News & Updates
Check These Out: Genre Defying Horror
Oct. 28, 2024 – Horror abounds as Halloween approaches, and the library has plenty of books to send tingles down your spine.
Check These Out: Books Ashley Loves
Oct. 23, 2024 – The Cedar Rapids Public Library is made possible by our incredible staff. And we are staffed by book lovers. To celebrate the people who keep our library running, we're highlighting different staff members and books they love.
A Different Kind of Story Time at the Library
Oct. 21, 2024 – The lights are low at Sensory Story Time, and Programming Librarian Renee Greenlee speaks in a quiet voice as she reads books and leads the small group of children and caregivers who gather at the Downtown Library each Thursday in songs and activities.
Recommended Reads
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The Last Gifts of the Universe
A dying universe. A search for answers. An adventure at the end of a trillion lifetimes.
When the Home worlds finally achieved the technology to venture out into the stars, they found a graveyard of dead civilizations. What befell them is unknown. All Home knows is that they are the last ones left - and whatever came for the others will one day come for them.
Scout is an Archivist who scours the dead worlds of the cosmos for their last gifts: interesting technology, cultural rituals - anything left behind that might be useful to Home and their survival. During an excavation on a lifeless planet, Scout unearths something unbelievable: a surviving message from an alien who witnessed the world-ending entity thousands of years ago.
Now Scout, their brother and their sometimes-fearless, space-faring cat, Pumpkin, must race to save what matters most. -
A Witch's Guide to Burning
Dhaliwal creates a land ruled by magic and fire, where the sky is thick with witches
A witch’s work is never done when she works for the people. With the success of her town relying on her magic, demands are high. But what happens when a witch can't keep up with the magical requests? She is burnt, of course—in a cruel ritual that extinguishes her magic and erases all her memories, making her just like everybody else. But when a burning ceremony is interrupted by rain in Chamomile Valley, a witch is left writhing at the stake. It's up to a witch doctor and her toad friend to save the singed witch and nurse her back to health. Can they help her before her magic is lost forever?
Aminder Dhaliwal’s A Witch’s Guide to Burning is a whimsical and humorous allegory for burnout in a society in desperate need of self-care. With a lavish blend of prose, illustration, and comics, Dhaliwal crafts an enthralling hybrid adventure story like you’ve never seen before. Follow Singe and her companions Yew-Veda and Bufo Wonder as they journey across dangerous landscapes, battling demons along the way in an extraordinary tale about sacrifice and healing. -
Woe: A Housecat's Story of Despair
WOE! SCREAM! MEOW! ...PURR? Join the hilarious and of course dramatic world of Linney the House Cat, as her webcomic antics are gathered into graphic novel for the very first time! This collection is perfect for cat lovers and Linney fans alike.
What if our cats could talk? Would they ask endless questions about why we haven't given them wet food...again? Would they scream greetings at the first sign of life before the sun even rises? Linney certainly will.
Have you met Linney yet? If not, prepared to be blessed! Lucy Knisley's online Linney comics are collected for the very first time in this gifty hardcover featuring the internet sensation, Linney. With all-new comics, this collection shows us just how amazing, and what a true gift, all cats are. -
Stinetinglers 3
New R.L. Stine's book 3 in Stinetinglers series! The master of horror for young readers, comes ten brand new stories that are sure to have you keeping the light on at bedtime tonight. *to be Published 8/24/2024*
A boy thinks that a dream factory will help him make his slumber more fun...but what's the line between dream and nightmare? Two kids find an abandoned shack on the side of the road and are determined to make it their new treehouse... but is it as abandoned as it seems? A boy wants to impress a birthday party with this amateur magician skills...but how far will he go to wow the crowd? And each story comes with a personal introduction from Stine himself, adding even more chills.
Laced with Stine’s signature humor and a hefty dose of nightmarish fun, Stinetinglers 3 is perfect for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and Stine’s own Goosebumps books who want even more scares. These chilling tales prove that Stine’s epic legacy in the horror genre is justly earned. Dive in, and beware: these stories will stick with you long after you've turned the final page. -
The Dead of Light
*Newest!* The eleventh installment of the exciting Dragon Kingdom of Wrenly graphic novel chapter book series!
The war over Wrenly has ended, but Roke is still lost inside another realm. Ruskin, Cinder, and Groth are determined to get their friend back…even if it means stepping into the Penumbra, where a monster reigns over the darkness. -
Bad Dreams in the Night
Like a graphic novel version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, this thrilling collection of original horror tales is packed with urban legends, terrifying twists, and delightfully haunted stories by one of the biggest stars in webcomics. Each story will make you scream for more!
A new take on a classic format, Bad Dreams in the Night is an updated, illustrated take on the horror anthologies the author grew up with as a kid, such as Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and In a Dark, Dark Room. These self-contained stories grew rapidly in popularity among the author's online audience, and even inspired production of a motion picture from Buzzfeed Studios and Lionsgate Films. Filled with spine-tingling, pulse-increasing tales of mystery and supernatural occurrences, this book of never-before-seen comics will be the perfect gift for people who love Black Mirror and Stranger Things and listened to podcasts like Welcome to Nightvale and Rabbits.
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Lies My Teacher Told Me
At last! The long-awaited graphic version of the multi-million copy bestselling corrective to American history myths--adapted by the famed National Book Award-winning artist behind John Lewis's March trilogy
Since its first publication in the 1990s, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important and successful--and beloved--history books of our time. As the late Howard Zinn said, "Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book." Having sold well over 2 million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and numerous other commendations and prizes and was even heralded on the front page of the New York Times long after its first publication.
Now, the brilliant and award-winning artist Nate Powell--the first cartoonist ever to win a National Book Award--has adapted Loewen's classic work into a graphic edition that perfectly captures both Loewen's text and the irreverent spirit of his work. Eye-popping illustrations bring to life the true history chronicled in Lies My Teacher Told Me, and ample text boxes and callouts ensure nothing is lost in translation. The book is perfect for those making their first foray past the shroud of history textbooks, and it will also be beloved by those who had their worldviews changed by the original.
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Feeding Ghosts
An astonishing, deeply moving graphic memoir about three generations of Chinese women, exploring love, grief, exile, and identity.
In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the story of three generations of women in her family: her Chinese grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.
Sun Yi was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with her daughter. Upon arrival, Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, used the proceeds to put Rose in an elite boarding school—and promptly had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her.
Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi's unexamined trauma and mental illness. Vowing to escape her mother’s smothering fear, Tessa left home and traveled to the farthest-flung corners of the globe (Antarctica). But at the age of thirty, it starts to feel less like freedom and more like running away, and she returns home to face the history that shaped her family.
Extensively researched and gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls’s homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, Feeding Ghosts exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together. -
Better with Butter
*2024 Iowa Children's Choice Award Winner!*
A girl with anxiety disorder finds an unlikely friend -- and emotional support animal -- in the form of an adorable fainting goat.
Twelve-year-old Marvel is afraid of absolutely everything -- amusement park rides, food poisoning, earthquakes, and that big island of plastic floating through the ocean. She also obsesses about smaller worries like making friends, getting called on by the teacher, and walking home alone.
Her parents and the school therapist call her worries an anxiety disorder, but Marvel calls them armor. If something can happen, it will. She needs to be prepared.
But when Marvel stumbles on a group of older kids teasing a baby goat that has mysteriously shown up on the soccer field, she momentarily forgets to be afraid and rescues the frightened animal.
Only Butter isn't any old goat. She's a fainting goat. When Butter feels panic, she freezes up and falls over. Marvel knows exactly how Butter feels and precisely what Butter needs--her.
Soon, the two are inseparable, and Butter thrives under Marvel's support. But Butter also helps Marvel. Everything is better with Butter by her side, and Marvel starts to imagine a life in which she doesn't have to be so afraid . . . until she's told she might have to give up Butter forever. Will Marvel find a way to fight for her friend? Or will she revert back to the anxious, lonely person she used to be?
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Scariest. Book. Ever. (Goosebumps House of Shivers #1)
Scariest. Book. Ever. by R.L. Stein. **New Series: Goosebumps House of Shivers #1**
The only thing to fear . . . is everything. Twins Betty and Billy are visiting their Uncle Wendell at his secluded house in the Wayward Forest. What they think is going to be a boring stay quickly turns into a real nightmare. Wendell is in possession of the scariest book in the world. And someone is after Wendell. To keep the book safe, the siblings will have to plunge directly into the heart of the dangerous forest. There they must escape manbats, cannibal crows, and giant insects, among other horrors--and make it out alive!
(Book 1 of 3. Book 2 Goblin Monday. Book 3 is scheduled to be released September 3, 2024.)