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Long Island revisits the characters of his best-loved novel two decades later
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have been declaring jazz dead since at least the 1970s. But extraordinary new artists keep coming along to prove the pundits wrong; just take the example of Samara Joy, who wowed critics and audiences with her debut album, Linger Awhile. Recorded when she was just 22, the album won legions of fans, many of them new to this musical art form, and Joy won the award for best new artist at the 2023 Grammys—proving that jazz was very much alive and kicking, thank you.
The literature about jazz music and musicians is thriving, too, and 2024 has already brought a trio of excellent books on the subject. Out this month is Larry Tye’s The Jazzmen: How Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie
Transformed America (Mariner Books, May 7), a Mount Rushmore–style monument to three of the genre’s greats—the “revolutionary American maestros… whose music throbs at the soul of twentieth century America,” as the author puts it in his preface. The Jazzmen seeks to complicate the received narratives about these household names, exploring their roots, music, collaborators, family life, experiences of race, and legacies. If Tye doesn’t quite upend our understandings of Ellington, Armstrong, and Basie, he offers, “in a single volume…fairly substantial biographies” that make for a “delightful read,” according to our review.
James Kaplan delivers another jazz triple portrait in 3 Shades of Blue: Miles
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Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool (Penguin Press, March 5). If Ellington, Armstrong, and Basie forged jazz as a popular dance music beloved by the masses in the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s, Kaplan’s subjects—especially Davis—presided over its transformation into “something else, jazz as art music, as listening music.”
At the heart of 3 Shades is the making Kind of Blue, recorded in March and April 1959 by Davis, Coltrane, and Evans, along with Cannonball Adderley, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb; Kaplan calls it an album whose “quiet and enigmatic majesty…both epitomizes jazz and transcends the genre.” In a starred review, our critic calls the book a “marvelous must-read for jazz fans and anyone interested in this dynamic period of American music.”
Where are the women? If Tye and Kaplan train the spotlight on male changemakers, Paul Alexander
offers a close-up of one indisputable female genius in Bitter Crop: The Heartache and Triumph of Billie Holiday’s Last Year (Knopf, Feb. 13). (Full disclosure: I’ve edited some of Alexander’s journalism in the past.) Holiday has been the subject of many books, including her own 1958 autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues , which played fast and loose with the facts; Alexander writes that Holiday “thoroughly embraced the adage that the truth should never stand in the way of a good story.” He uses the lens of the singer’s final year— which coincided, as it happens, with the recording of Kind of Blue —to revisit her life story, one of transcendent artistic expression in the face of entrenched American racism and crippling health struggles. “An extraordinarily fascinating book,” says our starred review.
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LET’S GET RIGHT to it—there’s a parade of riches coming to your local bookstore (and library) this May, led by Claire Messud’s brilliant new novel, This Strange Eventful History (Norton, May 14). From the beginning of her career, Messud has written about people who’ve been displaced: Her first novel, When the World Was Steady (1994), is about two sisters who know the world isn’t steady at all. One of them moves from Australia to Bali, where she discovers
the concept of palang: “not to know where you are, not to know where the mountain is.” To Messud, this isn’t the disaster it might appear—after all, disorientation can be exhilarating.
More migrations followed: Messud’s second novel, The Last Life (1999), follows a family of French Algerians who move first to France and then to the U.S.; one of the novellas in her third book, The Hunters (2001), features a woman born in Ukraine who, after World War II, left a
displaced persons camp for Canada. The story of Messud’s own family lay at the root of all these books, but her latest—though still fictional—is based more directly on that history; there’s even a photograph of her father on the cover. The book opens in Algeria in 1940, when the Cassare family is uprooted by the war, and ranges over three generations and several continents, observing relationships among the family members, who are beautifully alive. Our starred review says the author’s “quietly masterful way with words makes every character and incident gripping” and concludes that “Messud is one of contemporary literature’s best.”
The protagonists of Magdalena Zyzak’s zingy novel The Lady Waiting (Riverhead, May 7) have also wound up far from home— they’re two Polish women in Los Angeles, though their circumstances are very different. And then they get caught up in a caper involving a stolen Vermeer painting. Says our starred review: “Funny, original, worldly, and very cool.”
More to look forward to in May: Kaliane Bradley’s first novel, The Ministry of Time (Avid Reader, May 7), has something for everyone:
spies, romance, time travel, Arctic exploration, bumbling bureaucrats, and an insightful exploration of “the challenges we face, the choices we make, and the way we live and love today,” according to our starred review.
Nicolás Medina Mora’s debut novel, América del Norte (Soho, May 7), plays with the concept of fiction; like the author, the protagonist is a young Mexican journalist who gets an MFA from the University of Iowa and then returns to Mexico City, building what our starred review calls “a steely-eyed but not unsympathetic portrait of the people he meets....Assured, darkly funny, and impeccably written.”
Another debut novel, Emma Copley Eisenberg’s Housemates (Hogarth, May 28), follows two recent college graduates—Bernie, a photographer “who looked like a thin girl,” and Leah, a writer “who looked like a fat boy”—on a road trip from Philadelphia through central Pennsylvania during the Trump presidency and Covid-19. “Eisenberg has a poet’s eye for truth,” according to our starred review, “and her prose is gorgeously precise and empathetic while remaining cleareyed.”
Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.
LAURIE MUCHNICK Illustration by Eric Scott AndersonTwo women spend a fraught summer together in the Dutch countryside. When she first meets Eva, Isabel is not just unimpressed; she finds her worthy of mockery. The latest in her brother Louis’ long list of girlfriends, Eva has cheaply dyed hair and a cheaply made dress and, when they all go out for dinner, doesn’t know what scallops are. Van der Wouden’s brilliant debut novel opens in 1961 in the Netherlands; World War II has ended, but the trauma of the war years is etched as deeply into the Dutch landscape as are the craters left by actual bombs. Isabel has become a caretaker for the old
house she and her siblings grew up in. She spends her isolated days in regimented fashion, polishing silver and visiting the post office. “She belonged to the house in the sense that she had nothing else, no other life than the house,” van der Wouden writes. Isabel’s routine—and, eventually, everything she thought she knew about herself and her family—is disrupted when Eva comes to spend a few weeks with her while Louis is away for work. Even van der Wouden’s spare prose gives way to the lush mystery Eva carries with her: “How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the
van der Wouden, Yael | Avid Reader Press
272 pp. | $28.00 | May 28, 2024
skin of overripe fruit.” This is a beautifully realized book, nearly perfect, as van der Wouden quietly explores the intricate nuances of resentment-hued sibling dynamics, the discovery of desire (and the
simultaneous discovery of self), queer relationships at a time when they went unspoken, and the legacy of war and what it might mean to have been complicit in its horrors. A brilliant debut, as multifaceted as a gem.
Aira, César | Trans. by Katherine Silver New Directions (192 pp.) | $16.95 paper June 11, 2024 | 9780811237307
A disastrous film festival paired with an all-encompassing virtual reality game offers more philosophical gymnastics from Aira. This slim volume by the ever-prolific Aira collects two novellas, distinct in style and character, that lean into the author’s dark humor a little more than usual. The opener, Festival , is an uncomfortably cringe-laden comedy of errors. It concerns an independent film festival in an unnamed country, focused on its guest of honor and the mundane chaos introduced by his decidedly unwelcome guest. Readers are meant to think the Belgian film director Alec Steryx is Aira’s main subject—he’s come by invitation to chair the contest’s Grand Jury, premiere his latest esoteric science fiction film, and celebrate his body of work. But Aira cleverly slips in two wrenches: the first and most divisive is the director’s elderly, half-blind, and bad-tempered mother, who proceeds to turn the carefully curated event into a rolling logistical disaster; the second is where the story lives, in the head of Perla Sobietsky, the festival’s fiercely competitive organizer and author of a book about Steryx. While the dichotomy between Perla’s snobbishness and her charge’s unapologetically bad behavior is jarring, it’s also a funny and unpredictable way for Aira to talk about fame and perception. Meanwhile, in Game of the Worlds , a different kind
of alienation comes via a virtual reality game in which children vaporize intelligent civilizations on a daily basis. Aira claims with a straight face that these are real worlds, in the manner of Ender’s Game, facing down “a gaggle of brats —whose prey surely didn’t suspect as much —with nothing better or more constructive to do with their afternoons.” Parenthood and generational angst often catalyze cliches, but here they enable Aira to talk about technology and disconnection in a way that’s both biting yet somehow full of affection for our confusing, complicated world. Reality bites in these odd portraits of people unmoored by their own sense of how things work.
Awoke, Uchenna | Catapult (352 pp.)
$27.00 | June 25, 2024 | 9781646221905
A young man struggles to support his family in a fractured Nigerian homeland. Awoke’s debut novel is narrated by Dimkpa, whom we first meet at 14 getting a blunt education about Nigeria’s social and political stratification. His mother is a devoted Catholic while his father is an adherent to Igbo tradition; when the father is bullied out of his promised role as a town elder, Dimkpa learns that his family has been deemed “ohu ma,” or outsiders, by the community. But why? His search for answers (and money to support his family) takes him to Lagos, where an abusive Muslim matron pits the houseboys against each other for sport; to the
Prose meets power in a tale of Machiavelli and Borgia.
meeting rooms of Biafran revolutionaries, who are dealing with their own internal strife; to quarries and mines where he and his friends risk their lives; to a university where he might put his passion for writing to use. (The book makes reference to numerous classic African and African American writers, including Toni Morrison, Chinua Achebe, Alain Mabanckou, and Ralph Ellison, though Dimkpa has a particular affection for The Catcher in the Rye.) Lyrical interstitial chapters slowly disclose the mystery of Dimkpa’s family status as ohu ma, but the prose is more typically plainspoken. That makes the story clear, but also dulls it somewhat: Awoke plainly aspires to offer a cross-section of contemporary Nigeria and its shortcomings, but it lacks the tart, satiric bite that would match Dimkpa’s sense of injustice. And the strategy of bouncing across milieus means that characters and plot threads are occasionally dropped. Still, the novel has a sturdy spine in Dimkpa, who piles up psychic and physical scars throughout his travels as he realizes that to be loyal to any one tribe is to be complicit in factionalism and violence. “Hatred, it seems, is our heritage,” he laments. A flawed but admirably ambitious bildungsroman.
Bernini, Franco | Trans. by Oonagh Stransky
Europa Editions (384 pp.) | $30.00 June 11, 2024 | 9798889660149
Prose meets power in a tale of Machiavelli and Borgia. In 1502, the Republic of Florence is surrounded by enemies, particularly Cesare Borgia, who is the Duke of Valentinois and Romagna and son of the
Pope. The Republic sends Niccolò Machiavelli as both envoy and spy to find out what Borgia, nicknamed Valentino, is up to. This is a most dangerous business, as rumors abound regarding the duke’s cruelty. He denies to Machiavelli that he had his own brother killed, for example, but doesn’t mind at all that people think so, as long as they fear him. “Fear is stronger than all cannons,” he says. And he even has his own private executioner. Valentino recognizes Machiavelli’s talent as a writer and proposes that the envoy write his story: “I will tell you all my secrets, and you will give them shape with words,” making sure to include “details, observations, insinuations, and malice.” Meanwhile, the duke has imprisoned and sexually abuses Dianora Mambelli, whose “beauty is her condemnation.” Machiavelli secretly meets with her and learns that she wants her captor dead. But if their growing friendship becomes more than platonic and Cesare finds out, their lives are imperiled. The novel paints Machiavelli in a sympathetic light: Yes, he is a skilled writer who puts the duke’s deeds into fine prose, exaggerations and all. But he is in a difficult position where he could be killed at any time. Late in the story, Cesare expresses satisfaction: “Now that I know you can write it the way that I want, I will let you live.” The eventual product of this whole messy business comes after the deaths of the main characters, and it lives on today as The Prince , as cynical a book about gaining and keeping raw power as any that exist. Although Machiavellian refers to scheming for power, the poor guy was only the messenger who was disgusted by his boss and at his mercy. There are quite a few brief passages in Italian, mainly snippets of poetry, with translations in the endnotes. Luckily, they aren’t critical to the story’s flow. Se leggi l’italiano è perfetto. But if you don’t read Italian, you won’t lose the thread by skipping over them and checking them out later.
An engrossing and humane novel.
Bingham, Sallie | Turtle Point (232 pp.) | $18.00 paper
June 4, 2024 | 9781885983367
Inspired by a family document, Bingham writes the story of her ancestor Margaret Erskine, who was captured by the Shawnee people in 1779.
As the book begins, Margaret and her husband and children leave their home in Virginia on horseback to “discover” America. Margaret believes all the prejudices about Native Americans held by white settlers; she both fears them and thinks them inferior. On their way west, her party is ambushed by the Shawnee. The violence of the attack stuns Margaret, but her remarkable resolve to live testifies to her inner strength. Claimed by the Shawnee as one of their own, Margaret must adapt to a radically different way of life, and her open-mindedness and adaptability enable her to assimilate quickly. Learning the language, adopting Shawnee dress, and laboring alongside her new Shawnee family, Margaret finds that her knowledge of medicinal herbs and ability to nurse ailing infants and elderly people back to health set her apart from other captives. She soon realizes she’s pregnant with her husband’s child and must undergo the Shawnee birthing ritual—delivering her son alone, in a hut, far away from the encampment. The infant’s paternity is the subject of rumor, and her son’s Shawnee instincts raise further suspicion. After four years, Margaret is ransomed by her friends in Union, Virginia, but her deeply felt reluctance to return is reinforced by their immediate suspicion of her son’s parentage, leading to an isolation from her peers she never truly overcomes. Although Bingham’s plain prose lacks subtlety, the novel paints a compelling portrait of womanhood in this era. Crucially, the author depicts the violence of the period as integral to the colonial project, dismissing any propagandistic delusions
of one-sided “savagery” and instead depicting each culture without romance or bias.
A novel that condemns white colonialism, offering crucial insight into life for American Revolution–era women.
Burnham, Gabriella | One World/ Random House (272 pp.) | $27.00 May 21, 2024 | 9780593596500
When their undocumented mother is deported, Elise, a recent college graduate, and her younger sister, Sophie, are forced to reboot their lives in this novel set on Nantucket. Although the central crisis of the novel is Gilda’s deportation to her native Brazil after more than 20 years as a tax-paying resident of the United States, the unfairness of the U.S. immigration system is only one target here. Inequities of class and the often shallow hypocrisy of white liberals also come into play. Gilda supported her girls as a restaurant cook, and Elise grew up as a working-class local on wealthy Nantucket. Sheba, Elise’s best friend from college, is an heiress who likes smoothing Elise’s way financially, whether by lending her clothes or buying her airfare home from Chapel Hill after Gilda was deported the day before their graduation. When the sisters are evicted from the house their mother rented, Sheba invites them to stay in her family’s luxurious summer estate. The friendship, which Elise analyzes in often fascinating detail, is supposedly deep and intimate, but class distinctions are never erasable. Sheba chafes when one of her two mothers parades Elise to her rich friends as her immigration project, but Sheba’s own careless sense of entitlement is on frequent display, particularly when she invites locals to a party that gets
that will strike a chord for every parent.
NOTHING CAN ERASE YOU
seriously out of hand. Oddly, Gilda is a far less developed or interesting character. Applying for a green card to return to Nantucket, she’s sporadically in touch with her kids but mostly concentrates on her new job in Brazil and on reconnecting with her long-lost father, so her immigration status becomes a less compelling issue for readers. Elise’s conflicted relationships with mother, sister, friends, and potential lovers—Burnham also throws in some sexual moments as teasers that don’t add up to much— are more absorbing.
An engaging mixture of psychology and socioeconomics.
Bussi, Michel | Trans. by Sam Taylor Amazon Crossing (464 pp.) | $16.99 paper June 4, 2024 | 9781662509049
Ten years after her son vanishes on his 10th birthday, a family physician encounters him anew—and he hasn’t aged a day. No one but Dr. Maddi Libéri believes that Tom Fontaine is really Esteban Libéri, who of course would be 20 by now. Everyone else thinks the body that was recovered from the sea a month after Esteban disappeared from the Normandy beach where his single mother had taken him to swim was his. But the harder Maddi, who’s always resisted the idea that her son is dead, looks at Tom, the more convincing she finds the evidence that he’s Esteban’s reincarnation. The first time she spots him, he’s wearing an indigo swimsuit identical to the one
Esteban was wearing on his birthday. Like Esteban, he speaks Basque, even though no one has ever taught it to him. And he has a birthmark identical to Esteban’s in exactly the same place. So after Maddi identifies his pregnant mother as Amandine Fontaine, she follows her to the Auvergne village of Murol and sets up shop as the town’s only doctor, a position that guarantees she’ll be seeing more of both mother and son. The gradual resolution of the mystery, which Bussi teases with strong hints of the supernatural, turns out to be entirely logical—“There is one coincidence in this story. Just one!” the architect of Maddi’s troubles announces during the big reveal— though more than a little far-fetched. But then, what did you expect from such an outrageous premise?
A finely wrought nightmare that will strike a chord for every parent who’s been troubled by dreams of losing a child.
Cain, Matt | John Scognamiglio Books/ Kensington (400 pp.) | $27.00 June 4, 2024 | 9781496745941
In a small English coastal town, a gay man has a midlife renaissance. When his husband of almost 20 years leaves him for another man, Ted Ainsworth feels bereft. Giles was the sun around which he orbited. The genuine support of Ted’s well-meaning parents is undercut by their desire for him to take over the family ice cream
business, which is foundering in the wake of Covid-19. One of Ted’s closely held secrets is that he doesn’t even like ice cream. Another is his love of performing and all things camp, which Giles routinely belittled. When Ted’s mom signs him up for a dance class at the community center, this love is reawakened, and with the encouragement of his best friend, Denise (a makeup artist), he decides to try something he’s always wanted to do: drag. Some research, some shopping, and some practice walking in heels, and soon Gail Force is born. But Ted is still cautious. He’s terrified to tell his parents, fearing that acceptance of his homosexuality is the maximum they can offer, and feeling torn between his duty to the family business and an absolute lack of interest in it. Also, he has a new beau, Oskar Kozlowski, who is sweet but traumatized by growing up in Poland, where he could not be out. If that wasn’t enough to balance, Ted begins receiving mysterious letters that claim to know unsavory details about his father, a subplot that comes out of left field. Some chapters are from Oskar’s or Denise’s perspective but, no matter the character, the third-person writing is sprinkled with first-person thoughts, which feel a bit on the nose. A warning, as well, that fatphobia runs unchecked through the book. Outside of that, Ted is a sympathetic character who emerges into his new life taking two steps forward and one step back. Sweet, detailed, and heartwarming.
Cárdenas, Mauro Javier Dalkey Archive (350 pp.) | $17.95 paper May 7, 2024 | 9781628975185
Ecuadorian writer Cárdenas contemplates a dystopian future for Latin Americans in the U.S.
Ada, an architect, carries the childhood
trauma of her father Antonio’s unexpected deportation. A U.S. citizen born in Colombia, he was abducted while driving her and her younger sister to school in San Francisco; in the grim and eerily familiar near future of the novel, immigration status is meaningless. The Racist in Chief demonizes all Latin Americans; they’re surveilled and in constant danger of abduction, incarceration in governmental detention centers, and deportation. As Antonio explains, “Americans can’t imagine the conditions, and if they can’t imagine the conditions, they can’t imagine themselves as refugees, and if they can’t imagine themselves as refugees, they will conclude that refugees are different from them, a different species....” Ada’s sister, Eva, an installation artist, has moved to Bogotá to join their father. When he’s hospitalized, the sisters continue his work interviewing Latin American abductees around the globe. These interviews and the voices of participants in a dream forum serve as a sort of Greek chorus: “I imagined being part of a collective mind, the mind of all of us who have been deported and whose family members have been abducted, a mind like a sea struck by a meteor, a sea that ceases to be blue or green as it overtakes the continents, the fish turning into lizards and the lizards into birds with gills, a sea that is no longer the sea but a carnival of destruction and a cemetery and a neighborhood where I might run into you, Antonio....” Cárdenas writes with both playfulness and erudition. The long, looping sentences brim with references to writers and surrealists, as well as with rage and dark humor. His concern is less with individual stories, and more with the effects of fear and trauma on an entire population. A dark, original work.
Carver, Caro | Avid Reader Press (336 pp.) $28.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9781668058848
Three British women whose friendship was forged from trauma take a luxury holiday to celebrate a divorce—but someone has a different agenda.
After defining herself for years as the perfect wife and mother, Darcy is still reeling from her recent divorce. She decides to use part of the settlement to book a luxury vacation in the Maldives for herself and her two best friends, Kate and Camilla. Theirs is no ordinary friendship; they found each other just a few years ago, tied together by their different connections to a mass slaying 22 years earlier at an English guesthouse. The culprit turned himself in and died in prison, but as the anniversary approaches, it seems that all the women have reservations about whether justice was truly served. And despite the gorgeous ocean views and the bottomless cocktails, their vacation is not lacking in drama. They befriend a young woman on her honeymoon who can’t quite conceal the bruises from her husband’s fists and a suave dance instructor who goes missing after sharing a night of passion with Camilla. Is there a link between the long-ago massacre and the current acts of violence, or are the friends stuck in the trauma of their pasts? The setup to the story—the book’s first and second acts—is exquisitely tension-filled. The novel moves among the perspectives of several characters, and their psychological layers—particularly that of the “survivor” who, in her own words, is “barely existing”—give the book a depth and complexity that belie the basic thriller structure. The third act, however, falls firmly into the realm of the sensational. True, there’s a big twist, and it’s surprising, but the superficiality of the solution and the extremity of the final action scene are disappointing after the thoughtful scaffolding. A satisfying summer thriller—but it could have been so much more.
Swift River
Chambers, Essie | Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $27.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781668027912
A biracial teenager longs for a different future as she faces her family’s past and the buried secrets of her hometown.
“When you have a terrible thing happen that everyone knows about,” 16-year-old Diamond Newberry tells us, “you can be laid out flat by anyone.” It’s 1987 and she’s stuck in Swift River, a decaying New England mill town, laid out flat by just about everyone. At nearly 300 pounds and the only person of color in town, Diamond has been lonely most of her life. The “terrible thing” that hangs over her is her father Rob’s mysterious disappearance in 1980. Rob, who is Black, had been the subject of police scrutiny in the time just before his sneakers were found by the riverside, and Diamond struggles to separate rumors of his fate from fact. Since seven years have passed, Diamond’s mother, Annabelle, who is white, tries to get Rob declared legally dead in order to receive desperately needed life insurance money. But when a letter for Diamond arrives from Rob’s cousin, Diamond realizes how disconnected she’s felt from her father’s family and her “people,” having grown up hearing whispers about a single night in the early 20th century known as “The Leaving,” when all the Black mill workers planned to flee Swift River en masse. Chambers toggles between 1980 and 1987, while also immersing readers, via family letters, in Swift River Valley circa 1915, to tell a coming-of-age story that shows that our entry into adulthood carries with it all the weight of our family history and that of the places we come from. Despite a somewhat inelegant handling of Diamond’s weight, this novel’s assured plotting and emotional resonance should render it a breakout book.
Call your book club: This symphonic debut is your next read.
What compels a novelist to revisit the world of his best-loved novel?
BY TOM BEERA WRITER RUNS a risk in writing a sequel to any book—especially one beloved to readers. Can it ever live up to expectations? So Colm Tóibín, the 68-year-old author of 10 novels and two story collections, in addition to numerous works of nonfiction, says he felt trepidation—“immense trepidation!”—in revisiting the characters of his best-known work, Brooklyn (2009), later made into a 2015 film.
In the earlier novel, set in the 1950s, Eilis Lacey is a young girl who leaves her home in County Wexford, Ireland, to work in New York, where she meets—and marries—an Italian American plumber named Tony Fiorello. But her sister’s death brings Eilis back to her hometown of Enniscorthy—where she quietly omits the fact of her marriage and falls in love with a local boy, Jim
Farrell, before returning to America for good.
In a recent Zoom call from his apartment in Manhattan—the author splits his time between New York and Ireland—Tóibín talked about the decision to write his new novel, Long Island (Scribner, May 7), which picks up Eilis’ story 20 years later. As the story opens, an Irish stranger has appeared on Eilis’ suburban doorstep, accusing her husband, Tony, of an affair with his wife and threatening to deposit the baby that is on the way. This dramatic encounter sends Eilis back to Enniscorthy and to a reckoning with her past and her present. In a starred review, our critic calls it a “moving portrait of rueful middle age and the failure to connect.”
My conversation with Tóibín has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you have trepidation about doing the sequel to Brooklyn? There’s a pact the novelist makes with the reader: The reader has to imagine so much. Every time a character
There’s a pact the novelist makes with the reader: The reader has to imagine so much.
comes into the room—imagine the room, imagine the clothes, imagine the face, imagine the voice. You’re just giving some clues, for the reader to imagine. You don’t have to explain everything. And that includes the end. It may be that the end is not entirely finished, and you just end on an ambiguous note.
So I never planned this [sequel], had no ideas for it....And then the opening of this new book occurred to me. I don’t know where it came from. Suddenly, this Irish man would appear. It was essential that he was Irish, because Eilis is able to read him. If, for example, he was someone that she would call American, she’d have no idea if [his claim] was bluster. But the guy has an Irish accent, so it’s two Irish people in America confronting each other. And once I had that, I then had the book.
How long had this been percolating? Not long. Probably, [it came to me] at some point in the pandemic. It just occurred to me and then I wrote the book. But it honestly was a bit of a surprise.
Probably to your publisher, too. I think they thought I was going to write another novel about a German novelist with his family and all that. [Ed.: Tóibín’s last novel, The Magician, was based on the life of Thomas Mann.] There might have been a slight sigh of relief.
One of the things I love about this novel, not unlike Brooklyn, is that we don’t spend very long on Long Island, despite the title. Yes, Eilis lives there. And the opening section of the book is there. But it’s not as though she’s integrated in any way. That’s not what happens to people who are emigrants. It takes them so long to integrate. It’s the next generation experiences the world. [Emigrants] are caught between two. It’s very much a novel about domestic space. I used to go out to Long Island and just look at those three or four houses—I’m not going to tell you where they are—that were in a cul de sac that were absolutely possible [as the Fiorello family enclave]. I didn’t interfere with the people, I didn’t talk to anyone. I would go
Scribner | 304 pp. |
May 7, 2024 | 9781476785110
out there, just look, just walk along those leafy avenues, and then get back on the train into the city.
Setting shapes everything, right?
No one has lived in this house before. These streets, 20 years earlier, were black, in the sense that they were agricultural land. This is a new suburb; therefore everything Eilis does has no tradition, no history, and she’s really thrown her lot in with this Italian family who almost don’t see her at certain moments.
Quite a contrast with her hometown of Enniscorthy, back in Ireland. It’s a real place, your hometown. Enniscorthy is all topography. There are loads of bars that are named [in the novel]—all those bars are real. The only bar that’s invented is Jim’s bar. But all the other things—street names, street corners, names of bars, names of shops—are real. She buys her newspaper in a shop called Godfrey’s. Well, anyone in Enniscorthy will tell you where that was. But notice that there’s no Irish history. It’s not as though we’re talking about nationalism or the IRA. For example, Enniscorthy is a famous town because the last battle of 1798 was fought there; Seamus Heaney [writes about] Father
Murphy, the rebel—there’s none of that in Long Island
But lots of family history, no? Going back one generation only—very important. All that stuff is too easy to put in there. Still they were haunted by history. No, they’re not. They’re just haunted by the previous generation.
You’ve written many novels over the years, inspired by the lives of Henry James and Thomas Mann, by Greek mythology and the New Testament. But you keep coming back to Enniscorthy. Altogether now there are five: There’s The Heather Blazing [1993], The Blackwater Lightship [2000], Brooklyn, Nora Webster [2014], and Long Island. And in this new one, there are references to characters from the other books. When they’re walking down to the beach, they pass the judge’s house— well, that’s The Heather Blazing. Nancy meets Nora Webster on the street. Lily Devereux comes to the wedding—Lily is the daughter from The Blackwater Lightship. So there is a sense of them all connecting as fictional characters into this circular world I’ve made. I’ll be able to fully people the town by the time I’m finished! It’s a sort of mischief almost. They’re not real characters. They’re not fictional characters. It’s a funny space in between, in which you’re making your fiction seem more real.
Did the fact of the Brooklyn movie change revisiting these characters for you?
I had Eilis so clearly in my mind, and Saoirse Ronan’s performance is so particular, I think, that it wasn’t as though I could take things from the way Saoirse was. But with Jim, the actor Domhnall Gleeson managed to play a thing that is almost impossible to play, which is a quiet, thoughtful Irishman. Think about it, you know? Even the film The Irishman —trouble coming. Jim does the opposite, and watching Domhnall build that—it’s very, very subtle, what he does, and I found it very moving. From that performance I got something that I could work with for Jim. Next time I see Domhnall, I have to thank him.
The Next Mrs. Parrish
Constantine, Liv | Bantam (336 pp.) $27.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9780593599921
The bitch is back!
After four intervening novels of varying success, the sisters who write as Constantine have returned to the well, bringing back the craven sociopathic hussy we loved to hate in their breakout debut, The Last Mrs. Parrish (2017). The good news is, Amber Patterson Parrish, a.k.a. Lana Crump, is worse than ever. As the novel opens, she’s visiting her handsome, deeply horrible husband, Jackson, at Camp Fed, where he’s soon to wrap up his sentence and return to Amber’s loathing arms. “Amber had worried at first that the scandal would make her per sona non grata in Bishops Harbor, but apparently tax evasion was a crime that didn’t garner much antipathy among the one-percenters.” Each of them has plans to dump the other just as soon as they can get through the welcome home party, and each has their own evil scheme for what happens after that. His: to get back the first Mrs. Parrish—sweet, confused, abused Daphne, who took the girls and moved to California after the divorce, where she divides her time between much-needed therapy and her cystic fibrosis nonprofit. Hers: to rob him blind and fly the coop, dumping little Jackson Junior with the nanny. I mean, he’s cute, but... you gotta do what you gotta do. What Amber doesn’t know is that Daisy Ann Briscoe, whose father was so briefly married to Amber that Daisy Ann didn’t even know Amber existed before he died “in a hunting accident,” has alternate plans for her former stepmother. She just has to find a way to prove what actually happened out in those Colorado woods. There’s no manipulative unreliable narrator, no
contrived backstory shoehorned in at the eleventh hour, and the over-the-topness—like Amber meeting a shady diamond dealer named Mr. Stones—reads as funny and intentional. You go, ladies. The timeless battle between good and evil has never been trashier. Hooray.
Dorn, Anna | Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) | $18.99 paper May 21, 2024 | 9781668047170
Astrid Dahl, a midlist author obsessed with both her expansive perfume collection and her new Los Angeles neighbor, finds herself struggling to stay sober and avoid becoming wrapped up in yet another toxic relationship.
When readers are first introduced to Astrid—who is just about as abrasive and scathing as a character can be—things are not going well. She’s struggling with an on-again, off-again addiction to a combination of recreational drugs and alcohol that she calls the Patricia Highsmith, her career as a writer is on the verge of falling apart after a disastrous event at a Barnes & Noble, and her love life has largely been unsuccessful (due in no small part to Astrid’s attraction to drama). All that begins to change, however, when Astrid finds herself torn between Ivy, a secretive and seductive Ph.D. student who’s in her online writing group, the Sapphic Scribes,
and Penelope, a self-confident older artist who conveniently lives in the bungalow next to Astrid’s. While she is initially apprehensive of Penelope and the smell of patchouli that clings to her, as they spend more time together, Astrid’s attraction grows to the point of obsession, mirroring Ivy’s obsession with Astrid. The book swiftly takes on a lurid, fever dream–like quality as Astrid’s Patricia Highsmith–induced blackouts happen with increasing frequency and produce unsettling results. Dorn’s book, whose title is taken from a popular work of lesbian pulp fiction written by Kimberley Kemp (aka Gilbert Fox) in the 1960s, is acerbic, steamy, and compulsively readable—fans of ribald, satirical humor (with a specific focus on celebrity melodrama and LGBTQ+ culture) will read it in one go. It’s this author’s best work yet.
A Sapphic roller-coaster ride and pitch-perfect homage to lesbian pulp fiction.
Ehtesham-Zadeh, Suzi
Dzanc | $17.95 paper
June 11, 2024 | 9781950539932
Iranian and Iranian American women navigate the ways in which they are bound by their countries and by those who would curtail their spirits.
In EhteshamZadeh’s debut collection, the Iranian Revolution exerts its massive gravity, like a giant planet at the edge of these narrative universes. In “Aab,” for
A Sapphic roller-coaster ride and pitch-perfect homage to lesbian pulp fiction.
PERFUME & PAIN
example, teenage Minoo confronts the contrast between her grandmother—a downcast old woman—and the champion swimmer on the Iranian national team her grandmother used to be before Khomeini came to power. In “Coming Out, Going Under,” a young lesbian under her father’s thumb in Tehran is given access to an online network of other queer people in her country. In the stories set in the U.S., even Americanized characters experience a sense of shame and secrecy that makes them feel like outsiders in their own lives—as in “Her Revolution,” when Shireen, a middle-aged teacher, receives an unexpected email from a former lover from her pre-college years in Tehran that upends the quiet, stable life in which she guards the secrets of her past. In her preface, Ehtesham-Zadeh writes about the ongoing Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) movement in Iran, noting that it is her goal with her stories “to provide a lens through which [her] readers might view a complex reality, bring it close, and find it less strange.” Presuming that the reader finds it strange, though, leads to the stories often being information driven, rather than character driven, as if EhteshamZadeh first chose the topic she wanted to educate her audience about and then wrote a story around it, rather than the other way around. This creates sometimes stilted narratives, though admiration and indignation for the women of Iran always shine through. Plainspoken protest stories that balance head and heart in their attempts to evoke empathy.
Escoria, Juliet | Soft Skull Press (256 pp.) | $16.95 paper June 18, 2024 | 9781593767747
Short stories that expose the rages, obsessions, and plights of girls and women.
In “The Hot Girl,” the narrator’s best friend stabs her
boyfriend in the leg in a jealous fit of rage, nearly killing him. In “Roadkill,” a group of restless and unhappy college-aged girls spend their weekends partying and taunting their peers; one night, they sexually assault a boy. In “The Ryans,” two teenage girls vengefully trash the room of their friend, Ryan, who has sold them fake pot. Escoria’s raw stories span from early childhood (a third-grade girl’s friend, Katie, wants to “play girlfriend and boyfriend” and simulates having sex) to adulthood (in “Hazel: A Diptych,” a relative learns about the life of the now-deceased Hazel, who was bipolar and was raped by her father and sexually assaulted her own son). All of Escoria’s characters seem to exist in the same fraught and relentless world—one rife with violence, addiction, partying, sexual assault. Many of the stories feature heavy drug usage: a student who tries meth before a midterm, a recovering addict who takes her 60-something heroin-addicted uncle to AA. Escoria highlights apathetic, almost sociopathic women—characters who, upon learning of a hated co-worker or fellow student’s death, “wanted to laugh but…didn’t.” Her stories are permeated by violence, both physical and emotional, and seek to expose the dirty underbelly of everyday, more peaceable life. At times, these revelations can feel refreshingly peculiar; in these moments, the secret pains of womanhood feel collective, shared. In one such tale, a young woman and her boyfriend wait out a storm in Brooklyn while in the middle of breaking up: “My heart was still pounding from the ride but also from the knowledge that this was a person fading, someone who was there in my life but also wasn’t.” But more often, the stories lack an adequate contextual framework, and feel unnecessarily—even irredeemably—cruel.
A damning, if not wholly successful, examination of the violences of womanhood.
Fenton, Reuven | Central Avenue Publishing (320 pp.) | $28.00 May 28, 2024 | 9781771683685
Estranged twin brothers, one a rabbi and the other a reprobate businessman, reunite after the death of their mother for a road trip through the Deep South after learning she wasn’t Jewish—and so neither are they.
And not only are Mayer, the rabbi, and David, his drug-fueled brother, not Jewish, as she raised them in Georgia—a shocking truth revealed in her suicide note—her grandfather was “a Nazi of some kind.” Mayer, who studies the Torah the way some people devour pizza (it kills him not to be able to read it during his period of mourning, as per Jewish law), hatches a plan to convert to Judaism before returning home to his devout wife in Brooklyn. He defines goyhood as “the state of rebounding from one travesty to the next” and a lot of mishegas goes under the bridge, including a highway incident involving the one-eyed dog they rescue, a Larry David–like blowup at the Baby Light My Fireworks store in Mississippi when they object to its self-bagging policy, and the addition of David’s influencer friend Charlayne, who offends Mayer by sleeping in David’s bed. She sees their sojourn as a Jewish version of Rumspringa , but the book has more the feel of a Jewish Confederacy of Dunces (its New Orleans scenes feed that comparison) albeit without its satirical edge and dark sense of purpose. As entertaining a ride as this first novel by veteran New York reporter Fenton can be, the humor grows stale, the characters are pretty much locked in place even as Mayer is drawn into the secular life, and the soundtrack (Bob Dylan, Patsy Cline, Creedence Clearwater Revival) seems piped in from another book. A novel with plenty of spritz but not much follow-through.
Kirkus Star
Malas
Fuentes, Marcela | Viking (384 pp.)
$29.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9780593655788
An entrancing debut novel set in a “dinky little border town” on the Texas side of the Rio Grande links the stories of two women, one a young wife and mother in the 1950s and the other a 14-yearold in 1994.
Both are considered malas by those around them, bad girls who are “willful and didn’t listen.” In 1951, Pilar Aguirre, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Mexican man, has moved to the United States with her handsome charro husband, José, and is shocked when an older woman approaches her house saying she herself is José’s wife. The woman puts a curse on Pilar, which seems to come true when two of Pilar and José’s children die. Despite the help provided by her sensible older comadre, Romi, Pilar is unable to cope with her situation. Four decades later, Lulu Muñoz—whose mother died in a motorcycle accident when she was 5—is being raised by a loving but alcoholic father along with her grandmother Romi. Lead singer in a punk band, Lulu is ambivalent about her upcoming quinceañera, with its frills and gaudy ceremony, until she forms a close relationship with the glamorous and mysterious Pilar, who has returned to town after decades away and comes up with a surprising scheme for the party. While the sections of the novel set in the ’90s are the liveliest, full of the complicated details of being a teenager pulled by tradition and pop culture, romance and independence, the briefer sections set in the ’50s provide a sense of context and of the differences and similarities between the two young women as Fuentes cunningly reveals the unexpected ties that bind them.
A vibrant portrait of two strong women and their mixed feelings about home.
Hart, Alison B. | Graydon House (352 pp.)
$28.99 | May 14, 2024 | 9781525804274
Four adult siblings deal with the fallout of their father’s kidnapping in Iraq 10 years earlier.
Hart follows her successful debut, The Work Wife (2019), with another socially and politically engaged novel, this one less deft in managing its large cast and plethora of back- and side-stories. April, May, June, and July Barber—three sisters and a brother—and their mom, Nancy, have seen their wounded family fracture to the point that, as the book opens, none of the others makes it to an engagement party thrown for Junie and her wife-to-be. Lawyer April is busy cheating on her husband, zookeeper May has reconnected with an old love, soccer coach Junie is drinking all day, and July is struggling with a crush on his straight college roommate. Their mom is in the best shape of the bunch, though she’s hiding her relationship with a local dentist because she’s supposed to be the martyred wife of #FreeFrankBarber, taken by terrorists while working for a chemical weapons contractor in Iraq in 2004. Then she and her oldest child, April, take a trip to Dubrovnik, during which April sees her father on the street but cannot catch up to him. So...that’s a lot. Keeping the characters and complications straight is too much work; trips to the Middle East feel dropped in and full of history lessons, touristy descriptions, and late-breaking new characters; and ultimately the many issues the book takes on start to make the whole thing feel more earnest than fun. Hart will doubtless write better books than this one.
Hart, Rob | Putnam (320 pp.) | $28.00 June 11, 2024 | 9780593717394
A former assassin fights to remain retired.
Mark is good at killing. After honing his skills as a Navy SEAL, he became an infamous hitman known as the Pale Horse, taking freelance gigs while also working for a clandestine deep-state organization dubbed the Agency. Then, last Christmas, something happened that caused him to quit cold turkey. Thanks to Assassins Anonymous, a support group designed to help people like him transition into a new way of life, Mark is just days away from receiving his one-year chip when a Mohawk-sporting Russian with prison tattoos jumps him, stabs him in the side, and flees. Mark manages to make it from the Lower East Side to the Bowery, where a black-market trauma surgeon named Astrid patches him up, but when he returns to his West Village apartment to retrieve the cash to pay her, he finds the place in flames. He ducks into his favorite local haunt to collect himself, only for the bartender to pass him a note from his Russian attacker that reads simply: SHE’S PRETTY. With Astrid now in danger, Mark has no choice but to bring her along on his desperate quest to uncover who wants him dead and why. Despite Mark’s insistence that “being an assassin is nothing like John Wick,” Hart’s latest wears its myriad cinematic influences on its sleeve. Escalating stakes and precisely choreographed action sequences keep the pages turning, but a slew of increasingly gonzo twists skew the tone toward camp—a vibe underscored by Mark’s droll yet angsty first-person-present narration. Though Hart often mistakes quirk for character development, the scenes Mark shares with his fellow recovering murder addicts impart some nice emotional resonance, helping to ground the tale and lend it heft.
Bombastic whiz-bang fun.
Ibeh, Chukwuebuka | Doubleday (288 pp.) $28.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9780385550642
A young gay man navigates a family, school, and an entire country that holds him in contempt.
Ibeh’s potent debut novel centers on Obiefuna, who in 2006 is 15 years old and living with his family in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt. His father, a tradesman, brings home a young male apprentice, Aboy. Obiefuna and the new houseguest share little more than flirtatious looks and smiles, but that’s enough to prompt Obiefuna’s father to evict Aboy and send his son to a religious boys’ school. Obiefuna is bright, but the school is more like a physical and sexual proving ground; one classmate draws Obiefuna into a dominant relationship, complete with belt whippings, while another, more overtly gay classmate faces the abuse of his peers. Like any young gay man without a support group, Obiefuna is consumed by feelings of guilt that commingle with sexual desire; the distinction in Nigeria, as Ibeh makes clear, is that cultural homophobia is more acculturated and more pervasively dangerous. Ibeh ably captures Obiefuna’s path from terror to a relatively more open feeling of sexual freedom in his mid-20s, but he’s careful to make his story neither a tragedy nor a liberation tale. If Obiefuna can’t shed a society’s disdain, he can attempt to project kindness, an effort symbolized by his mother’s quiet but consistent support for him. And he can attempt to see the bigotry clearly, symbolized by his choice to pursue a career in optometry. The book has its share of overly melodramatic moments, particularly when Obiefuna’s mother is involved, and some of the protagonist’s experiences are well worn in American gay fiction. But the latter chapters, focused on Nigeria’s specific political, religious, and cultural bigotry—and its painful consequences in the 2010s—are striking and original.
A bloody tale littered with the bodies of the powerful, ambitious, and innocent.
NERO
A sensitive, quietly powerful coming-of-age tale.
Iggulden, Conn | Pegasus (400 pp.)
$27.95 | May 24, 2024 | 9781639366545
A sweeping novel of ancient Rome and the early days of Nero. To borrow a philosopher’s phrase opining on another era, life in ancient Rome was nasty, brutish, and short—and being on top of the heap didn’t seem to help much. In the year 37 CE, the brutal Emperor Tiberius is dying. Agrippina is related to him by marriage and has a young son, Lucius, who will one day become known as Nero. Sit back and enjoy—or cringe at—this bloody tale that is littered with the bodies of the powerful, the ambitious, and the innocent. The story roughly follows Agrippina and her son, Lucius, who carry cruelty in their genes. She, for example, poisons her husband, Italus, a centurion who seems only to have treated her well. When the wretched Tiberius dies, Agrippina’s brother becomes emperor. He is Gaius Julius Caesar, nicknamed Caligula, or Little Boots, and he is “quite mad…as dangerous as any scorpion.” “It was death to touch” Caligula, even to rescue him from a dangerous fall. He exiles his sister on a vague suspicion, but after she eventually returns, she marries his uncle Claudius, who spits on his nephew’s corpse. In time, she and Lucius accompany Claudius on his campaign to conquer Britannia. Then—no spoiler, this—Agrippina tells the lad that one
day he’ll be Emperor Nero. The novel seems to follow historical events as accurately as possible, considering the passing of two millennia. “Life was violence,” and so at times was birth, as in one horrific scene with Caligula’s son. The fact that Nero murders his mom will have to wait for a sequel. Splendid storytelling about ambition, cruelty, and power.
Kanakia, Naomi | Amethyst Editions (264 pp.) | $17.95 paper May 28, 2024 | 9781558613164
A transgender woman embarks on a quest to exploit the cynical, lavish lives of Silicon Valley’s elite for her own gain. For years, Jhanvi has made a living working at a co-op grocery store in Sacramento in order to save up for her gender-affirming surgeries. It’s an honest if uneventful way of life, but everything changes when her old friend Henry mentions that he and his laughably oblivious tech-bro buddies spent more than $100,000 creating a fancy sex dungeon in a warehouse basement. Determined to exploit Henry’s money and health care benefits, Jhanvi hatches a plan to marry him. What she doesn’t expect is to be hypnotized by the beautiful and privileged world that awaits her. Kanakia’s novel has a great setup, but the execution doesn’t live up to its potential. It’s clear from the first pages that none of Jhanvi’s friends have accepted her for who she is and don’t intend to. Readers will
Moore received the prize for her latest novel, I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home.
The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards were presented March 21 in a ceremony held at the New School in New York City.
Lorrie Moore received the fiction prize for I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home, a wide-ranging novel set, variously, in a Civil War–era boardinghouse, a hospice in the Bronx, and the underworld. In a review last year, a Kirkus critic wrote of the book, “It doesn’t get more elegiac than this.”
The Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize went to Maureen Freely’s translation of Tzer Özlü’s Cold Nights of Childhood The novel was originally published in Turkish in 1980; Transit Books released the English translation last May. A
Kirkus critic called the book a “powerful evocation of mental torment and ecstasy.” Özlü died in 1986.
The nonfiction award went to Roxanna Asgarian for We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America; while Safiya Sinclair won the autobiography award for How To Say Babylon. The biography award went to Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage
A number of special awards were presented, including the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to author Judy Blume, who thanked the critics in a prerecorded video taped at her bookstore in Key West, Florida. For a complete list of winners, visit the National Book Critics Circle website.—T.B.
For a review of I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home, visit Kirkus online.
Jean Hanff Korelitz’s new novel, titled The Sequel, will be published by Celadon Books.
A sequel to Jean Hanff Korelitz’s bestseller The Plot is coming this fall, the novel’s publisher, Celadon Books, has announced.
According to Celadon, Korelitz’s new novel, The Sequel, brings back Anna Williams-Bonner after she has “laid to rest those anonymous accusations of plagiarism that so tormented” her husband, bestselling novelist Jacob Finch Bonner. Now Anna “is living the contented life of a literary widow” and “enjoying her husband’s royalty checks in perpetu ity,” all while trying to write her own bestseller.
The Plot, which is currently being turned into a Hulu series
starring Oscar-winning actor Mahershala Ali, was widely celebrated following its 2021 release. A Kirkus reviewer called the book “gripping and thoroughly unsettling” and a “satisfyingly twisty thriller.”
Korelitz is also the author of The Latecomer, which is currently being adapted as a limited series. Her other books include You Should Have Known, the basis for the 2020 HBO series The Undoing, starring Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant, and Donald Sutherland; and Admission, which was made into a 2013 film with Tina Fey.
The Sequel is slated for release on Oct. 1.
—AMY REITER
undoubtedly root for Jhanvi as she tries to navigate the complicated relationship dynamics she faces as well as her own feelings of rejection and dismissal by both of the groups she desperately wants to be a part of—the fire-eaters she’s infiltrated and the transgender community. But while the plot should have had an explosive Robin Hood feel, it ends up spinning its wheels. While Henry and his friends are intentionally vapid and privileged millennials, they’re also flat, making their strategically planned downfall an anticlimax. Even Jhanvi begins to grate as she struggles to keep up with their indulgent lifestyle. A hedonistic tale of greed that fails to hit its mark.
Star
Soldier Sailor
Kilroy, Claire | Scribner (240 pp.)
$26.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9781668051801
In this intense first-person narrative, a mother explores the emotional extremes she has experienced during her son’s first years of life. Irish novelist Kilroy, who has previously written autobiographical nonfiction about postpartum cognitive difficulties, joins the coterie of recent writers whose fiction exposes the dark alleys of early motherhood. A pattern of ambivalence, guilt, and overpowering love repeats throughout Kilroy’s novel. Narrator Soldier recounts to her 4-year-old son, Sailor, her difficulties in adjusting to being his mother: the depth of her love (“I would kill for you”), her exhaustion, her loss of independence and ambition, her resentment toward her largely clueless husband. A pivotal scene that shows the thin membrane “between coping and not” occurs months after Sailor’s birth, the day after Soldier endures a particularly nasty fight with her husband: In a state of fatigue and dejection approaching delirium, she
decides to abandon her infant son in a misguided act of protectiveness “so another woman could love you better,” only to rush back when she hears his cry. While she never acts that scarily again, she shares other moments of milder derangement any mother will recognize. Soldier’s sense of isolation, exacerbated by her husband’s seeming obliviousness, continues until she meets a former acquaintance who happens to be a stay-at-home dad. Hanging out with her new friend at the playground makes mothering more fun and turns her into a “better mother” if a “worse wife.” While the friendship remains ostensibly platonic, her marriage reaches a crisis point. Kilroy’s central idea about the difficulties of early motherhood can feel familiar, but her narrator’s wit, brutal honesty, and unsentimental love for her child—and imperfect but ultimately decent husband—set this book apart. A sharp, funny, often painful yet oddly hopeful take on adjusting to motherhood.
King, Stephen | Scribner (512 pp.)
$30.00 | May 21, 2024 | 9781668037713
A dozen tales from the master of creepiness. Do you like your short stories on the dark side? Enjoy having eerie images and unsettling plot points turn your dreams into nightmares? Take pleasure in jumping at shadows and feeling your heart beat faster after nightfall? If so, this beefy new collection is for you. In a dozen stories—some considerably longer than others—spanning about 500 pages, King gives the reader a host of things to fear: deadly snakes, ghoulish ghosts of long-dead children, man-eating alligators, stealthy serial killers, plummeting airplanes, mad scientists, mistaken identity. Along the way, he also offers insights about,
among other things, the fickleness of talent, the power and pathos of unrealized dreams, the pain and pleasure of relationships, and the meaning and meaninglessness of life and, of course, death. In “Two Talented Bastids,” the son of a famous writer seeks out the source of his father’s success as well as that of his father’s best friend, an artist—and confronts his own limitations. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a man’s dream about a dead body turns into a living nightmare of suspicion and disbelief. “The Answer Man” explores the value of knowing your future; “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to King’s bestseller Cujo (1981), the importance of reckoning with the past. And while the book is not without an occasional misstep (“Red Screen,” about a cop with a nitpicking perimenopausal wife, say), King’s conversational prose, relatable characters, and knack for knowing precisely what you are afraid of will draw you in—page by page, horror by horror—and hold you fast.
The disturbing stories in King’s latest collection will seep into your psyche and haunt you.
Lau Yee-Wa | Trans. by Jennifer Feeley Feminist Press (280 pp.) | $17.95 paper June 11, 2024 | 978-1-55861-318-8
In Lau’s dark, provocative debut about two Chinese language teachers in an increasingly suppressed Hong Kong, politics becomes personal. Two months after Wai’s gruesome suicide by an electric drill, her cubicle remains untouched. Even the bizarre mirrors that cover her desk and bookcase stay in place, a sight that the other teachers in the Chinese department at the Sing Din Secondary School avoid. But Ling,
who sat closest to Wai, is reminded every afternoon when the sea of mirrors reflects the glare of the sunlight. Her life has changed dramatically since Wai’s death; forced to teach Wai’s classes, Ling finds that her workload has increased to the point that “she didn’t leave school until eight or nine o’clock each night.” Worse, her principal is pressuring her to take the LPAT, a test used to measure Chinese language teachers’ ability to teach in Mandarin. Many schools in Hong Kong are switching from teaching in the native Cantonese to the Mandarin of the Chinese mainland. The principal warns, “Competition is fierce. Ling, you’re smart. You understand what I’m getting at.” The author skillfully toggles the narrative between the present and the past to contrast the two teachers’ approaches to an unavoidable professional challenge. Awkward Wai alienates her colleagues by insisting on speaking Mandarin in staff meetings.
Clever Ling’s social savviness, which enabled her to coast at the school for 10 years, is no longer enough to save her from mirroring her colleague’s downward spiral— unless she makes a radical change. The use of mirrors (the word is repeated more than 100 times throughout the novel) is a powerful metaphor, not only for Ling’s lack of self-reflection but also for a society that values surface appearances (designer brands and plastic surgery are popular topics of discussion in the teachers’ office).
Translator Feeley’s concluding essay offers insightful context on Hong Kong’s current political situation. A taut, chilling novel about the weaponization of language as a tool of oppression.
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$30.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9780385549554
As Julia approaches 60, she clarifies her identity as mother, wife, and daughter in this novel of domestic ambivalence.
As well as a meditation on good and bad mothering, this is a novel about “marriage in the aftermath of an affair.” Part-time librarian Julia Ames has settled into a long marriage with ever-patient, ever-loving (a little too perfect to believe) husband Mark in the Chicago suburbs. Now, as Julia and Mark face major changes—their 24-year-old son’s impending marriage and fatherhood, their daughter’s high school graduation and departure for college—a brief encounter with a once close friend prompts Julia to reexamine her personal history. In obsessive, sometimes repetitive detail, she rehashes instances of fear, resentment, and anxiety and her overpowering sense of not fitting in. She also relives the choices she made that almost derailed her life. Julia is not exactly a sympathetic or trustworthy character. Insecure and uncomfortable with most people, including her children—to whom she’s offered deep but ambivalent love—she has difficulty expressing affection and tends to shut down difficult conversations with snarky wit. But if she is judgmental, she is most critical of herself and clearly wounded; her single mother had neither time nor inclination to parent her properly, and Julia’s hints about a major adolescent trauma build to an
eventual anticlimactic reveal. While the “preposterous political landscape” remains in the background, class and entitlement issues are front and center. In addition to her mother’s emotional neglect, financial insecurity marred Julia’s childhood, rendering her a cynical but keen-eyed observer of the wealthy, educated world in which she has landed, a world that allows Julia’s crises, however initially unnerving, to end in soft landings.
Lombardo’s density of sociological and psychological details is immersive at best but can sometimes be enervating.
Loskutoff, Maxim | Norton (304 pp.) $27.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780393868197
Loskutoff tells the story of a violent radical living within a rural community. For the decades that he sent bombs around the country, Ted Kaczynski lived in a small Montana town. This novel uses that piece of history as a starting point, focusing largely on the Unabomber’s neighbors over the course of several years as they go about their business, unaware that their reclusive neighbor is leaving a trail of violence and death across the nation. Loskutoff opts to tell this story as an ensemble piece, beginning with a man named Duane Oshun, who drives to Montana in the wake of his marriage falling apart and eventually encounters a tattooed pastor named Kim Younger. Duane settles there, finding work as a logger and meeting some of
A novel that’s strongest when it’s most philosophical.
OLD KING
the other townspeople, including Hutch, who keeps wounded animals, including a bear, on his property.
The most interesting parts of the novel focus on its more morally conflicted characters, including Duane and a Forest Service agent, Mason, who struggle with the transformation of the region and their own place in it. The work of the Wilderness Society and anti-logging activists looms in the background of much of the novel’s action. As for Kaczynski, he’s portrayed unsympathetically throughout the novel—a man who poisons his neighbor’s dogs and dreams about “cities on fire, dams bursting, and planes falling from the sky.” Nep, the postal inspector who spends years tracking Kaczynski, is a far more compelling character—an agent whose inherent curiosity often leads his interviews into unexpected places. The details of small-town life and communion with the outdoors are neatly rendered, but this novel’s real-life terrorist is its least interesting aspect. Which may be the point. A novel that’s at its strongest when it’s most philosophical and digressive.
Marshall, Maureen | Grand Central Publishing (416 pp.) | $19.99 paper May 28, 2024 | 9781538757802
An engineer working on the Eiffel Tower draws the attention of a wealthy heir who may be more dangerous than he seems.
Fin Tighe, who has come to Paris from London to escape his cruel aristocratic father, has found some success as an engineer working with Gustave Eiffel. But he struggles to support himself and his cousin Aurélie, a ballerina he strives to protect from the lecherous men who prey on young dancers. While at one of her performances, Fin catches the eye of Gilbert Duhais, the nephew and heir of Michel de Genet, scion of a luxury department store that seeks to make inroads in the U.K. The meeting is fortuitous: Fin has been asked to drum up investments for the planned Eiffel Tower, an unpopular undertaking that has lost funding and threatens his and his employer’s financial solvency. Gilbert offers to introduce him to the wealthiest people in Parisian society but also reveals that he knows Fin’s father and was friends with Aurélie’s abusive brother. Despite his hesitancy, Fin allows Gilbert to advocate for him, and in time begins a romantic relationship that puts them both at risk. But as the two grow closer, danger mounts—one of Fin’s friends goes missing and another turns up dead. Soon Fin learns that Gilbert is more than his uncle’s accountant, and Fin must determine what the real motive is for his interest. With his convoluted backstory, Fin can be hard to empathize with. Stubborn and untrusting, he lacks any dynamism that would match Gilbert’s flair. Instead, the coupling seems random and without passion, and the mystery of why Gilbert has chosen to befriend him becomes tangled in too many potential connections between the two to make sense.
This overstuffed novel is heavy on suspicion and light on chemistry.
Nathan, Patrick | Counterpoint (224 pp.) $26.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9781640096240
Nathan’s novel begins as the story of a semicloseted gay screenwriter in 1950s Hollywood, but the scope grows to encompass issues of identity, social mores, and the survival of humankind.
The dense first 100 pages recount a 1956 turning point in George Curtis’ life. Aware of his otherness, the gay, Hungarian-born Jewish émigré tries to keep a low profile, away from the Hollywood limelight. Then the Hungarian uprising against the USSR compels him to write a serious political/philosophical essay. Leaving his studio job scripting B movies, he takes refuge at the glamorous mansion of a married but sexually predatory pair of movie stars. George’s sardonic wit—tinged with nostalgia, loneliness, and loss—sets a moody noir tone as drugs, sex, and Cold War paranoia of nuclear dimensions rock his previously buttoned-up life. Suddenly the narration shifts to New York City in 1944. Sixteenyear-old George arrives as a parentless refugee. The roots of his adult tendencies—his capacity to reinvent himself as needed, the double life he maintains as a homosexual, his fear of his capacity for deep affection, his (or the author’s) tendency to pontificate about concepts like the ethics of destruction—become evident, and readers realize with surprise that the George who was so apparently jaded in California was not yet 30 years old. Poor and uneducated, adolescent George thrusts himself into Manhattan’s bohemian world of artists and writers. He thrives until a combination of misfortunes, including a tragic love affair, forces his escape to California. Now
hopscotching past California, the narration picks up in late-20th-century Paris, where 40-year-old George has moved and, for a while, achieved a satisfying life. Though George struggles as a gay man and an immigrant, the message here is that the fear of loneliness and annihilation are universal and existential while happiness and love, however fleeting, are available to all.
Ambitious, perspicacious, and humane.
Palombo, Alyssa | Crooked Lane (320 pp.)
$29.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781639107872
Courtesan by night, ruthless killer whenever duty calls. As Valentina Riccardi walks the crowded streets of Venice inconspicuously, like “an ordinary Venetian woman out for the holiday celebration” of Ascension Day 1538, her employer, politician and spymaster Ambrogio Malatesta, is close by, and so is her target, a redheaded Spaniard who’s a client of her fellow courtesan Marietta.
Valentina dispatches the Spaniard with ease and vanishes into the crowd in Palombo’s Venice, which is beautiful, dangerous, and sensual, especially for the wealthy power brokers who patronize Valentina and her colleagues. The Venetian Council of Ten, which Malatesta controls, can be mentioned only in whispers. This highly entertaining story unfolds as a procession of tautly depicted contract killings, transactional sexual encounters, and more fervent trysts with Valentina’s lover Bastiano Bragadin, all of which the courtesan narrates with cool, luxe precision. The only crack in her composure is caused by her painful separation from the couple’s daughter, Ginevra, who’s being
Valentina is a courtesan by night and a ruthless killer whenever duty calls.
THE ASSASSIN OF VENICE
raised on a farm far from the city. Valentina is torn between the luxury and vibrancy her two métiers provide and the yearning for a conventional life with her lover and daughter. But a much larger crack appears when she’s assigned to kill her beloved Bastiano. In a series of “Interludes” set a decade earlier, the ebullience of young Maria Angelina, rapturously in love with her fiance, Massimo, a wealthy merchant’s son, contrasts sharply with Valentina’s calculating, Machiavellian mind. This backstory ends with a surprising twist that cleverly links the two plots. A juicy tale of romantic suspense, elegantly appointed.
Pearson, Joanna | Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $28.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781639732890
A spiraling divorcée becomes obsessed with solving the decades-old murder of her college roommate. Though they had lived together as freshmen at UNC Chapel Hill, by sophomore year Joy Brunner and Karlie Richards barely spoke thanks to Karlie’s affair with the married sociology professor Joy had a crush on. In December of that year, Karlie mailed Joy a letter, which Joy didn’t open. In January, someone strangled Karlie to death in her off-campus apartment. Police arrested the person who found her body—a developmentally disabled
young man named Toby who worked at a restaurant Karlie frequented—but many questioned his guilt. Now, nearly 20 years later, in 2019, Joy is reeling from her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s decision to trade her in for a happier, more fertile model when her son discovers Karlie’s unread letter tucked in a book. To Joy’s surprise, the missive contains both an apology for hurting her and clues suggesting the wrong person is in prison for Karlie’s homicide. Joy latches onto the notion like a life raft, determined to give her lonely days meaning. Pearson’s debut is less a thriller than a loosely woven web of character sketches, several of which are only minimally related to either Karlie’s demise or Joy’s investigation. While this approach allows Pearson to paint nuanced portraits of would-be bit players—such as Joy’s teenage son, Karlie’s lover’s wife, and the present-day night manager of Karlie’s old apartment complex—it also leaves Joy and Karlie somewhat underdeveloped, diminishing the book’s stakes and throttling its drive. An abrupt, almost arbitrary ending does further disservice, neutralizing the emotional impact and precluding any sense of catharsis. A little more attention to plot would have gone a long way. Artful but unsatisfying.
“A grounded remembrance of an outwardly glittering Hollywood upbringing.”
ISBN: 9781960573995
“A disturbing, absorbing, and valuable addition to the literature of cruelty inflicted upon Indigenous peoples.”
ISBN: 9781960573957
Kirkus Reviews says:
“Everyone from casual readers to the staunchest of mystery fans will find something to enjoy in this quick—and quick-witted—read.”
ISBN: 9781960573988
“A hilarious saga of family renewal and last-chance romance that plucks the heartstrings.”
(starred review)
ISBN: 9781960573988
“A gripping and emotionally intelligent tale of resentment and loss.”
ISBN: 9781960573988
A
good narrator can ease listeners past a rough patch or helpfully delineate a large cast of characters.
BY CONNIE OGLEIN POET KAVEH Akbar’s unique first novel, Martyr! (Random House Audio, 10 hours and 39 minutes), Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian-born poet in the American Midwest, grapples with a weighty question: Can we make our deaths meaningful? Freshly sober, unsure of his future, Cyrus is drawn to stories of martyrdom, an obsession fueled by family history: When he was an infant, his mother died on a commercial airliner mistakenly shot down by U.S. forces over the Persian Gulf.
As he considers writing a book, he learns of Orkideh, a dying Iranian American artist spending her final
days in a Brooklyn museum installation, talking to visitors. He heads to New York, and their meeting reveals more about life and death than he ever expected.
Martyr! is a mesmerizing if imperfect novel, but Iranian-born actor Arian Moayed—you know him as slick Stewie on the HBO series Succession —delivers an exquisite performance on the audiobook, making it possible to forgive Akbar’s excesses. Moayed is funny when he needs to be, but he understands the power of dropping his voice to a whisper at appropriate moments, and he prevents the novel’s weaknesses (namely, a series of unnecessary dream
sequences) from bogging down the story. He’s particularly compelling as the world-weary voice of Orkideh, who at first calls Cyrus “another death-obsessed Iranian.” As their bond deepens, though, Moayed’s striking voice practically glows with warmth.
Audiobooks with a large cast of characters can prove difficult to follow. So many names! So little context! And you can’t easily refer back to a cheat sheet at the beginning of the book for a reminder of who’s who. But Rebecca K. Reilly’s sly comic novel Greta & Valdin (Simon & Schuster Audio, 9 hours and 28 minutes) is structured so that its many engaging characters are memorable and its plot simple to navigate. Add the natural grace and impeccable comic timing of narrators Natalie Beran and Jackson Bliss, who alternate chapters as queer siblings Greta and Valdin, and the result might just be the most entertaining audiobook of the year so far.
These young New Zealanders fret about their futures, fall in and out of love, face down racism and economic setbacks, and groan over the antics of their lively Maori and Russian family. Three other narrators—Eilidh Beaton, Nico Evers-Swindell, and
Gary Furlong—pitch in toward the end of the book, but telling this story falls primarily to Beran and Bliss, and they shine.
Laurie Frankel’s frank, warm Family Family (Macmillan Audio, 14 hours and 57 minutes) also features a large cast, although it’s narrated by a single reader, Patti Murin, who expertly gives voice to every age group. Both adults and children orbit the sun of India Allwood, a Broadway star–turned–TV superhero who finds herself in a social media stew over public comments she made about the portrayal of adoption in her latest movie.
India, who has far more experience with adoption than the public realizes, keeps making matters worse—and a volatile situation grows ever more complicated when her children scheme to rescue her.
Murin is adept at portraying the grown-ups and kids, and she never strays too far into precocious cuteness. Her heartfelt, humorous performance underlines Frankel’s insistence that a family can be whatever we say it is—and we need the freedom to choose.
Connie Ogle is a writer in Florida.
Ella
Richards, Diane | Amistad/ HarperCollins (384 pp.) | $28.00 May 7, 2024 | 9780063338654
Stardom did not come easily for Ella Fitzgerald. Richards delivers a straightforward yet heartbreaking fictional account of the difficult years Fitzgerald endured prior to her discovery, and ultimate success, as one of the most popular and recognizable voices of the 20th century. She spent her early years in Yonkers, New York, intent upon perfecting—and becoming known for—her dance skills. When the Great Depression puts her family in a precarious financial situation, 15-yearold Ella rebels against the limits placed on her freedom to pursue her choreographic dreams, but the death of her mother kickstarts a series of awful events that test her determination and perseverance. After escaping the abusive and sexually predatory behavior of her stepfather, Ella seeks refuge with an aunt who lives in Harlem. Her journey through the next years is marked by poverty and frustration as well as casual and brutally intentional racism…and a growing self-realization that song is the force that sustains her through life’s hardest times. Jobs in Harlem’s bustling underground economy provide Ella with money, street smarts, and shelter, but truancy and implication as a witness in a mob killing provide her with a trip to a New York State reform “school” for girls. Richards’ chronicle of the torture and abuse meted out to the institution’s residents—to young Black women in particular—is revelatory and places Ella’s eventual triumphs in a larger context. Richards, herself a former backup singer for Whitney Houston, provides an extensive list of resources she consulted in piecing together Fitzgerald’s early life. Scenes ranging from street-corner dancing, ballroom
routines, numbers running, and life in a Depression-era Hooverville make it easy to envision a movie treatment for this deep dive into the forces shaping an extraordinary talent.
A remarkable life in song honored in prose.
Roy, Lori | Thomas & Mercer (316 pp.)
$20.00 | June 25, 2024 | 9781662519932
In this odd reimagining of the Marilyn Monroe/ Norma Jeane Baker story, small-town Florida teen Addie’s dream of visiting Hollywood for her 18th birthday with Aunt Jean, her mother’s best friend, is shattered by violence. Aunt Jean, as she does with some regularity, has traveled to the (fictional) town of Hockta to “[claw] her way back to normal” in her friend’s care after one of her downward slides. A major part of her problem is Siebert Rix, the nasty, obsessed photographer she has known since childhood who has followed her from Los Angeles and demanded she return there with him. The plot breaks down into three components: Rix’s twisted pursuit of Marilyn/Jean, who drifts in and out of different personalities in trying to protect Addie and her family; the Tampa mafia’s pursuit of Addie’s impetuous boyfriend, Truitt, after he accidentally kills the nephew of the mob boss; and the local sheriff’s determined efforts to protect Truitt and his mother, whose no-good husband was gunned down by the mob. Dead bodies litter the landscape, including that of a female store clerk who spends most of the novel in the trunk of Rix’s car and, propped up in Addie’s living room, a deluded local man who thought the movie star was going to marry him. Ultimately, Marilyn/Jean isn’t the only one good at playing roles. Addie finds herself playing the part of someone strong enough to help her mother. In a fit of rage, her father “turned into
someone none of us had ever seen.” The Marilyn/Jean switches don’t always make sense and ultimately the plot strands are tied up too neatly. But Roy keeps things taut and tense throughout, springing surprises and making all her characters count.
A nightmarish Southern noir in which everyone pays a price.
Sathue, E.K. | Hell’s Hundred (288 pp.)
$25.95 | June 4, 2024 | 9781641295925
A young woman’s career in the beauty industry takes a gruesome turn when the luxury brand she works for develops a product—with questionable ingredients—that can miraculously preserve youth.
It’s clear from the very first pages that there’s something wrong with HEBE, the SoHo-based skincare company where Sophia Bannion works. Sophia herself isn’t particularly concerned with HEBE’s cultlike following, her boss’ obsession with eternal youth, or the fact that the company’s interns keep going missing. Haunted by some shocking events in her youth and suffering from a violent nail-biting habit—“I’ve stripped a hangnail from thumb to wrist. Crimson beads collect in the divot of shiny, wormy skin”—Sophia cares more about fitting in with her beautiful co-workers than anything else and is willing to turn a blind eye to the strange goings-on. When her boss, Tree Whitestone, asks her to try a new product called youthjuice, Sophia jumps at the opportunity. The result is nothing short of miraculous as, virtually overnight, the cream erases the scars from her nail-biting. Soon, what began as just a job for Sophia becomes a full-blown obsession. There’s nothing particularly subtle here: From the name of the company where Sophia works (a reference to the Greek goddess of youth), to her detached, PatrickBateman-meets-Amy-Dunne It-girl
voice, to the intense images of body horror that combine the beautiful and the grotesque, Sathue’s story is bold and brash and can be extremely uncomfortable to read. Although she overuses similes, it’s a fault that can be overlooked when the plot is as audacious and thrilling as this one. With an ending that will no doubt divide its readers, this novel is perfect for fans of Mona Awad and Emily Danforth. A stomach-turning work of corporate horror with a sharp focus on satirizing the beauty industry and its influencers.
Shukla, Sara | Little A (318 pp.)
$28.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781662514852
After relocating to Maine for her husband’s job, a young woman must learn to navigate her new social scene while trying to save her deteriorating marriage. When Charlie’s husband, Dev, takes a job in the wealthy town of Rumford, Maine, she’s hopeful the new gig will mean a more relaxed lifestyle and more time to work on the growing schism that has crept into their once-blissful relationship. As they settle into their new home, Charlie is surprised not only by the level of opulence in Rumford, but also by the fact that Dev is working harder than ever. He’s never around, leaving Charlie alone with their young twins as she tries to figure out life in the high society where they’ve landed. It’s not long before she meets a few of Rumford’s young moms, who quickly take her under their very preppy wings. They invite her to join parties at the country club, sailing trips, book club meetings, and more, gradually revealing that none of their lives are quite as perfect as they seem. As relations between Charlie and Dev grow increasingly strained, Charlie finds herself becoming too friendly with a handsome, flirtatious local man. Struggling to understand why Dev keeps pulling further away, she wonders if she’s going to
I’M A FOOL TO WANT YOU
become one more scandal in this deceptively perfect town. Told entirely in the first person from Charlie’s perspective, this plot-driven novel pokes fun at cliquey young families in fancy coastal towns while also tackling deeper issues like marital struggles, financial strain, and the pressure to fit in. Though the story is engaging, much of it rests on the constant miscommunication between Charlie and Dev, which begins to feel unrealistic as weeks pass without Charlie simply asking him about his puzzling behavior. Similarly, as Charlie struggles to keep up with her new friends, the slapstick nature of her repeated mistakes begins to feel contrived. Even so, the character development, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, and nuanced examination of social dynamics are strong enough that readers will find much to enjoy in this perceptive novel. A satisfying romp through a New England enclave that’s not nearly as idyllic as it seems.
Sosa Villada, Camila | Trans. by Kit Maude Other Press (256 pp.) | $16.99 paper May 28, 2024 | 9781635423853
A commanding voice emerges in nine stories from Argentine writer Sosa Villada. Travestis, transgender sex workers of South America, are the stars of this striking collection. We follow them as they befriend jazz singers (including Billie Holiday), become stage actresses, find themselves trapped in nunneries, and start their own societies in the jungle.
Sosa Villada, a transgender writer and actress, is an expert at the brutal, striking line: “She’d feel guilty, only she’s a travesti. She works on the road; guilt isn’t for creatures like her. Her lot is to stretch out in the sun, cover herself in Hinds cream and Impulse deodorant, and make her uncle sick with desire.” Sosa Villada’s confident voice threads through her characters as they fight to survive—from Billie Holiday refusing to return her mink coat to her ex-husband, to a travesti pawning a stolen watch to afford ingredients for scones, to a grandmother teaching her granddaughter to be proud of her skin (and how to aim a rifle). The stories interrogate what relationships demand of women, from “The Beard,” which follows a girlfriend-for-hire for wealthy gay men, to “Don’t Spend Too Long in the Dust,” which shows the fallout of an abusive marriage, including the children left behind. Many of the stories have a magical realist bent, particularly the vivid final one, “Six Breasts,” in which travestis, exiled from society and living in a magical jungle, can lay eggs and have headless lovers. Quite a few of the stories in this hard-hitting collection follow characters as they’re beaten down by bad johns, money troubles, and supernatural wild dogs, but this last story holds some hope: A travesti gives birth. The others are awed: “How were we to know that our bodies, dry, clay vessels with pointless tits, were capable of creating life?” Stark depictions of the lives of sex workers meet magical realism.
Stoopendaal, Andrés | Trans. by Alex Fleming | Atria (256 pp.) | $27.99
June 11, 2024 | 9781668020197
Swedish author Stoopendaal’s ruminative, cerebral, darkly humorous novel follows one man’s search for his intellectual soul. The social theory of the title concerns “a cognitive bias that means someone who’s incompetent is also incapable of understanding their own incompetence.” Would that refer to the narrator? His pontifications about controversial psychologist Jordan B. Peterson before having read the man’s work hint that neither his nor Peterson’s views need be taken seriously. Readers need not be fascinated by lightning rods like Peterson or Michel Houellebecq to follow the never-named narrator’s emotional, spiritual, and mental health journey during the increasingly hot Swedish spring and summer of 2018— reminiscent of Stephen Dedalus’, although Joyce is too old-modern to be mentioned here—but it wouldn’t hurt. The tale of that journey is interrupted by the insertion of a story, written by the narrator, in which Houellebecq appears as a fictionalized version of the narrator. (How closely the narrator represents Stoopendaal remains a question among many layers of meta to unpack here.) While a professed fan of “transgressive postmodern prose ” like Houellebecq’s, the narrator lives as a “normie ” in Gothenburg with a respectable civil service job and a girlfriend studying to be a librarian. Their Pomeranian, Molly— labeled by the narrator his “baby surrogate”—is the book’s most endearing character, perhaps because she’s a watcher, not a talker. The novel’s big dramatic moment, with comic undertones, occurs when the narrator wakes up hungover after a night of philosophic discourse and briefly can’t find Molly, whom his girlfriend has left temporarily in his care. Molly turns up safe in the laundry hamper, but the narrator’s
horrified remorse over his irresponsibility causes him to stop drinking and consider the Bible. Otherwise, there’s not much plot. The narrator describes his dreams, his drinking, his slightly confused sex life, and a lot of conversations. Expect to be bombarded by both high- and lowbrow cultural references, including footnotes.
An often funny, occasionally tedious satire steeped in the “transgressive postmodern prose” it purports to spoof.
Kirkus Star
Sun, Maureen | Unnamed Press (393 pp.)
$28.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9781961884069
A reimagining of The Brothers Karamazov with three Korean American sisters in the titular roles. Minah, Sarah, and Esther Kim are raised under the shadow of their father Eugene’s extreme cruelty. The eldest, Minah, was born to a different mother than the younger two, but she’s raised alongside them under the insufficient care of their terminally ill mother, Jeonghee, while the girls’ father uses her as a target for his frequent rages. After Jeonghee’s death, Minah distances herself from her family and eventually becomes a successful lawyer who “feel[s] most spiritual” when putting on makeup or new clothes. Minah plans to extend the sensual joy she takes in the world to the experience of having children and is bending her will toward finding a man who will enable these future plans. Sarah, the middle child and her father’s favorite, is brilliant, an Ivy League graduate who finds herself cynically alienated from a society she sees as filled with “suffering and sadism and selfishness.” Alone of the sisters, Esther has drifted out into the world without a plan to govern her future decisions, and yet has managed to keep an essential compassion for humanity, including her increasingly
abusive father, even through the deprivations of her wanderings. The sisters lose touch as adults, but they’re brought back into daily contact when Eugene announces not only that he’s dying, but that the Sisters K have a long-lost illegitimate brother whom they must factor into their plans for their eventual inheritance. As the sisters negotiate their philosophical views on pleasure and suffering, rage and shame, duty and freely given love, Sun patiently translates the core values of Dostoevsky’s timeless work into the idioms of late capitalism, where the sisters’ available identities are refracted through the prism of not one but two paternalistic societies—Korean and American. The result is a book that does far more than retell a classic tale: it constructs a whole new vocabulary to discuss the most central of human conundrums: how to love and be loved in return.
A deeply intelligent examination of the ties that both define and bind our lives.
Swanson, Peter | Morrow/ HarperCollins (272 pp.) | $30.00 June 11, 2024 | 9780063205031
Swanson’s take on Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley adds a few unnerving twists of its own.
Though they’ve been married for nearly a year, librarian Martha Ratliff doesn’t feel that she knows her husband, traveling salesman Alan Peralta, all that well, and the careful smile she spots him rehearsing for her as he returns from his latest trip, where art teacher Josie Nixon reportedly threw herself from her sixth-floor hotel balcony, makes her wonder what he’s doing on all those trips besides selling novelty merchandise to schoolteachers at conferences. Tracking his recent itinerary, she’s alarmed to place him in five different cities where five different women have been killed, all while he just happened
This is an astonishing novel, often funny, often tragic.
GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS
to be passing through. Overwhelmed by her unwelcome discoveries, Martha reaches out to Lily Kintner, an old friend from graduate school with a shadowy past. The two haven’t seen each other for years, but their meeting at a bar halfway between Martha’s home in New Hampshire and Lily’s in Connecticut leads them quickly to a bold plan of action: Lily, whom Alan has never met, will insinuate herself into the next conference on his list, shadow him, and see what he gets up to. To her astonishment, Lily realizes that she isn’t the only person following Alan—a discovery that forges distinctly new links to Highsmith’s classic study of an upwardly mobile sociopath and hurtles this take into hyperdrive. Nothing here is remotely plausible, but readers who value genuine thrills over documentary realism won’t care a bit.
Talty, Morgan | Tin House (256 pp.) $28.95 | June 4, 2024 | 9781959030553
Regrets burden a life.
Charles Lamosway, the protagonist of Talty’s debut novel, is a man haunted by guilt and shame. Though he was raised by his white mother and Native American stepfather on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation, he had to leave at age 18. Now in his late 50s, he lives across the river from his former home. From there, he can observe the house where Elizabeth, the daughter he fathered out of wedlock, was raised by her mother, Mary, and the Native man she thought was her father. He
SPUNKMEYERruminates about the single contact he had with Elizabeth, lasting only a few minutes, when she was 3 years old, as well as the inadvertent role he played in the events leading up to the death of his stepfather, Fredrick. He’s burdened and aggravated by his mother Louise’s slide into dementia, the recurrence of her persistent depression, and his memory of a painful incident that took place on the reservation when he was a teenager. In this deliberately paced, moody novel, Talty, himself a citizen of the Penobscot Nation, considers questions of identity, as Charles observes that “I knew and still know what it was like to both not belong and belong” and acknowledges that his acquiescence in Mary’s decision to raise their daughter on the reservation “goes deeper than blood.” But the author’s principal concern lies with how past events in his characters’ lives resonate painfully in the present. As Charles, who’d been estranged from his mother for several years before entering Alcoholics Anonymous, now reluctantly becomes responsible for her well-being, his desire to reconnect with Elizabeth, regardless of the consequences, only intensifies until it climaxes on the night of a swirling nor’easter. As Charles says, “We are made of stories, and if we don’t know them—the ones that make us—how can we ever be fully realized? How can we ever be who we really are?”
A melancholy journey through one man’s damaged past.
Thomas, Joseph Earl | Grand Central Publishing (240 pp.) | $28.00 June 18, 2024 | 9781538740989
For more by Morgan Talty, visit Kirkus online.
A Black army vet working as a hospital technician reflects on his life. Joseph Thomas, the narrator of Thomas’ debut novel, is having a tough shift, but that’s nothing new. An emergency department tech and nurse’s aide, Joseph begins his story with a litany of patients waiting for care in his Philadelphia trauma center, from a young boy with a wound from an AK-47 to a savagely beaten homeless man. Joseph rushes from one patient to another, being slowly driven mad by hunger; his friend Ray, whom he met while they were preparing to deploy to Iraq, is supposed to bring him a hoagie and an Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip muffin but hasn’t yet materialized. In a futile bid to distract himself, Joseph contemplates his upcoming trip to Belize with a co-worker, one of several with whom he is sexually entangled. Throughout the novel, Joseph expounds on his complicated personal life—he has children with three different women; his mother, who’s spent time in prison, has a crack problem; and he’s juggling work with graduate school, where he’s writing his dissertation. He’s also frustrated with the arc of his life: “The past nineteen years of day-in day-out grinding hadn’t meant shit because with my own mistakes and failures, the world, and a set of increasing desires for nice things combined I was basically back at square one.” Thomas’ stream-of-consciousness writing is superb, and well suited to the frustrated anger that his protagonist is plagued by: His fury, he says, “is
debut is a selection of gritty,
composed, in part, by the material conditions of people’s lives and in part by starvation. It doesn’t help that I know so many of these people, either by blood relation or the repeated offenses of being ill, which are really just the repeat offenses of being poor, which is correlated too strongly with being not white, though in this world, in this country, in this neighborhood especially, with being black.” This is an astonishingly accomplished novel, often funny, often tragic, one that longs for, as Joseph puts it, “that necessary love, that forceful love, that elegant and deeply painful love otherwise foreclosed to us by the world.”
Just stunning.
Tichý, Andrzej | Trans. by Nichola Smalley And Other Stories (124 pp.) | $17.95 paper June 4, 2024 | 9781913505981
Wry and heady short stories. Many of the stories in this collection— Tichý’s first to be translated into English— begin seemingly midbreath. The effect is like emerging from underwater to a series of manic, monologuing strangers. Tichý was born in Prague to Czech and Polish parents but lives and works in Sweden. This geographical sweep is present in his characters—a thief, a janitor, a neo-Nazi—who nearly all feel mismatched with their cities, their occupations, or modernity. “I
wish there was a scene I could call upon to illustrate my experience of class,” confides one. But no climax comes to mind, only the cumulative indignities of daily life. Most characters submit to their circumstances, even as many, especially men, imagine or threaten violence. After enduring a stranger’s verbal abuse on a bus, one speaker goes home and serially rewrites the encounter: One version wonders, “Is the monster going to beat the shit out of me?”; in another, they “fight, in silence…over the little armrest between the seats” on a train. Tichý has a gift for evocative juxtapositions, though his prose-poetic tone can sometimes trigger a double take. When a paragraph nests a story within a story, one speaker’s abrupt recollection of someone else’s experience, it’s easy to lose track of whose thoughts are being voiced. Grotesque descriptions of the human body further flatten the experience of being alive. One character pictures “the digestive tract, this, like, system of organs, that goes from the mouth to the anus and I wonder if this is the essence of a human.” Another lists a vivid series of possible methods for dying by suicide: “The plastic bag, seen from the inside, the moisture.” Don’t forget to come up for air. A dizzying look inside the heads of people at the margins.
Tobias, Emily Jon | Black Lawrence Press (195 pp.) | $22.95 paper May 17, 2024 | 9781625570857
A gutsy, grungy collection centering troubled souls.
For more by Andrzej Tichý, visit Kirkus online.
More than a collection of stories, Tobias’ debut is a selection of gritty, emotional character studies. Bettie, the protagonist of “Nova,” fixates on her mysterious companion, Jones, as the two set off on a violent road trip through California. “First time I laid eyes on Jones,” she says, “I didn’t know how I would be tortured, gently, how I would come to rest just beneath her skin.” In “Red Cardboard Hearts Hanging From Strings,” Liza reminisces on past love and a miscarriage as she marries her lover. And in “Under Her Cellophane Skin,” Lemon, a heroin addict living on the streets of Seattle, converses with a lonely old man at a bar. Brimming with pure Americana, not unlike the movies Wild at Heart or Thelma and Louise , Tobias’ stories pull no punches. Readers are given descriptions of characters’ troubled mental states, which, like their bodies, ache and ooze. “Her body’s an arsenal of anger,” Tobias writes about Georgia, the title story’s protagonist, “enough stored for a fallout shelter with full reserves, but the weight, the weight she carries in pain and pounds somehow softens her sorrow, consumes any energy leftover for a fight.” Tobias’ writing has strength in its hardiness and weakens when it’s trying to sweeten, as in “What My Momma Knows Is True,” in which a child grapples with the death of her grandmother. The strongest stories in the collection, like “Monarch,” are tough and unnerving and mean. And yet the book is consistently loving toward its
characters, as Tobias writes in a reader’s guide at the end of the book: “All characters share an ability to change relative to their wounds against harrowing transformative obstacles.” Indeed, this collection carries on with the thesis that each character, each person, has the opportunity to grow in spite of their circumstances. A strong collection, better when blunter.
Toon, Paige | Putnam (448 pp.) $18.00 paper | May 21, 2024 9780593544358
A Cornish woman with dreams of becoming a sculptor grows into herself over the course of 14 years.
Olivia Arterton moved to St. Agnes, Cornwall, with her parents when she was 13. Her beloved grandmother, one of the reasons for their move, died just two years later, but she always supported Liv’s dream of being an artist. After graduating from the Edinburgh College of Art and then studying sculpture on a four-week course in Florence, Liv comes home for the summer, fully intending to move to London in the autumn. But her joyful holiday—complete with a romance with burgeoning singer-songwriter Finn, whom she’s known since they were in school together—comes to an abrupt halt when she has to suddenly take on the mantle of adulthood and support her older brother, Michael, who has Down syndrome. The story unfolds from Liv’s point of view, beginning when she’s 28 and starting a new relationship with Tom Thornton, a one-time searchand-rescue pilot from Wales, and covering the preceding six summers she spent with Finn, who comes
The real Republic of West Florida is the inspiration for this gory tale of 21st-century secession.
THE GREAT STATE OF WEST FLORIDA
home for a few months every year; then it stretches through the ensuing seven summers. We follow along as Liv earns money by working at a beach restaurant, renting out half her home, and cleaning summer rental properties while finding time for sculpting; she’s there for her brother as he lives his life with his own home, friends, and job; and she moves forward with her dreams of making it into the Royal Society of Sculptors. A beautiful story of love and loss, experiencing and overcoming grief, and finding oneself—and joy—in the process.
Wascom, Kent | Black Cat/Grove (272 pp.) | $17.00 paper May 21, 2024 | 9780802162847
The real, brief history of the Republic of West Florida is the inspiration for this gory tale of 21stcentury secession.
Wascom continues the saga of the Woolsack family—the subject of his three previous novels, most recently The New Inheritors (2018)—this time in the near future. The Woolsacks have twice attempted and failed to start a breakaway community called West Florida; the idea now belongs to far-right politician Troy Yarbrough, who is close to turning the Florida panhandle into the 51st state. Bearing witness is
13-year-old Rally Woolsack. He’s a bit like Harry Potter, if his father was killed by his mother, who was then killed by Rally’s cousin, the mysterious Destiny. Like Potter, Rally goes to live with his cruel uncle, but his deliverance comes in a firefight that leaves his uncle’s head blown off, blood “seeping all over the blacktop.” Rally’s savior is his father’s brother, Rodney, a professional gunfighter in a U.S. where dueling is legal. Destiny, now known as the Governor, plots a resistance against Troy. There’s an immense amount of information in these 272 pages. Wascom introduces more Woolsacks and Yarbroughs than most readers could keep track of. And there are the history lessons about the Republic of West Florida, environmental degradation, and bomb testing. This leaves little room for Rally, who has attributes (bisexual, fat) but not much of a personality beyond the novel’s narrative voice. That voice, which spans pulp and Southern Gothic registers, can make up for a lot when it’s not too overblown. The pleasure of the novel is in sentences like this one: “Looking out the scarred and road-burnt visor of the racing helmet, she saw everything through a deep red mist, the atmosphere of a planet with gunpowder sands and bloody skies....” Wascom’s novel is not for the faint of heart: There’s sexual abuse, bestiality, torture, and a man’s head “dangl[ing] like a hangnail off his shoulder.” Bookended by bloodbaths, the novel ends just when it seems the real story has started cooking.
The Broadway show is based on Nicholas Sparks’ 1996 novel.
The stage musical adaptation of Nicholas Sparks’ The Notebook has opened at Broad-
way’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, and critics are somewhat divided.
Sparks’ novel, published in 1996, tells the story of a decades-long romance between a man and woman in North Carolina. It was adapted into a hit 2004 film starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.
The musical adaptation is directed by Michael Greif and Schele Williams, with a book by Bekah Brunstetter and songs by Ingrid Michaelson. The cast includes Maryann Plunkett, Dorian Harewood, Joy Woods, and Ryan Vasquez.
Emlyn Travis of Entertainment Weekly loved the show, writing, “With its stunning performances, beautiful songs, and
supreme stage directing, the musical succeeds in delivering a fresh spin on its original material while also making sure that Noah and Allie’s story is never truly forgotten.”
Jesse Green of the New York Times had mixed feelings, calling Michaelson’s songs “insubstantial as blue smoke,” but saying the staging is “natively theatrical and thus occasionally effective.”
Also expressing mixed feelings was Time Out New York ’s Adam Feldman: “As much as I rolled my eyes at The Notebook, I can’t deny that they sometimes welled up.…Plunkett’s truthfulness pierces through the sentimentality, and there’s something elemental in the combination
of love and loss that this pair embodies.”
Berry, Connie | Crooked Lane (336 pp.)
$31.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781639106660
Murders past and present provide a puzzle for newlyweds. While DI Tom Mallory and his American wife, Kate Hamilton, are on honeymoon in Devon, they consider a proposal from Tom’s friend Grahame Nash, who runs an international private detective agency and wants their help. Grahame has been hired by the Museum of Devon Life to authenticate a blood-soaked dress thought to have been worn by Victorian lacemaker—and murderer—Nancy Thorne. Because Kate has antiques expertise, they’re asked to establish whether the blood on the dress is human and the dress an actual period creation. When Tom and Kate arrive at the museum, the curator describes the dress, donated by eccentric local Gideon Littlejohn, as beautifully constructed, probably by Nancy’s seamstress sister, featuring an exquisite lace collar, and fully worthy of being the centerpiece of an upcoming exhibition on famous Devon crimes. Littlejohn, who dresses and lives as a Victorian gentleman, has not donated the trunk, purchased at auction, that contained the dress, but he does let Tom and Kate examine it. After a museum fundraiser during which Littlejohn is wounded, local MP Theodore Pearce announces that he was the shooter’s probable target. The local police ask Tom for his help as Kate starts researching in local libraries and churches and online. Although her
extensive search turns up a connection between the dress and a 19th-century Romany family, she can’t document a murder. When Littlejohn is killed, the pressure intensifies on both sleuths to learn more about suspects from two different centuries.
Fascinating historical research combines with modern murder in this charming page-turner.
Carr, John Dickson | Poisoned Pen (304 pp.) | $15.99 paper June 18, 2024 | 9781464216329
Seeing isn’t believing in this diabolically clever tale of poisoning first published in the U.S. as The Problem of the Green Capsule in 1939.
Weeks after
someone in the village of Sodbury Cross has added strychnine to some chocolate creams in a sweet shop, killing one child and sickening several others, wealthy peach grower Marcus Chesney, convinced that eyewitnesses to anything are unreliable, stages a brief midnight scene designed both to present his theory of the poisoning and to pull the wool over the eyes of his own three witnesses: Marjorie Wills, his niece and unofficial ward; George Harding, the suitor she met during a recent trip abroad; and Gilbert Ingram, a retired professor of psychology. Before any of them has a chance to start writing down answers
Seeing isn’t believing in this diabolically clever tale of poisoning.
to the 10 apparently innocent questions Marcus has asked them about the theater piece they’ve just seen, Marcus keels over, poisoned by a cyanide-filled capsule his unidentified co-star popped into his mouth just before the lights came up. Marcus’ brother, Dr. Joe Chesney, returns from a late-night house call just in time to pronounce him dead; Wilbur Emmet, the manager of Marcus’ nurseries and the man most likely to have been Marcus’ accomplice and assassin, lies unconscious in the yard outside. The three witnesses contradict each other about absolutely everything, but the biggest surprise awaits the moment that the ever-reliable Dr. Gideon Fell, on whom baffled DI Andrew Elliot calls for help, shows the witnesses the film that Marcus had asked George to make of what turned out to be his very last moments. Of all Carr’s many celebrated puzzles, this one most closely resembles a magic trick. Be prepared to be royally hoodwinked.
Condie, Ally | Grand Central Publishing (320 pp.) | $14.99 | June 4, 2024 9781538757604
Arecently divorced woman confronts her loss, even as she helps to solve two murders—and survives a belligerent storm.
Ellery Wainwright arrives at Big Sur’s Resort at Broken Point to celebrate her 20th anniversary—alone. Following her recent divorce, she’s been adrift, torturing herself with memories, trying to stay strong for her kids, and this “vacation” seems like a mistake until she meets Ravi and Nina, two other guests, who take her under their wings. The resort, known for its eclectic art collection in addition to the beautiful views and luxury accommodations, is
creator of a host of offbeat protagonists, continues his zaniness.
also hosting a wedding. It’s a shock when the groom leaves the bride at the altar. Of course, it’s even more of a shock when Ellery discovers the groom’s body floating in the pool the next morning. Was he dead before the wedding? If so, who sent the breakup text message? When another guest dies shortly after, victim of a suspicious fall, Ellery, Ravi, and Nina continue their amateur sleuthing—but their biggest problem might be the weather. A storm of the century bears down on Big Sur, washing out bridges and roads, stranding the guests in this extremely clever version of a locked-room mystery. While the structure might not be completely original, there’s a lot about this book to set it apart, including the wild danger of the setting. Most notable are the characters who, while perhaps representing some familiar types, truly do jump off the page as three-dimensional, engaging people, Ellery most of all. Her heartbreak is real, and relatable, as is her past trauma of witnessing another death and her fierce love for her children. Like any successful literary detective, she is “the one on the outside, watching,” and Condie gives her the empathy, and grace, to understand that “you get to keep that. The way you let yourself love someone and really feel it, and the loss.” In this way, the novel is more about healing than it is about death.
A gorgeous murder mystery that explores what it means to be human— the pain and the love.
SAME DIFFERENCE For more by Ally Condie, visit Kirkus online.
Copperman, E.J. | Severn House (240 pp.) $29.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781448312030
Copperman, creator of a host of offbeat protagonists, continues his trademark zaniness. Brian Hennessey’s plea to find his missing daughter provides detective Fran Stein with a refreshing twist on her usual meat-and-potatoes cases helping adopted adults find their birth parents. Fran and her brother, Ken, know firsthand the longing to connect with genetic forebears, since they have no biological parents. A pair of geneticists created them in their lab before leaving them to be raised by their “Aunt Margie,” a radio news reporter who somehow got wind of their little experiment. Mad scientists Brad and Livvie have long since vanished, chased by some unspecified threat to their and their unorthodox progeny’s lives. Fran feels a bond with the missing Eliza Hennessey because Eliza recently came out as a transgender woman. The detective can sympathize with someone who has trouble letting people know she’s finally her true self, rather than whoever they thought she was—since Fran’s recent attempt to share her secret with her kinda-sorta boyfriend, NYPD Det. Richard Mankiewicz, ended in disaster. But once Fran tracks Eliza down through her enrollment in New Amsterdam University, that bond gets strained. Eliza turns out to be a moody, pouty teenager with plenty of troubles, like the corpse of one of her boyfriends,
Damien Van Dorn, in the basement of a Bronx apartment building. Soon Fran and Eliza are on the run, and it takes every bit of Ken’s ingenuity to shield them from Damien’s killers, the police, and anyone else in New York who can use electronic data to track a willful teen who won’t put down her cellphone. A hilarious quest.
Dams, Jeanne M. | Severn House (224 pp.) $29.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781448310975
A sleuthing couple continues to find murder in every corner of Great Britain. In their latest outing, American expatriate Dorothy Martin and her husband, retired Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt, visit another retired police officer in the Lake District, widely known as the beauty spot of the U.K. Christopher Prideaux is delighted to show them all the highlights of the area and throws them a cocktail party to meet the locals, some of whom are very interesting indeed. These include handsome Donald Atkinson and his browbeaten wife, Sarah. Donald intends to stand for Parliament, and Dorothy can’t help wondering why, since almost everyone seems to dislike him. At an unusual and wildly popular sports day that Christopher insists his visitors attend, Atkinson enters a race but never arrives at the finish line. He’s found dead at the edge of a pond, possibly the victim of a heart attack. But of course Alan and Dorothy have their suspicions. The overburdened local police are willing to accept some help from former police officers, and soon Alan and Dorothy are uncovering all sorts of potential motives for a very ingenious murder. While the police search for the weapon that killed Donald, Dorothy, who’s adept at
getting people to talk, uncovers a wealth of information about just how awful the victim really was. One of the best of Dams’ always enjoyable combinations of travelogue and mystery.
Graham, Scott | Torrey House Press (250 pp.) | $17.95 paper June 4, 2024 | 9781948814942
An ultramarathon in the California desert draws attention to the fight over water rights. Though he isn’t thrilled when Carmelita Ortega, his teenage stepdaughter, vows to run her first ultramarathon, Chuck Bender knows she has two things that will make her race a success: mental fortitude and willpower. After all, her determination is what has made Carm such an accomplished climber before she’s even out of high school. Little sister Rosie is determined to do what she does best by documenting Carm’s conquest of the 150-mile Whitney to Death race while she and Chuck act as the support team in the absence of Carm’s mom, Janelle, who has to stay in Colorado for work. Race organizers Marian and Doug are excited to see Carm and Margot, another young competitor, enter the race, which they devised 10 years ago as a way to draw attention to water rights near California’s Mount Whitney and Death Valley. And Chuck, who’s happy to support Carm, has a little adventure of his
own planned. His archaeological work has uncovered a tooth among ashes in the area, a possible connection to Paiute water rights activist Russell Raining Bird. Chuck hopes that sharing the site with his employer, Tabitha Eddy of Stanford University, will help her work more closely with the Native Peoples Foundation. As troubles on the trail worry Chuck about Carm’s progress, both he and Carm wonder if a string of mishaps befalling the racers could be more than just a coincidence. A well-informed nature series hits its storytelling stride.
Gray, Claudia | Vintage (352 pp.) | $18.00 paper June 18, 2024 | 9780593686584
In her third mystery for Mr. Darcy and Miss Tilney, Gray again showcases the dangers and delights of being a Jane Austen character. This time, the bull’s-eye is trained on Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whom Elizabeth Bennet fans may have occasionally wanted to take a potshot at themselves. Gray makes the entitled heiress more sympathetic than Austen does. She’s still vain and preening, but genuinely frightened by the escalating attempts on her life. Some of the sympathy is generated by the protagonists, young Jonathan Darcy, the shy, introverted son of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Juliet Tilney, the daughter of a
An ultramarathon in California draws attention to the fight over water rights.
DEATH VALLEY DUEL
country parson. Having solved the mystery of Mr. Wickham’s death in The Murder of Mr. Wickham (2022), the pair are eager to save Lady Catherine from a similar fate. As readers root for the mission’s success, they will also hope for a happy resolution to the characters’ tender, tentative steps toward forging a bond closer than friendship. True to the Austen tradition, Gray celebrates love of all kinds. She explores myriad varieties of marriage—marriages of love, of convenience, even of desperation—and gives due respect to all. She also honors Austen in portraying her characters, both those invented by Austen and those of her own devising, giving each a strongly marked character but leaving them open to hidden depths that will surprise and delight readers. The puzzle is intriguing, but its solution is only part of the reward of Gray’s ingenious new franchise.
A rare treat for mystery readers and Austen buffs alike.
Hollis, Lee | Kensington (288 pp.) $8.99 paper | May 21, 2024 9781496736550
An unpleasant teacher gets what’s coming to her when her Maine school district hosts a spelling bee.
The South Portland Middle School Spelling Bee is everything you hated about school. There’s unending memorization of information useless to anyone with a computer. There’s competition. The parents are frantic. The students are at each other’s throats. It gets so bad that Lucia and Eugenio Fanelli hire a pair of private eyes, Maya Kendrick and Sandra Wallage, to find out who left a note saying Drop out or die in their son Rocco’s locker. Maya and Sandra have their own baggage. Maya’s husband, the former police
chief, is just finishing a stint in prison for corruption, and Sandra’s husband, the current U.S. senator from Maine, is in the process of divorcing her. But a case is a case. Unfortunately, this case quickly turns personal. Ellie Duncan, the volunteer coordinator of the spelling bee, is also the geography teacher at South Portland High School who decided without any evidence that Sandra’s son, Ryan, plagiarized his final paper and plans to flunk him, barring him from graduation. Ellie announces that the last thing she needs is “two gung-ho detectives running around upsetting the parents and scaring the kids and spoiling everything.” Ironically, it isn’t Maya and Sandra who spoil the competition; it’s whoever kills the noxious Ellie and stuffs her body in a storage closet. There are plenty of suspects, and before the two sleuths find the real killer, they’ll unearth enough dirty laundry to fill the gym bags of every South Portland student and then some.
For all those readers—and only those readers—who loved the drama that is middle school.
Housewright, David | Minotaur (320 pp.) | $14.99 paper June 25, 2024 | 9781250863607
Unlicensed St. Paul investigator Rushmore McKenzie and his wife, pianist Nina Truhler, accept an invitation to cruise the St. Croix River aboard their friend Dave Deese’s boat. You’ll never guess what they find.
From the moment Nina spots him, it’s perfectly obvious that Black landscaper Earl “E.J.” Woods is dead. But the four companies with which he’s taken out life insurance policies refuse to pay his much younger white second wife,
The Athena College library’s new employee seems to be harboring a secret.
Elizabeth Woods, the full value of those policies because they maintain that his death was a suicide. Nothing daunted, as a way to get the insurance companies to back down, Elizabeth sues Brad Heggstad, owner of the marina where Woods kept his boat, for criminal negligence in failing to take adequate safety measures. There’s no evidence that E.J. killed himself, though there’s also no evidence that he didn’t, apart from the strong conviction of schoolteacher Nevaeh Woods, E.J.’s daughter by his first wife, that her father was murdered. Acting on her behalf, McKenzie begins asking questions. The responses range from a note slipped under his windshield wiper (“MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS OR ELSE!”) to more circumspect pushback (“There’s a very thin line between what’s charming and what’s obnoxious, Mr. McKenzie”). Eventually even Nevaeh changes her mind and decides not to pursue the matter any further, leaving McKenzie swimming against the current on his own. By the time he links E.J. to hints of smuggling and money laundering, two more people will be dead, and nobody’s eager to return to the St. Croix River.
A tangled, low-stakes case that’s a perfect vehicle for its hero’s whyask-me brand.
James, Miranda | Berkley (288 pp.)
$29.00 | June 25, 2024 | 9780593199527
The Athena College library’s new employee seems to be harboring a secret that the longtime librarian and his Maine Coon cat are eager to crack. The doldrums of mid-January can’t keep Charlie Harris down, particularly now that he’s only a month away from his long-anticipated wedding to Helen Louise Brady. His workload at the library has recently been lightened with the hire of hardworking Tara Martin, an odd duck who’s weirdly reclusive and prone to fits of rage. Charlie and his frequent feline co-worker, Diesel, have long experience when it comes to dealing with mercurial moods, so they’re more than capable of handling Tara, though it’s doubtful whether her blend of hard work and challenging temperament is a fit for her other part-time job at Helen Louise’s bistro. With someone so clearly on edge, it’s only a matter of time before the dam breaks, and Charlie wonders if that’s what he’s seeing when Tara darts off in the middle of a housewarming party for his son, Sean. Even though Charlie’s right on her heels, no one knows where she went until Charlie spots her, shivering and obviously terrified, hiding out in the property’s root cellar. What’s spooked her so badly? Charlie’s determined to find out, but before he can convince her to divulge whatever’s under her skin, Tara goes more seriously missing. Expecting the worst, Charlie enlists Diesel’s help in his
investigation. He’s determined not to stop until he learns the truth—as long as it doesn’t interfere with his upcoming nuptials.
In a world of cozies, an older male investigator stands out.
Johnson, Sara E. | Poisoned Pen (352 pp.) | $16.99 paper June 11, 2024 | 9781728257372
While she waits to hear the results of a job application in far-off Scotland, forensic odontologist Alexa Glock is pulled into several murders spanning more than a century on the South Island of New Zealand.
Alexa’s friend, forensic archaeologist Dr. Ana Luckenbaugh, wants her help in examining the newly exhumed remains of someone whom readers will assume from his interpolated letters home is Wing Lun, a miner who was drawn to Arrowtown by the late-19th-century gold rush and stayed until the boom had gone bust. So Alexa, who’s put her relationship with DI Bruce Horne on hiatus, happens to be on hand when Earl Hammer, the field hand who was convicted 25 years ago of killing Lakes District Cemetery volunteer Cindy Mulligan, is paroled, hacks off his tracking monitor, and goes AWOL. The town’s unease turns to terror when Arrowhead Primary School principal Eileen Bowen disappears, presumably because she’s become Hammer’s
latest victim. Queenstown DI Pattie Katakana, the Māori detective in charge of the case, tells Alexa, “We don’t have time for old bones when a woman’s life is at stake.” But that’s exactly backward, since Alexa’s painstaking forensic work, which once again leaps outside her specialization in teeth to include the fingerprints that convicted Hammer of homicide, turns out to play a crucial role in explaining the deaths of Bowen, Mulligan, and Lun. Even if these cases aren’t as closely linked as you might like, they’re all well worth your time.
Jurczyk, Eva | Poisoned Pen (288 pp.) | $17.99 paper June 11, 2024 | 9781728295695
Think libraries are staid, respectable, and boring? Think again. The night before graduation at his mercifully unnamed Vermont university, Davey Kebede plans a secret after-hours reenactment of the Eleusinian Mysteries, a ritual designed to overcome the fear of death, in the William E. Woodend Rare Books Library, where his stint as an assistant is coming to an end. Since the ritual isn’t something he can stage on his own, he invites Soraya Abbasi and Mary Xiao, his two competitors for a full-time position at the Woodend, to join him, along with Kip Pickens, the son of philanthropists who’ve
A forensic odontologist is pulled into several murders in New Zealand.
HUNGRY BONES
thrown their money around this campus and others; Applebee’s bartender Ro Tucci, whose job this evening is to supply drugs; his girlfriend, classics student Umu Owusu; and, just to round things out, mousy physics undergraduate Faye Bradshaw, who kicks off the festivities by announcing that she’s not going to take the acid Ro has brought for everyone to drop. As if on cue, the lights go out, and you’d never guess what happens next. By the end of the night, most of this crew will be history, and not in an Eleusinian way. Davey notes that “we’re not in an Agatha Christie novel,” and he’s absolutely right. Both the setup and the execution are far less realistic than those of And Then There Were None , and the variety of means to these violent deaths is more redolent of an old dark house movie or a drug-addled teen horror flick that just happens to be set in the stacks of a wellfunded library.
Like the participants in this ritual, you need to be in the mood for this one. Pass the joint.
McKinlay, Jenn | Berkley (272 pp.) | $9.99 paper | June 4, 2024 | 9780593549148
Cupcakes, football, murder. Melanie DeLaura, Angie Harper, and Tate Harper, all of them related by marriage and years of friendship, run Scottsdale, Arizona’s successful Fairy Tale Cupcakes. Mel and Angie are gobsmacked when Tate informs them that Tyler Matthews and Keogh Graham, two football stars on the Arizona Scorpions, are buying one of their cupcake franchises because Keogh has convinced Tyler that owning a small business provides good insurance against a precarious
future. So the Fairy Tale team gets to work helping the men pick out a store, providing color schemes, and giving them baking lessons. The football stars are used to dealing with haters and crazed fans, but it’s not so easy to deal with the team’s owner, Chad Dayton, who married his gorgeous wife, Kendall, after Keogh dumped her. At the grand opening, the obnoxious Dayton pronounces the bakery insufficiently masculine and tries to bribe Mel to end the deal in the rudest possible way. At least Coach Pete Casella is on his players’ side. Arriving early at the new bakery to help out, Mel finds Dayton’s body covered in scorpions. Mel has had past experience solving murders, but the detective who catches the case, who’s never worked with her, is openly hostile to her and the star players. Keogh’s celebrity status and an excellent defense attorney keep him out of jail for the time being, but Mel realizes she’ll need to solve the case to preserve his freedom. Football lore and cupcake recipes combine for a sweet, manly treat.
Parks, Alan | World Noir (376 pp.) | $18.00 paper June 4, 2024 | 9798889660361
On the mean streets of Glasgow, crime never takes a holiday.
DI Harry McCoy’s sixth compelling mystery begins with an emergency call to a squalid crime scene where Jamie MacLeod, who’s unhoused, lies dead and missing a shoe. In short order, another similar corpse is discovered, nudging Harry to the grim assumption that Glasgow is harboring a serial killer targeting the down and out. Nor is this the only series of crimes that Harry and partner Douglas “Wattie” Watson must tackle in the six-week span from late
A fitting finale to a marvelous series full of finely drawn characters.THE COMFORT OF GHOSTS
May to early July 1975. He’s assigned to a new station house in an undercover assignment to probe corruption there. His concern for a man named Jumbo, who’s taken a job as the bodyguard to Paul Cooper, a crime boss’ son who’s also Harry’s longtime friend, signals that he may be softening. It’s complicated. Further complications arrive in the case of Judith West, who’s frantic over the disappearance of her 9-year-old son, Michael. Strangely, it appears that no son exists; Judith’s clergyman husband verifies their childlessness and confesses his worry over Judith’s behavior. Harry’s not so sure. After Judith dies by suicide, Harry uncharacteristically attends her funeral, where a gray feeling settles over him and remains. Parks’ gritty, panoramic novel particularly rewards series fans by deepening the stories of several returning characters. At the end, weary Harry contemplates his future. Could this be his final case? Sharp and bracing Scottish noir, with a streak of dark nostalgia.
Winspear, Jacqueline | Soho Crime (360 pp.) $29.95 | June 4, 2024 | 9781641296069
Farewell, Maisie Dobbs. Once a maid in Lady Rowan Compton’s household, then a university student, a nurse, and an agent of the British Secret Service, Maisie has blossomed into a psychologist and private
investigator. Her first husband, James Compton, died while test-flying an experimental aircraft. The end of World War II finds her living in the Dower House of the Compton estate with her second husband, Mark Scott—an American diplomat—and their adopted daughter, Anna, and comforting her former mother-in-law, Lady Rowan, who’s just lost her own spouse. When she hears there are squatters living in the Comptons’ London house, Maisie heads to Belgravia, where she finds four teenagers in residence along with an ailing Will Beale, the son of Maisie’s business partner, who survived a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. Checking with her old friend DCI Robbie MacFarlane, whose help she’d asked in finding the previously missing Will, she gets a bad feeling about Robbie’s interest in the squatters. Worried about the youngsters, who were part of some secret government project, Maisie talks them into letting her into the house to help Will. When they admit they witnessed the murder of a Nazi sympathizer that the government wants covered up, she moves the group to a safer place. Her investigation of the murder discloses a mass of nasty secrets. One of the teens found a packet of letters under the floorboards of the Compton house belonging to one of Maisie’s fellow maids, killed in an explosion, who had a child with James when they were very young. Finding that child, who was put up for adoption, may be the most challenging task Maisie’s ever undertaken.
A fitting finale to a marvelously entertaining series full of finely drawn characters often scarred by the horrors of war.
EDITORS’ PICKS:
Bright Red Fruit by Safia Elhillo (Make Me a World)
Gifts From Georgia’s Garden by Lisa Robinson, illus. by Hadley Hooper (Neal Porter/ Holiday House)
Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball by Keith O’Brien (Pantheon)
ALSO MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE:
Spoken Word: A Cultural History by Joshua Bennett
Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse by Alexandria Giardino, illus. by Felicita Sala
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
Master Lovers: A Twisted Puzzle of Love and Fascism by David Winner
A Thousand Flying Things by Kathryn Brown Ramsperger
Musings 2022 by Denis O’Neill
Water Music: A Cape Cod Story by Marcia Peck
Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.
Téa Obreht, author of The Morningside talks with debut novelist Parini Shroff.BY MEGAN LABRISE
On this Takeover episode of the podcast, special guest host Téa Obreht celebrates the publication of her eagerly anticipated new novel, The Morningside (March 19), with fellow novelist and friend Parini Shroff.
The Fully Booked Takeover invites a beloved bestselling author to become our special guest host for one episode. They choose another author whose work they admire for an in-depth conversation, writer to writer. The questions they ask and the topics they explore are all up to the two of them.
Obreht is the New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger’s Wife and Inland . The former garnered the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011— making Obreht the youngest winner of the prize to date—as well as a spot on the National Book Award shortlist. Kirkus calls her latest novel, The Morningside, “a captivating blend of science fiction and magical realism with a wonderfully engaging protagonist.”
Here’s a bit more from Kirkus’ starred review:
Looking back on her life, a narrator called Silvia remembers emigrating to an island city (that might once have been New York) and moving into the Morningside with her mother. This apartment building is barely clinging to its former grandeur, but Sil and her mother count themselves lucky to be the beneficiaries of a program designed to repopulate a once-great metropolis that has been devastated by floods.… Sil knows how the heroine in a fairy tale should behave but, when she suspects that she might be a fairy tale
The Morningside Obreht, Téa
Random House | 304 pp. | $29.00 March 19, 2024 | 9781984855503
heroine, she does not want to be that girl. Sil is, as it turns out, an excellent guide to a world in which old rules don’t make sense. She’s skeptical and credulous and reticent by turns, but she also has instincts for self-preservation that maybe only the most vulnerable among us can understand. Obreht is offering a cautionary vision of what our future might look like, but she’s also asking questions that are as old as storytelling.”
Obreht is joined in conversation by Parini Shroff, author of the witty, winning debut novel The Bandit Queens , which was published by Ballantine early last year and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, among other honors.
Then Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, and Eric Liebetrau share their top picks in books for the week.
Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.
The Peacock show will be based on Karin Slaughter’s 2017 novel.
Karin Slaughter’s The Good Daughter is headed to the small screen with Jessica Biel in a starring role, Variety reports.
Slaughter’s novel, published in 2017 by Morrow/ HarperCollins, tells the story of Charlotte and Samantha Quinn, two sisters who survived a brutal attack on their family 28 years earlier. Now both attorneys, the sisters are forced to confront their past when Charlotte witnesses a school shooting.
In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “It’s hard to think of any writer since Flannery O’Connor, referenced at several key moments here, who’s succeeded as consistently as Slaughter at using horrific violence to evoke pity and terror. Whether she’s
extending her franchise or creating stand-alones like this, she really does make your hair stand on end.”
Biel (Total Recall, Hitchcock ) will star as Charlotte in the Peacock limited series. She will also executive produce alongside Slaughter, who will write all episodes of the series.
Slaughter already has a hit series on her hands with Will Trent, the ABC show based on her novels about the titular
special agent for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The series’ second season began airing in February.
Slaughter shared news of the Good Daughter adaptation on Instagram, writing, “Absolutely thrilled to finally announce the news about THE GOOD DAUGHTER! I’ve written all of the scripts. The wonderful @jessicabiel is starring.…Can’t wait for you to see it!!”—M.S.
WE COULD BE HEROES
The Rom-Commers
Center, Katherine | St. Martin’s (336 pp.)
$29.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9781250283801
Sparks fly when a struggling screenwriter gets the chance of a lifetime to write a rom-com with her hero. Once upon a time, Emma Wheeler dreamed of being a screenwriter. She put her dream on hold, however, to care for her father, who’s been living with both partial paralysis and Ménière’s disease since an accident 10 years ago. Emma lives for her family now—caring for her father around the clock and doing whatever she can to make sure her younger sister, Sylvie, has the chance to go to college and pursue her passions. But then her manager offers her the miraculous opportunity to help her hero, Charlie Yates, rewrite his first-ever romantic comedy. Charlie typically writes big, blockbuster action films—romantic comedies aren’t his forte, and his first attempt is terrible. But romance is very much in Emma’s wheelhouse, and she knows exactly what Charlie needs to make his screenplay sing. The only problem? He very much does not want her help. He also doesn’t like rom-coms and may not even believe in love. But Emma’s living in Charlie’s fancy L.A. house for six weeks, there to help him rebuild his very flawed movie, and she’s ready to work. Before the screenplay can get better, she has to teach Charlie a few things about romantic comedies (and life in general). This means going line dancing and maybe even kissing…for research purposes. Center, the prolific author of many romances (Hello
Stranger, 2023, etc.), clearly understands what it takes to create a winning romantic comedy and puts Charlie and Emma through many of the most delightful rom-com tropes (enemies to lovers, forced proximity). But the book, like all of Center’s work, doesn’t completely eschew darkness—both Emma and Charlie are dealing with trauma and grief. Emma’s feelings of guilt and responsibility toward her family make her journey toward a happily-ever-after with Charlie feel all the more satisfying—as Emma’s dad wisely says, “Happiness is always better with a little bit of sadness.”
A winning romance that deftly balances heft and humor.
Doyle, Katelyn | Flatiron Books (336 pp.) $28.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781250328090
Two former high school sweethearts with completely different views on love reconnect at their 15-year reunion. Molly Marks and Seth Rubenstein were very much in love as teenagers, even though they had vastly different personalities. Molly was cynical and jaded from her parents’ terrible divorce, while Seth was cheerful and believed in soul mates. But, somehow, they worked…until Molly unceremoniously dumped him at the end of high school. The two haven’t talked since, but they end up seated next to each other at their 15th high school reunion, where they discover they’re still
attracted to each other—even if Seth is now a divorce lawyer, a job that horrifies Molly. They get drunk on too many cocktails and hook up, but Molly knows it doesn’t mean anything—she may write Hollywood rom-coms for a living, but she knows happily-ever-afters exist only in the movies. Seth, however, thinks Molly’s choice of job means there must be a hidden romantic in there somewhere, and he swears she’ll fall in love with him eventually. He’s so certain, they make a bet: They must predict the romantic fate of five different couples from their school…including each other. As the years pass, Molly and Seth keep reconnecting, much like When Harry Met Sally but with way more angst (and sex). Doyle, who also writes historical romance under the name Scarlett Peckham, creates a strong, winning chemistry between Molly and Seth. Many of their connections happen at different points during the pandemic, which brings in a bit of realism that never feels too heavy. It’s refreshing that Seth is a male romance lead with wide-eyed optimism and a deep desire to start a family, while Molly is the skeptical one who runs from commitment. Even though their would-be romance is thwarted at every turn by other partners, distance, and their own hang-ups, Doyle keeps the story interesting enough—with plenty of zingy dialogue and interesting side characters—that it’s always a joy to read. A smart, slightly meta romance that plays out like the best movies.
Ellis, Philip | Putnam (384 pp.) | $19.00 paper June 4, 2024 | 9780593542491
A closeted mega-famous American actor must keep his relationship with a British drag queen secret. Patrick Lake is one of the hottest actors in Hollywood—as Captain Kismet, he’s the lead in a superhero movie that’s part of
the Wonderverse (clearly modeled after Marvel). When Patrick and the rest of the cast and crew are sent to Birmingham, England, to do reshoots, he ends up going out with his co-star to a gay bar—which is a problem, given that Patrick is very much not out. His agent says he needs to present a facade of straightness to the American public so his career as a superhero will continue to grow, so being photographed onstage with drag queens isn’t exactly helping him stay undercover. One of those drag queens is Will Wright, who—while dressed as his drag alter ego, Grace Anatomy—helps Patrick and his friends escape the enthusiastic mob of clubgoers. When Will isn’t in drag, he works at a used bookstore, which is where Patrick runs into him again on his quest to find a rare Captain Kismet comic. As the two of them attempt to hunt down the comic, they become friends—and, slowly, more than friends. But Patrick can never be seen with Will, and even as they meet each other’s families and begin to fall for each other, their relationship is built on a foundation of secrecy and an NDA. Patrick might know how to save the day when he’s in costume as Captain Kismet, but he’s not sure he has the bravery needed to follow his heart. Ellis creates a winning world full of snappy banter, drag queens fighting for justice, and found family. Both characters’ lives are fully drawn out and feature an array of quirky, entertaining side characters. A subplot involving the creators of Captain Kismet drives home the point that queer creators have always been present in the comics world, and (much like Patrick and Will) they managed to find joy even when facing oppression and heartbreak. A fun and hopeful romance, perfect for superhero fans and comics readers.
Fay, Constance | Bramble Books
(352 pp.) | $18.99 paper
June 4, 2024 | 9781250330451
A mysterious bounty hunter and a charming medic battle dangerous politics, deadly environments, and their own attraction in this SF romance.
A merciless and highly sought-after bounty hunter, Cynbelline Khaw is a woman with many aliases. Her latest assignment—fulfill a bounty on a ruthless kidnapper—comes with a side of revenge, as the kidnapper in question also killed her cousin. The task calls for her to partner with the crew of the Calamity, which complicates things, as she originally crossed paths with them under a different identity. No one seems to make the connection except for Micah Arora, the ship’s ever-observant medic. Deepening the deceit is a bonus mission that Cyn cannot ignore: She must turn Micah over to one of the ruling families lest all of her identities be leaked to the public. Like Calamity (2023), the debut book in Fay’s Uncharted Hearts series, the first-person point of view belongs solely to the heroine. Cyn’s every thought is broadcast across the page, even when it adds nothing to the plot or characterization. Being inside her head is a frustrating experience, undermining her enigmatic antihero persona. The exploration of foreign planets and the excitement of action around every corner is what keeps the book’s momentum going. Micah is a wonderful leading man: He’s smart and capable and has one hell of a knack for banter. While this steamy SF adventure will tick a lot of boxes for readers who enjoy a galactic setting, the pace is often stunted by side plots that take away from the heart of the story. Sometimes the book feels like it wants to be a heist thriller or a political drama instead. A lot of big ideas and high-stakes scenarios are introduced, but they only
distract from Cyn’s already complicated mission and her second chance at a romantic connection with Micah. Too many side quests dilute what begins as a compelling, high-octane romance set in space.
Hankin, Laura | Berkley (400 pp.) | $19.00 paper June 18, 2024 | 9780593438213
An aspiring writer butts heads with a stuffy academic as they’re routinely thrown together to celebrate their best friends’ milestones. Natalie Shapiro is surprised when her longtime best friend, Gabby, says yes to a proposal from her boyfriend, Angus; they haven’t been dating for long and don’t even live together. Natalie meets Rob Kapinsky, Angus’ best friend, at the couple’s surprise engagement party. Sparks fly immediately when the two strike up a conversation: Rob is pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics on the West Coast, and Natalie is a writer who’s decided not to get an MFA since she’s already working several jobs to pay off her student debt; although they both obviously love language and reading, they don’t see eye to eye when it comes to writing and academia. They reunite for Gabby and Angus’ wedding, where it’s revealed that Rob had panned Natalie’s debut novel on Goodreads, leading to a string of further bad reviews and jeopardizing a future book deal. This begins a pattern of Rob and Natalie turning up in each other’s lives at the behest of their friends and, despite sniping at one another, finding an attraction between them. The banter is fantastic, but Rob and Natalie are less than compelling leads. They’re rude, judgmental, and classist. For example, Natalie makes snide remarks about Angus’ looks in her internal monologue, which she uses to create a thinly veiled character in her first book. Rob is an academic from an academic family and clearly has some
misconceptions about the “uneducated.” It will take a lot of work to get past these initial impressions; while the characters do inevitably grow and change to achieve their happily-ever-after, the experience isn’t entirely pleasant for the reader. The immaturity of the main characters sours some sizzling banter.
Heath, Virginia | St. Martin’s Griffin (384 pp.) | $17.99 paper May 28, 2024 | 9781250896070
A strong-willed new governess bowls over a stern naval captain. Georgina Rowe gets lucky when she’s invited to become a student at Miss Prentice’s School for Girls. As a penniless orphan whose stepfather wants nothing to do with her, receiving quality training as a governess is the best option available to her in Regency England. Unfortunately, her quick temper and strong opinions have kept her from being hired just yet. That changes when Captain Harry Kincaid, suddenly in need of a governess after his sister dumps three children and a dog on his doorstep, is too desperate to ask many questions before hiring her. And that’s for the best because, as he discovers when she arrives at his house, his life of strict discipline and punctuality is the absolute opposite of Georgie’s. But since she needs his reference to launch her career and he needs her help so he can focus on his high-pressure job with the Admiralty, they both do their best to get along. Harry is soon dismayed to find that he can’t stop thinking about Georgie’s fiery red hair
and bold personality, as he is horrified to imagine taking advantage of the help. And though Georgie initially thinks Harry is pompous and “ninetenths dislikable,” after seeing how much he cares for his family, she realizes there’s more to him than she first assumed. The concept of Heath’s new Miss Prentice’s Protegees series is intriguing, but the first book doesn’t live up to the high standard set by her Merriwell Sisters books. Though there are many bright moments, especially with Georgie’s young charges, and Georgie and Harry have good chemistry, the plot is often bogged down by interior monologues. Once the slow burn between the two finally starts smoldering, the story gains some momentum, but not enough to justify an unexpectedly abrupt ending. Fans may still enjoy this one, especially those who like a military hero, and the premise is intriguing enough to look forward to future volumes (presumably) devoted to the adventures of Georgie’s three protégé friends, but it’s not Heath’s strongest. A historical romance that never quite lives up to its promise.
Kirkus Star
Rindell, Suzanne | Dutton (432 pp.) | $17.99 paper May 28, 2024 | 9780593473917
Reminiscent of a Nora Ephron movie, Rindell’s novel is a nostalgic, heart-pounding coming-of-age tale about falling in love and finding yourself.
A strong-willed governess bowls over a stern naval captain.
ALL’S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR
It’s the summer of 1999 in New York, and Sawyer is preparing for three months of enduring heat waves, reading manuscripts, and solitude. Her fiance, Charles, was assigned to a major case at his law firm, meaning late nights and working weekends with his tooclose-for-comfort co-worker, Kendra. With summer Fridays approaching at Sawyer’s publishing job, she can’t help but dread the long, lonely months awaiting her in New York. But soon enough, Sawyer acquires an unlikely companion: Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick. At one of Charles and Kendra’s law firm dinners, Sawyer had the less than agreeable experience of talking to surly Nick, who poked fun at her name and hinted that their partners might be having an affair. Content to leave Nick and his cynicism behind, Sawyer is surprised to receive an email from Nikolai70@aol.com containing an apology. They continue emailing, then instant messaging, and Sawyer learns that Nick is not only thoughtful and a great listener, but also the only person who truly understands her crumbling relationship. As summer continues and their partners stay out later and later for “work,” Nick and Sawyer become one another’s closest confidantes. He’s the first person to hear about her editorial dreams, her condescending boss, and even her NYC bucket list, which soon becomes fodder for their summer Fridays. Drawn together by the strangest of circumstances, Sawyer and Nick start living for their Fridays together. But when summer ends, where does their relationship stand? Rindell perfectly captures the thrilling, butterfly-inducing feeling of falling in love against a background of sultry summer nights in the bustling city. She explores the complexities of wanting what you can’t have and pushing past feelings of settling for less as Nick and Sawyer navigate a passionate, vulnerable connection with their future in limbo.
Heartbreaking and romantic in some parts, downright swoonworthy in others.
Thorne, Rebecca | Bramble Books | (352 pp.)
$17.99 paper | May 7, 2024 | 9781250333292
A disillusioned palace guard and a powerful mage ditch the Queendom in this quaint Sapphic romantasy. Undying loyalty to a sociopathic queen can get pretty old. For Reyna, a palace guard, the final straw comes when a potential assassin holds a knife to her throat and she finds that Queen Tilaine doesn’t care whether she lives or dies. Decades of fealty collapse in an instant, and truthfully...Reyna doesn’t care either. She’s finally free to escape the palace grounds and never look back, to travel to the ends of the earth and open a tea shop/ bookstore. Reyna and her girlfriend, Kianthe, have dreamed of combining their favorite pastimes into a solid income and living a life free from royal obligation and bloodshed. But Reyna isn’t the only half of the couple who will need to escape Tilaine—Kianthe is the Arcandor, the Mage of Ages. Kianthe wants no part of the Queendom, nor any role in the Magicary; she’d rather act on her own to decide what duty she owes the world’s magic. Reyna and Kianthe flee the Queendom in the night and arrive just south of dragon country in a backwoods town named Tawney, meeting charming locals and uncovering an abandoned barn perfect for their tea- and bookshop. As Reyna and Kianthe embrace their independence, they tackle threats of dragons, Queen Tilaine’s spies, and commands from the ancient Stone of Seeing, all while openly and patiently navigating their newly public relationship. Thorne’s novel encompasses all the wonders of fantasy—pet griffons, vengeful dragons, and a bloodthirsty monarch—while capturing the heartwarming moments of a blossoming romance. Side characters, including a nonbinary diarn crushing on a young lord, add to the whimsy as Thorne deftly weaves a closed-door, cozy romantasy. A sweet fantasy brews little conflict.
Toffolo, Georgia | Canary Street Press (304 pp.) | $18.99 paper June 4, 2024 | 9781335458186
A travel writer reunites with her first love when she realizes he’s the owner of a resort she’s covering in French Polynesia. Though nearly 28 and an accomplished traveler, Zoe Tayler often feels like she’s at the mercy of her helicopter parents. When she was 18, she was in an accident that left her using a wheelchair, and despite her efforts at independence, she feels constantly undermined by her parents’ worries. Now her regular travel companion, Cristina, is hovering, too, making it hard for her to enjoy her latest assignment at the Poerava resort in French Polynesia. Finn Doherty was the bad boy in Zoe’s hometown of Hawke’s Cove, and while he may have had a chip on his shoulder due to a tough upbringing, he always had a soft spot for Zoe. It broke Zoe’s heart when Finn left town, but in the decade they’ve been apart, he’s become an accomplished businessman, owning several resorts around the world. When Zoe realizes that Finn is the owner of Poerava, her feelings for him come flooding back. Toffolo has created an aspirational setting—what better place to rekindle an old flame than on an island paradise? Zoe’s friends are the main characters of Toffolo’s previous romances, including Meet Me at the Wedding (2022), so readers new to the series will struggle with some lost context. Both Zoe and Finn feel like victims of arrested development—the hormones run high here, as do the constant miscommunications. There isn’t enough depth to the romance, with meaningful conversation too often tabled for lustful encounters. This novel is high in romantic settings and raging hormones but low in substance.
Voskuni, Taleen | Berkley (304 pp.)
$18.00 paper | May 7, 2024 | 9780593547328
Two women find themselves falling for each other despite a long-held grudge between their families. Even though Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian has made a name for herself in the San Francisco Bay Area as a marketing expert, she has to prove herself again and again to the tech bros who run the company where she works. Things are even more complicated now that she’s been dumped by a co-worker who wanted to keep their relationship under wraps. Between nursing her broken heart and trying to handle the pressure of an upcoming presentation, it isn’t a good time to step away from work—but then her parents ask her to help them at an upcoming convention in Chicago. Participating in PakCon could put her parents’ Armenian food company on the map, especially since one company will win an advertising slot during the Super Bowl. Ellie can’t say no, and she could use the mental break from work, anyway. She’s prepared to handle a week with her parents, but what she doesn’t expect is to meet the most stunning woman she’s ever seen. Vanya Simonian, who is unlike anyone Ellie knows, seems like her perfect match in every way—but then Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of their biggest rivals, who also happen to be competing for PakCon’s grand prize. Suddenly, Ellie’s forced to keep her burgeoning romance with Vanya a secret while facing off against someone she might be falling in love with. Voskuni brings welcome depth to her latest romance with her keen focus on Armenian culture, along with descriptions of food that will leave your mouth watering. Although Ellie and Vanya’s romance sometimes takes a back seat to the competition, Ellie’s journey as she comes to terms with her commitment to her family is a poignant thread to follow. A delectable contemporary romance that revolves around family and culture.
SINCE OUR MAY 15 issue will feature summer reads, highlighting a wide variety of lighthearted fare, I’ll take this opportunity to recommend three serious, meticulously researched works of history. I encourage all history buffs to dig into at least one of these expert studies before diving into their beach reading.
First up: Alan Taylor, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for William Cooper’s Town and The Internal Enemy. His latest, American Civil Wars: A Continental History, 1850-1873 (Norton, May 21), is “a richly detailed, compulsively readable history of perhaps the most dramatic period in the history of North America,” according to our starred review. As in his previous books, the author expertly synthesizes countless historical sources and narrative threads as he takes us through a significant period that included the American Civil War, Canada’s transition away from being a British colony, and the French invasion of Mexico.
Those subjects have all been separately covered in other books, but Taylor’s genius is his ability to move deftly among them, showing us the big picture while never neglecting the human side of the story. “Given the momentous events and delicious cast of characters, as well as the two-time Pulitzer winner’s masterful storytelling skills, it’s no surprise that the book is nearly impossible to put down,” notes our critic.
In Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier (Norton, May 28), Robert G. Parkinson takes us back to the colonial era, presenting what our starred review calls “a scarifying, blood-soaked portrait of savagery on the early frontier—much of it committed by European settlers.” The title, with its nod to Joseph Conrad, prepares readers to meet a Kurtz-like character named Thomas Cresap, an English trader who massacred a group of Mingo people along the banks of the Potomac River in 1774. Parkinson uses the bloody tale to expand on the
ERIC LIEBETRAU
history of the Appalachian frontier; as our reviewer notes, “other slaughters followed—and in them, intriguingly, Parkinson locates the first glimmer of the colonists’ decision to shake off British rule by force.” In addition to unearthing little-known elements of colonial history, the author brings in Thomas Jefferson and other major players, creating “a superb addition to the history of the late colonial era and Revolution.”
On a more global level, I highly recommend Empireworld: How British Imperialism Shaped the Globe (PublicAffairs, May 7) by Sathnam Sanghera. In this follow-up to his outstanding Empireland , the author trains his sharp eye well beyond the
boundaries of the British empire, demonstrating the long-lasting effects of imperialism on regions across the world. From Delhi to Barbados to Lagos, Sanghera immerses readers in the complexity of empire building, and he balances his colloquial storytelling with diligent research (the bibliography alone is 60 pages long). In our starred review, we note the author’s ability to synthesize hundreds of years of history into an accessible text. “If the scope of his interrogation is vaster and therefore harder to contain than that of his earlier work,” writes our critic, “his honest attempt to reckon with it is just as compelling.”
Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction editor.
Illustration by Eric Scott AndersonA memorable, masterful history of the first 50 years of an indelible American art form.
While historians often cast themselves as omniscient in their works, delivering facts and stories as important without acknowledging the impact of their own experiences on the narrative process, Questlove—drummer, DJ, music historian, and author of Mo’ Meta Blues , Creative Quest , and Music Is History —is forthcoming about the fact that he experienced music differently as he grew older. “I wasn’t sitting down for five hours listening to them over and over and over again, trying to unpack every nuance from every corner,” he writes, recalling his feelings
decades into his relationship with the genre. “But I was—I am—a DJ, which meant that I had a professional interest in excavating the songs that worked.” The author’s observations spanning the entirety of hip-hop’s history are consistently illuminating—e.g., connecting its shift in five-year increments to the dominant drug of the period, from crack to sizzurp to opioids. However, it’s his personal connection to certain eras that make his latest book stand out. Questlove considers the late 1980s and early ’90s as the “golden age of hip-hop, when innovative MCs and innovative DJs seemed to spring up every few months, and classic albums regularly sprouted
Nathalie A. Cabrol
Questlove with Ben Greenman AUWA/MCD | 352 pp. | $30.00 June 11, 2024 | 9780374614072
on the vine.” That era—filled with masterpieces from Public Enemy, De La Soul, and N.W.A.—is universally revered, but Questlove also recognizes that it coincides with the years between high school and when he officially became an artist—a time when he was immersed in finding
inspiration and understanding the construction of hip-hop. While the author’s knowledge of hip-hop is as deep as any musicologist, it’s his passion for certain artists and songs that sets him apart.
Questlove’s instincts as a superfan and artist take this history beyond the hype to something very special.
Baek Sehee | Trans. by Anton Hur Bloomsbury (224 pp.) | $26.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781639732302
In her distinctive voice, a noted South Korean author explores the roots of her mental illness and struggles toward a healthier life.
Baek Sehee’s I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki was a hit in her home country, and the English translation, which appeared in 2022, also found a broad readership. This sequel follows the same pattern of short essays interspersed with discussions with her psychiatrist. Despite having made progress in her mental health journey, the author continues to struggle with her persistent, draining depression. Through discussions with her therapist, she continues to delve into her childhood and teenage years, examining the body issues that made her overly sensitive to criticism and planted seeds of self-loathing and self-pity. Baek chronicles how she went through long periods of avoiding contact with people and drank too much. In the most distressing section of the book, she writes about falling into a powerful spiral of depression, which led to incidents of self-harm and thoughts of suicide. Some readers might find these passages disturbing, and Baek suggests that if that is the case, they should simply put the book aside for a while (which sounds like good advice). As her therapy has progressed, the author has gradually come to terms with the difficult parts of her past and learned how to put them into perspective. Healing, she realizes, is a slow but necessary process, and sharing is a part of it. “I’ve come this far in my writing in the belief that what may be a tedious
A meaningful call to revise our view of poverty and to insist on real action.
WHITE POVERTY
tale to some will be a story of hope for others,” she concludes. “I am grateful to those who have read this account of an unexceptional person because our dark stories are similar.” Baek’s journey through the dark forest of depression is sometimes painful but ultimately revelatory and inspiring.
Barber II, William J. with Jonathan WilsonHartgrove | Liveright/Norton (256 pp.) $22.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9781324094876
A prominent faith leader and social activist argues that poverty is much more deeply entrenched in America than we think.
“One of the most damnable features of our common life is the way we talk about poverty as if it’s an anomaly and not a feature of our economic system,” writes Barber II, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. That feature shifts wealth from the already have-nots to the already haves, but with divisive subterfuge: White Americans are thought to be working-class and Blacks poor. The definition of poverty must be extended, notes the author, to incorporate anybody who cannot afford to pay rent and their other expenses, which would result in a number far larger than is now
counted by official reports. By that widened scope, the number of the poor includes vastly more white people than Black. Simply changing the way poverty is measured changes the picture, and given that “the average worker in America makes $54 a week less than they did 50 years ago, after adjusting for inflation,” that picture must change in order to truly address the problem. Economic class should trump racial or ethnic classification, Barber suggests, and if it did, then the poor would have every reason to forge a political movement to press their demands—for which reason Jim Crow’s “son went to law school and came back to state legislatures in a business suit.”
One Black elder’s lament rings especially true: Black Americans have the models of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to honor, “but those poor white folk—they ain’t never had a champion.”
A meaningful call to revise our view of poverty and to insist on real action to rectify the situation.
Berkshire, Jennifer C. & Jack Schneider
The New Press (192 pp.) | $24.99 July 2, 2024 | 9781620978542
A history of the nation’s cultural conflicts over public education and a call to action in our current one.
“Today’s efforts to root
out ‘woke’ indoctrination from schools are also a warmed-over version of a panic we’ve seen before,” write Berkshire and Schneider, co-authors of A Wolf at the Schoolhouse Door , who draw a line from the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial to the present day. Calling the specifics of these eruptions “distractions,” they argue that “the real policy goal…is to dismantle public schools as we know them.” The stakes are high. Berkshire and Schneider walk readers through the history and philosophy of American public education, offering an overview of past controversies before focusing on today’s particularly virulent iteration, when education has become a galvanizing political issue. They focus on religious-freedom arguments, so-called parental rights, and calls to “fund students, not systems” as separate prongs in a concerted effort to privatize public schools via school vouchers or educational savings accounts. Little of this will be news to readers, but the authors bring to their argument both passion and pragmatism. It’s hard to resist their urgency: “Efforts to replace public education with a privatized, sectarian, pay-your-ownway model aren’t just aimed at schools—they’re aimed at the larger vision of equality and multi-ethnic democracy.” Even as they sound the alarm, they offer hope, locating it in grassroots organizing and pointing to successful local and statewide resistance to efforts to undermine public schools. They balance lofty idealism—“Schools are often the most inclusive and democratic institutions in our communities....As such, they are seedbeds of democratic life”—with data that supports their argument that privatization results in poor educational outcomes. While the practical promise of the subtitle is never actually realized, readers will come away inspired and, hopefully, energized.
A useful book for all who believe in American democracy.
Blanco, Victoria | Coffee House (336 pp.) | $17.95 paper June 11, 2024 | 9781566896535
An affecting work of “participatory research” delves into the life of an Indigenous Rarámuri family who was forced out of their native region in Mexico by environmental degradation and colonization.
In 2009, Blanco, then on a yearlong Fulbright fellowship to collect oral histories of the Rarámuri people living around Chihuahua City, Mexico, met and befriended the Gutiérrez family. Displaced to El Oasis, a “settlement filled with subsidized housing for Indigenous peoples,” in the city several years before due to drought in the northern Sierra Madre, the family had fallen on hard times, as many similar families had. Martina and Luis had moved to live near other family in the city, and in the process, they had to give up the traditional practice of korima, the sharing economy that had sustained them since ancient times, and accept the capitalist market system, which ensured their impoverishment. Working as a day laborer, Luis was often extorted out of his wages, while Martina contributed by sewing. After school, the children were often required to ask for money or sell gum and other items among the cars at KFC. The oldest son, Jaime, became addicted to meth, “scouring the house for extra coins, shaking and nervous between pills, and one of the daughters, Lupita, who was sent to boarding school, ultimately got pregnant and was kicked out (though her boyfriend was allowed to stay). The cycle of poverty finally broke when Martina joined a cooperative market to sell Indigenous goods, saved money (a fact kept from her husband), and bought a piece of land to build a house. Throughout the poignant, sometimes heartbreaking text, Blanco intimately captures the details of this
family’s practices and dreams, making the narrative read as fluidly as a novel. A painstakingly recorded, sensitively presented work of a unique “lived experience” in northern Mexico.
Bounds, Gwendolyn | Ballantine (320 pp.) $29.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9780593599709
A journalist offers a unique perspective on her midlife journey. One night at a dinner party, Bounds, author of Little Chapel on the River, listened as an elderly man asked a tween girl what she wanted to be when she grew up. It struck her that at 45, “nobody was ever going to ask me that again,” and she felt a rising anxiety. Although she was happily married, close to her family, and engaged in a meaningful career, she wanted something more. On a whim, she Googled, “What are the hardest things you can do?” Google suggested, “What are the hardest physical things you can do?” Bounds clicked and found her next calling: obstacle course racing. One popular example is the Spartan Race, a series of races of 5k to 30+ miles that require participants to scale high walls, swing on monkey bars, carry sandbags, crawl in mud under barbed wire, and flip heavy tires, among other obstacles. However, as Bounds admits, she was not an athlete. As a kid, she was often the last one picked for team sports. Now she was middle-aged; could her body withstand such arduous physical punishment? Though unsure, she was eager to find out and truly test herself. Bounds started running and strength training in earnest. She also consulted scientists, doctors, and other experts on aging, fitness, and endurance and a philosopher on how people can live more fulfilling lives. Her intriguing discoveries weave through the narrative, which takes us on an adventure-filled journey of her transformation sure to
appeal to others on similar paths. “Even in middle age and beyond,” she writes, “we can redefine who we think we are and recast the limiting constructs of who we believe we’re not.”
An inspiring guide on how to unearth a “second wind,” from someone who’s been there.
Brill, Steven | Knopf (336 pp.) | $30.00 June 4, 2024 | 9780525658313
A deep dive into the muck of fake news.
In the latest book in a growing genre, journalist Brill, author of The Teamsters and America’s Bitter Pill, examines the “toxic mix” of misinformation, disinformation, myths, alternative “facts,” and conspiracy theories that have proliferated online, leading to a lack of belief in shared truths, distrust in the legitimacy of science and expertise, and an erosion of our sense of community. He traces the current chaos to Section 230, a 1995 law allowing internet providers to police their own platforms and granting them immunity over content, no matter how ill informed or harmful. Although the intent of the law was “to maintain the robust nature of Internet communication,” Brill gives ample evidence to prove that, instead, it vastly undermined truth. In 2018, he and Gordon Crovitz founded NewsGuard to rate the trustworthiness of the most-visited sites, using criteria such as transparency of ownership and correction of mistakes. Although providers said that they supported the effort, Brill and Crovitz realized they had been naïve and clueless: “The problem,” Brill sees, “was their business plan,” which was to encourage engagement on their sites. Sensational, angry, polemic content drives engagement and therefore attracts advertising money. Because of the layers of people involved in placing ads, the companies advertised don’t know where
A brisk, well-informed, and urgent message.
THE DEATH OF TRUTH
their ads appear, so they end up supporting toxic sites that promote mis- and disinformation. While providers hired dedicated employees to staff their trust and safety teams, Brill found them to be “marginal mitigators” at best. Underscoring the acute need for reform, the author offers suggestions, including amending Section 230 to account for dangerous algorithms, ending online anonymity, directing the Federal Trade Commission to enforce providers’ contracts with users to protect them from harmful content, and bolstering online news and information literacy for K-12 students.
A brisk, well-informed, and urgent message.
Brottman, Mikita | One Signal/ Atria (288 pp.) | $28.00 July 23, 2024 | 9781668020531
The British American psychoanalyst and true crime author returns with an excavation of the luridness and venality underneath a smiling, all-American façade.
Brottman, author of An Unexplained Death, Thirteen Girls, and The Maximum Security Book Club, narrates the tangled story of two couples: Mike and Denise Williams and Brian and Kathy Winchester. They had been a tightknit group ever since high school, partying together on Saturday nights before going to church on Sunday
mornings—until 2000, when Mike disappeared while duck hunting. Just a few years later, Brian divorced Kathy and married Denise. From there, the rumor mill in their community went into overtime. Had they been a couple before the divorce? Were they involved in Mike’s death? Brottman digs deeply into the investigation, which gripped the community and divided loyalties. With the help of a Tallahassee Democrat reporter and pressure from Mike’s mother, the case gathered momentum, and the public watched the murder trials live on YouTube. “It’s commonplace murders, not grotesque or bizarre ones, that hit the public nerve,” writes the author. “The Winchester-Williams case exemplified a kind of thrilling hubris: adulterous Baptist lovers beat a murder rap, collect on the insurance, but can’t escape each other. People love a tale of outrage and scandal; they love to witness the unmaking of those who haven’t practiced what they preach.” Through meticulous research, Brottman reconstructs the backgrounds of the principal players and provides context on the role of Christianity in their lives. Even though we know the ending, the author mostly holds readers’ attention; as the conclusion nears, she ratchets up the tension, unspooling the untimely end of Mike’s life and the desperate lengths to which his friend and wife went to cover it up.
An atmospheric tale that unwraps the wholesome, God-fearing exterior of two lovers to show the rot underneath.
To read the review of An Unexplained Death, visit Kirkus online.
Brown, Peter & Steven Gaines
St. Martin’s (352 pp.) | $32.00 April 9, 2024 | 9781250285010
A compilation of previously unpublished interviews with members of the Beatles and those around them. In the introduction, Brown notes that he and Gaines conducted these interviews for their previous book, The Love You Make which makes them, in a sense, outtakes from that book, with comments by the authors. Most of them took place in the fall of 1980, shortly before John Lennon was murdered. (An interview with Yoko Ono occurred a few months after Lennon’s death.) Much of the material focuses on the business of the Beatles: their managers Brian Epstein and Allen Klein, Apple Records, and the pressures that led to the band’s eventual breakup. Epstein was originally a record store manager who took them on in their Liverpool days and managed them as they became the most famous band in the world. Klein came on board after Epstein’s death, apparently on the urging of Lennon and Ono; he was seen by many around the band as a negative force, mainly interested in lining his own pockets. Several of the subjects comment on the Beatles’ visit to the Indian headquarters of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which ultimately led all of them except Harrison to reject the guru’s teachings. The book contains interviews with George Harrison, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr, none of which are especially revealing about the band’s breakup. For the most part, they suggest that the members had outgrown what brought them together, and it was time to move on. Readers primarily interested in the group’s music, what inspired individual songs, and how the
music was performed and recorded are likely to be disappointed. However, for those interested in the interplay of personalities and the ambience of the Beatles era, this is a treasure trove. A rich collection of Beatles material, reported by those closest to the band during its heyday.
Bryant, Nick | Bloomsbury
Continuum (352 pp.) | $30.00
June 4, 2024 | 9781399409308
A sharp study of the endemic battles that have blighted the U.S. throughout its existence. In this follow-up to When America Stopped Being Great, British journalist Bryant, a former BBC senior foreign correspondent, considers the long history of political upheaval, domestic terrorism, vicious campaigns, armed rebellions, riots, assassinations, and assassination attempts that have beset a nation he once revered. Recounting battles over voting rights, gun rights, and abortion and the terrorism perpetrated by left-wing rebels like the Weather Underground, right-wing white supremacists, and militia groups, Bryant gives ample evidence for his assertion that “division has always been the default setting” for the nation since it was founded. The insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, he contends, was no outlier but instead a direct echo of July 4, 1776. The colonies’ rebellion for independence instilled “the mutinous belief that political violence directed against the government is justifiable, historically legitimate, and endorsed by the Founding Fathers.” Although it’s been said that “Trump did not change the modern-day Republican Party, he simply revealed it,” Bryant adds that “the same could be said of American political violence.” Nor is Trump the
only example of a demagogue pushing the boundaries of the presidency. “Americans,” Bryant writes, “have long had a weakness for conviction politicians who speak with the certainty of prophets.” Even John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama benefited from a predilection to “laud, lionize, and idolize.” Bryant paints a dismaying portrait of a nation with “a deep-rooted suspicion of central government; a collective sense of victimhood; an ugly nativism, racism and hostility towards the other; an anti-intellectualism; an anti-elitism; a populist anti-capitalism; a nostalgic nationalism”; and a deep-seated rage. Even in the 1950s and ’60s, mythologized “as a haven of suburban tranquility,” the country “was awash with guns.”
A perceptive look at America’s unresolved history.
Cabrol, Nathalie A. | Scribner (320 pp.) $30.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781668046685
We are on the cusp of a new wave of exploration, according to a leading astrobiologist. Some people are in the enviable position of loving their work. Cabrol is one of them, and it shows in this wonderfully sweeping book. As director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, the author leads projects in planetary science and research, spending much of her time thinking about life beyond Earth. With the invention of advanced telescopes and exploratory spacecraft, “we are living in a golden age in astrobiology, the beginning of a fantastic odyssey.” Cabrol is not a starry-eyed dreamer, and she readily admits that the first life we find
outside of Earth is likely to be microbial. There are various theories about how life developed on Earth, and she examines them to establish where the chemical ingredients and environmental conditions for life might exist in our solar system. Planets long thought to be completely inhospitable are now being reconsidered, she notes. Mars, Venus, and the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres are new possibilities. Cabrol is particularly excited by the moons Europa and Titan, which will be the subjects of unmanned explorations in the foreseeable future. Looking further afield, there are also intriguing prospects among the thousands of other planets discovered in the rest of the galaxy. In the concluding chapters of the book, Cabrol discusses the likelihood of encountering intelligent life and explains the Drake equation, used to estimate “the number of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations whose electromagnetic emissions are detectable.” Along the way, the author also speculates about entirely new types of organisms. This is a book for anyone with an interest in scientific discovery and a perfect choice for any budding astronomer or astrobiologist.
Combining enthusiasm and knowledge, Cabrol gives a lovely guided tour of the possibilities of the cosmos.
Camarillo, Albert M. | Stanford Univ. (312 pp.) | $26.00
July 2, 2024 | 9781503638198
A reflective memoir by a Mexican American ethnic studies pioneer whose achievements contrast with his hometown’s decline.
Camarillo, a professor at Stanford since 1975, contemplates his academic career and the social backdrop that fueled the
excitement of teaching in a new discipline, one aiming to redress social inequities that marked his upbringing in the semirural, working-class suburb of Compton, where Mexican immigrants lived in a segregated neighborhood. “We had not only been largely excluded from attending college,” he writes, “but our history had been excluded.” In the first section of the book, the author looks back poignantly at growing up amid the unspoken restrictions of “Jaime Crow,” as the first generation of culturally aware Chicano youth still dependent on their close-knit community. Yet as Compton transformed, Camarillo pursued his academic ambitions, which took him first to UCLA, where he found a connection to “the dawning field of ethnic studies and a growing appreciation for all that my hometown had gone through in recent decades.” He aspired to uncover the hidden past of Mexican-origin people in the U.S., struggling to have Chicano history accepted as an academic discipline, even as his hometown “became an example of the American Dream denied.” Camarillo describes his long-term efforts to enhance diversity at Stanford and legitimize ethnic studies, as well as his return to Compton, where he discovered that “impoverishment had a stranglehold on the city in the post civil rights years.” Despite the surge in violence, “for every tale of sadness and loss, I would eventually return and discover stories of perseverance and hope”—as would his son, who became a teacher there. Camarillo’s detailed recollections are evocative, and he offers a positive message about diversity and social change, only somewhat hampered by rambling storytelling or the minutiae of academic politics.
An original account of a historian’s social upbringing.
Canestaro, Nathan | Grand Central Publishing (416 pp.) | $35.00
June 11, 2024 | 9781538742716
Big aircraft carriers dominate histories of the Pacific war to the near exclusion of small ones; this is a rare and entertaining exception. Early on in his debut book, Canestaro, intelligence officer for the National Intelligence Council, reminds readers that by the end of 1942, four of the six big carriers in the Pacific had been sunk and weren’t completely replaced until 1944. As a stopgap, Franklin Roosevelt, against objections from the Navy bureaucracy, ordered nine light cruisers under construction hastily rebuilt to host aircraft. Smaller, ungainly, overcrowded, with a dangerously narrow, shorter flight deck and holding one-third as many planes, these light carriers turned out to be successful workhorses and critical supporting players in winning the war. Several of their big brothers rest in museums, but all light carriers were discarded and forgotten after 1945. Canestaro tells the story of the Cowpens , named after a celebrated Revolutionary War victory. Commissioned in May 1943, it fought in most of the battles without achieving any spectacular glory, but doing the job for which it was built. The author offers a detailed, bottom-up account of more than two years of campaigning, with pauses for interesting minibiographies of sailors, airmen, and commanding officers as well as the traditional epilogue describing their postwar lives and the mechanics of the ship, which was mothballed in 1946 and sold for scrap in 1960. Military buffs will know what to expect, but general readers,
accustomed to military histories emphasizing iconic battles, may squirm at the reality of day-to-day naval warfare. Training and landing accidents, in addition to bad luck, killed as many men as battle. Air-to-sea rescue capabilities were primitive, so innumerable pilots who landed safely at sea were never heard from again. Incompetence was no less prominent than heroism, but heroism was not in short supply. Satisfying military history.
Carter, Julian | Nightboat Books (144 pp.) | $17.95 paper
June 4, 2024 | 9781643622347
A San Francisco Bay Area dancer and historian reflects on the unique, chainlike connections found within the LGBTQ+ community. In this “charm bracelet come to life,” Carter, who teaches embodiment theory and social practice at the California College of the Arts, delivers a pensive literary souvenir linking together luminous prose, poetry, essays, historical data on the AIDS epidemic era, queer theory, and the author’s own potent perspectives on sex and coming-of-age experiences as a transgender member of the queer community. Scattered throughout these narrative elements are Carter’s interpretations of his lineage or “transcestrality,” including being an active participant in the BDSM leather community, having a penchant for piercing, and, decades ago, hosting a home dungeon visited by numerous locals. The author adds colorful “charms” to the chain in the form of historical bullet points, literary references, and epigrammatic asides interspersed among the essays and poetry. Carter dubs his artful showcase as “a series of swoons,” as anecdotes about his involvement in a
queer archival project merge with nods to queer pioneers and resistance movements of the 1980s and ’90s, in addition to much-needed activism efforts during the Trump administration. Fond flashbacks on his gender transition journey in the late 1980s “dabbling in black-market hormones” mingle with commentary on the perennial social and political power of movement. “Dancing was always part of this revolution and why shouldn’t it be again, and still?” he asks. The texture of the prose is consistently lush, as Carter ambitiously presents a rainbow of interconnected observations and digressions about trans awareness and appreciation, as well as how queer people are “linked by the carnal love you can find threaded through queer and trans archives.” Within this vibrant interwoven tapestry, the author has created a welcome cultural retrospective of LGBTQ+ life. Lyrical, fervent ponderings on the intersection of queerness, art, eroticism, and history.
Chaffetz, David | Norton (384 pp.) $32.50 | July 30, 2024 | 9781324051466
Much of the story of human history rides on horseback, according to this appealing study.
“No animal has had as profound an impact on human history as the horse,” writes historian Chaffetz, author of A Journey
Through Afghanistan, who provides convincing evidence for this view, tracking four millennia of history. The author’s primary focus is Eurasia and the vast empires of the Mongols and Mughals, although there are plenty of lively, relevant detours. Interestingly, horses were initially domesticated for milk and meat. Mare’s milk, when fermented into an alcoholic drink called ayraq, is still consumed widely by the people of the steppes. When humans discovered that they could ride horses, the first uses were for herding and hunting, but this quickly turned to warfare. With the right pasture conditions, horse populations grew quickly, and the army of Genghis Khan included more than 1 million of them. Chaffetz also delves into the use of horses in the Persian Empire, with Alexander the Great making great use of cavalry and chariots. Aside from military applications, the trading and selective breeding of horses led to important links between cultures. In western Europe, horses played a crucial role in social development, including in agriculture and transport, although overall numbers were limited by the shortage of open grasslands. The Spanish took horses to the New World, and there the equine population exploded. Several Native American tribes quickly incorporated horses into their cultures, as did later waves of white settlers. Chaffetz brings an authoritative tone to his complex tale, and he includes maps, illustrations, a glossary, and a particularly helpful timeline that runs from 20,000 B.C.E. into the mid-20th century. The result is a consistently engaging and highly informative narrative.
Chaffetz ably traces swathes of history across continents, underlining how horses made kingdoms and cultures.
The celebrated novelist discusses her passion for bird-watching and the book that resulted.
BY DAN NOLANAMY TAN LIKES to stress that she’s a bird-watcher, not a birder. While a birder might travel the world in search of a specific species, Tan prefers to stick to her own backyard. By spending hundreds of dollars on bird food and hand building feeders out of wire, the author of The Joy Luck Club and other novels turned her Marin County, California, property into a mecca for bird migration. In her backyard, finches gently tap her window and hummingbirds eat out of the palm of her hand. But unlike most birders—or bird-watchers—Tan doesn’t just observe the creatures. She draws them. The Backyard Bird Chronicles (Knopf, April 23), with a foreword by well-known ornithologist David Allen Sibley, assembles diary entries and illustrations from more than five years of drawing birds. While the simple act of observation remains the focus, Tan’s book touches on conservation, the Covid-19 pandemic, and finding solace through nature. Kirkus spoke with Tan in her New York apartment. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve always had a connection to nature, but it didn’t always include birds. Why birds, and why now?
I think for a lot of people, birds are always there. Perhaps it’s one of the reasons why you take it for granted and don’t really look at them. And it wasn’t until I was in nature and learning to draw that I realized they were very interesting to look at and draw. Once I started journaling, I just saw so many interesting things about birds. They were my
consolation during a period when it was very dark. I think it was dark for a lot of people. I needed to be in nature. I could find birds as a focus for directing my observation, my curiosity, and my efforts as I was learning to draw.
How did the pandemic play into it?
It’s so weird—you’d think the pandemic would have given writers the total freedom to finish their books, but instead, people were derailed. And I think it was because the whole
meaning of the future was disturbed. You had this sense that maybe this is going to take over the world and everybody’s going to die, or people who would have bought books have been looking at far more important things like staying alive. And so it all became really meaningless. What was more meaningful was to be in the moment, and to love what life was about. That included the beauty of nature and the peace you could find out there.
In The Backyard Bird Chronicles you write that your “impulse to observe birds comes from the same one that led [you] to become a fiction writer.” What is that impulse, and how are birding and writing related for you?
I could do a psychological analysis and tell you I grew up to be an observer because I had a mother who was suicidal. I was an observer of little hints of what might happen. I could say I’m an observer because we moved every year. I lived in a total of over a dozen homes and went to many different schools, so I had to observe before I ever belonged, observe my surroundings and how they were different. I think there’s a psychological reason why, but it could be that innately, I was born with this tendency to just look and look for patterns. That’s something my father said about me in an interview he had done when I was 6, that I had this amazing imagination. My father saw that I had
this imagination. And naturally, nature fuels a child’s imagination.
Many of your illustrations resemble comic books/ graphic novels, with some even having speech bubbles. Were you thinking of graphic novels when you drew them? No, I had no plan in terms of layout or anything. Had I known I was going to publish this book, I would have developed layouts for each page before I set them down. And I would have planned it. But a lot of those pages were done like this: Sketch quickly, type up a few observations, and then boom, that was it. As
my editor Dan Halperin likes to say, “It’s authentic.” It definitely is authentic. It’s not manipulated to look pretty for publication.
As a birder myself, I don’t take pictures or draw what I see. How does drawing affect your experience with nature?
I think drawing and nature are compatible, more so than photography. When you take photographs, you’re looking through a lens. You’re not looking directly, and I think you can really miss what is there in front of you. Whereas when you’re drawing, you’re looking, and you’re trying to know every little detail
because you don’t get to produce it with a camera. You have to notice the shape of the bill, you have to notice the proportions of the bird and how the head and the posture are. You get to know that bird at a very detailed level as you’re drawing. In the moment of the observation, you’re just looking intently at what it’s doing. To me, it’s much more compatible than, say, photography.
What would you like birders and nonbirders to take away from the book? You know, I never write a book with intentions of what readers should feel at the end. But this is an
[Birds] were my consolation during a period when it was very dark.
accidental book, and it was already done when it was proposed that it be published. So what I would love is for people to read it and say, “God, birds are so interesting,” and fall in love, deeply in love, with one bird. And for that to lead to more love of birds and concern about the conservation of birds. I would love it if more people got into bird conservation.
What is that one bird that you fell deeply in love with?
There were two: one that made me really love birds and want to have them come to the yard, and the other that made me want to stop having birds come to the yard. The first was a hummingbird that sat on my hand and fed and looked at me. And the second was a bird that flew to me because it was sick. It was a pine siskin that had salmonellosis and was going to die. It made me so sad. I took down all the feeders, which is what you’re supposed to do if there’s any kind of bird disease going on, and gave away all the food that was not opened yet. And I just didn’t know whether I’d ever [put up feeders] again, because it was so heartbreaking. And when I went back to it, I wanted to prevent the death of even one bird. That is what propelled me into conservation, because it [addresses more than] just illness. [Conservation works to stop] anything that kills these birds.
Dan Nolan is an Indie editorial assistant.
Chomsky, Noam & Vijay Prashad
The New Press (208 pp.) | $24.99 July 23, 2024 | 9781620978573
A book-length essay on the history of CubaU.S. relations.
On a visit to Havana, Prashad received a book from famed Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez to deliver to Prashad’s friend and fellow scholar Chomsky. The gift sparked a conversation between Prashad and Chomsky, co-authors of The Withdrawal , which they transcribed and edited to create this book. Despite the general title, the text mostly focuses on Cuban resistance to U.S. aggression. “We cannot think of another case like this in world history,” they write, “of a small country practically engulfed by the world’s most powerful state, which is trying to destroy it, yet managed to survive—and not only survive but succeed in many ways.” With a population smaller than that of greater New York City, Cuba’s status as “a threat to be contained” feels disproportionate to its size. Additionally, its enviable health and education outcomes, as well as its intervention in struggles like those against apartheid South Africa, ought to position Cuba as a model of morality, rather than as an enemy. One of the main sources of the U.S. government’s animosity toward Cuba lies in the island’s refusal to fall in line with American economic interests, an impressive feat for such a tiny, underresourced country. The authors back their well-formed argument about the disturbing tone of U.S. aggression toward Cuba with little-known primary-source documents and extensive statistics about Cuba’s contributions to the globe and, in particular, the global South. At times, the writers sugarcoat Cuba’s flaws— e.g., dismissing the island’s homophobic history and the negative consequences of Fidel Castro’s narcissism. While
A rich meditation on the artist’s life and work over time.
THE LONG RUN
disappointing, this lack of nuance is not enough to override the authors’ central argument, as they clearly demonstrate “the suffocation that the United States has tried to implement against Cuba.”
A strong, left-leaning history of the U.S. government’s long-standing vendetta against Cuba.
Corasaniti, Nick | Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.)
$32.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9780062950789
The inside stories about the Jersey Shore venue that Bruce Springsteen made famous.
The Stone Pony is practically synonymous with Springsteen. In the 1970s, the Asbury Park venue, rising from a riot-torn city, was key to his rise to superstardom, as he and other acts spearheaded a vibrant bar-band scene. Springsteen gets the first and last word in this entertaining oral history, and plenty of the words in between. Corasaniti, a political writer for the New York Times who used to be the Jersey correspondent, devotes many pages to the Boss’ support of local songwriters, his enthusiasm for softball and baseball (the E Street Band and Stone Pony teams had an ongoing rivalry), and his legendary impromptu visits to the Pony stage. But the story isn’t strictly Springsteen’s alone. The author weaves in stories about Asbury Park’s ever-shifting fortunes and the Pony’s occasional rescues from the brink. Though it lost its classic rockand-soul vibe by the late ’90s, it became a haven for glam metal, punk, emo, and
jam bands. Corasaniti has a well-stocked Rolodex of sources: He gathers input from Pony staffers and owners; DJs and promoters; musicians like Jack Antonoff, Bouncing Souls, Blues Traveler; and politicos like former governor Chris Christie, one of the hardcore Boss fans hoping for a surprise Pony appearance. (The sole big name missing is Jon Bon Jovi.) Inevitably, this book is largely of interest to Boss fans, and it has charming bits of Springsteen-iana; one local musician, for instance, recalls how he got a pocket lecture on contract language in the Pony’s men’s room. Like any rock ’n’ roll story, there are scenes of drugs and debauchery, but the main theme is of a community stubbornly determined to survive amid adversity, a theme echoed by a certain songwriter. Lively chatter and especially fun for Springsteen fans in particular and rock fans in general.
Kirkus Star
D’Erasmo, Stacey | Graywolf (192 pp.) | $17.00 paper July 9, 2024 | 9781644452929
A rich meditation on the artist’s life and work over time.
Two decades into her writing career, D’Erasmo, author of The Sky Below and Wonderland, contemplates a question so many artists have likely posed: “How do we keep doing this—making art?” Seeking the answer, she presents the results of her interviews with a variety of artists
including musicians, photographers, dancers, and sculptors, as well as her personal experience and research. The result is a lyrical exploration of life and art. “In my own long run, one of the main things I have always reached for to sustain me is company,” she writes. “The company of lovers. The company of friends. The company of other writers and artists, living and dead.” D’Erasmo’s essays invite readers to be part of that company, to find themselves in her pages, and, in turn, to invite other artists into the conversation. Though each essay stems from an artist the author interviewed, D’Erasmo’s associative genius takes her into new and surprising territory. For example, in “Garden,” the author wanders from queer landscape designer Darrel Morrison to Colette and climate change: “If my question is, What sustains artists over the long run?, then the answer from Morrison and Colette might clearly be: earth, which sounds so charming. However, one can’t garden, or be in a garden, or a forest, or on a prairie very long before one notices the death.” In musical sentences such as these, D’Erasmo explores not just what it means to have a long career in the arts, but what it means to be an artist, to be queer, and to be a citizen of the Earth, making this book a unique contribution to the canon of work about the life of an artist. Artists of all kinds will find inspiration and good company within these thoughtful essays.
De Socio, Mike | Pegasus (336 pp.)
$27.95 | June 4, 2024 | 9781639363858
was a nerdy, artistic kid who struggled mightily to fit in with my male peers, especially.” The Boy Scouts of America, he notes, became his “refuge.” He channels the significance of those boyhood experiences in a series of notable profiles and interviews with queer community members who found solidarity and belonging in the BSA. Unfortunately, some Boy Scouts, like De Socio, who achieved Eagle Scout status in 2011, discovered the group’s ban on gay members after they’d already become well established within the organization. Among the more illuminating interviews are those with John Halsey and Neil Lupton, lifelong BSA members who voted down the controversial policy at the group’s national meeting in 2013 and believed the ban should never have existed. The discussion delves into BSA’s earlier days, when it failed to address a rampant “pedophile problem,” and instead moved to prohibit queer members in writing in 1978. The author’s analysis dramatically covers how gay rights lawyers, employed by callously expelled gay scout James Dale, took the BSA membership discrimination fight to the Supreme Court. He also spotlights other cases of equality activism, including the plight of a lesbian den mother and how scout Steven Cozza’s grassroots initiative, “Scouting for All,” changed the face of queer scouting. The author combines his journalistic work with an interior perspective as a young Boy Scout “simultaneously observing and living through the gay membership debate,” and he concludes with upbeat coverage of “ArrowPride,” the “first official LGBTQ+ affinity space” in scouting, and a significant queer presence at the BSA’s 2023 National Jamboree.
Willie, Waylon, and the Boys: How Nashville Outsiders Changed
Fairbanks, Brian | Hachette (464 pp.) $32.50 | June 4, 2024 | 9780306831089
A former Boy Scout analyzes how the group has evolved across tumultuous decades of LGBTQ+ exclusion.
“I was not athletic or popular in school,” writes journalist De Socio. “I
An inspiring report on how a quintessentially American youth organization finally exercised queer inclusivity.
For more on Willie Nelson, visit Kirkus online.
An interesting study of the vaunted outlaws of country music, who turn out to be reasonably law-abiding citizens. It speaks volumes that the most intractable rebel in this book is Buddy Holly, who, having been rebuffed by Nashville in 1956, made the grim observation, “I don’t know how to succeed, but I know how to fail: try to please everybody.” His bass player on the day of his fatal crash was Waylon Jennings, who traded away his seat on the plane, lived, and felt guilty about it ever after. As investigative journalist Fairbanks, author of Wizards, recounts, the “outlaws” Jennings connected with—Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, and Billy Joe Shaver—shared Holly’s disdain for Nashville executives, who returned the favor. A gifted poet and songwriter, Kristofferson had the hardest time of all, so much so that he was tempted to enlist for Vietnam. “You have to understand the way Nashville worked,” said one songwriter. “The ‘talent’ were basically slaves of the record company.” Nelson famously threw off the shackles by relocating to Texas and figuring out how to bring hippies and rednecks together so that, as Kinky Friedman said, “you couldn’t tell them apart anymore.” Yet, as Fairbanks notes, for all their countercultural success and zeitgeist molding, the “boys” had only marginal commercial success compared to the “handsome, young mustachioed men and poufy-haired women with megawatt smiles” who dominated the country charts for so many years. To his credit, the author gives Chet Atkins, who often figures as a villain in the commercial-country
story, a pass. Fittingly, he also notes that the outlaws left a true legacy behind in a passel of left-leaning country renegades for a new age, not least the young artists who make up today’s supergroup the Highwomen. A pleasure for fans of the smokeshrouded, hell-raising men in black—and tie-dye.
Fox, Muriel | New Village Press (320 pp.)
$28.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9781613322444
An insider’s account of the women’s movement.
Now 96, Fox, who co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966, chronicles her experiences with second-wave feminism. In her first book, the author focuses on the contributions of more than two dozen figures, ranging from the iconic Betty Friedan (“the driving force behind our revolution”) to lesser-known activists such as Bella Abzug, Mary Eastwood, Ann Scott, and Holly Knox. Fox provides extraordinary insights into the growth of NOW and the work that went into its tremendous achievements across decades. “We transformed hiring practices,” she writes. “And language. And the image of what it means to be a woman. And jokes in the media. And women’s health care. If an injustice made your grandmother furious, we probably fought to change it.” The author thoroughly and frankly examines the intensity and significance of power struggles within NOW and the friendships and rivalries that formed among its members. She documents clearly the debates that divided members—such as whether to include advocacy for welfare, abortion, and the rights of lesbians—helping to clarify the trajectory of NOW’s ideological evolution. Also compelling are Fox’s reminders about the social and
economic barriers first targeted by the organization. For example, she vividly describes the difficulties faced by women in the 1960s who sought access to credit or an apartment lease or wanted to visit a restaurant or bar “unescorted” by a man. The author also memorably captures the outrageousness of many workplace conditions, from visible and invisible barriers to promotion, to toxic cultures enabling sexual predation. Fox took on many leadership roles during her decades as a feminist trailblazer, and the insights she shares represent a valuable contribution to our understanding of the complex history of a significant American movement. Revealing, inspiring commentary on the struggles and successes of civil rights pioneers.
Freeman, Andrea | Metropolitan/ Henry Holt (256 pp.) | $27.99 July 16, 2024 | 9781250871046
A critical assessment of food as a political weapon and source of ill health.
A legal scholar of food, health, and race, Freeman, the author of Skimmed, chronicles the mobilization of food in the U.S. to control non-white populations, assimilate immigrants, boost corporate profitability by shaping cultural norms, and foster racial health disparities. She describes how the federal
government used access to farmland and buffalo to displace Indigenous populations and diminish their numbers and how plantation owners deployed food to control the enslaved population. Food has also figured in immigrant assimilation and the privileging of whiteness. Mexicans, for example, were subject to homemaking assistance that privileged a European diet. Food-based assimilation occurs, as well, in school lunch programs that emphasize American fare such as hamburgers. Freeman focuses one chapter on milk, an unhealthy food for many non-Europeans. Race has also figured in food advertising—e.g., playing on stereotypes to sell pancakes and rice. Freeman blames the entanglement of the U.S. Department of Agriculture with giant agriculture and food production corporations for the unhealthy foods so dominant in schools and food assistance programs. Governmental subsidies to these corporations “make the unhealthiest food the cheapest,” with processed foods a major contributor to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. As reforms, Freeman calls for eliminating the work requirement in the government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the major source of food assistance for low-income households, and for casting these problems as “vestiges of slavery” to be recognized under the 13th and 14th Amendments. This legal angle stems from her belief that “USDA food programs are unconstitutional because they perpetuate racial health disparities.” The author is clearly well intentioned, but she dilutes her arguments with disparate examples and the broad scope of her assertions.
A useful reminder that food can oppress, coerce, and undermine the bodies and aspirations of vulnerable minorities.
Gerard, Sarah | Zando (368 pp.) $28.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9781638930464
A novelist and essayist turns to true crime in this deep-digging account of the murder of her friend.
Before she was brutally stabbed to death by her roommate in 2016, Carolyn Bush was a poet and a “founding board member of the nonprofit reading room and library” Wendy’s Subway in New York City. She was also a believer in astrology, a Bard College student, and a friend to many, including Gerard, whose account of Bush’s life and murder takes a kaleidoscopic approach. “To reconstruct Carolyn’s story in her own voice,” she writes, “I have gathered her language from text messages, emails, blog posts, poems, essays, social media, and interviews with many of her loved ones in which they recollected their experiences and correspondences with her.” The result is a well-researched yet often disorganized collage that includes detailed accounts of the murder and resulting trial, as well as the lives and histories of both Bush and her murderer, Render Stetson-Shanahan, who also attended Bard. At times, Gerard’s heavy use of quoted material gives great insight into Bush’s character and the story of her death, such as the marginalia scribbled in Bush’s copy of Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace: “‘Time heals all wounds, unless the desired body ceases to exist. Then it is a wound, disembodied.’” However, too many voices on the page often bog down the text, and Gerard’s attempt to cover every facet of the lives of both Bush and Stetson-Shanahan leaves many storylines unfinished and readers unsure where to focus. Whereas “we can easily understand and consume” the typical cultural narrative of the death of a white woman “without too much reflection,”
Gerard’s collagist biography and true crime investigation demands the readers participate in meaning making. A comprehensive, heartfelt, occasionally chaotic examination of the far-reaching impacts of one woman’s life and murder.
Glass, Sara | One Signal/Atria (288 pp.) $27.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9781668031216
A New York City psychotherapist tells the story of how she broke away from orthodox Judaism to come into her own as a successful lesbian professional. Glass grew up in Brooklyn as a member of the ultraorthodox GurHasidic sect. The girls she knew celebrated marriage and a life dedicated to God, their husbands, and their children. However, the author, who had her first lesbian relationship at 19, knew that “the last thing I wanted was to live with a boy for the rest of my life.” Still, she married Yossi, the first young man who passed her family’s scrutiny, just before she turned 20 and then began to express her unconventionality by seeking a university education and advanced degrees. Inevitably, though, “the walls between my universes sank through the ground” as she struggled with the demands of her professional work and her life as a wife tied to a man and religion that made her feel like little more than chattel. Against her family’s wishes, she divorced Yossi and quietly began experimenting with secular life and complex relationships with both women and men. One man, Eli, became both her second husband and “most enthusiastic cheerleader” as she pursued her doctorate. “He stuck around, found my wounds and sewed them up one by one,” she writes. Eventually, her hard-won self-knowledge helped her overcome one final hurdle when she fought Yossi and orthodox religious laws to keep her children and school them in
ways that would give them power over their own lives. “I married the man I was told was best for me and was stuck with consequences that would last my entire lifetime,” she writes. “I didn’t want that for my children.” Searching and provocative, this book chronicles a woman’s struggle with faith and freedom while also celebrating the necessity of personal choice.
A courageously candid memoir.
Kirkus Star
Gordon, Tamela J. | Row House Publishing (312 pp.) | $18.99 paper June 18, 2024 | 9781955905343
An “unambiguously Black” Cuban writer uses her life story to examine multiple aspects of community care. After “two decades working my ass off in the food service industry,” Gordon was exhausted. She left New York City, where she was working as a server, self-medicating with drugs, and making ends meet by selling them. “I was weary in my soul, in my heart,” she writes. “Tired of everything.” She moved to Miami, intending to get sober and to heal. She started therapy and joined an online support group for adults who, like her, have such severe dental problems that they must have all of their teeth extracted and replaced by dentures. While in Miami, Gordon also began Casa de Tami, a program that invites individual Black activists from “marginalized genders” to stay at her home and be treated compassionately. Eventually, with the help of a community fundraiser, Gordon moved to New Orleans, where she continued to document the ways in which members of close-knit communities support each other’s healing. While much of the book is about deeply traumatic struggles,
Gordon begins her story by letting readers know that she is not writing “trauma porn.” The author’s voice is intimate, vulnerable, frank, humorous, and affectionate, and her impressive capacity for self-reflection infuses her work with refreshingly original insights. She intersperses her memoir with a beautifully curated selection of the voices of people who share the author’s talent for conversational, honest prose. “I’m not a teacher, guru, or authority,” she writes. “Hood Wellness isn’t a how-to kind of book. It’s a reflection of the power of community and an affirmation that, regardless of our intersections and hardships, there is more for us when we walk together.” Gordon’s vision of a more just future feels both inspiring and possible. A funny, thought-provoking, and profound memoir about the intersection of Blackness and health.
Graham, Jasmin | Pantheon (224 pp.)
$28.00 | July 16, 2024 | 9780593685259
A shark researcher discusses the challenges she has faced as a Black woman in a “toxic, white, male-dominated” profession.
Graham credits her angler father with instilling in her a love of the sea. As he taught her to fish, he reminded her to always “appreciate the ocean for the life and sustenance it brings us.” At the College of Charleston, the author majored in marine biology, a discipline that introduced her to the animals who became her research passion: sharks. The more she studied them, the more she realized that sharks, like people, were “feared, misunderstood, and brutalized, often without recourse; assumed to be threatening when so often we’re the ones under threat; [and] portrayed unfairly in the media.” After college, Graham earned a graduate research fellowship to Florida State, where she became involved in
A fine celebration of determination in the face of significant professional obstacles.
SHARKS DON'T SINK
fieldwork on the critically endangered sawfish. At one point deep into her research, Graham, who had already been “fighting for space” and respect as a Black woman in the marine biology field, was forced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to turn over sawfish data she had been collecting to a white male marine biologist. Burned out, traumatized, and on the verge of giving up, she came into contact with other women marine scientists who helped her move out of academia and into nonprofit research. Among these women, two of whom were also Black, Graham was able to recover and help co-found Minorities in Shark Science, which provides “support for gender minorities of color in the field of shark biology and ecology in order to foster greater diversity in marine science.” Readers of this book will no doubt find Graham’s outspokenness and activist approach to creating opportunities for marginalized shark and marine researchers both inspiring and refreshing. A fine celebration of determination in the face of significant professional obstacles.
Grant, B. Rosemary | Princeton Univ. (272 pp.) | $29.95 June 4, 2024 | 9780691260594
Recollections of a passionate scientist. Born in 1936, Barbara Rosemary Matchett spent her early childhood exploring the natural bounty of the Lake District of
Northern England, where she became fascinated with plants and fossils and was determined to become a biologist. Sent to boarding school in Edinburgh when she was 8, she was encouraged by some teachers but dismayed by cultural attitudes that threatened to quash her ambition. “Whenever I said anything remotely intelligent,” she writes, her father would tell her “she had a mind like a man,” a remark that teachers reiterated. She was so worried that she delved into some books about hormones to see if she “was turning into a man.” At a time when 3.4% of school graduates went to university, most of them men, she knew she had a hard road ahead to achieve her dream. Her father, who had suggested she apply “to the domestic science school,” came around to agree to pay her tuition for a year, and longer if she did well. In fact, she did splendidly, graduating cum laude from the University of Edinburgh. In Canada, for a teaching job at the University of British Columbia, she met her future husband, Peter Grant, whose research interests complemented hers; they married in 1962. Barbara deferred graduate work as she followed Peter to academic positions: Yale, McGill, the University of Michigan. Meanwhile, she pursued her own research while raising their two daughters. Her interest in speciation and adaptive radiation, and Peter’s in competition between species, led them to spend several months each year in the Galápagos Islands. In a memoir infused with a sense of joy and wonder, the author combines details of challenging research with warm portraits of the scientific community in which she has flourished. A charming memoir of determination and discovery.
Harvey, Jennifer | St. Martin’s (288 pp.) $29.00 | July 16, 2024 | 9781250286703
A white academic and activist encourages her white peers to practice antiracism.
Harvey, author of Raising White Kids and Dear White Christians, began practicing antiracism in 1994 as a student at Union Theological Seminary, “the heartbeat of liberation-committed, progressive Christianity.” The author claims that her initial attempts at solidarity with people of color were messy and, at times, unintentionally harmful. Drawing on these mistakes and others, she crafts an emotional and practical framework for white people like herself to take the risks necessary to truly serve communities of color. To do so, she makes distinctions between white fragility and authentic emotion, including grief; encourages white people to “embody” their antiracism by “turning…beliefs into behavior”; and outlines the emotional, economic, and familial costs of ignoring antiracist work and allowing the status quo to continue without challenge. Throughout, she emphasizes that white antiracist work breaks generational cycles by creating the ancestors white children need to build a more loving future. “We didn’t have good ancestors,” she writes. “We didn’t get what we needed. And that’s why this is so hard.” Harvey provides a litany of practical ways to address these difficulties, including building communities with fellow white antiracists, cultivating intellectual flexibility, and identifying and making use of our personal spheres of influence. The author’s vulnerability and passion combine to create a narratorial voice that is nurturing and inspiring. At times, the author’s sympathy for white discomfort is poorly calibrated: For example, she discusses the “real costs” of antiracist white people
risking family connections without adequately acknowledging the enslavement, settler colonial genocide, and immigration raids that tear marginalized communities apart in much more violent ways. Overall, though, the book is an educational and practical read for white audiences.
A thoughtful and comprehensive guide for white people truly seeking to practice antiracism.
Higginbotham, Adam | Avid Reader Press (560 pp.) | $32.50 May 14, 2024 | 9781982176617
A searching history of a disaster-laden effort to build and launch a space shuttle. Higginbotham, author of Midnight in Chernobyl, begins in 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger experienced what a controller dispassionately called “obviously a major malfunction,” exploding with no survivors. He then looks backward at a fraught moment in earlier NASA history, when a fire in the inaugural Apollo capsule killed the three astronauts aboard, “the most lethal accident in the short history of the US space program.” Mission commander Gus Grissom had noted shoddy construction beforehand, and the rush to get the spacecraft into space before the Russians could claim the Moon led to deadly shortcuts. As the author capably chronicles, the space shuttle program began with major obstacles—not just the technical hurdles of building a reusable shuttle capable of withstanding the rigors of launch and reentry, but also “a further new parameter, one of which NASA had no existing experience: a limited budget.” That tight budget, imposed by Nixon-era austerity measures reducing a $14 billion request to
just $5.5 billion, “the first of many fatal compromises,” led to shortcuts in construction that NASA leaders overlooked even as contractors voiced worries about them. Famous scenes from the Challenger postmortem are seared in memory, including when physicist Richard Feynman plunged a rubber O-ring into ice water to show its instability in cold temperatures. Unlike Apollo, the space shuttle program was effectively terminated, if slowly, after a second shuttle, Columbia, exploded, with NASA engineers and administrators having ignored “signals lost in the noise of a complacent can-do culture of repeatedly achieving the apparently impossible.”
Higginbotham’s book is without Tom Wolfe’s flash, but it’s a worthy bookend to The Right Stuff —albeit marred by the wrong stuff—all the same.
A deeply researched, fluently written study in miscommunication, hubris, and technological overreach.
Hitchcock, Robyn | Akashic (224 pp.)
$26.95 | July 2, 2024 | 9781636142067
A noted British singer-songwriter tells the story of a pivotal year in his personal and artistic evolution. In early 1966, Hitchcock’s parents jettisoned their 12-year-old son into the “alien world” of the all-male Winchester College boarding school. What intrigued Hitchcock the most had little to do with education and colorful faculty members and everything to do with the music, including the Beatles’, to which he was exposed from the first day.
As he went through rituals of new-kid initiation, which included learning a student-only language called Notions and finding his place in a strictly defined internal hierarchy, Hitchcock found his salvation in Bob Dylan. “He looks calmly furious, beneath a lacquer of indifference,” writes the author. “But he also looks like he understands that, on
Framed is the first work of nonfiction from the bestselling novelist since 2006.
This fall Doubleday will publish Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions, John Grisham’s first nonfiction title since 2006’s The Innocent Man, the publisher announced in a news release.
Framed is written in collaboration with Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, an organization devoted to freeing wrongfully incarcerated people;
For
McCloskey inspired the character Cullen Post in Grisham’s 2019 novel The Guardians
The book “tells 10 true stories of recent miscarriages of justice,” according to Doubleday. “These are the stories of people incarcerated for life or given death sentences for crimes they did not commit—and who fell afoul of eyewitness misidentification, phony forensic analysis, fake or extorted confessions, jailhouse snitches and the misconduct of police, prosecutors, and judges.” Five of the stories are written by Grisham; McCloskey is the author of the other five.
“Since I published The Innocent Man in 2006, I have wanted to write more true stories about wrongful convictions,” Grisham said in a statement. “From a pure storytelling perspective, they are incredible because the drama has so many layers: Suffering, corruption, waste, faith, perseverance, and, hopefully, redemption— it’s all there in every case. From a moral perspective, it is imperative for a society to face and correct injustice.”
Framed will be published on Oct. 8.—A.R.
Ned Blackhawk is among the authors taking home the nonfiction prizes.
Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University announced the winners of the 2024 J. Anthony Lukas Prizes, with Ned Blackhawk, Dashka Slater, Lorraine Boissoneault, and Alice Driver taking home the awards for outstanding nonfiction books.
Blackhawk won the Mark Lynton History Prize for The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, which presents the story of the United States as told through Native American experience. The book was the winner of the 2023 National Book Award for nonfiction.
The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize went to Slater for Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account
For a review of The Rediscovery of America, visit Kirkus online.
and the Teenagers
Whose Lives It Changed, about the fallout from an Ins tagram scandal that engulfed a California town.
Winning the J. Anthony Lukas Work-inProgress Awards were Boissoneault for Body Weather: Notes on Illness in the Anthropocene and Driver for The Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company. The Lukas Awards were established in 1998. Previous winners include Jeffrey Toobin for The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, Andrew Solomon for Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity, and Kerri K. Greenidge for Black Radical: The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter.—M.S.
Ned Blackhawk
A lesser-known campaign receives well-deserved attention.
BURMA '44
some level, everything is a joke. He looks wise. Wise and dangerous.” Hitchcock’s love of music did not emerge from a vacuum: His father loved traditional folk music and introduced his son to the BBC’s Pick of the Pops radio program. The author’s life then underwent an artistic revolution that began with his parents’ gift of a “cheap but functional nylon stringed guitar.” That event coincided with the rise of famous guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett, who inspired the author to begin playing his own guitar. Also in 1967, Hitchcock’s childhood began falling away as he shot up to over 6 feet tall, came into contact with experimental musician and “groover” Brian Eno at school “Happenings,” and began actively exploring not only music, but also writing and drawing. A bright, nostalgic look at the exhilaration of 1967, this book—illustrated throughout with Hitchcock’s surreal sketches—will appeal to not only the author’s many fans but also anyone interested in the music and culture from the golden age of psychedelia. Wistfully reflective reading.
Holland, James | Grove (448 pp.) $30.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9780802160584
The author of Sicily ’44 , Normandy ’44 , and other acclaimed works of military history returns with a look at a significant yet overlooked World War II battle.
As always, Holland is adept at setting the background for his analysis of the battle. In 1941, a few days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japanese forces sank the cream of the British Asian fleet, quickly overran the British colonies of Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore, and chased British forces out of Burma into India. Preoccupied with Germany, Britain gave its huge Indian army low priority in men and supplies. Recruits were trained in desert fighting and sent to North Africa until its conquest in 1943, when India received more attention. There followed a massive influx of supplies, training (morale was terrible), and better commanders (India was a dumping ground for failed officers from the European theater). Just as the British were completing preparation for their offensive in February 1944, the Japanese launched their own, broke through, and surrounded a number of units and their headquarters deep in the jungle. There followed 15 days of brutal fighting which, unlike previous encounters with the Japanese, succeeded. This Battle of the Admin Box is considered the turning point in the India-Burma campaign. Holland, a meticulous researcher, excels in describing the lead-up to the battle and the quality of the leadership—Briton William Slim was certainly the most competent Allied general facing Japan—and he includes many lively anecdotes on individual fighting men. WWII buffs will enjoy a detailed account of the climactic battle without making much sense of it, since the fighting took the form of a series of bloody, small-unit actions in a confined area. The author’s extensive maps don’t fully explain the minutiae, but he does ably capture the abundance of heroism and the satisfying outcome. A lesser-known campaign receives well-deserved attention.
Hopson, Cheryl R. | Reaktion Books (224 pp.) | $22.00 paper July 15, 2024 | 9781789147957
A concise exploration of the life and work of the acclaimed writer, anthropologist, and folklorist. In the latest in the Critical Lives series, Hopson, a professor of English and African American studies, argues that Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) used her “firm foundation of self-knowledge and self-worth” to “build herself up from the frontier that was Eatonville, Florida, where she grew up, and from out of the squalor in which she lived after her mother died in 1904.” The author’s upbringing in all Black Eatonville fostered the bright girl’s curiosity and daydreaming. When she was 13, her father sent her to a Christian school in Jacksonville, after which she continued her education at Howard. At 37, with financial help from friends, Hurston graduated from Barnard College, its first Black student. She was mentored in anthropology by Franz Boas, who sent her to Eatonville to research Black culture; then she moved to New York City and “quickly transitioned…to an award-winning Black woman intellectual” amid the Harlem Renaissance. Her 1926 play, Color Struck, a “pioneering literary work,” won second place in drama from Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life. In 1928, she “underwent a voodoo conversion” in New Orleans, later writing her “manifesto of selfhood and identity,” “How It Feels To Be Colored Me.” In 1931, Hurston wrote the posthumously published Barracoon, which deals with the slave trade, and two years later, her first novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine. In 1935, she published her important folklore collection, Mules and Men, with Boas’ introduction, and her highly influential novel Their Eyes Were Watching God came out the next year. After moving to California, she wrote a memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road, which Hopson describes as “an invaluable work
of self-fashioning and self-promotion.”
Though well researched, the narrative suffers from patches of dry, choppy prose. A serviceable introduction for general readers.
in the U.S.A.
Hyden, Steven | Hachette (272 pp.)
$32.00 | May 28, 2024 | 9780306832062
Ambling biography of Bruce Springsteen’s most popular album. Rock critic Hyden, author of This Isn’t Happening and Twilight of the Gods, was just 6 when he discovered Born in the U.S.A. At that age, he writes, he did not comprehend the title song, a bitter lament from a returned Vietnam veteran and the forgotten lives he and his comrades would lead. Of course, half the people who heard the album didn’t get that connection, certainly not Ronald Reagan, who wanted to use it for a campaign theme. Writing on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the album, Hyden argues that the album “managed to capture the center of American life”—a single album able to accommodate interpretations from all points along the cultural and political spectrum. No more. In this polarized and fragmented time, where Springsteen had formerly eschewed taking political stands, he now placed his bestselling record to the left, turning his back, perhaps, on a good chunk of his audience who take a more rightist stance. The thesis is unremarkable, but Hyden scores good points along the way. Some are of the cultural-critical sort, as when he notes that the album “represents the peak of the boomer generation controlling what was popular in music.” Soon after, listeners would fragment, with younger audiences turning away from classic rock and toward self-curated playlists rather than what MTV and the radio were selling.
New attitudes were also emerging: Hyden contrasts Springsteen’s album with Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction, with the left-behind jungle of Vietnam turning into the inescapable jungle of America. As for Springsteen’s one-time plea for togetherness, fuggedaboudit: “Outside the arena, the dream disappeared. All you had were the broken pieces of America.” Fans of the Boss will find arguable interpretations on every page, but definitely a book worth their attention.
Jacobsen, Annie | Dutton (400 pp.)
$30.00 | March 26, 2024 | 9780593476093
A scarifying, play-by-play exercise in gaming an apocalyptic war. When the Cold War ended, military tacticians pronounced nuclear warfare a thing of the past. Instead, writes Jacobsen, author of The Pentagon’s Brain, Area 51, and Operation Paperclip, the threat of nuclear holocaust is ever with us. Her scenario—based, she notes, on facts that will lead readers “to the razor’s edge of what can legally be known”— begins with a single thermonuclear missile landing on the Pentagon, atomizing millions of Washingtonians far out into the distant suburbs. That scenario hinges on the gamed-out supposition that it will be a rogue North Korea that fires a single offending missile, one hard to detect given that the existing technology can track the heat signature of a “hot” missile and perhaps shoot it down if given a time frame of five minutes, after which, as one technician says, “they cannot see the rocket after the rocket motor stops.” Still worse is to come, for in a counterlaunch that would surely vaporize North Korea with overwhelming force, Russia, fearing that some of those American rockets are heading its way, might launch a retaliatory strike that would unleash every available resource in the arsenal of both nations—collectively
capable of destroying humankind hundreds of times over. Updating Orville Schell’s groundbreaking (and better written) 1982 book The Fate of the Earth, Jacobsen then outlines the very rapid collapse of civilization and the erasure of all our technologies—no more electricity grid, no more industrially farmed food, certainly no more internet—all leading to a world in which “only the ruthless survive” and in which “everyone loses. Everyone.” It’s a cheerless prognosis; however, by Jacobsen’s account, it’s altogether plausible.
An urgent warning guaranteed to cause nightmares—and frustrating, since we’re all powerless in the face of nuclear weapons.
Jacoby, Melissa B. | The New Press (320 pp.) | $27.99 June 11, 2024 | 9781620977866
An exposé of the racial, class, and corporate biases in the U.S. bankruptcy system. In her first book, Jacoby, a professor of law at the University of North Carolina, argues that bankruptcy has “fallen short” as a legal tool to provide debt relief for struggling individuals and families. Instead, it “entrenches existing hierarchies and power structures.”
Under the federal Bankruptcy Code, individual bankruptcy places onerous demands on filers and tramples on their privacy, with Black filers suffering additional discrimination. The bankruptcy courts are more accommodating to businesses, which the author labels “fake people.” Businesses are able to retain their autonomy, and all debts, unlike for individuals, qualify for cancellation. In municipal bankruptcy filings (such as Detroit recently undertook), the courts favor financial claimants over public services. What
Smart, accessible, and highly readable.
THE INFERNAL MACHINE
most angers Jacoby are organizations such as Purdue Pharma or the Boy Scouts of America, which use the system to resolve civil liabilities resulting from the harm—e.g., opioid addiction, sexual abuse—that they have caused. Many of these filings occur when the organization is not seriously indebted. Such cases deny claimants a voice in the resolution, block them from pursuing civil cases, and grant minimal payments or none at all—“a promise to pay is not money.” Although the legal and administrative detail is at times daunting, Jacoby offers a convincing and mostly accessible assessment of how an ostensibly just system can be manipulated to be decidedly unjust. As for reform, she offers only general recommendations such as prohibiting the use of bankruptcy for litigation management and increasing transparency in corporate and municipal filings. Given the prevalence of personal and business bankruptcies and the ripple effects they induce (job loss, family disruption), this book is deserving of wide readership. An impassioned plea for confining bankruptcy to its core purpose of resolving just debts justly.
Infernal
Johnson, Steven | Crown (368 pp.)
$32.00 | May 14, 2024 | 9780593443958
How anarchism gave birth to the surveillance state. The “infernal machine” was Alfred Nobel’s invention, dynamite, a favored tool of
those who embraced “the propaganda of the deed” due to its destructive power and easy availability. The anarchists gained notoriety with violent assassinations of heads of state in Europe and the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century, believing that only through destruction could a better world be born. Prolific popular historian Johnson begins with an international overview, then focuses on the U.S., where corrupt, inefficient local police forces were ill equipped to deal with any kind of crime. He traces the efforts of Joseph Faurot, a New York City police detective who introduced new methods of identification such as fingerprinting, and Arthur Woods, the NYPD commissioner who modernized and cleaned up the department from 1914 to 1917. Johnson’s protagonists on the other side are anarchists Alexander Berkman, attempted assassin of industrialist Henry Clay Frick and an unabashed proponent of violent political acts, and his partner Emma Goldman, who saw that violence damaged the cause but could not bring herself to disavow comrades who resorted to it. The author is sympathetic to the radicals’ outrage at modern capitalism’s brutality, noting that “for every death at the hand of a bomb-wielding anarchist, a hundred or more would die from factory accidents,” but he deems the anarchists’ association with violence “one of the most disastrous branding strategies in political history.” Woods’ use of data collection to identify the perpetrators of bombings and sometimes even prevent them rehabilitated the NYPD’s tarnished reputation, while random acts that killed civilians turned public opinion against the radicals. Drawing parallels with contemporary acts of terrorism and governmental abuses of power in monitoring citizens, Johnson makes
history part of an ongoing story we all need to consider.
Smart, accessible, and highly readable.
Kay, Adam Forrest | Basic Books (496 pp.)
$35.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9781541675780
Another in the steady stream of books aiming to explain the massive complexities of quantum theory. Like most predecessors, MIT researcher Kay makes a valiant if not entirely successful effort. He writes that in the old classical universe, an object occupied a single location. Nothing could be in two places at the same time; matter was one phenomena and energy another. Because it seemed to make intuitive sense, it didn’t require a complicated explanation, but it turns out that we live in a quantum universe that defies such a reality. The great quantum pioneers, including Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrödinger, produced accurate descriptions of phenomena without revealing the mysteries, so Einstein and others insisted that quantum theory is incomplete and required deeper explanations. Kay’s hero, French physicist Louis de Broglie (1892-1987), won the 1929 Nobel Prize for his pilot-wave model demonstrating wavelike behavior of particles. According to the author, this step in the right direction was crushed by the quantum formalism of Bohr et al. De Broglie’s countrymen revived it in 2005, with experiments showing that a tiny oil bead dropped over a vibrating oil bath never coalesces but moves in a bizarre path across the surface in an analogy to the pilot-wave theory. Although generous with charts, tables, and metaphors, Kay’s description of how this makes sense may mystify readers unfamiliar with college-level physics—as is the case
with many books on this subject. In the final third, the author offers numerous denunciations of the physics establishment. Metaphysics, theology, and a host of New Age theories embrace the unknowable, he writes, but science has triumphed because it attempts to describe reality. Kay also addresses the newly popular idea that “theoretical physics has completely stalled and made no progress in forty years.” Insights into quantum theory that may flummox nonprofessionals but keep them thinking.
Kershenbaum, Arik | Penguin Press (288 pp.) $30.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593654934
Animals have much to say to each other—but also to us.
Kershenbaum, a zoologist at Cambridge and the author of The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy, has been studying animal communication for decades, and he readily admits that he and his colleagues have only scratched the surface of the subject. In his latest book, the author brings us up to date on the current research, with examinations of the work being done with wolves, dolphins, parrots, gibbons, and chimpanzees. For decades, there was an assumption that only human communication was “real” language, but the new approach explores communication within the broader social and environmental context of animal communities. For example, wolf howls can be classified into categories such as territorial claims and warnings, although there is also an element of enjoyment for the animal. This type of communication is common across species, while some animals, such as gibbons, also sing as a way of social bonding. Most of dolphin communication remains a mystery, but it is clear that they have a wide vocabulary and
signature whistles. Chimpanzees also appear to have a sense of individuality, and they have shown that they can develop complex language systems. Kershenbaum believes that his field is on the threshold of new breakthroughs, with AI systems offering unprecedented levels of analysis. The author avoids the trap of thinking that animal communication is somehow inferior to human communication simply because it is different. Studying it lets us move away from the rigid notion of human exceptionalism and toward a better understanding of the world. “There is really nothing to lose, except our perception of sitting on a throne at the pinnacle of creation,” he concludes. “Which was always an illusion anyway.”
A dive into animal communication that is fascinating in its own right, but also revealing about humanity.
Laing, Olivia | Norton (336 pp.) | $27.99 June 25, 2024 | 9780393882001
The award-winning author pens a fascinating and personal journey of paradise. When Laing, author of Everybody, Funny Weather, and other acclaimed books, bought a house in Suffolk, she did so mostly for the garden. Especially during the early pandemic, the dilapidated yet lush yard became her personal project. Spending hours with her hands in the dirt, she became enraptured not just with her own garden, but with the history of gardens and their association with paradise. The result is this intellectually stimulating, vibrant book. Laing describes gardens of her own acquaintance in sensuous, compelling detail, allowing readers to see, smell, and touch them alongside her. Similarly, the author moves through fascinating
currents of thought, ranging from Paradise Lost to the history of enslavement in plantations, with tactile dexterity. “The lockdown made it painfully apparent that the garden, that supposed sanctuary from the world, was inescapably political,” she writes. As the author unpacks the fraught history of colonialism and class inequality in relation to gardens, she offers intriguing examinations of utopias. Laing describes the version of utopia espoused by 19th-century landscaper and socialist William Morris as a place where “people work because they want to, as gardeners do, out of sheer love of making something. The capitalist system of alienated labor has melted into air.”
Gardens, therefore, might be historical as well as contemporary sites of inequality, but they can also allow us to imagine a more buoyant and radical future. Suffused with Laing’s distinctively skillful prose, this book is an impressive achievement. “One of the most interesting aspects of gardens: that they exist on the threshold between artifice and nature, conscious decision and wild happenstance,” Laing writes, and the author’s fascinating research and well-honed writing are a testament to the beauty of that threshold. An intellectually verdant and emotionally rich narrative journey.
Leftah, Mohamed | Trans. by Eleni Sikelianos Other Press (80 pp.) | $15.99 paper June 18, 2024 | 9781635423020
Haunted by the suicide of a classmate decades prior, a Moroccan author offers an elegant “little chronicle” as a proper lament for the young man.
In the 1960s (exact date not specified), the suicide of a popular high school junior shocked the small Moroccan town of Settat, “still nothing more than a tiny village dozing like a lizard under an unchanging blue,
sunlit sky.” Seemingly out of nowhere, Khalid left his history class, a brief suicide note scribbled on the desk, and jumped to his death over a fourth-floor railing into the courtyard below. For Leftah (1946-2008), who wrote 10 novels during his career, Khalid became a “sleeper of the valley,” after a poem by Rimbaud. In brief, cryptic segments, the author attempts to establish a sequence to the events, emphasizing detail that has become excruciatingly seared in his memory: Khalid’s right arm in a sling that day as they climbed the stairs to class; the history professor, “alcoholic, intemperate, and decadent Mr. Ciccion,” who was chosen as the “messenger” for the laconic suicide note asking forgiveness of Khalid’s mother and wishing “eternal happiness” to a fellow student; and the Arabic teacher at school, who became the dead boy’s punishing “obituarist,” condemning the suicide according to Koranic verses. Leftah is compassionate in his excavation of the horror surrounding Khalid’s death, and he speculates about the boy’s motive— perhaps a transgressive love for a beautiful fellow soccer player? The author makes these remnants of memory shine like talismans. “I linked these items and writings with scraps, diversions and ruptures, rage and love, to dissolve a rhetoric, a writing, a calligraphic shroud,” he writes. The book was first published in France in 2008. A moving, startling, enigmatic work of memory and loss that feels as fresh as when it was written.
Leon, Joél | Henry Holt (304 pp.)
$28.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781250887108
Raised by an Afro-Caribbean mother who worked hard as a nurse, and now the committed father of two young daughters, Leon, a creative director at the New York Times ’ T Brand Studio, “wanted to write a book that examined the spectrum of Black masculinity with language that didn’t feel linear, or like a copy and paste....I aim to tear apart, to pick, to probe, and to ponder.” Deeply immersed in hip-hop—he initially intended to make a living as a rapper—Leon name-drops hip-hop artists with abandon and often without elaboration, which may leave readers without his knowledge adrift, even as they appreciate his energetic prose. Because his style is free flowing, almost stream of consciousness (“I write essays like I write raps”), the author is less effective in essays that call for more tightly reasoned arguments. “Good Art, Bad Art, Black Art” bogs down in truisms like, “Blackness is not considered the norm. Whiteness is.” Leon is at his best when he anchors the essays to the details of his own life and allows his natural, quirky sense of humor free rein. In the relatively succinct, slyly comic “Belly,” the author meditates on his ambivalence about his body. Over the course of this memorable essay, he describes a history that includes snacking on fried chicken after a long day of work, single fatherhood, remarks about his belly from lovers pleased and displeased by it, and camping in front of the TV eating the pizza his mostly absentee father occasionally provided if he “wasn’t drunk or hadn’t spent his own SSI check at whichever bar he fell asleep at or around.”
Lethem, Jonathan | ZE Books (416 pp.)
$40.00 | July 16, 2024 | 9798988670001
Essays that circle out from the experience of a Brooklyn-based writer to explore the ramifications of living as a Black man in contemporary America.
A sensitive, entertaining, insightful, sometimes verbose collection.
For reviews of Jonathan Lethem's books, visit Kirkus online.
An acclaimed author celebrates creativity. Prolific fiction writer and essayist Lethem gathers his writings on art, most of which were published in catalogs, monographs, or exhibition materials, into a sometimes lyrical, sometimes surreal, always surprising volume, profusely illustrated with images of paintings (including a few of his own early works), sculpture, collages, movie stills, graffiti, book jackets, photographs, and comics. Many are from the author’s abundant collection. When artists asked him to write something to accompany their works or exhibitions—writing he saw as “language-cellophane” that “teases at being a transparent window”—he preferred payment in artworks. Lethem grew up in a world of paintings and books: “My father made the paintings and my mother handed me the books, and talked about them, and read them herself. I began wanting to make the paintings before I can remember….I began wanting to make the books too, soon enough.” With his father or on class trips, he was a frequent visitor to most of New York’s museums, going so often, he recalls, “that I couldn’t remember a time before I knew those rooms and some of the furniture inside them.” In high school, he would drop in at the Met’s Chinese Garden to take an afternoon nap. He pursued the dream of being a painter as a student at the High School of Music and Art, but once he went to college, he put away his “fantasies of becoming a painter, sculptor, cartoonist, or film director” and turned exclusively “to text, to narrative.” As this collection of
stories, essays, dialogues, and reminiscences reveals, though, Lethem still feels a visceral connection to art: “By identifying with visual artists,” he writes, “I’m searching for a lost self” as well as “a continuation, not an interruption” of his father’s enduring influence. Astute, often idiosyncratic responses to works of art.
Levin, Yuval | Basic Books (368 pp.)
$32.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9780465040742
A learned interpretation of the Constitution as a document that creates unity as much as political structures.
Several recent books have held the Constitution to be a fundamentally flawed document, enshrining legal protections for the benefit of the slave states. Levin, author of The Fractured Republic , writes instead that the Constitution, read generously, affords a solution to reigning schisms: “It was designed with an exceptionally sophisticated grasp of the nature of political division and diversity, and it aims to create—and not just to occupy—common ground in our society.” Thus, the Constitution is not merely a legal framework but also the scaffolding for solidarity. Levin examines the Constitution along a “five-part framework,” four related to government and the fifth devoted to “union and unity.” The five are interrelated if sometimes in uneasy relationship to one another. For example, the constitutional mechanisms guaranteeing the rights of minorities against the tyranny of the majority enable such encumbering antiquities as the Electoral College. “Simple majoritarianism is of no use
when there aren’t simple majorities,” writes the author, arguing that the net effect of these tensions is to require contending bodies to “act together when they don’t think alike…making civic unity more achievable.” Levin takes a prescriptive turn later in his discussion, suggesting that there are ways to improve a bogged-down legislature to return to the Constitution’s better angels. Congress is too much in the hands of party leaders who give junior members too little to do, which, the author writes, might be solved by giving congressional committees more power—especially those that concern the budget, which would foster bipartisan action and “depolarize spending debates a little.” Otherwise, Levin holds, parties will respond only to their bases and ignore the vast center—i.e., about what we have today. An affably contrarian reading of the Constitution that merits attention.
Lintott, Chris | Basic Books (320 pp.)
$30.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9781541605411
An astrophysicist examines why “we exist as the result of a chain of countless accidents.”
Having written a popular account of his subject in Bang! The Complete History of the Universe , Lintott, professor of astrophysics at Oxford, writes another that steps back to remind readers that, until the past century and with the exception of the Earth, astronomers dealt with subjects that were out of reach. Unable to perform experiments, they attempted to explain what they saw with a confidence that was not always justified, and they regularly changed their minds. “Whenever we
have looked longer, deeper, farther or in new ways at the Universe, it has surprised us,” writes the author. In reality, the surprises are almost always phenomena that were there all the time. Perhaps the most unwelcome would be one of the roughly 800,000 known asteroids striking the Earth. About 20,000 cross our orbit, with plenty of experts tracking their progress. They assure us that a disastrous collision is guaranteed, if unlikely— similar to the odds of dying in a plane crash. Discovery of the first planets around other stars produced headlines, but it’s now clear that uncounted numbers exist. That surprise is sure to be dwarfed by the first evidence of life beyond Earth. Being alive requires so many wildly complex processes that life’s development on Earth may be unique, although this is a minority view. Most astronomers believe that life is inevitable given certain conditions, and the presence of billions of earthlike planets in our galaxy alone gives cause for hope. Enthusiasts may gnash their teeth at Lintott’s lack of interest in UFOs and insistence that hard evidence for alien life forms is nonexistent, but he is a diligent scientist, and the discovery of a single one will convince experts that the universe is well populated. An entertaining astronomical miscellany.
Liverpool, Layal | Astra House (320 pp.)
$30.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9781662601675
An urgent study of how ethnic minority patients are medically disadvantaged because they are economically and socially disadvantaged— and they are dying because of it.
Liverpool, a British journalist for Nature with an expertise in
Joy Buolamwini
EDITORS’ PICKS:
The Brock/Pike/Rook/Lark quartet by Anthony McGowan (Union Square & Co.)
The Wrong Way Home by Kate O’Shaughnessy (Knopf)
A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks by David Gibbins (St. Martin’s)
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron Books)
ALSO MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE:
Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny
After the Fire by Will Hill
Shipwrecked!: Diving for Hidden Time Capsules on the Ocean Floor by Martin W. Sandler
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
Falling From Disgrace by Tammy Dietz
Freedom: Your Path to Recovery by James Eade
Of Vital Interest by Frank Demith
Espionage: Regime Change by Tom Easton and Frank Wu
Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.
An ornithologist and author offers an artful meditation on race and recreation. BY MEGAN LABRISE
On this episode of the podcast, J. Drew Lanham discusses Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves (Hub City Press, April 2), a personal and profound mixture of poetry and prose from the author of Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts and The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair With Nature.
Lanham, who grew up in Edgefield and Aiken, South Carolina, is an ornithologist, naturalist, professor, poet, and 2022 MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient. An alumni distinguished professor and master teacher of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, he is a passionate advocate for birding, outdoor recreation, and environmental conservation. In his poetry and lyrical essays, he clearly and movingly examines the racism people of color often face while attempting to enjoy the great outdoors.
Here’s a bit from our starred review of Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves: “‘Miracles occur by evolutionary adaptation and seasonal migration,’ writes Lanham, author of Sparrow Envy and The Home Place. On the same page, the author acknowledges that ‘people die by the police because their Black lives don’t matter.’ The power of this book is in how well it holds the duality of these truths. We see that the pain created by humanity does not necessarily negate the beauty. Early on, he writes, ‘Be advised, every poem isn’t an ode to joy, and yes, sometimes there is sadness, or anger within the words.’ Lanham is masterful at showing how, despite the struggles of climate change, war, and racism, among other societal ills, joy is present, and choosing to pursue delight in the face of injustice is a brave act.…With his consistently engaging writing, keen eye, and generosity of spirit, Lanham is a writer to whom we should all listen closely. Lanham memorably, vibrantly
shows how choosing joy is an act of resilience, courage, and power.”
Lanham shares the story of how Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves came to be. We then discuss depicting birds metaphorically or allegorically in lush language; the importance of rhythm and rhyme in poetry, prose, and conversation; the meaning of the word alula; and the process of compiling one’s notes into a larger work. We talk about the importance of the Piedmont, which covers about one-third of Lanham’s home state; how living in the modern world can sometimes seem incomprehensible and overwhelming and make you want to take a nap; the absence of a hierarchy of emotion when encountering the truth of lived experience.
After the interview, editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.
To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.
immunology and virology, takes a broad view of a thorny problem: Racism plays a critical factor in health care and, as the Lancet notes, is “a public health emergency of global concern.” Systematic racism presents in many ways in the health sphere, including the persistent belief that Black people have differences enough in their pain receptors that they require less anesthesia in surgery. Biological differences do exist, notes the author, but these are at the genetic level and affect such things as the ability to metabolize certain therapeutic drugs, in the same way that people with certain genetic markers have difficulty metabolizing dairy products. Racism is often marked by simple carelessness. Algorithms for one dermatology app, for instance, were trained on lightskinned people, making their diagnostics suspect for those of darker complexion. Liverpool herself suffers from a skin condition that white doctors said was incurable until one dermatologist pronounced it common eczema that expresses itself somewhat differently on darker skin. Racially grounded disparities in health care are everywhere: Black patients wait far longer for organ transplants than whites, and standardized tests eliminate many from the candidate rolls; Black and brown people were disproportionately affected by Covid-19, and hospitals treating Black patients received fewer funds; childbirth mortality rates are higher for Black women than for white women; and so on. Liverpool notes that while these disparities are measurable, “instead of simply stating that Black people are dying disproportionately because they are poor, we should be asking why Black people…are disproportionately poor in the first place.”
A powerful argument for a more equitable approach to health care.
MacNicol, Glynnis | Penguin Life (288 pp.)
$30.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9780593655757
A woman’s quest for pleasure in a post-pandemic Paris.
In August 2021, MacNicol, author of No One Tells You This, embarked on a journey through Paris in pursuit of radical joy. Unmarried with no children, she longed for a change of scenery and change in pace, and she felt herself grasping for excess after nearly 16 months of isolation in New York City. In Paris, she explored the tourist-free streets, absorbing abundance and light among her new friends and mysterious lovers. Pulling references from literary giants such as Joan Didion and Nora Ephron, MacNicol poses many important questions about what it means to be a woman free of tethers. Finding beauty in the slow moments along the Seine, or passing by the Louvre, she absorbed all that Paris has to offer. She ate delicious food, met handsome men, and had exciting sex, finally allowing herself to feel satisfied. Her story is not without depth. “I look at this young woman, twenty-three years old, and how all her selves have been split up too,” she writes about an acquaintance. “Not by isolation, but by too much connection. Too much knowledge. The way that the internet has robbed her of discovery. Of being allowed to not know, to have to find out on your own.” Women today are expected to know and be everything, but at what cost? Are your 20s the only acceptable
age to grow and evolve? These are only some of the questions MacNicol brings to the table, as she challenges modern expectations of the right to pleasure and enjoyment and being one’s true self in an ever-darkening world. Blending humorous commentary and wit with vivid stories of love, lust, and good food, MacNicol generously invites readers into her Parisian paradise. A fun memoir filled to the brim with humor and vulnerability.
Madrid, Mike with Marcus Bretón Simon & Schuster (272 pp.) | $28.99 June 25, 2024 | 9781668015261
A political consultant’s thoughts and predictions regarding America’s increasing Latino population. A self-proclaimed “political data guy,” Madrid, co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, has amassed compelling statistics on voters generally and Latino (the term the author prefers over Latinx , “a political term, not a community term”) voters in particular. The author attempts to synthesize decades of experience in service of understanding and engaging Latino voters, who have been ignored or taken for granted, misrepresented, and, perhaps most critically, left uncompelled by either of America’s major political parties to participate in the civic process. The first half of the text is a sort of political autobiography, outlining Madrid’s Republican identity forged in the Reagan era, his campaign work in his home state of California and on the national level—which reached a crescendo during George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign—and a defection from the GOP in the
Trump years. Both Madrid’s professional rise and his partisan disenchantment demonstrate his enthusiasm for the political process and his fervent belief in the power of the Latino community as a voting bloc. He issues calls to action for both Democrats and Republicans to acknowledge and court this power with aspirational messages and policies that address the needs of a rapidly assimilating group. However, chunks of text spent on details of political ad campaign purchases and quotes by the author in the press would have been better used fleshing out the meaning, context, and implications of Madrid’s data. The author struggles to convincingly support many of his most potentially insightful points—e.g., Latino voters’ rightward shift, ideas for engaging Latinos in swing states, and their relative prioritization of cultural or economic issues. Madrid’s detours stifle the potential for deeper analysis that he is in such a distinct position to provide.
Packed with interesting, useful information, but ultimately lacking cohesion.
Mallinson, Daniel J. & A. Lee Hannah New York Univ. (256 pp.) | $30.00 paper July 16, 2024 | 9781479827930
A comprehensive assessment of the conflicting marijuana policies across the U.S.
As of the end of 2023, 38 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana and 23 have legalized recreational use. Mallinson and Hannah, academic specialists in political science and public policy development, delve into the sea change in marijuana policy from prohibition to acceptance. While the federal government has shown little interest in changing long-standing policies, state governments
have blazed their own trails, pushed by interest groups and activists. The specific arrangements vary widely among states, and Mallinson and Hannah explain the reasons behind many of these decisions. The strangest aspect of any policy discussion of marijuana is that it remains illegal at the federal level. It is listed as dangerous and addictive under the Controlled Substances Act, which dates back to 1970. Since the mid-1990s, presidents have mainly turned a blind eye to state policies, especially because in many states, liberalization has occurred through ballot initiatives such as referendums. In some cases, legalizing marijuana for medical reasons has led to recreational use, but there are numerous counterexamples. The authors remain guarded about their own policy views, but they suggest ways to address the anomaly, ranging from changes to the Controlled Substances Act that would allow marijuana to be regulated like alcohol to broad decriminalization. It should be said that anyone who approaches this book expecting to find ringing advocacy for national marijuana legalization will be disappointed. The authors provide a detailed examination of how public policy is made, and readers interested in this field will find it to be a useful, layered case study. Within this context, the authors have many useful things to say, but anyone seeking pro-marijuana advocacy should look elsewhere.
With insightful research, Mallinson and Hannah unravel the patchwork of marijuana policy across the country.
Maples Jr., Mike & Peter Ziebelman PublicAffairs (288 pp.) | $32.00 July 9, 2024 | 9781541704350
academia. However, they write, despite their credentials, they did not really understand why some of the startups they invested in went on to great things while others crashed and burned. In this collaboration, the authors attempt to get to the heart of this issue. After analysis of many VC experiences, they conclude that the most successful startups are those that are looking for a way to fundamentally challenge an existing system. They probably have not created a new technology themselves, but their leaders see a novel way to leverage a recent development. The founders of Uber, for example, drew on the GPS technology that had been included in smartphones. This is a very different approach to looking for an underdeveloped niche in an existing market. According to the authors, companies that take that path might be successful but will never be truly great. “Pattern-breaking founders create something that breaks the mold,” they write. “Their pattern-breaking ideas boldly challenge us to depart from current habits.” Maples and Ziebelman offer some advice to startup operators looking for venture capital, saying that they should clearly explain how their idea will upset the status quo. Breaking an existing pattern is by no means easy, and entrepreneurs might need several attempts to get the technology and structure working. Investors should recognize this and be willing to stay with promising people and ideas. False starts and early setbacks are part of the process, so resilience is required. Maples and Ziebelman do a solid job in setting all this out, making the book a useful, accessible package for those seeking a revolutionary path. The authors make their case with conviction and intelligence, bringing new thinking to an old problem.
An investigation of what works in the world of entrepreneurship. Maples Jr. is a successful venture capitalist, as was Ziebelman before he moved into
For
on the
Martino, Andy | Doubleday (320 pp.)
$30.00 | May 21, 2024 | 9780385549998
An in-depth look at Brian Cashman’s stewardship of the New York Yankees. In 2022, notes sportswriter and SNY analyst Martino, Cashman “quietly achieved a significant milestone…he passed Ed Barrow as the longest-tenured general manager in the history of the world’s most iconic sports franchise.” That was no small accomplishment, given former owner George Steinbrenner’s volatility. It hasn’t helped that over the years, Cashman had to deal with both Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, who figure here as prima donnas. Cashman isn’t well known to general fans outside the Yankees orbit, though he’s central to the club. As Martino relates, although Billy Beane is likely the best known of all GMs thanks to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, Beane himself has said that “Cashman is the best to ever do the job,” calling him “the Tom Brady of GMs.” Apart from the ups and downs of Cashman’s career, which didn’t always hit Steinbrenner’s metric of success (namely, winning the World Series), Martino is very good at detailing the many things that a general manager does, from hand-holding players who need a little extra attention to kicking dirt on umpires’ shoes à la Billy Martin. It’s clear from his account that Cashman paid attention to his peers and predecessors in how he evaluated players not just by numbers but also by intangibles like character, where numerous championship-level players come up short. Cashman’s player acquisitions, though sometimes at odds with the owners’ wishes, have tended to be right, though they’ve entailed battles along the way—e.g., the decision not to re-sign Rodriguez, the fight to keep superstar Aaron Judge (“their icon, their marketable Ruth/DiMaggio/Mantle/
Jeter”) on the roster, and so forth— recounted in Martino’s memorable set pieces.
A must-read for Yankees fans, and even those who hate the Yankees will learn a thing or two about the game.
Mattoo, Priyanka | Knopf (304 pp.)
$29.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9780593320389
A Kashmir-born, Los Angeles–based writer, filmmaker, and former talent agent reflects on her upbringing between many worlds. “I was born a Hindu in the city of Srinagar, as was almost everyone in my family, for probably thousands of years,” writes Mattoo in her debut memoir. She spent idyllic summers and holidays with her extended family there until sectarian violence against Kashmiri Hindus broke out in late 1989. Mattoo’s father was a doctor, and the family lived abroad in Saudi Arabia and England the rest of the year, eventually learning that the house they were building in Srinagar was burned down by militants. (The title of the book alludes to a Kashmiri phrase regarding the precious items the family was collecting for the house.) For the author, this early memory constitutes the lingering wound of her rupture with her ethnic past, and she has lived with the desolate feeling of being adrift in the world. The narrative, some of which is emotionally remote, jumps among time periods in Mattoo’s life as part of the Indian diaspora, reflecting how she was never sure exactly how to write about her fairly privileged past: “Writing wasn’t for people like me, who didn’t want to talk about our cultural burdens.” She fondly describes her Kashmiri grandparents, businesspeople forced to relocate in Delhi, as well as her love of language and traditional music and food. She also examines her parents’ arranged marriage and how she herself had to relinquish an
early desire to marry a Kashmiri man because there were so few available in America. Eventually, Mattoo married a Jewish writer. In prose that is warm and sometimes elegant, but not spectacular, the author shares nuggets of hard-won wisdom, but they’re not always easy to discern.
A moving yet occasionally disjointed personal exploration of the Indian diaspora.
Merry, Robert W. | Simon & Schuster (528 pp.) $35.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781982176495
A noted historian demonstrates how the vastly different cultures, attitudes, and mores of Massachusetts and South Carolina brought about secession and war. Former journalist and editor Merry, author of President McKinley and A Country of Vast Designs, presents a sweeping, invaluable history of the long prelude to the Civil War, examining the wildly disparate political, economic, and social development of Massachusetts and South Carolina— the two states that most exemplified what would become irreconcilable differences over slavery—and the words and deeds of their representatives who failed to come to a resolution and prevent the onset of war. The author capably compares the austere, judgmental Puritanism of the agriculture and merchant classes of early Massachusetts with the Anglicans who bought huge tracts of land to boost their proprietary colonies and imported the culture of the sugar plantations of Barbados and the West Indies. Merry also contrasts the two states as embodied by their famed representatives, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts
and John Calhoun of South Carolina, who, along with Henry Clay, formed the “so-called Great Triumvirate.”
Always maintaining a readable style, the author skillfully analyzes the complex political and social motivations and influences of what Calhoun called “the great battle” to resolve the impasse between the regions. As in his previous acclaimed books, Merry employs consistently thorough and crisp prose, combining his best attributes as a journalist and historian. The author’s deft organization of the narrative and inclusion of generous excerpts of debates and speeches from a variety of sources—great figures from Massachusetts, South Carolina, and elsewhere, in addition to noted abolitionists and proslavery journalists and orators of the era—is extraordinarily useful to readers no matter their level of familiarity with this particular period of American history.
An essential volume for serious students of U.S. history, especially Civil War buffs.
Kirkus Star Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women
Mertens, Maggie | Algonquin (304 pp.)
$32.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9781643753355
A multidisciplinary study proving the capability of women as runners. Falsehoods about women runners have persisted for
centuries. From the myth of Atalanta to the story of Jasmin Paris (the first woman to win the U.K.’s 268-mile Spine Race), journalist Mertens tells a host of fascinating stories about women running greats who have disproved the naysayers. These women, whether legendary or long forgotten, confronted a range of stereotypes and paternalistic reasoning from professionals who focused only on their fertility and femininity, misrepresented or belittled their accomplishments, questioned their mental health and toughness, and even debated their identities as women. Chronicling these women’s relentless pursuit of inclusion in competitive running events, Mertens regains control of the narrative of female runners—and female athletes more broadly. Combining science with sociology and history, the author applies journalistic investigation to training regimes, racism in sports, evolution-based calls for gender segregation, and debates about gender identity. She strikes an almost bitingly bemused tone to temper her outrage, taking steady aim at the maddeningly intentional attitudes and policies of medical and sports authorities who have chased research to support their claims. In a field where even Mertens has to consciously correct the temptation to make reductive assumptions, she reveals the harm caused by female runners’ detractors, who have been lazy at best. Dismantling inaccuracies about women and their bodies, the author demonstrates what we can learn about all humans, and she suggests how that has repercussions not only in sports, but elsewhere in society. “Women are speaking out about themselves, saying we don’t have to look or act a certain way in order to be accepted in society,” she writes. “Nor do we need to be defined in opposition to men. We can
define ourselves, thank you very much. And, yes, we can beat men.”
Illuminating, informative, and inspiring.
Monbiot, George & Peter Hutchison Crown (224 pp.) | $16.00 paper June 4, 2024 | 9780593735152
An investigation of the perils of neoliberalism. British journalist and environmental activist Monbiot and f ilmmaker Hutchison mount a damning, persuasive critique of neoliberalism, an ideology that exalts capitalism and greed. A term coined in 1938 based on the writings of economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and enthusiastically popularized by Milton Friedman, neoliberalism, the authors assert, has caused or contributed to economic inequality; “diseases of despair” such as suicides and overdoses; the erosion of the tax base, resulting in a lack of public funding for health, education, and infrastructure; and the advent of demagogues, such as Viktor Orbán, Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, and Jair Bolsonaro. These “deeply flawed human beings with oversized egos and pathological insecurities” have been enabled by neoliberal ideologues who promote the mantra that competition, deregulation, and privatization will lead to wealth that will enrich everyone. However, the authors warn, freedom from regulation benefits only the very wealthy, leading to the exploitation and endangerment of workers, environmental damage, and the kinds of “exotic financial instruments” that caused the financial crisis of 2008. “As a general rule,” write the authors, “privatization is legalized theft from the public realm.” Instead of taking responsibility for the endemic problems they cause, neoliberals blame ordinary people for crises. They promote the idea that personal changes
can be solutions, urging citizens to recycle while their enterprises loot natural resources. Neoliberalism has coopted both political parties, established influential think tanks, and found supporters in the press. The authors’ argument against neoliberalism includes proposals for change: Campaign finance reform may draw new political actors; local efforts can serve as models for “participatory, deliberative democracy.” “Once roughly 25 percent of the population is committed to change,” they contend, the rest of society will quickly join them. A vigorous analysis of a pernicious ideology.
Morton, Mark with Ben Opipari Hachette (320 pp.) | $32.00 June 25, 2024 | 9780306830983
The Lamb of God co-founder and guitarist recalls his life in heavy metal, nearly undone by addiction.
Morton (b. 1972) recalls a relatively well-adjusted upbringing in Williamsburg, Virginia. Still, he had insecurities about his weight and making friends, which drew him to alcohol and marijuana as a teen. Music provided a healthier outlet for his anxieties, and he quickly found a home in Virginia’s punk, hard rock, and metal scenes. By the late 1990s, his band (first called Burn the Priest) worked its way from opening for Slayer and Metallica to headlining. But as the rock cliché goes, storm clouds were brewing: Morton’s alcohol consumption grew along with the band’s success, and he was soon adding Oxycodone pills to the mix. In the prologue, Morton captures the depths of his abuse: In a hotel room near Madison Square Garden, where the band was set to open for Metallica, he recalls at once wrestling with his addiction and managing the trauma of
the loss of his daughter, who died from complications two days after she was born. The author is a sympathetic narrator, and his storytelling reveals a few quirks: Each chapter opens with a recollection of an influential song, typically un-metal tracks by R.E.M., the Wallflowers, Son Volt, etc. Morton offers a few entertaining stories, such as an early tour with theatrical metal act Gwar and an ill-advised effort to steal poppy-plant pods from a primary school in Switzerland to feed his addiction. However, this is a fairly familiar rock memoir, replete with stinky tour buses, busted relationships, bad habits, and eventual recovery. Hardcore Lamb of God enthusiasts will appreciate Morton’s candor, especially now that he has been sober for a few years. But there’s little to surprise and appeal to readers beyond that group.
A largely by-the-numbers tale of rock excess.
Olsson, Tore C. | St. Martin’s (288 pp.)
$30.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781250287700
An intriguing look at how the gaming age offers imaginative possibilities for the teaching of history.
Video games have come a long way, writes Olsson, since he spent many hours of his younger life perched in front of a screen. In the Covid-19 lockdown period, he rediscovered gaming and was amazed at the degree of development and sophistication of recent decades, something highlighted by the popular Red Dead series. As a professor of history at the University of Tennessee specializing in the post–Civil War era, he came up with the idea of creating a course connected to the game, using it as a platform to explore the social and political tensions
in the U.S. in the late 19th century, when the game is set. The author shows how the series, especially Red Dead Redemption II, contains a huge amount of historical information. The games are certainly violent, but it was a violent time, as society struggled to come to terms with rapid industrialization, emerging corporate capitalism, and entrenched racial conflict. The series follows a group of (fairly) honorable outlaws as they travel from the Midwest, through the South, and into the Appalachians. The Red Dead designers obviously devoted great attention to the detailed artwork and narrative development, although a problem is that many of the issues raised in the game relate more to the 1870s than the 1890s. Olsson suggests that the next installment in the series should be set in the years immediately after the Civil War. “When we balance the ledger book of good and bad, the game ultimately does far more to advance historical understanding than not,” he writes. This book is not for everyone, but it is informative and enjoyable.
Olsson has much to say about connecting the past to the present in ways that are novel and fun.
Rogerson, Barnaby | Pegasus (432 pp.)
$32.00 | July 2, 2024 | 9781639366965
A wide-ranging study of the seeds of conflict in the Islamic world, planted centuries ago. For a Westerner, Muslim politics can seem like a labyrinth of ancient grudges, unfathomable divisions, and autocratic rulers. Rogerson, a travel writer and publisher of Eland Books in the U.K. who has traveled widely in the Middle East, aims to provide a historical map for nonspecialists. “It is very hard for those of us who have been brought up in the West
to conceive of the passionate engagement of the past with the present in the Islamic world,” he writes, tracing the Shia-Sunni division back to the period following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, which saw disputes over Koranic doctrine and violent conflicts over how subsequent leaders would be chosen. Rogerson does not take the view that theological arguments are responsible for all of the rancor among Muslims. Yes, they are a source of underlying tension, but there is a historic overlay of competition among Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and other players. The author sees the 1979 revolution in Iran as a seismic event, reigniting old disputes as the country made clear its ambition to lead the Islamic world. Rogerson provides a country-by-country analysis and examines the role of external players, but his goal is to explain and clarify; he expressly does not choose sides. While some readers might not agree with this approach, the author does a solid, eloquent job of linking history to contemporary issues. One shortcoming of the book, however, is the lack of a concluding chapter to bring the narrative threads together. However, this is a minor flaw, and anyone who wants to understand the Middle East will find the book informative, timely, and accessible.
Rogerson’s firsthand experience provides an authenticity often missing from discussions of the Middle East and Islam.
Rooks, Noliwe | Penguin Press (208 pp.)
$28.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9780593492420
the Negro in our time,” during the grim period between the end of Reconstruction and the post–World War II Civil Rights Movement. She founded schools, with an emphasis on educating Black girls, and she raised money to pay poll taxes and offered instruction on how to pass literacy tests for Black Americans trying to vote in the Jim Crow South. She served in the leadership of numerous civil rights and mutual aid organizations, from the NAACP to the National Council of Negro Women, and she advocated for the Black community as an adviser to three presidents. Although historian Rooks sketches Bethune’s achievements and traces the evolution of her thinking over the decades—from an emphasis on self-help to a focus on systemic change—this is not a full-scale biography. Instead, chapters on individual aspects of Bethune’s long, multifaceted career include the author’s reminiscences about her childhood sojourns with her grandparents in a Black Florida community called the Heights, the education at a Bethune school that enabled her grandmother to become a teacher, and other personal matters. Rooks believes today’s activists can draw several crucial lessons from Bethune’s example: the importance of publicly commemorating Black achievements as integral parts of American history; the key role played in the struggle for equality by Black women and the need to support them; Black capitalism as a vital element of collective empowerment; and the fundamental connection between Black liberation and the international battle against colonialism and imperialism. The author’s impassioned text pays tribute to a beloved foremother and celebrates Bethune’s commitment to “stand up and fight for change.”
Rucker, Darius with Alan Eisenstock
Dey Street/HarperCollins (256 pp.)
$29.99 | May 28, 2024 | 9780063238749
The rock and country star examines his career through “the songs that formed me.”
A personal consideration of a pioneering civil rights leader’s ongoing significance. Mary McLeod Bethune (18751955) fought for “full equality for
A fine introduction to Bethune’s philosophy, as well as a thoughtful primer for today’s activists.
To read the review of a book about another Black woman civil rights activist, visit Kirkus online.
“We’re not just the biggest band in America, we are omni-fucking-present.” So writes Rucker of his band Hootie & the Blowfish, which, back in the 1990s, was inescapable. The band came out of the Chapel Hill music scene, which is so well documented in Tom Maxwell’s A Really Strange and Wonderful Time, and while many acts were better, somehow they rode a zeitgeist wave to stardom, reaching “the top of the rock-pop music mountain.” The band, writes Rucker, indulged in the customary rock ’n’ roll vices: “Hootie & The Blowfish reigned supreme in two not altogether unrelated areas: selling records and doing drugs.” As always happens in these rock memoirs, the author chronicles how drugs threatened to take down the whole enterprise, though there were other tensions of personality—and, of course, it’s success itself that turned out to be the devil. Rucker’s chapters are sometimes loosely, sometimes more coherently tied to songs that in some way contributed to his musical formation and shaped his songwriting. Naturally, R.E.M. figures with the jittery ballad “So. Central Rain,” but, given the author’s generally unchallenging approach to pop, so do more unlikely picks like the Black Crowes’ “She Talks to Angels” and Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.” There’s not much wild side at play in rounds of golf with Willie Nelson and hanging with Frank Sinatra, but there are some instructive moments in what it means to be a pop star, notably Chrissie Hynde’s gentle upbraiding about setting aside artistic ego to take care of the fans. The rise-and-fall business is without a single wrinkle of
Daniel Kahneman Dies at 90
The psychologist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
Daniel Kahneman, the author and psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work on decision-making, has died at 90, the New York Times reports.
Kahneman was born to a Jewish family in Tel Aviv in 1934 and was raised in Paris during the Nazi occupation. His father was detained by the Nazis for six weeks but released; his family managed to evade the Nazis for the remainder of the war, moving to British-controlled Palestine in 1948.
He was educated at Hebrew University of
For a review of Thinking, Fast and Slow, visit Kirkus online.
Jerusalem and the University of California, Berkeley, and taught psychology at Hebrew University, the University of British Columbia, UC Berkeley, and Princeton University.
Kahneman published his first book, Attention and Effort, in 1973. In 2011, he published Thinking, Fast and Slow ; the book became a bestseller and earned positive reviews from critics, including one from Kirkus, who wrote, “Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.”
His most recent book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, co-written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein, was published in 2021.
Kahneman’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On X, formerly Twitter, cognitive scientist and author Steven Pinker posted, “Sad to learn of the death of Daniel Kahneman, one of the greatest psychologists in history.”—M.S.
“...aperfectone-volumereference...a helpfullypracticalandauthoritative introductiontothemarketingof scientificproducts.”
In Who Could Ever Love You, Donald Trump’s niece will again explore her family.
Mary L. Trump will tell the story of her troubled family in a memoir coming later this year.
St. Martin’s Press will publish Trump’s Who Could Ever Love You: A Family Memoir this summer. It will be the third book, and second memoir, from the psychologist and niece of former President Donald Trump, who is also one of his fiercest critics.
Mary L. Trump announced the book on X, formerly known as Twitter, writing, “I’ve told you what growing up in this family did to Donald—now I’m telling the story of what it did to my dad and me.”
Mary L. Trump is the daughter of airline pilot Fred Trump Jr. and flight attendant Linda Lee Clapp. Her father, who died in 1981 of a heart attack caused by alcoholism, was the eldest son of real estate developer Fred Trump and the brother of Donald Trump.
In 2020, Mary L. Trump published Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, a bestselling tell-all about how her family shaped the former president. She followed that up a year later with The Reckoning: One Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal. Who Could Ever Love You will be published Sept. 10.—M.S.
educational recollection of an era when geopolitics was based on respect.
MR.
surprise, but at least Rucker keeps his eye on the music throughout, even if Barry Manilow’s is among it. Unexceptional, as rock memoirs go, but something for the fans.
Samatar, Sofia | Soft Skull Press (192 pp.) | $15.95 paper Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781593767662
The author of The White Mosque reflects on her literary self. “I wrote to you of a writing method: Take notes on index cards and put them in a shoebox. When the box is full, the book is done,” writes Samatar near the beginning of her second work of nonfiction, which she hopes will “be a tonic; not a course of study, but a course of treatment.” In a series of short notes addressed to an unspecified recipient, the author reflects on her attempts to find “a writing method” that feels “less like writing and more like living,” while also grappling with the practicalities of a creative life, which include a lack of sufficient time, a struggle against the complexity of being relegated to the “diversity sideshow,” and a desire to be considered marketable enough to be “sold.” To make sense of the contradictions of her chosen path, Samatar quotes a variety of literary thinkers, ranging from historical stalwarts like Kafka and Barthes to modern writers of color such as Bhanu Kapil and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Throughout, Samatar linguistically circles back to the idea of
her truest literary self, constantly returning to the question, “Who are you when you write?” On a line level, this formally inventive book is a pleasure to read. The author’s confessional tone, tightly efficient sentences, and use of white space produce a stunning aesthetic. Structurally, though, the notes spiral between a set of unanswerable questions and their associated emotions without landing satisfyingly. While the ending’s ambiguity is aligned with the book’s tone (and its title), the story feels more like a moment in time than a narrative arc, leaving readers wondering exactly how the process of writing this book affected Samatar’s perception of herself within and outside of her craft. A sometimes cloudy but beautifully written meditation on the writing life.
Sanders, Deion with Don Yaeger 13A/Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) | $29.99 March 12, 2024 | 9781668026793
The Hall of Fame football player and current coach aims to up your game.
“It’s not just enough to TALK the TALK. You gotta WALK the WALK.” So writes Sanders, who, one might think, wore out the shift key on his laptop pounding out this hortatory treatise. “WHEN YOU LOOK GOOD, YOU FEEL GOOD. WHEN YOU FEEL GOOD, YOU PLAY GOOD. AND WHEN YOU PLAY GOOD, THEY PAY GOOD,” he exalts, opining that a winner lays
out his—and this book is definitely geared to men—garb the night before and is thus prepared to conquer the world once the last button is fastened. As in his 1998 memoir Power, Money & Sex , the author is unflinchingly honest about his own struggles with life: He once tried to commit suicide by driving his car over a cliff, and early on in this book, he admits to the fear that he’s been diminished recently by losing toes to femoral arterial blood clots “that made my anatomy look like I had been smoking for thirty years.” His message there is suitably urgent: “Keep going. Keep moving. Don’t surrender. No matter how bad you think it is, DON’T QUIT.” Refreshingly, while Sanders is a coach of the body, he also honors the mind. He encourages readers to read and to make it a point to learn something new every day. “Whether it’s through music, reading, podcasts, or journaling, you gotta fill your head with positive thoughts and possibilities instead of dwelling on your doubts,” he counsels. Refreshingly, he allows for mental rests and resets as a critical component of self-care, making even his most blustery slogans—e.g., “Don’t Allow My CONFIDENCE to Offend Your INSECURITY”—seem a touch less boastful.
The all-caps start to wear, but given the accomplishments of its source, this is a helpful addition to the self-help genre.
Mr. Churchill in the White House: The Untold Story of a Prime Minister and Two Presidents
Schmuhl, Robert | Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) $32.00 | July 2, 2024 | 9781324093428
A respected historian finds new things to say about the relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill. In this well-researched book, Schmuhl, chair of the
American studies and journalism programs at Notre Dame, focuses on the numerous periods when Churchill stayed in the White House as a guest of the president. The author points out that these were not mere photo-op sessions: Churchill’s longest stay was 24 days, up to January 14, 1942. He was constantly working, writing speeches, papers, letters, and cables, and regularly meeting with members of Congress and generals as well as the president. Roosevelt gave him copious amounts of his time, but Eleanor was not so taken with their guest, and the White House staff were bemused by Churchill’s habit of wandering the hallways in the early hours wearing only a dressing gown. Pearl Harbor had drawn the U.S. into World War II, and powerful voices were arguing that the effort should concentrate on the Pacific. Churchill pushed to ensure that there was sufficient American attention given to Europe, and he was largely successful. But as the tide of war turned, his views became less important. The U.S. became the dominant player, and Eisenhower was the man running the war in Europe. When Eisenhower became president, he invited Churchill to stay in the White House, but it was largely a measure of his personal respect. Britain was a declining power, and Churchill could do little about it, except for emphasizing the “special relationship” between the countries. Schmuhl delves into a trove of records and correspondence, although he warns that Churchill’s recounting of events was often more colorful than reliable. It adds up to a fresh approach to an important piece of history.
An educational recollection of an era when geopolitics was based on respect, mutual understanding, and friendship.
Sciutto, Jim | Dutton (368 pp.) | $30.00 March 12, 2024 | 978-0593474136
Beijing will require clear negotiations on areas of both competition (semiconductors) and cooperation (climate change). A knowledgeable, sobering assessment of one of the most consequential geopolitical situations in the world.
To read reviews of James Shapiro's books, visit Kirkus online.
A grim analysis of the “new order of three great powers.”
It’s fittingly Orwellian that the three great powers today roughly correspond to the prophesy of
1984 —namely, the U.S., Russia, and China. The U.S. and Russia are in more or less direct conflict today, writes CNN national security correspondent Sciutto, author of The Madman Theory and The Shadow War, in Ukraine. China is watching carefully, notes the author, as it refines plans for a blitzkrieg war on Taiwan “while the world was preoccupied elsewhere.” Taiwanese military planners see the war in Ukraine as similar to their own, though in at least some sense they’re better equipped to defend their territory. As the author notes, military doctrine holds that an attacker needs to outnumber a defender by three to one, yet Ukraine’s costly counteroffensive has been close to parity, which explains what now appears to be an unbreakable stalemate. The conflict in Ukraine has had an immediate effect in reinvigorating NATO and making it more relevant, “reoriented…to its original mission, defending Europe against Russia and, now, a second strategic adversary in China.” Ukraine has done a good job of bleeding Russia’s army nearly dry, but that does nothing to diminish Russian naval and nuclear power, the former being exerted vigorously in the Arctic, the latter a constant looming threat. Another variable is the continued presence of Trump on the scene, a man who represents Sciutto’s observation that “today’s world is as rich in accommodationists as the world of the late 1930s.” Cleareyed without sensationalism, Sciutto’s text closes with the suggestion that China can be seen as the larger long-term threat and that dealing with
Shapiro, James | Penguin Press (384 pp.)
$30.00 | May 28, 2024 | 9780593490204
The triumph and downfall of a groundbreaking theater. Award-winning Shakespeare scholar Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, creates a vibrant history both of the astonishingly successful Federal Theatre Project and the culture wars that succeeded in quashing it. Under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, from 1935 to 1939, the FTP “staged, for a pittance, over a thousand productions in twenty-nine states seen by thirty million…two thirds of whom (according to audience surveys) had never seen a play before.” However, rabid conservatives, led by “charming, bigoted, and ambitious” East Texas Rep. Martin Dies, condemned the project as “dangerously progressive,” promoting a racially integrated, pro-union vision of America. The Dies Committee hearings, a precursor to the House Un-American Activities Committee, went on virulent attack against plays such as It Can’t Happen Here, based on Sinclair Lewis’ anti-Fascist novel; a production of Macbeth —the largest to ever tour America—with an all-Black cast, set in Haiti, incorporating voodoo, and directed by Orson Welles; and One Third of a Nation, an exposé of the dangerously substandard housing that beset many American cities. A critic in New Orleans called One Third “a dramatic bombshell.” Shapiro looks at the creation and reception of these plays
and considers two others that were focused on racism: How Long, Brethren?, a dance performance featuring “Negro songs of protest,” and Liberty Deferred, which was never staged. With Dies as the book’s villain, Hallie Flanagan, a Vassar professor with a stellar background in theater, who was appointed FTP director, is the hero. Committed to mounting productions that exposed racial, religious, and political persecution, she battled “red tape, local politicians, censorship of various kinds,” and “dreaded” requisitions forms to keep it alive. Its demise still resonates, Shapiro warns, with the Dies playbook revived by culture warriors noisily censoring the arts.
Sharp history as cautionary tale.
Somerstein, Rachel | Ecco/HarperCollins (320 pp.) | $32.00 | June 4, 2024 9780063264410
A sharp account of an agonizing experience of childbirth. Journalist Somerstein makes her book debut with a raw chronicle of the birth of her first child, which culminated in an unplanned Cesarean section. Because anesthesia failed, she suffered horrifically searing pain and a protracted period of healing. She also suffered severe emotional trauma, ending up with lifelong PTSD—a response, she learned, that affects nearly one in five women who undergo a C-section. The author’s anger over that traumatic experience infuses her investigation of the medical, social, and cultural history of C-sections and, more broadly, of a medical system that denies pregnant women’s autonomy and discredits or ignores women’s pain. C-sections, she reports, have become the most common operation in the world, accounting for 31.8% of births in the U.S.
Furthermore, “Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Asian women are disproportionately more likely than whites to have C-sections.” First developed on dead or dying women, with the aim of saving either the fetus or the mother, C-section technique in the U.S. was honed on enslaved people and, during a wave of eugenics, on women deemed unfit to bear more children. Somerstein sees the current uptick in C-sections as evidence of physician hubris and the rampant medicalization of childbirth, including an increased reliance on technology such as electronic fetal monitoring and ultrasounds. The author also discovered that hospitals are incentivized to promote technological responses to childbirth “because these are the kinds of care that insurance companies reward.” If midwives were more fully integrated into childbirth care, as Somerstein advocates, the rate of C-sections likely would be diminished. The author draws on considerable research, including interviews “with midwives, physicians, sociologists, historians, doulas, therapists, and other parents”— conversations, she writes, that “helped me to better understand how what happened to me could have happened.” A hard-hitting critique of a persistent problem.
Song, Hyeseung | Simon & Schuster (304 pp.)
$27.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781668003664
The emotional journey of a Korean American writer and painter from child to adult shows her struggle to fulfill her parents’ dreams while finding her own way in the world. How do you attain academic and financial success without selling your soul? How do you find meaning in life? These are two of the many existential questions that haunted Song as she grew
up as one of the few Asian American students in her suburban Houston high school, then as a striving Ivy League college and law school student, before defying her parents and stepping off the corporate track to become an artist. The author also grappled with her identity, caught between two cultures. Like many offspring of immigrant parents, she felt neither truly Korean nor American. It was not until her time as a college intern in South Korea, where she was sexually assaulted—and then shunned—that she realized the U.S. was her home. “I had tried to operate as a Korean in Korea,” writes the author, “but attempting to fit into my native country, about which I had an abstract, mythical understanding, had only compromised me.” Song describes how she suffered several bouts of depression that were so bad she had to be hospitalized. In straightforward prose, the author chronicles these periods of hopelessness, as well as her anguish about her distant relationship with her husband, who helped nurse her back to health. Many characters flit in and out of the text; while some are fully fleshed, others are two-dimensional. Across nine chapters, Song covers most of her life, which means that some seemingly important topics—such as her reconciliation with her mother—get short shrift. Nonetheless, the author’s voice is strong and assured throughout the narrative. A cleareyed look at the difficulty of navigating different cultures and expectations.
Streever, Bill | Pegasus (304 pp.)
$28.95 | July 2, 2024 | 9781639366699
An aquatic ecologist recounts his search for reasons for optimism in the face of looming extinction crises. When Covid-19 lockdowns closed seaports, Streever,
author of Cold and Heat, and his wife, a marine biologist, were at sea aboard their restored sailboat Rocinante Cleared into a Mexican port, they spent the next several years sailing in the Gulf of California, off the Baja peninsula, where five species of sea turtles now exist. Noting that “engaging with those who make a living from the sea is a necessary part of the conservation movement,” the author interviewed the volunteer “turtlers” who find and protect turtle nests, nonprofit professionals working to promote biodiversity, a veterinarian who performed a necropsy on a dead turtle, and local fishermen. He found that the gulf area suffers from “inadequate enforcement of mostly existing regulations and a lack of opportunities for people aside from fishing.” Though the region is “one of the five most productive marine ecosystems in the world,” it has become “a badly diminished sea.” Streever zeroes in on the fate of sea turtles, but his larger concern is existential. If we conceive of the history of life on Earth as a 24-hour day, he writes, humans’ attention to the conservation of our fellow species has only arisen “a mere few seconds before midnight.” Sea turtles and other “charismatic endangered species” can serve to “draw our attention, help us change our ways.” Streever makes a convincing case, based on firsthand observations, that we are overdue for a major course correction. Even if humans have proven to be the species most responsible for extinction events, the author still ends on a hopeful note, and his creed of “optimistic environmentalism” becomes something other than a confounding oxymoron. A hopeful consideration of the beauty and fate of wild sea turtles—and the natural world as a whole.
Sunstein, Cass R. | Harvard Business Review Press (272 pp.) | $30.00 May 21, 2024 | 9781647825362
To read reviews of Cass R. Sunstein's books, visit Kirkus online.
Great success requires talent, resilience, and a large dose of serendipity, according to this intriguing investigation. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School and author of numerous books on law and related subjects, admits early on that the title is something of a cheat. The author doesn’t intend his latest book to be a how-to manual; instead, he delivers a fascinating crash course on why some people—or bands or movies or works of art—become famous. Sunstein is wary of books that look for common attributes among people who have done well (especially in business) and then conclude that a particular characteristic is the reason. This is confusing correlation with causation, he notes, and ignores individuals who have that attribute but do not reach the pinnacle. Sunstein argues for a wider frame of reference, looking at numerous cases such as the Beatles, Muhammed Ali, Bob Dylan, and Stan Lee, although he admits that his list is largely a collection of personal favorites. Simply being very good at what you do is not enough, and the author cites cases of people who had remarkable talent but were unable to reach peak success. There is a great deal of luck involved, and it extends to having the right skin color, the right parents, and a mentor or champion and being in the right place at the right time, as well as untold other elements. True, famous people might have been able to take advantage of the good fortune that came their way, but that ability is itself a complex variable. Some readers may want a firmer conclusion, but the author
is not one for easy answers. Ultimately, the text is an engaging study of the lottery that is life.
Sunstein weaves research and storytelling into a book that contains not only provocative insights, but a lot of fun.
Tu Lam | Hanover Square Press (320 pp.)
$30.00 | May 21, 2024 | 9781335490865
A Vietnamese refugee’s sentimental education as a soldier and martial artist. Experiencing racism and discrimination growing up, Tu learned important lessons from his mother (“smile and be brave”), and he has found plenty of occasion to put her cheerful stoicism into practice throughout his life. A student of martial arts, the author signed up to be a soldier. He excelled, but being a regular grunt wasn’t enough. First, he decided to try Ranger training: “Combat is easy,” someone told him. “Ranger School is hard.” Surviving that brutal schooling and numerous instances of racism on the part of his instructors and even some fellow students, Tu then trained as a reconnaissance scout and sniper before becoming a Green Beret and taking up its motto to “free the oppressed.” (His other mantra: “Shut Up and Learn.”) It’s a Horatio Alger story without a wealthy patron and with an endless supply of death-dealing hardware. As the narrative progresses, Tu gets fuzzier with the details, inasmuch as his work is now classified (“even the name of my unit was secret”) and would seem to involve targeted killing and other forms of dangerous international ventures. Tu survived it all, only to endure a traumatic brain injury in the field and fall into depression and addiction. “It was like my soul had been taken from me. I couldn’t find my purpose....And my only answer was more pills,” he writes. Tu’s devotion to cultivating his ronin persona helped
his recovery, and he went on to star on the History Channel’s Forged in Fire: Knife or Death and serve as inspiration for the Ronin character in Call of Duty. Overall, the story has interesting twists and courage to spare, but the narration is merely dutiful—though it certainly can’t be faulted for its unfailing earnestness. Good reading for aspiring warriors.
Turley, Jonathan | Simon & Schuster (448 pp.) $29.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781668047040
A vigorous defense of free speech, a right enshrined but often hobbled or outright abrogated. The American nation was born in rage, writes legal scholar Turley, and rage has since often defined its politics. This is especially true today, in a “period of such public distemper where our most cherished institutions and rights are being questioned by both the left and the right.” By Turley’s account, speech that expresses that rage certainly falls within acceptable limits; it’s the litmus test of falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater that, among other tests, gauges whether speech is protected. Examining free speech from the time of Socrates on, the author analyzes its countless discontents: the Red Scare legislators, for instance, for whom agitating against the big bosses constituted sedition, judicial constraints against “fighting words,” and so on. On either side of the political divide today, calls for censorship and speech suppression are rampant. However, it’s in the academy in particular that the disdain for unfettered free speech comes through most clearly, and Turley’s examples are striking. “By declaring speech as harmful,” he writes of censorious academics, “they give themselves license to stop views from being expressed.” The author parses recent events through the lens of free-speech absolutism, concluding, for instance, that Trump was within his rights to call for his supporters to march
on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021—where, of course, so many of them committed non-speech-related crimes of violence. (But what of Trump’s claim that he would pay the legal fees for anyone who assaulted protestors at his rallies?) “We have a right to rage,” Turley insists. However—and he might have emphasized this more—we also have the duty to keep speech from crossing into violence.
A smart book that invites argument— civil argument, that is, with good faith and tolerance.
Warwick, Hugh | Bloomsbury Wildlife (304 pp.)
$28.00 | June 11, 2024 | 9781399403740
A British ecologist wrestles with the ethical conundrums inherent in controlling invasive animals. The introduction of invasive species is almost always caused by human actions. For example, the arrival of shipborne rats to a small Australian island led to “the extinction of 5 endemic bird, 13 invertebrate and 2 plant species,” while in the U.S. “already well-fed domestic cats” account for the deaths of 2.3 billion birds annually. Warwick, a champion of hedgehogs in his native England and the author of A Prickly Affair and Linescapes, allows that there are all sorts of philosophical problems with controlling alien predators in ecosystems—even those cute hedgehogs, which feast on juicy skinks on one specimen island in New Zealand. Killing is one option; however, the author asks, “What had the hedgehogs done to deserve that sort of treatment?” The solution has proved somewhat easier on a Scottish island where invasive hedgehogs can be returned to the mainland, where they are part of the ecosystem. It turns out to be more difficult in the enclosed dynamics of island ecologies, where, when one predator has started to cause damage, the tendency has been to introduce another predator to control it—e.g., masked owls on that rat-infested
Australian island, which, once the rats were reduced, turned to feeding on native birds and lizards. Warwick’s narrative is sometimes repetitive, but his central point remains: Given that we know that animals are capable of suffering, is it right to take the utilitarian view that the pain of a few is worth the salvation of the many? It’s a problem that we’re likely to confront ever more frequently as climate change forces animal species to relocate to new places—becoming invaders, in other words, and thus both predator and prey. A thoughtful analysis of how to accommodate animal rights in an era of unprecedented environmental change.
Weaver, Fawn | Melcher Media (320 pp.) $28.00 | June 18, 2024 | 9781638931287
On the trail of a pioneering distiller in the Civil War–era South.
In 2016, Weaver, an entrepreneur and author of Happy Wives Club, read a New York Times story crediting the Jack Daniel’s bourbon empire to the help of a once-enslaved Black man named Nearest Green. Intrigued, she and her husband traveled to Lynchburg, Tennessee, to find out more. There, they formed friendships with several of Green’s descendants and confronted a corporation that was slow to acknowledge a fact that Weaver uncovered in her research: In “a complete reversal of the power dynamic the New York Times headline had implied,” it turned out that Daniel had been Green’s assistant, not the other way around. As the author notes, Green’s “Lincoln County Process” is still used today, but his contribution was obscured, the glory gone to Daniel—who, as Weaver notes, was more enlightened than most Southern white men of the Civil War era, his genuine friendship
with Green mirrored by less fraught racial tensions in Lynchburg than elsewhere in the region. Even so, having discovered Green’s story and discerning not much interest in it on the part of the parent conglomerate, Weaver and her husband took out trademarks and launched a line of whiskey called Uncle Nearest. They expected—and got— resistance from their giant neighbor: “We were a tiny brand—and tiny is an understatement. It would have been easy for them to choke our supply lines in Tennessee.” Yet Weaver persisted, eventually coming to a sort of truce with Jack Daniel’s; as she writes charitably, “at the end of the day, we’ve made each other better.” In the bargain, Weaver created the fastest-growing new whiskey line in the marketplace and a model for other Black entrepreneurs.
An enjoyable historical excavation to savor along with a dram of good Tennessee whiskey.
Whippman, Ruth | Harmony (320 pp.) $28.00 | June 4, 2024 | 9780593577639
Examining the challenges of bringing up boys. Whippman, a British journalist, the author of America the Anxious, and the mother of “three adorable, irrepressible, anarchic, creative, rambunctious, aggressive, big-hearted boys,” brings her anxieties about parenting to an investigation into the biological, psychological, and cultural forces that shape boys’ identity and behavior. In the context of #MeToo and the swirling miasma of toxic masculinity, she finds parenting difficult and, at times, overwhelming. Hoping for insight and even guidance, she talked to psychologists, educators, academics, behavioral researchers, and therapists. She delves into scientific and sociological studies and chronicles her interviews with
myriad boys and men—including “misogynistic incels” and residents at a teen therapy center—to help her understand what makes boys who they are. From birth, one researcher told her, boys are different from girls; their brains “are born more immature and vulnerable, and they mature more slowly throughout childhood.” Especially in their early years, they need more nurturing than girls, and yet the opposite often occurs: Girls are cuddled and protected; boys told to act like “big men.” Girls have constant role models of caretaking and emotional connection, while boys lack similar models “that could help them see themselves as connected, emotionally nuanced, relational beings, or even to see these kinds of social-emotional skills as something worth prioritizing and cultivating.” Teenage boys who open up to her about sex, friendship, porn, and depression say they struggle to relate to their friends with the same honesty. “American men are the loneliest they have ever been,” Whippman writes, “and the seeds of this loneliness and emotional disconnection take root during boyhood.” Isolation is also exacerbated by the increasing time boys spend on social media and playing video games. “Connection,” writes the author, “is at the heart of loosening the grip of masculinity.” A thoughtful, well-informed look at boys’ lives.
White, Catherine Joy | Tiny Reparations | (272 pp.) | $29.00 June 11, 2024 | 9780593475164
An actor, filmmaker, and gender adviser to the UN celebrates her Blackness by delving into Black women’s history.
The daughter and granddaughter of Jamaican immigrants, White wears many hats: “a
Forbes 30 Under 30—honored actor, writer, filmmaker, CEO of a film production company, and gender adviser to the United Nations.” In each of these roles, she is inspired by the Black women whose indefatigable resilience and resistance shaped the world. “Black women are alchemists, spinning gold from a life of hardship,” she writes. “Their alchemy is born of necessity—a need to break down in order to rebuild and survive. Far from a homogenous assembly, Black women forge new intergenerational stories drawing together and saying no. It will always be important to speak about the oppressions faced by Black women, but…this book is dedicated solely to Black women surviving, thriving, and glowing.” To illustrate her point, White retells the histories of Black women like Nancy Green, the woman who inspired and resisted the branding of Aunt Jemima maple syrup; Alice Dearing, the first Black British swimmer to represent her nation at the Olympics amid a scandal involving swimming caps made for Black hair; and Florynce “Flo” Kennedy, who challenged sexual and racial expectations in the American political arena. White ties the stories back to her own journey as a Black woman who benefited and learned from these forgotten women of the past. At its best, this book is an ebulliently narrated, deeply researched, passionately argued manifesto about Black femininity. The author’s repeated references to the “thread of gold” metaphor can grow cloying—the text holds together beautifully without it—and the final chapters feel slightly perfunctory (and perhaps unnecessary). Overall, though, this is a wonderfully optimistic work of nonfiction. A profound and fascinating book uncovering and celebrating forgotten histories of Black women all over the world.
MAY IS ASIAN AMERICAN and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, and as I reflect on my knowledge of AANHPI history, I’m struck by serious gaps in my education. Not until I was an adult did I learn about Fred Korematsu, who brought a Supreme Court case against the U.S. government over the incarceration of Japanese Americans, or about Queen Lili‘uokalani, the last sovereign monarch of the kingdom of Hawai‘i. When I was young, these people and events never appeared in the curriculum or were relegated to brief sidebars in textbooks. Thankfully, we’re seeing more children’s nonfiction that shines a much-needed spotlight on AANHPI experiences and contributions, with picture books and middle-grade titles proudly proclaiming that AANHPI history is U.S. history. Today’s young people will grow up with a far richer understanding of the past—and, hopefully, the tools to create a better future.
AANHPI history is complex; those seeking an
accessible primer should look to Naomi Hirahara’s A Child’s Introduction to Asian American and Pacific Islander History: The Heroes, the Stories, and the Cultures That Helped To Build America (Black Dog & Leventhal, April 9), illustrated by Sarah Demonteverde. While Hirahara addresses the oppression experienced by AANHPI people, she also lists significant historical sites, explores traditions from hula dancing to Lunar New Year, and profiles legendary figures such as Pulitzer Prize–winning Vietnamese American author Viet Thanh Nguyen. The result is a vibrant, illuminating celebration of culture and history.
The inspired use of figurative language has long been a hallmark of Joanna Ho’s picture books; her latest, We Who Produce Pearls: An Anthem for Asian America (Orchard/Scholastic, April 16), is no exception. Her spellbinding verse pays tribute to Asian Americans’ tenacity in the face of bigotry, brought to life by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya’s luminous art. Each stanza is laced with cultural and
historical meaning; the guiding questions in the backmatter will provoke thoughtful discussions.
“Why do we need to learn this?” is a question often posed by bored history students, but it’s one kids won’t ask after reading Erika Lee and Christina Soontornvat’s Made in Asian America: A History for Young People (Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins, April 30), a young readers’ adaptation of Lee’s The Making of Asian America (2015). Sweeping yet deeply personal, the book examines the circumstances under which various ethnic groups made their way to the United States while also focusing on their shared experiences of exploitation and discrimination. Though the powerful and privileged are usually the ones to be enshrined in history textbooks, Lee and
Soontornvat demonstrate that ordinary, marginalized young people have played pivotal roles in shaping the trajectory of the United States.
With My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story (Crown, April 30), illustrated by Michelle Lee, activist and actor George Takei once more describes his family’s experiences of imprisonment following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this time in picture-book format. Offering a gentler take on the events he detailed in his 2019 graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy, he’s nevertheless forthright about the anguish he endured; readers will be saddened, angered, and determined to do better. (Read an interview with Takei on p. 100.)
Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.
Illustration by Eric Scott AndersonLei and her companions travel to an invisible island from Hawaiian legend to find her best friend’s stolen pendant in this thrilling sequel.
Biracial (Hawaiian and Polish) Lei, who now goes by her Hawaiian name, wants a good rest after rescuing bestie Kaipo, who’s also her ‘aumakua (or ancestral guardian) from fire goddess Pele. Unfortunately, Kaipo is missing his protective pendant, and without it, he’ll become a troublemaker and then a kuewa, or wandering spirit. With help from Kaipo, shape-shifting bat friend Ilikea, and Ilikea’s fashionista descendant, Kaukahi, Lei must travel
to Kuaihelani, the invisible island of legend, to retrieve the pendant. Getting there won’t be easy, especially with Kaipo’s irritability, Kaukahi’s stuck-up attitude, and Ili’s overeagerness to impress Kaukahi. Facing dangerous challenges, such as sharks, and dogged by an unsettling feeling of being watched, the group travels across the ocean, through a jungle, and into a volcano. But all that pales by comparison once they discover the new evil they’ve accidentally unleashed. Equally as exciting as Lei and the Fire Goddess (2023), this fast-paced story is full of action and humor and
Maunakea, Malia | Penguin Workshop | 336 pp. $18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780593522059
Series: Lei and the Legends, 2
enriched by Hawaiian cultural elements. Lei struggles with her friendships, identity, lingering guilt, self-forgiveness, mixed-up priorities, and selfishness. Diving even deeper into Native Hawaiian culture and
language than the previous title, this book celebrates family, mythology, traditions, and connections to the Earth and its creatures.
Another incredibly exhilarating adventure.
(Adventure. 8-12)
An inspired and strikingly original riff on the back-to-school experience.
THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL
Kirkus Star
Thomas Jefferson’s Battle for Science: Bias, Truth, and a Mighty Moose!
Anderson, Beth | Illus. by Jeremy Holmes Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (48 pp.) | $18.99 May 14, 2024 | 9781635926200
The story of Thomas Jefferson’s fury at a French scientist’s misinformation about the New World introduces young readers to the scientific inquiry process. While Jefferson and the other American revolutionaries fought for independence from Britain, he undertook a lesser-known battle—against scientific misinformation. Jefferson loved the natural world: He collected fossils and bones and took pride in accurately measuring everything from air temperature to the weight of catfish. So it was galling to him when French scientist Count Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon published an encyclopedia declaring the New World “swampy and cold,” with small bears and “puny” wolves—inferior to Europe. Anderson cleverly juxtaposes Buffon’s faulty scientific claims alongside Jefferson’s colorful outrage: “Hogwash!” “Poppycock!” She succinctly lays out Jefferson’s critique: Buffon had never been to the New World—was he biased? Where did he get his information? To convince Buffon of his errors, Jefferson sought evidence—measurements of New World animals, pelts to prove their existence, even an actual moose. Holmes wittily presents Jefferson’s inquiries through comic-book panels depicting heads
exploding with arguments set against sepia-colored notebook pages. In an author’s note, Anderson calls out Jefferson for his bias as the owner of enslaved persons and for his lack of forethought in how Americans’ exploration of the Louisiana Purchase would affect Indigenous people. A delightfully enlightening account and a welcome antidote to our own time’s precarious truthiness. (timeline of Thomas Jefferson’s life, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-10)
Beckerman, Nell Cross | Illus. by Sophie Diao | Cameron Kids (32 pp.) | $18.99 May 7, 2024 | 9781949480252
Come along on a hike!
Connecting the city to the sea, the 13-mile Park to Playa nature trail winds through various L.A. neighborhoods, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. A family sets out on the trail for a day filled with fun. The young unnamed narrator celebrates a birthday party, complete with a piñata. Then the family hikes, eats fresh fruit from vendors, takes a bike ride, and enjoys an evening beachside bonfire. In an author’s note, Beckerman emphasizes that nature can be found all around, even in “the densest urban city,” and this story is a testament to that fact. The narrator gazes at a desert cottontail, which hops by as a helicopter flies past. A kestrel “swoops in a circle, riding warm wind,” against a backdrop of buildings and trees. And, as day turns to night, a sparkling pier dazzles over calm ocean waves. Beckerman and
Diao demonstrate that the roads we choose to take connect us both to the Earth and to each other. Every page underscores the fact that joy and discovery are to be found in the seemingly mundane. Heavily textured illustrations brim with a diversity of plants and animals. Characters are racially diverse.
An immersive, much-needed reminder that nature is all around us, if we only look. (visual glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)
Beckmeyer, Drew | Atheneum (48 pp.)
$18.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9781665940429
An extraplanetary, extraordinary first week of school. The first day begins with a line of cars in a drop-off queue and a group of racially diverse kids making their way into the building. Inside we see the ambitious Inventor, the self-critical Artist, a group of friends who refer to themselves as the “SPORT KINGS,” Pat, the classroom bearded dragon, and, notably, an empty desk: “Nobody sits here, but a new student is coming next week.” Nothing seems amiss until recess. There’s a strange sound, and a beam from outer space appears, but no one notices… except Pat. The beam is carrying Nobody, a one-eyed sea-foam green extraterrestrial who, despite Pat’s impressive attempts to alert everyone, integrates seamlessly into the classroom. Nobody is curious and observant, befriending a trepidatious Pat, discovering the Artist’s discarded work, and noticing that there’s “a problem with the vortex calculator on the Inventor’s machine.” In a charmingly guileless way, he calls attention to the Artist’s work, thus turning the class into art aficionados, and quietly leaves a necessary part for the Inventor’s machine before slipping away. The pictures have tremendous
crayon-colored kid appeal, and the text is clever and funny. Observant readers will find many delicious surprises, and the twist at the end is a genuine delight. An inspired and strikingly original riff on the back-to-school experience. (Picture book. 5-9)
Belote, Ashley | Random House (40 pp.)
$18.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9780593569665
A “baa”-nd of pirates gets the wool pulled over their eyes.
After a treasure-hunting foray, Captain Hoof and his crew of fleecy sheep are homeward bound with a glittery bounty—the lost Golden Shears, which once belonged to the infamous Woolly Jones. Suddenly, huge waves engulf and smash their ship. They’re sheepwrecked and stranded on Foggy Island, home to none other than Woolly Jones. After nearly a month of failed attempts to get off the island, Captain Hoof decides to return the shears to their rightful owner. Trekking across the island through fog as thick and impenetrable as wool, captain and crew eventually bump into their nemesis, who snatches the shears from the captain’s hooves. Expecting dire consequences, everyone starts to flee, but things turn out wool, er, well. In a 90-degree book turn, Woolly is depicted using the shears to give himself a much-needed “woolcut.” He’s grateful for the shears—and for the company after a long, lonely spell. Captain Hoof and crew are delighted at this outcome. This is a cute tale, though the plot is a bit thin; the numerous, amusing sheep puns will appeal more to grown-ups than kids. But the digital illustrations are comical and dynamic, and the all-ovine protagonists are lively and expressive. The book contains lots of typographical creativity, including some onomatopoeic words, incorporated into the artwork, and maps in the endpapers include islands bearing funny, aptly punny names.
A cheery story that “wool” likely evoke some smiles. (Picture book. 5-8)
Astra Young Readers (32 pp.) | $18.99 July 23, 2024 | 9781662620119
Lyrical glimpses of the little-studied wolves that live along the edges of the Northwest coastal rainforest.
As one shadowy form leaves a trail of paw prints along a sandy beach—“one more wave / and all trace will be gone”—others probe tide pools or venture through “a sea of ferns” into the thick woods to catch fish and hunt game before swimming out to a coastal island where pups tumble out from concealment with “hungry-belly yips.” Since none of the furry subjects appear as more than small silhouettes or a few misty strokes in Vickers’ expansive, atmospheric coastal scenes, the sense of how elusive they are comes through clearly. If dubbing them “sacred keepers of the rainforest” seems a bit overblown, the authors do include a note in the backmatter on how as apex predators these wolves help supply food for smaller creatures and fertilizer for trees while controlling deer populations. The backmatter also discusses how these wolves differ in diet, habit, and even looks from their gray wolf cousins. Vickers, a First Nations artist, contributes closing anecdotes about his own encounters with these distinctive creatures. Informative as well as evocative in both art and writing. (Informational picture book. 6-8)
Birkett, Georgie | Candlewick (32 pp.) | $17.99 paper
June 4, 2024 | 9781536231403
Wilbur, a mouselike creature with a fluffball tail, is the apple of his mother’s eye. They cuddle together all the time. But as Wilbur grows bigger and stronger (he’s capable of executing “BIG jumps” in the park, and he adores doing “the wiggle-waggle” and “the boogiewoogie”), he still refuses to walk. In true youngster logic fashion, he declares: “But my stroller will miss me and get sad” and “Actually, my shoes get all grumpy-pumpy when I walk.” But one day, when he accidentally drops his plush rabbit and hops out of the stroller to get it, he comes back to find Mommy sitting in the stroller! Poor Mommy needs a break, too. Wilbur decides to take care of her for a change and pushes her up the hill (with some help from his friends). Bright, cheery illustrations feature many parent/child relationships of all species (a tiny family of snails who wear hats on their shells in the winter are especially charming). Personified objects (such as a smiling moon or Wilbur’s frowning legs saying, “Not today, thank you”) add to the delight. Wilbur appears to be part of a singleparent household.
An ode to exhausted mamas everywhere. (Picture book. 3-6)
Bondor-Stone, Annabeth & Connor White Illus. by Lars Kenseth | Godwin Books (40 pp.)
$19.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781250222886
A youngster always wants to be carried but realizes that sometimes his mom gets tired, too.
The straight poop on alimentary advances in space technology. The authors “go boldly” into a frank account of how NASA strained to develop facilities for disposing of body wastes after astronaut Alan Shepard was forced to relieve himself inside his flight suit due to a four-hour delay in the 1961 launch of the Mercury capsule Freedom 7. In Kenseth’s cartoon illustrations, a diverse gaggle of NASA engineers go from puzzling over a porcelain toilet—which, due to clearly
explained issues of weight and gravity (or lack thereof), would have been totally unsuitable—to concocting experimental alternatives to finally whooping at a job well done. Before that, though, early astronauts had to struggle with little bags (sometimes futilely, as a quoted snippet of transcript from Apollo 10 reveals: “Give me a napkin quick. There’s a turd floating through the air”). Though the International Space Station boasted two bathrooms when it launched in 1998, it wasn’t until 2016 that a feasible design for individual space suits was conceived of—the result of NASA’s international Space Poop Challenge. Technology related to liquid waste gets a pass until a note in the afterword, which discusses how it’s recycled on the ISS; still, prospective space explorers will doubtless be relieved by the closing assurance: “Now, wherever astronauts go—they can go !”
A well-digested info-dump. (sources) (Nonfiction. 6-8)
Brantley-Newton, Vanessa
Nancy Paulsen Books (32 pp.)
$18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780525517115
After a fall down a well, a little goat saves herself with her tenacity and her song. With brilliantly saturated colors, showy full-bleed illustrations, and evocative depictions of music, this tale looks incredibly inviting, and its ungulate protagonist makes an undeniably appealing first impression. But wherever readers think this cheerful-looking story might go, they’re probably wrong. Sure, a note promising a happy ending hints that there might be darkness along the way, but most readers will have no clue what they’re in for. Little Goat irritates the neighbors with her enthusiastic climbing and caterwauling. After she falls into a deep well with no clear path for rescue, the neighbors decide to skip the pleasantries
and give her a “decent burial.” (“It’s sad, but she was pretty annoying,” they reason.) As they begin shoveling dirt, Little Goat, showcasing surely the most incredulous goat face in kid lit history, persists. She sings to encourage herself to “shake it off. Pack it under” until she rises from the hole; the neighbors now gaze at her in admiration. Readers learn little about the protagonist beyond her quirks; Little Goat is a bit of a one-note character. But the narration is agreeably conversational, and children will root for Little Goat as she uses traits perceived as faults to save herself. A tale likely to strike a chord with fans of the unconventional. (Picture book. 4-9)
Brownfield, HF & Kayla Coombs | Oni Press (272 pp.) | $14.99 paper | June 11, 2024 9781637154397 | Series: Quinnelope, 2
Quinnelope is ready to say “Goodnight, Moon,” but the moon has left her orbit and disappeared! Quinnelope, “a pink blob in a funky skirt with the coolest crown in town,” can’t sleep without the moon. At first, she enjoys the extra hours of sunlight by playing and snacking—alone, since her friends are snoozing. But after hours pass and the moon never rises, she sounds the Glitter Bomb Alarm. The brightly colored illustrations bounce between full pages, panels, insets, and bubbles to capture the chaotic energy as Quinnelope (who’s the offspring of a jelly bean and a curtain) and her
friends Star (a yellow star) and Bub (a panda butler) consider a world without the moon—very serious stuff! Concerned, Quinnelope and friends decide to launch an epic interstellar search. They borrow purple goldfish Pish’s Space RV for their lunar search. Fueled by caffeinated grape soda, Quinnelope drives. Their search is slowed by space traffic and includes planetary stops to fuel up and hunt down leads from spiky blokes and Glitterheads, among others. Their final stop: a black hole! Bathroom humor, puns, absurdities, and some interesting facts keep the interest level high, and the dyslexia-friendly font enhances the accessibility. Outrageously adorable, out-of-this world entertainment. (drawing instructions) (Graphic science fiction. 8-12)
Butterworth, Chris | Illus. by Olivia Lomenech Gill | Candlewick (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781536235425
An admiring tribute to the habits and smarts of the corvid clan. Gill’s standout mixed-media illustrations feature individual and group portraits of numerous crows and crow cousins, stylishly rendered in fine, exact detail. These visuals, along with a gallery of eggs, will draw the eye first, but young audiences will find Butterworth’s rapturous observations, delivered in multiple sizes of type, likewise worth lingering over. “If a crow looks at you with its small, round eye, you can be sure it’s thinking,” she writes. “Crows are clever birds. Very clever
A tale likely to strike a chord with fans of the unconventional.
SHAKE IT OFF!
birds.” If she sells them rather short by characterizing them as “not…graceful to look at or lovely to listen to,” she does suggest that, considering their canny problem-solving and tool-using skills, they’re as intelligent as monkeys and apes. She urges readers to find out for themselves just how bright they are; given that they live all around the world in many habitats, they’re particularly easy to find and study. (And, she notes, the crow family contains more than 100 different kinds of birds.) “Crows are smart, clever, crafty, and playful,” she closes, “just like you!”
Brief but as lively and appealing as its subject. (index) (Informational picture book. 6-8)
Campbell, Jamel C. | Illus. by Lydia Mba Candlewick (32 pp.) | $17.99 May 7, 2024 | 9781536231465
Early-childhood educator Campbell makes his picture-book debut with the story of a boy conquering back-to-school jitters.
Olu, a young Black boy, is nervous about starting preschool. His mother reminds him that his friends will be there. “But what about the teacher?” Olu wonders. He peppers his parents with questions: “What do teachers LOOK like?” “Where do teachers LIVE?” “What if my teacher has big, sharp teeth like a T. rex?” Mom and Dad’s reassurances don’t stop Olu’s tummy from wobbling all the way to school. But when he arrives at his classroom, his teacher isn’t what he expected. Instead of a ferocious monster, he meets a hip, smiling Black man with a gold tooth who invites Olu to call him Jay. Jay shows Olu around, gives him some crayons, and encourages him to draw a picture; later, he tells the class a story about a princess and a dragon. Jay reminds Olu of someone… but who? Gazing in the mirror as he gets ready to go home, Olu realizes:
“He looks like me!” Told in a realistic, appealingly childlike voice, this loving book emphasizes how important it is for children of color to have educators in whom they can see themselves. Mba’s bright, homey illustrations set the perfect tone to welcome youngsters to the classroom. In a note for adults, Campbell offers tips for helping kids get excited about preschool. Both an encouraging first-day-ofschool read and a tribute to the power of representation. (Picture book. 3-7)
Carlson, Caroline | Candlewick (256 pp.)
$17.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781536230499
A displaced princess runs away from home in order to be wicked, only to struggle with undoing a complicated curse. Marigold is nothing like her older sister, Rosalind, who was the perfect princess before she was tragically abducted by the evil Wizard Torville. Intrigued by tales of nefarious characters, such as the Twice-Times Witch, Marigold has always been better at building contraptions than soothing angry dragons with lovely singing. Her life is upended, however, when Rosalind miraculously returns, causing Marigold to feel like she no longer belongs. In a refreshing reversal of classic fairy-tale tropes, Marigold decides that instead of committing to the impossible task of being good, she should dedicate herself to being villainous—and who better to teach her than the wizard who originally kidnapped her sister? But being wicked is harder than it seems, since Marigold doesn’t have a natural talent for magic. To make things worse, a miscast curse now threatens her newfound way of life: If Marigold doesn’t work with best friend Collin, a kitchen boy, to set things right, her life (and career as a villain!) may be cut short. Full of snappy humor, delightful wordplay, and quirky characters—a tentacled,
people-eating creature called the Thing, a spiffy imp, and a reticent blob—this book is a whimsical exploration of belonging and sibling relationships. Characters read white.
A witty and engaging anti-fairy-tale adventure. (Fantasy. 8-13)
Cham, Laan | Random House (40 pp.) $18.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9780593651568
“But…I like both. Why do I have to pick?”
A young girl named Pink, with peachy skin, rosy cheeks, and matching pink hair, falls from the sky into the Land of Sunshine. A tentacled creature called Fireball introduces her to the sun and the beaches and encourages her to go swimming. But Fireball warns her off from the land across the water; trolls inhabit it. Curious, Pink goes exploring and, rather than encountering trolls, meets a friendly wintry being, Snowball, who tells her all about the snowmen, ice-skating, and sledding that await her in the Land of Snow. Whimsical, kawaii-influenced illustrations show the fun each land has to offer and the inevitable argument that follows; each creature thinks their land is best and wants Pink to say so. Is there a way to find some common ground? Pink seeks a compromise by creating her own land that features the best of both worlds. This light, quirky, and warm story is simple in terms of plot and text, making it easy for young children to absorb a lesson about fairness, concession, and sharing and apply it to their own lives. Conflict resolution meets fable in this fanciful treat. (Picture book. 3-6)
Chancellor, Deborah | Illus. by Julia Groves Kane Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 | July 16, 2024 9781662670701 | Series: Follow My Food
Berries, apples, and pears, yum! With the help of the child narrator, the aptly named Granny Root grows berry bushes and fruit trees, harvests when it’s time, and then eats or preserves the bounty. This entry in the author’s four-book Follow My Food series provides a step-by-step account of fruit growing with simple words and colorful, stylized pictures. Granny and the youngster prepare the soil, plant berry bushes and seedlings, prune, and weed. Putting nets over the strawberry plants keeps birds away. In summer, Granny waters, and the two watch and wait until the fruit is ripe. The end of summer means it’s time for apples and pears; they bite into the fruit, bake some of it into pies, and preserve the rest as jam. This concise U.K. import will satisfy young listeners or early readers curious about where their food comes from; it’s also a lovely example of intergenerational bonding. Backmatter includes a matching activity, further information (with a reminder that eating local fruit in season is better for the planet), and a page that lists four kinds of fruit (“berries,” “stone fruit,” “pome fruit,” and “dry fruit”), with examples. Finally, the book has a recipe for fruit salad—enough for the whole family. Granny and the child are brown-skinned. Gentle encouragement for the youngest of gardeners.
(Informational picture book. 3-7)
A rags-to-riches true story about an entrepreneur renowned for his noodle soup.MAMI KING
Chancellor, Deborah | Illus. by Julia Groves Kane Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 | July 16, 2024
9781662670725 | Series: Follow My Food
From hens to fried eggs: where our food comes from. Even very young children often know that eggs come from chickens. With appealing stylized illustrations and a relatively simple text, Chancellor and Groves explain how it happens. The opening scene introduces a child with brown skin and curly brown hair who holds Shelly Hen, a free-range chicken. The young narrator describes Shelly’s daily activities. In the farmyard, Shelly takes a dust bath, searches for bugs, and chatters with the other chickens in her flock. At night, she has the top spot on the shelves in the coop. In the early morning, the chickens all troop over to their nesting boxes and lay eggs before going outside again. A blond-haired, pale-skinned farmer, shown on the title page, provides supplemental food and water, while the child helps by collecting the eggs from the cleverly designed nest boxes. The child’s reward is a very fresh fried egg snack! The front endpapers feature colorful eggs in their shells; closing endpapers show the fried eggs. The backmatter includes a matching game, more information on hens and on the eggs of other birds, and an easy recipe for a two-egg scramble. On a final page, the author reveals that eggs can hatch chicks, but “for this to happen a hen must meet a rooster.” Appropriately simple and effective. (Informational picture book. 3-7)
Chen, Justina | Katherine Tegen/ HarperCollins (336 pp.) | $18.99
May 7, 2024 | 9780063306523
A spirited girl processes challenging feelings around change, grief, identity, family, and adoption, all triggered by her family’s move.
Dessie Mei Breedlove has already experienced one momentous transition: from an orphanage in China to her white American adoptive home. Now she must transfer schools in the middle of sixth grade. She knows that they’ve moved to Seattle to help Grammy, who’s struggling with dementia, but she’d still rather have stayed put. Dessie’s first day in her new school starts off with kids confusing her with another Asian girl. But when Dessie gets a good look at Donna Lee, she realizes it’s not just another microaggression—it’s like looking in the mirror. Could the girls be twins separated at birth? As they navigate this unusual situation, Dessie and Donna quickly bond, but before long, cultural differences threaten their relationship (Donna’s adoptive family is Taiwanese). On top of that, Dessie faces bullying friend drama, racism, and imposter syndrome, plus her mother’s insecurities. Thankfully, connections with caring adults and her own introspection help her accept herself and use her voice to make “good trouble.” The sheer number of issues packed into this volume could be overwhelming, but the storyline is clear, thanks to well-crafted
writing. Many tweens will relate to Dessie’s turbulent emotions and insecurities and her experimentation with various personalities. Readers will root for her as she grows. Universal themes of identity and belonging radiate in this exploration of international transracial adoption. (author’s note, resources and further reading) (Fiction. 9-12)
Chichester, Teddi Lynn | Illus. by Jamie Green | Holiday House (160 pp.)
$22.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9780823453542
Series: Books for a Better Earth
A broad survey of modern efforts to expedite the safe movement of wildlife past busy roads and along obstructed waterways. The cited statistics are shocking: Over a million vertebrates become roadkill in the U.S. every day, and over 8 million birds suffer such a fate each year in Brazil alone. But this potentially stimulating study of wildlife conservation in the face of such anthropogenic devastation will be a heavy slog for young audiences.
Chichester’s descriptions of current or planned overpasses, underpasses, and natural corridors designed to connect the original ranges of wild animals and to keep routes for migratory ones open make tedious reading in the absence of maps, plans, or meaningful illustrations (Green’s occasional drab, schematic images of wild creatures placed against generic backgrounds are, at best, decorative). Returning repeatedly to the story of P-22, a puma who beat the odds by getting across busy freeways to appear in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and so inspired the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, the author does visit many similar structures to underscore the worldwide scope of these remediation projects. Along with talking to
naturalists about the importance of all such “critter crossings” both for species survival and overall biodiversity, she introduces many of the wild beneficiaries, from butterflies and other insects to white-lipped peccaries and elephants. Still, despite the breadth of coverage and the urgency of the topic, the presentation leaves readers at arm’s length.
Significant work but hampered by the lack of supporting visuals. (ways to help wild creatures, scientific names of select species, bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Chio-Lauri, Jacqueline | Illus. by Kristin Sorra | Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781728492353
A rags-to-riches true story about a legendary entrepreneur renowned for his noodle soup. The narrative begins in 1918, as Ma Mon Luk (1896-1961) sorrowfully bids farewell to his sweetheart, Ng Shih, whose parents have deemed him too poor to marry. “The rich and the poor, like oil and water, [don’t] mix.” Determined to prove Ng Shih’s parents wrong, he leaves Canton, China, for the Philippines to make a name for himself. While wandering the bustling streets of Manila’s Chinatown, he’s inspired to make his own version of his hometown favorite, chicken noodle soup. “Clink, clank, clink!” Day after day, he carries his jangling wares with a bamboo pole, selling noodles to rich and poor alike. His hard work and perseverance pay off, and his soup, known as mami—“‘Ma’ after his name and ‘mi’ for noodles”— becomes famous. Over time, his success allows him to give back to the community and reconnect with his love. He opens a restaurant “where rich and poor people, unlike oil and water, [mix].” The lightly textured illustrations gracefully support the emotional resonance of the
tale, contrasting bright, warm colors against a muted palette to heighten moments of success, longing, and nostalgia. Chio-Lauri’s use of short sentences, onomatopoeia, and repetition breaks up larger sections of text and will keep readers engaged in this compelling success story about the Mami King. As heartwarming and satisfying as a bowl of noodle soup. (glossary; author’s and illustrator’s notes; more information on Ma and his mami, the people of the Philippines and the oldest Chinatown, and the carrying stick and the kitchen shears; bibliography; mami recipe) (Picture-book biography. 7-12)
Choi, Yangsook | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (32 pp.) | $18.99 | July 9, 2024 |
9780374391294
A young Korean immigrant makes a new friend while reflecting on an old pal. Jihun tentatively enters the classroom. “Today is the day I’ll make friends,” the young narrator says. “At least, that’s what I promise myself.” But Jihun’s resolve is shaken when Ms. Alpha explains today’s assignment: “Write a letter to your best friend.” While the other students boast about their many friends, Jihun, who arrived in America just a month ago and has no friends, simply stares at the blank paper. With a gentle push from Ms. Alpha, the protagonist writes the letter O, then reflects on Oto, a gray-andwhite cat whom Jihun left behind in Korea. Taking an artistic route, Jihun draws a portrait of Oto using letters: “I write E on its side, like his front legs.” “I swirl an S backward twice, like his tail.” The assignment elicits memories both happy (the two playing together) and sad: Oto’s swishing tail when Jihun waved goodbye to him. Jihun’s classmate Piper notices the portrait and initially warns Jihun to “stop doodling and write.” But eventually Jihun’s artistry intrigues Piper…and leads to a new friendship. Choi’s meditative prose pulses with quiet joys, while the use of
softly blended colors brings warmth and charm to the simple cartoons and textured backdrops. Ms. Alpha is brown-skinned, Piper is light-skinned, and the class is diverse.
A delightful tale of fostering connection through art. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)
Kirkus Star
Choldenko, Gennifer | Knopf (320 pp.) $17.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9781524718923
A sixth grader struggles with feelings and survival strategies after his single mom disappears. Hank is more or less used to being left to cope with caring for himself and his 3-year-old sister, Boo, for short stretches—but when their mother vanishes for a week, the power goes off, and the landlord serves an eviction notice, it’s crisis time. What’s the right thing to do? Along with sensitively exploring Hank’s rough emotional landscape as his mother’s whereabouts remain unknown, Choldenko offers a moving portrayal of the powerful bonds that connect him, an unwillingly parentified child, and the younger sibling who means everything to him. Throwing themselves on the mercies of strangers with emotional vulnerabilities of their own earns at least temporary respite but also leads to brushes with the foster care system, the threat of being separated, and, most wrenchingly, the necessity of making yet another consequential choice; finally, his sorely missed mom abruptly reappears. Meanwhile, not only does a neighbor’s extended Latine clan give the two white children their first glimpses of life in a bustling household, but Hank gets a warmer welcome than he was expecting from the diverse classmates at his new middle school. These experiences, plus the fact that Hank and Boo are both
Readers will gobble up heaping helpings of this humorous literary smorgasbord.
EATING MY WORDS
strongly appealing characters in their own different ways, will give readers cause for intense relief when the author throws the pair a lifeline at the end. Moving and perceptive: Hankies are a must. (Fiction. 10-13)
Churnin, Nancy | Illus. by Izzy Evans Beaming Books (40 pp.) | $18.99
July 9, 2024 | 9781506488448
A neighborhood comes together after a shocking act of vandalism.
In the town of Natick, Massachusetts, in a welcoming and supportive neighborhood, Cari and Lauri, an older lesbian couple, proudly put up a rainbow flag outside their home with the help of three local kids. One day, Cari and Lauri find their house egged and their rainbow flag missing in an apparent hate crime. Upset by this turn of events, the couple tell the kids that they don’t feel comfortable putting the flag back up. After spitballing ideas from building a wall around the home and keeping watch over the front porch to finding the culprits themselves and then egging their home, the children decide to give rainbow flags to everyone in the community; they in turn display them outside their own homes. This tale is based on a similar incident that happened in 2016 in the real town of Natick. While the ending may be tidy and pat, with some awkward phrasing, it’s an age-appropriate way to show young readers how to support those communities most in need of support. Despite the subject matter, optimism
pervades both the text and Evans’ sunny illustrations. Backmatter includes an author’s note and a basic primer on how to be an LGBTQ+ ally. Cari and Lauri are light-skinned; their community is a diverse one.
A purposeful yet poignant exploration of allyship. (Picture book. 4-7)
Cleary, Brian P. | Millbrook/ Lerner | (120 pp.) | $14.99 paper March 5, 2024 | 9798765625194
Inspiration for budding poets interested in wordplay. As usual taking a lighthearted approach, Cleary helpfully includes “A Recipe for Poetry: “A quarter cup of rhyming pairs— / One pinch alliteration, / A dash of macaronic verse, / complete with full translation… / it’s time to eat your words!” He explores far-ranging topics, from grammar to technology and even toilets. Cleary writes in a variety of forms—acrostics, haiku, list poems, palindrome, sensory poems—all listed in the book’s index. Clearly, the author loves wordplay, as in his poem “Sleepover Party”: “The letters had a sleepover / with popcorn, snacks, and TV. / But drinking too much soda / made the elemno P.” He cleverly weaves puns into verses about love: “I’ll love you till the BUTTERFLIES / until the SUGAR BOWLS. / I’ll love you till the KITCHEN SINKS, / and CELERY STALKS the rolls.” One poem’s title—“WHAT I’D DO IF A BURGLAR BROKE INTO MY HOUSE”—is longer than the verse itself:
“I’d / hide.” Friendly spot illustrations accompany most of the poems; people depicted are racially diverse. Budding poets will find the glossary of poetic forms especially useful.
Readers will gobble up heaping helpings of this humorous literary smorgasbord, but it’s also suitable for savoring slowly. (further reading) (Poetry. 5-9)
pp.)
$18.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781662670077
Every animal may be unique, but some species are truly one of a kind.
A baker’s dozen of very different creatures star in this visually impressive and informative book. Each has no close relatives in the animal kingdom and is distinguished by unusual traits or behaviors, clearly and succinctly described here. Australia’s platypuses split off from other mammals 166 million years ago and are among the only mammals to lay eggs. The tuatara, found in New Zealand, is part of an order of reptiles that evolved 200 million years ago, when Earth consisted of the supercontinent Pangea. The aye-aye, a type of lemur that’s native to Madagascar, has incisors that never stop growing, while the leatherback sea turtle, which lives in oceans all over the world, is far larger than other turtles and can swim up to a mile below the surface. Finally, there’s Homo sapiens, distinguished by our big brains and capacity for language. (Chimps, orangutans, and gorillas, our closest living relatives, belong to a different scientific family.) Each entry also lists the creature’s height, weight, and lifespan and features a large, stunningly detailed, close-up color illustration. Excellent backmatter offers would-be scientists more information on classifying animals, along with a glossary,
relevant websites, notes on researching and taxonomy, and a map with the 13 animals and more one-of-a-kind creatures. A striking book that celebrates the astonishing diversity of the animal world. (Informational picture book. 6-9)
Davis, Amira Rose & Michael G. Long Illus. by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow
Bloomsbury (40 pp.) | $18.99
July 16, 2024 | 9781547612093
A tribute to the renowned Olympian and Civil Rights activist. Wilma Rudolph’s youth and early successes get once-overs in the afterword, but the gracefully written main narrative kicks in after her 1960 Olympics triumph— after her observations that people of diverse races freely used buses, beaches, and restaurants in European countries led her to comment that in America, “They push me around because I’m a Negro. Here in Europe, they push me to the front.” Then, learning upon her return to the U.S. that her segregated Clarksville, Tennessee, hometown was planning a “Wilma Rudolph Day,” she successfully pressured the town authorities into opening the parade and banquet to all. In paper collage scenes with digital touch-ups, Pinkney Barlow deftly captures her subject’s determination both on and off the track as well as filling in the backgrounds with scenes of racially diverse crowds both overseas and at the town’s special celebration in Tennessee. Did that celebration bring segregation in Clarksville to an end? No, the authors frankly admit, but Wilma went on “pushing and pulling and protesting,” as all who still see her as an example should, “because the race to freedom is not a sprint, but a marathon. Let’s go! ” Places salutary focus not just on Rudolph’s athletic gifts but also on her strength of character. (Picture-book biography. 6-8)
Bear and Duck Are Friends deGennaro, Sue | Little Hare/Trafalgar (24 pp.) | $17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781761210327
Sometimes, all you need is a supportive pal. Bear and Duck are besties. Duck’s enthusiastic about trying new things; Bear…not so much. Though larger than his feathered friend, Bear prefers sitting on the sidelines, listening to Duck wax lyrical about taking part in new activities. Bear tries, too, but he’s klutzy and usually falls down. (He’s better at napping.) Duck invites Bear to join his dance class on “bring-a-friend-day.” At first Bear’s pumped, but when he arrives at the studio, he confesses that he’s scared. Ever- supportive Duck reassures Bear that they’ll take things one step at a time—literally. Duck and the other dancers trip the light fantastic; Bear just trips. He’s ready to give up, but when Duck reminds him that he’s not alone and advises him to close his eyes and “feel the music,” things improve; turns out Bear’s a great dancer after all. The next day, Duck invites Bear to be his plus one at swimming class. Guess who can’t wait to dive right in? This sweet, simply told Australian import emphasizes the importance of offering unwavering support and lets kids know that they can boost others’ spirits. Children will feel buoyed by these pals. Visible pencil strokes give the softly rendered illustrations a cozy feeling; the winsome protagonists look almost like stuffed toys.
An adorable, cheery friendship tale. (Picture book. 4-7)
The beloved actor and activist revisits the WWII incarceration camps of his childhood in a new picture book.
BY MATHANGI SUBRAMANIAN
WHEN PRESIDENT FRANKLIN Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, George Takei was only 4 years old. The directive, which mandated the relocation of Japanese Americans to hostile landscapes all over the country, forced Takei and his family out of their cozy Los Angeles home and into a series of incarceration camps. Takei entered the camps at the age of 5 and would remain there until the conclusion of the war three years later, in 1945, when he and his family found themselves back in California, penniless and unhoused.
For decades, the actor and activist, beloved for his role as Lieutenant Sulu on Star Trek, has been vocal about this dark chapter in American history. In addition to speaking about his experiences in interviews and a well-received TED Talk, Takei received an Eisner Award for They Called Us Enemy, a graphic memoir for teens written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott and illustrated by Harmony Becker. His new picture book, My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story (Crown, April 30), illustrated by Michelle Lee, is intended for a new audience: children and the adults who read to them.
I recently spoke to Takei, 87, over Zoom about picture books, multilingualism, democracy, family, and hope. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
curiosity of daddies and mommies everywhere, so they’ll go and learn more. For the children, it’ll be their chance to learn about [the history of the camps] for the first time and maybe share it with their friends and classmates. I want my readers to feel prepared to deal with the complexities of American democracy.
Why did you decide to write this book?
This is my third visit to my childhood imprisonment. The first was my 1994 autobiography [To the Stars] and then in 2019 with my graphic memoir for teens.
Today, it’s particularly important for Americans to know how fragile our democracy is. We’re living
through a presidential election year, and this fragility is vivid on so many different levels. And so, I thought, with my next visitation of the story, I will target two generations with one book: Daddy and Mommy reading to little Johnny and little Janey. Maybe the introduction of this history will pique the
Is that why this book works in a dual perspective? I noticed that young George, the child protagonist, often reveals his memory of a situation, which is quite positive, in contrast to his parents’ memory of the same situation, which is more realistic. I lived through it all, but I didn’t understand it. Like when we were assigned a horse stall to stay in, my reaction was, “We get to
sleep where the horsies sleep!” But I can still hear my mother mumbling, “So humiliating. So degrading.” The whole experience for my parents was torturous. As a teenager, I became curious. I wanted to understand. As I recollect in the book, I had many after-dinner conversations with my father. He was a block manager at the camp, so he knew some of the things most of the people in the camp did not know, some of the problems and how they were resolved or not resolved. In those conversations, my father told me that he’d had such hope and ambitions for my brother and me. For him to see the barbed wire behind us tore him apart. What was our future going to be? What would our lives be like? Remembering that and writing about it,
reliving those conversations, was painful. I sobbed at my computer.
Your parents seem extraordinary. I especially loved the scene when your mother sneaked a sewing machine into the camp. Can you tell us more about that?
Well, it was a sewing machine, so it was heavy. It was wrapped in baby blankets and sweaters in a duffel bag [with] lollipops, bubble gum, Cracker Jack
boxes, and picture books for Daddy to read to us. For us, the fact that the bag was so heavy was wonderful—we thought it was going to be full of other goodies for us when we arrived at the camp! My mother marched past those soldiers with rifles, and I said to her, “Don’t let the soldiers take the candy away from us!” It was such a devastating disappointment when she revealed that all that weight was [actually] a sewing machine!
Maybe the introduction of this history will pique the curiosity of daddies and mommies everywhere, so they’ll go and learn more.
My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story
Takei, George illus. by Michelle
My mother was a gutsy and practical lady. She knew that her children were going to grow. They were going to need clothes. The reason my father was so shocked was that we could have gotten into real trouble. Anything with sharp edges or points was [considered] contraband. He was aghast, but he also realized his wife was his wife wherever they were.
Another thing I love about the book is the cover. The back cover is actually my favorite illustration by Michelle Lee. It’s Camp Rohwer framed by dark, ominous swamp trees. I’d never seen a landscape like Arkansas with trees that loom up out of the black water, their roots coming out and going back in like a snake.
And the strange sounds that came from this jungle! (I call it the jungle, but it was really a forest.) I knew an older boy who said they were dinosaur sounds. I hadn’t heard of dinosaurs before. The boy said they were huge monsters, ugly, with fangs. He said they lived millions and millions of years ago, and then they died. And I said, “They died? Then how can we hear them out here?” He said, “Oh, they died all over the world except in Arkansas. They built those barbed wire fences to keep them caged in!”
What was life like after you were released?
After the camps, what saved us was that we lived in a minority neighborhood. We couldn’t go back to our old neighborhood.
But the Mexican American community embraced us. They were friendly and welcoming. My mother made friends with our neighbor Mrs. Gonzales, and they taught each other their recipes. As far as I’m concerned, Mrs. Takei made the best enchiladas and tacos in East L.A.
In our new neighborhood, I heard Spanish all around me—I enjoyed the language! I then took Spanish classes all through junior high and high school. My minor in college was Latin American studies, where again, I maintained my Spanish. My major was theater arts, and my father said I had a hopeless major and a useless minor. He thought, I’m going to be supporting him all his life!
Despite everything that happened, you maintain an incredible sense of hope. Where does that come from?
It came from my father. He was [always] setting up dances for teenagers or building baseball diamonds or helping old folks. I really think my father was Superman to have done what he did in camp and still be our father.
I feel very blessed having the parents I had. We lived through so many scary, terrifying events [at the camp]. As long as we were with our parents, we were safe. My parents defined who I became— they and all the stresses we went through made me who I am today.
Mathangi Subramanian is a novelist, essayist, and founder of Moon Rabbit Writing Studio.
Kirkus Star
Spy Ring
Durst, Sarah Beth | Clarion/ HarperCollins (224 pp.) | $18.99 May 21, 2024 | 9780063323452
Two 11-year-olds follow a trail of clues laid down over 200 years ago. In this intelligent and extremely wellplotted tale, best friends and budding spies Rachel and Joon set out to discover the role of Anna Smith Strong, an actual historical person and probable member of the Culper Spy Ring, a group of spies who operated under George Washington during the Revolutionary War in their Setauket, Long Island, community. While they’re hiding in the attic of Rachel’s house, the two overhear Dave, Rachel’s soon-to-be stepdad, mention to her mother that he plans, on the day of their marriage, to give Rachel a family ring that purportedly belonged to Strong. Intrigued and impatient, the kids sneak into the grown-ups’ bedroom, find the ring, and remove enough tarnish to read the words “Find me” inscribed in it. Starting with this cryptic message, the two embark on a historical scavenger hunt (without telling their parents). Solving each challenging clue leads to another as they uncover history in their own hometown. Readers learn historical facts about the Culper Spy Ring, Strong’s unsung involvement, and how history is a series of puzzle pieces put together to tell a story. Rachel and Joon are delightfully feisty and drily humorous in their perceptions of adults (never underestimate kids!) as they use intelligence and persistence to bring to light an underrecognized woman from history. Rachel is Jewish; Joon’s name cues East Asian heritage. Compelling and fascinating; brings history to life. (maps, author’s note, sources) (Fiction. 9-12)
El-Rouby, Yasmin | Illus. by Ishy Walters | Neem Tree Press (32 pp.)
$18.95 | June 11, 2024
9781915584182 | Series: Misty Mole
Misty Mole realizes that her eyesight needs correcting. Misty’s friend Sunny Squirrel says that Misty’s painting of the Woodlands is all wrong. Walking to school, Misty trips over obstacles in her path. When Mrs. Owly asks students to read from the board, Misty squints and must stand close. Farley Fox taunts Misty, launching a paper airplane her way; she sees only a blur. Misty imagines she’s Super Mole, with the power to see far-off objects. Then Mrs. Owly announces a schoolwide art competition. Farley is convinced that Misty’s “weird” paintings will lose; Misty, who loves art, sadly wonders if that’s what others think of her work. Mrs. Owly tells Misty she’s noticed her vision difficulties and says the school nurse might be able to help. Misty eventually sees an eye doctor, is diagnosed with myopia (she’s nearsighted, or, as this U.K. import puts it, “short-sighted”), and selects a pair of “sparkly, rosy” glasses. Thereafter, exuding Super Mole’s confidence and strength, Misty doesn’t stumble, sees friends from afar, dodges paper planes—and, oh, wins the art contest with her “blurry,” Monet-like painting. Youngsters who’ve acquired new glasses themselves will be uplifted by this reassuring tale, written by an optometrist. It’s also an important wake-up call for adults to have their children’s vision corrected. Walter’s muted illustrations
are lively; snub-nosed Misty and the other animal characters are endearing. An upbeat and eye-opening primer on dealing with myopia. (Picture book. 4-7)
Escobar, Melba | Illus. by Elizabeth Builes Trans. by Sara Lissa Paulson | Enchanted Lion Books (124 pp.) | $16.95
July 16, 2024 | 9781592704095
Pedro is separated from his mother on a trip from Bogotá to a Caribbean island. Smallest in his class and bullied, 10-year-old Pedro is thrilled about the vacation but finds himself wondering if his father’s “business trip” is really a permanent estrangement. Manuela and her son are so close that they can read one another’s expressions, but Pedro, angry that she’s concealed the truth about his father, runs away. Lost and hungry, Pedro is discovered by Johnny Tay, an elderly and irascible island dweller who lets him stay the night in his shanty. Johnny’s parrot, Victoria, allegedly 300 years old, regales Pedro with firsthand accounts of the shipboard adventures of Johnny’s great-grandfather’s great-grandfather, a cook to pirates. During Pedro’s absence, Manuela realizes that her maturing son deserves more candor and freedom. Over breakfast, Johnny says that he’ll help reunite Pedro and Manuela “in good time.” After the two of them go snorkeling and spear-fishing and enjoy a lunch of fresh red snapper, Johnny has begun to repair his motorbike just as Manuela arrives in a police truck. Made up of salient early moments in a boy’s
coming of age, this Colombian import contains glints of magical realism and a picaresque, albeit parrot-narrated, pirate subplot. Pedro grows and shrinks according to his emotional state, and Escobar’s wry musings about treasure— is it the purported pirates’ plundered gold, or the island’s magnificent, prolific breadfruit tree?—sparkle like the seven-colored sea. Builes’ pale, delicate illustrations add humorous touches. Lively and thought provoking. (Fiction. 7-12)
Falatko, Julie | Illus. by Andrea Stegmaier | Viking (40 pp.) | $18.99
June 18, 2024 | 9780451476838
Barnyard animals attempt to hire a new rooster. A cow seeks a “focused and undistracted rooster who will get this farm back on track.” But the applicants have their own ideas. A white-feathered, caffeine-loving chicken offers to wake the farm animals up with freshly brewed coffee. “It will never work for us,” responds Cow. The other candidates include an inexplicably tuxedo-clad rooster who wants to ring a bell instead of crowing, a small brown bird whose lack of farm experience quickly becomes evident, and a translucent green blob who speaks a language Cow can’t understand. At last, the farm’s original rooster wakes up and crows; “the roostering part of being a rooster” isn’t very demanding, so he’s been devoting his time to playing music, which keeps him up late. The “solution” to ensuring that a rooster crows every morning will have grown-ups chuckling about the inefficiencies of the workplace. Illustrations dominated by rich reds and browns and cool blues bring the setting to life. Stegmaier gives this farmyard a clever modern flair; the cow is dressed in overalls and boots, her hair in a topknot, while the “extremely cool and helpful sheep” who narrates is clad in a sweater and a pleated skirt. While the jokes about the trials and tribulations of the job market may be lost on
younger readers, kids will nevertheless giggle at the expressive animals and whimsical artwork.
A cheeky tale worth crowing about. (Picture book. 4-7)
Ferrell, Sean | Illus. by Graham Carter Pixel+Ink (368 pp.) | $18.99 | June 25, 2024 9781645951865 | Series: The Sinister Secrets, 2
Talented young tinkerer Noah returns to the volcanic island of Singe seeking some defense against a second invasion of mysterious robots. In a second episode that’s every bit as ponderous as the first and also leans heavily on familiarity with previous characters and events, the descent of clouds of Nothings (miniscule, midgelike machines programmed to fulfill every desire) drives Noah back aboard the ship the Abbreviated to flee the ungrateful residents of the battered town he recently saved. Having arrived at his missing father’s robot lab just as it’s being destroyed for unclear reasons by battleships from the Homeland Empire, he then narrowly escapes and returns home to save the town again—before immediately departing on further adventures. Along with picking up relations with previously met allies, Noah welcomes a surprise new friend in the form of Seven—one of the towering, multilimbed octochines that were repelled in the last volume—who switches loyalties and, proving to be a thorough scene-stealer, winds up wearing the ship like a hat while repeatedly saving the day. While Ferrell’s cautionary takes on the dangers of having wishes fulfilled— and, by implication, the hazards of nanotech—may be welcome, it’s Seven and some of the other colorful supporting characters who will keep readers engaged in this slow-moving
tale. Figures in the angular, monochrome illustrations show some variations in skin tone.
Steampunk without much steam. (Adventure. 10-14)
Ferry, Beth | Illus. by Claire Keane Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 16, 2024 | 9781665921732
A girl with unconventional passions finds her community. Shocking her parents—both expert gardeners—baby Prunella arrives not with the proverbial green thumb, but a purple one. Accordingly, Prunella’s plant affinities run to the spiny, carnivorous, fungal, and poisonous sorts. While her parents don’t always understand her predilections, they nurture them anyway. From bladderwort to voodoo lilies, her plants “pinched and poked and reeked.” Neighborhood kids avoid Prunella and her garden. Like a species with protective spines, Prunella grows “prickly,” eschewing her peers. Though concerned, her parents know that her “strong roots” will help her “blossom” when she’s ready. Opportunity arrives with Oliver, a young aspiring botanist who can correctly identify Prunella’s plants and convinces her to diagnose his ailing Venus flytrap. Prunella begins to open up as Oliver and his sister, future mycologist Clem, enter her life, planting a “tiny, hopeful friendshaped seed.” The siblings connect her with a “bouquet of botanists” (as well as “one very curious entomologist”), and the fruit from a thorny new plant—blackberries!—stains everyone’s thumbs purple. Keane supplies accomplished, episodic, animation-influenced illustrations in a palette of blue-gray, ochre, and red. Kids attracted to unusual plants will encounter an equally satisfying theme: Cultivate your passions, and your people will show up. Prunella
and her parents are brown-skinned with straight black hair, Oliver and Clem are Black, and the community is diverse.
Grounded in both nature and nurture: a tale sure to affirm the nonconformist’s spirit. (information on “Prunella’s persnickety plants”) (Picture book. 4-8)
Kirkus Star
Frank, Kiley | Illus. by K-Fai Steele Knopf (42 pp.) | $18.99 July 2, 2024 | 9781984852434
A day in the life of a well-meaning child who’s somehow never far from trouble.
Young Max spits out too-hot oatmeal and makes a huge mess, forgets to get dressed, and misses the bus after being distracted by the sight of squirrels devouring an old jack-o’-lantern outside. At school, Max has a long to-do list (“Keep hands to myself”; “Don’t keep my sweatshirts here overnight”). Max’s teacher, Ms. Fitzmorris, winks encouragingly when Max hands in homework, and when Max plays a leading role in a group project that involves building a tower out of index cards, she’s thrilled. Frank writes in long, stream-of-consciousness sentences, capturing Max’s boundless excitement. (“Have you ever wanted to play on everything so badly that the only solution is for your body to explode into a bunch of different pieces, which is impossible to do safely?”) She offers a realistic yet sensitive portrait of a child who’s often a little out of step with the rest of the world but who’s undeniably perceptive and thoughtful—and who’s lucky enough to have a sympathetic adult who sees that. Many neurodivergent readers will recognize themselves in Max. Steele’s thick-lined watercolor, ink, and pencil illustrations brim with Max’s unbridled energy; each scene feels almost like a story, featuring details for
A sweet ode to the stories and characters we love.
ONCE UPON A FRIEND
attentive viewers to pick out. Max presents Asian, while Ms. Fitzmorris is brown-skinned; the class is diverse. A deeply satisfying tale of a square peg who finds a way to triumph. (Picture book. 4-8)
Gemeinhart, Dan | Illus. by ShinYeon Moon Henry Holt (44 pp.) | $18.99 June 18, 2024 | 9781250892263
In middle-grade author Gemeinhart’s picture-book debut, a young reader and their favorite book character journey through life together.
Meego, who narrates, has been best friends with “my reader…from the very beginning.” Rosy-cheeked and expressive, Meego is a large gray furry creature with a raccoon tail, reminiscent of Studio Ghibli’s Totoro, while the young reader is brown-skinned with cropped hair and freckles and described with they/them pronouns. “Again and again,” the two go on exciting adventures and support each other through different milestones, from the child’s first day of school to their mutual loss of loved ones. But their escapades slow to a halt as the child grows older and stops reading about Meego…until one day when they return as an adult to introduce Meego to their own child. Moon’s illustrations, rendered in gentle bubble gum hues and soft textures, add charm to the tale, and the reappearance of childhood toys and books in a weathered state later in the book is a nice touch. The idea that book characters wait “in the darkness,” “lost in dust and shadows,” in between readings may evoke pangs of guilt or
concern from young readers. Still, the narrative serves as a warm and nostalgic call to revisit favorite stories with the children in our lives.
A sweet ode to the stories and characters we love. (Picture book. 3-6)
Graudin, Ryan | Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins (336 pp.) | $18.99
June 18, 2024 | 9780063229419
In this duology opener, 12-yearold Faye Gardner works behind the scenes to preserve the magical castle Celurdur until a new Wizard of the West can be appointed. The current Wizard West died in his bed, and his ghost is so cross about it that he curses Faye, partially turning her into a cat. To salvage his reputation following such a mundane demise—and safeguard the Balance of the kingdom of Solum—Wizard West holds a tournament to determine his successor, while keeping his death a secret. Ever since the Shadow Queen wrought destruction centuries ago, girls haven’t been allowed to become apprentices to Solum’s four wizards (North, South, East, and West). But Faye and other servants have secretly been performing small, forbidden acts of magic, covering narcissistic Wizard West’s duties for him. Faye loves Celurdur, so when the tournament endangers the only home she’s ever known, she must use her wits to keep it safe—more malignant forces may be at work than the rude contestants and selfish wizards. Descriptions of magic, sometimes deliciously food related, imbue the story with life,
evincing Faye’s enchantment with her own world as she utilizes her knowledge of Celurdur to naturally assume a position of leadership. The book replicates the whimsy and subtle feminism of Hayao Miyazaki’s work (a tribute that’s given a nod through the eastern estate, which is named Ghibli). Major characters are coded white. Bursting with empathy and magical delights. (map) (Fantasy. 9-13)
Greenwald, Karen M. | Illus. by Olga Lee Whitman (32 pp.) | $18.99
April 4, 2024 | 9780807552780
Students in 1966 brave noxious mud to save precious books. Attired in conservative skirts, heels, and jackets, American study-abroad students switch gears to help rescue books and manuscripts buried by the devastating Arno flood. The mud was full of adulterants, especially fuel oil. Adding a fictional detail, the author gives the Florentine child who narrates the story an ancestor whose “handprinted, older-than-old, one-of-a-kind book” is imperiled. Despite the danger, the students work to save the texts. It’s a heartwarming but only partially told story. Though the angeli del fango came from across Europe, Japan, and several U.S. universities, the text refers to “American students,” while the author’s note focuses on the work of the Florida State University Mud Angels. Vague passing reference to “other students” and to helpers coming “from every direction” still leave the misleading impression that FSU students were the main heroes—an omission that’s unfair to the many other angels, whether anonymous or known. Engaging color illustrations do portray Florence’s famous Ponte Vecchio but mainly focus on the books and mud. Several students are depicted as Black or brown.
A heartfelt yet incomplete account of bravery and cooperation. (Picture book. 4-8)
Growick, Dustin | Illus. by Laura Martin Neon Squid/Macmillan (64 pp.)
$16.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781684493760
Series: The Inside Story
Glimpses behind the scenes of a natural history museum. Along with leading a small group of visitors through a tour of the typical public exhibits of a generic museum, Growick and Martin throw open the “staff only” doors to show the people who keep things humming—from artists and preparators busily assembling an upcoming exhibition to marketing experts in the communications department, custodians, cafe workers, and “hard-working leaders and decision makers” planning an after-hours gala. In the populous illustrations, employees and guests alike are racially diverse; people who use wheelchairs are visible in many scenes, and the aisles and floors all appear to be spacious and accessible. Prehistoric creatures feature most prominently, but the halls of gems and minerals, invertebrates, and sea life (with both a huge shark and a much smaller diver suspended from the ceiling) also offer visual delights aplenty, while the narrative properly highlights the museum’s educational mission. And though the “Hall of Cultural History” contains just a compressed hodgepodge of artifacts, the accompanying comments do allude to recent efforts to return “stolen objects to their rightful owners” and to work with “native groups to design exhibits that are accurate, up-to-date, and sensitive.” After the public exits through the gift shop, the museum may close…but only to get ready for the evening’s festivities. Just the ticket for a prospective visit. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 6-9)
Hahn, Mary Downing | Adapt. by Scott Peterson | Illus. by Meredith Laxton
Colors by Sienna Haralson
Clarion/HarperCollins (160 pp.)
$24.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9780358650164
What secrets does the Old Willis Place hold?
Lissa’s less than thrilled to be moving into a trailer near the Old Willis Place with her dad, who’s the new caretaker of the estate. As the two of them unpack, siblings Diana and Georgie watch from the shadows; they’ve been hiding out in the woods ever since the “bad thing…happened.” Fascinated by Lissa, they take first her bicycle, then her teddy bear. Lissa’s upset to discover her things gone, and her first glimpse of the disheveled Diana makes things even worse. Desperate for companionship, Diana scrawls an apology in Lissa’s diary, and a friendship quickly blossoms over Georgie’s protests; meanwhile, Lissa is drawn to the supposedly haunted old mansion, the one place on the property that Diana and Georgie aren’t supposed to enter, and finds herself in over her head. Featuring appropriately haunting images, this fast-moving adaptation of a cozy ghost story works well in graphic format; narrative elements are easily delineated from dialogue and feature deeper themes of guilt and forgiveness to ponder. Lissa’s short diary entries provide a change of pace and compelling emotional insight. Canine sidekick Macduff adds an extra thread of sweetness through a somewhat harrowing story with a heartwarming, if predictable, ending. Lissa appears to be biracial (her father presents white, her late mother was Black), while Diana and Georgie present white.
Suspenseful and creepy yet poignant—just the thing for budding horror fans. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)
an
Hale, Nathan | Colors by Lucy Hale | Amulet/ Abrams | (288 pp.) | $14.99 | June 11, 2024 9781419774355 | Series: The Mighty Bite, 2
Extinct creatures gear up for the ultimate battle! In his newest adventure, Trilobite decides he wants to go viral by making a funny video. After uploading content showing himself getting hurt, Bite garners millions of views (and a paycheck!), and his rival, Opabinia, decides to join in on the action. Bite’s reckless attention-seeking antics land him in the hospital, where best friend Amber, a nonspeaking walking whale from the Eocene Era, gets into an altercation with a surly walrus. As the competition for internet fame grows, Bite, Amber, and human friend Tiffany find their boat capsized after a confrontation with Opabinia, landing the motley crew at the Sea Mall Ball, a spherical floating shopping center. When a revenge-seeking baby walrus picks a fight with Amber, Bite and his friends must survive an all-out pinniped rumble to escape. This second series entry keeps the pages flying with its over-the-top zaniness and abundant silliness, but it has a slyly smart undercurrent throughout, with the author/illustrator offering quiet social commentary and deftly tying up seemingly unrelated narrative threads. His illustrations are singular and stylish, featuring hand-lettered and hand-drawn, two-toned art. Although this is a follow-up to The Mighty Bite (2023), a cheery introduction establishes that each volume is a
self-contained episode and can be read in any order.
A sensationally silly sugar rush of a read. (minicomics) (Graphic fantasy. 7-11)
Hammond, Ryan | Simon & Schuster (256 pp.) | $18.99 | June 25, 2024 9781665950046 | Series: Villains Academy, 1
Werewolf Bram is not a very good monster. In his first year at a magical school for villainy, Bram is thoughtful and anxious and not at all scary, sporting a cozy pullover, adorable curls of dark hair, and a quizzical expression. The other students—including enormous, fluffy, auburn-haired lion Bryan; aloof, brown-skinned elf-witch Mona; and Mal, who resembles Frankenstein’s monster—initially shun him, but Bram persists, determined to make this term a success. Young readers will enjoy spotting Hammond’s literary influences, which range from Dracula to Harry Potter and Captain Underpants. The story has a foundational earnestness that, combined with the humorous wordplay, helps moderate the fear factor. After a rocky start, Bram and his student cohort learn to reveal their insecurities and collaborate as a supportive, successful team, leading to Bram’s winning the coveted title of Villain of the Week. The lively black-and-white illustrations throughout reinforce the sweetness for more sensitive readers, with even the main teacher of wickedness, cranky Master Mardybum, not looking too terrifying,
and the oddball group of friends ultimately learning to affirm one another—and themselves. The quick pace, occasional speech bubbles, creative use of varied fonts, and light mystery element will keep readers turning the pages.
A goofy, humorous fantasy for those seeking gentle frights. (drawing instructions) (Paranormal. 7-10)
Harlow, Clare | Illus. by Karl James Mountford | Knopf (304 pp.) | $17.99
May 14, 2024 | 9780593806746
Series: Tidemagic, 1
A young facechanger searches for her father in a town where magic’s power rises and falls like the daily tides. Searching for her missing parent, Ista has come to Shelwich, where nearly everyone has a Tide-blessing (the name for “any gift that came in with the Tide”), and certain streets can play hard to find. In return for room and board, she uses her ability to assume people’s appearances to steal odd items for a reclusive collector. She falls in with Ruby Mallard, an acrobat whose gift is to always land on her feet, and budding journalist Nat Shah, a rare “no-blessing boy,” to investigate a rash of seemingly random disappearances (including that of Ravi, Nat’s little brother). Ista discovers not only a network of tunnels beneath the streets but also a nefarious scheme to steal an upcoming local election. As a magical, atmospheric urban setting, Shelwich has some appealing quirks, and Harlow populates it with a diverse supporting cast that, along with a trio of doughty and determined young leads, includes both an affectionate same-sex couple and a friendly, if terrifying, giant eel. The author also tucks in secret messages, a magical key, and other clear signs that her intrepid questers’ exploits are far
from fully told. Mountford’s lively ink-and-wash-style illustrations adorn the book, adding to the charm. Ista reads white; Ruby appears to be Black, and Nat is cued South Asian. Brisk action, fiendish political chicanery, and magic with an intriguing twist. (map) (Fantasy. 8-12)
Willa and Wade and the Way-Up-There
Henderson, Judith | Illus. by Sara Sarhangpour | Kids Can (40 pp.)
$14.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781525308420
Series: Willa and Wade
Grounded personalities are curious about how to soar.
Willa the ostrich and Wade the penguin experiment with different means of achieving flight. Maybe they just need a running start? Or perhaps they need to be light on their feet. Some of their attempts end in a crash, but they always bounce back, undeterred. Sarhangpour depicts the pair with sparkles in their eyes and hearts fluttering around them—it’s evident they’re set on attaining their goal. After a day of attempts, they pause to reflect on what they’ve managed to accomplish: They had fun and helped each other. (Wade, a seasoned swimmer, gave Willa a lesson on how to float, while Willa gave an exhausted Wade a ride as they headed to the top of a cliff.)
By the book’s conclusion, whether Willa and Wade will ever truly fly remains unclear, but they’ll definitely keep trying and learning together. Each page of this graphic novel contains one or two panels; anything the flightless friends say or do becomes the centerpiece of that page, sometimes against a blank background. The cartoonish art is simple and clear, and Willa and Wade’s friendship and optimistic spirit come through loudly: The two never assign blame for a failed idea and are always open to each other’s suggestions. A friendship tale that soars. (Graphic early reader. 5-7)
Hevron, Amy | Neal Porter/ Holiday House (40 pp.) | $18.99
June 25, 2024 | 9780823453184
Bright collages dominated by rainforest greens depict an insect community of “eight million sisters working together.”
It begins, as all leafcutter ant nests do, with a single queen. The nest she establishes appears in cross-section as a sprawling network of round chambers connected by straight, crisscrossing tunnels. Within, red ants scurry about, performing the essential duties any large community requires of its citizens: They are “builders and soldiers, caretakers and cleaners, farmers and pharmacists, and foragers.” Hevron doesn’t attempt realistic depictions but neither does she anthropomorphize her subjects, instead gesturing at the physical differences within the community by showing their varying sizes. Her inspired text uses appropriate vocabulary, informing readers of the antibiotics the pharmacist ants produce, the pheromone the worker ants emit when threatened, and the mandibles the forager ants use to harvest bits of leaves. The pacing and structure are impeccable, while the information is deftly conveyed. Listeners learn early on of the fungus that the queen brings from her birth nest (“an essential ingredient for the new city’s survival”); after exploring the bustle of the city, the text returns to the fungus, informing little ones that “the garden that started from [it] now feeds the entire city of eight million.” Two pages of further information will help adults answer any questions the text might elicit. A fascinating introduction to an amazing insect. (bibliography, further
reading, author’s note) (Informational picture book. 4-8)
Transformed a Neighborhood
Hillery, Tony | Illus. by Jessie Hartland
Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) | $18.99 | July 2, 2024 9781665929783 | Series: Harlem Grown
A garden grows in Harlem. Not long ago, a teacher named Mr. Tony and one of his students, Nevaeh, transformed an abandoned lot across the street from their school into a thriving urban garden—events that were depicted in Harlem Grown (2020) and briefly recapped here. All winter long, Mr. Tony and Nevaeh discuss what they’ll plant when it gets warmer. When spring finally arrives, they’re excited but overwhelmed: “How on earth can we do all of this work ourselves?” With a little help from their friends, of course. They put up a sign inviting the community to help clean up the garden: “All are welcome! Young and old!” As people come together each Saturday to pull, rake, till, dig, fertilize, plant, and water, they learn new skills such as composting and recycling and discuss their favorite recipes. The community converges to share their delicious bounty at the harvest festival, showcased in two double gatefold spreads at the end. Hartland’s charming signature gouache illustrations convey the vibrancy of a green natural world in comparison to the energetic bustle of the surrounding city. The book closes with information on Harlem Grown, a real-life nonprofit founded by Hillery that began in 2011 as a single urban farm. Mr. Tony and Nevaeh are cued as Black; the community is diverse.
An illuminating ode to a natural space in an urban environment. (resources on urban gardening, tips on starting an urban school garden, recipe for vegetable soup) (Picture book. 4-7)
This Is the Way in Dogtown
Huang, Ya-Ling | Frances Lincoln (32 pp.) $18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780711295339
Text set to a well-known ditty makes for an enjoyable romp with pups. In this rollicking book meant to be read (or, better yet, sung) to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush,” cheery anthropomorphic pooches engage in activities with family and friends at home and in familiar neighborhood settings. The dogs brush their teeth, get dressed, go to school, and go swimming before heading home for dinner, baths, and bed. Each stanza ends with a threeword, rhythmic coda to heighten dramatic emphasis and add meaning: “This is the way we brush our teeth, / brush our teeth, brush our teeth. / This is the way we brush our teeth, / early in the morning. / Brush, brush, brush!” Bouncy vocabulary, often making use of onomatopoeia (“splat, splat, splat!” “Splish, splash, splosh!”), adds to the fun. Lively scenes, rendered in watercolor, gouache, color pencil, and collage, have a cozy, intimate, old-fashioned feeling. Though the story focuses on one fluffy white pooch, a variety of dog breeds are depicted, and the busy but never overwhelming pages are filled with details to pore over, from a St. Bernard pup reaching for a dumpling with a pair of chopsticks at lunch to a group of sea gulls pecking at discarded food in the street. Adults should encourage children to ad-lib verses to the song when they go about their own activities.
A delightfully entertaining and musical way to get through the day. (Picture book. 2-5)
A
Hughes, Hollie | Illus. by Sarah Massini
Bloomsbury (32 pp.) | $18.99
June 18, 2024 | 9781547614349
Love—and mermaid magic—help a young girl keep her grandmother’s memories alive.
Alina and Granny live in a lighthouse, which Alina operates; Granny has grown “too old” to do so. At night, over tea, Granny tells Alina tales of mermaids, but her memories are fading and, with them, the stories. Alina wishes she could do something to preserve them. One day a mermaid appears and invites Alina to swim “through swirling, whirling tides, to where your Granny’s stories are, and many more besides.” Alina bravely follows through seaweed forests and past sunken ships until they reach “a city filled with endless light,” where the merfolk keep stories in an ever-flowing well. The mermaid gives Alina some of Granny’s stories, and Alina realizes that the best way to preserve stories is to share them. She pours the stories into the lighthouse lamp, projecting them across the night sky. Granny and Alina are content, knowing that the stories will live on. This gentle narrative is presented in slightly uneven verse, with some distracting word choices (“pirate chiefs” rather than “captains,” for instance). Both Granny’s memory loss and the resolution feel somewhat simplified, though the bond between the two is heartfelt. The graceful, tangerine- and teal-hued images are appealing, and fans of merfolk will enjoy poring over the visuals. Granny and Alina are brown-skinned, and the
mermaid is light-skinned; other merfolk are diverse in skin tone. A poignant testament to the power of story. (Picture book. 3-7)
Jordan, Shane & Rick Hendrix Illus. by Jieting Chen | Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (32 pp.) | $18.99 May 17, 2024 | 9781464224188
LGBTQ+ advocates Jordan and Hendrix urge readers to celebrate their unique selves. Everyone has a rainbow, “made up of all the things that make you happy.” As the book begins, a pale-skinned, black-haired child takes part in a variety of activities: having a bubble bath, trying on different clothes (including overalls and a dress), and attending a Pride parade alongside adults of various races, abilities, and gender expressions. The mood shifts as the protagonist notices a sad-looking child curled up amid gray rain clouds. “Everyone has their own rainbow, but not everyone feels comfortable letting theirs shine,” we’re told. Readers are reminded “that the sun will appear again soon” and that rainbows appear “when the sun shines through the rain.” Though rainbows and other queer symbols are everywhere in Chen’s dreamy, color-strewn artwork, the text sticks to generalities. Pride is described as “the feeling that wraps around you like a cozy hug” and “when you are loved for being yourself.” It’s a laudable, reassuring sentiment, but without context from adults, young readers won’t grasp the message that all LGBTQ+ identities should be
celebrated, though backmatter fills in some gaps. The jewel-toned illustrations are engaging and bright, but the tale’s many platitudes (“Just be true to who you are!”) leave the book feeling cliched. In this story, rainbows feel like an overworked symbol rather than a genuine mark of Pride. (note for caregivers, reflection questions, glossary) (Picture book. 4-7)
Kantorovitz, Sylvie | Holiday House (40 pp.)
$14.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9780823456208
Series: I Like To Read Comics
A detour on a road trip becomes an exercise in moderating vehicular expectations. Accompanied by best friend Bird, Pickle, an aptly named anthropomorphic green dog, is going to Clover Farm for some strawberries and cream. The car sputters, shakes, and spews exhaust before stopping, so they push it to Coco’s Garage to try out replacement cars. What follows is a selection process that would make Goldilocks proud: Each of Pickle’s choices is too fast, too large, or too expensive. All three picks get noticed by pedestrians, whether due to Pickle’s speeding, the difficulty of maneuvering a bulky vehicle, or the flashy design of the last vehicle. Each experience leaves Pickle aware of what really matters in a car: “What I want is a simple, little, safe car.” Coco’s able to provide just that through a tune-up of Pickle’s original car. Readers may evaluate the vehicles that they see in the real world in a new light after witnessing Pickle’s decision-making process. A warning from a stern police bird demonstrates one consequence of
ignoring the speed limit. Pickle is a conscientious protagonist who apologizes for mistakes and shares the ever-desirable strawberries and cream. The setting is filled with appealingly round shapes and subdued colors, save for a pointy roof or the newly washed finish on one of the cars. The tale offers an excellent lesson in self-awareness, pragmatism, and manners. A clever take on the trials and tribulations of replacing a busted ride. (Graphic fiction. 4-8)
Katz, Alan | Illus. by Stephanie Laberis Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.)
$18.99 | July 16, 2024 |
9780063273863
The only thing more exciting than a zoo animal is a costumed zoo animal.
“Big news flash—it’s Zooloween!” enthuses news anchor Mike Minor. Zookeeper Sue is ready to lead the pack. Today, the animals get to strut their stuff in costume for a crowd of thrilled onlookers. Rhyming verse and colorful digital art depict, among other fabulously be-costumed creatures, a pig dressed as a superhero, a penguin in a firefighter’s uniform, and a “grilled-cheese cheetah.” Kids and adults will have a great time identifying the creatures and what they’ve chosen to dress as. Though some readers will note that a few of the couplets don’t quite rhyme and are at times a bit uneven, the images are exuberantly joyful and make up for any slight rhyming infractions. It all ends, of course, with a stampede, turning poor Zookeeper Sue’s well-executed parade into a wild rumpus and giving readers an idea of what things might look like if chimps, ostriches, and bears took over the zoo. Order is restored at last, and with an unexpected twist, the
A jubilant costume party from beginning to end. ZOOLOWEEN
“best dressed” winner is revealed. This tale will make an excellent choice for a lap read or storytime; for added fun, pair it with a nonfiction book about real-life animals. Mike Minor presents white, while Sue is brown-skinned. A jubilant costume party from beginning to end. (Picture book. 2-7)
Korman, Gordon | Scholastic (224 pp.) $17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781338826753
A con man’s son yearns for a different way of life. Having helped his single dad fleece wealthy marks since kindergarten, Trey is adept at spotting their rich offspring in each new school he attends and cultivating them until the time comes for a quick getaway. Now that he’s 12, though, the urge to make real friends and put down some roots has become insistent—particularly since he’s drawn to Kaylee, a new classmate in his latest middle school. How can he convince his dad, who’s in the midst of luring local investors into a fantastically lucrative scheme involving a fictive electric car, that it’s time to bag the family profession and settle down? Korman goes more for ironic humor than the physical or stand-up sort in this book, as shown by Trey’s enrollment in an ethics class that forces him into some decidedly hypocritical stances. Much like Trey himself, instant new bestie Logan and his parents turn out to be not at all who they seem. And though there are no bullies or real baddies in the cast on the way to the story’s rosy but implausible resolution, Trey’s malign, high-strung, and wildly reckless huckster of a little sister from hell definitely adds both conflict and suspense to this provocative outing. Main characters read white. Glitzy glimpses of life on the make, lightened by a focus on alternatives rather than consequences. (Fiction. 9-12)
This review originally ran in the Dec. 15, 2023, issue.
What can you see right under your nose?
In this engaging guide, Clarkson invites young readers to pay attention to the small things around them. Drawing her audience of potential naturalists in with wonderfully humorous cartoon drawings and carefully chosen examples, she addresses them directly. Her handbook has the appearance of a journal, interspersed with sketches and text in a font that resembles handwriting. After an overview on “observology” (the study of
looking) and suggestions on honing the powers of observation, she organizes her remaining four chapters by easily accessible locations (“a damp corner,” “pavement,” “a weedy patch,” and “behind the curtains”). She describes what might be seen and suggests some methodology. Most of her discoveries, from slugs to butterflies, will be familiar to North Americans, although this book was first published in New Zealand. She provides instructions for convincing a fly to go outside, sneaking up on a
Clarkson, Giselle
Gecko Press | 120 pp. | $24.99 | Feb. 6, 2024 | 9781776575190
bug, relocating a spider, and even collecting one’s finds (suitably discarded or dead). Clarkson notes that drawing helps one notice small details—indeed, this title was inspired by her own experiences, and several illustrations are based on her photos. The text is full
of information and the presentation immensely appealing; this book will have readers sharpening their senses in no time.
A charming work sure to spark a lifelong habit of looking closely at the natural world. (index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
By Dana L. Church
As delectable as a book can get. Try it. You’ll really like it!
PASTA PASTA LOTSA PASTA
Lavelle, Kari | Illus. by Bryan Collier Knopf (48 pp.) | $19.99
July 30, 2024 | 9780593372760
Poetry helped acclaimed actor James Earl Jones cope with stuttering as a child. At home, behind the hay barn, James’ voice “flowed,” and all the animals listened. Talking to people, however, wasn’t so easy. Reading aloud at school was an ordeal: “Heart racing. / Kids laughing. / Mouth trying. / Voice blocking.” As James got older, his stutter persisted. Finally, he decided to stop talking altogether—for eight years. But he listened, wrote, and learned. In high school, Professor Crouch encouraged his students to recite poetry, and James balked. Alone, however, he uttered the “irresistible patterns of poetry,” even composing poems himself. One day, a shipment of grapefruit offered a sensory feast, inspiring a poem that Professor Crouch insisted James read aloud to prove his authorship. Asserting himself, James recited “Ode to Grapefruit” without a hitch to his classmates, who “cascaded into applause.” James continued to share his resonant newfound voice through acting, debate, and public speaking. Eventually, his “legendary sound” would be known worldwide. Lavelle, a speech pathologist, notes that though James still stuttered occasionally, he “knew his voice was important. Imperfectly perfect”—a particularly heartening sentiment for readers experiencing similar difficulties. Staccato sentences vividly reflect
instances of blocked speech; Collier’s subdued yet striking watercolor and collage illustrations capture James’ discomfort and hard-won confidence. Backmatter includes an author’s note with further biographical details, as well as separate information about stuttering. A testament to poetry’s expressive powers. (illustrator’s note, sources) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)
Linn, Margo | Illus. by Brian Fitzgerald
Charlesbridge (40 pp.) | $17.99
July 9, 2024 | 9781623544843
A shipment of books from Hong Kong to New York City provides a focus for this exploration of cargo transport via container ship.
The red-and-black hull of the ship commands attention against white or pale-gray backgrounds as it’s piled high with blue, orange, green, and gray containers. The color scheme and graphical simplicity inevitably recall Donald Crews’ Freight Train (1978), as does the ship’s unvarying left-to-right orientation and its visual dominance of nearly every single double-page spread. Linn’s text takes two forms: a simple narrative of the action depicted on the page (“Tugboats point the bow of the ship out toward the Pacific Ocean”) and two patterned statements per spread, each containing a pair of, usually, opposite terms: “Every PULL has a PUSH. Every OFF has an ON.” Most of these opposing concepts are clearly illustrated; for instance, the tugboats,
tiny against the enormous ship, embody push and pull . Others invite conversation: The containers are clearly on the ship, but what is off ? The ship’s four-week journey takes it through the “engineering wonder” that is the Panama Canal; its “series of canal locks” is depicted in cross-section, but it will be up to adult readers to explain exactly what locks are or how they work, since no glossary or other backup information is included.
Given the ubiquity of container transport, this arresting effort is a necessary addition to things-that-go shelves. (Informational picture book. 3-8)
Lucey, Rory | First Second (224 pp.)
$22.99 | $14.99 paper | July 16, 2024 9781250851949 | 9781250851956 paper
Young creatureseekers search for a troll in Lucey’s droll romp. Convinced of the existence of magical creatures after an unexpected encounter at the library, an intrepid Black child named Jenny recruits detail-oriented Emiko (who’s cued Japanese American) and tall, chartreuse-skinned Brian to learn about the cryptids that may exist in ordinary Rockhurst. Together they form the Society of Creatures Real and Magical. Their inaugural quest: to meet a troll! Thanks to extensive library research, the friends look for anyone who may be hiding horns (Brian’s hats amusingly throw suspicion off him), navigating the city’s dense crowds and searching Mifune’s Market for trolls’ favorite drink, frog juice. After a detour to speak with Cool Ronan Sammy (a kid who claims to see trolls every day) leads to a frustratingly amusing dead end, the exasperated explorers try their luck at Trolden Park, where a hilarious revelation awaits. Full of zany jokes and clownish wit, Lucey’s latest
features lovable characters whose fun quest will draw readers in. Throughout the trio’s adventures, Rockhurst and its diverse, madcap residents add marvelously to the tale’s somewhat fantastic bent, enhanced by artwork that boasts rich, luminous colors and portrays frenetic action. The book concludes with a mock-up detailing the society’s findings on trolls, an interview with “a local expert” (i.e., the author/illustrator), and hints of future installments. Comically delightful. (Graphic adventure. 8-12)
Lucido, Aimee | Illus. by Mavisu Demirağ Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.)
$18.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781534473638
Mangia! Can one ever tire of Italian food? Introducing luscious homemade cuisine! The text is almost an aria, expressed in rollicking verse that not only extols the deliciousness of various types of pasta, but also outlines their construction (from scratch, of course). A pale-skinned child welcomes relatives who arrive one by one from wonderful places that rhyme with their names (“Nonno Tito from Tahiti only eats our spaghettini”). Then everyone creates delicacies such as ravioli, lasagna, and rotini. What a large family! What intricate preparations! What ingredients! Even the pets have their favorites. Finally, the family sits down to the bountiful feast, but Mamma accidentally drops the dishes on her way to serve them. “BASTA!” shouts a frustrated Mamma. But all’s not lost. A final ring of the doorbell brings another very welcome visitor, someone who’s fortunately carrying boxes containing a substitute Italian repast. Readers will eat this up. Who wouldn’t love a book about yummy foods, told in such a delightfully bouncy manner? One quibble: There’s no guide to help kids learn to pronounce the food names accurately.
Still, the sumptuous foods—long strands of pasta, leaves of basil—pop in the digitally rendered collage illustrations, and Demirağ captures the busy culinary activities of this tightknit, racially diverse family. As delectable as a book can get. Try it. You’ll really like it! (Picture book. 5-8)
Lukoff, Kyle | Illus. by Hala Tahboub
Dial Books (40 pp.) | $18.99
July 16, 2024 | 9780593462942
How does one face a problem so big it dwarfs its little protagonist?
A child confidently assures us that when “my brother’s cactus died, I knew just what to do.” The child proudly holds up a handmade “Sorry for your loss” card, but the brother instead asks for a joke to make him laugh. The young narrator makes the logical conclusion that that must be what everyone needs when coping with loss. But when the child’s cousin’s goldfish dies, she wants a hug instead of a giggle. With each person’s loss, be it a teacher’s hamster or a babysitter’s dog, what they need changes. Later, the child’s best friend’s grandma dies, and the protagonist, unsure what to do, opts for honesty. “Can you tell me what to do? I don’t know how to help.” She isn’t sure, so the two figure it out while spending time together. Both Newbery Honoree Lukoff’s text and Tahboub’s illustrations convey a stillness that will make this often-difficult topic comprehensible to a young audience. With its emphasis on being there and listening to what people need in times of sorrow, this book is the perfect complement to Cori Doerrfeld’s The Rabbit Listened (2018). The ultimate message that there is no certainty when it comes to grief complements the minimalist art. A lesson here for adults and children alike, if only people listen. (Picture book. 4-7)
MacLachlan, Patricia | McElderry (144 pp.) $16.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781534499942
This posthumously published final novel from the Newberywinning author follows a young girl determined to master throwing a knuckleball.
A knuckleball—11-year-old Lucy Chance’s father’s signature pitch—can dip and weave like magic. “You let it fly,” says Lucy’s dad, a pitcher for the minor league Salem Red Sox. Writing in her signature spare, impressionistic prose, MacLachlan conjures up a similar magic, surrounding Lucy with a tightknit cast of loving, supportive characters. Lucy’s father hopes to move up to the major leagues and encourages her passion for the sport. Her perceptive mother, a painter, draws parallels between Lucy’s father’s love of baseball and her own artistic talents (“Think of him trying to paint the game. Like me painting a picture”), while Edgar Vazquez, her father’s best friend and a catcher for the Sox, is a steady, calming presence. Lucy’s best friends and baseball teammates, cousins Robin and Tex, help her secretly practice her knuckleball. Though the novel is light on plot, it nevertheless immerses readers in Lucy’s world, capturing characters’ seemingly small but deeply meaningful victories: a successful game for Lucy, a beautiful sketch drawn by her mother, words of praise from a major league scout who’s observed her father. Everyone wins in this gentle, low-key sports story. Physical descriptions of characters are minimal; Edgar mentions growing up in Puerto Rico. Quietly joyful and triumphant. (Fiction. 8-13)
Mahoney, Daniel J. | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) | $18.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780374391263
A young alligator must learn to control his urge to eat people. Gator siblings Herbert and Libby move from the swamp to a suburban neighborhood when their mom gets her dream job as a pastry chef. They start wearing clothes, going to school, and even playing soccer. But Herbert has a big problem: He loves chowing down on people, and his classmates are so darn tasty! Herbert can’t stop gnawing on kids’ arms and legs. He just takes tiny nibbles, of course, but it makes him very unpopular. (His parents are vegetarians, and Libby is allergic, so she makes many friends.) When Herbert starts salting and peppering a boy who turns out to be the son of his mother’s boss, he realizes that his actions have consequences—he doesn’t want to ruin Mom’s job! Herbert decides to change his ways, and he even finds a good alternative to eating people: Mom’s human-shaped cookies. The title of this story may bring to mind Ryan T. Higgins’ We Don’t Eat Our Classmates (2018), which stars a lovable and equally destructive dinosaur who’s also wrestling with temptations. While readers may chuckle, poor Herbert doesn’t quite live up to the silliness of his dino counterpart, though the cartoon art does have an appealing, nostalgic, James Marshall feel. Human characters are diverse. Decent, if a bit derivative. (Picture book. 4-7)
A young alligator must learn to control his urge to eat people.
WE DON’T EAT OUR NEIGHBORS
Martin, Jacqueline Briggs | Illus. by Christy Hale | Readers to Eaters (32 pp.)
$19.95 | June 25, 2024 | 9780998047775
Series: Food Heroes, 5
This latest installment in the Food Heroes series explores how a Massachusetts woman—and friend of the author—became a farmer by learning to grow what she enjoyed eating.
Inspired by the scent of herbs at a local market, Eva Sommaripa started small by growing parsley, dill, and basil for her family on a parcel of land between the ocean and a forest. Martin’s lyrical verse describes the pleasure that Eva experienced: “Tending plants under the blue sky / soil on her hands, birdsong all around, / Eva’s best good time.” Eventually, she added other greens and herbs, with enough to spare for local chefs and her farm workers’ lunches. Eva’s curiosity about the life beneath her work boots led to research about the creatures living there, from worms to microbes. Richly textured spreads and spot art, composed of prints and collage elements, illuminate the vital roles of those “critters” and display Eva’s “compost buffet,” which includes coffee husks and “fish and chips” (seaweed and shells). “Eva’s Garden” has now been in business for more than 50 years; her nurturing has expanded to local children and new farmers who come to discover her sustainable methods. The joy Eva finds in the natural world culminates in her annual potluck, held
in honor of the solstice. Eva’s community is a diverse one. While championing female farmers, this sumptuous book also celebrates discovery and good taste. (notes from the author and Sommaripa, more info on Sommaripa, Eva’s recipe for growing pea shoots, information about underground creatures, resources) (Picture-book biography. 5-9)
McGlauflin, Conor & Hannah Zisman | Illus. by Conor McGlauflin | Roaring Brook Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781250304551
What do you do with a thought?
“Do you ever think, / What’s a thought? ” Those things that float in your head can be as warm and cozy as a hug or as frightening as a monster. At some point, thoughts you don’t like may overwhelm you. What do you do then? Husbandand-wife team McGlauflin and Zisman have teamed up to offer kids some answers. First, they advise, close your eyes and take a deep breath. Then “think about a quiet space, / a calm kingdom of your own.” A light-skinned, brown-haired child imagines riding a seal to an undersea sand castle and riding a bird to the top of a tree. The little one also thinks of a favorite color (purple!) and bids those scary thoughts goodbye, replacing them with thoughts of kindness and bravery. Open your eyes, the authors instruct. Those bad thoughts are gone, the “storm of thoughts” a thing of the past. “This calming quiet won’t last long,” the
authors acknowledge, but now readers have tools to deal with anxiety or fear. In simple language and bright, watercolorlike illustrations, McGlauflin and Zisman have created an upbeat take on meditation that will help little ones ride out unwanted thoughts.
A solid primer on mindfulness for the younger set. (Picture book. 2-6)
Messner, Kate | Illus. by Kat Fajardo Algonquin (128 pp.) | $15.99
April 30, 2024 | 9781523525713
Series: The Kids in Mrs. Z’s Class, 1
A new school and an old embarrassment threaten Emma’s third grade year. Emma is excited to start at the brand-new Curiosity Academy, but of the 18 kids in Mrs. Z’s class, one turns out to be her former BFF, Lucy. What if everyone learns about the humiliating nickname Lucy saddled her with last year? Emma doesn’t seem to notice that Lucy is avoiding her and not having a great time herself. As her peers introduce themselves, Emma becomes convinced that she’s the Least Interesting Person in class. Her plan to become more popular goes awry, and her hopes of learning to play the flute in music class are dashed. Still, the perceptive Mrs. Z finds a way to help Emma shine, and when the students start debating what the school’s new mascot should be, Emma hits upon the perfect idea: the capybara, a creature that gets along with everyone—just as Emma hopes to. Impulsive but kind Emma’s troubles are relatable, while brown-skinned Mrs. Z feels like a hip reincarnation of Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus books. When it comes to Emma and Lucy’s relationship, however, this engaging, low-key tale feels a bit unresolved, in part because of the series’ premise. Each title follows a different student and is written by a different author; readers will eventually learn Lucy’s full story. In Fajardo’s
cartoon artwork, Emma and Lucy present white; the class is diverse. Final art not seen.
A gentle back-to-school tale sure to resonate with youngsters confronting their own friendship woes. (Chapter book. 6-9)
Miller, G.F. | Aladdin (288 pp.)
$18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781665950015
Lifelong best friends Eve and Andrew survive a “Category 5 emotional hurricane” in the first months of eighth grade. Eve is thrilled when Andrew returns from two months away with his family, but things are immediately weird. It seems to matter—to their families and friends, anyway—that Eve’s a girl and Andrew’s a boy, even though the two of them don’t intend for anything to change. But when Eve’s cross-country friends start talking about dates for the school dance, Eve worries she’ll be “left out and left behind,” so during his marching band practice, she asks Andrew to go with her. Their respective friend groups assume they’re dating, ruining their friendship, which is especially unfortunate for Eve, whose parents have been fighting. Both kids receive tragically bad advice, and each ends up determined to make the other initiate the breakup—and each stubbornly refuses to be the one to break up with the other, leading to mean pranks, hurt feelings, and a huge fight at a school event. Eve struggles with the belief that her relationship with Andrew makes her mom happy; after the public disaster, Eve’s parents reassure her that it’s not her responsibility to hold the family together. Andrew’s mom teaches him about sincere, heartfelt communication. Andrew and Eve ultimately break up, restoring their friendship in a messily honest, heartfelt, and satisfying
denouement on the playground. Main characters read white.
Perfectly captures the “actual disorder” of being 13. (Fiction. 10-14)
Monroe, Mary Alice with Angela May Illus. by Jennifer Bricking | Aladdin (272 pp.) | $17.99 | June 18, 2024
9781665933001 | Series: The Islanders, 3
In this third series entry, Jake looks forward to another wonderful summer adventure on Dewees Island, South Carolina, with best friends Macon and Lovie, but a chilling prologue signals that something dire is afoot.
After the friends joyfully reunite, Jake announces his determination to purchase a boat. His parents grant him permission, but he must earn the money and make all the necessary repairs. His pals help, and they soon schedule their inaugural voyage. But Jake’s father, who’s often cancelled activities due to work pressures, postpones this longed-for adventure several times. An angry Jake decides to take Lovie and Macon out by himself (their own parental issues may help them overcome their initial reluctance). Jake writes a note explaining their plans but deliberately leaves his phone behind. After a fine start, the friends encounter sudden storms and lose their supplies. Worst of all, the boat stalls and then capsizes, leaving them washed up on an uninhabited island, where they make surprising discoveries. They’re dehydrated, hungry, disheartened, and frightened and must rely on their knowledge, skills, and ingenuity (plus a bit of luck) to survive. Jake narrates the tale in his illustrated journal, employing wonderfully descriptive language that captures not only the exciting events but also the beauty and magnitude of the Lowcountry, while emphasizing the friends’ deep
commitment to each other. Readers will feel every emotion along with these characters. Jake and Lovie are coded white; Macon reads Black. A powerful coming-of-age tale. (map, authors’ note) (Fiction. 8-12)
Mosco, Rosemary | Illus. by Anna Pirolli Tundra Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 16, 2024 | 9781774881163
There are many ants in this book, of nearly as many sizes and shapes.
A grassy meadow seems to be the perfect spot for a light-skinned young picnicker to unpack—but no sooner does the child proclaim it ant-free than a tiny voice calls out from an acorn, “Wrong! There’s one!” No, “TWO!” as the acorn ant is joined by a strawberry-sized South American dinosaur ant. Eventually we meet eight more cousins from, mostly, the Americas: “Big ants. Small ants. Ants with amazing butts.” They all have “HUMONGOUS FAMILIES,” too, as a teeming spread reveals. Aside from giving them small googly eyes, Pirolli depicts each type with salient distinguishing features, and Mosco closes with geographical ranges and other basic facts about all 10. “This book has the wrong title,” the child observes (no kidding) but nonetheless winds up gleefully inviting the entire parade of pismires to join the picnic. Though barely touching the tip of the anthill information-wise, this whimsical work will draw attention to some of the most diverse and successful creatures on the planet and perhaps leave younger readers more inclined to study these ubiquitous insects than step on them.
Make room on the picnic blanket for this convivial gathering.
(Informational picture book. 5-7)
Moulton, Deke | Tundra Books (304 pp.)
$17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781774880524
A closeted gay werewolf bar mitzvah boy hopes nobody will learn about his crushing anxiety.
Benji Zeb can’t let on how panicked he is about his impending coming of age. He knows that his mother, the leader of their egalitarian Washington state werewolf kibbutz and wolf sanctuary, expects greatness from him. The only thing to do is pretend he isn’t gutted by terror and shortness of breath at the idea of leading their Modern Orthodox congregation in a Torah reading. Changing into werewolf form calms him down, but he’s not allowed to shift because his mother says he isn’t studying enough. Benji knows that one of the local ranchers, the racist and antisemitic stepdad of his estranged crush, Caleb Gao, is planning something dreadful. Why doesn’t anyone on the kibbutz listen when Benji tries to warn them? But when Caleb turns up at the kibbutz, it turns out that he and Benji have something unexpected in common: Caleb’s turned into a werewolf, too. Benji finds that introducing Caleb to lycanthropy and Judaism is surprisingly rewarding. The boys’ relationship is by turns hopeful and charmingly uncomfortable. In this overwhelmingly white rural area, Caleb has much to learn about Jews (information that’s sometimes heavy-handedly delivered). Biracial Caleb, who’s white and Chinese American, is startled to discover that though Benji’s white, many of the other kibbutz families aren’t. Benji’s warm family counterbalances the hate Caleb’s heard from his internetradicalized stepdad. Busy but sweet and optimistic. (author’s note, resources) (Fantasy. 10-14)
Murray, Diana | Illus. by Cleonique Hilsaca | Random House (32 pp.)
$18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780593119044
A little bulldozer worries that he won’t be able to go to sleep without Mama, but Papa performs the bedtime routine admirably.
Small yellow Dozer protests when blue-green, mustachioed Papa announces that it’s time for bed. “But Mama’s not here!” “She still isn’t back / from her work at the pier.” Nevertheless, Papa gives Dozer a bath and reads him a bedtime story (The 3 Little Rigs). When sleep proves elusive—even after Dozer tries counting jeeps—Papa sings Mama’s bedtime song. A fluffy, cloudlike border appears around the scenes of mixers (“weary from spinning their drums”), garbage trucks, tankers, and trenches, all snoozing away. When Papa forgets the ending, Dozer reminds him how it goes. Dozer drifts off to Dreamland and is fast asleep by the time Mama, a red forklift, comes in to kiss him good night. Murray’s flawless rhyme and Hilsaca’s gentle colors, rounded shapes, and adorable, kawaii-flavored dozers are a delight. The tale has the charm of Kate Dopirak’s Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Car (2018), illustrated by Mary Peterson, without the pressure to sing the whole book—and with the bonus of showing a loving, competent father at bedtime while Mama is at work.
A dream of a bedtime book. (Picture book. 1-3)
MzVee | Illus. by Lisbeth Checo
Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.)
$19.99 | Jan. 23, 2024 | 9780358695219
Drawing inspiration from her popular song
“Natural Girl,” Ghanaian singer/ songwriter MzVee offers an ode to self-love.
“I love my hair, I love my skin. / I love the shape that I come in.” Young Black girls strike dynamic poses as they joyfully proclaim, “I am a natural girl!” MzVee’s simple, upbeat words brim with verve and pride, accompanied by Checo’s stunning artwork, rendered in watercolor, colored pencil, and marker. The hyper-realistic details of the girls’ hair will mesmerize readers. Short tight curls, locs, loose and cascading tresses, hair in Bantu knots, two-strand twists, or braids—each style shines. Butterflies, bows, and flowers are sprinkled throughout the pages, lending a whimsical and magical feel to an empowering text; Checo’s use of light and shading is wonderful. Girls of various shades are depicted, including a child with albinism, one with vitiligo, and another with freckles. Laudably, the author stresses that true beauty comes from our actions: “I act with kindness and with love, / and this is what I’m most proud of.” “Like a true queen, / I wear my crown / and spread my / greatness all around.” The book closes with a rousing author’s note: “Natural girls rule the world!”
Much-needed words—and images— of affirmation. (Picture book. 4-8)
Negley, Keith | Balzer + Bray/ HarperCollins (40 pp.) | $19.99
July 23, 2024 | 9780063119826
A quick-witted young man decided that wheels and human legs might replace horses. When a volcano erupted in Indonesia in 1815, it created a “year without a summer.” Freezing temperatures and snow were reported across the globe. Crops couldn’t grow, and farmers found it too expensive to keep horses. Karl Drais, a forester from Baden, Germany, loved riding on horseback, but he couldn’t do so during that grim period. A keen inventor, Karl wondered if he could use wagon wheels to create a machine that would allow people to move swiftly using their own power. He experimented with various contraptions, using parts of an old carriage and assorted bits. After several unsuccessful attempts, Karl devised the idea of placing one spinnable wagon wheel in front of the other, with a seat in between. He added handlebars, and voilà, a human-powered “running machine” was born! (There were no pedals yet.)
A crowd gathered to watch Karl take his very first ride as he pushed off with both feet. This fast-paced story will delight young readers, especially enthusiastic bike riders. Negley clearly explains how Karl methodically tweaked his invention; would-be inventors should take note. The illustrations, more cartoonish than
A dazzling gallery of run-ups to the modern “safety” bike, with breezy commentary.
BIRTH
OF THE BICYCLE
realistic, were created digitally and with graphite pencil and paper collage; they appropriately zing with lots of movement.
An enticing glimpse into an inventor’s process. (author’s note, painting of Karl Drais, prototype of the first running machine) (Informational picture book. 4-7)
Nelson, Sarah | Illus. by Iacopo Bruno Candlewick (48 pp.) | $18.99
June 4, 2024 | 9781536213928
A dazzling gallery of early run-ups to the modern “safety” bike, with breezy commentary. Nelson begins with the “clunky” German velocipede of 1817. While taking a cavalier approach to rhyme and meter, she chronicles successive inventions and refinements that at last delivered a vehicle that was able to handle rough American roads and was available to the general populace: “Women especially, were off with a zoom / in split skirts and high boots and bold pantaloons.” They were also cheap enough to go from being “just a toy for the wealthier classes” to “pedal-powered freedom / for the big, bustling masses.” The bouncy narrative is rich in specific references to inventors and early mechanisms. In vividly evocative galleries, races, and crowded street scenes, Bruno provides precisely detailed images of hugewheeled penny farthings and other antique models, generally rattling past astonished spectators as beleaguered riders struggle to maintain control. Women strike confident poses, many of the men sport stylish mustaches and mutton chops beneath elegant top hats, and all the human figures, including dark-skinned ones in several scenes, look like fashion plates from various periods of the 19th and early 20th
centuries. In her prose recap, the author notes that bicycles still provide economical, eco-friendly transportation. “Together,” she concludes, “we could pedal our way to a happier, healthier world.”
Wheels out a chapter in the history of technology that merits greater recognition. (bibliography)
(Informational picture book. 8-10)
Nelson Goose | Roaring Brook Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 June 25, 2024 | 9781250889584
Dave is bummed when his favorite oceanside getaway is bulldozed. While riding their bikes, seasonal coastal residents Dave and Dad see “their favorite place in the world,” a quiet, tree-lined cove, being cleared for new construction. What’s going to happen to the trees? And what about the squirrels and birds? Returning after a winter away, Dave and his father find a tidy new single-family home. The birds and squirrels have taken up residence in the yard, and a young girl named Annie, who’s moved in with her dad, is planting a new tree “so more birds and animals will move into our neighborhood.” Later, Dave builds a bird feeder for Annie’s yard, and the book ends on an upbeat note, with the kids resolving to plant more trees. Though the story introduces relevant and timely themes, it may leave kids with the erroneous impression that environmental loss is easily rectified; adults may want to offer more context. The clunky text does more telling than showing, while the hyper-realistic digitally rendered artwork occasionally veers into the uncanny-valley effect, leavened by a few touches of pure fantasy, such as the spectacles and bow tie sported by an omnipresent goose (presumably a metafictive reference to the nonexistent author-illustrator, in fact a trio operating under the collective pseudonym). Dave and Dad present
Gently sheds light on protesting, solidarity, and the ins and outs of journalism.
THE BIG PROTEST
white; Annie and her father have olive skin and dark-brown hair.
A superficial exploration of habitat destruction. (Picture book. 5-8)
Padron, Angela Quezada | Atheneum (48 pp.)
$18.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9781665913942
A fulsome tribute to Guatemala-born scientist and climate activist Nicole Hernández Hammer. Padron begins by connecting her subject’s childhood experiences with natural disasters—an earthquake in Guatemala City and, following a family move to Miami, the devastation of Hurricane Andrew in 1992—to her later scientific studies but turns frustratingly vague when it comes to describing her actual work or achievements. Yes, she writes, Hammer has publicized how rising water tables have caused flooding on both “rainy days” and “sunny days” in certain unspecified south Florida areas, encouraged people of color in these and other threatened “frontline communities” to “tell their stories,” and marched and spoken out for “climate justice.” What the term means or what inequities need to be addressed remain unclear, though, and instead of tallying specific local projects or proposals, the author highlights a single meet and greet with the Obamas in 2015 before closing with general lists of climate change facts and standard suggestions for budding activists. Her illustrations are likewise generic as she
follows Hammer from childhood on to scenes in which she comforts flood victims, stands with a racially diverse crowd of protesters, and lectures a bored-looking silhouetted audience, a frozen-faced president and first lady, and a final set of general listeners with politely attentive expressions.
A superficial profile of an accomplished changemaker. (more information on Nicole Hernández Hammer, websites) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)
Pilkey, Dav | Colors by Jose Garibaldi & Wes Dzioba | Graphix/Scholastic (240 pp.)
$14.99 | $24.99 PLB | March 19, 2024 9781338896435 | 9781338896480 PLB
Series: Dog Man, 12
Dog Man takes on AI in his latest adventure. Guess who wins. Since AI is built on predictive models, it hasn’t got a chance in the Pilkeyverse. The story gleefully whipsaws readers from Chief and Nurse Lady’s nuptials (not an eye will be dry after Li’l Petey and Molly’s rendition of the traditional wedding theme) to Dog Man’s encounter with a skunk (his subsequent tomato-juice bath turns him red, leading to his new Supa Buddy incarnation as the Scarlet Shedder) to Dog Man’s imprisonment for the crime of “moral turpitude” to Dr. Scum’s evil plot to “crush the world” with an army of AI robots to Petey’s poignant flashbacks to his childhood experience with homelessness. Add in some truly inspired Flip-O-Rama sequences and
many terrible jokes, and it’s clear that Pilkey’s in top form here. In between gales of helpless laughter, readers will engage with serious themes. The author leverages the silliness to explore the algorithm’s dark side with the AI robots’ plot to “distract, divide, [and] dominate” humanity, using stratagems readers may well recognize from real life. Hilariously, the robots’ dialogue is rendered in a pixelated typeface straight from 1980s computing, undermining their boasts that they’re “SMARTER… / … FASTER… / …and STRONGER than” humans. A concluding page of thoughtful notes provides some additional context (and defines turpitude). Human characters are racially diverse; Dr. Scum is a sickly green. Wise foolishness from the master. (dramatis personae) (Graphic adventure. 8-12)
Platt, Christine | Illus. by Alea Marley Walker US/Candlewick (80 pp.)
$15.99 | May 7, 2024 | 9781536222104
Series: Frankie and Friends, 2
This second installment in the series sees cub reporter Frankie learning about what it means to stand up for what you believe in.
Frankie, a young Black girl, sees her parents and her teenage sister, Raven, watching TV. The screen is filled with protesters, and Raven seems upset. Frankie’s parents explain that “someone was treated unfairly” and that people are protesting to effect change. Mom, a journalist, leaves to report on the protest. Frankie, who plans to follow in her mother’s footsteps, decides to cover the march, too, along with her friends: her cat, Nina Simone, and her toys (including her doll Farrah, her King Tut and Queen Cleopatra action figures, her teddy bear Dan, and Robert the Robert). As they learn more about protests and reporting, Frankie and her friends stage their own march in
Frankie’s bedroom, and Frankie finds a way to support Raven, who’s attending the big protest with her friends. Though Platt’s narrative is a bit vague—readers never learn why people are protesting— the text is easy to digest and defines related vocabulary (news ticker, factfinding, solidarity) in terms young readers will understand. In Frankie, Platt has depicted a curious and smart young protagonist, bolstered by her loving, tightknit family. Full of personality, Frankie’s toys cut endearing figures in Marley’s bright, cartoonish illustrations. Gently sheds light on protesting, solidarity, and the ins and outs of journalism. (Chapter book. 6-9)
Rayner, Catherine | Candlewick (32 pp.) $17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781536234145
The protagonists of Molly, Olive, and Dexter Play Hide-and-Seek (2023) take part in the “loveliest game in the world.”
Molly the hare, Olive the owl, and Dexter the fox are good friends, but it’s Olive who’s fondest of guessing games. She entices her friends to play “GUESS WHAT?” Gazing skyward, Dexter begins by asking the other two what he’s thinking about. Molly immediately figures out that he’s thinking of the sky. It’s equally clear what Molly, her mouth full of delicious grass, is thinking of. When it’s Olive’s turn, she declares that she’s thinking of “ TWO things at the same time.” Their frustration mounting, Molly and Dexter just can’t figure it out. To help them, Olive says that the two things are lovely. Lovelier than flowers, even. Some young readers will likely hit on the answer at the same time as the fox and the hare. Utterly comfortable in its own coziness, Rayner’s extraordinary, watercolorlike mixed-media art has a loose, sketchy quality that adds to its easygoing charm. Meanwhile, all this postulating is set against a backdrop of
a summer’s day so beautiful that children will yearn to return again and again. It takes no guesswork to understand just how endearing this friendship truly is. (Picture book. 3-6)
Rhodes, Jewell Parker & Kelly McWilliams | Illus. by Briana Mukodiri Uchendu | Little, Brown (48 pp.) $18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780316562713
In this collaboration from mother-daughter team Rhodes and McWilliams, a Black girl learns about step dancing.
The young narrator and her mom live in a neighborhood where “not many people look like us.” Mama’s disheartened when she’s racially profiled by police, but she channels her pain into steppin’. What’s that? A series of family friends fill the child in. One of Mama’s sorority sisters, Dr. Jameson, tells her that step is rooted in the history of slavery, but it really took off when Black college students formed their own fraternities and sororities. Aunt Sharifa confides that for her, step was both a way to find solace as a bullied child and to celebrate big wins. Miss Mae, a community organizer, tells the child that step is “a megaphone for resistance.” Above all, the protagonist realizes, step is an expression of strength and solidarity in difficult times. The tale ends with the child joining a step team and finding her own sisterhood. Rhodes and McWilliams have crafted a lively, rhythmic narrative, punctuated by onomatopoeia, that will have readers chanting along: “STOMP, CLAP, FLIP, FLAP, GO HARD, SNAP BACK!” Fluid illustrations accompany the text, which balances the heartache Black women and girls face with the triumph of sisterhood. Backmatter offers more information on step’s origins and continuing influence. A joyful tribute to the ways in which Black women use culture and connection to both survive and thrive. (timeline, resources) (Picture book. 4-8)
EDITORS’ PICKS:
The Last Zookeeper by Aaron Becker (Candlewick)
Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories by Elijah Wald (Hachette)
Mrs. Gulliver by Valerie Martin (Doubleday)
ALSO MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE:
Animal Albums From A to Z by Cece Bell
Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald
How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music by Elijah Wald
3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, and the Lost Empire of Cool by James Kaplan
Poor Things, starring Emma Stone (film)
THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:
Our Lesser Angels by Mary Frailey Calland
Diplomats & Admirals by Dale A. Jenkins
Message in a Bullet by Owen Thomas
The Limits of My World by Gregory Coles
The Goat Songs by James Najarian
An illustrator breathes life into Rachel Carson’s contemplation of clouds.
On this episode of the podcast, Nikki McClure discusses Something About the Sky, a meditative new picture book featuring the skyward musings of environmental activist Rachel Carson (1907-1964).
McClure, who works from a home studio in Olympia, Washington, is the author/illustrator of many fine books for young readers, including Apple, What Will These Hands Make?, and 1, 2, 3 Salish Sea; as well as the illustrator of All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant and The Golden Thread: A Song for Pete Seeger by Colin Meloy. She calls Something About the Sky “a book for wonderers”—and we agree wholeheartedly.
Here’s a bit from our starred review: “Originally written as a script for a children’s television show in 1956 and unpublished until 2021, Carson’s quietly eloquent essay offers a stirring mix of natural observations and insights. Our planet has two mighty oceans, she points out, both necessary for life. We live at the bottom of the one made of air, beneath clouds—described as ‘the writing of the wind on the sky’.…Using sumi ink and washi paper with cut-paper overlays, McClure creates misty, evocative cloudscapes behind and above views of seas and mountains in various weathers and seasons, as well as spare glimpses of human figures.…Overall, the effect is solemn, stately…[and] bound to leave readers in a meditative mood.”
We begin by reminiscing over our last conversation, in 2018, ahead of the publication of The Golden Thread— remembering that McClure had shelved a personal project and turned to illustrating Meloy’s story about Pete Seeger in 2016 because “this dark cloud had parked over everyone and everything. And so it was a way to shoot a ray of light through that, to focus on this
Something About the Sky Carson, Rachel Illus. by Nikki McClure | Candlewick Studio | 48 pp. | $19.99 March 12, 2024 | 9781536228700
person who had persevered through similar times.” We explore the similarities between Seeger and Carson, and note how each used their voice to change the world for the better. McClure and I then discuss the provenance of the words that became Something About the Sky; a mind-bending truth expressed by Carson—that the world has two oceans, one of air and one of water; McClure’s experience as a sailor; natural navigator Tristan Gooley’s book The Secret World of Weather ; the process of illustrating Something About the Sky; our favorite types of clouds; book launch party plans; and much more.
Then editors Mahnaz Dar, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.
To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.
delectable—narrative that readers will treasure.
Rocha, Ruth | Illus. by Ana Matsusaki | Trans. by Tal Goldfajn Tapioca Stories (40 pp.) | $19.95 June 11, 2024 | 9781734783995
In the same vein as the droll old bit of nonsense “Master of All Masters,” Rocha’s 1976 tale, newly translated for English-speaking readers, features a lad who insists on using his own fanciful vocabulary.
After asking his puzzled but indulgent parents how a table, a ball, and other items got their names, Marcelo is unsatisfied by their answers and instead decides to come up with his own words. So it is, unfortunately, that when he rushes in, declaring, “Barky’s dogstayer blastflamed,” no one understands until too late that the doghouse is on fire. The story was originally written in Portuguese, and this version is a real tour de force for translator Goldfajn. Not only is the narrative peppered with original coinages that make sense (of a sort) in English, but it’s also infused with general wordplay: “And why, in this Latin language, is a table not called a chair, and a chair is not called hair, and hair is not called bear?” Rather than taking a calamitous turn, the story has a warm feel as Marcelo’s parents take their son’s quirks in stride, just doing their best to keep up with his pronouncements. Matsusaki’s illustrations, also new, underscore the episode’s more surreal aspects by incorporating snipped-out fragments of photos into each scene, including depictions of faces and hands; several figures, among them
Marcelo and his mother, have darker skin than others.
Fun to read aloud, as well as offering clever encouragement to think outside the linguistic box. (Picture book. 6-9)
Kirkus Star
Santos, Paola | Illus. by Juliana Perdomo
Neal Porter/Holiday House (40 pp.)
$18.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9780823453887
A ripe mango is so much more than just a delicious fruit. Abuelita tasks Carmen, a young Latine girl, with picking mangoes. Carmen isn’t pleased with the chore; she doesn’t like mangoes—they’re too sticky, and the fibers get stuck between her teeth! But Abuelita urges Carmen to truly look at and listen to the mango tree and its fruit. The wind blowing through the leaves of the tree makes Carmen think of her mother’s singing, while the stirring roots, which seem to call out “¡Gracias! Thank you!” to Mamá Earth, remind Carmen of how she gives thanks at bedtime. And Carmen learns to see herself and Abuelita in the tree’s tall branches: “We are strong, too! You can carry me, and we can carry fruits.” With more reflection and a lesson on how to peel a ripe mango, Carmen delights in the fruit and the time spent with her grandmother. Santos’ supple text is accompanied by Perdomo’s exuberant artwork, which makes beautiful use of visual metaphor: As Abuelita speaks to the joy of
eating a mango, we see juice spurt out from her mouth while miniature people cavort (“Tiny strings play between your teeth, and the songs of our people dance on your tongue”). Readers will appreciate the warmth and wisdom woven throughout this touching story of discovery and familial love.
A heartwarming—and delectable— narrative that readers will treasure. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-7)
Savage, Stephen | Roaring Brook Press (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 23, 2024 | 9781626721548
A newly brave stray cat takes the term rescue cat a little too seriously. Buttercup’s life is lovely, what with her kitty bed, toys, and loving owner, but things haven’t always been easy for her. Before she was taken in by a light-skinned, dark-haired human, she lived on the street, often feeling lonely and afraid. Now she has everything she could want. One day, while watching a nature documentary, she sees a lion cub approached by a crocodile, and though she’s afraid, she decides she must do something. A quick leap into the television screen and she’s facing down the angry croc and saving the cub. After all, she is a rescue cat. The book makes it infinitely clear that simply because someone is afraid of something, that doesn’t mean they can’t also be brave. Savage alternates his artistic style between a palette replicating the look of pastels and paints when depicting the real world and the clean-cut, cartoonish vibe of the world through the television set. Kids will undoubtedly see hints of similar courage in their own kitty cats, even as they appreciate that Buttercup’s “roars” always turn out to be “mews.”
Feline heroism faces down its most formidable opponent in this romp through the wild side. (Picture book. 3-6)
Scanlon, Liz Garton | Illus. by Dung Ho Knopf (128 pp.) | $16.99 | June 11, 2024
9780593644416 | Series: Bibsy Cross, 1
Trouble with an insensitive teacher threatens an enthusiastic 8-year-old’s love of school in this series starter. Third grade looks rocky for Bibsy Cross. For the first time, she and her best friend, Natia, aren’t in the same class. And Bibsy’s new teacher, Mrs. Stumper, seems to sigh with irritation every time Bibsy raises her hand. Granted, Bibsy has a tendency to “go on” just “a stone too far,” as her teacher puts it. But Bibsy has a such a font of interesting information and a yen to share it! Mrs. Stumper indicates her displeasure by moving the paper apple bearing Bibsy’s name to the bottom of the bulletin board. The teacher grows increasingly exasperated until the dreadful Wednesday when the apple isn’t just plucked, but hole-punched. On Friday, Bibsy will have to take her apple home to be signed by her parents. Garton’s prose is marked by whimsy, enchanting turns of phrase, and an intuitive understanding of how children perceive the world. Bibsy’s empathy (she worries for a classmate whose apple is often grounded) and her willingness to make the best of a bad situation (or to turn “sours” sweet, in Bibsy’s words) make her a winsome protagonist. Gracefully composed, two-color illustrations and line breaks make for even faster page-turning. Bibsy and Mrs. Stumper appear light-skinned in the art; Natia presents Black. Pitch-perfect writing, a charming protagonist, and relatable conflict— what more could readers ask for? (Chapter book. 6-9)
BIBSY CROSS AND THE BIKE-A-THON
Scanlon, Liz Garton | Illus. by Dung Ho Knopf (128 pp.) | $16.99 | June 11, 2024 9780593644454 | Series: Bibsy Cross, 2
Voluble, ambitious Bibsy survives more “sweets-andsours.”
As readers of Bibsy and the Bad Apple (2024) know, this 8-year-old doesn’t lack self-confidence or persistence. When her beloved library runs a “Bikes for Bucks for Books” fundraiser, her competitiveness ramps up. She may be short on patience and impulse control, but admirably, she also likes doing good and wants “to make the biggest difference [she] can make.” (And she’s gotten sharper at knowing formidable Mrs. Stumper’s limits.) Bibsy’s BFF Natia attempts to put things in perspective, but the lure of prizes naturally throws oil on that fire. A key plot complication is expertly telegraphed and leads to a crisis of confidence for Bibsy. A further unexpected challenge tests Bibsy’s moral character, but after briefly wobbling, she makes a big personal sacrifice and rises to the occasion. Like the first installment, this tale features complex characters who grow a bit, in believable ways. Natia appears once more, and Mina (also from the first book) plays a larger role here. Above all, Bibsy’s setbacks and successes engage us, and her heart is always in the right place. In Ho’s cheery, two-toned art, Bibsy, Mrs. Stumper, and Mina are lightskinned; Natia is Black.
A lovable protagonist rides again— and readers win. (Chapter book. 6-9)
Schoenborn, Mélina | Illus. by Felipe Arriagada-Nunez | Trans. by Jeffrey K. Butt | Helvetiq (32 pp.) | $17.99 June 4, 2024 | 9783039640355
A narcissistic dinosaur hijacks an informational text about squirrels, much to the consternation of the squirrel narrator.
Translated from Canadian-style French, the narrative initially follows a familiar path as the braggart dino interrupts the flow of the squirrel’s earnest lesson. Bold cartoon illustrations play up the size difference between the two creatures, with the dinosaur casting a looming shadow or expanding beyond the edges of the page. Early on, the ostensible humor hinges on the squirrel’s efforts to make headway against the heckler (the squirrel even shoots out of a cannon with a megaphone) and the dinosaur’s boorish, self-aggrandizing chatter. The frantic humor overshadows the informational value of the text; readers are unlikely to retain many facts about the backyard critters. Partway through the book, the story takes a surreal turn when a pink-skinned police officer appears and lures the interrupting dino away with a sweet dessert. The dinosaur quickly returns, but not before a talking acorn turns heckler, too. Fed up, the squirrel knocks both nuisances unconscious and buries them partway in the ground—a somewhat violent ending that may turn off some readers.
Though both squirrels and dinosaurs have their fans, this odd couple book misses the balance between factual and funny. (Picture book. 4-8)
Selfors, Suzanne | Illus. by Lavanya Naidu
Viking (224 pp.) | $17.99
June 18, 2024 | 9780593622483
Hoping to break a terrible curse, a young boy returns to the island home where he was turned into a human-sized rat. Born on the same day on Fairweather Island, two human babies were placed side by side in a hospital bassinet, only for the baby boy to suddenly transform into a rat. Both infants became startled, the baby girl began to cry, and the rat bit her on the cheek. Now, those babies— Edweena Gup and Ratty Barclay—are nearly 13. Edweena is obsessed with rat extermination, although the island has been free of the rodents for over a century. Hidden from the world and raised by his uncle, Ratty has been on the move all his life. Now he wants to return to the island for his 13th birthday in hopes of lifting the curse that’s led to this isolated life. But it’s not long before he and his uncle run into Edweena, who’s the granddaughter of Barclay Manor’s caretaker. Sensitive and caring Ratty, who wants to become a veterinarian, is a well-developed character, as is Edweena, whose determination ultimately has others’ interests at heart. Environmental messages are subtly woven in as the origins of the curse come to light. Charming illustrations work in tandem with the pacing of the text, especially as events ramp up and the curse spreads,
endangering more islanders. Main characters are coded white. Shows that kindness and caring can change even the most fixed mindsets. (Fiction. 8-12)
Semmer, Lauren | Crown (40 pp.)
$18.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9780593710609
A torn dress leads to hours of reminiscing for a mother and daughter. Poppy’s having a splendid time playing with her toy bunny—until Bunny’s dress rips. “Now I’ll have to throw it away,” Poppy complains. Not so fast! Mom leads Poppy to the sewing room. Opening an old trunk, she pulls out fabric scraps, each of which belonged to a different family member. Seeing a piece from Granddad’s paisley tie, Mom says, “He still loves to dress up.” “And wear lots of colors and have a dance party with me!” Poppy adds. Next, Mom finds pieces from a striped T-shirt that Dad got in Paris (“Your daddy loves adventures!”), the plaid sundress Nana used to wear while gardening, Poppy’s aunt’s chevron scarf, and Mom’s lace wedding dress. Finally, Mom takes Poppy’s measurements, lays out the pieces of fabric—including one from Bunny’s star-covered dress—and gets to work. Readers will be charmed by Mom’s creation: a patchwork dress for the child and a matching outfit for Bunny. Brimming with warmth, this tale imparts valuable messages about reusing resources and honoring family memories. Semmer’s appealingly simple digital collage illustrations themselves have a patchwork feel, with textures that
Shows that kindness and caring can change even the most fixed mindsets.
pop off the page. Poppy and her family present Black; characters are depicted with varying shades of brown. A heartening tribute to family—and an inspired example of upcycling. (pattern library, author’s note) (Picture book. 4-8)
Servant, Stéphane | Illus. by Audrey Spiry Trans. by Helen Mixter | Greystone Kids (40 pp.) | $18.95 | April 30, 2024 9781778400704 | Series: Aldana Libros
The sea beckons a little girl toward daring deeds and hardfought growth. As a child, our narrator, who presents Black, looks out from a verdant home, away from her mother and father, across the sea, toward the horizon, and dreams of “secret islands, of hidden treasures.” She builds a humble but ambitious makeshift boat with the help of her parents and embarks on a trip into the unknown. Lush, swirling, expressionistic mixed-media illustrations make the sea as lively and inviting as it is terrifying and threatening, all in bright, dynamic hues. Likewise, the protagonist meets varied characters and obstacles—tempests and monsters, sailors in need of help, high-stakes dice games—on her way to growing into a sort of pirate of her own making. Upon meeting a blond-haired, pale-skinned young boy, the narrator encounters her greatest adventure yet: parenthood. The pair continue to grow— the young woman into old age and the boy into maturity—until it’s clear that the former’s journey has found its destination and the latter’s is only just beginning. Our narrator gives her adopted child the makeshift boat; he’s as enchanted as young readers will be by this charming, heartfelt tale, translated from French.
Adventure awaits, warmly delivered with striking images, magical colors, and inspiring courage. (Picture book. 4-7)
Settel, Joanne | Illus. by Natasha Donovan | Atheneum (48 pp.)
$18.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781665918831
Welcome to the wonderful world of animal slime, poop, gas, vomit, and gross parenting practices.
Setting out with the worthy purpose of wowing and disgusting young readers, Settel dishes up 18 cases of nature at its nastiest—from slimy slugs and nose-picking capuchin monkeys to Komodo dragons, which swing the intestines of their victims around to clear out the poop before chowing down. Along the way, she shows a knack for slipping in facts as likely to intrigue as revolt, such as the many useful purposes mucus serves in our own bodies, how herring use “fart pops” (up to 40 a second) to communicate, and why giraffe tongues are blue. And while scenes of tiny mites crawling into a hummingbird’s nose or a Darwin’s frog dad spitting out the younglings he’s been storing in his mouth may cause a bit of churn in more sensitive stomachs, in general Donovan tones down the gross in her brightly hued animal portraits enough to elicit more cooing than spewing. A long glossary at the end expands on the physical, chemical, and biological processes mentioned in the narrative in unusual detail.
A crowd-pleasing way to deliver some substantial (info) dumps. (Informational picture book. 7-11)
A welcome return to this rollicking forest community.
GRIMWOOD
Shaffer, Jody Jensen | Illus. by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff | Two Lions (32 pp.)
$17.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781662516160
Is Anthony and Julian’s friendship doomed? When Julian excitedly shows off the marble he received for his birthday, Anthony is impressed. The children play with it each day that spring—until the marble goes missing. The next day—which Anthony describes as “the last day Julian was my best friend”—things proceed normally. The kids awaken before sunrise, prepare breakfast, bike to the beach, and build sand castles; Julian says that he’d have put his marble on top of the castle, if he still had it. That evening, as the two camp out, Anthony feels guilty about a misdeed. Turns out, the marble isn’t lost; Anthony took it but is afraid to confess. When Julian calls Anthony his best friend, Anthony decides to own up and give back the marble. Julian’s thrilled that Anthony “found” it. Anthony thinks that Julian doesn’t understand that Anthony took it, but Julian’s glance at his friend’s remorseful face settles that. Another surprise awaits. Julian wholly forgives Anthony: “You gave it back. You’ll always be my best friend.” Readers will be pleased by the satisfying conclusion to this heartwarming story and will root for the children’s continuing friendship. The tale delivers an important message about forgiveness and the importance of taking responsibility for wrongdoings,
though it’s not entirely credible that a child would so easily display this much forbearance. The loose, digital illustrations are appealing. Red-haired Anthony presents white; Julian is brown-haired and brown-skinned. A touching exploration of the complicated dynamics of friendship. (Picture book. 5-8)
Shireen, Nadia | Andrews McMeel Publishing (256 pp.) | $11.99 paper June 11, 2024 | 9781524886387 Series: Grimwood, 3
Fetid odors and big footprints touch off both fart jokes and a monster hunt in everchaotic Grimwood. Wiser heads counsel patience, but because most of the forest’s animal residents are ever eager to believe (and spread) wild rumors, the level of hysteria rises precipitately—particularly since a long-anticipated treebonk match between the helmeted squirrels of Grimwood and neighboring Twinklenuts may be threatened. As it turns out, the odors and outsized prints have simple explanations. The mysterious visitor isn’t Bigfoot, as widely supposed, but Rufus, the older brother whom foxes Nancy and Ted (more recent Big City arrivals) never knew they had. The visitor, newly returned from a long, involuntary sea voyage, explains what happened to their parents and apologizes for staying away so long. Following her practice with previous entries,
Shireen smears the pages with ink stains and fingerprints to make the many cartoon illustrations look even more raffish. She also tweaks readers’ expectations that this might be a safe, bland forest romp with a festive wedding between two mice (significantly named Romeo and Juliet) that comes to a sudden end with the arrival of Pamela the eagle (“A bird’s got to eat,” as she says). At least the treebonk match comes off more or less as planned, and by the end, the fox family is a little closer to a long-overdue reunion. A welcome return to this rollicking forest community. (Animal fantasy. 8-12)
Staples, Mavis with Carole Boston Weatherford | Illus. by Steffi Walthall
Rocky Pond Books/Penguin (48 pp.)
$19.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9780593624692
A resonant profile of the great singer and Civil Rights activist.
Cast in third person despite the lead-author credit, Staples’ tale goes back to the Great Migration, when Roebuck “Pops” Staples left Mound Bayou, Mississippi, for Chicago. There, he taught his four children to sing in harmony—with little Mavis standing on a chair to reach the microphone. They performed in churches, later broadening their repertoire as the Staple Singers to include “message music” for the Civil Rights Movement, then venturing into soul, R&B, and other styles. Gifted with “a voice as deep as a river / and as dusky as the night,” Mavis describes her musical growth in architectural terms, with family the “foundation,” Chicago’s South Side a “cornerstone,” and singers such as Mahalia Jackson “bronze pillars of living inspiration.” In the reverent illustrations, the singer grows to adulthood and then iconic elder amid swirls of musical notes and song titles, plus cameos of associated stars
and celebrities from Lena Horne to Martin Luther King Jr., from Elvis to Prince, and from Barack Obama to Whodini and Ice Cube. On a more personal note, she closes with a statement of values: “Put your heart in anything you do. / Keep the faith.” A moving look back at a long and storied career. (timeline, recommended films and recordings) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)
Stott, Apryl | Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) | $18.99 | June 4, 2024 9781665921640
Tools can fix; tools can build. It’s Ruby the fox’s first day at a new school. Nervous, Ruby brings a backpack full of tools for reassurance (a tape measure is a reminder to count breaths; pliers are a reminder to be flexible). Today, the students will work in groups to design an egg holder that, when dropped, must prevent an egg from breaking. Ruby has an idea but is too shy to speak up. The next day, however, the young fox feels a bit bolder and shares the idea with Alex, who promises to get the others on board. The group is enthusiastic and uses Ruby’s model. Other groups’ projects fail. When it’s Ruby’s group’s turn, parts of their device break. Ruby’s tools do a quick fix, but the egg is intact! They’ve won! At lunch, the principal takes the winning devices from each classroom to the top of the slide to determine who will be the schoolwide winner. Ruby’s group’s device goes SPLAT. They accept their loss stoically, and Ruby’s satisfied at having “constructed” new friendships. Narrated by Ruby, this thin but pleasant story imparts a good takeaway about the importance of welcoming newcomers—and being brave enough to forge new connections. The graceful, cozy illustrations depict Ruby’s classmates as a blended
community of animals and racially diverse humans; the teacher’s a bear, while Alex is a brown-skinned boy. A sweet tale that will equip youngsters with the tools they need to try new things. (Picture book. 5-8)
Tait, Alice | Walker US/Candlewick (24 pp.) $18.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781536232714
A show-biz pooch leads a girl and her pup on a merry chase through New York City. Tan-skinned Nancy and her dachshund, Roger, are planning to see a Broadway musical: Dogs! The Musical! (composed by Andrew Woyd Flebber). As they approach the theater, they see Candy, the poodle star of the show, standing outside, tied to a fire hydrant. Nancy pets Candy and even holds her leash, but when she lets go, Candy takes off. She leaps into a taxi and heads for Central Park, where she visits its famous zoo. Nancy and Roger are hot on her heels, but Nancy’s dismayed when they lose track of Candy in a huge parade. Finally, she spots Candy being carried aloft by a bunch of colorful balloons. Trailed by a group of curious dogs, Nancy and Roger follow Candy to the Statue of Liberty, where the pooch becomes entangled in Lady Liberty’s torch. Is a rescue possible? While the plot may be paper-thin, kids will enjoy this lift-the-flap story’s satisfying ending and frenzied pace, though adults— especially New Yorkers—will most appreciate the setting, the iconic landmarks, and the winking homage to Cats. The colorful mixed-media illustrations are cheery, and the flaps and foldouts make for interactive fun; the final page features photos of a little girl and a dog, presumably the real-life models for Nancy and Roger. A lighthearted romp, best enjoyed before—or after—a trip to the Big Apple. (Picture book. 3-6)
Torres, Jennifer | Little, Brown (240 pp.)
$17.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9780316471367
Summer plans take a turn when a chunk of sky lands at a girl’s feet.
Vega is a headstrong Latine girl growing up on the edge of the Salton Sea in California’s Imperial Valley. She’s trying to get through summer vacation with her quiet, perpetually anxious prima, Mila, who was sent from Los Angeles to stay for the summer to keep her out of trouble. Though Mila’s anxieties are more apparent, Vega has worries of her own—about her older brother (who’s moving away for college), Tata (who’s recovering from his broken hip), and whether the family business, the Lone Star Market, can stay afloat. When the universe dumps a space rock at her feet—and she learns how valuable it might be—Vega sneaks off on a quest to find more meteorites in the barren desert just beyond her home, accompanied by Jasper, the son of a rockhound with his own hidden motives. Mila secretly follows them. As the desert throws its worst at the three compatriots, from scorpions to coyotes to flash-flooding arroyos, the narrative shifts among Vega’s first-person perspective and Jasper’s and Mila’s third-person views. In order to find their meteorite treasure and get home safely, the kids must share their baggage, both literal and figurative. The fast-paced read is a classic summer coming-of-age story with plenty of adventure and heart. As in all good quests, the story’s true treasures are the relationships formed along the way. (Fiction. 9-14)
A rousing story of kids making an impact on the world of science.
LADYBUG LAUNCH
Tracy, Kristen | Illus. by Luisa Uribe
$18.99 | July 23, 2024 | 9780593647523
Nuisance beavers find a new home. In 1948, in fast-growing McCall, Idaho, beavers were looked at as pests. Game warden Elmo Heter tried to remove them, but it was hard to keep semi-aquatic animals happy on a long horseback journey. He came up with an innovative solution: flying them into the mountains and dropping them by parachute into Idaho’s backcountry. (In the aftermath of World War II, surplus parachutes were readily available.) Elmo designed a box that would open when it landed and experimented with a test beaver he named Geronimo. (Readers probably won’t know that this was what World War II airmen shouted as they parachuted out of planes.) Once he was certain the boxes would work, he captured 75 more beavers and had them all flown and dropped into a mountain wilderness where beavers had been wiped out years earlier. A later survey revealed that the beavers had done just what Elmo had intended: They dammed streams and made a wetland. Tracy’s storytelling is succinct, straightforward, and appropriate for her young audience. She emphasizes the advantages of Elmo’s excellent idea, both for the beavers and for the wilderness; backmatter addresses later controversies about wildlife relocation and newer methods. Uribe’s muted digital artwork portrays the details of
Elmo’s planning, the beauty of the landscape, and some very appealing beavers. These spreads would show well at storytime.
A celebration of an early environmental success.
(author’s note, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 4-8)
Trempe, Melissa & Natalia Ojeda Illus. by Manuela Montoya | McElderry (48 pp.)
$18.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781665930406
In this tale inspired by co-author Ojeda’s personal experience, kindred spirits reach for the stars.
Natalia, a young girl living in Chile, dreams of becoming a scientist, though she’s never known anyone who attended university. Luna, a ladybug, or “chinita” in Chilean Spanish, aspires to be an astronaut, though her peers scoff at her. Their paths cross when Luna flies off in search of her dreams…and crash-lands on Natalia’s science paper. Natalia and her classmates are tasked with designing a space-themed science experiment, and when Luna makes her presence known, inspiration hits. Soon the students are working hard on a project involving the use of ladybugs as a natural form of pest control for crops grown in space. Natalia, Luna, and some of the students head to the United States to pitch their project to NASA. Getting the green light, they
Random House Studio (40 pp.)see their hard work pay off when Luna launches with the space shuttle Columbia ; on board is Eileen Collins, “the first woman to command a NASA mission.” A note from Ojeda explains more thoroughly how in the late 1990s, she and her high school classmates created a project that was selected by NASA, although the main narrative skimps on some of these details and feels a bit rushed. Human characters outshine the optimistic insect, who’s endearing but feels superfluous. Still, Montoya’s bright, cheery illustrations are inviting, and the book offers a stirring example of representation in STEM.
A rousing story of kids making an impact on the world of science. (photos, Spanish glossary, online resources) (Picture book. 4-7)
Vaynerchuk, Gary | Illus. by Steve Lambe Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.)
$19.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9780063320291
Patient Pig and Eager Eagle help each other up their games. Author/ entrepreneur Vaynerchuk casts animal VeeFriends from his line of NFT trading cards and reworks values explored in his business self-help guide Twelve and a Half (2021) for this flip book. Starting from one end of the book, readers meet Patient Pig, who eats breakfast (“the most important meal of the day,” she says) and so arrives at the playground after the big basketball game has started. Still, though she helps her team win by passing whenever anyone’s open, she never scores; later she joins Eager Eagle for some practice at taking the ball to the net. Readers can then begin the book from the other end.
Eager Eagle skips breakfast to arrive first (and soon runs out of energy as the game goes on), but afterward he commends Patient Pig for her style of play and coaches her; meanwhile, she teaches him not to force his shots. “We’re a great team…when we meet in
A fiercely reassuring, whimsical ode to courage in the face of uncertainty.
DARE TO BE DARING
the middle,” they chorus, lounging head to head on the central spread. The dialogue is stilted (“I feel a lot better now! Your plans made this possible.” “Your excitement made me want to work harder”), while Lambe’s stubbylimbed, googly-eyed cartoon animals display a limited range of stylized expressions and postures. Young readers will certainly come away feeling instructed, though less than engaged. Trite coaching with little net gain. (Picture book. 5-7)
Kirkus Star
Wallace, Chelsea Lin | Illus. by Lian Cho Abrams (40 pp.) | $18.99 July 16, 2024 | 9781419760679
Addressing our fears has never been this fun. A group of diverse children try to overcome their anxieties. Each spread starts off with the same invocation—“Today, I will dare to be daring”—followed by a description of a daunting situation, from trying unfamiliar foods (“You say this is pea and beef stew?”) and learning to ride a bicycle (“I may topple and tumble and flop. / But the second I’m at it, / my soul is ecstatic!”) to meeting new people (and pets) and going to the dentist. Threaded throughout the narrative is the hilarious yet relatable story of a terrified youngster who attempts several times to descend the stairs into a deep, dark, and positively creepy-looking basement. Wallace’s text has a bouncy rhythm to it, which makes for both a robust read-aloud and
an excellent primer on modeling courage and thoughtful behavior. Cho’s gouache and colored pencil illustrations add levity. The kids she depicts are utterly expressive, their looks of pinched terror eventually turning into pure exuberance. Each spread focuses on a different child; youngsters from earlier scenes periodically show up to make cameos, adding to the community feel of the story. None of the characters are gendered, with the exception of a male dog, who just wants some attention for being a good boy.
A fiercely reassuring, wonderfully whimsical ode to courage in the face of uncertainty. (Picture book. 3-7)
Walstead, Alice | Illus. by Andy Elkerton Sourcebooks Wonderland (40 pp.) | $12.99 | July 9, 2024 9781728293004 | Series: How To Catch…
A brand-new fairy godmother tests her skills on a group of children determined to catch her. The latest installment in the popular How To Catch series follows the protagonist as she leaves Fairy Godmother Land as a recent grad who’s nervous about her first job (“I should know how to do this, / but all I feel is stress. / Chosen for these children, / I don’t want to be a hot mess”). As she observes the children she’s been tasked with helping, they spot her and decide to catch her for show and tell. Though they set several traps, including a “selfie with a unicorn” station, she evades capture, leaving behind a snapshot as a gift. Readers never see the
fairy godmother’s face until the final page reveals her photo—an effective way to keep kids wondering. While the moral of the story—trying new things is scary but worth it—is an important one, the plot is a bit thin. Sure, the fairy godmother “helps” the children by leaving them with a photo of her, but that feels almost like a happy accident; readers never find out why she was “chosen” for these children. Fans of the series who adore all things magical will enjoy this title, but those seeking an engaging tale should look elsewhere. The fairy godmother presents Black, while the children are racially diverse. Fairy fodder, nothing more. (Picture book. 4-6)
Kirkus Star
Ward, Jennifer | Illus. by Robin Page Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $18.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781665935104
Down time comes in many forms, as this somniferously illustrated survey of the natural world reveals. Though all the sleepy faces and figures in Caldecott Honoree Page’s exactly detailed, collagelike digital illustrations may cumulatively have a soporific effect, Ward has shocking news for readers who think lying down and remaining unconscious through the night—called “monophasic sleep”—is uniform practice in the animal kingdom. In fact, drawing on 16 examples, she identifies several sleeplike processes, from the
hibernation of bears and equivalent states, such as brumation and estivation, to the half-brain-at-a-time shutdowns (“unihemispheric slowwave sleep”) of whales and dolphins. Animals also sleep for varying amounts of time; giraffes nap for only about five minutes at a time, whereas little brown bats sack out for 20 hours a day, and koalas for even more. All of this information is presented in both digestible bits throughout and in a closing summation that includes pie charts for human sleep needs at different ages. With an eye to bedtime read-alouds, the author also pairs each somnolent portrait with a drowsy verse like this one, addressed to a tan-skinned young snoozer: “Child, / at sunrise you are on the go! / But once it’s dark, it’s time to slow / and snuggle, sleeping through the night, / while waiting for the morning light.”
A real eye-opener. (glossary, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 7-10)
Ward, Lindsay | Two Lions (40 pp.)
$17.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781662513831
Series: Scooper and Dumper
Scooper and Dumper are back, this time trading wintry weather for fall pumpkin hauling.
The town is preparing for the pumpkin parade, but one very important part is missing—the pumpkins. Scooper, a front loader, and Dumper, a truck,
Fans of this duo will happily follow them through another season.
SCOOPER AND DUMPER
get a call from Maybelle (a green pickup truck) at the farm. It’s time to go to the patch and pile up some pumpkins to bring back. Maybelle and Dumper fill their beds (while Scooper fills her front bucket) and drive back slow and steady. But a sharp stop causes Maybelle’s hatch to open and sends the pumpkins flying. The trucks are surrounded by darkening skies and spooky cornfields; they need to get back in time for the parade. How can they find all the missing pumpkins? Their repeated cheer—“Work together, / can’t be beat!”—lifts their spirits as they join forces to find a solution. The narrative is tinged with worry and suspense—whooshing wind and eerie sounds—but the sunny resolution whisks all those fears away. The bouncy rhyme skips merrily along (perhaps that’s what gives those errant pumpkins an extra push…and why they roll so far away), and the art is dominated by fall oranges, rusty reds, and cornfield yellows.
Fans of this duo will happily follow them through another season. (Picture book. 3-6)
Weeks, Sarah | Illus. by Alex Willmore Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) | $17.99
July 9, 2024 | 9780062431622
Series: I Can Read!
Like-minded canine pals attend a dog show. Sketty is a big, long-haired pooch; Meatball is short, round, and red, with expressive ears. But their superficial differences mean little. Their tongues usually loll out in concert, and together they bark, play, sniff flowers, roll around, and, tired out, “curl up together under the lemon tree and take a nice, long nap.” Looking for something new to do one day, they decide to visit the
dog show. The dogs at the show all seem different: “big dogs with little spots” and “little dogs with big spots,” “hairy dogs, scary dogs, and very hairy scary dogs.” Sketty and Meatball enjoy pointing out variations on their own looks. Which dogs do they like best? They’re in perfect agreement: “hot dogs!” (Sharp-eyed readers might notice that Sketty likes ketchup, while Meatball chooses mustard.) After they eat, Sketty proposes a nap. Meatball doesn’t have to voice agreement; he’s already asleep, nestled against Sketty. The soft, tail-wagging, cartoonish illustrations are often set against Popsicle-bright backgrounds. The canines are only slightly anthropomorphized, and the dozens of other dogs are goofily distinctive. A pair we would happily hang out with again. (Early reader. 4-8)
Welsh, Clare Helen | Illus. by AnneKathrin Behl | Nosy Crow (32 pp.) $17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9798887770758
Looking to plan a shindig?
The paleskinned, bespectacled, auburnhaired young narrator has some advice on who not to invite. The child, who’s hosting a party, demonstrates the riotous disasters that ensue when some unusual invitees show up. The titular pirate, brown-skinned and green-haired, brings along her parrot (who steals the gifts). Next, a dragon arrives. “Never, ever, ever ask a dragon to a party,” advises the narrator. “She’ll frighten the pirate and get caught in the streamers.” Plus, the dragon isn’t house trained. Soon, a unicorn arrives, turns up his nose at the steaming mess left by the dragon, and demands a bath. Then a group of aliens fly in and wolf down all the food. The narrator is forced to send the out-of-control guests
packing. But without guests, there’s no one to play or share cake with, there aren’t presents—and it’s VERY quiet. Our guide offers some new advice: Open the door and re-invite the guests, who promise to behave this time. At last, a perfect party— until a very large, perhaps uninvited, attendee arrives. Now what? This rollicking U.K. import will have kids giggling and probably hoping for a few of these guests to show up at their own parties. There’s a hint of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985), illustrated by Felicia Bond, here as well. The colorful illustrations are dynamic, celebratory fun.
Don’t pass on the chance to read this one to kids—say, at an upcoming party. (Picture book. 4-7)
Wen, Lenny | Clarion/HarperCollins (48 pp.)
$19.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9780063288942
An adorable ghost who loves romping in nature and scaring people finds a way to embrace both sides of his personality.
Wolfgang lives in a meadow alongside a group of fellow supernatural beings. He spends his time practicing spooky skills such as casting spells and making things fly, hoping to one day succeed his hero, the Mighty Hubert, as haunter of the Dark Castle. But when he achieves his dream, he realizes he misses his cloud-gazing,
wildflower-picking days. Can Wolfgang balance the spooky with the sweet? The vibrant digital images, which incorporate graphite, colored pencils, gouache, and acrylic gouache, rely on a warm, bright palette to depict meadow scenes and grayscale and shadowy neutrals to depict the Dark Castle. Readers will delight in poring over the whimsical creatures: Wolfgang has expressive eyes and rosy cheeks under his ghostly sheet, while the other supernatural beings include a red, white-eyed creature with snakes for hair, a bearded cat with a pink unicorn horn, and a mummy with a pirate’s eyepatch and bandana. Fans of Jessie Sima’s Not Quite Narwhal (2017), which also centers on a mythological being who’s learning to blend various aspects of life, will delight in Wolfgang. A whimsical story about carving one’s own path and staying true to oneself. (Picture book. 4-8)
Yaccarino, Dan | Holiday House (40 pp.)
$14.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9780823456369
Series: I Like To Read Comics
In this beginning reader graphic novel, two very different sisters find a common cause. Math-loving Nera and artistic Lucy live on the Moon, where they’re often at odds. Both have round heads, each with a single
A whimsical story about carving one’s own path and staying true to oneself.
WOLFGANG IN THE MEADOW
antenna protruding from her forehead, though Nera is blueskinned, while Lucy is green-skinned. Not even a shared eighth birthday present—a tiny Luna Fish they name Moona—can bring them together. At first neither child wants the new pet; then they both fight over it. Eventually, both sisters bond with Moona in their own ways, but Moona quickly outgrows her fishbowl. When the owner of a space aquarium offers to buy Moona and make her a star, Nera wants to sell, but Lucy balks. They flip a coin to decide. Nera wins; an angry Lucy stalks off. But once Nera visits the aquarium and sees how miserable the other animal performers are, she has a change of heart. The aquarium’s owner refuses to release Moona, so Nera and Moona flee, and a high-speed chase across the galaxy ensues. Eventually, the sisters work together to put things right— though it’s only a temporary truce. Bright, blocky artwork created with brush, ink, and Photoshop immerses readers in a fast-paced space-age adventure. A variety of panels, paired with accessible text laced with humor, demonstrate that even the most embattled siblings can unite when necessary. Outlandish science fiction fun for the younger set. (Graphic early reader. 4-6)
Yanish, Brian | Illus. by Stacy Ebert Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.)
$18.99 | July 30, 2024 | 9780374391447
Talk about opposites not attracting. Sweet and Sour are pickles who don’t get along. They live on opposite sides of a fence, and their habits and dispositions are wildly different. Long and skinny Sour is slow; short and round Sweet is speedy. Sour is
In this beginning reader graphic novel, two very different sisters find a common cause.
THE LUNA
AND THEIR AMAZING LUNAFISH
angry; Sweet is happy. Sour prefers the quiet; Sweet likes things loud. As for actual taste, Sour derives his flavor from vinegar and garlic; Sweet’s signature piquancy comes from having been prepared with “cinnamon and sugar and a bop of mustard seed.” Can these contrarians reconcile? Things improve after Sour throws a pool party and invites every pickle—except Sweet. Sour feels guilty when he peers over the fence and spies an angry-looking Sweet in a tiny wading pool. For his part, Sweet considers that maybe the pair aren’t so different and writes Sour a note asking to meet. They become friends, share pickle puns, and build a community where all pickles are welcome. Though many children may dislike pickles (or perhaps haven’t yet tasted them), they’ll feel reassured by this humorous story about opposites discovering commonalities and becoming friends. Young kids may not get the puns, but grown-ups can help with that. Emergent readers should find the simple text easy to navigate. The colorful illustrations are lively; the unconventional protagonists are engaging, their body language and exaggerated expressions speaking volumes. Readers definitely won’t sour on this sweet friendship tale. (Picture book. 4-7)
Yarlett, Emma | Candlewick (32 pp.) $17.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781536231496
Finding a friend isn’t easy for this misunderstood monarch. King Lion surveys his kingdom and realizes that he’s quite lonely. But his search for companionship is unfruitful: His subjects flee, terrified by his roars and fierce demeanor. It takes a brave little girl to look past his frightening surface and beat him at his own game. When the lion shows off his huge claws, she holds up a hand and smiles. When he roars, she does, too. And when he opens his jaws wide and glares menacingly, she responds: “Hello… let’s be friends.” Following the girl’s example, the king takes steps to be a good friend to his subjects. Though it treads familiar territory, this U.K. import is a charmer. The contrast between the miserable king whom we see in the opening pages and the happy one at the end is striking. Accompanied by hand-lettered text, the bold illustrations include several full-page depictions of King Lion searching for companionship; the most impressive image showcases the standoff between the lion and the girl, with a close-up of the king’s face. The girl is light-skinned, and the citizenry includes animals and racially diverse humans. Sure to prompt reflection on what it means to be a friend. (Picture book. 5-7)
EACH MAY, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month is a time for readers to celebrate the truly remarkable progress we’ve made in just a few decades in the number and variety of young adult books available; the growth of excellent science fiction, fantasy, and romance centering on Asian American characters is especially noteworthy. Yet these books still too narrowly focus on characters of East and South Asian heritage. We desperately need more books about Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, as well as ones featuring characters with roots elsewhere on the Asian continent.
Readers also have a strong need for more nonfiction, given how little many of us know about the diversity of Asian/Pacific American
communities—some vastly more disadvantaged than others—and these groups’ persistent erasure from many social justice conversations and school curricula. Two new titles help to fill in some of the gaps, expand our understanding, and push back against overly simplistic narratives.
Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape, written and illustrated by Sam Nakahira (Getty Publications, March 19): Acclaimed sculptor Asawa is the subject of this delicately drawn, deeply absorbing graphic novel that will expand readers’ awareness of her achievements as well as the obstacles many Japanese Americans faced following their incarceration during World War II. Asawa’s provocative artistic education at North Carolina’s experimental Black
Mountain College is just one highlight.
Rising From the Ashes: Los Angeles, 1992. Edward Jae Song Lee, Latasha Harlins, Rodney King, and a City on Fire, by Paula Yoo (Norton Young Readers, May 7): The aftermath of the violent protests (which largely affected L.A.’s Koreatown) following the 1992 acquittal of the police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King still echoes painfully three decades later. Yoo’s exhaustive research, panoramic presentation of the events, and use of interviews that humanize everyone affected all make this a must-read.
Three realistic fiction titles highlight a diverse set of young people and their experiences, showing readers some of the many different ways to be a contemporary Asian American teen.
Just Another Epic Love Poem , by Parisa Akhbari (Dial Books, March 12): Queer Iranian American
Mitra often hides to protect herself. Her mother’s struggles with addictive painkillers have torn the family apart, and Mitra is in love with her best friend (and terrified of losing that bond). Poems, both Persian classics and contemporary works, are her lifeline in this memorable, heartfelt coming-of-age story.
What’s Eating Jackie Oh?, by Patricia Park (Crown, April 30): Korean American Jackie is passionate about classical French cooking, but when she’s chosen for a TV cooking competition, she realizes the producers can’t see past her ethnicity. In this thoughtful, compassionate story, family members love one another but still make mistakes, including Jackie’s worried parents and her brother, who’s in prison.
This Book Won’t Burn , by Samira Ahmed (Little, Brown, May 7): Noor is a Muslim, Indian American senior recently transplanted to a small Midwestern town. She’s desperate to graduate and move on, but she can’t keep silent about a recent spate of book bannings. As her school librarian puts it in this provocative and timely novel, “Hope is an act, not just a feeling.”
Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.
LAURA SIMEON Illustration by Eric Scott AndersonA girl’s search for her missing sister peels back a deeper mystery.
Inez moved to Brooklyn five years ago to get her master’s in art history, but she’s been missing since December, and now it’s July. Eighteen-year-old Mae has volunteered to pack up Inez’s apartment, and so their Tunisian immigrant parents give Mae their car for the three-hour drive to New York from their smalltown Pennsylvania home. When Mae arrives, she’s surprised to encounter Indian American Dev, the neighbor boy who’s ostensibly watering the dead plants in her sister’s
studio. For his part, Dev is surprised to learn that Inez has a sister. What other secrets might Inez have kept? As she searches the apartment, Mae comes upon an 1891 first edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray , Inez’s diary hidden under the floorboards, and, in the back of a closet, an all-white painting like the one Inez has been researching, along with a business card for a Boston art dealer. Mae is sure this painting is somehow connected to her sister’s disappearance, and Dev offers to help with her search. He’s attractive, and he knows a side of Inez that Mae doesn’t, so she
agrees. Still, he’s not exactly forthcoming with information, giving her half answers rather than complete truths. Masterfully written, this is a deceptively charming horror story that also
skillfully weaves in romance, sacrifice, and heartbreak.
Thrilling intrigue that leverages desperation and deception in almost equal measures. (Paranormal romance. 14-18)
Jane Igharo Meriam MetouiA memorable offering that’s not for the faint of heart.THE WHITE GUY DIES FIRST
Àbíké-Íyímídé, Faridah & Adiba Jaigirdar
Feiwel & Friends (336 pp.)
$19.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781250890139
Tragedy reunites estranged childhood friends. When Ms. Barnes, his beloved hometown librarian, dies, Said Hossain’s older sister, Safiyah, picks him up from boarding school a week before summer vacation so he can return home to Vermont for the funeral. The somber occasion puts Said back in contact with childhood friend Tiwa Olatunji, who hasn’t forgiven him for leaving her and their community behind. Thrust back together, Said and Tiwa must reconcile their past while dealing with current challenges, which include saving the local Islamic center (after being damaged by a fire on the day of Ms. Barnes’ funeral, it’s now slated to be torn down and replaced with apartments), ensuring that the upcoming community Eid celebration can go off without a hitch, and figuring out how to heal their friendship and move forward as romantic feelings grow between them. Told from Said’s and Tiwa’s alternating first-person perspectives, the narrative successfully transitions between the co-authors’ equally strongly executed chapters. The engaging writing tackles grief, anti-Black racism within the Muslim community, and the teens’ navigating and reconciling parental expectations with personal dreams. The characters reflect the lived diversity of the American Muslim community: Said is Bangladeshi American, while Tiwa, who’s Black, is Nigerian American; lesbian Safiyah embarks on a sweet
relationship with another girl from the Islamic center.
A love story that successfully blends the lighthearted with the serious to demonstrate the power of community. (Romance. 14-18)
Baguchinsky, Jill | Little, Brown (368 pp.) $18.99 | July 23, 2024 | 9780316568807
A high school senior must face the dark shadows of her past when a vacation turns into a realworld nightmare. Nell is spending spring break on a private Florida island, sharing a rented house with her friends Harper and Dia, as well as Harry, Harper’s brother. Nell and Harper have been best friends since childhood, when Nell suffered from sleep paralysis and learned to keep the horrifying shadow in her room at bay by singing. But they’ve been drifting apart recently, especially once Harper started dating Gavin. This vacation is supposed to be a time to focus on their friendship, but when Gavin and his best friend, Christopher, show up, the trip goes sour. One bright spot is the arrival of Tris, whose dad owns the property; she immediately connects with Nell. Everyone becomes stuck on the island when an unnatural and dangerous haze blocks their way out. As the haze draws nearer and inexplicable phenomena occur, Nell uncovers hidden elements of the island’s history and realizes that she must embrace her rage. This unsettling tale successfully uses creepy horror elements to shed light on traumas, while queer romance and forgiving friendships
add heart and hope. The deliciously claustrophobic secluded island setting ramps up the intensity and aids in making the story entirely gripping from start to finish. Tris reads Black; Dia is Cuban American, and Nell and the other central characters are coded white. Eerie and engrossing, this powerful story is about embracing darkness to find the light. (author’s note, resources) (Horror. 14-18)
Bajramovic, Hana | Henry Holt (288 pp.)
$19.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9781250225276
Series: Whose Right Is It?
An unraveling of the historical tapestry of the Fourteenth Amendment’s genesis, evolution, and impact. This overview is structured into three parts, “The Constitution,” “The Supreme Court” and “The People,” each containing several chapters that explore different aspects of rights and citizenship. Bajramovic opens with the full text of the amendment and an introduction that briefly explains why it “may be the most important amendment”: “Though it never fully achieved its aims, the story of the Fourteenth Amendment and the many people who fought for its ideals shows us how we can continue to work toward true equality.” The author examines how citizenship has evolved under the Fourteenth Amendment and how it intersects with various factors such as race, gender, immigration status, and sexual orientation. Landmark Supreme Court cases in which justices issued rulings based on their personal biases and interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment demonstrate how fickle the law can be. To counter this weakness, the author emphasizes the importance of “community activism, organizing, or working to change public narratives”—actions that
go beyond simply making minor changes within the framework of unjust systems. Bajramovic’s thorough research and accessible writing make this an important resource for readers interested in understanding the complexities of constitutional law and the ongoing struggles for civil rights and social justice. Photos, infographics, and text boxes supplement the main narrative. A meticulous and captivating account of the fight for civil rights. (selected bibliography, endnotes, infographic sources, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)
Ed. by Benton-Walker, Terry J. Tor Teen (320 pp.) | $20.99
July 16, 2024 | 9781250861269
A delightfully creepy collection of 13 short stories that explores the human elements of ghouls, phantoms, vengeful spirits, and sadistic demons. In his opening note, editor and contributor Benton-Walker highlights the horror genre’s ability to “deliver terror that’s most often intertwined with a deeper message.”
Embracing the gruesome fatalities of horror film veteran Eli Roth’s cinematic bloodbaths in combination with the unsettling imagery of the Creepshow franchise, these tales include Kendare Blake’s “The Golden Dragon,” which centers on a Korean American high schooler who uncovers her sister’s powerful connection to a local ghost story; Chloe Gong’s “Docile Girls,” a harrowing teen slasher that acerbically critiques the model minority myth; and Tiffany D. Jackson’s “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” a creative take on the found-footage narrative starring an 18-year-old Black girl whose back garden hides a dark, disturbing secret. Others, such as Naseem Jamnia’s “Break Through Our Skin,” artfully use body horror to explore the nuances of gender
identity, enhancing corporeal anxiety in ways reminiscent of director David Cronenberg’s work. Benton-Walker closes with “The Road to Hell,” a spine-tingling story from the point of view of an anthropomorphized haunted house. This anthology skillfully pushes the boundaries of the genre, featuring flawed heroes and villains who inspire lasting fear and dread. The protagonists represent marginalized, underrepresented communities encompassing diverse cultures, ethnicities, races, and religions. A memorable offering of imaginative frights that’s not for the faint of heart or those with weak stomachs. (Horror anthology. 14-18)
The Prisoner’s Throne
Black, Holly | Illus. by Kathleen Jennings | Little, Brown (368 pp.)
$20.99 | March 5, 2024
9780316592710 | Series: The Stolen Heir, 2
Damaged people damage each other as they fight for love and power.
Oak, the reluctant heir to Elfhame, shows the world an insouciant, feckless facade, but secretly he’s cunning and ruthless like his sister Jude, the High Queen of Faerie. Readers began to see Oak’s layers, filtered through Wren’s traumatized and not always reliable gaze, in the first half of this duology, 2023’s The Stolen Heir. Here, the near-thirdperson perspective follows Oak and reveals the truth: He’s a gancanagh (or love-talker) who commands devotion through speaking but who fears that no one sees, much less cares for, his real self. In love with Wren and imprisoned by her in the Court of Teeth, he proposes marriage to avoid his sister attacking Wren’s court. Oak then must negotiate family, enemies, and a very fraught courtship with someone who may be too damaged to love him back (but who may also be the only one who sees through him), all amid the glittering poison that
is his own home court. Black’s Faerie world, which is filled with diverse Folk (Oak has hooves; Wren has blue skin and pointed teeth), manages to be both alluring and terrifying, with love and betrayal as constant companions. This volume will appeal to the author’s old fans; new ones should start with the previous entry.
Another bewitching tale: love-talker indeed. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)
Bowles, David & Guadalupe García McCall Bloomsbury (464 pp.) | $19.99
June 11, 2024 | 9781547610044
Teen heirs realize they share a present-day zeal for social justice and a tragic past-life love story. Seventeen-yearold Blanca Montes is passionate about Indigenous rights and potable water for communities in need. But neither her longtime boyfriend nor the godfather who’s raised her in Nevada and managed her estate since her parents’ deaths feel the same way. Increasingly disappointed by these entitled men, she’s drawn to rich, handsome Gregorio Chan, 18, a mysterious Mexican transfer student from a Swiss international school. Written in straightforward, pageturning prose, the novel follows Blanca’s and Greg’s sympathetic alternating perspectives as they discover secrets about their identities. Blanca was Lady Iztac, who, according to Aztec and Nahua tradition, killed herself after being deceived into thinking her love, the warrior Popoca, was dead. When Popoca found Iztac’s body, his reaction and ensuing bloodshed triggered a 1,000-year-old curse involving the lovers and people whose souls are intertwined with theirs. Greg—who’s Popoca—has just awoken with amnesia and the supernatural ability to wield heat. With the help of goddess guides, Greg must piece together lessons from flashbacks of all his failed attempts to find Iztac and
also help Blanca to remember her past life and embrace her newfound power to control ice as the two try to identify and defeat the reincarnated power-hungry traitor in their midst. While some elements are initially confusing, the interesting premise will keep the pages turning until everything comes together at the end.
An intriguing tale of love and repentance. (Fantasy romance. 14-18)
Chen, Amber | Viking (480 pp.)
$19.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9780593622759
Series: Of Jade and Dragons, 1
Wanting to follow in her father’s footsteps as an engineer, a girl disguises herself as a boy and travels to the city in this Chinese-inspired silkpunk fantasy.
Aihui Ying’s world is shattered when she witnesses the murder of her father. Although the elite Engineers Guild only accepts boys, she longs to become an engineer’s apprentice. Ying seizes the opportunity to leave her small village and head to Fei, capital of the Antaran territories. There, she’ll attempt to enter the guild’s annual trial and find A-ma’s killer. Although A-ma’s dying wish was for Ying to burn his journal without reading it, she takes it with her to Fei. Along the way, she makes an ally in Aogiya Ye-yang, son of the High Commander, who helps her secure a spot in the guild’s test. Ye-yang promises to keep her identity as a girl a secret, and an attraction grows between them. Ying also forges a solid friendship with another trial candidate with something to hide. As Ying and her new friend work through the various challenges the guild poses, the narrative hints at political upheaval stemming from the High Commander’s desire to overcome their enemy, the Great Jade Empire and its Qirin royal family. Ye-yang’s personal ambitions also increasingly strain his blossoming relationship with Ying. As
secrets unravel and conflict erupts in this absorbing, deftly written story, Ying must question her own motivations. A fascinating world with twists that will keep readers enthralled. (Fantasy. 12-18)
Craft, Brianna | Disney-Hyperion (272 pp.) $17.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781368092333
Teen eco-warriors reluctantly team up to fight for environmental justice.
Compelled by the never-ending wildfires that plague her hometown of Lakewood, Washington, and the news that an energy company will be drilling a natural gas pipeline, 16-year-old Isa Brown joins the Environmental Justice Club at her high school, looking for an outlet for her rage and fear over the climate crisis. What she doesn’t expect is to be thrust into a co-presidency with GPA-obsessed academic overachiever Darius Freeman, whose vision for the club is more about resume building than civil disobedience. While the two initially clash over the club’s direction, Darius, who’s Black, and Isa, who’s Black and Samoan, eventually find common ground as they learn about the devastating and disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities, including their own. But when one of them decides to push limits in order to spread the message, the begrudging truce and burgeoning feelings between them are put to the test. Throughout, Craft successfully balances developing believable—and likable—teen characters with powerful messages about community activism and the power of youth voices. And, while the environmental concerns are central to the plot, Craft is never heavy-handed or didactic in her approach and manages to acknowledge the complexity of the issue while still offering a satisfying conclusion. A refreshing romance with substance. (Romance. 12-16)
Star
Cronn-Mills, Kirstin | Little, Brown (336 pp.) $18.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9780316567954
Multiple trials make a neurodivergent Minnesota teenager’s last days of high school decidedly tumultuous. Like Aretha, the octopus she tends devotedly as a volunteer at the nearby zoo, Evvie Chambers has an intense personality as well as the ability to camouflage herself when needed. Both qualities come into play when a possibly romantic connection develops with a fellow volunteer and the band storage room known as the Lair (a safe retreat for students who need it) is exposed. Due entirely to mutual personal animus, a teacher also threatens to deny her the grade she needs to graduate. (Though that same bad apple stands by silently while a vicious teen bully targets classmates, other staff members do show up to do the right thing.) Neurotypical characters generally stay in the background; most of those in Evvie’s circle, including her own divorced mom, have diagnosed differences that are clearly and sensitively observed in Evvie’s first-person narrative but never named. This approach allows readers to go beyond labels to see the unique mix of abilities and vulnerabilities in each person. Ultimately Evvie does successfully, even joyously, weather both emotional and academic challenges. On the way to a buoyant ending, the author splices in rich veins of encouragement as well as useful coping strategies, and at the very end, Aretha slithers onstage to deliver a heartening, informative, informational pep talk. Most of the cast registers as white. Intense and sometimes scary, but chock-full of heart and heady affirmation. (Fiction. 14-18)
Intense and chock-full of heart and heady affirmation.
Dean, Becky | Delacorte Romance (384 pp.) | $12.99 paper July 9, 2024 | 9780593647844
A mathlete and a jock find common ground in Alaska. Savannah likes routine and predictability, and she thought her boyfriend, Caleb, did as well. Which is why it comes as a horrible surprise when he dumps her, saying that she’s boring and stuck in her ways. Their breakup happens right before a trip to Alaska—a cruise with the company that employs her parents as well as the mother of Tanner, the attention-seeking classmate who beat her in the election for Astronomy Club president. After they’re thrown together, Tanner agrees to help Savannah with her plan to use the vacation as an opportunity to try new things. He volunteers to join her, taking photos she can share on social media to show Caleb what he’s missing; in exchange, Savannah will help Tanner figure out his college major. During the two-week trip, as she experiments with zip lining, karaoke, and whitewater rafting, Savannah comes to see that there’s more to Tanner than she’d realized—and that his kindness and sense of fun make him a good match for her. Savannah’s aversion to risk will resonate with many teens, while Tanner’s goofiness and easy charm will be familiar to others. The relationship develops at a natural pace (albeit with the requisite bumps along the way) and will have readers rooting for a happy ending. Savannah and Tanner are cued white. A relatable story in which rivals become friends—and more—against the backdrop of a spectacular setting. (map) (Romance. 12-18)
Finch, Freya | Melissa de la Cruz Studio (384 pp.) | $18.99 July 2, 2024 | 9781368100991
One modern-day valkyrie can see the signs: “Ragnarök is coming.”
Brynhildr Martel is named after the valkyrie Brunhild, but as the youngest of three sisters, one of whom is “the smart and responsible one” and the other “the talented and lovable one,” she’s never felt like her legendary namesake. At 17, she’s still learning to be a valkyrie, in between her shifts in the gift shop at Chicago’s Ravenswood Medieval Faire, where her family lives. When the faire is besieged by a troll, an undead army, and more creatures straight out of Norse mythology, Bryn knows that Ragnarök (or the end of the world) is nigh. With a half-giant and a berserker by her side, she plans to save the day—but it would help if her sisters ever listened to her. Bryn might be a valkyrie, but in between worrying about Ragnarök and guiding the dead to Valhalla, she has other pressing concerns, like what to say to the cute new boy at the faire and how to deal with all her family drama and the fact that she’s grounded—again. The contemporary setting combined with Norse mythological elements is fresh without being overwhelmed by too much godly interference, leaving room for Bryn to contend with all sorts of magical creatures and make plenty of mistakes along the way. Principal characters are coded white. A well-balanced story of both teenage and godly dramas. (Fantasy. 13-18)
Fong, Oscar with Frederick L. Jones Rockport Publishers (224 pp.) | $13.99 paper | June 25, 2024 | 9780760389980
In this second series entry, a boy continues to fight alongside his Ghosts, in search of his mother.
Other than finding his mom, Nilay Rao just wants to have a good time with his best friend, Chester “Chess” Swartz, and go trick-or-treating—and not even the bullies who mock their cosplaying will dissuade him. But what is discouraging is how he keeps getting pulled into fights by other players. Nilay is far too responsible to use his most powerful GHOSTS, lest he end up hurting his opponents; instead, he wins by using his wits. That may not be enough, however, when a strange figure suddenly appears and won’t leave him alone. His dad might not like it, but Nilay is ready to find a guild. With the help of an old family friend, he might even find an unlikely ally he’ll be forced to cooperate with. While he navigates friendship problems (which quickly get out of control when the World of GHOSTS becomes involved), Nilay is also forced to make some difficult choices. This fast-paced graphic novel features black-and-white illustrations that highlight the ethnically diverse cast. The GHOSTS are alternately cute and fierce. Although the storytelling focuses more on the battles than on the development of characters and their relationships, Nilay is a charming lead. A thrilling quest that’s light on characterization but full of action. (Manga. 13-18)
For more YA graphic novels, visit Kirkus online.
The author/illustrator discusses Punk Rock Karaoke, a visual love letter to friendship and community.
BY GINA MURRELLMAKING MISTAKES IS a part of life, whether it’s falling for the wrong person, misunderstanding a friend, or showing up late to work or band practice. Mistakes are absolutely ordinary, but what’s extraordinary is being able to understand and forgive, especially to further a friendship and forge community. These values are central to Punk Rock Karaoke (Viking, April 23), the debut graphic novel by Bianca Xunise, in which three friends navigate the sometimes bumpy path to adulthood that starts the summer after high school graduation—a summer that culminates in an unforgettable performance by their band, Baby Hares. During the ups and downs of that summer, Ariel Grace Jones, Michele Covarrubias, and Gael Certi learn that their friendship and the support of their punk community in Chicago are everything. Kirkus recently spoke with Xunise, who wore a Bad Brains T-shirt during our conversation, via Zoom from their home in Chicago. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
you matter, and your story matters. Your story is nuanced and beautiful and deserves to be told
In Punk Rock Karaoke , the three protagonists— friends and bandmates Ari, Michele, and Gael— are people of color, and two are openly queer. How important is this representation? It’s important to see people who look like me represented in media, and I want to disprove the myth that we weren’t always here—as if we haven’t all shared this planet for millennia. That’s why I got started in comics in the first place: I just wanted to put characters like Ari,
Michele, and Gael at the forefront. Growing up, I really loved characters who were different, like Lydia from Beetlejuice and Enid from Ghost World They were strange and unusual, but they were white. And I’m not. At the time, I thought maybe there was something wrong with me that I felt like this character, but we didn’t share the same background. With Punk Rock Karaoke , I want young readers, and even adults, to see themselves and to know that You exist,
Queer identity in Punk Rock Karaoke isn’t a big deal; it’s practically incidental. No one comes out; the characters just are, and even one of their parents casually remarks on a past crush on a delivery girl. What message do you believe young readers—some of whom may be queer—will receive in seeing queerness presented this way? Having grown up as a queer kid myself, it’s just part of who I am—as much as being Black, being from Chicago, and growing up in a single-parent home. It’s just not something that I felt needed to be explained. I didn’t want that
to be the struggle. I wanted to focus on other parts of their lives that we all experience as human beings, like that year of graduating from high school and entering the world of adulthood. I wanted to focus more on that and on the community aspect, lifting each other up. People who are different from each other all come together in the end, which is the more important takeaway for me. It’s the importance of community and friendship.
This graphic novel is a love letter to community, but it’s also a celebration of friendship. I found the friendship between Ari, Michele, and Gael to be very well drawn, and the dynamic between Ari and Michele especially
realistic, specifically in terms of conflict and its resolution. What do you hope the book communicates about friendship?
Friendships aren’t black and white. We can accept each other despite our flaws; even Ari, as bold and cool and interesting as they are, isn’t perfect. They sometimes make a dizzy choice instead of a safer choice, which might lead them into some sticky situations. We’re all human beings. I wanted to show characters who are able to work together to love each other, even with their flaws. For instance, there’s a moment where we find out something about Michele and why she’s always late. Having grown up with a disability, I run late a lot myself. Michele’s storyline shows there’s always something going on in the background that affects how [a character is] behaving. It may not always be personal. And they’re still friends. We can’t always just drop somebody because they do something that doesn’t fit our narrative. We should learn to have more empathy and compassion for each other and build community. Again, it’s about the importance of community.
How has your community supported you as a queer punk of color? And how have you benefited from community through the writing and publishing of this book?
I wrote Punk Rock Karaoke when I was coming out of a depressive state, and my friends were there for me. We were under lockdown, so they couldn’t do much,
but they were there to make me feel safe and brave enough to reenter the world. I know my community has my back. With everything that’s going on in the world, community is key. As a queer punk of color in Chicago, [I find that] having queer punks who are able to express our frustrations and our anger in a healthy
and safe environment through music and dance is freeing. As someone socialized as a Black girl, [I’m] not allowed to be angry, to be seen as angry. But in this space, it’s like, Let it out, and I support you. We’re gonna dance. We’re gonna put it all out there. Then we’re gonna go back to our lives and be able to handle society
I wanted to show characters who are able to work together to love each other, even with their flaws.
That’s why I love the punk scene so much. And I love Chicago. I feel like every Chicagoan says that, but it’s true. Coming back to the [idea of a] love letter to my community, [the book] is a thank-you for catching me. It’s a thank-you for being here and for uplifting other people like me. I can’t wait for all my friends to read it.
On Instagram, you said Punk Rock Karaoke is also a love letter to your younger self. What would this book have meant to you then?
Having this story would have been so important, because as a teen I felt like no one could hear me. I felt like whenever I expressed my pain, it was dismissed as “young people problems.” Never “I hear you, and you’re not alone.” Some people who’ve gotten previews of Punk Rock Karaoke have told me, “Man, I wish I had this when I was 17,” or “I wish I had this when I was 15.” When you’re younger, you feel so ashamed when you make mistakes and [feel] that you should have gotten it all right. But you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to scrape your knees. That’s all part of [growing up]. But that’s why you need the community to be there for you, to catch you when you fall and be like, Hey, it’s OK to be a little dizzy sometimes, as long as you come back and know that we’re here for you. Know that you’re not alone
Gina Murrell is a Black queer librarian, writer, and copy editor in New York.
Fung, Rosena | Annick Press (312 pp.)
$24.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781773218335
A teenager grapples with poor body image and family conflict in her multigenerational immigrant family.
It’s 2000, and 16-year-old Chinese Canadian Rosalind, who lives in Toronto with her single mother, Lydia, is distressed about her weight. It doesn’t help that Lydia labels them “the fat family,” makes disparaging remarks about “big people,” and constantly comments on Roz’s body and food choices. When Roz, who dreams of showing up at prom skinny and wearing a stunning dress, decides to lose weight and Por Por, her maternal grandmother, suddenly visits from Hong Kong, Roz’s conflicts with her mother over her body only increase. Roz is further distressed by Por Por’s cutting remarks and the heightened domestic stress due to her disruptive presence in the household. Seamless flashbacks to both Lydia’s 1970s Hong Kong childhood and Por Por’s young adulthood in 1950s Guangdong, China, shed light on the body shaming and misogyny that they endured, showing the roots of their estrangement and the fierce (if misguided) love that’s still present. Learning about unspoken parts of their family history ultimately helps Roz, Lydia, and Por Por find some measure of peace and understanding. All three are sympathetically and fully portrayed, and Roz’s struggles unfold realistically. The largely monochromatic panels use a shifting color palette to cue each era, allowing Fung to integrate the three colors in a touching and symbolic way in this poignant story’s resolution. An affecting story of family estrangement, body shaming, and the journey to self-acceptance. (resources, historical note) (Graphic fiction. 12-18)
Warm, well rounded, and a perfect combination of entertaining and substantive.
WITH LOVE, MISS AMERICANAH
Gordon, Gia | HarperTeen (304 pp.)
$19.99 | May 28, 2024 | 9780063318373
When aspiring artist Daya Keane falls for “the most unavailable girl in school,” there’s nowhere to hide in her small, fundamentalist Christian Arizona town.
Beckett Wild, a vision of vibrantly dyed hair and promised purity, glows like the sun in the oppressive shadows of Grace Redeemer Church. In no universe can Daya imagine she has a chance with a “super-Christian, über-straight” girl, but their worlds collide at a house party where neither of them belongs. As a school project and pressure from her single mom to join the church push Daya into Beckett’s orbit, she discovers a side of her crush the rest of the world doesn’t see. Heartbreaking and hopeful all at once, this contemporary queer coming-of-age story treads deeply into heavy topics, particularly intertwined grief, abuse, and religious trauma. Even as Daya recognizes the wrongness of the discriminatory messages spread by her mother’s church, she reckons with feelings of guilt that she might be abandoning her mom the same way her dad abandoned them. Gordon’s debut captures the full tapestry of Daya’s emotions in prose rich with vivid imagery and metaphor. The resolution (neither a fairy tale nor a fiery car crash) chooses honesty over complete closure. Self-care and learning to release misplaced personal blame are significant aspects of Daya’s growth. All the central characters develop with realistic
complexity. Daya and Beckett are cued white; the world around them contains racial diversity.
Raw and achingly truthful. (Fiction. 14-18)
Hall, Desmond | Caitlyn Dlouhy/ Atheneum (336 pp.) | $19.99 June 4, 2024 | 9781534460744
Two Jamaican teens cross paths at low points in their lives, but an immediate connection and a lot of luck help them escape dangerous circumstances. When Deja’s dad abandoned his family to work in Costa Rica, her mother was forced to do the same. She went to New York, leaving Deja, who’s skilled with boats and fishing, to care for her two younger siblings alone. Despite not fully committing to their acts of violence and criminality, Gabriel gets caught up in a posse, or gang, right out of the orphanage. Both have financial struggles and harbor pent-up resentments without having many healthy outlets, but they have a meet-cute on the fringes of a bashment, a party in their neighborhood. This romantic and hopeful encounter gives the teens an opportunity to open up about their struggles. The nonlinear dual narration reveals how smitten both young people are and moves the story along swiftly toward Deja’s pivotal discovery of a dead DEA agent and a briefcase full of money, while Gabriel navigates the likelihood of betrayal and death as he struggles to find a way out of
the posse. These storylines intertwine with the unwieldy and convoluted involvement of law enforcement agents, but ultimately the two kindred spirits cut through the confusion and arrive at a neat resolution.
Criminal intrigue and the unique vulnerabilities of Caribbean youth make for high-stakes hijinks with a lot of heart. (Thriller. 14–18)
Igharo, Jane | Feiwel & Friends (320 pp.)
$20.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781250873378
A Nigerian teen moves to the U.S. with her family and embarks on an unusual plan for navigating senior year. Enore Adesuwa has decided that the best way to manage in her new high school in New York’s Hudson Valley is to study the movies recommended by Adrian, her American cousin. Unlike Esosa, her younger sister who jumps right into things, Enore always needs a plan. She’s also still processing the loss of her beloved father, and it doesn’t take long before she realizes that, despite the 10 rules she’s made for getting along (among them, avoid popular people, control your heart, don’t make enemies, and don’t drink the punch at school dances), unexpected events and circumstances will get in the way. First, there’s attention from popular and attractive Davi Santiago. He encourages Enore to audition for the school musical, which leads to her lying to her academically focused mother, who believes she’s joined math club. Enore finds herself on a collision course between her mother’s expectations and what brings her joy. In her YA debut, Igharo has crafted a lively novel that cleverly balances the portrayals of a family coping with grief and the whirlwind of high school experiences. Enore is well drawn, believable, and easy to cheer for, and her
developing relationship with Davi is touching. Secondary characters and rich cultural elements add color and texture to the narrative. Warm, well rounded, and a perfect combination of entertaining and substantive. (Fiction. 14-18)
Knisley, Lucy | Random House Graphic (208 pp.) | $16.99 July 2, 2024 | 9780593177631
A compilation of Knisley’s webcomics about the life of her orange house cat, Linney. Linney, “a glorious apricot-hued cloud of softness,” loves to yowl about the tragic woes that befall her: She experiences despair over empty food dishes, irritatingly persistent devotion from dog friend Flora, and the aggravations of life with Knisley’s “human kitten.” Linney’s “torrid past” (unknown to her humans, since she was adopted from a shelter as an adult) has left her with a single fang, and she melodramatically expresses her displeasure (“Woe. Woe. Woe.”) whenever she’s forced to undergo horrible inconveniences. Bestselling comic creator Knisley draws Linney’s exaggerated facial expressions and body language in a minimalist way that allows the cat to express a broad range of emotions, from self-important dismay to indulgent contentment. Linney’s magnificent fluffiness is shown to great effect, particularly after a humiliating haircut, and the ever-present fang stands out as part of her “Signature SneerTM” when Linney complains. The author’s skillful rendering of her devoted attachment to her cat sets this graphic novel apart, giving it an added layer of depth as a mature look at the arc of a cat’s life and relationships with her two- and four-legged family members. The clean, attractively colored scenes appear against a plain white background without solid panel outlines, making
Linney’s expressive green eyes and orange fur pop. The story is conveyed through speech bubbles with fluid, dynamic lettering.
An amusing, heartfelt, and bittersweet read that will resonate deeply with pet lovers.
(Graphic fiction. 12-18)
Leif, Natalie | Holiday House (256 pp.)
$19.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780823456611
A disabled teen survives death during a disaster. In the small West Virginia town of Kittakoop, it’s normal to see the dead shambling around, going through the motions of life. Fifteen-year-old Ian, who has epilepsy and reads white, is used to the zombies by now, but what he’s not used to is being in love with his best friend and unable to admit it. But when Ian has a seizure in the mall, triggered by flashing lights from an emergency evacuation notice, he dies—and then is revived by the same strange, underexplained magic that drives the convoluted mystery in this story. Once Ian comes back to life, he meets a fierce girl named Angel, whose main role seems to be lecturing him— and readers—about the political ramifications of being perceived as “a disabled, expendable burden” and being “noble sacrifices for the greater good.” In the mall, Ian and Angel run into Monica, who’s cued Black and is the “only other disabled kid in town,” and Ian’s longstanding feelings of competition with her provide another thread of didacticism. The metaphors behind the walking dead intertwine with musings on disability and a cryptic, creepy message about mountains “calling the dead home.” Unfortunately, the jerky plot and inconsistent worldbuilding leave much to be desired, with unclear fantastical elements as well as too broadly drawn characters. An earnest and ambitious attempt that fails to coalesce. (Horror. 13-17)
Levenseller, Tricia | Feiwel & Friends (336 pp.)
$24.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781250840776
The underestimated sister of a soon-to-be queen has her own tale to tell in this companion novel to Levenseller’s The Shadows Between Us (2020).
Nineteen-yearold Chrysantha and her younger sister, Alessandra, who’s the fiancee of the Shadow King, don’t have the best relationship. Chrysantha has always been jealous of how easily Alessandra achieves success, while Alessandra thinks Chrysantha is a fool. For her part, Chrysantha uses this reputation as a facade and a means to an end while she patiently awaits the demise of her lewd—and wealthy—husband, the Duke of Pholios. With Chrysantha’s assistance, the 64-year-old duke dies, allowing his widow to drop the charade and focus on being independent and spending money according to her own whims and desires. That is, until distractingly handsome 18-year-old Eryx Demos arrives, claiming to be her late husband’s heir who’s ready to take control of the estate. Combining her objectives of outshining Alessandra at her royal wedding with enjoying some captivating arm candy and gaining Eryx’s trust in order to stab him in the back, Chrysantha takes up the job of molding Eryx into a proper duke. Chrysantha’s and Eryx’s wickedly charming personalities clash in the most pleasing and seductive ways, so that even though the plot feels
repetitive at times, there’s still much to delight in. Chrysantha’s skin is “dark beige”; Eryx is “tanned” and has “tawny-brown hair.”
Banter and sexual tension abound in this enjoyable enemies-to-lovers fantasy. (Fantasy romance. 14-18)
Linsmeier, Amanda | Delacorte (288 pp.)
$19.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9780593707760
Six former best friends whose birthdays fall on the Day of Sorrow must defeat the supernatural evil that’s hunting them. Iz doesn’t really know why she and her five friends stopped being a tightknit group; they were “fated to be friends,” or so it seemed. But at least Reuel, her very closest friend, has never left her. The girls’ birthdays fall on May 3, the day the whole town honors Sorrow, the legendary witch said to have founded their small island community in Louisiana. While celebrating their 16th birthdays beneath Sorrow’s statue in the old cemetery, Iz and Reuel make a blood oath to remain best friends forever. Little do they know, but their blood unleashes something evil and inhuman that isn’t going to stop until it gets what it wants from all six of the girls—something it was promised when their mothers were their age. Reuel is the first to be taken—and she returns deathly ill. Next is queen bee Georgina. With no idea who’ll be next, the girls must put aside their differences and solve this supernatural mystery before it kills them. This
Raw and vulnerable; a necessary look at the realities of homelessness.
formulaic horror novel does have some fun moments despite the often-stereotypical, one-dimensional characters, but predictable mystery beats and overused horror tropes unfortunately weigh down the paper-thin plot and unsatisfying ending. Iz and Reuel are cued white; there’s some diversity in race, ethnicity, and sexuality among the cast. Creepy enough to induce shivers, but genre-savvy readers may be disappointed. (Paranormal. 14-18)
McManus, Karen M. | Delacorte (400 pp.) $20.99 | July 30, 2024 | 9780593485057
Family secrets make for dangerous dealings in the latest from acclaimed mystery/thriller writer McManus. At the tender ages of 4 and 5, Kat and Liam were thrown together during their parents’ ill-conceived whirlwind Vegas marriage. After the divorce just two days later, neither expected to see the other again. Twelve years later, Kat’s living with her mom, Jamie, and her jewel thief grandmother figure, Gem. When Jamie decides she wants out of the family business, Gem talks her into participating in one last heist at the ritzy Sutherland compound, and Kat sneaks along for the ride. Meanwhile, Liam has been stuck living with his con artist father, Luke, since his mother’s death six months prior. After Luke scores an invite to patriarch Ross Sutherland’s birthday party through his new girlfriend, Annalise Sutherland, Liam tags along and finds himself reunited with Kat at the estate. But when the party turns deadly, Liam and Kat, along with their new friend Augustus (Ross’ grandson), find themselves entangled in a game of cat-and-mouse with a ruthless killer. Everyone seems to be hiding something—but which of these secrets are lethal? The main and side characters alike are nuanced and wholly realistic.
The dual-narrative structure adds important context and perspective to Kat’s and Liam’s struggles, both past and present. The dialogue is snappy and sharp and melds well with the tight plot and quick pacing of the story. Most characters are coded white; there’s some diversity in sexual orientation. An unputdownable, deliciously twisty mystery. (Mystery. 12-18)
Ogle, Rex | Norton Young Readers (272 pp.) $18.99 | May 14, 2024 | 9781324019923
Award-winning author Ogle shares the story of being kicked out by his father for being gay and his subsequent experience with homelessness in this conclusion to his memoir trilogy.
In a chance encounter at a hotel in Pensacola, Florida, during a family beach vacation in the late 1990s, 17-year-old Rex meets the charming Russell. He leaves with his first kiss and Russell’s number. Sometime later, Rex’s father issues an ultimatum: Rex can remain at home if he agrees to go to therapy (and pay for it himself), attend church weekly, date a girl chosen by his dad, and avoid any “person of homosexual persuasion.” Refusing to live a lie, Rex packs his things into his truck and leaves Alabama. Certain that he can’t return to his abusive mother and stepfather in Texas and terrified of facing his highly religious abuela, he heads to New Orleans, where Russell lives. There he finds momentary stability and can begin searching for a job and preparing for college. A relationship forms between Rex and the 31-year-old Russell, but as Rex struggles to find work, the power imbalance between them comes to a violent head. Soon, Rex is living on the streets, where he experiences numerous traumas and ultimately questions what it means to survive. Ogle’s story, relayed in
short, fast-paced chapters, is deeply personal and affecting, and readers will be anxious to learn how this period of his life ended.
Raw and vulnerable; a necessary look at the realities of homelessness. (author’s note, afterword) (Memoir. 14-adult)
Pierce, Tamora | Illus. by Becca Farrow Random House Graphic (160 pp.)
$24.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9780307931566
Series: Protector of the Small, 1
As the only girl in training to be a page, Keladry of Mindelan has a rough year in this graphic adaptation of Pierce’s 1999 novel.
Readers who haven’t experienced Tortall in the original print version may find this sketchy, all-dialogue adaptation hard to follow, but Grayson does proper fan service—even to the point of retaining the crossover cameos from Daine and Numair, mages from The Immortals series. The original’s main strands and themes remain intact as well. The work quickly retraces Kel’s arduous training, her war against school bullies Joren and Zahir, her battles with deadly spidren, and her long struggle to prove to hard-nosed, skeptical schoolmaster Lord Wyldon that girls have what it takes to be knights. Also, in contrast to most women warriors in graphic fantasies, she really does look sturdy enough in Farrow’s clean, solidly modeled panels to compete with taller and heavier male schoolmates. An opening scene and the comprehensive cast list and glossary at the end will help bring readers unfamiliar with this world up to speed. Kel is light-skinned; the rest of the cast, as in the print versions, is racially diverse.
Decent, if not top, marks for a budding hero’s relaunch. (Graphic fantasy. 12-18)
Masquerade of the Heart Pool, Katy Rose | Henry Holt (368 pp.)
$20.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781250846686
Series: Garden of the Cursed, 2
A satisfying sequel to 2023’s Garden of the Curse, tinged with political intrigue. The Falcrests are one of the original Five Families—along with the Morandis, Starlings, Vales, and Delvignes —who control all the libraries and maintain control over the city of Caraza. In this duology closer, 17-year-old cursebreaker Marlow Briggs is reeling from the aftereffects of the fatal attack by Adrius Falcrest, her 18-year-old love interest, on his own father. Marlow manages to break the spell that forced Adrius to stab his father in the heart, but now she’s been falsely accused of Aurelius Falcrest’s murder. Meanwhile, she discovers that Cormorant, the head of the Vale family, cast the Compulsion spell on Adrius, forcing this patricide. Cormorant also has grand plans, supposedly for the greater good, to work from an ancient grimoire on creating a spell “that will give him ultimate power over reality itself.” Marlow, with help from her friend Swift and his lover, Silvan, conspires to stop him. This world of spellcasters, cursebreakers, and hexes provides plenty of interesting twists and turns. Marlow also solves mysteries that were introduced in the earlier volume. Action sequences and sensual (though not explicit) romantic scenes between Marlow and Adrius provide breaks from the slower-paced problem-solving explanations. Marlow is clever at finding solutions, and she’s an expert analyst of human nature who navigates the complexities of the wealthy oligarchy with confidence. Main characters read white. Spellbinding; brings closure through solid worldbuilding featuring clever heroes and complex villains. (Fantasy mystery. 14-18)
Shun Lai
Shannon Gibney
INFINITY KINGS
Quain, Amanda | Wednesday Books (320 pp.)
$20.00 | July 16, 2024 | 9781250907530
Margaret Dashwood gets her day in the sun in this tropical contemporary spin on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility
Five years ago, trauma shook the Dashwood sisters when the death of their father was compounded by one sister’s heartbreak-fueled car crash. In the time since, eldest sister Elinor and middle sister Marianne have each seemingly achieved their own versions of happily-ever-after, leaving Margaret, who’s now 18, to carve a niche for herself from the disparate examples they’ve set. Still deeply affected by the frightening events of their family history, the youngest Dashwood has hewed closely to Elinor’s sensible example, repressing the giddier, more romantic impulses she associates with “tornado of chaos and energy” Marianne. Joining Elinor and her husband on a Caribbean cruise over the summer before college, Margaret has plans for a drama-free, romancefree vacation—until Marianne’s unexpected arrival throws a wrench in the works. Add to that Gabe Monteiro, a frustratingly handsome young crew member, and Margaret’s careful boundaries blow away with the salty breeze. Quain moves the story along with ease and charm, spinning a tale that’s as much about the love between sisters as the intrigues of unexpected romance. Characters and key themes maintain the Austen connection, but Margaret’s journey of healing from trauma and
accepting herself is a Quain original. The Dashwoods are cued white; Gabe is Brazilian American. Warm and witty. (Fiction. 13-18)
Richards, Natalie D. | Sourcebooks Fire (288 pp.) | $11.99 paper July 2, 2024 | 9781728276007
The Utah wilderness offers cousins Katie and Aster an awe-inspiring setting in which to heal— and maybe even save another person’s life. Bestselling author Richards’ latest is told in chapters that alternate points of view between the two main characters, as well as a mysterious, unnamed third voice. The novel opens on a night that changes everything for the two girls. Then the action jumps ahead 11 months, as Aster and Katie, who share a love of hiking, are dropped off for a 49-mile, multiday backpacking trip in Utah during which trauma, healing, and a growing, menacing mystery unfold. Wilderness thrills move the story along, although the number of challenges the girls face does begin to beggar belief: scorpions, prickly pear thorns, illness, flooding, a rattlesnake, losing the trail, running low on food and water, encountering sinister people, and experiencing a terrifying accident. The writing evokes a powerful sense of place in the descriptions of the canyons and in the information on outdoor preparedness and safety. But the novel’s real strength lies in the thoughts and conversations the cousins share around being a survivor of trauma as well as the complexities of navigating a relationship with a survivor. They
heal while they traverse an unforgiving environment that demands all their wits to survive as the novel comes to a heart-pounding conclusion. Most characters are coded white.
A gripping story of strength in the face of unrelenting challenges. (Thriller. 14-18)
Sass, Adam | Viking (352 pp.) | $19.99 July 16, 2024 | 9780593464816
Eighteen-yearolds Grant Rossi and Ben McKittrick tackle their complicated history and creative projects in this enemies-tolovers romance. Fashion designer Grant is cursed: His relationships never last more than a month, and now he’s going through another breakup. Steeped in depression, he escapes Chicago to help save his aunt’s floundering bed-andbreakfast. Memories of familial grief, history, and lore come flooding back. At 13, Grant made a wish on his family’s legendary rosebush—but that wish became a curse. Now he’s back, trying to return the Vero Roseto Garden Inn & Vineyard to its former glory. The Rose Festival, a walking tour culminating with a stop at Vero Roseto, is just two months away, and the grounds are in tatters. Luckily, Aunt Ro hired a new gardener, who happens to be Ben, Grant’s former best friend. The last time they saw each other, Grant made his ill-fated wish—and Ben stole his boyfriend. As they get into the weeds of their history of heartbreak and “he said, he said” drama, the narrative gets bogged down by backstory. Still, the chance of romance lingers throughout. Ben fixes up the grounds, while Grant designs a living sculpture garden for the Rose Festival. Despite the repetition in the plot, the painterly construction of the characters is a high point of this novel. Through a combination of therapy, medication, and personal accountability, Grant discovers a better
way to live. Grant is Italian American; Ben is from Scotland.
A sincere love story that patient readers will appreciate. (Romance. 14-18)
Sheinmel, Alyssa | Amulet/ Abrams (320 pp.) | $19.99
June 18, 2024 | 9781419766275
Series: The Umbrella Academy, 1
In this prequel set in the world of the popular Netflix series, teenage superheroes’ first ordinary night out turns into another Umbrella Academy mission to save the world.
A group of adopted siblings, trained to use their superpowers to fight crime, have been going on missions ever since they were preteens. After rescuing earthquake victims—and dispensing justice to the oil execs whose illegal fracking probably caused the disaster—the teens decide to sneak out and finally have some “normal” fun at a college party. Even non-superpowered sibling Viktor is invited to go along, since he’s the only one with practice being a regular person. For everyone else: “No powers tonight.” That promise goes out the window, however, when they realize they’re partying with a threat to both the college students and the Earth’s rotation. If they don’t step up and work together as a team for their first solo mission, everyone in the world could be in danger. While the premise is exciting, this story serves more as a character introduction and vehicle for repetitive teen angst than a well-paced adventure. There’s almost no action until the halfway point, and even then, it’s short lived. A publisher’s note indicates the respectful care taken to collaborate with actor Elliot Page and the show’s creators in the portrayal of Viktor in this story set prior to his transition.
Main characters are diverse in race, gender, and sexuality. Melodrama and meandering pacing overshadow a relatable cast of characters. (content warning) (Science fiction. 13-18)
Shusterman, Neal, Debra Young & Michelle Knowlden | Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins (432 pp.) | $19.99 July 2, 2024 | 9780062875761
Two incarcerated teens find hope and connection within the pages of a shared journal. The silver lining of Adriana’s courtordered sevenmonth stint in Compass Juvenile Detention Center is the treasured journal where she writes her private thoughts in verse. After misplacing it, she’s furious to find the journal shelved in the library, its pages defaced by someone else’s writing. But this person isn’t just writing commentary—he’s writing to her. Jon has spent nearly four years developing a “fierce reputation” at Compass. The two create a clever method of exchanging the journal, shedding their tough exteriors and revealing their innermost selves to one another. Security inside the gender-divided facility renders in-person contact between Adriana and Jon impossible, but with help from their friends, they hatch a risky plan to lay everything on the line. The intensity of their infatuation escalates quickly, setting the pace for the story’s action-packed second half, which includes a secret code, a hidden plan, and betrayal. Adriana has Moroccan, Greek, and Spanish ancestry, and Jon is Black; teens who are diverse in ethnicity, race, and ability live at Compass. Told in Jon’s and Adriana’s alternating perspectives, the story paints a vivid picture of a harsh reality but misses the opportunity to address class, race, and the impact of racism
in the juvenile detention system in meaningful ways.
An evocative glimpse into an unjust and unforgiving system with a gooey love story at its core. (authors’ note) (Fiction. 13-17)
Silvera, Adam | Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins (752 pp.) | $19.99
March 12, 2024 | 9780062882363
Series: Infinity Cycle, 3
The war between Spell Walkers and Blood Casters reaches its thrilling conclusion as election day looms. Tensions between twinsturned-enemies Brighton and Emil—the so-called Infinity Kings—are at an all-time high, and each is following his own ideas of what it means to be a hero. Whereas Brighton wants his powers (and influencer fame) to grow, Emil wants to bind his powers forever and restart his life. Meanwhile, Maribelle seeks a way to revive her late boyfriend while she’s simultaneously developing confusing feelings for Halo Knight Tala. Caught in his own love triangle and vying for Emil’s favor, Ness plots revenge on his political mastermind father. In each of the major plot strands, plans quickly go up in smoke with surprises and deception at every turn—and an astonishingly high body count. Will their alternate New York ever really see peace? This trilogy closer lightly recaps the previous entries while propelling the complex, actionpacked plot at a phoenix’s soaring pace. Emotions run high throughout, including sizzling sexual tension that arises even in the most unexpected moments. Although the book is heavy on explanation, Silvera expertly juggles the four alternating firstperson narrators while seamlessly tying up all the loose ends. The moral ambiguity of the mostly brownskinned and/or queer cast makes for
fascinating character development, and the magical parallels to contemporary political situations are chilling. A truly epic tome that satisfyingly stokes the brilliant blaze kindled by its predecessors. (the world of Gleamcraft, dramatis personae) (Fantasy. 12-adult)
Sortino, Anna | Putnam (320 pp.)
$19.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9780593697863
Two teens find each other while dealing with disability and ableism. Ellie, an 18-year-old Deaf girl, must move back in with her family when her residential Deaf school closes. Now she faces the ableism of her public school classmates, an unprofessional and incompetent interpreter, and living with her hearing (and prejudiced) family members, who don’t understand how to respect her Deafness. Jackson is another senior at Amber High. He’s a disgraced soccer star who cost his team the state championship when he unexpectedly collapsed on the pitch. His dad has dangerously high expectations for him, both in athletics and in life, and his mom thinks everything can be cured with alternative medicine, including Jackson’s mysterious and worsening symptoms. One thing Ellie and Jackson do have is each other. This story is, most simply put, a sweet, well-written romance with just a touch of drama for excitement. The book never feels preachy or lags narratively in the interest of didacticism, yet it also tells a meaningful story about ableism, audism, and self-determination. Readers will pick it up for the plot, but some will come away validated in their own experiences of disability; some will leave with more knowledge and awareness of ableism. That said, what the characters go through avoids any whiff of exploitative
“inspiration,” and the story leaves plenty of room for Sortino to explore differing experiences of disability. Ellie and Jackson read white. A skillfully executed, nuanced, and engaging book. (language note, author’s note) (Fiction. 12-18)
Tooley, Adrienne | Christy Ottaviano
Books (320 pp.) | $18.99
July 16, 2024 | 9780316465908
Series: Betrayal Prophecies, 2
Enemies loom for new rulers in this sequel to The Third Daughter (2023). Sabine has stepped into her role as the reascended and revered New Maiden, even though she no longer possesses her magical healing tears, nor can she hear the voice of her darkness, once her constant companion. The church she’s supposed to be leading is crumbling, both literally and metaphorically, under pressures from another religious faction that’s awaiting the Second Son. Meanwhile, Elodie is the Queen of Velle, and she’s busy dealing with the constant requirements of her station. When a snubbed diplomat makes threats against her realm, none of her advisers take him seriously. The two young women are still infatuated with one another, and they try to steal precious moments alone. Against this backdrop, the Second Son, the New Maiden’s theological adversary, is rising—and tempting Sabine in strangely familiar ways. This duology closer adds more intricacies to an already convoluted fantasy world. Amid stilted dialogue and abrupt scene changes, the characters often conveniently forget or ignore
details that would move the plot forward. Moments of frustrating misunderstanding due to a lack of communication between the characters are frustrating and make little sense. Strictly for fans of the first volume. (Fantasy. 14-18)
Walker, David F. | Scholastic (384 pp.)
$19.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781338826425
A teen with a seemingly hopeless future gets the chance to have a positive impact on the world.
For eight years, Darius Logan, a Black teen, survived on his own—bouncing among foster homes and derelict buildings— after his family (and many others) were murdered in The Attack. His life changes course after he gets caught in a drug deal, giving him his third strike. Fortunately, Captain Freedom of the Super Justice Force, who met Darius when he was named Student of the Year for his academic excellence, advocates for him to enroll in a classified rehabilitation program instead of going to prison. Now Darius is immersed in the lives of the heroes he’s only read about in the comic books he loved as a child, and he has the opportunity to gain skills and finish his education, along with building a community of people who care about him—things he never thought he’d have again. His life isn’t without obstacles, however, and when a secret plot is uncovered, Darius is thrust into the spotlight, his life forever altered. Through the third-person omniscient narration, readers are immersed in a
A sweet, well-written romance with just a touch of drama.
diverse post-apocalyptic world. The tertiary characters have depth beyond their interactions with Darius, and this element, paired with the detailed lore, creates a rich, engaging narrative that will keep readers invested. The author seamlessly blends humor and heart in this story of justice and redemption. An accessible and thought-provoking narrative. (Fiction. 12-18)
Winans, Justine Pucella | HarperTeen (336 pp.)
$19.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9780063324480
An Ohio teen becomes a sleuth when her favorite teacher is murdered.
Sixteen-year-old Gigi Ricci’s reputation as a troublemaker with a penchant for getting into fights precedes her, especially after she broke a queerphobic bully’s nose. But despite her record of detentions and jujitsu training, her math teacher, Mr. Ford, believes she’s more than her abrasive exterior suggests. So Gigi is horrified to discover his corpse— especial since it seems his death was no accident. This looks like a job for the Westbridge High Mystery Club, helmed by Gigi’s best friend, Sean, and her crush, Mariela, who’ve honed their sleuthing skills by reading cozy mysteries. But it doesn’t feel very cozy when the killer starts targeting the club members. Gigi’s nemesis, Cedar, also joins the case, adding verbal barbs and romantic tension to the suspense, since Gigi views Cedar as a rival for Mari’s affections. While readers might quickly peg whodunit, the mystery feels secondary to the exploration of Gigi’s relationships and emotional issues. Though her anger is largely unexplained, her struggles with expressing her emotions are sympathetic. Her workingclass, “seventy-five-percent-queer Italian family”—Gigi is bisexual, her brother is gay, and her mom is nonbinary—is heartwarmingly supportive. While the dialogue is sometimes stilted, Gigi’s
narration, which is peppered with quips about her sexuality and her irritable bowel syndrome, is appealingly wry. Most characters read white; there’s diversity of ethnicity and sexuality among the cast.
A snarky, queer, character-driven twist on cozy mysteries. (Mystery. 13-17)
Wolverton, Nicole M. | CamCat
Books (304 pp.) | $19.99
July 2, 2024 | 9780744309584
The town of Devil’s Elbow, Pennsylvania, has its very own Loch Ness monster type of creature called Old Lucy. The legend of Old Lucy and the ongoing sightings are what have kept tourists visiting and the town thriving while neighboring towns have fallen onto hard times. Lemon’s family has been secretly responsible for keeping the legend alive by impersonating Old Lucy for generations, and now it’s her turn to take over the family business. Like any high school senior, Lemon has her plans, and sticking around to keep being a fake lake monster is not one of them. But everything Lemon thought she knew about monsters changes when Devil’s Elbow experiences a freak earthquake. The following day, Lemon and her dogs have a terrifying encounter with a real-life monster in the lake. Unfortunately, unlike Old Lucy, this is no cute purple serpent. This behemoth is hungry and ready to eat its way through the population of Devil’s Elbow. The first-person narration alternates between Lemon, who’s coded white, and Troy Ramirez, her best friend and love interest, who’s cued Latine. Though the setup is original and intriguing, the book doesn’t hit its mark: The author juggles too much in too short a space. Some of the plot twists and secrets are easily identifiable, while others come
completely out of left field. None of the characters feel fully complete, and the sense of urgency in the story arrives too late.
An interesting premise that fails to deliver. (Horror. 13-18)
Zentner, Jeff & Brittany Cavallaro
Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins (400 pp.)
$19.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9780063324534
Two teens meet at an arts camp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and form a lasting bond. Florence, a dancer with nystagmus, an eye condition that affects her depth perception, is working through her grief that she may not be able to continue dancing when she meets Jude, a photographer. The closing tradition at Harbor Arts Camp is called Sunrise Night, an evening in which the teens are permitted to leave the camp to hang out in the surrounding town—all night if they wish (with check-ins). Jude is honest right away about having a girlfriend, but as the two move from one eccentric small-town venue to another, they realize they’re undeniably attracted to one another. They vow to meet up again at Harbor Arts the following summer but in the meantime to return home to Wisconsin (Florence) and Tennessee (Jude) and avoid all communication: “Total silence for a year.” In alternating entries comprising both verse and short prose passages from each of their perspectives, Florence and Jude’s story is told as a sort of comedy of errors taking place on three Sunrise Nights over three successive years. This protracted, slow-burn romance works thanks to their frenetic, philosophical, wildly funny, and poignant voices, which will hook readers from the start, even if the verse sections may strike some as a little too earnest at times. Florence and Jude are cued white. A smart, swoony, and witty romance. (Romance. 13-18)
MANY OF US remember our frustrated parents instructing us to “turn off that idiot box and read a book!” as we, glassy-eyed, took in some doltish episode of Gilligan’s Island for the umpteenth time. But TV has evolved into a prestige medium—Lee Sung Jin’s Netflix series Beef finds new levels of absurdist existential despair and razor-sharp social satire that would make Joan Didion green with envy. So, the line between page and screen has blurred; in Indieland, some recent titles have taken the erstwhile Vast Wasteland as their subject, exploiting the tropes and ubiquity of that most populist of mediums to illuminate both the cultural moment and the human condition. The results aren’t always pretty, but, as with the latest reality-show provocation, we can’t look away.
In Pip Paisley’s Always Carry Your Scythe (2024), Trixie, whose mother is the Grim Reaper herself, must intervene when her best friend, Zuzi, appears on the game show To the Wheel , which sends recently deceased contes tants to their Heavenly reward…or to eternal
damnation (without so much as a year’s supply of Turtle Wax). When Zuzi loses the game, Trixie must brave the horrors of Hell to save her—and, worse still, ask Mom for help. Our reviewer observes, “The mixture of surreal comedy, mythology, and memorable characters makes for a winning combination that will surely have fans eagerly awaiting a sequel.” In the meantime, there are always reruns.
You’ve Been Cancelled (2023), a graphic novel written by Curt Pires and illustrated by Kevin Castaniero, gets even nastier. In the near future, a game show called Cancelled allows viewers to choose people to be hunted and killed for their amusement (game shows really seem to bring out the sadism in novelists). When a hacker orchestrates the
selection of Roland, one of the show’s heavily armed assassins, for cancellation, the hunter becomes the prey. Per our review, “Castaniero’s stylized, full-color illustrations showcase Roland in battle mode as he floors opponents with fists, cookware, and what looks suspiciously like a lightsaber.”
The violence in TeleShop USA is emotional; Stash Cairo’s 2023 novel details behind-the-scenes skullduggery at a home shopping cable network that harbors a colorful cast of desperate hucksters, cold-eyed corporate bean counters, and damaged souls eager for redemption. Our review raves, “In addition to its sudsy melodramatic office dynamics, Cairo’s book entertainingly taps into the beginnings of a market that would explode in popularity and profitability on multiple media platforms in the ensuing decades.” Act
fast—supplies are limited and operators are standing by. And for readers more interested in real life, television director Don Mischer’s 2023 memoir, :10 Seconds to Air (co-written with Sara Lukinson), recounts his six decades in the industry, from helping to develop programming for Saudi Arabia in the 1960s to directing President Obama’s Inaugural Concert in 2009. Chockfull of engaging anecdotes (including Mischer’s interactions with celebrities like Michael Jackson and Muhammad Ali), the book also makes space for philosophical ruminations on the nature of the medium and its role in society. Our review praises the memoir’s “atmosphere of candor and intimacy”: no lightsabers or death squads, but much food for thought.
Arthur Smith is an Indie editor.
ARTHUR SMITH
Exuberant music infused jolts of sex, drugs, and rebellion into civilization, according to this intricate history of rock music’s Golden Age.
Music writer Cosby surveys rock’s high-water era of the late 1950s through the 1970s, when it reigned as the world’s dominant genre of popular music and gained a new artistic depth and prestige. His interpretive narrative moves from Elvis Presley’s fusion of Black bluesman, white hillbilly, and matinee idol to Bob Dylan’s amalgamation of visionary folk prophecy and electric rock to Motown, the Grateful Dead and the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene, the Velvet Underground’s proto-punk evocations of narcotic squalor, and the 1970s reign of heavy-metal deities
Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Ted Nugent. Presiding over the book are the Beatles, whose singular songwriting genius, capacious humanism, and avid embodiment of trends—from hand-holding to pot-smoking, beards, psychedelia, and meditation—made them all things to all men and all shrieking girls. Cosby gives comparable weight to the Rolling Stones; in his telling, they’re the dark, bad-boy yin to the Beatles’ bright yang, and the originators of the rock-star ethos of heedless, entitled debauchery. (“We are not worried about petty morals,” Cosby quotes Stones guitarist Keith Richards sniffing at his 1967 marijuana possession trial.) Cosby entwines his sketches of rock’s evolution and the musicians who crafted it
By Brian Ray Brewer
Cosby, James A. | McFarland | 296 pp. $35.96 paper | Feb. 7, 2024 | 9781476693699
with smart commentary on contemporary social upheavals and cultural artifacts, from the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War to the sitcom The Brady Bunch (the bland, wholesome antithesis of rock); he argues that, by undermining parental, religious, and sexual restraints, and celebrating Dionysian emotional freedom and individual authenticity, rock became
an essential lens through which we understand “the ongoing arc of Western civilization.” Cosby’s vivid, perceptive prose captures the visceral impact of rock music while unearthing its roots in intense experiences and novel ways of life. The result is a compelling look at why, how, and where rock ’n’ roll has moved us.
A rich, insightful account of how rock music catalyzed a new world.
By K.I.S.Excerpts From an Unknown Guidebook:
Bastian, Josef | Illus. by Patrick McEvoy Scribe Publishing (248 pp.) | $11.99 paper | Dec. 7, 2021 | 9781940368054 | Series: Excerpts From an Unknown Guidebook, 1
In Bastian’s middle-grade fantasy novel and series launch, a teen’s extraordinary new undertaking entails warding off shadowy creatures. Eighth grader Aaron Anderson looks forward to his daily after-school visits with his beloved grandfather. One day, Pap inexplicably vanishes, a cryptic note the only clue he’s left behind. A worried Aaron tells his parents and later returns to his grandfather’s empty home with his best friend, Jake Perez. After deciphering the clue, the boys fall through a portal into another dimension that’s rife with menacing and creepy “Shadow People.” Fortunately, they reunite with Pap and make it back home with a new friend—redheaded teen Wendy Perrault. Perhaps the greatest surprise, however, is the revelation that Pap relays stories to keep the Shadow People at bay, as he is a rare “Folkteller.” Evidently, Aaron is a Folkteller, too, and he becomes Pap’s apprentice. The Shadow People vowed long ago to snatch the ancient Folkteller’s Guidebook and may find Aaron an easier target than their more seasoned enemies. Bastian adroitly introduces an intriguing cast—Aaron is a likable protagonist who, though he doesn’t feel he’s hero material, refuses to give up. And there’s an engaging romance between Wendy and one of the boys, which is complicated by the fact that she, understandably, wishes to return to her other-dimensional home as soon as she can. This smart middlegrade narrative champions storytelling, referring to real-life authors and their works (“It’s a book of poetry—by T. S. Eliot. I’ve been reading and re-reading this one poem for hours. It’s called The Hollow Men , and its stanzas were
echoing in my head right up until I heard all of you bluster through my front door”). Much of this opening installment is about discovery; readers learn plenty of details about the Shadow People, from their intermittent attacks to their gloomy realm. A few genuine surprises among the characters set the stage for upcoming sequels. McEvoy’s remarkable blackand-white illustrations showcase bold light/dark contrasts (which, in a story with so many shadows, is fitting), and numerous full-page spectacles throughout the book are worthy of lingering over.
This diverting dark fantasy will surely leave readers craving further installments.
Benner, Janet | Newman Springs (202 pp.) | $18.95 paper May 30, 2023 | 9798887636269
Benner presents a compilation of essays, written in response to queries sent to neighbors and friends, about the experience of aging.
The compiler of these pieces, then an 86-year-old “Older,” had been networking with a group of elderly members of her community. Their interactions became a source of support where those who were taking care of ailing loved ones or experiencing difficulties with their own infirmities could exchange thoughts, emotions, and ideas for problem-solving. As Benner listened to and shared with her contemporaries, she was inspired to create a book that would convey what it’s like to move into the Older years. The project is intended to offer empathetic encouragement to Olders and to educate the younger set about what lies ahead, offering tips on how they can provide support for their aging parents (hint: Call Mom and Dad frequently, just to
chat). With the exception of Benner herself, the contributors are anonymous, identified only by their birth dates, which, the author acerbically observes, is the way they’re identified every time they enter a doctor’s office. Each of the 29 essays is written in the respondent’s own voice; their ages range from 68 to 99. They are a diverse lot, from a variety of professional backgrounds. From their replies, the majority appear to be financially stable, and only one respondent is in assisted living. Freedom from financial stress doubtlessly contributes to the general tone of optimism, although these essays do reveal certain melancholy commonalities, the most prevalent being loneliness and feelings of isolation. For the most part, however, the writings reflect a group of happy people who are grateful to be alive, active, and in reasonably good health, despite the increasing aches, pains, and occasional bouts with serious illnesses. The key piece of advice to be derived from these pages is to maintain flexibility; as one 76-year-old woman writes, “Never Expect Life to be a Plan A, Prepare for Plan B or C.” Thought-provoking essays on aging with a bracing “keep kicking” attitude.
Bondareva, Elena | Self (407 pp.) | $22.99 paper | Nov. 29, 2023 | 9798865487982
Bondareva, the founder and CEO of consultancy Vivit Worldwide, explores the many factors involved in leading organizations through transformative change. This “trail guide for change-makers” focuses on fostering transformative change by increasing effectiveness, rather than pursuing incremental change by improving efficiency: “Incremental change fine-tunes the
system while transformation recasts it, fundamentally changing the rules, structures, systems, skills, and processes.” She views this sort of change-making as a vocation that has lacked the definition and structure of an established professional discipline, and this book is intended to provide that framework, arguing for a process of “change design” that comes before and goes beyond the better-known work of change management. Using concrete examples from her personal experience, she breaks the process into six key stages: “Finding Your Purpose,” “Identifying the Idea,” “Vetting the Idea,” “Creating Change” (the most substantial section), “Getting Yourself Ready,” and “Exit.” Bondareva covers various modes of change-making (advocacy, supporting others, intrapreneurship, and entrepreneurship), 10 “megatrends” that offer opportunities for meaningful change (“In a world seemingly run by technology, we are hungry for solutions that honor our humanity and deliver more than a modicum of compassion,” she notes at one point), risk assessment, getting funding and support, implementation, and more. The author presents familiar concepts in fresh ways; for example, she defines risk assessment as confidence versus trepidation, and transformation as a current state versus a future state. She also provides useful exercises, strategies, and tips for everything from preparing financials and presentations to gauging impact and managing stress relief. In addition, Bondareva strongly emphasizes the importance of seeing other people’s points of view. Despite some repetition, the author’s style is clear and direct, using simple analogies, examples, and occasional charts and diagrams to explain potentially
difficult concepts. Her passion for her subject is obvious as she frankly presents the challenges of trying to change the status quo while also encouraging readers to overcome such obstacles. The final section (“What Now?”) sums up the book’s main ideas and compiles several exercises into a “Change-Maker’s Checklist.”
A comprehensive, rigorous, and friendly guide to transforming organizations.
Brewer, Brian Ray | Xlibris US (214 pp.) | $20.99 paper Aug. 27, 2023 | 9798369405901
In Brewer’s luminous novel, a vacationing couple in Mexico encounters much more than they expected. Americans Bob and Kathy take a vacation in Mexico, seeing the sights and cavorting in the clear waters. Bob is an underwriter at Midland Mutual and Casualty Insurance Corporation (where Kathy is a secretary), and they use their time in Mexico as a refuge from the ugliness of Bob’s pending divorce from his wife, Carol. But that outside world interferes anyway when Bob learns that his divorce is going to gut him financially (“It’s the best deal you can possibly get,” he’s told). There’s low-key tension between Bob and Kathy—he constantly urges her to undertake tourist excursions as she tries to hold him back from his adventurous impulses—and as these conflicts grow more pronounced, Bob’s
inner world begins to unravel as he starts to feel both desperately hopeless and strangely liberated. The quality of his thoughts changes, going from quotidian to cosmic: “Isn’t everyone a victim in the end, a sacrifice to sate the awful power that suffocates and drowns?” he wonders. “Who could escape it?” With judicious restraint, the author slowly and carefully conveys this personal change in Bob as the parti-colored oblivious world continues all around him. Key to his transformation is a 9-year-old boy named Tomcruise Chel Ochoa (his first name is the result of his mother, Dolores, christening him after the actor; his middle name is a reference to the Chel people, who are descendants of the Diving God, a figure from ancient Mayan mythology). Tomcruise wants Bob to teach him how to dive, and by steady measures, limned with deep sensitivity by Brewer, the boy draws Bob into his world and opens him to the possibility of a new life, “the chance to be better than he was and, for once, the chance to be of worth to someone—and to himself.” This story of personal reinvention is well crafted and often beautifully written, in the vein of Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene.
A moving and perceptive story about a man losing everything and finding a new life in Mexico.
Chau, Ann | Illus. by QBN Studios (26 pp.) | $12.99 paper Aug. 24, 2023 | 9798987652411
A little boy chats with his grandfather about the fruits he grows in his garden in Chau’s picture book. Cal is excited to take readers into his grandfather’s garden. His Ông ngoại (maternal grandfather) learned to grow fruit when he worked on a farm in Vietnam; now, he grows his own fruit. The story unfolds as Cal and his Ông
ngoại chat about each fruit Cal picks up, including a soursop, durian, passion fruit, banana, longan, and dragon fruit. Each fruit is identified in English, followed by the Vietnamese word. When Cal and his grandfather finish picking, they have far too much to eat. Though Cal doesn’t like sharing, his grandfather reminds him that “sharing is one way to show people we care.” Because the book has little in the way of description or insight into the characters’ thoughts, the story remains on the surface level: Cal and his grandfather get fruit, then decide to share it. But it’s easy enough to read between the lines—Cal and his grandfather connect through food, and discussing food is one way Ông ngoại passes culture and tradition down to his grandson. The soft-edged digital illustrations by QBN Studios give Cal a doll-like shape, while his grandfather is more realistically rendered. Most of the fruits are shown both on the vine and cut open to help readers identify potentially unfamiliar produce. A warmly presented showcase of Vietnamese fruit vocabulary.
Cromwell, Lawrence | Newman Springs (400 pp.) | $14.38 paper
March 15, 2023 | 9798887633176
An abused man exacts revenge on his former high school tormentors in Cromwell’s techno-thriller.
Eight years after graduating from high school, Alfred, a man on the autism spectrum, still suffers after being relentlessly bullied by a group of cruel schoolmates. As an adult, he’s now bent on revenge, and he puts his technological prowess to work in a diabolical scheme to settle the score. Alfred virtually assembles six of the most savage, intimidating, and physically abusive schoolyard bullies from his teenaged years who “put me through terror on a daily basis,” including Steve; Steve’s buddies, Bill, Nate, and Juan;
Steve’s girlfriend, Alexa; and, worst of all, the pretty, spiteful, double-crossing seductress, Jessica. After stalking them with a “brain wave pattern signal collection device” to scan their minds, Alfred forcibly controls their conscious thoughts and their perceptions. Before embarking on a “path to forgiveness for all the wrongs perpetrated against me and to develop my empathy,” Alfred revels in his role as a vengeful sadist, creating a hellish landscape in which his former tormentors suffer the agonizing (though illusory) pain of needle sticks, starvation, dental infections, suffocation, and dark re-creations of their most uncomfortable childhood memories. Alfred then creates a virtual boardroom scenario in which each classmate faces the others for a “group discussion” to systematically process their misconduct. When an unexpected nemesis surfaces to derail the entire project, Alfred must reconsider his objective. Cromwell does an effective job of combining SF elements and emotional trauma in a complex and harrowing tale of revenge somewhat akin to the Saw horror movie series. The author’s clever integration into the narrative of insights into how people with autism and Asperger’s syndrome can be victimized, disenfranchised, and rejected by society because of their behavioral anomalies adds an additional layer of interest. This suspenseful story will appeal to fans of thoughtful psychological thrillers. A creatively inspired tale of revenge and redemption from a writer with panache and potential.
deBruney, Quillen | Self (341 pp.)
$21.99 | $14.99 paper | Jan. 8, 2024
9798989556427 | 9798989556403 paper
old and the youngest daughter of intellectual Dr. Ansel Eder. She quietly sits in the corner of her father’s meetings with some of the greatest thinkers in Vienna, exercising her own curiosity and forming her own opinions. Her father decides against formally debuting her into society, as he’s nervous about the city’s political atmosphere; instead, he sends her to live with her elder sister, Therese, and her in-laws, the Kassners, at their home outside Linz. Ilse finds the Kassners to be hostile but their close family friend, Junius von Hess, to be handsome and beguiling. Soon, she falls in love with him, even as tensions are increasing across Europe. In a novel divided into four parts, spanning more than two decades, DeBruney’s lyrical and briskly paced writing drawing readers into Ilse’s world. At first, experiencing a romance with Junius seems to be Ilse’s main purpose in life. DeBruney’s prose description of the young people’s feelings is particularly enchanting: “Rare is the mind that can resist the chemical pull of pleasures so foreign, sensations so new.” Yet, as the novel progresses, the author steps away from pure romance, extending Ilse’s journey into one of the mind and having her seek comfort in her own personhood. Both aspects of the story make it compelling, and strong research and attention to detail enhance it further; several footnotes expand on specifics, such as German language usage, literary references, and historical events. Although the time-jumps between the four parts (set in 1914, 1922, 1934, and 1936) can be jarring, the story remains satisfying as it plays with readers’ knowledge of the First and Second World Wars.
In deBruney’s novel, a young woman seeks independence in the rapidly changing world of early-20thcentury Austria. In 1914, Ilse Eder is 17 years
A pleasing historical coming-of-age tale set in a Europe in flux.
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Kirkus Star
Denniston, Monica Voicu | Illus. by Elia Velasquez Murray | Penny Wishes Press (40 pp.) | $19.79 | $12.99 paper | Oct. 25, 2023 9798988426417 | 9798988426400 paper
Denniston’s debut picture book follows a patriotic rat looking for ways to help out around a U.S. military base.
“Maggie P. Worthington was no ordinary rat. Maggie was a patriotic rat. A salute-the-flag rat. A military rat.” So begins the tale of an earnest American rat who proves too small to enlist, too ratty to work in the kitchen, and too small to write letters to soldiers on duty. But she’s just perfect for befriending Grace (who has light-colored skin and brown hair), the lonely daughter of an active serviceman. Denniston delivers a sweet story with just the right amount of repetition (“I’m no ordinary rat”) and variation (“I’m a ready-for-duty / serve-my-country / shake-and-bake / shoulder-to-cry-on rat”) to foreshadow and then make poignant the meeting of “military rat” and “military brat.” Murray deploys playful watercolor illustrations to capture Maggie’s determined and forlorn expressions, as well as her plucky, pint-sized positioning in the world (the image of Maggie marching alongside the soldiers’ boots is particularly striking). Through the use of beige backgrounds, blank spaces, and blue tones, Murray conveys the sparseness of military life and a sense both of loneliness and futility. There’s also color, signaling hope, in Maggie’s ears, feet, and tail, as well as in Grace’s pants and the flag. Young
readers will take Maggie to heart and march proudly alongside her. A beautiful, bighearted adventure, offering delight where it’s needed most.
Diaz, Luis | Illus. by Sara Kuba
Fly the World Publishing (26 pp.)
$24.99 | March 25, 2024 | 9781960603036
Diaz’s picture book celebrates visiting family members who live far away. Young New Yorker Noah is excited to leave for a Christmas vacation in Puerto Rico, where family members live. Noah’s friend, Tito the coqui (a small frog), is coming, too. Tito stowed away in Noah’s luggage when he came from Puerto Rico the year before, and he’s excited to go home. Noah isn’t entirely fluent in Spanish, but he’s excited to use what he knows during his trip. After arriving, the family visits El Morro in Old San Juan and gets snow cone–like piraguas. At the beach, Noah has trouble ordering snacks in Spanish, and other kids tease him for not being a “real” Puerto Rican. Later, Abuela helpfully explains that where a person lives doesn’t negate their culture, and Noah finally feels at home with his Boricua family. Readers will find this to be a relatable story about family and fitting in. Kuba’s full-color cartoon illustrations are realistic and skillfully done. The backgrounds are full of detail, and the characters are diverse in many ways; the images include small details such as facial jewelry, as well as varied skin tones and body shapes. Tito has his own adventure in the background of the story, which readers can also follow. A fair amount of clear Spanish vocabulary is included.
A well-illustrated and accessible travel tale.
D’Stair, Sarah | Late Marriage Press (258 pp.) | $14.00 paper Jan. 1, 2022 | 9781088017807
In D’Stair’s novel, a listless mother finds an object of obsession while on a guided tour of Italy. Middle-aged Helen Bonaparte is quietly starving, but she can’t articulate what will sate her. She arrives in Venice while on a weeklong guided tour of Italy’s great cities and artistic history under no romantic illusions about where she is or who she’s with—she finds Venice “grey” and “unfortunate,” while her fellow Americans “inspire loathing.” Providing welcome distraction amid her vapid company and the ostentatious design of the city is Marieke, the tour guide, who’s young and beautiful and Dutch. Helen’s fascination is immediate: “My body is pierced with Marieke.” From the first dinner they share in Venice, Helen’s hyper-fixation intensifies, and her engagement with her fellow travelers and the cities they traverse (not to mention her relationship with her partner, Marcel, and their two children) begins to pale in the face of this new erotic fixation. She has enough self-awareness to shield her darker compulsions—Helen is careful not to look at or speak with Marieke for too long, and she befriends a fellow tour mate, Richard, to obscure her singular focus and desire. But as the group visits more cities, monuments, and museums (nearly every chapter denotes a new city and day), she becomes emboldened (inching toward frantic) as she reads into every touch and gloats over the symbolism in gestures as simple as sipping from a coffee cup. Is this erotic spell mutual, or is Helen losing herself to fantasy? Before Helen departed for Italy, Marcel had recommended she take the
novel
Those Who Walk Away by Patricia Highsmith (author of queer, psychological novels such as The Talented Mr. Ripley and The Price of Salt) for company. Marcel’s reasoning is that the novel’s story takes place in the same towns; this can be read as a meta “wink” at D’Stair drawing inspiration from Highsmith’s interrogations of identity and existential crises amid picturesque backdrops. The novel Helen brings along involves a murder, and readers will find echoes of Ripley ’s title character’s obsession with a beautiful young man and the escapist potential of his lifestyle in how Helen pines for Marieke and in the story’s mounting potential for violence. Helen notes again and again how little she cares for any of her tour mates, not even bothering to learn their names (aside from Richard’s). Her deepest conversations and moments of introspection that aren’t filtered through the lens of Marieke come from experiencing the art around her. The Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, for example, offers a reprieve from her general cynicism, allowing her to ruminate and perhaps even believe in the power of art’s influence, if only briefly: “What does it matter whether it is truly real or some burgeoning capitalist’s abomination. Only the romance matters now, the symbol, the truth not in the material but in the mind of the observer.” And this elusive romance, for better or worse, eventually drives Helen toward her conclusion. A lurid exploration of passion, agency, and the role of art in self-actualization.
Gammage, Marquita M. | Universal Write Publications (216 pp.) Jan. 1, 2024 | 9781942774075
A powerful, well-researched indictment of racist media in the United States.MEDIA RACISM
A scholar explores the role of the media in perpetuating systemic racism in this nonfiction book.
“Overly employed culturally
racist stereotypes of Blackness,” Gammage writes in the book’s introduction, erroneously place “the burden of health and life disparities” on Black women. Reality television, she argues, with ample examples at her disposal, too often presents Black women as violent and threatening and feeds into narratives popular among white audiences that Black women “are chronically unhealthy and in need of social control.” This racist imagery, she convincingly notes, draws on a long history of the media’s racism, the origins of which can be traced back 500 years to the enslavement of Africans in the Americas. Whether it’s newspapers and print advertisements of the colonial era or the television and social media of today, “racially abusive media” has long shaped and reflected institutionalized systems of racial subjugation. As evidenced by the nearly 20-page bibliography, not only does Gammage have a firm command of the relevant scholarly literature on media studies—the topic of her first book, Representations of Black Women in the Media: The Damnation of Black Womanhood (2015)—but also on the history of Black health care. From enslavers who believed Black women faked illness to avoid work to television images of “crack mamas,” racist stereotypes of Black women in the media have played a key role in denying equitable access to medical care. While much of the book surveys the sordid arena of racist imagery, the final chapter examines the ways Black women in contemporary society have co-opted social media as a tool for empowerment “that celebrates Black pride, beauty, resistance, and resilience.” A professor and chair of Africana studies at California State University Northridge, Gammage
expertly blends her erudite analysis with an engaging writing style that avoids academic jargon. This emphasis on accessibility is complemented by an ample assortment of tables, graphs, charts, and other visual aids that provide an abundance of data that supports her arguments regarding racism in the media and health disparities among Black women. A powerful, well-researched indictment of racist media in the United States.
Glass, N. Joseph | Self (234 pp.)
$10.94 paper | Nov. 1, 2023 | 9798868929564
In Glass’ SF novel, a troubled “time jumper” learns that his actions have unforeseen consequences. After his beloved, Ellie Hollister, is shot and killed during a mugging, Marcus Hollister dedicates his life to finding a way to rewrite history. About two decades later, he creates a time chamber capable of revisiting pivotal moments in the past. Marcus soon learns that altering events in the chamber has no effect on the actual timestream, which leaves him grieving Ellie’s apparently irreversible loss. Nevertheless, the invention’s public release brings him fame and fortune, as well as a heavy conscience when he discovers that others are using the technology in horrifying ways that do have real-world consequences. Marcus spends years perfecting his “overlaps,” extending his stays and
living temporary lives with Ellie in the chamber. After living as a recluse for 22 years, Marcus entrusts his account to a young, unknown reporter, Jessica Mathews, who has a story of her own that will change Marcus’ life forever. The novel’s premise has elements that are reminiscent of the TV shows Westworld and Upload , and the film Total Recall . While the mechanics of time jumping may raise a few questions, such as how a character finds clothes after appearing nude in the middle of a public park, the heart of the story lies in its exploration of love, loss, and the complexities of human emotion. The novel starts off a bit overdramatically, with much ado about Ellie’s blood loss (“The thick liquid dripped crimson with flashes as embers of a dwindling fire glinting in the misty rainfall under the dim streetlight”), but the tone quickly evens out as Marcus’ interview begins. Ultimately, the narrative delivers an engaging and poignant read.
A compelling tale that ably blends speculative elements with a heartfelt exploration of grief.
Goldenshteyn, Pinkhes-Dov | Trans. by Michoel Rotenfeld | Academic Studies Press (418 pp.) | $25.00 paper Sept. 26, 2023 | 9798887193557
Rotenfeld offers an English translation, with commentary, of a Hasidic memoir from the early 20th century. Pinkhes-Dov Goldenshteyn (1848-1930) is not a household name, even within the most devout Jewish circles. Yet his unedited memoir of more than 500 pages offers a rare glimpse into the history of the Jewish diaspora in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The
work was originally written in Yiddish. Rotenfeld offers readers more than just an English translation in this volume, also providing an abundance of historical context and commentary on the life and times of Goldenshteyn. The memoir, writes the translator in an impressively thorough introduction, contains a “rare description of Jewish life” from a traditionalist, Hasidic perspective in an era of Jewish autobiographies dominated, per Rotenfeld, by an elitist “secularization narrative.” The first part of an anticipated two-volume translation of Goldenshteyn’s memoir, this book covers his Ukrainian upbringing in a time of Russian tsarist control and his early, deeply impoverished life as a young married man starting his family. Orphaned as a boy, Goldenshteyn later surveyed the plights of poverty and antisemitism that confronted Jews not only in the Crimea but throughout his travels in Romania, Belarus, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In his memoir, Goldenshteyn, a pious Jew throughout his life, takes a detailed look at the faith from the perspective of a highly trained shochet who performs the ritual slaughtering required of Kosher meat. Volume 2 covers his move in 1879 to the Crimea and his eventual 1913 relocation to British Mandatory Palestine, where he died in 1930.
While Goldenshteyn acknowledged his reverence for the sacredness of the Hebrew language, his decision to write the memoir in Yiddish also allowed him, per Rotenfeld, to “best express the nuances of his emotions and experiences,” from observations about government and society to intimate portraits of his family life. As the director of the Touro University Library’s Project Zikaron (a collection of Jewish archival historical material collected from across the globe), Rotenfeld is especially adept at both offering an accurate translation of Goldenshteyn’s memoir and providing context, giving readers a well-researched 75-page introduction to the manuscript that describes the shochet’s life in the history of antisemitic Ukraine under tsarist domination. This fascinating, but occasionally arcane, memoir, which
requires a solid understanding of both Hasidic Judaism as well as European history, is accompanied by Rotenfeld’s editorial footnotes, which appear on nearly every page to provide clarifications, commentary, and other insights. This presentation, combined with the inclusion of maps, photographs, drawings, and other images, will make the book relatively accessible to scholars and general readers alike. The book’s abundant ancillary materials include a foreword by Dr. Rabbi Israel Singer (former secretary general and chair of the World Jewish Congress), a discussion of Rotenfeld’s translation methodology, and an impressive bibliography. Most important is the book’s emphasis on the lives and beliefs of common Jews within a genre that typically highlights a more secular, middle-class, and elite perspective. An impressively researched and surprisingly accessible portrait of Jewish life in the mid-19th century.
Gudger, Anne | Jaded Ibis Press (278 pp.) | $17.09 paper Sept. 9, 2023 | 9781938841217
Gudger reflects on the devastating loss of her husband and her tumultuous journey toward healing in this memoir. The author was six months
pregnant when her husband, Kent, died in a tragic accident. Descending into a frenzy of grief, she was forced to find a way forward to be there for her unborn son, Jake. Chapters alternate between “Before” (in which Gudger reminisces about her romance and marriage to Kent) and “After” (in which she struggles to cope with unexpected single motherhood). Her healing process included attending a grief support group, whose members took turns telling their “Dead Husband Stories,” and meeting Scot, a man whom Gudger couldn’t stop comparing to Kent—but who eventually became her second
husband and the father of her daughter, Maria. The author also makes space to reflect on her troubled relationships with her own parents, whom she refers to at one point as “Vodka Dad and Depressed Mom.” The memoir ends on a note of grateful optimism as Gudger considers her blended family—one in which both Kent’s and Scot’s extended families help form a beloved “family soup.” The author continuously punctuates her heartbreaking story with a poetic beauty that aims to engulf readers in pure emotion, such as her description of Jake’s momentous birth: “A tiny seed, a spore of goodness, micro as an orchid seed—the smallest seed in the flower world—burrowed into my heart muscle, carved a pocket where atria and ventricles meet. This fifth chamber tendrilled roots, rooted a pinprick of hope in my heart that I thought was broken.” Gudger’s conflicting emotions—love and grief, anger and sadness, hope and despair—will prove highly familiar to anyone who has ever lost a loved one, while the lyrical prose expertly and candidly speaks to the grief of loss and the hope that comes after. An emotionally riveting memoir, raw and inspiring.
Hassel, Jennifer E. | Koehler Books (196 pp.) | $25.95 | $17.95 paper March 26, 2024 | 9798888242674 9798888242650 paper
Hassel recollects her unique journey to honor her husband’s life after his untimely death in this memoir. In his mid-40s, the author’s husband, Dr. Mark Hassel, a successful and beloved dermatologist in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was diagnosed with incurable stomach cancer. He fought the disease for 19 months before dying at age 47. Hassel was left to finish raising the couple’s three children on her own.
She was rudderless, engulfed in paralyzing grief. Mark was the adventurous one in their relationship: “My husband was someone who exemplified the statement, ‘Live fully!’ He would embrace every opportunity to explore, travel, taste exotic foods, or try unfamiliar things.” Searching for a way to move forward and to honor Mark’s exuberance for life, a “way to demonstrate…not merely that I missed Mark but that knowing him inspired me to become a better person,” Hassel thought of the Yamaha Vino scooter the couple had purchased shortly after receiving Mark’s diagnosis. She enrolled in a motorcycle safety course, mastered the course with a perfect score, and received her license. That day, she determined her mission would be to find one challenge each year that would push her out of her comfort zone. Challenge by challenge, the author vividly and emotionally (and with a bit of humor) details her wide assortment of experiences, including a body-toning contest in Las Vegas, a 100-mile bicycle event around Lake Tahoe, and volunteering to aid the homeless. Then, she made a major life-changing pivot: Although she was already a licensed attorney, Hassel enrolled in nursing school, making use of the skills she’d developed as Mark’s primary caregiver. As the author herself admits, her choices, enabled by the privilege of economic security, will not likely be feasible for most readers. Still, she so viscerally portrays the emotional, physical, and psychological struggles she confronted in each endeavor that her memoir powerfully conveys the essence of her message: “Finding meaningful ways to remember a loved one and honor that person’s legacy could help anyone move forward and find a new purpose.”
A poignant, forthright, and encouraging shout-out to fellow travelers in grief.
Hazel, Shannon | TeacherEDU (140 pp.) | $14.95 paper March 24, 2024 | 9781738259304
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Veteran educator Hazel offers a practical and incisive guide for new teachers. The author has spent 25 years in education and has supported many instructors in their first few years as the founder of teacherEDU, a “learning community for new teachers.” She writes that she noticed “a significant gap that exists between our teacher training programs and the realities of being a teacher in our current education systems. This book aims to fill that gap.” Thoughtfully organized into 10 lessons, the book mixes useful strategies— including tips on activities to help one develop relationships with students during the first two weeks—with essential advice in sections such as “Find Your People” (stressing the importance of having teacher friends and collaboration partners) and “Parents Are Essential to Student Success.” Throughout the book are “Yeah, But...” sections that address common questions and concerns, including reservations about the applicability of advice to individual circumstances. Hazel skillfully answers each query and assures readers on how to proceed with lesson-ending “Action Steps.” The author also includes email templates and parent-communication checklists for sometimes-difficult beginning-of-the-year contacts and a guide for navigating difficult conversations with parents. Later lessons effectively extend into the broader aspects of a teacher’s life (“Lesson 6: Yes, It Is Nice To Have the Summers Off”). Additionally, the author tackles the challenges of public perception, political maneuvering at the state and school-board levels, and negative stereotypes about teachers. Overall, by blending practical advice with
empathetic guidance, Hazel ably prepares new educators for the technical aspects of their roles and braces them for the emotional and social challenges they’ll likely face. There’s an array of quick-reference graphics and charts, as well, including a helpful one that interprets common student behaviors and notes what they may be attempting to convey by silence, for example, or by reluctance to participate in activities.
An essential manual for educators that presents a clear road map to professional resilience.
Hebner, Mark T. | Illus. by Lala Ragimov | Ballast Books (401 pp.) $21.32 | Dec. 19, 2023 | 9781955026932
Investors should stop trying to beat the market and switch to passive index funds, according to Hebner’s incisive primer.
The author, CEO of Index Fund Advisors, Inc., and founder of the ifa.com investment website, takes aim at so-called active investors who believe that, by adroitly buying and selling stocks, or parking their money with a mutual fund that’s actively managed by a stock-picking guru, they can get higher-than-market returns. Hebner argues that actively managed funds deliver worse-than-market returns, especially after skimming off high fees; he asserts that individual investors cannot reliably decide which stocks will perform well in the future or predict when the market will turn up or down, and that the top fund managers over any given period are very likely to deliver lousy returns over the next period. The solution, he concludes, is to invest in passive index funds of the kind that IFA recommends, which try to mirror the market by using simple, transparent rules to decide when to buy or sell a security. The author backs his arguments with a
An even-handed and highly readable rumination on the nature of morality.
mountain of research by Nobel Prize–winning economists and illustrates his points with reams of colorful tables and charts that lay out in gory, unarguable detail just how pointless the project of stock-picking is (one graph shows that newly fired fund managers, on average, get better returns at their next jobs than do the managers hired to replace them). Hebner makes complex issues of probability and risk lucid and intuitive, conveying his analysis in prose that’s street-smart (he likens active investors to gamblers addicted to trading and in need of a 12-step regimen) and deliciously tart: “Although a few ma nagers will occasionally appear to have reliably delivered [above-benchmark returns]…the number of such managers is no higher than what we would have if all of them were monkeys throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal stock listings.” Color reproductions of Ragimov’s richly textured, finance-themed oil paintings make this the artiest of money books as well.
A no-nonsense guide to disciplined investing, full of deep insights framed in compelling ways.
Johnson, Wayne Gustave | Wipf and Stock (200 pp.) | $34.32 | $14.95 paper | Feb. 4, 2022 9781666721324 | 9781666730173 paper
Johnson articulates a theory on the function of morality in this philosophical work.
Per the author, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of
Wisconsin-Parkside, the problem with morality comes from the difficulty in squaring our ideal of living a “good” life (a moral life) with our drive to live “the good life” (a happy and fulfilling life). “Much of human history,” writes Johnson, “can be seen as an attempt to harmonize these two quests.” Though many moral systems are based in religion, the concept of morality is not inherently theological. Such systems exist, he argues, to help us negotiate between competing wants, needs, and desires (WNDs), both within ourselves and in relation to the wants, needs, and desires of others. With this book, the author proposes a set of considerations for assessing moral systems—the factors that shape them, the forms they take, and the various ways their precepts have been defended or assailed over time. He examines a number of famous moral systems (including those of Epicurus, Plato, Hobbes, and Hume) as well as theories of absolutism, relativism, egotism, and determinism. Johnson’s prose is exacting but always accessible, elucidating complex concepts with economy and an eye for a memorable image: “The charge of ‘pig philosophy’ had been leveled at Bentham’s utilitarianism, since Bentham had argued that all pleasures are equal, that ‘push-pin is as good as poetry’ if it results in pleasure…Bentham’s critics suggested that a pig happy in a mud puddle would be an ideal utilitarian.” The author covers a lot of ground, providing historical context even as he outlines tensions that feel particularly timely in our age of politicized morality. The book would make a useful primer for a college philosophy class, or for anyone interested in a sober approach to the topic.
An even-handed and highly readable rumination on the nature of morality.
Juliano, C. | Penny Publishing (256 pp.) | $14.00 paper
Sept. 26, 2022 | 9798986083704
In Juliano’s punchy crime thriller, a couple of mostly harmless beach bums find themselves wrapped up in an abduction scheme.
Billy Winslow is a small-town cook with big-time aspirations and a sketchy past, with eclectic looks to match. He lives a simple life with his girlfriend, Rita Polli, an ex-model who’s often compared to a goddess. Together, they reside in a humble Florida beach house. When Billy gets fired, he begins working at a different restaurant with Van, his longtime frenemy, who proposes a kidnapping plot to Billy. The plan is simple, so he says: They’ll kidnap Steve, an arrogant teenaged waiter at the restaurant, and hold him for ransom. Surely, Steve’s former pro-wrestler father will pay up before anything goes south; at least that’s what Billy hopes. He isn’t immediately on board with the plan, but his curiosity gets the better of him once he realizes it could provide grist for a best-selling novel. As he writes chapter after chapter, the kidnapping moves ahead. Billy is suspicious of a potential double-cross situation, but he doesn’t quite know what to do, aside from living vicariously through his fictionalized alter ego, Flash Shackelford, a “heavy hitter” who relies on his heroic girlfriend to solve all his problems. Using the sharp prose of an old-timey noir (“In the wet, windswept night, Flash thought about beginnings. He wondered if he’d begun badly, and if he had to end up that way”), the author imbues this narrative with personality. The novel’s colorful cast of characters includes all the staples readers might expect for a devilishly fun heist: a couple of brainless goons, a hulking macho type, a mysterious yet trigger-happy ex-military expert, a drunk screwball simply referred to as “the young bum,” and Keller, a
life-sized action figure with a vendetta against Billy. Readers will practically smell the ocean and see the tanned, rippling muscles in Juliano’s gritty Florida caper.
A terrific beach read, filled with romance, revenge, and hilarious commentary on the artist versus the art.
Katakam, Arunjay | Otterpine (388 pp.) | $18.00 paper Feb. 29, 2024 | 9781955671347
In this treatise, former entrepreneur Katakam argues that there’s a more enlightened path between the economic poles of capitalism and communism.
The subject of Katakam’s book is inclusive economics, a system of economic thought that’s based on five principles: growth, participation, opportunity, stability, and sustainability. Rather than focusing solely on profit and competition, the author notes, inclusive economics seeks to maximize a spirit of cooperation and community; this results in a “third way” approach that starts within an individual and moves outward to improve the social, political, and physical environment in which they live. Throughout, Katakam draws on multiple disciplines, including business, philosophy, and psychology, to explain the core tenets of the inclusive economics concept and how it would address such issues as climate change and income inequality. Despite such weighty material, Katakam writes with a light, sometimes playful tone, explaining ideas clearly without getting bogged down in academic language. The author also deftly uses pop-culture references to elucidate his meaning and create connections with millennial and Gen Z readers, although he includes enough older references that Gen X readers won’t feel left out; fans of a certain 1999 SF/action film will appreciate
at least one of Katakam’s extended metaphors: “Just like the human energy source in The Matrix, our mindless, desperate, or even well-intended spending makes the wealthiest even wealthier.” Ironically, his writing is so accessible and nimble that some readers may take it as a sign that the material isn’t as deserving of attention. However, the author—who credits his background in accounting and startup creation for his current interest in social economics—shows clear passion and intellectual acumen throughout. Katakam’s clear, accessible language and humanistic focus make this thoughtful work a pleasure to read.
Kilcoyne, Karena | BenBella Books (272 pp.) $21.99 | Jan. 23, 2024 | 9781637743904
Former criminal defense attorney Kilcoyne, a survivor of parental abuse, offers a guide to growth and recovery. The author writes that, as a preteen in the 1980s, she had to care for her younger siblings and mentally ill mother for years while her abusive father served time in federal prison. She presents accounts in this book that will prove difficult for many readers to endure. At one point, for instance, she tells of “the first time, but certainly not the last, I felt responsible for my mother’s survival,” when she was 8 years old and her bedridden, depressed mother pressed the muzzle of a gun to her own temple. Such moments are evenly buoyed, however, with calm explorations into the human psyche, bolstered by solid references to the works of such respected researchers and clinicians as Gabor Maté and Bessel van der Kolk. Her warm, conversational style creates an inviting space for readers to contemplate the sadness and the science of trauma. She insightfully describes the “tightly woven
yarns of untruths” that cause people to get “tangled up in [their] stories.” But Kilcoyne maintains an encouraging, motivational tone throughout, and the “Let’s Sum It Up” and “Now It’s Your Turn” sections effectively complement each instructive chapter with prompts to help readers apply what they’ve learned to their own realities. She asserts that the key to healing is having the ability to forgive past transgressions. Kilcoyne refreshingly notes, however, that abusive parents must also take responsibility for their own actions. In addition, she astutely points out that feelings of shame, such as the kind she felt when she was forced to beg neighbors for grocery money, don’t fade without forgiveness. Kilcoyne tells of how her later success as a lawyer didn’t keep her from feeling terrified of being alone. “The trauma didn’t happen because we deserved it,” she writes, but she notes that this fact won’t stop one’s brain from making it seem so. Overcoming such thinking is hard work, and in this book, Kilcoyne helps to demonstrate how that’s possible. A well-reasoned and highly accessible manual for overcoming past trauma and attaining truly unlimited lives.
Kirkus StarK.I.S. | Self (612 pp.) | $15.60 paper March 2, 2024 | 9798878185288 Series: The Chronicles of Áitarbith, 1
A fantasy in which a princess must save the lives of her kingdom’s rivals.
As this first book in the author’s Chronicles of Áitarbith series opens, an unassuming young peasant woman named Anita is working as a drudge in the kitchens of Hårbørgen Palace on a day when the whole of the House of Hårbørgen, rulers of the kingdom of Cinnae, are gathered for supper. This cast of characters includes both “beautiful but sullen” Prince Tensso, heir to the throne,
and his older half brother, Lord Svensso, general of Cinnae’s eastern armies. Anita’s proximity to the banquet table was planned. Her name is actually Ata, born to unmarried parents and the niece of Addai, ruler of Cinnae’s great rival, the kingdom of Pandi. She’s come here in disguise to spy on the House of Hårbørgen, sending reports back to Pandi through a magic called Commanding at which she’s “average at best.” Even when her mission is discovered by wily Lord Iansso, there’s still hope for a future in which Cinnae and Pandi form an alliance against the monstrous Gruxhoon, who (Ata suspects) are even now massing their forces for an attack on Cinnae. Suddenly, that attack happens, and Ata finds herself on the run, protecting young Cinnaen princes Jansso and Elsso (“two little boys who didn’t deserve to die for being who they were”) and trying to find her way back to Pandi, along the way discovering many things about herself and even her own native magic system. The author broadens and deepens the history and court politics in a convincing combination of narrative energy and warm human moments. For example, Ata touchingly reflects on the nights when her royal uncle would secretly visit her: “Sometimes stroking Ata’s hand or hair softly, he would leave before anyone could know he spent so much of his preciously finite time with his sister’s bastard he was not meant to love.” The worldbuilding, set on landscapes not unlike our own, and the storytelling will make readers eager to follow young Ata on her next adventure. A gripping, well-paced first installment with a resourceful female lead.
Lake, Ethan | ELP (326 pp.) | $9.99 paper Jan. 31, 2024 | 9798989582914
A grizzled fighter-turnedinvestigator finds himself confronting a deadly conspiracy in this debut dystopian thriller. Frankie Devlin was a journeyman
on the Hinterlands Championship Fighting tour. He and many ex-fighters wound up in security jobs—in his case, providing muscle at an energy plant. It’s a tolerable existence for Frankie. But then things get worse. AVP, a lethal syndrome of side effects caused by an antiviral agent that a quarter-century ago saved millions during a pandemic, starts striking survivors. Among those is Harley Rickenbacker, a former fighter and Frankie’s co-worker (“Harley had been an HCF fan favorite. Back then, his movie-star looks had earned him the nickname Hollywood Harley Rickenbacker”). Before Harley is carted away to quarantine, he asks Frankie to find his daughter, Hope. Then Barry Bliss, the longtime HCF head, gets abducted and Frankie is hired to investigate. Soon, Frankie’s refinery is destroyed by an unknown assault force, during which his friend Leo Rivas and other workers are killed. Frankie pursues the big mercenary who killed Leo into the Zone, a lawless region of the Hinterlands, in hopes of vengeance or at least answers to his many questions. Shockingly, the mercenary soon repels an unsuccessful attack by Frankie’s fellow soldiers. Then Frankie meets a bush chemist who may have some vital information. But Frankie knows precious little about the nefarious goings-on in the Hinterlands. The strength of Lake’s gripping novel is its believability. Corporations seeking maximum profits and power by holding up a population desperate for a cure to a deadly disease certainly could occur. And a lone-wolf investigator like Frankie could manage to put all the pieces together to determine what had happened, even though he has no way to impart that information to a public unwilling to question those in charge. Many of the people in the Hinterlands are mindless sheep, taking what their leaders offer them at face value, even while living on a battlefield. At least Frankie recognizes his role as a minor cog in a machine. The author throws a lot of information at readers, but the familiarity of recent and current events makes it easier to process. In this engaging series opener, Lake has skillfully created a complex world ripe for future exploration. One man tries to solve a complicated scenario in this riveting mystery.
LOVING BEFORE LOVING
Lester, Chad | Self (372 pp.)
$29.99 | $18.99 paper | June 30, 2024 9798989612109 | 9798989612116 paper
Lester’s science fiction novel centers on the machinations of a powerful tech company. In the near future, Belle is an aimless, unemployed 30-year-old woman living in an Alaskan village. When she receives a job offer from “the world’s premier tech company,” Eccleston Evolution, she’s quite surprised. Its founder, Sophia Eccleston, is a notoriously abrasive person in her 70s who, thanks to advances in technology, doesn’t look a day over 20. She wants Belle to work as a nanny for her sightless, 8-year-old daughter, Juno. Belle will live at the company’s secluded headquarters in Alaska. The site contains animals that were once extinct but were brought back to life with technology that uses DNA extracted from fossils (although none of them are dinosaurs, à la Michael Crichton’s 1990 thriller Jurassic Park). Meanwhile, an aggressive businessman, Lucas Ivanov, is planning a hostile takeover of Eccleston Evolution. In yet another plotline, a man named Seth Johnson, whose wife was cryogenically frozen by Eccleston prior to her death, is facing financial hardship as he struggles to pay Eccleston to keep his spouse alive. He starts to lose his grip, and he’s committed to a mental hospital before later embarking on a rescue mission. The early pages of Lester’s novel very effectively draw readers in; different aspects of the near-future world are revealed, and questions arise about Eccleston Evolution, which also has a hand in humanoid robotics technology.
The plot thickens when it turns out that Juno may be much more than she seems. The book also has quite a bit of business talk, however; the discussions surrounding the possible takeover of Eccleston aren’t particularly compelling, since readers have little reason to care about either Eccleston or Ivanov as characters. (Ivanov is notably described as someone who “buys what he can’t create.”) Still, the novel does have some surprises, particularly in the later pages, which feature disturbing discoveries.
An often intriguing speculative tale about frightening technology and those who control it.
Lester, Joan Steinau | University of Wisconsin Press (288 pp.) | $18.99 May 25, 2021 | 9780299331009
Lester describes a radical marriage and its aftermath in this personal memoir. The author met Julius Lester in the summer of 1962 at a summer camp in the Catskills, where they were both working as counselors. The Connecticut-raised, activism-minded Joan had been taking a break from college to work for a bit. Julie, as Lester liked to be known, was fresh out of college in Nashville and had headed to New York City to become a writer. Joan was white, Julie Black. Despite their inflexible personalities, they bonded over their mutual love of literature and their intense attraction to one another. “Maybe we really were the intellectual soul mates we believed we were, and some sixth sense let me
know it,” reflects Lester. “Was I as forbidden to him, my access to a white world equally beguiling? He gravitated to me as much as I to him, as if we were two magnets being pulled toward each other.” They wed later that year, at a time when interracial marriage was rare and, in some states, illegal. The marriage lasted eight years before ending in divorce—eight years filled with activism, frustration, and clashing ambitions set against the tumultuous backdrop of America in the 1960s. The author writes with candor about the complex dynamics of their relationship, which shifted over time, due in part to Julie’s growing fame as a writer: “Julie, I only realized later, was essentially a conservative man whose artistic bent drew him, for a time, into bohemian environments that felt like home to me,” writes Lester. “The historical moment of the early ’60s made it appear that we shared progressive values, but as the decade wore on, it became clear we did not.” The book continues past the divorce, detailing the author’s subsequent relationships, her embrace of her bisexuality, and the long process of figuring out how to live for herself. With its novelistic detail and earnest but imperfect characters, this memoir reveals more than most about what makes activists tick.
A frank love story set amid the ideals of the 1960s.
Lionson, Art | Self (588 pp.) | $21.99 paper June 1, 2023 | 9798988414339
In Lionson’s thriller set in the near future, robots have taken over almost every job, and two young brothers in the Woodland family are desperate to hold on to their disappearing values.
The year is 2043, and Jason and Eddie Woodland work precarious jobs in a chop shop to make ends meet and, hopefully, save their family from
financial ruin after their sister, Mia, is diagnosed with a rare genetic disease. On top of this, their younger brother is missing, and their town is under constant threat of total destruction due to widening class divides and daily riots. Pushed to their limits, the brothers accept a seemingly simple job—dropping off a bag—that promises to yield them enough money to rescue their family from ruin. But when things go wrong and drugs come into play, Jason and Eddie find themselves in prison, surrounded by even more violence and corruption. Jason fits into the new milieu the best he can, but Eddie, unable to cope with his sister’s inevitable fate, begins to truly suffer. When the siblings are offered a way out in the form of a controversial mercenary training program, they take it. Lionson expertly ups the ante in every chapter of this novel, and the pace is helped along by simple, straightforward prose. A few scenes feel a bit clunky, and occasional plot turns feel predictable. The strength of the family bond is a timeless subject for a reason, however, and in this story, Lionson delivers an unflinching portrait of dedication, resilience, and love above all else. The worldbuilding is also thoughtfully crafted, depicting a near-future dystopia that’s not dissimilar from the present. The novel also has vivid, cinematic action scenes (“Jason struck again. And again, in the nose. There was a nasty crunch and groaning, and the guy fell to his knees and immediately got hit by a boot to the ribs”), as well as a proper cliffhanger. A somewhat uneven but actionpacked speculative novel.
Mesantos | SerpentWise (565 pp.) April 30, 2024
An epic fantasy follows a young man’s quest for revenge after his entire clan is slaughtered. A group of younglings sits around the
bonfires, waiting for its clan’s rite of passage to begin. The first born is Kriepr va sin Sturnfut, who heads the young band. His own passage to manhood means he will become the next khuvn, the clan’s eternal elder, a role he is destined to inherit from his father. Tragedy strikes when, at the end of the ceremony, the clan members are attacked by a group of masked men who kill all but Kriepr. Now, he is khuvn to no one. Ashamed and plagued by survivor’s guilt, Kriepr yearns for death but is granted by his god the will to embark on a self-imposed hunt for vengeance. During this journey, he searches far and wide for the mysterious killers and, in the process, turns into the man and the “swordslinger” he never dreamed he would be. The quest also comes with a larger knowledge of the world, encounters with other religions and peoples, a found family in a group of newly made friends, and the love of Amoalíc Rosethorn of Klov Dün. Amoalíc’s own story starts with tragedy and the urge for revenge. The narrative then follows both characters, with a strong focus on Amoalíc in the novel’s second half, as it chronicles her experiences with a sinister and dangerous religious cult. While the worldbuilding at times feels underdeveloped—there are vague reports of an evil emperor and the mention of fairies—this strategy ultimately suits Kriepr’s and Amoalíc’s character arcs and their restricted worldviews. Mesantos’ well-written, slow-moving fantasy blends a coming-of-age tale, an adventure, and a romance to tell a story that explores the meaning of life. At one point, Kriepr muses: “Kin is more than blood. It is the thread of a passion, the passion of… preservation. I am not khuvn of my people any longer, since they are dead. So I must be a khuvn of others.” The engaging tale also skillfully examines whether the pursuit of vengeance is the one thing worth living for.
A compelling fantasy about the struggles of two lovers seeking retribution.
Moed, C.O. | Rootstock Publishing (184 pp.)
$36.00 paper | Feb. 29, 2024 | 9781578691654
A simple, poetic memoir pays tribute to Manhattan and to the author’s mother, who lived life to the fullest there.
As the health of our parents falters, we inevitably reflect on the lessons we have learned from them over a lifetime. This mood of introspection permeates Moed’s remembrance, which also acts as a portrait of the tough ethos of the Lower East Side, where the author and her sister grew up. Central to the memoir is the author’s bond with her late mother, Florence, and how the two women’s lives influenced and paralleled each other. Florence emerges as a remarkable force of nature in Moed’s portrayal: a determined, principled, artistic, and, above all, resilient woman. As the author describes her, she’s “the woman who could rush through her city and her life in that ferocious stride of hers—nothing stopping her, walking for miles and hours to save carfare so she could blow it on the new special at Wendy’s.” Early on, the author writes, Florence was deeply conflicted as a lesbian in the mid-20th century who, at the behest of her lover, married a man and raised two daughters. Florence eventually got a divorce and embraced the city’s LGBTQ+ scene with a passion, while continuing to teach piano and raise her children as a single mother. She was a fixture at Pride parades and, later in life, took part in dances at the local gay and lesbian senior citizens’ center, where she “broke many hearts of many old girls.” As she grew older and struggled with dementia, her candid demeanor never wavered. In these pages, Moed effectively presents a document of her mother’s final years, interspersing vignettes of her own childhood and the changing city in which she and her mother lived. The result is a stellar narrative about life, loss, and the sense of commitment that parents and children share. Along the
way, readers will feel immersed in the New York of the past and present, pictured in the author’s casual but skillfully rendered photographs, interspersed with older images by others. A heartfelt account of motherhood, womanhood, and the big city.
Oshins, Jeffrey Marcus | Deep Six Publishing (212 pp.) | $29.99 $16.95 paper | Jan. 24, 2024 9798987788738 | 9798987788745 paper
Washington shenanigans provoke a female septuagenarian terrorist in this political thriller. In Oshins’ latest, the political landscape may remind readers of the recent past: The president continually rails against “fake news,” the right and left are miles apart, and the right controls the White House, the Supreme Court, and the House of Representatives. Only the reelection of Democratic senator Allan Hansen of California stands in the way of the GOP’s domination of the Senate and therefore the entire government. Silver-haired FBI agent George Blum is tasked with taking down Hansen by outing him as the unidentified fourth conspirator of the infamous Oakland Four, who attempted to bomb a California biotech research facility nearly 40 years ago. Hansen’s roommate and fellow student at the time, Jimmy Tolver, was killed in a battle with police the night of the attempt, and slightly older “real revolutionaries” Jacob Gillium and Lauren Bastini were caught, tried, and given lengthy prison sentences. Hansen, tangentially involved, was convinced to snitch on the others to avoid jail time
and keep his anonymity. Bastini, now 73, is out of jail, heavily armed, and no friend of the government. She also wants to destroy Hansen. But she is out to hurt him physically, possibly even kill him, and not merely ruin his political career. As Blum acknowledges, “Bastini might be seventy-three years old, but she could and would go hot if mishandled.” And she goes scorching. The story is riveting and relevant. Flawed or seriously damaged characters—all are one or the other—capture the reader’s attention. The dialogue flows well, the plot is scarily credible, and the descriptions are strong: “His eyes were large for his face, with irises like black olives.”
A timely, high-stakes political page-turner.
Panik, Jeffrey | Amplify Publishing (256 pp.)
$26.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9798891380394
Financial adviser Panik offers a comprehensive action plan for gaining financial literacy. When it comes to making personal-finance plans, simply “hoping for the best won’t work,” the author says early on in this guide. What’s required, he says, is a clear blueprint for building a solid financial foundation. Panik aims much of his advice about planning a financial future at readers who are on the younger side, like he was when he entered the military as a method for student-loan forgiveness and received a crash course in financial responsibility. Over the course of this book, Panik breaks down what he’s learned about the
basics of money management, from sensible budgeting and managing debt to the elements of banking and taxation. In short chapters, broken into many segments with numbered lists, he goes into detail about all kinds of financial subjects that younger readers need to know—especially those who may be encountering all these things for the first time. He discusses the arcana of loan repayment, for instance (including income-contingent repayment plans), and home loans, always stressing the need to deal with the details—even when they’re boring: “We may not always see it as a fun part of the process,” Panik writes, “but taking the time to understand the details is key to success.” In scenario after scenario, he illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of basic approaches to monetary challenges, as when he advises younger readers to build their credit rating by acquiring a secured credit card. Panik’s tone throughout is both encouraging and firmly realistic. He resolutely maintains that his readers can take advantage of even highly complicated financial options, and while he lays out their possibilities, he also lays out their realities, such as that it’s “unrealistic to think that managing current credit card debt, buying a car and buying a home can happen at the same time.” His hypothetical situations, which feature fictional characters, help to illuminate such topics as improving a personal credit score or safeguarding financial information from identity theft. The sheer amount of information that the author manages to fit comfortably into this brief work—just over 200 pages—is nothing short of amazing; he even manages to work in miniature history lessons on things such as the United States’ tax system. Readers who are just starting to grapple with life’s financial realities will find his explanations helpful. In his practical advice on buying a first car, for example, he once again strikes a pragmatic note, stressing the importance of understanding the buying process and providing 10 steps in extensive detail. (It starts with “The Most Fundamental Step and Tip is to Understand Your Budget First” and concludes with
advice to avoid being “blindsided by any surprise transfer costs or other issues” when signing a contract.) Panik avoids doublespeak, and he takes the mystery out of various money matters in ways that even older readers, with some experience in these matters, are sure to find helpful.
A brisk and authoritative financial blueprint for beginners.
Parker, Liz | Illus. by Nicholas J. Tucker Jr. Self (238 pp.) | $18.80 | $19.99 paper March 15, 2023 | 9798887593739 9798887593364 paper
In this business guide, Parker warns that poor leadership can bring out the monster in us all. From unstable environments to combative teams, the terrors of business ownership can be plentiful. Even great employees can turn villainous under duress, but, as the author asserts, the biggest bugaboo in one’s business is often oneself (“Your company’s first monster may show up as destructive behavior within your life”). Lacking vision for a company’s direction or the self-awareness to face its deficiencies, owners may drive employees to quit or bring bad behaviors home from work. Parker, a strategic business consultant, uses the analogy of Dr. Jekyll, the conscientious physician whose chaotic impulses—represented by Mr. Hyde—overtake his life. An insightful overview of business best practices, this practical guide will help leaders re-energize their companies, reduce chaos, and improve the quality of their own lives. To help overwhelmed leaders achieve these outcomes, the author introduces readers to time-tested
tools for identifying the “monsters” in their businesses and potential areas of growth within themselves. Parker details the creation of mission and vision statements, describes measurements of company culture, examines the development of SMART goals and DISC assessments, and discusses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Parker also simplifies daily logistical tasks, such as cash flow management, for readers. But what about the monsters we cannot see?
Drawing on personal experience, the author shares key indicators of business distress, including examples of the feedback that leaders receive when teams start to suffer. Tightly written and easy to follow, this primer offers a perfect road map for leaders trying to get (or keep) their businesses on track. Parker demystifies common business concerns in a way that will be especially helpful for those seeking assistance with issue identification and resolution. Part educational guide and part workbook, the book provides readers with exercises and activities to apply its teachings to their specific needs. The book includes recom mended reading suggestions to provide a deeper understanding of the material, and Tucker’s cartoon illustrations throughout lend the work an agreeably playful, lively tone. An accessible guide to facing business fears.
Peine, Tom | Indie Owl Press (298 pp.) | $15.99 paper Nov. 17, 2023 | 9798869009449
In this memoir, a German immigrant recounts how he became a police deputy along the U.S.–Mexico border. This remembrance offers a
unique perspective on modern policing and life as an immigrant in American society. Peine was born in the German town of Gütersloh, where his teenage desire to serve in the local police force was thwarted by a failed medical test. Gravitating to the computer industry instead, he became a successful software salesman and immigrated to the U.S. after meeting his future American wife, Annie, in the late 1990s. On 9/11, he was due to meet a banking client at the World Trade Center complex when his universe was changed forever as he escaped the carnage of that terrible day. Moved by the bravery of the first responders and increasingly disillusioned with his sales career, Peine followed his wife to Tucson, Arizona, where, at the age of 40, he enrolled for training as a deputy in the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. He writes frankly about the brutal training course, recalling a harsh drill sergeant known as “The Hat.” The formidable figure punished recruits who made errors by ordering them to perform their exercise drills in a sand pit. While the author was adept at learning police procedure and his subsequent career as a deputy was marked by dedication and courage, the value of his well-written story is in its distinctively European point of view. Coming from a German society where weapons were difficult to obtain, for example, he found the many gun-related suicides he investigated hard to accept: “Time and time again, I had to witness how the use of firearms had resulted in deformed, damaged and destroyed bodies and lives, often enough self-inflicted.” He also notes that because his own route to American citizenship was a relatively easy one, he cannot help but feel sympathetic toward the desperate plight of migrants crossing the border from Mexico due to violence and poverty in their home countries. Some readers may find Peine’s account overly detailed at times, but the author’s self-deprecating humor and his honest discussions of police work from an immigrant perspective make it enjoyable and worthwhile reading. An insightful and engrossing account of a German immigrant’s experiences as a police deputy in Arizona.
Saj, Cindi & Christa Smith FriesenPress (174 pp.) | $36.64
$22.99 paper | Feb. 6, 2024
9781038300225 | 9781038300218 paper
Consultants Saj and Smith present cognitive behavioral therapy techniques for those seeking more meaning in their lives.
The authors write that having a firm sense of purpose bestows many benefits, including longevity, better health, more rewarding relationships, and greater happiness. However, finding one’s purpose isn’t easy. People are accustomed to looking outward for answers and seeking gratification through social media or consumption. Saj and Smith aim to show such searchers ways to take a more active role in finding their reason for being, pointing out, “You are the expert of you.” Their guidebook uses techniques of cognitive behavioral therapy, employing the “cognitive triangle” as an illustration of how it functions: The tip of the triangle is thought, and the bottom two vertices are behavior and emotion. They’re all interconnected, the authors write, and an improvement in one area helps to strengthen the others. To foster positive thinking, the authors suggest creating a vision board of images that personally resonate, and taking pride in what one sees as defining character traits. One may acknowledge unhelpful thoughts, they write, but one can reframe them or visualize them as floating harmlessly away. They also show how one can get in touch with one’s emotions by cultivating awareness of them. Techniques include identifying feelings on an emotional awareness wheel or creatively assigning colors to emotions and adding them into a “cup-o-feelings” drawing. The authors also helpfully show how to build an action plan with clear-cut steps to take toward one’s end goal. Overall, Saj and Smith’s book is clearly written and down-to-earth in tone. It unquestionably
covers similar ground as many other self-help books, but it may appeal to those who eschew more spiritual self-help methods and are unfamiliar with CBT. Its goal appears to be to win over skeptical readers, and it provides extensive references to that end. The authors occasionally insert a few accounts of their own personal experiences, but they generally stay in the background, giving CBT principles a starring role.
An appealingly manageable and practical self-help book.
Saller, Carol Fisher | Duckweed Books (248 pp.)
$21.99 | Aug. 15, 2023 | 9798986235387
In Saller’s middlegrade novel, a tween and her friends race against time to restore her great-grandmother’s good name.
The Stanton family—11-year-old Lainie, Lainie’s widowed dad, Grandpa Jack, Uncle Daniel, and Uncle Patrick—live in a quirky old mansion in Kenwood, Ohio, and have an unusual tragedy in their past. Back in the 1930s, Lainie’s great-grandmother and namesake, Madeleine, was convicted of murdering her supervisor, a pharmacologist. Maddie pleaded self-defense, but the jury discounted her plea and sentenced her to death. After a TV reporter tricks Lainie into an interview about Maddie, the tween swears on air to clear her great-grandmother’s name. A lot depends on Maddie’s little blue diary, which has gone missing, along with some loose papers inside it that contain key evidence. Complicating things further is the fact that Maddie’s youngest child, Cicely (aka Gracie), hid the book decades ago, fearing her mother’s anger for her drawing in it; the child was kidnapped shortly after Maddie’s death, and was only found in an asylum years later. As Lainie and school friends Elle Mendez and Seth Watson investigate, the fun is in the details of discovery, as well as the crush that Lainie has on dreamy Seth (and her angst about
it). This is not Saller’s first foray into the mystery genre, which she knows her way around well, but it does stretch credulity a bit that, in the mid-20th century, the state of Ohio would have so easily executed a widow with four young children who’d never committed a crime before. The characterization of the fiercely protective Stanton household is appealing, however, and Saller’s descriptions of their house as a Gothic Victorian treasure of hidden hallways, stairways, cubbyholes, and hidden levers to open hidden doors are wonderful. Every few chapters, the book includes check-ins about the fortunes of the little blue diary, which plays a key role in the narrative. A fine mystery with winsome characters and a complicated old house, but one that requires some suspension of disbelief.
Smith, Maggie | Puzzle Box Press | (309 pp.) $18.95 paper | May 21, 2024 | 9798989677917
A hard-driving assistant district attorney’s unflinching dedication to the law threatens the safety of her beloved daughter in Smith’s legal thriller. Milwaukee assistant DA Rachel Elizabeth Matthews is the kind of tough-as-nails prosecutor who easily withstands the murderous threats from the punks she’s convicted as they’re hauled off to jail. As Rachel proudly observes, she’s “immune” to that sort of thing. That immunity, however, comes at a price: Putting the law ahead of everything else in her life following the death of her daughter Charley’s father has slowly driven a wedge between Rachel and the struggling teen. Even Rachel’s widower father—the man who inspired her to follow him into the law—warns her that cold statutes are poor substitutes for warm human companionship. Beautiful blond socialite Olivia “Liv” Reid befriends Rachel at a gala event and asks to join her book club; Rachel obliges
readily enough, largely due to her immediate desire to stick it to Liv’s overbearing and abusive husband, Zach. Rachel soon has more than Zach’s creepy come-ons and threatening overtures to manage: A stalker suddenly pops up in her life, seemingly determined to make her existence a living hell. But why? And who exactly is this stalker? The one thing she does know is that acting like “a rabbit on the run” is “no way to live.” Rachel decides to stop letting her stalker call the shots and instead “go after him for a change, maybe even set a trap.” But the no-nonsense ADA hasn’t always lived according to the letter of the law— Rachel’s got a skeleton in her closet that she’s desperate to keep hidden. Smith’s carefully unfolding exploration of the protagonist’s intricate psyche deftly parallels the rising action as ADA Matthews moves ever closer to unmasking the stalker’s true identity, while her taut, economical prose leaves plenty of room for the revelations to flow freely. An often crafty whodunit laced with traditional elements of mystery and suspense.
Snyder, Kimberly & Jon Bier | Illus. by Donald Wu | 4U2B Books & Media (40 pp.) $19.99 | May 28, 2024 | 9780829455755
Snyder and Bier’s jungle animals practice emotional intelligence in this picture book.
Lanky Lemur, who sometimes feels like his emotions overwhelm him, can’t relax like his wise friend Chilla Gorilla. Chilla explains that thoughts and feelings are connected, and he teaches Lanky a helpful mantra: “Feelings come and go, yet in your heart is a calm place where peace and love can grow.” For the rest of the day, each time Lanky gets mad, frustrated, or scared, he repeats Chilla’s mantra, and slowly but surely Lanky truly feels the calming effect of observing his feelings, listening to his heart, and soothing
A thrilling tour of a historically volatile conflict.
A PLACE OF SAFETY
himself. Wu’s cartoonish animal characters offer multicolored detail, including the cast’s facial expressions and body language against the bright greens and yellows of the jungle. The prose plays with subtle rhyme and rhythm, particularly in Chilla’s dialogue, which evokes a steady heartbeat: “It’s OK to be scared. Call out for someone you trust and love, and ask for a hug.” The authors ably depict how children can regulate their emotions through the various relatable examples. The two characters have their own distinct voices, creating a fun dynamic and driving the pace of the story: Lanky speeds things up, and Chilla levels things out.
A charming jungle adventure about finding inner peace.
Sullivan, Kyle Michael | KMSCB (348 pp.)
$26.84 | Jan. 16, 2024 | 9798988757719
A young Catholic boy in Northern Ireland is drawn into the political tumult of the 1970s in Sullivan’s novel.
In 1956, Brendan Kinsella is born in Derry, Northern Ireland, a Catholic town imperiously controlled by a Protestant-dominated government. Just after Brendan’s 10th birthday, his father, Eamonn, is savagely murdered by two Protestants, an event that transforms the volatile alcoholic into a political martyr. Brendan is unabashedly happy he’s dead—Eamonn’s drunken irresponsibility kept his family in squalid poverty. Brendan’s mother, Bernadette, thinks her son dimwitted, but
he’s actually just a peculiar loner, disinterested in making friends or playing sports, with an uncanny knack for fixing things. As a young boy, he’s largely indifferent to the political acrimony between Catholics and Protestants—he knows he’s cheated by both, and that his priest, Father Demian, is a hypocrite and likely a pedophile. However, as violence mounts in Derry and his mother, a nationalist zealot, encourages him to hate the other side, he becomes deeply embroiled in the bitter disputes of the time, a transformation deftly portrayed by the author. Brendan meets Joanna Martin, a Protestant from an affluent family, and quickly falls in love; his devotion to her undermines his blind partisanship, which is gradually replaced by contempt for both sides. “What struck me most was the lunacy of those in control, on either side, who thought they could end this cycle of death by threatening even greater death, but that’s what they did.” The arc of Brendan’s maturity is depicted with great subtlety and restraint by Sullivan, who artfully and admirably avoids any sententious proselytizing or earnest sentimentality. In addition to the power of the novel’s emotional drama, the author also provides a historically rigorous look into what came to be known, with astonishing understatement, as “the Troubles.” This is an engrossing and intelligent work. A thrilling tour of a historically volatile conflict.
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Sullivan, Rob | Black Heron Press (185 pp.) $15.99 paper | Oct. 17, 2023 | 9781936364404
In Sullivan’s debut novel, a loner tries on a few new personalities.
Ever since he retired from his job as a photographer at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Culver City, California, Lloyd Stollman has lived an isolated life of frustration, feeling like a stranger in his native city. All that changes on the day he dresses himself like a movie cowboy and takes a stroll around the block in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood. “It was such a revelation,” he narrates. “It was such a relief. Not to have to be myself….By allowing myself to cover myself, I had been revealed. By allowing myself to cover myself, I had become myself.” He starts wearing the outfit all over the city, constructing a fictional background for the cowpoke; before long, he buys some additional wigs and makeup at a costume store to expand his repertoire. He invents an aggressive mobster character, as well as a violent ex-trucker persona who knows how to use a knife, and he unleashes them on an unsuspecting public. As he feels compelled to remain in character, Lloyd soon finds himself doing things—horrible things—that he would never have done on his own. The characters keep coming, and so do the crimes; can Lloyd get a handle on his creations before “Lloyd Stollman” becomes just another character? In Sullivan’s hands, Stollman’s monologue is by turns funny, insightful, and terrifying, but always razor sharp, as when he considers his feelings as the character of “Glenda”: “As a woman I was seeing so much more and even hearing things which I had never heard before. It was like all my senses had opened up into a new and different level, a level closer to the actuality of things.” The Paul Schrader–penned 1976 film Taxi Driver is mentioned a few times, and the book feels in many ways like a lost Schrader film. For readers who don’t mind spending time with the thoughts and actions of a
disturbed, solitary character, this book will offer a memorable ride. A witty and transgressive tale about the villains that lurk within us.
Essays on the Past, Present, and Future of Books, Bookselling, and Publishing
Ed. by Weber, Karl | Rivertowns Books (252 pp.)
$34.95 | $19.95 paper | May 7, 2024 9781953943316 | 9781953943309 paper
A distinguished assortment of publishers, booksellers, and First Amendment advocates celebrate the life of an acclaimed bookseller.
As the owner of Denver’s Tattered Cover for more than four decades, Joyce Meskis was instrumental in growing one of the largest independent bookstores in the United States. As an up-and-coming author, publisher, and eventual founder of Rivertowns Books, Weber, the editor of this collection, first met Meskis during a “pilgrimage” to her famed store and subsequently befriended the iconic entrepreneur, marketing genius, industry advocate, and “courageous defender of freedom of expression.” Fittingly, following Meskis’ 2022 death, Weber planned this book as not only a celebration of her distinguished career but also as an homage to the causes closest to her heart. Thus, while many of the essays are written by some of her best friends, who draw on personal anecdotes and memories of Meskis, other essays barely mention her name. Divided into three parts, the book’s first section (“The Ideal Bookseller”) includes deeply personal reflections on Meskis from fellow Denver entrepreneur (and current U.S. senator from Colorado) John Hickenlooper and from Matthew Miller, one of Meskis’ longtime employees and business partners, who emphasizes Meskis’ simple goal of putting “as many books in the hands of as many people as
possible.” This section also features broader essays on the value of booksellers to the cultural vibrancy of local communities. The book’s second section (“The Business of Books”) focuses on insider accounts of the industry with essays that explore the nuts and bolts of publishing and marketing (an essay by Chuck Robinson, the former president of the American Booksellers Association, surveys the history of bookstores since the 1980s). The book’s final section (“Fights Worth Fighting”) highlights the political cause dearest to Meskis’ heart and the driver of her public activism: “Defending Our Freedom To Read.” The section begins with an essay written by Meskis herself that was originally published in the Denver Law Review offering her firsthand account of Tattered Cover v. Thornton , a monumental 2002 legal decision that established the principle that law enforcement officials do not have the right to access sales records of a bookstore without just cause. Additional essays include a historical overview of freedom of speech and censorship campaigns dating to the 1920s by Christopher Finan, former executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, and a reflective legal essay on freedom of speech by First Amendment lawyer Steven Zansberg, who worked closely with Meskis as president of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. This book not only does an admirable job of commemorating the life and causes of Meskis but also provides keen insights into the past, present, and future of the industry in which she worked. Most impressive is the collection’s striking lineup of contributors, which includes some of the leading voices in the publishing and bookselling communities as well as prominent free speech activists. Given the breadth of expertise the book draws upon, it is a testament to the editor’s skill that the essays prove consistently engaging and approachable. Those inside the book business will find a valuable analysis of their trade, while those on the outside will gain an accessible introduction to the industry. An impressive, fitting tribute to an iconoclastic bookseller.
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