Reading List 2025

• That Librarian, Amanda Jones

  • “Amanda Jones started getting death threats, all for standing up for our right to read . . . but she's not stopped fighting against book bans, or stopped advocating for access to diverse stories.”-Oprah Winfrey, in a speech at the 2023 National Book Awards

  • Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars.

  • One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,” she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing.

Reading List 2024

ADULTS

• Driftless – David Rhodes

• Flight Behavior – Barbara Kingsolver

• The Overstory – Richard Powers

• Farm Girl – Beuna CoburnCarlson

• Damnation Spring – Ash Davidson

• Northwoods – Amy Pease

• North Woods – Daniel Mason

• Birnam Woods – Eleanor Catton

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – Barbara Kingsolver

• A Sand County Almanac – Aldo Leopold

• The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

• Any Port William novels – Wendell Berry

• Forty Acres Deep – Michael Perry

• Land Rich, Cash Poor – BrianReisinger

• A Creek Runs Through This Driftless Land – Dick Cates

• Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver

• Dakota – Kathleen Norris

• Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer

• Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden – Camille T. Dungy

• The Peace of Wild Things – Wendell Berry

• The Vaster Wilds – Lauren Graff

• The Bear – Andrew Krivak

GRADE SCHOOL / TEENS

• No One is Too Small to Make a Difference – Greta Thunberg

• The Lie Tree – Frances Hardinge

• Harris and Me – Gary Paulsen

• My Side of the Mountain – Jean Craighead George

• Julia and the Shark – Kiran Millwood Hargrave

• All the Crooked Saints – Maggie Stiefvater

KIDS

• The Night Gardener – Terry Fan

• On the Other Side of the Garden – Jairo Buitrago

• The Lumberjack’s Beard – Duncan Beedie

• An Egg is Quiet – Dianna Hutts Aston

• Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

• I Talk Like a River – Jordan Scott

• Nesting – Henry Cole

• Over and Under the Snow – Kate Messner

• Over and Under the Pond – Kate Messner

• Farmhouse – Sophie Blackall

• Our House is on Fire – Jeanette Winter