Natalie Tuttle, the head librarian, gives her recommendations on books of different genres that can be checked out in our very own school library, with these recommendations she also voices her accomplishments on a new format that would make checking out books much easier and more enjoyable for students.
“This year, we have done a new project where we’re trying to remove books that we are not getting checked out and kind of redoing our shelving to where you can see more of the covers,” said Tuttle. “Because that’s what it’s engaging here, because you are told not to judge a book by its cover, but we do. We all do. And so I think that that is going to be great for our library.”
Scythe & Unwind Series By Neil Shusterman
“I recommend anything he writes because he is the kind of author who gets his ideas from thinking about the future. He takes something that’s happening in our world now and says if we got this, what would it look like in the future? With Scythe, he said, we all want to live forever, right? What if in the future we live in this world that we all can live forever? What happens? Well, you’re going to have problems with the population you can’t sustain. All of these things start happening when everyone lives forever, so there’s new jobs created from that and one of those is to be a scythe where those people, their job, is to control that population. They’re basically killers, but it’s legal. That’s their job, so it’s that ethical questioning. And he does that with all his books. He has another set called unwind, and it’s about taking parts of someone else and giving them to other people to not waste. It’s just that his stuff is very very thought provoking, so I would recommend those books.”
“It is an older book. I really can’t even tell you what this book’s about, because it would spoil it. But this is a quick read. It is very quick, very fast-paced. It’s not too long. It is one of the best books ever because you don’t see the ending coming, and as a reader, that’s what you want that surprise. It is awesome. She has other great books, but I truly, truly love that one.”
“It is like a dystopian book and again, I like thought provoking books and so all the ones that I’ve told you so far are thought provoking, even that one that is a quick read. When you have gotten to the end and you’re like what just happened? You start thinking about everything you’ve already read. How did I miss this? I like books like that and this book is the same way. This is about girls who once they reach a certain age, they’re kind of banished away for a certain amount of time. As you read this, you are like, what in the world is this? This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, but there is a lot that happens while they are there. And I also like smart characters, especially strong female characters. The main character in this book is smart, and everything that happened, she is thinking it through.”
I Must Betray You By Ruta Sepetys
“Our faculty book club read this book this year and the name is called I Must Betray you by Ruta Sepetys. She writes a lot of different historical fiction and this one takes place in Romania. It is another one of those quick paces, and you can see, as you read through it, there is an informer, like a spy. This is during a time where you couldn’t trust anyone, even in your own family because people were trying to survive. You didn’t know if you could even trust your parents. It was that question of, are they going to turn you in because, if it was trying to get food you would do one would do things that you normally wouldn’t do in order to live, so this is truly a fantastic story. The reason I would recommend it and any of her books is because they are all based on true stories. They provide you with a little nugget. You’re only getting a little story from a time period that a lot of people forget about, so it’s important to remember the past and to understand that people were living during this time and appreciate what they had to go through.”
“I actually listened to this on audio and he is a comedian and he is from South Africa. He is hilarious and I love him. So this was about his life when he was a kid and he was born to a black mother, but his father was a white dad. And during the time where he was living in South Africa, that was a crime. And so, his mom kind of kept him hidden away because there were consequences to this, so that’s why it’s titled Born a Crime. And so it talks about his childhood and how, you know, all the different things that he went through living in South Africa during this time. It is eye opening because again, we are living in America. Our lives are very different from what he’s experiencing and I would recommend it because it’s important for us to understand and empathize with what other people are going through in history because this should not be a crime, but we have to learn. We have to read, we have to understand and move forward. And it is a serious, serious book because of what he was going through, but his sense of humor comes through so lightens it up a bit because heavy reads sometimes are really hard. But you put a little bit of humor in there and it kind of lightens the story. It is just a very enjoyable read.”
All American Boys By Jason Reynolds
“This is one of my favorites, and this has a Coretta Scott King Award and this is written from two viewpoints. You have two teenagers, one is white, one is black, and there is a young man that is a black young man that is shot in a convenience store by a cop. So that kind of sets the scene of where this story is going to go. You have opposing viewpoints like what is the white boy experiencing? What is the black boy experiencing? And again, I would recommend it because just like with all the other books we’re talking about, we need to understand different points of view. It’s not just about you, it’s about the world and what’s happening in the world. So I love that one, but I love this because it’s written in verse and it is just beautiful, I mean listen to this “I mean, don’t nobody believe nothing these days, which is why I haven’t told nobody the story I’m about to tell you. And truth is, you probably ain’t going to believe it either. Going to think I’m lying or I’m losing it. But I’m telling you, the story’s true. It happened to me. Really It did, it so did”, The story is just poetry. The whole book is written like that. It is lovely, but it is another serious topic. Tough topic, but he tells the story in a beautiful manner.”
“One that I have read and that I enjoy is Cardboard By Doug Tennapel. As you flip through the novel, he’s making something with cardboard here. But when you’re looking at graphic novels, the focus is obviously on the pictures. And so I love his pictures. I think they are just right. The pictures are not out right. It’s not something crazy or it’s just it’s there, you can truly focus on the pictures. I think he’s a great graphic novelist.”
In Cold Blood By Truman Capote & I’ll Be Gone In The Dark By Michelle McNamara
It is really a classic. It is based on a true story. And again, I like books that are based on true stories. But this was actually the first non fiction book written in a narrative format, so you’ll hear that it is very popular. When we talk about nonfiction, they will say, well, what kind of nonfiction is it? Is it narrative nonfiction or is it a nonfiction book like this with just information? This is not like those books, this is written like a story. This is the very first book ever to be written like that. It is a classic. I would recommend this book because it is referred to a lot, especially if you like true crime. People who like true crime need to read this because this started it all, this was the beginning and it is one of those that people refer back to. People talk about it all the time. If you’ve read. To Kill A Mockingbird, which a lot of our students have, the author was best friends with Truman Capote. And there’s actually even people that kind of think maybe Truman Capote helped her write that book and who’s to say, you know.”
“If a student is looking for another true crime must read, this is another great true crime book. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. It was about the Golden State killer. She wrote this book before he was found through ancestral DNA, and unfortunately she passed away before she finished the book. But she had friends help get that book published. And then after it came out, he was caught. So if we have any true crime fans out there, I would recommend both of those books.”
