Penny’s Picks: November 2021

Miss Penny from the Youth Services Department has hand-picked a selection of her current favorite books — and there’s something for a range of ages!

  • All of the titles featured here we have in our collection. To see if an item is available to check out or place on hold, click the cover image or button to the right of the description.

Lessons in Fusion

by Primrose Madayag Knazan

Sixteen-year-old Sarah (it’s pronounced SAH-rah, thank you) has a successful blog creating fusion recipes. When Sarah is invited to compete on Cyber Chef, a virtual cooking competition, her twists on her Baba’s recipes are not enough to pique the palate of the show’s producers. She is pushed to present dishes that represent her Filipinx culture, but these flavours are foreign to her since her parents raised her emphatically Jewish. To survive Cyber Chef and find her cultural identity, Sarah must discover why her mother turned her back on all things Filipinx, and learn the true meaning of fusion.

The Splendor

by Breeana Shields

When Juliette’s sister, Clare, returns from her birthday week at the magical hotel upon a hill, she comes back changed … Deeply unsettled, Juliette uses the last of her savings to book a stay at the Splendor and unravel its mysteries. Run by the talented young illusionist, Henri, the halls are full of magnificent delights and alluring distractions. Every wonder seems to twist Juliette’s attention away from the answers lurking just beneath the surface.

The Holiday Switch

by Tif Marcelo

Lila Santos is ready for her last winter break of high school. The snow in her small town of Holly, New York, is plentiful, the mood is as cozy as a fuzzy Christmas sweater, and she’s earning extra cash working at the local inn—AKA the setting of the greatest film of all time, Holiday by the Lake—while moonlighting as an anonymous book blogger. But her perfect holiday plans crash to a halt when her boss’s frustratingly cute nephew, Teddy Rivera, becomes her coworker. Lila is type A; Teddy is type “Anything but Lila’s Way,” and the two of them can’t stop butting heads over tangled icicle lights and messy gift shop merch. But when they accidentally switch phones one afternoon, they realize they’ve both been hiding things from each other. Will their secrets—and an unexpected snowstorm—bring these rivals together?

Battle of the Bands

edited by Lauren Gibaldi and Eric Smith

A collection of sixteen interconnected short stories about a high school’s battle of the bands competition, from such authors as Shaun David Hutchinson, Brittany Cavallaro, and Preeti Chhibber.

Eyes of the Forest

by April Henry

A bestselling fantasy author disappears — only his biggest fan believes he’s in danger and has the courage to uncover the truth in this fast-paced mystery with a chilling, psychological twist.

The School Between Winter and Fairyland

by Heather Fawcett

Twelve-year-old Autumn, the beastkeeper at Inglenook School for Magicians, befriends Cai Morrigan the young magician prophesied to destroy the dragon suspected of devouring Autumn’s twin brother, and together they uncover the dark truth that lies at the heart of Inglenook School.

Daughter of the Deep

by Rick Riordan

In this story inspired by Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” Ana Dakkar, a freshman at Harding-Pencroft Academy, a five-year high school that graduates the best marine scientists, naval warriors, navigators, and underwater explorers in the world, makes astounding discoveries about her heritage and puts her leadership skills to the test against deadly enemies from a rival school.

The Troubled Girls of Dragomir Academy

by Anne Ursu

Marya Lupu’s parents has always believed that her older brother Luka is destined to be a sorcerer and make the family’s fortune, so when the day he is tested turns into a disaster, and the Guild declares that he has no magical talent, they find it easier to blame Marya for upsetting the test than admit the truth, and she is sent to the Dragomir Academy, a school for wayward girls–but a school where she finds friendship and ultimately discovers her own talents.

Tangled Up in Luck

by Merrill Wyatt

When seventh grade enemies research a missing set of jewels for a class project, they realize that the answers to the unsolved case might be much closer to home than they thought in this fun-filled mystery for fans of The Book Scavenger and Lemons . If you told Sloane Osburn and Amelia Miller-Poe that they’d be hiding in their town cemetery from an evil mastermind, they would have been hard-pressed to believe you. If you also told them that person was intent on beating them to a cache of long-lost jewels using nothing more than a slingshot and wicked aim, they’d have been sure you got your facts wrong. Finally, if you told them they’d be doing all of this as friends…well, they would have been sure you needed medical attention. Whether through serendipity (really, really good luck) or zemblanity (really, really bad luck), someone tricked their teacher into using their seventh-grade class to investigate the mystery of their town’s long-missing treasure. From there, things have escalated. Quickly. Now, the girls are stuck hiding behind a gravestone, dodging acorns (who knew acorns could be so threatening?), and just a few clues short of those jewels. It’s up to these enemies-turned-partners to uncover centuries-old clues to find the treasure at the end of this book before the mysterious person on their trail can get to it first…

Dust & Grim

by Chuck Wendig

Thirteen-year-old Molly doesn’t know how she got the short end of the stick — being raised by her neglectful father — while Dustin, the older brother she’s never met, got their mother and the keys to the family estate. But now the siblings are both orphaned, she’s come home for her inheritance, and if Dustin won’t welcome her into the family business, then she’ll happily take her half in cash. There’s just one problem: the family business is a mortuary for monsters, and Molly’s not sure she’s ready to deal with mysterious doors, talking wolves, a rogue devourer of magic, and a secret cemetery. It’s going to take all of Dustin’s stuffy supernatural knowledge and Molly’s most heroic cosplay (plus a little help from non-human friends) for the siblings to figure it out and save the day… if only they can get along for five minutes.

Want more recommendations?

 

You can check out all of our online booklists (for kids and for adults), or reach out to us! Our staff is ready and willing to make reading, listening, or viewing recommendations to you! Email us at reference@benlib.org or contact us via our online form!

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