Books & Bites Podcast, Ep. 98
JCPL librarians bring you book recommendations and discuss the bites and beverages to pair with them.
This month we’re getting nostalgic with books set in the 1990s, one of the prompts in the Winter-Spring Books & Bites Bingo reading challenge.
Teenagers all figure prominently in our picks: a YA mystery, a thriller that celebrates horror’s babysitter trope, and a novel where two teens accidentally start a moral panic.
Don’t miss this episode—it’s the bomb!
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Jacqueline’s Pick
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
In this YA mystery set in the late 1980s and/or early 1990s, fifteen-year-old Janie is an only child in a loving home. Her biggest problem is that she wishes her name was less plain.
Then she sees her picture on the back of a milk carton with the name Jenny Spring, a girl who’s been missing for 12 years. Is she living with her real parents, or was she kidnapped?
Pairing: Homestyle pot roast
Michael’s Book
Midnight on Beacon Street by Emily Ruth Verona
The book opens one October night in 1993: 6-year-old Ben is standing in the kitchen in a pool of blood with a dead body at his feet.
Then it immediately jumps back to the beginning of the night when Ben and 12-year-old Mira are left in the care of 17-year-old Amy, an experienced sitter and horror film buff.
This nonlinear thriller is a love letter to one of the most famous horror tropes, the babysitter.
Pairing: The Tipsy Chicken Pizza from Big City Pizza
Carrie’s Pick
Now Is Not the Time to Panic by Kevin Wilson
In the summer of 1996, 16-year-old Frankie Budge meets a boy at the local pool in Coalfield, TN. Zeke and Frankie are both awkward, bored kids who yearn to become artists.
Together they create a poster, with Zeke illustrating it and Frankie writing its haunting, mysterious words. They hang it all over Coalfield, where things spin out of control as Frankie and Zeke unintentionally start a moral panic.
This moving, character-driven story perfectly captures the aching, lonely feeling of being a teenager who doesn’t quite fit in.
Pairing: Your favorite Little Debbie snack cake