By Todd Warhola, Librarian and Collection Development Analyst with OverDrive 

Do you hear that low humming sound? Almost like a hive of bumblebees have taken over the workspace here at OverDrive? That’s our eHighlights team busily working to get you the best information about upcoming important titles for your collection! We went a little crazy this month and released four different and equally important editions. These editions are Kids & Teens Winter 2016, AU/NZ Special Edition February 2016, Schools Spring 2016, and Diversity Special Edition.

The Kids & Teens Winter 2016 edition spotlights titles with starred reviews, debut authors, and the best series titles recently published or available for preorder. You’ll definitely want to check out Michael Hall’s fun picture book Frankencrayon, Peter McCarty’s adorable Bunny Dreams looks like the perfect book for my two year old, and Karen Blumenthal’s Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Woman Living History is the just right for the politically active teen.

The AU/NZ Speciali Edition focuses on authors that all come from Australia or New Zealand. It also highlights publisher from this region as well. A title of note is Peter Rees’s Bear Witness a biography of the famous war correspondent. The book goes behind the scenes to show a fascinating view of his life and career. Martin McKenzie-Murray’s A Murder without Motive is an unapologetic view of the killing of Rebecca Ryle.

The goal of the Diversity Special Edition is to help your digital collection to represent the diversity of the people in your community. Titles range from classics like Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and The Color Purple by Alice Walker to more recent works like White Teeth by Zadie Smith and Sherman Alexie’s Blasphemy. The categories covered are African American Lit, LGBTQIA, Multicultural Lit, and Women’s Lit.

We hope you enjoy each edition and find them helpful for your collection!