The word community is taking on new significance in these days of Twin Cities demonstrations against some government agents. Here are three books, fiction and nonfiction, that approach the idea in different ways.

“Lobizona” is a young adult novel chosen for the St. Paul Public Library’s Read Brave citywide book club. (Courtesy)

“Lobizona”: by Romina Garber (Wednesday Books, free while supplies last)

Romina Garber

When Romina Garber’s young adult fantasy was published to acclaim from readers and critics in 2020, the Argentinian author couldn’t have known how prescient her story about an immigrant girl would be.

“Lobizona,” Spanish for female werewolf, is so timely it was chosen by St. Paul Library staff as the new title for Read Brave St. Paul, the public library’s annual citywide book club that invites teens, families and community members to read the same book and have conversations about its meaning in our lives.

The story begins with teenager Manuela “Manu” Azul hiding in an apartment in Miami with her mother and adopted grandmother. Manu and her mother are immigrants and she’s used to hiding under the bed when ICE does sweeps of the neighborhood. She’s not allowed outside the building and she must always wear sunglasses to hide her astonishing eyes that have star-shaped silver pupils and cast a yellow glow. She’s lonely and tired of being a virtual prisoner.

When Manu’s mother is captured by ICE agents, Manu escapes, ending up in a magical world in the Everglades she’s dreamed about since she was 13. In this world girls are witches (brujas) and boys are werewolves (lobizones). At their elite school the students play a game like soccer during which the boys have the ball, but the witches can interfere by using their powers to make the field icy or create a wind that foils the opposition team. Manu upsets their ordered society when her friends discover she is a hybrid, both human and werewolf. If her identity is discovered by the adults, she could be executed.

The story, based on Venezuelan folktales, is exciting and thought-provoking. Will Manu’s physical prowess work for or against her in this magical world? Will her deceptions hurt her best friends? Most important, she has always felt an outsider and now she’s surrounded by friends who look like her. For the first time she feels she belongs. But at what price?

This elite school is inside a giant tree. There are huge flowers and little worm-like creatures that attach themselves to basket handles and bite. Manu has found a home, but in the human world her mother languishes in a detention facility and her father, the head of a criminal enterprise, is known among her friends as a rebel who has disappeared and is assumed dead. There are conversations among the teens about why they live under so many rules based on gender. Will they break their long traditions as Manu’s journey mirrors the real struggles faced by those navigating borders seen and unseen, searching for belonging, safety and home?

Maureen Hartman, St. Paul Public Library director, explains in an online letter why this book was selected for Read Brave: “(The novel) takes place amid unprecedented federal immigration enforcement that is causing harm, fear, and unimaginable loss for many in our community … It focuses on a story of immigration, power, and belonging – themes that, in ways we could not have foreseen, are now unfolding with intensity in our own neighborhoods. Read Brave exists to leverage the power of stories to build empathy and community …”

Free copies of the novel, in English and Spanish, are available while supplies last at St. Paul public libraries. Romina Garber will participate in a free panel discussion with young readers at 5:30 p.m. March 5 at Arlington Hills Library, 1200 Payne Ave., St. Paul.

Teaser quote: “I scream as all my joints crack at once, the bones of my skeleton breaking off. My spine curves as it elongates, and fangs pierce my gums, my skull tingling as my hair grows out. I stare at my hands in horror as my nails curl into claws …”

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Trestle”: by James A. Engen (Independently published, $25)

Engen, whose family has four generations of roots around Payne and Bush avenues, subtitles his novel “A Story from the East Side of Saint Paul.”

The Trestle, he writes, is a bridge relic left behind from the old streetcar line that ran through the East Side neighborhood, about 120 feet long and just shy of twelve feet wide. It was the place where “kids smoked their first cigarette, drank their first beer, or found somebody to fight.” It was the dividing line between the East Side’s two rival public high schools: Johnson to the north and Harding to the south.

At the center of this coming-of-age novel is Mitch Dawson, whose family lived in the farthest northeast corner of St. Paul, next to Hillcrest Country Club. Mitch and his gang of friends are in their last year of junior high as their story begins, doing what boys do at that age. There’s Manny, Zitzs and EZ, who has a way with the girls; Izzy, an abused boy who hides his family’s secrets, and Gloria, as good at sports as the boys and so fierce nobody teases her little sister about her stutter.

The boys taunt giant, unkempt sisters they call Snag (because of her teeth) and Crime Scene (because she’s always in trouble). They caddy at Hillcrest County Club and meet the owners, the rich Getz brothers. When the boys aren’t playing hockey or baseball they fool around in the creek, attend the Winter Carnival and listen in on the adults’ conversations. In a particularly tender chapter, Ike’s mother bonds with the other moms as she tells of her husband’s abuse and women’s secrets are shared.

As the story progresses, the kids grow physically and in their relationships. The boys start getting interesting looks from girls as they travel to the Iron Range and other Minnesota locations to play sports.

In the end, there is a funeral nobody wants to attend, but Mitch doesn’t care because he has finally realized his feelings for Gloria.

“The Trestle” embraces a tight-knit community, with moms and dads trying their best to raise their kids right. The women are always ready to donate spaghetti and meatballs for events and the men help one another work on their cars.

Teaser quote: “To the Minnesota hockey world, Phalen Playground was considered the cradle of East Side hockey. A lot of great players came from the Phalen neighborhood specifically, but there was a lot of great hockey being played all over the East Side – up at Hayden Heights and playgrounds like Lockwood, Prosperity, Wilder, Hazel Park, and Conway.”

“Origin Story: Fort Road/West Seventh Street, Township/City of Saint Paul, Territory/State of Minnesota”: by Joseph Landsberger (Independently published, $40 softcover).

Continuing books about neighborhoods, Landsberger gives us a masterful researching job in this 400-page, vertical format paperback that holds everything you ever wanted to know about Seventh Street. It is aptly subtitled “From the Glacial Age Forward.”

The author takes us into the neighborhoods house by house, business by business. In a timeline that begins with the Native American population, he tells of the pioneers who settled this area of St. Paul.

Among the chapters are Minnesota Identity, Red River Oxcarts, Upper Landing Industry, settlements of Germans, Bohemians, Italians and Irish, schools and brothels, Shepherd Road, West End Art and Entertainment and Community Reporter newspaper.

With 1,083 images, this treasure should be in every local library. Written by an author who was about 80 when a revised edition was published in late 2025, it is a marvel of local history that can be read in sections with information that might surprise you about one of St. Paul’s busiest thoroughfares.

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