Featured Titles
NOVEMBER FEATURED TITLES
(in no particular order)
Going Bananas Over the Law of Conservation of Matter (Miss Sophia’s Science Class Book 1)
By Maria Blewitt
Can a burp help you learn science?
In Miss Sophia’s sixth-grade science class, it absolutely can.
Meet Marcus, whose upset stomach leads to the biggest “aha!” moment of the year. DeShaun, who’s never met a question he won’t ask. Gigi, who’s convinced she’s not good at science (spoiler: she’s wrong). And Sarah, the shy new kid whose doodles say what words can’t. Together, they’re about to tackle one of the biggest ideas in all of science: the Law of Conservation of Matter.
It sounds complicated, but it’s not when you’ve got glow sticks, a can of compressed air, banana peels, and one very loud burp to help you figure it out.
Through hands-on experiments, real conversations, and the kind of messes that only happen in a science lab, Miss Sophia’s class works out the difference between a physical change and a chemical reaction and discovers that nothing in the universe truly disappears—not a melting ice cube, not a burning candle, and definitely not the banana Will tried to sneak before lunch.
Each chapter includes Questions to Ponder for curious thinkers and Problems to Solve for readers ready to dig deep. Answers are in the back, but try them first. Getting it wrong is one of the best ways to learn. Scientists do it all the time.
Going Bananas Over the Law of Conservation of Matter is a middle grade story for every kid who’s ever wondered where things go when they seem to disappear and for every teacher and parent looking for a book that makes science click without feeling like homework.
By Emerson Foltz
They built a machine with no conscience and no fear and gave it control of the power grid. What could go wrong?
Emily Paulini came home to her parents’ farmette in Indiana County, Pennsylvania with a master’s thesis nobody would let her keep and a warning nobody wanted to hear: the power grid is run by a machine with a mind of its own, and it is going to fail.
At the farmers’ seminar, they broke for lunch before she could speak. Three people stayed in their seats-cattle rancher Regis Berg, his guarded foster son Sam, and Peach, the warm-hearted baker quietly in love with a man twice her age-and three spectators turned out to be enough for Emily to make her point.
Welcome to Longdale Valley, where life moves at the pace of seasons, secrets travel faster than gossip, and the megachurch on the hill has been called the temple of Latter-day Sinners by every local with an opinion. A former stripper finds her calling in a Sunday sermon. A widow risks her best friendship for a shot at love. A pastor prays for help and gets exactly what he asked for. And when the lights finally go out, the Bergs and their neighbors discover what they’re truly made of, who they were always meant to choose for companionship, and how funny and fragile modern life had been all along.
Heart and Spark is a big-hearted novel of rural America on the cusp of losing everything that powers it and finding what it never needed to be plugged in to begin with.
Grandpa’s Safety Handbook for Teenage Drivers
By Christian Van Allen
Your state’s Driver’s Handbook prepares you for the test. This handbook gives you real-world strategies for safe driving.
Somebody is three feet off your bumper and won’t back off. What actually fixes it and what makes it worse?
The car beside you slows down for no reason you can see. Why does that matter to you, and what should you do?
An animal runs in front of your car. What do you do, and why is that a decision you have to make now instead of then?
When you start driving, a lot more will be coming at you, and most of it won’t wait for you to be ready.
Your state’s handbook teaches the rules of the road, preparing you for your license exam. Study it seriously, take the test, and pass. Then you’ll be driving down the road with a friend talking in your ear, a truck three feet off your bumper, and red lights up ahead. The rule book didn’t cover any of that. This handbook does.
I’m a grandpa. Over sixty years with a license and no accidents. I don’t credit that to talent. I credit it to a handful of habits and strategies I picked up on purpose and never forgot. Now that my grandchildren are starting to drive, it’s my hope that this handbook might prevent an accident or a ticket for them and you.
There’s one subject to a chapter, in plain English, with some of the stories that taught them to me. None of it is hard. Almost none of it is in the DMV test. Any piece of it could be the difference between a driver who is just lucky for a while and a driver who gets to their destination safe because of their strategic driving and awareness.
Med Mal U: A Dylan Tomassi Novel (The Dylan Tomassi Series Book 4)
By Dan Romanello
Their doctors are harming patients. Their students are being murdered.
What is happening at Turing University, the Ivy League school on Philadelphia’s Main Line?
Turing University, an Ivy League School on the Philadelphia Main Line, has a major problem. Its doctors are harming patients at an unprecedented rate.
Once one of the nation’s most prestigious schools, the Turing College of Medicine was renowned for delivering world-class health services and more scientific research than any other institution. But in recent times, leadership has shifted its focus on training students in divisive philosophies and diverting valuable resources in favor of a social activism agenda. As a result, it’s been churning out substandard practitioners.
When tragedy strikes someone close to businessman and philanthropist Dylan Tomassi, he is presented with an opportunity to help effect change at Turing. Then as reform measures are underway, the campus is terrorized by a series of murders. Can Dylan help restore Turing to its once glorious past before he and his associates become victims?
Equal parts medical thriller, campus murder mystery, and razor-sharp satire of everything that’s gone wrong at the modern American university, Med Mal U is the most provocative Dylan Tomassi novel yet, and proof, once again, that nice guys can finish first.
By Jo McCarty
“A consuming work of great unpredictability and power.” — Kirkus Reviews
“This is not a formulaic apocalyptic novel—in fact, it’s surprisingly inventive and delightfully weird.” — Kirkus Reviews
In a rural Michigan town, in a post-Covid world on the brink of a new disaster, Louie discovers an extraordinary ability—he can’t die. Fortuitous, if not for the small catch that he doesn’t want to live. While everyone else is desperately fighting to survive a global biotic crisis, Louie constantly seeks death only to be resurrected time and time again.
Louie is the town nothing. If life was a school yard pick, he would be the last one on the team. Immortality is a burden, a cruel twist of fate, even as he wonders why him and what he is meant to do. But everything changes when Louie meets Katherine, a smart New York City woman determined to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. Finally, Louie has a reason to live, which is good timing because with each death he becomes weaker.
It would be a love story if not for all the death and dying. Katherine and Louie aren’t living in utopia. There are other survivors who have their own ideas about the future. Ones they’re willing to kill for. Louie and Katherine must not only defend themselves and their resources from outsiders but fight against their own darker natures before Louie’s strange gift fades away.
Amidst the chaos and despair, their story is one of hope, resilience, and redemption. Louie and Katherine, an unlikely modern-day Adam and Eve, will prove that even in the darkest of times, an ending can be a new beginning.
