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The Yellow Handkerchief (el Pañuelo Amarillo)

Donna Barba Higuera

A child confronts conflicting feelings of embarrassment and love for her Mexican abuela in this moving, personal story from Newbery- and Pura Belpré Award-winning author Donna Barba Higuera



My abuela wears an old yellow handkerchief that her grandmother gave to her.

I don't like the yellow handkerchief.




When a young girl feels ashamed of her family for being "different" and subconsciously blames her abuela, she gradually grows to not only accept but also love the yellow handkerchief that represents a language and culture that once brought embarrassment.



Inspired by the personal experiences of award-winning author Donna Barba Higuera and expressively illustrated by Cynthia Alonso, The Yellow Handkerchief is a lyrical, honest, and intimate intergenerational story about embracing who we are, where we come from, and the people who shape us.

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All Aboard the Schooltrain

Glenda Armand

"Schooltrain! Schooltrain! Don't be late! The school bell rings at half past eight!"

This tender family story, inspired by the author's own, illuminates a dynamic chapter in American history known as the Great Migration -- and the many trains people rode toward freedom.

***3 STARRED REVIEWS***

* "A vivid evocation of place and era rolling solidly on a bed of timeless values." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "A child-friendly picture book introducing the Great Migration." -- Booklist, starred review

* "Lends the meandering feel of family stories to this portrait of a historical moment." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

Thelma loves to watch the Sunset Limited chug through her little town of Vacherie, Louisiana. And she dreams of one day riding a real train! For now, she has her beloved schooltrain. Every morning, she and her friends walk to school, single file, chanting all the way:

"Schooltrain! Schooltrain! Don't be late! The school bell rings at half past eight!"

Then it's on to great adventures with her teacher's books -- and her own imagination!

But lately, someone named Jim Crow has been making trouble for folks in Vacherie. Aunt Bea and Uncle Ed have already moved away. When Thelma's best friend also has to leave, Thelma wonders, who is Jim Crow and why does he have to be so mean? Will he make trouble for Pop, too?

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Whale Done

Stuart Gibbs

In the eighth novel in New York Times bestselling Stuart Gibbs’s FunJungle series, Teddy Fitzroy returns as FunJungle’s resident sleuth to find the culprits behind a blown-up whale and a string of beach sand thefts.

After an escaped kangaroo starts a fire that burns down his house, Teddy Fitzroy accepts an invitation to go to Malibu with his girlfriend, Summer, and her mother, Kandace. He’s hoping to spend some time relaxing on the beach, but wherever Teddy goes, trouble isn’t far behind.

First, a massive dead whale has washed up on the beach—and before anyone can determine what killed it, it explodes. Doc, the head vet from FunJungle, suspects something fishy is going on and ropes Teddy and Summer into helping him investigate.

Then, Teddy stumbles upon yet another mystery involving tons of stolen sand. And the paparazzi start spreading rumors about Summer dating a celebrity, leading Teddy to question their relationship.

Without Summer as his trusted partner, can Teddy navigate the rough waters of this glitzy world and uncover what’s going on?

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Marya Khan and the Fabulous Jasmine Garden (Marya Khan #2)

Saadia Faruqi

Marya Khan and the Fabulous Jasmine Gardencontinues Saadia Faruqi and Ani Bushry's illustrated chapter book series about an ambitious Pakistani American third grader determined to prove herself--a perfect series for fans of Ivy & Bean and Dory Fantasmagory.



Marya is super excited that her school is creating a community garden to be cared for by the students. Not only will her third-grade class be the first to work on it but also Marya's mom will be teaching the students all about gardening. Most importantly, one student will be chosen to lead the charge. Marya REALLY wants to be the class leader . . . but so does Alexa, her worst enemy.



Cue Operation Be a Leader! Marya plans to work hard to prove she can be in charge, but nothing she does seems to make a difference. Birds keep destroying the plants, and none of Marya's classmates want to listen to her. Can Marya bring everyone together and make the most beautiful, fabulous garden the school has ever seen?

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Project 562

Matika Wilbur

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A photographic and narrative celebration of contemporary Native American life and cultures, alongside an in-depth examination of issues that Native people face, by celebrated photographer and storyteller Matika Wilbur of the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes.

“This book is too important to miss. It is a vast, sprawling look at who we are as Indigenous people in these United States.”—Tommy Orange (Cheyenne and Arapaho), author of There There


In 2012, Matika Wilbur sold everything in her Seattle apartment and set out on a Kickstarter-funded pursuit to visit, engage, and photograph people from what were then the 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. Over the next decade, she traveled six hundred thousand miles across fifty states—from Seminole country (now known as the Everglades) to Inuit territory (now known as the Bering Sea)—to meet, interview, and photograph hundreds of Indigenous people. The body of work Wilbur created serves to counteract the one-dimensional and archaic stereotypes of Native people in mainstream media and offers justice to the richness, diversity, and lived experiences of Indian Country.

The culmination of this decade-long art and storytelling endeavor, Project 562 is a peerless, sweeping, and moving love letter to Indigenous Americans, containing hundreds of stunning portraits and compelling personal narratives of contemporary Native people—all photographed in clothing, poses, and locations of their choosing. Their narratives touch on personal and cultural identity as well as issues of media representation, sovereignty, faith, family, the protection of sacred sites, subsistence living, traditional knowledge-keeping, land stewardship, language preservation, advocacy, education, the arts, and more.

A vital contribution from an incomparable artist, Project 562 inspires, educates, and truly changes the way we see Native America.

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The Last Masterpiece

Laura Morelli

In a race across Nazi-occupied Italy, two women--a German photographer and an American stenographer--hunt for priceless masterpieces looted from the Florentine art collections.

In the summer of 1943, Eva Brunner is taking photographs of Nazi-looted art hidden in the salt mines of the Austrian hinterland. Across the ocean in Connecticut, Josephine Evans is working as a humble typist at the Yale Art Gallery.

When both women are called to Italy to contribute to the war effort, neither imagines she will hold the fate of some of the world's greatest masterpieces torn from the Uffizi Galleries and other Florentine art collections in her hands.

But as Italy turns from ally to enemy and Hitler's plan to destroy irreplaceable monuments and works of art becomes frighteningly clear, each woman's race against the clock--and against one another--might demand more than they were prepared to give.

The Last Masterpiece takes readers on a heart-pumping adventure up the Italian peninsula, where nothing is as it seems and some of the greatest works of art and human achievement are at stake. Who might steal and who might save a work of art--and at what cost?

Inspired by the incredible true story of the Monuments Women, the Fifth Army WACs, and the looted Florentine art collections during World War II, the latest historical novel by USA Today bestselling author and art historian Laura Morelli plunges readers into the heart of war-torn Italy.

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The Deepest Map

Laura Trethewey

"Should be required reading. . . . A gripping and all-too-timely account of what in more ways than one is turning out to be a very costly and questionably necessary race to the bottom. . . . Trethewey rises to the occasion here, relating in absorbing detail the ebb and flow of conflicting interests that tussle down among the vents and ridges of the hadal zone. It is all highly readable, and it is all deeply ominous."--Simon Winchester, New York Times Book Review

?The dramatic and action-packed story of the last mysterious place on earth--the world's seafloor--and the deep-sea divers, ocean mappers, marine biologists, entrepreneurs, and adventurers involved in the historic push to chart it, as well as the opportunities, challenges, and perils this exploration holds now and for the future.

Five oceans--the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian, the Arctic, and the Southern--cover approximately 70 percent of the earth. Yet we know little about what lies beneath them. By the early 2020s, less than twenty-five percent of the ocean's floor has been charted, most close to shorelines, and over three quarters of the ocean lies in in what is called the Deep Sea, depths below a thousand meters. Now, the race is on to completely map the ocean's floor by 2030--an epic project involving scientists, investors, militaries, and private explorers who are cooperating and competing to get an accurate reading of this vast terrain and understand its contours and environment.

In The Deepest Map, Laura Trethewey documents this race to the bottom, following global efforts around the world, from crowdsourcing to advances in technology, recent scientific discoveries to tales of dangerous dives in untested and costly submersibles. The lure of ocean exploration has attracted many, including the likes of James Cameron, Richard Branson, Ray Dalio, and Eric Schmidt. The Deepest Map follows a cast of intriguing characters, from early mappers such as Marie Tharp, a woman working in the male-dominated fields of oceanography and geology whose discoveries have added significantly to our knowledge; Victor Vescovo, a man obsessed with reaching the deepest depths of each of the five oceans, and his young, brilliant, and fearless mapper Cassie Bongiovanni; and the diverse entrepreneurs looking to explore and exploit this uncharted territory and its resources.

In The Deepest Map, ocean discovery converges with humanity's origin story; in mapping the ocean floor, scientists are actively tracing our roots back to the most inhospitable places on earth where life began--and flourished. But for every conservationist looking to protect the seafloor, there are others who see its commercial potential. Will a new map exacerbate pollution and the degradation of this natural resource? How will the race remake political power structures in years to come? Trethewey probes these questions as countries and conglomerates wrestle over the riches that may lie at the bottom of the sea.

The future of humanity depends on our ability to protect this vast, precious, and often ignored resource. A true tale of science, nature, technology, and an extreme outdoor adventure The Deepest Map illuminates why we love--and fear--the earth's final frontier and is a crucial addition to the increasingly urgent conversation about climate change.

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The Girl Who Saw Heaven

Lisa Reburn

A remarkable true story of one child’s journey into the afterlife after surviving a super tornado.

When Ari Hallmark was in kindergarten, her family was caught in a powerful tornado in their hometown of Arab, Alabama. On April 27, 2011, Ari and her parents, Shane and Jennifer Hallmark, were putting the finishing touches on their new home, which Shane had built from scratch. Shane’s last-second decision to drive to his parents’ house put the Hallmarks directly in the path of a devastating EF4 tornado.

Moments after the Hallmarks arrived at the home, the mile-wide tornado ripped the house off its foundation and flung it in the air. When Ari regained consciousness, she began sharing the extraordinary story of what happened to her during the tornado: she met her guardian angel and followed her family to heaven. The full story of what Ari went through—the six months of reoccurring dreams that foretold the tragedy, and the unexpected challenges she faced from the legal system after the storm—delivers a powerful message to the world: you will see your late loved ones again.

Ari Hallmark is now a high school senior determined to share her hopeful message with the world. The Girl Who Saw Heaven is a uniquely poignant addition to near-death experience and heavenly encounter classics. Ari’s story will leave you with a different perspective of death and more hopeful of what lies beyond.

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The Great Transition

Nick Fuller Googins

For fans of Station Eleven and The Last Thing He Told Me, this richly imaginative, immersive, and “profound” (Alice Elliott Dark, author of Fellowship Point) novel is the electrifying story of a family in crisis that unfolds against the backdrop of our near future.

Emi Vargas, whose parents helped save the world, is tired of being told how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis. But following the public assassination of a dozen climate criminals, Emi’s mother, Kristina, disappears as a possible suspect, and Emi’s illusions of utopia are shattered. A determined Emi and her father, Larch, journey from their home in Nuuk, Greenland to New York City, now a lightly populated storm-surge outpost built from the ruins of the former metropolis. But they aren’t the only ones looking for Kristina.

Thirty years earlier, Larch first came to New York with a team of volunteers to save the city from rising waters and torrential storms. Kristina was on the frontlines of a different battle, fighting massive wildfires that ravaged the western United States. They became part of a movement that changed the world­—The Great Transition—forging a new society and finding each other in process.

Alternating between Emi’s desperate search for her mother and a meticulously rendered, heart-stopping account of her parents’ experiences during The Great Transition, this novel beautifully shows how our actions today determine our fate tomorrow. A triumphant debut, The Great Transition is a breathtaking rendering of our near future, told through the story of one family trying to protect each other and the place we all call home.

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Looking Glass Sound

Catriona Ward

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A Best Book of the Year (Vulture) An Indie Next Pick • A LibraryReads Hall of Fame Pick!

The author of The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward, delivers a masterful story about friendship and betrayal, dark obsessions, and the impossibility of escaping your own story. "Here's your next obsession." (Kelly Link, author of Get In Trouble)

In a cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow has begun the last book he will ever write.

It is the story about the sun-drenched summer days of his youth in Whistler Bay, and the blood-stained path of the killer that stalked his small vacation town. About the terrible secret he and his companions, Nat and Harper, discovered entombed in the coves off the bay. And how the pact they swore that day echoed down the decades, forever shaping their lives.

But the more Wilder writes, the less he trusts himself and his memory. He starts to see things that can’t be real – notes hidden in the cabin, from an old friend now dead; a woman with dark hair drowning in the icy waters below, calling for help; entire chapters he doesn’t recall typing, appearing overnight. Who, or what, is haunting Wilder?

No longer able to trust his own eyes, Wilder begins to fear that this will not only be his last book, but the last thing he ever does.

An origami puzzle of a book, the mystery so beautifully crafted you don’t see the folds, with edges sharp as a paper cut.”—Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

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A Most Agreeable Murder

Julia Seales

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A delightful cocktail that mixes elements of the Bridgerton series, Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries . . . The payoff is a wealth of wit, hilarity and suspense.”—People (Book of the Week)

When a wealthy bachelor drops dead at a ball, a young lady takes on the decidedly improper role of detective in this action-packed debut comedy of manners and murder.


Feisty, passionate Beatrice Steele has never fit the definition of a true lady, according to the strict code of conduct that reigns in Swampshire, her small English township—she is terrible at needlework, has absolutely no musical ability, and her artwork is so bad it frightens people. Nevertheless, she lives a perfectly agreeable life with her marriage-scheming mother, prankster father, and two younger sisters— beautiful Louisa and forgettable Mary. But she harbors a dark secret: She is obsessed with the true crime cases she reads about in the newspaper. If anyone in her etiquette-obsessed community found out, she’d be deemed a morbid creep and banished from respectable society forever.

For her family’s sake, she’s vowed to put her obsession behind her. Because eligible bachelor Edmund Croaksworth is set to attend the approaching autumnal ball, and the Steele family hopes that Louisa will steal his heart. If not, Martin Grub, their disgusting cousin, will inherit the family’s estate, and they will be ruined or, even worse, forced to move to France. So Beatrice must be on her best behavior . . . which is made difficult when a disgraced yet alluring detective inexplicably shows up to the ball.

Beatrice is just holding things together when Croaksworth drops dead in the middle of a minuet. As a storm rages outside, the evening descends into a frenzy of panic, fear, and betrayal as it becomes clear they are trapped with a killer. Contending with competitive card games, tricky tonics, and Swampshire’s infamous squelch holes, Beatrice must rise above decorum and decency to pursue justice and her own desires—before anyone else is murdered.

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Thief Liar Lady

D. L. Soria

“Happily Ever After” is a total scam, but at least this time the princess is the one controlling the grift—until her true love arrives and threatens to ruin the whole scheme. Intrigue, magic, and wit abound in this Cinderella fairytale reimagining, perfect for fans of Heather Walter and Naomi Novik.

“A dazzlingly magical, thrilling, and inventive take on a beloved classic.”—Lana Harper, New York Times bestselling author of Payback's a Witch


I’m not who you think I am.

My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen—as the rumors insisted—in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. On the first evening of the ball, I didn’t meekly help my “evil” stepmother and stepsisters primp and preen or watch forlornly out the window as their carriage rolled off toward the palace. I had other preparations to make.

My stepsisters and I had been trained for this—to be the cleverest in the room, to be quick with our hands and quicker with our lies. We were taught how to get everything we wanted in this world, everything men always kept for themselves: power, wealth, and prestige. And with a touchingly tragic past and the help of some highly illegal spells, I would become a princess, secure our fortunes, and we would all live happily ever after.

But there’s always more to the story. With my magic running out, war looming, and a handsome hostage prince—the wrong prince—distracting me from my true purpose with his magnetic charm and forbidden flirtations, I’m in danger of losing control of the delicate balance I’ve created . . . and that could prove fatal.

There’s so much more riding on this than a crown.

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The Stolen Coast

Dwyer Murphy

“A perfect summer escape.” Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air

“A twisty, enthralling heist yarn . . . loaded with the threat of a double cross any time. . . . smart and satisfying.”—The New York Times, Editors' Choice

Adrift in a sleepy coastal Massachusetts town, a man who ferries fugitives by day gets twisted up in a plot to pilfer diamonds in this Casablanca-infused heist novel.


Jack might be a polished, Harvard-educated lawyer on paper, but everyone in the down-at-the-heels, if picturesque, village of Onset, Massachusetts, knows his real job: moving people on the run from powerful enemies. The family business—co-managed with his father, a retired spy—is smooth sailing, as they fill up Onset’s holiday homes during the town’s long, drowsy off-season and help clients shed their identities in preparation for fresh starts.

But when Elena, Jack’s former flame—a dedicated hustler who's no stranger to the fugitive life—makes an unexpected return to town, her arrival upends Jack’s routine existence. Elena, after all, doesn’t go anywhere without a scheme in mind, and it isn’t long before Jack finds himself enmeshed in her latest project: intercepting millions of dollars’ worth of raw diamonds before they’re shipped overseas.

Infusing a fast-paced plot with sharp wit and stylish prose, CrimeReads editor-in-chief Dwyer Murphy serves up an irresistible page-turner as full of heart as it is of drama.

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A Council of Dolls

Mona Susan Power

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE

The long-awaited, profoundly moving, and unforgettable new novel from PEN Award-winning Native American author Mona Susan Power, spanning three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women from the 19th century to the present day.

From the mid-century metropolis of Chicago to the windswept ancestral lands of the Dakota people, to the bleak and brutal Indian boarding schools, A Council of Dolls is the story of three women, told in part through the stories of the dolls they carried....

Sissy, born 1961: Sissy's relationship with her beautiful and volatile mother is difficult, even dangerous, but her life is also filled with beautiful things, including a new Christmas present, a doll called Ethel. Ethel whispers advice and kindness in Sissy's ear, and in one especially terrifying moment, maybe even saves Sissy's life.

Lillian, born 1925: Born in her ancestral lands in a time of terrible change, Lillian clings to her sister, Blanche, and her doll, Mae. When the sisters are forced to attend an "Indian school" far from their home, Blanche refuses to be cowed by the school's abusive nuns. But when tragedy strikes the sisters, the doll Mae finds her way to defend the girls.

Cora, born 1888: Though she was born into the brutal legacy of the "Indian Wars," Cora isn't afraid of the white men who remove her to a school across the country to be "civilized." When teachers burn her beloved buckskin and beaded doll Winona, Cora discovers that the spirit of Winona may not be entirely lost...

A modern masterpiece, A Council of Dolls is gorgeous, quietly devastating, and ultimately hopeful, shining a light on the echoing damage wrought by Indian boarding schools, and the historical massacres of Indigenous people. With stunning prose, Mona Susan Power weaves a spell of love and healing that comes alive on the page.

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Learned by Heart

Emma Donoghue

"A wrenching love story" (Chris Bohjalian, The Washington Post) based on the true story of two girls who fall secretly, deeply, and dangerously in love at boarding school in 19th century York, from the bestselling author of Room and The Wonder.

Drawing on years of investigation and Anne Lister's five-million-word secret journal, Learned by Heart is the long-buried love story of Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England at age six, and Anne Lister, a brilliant, troublesome tomboy, who meet at the Manor School for young ladies in York in 1805 when they are both fourteen.



Emotionally intense, psychologically compelling, and deeply researched, Learned by Heart is an extraordinary work of fiction by one of the world's greatest storytellers. Full of passion and heartbreak, the tangled lives of Anne Lister and Eliza Raine form a love story for the ages.

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