#FDL: LGBTQ+ Books
Finish out Pride Month with one of these LGBTQ+ book recommendations from our library!
Delilah Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake
These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell
Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing by Lauren Hough
Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Blackmail, My Love by Katie Gilmartin
Bodies of Water by T. Greenwood
Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender
One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Let’s Get Back to the Party by Zak Salih
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Zara Hossain Is Here by Sabina Khan
Between Perfect and Real by Ray Stoeve
Nightcrawlers by Bill Pronzini
Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist
#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.
FDL Reads: I’m an American
I’m an American by Darshana Khiani
Reviewed By: Alice Mitchell, Youth Services Manager
Genre: Picture book
Suggested Age: Kids (4-8)
What is This Book About? A classroom of diverse children share bits of their family history and highlight ideals they value that make them American, each family working in their own way to make our country great. Some describe how their family fled hardships in their homelands, and others describe their lives in this country. Indigenous nations are also highlighted through the story of a Muscogee child. While each story describes challenges these families faced or continue to face, they each have a message of determination and hope that we can continue to improve our communities and country as a whole. For every group highlighted there is a note in the back about the impact these groups have had on our country, as well as factors effecting immigration and their lives once they arrived here.
My Review: I greatly enjoyed this story and learning more about the vast number of diverse experiences of people in this country. Presenting each story as it relates to an American ideal like determination and freedom of expression made them stories I could easily relate my own family to. The back matter taught me a great deal that I want to read more about, like how there were laws allowing Indian men but not Indian women from immigrating to the United States and how, despite immigration from other Asian countries being barred, exclusion laws didn’t apply to Filipinos because it was a U.S. territory. While not hiding the challenges and discrimination that people faced, this book still presents an optimistic outlook for the future.
Three Words that Describe this Book: patriotic, hopeful, historical
Give This A Try if You Like… Blue Sky White Stars by Sarvinder Naberhaus; The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander; America My Love, America My Heart by Daria Peoples-Riley; My Red, White, and Blue by Alana Tyson; I is for Immigrant by Selina Alko; A is for Asian-American by Virginia Loh-Hogan
Rating: 5/5
FDL Reads: Just for the Summer
Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez
Reviewed By: Rebecca Cox, Business Manager
Genre: Fiction
Suggested Age: Adults
What is This Book About? Just for the Summer is a romantic comedy centered around travel nurse Emma and software engineer Justin who meet thanks to a Reddit thread. Emma and Justin realize that they have the same “curse” that whoever they date then goes on to find their soul mate immediately after they break up. They decide to try to break their curses by dating each other.
My Review: I honestly thought that this was going to be an incredibly predictable romantic novel (which, honestly, I sometimes like – especially in the summer for a bit of hammock reading) but this book brings equal parts romance and real world. Emma and Justin are very relatable characters each dealing with their own huge issues – much bigger than not finding the right person to date. Seeing them adjust to their lives and deal with their respective traumas brought a depth to this book that a lot of rom-com novels are lacking. And it helps that the writing was so good that I couldn’t put it down!
Three Words that Describe this Book: Witty, Romantic, Engaging
Give this a try if you like… Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez, This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune, Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score
Rating: 5/5
#FDL: Juneteenth Reading List
Weaving together American history, dramatic family chronicle, and searing episodes of memoir, Annette Gordon-Reed provides a historian’s view of the country’s long road to Juneteenth, recounting both its origins in Texas and the enormous hardships that African-Americans have endured in the century since, from Reconstruction through Jim Crow and beyond. All too aware of the stories of cowboys, ranchers, and oilmen that have long dominated the lore of the Lone Star State, Gordon-Reed—herself a Texas native and the descendant of enslaved people brought to Texas as early as the 1820s—forges a new and profoundly truthful narrative of her home state, with implications for us all.
“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the tragic echoes of that history in our own time: the unprecedented election of a black president followed by a vicious backlash that fueled the election of the man Coates argues is America’s “first white president.” But the story of these present-day eight years is not just about presidential politics. This book also examines the new voices, ideas, and movements for justice that emerged over this period–and the effects of the persistent, haunting shadow of our nation’s old and unreconciled history.
Details the struggle by African-Americans for equality after the Civil War and the violent counter-revolution that re-subjugated them, as seen through the prism of the war of images and ideas that have left an enduring racist stain on the American mind. The abolition of slavery in the aftermath of the Civil War is a familiar story, as is the civil rights revolution that transformed the nation after World War II. But the century in between remains a mystery: if emancipation sparked a new birth of freedom in Lincoln’s America, why was it necessary to march in Martin Luther King, Jr.’s America? In this new book, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., seeks to answer that question in a history that moves from the Reconstruction Era to the nadir of the African-American experience under Jim Crow, through to World War I and the Harlem Renaissance.
A “choral history” of African Americans covering 400 years of history in the voices of 80 writers, edited by the bestselling, National Book Award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain. Last year marked the four hundredth anniversary of the first African presence in the Americas–and also launched the Four Hundred Souls project, spearheaded by Ibram X. Kendi, director of the Antiracism Institute of American University, and Keisha Blain, editor of The North Star. They’ve gathered together eighty black writers from all disciplines — historians and artists, journalists and novelists–each of whom has contributed an entry about one five-year period to create a single-volume history of black people in America.”
-Annotations from the publishers
#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.
FDL Reads: The Duke and I
The Duke and I by Julia Quinn
Reviewed by: Susie Rivera, Adult Services Specialist
Genre: Fiction
Suggested Age: Adults
What is the book about? Julia Quinn’s first book in the Bridgerton series won’t disappoint as it follows the charming love story between Simon and Daphne. Simon, the Duke of Hastings has grown up estranged from his verbally and emotionally abusive father. He has no interest in marrying anyone until he meets beautiful and clever Daphne Bridgerton. The two strike a mutually beneficial deal–they will enter into a fake courtship that will keep the Duke safe from the rabid mothers of the town, and make Daphne appear highly desired. The fake relationship starts turning into a real one, and then more drama ensues!
My Review: I’m getting ready for FDL’s Bridgerton Tea program on June 26. I am a big fan of the Bridgerton show, but I haven’t read any of the books. Fans of the show will find that certain characters and subplots that are in the show are not in the book. But, the main story between Simon and Daphne is about exactly the same. So, if you are a fan of the Bridgerton show, check this out and you may delve deeper into Julia Quinn’s books. She has quite a few in the series now!
Three Words That Describe This Book: Charming, Spicy, Enjoyable
Give This a Try if You Like…books by Lisa Kleypas, Tessa Dare, or Jane Austen
Rating: 4/5
Big Fun with Big Trucks!
The Big Rig Petting Zoo may be over; however, the FDL Children’s Department has lots of great transportation books. When you are in the library, checkout the Non-Fiction Section: 629, Picture Book Section: Go, the Board Book Section, and, don’t forget online books: Hoopla, Libby, Boundless, and Tumblebooks. FDL also has a Storytime in the Box: Transportation.
Here are just a few of the many Big Rig books you can find at FDL:
Nonfiction
Dump Trucks by Aaron Frisch
Fire Trucks by Penny Glover
Humvees by John Hamilton
Big Rig on the Move by Candice Ransom
The Usborne Big Book of Big Trucks by Megan Cullis
GO Section
This Truck by Paul Collicutt
Fire Trucks in Action by Mari Schuh
Monster Bulldozers by Chris Bowman
Concrete Mixers by Ray McClellan
Grandma Drove the Snowplow by Katie Clark
I Stink! By Kate McMullan
Board Books
Trucks by Ruth Musgrave
That’s Not My Truck: It’s Too Squashy by Fiona Watts
Jonny Lambert’s Construction Site by Jonny Lambert
Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle
Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?
by Brianna Caplan Sayers
eBooks
Trucks by Matt Mullins (Hoopla)
Bucket Trucks by Derek Zobel (Hoopla)
Heavy-duty Trucks by Joyce Milton (Boundless)
Police Cars by Amy Mcdonald (Libby)
Buses by Logan Avery (Libby)
Big Truck Little Island by Chris Van Dusen (Tumblebooks)
–Kris Tyler, Youth Services Specialist