Showing posts with label suicide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suicide. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

New Books for April 2016 (part 10)

Up From the Sea by Leza Lowitz
Historical Fiction 
A powerful novel-in-verse about how one teen boy survives the March 2011 tsunami that devastates his coastal Japanese village. On that fateful day, Kai loses nearly everyone and everything he cares about. When he's offered a trip to New York to meet kids whose lives were changed by 9/11, Kai realizes he also has a chance to look for his estranged American father. Visiting Ground Zero on its tenth anniversary, Kai learns that the only way to make something good come out of the disaster back home is to return there and help rebuild his town. Heartrending yet hopeful, Up from the Sea is a story about loss, survival, and starting anew.

Where You'll Find Me by Natasha Friend
Contemporary Fiction 
The first month of school, thirteen-year-old Anna Collette finds herself... DUMPED by her best friend Dani, who suddenly wants to spend eighth grade "hanging out with different people." DESERTED by her mom, who's in the hospital recovering from a suicide attempt. TRAPPED in a house with her dad, a new baby sister, and a stepmother young enough to wear her Delta Delta Delta sweatshirt with pride. STUCK at a lunch table with Shawna the Eyebrow Plucker and Sarabeth the Irish Stepper because she has no one else to sit with. But what if all isn't lost? What if Anna's mom didn't exactly mean to leave her? What if Anna's stepmother is cooler than she thought? What if the misfit lunch table isn't such a bad fit after all? With help from some unlikely sources, including a crazy girl-band talent show act, Anna just may find herself on the road to okay.

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke
Mystery 
Wink, Poppy, and Midnight's three separate voices come together to reveal the secrets and mysteries hiding in the woods around their home.

The Winner's Kiss by Marie Rutkoski
Fantasy 
War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn't forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people and certainly more than she did for him. At least, thats what he thinks. In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they've done to her. But no one gets what they want just by wishing. As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

The Year We Fell Apart by Emily Martin
Contemporary Fiction 
A year ago Harper made the biggest mistake of her life by destroying her relationship with her best friend and first love Declan, so now that he is home from boarding school for the summer, Harper has three months to fix the year of miscommunications, secrets, and lies or finally let go altogether.

New Books for April 2016 (part 6)

The Loudness by Nick Courage
Science Fiction 
Since the Tragedies, Henry Long doesn't have much: just an annoying low-watt buzz from his makeshift heart transplant, skinny arms, and a dusty library attic from which he charts the reconstruction of the Green Zone, the last habitable neighborhood of his ruined coastal city. While his parents work on making the Green Zone independent from a federal government that appears to have abandoned them, Henry's feels similarly abandoned—that is, until he discovers a refugee artists' colony called the Other Side. When the federales don't take kindly to the Green Zone's attempts at secession and kidnap Henry's parents, Henry and his new renegade friends—including one very courageous girl with whom he’s shared one truly shocking kiss—are forced from the colorful streets and underground rock clubs of the Other Side to an overcrowded capital city on the verge of collapse.

Marked by Laura Williams McCaffrey
Science Fiction 
Sixteen-year-old Lyla lives in a bleak, controlling society where only the brightest and most favored students succeed. When she is caught buying cheats in an underground shadow market, she is tattooed--marked--as a criminal. Then she is offered redemption and she jumps at the chance . . . but it comes at a cost. Doing what is right means betraying the boy she has come to love, and, perhaps, losing even more than she thought possible. Graphic novel-style vignettes revealing the history of this world provide Lyla with guidance and clues to a possible way out of the double bind she finds herself in.

The Memory of Light by Francisco X. Stork
Contemporary Fiction 
When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldn't be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire; Gabriel, the saint, E.M., always angry; and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance she's never had. But Vicky's newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vick back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesn't know.

Millennium Snow vols 3-4 by Bisco Hatori
Manga (Japanese Graphic Novel) 
Toya still can’t shake his blood aversion, even though Chiyuki would happily share hers with him, and the malnutrition is starting to take its toll. Chiyuki tries to supplement his diet with solid food, but that’s just barely enough to keep him alive. Can Chiyuki find a way to support her vampire when he refuses the help she knows he needs?

The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier
Paranormal 
The Night Gardener follows two abandoned Irish siblings who travel to work as servants at a creepy, crumbling English manor house. But the house and its family are not quite what they seem. Soon the children are confronted by a mysterious spectre and an ancient curse that threatens their very lives. 

Passenger by Alexander Bracken
Science Fiction 
In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles, but years from home. And she's inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she's never heard of. Until now. Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods-a powerful family in the Colonies-and the servitude he's known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can't escape and the family that won't let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, his passenger, can find. In order to protect her, Nick must ensure she brings it back to them-whether she wants to or not. Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods' grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home forever.





Sunday, November 1, 2015

What's New in November? (part 3)

The Dogs by Allan Stratton
Paranormal 
Cameron is used to moving at a moment's notice because he and his mother are always running away from his supposedly violent father, but he is disturbed by their latest refuge, a creepy, deserted farmhouse, haunted by bloodthirsty dogs--and when he sees a boy hiding in the barn, and finds an old picture of the same boy, he starts wondering about the possibility of human ghosts.

Dreamstrider by Lindsay Smith
Fantasy 
Livia is a dreamstrider. She can inhabit a subject's body while they are sleeping and, for a short time, move around in their skin. She uses her talent to work as a spy for the Barstadt Empire. But her partner, Brandt, has lately become distant, and when Marez comes to join their team from a neighboring kingdom, he offers Livia the option of a life she had never dared to imagine. Livia knows of no other dreamstriders who have survived the pull of Nightmare. So only she understands thestakes when a plot against the Empire emerges that threatens to consume both the dreaming world and the waking one with misery and rage.

Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
Contemporary Fiction 
If you could read my mind, you wouldn't be smiling. Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off. Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush. Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school. So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist. Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large. Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself. Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.

The Fall by James Preller
Contemporary Fiction 
The summer before school starts, Sam's friend and classmate Morgan Mallen kills herself. Morgan had been bullied. Maybe she kissed the wrong boy. Or said the wrong thing. What about that selfie that made the rounds? Morgan was this, and Morgan was that. But who really knows what happened? As Sam explores the events leading up to the tragedy, he must face a difficult and life-changing question: Why did he keep his friendship with Morgan a secret? And could he have done something-anything-to prevent her final actions?

Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch
Fantasy 
When Cordellan debt forces the Winterians to dig their mines for payment, they unearth something powerful and possibly dangerous: Primoria's lost chasm of magic. Theron sees this find as an opportunity -- with this much magic, the world can finally stand against threats like Angra. But Meira fears the danger the chasm poses -- the last time the world had access to so much magic, it spawned the Decay.


Thursday, October 1, 2015

New books for October ~ Part 6

Manga for the Beginner: Kawaii: How to Draw the Supercute Characters of Japanese Comics by Christopher Hart
Nonfiction 
Explains the tools and techniques for drawing endearing Kawaii-style characters and includes coverage of anthros, monsters, Goths, and the subgenre moe ladies.

Not After Everything by Michelle Levy
Contemporary Fiction 
After his mom kills herself, Tyler shuts out the world--until falling in love with Jordyn helps him find his way toward a hopeful future.

The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan by Patrick Galbraith
Nonfiction 
Otaku: Nerd; geek or fanboy. Originates from a polite second-person pronoun meaning "your home" in Japanese. Since the 1980s it's been used to refer to people who are really into Japanese pop-culture, such as anime, manga, and videogames. A whole generation, previously marginalized with labels such as geek and nerd, are now calling themselves otaku with pride. The Otaku Encyclopedia offers fascinating insight into the subculture of Cool Japan. With over 600 entries, including common expressions, people, places, and moments of otaku history, this is the essential A to Z of facts every Japanese pop-culture fan needs to know. Author Patrick W. Galbraith has spent several years researching deep into the otaku heartland and his intimate knowledge of the subject gives the reader an insider's guide to words such as moe, doujinshi, cosplay and maid cafes. In-depth interviews with such key players as Takashi Murakami, otaku expert Okada Toshio, and J-pop idol Shoko Nakagawa are interspersed with the entries, offering an even more penetrating look into the often misunderstood world of otaku. Dozens of lively, colorful images--from portraits of the interview subjects to manga illustrations, film stills and photos of places mentioned in the text--pop up throughout the book, making The Otaku Encyclopedia as entertaining to read as it is informative.

The Rise of Aurora West by Paul Pope
Graphic Novel 
The extraordinary world introduced in Paul Pope's Battling Boy is rife with monsters and short on heroes... but in this action-driven extension of the Battling Boy universe, we see it through a new pair of eyes: Aurora West, daughter of Arcopolis's last great hero, Haggard West. A prequel to Battling Boy , The Rise of Aurora West follows the young hero as she seeks to uncover the mystery of her mother's death, and to find her place in a world overrun with supernatural monsters and all-too-human corruption. 

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow
Science Fiction 
The teenage princess of a future-world Canadian superpower, where royal children are held hostage to keep their countries from waging war, falls in love with an American prince who rebels against the brutal rules governing their existences.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

New School Year, New Books! September New Books (part 6)

Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell
Fantasy 
A retelling of Cinderella about an indomitable inventor-mechanic who finds her prince but realizes she doesn't want a fairy tale happy ending after all.

Ms. Marvel vol 3: Crushed by Willow Wilson
Graphic Novel 
Love is in the air in Jersey City as Valentine’s Day arrives! Kamala Khan may not be allowed to go to the school dance, but Ms. Marvel is! Well sort of — by crashing it in an attempt to capture Asgard’s most annoying trickster! Yup, it’s a special Valentine’s Day story featuring Marvel’s favorite charlatan, Loki! 

My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Wanga
Contemporary Fiction 
Seventeen-year-old Aysel's hobby--planning her own death--take a new path when she meets a boy who has similar plan of his own.

Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid
Contemporary Fiction 
Never date your best friend 
Always be original 
Sometimes rules are meant to be broken...
 Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids-the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school. Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow , or #7, never hook up with a teacher . But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school . It's either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend . Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember. Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they've actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

The New Order by Chris Weitz
Action/Adventure 
Old friends are separated when Jefferson tries to bring a cure for the mysterious Sickness back to the Washington Square tribe in New York City while Donna faces an unimaginable new world in England, but an even greater disaster than the Sickness looms.


Thursday, June 11, 2015

New Books for June...Finally! (Part 6)

Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto by David Kushner
Nonfiction 
The book explains how British prep school brothers Sam and Dan Houser took their dream of fame, fortune, and the glamor of American pop culture and transformed it into a worldwide videogame blockbuster. Written by David Kushner, author of Masters of Doom and a top journalist on gaming, and drawn from over ten years of interviews and research, including firsthand knowledge of Grand Theft Auto's creators and detractors. Offers inside details on key episodes in the development of the series, including the financial turmoil of Rockstar games, the infamous "Hot Coffee" sex minigame incident, and more.

Legend: The Graphic Novel by Marie Lu
Graphic Novel 
Teens June, a military prodigy born into wealth, and Day, a criminal from the slums, are brought together and face plague, war, and a powerful, common enemy.

Lion Heart by A. C. Gaughen
Historical Fiction 
After escaping Prince John's clutches and longing to return to Rob in Nottingham, Scarlet learns that King Richard's life is in jeopardy and accepts Eleanor of Aquitaine's demand that Scarlet spy for her and help bring Richard home safe.

Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond
Action/Adventure 
Lois Lane is the new girl at East Metropolis High, and her instinct to ask questions brings her and her online friend, Smallville Guy, into conflict with some bullying video gamers called the Warheads, who are being used in a dangerous virtual reality experiment.

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
Contemporary Fiction 
After enduring his father's suicide, his own suicide attempt, broken friendships, and more in the Bronx projects, Aaron Soto, sixteen, is already considering the Leteo Institute's memory-alteration procedure when his new friendship with Thomas turns to unrequited love.

Monday, March 30, 2015

April Books bring May...more books! (April new books part 4)

Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons
Science Fiction
Living in hiding with other ragtag girls in a world where women are hunted and sold for breeding, Aya is caught by a group of businessmen who test her survival skills.

Gone Too Far by Natalie Richards
Mystery
When high school senior Piper Woods finds a notebook with mutilated photographs and a list of student sins, she is sure the book is too gruesome to be true, but when a student from the list dies, and although everyone thinks it is a suicide, she suspects something much worse, and her fears are confirmed when she receives an anonymous text daring her to make things right.

Half Wild by Sally Green
Paranormal
In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, seventeen-year-old Nathan has come into his own unique magical Gift, but he is on the run with the Hunters close behind, and they will stop at nothing until they have captured Nathan and destroyed his father.

I Was Here by Gayle Forman
Contemporary Fiction
In an attempt to understand why her best friend committed suicide, eighteen-year-old Cody Reynolds retraces her dead friend's footsteps and makes some startling discoveries.

Liars, Inc. by Paula Stokes
Mystery
Max Cantrell has never been a big fan of the truth, so when the opportunity arises to sell forged permission slips and cover stories to his classmates, it sounds like a good way to make a little money and liven up a boring senior year. With the help of his friends Preston and Parvati, Max starts Liars, Inc. Suddenly everybody needs something and the cash starts pouring in. Who knew lying could be so lucrative?
When Preston wants his own cover story to go visit a girl he met online, Max doesn’t think twice about hooking him up. Until Preston never comes home. Then the evidence starts to pile up—terrifying clues that lead the cops to Preston’s body. Terrifying clues that point to Max as the murderer.
Can Max find the real killer before he goes to prison for a crime he didn’t commit?


April Books bring May...more books! (April new books part 1)

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith
Contemporary Fiction
The story of Ariel, a Middle Eastern refugee who lives with an adoptive family in Sunday, West Virginia, is juxtaposed against those of a schizophrenic bomber, the diaries of a failed arctic expedition from the late nineteenth century, and a depressed, bionic reincarnated crow.

All New Ultimates vol 1: Power for Power by Michael Fiffe
Graphic Novel
The next generation of Ultimates is here! Spider-Man, Black Widow, Kitt y Pryde, Bombshell, Cloak and Dagger unite to tackle the vicious, rampant crime wave overtaking Hell's Kitchen! But the young Ultimates are put to the test as they try to survive their first mission: going head to head with the city's most ruthless gang, the Serpent Skulls, led by Diamondback! Meanwhile, detective Brigid O'Reilly and her anti-gang unit are on the hunt for a serial mask killer called Scourge! As Jessica Drew adjusts to the mantle of Black Widow, Spider-Man falls for a villainess and Bombshell's life is changed by tragedy, Crossbones joins the fray! These young heroes have fought Galactus, but can they survive super-powered street gangs and psychopaths?

All Star by Jesse Lonergan
Graphic Novel
As the summer of 1998 nears, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are racing each other to break the home-run record, Bill Clinton is being questioned about a certain Monica Lewinsky, Semisonic's "Closing Time" is top of the charts, and Carl Carter is leading the Elizabeth Monarchs of rural Vermont to the state championship his senior year. The world is Carl's oyster: a full scholarship to the University of Maine awaits, going pro after college isn't out of the question, and he's so good he can do whatever he wants--until, that is, he makes one very arrogant mistake. 

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Contemporary Fiction
Told in alternating voices, when Theodore Finch and Violet Markey meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school--both teetering on the edge--it's the beginning of an unlikely relationship, a journey to discover the "natural wonders" of the state of Indiana, and two teens' desperate desire to heal and save one another.

Beastkeeper by Cat Hellisen
Paranormal
Deep in the forest, in a crumbling ruin of a castle, Sarah begins to untangle the layers of curses affecting her family, until she discovers that the curse has carried over to her, too. The day she falls in love for the first time, Sarah will transform into a beast . . . unless she can figure out a way to break the curse forever.




Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Happy birthday to me! ~ New Books for March (part 5)

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff
Contemporary Fiction 
After his best friend, Hayden, commits, suicide, fifteen-year-old Sam is determined to find out why--using the clues in the playlist Hayden left for him.

Polly and the One and Only World by Don Bredes
Science Fiction 
Set in a much-diminished future America called the Christian Protectorates, a poor country ravaged by coastal flooding, drought, and cataclysmic social upheaval, the story features 15-year-old Polly Lightfoot, a maiden witch of rich heritage and tender ability in the craft.  When the story opens, Polly is forced to flee New Florida, where she has taken temporary refuge to escape a military purge of the country’s infidels, pagans, and followers of false creeds.  With the help of her steadfast familiar, Balthazar, a raven, and her brave teenage companion, Leon, whom she meets on the way, Polly undertakes an epic journey from the deep south to the wild north to be reunited in Vermont with her family and to save her ancient craft from obliteration.

Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen
Nonfiction
Stuck at the bottom of the social ladder at 'pretty much the lowest level of people at school who aren't paid to be here,' Maya Van Wagenen decided to begin a unique social experiment: spend the school year following a 1950s popularity guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell. Can curlers, girdles, Vaseline, and a strand of pearls help Maya on her quest to be popular? The real-life results are painful, funny, and include a wonderful and unexpected surprise-meeting and befriending Betty Cornell herself. 

The Prey by Tom Isbell
Science Fiction 
After the apocalyptic Omega, a group of orphaned teen boys learn of their dark fate and escape, joining forces with twin girls who have been imprisoned for the 'good of the republic.' In their plight for freedom, these young heroes must find the best in themselves to fight against the worst in their enemies.

The Prince of Venice Beach by Blake Nelson
Contemporary Fiction 
Robert "Cali" Callahan, seventeen, gets swept up into the private-investigator business and must deal with the ramifications of looking for fellow runaways who may not want to be found--and with falling in love with one of them.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Teen Book Club - November

So, due to weather, our Teen Book Club meeting for November actually happened in December.  Oh well!

Our book for November was

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death.
Here are the discussion questions we used:

1.  First impressions.  What did you think of the book?
2.  This book has dual narrative, in that it has 2 narrators, Hannah & Clay.  Did you enjoy this kind of writing of the story?  How would it be different if it was just Hannah?  Just Clay?  Someone else entirely?
3.  Are each of Hannah’s 13 reasons equally important?  Why specifically did Hannah commit suicide?  Who is responsible for Hannah’s death?
4.  Did you have a book with a copy of the Map in it?  Did that enhance your experience of the story?
5.  Why did Clay leave the room after kissing Hannah?  Do you think he had to?  What else could he have done?  Why did Hannah put him on her list of the 13 reasons why she killed herself?
6.  What role do adults play in what happened to  Hannah?  Do you think any adult could have done something to help her?
7.   How do you think Clay is changed by listening to the tapes?
8.  Why do you think this book is popular?
9.  Selena Gomez is set to star in the movie adaptation of the book.  Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson) is rumored to be playing Clay. Like/dislike?  Who else would you cast?
10.  Ratings and final thoughts?

Librarian Karyn - 10/10 - This book is AMAZING on audiobook, I didn't want to stop once I started this addicting, heart-wrenching story.
Catherine - 10/10 - Honest, raw, and spoke to the real issues.
Melanie - 10/10 - Great book to raise more awareness of teen suicide & written beautifully.

~~~

If you enjoyed this book, you may also enjoy:

Another book by the same author – The Future of Us - It's 1996, and less than half of all American high school students have ever used the Internet. Emma just got her first computer and Josh is her best friend. They power up and log on--and discover themselves on Facebook, fifteen years in the future. Everybody wonders what their Destiny will be. Josh and Emma are about to find out.

More books that deal with suicide

• By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters - High school student Daelyn Rice, who has been bullied throughout her school career and has more than once attempted suicide, again makes plans to kill herself, in spite of the persistent attempts of an unusual boy to draw her out.

• Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams - Living with their mother who earns money as a prostitute, two sisters take care of each other and when the older one attempts suicide, the younger one tries to uncover the reason.

• Hold Still by Nina LaCour - As Caitlin struggles to cope with her best friend Ingrid's suicide, she turns inward and quiet, but finding Ingrid's hidden journal, a new classmate, and new projects help Caitlin find a way to reach out again.

• Impulse by Ellen Hopkins - Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.


For December we are reading


Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs -  As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow--impossible though it seems--they may still be alive.

Discussion on Tuesday, December 30th 6:00-7:00pm