Monthly Staff Picks Sale | August, 2025

This August’s Monthly Staff Picks are here!

In a summer filled with the return of DC’s Man of Steel and Marvel’s First Family, venture to the dawn of the Golden Age of comics with the early aughts classic that is Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’. Follow the titular cousins and “boy geniuses” as they navigate the bustling streets, toil for their art in the gleaming skyscrapers of a bygone New York, and rise in fame alongside names like Siegel & Shuster & Kirby & Lee, all in pursuit of their American Dreams while the world teeters on the brink of World War II.

The Back to School season is here… and both of our kids picks this August are here to celebrate and help ease learners of all ages into the new school year. Our picture book selection ‘Ruby’s Tools for Making Friends’, written and illustrated by Apryl Stott, follows a young fox moving to a new school as she learns to overcome her anxieties and forge new friendships during a group project. ‘The New Girl’, from cartoonist and humorist Cassandra Calin, is our graphic novel pick for Middle Readers and is a lovely coming-of-age tale following Lia as she navigates the many changes that come with family moves… and becoming a teenager.

For Young Adult readers, and puzzle lovers of all ages, comes Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s ‘The Grandest Game’. This first-in-series spin-off entry to The Inheritance Games Saga features faces both new and familiar as seven golden tickets lead to a private island full of mystery and filled with puzzles and twists galore.

Visit us throughout August for 20% off all of this month’s selections, while supplies last.

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August 2025 Monthly Staff Picks

This Month's Staff Pick Sale & A Special Announcement...

Last month’s selection, ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’, was our most successful Monthly Staff Pick so far (even surpassing favorite titles like ‘Once There Were Wolves’ and ‘Demon Copperhead’), which makes it the perfect time for a little announcement…

Monthly Staff Picks for All Ages are finally here at Little Village Toy & Book Shop! After over two years of success with our Monthly Staff Picks, we are thrilled to launch Young Adult, Early & Middle Grade, and Picture Book selections this June. All of our selections each month are 20% off, while supplies last, so keep reading to learn more about our picks for June, and visit us soon to pick up a copy of one (or all!) of our picks this month.

To kick things off, our next Adult selection is last year’s bestselling ‘Sandwich’ by Catherine Newman, which is now available in paperback. This Cape Cod-set family ensemble makes a perfect beach or travel read, full of humor and sure to move you. Read it before this favorite family returns in ‘Wreck’ this Fall.

For kids of all ages, our first Picture Book Pick is, the Caldecott Honor Book, ‘Bear Came Along’ by Richard T. Morris with illustrations by LeUyen Pham which follows Bear on a river adventure as he makes new friends and, together, they discover how life connects us all.

Our new picks will also include either a middle reader, chapter book, or kids graphic novel each month. This June we’ve selected ‘Lost on a Mountain in Maine’ by Donn Fendler. A true story of adventure and survival that follows twelve-year-old Donn in 1939 after he gets separated from his companions on the summit of Maine’s highest peak. This New England tale is a favorite of both locals and visitors alike!

And finally, for YA readers, of all ages, our inaugural Young Adult Monthly Staff Pick is Adam Silvera’s ‘They Both Die at the End’. The beloved novel that launched the series (which just saw its third entry released last month) and introduced readers to Death-Cast, alternates between two young men as they choose to live their last day as fully as possible.

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Monthly Staff Pick Sale | June 2025

This Month's Staff Pick Sale is Remarkably Bright ;)

As you may have seen in our New Releases post this week, this May’s Monthly Staff Pick is Shelby Van Pelt’s ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’. 

This bestselling debut novel finally hits stands in paperback with an initial printing featuring fun sprayed edges. This story of loss and finding friendships in unexpected places is full of humor and charm, making a perfect feel-good read to end your Spring or kick-off your Summer (or simply a beloved addition to your TBR stack).

Visit us this May for 20% off ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures’, while supplies last! 

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Did you know that you can support Little Village Toy & Book Shop wherever you are and however you read? We’re proud partners of Bookshop.org, offering online shopping and Ebooks, as well as Libro.fm, offering audiobooks. Visit our playlists on both storefronts for full lists of our former Monthly Staff Picks.

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Monthly Staff Pick Sale | May 2025

Two recent favorites are now in paperback… and 20% off for the month of April!

Two recent favorites are now in paperback… and if that wasn’t enough to celebrate, they’re BOTH this April’s Monthly Staff Pick because how could we choose just one!

Our first selection this month comes from one of America’s most treasured living writers, who, after 2019’s Pulitzer Prize finalist ‘The Dutch House’, returns to fiction with ‘Tom Lake’. Perhaps Ann Patchett at the culmination of her literary powers, this thoughtfully quiet novel explores family, love, and life in ways only Patchett can set amidst the backdrop of the unraveling of the Spring of 2020.

• Tom Lake - Ann Patchet

  #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK

  In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America's finest writers.

  "Patchett leads us to a truth that feels like life rather than literature." --The Guardian

  In the spring of 2020, Lara's three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

  Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

The second selection this month comes after three long years in hardcover (a small eternity in the world of books) as Bonnie Garmus’s debut ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ has finally arrived in paperback! This zippy, fish out of water, 1960s Southern California story that follows Elizabeth Zott as she traverses the worlds of chemistry labs and television cooking sets is a feminist tale of the past with a message that echoes strongly in the present.

• Lessons In Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus

  #1 GLOBAL BESTSELLER WITH MORE THAN 8 MILLION COPIES SOLD - Meet Elizabeth Zott: "a gifted research chemist, absurdly self-assured and immune to social convention" (The Washington Post) in 1960s California whose career takes a detour when she becomes the unlikely star of a beloved TV cooking show. - STREAM ON APPLE TV+

  This novel is "irresistible, satisfying and full of fuel" (The New York Times Book Review) and "witty, sometimes hilarious...the Catch-22 of early feminism" (Stephen King, via Twitter).
  
  A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Oprah Daily, Entertainment Weekly, Newsweek

  Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it's the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel-prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with--of all things--her mind. True chemistry results.

  But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America's most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth's unusual approach to cooking ("combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride") proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo.

  Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.

Visit us this month for 20% off of both ‘Tom Lake’ & ‘Lessons in Chemistry’, while supplies last!

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Did you know that you can support Little Village Toy & Book Shop wherever you are and however you read? We’re proud partners of Bookshop.org, offering online shopping and Ebooks, as well as Libro.fm, offering audiobooks.

Contact Little Village

April 2025 Monthly Staff Pick

A Western classic. A Pulitzer Prize-winning epic. A Bookstagram favorite…?

Our next selection has taken the bookish side of the internet by storm recently; spurred by a number of articles, new and resurfaced, reveling in this “experience” of a novel, its depiction of America, and the characters and dialogue that fill its pages.

This March our Monthly Staff Pick is Larry McMurtry’s ‘Lonesome Dove’, the unforgettable tale following a team of Texas Rangers as the sun sets on the days of the Old West.

Visit us in store for 20% off of ‘Lonesome Dove’ this month, while supplies last.

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Did you know that you can support Little Village Toy & Book Shop wherever you are and however you read? We’re proud partners of Bookshop.org, offering online shopping and Ebooks, as well as Libro.fm, offering audiobooks.

Contact Little Village

March 2025 Monthly Staff Pick

February 2025 Staff Pick Sale | One in a Millenial

“𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘻𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘨𝘦𝘪𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘸𝘦’𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘰𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴, 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯.”

It’s a new month and that means it’s time for a new Monthly Staff Pick here at Little Village Toy & Book Shop and we’ve chosen an essay collection full of bite-sized treats perfect for the short month!

Our selection this February is Kate Kennedy’s ‘One in a Millenial: On Friendships, Feelings, Fangirls & Fitting In’. At once both a deep dive into the pop culture zeitgeist of millennials as well as a look at the deeper historical events that shaped them, how these two things intertwine, and their lasting effects and connections that continue today. This New York Times Bestseller is perfect for fans of last year’s bestselling ‘The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality’ by Amanda Montell and Dolly Alderton’s ‘Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir’, one of our bestselling former Monthly Staff Picks.

Visit us this month for 20% off ‘One in a Millenial: On Friendships, Feelings, Fangirls & Fitting In’, while supplies last.

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INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist

One in a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned generation.

Kate is a pop culture commentator and host of the popular millennial-focused podcastBe There in Five. Part-funny, part-serious, Kate navigates the complicated nature of celebrating and criticizing the culture that shaped her as a woman, while arguing that great depths can come from surface-level interests.

With her trademark style and vulnerability,One in a Millennialis sharp, hilarious, and heartwarming all at once. She tackles AOL Instant Messenger, purity culture, American Girl Dolls, going out tops, Spice Girl feminism, her feelings about millennial motherhood, and more. Kate's laugh-out-loud asides and keen observations will have you nodding your head and maybe even tearing up.

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February 2025 Monthly Staff Pick | One in a Millenial