By Justin Richardson

When male penguins Silo and Roy attempt to hatch an egg–shaped rock and find no success in their efforts, the zookeepers decide to place a fertilized penguin egg in their cage and end up with little baby Tango, in an amusing tale based on a true story from the Central Park Zoo.

By Judy Blume

Faced with the difficulties of growing up and choosing a religion, a twelve–year–old girl talks over her problems with her own private God.

By Lemony Snicket
Series Series of Unfortunate Events

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

By J.D. Salinger
Recommended By Amy B., Children's Librarian

In an effort to escape the hypocrisies of life at his boarding school, sixteen–year–old Holden Caulfield seeks refuge in New York City.

By Anthony Burgess

In Anthony Burgess's nightmare vision of the future, where criminals take over after dark, the story is told by the central character, Alex, who talks in a brutal invented slang that brilliantly renders his and his friends' social pathology. A Clockwork Orange is a frightening fable about good and evil, and the meaning of human freedom.

Became the movie: A Clockwork Orange.

By Jonathan Safran Foer
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Monday, May 21, 2012. 7 PM

Oskar Schell, the nine year–old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center attacks, searches the five boroughs of New York City for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind.

By John Steinbeck
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, June 24, 2014. 1:30 PM.

The landmark novel about the plight of American farmers who were forced off their farms by drought and foreclosure during the 1930's.

Became the movie: The Grapes of Wrath.

By J.K. Rowling

A young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Became 8 movies: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

By Angie Thomas
Recommended By Rosemarie Germaine, Senior Library Clerk
With Stacey Mencher, Readers' Services Librarian

Tuesday 24, 2019. 1PM.

After witnessing her friend's death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter's life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died.

By Suzanne Collins
Series The Hunger Games Trilogy
Recommended By Sharon Long, Assistant Library Director, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Alisa Fogel, Librarian-Programming, Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian, Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian

In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

By Jessica Herthel

Presents the story of a transgender child who traces her early awareness that she is a girl in spite of male anatomy and the acceptance she finds through a wise doctor who explains her natural transgender status.

By Truman Capote

“On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.  As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy (From the Publisher).”

By Khaled Hosseini
Recommended By Evelyn Hershkowitz, Readers' Services Librarian

Traces the unlikely friendship of a wealthy Afghan youth and a servant's son, in a tale that spans the final days of Afghanistan's monarchy through the atrocities of the present day.

Became the movie: The Kite Runner.

By Ernest J. Gaines
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, September 24, 2013. 1:30 PM.

A frustrated teacher in a southern town, whose education is being underutilized, finds his own purpose in helping bring meaning to the last days of a young man due to be executed. In teaching one person to die with dignity, he redeems himself.

By John Green
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian
With Sharon Long, Teen Librarian, Pam Strudler, Librarian

Tuesday, August 4, 2015. 7:30 PM.

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

By John Steinbeck
Recommended By Jackie, Head of Readers' Services

The tragic story of two itinerant ranch hands on the run––one is the lifelong companion to the other, a developmentally disabled man.

Became the movie: Of Mice and Men.

By Ken Kesey

“Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the seminal novel of the 1960s that has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time. Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her (From the Publisher).”

By Stephen Chbosky
Recommended By Lisa H., Readers' Services Librarian

A series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the coming–of–age trials of a high–schooler named Charlie.

Became the movie: The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

By Brian K.Vaughan
Recommended By Stacey Mencher, Technology and Applications Manager

When two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to raise their child in a dangerous world.

By Alvin Schwartz
With Stacey Mencher, Readers' Services Librarian

Monday, October 24, 2016. 7:30 PM.

Tapped from the oral traditions of American folklore, these ghost stories and tales of weird happenings, witches, and graveyards have startling, funny, or surprising endings.

By Jay Asher

When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah’s voice recounting the events leading up to her death.

By Harper Lee
Recommended By Pam Strudler, Programming & Arts Librarian, Adrienne Rein, Library Clerk, Jackie, Head of Readers' Services
With Jackie Ranaldo, Head of Readers' Services

Tuesday, June 28, 2011. 1 PM & 7:30 PM.

The explosion of racial hate in an Alabama town is viewed by a little girl whose father defends a black man accused of rape.

Became the movie: To Kill a Mockingbird.