Quote of the Month

Children's Book of the Month

On The Banks of Plum Creek

by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Children's Book of the Month

The Serial Garden
by Joan Aiken

This is the first complete collection of Joan Aiken’s beloved Armitage stories—and it includes four new, unpublished stories. After Mrs. Armitage makes a wish, the Armitage family has “interesting and unusual” experiences every Monday (and the occasional Tuesday). The Board of Incantation tries to take over their house to use as a school for young wizards; the Furies come to stay; and a cutout from a cereal box leads into a beautiful and tragic palace garden. Charming and magical, the uncommon lives of the Armitage family will thrill and delight. Includes Joan Aiken’s “Prelude” from Armitage, Armitage, Fly Away Home, as well as introductions from Joan Aiken’s daughter, Lizza Aiken, and best-selling author Garth Nix. Illustrated by Andi Watson.

Book of the Month

Garden Spells
by Sarah Addison Allen

The women of the Waverley family --
whether they like it or not -- are heirs to an unusual legacy,


one that grows in a fenced plot behind their Queen Anne home on Pendland Street in Bascom, North Carolina.





There, an apple tree bearing fruit of magical properties looms over a garden filled with herbs and edible flowers that possess the power to affect in curious ways anyone who eats them.

Book of the Month

                     To Kill A Mocking Bird
                                                               by Harper Lee

Harper Lee The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it,To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving,To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos.
Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Children's Book of the Month

                                            We're Going On A Bear Hunt
                                                    by Michael Rosen

Come along on a bear hunt in this award-winning classic from Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.  We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one.Will you come too? For more than twenty-five years readers have been swishy swashing and splash sploshing through this award-winning favorite. Join in the fun!

Book of the Month

                                                           Brave New World
                                                                    by Aldous Huxley

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs, all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his
distress...

Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece.

Children's Book of the Month

The Gruffalo

by Julia Donaldson

This is a rhyming story of a mouse and a monster. Little mouse goes for a walk in a dangerous forest. To scare off his enemies he invents tales of a fantastical creature called the Gruffalo. So imagine his surprise when he meets the real Gruffalo.

Book of the Month

How to be a Woman?
by Caitlin Moran
Though they have the vote and the Pill and haven't been burned as witches since 1727, life isn't exactly a stroll down the catwalk for modern women. They are beset by uncertainties and questions: Why are they supposed to get Brazilians? Why do bras hurt? Why the incessant talk about babies? And do men secretly hate them? Caitlin Moran interweaves provocative observations on women's lives with laugh-out-loud funny scenes from her own, from adolescence to her development as a writer, wife, and mother.

 

Book of the Month

Butterfly Palace

When Lilly Donaldson arrives at the Cutlers' famed Butterfly Mansion in 1899, the massive house and unfamiliar duties threaten to overwhelm her. Victorian Austin is lavish, highly political, and intimidating, but with the help of the other servants, Lilly resolves to prove herself to her new employers. Then, while serving at an elegant dinner party, Lilly recognizes one distinguished guest as Andrew, the love of her life, who abandoned her without a word back home. He seems to have assumed a new identity and refuses to acknowledge her, leaving her confused and reeling. Before Lilly can absorb this unwelcome news, she's attacked. Could it be the sinister Servant Girl Killer who has been terrorizing Austin? Or is it someone after something more personal--someone from her past? Does she dare trust Andrew to help or is he part of the danger threatening to draw Lilly into its vortex?

Book Trailer:

Book of the Month

Liesl lives in a tiny attic bedroom, locked away by her cruel stepmother. Her only friends are the shadows and the mice,until one night a ghost appears from the darkness. It is Po, who comes from the Other Side. Both Liesl and Po are lonely, but together they are less alone.
That same night, an alchemist's apprentice, Will, bungles an important delivery. He accidentally switches a box containing the most powerful magic in the world with one containing something decidedly less remarkable.

Will's mistake has tremendous consequences for Liesl and Po, and it draws the three of them together on an extraordinary journey.

From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver comes a luminous and magnificent novel that glows with rare magic, ghostly wonders, and a true friendship that lights even the darkest of places.

Book of the Month

The Star of Kazan

by Eva Ibbotson

Annika has never had a birthday. Instead she celebrates her Found Day, the day a housemaid and a cook to three eccentric Viennese professors found her and took her home. There, Annika has made a happy life in the servants' quarters, surrounded with friends, including the elderly woman next door who regales Annika with stories of her performing days and her countless admirers - especially the Russian count who gave her the legendary emerald, the Star of Kazan. And yet, Annika still dreams of finding her true mother. But when a glamorous stranger arrives claiming to be Annika's mother, and whisks her away to a crumbling, spooky castle, Annika discovers that all is not as it seems in her newfound home...

Book of the Month

                                                            The Book of Tomorrow
                                                                           by Cecelia Ahern

Born into the lap of luxury and comfortable in the here and now, spoiled, tempestuous Tamara Goodwin has never had to look to the future--until the abrupt death of her father leaves her and her mother a mountain of debt and forces them to move in with Tamara's peculiar aunt and uncle in a tiny countryside village.
Tamara is lonely and bored, with a traveling library as her only diversion. There she finds a large leather-bound book with a gold clasp and padlock, but no author name or title. Intrigued, she pries open the lock, and what she finds takes her breath away.

Tamara sees entries written in her own handwriting, and dated for the following day. When the next day unfolds exactly as recorded, Tamara realizes she may have found a solution to her problems. But in her quest to find answers, Tamara soon learns that some pages are better left unturned and that, try as she may, she mustn't interfere with fate.

Book of the Month

George's Marvellous Medicine

by Roald Dahl

George's Grandma is a grizzly, grumpy, selfish old woman with pale brown teeth and a small puckered up mouth like a dog's bottom. Four times a day she takes a large spoonful of medicine, but it doesn't seem to do her any good. She's always just as poisonous after she's taken it as she was before. When George is left to look after her one morning, it's just the chance he needs . . .

Book of the Month

The Silver Crown

When Ellen receives a mysterious crown as a birthday present it sets in motion a whole series of tragic and puzzling events. Evil is all around and gradually Ellen realises that only the owner of the silver crown can oppose and defeat it. An exciting and gripping story of extremes of good and evil.

Book of the Month

Heft
                                                                                        by Liz Moore

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Setting: New York 

Former academic Arthur Opp weighs 550 pounds and hasn't left his rambling Brooklyn home in a decade. Twenty miles away, in Yonkers, seventeen-year-old Kel Keller navigates life as the poor kid in a rich school and pins his hopes on what seems like a promising baseball career—if he can untangle himself from his family drama. The link between this unlikely pair is Kel’s mother, Charlene, a former student of Arthur’s. After nearly two decades of silence, it is Charlene’s unexpected phone call to Arthur—a plea for help—that jostles them into action. Through Arthur and Kel’s own quirky and lovable voices, Heft tells the winning story of two improbable heroes whose sudden connection transforms both their lives.

Book of the Month

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

First published in 1978, this picture-book presents Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" with beautiful illustrations by Susan Jeffers.

 "For this special edition with a new design, trim size, and three new spreads, Susan Jeffers has added more detail and subtle color to her sweeping backgrounds of frosty New England scenes. There are more animals to find among the trees, and the kindly figure with his "promises to keep" exudes warmth as he stops to appreciate the quiet delights of winter. The handsome new vellum jacket will attract new and old fans as it evokes a frost-covered windowpane. This celebration of a season makes an ideal holiday gift for a child, a teacher, or a host."