I Kissed Shara Wheeler - by Casey McQuiston

 

Being out and queer at Willowgrove Christian Academy is hard enough for Chloe Green without also having Shara Wheeler, the Principal's "perfect" daughter as her rival for class valedictorian. To complicate matters further, Shara disappears after she steals a kiss from Chole. That Shara had previously been presumed to be straight (the girlfriend of a star football player, no less) confounds everyone. Chole, Smith (Shara's boyfriend), and their friend Rory begin a search for Shara based on some rather complicated clues. 

No YA novel would be complete without some action taking place in the school library. Rory and Chloe sneak into the Principal's office after hours via the library air duct. They are able to get a key to the library from Chloe's friend Georgia who works as a library aide, although Georgia is unaware of what they were planning. While the ruse of traveling through air ducts is comically common in fiction, I don't know anyone IRL who has ever done it, although apparently it has been used with some success. Read about one case here.

Chloe and Shara have a unique library connection but only Chloe knows about it until close to the end of the book. Chloe witnesses Shara throwing away her bejeweled cross necklace in the library trashcan, which Chloe retrieves and then keeps. There are other mentions of studying and meeting in the library sprinkled throughout, but my favorite use of the library was this metaphor, written by Chloe's friend Georgia for a creative writing assignment

There's a girl with brown eyes who reminds me of the first book I ever loved. When I look at her, I feel like there might be another universe in her. I imagine her on a shelf too high for me to reach, or peeking out of someone else's backpack, or at the end of a long wait at the library. I know there are other books that are easier to get my hands on, but none are half as good as her. Every part of her seems to have a purpose, a specific meaning, an exact reason for being...

Another fun romp from the author of Red, White, and Royal Blue.

 

Cape Cod - by Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau spent a year on Walden Pond; however, he spent only a week visiting Cape Cod in October 1849 before writing this book (although he does mention three visits in total). He traveled from shoulder to fist, back before there was a canal that cut the town of Onset off from the rest of the Cape and before the Cape was such the destination that it is today. He talks to many locals during his travels.

In Pond Village he talks to some blackfish fishermen.  

the Social Whale, Globicephalus Melas of De Kay; called also Black Whale-fish, Howling Whale, Bottlehead, etc.

he learns that these whales are valuable for their oil and that whole schools of them have been caught and then sold for thousands of dollars.

In the Naturalists' Library, it is said that, in the winter of 1809-10, one thousand one hundred and ten "approached the shore of Hralfiord, Iceland, and were captured". 

When Thoreau got to Provincetown he took a"little steamer" back to Boston and describes the scene at the wharf

I see a great many barrels and fig-drums, - piles of wood for unbrella-sticks, - blocks of granite and ice, - great heaps of goods, and the means of packing and conveying them, - much wrapping-paper and twine, - many crakes and hogsheads and truck, - and that is Boston. The more barrels, the more Boston. The museums and scientific societies and libraries are accidental.  

I found this book on one of the many bookshelves in my house, although I believe my husband had read it before, it was previously unread by me. It is available for free through Project Gutenberg.