October Books
FICTION
Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture” in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic — including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was 9 years old. Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change. From the bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, the highly anticipated Our Missing Hearts is a deeply suspenseful novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.
Signal Fires, by Dani Shapiro
On a summer night in 1985, three teenagers have been drinking. One of them gets behind the wheel of a car and, in an instant, everything on Division Street changes. Each of their lives, and that of Ben Wilf, a young doctor who arrives on the scene, is shattered. For the Wilf family, the circumstances of that fatal accident will become the deepest kind of secret, one so dangerous it can never be spoken about. But, time moves on, even on Division Street. Years later a new family, the Shenkmans, arrive. When Waldo, the Shenkmans’ brilliant, lonely son, befriends Dr. Wilf — now retired and struggling with his wife’s decline — past events come hurtling back in ways no one could have foreseen.
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenage single mother, living in a trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves and crushing losses. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
NONFICTION
The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, by Stacy Schiff
Thomas Jefferson asserted that if there was any leader of the American Revolution, “Samuel Adams was the man.” With high-minded ideals and bare-knuckle tactics, Adams led what could be called the greatest campaign of civil resistance in American history. Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, returns Adams to his seat of glory, introducing us to the shrewd, eloquent, and intensely disciplined man who supplied the moral backbone of the American Revolution. A singular figure at a singular moment, Adams packaged and amplified the Boston Massacre. He helped to mastermind the Boston Tea Party. He employed every tool in an innovative arsenal to rally a town, a colony, and eventually a band of colonies behind him, creating the cause that created a country. For his efforts he became the most wanted man in America: When Paul Revere rode to Lexington in 1775, it was to warn Adams that he was about to be arrested for treason. Schiff brings her masterful skills to Adams’ improbable life, illuminating his transformation from aimless son of a well-off family to tireless, beguiling radical who mobilized the colonies.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
Farmhouse, by Sophie Blackall
Houses tell stories of important days and nothing-much days, of laughter and people and animals, of tiny important things once loved and now left behind. Farmhouse honors all of those things in loving collage and illustration. Kids will love it, but parents and grandparents may just find they have stories of their own to tell. (Ages 4-8.)
Hey, Bruce!, by Ryan Higgins
You have laughed with him, flown south with him, and raised a flock of baby geese with him, and now you can interact with him. Bruce, the bear just grumpy enough to love, is back in this fun title that will send him flying through the air and have books tumbling off the shelves into the hands of delighted young readers. (Ages 2-5).
Set Sail for Pancakes!, by Tim Kleyn
Breakfast food books are the new hot(cake) item in the kid’s section. Sail the high seas with Margot and Grandpa as they try to find the perfect ingredients for a delicious breakfast, then make a batch of your own. (Ages 3-7.)
My Pet Feet, by Josh Funk
Awakening to a world with feet instead of ferrets, hoses instead of horses, and flocks of cows instead of crows, when the letter R goes missing an entire town goes upside down in this funny picture book packed with visual jokes. A must for story time, bedtime or anytime. (Ages 3-7.) PS
Compiled by Kimberly Daniels Taws and Angie Tally.
