The Check-In!

Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself.

Call number: FIC CLA

Genre: Fiction/Fantasy

Reading level: 11-12+

Length: 272 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

A New York Times bestseller by DC Comics, this new graphic novel focuses on the origin story of Garfield Logan, Beast Boy.

It's senior year and Gar is looking to make a statement. He has spent his entire life being overlooked, so he accepts a wild dare and begins to change - but when he realizes the extent of his physical changes, he has to dig deep and face the truth about himself - and the people who truly matter - before his life spirals out of control.

Call number: 741.5 GAR

Genre: YA Graphic Novel/Fantasy

Reading level: 8-12

Length: 192 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

A deadly race across 1,001 planets will determine more than just the fate of the empire.

This explosive first book in a duology jam-packed with tension and thrills is perfect for fans of The Hunger Games, Aurora Rising, and Three Dark Crowns, by author Rebecca Coffindaffer. Farshot has spent her whole life trying to outrun her family legacy, even leaving behind the Kingship and her uncle, for a life of exploring. But when her dying uncle announces a "crownchase" for the throne, she is thrust into her greatest and most dangerous adventure yet.

Call number: FIC COF

Genre: YA Fantasy

Reading level: 8-9

Length: 384 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Gene understands stories―comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins. But Gene doesn’t get sports. It's only when his school's basketball team begins an epic play for the state championship that he takes interest. He knows he has to follow this epic to its end. What he doesn’t know yet is that this season is not only going to change the Dragons’ lives, but his own life as well.

Call number: 741.5 YAN

Genre: YA Graphic Novel

Reading level: 10-12

Lexile text measure: HL550L

Length: 448 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Marguerite feels awkward, struggling every day to stay productive at work and keep up appearances with friends. Marguerite finally investigates the root of her discomfort: after a journey of tough conversations with her loved ones, doctors, and the internet, she discovers that she has Aspergers. Her life is profoundly changed – for the better.

Call number: 741.5 DAC

Genre: YA Graphic Novel

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 196 pages

Availability: MHHS

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Call number: FIC COO

Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy

Reading level: 11-12+

Length: 416 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

In her graphic novel BANNED BOOK CLUB, Hyun Sook shares a dramatic true story of political division, fear-mongering, anti-intellectualism, the death of democratic institutions, and the relentless rebellion of reading.

When Kim Hyun Sook started college in 1983 she was ready for her world to open up. She aces her exams and sort-of convinces her traditional mother that it was a good idea for a woman to go to college. But literature class would prove to be just the start of a massive turning point, still focused on reading but with life-or-death stakes she never could have imagined.

Call number: 741.5 KIM

Genre: YA Graphic Novel

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 192 pages

Availability: MHHS

Five friends cursed. Five deadly fates. Five nights of retribución. If Lupe Dávila and Javier Utierre can survive each other’s company, together they can solve a series of grisly murders sweeping though Puerto Rico. But the clues lead them out of the real world and into the realm of myths and legends. And if they want to catch the killer, they'll have to step into the shadows to see what's lurking there―murderer, or monster?

Call number: FIC CAR

Genre: YA Horror/Suspense

Reading level: 7-9

Length: 288 pages

Lexile text measure: HL750L

Availability: MHHS

An unlikely teenager starts a feminist revolution at a small-town Texas high school in this novel from Jennifer Mathieu, author of The Truth About Alice.

Vivian Carter is fed up. Fed up with an administration at her high school that thinks the football team can do no wrong. Fed up with sexist dress codes, hallway harassment, and gross comments from guys during class. But most of all, Viv Carter is fed up with always following the rules. Moxie is a book about high school life that will make you wanna riot!

Call number: FIC MAT

Genre: YA Fiction

Reading level: 10-12

Lexile text measure: 840L

Length: 352 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

The compelling and true story of how one truly dedicated journalist admitted herself to an asylum to write a groundbreaking exposé.

Young Nellie Bly had ambitious goals, especially for a woman at the end of the nineteenth century, when the few female journalists were relegated to writing columns about cleaning or fashion. But fresh off a train from Pittsburgh, Nellie knew she was destined for more and pulled a major journalistic stunt that skyrocketed her to fame: feigning insanity, being committed to the notorious asylum on Blackwell's Island, and writing a shocking exposé of the clinic’s horrific treatment of its patients.

Call number: 921 BLY

Reading level: 5-6

Lexile text measure: 1210L

Length: 160 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist.

In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father’s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform lab work “with both the heart and the hands.” Warm, luminous, compulsively readable, Lab Girl vividly demonstrates the mountains that we can move when love and work come together.

Call number: 920 JAH

Genre: Biography/Science

Reading level: 9-12

Lexile text measure: 1240L

Length: 304 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

Here you'll find twenty of the most influential women in history: queens, warriors, prime ministers, first ladies, revolutionary leaders. Some are revered. Others are notorious. What were they really like? In this grand addition to their highly praised series, Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt celebrate some of the world's most noteworthy women, ranging from the famous to those whose stories have rarely been told.

Call number: 920 KRU

Genre: Nonfiction/History

Reading level: 5-7

Lexile text measure: 1150L

Length: 96 pages

Availability: MHHS

Meet twenty-six of history’s most notorious women, each with a rotten reputation. But authors Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple remind us that there are two sides to every story.

From Jezebel to Catherine the Great, from Cleopatra to Mae West, from Mata Hari to Bonnie Parker, strong women have been a problem for historians, storytellers, and readers. Strong females smack of the unfeminine. They have been called wicked, wanton, and willful. But what makes these misbehaving women "bad"? Are we idolizing the wicked or salvaging the strong?

Call number: 920 YOL

Genre: YA Graphic Novel/History

Reading level: 4-7

Lexile text measure: 800L

Length: 172 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (Serra)

Recounts the life and work of Mary Anning, who collected fossils throughout her life and made major discoveries in paleontology when that branch of science was first emerging.

When Mary Anning was 12 years old, she stumbled across a 17-foot-long skeleton while out walking with her brother, Joseph. She spent several months painstakingly excavating the fossil from the hard ground. By the time she was done, everyone in town knew she had discovered what must have been a monster. In fact, Mary had just unearthed an "Ichthyosaurus" or "fish-lizard", a marine mammal that lived 194-201 million years ago. She didn't stop there. Read more about the "mother" of modern paleontology!

Call number: 921 ANN

Reading level: 5-6

Length: 112 pages

Availability: MHHS

The League of Super Feminists is an energetic and fierce comic for tweens and younger teens. Cartoonist Mirion Malle guides readers through some of the central tenets of feminism and media literacy including consent, intersectionality, privilege, body image, inclusivity and more; all demystified in the form of a witty, down-to-earth dialogue that encourages questioning the stories we're told about identity.

Why does feminism matter? Are feminists man-haters? How do race and feminism intersect? Malle answers these questions for young readers, in a comic that is as playful and hilarious as it is necessary.

Call number: 305.42 MAL

Genre: YA Graphic Novel/Nonfiction

Reading level: 7-12

Length: 60 pages

Availability: MHHS

The highly acclaimed, provocative New York Times bestseller from the award-winning, bestselling author of Americanah.

In this personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from the much-admired TEDx talk of the same name—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman now—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

Call number: 305.42 ADI

Reading level: 9-12

Lexile text measure: 940L

Length: 64 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

The bestselling memoir by Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.

Malala Yousafzai was only ten years old when the Taliban took control of her region. They said music was a crime. They said women weren't allowed to go to the market. They said girls couldn't go to school.

Raised in a once-peaceful area of Pakistan transformed by terrorism, Malala was taught to stand up for what she believes. So she fought for her right to be educated. And on October 9, 2012, she nearly lost her life for the cause: She was shot point-blank while riding the bus on her way home from school. No one expected her to survive. I Am Malala. This is my story.

Call number: 921 YOU

Reading level: 9-12

Lexile text measure: 1000L

Length: 256 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

Eight heroines representing different cultural traditions are noted in Fiesta Femenina.

The famous legend of "The Virgin of Guadalupe" sits alongside the Mayan tale "Rosha and the Sun", in which a girl rescues the sun after her brother traps it, and the Aztec tale "Malintzin of the Mountain, sheds light on the controversial woman who fell for Cortez and helped him conquer her own people.

This is a beautiful picture books, full of vibrant illustrations in the tradition of each culture, and attractive borders that unify each tale, that truly bring these women to life.

Call number: P 398.2 GER

Genre: Nonfiction/Folktales

Reading level: 3-5

Length: 64 pages

Availability: MHHS

This biography documents Laverne Cox's triumphant life and work as an activist, documenting her own growth from troubling times she recalls as a teenager to becoming the first openly transgender actor nominated for an Emmy.

In 2013, Orange Is the New Black began captivating audiences with its cast of female characters representing diverse strata of society. Perhaps no star on the show has inspired as much as Laverne Cox, who plays the black transgender inmate Sophia Burset. Cox's work, both as an actor and off-screen, has brought attention to the risks faced by vulnerable populations, particularly racial minority transgender individuals.

Call number: 306.76 STA

Reading level: 10-12

Lexile measure: 1120L

Length: 112 pages

Availability: MHHS

With A Seminole Legend, Betty Mae Jumper joins the ranks of Native American women who are coming forward to tell their life experiences.

This collaboration between Jumper and Patsy West, an ethnohistorian who contributes general tribal history, is a rare and authentic account of a pioneering Florida Seminole family. It will take its place in Seminole literature, historical and anthropological studies, Florida history, women's history, and Native American studies.

Her inspiring autobiography is the story of the most decorated member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida - a political activist, former nurse, and alligator wrestler!

Call number: 921 JUM

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 208 pages

Availability: MHHS

Author Susan Godson presents a history of women in the Navy, including the Navy Nurse Corps, the WAVES, the Yeoman program, and the integration of women into the operational Navy.

As women go to sea and take to the skies in ever-increasing numbers in the modern US Navy, the contributions of those pioneers who led the way loom larger than ever. The author unflinchingly portrays the many obstacles faced and conquered by the women who dared to challenge not only the status quo, but also the formidable barriers created by the myopic, sometimes hostile vision of their many opponents of both sexes. From caring for the sick and wounded in the Civil War hospital ships to flying F-14s off aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, women have left their mark in "this man's Navy" and this is their story.

Call number: 359 GOD

Reading level: 10-12

Length: 453 pages

Availability: MHHS

Board games have been with us longer than even the written word. But what is it about this pastime that continues to captivate us well into the age of smartphones and instant gratification?

In It’s All a Game, British journalist and renowned games expert Tristan Donovan traces the evolution of games across cultures, time periods, and continents, from the paranoid Chicago toy genius behind classics like Operation and Mouse Trap, to the role of Monopoly in helping prisoners of war escape the Nazis, and even the scientific use of board games today to teach artificial intelligence how to reason and how to win.

Call number: 794 DON

Reading level: 9-12

Lexile text measure: 1220L

Length: 304 pages

Availability: MHHS

On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a delightful book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

Genre: Nonfiction/Library Science

Reading level: 9-12+

Length: 336 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

Colin Dickey, piqued by a house hunt in LA that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie houses", embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places.

With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living -- how do we deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes are made to those facts and why, Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone and crimes left unsolved.

Genre: Nonfiction/History

Reading level: 9-12+

Length: 336 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL & Serra)

Sixty-five million years ago, a comet or asteroid larger than Mt. Everest slammed into the Earth, causing an explosion equivalent to the detonation of a hundred million hydrogen bombs.

This horrific story is now widely accepted as the solution to a great scientific murder mystery what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? In T. rex and the Crater of Doom, the story of the scientific detective work that went into solving the mystery is told by geologist Walter Alvarez, one of the four Berkeley scientists who discovered the first evidence for the giant impact.

Genre: Nonfiction/Paleontology

Reading level: 9-12

Lexile text measure: 1380L

Length: 185 pages

Availability: MHHS

A singular atlas of 100 infographic maps from thought-provoking to flat-out fun!

Which countries don’t have rivers? Which ones have North Korean embassies? Who drives on the “wrong” side of the road? How many national economies are bigger than California’s? And where can you still find lions in the wild? You’ll learn answers to these questions and many more in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds. This one-of-a-kind atlas is packed with eye-opening analysis (Which nations have had female leaders?), whimsical insight (Where can’t you find a McDonald’s?), and surprising connections that illuminate the contours of culture, history, and politics.

Genre: Nonfiction/Geography

Reading level: 5-12

Length: 208 pages

Availability: MHHS

The Samurai Sword has long been considered the symbol of the spirit of old Japan. It has been said to be the embodiment of the samurai's code, the expression of his steel discipline, unswerving devotion, and peerless skill. It is, in addition, one of the most outstanding examples of Japan's tradition of highly skilled craftsmanship.

The product of the tireless efforts of hereditary artisans, whose sole purpose in life was the achievement of perfection in their craft, the samurai sword is indeed a beautiful work of art as well as a formidable weapon. In the opinion of informed critics, both the workmanship and quality of the Japanese sword far surpass that of the Western Damascus and Toledo blades of folklore fame.

Genre: Nonfiction/Weapons/History

Reading level: 9-12

Length: 192 pages

Availability: MHHS

What does an idea look like? And where do they come from? Grant Snider’s illustrations will motivate you to explore these questions, inspire you to come up with your own answers and, like all Gordian knots, prompt even more questions.

Whether you are a professional artist or designer, a student pursuing a creative career, a person of faith, someone who likes walks on the beach, or a dreamer who sits on the front porch contemplating life, this collection of one- and two-page comics will provide insight into the joys and frustrations of creativity, inspiration, and process—no matter your age or creative background.

Call number: 153.3 SNI

Reading level: 7-12

Length: 144 pages

Availability: MHHS

The inside story of LeBron James's return and ultimate triumph in Cleveland. What really happened when LeBron James stunned the NBA by leaving a potential dynasty in Miami to come home to play with the Cleveland Cavaliers? Where did the greatest comeback in NBA history truly begin-and end?

Return of the King takes you onto the private planes, inside the locker-room conversations, and into the middle of the intense huddles where one of the greatest stories in basketball history took place, resulting in the Cavs winning the 2016 NBA title after trailing the Golden State Warriors three games to one.

Call number: 921 JAM

Reading level: 10-12+

Length: 296 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)

Explores the complex world of lexicography, and the key figures who have shaped the way we communicate.

Do you have strong feelings about the word "irregardless”? Have you ever tried to define the word "is”? Brimming with intelligence and personality, this vastly entertaining account of how dictionaries are made is a must-read for word mavens. Many of us take dictionaries for granted, and few may realize that the process of writing dictionaries is, in fact, as lively and dynamic as language itself.

Call number: 413.028 STA

Reading level: 10-12+

Lexile text measure: 1170L

Length: 296 pages

Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)