Staff Picks

Adrian Rizzo was seven when she met her father for the first time. That was the day he nearly killed her-before her mother, Lina, stepped in. Soon after, Adrian was dropped off at her grandparents' house in Maryland, where she spent a long summer drinking lemonade, playing with dogs, making a new best friend-and developing the stirrings of a crush on her friend's ten-year-old brother. Lina, meanwhile, traveled the country promoting her fitness brand and turning it into a billion-dollar business. There was no point in dwelling on the past.

"Vanessa lives life on her own terms--one day at a time, every day to its fullest. She can't afford to think about whether she has the same fatal genetic condition as her older sister. After all, she has way too much to do, traveling the globe and showing millions of YouTube followers the joy in seizing every moment. But lately, life has been anything but pure joy, and travel has come to an abrupt halt. After her younger [half]-sister drops off an infant and skips town, Vanessa is housebound--on mommy duty for the foreseeable future and feeling totally out of her depth.

"An earthy and beautiful collection of four stories that celebrate the seasons, nature, and life, from award-winning author-illustrator Phoebe Wahl. Little Witch Hazel is a tiny witch who lives in the forest, helping creatures big and small. She's a midwife, an intrepid explorer, a hard worker and a kind friend. In this four-season volume, Little Witch Hazel rescues an orphaned egg, goes sailing on a raft, solves the mystery of a haunted stump and makes house calls to fellow forest dwellers. But when Little Witch Hazel needs help herself, will she get it in time?

"The harrowing true survival story of an early polar expedition that went terribly awry-with the ship frozen in ice and the crew trapped inside for the entire sunless, Antarctic winter-in the tradition of David Grann, Nathaniel Philbrick, and Hampton Sides. In August 1897, the young Belgian commandant Adrien de Gerlache set sail for a three year expedition aboard the good ship Belgica with dreams of glory. His destination was the uncharted end of the earth: the icy continent of Antarctica. But de Gerlache's plans to be first to the magnetic South Pole would swiftly go awry.