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MERCI SUÁREZ PLAYS IT COOL

One of our recommended books is Merci Suarez Plays it Cool by Meg Medina

For Merci Suárez, eighth grade means a new haircut, nighttime football games, and an out-of-town overnight field trip. At home, it means more chores and keeping an eye on Lolo as his health worsens. It’s a year filled with more responsibility and independence, but also with opportunities to reinvent herself. Merci has always been fine with not being one of the popular kids like Avery Sanders, who will probably be the soccer captain and is always traveling to fun places and buying new clothes. But then Avery starts talking to Merci more, and not just as a teammate. Does this mean they’re friends?

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AN AFFAIR OF SPIES

One of our recommended books is An Affair of Spies by Ronald H. Balson

From the winner of the National Jewish Book Award—Ronald H. Balson’s An Affair of Spies tells of a spy mission to rescue a defector from Germany and prevent the Nazis from creating an atomic bomb.

Nathan Silverman grew up in Berlin in the 1920s, the son of a homemaker and a theoretical physicist. His idyllic childhood was soon marred by increasing levels of bigotry against his family and the rest of the Jewish community, and after his uncle is arrested on Kristallnacht, he leaves Germany for New York City with only his mother’s wedding ring to sell for survival.

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SNOWFLAKE

One of our recommended books is Snowflake by Louise Nealon

Now in paperback, the “mad and wonderful” (Roddy Doyle) debut from “your next Irish literary obsession” (Shondaland): a novel about joy and despair, family and love, and coming of age in the 21st century.

An exquisitely talented young Irish writer makes her literary debut with this powerful and haunting novel. Eighteen-year-old Debbie was raised on her family’s rural dairy farm, forty minutes and a world away from Dublin. She lives with her mother, Maeve, a skittish woman who takes to her bed for days on end, claims not to know who Debbie’s father is, and believes her dreams are prophecies.

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DYING OF POLITENESS

One of our recommended books is Dying of Politeness by Geena Davis

From two-time Academy Award winner and screen icon Geena Davis, the surprising tale of her “journey to badassery”—from her epically polite childhood to roles that loaned her the strength to become a powerhouse in Hollywood.

At three years old, Geena Davis announced she was going to be in movies. Now, with a slew of iconic roles and awards under her belt, she has surpassed her childhood dream—but the path to finding yourself never did run smoothly. In this simultaneously hilarious and candid memoir, Davis regales us with tales of a career playing everything from an amnesiac assassin to the parent of a rodent, 

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CHILDREN OF THE CATASTROPHE

One of our recommended books is Children of the Catastrophe by Sarah Shoemaker

It is 1908 and Smyrna is the most cosmopolitan city on the Mediterranean Sea. Though long a part of the Ottoman Empire, Smyrna has always been Greek, and its citizens honor the traditions of previous generations. The Demirigis and Melopoulos families are no different, and now Liana Demirigis will wed the only Melopoulos son, Vassili—a marriage arranged by her parents.

After the wedding, Liana and Vassili build an idyllic life for themselves and their children outside of the city, safe from rising political tensions roiling the region and the world. But less than a decade later, the growing divisions between the Greeks and Turks threaten to boil over.

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THE POSTMISTRESS OF PARIS

One of our recommended books is The Postmistress of Paris by Meg Waite Clayton

The New York Times bestselling author of The Last Train to London revisits the dark early days of the German occupation in France in this haunting novel—a love story and a tale of high-stakes danger and incomparable courage—about a young American heiress who helps artists hunted by the Nazis escape from war-torn Europe.

Wealthy, beautiful Naneé was born with a spirit of adventure. For her, learning to fly is freedom. When German tanks roll across the border and into Paris, this woman with an adorable dog and a generous heart joins the resistance. Known as the Postmistress because she delivers information to those in hiding,

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