Staff Choice Golden Goulds: Highlighting TTL Staff’s favorites of the past year

People of Topsfield: the end of the year can only mean one thing. The awarding of Topsfield, Massachusetts’ most prestigious literary awards of the year, The Golden Goulds.

In our previous post, we celebrated the People of Topsfield’s choice with the most borrowed items of the year. This post highlights Topsfield Library staff’s choices for the best of the year.

The Golden Goulds are named after the library’s benefactor George L. Gould. Only the best of the best will come away with a Golden Gould …so who will it be?

Adult & Young Adult Fiction and Non-Fiction

WINNER!

The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries; weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie vanishes mysteriously, last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe. Joe will remain deeply affected by his sister’s disappearance for years to come. In Boston, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions; as she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

WINNER!

James by Percival Everett
When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. While many narrative set pieces of Twain’s original novel remain in place, Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

WINNER!

Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
When a skeleton is unearthed in the small, close-knit community of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1972, an unforgettable cast of characters, living on the margins of white, Christian America closely guard a secret, especially when the truth is revealed about what happened and the part the town’s white establishment played in it.

WINNER!

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
Fourteen years after they went their separate ways, 33-year-old Shiloh, a divorced, single mom living back in the same house she grew up in, attends a high school friend’s wedding in hopes of seeing Cary, the boy she never realized she loved until he was lost.

WINNER!

HappyHead by Josh Silver
Seb, who was selected for a new experimental mental health center called HappyHead designed to solve the national crisis of teenage unhappiness, participates in assessments to help him better face the challenges of the real world, but after meeting Finn, Seb questions the true nature of the center.

WINNER!

Breaking the Dark by Lisa Jewell
Retired superhero Jessica Jones helps a distraught mother search for her missing teenage twins who disappeared while visiting their father in the UK.

WINNER!

A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan
The Roaring Twenties — the Jazz Age– has been characterized as a time of Gatsby frivolity. But it was also the height of the uniquely American hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. Their domain was not the old Confederacy, but the Heartland and the West. And the man who set in motion their takeover of great swaths of America was a charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson. But at the peak of his influence, it was a seemingly powerless woman — Madge Oberholtzer — who would reveal his secret cruelties, and whose deathbed testimony finally brought the Klan to their knees.

WINNER!

The Measure by Nikki Erlick
When every person, all over the globe, receives a small wooden box bearing the same inscription and a single piece of string inside, world is thrown into a collective frenzy, in this novel told through multiple perspectives that introduces an unforgettable cast of characters.

WINNER!

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon.

WINNER!

How To Know A Person by David Brooks
As David Brooks observes, “There is one skill that lies at the heart of any healthy person, family, school, community organization, or society: the ability to see someone else deeply and make them feel seen—to accurately know another person, to let them feel valued, heard, and understood.” And yet we humans don’t do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. Here Brooks sets out to help us do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us: If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person’s story should you pay attention to?

Children’s

WINNER!

Buffalo Fluffalo by Bess Kalb
Readers will find Buffalo Fluffalo’s insecurity endearing and will be moved to reassure him. This humorous and delightful book encourages self-acceptance with a lighthearted touch.

WINNER!

Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir by Pedro Martin
Pedro Martin’s grown up in the U.S. hearing stories about his legendary abuelito, but during a family road trip to Mexico, he connects with his grandfather and learns more about his own Mexican identity in this moving and hilarious graphic memoir.

WINNER!

The Yellow Bus by Loren Long
A forgotten school bus finds joy and purpose in the most unexpected places.

WINNER!

The Boy Who Said Wow by Todd Boss
Taking his nonverbal grandson to his first Mozart concert, Grandfather is stunned when, after the performance is over, Ronan opens his mouth and lets out a great big WOW — not any old WOW, but his very first WOW, which fills up the hearts of everyone around him.

WINNER!

Barnaby Unboxed! by the Fan Brothers
When an even more purr-fect pet arrives on the scene, half-mouse/half-elephant Barnaby no longer feels appreciated, and running away, is swept up on a wild journey through the bustling city where he discovers the true meaning of home.