The highest-rated drama in BBC history, Call the Midwife will delight fans of Downton Abbey. Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women--from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side. An unforgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the strength of remarkable and inspiring women, Call the Midwife is the true story behind the beloved PBS series, which will soon return for its sixth season. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 3.6 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

This powerful firsthand account from Hanna-Attisha recalls her efforts to alert government officials to the public health disaster caused by lead in the water supply of Flint, Mich. In April 2014, as a cost-cutting measure, Flint switched its water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River, which had been a "toxic industrial dumping site for decades." Hanna-Attisha, who directs the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center, where many of Flint's poor children are treated, received a tip about lead levels and realized her patients were particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning. She recounts how state and local government officials ignored her requests for data, deflected responsibility, downplayed the threat, and tried to discredit the findings of her study, conducted with help from a corrosion expert, which found that the percentage of children with blood-lead elevations had doubled after the switch. That study eventually proved to be the "game-changer" that resulted in the state's declaring a public health emergency and switching the water source back to Lake Huron. Hanna-Attisha's empathy for her patients and the people of Flint comes through, as do her pride in her Iraqi roots and her persistent optimism. It's an inspiring work, valuable for anybody who wants to understand Flint's recent history. This title is available from CPL in a variety of formats including a Book Club in a Bag kit.

Four sisters in 19th-century New England grow from little girls to respectable young women. Each sister carries unique hopes for her future, but Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy learn that life often has other plans in store. Their coming-of-age stories are filled with hilarity, humility, friendship, heartbreak, and duty. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 3.5 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

A fresh and brilliantly told memoir from a cult favorite comic artist, marked by gothic twists, a family funeral home, sexual angst, and great books. This breakout book by Alison Bechdel is a darkly funny family tale, pitch-perfectly illustrated with Bechdel's sweetly gothic drawings. Like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, it's a story exhilaratingly suited to graphic memoir form. Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian home, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual who, as it turns out, is involved with his male students and a family babysitter. Through narrative that is alternately heartbreaking and fiercely funny, we are drawn into a daughter's complex yearning for her father. And yet, apart from assigned stints dusting caskets at the family-owned "fun home," as Alison and her brothers call it, the relationship achieves its most intimate expression through the shared code of books. When Alison comes out as homosexual herself in late adolescence, the denouement is swift, graphic -- and redemptive. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 2.5 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

The son of an African American father and a Mexican mother, August grew up in Detroit's Mexicantown and joined the Detroit police only to be drummed out of the force by a conspiracy of corrupt cops and politicians. But August fought back; he took on the city and got himself a $12 million wrongful dismissal settlement that left him low on friends. He has just returned to the house he grew up in after a year away and quickly learns he has many scores to settle. CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 4.5 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

In an unspecified future, the United States' borders have receded behind a salt line - a ring of scorched earth that protects its citizens from deadly disease-carrying ticks. Those within the zone live safe lives in a society controlled by a common fear. Few have any reason to venture out of zone, except for the adrenaline junkies who pay a fortune to tour what's left of nature. Once out of zone, this group finds itself at the mercy of deadly ticks - and at the center of a murderous plot. How far are they are willing to go to get to the right side of the salt line? CPL's Lunch and a Book Group gave this title 3 stars out of 5. This kit contains 10 copies of the title.

Jenny Lawson explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. But terrible ideas are what Jenny does best. As Jenny says : "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.