Pierce County Library System
Information & Imagination

Educated: a memoir
(Westover, Tara)
Tara Westover was seventeen the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag." In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education, and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. As a way out, Tara began to educate herself, learning enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University. Her quest for knowledge would transform her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. (Large Print)

Egg and I, The
(MacDonald, Betty)
The author relates the joys and frustration of life on a poultry farm in the mountains of Washington State.

El Deafo (Graphic novel)
(Bell, Cece)
Easy Biography Comic (233 pages) Recommended for Grades 3-7. The author recounts in graphic novel format her experiences with hearing loss at a young age, including using a bulky hearing aid, learning how to lip read, and determining her "superpower." [Kit added 11/2014]

Endurance: a year in space, a lifetime of discovery
(Kelly, Scott)
The veteran of four space flights and the American record holder for consecutive days spent in space, Scott Kelly has experienced things very few have. Now, he takes us inside a sphere utterly inimical to human life. He describes navigating the extreme challenge of long-term spaceflight, both existential and banal: the devastating effects on the body; the isolation from everyone he loves and the comforts of Earth; the pressures of constant close cohabitation; the catastrophic risks of depressurization or colliding with space junk, and the still more haunting threat of being unable to help should tragedy strike at home--an agonizing situation Kelly faced when, on another mission, his twin brother's wife, Gabrielle Giffords, was shot while he still had two months in space. Kelly's humanity, compassion, humor, and passion resonate throughout, as he recalls his rough-and-tumble New Jersey childhood and the youthful inspiration that sparked his astounding career, and as he makes clear his belief that Mars will be the next, ultimately challenging step in American spaceflight.

Enrique's journey: the true story of a boy determined to reunite with his mother
(Nazario, Sonia)
Documents the journey of a Honduran teen who braved hardship and peril to reunite with his mother after she was forced to leave him behind and seek migratory work in the United States [Kit added 01/2017]

Every Day
(Levithan, David)
Young Adult Fiction (324 pages) Recommended for Grades 7-12. Every morning A wakes in a different person's body, in a different person's life, learning over the years to never get too attached, until he wakes up in the body of Justin and falls in love with Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. [Kit added 10/2013]

Everyone brave is forgiven
(Cleave, Chris)
"Set in London during the years 1939-1942, when citizens had a slim hope of survival, much less victory; and on the strategic island of Malta, which was daily devastated by the Axis barrage, Everyone Brave is Forgiven features little-known history and a perfect wartime love story inspired by the real-life love letters between Chris Cleave's grandparents. This dazzling novel dares us to understand that, against the great theater of world events, it is the intimate losses, the small battles, the daily human triumphs that change us most." - publisher.

Everything on a Waffle
(Polly Horvath)
Junior Fiction (150 pages) Recommended for Grades 4-6. Primrose's only refuge is at a local restaurant, where the owner, Miss Bowzer, serves everything on a waffle, except advice and good sense. [Kit added 09/2009]

Exhalation
(Chiang, Ted)
This much-anticipated second collection of stories is signature Ted Chiang, full of revelatory ideas and deeply sympathetic characters. In this fantastical and elegant collection, Ted Chiang wrestles with the oldest questions on earth--What is the nature of the universe? What does it mean to be human?--and ones that no one else has even imagined. And, each in its own way, the stories prove that complex and thoughtful science fiction can rise to new heights of beauty, meaning, and compassion