
The Check-in!
MHHS Library Newsletter Vol. 2 Issue 9
NEW BOOKS!
A Black Woman's History of the United States
A vibrant and empowering history that emphasizes the perspectives and stories of African American women to show how they are—and have always been—instrumental in shaping our country.
In centering Black women’s stories, two award-winning historians seek both to empower African American women and to show their allies that Black women’s unique ability to make their own communities while combatting centuries of oppression is an essential component in our continued resistance to systemic racism and sexism.
Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross offer an examination and celebration of Black womanhood, beginning with the first African women who arrived in what became the United States to African American women of today.
Call number: 305.48 BER
Genre: Nonfiction, U.S. History
Reading level: 5-6
Length: 176 pages
Availability: MHHS
Dancing at the Pity Party
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Part poignant cancer memoir and part humorous reflection on a motherless life, this debut graphic novel is extraordinarily comforting and engaging.
From before her mother's first oncology appointment through the stages of her cancer to the funeral, sitting shiva, and afterward, when she must try to make sense of her life as a motherless daughter, Tyler Feder tells her story in this graphic novel that is full of piercing--but also often funny--details.
She shares the important post-death firsts, such as celebrating holidays without her mom, the utter despair of cleaning out her mom's closet, ending old traditions and starting new ones, and the sting of having the "I've got to tell Mom about this" instinct and not being able to act on it. This memoir, bracingly candid and sweetly humorous, is for anyone struggling with loss who just wants someone to get it.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 FED
Genre: Graphic novel, Memoir
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 208 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Nonfiction
Hood
You have the blood of kings and rebels within you, love. Let it rise to meet the call.
Isabelle of Kirklees has only ever known a quiet life inside the sheltered walls of the convent, where she lives with her mother, Marien. But after she is arrested by royal soldiers for defending innocent villagers, Isabelle becomes the target of the Wolf, the ruthless right hand of the corrupt King John. To keep her daughter safe, Marien helps Isabelle escape and sends her on a mission to find the only person who can save them now: the infamous outlaw Robin Hood. Who also happens to be Isabelle's father.
Isabelle races to stay out of the Wolf’s clutches and find the father she’s never known, thrusting her into a world of thieves and mercenaries, roguish young outlaws, new enemies with old grudges, and a king who wants her entire family dead. As she fights for her rightful place among the Merry Men in a desperate bid to stop the Wolf's merciless plans, can Isabelle find the strength to defy the crown and save the lives of everyone she holds dear?
Call number: FIC MOK
Genre: YA Historical Fiction, Mythology
Reading level: 7-12
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Concrete Rose
International phenomenon Angie Thomas revisits Garden Heights seventeen years before the events of The Hate U Give in this searing and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood.
If there’s one thing seventeen-year-old Maverick Carter knows, it’s that a real man takes care of his family. As the son of a former gang legend, Mav does that the only way he knows how: dealing for the King Lords. With this money he can help his mom, who works two jobs while his dad’s in prison.
Life’s not perfect, but with a fly girlfriend and a cousin who always has his back, Mav’s got everything under control.
Until, that is, Maverick finds out he’s a father.
Call number: FIC THO
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 368 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Magnolia Sword
CHINA, 484 A.D. - a warrior in disguise.
All her life, Mulan has trained for one purpose: to win the duel that every generation in her family must fight. If she prevails, she can reunite a pair of priceless heirloom swords separated decades earlier, and avenge her father, who was paralyzed in his own duel.
Then a messenger from the Emperor arrives, demanding that all families send one soldier to fight the Rouran invaders in the north. Mulan's father cannot go. Her brother is just a child. So she ties up her hair, takes up her sword, and joins the army as a man.
Call number: FIC THO
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Weather Machine
From the acclaimed author of Tubes, a lively and surprising tour of the infrastructure behind the weather forecast, the people who built it, and what it reveals about our climate and our planet.
The weather is the foundation of our daily lives. It’s a staple of small talk, the app on our smartphones, and often the first thing we check each morning. Yet behind these quotidian interactions is one of the most expansive machines human beings have ever constructed—a triumph of science, technology and global cooperation. But what is this ‘weather machine’ and who created it?
Call number: 551.63 BLU
Genre: Nonfiction, Science, Weather
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 224 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Nonfiction, Science
Rough Magic
Riders often spend years preparing to compete in the Mongol Derby, a course that re–creates the horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan. Many fail to finish.
At the age of nineteen, Lara Prior–Palmer discovered a website devoted to “the world’s longest, toughest horse race”―an annual competition of endurance and skill that involves dozens of riders racing a series of twenty–five wild ponies across 1,000 kilometers of Mongolian grassland. On a whim, she decided to enter the race. As she boarded a plane to East Asia, she was utterly unprepared for what awaited her.
Call number: 798.4 PRI
Genre: Nonfiction
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 286 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievements: Fiction
Marie Curie: A Life of Discovery
GRAPHIC NOVEL
In her intensely researched, inventively drawn exploration of Marie Curie's life, artist Alice Milani follows the celebrated Polish scientist from Curie's time as a struggling governess to her years in France making breakthrough discoveries.
Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. With skill and care, Milani traces Curie's flight from Russia-controlled Poland, her romance with fellow scientist Pierre Curie, and Marie and Pierre's stunning discoveries of the elements radium and polonium. Throughout this distinctive graphic work, Curie defies doubt and double standards to make an enduring impact on the scientific world.
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 MIL
Genre: Biography
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 208 pages
Availability: MHHS
The Far Away Brothers
Two Teenage Immigrants Making a Life in America
The inspiring true story of identical twin teenage brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California as undocumented immigrants--perfect for fans of Enrique's Journey and anyone interested in learning about the issues that underlie today's conversations about DACA and immigration reform.
Ernesto and Raúl Flores are identical twins, used to being mistaken for each other. As seventeen-year-olds living in rural El Salvador, they are used to thinking that the United States is just a far-off dream. When Ernesto ends up on the wrong side of MS-13, one of El Salvador's brutal gangs, he flees the country for his own safety. Raúl, fearing that he will be mistaken for his brother, follows close behind.
Running from one danger to the next, the Flores twins make the harrowing journey north, only to fall into the hands of immigration authorities. When they finally make it to the custody of their older brother in Oakland, California, the difficulties don't end.
Call number: 979.4 MAR
Genre: Nonfiction,
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 288 pages
Availability: MHHS
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Shout: A Poetry Memoir
Award-winning Speak author Laurie Halse Anderson's New York Times bestselling poetic memoir and call to action, which garnered eight starred reviews!
Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a critically acclaimed poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless.
Call number: 813.54 AND
Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry
Reading level: 9-12
Length: 320 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Body 2.0
The Engineering Revolution in Medicine
Scientists are on the verge of a revolution in biomedical engineering that will forever change the way we think about medicine, even life itself.
Cutting-edge researchers are working to build body organs and tissue in the lab. They are developing ways to encourage the body to regenerate damaged or diseased bone and muscle tissue. Scientists are striving to re-route visual stimuli to the brain to help blind people see. They may soon discover methods to enlist the trillions of microbes living in our bodies to help us fight disease.
Learn about four strands of bioengineering―tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, neuroengineering, microbial science, and genetic engineering and synthetic biology―and meet scientists working in these fields.
Call number: 610 LAT
Genre: Nonfiction, Science, Medicine
Reading level: 6-12
Length: 96 pages
Availability: MHHS
Becoming Beatriz
Beatriz dreams of a life spent dancing--until tragedy on the day of her quinceañera changes everything.
Up until her fifteenth birthday, the most important thing in the world to Beatriz Mendez was her dream of becoming a professional dancer and getting herself and her family far from the gang life that defined their days--that and meeting her dance idol Debbie Allen on the set of her favorite TV show, Fame. But after the latest battle in a constant turf war leaves her brother, Junito, dead and her mother grieving, Beatriz has a new set of priorities.
How is she supposed to feel the rhythm when her brother's gang needs running, when her mami can't brush her own teeth, and when the last thing she can remember of her old self is dancing with her brother, followed by running and gunshots? When the class brainiac reminds Beatriz of her love of the dance floor, her banished dreams sneak back in. Now the only question is: will the gang let her go?
Call number: FIC CHA
Genre: YA Fiction
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 272 pages
Availability: MHHS
Sanctuary Somewhere
Seventeen-year-old Osmel dreams of being a meteorologist. His world is shattered when he finds out he is undocumented.
Osmel fears his dreams for college and career are now impossible. Then, ICE begins raiding the orchards his family works in. Will Osmel and his family ever find safety and peace in the place they call home?
Call number: FIC MOR
Genre: YA Novel in verse
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 200 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale
GRAPHIC NOVEL
When fifteen-year-old Selina Kyle, aka the future Catwoman, becomes homeless, she must confront questions of who she is and who she will become.
She rejects human cruelty, but sometimes it seems as though brute force is the only way to "win." And if Selina is to survive on the streets, she must be tough. Can she find her humanity and reconcile toughness with her desire for community ... and love?
GRAPHIC NOVEL
Call number: 741.5 GOO
Genre: YA Graphic Novel, Romance
Reading level: 8-12
Length: 208 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Fiction
The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe
The fierce new YA novel from Ally Condie, author of the bestselling Matched trilogy.
Who do you become when you have nothing left to lose?
There is something Poe Blythe, the seventeen-year-old captain of the Outpost’s last mining ship, wants far more than the gold they tear from the Serpentine River - revenge.
Poe has vowed to annihilate the river raiders who robbed her of everything two years ago. But as she navigates the treacherous waters of the Serpentine and realizes there might be a traitor among her crew, she must also reckon with who she has become, who she wants to be, and the ways love can change and shape you. Even—and especially—when you think all is lost.
Call number: FIC CON
Genre: YA Science Fiction, Fantasy
Reading level: 7-9
Length: 352 pages
Availability: MHHS, Sora (SDCL)
Audiobook: Sora (SDCL)
Sora achievement: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction
Essential Library Vocabulary
"availability" - where can I find this book? is it print or digital?
"MHHS" - Mission Hills High School, location means the book is available in print on campus
"Sora" - online eBook platform, go to soraapp.com to access
"Sora achievements" - reading books in Sora will earn you achievements; we will include what achievements you could earn by reading this title in Sora
"SMUSD" - San Marcos Unified School District (original library in Sora)
"SDCL" - San Diego County Library system (add this library to your Sora account for access)
"Serra" - Serra Library Cooperative (add this library to your Sora account for access)
"reading level" - reading levels are broken down by grade levels
"Lexile measure" - listed when available, from the Lexile Framework for Reading, lexiles measure of a text's readability - best used in conjunction with a student's Lexile reader measurement, visit www.lexile.com for more information
"genre" - what kind of book is it? fiction or nonfiction? YA or children's? fantasy or science fiction? biography or memoir?
"graphic novel" - a novel in comic-strip format
"sci-fi" - short for "science fiction"
Contact the MHHS Library
Email: mhhs.library@smusd.org
Website: missionhillshigh.smusd.org/resources/library
Location: 1 Mission Hills Court, San Marcos, CA, USA
Phone: 760-290-2730