Destructive seagulls, migrating elephants and an insatiably hungry black bear.

In her 2021 nonfiction book, “Fuzz,” New York Times best-selling author Mary Roach explores the many ways we’ve tried to handle animals that might harm us or damage our crops and livestock.

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The award-winning book is this year’s adult selection for All Pikes Peak Reads, the Pikes Peak Library District’s annual community reading program. This year also sees the return of book selections for other age groups: “Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves” by Denver author Meg Long, for teens; and “Little Monarchs,” a graphic novel by Jonathan Case, and “Butterflies Are Pretty…Gross!” by Rosemary Mosco.

“I really like APPR because it focuses on celebrating literature and improving community connections and fosters dialogue across generational lines,” said PPLD Senior Librarian Heidi Buljung. “It’s great to have something that brings people together — reading a book at the same time. For older adults it’s a learning opportunity and for younger kids it’s making sure reading stays an important part of their lives.”

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This year’s titles are all based around nature.

“We thought what connects us all?” Buljung said. “We live in a natural environment. We’ve got mountains on one side and plains on other side. We connect with nature and wildlife every day.”

In Long’s 2022 book, a 17-year-old girl enters a sled race with a stolen wolf to escape a gangster she’s double-crossed. In the 2022 dystopian fiction, “Little Monarchs,” a 10-year-old girl might be the only person who can save humanity, and in the 2021 nonfiction “Butterflies Are Pretty…Gross!,” a monarch butterfly reveals all the intricate details of its species.

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The titles are available now at all PPLD branches, as well as in eBook and eAudio formats.

To complement the book, PPLD will offer free activities through November, including an online author visit with Roach at 11 a.m. Oct. 11. PPLD also will host a free reading flash mob from 1-2 p.m. Sept. 27 outside Kraemer Library at University of Colorado Colorado Springs, as part of the Cool Science Carnival. Other author visits and activities can be found online at ppld.org/appr.