2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

Adults

The Shadows

You knew a teenager like Charlie Crabtree. A dark imagination, a sinister smile--always on the outside of the group. Some part of you suspected he might becapable of doing something awful. Twenty-five years ago, Crabtree did just that, committing a murder so shocking that it's attracted that strange kind of infamy that only exists on the darkest corners of the internet--and inspired more than one copycat. Paul Adams remembers the case all too well: Crabtree--and his victim--were Paul's friends. Paul has slowly put his life back together.

Afterlife

A literature professor tries to rediscover who she is after the sudden death of her husband, even as a series of family and political jolts force her to ask what we owe those in crisis in our families, biological or otherwise.

Weather: A Novel

Lizzie Benson slid into her job as a librarian without a traditional degree. But this gives her a vantage point from which to practice her other calling: she is a fake shrink. For years, she has tended to her God-haunted mother and her recovering addictbrother. They have both stabilized for the moment, but Lizzie has little chance to spend her new free time with husband and son before her old mentor, Sylvia Liller, makes a proposal.

Such a Fun Age

Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains' toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store's security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.

Women Who Inspire: Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Zoom)

Even though we can get outside now and do things, sometimes we can be in a rut. What do you need to get moving? Where do we go? We need Inspiration! Who inspires us? Does inspiration come from someone in particular? We want to explore someone who has inspired so many, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Join Samantha Malinger, Senior Support Specialist/Crisis Counselor with the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health Hope and Healing Program, for this virtual program.  Below are instructions on how you can join via Zoom.  

INSTRUCTIONS TO CONNECT

Lot: Stories

Lot is a soulful account of a Black Latino boy dealing with domestic abuse, and coming to terms with his sexuality. As he realizes he likes boys, the young man navigates a world of bigotry, poverty, and resilience. Set in Houston, this book features many different characters in various circumstances: “a young woman whose affair detonates across an apartment complex, a ragtag baseball team, a group of young hustlers, hurricane survivors, a local drug dealer who takes a Guatemalan teen under his wing, and a reluctant chupacabra."

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph, who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.