Monroe Free Library

A homesick little girl who has recently moved to an unfamiliar country comforts herself by clinging to an old blanket, but when she meets a new friend, the relationship helps her take her first steps into a new culture.

Illustrations and rhythmic text affirm a young girl's belief that everyone in the world is connected, from relatives far and near, to her chatty neighbor, to her family cat, to herself.

After learning that her father is the Crown Prince of Japan, Izumi travels to Tokyo, where she discovers that Japanese imperial life--complete with designer clothes, court intrigue, paparazzi scandals, and a forbidden romance with her handsome but stoic bodyguard--is a tough fit for the outspoken and irreverant eighteen-year-old from northern California.

Illustrations and text celebrate the many things--both big and small--that make a place feel like home.

"At twenty-two years old, Cece Cordell reaches the pinnacle of her career as a ballet dancer when she's promoted to principal at the New York City Ballet. She's instantly catapulted into celebrity, heralded for her “inspirational” role as the first Black ballerina in the famed company's history. Even as she celebrates the achievement of a lifelong dream, Cece remains haunted by the feeling that she doesn't belong. As she waits for some feeling...

As four very different letters arrive at the playground, each makes the next feel unwelcome, but once they begin to swing together, they have a wonderful time.

"When a baby is discovered floating in a basket along the canals of 1807 Venice, a guild of artisans takes him in and raises him as a son, skilled in each of their trades. Although the boy, Sebastien Trovato, has wrestled with questions of his origins, it isn't until a woman washes ashore his lagoon island that answers begin to emerge. In hunting down his story, Sebastien must make choices that could alter not just his own future, but that of the...

Brody Fair feels like nobody gets him: not his overworked parents, not his genius older brother, and definitely not the girls in the projects set on making his life miserable. Then he meets Nico, an art student who takes Brody to Everland, a "knock-off Narnia" that opens its door at 11:21pm each Thursday for Nico and his band of present-day misfits and miscreants. Here Brody finds his tribe and a weekly respite from a world where he feels out of place....

Audrey and Clare may be twins, but as they grew older they grew apart. When their brother Adam died, Clare blamed Audrey for the accident. Now Audrey is attending an alternative school, but is determined to switch to the public school with Clare, rebuilt their friendship, and atone for Adam's death. Clare is still dealing with Adam's death, and with her own gender fluidity and an attraction for a nonbinary classmate, Taylor. Have Audrey and Clare...

"Barb Matheson doesn't fit in: not on the Standing Rock Reservation where her mother was born; not at the mission in rural Ethiopia where she grew up; and certainly not at the Pennsylvania church where her husband preaches. Expansive and lyrical, Unfollowers is a tale of religious angst, unrequited love, and the upheaval of racial and economic privilege. Equally adrift on both sides of the Atlantic, Barb must negotiate the distance between white America...