March Picks

1. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
   Like his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull’s egg, as “perfect as the moon.” With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security, but great danger lies ahead.

2. One of the Good Ones by Maika Moulite and Martiza Moulite
   When teen social activist and history buff Kezi Smith is killed under mysterious circumstances after attending a social justice rally, her devastated sister Happi and their family are left reeling in the aftermath. As Kezi becomes another immortalized victim in the fight against police brutality, Happi begins to question the idealized way her sister is remembered. Perfect. Angelic. One of the good ones.
   Even as the phrase rings wrong in her mind—why are only certain people deemed worthy to be missed?—Happi and her sister Genny embark on a journey to honor Kezi in their own way.

3. Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
   Will is absolutely certain he knows the man behind the murder, and he is out for vengeance. After a long sleepless night, he wakes up knowing exactly how his day is going to go. He finds his brother’s gun and leaves the house with the intention of going after the person responsible for his brother’s death. He steps onto the elevator, but it keeps stopping at every floor, forcing Will to confront his fears, his doubts and most importantly, his beliefs.

4. Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
   Elatsoe—Ellie for short—lives in an alternate contemporary America shaped by the ancestral magics and knowledge of its Indigenous and immigrant groups. She can raise the spirits of dead animals—most importantly, her ghost dog Kirby. When her beloved cousin dies, all signs point to a car crash, but his ghost tells her otherwise: He was murdered.

5. The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

   There lived a girl named Petra Peña, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children – among them Petra and her family—have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race.
   Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet—and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard—or purged them altogether.