Staff Picks
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Tailspin
World War II tail gunner Gene Moran fell four miles through the sky without a parachute and lived. Captured by the Germans, he survived a harrowing eighteen months as a prisoner of war, including a six-hundred-mile death march in 1945 across Central Europe.
When Gene returned home, he kept those memories locked up for nearly seventy years. His nine children knew little of their dad's war story. But when John, a young history teacher, learns of Gene's amazing fall, he's desperate to learn more. Finally, Gene agrees.
So begins a series of "Thursdays with Gene" interviews. Gene, nearing his ninetieth birthday, recounts incredible tales. But John has no idea what wounds he's reopening. Gene's nightmares and grief return. But both men persevere, bonded by their close and growing friendship.
As the interviews go on, John faces an ordeal of his own. His wife is fighting brain cancer. What will happen to his wife and his two young children? John must continue uncovering Gene's story of survival as he himself confronts the greatest trial of his life.
Tailspin is more than a war story. It's a story of two men's separate journeys confronting trauma and loss. It's a story of resilience and hope.
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The Serviceberry
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”
Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice. -
Cry When the Baby Cries
Born out of a viral “Shouts & Murmurs” piece in The New Yorker, this darkly humorous, charming, and brilliant graphic memoir, in the tradition of Allie Brosh and Roz Chast, brings the first few years of parenthood to life.
With the wit of a comedian and the observational skills of a sociologist surveying a new subculture, Becky Barnicoat writes about her first few years of parenthood with warmth, sharp insight, and uproarious humor in her debut graphic memoir Cry When the Baby Cries.
Barnicoat’s prose is always relatable, smart, and so funny while discussing everything from how ignoring women’s pain is baked into the practice of obstetrics to the impossibility of putting a child down drowsy but awake while you are permanently drowsy but awake, to the tyranny of gentle parenting, and more.
Barnicoat gives us permission to cry when the baby cries, and also laugh, snort, lie on the floor naked, drool, and revel in a deeply strange new world ruled by a tyrannical tiny leader, growing bigger and more cherished by the day. -
Everything Is Tuberculosis
Instant #1 New York Times bestseller! • #1 Washington Post bestseller! • #1 Indie Bestseller! • USA Today Bestseller!
John Green, acclaimed author and passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Signed edition
“The real magic of Green’s writing is the deeply considerate, human touch that goes into every word.” –The Associated Press
″Told with the intelligence, wit, and tragedy that have become hallmarks of the author’s work.... This is the story of us.” –Slate
“Earnest and empathetic.” –The New York Times
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is seen as a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing over a million people every year.
In Everything Is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world—and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis. -
The Garden
A darkly beautiful, eerie, hypnotic novel about two elderly sisters living alone at the edge of the world.
In a place and time unknown, two elderly sisters live in a walled garden, secluded from the outside world. Evelyn and Lily have only ever known each other. What was before the garden, they have forgotten; what lies beyond it, they do not know. Each day is spent in languid service to their home: tending the bees, planting the crops, and dutifully following the instructions of the almanac written by their mother.
When a nameless boy is found hiding in the boarded house at the center of their isolated grounds, their once-solitary lives are irrevocably disrupted. Who is he? Where did he come from? And most importantly, what does he want?
As suspicions gather and allegiances falter, Evelyn and Lily are forced to confront the dark truths about themselves, the garden, and the world as they’ve known it. -
Jane and Dan at the End of the World
AS SEEN ON THE TODAY SHOW • USA TODAY BESTSELLER • A ZIBBY OWENS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025! • A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK CLUB PICK!
"Hilarious."—People
Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.
Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? She’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.
But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.
Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part” all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage. -
Sunshine
From award-winning and national bestselling author, Robin McKinley, comes this dark, sensual vampire fairy tale.
“Sunshine” is what everyone calls her. She works long hours in her family’s coffeehouse, making her famous “Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head,” Bitter Chocolate Death, Caramel Cataclysm, and other sugar-shock specials that keep the customers coming. She’s happy in her bakery—which her stepfather built specially for her—but sometimes she feels that she should have life outside the coffeehouse. One evening she drives out to the lake to get away from her family, to be alone. There hasn’t been any trouble at the lake for years.
But there is trouble that night for Sunshine. She is abducted by a gang of vampires who shackle her to the wall of an abandoned mansion, within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight. Sunshine knows that he is a vampire and that she is to be his dinner. Yet when dawn breaks he has not attempted to harm her.
And now he needs her help to survive the day... -
Woodworking
"Big-hearted and hilarious, an ode to authenticity and a must-read in our current times." --Shelby Van Pelt, New York Times bestselling author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
One of Book Riot's and The Mary Sue's 15 Most Anticipated Queer Books of 2025 - One of The Millions', Kirkus's, The AV Club's, Them's, and LGBTQ Reads's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 - One of Vol. 1 Brooklyn's, Autostraddle's, LA Times's, and BookBrowse's Most Anticipated Reads of March 2025 - One of Bustle's Best Books of Spring 2025 - Matty Maggiacomo's March Book Club Pick
An unforgettable and heartwarming book-club debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.
Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced--and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.
Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High's resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It's a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty--and loneliness--that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn't the only one struggling to shed the weight of others' expectations.
As their unlikely friendship evolves, it comes under the scrutiny of their community. And soon, both women--and those closest to them--are forced to ask: Who are we if we choose to hide ourselves? What happens once we disappear into the woodwork?
Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.
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Hiroshima
One of Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction From 2024
The first volume in a two-book series about each of the atomic bomb drops that ended the Pacific War based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors to tell a story of devastation and resilience
In this vividly rendered historical narrative, M. G. Sheftall layers the stories of hibakusha—the Japanese word for atomic bomb survivors—in harrowing detail, to give a minute-by-minute report of August 6, 1945, in the leadup and aftermath of the world-changing bombing mission of Paul Tibbets, Enola Gay, and Little Boy. These survivors and witnesses, who now have an average age over ninety years old, are quite literally the last people who can still provide us with reliable and detailed testimony about life in their cities before the bombings, tell us what they experienced on the day those cities were obliterated, and give us some appreciation of what it has entailed to live with those memories and scars during the subsequent seventy-plus years.
Sheftall has spent years personally interviewing survivors who lived well into the twenty-first century, allowing him to construct portraits of what Hiroshima was like before the bomb, and how catastrophically its citizens’ lives changed in the seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, and years afterward. He stands out among historians due to his fluency in spoken and written Japanese, and his longtime immersion in Japanese society that has allowed him, a white American, the unheard-of access to these atomic bomb survivors in the waning years of their lives. Their trust in him is evident in the personal and traumatic depths they open up for him as he records their stories.
Hiroshima should be required reading for the modern age. The personal accounts it contains will serve as cautionary tales about the horror and insanity of nuclear warfare, reminding them—it is hoped—that the world still lives with this danger at our doorstep. -
Memorial Days
A New York Times Bestseller
“Brooks tracks the geography of grief with patience and grace as she comes to terms with the ongoing nature of outliving the ones you love most. ... Her memoir is certainly a testament to her own unique loss, but it’s moreover a lifeline to others who will find themselves in this familiar, shattered landscape of grief.” —Los Angeles Times
“A rich account of marriage and mourning.” —Washington Post
A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey towards peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Horse
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz – just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy – collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.
After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at the beach. But all of this ended abruptly when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.
Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony’s death.
A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.
Staff Picks for Kids
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Kareem Between
This award-winning, heartfelt coming-of-age novel in verse tells the powerful story of a seventh-grade Syrian American boy and his struggles, big and small, as he navigates middle school.
"The exact type of book I would've loved, and needed, as a kid." —Jasmine Warga, New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Honor recipient for Other Words for Home
Seventh grade begins, and Kareem’s already fumbled it.
His best friend moved away, he messed up his tryout for the football team, and because of his heritage, he was voluntold to show the new kid—a Syrian refugee with a thick and embarrassing accent—around school. Just when Kareem thinks his middle school life has imploded, the hotshot QB promises to get Kareem another tryout for the squad. There’s a catch: to secure that chance, Kareem must do something he knows is wrong.
Then, like a surprise blitz, Kareem’s mom returns to Syria to help her family but can’t make it back home. If Kareem could throw a penalty flag on the fouls of his school and home life, it would be for unnecessary roughness.
Kareem is stuck between. Between countries. Between friends, between football, between parents—and between right and wrong. It’s up to him to step up, find his confidence, and navigate the beauty and hope found somewhere in the middle.
** Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature** Global Read Aloud Selection ** School Library Journal Best Middle Grade Book ** Chicago Public Library Best Fiction for Older Readers ** PEOPLE Magazine Best Kids Book ** Junior Library Guild Selection** Texas Lone Star Reading List selection ** Common Sense Media Selection for Families** Cybils Novel in Verse Award Winner** Jane Addams Children Book Award Finalist** ILA Notable Book for a Global Society -
How It All Ends
Kirkus Reviews Best Book
School Library Journal Best Book
The Horn Book Fanfare
Common Sense Media Best Book
New York Public Library Best Book
NPR Books We Love
ALSC Notable Children's Books List
"Hilarious, inventive, smart, and silly." --Alice Oseman, bestselling author of Heartstopper
A funny, vulnerable, and disarming debut graphic novel from Emma Hunsinger, the creator of the popular "How to Draw a Horse." How It All Ends is a book about being overwhelmed by who you are and who you might be--and all the possibilities in between. For fans of Snapdragon, The Magic Fish, Heartstopper, and New Kid.
Thirteen-year-old Tara lives inside the nonstop adventure of her imagination. It's far more entertaining than dull, everyday life. But when she's bumped from seventh grade directly to high school, she gets a dramatic jolt to reality.
Tara isn't ready to watch the racy shows the high school kids like, or to listen to the angsty music, or to stop playing make-believe with her younger brother. She's not ready to change for PE in front of everyone, or for the chaos of the hallways, or for the anarchy of an English class that's overrun with fourteen-year-old boys.
But then there's Libby.
Tara doesn't know whether she's ready for Libby. She can't even explain who Libby is to her because she doesn't know yet. She just knows that everything's more fun when she and her new classmate are together. But what will happen next How will it all end
"Imaginative and hysterical, and with the sort of rare, clear-seeing honesty that will make any reader feel less alone in the world. I loved it." --Eliot Schrefer, two-time National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author
"A fantastic story about making new friends and surviving school." --Dan Santat, National Book Award winner for A First Time for Everything
"A hilarious, surreal, and deeply sincere story." --Sarah Sax, author of Picture Day
"I've never felt so healed by a book. I can't wait to give it to everyone I know." --Adib Khorram, award-winning author of Darius the Great Is Not Okay
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Polar Bear's Underwear
Polar Bear has lost his underwear! Where could it be? There's only one thing to do: Remove the book's underwear-shaped bellyband to find the missing pair! Is that Polar Bear's underwear? No, it's Zebra's—see the colorful stripes? What about that itty-bitty pair? No, those belong to Butterfly! And so the search continues, with every page revealing an animal in eye-popping undies. This laugh-out-loud, one-of-a-kind novelty book from Japanese design talents tupera tupera will surprise and amuse children and their parents, all while affirming the importance of putting on your underwear.
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I Love You More
A heartfelt celebration of parental love and the beauty of nature.
How much does Mom love her little Rae? More than seal pups and penguins love their icy home, more than dolphins love the boundless sea, or lions love to race and roar, more even than all the stars, the moon and the sun combined. In fact, she loves her more than words can even say . . .
A beautiful, lyrical story which reassures children that the love between a parent and child is unconditional and everlasting, whilst encouraging them to explore and discover, to change and grow.
Perfect for fans of Giles Andreae and Emma Dodd and picture books Guess How Much I Love You? by Sam McBratney and Anita Jeram and No Matter What by Debi Gliori.
Written by Clare Helen Welsh, author of All the Animals Were Sleeping and Time to Move South for Winter, with stylish, retro artwork from Kevin and Kristen Howdeshell. -
All the Best Dogs
For anyone who loves a dog--and anyone who loves a laugh, comes this sensitive (and silly!) story about growing up and mending fences. An enduring message of friends, community, and the joy of pets.
Ask anyone who has a dog and they’ll tell you that their dog is the best. Really, truly, the best dog in the world. Theirs is the best dog that ever lived, ever, ever, in the history of the known universe.
Welcome to the dog park! It’s a playground for dogs in the big city. Here, four sixth graders (and their dogs!) overlap on one hilarious and important June weekend.
Ezra needs to find his lost dog.
Cup-Cup needs a friend. (She also needs to learn to walk on a leash.)
Mei-Alice wonders if anyone will ever understand her.
Panda wonders what will happen if she breaks the rules.
Kaleb is covering up a terrible mistake.
Grover and Lottie are making lots of terrible mistakes. (Some of them are disgusting.)
And Jilly needs to make a new life in a new place.
On this almost-summer weekend, a series of surprises, mishaps, and misunderstandings will end up changing all of their lives. -
Umami
Umami, sick of cold fish, travels the world trying different and delicious food to bring back home for the other penguins to try.
Umami is tired of eating cold fish.
But fish is what the penguins eat. Fish for every meal and birthdays too. To find new exciting foods, Umami adventures across the sea and discovers flavors and spices that are inspiring! She has to share them.
But will the other penguins share her love for these different foods? -
Not If I Can Help It
From award-winning Carolyn Mackler, the story of Willa, who has been living with Sensory Processing Disorder but is thrown for a BIG loop when her dad announces he's dating Willa's best friend's mom.
Not If I Can Help It joins the Scholastic Gold line, which features award-winning and beloved novels. Includes exclusive bonus content!
Willa likes certain things to be certain ways. Her socks have to be soft . . . and definitely can't have irritating tags on the inside. She loves the crunch of popcorn and nachos . . . but is grossed out by the crunch of a baby carrot. And slimy foods? Those are the worst.
Willa can manage all these things -- but there are some things she can't deal with, like her father's big news. He's been keeping a big secret from her . . . that he's been dating the mom of Willa's best friend Ruby. Willa does NOT like the idea of them being together. And she does NOT like the idea of combining families. And she does NOT like the idea of her best friend becoming her sister overnight. Will she go along with all of these changes? NOT if she can help it!
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This Rock Is Mine!
Friendship wins the day in this heartwarming quarrel between two hilariously stubborn frogs.
Two frogs find an ordinary little rock. It’s the perfect place to stretch their legs! But both frogs think it's their rock—and they really don’t want to share. So what do they do? Why, make a huge fuss and start an uproarious squabble of course! Uh-oh. They’ve caused such a scene, that here comes a hungry heron. Perhaps they should put their differences aside and find a new rock…together?
Jubilant rhyme makes for a witty read aloud in this gleefully illustrated showdown. A lovely reminder on resolving disagreements respectfully, especially for little ones heading back to school or those that are fond of shouting, "Mine!" -
Impossible Creatures
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two kids race to save the world’s last magical place in the first book of a landmark new fantasy series, from “a writer with an utterly distinctive voice and a wild imagination.” (Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass)
*This spectacular book features foil and embossing on the jacket, full-color designed endpapers, red stained edges, and a red case cover with gold stamping.*
“An instant classic from one of the most gifted storytellers of our time, Impossible Creatures is an astonishing miracle of a book.” —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal Winner for The One and Only Ivan
A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST CHILDREN'S BOOK OF THE YEAR • A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, AND SHELF AWARENESS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
The day that Christopher saved a drowning baby griffin from a hidden lake would change his life forever.
It’s the day he learned about the Archipelago—a cluster of unmapped islands where magical creatures of every kind have thrived for thousands of years, until now. And it’s the day he met Mal—a girl on the run, in desperate need of his help.
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what’s happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.
Katherine Rundell’s story crackles and roars with energy and delight. It is brought vividly to life with more than 60 illustrations, including a map and a bestiary of magical creatures. -
Faker
From the #1 bestselling author of RESTART, the story of a family of liars... and the son who wants to break the family tradition.
Trey knows the drill: His dad gets him into a school full of kids with rich parents. Trey makes friends, and his dad makes connections. Soon, there's the con, where Trey's dad suckers the other parents into investing in one of his schemes. Once the money's in the bank, Trey, his sister, and their dad are on the run... until they set up somewhere else and start again.
Trey believes his father when he says no one's getting hurt. After all, these parents have money to spare.
But Trey's starting to get tired of running... and lying... and never having a friend for longer than a few months. But how do you get your family to stop lying when your lives depend on it?
Library News

Garden Club Plant Sale May 17
May 6, 2025The Garden Club of Lake Zurich's annual plant sale is scheduled for Saturday, May 17 in front of the Library. The event takes place from 8:30 a.m.-noon. Come early for the best selection.

Green Your Routine, Shred and Electronics Recycling Event
April 30, 2025Annual Shred and Recycling Event
8:30-11:30am Sat., Jun. 7, Held in the Library's Parking Lot, Rain or Shine
Co-sponsored with Ela Township
Shredding: Limited to 3 boxes, per car

Astronomy Day Returns May 3
April 21, 2025Celebrate all things astronomy at this day-long event hosted by the Lake County Astronomical Society from 11 a.m.-4 p.m on Saturday, May 3 at the Library. Festivities include: