Summer Reading 2024 | Christy, Stephanie, Kate, & Briana

Join Christy, Stephanie, Kate and Briana as they talk about upcoming summer reading and their reading recommendations to get you started. Summer Reading Kick-off is Saturday, June 15th for All AGES! Sign up in person or online at www.russelllibrary.org. Choose your tracker and complete library prompts to earn tickets for a drawing with fantastic prizes. Join us for the Summer of 2024 at Russell Library!

Book Recommendations

The Other Americans a Novel by Laila Lalami
Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Shattuck
My First Book of Vietnamese Words by Katy R. Kudela
My First 100 Words Book-English/Pashto
My First Ukrainian Animal Book: Poems About Animals in Ukrainian Language by Anna Young
A World of Recipes: Festival Foods by Jenny Vaughan and Penny Beauchamp
Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mangle
No Place Like Home by James Bird
How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelly
Love and Other Disasters by Anita Kelly
Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly
We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Roxana Asgarian

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to Middletown Strong. Looking up with the library today. We're going to be talking about our summer reading program at Russell Library, which is going to begin in June, specifically June 15th. But I'm Christy Billings, along with Stephanie Roche. 
Kate McCarthy, Val. 
And Brianna. 
Gagnon. And we are really excited about this year's summer reading. Who would like to start about some of the things that people can do when they're here? 
I'll start. Kate is going to start. 
I'm going to start. So we're going to start with our kickoff event on Saturday, June 15th. We have Country Cool Mama Farm come, and that day they'll do a story with a llama. You can meet a llama and I believe you can have your picture taken. 
Okay, Now I do want to be here. I didn't realize you could get your picture taken with the. 
But you could if you bring your. I guess your camera would probably take a picture with the llama and there will be stories there and the opportunity to register for summer reading for the kids birth to age 11. So lots of fun stuff. I made a llama on June 15th throughout the summer. We have all sorts of fun events coming up. We have Eleanor Buck Wolfe Nature Center is coming in July for a live animal demonstration. And we also have our August in August, the end of summer event, which is the farm. Our farm friends with zens critters. They'll be joining us as well to round out our summer. And we also have some fun events happening at the end of August. So check out our calendar. We have our storytimes, our usual regular events. So it's going to be a rocking good time and. 
Do people have to sign up to see the llama? 
Is that necessary or not? It's not necessary. It's and because it is the also the registration day or beginning of summer reading, you can come and check out the llama in Nice. 
I think that's amazing. I don't think I've ever seen Obama here at Russell Library in almost 20 years. That's really exciting. 
Cool. 
So Brianna and I will be here in the lobby also registering people for adult summer reading. You heard that right, folks. We're going to have adult summer reading. So if you're reading and you're like, how come the kids get all the fun? The adults get the fun, too. So, Brianna, do you want to talk a little bit about our adventures? Adventure starts at Russell Library. 
Yeah. So our adventure starts at Russell Library. Adult and teen summer reading program is for anyone ages 12 through 18 and 18 and up. So we're basically going to be giving out a adventure guide with a bunch of different things you can do that are related to reading or using the library. So like going to a program, you can earn a ticket for a drawing read a certain book by a certain author. You can get a ticket for a drawing. And just as a hint of some of the prizes for our drawing include a Kindle Paperwhite and a clear case gift cards to different local businesses and restaurants like RJ, Julia Pocketful, Posey's Park, Dory Rotary Park on Main. And we're also going to have a bookish little swag bag that we're also raffling off with one of our Russell tote bags, some books, bookish accessories. So it's really just common, like enjoy reading. Like we want you to come in here and tell us what you're reading and really go on some cool programs that we're doing for adults and teens that Christy is actually going to be reading. I'll be doing one. Stephanie Story one. So, Christy, tell us about books, Talk of the Walk. 
So Book Talk of the Walk is finally returning. This was a program that we had some years ago, and it's book talk with a walk. Come see what you'll hear in this year. We're doing more of a broad walk. It's more a theme. So instead of having to read a specific book and then come and talk about it while we're walking and we're going to be walking down by the riverfront, by the way. So it's can be pretty nice and I will not make people walk in the rain. 
I was going diving, meaning the rain plan. 
We will meet here in the lobby and have our discussion in a place where it is a little drier. But grab your water bottles up your sneakers. It's a gentle pace. Great discussion. Our first one will be June 24th. We have registration suggested, but it's not necessary and we will meet at noon. All of the book talk with a walks will meet at noon and you get a drawing when you sign up because it's a program. And that's one of our adventure. Starts at Russell Library Drawing opportunities. And our second one will be book Talk with a walk. Come see what you'll hear. And we're going to talk about books by an author that everyone has read but you. And you might say, What, Christy? What is a book that everyone has read about me? So it might be something like an author like Stephen King or an RJ. Miles Right. An author. Beautiful, lovely books that you've been hearing people talk about. You know, if I really want to read that and maybe you'll tiptoe in and try one of these and maybe you really like Stephen King. 
I like that You mentioned Stephen King because he has quite a back catalog and it is well, not that one, but if you ever want to talk about Stephen King, come find me. 
We could do a whole. 
We could do an end to fire episode about, okay, maybe we will someday. 
And we're going to do a book, talk with a walk, with an indigenous story or an indigenous author. So I know Brianna might have a recommendation, so stay tuned after to finish up to here. Shelf life and Brianna might give you an Indigenous story that she may talk about at that particular book, Walk, which will be the 22nd. We're also going to do one for teens or on why a books book that day is to be determined so that some of the opportunities that we have. I do want to highlight that we're going to do an to LGBTQ book talk with a walk specifically on the 24th of June, and we're also doing books and brews in June with a book about LGBTQ. I'm sorry I'm stumbling on that. Don't mean to be that is going to be tomorrow will be different. Is the Love Lost and Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride. And people will get their own copies of the book to keep. So that will be the 13th at October. And Beauty and then is also part of our summer reading program stuff. Would you like to tell us some of the cool teen stuff that you're doing? 
Sure. So Brianna had mentioned that teens can also participate in the IT dot challenge this year. The interesting and cool thing about teens here at the library is that we don't really care which one you participate in. So if you're Cosby or if you're an adult listening and you have an 11, 12, 13 year old and they want to participate in the kid's challenge, they're welcome to do that. If you have a burgeoning reader who is maybe ten or 11 and they want to do the adult teen Challenge, we're fine with that, too. Or if you want to do a book, that's great. We don't want to limit our teens and tweens because we just want them to come in and use the library. So we're not going to be strict about which challenge they want to do, but we're hoping that they come and participate in the challenge. So we have some cool stuff coming up for teens. I'm just going to do a quick laundry list of some teen programs we have coming up this summer, Friday, June 21st, at 330, we have teen treats. We're going to be making candy sushi so nice and there will be allergen friendly treats. So if you like me, are no gluten or if you can't have dairy or anything, there's going to be lots of options for that. Thursday, June 27th, at 6:00, we're going to be doing a graphic novel book club for the Magic Fish. So that's our Pride book club for this month or for this year. We're not doing quite that. And if you'd like to participate, we will have copies available because it's a nutmeg. So we have lots of copies and other libraries will generously donate their copies for the time being. Wednesday, July 3rd at 6:00. We're doing beginner crochet come and learn if you already know what to do. That's fine. You can come and work on your own project and if you have never done it before, you can come and learn. Wednesday, July 10th, at 230 we have a crafter noon, which is a self-guided painting. This is for all ages, but we are also encouraging teens and tweens to come. We're doing that one again in August on the second. It's a Friday at 330. Same thing. Self-Guided painting, my friends, which means we are not instructing. You get to just come and do whatever you like. I want you to know that up front we are not teaching the painting. This is a free for all. Thursday, July 11th, 6:00 Weird Barbie Art party is coming back. Who did it a couple of weeks ago? Super fun. Basically. Come on down, destroy a Barbie doll, have some art therapy with us. This one is actually for teens adults. So bring your friends. Bring your mom, bring your aunt, bring your neighbor whoever you want. It's very therapeutic to cut off a Barbie hair and then glue sequins and glitter. Trust me, it's very therapeutic. And if you want to talk about, you know, what Barbie means to us and body image and beauty, we can have a chat about that, too, as part of the discussion. But mostly it's going to be about making fun. Art. Saturday, July 28 at 2 p.m. Nikita Wahler will be doing a concert here also on Saturday, July 20th at 330 we're going to be doing Teen Tie-dye hopefully not on the lineup. It's nice. And then Thursday, August 15th at 6 p.m., we're going to be doing a teen tween craft corner. It's basically show up and make something out of whatever we have. It's going to be paint markers, glitter, maybe Legos if you're into that too. So we have some really cool teen stuff going on this summer, so I hope you'll find something that appeals to you and you'll come join us and you'll bring friends. 
Sounds great. 
Yeah, I'm excited. I'm going to be at all of these. So. 
Yeah. So everything starts because now, like everybody's like, Oh my gosh, I want to, like, join and sign up for all this stuff right now. So everything starts June 15, but if you're not here June 15th, you can sign up again on Monday. But that's our first day that you can sign up. So don't miss it. Come in on Saturdays. Me a lot happening and it's going to be a great summer reading program for adults, kids and for teens. 
I just wanted to jump in because I heard that you're all talking about specific time. So on June 15th, the Country Quilt Llama farm, that Saturday, June 15th is at 1030, will be in the Hubbard room. And the Eleanor Buck Wolfe Nature Center is on Wednesday, July 17th at 6 p.m.. And then our end of summer fun with farm friends with Zen's Critters. There's two sessions at Saturday, August 17th, one at 10 a.m. and one at 11 a.m. and I do believe that registration is recommended. They just wanted to jump on what Kristy said because I think we're still doing recommend registration recommended for those events. 
Yeah, I know the Zen one sounds like it's very far out in August, but it'll be here quick. Yeah, it'll fill up quick. 
Although I will say the nice thing about when Dense Critters comes because they came in February for us is that it's set up so you can kind of just come in and go at your own pace so you don't have to get there right at time. You don't have to get the write up 11 if you kind of just show up and go through like seeing and putting the animals at your own pace, that one's pretty chill. So it has a nice ebb and flow. It doesn't get too crowded. It's it's a nice little setup and we're going to be outside as long as the weather's nice because they are bringing goats and a large, small and large farm animals. So hopefully we have good weather for that one. 
Very nice. Yeah. 
And I just wanted to quickly mention that for kids we have an adventure awaits Passport where you'll have some activities to choose from. lots of drawings, so the kids will have their chance to participate in our great drawings and. 
Win cool prizes. 
When Cool prizes. Yeah. So it's called Adventure Awaits Passport. And when you register for summer reading, each kid will get their passport. 
Kind of for summer reading. We can register online and in-person. 
Yes, that's right. So they can register in person or if they want to do the I think that we're going to have a link online where you can just you'll register. But then I think you'll have to come in to get your password. We did this a similar thing last year herself. 
Same for adults. 
So for adults, if you register online, you're going to fill out your information and then you'll get rerouted to our web page, which will have the adventure guide and the bookmark that goes with it. 
Oh, as a principal, yeah. 
Cool. You can just print it right off of the website. Since we can't send it to you, we've actually got what we can. So I think it'll just be rerouted to our summer reading page, and all the information about summer reading will be there as well as the adult and teen. Got it. Bookmark. 
And as a regular library person, you would be doing a lot of these things. Yeah. I think people will adore these little adventure guides. They are so cool and the children's passport is pretty awesome. 
So thank you so excited about how this mean showing. I walk you in the studio now, but it's really, really awesome. We're very excited about this. It's a kids on a book and they're looking ahead and there's all sorts of they're on an adventure, but they're flying on a book. I love it. Yeah. 
All right. So stay tuned and check our times and such on our Web site. Russell Library. 
Board I. One more plug, please. Teen Volunteers. Team Volunteers asked about teen volunteers all year round, but a lot in the summer. If you are a teen listening or you are someone who has a teen who is looking for volunteer hours, we are taking teen volunteers on a rolling basis. Our application on the teen page on the website is always there. If it is for some reason down, we are full at the time. They will say that on the website, but as of right now, or open on a rolling business, the applications come right to me. And we're Devon, we're definitely going to need more teen volunteers during the summer because we love having help at children's programs. So if you or your teen needs some hours or just looking for some volunteer opportunities, we will have opportunities to help with children's programs and we will have more opportunities to help at the library in general during the summer. 
What ages is that? 
12 to 19. So you have to be 12 to be in the library alone. So we do require you to be 12 to fill out an application. If you are filling out the application and are not yet 12, just note that on there and I will follow up with you. But yes, ages 12 to 19 and we have virtual options too, but we're really bulking up the in-person options this summer. 
Come join us Santa Rosa Library for adventure starts at Russell Library. Yeah, and adventure awaits at Russell Library. Thanks so much. We'll see you this summer. 
Hello and welcome to the segment where calling Turn that shit up projects at Russell Library that are too good to keep quiet. Summer is here and the library has great things to do both inside and outside. We're sharing our love of great reads at Storytimes Playgroups and library book groups, both at the library and on location. Joining me, as always, is Shannon Barry, Larry from Art Digital and Emerging Technologies Department. So Shannon, do you consider yourself more of an indoor person or an outdoor person? 
Definitely an outdoor person, yeah. Yeah. I love hiking. I love the beach, I love rock climbing, all fun things outside today. I would love to go work outside, but that's not really in the cards. Yes. So it's a gorgeous sunny day. No, this kind of revives my soul a little bit. 
Yeah. Yeah. I don't consider myself an outdoor person. I love the outdoors, but the outdoors doesn't love me or it loves me a little too much. Bugs bite me no matter where I am. I can do. Yeah, I can be going from the car to a restaurant and it's like a swarm. So. 
But so, yeah, I try to, you know, make the most of the outdoors wearing bug spray and all of the appropriate, you know, sunscreen. All of that is so good. 
I'm not so bad. I know. I'm not allergic to poison ivy. 
That's. I'm also allergic to poison. 
Okay? I'm not. There's some people who are immune to it. 
Safe. Yeah, I, you know, outdoors. Cut me a break. I want to appreciate you, but I think it's good to be a little afraid of the outdoors, too. You seem like you have respect for the outdoors. You have to. If you're a rock climber, you have to, like, understand, like, physical limitations and gravity and all of that good stuff. 
And scary stuff. Yeah, Fun. 
The adrenaline. I love. 
It. 
Well, so kind of in that vein, the library is doing a lot of great things both here and at different locations. So do you want to talk to us a little bit about what the kids department is up to? 
Yes, the Youth and Family Learning Department will host Storytimes and playgroups throughout the month of June and Tuesdays at 1030 and Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Join our children's librarians while they read books, share rhymes and songs for kids. These stories will be geared toward little ones ages birth to six years old, along with their caregivers and families. Our librarians will also share stories and songs at the Middletown Farmer's Market on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. starting June 28th. I love the farmer's market. There's so much. 
Fun and the people, the vendors there are so nice. 
Yeah, and we get a really good group of like families that come. It's awesome. 
Yeah. Yeah. 
on Saturday, June 22nd at 10:30 a.m., the library will start a new activity series, Parenting Playgroup, meet with other caregivers and families during a casual session of free play and discussion. A different childhood experience will join the group each month in June. Dula Sarah Upton will be available for questions about newborn care, postpartum care, breastfeeding and infant sleep. It's really cool that we're doing that. It's like very integrative for like new families or all families and that's awesome. I love it. Yeah. Oh, okay. We're doing some pretty cool book groups this summer. 
Yes, we are. I'm excited about a lot of these actually. Some of them are returning from years past. One of those is our book Talk with a Walk on Monday, June 24th at noon, meet in the lobby of Russell Library for a short walk by the river front to discuss books, grab your water bottle, lace up your sneakers and join the conversation. Check the library's website for the title to be discussed both on June 24th and in the months that follow. 
Speaking of June, this year's Pride Month book discussion will feature the Magic Fish by trembling Win on Thursday, June 27th at 6 p.m.. On Thursday, July 11th at 6 p.m., the library will host books and brews at Stubborn Duty Brewing in Middletown, and July's book will be and Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, which is supposed to be excellent. I haven't read it yet, and if you have read Charles Dickens, it's sort of in the spirit of that, but set in a modern context. 
Oh, cool. 
Yeah. And and if you're interested in traveling the world but don't have an unlimited budget, consider the library's new Armchair Travelers Book Group. On Tuesday, July 16th at 2 p.m., we will discuss The Long Haul. A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy. So this is a series of stories about the United States from coast to coast. 
Very cool. 
So Mystery is a book club that is also coming back. It's for people who like unraveling a twisty narrative. This group discusses a new mystery novel every month, and July's title will be Finley Donovan Is Killing It by Elle CUSUMANO. Join the conversation on July 25th at 3 p.m. and Finley Donovan. It's killing. It is actually one of my favorite Mr. Mystery Stories. it's about a writer of suspense, romance novels, and a mother of two who accidentally gets hired for a contract killing. Oh, wow. And she doesn't want to kill anybody. But she is very curious about what's going on. And so the mystery goes from there. It's really. 
Good. It's a great book. What's going on? I love it. Yes, I love it. 
And, you know, if you want to join in and any of them copies of book club books are available at the circulation desk. And for more information about any of these groups, please visit the library's online calendar. Awesome. Yeah. 
Well, another thing that's going on that's going to be great as well. The library will also host Cool reads for hot months on Thursday, July 18th at 4 p.m.. Join Russell Library staff for a fun and informal conversation as we highlight adult fiction and non-fiction titles that promise to be the hits of summer. Group members can share what they're reading or just come for tips on what to read next. Library staff can also help you find books to complete your adventure. Begin that your library summer reading challenge. You will leave the inspiration for your next summer read. Dun dun dun dun. 
I think that's going to be a lot of fun. I love meeting with people too, to discuss what they what they have on their Kindle's, iPads or, you know, as a physical book, get all the best titles that way. As you can tell, the library has a lot going on this summer, and we hope that you share what you've learned with others. Russell Library has too many exciting things going on to keep them quiet. next up, this month's shelf life. Thanks so much, Shannon. 
Thanks, Kim. 
Hello and welcome to Shelf Life. I'm Stephanie Rushen here. I'm joined with three of my friends Kate. 
Brianna and Christy. 
And we're going to give you some recommendations today that will fill your prompts for both our youth and adult and teen challenges for summer reading. So we have prompts built in to the activities on both trackers. And we're going to give you some examples of some books you might want to use for those prompts today. Kate, would you like to start? 
Yeah, sure. So a couple of the prompts that I chose to highlight today make a recipe from a cookbook as one of the problems. And I have found that food is a great social activity for many cultures around the world. I came across this one on the show on our shelves. It's called Festival Foods, and I'm already salivating and I've already picked some recipes I would love to make along. But these recipes come from China and Puerto Rico and Morocco. 
Mexico. And I believe there's this ginger cake, though. So good. And they're sweet things and savory things like that. Peanut sauce from chicken from Uganda. Yeah. 
You had me at Savory. 
So. Yeah. So I would recommend, you know, taking a look at Festival Foods. It's a world of recipes by Jenny Von and Penny Beauchamp. Possibly. If you wanted to make a recipe from a cookbook and share it with your friends. Another one we have on our list for the adventure awaits Passport for Kids. Try learning ten words in another language. We have a great world language collection 
that's made up of Spanish, Korean, Ukrainian, Pashto, Vietnamese, and we have my first AM Ukrainian animal book. It's poems about animals in the Ukrainian language. We also have my first 100 words book. It's English and Pashto, and then my first book of Vietnamese words. I don't know Vietnamese, so I'm going to try. 
That's what I want to learn. Other languages spoke with you. I want to learn it with you. 
So the topic is farm, and the word tractor in Vietnamese is pronounced may see our home and I hope I have that right, but the pronunciation is underneath. Perfect. 
Great pictures. 
Yeah. Yeah. In the pictures are great. And chicken is corn ga. It's spelt. It's the pronunciation portion is spelled kw n g a so con is chicken in Vietnamese. And so if you want to learn more about world languages and what we have, please come and check out our world language class. 
And these are all work for props for the for the kids like to earn drawing tickets. 
Exactly right Perfect. Yes. Thank you. And I also wanted to just point out that one of our prompts we're trying this year is to write about your favorite book, and we'll use it in a display. So we're going to have kids we're making creating bookmarks for kids to fill out. It'll say, I like this book because and then other books I like. 
I'm so excited. Report on Kids picks, right? Yeah, It's going to be really fun. 
So it's a kids picks displays so we can see what the kids are reading and have them recommend other books to other kids. 
Love that. Yeah, that's great. Okay, cool. 
Thanks, Kate. All right, Brianna, what are your recs? 
So I'm going to start off with a square that says read a book with an indigenous story or author. So I happen to have two. So the first book I'm going to recommend is Sisters of the Lost Nation by Nick Medina about missing and murdered Indigenous women. He has quickly become one of my favorite Indigenous authors. He writes a lot of horror and like mythological word type of vibes. 
I almost brought this book and I was like, You're probably going to bring this book sides. 
And yeah, so that's one of my recommendations. And then there's a a coming out, I want to say in July called Looking for Smoke by K Cabal. That one. I have an arc of a physical arc at my house. I'm very excited to read it. I have very high expectations and I'm highly anticipating it. So that's something to be on the lookout for. 
And we did well. We are going to work on order when we go into the next fiscal year, it will be in our wired department. 
And then the other prompt I'm picking is actually on the back of our adult adventure guide. It's read a book published in 2024, so I have two for that. So one of them is a romance called The Game Changer by Alanna Ferguson coming out in July. It's a sports romance hockey specific, so love your hockey romances. Grab this one and make sure you read it because a lot of Ferguson is definitely one of my favorite romance authors. Her books have just been a five out of five for me every time. So this is wanted to be on look out for and then I have a historical fiction called Rednecks by Taylor Brown, which is set in like 1921. It's about a battle that was called the Battle of Blair Mountain, pitting a multiethnic army of 10,000 coal miners against mine owner, state militia and the U.S. government out in West Virginia. 
That is the most Brianna book. Oh, my gosh. 
So I am anticipating that one. So that one is coming out in May, actually in a couple of weeks. I can't remember exactly what day, but. 
But we'll have to have. 
It ordered. So it should be in the library. 
Cool. 
Yeah. 
All right. 
Craft hot off the shelf and you can have it. 
Yes. All right, Kristy, what do you recommend? 
So I'm going to recommend to two books. So our adventure starts at Russell Library, has all these great little prompts on it. We were talking a little bit about it earlier in our podcast, so one of the prompts is to read a book that has a holiday set in its home that you don't celebrate. So I'm going to recommend a book we use for books and brews called The Other Americans by La la la la Mom La Molly And it is a timely and powerful novel about a suspicious death of a moroccan immigrant. It's just page turning. There's so many different kinds of characters and different kinds of things that are going on in this book. And you also hear from the man who has been killed, which I thought was a very interesting point of view to include in the book. 
What holiday is it set. 
During art? So there's a couple of different ones. So I'll let people I'll let people read for themselves because Moroccan holidays that I had not necessarily known about and I loved the culture and I loved the food associated with it. So I think people really like those two. And then I'm going to do one. We have a prompt to read a book that has a cover without people on it. 
I love this prompt. 
So this book is called Six Walks in the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau by Ben Huck. And so we were talking earlier about some choices that people make. Sometimes we like to read books that are messy or have people that maybe have problematic issues or problems. We were talking about having teens having these problems because it seems more in line with development, right? So, well, Ben decides to go on a 20 mile walk and he forgets to bring a sleeping bag and some other things that you might need when you're going on a very long journey. 
Oh, now you're convincing me to read a book about a messy adult. 
Yes. So he he's very honest about his his walk. He's taking this walk in like the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, which I have to say I didn't know a whole lot about when I started, but I really enjoyed this book. And Ben has this notebook. He's going through a really rough time. And this is his way of coping with what's happening in his life. And I think he certainly learns a lot about himself, but he also learns to bring a sleeping bag. 
And this is nonfiction to write. 
It is nonfiction set in Massachusetts. 
Cool. 
So we are really excited about these prompts. I mean, me, me, we. Oh, please. 
Sorry. 
fireplace. 
I'm going to give some recommendations that fit mostly the adult ones, but they can some of them are crossovers. And so one of the adult teen prompts is a white or middle grade book because we are inviting people to either get out of their comfort zone and read something they wouldn't normally read, or we're inviting those tweens and teens to read something that they are going to enjoy, even if they're participating in the adult program. So one of the books I want to recommend is called Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mingle. So why a book? It was also published in 24, since earlier this year, and it's a book about disability and the realities of living with a disability. And what happens if you don't tell people that you are disabled and how they treat you differently when they find out? Beautiful, very moving, very much way. It's messy in the in the way that I like and it's very propulsive. So I hope people check that one out. And also a middle grade book I'd like to recommend is called No Place Like Home by James Byrd. It's middle grade also by an indigenous author, and it's about a young Indigenous boy and his family. And they are unhoused and it's about their journey kind of traveling in their car across the country and trying to find their feet. So we have that in our middle grade section. I'd like to recommend an LGBTQ book. It's called How You Get the Girl by Anita Kelley. It's a sports romance, which are very big this year. It's a basketball romance, came out 2024, so it hits both of those prompts. And if you like this offer, there's other books that are loosely based on the same series with similar characters. One is called Love and Other Disasters, and one is called Something Wild and Wonderful, All queer rom coms, all delightful. And our last recommendation is a nonfiction book called We Were Once a Family, A Story of Love, Death and Child Removal in America by Roxana Abcarian. It sounds really heavy. It has a little heavy, but it's also super compelling. It's part true crime and part social commentary about the criminal justice system and the adoption and the adoption system in the United States. So I couldn't put it down even though. It was very heavy, but I highly recommend it. And those are my picks. 
We are so looking forward to summer reading. 
Can you spell? 
Yes. So and we'd love to hear what your recommendations are too. You can leave a book review as part of our adventure starts at Russell Library, so we want to hear what you think of the books that you've read and we'd like to hear if you've read the ones that we've suggested. So please join us this summer beginning June 15th. 
All right. See a. 
Bye bye