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One batch, two batch, penny and dime – won’t join me for a game if you have the time? 
Just how much are you willing to risk? Do you know when to fold, or do you keep pushing? Are you ready to enter into a dark bargain?

Leave the comfort of your book covers this Halloween as we share haunted tales right here on your computer screen. Every Thursday at 8 p.m., tune in for new spine-tingling tales! 



Do you have a spooky story of your own? We're taking scary, terrifying or spine-tingling submissions! Staff will choose their top five favorite stories to read on Facebook the day before Halloween, and allow Facebook to vote via reaction! The winner will receive a prize from Aurora Public Library. Submissions must be 1,000 words or less, rated PG-13 and under, and must be emailed to [email protected] by Sunday, Oct. 25.
Posted by [email protected]  On Oct 08, 2020 at 11:56 AM
  
Read It!

Read It! Review of "The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom 
by Nicole

Hello! Thanks to my awesome friends in Wisconsin I have been reading more and more books this year and books I normally wouldn’t read outside my scope of fantasy, and suspenseful thriller. This is why I love book clubs, I get to experience other genres outside my comfort zones, and get to know my friends more by the books they choose and through our discussions of what they enjoyed and didn’t. Our next book club pick was “The Kitchen House” by Kathleen Grissom

The Kitchen House

“The Kitchen House” by Kathleen Grissom is not only a New York Times Bestseller, but it has also been deemed a “Book Club Favorite”, and was nominated as both the Goodreads Choice Awards Best Historical Fiction and Goodreads Choice Awards Best Debut Goodreads Author. This book was first published in 2010 and is categorized as a Historical Fiction novel.  

The story starts with Lavinia, a young white girl orphaned during her passage from Ireland, who finds herself as an indentured servant on a thriving plantation in Virginia. She is cared for by Belle, the master’s illegitimate slave daughter, where Lavinia learns to cook, clean and serve food in the kitchen house. Growing up, Lavinia sees Belle and the rest of her family as her one true family where she belongs. But as she starts to get accepted into the big house with the master’s opium addicted wife and their dangerous yet protective son, she begins to learn that because of her skin color she is not like Belle and the other slaves. The narrative follows both Lavinia and Belle as we see the differences that unfold in class, race and family secrets.  

This book was highly regarded among the group in our discussion. In similar fashion to the book “The Help”, we saw how differently people viewed color and status in the eyes of both Lavinia and Belle. Lavinia grew up thinking she was just like any of the other slaves, but because of her white skin she was given advantages as she grew up. Belle, on the other hand, was forced to keep the dark secret of her true identity and thus was treated just as unfair as the other slaves by the master’s family. There were some characters that treated the slaves like people, and then there were other’s whose hatred blinded their actions and made it sometimes hard to keep reading. We all agreed that it was eye-opening and an incredibly powerful story. We also noticed how different characters influenced others which affected them later in life when it came to how they treated slaves.  
 
If you read this book and enjoyed it so much, Kathleen Grissom wrote a sequel to this story called “Glory Over Everything: Beyond The Kitchen House” in 2016. 

Glory Over Everything

Other books to read if you enjoyed “The Kitchen House” would be “The Healing” by Jonathan Odell, “The House Girl” by Tara Conklin and “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd.  

Check back for my book review of our next book club pick which was “The Little Shop of Found Things” by Paula Brackston
Posted by [email protected]  On Oct 03, 2020 at 9:10 AM 1 Comment
  
Debauchery and thrills are pleasing, but they are fleeting. Tragedy is permanent. Despair knows no limits. Old walls never forget old sins. Never has this held more true than in "The Empty House".

Leave the comfort of your book covers this Halloween as we share haunted tales right here on your computer screen. Every Thursday at 8 p.m., tune in for new spine-tingling tales! 



Do you have a spooky story of your own? We're taking scary, terrifying or spine-tingling submissions! Staff will choose their top five favorite stories to read on Facebook the day before Halloween, and allow Facebook to vote via reaction! The winner will receive a prize from Aurora Public Library. Submissions must be 1,000 words or less, rated PG-13 and under, and must be emailed to [email protected] by Sunday, Oct. 25.
Posted by [email protected]  On Oct 01, 2020 at 2:53 PM
  
Banned Books Week

Each fall, the American Library Association and numerous partnering organizations celebrate the freedom to read during Banned Books Week. This year’s celebration runs Sept. 27 to Oct. 3 with the theme “Censorship is a dead end. Find your freedom to read!”. Banned Books Week aims to celebrate each individual’s freedom to read as well to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular. The week also draws attention to efforts aimed at restricting or removing access to books based on a variety of reasons as well the harms of censorship. 

Each year the Office of Intellectual Freedom within ALA compiles a list of the year’s most frequently challenged, relocated and banned books based on media reports and reports from librarians and teachers. In 2019, 377 challenges were tracked on 566 books.  



Below is a list of the most challenged and banned books of the past decade, from 2010 to 2019. For more information about Banned Books Week, click here. For more information about challenges to books and reasons for the below challenges, visit the ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom.  

Most Frequently Challenged Books: 2010 - 2019

 
Picture Books 
Picture Books

- “A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo” by Jill Twiss 
- “Prince & Knight” by Daniel Haack 
- “I Am Jazz” by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings 
- “And Tango Makes Three” by Peter Parnell 
- “Skippyjon Jones” by Judy Schachner 
- “This Day in June” by Gayle E Pitman 
- “Little Bill” by Bill Cosby 
- “Nasreen’s Secret School” by Jeannette Winter 
- “My Mom’s Having a Baby!” By Dori Butler 

Kids' Books 
Kids' Books
- “George” by Alex Gino 
-“Sex is a Funny Word” by Cory Silverberg 
- “Drama” by Raina Telgemeier 
- “Harry Potter” by J. K. Rowling 
- “Captain Underpants” by Dav Pilkey 
- “It’s Perfectly Normal” by Robie Harris 
- “Bone” by Jeff Smith 
- “Scary Stories” by Alvin Schwartz 
- “Alice” by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 
 
Young Adult Books  
Young Adult Books

- “Beyond Magenta” by Susan Kuklin 
- “This One Summer” by Mariko Tamaki 
- “Thirteen Reasons” Why by Jay Asher 
- “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie 
- “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas 
- “Two Boys Kissing” by David Levithan 
- “Looking for Alaska” by John Green 
- “Eleanor and Park” by Rainbow Rowell 
- “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins 
- “A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl” by Tanya Lee Stone 
- “Ttyl” Series by Lauren Myracle 
- “The Color of Earth” by Kim Dong Hwa 
- “Gossip Girl” by Ziegesar 
- “What My Mother Doesn’t Know” by Sonya Sones 
- “Crank” by Ellen Hopkins 
- “Lush” by Natasha Friend 
- “Revolutionary Voices” by Amy Sonnie 
- “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer 

Adult Books
Adult

- “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood 
- “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini 
- “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee 
- “Big Hard Sex Criminals” by Matt Fraction 
- “Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread” by Palahniuk 
- “Fifty Shades of Grey” by E. L. James 
- “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon 
- The Bible 
- “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel 
- “Habibi” by Craig Thompson 
- “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi 
- “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison 
- “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky 
- “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard 
- “Bless Me Ultima” by Rudolfo Anaya 
- “The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls 
- “Beloved” by Toni Morrison 
- “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley 
- “Nickel and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich  

Sources: American Library Association Office of Intellectual Freedom, Banned Books Week 
Posted by [email protected]  On Sep 26, 2020 at 1:29 PM
  
Read It!

Family Book Club
by Tess Jones

In this club we read middle grade fiction appropriate for ages 6-12, but anyone is welcome if you enjoy children's literature! I will be posting discussion questions weekly based on the book we are reading and I will also provide activities that relate. Please comment on the discussion questions so we can stay connected through reading!

March's book: "Midnight for Charlie Bone" by Jenny Nimmo

Midnight for Charlie Bone

Questions for "Midnight for Charlie Bone" by Jenny Nimmo

How did you feel about Charlie and his friends wandering around the school at night? Did you think they would get caught?

Who does Charlie think the lost baby is? Was he right?

Who is Emma Tolley? What is her special power? Would you like to have this power or a different one?

How did the boys get the case hidden?

What is Fidelio's house like? Would you like to live in a house like that?

What came out of the case when Charlie pressed the letters?

What is their plan for getting Emma Tolley to wake up?

Help us choose our next Family Book Club book!

Aurora Public Library is closed until further notice. To make getting the next title easier while we are closed, we have selected a few titles from Hoopla Digital – one of our online services where readers can easily download the title and start reading immediately, no wait or restrictions! Please read the about the three books below and comment on which you would like to read in April. Parents – you can vote too!

“A Boy Called Bat” by Elana K. Arnold
For Bixby Alexander Tam (BAT), life tends to be full of surprises. One day Bat's mom (a veterinarian) brings home a baby skunk to care for until it is ready to return to the wild. The minute Bat sees the kit, he knows they belong together and he has one month to prove to his mom why the skunk is a perfect pet. 

“A Snicker of Magic” by Natalie Lloyd
Midnight Gulch used to be a magical place, a town where people could sing up thunderstorms and dance up sunflowers. But that was before the curse drove the magic away. Felicity and her nomadic mother arrive in Midnight Gulch and feel their luck may be about to change. Felicity must figure out how to bring back the magic by breaking the spell that's been cast over the town and her mother's heart. 

“The Green Ember” by S.D. Smith
Heather and Picket are extraordinary rabbits with ordinary lives when calamitous events overtake them. They discover their own story is bound up in the tumult to overwhelm the wider word. Kingdoms are falling and tyrants are ascending. Where will Heather and Picket land? How will they make their stand?




Posted by [email protected]  On Mar 23, 2020 at 1:43 PM 7 Comments
  

September new releases and bestsellers with colored dots

Post by Kristin S.  


Recent New York Times Bestsellers (month of August):

Fiction

 

Texas Ranger by James Patterson and Andrew Bourelle

Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

Rory Yates's job and reputation are at risk when he is accused of killing his ex-wife.

   

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

When a violent incident reveals her mother’s secret past, Andrea Oliver searches for clues to save her.

   

Tailspin by Sandra Brown

Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

A pilot navigates treacherous situations when he attempts to deliver a mysterious black box to a doctor in Georgia.

   

Desolation Mountain by William Kent Krueger

Borrow: [Print] [eBook]

An independent investigation into a deadly plane crash in a remote part of a Native American reservation faces a menace.

   

Feared by Lisa Scottoline

Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

Mary DiNunzio and Bennie Rosato must solve a murder and handle a reverse sex discrimination suit against their firm.

 

Paradox by Catherine Coulter

Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook]

In the 22nd book in the F.B.I. Thriller series, agents Sherlock and Savich look for an escaped psychopath.

 

Cherry by Nico Walker

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

An Iraq veteran and his girlfriend consider taking desperate measures after getting addicted to opioids.

 

Serpentine by Laurell K. Hamilton

Borrow: [Print] [eBook]

The vampire hunter Anita Blake goes to a Florida island where members of a family turn into a mass of snakes.

 

An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

A Catskills lodge loses electricity during a blizzard and its guests start mysteriously dropping dead.

 

The Money Shot by Stuart Woods and Parnell Hall

Borrow: [Normal Print] [Large Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

A movie star is blackmailed and Teddy Fay, disguised as an actor and stuntman, investigates.


Nonfiction

 

Unhinged by Omarosa Manigault Newman

Borrow: [Print] [eAudiobook]

The reality TV star and former White House staffer describes her time and relationship with Donald Trump.

 

House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger

Borrow: [Print] [eBook]

An investigation into the relationship between the current heads of Russia and the United States, and their potential ties to the Russian Mafia.

 

The Chapo Guide to Revolution by Chapo Trap House

Borrow: [Print]

The podcasters present a satirical guide to American politics and culture.

 

Dopesick by Beth Macy

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

An in-depth look at how opioid addiction affects Americans across geographic and class lines.

 

Everything Trump Touches Dies by Rick Wilson

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

The Republican political campaign strategist gives his take on the current president and offers a way forward for conservatives.

 

Resistance is Futile! by Ann Coulter

Borrow: [Print]

The conservative commentator defines what she sees as liberal overreaction to President Trump and his policies.

 

Death of a Nation by Dinesh D'Souza

Borrow: [Print]

A companion text to the conservative author and filmmaker’s documentary, which offers an alternative history of the Democratic Party.

 

The Tangled Tree by David Quammen

Borrow: [Print] [eBook] [eAudiobook]

Discoveries by molecular biologists involving the movement of genes across species lines.

  The Fighters by C.J. Chivers

Borrow: [Print]

Portraits of six American combatants who served in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Fly Girls by Keith O'Brien

Borrow: [Print] [eBook]

The story of five trailblazing women who together broke the glass ceiling in aviation.

 

The Gutfeld Monologues by Greg Gutfeld

Borrow: [Print]

A collection of rants by the Fox News host.

 

DVD - New Releases (September):

Caution: Catalog links below are for preorder/placeholder records and may give 'record not found' errors once DVDs are released. DVDs may still be found using a keyword/title search.

 

Hereditary

Borrow: [DVD]

When Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, passes away, her daughter and grandchildren begin to unravel cryptic and increasingly terrifying secrets about their ancestry, trying to outrun the sinister fate they seem to have inherited.

   

Adrift

Borrow: [DVD]

Based on the true story of survival, a young couple's chance encounter leads them first to love, and then on the adventure of a lifetime as they face one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history.

 

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

Borrow: [DVD]

For over 30 years, Fred Rogers, an unassuming minister, puppeteer, writer and producer, was beamed into homes across America in his beloved show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

 

Beast

Borrow: [DVD]

A troubled woman living in an isolated community finds herself pulled between the control of her oppressive family and the allure of a secretive outsider suspected of a series of brutal murders.

 

Damascus Cover

Borrow: [DVD]

Ari Ben-Zion, haunted by the death of his son, is assigned by the Mossad to smuggle a chemical weapons scientist out of Syria. Within days his mission goes wrong. To survive, Ari reaches out to a deep cover agent, code named The Angel, and soon discovers that he is a pawn in a much bigger plan.

 

Ocean's 8

Borrow: [DVD]

Debbie Ocean recruits a crew of specialists to plan and execute a heist in New York.

 

Superfly

Borrow: [DVD]

An action-packed film that follows Youngblood Priest as he attempts to achieve his "American Dream" all while redefining The Hustle.

 

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Borrow: [DVD]

Owen and Claire return to the ruins of the Jurassic World theme park to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from a looming volcanic extinction.

 

Damsel

Borrow: [DVD]

In the Old West, a businessman sets out to rescue his kidnapped fiancée Penelope with the help of a parson. However, the situation turns out to be more complicated than it first appears, and Penelope is no mere damsel in distress. 

 

Billionaire Boys Club

Borrow: [DVD]

A group of wealthy boys in Los Angeles during the early 1980s establish a 'get-rich-quick' Ponzi scheme that turns out to be deadly.

 

Fahrenheit 451 

Borrow: [DVD]

A stunning take on Ray Bradbury's iconic novel about a future where media is an opiate, history is outlawed and 'firemen' burn books.

 

Siberia 

Borrow: [DVD]

When a business deal in Russia goes south, a U.S. diamond merchant and his lover are caught in a lethal crossfire between the buyer and local federal agents.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Borrow: [DVD]

Through a series of daring escapades, Han Solo befriends his mighty future copilot Chewbacca in an epic adventure directed by Ron Howard and written by Jonathan & Lawrence Kasdan.

 

Uncle Drew

Borrow: [DVD]

A young team owner and Uncle Drew round up Drew's old basketball squad to prove that a group of septuagenarians can still win the big one.

 

Gotti

Borrow: [DVD]

John Gotti fought to become leader of the infamous Gambino crime family while he nurtured his relationship with his son John Gotti Jr. and showed him how to handle business to the dismay of his wife Victoria. Through devastation, court cases, and prison, Gotti boasted of his steadfast loyalty.

 

The Seagull

Borrow: [DVD]

Aging actress Irina visits her family’s summer home with her son Konstantin who pines for the neighborhood girl Nina. When famous writer Boris Trigorin drops by, Nina finds herself enamored with him and ignoring Konstantin. Soon, a love triangle unfolds amid family drama. Based on Anton Chekhov’s play of the same name.

 

Hot Summer Nights

Borrow: [DVD]

A young team owner and Uncle Drew round up Drew's old basketball squad to prove that a group of septuagenarians can still win the big one.

 

The Occupation

Borrow: [DVD]

A ragtag group of townspeople unite to strike back at alien invaders in this explosive sci-fi film that grips from start to thrilling finish.

 

Sources: The New York Times, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, Goodreads, EarlyWord, Novelist, DVDs Release Date

Posted by [email protected]  On Sep 18, 2018 at 10:10 AM
  
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