🌿 January Focus Reads (Poverty in America Awareness Month)

1. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls —
   A memoir of growing up on the move and often without a stable home; it has been challenged in some school systems for content concerns (including violence and themes some readers considered inappropriate).
2. NEW BOOK: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck —
   A heartbreaking Great Depression story of friendship and fragile dreams, frequently challenged for offensive language, depictions of violence, and racial slurs.
3. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich —
   An undercover journey through low-wage work that reveals how exhausting labor, high costs, and unstable housing can keep people trapped at the edge of survival.

Reflection prompt: Where do you see resilience in these stories—and what would it look like to turn empathy into action in our own city?

🆕 January New Arrivals Across the Library

Alongside our January focus, we’ve added new titles across multiple sections—stories that widen the circle, deepen the conversation, and keep the light on for every reader.

📘
Adult Fiction:
Keeping Faith (Jodi Picoult),
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson),
The Other Boleyn Girl (Philippa Gregory)

📗
Non-Fiction:
Queerfully and Wonderfully Made: A Guide for LGBTQ+ Christian Teens (edited by Leigh Finke)

🌈
Young Adult:
Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes),
Hatchet (Gary Paulsen)

🐦
Picture Books & Young Readers:
First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story (retold by Joseph Bruchac),
Last Stop on Market Street (Matt de la Peña)