SGCLIB Staff
Our staff is the beating heart of the library. It cannot be understated how critical of a role our library workers play in not just the maintenance and functionality of SGCLIB but also its growth and prosperity of resources, ideas, community, and culture here at SGCLIB. Our staff gives their all to this job with the understanding that their efforts make Ste. Genevieve truly a better and happier place.
Community edification remains a top priority to SGCLIB staff, and we pour our hearts into the library’s contribution to society every day. Nothing SGCLIB provides would ever be possible without our staff. Our amazing team is listed below with one of their favorite quotes!
Our Staff
Shawn
Lindsey
Dani
Asa
Barb
Grace
Donna
Johna
Marge
Amanda
Norma
SGCLIB Staff's Top Picks
Looking for a new book? Here's some of our staff's favorite reads!Amanda's Pick
This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death.
And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides – or are chosen. A world in which good rides on the frail shoulders of the 108-year-old Mother Abagail – and the worst nightmares of evil are embodied in a man with a lethal smile and unspeakable powers: Randall Flagg, the dark man.
Asa's Pick
Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life—Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Urras, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.
Barb's Pick
A grumpy yet loveable man finds his solitary world turned on its head when a boisterous young family moves in next door.
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?
Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.
Donna's Pick
Jude Farraday is a happily married, stay-at-home mom who puts everyone’s needs above her own. Her twins, Mia and Zach, are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill enters their lives, no one is more supportive than Jude. A former foster child with a dark past, Lexi quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable. But senior year of high school brings unexpected dangers and one night, Jude’s worst fears are confirmed: there is an accident. In an instant, her idyllic life is shattered and her close-knit community is torn apart. People—and Jude—demand justice, and when the finger of blame is pointed, it lands solely on eighteen-year-old Lexi Baill. In a heartbeat, their love for each other will be shattered, the family broken. Lexi gives up everything that matters to her—the boy she loves, her place in the family, the best friend she ever had—while Jude loses even more.
When Lexi returns, older and wiser, she demands a reckoning. Long buried feelings will rise again, and Jude will finally have to face the woman she has become. She must decide whether to remain broken or try to forgive both Lexi…and herself.
Night Road is a vivid, emotionally complex novel that raises profound questions about motherhood, loss, identity, and forgiveness. It is an exquisite, heartbreaking novel that speaks to women everywhere about the things that matter most.
Lindsey's Pick
Gus lives in a big park in the middle of an even bigger city, and he spends his days with Ida. Ida is right there. Always.
Then one sad day, Gus learns that Ida is very sick, and she isn’t going to get better. The friends help each other face the difficult news with whispers, sniffles, cuddles, and even laughs. Slowly Gus realizes that even after Ida is gone, she will still be with him—through the sounds of their city, and the memories that live in their favorite spots.
Marge's Pick
With no experience paddling the big rivers, a miniscule budget, and no idea what lay ahead or how long it might take, Amanda Hoenes, a Marine veteran, of Branson, Missouri grabbed her family’s old fiberglass canoe and traveled to Three Forks, Montana, the headwaters of the Missouri River to take on the adventure of a lifetime. Her only Make it to the Gulf of Mexico. Alone but for her rescue dog, braving wildfires, camping along the river, encountering wildlife, fighting wind and waves, and dodging river barges, she paddled more than 3,300 miles from the start of the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico. Temperatures plummeted as her adventure lasted into the winter months. Adapting, overcoming, and digging deeper than ever before, she emerged into the Gulf of Mexico six months later a different woman, inspired by the magnificence of the outdoors, the challenges overcome, and the authenticity and generosity of people met along the way. “When I planned this, it was a bucket list item. Something I would do alone, an exercise in relying on and pushing myself to grow. It quickly became clear that God had other plans, and by the end of it, it was something much bigger. It is so rewarding and inspiring to me to receive the hundreds of communications from others who were also inspired.”
Johna's Pick
His name is Theo. And he asks a lot more questions than he answers.
Theo visits the local coffeehouse, where ninety-two pencil portraits hang on the walls, portraits of the people of Golden done by a local artist. He begins purchasing them, one at a time, and putting them back in the hands of their “rightful owners.” With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship born, and a life altered.
A story of giving and receiving, of seeing and being seen, Theo of Golden is a beautifully crafted novel about the power of creative generosity, the importance of wonder to a purposeful life, and the invisible threads of kindness that bind us to one another.mall-town eye doctor, is no longer certain anything was by design—especially not the tragedy that caused him to turn his back on his friends, his hometown, and the life he’d always known. Running from the pain, eyes closed, served little purpose. Now, as he looks back on his life, Sam embarks on a journey that will take him halfway around the world. This time, his eyes are wide open—bringing into clear view what changed him, defined him, and made him so afraid, until he can finally see what truly matters.
Grace's Pick
As a young horse, Black Beauty is well-loved and happy. But when his owner is forced to sell him, his life changes drastically. He has many new owners—some of them cruel and some of them kind. All he needs is someone to love him again….
Whether pulling an elegant carriage or a ramshackle cab, Black Beauty tries to live as best he can. This is his amazing story, told as only he could tell it.
Norma's Pick
Twenty years ago, Caretta Rutledge left her Southern roots far behind for a successful career as a businesswoman in Chicago. But an unusual request from her mother—coming just as her own life is spinning out of control—has Cara heading back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood summers.
Before long, the rhythms of the island open her heart as she repairs the family beach house, becomes a bona fide “turtle lady” and renews old acquaintances long thought lost. But it is in reconnecting with her mother that she will learn life’s most precious lessons—true love involves sacrifice, family is forever and the mistakes of the past can be forgiven.
Known for her moving characters and emotional honesty, Mary Alice Monroe brings readers a beautifully rendered story that explores the fragile yet enduring bond between mothers and daughters.
Shawn's Pick
He’s Odd. Odd Thomas, to be precise. Genius fry-cook at the Pico Mundo Grill; boyfriend to the gorgeous Stormy Llewellyn – and possibly the only person with a chance of stopping one of the worst crimes in the bloody history of murder…
Something evil has come to the desert town that Odd and Stormy call home. It comes in the form of a mysterious man with a macabre appetite, a filing cabinet full of information on the world’s worst killers, and strange, hyena-like shadows following him wherever he goes. Odd is worried. He knows things, sees things – about the living, the dead, and the soon-to-be dead. Things that he has to act on. Now he’s terrified for Stormy, himself and Pico Mundo. Because he knows that on Wednesday August 15, a savage, blood-soaked whirlwind of violence and murder will devastate the town…
Dani's Pick
The deadliest animal of all time meets the world’s most legendary hunter in a classic battle between man and wild. But this pulse-pounding narrative is also a nuanced story of how colonialism and environmental destruction upset the natural order, placing man, tiger and nature on a collision course.
In Champawat, India, circa 1900, a Bengal tigress was wounded by a poacher in the forests of the Himalayan foothills. Unable to hunt her usual prey, the tiger began stalking and eating an easier food source: human beings. Between 1900 and 1907, the Champawat Man-Eater, as she became known, emerged as the most prolific serial killer of human beings the world has ever known, claiming an astonishing 436 lives.
Desperate for help, authorities appealed to renowned local hunter Jim Corbett, an Indian-born Brit of Irish descent, who was intimately familiar with the Champawat forest. Corbett, who would later earn fame and devote the latter part of his life to saving the Bengal tiger and its habitat, sprang into action. Like a detective on the tail of a serial killer, he tracked the tiger’s movements, as the tiger began to hunt him in return.
This was the beginning of Corbett’s life-long love of tigers, though his first encounter with the Champawat Tiger would be her last.