Not intentionally, the theme for our recommended new books this month is: outsiders. You’ll find stories of refugees forced to leave their homes, historical villains as seen from their side of the tale, a bi-racial and bi-national girl whose world is in chaos, and a teenager with autism looking for his place in the scheme of all things. But then there’s a tale of a cat overwhelmed with balls of yarn!  You can’t say no to that. All of these are coming to a neighborhood library near you!
 

Young Children (Up to 2nd Grade)
Counting With Tiny Cat by Viviane Schwarz
At first Tiny Cat has none. But look – One! Two! Three! And... four balls of red yarn! And more keep coming! Now Tiny Cats has trouble counting them all (and keeping them together!) Will he find a way?

Older Children (3rd Grade to 6th Grade)
Refugee by Alan Gratz
What does it feel like to leave the only country you’ve ever known?  Explore these fictional accounts of three different children, from three different time periods. Josef is a Jewish boy living in 1930s Nazi Germany, Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994, and Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015.

Teen Fiction
Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy edited by Ameriie
In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains' points of view. These fractured, unconventional spins on classics like Medusa, Sherlock Holmes, and Jack and the Beanstalk provide a behind-the-curtain look at villains' acts of vengeance, defiance, and rage—and the pain, heartbreak, and sorrow that spurned them on.

Adult Fiction
What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons
Raised in Pennsylvania, Thandi views the world of her mother's childhood in Johannesburg as both impossibly distant and ever present. She is an outsider wherever she goes, caught between being black and white, American and not. She tries to connect these dislocated pieces of her life, and as her mother succumbs to cancer, Thandi searches for an anchor—someone, or something, to love. In arresting and unsettling prose, we watch Thandi's life unfold, from losing her mother and learning to live without the person who has most profoundly shaped her existence, to her own encounters with romance and unexpected motherhood. Through exquisite and emotional vignettes, Clemmons creates a stunning portrayal of what it means to choose to live after loss.

Adult Nonfiction
Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism by Naoki Higashida
At age 13, Higashida wrote The Reason I Jump, an international phenomenon that offered an extraordinary look into the mind of a child with autism. This new memoir finds the author moving into young adulthood and wrestling with issues of identity, family, and society, creating the portrait of a unique individual, not just a labeled type.