Teacher Jessica Lahey offers advice, research, and cautionary tales in this helpful guide to raising kids with emotional resilience, steady confidence, and basic life skills. Frustrated by her tendency to overparent her own kids instead of letting them screw up and figure things out themselves, Lahey recalibrated both her parenting and teaching styles. No more racing to bring forgotten assignments to school: her kids had to remember on their own or face the consequences. No more losing patience at students who continually screwed up the basics: now she acknowledged their efforts to improve and celebrated when they finally succeeded. It’s a parenting manual and a breath of fresh air in a conversational, practical package.

Why I picked it up: Though I pride myself on being a slacker mom, I know I’m vulnerable to the competitive parenting that seems to run rampant in affluent suburbs like mine. I wanted ammunition to help me fight back against the pressure.

Why I finished it: As the parent of a sixth grader, I found the section on middle school useful and reassuring. No, your child will not fail at life if it takes her a semester to figure out she needs to bring her science book to math because she won’t have time to stop at her locker between classes. And yes, it will take her at least that whole semester to figure it out, even if you and her teachers remind her every day. IT’S NORMAL.

It’s perfect for: My friend Jen, a dynamo dance instructor who works with tween girls and has a ton of influence among parents in our community. Oh, the counter-revolution she could start!

To the locals on the idyllic Nantucket Island, Penny Alistair seemed to have it all — a lovely singing voice, a handsome boyfriend, a superstar athlete brother, a loving mother, and loads of friends. Then she died after a party: the Jeep she was driving went off a cliff, killing Penny and injuring her brother badly enough to end his athletic career. The signs all indicate it was no accident and that Penny committed suicide. The repercussions are felt all over the island, revealing family secrets and changing the lives of dozens.

Why I picked it up: The cover and title hinted this might be a light and fluffy beach read. Since it was on a remainder shelf at a bargain price, I couldn’t resist.

Why I finished it: Obviously it turned out to be a more serious topic than I first expected, but I was completely captivated. The narrator is an unidentified local insider who reveals the thoughts and secrets of the island residents. Their stories flow back and forth in time and from character to character, almost like a conversation with an old friend. Every chapter brought something new and surprising, and it turned out to be delightfully distracting after all.  

It’s perfect for: My mother-in-law, Sue. She loves family stories filled with drama. It’s also a plus that the author tells the story with very little profanity or graphic sex, which means I can recommend it to her without embarrassment.

Zack Lightman is a video-game nerd. He spends a lot of time playing Armada with his friends — it’s a space-based fighting game about an overwhelming alien threat — and he is one of the top-ranked players in the world.

Outside a school window at school he sees a UFO that looks just like an enemy ship in the game. At first he thinks he’s hallucinating, but he’s wrong. He is soon picked up, taken to a secret military base, and sworn into service to pilot the futuristic fighters that the earth has been quietly creating for decades, ever since we pissed off the first alien species we met.

Billions of alien ships are just hours away from Earth. Zach and gamers everywhere are our only hope.

Why I picked it up: Cline’s Ready Player One is my favorite book of the last five years (I’ve read over 1,500 books in that time).

Why I finished it: Because I could not stop! I am actually mad at myself for blowing through it as fast as I did. I should have allowed myself only ten pages a day just to extend the fun of reading the book. Creative, clever, chock full of funny moments and references to pop culture, games, and movies. I loved the idea of the people of the world using everything from video game systems to smartphones to fight off aliens. The picture he paints of a networked world rising up to fight aliens is patriotic, cool as hell, and a smashing read.

It’s perfect for: My childhood friend Mark. He’s not only a video game fan, but also someone who could identify with one of the main themes of the book, how Zack missed his dead father and found comfort in video games and a father figure, his boss at the local game store. Mark’s father was away for long stretches while working in a foreign country, and Mark stayed with my family for months at a time.  He would get Zack’s longing to have his father know and be proud of him.

Christian Ferrar, a childhood émigré from Spain to France, is a lawyer for the Paris branch of a liberal New York law firm in 1938. He’s asked by a contact in the Spanish embassy to help broker arms purchases for the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War. It’s not really part of his job, but the New York bosses agree to let him do it. For his first caper he frees a fellow trader from the clutches of a blackmailing blackguard, pays off an arms manufacturer, and hijacks a diverted trainload of anti-tank guns. In his next, a criminal gang in Odessa is hired to steal anti-aircraft shells from a Soviet naval arsenal. Ferrar travels with the munitions on a Mexican freighter that is unequipped to fight off an impending interdiction by the Italian Navy.

Why I picked it up: I like espionage fiction, especially that set in the first half of the 20th century. Furst’s work came highly recommended by a trusted friend.

Why I finished it: Furst explores much more than Ferrar’s life of international intrigue. His family is almost completely unworldly, and Christian is the sole breadwinner. His sharp, elderly grandmother is the only other person who takes notice of world events such as the rise of fascism. Ferrar’s love affair with a New York City librarian is satisfying, though neither want a commitment. And his day job as a corporate lawyer includes unsuccessfully mediating the ownership struggles within a bank managed by a dysfunctional family.

Readalikes: Sorry Alan Furst, but nobody has written better Odessa gangster stories than Isaac Babel, and there’s plenty of them in The Complete Works of Isaac Babel. Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler, first published in 1938, also takes place amid the political tensions of Europe before WWII, although protagonist Josef Vadassy, a language teacher whose hobby is photography, is far less equipped to deal in a world of intrigue and lies than suave Christian Ferrar.

An alien destroyed seventy percent of the moon. Next year he’s going to do the same thing to the Earth. In the meantime he wants to teach class 3-E at Kunugigaoka Junior High, which is full of the school’s losers and rejects. Armies have failed to kill him, so our planet’s only hope is that the students can assassinate him and save the planet. (The alien doesn’t mind, as long as the attempts don’t interfere with studying.)

Publisher’s Rating: T+ For Older Teens.

Why I picked it up: It really stood out from other manga on the library shelves because of the big smiley faces on each cover.

Why I finished it: The madness starts early. In the opening scene, the students all pull out guns and try to kill their homeroom teacher (an academic robe-wearing, many tentacled, sphere-headed alien with a smily face). He’s so fast he keeps taking attendance as he dodges bullets. He tells the students they’re going to have to be more original if they want to kill him, and then proves that the special bullets they’re using can harm him. Then he makes them clean up so that class can start, and teaches high school like he’s really enjoying it and determined to be a great teacher.

It’s perfect for: I meet a lot of librarians who still find manga (and anime) visually confusing. They don’t get the significance of popping veins on a character’s forehead, nose bleeds, cat fangs, and characters who suddenly look chibi. This is easy to follow, story-wise, and it has a compellingly weird hook. And they’d identify with the students in the book, who are trying to figure out the significance of their teacher’s facial expressions. These are changes in color or geometric patterns of color that appear on his face at different times, and they hope that understanding them will help them figure out when he’s vulnerable.

Chester Greenwood didn’t invent earmuffs, but a whole lot of people think he did, including those who have an earmuff parade in his honor in his hometown. Why?

Why I picked it up: I love inventor stories, and the bug-eyed cartoony characters made me smile.

Why I finished it: The book shows how patents work, how people improve on existing inventions, and how Greenwood’s life and legacy was exaggerated by people who wanted to celebrate the state of Maine. It contains a lot of cool and complex ideas for a picture book.

It’s perfect for: Heather, who does primary historical research as a hobby. The author’s notes on how what she thought would be a simple story turned into serious detective work will inspire her.

A daring bank vault heist, a cat burglar who would only steal jewels from people on the social register, the possible real identity and fate of hijacker D.B. Cooper, the obsessive love that led to the downfall of the real Napoleon of Crime (the basis of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Moriarty), and more hair-raising true crime stories.

Why I picked it up: I really liked the bizarre, true stories in Schroeder’s previous book, Scams! because its story of WWII counterfeiters made for a great booktalk.

Why I finished it: The details of the crimes were like the best heist movies, with hundreds of well-planned details coming together. But the criminals are more complicated than movie heroes: they often stole things that were hard to sell, or were driven by obsession to steal over and over again. Their crimes were not just motivated by the hope to get rich quick, but sometimes by national pride, family loyalty, or wanting to prove how clever or brave they were.

It’s perfect for: Fans of stupid criminal stories. The best in the book is the Larder Lake Bank Robbery, which hit a snag at every step. During a failed escape attempt by float plane, the robbers dropped all the money over the lake.

Open from the left side and read through a boy’s family tree from his father’s European ancestry, starting with his great-great-grandfather and his great-great-grandmother. Open from the “back” of the book (like you’re reading manga), and step through his mother’s Asian family tree. Each turn of the page brings you to another generation.

Why I picked it up: The oddly shaped people on the cover are drawn in a style that reminded me of Bill Plympton’s.

Why I finished it: It’s incredibly short, for one. For another, in most of the drawings there’s a reference to the previous generation in the form of a photo on the wall (or on a computer). It all leads up to an amazingly diverse family portrait in the center of the book.

It’s perfect for: My cousin, Linda. She’s an obsessed genealogist, and has told me more about my father’s side of the family than I ever knew, including that I’m not the only member who went to college and likes to read.