NCW Libraries

"From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine's Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of his neighbor Elizabeth's life--from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there's always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from her and the rest of the tribal community. It's the secret that Elizabeth...

"In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and...

Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami's novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters. These raw and realistic portrayals of bullying are counterbalanced...

"By turns an ardent family saga, scintillating potboiler, and anti-capitalist tirade, Oil! ranks among the most important critiques of fossil energy ever printed. This edition features a contextual introduction by Michael Tondre, which will illuminate the novel's urgent timeliness in our warming world"--

It's 2008, and the rise of Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He's eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to, and abandoned, when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she'd never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning...

"Don't worry about what Dennis Monk did when he was drinking. He's sober now, ready to rejoin the world of leases and paychecks, reciprocal friendships and healthy romances - if only the world would agree to take him back. When his working-stiff parents kick him out of their suburban home, mere months into his frangible sobriety, the 26-year-old spends his first dry summer couch surfing through South Philadelphia, struggling to find a place for himself...

"For almost a decade, Claudia has counseled patients at Mercy Street, a clinic in the heart of the city. The work is consuming, the unending dramas of women in crisis. For its patients, Mercy Street offers more than health care; for many, it is a second chance. But outside the clinic, the reality is different. Anonymous threats are frequent. A small, determined group of anti-abortion demonstrators appears each morning at its door. As the protests...

In 1937, there are recesses in Appalachia no outsiders have ever explored. Two government-sponsored documentarians from Cincinnati, Ohio - a writer and photographer - are dispatched to penetrate this wilderness and record what they find for President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration. For photographer Clay Havens, the assignment is his last chance to reboot his flagging career. So when he and his journalist partner are warned away from the...

"Alejandra Kim doesn't feel like she belongs anywhere. At her wealthy Manhattan high school, her super Spanish name and super Korean face do not compute to her mostly white "woke" classmates and teachers. In her Jackson Heights neighborhood, she's not Latinx enough. Even at home, Ale feels unwelcome. And things at home have only gotten worse since Papi's body was discovered on the subway tracks. Ale wants nothing more than to escape the city for...

"Stacey and her friends can't wait for lunchtime on Friday, also known as TacoPizza FryDay! But when Stacey discovers that some of her classmates can't afford to eat lunch, she loses her appetite. She knows she has to do something--but what can a kid do? Plenty, as it turns out! With the help of their community, Stacey and her friends devise a plan to make their voices heard. Inspired by Stacey Abrams's legacy of grassroots activism and advocacy,...