Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

Although gifted with a superbly logical brain, for fifteen-year-old Christopher everyday interactions and admonishments have little meaning. He lives on patterns, rules, and a diagram kept in his pocket. Then one day, a neighbor's dog, Wellington, is killed and his carefully constructive universe is threatened. Christopher sets out to solve the murder in the style of his favorite (logical) detective, Sherlock Holmes. What follows makes for a novel that is funny, poignant, and fascinating in its portrayal of a person whose curse and blessing are a mind that perceives the world entirely literally.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune* is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, heir to a noble family tasked with ruling an inhospitable world where the only thing of value is the “spice” melange, a drug capable of extending life and enhancing consciousness. Coveted across the known universe, melange is a prize worth killing for...

*For serious science fiction fans, Dune, a new movie to be released in October 2021.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children—a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent—as relevant today as it was in 1970.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

This is NOT a history book.

This is a book about the here and now.

A book to help us better understand why we are where we are.

A book about race.

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This is a remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped from the Beginning, winner of a National Book Award. It reveals the history of racist ideas in America and inspires hope for an antiracist future.

Stamped takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative, Jason Reynolds shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want--but what Lyra doesn't know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who through a strangely unorthodox experiment creates a grotesque being. Victor, repulsed by the thing that he has created, abandons the monster. The creature, saddened by this rejection, departs as well. What follows is a series of tragic events. There is no greater novel in the monster genre than “Frankenstein” and no more well-known monster than the one that is at the center of this novel. Frankenstein’s monster is in reality a thinking intelligent being who is tormented by a world in which he does not belong. In this depiction, Shelley draws upon the universal human themes of creation, the nature of existence, and the need for acceptance. For it is without this acceptance that the true monster and the violent nature of humanity emerges.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library

The romantic clash between the opinionated Elizabeth and her proud beau, Mr. Darcy, is a splendid performance of civilized sparring. And Jane Austen's radiant wit sparkles as her characters dance a delicate quadrille of flirtation and intrigue, making this book the most superb comedy of manners of Regency England.

Available: on Sora/ ebook or audio book, Akron Summit County Library - Portage Lakes Branch, and Barberton Public Library