn.  

A collection of stories dealing with middle age, family, snapping turtles, and trash collecting while wearing a Fitbit, Calypso is filled with observations and interactions that range from the mundane yet oddly humorous, to the wildly absurd. The stories take place in various locations, from the West Sussex home he shares with his partner, Hugh (and, for a time, a fox named Carol), to the family beach house on Emerald Isle nicknamed the Sea Section, to various US cities and towns visited on speaking tours (including El Paso, TX, where a doctor in the audience offers to remove the benign lipoma from his abdomen and give it to him so he can feed it to a snapping turtle).

Sedaris narrates the audiobook and it is highly recommended. For fans of Augusten Burroughs, Sarah Vowell, and Dave Eggers.

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Dread Nation

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Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

Format: Book

Who’s It for: Teens

In which I find myself surprisingly entertained…

Dread Nation, an alternate historical fiction, is not a genre I usually read yet I thoroughly enjoyed this tale. Set in the time of the civil war, the is told from the perspective of Jane, a house slave who has been sent to Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls. While at schools the girls learn how to be attendants to wealthy women and also how to quickly and efficiently dispatch Shamblers, which are zombies.

I am not a fan of zombies but in Dread Nation, they aren’t the focal point. It was the relationships between the cast of characters, the engaging action scenes and Jane’s sarcastic humor that truly held my attention. Jane is a spitfire who believes in telling it like she sees it but she’s also smart enough to know when to play the role of a submissive slave. This makes her perfect as the books voice. Each chapter is preceded by a short letter from Jane to her beloved mother, revealing a softer, more vulnerable side of Jane that is usually tucked away. The titles of the chapters are her short and often amended perspective on the events about to unfold.

The author does a good job of addressing and balancing the racial prejudice that was prevalent during this time period while still making this is fun story of survival, friendship and mayhem.

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