Langley-Adams Library Recommendations

In need of a humorous feel-good book? I highly recommend "All About Me" by Mel Brooks! I also recommend that you listen & read it-as Mel narrates it and the book provides photos. I listened to this while I was walking and found myself laughing out loud. I am sure all that walked past me wondered what I was listening to-ha!        Mel Brooks is more than meets the eye by the way. Did you know that Mel, 95 years old, was taught military engineering skills at the Virginia Military Institute and served as a corporal in the 1104th Engineer combat Battalion, 78th Infantry Division defusing land mines as the Allies advanced into Nazi Germany? That his real name is Melvin Kaminsky? Did you know thanks to Brooks' production company "The Elephant Man", "The Fly", "84 Charing Cross Road'-just to name a few dramatic movies got made? Mel was smart enough to realize he was too known for comedy to let his association with these great films be known (unti...

It's 2061, and a comet is about to hit Earth, wiping out the world's population and making the planet inhabitable. Only a privileged few get the opportunity to go to space and live on a new planet. Twelve-year-old Petra Peña and her family are given this rare opportunity because her parents are scientists who will be able to help make the new planet habitable for humans. The catch is that getting to the new planet, Sagan, will take 380 years, so Petra, her brother Javier, her parents, and the many other passengers on the ship will be put in a cryogenic sleep until they reach the new planet.  When Petra wakes up, she realizes something is wrong immediately. Instead of waking up and seeing her family, she realizes that everyone on the ship is now brainwashed. Her family is gone and the ship is now ruled by The Collective, which is determined to erase all information about and artifacts from Earth. Petra is the only one who remembers Earth and the stories her grandmother told her....

Max is a biracial (White and Japanese) transgender teen boy who is learning how to grow into himself and is facing struggles with school, home, and the fact that he now has magical powers.  Max’s trusted friend Jen is the only one who knows that Max is a boy at the novel’s beginning.  Max decides to come out to his mom and dad on his 16th birthday, but his mother can’t accept the fact that her little goddess wants to transition since they are descended from the Goddess of Light, Aurora.  Max’s powers transform him into an uncomfortable frilly dress with heals, which causes him to experience dysphoria.  Max has to prove to his mother that he can be a man and use his powers in his own way to fight the darkness that feeds off of negative energy, and he finds that some of his classmates were under the darkness spell.  Max is able to find a group of friends who teach him how to be himself and help fight back the darkness that is creeping into the world, and if they d...

Ada and the Galaxies follows an inquisitive little girl named Ada who loves the stars so much that couldn’t wait to go to her grandparents’ home in Maine where she would be able to see them.  D uring her long day of waiting to see the stars, Ada was able to see many things that she wouldn’t normally see, since she lived in a city.   When night fell, so did the fog, and Ada was so worried that she wouldn't be able to see the stars. To help pass the time, Ada's grandfather, Poobah, showed Ada a special book of photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the stars and the galaxies.      Join Ada and check out the night sky by reading this  educational and beautifully illustrated children’s bedtime story.   Sherry Sabins Library Assistant  

When Claire Kovalik and her crew intercept a distress call at the edge of known space, the message leads them to a luxury cruiser, the Aurora, which had been lost for decades. Eager to claim the wreck and cash in on their find, the team boards the vessel only to encounter a horrific scene of mayhem and death. Dead Silence kept me entertained from the very beginning as I was determined to learn what happened to Claire and her crew aboard the Aurora, and what caused the violent scene they encountered.  Not only was this book a real page turner, it also tackled topics including corporate greed, mental illness, and how people deal with stressful/traumatizing experiences. S.A. Barnes did a great job developing her characters, particularly the main character Claire Kovalik, whose experiences at a Mars colony as a child directly influence how she handles the situations she finds herself in throughout the book. I highly recommend this book for any fan of either science fiction or horror as...

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood follows fictional characters, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), as well as Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Actor Rick Dalton and his stunt double, Cliff Booth, move through the ups and downs of fame and Hollywood life in the late 1960s, while Sharon Tate has a lot of similar experiences separately. I don’t know that I’ve even seen any of Quentin Tarantino’s other movies, but I still really enjoyed Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While the movie can be considered slow at times, the portrayal of this time period of Hollywood feels very authentic and pure. After this movie’s 2019 release, Brad Pitt went on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2020, which was very well deserved, in my opinion. There’s a sequence at the end that is sure to be enjoyed by anyone who watches the entire movie, even if they didn’t like parts of it. Overall, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood serves as a great period piece and character study, while offerin...

The Suicide Squad is a really good superhero comedy. The cast is great; as always, Margot Robbie is great as Harley Quinn, and Jon Cena makes for a great addition to the DC Extended Universe as Peacemaker. The fighting sequences are very well choreographed, kind of like Birds of Prey (also starring Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn). I had never seen the original, not-so-well-received Suicide Squad from 2016, but this was still awesome. James Gunn killed it with his usual humor and action that superhero fans can recognize from his other movies, like Guardians of the Galaxy. Overall, The Suicide Squad is a spectacular, colorful, and fun adventure, that’s sure to be enjoyed by DC fans and action fans alike! Shaun Hood Library Page