Layla is a thoughtful seven-year-old girl who shows readers what happiness is to her. Happiness for Layla includes looking into her kaleidoscope with her mom and chasing her friend Juan. What does happiness look like to you and your family? Read this picture book written by Mariahadessa Tallie to find out more about Layla and what brings her happiness.

Love Bridget Jones Diaries? Meet Laurie Watkinson, 36, a up and coming lawyer in the British law firm, Salter and Rowson. She loves her career and believes her 18 year relationship with fellow lawyer, Dan Price, to be solid and is rocked when he abruptly ends things. Enter Jamie Carter, another lawyer in their firm, who needs Laurie’s help to move up in firm. Can they fake a relationship to save her from office humiliation while advancing Jamie’s career? Author Mhairi McFarlane provides readers with likable characters and contemporary issues in this fast paced read.

This title is available in print, ebook and eaudiobook from VCPL.

A raucous behind-the-scenes look at the life of the dictionary. Readers who never thought they would read that sentence will be entertainingly enlightened by Kory Stamper’s Word by Word: the Secret Life of Dictionaries. It’s a light-hearted yet sincere look at a job most people give little thought to. To many, the dictionary is a hallowed tome “of truth and wisdom as infallible as God.” To others, it’s something they have because adults should own a dictionary. Most people don’t realize that the dictionary is an organic document, constantly being reviewed, revised, and updated by “actual, living, awkward people.”
We are taught that language is a science, rigidly classifiable, when in fact it is an art, and a messy one at that: “Two lexicographers,” Stamper writes, “with the same training can look at the same sentence, refer to the same grammars, tear out the same amount of hair,” yet place a word in two different parts of speech. Modern English grammar, it turns out, is based on rules for Latin, another (ancient) language altogether. As a result, schoolchildren learn to grudge grammar because teachers insist that English be shoehorned into grammatical rules that don’t apply to it.
Stamper’s language isn’t nearly as bemusingly perplexing as the culture she describes. Her writing flourishes with an easy air, yet it’s candid and down to earth. Her anecdotes about language history and the process of defining words are educational and, perhaps as importantly, quite a bit of fun.
A dangerous book for schoolchildren, and should not be read by those who won’t end sentences with prepositions.

When a massive solar flare causes a worldwide blackout, an Amish community in rural Pennsylvania is not immediately affected. Their lives, purposefully simple, do not involve a lot of computers or other modern technological conveniences, so the disruption of electronics don’t change their day to day activities. But when the English – their name for those outside the Amish circles – have their lives shattered by this catastrophe, this quiet community can’t stay separate for long.

When the English Fall is told from the perspective of a man named Jacob, in the form of journal entries, written from before this world-shattering event until a few months after. It details the struggles of this peace-loving man, as his desire to keep his family safe contrasts with his deeply-held belief that he needs to help the hurting and act with love to all mankind.

The roving bands of survivalists, so common in other post-apocalyptic stories, are present here too, violently raiding Jacob and his neighbors’ farms for supplies. National Guard forces requisition the food that the community had been saving for the winter, to be used to feed those in nearby cities. English friends arrive, trying to find refuge from the crowded urban sprawl.

At its heart, while this narrative has a post-apocalyptic setting, it is a story about the human condition – about the value of human life, and about the struggle to keep one’s convictions and ideals in the midst of tragic circumstances.

Classic mystery fans will recognize Agatha Christie as the whodunit author that crafts mysteries where everyone has a motive and readers have to wait until the last chapter for all the pieces to fall into place. The Mysterious Affair at Styles is the first book where Christie introduces readers to the eccentric detective, Hercule Poirot, and his friend, Arthur Hastings. While visiting a sprawling country house, a family friend is murdered and Hastings and Poirot set out to solve the mystery surrounding the death. Poirot follows clues and interviews guests while Hastings tries to help the readers put the clues together. Readers who enjoy classic English mysteries will love the series and can continue the enjoyment to several film and television adaptions of Christie’ famed Hercule Poirot.
This title is available in print, audiobook and in digital formats on Libby & hoopla!

For those who miss sports, live for March Madness, and always root for the underdog: this book is for you.

The author, a Duke University alum, isn't as much of a homer for them as one would expect. He often skewers the one-and-done schools, most predictably, University of Kentucky. His focus for The Back Roads to March is the mid-majors, most of it along the East Coast and New England. The tie that binds is the lead-up to the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. Within that framework, the reader will relive some epic moments that remind us why college basketball's mid-majors deserve respect: George Mason's run to the Final Four and UMBC's win for the ages.

With good research and humor, Feinstein showcases the aspects of college basketball we don't often see, unless we've lived it.

Not just about King’s killer, this thoughtful read revisits important moments in King’s life, beginning with the time he was stabbed in the chest with a letter opener at a book signing, and the choice he made to stay a public figure instead of focusing on his own safety. A little simplistic in its telling, but still emotionally moving.

While it appears a hefty book, approximately one third is notes and supplemental information, and interspersed throughout the story are excellently chosen historical images. Short chapters make this a quick read. A great book for both adults and young adults.

Bryan Stevenson weaves numerous tales of injustice around the thread of his own coming of age as a lawyer and the case of Walter McMillian. Stevenson was a young lawyer when he first founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice that assists those, like McMillian, who find themselves accused of a crime, lacking funds and proper legal counsel.

The audacity in the actions of the officials trusted to ensure safety is both mesmerizing and horrifying. That these occurrences have happened within this reader’s lifetime, and not in some remote time stolen from a history book is even more alarming. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the topics of equality, justice, or the death penalty.