The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Adult Fiction
“This is How it Always Is,” by Laurie Frankel
When Rosie, Penn and their four boys welcome the newest member of their family, no one is surprised it’s another baby boy. At least their large, loving, chaotic family knows what to expect. But Claude is not like his brothers. One day he puts on a dress and refuses to take it off. He wants to bring a purse to kindergarten. He wants hair long enough to sit on. When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl. Rosie and Penn aren’t panicked at first. Kids go through phases, after all, and make-believe is fun. But soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes. “This Is How It Always Is” is a novel about revelations, transformations and how a family keeps a secret that ends up keeping them.
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Adult Nonfiction
“Ichi-F: A Worker’s Graphic Memoir of the Fukishima Nuclear Power Plant,” by Kazuto Tatsuta
On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the largest earthquake in its modern history. The 9.0-magnitude quake threw up a tsunami that wiped away entire towns, and caused three nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. Altogether, it was the costliest natural disaster in human history. Kazuto Tatsuta was an amateur artist who signed onto the task of cleaning up the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, which the workers came to call “Ichi-F.” This is the story of that challenging work, of the trials faced by the local citizens, and of the camaraderie that built up between the workers who faced the invisible threat of radiation on a daily basis. After six months, Tatsuta’s body had absorbed the maximum annual dose of radiation allowed by regulations, and he was forced to take a break from the work crew, giving him the time to create this unprecedented, unauthorized, award-winning view of daily life at Fukushima Daiichi.
