Meet Elizabeth Hernandez, FCPL's June Library Limelight!

You may have seen her walking around one of the branches with a hand truck and a bin full of books or passed her driving through town in the Library box truck. She’s a critical component of FCPL, making sure that the branches stay connected and clean. Her name is…

Staff Picks: Trashlands by Alison Stine

 

Trashlands by Alison Stine

Alison Stine’s dystopian novel Trashlands envisions a world where environmental catastrophes have radically altered the American landscape and human civilization. The story takes place in Scrappalachia, a wasteland of broken vehicles, contaminated rivers, and extreme poverty where nonbiodegradable plastic is the only material of value. In Scrappalachia, people find shelter wherever they can, usually in abandoned vehicles or makeshift shelters.  A man as cruel as his name, Rattlesnake Master, runs a club called Trashlands, where women are forced to entertain in exchange for room and board.

Necessities like eyeglasses and expired medicines are traded for things like milk jugs, pool noodles, water bottles, and credit cards. Children are often abducted and housed in prison factories that make structural materials for building new cities far to the north. 

Despite the grim setting, survivors band together, form friendships, marry, and raise children. Some create art and strive to memorialize their world. Others teach the next generation about their lost heritage.   

Staff Picks: Almond by Won-pyung Sohn

 

Almond by Won-pyung Sohn

Books took me to places I could never go otherwise. They shared the confessions of people I'd never witnessed. The emotions I could never feel, and the events I hadn't experienced could all be found in those volumes.

Won-pyung Sohn, Almond

In Almond by Won-pyung Sohn, a young man living with a condition called Alexithymia narrates his daily life in Korea. People who have the condition have difficulty expressing themselves or recognizing emotions, including their own. In the novel, Yunjae's emotional responses are subdued and he can't sense or express fear. Though Yunjae’s mother and grandmother provide daily reminders on how to act in school, he's regularly teased and taunted by classmates. 

When Yunjae’s family becomes the victim of random violence on his 16th birthday, he's ill prepared to manage life on his own or tend to his family's bookstore in his mother's absence. Meeting new people, including a troubled young man fueled by resentment, and stepping outside of his comfort zone have mixed results and unexpected consequences in this thoughtful novel about growing up without a roadmap. 

Local Writers Meetup July 11 at Sharon Forks Library

 

Are you interested in writing but aren’t sure where to begin?

No matter what stage you’re at with your writing or what your writing goals are, our upcoming Local Writers Meetup offers a great opportunity to meet other area authors and discuss all aspects of writing life. 

Find your inspiration and jumpstart your writing journey at our Local Writers Meetup on Tuesday, July 11 at 6:30 p.m.at the Sharon Forks Library.

Each Forsyth County library offers a monthly writing group for adults where writers can exchange feedback on all types of writing. In addition, our Cumming Library also has a writing club for teens.  

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist  

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

  Louis L'Amour            

Staff Picks: The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell - Adult Fiction

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell

In The Family Upstairs, a twenty-five-year-old woman inherits a mansion in a fashionable London neighborhood and learns it was the site of a murder/suicide that left her an orphan. 

The novel uses dual timelines to reveal the bizarre circumstances that left three people dead, two children missing, and a ten-month-old baby discovered alive in a London mansion two decades earlier.   

As Libby Jones learns more about the grim fate of her birth parents, her older brother shares the story of how his mother’s hospitality to a new friend led to abuse and violence at the hands of a charismatic charlatan. Meanwhile, their long-lost sister struggles to raise funds to bring her own family back to London for a revealing reunion. 

Beach Reads for Dads

Happy Father's Day! In celebration of all things dad, we created this list of recommended reads because dads need "beach reads," too. From thrillers to history to food, this list has a little bit of everything. Enjoy!

Meet Author Emily Matheis! A Special Family Storytime: Opal's Springtime Birdhouse by Emily Matheis

 

Opal's Springtime Birdhouse by Emily Matheis

At Young Carpenter’s Camp boys and girls design creative birdhouses with pompoms, bells, and springs hoping to win the first-place blue ribbon prize. Opal uses a thoughtful strategy to design her simple, sturdy birdhouse, reading about birds and applying carpentry basics. She doesn’t impress the judges, but the pair of bluebirds who move into her birdhouse obviously appreciate her work. 

Opal’s Springtime Birdhouse shows boys and girls using STEM skills (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) to design unique birdhouses and contains a positive message about handling unexpected outcomes. 

Emily Matheis, Author

I couldn’t be more excited to see Opal’s Springtime Birdhouse on our library shelves. Author Emily Matheis is a Sharon Forks Library patron and member of the Sharon Forks Writers’ Group who writes for children and adults. 

Sharon Forks Library will present Meet Author Emily Matheis! A Special Family Storytime on Monday, June 12 at 6:30 p.m. This program includes a story, craft, and Q&A with author Emily Matheis. 

Sign up for FCPL's Summer Reading Program and win prizes for reading and other activities. See all of the library's summer events on FCPL's event calendar.  

Alicia Cavitt
Information Specialist

Get Inspired to Write with Cumming Library Writing Boxes

What can a writer write? Look inside a Cumming Library Writing Box for creative inspiration! 

Stories, poems, postcards, letters, recipes, memories, newsletters, zines, comics, scrolls, newspapers, treasure maps, hieroglyphics, and secret messages with codes are some examples of different ways to get students writing. 

 

The Cumming Library has two Writing Boxes available for patrons to use with everything you need to get going on one of these projects! Patrons can request a box at the Ask Us desk, take the box to a quiet table and browse for ideas to help their writing juices flow.

Staff Picks: In The Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

In the Lives of Puppets by T.J. Klune

In the Lives of the Puppets is a postmodern retelling of the story of Pinocchio that raises timely questions about artificial intelligence and human compassion.  

T.J. Klune’s version of the classic tale takes place in a post-human world inhabited by robots of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments. A fatherly artificial human named Gio uses his engineering skills to create a fairy-tale homestead in the forest where he raises an orphaned human as his son. While Gio spends his time in his shop, his son Victor and two companions—Nurse Ratched (Nurse Registered Automaton To Care, Heal, Educate, and Drill) and a sentient Roomba named Rambo—discover a partially destroyed robot named Hap. More curious than cautious, Young Victor restores Hap’s functionality, only to realize too late that his newest companion is a HARP (Human Annihilation Response Protocol).  

One of my favorite passages in In the Lives of Puppets comes from Rambo the vacuum.    

I know it seems hard, but we have to be brave. Your brain is telling you that you can’t, but you don’t always have to listen to it. Sometimes it tells you white lies.  I know it does to me. It says, “No, you won’t make it because you’ll die a horribly painful death where your entire body will be crushed and all of your innards will fall out."