Welcome to our new Book Club members! It was wonderful that you made time on Friday morning to join us for the first of many fun weeks talking about our favorite topics.

Thank you Book Club advisor Mrs. Stevens for the donut treats; hot chocolate and tea are always free and available.

Books nominated for the 2022 Illinois Teen Choice Award

• Catfishing on CatNet by Naomi Kritzer
  • Genre: realistic
  • Summary: How much does the internet know about YOU? What if the internet knows everything about you? What if it knows you better than you know yourself? What if the internet were a sentient A.I. who loves cat pictures? Steph hasn't stayed in one place longer than six months. Her only constant is an online community called CatNet--a social media site where users upload cat pictures--a place she knows she is welcome. What Steph doesn't know is that the admin of the site, CheshireCat, is a sentient A.I. When a threat from Steph's past catches up to her and ChesireCat's existence is discovered by outsiders, it's up to Steph and her friends, both online and IRL, to save her.
• Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson
  • Genre: realistic
  • Summary: Mary B. Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nin-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it? She wouldn't say. Mary survived six years in baby jail before being dumped in a group home. There wasn't a point to setting the record straight before, but now she's got Ted - and their unborn child - to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary's fate now lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knos the real Momma. But does anyone know the real Mary?
• Stepsister Jennifer Donnelly
  • Genre: fantasy
  • Summary: Isabelle should be blissfully happy – she’s about to win the handsome prince. Except Isabelle isn’t the beautiful girl who lost the glass slipper and captured the prince’s heart. She’s the ugly stepsister who’s cut off her toes to fit into Cinderella’s shoe ... which is now filling with blood. When the prince discovers Isabelle’s deception, she is turned away in shame. It’s no more than she deserves: she is a plain girl in a world that values beauty; a feisty girl in a world that wants her to be pliant. Isabelle has tried to fit in. To live up to her mother’s expectations. To be like her stepsister. To be sweet. To be pretty. One by one, she has cut away pieces of herself in order to survive a world that doesn’t appreciate a girl like her. And that has made her mean, jealous, and hollow. Until she gets a chance to alter her destiny and prove what ugly stepsisters have always known: it takes more than heartache to break a girl.

Other books

• Wonder by R. J. Palacio
  • Genre: realistic
  • Summary: Ten-year-old Auggie Pullman, who was born with extreme facial abnormalities and was not expected to survive, goes from being home-schooled to entering fifth grade at a private middle school in Manhattan, which entails enduring the taunts and fear of his classmates as he struggles to be seen as just another student.
  • Movie version: 
  • Sequel: Auggie & I
• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  • Genre: science fiction
  • Summary: In the year 2044, reality is an ugly place. The only time teenage Wade Watts really feels alive is when he's jacked into the virtual utopia known as the OASIS. Wade's devoted his life to studying the puzzles hidden within this world's digital confines, puzzles that are based on their creator's obsession with the pop culture of decades past and that promise massive power and fortune to whoever can unlock them. But when Wade stumbles upon the first clue, he finds himself beset by players willing to kill to take this ultimate prize. The race is on, and if Wade's going to survive, he'll have to win—and confront the real world he's always been so desperate to escape.
  • Movie version
  • Sequel: Ready Player Two
• Cinder by Marissa Meyer
  • Genre: science fiction
  • Summary: As plague ravages the overcrowded Earth, observed by a ruthless lunar people, Cinder, a gifted mechanic and cyborg, becomes involved with handsome Prince Kai and must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect the world in this futuristic take on the Cinderella story.
• Cinderella is Dead by Lennie Copeland -- OR -- Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Genre: realistic
  • Summary: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
  • Genre: fantasy
  • Summary: Kaz Brekker and his crew have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives. Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning andtest the team's fragile loyalties. A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets--a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world
  • Sequel to Six of Crows
  • Should you read the Grisha (Shadow & Bone) series or Six of Crows series first?
  • Netflix series
• Fireborne by Rosaria Munda
  • Genre: fantasy:
  • Summary: Annie and Lee were just children when a brutal revolution changed their world, giving everyone—even the lowborn—a chance to test into the governing class of dragonriders. Now they are both rising stars in the new regime, despite backgrounds that couldn’t be more different. Annie’s lowborn family was executed by dragonfire, while Lee’s aristocratic family was murdered by revolutionaries. Growing up in the same orphanage forged their friendship, and seven years of training have made them rivals for the top position in the dragonriding fleet. But everything changes when survivors from the old regime surface, bent on reclaiming the city. With war on the horizon and his relationship with Annie changing fast, Lee must choose to kill the only family he has left or to betray everything he’s come to believe in. And Annie must decide whether to protect the boy she loves . . . or step up to be the champion her city needs.
  • Series: first in Aurelian Cycle
• Cats in Art
  • pop-up book featuring histirical paintings that feature cats as subjects
  • Ask Sasha to show it to you!
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
  • Genre: fantasy
    • Summary: Seventeen-year-old Zélie, her older brother Tzain, and rogue princess Amari fight to restore magic to the land and activate a new generation of magi, but they are ruthlessly pursued by the crown prince, who believes the return of magic will mean the end of the monarchy.
    • 2020 winner of Illinois Teen Choice Award
• They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
  • Genre: science fiction
  • Summary: Adam Silvera reminds us that there's no life without death and no love without loss in this devastating yet uplifting story about two people whose lives change over the course of one unforgettable day. On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They're going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they're both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There's an app for that. It's called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure -- to live a lifetime in a single day.
  • 2021 winner of the Illinois Teen Choice Award
• Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
  • Genre: non-fiction
  • Summary: Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and 'reverse racism.
  • Quote: Rhiannon, "This book has been getting me through."

Books we're reading for class that actually sound pretty good

• Alias, Grace by Margaret Atwood
  • Genre: classic, historical
  • Summary: It's 1843, and Grace Marks has been convicted for her involvement in the vicious murders of her employer and his housekeeper and mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Now serving a life sentence, Grace claims to have no memory of the murders. An up-and-coming expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness is engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace. He listens to her story while bringing her closer and closer to the day she cannot remember. What will he find in attempting to unlock her memories?
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • Genre: classic
  • Summary: After learning that books are a vital part of a culture he never knew, a book-burning official in a future fascist state clandestinely pursues reading until he is betrayed.

Books we couldn't live without

• Anything by Rick Riordan
• Harry Potter series
• Quote: "I couldn't live without those series."

Books NOT to take on a desert island

• The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
  • Genre: classic
  • Summary: After a plane crash strands them on a tropical island while the rest of the world is ravaged by war, a group of British schoolboys attempts to form a civilized society but descends into brutal anarchy.
  • Quote: Emily: "I wouldn't want to encourage my savage side."