Thanksgiving Holiday Closings

All Rock Island Library buildings will close at 6pm Wednesday, Nov. 27, and remain closed Thursday and Friday, Nov. 28 & 29, for the Thanksgiving holiday. Library2Go routes are also cancelled. 

Stay in touch with our digital services and PrairieCat app! All locations reopen on Saturday, Nov. 20 with normal 10am to 2 pm hours. 

Recommended Reads Books (List)

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When Autumn Falls

Kelli Nidey

As September fades, a new season begins. Leaves and temperatures tumble. And, as autumn falls, new colors and smells gradually replace the heat and intensity that was summer. Vibrant cut-paper illustrations help bring this season to life. Full color.

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Why Is It Fall?

Sara L. Latta

This book explains why we have seasons and when the fall season begins. It also suggests some activities that people do in the fall as well as what animals may do during this season. There is an easy experiment relating to fall included in the back of the book. Author Sara L. Latta creates a fun learning environment about science for emerging readers.

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We're Going on a Leaf Hunt

Steve Metzger

Join three friends on a fun leaf-finding adventure! This bouncy new version of the popular song begs to be read out loud.

There are lots of beautiful fall leaves to find! Three friends have a big adventure hiking over a mountain and through a forest to collect leaves of all kinds and colors. What will they do with all their leaves at the end of the story? Jump and play in them, of course!

With easy rhyming text and fun sound effects, children will delight in this rollicking autumn story.

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Dance Like a Leaf

Aj Irving

As her grandmother's health declines, a young girl begins to lovingly take the lead in their cozy shared autumn traditions. Poetic prose paired with evocative illustrations by Mexican illustrator Claudia Navarro make for a beautiful celebration of life and a gentle introduction to the death of a loved one.

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The Scarecrow

Beth Ferry

All the animals know not to mess with old Scarecrow. But when a small, scared crow falls from midair, Scarecrow does the strangest thing. . . .

Bestselling author Beth Ferry and the widely acclaimed Fan Brothers present this tender and affectionate tale that reminds us of the comforting power of friendship and the joy of helping others.

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Leaves Fall Down

Lisa Bullard

A book about the autumn teaches young readers why leaves change color and looks at some of the fun things that can be done with the leaves after they fall from the trees, such as raking then taking a running leap into the huge pile!

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Hedgehugs: Autumn Hide-and-Squeak

Steve Wilson

Horace and Hattie are hedgehogs and the very best of friends. Together they make shadow puppets, follow slimy snail trails, and search for spider webs. One autumn day they are watching the leaves fall from the trees when they hear a squeak . . . Could it be a new friend to play with?

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That Pup!

Lindsay Barrett George

What is that pup up to?

That pup digs. And digs. And digs some more.

What is that pup looking for? And why should this squirrel care?

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Wonderfall

Michael Hall

This beautiful and informative picture book follows a single tree through the fall season, from the end of summer to winter’s first snowfall. A great read-aloud for home and the classroom by the New York Times–bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo and Red: A Crayon’s Story.

Wonderfall follows a single tree through the changing of the seasons. People, animals, and vehicles pass in front of the tree, celebrating holidays, playing in its leaves, and getting ready for winter. Fifteen combined words (thankful + fall = thankFALL, plentiful + fall = plentiFALL) underscore the themes and concepts of the season, while the main attraction—the beautiful tree—drops acorns, loses leaves, and provides food and a home for a pair of scurrying squirrels. Two full spreads at the back of the book offer additional information about the animals featured in the book, as well as the science behind squirrels, acorns, and saplings.

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Leaves in Fall

Mari C. Schuh

In Leaves in Fall, young readers will discover the changes leaves go through during fall. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage early readers as they learn why leaves drop from trees in fall. A labeled diagram helps readers identify different types of leaves, while a picture glossary reinforces new vocabulary. Children can learn more about leaves online using our safe search engine that provides relevant, age-appropriate websites. Leaves in Fall also features reading tips for teachers and parents, a table of contents, and an index. Leaves in Fall is part of the What Happens in Fall? series.

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It's Fall, Dear Dragon

Margaret Hillert

A boy meets his pet dragon after school to rake and jump in leaves, carve a pumpkin, and enjoy a pretty fall day. This pre-primer book contains high-frequency and sight words. Teacher resources include reading activities to strengthen phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. Beginning Reader with word list.

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When the Leaf Blew In

Steve Metzger

A wonderfully zany story about what happens on a farm when a leaf blows into the barn!

When the leaf blows into the barn,
The cow sneezes "Ah choo!"

And when the cow sneezes "Ah choo!"
The spider falls on top of the owl.

With simple, repetitive text and silly, expressive illustrations, children will fall for this hilarious autumn story about the way one leaf turns an entire barnyard upside down!

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Fall Leaves

Erika L. Shores

Leaves turn red, orange, and yellow. Fall is here! Celebrate the season with this easy-to-read book. Lovely photos and a simple design beautifully support early readers.

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Leaf Jumpers

Carole Gerber

This vibrant poem celebrates the beauty of autumn while inviting us all to go ahead and jump in that big, colorful, pile of fall leaves. Leslie Evan’s bold artwork brings together gold, orange, yellow, red, and brown leaves into a literary pile creating the magic of autumn for young readers. The poetic text gives simple facts about different types of fall leaves making it easy for readers to identify leaves ranging from  red maple to sycamore by color, shape, and other characteristics. Informative and fun, Carole Gerber brings us a wonderful introduction to seasons and science for the earliest of leaf jumpers.

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A Fall Ball for All

Jamie A. Swenson

On the verge of winter, the autumn wind issues an invitation: "Come one, come all to the annual windfall ball!" Join all the animals in this beautifully illustrated rhyming picture book as they gather for the autumn wind's harvest in preparation for the long winter.

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Hello, Fall!

Deborah Diesen

From New York Times–bestselling author Deborah Diesen and illustrator Lucy Fleming, Hello, Fall! is a touching story of the autumn season.

Fall is here! Colorful leaves whisper to each other. Geese honk as they flock across the sky. Pumpkins listen patiently from their patch. The season announces itself in all sorts of ways—if you stop to say hello! A grandfather and his granddaughter welcome fall in this sweet, whimsical story about finding beauty and wonder in every moment.

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Leaves in Fall

Martha E. H. Rustad

Kick off your fall unit by exploring big, beautiful photos of this favorite season. Leaves changing, squirrels gathering nutshelp your readers appreciate all the changes that come with shorter days and heading back to school.

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Mouse's First Fall

Lauren Thompson

Lauren Thompson and Bucket Erdogan show what makes fall so much fun in Classic Board Book edition of Mouse's First Fall!

One cool day Mouse and Minka venture out to play. From leaves of all colors—red, yellow, orange to brown—to leaves of all shapes and sizes—Mouse learns what makes fall such a special season! Before their fun, fall day is over, Mouse takes a big "leap!" Now featuring the newly redesigned Classic Board Book logo, this sturdy book is perfect for little ones learning about the seasons!

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Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn

Kenard Pak

As trees sway in the cool breeze, blue jays head south, and leaves change their colors, everyone knows--autumn is on its way!

Join a young girl as she takes a walk through forest and town, greeting all the signs of the coming season. In a series of conversations with every flower and creature and gust of wind, she says good-bye to summer and welcomes autumn.

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In the Middle of Fall

Kevin Henkes

“This exquisite picture book will inspire youngsters to get outdoors and observe the world around them.”—School Library Journal (starred review)

From Caldecott Medalist and Newbery Honor author Kevin Henkes and acclaimed painter Laura Dronzek, the bestselling and award-winning creators of Birds and When Spring Comes, In the Middle of Fall is perfect for the very youngest readers.

In the middle of fall, it takes only one gust of wind to turn the whole world yellow and red and orange. Caldecott Medalist and award-winning author Kevin Henkes’s striking text introduces basic concepts of language and the unique beauty of the fall season. Laura Dronzek’s expressive paintings illuminate pumpkins, apples, falling leaves, busy squirrels, and the transformation from colorful autumn to frosty winter.

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Deadly Harvest

Michael Stanley

When young girls start to go missing, Samantha, a new detective on the Botswana police force suspects that muti, a traditional African medicine, is the reason. She and Detective David “Kubu” Bengu race to stop a serial killer, all as the father of one of the victims threatens to take matters into his own hands.

Weaving together a thrilling mystery with a fascinating look at modern-day Africa, Deadly Harvest is filled with elements suspense and plot twists that will keep you captivated until the very end.

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Autumn

Ali Smith

Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends - Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984 - look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.

A luminous meditation on the meaning of richness and harvest and worth, Autumn is the first installment of Ali Smith’s "Seasonal Quartet" series, and it casts an eye over our own time: Who are we? What are we made of?

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The Autumn Bride

Anne Gracie

Governess Abigail Chantry will do anything to save her sister and two dearest friends from destitution, even if it means breaking into an empty mansion in the hope of finding something to sell. Instead of treasures, though, she finds the owner, Lady Beatrice Davenham, bedridden and neglected. Appalled, Abby rousts Lady Beatrice's predatory servants and - with Lady Beatrice's eager cooperation - the four young ladies become her "nieces," neatly eliminating the threat of disaster for all concerned!

It's the perfect situation, until Lady Beatrice's dashing and arrogant nephew, Max, Lord Davenham, returns from the Orient - and discovers an impostor running his household. A romantic entanglement was never the plan for these stubborn, passionate opponents - but falling in love may be as inevitable as the falling of autumn leaves...

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Lost Autumn

Mary-Rose MacColl

Australia, 1920. Seventeen-year-old Maddie Bright embarks on the voyage of a lifetime when she's chosen to serve on the cross-continent tour of His Royal Highness, the dashing Edward, Prince of Wales. Life on the royal train is luxurious beyond her dreams, and the glamorous, good-hearted friends she makes - with their romantic histories and rivalries - crack open her world. But glamour often hides all manner of sins.

Decades later, Maddie lives in a ramshackle house in Brisbane, whiling away the days with television news and her devoted, if drunken, next-door neighbor. When a London journalist struggling with her own romantic entanglements begins asking Maddie questions about her relationship to the famous and reclusive author M. A. Bright, she's taken back to the glamorous days of the royal tour - and to the secrets she has kept for all these years.

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Wicked Autumn

G. M. Malliet

Max Tudor has adapted well to his post as vicar of St. Edwold’s in the idyllic village of Nether Monkslip. The quiet village seems the perfect home for Max, who has fled a harrowing past as an MI5 agent. Now he has found a measure of peace among urban escapees and yoga practitioners, artists and crafters and New Agers. But this new-found serenity is quickly shattered when the highly vocal and unpopular president of the Women’s Institute turns up dead at the Harvest Fayre. The death looks like an accident, but Max’s training as a former agent kicks in, and before long he suspects foul play. 

Max has ministered to the community long enough to be familiar with the tangled alliances and animosities among the residents, but this tragedy surprises and confounds him. It is impossible to believe anyone in his lovely village capable of the crime, and yet given the victim, he must acknowledge that almost everyone had probably fantasized about killing Wanda Batton-Smythe. As the investigation unfolds, Max becomes more intricately involved. Memories he’d rather not revisit are stirred, evoking the demons from the past which led him to Nether Monkslip. 

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The Dearly Beloved

Cara Wall

Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They meet in Greenwich Village in 1963 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic Third Presbyterian Church through turbulent times. Their personal differences however, threaten to tear them apart.

Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily—fiercely intellectual, elegantly stern—after she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not?

James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James’s escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life.

In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church’s congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy.

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In the Country We Love

Diane Guerrero

Diane Guerrero, the television actress from the megahit Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just fourteen years old on the day her parents were detained and deported while she was at school. Born in the U.S., Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family.

In the Country We Love is a moving, heartbreaking story of one woman's extraordinary resilience in the face of the nightmarish struggles of undocumented residents in this country. There are over 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US, many of whom have citizen children, whose lives here are just as precarious, and whose stories haven't been told. Written with bestselling author Michelle Burford, this memoir is a tale of personal triumph that also casts a much-needed light on the fears that haunt the daily existence of families likes the author's and on a system that fails them over and over.

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Ordinary Girls

Jaquira Díaz

In this searing memoir, Jaquira Díaz writes fiercely and eloquently of her challenging girlhood and triumphant coming of age.

While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.

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Hola Papi

John Paul Brammer

The first time someone called John Paul (JP) Brammer “Papi” was on the gay hookup app Grindr. At first, it was flattering; JP took this as white-guy speak for “hey, handsome.” But then it happened again and again…and again, leaving JP wondering: Who the hell is Papi?

Soon, this racialized moniker became the inspiration for his now wildly popular advice column “¡Hola Papi!,” launching his career as the Cheryl Strayed for young queer people everywhere—and some straight people too. JP had his doubts at first—what advice could he really offer while he himself stumbled through his early twenties? Sometimes the best advice comes from looking within, which is what JP does in his column and book—and readers have flocked to him for honest, heartfelt wisdom, and more than a few laughs.

In this hilarious, tenderhearted book, JP shares his story of growing up biracial and in the closet in America’s heartland, while attempting to answer some of life’s most challenging questions: How do I let go of the past? How do I become the person I want to be? Is there such a thing as being too gay? Should I hook up with my grade school bully now that he’s out of the closet? Questions we’ve all asked ourselves, surely.

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In the Heights

Lin-Manuel Miranda

In 2008, In the Heights, a new musical from up-and-coming young artists, electrified Broadway. The show’s vibrant mix of Latin music and hip-hop captured life in Washington Heights, the Latino neighborhood in upper Manhattan. It won four Tony Awards and became an international hit, delighting audiences around the world. For the film version, director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) brought the story home, filming its spectacular dance numbers on location in Washington Heights. That’s where Usnavi, Nina, and their neighbors chase their dreams and ask a universal question: Where do I belong?

In the Heights: Finding Home reunites Miranda with Jeremy McCarter, co-author of Hamilton: The Revolution, and Quiara Alegría Hudes, the Pulitzer Prize–winning librettist of the Broadway musical and screenwriter of the film. They do more than trace the making of an unlikely Broadway smash and a major motion picture: They give readers an intimate look at the decades-long creative life of In the Heights.

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Horizontal Vertigo

Juan Villoro

At once intimate and wide-ranging, and as enthralling, surprising, and vivid as the place itself, this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world, and its largest Spanish-speaking city.

Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today - one of the world's leading cultural and financial centers.

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Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States

Felipe Fernández-Armesto

The United States is still typically conceived of as an offshoot of England, with our history unfolding east to west beginning with the first English settlers in Jamestown. This view overlooks the significance of America’s Hispanic past. With the profile of the United States increasingly Hispanic, the importance of recovering the Hispanic dimension to our national story has never been greater.

This absorbing narrative begins with the explorers and conquistadores who planted Spain’s first colonies in Puerto Rico, Florida, and the Southwest. Missionaries and rancheros carry Spain’s expansive impulse into the late eighteenth century, settling California, mapping the American interior to the Rockies, and charting the Pacific coast. During the nineteenth century Anglo-America expands west under the banner of “Manifest Destiny” and consolidates control through war with Mexico. In the Hispanic resurgence that follows, it is the peoples of Latin America who overspread the continent, from the Hispanic heartland in the West to major cities such as Chicago, Miami, New York, and Boston. The United States clearly has a Hispanic present and future.

And here is its Hispanic past, presented with characteristic insight and wit by one of our greatest historians.

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My Beloved World

Sonia Sotomayor

The first Hispanic and third woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor has become an instant American icon. Now, with a candor and intimacy never undertaken by a sitting Justice, she recounts her life from a Bronx housing project to the federal bench, a journey that offers an inspiring testament to her own extraordinary determination and the power of believing in oneself.

Along the way we see how she was shaped by her invaluable mentors, a failed marriage, and the modern version of extended family she has created from cherished friends and their children. Through her still-astonished eyes, America's infinite possibilities are envisioned anew in this warm and honest book, destined to become a classic of self-invention and self-discovery.

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A House of My Own

Sandra Cisneros

From the author of The House on Mango Street, a richly illustrated compilation of true stories and nonfiction pieces that, taken together, form a jigsaw autobiography - an intimate album of a beloved literary legend.

From the Chicago neighborhoods where she grew up and set her groundbreaking The House on Mango Street to her abode in Mexico in a region where "my ancestors lived for centuries," the places Sandra Cisneros has lived have provided inspiration for her now-classic works of fiction and poetry. But a house of her own, where she could truly take root, has eluded her. With this collection - spanning three decades, and including never-before-published work - Cisneros has come home at last.

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App Kid

Michael Sayman

As his parents watched their restaurant business collapse in the wake of the Great Recession, Michael Sayman was googling "how to code." Within a year, he had launched an iPhone app that was raking in thousands of dollars a month, enough to keep his family afloat - and in America.

Entirely self-taught, Sayman headed from high school straight into the professional world, and by the time he was seventeen, he was Facebook's youngest employee ever, building new features that wowed its founder Mark Zuckerberg and are now being used by more than half a billion people every day. Sayman pushed Facebook to build its own version of Snapchat's Stories and, as a result, engagement on the platform soared across all demographics. Millions of Gen Z and Millennials flocked to Facebook, and as teen engagement rose dramatically on Instagram and WhatsApp, Snapchat's parent company suffered a billion-dollar loss in value. Three years later, Sayman jumped ship for Google.

App Kid is the galvanizing story of a young Latino, not yet old enough to drink, who excelled in the cutthroat world of Silicon Valley and went on to become an inspiration to thousands of kids everywhere by following his own surprising, extraordinary path. 

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Trejo

Danny Trejo

On screen, Danny Trejo the actor is a baddie who has been killed at least a hundred times. He’s been shot, stabbed, hanged, chopped up, squished by an elevator, and once, was even melted into a bloody goo. Off screen, he’s a hero beloved by recovery communities and obsessed fans alike. But the real Danny Trejo is much more complicated than the legend.

Raised in an abusive home, Danny struggled with heroin addiction and stints in some of the country’s most notorious state prisons—including San Quentin and Folsom—from an early age, before starring in such modern classics as Heat, From Dusk till Dawn, and Machete. Now, in this funny, painful, and suspenseful memoir, Danny takes us through the incredible ups and downs of his life, including meeting one of the world’s most notorious serial killers in prison and working with legends like Charles Bronson and Robert De Niro.

Redemptive and painful, poignant and real, Trejo is a portrait of a magnificent life and an unforgettable and exceptional journey.

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The Book of Unknown Americans

Cristina Henríquez

Arturo and Alma Rivera have lived their whole lives in Mexico. One day, their beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Maribel, sustains a terrible injury, one that casts doubt on whether she'll ever be the same. And so, leaving all they have behind, the Riveras come to America with a single dream: that in this country of great opportunity and resources, Maribel can get better.

When Mayor Toro, whose family is from Panama, sees Maribel in a Dollar Tree store, it is love at first sight. It's also the beginning of a friendship between the Rivera and Toro families, whose web of guilt and love and responsibility is at this novel's core.

Woven into their stories are the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America. Their journeys and their voices will inspire you, surprise you, and break your heart.

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Next Year in Havana

Chanel Cleeton

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest - until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary.

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth.

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

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I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Erika L. Sánchez

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents' house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.

But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga's role.

Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.

But it's not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister's story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?

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Mexican WhiteBoy

Matt de la Peña

Danny's tall and skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. A 95 mph fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound he loses it.

But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny’s brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico. And that’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. Only, to find himself, he might just have to face the demons he refuses to see right in front of his face.

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Sanctuary

Paola Mendoza

It's 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped and everyone is tracked--from buses to grocery stores. It's almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that's exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali's mother's counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.

Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna's in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali's mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it's too late.

Gripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.

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The Poet X

Elizabeth Acevedo

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers—especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about.

With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.

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The Hacienda

Isabel Cañas

During the overthrow of the Mexican government, Beatriz's father was executed and her home destroyed. When handsome Don Rodolfo Solórzano proposes, Beatriz ignores the rumors surrounding his first wife's sudden demise, choosing instead to seize the security that his estate in the countryside provides. She will have her own home again, no matter the cost.

But Hacienda San Isidro is not the sanctuary she imagined.

When Rodolfo returns to work in the capital, visions and voices invade Beatriz's sleep. The weight of invisible eyes follows her every move. Rodolfo's sister, Juana, scoffs at Beatriz's fears - but why does she refuse to enter the house at night? Why does the cook burn copal incense at the edge of the kitchen and mark the doorway with strange symbols? What really happened to the first Doña Solórzano? Beatriz only knows two things for certain: Something is wrong with the hacienda. And no one there will save her.

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Woman of Light

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

There is one every generation, a seer who keeps the stories.

Luz “Little Light” Lopez, a tea leaf reader and laundress, is left to fend for herself after her older brother, Diego, a snake charmer and factory worker, is run out of town by a violent white mob. As Luz navigates 1930s Denver, she begins to have visions that transport her to her Indigenous homeland in the nearby Lost Territory. Luz recollects her ancestors’ origins, how her family flourished, and how they were threatened. She bears witness to the sinister forces that have devastated her people and their homelands for generations. In the end, it is up to Luz to save her family stories from disappearing into oblivion.

Written in Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s singular voice, the wildly entertaining and complex lives of the Lopez family fill the pages of this multigenerational western saga. Woman of Light is a transfixing novel about survival, family secrets, and love—filled with an unforgettable cast of characters, all of whom are just as special, memorable, and complicated as our beloved heroine, Luz.

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Love in the Time of Cholera

Gabriel García Márquez

In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry a wealthy, well-born doctor, Florentino is devastated, but he is a romantic. As he rises in his business career he whiles away the years in 622 affairs - yet he reserves his heart for Fermina. Her husband dies at last, and Florentino purposefully attends the funeral. Fifty years, nine months, and four days after he first declared his love for Fermina, he will do so again.

With humorous sagacity and consummate craft, García Márquez traces an exceptional half-century story of unrequited love. Though it seems never to be conveniently contained, love flows through the novel in many wonderful guises - joyful, melancholy, enriching, ever surprising.

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Lost Children Archive

Valeria Luiselli

A mother and father set out with their two children, a boy and a girl, driving from New York to Arizona in the heat of summer. Their destination: Apacheria, the place the Apaches once called home.

In their car, they play games and sing along to music. But on the radio, there is news about an "immigration crisis": thousands of kids trying to cross the southwestern border into the United States, but getting detained - or lost in the desert along the way.

As the family drives - through Virginia to Tennessee, across Oklahoma and Texas - we sense they are on the brink of a crisis of their own. A fissure is growing between the parents, one the children can almost feel beneath their feet. They are led, inexorably, to a grand, harrowing adventure - both in the desert landscape and within the chambers of their own imaginations.

Told through several compelling voices, blending texts, sounds, and images, Lost Children Archive is an astonishing feat of literary virtuosity. It is a richly engaging story of how we document our experiences, and how we remember the things that matter to us the most. With urgency and empathy, it takes us deep into the lives of one remarkable family as it probes the nature of justice and equality today.

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A Long Petal of the Sea

Isabel Allende

In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.

Together with two thousand other refugees, Roser and Victor embark on the SS Winnipeg, a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda, to Chile: "the long petal of sea and wine and snow." As unlikely partners, the couple embraces exile as the rest of Europe erupts in world war. Starting over on a new continent, they face trial after trial, but they will also find joy as they patiently await the day when they might go home. Through it all, their hope of returning to Spain keeps them going. Destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world, Roser and Victor will find that home might have been closer than they thought all along.

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At the Apple Orchard

Sophie Geister-Jones

This title invites readers to discover what's fun and unique about an apple orchard. Simple text, engaging pictures, and a photo glossary make this title the perfect introduction to an apple orchard field trip.

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Green Apples

Tora Stephenchel

A simple story about green apples, what they look like, and how they grow. This story helps readers learn the words green, and apples. Bright pictures provide visual cues to help the reader. Additional features include a word list, an introduction to the author, and a letter to caregivers and educators.

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Adding Apples

Nick Rebman

This book guides young readers through the process of adding. With simple text and closely matching pictures, this title is perfect for beginning readers.

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A Is for Apple

Meg Gaertner

This fun book introduces readers to several words that start with the letter A. Vibrant photos closely match the text to build vocabulary. The book also includes a table of contents, a picture glossary, and an index. This Little Blue Readers title is at Level 1, aligned to reading levels of grades PreK-1 and interest levels of grades PreK-2.

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Watch an Apple Grow

Kirsten Chang

"In Watch an Apple Grow, early fluent readers learn how apples grow. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage young readers as they learn about how this delicious fruit is grown and harvested."--Amazon.com.

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Apple Orchard

Adeline J. Zimmerman

Apple Orchard takes emergent readers on a trip to the apple orchard while providing them with a supportive first nonfiction reading experience. Carefully crafted text uses high-frequency words, repetitive sentence patterns, and strong visual references to support emergent readers, making sure they aren't facing too many challenges at once.

Apple Orchard includes Tools for Teachers and Caregivers and a Let's Review! question and image, as well as introductory nonfiction features such as labels, a table of contents, words to know, and an index.

Apple Orchard is part of Jump!'s Around Town series.

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Apple Harvest

Jenna Lee Gleisner

Engage readers with the story of a trip to the apple orchard. Readers are introduced to the harvesting of apples in fall, such as picking, and making apples into their favorite treats. Additional features include a table of contents, phonetic glossary, index, and sources for further research. A kid-friendly project inspires creativity and hands-on fun.

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Apples

Jacqueline Farmer

Today, the average American consumes about sixty-five fresh apples each year. Where do so many apples come from? How do they grow? Jacqueline Farmer takes young readers on a field trip to the apple orchard to find out how apple growers turn seeds and seedlings into the many different varieties of America's favorite fruit. Recipes, trivia, and fun facts included.

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The Apple Tree's Discovery

Peninnah Schram

A little apple tree in a forest of oaks begs God for stars like those glimmering on the branches of the great oak trees beside her. As the seasons pass, she learns to appreciate her own gifts and realizes that it's possible to find a star in each of us.

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Johnny Appleseed: My Story

David L. Harrison

Johnny Appleseed was an important historical figure, well known for planting apple orchards across the new frontier. But he was also a master storyteller! In his own folksy voice, Johnny Appleseed tells his story to a couple of entranced children in this fictionalized Step 2 title. Readers learn how he started planting apple trees—and about some of the myths and true stories of his life.

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Apple of My Pie

Mika Song

Join troublemaking squirrels Norma and Belly on more delicious adventures in the sequel to the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Donut Feed the Squirrels, the perfect next-read for fans of Narwhal & Jelly!

When local park fixture (and spy-master) Pops gets squirrel-napped, it's up to Norma, Belly, and their friend little B to save him! This time, their adventure takes them out of the park--and into the uncharted territory of . . . the local apple orchard.

Where can Pops be? Will this adventure end in tragedy . . . or in apple pie? Or both? With these best friends on the case, you never know what's coming next--but you can be sure there will be friends and delicious foods along the way.


I'm nuts for these sweet and silly squirrels. -- Ben Clanton, author of Narwhal and Jelly

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Apples Grow on Trees

Anne Rooney

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" Yes! This healthy series from QED teaches young readers the benefits of eating fruit and vegetables, and advises how to grow your own.

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Fancy Nancy: Apples Galore!

Jane O'Connor

Join Fancy Nancy on the perfect fall field trip—to the apple orchard. Fall is an extra-fancy season. Even the trees wear fancy colors! Nancy is determined to find a perfect Gala apple for her dad—it’s his favorite kind, and even the name sounds fancy. But what if the perfect apple is just out of reach?

Fans of Fancy Nancy will delight in this festive fall adventure story about a class trip to the apple orchard. Fancy Nancy: Apples Galore! is a Level One I Can Read book, which means it’s perfect for children learning to sound out words and sentences.

 

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Aaron Loves Apples and Pumpkins

P. D. Eastman

It's autumn in this Step 1 Step into Reading early reader by P. D. Eastman, author of Go, Dog. Go! and Are You My Mother? As Aaron the Alligator's thoughts turn to apples, pumpkins, football, and . . . ghosts, his usual mishaps occur while playing outdoors with his friends. Young readers will giggle along as they tackle the simple words and sentences all on their own. Aaron the Alligator is also a star of The Cat in the Hat Beginner Book Dictionary and a long out-of-print series called Everything Happens to Aaron, the basis for this book. Look for more of Aaron's Step into Reading escapades: Aaron Is a Good Sport, Aaron Has a Lazy Day, and Aaron Is Cool.

Step 1 Readers feature big type and easy words for children who know the alphabet and are eager to begin reading. Rhyme and rhythmic text paired with picture clues help children decode the story.

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Johnny Appleseed

Steven Kellogg

The larger-than-life story of a true American hero -- John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. Kellogg "is ideal as interpreter of this fascinating man....[His] color has never been so rich and luxuriant....An affectionate portrayal, enthusiastically accomplished." -- Booklist.

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Apples, Apples Everywhere!

Robin Koontz

Autumn is apple harvest time. Come along on a trip to the apple orchard. Find out how apples are picked and stored. Learn which apples are best for munching. But watch out for the apple worms!

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One Red Apple

Harriet Ziefert

Follow the life cycle of an apple: from fruit growing on the tree to market, to picnic, to seed, to sapling and tree, and finally to a new apple. This simple, joyful book with radiant illustrations introduces readers to the amazing and delectable way the earth provides food.

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Found an Apple

Harriet Ziefert

Found an apple, found an apple, found an apple last night...This variation on a popular novelty song will have kids (and their parents) singing a happy tune. Bright, cheerful pictures by Elliot Kreloff (Fish Wish, No More TV, Sleepy Cat) add to the fun.

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Apples in Fall

Mari Schuh

In Apples in Fall, emergent readers will learn how apples grow. Vibrant, full-color photos and carefully leveled text will engage young readers as they discover the foods people make with apples during the fall. A labeled diagram helps readers identify different parts of an apple, while a picture glossary reinforces new vocabulary. Children can learn more about apples online using our safe search engine that provides relevant, age-appropriate websites. Apples in Fall also features reading tips for teachers and parents, a table of contents, and an index. Apples in Fall is part of the What Happens in Fall? series.

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Apples and Robins

Lucie Felix

All you need for apples . . . are circles and the color red. In this extraordinary book, one thing transforms into another as each page turns—a circle becomes an apple, an oval becomes a bird, winter becomes spring. Constantly surprising and brilliantly constructed, Lucie Félix's Apples and Robins is full of the magic of shape, color, and imagination. All you need to do . . . is turn the page.

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Apples for Everyone

Jill Esbaum

Apples for Everyone is a new picture book in the Picture the Seasons series that the whole family can enjoy. This attractive and educational companion to the best-selling titles A Tree for All Seasons and Pilgrims of Plymouth features stunning National Geographic photography and a stimulating, accessible text.

Apples! The very word conjures up images of fall: ripe red apples falling off the tree as the leaves begin their glorious extravaganza of color change; baskets of gathered fruits at the foot of laddered orchards; the rich aroma of an apple-pie cooling. As school starts again, an apple for the teacher is a time-honored tradition. Apples are coated in candy or caramel to celebrate the end-of-year holidays. They are crushed into cider to keep us warm around a fire as summer slips away and the first hint of frost chills the darkening nights. In this beautifully produced book, apples are more than just fruit, they are iconic of everything fall.

Apples for Everyone is a seasonal treasure that will help to shape a National Geographic view of the world for young readers. This delightful look at the fruit of fall is sure to inspire a rich appreciation of all things autumnal.

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Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie

Robbin Gourley

Long before the natural-food movement gained popularity, before greenmarkets sprouted across the United States, Edna Lewis championed purity of ingredients, regional cuisine, and the importance of bringing food directly from the farm to the table. She was a chef when female chefs---let alone African American female chefs---were few and far between, and she received many awards for her work. With lyrical text and glorious watercolor illustrations, author/illustrator Robbin Gourley lovingly traces the childhood roots of Edna's appreciation for the bounties of nature. The story follows Edna from early spring through the growing season to a family dinner celebrating a successful harvest. Folk rhymes, sayings, and songs about food are sprinkled throughout the text, and five kid-friendly recipes and an author's note about Edna's life are included at the end.
 

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Apples and Pumpkins

Anne Rockwell

In an updated version of a perennial backlist favorite that revolves around such integral elements of autumn as apples, pumpkins and Halloween, a little girl and her parents visit Comstock Farm, where they enjoy a glorious fall day picking the fruits of the season.

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Apples

Gail Gibbons

Find out where your favorite crunchy, refreshing fruit comes from in this snack-sized book.
 
Apples come in all shapes and sizes from all over the world. Take a bite and chew on months of planting, growing, picking, and selling that bring this tasty fruit into the home. With deliciously bright, detailed images and a simple text, Apples is the perfect board book for small curious hands who are still new to the crisp comfort of autumn.

Gail Gibbons, a dedicated explorer of the world on behalf of curious young readers, uncovers and educates young audiences with board books on everything from Pumpkins to Bicycles to Boats.
Readers ages 4-8 will also enjoy the newly-updated picture book version of Apples, which includes even more delectable details, diagrams, and vocabulary.

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Ten Apples Up on Top

Theo Lesieg

Three friends balance counting and fun in this silly Beginner Book by Dr. Seuss and illustrated by Roy McKie. When a lion, a dog, and a tiger meet up, they soon discover that they can each do different things while balancing apples on their heads. Whether drinking milk, jumping rope, or roller-skating, they can do a lot with ten apples up on top! But watch out, she has a mop! She'll knock those apples from up on top. Seuss's apple-balancing characters will have youngsters reading, counting, and giggling!
Originally created by Dr. Seuss, Beginner Books encourage children to read all by themselves, with simple words and illustrations that give clues to their meaning.
"A hilarious story in rhyme about a number of animals who could carry 10 apples on their heads."--"Elementary English. "

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The Second Life of Tiger Woods

Michael Bamberger

Tiger Woods’s long descent into a personal and professional hell reached bottom in the early hours of Memorial Day in 2017. Woods’s DUI arrest that night came on the heels of a desperate spinal surgery, just weeks after he told close friends he might never play tournament golf again. His mug shot and alarming arrest video were painful to look at and, for Woods, a deep humiliation. The former paragon of discipline now found himself hopelessly lost and out of control, exposed for all the world to see. That episode could have marked the beginning of Tiger’s end. It proved to be the opposite.

Instead of sinking beneath the public disgrace of drug abuse and the private despair of a battered and ailing body, Woods embarked on the long road to redeeming himself. In The Second Life of Tiger Woods, Michael Bamberger, who has covered Woods since the golfer was an amateur, draws upon his deep network of sources inside locker rooms, caddie yards, clubhouses, fitness trailers, and back offices to tell the true and inspiring story of the legend’s return. Packed with new information and graced by insight, Bamberger’s story reveals how this iconic athlete clawed his way back to the top.

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Slaying the Tiger

Shane Ryan

For more than a decade, golf was dominated by one galvanizing figure: Eldrick "Tiger" Woods. But as his star has fallen, a new, ambitious generation has stepped up to claim the crown. Once the domain of veterans, golf saw a youth revolution in 2014. In Slaying the Tiger, Shane Ryan introduces us to the volatile, colorful crop of heirs apparent who are storming the barricades of this traditionally old-fashioned sport.

Here are indelibly drawn profiles of the game's young guns: Rory McIlroy, the Northern Irish ace who stepped forward as the game's next superstar; Patrick Reed, a brash, boastful competitor with a warrior's mentality; Dustin Johnson, the brilliant natural talent whose private habits sabotage his potential; and Jason Day, a resilient Aussie whose hardscrabble beginnings make him the Tour's ultimate longshot. Here also is the bumptious Bubba Watson, a devout Christian known for his unsportsmanlike outbursts on the golf course; Keegan Bradley, a flinty New Englander who plays with a colossal chip on his shoulder; twenty-one-year-old Jordan Spieth, a preternaturally mature Texan carrying the hopes of the golf establishment; and Rickie Fowler, the humble California kid striving to make his golf speak louder than his bright orange clothes.

Bound by their talent, each one hungrier than the last, these players will vie over the coming decade for the right to be called the next king of the game. Golf may be slow to change, but in 2014, the wheels were turning at a feverish pace. Slaying the Tiger offers a dynamic snapshot of a rapidly evolving sport.

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My Family and Other Hazards

June Melby

A funny, heartwarming memoir about saying goodbye to your childhood home, in this case a quirky, one-of-a-kind, family-run miniature golf course in the woods of Wisconsin.

When June Melby was ten years old, her parents decided on a whim to buy the miniature golf course in the small Wisconsin town where they vacationed every summer. Without any business experience or outside employees, the family sets out to open Tom Thumb Miniature Golf to the public. Naturally, there are bumps along the way. In My Family and Other Hazards, Melby recreates all the squabbling, confusion, and ultimately triumph, of one family's quest to build something together, and brings to life the joys of one of America's favorite pastimes. In sharp, funny prose, we get the hazards that taunted players at each hole, and the dedication and hard work that went into each one's creation. All the familiar delights of summer are here - snowcones and popcorn and long days spent with people you love.

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True Links

George Peper

The most challenging, most invigorating holes a golfer can tackle. Playing on a links - which is golf the way it should be played - is every golfer's dream. But among serious golfers, there is also controversy. What constitutes a true links course? How many of the world's 30,000 golf courses are links? Which country has the most? Is it possible to build one today? In this beautiful book, George Peper and Malcolm Campbell, two writers who know golf inside and out, answer these questions and provide a concise and entertaining tour of the world's best links courses.

After profiling St. Andrews - the links that is the birthplace of the game - and 50 other classic links in the British Isles, the authors visit the courses in other parts of the world. They also examine how links design has become hot again, thanks to a revival of British-style course architecture and the fact that they're more eco-friendly than traditional courses. Throughout, esteemed golf photographer Iain Lowe's gorgeous images show the world's best 246 links in all their glory.

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A Life Well Played

Arnold Palmer

This book is Palmer’s parting gift to the world - a treasure trove of entertaining anecdotes and timeless wisdom that readers, golfers and non-golfers alike, will celebrate and cherish. No one has won more fans around the world and no player has had a bigger impact on the sport of golf than Arnold Palmer. In fact, Palmer is considered by many to be the most important professional golfer in history, an American icon.

In A Life Well Played, Palmer takes stock of the many experiences of his life, bringing new details and insights to some familiar stories and sharing new ones. This book is for Arnie's Army and all golf fans but it is more than just a golf book; Palmer had tremendous success off the course as well and is most notable for his exemplary sportsmanship and business success, while always giving back to the fans who made it all possible. Gracious, fair, and a true gentleman, "Arnie" was the gold standard of how to conduct yourself in your career, life, and relationships. Perfect for men and women of all ages, his final book offers advice and guidance, sharing personal stories of his career on the course, success in business, and the great relationships that gave meaning to his life.

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Moment of Glory

John Feinstein

After winning 6 of the 12 Majors from 2000 to 2002, Tiger Woods struggled in 2003. Four unknown players would seize the day, rising to become champions in his wake. Mike Weir - considered a good golfer but not a great one - triumphed in The Masters, becoming the first Canadian to win a Major. Jim Furyk emerged victorious in the U.S. Open. In the British Open, Ben Curtis became the only player since Francis Ouimet in 1913 to prevail on his first time out, and Shaun Micheel came from nowhere to prevail at the PGA Championship. How does one moment of glory affect the unsung underdog for years to follow?


Feinstein chronicles the champions' ups and downs, giving readers an insider's look into how victory (and defeat) can change players' lives.

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Bad Lies

Charles Lindsay

In Bad Lies, golf's wittiest observer, photographer Charles Lindsay, celebrates the hazards and pitfalls of the game. Lindsay stakes out the diabolic border territories that encroach on golf courses - moon-crater bunkers, waist-high fescue grass, murky lake bottoms - to capture the unbelievable my-ball-went-where? moments that make the game so infuriating and so addictive for so many.

This hilarious follow-up to Lindsay's popular Lost Balls features inspired and gorgeous color photographs, plus larger-than-life pictures of some of the world's rarest - and oddest - golf balls. Texts include a foreword by outspoken golf commentator Gary McCord, definitions of the game's offbeat terminology, and a meditation on the golf ball and the immortal soul.

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The Big Miss

Hank Haney

The Big Miss is Hank Haney's candid and surprisingly insightful account of his tumultuous six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. He was with Tiger 110 days a year, spoke to him over 200 days a year, and stayed at his home up to 30 days a year, observing him in nearly every circumstance: at tournaments, on the practice range, over meals, with his wife, Elin, and relaxing with friends.

What Hank soon came to appreciate was that Tiger was one of the most complicated individuals he'd ever met, let alone coached. Although Hank had worked with hundreds of elite golfers and was not easily impressed, there were days watching Tiger on the range when Hank couldn't believe what he was witnessing. On those days, it was impossible to imagine another human playing golf so perfectly.

And yet Tiger is human - and Hank's expert eye was adept at spotting where Tiger's perfection ended and an opportunity for improvement existed. Always haunting Tiger was his fear of “the big miss” - the wildly inaccurate golf shot that can ruin an otherwise solid round - and it was because that type of blunder was sometimes part of Tiger's game that Hank carefully redesigned his swing mechanics.

There's never been a book about Tiger Woods that is as intimate and revealing - or one so wise about what it takes to coach a superstar athlete.

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On Par

Bill Pennington

Bill Pennington, author of the beloved and widely read "On Par" golf column for the New York Times, knows how to interpret the experts and pros for the rest of us. For years, he has traveled the globe in search of golf's essentials - those basic principles, those elusive truths (and who are we kidding, any trick or quick fix he can pick up along the way) that will improve anyone's game. He has consulted the world's leading golf instructors as well as countless caddies, groundskeepers, parking lot attendants, and bartenders. He has played rounds with Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam, and Justin Timberlake. He has sought the advice of psychiatrists, physicists, economists, zen masters. And on a particularly bad golf outing, he has even discussed the fickleness of golf with a quite helpful raccoon.

On Par captures it all: From equipment and instruction, to the rules and language of golf, to camaraderie and psychology, to the short game/long game debate, Pennington informs and entertains as he gets to the essence of this mercurial game, including golf's holy grail, the hole in one.

Part instruction, part education, part therapy, and shot through with Pennington's trademark wit, this is a book for everyone who has ever felt the game's distinct pull - and slice.

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An American Caddie in St. Andrews

Oliver Horovitz

A hilarious and poignant memoir of a Harvard student who comes of age as a caddie on St. Andrews's fabled Old Course.

In the middle of Oliver Horovitz's high school graduation ceremony, his cell phone rang: It was Harvard. He'd been accepted, but he couldn't start for another year.

A caddie since he was twelve and a golfer sporting a 1.8 handicap, Ollie decides to spend his gap year in St. Andrews, Scotland - a town with the U.K.'s highest number of pubs per capita, and home to the Old Course, golf 's most famous eighteen holes - where he enrolls in the St. Andrews Links Trust caddie trainee program. Initially, the notoriously brusque veteran caddies treat Ollie like a bug. But after a year of waking up at 4:30 A.M. every morning and looping two rounds a day, Ollie earns their grudging respect - only to have to pack up and leave for Harvard.

There, Ollie's new classmates are the sons of Albania's UN ambassador, the owner of Heineken, and the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Surrounded by sixth generation legacies, he feels like a fish out of water all over again and can't wait to get back to St. Andrews. Even after graduation, when his college friends rush to Wall Street, Horovitz continues to return each summer to caddie on the Old Course.

A hilarious, irresistible, behind-the-scenes peek at the world's most celebrated golf course - and its equally famous caddie shack - An American Caddie in St. Andrews is certain to not only entertain golfers and fans of St. Andrews but also anyone who dares to remember stumbling into adulthood and finding one's place in the world.

 

 

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Own Your Game

Dave Stockton

Credited with transforming the short games of world-class golfers like Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Annika Sorenstam, and Yani Tseng, Dave Stockton is one of the most sought-after coaches in golf. Yet Stockton’s natural abilities are more like the average player’s than those of most tour superstars. Not particularly long off the tee and average in terms of ballstriking, Stockton has won multiple major championships through a willingness to set his ego aside and analyze his game objectively - precisely what make him so effective as an instructor. The hallmark of Stockton’s coaching is the idea that “trying doesn’t work.” He shows students how to get out of their own way and let their subconscious take over.
 
In Own Your Game, Stockton recreates the experience of riding eighteen holes with him at one of his highly sought-after corporate outings. He explains how any player can learn to use his or her mind effectively - both in the microcosm of the shot at hand and in plotting a way through a round. Amateur golfers are tired of trying to imitate the swings of the pros - to mostly disastrous results. Stockton gives players the tools and the freedom to play better with the swing they currently have. Portable, conversational, practical - and complete with a mini-guide to playing business golf with colleagues and clients - Own Your Game shows how players at all levels can master the all-important mental game.

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The Magnificent Masters

Gil Capps

The 1975 Masters Tournament always seemed destined for the record books. A veritable Hall of Fame list of competitors had gathered that spring in Augusta, Georgia, for the game's most famous event, including Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, Billy Casper, and Sam Snead. The lead-up had been dominated by Lee Elder, the first black golfer ever invited to the exclusive club's tourney. But by the weekend, the tournament turned into a showdown between the three heavyweights of the time: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, and Tom Weiskopf. Never before had golf's top three players of the moment summoned the best golf of their lives in the same major championship. Their back-and-forth battle would rivet the sporting world and dramatically culminate in one of the greatest finishes in golf history.

In The Magnificent Masters, Gil Capps, a twenty-two-year veteran of the golf industry with NBC Sports and Golf Channel, recaptures hole-by-hole the thrilling drama of this singular event during golf's golden era, from the media-crazed build-up and intertwined careers of the three combatants to the tournament's final dramatic putts that would change the game of golf forever.

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Men in Green

Michael Bamberger

Was golf better back in the day?

In Men in Green, Michael Bamberger, who fell for the game as a teenager in its wild Sansabelt-and-persimmon 1970s heyday, goes on a quest to find out. The result is a candid, nostalgic, intimate portrait of golf’s greatest generation - then and now - that readers will cherish.

One night in a Chicago restaurant, drunk on chocolate and with the siren song of the road in his head, Bamberger draws up a list of golf heroes. Nine are living legends, like Arnold and Jack. Nine are secret legends, like Dolphus “Golf Ball” Hull, a windblown tour caddie from Jackson, Mississippi. What they all share is a game that courses through their collective veins like a drug.

Accompanied by a sidekick and friend, a former tour player who is a secret legend himself, Bamberger seeks to locate and get to know these luminaries. All the while, he is hopeful they will answer a certain difficult question: When and where were you happiest?

In their travels, these detectives from the Golf Division uncover life and death, sickness and health, unusual marriages and unlikely friendships, trophies lost and won, comic tales from lives lived on the road, lost loves and second chances, and a cheating scandal that reveals volumes about an icon in their midst. They take us from Arnold Palmer’s private warehouse in Latrobe, Pennsylvania to the twelfth green at Augusta National to a trailer park in Northern California, where an aging tour beauty lives alone with her memories of high times and bright lights. Men in Green time-travels to forgotten places in a lost world.

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Harvey Penick

Kevin Robbins

The first-ever biography of the iconic and beloved golf coach who caddied for Francis Ouimet, played with Ben Hogan, competed against Bobby Jones, shaped Ben Crenshaw, and distilled his golf wisdom into the Little Red Book, granting simplicity to a vexing yet beloved sport.

Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a sports classic that went on to become the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.

In Harvey Penick, Kevin Robbinstells the story of this legendary steward of the game. From his first job as a caddie at age eight to his ascendance to head golf pro at the esteemed Austin Country Club to his playing days when he competed with Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen to his mentorship of some of golf s finest players, Penick studied every nuance of the game. Along the way, he scribbled his observations and anecdotes, tips and tricks, and genuine love of the sport in his little red book, which ultimately became a gift to golfers everywhere.

Part elegy to golf s greatest teacher, part inquiry into his simple, impactful teachings, part history of golf over the past century, Harvey Penick is an exquisitely written sports biography.

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Golf's Holy War

Brett Cyrgalis

The world of golf is at a crossroads. As tech­nological innovations displace traditional philosophies, the golfing community has splintered into two deeply combative factions: the old-school teachers and players who believe in feel, artistry, and imagination, and the technical minded who want to remake the game around data. In Golf’s Holy War, Brett Cyrgalis takes readers inside the heated battle playing out from weekend hackers to PGA Tour pros.

At the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside, California, golfers clad in full-body sensors target weaknesses in their biomechanics, while others take part in mental exercises designed to test their brain’s psychological resilience. Meanwhile, coaches like Michael Hebron purge golfers of all technical infor­mation, tapping into the power of intuitive physical learning by playing rudimentary games. From historic St. Andrews to manicured Augusta, experimental com­munes in California to corporatized conferences in Orlando, William James to Ben Hogan to theoretical physics, the factions of the spiritual and technical push to redefine the boundaries of the game. And yet what does it say that Tiger Woods has orchestrated one of the greatest comebacks in sports history without the aid of a formal coach?

But Golf’s Holy War is more than just a book about golf - it’s a story about modern life and how we are torn between resisting and embracing the changes brought about by the advancements of science and technology. It’s also an exploration of historical legacies, the enriching bonds of education, and the many interpretations of reality.

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The Cup They Couldn't Lose

Shane Ryan

The definitive story of the Ryder Cup--the event that pits the best golfers from America against the best from Europe--exploring the modern history of the tournament that led to the showdown at Whistling Straits in 2021.

The task facing Steve Stricker at the 2021 Ryder Cup was enormous. It was his job, as the American captain, to stare down almost 40 years of Ryder Cup history, break a pattern of home losses that had persisted almost as long, and reverse the tide of European dominance in one of golf's most tense and emotional events. This was the epitome of a must-win, but it was also something more--in the entire 93-year history of the event, no American side had ever faced this kind of pressure. Starting on the morning of September 24, those 12 players competed not just for a Cup, or for pride, but to save the reputation of the U.S. team itself.

The great mystery of the Ryder Cup is that America loses despite having superior individual talent. The European renaissance began in the 1980s, led by the brilliant Tony Jacklin and Seve Ballesteros, and since then, the U.S. has suffered a slew of embarrassing defeats abroad and at home. The signs in 2021 weren't good: Tiger Woods was out after his horrific car crash, Patrick Reed ("Captain America," to his supporters) was hospitalized with double pneumonia weeks before the event, and America had to rely on its rising stars--including Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, who spent most of the year immersed in an escalating feud--to prove their mettle. Meanwhile, the European team had a few major stars of its own, like Jon Rahm, the world no. 1 and the first Spanish player ever to win the U.S. Open, and Rory McIlroy, the four-time major winner. Throw in the complications of a global pandemic, and the stage was set for one of the strangest Ryder Cups ever.

Following the drama in Wisconsin while deconstructing the rich history of the tournament, The Cup They Couldn't Lose tells the story of how the U.S. defeated Europe in record fashion, restored their status as golf's global superpower, and transformed their entire way of thinking in order to truly understand the nature of the Ryder Cup.

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Tell Me an Ending

Jo Harkin

What if you didn’t have to live with your worst memories?

Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever.

Finn, an Irish architect living in the Arizona desert, begins to suspect his charming wife of having an affair. Mei, a troubled grad school dropout in Kuala Lumpur, wonders why she remembers a city she has never visited. William, a former police inspector in England, struggles with PTSD, the breakdown of his marriage, and his own secret family history. Oscar, a handsome young man with almost no memories at all, travels the world in a constant state of fear.

Into these characters’ lives comes Noor, a psychologist working at the Nepenthe memory removal clinic in London. The process of reinstating patients’ memories begins to shake the moral foundations of her world. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.

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A River Enchanted

Rebecca Ross

A sparkling debut fantasy with Celtic tones set on the magical isle of Cadence where two childhood enemies must team up to discover why girls are going missing from their clan.

Enchantments run deep on the magical Isle of Cadence.

The capricious spirits that live there find mirth in the lives of the humans who call the land home, but that mischief turns to malevolence as girls begin to go missing.

Adaira, heiress of the east, knows the spirits only answer to a bard's music, enticing them to return the missing girls. But there's only one bard capable of drawing the spirits forth by song: her childhood enemy, Jack Tamerlaine.

He hasn't stepped foot on Cadence in ten long years, content to study music at the Mainland university. But as Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than first thought and an older, darker secret lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.

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Light Years from Home

Mike Chen

Every family has issues. Most can't blame them on extraterrestrials.

Evie Shao and her sister, Kass, aren't on speaking terms. Fifteen years ago on a family camping trip, their father and brother vanished. Their dad turned up days later, dehydrated and confused - and convinced he'd been abducted by aliens. Their brother, Jakob, remained missing. The women dealt with it very differently. Kass, suspecting her college-dropout twin simply ran off, became the rock of the family. Evie traded academics to pursue alien conspiracy theories, always looking for Jakob.

When Evie's UFO network uncovers a new event, she goes to investigate. And discovers Jakob is back. He's different - older, stranger, and talking of an intergalactic war - but the tensions between the siblings haven't changed at all. If the family is going to come together to help Jakob, then Kass and Evie are going to have to fix their issues, and fast. Because the FBI is after Jakob, and if their brother is telling the truth, possibly an entire space armada, too.

The perfect combination of action, imagination and heart, Light Years from Home is a touching drama about a challenge as difficult as saving the galaxy: making peace with your family...and yourself.

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The Shattered Skies

John Birmingham

The Sturm, an empire of "species purists," have returned from the farthest reaches of Dark Space to wage a war against what they call mutants and borgs: any human being with genetic or neural engineering. In a sneak attack, they overwhelmed almost all of humanity's defenses, blasting vicious malware across galaxy-spanning networks, dark code that transformed anyone connected to the system into a mindless psychotic killer. The Sturm's victory seemed complete, their final triumph inevitable, until one small band of intrepid, unlikely heroes struck back.

Commander Lucinda Hardy and Admiral Frazer McLennan used the Armadalen Navy's final surviving warship to fend off the Sturm, destroying the massed power of an entire Attack Fleet. With brilliant tactics - and support from drunken, grief-ravaged pirate Sephina L'trel and treasonous battle-rig operator Booker - this ragtag crew sent the Sturm running, managing to save Princess Alessia, the sole surviving heir to the gigantic Montanblanc ul Haq Corporation and perhaps Earth's only remaining senator.

Now left with the remains of a fallen civilization, they must work together to rebuild what was lost and root out the numberless enemies of Earth. The Sturm invaders remain vastly more powerful - and they may not be the only threat lurking in the darkness of space.

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The Stardust Thief

Chelsea Abdullah

Neither here nor there, but long ago . . .

Loulie al-Nazari is the Midnight Merchant: a criminal who, with the help of her jinn bodyguard, hunts and sells illegal magic. When she saves the life of a cowardly prince, she draws the attention of his powerful father, the sultan, who blackmails her into finding an ancient lamp that has the power to revive the barren land - at the cost of sacrificing all jinn.

With no choice but to obey or be executed, Loulie journeys with the sultan's oldest son to find the artifact. Aided by her bodyguard, who has secrets of his own, they must survive ghoul attacks, outwit a vengeful jinn queen, and confront a malicious killer from Loulie's past. And, in a world where story is reality and illusion is truth, Loulie will discover that everything - her enemy, her magic, even her own past - is not what it seems, and she must decide who she will become in this new reality.

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Cold as Hell

Rhett C. Bruno

In the West, there are worse things to fear than bandits and outlaws.

Demons. Monsters. Witches. James Crowley's sacred duty as a Black Badge is to hunt them down and send them packing, banish them from the mortal realm for good.

He didn't choose this life. No. He didn't choose life at all.

Shot dead in a gunfight many years ago, now he's stuck in purgatory, serving the whims of the White Throne to avoid falling to Hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his penance and fade away.

This time, the White Throne has sent him to investigate a strange bank robbery in Lonely Hill. An outlaw with the ability to conjure ice has frozen and shattered open the bank vault and is now on a spree, robbing the region for all it's worth.

In his quest to track down the ice-wielder and suss out which demon is behind granting a mortal such power, Crowley finds himself face-to-face with hellish beasts, shapeshifters, and, worse... temptation. But the truth behind the attacks is worse than he ever imagined...

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The Thousand Eyes

A. K. Larkwood

Just when they thought they were out..

In this sequel to The Unspoken Name, two years have passed since Csorwe and Shuthmili defied the wizard Belthandros Sethennai and escaped into the great unknown; they have made a new life for themselves, and hunt for secrets among the ruins of an ancient snake empire.

Along for the ride is Tal Charossa, determined to leave the humiliation and heartbreak of his hometown far behind him, even if it means enduring the company of his old rival and her insufferable girlfriend.

All three of them would be quite happy never to see Sethennai again. But when a routine expedition goes off the rails and a terrifying imperial relic awakens, they find that a common enemy may be all it takes to bring them back into his orbit.

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