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The Sicilian Inheritance
A free trip to Sicily, inheriting a whole plot of land, and uncovering bombshell family secrets were not on Sara Marsala’s bingo card for the year,...
Posted by Kimberly M. on March 1, 2025
Good Night, Irene
Good Night, Irene is a story of survival, camaraderie and courage that leaves readers cheering until the end.
Posted by Sheila R. on May 1, 2024
Women’s Rights: A Reading List for Teens
In honor of Women's History Month, we've selected titles focusing on the lives of women and girls throughout the past and into the present day. We hope these selections serve...
Posted by Book Rex on March 15, 2023
Poverty & Hunger: A Reading List for Children and Families
Living in poverty means that people are often going without basic needs such as food, clothing, and adequate shelter. We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue...
Posted by Book Rex on January 6, 2023
The Passenger
Bobby Western, son of a nuclear physicist who worked with Robert Oppenheimer on the atomic bomb, is a salvage diver based in New Orleans tasked with investigating a private plane...
Posted by Alex C. on November 7, 2022
Black Voices & Experiences: A Reading List for Adults
We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue on topics of centering around Black voices, characters, and communities. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr. “A singular and...
Posted by Alex C. on February 4, 2022
The Conductors
Once conductors on the Underground Railroad, Hetty Rhodes and her husband, Benjy, now seek to find a new use for their cunning skills and their magic. Living in Philadelphia, everyone...
Posted by Natalie D. on February 1, 2022
The Jane Austen Book Society
A group of Jane Austen fans come together in the sleepy town of Chawton to help save what is left of their beloved heroines legacy.
Posted by Adult Services on November 30, 2021
Celebrating 100 Years: 1921
The Village of Westmont is celebrating its 100th birthday! Wonder what folks were reading before the library was even founded? These titles, now available in electronic formats, were the most...
Posted by Adult Services on November 18, 2021
Worker Rights: A Reading List for Children and Families
We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue around worker’s rights and the labor movement both here in the United States and around the world.
Posted by Book Rex on October 2, 2021
Worker Rights: A Reading List for Teens
We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue around worker’s rights and the labor movement both here in the United States and around the world. Audacity by...
Posted by Book Rex on October 1, 2021
Serafina and the Black Cloak
Serafina has always been different and shut away. Living with her Pa in the basement at the Biltmore Estate she has never been allowed to interact with other people. One...
Posted by Book Rex on September 30, 2021
A Century of Reading: The 1980s
It was rad to be a kid in the 80s! Take a trip down memory lane with some books, movies, and music from the 1980s. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly...
Posted by Adult Services on July 12, 2021
Juneteenth: A Collection of Films Available in Kanopy
Enjoy this selection of films made available by our partner, Kanopy, as we observe Juneteenth.
Posted by Alex C. on June 19, 2021
A Century of Reading: The 1920s
Enjoy this selection of titles to highlight the breadth of work produced in the Roaring Twenties!
Posted by Alex C. on June 1, 2021
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party
Nathan Hales’ Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party breaks down this squeamish story from history in a way that’s both historically accurate and child friendly. This graphic novel tells the story...
Posted by Book Rex on April 29, 2021
Women’s History Month: A Reading List for Grade School
In honor of Women's History Month, we've selected titles focusing on the lives of women and girls throughout the past and into the present day. We hope these selections serve...
Posted by Book Rex on March 8, 2021
Black History Month: A Reading list for Grade School
Celebrate Black History Month with books by Black authors and writing focusing on Black characters, history, and culture. We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue on...
Posted by Book Rex on February 10, 2021
Black History Month: A Reading List for Children and Families
Celebrate Black History Month with books by Black authors and writing focusing on Black characters, history, and culture. We hope these selections serve to educate and encourage a dialogue on...
Posted by Book Rex on February 10, 2021
Best of 2020: A Reading List for Teens
Some of the best YA books that were published in the year 2020. The featured titles were chosen from Librarians’ favorites and pulled from different best of lists. Cemetery Boys by...
Posted by Book Rex on January 7, 2021
One Community, Many Voices: A Grade School Reading List
This list is a great way to start your Westmont Reads experience. WPL librarians have selected titles for all ages by authors from a wide range of communities, backgrounds, experiences,...
Posted by Book Rex on December 13, 2020
Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict
As a beautiful debutante in British society, 19 year old Clementine Hozier was reserved in the company of others. Often disliked due to the notoriety of her aristocratic parents, she...
Posted by Adult Services on November 17, 2020
Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Killers of the Flower Moon is the tragic, and mostly untold, history of the killing of many Osage Indians in the early 20th century. During this time, the Osage were...
Posted by Adult Services on November 10, 2020
When Mischief Came to Town
Fans of Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables will adore the story of 10-year-old Inge Marie Jensen; a spunky, recently orphaned girl who arrives at a dreary Danish island...
Posted by Adrian L. on May 28, 2020
The Engineer’s Wife
The Engineer’s Wife is a historical fiction novel that opens up at the end of the Civil War. It follows the life of the suffragist, Emily Warren Roebling, and her...
Posted by Adult Services on May 14, 2020
A Well-Behaved Woman : a Novel of the Vanderbilts
This is a story of one woman’s struggle to overcome infidelity, chauvinism, and crippling loss in the midst of New York’s Gilded Age. It is a story of fortune lost...
Posted by Adult Services on March 24, 2020
Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code
This book begins with Grace Hopper as a young girl who breaks clocks simply to put them back together and find what makes them tick. With her parents’ support, she...
Posted by Book Rex on March 4, 2020
Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing by Kay Haring
Keith Haring: The Boy Who Just Kept Drawing is the story of the world famous pop artist. Written by his sister Kay Haring, the picture book takes a look at...
Posted by Book Rex on January 2, 2020
The World That We Knew
This novel begins in Berlin in 1941 and follows the life of a young Jewish girl, Lea, whose mother, Hanni, will do anything to keep her safe. She consults a...
Posted by Adult Services on November 5, 2019
Midwinterblood
Containing elements of mystery, horror, romance, history, and the paranormal, Midwinterblood is difficult to describe without giving too much away or just listing more descriptors like “sweeping” and “mystical.”
Posted by Book Rex on March 26, 2019
The Sea Queen
Fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and those interested in Norse history and culture will all find this historical fiction highly enjoyable, though liberal in its characterizations of...
Posted by Book Rex on November 13, 2018
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Dr. James Shepard had an unusual day. It began with the suicide of Mrs. Farrows, a patient of his whom he suspects murdered her husband a year prior, and ended with...
Posted by Adult Services on October 29, 2018
Lincoln in the Bardo
Amidst the rising tensions of the Civil War, President Lincoln is dealing with more than the state of the country; his son Willie caught something akin to typhoid fever and...
Posted by Book Rex on August 25, 2018
The Great Wall
Viewers who want period accuracy and believable tales can skip this one. For the rest, the story is entertaining, but not particularly surprising.
Posted by Book Rex on July 11, 2018
The Night Diary
Through a series of letters written to her deceased mother, shy, quiet, twelve year-old Nisha tells the story of her family’s journey from the newly-formed Pakistan to India in the...
Posted by Book Rex on July 11, 2018
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a sweeping, carefully plotted novel of politics and trade in Japan when the island nation closed its borders to all others. There...
Posted by Book Rex on May 1, 2018
Hermes: Tales of the Trickster
The Greek god of thieves, language, and travel comes to life in this vibrant addition to George O’Connor’s Olympians graphic novel series.
Posted by Book Rex on March 22, 2018
Flame in the Mist
The prose is elegant and descriptive, and it's apparent much research was put into life in feudal Japan. If you're in the market for historical fiction in a nontraditional setting...
Posted by Book Rex on March 14, 2018
Clara Barton: Angel of the Battlefield
When their parents go through a divorce, 12 year old twins Maisie and Felix Robbins are forced to move from NYC to Rhode Island, and their lives feel bleak. To...
Posted by Book Rex on November 14, 2017
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a plot-driven story about friendship in the face of racism, inspired by the true history of Malaga Island. The often dramatic and intense tale has...
Posted by Book Rex on October 5, 2017
The Birth of Venus
The Birth of Venus illuminates Florentine history through the eyes of a precocious young woman who, more than anything, wishes to decide her own fate.
Posted by Book Rex on July 31, 2017
Motor Girls
Should horseless carriages be powered by electricity, steam engines, or gasoline? An odd question today, but at the dawn of the 20th century it was a very real debate. Even...
Posted by Book Rex on May 4, 2017
Flashback Four #1: The Lincoln Project
Part history lesson, and part time-travel adventure story, this book could appeal to Dan Gutman fans and also to children who loved the Magic Tree House books, but are ready...
Posted by Adrian L. on April 27, 2017
My Man Godfrey
I remember the night I first watched this movie years ago. I had come home and turned on the television, and My Man Godfrey was on a public station. I...