BCSD Libraries Sept 2026
September 2026
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Book Summary
When Mac first opens his classroom copy of Jane Yolen's The Devil’s Arithmetic and finds some words blacked out, he thinks it must be a mistake. But then when he and his friends discover what the missing words are, he's outraged.
Someone in his school is trying to prevent kids from reading the full story. He and his friends head to the principal's office to protest the censorship... but her response doesn't take them seriousl So many adults want Mac to keep his words to himself. Mac's about to see the power of letting them out.
Book Summary
Liberty’s parents are divorcing, and her father is in freefall—suffering from depression. She’s worried she’s going to follow his same path and doesn’t know what the divorce means for her relationship with either of her parents. The other kids in middle school are obsessed with fake weddings and boyfriends, but Liberty is going to change the way we look at the night sky. Liberty sees new patterns, pictures, and possibilities. Can Liberty map a new life for herself and her family before they spin too far out of reach?
Book Summary
There's something in the water. It smells really bad. It's a strange color. And it's making people sick. Katy and her best friend Joel can tell something is going wrong in their town. They decide to document it, trying to solve the mystery of what's going on. Both in school and outside of it, Katy and Joel are learning that bullies do what they do because they think they can get away with it, because they think they're bigger than the rules. There has to be a way to make them stop... but it just might take a whole town coming together in order to do it.
Silent Sister
Two sisters go missing on a class trip. When Grace is found injured with no memory—and Maddy’s blood on her clothes—everyone suspects she’s lying. To clear her name and find her sister, Grace must unravel Maddy’s secrets with the help of her notebook and classmates who aren’t telling the police everything. But the truth may reveal that Grace has secrets of her own.
Tree.Table. Book.
Kimmy Carson is Not Scared
The most expensive book in the world is the Codex Leicester, a handwritten scientific journal by Leonardo da Vinci. It was bought by Bill Gates in 1994 for $30.8 million dollars, which is roughly $61.6 million today when adjusted for inflation. Source: The New York Times
Dig
Five estranged cousins are lost in a maze of their family’s tangled secrets. Their grandparents, former potato farmers Gottfried and Marla Hemmings, managed to trade digging spuds for developing subdivisions and now they sit atop a million-dollar bank account—wealth they’ve refused to pass on to their adult children or their five teenage grandchildren. “Because we want them to thrive,” Marla always says.
But for the Hemmings cousins, “thriving” feels a lot like slowly dying of a poison they started taking the moment they were born. As the rot beneath the surface of the Hemmings’ white suburban respectability destroys the family from within, the cousins find their ways back to one another, just in time to uncover the terrible cost of maintaining the family name.
With her inimitable surrealism, award winner A.S. King exposes how a toxic culture of polite white supremacy tears a family apart and how one determined generation can dig its way out.
Switch
Time has stopped.
It’s been June 23, 2020, for nearly a year, as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand that teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her “Solution Time” class won’t solve the world’s problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda’s got a crowbar, and one way or another, she’s going to see what happens when she flips the switch.
Pick the Lock
Jane Vandermaker-Cook would like her mother back. As Jane’s mother tours the world to support the family, Jane lives and goes to school in a Victorian mansion with her younger brother and their mendacious father, who confines Jane’s mother to a system of pneumatic tubes whenever she’s at home. And then there’s weirdly ever-present Aunt Finch, Milorad the gardener, and his rat, Brutus. For Jane, this all seems normal until she gains access to the files for a lifetime of security camera videos—her lifetime.
Pick the Lock is a punk opera, a primal scream, and a portrait of a family buried in lies.
The Collectors
From David Levithan’s story about a non-binary kid collecting pieces of other people’s collections to Jenny Torres Sanchez's tale of a girl gathering types of fire while trying not to get burned to G. Neri's piece about 1970's skaters seeking opportunities to go vertical—anything can be collected and in the hands of these award-winning and bestselling authors, any collection can tell a story. Nine of the best YA novelists working today have written fiction based on a prompt from Printz-winner A.S. King (who also contributes a story) and the result is itself an extraordinary collection.
Depression: a Teen's Guide to Survive and Thrive by Jacqueline B. Toner, PHD & Claire A.B. Freeland, PHD
"... a guidebook for teenagers who are depressed or at risk for depression. This guide discusses depression and provides guidance on cognitive behavioral therapy principles to help teens take a problem-solving, strategy-based approach to deal with depressed moods, thoughts, and behavior"--Amazon.com
the dark matter of mona starr by laura lee gulledge
"Mona lives with crippling depression and anxiety. Because the dark emotions that fill her chest feel elemental and expansive, she names them her 'Matter,' which can manifest as a black hole or fog or take on a ghostlike form. But no matter what she calls it, her mental illness keeps her from fully engaging with the world around her. Therapy helps and, through various techniques like meditation, recognizing behavior patterns, and drawing, Mona slowly begins to reconnect with her friends, family, and the art she loves so much. She even breaks out of her shell and tentatively expands her social circle"--Booklist.
Ab(solutely) Normal: Stories that Shatter Mental Health Stereotypes by Nora Carpenter
"Channeling their own experiences, sixteen . . . authors subvert mental health stereotypes in an . . . uplifting collection of fiction"--Provided by publisher.
Not Just a Bad Day: Understanding Depression by Wendy Moragne & Tabitha Moriarty
"More prevalent than ever, depression affects approximately 280 million people worldwide. Discover what depression is and its causes, symptoms, treatment options, and more in this timely and relevant guide"--Provided by publisher.
