The absorbing story of a widowed woman from a marriage mixed in both race and religion. Streeter addresses with honest experience and humor the topics of mixed marriage, death and funerals, as well as the continuation of adoption proceedings after the unexpected death of her husband. Streeter struggled to honor her husband's beliefs and wishes while also keeping her own beliefs and identity as she planned his funeral. She tells of her struggles as she dealt with her husband's death trying to move on with her life while working through issues of avoidance, overeating and drinking and depression. These issues are approached in an honest, heartbreaking and sometimes humorous way. Her struggles with disappointment, loss of faith and making difficult life altering choices are a few of the issues she faced. Included in her story is learning how to tell her two year old son about his father's death. This touching, often humorous and heartfelt story deals honestly with the difficult topics of racism, grief, friendship and family bonds.

In an alternate universe a “Spontaneous Anthropomorphic Event” occurrs in the United Kingdom that transforms rabbits and other animals into human-sized, talking, walking, reading and thinking creatures. Peter Knox is a single father who works for the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce where he searches for rabbits engaged in illegal activities. When old college friend Constance Rabbit moves into the cozy town of Much Hemlock with her family, Peter’s world is quickly turned upside down. Rabbits everywhere suddenly find themselves pariahs who are not only mocked and surveilled, but banned from reading certain books and even prevented from attending the university. The ruling political party, known as the UK Anti-Rabbit Party, offers to alleviate their plight with “a humane solution” by rehoming rabbits to a MegaWarren located in Wales. Peter and his daughter, Pippa, soon find themselves questioning everything they believed about their friends, their country and their species. The hare-raising climax is both dramatic and unpredictable, yet indelibly perfect.
Jasper Fforde offers a witty yet poignant political satire which comments upon systemic injustice, racism, discrimination and bias in this darkly humorous and thought provoking novel.

Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park

In the news today, there is much information about racial discrimination. I wonder about my own biases in everyday life. The main character in Prairie Lotus is Hanna, a fourteen year old girl who is travelling by wagon with her father across Dakota Territory in the spring of 1880. Hanna experiences racism firsthand in their newly adopted town of LaForge. She tries to avoid “trouble” with the white settlers, but prejudice finds her regardless. I enjoyed reading about Hanna and her family; their struggles and their triumphs. I was amazed at all the tasks Hanna is responsible for in 1880 at age fourteen. Had I lived then, would I have been successful in those tasks when I was fourteen?

The hardcover book, Prairie Lotus, can be found among the new chapter books in the Youth Services Department.

At this time VCPL does not own an eBook or audio copy of this title.

Alphabet Squadron is a Star Wars story set in the times after the Return of the Jedi movie, when the Empire is divided, and the New Republic (the Rebels from the original Star Wars trilogy) is beginning to gain power.

Those who were part of the Imperial military attempt to make a violent display of the strength that they still have, attacking a number of worlds, destroying civilizations in the name of preventing the New Republic from using the resources from those planets. During one of these raids, a highly-skilled TIE-fighter pilot comes to the realization that this Empire that she had been committed to is not the force of Good that she had previously believed. She defects from her squadron, getting shot down in the process, and is captured by people in New Republic Intelligence. Over the course of the story, she is thrown together with several other misfit pilots, trying to ultimately stop the Imperial squadron of which she was originally a part. Overall, it's a fun and quick read, that will be a fun addition to the greater Star Wars story.

Atlas of the National Parks focuses in-depth on 33 National Parks based on criteria derived from the spirit of the 1918 directive to “seek out scenery or features so extraordinary as to be of national importance, ‘exemplifying the highest accomplishment of stream erosion… the oldest rock forms… and the luxuriance of deciduous forests.’” Within the pages about these 33 parks, the reader will discover the historical reasons for the formations of these parks, both ecological and human-created, as well as some of the current day issues the parks face. Near the end, 28 other parks each get a single page briefly highlighting their creation.

Not a travel guide, this book is more for those who seek to appreciate the formation, creation, and beauty of the National Parks. Filled with wonderful images and maps, a history lover or a lover of National Parks in general, will surely enjoy this oversized book.

Lissa is a home healthcare nurse in London, England. She witnesses a hit-and-run killing a boy she knows and suffers PTSD from the incident. Cormac is a home healthcare nurse and army veteran who lives in Kirrinfief, Scotland 500 miles from London. Lissa's supervisor arranges for a work exchange between the two to give Lissa a few months in a less demanding job so that she can recover. Each finds living and working in the other person's environment difficult at first and sharing texts about patients and situations helps them to adjust. After some time they begin to find aspects of the other's world that they enjoy. Both feel a connection to the other and would like to meet. Things don't go as planned as they face the challenges of being 500 miles apart but the tragedy that first brought them together helps them to finally meet face to face. Finding peace and healing from traumatic circumstances is a theme in this book.

Mr. Pig has a garden but he also has a problem, a happy chatty neighbor. What do you do when someone wants to talk to you when you do not want to talk? What do you do when someone wants to help but you do not want help? See what happens in Mr. Pig’s Big Wall written by Glenn Hernández. You can find this Picture Book in Youth Services in the New Book Area.

What is it like to move from a big city to a small rural town? Ben Hardy is going to find out in My Life as a Potato by Arianne Costner when his family moves from Los Angeles, California to South Fork, Idaho. Ben doesn’t even like potatoes but he now finds himself in the “Potato Capital of the World”! What will it be like trying to make new friends and fit in in the middle of seventh grade? How does Ben end up as the school’s mascot, Steve the Spud, and why doesn’t he want anyone to know? Read this Youth Services chapter book to find out.
Available in hardcover, eBook or AudioBook