Cactus Queen: Minerva Hoyt Establishes Joshua Tree National Park by Lori Alexander and illustrated by Jen Ely

Minerva Hoyt was a socialite interesting in plants. After her marriage, she'd trek out to the desert where she fell in the love with landscape and plants and animals she found there. So she was dis heartened when she saw that tourists where digging up the plants and taking them back to there homes in…

This Little Kitty In The Garden by Karen Obuhanych

This is an adorable book with both kittys and gardens! The kitty's help and play in the garden. It's also the second in a series. Great for Spring or garden themed storytimes.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Peach Pie by Erin Soderberg Dowling

The Peach family has been trying to maintain a normal life as much as possible since their mom died. The oldest, Lucy age 12, has stepped up and been doing everything she can to keep the family going, especially since their workaholic father seems to have checked out. But when one of their mom's last…

Only When It’s Us by Chloe Liese

Willa is a star soccer play at her university with dreams of playing professional soccer and the skills and determination to actually get there. If she can pass her Business Math class that is. After missing classes for a game, she is upset when the professor refuses to give her a copy of the lecture…

The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook by Emma Bland Smith and Illustrated by Susan Reagan

Fannie Farmer was a cook who pioneered standardizing recipes. She was the first to use proper measuring techniques and noticed that recipes came out consistently when this was done. She taught this method at a cooking school and wrote one of the first, and to this day, most popular cook books. Without her, we'd still…

No Cats in the Library by Lauren Emmons

A curious cat tries to enter the library, but the librarian sends her back out. So she sneaks back in through the book drop. When a shy little girl reads to the kitty and it makes her feel confident in her reading, the librarian relents and she becomes the library reading cat! This book was…

smART: Use Your Eyes to Boost Your Brain by Amy E. Herman and Heather Maclean

In this young readers edition of an adult non-fiction book, ways to use art as a way to train your brain in how to better observe the world around you and improve your memory is detailed. It's quite fascinating, but also a little on the dry and boring side after a while. I admittedly didn't…

Hummingbird by Natallie Lloyd

Olive is a home schooled girl with osteogenesis imperfecta, aka brittle bone disorder, who longs to go to the public middle school like the other kids her age and be an actress. She finally convinces her parents to let her go just when strange things start happening around town. All signs point to a magical…

Brave Jane Austen: Reader, Writer, Author, Rebel by Lisa Pilscou and illustrated by Jennifer Corace

Short biography of 19th century author Jane Austen, my favorite author. Jane was from a poor family, and instead of marrying when she became and adult she wrote. And wrote, and wrote. Eventually she was published in 1811 and her books took off. Pair with Arthur wrote was Sherlock and other author biographies for a…

Real Princesses Change the World by Carrie Pearson and Illustrated by Dungo Ho

This was an interesting profile of princesses from around the world. Of course, the Ducheeses of Cambridge and Sussex are mentioned, but others are from Africa, Asia, and other parts of Europe and more. The African princesses are an engineer and scientist respectively trying to help better the situation for their people through a new…