Winner of the 2017 Stonewall Book Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor marks Rick Riordan’s return to the world of Asgard. Picking up right after their triumph at the end of the previous story, Magnus Chase and company must now retrieve Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir, before the giants invade and destroy Earth. So overall, just your average day really. Filled with Riordan’s trademark research, interpretative genius, and wit, The Hammer of Thor will satisfy die-hard fans and likely make some new ones, as he tackles issues of race, religion, representation, and gender. Read more about Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan

Death has been defeated and world peace achieved. With the guidance of Artificial Intelligence, humanity has ushered in a utopia…. mostly. In Scythe, Neal Shusterman posits that AI has evolved into an omniscient (and omnibenevolent) force called the Thunderhead, through which the world has achieved a true and lasting peace. The Thunderhead controls everything, but unlike many dystopian works, this is a miraculous and profoundly beneficial event. The only power that the Thunderhead does not possess is the ability to take life. That responsibility is assigned to Scythes, who roam the world utilizing quotas to randomly glean (aka kill) in order to keep earth’s population in check. Read more about Scythe by Neal Shusterman

The Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award winner for 2015 is The Loners by Lex Thomas! Indiana high school students read 25 nominated titles and voted for their favorite. Honor titles are Every Day by David Levithan and Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry. 

The Loners is the story of a group of teens in an extraordinary situation, "When a virus deadly to adults infects their high school, brothers David and Will and the other students soon break into gangs that fight each other for survival and the hope of escaping their quarantine." Check it out if you like dystopias, adventures, or stories of survival!

The list of nominees for the 2016 Eliot Rosewater award are also available. Start reading now and then vote for your favorite! You could help decide next year's winner!

"If someone had been fussing with me

Since 2012, the American Library Association has chosen a best book for adult readers in both fiction and nonfiction that were published in the U.S. in the previous year. Drumroll!! This year's winners are The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin and The Goldfinch by Donna Tart.

Both books have received excellent reviews. The Bully Pulpit focuses on the great friendship between Roosevelt and Taft that was severely tried when they ran against each other for president in 1912. It also vividly describes the muckraking era in American journalism, so far removed from our journalism today, but having left a great influence on it.

The Goldfinch, reviewed here previously, tells the story of a young boy's sense of loss after being bombed in a museum and losing his mother. In the craziness after the bombing, he grabs the small painting of the title--a 13 and 1/4 by 9 inch work by the Dutch artist, Carol Fabritius, that was painted in 1654. Theodore's life spins out of control and he keeps this painting for years. It's a novel about art, relationships, and how circumstances can change the course of a life in a single moment. Read more about Carnegie Award Winners Announced