Pierce County Library System
Information & Imagination

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (T)
(Sherman Alexie)
Young Adult Fiction (230 pages) Recommended for Grades 7-12. Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. [Kit added 9/2009]

Adventures of Beanboy, The
(Harkrader, Lisa.)
Juvenile fiction (234 pages) Recommended for Grades 4-7. Wheaton, Kansas seventh-grader Tucker MacBean loves comic books, so when his favorite comic has a contest to create a sidekick, he is hopeful that he can win, thereby fixing his struggling family [Kit added 12/2015]

Alabama Moon
(Watt Key)
Junior Fiction (294 pages) Recommended for Grades 5-9. After the death of his father, ten-year-old Moon leaves their forest shelter home and is sent to an Alabama institution, becoming entangled in the outside world he has never known and making good friends, a relentless enemy, and finally a new life. [Kit added 10/2011]

Alias Grace
(Margaret Eleanor Atwood)
Based on the true story of Grace Marks, a 16-year-old Canadian housemaid convicted of murder in 1843 who spent the next 30 years in an assortment of jails and asylums, where she was often exhibited as a star attraction. Dr. Simon Jordan, engaged by a group of reformers and spiritualists who seek a pardon for Grace, listens to the prisoner's tale with a mixture of sympathy and disbelief, and uses the tools of the then rudimentary science of psychology. Booker Prize Finalist.

All American boys
(Reynolds, Jason)
Young Adult Fiction (316 pages) Recommended for grades 7-12. When sixteen-year-old Rashad is mistakenly accused of stealing, classmate Quinn witnesses his brutal beating at the hands of a police officer who happens to be the older brother of his best friend. Told through Rashad and Quinn's alternating viewpoint. [Added 9/2017]

All systems red
(Wells, Martha, )
A murderous android discovers itself in "All Systems Red", a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial intelligence. In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot." Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

All the light we cannot see: a novel
(Doerr, Anthony, )
A blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure.

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things
(Lenore Look)
Junior Fiction (172 pages) Recommended for Grades 1-4. A young boy in Concord, Massachusetts, who loves superheroes and comes from a long line of brave Chinese farmer-warriors, wants to make friends, but first he must overcome his fear of everything. [Kit added 10/2011]

An American marriage: a novel (Hardback)
(Jones, Tayari)
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn't commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy's time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy's conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together. (This kit contains hardback books).

And the Mountains Echoed
(Khaled Hosseini)
Presents a story inspired by human love, how people take care of one another, and how choices resonate through subsequent generations. Afghanistan, 1952. Abdullah and his sister Pari live with their father and step-mother in the small village of Shadbagh. Their father, Saboor, is constantly in search of work and they struggle together through poverty and brutal winters. To Adbullah, Pari, as beautiful and sweet-natured as the fairy for which she was named, is everything.

Andy Shane and the Queen of Egypt
(Jennifer Richard Jacobson)
Junior Fiction (58 pages) Recommended for Grades K-3. Andy Shane would like to pick Egypt for his first-ever Culture Fair project. But Dolores Starbuckle says she is the Queen of Egypt, and she won't give Andy Shane a moment's peace until he agrees to do the project together. But Andy is not so sure he wants to work with the bossy Dolores. Will the two friends find a way to cooperate? [Kit added 11/2012]

Anger is a gift
(Oshiro, Mark)
Young Adult Fiction (463 pages) Six years ago, Moss Jefferies' father was murdered by an Oakland police officer. Along with losing a parent, the media's vilification of his father and lack of accountability has left Moss with near crippling panic attacks. Now, in his sophomore year of high school, Moss and his fellow classmates find themselves increasingly treated like criminals in their own school. [Kit added 1/2019]

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
(Lorna Landvik)
Join the five women who form this book club and share the triumphs, tragedies, hardships, joys and sorrows of their lives over the course of 30 years. [Fiction 404 pages] [39093063349625]

Another roadside attraction
(Robbins, Tom)
A clairvoyant girl enthralled by the mysterious beauty of butterflies marries the son of Congo missionaries, and the newlyweds set up a roadside zoo.

Arcadia
(Lauren Groff)
In a haunting story of the American dream, Bit, born in a back-to-nature commune in 1970s New York State, must come to grips with the outside world when the commune eventually fails. [Fiction 289 pages] [Added 11/13] [39093075976639]

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
(Benjamin Alire Saenz)
Young Adult Fiction. (359 pages) Recommended for Grades 7-12. Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before. [Kit added: 11/2014]

Art forger: a novel, The
(Shapiro, Barbara A., )
Boston painter Claire Roth has survived financially by painting reproductions, so when influential gallery owner Aiden Markel arrives with a bizarre proposal--her own show if she will forge a copy of a Degas, one of the pictures stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum--she says yes. As she works, Claire and Aiden become lovers, but she doesn't tell him about her discovery that the stolen Degas is itself a copy. This knowledge is Claire's lifeline when the finished forgery is discovered, Aiden and then Claire are both arrested, and only she can save them

Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's lost Pacific empire : a story of wealth, ambition, and survival
(Stark, Peter, )
Documents the 1810 to 1813 expedition, financed by millionaire John Jacob Astor and encouraged by Thomas Jefferson, to establish Fort Astoria, a trading post on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest