Ms. Melinson kicked off our meeting this month with a mix of four very different book recommendations. Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by John Chad is a remarkable example of a nonfiction graphic novel (although it’s nonfiction, calling it a “graphic book” might raise eyebrows unnecessarily) with beautiful color saturation and engaging pages. It is Chad’s love letter to the pinball community. Chad himself has a Country Day connection by way of his wife, Ms. Kahn. Ms. Melinson’s next recommendation, The Woman in the Castello, also has a Country Day connection. The author is an alum! Using the pen name Kelsey James, she writes a cinematic and spooky gothic mystery about an American actress in the 1960s filming a horror movie on location in a crumbling castle outside of Rome. While adults are the intended audience, the book is available here in the Matthews Library for any more mature high schoolers looking to see what incredible things our alum can come up with.
Ms. Melinson went on to recommend Three Dark Crowns, a novel she added to our collection with certain triplets in mind. The gothic fantasy tells of a lineage of queens who birth a set of triplets every generation: magical triplets who, beginning on their sixteenth birthday, must fight to the death in order to determine who will ascend the throne. Upon learning of this book, Jordyn checked it out immediately. Hopefully she’ll have a review of it for us during our November meeting! Finally, Ms. Melinson drew our attention to Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World Shell by Shattered Shell by Sy Montgomery. Montgomery is an author and naturalist many Country Dayers are already familiar with from the Scientists in the Field books she authored. With plenty of pictures by science illustrator Matt Patterson, this book tells the story of two suburban women’s basement turtle rescue operation and with it probes at questions of how we can heal our relationship with time itself. This and many other titles by this author/illustrator duo are available for check out here on our shelves!
Ms. Z-S discussed her current read, Plain Bad Heroines by the author of The Miseducation of Cameron Post. In her adult novel debut, Emily Danforth combines dark academia, gothic horror, and Hollywood satire.
Radha has moved from business books to scientific topics and has now begun her historical journey with The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher (or Guy Dude as Radha likes to call him). She recommends the book for anyone who enjoys narrative nonfiction.
Imani picked up Beast Boy Loves Raven from our new books pile. It is the third installment in the graphic novel series written by Kami Garcia and illustrated by Gabriel Picolo. She enjoyed it so much that she checked out all the other books in the series, tearing through them and returning them the next morning. They are now back on our shelves for anyone else looking for an action-packed graphic novel series about teen superheroes just trying to survive high school.
Chloe has been devouring manga and light novels using the Viz media app subscription service. Any voracious manga and light novel enjoyers might want to look into these kinds of subscriptions. They can be really convenient and save you money and shelf space.
Liam is interested in reading Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson as he finds the notion of dying (and therefore maybe living) forever through the time dilation effect quite intriguing. He isn’t sure if he’d want to experience unending death/life himself, though.
Our meeting this month included a lively discussion regarding banned books. We are saddened (also shocked, horrified, and scared) by these various and nationwide efforts to restrict young peoples’ access to information, especially considering that books which cover LGBTQ+ topics and/or include POC voices have been specifically targeted. Ms. Melinson brought up her concern that librarians in certain places can now be arrested for trying to provide young people with knowledge on diverse subjects. We are also glad to know that many resources across the states exist to help fight this censorship, including the NY Public Library’s program which provides free access to banned books for all teens in the country. The general consensus agreed that parents can absolutely work with libraries to protect their own children from content that would not be appropriate for them to peruse, but this does not give parents the right to make the decision and remove such content for all students.
By the time we ended the meeting, we had consumed all the brownies, but certainly had not concluded these discussions. Stop by next month to join the dialogue!
P.S. Here is a list of all books discussed during book club.
Books & Bytes 
