What we're reading
- Don't Ask Me Where I'm From by Jennifer De Leon
- Next D128 Staff Book Club read in March
- Genre: realistic
- Summary: First-generation American LatinX Liliana Cruz does what it takes to fit in at her new nearly all-white school. But when family secrets spill out and racism at school ramps up, she must decide what she believes in and take a stand. Liliana Cruz is a hitting a wall, or rather, walls. There's the wall her mom has put up ever since Liliana's dad left, again. There's the wall that delineates Liliana's diverse inner-city Boston neighborhood from Westburg, the wealthy - and white - suburban high school she's just been accepted into. And there's the wall Liliana creates within herself, because to survive at Westburg, she can't just lighten up, she has to whiten up. So what if she changes her name? So what if she changes the way she talks? So what if she's seeing her neighborhood in a different way? But then light is shed on some hard truths: It isn't that her father doesn't want to come home - he can't... and her whole family is in jeopardy. And when racial tensions at school reach a fever pitch, the walls that divide feel insurmountable. But a wall isn't always a barrier. It can be a foundation for something better. And Liliana must choose: Use this foundation as a platform to speak her truth, or risk crumbling under its weight.
- Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
- Genre: sci-fi
- Summary: When COVID-19 sweeps through New York City, Jamie Gray is stuck as a dead-end driver for food delivery apps. That is, until Jamie makes a delivery to an old acquaintance, Tom, who works at what he calls "an animal rights organization." Tom's team needs a last-minute grunt to handle things on their next field visit. Jamie, eager to do anything, immediately signs on. What Tom doesn't tell Jamie is that the animals his team cares for are not here on Earth. Not our Earth, at least. In an alternate dimension, massive dinosaur-like creatures named Kaiju roam a warm and human-free world. They're the universe's largest and most dangerous panda and they're in trouble. It's not just the Kaiju Preservation Society that's found its way to the alternate world. Others have, too--and their carelessness could cause millions back on our Earth to die.
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Silvia is reading soon with AP Lit
- Genre: classic
- Summary: In early nineteenth-century England, a spirited young woman copes with the courtship of a snobbish gentleman as well as the romantic entanglements of her four sisters.
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Emma is reading with Freshman Lit, and she feels she is having her eyes opened to other people's realities
- Genre: realistic
- Summary: Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does-or does not-say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.
- Twilight: The Graphic Novel by Yong-bin Kim
- LMC requested book 2 for Betsy through interlibrary loan
- This is all above-board and completely legit.
- When the librarian tells you "we have our ways," disregard her weird, black-market book tone.
- Genre: graphic
- Summary: A graphic novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" in which seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, where she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not completely human.
- AJ recenly read the screenplay for a movie.
- Mason is reading a history of video games.