Friday Headlines
the weekly newsletter from EHS
Librarian Top Picks
29 March 2019
Don't know what to read next? Stuck reading the same books over and over? Want a suggestion you can trust? These top picks will include books from all genres, new or old and are hand-picked by the librarian to pique your interest. The best bit is they are all available in the school library.
Speak No Evil - by Uzodinma Iweala - suitable for older readers
On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, DC, he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound
for Harvard, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer - an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except his best
friend, Meredith - the one person who seems not to judge him. When his father accidentally finds out, the fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her own,
however, Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions
that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding towards a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed.
Vox - by Christina Dalcher - suitable for Year 9+
Silence can be deafening. Jean McClellan spends her time in almost complete silence, limited to just one hundred words a day. Any more, and a thousand volts of electricity
will course through her veins. Now the new government is in power, everything has changed. But only if you’re a woman. Almost overnight, bank accounts are frozen, passports
are taken away and seventy million women lose their jobs. Even more terrifyingly, young girls are no longer taught to read or write. For herself, her daughter, and for every
woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice. This is only the beginning…
Gather The Daughters - by Jennie Melamed - suitable for older readers
On a small isolated island, there's a community that lives by its own rules. Boys grow up knowing they will one day take charge, while girls know they will be married and
pregnant within moments of hitting womanhood. But before that time comes, a ritual offers children an exhilarating reprieve. Every summer they are turned out onto their
doorsteps, to roam the island, sleep on the beach and build camps in trees. To be free. At the end of one of such summer, one of the younger girls sees something she was never
supposed to see. And she returns home with a truth that could bring their island world to its knees.
Borne - by Jeff VanderMeer - suitable for Year 9+
In a ruined city of the future, Rachel scavenges a strange creature from the fur of a despotic bear. She names him Borne. He reminds her of her homeland lost to rising seas,
but her lover Wick is intent on rendering him down as raw material for the special drugs he sells. Nothing is quite what it seems, and if Wick is hiding secrets, so too is
Rachel – and Borne most of all.
Librarian Top Picks
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