Life of the Library

Welcome, readers! We’re here to share our end-of-the-year staff picks, and we’re hoping you also have some great stacks of books, movies, and music for the winter nights ahead. Thanks so much for stopping by the Downtown Library, Peaks, Riverton, Burbank and the Bookmobile in 2024. We’ve loved seeing you this year, and look forward to 2025 at the library.

Read on for Northern Lights, Noodles on a Bicycle, The Most Boring Book Ever, and more!

Julia F’s Picks 

 In the midst of a chaotic season, I’ve been finding comfort and delight in some of the new picture books arriving at the Children’s Library. Here are a handful that I recommend, whether or not you have a child in your life to enjoy them with! 

 “We are DEFINITELY human,” proclaim the three strangers who crash their way into a new book by Maine author-illustrator X. Fang. These aren’t just any strangers: “Their eyes were very big, their skin was very blue and their shape was very hard to describe.” Still, when they show up at Mr. and Mrs. Li’s door to ask for help repairing their “car” (which looks suspiciously like a flying saucer), the humans are happy to help, because that is what kind humans do. Fang’s pencil illustrations show the brightly-hued extraterrestrials interacting with human-made objects, like cardboard boxes and plungers, in rather unusual ways. A hilarious, uplifting story of cooperation and cultural exchange with visitors from, uh, “Europe.” 

 What better way to warm up on a wintry day than with a steaming bowl of noodle soup? Noodles on a Bicycle, by Kyo Maclear and Gracey Zhang, serves up a nostalgic glimpse of Tokyo past, where demae (cycling deliverymen) speed through the streets with towering stacks of trays and bowls balanced on one arm. Neighborhood children watch in admiration as the cyclists deliver soba to hungry customers, their soup-towers climbing, slanting, and swooping across the pages. Maclear’s sensory-rich text and Zhang’s dynamic illustrations evoke equal parts wonder and warmth–and may cause cravings for noodle soup! 

 Sometimes We Fall (by Randall de Sève, with artwork by Kate Gardiner), opens on an illustration of a bear cub in a windswept field, gazing up at their mother in the boughs of a plum tree: “It’s a problem when you want a purple plum, too . . . but you’re scared to leap.” In simple, second-person text and gentle, earth-toned pictures, the cub faces their fears to leap, climb, and reach for that coveted plum . . . and learns that falling is not only okay, but can sometimes be delicious! A reassuring, beautifully illustrated book that both young children and their grown-ups can appreciate, this was a hit in a recent preschool storytime. 

 And for a truly seasonal read, snuggle up with A Cozy Winter Day by Eliza Wheeler. A village of woodland creatures enjoys a snowy day complete with “comfy pants,” vegetable stew, and a whole page devoted to different types of nooks! 

Cindy’s Picks 

The first is The Most Boring Book Ever with words by the venerable Brandon Sanderson and pictures by Amulet’s creator, Kazu Kibuishi.  It begins with a boy sitting in a chair.  Sitting in chairs is boring.  But then he goes on to imagine so many fun and active things, such as landing on a dragon’s back with his chair and fighting bad guys in the air.  Kibuishi’s beautiful and action-packed drawings light this picture book up in the best and most colorful ways!   

Eyes on the Sky by J. Kasper Kramer looks very promising.  A novel about Dorothy who lives in Roswell, New Mexico in the early 1950s, where nothing interesting ever happens.  She is a budding weather scientist and frequently sends up weather balloons to study weather patterns.  One night, a huge blast lights up the night sky right after she has sent up a weather balloon and soon. . .  the FBI is investigating whatever happened.  Could it be her weather balloon?  Or is there something more sinister?   

 This is Our Rainbow: 16 Stories of Her, Him, Them and Us is an anthology edited by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby with short stories about what our rainbow looks like.  With stories by the beloved Alex Gino,  Eric Bell and Lisa Jenn Bigelow among many other bright stars of LGBTQ+ middle grade fiction, how can you go wrong?   

And finally, this brings me to The Shape of Lost Things by Sarah Everett, author of another book I absolutely adored this year: The Probability of Everything.  “Skye Nickerson’s world changed forever when her dad went on the run with her brother, Finn.  It’s been four years when word arrives that he has been found.  But the brother that comes back to live with them is nothing like the brother she grew up with.  Could this Finn be someone else entirely?   

Christina’s Pick 

I would be remiss if I didn’t take the time out to talk about What Time is Noon? by Mainer Chip Leighton.  A compilation of hilarious quotes, quizzes, and tips about life with teenagers, this book is a joy to read.  Striking up some serious laugh out loud moments, I would recommend this to any person. 

Gabrielle’s Pick 

My pick for December is Day Jobs by Veronica Roberts. Critical care nurse, restaurant server, dishwasher, nanny, UX designer, agricultural worker, attorney– these are just a few of the day jobs held by the artists profiled in this lush art book. Whether by economic necessity or by choice, the diverse artists featured here could not pursue their art full-time. I loved how this book dismantles the tendency we often have to reduce people to simple labels (“artist” or “dishwasher”) and instead examines how our lives are full of marvelous complexity. The art and the stories are inspiring. 

Sarah M’s Picks 

My top two non-fiction favorites that I read this year were The Best Minds by Jonathan Rosen and A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. Both fit categories in the 2024 Reading Challenge—The Best Minds qualifies as a book about friendship and a book with a writer as the main character, while A Fever in the Heartland is set in the Midwest. While each book delves into challenging topics and specific lives, they offer meaningful insights into our society, past, present, and future. 

My two fiction favorites were the novels There, There by Tommy Orange and The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel. Mantel and Orange are two extraordinary authors whose stories linger long after the last page. Both books had moments so powerful that I had to pause and simply savor the pleasure of reading something so perfectly crafted or deeply moving. The Mirror and the Light marks the conclusion of a trilogy—and the end of Mantel’s remarkable career, as she passed away in 2022, two years after its publication. There, There, on the other hand, marks the start of an important series, with Orange already expanding the story in a compelling companion novel (Wandering Stars) this year. While their styles and subjects are vastly different, both authors have achieved something remarkable. 

Jay’s Picks  

In books, I recommend Apostles of Mercy by Lindsay Ellis. I hesitate because it’s the third book of a series, but it’s the best one so far, and I had a blast reading it.  It’s sci-fi set in the United States, so I think the world building is familiar enough that someone could enjoy it without reading the first two. What are the selling points? Aliens. Queer characters. Early 2000s nostalgia. The author paying subtle homage to the Twilight and Transformers franchises.  

In movies, I recommend What You Wish For and Club Zero. I’d characterize both as disturbing but fun for horror/thriller fans. 

Serena’s Picks 

My first pick is The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, a beautiful multi-generational story set in South India. It was the perfect escape for me in the last month. 

Another great read (recommended to me by a librarian) was Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo. It’s the second book in the Ninth House series and set in New Haven, CT, my hometown. The book is based on the secret societies at Yale and is full of magic and ghosts. A wonderful read for a dark night! 

Mikayla’s Picks 

Two books about librarians really captured my heart this year—go figure!   

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey is set in a post-apocalyptic American West where librarians are morally upright women who travel town to town distributing government-approved propaganda…or at least that’s the guise for their true purpose of distributing resistance materials. Our protagonist Esther who’s running away from a forced marriage is about to find out all about it the hard way!  

For a gentler library-centered read, consider What You Are Looking for is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama, translated by Alison Watts. This Japanese novel introduces us to five characters at difficult moments of their lives who visit a unique librarian and receive a book recommendation, a felted figure, and a small nudge. Perfect to read in one sitting on a cozy day with a warm beverage, or savor bit by bit on a lunch break. Happy reading! 

Elizabeth’s Picks

It seems a million months ago that I read Greta and Valdin and Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, but they are two of my favorite novels for adults from 2024. Greta and Valdin is quirky and endearing; Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is thoughtful and inquisitive; but they are both gentle reads with great characters, soothing and absorbing. 

I felt the same way on a lunch break the other day when I read Gail Donovan’s stellar Sparrow Spreads Her Wings, a chapter book that follows fourth-grader Sparrow Robinson through one very-eventful wintry weekend. (An injured pigeon, a blizzard, a new baby, kittens, friendship!). Most of all, I connected with Sparrow’s interior life, which is wonderfully written: her questions, her concerns, her attempt to make sense of how adults wanted her to behave and communicate, her love of animals…I could relate. Elysia Case’s cover art and illustrations scattered through the book are perfect. I’m really looking forward to reading this and Sparrow Being Sparrow (the first book in this trilogy—one more to come!) to the cat-devoted kids in my life over the holidays. 

2×2 Tuesday was a collaborative library project I worked on this year—here are two books I shared recently. Waubgeshig Rice’s novel Moon of the Turning Leaves is a beautiful, gripping post-apocalyptic novel: a group of Anishinaabe family and friends travels together, braving the danger ahead to take care of each other on a journey to create a new community. As a younger character says in the book,“We have to think about the future. We’ll still be here after you’re gone. And we deserve a say in the world we’re going to live in. I say we keep going.” One more: Knitting for Radical Self Care. Knitting nourishes and heals.“I’m rooting for you. I’m rooting for me,” author Brandi Cheyenne Harper assures us.  

I’m ending the year with Winter Solstice and Northern Lights, and for the new year I’ve put holds on new books: Water Moon, Rental House, Blues in Stereo, Too Soon, Time’s Agent, TreeNotes, Death of the Author, Blob: A Love Story, Antiboy, The Rivals, The Villain’s Dance, One Week in January. 

Raminta’s Picks 

 Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World is probably the book I’m most looking forward to reading in the new year. The end of times is a very popular subject across all belief systems, whether you’re looking at the Book of Revelation or when Skynet takes over everything and we’re left in a dystopian nightmare: you know you’re interested too. 

 I’m also looking forward to Pretend We’re Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ’90s. I was in high school and college during the 90s and therefore all of the music I tend to gravitate towards comes from that era or sounds like it. I met my best friend in college when I heard the Divorce Song by Liz Phair coming from her dorm room. I lost my mind when the Pixies got back together in 2004. I named one of my cats Jose Jones. The pictures on my walls in high school included Tanya Donnelly along with members of L7 and of course, both Deal sisters. If this was you, I’m pretty sure this book will also be. 

I’m not the biggest fan of talking politics with folks, especially family. What I’m most interested in is why folks believe or support things that I might be completely opposed to. Apparently, this title explores the “why” of it all—Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground. 

Speaking of music from the 90s…Kim Deal is releasing a new album, Nobody Loves You More, and it’s already gaining traction on streaming apps.  From the few songs I’ve heard so far, this is bound to be a great solo album. What truly blows my mind, however, is that this is her FIRST EVER solo album. Because writing music for three different bands for the last 40 years wasn’t enough. The Deal twins will turn 64 next year. Do YOU feel old yet? 

 Some other upcoming music I can’t wait to listen to: 

• Mille Affetti by Bruno de Sa: Singer de Sa, is one of the very few male sopranos in existance. I’m looking forward to hearing his arias. 

• Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles From Abbey Road: I love the Beatles. I love Beatles covers. I love Lucinda. I can’t wait! 

• Mirage Tour ’82 by Fleetwood Mac: Several bands are releasing older concert recordings and I’m totally for it. I may be a little too young to have gone on this tour, but at least I can sing along now. 

• The Kurt Weil Album by Joana Mallwitz: Kurt Weil is thankfully more than just the Three Penny Opera (not that there is anything wrong with that opera). Also an album with a FEMALE conductor. That’s just rare and should be appreciated. 

• Lastly, I can’t forget about the holidays coming up. Fred Schneider of B-52s fame has created Destination….Christmas! To those who celebrate (or just really love the B-52s), I hope your whole shack shimmies this upcoming year.

As ever, thanks for reading! You can find all of our staff picks and place holds on anything that interests you in the booklist Northern Lights: December Staff Picks.

For more reading ideas, check out books from our booklists, search our new books, or try our Your Next Great Read reading service for a personalized booklist of reading ideas from our staff. 

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“October is all slanting honey-gold midday sun enveloped by chilly darkness. I am watching my garden shrink back to its bones, and remembering—so very wistfully—each time I floated in the Atlantic this summer. It’s bittersweet season, and I am happily carrying the ache of one of my favorite summer reads as we voyage into fall.” —from Aprill’s Picks

In October, we bring you quotes and characters, poetry and picture books. Plus: cats, cookbooks, nature, magic, and much more! As you start to squirrel away your books for fall, hope you discover a new read or two in all our finds and favorites.

Cindy’s Picks  

We just got in SO MANY new children’s books!  

The Dinosaur in the Garden is written and illustrated by Deb Pilutti and told from the perspective of an extinct Tyrannosaurus Rex. “I used to live here,” he begins, “back when this was a lush and leafy forest. Flowers bloomed, insects buzzed, and trees towered.” Now it is a pleasant garden where a little girl lives. The ghostly dinosaur compares humans and their differences to the dinosaurs and marvels at how alike they are in some ways. When the little girl’s dog finds a huge dinosaur tooth in the garden, he tells her to “Keep looking. It might take a while, but I will wait…for my story to become part of your story.”   The illustrations are sweet and approachable, and this book would be fantastic for a curious 3-to-5-year-old. 

Another brand-new picture book is A Big Day for Bike, written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by the wonderful G. Brian Karas. It is Bike’s first day on the job as a City Bike rental in Seattle, and Bike is nervous that she won’t be able to keep up like the older bikes can. Explore the sights and sounds of the city of Seattle through the perspectives of this adorable teal bike as she successfully navigates her first day on the job!   

My final recommendation is a new middle grade novel by Ronnie Riley called Asking for a Friend. Eden Jones has exactly three friends. And they’re all fake. Eden has social anxiety and until now, they have pretended they are best friends with three real kids from school.  Everything seems just great, until Eden’s mom announces that she is throwing them a birthday party and all of their “friends” are invited! Now Eden needs to do whatever they can to convince these three kids, Duke, Ramona and Tabitha, to be friends with them before the party happens. What will happen? Read this book to find out!   

Julia F.’s Pick

A wonderful read for both Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Halloween (and the return of MaineCat!), Darcie Little Badger’s Sheine Lende tells the story of Lipan Apache teen Shane as she searches for her mother and two missing children in 1970s Texas. Sheine Lende is a prequel to Little Badger’s debut novel, Elatsoe, and is set in the same alternate America shaped by magic, where fairy rings are a common form of transport, and monsters may lurk in the woods. Shane, like all the women in her family line, can raise the ghosts of animals, and she and her mother, Lorenza, lead search-and-rescue missions with the aid of their devoted ghostly bloodhound. Then Lorenza disappears while on a mission, and Shane must call on all her bravery and survival skills to find her. She is a loving and determined protagonist, who draws strength from her family, ancestors, and memories, even the painful ones. She will need to face those memories and travel farther than she thought possible to bring her mother home.

Emily’s Picks 

In the realm of kids’ books, Emma Hunsinger’s graphic novel How It All Ends makes me (and my kids) laugh out loud a LOT! When Tara’s told she can skip eighth grade, going right from seventh into her first year of high school, she doesn’t see the big deal. But when she starts, she’s immediately overwhelmed—the students are out of control and she’s convinced she’ll get lost forever in the endless hallways. Then Tara meets a new friend who gets her sometimes over-the-top sense of humor and makes jokes right alongside her, making school suddenly a lot less lonely. It’s goofy and thoroughly engaging, with some of the best scenes playing out in Tara’s rich imaginary world, and is full of beautifully expressive illustrations and characters you can’t help but love.

The cover and title of Someone You Can Build A Nest In were immediately intriguing to me—and once I picked it up and started the first page, I had to keep reading. It’s a story of hunting down monsters, from the monster’s point of view, and what a monster she is. Shesheshen has been hibernating all winter when she’s disturbed by intruders, monster hunters coming to slay her. She slithers and slides out of her watery den, drawing hard objects into her body to give her a more human form, hiding a bear trap in her chest just in case. And things get weirder from there. It’s a wonderful combination of fantasy, horror, and romance, with welcome perspectives on disability and queerness, and extremely funny to boot. 

Fionna’s Picks 

If scary isn’t your speed, why not celebrate the fall with the strange and bizarre? 

I loved listening to The Ministry of Time by Kailane Bradley and The Husbands by Holly Gramazio on CloudLibrary. Both books were a great mix of sci-fi/fantasy with romantic storylines and the result was just delightful. 

The Coin by Yasmin Zaher was sharp, funny, and devastating. Don’t be fooled by this slim volume, you’ll be flipped upside down by the time you’re through. 

Sarah M.’s Pick 

“This is the memory he keeps but doesn’t see, the one that lives in him, in a room he has all but abandoned.”

I recently read and LOVED Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange. 

 Aprill’s Picks 

October is all slanting honey-gold midday sun enveloped by chilly darkness. I am watching my garden shrink back to its bones, and remembering—so very wistfully—each time I floated in the Atlantic this summer. It’s bittersweet season, and I am happily carrying the ache of one of my favorite summer reads as we voyage into fall. Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland tells the story of Adina Giorno, an alien who was sent to earth to live as a human. At age four, she is “activated” and begins communicating with her home planet via a salvaged fax machine, conveying her observations of human life on Earth. Bertino writes details with incredible but gentle precision, from the shade of pantyhose that Adina’s mother pinches pennies to buy, to Black Sheep’s The Choice is Yours as background to a Wildwood, New Jersey-set summer, to the date night meal of salad and sesame pizza that adult Adina and her best friend share. Time and place—1980s working-class Philadelphia, and New York City just before, during, and after 9/11—are delivered to us like precious gifts. Beyond all its specificity, there is the wry comedy, distance, connection, loss, and the eventual heartbreak of Adina’s time on Earth. Not since my childhood fixation on Robin William’s Mork have I felt humanity’s fumbles and foibles celebrated quite like this, and that feels quite bittersweet too. 

October is also the time of year when I tend to see horror in possibly unlikely places. In the horror genre, a final girl is the character who faces the monster and lives to tell the tale. It’s been said that Sarah Manguso’s Liars is dazzling autofiction, or the autopsy of a marriage, or a whodunnit with patriarchy as the bad guy. I think we can also read it as a horror novel: the monster a grotesque nesting doll of husband inside marriage inside compulsory gender roles inside capitalism inside—yes—patriarchy. Manguso gives us a fresh and blood-boiling take on a tale old as time: a brilliant woman subsumed by a not-quite-so-brilliant husband, her career put on the far back burner in the interest of his mediocre and unsuccessful one. The nightmare begins when Jane falls for John and her promising future as a writer threatens to outshine his directionless creative pursuits. Like many a final girl, Jane doesn’t necessarily ignore the relationship’s many, many (MANY!) red flags —in fact she keeps meticulous record of them —collecting each one to alert the rest of us to the myriad dangers of matrimony. It’s not surprising that things get worse and worse the deeper Jane gets, and marriage and parenthood threaten to completely undo her. I found Liars impossible to put down. Each page vibrates with hot rage, although there are also interstitial moments of sweetness in Jane’s relationship with her son. Manguso’s voice reads with an immediacy and force that I felt in my bones.

Mikayla’s Picks 

• The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo  

These five interconnected novellas follow the cleric Chih as they travel the mythical empire of Ahn in search of stories to record. Although these books are each only about one hundred pages long, they pack a punch thanks to Vo’s skillful storytelling. One book tells the tale of an empress’ rise to power, another sees Chih captured by a band of tigers, yet another details Chih’s eventful return home after long years away. My favorite titles are The Empress of Salt and Fortune and Mammoths at the Gates, but you can’t go wrong!  

• The Lost Spells and The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris  

These two books are a collaboration prompted by the removal of nature words like “acorn,” “fern,” and “otter” from a popular children’s dictionary. The books attempt to honor and revive those words by featuring them as “spell-poems” with accompanying artwork. I was particularly entranced by Morris’ vivid illustrations and the double meaning of “spell” as a form of orthography and magic-casting. Each time I read the books aloud I feel like I’m part of keeping these words and beings alive. Perfect for kids and grownups alike! 

Elizabeth’s Picks 

These days, I keep coming back to a quote from Vanessa Angélica Villarreal in her book Magical/Realism:

“Magical realism is of the heart; how the heart sees the world, how the heart thinks, reads, remembers, what it calls out for to stay alive. Magical realism is seeing what the heart believes possible in the real world, even after it’s broken. Maybe even especially then.”

Fall stirs up all kinds of feelings—something in the temperatures dropping, light fading, kicking through all those bright leaves, the world changing so starkly at each step. The new book The Lantern of Lost Memories might win Most Autumnal Title for me this year. (Or maybe Moon of the Turning Leaves? Ghostroots? Monster Locker? Sorcery and Small Magics? Night Magic? Creepy Crafts? Jamaica Ginger and Other Concoctions?) Similarly, is there a book cover more Autumnally Evocative than The Teller of Small Fortunes—a cat, a bonfire, a starry night? As I read this seasonal stack I’ll also be checking out Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy, which is an ongoing (and joyous) project for me, my cat’s person. 

Dark nights call for comfort food cookbooks: a few new titles at the library include Bodega Bakes, Jang, Peaceful Kitchen, Amrikan, Doma, Second Generation, Warm Your Bones, and Roots, Heart, Soul. For curling up with a comfort-foodie romance, there’s Adib Khorram’s I’ll Have What He’s Having.  

In more new nonfiction, Edwidge Danticat’s sharp and stunning essay collection We’re Alone sweeps from childhood to motherhood, through hurricanes, heroes, and Haiti.  Determined to Stay is a richly illustrated book about the Palestinian children of Silwan, while Recognizing the Stranger shares award-winning author Isabella Hammad’s Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture. How Women Made Music brings readers a compelling new history from NPR music. Everything to Play For critiques videogames and Tattoo You offers almost 700 images of the vibrant work of 75 artists.  

In The Age of Loneliness, Laura Marris explores human relationships and responses to environmental loss with writing on marshes and horseshoe crabs, birdsong and airplanes—a book one reviewer described as “showing your love for the places you live by giving them your attention.” Loving the North Woods is a look at forest conservation in Maine. Housing the Nation offers numerous new perspectives on social equity, architecture, and affordable housing. And The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer reimagines community and reciprocity: “All flourishing is mutual.”  

Thanks for reading! You can find all of our staff picks and place your holds in the booklist Wandering Stars: October Staff Picks.

For more reading ideas, check out books from our booklists, search our new books, or try our Your Next Great Read reading service for a personalized booklist of reading ideas from our staff.