Lynne Thigpen
1) Paradise
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English
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"They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time." So begins Toni Morrison's Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. In Paradise - her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature - Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop....
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English
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"Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition...
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English
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OBD Books Make Good Friends (March - May 2024) - YOUTH
OBD Historical Fiction - YOUTH
OBD Juneteenth (June) - Youth
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OBD Historical Fiction - YOUTH
OBD Juneteenth (June) - Youth
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Description
A black family living in Mississippi during the Depression of the 1930s is faced with prejudice and discrimination which its children do not understand.
4) Tar baby
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
A beautiful African-American woman of privilege finds herself attracted to the kind of man she has dreaded since childhood: uneducated, violent, and contemptuous of her.
Winner of the 1978 National Book Critic's Circle Award for fiction. "Beautiful and satisfying ... an unusually wise and large-spirited book ... consistently picturesque, charged with startling images".--Baltimore Sun.
"Ravishingly beautiful and emotionally incendiary, Tar Baby is...
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2023 Summer Reading - Read Outside Your Comfort Zone: Frequently Challenged Books
Adult - National Library Week
ALA Most Challenged Books
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Adult - National Library Week
ALA Most Challenged Books
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Description
Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, an African-American girl in an America whose love for blonde, blue-eyed children can devastate all others, prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, people will notice her, and her world will be different. The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove, the tragic heroine of Toni Morrison's haunting first novel, grew out of her memory of a girlhood friend who wanted blue eyes. Shunned by the town's...
Author
Series
Logan family (Mildred D. Taylor) volume 3
Language
English
Description
Four black children growing up in rural Mississippi during the Depression experience racial antagonisms and hard times, but learn from their parents the pride and self-respect they need to survive.
8) Godspell
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English
Description
Film adaptation of the off-Broadway musical based on the Gospel According to St. Matthew. Set in contemporary New York City, the film features a cast drawn from both the original New York and various stage companies.
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English
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Description
"Jaime Escalante [is] a math teacher at East Los Angeles' Garfield High School who refuses to write off his inner-city students as losers. Escalante cajoles, pushes, threatens and inspires 18 kids who who were struggling with fractions to become math whizzes"--Container.
10) The warriors
Series
Language
English
Description
The Warriors, a New York City street gang, are unfairly blamed for the death of a rival gang leader. Now they must fight for their lives against armies of gangs that outnumber the police 5 to 1!
12) Novocaine
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English
Description
A prosperous dentist has his well-ordered existence thrown into turmoil when an alluring new patient draws him into the seedy underworld of sex, drugs and murder.
Series
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English
Description
Summer cooler: Bear and his friends Tutter, Pip & Pop, Ojo, and Treelo spend a lazy day doing their favorite summer activities. Falling for fall: Bear and his friends show us their favorite things from the autumn season, including pumpkin pie and falling leaves. All-weather bear: A storm has moved through the valley, leaving the otter pond a mess; everyone pitches in to clean it up, but the rain returns. Bear shows them that there's always fun at...
14) Bicentennial man
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English
Formats
Description
A comedy about an android "household appliance" robot who just wants to be a regular guy.
Language
English
Description
Summer cooler: Bear and his friends Tutter, Pip & Pop, Ojo, and Treelo spend a lazy day doing their favorite summer activities. Falling for fall: Bear and his friends show us their favorite things from the autumn season, including pumpkin pie and falling leaves. All-weather bear: A storm has moved through the valley, leaving the otter pond a mess; everyone pitches in to clean it up, but the rain returns. Bear shows them that there's always fun at...
18) Sarny
Author
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English
Description
Many readers of Nightjohn have wanted to know what happened to Sarny, the young slave whom Nightjohn taught to read. Here is Sarny's story, from the moment she leaves the plantation in the last days of the Civil War, suddenly a free woman in search of her sold-away children. Her search takes her to New Orleans and the home of the mysterious and remarkable Miss Laura. Like Nightjohn, Miss Laura changes Sarny's life, and she helps Sarny pass...
19) The warriors
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English
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Description
In New York the gangs outnumber the cops by 5-1. Together, they could rule the city. Gangleader Cyrus has a dream to do just that and calls a summit. The gangs of New York gather in their thousands, Cyrus takes the stage. From somewhere in the crowd a shot rings out and Cyrus falls down dead. In the chaos that follows, a small gang from Coney Island - the Warriors - are blamed. Now everyone is out to get them. On foot, in enemy territory, can they...
20) Tintypes
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English
Description
Winner of several Obie Awards, Tintypes [1981] is a treasure chest of popular tunes from the time when sheet music was king. The five cast members portray a myriad of character types drawn from American society during the age of ragtime, including Teddy Roosevelt, Emma Goldman, and Anna Held, evoking the pride, nostalgia, suffering and optimism felt by Americans at the start of the last century.