What We're Reading

Camille Perri is the author of Social Animals.(Contributed / Book cover—Penguin Random House; author photo—Nina Subin)

Writer Camille Perri originally intended her third novel to be a buddy comedy where her characters would solve a crime, but that wasn’t quite working for her.

Then she got a dog: a Brussels Griffon named Pip.

She explained, “It wasn't until I got my dog Pip during the pandemic--we got a ‘pandemic puppy’--and I brought my dog to the dog park for the first time when it struck me, ‘Oh my goodness, I need to make this a dog park novel.’"

Perri is the author of The Assistants and When Katie Met Cassidy. Social Animals is her latest novel where dogs are indeed central to the story.

In a recent What We’re Reading interview Perri, a former librarian, noted that the dog park was a big inspiration because, like the libraries she’s worked at, they’re public spaces where all are welcome and different types of people interact with each other.

She elaborated, “I became a regular at the at the dog park. And what's funny about being a regular is you start to learn everybody's backstories a little bit. You learn about the park gossip, you learn about the park politics. You learn about who has drama with who or who maybe dated who but got their heart broken. There's all sorts of intrigue and it's almost like a soap opera. And when we were going to the dog park regularly during the pandemic, it was mostly our only social life. So I would really look forward to 5:30 every night when we'd head over to the dog park. I looked forward to it like a favorite TV show.”

Social Animals features three lonely women who become friends at an affluent East Coast dog park, but each woman is hiding a secret. This witty and fun story has lot of colorful human and canine characters, and suspense, as each woman’s secret is eventually revealed.

Aside from being fun and adorable characters on their own, the dogs also help the women develop in the story.

Perri noted, “I wanted the dogs to somehow serve as a catalyst for them, for the change that was going to come. So, it's kind of unique to each character how that functions, but for Val, for example … you'll see how the dog sort of forces Val to change and grow and evolve in the way that you like a character to do so in a novel. And each dog sort of functions that way in the book for each of their humans.”

Find out more about writer Camille Perri and Social Animals on her webpage.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Ryan Rodgers' new book is Where the Green Light Shines.(Contributed / Book cover—University of Minnesota Press; Author photo—Ryan Rodgers)

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has been an incubator for adventurers throughout its long history. Notables that are still with us today include Will Steger, Paul Schurke, Lonnie Dupre, and Dave and Amy Freeman. Each honed their outdoor skills here and went on to travel the most remote regions in the world.

But before these intrepid Minnesota adventurers, there was Bob O’Hara.

O’Hara began paddling in the Boundary Waters in the 1950s as a boy scout and ventured north into the Canadian Arctic in 1969. He kept going north for another 50 years.

Duluth, Minnesota journalist and author Ryan Rodgers tells the story of O’Hara and of Minnesota’s canoe culture in his book Where the Green Light Shines: A Fifty-year Odyssey from the Boundary Waters to the Far North.

With O’Hara as the central character, Where the Green Light Shines spans generations and includes many who were influential in preserving the Boundary Waters and establishing Minnesota as a paddling destination. Rodgers then takes us north into Arctic Canada with expedition paddlers traveling all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

Bob O'Hara (left) and Jim Gallagher (right) in 2005 along the Arrowsmith River in the Nunavut territory during a first modern descent of that river.(Contributed / Jim Gallagher)

In my recent interview, Rodgers intimated “Bob O’Hara is a singular guy. He really devoted his life to canoe trips…the decades went by and he found himself one of the most traveled paddlers on the planet.”

O’Hara started traveling in the far north decades before modern electronics, satellite phones, or global positioning technology. He is from an earlier generation, a time when the far north was still being documented. At 85 years old, O’Hara is still paddling today. Rodgers captures stories told by and about O’Hara—a colorful personality and one of the pioneers of modern expedition canoeing.

I have been fortunate to paddle on four Arctic expeditions with O’Hara, including the first modern descent of the Arrowsmith River in Nunavut. Some of the stories told in the book I have been hearing from O’Hara for 30 years.

During my interview with Ryan Rodgers, he turns the tables and interviews me about some of my own stories about O’Hara. Besides being a fun conversation, it helped put in perspective my long friendship with O’Hara and its origins on a far north river.

Whether you are an armchair adventurer or you are planning your next paddling expedition, Where the Green Light Shines gives you a peek into the world of expedition paddling as it once was and where it is today. It adds an important chapter to the chronicles of Minnesota canoe culture and some of its lively characters.

Where the Green Light Shines, published by University of Minnesota Press, will be available in bookstores in July 2026.

Paddler Bob O'Hara along the Armark River in Nunavut territory in 2001. The Armark was one of four Arctic rivers that Jim Gallagher paddled with O’Hara.(Contributed / Jim Gallagher)

Jim Gallagher is a KAXE volunteer and paddler. He produced Paddle Minnesota, essays and interviews about canoeing.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Byron Graves is the author of Medicine Wheels.(Tammy Bobrowsky / KAXE)

Byron Graves believes in writing what you know. Their 2023 debut novel Rez Ball focused on high school basketball, drawing from Graves’ experience playing while growing up on the Red Lake Nation in Northern Minnesota.

They knew their next book would focus on skateboarding, something Graves was a fan of but had never tried on their own.

So, Graves bought a skateboard and learned how to do it.

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, Graves recounted, “I would wait until it was midnight and I would go skate in empty 7-Eleven parking lots because I was embarrassed if I fell. So, I spent time just getting comfortable on the board. And then the next thing I knew, I was at a skate park, and I had my headphones on, and it was a beautiful sunny day, and I was figuring out how to groove around in a bowl.”

Graves’ new novel is Medicine Wheels--the story of Bryce Fairbanks, an Ojibwe teen whose mother struggles to come to terms with the death of Bryce’s father and her place in the world. Meanwhile, his grandpa is dying of cancer, and Bryce has just spent the last few years at a school where he doesn’t feel he belongs.

Things take a turn for the worse as Bryce and his mother return to Wolf Creek Reservation where his mother breaks her probation and is sent to jail. Luckily, Bryce is taken in by his grandma and is reunited with his cherished childhood friends.

Medicine Wheels is Byron Graves' second novel.(Contributed / HarperCollins )

Bryce visits the local skate park and remembers that his father was talented skateboarder. He is inspired to learn how to skate and his friends Robbie and Mikayla teach and support him and just maybe Bryce can become good enough to compete in the skateboarding competition at the end of the summer.

Graves summed up Medicine Wheels, “It's really a lot about this character trying to find himself in this summer and finding friends and family and skateboarding and how can he go from this dark, sad, lonely place to feeling accepted and like he has somewhere that he belongs.”

With Bryce having to navigate so many painful events in his life, Graves used this to help give their younger readers a model for their own lives, something they wished they could have had as a teenager.

They explained, “So I'm always trying to plant these seeds for my young readers in their real life that they can take from the book and be like, ‘I was reading that book, and this character had this similar thing happen that happened to me. And this is what they took from it. This is how that tragedy wasn't in vain.’ So I'm always trying to hope that my young readers not only are entertained and have a good time with the book but walk away maybe with some lessons.”

For more information on Byron Graves and their work, visit their website.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Meg Charlton is the author of Voyagers.(Contributed / Book cover—HarperCollins; Author photo—Jessie Casey)

Decades ago, six-year-olds Alex and Ana vanished for 36 hours while on vacation in Palm Springs.

They returned unharmed, but where they were and what happened to them was unexplainable, igniting the media and country in a firestorm of conspiracy theories. The event forged a bond between Alex and Ana, lasting through their adolescence until the never-ending spectacle of their disappearance tears them apart.

Present day: a mysterious transmission--a signal from the solar system is detected and growing stronger, interrupting communications and satellites, and prompting Alex to reunite with Ana. What is the signal, and does it have anything to do with their childhood disappearance?

This is the story behind writer Meg Charlton’s debut novel, Voyagers, a wholly original story about friendship, family, the reliability of memory and the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, Meg Charlton revealed that the idea for the story began in 2015 while she was part of a documentary film crew in Roswell, New Mexico, renowned for an alleged 1947 UFO crash.

She explained, “Part of what inspired me was hearing the stories of different experiencers and also seeing the conflicting poles of skeptic and believer and realizing that both sides can cling to this very dogmatic vision of the world, this very rigid narrative about what did or didn't happen.”

Because the characters Alex and Ana were very young when they had their experience, the reliability of memory is called into question as they grow older. Charlton noted that this was a space she wanted to play in as a writer.

“We all have these memories, especially from early childhood, that diverge with or conflict with those of the people that we love and the people who supposedly went through those experiences with us. You know, you can grow up in the same house and yet end up with completely different interpretations of what that experience was like. And so I think I was really interested to explore that incredibly common and basic reality of the unreliability of all of our memories through the experience of the experiencers, through these people who are really called to account for their memories because the things they describe kind of push at the edges of consensus reality,” she said.

While the disappearance and relationship between Alex and Ana take center stage in Voyagers, the story has elements of science fiction, with the signal and the speculation that extraterrestrial contact has been made.

On our ongoing fascination with extraterrestrial life, Charlton noted, “I think that so much of the allure of UFOs is about wanting to recognize and sort of see Earth from the outside. At least that is for me, to sort of see it the way the Artemis crew saw it, see it the way the Earthrise photo saw it, sort of recognize that we are this dust mote suspended in a sunbeam, this little pale blue dot, and to kind of see ourselves the way that an alien might, and to see our specialness, even as we would recognize that we aren't unique and we aren't alone.”

Learn more about Voyagers and writer Meg Charlton on her website, which includes a Voyagers playlist.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Darby Bozeman is the author of Summer's Never Over.(Contributed / Red Door Photography)

As a middle school English teacher, writer Darby Bozeman became obsessed with teaching story structure to her students, telling them that a story is “like a roller coaster.”

She then carried that same passion into her writing. The result: her debut novel Summer’s Never Over, complete with the many twists and turns she’d describe to her students.

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, Bozeman described her protagonist, Greer Olsen, a woman in her late 20s who is struggling with what she wants out of her life versus what others’ expectations for her are.

Bozeman explained, “I think there's a lot of bravery that goes into that…She's really complicated, but at the end of the day, I do think she is a brave person in a lot of different ways.”

Notably, Summer’s Never Over takes place at a popular summer camp in the remote mountains of Georgia. Dread’s Cove has been Greer’s home since birth until a destructive fire and seemingly accidental death of Greer’s friend results in the camp’s closure. Greer leaves shortly after, devastated and vows never to return.

Five years later, Greer’s mother, who worked tirelessly to re-open the camp, dies and Greer must now return home and come to terms with her grief. What she must also deal with is evidence that the fire, and her friend’s death, may not have been an accident after all.

Bozeman knew that she wanted this story to take place at a summer camp because she met her husband at a summer camp when she was in college. She said, “I just always thought it was a very romantic type of place, which sounds funny, but romantic in the sense of like anything can happen here.”

But Bozeman also recognized how a summer camp could make a perfect place for tension and suspense.

She explained, “It's very insulated, everyone's together. It's kind of claustrophobic with how everyone's spending all this time together and these relationships get really intense really fast. And summer camp just kind of kept coming up as an idea for me … Once we got to the camp, I was like, there's a lot of good juicy stuff here.”

Darby Bozeman’s debut novel Summer’s Never Over is published by Penguin Random House.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Independent journalist Justin Glawe is author of If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened.(Contributed / University of Georgia Press)

Independent journalist Justin Glawe began his reporting career in small Midwest newspapers, from the Peoria Journal Star in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois, to the Bemidji Pioneer and then to the Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota.

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, Glawe noted that his time as a reporter in Bemidji was especially formative, particularly his work reporting on Bemidji’s homeless population, which eventually led to community action.

He explained, “The reason that I learned that lesson is because of the response of the community in Bemidji — that people paid attention to it. They took it seriously. I mean, they even went and started the [Nameless Coalition for the Homeless] and there's a shelter now, and that is almost unheard of in other parts of society where we, as journalists, write about and report on serious systemic problems all the time and nothing ever seems to happen.”

Glawe eventually began reporting for more prominent publications like The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast and Vice, covering some of the country's most violent and controversial stories in the past decade, many of which are chronicled in his new book If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened: The Life and Times of a Domestic War Correspondent.

The book is a visceral and compelling account of the stories in the past decade Glawe reported on, borne out of his need to personally deal with the rising violence and unrest he was witnessing.

He explained, “I was writing it to make sense of what I was seeing over all these years in all of these different places, sort of with the thought that, surely I can't be the only one who's viewing this through this lens.”

If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened also delves into Glawe’s alcohol addiction and recovery, and how the work of covering so many violent events (police killings, Ferguson, Las Vegas massacre, etc.) seemingly influenced and mirrored his alcohol use.

Glawe noted, “I definitely think that I tended to gravitate more towards the darker aspect of American life and the more violent and chaotic events because of my mindset. … I was in active addiction. … I kind of had a more depressed mindset and so that's where my focus went.”

After being sober for almost four years, Glawe has found a balance between continuing to report on tough stories and allowing himself to enjoy bright moments.

He explained, “I've found a really good sort of system for me to continue doing the work that I feel is important, which often involves talking about and thinking about and reading and researching and reporting on some pretty bad stuff, [but then] take a step back from that and walk outside and recognize some of the really good things that there are out there around me.”

If I Am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened: The Life and Times of a Domestic War Correspondent is published by NewSouth Books, an imprint of the University of Georgia Press.

Learn more about Justin Glawe and his reporting on his website.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Reaching Rural Readers provides books to rural Minnesota high school students.(Contributed / Danielle Sullivan)

While working as a teacher in Lake Park-Audubon Elementary school, Kathrina O’Connell created the Literacy Academy, a program aimed at keeping rural Minnesota middle school students engaged in reading over the summer.

It was a successful venture, but students who loved to read would age out of the program.

Kathrina O'Connell is co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers.(Contributed / Jeremy L Albright)

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, O’Connell, an Associate Professor of Education at Concordia College, noted that offering a reading program specifically to young adults was a motivation behind the creation of Reaching Rural Readers, a virtual book club for high school students who live in rural Minnesota.

Participating students get books mailed to them at no charge and can join in book discussions and author talks online, facilitated by Bemidji State University education students.

Danielle Sullivan, Associate Professor of English at Bemidji State University and co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers, noted how they wanted Bemidji State University students to be involved from early on.

Danielle Sullivan is co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers.(Contributed / Danielle Sullivan)

“So initially, we were thinking of this as this book club, but then this question came up of what if some of our students could participate? And this has grown from just giving them an opportunity to get some experience leading discussions to an active inquiry that we're undertaking through our research.”

The Bemidji State University students additionally get to “develop their own questions and their own ideas for how to engage the readers and help them get to know each other.”

“They have found this really beneficial,” said Sullivan.

O’Connell and Sullivan are very intentional about the booklist and usually include one with a rural perspective, one with an indigenous perspective, and then a third book they call a “window book,” one that offers a broader perspective to another world or another place.

Summer 2026 books include: Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley; Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel, adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard; and Gather, by Kenneth Cadow.

Now in its third year, Reaching Rural Readers has expanded to include students in North Dakota and, while O’Connell is serving as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway this year, she saw an opportunity to include students there as well.

She reached out to the Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Languages in Education, and they agreed to mail the books to students in Norway.

O’Connell said, “It's just very exciting for us. We have this rural reach in the United States, and now we have this rural reach in Norway. So, the possibilities are endless for this program, and we're just really excited for this summer.”

Registration for summer 2026 is full, but students can join a waitlist. More information about Reaching Rural Readers can be found on their website.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Reaching Rural Readers provides books to rural Minnesota high school students.(Contributed / Danielle Sullivan)

While working as a teacher in Lake Park-Audubon Elementary school, Kathrina O’Connell created the Literacy Academy, a program aimed at keeping rural Minnesota middle school students engaged in reading over the summer.

It was a successful venture, but students who loved to read would age out of the program.

Kathrina O'Connell is co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers.(Contributed / Jeremy L Albright)

In a recent What We’re Reading interview, O’Connell, an Associate Professor of Education at Concordia College, noted that offering a reading program specifically to young adults was a motivation behind the creation of Reaching Rural Readers, a virtual book club for high school students who live in rural Minnesota.

Participating students get books mailed to them at no charge and can join in book discussions and author talks online, facilitated by Bemidji State University education students.

Danielle Sullivan, Associate Professor of English at Bemidji State University and co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers, noted how they wanted Bemidji State University students to be involved from early on.

Danielle Sullivan is co-creator of Reaching Rural Readers.(Contributed / Danielle Sullivan)

“So initially, we were thinking of this as this book club, but then this question came up of what if some of our students could participate? And this has grown from just giving them an opportunity to get some experience leading discussions to an active inquiry that we're undertaking through our research.”

The Bemidji State University students additionally get to “develop their own questions and their own ideas for how to engage the readers and help them get to know each other.”

“They have found this really beneficial,” said Sullivan.

O’Connell and Sullivan are very intentional about the booklist and usually include one with a rural perspective, one with an indigenous perspective, and then a third book they call a “window book,” one that offers a broader perspective to another world or another place.

Summer 2026 books include: Apple in the Middle, by Dawn Quigley; Tuck Everlasting: The Graphic Novel, adapted and illustrated by K. Woodman-Maynard; and Gather, by Kenneth Cadow.

Now in its third year, Reaching Rural Readers has expanded to include students in North Dakota and, while O’Connell is serving as a Fulbright Roving Scholar in Norway this year, she saw an opportunity to include students there as well.

She reached out to the Norwegian National Centre for English and Foreign Languages in Education, and they agreed to mail the books to students in Norway.

O’Connell said, “It's just very exciting for us. We have this rural reach in the United States, and now we have this rural reach in Norway. So, the possibilities are endless for this program, and we're just really excited for this summer.”

Registration for summer 2026 is full, but students can join a waitlist. More information about Reaching Rural Readers can be found on their website.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Elizabeth Preston is the author of The Creatures' Guide to Caring.(Contributed / Book cover—Penguin Random House; Author photo—Kristin Chalmers)

As a parent, Elizabeth Preston was familiar with parenting literature. But as a science writer, Preston also wanted to explore parenting from the perspective of evolutionary biology, or “humans as animals.”

And so her new book The Creatures' Guide to Caring: How Animal Parents Teach Us That Humans Were Born to Care tells us “how we got here in the context of all the other animals on Earth that are doing similar things or different things.”

In a recent What We’re Reading interview Preston explains how humans are hardwired to care.

“So every mammal has a caring mother. But in humans and in some other species, it seems that we've evolved to care for our kids in a cooperative group. And we can see that legacy in the ability of both fathers and people who aren't related to a baby at all to start caring for the baby.”

Her research for The Creatures' Guide to Caring resulted in surprising instances of male species taking on the role as main caregiver. For example, Preston notes that for the minority of fish that care for their young, it’s almost always the male. In particular, the midshipman fish who builds the nest on shore, attracts the female, then guards the eggs for months.

Preston explained, “It's very intense … But he's very exposed, literally exposed. He's on the shore. He can be completely dry when the tide goes out. He can get eaten by a seagull. He may have to fend off other males who are trying to get his nest space. So it's this very intense parenting role, and it's entirely done by the dad.”

Among the many examples of animal behavior in The Creatures' Guide to Caring, one that really stands out to Preston is the gharial, a crocodilian found in Asia. The females lay their eggs together and along with a territorial male guard all the hatchlings, regardless of parentage.

Preston said, “I just love that example because we don't think of reptiles usually as social animals. We think of somebody has a snake in their terrarium and it just kind of sits there. But even reptiles can have these very interesting social lives and these really intense forms of care.”

Preston hopes that these examples from the animal kingdom help to show how we have evolved to care for our young cooperatively. She explained “We all have that caretaking equipment in our brains…It doesn't matter whether you have kids of your own, you are a caretaker to other humans around you. And that I think this equipment for caring, this incredible empathy that we have compared to other animals, this incredible ability to cooperate is really at the foundation of our whole society.”

Learn more about Elizabeth Preston’s The Creatures' Guide to Caring here.

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Children's librarian Tracy Kampa recommends four new books.(Contributed / Penguin Random House, Abrams Books)

From a girl who loves to work on cars to a boy who grows a tiny garden; a reality TV competition turns dangerous and odd family stories (why does Grandpa only have 9 toes?)—Grand Rapids Area Library children’s librarian, Tracy Kampa, shares a new batch of recommendations with What We’re Reading.

Sarabeth’s Garage, by Melanie Florence, illustrated by Nadia Alam

Tracy's take: Every Saturday, Sarabeth joins her dad at his garage. There she spends the day helping to change oil, diagnose problems and fix engines. In the garage, surrounded by cars, is her happy place. While her parents are wildly supportive of her interest in cars, her grandma often reminds her that in her day, girls played with dolls rather than cars. They wore dresses instead of grubby work clothes and had clean hands. Sarabeth is a little taken aback by Grandma's comments, but with her parents’ advocacy, she continues to enjoy her hobby.

One day, as Grandma was leaving, her car did not purr like a kitten. Rather, it grumbled and groaned like an unhappy walrus. Sarabeth opened the hood of the car and got to work, with her dad handing her the tools. Soon, she closed the hood and invited Grandma to try it again. This time, the engine roared to life. The final spread shows us an interior of Dad's garage. And who's wearing the grubby overalls now? A wonderful validation for all children who may not have traditional aspirations. I highly recommend Sarabeth's Garage by Melanie Florece, with delightful pictures by Nadia Alam.

Tiny Garden, by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Jax Chow

Tracy's take: Andrew loved plants, but sometimes the sheer size of his neighbor's gardens felt too overwhelming. So Andrew carefully plotted out the space, dug the soil, and planted a tiny garden. His neighbor did not understand. Tiny seeds brought forth tiny plants. Andrew was content. His neighbor: confused. Tiny plants attracted tiny animals: an exhausted moth, a tiny earthworm, the tiniest hummingbird excited to find a home. The Neighbor still didn't get the point. But as Andrew watched a tiny ladybug scurry to the garden, he assured his neighbor that it was okay that he didn't understand. Because Andrew did.

If you love a good garden picture book, particularly one in which the smallest of inhabitants are both seen and celebrated, I think you'd very much enjoy Tiny Garden by Deborah Underwood, with outstanding illustrations by Jax Chow.

Wilderness Hacks, by Joslin Brorsen

Tracy's take: Sadie will do almost anything for her younger brother, Silas. Especially since the death of their father the previous summer, Sadie has been extra vigilant, trying to smooth Silas's path as much as possible.

Silas is obsessed with YouTube teen survivalist Radley Shaw, but is disappointed when a contest is announced to appear on Radley's show, an opportunity for which Silas is too young. And that is how Sadie ends up eating a grub cooked over a fire. Because anybody can eat one raw, right? It takes far more survivalist skill to make the fire before cooking and consuming said grub, at least according to Silas.

Sadie is relieved when their video does not make it to the top—until it does. Sadie will now be Rad's co-star of the week, and Silas is allowed to tag along for the day of filming. The more time Sadie spends with Radley, however, the more she feels this whole thing is a fraud. Neither Sadie nor Rad is looking forward to their time in the wilderness.

During their day of filming, however, a true natural disaster strikes as an earthquake rains rocks all around them and shatters a dam. As their rafting trip becomes a whitewater survivalist test, their adult guide ultimately chooses to give Sadie and Rad the best chance for survival, and his actions leave the two young people alone in the wilderness. The author pulls no punches as Rad and Sadie must use every skill they have to survive. But foraging for food, finding shelter, and building fires may be the least of their concerns when the wolf pack and ultimately the mountain lion shows up.

Every aspect of this book felt believable, from the initial setup of the YouTube contest to the ultimate survival test in the Colorado mountains. Sadie and Rad grew from barely tolerating each other to true friends as they shared what got them to this point in their lives. Parental death, autism, and celiac disease are all handled with grace over this three-day trial. If you are looking for a great survival story with the perfect tone for today's reader, I'd suggest you pick up Wilderness Hacks by Joslin Brorsen.

You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This, by Aaron Starmer

Tracy's take: From first seeing the title, You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This, which I read out loud just to hear it in the air, to reading the book reviews, to actually reading this book, I've been in a state of wonder. And now, a week later, I'm still thinking about it, both in awe of how well the story was constructed and also ruminating over the ending.

Twelve-year-old Roman is the youngest in his extended family. Like many families, his is full of tales that happened long before Roman arrived. Unlike other families, though, one of the most popular stories that Grandpa tells is of the Toe Beast. And it is the terrifying tale of why Roman's Grandpa only has nine toes. Roman, however, has never heard the tale all the way to the end, as it always felt too scary.

After Grandpa dies, Roman is tasked with helping to clean out the house. He discovers several very odd things in the attic, including a jar of formaldehyde. This is nothing, though, compared to what Roman finds when he's able to break into the locked backyard shed. Thus, the story unfolds, one odd experience after another. A notebook Roman finds in the attic tells the tale of a girl who appears in a village one day, surrounded by a small pack of dogs. Some dogs from the village strain on their leashes to join the pack. Others do not. For the families of the dogs who do go, they are gifted a miraculous bush with fruit that may or may not cause marvelous happenings. Later, we are led to wonder if this tall tale could be true. And who is the girl? Roman's magic eight ball, a mysterious gift for his birthday when his secret desire was to have somebody to talk to, answers yes to every question, until one day it doesn't, with great urgency. And when Roman finds an old bucket in the shed, why does his mom freak out and insist that it must be buried immediately at the bottom of the trash can? Perhaps most pressing, why does Roman's brother continue to ask him a question for which he has no answer?

I reread most of the parts of this book after the ending so astoundingly tied up all these disparate loose strings. A slower, perhaps more clever reader might pick up the first time what I missed, but I was happy for the second read, as it convinced me of the brilliance of the author. I think this story will stay with me for a long time, similar to how, every now and then, scenes from Charlotte's Web or The Outsiders still flash through my brain. I so appreciate a book that requires me to think and continues to sit with me long after I've closed the cover. If you, too, enjoy original stories told exceptionally well, I highly recommend You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This by Aaron Starmer.

Happy reading!

Children's librarian Tracy Kampa (Contributed / Tracy Kampa)

Looking for a good book recommendation? Want to recommend a book you've just read? Check out our What We're Reading page on Facebook, or text us at 218-326-1234.

What We're Reading is made possible in part by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.