River Readers

Charlie is nearing the end of her middle school career. For her final music class assignment she has to find the perfect song. One that embodies her spirit and makes her feel “at home.” They have explored all types of music in class but nothing quite fits for Charlie. Not until they listen to opera and Marie Callas. Suddenly, Charlie identifies with a genre of music but also with the artist.

We Were Witches, at its heart, is about a single mother in the 1980’s trying to make it in the world despite all the obstacles in her way. But it is so, so much more. It is such an anomaly that I can’t explain it or put it into a genre. It is a feminist manifesto, it is a history lesson in the suppression of women. It is mystery and magic and yes, witches. It is brilliant and I loved every minute of it.

Emoni Santiago had a baby her freshman year in high school but that didn't stop her dreams of becoming a chef. Her mother died in childbirth and her father was largely absent so she depended on her grandmother, 'Buelo for help. For the most part, she was doing fine, juggling being a mother, a full-time student and a part-time job. Often her school work suffered and she was beginning to worry about how she was going get into a college, let alone pay for it. Her dream of being a chef only intensified when she enrolled in a cooking class at her school.

It is 1914, and the world has been on the brink of war so often, many New Yorkers treat the subject with only passing interest. Eliza Ferriday is thrilled to be traveling to St. Petersburg with Sofya Streshnayva, a cousin of the Romanovs. The two met years ago one summer in Paris and became close confidantes. Now, Eliza embarks on the trip of a lifetime, home with Sofya to see the splendors of Russia: the church with the interior covered in jeweled mosaics, the Rembrandts at the tsar's Winter Palace, the famous ballet.

Rose Mae Lolley is a fierce and dirty girl, long-suppressed under flowery skirts and bow-trimmed ballet flats. As "Mrs. Ro Grandee" she's trapped in a marriage that's thick with love and sick with abuse. Her true self has been bound in the chains of marital bliss in rural Texas, letting "Ro" make eggs, iron shirts, and take her punches. She seems doomed to spend the rest of her life battered outside by her husband and inside by her former self, until fate throws her in the path of an airport gypsy---one who shares her past and knows her future.

The bestselling author of American Housewife is back with a fiercely funny collection of essays on marriage and manners, thank-you notes and three-ways, ghosts, gunshots, gynecology, and the Calgon-scented, onion-dipped, monogrammed art of living as a Southern Lady.

Lord Henry “Monty” Montague, young, handsome, and charming, has one last year of fun and freedom, before his father expects him to settle down and help run the family estate. Monty along with his best friend and secret crush Percy, are to have a Grand Tour of Europe. They are to drop Monty’s sister, Felicity, off at a finishing school along the way. Though bred to be a gentleman, Monty escapes these strictures by flinging himself into hedonistic pleasure, excessive drinking, bedding women and men, and flouting social expectations where he can.

Sixth grader Alec can't put a good book down.

Lida thought she was safe. Her neighbors wearing the yellow star were all taken away, but Lida is not Jewish. She will be fine, won't she?

But she cannot escape the horrors of World War II.

Lida's parents are ripped away from her and she is separated from her beloved sister, Larissa. The Nazis take Lida to a brutal work camp, where she and other Ukrainian children are forced into backbreaking labor. Starving and terrified, Lida bonds with her fellow prisoners, but none of them know if they'll live to see tomorrow.

Alice is angry at having to move to Rainbow, Georgia - a too small, too hot, dried-up place she's sure will never feel like home. Then she gets put in charge of walking her elderly neighbor's dog. But Clarence won't budge without Miss Millie, so Alice and Miss Millie walk him together.

Sebastian is getting ready for his last year at soccer camp when he finds out his ex-best friend, Emir, is also attending. He doesn't know exactly what went wrong with Emir. When they were small, they were inseparable. That changed after Emir had to go back to England so his family could care for his ailing grandmother. When he returned, things were differently and they never really talked again. Emir seemed angry and unapproachable. Now with him attending soccer camp, Sebastian worried what it would be like. Would Emir fit in with his other friends or would he remain aloof and angry?

The Bird King takes place during the end of the reign of the last sultan of Granada. The story centers on a concubine named Fatima and her beloved friend, Hassan. Hassan has a magical skill that enables him to draw maps of places he's never seen and alter the reality of those places. His gift is coveted because of its importance in times of war and retreat. On the edge of losing his kingdom, the sultan hands Hassan over to the Inquisitors who have come to negotiate the transition of power to Spain.

Jenson dreams of being an astronaut and saving the world. He is a dreamer. Middle school is hard though and Jenson is no exception to that rule. Sometimes the kids say things to him or make jokes at his expense but they're his friends and they're just kidding....right? RIGHT?

This second book in the Awkward series focuses on the bullying climate in the school and what it might take to change it.

The third book in the Awkward series focuses on Jorge. Jorge is a big guy with a lot of strength so he is the unofficial protector in the school. He tries to always do what's right and hold others to that as well. Middle school is tough for kids but it becomes much tougher for Jorge when her realizes he has a crush.

This is cute, realistic graphic novel about the realities of middle school and how to navigate them, or at least try to.

Yale Tishman is a young professional gay man in 1980's Chicago just as the AIDS epidemic starts its ravaging path. The book opens at a memorial party for Yale's good friend, Nico, the first of his group to die. Nico's story is a familiar tale of parental betrayal because of his sexuality but the central figure of his story is his sister, Fiona. She was his caregiver, his protector and his stanchest ally through his life.