Enjoy the last few weeks of summer with these great reads, many of which feature local connections!
In Jazz Age DC, a typist assembles an unlikely group to pull of a supernatural heist to stop a growing terror stalking Black Broadway in "The Monsters We Defy" by Leslye Penelope. Travel to 1980s New York as the fictional Trey Singleton navigates life and activism at the height of the AIDS crisis, meeting several real-life figures along the way in "My Government Means to Kill Me" by Rasheed Newsome.
Local meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explains weather and his life-long obsession with storms in "Looking Up: The True Adventures of a Storm-Chasing Weather Nerd." Washington Post reporter Helena Andrews-Dyer explores motherhood, race, and class through the lens of her experiences in a neighborhood mothers group in gentrified Bloomingdale in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in "The Mamas: What I Learned About Kids, Class and Race from Moms Not Like Me."
Middle Grade readers will fall for Adela’s exploration of family when she learns her estranged biological father and extended family are famous luchadors in Celia C. Pérez’s "Tumble." Teen readers will enjoy the spooky horror of what happens when Cali and Maz’s missing best friend shows up five years after disappearing, but he's stayed the exact same age in "Dead Flip" by Sarah Farizan.