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Christy Award Logo

2023 Christy Awards

The Christy Awards are given each year to Christian fiction novels to honor "novels of excellence, imagination, and creativity." The award has been given since 1999, and is named for Catherine Marshall’s novel, "Christy". This year's finalists were recently announced, and they are: 

Book of the Year:

Image of authore-illustratorJan Brett, wearing a stocking hat and sitting in front of a fireplace.

Library Welcomes Bestselling Author-Illustrator Jan Brett

Chippewa River District Library is proud to announce an exciting event coming to Mount Pleasant! The library welcomes #1 New York Times bestselling author-illustrator Jan Brett to Sacred Heart Parish Hall on Nov. 30 at 5 p.m.

Brett will do a drawing demonstration and talk, discussing her trip to Alaska to research musk oxen. The event will also feature a book signing session, allowing readers to get copies of Brett's books signed by the author herself. The event is free to the public, but tickets are required.

How to navigate novelist genre guides

How-To: Navigate NoveList - Part 2: Genre Guides

Have you ever tried helping someone find books in a specific genre when it's not one you're familiar with? In this post, I will go over a resource called Genre Guides that NoveList has put together to help with just that! You will learn how to find a genre, limit the search by age range, and then find a well-rounded list of books and authors to recommend.
You now have access to even more books

How do I gain access to thousands more items on Libby?

Have you ever searched for an eBook or audiobook in Libby, only to find that we didn't own it yet? Fear not! Thanks to the new Reciprocal Lending Agreement (RLA) made between ten different Michigan library cooperatives (including our own), patrons with a valid Chippewa River District Library card will now have access to thousands more titles!
crdl tutorial graphic

Do you know about our tutorials?

Have you ever struggled to navigate any of the apps available through the library or had other technology-related questions when no one was available to help? Look no further! Our tech team has put together several simple-to-follow tutorials on various topics for you to watch and will hopefully teach you something new.
Text on flat lay of book pages

How-To: Navigate NoveList - Part 1: Browse By

Have you ever been in the mood to read something VERY specific but didn't know how to find what you were looking for? In this post, I will go over one of the many cool features that can be found in NoveList Plus that will help you navigate through hundreds of books to find the right one for you.
Graphic listing reasons to use reading tracker sites

How to navigate reading tracker sites

Have you heard of people using Goodreads or StoryGraph as reading tracker websites but don't know where to begin? In this post, I will go over some of the main features of each site, a few positives and negatives of both, and hopefully by the end, you'll be able to decide which one you'd be interested in using (if not both)!
Carol Awards

2023 Carol Awards Have Been Announced!

The Carol Awards have been given each year since 2002 to recognize the best Christian fiction published in the previous calendar year.  The award is given by the American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) group, which according to their webpage, is "a professional organization devoted to the craft of Christian Fiction." The award is named for renowned fiction advocate and editor Carol Johnson, and is given in 11 categories, which are:

Cover of "The All-American"

The All-American (Susie Finkbeiner)

It is 1952, and nearly all the girls 16-year-old Bertha Harding knows dream of getting married, keeping house, and raising children in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan. Bertha dreams of baseball. She reads every story in the sports section, she plays ball with the neighborhood boys -- she even writes letters to the pitcher for the Workington Sweet Peas, part of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. When Bertha's father is accused of being part of the Communist Party by the House Un-American Activities Committee, life comes crashing down on them. Disgraced and shunned, the Hardings move to a small town to start over where the only one who knows them is shy Uncle Matthew. But dreams are hard to kill, and when Bertha gets a chance to try out for the Workington Sweet Peas, she packs her bags for an adventure she'll never forget.
stack of books with coffee, text says how to build your tbr pile

How to build your TBR (to-be read) pile

Have you ever wondered how people find so many good books to read? In this post, I will go over some of the easiest (and my favorite) ways to find upcoming releases to add to your TBR pile.
Read-alikes

How to find read-alikes with library resources

Have you ever wondered how to find books and authors similar to those you already know and love? Look no further! In this post, I will start with two simple solutions I use daily while assisting patrons at the help desk.
Happiness for beginners cover, woman standing on a mountain

Happiness for Beginners (Center)

A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls. Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found.
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto, couple looking at one another with purple flowers

Forget Me Not (Soto)

An ambitious wedding planner must work with her grumpy florist ex, whose heart she broke, on the most high-profile wedding of her career, in this spicy and emotional romance from popular fanfic author Julie Soto. He loves me; he loves me not... Ama Torres loves being a wedding planner. But with a mother who has been married more times than you can count on your fingers, Ama has decided that marriage is not the route for her. But weddings? Weddings are amazing. As a small business owner, she knows how to match her clients with the perfect vendor to give them the wedding of their dreams. Well, almost perfect… Elliot hates being a florist, most of the time. When his father left him the flower shop, he considered it a burden, but he’s stuck with it. Just like how he’s stuck with the way he proposed to Ama, his main collaborator and girlfriend (or was she?) two years ago. But flowers have grown on him, just like Ama did. And flowers can’t run off and never speak to him again, like Ama did. When Ama is hired to plan a celebrity wedding that will bring her business national exposure, there's a catch: Elliot is already contracted to design the flowers. Things are not helped by the two brides, who see the obvious chemistry between Ama and Elliot and are determined to set them up, not knowing their complicated history. Add in a meddling ex-boss, and a reality TV film crew documenting every step of the wedding prep, and Ama and Elliot's hearts are not only in jeopardy again, but this time, their livelihoods are too.