Club news:
- All Starbooks tumblers have been ordered! We will have a few available if you forgot to order one. Bring a mug or insulated tumbler of your own to enjoy our favorite Book Club beverage.
- Members chose a free reading-themed sticker. It was hard to choose! Some of our favorites:
- I survived reading banned books, and all I got was smarter
- Drink tea - read books - be happy
- I teach people to read
- Some of us grew up reading books; the cool ones still do
- LMC shared new books with beautiful book covers hiding under their beautiful book jackets. We hope all reader lift the book jacket up to see the beauty underneath!
- Foxglove
- House of Marionne
- House of Rot & Ruin
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Remember the challenge to read all 20 books nominated for the 2024 Illinois Teen Choice Award:
- ✔️ Ryleigh
- Madeline working on it!
- Grace working on it!
What we've been reading:
- Creep; A Love Story by Lygia Day Penaflor
- Genre: mystery/thriller
- Summary: Laney Villanueva and Nico Fiore are the perfect couple: beautiful, popular, talented, and hopelessly in love. Everyone looks up to them at Holy Family High School. But Rafi doesn't just admire them. She watches them. She's drawn to them. Intent on becoming their closest friend, Rafi weaves her way into their lives. She starts small: taking photos of the senior class for the yearbook, joining Laney's club, and babysitting Nico's little sister. And it works—soon they invite her to parties, take her on joyrides, and ask her for favors. Rafi's actions quickly turn invasive, delving deeper and deeper until she's consumed by their most intimate secrets. When tragedy strikes the young lovers, Rafi's obsession spirals, and she will do anything to keep the perfect couple together. Anything.
- Witches of Scotland by Stephen P. Atchison
- Genre: supernatural
- Summary: It’s one thing to read about witches, it’s another thing to discover you are one. Glasgow law student, David Hunter is drifting through life and feels something is missing. When on a night out someone tries to kill him he discovers he is from a long line of witches known as Dream Dancers, his life is turned upside down. Now David has unwittingly exposed himself to a world of powerful witches, clandestine government agencies, and a fight to protect the Akashic records. Is a life filled with Magick really his true calling in life?
- Mrs. Stevens says it was "just OK"
- All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
- Genre: realistic
- Summary: Lahore, Pakistan. Then. Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Cloud’s Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start. Juniper, California. Now. Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding. Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah’s health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle’s liquor store while hiding the fact that she’s applying to college so she can escape him—and Juniper—forever. When Sal’s attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth—and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst. From one of today’s most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness—one that’s both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.
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"I thought it was phenomenal," said Madeline
- The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
- Genre: horror
- Summary: When Springville residents—at least the ones still alive—are questioned about what happened on prom night, they all have the same explanation—Maddy did it. An outcast at her small-town Georgia high school, Madison Washington has always been a teasing target for bullies. And she's dealt with it because she has more pressing problems to manage. Until the morning a surprise rainstorm reveals her most closely kept secret: Maddy is biracial. She has been passing for white her entire life at the behest of her fanatical white father, Thomas Washington. After a viral bullying video pulls back the curtain on Springville High's racist roots, student leaders come up with a plan to change their image: host the school's first integrated prom as a show of unity. The popular white class president convinces her Black superstar quarterback boyfriend to ask Maddy to be his date, leaving Maddy wondering if it's possible to have a normal life. But some of her classmates aren't done with her just yet. And what they don't know is that Maddy still has another secret—one that will cost them all their lives.
- The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanna Fluke
- Genre: mystery:
- Summary: No one cooks up a delectable, suspense-filled mystery quite like Hannah Swensen, Joanne Fluke's dessert-baking, red-haired heroine whose gingersnaps are as tart as her comebacks, and whose penchant for solving crimes one delicious clue at a time has made her a bestselling favorite. And it all began on these pages, with a bakery, a murder, and some suddenly scandalous chocolate-chip crunchies. Featuring a bonus short story and brand new, mouthwatering recipes, this limited edition of the very first Hannah Swensen mystery is sure to have readers coming back for seconds. Hannah Swenson already has her hands full trying to dodge her mother's attempts to marry her off while running The Cookie Jar, Lake Eden, Minnesota's most popular bakery. But once Ron LaSalle, the beloved delivery man from the Cozy Cow Dairy, is found murdered behind her bakery with Hannah's famous Chocolate Chip Crunchies scattered around him, her life just can't get any worse. Determined not to let her cookies get a bad reputation, she sets out to track down a killer.
- The Inquisitor's Tale; Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog by Adam Gidwitz
- Genre: fantasy
- Summary: 1242. On a dark night, travelers from across France cross paths at an inn and begin to tell stories of three children. Their adventures take them on a chase through France: they are taken captive by knights, sit alongside a king, and save the land from a farting dragon. On the run to escape prejudice and persecution and save precious and holy texts from being burned, their quest drives them forward to a final showdown at Mont Saint-Michel, where all will come to question if these children can perform the miracles of saints. Join William, an oblate on a mission from his monastery; Jacob, a Jewish boy who has fled his burning village; and Jeanne, a peasant girl who hides her prophetic visions. They are accompanied by Jeanne's loyal greyhound, Gwenforte . . . recently brought back from the dead. Told in multiple voices, in a style reminiscent of The Canterbury Tales, our narrator collects their stories and the saga of these three unlikely allies begins to come together.
- "Oh my gosh, I miss kids' books so much!" said Lora