Club news:
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Show off your Starbooks Book Club spirit with a re-usable insulated tumbler, proudly labeled with our new blue logo!
- Order in the Web Store through Fri Dec 1
- $18
- We must receive at least 24 orders to be able to place the order
- Thank you Emma+fam for your matching set!
- Remember to sign in at each Book Club meeting
- Enter your ID number on the computer
- The club member who attends the most meetings will win a bookstore gift certificate in May!
Overheard at Book Club:
- "I carry 3 books on me at all times," says Emma. Good insurance policy.
- "If you have any innocence or sanity, I do not recommend you read this," about a book-that-shall-be-unnamed.
- Also noticed at Book Club: the strategic use of the plastic bag to protect books in one's backpack. Wise.
What we have been reading:
- Lit Circle books from class:
- The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan
- Akata Witch by Nnedi Okarafor
- Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
- Genre: historical
- Summary: Romania, 1989. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream; they are bound by rules and force. Amidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves—or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe. Cristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. But what is the cost of freedom?
- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
- Genre: fantasy
- Book 2 in Mortal Instruments series
- Teen Titans: A Celebration of 50 Years edited by Robin Wildman
- Genre: graphic
- Summary: A collection of Teen Titan comics spanning the fifty years since DC Comics created the team, a group composed of the teenage sidekicks of their already popular superheroes such as Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman.
- Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf
- Genre: mystery
- Summary:When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It might be even though Najwa’s trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet. But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it. As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts—not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.
- "The main character's best friend dies at a Scrabble tournament," Korey says.
- "Those can get dangerous!" quips Mrs. Caldicott
- Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
- Genre: mystery
- Summary: Eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine has never quite fit in, both in her hometown and on the nearby Ojibwe reservation. She dreams of a fresh start at college, but when family tragedy strikes, Daunis puts her future on hold to look after her fragile mother. The only bright spot is meeting Jamie, the charming new recruit on her brother Levi’s hockey team. Yet even as Daunis falls for Jamie, she senses the dashing hockey star is hiding something. Everything comes to light when Daunis witnesses a shocking murder, thrusting her into an FBI investigation of a lethal new drug. Reluctantly, Daunis agrees to go undercover, drawing on her knowledge of chemistry and Ojibwe traditional medicine to track down the source. But the search for truth is more complicated than Daunis imagined, exposing secrets and old scars. At the same time, she grows concerned with an investigation that seems more focused on punishing the offenders than protecting the victims. Now, as the deceptions—and deaths—keep growing, Daunis must learn what it means to be a strong Anishinaabe kwe (Ojibwe woman) and how far she’ll go for her community, even if it tears apart the only world she’s ever known.
- nominated for the 2023 Illinois Teen Choice Award
- great book to read during this Native American Heritage Month, as both the author and her characters are from the Ojibwe tribe
- Heaven's Official Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: Born the crown prince of a prosperous kingdom, Xie Lian was renowned for his beauty, strength, and purity. His years of dedicated study and noble deeds allowed him to ascend to godhood. But those who rise may also fall, and fall he does--cast from the heavens and banished to the world below. Eight hundred years after his mortal life, Xie Lian has ascended to godhood for the third time, angering most of the gods in the process. To repay his debts, he is sent to the Mortal Realm to hunt down violent ghosts and troublemaking spirits who prey on the living. Along his travels, he meets the fascinating and brilliant San Lang, a young man with whom he feels an instant connection. Yet San Lang is clearly more than he appears... What mysteries lie behind that carefree smile?
- Also anime by the same name
- Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them. With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant. She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise. Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret. Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die
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It. Has. Dragons.
- Love in English by Maria E. Andreu
- Genre: realistic
- Summary: Sixteen-year-old Ana has just moved to New Jersey from Argentina for her junior year of high school. She’s a poet and a lover of language—except that now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her, let alone find the words to express how she feels in the language she’s expected to speak. All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class. And then there’s her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she’s partnered up with in ESL class, who she bonds with over the 80s teen movies they are assigned to watch for class (but later keep watching together for fun), and Altagracia, her artistic and Instagram-fabulous friend, who thankfully is fluent in Spanish and able to help her settle into American high school. But is it possible that she’s becoming too American—as her father accuses—and what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change? Ana will spend her year learning that the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.