New at the library | Idaho Statesman

Boise Public Library

“Gardening Lab for Kids,” by Renata Fossen Brown

Juvenile nonfiction. This book is filled with 52 experiments for kids focusing on learning how to grow, harvest and enjoy a garden. It has instructions on growing things like tomato, bell pepper, onion, basil and oregano to make a mini-pizza garden. There are also instructions on starting seeds in a bag and growing a butterfly garden as well as many other projects.

Eagle Public Library

“Another Way Home,” by Deborah Raney

Adult fiction. In this Chicory Inn novel, Danae and her husband, Dallas, have been trying unsuccessfully for years to have a baby. Desperate to have a family of her own, Danae decides to pour her passion and energies into volunteer work with a newly opened women’s shelter in town. She’s surprised to give her heart to the hurting women she meets there and she’s finally begins to learn to live her life with gratitude. But when Thanksgiving weekend brings heart-wrenching events, her extended family is thrown into turmoil.

Meridian Public Library

“The Hired Girl,” by Laura Amy Schlitz

Teen fiction. Fourteen-year-old Joan Skraggs, just like the heroines in her beloved novels, yearns for real life and true love. But what hope is there for adventure, beauty or art on a hardscrabble farm in Pennsylvania where the work never ends? Over the summer of 1911, Joan pours her heart out into her diary as she seeks a new, better life for herself — because maybe a hired girl cleaning and cooking for $6 a week can become what a farm girl could only dream of — a woman with a future.

Kuna Library

“The Princess and the Pony,” by Kate Beaton

Children’s picture book. Princess Pinecone wants a fierce warhorse for her birthday ... but what she gets instead is a plump, adorable pony. But cuteness can be a weapon all its own, especially in a war fought with dodgeballs and spitballs instead of cannonballs. Renowned webcomic artist Kate Beaton presents a cute but plucky tale of how outward appearances can be deceiving.

Garden City Library

“The Blue Guitar,” by John Banville

Adult fiction. Oliver is two things: a painter and a petty thief. But, as he nears his 50th birthday, he realizes his life is beginning to change. His enjoyment of painting is fading. His latest theft — of his best friend’s wife — has been discovered. Oliver finds himself fleeing home and family to return to the place of his childhood, where he finds within himself the reasons for his actions and what led him to his current way of life.

Ada Community Library

“The Blondes,” by Emily Schiltz

Adult fiction. A young woman caught in the throes of a faded romance that leaves her in crisis sees a blonde stranger attack an innocent student at an Underground station in New York. Hazel Hoyes is a graduate student who has been looking into thesis topics that discuss beauty stereotypes and observations. She becomes involved in something much more when a mysterious virus perhaps caused by lack of melatonin caused what some have termed “Blonde Fury” resulting in deaths from inside beauty parlor to crowded malls. Shaving or dying ones hair becomes useful and beware of airline hostesses. Funny, dark and all-consuming, this is truly a good scary read in a cover to cover experience.

Nampa Public Library

“Code of Honor,” by Alan Gratz

Young adult fiction. When his brother is wrongly labeled a terrorist, 17-year-old Iranian-American Kamran Smith joins a ragtag team of underground intelligence professionals to prove his brother’s innocence and prevent a large-scale terrorist attack. By the award-winning author of Samurai Shortstop.