Research Center Guides: My Perfect Read: Amanda Snow

Amanda Snow

I'm reading.

As a college student, I finally picked up the Harry Potter book that everyone had been gushing over for years. J.K. Rowling’s book convinced me that adults could not only read stories written for children and love them, but that I actually wanted to make a career out of pushing those books at everyone I possibly could.

My favorite genre to talk about is young adult fiction. Teens have a lot of required reading by this age, and I love finding them something to enjoy, while fulfilling that school requirement. Some favorites include Highly Illogical Behavior by John Corey Whaley, Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy, The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan, and anything by Jason Reynolds.

I’m also drawn to books for elementary students as that’s an age where reading can become a chore. Finding those kids a book they want to read is very important to me.

I grew up in a small town outside of Syracuse, New York, and later began my career as a Youth Services Librarian in a tiny town in rural New Mexico, which might be why despite my career today in bustling Fairfax County, I focus on living simply and am happiest outdoors. I love geocaching and finding new trails to explore. I also enjoy my monthly cooking club, running, and watching documentaries.

Genres of Interest:

young adult and juvenile fiction and non-fiction
adult fiction
memoir

In no particular order and grouped by genre:

Adult Fiction

The Overstory by Richard Powers
A Curious Beginning (Veronica Speedwell series) by Deanna Raybourn
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

Me and Marvin Gardens by Amy Sarig King
Call Number: JFIC KIN
ISBN: 9780545870740
Publication Date: 2017-01-31
Obe Devlin has problems. His family's farmland has been taken over by developers. His best friend Tommy abandoned him for the development kids. And he keeps getting nosebleeds, because of that thing he doesn't like to talk about. So Obe hangs out at the creek by his house, in the last wild patch left, picking up litter and looking for animal tracks. One day, he sees a creature that looks kind of like a large dog, or maybe a small boar. And as he watches it, he realizes it eats plastic. Only plastic. Water bottles, shopping bags... No one has ever seen a creature like this before, because there's never been a creature like this before. The animal-Marvin Gardens-soon becomes Obe's best friend and biggest secret. But to keep him safe from the developers and Tommy and his friends, Obe must make a decision that might change everything. In her most personal novel yet, Printz Honor Award winner Amy Sarig King tells the story of a friendship that could actually save the world.
The First Rule of Punk by Celia C. Pérez
Call Number: JFIC PER
ISBN: 9780425290408
Publication Date: 2017-08-22
There are no shortcuts to surviving your first day at a new school--you can't fix it with duct tape like you would your Chuck Taylors. On Day One, twelve-year-old Malú (María Luisa, if you want to annoy her) inadvertently upsets Posada Middle School's queen bee, violates the school's dress code with her punk rock look, and disappoints her college-professor mom in the process. Her dad, who now lives a thousand miles away, says things will get better as long as she remembers the first rule of punk: be yourself.
When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon
Call Number: YFIC MEN
ISBN: 9781481478694
Publication Date: 2018-05-22
Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she's more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma's inexplicable obsession with her finding the "Ideal Indian Husband." Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now , they wouldn't have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers...right?
Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him--wherein he'll have to woo her--he's totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.
The Shahs and Patels didn't mean to start turning the wheels on this "suggested arrangement" so early in their children's lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, why not?
The Knife of Never Letting Go (Reissue with Bonus Short Story) by Patrick Ness
Call Number: YSF NES
ISBN: 9780763676186
Publication Date: 2014-07-22
Todd Hewitt is the only boy in a town of men. Ever since the settlers were infected with the Noise germ, Todd can hear everything the men think, and they hear everything he thinks. Todd is just a month away from becoming a man, but in the midst of the cacophony, he knows that the town is hiding something from him -- something so awful Todd is forced to flee with only his dog, whose simple, loyal voice he hears too. With hostile men from the town in pursuit, the two stumble upon a strange and eerily silent creature: a girl. Who is she? Why wasn't she killed by the germ like all the females on New World? Propelled by Todd's gritty narration, readers are in for a white-knuckle journey in which a boy on the cusp of manhood must unlearn everything he knows in order to figure out who he truly is.
The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan
Call Number: YFIC PAN
ISBN: 9780316463997
Publication Date: 2018-03-20
Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.
Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.
Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a stunning and heartbreaking novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Call Number: FIC GYA
ISBN: 9780735209817
Publication Date: 2016-06-07
Effia and Esi are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
At Home in the World by Tsh Oxenreider
Call Number: 910.41 O
ISBN: 9781400205592
Publication Date: 2017-04-18
The wide world is calling.
Americans Tsh and Kyle met and married in Kosovo. They lived as expats for most of a decade. They've been back in the States--now with three kids under ten--for four years, and while home is nice, they are filled with wanderlust and long to answer the call.
Why not? The kids are all old enough to carry their own backpacks but still young enough to be uprooted, so a trip--a nine-months-long trip--is planned.
At Home in the World follows their journey from China to New Zealand, Ethiopia to England, and more. They traverse bumpy roads, stand in awe before a waterfall that feels like the edge of the earth, and chase each other through three-foot-wide passageways in Venice. And all the while Tsh grapples with the concept of home, as she learns what it means to be lost--yet at home--in the world.
My Kitchen Year by Ruth Reichl
Call Number: 641.5 R
ISBN: 9781400069989
Publication Date: 2015-09-29
My Kitchen Year follows the change of seasons--and Reichl's emotions--as she slowly heals through the simple pleasures of cooking. While working 24/7, Reichl would "throw quick meals together" for her family and friends. Now she has the time to rediscover what cooking meant to her. Imagine kale, leaves dark and inviting, sautéed with chiles and garlic; summer peaches baked into a simple cobbler; fresh oysters chilling in a box of snow; plump chickens and earthy mushrooms, fricasseed with cream. Over the course of this challenging year, each dish Reichl prepares becomes a kind of stepping stone to finding joy again in ordinary things.
The 136 recipes collected here represent a life's passion for food: a blistering ma po tofu that shakes Reichl out of the blues; a decadent grilled cheese sandwich that accompanies a rare sighting in the woods around her home; a rhubarb sundae that signals the arrival of spring. Here, too, is Reichl's enlivening dialogue with her Twitter followers, who become her culinary supporters and lively confidants.
The Nature Fix by Florence Williams
Call Number: 155.9 W
ISBN: 9780393242713
Publication Date: 2017-02-07
For centuries, poets and philosophers extolled the benefits of a walk in the woods: Beethoven drew inspiration from rocks and trees; Wordsworth composed while tromping over the heath; and Nikola Tesla conceived the electric motor while visiting a park. Intrigued by our storied renewal in the natural world, Florence Williams set out to uncover the science behind nature's positive effects on the brain.

In my job as Youth Services Manager at Kings Park Community Library, my hours vary. I work days, nights, and weekends. I’m frequently planning or hosting programs for children and teens and will respond as quickly as possible.

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My Perfect Read

Amanda Snow

Genres of Interest:

Young Adult Fiction

Juvenile Fiction

Memoir

Adult Fiction

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