Fondulac District Library provides access to a large collection of eBooks and audiobooks through the Overdrive or Libby app. Several times during the year, Overdrive hosts a Big Library Read, an online book club for readers around the world. Featured books are chosen by librarians and announced shortly before the Big Library Read begins. Our library is provided with unlimited copies of the eBook or audiobook, and our patrons can read without wait time through the Overdrive or Libby app until July 12. A library card number and PIN are required to access the book. This summer, the Big Library Read has chosen The Quiet Girl by S.F. Kosa. Below is a little about the book from The Big Library Read’s website:
The Quiet Girl
Good girls keep quiet. But quiet girls can’t stay silent forever—and the consequences are sure to make some noise.
When Alex arrives in Provincetown to patch things up with his new wife, Mina, he finds an empty wine glass in the sink, her wedding ring on the desk, and a string of questions in her wake. The police believe that Mina, a successful romance author, simply left, their marriage crumbling before it truly began.
But what Alex finds in their empty cottage points him toward a different reality: Mina has always carried a secret. And now she’s disappeared.
In his hunt for the truth, Alex comes across Layla, a young woman with information to share, who may hold the key to everything his wife has kept hidden. A strange, quiet girl whose missing memories may break them all.
To find his missing wife, Alex must face what Layla has forgotten. And the consequences are anything but quiet.
In her debut thriller, S.F. Kosa presents a tightly-woven book sure to inspire questions about trauma, memory, and how well we ever know the people we love.
–Post by Susie Rivera, Reference Specialist
#FDL is an update on all things Fondulac District Library and books.
The Handsome Girl and Her Beautiful Boy by, B. T. Gottfred
Reviewer: Deb Alig, Circulation Assistant
Genre: YA LGBTQ+
Suggested Age: 16+
What is this book about? This YA novel is about two main characters, Zee and Art, who do not fit into any specific LGBTQ+ category. Zee is an androgynous tomboy who likes to wear hoodies and cargo pants and whose classmates think she is a lesbian. But Zee’s best friend Cam is a star athlete who she has had feelings for since childhood. Cam, however, has a girlfriend whose little brother is Art. Art is flamboyant and pretty so people assume he is gay, but he identifies as straight, especially when he meets Zee and falls in love with her. They have a magical attraction to each other, but they also experiment and enjoy sexual fluidity through experiences with the same gender.
My Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. I like how the author switched back and forth between the two main characters’ perspectives. It made for a quick read. I also like the author’s important message to the reader. He presents Art and Zee as non-binary characters who see past boundaries in order to be their most authentic selves. How appropriate to emphasize and promote during Pride month!
Rating: 5/5
Three Words That Describe This Book: eye-opening, informative, magical
Give This Book A Try If You Like: Forever For A Year and Nerdy Dirty by B. T. Gottfred
What is this book about? In the late 18th century, two out of six children Thomas Jefferson had with his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton, survived into adulthood. These two children were his daughters Martha Jefferson Randolph and Mary Jefferson Eppes. However, since the 1990s, the world has known for certain that Thomas Jefferson also fathered children with his slave, Sally Hemings. One of these children was also a daughter, Harriet Hemings. The lives of these women all varied greatly despite sharing a father and ostensibly living with him. With Martha’s mostly French-Catholic education, Mary’s formative years in Pennsylvania while her father was Secretary of State and Vice President, and Harriet’s favored-slave status as Sally’s daughter, these women had vastly different opportunities for education and advancement. This book not only describes the courses of their lives, it also delves into the late 18th century attitudes towards female education as well as the reality of slavery and the roots of systemic racism that shaped the lives of these three women.
My Review: I listened to the eaudiobook version of this title on Axis360 and found it a very interesting read. This book seems impressively researched and soberly forthright about 18th and 19th century race relations. A good portion of the book is spent on the eldest daughter Martha’s upbringing and life after marriage as she is the most well-known and well-documented of Jefferson’s daughters. Her European education gave her a significant advantage in life, even compared to other contemporary colonial women of European descent. Mary’s circumstances seem to have been filled with near-abandonment and loss that carved deep holes in her life that she was never able to fill. And despite being born a slave, Harriet may have been the one to have greatly exceeded expectations by leaving Monticello and recreating herself as a white woman. I would definitely recommend this book for those who have an interest in the status and predicament of women in the early years of the Unites States.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Interesting, Thought-Provoking, Diligent
Give This a Try if You Like…Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times by Cynthia Kierner, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed, and The Other Madisons: The Lost History of a President’s Black Family by Bettye Kearse
Welcome to our Pride Month celebration with Miss Alice! This story time will be all about our different families, having fun, and being yourself. We’ll have great books, songs, and a rainbow craft afterwards!
.
Song: Hello, Friends
(using ASL, to the tune of Goodnight, Ladies)
Hello, friends! Hello, friends!
Hello, friends! It’s time to say hello!
.
Song: Open Them, Shut Them
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them.
Give a little clap, clap, clap!
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them.
Put them in your lap, lap, lap!
Creep them, creep them, slowly creep them,
Right up to your chin, chin, chin!
Open wide your little mouth,
But do not let them in!
Song: Ten Little Fingers
I have ten little fingers, and they all belong to me. (point to self)
I can make them do things. Do you want to see? (point to eyes)
I can squeeze them up tight. I can open them up wide. (squeeze hands shut, then open them)
I can put them together. I can make them all hide. (clap, then hide hands behind back)
I can make them jump high. I can make them jump low. (wiggle fingers above head, then reach down)
I can fold them up quietly and hold them just so. (fold hands and place on lap)
Can you guess how old Pooh Bear is? The original Winnie the Pooh book by A.A. Milne was first published in 1926, making it 95 years old this year! We think this calls for a celebration, and, of course, the first thing to do for Pooh’s birthday is to read Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. Then you can learn more about the history of the story and the characters from these books:
Continue your celebration of all things Pooh by borrowing the Winnie the Pooh UNO game from the library and eating some snacks inspired by the characters, such as honey graham crackers for Pooh or baby carrots for Rabbit.
Here’s a simple craft you can make at home:
Pooh’s Honey Pot
Materials Needed:
1 plain flower pot (any size)
a paintbrush
red, yellow, and black acrylic paint
Directions:
Write the word “hunny” (as Pooh would spell it) in black around the middle of the pot
Paint a red stripe along the bottom outer edge of the pot
Paint the inside and the top rim of the pot yellow
Slowly drip a small amount of yellow paint from the top edge of the pot to make it look like Pooh’s been eating out of it
Everyone’s family looks different, and this story time is here to celebrate it! Thanks for joining us to read some fun books, sing together, and make a colorful finger painting craft!
Song: Hello, Friends
(using ASL, to the tune of Goodnight, Ladies)
Hello, friends! Hello, friends!
Hello, friends! It’s time to say hello!
.
Song: Open Them, Shut Them
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them.
Give a little clap, clap, clap!
Open them, shut them, open them, shut them.
Put them in your lap, lap, lap!
Creep them, creep them, slowly creep them,
Right up to your chin, chin, chin!
Open wide your little mouth,
But do not let them in!
.
Song: Ten Little Fingers
I have ten little fingers, and they all belong to me. (point to self)
I can make them do things. Do you want to see? (point to eyes)
I can squeeze them up tight. I can open them up wide. (squeeze hands shut, then open them)
I can put them together. I can make them all hide. (clap, then hide hands behind back)
I can make them jump high. I can make them jump low. (wiggle fingers above head, then reach down)
I can fold them up quietly and hold them just so. (fold hands and place on lap)
What is the book about?: What happens if posting “can a dog be twins?” makes you famous? A woman flings outrageous content into the Portal, doom scrolls her life into oblivion, and discovers that being an Extremely Online Person is not without hazards as the lines begin to blur between reality and you and us and them. When an unthinkable tragedy rips through her family, the woman is forced to deal with the disconnect the Internet has created within herself, Real Life, and the painful, fundamental beauty of human connection.
My Review: Oh man. This book was the gut/brain/heart punch I’ve needed. It’s embarrassing how well some of the fragments fit my brain. Lockwood almost perfectly captures the absolute absurdity and heartbreak of our current culture and the unfathomable ways social media and the Internet have intrinsically altered our minds, our relationships, and our communal consciousness. And then the tragedy, oof. The experience the author creates through the observational, stream of consciousness format is breathtaking, and realizing the account is auto-fictional made me sob even harder. This book is graphic, it’s performative, it’s vulnerable, so flawed and tragic and funny – much like the world we’re dealing with – I think it will speak to you even if you’re not Very Online.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Brilliant, Funny, Meta
Give This a Try if You Like… Twitter, Weather by Jenny Offill, Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Written by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, illustrated by Benji Davies, and published by Candlewick Press.
.
Flannel Board: Five Little Unicorns
I saw five little unicorns – creatures from folklore
I watched the blue one prance away, and then there were four.
I saw four little unicorns resting by a tree
I watched the orange one prance away, and then there were three.
I saw three little unicorns, but as near to them I drew
The green one pranced away, and then there were two.
I saw two little unicorns – I watched them run and run
the yellow one pranced away, and then there was one.
I saw a lonely pink unicorn standing in the sun.
when I blinked by eyes, it pranced away, and then there were none.
You can play this on your fingers too – start with five fingers up, and then put one down each time a unicorn prances away.
What is this book about? This novel is the sequel to Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls, however, I believe there is enough background information given to read it on its own. Joy is nineteen years old and has just found out a big family secret. This takes her on a journey from her home in California to Shanghai to find her birth father. China in 1957 was in the midst of the beginning of Communism. Joy gets caught up in the Communist vision, falls in love and quickly marries a Chinese man when she visits a village collective. She soon finds that life in the collective is not the ideal that it is promised to be. When Pearl finds out what happened to her daughter, she is horrified and follows her to China to try to save her.
My Review: I have enjoyed several of Lisa See’s novels and this one is good as well. See always does her research and it really shows here. Communist China comes to life through the eyes of Joy. The hardships she faces while living in the collective were sometimes difficult to read. The tragedy surrounding this period was that Mao’s Great Leap Forward ended up being a man made famine. We see the horrors of that famine and what desperate people will do out of extreme hunger. In the beginning, Joy is a bit foolish as a character, but you must remember that she is just a teenager and still naïve. She definitely learns some very hard lessons by the end of the whole ordeal.
Three Words That Describe This Book: Insightful, Tragic, Eye-Opening
Give This a Try if You Like…Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Memoirs of the Geisha, The Killing Fields