Recommended Reads

With a hefty dollop of humor, Atinuke's rollicking counting story takes on a life of its own when Granny's mischievous goats start escaping.

Granny's got a goat! Granny's got a goat!
Not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4,
but more and more and more and more!

Excitement is in the air as Granny collects more and more goats! Eight are great, fifty are nifty . . . but when their number reaches one hundred, things start to get out of hand. There's a brown goat beeping on the bus, a gray one sitting in the salon, a white goat stealing panties from the line, and one has gone missing altogether--who can count in all this mayhem? Beloved storyteller Atinuke has a field day following goats throughout the town, while a gleeful crowd of children try their best to track them. With colorful, spirited illustrations by Lauren Hind, here's an uproarious read-aloud you can count on to bring giggles and smiles.

From magnetic sister duo New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser and author Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman comes an endearing picture book about sisters, the gardens they nurture, and the people they'll grow into.

Everything blooms in its own time.

Lily's garden is perfect and precise, while her sister Poppy's garden is eccentric and wild. Now that their youngest sister, Daisy, is old enough to have a garden of her own, the question is what will this flower girl choose to plant, and will her sisters stand back and let her bloom, or will they get in the way in the name of being helpful?

From the talented sister duo behind Gloria's Promise and You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum, writer Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and bestselling Fancy Nancy illustrator Robin Preiss Glasser bring us a tale of the bonds of sisterhood and the flourishing roots of individuality.

This perfect read-aloud for preschoolers combines three favorite things that young children love-puppies, firefighters, and fire trucks.

When the fire alarm rings, everyone at the firehouse gets ready-especially the Fire Pups. With their keen sense of smell and sharp eyesight, these adorable Dalmatian heroes are prepared to protect a family and save the day!

The engaging, interactive text calls out the sights and sounds associated with a fire rescue, while the story introduces concepts related to firefighting and fire safety, and there is bonus information at the end about the history of the Fire Dog.

"In showdown of the senses, who do you think would win, dog or human? That is the question being explored in this fun, sense-by-sense look at the ways dogs perceive the world and how it compares to the way we humans do. Over the course of six rounds, the sensory abilities of dogs and humans are playfully pitted against one another, with a final tally provided at the end of each section. (For those who are counting, the last round is a bonus that explores the possibility that dogs have extra senses that we do not. And spoiler alert: they don't--or at least not ones scientists have discovered yet.) The competition comes to a sense-sational conclusion that will please curious readers of both species. (It's a tie.) For each sense, the science behind our differences is clearly explained and often accompanied by an illustration for further clarity. (See for e.g., Who Sees it Better? and Who Smells it Better?) And for added context, the dogs' senses are often explained in evolutionary terms. For instance, when it comes to the sense of touch, a dog's nose can actually feel the body heat of another animal from as far as 1.5 m (5 ft.) away -- about the length of a park bench. Stephanie explains that this ability probably helped dogs' wolf ancestors find the warm bodies of hidden prey when they were hunting. Includes a glossary."--

Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC's The Tonight Show and #1 New York Times bestselling author, is back with a book for grandfathers. 

It may seem like PAPA doesn’t do ANYTHING but sit in his chair. But he does so much more!

From flying a plane to playing in a band, there’s so much this PAPA has done. But through all the things he’s accomplished in his life, there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you.

Jimmy Fallon, one of the most popular entertainers in the world, reminds us that even though it may not look like it, PAPAs are always doing SOMETHING.


Collect the whole Fallon family of picture books! 
Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada
Everything is Mama
This Is Baby
Nana Loves You More 
Papa Doesn't Do Anything!

A hilarious picture book about an artistic kitty’s search for inspiration—and the mischievous younger sibling who keeps getting in the way.

Big Cat has a fresh new piece of paper, a box of big, beautiful crayons, and a dream: to create something TOTALLY SPECTACULAR and become WORLD FAMOUS! The only problem? All the crayons have gone missing except for one tiny red stub. What a disaster! And even if Big Cat could make something with the stub, what could possibly be spectacular enough to be worth drawing?

Making matters worse, Big Cat has a younger sibling who keeps getting in the way. Little Cat seems less interested in making SPECTACULAR ART and more excited about . . . food, mostly. What's a feline in search of inspiration to do?

Uni the Unicorn and the little girl are having an amazing beach adventure with some new ocean friends! This Step 2 is perfect for beginner readers who can recognize familiar words and are working on sounding out new ones.

Uni and little girl love wading in the water at the beach, but the little girl is too afraid to swim. Good thing there are paddleboards, life vests, and some friendly dolphins to help them enjoy the sea! But they are distressed to discover trash on the beach and in the sea where their friends are swimming. They must help! 

Uni fans new and old will be excited to join this big-hearted unicorn and little girl on a new adventure with some new and exciting aquatic creatures! 

Step 2 Readers use basic vocabulary and short sentences to tell simple stories. They are perfect for children who recognize familiar words and can sound out new words with help.

Look for Uni Step into Reading stories, including:
Uni the Unicorn Bakes a Cake
Uni the Unicorn Goes to School
Uni's First Sleepover
and more!

Danielle Deadwyler (Till, The Harder They Fall, The Piano Lesson) stars as Ramona, a woman crippled by grief after she survives a car accident that takes her husband (Russell Hornsby; BMF, Fences). Seriously injured, Ramona now must care for their 14-year-old son (Peyton Jackson; Respect, American Refugee) and 6-year-old-daughter (Estella Kahiha; Will Trent, BMF), alone in her rural farmhouse. Then one day the woman takes form in their yard. Ramona assumes the woman (Okwui Okpokwasili; The Exorcist: Believer, Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night's Dream) is lost or demented, but as the woman creeps nearer and nearer to the house, it becomes clear she is no ordinary figure and her intentions are anything but peaceful. Now Ramona must rally to protect herself and her children from the grasp of the woman who simply won't leave them alone.

The film follows two of New York's most notorious organized crime bosses, Frank Costello (Robert De Niro) and Vito Genovese (De Niro), as they vie for control of the city's streets. Once the best of friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals place them on a deadly collision course that will reshape the Mafia (and America) forever.

Wilder Girls meets Outer Banks where a group of scuba diving friends stumbles across lost treasure, a legendary cave, and a new type of power... that comes at a price. 

The deeper you go, the darker you fall. 

Phoebe “Phibs” Ray is never more at home than when she’s underwater. On a dive six months ago, she and her four closest friends discovered a handful of ancient gold coins, rocketing them into social media fame. Now, their final summer together after high school, they’re taking one last trip to a distant Australian island to do what they love most – scuba dive.

While diving a local reef, Phibs discovers a spectacular underwater sea cave, rumored to be a lost cave with a buried treasure. But when Phibs and her best friend Gabe surface from the cave, they notice that they're undergoing strange changes. Oozing gashes that don’t heal. Haunting whispers in their heads... Something has latched onto them, lurking beneath their skin, transforming them from the inside out. 

When treasure hunters arrive, desperate to find the location of the cave and hold Phibs’ group for ransom, she’ll do anything to keep her friends safe. In the process she learns that, of all the dreadful creatures of the sea, she might be the most terrifying of them all.

Bestselling author Lisa Greenwald's charming middle grade novel with summertime fun, crushes, and babysitting--and a dash of magic--is a sequel perfect for fans of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and That's So Raven.

Is the magic really back

When Mille, Nora, and Bea found fortune tellers popping up in unexpected places--with eerily accurate fortunes--they reunited as best friends. Now that they're back to being besties, they're excited to spend the summer together outside the city. Recruited into babysitting eight-year-old triplets and staying with Millie's family, the girls are hoping this will be their own private summer camp, one where they're in charge, away from annoying siblings and toxic frenemies.

But nothing perfect can last. When everything from homesickness and boy craziness to real estate developers threaten their summer, Millie, Nora, and Bea start stumbling upon fortune tellers in the strangest places. And once again it feels like these fortune tellers are speaking to them: Sometimes in life you just have to jump in. Speak your mind and stand up for what you believe in! You are here for a reason. If they speak up, can Millie, Nora, and Bea really save the summer--and the community--before it's too late

In this riveting coming-of-age survival story in verse perfect for fans of Alan Gratz, a fire lookout-in-training must find her courage when a wildfire breaks out on her watch.

Twelve-year-old Opal has a secret: she’s deathly afraid of fire. Still Opal is preparing to become a fourth-generation lookout on Wolf Mountain, deep in the New Mexico wilderness. She, Mom, and Gran live at ten thousand feet in a single room at the top of a fire tower. They are responsible for spotting any hint of smoke before it becomes an uncontrollable blaze. 

Instead of training for the lonely life of a lookout, Opal wishes she could be starting seventh grade in Silver City, attending real classes with kids her own age and even going to afterschool clubs like FFA. But Wolf Mountain has other ideas. When Mom makes the long trek to town for supplies and Gran goes missing, Opal is the only one to spot a tell-tale spiral of smoke moving up the mountainside. She’ll have to be braver than she’s ever been as she heads into the woods, beyond Wolf Ridge’s old blackened burn scar, to face down a fire on her own. But when a fire is what took her father away, and Opal herself knows the sting of smoke and lick of flames, how can she be brave enough when it really counts?

For fans of You've Reached Sam and See You Yesterday, this captivating and mind-bending second-chance romance explores what it means to love--even across the multiverse.

Aria Patel likes stability, certainty, predictability. It's why she's so into science. It's why she dumped her boyfriend before they went to different colleges because the odds were that something would go wrong, eventually. In a life that's already so chaotic, why obsess over complicated relationships and shadowy unknowns when the scientific method gives you direction and a straight path to avoid all the drama.

But there's no avoiding anything when Aria finds herself suddenly falling through parallel universes and there's no formula that can save her. She can't explain why she's been waking up in a new reality almost every day, or why Rohan, and a poem from her English class, seem to be following her through every new life.

As Aria desperately attempts to find a way home, she eventually ends up stuck in a parallel world very similar to her own. She cherishes this new version of her family, and she finds herself unable to deny the yearning she has for Rohan...but it's not her life or her Rohan. It belongs to another Aria, another girl, and unless Aria can get back home, she'll have taken this happiness away from someone else forever. And she may never find her own. 



This whirlwind novel from New York Times bestselling author Samira Ahmed will whisk you through worlds unknown, all while putting a multiverse spin on one of BookTok's favorite tropes: second chance romance.

"A heartfelt, swashbuckling, standout novel." - Kirkus (starred review)

In this Latinx YA fantasy inspired by El Zorro, Lola de La Peña becomes the masked heroine Salvación in order to save her family and town from a man who would destroy it for the magic it contains...if she doesn't fall in love with a boy in his company first.

Lola de La Peña yearns to be free from the societal expectations of a young Mexican lady of her station. She spends her days pretending to be delicate and proper while watching her mamá cure the sick and injured with sal negra (black salt), a recently discovered magic that heals even the most mortal of sicknesses and wounds. But by night, she is Salvación, the free-spirit lady vigilante protecting the town of Coloma from those who threaten its peace and safety among the rising tension in Alta California after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

But one night, a woman races into Coloma, barely alive, to tell the horrifying tale of how her town was obliterated by sal roja (red salt), a potent, deadly magic capable of obliterating anything it comes into contact with, and about the man who wields it: Damien Hernández. So when Hernández arrives the next day with a party of fifty strong and promises of returning Alta California to México, Lola knows it’s only a matter of time before he brings the region under his rule—all Hernández needs is the next full moon and the stolen, ancient amulet he carries to mine enough sal roja to conquer the land. Determined to protect everything she loves, Lola races against time as Salvación to stop his plans. What she didn’t count on was the distracting and infuriating Alejandro, who travels with Hernández but doesn't seem to share his ambitions. With the stakes higher than ever and Hernández getting closer to his goals, Lola will do anything to foil his plans, even teaming up with Alejandro—who she doesn’t fully trust but can’t help but fall in love with.

Iron Chef meets The Hunger Games in Roselle Lim's dazzling YA fantasy debut, following a young noodle chef who competes in a cutthroat cooking competition for the gods.

"Celestial Banquet is a magical and delectable adventure through a culinary landscape rich in East Asian tradition. It is also a very real look at family, home, and how food ties into both, with an empowered and resilient teen girl at the center. Equal parts action-packed and heartfelt, I cannot wait for readers to devour it." --Ayesha Curry, Sweet July Books

Once every generation, the Major Gods hold a Celestial Banquet, inviting chefs from all over the Continent to prepare mouthwatering fantastical feasts. The winner is awarded the fabled Peaches of Immortality, along with a lifetime of fame and fortune. The losers perish per the whims of the fickle gods.

Hot-headed noodle chef Cai enters the competition with dreams of owning her own restaurant and supporting her impoverished Peninsula town. Along with the drunken Minor God Kama, her childhood crush-turned-friend Bo, and dreamy noble Seon, Cai must now compete against the Continent's finest culinary masters in trials that range from hunting and serving up mystical sea serpents to preparing a magical omurice from the eggs of the legendary Jian bird.

Battling impossible odds and inconvenient feelings for both Bo and Seon, Cai is determined to prepare a feast fit for the gods--even if she loses her life. Set in a spectacular world inspired by Chinese and Southeast Asian folklore, Celestial Banquet is an ode to food, home, and family, wrapped in an epic and thrilling adventure.

A young readers edition of the #1 New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus was the inspiration for the blockbuster film, Oppenheimer.

This brand-new edition introduces the next generation to one of the twentieth century's most iconic and complex global figures.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a brilliant physicist who led the American effort to build the atomic bomb during World War II, and who later found himself confronting the moral consequences of the revolutionary weapon he helped create. 

Readers of all ages will witness the rise and fall of a scientific and historical icon in this masterful new edition. Exploring his childhood, his secret work on the bomb, his central role in the Cold War, and his tragic downfall, this quintessential biography is history at its finest. Filled with dozens of photographs and updated information, this riveting and deeply informative account is now available to a middle and high school audience.

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that captivated the world with its uncanny ability to hold humanlike conversations. Not even a year later, on November 17, 2023, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was summarily fired on a video call by the company's board. The firing made headlines around the globe: OpenAI is the leader in the race to build AGI--artificial general intelligence, or AI that can think like a human being--and Altman is the most prominent figure in the field. Yet it was mere days before Altman was back running the company he had co-founded, with most of the directors who voted to fire him themselves removed from the board.

The episode was a demonstration of how quickly the industry is moving, and of Altman's power to bend reality to his will. In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman's rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham's protégé and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk, a former friend and now Altman's bitter opponent.

Hagey conducted more than 250 interviews, with Altman's family, friends, teachers, mentors, co-founders, colleagues, investors, and portfolio companies, in addition to spending hours with Altman himself. The person who emerges in her portrait is a brilliant dealmaker with a love of risk, who believes in technological progress with an almost religious conviction--yet who sometimes moves too fast for the people around him. With both the promise and peril of AI increasing by the day, Hagey delivers a nuanced, balanced, revelatory account of the individual who is leading us into what he himself has called "the intelligence age."

Altman is a figure out of Isaac Asimov or Neal Stephenson. Or he is the author himself: if it feels as though we have all collectively stepped into a science fiction short story, it is Altman who is writing it.

The inside story of the CIA’s secret mind control project, MKULTRA, using never-before-seen testimony from the perpetrators themselves.

Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s most cunning chemist. As head of the infamous MKULTRA project, he oversaw an assortment of dangerous—even deadly—experiments. Among them: dosing unwitting strangers with mind-bending drugs, torturing mental patients through sensory deprivation, and steering the movements of animals via electrodes implanted into their brains. His goal was to develop methods of mind control that could turn someone into a real-life “Manchurian candidate.” 

In conjunction with MKULTRA, Gottlieb also plotted the assassination of foreign leaders and created spy gear for undercover agents. The details of his career, however, have long been shrouded in mystery. Upon retiring from the CIA in 1973, he tossed his files into an incinerator. As a result, much of what happened under MKULTRA was thought to be lost—until now.

Historian John Lisle has uncovered dozens of depositions containing new information about MKULTRA, straight from the mouths of its perpetrators. For the first time, Gottlieb and his underlings divulge what they did, why they did it, how they got away with it, and much more. Additionally, Lisle highlights the dramatic story of MKULTRA’s victims, from their terrible treatment to their dogged pursuit of justice.

The consequences of MKULTRA still reverberate throughout American society. Project Mind Control is the definitive account of this most disturbing of chapters in CIA history.

Introducing Detective Stilwell: a cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina Island.



Los Angeles County Sheriff's Detective Stilwell has been "exiled" to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor--a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.



Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as "Nightshade." Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.



Propulsive and atmospheric, Nightshade launches a brand new character into the Connelly universe, and proves without question that Michael Connelly is "the undisputed master of the modern crime novel" (Real Book Spy).

When hometown horrors come back to haunt, friendship is salvation in a novel about childhood fears and buried secrets by #1 New York Times bestselling master of suspense Dean Koontz.

As kids, outcasts Rebecca, Bobby, Spencer, and Ernie were inseparable friends in the idyllic town of Maple Grove. Three left to pursue lofty dreams--and achieved them. Only Ernie never left. When he falls into a coma, his three amigos feel an urgent need to return home. Don't they remember people lapsing into comas back then? And those people always awoke...didn't they?

After two decades, not a lot has changed in Maple Grove, especially Ernie's obnoxious, scary mother. But Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer begin to remember a hulking, murderous figure and weirdness piled on mystery that they were made to forget. As Ernie sinks deeper into darkness, something strange awaits any friend who tries to save him.

For Rebecca, Bobby, and Spencer, time is running out to remember the terrors of the past in a perfect town where nothing is what it seems. For Maple Grove, it's a chance to have the "four amigos," as they once called themselves, back in its grasp.