Students are back in the library this year! Some are spending their library time sitting across from each other over a chessboard. Others gather around the board to discuss game strategy or offer moral support to a player. A student community has built up at UPrep around a tactile game of strategy from the 15th century! This issue, our featured books also center on building communities through shared interests.

All In: An Autobiography
By Billie Jean King

This book looks at building communities through inclusion. In her newly published autobiography, Billie Jean King recounts the exclusion she experienced as a tennis player who fought to include women in sports. At UPrep today, 53 percent of our student athletes identify as female. This was unthinkable when Billie Jean began playing. Through her contributions to Title IX—a federal civil rights law passed in 1972 that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or education program that receives federal money—Billie Jean paved the way for these young athletes. Today, UPrep's female athletes excel in sports, receive athletic scholarships, and inspire our community. King's book is an emotional and powerful account of a life that made this possible. 

Please Don't Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes: Essays
By Phoebe Robinson

This book asks the question, how much space do you take up? Phoebe Robinson has been all over television and podcasts as a humorist and cultural commentator. Her most recent collection of essays is a hilarious and poignant look at pop culture, opportunities for women, and performative allyship. She delves into the power of community in social justice movements, and the space White people take up in those movements. Older Pumas and adults will laugh and learn.

Down from the Mountain: The Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear
By Bryce Andrews

This book examines being in community with nature. UPrep alumni Bryce Andrews '01 is a cattle rancher in Montana. He wrote the beautiful and heartbreaking story of Millie, a grizzly bear whose habitat has been slowly winnowed away by human encroachment. Bryce describes a stunning landscape where the human tendency is to dominate nature rather than be in community with it. Readers will enjoy what Outside magazine calls an "ode to wildness and wilderness."

The School for Good and Evil
By Soman Chainani

This title shows how differences make a community stronger. The School for Good and Evil series, soon to be a Netflix series, is the most popular set of books on UPrep's campus. Students are finding common ground with Sophie and Agatha, two protagonists who maintain a strong friendship while being absolute opposites. They work together to defeat an unknown force and use their opposite skill sets to support each other. Middle School students will be drawn in by this fast-paced series as they learn that community benefits from members' differences.