West Slope Community Library

June is also the start of Summer Reading!

For adults, it’s easy to participate: simply register online and read, and you’re entered for bi-weekly prize drawings. You can also submit a book review to be entered in the grand prize drawing.

Children and teens can come into the library to register, and they receive a free book for completing the program.

Why not select one of the books below to get your summer reading started?

Happy reading!

For Adults

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Tony Kushner’s two-part masterwork is now available in a single edition to coincide with the broadcast of the epic HBO special directed by Mike Nichols and starring Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Emma Thompson, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Gambon and Simon Callow, scheduled for December 2003.

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Awards:
Lambda Literary Awards (2015), National Book Critics Circle Award (2014), Triangle Awards (2015)

Praise for Saeed Jones:
“Jones is the kind of writer who’s more than wanted: he’s desperately needed.”-“FlavorWire”
“I get shout-happy when I read these poems; they are the gospel; they are the good news of the sustaining power of imagination, tenderness, and outright joy.”-D. A. Powell
“Prelude to Bruise works its tempestuous mojo just under the skin, wreaking a sweet havoc and

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The ninth and final novel in Armistead Maupin’s classic Tales of the City series, The Days of Anna Madrigal is the triumphant resolution to a saga of urban family life that has enchanted and enlightened readers around the world since 1976.

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In thrilling, cinematic style, FROG MUSIC digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue’s lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.

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Awards:
John W. Campbell Memorial Award (2014), Lambda Literary Awards (2014), Nebula Awards (2013), Washington State Book Award (2014)

A brilliant, lush, sweeping historical novel about the rise of the most powerful woman of the Middle Ages: Hild

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“”I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license…records my first name simply as Cal.””
So begins the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides

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Winner of the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first novel and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for best writer under 35, this modern classic has sold 100,000 copies in the United States. The novel chronicles the life of a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an Evangelical household in the dour, industrial Midlands. Her insistence on listening to the truths of her own heart and mind

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In her most exuberant, most fanciful novel, Woolf has created a character liberated from the restraints of time and sex. Born in the Elizabethan Age to wealth and position, Orlando is a young nobleman at the beginning of the story-and a modern woman three centuries later. “A poetic masterpiece of the first rank” (Rebecca West). The source of a critically acclaimed 1993 feature film directed by

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Awards:
Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction (2015), Kirkus Prize (2014), Lambda Literary Awards (2015)

The volcanically sexy (“USA Today”) bestseller about a widow and her daughter who take a young couple into their home in 1920s London.

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A “New York Times” bestseller
The original graphic novel adapted into the film “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” winner of the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival; released in the US this fall by IFC Films/Sundance Selects
In this tender, bittersweet, full-color graphic novel, a young woman named Clementine discovers herself and the elusive magic of love when she meets a confident

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Awards:
Green Mountain Book Award (2009)

Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and funny, readers are drawn into a daughters complex yearning for her father. Apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned “fun home,” the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books.

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Awards:
Cybils (2014)

On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiancee’s throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed. This book recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.

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When was the first chat line between men established? Who was the first “lesbian”? Were ancient Greek men who had sex with each other necessarily “gay,” and what did Shakespeare think about crossdressing?

“A Little Gay History” answers these questions and more through close readings of art objects from the British Museum’s far-ranging collection. Consulting ancient Egyptian papyri, the Roman

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Awards:
Lambda Literary Awards (2012), Triangle Awards (2012)

Engaging and thought-provoking, “A Queer History of the United States” is the first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.

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Imagine if, after fifteen years as a lesbian couple, your partner turned to you and said, ‘I think I’m really a man.’ What would you do? How would you respond? For Diane and Jacob (nee Suzy) Anderson-Minshall this isn’t a hypothetical question. It’s what really happened. Eight years later, the couple not only remains together, they still identify as queer, still work in LGBT media, and remain part

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Awards:
Lambda Literary Awards (2015)

In her profound and courageous “New York Times” bestseller, Janet Mock establishes herself as a resounding and inspirational voice for the transgender community-and anyone fighting to define themselves on their own terms.
With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible

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For Children

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In his typically silly and reassuring style, Parr celebrates the many different types of families in this picture book. Includes teaching tips. Full color.

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From the time she was two years old, Jazz knew that she had a girl’s brain in a boy’s body. She didn’t feel like herself in boys’ clothing. This confused her family, until they took her to a doctor who said that Jazz was transgender and that she was born that way. Full color.

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The Crown Kitty
and Friends
Cordially Invite You
to Celebrate
a Royal Wedding
Reception to follow
in the Royal Gardens
Bring Lots of Presents

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Awards:
Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award (2016)

This seriously funny, modern family adventure follows a family with two fathers, four adopted boys, and a variety of pets as they make their way through a school year, kindergarten through sixth grade, and deal with a grumpy new neighbor.

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With a benevolent moon as their guardian, Jack and Guy make their way out of the dumps, rescue a poor little kid with a black eye, and bring him home in triumph. In this, as in all his greatest books, Sendak speaks for children everywhere. They will recognize that what matters to him also matters, intensely, to them. Full-color illustrations.

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For Teens

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Awards:
Americas Award for Children & Young Adult Literature (2013), Black-Eyed Susan Award (2014), Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award (2015), Florida Teens Read (2015), Lambda Literary Awards (2013), Michael L. Printz Award (2013), Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award (2015), Pura Belpre Award (2013), Stonewall Book Award (2013), Tayshas Reading (2013), Virginia Readers Choice Award (2015), Volunteer State Book Awards (2015)

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When they meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the two loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special kind of friendship-the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime.

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This is the story of Paul, a sophomore at a high school like no other: The cheerleaders ride Harleys, the homecoming queen used to be a guy named Daryl (she now prefers Infinite Darlene and is also the star quarterback), and the gay-straight alliance was formed to help the straight kids learn how to dance.
When Paul meets Noah, he thinks he’s found the one his heart is made for. Until he blows

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Awards:
Tayshas Reading (2013)

School outsider Jesse, a lesbian, is having secret trysts with Emily, the popular student council vice president, but when they find themselves on opposite sides of a major issue and Jesse becomes more involved with a student activist, they are forced to make a difficult decision.

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Awards:
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award (2010), Grand Canyon Reader Award (2011), Lambda Literary Awards (2007), Tayshas Reading (2009)

The executive producer of Disney and Walden Media’s film adaptation of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” tells an unforgettable story about the coming of age of a young superhero, in a groundbreaking novel of love, loss, and redemption.

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Awards:
Capitol Choices: Noteworthy Books for Children and Teens (2014), Georgia Peach Book Award for Teen Readers (2015), Golden Kite (2014), Lambda Literary Awards (2014), Tayshas Reading (2014)

Tired of being known as “the gay kid,” Rafe Goldberg decides to assume a new persona when he moves east and enters an elite Massachusetts prep schoolNbut trying to deny his identity has both complications and unexpected consequences.

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Awards:
Children’s Book Committee Award (2015), Cybils (2014), Lambda Literary Awards (2015), Stonewall Book Award (2015), Tayshas Reading (2015)

A 2015 Stonewall Honor Book
A groundbreaking work of LGBT literature takes an honest look at the life, love, and struggles of transgender teens.
Author and photographer Susan Kuklin met and interviewed six transgender or gender-neutral young adults and used her considerable skills to represent them thoughtfully and respectfully before, during, and after their personal acknowledgment of

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Awards:
Lambda Literary Awards (2006)

Celebrated transsexual trailblazer Kate Bornstein has, with more humor and spunk than any other, ushered us into a world of limitless possibility through a daring re-envisionment of the gender system as we know it.

Here, Kate bravely and wittily shares personal and unorthodox methods of survival for navigating an often cruel world. A one-of-a-kind guide to staying alive outside the box,

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Awards:
Lambda Literary Awards (2014), Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Award (2015), Tayshas Reading (2014)

“Sometimes salvation is found in the strangest places: a true story.”
Aaron Hartzler grew up in a home where he was taught that at any moment the Rapture could happen. That Jesus might come down in the twinkling of an eye and scoop Aaron and his family up to heaven. As a kid, Aaron was thrilled by the idea that every moment of every day might be his last one on planet Earth.
But as Aaron

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