First Chapter Fridays with ACL

Pauli Murray was an activist, lawyer, priest, and so much more. While not as well-known as those who lauded her work like Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, she worked for decades to dismantle discriminatory practices in the United States for people of color, women, and the poor. Born a mixed-race orphan in the 1910s, Murray always felt that she was "in-between" genders, and likely would have identified as transgender today. This recording contains adult language and themes.

Naledi Smith is working on her graduate degree and has no time for the annoying emails claiming she's the disappeared betrothed of Prince Thabiso of Thesolo. Thabiso can't resist the opportunity to track her down and see what life and love are like as a regular person. Can their undeniable chemistry outweigh the burden of the long-hidden truth?

This week's winner is the recent recipient of the Printz Award, given to the best work of young adult fiction each year. 

Everything Sad is Untrue (a true story) by Daniel Nayeri is a semi-autobiographical novel is about a boy named Khosrou (whom everyone calls "Daniel") who stands, trying to tell a story. His story. But no one believes a word he says. To them, he is a dark-skinned, hairy-armed boy with a big butt whose lunch smells funny; who makes things up and talks about poop too much.

But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment his family fled Iran in the middle of the night with the secret police moments behind them, back to the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy. and further back to the fields near the river Aras, where rain-soaked flowers bled red like the yolk of sunset burst over everything, and further back still to the Jasmine-scented city of Isfahan.

Our Middle Grade pick this week is the latest recipient of the Newberry Medal, When You Trap a Tiger, written by Tae Keller.

When Lily and her family move in with her sick grandmother, a magical tiger straight out of her Halmoni's Korean folktales arrives, prompting Lily to unravel a secret family history. 

Check out When You Trap a Tiger however you like to read!

This week’s first chapter is adult nonfiction Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy. Macy plunges the reader into this country’s more than twenty-year struggle with opioid addiction. However, through all of the greed, loss, and pain, Macy finds hope in the American spirit of resiliency and determination. This book is for adults and contains adult language and situations.

This week’s first chapter for adults is We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry. The year is 1989 and the Danvers, Massachusetts High School girls’ field hockey team, the Falcons, will do anything to win states this year - even if it means tapping into some devilishly dark powers.  Hilarious, bold, and original, this book about sports, friendship, and bucking society's norms will have you hooked all the way to the finals. This book is for adults and contains adult themes and language.

Our YA pick this week is Conversion by Katherine Howe, a chilling mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane that is Prep meets The Crucible. Inspired by true events—from seventeenth-century colonial life to the halls of a modern-day high school—Conversion casts a spell. With her signature wit and passion, New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe delivers an exciting and suspenseful novel, a chilling mystery that raises the question, what’s really happening to the girls at St. Joan’s?

Our Middle Grade pick this week is Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk, a historical novel about a young heroine in Depression-era Maine who is navigating the rocky terrain of her new life on Echo Mountain.

This week’s first chapter is The Lost City of Z by David Grann. This is a fascinating true story of deadly obsession in the Amazon and man’s quest for truth. After stumbling upon a hidden trove of diaries, Grann set out to solve “the greatest exploration mystery of the 20th century:” what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z? In 1925, Fawcett ventured into the Amazon to find an ancient civilization, vowing to make one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history - the glittering kingdom of El Dorado.

Our YA pick this week is Puddin’ by Julie Murphy, a cozy, realistic fiction about unexpected friendship, romance, finding your own voice, and Texas-size girl power.

Millie Michalchuk has gone to fat camp every year since she was a little girl. Not this year. This year she has new plans to chase her secret dream of being a newscaster—and to kiss the boy she’s crushing on.

Callie Reyes is the pretty girl who is next in line for dance team captain and has the popular boyfriend. But when it comes to other girls, she’s more frenemy than friend.

When circumstances bring the girls together over the course of a semester, they surprise everyone (especially themselves) by realizing that they might have more in common than they ever imagined.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a 2017 Newbery Medal-winning novel by Kelly Barnhill. In this book, we follow the story of Luna, who, after being raised by a witch, must figure out how to handle the magical powers she was accidentally given. She must control her powers before it's too late.

This week’s first chapter for adult listeners is Born a Crime: Stories from an Authentic South African Childhood by Trevor Noah. 

For adult listeners this week. we're reading The Rosie Project by Australian author Graeme Simsion. 

In this lighthearted romantic comedy, socially challenged genetics professor Don Tillman concocts a thorough, scientifically sound method for finding himself a wife. Then, he meets Rosie, who defies all logic and throws everything laughably on its head. This chapter does feature adult language and content.

For our middle-grade pick this week, we have chosen a title by a Native author in celebration of National Native American Heritage Month.

In her debut middle grade novel I Can Make This Promise—inspired by her family’s history—Christine Day tells the story of a girl who uncovers her family’s secrets—and finds her own Native American identity.

To celebrate Halloween, Youth Services Librarian Hailee and Library Aide Vicki will be reading from three spooky short story collections! 

Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century. Daniel Hudson Burnham, a renowned architect, was the brilliant director of works for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor, was the satanic murderer of scores of young women in a torture palace built for the purpose near the fairgrounds.

It was supposed to be a publicity stunt: four famous horror authors spending the night in one of the world’s most notorious haunted houses. But the house on Kill Creek has sinister plans for its visitors that will follow them further than they can imagine. 

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free. Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.  It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do. But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

In Small Spaces, New York Times bestselling adult author of The Bear and the Nightingale makes her middle-grade debut with a creepy, spellbinding ghost story R.L. Stine called "Terrifying and fun". 

This week we are featuring The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore. 

Drawing on previously unpublished sources including diaries, letters, and court transcripts, as well as original interviews with the women's relatives, The Radium Girls is an intimate narrative account of an unforgettable true story. It is the powerful tale of a group of ordinary women from the Roaring Twenties, who themselves learned how to roar.

Brilliant Maggie Hope uncovers terrible truths while working for newly sworn-in Prime Minister Winston Churchill in this historical spy thriller from Susan Elia MacNeal.

This week, listen to the first chapter of a Young Adult mystery set in a boarding school for gifted teens. 

In Truly Devious, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson weaves a delicate tale of murder and mystery in the first book of a striking new series, perfect for fans of Agatha Christie and E. Lockhart.

Welcome to the first episode of First Chapter Fridays with ACL, a new podcast from the Augusta County Library. If you are looking for a new read, this is the place for you.

We are going to start things off with a Middle-Grade Historical Mystery that takes place in the New York Public Library!

The Story Collector by Kristin O'Donnell Tubb is inspired by the real-life of Viviani Joffre Fedeler, born and raised in the New York Public Library.