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November is here, and with it another chance to celebrate Native American Heritage Month. This month is dedicated to remembering the past, embracing the present, and thinking about how to improve the future of the generations of those that occupied these lands. These latest works take a look at these writers perspectives on their heritage and how we can try to make the world a better place for everyone.

My Life: Growing up Native in America is a collection of essays and poems written by individuals chronicling their own experiences as Native American children. All show a great understanding of how being a child and searching for identity is complicated by the world’s perception of native culture. They don’t shy away from intersectionality as well, how gender, sexuality, and additional racial identities impacted their upbringing. Each one shows a new perspective and shows how allowing varied voices to shine only adds to the dialog and does not take away from it.

Joseph Lee’s Nothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity is a book about where one finds home. The work recounts the history of the Wampanoag people who reside on the island known as Martha’s Vineyard. Lee spent his summers as a child on the island, attending camps focused on continuing cultural heritage and spending time with family. As the years pass, Lee wonders how this existence, being a part of a culture but not residing solely on cultural lands, affects one’s identity. Lee begins his contemplation, first through his own experiences, then his family’s, then his community’s. All of this in an attempt to understand how where you come from helps you to become who you are.

The incredibly hilarious Tiffany Midge is back with her latest work entitled The Dreamcatcher in the Wry. During the pandemic, when everything seemed frozen, Midge was not just observing the current state of our society, she was critiquing and tearing to shreds, literarily, of course. From animal attacks, to identity politics, to humans being unable to think of the greater good, Midge takes a look at it all and calls on us to reflect. The work is funny and timely and is a great perspective on the state of the world.

We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat is not so much a memoir but a vulnerable reveal of the inner self. Working against the forced erasure of so much knowledge and history, NoiseCat traveled across the continent in order to reclaim what was lost. He highlights stories, myths, and the triumphs of a people that for so long were ignored. By reclaiming the narrative, NoiseCat is also able to strengthen his own voice and identity. Through his own personal struggles, he is able to gain insight into the strength of his community.

Visit your local library and give these books (and more) a read. Happy Native American Heritage Month!

–Ciara Lightner is a Library Specialist at A.K. Smiley Public Library.

November, for me, is a month when I reflect on my New Year’s resolutions and how they are coming along. This year my resolution was to read more, specifically to finish reading my library books from cover to cover. This may not sound like a big deal, but my day often consists of being surrounded by a variety of great books that I can’t help but start reading more than one! As a result, it’s difficult finishing a single book. However, it’s November, and I still have time to read at least one book in its entirety.

In an attempt to fulfill my New Year’s resolution, I decided to pick a book in the running for a 2025 National Book Award. This seemed fitting since November is the month when the National Book Foundation honors five authors with National Book Awards. There are twenty-five author finalists, but only one winner in the following categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature. Different factors are taken into consideration by the National Book Foundation when selecting the winners, but all titles represent some of the best literature in the country. Here are just a few of the titles that have been nominated for a 2025 National Book Award.

Non-Fiction

In When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, anthropologist and former Los Padres Hotshot wildland firefighter Jordan Thomas vividly describes his six-month fire season with the Los Padres Hotshots. Thomas recounts what is it was like to battle wildfires during a record-setting season and provides information on how wildfires have evolved throughout the years. Thomas also introduces historical factors that offer a new perspective on the climate crisis. These include the ways in which the Indigenous people in California used fire to shape the land, and how government actions tried to take the use of fire away from Indigenous people.

 

Translated Literature

The next 2025 National Book Award finalist is The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje. Noon Merckem served in the Great War and lost his memory due to shell shock. While living in the psychiatric asylum, he receives visits from women responding to a newspaper ad—each hoping he might be their spouse who vanished during the war. Years later, Julienne identifies Noon as her husband and brings him home. Attempting to help Noon recover his memory, Julienne shares stories about his life, but Noon begins to doubt her sincerity and struggles to determine whether she is telling the truth. Can Noon find peace amid the confusion of his past and new identity?

 

Poetry

Great reading experiences often occur when we feel seen and understood. This occurs when an author captures what it’s like to live through a certain experience—or expresses emotions such as loss, love, and longing in a deeply familiar way. In The New Economy, poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi does just that. Her poetry collection explores themes of loss, love, memory, aging, and gender. Calvocoressi writes about what it’s like to protect the body one is born with while yearning to have been born in another. Additionally, her series of “Miss You” poems evoke the pain of absence—the people we wish we could see again and the moments we wish we could relive. Calvocoressi’s poetry invites us to face our sorrows and remember the people, or the what, that have left us.

These and other titles that speak to the heart and mind are available for check out at A.K. Smiley Public Library.

~ Celina Lozano is a Library Specialist who is currently reading, and hopefully finishing, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World by Jordan Thomas.

Teens, you have constitutional rights. And not just the right to remain silent (although this is a useful one that many teenagers have invoked since the Fifth Amendment was ratified in 1791…haha). Understanding exactly what your freedoms are can be confusing, but let me affirm the United States’ Bill of Rights are not exclusive to adults…they protect you too. How do I know? I read some books about it!

“What Are My Rights? Q&A about Teens and the Law” by Judge Tom Jacobs is my new obsession. This Young Adult (YA) nonfiction book answers so many interesting and nuanced legal questions…things like “Can my property be searched and seized?”; “Do I have complete freedom of expression in school?”; “Can I be prosecuted for comments I make online?”; and “What are my rights as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender teenager?” I’m telling you; you will be hooked. This book is easy to jump around in…just read the table of contents and flip to the topics that interest you. It’s written by a judge who knows his way around the law, and he explains complex things in a way that makes readers feel like we can find our way around too. Read it and feel confident leveraging your rights…and better understanding their potential limits.

I wanted to know more about teenagers’ First Amendment Rights specifically, so I read on. “Your Freedom, Your Power: A Kid’s Guide to the First Amendment” by Allison Matulli with Clelia Castro-Malaspina can be found in the children’s nonfiction section, and it’s an absolute heavy hitter when it comes to figuring out your freedom of expression. Again, it’s organized in a way that makes it easy to jump around to the sections that interest you most. Want to know more about book banning in public schools? Prayer in the classroom? Your HAIR (and if your principal can dictate how you style it)? All of these topics and more are covered in this book, which will leave you feeling empowered and prepared to defend your liberties (and your mullet).

Did I stop there? No, I couldn’t. Reading about rights is addictive. I then turned to some books from the adult nonfiction section, including “Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media” by Jacob Mchangama, “You Can’t Always Say What You Want: The Paradox of Free Speech” by Dennis Baron, and “Guardians of Liberty: Freedom of the Press and the Nature of News” by Linda Barrett Osborne. Among other important things, these books examine the tension between uninhibited discourse and the abuse, misinformation, and hyperbole that can come with it. Free speech carries a weighty price, but could democracy exist without it? Teens, read these books and answer this existential question with me!

Something great I learned while immersing myself in these books is that in many instances, it was teenagers themselves who went to court to challenge violations to their constitutional rights, and in the process, really helped the courts define the rights of minors more explicitly, saving other minors from censorship and suppression. Maybe one day I will pick up a new book about teenagers’ rights and you’ll be in it. It will be my new favorite book.

Kristina Naftzger is a Youth Services Librarian at A.K. Smiley Public Library.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to announce that it is finally, Halloween season. I have literally been waiting an entire year to celebrate Halloween again. And on that note, here is your annual Shannon’s spine-chilling Smiley Library selections. Read if you dare (enter menacing laugh here).

My first frightening find is “The Staircase in the Woods” by Chuck Wendig. Wendig tells an alternating timeline story about a group of high school friends who would do anything for each other, until they don’t. One fateful weekend changes their lives when a strange staircase shows up in the middle of the woods where the five friends are camping. Out of anger and frustration, one of the friends decides to climb the staircase to see what will happen, and when he reaches the top of the staircase, he disappears never to be seen again. Decades go by, and when one of the friends calls the group for one last epic hangout, as his dying wish, the friends acquiesce. The group of friends come to realize that the dying wish is actually a trap that brings the past and present together. Come and check out this frightening tale to find out what fate has in store for this group of friends.

If you want something on the lighter and more romantic side, then I suggest “Ghost Business” by Jen DeLuca. Sophie runs and operates the only ghost tour of the haunted town Boneyard Key, Florida, that is until the newcomer, Tristan moves into town. Much to Sophie’s chagrin, Tristan starts his own ghost tour business of Boneyard Key, and a ghost tour rivalry has begun! Will Sophie and Tristan be able to exorcise their demons? Read this book to find out which business gets ghosted.

If neither of these two books sound appealing to you, then I suggest Sarah Pinborough’s latest novel, “We Live Here Now.” After an accident that nearly killed her, Emily and her husband, Freddie, decide to move to the English countryside for a new start. The house is immaculate, but something feels wrong, very wrong. The lights turn off by themselves, books fall out of the bookcase, and she is sensing a paranormal presence in the house, but Emily is the only one witnessing these happenings and her husband doesn’t believe her. Is the house really haunted or is Emily hallucinating? Come and check out this haunting read to find out the truth.

Come and down and check out these and other haunting novels.

Shannon Swamp Witch Harris is a Library Specialist at A.K. Smiley Public Library who loves Halloween.

Halloween is already right around the corner! Our Halloween books in the Young Readers’ Room are so popular, they barely hit the shelves before they’re snatched up. Here are a few of my favorite scary children’s books for you to hunt down here at Smiley Library.

I adore pop-up books. It’s amazing how much the added dimension can craft a completely new experience out of a familiar story. We have only a select few circulating here at Smiley Library – they’re delicate, and tend to get damaged easily. One is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, a creepy classic presented in this form by David Pelham and Christopher Wormell. It opens to a scene of our narrator lifting a book to his face, already looking grim with anguish as he begins his lament. You can find this book displayed in our Poetry section in the Young Reader’s Room today. Scare-o-meter level: 8/10.

Scary, Scary Halloween is a story in rhyme for a younger audience by Eve Bunting, illustrated by Jan Brett. Four pair of glowing emerald eyes peek out from their mask of darkness to issue warnings of monsters roaming the streets on Halloween night. But thanks to some Scooby Doo-esque reveals, nobody is actually as scary as they initially seem… Scare-o-meter level: 4/10.

 

What’s your favorite scary monster? The Atlas of Monsters and Ghosts identifies mythical creatures of lore, both familiar (Chimera, Yeti, La Llorona) and unfamiliar (Smok Wawelski, Humbaba, Yara-Ma-Yha-Who) by region. It is a wonderfully atmospheric experience, reading this book – it has a similar feel to the Dragonology and Wizardology books, sure to have children imagining that they’re monster hunters dusting off some enormous, long-forgotten volume to get to the bottom of a case… with an introduction written by none other than Van Helsing. Scare-o-meter level: 5/10.

Halloween A B C is a series of poems by Eve Merriam, each paired with an illustration by Lane Smith. Smith is known for his collaborations with Jon Scieszka — most popularly, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs. His illustrations have such depth and texture that spawn an unsettling, intriguing aura: they’re bizarre in the best, most hypnotizing way. Paired with Merriam’s poems, you’ll turn the page haunted with questions more often than not.      Scare-o-meter level: 7/10.

One last pop-up book for your consideration: Haunted House by Jan Pieńkowski. It truly feels like a campy carnival ride: skeletons are jumping out of closets, cockroaches are hiding in the cabinets, bats are swooping down from the attic. Treat yourself and explore this 1970s neon-infused fever dream of a haunted house with silly, spooky surprises at every turn. Scare-o-meter level: 3/10.

Celebrate with us at Smiley Library this Halloween! Choose a few scary books and show off your costume to Miss Kristina and me in the Young Readers’ Room — we will be also be dressed up in the Young Readers’ Room on Friday, October 31!    ~Miss Emily