On this special edition of Russell Reads with the Rach(a)els, Russell and Rachel get the opportunity to sit down with National Bestselling Author Alencia Johnson to discuss "Flip the Tables; The Everyday Disruptor's Guide to Finding Courage and Making Change," now available for purchase or at your Danville Public Library.

For more information, visit www.alenciajohnson.com.

Click the link to view the library's copy of Flip the Tables

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael chat with our guest Susanne Bell, Senior Program Officer at Danville Regional Foundation, about setting realistic reading goals, recommending the right book, and a horrifying movie adaptation of one of our favorite childhood classics.
Susanne created a wonderful reference for the books she shared with us.

Childhood reads:

• “Make Way for Ducklings” by author and illustrator Robert McCloskey
• “Three Little Kittens” by Eliza Lee Cabot Follen
• “Anne of Green Gables” or anything by Lucy Maud Montgomery
• “Ozma of Oz” by L. Frank Baum

Novels:

• “Excellent Women” by Barbara Pym
• “A Spool of Blue Thread” by Anne Tyler
• “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi
• “Should We Stay or Should We Go” by Lionel Shriver

Short Story Collections:

• “Light Action in the Caribbean” by Barry Lopez (especially “Construction of the Rachel”)
• “The Thing Around Your Neck” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• “Fidelity” by Wendell Berry (especially “Pray Without Ceasing”)

Other titles we discuss:

• “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter” by Stephen Graham Jones
• "Commonwealth” by Anne Tyler
• “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
• “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” by Sherman Alexie

Russell, Rachel, and Rachael discuss our April challenge, childhood favorites, with one of our favorite childhood experts here in the library, Jess McAllister. We discuss how children's literature shaped us, opened our worlds, and continues to delight us to this day!

Books we discuss include:

• “The Borrowers” by Mary Norton
• “The BFG” by Roald Dahl
• “Dear Mr. Henshaw” and “Strider” by Beverly Cleary
• “Freckle Juice” by Judy Blume
• “The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise” by Dan Gemeinhart
• “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton
• “Amos Fortune: Free Man” by Elizabeth Yates
• “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• “Grandpa’s Mountain” by Carolyn Reeder
• Wayside School” series by Louis Sachar
• “My Teacher Is an Alien” by Bruce Coville
• “Dog Man” series by Dav Pilkey
• “My Weird School” series by Dan Gutman
• “Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best” by Jennie Egerdie
• “The World of Beatrix Potter” series by Beatrix Potter
• “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame
• “Artemis Fowl” by Eoin Colfer
• Everything by Alan Gratz
• “The Complete Brambly Hedge” by Jill Barklem
• “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stuart