Author Archives: Mackenzie Marrow

Siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert have sent for an orphan boy whom they can raise to help tend their farm as they age. Instead of a strapping young boy, a waifish red haired little girl named Anne Shirley waits for them at the train depot. Despite their misgivings, the pair quickly fall for Anne’s charm and feisty spirit, deciding to let her stay and not call for a boy after all. As Anne grows up on the idyllic Prince Edward Island, her excitable, imaginative, and stubborn temperament gets her into trouble but her caring family and community help her grow and mature into a bright young woman ready to face the world. Laden with unforgettable characters, Anne Shirley’s world is one to get lost in.

As a child, Montgomery was not allowed to read novels, but poetry shaped her young mind into a romantic style that is evident in her lush descriptions of the world Anne finds herself in. A small girl, looking at a breathtaking world, taking the time to soak in the beauty around her. Its emphasis on community, self-growth, and life’s natural beauty makes it an enduring classic that is taught in schools around the world. Anne’s youthful adventures on Prince Edward Island have a tremendous staying power, translated into over 37 languages, made into movies and tv shows, the novel has a large following all over the world, with an especially strong contingent in Japan. Reading Groups of all ages should enjoy this beautiful novel, and revel in its soft and entertaining lessons of growing up.

“People laugh at me because I use big words. But if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven’t you?”

If you’re interested in requesting Anne of Green Gables for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 6 copies (A librarian must request items)

Montgomery, L.M. Anne of Green Gables. L.C. Page & Company. (1908) 

If you haven’t read a spooky book for Halloween yet, you’re running out of time! Today’s Book Club Spotlight is a short story collection out of Gothenburg, Sweden that mixes just the right amount of thrills, chills, and murder to get its reader in the mood for the 31st. An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good by Helene Tursten (trans. Marlaine Delargy) turns the elderly amateur sleuth trope on its head. You won’t find a group of retirees running around solving crimes here. Here, they’re the killers! Author Helene Tursten is known for her successful Nordic Noir books, especially her “Inspector Huss” series, and began writing her deliciously murderous heroine for a Christmas anthology. So if you’re a “scary ghost stories” Christmas enjoyer, consider this a head start!

Eighty-eight-year-old Maud wants very little. She wants to keep her spacious rent-free apartment, travel as she likes, and most importantly, she wants to be left alone. But sometimes, it seems like the world is conspiring against her quiet life. And when that happens, Maud takes matters into her own hands. Whether it means poking a rather rude deli clerk with a safety pin in the buttocks, or dropping an entire chandelier on a would-be apartment thief’s head, she’s always ready with a plan. Because that’s what people get wrong about Maud. She may play up the dithering old lady act around others, but she is as every bit as capable and quick-thinking as any ruthless murderer out there. Just don’t get on her bad side!

This irreverent and darkly funny story collection is a quick read to get your blood spiking this Halloween season. Book Club Groups that don’t mind a little blood and chaos will find this strange book charming and fun. Despite Maud’s penchant for murder, you can’t help but root for her to get her way. Her victims are always people who have wronged her, or were too annoying to deal with in any other manner. It’s cathartic in a macabre way. An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good, is a ridiculous tale of exactly that. Maud is truly up to no good. But can you blame her? That’s what people get for underestimating and trying to take advantage of her. Through the murders and the blood, Tursten is making a bold claim about ageism and especially the social phenomena “Invisible Women Syndrome”. Maud gets away with her crimes, purely because no one can grasp their minds around a fragile old lady committing such cold-blooded murders. Except maybe, some old souls themselves. But who would listen to them?

If you’re interested in requesting An Elderly Lady Is Up To No Good for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies (A librarian must request items)

Tursten, Helene. An Elderly Lady is Up To No Good. Soho Press, Inc. (2018) 

In 2015, Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou was searching for his next big story. Having just finished a bombshell report on the fraud and abuse in Medicare that won him his second Pulitzer Prize, he received a tip that had the potential to take down one of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest startups. According to his source, feminist icon and media darling Elizabeth Holmes was a total fraud. The young Stanford dropout had the tech world and its rich investors convinced that her company, Theranos, could run any diagnostic test instantly with a single drop of blood. But that technology never existed. With her co-conspirator, Sunny Balwani, these scam tests were used all across the United States in hospitals, doctors offices, and even in pharmacy giant, Walgreens. Anyone who dared to speak out against the unethical practice and faulty tech, risked their career, reputation, and even safety. Bad Blood follows the youngest self-made female billionaire, whose pursuit of fame and power lead to deadly consequences.

A Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year, Bad Blood follows the ill-fated Theranos from its origins right up to its death blow “massive fraud” conviction by the Securities and Exchange Commission in March of 2018. A happy ending, thanks in no small part to the reporting done by Carreyrou. For Book Club Groups interested in the “True Crime” genre but not necessarily the kind with serial killers and occultists. What makes this particular account so compelling, is that as a beat journalist, Carreyrou finds himself in the middle of the action and potential danger. By exposing the dealings at Theranos, whistleblowers risked career suicide, their families were torn apart, they were hounded by high-end lawyers and they were even being tailed. Bad Blood isn’t sensational, and Carreyrou goes out of his way to stick to what’s known as facts up until the Epilogue where he gives the reader his personal thoughts into Elizabeth Holmes’ psychology, ambition and ultimate responsibility to her clients.

Holmes and Balwani are currently serving time in federal prison until 2032.

Further Resources:

‘Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggles With Its Blood-Test Technology’ (2015)

• The first investigative article published by John Carreyrou on Theranos

Bad Blood: The Final Chapter (2021)

• “John Carreyrou broke the Theranos scandal. Now he’ll take you into the courtroom as he examines Silicon Valley’s fake it-til-you-make it culture, and the case against Holmes.”

‘What to Read, Watch, and Listen to About Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos After The Dropout‘

• An article by TIME Magazine compiling the “podcasts, documentaries, and other projects have aimed to tell the story of one of the most famous scams in the history of Silicon Valley.”

If you’re interested in requesting Bad Blood  for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 9 copies (A librarian must request items)

Carreyrou, John. Bad Blood. Penguin Random House. (2018) 

It’s September, do you know where your library card is?

“One Card, Endless Possibilities” is the rallying cry for this year’s Library Card Sign-up Month, and all those possibilities led to this week’s incredible Book Club Spotlight. A recipient of the 2024 Chicago Library Foundation 21st Century Award, author Cristina Henríquez wrote her novel, The Book of Unknown Americans at her “second home”- the local library! The Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumni’s sophomore novel was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, a New York Times Notable Book of 2014, and an NPR Great Read.

The residents of the Kirkwood Apartments in Newark, Delaware all have a story to tell. While few of them anticipated ending up in the low-income apartments, they’ve all come to call it home. One resident, Alma Rivera, never imagined moving from her gorgeous home in Patzcuaro, Mexico to enroll her daughter in a specialized school for disabled students. Blaming herself for the accident that left Maribel with a traumatic brain injury a year ago, Alma has devoted her whole life to keeping her daughter safe. Now, her small family is in a foreign country, trying to scrape by Arturo’s meager income, and navigate an English speaking world. While trying to shield and understand a girl, who, under the haze of her injury, is still a teenager who wants to enjoy her life on her own terms. 

Through reading, Book Club Groups will follow Alma’s guilt over her daughter’s accident, and how she punishes herself in the process. They can discuss the weight of responsibility on Mayor’s shoulders to be the perfect son and follow the rules despite his heart telling him to be true to himself. Told in alternating viewpoints, mostly focusing on Alma and Mayor, Henríquez expands her world with interstitial chapters of the other residents that breathe her story to life. 

If you’re interested in requesting The Book of Unknown Americans for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 4 copies (A librarian must request items)

Henríquez, Cristina. Book of Unknown Americans. Knopf. (2014) 

On a hot summer day in the forgotten borough of New York, 30 years of rotting trash is being slowly buried under mountains of asphalt, trapping and poisoning the landfills’ rat denizens with methane gas. The unsuspecting citizens of the quiet Staten Island suburb are in the fright of their lives as hordes of mutated rats burst from the seams, with a taste for blood. Self-proclaimed rat expert Sarah and her little brother Mike must race to stop the murderous infestation before it takes over New York City. But little do they know, they have a mole amongst the rats.

Rats is a part of Zindel’s “The Zone Unknown Series” which are stand-alone horror/thriller books featuring young teens fighting to survive a mutated and perilous natural world. Teachers and librarians are always looking for the perfect book to get through to their reluctant readers, books that are engaging and exciting stories written with non-readers in mind. Since Halloween is only two months away, maybe you’re looking for a gnarly and visceral horror novel to hook your reluctant readers. In Rats, Zindel weaves his gross-out descriptions with prose that, at times, is startlingly evocative. It contains both emotional and environmental messages that can lead to good discussion. Students can learn about proper Landfill Capping, and the harmful effects of pollution. They will also read about personal and family strife. How to reach out for help and to not hide their problems from those who love them, letting it poison and fester until it’s too big to control.

If you’re a school librarian or are leading a preteen to teen book group, I do recommend giving Rats a look-over first to see if the graphic images and scenarios are right for your particular students. Some readers will be too squeamish while others will be thoroughly captivated. It takes all kinds!

In 1969 I quit teaching altogether. I felt I could do more for teenagers by writing for them. I started reading some young adult books, and what I saw in most of them had no connection to the teenagers I knew. I thought I knew what kids would want in a book, so I made a list and followed it. I try to show teens they aren’t alone. I believe I must convince my readers that I am on their side; I know it’s a continuous battle to get through the years between twelve and twenty — an abrasive time. And so I write always from their own point of view. – Paul Zindel 

If you’re interested in requesting Rats for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies (A librarian must request items)

Zindel, Paul. Rats. Hyperion. (1999) 

Two Pikuni (Blackfeet) youth set out across the Montana Territory with a horse-stealing party to prove their might against the enemy Crow, where one fateful misstep propels them towards different destinies. Fast Horse, haunted by his failed mission, abandons his band to join a rogue group of Pikuni who are wanted for the murder of a white man. While White Man’s Dog, who grew up in the shadow of his friend, takes down a Crow chief in a bold move of revenge, earning his new name- Fools Crow. Now, a respected hunter, medicine man, and husband, Fools Crow sees firsthand the pressure and bloodshed of colonization nipping at his tribe’s heels. And the tribal leaders who cannot choose whether to fight a losing war or to trust the Napikwans’ promise of peace at the expense of their culture.

Fools Crow is a beautiful and haunting look into the daily lives of the late 1880s Western Indian, and what brought them to being given a false choice of assimilation into the white man’s world or war, either choice meaning certain death to their culture and their people. Mature-level readers will be deeply moved by this tale of humanity’s persistence in the face of destruction and hardship. Welch writes with compassion and understanding, but not a sanitized lens. His Pikuni are not always upright moral people; they are fallible and will make ugly decisions on the way. But he argues that they are no less deserving of recognition of their personhood and their way of life than any other. Weaving in the real figures of Mountain Chief, Owl Child, Joe Kipp, and more, Fools Crow, while a fictional account, is steeped in history, culture, and language. To aid your group’s discussion, I have compiled two helpful guides: Characters and Glossary and Discussion Questions. 

Many of the stories and legends found in Fools Crow were passed down to Welch through his great-grandmother, Red Paint Woman. As a member of Heavy Runner’s band, she survived the Marias Massacre and passed her stories down through the generations. Storytelling is a foundation of many cultures, and the Blackfeet are no exception. Despite the federal dispossession of their lands, the murder of their people, and the U.S. Indian Boarding Schools, the perseverance of the Blackfeet lives on in their descendants today. Despite it all, their culture survived. A great example of the continued tradition of Blackfeet storytellers is author Stephan Graham Jones, whose recent novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, runs parallel to the real historical events found in Fools Crow, and broadens the legend for a modern audience. 

If you’re interested in requesting Fools Crow for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies (A librarian must request items)

Welch, James. Fools Crow. Penguin Books. (1986) 

A balloon crashes on a farmhouse in the middle of Nebraska and inside is a man of wizardry and illusions. As he is nursed back to health by the Old Sisters Egan, the magician regales them with the tale of his dramatic departure from the tumultuous city of Omaha and the seedy underbelly of the 1898 World’s Fair. It is a story of love built on deception, greed, and magic. And at the heart of it, is the Fair’s mastermind who stole our hero’s true love away.

While the lasting economic impact of the Omaha World’s Fair is dubious, its influence on culture is not- most specifically in literature. Inspired by the fair itself, Frank Baum’s titular Wizard of Oz  is nothing more than a circus magician from Omaha, Nebraska, worshiped by the Ozians for his seemingly real powers. In The Swan Gondola, Schaffert has taken this enigmatic character and imagines his down-to-earth origins complete with an emerald palace, winged monkeys, and a little girl named Dorothy. For Book Club Groups looking for a little bit of summer magic and drama, this novel indulges in the classic romantic tale of traveling theatre troupes, circuses, and the rogues who make their living roaming from town to town across the United States. Will Ferret and Cecily’s summer love stand up to the test, or will it be as fragile as the grand faux facades dotting the Grand Court? 

If you’re interested in requesting Swan Gondola for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Schaffert, Timothy. Swan Gondola. Riverhead Books. (2015)

This Thursday, State and Federal offices across the country will be closed in observance of our newest official federal holiday, Juneteenth! 160 years ago on June 19th, 1865- 250,000 enslaved people were finally emancipated two years and a war after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Despite this, Jim Crow laws continued until the mid-1960s, another hundred years after the liberation. Today’s Book Club Spotlight, The Nickel Boys, (also a 2024 movie) takes place during the tumultuous 1960s at the end of the Civil Rights Movement inside of a Florida reform school. The 2019 book by author Colson Whitehead won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Whitehead one of four authors to have won the award twice. 

There are three versions of Elwood Curtis. The young, intelligent Elwood dreams of attending college and making something of himself beyond his segregated Tallahassee home. The Elwood of the authoritarian Nickel Academy Reform School, is a righteous young man striving to follow the words and ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But the Academy is stronger and crueler than love can conquer; torturing him and his peers to either submission or death. Finally, there is the Elwood who escapes and lives on. A haunted man, trying to find his way in the world with nothing but his name. How was this goodhearted boy with a bright future ahead of him sentenced to such a life? The truth lies with the bodies of young men hidden on the grounds of Nickel.

The Nickel Boys is, unfortunately, based on a real reform school in Florida that was shut down in 2011. The Dozier School for Boys, much like Residential Schools, was a state-sanctioned way to force children into submission and assimilation under the guise of civility and patriotism. After the school was closed there was an outpouring of stories from former students who told of the horror faced there, including beatings, sexual assault, and murder. Dubbed “America’s Storyteller”, Whitehead doesn’t shy away from our tragic history, and his influence in writing The Nickel Boys came from a need to make sense of the world and fight back against the “larger culture of impunity”. Book Club groups can discuss the influences of thought and worldviews found in the novel, especially in how they play out between our main characters Elwood and Turner as they must adapt to the school’s barbaric rule of law and its lasting consequences. How do we cope in a world without justice?

Further Resources on The Dozier School for Boys:

• The Official White House Boys website
  • Run by survivors of the school

• “For Their Own Good”
  • An article detailing stories from survivors 

• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due 
  • A 2023 fictionalized novel about the school

Lincoln Juneteenth Events (2025)

• 6/19: Legal Fight for Freedom: Student Research Panel and Keynote Address – UNL
• 6/21: Malone Center Juneteenth Event

To read more about Juneteenth and related topics, The National Museum of African American History & Culture has curated a “Juneteenth Reading List”, which features titles from our Book Club Collection!

If you’re interested in requesting The Nickel Boys for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 7 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys. Doubleday. (2019)

A muse is a powerful creature. Love and praise may fall on deaf ears to an unrealized man….but whisper tales of mortality, fleeting beauty, and adoration, the desperation of the damned will overtake them. As it overtakes the young man, he, in a pit of panic, pledges his soul so the burden of time will be placed upon his mirrored self in portraiture. Young Dorian Gray. A beautiful muse and love of painter Basil Hallward, and the manipulated mentee of the hedonistic fast-talking Lord Henry, tears through the polite society of London, leaving all who approach ruined in his wake. While his portrait decays in his attic, exposing the monstrous degradation of his soul.

To the people of the Victorian era, perception was everything. The women had to be beautiful, charming, but unobtrusive. The men, stoic masculine providers with no time for frivolities or deviant behaviors. And Dorian Gray is the perfect young Victorian man. He is beautiful, charming, and has all the merits his class dictates. His impressionable mind is warped by voyeuristic Aesthete Lord Henry, into an existential crisis that leads to selfishness and cruelty all in the pursuit of pleasure. This is what made The Picture of Dorian Gray so subversive in its time. It held a mirror to society, forcing it to look at its faults and secrets, and even at Wilde’s beloved Aestheticism Movement. Book Club Groups can explore the themes of love, art, beauty, and influence through each unique character carefully crafted by Wilde, and the conflicting realities held within them. To help guide discussion, our copies include an introduction by Penguin Classics Editor, Robert Mighall, and a backmatter of notations to provide the modern reader with further context and knowledge for the novel.

Oscar Wilde in a letter to Ralph Payne (1894):

I am so glad you like that strange coloured book of mine: it contains much of me in it. Basil Hallward is what I think I am Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be – in other ages, perhaps.

If you’re interested in requesting The Picture of Dorian Gray for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 16 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Wilde. Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Penguin Classics. (1891)

Five-year-old Jack lives with Ma in Room. There, they play, learn, brush their teeth, exercise, and look out Skylight. Every night, he goes to sleep in Wardrobe while a mysterious man comes to visit. Ma doesn’t seem to like Old Nick, but Jack likes it when he brings them new things like clothes, food, and sometimes candy! To Jack, Room is all there is, and he wants everything to stay the same forever. But now that Jack is 5 years old, his curiosity is harder to contain, he gets in fights with Ma, and Old Nick gets so upset that their power is off for days! Maybe he should have just stayed 4. Ma is changing too. She decides it’s time to tell Jack a story, a real story this time, about a place called Outside. And about a plan where Jack must be brave, get to Outside, and save Ma.

Engaging for Mature Teen and Adult readers, Room is a sociological exploration of what makes our reality, and the persistence of the human race to thrive against all odds. From discussing faith, the sensationalism of tragedy, and the spirit of motherhood, love is at the forefront of this novel. Narrated by Jack’s unusual and childish voice, Room’s language will take a second to get used to and is not for everyone. We follow his malleable young mind as it opens up and tries to process this place that was previously far beyond his understanding. But once the reader is enveloped in his unique world, it’s hard to leave and return to Outside.  

Room was adapted by Emma Donoghue into an academy award winning movie of the same name starring Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay.

If you’re interested in requesting Room for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 11 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Donoghue, Emma. Room. Little, Brown and Company. (2010)

“We arrive in the blizzard of 1993, coming from rice paddies, mango trees, and the sun to February in the Empire State.” At three years old, Ký Lý and her family of 6 are sent to the United States, as part of a humanitarian effort to relocate South Vietnamese prisoners of war. Though she doesn’t quite understand it, Ly’s father was one of those men, confined in the Viet Cong re-education camps of torture and indoctrination. However, America was not the fresh start they were sold. The family struggles in poverty, resorting to endless nights of sewing garments in their cramped and dirty apartment to barely make ends meet. As she grows, Ly recognizes the dour circumstances around her, and her parent’s ceaseless effort to create a life for their children- free from the horrors of the past. In an attempt to protect her family from more hardship, Ly learns to hide the cruelty of others from her parents and to hide herself as well.

For Adult Book Club Groups who are fans of moving family memoirs like Educated and The Glass Castle, House of Sticks is a story of filial piety, and how the trauma of our parents move within us and propel our lives. How pressures of helping support a family, and neglect can weigh on a child into their adult years. Though Tran spends much of her memoir away from her family, they are a part of her and influence every step she takes. She was especially her traumatized father, but her ability for compassion and understanding helped bridge the long-worn gaps between them. Reading stories like House of Sticks can open us up to new perspectives and peoples. When we celebrate the melting pot of the United States, like with AAPI month, it’s important to take the time and learn about our history together. Even before we were a country, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Hawaiians have been a part of our legacy.

If you’re interested in requesting House of Sticks for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies and an Audio CD. (A librarian must request items)

Tran, Ly. House of Sticks. Scribner. 2022.

It’s National Library Week once again, and as always, the best way to support your library is to use your library! At the Commission, we provide Book Club Kits, which are available for any public library or school in Nebraska to use. We have a wide selection of titles available and reading the Book Club Spotlight is a great way to get to know our incredible collection! Today’s Book Club Spotlight, Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga, has been listed as a notable book for the Association for Library Service to Children, a Forbes Best Kids Book of 2019, and a Newbery Honor Book! Half-Jordanian, Warga was inspired by her community to write a story about how love and generosity can transcend country borders through the eyes of a young girl, arriving to America.

Jude is an average girl who enjoys her peaceful and fun life on the coast of Syria. She loves running around with her friend Fatima, and visiting her dad at his store as tourists bustle in and out. Whip-smart and confident, Jude often gets in trouble for talking too much, constantly being told to “skety!” (hush!) Her older brother, Issa, fights with her dad a lot about the future of their country, and Issa even moves out so he can better focus on helping others. Suddenly, their home isn’t so safe anymore. Jude and her pregnant mother move across the Atlantic Ocean to stay with family in far-flung Cincinnati, Ohio. There, Jude has to deal with all the normal middle school problems, but in a whole different country! She makes friends, learns English in her ESL class, and even auditions for the school play! It’s hard being the new kid, and here in the United States, she’s suddenly not so normal anymore. 

Being from Syria, Jude’s first language is Arabic, and to express the expressive and lyrical Arabic language in English, Other Words for Home is written in free verse – meaning that it is written with poetic intent and metaphor that flows rhythmically but doesn’t have to rhyme. This can be a great introduction to readers learning about the different ways to write and tell stories. All ages of Book Club Groups can discuss how even though Jude faces difficulty in her new country, she stays true to herself. Warga hopes young readers will be inspired by Jude’s big dreams, confidence, and love for her culture. Like other middle schoolers, Jude is trying to navigate growing up like anyone else, learning to fit in and find where to call “home”. 

If you’re interested in requesting Other Words for Home for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Warga, Jasmine. Other Words for Home. Harper Collins. 2019.

“Mad Honey”- a sweet comfort turned poison by the pollinators we thought we could trust. In a small New Hampshire town, beekeeper Olivia McAfee has worked hard to keep her teenage son away from the world’s poison, including her abusive ex-husband. But now Asher’s girlfriend, Lily, is dead, and all fingers point towards him. All the while, Lily’s own story falls back through time, from the day she died to her first meeting with Asher. It was true love. Sure, he could get angry, but it was love- wasn’t it? In the present, Olivia must work through the pain of seeing her child accused of murder, not knowing if she can trust the boy she raised, while mourning for the tender girl they lost.  

Told in dual timelines, Mad Honey shines in one cohesive text, drawn together by the dangerous reality of womanhood. The reader, like Olivia, goes back and forth throughout the novel, unsure of Asher’s innocence, scared that he’s not. But will the truth change the reality of Lily’s fate? A suspenseful novel for mature young adults and adult Book Club Groups, Mad Honey asks how much our identities and the past shape us. And how far would we go to defend a loved one. For fans of Picoult, her recurring character Jacob McAfee from The Pact, Nineteen Minutes, and Salem Falls makes an appearance as the family’s whip-smart lawyer. 

If you’re interested in requesting Mad Honey for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 5 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Picoult, Jodi and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Mad Honey. Ballantine Books, 2022.

Today’s Book Club Spotlight is a beautiful and heart-wrenching story of two nations whose fates are intertwined for better and worse. Of Chinese and Japanese descent, Gail Tsukiyama’s 1994 novel The Samurai’s Garden meditates on the treacherous history between her two cultures and finds humanity in the smallest of places. Traditional Japanese gardens, like those featured in the story, are said to be founded on ancient Chinese gardening techniques. And their unique artistry and storytelling through landscape make them renowned locations of peace and tranquility. This is not unlike the change and peace our Chinese protagonist finds during his time living in rural Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Nanjing (Nanking) Massacre. The recipient of numerous literary awards, Tsukiyama is the current Executive Director of the non-profit WaterBridge Outreach, which provides developing countries with literary material and access to clean water and sanitation.

All the young and able men are off fighting in China for the Japanese Empire, with each loss and success clouding those they have left at home. But despite the war, life goes on in the peaceful seaside village of Tarumi. And nestled on the outskirts of town is Chinese student Stephen, who has come to his family’s summer home to recuperate from tuberculosis. There, he finds a quiet spirituality in Japan that he never had in his busy Hong Kong home, watching as the diligent and quiet groundskeeper Matsu tends tirelessly to the expansive landscape garden. Over the course of a year, amongst the peaceful moss and trees, the story of Matsu and the people of the village come into focus as the pain of the past is superimposed on the pain of the present. Love is forged and lost, while Stephen’s heart is torn by the brutalities his people are facing at the hands of the very country in which he is finding peace.

In The Samurai’s Garden, our main character is sent away from his home to recover from Tuberculosis, far from all he knows. And he is not the only one there who is struggling with the isolation of illness. In a nearby leprosy village, Stephen sees first-hand the repercussions of the historical ostracization of these outcast people, if they even made it that far to begin with. Book Club Groups from teens and above will appreciate the thoughtful discussion on personal survival, honor, and humanity while learning about the different meanings of Japanese gardens which bring the story to life. Tsukiyama explores that while living in turbulent and painful times, we can find peace and beauty in nature and each other, how we can choose kindness and acceptance, even if the world is telling us to turn to hate.

More on Japanese Gardens:

• The Japanese Garden Society: Learn
• Types of Japanese Gardens
  • Matsu’s garden is a Tsukiyama (like the author’s name!)

More about Tuberculosis:

• World Tuberculosis Day (March 24th, 2025)

If you’re interested in requesting The Samurai’s Garden for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 8 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Tsukiyama, Gail. The Samurai’s Garden. St. Martin’s Press. 1994.

Deep in the sugar cane plantations of Barbados, naturalist Christopher Wilde and his newly appointed eleven-year-old manservant Washington Black burst out of the treetops on a flying balloon named ‘The Cloud Cutter’. They are fleeing from Faith plantation, where Washington, a slave, has just witnessed the death of a white man, meaning he could very well be next. The pair journey across the world together, chasing after ghosts, until Washington must take up the mantle and chase after Christopher’s. A whip-smart marine illustrator and aspiring scientist, Washington Black may be physically free from the constraints of slavery, but its history refuses to let him go.

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize (which Edugyan would go on to chair in 2023), Washington Black takes a look at what comes after slavery. Young Washington is taken from his world and his family by this White Savior, who ultimately leaves him. Washington, reeling from his abandonment with nothing else in the world, must create his future while facing systemic and racial challenges wherever he goes. Washington has a brilliant mind for marine biology but cannot exist in the same scientific circles as his white counterparts of the 1830s. It simply isn’t done. Even as a free man, slavery has left a mark on his life, physically, emotionally, and in his pursuit of meaning. This adventure novel takes its readers on a trip around the globe. Adult Book Club Groups will explore new locales, meet strange characters, and discuss how our destiny is unwittingly shaped by those around us.

If you’re interested in requesting Washington Black for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 10 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Edugyan, Esi. Washington Black. Vintage. 2019

The prolific author, Caroline B. Cooney is best known for her suspenseful YA books, most notably her 1990 novel, The Face on the Milk Carton. A lifelong learner, when Cooney turned fifty, she moved to Manhattan for school, inspiring the setting for today’s spotlight Code Orange. Cooney’s novel takes place in 2004, a time when the city is still marred by the tragedy of the September 11th attacks, but recovering. Exploring through the eyes of a native New Yorker who feels an immense sense of pride and civic duty, we see how a child’s psyche can be unmistakably shaken by threats on his home, especially when he believes he is the key to the terrorist’s next attack.  

A biology assignment. An old book. An envelope. Scabs turning to dust. Before Mitty Blake can realize what’s happening, he’s possibly infected with one of the world’s oldest and most deadly diseases. Smallpox! Just days ago, Mitty was a laid-back teenager, who didn’t care about schoolwork or history. And now he’s fighting for his life, afraid that he is about to subject New York City and the world to an outbreak that could leave millions dead in its wake, especially if the wrong people were to find out his secret.

Cooney writes in a young teen voice that’s not only realistic but fun! Despite the weight of the world on his shoulders, Mitty is funny, charming, and a little self-deprecating. What makes Code Orange stand out from other YA thrillers, is that commitment to well-researched science. Not only does Cooney include a bibliography at the end, but her work was commended by the National Science Teachers Association as an “Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12”. The reader learns all about smallpox and effective ways to research alongside Mitty as he goes on his adventure. Written in 2005, Code Orange is surprisingly still relevant. Mitty’s fear of quarantine and what viruses can do to the body gives an interesting reflection to the COVID-19 pandemic that would come almost 15 years later. And like in the novel, the CDC is still on guard for threats of smallpox bioterrorism. Students and Adult Book Club Groups can compare how Cooney described the spread of the disease through New York City against how it happened in real-time, and discuss what has and hasn’t changed in the past 20 years regarding how we handle illness, internet safety, and the duty to our home.

• Check out the story that inspired Code Orange

If you’re interested in requesting Code Orange for your book club, you can find the Request Form here. There are 23 copies. (A librarian must request items)

Cooney, Caroline B. Code Orange. Random House. 2005