What's next for the Public Libraries of Saginaw?
This June, we're asking what kinds of programming for adults you would like to see offered at the Public Libraries of Saginaw. Take the brief online survey here, scan the QR code for the link, or stop in to any of our branches to participate.
Thank you for your input!
...You've Reached Sam
You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao
Having spent 15 weeks on the New York Times young adult bestseller list, You’ve Reached Sam starts out as a feel-good story about two teens, Sam and Julie, who are very much in love and have their future planned out together. The fact that the story doesn’t end there is what sets this young adult novel apart from the average romance.
One day, on the way to pick up Julie, Sam dies in a tragic car accident. Julie deals with her overwhelming grief b...
The Unsinkable Greta James
The Unsinkable Greta James By Jennifer E. Smith
Singer/songwriter Greta James has finally made the big time. After years of struggling, her first album hit the charts and life is good, but it all seems meaningless after her mother dies unexpectedly while Greta is performing out of the country.
Helen was her daughter’s number one fan and the referee in Greta’s antagonistic relationship with her father, Conrad. Conrad has never supported Greta’s music career, but maybe that’s not surprising, since her best-known hit was a song raging against him.
After Greta bre...
Medusa
Medusa by Jessie Burton with illustrations by Olivia Lomenech Gill
“If I told you that I’d killed a man with a glance, would you wait to hear the rest?” That is the opening line of this amazing young adult novel, and if one does indeed stick around to hear the rest, an amazing journey ensues. Someone you have thought of as monstrous transforms before your eyes into someone heartbreakingly human, with a past so painful and tragic that you want to weep for her. That is the magic of this feminist retelling of the...
Watercress
Watercress by Andrea Wang with pictures by Jason Chin
This story is a beautiful complete package. The pictures are extraordinary and in combination with the words this story will tug at your heart. Most of us can remember a time when our parents did something to embarrass us only to grow up and that memory then becomes a treasure. In this story a young girl’s family stops their car as they are traveling and they all get out to cut and gather watercress. The young girl feels embarrassed and wonders why her family can’t just go to the grocery store to get vegetables.&nbs...
Firekeeper's Daughter
Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
If you haven’t read one of the best books of 2021 yet, what are you waiting for? Although Firekeeper’s Daughter was published as a young adult novel, it’s a rich story that adults can appreciate, too.
The author, Angeline Boulley, is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Her protagonist, Daunis Fontaine, is a recent high school graduate who has always felt like she’s lived between the worlds of her mother’s rich, white family and her late father’s Ojibwe relatives. Daunis had been looking forward ...
Bright Star
Bright Star by Yuyi Morales
For ages 4-8
This picture book has a message that you will want to share with every child in your life. It is an encouraging voice that helps a tiny fawn learn to use his or her own voice in this big world. The voice is reassuring and empowers the young fawn with courage, strength and love. It was written to show and highlight the borderlands but the message of the story resonates far and wide. The artwork is stunning and you can feel the emotion when you look into the beautiful eyes of the baby fawn and then also th...
The Music of Bees
The Music of Bees By Eileen Garvin
Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman grew up thinking she would one day become a third-generation Oregon fruit grower, but then her parents sold the family orchard to a land developer, she took an office job, and found herself beekeeping on the side. Her hives pollinate nearby fruit trees and give her something to nurture after the sudden, devastating losses of her husband and parents. When she’s taking care of her bees, she doesn’t have time to remember that she’s the last-living member of her family.
...
Trying
Trying by Kobi Yamada with illustrations by Elise Hurst
Trying is something we all do throughout our life journey. This book is about trying and sometimes failing and then trying again and the decisions we make to keep trying even after failures. At the start of this book a young person approaches a sculptor and asks how he had created such amazing things and the sculptor starts a conversation with the young person about trying a new skill. The young person quickly states his doubt and the sculptor tells the young person that you will not know what you can do unless yo...
Strangeworlds Travel Agency
Strangeworlds Travel Agency by L.D. Lapinski
“There have always been places in our world where magic gathers.
You can see it, if you look close enough.”
...
Lift
Lift by Minh Lê with illustrations by Dan Santat
Everyone knows the power of simple pleasures. For Iris, it is the delight of pushing the elevator button. It is their routine whether leaving home or returning – it’s her job to send them on their way. Until one day, her watchful little brother leans forward and pushes the button before she can. Dan Santat’s keen eye for body language shows just how upsetting this new development is for Iris, even while the rest of the family celebrates the m...
His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope
Months ahead of his death last July at age 80, John Lewis informed few people that his cancer of the pancreas was terminal.
One of them was a biographer he highly trusted, a historian and student of the civil rights movement. To add to the attraction, Jon Meacham is also a religious soul who had invested an intense inquiry into Jesus Christ's final words from the cross. This made Meacham a soul mate.
The pair collaborated on His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope, which ultimately was a rush job, because the civi...
Cindy Jamison's Winning Essay in the "A Book That Changed Your Life" Contest
Gravel spewed in every direction as the truck careened the corner from smooth pavement to dirt road. A quarter mile away, the sound of screeching tires and lumber thudding against the truck bed caused more than gravel to fly in the wee hours of the morning; seven children flew from their beds. Faces pinched and every muscle taut, their bodies flooded with stress-induced cortisol. Trembling, eyes dilated with dread, they awaited the truck’s headlights to illuminate the two massive pine trees standing sentry to the drive. Hope faded to despair once again as the h...
Hidden Valley Road
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family
Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family, written by Robert Kolker, delves into the world of mental illness, specifically schizophrenia and our country’s attempt to understand and treat people suffering from it. When researchers tried to investigate whether or not there is a genetic origin of schizophrenia, they were astonished to hear of the Galvin family living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Galvin family...
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston
This collection of short fiction by the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God includes several of her “lost” works that are back in print for the first time since they were published in the early 20th Century. Hurston is best known today for her fiction featuring her real hometown of Eatonville, Florida – but in the middle of the Roaring 1920s, Hurston lived in Harlem and moved in the same circles as Langston Hughes and other writers. The eight r...