Geo Librarian

  THE HARROWING: A GRAPHIC NOVEL written by Kristen Kiesling, illustrated by Rye Hickman Harry N. Abrams, 2024 ISBN:   9781419760846 Source: eBook from the public library through Sora Ages 14 and up All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK In this YA graphic novel, a psychic teen hunts potential killers until she discovers the boy she loves is her next target Rowan Sterling should be worrying about normal teenage things like attending college and whether her best friend, Lucas, is maybe more than a friend. . . . Instead, she’s having terrifying visions of blood and violence. As the premonitions increase in number and intensity, Rowan seeks her father’s help, but instead finds herself drugged, kidnapped, and sent to a mysterious facility called Rosewood. It isn’t long before Rowan discovers Rosewood isn’t a boarding school or an it’s a training center for teens with special abilities who are known as Harrows. Harrows can view the actions of would-be murderers be...

THE DEEP DARK written and illustrated by Molly Knox Ostertag Graphix, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-338-84000-1 Source: public library Ages 14 and up All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover and summary provided by publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK From Molly Knox Ostertag, writer-illustrator, comes a darkly beautiful story of identity, family, love, loss, and magic. Everyone has secrets. Mags’s has teeth. Magdalena Herrera is about to graduate high school, but she already feels like an adult with serious responsibilities: caring for her ailing grandmother; working a part-time job; clandestine make outs with a girl who has a boyfriend. And then there’s her secret, which pulls her into the basement each night, drains her of energy, and leaves her bleeding. A secret that could hurt and even kill if it ever got out -- like it did once before. So Mags keeps her head down, isolated in her small desert community. That is, until her childhood friend Nessa comes back to town, brin...

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR AMYGDALA written by Anna Housley Juster, illustrated by Cynthia Cliff Free Spirit Publishing, 2024 ISBN: 978-8-88554-373-6 Source: Media Masters Publicity & publisher for review Ages 6-10 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK Your amygdala keeps you safe, but what about when it gets things wrong ? This amusing training guide helps children learn to calm their amygdala and control their fight-flight-freeze impulses.   The amygdala is the brain’s alarm system that alerts for danger, but sometimes it gets things wrong and needs help calming down. In this picture book, young readers receive kid-friendly information about the amygdala from the amygdala, how it can sometimes get confused, and simple ideas to calm and train it.   The amygdala in How to Train Your Amygdala makes complicated concepts accessible to children so they can understand their bodies, practice impu...

  EMMA MCKENNA, FULL OUT The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class #1 written by Kate Messner, illustrated by Algonquin Young Readers, 2024 ISBN: 9781523525737  Ages 7-10 Early middle grade realistic fiction Source: publisher for review All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. REVIEW Emma looks forward to attending her new school, Curiosity Academy with her new teacher, Mrs. Z. Until her former friend turned arch enemy, Lucy shows up in the same classroom.  Emma wants to make friends but after an unfortunate incident between her and Lucy that resulted in an unpleasant nickname, she's wary. Friendships can be tricky things as Emma discovers as she wrestles with her conundrum. In addition to the friendship concerns, Emma wants to participate in helping her school choose a mascot for the school, but she absolutely doesn't want to get up on the stage to present her suggestion. Can Emma find a way through her friendship concer...

https://www.meetthewildthings.com/ Many thanks to HAYLEY & JOHN ROCCO for taking time out of their busy schedule to answer a few questions! INTERVIEW • Reading is ….one of the greatest ways to not only expand your mind, but your perspectives and viewpoints, as well. It’s an opportunity to see how others think and feel, which naturally inspires empathy. • I hope our books will ….Inspire empathy for these fascinating endangered animals in young readers, and if we’re so lucky, maybe even motivate them to take action or pursue a career in the conservation sector they’re excited about. • How did your series come about?  When I was young, I loved animals so much, I wanted to be Dr. Doolittle and Dr. Jane Goodall all in one. While I was researching for Wild Places: The Life of Naturalist David Attenborough, I really became aware of just how many of our beloved creatures were on the brink of extinction. I learned that the most trafficked animal in the world was the beloved pangolin, a...

  COOKIE TIME written and illustrated by Jessie Sima Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-6659-3674-3 Source: publisher for review Ages 4-8 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK From the New York Times bestselling creator of Not Quite Narwhal comes a tasty picture book about two kids who get into time travel shenanigans while trying to skip waiting for cookies to bake!Kat and Ari love cookie time, their special tradition with Grandpa and his dog, Biscuit. It’s always fun and oh, so delicious! But waiting for the cookies to be ready is so hard. What better way to skip to the good part than a time machine? The two plan to jump a little into the future, to when the cookies are out of the oven, but they overshoot and go way too far ahead! And when Kat and Ari try to return, they still can’t get the timing right. They have fun meeting prehistoric dinosaurs, futuristic r...

  HOMEBODY written and illustrated by Theo Parish HarperAlley, 2024 ISBN: 978-0-06-331959-2 Source: public library Ages 14 and up YA Memoir All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK In their comics debut, Theo Parish masterfully weaves an intimate and defiantly hopeful memoir about the journey one nonbinary person takes to find a home within themself. Combining traditional comics with organic journal-like interludes, Theo takes us through their experiences with the hundred arbitrary and unspoken gender binary rules of high school, from harrowing haircuts and finally the right haircut to the intersection of gender identity and sexuality—and through tiny everyday moments that all led up to Theo finding the term “nonbinary,” which finally struck a chord. “Have you ever had one of those moments when all of a sudden things become clear…like someone just turned on a light?” A whole spectrum of peopl...

  A NEWCOMER IN POCKETVILLE Monti and Leo #1 written and illustrated by Sylvie Kantorovitz Walker Books, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-5362-2277-7 Source: purchased Ages 6-9 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK A charming early reader in graphic form draws on the classic theme of friendship to show that being new—or different—doesn’t have to mean being lonely. Pocketville is a small town, set in its ways, and the arrival of a stranger causes a stir. Monti the mole is stunned one morning to find Leo the lizard hogging his special reading rock. When Monti visits the bakery and the library, he learns that the last cinnamon roll has been purchased, and the book he was waiting for has been checked out. What’s a fastidious mole to do? When Monti confronts Leo, the newcomer turns out to be agreeable in the extreme, and friendship is a given. Now to convince the town’s cantankerous baker, Ms. Sheep, to stop turnin...

  NARWHAL, UNICORN OF THE ARCTICE written by Candace Fleming, illustrated by Deena So'Oteh A nne Schwartz books, 2024 ISBN: 978-0-593-37778-9 Source: Blue Slip Media & publisher Ages 6-10 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com & Blue Slip Media. ABOUT THE BOOK Venture to the Arctic Ocean and discover real life underwater unicorns--narwhals--in this stunningly illustrated nonfiction picture book.You are a narwhal. Shy... Swift... Small... Humans call you unicorn of the Arctic.When winter ice covers the Arctic Ocean, a narwhal pokes his head through a patch of open water, his tusk--a six-foot long tooth--pointed to the sky.Join this mammal as he jousts with another narwhal, floats with his pod, and uses echolocation to find his prey. When warmer weather arrives, he will migrate towards summer ground. But he must be careful! Predators--orcas and polar bears--will be hungry and looking for a meal.... Ho...