Reviews

Teen Review
Book Cover

Travelers Along the Way: A Robin Hood Remix

By Aminah Mae Safi
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Chris K.
Jan 11, 2023

Just excellent. Action, suspense, wit, an amazing setting, and great characters.

Safi reimagines the Robin Hood legend during the height of the Third Crusade in "the Holy Land, with all its names for God and all its pilgrims and all its war" with a female Muslim protagonist.

Staff Review
Cover of Small World by Laura Zigman. The cover is a closeup of a Massachusetts house with the lights on

Small World by Laura Zigman

Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Gregg W.
Jan 9, 2023

Hello and welcome to the 2023 edition of New Title Tuesday, where we look at a new release that hits the publishing world. While most of us love to read best-sellers, fewer of us like to wait in line for them, so in this particular space we tend to focus on books that might not have the 800+ or so holds on them like, you know, some others. (*cough* Prince Harry *cough*.)

Staff Review
Cover for Decision to Leave

Decision to Leave

By Park Chan-wook
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Zachary C
Jan 9, 2023

A man is found dead at the base of a mountain peak.  Was it a suicide?  Could it be murder?  With the deceased's wife as the prime potential suspect, the investigator in charge of the case begins to tumble down a rabbit hole of obsession as he investigates her.  



Staff Review
Book cover

The Ogress and the Orphans

By Kelly Barnhill
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Chris K.
Dec 21, 2022

Social contagion. That's what lies at the heart of this book; that's what this book is about. How thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and actions spread from one person to another to another and so on. Trust is contagious; when one person behaves trustingly, others respond in kind and the dynamic spreads. Suspicion is contagious; when one person acts from suspicion, others respond in kind and the dynamic spreads. Everything is contagious, spreading socially through networks of people.



Staff Review
Curly-haired blond woman with glasses, hands folded in front of her, looking pensive

Ekphrasis Writing Contest Winner

By Vicki Kohl
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Helen H.
Dec 12, 2022

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce that Vicki Kohl has won our writing contest on the theme of Ekphrasis with her piece "I Am Become a Name."

Staff Review
Book cover

This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution

By David Sloan Wilson
Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Chris K.
Dec 10, 2022

We generally think of evolution as a purely physical process, happening only at the level of genetics and DNA. Yet that is not the way Charles Darwin conceived it nor how evolutionary biologist Wilson understands it. In fact, genes and DNA were not yet discovered during Darwin’s time, and he saw heredity happening through many varied mechanisms—particularly in humans. From his Descent of Man, for instance:

Staff Review
Youth Writing Contest: Scary Short Stories 2022

Scary Story Youth Writing Contest Winner

Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Jo F.
Oct 24, 2022

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce the winners of our Scary Story Youth Writing Contest. "Counting Candy" by Scarlet He won in the 11 and under age category.

 

Counting Candy

by Scarlet He

“C’mon, we should be heading back to the house now, Gabby.”

“Alright, Walterson, let’s go then.”

Staff Review
Youth Writing Contest: Scary Short Stories 2022

Scary Story Youth Writing Contest Winner

Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Jo F.
Oct 24, 2022

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce the winners of our Scary Story Youth Writing Contest. "The House Next Door" by Krish Nachnani won in the 12-14 age category.

 

The House Next Door

by Krish Nachnani

Staff Review
Youth Writing Contest: Scary Short Stories 2022

Scary Story Youth Writing Contest Winner

Star Rating
★★★★★

Rated by Jo F.
Oct 24, 2022

Johnson County Library is pleased to announce the winners of our Scary Story Youth Writing Contest. "The Rules" by Lara Blanton won in the 15-19 category.

 

The Rules

By Lara Blanton

 

Rule #1: When entering Grandfather’s house, never look the door knocker in the eyes, that will only anger it.

 

Staff Review
Cover reads "Hester: A Novel" and "Laurie Lico Albanese." The words are surrounded by deep pink roses, tiny white flowers, and foliage.

Hester

By Laurie Lico Albanese
Star Rating
★★★★

Rated by Alice Pi
Oct 17, 2022

Witch trials are already a thing of the past in this historical novel set in Salem, Massachusetts during the lifetime of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. Witch trials are over; but their memory lives on in Hawthorne’s nineteenth century, with tensions lingering amongst the old Salem families and Hawthorne himself bearing ancestral guilt over his own great-great-grandfather's role in sentencing accused women to death more than a century earlier.