book review

T.J. Klune’s 2021 novel The House in the Cerulean Sea is about a middle-aged man who finds belonging where he least expects it. It won the RUSA Reading List award for outstanding fantasy fiction, as well as the Alex Award for its appeal to young adults. The story follows Linus Baker, a scrupulous caseworker for DICOMY, the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. His job is to inspect schools for the magical, ensuring that everything is up-to-code per RULES AND REGULATIONS.

Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Lisa Sterle synergize their storytelling skills in Squad, a graphic novel about a group of bloodthirsty werewolves who hunt sexual predators. Becca is the new girl at Piedmont High. With no friends and a deep hunger to belong, she is over the moon when Marley, Arianna, and Amanda—the most popular girls in school - invite her to join the pack.

"When you are a great listener and a great communicator—and you combine that with being smart, focused, and unselfish—you can go very far." - Jeffrey Lurie, owner of the Philadelphia Eagles (from foreword to Fearless)

The hashtag “dark academia” arrives on the scene in 2005 to describe a scholarly aesthetic, accessorized with pocket watches, oxfords, and tweed blazers. The term has since found its way into the literary lexicon to define tragic stories set in institutions of higher education.

Set in the early years of WWII, School for German Brides tells the opposing stories of Hanna, a young German woman sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Hitler’s Berlin, and Tilde, a young Jewish seamstress who finds that same Berlin a trap she will do anything to escape.

Walter M. Miller Jr. wrote A Canticle for Leibowitz fifteen years after serving as a soldier during World War II. The novel was inspired by Miller’s regret at having taken part in the destruction of Montecassino Abbey, the oldest monastery in Europe.