 Hello everyone, my name is Miss Pam and I work at the Billy Jean King Main Library and just wanted to say hi. And I'm Jeanine from Mark Twain Library. Welcome to chapter chat our monthly conversation highlighting new books from our elementary and middle school collections, airing the second Wednesday of every month. We will each talk about four new books that have arrived on our shelves within the last six months. Let's begin and we will start with you Pam take it away. All right, my first book is called the Lion of Mars by Jennifer L home. And this is set in the year 2091. This is a story of Belle. He's 11, and he lives on Mars he spent his entire life there, along with a few other kids. They were brought up to Mars by people who were on their way to work at the space stations up there or the colonies. So they've never known what it's like to live on earth. It just can watch movies or ask the adults what it was like, but it's a very structured life. They have a lot of rules of course for safety. Most of their food is made from algae. Yeah, and the most exciting thing is when a supply ship comes because they can put in a wish list of things that they want. But it's a very, it's kind of a boring life because they know there's other colonies out there from other countries, but they're forbidden from having any contact with them. And they're never told why. But in the adults start getting sick and the kids can't help them. They can't figure out what it is. They have to go to the other colonies to get help. And when they do, then they meet the kids from the other places and they, they have new friends from Finland and Russia and France, and they get a taste of what it's really like to, to have friends besides themselves not have to just be by themselves. But, and even the adults get into the act and they reconnect with the adults and the other colonies, but then they get a directive from earth that says, Oh, no, no more, no more contact. And after that everyone's everyone's really, really depressed. And the kids try and find out, you know what's going on how can we make this better. And when they do it's like really grown ups, come on. It's, it's a really unique look at what it would be like to grow up on another planet. And it's not always the glorious adventure that people think that it just might be just often just to focus on surviving from day to day that the kids are all unique. One really is into fashion. One's kind of a whiner. Bell is kind of the catalyst for everything, even though he's the youngest but this is a really, really fun book for people who are interested in space. So, Lion of Mars by Jennifer Elholm. Very cool, very cool. I'm always like interested in like the space like sci fi type stuff too. Yeah, seems pretty fun. I'll have to add it to the list. The ongoing list. Yes. Yay. So my first book is this. Yeah, Clues to the Universe by Christina Lee. I think Lee. This is a children's fiction novel. And this came on our shelves at on in May, the last month this year. So this book is about two unique individuals. Rosalyn Lynn Garrity, or Ro, as she goes by, has always loved watching NASA launches and building rockets and anything that has to do with space. But she especially loved all doing all those things with her dad until he unexpectedly passed away. That was really, really hard for her as still is as well. The only thing she has left of him is an unfinished model rocket that they were working on together. Life is quite difficult for Ro not only because she's also experiencing seventh grade in a new school, where everyone is trying to figure out what her biracial ethnicity is, which is half Chinese and half Caucasian. And so that's Ro. And she it's a tough time for her, but there's another unique individual Benjamin burns burns or Benji, that's what he goes by. So has it tough to he comes from a broken home broken family home after his father had walked out on him and his family. On top of that, Benji's best friend Amir just recently moved across the country, leaving Benji feeling very sad and alone, very lonely. And so Benji is almost the complete opposite as Ro, and is not a fan of science, but he can't get enough of this comic book series, very popular comic books series called space bound, which he thinks was written by his father and is trying to communicate with Benji through the story. So he kind of finds, I believe he finds a drawing or something that kind of indicates that his father might have actually written the whole series. So this is set in the 1980s in Sacramento, California. So the young graders accidentally swapped photos, swap photos folders, forcing them to meet and become an unlikely pair of friends who partner up to complete Rose model rocket, the unfinished model rocket that her father were working on. And also they plan to search for Benji's father. Of course, these are not easy tasks to accomplish. This is the 80s. So there's no internet. There's no Facebook. There's, you know, it's a lot harder to search for people. So, but of, you know, of course, though, there is some hesitation from Benji when he wants to find his father. He's very hesitant. Obviously, you could probably imagine, well, he left him. So, you know, clearly he doesn't want to do with them, things like that. But this irritates row, obviously, because she would give anything to see her father again. But of course you can imagine, there's a dynamic there. There's a little bit of a clash. They need to somehow try and understand each other's differences and, you know, they need to really put their perspectives into each other's perspectives, you know, so. So, as these two experience sadness grief bullying and all the challenges they embark on a very, very difficult journey together. So hopefully it all works out in the end, but you never know unless you can, unless you read it. Yeah, I saw that one I just haven't haven't read it yet. Well this cover is going to disappear because it's green. And there's not much I can do about that. This is JD and the Great Barber battle by Jay Dillard illustrated by Akim S Roberts. And this is the story of JD, who his family has a rule that they don't get a haircut until they're going into third grade. His mom does their hair and in cornrows. And so he's never had a haircut, but the night before third grade starts, she gives him his first haircut and she does a terrible job. And he's so embarrassed he wears his hat to school but everyone keeps making it take him off. And then they just laugh at him, and he's just so embarrassed he's like, maybe I should try fixing this, because he's watched, he's watched people do it and he knows what he's supposed to do. And so he gets his mom's clippers and he goes, Oh no, I think I'll practice on my little brother first. So he does and he does a really good job and okay I can do mine. And he fixes his hair, and people are like, Wow. So his friends before he knows that his friends are coming over him, and he's cutting their hair, and they're paying him. And so he can buy candy and video games and things. And then there is only one barber in town there in meridian Mississippi. And the barbers a little jealous because now these boys are not coming to him, but the shop only does three styles, and none of them are really popular. So they go to JD. And he, but the barber sends the health department after JD, because he doesn't have a license. So JD decides, well we need to have a contest to see who the best barber in town is. And he's studying all the styles he can do them he couldn't even do the cut cutouts. So they have a contest. Not going to tell you who wins. But this has references to the unique styles of Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry. And so it makes it really, really super current and very fun. And all the while I was thinking, he's nine. How does he know how to do this. But the author is a master barber and he started cutting his hair when he was 10. So I guess it can be done and just want to show one of the illustrations. There he is cutting his friends here on their back porch. He has his own chair and everything uses his mom's clippers. So this is just a very fun book. And I look forward to seeing what happens after we find out who wins the contest. So JD and the great barber battle. Very first, first book by Jay Dillard. So very well done. How cool. Wow, that's so cute. I like, I was wondering like, oh my gosh, if he's going to clip his brother's hair. I'm like, oh my God. Yeah, yeah, he can. It's amazing. So cool. That's so cool. And so my next one. This is The Night Brothers by BVS Alston. So this one is on our children's fiction section and it came in on our shelves in April. So a couple months ago. And this book is so much like Men in Black. Because I loved that movie. And I also love the fantasy genre. This book is a must read for me. I'm going to totally finish it too. I promise. I swear. But it's really, really, really fun. So this is Jay Peters is home household. She lives in a single parent home with just her mother. And it, it would usually be a Mari, her older brother, Quinton, and their mother, but Quinton has gone missing for over six months, and a Mari refuses to believe that he's dead. It's so strange and odd because it happened after he had gone to summer leadership camp or summer leadership camp. And then started working for an agency with classified information, which meant that he couldn't tell a Mari or their mother where or what he does with the agency. So with no clues as to what happened to him, the police had given up for good. Unfortunately. It almost feels like all hope is lost until a strange man came to the door saying that he has a package to be delivered to her from her older brother Quinton. So that's a little odd, especially since you haven't heard from him for six months. But only he didn't have a physical package to give to her right at that moment. Instead, he had her sign the tablet in his hand, just getting his signature, saying that she did receive the package. And then he said that the package is in Quinton's closet, where she finds a ticking briefcase and a nomination for a summer tryout at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs. This is a top secret organization that allows business to be conducted between humans and other supernatural creatures peacefully. It's very, very top secret and she must realize that this she finally realizes that this must be the agency that Quinton worked for before he disappeared. She also thinks that this is where she'll find answers. She'll find answers about where is about his whereabouts and maybe find some clues to try and solve exactly what happened to him. Not only does she have to get used to the fact that there are supernatural beings like fairies dragons and aliens, but she must also find her hidden enhanced ability. To ignore all the bullying from all the other classmates, pass the tryouts and then find her brother, all while an evil and very powerful magician is threatening the supernatural world. Will she succeed. I don't know, you'll have to read it to find out. So, it seems really fun. It's really cool. It's a great cover. Yeah, I love the cover. It's so cool. I'm really excited to hear about her dragon roommate or, you know, read further. I raced to finish it last night and it was has a great ending. I'm not going to spoil it. So on a totally different note, this is in a flash by Donna Joe Napoli. And she writes a lot of historical books. This is set in Japan in 1940. This is the story of Samona and Carolina, they are Italian, but their dad is like the world's best chef and so the ambassador to Japan gives him a job in the embassy there. So they moved to Tokyo. And they leave behind their beloved Nona and all their friends and everything that they know and then they have to learn a new language, learn a completely different culture. And they do. After a couple of years, and Samona is eight and Carolina is five when they moved there. So they, they do a pretty good job of absorbing. And in 1943, though, the war comes to Tokyo, and their dad is taking all the foreigners are taken prisoner, and he's taken to one camp, the girls are taken to another. And they use their, their cleverness, their wits, they just they don't give up and they manage to escape from the camp. And they kind of move from town to town. They find protectors along the way. And they're just, they just do whatever they can, so that people won't realize that they're foreigners. At one time they wrap cloths around their eyes to so that people will think they're blind, so they can't see their eyes. And they've, they've gotten so good at the language that people don't realize that they're not Japanese. And the language is kind of dark and they, they look the part and they play the part very well. But their last stop is in Hiroshima, and they get there not too long before the atomic bomb is dropped on the city but it's, it's quite. It's so dramatic and I just thought of all the research that the author had to do and she had to, she sprinkles in Italian and Italian customs, and the whole Japanese culture and the language. And just, if you've ever wondered what it would be like to be a foreigner in another country during a war, when you're kind of considered the enemy. It's the book for you. It's because of that I think I might end up putting it in middle school. Right now it's in children's fiction, but just an amazing story I think teachers would do well to recommend this if they're doing historical fiction. That's so well done. I can't imagine like the things that the like trauma and the adjustments. Oh my gosh, that is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I need to add that one. Yes, long list. Yeah, it's kind of long it's almost 400 pages but oh wow, it's a good read. Yeah, probably definitely middle school then. I think so I think so this subject, even though the girls are young when they start, obviously they're aging. Interesting. Okay, well, since you, you might change the section as well. I think it's a fitting that I talk about this one. I read this one or I listened to it and because of how the story goes and they're 13 years old that the main protagonists are but I think maybe it should probably be more teens the way how the story flows I'm not too sure if middle schoolers would be interested but it is in our collection it's in our scary stories collection kind of looks kind of creepy and scary. Yeah. Yeah. And so this book, basically is about two 13 year olds, Quinn and Mike you can see them on the cover. They live, I believe that it said in New Haven, or something like that, I think more towards the East Coast, and they live on a street called goodie lane. So everything is really great and everything in that neighborhood except their neighbors so Quinn and Mike, they're actually next door neighbors, but all the other neighbors on that street. They're very strange. They act kind of in unison. They seem to like not have much expression or emotion or if they did they all kind of have the same expression, like, all across the board. They all do the same things. It's kind of like it reminds me of like, um, kind of like a one of those like robotic type. You know, like the stepford wives. Yeah, yeah, or like, yeah, like kind of like pleasant, you know, something like that. Oh yeah yeah just everything is just done the same it's so weird. Anyway, so it's kind of creepy. Well, Quinn's father will used to think of stories and theories of what what's going on with them why they act this way. And so he likes to he liked to bring up theories, like maybe they're mortal, maybe they, maybe they have a spell on them, maybe they just so many different theories or maybe they're, and yeah so it's very interesting. But unfortunately, Quinn's father actually died a year ago. Life has been hard. But even though her father did pass away he used to be a police officer as well. So he that true detective part of him came out comes a lot. Well Quinn and Mike, decide they want to continue this investigation, kind of like follow in their father's footsteps and keep it going. The things that they do know as they investigate is they all these neighbors, they never age. It's almost as if they age back. Yeah. The big big thing that really freaked them out and the kind of was a little creepy to was one of the neighbors Mr Brown, he actually was very feeble, who's very weak he was there all. They're almost like elderly they're all retired and everything like that. And he was able to he's barely able to walk like from his front porch to like the car, you know, one week and then next thing you know they see him sprinting past them on the side. And what's even creepier is that Mr Brown the back of his leg he has a scar. It's like I think they said that it's the shape of Florida kind of. And the reason why they know that scar is because Quinn's dad used to have the exact same scar. And so it's kind of very creepy. So they're trying to figure out how is this reverse like aging process work. I don't understand they don't understand. Quinn thinks to she thinks that it's something supernatural, maybe something with magic. And Mike he's more of a non he's not really a believer in magic and supernatural stuff he thinks that there's always a reason there's always a reason why he uses science to investigate. He thinks it's all science, maybe a new Botox or maybe medical drug that they probably discovered. So, as they decide to go ahead with their hypothesis. They go through the steps of investigation. But the more they investigate, the more they find out that they're actually more involved in this whole scheme. As, as the book goes on, as you read. So, as you read, they become more and more engraved danger. So, it's kind of like when the villain finds out that you are finding out things. Yeah, you know, then you get into real trouble, kind of like that. But anyways, so I highly recommend this but I have a feeling I might, I might suggest putting it in the teen section. But definitely here I think we'll see how it goes in the scary story section. So, yeah, the creepy. Well, speaking of creepy. My last book is hide and seeker by take a Herman. Cool. Excuse me. This is a story of Justin and his friends they've gathered to welcome back their frenzy. He's been missing for a year and all of a sudden he's back, but he's different. He's very angry. He's very destructive and he speaks in creepy rhymes. So obviously did that before. So while they're waiting for the party to start, they decide to play hide and seek, and they have specific rules. And the penalty for breaking the rules this time turns out to be pretty horrific, because one by one, Justin and his friends disappear. And they end up as a place called nowhere, which is run by this mysterious creature you can see him in the back there, called the seeker. And it's just, they meet other kids there kids who've been missing for decades. And the most awful thing well they realize that Z was one of them but somehow he was able to return. And once they're there, the seeker, when he gets angry with him he forces them to relive their worst fears over and over and over again. And so Justin and his friends. They have to band together and they want to try and get the other kids to help them, trying to beat the seeker so that they can go back home and break his power. And this is just the scariest book and I listened to I watched an interview with the author and she said when she saw the cover. It almost gave her nightmares. Because even though she writes horror stories. She doesn't like horror movies. And she's a bit of a scaredy cat, but she started writing this as a fantasy and they said no no no it's, it's a horror story. She and her cousins, she has the chant in there that they used when they played hide and go seek and it wasn't just you count to 10 ready or not here I come it was. I went up the hill the hill was muddy stomped my toe and made it bloody should I wash it. And if the seeker hears yes, you know they need more time to hide. So you keep doing the chance here and then you know everybody's hidden. Oh, so she went back home she said we used to play hide and seek at her grandmother's in Knoxville, Tennessee. And she's where in the world did this check come from it's really. And none of them knew, but that was the chance that they always used. So, anyway, it's really scary. Yeah, and she may write another book about how the seeker became the seeker. Justin. Yeah, so Justin. He's a great character because he doesn't want to give up. And all of his friends. He gets them to be a team. And it's just super spooky but yeah I kind of know very emotional. You know what is my greatest fear. I know. It kind of reminds me of like get out or and stranger things. Yeah. Yeah, so he likes scary things this is it. I actually, that was one of the options for me I was thinking about doing that one, but I decided to do the stitches instead so but I read the synopsis of it and I was like, oh this is interesting. Yeah. Oh, I don't know though if I can. I know. Okay, so my last book. This one is called 13, which is the memory. Yeah, by Jody Lynn Anderson. So this one is on in our middle school fiction section it's a fantasy novel this these are this arrived on our shelves in April. So a couple months ago. This book is about Rosie Oaks. Even though 12 year old Rosie Oaks lives with her mother, Rosie still feels like she's all alone. Her mother is missing whatever it is that makes mothers love their daughters. She's kind of like a blank slate anyway. Ever since Rosie was born her mother has lived a very scheduled life where Rosie would have would have to set alarms for her to remind her just to eat, sleep and then work. Wow. Yeah, it's very interesting she she's just like a, like literally blank stare all the time, but she's able to function and work, you know, in real life but it's still the emotional. It's a definite emotional distance between both of them. Whenever Rosie would attempt to talk to her mom about something she would barely give a response or look very blank. She'd even be lucky if she even says like one or two words to respond to her. Rosie has experienced this very neglectful life for many, many years and has always turned to stories and storytelling for comfort. Those that were written by her and created by her, and they always had a happy ending. But once they started sixth grade, Rosie came to the realization that she should move on from storytelling and focus on making new friends other than her best friend, her closest friend, Jenna, who she calls germ. She got that nickname as like when one of the bullies in school actually happened to color that but it was only like basically her nickname for her like Rosie's nickname for her, because they're a good friends. And so she decided to basically raid her closet and take all the stories that she's ever written all her life, and she went into the backyard and burn them all. Little did she know that this would inadvertently allow her to see ghosts in her own home. Weird. Apparently when Rosie burned her stories to push magic and imagination away. Magic will magic tends to find a way back to you. She was basically closing one door and opening a window and are opening another door, which brought her the ability to see spirits. They. So these ghosts approach Rosie and germ, and they tell them that they're in grave danger. But first things first, they must read the witch hunters guide to the universe, which is that book right there, a brown leather bound book. And this book, as previously owned by Rosie's mother, who was actually, who's actually the last known witch hunter. I didn't know that. So, but the book informs the reader that all of the evil in the world stems from 13 witches who are unseen, and also unstoppable. And one of these witches is named the memory thief, just like the title. The memory thief, as you could probably can figure out, has the ability to steal a person's precious memories, and has actually stolen her mother's memories on the night of Rosie's birth. So this probably explains her mother's neglectful behavior, how she always looks blank. She's always looking in the distance, distance and barely responding to Rosie. Well now that Rosie has been introduced to the strange new supernatural world. She must do all that she can to discover her magical abilities and follow in her mother's footsteps and defeat the memory thief. Hopefully, she'll find a way to get her mother's memories back to her. Will Rosie be able to have a happy ending just like all the stories that she's created. The book is the first in a trilogy. So, we probably won't know until the third book. At least, there will be two more. I was wondering if there would be 13. Yeah, I know right. And I was like thinking like, well, I don't know. Maybe that'd be interesting. That'd be a long series though. Yeah. All right. What a great mix of books once again. Yeah, something for everybody I think. Just wanted to remind you that if you want to find these books on our catalog just look under chapter chat 0621. And just a little reminder plug for our summer reading program reading colors your world. There it's on June 19. There's actually an online virtual event with performers on that day at 11 o'clock on our Facebook page. So if you want more information, you can call the library visit the libraries that are open and everything will be pretty much online. But it's going to be fun. We're going to have programs every week for all ages. And it's going to be really great. So we encourage you to be part of that. So thanks, Jeanine has been a another fun time. Creeping and other. I know very interesting books this month. Yeah. All righty. Okay, so we'll see you next month. Yeah, see you then. All right, bye.