White background with brown text reading Great Reads Ocean County Library. Clipart of a book, cup of tea, candle and leaves in fall color scheme

November's Recommended Reads

All books mentioned in this edition of the Great Reads Newsletter are available in the Ocean County Library's OverDrive/Libby Collection and/or in our catalog.

 

On mobile devices you can download the Libby App from the device's app store to browse the OverDrive Collection.

 

For help and support visit the library's help page and click on the Libby by OverDrive tab.

Adult Fiction

The Berry Pickers

by Amanda Peters


A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret. 

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Book Cover of the Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters. Cover has image of blueberries covering it with title in white font.
Book Covers of Swim Home to the Vanished by Basham. Cover is black with title in white and 3 fish sketches

Swim Home to the Vanished

by Brendan Shay Basham


When the river swallowed Kai, Damien's little brother didn't die so much as vanish. As the unbearable loss settles deeper into his bones, Damien walks away from everything he has ever known. Driving as far south as his old truck and his legs allow, he lands in a fishing village beyond the reach of his past where he hopes he can finally forget. But the village has grief of its own. The same day that Damien arrives, a young woman from the community's most powerful family is being laid to rest. A stranger in town, Damien is ignored by all except the dead girl's mother, Ana Maria, who offers Damien a room and a job. Grateful for her kindness, Damien soon begins to fall under Ana Maria's charismatic spell. But how long can he resist the rumors swirling through town suggesting she might have had something to do with her daughter's death?

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Young Adult Fiction

The Unfinished

by Cheryl Isaacs


When Avery's morning run leads her to a strange pond in the middle of the forest, she awakens a horror the townspeople of Crook's Falls have long forgotten. The black water has been waiting. Watching. Hungry for the souls it needs to survive. Avery can smell the water, see it flooding everywhere; she thinks she's losing her mind. And as the black water haunts Avery—taking a new form each time—people in town begin to go missing. Though Avery had heard whispers of monsters from her Kanien'kéha:ka (Mohawk) relatives, she has never really connected to her Indigenous culture or understood the stories. But the Elders she has distanced herself from now may have the answers she needs.

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Book cover of The Unfinished by Cheryl Isaacs. Cover depicts a long haired girl in the water surrounded by trees

Looking For Smoke

by K.A. Cobell


When local girl Loren includes Mara in a traditional Blackfeet Giveaway to honor Loren's missing sister, Mara thinks she'll finally make some friends on the Blackfeet reservation.

Instead, a girl from the Giveaway, Samantha White Tail, is found murdered. Because the four members of the Giveaway group were the last to see Samantha alive, each becomes a person of interest in the investigation. And all of them—Mara, Loren, Brody, and Eli—have a complicated history with Samantha. Despite deep mistrust, the four must now take matters into their own hands and clear their names. Even though one of them may be the murderer.


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Middle Grade Fiction

We Still Belong

by Christine Day


Wesley is proud of the poem she wrote for Indigenous Peoples' Day—but the reaction from a teacher makes her wonder if expressing herself is important enough. And due to the specific tribal laws of her family's Nation, Wesley is unable to enroll in the Upper Skagit tribe and is left feeling "not Native enough." Through the course of the novel, with the help of her family and friends, she comes to embrace her own place within the Native community.

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Book Cover of We Still Belong by Christine Day. Cover depicts a girl with a black cat on her shoulder, with people in the background
Book Cover of Mascot by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell. Cover has white brick background with the word Mascot in white over dark maroon paint splash

Mascot

by Charles Waters & Traci Sorell


In Rye, Virginia, just outside Washington, DC, people work hard, kids go to school, and football is big on Friday nights. An 8th grade English teacher creates an assignment for her class to debate whether Rye’s mascot should stay or change. Now six middle schoolers—all with different backgrounds and beliefs—get involved in the contentious issue that already has the suburb turned upside down with everyone choosing sides and arguments getting ugly. 

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Picture Books

Why We Dance

Written by Deidre Havrelock

Illustrated by Aly McKnight


It's a special day—the day of the Jingle Dress Dance! Before the big powwow, there's a lot to do: getting dressed, braiding hair, packing lunches, and practicing bounce-steps. But one young girl gets butterflies in her stomach thinking about performing in front of her whole community.

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This Land

Written by Ashley Fairbanks

Illustrated by Bridget George


Before my family lived in this house, a different family did, and before them, another family, and another before them. And before that, the family lived here, not in a house, but a wigwam. Who lived where you are before you got there?

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Check This Out!

One Book OCL Online Book Club. October 11 - December 13. Current Title: The Last Goodbye by Fiona Lucas
November Author Talks Online. Orange/Brown Background with fall flowers in autumn colors. Book covers for The Paranormal Ranger, Solito, and a Council of Dolls
black background with pumpkins of various sizes on wood table. White text saying New Fiction Titles

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