2022

The Books We Read

April 2022

May 2022

June 2022

July 2022

Spin With Me by Ami Polonsky

In this elegant dual narrative, Essie is a thirteen-year-old girl feeling glum about starting a new school after her professor dad takes a temporary teaching position in a different town. She has 110 days here and can't wait for them to end. Then she meets Ollie, who is nonbinary. Ollie has beautiful blue eyes and a confident smile. Soon, Essie isn’t counting down the days until she can leave so much as she’s dreading when her time with Ollie will come to an end.

Someone Like Me by Julissa Arce

Born in the picturesque town of Taxco, Mexico, Julissa Arce was left behind for months at a time with her two sisters, a nanny, and her grandma while her parents worked tirelessly in America in hopes of building a home and providing a better life for their children. That is, until her parents brought Julissa to Texas to live with them. From then on, Julissa secretly lived as an undocumented immigrant, went on to become a scholarship winner and an honors college graduate, and climbed the ladder to become a vice president at Goldman Sachs

Booked by Kwame Alexander

In this middle grade novel-in-verse by the Newbery Medal-winning and Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning author of The Crossover, soccer, family, love, and friendship take center stage as 12-year-old Nick learns the power of words when he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate, Coby; and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read.

The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer

Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, twins Alex and Conner leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with fairy tale characters they grew up reading about. But after a series of encounters with witches, wolves, goblins, and trolls alike, getting back home is going to be harder than they thought.

The Authors We Met

Kwame Alexander

Julissa Arce

Ami Polonksy

The Stuff We Did

We designed our first t-shirts!

Thanks to our DBC student leaders, we premiered our very first DBC t-shirts! (Big props to Aanya for the design!)

The Land of Stories Scavenger Hunt

With the help of some super fun local partners, Durham Book Club launched a virtual scavenger hunt in July. By solving the riddles and finding fairytale images from The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell, participants received a prize for their hard work.

Past Events