Helen Plum Library

"Like many first-time mothers, Rebecca Stone finds herself both deeply in love with her newborn son and deeply overwhelmed. Struggling to juggle the demands of motherhood with her own aspirations and feeling utterly alone in the process, she reaches out to the only person at the hospital who offers her any real help--Priscilla Johnson--and begs her to come home with them as her son's nanny. Priscilla's presence quickly does as much to shake up Rebecca's...

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance...

When privileged parents say that they "want what's best" for their child, they don't consciously add "and not for other children." Yet the practical effect of parents with privilege relentlessly pursuing their own child's interests is that other children are left behind. Author Sarah W. Jaffe interviewed dozens of parents who are resisting the cultural pressures to seek "the best" for only their kids while navigating some of the major decisions that...

An aging white male college professor develops a dangerous obsession with his new Pakistani colleague in this modern, iconoclastic novel that is as powerful, riveting, and disturbing as Lolita, Disgrace, and A Little Life. Dr. Oliver Harding, a tenured professor of English, is long settled into the routines of a divorced, aging academic. But his quiet, staid life is upended by his new colleague, Ruhaba Khan, a dynamic Pakistani Muslim law professor. Ruhaba...

Amaya, princess of House Amethyst in Gemworld, is something of a troublemaker. She and her brother have great fun together until a magical prank goes much too far and her parents ground her...to Earth! They hope a whole week in the mundane world will teach her that magic is a privilege...and maybe washing dishes by hand will help her realize the palace servants should be respected. Three years later, Amy has settled into middle school and ordinary...

"Class Mom meets Small Admissions in this story about the privileged bubble that is Liston Heights High--the micro-managing parents, the overworked teachers, and the students caught in the middle--and the fallout for each of them when that bubble finally bursts. Isobel Johnson can't stand helicopter parents like Julia Abbott, a stage mom whose world revolves around interfering in her children's lives. Julia resents teachers like Isobel, who effortlessly...

"All too many kids of color get 'the talk.' The talk about where to keep their hands, how to wear their clothes, how to speak, how to act around police-an honest talk, a talk about survival in a racist world. The get "the talk" because they must. But white kids don't get this talk. Instead, they're barely spoken to about race at all-and that needs to change. The Other Talk begins this much-needed conversation for white kids. In an accessible, anecdotal,...