RILEY LIBRARY TEEN

Book of the Month

Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman

A new vision of knights, dragons, and the fair maiden caught in between . . .

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans
and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape,
dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds
to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws
near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she
joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered. While a
sinister plot to destroy the peace is uncovered, Seraphina struggles
to protect the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery
could mean her very life. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance
will make a magical, indelible impression on its readers.

RILEY LIBRARY ADULT

Book of the Month

Doc, by Mary Doria Russell

Russell's novel about Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp is a bold act of historical reclamation
that scrapes off the bull and allows those legends to walk and love and grieve in the
dynamic 19th-century world that existed before Hollywood shellacked it with clichés.

RILEY LIBRARY CHILDREN'S

Book of the Month

Big Mean Mike, by Michelle Knudsen
illustrated by Scott Magoon

Meet Big Mean Mike.

He has a big, mean bark and a big, mean car.

And he does not hang around with tiny, fuzzy bunnies!

RILEY LIBRARY CHILDREN'S

Books of the Month

No, David! by David Shannon

When author and artist David Shannon was five years old,
he wrote a semi-autobiographical story of a little kid who
broke all his mother's rules. He chewed with his mouth
open, jumped on the furniture, and broke his mother's
vase. As a result, all David ever heard was "No, David!"

It's Christmas, David! by David Shannon

Christmas gives more opportunities to admonish the
irrepressible David in this familiar story that nonetheless
feels fresh with the added holiday trappings.

RILEY LIBRARY TEEN

Book of the Month

Across the Universe, by Beth Revis

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship
Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years
in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber
would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be
thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction.
Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her.
And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder
suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship
and the love she could never have seen coming.

RILEY LIBRARY CHILDREN'S

Book of the Month

Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs, by Mo Willems

Three Dinosaurs - Poppa Dinosaur, Momma Dinosaur, and
some other dinosaur who just happened to be visiting from
Norway - plan to trick a poorly supervised youngster
traipsing through the woods. Hilarity ensues!

RILEY LIBRARY ADULT

Book of the Month

Bill Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

A ferocious firefight with Iraqi insurgents at "the battle of Al-Ansakar Canal"--
three minutes and forty-three seconds of intense warfare caught on tape by
an embedded Fox News crew--has transformed the eight surviving men of
Bravo Squad into America's most sought-after heroes. For the past two weeks,
the Bush administration has sent them on a media-intensive nationwide
"Victory Tour" to reinvigorate public support for the war. Now, on this chilly
Thanksgiving, the Bravos are guests of America's Team, the Dallas Cowboys,
slated to be part of the halftime show alongside the pop group Destiny's Child.

Among the Bravos is the Silver Star-winning hero of Al-Ansakar Canal, Specialist
William Lynn, a nineteen-year-old Texas native. Over the course of this day, Billy
will begin to understand difficult truths about himself, his country, his struggling
family, and his brothers-in-arms--soldiers both dead and alive. In the final
few hours before returning to Iraq, Billy will drink and brawl, yearn for
home and mourn those missing, face a heart-wrenching decision, and discover
pure love and a bitter wisdom far beyond his years.

RILEY LIBRARY ADULT

Book of the Month

419, by Will Ferguson

419 is the section in the Nigerian Criminal Code that deals with obtaining money or goods
under false pretences. Internet fraud in short. Henry Curtis fell for an internet scam. He emptied
his bank accounts, remortgaged his house and maxed out his credit cards. Then he died, leaving
his daughter Laura grief stricken and looking for answers. This search takes her from
the soft, white underbelly of the first-world (a gleaming Calgary condo, to be exact) to the streets
of Lagos, hoping to find the man she feels is responsible for her father's death.

Woven into Laura's story is the tale of Nigerians who are trying to survive as honorably as
possible in a very dangerous place, where the interests of muti-national oil companies are
putting the squeeze on traditional ways of life.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Giller Prize.

RILEY LIBRARY CHILDREN'S

Book of the Month

OH NO, Little Dragon!, by Jim Averbeck

With a PHOOSH and a Grrrrrrr and a
CANONBAAAAALLLLLL!, Little Dragon tears
through his day (and the house) but there's
no OH NO! that can't be fixed by
Mama's kiss.

RILEY LIBRARY CHILDREN'S

Book of the Month

Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School, by David MacKinttosh

Marshall Armstrong is new to our school.

His ear looks like a shell and his freckles
look like birdseed on his nose.

His arms are white and spotty and he
eats space food in silver wrappers.

Marshall Armstrong is not like me!