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THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

A New York Times bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a National Book Critics Circle Finalist, a Books for a Better Life Award Finalist, and an NAACP Award Finalist

In The Light of the World, Elizabeth Alexander finds herself at an existential crossroads after the sudden death of her husband. Reflecting with gratitude on the exquisite beauty of the intimacy they shared, grappling with the resulting void, and finding solace in caring for her two teenage sons, Alexander channels her poetic sensibilities into rich, lucid prose that universalizes a very personal quest for meaning and acceptance in the wake of loss.

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JIMMY BLUEFEATHER

National Outdoor Book Award Winner

“Don’t die before you’re dead.” –Old Keb

Keb Wisting is somewhere around ninety-five years old (he lost count) and in constant pain and thinks he wants to die. He also thinks he thinks too much. When his grandson, James, a promising basketball player, ruins his leg in a logging accident and feels he has nothing left to live for, Keb comes alive. Together with a rogue’s gallery of colorful characters and a dog named Steve, they embark on a canoe journey deep into wild Alaska and into the human heart,

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THE ART OF HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO

Junior Library Guild Selection

In her powerful debut, Kristin Bartley Lenz delivers an evocative story of grief, acceptance, and ultimately, self-discovery.

Competitive climber Cara Jenkins feels most at home high off the ground, clinging to a rock wall by her fingertips. She’s enjoyed a roaming life with her mountaineering parents, making the natural world her jungle gym, the writings of Annie Dillard and Henry David Thoreau her textbooks. But when tragedy strikes on an Ecuadoran mountaintop, Cara’s nomadic lifestyle comes to an abrupt halt.

Starting over at her grandparents’ home in suburban Detroit,

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THE LIE TREE

Read this thought-provoking, critically acclaimed novel (6 starred reviews!) from Frances Hardinge, winner of the Costa Book of the Year, Costa Children’s Book Award, and Horn Book-Boston Globe Award.

Faith Sunderly leads a double life. To most people, she is reliable, dull, trustworthy—a proper young lady who knows her place as inferior to men. But inside, Faith is full of questions and curiosity, and she cannot resist mysteries: an unattended envelope, an unlocked door. She knows secrets no one suspects her of knowing. She knows that her family moved to the close-knit island of Vane because her famous scientist father was fleeing a reputation-destroying scandal.

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RAIN REIGN

One of our recommended books for 2017 is Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin

A New York Times Bestseller

Rose Howard is obsessed with homonyms. She’s thrilled that her own name is a homonym, and she purposely gave her dog Rain a name with two homonyms (Reign, Rein), which, according to Rose’s rules of homonyms, is very special. Not everyone understands Rose’s obsessions, her rules, and the other things that make her different—not her teachers, not other kids, and not her single father. When a storm hits their rural town, rivers overflow, the roads are flooded, and Rain goes missing. Rose’s father shouldn’t have let Rain out. Now Rose has to find her dog,

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IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT

One of our recommended books for 2017 is In The Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

In this brilliant new novel—her first for adults since Summer Sisters—Judy Blume takes us back to the 1950s and introduces us to the town of Elizabeth, New Jersey, where she herself grew up. Here she imagines and weaves together a vivid portrait of three generations of families, friends, and strangers, whose lives are profoundly changed during one winter. At the center of an extraordinary cast of characters are fifteen-year-old Miri Ammerman and her spirited single mother, Rusty. Their warm and resonant stories are set against the backdrop of a real-life tragedy that struck the town when a series of airplanes fell from the sky,

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