With Labor Day approaching, it is a perfect time to delve into some novels that explore the lives of working men and women. A great place to begin, of course, is John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, his heartfelt tale of the challenges facing the Joad family as they leave their dustbowl home during the Depression in search of work as migrant fruit pickers in California. The depth of characterization and the pure passion Steinbeck brings to the novel is amazing. Also try his earlier novel In Dubious Battle for a portrait of a young man involved in labor disputes between migrant workers and apple orchard owners.

Sam Keen's Faces of the Enemy  presents illustrations of the opposing side during wartime. Readers can browse posters, cartoons, and advertisements to find the different ways in which the enemy has been portrayed for the past century or so. Color plates show propaganda posters from WWI, WWII, and beyond. One such image portrays a 1940s-era German Poster of the British Empire as Lady Macbeth, scrubbing blood off of her hands. A section on "The Enemy as Beast Reptile or Insect" pictures Hitler as a rat, cornered by a Soviet soldier with a bayonet. A German poster shows the Nazi party as a snake, threatening innocent looking civilians. The book is fascinating to peruse, and deserves to keep its place in the ROPL collection. Place a hold on it today!

What is steampunk? It’s a genre of science fiction and fantasy that mixes together our pasts with our possible futures. The worlds may resemble our own, only instead of coal, everything’s run on steam. Or they may be completely different from our own. Scott Westerfeld’s young adult novel, Leviathan falls somewhere in the middle. The world is familiar; the setting (just before World War I) from our past; but the machinery is unlike our own.

Kristen Chandler’s novel is not about werewolves or anything else supernatural. In some ways, it’s not even about wolves. It’s about small towns, growing up and boys and girls.