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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

Sometimes it’s best to take a pause and do some introspection. These works are the result of three authors taking the time to look inward and write unflinching accounts of what they found.

“I Want to Burn This Place Down: Essays” by Maris Kreizman is a look at what happens when the promises of good grades and dutiful rule-following fail to result in stability. Kreizman was raised to be a good child, fed the ideas that all her hard work would pay off in a well-paying job and a nice house. What occurred instead is confusion, instability, and being taken advantage of. And that is what happens to a lot of people. Kreizman faces her own precarious situation as a person with a chronic illness and shows how few protections there are. She writes how the world was never set up for people like her to succeed and the only way to amend it is to try to take care of each other. Yes, she wants to burn it down but in order to build something better in its place.

Aiden Arata’s “You Have a New Memory” is a look at the strange world that now exists between the physical world and the digital. Arata dives deep into the world of influencers and likens them to modern day grifters, creating illusions of health and wealth. She zeroes in on the genre of stay-at-home girlfriends and their shiny but precarious lifestyle. It isn’t all filters and poised shots though, there is the fact that we have begun using the internet as our external memory and moral compass while ceding our own abilities to modulate either. The work looks at how we have boiled down political belief from facts and deep soul searching to just going on vibes. It’s a thoughtful look at what we have gained from the digital world, and the price that we paid.

Rax King is definitely someone who knows who she is, including all the bad parts. In her latest work “Sloppy: or, Doing It All Wrong,” King reflects on her own behaviors, including lying, sobriety, and her issues with relationships. King explores the problematic but also sympathetic relationship with her parents, both fervent followers of the 12-step program. It impacts her future struggles of addiction and sobriety which now are under control, save for her love of shoplifting Brandy Melville items. She doesn’t shy away at looking at her own anger issues and how it affects those around her. King looks at the messy parts of what it means to be human and invites us to do the same.

Enjoy these books and more at your local library!

A.K. Smiley Public Library has a large selection of new books waiting to be checked out. Did you know you can check out up to twenty items at a time for two weeks? Here are some non-fiction books chosen at random for your consideration.

“Lost Loot: Cursed Treasures and Blood Money,” written by author Jim Willis, explores legends, rumors, treasures, mysteries, and curses. The stories pertain mainly to North and South America and include everything from pirates, to shipwrecks, lost mines, royal treasures, robbers, curses, and lost relics.

“Beneath our Feet: Everyday Discoveries Reshaping History,” by Michael Lewis and Ian Richardson, explores archaeological treasures found in Britain by ordinary people. Armed with metal detectors and shovels they find objects, sometimes by accident, that are then researched by archaeologists. Color pictures show many of the objects and locations where they were discovered and the authors piece together these finds into the bigger historical record and age of origin. Their finds range from small tools and adornments to caches of coins, jewelry, figures, and vessels.

A fun and lighter read can be enjoyed by checking out author and screenwriter Arie Kaplan’s “The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions: Ancient and Remarkable Traditions that will Captivate Your Mind.” Find out the origins of some of the things we do or say without really thinking about it. Why do we knock on wood, throw salt over our left shoulder, toss a bridal bouquet, or blow out candles on a birthday cake? These curious and fascinating explanations, some going back to ancient times, might make for some interesting topics of conversation.

September is Library Card Sign-up Month, so if you want to enjoy everything our Library has to offer, Smiley Library provides two easy ways to sign up. A free full-use library card may be obtained by coming in to our Circulation Desk with your photo identification and proof of your current address. A free library e-card may be obtained by going to our website at www.akspl.org and filling out the application that will give you access to e-books and our e-databases.

~ Nancy McGee, exceptional library specialist and book-reviewer of all things adventurous! ♥

Teens, I’m curious. What are your thoughts on yelling at books? Maybe I need to provide more context. Lately, I’ve gotten back into reading Young Adult (YA) thrillers, a genre that never fails to lure me in and rile me up. I don’t know if I love to hate them, or hate to love them, or just simply love them, but what can I say? I periodically pick one off the shelf and next thing you know, my booklight battery is drained and my voice is hoarse.

I started yelling at Jessica Goodman’s “The Meadowbrook Murders” on page 29. I yelled again on page 60…and 61…and then I lost count. Okay, so I’m actually yelling at the characters in the book, but still, an outsider would only observe a lady screaming at a book. The outsider would be too polite to say anything, but of course, they would be unnerved.

Meadowbrook is a private boarding high school for the kids of the ultra-rich. Roommates and best friends Amy and Sarah arrive to their Senior year elated to decorate their dorm room and have the whole campus to themselves for Senior week…and the partying that comes along with it. Things turn dark when Amy wakes up to a grisly scene…Sarah and her boyfriend slain in their shared suite.

What follows is a twisty, turn-y ride filled with alternating narrators and false leads and secrets and unexpected alliances and all the things that make a person want to yell at a book (like characters who do things anyone in their right mind who has an omniscient perspective would never do). If you need to scream, consider checking it out.

I offer “Six Truths and a Lie” by Ream Shukairy—voted one of the 2025 Young Adult Library Services Association’s “Teens’ Top Ten” by real-live teen readers—as another YA thriller against which you may wish to rail. It’s Fourth of July and the Muslim Students’ Association is hosting an Inter-school Independence Day Beach Bonfire Spectacular. When an oil rig explodes off the adjacent Los Angeles Coast, six Muslim teenagers are taken into custody as suspected terrorists. Each is keeping a personal secret, but did any of them play a role in the fatal blast? And will they turn on each other to protect themselves? This book may have you considering if the United States’ promise of “…and justice for all” applies as emphatically to all of her citizens.

Finally, a book that’s on my to-be-read list… “Unhallowed Halls” by Lili Wilkinson. Since I haven’t read it yet, I am unable to issue my “yell” guarantee, but we’re dealing with another boarding school with dangerous secrets here. Elements of magic, dark academia, secret societies and more come together in an alchemy that promises to keep us turning pages way past our bedtimes. If you read it, come let me know if I should yell at it.

All of these titles (and more!) can be found in the “New Book” area of the Teen Underground at A.K. Smiley Public Library…they’re waiting for you! I promise I won’t even look twice if I see you berating one.

Kristina Naftzger is a Youth Services Librarian at A.K. Smiley Public Library, where she sometimes mysteriously loses her voice.

The United States was founded by a population of immigrants, mostly citizens of England who left for various reasons–some to escape poverty, some to acquire land in the Americas, and some to escape religious persecution, ultimately displacing the native peoples who were here upon the immigrants’ arrival.

The concern over immigration/illegal immigration and how we handle it has been an issue throughout our history, weighing especially heavy on us of late. I thought we might examine a few of Smiley Library’s newer books on the subject to deepen our knowledge of immigration and its consequences, rather than just relying on the news sound bites that bombard us.

Let’s start with “The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers,” by Zeke Hernandez, a professor at the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania. In his twenty years of pioneering research on immigration from a primarily economic perspective, he has won multiple prizes and scholar awards. Evidence-based, comprehensive, and nonpartisan, Hernandez sets out the facts and addresses concerns about loss of jobs, crime, and undocumented immigrants, as well as those regarding the border, taxes, and assimilation.

“Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: the United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis,” recognized as an exceptional treatise by too many publications to name here, was a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2024. Author Jonathan Blitzer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, details in long-form journalism, forensic, “unprecedented” reporting on the stories of Central Americans whose lives have been devastated by chronic political conflict and violence with those of American activists, government officials, and the politicians responsible for the country’s tangled immigration policy.

Bestseller “Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change” was written by Cristina Jiménez who grew up in Queens, New York from the age of thirteen as an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador. Living in fear of deportation and ashamed of being undocumented, she was able to access higher education when the law allowed. There she found her purpose as a social justice organizer and became the co-founder and former executive director of United We Dream, the largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. Jiménez invites us to acknowledge the America that never was and to imagine the America that could be when everyday people come together, build power, and fight for change.

Additional excellent titles on the subject include: “Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America;” and “Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling,” winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Non-Fiction, and A TIME 10 Best Nonfiction Book of 2024.