Search Results for: lgbtqia

Teens, every once in awhile, a new Young Adult (YA) book passes through my hands on its way to the shelves and doesn’t make it out. It usually starts something like this: a cover or title will catch my eye and I’ll think “Oh this looks intriguing…let me take a quick peek.” Next thing you know, it’s three and a half hours later and the unsuspecting book is trapped in my iron clutches.

This phenomenon happened to me twice in the last month, and both of the culprits were YA nonfiction titles. The first was “Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed” by Dashka Slater. The book reads like a smart investigative podcast, with voices directly from the high school students involved in creating the racist account, the account’s followers, and its targets. The author digs into the story with the kind of depth and messiness it deserves, not glossing over anything, from the students’ raw and honest reflections, to the school district’s possible mishandling.

While the book’s tone isn’t preachy, it also doesn’t shy away from the account’s shattering impacts on everyone it touched, including its creator and followers. Is this a clear-cut story about villains and victims? Read it and decide for yourself.

On another note, teens, I secretly wish I was in a band, but unfortunately, my musical skills are limited to playing the triangle (non-professionally) and singing incorrect lyrics off-key. Despite this, I am a music lover, so imagine my excitement when my eyes caught sight of “Rise Up and Sing!: Power, Protest, and Activism in Music” by Andrea Warner. Clutches…activate!

The book takes a look at the entwined relationship between social justice movements and music in the realms of climate justice, Indigenous rights, disability rights, racial justice, gender equality, LGBTQIA+ rights and more, and best of all, it includes playlists—perfect for me to triangle along with! A diverse array of both modern and older artists and songs are featured, making it an excellent choice for anyone looking to spice up their Spotify account. “Rise Up and Sing!” loudly celebrates music’s singular power to unite, teach, disrupt, inspire, and transform. If social activism gets your heart pumping as much as a good beat, this book is for you.

Excellent news…my clutches have, at last, relinquished the titles above. If your clutches are interested, stop by the Teen Underground at A.K. Smiley Public Library and check them out! If these titles don’t excite you, don’t worry, we have so many more books/DVDs/video games/and more that might…come fill your clutches!

Kristina Naftzger is a Youth Services Librarian at A.K. Smiley Public Library, where she clearly thinks way too much about her own, and everyone else’s, clutches.

Looking for love, laser guns, and the decimation of Earth? Here are some new sci-fi books to enjoy these bright June days.

Malka Older returns with a cozy gaslamp mystery set on the planet Jupiter. The Mimicking of Known Successes centers on Mossa, a mysterious investigator, living on a human outpost on Jupiter many decades after the Earth has become uninhabitable. Mossa is sent off to look into the disappearance of a scholar from a local university that specializes in the rehabilitation of our home planet. While it is unclear what has happened to the missing man, what is clear is that she will need the assistance of a brilliant scholar from that same university. Only problem is the one she already knows happens to be her ex-girlfriend, Pleiti. Drawn into the mystery, the two must figure out how the missing man, a murdered doomsayer, and stolen genetic material of extinct animals all fit together.

Frontier by Grace Curtis is a western sci-fi set in a corrupt land and it centers on a protagonist fueled by love. Three hundred years have passed since humanity splintered into two factions: Those that chose to abandon a dying planet and seek their fortunes in other worlds, and those that stayed. The two factions come clashing together when the Stranger, a woman born in space, comes crashing down on Earth. Finding herself alone, the Stranger must navigate a hostile environment, and a humanity that deems all things involving space illegal. She meets zealots, convinced the planet’s climate problems are retribution, sheriffs obsessed with power, and many that are merely trying to survive. Also, a drug smuggling turtle. The Stranger must navigate her way to her objective, a way back home, and a way back to the woman she loves.

Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh is an epic space opera that begins on the Gaea station, where some of the last remnants of humans are determined to survive. Kyr (known as Vallie to her twin brother, Magnus, and Valkyr to her squad mates) longs for the day she will be assigned to be a soldier.

Training to be the best since childhood, she longs to avenge Earth, destroyed before her birth, by a collective of alien beings known as the majo. All is going to plan, until the day the assignments are handed out. Kyr’s brother is sent out on a mission he is guaranteed not to return from and Kyr, deemed by Command to contain too much valuable genetic material to waste, is assigned to the Nursery, to birth the next generation of soldiers. Devastated, Kyr sets off from her home, to save her brother and avenge humanity. But by doing so, may find out what really happened all those years ago and what Command is really hiding.

Enjoy these books and many more with prominent LGBTQIA+ representation at your local library, and remember that libraries are for everyone. Happy Pride!

Teens, it’s not that I hate summer. Some parts of it are very nice, like pools, fireworks, and socially acceptable inertia. But when temperatures top 100 degrees for more than two days in a row, I immediately demote it to my least favorite season.

But this summer is different…even triple digit temps will not get me down. Why, you ask? Because the 2022 Summer Reading Program is kicking off at A.K. Smiley Public Library, and it promises to be awesome.

Our 2022 theme —“Read Beyond the Beaten Path”—has an outdoorsy, summer camp feel (another great thing about summer), which is cool for obvious reasons, but the sentiment is exciting too. What could help you survive these long, hot days better than reading something out of the ordinary, something that backpacks you out of your sweat-filled life and expands your perspectives in unexpected ways?

If you’re looking for more than mind-opening reading, we’ve also got free events up our sleeves for teens, including “The Hunger Gang,” a cooking workshop with local chef extraordinaire Lee Burton (which, fingers crossed, unlike “The Hunger Games,” everyone will come out of alive), and an anime drawing workshop with professional artist Carlos Nieto III. On top of that, there’s an amazing line-up of teen reading challenge prizes on the line, like a day pass for you and a friend to scale the walls at Flowstone Climbing here in Redlands, a pint of gelato from Happy Camper Creamery, and many more.

I must mention one last element of our summer reading program: the competition. This summer, it’s the literary version of “Capture the Flag,” with kids and teens taking on adults to see who can read the most pages. Of course this is a friendly competition, but it would be very fun to amicably dominate the adults. We can’t do this without you, teen reader.

Alright, alright, I’m reconsidering my position on summer, as there is another big thing summer has going for it: the glorious month of June…Pride Month! Teens, if you are looking for books that feature LGBTQIA+ characters and experiences, we’ve got them. In fact, we have a whole blog post dedicated to helping you find them if you’re interested. You can check that out at www.akspl.org/teens, and of course, this article would not be complete without at least one YA book recommendation (and our library community would not be complete without you).

Erik J. Brown’s “All That’s Left in the World” requires nerves of steel from its readers. The setting? The U.S. after a deadly pathogen has swept through the country, annihilating most of the population. For some, this plot will hit a little too close to home, but if you can stomach it, here’s the set-up: teenagers Jamie and Andrew somehow survive the pandemic, but are barely scraping by in its aftermath. Each is alone, facing dangers both from the raw, natural world and other desperate survivors.

Their paths cross and they team up to take on this new and treacherous reality, where threats, including the secrets they are keeping from each other, lurk around every corner. It’s the kind of post-apocalyptic/survival/friendship/love story that makes you wonder how you might redefine yourself if everything you knew to be real and important was suddenly erased.

Teens, we’d love for you to come read beyond the beaten path with us this summer. We’ll be having so many good times, with so many good books and events, that maybe, just maybe, we won’t even notice those triple digit temps…

The “Read Beyond the Beaten Path” Summer Reading Program isn’t just for teens! Toddlers, kids, and yes, okay, even adults are encouraged to join in on the fun. Visit A.K. Smiley Public Library for all the details.