J's Staff Picks

Perfect for fans of The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street and Waiting for Normal, this charming middle grade mystery is full of heart, humor, and more than a few surprises. Eleven-turning-twelve-year-old Cassie is an expert Peacock Detective. Her sharp eye for details is why the Hudsons from across the street call her every time their pet peacocks wander away. But there are some things even the greatest Peacock Detective can't figure out, like why her...

The monumental bestseller Quiet has been recast in a new edition that empowers introverted kids and teens 
Susan Cain sparked a worldwide conversation when she published Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. With her inspiring book, she permanently changed the way we see introverts and the way introverts see themselves.
The original book focused on the workplace, and Susan realized...

A first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights spans his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement.

A lengthy California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, turning Alyssa's quiet suburban street into a warzone, and she is forced to make impossible choices if she and her brother are to survive.

The future is nothing like you've imagined. Neither are its heroes.

A murderous android discovers itself in "All Systems Red", a tense science fiction adventure by Martha Wells that interrogates the roots of consciousness through Artificial intelligence. In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest...

"Down a narrow alley in the small coastal town of Mallow Island, South Carolina, lies a stunning cobblestone building comprised of five apartments. It's called The Dellawisp and it is named after the tiny turquoise birds who inhabit the building, alongside the human tenants, and imbue it with an air of magical secrecy. When Zoey Hennessey comes to claim her deceased mother's apartment at The Dellawisp, she meets her quirky, enigmatic neighbors, including...

"It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson--a sensible schoolmarm and lonely spinster--is just trying to get through life. But one day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and her tidy, circumscribed life, to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of an insect that may or may not exist: the golden beetle of New Caledonia, Margery's childhood obsession ever since her father gave...