Mrs. A where are all the good books?

As a librarian the times I hear this whining request are innumerable. Teens and tweens come in and make a b-line straight to me with dewy eyes and already creased frowns. This assumption that there are not any "good books" left in the library is what has spurred me to start this blog and share some of the books I am reading with you.

I will be dividing my posts into three sections fiction, nonfiction, and picks for adult readers. The books found in the fiction and nonfiction sections will be geared mainly to middle school and YA (young adult) readers.


Fiction

Afrika by Colleen Craig Kim, age fourteen, is on an adventure with her mother to Africa. Africa is her mother's homeland. Her mother is a South African journalist. During the turmoil of apartheid her mother fled. While living in the newly unified South Africa, Kim learns startling secrets from her mother’s past and how to accept that she is never more than a heartbeat away from the land where her mother was born.


Nonfiction


Farewell to Manzanar By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston

Jeanne Wakatsuki is a bright high school student who works in her parent’s shop. She and her family have been evicted and they have to move. They were not evicted because they had no money; they were thrown out as enemies of the United States because they are Japanese. The year is 1944 and Jeanne is being moved to an interment came in the desert of Arizona to protect America from a second Japanese attack. This memoir follows Jeanne as she comes of age set apart from the world she has known.



Picks for Adult Readers


The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger

This collection of novels is the delightfully witty creation of Gail Carriger. Set in an alternate London where Queen Victoria councilors are Vampires and she is guarded by Werewolves, Ms. Carriger's characters shine brilliantly against the gaslight steam-punk background. The novels are at their heart a love story: werewolf meets girl, girl plays hard to get, werewolf wins girl, and they live happily ever after.....almost.