By Suzann Holland, Laura Schmiedicke and Andrea Schmitz
Monroe Public Library
If you’ve been waiting for the latest and greatest books and movies at the Monroe Public Library to come your way, it may sometimes be a longer wait than you’d like. Our friendly team is trying to fix that with the Most Wanted Collection. It’s a special collection of currently popular items that check out for two weeks only, cannot be renewed and cannot be held. What does this mean for our patrons? You’ll have a great chance of finding something new and exciting on the shelf, thereby bypassing the waiting list!
The purchase of these supplementary items is made possible through the support of the Friends of the Monroe Public Library. This supporting group provides $10,000 per year for the Most Wanted collection. These Friends are generous friends indeed! You’ll find a label inside each item indicating that it is courtesy of the Friends.
We are always getting new books for the Most Wanted shelf! One of the most recent arrivals is “The Testaments” by Margaret Atwood, a sequel to her classic novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.” “The Testaments,” set 15 years later, takes an inside look at the theocratic regime as it begins to crumble. The book is narrated by three women, two of whom are teenagers, and explores their thoughts and actions as they live within this system and begin to fight against it.
Sometimes, a book is popular for a long period of time and can be found on the Most Wanted shelf long after its initial release. If you’re still waiting for it, we probably still have it! Check out “Educated” by Tara Westover. Westover’s memoir details her isolated childhood with survivalist parents, who never sent her to school or took her to a hospital. As a teen, she begins educating herself, and eventually earns several degrees. “Educated” explores the difficulty of understanding your past while reinventing your future. Some other mainstays of the Most Wanted Shelf are “Becoming” by Michelle Obama and “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens.
The current youth titles on our Most Wanted shelf feature some long-anticipated graphic novels. “Best Friends” by Shannon Hale, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, is an authentic look at middle school culture. In this follow up to Hale’s “Real Friends,” the agony and joy of friendship are front and center and sure to resonate with kids and adults alike.
Seeking a goofy, giggly, original, action-packed read? You will clamor for “Dog Man: Fetch-22” by Dav Pilkey (#8 in the series). But don’t judge this one by the cover: Pilkey sandwiches plenty of persistence, kindness, and other positive themes in between the slapstick to satisfy any appetite.
“Guts” by perennial favorite author Raina Telgemeier is another semi-autobiographical story in the same vein of her earlier “Smile” and “Sisters.” In “Guts,” personal story of childhood anxiety, Telegemeir deftly normalizes seeking therapy and illustrates the benefits of developing empathy.
Two New York Times bestselling fiction series for youth are each ready to drop their 14th installments — just in time to add them to our collection for the fall! Soon kids everywhere can get their hands on Jeff Kinney’s “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Wrecking Ball.” In it, the Heffley family comes into an inheritance and uses it to renovate their home. Fun times or flop? Read it to find out!
Packed with emotional drama, “Dork Diaries: Tales From a Not-So-Best Friend Forever” by Rachel Renée Russell is on its way to us too. Nikki is back and going on tour! Enjoy the trip vicariously by reading this frenemy-, meltdown- and awesomeness-filled book!
The Most Wanted movie collection is amazing. You can see the newest movies without waiting for a hold. Often, we will have both a DVD and a Blu-ray copy of each movie, so you can watch the format that works for you.
In addition to the newest hot releases, we also have award-winners, which can stick around on the shelf for a bit. You might find recent Oscar nominees “The Favorite” and “A Star Is Born” right alongside “Avengers: Endgame.” You should definitely check out that most recent Avengers movie, as it ties up the stories of the last decade of Marvel films. All your favorite heroes, including Iron Man, Ant-Man and Captain Marvel, team up to reverse the dastardly actions of Thanos. It’s a fitting end to an epic series.
Now that you know they exist, where do you find the Most Wanted collection items? The Youth and Teen titles are in those departments on the second floor, shelved by the new items. The films can be found under the stairs on the first floor, right next to the adult books. Look for the gold stars and the “Most Wanted” label on the spines of each item. We hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we do!
— Cover to Cover is provided by the Monroe Public Library and is published the fourth Wednesday of the month.
