July 1, 2024: Volume XCII, No. 13

FEATURING 309 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s, and YA Books

QUESTLOVE IS THE PROFESSOR OF HIP-HOP

Class is in session with the award-winning musician and author of Hip-Hop Is History

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

SUMMER IN THE CITY OF LIGHT

ALAS, THERE’S NO European vacation in the cards for me this summer, and I’ll be watching the Summer Olympics on TV from the comfort of my couch in Brooklyn. But four new books offer the vicarious thrill of a Paris sojourn, all focused on outsiders who find themselves both entranced and bewildered by the City of Light.

Chicago native Jane Bertch arrived in Paris in 2006, not on a vacation or a journey of self-discovery but for a banking job. As she recounts in The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris, One Lesson at a Time (Ballantine, April 9), it took a while to assimilate in this rule-bound city— partly with the help of co-workers and a French

boyfriend—and then to realize that her true calling was the founding of a French cooking school. La Cuisine was conceived as a haven for “aspiring home cooks looking to sharpen their skills while meeting likeminded people.” Our reviewer calls it an “inspiring story that will appeal to foodies and budding entrepreneurs alike.”

Ruth Reichl—legendary restaurant critic, magazine editor, and author—is a real foodie, of course, but in her second novel she sends a fictional character named Stella St. Vincent to Paris in 1982 for an education in dining, fashion, romance, and other of life’s pleasures. Our critic found the plot of The Paris Novel (Random House, April 30)

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“wildly overcaffeinated,” and the characters “not even close to real people,” but the writing about food and wine, unsurprisingly, to be “almost worth the price of admission.” Plus, as she recently revealed on the Taste podcast, every meal that Stella eats in the novel is based on one that Reichl herself has experienced in Paris over the years.

Simon Kuper, a U.K. journalist, came to Paris in 2001 and bought a flat for £60,000 with plans to crash for a few weeks and then rent it out. Instead he wound up staying on, marrying an American woman, and raising two children. Impossible City: Paris in the 21st Century (PublicAffairs, June 4) is his perceptive and droll account of life there, puzzling over the rigidly insular ways of the locals and delighting, as one must, over the food and drink. He also had a front-row seat to the Covid-19 pandemic as it unfolded in “the world’s most compact city.” Our

reviewer calls it “an enjoyable, balanced read.”

The title of Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here To Enjoy Myself: One Woman’s Pursuit of Pleasure in Paris (Penguin Life, June 11) says it all: It’s August 2021, and the 46-year-old author has fled New York after a year of pandemic-enforced solitude to find romance— or at least sex—during a four-week stay in the French capital. It’s not her first such visit; she’ been coming every year for several years and has gathered around her a gang of single women friends (think Sex and the City) who encourage her to download the dating app Fruitz, where MacNicol creates a “watermelon” profile: “no seeds attached.” Our critic calls it a “fun memoir filled to the brim with humor and vulnerability.”

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

TOM BEER

ISBN: 978-1-964428-00-0 [paperback]

ISBN: 978-1-964428-01-7 [eBook]

DISCOVERING JELLYFISH HAVE EYES IS A LIFELINE FOR NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED SCIENTIST RICARDO SZTEIN. UNMOORED BY HIS WIFE’S DEATH AND TRAPPED BY BUREAUCRACY, THE AMBITIOUS SCIENTIST RECKLESSLY SEEKS MEANING IN A MEANINGLESS DISCOVERY.

OR IS IT? COMPELLED TO PROVE ITS VALUE AND ALLEVIATE HIS GUILT, RICARDO IS BLIND TO THE PERILS OF HIS PURSUITS.

“Ricardo Sztein is an unforgettable character, and this story is de��nitely a winner.”

—Robert Bausch, Author of A Hole in the Earth

“In this original and provocative combination of science and ��ction, Joram Piatigorsky brings to life evidence of Dr. Johnson's observation that Truth can be made more accessible when draped in the robes of Fiction.”

—Warren Poland, MD, Psychoanalyst, & Author of Melting the Darkness

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FICTION FAVORITES FOR JULY

THERE’S A VARIETY of appealing books coming out this month, but none more topical than Rufaro Faith Mazarura’s Let the Games Begin (Flatiron, July 9), a debut novel set during the Summer Olympics—here being held in Athens, not Paris. Olivia Nkormo and Ezekiel Moyo, both children of Zimbabwean immigrants to Britain, are fulfilling their Olympic dreams—Olivia as an intern and Zeke as a sprinter—when they meet extremely cute and begin a romance. According to our

starred review, “This layered story expertly captures the excitement of the Games while Olivia and Zeke’s developing relationship…serves as a prompt for personal reflection.… This delightful romance is a ray of sunshine.”

For a more astringent take on relationships, try Sarah Manguso’s Liars (Hogarth, July 23), the story of a spiky and difficult marriage. Jane, the narrator, is a writer, and her husband, John, is a visual artist who’s competitive with her. “The tone reflects a kind of bitter

self-resentment that an intelligent and self-possessed feminist has been roped into a conventional, sexist gender role,” according to our starred review. “A bracing story of a woman on the verge.”

a dragon’s hoard—and is later convinced to go back and actually rob that same dragon. Our starred review calls it “a soaringly good read.”

Following the success of Long Bright River (2020), Liz Moore returns with The God of the Woods (Riverhead, July 2), set in 1975 at an Adirondacks sleepaway camp called Emerson. Barbara Van Laar is a 13-year-old camper there, and her family also owns the place, so it’s particularly shocking when she’s discovered missing from her bed one morning—especially considering that her older brother disappeared from Emerson many years before. “As rich in background detail and secondary mysteries as it is, this ever-expansive, intricate, emotionally engaging novel never seems overplotted,” says our starred review. “Every piece falls skillfully into place and every character, major and minor, leaves an imprint.”

Jenn Lyons’ The Sky on Fire (Tor, July 9) is both a fantasy and a heist novel, a fun combination. Set in a world where dragons are as intelligent as humans, the book follows Anahrod Amnead, who was falsely accused of stealing from

If you’re looking for an immersive saga to last all summer (or at least for your entire vacation), check out Lev Grossman’s The Bright Sword (Viking, July 16), which spends 688 pages exploring the question of what happened to the Round Table after King Arthur died—along with most of the knights whose names you know. “Astoundingly, a fresh take on an extremely well-trodden legend,” according to our starred review.

Ten years ago, Dinaw Mengestu was a finalist for the first Kirkus Prize with All Our Names , and I’ve been looking forward to his next book ever since. Now he returns with Someone Like Us (Knopf, July 30), in which Mamush, a journalist who’s covered conflicts around the world, is pulled between his wife and young son in Paris and an exploration into the life of his father, Samuel, who’s recently died in the U.S. Our starred review calls it “a beguiling tale, fluently told and closely observed, that conceals as much as it reveals.”

Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.

LAURIE MUCHNICK

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

A woman infiltrates a cabal of French radicals. Will she go native?

The narrator of Kushner’s fourth novel goes by Sadie, though her real name—like much of her identity—is clouded in mystery. She works undercover to undermine environmental activists, formerly for the U.S. government, but since a case went sideways, she’s gone freelance. Now, she’s been commissioned by unnamed “contacts” to disrupt the Moulinards, a small farming cooperative in southwestern France protesting a government effort to construct a “megabasin” to support large-scale corporate farming. The Moulinards’ leader, Bruno, is an “anti-civver,” skeptical not

just of capitalism but of the entire human species. (His writings—he exists largely in the form of email dispatches—argue that Neanderthals might have been better adapted for the planet.) Sadie has an arsenal of tools to monkey-wrench the monkey wrenchers—a willingness to exchange sex for access, a knack for languages and hacking, well-made cover stories, fake passports— but her work among the Moulinards stokes her own identity crisis. As she enters their world, she processes their enthusiasm, their philosophy (there are abundant references to critic Guy Debord), and their paranoia, which escalates as a national minister plans a visit to the region, upping the stakes.

Creation Lake

Kushner, Rachel | Scribner | 416 pp.

$29.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781982116521

As if echoing Bruno’s concern, Sadie is such a slyly clever human that she’s undermining her own humanity. Sadie is similar to Kushner’s earlier fictional protagonists— astringent, thrill-seeking, serious, worldly—but here the author has tapped into a more melancholy,

contemplative mode that weaves neatly around a spy story. Nobody would mistake it for a thriller, but Kushner has captured the internal crisis of ideology that spy yarns often ignore, while creating an engaging tale in its own right.

A deft, brainy take on the espionage novel.

A remarkable gender parable filtered through a sophisticated imagination.

VILLA E

Villa E

Alison, Jane | Liveright/Norton (160 pp.)

$23.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781324095057

A Modernist architectural masterpiece on the coast of southern France is at the center of a clash between two designers of genius—one widely celebrated, the other not so much.

Modeled on historical fact, Alison’s new novel is a twin bio-fiction tracing the connections and conflicts between 20th-century icon Le Corbusier—here named Le Grand—and Irish architect Eileen Gray, referred to only as Eileen. In 1925, when she was 40 and living in Paris, where she had a shop selling furniture she designed, Eileen traveled south and fell in love with a piece of coastal land. There, encouraged by her lover, Bado, she built the structure she’d been yearning to design, “a house that was intimate and modern but not a machine.” (Le Grand famously asserted, “A house is a machine to live in.”) Not a French citizen, Eileen couldn’t purchase the land herself, instead buying it in Bado’s name, which would be her downfall. The “slim white house, moored like a yacht, modern in the ancient sun,” is a triumph, but Bado makes it his own, eventually forcing Eileen to move on and design a second home in the hills. Le Grand becomes a frequent visitor to the coastal house, acknowledging its genius but seeing his influence in it:

“That genius and his own primary genius here mingled to make this villa. Masculine spirit meeting feminine

form.” Breaching the villa’s purity, he paints sexual murals on its white interior walls, which, because of his reputation, cannot be expunged. The novel explores the characters and lifelong achievements of both figures: he protean, domineering, and unrepentant; she sensual, committed, enduring. Looping, impressionistic, and atmospheric, narrated in retrospect from both characters’ points of view, the book offers more psychology than plot, but does so persuasively. A remarkable gender parable filtered through a sophisticated imagination.

Not What She Seems

Angoe, Yasmin | Thomas & Mercer (396 pp.) $28.99 | Aug. 1, 2024 | 9781662508332

In a dramatic change from Angoe’s trilogy about professional assassin Nina Knight, a disgraced daughter returns to her South Carolina family to find that it’s in even bigger trouble than she thought.

Jacinda Brodie has already had quite the day before she learns of her beloved grandfather’s heart attack. Conrad Meckleson, her ex-mentor and ex-lover, has persuaded the D.C. college where she’s a teaching assistant to deny her a research fellowship she thought was in the bag. And he’s landed a fat contract for a book he hopes will return him to bestseller lists, a story based on family secrets she confided in him, the most shocking of which is that Jac pushed her father, Brook Haven police chief Montavious Brodie Jr., over a cliff to his

death. Resolved that her story is hers alone, Jac lets herself into Meckleson’s place, packs up the notes he’s taken over the years, and dashes off a series of bridge-burning emails to the college administrators on her way out the door. Back home in Brook Haven, things are even worse. Her grandfather, Montavious Brodie Sr., the only family member who hasn’t judged Jac harshly, dies shortly after her arrival, leaving her to solace herself with old school friends Sawyer Okoye, now an administrator for the police, and Nicolas Tate, the mayor’s son. Jac instantly takes against Faye Arden, the mayor’s pushy fiancee, who’s renovating the notorious Murder Manor, where the caretaker reportedly killed over a dozen victims 50 years ago, into Moor Manor. Her granddad’s heart attack, Jac decides, was engineered by Faye. Just in case the enmity between the two women isn’t fierce enough, Meckleson pops up to accuse Jac of theft.

Endless skeletons in the family closet, all disclosed by a protagonist who makes one reckless move after another.

Kirkus Star

The Most

Anthony, Jessica | Little, Brown (144 pp.) | $18.99 paper July 30, 2024 | 9780316576376

Can the secrets and misdeeds of a marriage be survived?

The events of an unseasonably warm Sunday in November provide the backdrop for Anthony’s short, no-holds-barred account of a crucial juncture in the married life of a young couple in 1950s Delaware. As Sputnik 2 and its crew—the doomed “space dog,” Laika—orbit the earth, Kathleen and Virgil Beckett are on a collision course of their own. While Virgil brings the couple’s two boys to church and looks forward to squeezing in one more late-season round of golf, Kathleen dons an old bathing suit and proceeds to their

(somewhat depressing) apartment complex’s pool; the only unusual aspect of that sequence of events is Kathleen’s refusal to get out of the pool as the afternoon stretches into evening. Over the course of the day, Anthony deftly sketches out each character’s backstory and secrets. Virgil has relocated the family from Rhode Island to Newark, Delaware, for a fresh start and new job in the insurance industry in order to correct unacknowledged deficiencies (involving women and alcohol) in his behavior. Kathleen, who had been an accomplished college tennis player noted for her endurance, mulls over her past life and loves as she floats in the pool and decides upon the best tactic to employ in determining the future of her marriage. Complicating the couple’s relationship are external forces applied by parents, friends, and old (as well as fairly recent) lovers, but it will be up to Virgil and Kathleen to figure out how much to disclose to each other…once they’re on the same course. Anthony’s sharply focused portrait of seemingly average lives in midcentury America reveals the complexities of those lives in the course of one balmy day.

A novella packing all the imagery and storytelling power of a novel.

Fall of the Florios

Auci, Stefania | Trans. by Katherine Gregor & Howard Curtis | HarperVia (416 pp.) | $18.99 paper

Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780063389151

Auci concludes her expansive saga of the Florios, a famous real-life family of Sicilian industrialists. Previous volumes (The Florios of Sicily, 2020; The Triumph of the Lions, 2024) traced the family’s fortunes from 1799 to 1893. This final installment in the saga finds the uber-successful family facing far less salubrious circumstances during the years 1894 to 1935 and concludes with an elegiac epilogue set in 1950. As

mounting debt and regional rivalries erode the value of the dynasty’s assets, Ignazio, feckless heir to the manufacturing, mining, fishing, and winemaking empire, faces business and political challenges beyond his ability to maneuver. Though he attempts to maintain some degree of control of the business, the Florios’ sumptuous lifestyle is threatened. At home, Ignazio’s often-neglected wife, Franca, suffers as a result of his womanizing and the pressure to produce a male heir in order to carry the dynasty forward. (Changes in attitudes about women’s roles may factor in here, too.) Replete with detailed descriptions of the family’s various homes, travels, and social engagements—and of Franca’s fabulous wardrobe and jewelry—the account plunges the once-fortunate clan into the devastation wrought by World War I. Cameo appearances by contemporary figures including Giacomo Puccini and various European royals keep the glitz factor high as Auci deftly conveys the family’s fall from grace. Gregor and Curtis have translated the novel from Italian while retaining some phrases in the original for effect. This is the final book in a trilogy that serves as the basis for the Hulu miniseries The Lions of Sicily, and it includes a summary of the historical events underlying the plot as well as a family tree helpful for identifying the Florios, many of whom share the same given names. A sweeping finale to a panoramic portrait.

The Deading

Belardes, Nicholas | Erewhon (304 pp.)

$27.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781645661290

Eco-horror arrives in Baywood, a small coastal California town. The students of Baywood High are uneasy and irritated. They gripe: “Now, all kinds of adults are pretending to die. Deading. That’s what we call it, have

been calling it, because, well, we’ve done it before, like more than a year before the adults ever thought to start their stupid version.” The kids deaded to make a point, but now something eerie is happening with the adults, “something completely unrelated. Something similar. Everywhere in Baywood, people lying on sidewalks and streets.” The chapters pivot among different perspectives to tease out what’s happening. Then an esoteric cult called the Risers appears amid the supernatural chaos to heighten anxieties about the current situation. The characters include Bernhard Vestinos, the owner of an oyster farm; Chango Enriquez, one of his employees; Chango’s teenage brother, Blas, an avid birder; Ingram Evans, an older birder; and Kumi Sato, Ingram’s friend. At a certain point, it’s hard to keep track of all the characters, though Chango and Blas are persistent standouts because of their relatable sibling interactions. The story is told from every possible point of view: Chapters from different third-person perspectives meld with a collective “we” that represents the teens of Baywood. One chapter uses the second person “you,” and several are told in the first person. Scientific information about oysters and birds is fascinating but eventually overtakes the plot. Blas and his fellow students are smart, cleareyed, sardonic, sometimes apathetic in a way that captures adolescence. They’re fed up with the adults’ lack of action in the important matters that caused them to “dead” in the first place: “We did it to make fun of ourselves. We did it because we die and it isn’t fair. You see, we’d already held GUN CONTROL rallies, BLACK LIVES MATTER rallies, EARTH DAY rallies. Those always got us nowhere. Adults don’t listen. We know that.” Admirably, these teen characters continue to place blame where it belongs.

An enticing premise and promising characters, but in desperate need of focus.

The hits just keep on coming. Be glad you’re a reader and not a character.

IF YOU TELL A LIE

If You Tell a Lie

Berry, Lucinda | Thomas & Mercer (271 pp.) | $16.99 paper

July 23, 2024 | 9781662512629

A series of anonymous notes threatening to disclose the secret four women have kept for more than 20 years brings them together again, this time to create additional havoc.

In their different ways, Blakely Garner, Thera Grey, Grace Howard, and Meg Watson had all been misfits. They bonded at Camp Pendleton, a place for gifted children, with Blakely as their natural leader. Trouble arrived, or was revealed, in the form of tennis coach Jared Crosby, whose good looks made Blakely think she could use an apparently compromising photo Meg took of the two of them to make Clint, a fellow camper, jealous. The prank succeeded beyond everyone’s wildest dreams, and not in a good way. Clint swiped and shared the picture, Crosby got fired, and by the time the dust settled, his wife, Regina, was convicted of stabbing him 117 times and attempting to kill their twin babies as well. Now, 26 years later, someone claiming to know the sordid truth behind the story has written all four ex-campers, pulling Thera away from her work as a psychic and spiritual counselor, Grace out of her orbit as a supermodel influencer, and Meg from her marriage to Claire to meet at the plush Houston home of Blakely. Regina, it seems, has been granted parole, and she’s obviously learned who pushed her over the edge into murder. Or maybe, since this is

another poisonous Berry special, that’s not so obvious after all, and the truth is even darker and more devious. The hits just keep on coming. Be glad you’re a reader and not a character.

Madwoman

Bieker, Chelsea | Little, Brown (336 pp.) $26.97 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780316573290

After receiving a letter from her incarcerated mother, a Portland woman’s shocking past comes crashing into her present. Granola mom Clove is doing her best to keep it together. She’s trying to wean her 3-year-old son, adjust to summer break with her school-age daughter at home, and grab a moment or two with her finance-world husband when he is finally able to hop off work calls. She soothes her anxiety with compulsive shopping, elaborate wellness regimes, and copious trips to the organic grocery store, “the safest place on earth.” She had thought that her lifestyle and having a family would help her escape a brutally traumatic childhood and grant her safety. But then one day, a letter comes from a California correctional center: Clove’s mother, Alma, convicted for the murder of Clove’s father after years of suffering harrowing physical abuse at his hands, has discovered Clove’s whereabouts. Alma is part of a #MeToo wave of women whose cases are being reevaluated, and she needs Clove’s eyewitness account of that night to be her path out of prison. Clove—who has told almost no one the truth of who she really

is—needs to make a decision: help Alma and expose her secrets to her present family or turn her back on her own mother. Bieker is trying a more conventional plot with her third book, stuffing this story in the container of a thriller when it doesn’t quite fit. But what Bieker has always been best at is creating female characters with vivacity and precision, and she does that again in Clove, painting an indelible portrait of what living with intergenerational trauma and a legacy of abuse can look like.

In the guise of a suspense story, Bieker delves into the heart of what it really means to survive violence.

My Parents’ Marriage

Brew-Hammond, Nana Ekua

Amistad/HarperCollins (288 pp.)

$28.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9780062976734

A couple navigates marital troubles. The first novel for adults from author Brew-Hammond, set in the early 1970s, opens with 22-year-old Kokui Nuga celebrating the Christmas holiday at a hotel in Accra, Ghana. It is there that a server first catches her eye; when she comes back on New Year’s Eve, the two talk, and he introduces himself as Boris Van der Puye, who will soon head to the U.S. to attend a community college in Buffalo, New York. Despite the fact that his days in Ghana are coming to an end, the two date and fall in love, and Kokui also applies, and is accepted to, the school. Kokui’s father, Mawuli, isn’t thrilled with her decision; he wants his daughter to stay and work for his thriving paper company, but Kokui resists: “Leaving her father’s haunted house of disrespected women was the only plan she was clear on.” Her mother, a victim of Mawuli’s frequent philandering who has since moved to Togo, also urges caution, but Kokui and Boris marry and move to the U.S., first staying with Boris’ cousin in Brooklyn, then

moving to Buffalo for school. When things start to unravel and Kokui returns to Ghana after her father’s death, she starts to wonder whether she made a mistake, telling her mother that she feels “trapped by him. Like, if I push for something I need or tell him how I truly feel or show him who I truly am, I will spoil everything between us. And he lies, Ma.” Brew-Hammond’s prose and dialogue are workmanlike, but this tale of a garden-variety couple ultimately feels thin.

Brew-Hammond is talented, but there’s just not much here.

My Body Is Paper: Stories and Poems

Cuadros, Gil | City Lights (220 pp.) | $17.95 paper | June 4, 2024 | 9780872869097

Poems and stories that capture a queer Chicano writer’s reckonings with illness, family, and desire in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.

Composed in the years before the 34-year-old Cuadros’ death from AIDS in 1996, the works in this collection are embodied and energetic, charged with the urgency of a young writer racing to mine and document as much of his experience as possible. In “Hands,” the opening story, an AIDS patient prepares for his death, finalizing his will and getting rid of his belongings, grappling with unresolved childhood memories. Though the narrator’s body is deteriorating and he’s certain he’ll die soon, life keeps shattering through the gloom: While gardening, he receives “a warm charge…from the earth,” and he befriends an immigrant woman named Yoli whose warm, maternal character disrupts the resentment he harbors toward his abusive parents. This tension between degeneration and life, and between the divine and the profane, pervades the collection. An HIV-positive queer man finds himself pregnant in “Birth,” one of the last stories the

author wrote. “Heroes,” which may have been the beginning of an unfinished novel, portrays moments of sexual intimacy as the narrator contends with the effects of illness and medical treatment on his body. Embodiment is vividly rendered throughout the pieces, especially in “Dis(coloration),” in which the narrator explores the cosmetics aisle of a drugstore and experiments with a new fading cream for his discolored skin. Spirituality is treated with equal importance, with speakers supplicating, grasping toward the divine in poems like “A Netless Heaven” and “It’s Friday Night and Jesus Is at the Laundromat.” Though there’s a brisk, unfinished quality to some of the stories (understandable, given the circumstances), this doesn’t overshadow their depth, detail, and poignancy. On the contrary, readers will easily recognize in these works a writer approaching the height of his powers. Brief essays by Justin Torres and Pablo Alvarez bookend the collection, contextualizing Cuadros’ life and writing.

A moving, necessary tribute to a singular voice of queer literature.

Fatal Intrusion

Deaver, Jeffery & Isabella Maldonado Thomas & Mercer (444 pp.)

$28.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781662518713

Deaver and Maldonado’s first collaboration pits a Homeland Security investigator and her former quarry against a ring of serial killers working their way through California.

Special Agent Carmen Sanchez snaps to attention when her kid sister, Selina, is attacked and nearly killed, saved only by the intervention of a luckless good Samaritan. The crime seems random, but Carmen and Prof. Jacoby Heron, a super-hacker expert on intrusion—what he calls “someone or something deliberately entering into a place or situation where they’re unwelcome or uninvited”—she once investigated,

soon link it to the very recent murder of real estate developer Walter Kemp in San Diego. The killer, identified to the sleuths by a spider tattoo on his wrist and to readers early on by the name Dennison Fallow, clearly has a plan that involves more victims, but what is that plan—and what does it have to do with cyberattacker Tristan Kane and the H8ers, a disgruntled group of men whose online whining about all the opportunities snatched away from them by the privileged few would make them pathetic if its consequences weren’t so lethal? Deaver evidently contributes the Chinese-box construction of the plot, in which the solution to each riddle seems to open new mysteries, and Maldonado provides a swiftly evoked sense of the characters’ social backgrounds. But it’s hard to tell which of them is responsible for the blistering pace, the numerous flashbacks to previous episodes that supply important details about the characters’ motivations at the cost of diluting that hard-won suspense, the stilted relationship between Carmen Sanchez and Jake Heron, or the sense of anticlimax that attends the last few revelations. A series seems inevitable. More a compromise than a synthesis, but nonetheless intriguing for all that.

The Woman Who Lied

Douglas, Claire | Harper/ HarperCollins (400 pp.) | $18.99 paper July 30, 2024 | 9780063277465

A novelist is beset by small harassments inspired by her books—and then the attention starts to escalate. Emilia Ward, author of the successful DI Miranda Moody series, has decided to kill off her beloved main character after 10 years, even though Miranda has brought her success and fame. As she works on the final drafts of Her Last Chapter, delving into the dark world of a serial killer, she begins to find small gifts and offerings on her doorstep—a broken seagull

figurine, a funeral wreath—that point to certain plot elements in the earlier Moody books. The police, of course, find little they can do, but Emilia feels more and more as if she’s not only being targeted, but also followed. Louise, a friend who’s on the force, is not directly involved in the investigation, but when Emilia’s teenage daughter, Jasmine, goes missing, Louise is immediately on the scene. Jasmine is found without incident, but the scenario clues in Emilia to a chilling truth: Only the people nearest and dearest to her could have orchestrated it, as it’s a plot point in her as-yet-unpublished novel. Could it be her ex-husband, now married to her ex-friend? Or her current father-in-law, himself a former cop? Or even Louise, who’s been acting strangely? As the sense of threat escalates, Emilia must confront a shameful secret as she tries her own hand at investigation. The novel mostly centers on Emilia, though there are occasionally chapters from the point of view of a female detective investigating a serial killer, and chapters concerning a girl named Daisy whose mother seems to have been murdered by this same killer. Will all the stories overlap? Yes, of course. There are an awful lot of characters and names to keep straight, but overall, the book is well constructed and paced.

Thoughtful, twisty, and tense.

The Avian Hourglass

Drager, Lindsey | Dzanc (212 pp.)

$17.95 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781950539970

Buses drive themselves, birds have disappeared, and you can’t see the stars: This spare and striking novel is what comes next.

“The Conglomerates conglomerate until all corporations become, essentially, one. The bus with no driver keeps making its loop, and the road that goes nowhere dead ends.” The faceless, soulless rhythms of an increasingly automated world shape our unnamed narrator’s daily existence,

after she’s informed that the bus she drove down Route 0 can now drive itself. She has lived in the same small town her whole life, and she’s cobbled together an eccentric family: her neighbor Uri; her dead father’s twin, Luce; the triplets she carried as a surrogate and kept after the intended parents died. This life isn’t exactly what she had hoped for. She’s had many dreams: to run away from town with “The Only Person [She’s] Ever Loved,” to become a radio astronomer, to hear the skylarks again, to see the stars. But the birds disappeared a long time ago, and the sky has been blank for just as long. This is the town’s new normal as it barrels toward The Crisis, which could be one thing, or “a series of crises, a web of crises different for every single person on this Earth.” But now, a series of strange occurrences may alter the town’s rhythms forever: Our narrator’s déjà vu is getting worse, making her feel as if she’s lived entire days before; jobs are disappearing as fast as strange nests are popping up; The Demonstration, a protest between YES and NO that has been going on for as long as anyone can remember, adds a new chant; a strange legend about the town—that it was mapped onto the solar system—leads the entire populace on a hunt for the truth. After she learns her late father’s theories on reality, our narrator is left to question the only world she’s ever known. What if she reversed the bus route she’s always driven? What if she went past the road’s dead end? What if she found a way to see the stars?

A speculative novel told in fragments peels back the surface of a small town’s reality.

Pink Glass Houses

Elias, Asha | Morrow/HarperCollins (272 pp.)

$28.00 | July 30, 2024 | 9780063312791

offered his dream job in Miami, they pack up their home in Wichita, Kansas, and move to a house zoned for “the best public elementary school in Florida.” The book opens as the family attends back-to-school night at Sunset Academy, and Melody is shocked to discover how different their new community is from the one they’ve left. Their daughter, Lucy, will be entering a school where mothers and children dress in astoundingly expensive (and revealing) designer clothing. Drinking and drugs are rampant among parents, and popularity seems tied to the size of a family’s donations. Initially intimidated by the fancy cars and tummy tucks, Melody is delighted when she makes friends with Darcy Resnick, who seems to share her down-to-earth sensibilities. It’s not long, however, before Charlotte Giordani, one of the queen bees, takes an interest in the new mom, and Melody starts getting caught up in everything she thought she hated. Unfortunately, she makes a misstep and quickly alienates Charlotte. Rather than slink into obscurity, Melody decides to run against Charlotte for PTA president, which will be either her only chance at redemption or the ultimate social suicide. While the story is entertaining from the start, the first several chapters describe the materialism of this Miami community in a tone that’s more angry than funny. The author devotes so much space to mocking the affluent Miamians that by the time the central conflict emerges, readers may have lost interest. Once the plot starts moving, though, the tensions between characters rise and the novel takes on a new heft. Deeper issues related to honesty, loyalty, parenting, and mental health emerge, each of which is examined with admirable grace and just the right touch of humor.

A woman struggles to find her place in a wealthy community full of social climbing and scandals. When Melody Howard’s husband, Greg, is

An ultimately satisfying tale about adult mean girls.

Ten

Emar, Juan | Trans. by Megan McDowell

New Directions (176 pp.) | $15.95 paper Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780811232074

A clutch of stories set in the author’s native Chile— and surrealist parts unknown. Originally published in 1937, this collection by Emar (18931964) arrived at the height of the Modernist movement; his eeriness and fluid, satirical approach to storytelling put him in league with better-known European and North American contemporaries. Indeed, his work seemed to anticipate the elliptical style that would make Borges world famous. These 10 stories are placed in a sensible sequence— “Four Animals,” “Three Women,” “Two Places,” and “One Vice”—but any concept of order is deceptive, as each story finds an unusual approach that sometimes only barely adheres to its supposed subject. “The Green Bird” concerns a taxidermic parrot the narrator received while living in Paris, but what starts as a cool remembrance of youth soon takes an absurd and violent turn. “Papusa” concerns a tsar holding court with a ghost, a jester, and the woman of the title—a scene the narrator observes through an opal on a ring. “The Hotel Mac Quice” centers on a man and his wife out for a stroll on vacation before becoming separated because of the man’s sudden urge to find his toothbrush. “The Unicorn” opens with a notice in the paper by a man who is looking for the safe return of “my best ideas and my purest intentions,” launching a satirical

trek to the Egyptian pyramids and Ethiopia, home to the mythical creature. Clearly, plot summary only goes so far; the best stories here thrive purely in Emar’s language, which can be richly synesthetic; “Damned Cat,” the most potent story here, starts with a nature walk that features stones that store heat, a weed that “smells of interplanetary distances,” and a cat observed with a peculiar geometric rigor. Veteran translator McDowell doesn’t attempt to make these stories adhere to logic, but they all possess a certain clarity—concerned with violence and loss, thoroughly sensual, but questioning what our senses tell us. Offbeat yarns from a sui generis author.

No Road Home

Fram, John | Atria (416 pp.) | $29.99 July 23, 2024 | 9781668031445

The sins of a televangelist and his kin come home to roost. When Toby Tucker and his sister were kids, their guardian, Uncle Ezra, made them spend four hours on the couch every Sunday watching The Prophecy Hour, a “glitzy, exuberant, overwhelming televangelism program” hosted by “America’s prophet,” fire-and-brimstone preacher Jerome Jeremiah Wright. Now, two-plus decades and a whirlwind courtship later, Toby is married to Jerome’s granddaughter Alyssa, and the couple are traveling to Hebron, Texas, with Toby’s 7-year-old son, Luca, to celebrate Alyssa’s 30th birthday at the Wright’s compound. Toby has never put any

A clutch of stories set in Emar’s native Chile—and surrealist parts unknown.

stock in Jerome’s predictions, but he is nevertheless unnerved to learn while en route that the man’s most recent broadcast ended with three grim warnings seemingly intended for Toby and Luca. Toby’s anxiety skyrockets when, just hours after they arrive, someone kills Jerome; a surprise storm of biblical proportions takes out the phone, internet, and access roads; and Luca starts seeing and conversing with an apparition he calls Mister Suit. Toby soon realizes the remaining Wrights are contriving to pin Jerome’s murder on him. Worse, once Toby is sidelined, Alyssa and her brother Richard have plans for long-haired, sparkle-loving Luca that start with a stay at a churchrun wilderness camp that destroys sweet, sensitive boys like him. The situation seems dire, but the Wright clan has no shortage of terrible secrets, and Toby won’t go down without a fight. By turns searing, soapy, and spine-tingling, Fram’s latest pays homage to Southern Gothic icons Michael McDowell and V.C. Andrews while also tipping its cap to modern horror great Jordan Peele. Though there’s a particular contrivance on which the plot leans a bit too heavily, that’s a minor quibble; exquisitely rendered, realistically damaged characters lend credence to myriad mad twists, propelling the tale from portentous start to pulse-pounding finish. Trenchant, terrifying fun.

Off the Books

Frazier, Soma Mei Sheng | Henry Holt (224 pp.) $27.99 | July 30, 2024 | 9781250872715

Mĕi Brown is a recent Dartmouth dropout working as a private chauffeur with a dodgy roster of clients— one of whom hires her to drive all the way across the country. When Mĕi picks up 20-something Henry Lee, she can’t help

Kirkus Star

THE KIRKUS Q&A: TAFFY BRODESSERAKNER

The novelist expounds on suburbia, Jewish fiction, writing for TV, and more.

BY LAURIE MUCHNICK

TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNER made her name as a celebrity profiler, getting inside the heads of people like Gwyneth Paltrow and Tom Hanks and making them resemble humans instead of icons. With her first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble , she proved she could do the same with fictional characters. Now she returns with Long Island Compromise (Random House, July 9), an even more ambitious and gripping novel set in the fictional town of Middle Rock, New York. BrodesserAkner, 48, lived on Long Island until she was 6, when her parents divorced and she moved to Brooklyn with her mother, visiting her father in Great Neck on the weekends. “I say I’m from Brooklyn, because it used to feel so braggy to say you’re from Long Island,” she reveals. “Though now it’s braggy to say you’re from Brooklyn.”

The book centers on the wealthy Fletcher family: Carl, who inherited a Styrofoam factory; his wife, Ruth; and their children, Nathan, Beamer, and Jenny. In 1980, Carl was kidnapped from their driveway and held for a week until Ruth paid a $250,000 ransom— most of which they never got back. Forty years later, the family gathers for the funeral of Carl’s mother, Phyllis, and it’s clear that all their lives have been deformed by the kidnapping.

I recently spoke to Brodesser-Akner by Zoom from her home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

to be a suburb and then became more and more its own place, its own ecosystem. I meet people from Long Island who are loath to leave, even for a weekend, if they don’t have to.

Is the book written about the Long Island in your head, or did you do research? Is Middle Rock based on a particular place?

Well, what did you do with all your education? You just returned to this place and perpetuated the same life you had

Colm Tóibín has a book out now called Long Island. Why is it a good title?

Because it’s a mythical place. First of all, I love

how many Long Islands there are. Is it fancy Long Island? Is it working-class Long Island? I don’t even know which Long Island I’m from. It was designed

Middle Rock—the closest you can call it is Great Neck. I didn’t do research, though I tried. The Great Neck library has a full-time historian, which is hilarious because I think the library down my street [in the city] is only open two afternoons a week. It’s pretty amazing the resources—in terms of schools and libraries— that kind of money gives you. And then my most judgmental parts are like,

One of the things I’m looking at in the book is the way we have not progressed. I think that’s an urgent matter, the dearth of ideas and creativity of the cloistered generation that did not come from trauma or struggle. I think my generation was maybe the first group of people who did not come from a historic struggle directly. And what did they do with it? They were educated, they know everything, and then they went into finance. They use their minds for their money to make [more] money, which is great. I haven’t figured out how to do that! But I am worried about the fact that our lives are not better than our parents’ lives. It really is remarkable

to me that it’s hard to know how to give your children a better life than you had.

What do you mean by a better life?

The state of curiosity and intellectualism. The state of using the money you’ve been given or earned to understand the world better, and to make it better. It does not seem that that’s an imperative or a value that is taught outside of elementary school.

Do you think this is a specifically Jewish book? I didn’t, until everyone started telling me it was, like Fleishman. I always wonder if anyone ever called [Jonathan Franzen’s] The Corrections Christian. I also wonder if anyone even called Crossroads Christian, and that is a story about a pastor in a Christian church. I think the sort of underlying paranoid question of this question is, Are Jews really considered American? And I guess the answer is: If you call The Corrections an American novel, and you call Crossroads an American novel, and you call this a Jewish novel—even though all it has is a bar mitzvah at the end, and a dybbuk flying around—then I guess you don’t really consider Jews American. We’re still some sort of asterisk to the American experience, which is maybe clearer than ever these days.

Did the screenwriting you did for the Fleishman TV series, and the success of that novel, have an impact on this book?

Yes, it paralyzed me. Here’s what happens when you’re

making a television show. You hire people. You write it, you produce it, but mostly you’re hiring people. And as you hire the 350 people that it takes to make a TV show, each one starts out by telling you how much they loved your book. I hope it was true—it might not have been, it might have just been good interviewing skills— but you come to think that Fleishman is all you have to offer the world. And so you try to distill what it is that people loved about it.

The one thing I can say I was good at was moving on and starting over. I had some big stories, and I still had to write the next story. But my editor and my agent, who had never seen me not hand something in, saw me hand in seven completely different drafts of this huge book, one of them 700

pages. And they both at different times said, “Do you want to let this one go?”

So when you handed in those drafts, did your editor say, “This isn’t it?” Or was it just you not being happy with them?

Some of them were almost there, but nothing was a revelation. And again, from publishing so much, I’m very acquainted with the sounds of people loving something. And it’s never people saying, “I love it.”

When people love something, they start talking about themselves. And that was my metric. When that first happened, it was one of my agents who called me and said, “I just finished your book, and I have to tell you about something that happened to me when I was young.”

I am worried about the fact that our lives are not better than our parents’ lives.

Can I tell you something about myself? We find out late in the book that Phyllis Fletcher’s birth name was Frieda Mutchnick. I actually had a great-aunt named Frieda Muchnick. I’ll tell you why this is funny. Because in my last book, I had a character named Philippa London. And the name of the guy who interviewed me [when I bought a coop apartment] was Philip London. And he kept talking about how much he loved the book; he’s like, “I read it three times.” And I’m like, “And?” And he had no recollection of the character with his almost exact name. So I’m very glad you saw that. I think it would be a very funny thing if by the end of all my interviews someone would be like, “Oh, that’s my name!”

Long Island Compromise Brodesser-Akner,

Random House | 464 pp. | $30.00 July 9, 2024 | 9780593133491

Taffy

noticing that he guards his enormous suitcase religiously. Although the two gradually grow closer on the long journey from San Francisco to Syracuse, trading barbs through the limo’s partition, Henry’s easy charm and good looks can’t fully alleviate Mĕi’s suspicions. She repeatedly calls her grandfather, her L ǎoyé—who’s responsible for finding her passengers looking to pay off the books—to see what he thinks about Henry. Since the death of his wife, L ǎoyé’s camped out in the family garage, smoking marijuana and watching old films, shrinking his existence to fit one room. Mĕi recalls the ways his encyclopedic knowledge of history and “ability to educate painlessly” bolstered her high school education and how his acerbic wit offered a lifeline through her teenage years; now she frets over his reluctance to leave home. L ǎoyé’s unquestioning support of her decision to drop out of Dartmouth after her father’s untimely death—buying her a car and introducing her to clients in need of a discreet chauffeur—further strengthens their bond, and she finds herself missing him terribly. With L ǎoyé’s encouragement, she continues the journey, and the lengthy stretches of driving allow Mĕi to reflect on life in the wake of her father’s passing—especially her estrangement from her mother, whose tacit acceptance of his death Mĕi can’t understand. Finally, Henry’s insistence on unusually frequent breaks leads Mĕi to confront him about his precious luggage, and once his secret is revealed she begins to see the world in a very different light. Frazier expertly weaves historic and contemporary injustices faced by Chinese Americans and Uyghurs through this fast-paced, propulsive book, which is at its most powerful when depicting the way Mĕi’s family navigates life after catastrophe. She has a knack for writing funny dialogue—scathing sarcasm underpinned by a great deal of love—and there are plenty of hilarious exchanges to lighten the dark political context of the novel.

A vital, enthralling debut in which devastating social commentary is delivered with a wink.

An extraordinarily beautiful depiction of an ugly world in the making.

NAPALM IN THE HEART

Kirkus Star

Napalm in the Heart

Guasch, Pol | Trans. by Mara Faye Lethem

Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.)

$18.00 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780374612955

A bleakly brilliant novel of a near future in which humankind has descended into unspeakable brutality.

Catalan poet Guasch makes his fiction debut with this elegantly lyrical view of a world torn apart by an unspecified catastrophe: a plague, perhaps, or climate change. Either way, people hide in dark rooms during the day as wolves descend from the hills, “striding among the houses.” The narrator has remained in his little sun-blasted village to take care of his mother, widowed after her husband’s desperate suicide. Resigned to the world’s terrors, Mom has taken up with a fascist beast whose “head is shaved, like all of them,” servant of a new regime emblematized by a mysterious place called the Factory. The narrator, meanwhile, yearns for his boyfriend, Boris, to whom he writes lovely, evocative letters: “I love you the way we love those who’ve left long ago,” he writes, “and those who haven’t yet arrived….” Boris has relocated to a distant city where life is perhaps a tiny bit better—or so the narrator finds after, in a moment worthy of Cormac McCarthy on the one hand, he dispatches his mother’s suitor and then, evoking Albert Camus on the other hand (“Mother died today. Or yesterday, maybe, I don’t know”), desultorily seeks a place to bury her after he

reunites with Boris, a distant and often sullen young man who has his own priorities. Throw in a little Mad Max-ish chaos of roving gangs, and it’s amazing that anyone or anything can survive, not to mention the narrator’s love for Boris, which, he slyly notes, “dared not speak its name.” Intimations of other European modernists— Schnurre, Dürrenmatt, Cela—resound quietly throughout a text punctuated by museum-worthy photographs to stunning, memorable effect.

An extraordinarily beautiful depiction of an extraordinarily ugly—and wholly credible—world in the making.

The Dissonance

Hamill, Shaun | Pantheon (496 pp.)

$29.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9780593317259

The surviving members of a powerful teenage coven of magicians reunite in East Texas. Much like Hamill’s debut, A Cosmology of Monsters (2019), this meaty horror novel is a treat for readers whose nostalgia gravitates to the likes of Stand by Me, Twin Peaks, or, most thematically, Stephen King’s It. In a similar vein to Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black novels or Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake trilogy, Hamill takes some ordinary young people and puts them through the metaphysical wringer to see what’s left at the end. In Clegg, Texas, circa the late 1990s, we meet best pals Hal, Athena, and Erin. Their chance encounter with a lost boy in the woods leads them to classmate Peter and his grandfather,

Professor Elijah Marsh, an eccentric practitioner of the titular magic who teaches them the ropes. “This power, this energy, this Dissonance?” explains the professor. “It’s born from discomfort. From unhappiness. From pain. This world we occupy, and which we hope to control, is a broken, violent place.” Grappling with forces they don’t really understand leads to a disaster that claims many lives, including one of their own. Unfortunately, our heroes aren’t in great shape two decades later. Erin is a barista going nowhere, Athena parlayed her magical talents into running an occult bookstore, and recovering alcoholic Hal is on his way to prison for murder. When an invitation to a 20th-anniversary memorial service arrives, no one wants to revisit the scene of the crime. But after a well-meaning closeted teen named Owen botches a necromancy spell and finds himself playing Renfield to a bad actor, they’re forced to reunite not just to confront their past but employ all their collective gifts to save the world. The rules governing Hamill’s fantastical universe can be a little hazy, but when the nightmare-fraught tale is filled with monsters, teleportation, time travel, and other supernatural wonders, it’s more fun to embrace the chaos.

A wistful, emotional roller coaster that finds worse than memories waiting at home.

Burn

Heller, Peter | Knopf (304 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593801628

Two men on a hunting trip encounter a civil war.

Heller’s novel follows Jess and Storey, two friends in Maine, as their annual hunting trip turns calamitous. Early on, Heller references a bridge being out and a way forward blocked. The exact nature of the catastrophe isn’t revealed until partway through, though there are some hints. “All summer the entire state had been

convulsed with secession mania,” Heller writes. He describes the situation Jess and Storey are in as being “in the wake of a rolling catastrophe,” with all the momentum that implies. The duo doesn’t encounter another living person until a significant part of the book has passed— and once they do, their situation becomes even more unsettling, as it seems they’re in a war zone with little sense of who’s fighting, and on what side. (The way this escalates allows for a rare moment of gallows humor when Storey says, “The helicopters suggest to me it’s not just a Maine thing.”) The two men find a girl, Collie, who’s become separated from her family, giving the second half a little more structure. Jess and Storey’s journey across an uncertain landscape is interspersed with Jess’ thoughts on his now-defunct marriage and his long friendship with Storey. Heller ably captures the white-knuckle momentum as the two men try to stay alive—bringing this book closer in tone to James Dickey’s WWII–era thriller To the White Sea than to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . But that choice also makes the speculative elements feel disconnected from the story of the long friendship at this novel’s heart; it’s not hard to imagine much of the same action occurring in the wake of a natural disaster. An ambitious story of survival that doesn’t always click, but is frequently thrilling.

House of Bone and Rain

Iglesias, Gabino | Mulholland Books/ Little, Brown (352 pp.) | $29.00 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780316427012

A Puerto Rican teen out to avenge the murder of his mother finds himself in an even darker place when Hurricane Maria strikes, bringing with it ghosts, demons, and horrific visions.

After his mother, a low-level drug dealer named Maria, is shot in the face

for encroaching on someone’s territory, her son, Bimbo, will stop at nothing to avenge her—including torturing and murdering people for information. Most of his close friends don’t want any part this. But after one of them, Xavier, is murdered and Gabe, the primary narrator of the book, barely escapes the killers, their outlook changes. Torn between loyalty to Bimbo and love of his girlfriend, Natalia, who tries to talk sense into him (she’s desperate to escape to the United States), Gabe ultimately embraces his anger. When the hurricane hits, causing an epic power outage, all kinds of people go missing and little attempt is made by the authorities to find them. Myth crashes into reality when “a very large human made of shadows and with a black hole for a face” is seen at the edge of the storm. Prayers and incantations to various Orishas can’t erase unthinkable visions including that of a father bashing in his newborn baby’s skull with a brick because he was born with a horn in the middle of his forehead. In this epic darkness, no amount of bloodshed is enough for Bimbo, and Gabe, finding comfort with a gun, stays with him. Iglesias is an unstoppable force himself, intensifying the grief and widespread helplessness felt on the island post-Maria, along with the supernatural elements. The book isn’t without its excesses, but it’s a step up from his previous novel, The Devil Takes You Home (2022).

A mostly successful combination of horror, crime, and teen lit.

Kirkus Star

The Unicorn Woman

Jones, Gayl | Beacon Press (224 pp.) $26.95 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780807030035

A surprising, welcome gift from one of America’s finest and least predictable writers. This chronicle of a Black GI’s return to the American South after World War II

provides Jones with the occasion to kick back and gently unravel the story of Buddy Ray Guy, an erstwhile Army cook and tractor repairman, who’s on something of a quest to find the book’s eponymous “Unicorn Woman,” whom he first beholds, albeit from odd angles, at a carnival near his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. Though he can see the “spiraled horn” protruding from the woman’s forehead, Buddy is just as astonished by the “slender, dimpled arms [that] were the color of my own” since he’s more used to finding “white freaks” at carny sideshows. From then on, the enigmatic woman stalks Buddy’s dreams as he makes his way from Kentucky to Memphis, trying to parlay the mechanical skills he picked up in the military into a full-time civilian living in a postwar America still tethered to racial segregation. When Buddy confesses his obsession with the spiral-horned woman to Esta, his sometime girlfriend, she chalks it up to Buddy’s wildly romantic imagination: “You are more of a freedom seeker…than a unicorn seeker, Buddy Ray,” she tells him. “I don’t know whether freedom seekers are ever truly satisfied.” Nevertheless, not even the vicissitudes of Jim Crow America can keep Buddy from following through on his dreams, whether they involve conversing with the elusive unicorn woman or figuring out how to make the best use of his craft. All the while, Jones weaves a captivating tapestry of African American life in the 1940s from Buddy’s dreams and the wide-ranging information he collects on his quest throughout the mid-South from friends and relatives. He keeps his eyes and ears open to all manner of input, whether it comes from fragments of an Amos ‘n’ Andy radio broadcast or from the folk wisdom he gathers at

restaurants, homes, and places of worship. Most of all, it’s Buddy’s narrative voice—digressive, reflective, witty, and wise—that sustains one’s attention and affection throughout this warm, savory evocation of the elegiac, the fantastic, and the historic. Even when she dials down the intensity, Jones is capable of quiet astonishment.

Kirkus Star

The Lost Coast

Kellerman, Jonathan & Jesse Kellerman Ballantine (368 pp.) | $30.00

Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780525620143

Father and son Kellerman collaborate on the fifth Clay Edison PI adventure. On Northern California’s Lost Coast, the executor of a woman’s estate needs help sorting out some curious monthly payments the deceased had been making. Having no luck with one private investigator, she asks Oakland ex-cop turned PI Clay Edison. Soon the original PI, Regina Klein, bawls him out in bleep-worthy terms for horning in on her case, but they form a temporary alliance to solve a complicated plot that’s rife with peril. It looks like someone is running a real estate scam on an isolated location on the Lost Coast called Swann’s Flat. A narrow and dangerous road twists and turns to the destination, and Clay sideswipes a teenage cyclist on a hairpin turn. The girl, Shasta, doesn’t blame Clay for her minor injuries, and she becomes a key in a story that’s peppered with vivid

The prevailing mode is irony, ranging from playful to grotesque.

HELLO, HORSE

descriptions: Clay sees “the Pacific Coast baring its teeth. It was a crude, ax-hewn land, bunched like the front end of a head-on collision.” And Regina is one of an abundance of well-drawn, entertaining characters: She has a gift for acting and easily switches from garbage-mouth to sweetness and light as the situation calls for. As a pretend married couple, they go to Swann’s Flat and let a B.S. artist named Beau try to sell them property in this “private residential community”: “Find your heart on the Lost Coast!” Clay checks in frequently with his real wife, Amy, who’s at home with their two kids. He even consults with her on how much risk he should take; they are a loving family apparently devoid of flaws. Meanwhile, a one-hit-wonder novelist can’t be found, and another young man is missing. Years earlier, Shasta’s dad had fallen into oblivion off a cliff so high you couldn’t hear the thump at the bottom. Maybe it was an accident or maybe not. And maybe Pop won’t be the cliff’s last victim. Crisp, witty dialogue zips this well-paced story along so that when violence happens, it comes as a shock.

Kellerman fans will love this one.

Kirkus Star

Hello, Horse

Kemick, Richard Kelly | Biblioasis (224 pp.) | $16.95 paper

Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781771966078

Eleven strange, sly stories by an intriguing Canadian writer. Kemick has published a volume of poetry (Caribou Run), an account of his stint in a Passion play (I Am Herod ), and a stage production called Amor de Cosmos: A Delusional Musical The tales here mix whimsy, weirdness, lust, and Canadian politics, bringing to mind George Saunders and the slackers from Wayne’s World. In “Gravity,” two teenagers are paid to make insulting

alterations to political campaign signs. The narrator ponders how he’ll miss his life’s “infinite simplicity” when his 16-year-old girlfriend has their baby. In the 50-page “Satellite,” a convent school in a future world of constant fires and smoke has teens and nuns in full habit competing fiercely at ice hockey. In “Patron Saints,” infidelity touches a gay couple in Paris, where an escaped tiger roams the streets; one of the men trades quips with a talking dog. At a Canadian teachers’ conference in Cuba in “Sea Change,” two attendees struggle to find the enthusiasm for adultery while pro-democracy protests turn into “state-sanctioned violence.” In “Our Overland Offensive to the Sea,” a Canadian colonel, “after an RV vacation to Gettysburg,” decides to stage a mini civil war in Manitoba with live ammo and some troops dragooned from prison and introduced with their crimes, as in “Carl (Drugs).” Kemick writes with the detail and clarity of good journalism. The prevailing mode is irony, ranging from playful to grotesque, which forms a distancing frame for the author’s sympathetic sketches of life’s portions of pain, hope, or confusion. He has a penchant for alternating between things familiar and bizarre. The “simplicity” of the teens’ life in “Gravity,” for instance, includes a mother who “hung herself with a plugged-in strand of Christmas lights.” Provocative, entertaining short fiction.

These Deathless Shores

Low, P.H. | Orbit (432 pp.) | $19.99 paper July 9, 2024 | 9780316569200

A pair of former Lost Boys return to the Island to steal a famous fairy. Peter’s roster of Lost Boys never changes; when one Boy grows up, Peter simply collects another to take his name and place. That rule once allowed unrelated best friends Jordan and Baron to join as “the Twins.” Sure, Jordan had to pretend

to be a boy and use Dust to glamour her missing hand, but it was worth it for a life on the Island. Years after her first menstrual period outed her and nearly cost her her life, Jordan is a famed underground fighter with a mean drug addiction. Half a decade of heavy Dust use has left her reliant on a street drug—and the landlord-dealer who supplies it—to get by. Determined to get out from under his thumb, Jordan hatches a plan to return to the Island with Baron and steal Tink from Peter. Complicating her endeavor is the fact that no grown-up has ever gone to the Island and lived to tell the tale. But Jordan may just be the only person ambitious enough to succeed. And when she takes up the pirate captain’s hook, well, that’s where the story really takes off. Low walks a knife’s edge here, remaining faithful to Barrie’s original work while transplanting it into an invented world. The novel showcases the brutality of the Lost Boys’ existence, as members of their little tribe kill wantonly. Peter comes off as particularly frightening here. Readers will recall his line in Barrie’s novel, “I forget them after I kill them,” as they watch him cull the followers who have grown too old and make Dust from his victims’ ground bones. Intersectionality abounds. Jordan has a congenital limb difference and a complicated relationship to her gender identity. Baron lives with intense anxiety, as well as suicidal ideations. Both heroes are Chinese-coded. The grown-up Peter Pan sequel readers needed all along.

Rip Tide

McKeegan, Colleen | Harper/ HarperCollins (272 pp.) | $27.99 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780063305540

women struggle to overcome unhealthy teenage relationships, McKeegan’s novel has the trappings of a beach-read mystery. On the first page of the first chapter, labeled “Beach Week 2022: Day Six,” a dead body shows up; then the book jumps back to “Day One” and alternates between Beach Week 2022 and events at least 15 years earlier. Kimmy, a “finance superstar,” arrives in Rocky Cape after a long absence. Her younger sister, Erin, has been living at home since her difficult divorce at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the week wears on, each sister relives painful memories of secrets and betrayals. The depiction of their love-hate relationship as kids is funny if painful, and McKeegan’s depiction of the sex, drugs, and general hedonism of teens during the early 2000s rings painfully true. Kimmy got in over her head and ended her senior year in deep trauma and humiliation. Now she reconnects with old friends, including her high school passion, Justin, who slept with her regularly back then though his official girlfriend was Erin’s nasty friend Madison. Despite Kimmy’s memory of Justin’s part in her ultimate humiliation, she can’t resist their mutual attraction during Beach Week. Erin had a secret teenage passion, too: Peter, an older college boy with whom she carried on a confusing flirtation, her devotion fueled by his mixed signals. After moving home two years ago, she fell into an affair with the married Peter. Now Peter is that dead body. Eventually the book moves past Day Six to follow the detective—a former classmate of Kimmy’s—who’s investigating whether Peter’s death was suicide or murder. There’s a fun twist at the end but McKeegan’s strength is bringing to life the intricate family and small-town social dynamics on display.

Sisters in their 30s return to their Jersey Shore hometown, where they revisit lingering demons from their adolescence.

Although it’s really about the ways young

A dark, witty beach read about beach-town shenanigans.

For more by Colleen McKeegan, visit Kirkus online.

How To Leave the House

Newman, Nathan | Viking (288 pp.)

$29.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593654903

A wayward 20-something art critic discovers a great deal about himself and his hometown in pursuit of a missing package.

The inciting incident for debut author Newman’s raucous first novel is a simple mix-up of the Royal Mail. Natwest, a once-precocious English teen and aspiring art critic, has aged into a pretentious young adult finally headed off to university. The morning before departing his small town for the big city, Natwest anxiously awaits the arrival of a discreet package of particular length and girth, only to inadvertently swap parcels at the post office with his mother’s employer, dentist Dr. Richard Hung (pun very much intended). As Natwest attempts to recoup his item, his path intersects with a number of seemingly minor characters whose roles gradually assume greater importance: Mrs. Pandey, a former teacher who fostered young Natwest’s potential; Joan, a widower across the street who’s getting back into the dating scene; and Mishaal, a local imam enduring an unhappy marriage. Newman expertly threads together the minor events and small mishaps of the characters’ lives in a convincing recreation of the inescapable social overlap that often defines life in a small town. Underlying it all is a preoccupation with beauty and the value of art. Natwest obsessively sees references everywhere: His mother in an orange nighty recalls “Leighton’s Flaming June ”; the stares of disapproving neighbor boys “pierced him like the arrows in a St. Sebastian picture.” More than motifs, artistic legacies are also the source of much of the book’s humor—at one point, Natwest imagines Geoff Dyer attending his funeral. Newman

works in more profound interactions as well. Reconnecting on a park bench, Natwest and former mentor Mrs. Pandey debate the artistic merits of a nail salon mural painted in the style of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam , the outstretched fingers on each figure sporting pink nail polish: It’s Žižekian, it’s Jungian, it’s Pop Art in situ, “Warhol’s soup cans, restored to the Asda aisle.” In seeking to balance intelligent prose, insightful commentary, and compelling characters, Newman delivers. Smart and funny, Newman’s debut is a refreshing take on juvenilia and the enduring potency of art discourse.

Kirkus Star

Mina’s Matchbox

Ogawa, Yoko | Trans. by Stephen Snyder Pantheon (288 pp.) | $28.00 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593316085

A young Japanese girl spends the pastoral summer of 1972 with her asthmatic cousin. Focusing on characters of an age when the world seems full of wonder and possibility, this engaging bildungsroman explores the friendship and mutual curiosity between two extraordinary young people. Our narrator is 12-yearold Tomoko, who has been sent to live with her aunt’s family in the wake of her father’s death as her mother studies dressmaking in Tokyo. In comparison to their young charge, the family is outsized—sophisticated and wealthy inheritors of a soft-drink empire, complete with a country estate—and includes Tomoko’s enigmatic aunt; her half-German uncle, who is more absent than not; and their charismatic 18-year-old son, Ryūichi, off studying at university. The center of Tomoko’s orbit is her younger cousin, Mina, an ailing bookworm who persuades Tomoko to raid the local library for her fix and eventually shares the secret of her

hidden collection of matchboxes, given to her by a crush. This curious duo is lightly grounded by the inclusion of groundskeeper Kobayashi and cook Yoneda, who has curiously bonded late in life to Mina’s German grandmother, Rosa. If this weren’t enough to fill a Wes Anderson film’s worth of oddballs, there’s always Mina’s pet pygmy hippopotamus, Pochiko, the last survivor of a family zoo closed since World War II. While much of what we see on the surface is idyllic, Ogawa laces her narrative with real-life tragedies, among them the mysterious suicide of Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata and the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich. Facing complicated themes with deceptively simple language, she pulls off a neat trick here, painting everything in miniature and often in hindsight without losing the immediacy of Tomoko’s experiences. A charming yet guileless exploration of childhood’s ephemeral pleasures and reflexive poignancy.

Sacrificial Animals

Pedersen, Kailee | St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $29.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781250328243

A Nebraska family’s unquenchable violence is interrupted, then accelerated, by a femme fatale. This incantatory debut builds menace from its opening phrase:

“Moonlight slashes open the boy’s face.” The boy, Nick Morrow, is indeed menaced—and beaten—by father and brother; mom is killed off in childbirth in the second paragraph. Nick is trapped on his family’s “one thousand acres of rich loam atop the Ogallala Aquifer,” a place called Stag’s Crossing, thanks to the stag’s head perched on the front gate. It’s just the first decapitation featured in this grisly and relentlessly readable horror story. The author toggles 40 staccato chapters, each titled “Then” or “Now,” shifting between Nick’s adolescence and an excruciating time

A brilliant fable of sisterhood, class, and our relationship to nature.

BEAR

three decades later. The patriarch, Carlyle Morrow, possessing “a violence keen and beautiful as the silver curve of a fishhook,” has engineered a ruse to bring home his two estranged middle-aged sons. The favored older, Joshua, brings Emilia, his “high-strung, unintimidated” Asian American wife; Joshua’s choice of her ruptured Carlyle’s hold on his offspring. Now, thanks to the shocking and unnatural nature of Emilia, the Morrow patrimony of cruelty, wielded “with an ancient and primeval ecstasy,” will climax. And when it does, the author—who was adopted from Nanning, China, onto a Nebraska farm—is merciless. She writes with a rare acuity, bending her language toward fable, salting it with words like “demesne,” “eidolon,” and “sinfonietta.”

She is excellent at blurring the animal and human, even as her unbroken tone lacks the quotidian details that can relieve and ratchet horror. Still, few readers are likely to quit before the final chapter, “Then & Now.”

An assured and bloody fable heralds the arrival of a gifted new voice attuned to ancient modes of damnation.

Phillips’ follow-up to her acclaimed debut, Disappearing Earth (2019), again concerns a pair of sisters in a gorgeously evoked, off-the-beaten-track setting, this time with a close focus on the complicated psychology of the sibling relationship. Elena and Sam’s beautiful mother was “an orphan with two toddlers by the time she was twenty-five” and now, not long past her 50th birthday, is dying of causes related to inhaling solvents at the nail salon where she worked. Her daughters toil at the golf club restaurant and in the snack bar on the ferry; their plan is to make ends meet until their mother dies, then sell their house and the valuable land it occupies and leave the island. Phillips opens the novel with an excerpt from the fairy tale “Snow-White and Rose-Red” by the Brothers Grimm: “‘Poor bear,’ said the mother, ‘lie down by the fire, only take care that you do not burn your coat.’”

The Devil Raises His Own

Phillips, Scott | Soho Crime (384 pp.)

$27.95 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781641294935

The seamy side of silent pictures.

Phillips, Julia | Hogarth (304 pp.)

$28.00 | June 25, 2024 | 9780525520436

In the San Juan Islands off Washington state, two sisters, bonded in the care of their dying mother, are divided by their reaction to a wildlife intruder.

This welcoming response to a wild creature is reflected in Elena’s reaction to a huge bear that shows up outside their front door one day, probably the same one Sam just spied from the deck of the ferry, swimming the channel. Unlike her older sister, Sam is terrified of the creature, and all the more so as Elena begins to feed and court him as a wilderness pet, imagining the bear as a magical lucky charm in their dreary lives. In Sam, her flawed and fascinating point-of-view character, Phillips flexes her writerly finesse and insight, creating a postadolescent working-class heroine full of resentment at all the monied people surrounding her, deeply dependent on her sister, and suspicious of everyone else. The division between the sisters is sharpened by secrets and past trauma that emerge slowly, then explode.

A bold and brilliant modern fable of sisterhood, class, and our relationship to the natural world.

After killing her abusive husband in self-defense, Flavia Purcell leaves Wichita to stay with her grandfather, photographer Bill Ogden, in Los Angeles. In 1916, the Hollywood studios have yet to establish themselves, and filmmaking is a dog-eat-dog world. Clyde Grady, who’s graduated from one-reel comedies to stag films, joins forces with Irene Buntnagel, of the West Coast Art Company, and her husband, George Kaplan, of the film company Provident, whose sex film starring streetwalkers Trudy Crombie and Victoria Tessart encourages him to propose a series of “queer stuff.” The X-rated films produced by Magnificat Educational Distribution Company, Incorporated, are so successful despite flouting the laws of the Postal Service that they provide the thread that (barely) holds together several far-reaching subplots. Small-time criminal Ezra Crombie, Trudy’s long-estranged husband, turns up determined to make a go of it with her. Henry Seghers, who meets Ezra aboard a freight train the two of them have hopped, becomes Bill’s assistant and falls in love with Flavia. Tommy Gill, a vaudeville star whose career in film comedies is on a steep decline, finds himself co-starring with Trudy’s two children by Ezra, who punch and humiliate him onscreen to universal laughter. Postal inspector Melvin van de Kamp switches from patronizing the workers in a local brothel to watching the latest blue movies the madam sets up for him. The city grows sharply divided over the question of whether the U.S. should enter the Great War. The roster of hangers-on is obviously headed for a day of reckoning, but when it finally arrives in a series of violent confrontations, it can’t help seeming anticlimactic. Less compelling as a story than as a richly teeming historical canvas.

Kirkus Star Bear

Return Engagements

Favorite characters from novels past reappear in these new audiobooks.

BY CONNIE OGLE

In Long Island (Simon & Schuster Audio, 9 hours and 28 minutes), the sequel to 2009’s bittersweet Brooklyn , Colm Tóibín revisits the life of Irish immigrant Eilis Lacey, who left home for New York in the 1950s.

Now, two decades later, Eilis and her husband, Tony, are parents to two teenagers, living in a suburban neighborhood surrounded by his family. One day, a stranger’s visit changes the course of their comfortable life, driving a wedge between them.

Smarting from various betrayals, Eilis returns to Ireland for her mother’s birthday and confronts the ghosts of her past, in particular Jim, the man she abandoned all those years before.

Irish actress Jessie Buckley (Wicked Little Letters, The Lost Daughter, I’m Thinking of Ending Things) narrates Long Island , and her versatility with subtle inflection helps flesh out Tóibín’s exquisitely drawn characters. With equal depth, Buckley reveals the seething turmoil within the outwardly calm Eilis; the steely determination hidden behind the deceptive warmth of Francesca, Eilis’ Italian American mother-in-law; the warring nerves and startling field-general decisiveness of Eilis’ old friend Nancy, who has reason to be wary of Eilis’ return. Buckley is also hilarious as Eilis’ querulous mother, highlighting the author’s sly humor in this

haunting story about love, regret, and second chances.

Leaving the past behind is also a monumental struggle for the characters in Rachel Khong’s Real Americans (Random House Audio, 14 hours and 40 minutes), which examines questions of class, culture, heredity, and identity over three generations.

Three distinct narrators represent the three main characters, each reader echoing the fears and hopes of different generations. In the first section, Louisa Zhu voices the Chinese American Lily Chen, a media company intern who falls in love with Matthew, a wealthy pharmaceutical heir. In the second, Eric Yang portrays their teenage son, Nick, who is desperate to learn about the father missing from his life. Eunice Wong reads the final, most powerful part of the novel, as Lily’s scientist mother, May, explains her tumultuous childhood, young adulthood, and escape from Mao’s China—and the reason she made the choices that estranged her from her daughter.

All three narrators embody these flawed-butreal characters with the compassion Khong displays throughout the novel. The story builds toward May’s vivid, harrowing revelations,

and Wong’s weary confessional delivers a rich and nuanced example of how we can be blinded by our past and our passions despite the best of intentions.

Read by two narrators, Amor Towles’ story collection Table for Two (Penguin Audio, 13 hours and 23 minutes) contains six short stories set in New York and one long novella set in Los Angeles. The biggest disappointment is the fact that the excellent J. Smith-Cameron (of HBO’s Succession) reads only one of the stories. She could have expertly handled the long novella, a slow-burn story about the adventures of Evelyn Ross, a character from Towles’ 2011 novel, Rules of Civility. That is not to slight the capable Edoardo Ballerini, who reads the rest of the book. Always a solid presence, Ballerini uses an even, placid yet confident tone to mesh with Towles’ at-arm’s-length narration. Towles doesn’t dig too deeply into the psyche or inner emotions of his characters, preferring instead to let their actions speak, and Ballerini’s practiced Everyman narrator offers strong support to his storytelling.

Connie Ogle is a writer in Florida.

Tell It to Me Singing

Ramirez, Tita | Marysue Rucci Books (384 pp.) 27.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781982157319

Is a woman’s shocking confession true, or just a fantasy from her favorite telenovela?

Mónica Campo is about to become a mom for the first time when, suddenly, it looks as if she might lose her own beloved, flamboyant mother, Mirta. The night before Mirta is scheduled for surgery for an aneurysm, mother and daughter watch a telenovela episode about a woman who bears her lover’s baby and never tells him. The next day Mirta, already sedated and afraid she might not wake up, says, “Mónica, your father is Juan.” But Monica’s father, or so she’s always thought, is Rolando Campo, an optician and solid family man, and she’s never heard of Juan. Mirta survives the surgery but her mental state is unsteady, and Mónica can’t be sure whether her confession is true or a sign her mom is losing her grip on reality. And Mónica has her own set of problems. She broke up with her longtime boyfriend, Manny, because he kept signing up for another hitch in the Army instead of making a home with her. Then she stumbled into a relationship with Robert, who’s steady and sweet and delighted she’s having his baby—but she’s not in love with him. Now, with Mirta’s illness, Manny is back. Mónica has never quite felt she knows where she belongs anyway, growing up in Miami as the daughter of Marielitos, the Cuban refugees who came to the U.S. en masse in the 1980s. Her parents have embraced their new home but feel the emotional pull of the one they left behind. As Mónica delves into the buried secrets her mother’s revelation brings to light, she learns much more than she ever imagined about

A rich portrait of Miami’s Cuban American community using telenovela tropes.

TELL IT TO ME SINGING

her parents’ history and herself. This debut novel addresses serious family matters but bursts with humor as well, thanks to Mónica’s tart voice and her funny, fractious family. A story of Miami’s Cuban American community uses tropes of telenovelas to frame a rich portrait.

Kirkus Star

Masquerade

Sangoyomi, O.O. | Forge (352 pp.)

$27.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9781250904294

Òdòdó, a talented and beautiful blacksmith who has lived her whole life in Timbuktu, is whisked away by Àrè m ọ, a warrior king who has chosen her to be his next wife.

Òdòdó’s life has not been an easy one. She and her mother are blacksmiths by trade; as unmarried women in 15th-century West Africa, working at a forge is one of the few ways they can make a living. But the local people think blacksmiths are witches, and the conditions of their subjugation have grown progressively worse for them and the rest of their guild. Plus, her hometown of Timbuktu was recently taken over by the mysterious warrior king of Yorùbáland. When Òdòdó is abruptly kidnapped and brought across the Sahara desert to the Yorùbá capital of Ṣàngótè , she’s both shocked and thrilled to discover that her kidnapper is none other than Àrè mọ, the fabled warrior king of Yorùbáland. Àrè mọ explains that he

wants nothing more than for Òdòdó to be his next wife, and Òdòdó, who finds Àrèmọ to be as charming and handsome as he is intimidating and cruel, is soon caught up in her new royal lifestyle. But the longer Òdòdó spends within the court, the more she’s exposed to complex political machinations and uncertain loyalties, and she quickly realizes that not everyone is as they seem, including her new husband. This debut novel is a page-turning blend of historical fiction with a retelling of the story of Hades and Persephone, deftly interweaving West African culture with mythology in a way that keeps a familiar tale feeling fresh and new. An intricately woven tale inspired by West African history.

There Are Rivers in the Sky

Shafak, Elif | Knopf (464 pp.) | $29.00 Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593801710

Three characters sepa rated by geography and time are united by a single raindrop. In her latest novel, Shafak presents readers with an ambitious, centuryspanning saga that revolves around three distinct characters hailing from different parts of the world and different time periods. There’s Zaleekhah, a hydrologist who has fled her marriage to live in a houseboat on the Thames in 2018; Narin, a young girl who lives along the Tigris in Turkey in 2014, where she is gradually going deaf; and Arthur, a brilliant young boy born into

extreme poverty in mid-19th-century London. Zaleekhah, Narin, and Arthur are united by a literary device that often feels overly precious: a single raindrop that, through a repeated cycle of condensation, falling, freezing, and/or thawing, reappears throughout time to interact with or afflict each character. Shafak’s attempts to personify the raindrop, which is described as “small and terrified…not dar[ing] to move,” fall flat. As a whole, the novel is engaging, with a propulsive narrative and an appealing storytelling voice, but Shafak is overly reliant on certain stylistic mannerisms, such as long lists of descriptions or actions that, stacked one upon the other, quickly grow tiresome, as in this description of Victorian England: “Spent grain from breweries, pulp from paper mills, offal from slaughterhouses, shavings from tanneries, effluent from distilleries…and discharge from flush toilets…all empty into the Thames….” Worse is Shafak’s tendency to overwrite and to pursue a self-consciously baroque narrative style (lots of betwixt s and whilst s), which occasionally results in convoluted or overly intricate phrases. “Did not our readings of poetry leave unforgettable memories?” one character asks early on. Less, as it turns out, sometimes does count for more.

An engaging story is marred by an overblown narrative style.

Blue Graffiti

Skogman, Calahan | Unnamed Press (301 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781951213954

An aimless Wisconsin handyman comes to terms with his troubled past through new love. At 29, Cash hasn’t lived a glamorous life: He’s a cigarettesmoking sometimes-painter who works odd jobs to make ends meet;

an occasional writer who never followed the passion; and a burgeoning alcoholic who spends most of his free time at Jimmy’s Place, a local bar tended to by Saul, the son of his father’s best friend. He still lives in his childhood home, left to him after his mother died in a car accident and his father, broken by the loss, fled town without warning. There, Cash (whose surname we never learn) and his two best friends, Leon and Prince, spend countless hours reminiscing about the past and dreaming up schemes for the future, fantasizing about all the ways they might leave the small town of Johnston but never quite following through on any of them. It’s a town full of hardworking people, but Cash longs for more, “to have one beautiful moment of purpose.” The moment arrives when Rose, a young woman Cash doesn’t recognize (rare in Johnston), walks into Jimmy’s Place one evening and he’s instantly smitten. Cash learns that Rose is Saul’s sister, and the family connection feels fated. As Cash is pulled deeper into a relationship with Rose, he’s simultaneously pulled deeper into the history and legacy of Johnston, reflecting anew on the nature of the town and the people who inhabit it. Rose may represent a bright new chapter in Cash’s story, but to begin it Cash must first confront his own past, starting with the father who left Cash adrift in the same dead-end life he’d abandoned. Skogman’s debut is a love letter to bar-stool philosophizing and a tender portrait of small-town life with a simple but powerful message: There’s always something special about home. Thoughtful, measured storytelling with moments of tremendous heart.

Kirkus Star

You Will Never Be Me

Sutanto, Jesse Q. | Berkley (336 pp.) $29.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593546949

Sut anto turns from her lighthearted mysteries about older Asian American amateur sleuths to probe the toxic friendship between a pair of online influencers. It’s fake, it’s fatal, but it’s still heartlessly funny.

Aspen Palmer was nobody when Meredith Lee spotted her at a party eight years ago and chatted her up. She wasn’t even Aspen Palmer yet; her name was Ryleebelle—a terrible name for someone looking for likes—and she had yet to marry realtor Ben Palmer. Meredith, who marketed herself as “The Right Kind of Asian,” gave her new friend a new name, taught her how to navigate social media without a net, and then watched as Aspen’s numbers surpassed her own. Along the way, the pair recast themselves as momfluencers who modeled a lifestyle that went beyond fashion and beauty tips and dragged their young daughters into the spotlight. Inoffensive Ben, who doesn’t make nearly as much money as Aspen, comes along for the ride; the sperm donor who fathered Meredith’s baby is lucky enough to be forgotten. Six months ago, the two friends had a memorable spat over numbers and authenticity and all the rest of it, and since then they’ve avoided

A Wisconsin handyman comes to terms with his troubled past through new love.

BLUE GRAFFITI

each other like poison until a series of disruptions causes one of them to decide that the rift between them doesn’t go deep enough; they need a break that’s altogether more decisive. Having established her credentials in YA fiction and gentle, albeit often manic comedy, Sutanto spins on a dime to show Meredith and Aspen dishing on each other with sublime and incandescent hatred. Even after tragedy strikes, their numbers continue to go through the roof. Until.

Social media mavens will nod in recognition; everyone else will come away relieved that this could never happen to them.

A Thousand Times Before

Thanki, Asha | Viking (368 pp.)

$29.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9780593654644

A mysterious tapestry brings the past to life for generations of women in one Hindu family.

The tapestry’s current guardian is Ayukta, a sculptor in Brooklyn. Although her ancestral memories go back further, she begins her story about 80 years ago with her grandmother Amla’s recollections of a happy childhood in Karachi, where Hindus and Muslims lived harmoniously together. But in 1947, when Amla was 10, Partition arrived. Amla’s mother died by political violence; Amla and her father escaped to Hindu Gujarat. Amla had the tapestry but, as a motherless girl, had to teach herself how to use it. She learned to experience her maternal ancestors’ lives. But her other new power—drawing events before they happened—was harder to understand, and one drawing caused her terrible grief. Years later, she gave the tapestry to her cautious, obedient older daughter, assuming

Glorious prose creates a grand, sometimes over-the-top sweep of facts, fantasy, and intriguing characters.

A

THOUSAND TIMES BEFORE

Vibha would avoid her mistake. But after Vibha ensured the happy future of her book-smart, bold younger sister Arni in a drawing, Vibha made a fatal error. Mourning Vibha’s death, Amla feared Arni was too impulsive to trust with the tapestry, but Arni proved herself worthy, if more independent. She moved to America and became Ayukta’s mother. The intricacies of motherhood and daughterhood are thoroughly examined here. Ayukta has revealed the tapestry’s existence to her wife, Nadya, to explain her ambivalence about motherhood, and their conversations concerning the tapestry’s potential impact on any child they might raise together frequently interrupt Ayukta’s storytelling. Love between queer women takes shape as another theme through Ayukta and Nadya’s relationship, and also as Ayukta begins to realize the abiding love Amla shared with her rediscovered childhood friend Fiza—a “love [that] collapses time,” Ayukta says a bit oversentimentally. There is nothing sentimental, though, in Thanki’s views on the unintended consequences of Partition and the rise of nationalism. Glorious prose creates a grand, sometimes over-the-top sweep of facts, fantasy, and intriguing characters.

For more debut fiction, visit Kirkus online.

Bright Objects

Todd, Ruby | Simon & Schuster (352 pp.)

$28.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781668053218

A small town in Australia is the setting for a lushly detailed debut novel starring a comet that puts Halley’s to shame.

Among the watchers of Comet St. John in 1997 is Sylvia Knight, a 32-year-old funeral home worker who two years earlier was the victim of a hit-and-run crash that killed her husband. Since then, she’s been doggedly but unsuccessfully searching for the driver of the car that caused the crash. The comet—which is due to make its first appearance to the naked eye in January, a few days after the novel starts, and to grow more prominent in the sky through August—has a special meaning for Sylvia: “The date St John would show itself in the sky was…the date by which I’d given myself permission to finally leave this planet.” Life, however, interferes with this plan, as Sylvia becomes unexpectedly intrigued with a mysterious stranger who shows up at the funeral parlor and turns out to be Theo St. John, the pensive young American astronomer who first discovered the comet. Then Sylvia feels compelled to rescue her gullible mother-in-law, Sandy, from the local doomsday cult that’s sprung up around the comet and is planning a festival

with an ending that doesn’t bode well for local residents. While the mystery of who was driving the car that killed Sylvia’s husband falls flat, with a conclusion that many readers will anticipate, Sylvia is a compellingly contradictory narrator, drawn to both stability and risk, and Todd places her in an equally complex community, a small town thrown off balance by its placement at the epicenter of comet viewing. The novel’s noir edge combines with a tone of mystical fatalism to make for a disorienting reading experience. A heady look at the influence of the heavens on a small patch of earth.

Mystery Lights

Valencia, Lena | Tin House (256 pp.)

$17.95 paper | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781959030621

Women get lost in deserts and caves and find strange creatures waiting—including their new selves.

Wellness retreats, guerrilla marketing campaigns, literary blogs, remote Airbnbs in Joshua Tree: Where there is glamour, there is terror in this self-assured debut collection. Although all Valencia’s stories are engaging, those that follow gangs of easily influenced women are the highlights of this set, such as “Mystery Lights,” about a marketing campaign in Marfa hijacked by an angry bewigged influencer and her followers, or the Black Mirror -esque “The Reclamation,” about a desert wellness retreat with a cultlike leader. The gendered nature of the horror genre comes through in these stories’ looming threats of sexual violence, such as in the opener, “Dogs,” in which a woman’s escape from a pack of dogs lands her in a strange man’s locked SUV; “You Can Never Be Too Sure,” in which a myth about a predator prowling around a college

campus collides with the truth; or “Bright Lights, Big Deal,” about working in the literary world pre-#MeToo. Girls disappear; some reemerge acting more animal. Some are lost forever to the forest. Aliens and ghosts hover close or fall away. In “Clean Hunters,” a ghost-hunting couple’s honeymoon is called into question when the wife can’t feel spirits anymore. In “The White Place,” a mysterious white orb hovers over a famous painter, her cook’s pregnant daughter, and the man they both are involved with. Valencia investigates the threats lurking behind our wellness brands and cave tours, viral literary aspirations and ski bum college friend groups. Self-actualization, she says, is sometimes not a desert meditation retreat—it may be a cave-dwelling flesh-eating creature. These stories show us there’s not all that much in the way between them. In 10 eerie stories, Valencia leans into the horror and grit under a shiny world.

Animals of the Alpine Front

Zancanella, Don | Delphinium (336 pp.) $26.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781953002402

The Italian Alps serve as the setting for this quiet chronicle of lives affected, and ruined, by war.

Related in alternating chapters, the stories of Carlo Coltura and Teresa Miori—loosely based on Zancanella’s family history—unfold over the years around World War I.

American-born Carlo, the son of immigrants who had traveled to Colorado to make their fortune in gold, returns with his widowed father to the small Italian mountain village of Ulfano after the family experienced some mining success. Teresa, a girl from the same remote village, is sent by her mother to work in a household in the city of Trento after her father deserted the household. When Carlo is sent to boarding school in Trento, their paths fleetingly intersect in a meeting that provides Carlo with hope and inspiration during the ensuing war and his conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army. Carlo’s years at war are spent in mining operations and illustrate the brutal costs of the construction of military installments on the Italian front. Teresa’s war years are spent in her employer’s home in the company of the rest of the household staff after the decampment of the owners for safer territory and the subsequent annexation of the home by occupying Austro-Hungarian forces. Teresa’s circumstances provide her with an opportunity to prove her own mettle, and she also becomes increasingly involved with caring for animals abandoned or injured during the war. When Carlo and Teresa are reunited after the war, they are faced with negotiating life in a city and culture transformed and must determine how to proceed after living through great trauma. This plainspoken account of the personal and social costs of war displays great empathy for those swept up in its maelstrom. Zancanella’s sensitive focus is on a small region but great loss.

The Italian Alps serve as the setting for this quiet chronicle of lives ruined by war.

ANIMALS OF THE ALPINE FRONT

IN THE NEWS

Alice Munro Dies at 92

The Canadian writer, celebrated for her short stories, won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Alice Munro, the Nobel Prize–winning author whose understated short stories explored the interior lives of small-town Canadians and who was widely considered one of the greatest writers in the English language, has died at 92.

Her death was announced in a news release by her publisher, Penguin Random House Canada.

Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario, and educated at the University of Western Ontario. She co-founded Munro’s Books in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1963, with then-husband James Munro.

Alice Munro made her literary debut in 1968 with the story collection Dance of the Happy Shades, which won a Governor General’s Award. She followed that up three years later with a novel in stories, Lives of Girls and Women, which a critic for Kirkus praised as “very likable” and “very real.”

Her other books include The Moons of Jupiter ; Friend of My Youth; The Love of a

Good Woman; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage ; Runaway ; and Dear Life

In 2013, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Swedish Academy praising her as “the master of the contemporary short story.” She was also the third winner of the International Booker Prize, when the award was given to an author and not a particular book. Munro’s admirers paid tribute to her on social media. On X, novelist Adam Sternbergh posted, “Not at all an exaggeration to say that Alice Munro was the single most revered living Canadian, both nationally and globally. a true giant.”

—MICHAEL SCHAUB

Alice Munro

Derek Shapton

For reviews of Alice Munro’s books, visit Kirkus online.

James Frey Is Author of Anonymous Book

The Million Little Pieces author is behind Next to Heaven, according to Deadline. Deadline has tracked down the author behind an anonymously written book that’s making waves in Hollywood. The magazine reported that the author of Next to Heaven, a novel that has already landed a television deal and is currently being shopped for a publishing deal is James Frey. Frey made headlines in 2006, after a Daily Beast report that accused him of fabricating stories in his 2003 memoir, A Million Little Pieces. The book, a chronicle of Frey’s youthful struggles with substance use disorder, had initially received critical praise, including a starred review from Kirkus.

SEEN AND HEARD

Months after the Daily Beast report, Frey acknowledged that he had made up portions of the book.

Next to Heaven, Deadline reports, follows two best friends in Connecticut who decide to host a party for swingers, at which one partygoer ends up dead. Television rights to the novel were acquired by producers Mike Larocca and Michael Schaefer. Deadline reporter Mike Fleming Jr. said that figuring out the author was Frey was “not like cracking the case of the Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping.”

“Frey has a way with grammar and sentence structure that makes his works move at 60 mph, and those trademark flourishes were there,” Fleming wrote. “I tracked down Frey, who acknowledged that he wrote the book and that when it is published next summer, it will go under his proper name.”—M.S.

For a review of A Million Little Pieces visit Kirkus online. James Frey

An attempt to renovate a house ends up making things much, much worse.

BETWEEN A FLOCK AND A HARD PLACE

Between a Flock and a Hard Place

Andrews, Donna | Minotaur (304 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781250894083

A high-profile attempt to renovate an inoffensive house in Caerphilly, Virginia, ends up making things much, much worse. It’s raining turkeys on Bland Street. After one of them lands on Meg Langslow’s windshield, she realizes that the birds, which normally keep themselves away from human citizens, have been driven there by one or more of those very citizens. Is it mischievous friends of Meg’s twins, Josh and Jamie? Or someone with a grudge against Reg and Imogen Smetkamp, relative newcomers to Bland Street who’ve won the opportunity to have the house that once belonged to Charles Jasper remodeled by producer Jared Blomqvist and the crew of Marvelous Mansions , his reality TV show? The Smetkamps certainly don’t need any more aggravation. Jared and his minions, who clearly don’t have a clue about the job they’ve taken on, have already knocked down so many bearing walls that it’s only a matter of time before the house collapses. But that’s still enough time for the gang of turkey wranglers assembled by Meg—acting in her capacity as Mayor Randall Shiffley’s executive assistant for special projects—to discover Imogen’s body stabbed to death in her backyard shed. An amateur might think she was attacked by one of those turkeys, but Meg, a veteran of

34 raucous adventures, is no amateur. Despite having to deal with friends and relations who seem oblivious to the threat of a murderer among them, presumably because they’ve heard this song so many times before, she quickly flushes out not only the murderer, whose motive is both logical and unexpected, but a serious thief roosting in close quarters. Fans of this long-running, lackadaisical series will know just what to expect, and they’ll get it in spades.

Booked on Murder

Brook, Allison | Crooked Lane (304 pp.)

$29.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781639108459

Not even her impending nuptials can stop a Connecticut librarian from investigating murder and mayhem. When Carrie Singleton’s boss asks her to write an article on Verity Babcock, a woman hanged for witchcraft whose diary turned up in a donation to the Clover Ridge library, Carrie hopes it will encourage pardons for the so-called witches hundreds of years after their deaths. Even as wedding preparations make more and more demands on her time and energy, Carrie is encouraged in her research by Evelyn Havers, the library ghost. When Carrie and her fiance, Dylan Avery, visit their friend Victor Zalinka’s lavish home above the Long Island Sound, where their wedding will be taking place, to make some final arrangements, they find a dead man next to a large hole

in the lawn. The victim was a bank robber whose loot was never recovered and who may have been killed on his release from prison by accomplices seeking the money. Naturally, Carrie can’t resist nosing around. In the meantime, two area residents are fighting over Verity’s reputation. One is a relative of Verity; the other, the relative of a man she was accused of murdering. Seeking relief from their stress, Carrie and Dylan go look at a charming older home that’s been on the market for three years. They love the place and don’t mind the two ghostly girls that come with it. When one of the robber’s accomplices turns up dead, Carrie fears that her investigation may exact a higher toll than last-minute wedding jitters.

A complex mystery with historical tidbits and plenty of likable characters. The ghosts are especially charming.

A Poisonous Palate

Burdette, Lucy | Crooked Lane (288 pp.)

$29.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781639108473

A cold case heats up in the Florida Keys. When restaurant critic and amateur sleuth Hayley Snow— who lives on a houseboat in Key West with her police lieutenant husband, Nathan Bransford—receives an email from author Catherine Davitt asking for help investigating a 40-year-old disappearance, she’s both curious and suspicious. As it has in many prior cases, her curiosity wins out, much to Nathan’s dismay. Catherine, who’s in town researching a Hemingway book, spent some time in 1978 in a nearby hippie encampment with her friend Veronica, who went missing and was never found. According to Catherine, the police brushed her off at the time and forced everyone to leave before bulldozing the encampment. A trip

A scriptwriter chases her dream of revitalizing a motel in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

A VERY WOODSY MURDER

to Big Pine Key, where it all happened, reveals some of the original group still living in the area. Handsome group leader Arthur is now a veterinarian; Ginny is a waitress at the No Name Pub; and Ned, an older guy who used to hang around the camp, still owns a decrepit motel. When Hayley and Catherine visit Ned, they find him fatally stabbed with a pair of scissors. Although the police still think Veronica left on her own, the murder opens up a whole new field of investigation. Hayley’s research shows that the camp was a hotbed of drugs, sex, and toxic jealousy stirred up by the beautiful Veronica, who had all the men pursuing her. All these motives put the ever-curious Hayley in a dangerous position as she searches for the truth.

A fascinating mix of Hemingway lore, flashbacks to the 1970s, and appended recipes.

A Very Woodsy Murder

Byron, Ellen | Kensington (288 pp.)

$27.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781496745354

A Los Angeles scriptwriter chases her dream of revitalizing a midcentury motel in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Like so many cozy heroines, Dee Stern is ready to give up her hectic big city job for a quiet life in the country. Fortunately, unlike so many cozy heroines, she’s remained on excellent terms with her ex-husband, Jeff Cornetta. So when Dee falls in love

with the worn but picturesque Golden Motel in Foundgold, California, she’s able to persuade the data analyst to join her in restoring the quaint property to its former glory. The two “citiots,” as their new neighbors call them, face a host of challenges. Foundgold is the poorer of the two towns nestled at the base of Majestic National Park. Apparently, once the miners found the gold, they took the money and ran. Neighboring Goldsgone, on the other hand, is populated by descendants of the miners who, finding no gold, stayed put and over the years built a thriving tourism economy. The last thing folks in Goldsgone want is a revitalized Golden Motel to compete for their tourist trade, and they sabotage Dee and Jeff at every turn. The biggest blow, however, comes when their very first guest is murdered outside his newly refurbished room. Foundgold’s citizens rally around Dee and Jeff, including Elmira Williker (whose All-in-One General Store dates back to the Gold Rush and whose homemade baked goods taste like they do too) and Serena Finlay-Katz (a Hollywood agent’s wife whose trendy handcrafted charcuterie boards prove a surprise hit). It’s a close call, but justice prevails. Filled with small ironies, Byron’s debut novel is well paced, good-natured, and, as promised, very woodsy.

No Paw To Stand On

Cass, Laurie | Berkley (368 pp.)

$9.99 paper | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593547441

A Michigan librarian finds the perfect distraction from planning her nuptials: researching possible motives and methods for a poisoning at her friend’s restaurant.

For more by Ellen Byron, visit Kirkus online.

Minnie Hamilton is in the thick of it. After trying in vain to convince her aunt to plan her wedding to longtime love Rafe Niswander, she’s reluctantly taken charge of the details for the September ceremony. Now that summer is here, the date’s getting too close for comfort, even though Rafe is a perfect match whose patience as a middle school principal makes him endlessly tolerant of the trouble Minnie keeps getting herself into. It’s just that the details of a wedding aren’t as much fun as those of the numerous investigations Minnie has wrapped herself up in. But many decisions seem set in stone, with food provided by Minnie’s best friend Kristen Jurek’s restaurant, Three Seasons, and driven to the venue, the Chilson District Library’s community room, in Minnie’s bookmobile. It all seems perfect until the officiant drops out. As Minnie frets over this, she gets a series of calls and texts from Kristen, culminating in a dire “CALL ME NOW!!!” Worried that something might be wrong with Kristen’s babies, Minnie drops everything to check on her friend and is shocked to learn that eight people got sick after eating at Three Seasons, and two of them are in the hospital. Minnie knows she has to tell all this ASAP to her friend Ash Wolverson, a Tonedagana County deputy, but she thinks she may be the best person to do on-the-ground research. While Minnie and longtime companion cat Eddie search for the poisoner, Kristen seems to spin out, and Minnie

wonders if there’s something more underlying her friend’s moodiness. Heavy on background chatter, with a low-stakes mystery upstaged by friendship tremors.

Peach Tea Smash

Childs, Laura | Berkley (320 pp.)

$29.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593201015

A tea shop owner’s reputation as an amateur sleuth is put to the test.

Theodosia Browning, who owns the Indigo Tea shop in historic Charleston, spends most of her time creating innovative tea-themed parties for the shop and her catering business. While she and Drayton Conneley, her well-connected and well-off tea sommelier, are at the Pendleton Grist Mill for the Mad Hatter Masquerade, a fundraiser for the opera society, they stumble upon a horrifying scene. A badly injured man is hanging from a still-working part of the mill, and when they attempt to free him, he falls—but that may not be what killed him. Banker Harlan Sadler appears to have been hit in the head with a croquet mallet. Responding to a call for help are Theodosia’s significant other, Det. Pete Riley, and his boss, Det. Burt Tidwell, who’s much smarter than he seems. Both have had enough experience with Theodosia’s interference to deplore it even as they recognize that she has a special knack for solving murders. Theodosia’s fashionista friend Delaine Dish insists that she investigate to

help Cricket, Harlan’s widow, who was the chairperson of the Mad Hatter Masquerade. Harlan, who was chief executive of a bank and a partner in a real estate company, could have had many enemies with no connection to Cricket’s numerous charity-related events. As she tracks down possible motives, Theodosia never imagines that her search will lead to an illegal dog-racing ring and worse. But the resulting dangers don’t deter her and a reluctant Drayton in their search.

High society mixes with murder in beautiful Charleston, with the added fillip of recipes and tea party suggestions.

Trouble Is Brewing

Delany, Vicki | Kensington (304 pp.)

$27.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781496747273

A wedding is derailed by the murder of the least important party: the groom’s father. Tea by the Sea, the Cape Cod tearoom Lily Roberts left a stressful job in Manhattan to open, is hosting a wedding shower, and some of the guests are staying at the nearby Victorian B&B owned by Lily’s grandmother. As the big day approaches, the tension is palpable, with the bride, Hannah Hill, and her mother, Jenny, on one side, and the groom’s snooty mother, Sophia Reynolds, and grandmother Regina Reynolds, who don’t approve of the marriage, on the other. The two families share a mysterious past that may be driving the hostility. Greg,

the groom, arrives just in time for the gift opening along with his brother, Ivan; their father, Ralph; and his best man, Dave. The final gift is a headless doll that sends Hannah into shock. When Ralph is found dead in his room the next morning, Regina accuses Sophia, who hints that Jenny may be the killer. Lily and her best friend, Bernadette Murphy, a virtuoso researcher and budding author, have already solved several crimes, and Det. Amy Redmond is not averse to hearing their ideas. The suspect pool seems limited because none of the other people staying at the B&B has any obvious connection to the two families about to be united by marriage. And the fact that Ralph was poisoned suggests he knew whomever he admitted to his room to share a drink. Undeterred by the prospect of disturbing the impending nuptials, Lily and Bernie go into sleuthing mode to dig up all the possible motives before wedding bells peal.

Plenty of suspense, clever sleuths, and backbiting suspects capped by a surprising denouement.

The Last Line

Lyerly, Scott | Crooked Lane (320 pp.) $29.99 | July 23, 2024 | 9781639108213

A theater owner with Tourette syndrome teams up with the local police chief to solve an onstage murder. Ellie Marlowe and Bill Starlin’s friendship goes all the way back to their childhood in Avalon, when Ellie was best friends with Bill’s sister, Ava. As adults, they went their separate ways, Ellie to a high-powered corporate job and Bill to the Massachusetts State Police. Now they’re both back in their hometown, Ellie to her dream job running the Kaleidoscope Theater

and Bill as head of Avalon’s two-person police force. Married to Darlene, Bill has a bunch of kids; Ellie and husband Mike are trying for their first. As she works behind the scenes, Ellie keeps her tics under reasonable control until the death of lead actor Reginald Thornton IV during the last scene of the premiere of Murder in a Teacup thrusts her into the limelight. Though Bill’s former MSP colleagues are quick to call Reggie’s death a heart attack, Bill suspects that one of Reggie’s many enemies may have dispatched the relentless bully with a dose of Valium. Determined to help her old friend and save her theater’s reputation, Ellie launches her own investigation. Ellie and Bill’s increasingly complex relationships to their spouses and each other command the lion’s share of interest in what looks like a series debut. The everyone-hates-the-victim setup is shopworn, the investigation is routine, and the solution leaves many of the questions raised in the first few chapters unaddressed. Learning whodunit just isn’t enough. Lyerly’s protagonist is engaging enough to deserve a better-plotted sequel.

The Jig Is Up

Matthews, Lisa Q. | Crooked Lane (304 pp.)

$29.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781639108510

A return to her hometown plunges a woman into a murder investigation. A cryptic request from her sister, Colleen, takes accountant Katie Buckley from Brooklyn, where she lives with her two daughters, back to Shamrock, Massachusetts. The town, devoted to all things Irish, has been dressed up to look like an Irish village. Katie’s father, the former police chief, still has some influence on the force; her mother has turned

Rich with family angst, romance, and murder, this Irish charmer is a fun read.

THE JIG IS UP

their house into a not-very-successful B&B. Colleen is strangely reluctant to tell Katie why she asked her to rush home. On the way to pick up some food for the family, the two women and Katie’s oldest daughter, Maeve, stop at Our Lady of Angels, where Colleen’s best friend, successful step dancer Deidre Donnelly, gives Irish dance classes, only to find her in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, near death. Despite the heroic attempts of Katie’s police officer brother, Frank, to perform CPR, she does not survive. Katie and Maeve are questioned by the police, who include Katie’s former boyfriend Garrett McGavin. Perhaps because of the law enforcement genes in her family, Katie gets more involved in the case after a young man she and Maeve saw lurking in the bushes near the church is identified as Conor Murphy. Deidre’s success had engendered jealousy, especially from Moira McShane Kelly, a less talented dancer who stands to gain by her death. After it’s revealed that Colleen had a fight with Deidre over money, she becomes a suspect. Even though Colleen still refuses to reveal her secrets, Katie digs in and risks her life to defend her sister. Rich with family angst, romance, and murder, this Irish charmer is a fun read.

For more by Caro Ramsay, visit Kirkus online.

Caro | Severn House (256 pp.)

Will DCI

Christine Caplan ever get back to investigating major incidents in Glasgow? Not if the criminals who throng the outlying areas have anything to say about it. Because she’s in the neighborhood, Caplan is called to a house in Balloch whose two residents, longtime domestic partners, are both dead. The initial theory that the deaths were a murder-suicide gets more complicated when the pathologist indicates that chiropodist Roderick Taylor, who’d been given a terminal diagnosis, died at least two days before financial adviser Peter Todd, who was found hanged inside their home. For better or worse, Caplan’s soon distracted by a more urgent case: the disappearance of Bethany Robertson, who was burnishing her college applications by volunteering at the charity house Revolve Center, shortly after she left the place in the company of Shivonne McDougall, a hard-luck resident she’d befriended. Bethany’s widowed father, William, who’s so afraid that he’ll lose her as he did his wife that he secretly snaps pictures of her leaving every day, appeals to his friend Rory Ghillies, a retired detective chief constable who turns out to be no help at all. More promising, though more frustratingly cryptic, are the few words Rachel Ghillies, the wife he’s placed in hospice, manages to utter to

Caplan, her classmate in police college: a plea to search for someone who might or might not be named Nicholas Straightman. Caplan’s determination to track down this mysterious person plunges her into an unnerving series of kidnappings whose latest victim may well be Bethany Robertson. In a setting like this, Todd and Rod will have to fight for attention.

Just when you think things can’t get any more sordid, Ramsay relentlessly drops you into an even lower level.

Fire and Bones

Reichs, Kathy | Scribner (320 pp.)

$27.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781668050927

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan gets talked into spending an endless week in the nation’s capital—though it’s not nearly as hellish for her as for the victims on whose behalf she toils.

On the point of joining her lover, Det.-Lt. Andrew Ryan of the Sûreté du Quebec, for a rare holiday weekend trip to Savannah, Tempe gets a call from Dr. Jada Thacker, Washington’s interim medical examiner, begging her to come up to help identify victims from a fire in an illegal Airbnb even though it’s Memorial Day and there are no flights to D.C. and no hotel rooms to be had. Naturally Tempe agrees, driving up to the city and staying the night with Ivy Doyle, a television news reporter who was embedded with Tempe’s daughter, Katy, in Afghanistan. That one-night stay gets extended further and further as new details of the case pop up. The most pivotal of these is Tempe’s own discovery of a fifth corpse in the building’s subcellar, a space that doesn’t even appear on the building’s plans. Unlike the other four victims, this woman wasn’t killed in the fire; she’s been dead for at least

five years—in fact, as it turns out, for a lot longer. Determined to get justice for a woman she can’t even identify, Tempe agrees to stay on and do whatever it takes. The roots of the case go so deep into the past that there’s room for a surprising number of guilty parties—and a remarkable number of red herrings that are blithely dismissed in the final chapter. If you think this installment isn’t up to this long-running series’ high average, just wait till next year.

All the Way Gone

Schaffhausen, Joanna | Minotaur (352 pp.)

$29.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781250904140

Having left the Chicago Police Department to open her own detective agency, Annalisa Vega lands a doozy of a first case. And yes, there’s more.

According to the title of the book that Dr. Mara Delaney’s written about him, Dr. Craig Canning is a stellar example of The Good Sociopath. He may lack empathy or genuine emotions concerning anyone else, but he’s a skilled neurosurgeon who’s saved countless lives and left many patients grateful. So Mara really doesn’t want her $1 million book deal blown up by Canning’s proximity to the death of Victoria Albright, the socialite across his courtyard who plunged to her death a few minutes before Canning began his day at the hospital, and she asks Annalisa to look into the case and make sure Canning’s not one of those bad sociopaths. No sooner has Annalisa agreed than her own teenage stepdaughter, Cassidy Weaver, who’s wangled her way into becoming her assistant, presents her with an unofficial case of her own: her girlfriend Naomi’s search for her mother, Elizabeth Johnston. Naomi doesn’t exactly have a sentimental reunion in mind. She desperately

needs a new kidney, and she has yet to turn up a match. How likely is a mother who abandoned her child before she turned 3 to donate a kidney to her now—especially since the more information that emerges about Elizabeth, the worse she looks? About as likely that Craig Canning is a good sociopath—or, for that matter, the only sociopath who emerges from this utterly characteristic thicket of secrets and lies, each of them more unsavory than the last.

Enough to keep you awake long after you turn the last page, though perhaps one sociopath too many.

A Cold, Cold World

Taylor, Elena | Severn House (256 pp.) $29.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781448314065

A small-town Washington sheriff fights the elements while seeking a killer and several missing persons. Bet Rivers, the latest in a long line of sheriffs named Rivers in Collier, left LAPD after her father died to take over his job. Now she faces her first big challenge in an unusually heavy snowstorm that may close down the town. With only her dog, Schweitzer, one deputy, and a septuagenarian secretary for help, she heads out to investigate a snowmobile accident first discovered by a visiting couple and their son. Arriving on the scene, Bet finds local teen Grant Marsden dead under suspicious circumstances. Next, George Stand, the caretaker of the Collier estate, shows up to report a break-in, a sleeping bag covered in blood, and a missing shower curtain. Soon afterward, someone breaks into the local ambulance and steals supplies, making Bet wonder if there’s a connection to that bloody sleeping bag. At the Marsden house, Bet finds 21-year-old Bodhi Marsden

partying and claiming that Grant was staying with a friend while their father and younger sister are out of town. When her deputy leaves to be with his wife, who’s gone into labor, the shorthanded Bet takes a chance by deputizing George’s great-nephew Kane, a former military police officer who’s having a hard time adjusting to civilian life. Her heavy caseload forces Bet to put her life on the line in arduous conditions.

An exciting combination of multiple mysteries and a thrilling fight to survive nature’s wrath.

The In Crowd

Vassell, Charlotte | Doubleday (432 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593685976

DI Caius Beauchamp of London’s Metropolitan Police tackles two cold cases in Vassell’s second novel—which, like The Other Half (2023), blends crime solving with a skewering of Britain’s class system.

In this smart, provocative novel, we’re again privy to Beauchamp’s detecting skills as well as his personal life as a biracial Londoner who can’t seem to avoid the snobby, sometimes racist, members of Britain’s aristocracy. Thirty years ago, a multimillion-pound pension fund was stolen and the culprits were never found. Now, a woman tied to the case is found drowned in the Thames, and the case is reopened. Meanwhile, Caius is reexamining the disappearance of a teenager from a boarding school 15 years before. There are no clues to work with, but the abuse the students endured there is coming to light. Vassell perfectly constructs a classic crime procedural against a backdrop of racism, sexism, and classism. Beauchamp is a winning character readers will adore. Equally charming is Callie Foster, a bespoke

A Memphis cop returns to her rural roots to catch a dangerous killer.

DEEPER THAN THE DEAD

milliner for whom Beauchamp is falling hard. She’s sweet and naïve, in stark contrast to the variety of bitter and selfish characters. In a nod to The Other Half, Vassell brings back the sexual predator whom Beauchamp pursued in that novel, a man who, because of his upper-crust connections, was able to avoid consequences. Now he’s pursuing Callie, and this plot thread adds a satisfying bit of suspense. Readers don’t need to have read The Other Half to enjoy this intriguing novel, but reading both is as satisfying as pairing a cup of Earl Grey and a lavender biscuit. In the final pages, Vassell lays the groundwork for a third installment that promises to be as enjoyable as the ones that preceded it.

A stellar sophomore outing for an intriguing detective.

Deeper Than the Dead

Webb, Debra | Thomas & Mercer (397 pp.) $16.99 paper | Aug. 1, 2024 | 9781662516184

A metropolitan cop returns to her rural roots to uncover longburied secrets and catch a dangerous killer. Shortly after Vera Boyett’s career as deputy chief of the Memphis Police Department goes “down in flames,” she receives a dreaded but not unexpected call from the Fayetteville, Tennessee, farm where she grew up. The body of her stepmother, Sheree, who disappeared when Vera was a teenager decades ago, has finally

been found. With Daddy Vernon ensconced in the memory care facility Hillside Manor and her own future uncertain, Vera can’t help returning home to her fragile younger sister, Eve, and their half sister, Luna. Because free-spirited Sheree had lived a fast life prominently featuring barhopping and drugs, no one suspected foul play when she first disappeared. Webb’s series kickoff ropes in readers by planting numerous seeds of suspicion in the here and now. New Fayetteville sheriff Gray “Bent” Benton may be stalking Vera. Vernon’s secrets are buried as deeply as his memory. The details of Vera’s departure from the Memphis force are initially only sketchily described. Most compellingly, Vera’s memories suggest her guilt over unspecified past dark deeds she and Eve committed. The action heats up when someone runs Eve off the road at the treacherous Dead Man’s Curve, multiple sets of remains are discovered, and Vera receives a series of menacing notes: “I should have killed you all when I had the chance.” Both the safety of her family and the restoration of the self-esteem damaged by Vera’s dismissal from the police depend on her ability to ferret out the serial killer.

A taut and gritty procedural with the promise of more.

For more by Debra Webb, visit Kirkus online.

Books That Should Be Bestsellers

Interactive Content

Kindle eBook ISBN: 978-1-7343635-4-8 www.laevnotes.com

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7343635-3-1

“Rich personal and cultural history of a young woman in Berlin’s Belle Epoque.”

—Publishers Weekly/ BookLife Reviews

“A tender, personalitycentered biography of golden age Berlin.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“A wonderfully composed portrayal that could be considered narrative Art Nouveau.”

—BookTrib

Book to Screen

Keira Knightley To Star in The Woman in Cabin 10

The film is based on Ruth Ware’s 2016 novel.

Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 is headed to the big screen, with Keira Knightley on board to star, Variety reports.

Ware’s novel, published in 2016 by Scout Press/Simon &

Schuster, follows Lo Blacklock, a travel journalist on assignment aboard an exclusive luxury cruise ship in the North Sea. Lo witnesses a woman being thrown overboard, but after all the passengers are accounted for, has trouble convincing anyone that something nefarious happened. A critic for Kirkus wrote of the book, “Too much drama at the end detracts from a finely wrought and subtle conundrum.”

Knightley, known for her roles in Bend It Like Beckham, Pride & Prejudice, and The Imitation Game, will star as Lo in the film, which is being developed by Netflix. Joe Shrapnel and

Anna Waterhouse (The Aftermath, Rebecca) are writing the adaptation, which will be directed by Simon Stone (The Daughter, The Dig).

Another of Ware’s novels, The It Girl, is being developed as a series for Universal Television by Dawson’s Creek creator Kevin Williamson. Her Zero Days was also optioned last year by Universal International Studios.

Ware shared news of the latest adaptation on the

social platform X, writing, “Nobody told me that one of the hardest parts about being a writer would be KEEPING AMAZING SECRETS. Yes, THE Keira Knightley.”—M.S.

Keira Knightley

For a review of The Woman in Cabin 10, visit Kirkus online.

A cancer patient is presented with a fantastical opportunity to save herself.

LONG LIVE EVIL

Kirkus Star

Long Live Evil

Brennan, Sarah Rees | Orbit (432 pp.)

$19.99 paper | July 30, 2024 | 9780316568715

A young woman with cancer is presented with a fantastical opportunity to save herself in this adult debut. Rachel Parilla is sick. Very sick. She used to be a cheerleader. She used to take her younger sister, Alice, to conventions for Alice’s favorite book series, Time of Iron , a melodramatic epic fantasy in which characters like the Iron Maid and the Golden Cobra have bloody adventures and torrid love triangles in the magical land of Eyam. When Rae was getting her first cancer treatments, Alice kept her entertained by recounting the plot of the first book in the series. Soon Rae became a fan herself, but her aggressive cancer makes it hard for her to hold a book, let alone read it. One day she wakes in her hospital bed to see a strange woman who has an even stranger offer: She can stay in her own world and die of cancer, or she can embody a character in Time of Iron , find the magical Flower of Life and Death, and come back to a cancer-free body. Rae scoffs at the idea, but lo and behold, there is a door waiting for her—and when she opens it, she finds herself in the body of the books’ infamous villainess, Lady Rahela, the Beauty Dipped in Blood, immersed in the world of Eyam. Rae’s adventure begins with tremendous wonder, and there are many laugh-out-loud

moments as she revels in the fun of being a fictional femme fatale. But as Rae gets closer to her goal, Brennan brings the people and the world of Eyam to vivid, often heartbreaking life with such incredible skill that readers will be even bigger fans of Time of Iron than Alice. Absolutely wonderful.

Rakesfall

Chandrasekera, Vajra | Tordotcom (304 pp.)

$27.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781250847683

Transcendence doesn’t come easy in this short but labyrinthine tale of reincarnation. What actually happens in these pages is difficult to describe or quantify. It’s a hallucinatory, often nonlinear work, constantly and confusingly shifting perspective. It concerns a small group of people, or gods, bound by love and violence across many lives, each time grasping for some kind of satisfaction or resolution as the Earth withers. Various sections are set in a magic-infused, seemingly contemporary Sri Lanka, in which the dead exist, work, and make trouble alongside the living, and demons are always lurking nearby. Other sections are post- or even post-post-apocalyptic, blending science fiction with fantasy as a small group struggles to help a barren Earth to heal, even as others escape to the stars. The author is clearly content to let readers sink or swim in the flotsam-strewn river of story, as interesting scraps of plot begin but then peter out, flowing, not entirely

seamlessly, into other pseudo-plots. What seem to be local legends, mythology, and history of the area are referenced but not fully explained. Apparently there’s also some kind of age-old conflict between the kingdoms of the Rake and the Yoke, whatever those are? Meanwhile, there are clearly some points being made about the dark legacy of colonialism, the dangers of codependent relationships, and the way the living often can’t shake free of the legacy of the dead. But if there’s a throughline here, you’re going to have to work to find and fully understand it. Poetic and unique, but possibly not worth the effort to plumb its depths.

Navigational Entanglements

de Bodard, Aliette | Tordotcom (176 pp.)

$20.99 | July 30, 2024 | 9781250324887

A group of novice navigators is assigned to recover a dangerous monster in deep space.

Vi ệ t Nhi is a junior member of the Rooster clan, one of the four opposed navigator clans that shepherd ships through the Hollows—a largely unexplained shortcut in space for faster travel. Nhi was already having a hard time with people and politics before a tangler—one of the enormous deadly tendriled monsters that reside in the Hollows—is set loose. That’s when she meets H ạ c Cúc, of the Snake clan, as well as an apprentice from each of the two other clans: The four of them have been given the job of capturing the tangler. On assignment, the misfit navigators butt heads, play political chess with etiquette—deploying honorifics as slander—and challenge the aloof imperial envoy while trying to figure out who released the tangler. Nhi is a work in progress, but she acts as the glue for this group and this story, a flawed person who’s willing to put her life at risk to do what’s right,

refusing to stand by. Xianxia-style Chinese fantasy meets a novel of manners and romance in the vein of Pride and Prejudice as the book follows Nhi and H ạ c Cúc, who will have to get past their misconceptions about each other and embrace their feelings. This tight book, best enjoyed in a single day, is only a bite-sized story within an imagined universe that could easily exist beyond the central mystery. The story could have benefited from more space to breathe. A quirky Sapphic space opera that deserved more pages.

The Dragon in Winter

Maberry, Jonathan | St. Martin’s Griffin (592 pp.) | $23.00 paper Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781250892638

In the final installment of a trilogy, a guard captain turned hero plots the final confrontation with an evil sorcerer seeking divinity.

The Witchking of Hakkia gathers an army of soldiers, mercenaries, vampires, and beasts brutally altered by magic, intending to bring the rebellious kingdoms of the destroyed Silver Empire to heel. He also prepares for an elaborate, painful ritual that will transform him into a demigod and bring his patron, Hastur the Shepherd God, into the physical world. Meanwhile, the former imperial guard captain Kagen the Damned helps rally a response and stop the ritual, while his brothers, Jheklan and Faulker, go on a dangerous journey into the Winterwilds to free the world’s last dragon, Fabeldyr, the imprisoned and tortured source of all the world’s magic. The ending, as armies clash, the ritual advances, and divine and monstrous beings enter our reality, goes pretty much as anyone who reads or watches fantasy would expect, although the clarification of the Witch-king’s identity is a

nice twist. But, like the previous books, this one could have used a more rigorous editor. Characters behave inconsistently. It’s not entirely clear whether the Witch-king’s ultimate goal is to reestablish an empire, conquer all of reality, or shatter all of reality—he says different things at different times. Several plot threads prove to be dead ends; the magic books won at such great cost in the last volume, Son of the Poison Rose (2023), end up being of little utility. Other aspects are never completely explained, possibly by design? We never learn if Kagen is truly damned; it’s heavily suggested that there might be another meaning to his gods turning their backs to him in Book 1, Kagen the Damned (2022), plus his interactions with other beings seem to convey blessing, not damnation, but it’s not fully explained. The book, and the series as a whole, offers an intriguing mashup of epic fantasy and cosmic horror lore and tropes, exciting action sequences, and interesting, sympathetic characters. But the potential to be a tighter work is clearly there, if only the time and the effort had been put in. Fun and clever, but decidedly sloppier than it should be.

Kirkus Star

The West Passage

Pechaček, Jared | Tordotcom (384 pp.) $28.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781250884831

Two hero(ine)s journey through a vast, crumbling palace that houses a surrealistic, decaying civilization. Kew serves as apprentice to Hawthorn, the elderly Guardian of the West Passage. When Hawthorn dies, she tells Kew to warn Black Tower that the Beast will rise again, but she unfortunately fails to officially name him her successor, despite the fact that the

Beast must be confronted by the Guardian. Kew therefore must leave Grey Tower and deliver the message to Black Tower, hoping that in return he will be named the next Hawthorn. The Beast’s slow emergence brings on a dangerously early winter; perhaps Black Tower could give the wheel of seasons a turn? Hoping to save the struggling people of Grey and to recover Hawthorn’s funeral mask (which Kew has taken), young Mother Yarrow of Grey House sets off in ineffectual pursuit. These two have separate adventures wandering through the crumbling, nearly uninhabited areas of the palace, where the remaining people engage in meaningless ritual: trying to teach apes to speak, concocting elaborate feasts that no one eats, issuing endless, pointless pronouncements that no one obeys, and so on.

Meanwhile, the gigantic ruling Ladies of the palace are too self-involved to truly confront the crisis or to rule in general, having either gone mad or become more concerned with fighting the other Ladies for scraps of power. This is a vividly depicted, decidedly peculiar world governed by an inexplicable logic, where the seasons are determined by a vast wheel; people have animal, plant, or even inorganic characteristics; and rising up in the ranks of one’s profession might mean switching genders or undergoing other physical alterations. Its fablelike but off-kilter qualities and architectural setting will likely appeal to fans of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi , Angélica Gorodischer’s Kalpa Imperial , and Josiah Bancroft’s Books of Babel series.

A curious, but curiously charming, allegory of a world in crisis.

You’re the Problem, It’s You

Alban, Emma R. | Avon/HarperCollins

(400 pp.) | $18.99 paper

Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780063312036

A lord and a viscount walk into a gay bar. Bobby Mason and James Demeroven attended Oxford at the same time, and when they meet at the start of another London season, that appears to be all they have in common. Bobby, second son of the late Viscount Mason, is desperate to be involved in politics but stuck in the aimless role of the spare. On the other hand, James, newly old enough to take on the duties of his role as Viscount Demeroven, is too beaten down by a lifetime of belittling from his stepfather to contribute in the House of Lords. James actually had a crush from afar on Bobby while they were in school, and though Bobby doesn’t remember him at all, it’s surprising they didn’t meet earlier, as both discovered at Oxford that they are “men of a certain persuasion.” Now, family and social obligations keep forcing them side by side, but their distaste for each other quickly repels them. That is, until they find each other at “Thomas Parker’s infamous club” for men of their persuasion and discover that they actually do have something else in common, which in time develops into an intense mutual attraction beyond what either has experienced. But in Victorian London, even among understanding friends and family, there are no happy endings for two noblemen who fall in love, unless someone can find a clever solution. This sequel builds directly on the plot of Alban’s first volume, Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend (2024), and fans of Gwen and Beth will be happy to see them prominently featured in this story as well. Unfortunately, readers will have to slog through a slow start and convoluted plot to get to the point where the heroes go from (sort of) enemies to lovers, but it’s worth it to see the

A writer falls for the man she hires to play the role of her male pseudonym.

FINDING MR. WRITE

chemistry between the two catch fire in a well-drawn and compelling way. Though there’s an abrupt shift to a slightly sappy ending with the help of lavender marriages, Alban hits the final mark with a historically accurate possibility for everyone’s HEA. An uneven but ultimately charming queer historical romance.

Finding Mr. Write

Armstrong, Kelley | Forever (368 pp.) $16.99 paper | June 25, 2024 | 9781538742747

A writer falls for the man she hires to play the role of her male pseudonym. When Daphne McFadden relocated to the Yukon, she dedicated herself to getting her zombie thriller published, but it’s not until she submits the story under the pen name Zane Remington that publishers take an interest. All of a sudden there’s a bidding war and talk of a movie deal. Not wanting to be in the spotlight, Daphne decides to hire an actor to play Zane, and luckily her best friend knows a guy—even if she isn’t exactly truthful about his credentials. Accountant Chris Stanton really needs some money after his former business partner left him in a bind. He gratefully agrees to play Zane, which first means he has to pretend to be a capable actor. As the hype for the book—and its hot author—grows, all the facades become harder to maintain, and as the pair spend more time in close quarters, their attraction grows. Daphne and Chris are charming, easy-to-root-for characters, although their chemistry sometimes

feels underdeveloped. Their romance takes time to find its footing and becomes more enticing once the initial layer of subterfuge is removed. The book industry parts create most of the conflict and tension in the story and will appeal to readers who relish that insider’s peek at authors and publishing. It raises interesting questions about who can and should tell certain stories and thoughtfully examines expectations and stereotypes based on gender.

A so-so romance, but a sharp, compelling take on publishing.

’Til Heist Do Us Part

Desai, Sara | Berkley (368 pp.) | $19.00 paper Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593641316

Exes get pulled into another heist—and back into each other’s orbit—in this fun sequel.

Desai’s To Have and To Heist (2023) introduced readers to Simi Chopra, Jack Danger, and their ragtag crew when they stole a multimillion-dollar necklace as a means to clear Simi’s best friend Chloe’s name. A year later, no one is where they expected to be—their reward money didn’t go as far as they thought it would, and Simi and Jack’s relationship couldn’t stand up to his demanding schedule as a mysterious thief. Now a mafia boss shows up at Simi’s office demanding the necklace—plus millions in interest—so Simi has to get the gang back together—including her hacker BFF, a tough-girl driver, a wannabe MMA fighter, and, unfortunately, Jack. He’s back in town and willing to do whatever it takes to show Simi’s he’s

ready to settle down (as much as an international thief ever can) and be there for her no matter what—which includes helping her with this heist. Unfortunately, the necklace is in the hands of Jack’s ex, a very angry thief named Clare—and she’s not willing to forgive or forget how Jack abandoned her. But Simi and company have to work with Clare if they have any hope of getting the necklace back and saving their lives. Although the story is packed with action, near-death experiences, and plenty of violence, Desai keeps the tone light. Simi and Jack’s banter, by turns annoyed and romantic, helps things stay breezy—even in the most dire of situations, those two can’t keep their hands off each other. Simi’s slightly quirky but ever loyal group of friends keep spirits high as they refuse to give up on the job or each other. The details of the jewelry theft can get a little convoluted, but it’s best to simply focus on the fun and excitement that Simi’s crew brings to the process.

A fast-moving action comedy with all the thrills of a summer blockbuster.

Betrayal Road

Feehan, Christine | Berkley (400 pp.) $9.99 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593638781

A man falls in love with a woman who has information about a criminal he’s investigating. Azelie Vargas is alone in the world after her family members were victims of a violent crime. She’s making her way, finishing college and finding success as a romance author. Unfortunately, she also has a job she can’t quit: When she was 16, her late brother-in-law recommended her as a bookkeeper to Alan Billows, a local club owner who was in a jam. He’s a violent man, and Azelie suspects he’s a criminal. One day, Azelie is approached by Andrii “Maestro” Federoff at the local coffee shop they both frequent. He’s incredibly handsome and she can’t believe he could be interested in her. Maestro was raised in Russian schools where the staff abused

children with the goal of turning any who survived into emotionless assassins. Decades later, a small group of men and women who survived the torture banded together to form the Torpedo Ink motorcycle club. Now they use their deadly skills and talents to track down criminals and bring them to vigilante justice. Maestro has approached Azelie as part of Torpedo Ink’s investigation into Billows, who they suspect is running a human trafficking ring. He’s attracted to Azelie but decides not to tell her the truth about his investigation. Feehan’s ninth Torpedo Ink book follows the standard formula for the series: instant love plus a sidecar of trauma for everyone. Azelie and Maestro fall for each other immediately, and their story explores how lovers heal in the face of betrayal, even if the cause was just. A long-running series continues its exploration of the way love can help people survive and thrive through trauma.

The Next Best Fling

Gamez, Gabriella | Forever (384 pp.) $16.99 paper | July 9, 2024 | 9781538726631

Two singles pining for other people fake-date to avoid complications— and surprise themselves. Librarian Marcela Ortiz has been in love with Ben Young for years, though he friendzoned her after a few dates and began seeing someone else. Now that he’s engaged to his girlfriend, Alice Cho, Marcela needs to move on. But after she finds out that Ben’s brother, Theo, plans to declare his own love for Alice at the couple’s engagement party, she convinces the drunken Theo to come home with her, leaving their friends and family to think they’re involved. They decide to be each other’s alibis to salvage the situation (though Marcela doesn’t tell Theo whom she’s trying to get over), but the line between allies and friends-with-benefits keeps blurring. Marcela seems to be sexually and

emotionally hooked on Ben for much of the plot, which fits the backstory of her decade-long pining but is jarring in a romance in which another man is meant to be her true mate. That Ben is fat-phobic and stringing Marcela along makes him increasingly villainous, a portrait that turns to caricature when he’s also identified as unwilling to let his fiancee or his brother find professional success. Marcela’s library colleague (mentioned in passing as attracted to other women), her mother, and Alice are all drawn with some nuance, as is Marcela, suggesting that more thought went into developing the female characters. The narrative is compelling but teeters on the edge of staging a train wreck, with secrets, jealousies, and confrontations resembling a soap opera. The story of a woman involved with two brothers who both want another woman might not grab all romance readers.

Kirkus Star

I’ll

Have What He’s Having

Khorram, Adib | Forever (368 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781538739525

Mistaken identity leads to love in this delectable adult debut from YA author Khorram. Farzan Alavi may be the eldest sibling in his Iranian American family, but the 37-year-old substitute teacher feels like the biggest screw-up. After being dumped by a guy he’d been dating, he decides to nurse his sorrows at a swanky new wine bar, where he immediately clocks a hot Black employee by the bar. David Curtis recently returned to Kansas City to work at a friend’s new place while studying for his master sommelier test. David mistakes Farzan for an important food critic and gives him the VIP treatment. Flirtation flows naturally between the pair and the meal turns into a hookup, although David isn’t looking for a relationship. When Farzan inherits his parents’ bistro, he

A heartwarming story about community, self-discovery, and love.

CASH

DELGADO IS LIVING THE DREAM

needs help from someone with restaurant knowledge, so he reaches out to David (who’s realized he isn’t the critic), leading to a friends-with-benefits situation. Their feelings continue to intensify, but their career ambitions have them on different paths. This warm, spicy romance is a love letter to Persian food, good wine, and queer community. Farzan and David are fully realized, relatable characters who inhabit a richly drawn world filled with distinct and charming friends and family integral to their lives. To spend time with this crew is an absolute delight, and the deliciously described food and drinks will leave readers drooling. The romance itself is also sure to stir up the senses as it’s both incredibly sweet and scorching hot while embracing natural awkwardness, making the story all the more realistic and human.

A sensuous and immensely satisfying queer love story.

Kirkus Star

Cash Delgado Is Living the Dream

Mejia, Tehlor Kay | Dell (288 pp.)

$18.00 paper | July 2, 2024 | 9780593598795

A single mother fights to save her small-town Washington bar while navigating confusing new feelings for her best friend.

Cash Delgado is used to filling her days with two things—her job at Joyce’s, the local watering hole in Ridley Falls, and her role as a single

mom to her 6-year-old daughter, Parker. Between those responsibilities, who has time for dating? Besides, the last guy Cash allowed herself to hook up with wasn’t worth bringing home to Parker, and since then, she’s let that part of her life fall by the wayside. The only person she can really rely on is Inez O’Connor, her best friend and co-worker, who’s been trying to help Cash reenter the dating scene. So what if some people, including Inez’s latest girlfriend, suspect that the two women are much more than friends? Cash has never thought of Inez in that way, never thought of herself as anything but straight—until one night when an incredibly steamy dream wakes her up to some terrifying new feelings. Navigating her potential crush on Inez is the least of her problems, however. There’s a big bar chain that’s looking to plant their latest franchise right in Ridley Falls, and if the plan goes through, it could mean the end of Joyce’s forever. Not only does Cash have to wrestle with whether she’s falling in love with her best friend, but she also has to find a way to save Joyce’s, even if that means calling on every other resident of Ridley Falls for help. With their latest novel, Mejia returns to the small-town setting that made Sammy Espinoza’s Last Review (2023) such an immersive delight, with characters from that book making an appearance here. Cash’s journey feels like more than a romance; it’s the story of a woman who realizes it’s not too late to make some very important discoveries about herself, whom she loves, and who she ultimately wants to be from this moment forward.

A heartwarming story about community, self-discovery, and love.

Magical Meet Cute

Meltzer, Jean | Harlequin MIRA (368 pp.) | $18.99 paper

Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780778334415

When a potter meets a handsome stranger with amnesia, she wonders if she’s responsible for conjuring him up.

Faye Kaplan is no stranger to fresh starts.

After an engagement failed disastrously and she quit her full-time job as a lawyer, she decided to embrace her second chance at life by opening a pottery business in Woodstock, New York. Despite a much-needed change of scenery and a supportive community of friends, the one thing she’s still missing is romance. After another singles event turns up no potential dates and then, on her way home, Faye discovers antisemitic flyers covering her neighborhood, she reaches for what has always been a comfort to her in times of stress: pottery. Drunkenly making a golem to guard herself feels like the right idea, especially when she molds him with all the traits her dream man would have. The next day, still nursing a hangover, Faye runs into a handsome guy—quite literally, with her bike, knocking him to the ground. By the time the stranger wakes up in the emergency room, he can’t remember who he is or anything about himself. Feeling guilty and responsible for his current predicament, Faye invites the man to stay with her until he gets his memory back, but she can’t shake the growing sense that his arrival in town might just be connected to her clay-made creation. Meltzer’s latest combines endearing characters, magical realism, and much harsher topics, but these elements often feel less than well integrated, and the magic seems more fantastical in premise than execution. The author’s

trademark humor provides some much-needed levity, but the central romance isn’t given as much time as it needs to fully flourish, especially given the hero’s amnesia. A charming story that could have used a bit more magic.

Wicked Serve

Reilly, Grace | Avon/HarperCollins (448 pp.) | $17.99 paper

Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780063387140

A volleyball player’s summer fling transfers to her college. Isabelle Callahan comes from a family of champions. Her father was a professional football player, and all her older brothers are successful athletes—but her freshman year on McKee University’s volleyball team was an unmitigated failure. She’s determined to impress her difficult coach and earn back her position as setter. Unfortunately, Isabelle’s plans are disrupted when hockey player Nikolai Abney-Volkov transfers to McKee. They had an intense summer fling during her internship at his mother’s wedding-planning business in Manhattan, but Nik disappeared rather than say goodbye on their last night together. Even though he is happy to have another chance with Isabelle, the circumstances are not ideal. He was expelled from his previous college after taking the fall for a teammate

who brought drugs to a party, and his wealthy grandfather got him a place at McKee in exchange for Nikolai’s promise that he’ll work for the family business after graduation rather than going to the NHL. Isabelle’s feelings were hurt by Nik’s abrupt disappearance at the end of the summer, and she intends to focus on volleyball, not a boyfriend. Meanwhile, Nik knows he should stay away from Isabelle since her protective older brother is his new captain. Their attraction is too strong to resist, though, and despite their stated reasons for steering clear of each other, they fall back into a relationship. Reilly’s first traditionally published novel consists of strings of events that are completely divorced from character development, cohesive plotting, or logical worldbuilding. The driving force behind the book is the length of the school year and Isabelle and Nik’s sports seasons rather than an interesting or compelling romantic relationship between the two. Aimless storytelling sidelines this sports romance.

Not Another Love Song

Soto, Julie | Forever (384 pp.) | $17.99 paper July 16, 2024 | 9781538740910

Two talented musicians battle for professional recognition and against their increasing attraction. Gwen Jackson and Xander

Two talented musicians battle for professional recognition and against their increasing attraction.

Thorne are talented performers with the Manhattan Pops Orchestra: She’s a violinist; he’s a cellist. When Gwen is hired to play the wedding of one of Xander’s friends, she’s stunned to realize that Xander has no clue who she is. Given that Xander is also from a family of famed and wealthy musicians, the snub stings even more. After all, Gwen’s natural talent didn’t come from good genetics or expensive lessons. Her gift was nurtured by a caring music shop owner, and, at times, she feels more at home busking in a subway station than in a fancy concert hall. Gwen seems to be beneath Xander’s notice until she receives the coveted spot of first chair, further igniting their hostility toward one another. Beneath their personal antagonism, Gwen and Xander have a healthy amount of respect for each other’s talent, which bubbles up and turns into sexual attraction. Some readers may find that the change from rivals to romantic partners progresses rather swiftly, but the close quarters and public setting is an ideal pressure cooker. This is a delightful spin on the workplace-relationship trope, trading buttoned-up boardrooms and Type A strivers for intense rehearsals and musical prodigies whose journeys to the same orchestra couldn’t have been more different. There are some plot threads that don’t land well, as when the orchestra decides to use Gwen and Xander’s relationship to drum up publicity. Less is more if it allows a relationship to develop at a pace that won’t give the reader whiplash. This musical romance hits the right notes with sizzling flirtation and tension.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Leila and the Blue Fox by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illus. by Tom de Freston (Union Square Kids)

Joyful Song: A Naming Story by Lesléa Newman, illus. by Susan Gal (Levine Querido)

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson (Crown)

ALSO MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE:

Will on the Inside by Andrew Eliopulos

The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches From Syria by Janine Di Giovanni

War Diary by Yevgenia Belorusets, trans. by Greg Nissan

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: Be the Weight Behind the Spear by Dr. Josh McConkey

The 80/20 CEO: Take Command of Your Business in 100 Days by Bill Canady

The Red Widow by T. Castle Furlong

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.

Fully Booked

The author of an assured fiction debut discusses making love and art in America. BY MEGAN LABRISE

EPISODE 374: EMMA COPLEY EISENBERG

On this episode of Fully Booked, Emma Copley Eisenberg discusses her debut novel, Housemates (Hogarth, May 28), in which two young queer artists join creative forces on a heartland road trip. “Emotionally rich and quietly thought-provoking, this is simply a stunning fiction debut,” writes our critic in a starred review.

Eisenberg is the author of The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia, a work of narrative nonfiction nominated for an Edgar Award, a Lambda Literary Award, and an Anthony Award, among other honors. She is a visiting assistant professor of creative writing at Wesleyan University and co-founder of Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts.

Here’s a bit more from our review of Housemates: “This novel begins with a middle-aged photographer describing a lengthy bout of depression and isolation with oblique—but very telling—references to how the death of her ‘housemate’ factored into her sense of despair. When she finally reemerges, she encounters ‘two white kids’ in a coffee shop and follows them home. Then this unnamed observer disappears—for a while—as she tells the story of Bernie and Leah. Within a handful of pages, Eisenberg establishes her novel’s central themes and the context in which this narrative is taking place. The physical setting is Philadelphia, although Leah and Bernie will embark on a road trip that takes them through central Pennsylvania.…Shifting mores around sexuality and gender, the complicated demands of social justice movements, how we deal with bad people who create good art, and the difference between recording and actually seeing are just some of the topics Eisenberg lays out before setting her Gen Z protagonists loose to explore them.”

Eisenberg and I begin with the mysterious speaker of the novel’s

intriguing opening lines. We discuss the characters that the narrator observes in a coffee shop, who become the foci of the book. We talk about Leah’s desire, as a journalist and a person, to try to understand others’ perspectives; and the dearth of positive depictions of fat bodies in fiction. We explore what America means, conceptually, to Eisenberg, and Philadelphia as an American city. She tells me about art critic Elizabeth McCausland and photographer Bernice Abbott, who provided some real-life inspiration for Leah and Bernie. We chat about Blue Stoop, teaching art, and a whole lot more.

Then editors 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.

To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.

Nonfiction

SMALL PRESSES IN THE SPOTLIGHT

THROUGHOUT ITS 91-YEAR history, Kirkus has remained steadfast in its commitment to covering books from a vast array of publishers, from major conglomerates to tiny presses that may publish only one or two books per season. Every year, many of my favorite books come from small, independent publishers, and I’m happy to highlight four such books here. There’s no thematic connection between them, but all are outstanding examples of the excellence that a small press can foster.

The year 1967 was significant for numerous reasons, many of them related to music. In 1967: How I Got There and Why I Never Left (Akashic, July 2), noted British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock (born 1953) shares why that year was crucial in his own artistic development. According to our reviewer: “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.” That era has always been a topic of keen interest for me, and Hitchcock offers unique insights about this fertile period.

Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain (Melville House, July 9), by Ed Simon, is an intriguing entry in one of my favorite genres: literary history. In a starred review, our critic notes, “Most readers are familiar with the story of Faust, the scholar who makes a pact with the devil, trading his soul for knowledge, power, and riches. Simon… believes that many people don’t fully understand the story’s depth and

complexity, and this extensive cultural history goes a long way to prove his point.” The author’s deft handling of this centuries-old legend is a delight from start to finish.

Stacey D’Erasmo has been writing for more than a quarter-century; in her latest book, Long Run: The Creative Inquiry (Graywolf, July 9), she asks a deceptively simple question: “How do we keep doing this—making art?” In our starred review, we note how the author “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.” This is not just a study in longevity, however; D’Erasmo also explores more universal concerns about art and its vitality in the world.

ERIC LIEBETRAU

Visual art is the focus of Jonathan Lethem’s new book, Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture (ZE Books, July 16), in which the novelist and essayist chronicles his involvement in the visual arts. Our reviewer describes the book as a gathering of “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.” Lethem is one of our most respected writers, and this book is a fine appreciation of a different element of his oeuvre, sure to please his fans as well as students of visual art.

Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction editor.

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

The story of an infamous slave rebellion and its enigmatic leader.

In this remarkable book, historians Kaye and Downs explore the 1831 rebellion led by Nat Turner, a brilliant and charismatic enslaved man who, as an evangelical Methodist, claimed visionary powers. The authors focus on how Turner came to understand himself as carrying out a divine plan, involving mass violence in the name of a people’s liberation, foretold in the Hebrew Bible. Paying close attention to their subject’s religious claims, they place his actions within the context of 19th-century evangelicalism and its expectations about how God might speak directly to individuals. In the authors’ interpretation, Turner

becomes a prophet-general carrying out what he took to be not merely a revolt against enslavement, but a holy war. The authors provide exceptionally informed and persuasive commentary on the religious milieu in which Turner took on his prophetic role, the psychology of his recruitment of other enslaved men, and the dynamics of slaveowners’ brutal responses to the attack launched against them. Kaye and Downs unflinchingly portray the grotesque violence unleashed by the rebellion, and they incisively analyze its origins in specific religious and racial ideas. Especially illuminating are the author’ speculations— sometimes adventurous but always backed by a careful

Nat Turner, Black Prophet: A Visionary History

weighing of available evidence—about how particular signs of divine intent would likely have been interpreted by Turner as well as by those around him. Though rigorously detailed and thorough in its explication of social and religious history, the narrative grippingly leads us through Turner’s spiritual

evolution and the chaotic results of his rebellion. Ultimately, we receive a startlingly vivid and revealing picture of “the reasons he urged his company to kill, and the new world he hoped to bring into being.”

A profoundly insightful analysis of a controversial figure and the rebellion he led.

Climate Radicals: Why

Our Environmental Politics Isn’t Working

Abadi, Cameron | Columbia Global Reports (200 pp.) | $18.00 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9798987053645

A study of how extremism in the German political landscape has proven to be ineffective in addressing climate change.

Abadi, a Berlin-based deputy editor of Foreign Policy and host of the magazine’s Ones and Tooze podcast, is interested in the way that climate radicalism has collided with Germany’s longstanding pattern of compromise and incremental change. He notes that in Germany, there is near universal acceptance of the dangers of climate change, although not as much agreement on the best way to respond. Some of the most vocal activist groups, such as Ende Gelände (“Stop Coal”) and Letzte Generation (“Last Generation”), take the view that the crisis is so urgent that traditional democratic procedures are not only inadequate, but part of the problem. The latter organization, writes the author, “enjoys the greatest momentum, in part because it has always recognized the fewest limits in its strategy of change. For the same reason, it has inspired the greatest public backlash.” Their tactics extend from marches and protests to disrupting traffic and gluing themselves to things. Abadi conducted careful interviews to assess their beliefs, but he finds no real policy agenda, just complaints and nihilism. The groups disdain any initiative by the government to address climate change, and they see the Green Party as having betrayed its principles by accepting the compromises of the parliamentary system. Their recent drift into property damage and sabotage has been counterproductive, turning a significant section of Germany’s quiet middle class against them. Abadi sometimes

seems overly polite, concluding that the radicals are well intentioned but essentially naïve, even when many of their actions suggest otherwise. Throughout this brief book, the author makes many interesting points about politics in the era of climate change. Abadi’s close-up study of German climate politics reveals an obsession with performance over policy.

On a Move: Philadelphia’s Notorious Bombing and a Native Son’s Lifelong Battle for Justice

Africa Jr., Mike | Mariner Books (304 pp.)

$32.50 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780063318878

An insider’s account of the Black communal movement that drew the ire—and the firebombs—of the Philadelphia police. Vincent Lopez Leaphart (19311985), known to all as Benny, returned from the Korean War with the hard-won belief that the lives of people of color were worthless in the eyes of the white generals and politicians in charge. Ahead of his time, he propounded a vegetarian diet, promoted animal rights, and formulated a doctrine of self-sufficiency, writing a vast tome called The Analytical Book of Life, to which he applied the pen name John Africa—not a person, he insisted, but an idea. He was idiosyncratic but firm in his beliefs, including his resolute irreligion: “You don’t see whales praying to a fucking book. You don’t see tigers going to no church. Only people.” Others joined his cause, taking the name Africa and living communally, raising children jointly. Africa Jr. was one such child, born to an imprisoned mother who, along with his father, would serve more than 40 years before his release. Just so, Benny was always in legal trouble for his views. “Benny felt that as the Native Americans had their land stolen by the white man, so was water stolen from the people,” writes the author. “He rerouted the water pipes in

the house to bypass the meter and stopped paying the water bill.” Throughout the book, Africa Jr. never shies away from criticism. “Honestly, I think MOVE, in some ways, was cultish,” he writes. “But so is Christianity, so is Buddhism, so is Judaism, and so are all the rest of the organized religions.” Now the director of MOVE, headquartered in the neighborhood infamously bombed by the police in 1985, Africa Jr. foresees a revival of the activism of old.

A memorable portrait of a little-understood movement and its founders.

Kirkus Star

In France Profound: The Long History of a House, a Mountain Town, and a People

Allman, T.D. | Atlantic Monthly (480 pp.)

$30.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780802127846

A mountain view of history in France. When journalist Allman, author of Finding Florida and Rogue State, bought an 800year-old house in Lauzerte, a mountain village in southwestern France, he found himself steeped in the tumultuous history of the region, which he recounts with zesty enthusiasm in a combination of memoir, historical narrative, and travelogue. “Look out the windows of my House long enough,” writes the author, “and you will witness the rise and decay of cultures, the formation and disintegration of economic systems.” Now officially designated as “One of the Most Beautiful Villages” in the country, Lauzerte did not even exist during its “vicious and colorful” medieval times, dominated by the wily, rapacious Eleanor of Aquitaine and her numerous descendants. While murder and mayhem swirled dramatically, incited by kings of France and England and avaricious popes, Lauzerte was “a little place without importance.” Then, in 1241, under French rule, it became a bastide, “a

A unique addition to the literature on structural racism and police brutality.

EXCITED DELIRIUM

planned, chartered polity inhabited by free citizens.” By 1300, it had grown into “a place of consequence.” The Hundred Years’ War—fought to rid France of the English—and the Wars of Religion that followed, brought bloodshed to the squares of Lauzerte. Allman detours in time to prehistory, when inhabitants recorded images in Pech Merle, a nearby cave, one of Allman’s secret destinations. Because of its mountaintop location, lack of railroads, and distance from Paris, Lauzerte was slow to modernize. Only after World War II, Allman notes, did most people get indoor toilets. But change has come, especially because of cars, which forced businesses to relocate to flatter terrain around the village. Americanization, globalization, and recolonialization have affected the area but not the author’s beloved house, which still bestows gifts of “magic and madness, joy, folly, good food and good wine.” An engaging, richly detailed tale.

Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease

Beliso-De Jesús, Aisha M. | Duke Univ. (320 pp.) | $28.95 paper

Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781478030553

A disturbing study of how racialized pseudo-science led to “the medicalization of police violence.”

In a synthesis of academic critique and memoir that incorporates elements of postcolonial and religious studies, Beliso-De Jesús, a professor of American studies at

Princeton, unearths the little-known narrative of how law enforcement and public health officials found reciprocal benefit in a dubious theory: “The haunting started when I was researching the policing of Afro-Latiné religions and came across a little-known cause-of-death classification called excited delirium syndrome.” The author calls out Charles Wetli, a Miami medical examiner who “coined the term excited delirium syndrome in 1985,” arguing that the symptoms “resulted from low-level drug toxicity and purportedly led to the death of people in police custody.” However, notes the author, “almost all these deaths occur during police interactions, and they almost always involve police use of force.” Her judgment of Wetli’s role is appropriately unsparing: “Wetli blamed the victims of police violence, who ended up on his medical examiner’s table, for their own deaths,” and he also dismissed serial killings of Black women as related to drug use. Structurally, Beliso-De Jesús ranges widely, reflecting her urgency and personal investment and also the complexity of related topics, including the role of the 1980 Mariel boatlift of Cuban immigrants and more recent events like the police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. The author uncovers a cottage industry of so-called expert testimony, absolving police in excessive force cases by relying on Wetli’s discredited theories and supported by entities like the manufacturer of the allegedly nonlethal Taser. “Excited delirium syndrome seems designed to distract from this type of excessive use of force,” she writes in an occasionally repetitive yet dramatic discussion featuring intriguing true-crime aspects. A unique addition to the literature on structural racism and police brutality.

Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy

Beller, Elizabeth | Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) | $29.99 May 21, 2024 | 9781982178963

The pursuit of an American princess. Editor and arts journalist Beller makes her book debut with a sympathetic biography of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (1966-1999), the wife of John Kennedy Jr., who was killed with him when their small plane crashed in 1999. As soon as Carolyn appeared in the public eye, writes the author, she was unfairly demonized as icy and “bitchy,” a characterization that Beller successfully refutes, drawing on much firsthand testimony. Because she was stunningly beautiful and a fashion icon, the media decided, “then she also must be a vapid clotheshorse.” The author clearly admires the woman she portrays as possessing “an inimitably original, wildly engrossing brand of magnetism that held those around her spellbound.” Throughout, she describes Carolyn’s stunning outfits (and lipstick and hair color) in reverential detail. Aware that people were “primed to judge her” negatively because she was so beautiful, Carolyn “went out of her way to be kind,” one friend attested, “and to make people comfortable.” An education major in college, she loved children, but she loved fashion, too, and decided to pursue that field rather than teaching. Beller recounts Carolyn’s successful career at Calvin Klein, where she first met John, who had come in for a menswear fitting. An on-again, off-again relationship culminated in their engagement, which incited a media frenzy; they married in September 1996, and “by January 1997, Carolyn could hardly do anything without intense scrutiny and its subsequent criticism.” Feeling “pursued as prey,” she refused to smile and wave. “What the tabloids often described as Carolyn’s cold

demeanor can now more accurately be understood as fear,” writes the author. At the time of the crash, their marriage was strained, and Carolyn had descended into a “spiral of worry and anguish”; yet, Beller speculates, a thriving future lay ahead. A sensitive portrait of a misunderstood public figure.

Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past

Benen, Steve | Mariner Books (256 pp.)

$32.50 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780063393677

A fierce takedown of right-wing mendacity committed in the service of a bigger lie. It’s one thing to spin fables about the phone company killing JFK. It’s quite another to take an event within recent memory and twist it out of all recognition—to say, for instance, that the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol was just everyday tourist visitation or legitimate political protest. As Benen, a producer for the Rachel Maddow Show and the author of The Impostors, writes, any Republican who wants to make such claims has to do so without an ounce of bashfulness or self-doubt, for the public will pick up on the fearful scent and leap. “Republicans who intend to replace a factual series of events with fictitious ones must fully commit to the new narrative,” he writes, “no matter how ridiculous it is.” Thus Sen. Tommy Tuberville in a nutshell, and thus the rationale for all of the chaotic performance art on the part of a panoply of GOP leaders: Kevin McCarthy, say, who condemned the Jan. 6 attack but then, in the very next breath, declared that Trump had won the election; the refusal of Republicans up and down the ballot to commit to honoring the results of the next election (“election results are to be embraced when GOP candidates prevail”); their insistence that Trump is

the victim of a weaponized Justice Department and not a con man brought to justice. The spin continues: In the current cycle, Republicans are focusing on inflation as a talking point, ignoring that the economy has grown and the unemployment rate has fallen during the Biden administration. Unabashedly one-sided, Benen paints with a broad brush, but not without reason.

Not likely to win over many from the other camp, but with a good amount of signal among the partisan noise.

I Will Do Better: A Father’s Memoir of Heartbreak, Parenting, and Love

Bock, Charles | Abrams (208 pp.)

$26.00 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 978-1419774423

A widowed father struggles with the challenges of single parenting his toddler in New York City. Bock, the author of the acclaimed novels Beautiful Children and Alice & Oliver, the latter of which fictionalizes his experience of losing his wife to cancer, turns to memoir to document the challenging period after her death. Diana died three days before her daughter Lily’s third birthday. “I concentrated on the tasks at hand: making calls to a woman who ran a funeral home out of her Brooklyn apartment (for a reasonable price she handled the cremation); following up with a Ninth Avenue bakery (confirming the color of the iced letters, the birthday message on the double-chocolate cake).” The interplay between grieving and child rearing continues throughout, and Bock holds himself to a high standard of honesty and self-revelation, per the Montaigne epigraph that opens the book. In general, his literary references are well chosen and interestingly deployed. He finds inspiration in the memoir of Beat poet Diane di Prima, who refused to

cave to pressure from Jack Kerouac to blow off the promise she’d made to her babysitter to stay at a party. Bock’s analysis of Sylvia Plath’s famous poem, “Daddy,” centers on pointing out, “If you are a father…this poem is an absolute terror.” In his distinctive prose style, both lyrical and muscular, Bock evokes a chaotic kaleidoscope of tones—irony, anger, literary ambition, fierce parental protectiveness, loneliness, toxic masculinity—as he handles topics from simultaneously dating two women who don’t know about each other to his and Lily’s experiences during Hurricane Sandy. Bock doesn’t mention his relationship with writer Leslie Jamison, who documented their brief, stormy marriage in her recent memoir, Splinters. Given the tone of that book, this seems like an admirable choice. A uniquely forthright and powerful addition to the literature of fatherhood.

Kirkus Star

My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir

Brown, Barrett | MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (416 pp.) | $30.00 July 9, 2024 | 9780374217013

A computer hacker recounts his electronic misdeeds and their consequences. Brown’s book opens in prison, “the brick metaphor for American decline,” an environment that he came to know well thanks to his 63-month sentence. That’s not so bad, he notes, considering that he’d racked up federal charges with a combined sentence of 105 years, all connected to his ability to break down electronic barriers. For example, he hacked the email of a prominent white nationalist who was also an FBI informant and dug into the records of the Church of Scientology, which he calls a “hypercommercial techno cult.”

Kirkus Star

Brown, a prize-winning journalist as well as one-time heroin addict (“It is a particularity of the opiate-withdrawal process that, in one’s desperation, one becomes highly receptive to stray enthusiasms”), relates his story well, but the meat of the narrative lies inside the prison yard, a hellscape that he recounts with surprising good humor. He writes, for instance, of a “platonic prison husband,” a small-time Texas hoodlum who’d converted to Islam but still hung with his fellow white prisoners rather than with the Black Muslims—as the author notes, “the first thing one learns upon being incarcerated in the United States is that race is central to prison life.” There are exceptions, he notes, but overall, old distinctions such as whether one is a Crip or a Blood fall away in favor of unity against prisoners of other races. As he recounts, Brown took an affable approach that kept him largely out of trouble with all but the occasional martinet of a guard, but he allows that he’s still plotting anarchist revolution online, now from the safety of London, given that his homeland is a place where “at least a third of its voters [are] actual fascists.”

A lively prison memoir from the cyber age.

Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic

Chervinsky, Lindsay M. | Oxford Univ. (440 pp.) | $34.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780197653845

A noted presidential scholar argues that it was the second president who stabilized, strengthened, and defined the office.

In her latest book, Chervinsky, a senior fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University and the author of The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American

An elegantly rendered debut memoir of a Muslim family living through widespread religious violence.

THE LUCKY ONES

Institution, analyzes the unique presidency of John Adams (1735-1826). As the author describes in impressive depth, Adams was essentially flying blind when he took the oath of office upon succeeding the universally lauded yet aloof George Washington in the first transfer of executive power in U.S. history. Despite a total lack of executive experience, Adams had to demonstrate that the presidency could operate without Washington and negotiate partisan machinations among the Federalists and Republicans inside and outside his administration (particularly those of his vice president and rival, Thomas Jefferson, who would defeat him in 1800), while meeting potential threats from Europe that could severely wound the fledgling republic. Chervinsky’s familiarity with the function and machinations of early presidential cabinets—and her ability to convey such knowledge in an entertaining and engaging style—is invaluable as she illuminates the difficulties under which Adams labored. The author makes great use of the papers and letters of Adams and other important figures of the era to explain the complexities of late-18thcentury politics in the U.S. She also reinforces just how much the second president relied on his remarkable First Lady, Abigail Adams, whose influence on that era of American politics and Adams himself should never be undervalued. Ultimately, Chervinsky produces a worthy and intriguing look at how the decisions that Adams made established presidential and political norms that provided a guide for his successors in the White House—and have endured in modern times. A significant contribution to the history of the American presidency.

Kirkus Star

The Lucky Ones: A Memoir

Chowdhary, Zara | Crown (320 pp.) $30.00 | July 16, 2024 | 9780593727430

An elegantly rendered debut memoir of a Muslim family living through widespread religious violence. As Chowdhary recounts, her extended middle-class family was essentially trapped in their apartment in the Muslim “ghetto” of Ahmadabad for many weeks following the horrendous train burning that killed Hindu passengers at Godhra on Feb. 27, 2002. The then-little-known chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, inflamed the violence by calling it an “Islamic terrorist attack,” and, as the author writes, “the next day raging Hindu mobs, formed by thousands of people, poured into Gujarat’s streets, in cities, villages, and towns, looting, raping, and burning alive the state’s Muslim citizens. The massacre continued for three months.” At the time, Chowdhary was 16, hoping soon to take her end-of-year exams. Instead, she was forced to navigate unimaginable terror outside her home, as well as the familial tension building inside their apartment, involving her mother, Amma, a soldier’s daughter from Madras; Papa, a hard-drinking retired government clerk; and his critical mother, Dadi. The author describes how she was understandably protective of her mother, the dark-skinned outsider whom Papa and Dadi often blamed for their misfortunes. Chowdhary establishes the sense of

foreboding immediately: “Our home believed in many things but not its daughters.” The author sensed that the delicate balance among the neighbors of different religions living “cheek by jowl” in the city had been irreparably ruptured by the violence, in which Modi was blamed for being complicit. “It doesn’t matter this evening that this land we all stand on is the land of Gandhi,” she writes near the beginning of this memorable book. “Something has been eviscerated. Something has changed. A new land and a new people reborn in fire.” A tight, suspenseful narrative that interweaves one girl’s keen observations of family within India’s problematic history.

Left Behind: A New Economics for Neglected Places

Collier, Paul | PublicAffairs (304 pp.)

$32.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781541703094

A political and economic plan for bringing inclusive prosperity to places suffering from poverty and despair. As a development economist, Collier, author of The Bottom Billion, The Plundered Planet, and other notable books, attends to how countries and regions, locked in a spiral of economic decline, can reverse their fortunes. Drawing on research and his consultancy experiences, he proposes a “middle way” between a market fundamentalism, which believes that “the market knows best” and that government should “follow wherever private investment leads,” and international assistance by such entities as the World Bank, which takes a one-size-fits-all approach to development. While a thriving economy is the goal, Collier mainly focuses on the importance of governmental and grassroots leadership that can bolster locally emergent economic activity, engage in rapid learning, and foster a shared identity. “Social psychology…provides insights into how a left-behind community

can catch up by forging new common purposes,” he writes. Of critical importance for governments is the capacity to tax and the presence of a security apparatus that thwarts corruption. These conditions enable growth-inducing policies that elevate peoples’ lives. The author offers a variety of examples to illustrate these ideas. Some countries and regions, such as Tanzania, Estonia, Singapore, and the Basque region of Spain, have achieved success in (re)building their economies. Others, such as Malawi, Afghanistan, South Africa, and Somalia, have faltered and continue to suffer from widespread poverty and dysfunctional governments. Throughout the book, Collier meanders from example to example, staying only just long enough to make a point, and from idea to idea, never fully coalescing the argument. Surprisingly, given his academic discipline, the author avoids delving into alternative approaches to economic development—although he devotes a chapter to the perils of relying on natural resources.

Hopeful advice for overcoming the uneven development endemic to capitalism and the governments in thrall to it.

The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism

Conason, Joe | St. Martin’s (320 pp.)

$30.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9781250621160

A book whose title puts the con in conservatism, exposing far-right politics as a long-running shell game.

“Conservative philosophy demands civic virtue and moral rigor,” writes political journalist Conason, author of Big Lies and Man of the World. Yet “Americans who call themselves conservative are undeniably more susceptible to the multiplying varieties of politically tinged fakery,” including fake cancer cures, Amway soap, NFTs, gold tennis shoes, and MAGA

hats made in China. However, notes the author, the con far antedates Trump and Trumpism. His story begins 70 years ago with Joseph McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn—Trump’s pre-Giuliani lawyer— who took a junket to Europe putatively to ferret out communists in the State Department but instead holed up in fancy hotels. Cohn traded in hatred and fear, as did the forerunners of today’s right-wing Christian nationalists, “scaring impressionable rubes by the thousands while relieving them of large wads of cash.” A direct path connects Billy James Hargis and Jerry Falwell to Ralph Reed and today’s megachurch supremacists, just as a solid line runs from the self-dealing vandals of the Reagan administration to Sarah Palin, who traded on commercialized fame and monetized ideology, then on to the endless supply of unabashed grifters who continue to loyally serve the MAGA-verse. Conason stops to look deeply into the Trump University swindle, which would seem to be emblematic of Trump-style business writ large. “Grifting may be too mild a term” for their collective crimes, Conason concludes, with the big lie being yet another instrument with which to separate the rubes from their money. The author is intemperate but not shrill, which won’t do a thing to separate Trumpists from their apparent devotion to being played. Still, his righteous, indignant anger makes for oddly entertaining reading. A timely contribution to the present election cycle.

Antidemocratic:

Daley, David | Mariner Books (432 pp.) $29.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780063321090

A cutting analysis of the long-term project to disenfranchise left-leaning voters.

“Our country is bitterly divided today in no small part because

A candid recounting of a fraught psychological and emotional journey.

THE GRIEF CURE

conservative political strategists have gerrymandered it to be that way,” writes political commentator and former Salon editor-in-chief Daley, author of Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count. Gerrymandering is one of the favorite tools in the GOP toolkit to disenfranchise citizens inclined to vote for a Democratic candidate. The chief weapon, Daley argues convincingly, has been the Supreme Court, seeded with far-rightleaning judges who endorse this antidemocracy movement. At the heart is John Roberts, who conveys himself—and whom the media portrays—as a mild-mannered centrist. Wrong: Roberts, as the author clearly shows, operates by small steps, such that “each landmark decision begins with a smaller case that invites the next big question.” This approach disguises Roberts’ role as a “patient bulldozer.” A case in point is the Roberts-led dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, tenet by tenet, with the redistricting of a majority Black legislative district in Alabama so that the majority of its residents were now white. Daley traces this project to the Nixon-era activism of Lewis Powell and his multipronged assault on democracy, one means for which was to fund right-wing law schools and raise generations of antidemocratic judges, five of whom now populate the Supreme Court. Roberts, who began his career as a counsel to Ronald Reagan, had the VRA in his sights as long ago as 1982, “a young ideologue despite his carefully curated image of scarcely having been touched by ideology at all.” The subterfuge means to disguise the complete dismantling of the concept of one person, one vote—and all, Daley proves persuasively and evenhandedly, by careful design.

More evidence that today’s Supreme Court, antidemocratic by nature with its unelected judges, is an enemy of democracy.

The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss

Delistraty, Cody | HarperCollins (208 pp.)

$27.99 | June 25, 2024 | 9780063256842

An examination of how to heal from great loss. Journalist Delistraty makes his book debut with a touching memoir of his experience of prolonged, profound grief over the death of his mother. Rejecting the idea of closure or grieving through five stages that ends with acceptance, the author has found, instead, that “some grief doesn’t relent. Some grief does not evolve. Some grief is daily, acute, life-changing.” In 2022, its prevalence led the American Psychiatric Association to add “prolonged grief disorder,” or PGD, as an official diagnosis to its directory of disorders, spurring research and various treatments. As Delistraty recounts, he has been open to a wide variety of treatment options, including laughter therapy, psilocybin, and yoga. As he struggled to cope with his acute grief, he discovered that “reading, writing, and looking at art” offer “new entry points into one’s grief.” He tracked down a neuroscientist to investigate the possibility of deleting painful memories of his mother’s illness; from talking with the scientist, though, he realized that it’s better to learn new ways to see those memories and cope with them. Furthermore, while loneliness and isolation only intensify grief, friends find it difficult to connect with another’s loss. “To not be over your grief after a period of time,” he writes, “is to break a social contract.” Delistraty also discovered that grief had become his “sole spiritual nutrition, from which I derived meaning,

pleasure, and reward.” It had taken over his sense of who he was, “shifting not only how I saw the world but also how I saw myself: as a griever, a person whose fundamental personality is rooted in trauma and loss.” His search for relief led to understanding: “to not become your loss, to alchemize it into wisdom.”

A candid recounting of a fraught psychological and emotional journey.

Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking On America’s Largest Meatpacking Company

Driver, Alice | One Signal/Atria (256 pp.)

$28.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781668078822

A freelance journalist uncovers the inhumane conditions plaguing the Tyson Foods meatpacking plants in Arkansas.

In 2020, during the height of the pandemic, Driver, author of More or Less Dead, returned to her home state of Arkansas and began interviewing poultry workers at Tyson plants across the state. Although she risked infection, she felt the investigation couldn’t wait. “Confronting a powerful company worth billions was daunting.…However, as meatpacking workers began to die of COVID,” she writes, “I continued to interview their families, hoping that people were ready to listen.” The author reveals disturbing stories of workers whose lungs were destroyed by a chemical accident that Tyson failed to acknowledge; whose repetitive motion led not only to carpal tunnel syndrome, but to unconsciously continuing to imitate these motions in their sleep; and who worked for a pittance as an alternative to incarceration. “In addition to employing undocumented workers,” writes Driver, “Tyson also exploits vulnerable prison populations.” Throughout these experiences, the workers encountered unsympathetic administrators holding up oppressive

QUESTLOVE

Hip-hop is now 50. Who better to tell its story—and challenge some myths—than the Roots co-founder and author?

BY ERIC LIEBETRAU

QUESTLOVE (born Ahmir Thompson) is the ultimate multihyphenate. A founding member of the acclaimed hip-hop group the Roots (now the house band for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon), he is also a world-renowned DJ and producer, music journalist, actor, and veritable encyclopedia of music history; his books include Mo’ Meta Blues, Creative Quest, Music Is History, and Somethingtofoodabout. In a starred review, Kirkus calls his latest book, Hip-Hop Is History (AUWA Books/MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 11), co-authored by Ben Greenman, “a memorable,

masterful history of the first 50 years of an indelible American art form.” The closing line of the review perfectly encapsulates what makes this book significant, the ideal literary companion to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the genre: “Questlove’s instincts as a superfan and artist take this history beyond the hype to something very special.” I spoke to the author via Zoom; the conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The official beginning of hip-hop was the famous 1973 party with DJ Kool Herc and others, but you note that

the origin story is up for debate. Could you pinpoint another possible starting point?

I don’t want to leave out the crops or the vegetation that fed hip-hop. If you look at what happened in 1967, it was such a crucial year. I guess I’ll dub it the “psychedelic soul period.” Then, if you look five years before that, the most rebellious, dangerous moment in soul music was Ray Charles having the idea of taking gospel music and secularizing it. People thought he was disgracing the church with this secular music, this devil music. If I had the final word on

Any music will always be alive as long as somebody’s offended by it.

the timeline, I would actually argue that hip-hop started in ’62. That’s because I don’t look at hip-hop as just rapping; it’s also the music, the rhythms, the rebellion, that sort of thing.

Your theory about shifts in the genre’s landscape is fascinating. Talk more about that.

I spoke to [Public Enemy co-founder] Chuck D about this idea. Sometimes a revolution will start, and you resist it. I was honest about being the one hip-hop head that was not really a fan of The Chronic [Dr. Dre’s landmark 1992 album], but Chronic changed everything. When you’re lucky, you actually know that you’re witnessing history, like how I got to experience firsthand the work of the Bomb Squad and Public Enemy. As I talk about this project, I’m being very transparent; I don’t want the perception that I came out the womb listening to, you know, [jazz multi-instrumentalist] Yusef Lateef. I was like any other kid that just wanted to hear the popular stuff.

But your parents were working musicians.

Music was all around, but I lived in a don’t touch my stereo household. Because I’m not allowed to control the stereo, I was basically forced for the first nine years of my life to listen to what they wanted. So I was kind of amazed that in one fell swoop, the Public Enemy sound was able to make sense to me. I could hear the samples and think, Oh, my God, that’s what Dad always listens to. If Public Enemy likes it, is it cool? Years later, Chuck D told me that he wanted the group to sound like music’s worst nightmare. We want you to experience the trauma of the crack era, he said. Then in 1992, I realized that Dr. Dre slowed it down. The Public Enemy chaos sound had given way to this smoother sound.

You write that the genre has run its course in some important ways. Where do we go from here, and are there standouts that are going to lead the music into the future?

Any music will always be alive as long as somebody’s offended by it. If I hear something and think , This is the worst, I also remind myself about kids half my

Hip-Hop Is History

Questlove with Ben Greenman AUWA Books/MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 352 pp. | $30.00 June 11, 2024 | 9780374614072

age, like the children of my bandmates. They’re just going crazy over somebody, and I’m thinking, How the hell do you see art in this? That brings me back to my arguments over De La Soul with my dad, who claimed that their work wasn’t music. But it is art, and things always change. Right now, people my age are asking, Do we still call it hip-hop, or something else? I do think it’s kind of weird that hip-hop has just eaten up all Black culture, like Black culture can’t survive unless it’s draped under this genre.

I think the most important rule is: We can’t make an assessment of something until 20 years have passed. The temptation today is to plant your flag and make an immediate, definitive statement. When the new Beyoncé record came out, I posted and said, People, the body’s not even cold yet We need to let some time go by before saying this is a masterpiece. During the process of making the upcoming Sly [and the Family Stone] documentary, I thought about the perception of Sly and the universal idea that [his

1971 album] There’s a Riot Goin’ On was a masterpiece. There’s no way in hell that someone heard this the first day and was like, This is going to define music for the next 50 years Sure enough, I went back to all those reviews, and Sly scared the shit out of everybody with this record. It wasn’t until 10 or 20 years went by that people were able to really examine it.

This instant-assessment trend must drive you insane as a working musician. When I’m making music, I kind of know the taste of Pitchfork, or Vibe, or Rolling Stone, and early on I wanted to impress from that critical angle. With filmmaking or writing, I wasn’t taking things to that obsessive level. With my first book [Mo’ Meta Blues], I didn’t know what Kirkus was, you know what I mean? When the criticism is not your focus, then I think that’s where your true creativity comes out. But everything’s so scrutinized now, so it’s really hard to take yourself out of that place.

Since we are in the book business, I have to ask you about your collaboration with Ben Greenman. My manager, Richard Nichols, who passed away, was heavily involved in Mo’ Meta Blues. When he first suggested I write a book, I was throwing every obstacle at him: Who writes a memoir in their 30s? Aren’t you supposed to be like 60 or 70 before you write your life story? Once I reluctantly agreed, I told him I want to make this like I make records: I never work alone on any project. So Richard asked me to make a list of writers I liked, and I decided to get out of my comfort zone of choosing someone I knew. I really wanted someone to smack my hand. At the time, I was obsessively reading magazines, including the New Yorker. Ben had some write-ups in there, and I saw our music views were the same, including our obsession with Sly Stone. I just always need an adult in the room to look for things that I might miss, you know, because I’m the king of repeating a story over again.

systems, including managers who waited outside restroom doors to ensure that workers took inhumanely quick breaks, nurses and doctors who denied workers proper care, and politicians who ignored these practices in order to line their own pockets—most notably, Bill Clinton. “As the governor of Arkansas,” writes the author, “Clinton oversaw lax regulations on the meatpacking industry, leading to the contamination of drinking water and hundreds of miles of rivers and streams.” This devastatingly frank, brutally detailed peek into the meatpacking industry brilliantly exposes a damaging system that must be reformed. While the ending of the book, which briefly comments on lab-grown meat, feels disconnected from the rest of the story, overall, this is a vital work of journalism.

An astonishing exposé of the American meatpacking industry’s exploitation of its incarcerated and immigrant workforce.

The Mystics Would Like a Word: Finding Power in the Company of Yesterday’s Radical Women

Evans, Shannon K. | Convergent/ Crown (208 pp.) | $26.00 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593727270

A colloquial look at six European female Christian mystics and their teachings. Evans, the spirituality and culture editor at the National Catholic Reporter and author of Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, dedicates her latest to “every woman whose story merited an examination it never received.” She focuses on the lives and work of six women—Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Catherine of Siena—five of whom were nuns, and all of whom Evans describes as “unapologetically themselves” and “more than able to lead.” The chapters—bearing titles such as “All the Best Prophets Were Mentally Ill,”

“Trusting Yourself Doesn’t Make You a Heretic,” and “The World Is Burning: Why Make Art?”—end with questions “for prayer and reflection.” For example, “Do you feel comfortable viewing your soul as a place for light?”; “If you were a flower, which one would you be? How do you feel about that flower?” The author often shares from her own life, including her journey of leaving evangelicalism and conversion to Catholicism, as well as what she views as the most prescient lessons from and summations of each of her subjects. Of Thérèse, Evans writes, “This chick was a feminist if ever there was one.”

In the chapter about Hildegard, she notes, “arguably her best-known spiritual principle is the idea of the earth as a sacred mirror reflecting our internal reality.” The author’s impassioned, often quippy, always forthright tone makes for a quick read. “Each of us has a mystic within us,” she writes, “waiting to be unlocked.” Despite the text’s lack of racial representation, the author calls women of color “the prophets of our modern age” before closing with lines from an Alice Walker poem. A well-meaning, resonant set of biographical profiles that will inspire religiously inclined readers.

Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough

Frazier, Ian | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (576 pp.) | $32.00 Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780374280567

A thorough examination of the history of the Bronx from colonial times up to the present. Readers expecting a comic tone from New Yorker

writer Frazier, author of Gone to New York , Travels in Siberia , and other acclaimed books, won’t find it here. It’s not entirely clear why he devotes a massive volume to the Bronx, aside from the fact that the author, who lives in a New Jersey suburb of New York, decided at some point about 15 years ago that he would walk a cumulative 1,000 miles in the borough. Frazier chronicles his deliberate pacing through the years, documenting what is known about the Native Americans who moved through the area before the Dutch settlers arrived, reflecting on the enslaved people who lived there in colonial times, and analyzing the impact of Revolutionary War battles on the area. Tangents abound: Frazier spends many pages, for example, on the life, travels to France, and mistresses of politician and occasional Bronx resident Gouverneur Morris, who was at least in part responsible for the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and who gave his name to the Bronx’s Morrisa nia neighborhood. Using mainly secondary sources, the author traces a narrative arc that leads up to the “paradise” era in the 1930s and ’40s, when children of Jewish immigrants played stickball in the streets; down to the lows of the 1970s, when fires seemed to sweep continually through the neighborhoods; through the rise of hip-hop and on to today, including the effects of gentrification. As he approaches the present, Frazier further inserts himself into the story, adding anecdotes about people he met on his walks or summarizing interviews with those who have had an impact on the community.

A dense appreciation of a unique area that will appeal to those who have had enough tales of Manhattan.

A well-meaning, resonant set of biographical profiles.

On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump

Goldberg, Jeffrey | Zando (128 pp.)

$12.95 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781638932048

The editor-in-chief of the Atlantic gathers five essays on key figures from the modern Republican Party who have exemplified—or utterly distorted— the meaning of patriotism.

As the Trump administration came to an end, Goldberg published articles about Republicans who chose to serve their country rather than the whims of a “racist…misogynist [and] megalomaniac” president. Among those he celebrates are former Arizona senator John McCain, who turned down early release from captivity in North Vietnam “unless all [other American POWs] were released with him.” In his later years as a statesman, he became a “North Star” to other Republicans, including fellow senator Lindsay Graham. But when Trump—who once famously declared that “avoiding STDs, in the 1990s was his own personal Vietnam”—took office, McCain stood almost completely alone in supporting the Constitution as other Republicans (including Graham) chose to support the president, who said about McCain, “He’s not a war hero. He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” Another individual Goldberg highlights is former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley. Though he never outwardly disobeyed or criticized Trump, in the weeks before the 2020 election, he reassured allies and adversaries about U.S. stability, an act Trump later called “treasonous.” Milley also told lawmakers and media figures that the “military would play no role” in the outcome. The armed forces serve the country and not the president, a point Milley dared to make in front of hardcore Trumpists like Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller. As the author showcases the sometimes maligned heroes who have battled to save the U.S. from the growing rot

within, he also reveals the frightening ease with which democracy can be undermined by those unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to protect it. Candid, timely reading.

Kirkus Star

The Anatomy of Deception: Conspiracy Theories, Distrust, and Public Health in America

Gorman, Sara E. | Oxford Univ. (320 pp.) $29.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780197678121

An in-depth study of medical mistrust in post-pandemic America. Gorman, a public health expert and author of Denying to the Grave, uses interviews she conducted with subjects from a range of backgrounds to show how medical mistrust and belief in conspiracy theories connect to the current political climate, as well as how the Covid-19 pandemic influenced Americans’ lack of confidence in the health care system and the government’s ability to care for its people. Though the author focuses on the current pandemic era, she makes relevant arguments about how our current situation has been building through disasters like the 2008 financial crisis, the AIDS epidemic, and ongoing attacks on funding for social services in the U.S. “The loss of trust in the healthcare system is not independent of the loss of trust in other prominent institutions of our democracy—everything is in fact connected,” writes Gorman. She also examines how egregious experiments of the past, including but not limited to the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, have further alienated Black Americans, though she argues that present-day systemic racism is an even deadlier deterrent for many people of color in seeking health care. In that way, Gorman’s work is equal parts tightly focused and wide ranging, tackling many related issues of our age

with expert research and highly readable storytelling. “It feels as though every event in the United States is inevitably shrouded in a dark cloud of distrust and conspiracy theories,” she writes, “and sometimes that smog is so thick and so opaque that we feel absolutely lost in looking for a clear path forward.” Throughout the book, Gorman not only helps readers understand the grave mistakes of the past; she also offers suggestions to find a path forward. A timely, significant examination of how Covid-19 affected many American systems, from health care to government.

Kirkus Star

Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah

Green, Nile | Norton (368 pp.) | $29.99 July 2, 2024 | 9781324002413

A revealing study of two masters of self-invention, “invented by empire, then cultivated in the nostalgic soil of exile.”

In 1913, Ikbal Shah, the son of minor Indian nobility, traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to become, as historian Green writes, “entangled in the larger contests of empire and its unraveling.” After treating wounded soldiers from the battlefields of World War I, he abandoned his plans to become a doctor and instead turned to writing. He married a Scottish woman and set to work crafting a literary and journalistic career that coincided with the postwar resurgence of Scottish nationalism, which admitted other nationalisms, as well. According to one journalist, Shah was “an Eastern poet [who] dreams of his Motherland and voices in English the visions of his people.” His people were, it happens, largely invented: For one thing, he positioned himself as an expert on Afghan Sufis, “whom he had actually never encountered,” while claiming himself to

An assumption-shaking true-crime narrative.

be an Afghan nobleman. Moreover, he articulated a Sufism that was detached from Islam, a stance that his son, the better-known writer Idries Shah, broadened. Idries took numerous wandering side paths before positioning himself, like his father, as an authority on Sufism, and he wrote extensively on witchcraft and magic under various names. Both father and son traveled in rarefied literary circles featuring the likes of George Orwell, Doris Lessing, and Robert Graves, but Idries was less shy about creating whole-cloth identities. Though he was exposed several times for charlatan acts, he managed to retain his Gurdjieff-like allure among the metaphysically inclined. Green concludes by noting the modern Near East’s descent into religion-tinged wars, in which “happy talk of dervishes dissolved in the dust of explosions” and the fictive works of the Shahs were suddenly no longer relevant. A solid, eminently readable work of scholarly detection and high-toned chicanery.

I Curse You With Joy

Haddish, Tiffany | Diversion Books (248 pp.)

$28.99 | May 7, 2024 | 9781635769531

In her longawaited second book, the award-winning comedian chronicles the personal challenges that have made her “more alive, more human, and…more interesting.”

As Haddish, author of The Last Black Unicorn, recounts, her Eritrean-born father left the family when she was 4. Several years later, her mother, diagnosed with head injury–induced schizophrenia, began beating her out of

frustration. In foster care by age 13, Haddish eventually became the “cute homeless” girl who lived in her car. Yet she still managed to find unexpected (and sometimes wildly surreal) comedy in almost everything. For example, she recalls how her Jehovah’s Witness mother would tell stories about “enzymes” boys carried that would “eat your face up” after kissing, which Haddish innocently repeated to more sex-savvy friends. When her father suddenly reappeared in her life, the author remembers how she celebrated their tender moment of telephone reconnection by crying into “some marijuana plants I had growing on my kitchen windowsill.” A recurring topic throughout the book is sexuality, which Haddish discusses in refreshingly unfettered ways. When, for example, she started taking Paxil (an antidepressant) in her 20s, she experienced severe vaginal chafing. With the trademark outrageousness that met with rejection from establishment comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, she remarks, “Do you know how hard it is to walk fast when your coochie is dry?” Nothing is sacred nor forbidden as she jokes about the joys of “riding that D” with fat men and her grandmother’s advice to keep a man: “You gonna have to kiss that banana every day.” Featuring liberal use of slang and profanity, Haddish’s book showcases not only her ability to transform the “shit” of tragedy into the “fertilizer” that “makes you grow,” but also her relentless, utterly courageous pursuit of joy.

A frank, fierce, and heartfelt memoir.

Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race, Justice, and the Story of Sagon Penn

Houlahan, Peter | Counterpoint (432 pp.)

$30.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781640094512

A largely forgotten incident of racist policing and its tragic consequences form the heart of this fastpaced narrative.

To read our review of The Last Black Unicorn, visit Kirkus online.

In March 1985 in San Diego, writes Houlahan, author of Norco ’80, a belligerent police officer decided that a pickup truck containing young Black men needed to be rousted on suspicion of gang activity. Although the driver was “a soft-spoken and idealistic young man who believed his Buddhist chants could bring about the oneness of humanity,” in an act of self-defense while being beaten, he wrested a gun from one officer, killed a cop, and wounded a second one and a civilian ride-along. Sagon Penn soon surrendered himself to the police. Put on trial, he was proven to be justified, thanks in part to testimony from a witness who’d called 911 to “report some police brutality right in front of my house.” He was acquitted of several charges, but others were retained for a second trial that dragged the process out for more than two years, exposing a pattern of police violence and racism— and, in the end, forcing reforms. Even though acquitted a second time, Penn was broken by the criminal proceedings. Of all the meaningful statements from dozens of people that Houlahan interviewed, the most memorable comes from Penn himself, who said, “Sagon Penn was killed that night too….He no longer exists.” A tragedy from whatever point of view, Penn’s story foreshadows many others, from Rodney King to George Floyd and beyond. “Never before in American History had a young Black man admitted to killing a police officer and been found not guilty by a jury for having acted in self-defense,” noted Penn’s lawyer. Nonetheless, he said, “there is nothing

to celebrate. This story began as a tragedy, and it ends as a tragedy.” An assumption-shaking true-crime narrative that transports readers onto the street and into the courtroom.

Kirkus Star

Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price

Jack, Anthony Abraham Princeton Univ. (288 pp.) | $29.95 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780691237466

A scholarly investigation of diverse college students’ experiences when campuses closed during the pandemic.

As a first-generation college student, Jack, a professor of higher education leadership and the author of The Privileged Poor, knows just how difficult it can be to be a Black, working-class undergraduate, both from his personal experience and his scholarly research. When college campuses shut down in 2020, the author—with the help of research assistants—began the process of interviewing 125 “Asian, Black, Latino, Mixed, Native, and White” Harvard undergraduates about their pandemic-related hiatuses. The trends that emerged from this research highlighted the disparities between students of different races and classes during this troubling time. For example, Jack found that while wealthy students used their time off campus to travel and participate in career-boosting, unpaid internships, working-class students scrambled to supplement vital lost income and to balance academic work with unpaid labor, sometimes while coping with dangerous home lives. In another example, the author uncovers how wealth did not always mitigate harm: While wealthy white students enjoyed outdoor spaces during the pandemic, students of color often lived in fear of leaving their homes, regardless of their economic

privilege. Jack’s findings troubled colleges’ celebrations of the unprecedented diversity of incoming classes, begging the question, “Do colleges know how to support a diverse class of students, or do they just know how to foot the bill for one?” Jack’s findings are sobering, well supported, and trenchantly reported. His sampling is particularly impressive, encompassing students from a variety of race and class combinations rarely seen in educational research. For example, he writes that he and his research assistants “interviewed nearly all the students at Harvard who identified as Native.” His compassionate, conversational tone renders this a compulsively readable, powerfully argued book.

A stunning analysis of the effects of Covid-era campus closings on diverse student populations.

The Devil Behind the Badge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer

Jervis, Rick | Dey Street/ HarperCollins (320 pp.) | $29.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780062962966

Gritty account of a Texas lawman turned serial killer.

Jervis, an Austin-based Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, unearths the 2018 murder spree of Border Patrol officer Juan Ortiz, who killed four sex workers in Laredo before being captured by local police. They had perceived the murders were related but were shocked to find the perpetrator was one of their own. Although Ortiz’s arc of violence was brief, the author patiently develops the larger social backdrop and the stories of both killer and victims. He also traces the volatile histories of the border region and the once-neglected Border Patrol, which became a militarized behemoth after 9/11, underscoring that “agents who violated the agency’s use-of-force policy rarely faced consequences.” Following a hardscrabble

upbringing, “Ortiz slid into military life with the ease and zest of someone chasing his calling.” After distinguished service during the Iraq War, the Border Patrol seemed a natural fit for him. “Ortiz told his neighbors he wanted a career on the border because, as the son of immigrants, he could look out for the best interests of migrants arriving to the United States,” writes Jervis. However, he was living a double life: Married with children, he became preoccupied by Laredo’s underworld of drugs and prostitution. Although promoted to a supervisory position in an intelligence unit, Ortiz descended into paranoia and burnout, fueled by alcohol abuse and overprescribed pharmaceuticals. Yet, “if anyone at Border Patrol noticed Ortiz’s spiraling condition, no one officially reported it.” The author contrasts Ortiz’s seedy unraveling with the difficult lives of his victims. He empathetically reconstructs their lives and the complex social network that marginalized people depend on, capturing how places like Laredo have become ground zero for the intersecting crises of opiate abuse and migration, amplifying opportunities for predators. An affecting true-crime drama that captures unsettling realities of the southern border.

The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Technology Still Isn’t Here

Kobie, Nicole | Bloomsbury Sigma (304 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781399403108

A science journalist investigates flying cars and other extravagant technological promises that have failed to get off the ground. It was sci-fi writer William Gibson who said that the future is already here; it’s just very unevenly distributed. Kobie, a contributing editor at Wired and the futures editor at PC Pro, would probably agree, as she romps through a series of gee-whiz ideas for machines that have failed to fulfill their much-hyped

promise. The author examines AI, robots, hyperloop transport, brain-computer interfaces, and smart cities, among other concepts, with her eyes open and tongue in her cheek. She chronicles her attendance at trade shows featuring slightly creepy robots and interviews with optimistic inventors, and she tracks through the relevant history, noting that the first regulatory approval for a flying car in the U.S. was in 1956. She even rode in a driverless car, after which she concluded that there is not much need for one. Some of these ideas sounded good on paper or in the lab but ran aground due to persistent technical problems, such as power requirements. For others, there is simply not enough demand for large-scale production. AI systems are progressing, but they remain a long way from the predicted models. Corporations and governments have invested billions into these projects, and there seems to be no end to the stream of venture capital. Kobie is not against scientific inquiry for its own sake, but she believes that the money and brainpower involved could be more effectively used to provide practical solutions for daily problems. “We don’t need smart cities,” she writes. “We need good ones. Liveable ones. We need sustainable ones.” It is an important idea, rounding out an enjoyable, interesting book.

Kobie has a great time exploring high-tech ideas that have fallen flat, writing with expertise and humor.

The New Antisemitism: The Resurgence of an Ancient Hatred in the Modern World

Lappin, Shalom | Polity (256 pp.)

$29.95 | Sept. 4, 2024 | 9781509558568

An evenhanded examination of how the “massive instability unleashed by decades of intensifying economic inequality” has exacerbated forces of age-old antisemitism.

In his careful delineation of the causes of the most recent flare-up of antisemitism, Lappin, a professor of natural language processing, first looks at the big-picture forces that are feeding much of global society’s grievances, including widespread anti-immigration sentiment and ethno-nationalism. As the author demonstrates, extremist movements— such as those whose members chant, “Jews will not replace us”—seem to share four elements: loss of control over their lives and social context; diminished faith in existing institutions; the embrace of anti-elitism, or “populism”; and a sense of oppression caused by another ethnic identity. Lappin walks readers through these events since World War II, and he uses charts to show the increased prosperity of the top percentile and the impoverishment of the lower—and how social media feeds “dislocation” and “dispossession.” In addition to an examination of the roots of ancient and modern antisemitism, the author addresses the extremes on both right and left, as well as perspectives both Islamic and Jewish. All groups have exhibited deeply problematic periods of harassment and violence so that diaspora Jews have been forced “to choose between coping with a barrage of public abuse and personal insecurity or the concealment of their Jewish identity (passing quietly under the radar).” In the closing chapter, “Notes for a New Progressive Politics,” Lappin posits that since the state of affairs has broken down, a new approach is necessary, the elements of which should include a relearning of the history of antisemitism, steadfast support for both labor movements and immigration, and strict monitoring of the continued explosion of AI and the disinformation campaigns the technology makes possible.

A well-reasoned, coolheaded argument that could be used fruitfully in current roiling debates.

The Atomic Human: What Makes Us Unique in the Age of AI

Lawrence, Neil D. | PublicAffairs (448 pp.)

$32.50 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781541705128

A respected expert in the field argues that AI systems are powerful tools, but it takes a human mind to deal with life’s complexity. Debates over AI often devolve into advocates insisting that it is the cure for all social ills and opponents arguing that the technology constitutes an existential threat to society. Lawrence avoids the either/or paradigm, and he certainly has the experience to paint a more nuanced picture: He is currently a professor of machine learning at Cambridge, and he previously served as the director of machine learning at Amazon. The author’s chief concern is that AI systems could eventually take over human decision-making, although ultimately they are in the hands of massive companies seeking profit. However, AI is inherently unable to collate crucial information with sufficient subtlety, vision, and even intuition. One of the author’s comparisons is Eisenhower’s decision to launch the D-Day invasion: “Eisenhower didn’t have complete information, he only had ‘the best information available.’ His decision required judgement: at the time he made it he knew he could be wrong, and being wrong would have dreadful consequences for thousands of soldiers and the long-term course of the war. Judgements of this form remained firmly the preserve of the human.” Lawrence advances a host of important arguments, but he repeatedly drifts away from his theme. The text sometimes feels like a stew of cultural references, as the author discusses novels,

A well-reasoned, coolheaded argument.

poems, and historical events that have little discernible connection to AI issues. The digressions and references make the narrative difficult to follow. The book would have been much improved by a strong editorial hand to keep the author on mission and create a shorter, more focused work.

Lawrence is a major figure in the AI landscape, but his book is marred by a lack of discipline and narrative organization.

Kirkus Star

Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love

Leavitt, Sarah | Arsenal Pulp Press (152 pp.) | $24.95 paper Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781551529516

A powerfully intimate graphic memoir of a partner’s assisted suicide.

“On April 21, 2020, my partner, Donimo, died. She had a medically assisted death beside a rushing river with people she loved holding her tight. She was 54.” So begins Leavitt’s extraordinary record of loss, with a brief handwritten prologue describing Donimo’s character, suffering, and diagnosis with a series of debilitating illnesses. The author labels the art that follows “a collection of comics,” but that phrase barely begins to describe Leavitt’s formally innovative artwork: freehand panels and full-page images that combine poetic text with illustrations and abstract images and textures, realized in watercolor, ink, and colored pencil. She chronicles the couple’s progress toward the decision to end Donimo’s life, as well as her own deep resistance and terror, taking us literally to a place beyond words. Along the way, there is dark humor (“The 73rd stage of grief generally coincides with March 31”), anguish, tenderness, engaging storytelling, and philosophy. In the final section, Leavitt writes about when she and Donimo learned about the Jewish concept of Olam Habah, the world to come: “The rabbi said, ‘I have learned

that there is something—not nothing— out there waiting for us. Something wonderful and loving and peaceful and joyous.’” Leavitt wondered if that could possibly be true, and this incredibly moving and beautiful book documents her journey toward an answer. It is a fitting follow-up to the author’s debut, Tangles, a graphic memoir about her family’s experience with Alzheimer’s, which is being adapted into a film with an all-star cast. “Donimo continues,” writes Leavitt, “whether it’s in an afterlife where she races through the sky or hovers above me to the left….And I continue also in my alive body. I think it’s the continuing that matters.”

A uniquely gorgeous chronicle. Full box of tissues recommended.

Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life

Leifer, Joshua | Dutton (416 pp.) $32.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593187180

A damning assessment of the present and future of Judaism. Highly critical of Jewish structures, the U.S., and Israel, Leifer, a member of the Dissent editorial board, concludes the present era is “the autumn of American Jewish culture.” He continues, “What is left of American Jewish culture appears to have lost its distinctiveness and its bite, devolved into mere kitsch and cliché: no more Saul Bellow novels, only Seth Rogen movies.” The author explains that many 20th-century Jews, escaping oppression in Europe, aligned their Jewish identity with their newfound American identity, seeing what was good for America as being good for Jews. However, Leifer argues, “American Jewish integration and upward mobility accomplished the wholesale destruction of older forms of life, organizations, languages, and cultural memory.” While acculturated Jews thrived in America, many uncritically supported Zionism and

Kirkus Star

What Nails It

Marcus, Greil | Yale Univ. (104 pp.) $20.00 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780300272451

The éminence grise of rock criticism turns in notes on writing and its motivations. For Marcus, perhaps the most insightful student of the works of Bob Dylan, writing is fun and play, but more, exploration: “I write to discover what I want to say and how to say it—and the nerve to say it.” The “want to say” part unfolds in its own time, but the “how to say it” part enters into the realm of the ineffable. In this latest installment in the publisher’s Why I Write series, Marcus examines how certain words fall in a certain order from a writer’s pen: how Dylan arrived at the lyrics for

>>> the actions of the Israeli government and military, even as injustices mounted against Palestinians. The author views the current form of American Judaism as composed of a separatist Orthodoxy, a minority core of anti-establishment activists, and “a mainline affiliated Judaism sunken into indifference, satisfied with its shallowness, and unaware of the extent of its own religious ignorance.” He sees Judaism in Israel as similarly tainted by its American ties, whether financial, political, religious, or military. In his view, the October 7, 2023, attacks and resulting war are culminations of geopolitical mistakes going back to the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In a work replete with personal reflections and opinions, the author does not shy away from blunt criticism of numerous politicians and personalities who have shaped his own sense of dissent and stirred the anger of fellow young progressive Jews—an anger that only grows as the present conflict continues to claim thousands of lives. In a candid, intellectual, often pessimistic book, Leifer pulls no punches.

AWARDS

Winner of the 2024 Plutarch Award Is Revealed

Yepoka Yeebo took home the biography prize for Anansi’s Gold.

Yepoka Yeebo won the Biographers International Organization’s Plutarch Award, given annually to the best biography of the year, for Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World.

Yeebo’s book tells the story of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, a Ghanaian con man who fooled people into believing that he was the custodian of a fictional trust left by former President Kwame Nkrumah. Blay-Miezah made hundreds of millions of dollars off the lie. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “utterly absorbing.”

Carol Sklenicka, the chair of BIO’s Plutarch

For a review of Anansi’s Gold, visit Kirkus online.

Award committee, said in a statement, “Yepoka Yeebo’s voice holds our attention from first page to last. The image she projects of John Ackah BlayMiezah and the worlds in which he operated is illuminating, cautionary, and unforgettable.”

Yeebo said, “Writing about someone who isn’t a household name, in a place that isn’t familiar to many readers, and digging through a past full of misdirection and suppression can feel futile. I hope this award helps convince other writers, chasing lesser-known characters in unexpected places, that it’s worth the slog: that the beauty of what they do—of the most obscure aspects of their research—will be recognized.”

The Plutarch Award was established in 2013. Previous winners include Robert Caro for The Passage of Power, Ruth Franklin for Shirley Jackson: A Rather , and Jennifer Homans for Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century.—M.S.

Yepoka Yeebo

Yepoka Yeebo

Book Co-Written by Neil Gorsuch Coming This Summer

Over Ruled is written by the Supreme Court justice and a former law clerk, Janie Nitze.

A new book co-written by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is coming later this year, the Associated Press reports. Harper will publish Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, co-written with a former clerk, Janie Nitze, this summer. The press describes it as “deeply researched and superbly written” and “one of the most significant books of the year.”

Gorsuch worked as an attorney in private practice before becoming an associate deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice.

SEEN AND HEARD

the Tenth Circuit for almost 11 years and was appointed to the Supreme Court by then-President Donald Trump in 2017, replacing the late Antonin Scalia. He is the author of two previous books: The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia and A Republic, if You Can Keep It.

His new book, Harper says, explores “the human toll so much law can carry for ordinary Americans.”

“Over Ruled…is a mustread for every citizen concerned about the erosion of our constitutional system, and its insights will be key to the preservation of our liberties for generations to come,” Harper says.

Over Ruled is slated for publication on Aug. 6. —M.S.

Neil Gorsuch

For a recent book about the Supreme Court, visit Kirkus online.

“Like a Rolling Stone,” how David Lynch pieced together his odd assemblage of weird Americana for the opening sequence of Blue Velvet, how Marcus himself, former writer and editor for Rolling Stone, arrived at the title for his book on Dylan-meets-weird-Americana, Invisible Republic (“There was no thought involved at all—only that ghost Bob Dylan talked about, a trickster ghost”). The author evokes three other ghosts as sources and inspirations—the first his biological father, who died in the Pacific typhoon that inspired a critical moment in Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny; the great and irascible film critic Pauline Kael; and the Italian Renaissance artist Titian, who prompts in Marcus the existential-angst question whether there really is a high culture and a “pop” culture and whether high culture must be religiously informed, yielding a brilliant aperçu: “There are whole worlds around us that we have never seen.” As ever, Marcus sheds allusions to do Sontag or Steiner proud, and in that respect, the last line of his piece on Kael is worth the price of admission alone.

Essential for fans of Marcus and fruitful reading for anyone reflecting on the mysteries of art.

Literary Journeys: Mapping Fictional Travels Across the World of Literature

McMurtrie, John. | Princeton Univ. (256 pp.)

$29.95 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780691266398

A richly illustrated catalog highlighting the literature of motion, from Homer to Amor Towles and much between.

The “world of travel,” notes former San Francisco Chronicle books editor McMurtrie, was once the province of men, though lately women and members of overlooked literary communities—Vietnamese, Arabic, Latine, and more—have been contributing significant works to the broad genre. The contributors take a suitably wide-ranging approach. It’s

surprising, in that regard, to see Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula categorized as works of travel literature, though the monster and the vampire do go off and see the world as part of their mischief-making. More expected works, such as The Odyssey and Bashō’s Narrow Road to the Deep North, figure prominently, described with intelligent commentary. Readers could do far worse than to use this book as a kind of suggested-reading list in which a few of the usual suspects—On the Road, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Grapes of Wrath —join the compendium. (The commentary on Twain, linking the Mississippi River to the great rivers of classical literature to be found in Homer and beyond, is particularly sharp.) It’s toward the end of the book that the surprises begin to multiply, as the contributors proffer books likely not to be known to many readers—e.g., the Korean novelist Kang Eun Jin’s No One Writes Back, whose protagonist is “a traveler who goes from motel to motel,” or Zimbabwean author Petina Gappah’s Out of Darkness, Shining Light, a novel that reimagines the African journey of David Livingstone. More familiar recent works—such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives, Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, Towles’ The Lincoln Highway, and Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove —round out the well-selected inventory of travelogues. A pleasingly instructive survey for fans of literary travel.

Takedown: Inside the Fight

To Shut

Down Pornhub for

Child Abuse, Rape, and Sex Trafficking

Mickelwait, Laila | Thesis/Penguin (320 pp.)

$30.00 | July 30, 2024 | 9780593542019

trafficking activist and founder of the Justice Defense Fund, explores the rise in exploitative abuse by the adult entertainment industry. Her impassioned report focuses on her discovery that the 10th-most-visited website in the world, Pornhub, was monetizing homemade, pay-to-download, advertisement-supported sexually abusive content—and manipulatively cloaking that material even after its “dirty secret” was exposed to the media. The author delivers the bulk of her chronologically structured investigation via dramatically lucid language and verbatim commentary from content moderators, survivors, and former employees of MindGeek, the company that owned Pornhub until 2023. Throughout the book, Mickelwait provides damning evidence of Pornhub’s incentivization of sexual crime. “I realize Pornhub’s servers are potentially the largest collection of child pornography and sexual crime in North America, if not the world,” she writes. The author chronicles how she wrote an accusatory series of social media posts and media articles urging the executives of MindGeek, specifically CEO Feras Antoon, to be held accountable, which sparked vicious retaliation efforts. “They have no choice but to attack with lies, and assaults on character and credibility to slow the truth about them from spreading,” she writes. “One thing is clear: MindGeek plays dirty, and this is going to be a messy fight.” As Mickelwait delved further into the darker realms of the internet, more shady characters emerged, and she provides disturbingly vivid portraits of the wrongdoers. Thankfully, her initiative has made significant progress in court, but she is clear that the fight against sexual crime will continue. The author is a dedicated journalist, and she effectively sounds the alarm for tighter controls over “crime scene” porn sites.

An exposé on the popular pornography site, awash in a myriad of sexual abuse and child trafficking allegations.

Mickelwait, a leading anti–sex

A significant report on the impact of sexual crime in adult entertainment.

To read our review of The Grapes of Wrath, visit Kirkus online.

Feeding the Machine: The Hidden Human Labor Powering A.I.

Muldoon, James & Mark Graham & Callum Cant | Bloomsbury (368 pp.)

$29.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781639734962

A look beyond the hype surrounding AI.

As researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, Muldoon, Graham, and Cant have conducted a series of field studies concerning AI’s tangible inputs and impacts, from human labor to undersea cables to the energy needed for data storage and processing. This synthesis of their studies frames AI as an “extraction machine” that exacerbates rather than corrects centuries of global inequities and patterns of oppression. In each chapter, the authors examine a different, problematic node in the supply chain for AI’s large language models, centering individuals such as data annotators and fulfillment workers to illustrate the intentional opacity and profit-driven domination of a small group of tech companies that are quickly consolidating power in the age of AI. “The technology capitalism develops isn’t neutral,” the authors write. Rather, “it is built in the image of the system that birthed it.” While the authors are well aware of potential harmful long-term implications in AI’s development, use, and manipulation, their mission is not to incite hand wringing over apocalyptic hypotheticals. Rather than wallowing in such fatalism, they focus on how even the present reality of AI erects and strengthens barriers to justice, equality, and creativity, and they set forth recommendations for stepping off the current course. The

authors’ own sensitivities and proclivities are evident, including hyperexcitement about the ability of labor unions to lead such a corrective, and many of the alarms they sound are not particular to AI, leading some sections to wander and lose urgency. Still, their look beneath the hood of some of technology’s most heralded advances brings to public awareness critical issues regarding AI, its colonial roots, and its exploitative tendencies that society would do well to discuss and debate sooner rather than later.

A sobering and timely—if sometimes distracted—study of AI.

doctoral candidate with hands-on experience of AI. They walk through the background of AI development and explain the difference between generative and predictive AI. They see great advantages in generative AI, which can provide, collate, and communicate massive amounts of information.

AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How To Tell the Difference

Narayanan, Arvind & Sayash Kapoor Princeton Univ. (352 pp.) | $24.95 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780691249131

Two academics in the burgeoning field of AI survey the landscape and present an accessible state-of-theunion report. Like it or not, AI is widespread. The present challenge involves strategies to use it properly, comprehend its limitations, and ask the right questions of the entrepreneurs promoting it as a cure for every social ill. The experienced authors bring a wealth of knowledge to their subject: Narayanan is a professor of computer science at Princeton and director of its Center for Information Technology Policy, and Kapoor is a

An exemplary film history that will appeal to sci-fi buffs and students of the film biz.

Developers and regulators must take strict precautions in areas such as academic cheating, but overall, the advantages outweigh the problems. Predictive AI, however, is another matter. It seeks to apply generalized information to specific cases, and there are plenty of horror stories about people being denied benefits, having reputations ruined, or losing jobs due to the opaque decision of an AI system. The authors argue convincingly that when individuals are affected, there should always be human oversight, even if it means additional costs. In addition, the authors show how the claims of AI developers are often overoptimistic (to say the least), and it pays to look at their records as well as have a plan for regular review. Written in language that even nontechnical readers can understand, the text provides plenty of practical suggestions that can benefit creators and users alike. It’s also worth noting that Narayanan and Kapoor write a regular newsletter to update their points. Highly useful advice for those who work with or are affected by AI—i.e., nearly everyone.

The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982

Nashawaty, Chris | Flatiron Books (304 pp.)

$29.99 | July 30, 2024 | 9781250827050

A fast-paced, opinionated portrait of a magical stretch in the summer of 1982, when theaters welcomed a slate of nowiconic sci-fi and fantasy films.

Kirkus Star

Kirkus Star

An essential addition to the cultural history of the late Soviet era.

TO THE SUCCESS OF OUR HOPELESS CAUSE

Former Entertainment Weekly critic Nashawaty, author of books about Roger Corman and the cult classic Caddyshack, writes of a time when “geek would go lucratively chic.” The summer of 1982 saw the release of such memorable films as Blade Runner, Tron, Conan the Barbarian, The Road Warrior, and The Thing, none born easily. Their story begins with the arrival of George Lucas’ Star Wars in 1977, which, in the summer of 1982, would cede its box-office-champ crown to Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extraterrestrial. In the five years in between, studios scrambled to get a piece of the sci-fi pie while executives watched in dismay as budgets swelled and schedules slipped. Throughout this consistently entertaining narrative, Nashawaty merrily dispenses dish. For example, he explores how postproduction is where good films can morph into classics, “that is, if everyone is on the same page.” He quickly adds that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner was a canonical instance where everyone was very much not on the same page: Scott promised Harrison Ford, for instance, that his voiceover narration would be removed, which didn’t happen, since without it, a baffling storyline would become even more baffling. Ford reciprocated by delivering that voiceover in a monotone that sounded “like a hostage being held at gunpoint.” Two highlights in a story full of them are Nashawaty’s accounts of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s grim determination to emerge from the Conan franchise a bona fide film star, as indeed he did, and the near meltdown of the revived Star Trek franchise as critics “carved The Motion Picture like the holiday turkey it was.”

An exemplary film history that will appeal to sci-fi buffs and students of the film biz.

Kirkus Star

To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

Nathans, Benjamin | Princeton Univ. (816 pp.)

$39.95 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780691117034

A probing history of dissidence in the post-Stalin Soviet Union. When Stalin lived, his government paid little attention to the nation’s guarantees of constitutional rights and used terror, imprisonment, and torture to curb dissent. When Stalin died in 1953, the regime was less inclined to kill its opponents. In this deeply researched history, Nathans, author of Beyond the Pale, introduces bohemian intellectual Alexander Volpin, son of the poet Sergei Esenin, who, inspired by Rosa Parks and other civil rights activists, “sought to apply modal logic to two humanistic fields he considered most susceptible to ‘exact methods’: jurisprudence and ethics.” In doing so, he demanded that Soviet officials obey the constitution and not Communist Party dictates. He was also an exasperating opponent: When one interrogator grilled him in the early 1960s about a supposedly secret organization—secret because it was unknown to the KGB—Volpin replied that he had not been aware of the KGB officer’s existence, either, “but that has not led me to conclude that you exist secretly.” Other dissidents resisted the Soviet regime on legalistic grounds. Some were committed Leninists; many, such as Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn, argued for freedom of conscience and expression.

While the dissidents never coalesced into a movement, many published samizdat literature, books and manifestos painstakingly typed out and circulated secretly, including practical manuals on how to hold up to police interrogation. (One brave dissident, Sergei Kovalev, replied to each of his interrogator’s dozens of questions, “I refuse to answer.”) Nathans closes his authoritative study by suggesting that the post-Stalin Soviet Union was a paradise of free expression compared to Putin’s present-day “feral state, where political opponents and those branded as traitors are as likely to be poisoned or assassinated as tried in a court of law.”

An essential addition to the cultural history of the late Soviet era.

Band People: Life and Work in Popular Music

Nicolay, Franz | Univ. of Texas (296 pp.)

$29.95 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781477323533

Lesser-known musicians share the struggles and joys of playing backup. Nicolay, author of The Humorless Ladies of Border Control, frames his book around interviews with those in the rock world who “straddle the fuzzy boundary between collaborator and employee.” (It’s a subject the author knows firsthand playing in bands like the Hold Steady, though he says little about his own experience.) Support musicians are often free from the pressures of being beholden to any one group; in-demand drummers Josh Freese and Jon Wurster talk about the gratification of working with a variety of leaders. They’re also free of a lot of nonmusical labor like talking to the media; multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse recalls getting to play the organ at Fenway Park while Neko Case did phone interviews. They also sidestep emotional labor; Mountain Goats bassist Peter Hughes notes that frontman John Darnielle handles a signing line full of fans sharing traumas with him, so he’s content just to pack up

gear. But “band people” also endure constant uncertainty about their status, make less money, and are asked to thread the needle of displaying their talent without hogging the spotlight, yet also being personable and a “good hang.” Nicolay draws on sociological literature about leadership and group dynamics among musicians generally, but his original research focuses on established alternative and indie-rock acts. It makes for fun reading—interviewees dish plenty about bad experiences, especially socially inept bandleaders—and goes deep on a neglected population of musicians. However, it’s also a missed opportunity to explore multiple genres and interview younger musicians who operate under a more difficult economy. The artists he interviews, he writes, succeeded “in a way that their younger counterparts can probably no longer realistically imagine.” Why not talk to them?

A lively if narrow peek at the artistry at the edge of the stage.

Best Copy Available: A True Crime Memoir

Nicorvo, Jay Baron | Univ. of Georgia (240 pp.) | $28.95 paper Sept. 1, 2024 | 9780820367361

A novelist and poet narrates intertwined stories of the abuse he and his mother suffered at the hands of two different men.

Nicorvo was 7 when an unknown assailant assaulted his struggling single mother, Sharon. Rather than tell her children that the man who raped her also threatened to kill her, Sharon lied and said she had been mugged. At the same time, writes the author, he was suffering sexual abuse by a deeply troubled older boy. At the time, Nicorvo was unable to comprehend what had happened, and he said nothing to his mother. “I’m attuned to her feelings,” he writes. “They tell me more about the world than her words. I can read her feelings like a picture book,

but I have a harder time knowing their cause.” Still, the emotional damage that resulted from both events continued to haunt the author, and he even developed an unfounded yet crippling fear that he was “bound to become a child molester.” As an adult, he searched obsessively to learn the exact details of his mother’s rape and suffered a psychotic break from the immense psychological burdens he was forced to carry. Reflecting on these events, Nicorvo concludes that living without a stable father figure created the “early grave” that became his responsibility to “keep from falling” into and that the poverty that chased at Sharon’s heels only exacerbated the situation. “Less money,” he writes, “does make her more of a target….The cause, poverty, and the effect, abuse, are so intimately united in this country that they’re nearly the same damn thing.” Yet even as he movingly muses—sometimes compulsively, through stream-of-conscious-style writing—about his past and the shifting nature of memory, Nicorvo manages to find sanity and grace in a loving family of his own making.

A frank, dark, disturbing, deeply emotional roller-coaster ride.

Displaced: Voices From the War in Ukraine

Panyushkin, Valery | Trans. by Brian James Baer & Ellen Vayner | Europa Editions (240 pp.) | $18.00 paper Aug. 20, 2024 | 9798889660583

A Russian journalist and Putin critic examines the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Panyushkin, the author of Twelve Who Don’t Agree, argues that by delineating the plights of ordinary Ukrainian citizens, the immensity and toll of the violence and suffering should become apparent. As a journalist who left Russia yet remains a keen observer of the conflict, the author maintains some distance—e.g., as he tries to point out to his patriotically pro-Russian father the

kind of propaganda that the Russian government spews about Ukraine and the West. However, as Panyushkin reveals, most Russians believe the invasion was justified and provoked. In a narrative that takes place soon after the invasion on February 24, 2022, the author follows characters such as Alla, a soil scientist in Kharkiv who scrambled to gather water and food supplies when the bombs began falling. Panyushkin shows how many of the people he profiles had divided loyalties, which made them uncertain about where to flee. The author highlights myriad heartbreaking cases: hospital patients desperately waiting for delayed or canceled surgeries; caretakers attempting to help the sick and traumatized children; refugees and terminally ill patients who were under full Ukrainian care and medication but then cast aside in shelters and labeled as “inconvenient.” Some of the other characters include survivors in occupied Bucha and Mariupol and “daredevil” drivers who emerged mysteriously to aid refugees, often for a large fee. Throughout, Panyushkin offers valuable insight into how war propaganda operates, on either side, when people are desperately fleeing danger and starvation. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that sooner or later all the participants become pitiless and bitter.…Do you know what the civilians and refugees see during the war? They see nothing.”

A courageous work by a Russian author willing to look beyond the rhetoric on both sides of the firing line.

Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death

Parnia, Sam | Hachette (352 pp.)

$32.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780306831287

An expert in medical resuscitation explores emerging evidence that calls for new thinking about life, death, and purpose. The reality of life is that death comes

Peeples writes with infectious enthusiasm, and the result is an engaging look at a field with huge potential.

THE INNER CLOCK

for us all, whether we accept it gracefully or rail against the fading of the light. However, research over the past decade has revealed a more complicated picture than a simple binary, writes Parnia, author of Erasing Death and director of critical care and resuscitation research at New York University School of Medicine. In his latest book, the author examines the strands of current research, many based on new developments in brain-scanning technology. One of the most intriguing is evidence that after the brain “dies,” there can sometimes be a sudden surge of electrical activity, much more powerful than the usual level of activity. Parnia suggests that this is a postdeath “hyper-consciousness,” which might connect with the experiences of people who have shown all the signs of death but have somehow returned to life, due to resuscitation or through an unexplained process. The returnees have a common story to tell, regardless of their cultural background or religious beliefs, and they often feel a compulsion to recount the experience. There are hundreds of such cases, writes the author—far too many to ignore. This raises difficult issues about consciousness, the self, neuroscience, and the line between life and death, and there are no simple answers. Some people might find some of the author’s stories disturbing, although that is certainly not Parnia’s intention. “We are at the cusp of the exploration of a new frontier of science,” he writes. “I have little doubt that, in the future, people who would be declared dead today will be routinely brought back to life.”

This engaging blend of new research and personal experience tackles fundamental questions about existence and awareness.

The Inner Clock: Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms

Peeples, Lynne | Riverhead (368 pp.)

$30.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593538906

A study of how understanding the natural cycles of time could open up new pathways of health and well-being.

One of the most interesting fields attracting new scientific inquiry is chronobiology, which examines timing processes, including periodic cycles, in organisms. Aside from animals and plants, writes science journalist Peeples, there is evidence that the deep-seated natural rhythms of the human body are crucial to our physical and mental health. Unfortunately, as the author shows, they have been severely disrupted by modern lifestyles. Peeples is willing to dive wholeheartedly into her subject, and her research even included a period in an underground bunker to see how it affected her. She tracks through the history of clocks and artificial lighting, which pushed people into unnatural schedules, and she presents new research that has revealed how the parts of the light spectrum have different effects on the human body and mind. Blue light, especially early in the day, can provide an extra burst of energy, while orange is good for winding down after activity. Peeples ranges widely, delving into jet lag, the problems for astronauts and polar scientists in dark environments, and the damaging impact of

excessive artificial light on the ecosystem. She also looks at experiments suggesting that the right lighting conditions can help to treat dementia, depression, and other mental illnesses. The importance of circadian rhythms is slowly being recognized, Peeples notes, although the current research needs better systemization. She hopes that chronobiology will eventually become part of the standard health tool kit, but until that time, she offers useful advice. Throw away the alarm clock, get some sunshine every day, and listen to what your body is telling you.

Peeples writes with infectious enthusiasm, and the result is an engaging look at a field with huge potential.

Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era

Pierson, Paul & Eric Schickler

Univ. of Chicago (336 pp.) | $29.00

Sept. 5, 2024 | 9780226836430

An analysis of the nationalization of partisan politics in the U.S. ahead of (another) titanic presidential election. Noted political scientists Pierson, author of Winner-Take-All Politics , and Schickler, author of Racial Realignment , draw on their extensive scholarship to examine various periods of American history during which polarization was particularly virulent, yet held largely in check until the 1960s by the regional diversity of political mechanisms and institutions of state political parties, media, and lobbying groups. The authors attempt to show how and why this dynamic shifted to the national state and why such polarization has caused the recent spate of U.S. presidential elections to take on nearly Armageddon-like overtones, amplified by both major parties.

“Partisan rancor has become a defining feature of American politics,” they write. “Growing numbers regard the other party with hostility and fear. Party elites are more polarized still.” The authors contend that the Constitution—which they view from a “Madisonian” angle—was not designed to meet contemporary political difficulties and that the contemporary Republican Party, especially the segment that follows any order from Donald Trump, exploits the founding document’s vulnerabilities. The book is well researched, and the authors’ analysis of past eras of polarization changes in what they label “intermediary institutions” such as interest groups and mass media is incisive. However, the heavy focus on the Republican Party, while cogent and often accurate, leaves the account deficient. Given their arguments throughout the book, the authors seem to operate under the flawed premise that the Democratic Party is merely slightly center-left, and they fail to fully explore the ramifications of specific dubious decisions by Democratic leaders. While the text is certainly worth reading and contemplating, particularly for the historical analysis of partisanship, it tells only half of the story. An intriguing but incomplete examination of the toxic American political landscape.

Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success

Popoff, Alexandra | Yale Univ. (264 pp.)

$28.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780300253214

An exploration of the Jewish roots of the infamously divisive author.

Ayn Rand (1905-1982) had a profound influence on mid-20th-century America: Her two bestselling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged , were outsize yet simplistic and lecturing novels about the virtues of

capitalism and the evils of altruism in general and of communism in particular. Popoff, author of Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century, attempts to pinpoint the origins of Rand’s Manichean philosophy, which mainly relate to her upbringing in Petrograd, Russia. There, young Rand (born Alisa Rosenbaum) witnessed the violent triumph of the Bolsheviks, who dispossessed and purged Jewish families like hers. That experience, combined with heavy doses of Nietzsche, drove her toward an unapologetically selfish and achievement-focused philosophy. Her hardheadedness worked: When she arrived in America, she fast-talked her way into Hollywood, married to stay in the country, and wrote plays and novels that, however stiff, were perfect fits for a Cold War society paranoid about the spread of communism. Rand rejected her parents’ faith— “The only time I’m Jewish is when I hear anti-Semitism,” she once said—and Popoff notes how her distance from Judaism had consequences. She kept silent about the Holocaust and wrote an early novel, We the Living, that put her family at risk. However, faith still manifested in her work. She found common ground with conservative Jewish Hollywood studio heads, and Popoff notes how Fountainhead hero Howard Roark represented a “new Jew” strengthening the diaspora. Talking about matters of faith only goes so far with Rand, though, and the biography mainly serves as a speedy study of a woman who respected no scripture but her own: Asked by noted Random House editor Bennett Cerf to cut Atlas Shrugged , a contemptuous Rand replied, “Would you cut the Bible?”

An unsentimental introduction to a contentious, often exasperating literary figure.

Watford Forever: How Graham Taylor and Elton John Saved a Football Club, a Town, and Each Other

Preston, John with Elton John Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) | $28.99 Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781324095477

Affectionately rough-and-tumble portrait of a small-town British soccer team. Like much of England in the mid-1970s, Watford, a nondescript suburb, was in terrible shape. “Its workforce had been decimated by factory closures, its heart torn out by idiotic town-planning and its identity subsumed in London’s never-ending sprawl,” writes former Sunday Telegraph journalist Preston. Its soccer team, Watford FC, was just as hangdog, “a bunch of complete no-hopers.” Enter Elton John, who, climbing to the height of his fame, bought the club in 1976, despite warnings that it would all end in tears. The team had a few good players but none of the vision that can guide a squad to victory, and there John’s mounds of pounds came in handy. The following year, he brought a winning manager into the picture in the person of the steady, evenhanded Graham Taylor, who once told the struggling lads that in the second half they “should just give it everything they had, playing without fear and always looking to attack,” adding, “You never know where it might take you.” Taylor’s understated faith in his players took them to unexpected heights, the stuff of which inspirational sports films are made. There’s a pointed morality tale running through the narrative, for, as Preston notes, the U.S. has no shortage of little towns that “seem somehow to have fallen off the map” and just need a shot in the arm to come around. Alas, all it takes is a sufficient number of civic-minded millionaires. As for Elton

To read our review of Atlas Shrugged, visit Kirkus online.

ISBN: 9781732489493 [paperback]

“...former Indianapolis Star reporter Hanafee's novel is a fast-paced, intense depiction of corporate America and the perennial struggle of women seeking equal treatment in the boardroom.”

ISBN: 9781735698809 [eBook] For Agent Representation or Information on Publishing and Film Rights, Email shanafee@yahoo.com • susanhanafee.com

“A rousing corporate melodrama full of twists, turns, and vivid characters.”

—Kirkus Reviews

By Stephen Puleo

Celebrating Independence Day With U.S. History Books

By Matthew Stewart

By Edward Robert McClelland

By Paul M. Sparrow

Corey Mead

Book to Screen

Paul Walter Hauser To Star in Chris Farley Biopic

The film will be based on Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby’s The Chris Farley Show. Paul Walter Hauser will star as Chris Farley in a biopic based on Tom Farley Jr. and Tanner Colby’s The Chris Farley Show, Deadline reports.

New Line has acquired the film, which will tell the story of the legendary Saturday Night Live comedian who died of a drug overdose in 1997 at the age of 33.

The Chris Farley Show, co-written by his brother, was published by Viking in 2008. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the book “a sterling example of oral biography—well-structured, consistently engaging and simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking.”

Farley became a breakout star on Saturday Night Live shortly after he joined the cast in 1990. He was known for his physical comedy and for playing larger-than-life

characters. He left the show in 1995 and went on to star in films including Tommy Boy and Beverly Hills Ninja New Line’s adaptation of the book will star Hauser (Richard Jewell, Black Bird ) as Farley and will be directed by Josh Gad, the actor known for his roles in Broadway shows including The Book of Mormon and Gutenberg! The Musical! Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who have collaborated on films including 500 Days of

Summer, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Disaster Artist, will write the screenplay, with SNL creator Lorne Michaels producing.—M.S.

For a review of The Chris Farley Show, visit Kirkus online.

Paul Walter Hauser

John, Preston does a skillfully understated job himself of bringing psychobiography into play in his exploration of what prompted the tormented star to buy the club in the first place.

A real-life Ted Lasso tale of a perennial underdog sparked to life—and fans of Sir Elton will enjoy it, too.

Twenty Years: Hope, War, and the Betrayal of an Afghan Generation

Rasmussen, Sune Engel | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (352 pp.) | $30.00 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780374609948

A reporter’s intensive interviews with a diverse generation of Afghans over the last 20 years. Rasmussen, a London-based journalist who covers Afghanistan, Iran, and European security affairs for the Wall Street Journal , offers poignant explorations of Afghan lives over two tumultuous decades. Since the fall of the first Taliban regime in 2001 after the U.S. invasion and occupation, there was a massive attempt at rebuilding the decimated country, bringing modernization efforts that began to include girls and women successfully into the education system. Many Afghans that had fled the first Taliban regime, such as Zahra’s and Saif’s families, migrating to Iran, returned by the early 2000s and attempted to rebuild their lives. Zahra was married off as a young teen and physically abused by her opium-addicted husband. Eventually, she was able to extricate herself from an oppressive tribal system and find education and employment. With her two children, she just managed to escape Kabul when the Americans evacuated in August 2021. Alex, a gay man who had spent his early years in Peshawar—where his family had moved to escape the

Taliban—hoped to open the first gay bar in Kabul but had to abandon his dreams when the political situation grew more repressive by the 2010s. During that time, Omari became a Taliban soldier and witnessed an emergent Islamic State group before joining the triumphant Taliban entering the capital city in 2021. Parasto earned a university education and secured a good job with the Afghan government; after the fall of Kabul, she helped open schools for girls before she, too, was hounded into exile. Throughout, Rasmussen is a diligent, humane guide to the chaotic lives of ordinary citizens finding their way among the violence of extremism and war. Sharp, memorable portraits of the myriad struggles of young people from Afghanistan.

Men in White: The Gutsy, Against-All-Odds Return of Penn State Football

Raymond, Chris | St. Martin’s (496 pp.)

$32.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781250280480

The Nittany Lions claw their way back to life after a terrible year in this lively combination of color commentary and oral history.

Sportswriter Raymond, a Penn State alum who covered the school’s football team as a student journalist, opens with events that are now dimly receding into the past but were then shockingly immediate. In 2011, longtime coach Jerry Sandusky, who had been retired for more than a decade, was arrested for dozens of incidents of child molestation. Soon after, the school’s president and its famed head coach, Joe Paterno, were fired. Hired away from the New England Patriots, new coach Bill O’Brien was barely on the ground when the NCAA imposed a series of stringent sanctions, including the erasure of 111 wins, thus “dropping

Paterno from first to fifth in the NCAA’s record book.” Given lost scholarships and other penalties, including a ban on appearing in postseason games, the team’s players would have been well within their rights to scatter to other schools— and indeed, recruiters quickly came calling. Instead, as Raymond chronicles, the team, urged on by linebacker Michael Mauti, pulled together to rebuild—had Mauti left, the author makes clear, it would have been game over. That rebuilding was tough work. As one player recalls, the first year involved “winter workouts, outside, twenty-degree weather, shorts and a T-shirt. Nothing’s gonna faze us.” The student body pulled together, too, coming out to cheer a workout as if it were a pennant game. Not so much the administration. As Raymond writes, “when the school’s administrators had quietly retreated from the heat of the Sandusky scandal, it was those student-athletes who stood tall, openly declaring their support for the institution and its record.” It’s those athletes whose voices resound in this well-crafted, multivocal homage.

Fans of Big Ten football will enjoy this tatters-to-touchdowns tale of gridiron redemption.

Scotland Yard: A History of the London Police Force’s Most Infamous Murder Cases

Read, Simon | Pegasus Crime (368 pp.) $29.95 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781639366392

The story of Scotland Yard told through some of its most famous cases. Read, author of The Iron Seas , Human Game, and Winston Churchill Reporting , begins this entertaining, atmospheric history in 1811, with London’s gruesome Radcliffe Highway Murders, then quickly

backtracks to 1753 and the establishment of Henry Fielding’s Bow Street Runners, a small, private constabulary force. In 1829, Scotland Yard, London’s first established police force with a new power—to investigate crimes—was born amid the heyday of sensational murders, lurid newspaper coverage, and later, some infamous criminals’ wax appearances at Madame Tussauds. After their successful investigation into a grave-robbing scheme, the organization gained praise and publicity. The 1840 murder of Lord William Russell drew Queen Victoria’s attention, and Scotland Yard took heat for not solving it initially; but then they did—the butler did it. Dickens and Thackeray attended the hanging, “both repulsed at what they saw.” In 1842, the Yard added a “plainclothes Detective Branch—the first of its kind,” and the group quickly solved the infamous Bermondsey murders. The Yard’s reputation was tarnished in 1872 when four chief inspectors were bribed by two con men, resulting in a significant shakeup in the force and the creation of the Criminal Investigation Department in 1878. Just over a decade later, the Yard took on the case of the Thames Torso Murderer, a serial killer case that remained unsolved. In 1890, the New Scotland Yard got a new home, a granite building “notable for its use of electricity.” Along with forensic pathology, they began to incorporate fingerprinting in their investigations. In 1910, the Yard successfully pursued a killer across the Atlantic. These crimes and others, Read notes near the end of this surprisingly lively narrative, “defined modern detective work and still resonate today.” True-crime enthusiasts will relish these many murders most foul.

An entertaining and expansive study of a pioneering literary editor.

Kirkus

The World She Edited:

Katharine S. White at the New Yorker

Reading, Amy | Mariner Books (576 pp.) $32.50 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781328595911

A multifaceted portrait of influential New Yorker fiction editor Katharine S. White (1892-1977). The storied origins of the New Yorker, established in 1925 by Harold Ross, have been extensively chronicled, including by several books delving into the lives of its idiosyncratic editors. Though initially envisioned as a sophisticated exploration of New York’s vibrant cultural landscape, the magazine earned a literary reputation that soared under White’s stewardship from 1925 to 1960, gaining renown for publishing serious fiction and poetry. Despite joining Ross shortly after its inception, White’s considerable contributions have not received enough recognition. In this captivating new biography, Reading, author of The Mark Inside, finally shines a well-deserved spotlight on White’s remarkable career, portraying her as a modern woman whose early feminist roots traced to her college years at Bryn Mawr. White’s keen instinct for talent, discovery of several women writers and others at the start of their careers (Kay Boyle, Janet Flanner, and Elizabeth Bishop, among others), and profound understanding of the marketplace and educated women’s evolving roles distinguished the magazine for

decades. Its “early successes,” writes the author, “were due to the efforts of feminist women who interpreted the magazine’s obsession with sophistication in a way guaranteed to appeal to readers like themselves—educated, active participants in the city’s cultural life.” White’s personal life was equally fascinating and progressive, as revealed through Reading’s nuanced, discerning portrait of the disintegration of her 14-year marriage to Ernest Angell (parent to esteemed New Yorker writer Roger Angell) and the ludicrous hurdles to divorce she confronted. Her subsequent marriage to E.B. White, one of her staff writers and seven years her junior, would endure for the next 48 years, and Reading’s portrayal of E.B. is additionally compelling. An entertaining and expansive study of a pioneering literary editor and the era that shaped her legendary tenure.

Kirkus Star

Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics

Reeve, Elle | Atria (304 pp.) | $28.99 July 9, 2024 | 9781982198886

A reporter takes a gimlet-eyed look at the dangerous worlds of the deluded who gave us QAnon, rightwing extremism, and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. The black pill of CNN correspondent Reeve’s title is a trope borrowed from the Matrix film

Star

For more on the New Yorker, visit Kirkus online.

A delightful examination of teeth throughout history.

franchise to describe “a dark but gleeful nihilism: the system is corrupt, and its collapse is inevitable.” One of the author’s principal characters is a young man who, suffering from “brittle bone disease,” founded an “online forum for male virgins.” Later, he switched his energies to the site that would become 8chan. “He’d imagined that a site with unrestricted free speech would create a robust forum that would bring forth new and better ideas, but over time, 8chan became an incubator for conspiracy theories and violent ideologies, like incels, the alt-right, and later, after he left it, QAnon,” writes the author. “8chan made Fred an internet supervillain.” Reeve has her sights on numerous other villains, though, including neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, more interested in money than ideology, backed by rich and secretive old men who bankrolled a movement that got away from them. “The leaders lost control of the cult,” writes the author. “Now the cult controls the leader…. The power is in mass anonymity. The racist hive mind collects a catalog of all leaders’ worst moments.” For the moment, that cult finds Donald Trump and his white nationalism useful, but perhaps only for the moment. Throughout the book, Reeve treads on controversial ground, but she does so with measured intelligence— and, as she notes, “It’s a real mindfuck for smart people to hear that many of the nazis are really smart.” Smart, perhaps, but also paranoid, conspiratorial, misogynistic, racist, often narcissistic, mendacious—and now deeply entrenched in the “respectable” conservative movement.

A sharp exposé that does much to explain a strange, dangerous underground movement steadily emerging into daylight.

The Tech Coup: How To Save Democracy From Silicon Valley

Schaake, Marietje | Princeton

Univ. (328 pp.) | $27.95

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780691241173

An assessment of the current state of the technology sector, which has avoided accountability for decades—but there are signs of change.

Schaake is the international policy director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center, a former member of the European Parliament, and a columnist for the Financial Times. Consequently, her voice is significant, especially involving issues of technology and regulation. In her debut book, the author takes a deep dive into the ways in which tech behemoths have infiltrated governments, starting with service delivery and working up to critical roles in national security. Some governments have openly contracted tech companies to provide tools for surveillance and control. The size and wealth of these corporations make them extremely powerful, and many of them have mastered the art of burying opponents under waves of techno-babble. They claim that any regulation would stifle innovation, but Schaake sees that as self-serving, pointing out that there are other well-regulated industries that have positive innovation records. She believes that the legislation passed in Europe is a good start but also notes that regulations have to be supported by the will to implement them, which has been patchy at best. In the U.S., Schaake

argues for the possibility of a bipartisan coalition that could put effective rules in place. The hard line that politicians are taking with TikTok may signal a change of attitude. The question is now about designing a framework that balances the competing interests, and Schaake puts forward some useful suggestions. The Declaration on the Future of the Internet offers a path for international cooperation, and while none of the relevant problems can be easily solved, the author demonstrates the importance of making sure democratic institutions are protected. Both alarming and hopeful, and Schaake writes with hard-won experience and clear-minded intelligence.

Kirkus Star

Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, From Hagfish to Humans

Schutt, Bill | Illus. by Patricia J. Wynne Algonquin (320 pp.) | $31.00 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781643751788

A delightful examination of teeth throughout history.

Vertebrate zoologist Schutt, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History and the author of Pump and Cannibalism, teams with illustrator Wynne to create a lively, deeply informed investigation of the origin, development, and significance of teeth. “The appearance of teeth, around five hundred million years ago, and the serious remodeling that occurred after that enabled myriad forms of vertebrates to obtain and process food in pretty much every conceivable environment,” writes the author, as well as use them as defensive weapons and tools. Drawing on the findings of archaeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, dentists, and scores of other researchers, Schutt highlights the teeth of many particular

species. Adaptations of vampire bat teeth strike him as particularly spectacular, since bats need a bite strong enough to draw blood (which they lap up) but not painful enough to cause their prey to flee. The evolution of high-crowned teeth that continue to grow over an animal’s life span enabled horses to survive as soft-leaved forests changed to abrasive grasslands. Tusks are teeth used not for chewing, but as digging or scraping tools and, in some species, for visual display. Schutt considers the fangs of a variety of venomous snakes and venomous fish. Of these, the stonefish is the most lethal, administering its venom not through a bite, but by 13 “stiff, supersharp dorsal spines.” The author patiently explains what evolution means, with close attention to the initial appearance of jaws, whose function “was not to grasp and bite but to increase the efficiency of respiration by opening and closing the mouth.”

Schutt’s purview is wide ranging and his curiosity insatiable; he wonders, for example, Why have toothless vertebrates evolved from ancestors with teeth? Were George Washington’s dentures really wooden? How have we come to have a tooth fairy?

A fascinating romp through evolutionary history.

A New Philosophy of Opera

Sharon, Yuval | Liveright/Norton (320 pp.)

$29.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781631496868

An argument for the necessity of fresh thinking about—and new approaches to—a struggling art form.

Opera can seem like an expensive anachronism in the 21st century. Sharon, a MacArthur fellow and artistic director of Detroit Opera, believes that it is stuck in a creative cul-de-sac, with a small number of classic operas being performed every season. Yes, they are popular—or popular, at least, with the wealthy

donors and conservative board members who dominate the opera scene—but they crowd out many of the talented, innovative composers and artists working to move the art form forward. The author chronicles the complex history of opera, underlining its overt artificiality and collaborative nature, and he punctuates his account with snippets about important moments and turning points, revealing some intriguing secrets. Sharon argues convincingly that opera has to get out of opulent concert halls and find alternatives to its image of elitism, an approach that he is pioneering with his work in Detroit. There has to be a new balance of storytelling, performance, production values, and relevance. As he demonstrates in the text, the author has been willing to take imaginative chances in many of his own projects, such as reversing the narrative structure of classic operas or staging an opera in a multilevel parking garage. Sharon offers many interesting ideas about opera and its future, although the narrative is not always easy to follow, with numerous detours and digressive anecdotes. Nonetheless, the author’s thesis is valid and relevant for any fan of fine art: Opera must strike out in a new direction if it is to avoid stagnation. A bonus is the Spotify “playlist of musical examples,” which is well worth a listen.

Sharon provides an authoritative view of how opera can and must return to its dynamic, populist roots.

My Child, the Algorithm: An Alternatively Intelligent Book of Love

Silva, Hannah | Soft Skull Press (272 pp.) $16.95 paper | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781593767808

Silva turns to language to comprehend heartbreak, betrayal, and what it means to be human in the rapidly advancing digital age. “We joined up our bookcases and we joined up our minds and we joined up our bodies,” she writes. “Like a male seahorse I carried her egg. We queered pregnancy. But seahorses mate for life, and when our baby was born she left.” Told with frequent interjections from both her son (now a toddler) and an AI algorithm, both of which she feeds language to, the book is consistently surprising and far ranging in scope. Both the algorithm and her son respond in varying ways to that language. Their interruptions become part of the indelible fabric of Silva’s story, and the writing is curious, intelligent, propulsive, and memorable. Silva’s text manages to be both immensely readable at first glance and rewarding to those who choose to read slowly, savoring and annotating. Still, the algorithm never manages to be as interesting as the other elements in the narrative. “Like a writer editing a book, skipping back and forward, trying to figure out where to mention they have an ex-husband, the algorithm keeps looping back over what it has produced, adjusting and correcting itself, building a kind of temporary memory that will be wiped clean straight afterward,” writes the author. Consequently, it doesn’t approach the emotional peaks of the tender story at the heart of the book—but it does magnify loneliness and the singularity of experience, which was perhaps Silva’s intent. Ultimately, it’s a machine regurgitating language. Regardless, the author’s inventiveness and emotional urgency make this book an intriguing reading experience. Silva is a playful theorist with an elastic intellect.

A striking reflection on the intersection of queer single parenthood and AI. Left unexpectedly to reckon with life as a single parent,

For more on the history of opera, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Bone of the Bone: Essays on America From a Daughter of the Working Class

Smarsh, Sarah | Scribner (352 pp.)

$29.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781668055601

The author of  Heartland returns with a collection of pieces that illuminate the plights and humanity of her working-class subjects.

“The White, rural, working-poor people about whom I most often write—they are your people too,” writes Smarsh in the introduction to this compendium of 36 essays, the majority of which originally appeared in a range of publications. The author possesses a distinct style, one simultaneously personal and political, with the aim of navigating “the space where storytelling might be at once factual in content and artistic in form.” In her essays, which range from two to 18 pages, she makes frequent references to her own experiences. “I am bone of the bone of them that live in trailer parks,” she writes in a 2014 essay about “the teeth of poor folk,” which criticizes America’s costly dental care system and humanizes those who are unable to afford treatment. She calls for the American dream “to put its money where its mouth is” with different laws and “individual awareness of the judgments we pass on people.” Another essay describes Smarsh’s brother, a first-generation college graduate who “had no connections in the professional world, and no one to tell him that communications and history degrees were bad bets to begin with.” As she recounts, he regularly sold his plasma over the course of a decade to make ends meet. In a piece about growing wheat in Kansas, the author writes, “The greater divide in

This powerful reckoning with the costs of being poor should be required short-form nonfiction reading.

BONE OF THE BONE

America today is not between red and blue but between what is discussed in powerful rooms and what is understood in the field.” Even though these essays were shaped by more than a dozen editors, this collection’s impact is staggering, and Smarsh’s voice is constant, studied, and compassionate. This powerful reckoning with the costs of being poor should be required short-form nonfiction reading.

Four Ways of Thinking: A Journey Into Human Complexity

Sumpter, David | Flatiron Books (320 pp.) $29.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781250806260

A mathematician explains how to deal with the world.

Sumpter, a professor of applied mathematics and the author of Ten Equations That Rule the World , writes that our thinking as we navigate life can be classified as either statistical (or stable), periodic, chaotic, or complex. Making his approach as simple as possible, the author divides the book into four sections, one for each category of thought. The first section may seem like the easiest, but statistics can be misleading or even meaningless. In his discussion of periodic thinking, one of his anecdotes involves Adam Smith. A professor explained to him that Smith “had been wrong, because his stable thinking had convinced him that the

market would reach and stay at equilibrium. But Smith’s thinking was, Parker said, reductionist. Accounting for our interactions, the way we also behaved like animal herds, showed that human society was anything but stable.” Perhaps the most startling category, chaos as a mathematical and scientific entity is a 20th-century discovery. (For more on the science of chaos, turn to Peter Gleick’s groundbreaking 1987 book, Chaos.) As Sumpter demonstrates, chaos is not the same as total confusion, but rather a specific natural phenomenon in which tiny changes in initial conditions lead to enormous unpredictable effects. This is why, no matter how much information computers can gather about weather conditions today, predictions beyond a week are unreliable. Unlike the previous three, complex thinking is less about solutions than “finding the stories which help us to better understand ourselves, as well as those around us.” Despite the upbeat conclusion, Sumpter has not written a self-improvement guide or another how-to-lie-with-statistics knockoff. Rather, he offers a fairly clearheaded popular mathematics survey that will appeal to readers of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow and similar books.

The mathematics of problem-solving— always ingenious and often helpful.

To read our review of Heartland, visit Kirkus online.

A Machine To Move Ocean and Earth: The Making of the Port of Los Angeles and America

Tejani, James | Norton (448 pp.)

$35.00 | July 23, 2024 | 9781324093558

A colorful study of the creation and development of the busiest port in the Western Hemisphere. Many history books about California focus on San Francisco, the gold rush, and the transcontinental railroad, but Tejani, associate professor of history at California State University, focuses on the creation of the Los Angeles port, a tremendous undertaking. Although slavery preoccupied 1850s America, day-to-day politics featured a major effort to absorb the western conquests and connect them to the east with a railroad. Southern states blocked approval of any but a southern route through New Mexico and Arizona. Few readers know that a second, all-weather transcontinental railroad reached Southern California in 1881 or that a major Civil War campaign was fought in the Southwest after Texas Confederate forces invaded New Mexico in 1861. In response, a Union army landed at the Los Angeles port of San Pedro and endured a grueling march across the desert. Paying less attention than other scholars to the 1869 arrival of the (northern) transcontinental railroad, Tejani focuses closely on the following 50 years, during which California’s center of gravity moved south. Throughout the multifaceted narrative, he turns up an entertaining cast of mostly obscure political figures, entrepreneurs, military officers, and scientists who aimed to accomplish great things or simply line their pockets. Unlike San Francisco, San Pedro was not a natural harbor, but a great deal of commerce managed to pass though. By the 1870s, the railroads had

arrived, local entrepreneurs were eager to share their bounty, and L.A. officials, bent on having a world-class port, worked hard and ultimately successfully to wrest control. This well-researched text, which often shifts perspectives, ends in the early 1900s. The author includes a generous selection of archival photos and a cast of characters.

A compelling regional history with relevance for U.S. history in general.

Why Psychosis Is Not So Crazy: A Road Map to Hope and Recovery for Families and Caregivers

Vanheule, Stijn | Other Press (240 pp.) | $16.99 paper Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781635424423

How new thinking about psychosis can chart a positive way forward. In a book first published in Belgium in 2021, Vanheule, a professor of psychoanalysis and clinical psychology, combines a long history of treatment of patients suffering from psychosis with a firm grasp of the current research on the subject. About 15% of the population will have a psychotic experience at some time, notes the author, although only a small proportion will progress into a condition of full-blown psychosis. Psychosis involves a loss of contact with reality, which usually starts in late adolescence and involves hallucinations, hearing voices, and feelings of paranoia or grandiosity. Vanheule discusses the case of a patient who engaged in complex, argumentative conversations with an imaginary companion; another was convinced that inanimate objects were speaking to him. The author investigates the way that psychotic patients use language, which can sometimes reveal the trauma or issue that triggered the psychological

break. Antipsychotic drugs can help in some circumstances, but the most valuable tool is a therapist willing to take the time to build an empathetic relationship. Some psychotics show a strong creative streak, which should be encouraged as a means of expression. The therapeutic goal is to provide a sense of connectedness that can guide the sufferer back to reality. Vanheule believes that most psychotics are deeply confused, caught between clashing images of the world. Sometimes the best option is to keep the condition within manageable limits rather than search for a complete cure. The author has had considerable success with his treatment ideas, but he emphasizes that “there are no miracle remedies for treating psychosis.” Still, he provides useful information for sufferers and those who care for them, laid out in an articulate, sympathetic manner.

With decades of experience, Vanheule explores the roots of psychosis, building a framework for understanding and treatment.

Magically Black and Other Essays

Walker, Jerald | Amistad/ HarperCollins (176 pp.) | $29.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780063161078

A Black professor analyzes the ways in which race shapes his life. When Walker, the author of How To Make a Slave and Other Essays and Street Shadows , was a child, his parents became enthralled with the Radio Church of God, accepting their dubious biblical evidence that Black people were inferior to white people. “Along with accepting the myth of white supremacy,” he writes, “I had been denied meaningful exposure to Black traditions and culture.” This strange inheritance led to the author’s

complex relationship with his Blackness. The essay “Master of the Lawn” is a second-person, choose your own adventure–style story that begins with a decision about whether a passing motorist yelled a racial slur or a benign pleasantry. Walker urges readers to “beware of racists, paranoia, self-pity, anger, and white privilege,” all of which the author examines in “Lost,” which describes how his son’s tardiness caused the author to spiral with visions of his possible death at the hands of white police. Walker contends with these feelings in less serious situations as well. In “Combat Mode,” another second-person essay, the author writes about how he and his wife decided whether to kill a cockroach before potential buyers visited their house. “This is not to say that the presence of one or more roaches means the presence of one or more Blacks, or vice versa,” he writes. “Nor is it to say that the presence of Black homeowners means the presence of neglect and disrepair. But these are persistent stereotypes that, with so much at stake, you cannot risk falling victim to.” Walker’s humor is cuttingly circumspect, and his observations are poignant and insightful. The author’s talent for identifying small but powerful moments is sometimes overshadowed by over-the-top self-deprecation. Nonetheless, Walker is a witty, talented writer. A funny and perspicacious essay collection about Black life in America.

Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life’s Emergence

Walker, Sara Imari | Riverhead (272 pp.)

$29.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593191897

An astrobiologist takes a hard look at life. Walker, director of Arizona State’s Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in

Science, writes that until well into the 19th century, the vitalism movement “was driven by the idea that what makes matter come alive cannot be described mechanically and is therefore not material.” But if life is not a property of matter, and matter is all there is, then what is life? Biologists approach the problem in terms of life on Earth, which hasn’t proven to be an effective strategy and is even less helpful today with the discovery of innumerable planets and the possibility of sentient life throughout the universe. In addition to her work in the field of astrobiology, Walker is a theoretical physicist with a special interest in the possibilities of alien life, and she emphasizes that physics deals with “the heart of reality.” She continues, “It’s not that the idiosyncratic details of biology as it evolved on Earth don’t matter. They just don’t matter if you want to understand life as a universal phenomenon.” Eschewing the anthropomorphic viewpoint, she and colleagues have developed “assembly theory,” which proposes that things never form spontaneously, but must be constructed via selection and evolution. Life is an example of “high-dimensional combinatorial space of what is possible,” she writes. The author’s startling conclusion is that, while an alien life form may be detected first on a distant planet, it’s more likely to turn up in a laboratory here on Earth, “but there is an even larger universe of chemical possibilities we may need to explore to find them.” This is an honorable addition to a small genre that began with Noble Prize–winning physicist Erwin Schrodinger’s What Is Life? in 1944. It’s never easy, but diligent readers will be rewarded. Ingenious, but not for the faint of heart.

Kirkus Star

John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People

Woods, Randall B. | Dutton (784 pp.)

$45.00 | June 25, 2024 | 9780593187241

Intensively readable life of an early American statesman whose destiny mirrored the fledgling republic he devoted his life to serving.

Woods, a professor of history and biographer of Lyndon Johnson and J. William Fulbright, draws from correspondence and diaries to offer a magnificently full-blooded portrait of John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) against the backdrop of early America. John and Abigail Adams instilled young John Quincy with the sense that he was destined to be a person of importance in the new republic. His father made sure he was steeped in an Enlightenment education; as a youth, he accompanied his father to Paris and London on his ministerial posts to drum up support for independence. After a few years in Europe, he entered Harvard as a junior. Well versed in languages and the classics, he gained notoriety as a scholar and orator. Chosen to serve in the foreign ministry from Washington’s administration through that of Monroe, Adams situated himself for higher office, ascending from senator to secretary of state to president. Revered for his erudition and experience rather than charisma, he was horrified by the rise of Jacksonian populism, spurring him to represent Plymouth, Massachusetts, in the House of Representatives for the rest

Intensively readable life of an early American statesman.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

of his life, where he became the scourge of the slave states. The author includes rousing excerpts from Adams’ famous speeches challenging the gag rule. Woods writes admiringly that despite his subject’s occasional priggishness, overweening ambition, patronizing tirades toward his children and wife, Louisa (who becomes a strong character in this book), and martyr complex, Adams was “unique—an architect of American empire, a relentless opponent of secessionist movements, a protector of American independence, a man above party, and a living link between the Revolutionary Era and the Early Republic.”

A tremendous history lesson through the life of this insuppressible voice for liberty and justice.

Kirkus

Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

Zaki, Jamil | Grand Central Publishing (288 pp.) | $30.00 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781538743065

A refreshing look at why “people are probably better than you think.”

Zaki, director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab and self-proclaimed “secret introvert,” analyzes his own cynicism along with a variety of social problems exacerbated by a systemic lack of hope. Part memoir, part research project, part love letter to his friend and colleague, the late neuroscientist Emile Bruneau, the book incorporates personal experience, research, interviews, and the author’s conversations with Bruneau’s wife. In order to become healthier and more productive citizens, cynics must shed their pessimistic ways by seeking what they fundamentally need—i.e., building fruitful relationships through

measurable forms of action. Zaki is on a journey to find enlightenment, and he takes readers with him, step by step, offering a persuasive and beautifully mapped-out dialogue between himself and those cynics who are open—albeit skeptically—to his arguments. That skepticism, he writes, is healthier than cynicism, because it leaves room for asking questions, acquiring factual answers, and ultimately giving one a sense of hope about any given situation. Much of the cynicism in the world stems from negativity bias, which is lucrative and purposeful for those spreading lies and misinformation to gain power. In other words, those who capitalize on cynicism have an agenda that is not in the best interest of the general public. As a result, cynics perceive that no one cares; that few people truly enjoy helping others; and that most people avoid evil actions only because they are worried about getting caught. In this uplifting yet never saccharine narrative, Zaki ably combines scientific data with anecdotal evidence to abundantly show how “cynical beliefs eat away at relationships, communities, economies, and society itself”—and why hope is a potent corrective. With both heart and academic rigor, Zaki should persuade many cynics to trust in hope.

Earth to Moon: A Memoir

Zappa, Moon Unit | Dey Street/ HarperCollins (368 pp.) | $29.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780063113343

A memoir of a nonconformist life raised by rock-world icons Frank and Gail Zappa. In her introduction, Moon Unit Zappa facetiously promises that her autobiography will remind readers of their own life story—that is, if they had an iconoclastic rock star for a father and grew

up in a “chaotic full-throttle household.” It’s not just the “misfits, sycophants and freeloaders” who hung out at the Zappa home in Laurel Canyon, California, she writes. “It seems like the whole world wants my daddy.” She finally got Frank’s undivided attention when, at 13, she unveiled her satirical “lazy, lyrical Valley accent,” which Frank recorded in a memorable song. “Valley Girl,” studded with Zappa’s hilarious impersonations of vapid airheads, was a big radio hit, which garnered his daughter hate mail from Valley girls but also jump-started her performing career. The author recounts how she earned small roles in TV and movies and worked as a VJ for MTV and VH1. She describes attempting to supplant her father’s eternal dominance with other charismatic leaders, acting coaches, and spiritual gurus, and she details her vital role in dealing with both parents’ deaths from cancer. Other traumatic life experiences include her infant daughter’s brush with death, an early divorce, unequal inheritances among the author and her siblings, and eventual family estrangement, with “family friend Steve Vai kindly acting as self-appointed mediator.” Throughout, Zappa is candid about her dysfunctional upbringing, personal insecurities, parents’ idiosyncrasies, and the foibles and insanities of the music business world, and she exhaustively catalogs her plentiful experiments with consumer spirituality and popular culture. In her adult life in Taos, New Mexico, Zappa pursues work as a writer and podcaster, and she has learned, as a chapter title reads, “How To Heal in a Hundred Steps.”

Life as a Zappa entails both heartbreak and triumph. Interesting reading for fans.

Star

For more on Frank Zappa, visit Kirkus online.

Children's

SIBLING BONDS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

FEW PEOPLE KNOW us as well as our siblings. They see us at our most vulnerable, and they know just how to irritate us—and also how to support us when we most need it. These relationships can be tough to navigate; as usual, kid lit offers a road map. As a child, I loved Judith Viorst’s I’ll Fix Anthony (1969), illustrated by Arnold Lobel, the tale of a put-upon boy fantasizing about outdoing his bullying older brother; I like to think it made me a more empathetic big sister. The following picture books will resonate with young readers, whether they’re older siblings chafing at sharing the spotlight, little ones yearning to be a part of everything their big siblings do, or only children curious about what they’re missing out on.

The cryptic title of Aurore Petit’s My Baby Sister Is a Diplodocus (Gecko Press, March 5), translated from French by Daniel Hahn, eventually becomes clear when the

protagonist, frustrated by the arrival of his infant sibling, dons a dinosaur costume. Imagining himself as a powerful carnivore and his sister as a gentle herbivore lets him regain a sense of control. Petit sets a soothing tone while acknowledging her protagonist’s rage and jealousy; readers will be heartened by his gradual but genuine path toward acceptance.

Jack Wong’s All That Grows (Groundwood, March 5) is narrated by a child whose older sister seems to know everything about gardening. But the initially uncertain young protagonist gains confidence after tending to a weedy patch that big sis has given up on—especially when some strange flowers that even she can’t identify begin growing. This is less a story of sibling rivalry and more a contemplative story of a younger sibling quietly carving out a sense of identity. Wong’s hazy, impressionistic illustrations will speak to young gardeners, artists, and

dreamers coming into their own.

“You bit my arm. I knocked out one of your teeth.…Out of our whole family, you’re the one who looks like me the most.” Framed as a letter from a girl to her younger sibling, Joana Estrela’s My Sister and Me (Orca, March 12), translated from Portuguese by the same Daniel Hahn, nails the ups and downs of the sororal bond. Estrela’s chaotic, doodlelike art, emblazoned with crayon scribbles courtesy of the narrator’s annoying younger sister, has an intimate, scrapbooklike feeling, while her refreshingly unsentimental text contains words of wisdom: “I’ve realized that sisters isn’t the same thing as friends.…It’s not better or worse…just different.”

Many kids grow up idolizing their big siblings; the narrator of Raymond Antrobus’ Terrible Horses (Candlewick, May 7), illustrated by Ken WilsonMax, is no exception. The feeling isn’t mutual, however, and after an argument turns physical— these two young brawlers “do not use [their] words”—the protagonist retreats and draws images of strong, fast, but unfeeling horses leaving a lonely young pony behind. This tale captures both siblings’ angst as well as the transformative power of art; the two finally begin to understand each other when the older sister finds her sibling’s drawings.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

In a sweet, tender exchange, an aging English puppeteer passes his vision on to a young kindred soul.

In a nod to Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio, the child-size puppet old Silvester assembles one day from mismatched parts magically comes to life. He learns to talk, requesting “jam!”—and with loving care and assistance is able to walk well enough to go on excursions to the park. There, Silvester hastily dubs Puppet “Kenneth” in response to the curious query of Fleur, an observant child. Fleur’s mum has long been a fan of Silvester’s puppet theater, and the foursome gather at her

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cottage, where Fleur delightedly makes puppets from twigs and other found materials and entices Silvester to help her put on an impromptu show in which two lost children drive off a monster. In keeping with the narrative’s measured lightness, Stewart’s fluid brush and line work lends warm informality to the figures in her mix of tight, close-up full-page illustrations and sequential panels. Though Puppet as depicted is plainly wooden (the human cast includes varied skin tones), Fleur greets him with casual friendliness, and everyone else expresses, at most, mild

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Puppet By David Almond; illus. by Lizzy Stewart

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The Strangest Fish By Katherine Arden; illus. by Zahra Marwan

87 Tamales for Christmas By Stephen Briseño; illus. by Sonia Sánchez

89 Counting Winter By Nancy White Carlstrom; illus. by Claudia McGehee

Puppet

Almond, David | Illus. by Lizzy Stewart

Candlewick | 240 pp. | $18.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781536239171

puzzlement; even some boys who initially mock his gait later apologize. “Didn’t I tell you it’s a lovely world?” says Silvester to his last and greatest creation—and it is, for even though fear and

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They Call Me Teach By Lesa ClineRansome; illus. by James E. Ransome

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The Soldier’s Friend By Gary Golio; illus. by E.B. Lewis

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Sunken Ship By Amy Hevron

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John the Skeleton By Triinu Laan; illus. by MarjaLiisa Plats; trans. by Adam Cullen

How To Be a Color Wizard By Jason Logan

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The Gale By Mo Yan; illus. by Zhu Chengliang; adapt. by Guan Xiaoxiao; trans. by Ying-Hwa Hu

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The Story of Gumluck and the Dragon’s Eggs By Adam Rex

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Impossible Creatures By Katherine Rundell; illus. by Ashley Mackenzie

tragedy are real, Almond shows readers a world that’s “shambolic and beautiful, and tentative and brave.”

A meditation on art and family, rich in language and feeling. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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Zuni and the Memory Jar By Aisha Saeed; illus. by Neha Rawat

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Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi

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Hekla and Laki By Marine Schneider; trans. by Nick Frost & Catherine Ostiguy

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Miss Leoparda By Natalia Shaloshvili; trans. by Lena Traer

116 Starlight Symphony By Buffy Silverman

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Pearl By Sherri L. Smith; illus. by Christine Norrie

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Nell of Gumbling By Emma Steinkellner

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Lone Wolf Goes to School By Kiah Thomas; illus. by K-Fai Steele

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One Foggy Christmas Eve By Kerilynn Wilson

A Pair of Parrots

Adler, David A. | Illus. by Clarice Holiday House (32 pp.) | $14.99

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780823451548

Series: I Like To Read Comics

Filled with avian antics, this comic-style early reader teaches kids to count pairs. On Ava’s birthday, Mom gives the child a cake, ribbons, and a “very messy bird.” The bird, Ava explains, was originally part of a pair: “That’s two. Now there is only one.” The energetic parrot raises such a ruckus that Ava and Mom decide to take her to the park. Ava, who uses a manual wheelchair, is overwhelmed when the leashed bird vexes a popcorn vendor. Later, they meet a friendly pair: elderly Anne and another parrot, named Sadie. Back at home, Ava mulls a name for the bird. Lilly sounds good. But when Mom tries to teach Lilly to say her own name, the bird repeats, “My name is Mandy”— Mom’s name! Ava’s attempts to explain the concept of pairs are more successful. When Lilly flies off without her leash, Mom and Ava panic. Ava reminds Mom that they, too, are a pair. “I LOVE being paired with you,” Mom says…and suddenly, both realize where Lilly is. Adler’s simple text and Elliott’s bright, expressive cartoon illustrations sweetly demonstrate pairs as both a numerical concept and an emotional bond; a family photo with three figures implies that one parent is gone. Ava’s solution to Lilly’s name conundrum provides a humorous, satisfying conclusion. Ava, Mom, and Anne have tan skin; background characters are racially diverse. Instructive, fun, and heartwarming. (Graphic early reader. 5-6)

An old saint’s tale inspires a brand-new spin on the act of caring for nature.

KEVIN AND THE BLACKBIRDS

Pirate & Penguin 2 Few Crew

Allegra, Mike | Illus. by Jenn Harney

Page Street (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781645678625

In this follow-up to Pirate & Penguin (2023), the titular pair aim to recruit fellow corsairs.

Penguin—whom Pirate now refers to as his Ground Parrot—and tanskinned Pirate, still a one-man lexicon of sea terms, make two. That’s too few. They need a crew. To attract new careerists, they paint the ship in vibrant pastels, substitute a smiley face for the skull and crossbones (creating “the Jolliest Roger” imaginable), and tie bright balloons to the yardarms. But the “funnest flagship” elicits only guffaws from would-be buccaneers (depicted with tan skin). Their cries of “goofy ship” and “goofy pirate” don’t bother Pirate, but when they mock his “extra -goofy parrot,” he bristles and threatens to send them to the “bottom of the briney deep!” The “yellow-bellied landlubbers” scatter. But then Pirate spots a stowaway: a female octopus who meets their exact requirements (“four pairs o’arrrrrrrms”) and who likes the odd couple “for who we arrrrr.” As a squall arrives, the cry is “Man—and woman—yer stations!” and the decorative ship departs for “adventure and bountiful booty.” Black speech bubbles lend grimness to Pirate’s declarations, and a few somber touches contrast with the frivolity of their spiffed-up man-o’-war. The verses carrying this excellent yarn roll like the ship’s deck under our feet. Adaptability and acceptance are the real treasure at the end of this pirate-y adventure. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kevin and the Blackbirds

Almond, David | Illus. by P.J. Lynch

Candlewick (32 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781536238075

An old saint’s tale inspires a brand-new spin on the act of caring for nature. When Kevin’s impoverished parents hand him over to the nearby monastery, they vow that they’ll come for him when they’re able. While there, Kevin learns reading, hymns, and prayers, but the only thing that assuages his longing for his parents is his love of the natural world. The nearby animals grow to trust Kevin. So when the monks tell him he must now stay indoors to pray and study quietly, he can’t resist reaching his hands out a window to a blackbird. Soon the bird and its mate construct a nest in Kevin’s outstretched hands. Realizing that what’s happening is miraculous, the monks feed Kevin as his birds hatch, grow, and fledge. The tale ends with a wordless scene of Kevin reuniting with his parents as the whole countryside romps with the wild animals. In an author’s note, Almond points out that this adaptation of an Irish legend is about a saint for our times. Lynch brings his hyper-realistic style to bear on a world of frolicsome foxes, trusting birds, and studious monks. Many images, such as one of the nest thrust toward the audience, will remain in young minds long after the rest of the book has faded from memory. Characters present white. When it comes to cultivating a love of nature, this oldest of stories has something to share with us all.

(Picture book. 5-8)

For more by David A. Adler, visit Kirkus online.

Pencil & Eraser:

We Have a Dull-Emma!

Alvarado, Jenny | Putnam (80 pp.)

$12.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593699768

Do pencils have lives of their own?

Yes, though at times they may seem pointless. Shockingly, Pencil is dull. Not dull as in “uninteresting” but dull as in “needs sharpening.” Pencil dramatically imagines owner Stella (represented by a brown hand) rejecting such a useless writing implement. Eraser’s terse advice: “Sharpen up.” But how will they get from Stella’s classroom desk all the way to the sharpener on the teacher’s desk? Pencil (briefly sporting a fedora) narrates in the style of an old-fashioned adventure tale. Reserved, laconic Eraser finds the voluble and excited Pencil a bit overwhelming, and, faced with Pencil’s multi-step plan, Eraser rubs it out in favor of a simpler idea: They’ll use the teacher’s chair to climb up (a scene that mostly occurs off the page). Alas! The sharpener is broken. After taking one of several groan-worthy joke breaks, they look for another sharpener. Once more, Pencil has plenty of far-fetched ideas, all of which Eraser dismisses. Will they ever find the coveted sharpener? Very simple drawings depict Pencil as tall and skinny, with fluttery eyelashes; short, stumpy Eraser is pink and white, with cynical half-lidded eyes. The faces are expressive and the typeface clear. While the tale’s a bit light on action, the duo’s comic interplay is sure to win over readers.

A tame adventure tale but a warm buddy story. (drawing instructions) (Early graphic fiction. 5-8)

Agent Unicorn

Alvarado, Jenny | Page Street (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781645678984

A blue unicorn detective proves to be a bit green behind the ears. A big fan of TV’s Agent Sparrow, Unicorn responds to a “help wanted” ad from the Agent Goat Detective Agency. Though the job’s less than glamorous—it involves wiping windows and sweeping—Unicorn sees it as a stepping stone to becoming a full-fledged agent, complete with the requisite jacket and gadgetry. When a client walks in searching for a missing pet bird, Unicorn immediately takes the case, qualifications or no. Nothing will prevent Unicorn from solving the case, not even Unicorn constantly calling over the radio to ask about Unicorn’s whereabouts. Though the missing pet pops up right away, Unicorn mistakes the bird for a rabbit but allows the “bunny” to tag along. Unicorn has a lot to learn about actual detective work but is willing to atone for making humorously oblivious mistakes. Eventually, Unicorn realizes that humility is a more important quality than possessing the right uniform and gadgets. Made up of graphic novel–esque panels, the cartoon artwork is full of details that encourage careful viewing. Goat mentions needing to find a missing yo-yo and a lost llama; attentive readers will be rewarded by a glimpse of the llama walking off with the yo-yo. References to Agent Sparrow

An accidental training day where doing the right thing beats flashy appearances.

appear throughout the story, often as background details.

An accidental training day where doing the right thing beats flashy appearances. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

The Strangest Fish

Arden, Katherine | Illus. by Zahra Marwan | Astra Young Readers (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781662620782

In novelist Arden’s picture-book debut, a bizarre-looking fish has an unforgettable impact on a young girl. October is Daisy’s favorite time of the year; she loves “cider and pumpkins, wet leaves and woodsmoke, and most importantly, the fair.” This year, she wins an odd prize at a fishing booth: an aquatic creature with “too many fins and scales like leaves” and “a head too big for his tail.” Her family dubs him “weird,” but after bringing him home in a bag of water, Daisy instantly bonds with him and names him after her favorite month. By the next morning, October has grown rapidly, prompting Daisy to move him to the bathtub, which still isn’t big enough. October fixes Daisy with a sad, piercing blue-eyed stare, so she moves him to the lake in front of her house, where he’s free to live his best life as the magical water dragon he is. Arden’s lyrical, conversational text emphasizes the strong bond between Daisy and her new pet despite their limited time together; she makes clear that caring for another living being can alter us forever. With thick brushstrokes and a cool palette dominated by blues and browns, Marwan’s stunning pen, ink, and watercolor illustrations capture this unconditional nurturing bond, the concept of metamorphosis, and the transformative nature of autumn. Daisy and her family are tan-skinned. A deeply empathetic look at the magic of love and compassion. (Picture book. 4-7)

Release the Wolves

Bachmann, Stefan | Greenwillow Books (288 pp.) | $19.99

June 25, 2024 | 9780063210394

A blacksmith’s apprentice and a sword-wielding princess unite to defend their conquered people against periodic plagues of murderous monsters.

Having endured a reign of terror for centuries, thanks to hordes of murderous monsters released at unpredictable intervals by high-tech conquerors the Elduari, the people of Varen have split into cowed appeasers and surreptitious rebels. Among the latter is young Argo, who’s fretting at signs that another Release is imminent, and his chancemet ally, Ana, who’s bent on revenge against those who killed her little sister. The rebels have not only the superpowered Elduari and their vicious creations to battle but also their own people, many of whom are too frightened to resist or are actually secret spies bearing futuristic surveillance gear. Bachmann must therefore resort to unlikely contortions to keep his protagonists alive, first through multiple battles with overwhelmingly powerful foes, and then, in a ham-fisted effort to complicate the moral landscape, a climactic confrontation with the Elduari king, who offers a thoroughly unconvincing justification for the centuries of slaughter before making way for a tidily simplistic resolution. Still, from the eldritch masked Elduari and their terrifying minions to his depictions of hideous transformations and gory murder sprees, the author does show a

knack for creating gut-wrenching horrors. Readers with properly strong stomachs may be inclined to forgive the contrivances. The cast reads white. A grim, gruesome, overly ambitious jumble. (map) (Fantasy. 10-14)

Moko Magic: Carnival Chaos

Baptiste, Tracey | Freedom Fire/ Disney (400 pp.) | $17.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781368074377

“Sometimes a legend is history that wasn’t written down.”

It’s late summer, and rising sixth grader Misty has just moved to Brooklyn from Trinidad, which, on a positive note, means two Carnival celebrations (her favorite!) this year. But it’s undeniably a difficult and lonely transition; her mother struggles to find work, and her dad is back home. Misty and her Brooklyn cousins, Brooke and Aidan, despite being the next generation of their large, fairly tight-knit Trini American family, aren’t particularly close—at least, not until supernatural elements force their hands. The frustration of having parents, aunties, and uncles keeping secrets from them is palpable as the young trio learn of the magical Afro-Caribbean heritage they’ve suddenly inherited as new mokos from a long line of legendary figures dating back to pre-colonial West Africa. Misty now has the gift of foresight and hindsight, Aidan can heal others with his touch, and Brooke can conjure protective shields. These hard-to-control powers will come in handy: They’ve manifested alongside a great

A loving salute to a powerful woman who dedicated herself to helping others.

DOÑA FELA’S DREAM

supernatural threat that puts lives (and Carnival itself) at great risk. In this culturally rich and engaging series opener, the young mokos immerse themselves in the oral traditions of their culture and try to determine who can be trusted and who can’t. All the while, they discover that their strengths—like the rich food, music, and folk stories detailed throughout—only grow when they’re shared.

The power of storytelling on full, colorful, exciting display. (author’s note, glossary) (Fantasy. 8-12)

A Tour of the Human Body: Amazing Numbers— Fantastic Facts

Berne, Jennifer | Illus. by Dawn DeVries Sokol | Kane Press (40 pp.) | $18.99

May 7, 2024 | 9781662670152

Series: Number Tours for Curious Kids

From head to toe, Berne takes it by the numbers. The author, who’s been a number lover since she was small, begins with a big one—30 trillion, the approximate number of cells in the human body—and proceeds to toss around more, from the 206 bones in an adult body to our 10-ounce hearts, which pump blood through 60,000 miles of veins, arteries, and capillaries. Though she skips over the reproductive and certain other body systems, in general her specific numbers and ballpark figures are credible. Many come with imaginative comparisons that make the larger ones at least somewhat easier to grasp, such as “1,500 pounds (lbs.) of food is like eating a mediumsized camel.” In loose, casual drawings and schematic views, Sokol helps out by unwinding intestines (25 feet) against the wall of a two-story house, stacking pennies representing cells in piles that reach the moon, and posting simplified but labeled images of lungs, a skeleton, an inner ear, and other anatomical bits. Before finishing off with additional, less number-centric facts about body parts

and showing readers how to take personal measurements, Berne brings her selective tour of body systems to a close with a final, entirely comprehensible number: “We are 1 people, 1 species, 1 family” living on “1 home.” Racially diverse, fleshed-out human figures in the pictures drive home that sense of kinship.

Counts as a lively and unusual approach to the subject.

(author’s note, sources, resources)

(Informational picture book. 6-9)

You’ve Got This!

Bonilla, Lindsay | Illus. by Keisha Morris | Holiday House (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780823450916

Don’t worry! You’ve got everything under control. This appropriately titled manifesto reassures uncertain youngsters that they can persevere through challenges big and small. Being a kid can be stressful, but the little ones depicted here muster up the strength to keep going, whether they’re learning to ride a bike, gathering the courage to walk onstage for a school play, or swallowing down anxiety while taking a test. The familiar childhood scenarios are great conversation starters to discuss coping skills with kids. Written in terse, rhyming prose, the book captures the physical sensations that accompany trying new things (“Palms sweat. Tongue ties.” “Cheeks burn. Lips frown”) while also offering tangible things children can do to ease tension, such as counting to three before diving into a pool, holding the hand of a trusted adult when getting a shot at the doctor’s office, or humming a tune as an airplane gets ready to take off. Morris’ energetic, vibrant artwork, created with tissue paper collaged in Photoshop, captures the youngsters’ worried expressions as well as triumphant moments. Characters are

mostly Black and brown and diverse in terms of ability. A fun and gentle reminder that little ones can handle big things. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

Tamales for Christmas

Briseño, Stephen | Illus. by Sonia Sánchez Random House Studio (40 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593647813

Grandma makes tamales by the dozens to bring Christmas cheer for la familia.

In her kitchen, “loud and cramped and perfumed with delicious smells,” Grandma prepares for the task that awaits. She intends to “sell as many tamales as she can before Christmas” so she can purchase gifts for her many children and grandchildren. Inspired by his real-life grandmother’s seasonal efforts, Briseño presents a series of cozy vignettes that focus on Latine familial love, narrated by an unnamed young child. In the crisp morning, Dad sells tamales from a cooler to co-workers and friends. When the days become colder, Mom and the tías bustle around the kitchen to lend a hand. Holidays and festivities unfold. On Halloween, Grandpa greets trick-or-treaters with candies, and on Thanksgiving, la familia gathers round to feast on turkey and other favorites. Grandma stands at the center of it all, with masa and corn husks in each hand. Boasting a vibrant palette of rich, earthy colors, Sánchez’s digital artwork superbly captures the tenderness and serenity of each scene. Grandma’s tamale milestones (“150 DOZEN TAMALES,” “850 DOZEN TAMALES”) crop up in bold and all caps throughout. Soon enough, the Christmas tree comes out, and lights fill each room. When Grandma wraps up her last tamales for the season, the real significance of the holiday emerges. A dazzling Yuletide remembrance. (author’s note, tamale recipe) (Picture book. 4-8)

Doña Fela’s Dream: The Story of Puerto Rico’s First Female Mayor

Brown, Monica | Illus. by Rosa Ibarra Little, Brown (48 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780316178358

An affectionate tribute to the first alcaldesa (female mayor) of San Juan, Puerto Rico…or any other capital city in the Americas. Standing tall and often a little larger than the sanjuaneros and country jíbaros around her in Ibarra’s warmly colored tropical scenes and always (as Brown repeatedly mentions) wearing flowers in her hair, Felisa Rincón de Gautier (1897-1994) cuts a strong and confident figure in this loving remembrance. That strength of character is evident throughout her history: She defied her father to become only the fifth woman on the island to register to vote and once broke into a school to provide a shelter for families displaced by a hurricane. Starting in 1947, through five terms in office, she went on to bring her constituents health clinics and better public services. She also opened the first preschools on the island—an initiative that inspired, the author notes, the U.S.’ Head Start program. Her empathy for her constituency is palpable; readers learn that she invited people into city hall on a weekly basis to hear their problems. Though a photo of her in the afterword actually kissing a baby looks staged, her sense of fun and her regard for children come through clearly as well.

A loving salute to a powerful woman who dedicated herself to helping others. (glossary, artist’s note)

(Picture-book biography. 6-9)

For more by Monica Brown, visit Kirkus online.

As Edward Imagined: A Story of Edward Gorey in Three Acts

Burgess, Matthew | Illus. by Marc Majewski | Knopf (48 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781984893802

Anecdotes arranged, verselike, in three acts honor the enigmatic Edward Gorey (1925-2000): iconic artist, writer, voracious collector, and lover of cats.

Act One examines Edward’s precocious childhood: He drew at 18 months, taught himself to read at 3 and a half, and devoured Dracula just before turning 6. Whether creating his own books or walking through downtown Chicago barefoot, toenails painted green, Edward expressed his originality early. Act Two examines Gorey’s decades in New York City, where he illustrated others’ books and wrote his own indelibly unique tales. He attended the New York City Ballet’s productions religiously. His books, embodying his “deliciously sinister sense of humor,” gained a growing following. His sets and costume design for the Broadway production of Dracula yielded fame and a Tony. Gorey eschewed celebrity, however, using his earnings from the show to buy a house on Cape Cod. Act Three explores his time there, writing, drawing, tending his six cats, taking part in community theater productions, and prodigiously collecting books and objects ranging from teddy bears to skeletons. Burgess relishes Gorey’s contentment and celebrates his singular artistic achievements. “He lived his life precisely as he wished,” and his books’ strange denizens live on, “just as Edward imagined.” In playful, expressionistic tableaux, Majewski depicts cityscapes, book-stuffed interiors, vibrant stages, selected Gorey characters, and the seaside ease of his final years. An admiring, and admirable, tribute to an iconoclastic artist. (author’s note, further reading, quotation citations, chronology, photograph, reproductions of Gorey’s work) (Picture-book biography. 5-9)

Winter Magic

Burleigh, Robert | Illus. by Wendell

Minor

| Christy Ottaviano Books (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780316560498

Winter gets distilled into some of its signature components.

“I am Winter,” the text declares, while the accompanying image depicts a “silvery snowflake” landing on a pale-skinned child’s nose. A page turn reveals more seasonal signs: “a cardinal “chirping in the bush” and a snowball “flying high— whoosh !” Each subsequent element is introduced through the same “I am” sentence structure and linked through rhyme. The illustrations include both single- and double-page spreads, as well as occasional pages that are bordered with patterns. Often, elements transform: Snow becomes a snow angel, then a “jolly snowman,” then the residue on red woolen mittens. Winter is ice, too, whether on the grass or under ice skates—flying with a “flash!” Wreaths adorn doors. Cocoa steams in a child’s hands. Gingerbread cookies wait to be eaten. The carefully constructed scenes end on a contemplative note, comparing winter to a “very old story / or a beautiful poem” and “a walk in the woods / and then back home.” Aside from “candles in the window” (paired with an image of a menorah) and cookies decorated with the Star of David, the illustrations heavily favor Christmas symbolism. Though characters are diverse and some cityscapes are depicted, Minor’s gouache and watercolor art evokes holiday cards from bygone eras; the images accentuate the nostalgia with warmth and soft textures.

A cozy poem to celebrate the winter season. (Picture book. 4-8)

Ripley: Fire Station Five

Cameron, W. Bruce | Illus. by Richard Cowdrey | Starscape/Tor (224 pp.) | $9.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781250815606

Series: Dogs With a Purpose, 2

A border collie puppy makes a strong connection with a traumatized girl.

Ripley is a long way from becoming the fire rescue dog his owner, Ben, believes he can be—and those in charge are skeptical that there’s even a place for a dog at the station. Firefighter Ben needs help with this ball of energy. Ripley, who was rejected by a guide dog program, helps comfort 13-year-old Samantha after a fire, and the two form an instant bond, so Ben hires Samantha and her mom (who ghostwrote a book on dog training) to dog sit while he’s at work. Ripley’s inquisitive and optimistic first-person perspective provides straightforward accounts of both harrowing rescues and the impact on Samantha from her father’s death a few years earlier and the recent fire. Ripley finds his true purpose in comforting Samantha, who struggles with debilitating agoraphobia and anxiety. Will Ripley get to serve as a fire rescue dog, too? Cameron captures Ripley’s emotional awareness of the humans around him in this work that sheds light on a wide range of feelings, in the process teaching readers constructive ways to recognize and address strong emotions. Samantha’s therapist provides concrete treatment suggestions as well. This work, which covers mental health and purposeful living, will appeal to dog lovers. Samantha and Ben are cued white; Ripley describes humans of varying skin tones in the supporting cast. Final art not seen. Combines therapeutic and comforting elements with daring rescues. (reading group guide) (Fiction. 8-12)

For more by Robert Burleigh, visit Kirkus online.

An admiring, and admirable, tribute to an iconoclastic artist.

AS EDWARD IMAGINED

Kirkus Star

Counting Winter

Carlstrom, Nancy White | Illus. by Claudia McGehee | Eerdmans (44 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780802855701

It’s a counting book. It’s a winter animal book. It’s a just plain beautiful book!

“One red fox walks / across the white snow / quietly / stalking winter.” Meanwhile, the fox looks boldly at readers, a single paw raised. Though weather and color palettes may change from page to page as the book counts to 12, the one thing that remains the same is the sense of awe readers will feel while observing these animals in their native Alaskan environments. Each animal’s relationship to the season is described in evocative verse, whether they’re “talking winter” or “tracking,” “riding,” “hiding,” “facing,” “racing,” “naming,” “taming,” “feeding,” or “meeting” it. The final animals on display—human kids of various skin tones—slip and slide on ice that’s rapidly melting as spring arrives. With lines such as “Four red squirrels feast / at their midden full of cones / hungrily / cracking winter,” Carlstrom’s writing deftly sets this title apart from other counting books. Meanwhile, McGehee’s art conjures up both the silly side of nature and its incredible dignity and variety. Backmatter consists of animal profiles, with fun facts about each one pictured. In her author’s note, Carlstrom reminisces about observing wildlife while living in Alaska; in an illustrator’s note, McGehee discusses researching the animals she drew. A little scratchboard, a little watercolor, and voilà! The prettiest

nondenominational winter book seen in ages. (Picture book. 3-5)

The Terror in Jenny’s Armpit

Carman, Patrick | Blackstone (160 pp.)

$16.99 | March 5, 2024

9798212538374 | Series: Bonkers

A girl and her friends scramble to find a solution to a peculiar ailment. Jenny Kim tends to leap before she looks, and it doesn’t usually end well. This time she’s really done it, though. When she and her equally adventurous classmates Fen Stenson and Barker Mifflin break into the abandoned Colossal Chemistry building, Jenny disturbs a fuzzy orange marble. Soon her armpit sprouts a bizarre, rapidly growing, one-eyed creation that’s nearly impossible to hide from everyone, including Jenny’s parents and the class bully. Papers that Fen stole from the Colossal Chemistry office reveal some important information: The thing is called a Snerb, it was created to fight pollution, and in order to remove it, they must locate its creator, Dr. Vernsy Von Vexler. Oh, and they need to move quickly, because the Snerb is voraciously hungry, and removing it will put the entire town of Nevermind at risk. Wacky humor and a breakneck pace make this tale perfect for middle graders. Readers will find Jenny’s story irresistibly compelling despite—or perhaps because of—the inventively grotesque depictions of the Snerb. The epilogue ties into the events of the next volume and promises more wild adventures.

Characters’ descriptions are minimal, though Barker is depicted with brown skin in chapter heading illustrations, and artwork and the last name Kim suggest that Jenny has Asian ancestry. Charmingly absurd and hilariously icky. (Fiction. 8-12)

My Guardian

Castillo, Azahara | Illus. by Maite García Lliso | Trans. by Jon Brokenbrow Cuento de Luz (40 pp.) | $19.95

Sept. 23, 2024 | 9788419464743

A child turns fear into peace while figuring out how to deal with monstershaped anxiety. The lightskinned, blondhaired girl cowers, hides, and flees from the scribbly black blob. Wherever the child goes, it follows, and she feels alone in her struggle. “I asked other people to help me, but nobody else could see it,” she explains. “I don’t even know if they believed me…” Finally, unable to continue, the girl stops and listens to the monster. She comes to a realization: “I understood that it didn’t want to hurt me. It was there to warn me of danger!” The creature is her anxiety, and it’s simply sending her warning signs.

“When I take on too many things at once” or “when I don’t look after myself properly,” the creature “appears and yells, ‘STOP!’” The child realizes that it’s important not to push away loved ones trying to help; eventually, she learns to transform her seemingly terrifying emotions into a sense of serenity. The dramatic illustrations convey a range of emotions; early on, the looming black monster menaces her, while later, lush scenes depict a human heart bursting with flowers and the girl sitting in a rocking chair in a blooming meadow. Translated from Spanish, this book convincingly conveys the pressure of anxiety, though the word itself isn’t used until an author’s note that follows the story. Big emotions made relatable for young readers. (Picture book. 4-8)

THE KIRKUS Q&A: YANGSOOK CHOI

The children’s book illustrator finds a path to writing for children, too.

BY HANNAH BAE

YANGSOOK CHOI CONSIDERS herself something of a reluctant writer. “I was scared of writing in English,” says the Korean-born artist, describing how she first transitioned from illustrating children’s books to eventually authoring her own.

So it seems fitting that she would dedicate her latest picture book, A Letter to My Best Friend (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, July 9), “to every child who is a reluctant writer.” In the book, which our reviewer calls “a delightful tale of fostering connection through art,” a young boy named Jihun, newly immigrated from South Korea to the United States, struggles to complete an in-class assignment to write a letter to his best friend. “I don’t have a best friend yet,” says Jihun. “I’m not good at writing in English. Not just yet.”

Rest assured, the story comes together with a poignant payoff, which is something of a hallmark for Choi, who’s also releasing a fully revised and re-illustrated version of her heartwarming 2005 picture book, Peach Heaven, on the same day as A Letter to My Best Friend

Choi, who splits her time between the United States and South Korea, spoke with Kirkus about both books via Zoom from her home in Seoul. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

restaurant, so I said, “Sure.” Tracy gave me the freedom to write whatever I wanted, and the first book I wrote was The Name Jar Gradually, I fell in love with writing. I’m passionate about writing for children because I love them. Children make me feel normal. When you write about what you love or write for who you love, it’s bearable, or even enjoyable.

Afterward, Miranda said, “Oh, Yangsook, the kids were so excited to draw with you. Why don’t you write a story about drawing with letters?”

What drew you to children’s books?

I moved from South Korea to attend the School of Visual Arts in New York, and after graduation I started working as an illustrator for other people’s stories. One day, Tracy Gates, an editor at Knopf, took me to lunch and asked

me, “Why don’t you try writing your own books, instead of just drawing?”

I panicked. English is the biggest monster I’ve ever encountered. Even at this moment, I’m a little nervous to do this interview in English. But it was hard to say no to someone who’d taken me out to a nice

It’s striking to me that A Letter to My Best Friend  is also a book about learning the letters of the alphabet through drawing. How did you come up with that idea? My agent, Miranda Paul, came with me on a school visit in New York. I led the kids in an activity where I taught them how to draw a cat, step by step, using letters of the alphabet.

As an illustrator, it comes naturally to me to break down a lesson with simple images, so I never thought that could be something worth turning into a picture book. But I liked the idea the more I thought about it, and I found inspiration for the main characters in my real life.

I based Jihun off a boy whom I used to visit at a local orphanage here in Korea. He was one of many kids I’d take on outings for food and fun. He was so fun-loving, and although we had a huge age gap, we became really good friends. He taught me that two people who are really different and have all kinds

of barriers between them can become good friends.

Piper, the little girl in the book [who ends up befriending Jihun], is just as important as Jihun in my mind. During the pandemic, I fostered a girl from the orphanage for one year. She was a high- energy child with special needs, and she’d gone through the worst storms a child could endure in her very early years. She’d had little opportunity to learn about or identify her emotions and connect them to her thoughts, so she had a hard time making friends. [In the book, Piper seems to annoy Jihun initially, peeking over his shoulder and butting in with unprompted suggestions.] Like Piper, she also had dysgraphia [a learning disability characterized by a handwriting impairment]. The text of this book doesn’t use the word dysgraphia , but you can see the letter Piper writes in the book and understand that she struggles with writing.

I helped my foster child learn to write letters to other kids in her class to help her express herself, which really made a difference in her ability to make friends. I was so proud of her courage, and that experience gave me hope that as long as you put your heart into your writing, it doesn’t matter how eloquent you are or what the letters look like.

You really do love children! What does it feel like to reach a whole new generation of readers, nearly 20

Gradually, I fell in love with writing. I’m passionate about writing for children because I love them.

A Letter to My Best Friend

Choi, Yangsook

Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 32 pp. | $18.99

July 9, 2024 | 9780374391294

years after the original edition of Peach Heaven was published?

I didn’t even think about that! It’s amazing to think about how time passes and the modern history of Korea. It has changed so much. Now there’s so much culture and new trends coming from Korea, which is great. But I don’t want the traditional culture to be buried, either, because Korea has so much to offer.

Peach Heaven is based on a storm that I witnessed in August of 1976—I’ll never be able to erase the sight of peaches rolling down from the roof and floating in the floodwater. I feel like my illustrations of a 1970s [traditional Korean courtyard] home capture the setting and narrow the time gap between then and now for readers.

Peach Heaven

Choi, Yangsook

Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 32 pp. | $18.99

July 9, 2024 | 9780374391300

I started visiting schools more than 20 years ago to meet young readers. I would usually start by asking the kids, “Guess where I flew in from?” Back then, no one would guess Korea. But nowadays, the kids know—they specifically say, “South Korea.”

I like showing kids a video of my studio in Seoul, which includes a huge drawing of the letters in the Korean alphabet, Hangeul. I’ll ask the kids to imagine dipping their hands in a big, wide ocean of Hangeul Korean letters, and they’ll grow silent and make motions with their hands as if they’re really picking up letters. It’s so cute.

It’s also timely that Peach Heaven is about a flood, because natural disasters are more common now due to global warming. We might not be able to avoid

catastrophic events entirely, but all of us, even children, can still find opportunities to do good after a disaster. I wanted to lift up the spirit of community and have children understand that they can play a part, too.

I’m so happy with how this new version of Peach Heaven looks. The 2005 version was all done in oil paints on paper, which I literally had to hand-deliver to the publisher. It was such a different way of working. Now that I can use more digital media, it gives me more options for colors and room to maneuver parts of the illustrations around. It makes me feel more free.

Korean American writer Hannah Bae is a journalist, illustrator, and winner of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award.

Birthday Soup

Chang, Grace Seo | Illus. by Jaime Kim | Viking (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593621615

A family of Korean descent creates memories centered on a birthday tradition.

Birthday girl Maia, clad in her purple bunny pajamas, runs down to greet her mother. Her excitement grows when she learns that Umma is cooking something special: miyeok guk, or birthday soup. The dialogue-heavy narrative expounds on the dish’s origins. Packed with nutrients, this seaweed soup is typically served to new mothers; Korean people traditionally eat the dish on their birthdays to honor their mothers. As Maia’s father, grandmother, and older brother chime in with their own memories and reactions, everyone pitches in to help cook. Kim’s deft use of bright blended colors and textures creates joyful scenes of Maia preparing the ingredients with her family. Portrayed with oversize round heads, they cut endearing figures in the cartoonish art. After reveling in the legacy and flavors of the soup, Maia decides to serve it to her friends at her party. Several aspects of Maia’s Korean heritage are represented: Her grandmother wears a hanbok, her relatives bring silk envelopes containing birthday money, and japchae and kimchi are served alongside pizza and tacos—and, of course, miyeok guk. Maia and her parents smile as her friends appreciate the soup—the perfect party! Maia’s friends are racially diverse. The book wraps up with two recipes for miyeok

guk, including one from the author’s husband, restaurateur and TV personality David Chang.

A celebratory tale embracing culture, identity, and of course food. (glossary, author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

They Call Me Teach: Lessons in Freedom

Cline-Ransome, Lesa | Illus. by James E. Ransome | Candlewick (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780763681555

A young enslaved man risks punishment as he uses his literacy skills to help others.

The narrator, known to those in his community as Teach, learns to read and write while serving as a companion to his master’s son, Thomas. When Thomas goes off to school, the master places Teach in his store. When he can, he clandestinely teaches the alphabet to children in bondage. People in his community save scraps of letters for him to interpret, and at the end of long workdays, he teaches adults who are eager to learn. He incurs Master’s anger when he’s observed looking at a newspaper and realizes he must be more careful. That doesn’t keep him from secretly reading and sharing the Bible on Sundays. Cline-Ransome’s terse, staccato verse reflects the urgency of Teach’s situation; the book is organized by days of the week, culminating with Sunday, when Teach offers hope to those in attendance by sharing the story of how the children of Israel sought their freedom from Pharaoh. Ransome’s stunningly expressive watercolors

A profoundly moving tribute to the resilience of many who lived in bondage. THEY CALL ME TEACH

provide additional clarity, heightening the emotions. This beautifully crafted story honors the enslaved people who acquired literacy skills and found ways to aid those who were denied that opportunity. It also emphasizes that enslaved people understood and valued education, seeing it as a way to actively resist slavery.

A profoundly moving tribute to the resilience and resourcefulness of many who lived in bondage. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book. 5-8)

Breaking Into Sunlight

Cochran, John | Algonquin (304 pp.)

$17.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9781523527298

As seventh grade winds down in North Carolina, Reese Buck is eager to spend the summer drawing and playing basketball. A week before school ends, however, he finds his father unresponsive from an opioid overdose. This wasn’t the first incident, and it drives Reese’s mother to move the two of them into a trailer on the property of her church friends, the Smiths. Reese struggles with leaving his father, fearing for his safety, and he hides the truth from close friends Tony and Ryan out of shame. As Reese gradually lets go of his anger, he embraces life on the Smith family farm. He befriends the Smiths’ grandchildren, Meg and Charlie (who has Down syndrome), and the kids enjoy canoeing, swimming, and caring for Charlie’s cats. Reese builds a new, stable life but feels guilty about enjoying himself in his father’s absence. Although his parents start repairing their relationship, an incident on Reese’s 13th birthday disrupts everything, leading Reese to begin questioning whether his father will ever be well or if he even wants to be. Debut author Cochran delivers a sensitive narrative that captures the complex guilt of self-care among those with addicted loved ones. Meg and Charlie are original characters

whose emotional backstories enhance the story; the subplot involving Tony and Ryan could have been developed further but instead feels forgotten. Most characters are cued white

A simple and powerful tale about the impact of parental addiction. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 10-14)

Searching for Lucky #3002

Cohen, Ellen Melissa | Illus. by Donald Wu

Red Chair Press (168 pp.) | $16.99 | Oct. 1, 2024

9781643713731 | Series: Ben & Blue

In this series starter, Ben and his dog, Blue, attempt to track down Ben’s father. Ben is dreading an upcoming assignment that requires students to give presentations about their families; his mother has always shut down his questions about his father. When she finally explains that she “found [his father] in a bank,” Ben is mystified, though adults will understand that Ben was conceived using donor sperm. In an effort to change the subject, Mom suggests they get a dog. They adopt Blue, a droopyfaced basset hound with three ears. The two quickly bond and, with Ben’s best friend, Cooper, try to find Ben’s father. A woman named Pearl who claims to be Blue’s old owner pops up periodically, but her story doesn’t add up. Who is she, and why is she following them? Ben eventually learns what it means to be donor-conceived, and though the book offers much-needed validation of nontraditional families, the message is delivered clumsily, with dialogue that feels more like talking points than organic conversation. Some may wonder why Ben’s psychiatrist mother consistently leaves a clearly confused Ben with vague information about his origins. Still, humor shines throughout, and the subplot involving Pearl is well crafted, with effective foreshadowing and a satisfying twist. Most characters are white; descriptions of characters of color occasionally feel patronizing.

An absorbing mystery that grapples earnestly but awkwardly with questions of identity and family. (author’s note) (Fiction. 7-11)

Speaking of America: United States Presidents and the Words That Changed History

Cohen, Jared | Illus. by Vivian Shih

Atheneum (112 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781665922265

From George Washington to Joe Biden, Cohen unpacks a pithy quote from each U.S. president in succession. Some of the author’s choices resound down the years—“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”—and most still carry some relevance even when they focus on issues more of the day than of all time. Some, such as Andrew Jackson’s crowing over the “happy consummation” of the Indian Removal Act and Donald Trump’s “Make America great again,” are enduringly wince-worthy, and in his accompanying commentary for each selection, Cohen tersely but clearly explains why. Other selections point to historical achievements or failures that the author likewise analyzes with a reasonably even hand. His broader, context-setting notes for each entry are less well considered, though; despite them all being titled “The World in [date],” most focus on events in the United States. Some of Shih’s digitally rendered images are somewhat off the mark, such as a misleading picture of breaking chains representing the ineffectual Millard Fillmore’s antislavery views. Still, if the woodenly posed figures in her group scenes aren’t individualized, they are generally racially diverse. Overall, Cohen’s chosen quotes offer useful perspectives on the tumultuous history of the United States. A perceptive, if occasionally parochial, overview. (speechwriting tips, timeline, speeches the presidents never gave) (Informational picture book. 9-12)

The Legend of the Last Library

Cole, Frank L. | Shadow Mountain (288 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781639932382

Juniper Knox lives in a post-apocalyptic world: Following a Blight caused by insects that killed the trees, paper is a rare commodity, and information is power.

When Juni was 6, her archaeologist parents died while searching for the Last Library. Now, 13-year-old Juni seeks books, too. She hopes to auction off every scrap of paper she finds so she can buy medicine for ailing Grandpa Edgar. In her quest, she meets Kobyn Garcia and his mother, who reveal the truth about the Blight and the rise of Novexus Corporation, which controls every aspect of people’s lives. They explain that all paper was burned a century ago in an effort to end the Blight; with it, the historical record was conveniently destroyed. Now, the populace only learns what Novexus wants them to—and nothing will change unless the Last Library can be found and its information shared. Juni struggles to believe this history, especially given some revelations about her parents. Excitement builds as Juni takes the lead in the hunt for the Library, triggering dramatic conflicts with Novexus. It’s possible that all will be lost unless the searchers take a huge risk. In a delight to bibliophiles, Cole weaves lovely testimonies to the power of reading and the acquisition of knowledge into the text. Juni reads white; names cue ethnic diversity among the cast.

A thoughtful yet action-driven tale to read again and again and share with friends. (Dystopian. 8-12)

For more by Frank L. Cole, visit Kirkus online.

I’ll Love You Till the Crocodiles Smile

Cristaldi, Kathryn | Illus. by Kristyna Litten | Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780063315518

Series: I’ll Love You Till

The creators of I’ll Love You Till the Cows Come Home (2018) offer another entry in the love-you-forever genre that’s more fantastical than sickly sweet. Rather than farm animals, this book features jungle creatures: kayaking crocs, rhinos striking dynamic poses “on a fancy float with sparkly bow,” and chimps sneezing due to “clouds of globe-trotting fleas.” The gentler rhythms of the rhyming text and the ending partially balance the adrenaline jolt of the outlandish situations; a look at the various species bedding down or relaxing for the night returns bedtime readers to the calm and familiar. “I will love you forever and forever and more… // as the giraffes sway slowly on a swing beneath the stars, / swishing softly through the moonbeams / up to Mercury and Mars.” Litten’s mixed-media digital illustrations play up the humor; the snakes wear tiny helmets (safety first!), the baby boars’ antics will elicit chuckles from readers of any age, and many parents will envy the giraffes’ spa day. While a few word choices make a couple of the situations nonsensical (the elephants are “stuck in traffic by the rubber tree plants,” though actually they are next to the plants, waiting for the sloths to cross the road), young readers likely won’t notice. A refreshingly creative bedtime tale—and a solid choice for those who march to their own drummers. (Picture book. 2-6)

Brown Bears

Crumpton, Nick | Illus. by Colleen Larmour | Candlewick (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781536238778

A mother grizzly teaches her cubs how to be bears. Zoologist Crumpton has written about everything from sharks to horses; here he focuses on a family of Alaskan brown bears. The tale begins with the mother bear emerging from her den with her two young cubs. Over the next two years, the youngsters learn skills that will help them survive on their own: to climb trees, to leave their scent for other bears, to forage for different kinds of food, to catch salmon in a fast-running river, and to avoid danger. At one point, the bears forage in a garbage can; Crumpton warns readers how perilous situations like this can be for bears and humans alike. The two-level text includes a smooth narrative ideal for reading aloud as well as further facts in a smaller font, all without personifying the animals. Larmour’s mixed-media illustrations show the bears in their natural environment, focusing especially on the young bears’ antics throughout the year. A double-page spread with an aggressive adult male comes as an impressive surprise. This is an ideal offering for youngsters just beginning to delve into nonfiction; helpfully, it ends with some simplified backmatter, including an author’s note, a map, a website link to further information, and a short index. An appealing introduction to a widespread species.

(Informational picture book. 4-8)

In the Groves

Cruz Floren, Andrea | Penguin Workshop (40 pp.) $18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593662618

California, and whenever she visits, Abuelo takes her everywhere…except the one place she longs to go, the orange groves. Everyone’s taken a turn at helping Abuelo tend the groves, which have been part of the family since Clara’s great-grandfather came over from Mexico. Everyone except Clara. “The dusty groves are no place for our visitor,” Abuelo says, but Clara doesn’t want to be seen as a mere guest. When Clara sneaks into Abuelo’s pickup truck and goes to the groves with him, he’s surprised but not upset. He tells her the groves aren’t special; he works there to give his family a better life. But Clara wants to join in: She sings to the oranges, with Abuelo’s encouragement, and prepares to defend the land against gophers and other pests. Together, they eat tacos, and she listens to his stories, including his difficult experiences of emigrating from Mexico. They sing and dance in the grove, and just as she knew it would be, it’s a special afternoon of bonding. That night, Clara finally takes her turn describing her time in the orange groves. Full-page spreads depict a large, lively, loving family with a range of mostly brown skin tones. Characters are expressive, and Cruz Floren creatively portrays Clara’s elaborate flights of fancy as she helps Abuelo. More muted hues are used for Abuelo’s flashbacks.

Heartwarming. (author’s note, glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

The Crayons Give Thanks

Daywalt, Drew | Illus. by Oliver Jeffers | Philomel (32 pp.) | $9.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593690574

For more by Kathryn Cristaldi, visit Kirkus online.

Each summer, a Mexican American girl visits her family.

Clara’s family all lives in

A few familiar friends explore gratitude. Daywalt’s crayons have observed many holidays, from Christmas to Earth Day. On Thanksgiving, these anthropomorphic school supplies wax (pun intended) poetic about their

favorite things to draw. “Blue is thankful for blueberries.” (The accompanying illustration depicts the stubby crayon leaping into a pile of the fruit.) Black, on a page topped by dark scribbles, “is thankful for night skies.” In an aside, Black adds, “Big, beautiful night skies I get to color in all by myself!” (Blue is perfectly fine with this.) Pink pipes up with “Three glorious words. Amazon. River. Dolphins”—which may spur readers to research these creatures. The tale turns a bit meta, too. Teal is thankful for family—both Blue and Green. Red, surrounded by hearts, is thankful for Neon Green Highlighter, who was accidentally dropped into the crayon box—a “dreamboat” for sure. Recognizable jokes from previous works make appearances; these callbacks will delight staunch fans, though others will find them tiring. Standard cheer and platitudes abound; the crayons are ultimately most grateful for each other. Formulaic fare that will nevertheless charm devoted followers. (Picture book. 3-6)

My First Guide to Space

de la Bédoyère, Camilla | Illus. by Aaron Cushley | Big Picture Press (64 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781536238341

A broad overview of outer space and what can be found there, from satellites to black holes.

Readers seeking a logically organized tour of the cosmos should look elsewhere, as these informally jumbled assemblages of stars, moons,

planets, galaxies, tiny astronauts and earthbound stargazers, fanciful aliens, assorted constellations, and spacecraft— all interspersed on crowded spreads with floating definitions or bits of fact—are strung out in, at best, loosely ordered sections. Still, if the evident determination to cram in something about everything leads to simplistic or contradictory claims (readers may come away with the impression that Venus is the only planet to spin “in the opposite direction from the other planets,” though a few pages later, we learn that Uranus also spins clockwise), at least the sheer scope of the topic, not to mention the universe, comes through clearly. Also, the book earns high marks for inclusivity. Ancient Mayan astronomers get as much attention as those of ancient Greece and China, Katherine Johnson joins the Apollo 11 astronauts in receiving quick but proper nods in the section on the first moon landing, and animated figures of the past, present, and future in the art are racially and culturally diverse throughout. Overstuffed but engagingly illustrated. (glossary)

(Informational picture book. 7-9)

The Christmas Snow Globe

Delacroix, Sibylle | Trans. by Polly Lawson | Floris (28 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781782509097

Dreaming of a white Christmas pays off big time for siblings.

Lucy and her brother, Noah, have spent Christmas Eve by the window waiting for snow, to no avail. “Christmas won’t be the same without

It’s as clear as crystal: Keep this one prominently displayed every Christmas season.

THE CHRISTMAS SNOW GLOBE

snow,” Lucy says sadly. To help alleviate their disappointment, Papa lets Lucy open one present: It’s a snow globe. The house inside resembles their own, Mama points out—except for the snow. But Christmas is a time for miracles—and one occurs when the children take the glassy orb to their room at bedtime and Lucy shakes it. Suddenly, snow’s falling in the room—and all over the house! Not wanting to waste a flake, the kids jump into high gear, building a snowman, donning snow gear, sliding down a snowy banister, eating “snow sundaes,” lapping up snowflakes on their tongues, and, naturally, having a snowball fight—all indoors. Then suddenly, Lucy hears Mama calling for her to wake up. It’s Christmas morning, and guess what? Mama and Papa are standing outside, inviting the children to come enjoy all the snow that really fell during the night. Translated from French, this lovely story sparkles with the magic of Christmas and children’s imaginations and celebrates family togetherness. The charming illustrations, created in a limited palette with graphite pencil and colored pencil, are as soft, gentle, and lush as newly fallen snow. The family is light-skinned.

It’s as clear as crystal: Keep this one prominently displayed every Christmas season. (Picture book. 4-7)

Mighty Mindsets: How Mindfulness Can Help Your Child With Life’s Ups and Downs

Doyle, Niamh | Illus. by Carol Betera Little Island (64 pp.) | $12.99 paper Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781912417865

Instructions on how to use your brain. Directly addressing readers, this conversational text explains key features of the brain and ways to train it to develop a healthy, flexible mindset. Doyle covers many related topics: how the brain works, neuroplasticity, mindfulness, the growth mindset,

perseverance, gratitude, and compassion. Woven throughout the chapters are exercises for readers to try, such as visualizing one’s brain, breathing intentionally, and using the power of yet (disheartening self-talk such as “I’m no good at maths” can easily be turned into “I’m not good at maths yet ”). All are easily done while reading or could be referenced later as needed. Doyle also lists quotes from contemporary and historical figures including Michael Jordan, Aristotle, and Malala Yousafzai. The accompanying art is soft, with faint, sketchy lines and watercolorlike washes of colors. The art captures the likenesses of real people while also keeping an ethereal, airy quality to match the focuses on thoughts and breathing, as well as complementing a cheeky joke in the text every so often. Originally published in Ireland, the book contains a few phrases that might be unfamiliar to American ears, though none should impede readers’ comprehension. People depicted are diverse in terms of age and skin tone.

A valuable way to cultivate resilience and mindfulness. (Nonfiction. 6-10)

William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night

Adapt. by Ellinas, Georghia | Illus. by Jane Ray | Candlewick (32 pp.) | $17.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781536231502

Ellinas introduces young readers to the characters and key plot points of a beloved Shakespearean comedy. Feste the Fool tells the story of Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian, who are separated after a shipwreck. To stay safe, Viola disguises herself as a man called Cesario. She’s hired by Duke Orsino to convey his passionate messages to the grieving Countess Olivia. Cesario falls in love with Orsino, while Olivia falls for Cesario. Secondary characters and plotlines all get their due, including Sir Toby and Maria’s plot against Malvolio. As in the play, Sebastian eventually returns, all confusions are resolved, Viola drops her Cesario persona,

and nearly everyone pairs off happily. Watercolor illustrations depict periodappropriate costumes and settings, with characters theatrically facing readers. Most characters have pale or tan skin; Olivia has brown skin and tight curls, and Orsino is tan with wavy black hair. Feste’s first-person narration is prescriptive, leaving little room for readers’ own interpretations, and while young people will get a firm sense of the story, they may not be all that engaged. Though the pervasive theme of fools and foolery is an obvious one, framing anyone who “did not see through Cesario’s disguise” as foolish is a missed opportunity for a queerer reading of the Orsino/Cesario/ Olivia love triangle.

A straightforward adaptation with appealing illustrations but lacking in emotional resonance. (Picture book. 4-8)

Best in Show

Elliott, David | Clarion/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063321922

Eighteen children’s book illustrators portray favorite dog breeds, from Labs to mutts, showing their stuff.

In their closing statements, the artists pose with favorite pooches, sometimes in childhood snapshots. Elliott’s accompanying comments, which range from two words for the Old English sheepdog (“Hair! / Everywhere!”) to affectionate rhymed or free verse sentiments, add further buoyant notes. Still, the illustrations steal the show—beginning with Ebony Glenn’s gallery of Labradors and their owners (all exhibiting a range of hues) and continuing to Charles Santoso’s pile of rumpled, sleepy bulldog pups (“Head like a melon. / Face of a felon”), Matthew Cordell’s

Scottish terrier marching proudly at the head of a line of full-dress bagpipers, and other purebreds large and small. Capping it all is Oge Mora’s equally proud, paper-collage mutt: “A little this. / A little that. / A little everything but cat.” Notes in smaller type accompanying the entries point out each breed’s distinctive history and characteristics as well as their less savory tendencies to shed, drool, pass gas, or snore. For dogless readers eager for companionship and undeterred by the latter, a reference to shelters at the end offers a suggestion about where to begin a search. Utterly fetching. (Informational picture book/poetry. 6-8)

5 More Sleeps ’Til Halloween

Fallon, Jimmy | Illus. by Rich Deas Feiwel & Friends (48 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781250857798

Talk show host Fallon and illustrator Deas follow up 5 More Sleeps ’Til Christmas (2020) with a story of a youngster preparing for Halloween.

“It’s FIVE more sleeps ’til Halloween, / that spooky time of year / where all the ghosts are wide awake / as nighttime’s drawing near.” A calendar page with a large numeral 5 curls before a bright orange pumpkin. An orange-haired, light-skinned moppet wearing an enormous pair of blue glasses is hunkered down in bed with Gary the dog, whose vibrant blue coloring matches the bedspread. Occasionally accompanied by a sibling, the young narrator counts down day by day, describing seasonal activities: picking out a costume, navigating a corn maze, watching scary movies, taking part

in a parade, going on a hayride, and trick-or-treating. The rhyming verses are sometimes a bit rocky but always fun. The text is periodically punctuated by the word boo, which appears in large, cartoonlike lettering; that, along with the calendar countdown motif, adds a pleasant repetition. Though the child confides feelings of trepidation (“What if bats fly in my room? / I think I’ll close my window now”), descriptions of scary moments are always offset by brightly colored, exuberant artwork. Humor abounds: Gary looks both hilarious and sweet dressed in a ghost costume that matches the narrator’s. The final page neatly closes the circle as the child goes from anticipating the holiday to participating in it and back again. Lighthearted and un-scary enough for bedtime. (Picture book. 3-6)

Pigs Dig a Road

Finison, Carrie | Illus. by Brian Biggs Putnam (48 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781984816542

A porcine crew forges a path to teamwork. Construction crew chief Rosie creates plans for a road leading to the county fair. She explains the steps involved to the other three members of her team. From the outset, things go awry, but Rosie quickly fixes the mistakes. Next, it’s time to dig, which will require the work of various large vehicles. Once more, things go amiss, and it’s Rosie to the rescue again, ensuring all’s well. Finally, it’s time to paint the lines on the road. Rosie, thoroughly exhausted from her exertions, falls asleep. One crew member wants to wake her; another says, “That’s not nice! Rosie needs a good long rest.” So—just as the public is heading toward the fair—the crew members decide to follow a Teamwork Plan and complete the work themselves. They’re successful, and Rosie awakens in time to congratulate them—and just in time for the public, including the chickens, to cross the road to the fair. Rosie and her crew also attend.

Truck mavens will especially appreciate this humorous tale, expressed in jaunty rhymes; they’ll enjoy observing favorites doing their special tasks, while others will learn about specific trucks’ functions. Commendably, Finison and Biggs portray female characters—indeed, one in a supervisory position—in typically male-dominated jobs. Biggs’ thick-lined, digital illustrations of expressive, industrious pigs are comically lively; onomatopoeic words are occasionally incorporated into the artwork. A cheery tale with a much-needed message: The road to success is predicated on collaboration. (Picture book. 5-8)

Oak: The Littlest Leaf Girl

Fleming, Lucy | Candlewick (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781536238822

A youngster learns to change with the seasons. Oak, the littlest leaf girl, lives in a big oak tree in the middle of the forest. She has “soft wings and branchlet bunches in her hair” and a fun-loving personality. Every day, Oak plays with her family and her friend Squirrel, but as the weather changes, the time comes to leave the tree. “All leaves must nestle into their winter acorn homes,” says Mama. Though Oak fears the unknown, Mama Oak reassures her that they’ll return in spring; Papa Oak says, “I trust you to go at your own pace and find the right moment to leap.” Her parents leave for a nearby acorn home, but Oak clings to her tree—and the charming illustrations make it look like a hard place to leave indeed. But autumnal tones shift to a cooler winter palette, and the warm, lighted windows of her family’s acorn house beckon. Oak realizes that it’s her family, not the tree, that brings her happiness. Oak’s resistance to change will resonate with children, but her parents’ gentle explanations and acceptance of the natural cycle guide her to face the inevitable shifting of the seasons. Fear of the unknown is nearly universal; the familiar messages and woodsy setting here offer a cozy way to reframe change as

adventure. Oak and her mother are light-skinned; Papa is slightly darker-skinned.

A tale awash in fairy finery that delivers a few lessons in courage. (Picture book. 4-8)

The Woofmore Is Not Haunted

Gephart, Donna & Lori Haskins Houran Illus. by Josh Cleland | Amulet/ Abrams (80 pp.) | $14.99 | Sept. 24, 2024

9781419767647 | Series: The Woofmore, 2

In his second outing, Rufus, a hairy canine snappily clad in a jacket and bow tie, keeps “very important pooches” happy at Hotel Woofmore.

Rufus must ensure that horror writer Silas Fang has a great vacation. The dark-caped German shepherd arrives in a scary car sporting a bat hood ornament, but he wants a break from all things macabre and requests “Unicorns! Bubbles! Rainbows!” Rufus, a “scaredy dog” through and through, is pleased, but when a few guests check in seeking a haunted hotel experience, Mr. Fang is ready to leave. Ms. Coco, the capable chihuahua manager, persuades everyone to stay, but trouble looms. Red pawprints appear…and is that a ghost? Mr. Fang threatens to go, but Rufus dazzles the writer with unicorn pupcakes baked by Chef Goodboyardee, and spa manager Sparkles prepares a poolside bubble bath. Rufus is working on the rainbow when the lights mysteriously go out. Uh-oh. Will the hotel’s valued guest storm off? Turns out, Rufus has found a way to please Mr. Fang after all. Some of the spookier scenes employ black and purple hues, but fans of the first installment will still find amusing puns, cheerful doggy employees, and canine guests in quirky clothing; Woofmore lovers will be laughing, while new readers will eagerly jump right in.

A smidge of scariness—with a light touch—and a lot of fun for dog lovers. (Chapter book. 6-9)

6 Novels Tweens Won’t Want To Put Down

A gentle tale of intergenerational bonding that will appeal to budding artists.

EIGHTEEN FLOWERS FOR GRANDMA

Eighteen Flowers for Grandma

Goldberg, Alison | Illus. by Jesse White Red Comet Press (52 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781636551210

A child seeks the perfect gift for her grandmother’s upcoming college graduation. To mark Sadie’s kindergarten graduation, Grandma gave her a necklace with the Hebrew word for life, transliterated as chai. Grandma explains that chai is represented by the number 18, which is considered lucky. Sadie hopes to repay the favor by giving Grandma a bouquet of 18 flowers for her own graduation. It’s the perfect gift: The two of them enjoy making art together, and Grandma especially loves creating flowers. So Sadie tries out different methods to construct her bouquet—pressing dandelions, creating flowers using cardboard and crayon—but nothing feels right. After Grandma explains why she loves flowers so much (quoting Marc Chagall, she says, “They’re life itself, in all its happy brilliance”), Sadie finds inspiration and makes the perfect bouquet. Jewish culture, specifically Ashkenazi traditions such as dancing the hora to klezmer music, imbues this straightforward story with depth. Inspired by Jewish paper-cutting folk art, White’s illustrations are soft and cozy, dominated by mossy green and beige. Swoops and strokes of color make the story feel intimate, almost like an art project itself. Grandma has white hair and pale skin, Sadie has black hair and light brown skin, and supporting characters have a variety of skin tones and hair textures.

A gentle tale of intergenerational bonding that will appeal to budding

artists. (glossary, Hebrew alphabet guide, author’s note, photograph) (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

The Soldier’s Friend: Walt Whitman’s Extraordinary Service in the American Civil War

Golio, Gary | Illus. by E.B. Lewis Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781635925876

Poet Walt Whitman tends to wounded soldiers during the U.S. Civil War. Golio opens his account of a sometimes-overlooked chapter in Whitman’s life with a grand statement: “America—it was everything he believed in. Friendship, equality, and freedom.” Whitman, distraught over the Civil War and a stalwart believer in the Union’s effort to end slavery, comforted wounded soldiers, regardless of which side they fought for. “The truth of war was not flags flying, but young men dying.” At first he did so in Brooklyn, where he lived, but when he learned that his brother had been injured, he traveled to Virginia to care for him. He relocated to Washington, D.C., to care for other hospitalized soldiers; he helped them write letters, brought them treats, and provided good conversation. Excerpts from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass punctuate the text: “And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, / My heart gives you love.” In Golio’s thoughtful and tender presentation, Whitman is

the consummate friend: “He met their eyes with his, touched or held their hands, and read to them even if they seemed not to hear.” Lewis’ richly textured watercolor paintings of soldiers lying wounded on the battlefield and in the hospital, of city scenes and moonlit nights, together with images of the gray-bearded Whitman both in action and in contemplation, convey the heart of this beautiful story. In a time of strife in contemporary America, this emotive story centers empathy and kindness. (further information about Whitman, archival photographs, sources and resources, picture credits) (Informational picture book. 7-10)

Good Night Thoughts

Greenfield, Max | Illus. by James Serafino | Putnam (32 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593697894

Actor and author Greenfield’s latest picture book follows a child kept awake by anxieties. The pajamaclad narrator huddles in bed among the blue shadows of a bedroom at night. “Every time I close my eyes, I’m afraid of all the scary stuff I see.” Bright, candyhued clouds of cartoon images surround the child, lively, disruptive depictions of the what-ifs and exaggerated disasters that crowd out sleep: war (we see the world pop “into a piece of popcorn”), kidnapping (pirates carry away the child’s teddy bear), falling “up” into the sun, tarantulas in the toilet, and a menacing-looking dentist. These outsize insomnia inducers may help readers put their own unvoiced concerns into perspective; after all, what frightens one person might seem silly but understandable to another. Our narrator tries to replace the unsettling thoughts with happy ones—hugging a baby panda, being serenaded by a choir of doughnuts, and “all the people who love me holding hands and wearing every piece of

clothing that they own.” But sleep is still elusive. Finally, remembering that there’s a difference between reality and an overactive imagination, the child relaxes a bit: “Right now, everything is okay. And so am I.” Reassuring, though not exactly sedate, this tale will spark daytime discussions about how difficult it can be to quiet unsettling thoughts. The child has dark hair and blue-tinged skin, reflecting the darkness of the bedroom.

Relatable guidance for nocturnal worriers. (Picture book. 4-7)

This Is My Treehouse

Gueraud, Guillaume | Illus. by Alfred Trans. by Polly Lawson | Floris (36 pp.)

$17.95 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781782508557

A spirited imagination transports a youngster to faraway places.

A pale-skinned child whose face is never visible in the illustrations has built a treehouse sanctuary in the forest behind Grandma and Grandpa’s garden. While sitting in this humble arboreal abode, the young narrator fantasizes about the treehouse transforming into everything from a ship “on a rolling ocean, full of fierce battleships” to a palace “full of jealous princes and princesses fighting over who should rule the land.” In the end, the treehouse represents the child’s “wildest adventures and biggest dreams.” Building upon imaginative play, a core childhood skill, this story allows readers to believe in worlds beyond what they see in front of them and gives them license to think creatively. The text alternates between describing concrete realities (the treehouse’s small size, its lack of a bathroom) and the protagonist’s fantasies, accompanied by saturated pencil, watercolor, and ink illustrations. Each spread includes spot art depicting the real-life objects the protagonist relies on, in the same palette as the main image. The text is occasionally

halting, possibly a result of the translation (the title was originally published in French). Still, young readers will relate to the premise. A satisfying fantastical journey that speaks to the power of fantasy and the importance of finding one’s sanctuary. (Picture book. 4-7)

Miso Magic

Hadley, Moni Ritchie | Illus. by Mizuho Fujisawa | Whitman (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 5, 2024 | 9780807551875

Young Chiyoko learns that some things are worth waiting for while working with Papa to make Japanese miso. Waking up to the first snowfall of the year, Chiyoko wants to build a snowman, but Papa says there’s no time. Today, they’ll be going to the misogura, a wooden barn, to learn the family business of making miso. Throughout the day, Chiyoko and Papa clean the tubs, cook rice, sprinkle powder to make kōji mold, and wait. Papa always says that magic takes time, but Chiyoko would rather make snowmen than wait for the miso. At one point, a restless Chiyoko plays with the rice, but patient Papa reminds Chiyoko to be respectful of it. He shares how miso-making is a long-standing family tradition that he’s passing down to Chiyoko. Finally, by embracing this gift, Chiyoko finds happiness in hard work and delicious outcomes. This is a charming story of a father and child focused on a multigenerational cultural tradition, with a lesson on patience folded in. Hadley balances storytelling with some science and culinary details. The beautiful full-color illustrations evoke warmth, transporting readers into the Japanese mountainside misogura. Backmatter adds context, including a glossary with Japanese characters, information on the molding process, and a recipe for miso soup.

A sweet combination of tradition, family, and culinary arts. (Picture book. 4-8)

You Can Be a Good Friend (No Matter What!): A Lil TJ Book

Henson, Taraji P. | Illus. by Paul Kellam Zonderkidz (32 pp.) | $14.99 June 18, 2024 | 9780310160595

In actor and mental health advocate Henson’s debut picture book, a young girl facing troubles at school takes her grandma’s advice.

Lil TJ can’t wait to start school and make new friends. She has her own unique style, and she lets it shine on her first day. She participates eagerly, but at recess, a boy named Beau gives her a hard time. Beau mocks everything about her, from her small stature to the peanut butter and tomato sandwich she eats at lunch. Lil TJ starts to dull her shine. She wears plain clothes and styles her hair like the other girls in class to avoid Beau’s attention, but she’s still nervous. And will she ever make friends? Grandma Patsy, with whom Lil TJ talks almost daily on her tablet, reminds her that nurturing friendships takes time and tells her she should continue to be her sweet self. The next day at recess, Lil TJ stays inside and plays music. When other kids hear, they join her, and Beau looks nervous as he struggles with an instrument. Lil TJ remembers Grandma Patsy’s words of wisdom and takes the opportunity to turn her and Beau’s relationship around. While the message is timeless and the characters likable, the story’s resolution feels a bit too easy. Lively, expressive, cartoonlike illustrations bring the straightforward text to life. Lil TJ is Black, Beau is brown-skinned, and their class is diverse.

A solid choice for starting discussions on bullying, friendship, and kindness. (author’s note) (Picture book. 4-7)

Carla’s Glasses

Herman, Debbie | Illus. by Sheila Bailey Flashlight Press (32 pp.) | $18.95

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781947277717 | Series: Carla

To see or not to see.

Carla’s thrilled that Vision Screening Day’s approaching. She hopes she’ll need glasses because no one else in class wears them. Her friend Buster scoffs, “You like to be different.” Next day, Carla’s wearing self-made purple pipe-cleaner frames. She tells Buster she wants to see what styles and colors will flatter her when she gets real glasses. Every day thereafter, Carla sports different frames she’s designed and constructed. She’s excited on Vision Screening Day, but the final verdict’s disappointing: Carla doesn’t need glasses, but Buster apparently does, a conclusion that’s confirmed by an eye exam at the optometrist’s. Supportive Carla accompanies Buster and his dad there and helps Buster select his eyewear. Buster confesses that he doesn’t enjoy being different: His new glasses will make him stand out when what he wants is to blend in. Carla hatches a plan and gets crafting. Next day, she colludes with her teacher and classmates. When Buster arrives, everyone’s wearing Carla-fashioned glasses to welcome him; he doesn’t stand out after all. This uplifting, reassuring story is about warm friendship and about being seen—literally—and accepted for who you are. Carla’s a supportive, creative pal, and this story should boost the esteem of kids nervous about getting their first pair of glasses. The high-spirited illustrations were created with a combination of watercolor and digital media. Carla and Buster are pale-skinned; their class is racially diverse.

An insightful, thought-provoking story. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

Sunken Ship

Hevron, Amy | Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) | $18.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 9781665935005 | Series: Tiny Habitats

A treasure ship yields its riches—a teeming underwater world.

The ship sailed across the Caribbean in 1733 before sinking in a storm. Fortunately, the crew escaped. In the aftermath, the sunken galleon’s remains burgeoned with astonishing varieties of sea life and vegetation, all identified here. New generations blossomed over time. Who could have imagined that every part of a downed ship could nourish, sustain, and shelter new life? The ship’s remains enriched the seafloor, too, as it “decomposed in the shifting sands,” eventually erupting in “a rainbow of reef life.” Over time, the ship became an artificial reef, a “coral-reef treasure trove.” While the ship may have met a tragic end, the ultimate outcome is “a safe harbor for all.” In the author’s note, Hevron states that she was inspired by the sinking of the San Pedro and explains that sunken ships actually benefit the planet. With brief yet lyrical text and breezily humorous but informative dialogue, this treasure of a book will help young readers comprehend fascinating facts and salient concepts. Hevron indicates the passing of time, periodically noting the year up to the “present day.” The gorgeous

illustrations, created with acrylic, marker, and pencil, then digitally collaged, bring the undersea environment and its denizens to vivid, breathtaking life. A simple diagram of the ship’s components graces the title page.

A captivating exploration of a wonderfilled domain most of us can only imagine. (additional reading, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Little Red, Autumn on the Farm

Hillenbrand, Will | Christy Ottaviano Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024

9780316571647 | Series: Little Red, 2

That ever-obliging truck returns. This time, Little Red and driver Katie, introduced in the Christmasthemed Little Red (2023), help friends on a fall day. As in the earlier offering, six vehicles, each of a different type and color, require the immediate assistance of Little Red and pale-skinned Katie. Each urgent entreaty—“Help, Little Red, help!”—is enclosed within a speech bubble whose color matches that of the requesting truck and the color of something its respective driver is wearing, thus helping little ones hone color-recognition skills. When Little Red and Katie are done, the satisfied customers drive off with a hearty onomatopoeic “Honk, honk! Beep, beep!” After the first truck is repaired, readers are told that the leaves “[come] down.” After the second time, they come “down and down.” Each time, another down is added, enhancing children’s understanding of counting,

A captivating exploration of a wonder-filled domain most of us can only imagine.

SUNKEN SHIP

For more by Debbie Herman, visit Kirkus online.

numbers, and patterns. Finally, a 90-degree page turn reveals what’s been going on at Shady Acre Farm, where everyone’s congregated: Racially diverse neighborhood kids have erected a giant scarecrow with a jack-o’-lantern face. When it’s lit, everyone shouts, “BOO-RAY!” The word is set in rainbow hues—the trucks’ cumulative colors. Not only an appealing tribute to fall, this sweet, simple story is about friendly cooperation and kindness. Delightful digital illustrations pay vivid homage to seasonal foliage, colors, and Halloween: Note also several jack-o’-lanterns and mildly spooky images.

Truck mavens will “fall” for this seasonal homage. (Picture book. 3-6)

The Greatest

Hiranandani, Veera | Illus. by Vesper Stamper Random House Studio (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593645567

A family loves to visit Grandpa every Sunday. The little ones are thrilled with everything he does, whether drawing cartoons, telling funny stories, creating silly games, or playing the piano. To them, he’s magical—the best grandpa in the world. But modest Grandpa doesn’t see himself as anyone special. After all, he’s no Picasso, there are better storytellers, and Mozart has nothing to worry about. The children are impressed by his performance in leading the Passover seder, but he credits his own father with teaching him well. Maybe he should explain to them that he’s just a regular person. But when they’re all together, Grandpa truly feels like he’s the greatest grandfather in the world. Their love and admiration for each other are unshakeable. Stamper’s bright watercolor and gouache illustrations enhance the text with lovely touches. Each character displays delight and enthusiasm. The oldest grandchild is often separate

from the group, engaging with various devices, but gradually joins the fun. Family members are tan-skinned, and further evidence of their Jewish culture appears in the form of a Hanukkah menorah and the backyard sukkah. Young readers and their grown-ups reading the book together will cheer for this loving grandfather. A joyous, sweet, and tender tale of intergenerational love. (Picture book. 4-8)

A City Full of Santas

Ho, Joanna | Illus. by Thai My Phuong Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780063287532

A child hopes to finally meet Santa after years of falling asleep while waiting for him.

The bubbly young narrator is full of excitement over an upcoming trip to “the big fancy store in the city” to see Santa. In short, upbeat stanzas, the child explains that “every year / for the last five years / I’ve tried to stay awake / to meet him face-to-face.” Sadly, the child always falls asleep. Still, the youngster knows plenty about Santa: He “smells like peppermint and chocolate. / Santa laughs like the sun clapping its hands. / Santa feels like a heart full of glitter.” Cheerful, watercolorlike digital illustrations depict the lively, expressive protagonist, who’s often surrounded by a sprinkle of sparkly dust. When Mama and her child arrive in the city, they see Santas everywhere—but none have the right smell, laugh, or feeling, not even the Santa at the big fancy store. Dispirited, the little one goes home with Mama, who wordlessly conveys her love by touching the child’s head and tucking the youngster in. “Gabble-gosh! / I fell asleep again!” the child exclaims in the morning. But no matter: The young narrator knows Santa has been there because everything smells, sounds, and feels just right. Both

Mama and the child present East Asian; their community is diverse. A warm Christmas story with a heart full of glitter. (Picture book. 4-8)

How To Staycation Like a Snail

Hrab, Naseem | Illus. by Kelly Collier Owlkids Books (40 pp.) | $18.95 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781771476126

Series: Snail & Stump, 2

Quiet-loving Snail finds a way to take a break from routine without all the fuss and bother of… going somewhere. Snail pines for the pleasures of travel but is wary of unexpected upsets (“Escargots for the— ahem escargot,” announces a waiter as Snail flashes back to eating in a fancy restaurant). So Snail bids his animal pals goodbye as they board a tour bus and instead invites his closest friend, Stump, to share more local experiences. Being rooted in place, Stump is enthusiastic—“I hear that here is the new there ”—and adventures are waiting just around the corner. Even when the gentle pleasures of staying in place—taking in smells and sounds, reading a guidebook—begin to seem too familiar, look! Here comes a cloud of fluffy “parachute seed” tourists riding in on the breeze to marvel at the exotic (to them) bugs, puddles, and other sights. In fact, some are so enthralled by the peaceful locale that they stay to root themselves. Expressive cartoon artwork brings to life endearingly uncertain Snail on the ups and downs of his staycation. The creators of How To Party Like a Snail (2022) offer a similarly validating follow-up that speaks directly to all readers who, like Snail and Stump, “love being happy homebodies and epic explorers at the same time.” Even when it’s only an arm’s length away, the world beckons for closer inspection. Fine fare for dyed-in-the-wool stay-at-homes. (Picture book. 6-8)

Spirit Sleuths: How Magicians and Detectives Exposed the Ghost Hoaxes

Jarrow, Gail | Calkins Creek/ Astra Books for Young Readers (176 pp.) $24.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781662680236

A history of spiritualism from 1838 to today, with tributes to some of its most dedicated debunkers.

Acknowledging that belief in spirits can be a comfort to many in times of war or other loss, Jarrow nonetheless sees spiritualism as based on deception and riddled with con artists—and so a worthy target for skeptical investigators. In this thoroughly researched study, she singles out two investigators in particular for their persistence: Harry Houdini, who made exposures of séance fakery a regular part of his stage act, and his protégé Rose Mackenberg, a tough-minded private detective and master of disguise who worked with victims and law enforcement to shut down spirit scams for decades after Houdini’s premature death. Though the author tallies individual examples to the point of tedium, she does offer insights into the clever techniques used by both hoaxers and hoax-busters, as well as a timely case study on the persistence of irrational belief in the face of logic and overwhelming negative evidence. She also presents an expansive (if unsympathetic) gallery of renowned spiritualists from the Fox sisters to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and on to “Psychic Zoe” and other contemporary mediums, coupled with portraits of two admirably talented, strong-minded sleuths who stood for truth. Though most of the cast here is white, people of color are included in one of the many period séance and “ghost” photographs that accompany the narrative. Overstuffed in places with too many examples but penetrating and provocative. (timeline, glossary, resource lists, author’s note, source notes, bibliography, index, picture credits) (Nonfiction. 11-14)

A magical book that allows death to become a beloved part of life.

JOHN THE SKELETON

World of Wonder

Kaur, Valarie | Illus. by Cynthia Alonso | Kokila (32 pp.) | $18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593531556

A child explores the world, sharing emotional wisdom. Broad lines, big shapes, and bright colors form a beachy landscape where a dark-skinned parent, a brown-skinned kid, and a variety of other people play and swim. Wonder Baby, narrating in simple rhyming verse, describes the world with enthusiastic curiosity, repeating often, “Wow! WHOA! / You’re a part of me / I don’t yet know.” This refrain is also a key tenet of the author’s socially focused nonprofit, the Revolutionary Love Project, which could explain why this is less a story and more a meandering assortment of musings. A few spot illustrations introduce some relatable tension: Wonder Baby hears “sad stories,” sees an unhoused person and a candlelight vigil, and marches in a racially diverse crowd under a vague sign promoting “justice.” A doublepage spread suffused with angry red waves depicts Wonder Baby overwhelmed by “tears / and fire inside.” But Wonder Baby rallies, declaring that “each feeling / plays a special part / in showing me / how to love my heart.” When another child kicks Wonder Baby’s toys, Wonder Baby responds with compassion; the book concludes with the protagonist marveling at the vastness of our world. Though the art’s thoughtful compositions are evocative, the preachiness of the text muffles its emotional resonance. Rather than a

meaningful journey, this is a mishmash of affirmations.

Contains some valuable insights, but little ones aren’t likely to clamor for rereads. (Picture book. 3-6)

Scareground

Kecojevic, Angela | Neem Tree Press (354 pp.) $14.95 paper | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781915584625

A Victorian London girl discovers magic, monsters, and family secrets when she attends a frightful fair. Though 12-yearold Nancy Crumpet lives a cozy life with her adoptive parents, who are bakers, her orphan status causes other children to ostracize her, and she hides the mysterious silver-colored horse-shaped birthmark on her wrist for fear of being called “a freak.” Her only friends are Arthur Green, a claustrophobic aspiring explorer, and the sky itself, with which Nancy, a self-dubbed Skyreader, can converse. When Skelter Tombola’s Scareground comes to Greenwich, Nancy and Arthur eagerly nab tickets. The Crumpets, however, have forbidden Nancy to attend, but their cryptic, frightened comments about a fairground tragedy and an abandoned carriage from a ghost train only fuel her curiosity. To learn more, she joins Arthur at the Scareground, encountering thrilling rides and illusions and whimsically named workers, including Racer, a nonspeaking boy. But Nancy’s discoveries may destroy her relationships with both Arthur and the Crumpets; a nefarious plan is also brewing. Though

experienced genre readers may anticipate many plot elements, Kecojevic’s vivid descriptions will immerse them in the creepy, sinister setting. The author thoughtfully explores trust, loneliness, empathy, and the fine line between excitement and fear. Nancy’s Skyreader abilities go unexplained, but an open ending teases further developments. Nancy clearly regards the Crumpets as family, but the book several times uses the phrase “real parents” to describe her birth parents. Characters read white. A deliciously atmospheric tale of family and friendship. (map) (Paranormal suspense. 8-12)

Kirkus Star

John the Skeleton

Laan, Triinu | Illus. by Marja-Liisa Plats

Trans. by Adam Cullen | Yonder (64 pp.)

$19.95 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781632063700

The things we fear don’t seem so scary once we get to know them.

John is a classroom skeleton who, after years of helping students learn about science, is retiring to a new home in Grams and Gramps’ outdoor summer kitchen. After John inadvertently scares shoppers at the grocery store, Gramps repairs a few of his broken bones, and Grams dresses him up in an old coat and hat. He looks quite handsome. John fits right into his new family, saving the village from crooks and becoming a part of the stories that Gramps tells the grandchildren. He even takes part in an art exhibit in the city. More importantly, John offers quiet support to Gramps on difficult days and comfort to Grams on worried days. Translated from Estonian, Laan’s vignettes of life with John the Skeleton complement the illustrations—simple yet profound. Plats’ art is quirky but not scary. Her grayscale images make deft use of cross-hatching; mood-busting hot

pink punctuates the illustrations, from a scene of John making a snow angel to a depiction of the grandchildren rescuing snails in the garden. His presence feels symbolic, an acknowledgment that aging and death are facts of life; the story will encourage readers to care for one another and to appreciate the little things. Characters have paper-white skin.

A magical book that allows death to become a beloved part of life. (about John) (Fiction. 6-12)

Mr. Fox’s Game of “No!”

LaRochelle, David | Illus. by Mike Wohnoutka | Candlewick (40 pp.) | $17.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781536229677

LaRochelle delightfully upends expectations in this tribute to the power of no. Dressed in carnival-barker attire, insouciant Mr. Fox flourishes a vaudeville hook and invites readers to “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” and to “step right up for a battle of wits.” Clever Mr. Fox proposes a “nearly impossible” game: saying no to every question he asks. Inadvertent yea-sayers must return to page one and reread.

Innocuous questions such as, “Are you ready to play?” are traps. And when readers are presented with an enormous ice cream sundae, the question, “Would you like a taste?” truly becomes diabolical. An offer of a Hawaiian vacation beach party (with a guaranteed “million billion” dollars for the first 20 guests) is also tough to decline. Accompanied by Wohnoutka’s chuckle-worthy cartoon images, the questions turn a bit more personal: “Are you stronger than a baby?” “Are you wearing any underwear?” In a laugh-out-loud marvel of excess and pacing, Mr. Fox challenges readers to put up with a tongue licking from slobbery, smelly Stinkpot the water buffalo. And the very last no-brainer question is a neatly engineered bit of puffery: “Have you ever read a funnier,

better written, more beautifully illustrated book than this one?” But there’s no penalty for rereading this hilarious, irresistible book—perhaps readers will out-manipulate Mr. Fox after all!

You can bet on this sideshow for an interactive good time. (Picture book. 3-6)

Betty’s Birthday

Lau, Celine Ka Wing | Cicada Books (40 pp.) $17.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781800660496

Betty throws a birthday party. Betty, a plump, bright yellow bird wearing large, purple glasses, gazes out at readers from the title page. On the first page, Betty stands—sans glasses—atop a cutaway view of an enormous three-story house that includes an in-ground pool. “Can you guess which room is Betty’s room?” asks an unseen narrator. The next page shows Betty in her cluttered bedroom. Betty is about to celebrate her 6th birthday, but she can’t find her glasses. Asked to help spot them, little ones will enjoy studying the brightly colored disarray until they find them. The spare, droll text continues, accompanied by humorous art that fills each page with outlined, raucously colored shapes. Betty picks out an outfit, helps uniformed koalas to greet amiable, anthropomorphic animal guests (and one apparent extraterrestrial), leads her guests in party games such as the piñata and scavenger hunt, and offers refreshments—including a birthday cake that surprises everyone. Along the way, the interactive text invokes different skills from readers: seeking and finding, reasoning, and counting, as well as giving their opinions. The questions will have readers slowing down to savor the art, which abounds with funny details. This tale may be too stimulating for bedtime, but it’s sure to delight little ones all the same; emergent readers may want to read it alongside a younger

sibling—with an adult on hand to explain some of the cultural and geographical references. A party of a book. (Picture book. 3-5)

The Mailbox Tree

Lim, Rebecca & Kate Gordon

Walker Books Australia (240 pp.)

$18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781760659417

A story of fellowship and finding oneself against the backdrop of climate change, told from the perspectives of two Australian girls and featuring one extra-special pine tree. Nyx and Bea live in West Hobart, Tasmania, and they’re both lonely. Nyx has lost her mother, and because her father’s met someone online, she faces the possibility of moving away from everything she knows. Neurodiverse Bea, who has hearing loss and loves The Lord of the Rings, is regarded as weird and is bullied at school. The two girls form a friendship through letters they leave in a pine tree that’s close to both their houses and that they both find comfort in climbing. The image-rich writing is clever, offering puzzles for readers to untangle alongside the characters before the action truly begins and the pace picks up. When Nyx’s neighborhood faces extreme fires and then flooding, Bea finds it within herself to speak up and bring her school community together to help. Lim and Gordon powerfully explore themes of climate change and working together, showing how one young person can jump-start big action. This genre-blending book will appeal to many, including readers who love grappling with real-world problems, those who appreciate speculative fiction, and anyone seeking a thoughtful, character-driven coming-of-age story. Nyx has brown skin and black hair; Bea is cued white. A vividly rendered, evocative story about the power of connection and

maintaining hope through despair. (authors’ note) (Fiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Star

How To Be a Color Wizard: Forage and Experiment With Natural Art Making

Logan, Jason | MIT Kids Press/ Candlewick (176 pp.) | $22.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781536229400

Wizardly advice and instructions for creating inks and art from common and found ingredients. Promising young hands-on types lots of “secret recipes, magic formulas, and wild experiments,” professional ink maker Logan begins with notes on safety and such nece ssary gear as a notebook (because a “secret recipe that you never write down will eventually become secret even to you”), plus a personality test titled “What Kind of Wizard Are You Today?” He then sends would-be wizards and chemists off to gather common ingredients from around the house and the outdoors for reasonably easy projects ranging from a “Wizard’s paintbrush wand” to simple demonstrations of rainbow making and chromatography, enhanced by thumbnail tributes to historical “Color Heroes” such as Isaac Newton and Shěn Kuó. He also offers clear, step-by-step instructions for transforming materials from leaves and berries to old pennies and rusted nails into inks and paints, mostly waterbased, in a wide variety of colors and

then using them to make art and party decorations. Brightly hued photos both on their own and in montages feature close-up views of supplies in raw and finished states. They also depict busy, focused, diverse young children. “Dress to get dirty,” the author writes, also cautioning that “the path to real magic is not straight but winding.”

Wise words.

Practical, imaginative, magical fun. (index) (Nonfiction. 6-10)

Hugs for Pug

Long, Ethan | Holiday House (40 pp.)

$15.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 |

Series: I Like To Read

9780823458233

Poor Pug wants a hug!

Using just over two dozen distinct words, all but one of them monosyllabic, Long delivers an accessible, sweet tale for those starting to read independently. Poor Pug needs attention, but Dad, Mom, and Tad (all of whom are depicted with light skin and brown hair in the cartoon-style digital illustrations) are each too busy to indulge him when he approaches them and attempts to “hug,” “snug,” and “wag.” The visual climax of the story arrives as a dejected Pug starts to “yap,” his barking sound repeated in big, orange print all over the page to indicate his frustration. The family surrounds him, responding in unison, “No, Pug! No!” Their words are as big and orange as his “yaps” were on the facing page. Pug retreats to the yard through a doggy door and lies down

Wizardly instructions for creating inks and art from common and found ingredients.

on the grass, small and alone on the page. The next spread shows the family members, their tasks now completed, wearily collapsing on the couch, now ready for Pug snuggles and hugs. At first, still smarting from rejection, “Pug is not glad.” “But Pug cannot stay mad,” and the book closes with a group hug on the couch, everyone snuggled up together. Cuddle up with this terrific title for the earliest of readers. (Early reader. 4-6)

We Are Up a Tree!: ReadyTo-Read Graphics Level 1

Mack, Jeff | Simon Spotlight (64 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781665939157

Series: The Dog and Pony Show

Dog and Pony return for a second act; Dog quickly gets in a pickle. Pony wraps a scarf around Dog and grabs an umbrella, and the two of them set out for a walk as snow begins to fall. Then Dog sees a tree and, with some help from Pony, climbs to the lowest limb. Dog’s pride (“Look at me! I did it!”) is deflated by the difficulty of descending. The scarf becomes a rescue rope, but Dog is inadvertently boomeranged up to an even higher branch. Pony suggests using the umbrella to float back down, but the wind catches it and lifts Dog to the treetop. Pony climbs up after Dog but slips; Dog pulls Pony to safety. Now they’re both stuck in the tree! Dog’s solution? They should live here. Pony objects reasonably. While Pony frets, Dog notices that the snowpack has reached the tree’s level. They slide away happily, but has Dog learned a lesson? Of course not! The animals are anthropomorphized in terms of behavior but not in shape; the simple forms (tree, umbrella) stand out against a flat background, and the typeface is large. The text is simple enough for newcomers to graphic fiction, but the interplay between impulsive Dog and

cautious Pony will have them chuckling. The book begins with a helpful guide to reading a graphic work that explains speech and thought bubbles, panels, and the order in which to follow them. A hilariously preposterous situation that will delight comics newbies. (Graphic early reader. 4-6)

Owl and Penguin: Here and There

Madan, Vikram | Holiday House (40 pp.)

$14.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780823457120 Series: I Like To Read Comics

The latest in the series sees the friends making pizza, playing in the snow, and taking a hike. Pizza-making begins promisingly (“Mix. Roll. Pull”), but tossing the dough brings disaster: “SPLAT.” The pair are determined (“Again,” “pull”), but alas, the final step is always followed by “STICK,” “SPLAT,” and “PLOP,” whether it’s Penguin or Owl throwing the pie to the sky. Draped in dough, they finally have a joint light bulb moment—time for a trip to the pizza parlor to enjoy pies topped with fish and mice. In the second tale, after a snowfall, each friend wants to make a snow-self, but Penguin’s creation collapses. Penguin is sad, so Owl nobly repurposes bits of the snow-owl to create a snow-penguin. Penguin thoughtfully adds owl features to one side, so they end up with a bilateral Snow-Owl-Penguin. The final tale, “Hike,” is propelled by opposites: far/near, up/down, dark/light, and more. These prepositions barely hint at the drama within the illustrations: The pals fall into a cavern, plummet over a waterfall while rafting, and encounter an angry mama bear. Nevertheless, by sunset the friends are safely home, regaling each other with memories of their exciting day. Madan’s exceedingly simple text—often, just a word or two per panel—tells a dynamic

story, complemented by enchanting cartoon illustrations of the big-eyed, adorable duo.

Another sure-to-please entry in the buddy saga. (instructions for drawing Owl and Penguin) (Graphic easy reader. 5-7)

A Sky Full of Dragons

McDaniel, Tiffany | Illus. by Ayesha L. Rubio | Simon & Schuster (336 pp.)

$18.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781665955317

Series: The Wand Keepers, 1

A young witch searches for her missing aunt while attending her first year of magic school. Spella De-broom Cauldroneyes, who’s just turned 8 and has bright blue freckles, was found as a baby by Mathilda Cauldroneyes, a green-skinned magical milliner. Also living in their house in Hungry Snout Forest are many anthropomorphic hats, from miniscule fairy hats to a giant hat that solves jigsaw puzzles. When Spella receives an invitation to attend Dragon’s Knob, a school for wand magic, she initially resists, not wanting to leave her beloved home. But when Aunt Cauldroneyes disappears into the maw of a hat that was dropped off for repairs by a mysterious wizard, Spella travels to the school in search of answers. Once there, she befriends a boy named Tolden Tutters, who uses a tiny dragon as a hearing aid, and studies topics such as the ancient languages of unicorns, all while trying to find information on her aunt’s whereabouts. This series opener is bursting at the seams with charming details such as cauldron-shaped windows and chocolateflavored curtains. The characterization and plot development sometimes take a back seat to worldbuilding, but there’s enough action to keep readers invested in Spella’s quest to find her guardian, and the sheer charm of Spella’s world will win over fantasy lovers. Rubio’s spot art adds to the sense of whimsy. Sure to please fans of magical boarding school adventures. (Fantasy. 7-11)

Otto

Normal’s Monsterton:

The Disappearance of White Pine Beach

McKechnie, Danielle | Illus. by Simón Estrada | Andrews McMeel Publishing (432 pp.) | $22.99 | Aug. 27, 2024

9781524881177 | Series: Monsterton, 1 Monsters and humans find common ground in order to save their friends from dark forces on a magical island. Born in a snowstorm in California on the same day his father tragically died, 11-year-old Otto Normal leads a life that’s always seemed destined to be anything but normal. Otto and his mom, Cherry, were just scraping by until a mysterious man came to the diner where Cherry was a waitress, offering her a job as a newspaper reporter on the island of Monsterton. Much to Otto’s shock, she accepted, and the two packed up their meager belongings and set sail from the Oregon coast. But upon their arrival, Otto and Cherry quickly realize that they’re outsiders in Monsterton: They seem to be the only humans and are surrounded by vampires, zombies, ghosts, and other creatures. Otto, who never had any human friends, goes to school determined to fit in. A trip to detention leads to an invitation to join a motley crew of classmates on an adventure to find the possibly mythical White Pine Beach, which jumps around within the foreboding Belcarra forest. The story unfolds through multiple viewpoints, and readers may become overwhelmed by the complicated worldbuilding and by plot intricacies that aren’t always sufficiently explained. But the rich illustrations amp up the delightful eeriness with deeply saturated colors and a playfully rendered cast of ragtag characters who will leave readers eager for the next installment. Otto appears white.

Wonderfully weird. (Paranormal. 8-12)

A boy goes up against his family in a three-round battle for the last tamale.

THE LAST TAMALE

The Last Tamale

Mendiola, Orlando | Illus. by Teresa Martínez | Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780063295599

A Latine boy goes up against his family in a three-round battle for the last tamale. Luis loves getting together with his family for a tamalada: a tamale-making party. It’s a fun tradition; even the dog wants a bite. As the family enjoys the treats, Abuelita tells Luis that the recipe isn’t written down but that the secret ingredient is love. Luis’ father asks, “Who wants the last one?” Luis, his brother, Jacob, and his cousin, Letty, all do! A Tamale Battle ensues. Letty’s eliminated during the dance round. Next up is a lucha libre match. Jacob’s a great luchador, but Luis’ dance skills help him dodge his brother—and put him in a headlock. Time for the final round: Luis must arm-wrestle Abuelita! It isn’t easy, but whenever Luis finds himself struggling, he focuses on the wonderful smell and taste of the tamales. At last, Luis wins. But there’s one more competitor he wasn’t considering! Explosively bright colors and fantastical sequences (Luis and Jacob facing off in a wrestler’s ring, Abuelita appearing suddenly out of a cloud of smoke) ramp up the humor and the drama. Details in the artwork—paintings on the wall, a blanket on the couch—add to the intimate flavor. A third-generation Mexican American, Mendiola concludes with an author’s note discussing his own family’s experiences with making tamales, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.

A fun, sweet—and savory—celebration of family and culture. (Picture book. 4-8)

Fail-a-Bration

Montague, Brad & Kristi Montague

Dial Books (40 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593697146

Making mistakes is demoralizing; husband-andwife team Brad and Kristi Montague have a solution: hold a Fail-a-Bration.

A Fail-a-Bration, the authors explain, is a party where participants consider past mistakes and learn from them together. Racially diverse kids, including one who uses a wheelchair, and several animals—a mouse, a bear, and a dinosaur—deal with minor but disheartening failures, from being cut from a sports team and spilling milk to ripping one’s pants while dancing to breaking a toy plane. Well, the dinosaur inadvertently frightens everyone, but most of the misfortunes are everyday occurrences. The suggestions for throwing a Fail-a-Bration are practical—send out invitations, decorate, and set up activities—but do most kids really want to attend a party where they discuss their mistakes? To say, “I failed at something today. Tomorrow, I’ll fail better”? One of the suggested party games is Terrible Charades, where players intentionally mislead guessers, which might be fun but will also be challenging for young children. The story’s didactic approach and purposeful verse are made more palatable by amusing illustrations done in a collage style, complete with real elements, such as cake icing, red-and-white bakery string, cookies, and cardboard. Overall, the premise falls a bit flat, but given many schools’ emphasis on

social-emotional learning, educators may find the book useful. Visually appealing, but this is one celebration kids won’t be begging to attend. (Picture book. 4-6)

Trunk Goes Thunk!: A Woodland Tale of Opposites

Morris, Heather C. | Illus. by Chantelle Thorne & Burgen Thorne | Gnome Road Publishing (32 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781957655291

Bustling forest activity at the site of a fallen tree becomes the backdrop for a few lessons for the younger set.

A tree falls in the forest, and everyone seems to hear. Different woodland animals use the trunk as a log bridge over the river, from a bear traveling to gather berries for its cubs to otters and geese basking in the summer sun. Though some animals are featured only in the artwork, others are named, such as the lynx and the porcupine. Bold type within the text identifies such basic opposites as small and large (tiny mice run by on one page, while opposite, deer leap by on their way across the log), dark and light (raccoons mosey by at night; beavers build a dam in the light of day), and sunrise and sunset . Nature takes the forefront, while the focus on opposites is more secondary. The words near and far are on two different spreads entirely; younger readers may not realize the relationship between these two ideas. With some guidance from adults, however, they’ll pick up on the opposites more readily, and those who delight in woodland creatures will enjoy discovering the

different ways animals might use a fallen tree. Vibrant, earth-toned illustrations depict realistic animals with genial expressions. A cozy, lushly illustrated introduction to opposites and wildlife. (Informational picture book. 2–5)

Kirkus Star

The

Gale

| $18.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781665930628

In this adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Mo Yan’s short story of the same name, a grandfather and grandchild gather satintail grass on a windy day.

In rural China, amid the early-morning fog, Yeye and the child set off toward the lush meadows miles from their house. Every summer, Yeye cuts the satintail grass, which is then fed to the livestock. The child, now 7, joins him for the first time. Among the quiet, “half-waking world,” Yeye sings a “nonsense” tune that “feels strange—happy, yet sad” (“A small peace offering can end generations of wrong… / A careless reply can wipe out half a kingdom”). When black clouds unexpectedly roll in, Yeye and the child must quickly leave. A formidable gale arrives, sweeping away the carefully gathered grass; in its aftermath, Yeye’s eyes well with tears, but the pair push on. Lyrical prose pensively explores ideas of perseverance and acceptance. The visible brushstrokes of the acrylic-on-cardboard illustrations beautifully render movement: of the wild, grassy fields, the morning fog, the afternoon clouds, and the actions of Yeye and the child. While

A winning tale of friendship and creativity unleashed.

the palette is primarily muted and earthy, the use of several perspectives and angles further energizes the pages. As “the wind tears away the half-dried grass, scatter[ing]” and spiraling it through the sky, readers themselves will experience the tumbling as they turn the book sideways to view the vertical spread. Gentle yet powerful. (excerpt from the original short story) (Picture book. 4-8)

Bear’s Big Idea

Nickel, Sandra | Illus. by Il Sung Na Carolrhoda (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9798765610176

Bear must devise a fun outing, and the pressure is on. Fish has many great ideas for her and her pal Bear to try. They climb the tallest tree in the woods (Bear carries Fish’s bowl on her head), ride their “summer sled” to purchase carrot muffins at the bakery, and make a tent using Bear’s favorite blanket. But when Fish suggests that Bear should choose the next day’s activity, Bear is stumped. The night is a fretful one. Eyes wide with anxiety, Bear can’t sleep. “What if she couldn’t find an idea? What if that meant she wasn’t a good friend?” And even more worrisome, what if Fish stops being her friend completely? Throughout the story, Bear checks in: “Fish, are you there?” Fish responds with calm reassurance, never doubting Bear for a second. The next morning, with continued gentle encouragement from Fish, Bear spots the tools from the previous outings and comes up with a brand-new idea that incorporates all of them. Fans of Big Bear and Little Fish (2022) will be pleased to see these characters return. Trusting that an idea will come is a daunting prospect; readers will relate to the lead-up anxiety but also the rush of excitement when it finally arrives. Eyes pooling with worry, scraggly Bear eventually gives way to pure relief and delight—all palpable in the dynamic cartoonish art. A winning tale of friendship and creativity unleashed. (Picture book. 4-7)

Mo Yan | Illus. by Zhu Chengliang | Adapt. by Guan Xiaoxiao | Trans. by Ying-Hwa Hu Simon & Schuster (40 pp.)

A wonderful, affirming message that kids can’t hear often enough.

YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE ME

Bats Beneath the Bridge

Nolan, Janet | Illus. by Emily Cox

Whitman (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 5, 2024 | 9780807505625

Texans learn to love the bats that roost under the Congress Avenue Bridge. When a bridge in Austin was renovated in the 1980s, the crevices beneath it became the perfect home for Mexican free-tailed bats, which moved in by the hundreds of thousands. Their human neighbors didn’t welcome them—until a bat biologist, Dr. Merlin Tuttle, explained how beneficial the bats were to the environment; they ate insect pests, which meant farmers didn’t have to rely so heavily on pesticides. Now locals and tourists alike come to watch the bats fly out from their daytime roosts under the bridge each evening. Nolan smoothly tells this story for a young audience, weaving in information about bat behaviors such as echolocation. Her straightforward narrative is set on colorful full-bleed spreads of mixed-media illustrations. The enthusiastic bat watchers pictured are a diverse group, and the bats are engaging; many have kittenlike faces. The text seems long for a read-aloud, but the pictures will show well, and the subject will be of interest to the intended audience, who may not have encountered bats in their own lives but will probably have formed some opinions about them. The backmatter adds some bat facts, but for readers who want more, Gail Gibbons’ updated Bats (2019) will fit the bill. Appropriately celebrates an urban natural wonder. (foreword by Dr. Merlin

Tuttle, history of the Congress Avenue Bridge bats, bat facts, glossary) (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Get Ready for Halloween

Nolan, Janet | Illus. by Amy Zhing

Whitman (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 5, 2024 | 9780807528297

Hurry, hurry: Halloween’s coming! Families— indeed, a whole community of families, friends, and neighbors— are preparing for Halloween. There’s much to be done ahead of the big day: decorating houses inside and out, making or picking out inventive, eye-catching costumes, and shopping for delectable treats and pumpkins to turn into jack-o’-lanterns. And don’t forget all the picture taking. Nolan reminds young readers about safety measures: holding an adult’s hand, looking both ways before crossing the street, staying with the group, and carrying flashlights or glow sticks. The weeks leading up to Halloween are generally a hectic, fun-filled time, and this joyous book reminds children and their grown-ups of that fact. The phrase “Is it time for Halloween?” appears periodically, followed by a chipper “Not yet. There’s more to do.” The text is expressed mostly via succinct phrases rather than full sentences, which adds to the excitement and may encourage emergent readers to navigate the text more confidently. The colorful illustrations pop with energy and feature an adorable, all-animal cast of children and adults cheerfully participating in holiday activities. The

book emphasizes friendly neighborhood and family efforts and demonstrates that Halloween can be a welcoming, community-centered, and safe event for all.

Sparkles with anticipatory, Halloween fun. (Picture book. 4-7)

You Will Always Have Me

Parr, Todd | Little, Brown (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780316376228

Everyone needs a boost now and then. This delightful little book is the perfect antidote for anyone who’s ever been plagued by self-doubts, felt uncertain, or needed a quick pick-me-up. In other words, everyone. When our spirits flag, we all need to believe there’s someone in our corner ready to offer words of encouragement. Even one person cheering us on can make a world of difference. Filled with digital illustrations created with Parr’s signature bold black lines, ablaze with eye-popping colors that burst from the pages, this charmer proclaims that, no matter what— whether you’re upset because of a bad haircut or a missed soccer goal—“You will always have me!” This assertion appears several times throughout, spelled out in multicolored capital letters and spread across full pages. Can it get better than that? It can, because the declarations are accompanied by brilliantly hued small animals, people, and hearts. This book brims with love, warmth, and good cheer and reminds readers of all ages that all feelings are OK. The author saves the best for last: Love and boost yourself, and remember you have yourself to rely on, too. This empowering winner will also make a delightful gift at baby showers and for new parents.

A wonderful, affirming message that kids can’t hear often enough. (Picture book. 4-7)

The Verts: A Story of Introverts and Extroverts

Patchett, Ann | Illus. by Robin Preiss Glasser

Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780063064553

Acclaimed novelist Patchett teams up with Fancy Nancy illustrator Glasser for the tale of a young boy who withdraws during his birthday celebration.

Mr. and Mrs. Vert and big sister Estie want to make the day special, but they fail to ask Ivan for his opinion. Extroverted Estie enthusiastically gathers all the apartment neighbors for a party, prompting introverted Ivan to slip away and hide. Estie parties away with her guests: dancing, making paper hats, and leading everyone in song once the candles are lit. When Estie finally discovers Ivan behind the couch, she feels unappreciated for all her birthday efforts, but she’s touched to learn that what Ivan wants most is to hide away in a cozy fort with his sister. Despite Grandmother Vert’s repeated prodding that each sibling should be more like the other, Mr. and Mrs. Vert gently support both of their children throughout the story and advocate for Ivan in important moments. Though the family’s last name and the book’s subtitle make clear to adult readers that this is a tale about introversion and extroversion, these words and definitions never appear within the story. Whimsically stylized illustrations evoke joy and movement. Each character’s facial expression is dynamically wrought; Ivan’s and Estie’s are especially evocative. The Vert family reads white, while their neighbors are

racially diverse and represent a variety of family structures.

An affirming read that values introverts and extroverts alike, uplifting each for their unique qualities.

(Picture book. 4-8)

Pau: The Last Song of the Kaua‘i

‘o‘o

Piedra, Tony & Mackenzie Joy Candlewick (40 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781536219494

An elegy for a songbird native to the island of Kaua‘i— once common, now vanished.

Explaining that the title is the Hawaiian word for “finished” or “all done,” Piedra and Joy retrace the history of a small bird whose song “filled the Island” for hundreds of thousands of years. A first wave of Polynesian settlers, followed by others, along with invasive species and diseases after Captain James Cook’s visit in 1778, forced a retreat into steadily vanishing forests and a decline in numbers until, after years of fruitless searches, the bird was officially declared extinct in 2021. In the illustrations, native species of several sorts (keyed by a labeled gallery at the end) pose in lush, misty tropical settings that give way to cultivated fields and then settled towns as a racially diverse population of human figures grows. Succinct verse, tinged with melancholy, brings the tale to a somber close: “One ‘ō‘ō left on the Island. / One ‘ō‘ō left in the world, still singing.” According to the closing timeline, an ‘ō‘ō was last seen in 1985 and last heard in 1987; thanks to a QR code in the backmatter, readers can hear the ‘ō‘ō’s liquid song…if only in a field recording.

A terse, poignant, richly illustrated, all-too-common story.

A terse, poignant, richly illustrated, all-too-common story. (more information on the ‘ō‘ō, bibliography, websites) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Evelyn and Avery: The Art of Friendship

Pierre, Elle | Clarion/HarperCollins (96 pp.) | $14.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 9780358681571 | Series: Evelyn and Avery, 1

An art contest sparks a big argument. Evelyn is an excitable young girl who’s ready to take on the art world. Armed with a flyer for a local competition, she heads to idyllic Picnic Hill Park to meet up with her friends Dylan, a mercurial kid with an undercut hairstyle, and Avery, an affectionate, anthropomorphic skunk. Lacking inspiration but eager to win, Dylan starts to complain. Evelyn suggests that the three of them enter the contest as a group, though Avery is hesitant. Soon, Dylan starts bossing Avery around. A yelling match ensues, and Avery storms off. Evelyn tries to help her friends separately but only gets further entangled—which doesn’t leave her much time for her own creative aspirations. This is a surprisingly intense story of young friends in conflict, with Evelyn’s mom serving as a gentle, empathetic confidant for both her frustrated daughter and her apologetic friends. Their nurturing bond helps Evelyn grow as she confronts a challenging situation, and eventually Dylan and Avery find a way to help Evelyn shine. Pierre’s illustrations have a bubbly, lighthearted energy, and her characters physically express big emotions: Tear-filled eyes brim to overflowing on many occasions, but happy hugs abound as well. Evelyn and her mom are Black, Dylan is tan-skinned, and fellow contestants include a kangaroo and a girl in a headscarf.

A cute yet complex tale about solving conflicts with creative solutions. (Graphic fiction. 6-10)

Lenny Among Ghosts

Reifenberg, Frank Maria | Illus. by Thilo Krapp | Trans. by Rachel Reynolds Amazon Crossing Kids (212 pp.) | $16.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781662517518

A human boy attends a ghostly boarding school. In this translated German import, the parents of Leonard Hohenklaue (named after his grandfather’s beloved dachshund) are leaving for a research expedition in the Amazon. Consequently, Lenny will attend Shadowsnout Castle Academy in the German village of Great Wandelstein. Once at the school, however, Lenny quickly notices oddities, including floating lessons, invisible food and drink, and a distinctly nocturnal schedule. When Lenny meets Polly, another human pupil, she tells him the story of the castle’s past and explains that its future is endangered by a pushy developer. As Lenny tries to navigate both the human and spirit worlds, can he help save the castle before it’s too late?

Reifenberg woos readers with hijinks and high spirits, but the thin plot relies heavily upon poop and fart references and pratfalls that some may tire of. Humorous grayscale illustrations depicting light-skinned humans are interspersed throughout the short chapters, helping with comedic timing and contributing sight gags. Conceptually, this work has the potential to be a silly Goosebumps-esque page-turner, but it misses its mark. The ending employs a trope that may satisfy and surprise some less-experienced genre

readers but could leave others howling louder than an angry poltergeist. A fun, accessibly written concept marred by contrivance. (Paranormal. 8-12)

Kirkus Star

The Story of Gumluck and The Dragon’s Eggs: Book Two

Rex, Adam | Chronicle Books (132 pp.)

$14.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781797214511

Series: Gumluck the Wizard, 2

Confusion reigns when Helvetica the raven lays a clutch of eggs in a temporarily unoccupied dragon’s nest. In addition to tracking Gumluck the wizard’s most contagious yawn as it travels across the land, this second series installment provides further doses of noodle-headed wisdom. Both feathered narrator Helvetica and huge, fire-breathing Viridian lay claim to a trio of eggs in the latter’s treetop nest. Mistakenly believing that these are dragon eggs, sweetly naïve Gumluck declares that there’s nothing for it but to have a competition to see who makes the better dragon; Viridian will pick the tests, and Helvetica, the judges. None of the four tests go off quite as planned, but by the time they’re over, even Viridian is ready to admit that the real question is who makes the better mother. The answer is plain, and so by the time the yawn has at last returned after many unusual adventures, everyone finds a satisfying resolution to the conflict. Along with tucking in brief but cogent exchanges on such

A superbly original picture book that celebrates memories big and small.

ZUNI AND THE MEMORY JAR

philosophical topics as how caring people can be careless at the same time, Rex adds sheaves of finely detailed drawings featuring comically caricatured figures—including a light-skinned Gumluck—and a dragon who’s clearly a nod to Kenneth Grahame’s The Reluctant Dragon , illustrated by Ernest Shepard. Bedtime and the insight that friendship and magic have much in common bring this outing to a cozy, dozy close. Magic through and through.

(Fantasy. 8-10)

The World Is Awaiting You

Richmond, Marianne | Illus. by Sally Garland Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781728291529

The world is lucky you’re here. In gentle verse, this book delivers a quiet yet powerfully uplifting message: You’re special; you’re wonderful; you’re endowed with remarkable talents. You’re uniquely, unmistakably, unequivocally YOU, so don’t be afraid to go out and conquer the world. Gifts you don’t know about yet are ready to blossom; possibilities you haven’t begun to dream about are looming; roads you haven’t yet begun to explore lie before you! This is heady, empowering stuff. The encouraging proposals herein will boost children’s esteem when their spirits are flagging. Richmond reminds readers that the world’s waiting for them—to voice their ideas and opinions, to be the very best versions of themselves, and to do good for others. Some ideas may be a bit too lofty for children; adults might have to help explain things occasionally. Generally, though, kids should get the point that the world awaits them, that they’re special, and that they should aim to be the best they can be. The book will also make a fine gift for baby showers and new parents. Appealing illustrations, created with graphite pencil and digital methods, have an idyllic sweetness, depicting racially diverse characters putting on a play, spending time in

nature, and more. Typefaces occasionally vary to highlight particular concepts. Supportive messages all children need to hear. (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

Impossible Creatures

Rundell, Katherine | Illus. by Ashley Mackenzie | Knopf (368 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593809860

Series: Impossible Creatures, 1

Two young people save the world and all the magic in it in this series opener. When tall, dark-haired, white-skinned Christopher Forrester goes to stay with his grandfather in Scotland, he ventures to the top of a forbidden hill and discovers astonishing magical creatures. His grandfather explains that Christopher’s family are guardians of the “way through” to the Archipelago, where the Glimourie Tree grows—the source of glimourie, or the world’s magic. Black-haired, olive-skinned Mal Arvorian, a girl from the Archipelago, is being pursued by a murderer, and she asks Christopher for help, launching them both on a wild, dangerous journey to discover why the glimourie is disappearing and how to stop it. Together with a part-nereid woman, a ratatoska, a dragon, and a Berserker, they face an odyssey of dangerous tasks to find the Immortal, the only one who can reverse the draining of magic. Like Lyra and Will from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Mal and Christopher sacrifice their innocence for experience, meeting every challenge with depthless courage until they finally reach the maze at the heart of it all. Rundell throws myriad obstacles in her characters’ way, but she gives them tools both tangible (a casapasaran, which always points the way home, and the glamry blade, which cuts through anything) and intangible (the desire “to protect something worth protecting”

and an “insistence that the world is worth loving”). Final art not seen. An epic fantasy with timeless themes and unforgettable characters. (map, bestiary) (Fantasy. 10-16)

Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet

Rutherford, Geo | Abrams (96 pp.)

$24.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781419770531

A gallery of wonders and mysteries in 25 lakes worldwide. Spun off from the author’s ongoing series of TikTok videos, these visits to a select few of our planet’s estimated 304 million lakes feature glimpses of eerie shipwrecks, sudden eruptions of toxic gas, and unexpected residents such as the 10-foot-long bull sharks in Lake Nicaragua—all designed to “give you goose bumps on your arms and chills up your spine.” Readers are likely to come away equally impressed by the sheer variety of what’s in the lakes she presents, from water-filled ones such as Russia’s Lake Baikal and the hot springs of Yellowstone, to lakes of lava and pitch, the seriously radioactive waste in Lake Karachay in the Urals, and Lake Natron in Tanzania, which is so hot and toxic that any hapless creatures falling in “are petrified, dried out, and made crispy.” Along with going for the gusto, she explores the distinctive history and geology of each site, backing up her assertions with substantial lists of sources at the end. If her decision to illustrate the entries with painted scenes rather than photographs makes these locales seem a little less real, it does allow her the opportunity to provide cutaway views, as well as stimulating explosions, visible fumes, the occasional clutching hand, and other dramaenhancing details. Human figures are rare but racially diverse.

A chilling but thrilling primer for budding limnologists. (author’s note, glossary, index) (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Kirkus Star

Zuni and the Memory Jar

Saeed, Aisha | Illus. by Neha Rawat | Kokila (40 pp.) | $18.99 | June 11, 2024 | 9780593618950

A young girl of South Asian descent and her family collect treasured memories. When Mama comes home with an empty jar, Zuni imagines filling it with cookies. But this jar is meant for something even more special: memories. When Zuni’s brother Adam scores a winning goal for his soccer team, he puts a photo of the triumphant moment in the jar. Then Zuni’s sister Sophie gives a well-received piano performance, and their grandmother’s quilt wins a blue ribbon in a local competition. Mementos of these events go in the jar alongside the ribbon Mama earns for completing a Turkey Trot race. But what about Zuni? Throughout the year, her family reassures her that she, too, will soon earn achievements worthy of the jar. It isn’t until they review their memories that the family opens the jar and realizes that, unbeknownst to them, Zuni has been making her own memories from bits and pieces of life her elders were too busy to notice, value, or understand. Zuni’s story is expertly paced, elegantly written, and perfectly plotted. The book’s clever twist is supported by subtle clues in the upbeat cartoon illustrations. Perhaps the most impressive part of the story is its message—while it’s important to mark big achievements, Saeed encourages children and their families to see everyday moments as extraordinary, too.

A superbly original picture book that celebrates memories big and small. (Picture book. 3-8)

Middle school is not for the faint of heart—especially when it’s haunted.

HART & SOULS

Kirkus Star

Kareem Between

Safadi, Shifa Saltagi | Putnam (336 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593699263

A football-loving, Syrian American Muslim boy must find the courage to confront feelings of being stuck in between the worlds of home, school, and wider society.

The start of seventh grade couldn’t have gone worse for Kareem: His best friend moved away, and Kareem was cut from the football team. His integrity is challenged when a chance for a spot on next year’s team comes with strings attached—helping Austin, the coach’s son, cheat by writing an essay for him. Kareem’s desire to fit in also affects Fadi, the Syrian Christian refugee classmate his mom has asked him to help. Tensions rise when Kareem’s mom is stranded in war-torn Syria as she tries to bring his grandparents to the U.S. Now Kareem must find confidence at school (where xenophobic Austin bullies Fadi) and at home (where Mama’s absence is keenly felt). Safadi’s verse novel is set during the 2016-17 school year, amid the build-up to then–President Donald Trump’s executive order affecting travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, including Syria. The author uses line breaks, concrete poetry, and changes in the alignment of the text to powerfully and evocatively convey conflict between senses of identity and self and to accentuate the story’s action. She seamlessly integrates football, literary, Islamic, and Arabic language references into the plot. The book’s messages of

finding the confidence to stand up against injustice and be true to one’s heritage is critically expressed without feeling contrived.

A masterfully written, deeply resonant tale. (author’s note) (Verse fiction. 8-12)

A Voice of Hope: The Myrlie Evers-Williams Story

Salomon, Nadia | Illus. by London Ladd | Philomel (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593525913

A stirring introduction to Myrlie Evers-Williams, a significant figure in the Civil Rights Movement. Writing in oratorical language, Salomon begins with her subject’s childhood in Mississippi, where “hate ran as deep as the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers,” but the love she received from her aunt and grandmother “flowed stronger than hate and river currents.” Young Myrlie showed the strength of character necessary to confront white bullies and later to keep marching for both racial and personal justice when her first husband, Medgar Evers, was killed; ultimately she achieved the latter in court in 1994, when Medgar’s killer was found guilty. Myrlie went on to become the first woman to chair the NAACP full time. Along with receiving many honors, she also finally realized a lifelong dream when, having had to put musical aspirations inspired by the example of biracial pianist Philippa Schuyler on hold for many years, she played Carnegie Hall in 2012. In realistic but lush, painterly freeze frames, Ladd depicts Myrlie from childhood on—standing up to a cluster of cowed-looking white

bullies, raising her fists in celebration of that guilty verdict, and looking on with determination throughout, including on celebratory occasions such as President Obama’s second inauguration, when her voice “rang out like a symphony— / Strong. Soft. Soaring. / And her words echoed hope.”

Definitely strong and soaring.

(timeline, author’s note)

(Picture-book biography. 6-9)

Hart & Souls

Schmid, Lisa | Illus. by Carolina Vázquez Andrews McMeel Publishing (304 pp.) $12.99 paper | July 23, 2024 | 9781524884390

Middle school is not for the faint of heart—especially when it’s haunted.

Tommy “Stix” Hart is nervous about starting middle school. Already prone to panic attacks after a violent run-in with a bully in third grade, he’s doing his best to get his bearings when a strange encounter with an older boy sets off a chain of events guaranteeing a sixth grade year that will be anything but normal. It turns out that Stix can see ghosts, and Gilbert Greene Middle School is haunted—but luckily not by “the scary, melt-your-face-off kind of ghosts.” Just three deceased kids, Jesse, Summer, and Dante, with unfinished business who need help crossing over. After mustering a great deal of courage, Stix agrees to help, and one by one, they work to resolve the past while navigating the ins and outs of present-day middle school. Music is a refuge for keen drummer Stix, who loves the Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins (“the best drummer who ever lived”) and has a supportive drum teacher, Mr. Garcia, who urges him to play “with his heart and soul.” The character development is light, but the story moves quickly and will hold kids’ attention. The work introduces newer genre readers to the “ghosts with unfinished business” trope and is a fun, quick-paced read that’s

enhanced by Vázquez’s charming grayscale illustrations. Stix, Jesse, and Summer are white presenting; Dante is cued Latine, and there’s broad racial diversity in the supporting cast. A fast-moving, good-hearted ghost story. (Paranormal. 8-12)

Hiro, Winter, and Marshmallows

Schneider, Marine | Trans. by Vineet

Lal | Eerdmans (40 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780802856326

Longing to experience winter, a brown bear named Hiro shares a frosty evening with a newfound human friend. Despite her parents’ warnings about the perils of the season, Hiro’s determined to find out about it for herself. She sneaks out while her family is hibernating and is enchanted by what she sees. Drawn to noises in the forest, Hiro happens upon a party. A chaotic multipage sequence depicts children in brightly colored winter gear scampering away. Only Émile, a pale-skinned child clad in a puffy coat that mirrors the color of Hiro’s fur, remains. In delightfully surreal style, the two sit companionably, comparing their lives before concluding that “being a bear or being an Émile is pretty much the same, in the end.” They leave for home, content. Like the marshmallows the pair bond over, this quietly meditative Belgian import is worth savoring; the tale is filled with delectable sensory imagery, from Hiro’s brothers who “wallow in honey-sweet dreams” to the “tiny white confetti” that falls from the sky. The warmly rounded, matte-colored mixed-media illustrations have a theatrical feeling, keeping the focus on Hiro’s emotional journey. Pages alternate between vignettes surrounded by copious white space and expansive full-bleed spreads, such as a dark, cozy page where the friends gaze

at each other, wearing party hats the color of the fire.

Tranquility, camaraderie, and gooey marshmallows add up to one sweet combo. (Picture book. 4-9)

Kirkus Star

Hekla and Laki

Schneider, Marine | Trans. by Nick Frost & Catherine Ostiguy | Milky Way Picture Books (50 pp.) | $21.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781990252310

An old giant and a young newcomer forge an unlikely bond at the edge of a crater. Belgian author/ illustrator Schneider has named her characters after volcanoes in the south of Iceland. Laki is a blue, bearded, monolithic figure accustomed to a solitary life. The rambunctious Hekla tumbles into his life in a swirl of yellow and orange—as if from lava. The small, silent, orange child likes to collect rocks, replace broken household items with flowers, and explore. In Part One, the seasons pass pleasantly; Laki builds his diminutive friend a bed and keeps him safe. The ice covering the lake in the crater melts each spring, and Laki is especially concerned about keeping curious Hekla away from it. Their growing, tender connection plays out in myriad ways against dramatic skies filled with warm oranges and cool blues and the dark volcano walls contrasting with the irresistible, pale lake. When Hekla comes home wet and smiling after a dip in the lake, Laki seems to sense that the youngster has matured; that night, Laki dies. Schneider’s gentle, beautifully written text, translated from French, expresses feelings in childlike terms, neither overwhelming nor sentimental: “Now that Laki was gone, the world didn’t seem as interesting.” Part Two finds Hekla taking stock, uttering his first words, and discovering an island. His fear in the face of calamitous weather

gives way to bravery and, ultimately, excitement at being alive. A visually compelling and emotionally gratifying glimpse at learning how to hold on and let go. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Hearing Things

Sears, Ben | TOON Books/Astra Books for Young Readers (40 pp.) $12.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781662665431

A boy goes in search of spooky noises and finds them. Tim loves walking around the neighborhood with his leashed cat, Frankie, collecting sounds on his portable recorder and microphone. When asked to listen in, older sister Martha declines, since she’s feeling down. Tim encourages her to recommit to a “creepy” song she’s been working on, but it’s missing something. To help, Tim goes in search of some matching sounds. Frankie jumps the fence around a seemingly abandoned old house, forcing Tim to follow. At first, the site is eerily quiet. Then Frankie implores the two skeletal residents to aid in making some “scary sounds,” so Tim (who can’t see the specters) can record a whole plethora of auditory shenanigans. There are no macabre vibes here, just some supernatural fun. The intentionally simple text leads to a few clunky dialogue scenes and some basic plot contrivances, but the overall story is entertainingly quaint. The art is reminiscent of classic newspaper comic strips—think hand-drawn lines, squat characters with round heads, and flat, layered colors—and will induce nostalgia in adult readers. Scenic details populate many panels, while the many onomatopoeias likewise establish a playful setting. Tim and Martha are both light-skinned.

A solid, spooky tale, with vintage-quality illustrations. (Graphic easy reader. 5-7)

Kirkus Star

Miss Leoparda

Shaloshvili, Natalia | Trans. by Lena Traer | Enchanted Lion Books (56 pp.) $18.95 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781592704125

Natural beauty is sacrificed in the name of more space.

Miss Leoparda sleeps in a tree and drives a bus that takes her fellow animals wherever they need to go. One day, she and her passengers see a “little black car coughing up smoke.” As the days pass, more and more cars fill the road, and bus ridership declines. Miss Leoparda stops driving her bus; soon, her tree is cut down to make room for more roads. As the paths get more crowded and the cars continue “huffing and puffing clouds of smoke, stuck in an endless traffic jam,” much to the frustration of the beastly drivers, Miss Leoparda patiently regrows her tree. She also takes to the road on a bicycle, prompting the other citizens to abandon their cars in favor of the greener option. This humorous fable, translated from Russian, explores how our obsession with so-called progress leads to gentrification and the destruction of our communities and the environment. The acrylic and crayon illustrations capture the beauty of untouched land and the dark, crowded vistas of clogged roadways. The expressive, Jon Klassen–like visages of the wildlife perfectly encapsulate the emotions felt by those in similar situations, from the disassociation required by riders on crowded public transit to the exasperation of being stuck in endless traffic. A truly amazing look at how to cherish nature and build a greener community. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

Starlight Symphony

Silverman, Buffy | Millbrook/ Lerner (32 pp.) | $30.65 PLB Sept. 10, 2024 | 9798765644331

Striking photographs and smooth rhymes celebrate the music of the night. In this clever appreciation for the natural world, Silverman compares overnight sounds on a quiet pond to an orchestra’s instruments. Deceptively simple verse forms a smooth, easy-to-readaloud narrative that takes little ones from dusk to dawn. Along the way, the author describes the behaviors and sounds of a bevy of birds and beasts. The sun sets on a quiet pond (“The lighting dims. / The curtain lifts”). A coyote “bugler” howls at the moon. Finally, a robin greets the coming day with its traditional song. From the wood thrush singing “a flutist’s airy melody” to the bullfrog’s tubalike “jug-a-rum,” the animals and instruments presented here are well chosen. Silverman’s graceful words mirror the dazzling stock photographs. The drumming woodpecker, referred to as “she,” is in fact paired with a photo of a female of the species. Other animals include a cricket, a toad, a bittern, beavers (the kits are “the sand block players,” their tail-stamping father is the timpanist), a wood duck, and screech owls. In the afterword, more capable readers can learn about the musicians, the instruments, and how the sounds are made. Whether a bedtime story for the very young or a nature text for early elementary schoolers, this title has broad appeal and utility. Perfectly pitched for its audience. (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Cookie Time

Sima, Jessie | Simon & Schuster (56 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781665936743

Two children find themselves on a time-traveling adventure while they wait for Grandpa’s cookies to come out of the oven. When Kat and Ari build a time machine, they set it for “the future, to just after the cookies [are] finished baking.” But they end up bouncing through time—to that evening, when the cookies have already been eaten, then back to their very first time baking with Grandpa as young tots. Then they find themselves in the very distant future. Through this journey, Kat and Ari realize that waiting’s much easier when you lean into enjoying the passage of time together. Soft pastel colors convey this message deftly. Speeding through time, the children fly past an ombre rainbow. A wash of blue instantly indicates a nighttime scene lit by the light of Grandpa’s front porch. The far-off future includes plenty for readers to take in: a house with legs, a dragon-inspired airplane, and special tubes through which townspeople float through in place of streets. Effective use of panels moves the narrative along and gives it a graphic novel–esque feel. This playful story examines a child’s natural impatience while showcasing how very rewarding and special waiting can be. Grandpa has light brown skin, while Kat has tan skin; Ari presents Black.

A read worth waiting for.

(Picture book. 4-6)

A truly amazing look at how to cherish nature and build a greener community.

MISS LEOPARDA

For more by Natalia Shaloshvili, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Pearl: A Graphic Novel

Smith, Sherri L. | Illus. by Christine Norrie Graphix/Scholastic (144 pp.) | $24.99

Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781338029437

A Japanese American girl from Hawaii is stranded in 1941 Hiroshima on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II. Amy’s parents have sent her to Japan alone to visit her ailing great-grandmother, whom she’s never met, though she’s heard family stories of her daring exploits as a pearl diver. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Amy is distraught, unable to return home. Drawing parallels between past and present, Amy’s great-grandmother looks back to 1879, when Japan annexed the Ryukyu Kingdom, based in Okinawa. Though afraid, she “survived. And thrived”—and she emphasizes that Amy, too, must persevere, even as she’s conscripted and forced to translate U.S. radio messages into Japanese. Her understanding of identity, loss, and belonging is further strained when she learns that her family has been imprisoned by the U.S. government. As 1945 approaches, readers familiar with the atomic bombings will be anxious to learn of Amy’s fate. Smith shines a spotlight on the lesser-known history of Japanese American “strandees,” with Amy’s story mirroring aspects of figures like Iva Toguri D’Aquino and Tomoya Kawakita, both forcibly conscripted and seen as treasonous. Norrie’s gracefully composed, blue-toned illustrations heighten the emotions. Wordless scenes convey the horrors of the bombing; the titular pearl is a beautifully executed symbol of hope, survival, and life that also reflects Amy’s struggles with her identity as Japanese and American. By turns devastating and uplifting, a powerful testament to the human will to survive—and thrive.

(Graphic historical fiction. 10-18)

An inclusive, cleverly structured look at Diwali.

GARLAND OF LIGHTS

The Language of Flowers

| $18.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781915244864

When confronted with grief, a South Asian girl uses flowers to express a feeling that defies words. Juhi’s Appa has taught her “the language of flowers.” She knows that stargazer lilies, irises, and jasmine all represent different types of love. Thanks to her knowledge of flowers, Juhi is also aware of the exciting events happening in her neighborhood, from the new baby whose birth requires a cheerful daffodil to the 14th wedding anniversary that calls for dahlias to the birthday celebration that’s marked with peonies. Of all the clients who visit her family flower shop, though, Juhi especially appreciates Mr. Potter, whose fascinating history and zest for life are reflected in his preference for bright bouquets. When Mr. Potter gets sick, Juhi sends him special flowers for his hospital room. But when he dies, Juhi feels silenced by grief—until she realizes that the traditional funeral bouquet her father assembles isn’t the way she wants to remember Mr. Potter’s life. Smith’s spare but graceful prose is brought to life by Asis’ vibrant artwork. Flowers and people alike pop against white backdrops; visible brushstrokes imbue the tale with intimacy. Juhi’s ability to communicate complex emotions in nonverbal ways is a joy to behold. It’s especially refreshing to read a story about a South Asian girl whose ethnic identity informs but doesn’t determine her story. Mr. Potter presents white; Juhi’s community is diverse. A touching tale of love, community, and expression. (Picture book. 3-8)

Garland of Lights: A Diwali Story

Soundar, Chitra | Illus. by Amberin Huq Bloomsbury (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781547616282

A Diwali-themed counting book. In this rhyming tale, a brownskinned, South Asian family lights a series of lamps honoring different aspects of the holiday. One lamp is lit for “the goddess of wealth,” who will hopefully bring the household prosperity in the form of “wisdom and health.” Two lamps are lit to show gratitude for the sun and the moon, while three lamps are for forgiveness, four lamps express appreciation for elders, five lamps “mark the five days of cheer,” and six lamps are for a traditional art form called rangoli. As the book progresses, the illustrations show the family lighting sparklers, eating sweets, and singing hymns. On the final pages, they thank the monsoons, watch fireworks, and ring in the new year, all while surrounded by family, friends, and neighbors who are diverse in terms of skin tone, hair texture, age, and ability; one of the children uses a hearing aid. An author’s note explains the role of Diwali to Hindu people, as well as the variations in the origins and traditions associated with the holiday. The story’s sweetly spare text accompanies vibrantly detailed illustrations that make masterful use of patterns and light. While the language is overall poetic, the rhymes can feel awkward and forced at times. Generally, though, it’s a beautiful introduction to a complex, widely celebrated holiday.

An inclusive, cleverly structured look at Diwali. (Picture book. 3-5)

Smith, Shyala | Illus. by Aaron Asis Lantana (32 pp.)

The Fall Festival Fiasco

Starmer, Aaron | Illus. by Marta Kissi | Odd Dot (192 pp.) | $8.99 paper | Sept. 10, 2024 9781250841797 | Series: Math Mysteries, 2

A trio of fourth graders known as the Prime Detectives count up the clues to find out who’s sabotaging Arithmos Elementary’s fall festival. In this series outing, mathematical mavens Abby Feldstein, Cam McGill, and Gabe Kim—who respectively present as white, Black, and Asian in Kissi’s cartoon line drawings—show each step of their work in boxed-out segments as they track a classmate’s spending, calculate the odds of dunking their teacher at a dunk-tank challenge, estimate the weights of outsize pumpkins, and engage in other real-life arithmetical operations. All the while, they also assemble evidence that various events at the annual festival have been deliberately sabotaged and reason their way to a culprit. The relentlessly instructional narrative also offers such non-mathematical tidbits as a mnemonic for how to spell February (“The rumor is that there are two R s in it!”), the value of a “memory palace” (a technique for recalling important things), and that there really is an African country called Eswatini (known as Swaziland until 2018), even if many recent maps don’t show it. In any case, the saboteur’s motives and the outcomes turn out to be relatively benign, and the episode winds its way to a peaceful close, with just a tantalizing hint that things may get “weird” next time around. Final art not seen. There’s a bona fide mystery, but most of the solving goes by the numbers. (Fiction. 7-10)

Ten more hair-prickling shorts inspired by people or events from the author’s life.

STINETINGLERS 3

Kirkus Star

Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Tiny Forest Adventure

Steinkellner, Emma | Labyrinth Road (192 pp.) | $21.99 | Sept. 17, 2024

9780593570708 | Series: Nell of Gumbling, 2

Crushes, competition, and calamity ensue on a class camping trip.

Following on Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Normal Fairy-Tale Life (2023), this cheery sequel follows ruddy, bespectacled Nell Starkeeper as she’s about to embark on an adventure with friends Thumbkin Gil, fairy Myra, human Leabelle, and unicorn-centaur Voila. The group is competing in the Multi-Disciplinary Wilderness Engagement Adventure, and the stakes are high, especially since Nell’s rival, Tony Pfluff, is also there. With his good looks, Romesh Roy, Nell’s group leader, immediately catches her eye, but her crush is tempered by his determination to win at all costs. The dynamics between the friends falter as unspoken crushes and resentments surge among them. When a misspoken wish upends Nell and the crew, communication and teamwork may be the only options that will save them. Steinkellner offers readers an alluring mix of Nell’s prose journal entries alternating with full-color comic panels; together they form a visually delightful page-turner. Though the story is rooted in a fantasy world, readers (especially those who appreciate the gentle angst of Raina Telgemeier’s and Judd Winick’s graphic novels) will find this volume utterly

relatable; they’ll appreciate the young friends’ stumbles as they navigate their ways through life’s twists and turns. The cast is diverse, with queer characters, a range of skin tones, and a refreshingly realistic spectrum of body sizes. A heartwarming and whimsical sequel. (annotated script, fun facts) (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)

Stinetinglers 3: More Chilling Stories by the Master of Scary Tales

Stine, R.L. | Illus. by David SanAngelo Feiwel & Friends (224 pp.) | $17.99

Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781250836335

Series: Stinetinglers, 3

Ten more hair-prickling shorts inspired by people or events from the author’s life.

“My job is to scare you,” writes the genial Stine, though—aside from trotting in the odd zombie or Martian pig monster—his frights in this series continue to be of the milder sort. In the opening story, “Full-Moon Sleepover Party,” a group of seventh grade girls are joined by an uninvited werewolf. The closing entry, “Eddie the Flash,” is a cleverly metafictional entry about an aspiring comics creator whose superheroes and villains come to life. In between, Stine has his hapless preteens encounter ghosts in “The Treehouse” and ominously toothy aquarium fish in “Fish Food.” In “The Dream Factory,” a boy learns the hard way what can happen when you neglect to read the fine print on a product label. Other characters fall afoul of magicians. As is

For more by Aaron Starmer, visit Kirkus online.

typical, the author’s tightly woven tales aren’t big on distinctive characterization, but all feature quick starts and steady build-ups to final, untelegraphed twists. SanAngelo’s atmospherically creepy black-and-white spot art opens each story. Names and illustrations cue some diversity in the otherwise racially indeterminate cast.

Another satisfying series entry that delivers delicious thrills. (Horror. 8-12)

Nightmare in the Backyard

Strand, Jeff | Sourcebooks Young Readers (224 pp.) | $16.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 9781728277639 | Series: Eek!, 1

A group of tweens’ worst nightmares become reality in this frighteningly fun novel by Bram Stoker Award–winner Strand. Chloe Whitting and her best friend, Avery Gonzalez, are planning the perfect overnight backyard campout. Chloe hopes that roasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories, and staying up all night will help take her mind off her dad’s sudden disappearance a year prior. When Madison, Chloe’s irritating cousin, crashes the party, Chloe assumes that’s the worst thing that could happen that night. She’s quickly proven wrong, however, when tentacles emerge from the ground and start wreaking havoc, coming after the girls and their campsite. Realizing that their cell phones are dead and that no one can hear them screaming, the girls decide that their only choice is to fight back. But as the battle wages on, they discover that they aren’t just fighting for their own lives—they may need to save the world as well. Strand skillfully straddles the line between silly and scary, with a dash of grossness thrown in for fun. The dialogue is realistic and well thought out. Although the ending wraps up abruptly following the climax, it does nicely tie up the story’s loose ends. Readers who have cut their teeth on Goosebumps will be lining up to read

this one. Most characters are coded white; Avery is cued Latine. An action-packed thrill ride. (Horror. 9-13)

Use Your Voice

Tapper, Alice Paul | Illus. by Fanny Liem Penguin Workshop (32 pp.) | $18.99

Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593752142

The teenage author—daughter of CNN’s Jake Tapper— draws from personal experience for the story of a young girl attempting to convince the adults in her life to listen to her health concerns. Alice wakes up one night with severe stomach pain. Something is wrong, but the doctor dismisses her illness as flu, and her worried parents follow his advice. Later, the adults fail to listen as a sick, anxious Alice tries to tell them her pain is getting worse. A pack of small, brightly colored creatures, each representing a number on the hospital’s 1-10 pain scale, stay by Alice’s side and encourage her to assert herself. Ultimately, Alice speaks up and asks for an X-ray. Following an emergency appendectomy, Alice returns home buoyed by the knowledge that she’s strong enough to advocate for what she needs. Depictions of the sights and sounds of hospitals may make the experience feel less intimidating for readers. Alice expresses her fears in first person, which will help children navigating their own emotions. The book presents a difficult reality with a gentle hand: Even the most well-meaning of authority figures don’t always know what’s best, and systems don’t always work as they should. But children have the power to raise their voices. In Liem’s soft illustrations, Alice and her family present white; other characters are diverse. Useful for helping kids with serious or chronic health conditions build the confidence they need to

speak up for themselves. (health checklist for appendicitis and sepsis) (Picture book. 4-8)

G.O.A.T. Greatest of All Time Temple, Jol & Kate Temple | Illus. by Rebel Challenger | Scholastic (32 pp.) | $14.99 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781546127260

Misunderstanding the acronym G.O.A.T., Goat declares that he’s “just the best.” Preening Goat tells Duck that G.O.A.T means “Greatest of All Time.” “I thought it stood for Gobbles Oats And Tires,” responds Duck. So they’re off, matching initials with improbable strings of descriptors, such as “Deadliest Underwater Crumb King.” Goat and Duck are joined by Cow (“Coolest Overalls Wearer”) and Donkey (“Devourer Of Nice Kind Easter Yams”), who was under the impression that Goat’s name stood for “Grunts Often At Termites.” Those insects are dubbed “Terrible Eaters Really Must Investigate The Exploding Sausages.” Next up: Dog, aka the “Duke Of Growling.” Duck wants to be a G.O.A.T., too—after all, Duck’s a “Good Or Awesome Tap dancer.” Cow claims to be a “Gorgeous Octopus Arm Twister,” and Donkey “Gallops On Any Table.” Even the termites are “Grand Orchestral Amazing Talent.” Everyone is pleased by their labels, and they trumpet, “LET’S ALL BE GOATS!” Outside of Lake Woebegone, though, if everyone is The Best, then no one is. The popeyed cartoon characters cavort in bright colors against varied flat single-color backgrounds; the lettering is a mix of all caps for the acronyms and upper/ lowercase for dialogue. The book doesn’t have much of a storyline, just characters spouting off some weak wordplay, though the artwork may hold children’s attention. This one-trick wonder isn’t the greatest, but it will amuse for a while. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Star

Lone Wolf Goes to School

Thomas, Kiah | Illus. by K-Fai Steele

Neal Porter/Holiday House (56 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780823457779

This anti-social lupine just wants to be alone. Wolf—the sole animal in class 2B—growls at the children until they all huddle at the far end of the room. Mrs. Horsefly asks him to leave, so he visits an empty cinema. Another moviegoer arrives, so Wolf tries unsuccessfully to get rid of him, then heads for the shore. Happily, the beach is deserted, but, breaking open a bag of chips, he’s set upon by voracious seagulls, which eat his snack as he chases them. After laboring up a mountain, Wolf is briefly alone—until he’s joined by a clueless hiker intent on photographing Wolf. Wolf devises a plan: He invites everyone he’s encountered to a party at his house. They all arrive: kids, teacher, seagulls, movie theater patron, hiker. Just as Wolf had imagined, “It was horrible.” But absconding to the now-vacant theater, beach, mountain, and classroom, Wolf is “finally…alone.” Originality, mordant humor, copious, detailed color drawings, and a resolutely understated text make this tale a winner. A confirmed introvert, consistently ornery and ultimately unreformed, Wolf is a refreshing character who even becomes sort of admirable in his grumpy singlemindedness. Expressive cartoon art depicts him as doglike, though not

cuddly; still, Wolf won’t scare readers, who are more likely to hope for a stuffie version. Human characters are diverse. A charmer that’s sure to garner its protagonist a devoted following—much to his chagrin. (Early reader. 6-9)

Bear’s Lost Glasses

Timmers, Leo | Trans. by David Colmer

Gecko Press (40 pp.) | $18.99

Aug. 1, 2024 | 9781776575947

Hilarity ensues when a bear “sees” without specs. Where are Bear’s glasses? Bear “can’t see a thing without them!” Young listeners will notice that the bright red glasses are atop Bear’s head and will eagerly cry out to let Bear know. But our hapless friend decides that the glasses are at Giraffe’s house and trots over. On the way, Bear passes a large, two-branched tree and misidentifies it as a deer with antlers. Bear also mistakes a low-lying bush for a crocodile, a big boulder for an elephant, and a spindly pink plant for a flamingo. Bear’s amazed by these never-before-seen creatures along the path. Bear even assumes that a reclining Giraffe is a snake! When Bear explains the problem, Giraffe “returns” the glasses by removing them from Bear’s head. Bear’s vindicated, “knowing” they were at Giraffe’s house all along, then describes the unusual sights. Giraffe’s eager to see them and accompanies Bear, who’s now wearing the spectacles. Naturally, neither spots the creatures Bear

A humorous, delightful tale about finding wonderful new ways to see the world. BEAR’S LOST GLASSES

described. Bear, confused, thinks the glasses are the problem—but now, having removed them, Bear directs Giraffe’s attention to three nearby “lions.” Moral: Maybe it’s better (and more fun) to “see” with the imagination? This comical charmer, originally published in the Netherlands, will engage children as they laughingly correct Bear’s misnomers. Set against white backdrops, the caricature-esque illustrations capture the expressive protagonists’ close friendship. A humorous, delightful tale about finding wonderful new ways to see the world. (Picture book. 4-7)

What in the World Is Ezra’s Art?

Toda, Eric & Shay Fan | Illus. by Tara Hân-Trân Johnson | Third State Books (40 pp.) $19.95 | May 21, 2024 | 9798890130129

A young boy’s art goes unappreciated until he makes a new friend.

Boisterous Ezra Kawamoto “LOV ES making art.” Using all kinds of supplies, he brings the characters in his active imagination to life in dramatic fashion on the page. Losing himself in his creations helps him feel calm and happy. While he’s proud of his vivid, unusual creations, others are…less so. His classmates pepper him with skeptical questions and comments (“What in the world is THAT?”), while art teacher Mr. Ramos praises the other kids’ work but ignores Ezra’s drawings, and Ezra’s misguided parents suggest that he try out other endeavors such as soccer (he’d rather make art from the soccer equipment!), all of which leads him to consider giving up on art. But his artistic passions are rekindled when another classmate admires his work, and the two begin drawing together. Toda and Fan’s stiff narrative relies more on telling than showing and never addresses the unkind,

misunderstanding attitudes of the adults, who don’t encourage the other children to show compassion toward Ezra. While vibrant, the illustrations feel generic. Ezra is beige-skinned and dark-haired; the last name Kawamoto suggests that he’s of Japanese heritage. His classmates are diverse in terms of race and ability.

An earnest yet bland celebration of individuality and artistic passions. (Picture book. 4-7)

Dot! Scribble! Go!

Tullet, Hervé | Chronicle Books (56 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781797232584

Art making is distilled into simple steps—and a whole lotta fun. Black “dots, lines, smudges, and scribbles” appear on a white background. An unseen narrator instructs readers to place their hands on the page to feel it “vibrate.” On the next page, the patterns have formed the shape of a hand—the “drawing hand”—as if the dots and lines are reacting to the actual hand that’s touched them. In typical Tullet fashion, subsequent pages allow readers to interact with the book and to make art by following simple instructions. First, kids are invited to use their fingers to drag and drop red, blue, and yellow dots onto little marked x’s to make “a whole dance of dots!” and, later, a flower. Readers are asked to draw lines and then scribbles. Each prompt ends with bold, black lines transforming the project into a flower—even after some surprising twists. Encouraging phrases such as “Brilliant!” and “Bravo, bravo!” cheer readers on throughout. The inclusion of smudges and other imperfections beautifully provides nonverbal support for the affirmations. Tullet has molded a familiar formula into something both fun and meaningful. By starting simple and moving on to more abstract techniques, the book represents a scaffolded lesson at its best. The openended conclusion brilliantly takes art

Art making is distilled into simple steps—and a whole lotta fun.

DOT! SCRIBBLE! GO!

out of flower territory and opens a Pandora’s box of creativity. A call to action that’s sure to make an artist out of anyone.

(Interactive picture book. 3-6)

My Saree

Varadarajan, Gita | Illus. by Archana Sreenivasan | Orchard/Scholastic (40 pp.) $17.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781338834147

A young South Asian girl dreams of wearing a saree. Divya loves her mother’s sarees, whether “peacock blue,” “lotus pink,” or “parrot green,” or “soft and silky” or “crisp and stiff.” But when Divya asks Amma if she, too, can wear one, Amma tells her she’s too young. Although disappointed, Divya accepts that one day, she’ll be able to make use of her mother’s impressive collection. But then Divya’s teacher, Mrs. Gonzalez, announces that the school’s upcoming Heritage Night will feature a fashion show. When Divya asks Amma if she can don a saree for this special occasion, Amma says no: “You know you have to be older....And it’s too long and too wide for a little girl like you.” Disheartened, Divya agrees to wear a silk skirt made by her grandmother. The next day, her classmates enthuse about the dirndl, hanbok, and salwar kameez they’ll be wearing, while Divya stays quiet. It isn’t until Heritage Night that Divya finds a reason to be cheerful again—when Amma presents Divya with her first saree.

The story’s pacing feels a bit uneven; the reasons for Amma’s sudden change of heart are unclear. Still, Divya’s love for her heritage is palpable and relatable, and the conflict she grapples with will resonate with many young people. Sreenivasan’s inspired use of patterns gives the artwork a sense of movement and energy.

A passionate celebration of cultural identity. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

The Top Spot

Weber, Frank | Disney-Hyperion (48 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781368099110

When a little ibex loses a duel for the top spot, he becomes determined to win.

After the biggest ibex’s horns send the little ibex flying, he runs off, ignoring another ibex’s challenge. After a long journey, the little ibex meets a young mountain goat, who asks him why he’s special and what he’s good at. The ibex is inspired to use his small, light stature and his running and jumping skills to take over the top spot on a huge rock. Bored, he eventually abandons the spot to enjoy some tasty grass. Young readers will appreciate the little ibex’s tenacity and triumph both in spite of and because of his size. The illustrations are highly appealing in their simplicity. The little ibex’s expressive eyes convey his thoughts and reactions. Weber uses oranges and burnt reds to great advantage, showcasing the glory of the top spot and the heat of the sun, in sharp contrast to the muted

tones of the desert and forest scenes. The message here is multilayered: Sure, we all have gifts, many that may not be outright obvious. But what’s the point of all the competition, anyway? Adults will find the moral clear; children may need a little guidance from grown-ups, though they’ll chuckle at the naïve ibex, who mistakes the young goat for a wise elder.

A quirky, inspired parable. (Picture book. 4-6)

Kirkus Star

One Foggy Christmas Eve

Wilson, Kerilynn | Greenwillow Books (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780063315440

A bright and shiny new Christmas book. It isn’t easy to create a Yuletide tale that stands out on the crowded holiday shelf, but Wilson has done just that by riffing on lyrics from “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Her illustrations are detailed and expressive, like a mashup of Marla Frazee and Vera Brosgol, with a dash of Barbara McClintock for good measure. They show the titular fog rolling in as a brownskinned parent and a light-skinned child, who narrates, walk home, where another parent, tan-skinned, awaits. The child has made a gift for Nana and Papa, with whom the family always spends Christmas Eve. This year, however, “The weather is awful, and my parents say we can’t go.” The child’s red hat evokes Little Red Riding Hood; the family dog, Sammy, is akin to a friendly wolf. Their combined depictions foreshadow a trek to Nana and Papa’s house. With a flashlight on her head, Sammy heads out to “light the way,” followed by the child, who sees monstrous visions in the fog and runs home in fear. Later, the whole

Sweetly sincere feel-good stories exploring relationships and maker culture.

THE MAKERS CLUB

family heads out, covered in Christmas lights, and fantastic, luminescent reindeer appear. Though the grandparents’ gift is lost en route, the youngster has a story to tell upon the family’s arrival—the best gift of all. Loaded with adventure and brimming with love and joy, this is a holiday tale to be savored. Read it out loud with glee. (Picture book. 2-7)

Lunch Buddies: Stunt Sandwich Superstar

Wiseman, Daniel | HarperAlley (64 pp.) $8.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 9780063236257 | Series: Lunch Buddies, 2

Wiseman serves up a fresh helping of wackiness in this second series installment. What to do on this rainy Saturday? Poofy the dog and the nameless talking sandwich—both of whom readers will remember from the earlier book—convince Marco that video games are out (the sandwich lacks opposable thumbs), as is pranking sister Julia, who’s now a potential ally. Then the sun emerges, and Marco and the sandwich decide to perform a series of “nausea-amplifying” stunts for an audience consisting of Poofy, Julia, a garden gnome, and a manic squirrel. Marco propels the reluctant sandwich, perched on a skateboard, through the “tunnel of doom” (a rotting log). Unappreciative Julia grumbles about her interrupted reading. Next,

Sandwich successfully skateboards off a ramp through a tire swing. The final, “stupendously spectacular” stunt induces even Julia to put down her book, and indeed it is heart-stopping. Initial success quickly turns to semi-disaster thanks to an unexpected application of Newtonian physics, a misplaced hammock, and an unexpected puddle. So many other laws of realism are broken that readers won’t bat an eye when things are miraculously put right. Previously overconfident Marco apologizes, showing an iota of the sandwich’s sense. Changes in perspective, like that from bird’s-eye to slug’s-eye views, add to the sophisticated absurdity of this romp. Marco and Julia are brown-skinned. Breathtakingly improbable excitement. (Graphic fiction. 6-10)

The Makers Club: A Graphic Novel

Yee, Reimena | Illus. by Tintin Pantoja Colors by Reimena Yee | Andrews McMeel Publishing (224 pp.) | $14.99 paper Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781524889753

Two sets of friends navigate challenging life circumstances while attending Pangolin Secondary School, where their resilience and creativity are put to the test. When nervous new student Nadia Tan is assigned to work with classmate Priya Kumar on a science project, Nadia is hopeful that they can win the

first-place cash prize to help her financially struggling family. Meanwhile, reserved Priya shuts the world out due to her parents’ constant fighting. A year and a half earlier, Aqilah Zuraidi and Fu Yong Qiang reconnected after spending years apart. Yong Qiang is learning to accept that life is different now that he’s a wheelchair user, and creative overachieving hijabi Aqilah faces the stress of trying to do too much. The varied layouts of the pages, which include the use of open panels, panel breaks, and design elements that enhance characters’ expression of emotions, provide substantial visual detail for readers to pore over. The two stories in this graphic novel, presented in reverse chronological order, are colored in a soothing, rainbow-hued, pastel palette that matches the easygoing feel. Despite the potential for heaviness given some of the serious content, the gray-shaded scenes that are fraught with conflict quickly make way for happy resolutions. The ethnically diverse cast reflects a vibrant Southeast Asian setting, and an interview with adaptive-wear designer Claudia Poh offers fascinating insights into work that considers the needs of different users. Sweetly sincere feel-good stories exploring relationships and maker culture. (glossary, about the characters, behind the scenes) (Graphic fiction. 9-12)

Rebecca’s Prayer for President Lincoln

Yolen, Jane | Illus. by Laura Barella Kar-Ben (32 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9798765602997

A Jewish girl living on New York City’s Lower East Side reels in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. When Rebecca’s father left to fight in the Civil War, he said, “We Jews, who were once slaves in Egypt, we, especially, should never

Highlights an intriguing aspect of Jewish American history through a child’s eyes.

REBECCA’S

PRAYER FOR PRESIDENT LINCOLN

let a human being be held in slavery.” Though he lost a hand, he’s still firmly supportive of Lincoln but realizes that some people are nursing feelings of anger. “Anger from those who still believe that they ought to own their fellow humans. And anger from those who were left so long in slavery.” On Friday night, April 14, 1865, while Lincoln attends a play at Ford’s Theatre, Rebecca’s family observes the Sabbath. Rebecca has a strange feeling as she watches the candles flicker. The next morning, she and her family go to Temple Emanu-El. Suddenly, the rabbi arrives and says something to the cantor, who begins to sing the prayer for the dead, the Kaddish. The rabbi announces that Lincoln is dead, and the whole congregation begins to recite the prayer. This tale is rooted in historical events; as reported by the New York Times , those at Temple Emanu-El did indeed say the Kaddish. The choice to frame the events as a work of fiction narrated by a young girl directly touched by the war provides emotional resonance to the straightforward text. Rebecca’s family presents white in realistic, though static, illustrations. Highlights an intriguing aspect of Jewish American history through a child’s eyes. (author’s note, archival photographs, information on the Kaddish, English translation of the Kaddish) (Picture book. 7-9)

For more by Jane Yolen, visit Kirkus online.

A Pinecone!

Yoon, Helen | Candlewick (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781536226263

A child’s love of pinecones and a parent’s innovation make for a creative evening. An Asianpresenting child kneels while greeting a pinecone in the grass: “Hello!” The little one attempts to show Daddy—blondhaired and light-skinned—the discovery. But he’s busy wrangling the family dog. The narrative consists of the child’s terse exclamations as the little one continues to collect pinecones that litter the field near their house. Comically, Daddy lands face-first in the mud, with the pup writhing gleefully beside him. Preoccupied with cleaning up the mess, Daddy doesn’t notice as the child continues to collect pinecones. The child’s jacket is overflowing with pinecones—so are Daddy’s boots, which the little one has grabbed—as the child carries them into the house while naming each one: “Welcome, Princess Pattycake Petunia Pinecone!” The quirky cartoons featuring big round eyes and warm textured backgrounds play up the comedy and charm. When a trail of worms, bugs, and dirt appears, Daddy finally notices…and follows it into the child’s room, filled with mountains of pinecones. “I really like pinecones,” the child reasons. Daddy’s surprisingly accepting—and creative—reaction results in an inspired house makeover. Brimming with humor, mischief, and whimsy. (Picture book. 4-6)

Young Adult

EXCITING SUMMER DEBUTS TO WATCH FOR

AVID READERS KNOW that the authors we love can never write quickly enough to keep up with our demands. Fortunately, new writers are always coming onto the scene. In between comforting reconnections with familiar favorites, you can experience the thrill of new voices. Summertime may be a lighter season in publishing, but these not-to-be-missed debuts should be on your radar.

The Redemption of Daya Keane by Gia Gordon (HarperTeen, May 28):

Gordon, who co-founded the nonprofit Never Counted Out, which supports access to books and the arts for young people in underserved communities, has written a debut novel our reviewer calls “raw and achingly truthful.” Her story follows queer teens in a small, conservative Christian Arizona town. Many readers will relate to its complex portrayal of coming of age while navigating various types of traumas.

Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell (Heartdrum, June 4):

Cobell, an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Nation, has made a splash with this arresting thriller that explores timely themes as it keeps readers turning the pages. The tale centers on four Montana teens living on Blackfeet tribal land and draws yet more urgent attention to the ongoing, underreported crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women through shifting first-person perspectives that ramp up the tension.

The Wilderness of Girls by Madeline Claire Franklin (Zando Young Readers, June 11): Franklin’s debut will attract readers who love genre-blurring stories that are written in a lyrical style. The author’s website describes her journey as a witch whose parents met in a religious cult, an extraordinary background that has surely influenced this probing, unsettling tale of a displaced teen who encounters four girls living in the wilds of upstate New York with wolves and the prophet they call Mother.

With Love, Miss Americanah by Jane Igharo (Feiwel & Friends, June 18): Nigerian Canadian author Igharo has garnered praise for her adult fiction; now she’s turned with aplomb to teen literature. Nigerian Enore uses American movies to generate rules for surviving high school after her family moves to the U.S. She grieves her late

father, endures cultural dislocation, and enjoys a new romance, narrating her highs and lows in a natural and engaging manner.

Joined at the Joints by Marissa Eller (Holiday House, July 2): Eller brings an insider’s voice to this sweet, nuanced romance about two teens living with chronic illness. Avoiding tired tropes, she writes well-rounded leads—avid baker Ivy and charming, funny Grant—both of whom have rheumatoid arthritis and fall in love after meeting in a support group. The impact of disability is naturally woven into the thoughtful portrayal of the pair’s lives and relationships. It’s Only a Game by Kelsea Yu (Bloomsbury, July 9): Our reviewer calls out Yu’s full-length novel debut for its “propulsive momentum with effective cliffhangers and twists.” Online gamer Marina Chan, who’s surviving on the streets and hiding secrets, meets her Darkitect friends in real life at the game company’s headquarters. When the company’s CEO is murdered, the young people must fight for their lives against the mysterious, manipulative player for whom they were beta testers.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.

LAURA SIMEON

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

A gay coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the 2017 Honduran presidential election.  Named Libertad because she was born on September 15, Honduran Independence Day, high school senior Libi Morazán loves her country. But the right-wing party has ruled since the 2009 U.S.-backed coup, and as a girl who likes girls, she knows she can never fully be herself here. Now, Juan Orlando Hernández is standing for reelection despite the constitutional law prohibiting it, causing protests to erupt in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, where Libi and her family live. When the military

police shoot and kill students on her brother Maynor’s university campus, everything changes for both siblings. Libi creates a secret Instagram account, @InsurreccionPoeticaHN, to share her political poems, and Maynor joins the student front. Tensions are running high as election day draws closer, and Libi juggles her excitement over a new romance and finding her voice through poetry with her fears about an unfair election and her brother’s safety. Zaldívar seamlessly weaves Honduran history and politics into the narrative. The characters are beautifully complex, and the multiple perspectives provide

By Kate J. Armstrong

By Veronica Chambers

Zaldívar, Bessie Flores | Dial Books | 432 pp. $19.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593696125

key moments of reflection and deep insight. Spanish appears throughout the text, but even those who don’t know the language will easily understand the story, and Libi’s poems are translated into English. The

By Randy Ribay

By Andrew Joseph White

existential question of whether to stay or leave will resonate with readers from all backgrounds. An emotionally charged must-read. (content warning, author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)

Libertad

in Love and in Trouble

Libertad By Bessie Flores Zaldívar

Heart-pounding action and romance anchor timely themes.

FYREBIRDS

Kirkus Star

Fyrebirds

Armstrong, Kate J. | Nancy Paulsen Books (384 pp.) | $19.99 Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593463307

In this sequel to Nightbirds (2023), the existence of intrinsic magic is no longer a secret—but girls who possess it face an uncertain future. Several months have passed since Matilde, Sayer, Æsa, and Fen escaped the Red Hand, a fanatical religious cult leader, by channeling elemental magic like the Fyrebirds of old. The four new Fyrebirds are now physically and emotionally distanced, however. In the Illish Isles, Æsa secretly practices amplifying fledgling girls’ abilities and wrestles with her family’s traditional expectations. In Simta, cunning Great House daughter Matilde leverages her now-public identity as the Flame Witch into a strategic alliance in hopes of swaying public opinion to protect magical girls. Sayer is busy rescuing exploited magical girls, “terrorizing” the Great House lords, and avoiding her feelings for Fen. Meanwhile, Fen is focused on acquiring more witchbane to suppress the magic and the PTSD-like flashbacks it triggers. As rumors swirl about magical girls disappearing, the Fyrebirds learn of Sugar, a mysterious new drug engineered to make them more “biddable.” But another threat looms as the king of Trellane

sets sail for Simta. The fast-paced plot and resonant emotional beats organically explore pervasive, harmful patriarchal and misogynistic beliefs, choice and control, and resistance and revenge. Brief interstitials present vignettes from secondary characters’ perspectives and ephemera that further the immersive worldbuilding. The leads read white; the cast overall is broadly diverse in representation. Heart-pounding action and romance anchor timely themes of agency and self-actualization. (map) (Fantasy. 12-18)

Wonder Woman: The Adventures of Young

Diana Bellaire, Jordie | Illus. by Paulina Ganucheau | Colors by Kendall Goode DC (192 pp.) | $16.99 paper Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781779527134

In this superhero adventure, Princess Diana of Themyscira longs for adventure and discovery. To prepare for someday leading her people, 14-year-old Diana must learn about her world. She begins by finding out hidden secrets of the past, including a painful and violent truth about her mother’s actions to free the Amazons. Through her lessons, Diana forms new relationships with several of her sister Amazons. From her newly returned aunt, Antiope, Diana gathers insights into life in the world outside Themyscira. The detailed and vibrant illustrations make many of the scenes pop and

feel full of movement. The inclusion of Diana’s inner monologue in yellow thought bubbles offers a clear delineation from the dialogue and allows readers to understand how her thoughts evolve over the course of her adventures. Even though she’s the future queen, she’s still an authentic teenager who desires the company of people her own age, thinks her mother doesn’t listen to her, and at times wants to be left alone to deal with her emotions. This graphic novel doesn’t always feel cohesive given the number of events it covers, leaving readers with questions about characters like Circe and Persephone, who appear only briefly. Diana has light skin and black hair; the Amazons have different body types and skin tones.

A well-loved character gets new depth through colorful, expressive illustrations. (design gallery) (Graphic adventure. 12-14)

The Nightmare Virus

Brandes, Nadine | Enclave Escape (368 pp.) $24.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9798886051308

After Cain is infected with the Nightmare Virus, he only has 22 days to find a cure and save humanity. Cain wanted to build dream worlds as a professional Draftsman, but then the Nightmare Virus arrived. It traps sleeping people in the nightmarish state Cain’s older brother, Nole, called the Tunnel, adding one hour of sleep per day until, after 22 Sleeps, you never wake up. When Cain is infected after Nole’s death, he fights his way through the Tunnel by sheer force of will and finds Tenebra, a dreamscape reminiscent of ancient Rome that’s inhabited by other infected people. Cain makes a bargain with young Emperor Luc—save Luc’s infected father

(who’s in a Life Support Pod that needs charging in the Real World), access the cure that’s locked in his mind, and get an exorbitantly expensive LifeSuPod of his own. While Cain is asleep, he must earn his Tenebran citizenship by surviving the Arena and dangerous Spores who enter and exit the Nightmare at will. When he’s awake, he faces the apocalypse. If he dies in one world, he also dies in the other. While this genre-bending work features an interesting premise, it’s slow to start, the worldbuilding is muddled, and the ending may not satisfy readers who are unfamiliar with Christianity. The author’s approach to dealing with mental health and emotional struggles is confusing, potentially communicating blame for sufferers. Most characters read white. May satisfy Christian fans of dystopian science fiction. (Christian science fiction. 13-18)

Drown Me With Dreams

Burton, Gabi | Bloomsbury (432 pp.)

$19.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781547610419

Saoirse Sorkova embarks on a perilous journey in this follow-up to Sing Me To Sleep (2023). One week after the tumultuous events of the first book, Saoirse is a fugitive, brokenhearted over the betrayal by her former best friend, Carrik Solwey. Hayes, the newly crowned king, struggles with self-confidence as he aspires to undo his father’s oppressive legacy, which includes the creation of an impenetrable barrier. Inside, water fae dominate, humans are at the bottom, and sirens like Saoirse are forbidden. Outside, the promise of a more just world beckons Saoirse to imagine a place where she and her much-loved sister, Rain, can live without persecution. With a growing Resistance army threatening to invade Keirdre,

Returning readers will be pleased: a satisfying duology closer.

DROWN ME WITH DREAMS

Hayes directs Saoirse and Carrik to investigate what lies beyond the barrier. Off they go, their explorations and dangerous encounters with curious new creatures seamlessly expanding on the previously established expert world building of this fantasy universe centering on Black and brown characters. Returning readers who appreciated Saoirse’s cunning ways and stealthy fighting skills will be pleased: In search of a more mature self-understanding, she wrestles with forgiveness as she hones her killer instincts and her innate ability to manipulate others. Even if the pacing plods at times, given the greater emphasis on political strategy and the relatively little time devoted to the steamy romance that made the earlier volume so alluring, readers will celebrate as Saoirse reaches for the vulnerability and honesty that unconditional love requires. A satisfying duology closer. (map) (Fantasy. 13-18)

Mismatched: A Modern Graphic Retelling of Emma

Camlin, Anne | Illus. by Isadora Zeferino Little, Brown Ink (264 pp.) | $17.99 paper Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780316704106

Series: Classic Graphic Remix

Style influencer, ballet dancer, out-and-proud president of his school’s gaystraight alliance, and social expert: Is there anything Evan Horowitz can’t do?

In this contemporary retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma , white Jewish

Evan is ending junior year determined to generously share his wisdom with his ragtag group of classmates. Most in need is Natalia, the naïve new girl whom Evan immediately takes on as a makeover-and-matchmaking project. Various pairings ensue, including secret dating, Rainbow Prom drama, and an ill-advised crush. Evan’s lifelong best friend is the sensible and steady Brazilian American Davi, who frequently shuts down his schemes and notions. The pair are so comfortable together that the first sparks of friendship turning to romance take them both by surprise. Camlin draws as much on Clueless as they do on the original novel, closely following the expected plot beats, which, if not exactly innovative, will be agreeable to fans of the film. Evan’s characterization is easily the star of the show; he’s a worthy Emma Woodhouse analogue whose sky-high confidence and charm don’t waver despite his myriad flaws. The less well-developed supporting cast members are allowed fun moments. There’s a wholesome simplicity to Zeferino’s art, with its bright pastel colors and fluid linework lending a cheerful and welcoming aesthetic to the people and places of the Queens setting and humor to the characters’ interactions.

A pleasant and amusing retelling.

(Graphic fiction. 12-18)

For another Jane Austen retelling, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Ida, in Love

and in Trouble

Chambers, Veronica | Little, Brown (400 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780316500166

A fictionalized account of a pivotal decade in the life of pioneering journalist and suffragist Ida B. Wells, focusing on her burgeoning career and active love life.

Born in Mississippi, the oldest in a large family, Wells lost her parents to yellow fever. She began her career as a schoolteacher in Memphis, Tennessee, a coveted position for a woman at the time. Her people were unknown to the Black elite of the Upper Tenth, but Wells, an ardent admirer of arts and literature, found community at the Memphis Lyceum literary salon and was appointed editor of its literary journal. As her editorials appeared in Black weeklies in other cities, she built a reputation for her writing. She had no shortage of attention from interested gentlemen near and far, but Wells remained keenly aware of the domestic societal pressures on women. Chambers offers a riveting account of the early-adult years of a revolutionary journalist whose work was “pinned on [her] heart, more permanently than any suitor ever could be.” The book, which spans the years 1885-1895, maintains historical continuity and doesn’t shy away from (or overdramatize) Wells’ own documented introspection about her love life. The lively writing invites readers on a riveting

journey through Wells’ rise to becoming one of the most important journalists in a country that was in constant turmoil and transition. A vivid, timely, and immersive introduction to an activist and her enduring legacy. (author’s note, sources, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

The Loss of the Burying Ground

Coats, J. Anderson | Candlewick (288 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781536232387

Two girls from enemy countries find themselves inextricably linked after a shipwreck. When Cora, the daughter of a journalist from Dura, wakes up on a deserted island after surviving a shipwreck, she thinks she’s alone until she finds her way to Vivienne, another survivor, who was lady’s maid to the drowned princess of Ariminthia. The ship they were on, the Burying Ground , was intended to be the neutral location for the signing of a peace treaty between the two long-warring nations. But the ship went down before the treaty could be finalized, and Cora and Vivienne find themselves at the mercy of the elements and at risk from pirates; they’re forced to form an uneasy partnership to stay alive while grieving the losses of those they knew on board. When they’re unexpectedly rescued by an Ariminthian ship, the situation quickly becomes complicated and

A vivid and immersive introduction to an activist and her enduring legacy.

IDA, IN LOVE AND IN TROUBLE

dangerous, with Cora being accused of war crimes. The girls must wade through the propaganda they’ve each been exposed to their entire lives, trying to learn the truth. Told in alternating first-person perspectives, the story moves quickly and paints a convincing portrait of the lives of ordinary citizens caught up in the political games of their governments. While the worldbuilding can be difficult to follow at first, it ultimately finds its footing, allowing Vivienne and Cora to take center stage. The characters have minimal physical descriptions and are racially ambiguous. An intriguing fantastical take on contemporary political themes. (Fantasy. 13-18)

Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch

Crowley, Codie | Disney-Hyperion (304 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781368099905

A dead girl seeks the truth about her violent murder in this horrorfueled adventure. Bad girl— “to be honest, I think I’d rather be dead than good”—Annie Lane wakes up after her death in a freezing river. She’s on top of New Jersey’s Resurrection Peak, near a desolate, ghost-filled town with no clear memory of how she got there. Annie finds community at Chapel House, an abandoned mansion where she meets a crew of the similarly undead. They include Sam, a James Dean look-alike whom she becomes attracted to. With Sam’s occasional help, Annie begins an investigation to find her murderer, starting with confronting her musician ex-boyfriend, Morgan “Gun” Donovan, whose show she attended the night of her death. She also discovers that Maura, her Princeton-bound, aspiring journalist best friend, has been missing since the night she died, and Annie

becomes determined to find her. She gets no support from her cruel and neglectful mother, but Maura’s dad, who’s the local sheriff, has always treated Annie like she was his own daughter. The visceral language in Crowley’s debut punctuates the nonstop action and brings the eerie supernatural scenes to life. Unexplained plot holes make for uneven storytelling, however, and the lack of clear worldbuilding is frustrating. Main characters are cued white. A plot-driven revenge story that struggles to clearly set the scene. (author’s note with content warnings) (Paranormal thriller. 14-18)

Go Home

Farish, Terry & Lochan Sharma Groundwood (304 pp.) | $19.99 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781773069104

In a rural community plagued by racism, young neighbors forge an unexpected friendship. A new family has moved in across the street from 16-year-old Olive and her mom. Olive recognizes the boy, Samir, from English class. After being deported from Bhutan and living in a refugee camp, Samir and his family have settled in coastal New Hampshire, where they plan to open a Nepali restaurant, a unique contribution to the predominantly white community. Olive’s boyfriend, Gabe, who’s influenced by his white supremacist family’s harsh anti-immigration stance, blames immigrants for taking jobs from Americans and smuggling fentanyl into the country. Olive is deeply in love with Gabe despite his racism and aggression, but she begins to question their relationship when Gabe targets Samir with physical violence and verbal abuse, taunting him to “go home.” After someone throws a brick through Samir’s window,

The provocative artwork blends kaleidoscopic visuals with an impish sense of humor.

ME LLAMO MARCELA

Olive wonders whether Gabe is involved. And as the racist attacks against Samir and his family intensify, Olive’s forced to reevaluate her future with Gabe in a compelling character arc. Readers follow the leads through alternating third-person chapters as their stories gradually unfold, until their voices converge in a final chapter headed “Samir and Olive.” The teens discover a deep connection through warm moments, such as Olive’s teaching Samir to swim. The interplay between the new friends, who are united by dreams of a better life, is quietly absorbing. Meaty and complex; a slow-paced, character-driven tale. (historical note, authors’ notes) (Fiction. 13-18)

Me llamo Marcela: My Story as a Heritage Speaker

Garcés, Marcela T. | Illus. by Andrés E. Garcés | Mad Creek/Ohio State Univ. Press (70 pp.) | $14.95 paper | Aug. 26, 2024 9780814259153 | Series: Latinographix

The unexpected effects of language on cultural identity come into focus in this beguiling graphic memoir. It began in Spanish class, where 13-year-old Marcela learned she possessed an advantage over her classmates due to language exposure at home with her Colombian father and Spanish-speaking American mother. Grammatical rules threw the teen for a loop, however. Under the tutelage of her kind maestra,

Doña Maribel, Marcela picked up the intricacies of sentence formations and conjugations in Spanish. Connecting the initiation of her formal education in Spanish with the informal lessons gleaned at home in Michigan and during rare family trips to Colombia, the author connects various eye-opening threads exploring the ways that language can shape—and even inhibit—one’s identity development, from examples set forth by “unofficial teachers”—street vendors and a foul-mouthed soccer-watching uncle—to experiences in which others questioned her identity. Amid these shared encounters, the author circles back to familia, which formed the roots of her eventual desire to connect with her Colombian relatives and embrace Spanish in the classroom and abroad in Spain. Selfhood remains ever changing throughout her reflections: “What is identity, anyways? It’s constantly changing, and being a heritage speaker means I inhabit different cultural spaces and am always negotiating inbetweenness.” Meanwhile, the provocative black-and-white artwork—contributed by the author’s brother—blends kaleidoscopic visuals with an impish sense of humor.

A candid rumination on cultural heritage, connection, and determined individuality. (Graphic memoir. 12-18)

For another book about language and identity, visit Kirkus online.

THE KIRKUS Q&A: HOPE JAHREN

In her first novel, the scientist and writer fleshes out a girl who appears briefly in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn

BY KATE TUTTLE

IT’S BEEN A BUSY year for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

One novel has already retold Mark Twain’s classic from an alternative point of view: Percival Everett’s acclaimed bestseller James. Now comes Adventures of Mary Jane (Delacorte, June 25). Hope Jahren’s young adult novel centers on a character who appears in only 30 pages of Huckleberry Finn but, in her brief arc, entrances Huck (“I hain’t ever seen her since, but I reckon I’ve thought of her a many and a many a million times,” Twain has him say). The scientist and author of Lab Girl and The Story of More grew up loving Twain’s classic, and her aim isn’t to reinvent that book—in a note, she writes that she hopes Twain would like hers as well—but rather to give literary life to a character who’s always made her curious.

Jahren, who spoke with Kirkus from her home in Oslo, Norway, says she kept all dialogue from Huck and Mary Jane’s interactions “just as Twain wrote it.” The task of creating Mary Jane’s story beyond the pages of Twain’s book led to a major research project. Jahren dug into the details of 1846 America during this “really fun” project, from Mississippi River steamboats to the food, clothing, and other details of daily life. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

particularly the ones in Greenville, Mississippi, are so monumental to the plot. That’s when Huck first decides to be a moral person—that’s the first time he makes a moral choice for the sake of doing the right thing, as opposed to getting what he wants.

There’s this set of chapters in which he’s interacting with Mary Jane and her cousins during their uncle’s funeral. And then he leaves them.

between her and Huck a million times. And I thought, What if she was just as smart and resourceful and talented as all the girls I’ve ever known? All the real girls

At what point did you decide that you were going to fill her out, make her a character, and write a book about her?

Do you remember the first time you read Huckleberry Finn?

What I remember most is when we [listened to it] as an audiobook in the car as a family. We were in Minnesota, and my son was about 8 or 9, and he just couldn’t get enough of it. It was one of those [times] where you get where you’re going and you just stay in the car to

keep listening. I started to analyze: Why does he love this book so much? And I started to notice structural things about it—it moves so fast! The action is just incredible, one thing on top of another. And the old voice in the back of my head started to say, There aren’t really any interesting women characters. And yet the female characters,

And he’s obviously fallen very deeply in love with this girl. But she doesn’t make sense as a character to me. You know, people are complicated. And she is just so simple—it’s almost like somebody putting on an act of being simple. It just didn’t make sense. So my first thought was to read and read and reread the dialogue

This might sound kind of goofy, but I honestly believe she’s a real person. I honestly believe that this is a girl and this is what happened to her. Once I figured out who she was, it was just a matter of writing it down. She’d been through so much. Huck thought that he was in it up to his ears, and she was, too, right? And I just felt like this person needed the dignity of being recognized for who she really was. And I hoped that a book could do that.

How did you find that real girl and put her on the page?  First, I got to know her by what she did say. And then I got to know her by what she didn’t say—what she was really saying when I read between the lines. And then it was just a matter of looking at her more carefully. What kind of shoes was she probably wearing? I got a book, and I learned all this great stuff—people, except for the very, very rich, didn’t have different pairs of shoes. I thought that by envisioning her world, learning everything I could about the ways things worked back then, that I would more fully be able to understand a girl like that. There’s really nothing made up about her.

Was the book always aimed at young adult readers?  I’ve always seen writing young adult fiction as the gold ring of authorship, in

that these are the most precious readers we have. Young adults read with this intensity that you just never have again in your life. They’ll read and they won’t want to eat or sleep; they want to stay up and read this book. The characters in a book become the people in your life; they’re just as real to you as they are.

We talk about raising kids to have empathy. Empathy is realizing that everybody has their own story—all these people that you meet and you don’t know very well, they all have their own stories that are just as complex and important [as yours].

You talk about encounters that can build empathy; Mary Jane has lots of them on her travels. How did you create that landscape and set of people?

I walked that path, Mary Jane’s route, many times. Huck falls in love with her,

I’ve always seen writing young adult fiction as the gold ring of authorship, in that these are the most precious readers we have.

and she falls in love with Huck, and I wondered, Why? What do they have in common? If you read Huckleberry Finn, Huck has this incredible love affair with the river, and I thought they should have that in common. She should be able to relate to a lot of the stuff he was talking about.

When I was in college, I learned that Huckleberry Finn was the birth of American literature—that it was the first American “road” story. Then I read Vanessa Veselka’s work on why there aren’t any women’s road stories. I got really interested in [the idea of] what the girl’s story would be. This great piece of American literature has a boy who travels through time and space and comes of age and sees the world the way it is and makes his own decisions based on his own compass of what’s right and wrong.

What does it look like for a girl to go that distance?

Mary Jane also has moments of social satire. There’s a pastor who talks about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints exactly as Trump talked about Mexicans, for instance. As I did the research, I started to get a broader view of the decades before the Civil War, which was a very similar time to right now in some ways. If you look at some of Andrew Jackson’s speeches and compare them to Trump’s, it’s uncanny. We like to think that the dramas we’re experiencing today are special, the product of this unique configuration of events. But some of them are much more the fundamental moral challenges that each generation is conscripted to interrogate.

Kate Tuttle is a writer and editor in New Jersey.

The Hysterical Girls of St. Bernadette’s

Hanna Alkaf | Salaam Reads/Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781534494589

An all-girls school in Kuala Lumpur is beset by a mass hysteria of screaming students.

The first screamer was the new girl. Soon, more terrified shrieks echo off the old stone walls of prestigious St. Bernadette’s, a school with a reputation for grooming Malaysia’s brightest young women. Sixteenyear-old Khadijah Rahmat doesn’t speak much and is dealing with trauma after a sexual assault. Rachel Lian, an academic super-achiever, is struggling to emerge from the shadow of her overbearing mother. When Khadijah’s sister becomes a screamer—and the screamers start disappearing—she feels compelled to act. Rachel, meanwhile, is haunted by the ghost of a screamer who disappeared years ago. Khadijah and Rachel uncover dark secrets the school would rather keep hidden. The atmospheric writing creates a sense of foreboding that effectively portrays the horror of the girls who are pulled into the unknown. The complex motherdaughter relationships show how the teens’ lack of agency affects them: From decisions over academics and extracurricular activities to being monitored when they should be supported and finding their concerns brushed off, there’s a sense of their being trapped by duty and societal expectations. Unfortunately, the girls’ voices feel interchangeable and older than their years, and experienced genre readers may easily anticipate the big reveal. Still, the story admirably takes on themes of trauma and sexual assault and encourages the girls to find their voice.

A perceptive examination of trauma and its manifestation on women’s bodies, minds, and voices. (content note) (Thriller. 13-18)

To Serve

Jacobs, Ben | 5310 Publishing (360 pp.)

$28.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9781998839186

An a ndroid rail against the limitations placed on his kind.

One of the first things Caden learns is that he’s not human: He’s a custom-designed BIOSynthetics emotional support android ordered by 29-year-old James Middleton. Caden’s age has been set at 16 so that he can befriend and support James’ 15-year-old brother, Abel. Despite James’ attempts to humanize Caden (for example, by giving him ordinary clothing in lieu of his uniform), Caden is brutally reminded of his status by stern, automated warnings and programming that seizes control of his body if he doesn’t perform to standard. Despite his growing camaraderie with Abel, Caden remains aware that if the Middletons become tired of him, they can activate a recall code, erasing his memories, and then return him to be sold as a used model. When James relapses in his alcohol addiction and is arrested for drunk driving, Caden finds himself at a crossroads. Rather than hand Abel over to foster care and turn himself in to BIOS for resale, Caden becomes a Defective, an android who breaks free of its programming. Abel and Caden

must carefully navigate their tenuous situation in order to avoid being discovered and separated. While the secondary characters are well developed, Caden is a disappointing lead who’s held back by some of his decisions, and the derivative worldbuilding contains details whose significance is never fully explained.

Retreads old ground while adding little new material to the genre.

(Science fiction. 14-18)

Pick the Lock

King, A.S. | Dutton (400 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593353974

A white teen living a sheltered life seeks to break her rock-star mother out of the  cycle of abuse perpetrated on their family.

Sixteen-yearold Jane lives in a large, old Victorian house with younger brother Henry, father Vernon, their cook, their gardener— and Mina, her mother, who, when she’s not out on tour with her world-famous punk band, Placenta, is confined by Vernon to a system of pneumatic tubes that traverse their house. Ever since the onset of the global pandemic over four years ago, Jane and Henry haven’t been allowed to return to school, instead receiving a bizarre regimen of home-school instruction from Vernon, while Mina watches on helplessly from her capsule in the tubes. Only when Jane stumbles on a cache of home movies—actually security camera footage from

A perceptive examination of trauma and its manifestation.

THE HYSTERICAL GIRLS OF ST. BERNADETTE’S

around their house dating back to her parents’ courtship days—does she begin to gain some perspective on her dysfunctional, abusive family life. In secret, she starts composing a punk opera to express her desire to save her mother from the life she seems trapped in. When Mina leaves to go on tour for Placenta’s latest album, Jane uses her wits to mount a nascent, persistent rebellion against Vernon’s toxic grip on their family’s psyche. Expertly blending fabulism with hard realism and Victorian language with contemporary teen-speak, this powerful narrative examines the myriad effects of emotional and physical abuse on a family. Painful yet compulsively readable. (Fiction. 14-18)

Authority

Krakover, Jamie | Illus. by Jennifer Stolzer Snowy Wings Publishing (352 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781958051528 Series: The Tracker Sequence, 2

The second installment of this dystopian science fiction series, wh ich is set somewhere near the border of Illinois, opens six months after the end of Tracker220 (2020).

Sixteen-year-old Kaya Weiss and her technologically savvy friends successfully thwarted Rufus Scurry, the mastermind behind Global Tracking Systems, in his bid for world domination through mind control and the manipulation of implanted chip technology. But even though Scurry is currently imprisoned, suspicions arise that dormant trackers are being reactivated for sinister purposes. The team must unite once again to confront this new threat. While the storyline may tread familiar ground in the genre, readers will enjoy the intriguing coding and logic challenges, the group’s romantic

Explores ethical dilemmas associated with scientific advancement.

AUTHORITY

dynamics, and the heart-pounding chase sequences involving flying motorbikes. A refreshingly intimate portrayal of Kaya’s observant Jewish family also offers a novel perspective rarely captured in speculative fiction. The pacing occasionally falters, however, and conflicts are prolonged by simple miscommunications, leading to exaggerated and overly fraught interpersonal drama. Krakover explores ethical dilemmas associated with scientific advancement as Kaya grapples with the potential benefits of trackers, such as crime prevention and health monitoring, juxtaposed with their potential for abuse of power and invasion of privacy. The clever use of a journal entry penned by Kaya with hand-drawn illustrations as a device to organically fill in details for new readers makes the book accessible as a stand-alone title. High stakes ensure an engaging experience for readers. (Dystopian. 13-17)

Touch of Kindness

Loomis, R. | 5310 Publishing (304 pp.)

$29.99 | June 4, 2024 | 9781998839148

A Texas teenager is transported to the Otherworld, where she discovers that she’s engaged to its crown prince. When Dori met Charlotte, a new student at her high school, she was shocked to hear that she was desperate to escape an arranged marriage, not to mention surprised that Charlotte had a magical

gift—and insisted that Dori had one, too. After Charlotte runs away, 18-year-old Dori is kidnapped to become the prince’s betrothed in her stead. Although Dori knew nothing of the Four Worlds—of which the Otherworld and the Mortalworld, or Earth, are only two—she soon finds herself entrenched in the life of the royal palace: going to balls, having adventures, and accidentally falling in love with Prince Garret. Dori desperately wants to go home, but she discovers her own magical gift—a powerful one, at that— which might allow her to enact much-needed change in the Otherworld. Dori must choose whether to stay and accept her fate or return to the life she always thought was her destiny. The novel unfortunately gets bogged down in dull, complicated explanations detailing the politics of the Otherworld, and the narrative pacing isn’t helped by writing that focuses on describing clothing over advancing the plot. The main characters’ slow-burn love affair is both steamy and chaste and will appeal to romance fans. Dori is cued white; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast. A passionate story with serious pacing problems. (Fantasy romance. 12-18)

For another fantasy romance, visit Kirkus online.

The

many heartwarming and heartbreaking moments offer deep insights. EVERYTHING WE NEVER HAD

What We Wish For

Maysonet, Melody | Blackstone (376 pp.) | $16.99 paper Sept. 17, 2024 | 9798212638289

At 15, Layla Freeman is already adept at hiding secrets. Even Layla’s best friend, Morgan, has no idea that Layla’s mother Shauna’s alcoholism has led them to seek refuge at a homeless shelter. There, Layla meets Gabriel, a recovering heroin addict and new student at her school. After Shauna suffers a near-fatal overdose, Layla’s wealthy aunt and uncle offer her a place to live; they pay for rehab on the condition that their past will remain hidden to protect her uncle’s mayoral campaign. This secrecy strains Layla’s friendship with Morgan and complicates her feelings for Gabriel. Caught up in the comforts of her new lifestyle—complete with a smartphone, expensive clothes, and a comfortable bed— Layla tolerates her uncle’s temper until Shauna’s relapse triggers a violent clash. This incident unleashes an explosive family secret, forcing Layla to seek help from those she’s pushed away. Maysonet depicts the stark impact of addiction with compassion, emphasizing the toll it takes on sufferers and their loved ones alike. Layla’s internal struggles with guilt and self-loathing offer a realistic glimpse into the emotional turmoil of those affected by substance abuse and poverty. Although Layla’s uncle’s villainy at times feels overdone, the book’s strengths lie

in its rich character development and poignant narrative. Layla and Gabriel read white; Morgan is Black. Simultaneously tragic and hopeful and consistently authentic. (author’s note) (Fiction. 14-18)

I Felt Myself Slipping

Nadine, Ray | Oni Press (208 pp.) | $14.99 paper | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781637154960

Two teen gymnasts in a small city in Illinois navigate friendship, love, and loss.

It’s 1996, and Riley, a whitepresenting, hardof-hearing girl from California, is the newest member on the gymnastics team. Kota, a biracial (white and Japanese) girl with an androgynous, punky style, is curious about Riley—and even a bit smitten. While Riley struggles to live without her father, who died several years ago, as well as the friends back home who no longer keep in touch, Kota must learn to be brave in both gymnastics and life. Despite dealing with some painful emotions, the story feels gentle, with characters who all mean well and try their best. The illustrations are primarily an attractive grayscale with blue and green accents. The figures and faces are expressive but have an unpolished quality that detracts slightly from their impact. The backgrounds and settings are much stronger, however, creating atmosphere with the careful addition of warm colors. In Nadine’s 1990s

Middle America, people are nonchalant about queerness. Riley is portrayed without a signing Deaf community. Riley’s and Kota’s storylines wrap up nicely in this sweet, tender story about the importance of courage and connection, which will appeal to readers who enjoy nostalgia, gymnastics, or loving queer friendships.

A warm, cozy read.

(Graphic fiction. 12-17)

With Love, Echo Park

Namey, Laura Taylor | Atheneum (320 pp.)

$19.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781665915366

A teen florist in Los Angeles tries to preserve her community’s Cuban American heritage amid gentrification and surprise revelations. Seventeen-yearold Clary Delgado is incredibly proud of being part of the historic Latino neighborhood of Echo Park. Raised by her beloved grandparents and single father (Clary’s birth mother abandoned her as a newborn), she’s grown up in a tight-knit community of Cuban American business owners; her family owns the local flower shop, where she works. The Avalos family owns the neighboring bike shop, where her handsome rival, Emilio, is the heir apparent. Ever since childhood, Clary and Emilio have been trying to “outsmart the other. Or out-annoy.” The summer before senior year, three events rock Clary’s steady foundations: A wise community patriarch dies, a trendy doughnut shop appears set to take over a recently closed storefront, destroying a historic mural, and someone shows up bearing startling revelations. Namey focuses on Clary’s character growth, from loyal and steadfast (but also stubborn and judgmental) to more empathetic, open-minded, and open-hearted. Some minor repetitive elements

interfere with the pacing and characterization, but the third act delivers a satisfying blend of romance, social activism, and deep roots. Clary’s charming Boricua best friend, Lourdes, has scene-stealing main-character energy. This earnest coming-of-age story is a tribute to family, culture, and resilience. (author’s note) (Fiction. 12-18)

Gita Desai Is Not Here To Shut Up

Patel, Sonia | Dial Books (400 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593463185

In 1992, Stanford freshman Gita Desai dreams of becoming a doctor. Gita is motivated in part by the encouragement of Pinky Auntie, her father’s sister who lived with Gita’s family for a few years before abruptly returning to India when Gita was 9. Pinky’s disappearance haunts Gita, as do unsettling memories involving Neil, Pinky’s husband, and Neil’s friend Bhavin. At college, Gita meets fellow freshmen Jane West and Marisol Walter, and they immediately form a trio. Gita, whose family is Gujarati, cherishes these new friendships but is exasperated by the endless attention that her two charming, beautiful friends receive from men—attention that never extends to her. Gita’s realization that she longs to be desirable coincides with her first sexual encounter, which turns into assault. She blames herself and tells herself she must “work hard and fix it ,” but subsequent sexual encounters end similarly, with Gita unable to vocalize her refusal and dissociating. As Gita’s self-shaming intensifies, so does the return of disjointed childhood memories— until she arrives at an awful truth. The sense of dread builds until an

explosive, cathartic confrontation occurs. Patel, whose own experiences inform this story, infuses Gita’s first-person narration with thoughtfulness and humor that make her growing confusion and self-loathing cut deeply. Thankfully, Gita’s friends are there to support her when she finally finds her voice. Funny, messy, gut-wrenching; a tough read that’s worth the discomfort. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 15-18)

Kirkus Star

Everything We Never Had

Ribay, Randy | Kokila (288 pp.)

$18.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593461419

Explores the relationships among four generations of Filipino American boys and men. In 1929, 16-year-old Francisco Maghabol immigrates from Ilocos Sur in the Philippines to California, lured by the promise of riches. Instead, he ends up doing grueling agricultural work for a dollar a day and faces violent racism. In 1965, Emil studies hard, hoping to attend college and make it in America, unlike his absent father, Francisco. Determined to escape his father’s divisive reputation for organizing strikes for Filipino workers, Emil attempts to assimilate. In Colorado in 1983, Chris wants to play football, but his controlling, grades-focused dad, Emil, forces him off the team. A school history assignment and a Filipino classmate make Chris realize he wants to learn about the culture his father has erased. In 2020, Enzo, Chris’ son, has just started managing his anxiety—but thanks to the spreading pandemic, Lolo Emil, the grandfather none of them like, comes to live with them in Philadelphia, causing tension. Told in

alternating viewpoints, this strongly characterized novel covers the boys’ struggles with identity against the backdrop of changes in American society. The many heartwarming and heartbreaking moments offer deep insights into intergenerational patterns and how one’s life experiences and upbringing affect parenting and relationships. Ribay weaves historical events in the U.S. and the Philippines and Filipino cultural elements into the story, showing their impact on the Filipino diaspora.

A powerful and moving family saga. (family tree, author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 12-18)

Treasures of Egypt: The Spear & the Scythe

Saleh, Amr | Our Street Books (400 pp.) | $21.95 paper Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781803416007

A fantasy deep dive into ancient Egyptian mythology. Nefiri works for the Egyptian police force, but she buys medicine for her younger brother through the Hyksos black market. Khafset, a Hyksos Canaanite, promises her the recipe for the medicine if she helps him steal a god’s spear from Ra’s temple. Despite the hostilities between the Hyksos and the Egyptians, Nefiri agrees, against her better judgment. But when she touches the spear, Set, the god of destruction, chooses Nefiri as the one to awaken him in the Egyptian underworld, sending her and Khafset on an odyssey they can’t refuse. Gods and goddesses, pharaohs and queens support their quest to bring balance to Egypt—a land divided by slavery. Nefiri’s Nubian mother is deceased, and her fair-skinned Egyptian father abandoned her as a child. Now she

learns more about her heritage and the source of her magic. Whether she can trust Khafset with his “honey eyes” with her heart—and her quest—remains to be seen. This novel incorporates wide-ranging and detailed characters, backstories, and settings from Egyptian mythology, which add complexity to the storyline, sometimes to the detriment of the pacing. In this fantasy Egypt, people are never quite what they seem; transformation is the rule, not the exception. The plot twists are equally complex as 16-year-olds Nefiri and Khafset struggle to align their goals. A dense, mythological fantasy of epic proportions infused with romance and intrigue. (note to readers) (Fantasy. 15-18)

The New Camelot

Schneider, Robyn | Viking (432 pp.)

$19.99 | Aug. 27, 2024

9780593623015 | Series: Emry Merlin, 3

Imagine a world where all genders are equal, merit rather than birth dictates power, and love is love: magic, indeed. Despite packing in at least two books’ worth of content and condensing major portions of the canon into a span of months, this closer effectively wraps up both the trilogy’s dramatic (and sometimes bawdy) teen romances and its competing power plays. In this alternate Arthurian world, Merlin is a girl, Guinevere got pregnant by and eloped with someone who is neither Arthur nor Lancelot (who is himself happily involved with Percival), and Arthur would rather read than

A

lead. Arthur and Emry journey to Anwen on a magical quest and fight multiple battles at home, where Arthur’s council wishes to keep Camelot static, and in the field, where King Yurien seeks dominion over Camelot and is aided by evil sorceress Bellicent. Many secondary characters have their own meaningful arcs, particularly Guinevere and Morgana. Sir Tor, the young nonbinary knight, serves as a wise mentor to Lance and Arthur in ways that readers may find uncomfortably evoke the trope of the “magical other,” but the casual acceptance of a range of queer identities is a key component of the new Camelot. Previous books established racial diversity among secondary characters; class and gender are greater obstacles to acceptance and advancement. A rollicking retelling, wrapping commentary on our world into a delightful ahistorical package. (Historical fantasy. 14-18)

Star Brother

Schur, Maxine Rose | Snowy Wings Publishing (242 pp.) | $22.99 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781958051573

Sixteen-year-old Jason Atwood shocked everyone at his Nevada high school by winning the science fair with his highly realistic holograms. This upset is a precursor to a full-ride scholarship to MIT for Jason, an orphan in the foster care system who’s hardened by trauma and resistant to love. When a strange older man named Roy Calvert approaches him claiming to be his twin brother, Jason can’t believe Roy’s outrageous narrative. But as it turns

out, Roy and Jason are remarkably similar. They both feel as if they belong to a universe in which we can learn a lot from the stars. They both understand loneliness and must learn to heal together, so a road trip with Roy is the perfect opportunity for Jason to bond with his brother. The book requires some suspension of disbelief, but it’s a page-turner: As Jason and Roy unravel the shocking mystery of their origins, long-lost letters and documents and a secret code help them piece together the truth. Schur intersperses snippets from the past into the main storyline, expanding on the backstory. Jason’s trauma responses are realistically and empathetically written. Despite a rushed series of events at the end and an explanation that feels like it comes out of nowhere, the book ultimately succeeds in combining science fiction elements with a heartfelt storyline. Major characters read white. A wild ride with plenty of heart. (Science fiction. 13-18)

Blood Mage

Villoso, K.S. | Snowy Wings Publishing (510 pp.) | $30.99 July 30, 2024 | 9781958051658

Series: The Dageian Puppetmaster, 2

In a continuation of the events of the series opener, a mage finds herself at the center of multiple plots to seize control over the Empire of Dageis. Outlaw mage Rosha Tar’elian is still working to fulfill her deal with Firekeeper Ceres, magically controlling the simulacrum of the Emperor of Dageis in return for (relative) freedom. At the same time, she must hide the fact that her powers are waning, forcing her to rely on forbidden blood magic. The situation worsens when Ivasus ban-Sokur, a spoiled aristocrat and antagonist from Rosha’s school days, voices suspicions about the death of

Lord Cato, who was shown in the series opener to be the emperor’s puppetmaster. Though he’s unaware of this fact, Ivasus smells something rotten, threatening blackmail unless his demands for resources and power are met. In a parallel narrative, readers learn the true motives of Nasuha, Rosha’s traveling companion, who was revealed to be an operative for a fringe group called the Lost Ones. A lukewarm romantic plot between Rosha and Felan (a major player in the resolution of the first book) adds another element to the book’s already full plate. The chapters alternate between Rosha’s and Nasuha’s points of view. Unfortunately, these perspective shifts hamper the narrative momentum rather than enhancing it. Brownskinned Rosha and Nasuha are Gorenten and coded as fantasy Southeast Asian; Dageians like Ivasus and Ceres have light eyes and hair. Despite its intriguing premise, this sequel falls short of satisfying. (Fantasy. 13-18)

Kirkus Star

Compound Fracture

White, Andrew Joseph | Peachtree Teen (416 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781682636121

An autistic, transgender teen seeks justice as a 100-year-old feud threatens his family and anyone who associates with them. In 1917, the sheriff of Twist Creek County executed a man named Saint Abernathy, leader of the coal miners’ strike, by hammering a railroad spike through his mouth. A century later, the mines have closed, but Miles, as an Abernathy, is caught up in the cycle of oppression and violent vengeance that killed his great-great-grandfather Saint. On the night of the annual high school

Unflinching and empowering.

COMPOUND FRACTURE

graduation party, Miles hits send on an email telling his parents he’s trans and then sneaks out of the house with photos stolen from his father’s lockbox—photos offering proof that Sheriff Davies caused the “accident” that killed Miles’ former best friend Cooper’s mother five years ago. Before Cooper and Miles can decide on their next steps, the feud is reignited, and neither of them can outrun the flames. White captures violence with vivid and lethal precision. Set in rural West Virginia in 2017, this tremendously suspenseful, queer coming-of-age thriller confronts the impact of economic injustice, local political corruption, and generational trauma. As Miles fights for himself and his family, he’s haunted by the ghost of Saint Abernathy. His struggle to understand his ancestor parallels his journey to understand and accept himself. The cast of white characters includes representation of those who are marginalized for being fat, disabled, and queer and living with disfigurement. The hopeful, satisfying ending emerges from community collaboration. Unflinching and empowering. (Thriller. 14-18)

Helga

Yu, Catherine | Page Street (352 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9798890039514

A teenager who was created in a lab tries to find her place in the world while searching for her soul mate. Eighteen-yearold Helga isn’t like other

girls—she’s the result of an experiment by her father, a revered scientist in Amaris City who speaks Mandarin and studied in China, and his 20-something assistant. When she’s finally brought to life, it’s clear that Helga is nothing like the obedient automated machine that her father, enabled by the wealth and innovative ambition of the Institute, originally designed. Despite his disapproval, Helga yearns to learn more about the volcanic island that she calls home, especially the hip area called Downhill. When Helga’s father takes a business trip, she seizes the opportunity to explore. She saturates herself in the people, sights, and sounds of Downhill, and her desire for autonomy and true love grows in urgency. As the clock ticks down to her father’s return, Helga falls for Clyde, a slender, pierced, and charmingly deceptive blue-eyed musician with dreams of stardom, whose ulterior motives could destroy her dreams of freedom. The narrative, told through Helga’s bright- eyed point of view, cleverly pays tribute to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein . Helga’s inner journey to understanding morality, mortality, and identity is engaging, and her voice captures an entertaining yet heartfelt depiction of sheltered girlhood in rebellion. Helga’s described as appearing Asian. A delightful update on a familiar classic, pulsing with youthful optimism and punk rock attitude. (Horror. 14-18)

For another take on Frankenstein, visit Kirkus online.

EDITORS’ PICKS:

A Cloud Called Bhura: Climate Champions to the Rescue by Bilal Vachharajani, illus. by Aindri C. (Blackstone)

Five Stories by Ellen Weinstein (Holiday House)

Joyful Recollections of Trauma by Paul Scheer (HarperOne)

THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Marginal Man: Life of Emilio Goggio by Paul Redvers Brown

It Was Her New York: True Stories and Snapshots by C.O. Moed

Let Them Whimper: A Fully Justified (in No Way Personal) Argument for the Abandonment of Humankind by K. Enterante

Fully Booked is produced by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.

Fully Booked

It’s all about fantasy fiction in this special Takeover episode of the podcast. BY MEGAN LABRISE

EPISODE 373: GUEST HOST

CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI

On this Fully Booked Takeover episode, special guest host Christo pher Paolini welcomes fellow fantasy stars Rachel Hartman and Marie Brennan for an invigorating conversation in which there will be dragons.

The Fully Booked Takeover invites a beloved bestselling author to become our special guest host for one episode. They choose another author—or authors—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 them.

Paolini is the No. 1 New York Times –bestselling author of the Inheritance Cycle, anchored by Eragon , the novel he wrote and self-published as a teenager—a copy of which Carl Hiaasen picked up on vacation in Montana and forwarded to his editors at Random House Children’s Books. When reintroduced by Knopf in 2003, it sold 1 million copies in just six months. The series was continued in the novels Eldest , Brisingr, and Inheritance

Last fall, 12 years after releasing the fourth volume, he published a fifth book in the cycle, Murtagh. Kirkus called it a “much-needed follow-up centering a beloved character.”

Paolini is also the author of a follow- up story collection, The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm , and the stand-alone adult novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars , which Kirkus called “a fun fast-paced epic that science fiction fans will gobble up.”

Paolini is joined by awardwinning authors Rachel Hartman and Marie Brennan. Hartman is the author of Seraphina , Shadow Scale , Tess of the Road , and In the Serpent’s

Murtagh

Paolini, Chris Knopf | 704 pp. | $29.99 Nov. 7, 2023 | 9780593650868

Wake . Brennan is the author of the Doppelganger duology, the Onyx Court series, the Memoirs of Lady Trent series (led by A Natural History of Dragons), and many short stories. Together, this powerful trio explores the writing process, publishing, magical creatures, and much more.

Then Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, and Eric Liebetrau share their top picks in books for the week.

To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.

Indie

MEMOIRS OF THE RAKES’ PROGRESS

MANY MEMOIRS LEAN

toward the emotionally devastating or inspirational; a fair number seem aimed at the authors’ personal circles, summarizing notable careers or charting familial sagas. To be frank, a lamentable percentage of autobiographers fail to heed the classic writing dictum, “Just because it happened to you doesn’t make it interesting.”

What about fun ? Some recent Indie titles that chronicle titillatingly bad behavior have proven to be crackerjack entertainment, offering windows into wildly exotic lifestyles inaccessible to most readers. Combining voyeuristic thrills with gritty authenticity, these walks on the wild side have kept us turning the pages.

In S. Yerucham’s True Stories of the Philosophical Theater (2023), the author recounts the peripatetic wilderness years of his 20s and 30s, when a combination of drugs, ill-considered polyamory, and mental illness resulted in a stay at Bellevue for near-catatonic depression and spurred a spiritual quest that took him to India, Israel, Malaysia, and Thailand, seeking a balm for his restless

soul. Per our reviewer, “the extraordinary quality of the writing” elevates this chronicle of bohemian dissipation and philosophical yearning above similar redemption narratives; Yerucham, in addition to living a fascinating life, is an effortlessly engaging narrator and gifted wordsmith whose prose, our reviewer notes, attains a “gonzo, hallucinatory quality worthy of Hunter S. Thompson” in passages like the following: “Roasting in the heat, he looked as if he’d been hammered and bronzed in hell furnaces for centuries.”

Liar, Alleged (2023), a scandalous memoir by David Vass, irresistibly dishes celebrity dirt as it follows the misadventures of the author, who got his start as a lighting and sound technician working in Baltimore’s Mafia-run strip joints. Honing his skills in that unforgiving milieu, Vass became a whiz at making performers look and sound good, leading to memorable encounters with such luminaries as Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bette Davis. Vass’ unexpurgated anecdotes about these often

ill-behaved legends are irresistible (he told an abusive Sinatra to “kiss my gay ass”) and revealing; his sensitive remembrance of Fitzgerald’s insecurities is particularly moving. But it’s the raunch that powers this scorchedearth showbiz narrative; Vass describes a stint in prison as “filled with great sex and life lessons,” and, by his estimation, he had 2,000-3,000 intimate partners in New York City’s pre-AIDS gay scene. Our reviewer calls the book “an exuberant sexual picaresque conveyed in cheerfully lewd prose” and praises its “perceptive examination of the truth lying beneath the entertainment industry’s surface fakery.”

The focus is squarely on narcotic knavery in The Next Run by Tom Jenkins, the story of a U.C. Berkeley

ARTHUR SMITH

student’s path to becoming a major player in the U.S. marijuana-smuggling trade.

Beginning as a small-time pot dealer, “when everything seemed so light hearted and romantic,” Jenkins would ultimately organize largescale shipments of tons of contraband between Afghanistan, Mexico, Colombia, and the U.S. The narrative is rich with intriguing details—the author describes how pot-laden speedboats would enter Miami towing water-skiers to throw off the authorities. Our reviewer calls Jenkins “a fantastic storyteller” who relates his hair-raising adventures “with terrific energy and a good deal of humor.”

Arthur Smith is an Indie editor.

EDITOR’S PICK

AN IN-DEPTH examination of the rise and fall of a Russian oligarch. Russian scholar Knight, author of Orders To Kill: The Putin Regime and Political Murder (2017), here delves into the role of ill-fated oligarch Boris Berezovsky in aiding the rise of Vladimir Putin to power. The son of a Jewish civil engineer, Berezovsky had a relatively comfortable upbringing that allowed him to pursue a career in scientific research, a background the author contrasts with Putin’s hardscrabble childhood. While Berezovsky parlayed his scientific knowledge into business partnerships with Russian automobile manufacturers, Putin saw his path to advancement in working for the KGB. Knight traces the two men’s separate careers to the point of their first

encounter in October 1991 and their subsequent influence with Boris Yeltsin. (Using his wealth to gain control of television networks and print media, Berezovsky was instrumental in helping Yeltsin deflect accusations of corruption and stay in office, thereby ensuring the rise of Putin, Yeltsin’s handpicked successor.) Knight’s thorough research and her broad comprehension of Russian politics since the Soviet era allow her to deftly draw linkages between the events that led to Berezovsky’s downfall as she also notes aspects of Berezovsky’s personality that contributed to his demise: “Putin seems to have wisely grasped that such cautious behavior was the only way to survive— and get ahead—in the highly dysfunctional and unpredictable Kremlin.

The Kremlin’s Noose

Knight, Amy | Northern Illinois University Press | 296 pp. | $26.64 April 29, 2024 | 9781501775086

Such wisdom eluded the mercurial Berezovsky.” The author details how Berezovsky’s support of Kremlin whistleblower Alexander Litvinenko and his public chiding of Putin in the media were countered by a steady effort to destroy Berezovsky’s already shady reputation abroad. The result, as Knight astutely points out, was that Berezovsky’s warnings about Russian

authoritarianism went largely unheeded: “His ambition took precedence over concerns about Russia’s democratic development, and his hubris blinded him to the dangers of Putin’s rise to power until it was too late. But he was far from alone in failing to recognize Putin for who he was.”

A chilling, compellingly written exploration of Russian politics.

A pleasantly engaging read for historical fiction fans.

THE SEAFORTH HEIRESS

Café de Sophia

Alsadah, M.A. | BookBaby (192 pp.) $13.99 paper | Oct. 5, 2022 | 9781667853192

Alsadah’s novel charts a teenager’s journey of discovery through the intellectual magic of Socratic dialogue. In the preface to this philosophical novel, the author says he was inspired by the works of Plato and views Plato’s use of reasoned dialogue as the best method of intellectual inquiry. The book’s lead, 16-year-old Nate River, finds himself on a journey of discovery after wandering into the Café de Sophia in Paris, where a small group of regulars use the Socratic method to interrogate the basic questions of human experience. The group’s leader, nicknamed Plato, leads the curious teenager through a series of questions that shifts Nate’s perspective on life. Each session begins with a series of fundamental questions pertaining to, for example, the nature of knowledge, the characteristics of justice and equality, and even how to know the difference between right and wrong. Then the group carefully considers various facets of each topic, defining key terms with precision and discarding any concepts that are irrational or false. Nate, exhilarated by the caliber of the discussions, slowly develops intellectual skills that prompt new worlds of thought (“The conversation opened my eyes to the wide possibilities of words and their meanings and that I should know exactly what a word means before using it”). Alsadah adeptly covers issues of great importance—the nature of love, the impact of personality traits, and the application of logic

to daily life. The format used here, in which an older group of kind and intellectually curious adults helps a young man to see the world clearly and rationally, makes heady concepts accessible to a wide audience. Drawing on an extraordinarily wide range of philosophical, religious, and literary ideas, ranging from Pythagoras to Hermes Trismegistus, Alsadah has produced a work both engaging and substantive.

A smart, carefully constructed philosophical novel.

The Seaforth Heiress: Lady of the Last Prophecy

Bernard, Elizabeth Hutchison | Black Rose Writing (298 pp.) | $22.95 paper July 25, 2024 | 9781685134761

Bernard’s novel chronicles the life of Mary Elizabeth Frederica Mackenzie, the high-spirited daughter of Lord Seaforth, chieftain of the Highlands clan Mackenzie.

By June of 1803, 20-year-old Mary Mackenzie has had her fill of the island of Barbados. She and her family have been there for two years, ever since her father was appointed colonial governor of the island, the Crown’s Caribbean center of trade. (Barbados’ wealth is derived from its prodigious production of sugar cane, farmed by African slaves.) It is on the island where Mary first confronts the cruelty with which the British colonists treat their slaves. To her dismay, she discovers that even her beloved father, beset by gambling debts and in need of an

income-producing investment, has purchased a plantation and 200 slaves. She longs to return to her life in the Highlands and London. Fortunately, she meets and falls in love with someone who can grant that wish: the esteemed Sir Samuel Hood, a commodore in the Royal Navy. After their nuptials, Mary and Samuel set sail for England, establishing residence in Samuel’s elegant London townhouse. Yet a shadow hangs over the couple’s happiness in the form of a frightening 100-year-old prediction from legendary Highlands seer Coinneach Odhar. A free thinker with little regard for religion, Mary has steadfastly refused to give credence to the legendary prophecy of doom (“I did not believe in the curse. I refused to”). But as she suffers one personal tragedy after another, Mary begins to question her skepticism. This second novel in Bernard’s Historic Women of the Highlands series is rooted in historical sources (including the letters and diary of the real Mary Mackenzie) and brought to vivid life by the author’s imaginative and well-paced prose. The poignant, highly dramatic family saga paints a detailed period portrait of the era’s luxurious upper-class British lifestyle and is nicely peppered with appearances from luminaries of the day. It’s gratifying to witness the independent Mary growing into a forceful standard bearer for her family as she lays claim to her position as clan chieftain, the first woman to do so. A pleasantly engaging read for historical fiction fans.

Will End in Fire

Bokat, Nicole | She Writes Press (320 pp.) $17.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781647428044

In Bokat’s novel of upheaval, uncertainty, and revelation, there’s more to one young woman’s traumatic story than meets the eye.

In 2019, 20-something Eleanor “Ellie” Stone is staying in her childhood home in suburban New Jersey for the weekend with her younger brother, Josh. She’s there to keep him safe, since he’s a drug addict. They have an argument, and she leaves the house for about an hour; while she’s away, the family home suddenly catches fire, claiming Josh’s life and leaving Ellie grieving. Soon, she reconnects with her past: The trauma of going largely unnoticed by her mother, the hurt of being bullied by her peers, and her infamous nickname, “Firestarter” (which she received after an accident involving a school friend), all come back to haunt her as she struggles emotionally. “There it was: caught in my throat. My chest. In the back of my eyes. All of these places in my body congested with grief, guilt.” A new relationship blossoms with Josh’s best friend, Drew Colins, who might turn out to be too good to be true. But Josh’s girlfriend, Audrey Findley, uncovers more details about the night of the fire each day. Readers soon learn that almost nothing about the incident is as it seems. By allowing certain details of the narrative to fade into the background over time, Bokat gives readers the opportunity to think about these aspects on their own while connecting the dots and assigning importance to other elements of the story. This plot structure develops the story as the main character develops an elusive, ever-shifting sense of justice. Bokat reveals the solution to the mystery bit by bit, like a jigsaw puzzle, leaving the full picture obscured until the final piece is finally in place. A tumultuous narrative that will confound readers’ expectations and keep them guessing.

Kirkus

Star

Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World

Bostrom, Nick | Ideapress Publishing (536 pp.) $28.99 | March 27, 2024 | 9781646871643

Bostrom conducts a philosophical inquiry into what gives life meaning. The author (Superintelligence, 2014) here examines what he calls “the problem of utopia: the problem we will face after we have solved all the other problems.” He refers to this post-problem “deep utopia” as a “kind of philosophical particle accelerator” that, though clearly hypothetical (as he puts it, “We appear in no imminent danger of running out of woe”), is useful in examining what gives life meaning. Bostrom breaks down a number of different kinds of meaning life might obtain if all obstacles to fulfillment were removed, ranging from pure hedonistic pleasure to “social entanglement”; generally, he’s talking about the mixture of the practical and the personal that’s typically defined as “purpose.” “If someone proclaims X to be the meaning of their life,” he writes, “we may reasonably take X to be some sort of declaration of what they’re about, what they stand for, and what they are ultimately up to.” The author examines various ideas of personal fulfillment against the backdrop of an “encompassing transcendental purpose,” often including references to various schools of philosophy. The “decabillionaire’s gigayacht” is discussed right alongside Nietzsche and Camus in a quest to understand what kinds of things might give life meaning in a world without problems—and, by extension, in a world currently full of problems. One might think that as those problems get smaller, the passion they generate would also decline, but Bostrom points out that this isn’t always so: As he observes, more people cheer a soccer goal than cheer the eradication of a disease.

Bostrom is a marvelously energetic prose stylist; it’s uncanny how often he turns subjects like utilitarianism and Malthusian superabundance into genuinely thrilling reading. He vigorously explores the ramifications of the “age of abundance” he envisions that might supplant the “shallow redundancy” of current occupational labor: “Since it would eliminate both the need and the opportunity for paid work,” he writes, “it would cause one source of purpose to dry up, namely the purpose that many people currently find in their jobs.” Some of his authorial devices might come off as a bit twee (the ongoing Socratic dialogue between voices called Kelvin, Tessius, and Firafix, for instance, which runs throughout the book and grows tiresome after three pages), and some of his contentions will strike readers as debatable, to say the least. When he posits that a “maximally technologically capable” society would also be “very good,” for instance, he might be taking optimism a bit far. But the bulk of the text is immensely accessible and thought-provoking. Through it all, Bostrom employs a wry understated humor that’s often very quiet in its punchlines. “While technically doable,” he writes in one of many such passages, “eliminating boredom feelings would incur an ethical cost by distancing us from the normative ideal that our attitudes should match reality.” Tech fans will have much to consider here. A complex and stimulatingly provocative look at just how possible a fulfilling life might be.

A Sister Ago

Buhr, Caitlin | Atmosphere Press (276 pp.) $15.99 paper | May 14, 2024 | 9798891322325

A woman searches for answers about the sudden death of her sister in Buhr’s family drama.

A year after the death of her sister, Rachel, from an overdose, Chris-

tine Lange receives a surprise phone call from a woman named Keji Nakayama. Walter Anderson, a therapist Christine saw a few times before her sister’s death, has been talking about her and gave Keji, another one of his patients, Christine’s number. When the two women meet, Christine learns that Keji’s brother, Yota, also recently overdosed, that he knew Rachel, and that they both knew Walter. Though Christine has spent the past year hiding from her grief by burying herself in her work for a Seattle nonprofit organization, now she’s determined to find answers about the end of Rachel’s life. Along the way, she becomes close friends with Keji and finally starts to heal. The framing of the story is a bit misleading—the opening seems to set up a mystery surrounding the events leading to Rachel’s death, with Walter as a potential villain. Yet Rachel’s death turns out to be not very mysterious at all, and Walter’s impact on the plot is much smaller than initially implied. The timeline jumps around, from Christine’s childhood to her adolescence to her adulthood, but the skips are never confusing. The story comes together in a collage of grief that is achingly and intimately drawn: “That comment stung....What Christine had only just realized one day previously when her dad said the words, ‘Your sister’s gone,’ Rachel had known well enough to share with her AA sponsor. They weren’t close.” The characters are all fully realized, especially Rachel, though the sections from her point of view feel a bit extraneous. While Christine’s journey to find her sister might have been more powerful if readers didn’t have the information that she’s missing, this quietly painful story of loss is not one to miss.

A heart-rending character study.

Passport Stamps: Searching the World for a War To Call Home

Carberry, Sean D. | Madville Publishing (352 pp.) | $17.35 paper Aug. 15, 2023 | 9781956440553

A war correspondent explores the dark corners of post-9/11 world history in this debut memoir. Carberry never imagined himself a journalist, let alone a war correspondent who’d spend years in some of the most dangerous places in the world. As a Gold Record–winning audio engineer and record producer, he produced the radio show The Connection, aired by Boston’s National Public Radio. Following a traumatic personal experience and the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent war in Afghanistan, he felt called by “a sense of public duty” to shift careers. More than a decade later, as a Peabody Award–winning journalist for NPR, the author offers a “Bourdainesque travel book” that takes readers on an international tour that juxtaposes the “dust, grit, ragged infrastructure…and way too much food poisoning” of war-torn nations with the “beauty, humanity, generosity, [and] kindness” of people (and cats) encountered along the way. Aside from occasional stints in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Serbia, and Washington, D.C., most of the book takes place in North Africa and the Middle East as Carberry covers the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region and America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s an intimate book—much of the narrative focuses on the author battling his own personal demons (“I am still broken and full of holes,” he writes in the final pages), and Carberry openly discusses sensitive topics that include post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideations, gruesome violence, and loneliness. With an advanced degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a career that included a stint at the Department of Defense, the author has a firm grasp on historical context and

international politics. As such, he offers a well-informed, probing commentary on American foreign policy in the 21st century as well as a behind-the-scenes look at modern journalism, which, he notes, is often based on “dumb luck.”

Citing Hunter S. Thompson and Warren Zevon (who provided “the soundtrack to this book”) as his influences, Carberry relates globe-hopping, often chaotic anecdotes that effectively evoke both his internal turmoil and the existential dangers that surrounded him for years. A poignant, gritty memoir of a disillusioned reporter.

Stillness in the Roar of Experience: Existential Reflections

Chan, William W. | Self (168 pp.) | $14.50 paper | March 8, 2024 | 9798884251441

An ailing man attempts to pin down the secret of life in Chan’s philosophical debut memoir.

The author is sick: He requires dialysis due to an issue with his kidneys. Rather than walling him off from the world, however, Chan’s sickness has made him more attuned to life’s minutiae. He regards his dialysis as a kind of enforced mindfulness practice: “When I pushed the needles in,” he writes, “my thinking was summarily stopped and purged—the needling demanded all my attention. Any frivolous thoughts that flowed through my mind were quickly burned and wiped away.” In these 329 short sections, reminiscent of the chapters of the Tao Te Ching, the author muses on the nature of existence and its many mysteries. The death of his mother after a two-week illness helps him to realize how slippery reality becomes for the dying—how the living mingle with ghosts, and how everything that has gone returns near the end. The sight of three deer and a few rabbits in the midst of a snowy industrial park strikes Chan with the force of a religious

Readers will root for the lead to turn her life around in this cozy, accessible novel.

FINDING FRAN

vision, leaving him longing for the wordless existence of animals. His wife of 40 years, E., who lovingly assists him with his treatments, is a frequent source of wonder who evokes the enigmas of love, memory, companionship, time, and more. The author approaches the beauty and incomprehensibility of life in a way that feels neither pretentious nor willfully naïve. Most of the chapters are short and philosophical rather than narrative, drawing their power from the glimpses of Chan’s real life and his measured, elegant prose: “No matter our circumstances, our awareness went on at full tilt. It was true even for a sick man like me, or perhaps especially a sick man. And then, on days that I did not dialyze, I went shopping for food or out walking somewhere, pretending as best I could that I was not a sick man.”

Both the healthy and sick will find much here to ponder.

A hypnotic collection of crystalline thoughts on the nature of living.

Finding Fran: A Midlife Moxie Novel

Christie, Nancy | BookBaby (302 pp.) $16.99 paper | May 24, 2024 | 9798350942248

A novelist eschews romance while on a quest for self-discovery in Christie’s series entry. Several years ago, after dozens of rejections, Fran Carter found an agent and a publisher who loved her manuscript, and Love in the Moonlight became a surprise romance bestseller. Now, after two follow-up novels that didn’t sell as well as the first,

the middle-aged author suffers from writer’s block. It’s been difficult for her to tap into the thrill of romance ever since she discovered that her former partner was unfaithful—and he didn’t even stick around to discuss their relationship. A disconsolate Fran leaves her San Francisco home and takes to the road to find some artistic inspiration— looking for “work time, productive writing time, the kind of time that would make my agent and publisher happy and keep my mind off my personal disaster.” She finds an eccentric bed-and-breakfast, the Whale Inn, where she spends a week befriending the owner, connecting with townspeople at local events, and working on her next novel. During the week, she discovers a whole new Fran—one who’s more independent and confident. As she takes more control over her life, she finds the courage to embrace change and conjure a no-nonsense protagonist for her new book: the character is open to romantic love, but also happy and successful on her own. For Fran herself, though, there’s only chaste soulsearching. Overall, Fran’s journey of discovery results in a comforting narrative, featuring a main character whom readers are sure to find relatable. There’s nothing flashy about the prose, but it’s solid and evocative throughout, which makes for a satisfying read. Although the pace is sometimes slow and there’s a relative lack of drama, Fran’s authentic self-realizations manage to propel the story forward. There are scenes that feel cliched (one section, in which Fran gets a makeover with a new haircut, a more flattering wardrobe, and stylish makeup, feels especially familiar), but they could easily be interpreted as knowing winks for genre fans. Readers will root for the lead to turn her life around in this cozy, accessible novel.

The Life of Kim and the Behavior of Men: Human Bondage in the AfterMarket of War

Davis, Rod | Madville Publishing (300 pp.) | $22.95 paper

July 16, 2024 | 9781956440799

In Davis’ novel, a soldier falls in love with a sex worker while stationed in 1970s South Korea. Thomas Hobbes is deployed to South Korea during the Vietnam War. The men in Hobbes’ camp feel the separation between their current lives and what they refer to as “the World,” which lies beyond occupied Korea and their military post: “It was a concept—broad, vague, and sacrosanct.” The soldiers are trying to stave off “the Fear,” an intangible entity never fully explained but that seems to refer to an ever-looming anxiety. A few of the methods Hobbes and his friends use to shelter themselves from the Fear include alcohol, drugs, and “yobos”—a Korean term of endearment used by the soldiers to refer to sex workers. Hobbes meets Kim, a South Korean woman who plies that trade; though Hobbes makes a concerted effort to deny his deepening feelings, he and Kim fall in love. Later, he discovers that Kim is pregnant and that she deals drugs on the side for some dangerous men, leading to horrific consequences. Davis’ story is well paced, its descriptive prose deftly conveying the setting and the culture of life in the camp: “Whiskey at thirty cents a glass, opium and heroin in cigarette packs, switchblade knives sold by amputees and hustlers in the alley, dice slammed against mud walls.” The author is unafraid to highlight the flaws of his protagonist. For example, when Hobbes first grows close to Kim, he feels guilty, wanting to set himself apart from the other soldiers who use racial epithets or whore to describe such women. But once Hobbes and Kim do have a deeper bond between them, he struggles to commit to her because she is not of “the World.”

Davis’ story may not have anything truly new to say about war or occupation, but he presents an impressive and engaging tale of love in a rough setting. A moving and well-written war drama.

But They Will Remain: An Album of Loners, Outsiders, Losers, & Pawns

Deaton, Ross | Self (370 pp.) | $22.99 $14.99 paper | Feb. 27, 2024 9798883000194 | 9798880287369 paper

Various people survive in the brutal landscape of a tech-heavy future America in Deaton’s debut SF novel. It’s 2070, and James-Patrick “JP” Boseman is one of several Scrap Miners salvaging old technology for the Zhì Shàng Commonwealth, which was once part of the United States. When armed assailants interrupt one the Miners’ relatively standard deliveries in California, JP teams up with a Zhì Shàng cyborg employee to figure out who exactly their new enemies are. Three more stories follow, centered on other men but set in the same post–World War III America. Rhys Hanson, a sniper-trained killer for hire in Florida, joins and befriends a group of mercenaries to whom he soon reveals a dark secret. In Detroit, Donovan Grimes relies on pills to quiet “the Demon”: a scary part of himself that revels in others’ pain and suffering. His addiction costs money, and to secure gainful employment, he agrees to get extensive cyber-implants. Finally, Texas street racer Franklin Blanchard has a corporate job that may be threatened if anyone discovers what he’s doing late at night. Deaton’s somber depiction of a post-apocalyptic future comes with a bleak but memorable view of technology. For example, Scrap Miners sift through piles of discarded or forgotten equipment, people tend to weaponize their cybernetic body parts, and Franklin is in danger of losing his memories if his cerebellum implant fails. The four main

characters mingle with a well-developed secondary cast, and their relationships help to alleviate the pervasive gloominess; JP’s camaraderie with white-eyed cyborg Liu Kê Xīn and Franklin’s potential romance with motorcycleriding street racer Bethany Iyuuk are highlights. Perhaps the book’s strongest elements are its action scenes, in which characters fight, evade, and gun down “gangers” and assassins; Texas is the site of a series of frenzied, increasingly dangerous street races. Overall, Deaton’s unadorned, concise prose keeps scenes moving at a steady clip.

A well-realized cast breathes life into a deadened dystopian world.

The Cinder Drop: Murder in the Steel City

Elin, Larry | Self (299 pp.) | $12.95 paper Aug. 1, 2024 | 9798218227463

A pair of detectives contend with corruption while trying to solve a bizarre pair of seemingly unrelated murders in Elin’s mystery. In 1969, police detective James Plishka’s life suddenly gets more complicated. The widower, who lives in Lackawanna, New York, is enjoying his burgeoning relationship with local waitress Jennifer Simon, but he’s having trouble connecting with his troubled teen son, Robert. His chief gives him a new trainee: Tom Baldwin, the only Black officer on the Lackawanna force. Baldwin, a former college basketball star, shoulders his own burden—he was promoted over white cops with more experience, which isn’t earning him any new friends. A reluctant Plishka brings Baldwin up to date on his cases, including the mysterious death of honor student Sarah Simpson. Then a call comes in about a body found at the cinder drop, where Bethlehem Steel dumps molten slag into Lake Erie. The deceased is identified as radical priest and lawyer Martin Goezina, who has cases pending against both the steel

company over environmental concerns and the city regarding a proposed housing development. The detectives discover a connection between Simpson and Goezina—they’re both tied into a book the latter was writing that would expose government officials, businessmen, and drug dealers in the U.S. and Honduras. They have so many suspects and so little time. The author spent a quarter-century in the entertainment business, and his cinematic vision is evident in this debut novel. He vividly captures that pivotal moment when, amid a counterculture revolution, citizens started to question the noxious side effects of the U.S. steel industry. Racism plays a prominent role in this novel (“There are about ten thousand very angry white people in this city who would do almost anything to stop that housing development”), though the most conspicuous evil on display is greed. Elin’s relatable protagonists are both at personal crossroads, earning readers’ sympathy as they gather a diverse team of allies, doggedly plugging along until the case reaches a shocking but satisfying conclusion. Both a complex thriller and a welldrawn period piece.

The Sweet Pain of Being Alive: A Memoir of Love and Death

Evans, Ann Anderson | Austin Macauley Publishers (183 pp.) | $13.95 paper Jan. 5, 2024 | 9798889104049

In Evans’ memoir, the author grapples with the gender identity of her deceased spouse. When Evans’ husband, Terry, ended his own life 14 years into their marriage, she was taken completely by surprise. They had moved to Vermont only a few weeks before, and she knew almost no one there—her own adult children lived far away. After the initial shock had worn off, the author tried to understand why it had happened—to “follow the

breadcrumbs,” as one of her friends said at the time. The couple met when both were in their 60s, at a time when Evans believed she would never marry again due to the breakups of two earlier marriages. She was in her “Hedonistic Period,” dating mostly for sex, something Terry wasn’t great at. (She knew about his Catholic upbringing, an influence to which he credited some of his sexual hang-ups.) Even so, the author decided to roll the dice and take a chance on marriage once again. It was three years into the union when she discovered a box of women’s clothes— blouses and dresses in the styles of decades past—hidden underneath the bed. Terry panicked when Evans asked him to explain them. “‘I didn’t mean you to find them this way,’ he reached down to push the box back under the bed. ‘It’s nothing.’ He reacted like a man with a mistress who’s trying to keep the letter in the lavender envelope with the flowery writing on it from his wife.” It turned out that Terry had enjoyed dressing in female clothing ever since childhood, though he had hidden it from everyone except for a few romantic partners who approved of the idea. Evans didn’t like it—she found something offensive in the concepts of crossdressing and transgender identity—but she had no intention of leaving Terry over it. Their lives together continued for years after her discovery until his death, leaving her to question if Terry had taken his own life because he couldn’t be the person he had always needed to be. Evans writes in clean, orderly prose, which highlights how her personality contrasted with that of the disorganized, slightly dreamy Terry. The work is a remarkably realistic portrayal of a marriage, in part because the book largely works around the great tension at the center of it rather than addressing it head-on. Much more space is given to mundane activities and annoyances, such as here, where Evans describes her frustration with Terry’s unwillingness to do housework: “Slowly, I became resentful, irritated, because of all the little tasks, outside the more general assignments, that I had to do if I wanted to live in an orderly house....Instead of remonstrating with me, Terry

acknowledged the unfairly apportioned ratios of housework and suggested we hire a housekeeper.” There is a novelistic quality to the memoir in its unwillingness to resolve things cleanly and in its narrative voice; the author is unafraid to come across as inflexible or unsympathetic. The book is an exploration of the many things a marriage can be: a source of companionship, yes, but also a hiding place—and, even if only posthumously, a place to finally be seen. A fascinating and deeply human story about living with a spouse hiding a mysterious inner life.

The Death of Charlotte Wilson

Everett, Beth | Self (287 pp.) | $26.95 $14.95 paper | March 6, 2024

9798883101396 | 9798867704421 paper Series: Lee Harding Mysteries, 3

In Everett’s whodunit, a real estate transaction is deadly business.

Charlotte Wilson and her husband, Lawrence, were about to close on the purchase of her childhood home in Portland, Oregon, when their car skidded off the road and Charlotte was killed. Our protagonist, Lee Harding, visits her old friend Amy Doherty, who has bought that very house. Lee’s marriage is on the rocks, so she is really at loose ends and looking for semi-permanent digs in Portland, which leads her to ace real estate agent Ellen Robinson. Lee also befriends a homeless young man named Justin Hendrix, gets him a place to live (Lee has lots of money), and makes him her assistant sleuth as she investigates the Wilsons’ car crash (Lee is prone to “Nancy Drew antics”). The big question: Was Charlotte’s death an accident or murder? And why does death figure in so many of Ellen’s real estate deals? And what about…well, the questions pile up. Readers do finally get some answers about the culprits and their sick motivations and histories, but hardly

with Agatha Christie–like precision. (What did the dying Charlotte reveal to Amos Patenaude, who witnessed the crash? Amos having been killed, we’ll never know.) Such vagueness just might be the result of Lee’s drinking and toking so much (these people are always lighting up). Ironically, Amy works as a drug counselor, but she is happy to share a blunt with her old friend. Does this story element stem from Everett’s desire to give readers a laid-back Pacific Northwestern vibe? The depictions of the urban trails of Portland are alluring and the writing is often arresting. The very first sentence could be out of an idyllic folk tale: “In the land of lenticular clouds and luminous moss sat an old red cedar.” Not so many pages later, Lee muses about “the testosterone-filled seed-spreader I called my husband.” Call this tonal whip-sawing, but it works— this is a story with many textures. The details are a bit fuzzy, but the drama is reliable.

Leaving Fatherland

Graydon, Matt | Cranthorpe Millner Publishers (376 pp.) | $15.99 paper Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781803782096

The life of a young German man is turned upside down by the outbreak of World War II in Graydon’s historical novel. Growing up in Halbe, Germany, in the 1930s, Oskar Bachmann is surrounded by the echoes of the First World War. His father, a brilliant but brutal tyrant, was once a respected pilot in the German military but came home from the frontlines forever changed. He often beats poor Oskar within an inch of his life, but spares Oskar’s brother, Emil—because Emil is part of the Hitler Youth, an organization Oskar’s mother abhors (she hates all things associated with the Nazis) and forbids Oskar to join. As Germany descends into Hitler-led madness, Oskar’s best and only friend,

an ingenious scholar, commits suicide after Nazis burn down his one-of-akind library. The violence around Oskar only intensifies while he is a student in Berlin, and his mother arranges for him to finish his studies in the relative safety of New York City. Stateside, Oskar is gifted with a lavish apartment and discovers that his mysterious “landlord,” Aleks, is also German, from the same town where Oskar’s father is now stationed as a pharmaceutical researcher—and he seems to know quite a bit about Oskar. When Herr Bachmann is mysteriously killed, Oskar must choose between loyalty to his family and country and commitment to his ethical center.

Graydon explores compelling territory in this historical novel, shedding light on the young Germans who did not identify as Nazis yet found themselves caught up in fascist hysteria nonetheless. Oskar knows enough to see the truth (“The Nazis were adept at psychological tricks…[but] a bouquet of flowers at the centre of our table would not be enough to enhance my outlook”), but the bonds of family and country are a powerful siren song. The nuanced depiction of a seemingly “good” young man torn asunder by conflicting beliefs is where this novel really sings.

A well-researched WWII novel that tackles compelling questions of family loyalty and broader ethics.

The Secret That Killed You

Hadden, Steve | Mahogany Row Press (330 pp.) | $16.99 paper | April 30, 2024 9781963584011| Series: Ike Rossi, 2

In Hadden’s second series thriller, a private investigator risks his new family to help a desperate woman find answers. P.I. Ike Rossi’s new client is Amelia Garcia, a retired U.S. Air Force drone pilot who now runs a remotely operated deepwater vehicle for Falzone Energy, owned

by Ike’s friend Shannon Falzone. Amelia’s hobby is collecting artifacts from the ocean floor, but her latest find, a strongbox emblazoned with a Nazi eagle, quickly puts her in danger. She mentioned it to her Uncle Billy, and soon afterward, he and his wife, Bessie, were found dead. Billy’s contact at the U.S. Department of Justice was killed in a car wreck around the same time. The deaths get the FBI interested in the case, and Ike gets involved as well after a panicked Shannon asks for his help. As it turns out, one of the FBI agents is Mia Russo—Ike’s old flame, whom he considers to be the one who got away. Shannon convinces Ike to fly with her to Kiawah Island, South Carolina, to meet with Amelia. Ike is still seeking answers to his own parents’ murders 23 years ago, but he agrees to help. It soon becomes clear that someone powerful is after whatever’s in the strongbox. With the help of retiree Frank McNally, an ex–World War II codebreaker with his own secrets, Ike and Amelia must solve the mystery before it’s too late. Hadden begins with a novel concept: a dogged and skilled detective who’s unable to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Although Ike makes significant headway on that front this time out, he still ends up with more questions than answers. Most of the colorful characters from Hadden’s first series installment, The Victim of the System (2018), return, but he also develops engaging new characters, including Amelia and tech whiz Dominic Massaro. Ike and Amelia often clash over the direction of their investigation, wasting precious time; their delays also allow those chasing them to close in, making for an effectively suspenseful narrative that proceeds at a brisk pace.

A conflicted investigator successfully follows his conscience in this well-constructed mystery.

Searching High and Low

Heires, Mark D. | Trilogy Christian Publishing (306 pp.) | $14.80 paper March 13, 2023 | 9781685569631

Heires’ Christian historical novel explores a veteran’s emotional turmoil and invites readers to reflect on where peace can be found amid life’s challenges. Eugene Walker, who served as a gunnery expert in Guam in World War II, purchases a neglected parcel of farmland after the war in eastern Iowa, in search of a life of peace. He later pursues such a life with his wife, Margaret, and young son, Dicky. It doesn’t take long, however, before Eugene realizes how difficult things will be. In 1961, after Dicky goes missing, a massive snowstorm rolls in, and the whole town rallies in search of the 4-year-old boy. As days go by and Dicky remains missing, the situation becomes increasingly dire, and the authorities begin to wonder if Eugene was involved in Dicky’s disappearance. Margaret holds fast to her faith, trusting God to bring their son home safely; Eugene, in contrast, feels a growing sense of foreboding. Media attention grows, and hundreds of letters of support pour in for the married couple, including a mysterious missive that brings Eugene’s innocence into question again. As time wears on, Margaret begins to lose hope. Her husband, in a church service, hears the story of Job, which resonates with him, and he turns to the Bible for solace; Margaret also regains her faith and grieves for her lost son. As Eugene’s flashbacks from

An earnest and heartfelt story of faith.

the war and memories of Dicky’s disappearance converge, characters wrestle with God’s plan. Over the course of this novel, Heires offers memorable lines that present readers with strong imagery (“The flakes swirl like a swarm of locusts, stinging Eugene’s exposed skin and buffeting his eyes, squinting into the darkening night”), and the consistently realistic dialogue brings the multidimensional characters to life. The story itself presents unexpected twists and turns. Religious readers who, like the couple at the center of this story, might be grappling with doubt, will likely enjoy this story of faith—one that’s led by imperfect people who struggle and find grace amid the rough realities of life. An earnest and heartfelt story of faith with a gripping plot that keeps the pages turning.

You Are His Masterpiece: Hope When Life Throws You a Curve, 2nd Edition

Hewes, Judith Lacy | Illus. by A.J. McCoy | Self (54 pp.) | $24.99 | $16.99 paper | Oct. 28, 2023 9781962110778 | 9781735801001 paper

God can turn trauma and loss into wisdom and strength if we open our hearts, according to this lavishly illustrated Christian meditation on spiritual heal ing. Hewes, a licensed clinical social worker, writer, and speaker, addresses readers who are suffering the deaths of loved ones, ill health, or miscarriages—“A Mother’s eyes are like pools in a sea of grief when she loses a child,” she writes—with consolation from a biblical perspective. She uses the metaphor of God as the Master Potter, who, when troubles shatter us, reshapes the clay of our souls into a more exquisite masterpiece by using our suffering to impart understanding and compassion. Hewes drives home the message of divine reclamation by touching on the

experiences of Noah, Job, and other biblical figures who were rescued by God from dire tribulations. Centering the book is a discourse on Jesus’ sacrifice in facing torture and execution to save souls and his eagerness to salve humanity’s anguish. (Later sections of the book compile Gospel passages about Jesus’ betrayal, passion, death on the cross, and resurrection.) Hewes’ advice unfolds in pithy sermonettes, her prose combining the color and drama of Bible stories with psychological encouragement: “But as with Jonah, the Lord makes a way out. You / may feel swallowed by the whale of loss, / Praying in agony from the belly of this monster, without hope, or plan… / Somehow you find yourself thrown up on shore, / Weak, covered with the grime of the journey / With a new perspective and the beginnings of a new resolve…to live!” The impact of Hewes’ writing is strengthened by artist McCoy’s rich, full-color illustrations, which are realistic but infused with miraculous elements. They include a scene of light breaking through storm clouds to illuminate the crosses on Golgotha while a tomb yawns beneath; of Jesus beckoning the viewer to walk behind him on water; and of the Second Coming, with Christ and angels returning in glorious light amid volcanic eruptions as the lame walk, the dead climb out of their graves, the righteous rise to meet him, and sinners flee in terror. The result is an exhilarating restatement of Christianity’s promise of solace and redemption.

A warmly reassuring religious self-helper that mixes vigorous prose and vibrant visuals.

Here at the Castle

Hyslop, Anthony Luke | Illus. by Aleksander Jasinski | AH! Publishing (40 pp.) paper | Sept. 1, 2024 | 9781733809368

A lamb is saved from a hungry dragon by a valorous lion in this illustrated Christian allegory. Little lamb Nathaniel is lost. He remembers wanting

to play, and perhaps running away from something, but he’s not sure how he ended up in a scary castle with his wool such a dirty mess. Things get much worse, though, when a dragon shows up. It threateningly tells Nathaniel that there’s nowhere to hide, and soon looms over the poor little creature. Just when all seems lost, a lion appears through the mist, and Nathaniel isn’t sure who’s more dangerous. Just as the dragon moves to attack, “The lion bravely pounced, and He scratched the beast’s eye. / Then the feisty dragon fell back with a ‘ROAR’ and a cry!” The battle is on, with the lion fighting to protect Nathaniel from the dragon’s flames. Though the reptilian beast bloodies his adversary’s paw in battle, it’s with that same paw that the lion marks Nathaniel as his own, forcing the dragon to give up. Finally, with the danger gone, the lion asks Nathaniel to follow him to freedom. Drawing on older Christian allegories, such as John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress as well as C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Hyslop uses the trappings of fantasy to retell the story of a savior who defends lost sheep through his own sacrifice. For readers already familiar with the story of Jesus, the parallels will be evident; others may find that the story doesn’t stand entirely on its own as a fantasy tale. In any case, Hyslop’s endnotes lay out his intended, direct correlations to Scripture. His rhymes are consistent throughout and mostly flow naturally. Jasinski’s painterly, full-color illustrations lend action and urgency to the tale, especially in showing the villainous dragon with a mouth that seems to drip lava. The depiction of the bloody paw mark on Nathaniel’s back may be off-putting to some young readers, but it reinforces the poetic imagery.  An earnest picture book that blends fantasy elements with straightforward religious symbolism.

The Scariest Story

You’ve Ever Heard

Keres, Ron | Illus. by Arthur Lin | Self (44 pp.) $26.94 | $14.95 paper | May 14, 2022 9798985911244 | 9798985911237 paper

A pair of brothers encounter a late-night terror in Keres’ spooky children’s tale.

This isn’t a picture book—not exactly. The narrator warns the audience that this story is “much too scary for PICTURES, so I plan to use WORDS.” While the words tell the story as text, they also, in Lin’s deft design, serve as illustrations. When the power goes out one stormy night, a scream wakes two brothers, who lie in bed, terrified. More unsettling noises follow, including creaks and cracks and thumps and growls. The presumed monster’s noises seem to fade, but then additional sounds make the boys curious enough to get over their fears and investigate (though they keep their blanket over their heads). When they reach the kitchen, the terror is undermined with a single comedic illustration that reveals all. (Some savvy readers may have guessed the identity of the culprit all along.) Mini-illustrations of each noise-causing event follow, laid out like a treasure map. The gorgeous use of words and shapes—the word door appears against a door’s outline, for example, and the word covers has a blanket over it—gives readers’ imaginations a chance to run wild. A kids’ picture book without traditional illustrations hasn’t been this much fun since B.J. Novak’s excellent The Book With No Pictures

(2014)—Keres and Lin have created a joyfully creepy companion. Perfect for Halloween storytimes—or any time at all.

Moving On

Kersey, Don | D + D Creative (116 pp.)

$6.99 paper | Dec. 5, 2018 | 9780692187678

Kersey presents a collection of short stories that explore the quiet joys and desperations of quotidian life. In the titular story, Elsie Anderson lives alone—her husband, Bucky, died in World War II. She continues on cheerfully, even as the neighborhood seems to change for the worse, and labors lovingly over her prized lilacs. But after she’s robbed in her own home by two teens, she systematically yanks all the lilacs out of the ground in an angry and methodical response to the cruelty of the world. The author captures her movingly blunt response with great subtly. The story’s understated but powerful conclusion provides the key to the rest of the pieces—meditative investigations of the myriad ways in which human beings cope with the everyday challenges of ordinary life. In “Memorial Day,” Levon, a 12-year-old Black boy, attends a holiday lunch at the home of his white best friend, Dave. Levon hears a neighbor repeatedly use a vile racial slur, and the situation is only worsened by the words of comfort Dave’s mother offers: “Don’t pay any attention to him, Levon. He’s had too much to drink. Besides, you know we don’t think of you that way.’ (What way?) ‘Why, you spend so much time with

A scintillating collection, full of imaginative stories and strong, vivid writing. BOOKSTORE CLERKS & SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

Davey, we don’t even think of you as colored.’ (Let’s hope that’s what she calls you.) ‘You know what I mean.’ (No. I don’t.)” In “Under the Silence,” Kate and Gary, a married couple, ponder the ways marriage changes as they both grow old and find bottomless comfort in the ways their love for each other remains unaltered; it’s a simple tale that poignantly depicts the minor dramas of domestic existence. Kersey has a keen eye for the small-but-profound moments that occur all the time in human affairs but often remain unnoticed in their modesty. This is a short book—not much more than 100 pages—but it’s densely packed with insights.

A clutch of deeply intelligent short stories.

Kirkus Star

Bookstore Clerks & Significant Others: Tsunami Press 1

Ed. by Landfield, Scott & S.G. Ellerhoff Tsunami Press (248 pp.) | $20.00 paper Nov. 14, 2023 | 9798988151203

Violent dads, a lovelorn hedgehog, and a teenage grim reaper are among the engrossing figures showcased in this anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays.

Editors Landfield and Ellerhoff have gathered contributions from 27 authors, many of them current or former clerks at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon. Their works often feature intense regional flavor—Eugene’s blend of college-town hippie and rural orneriness—along with muscular language, fantasy, and genre forms with offbeat twists. Among the many standout pieces, Meli Hull’s essay “Non-Words” takes a delightful romp through her baby’s language acquisition. (“Additions to our lexicon include… asking her if she wants to ‘fly high in the sky’ and then doing a cheerleading count-off of ‘one-two, down-UP!’ as I lift her into the air. She squeals and giggles

and opens her round mouth in a big grin.”) Matthew Dickman’s story “Leveling Up” imagines Death as a 15-year-old punk playing Ms. Pacman at a video arcade in prose that mixes cosmic grandiosity with adolescent pique. (“I was in Pompeii, fucking Pompeii, and I can’t get this stupid asshole on the screen to move fast enough not to get eaten by fucking ghosts.”) And Ellerhoff’s adult fable “The Fox and the Hedgehog” has the former consoling the latter when he’s dumped by the Solar Witch in favor of an old flame in a gush of bawdy Irish wisdom. (“That witch already had the big story’f her life goin on before ya showed up….Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Hedgehog Arrives. Chapter Sixty: Feckface Returns ’n’ Gives It to Her in the Arse Again.”) The series opener’s excellent poetry includes Erik Muller’s cycle “A Boy’s Eyes,” a plangent exploration of a father’s brutality told in grim language (“It is not clear why he / strikes our mother. Something snarls, / something drives the Old Man. / Later she bows her head / over a bucket so she doesn’t / bleed onto what she has to clean”). And Jenny Root’s “That Which Lies Beside the Slough” is a searing evocation of a homeless camp. (“The blankets that lay heaped beneath the bridge covered them / head to toe. / The blankets, which once lay folded upon a quiet shelf, trembled in / the scolding wind.”) The result is an enthralling read with literary flair and lots of heart. A scintillating collection, full of imaginative stories and strong, vivid writing.

Not From Here: The Song of America

Lax, Leah | Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers (392 pp.) | $20.99 paper March 28, 2024 | 9781804680179

history, describing how she discovered the world of ultra-Orthodox Judaism as a teenager and stayed in that world as a closeted gay woman for 30 years before coming out and losing her entire community. “I became an immigrant in my own country,” she writes, “blindsided with the acute desire of an outsider.” The themes of community and exile run throughout the immigrant stories she shares in these pages, in which she interviews people coming to America under all kinds of circumstances. She talks with a former Soviet Jewish refugee named Manya and experiences a sense of homecoming when entering Manya’s Jewish world: “Each of those homes had the same Hebrew books lined on the shelves, the same religious art, and always a photograph of the Rebbe on the wall,” she recalls. “Inside that home, the contentions of the secular world with its godlessness, its violence, and pessimism, its foreignness, fell away.” Some of the stories she gathers are rougher than others—none of them are more brutal than that of El Salvadoran refugee Luisa, who was sexually assaulted and trafficked by “coyotes” in her quest to reach a new home (according to the author, “El Salvador was the war we in the U.S. weren’t told we lost”). “There could not have been a clearer illustration of Luisa’s desperation to get to work, shelter, and safety,” Lax writes; “that was her definition of American freedom.”

demonized. Lax employs prose that’s vivid (including plenty of reconstructed dialogue throughout) but not sensationalistic; immigrants who too often get lumped into the day’s news headlines as a monolithic entity are brought colorfully and individually to life as readers learn their histories, their hopes, and the many ways their new home strikes them. Despite the weightiness of the subject, Lax almost always finds a note of hope in the stories she tells. “This is a city of immigrants,” a transplanted Brahmin Indian tells her.

“Everywhere I look, I see someone from somewhere else. That, I think, is what makes this country great.” In a time of political polarization on the subject of immigration, this book makes space for a much-needed deep breath.

A heartfelt and fascinating collection of stories about people making their way to the United States.

Kirkus Star

Every Beautiful Mile

Manley, Ashley | Wildflower Books (392 pp.) | $14.99 paper May 9, 2024 | 9798989968206

Lax presents a narrative tapestry of American immigrant stories. At the beginning of this book, the author, a librettist, relates a bit of her own personal

The author is a remarkably empathetic interviewer, investing each chapter’s conversations with immediacy and heart. She allows her various subjects full dramatic range when telling their own stories, but she herself is nevertheless always present; when a Russian immigrant’s daughter is taught about Martin Luther King Jr. in public school, the woman is dismissive, asking how relevant such a figure could possibly be. “What did Martin Luther King have to do with us?” Lax asks. “What did he have to do with us, as Jews, or as Americans? Only everything.” Luisa’s story is the most powerfully written piece in the book, bringing forward overtly political elements of the immigration experience that Lax handles with non-confrontational sensitivity. The sheer crushing amount of bureaucracy these migrants face is depicted (and deplored) but never cheaply

In Manley’s debut novel, a grieving woman tries to fix her life with a road trip. Penelope Crawford is paralyzed by her grief over the loss of her charismatic husband, Travis, whose plane disappeared weeks ago. Travis had been a local hero, helping with relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Irma. Over the course of 17 years and the births of two children, they had enjoyed an idyllic marriage—then,

“he got in his airplane, flew into a storm, and never came home,” as Penelope often reminds herself.

“Travis died and time kept going, but I had stood still.” Now, she works at the family’s Crow’s Nest restaurant in Key Largo and tries her best to parent her teenagers, Marin and Finn, but she is never happy. Her father suggests

Kirkus Star

that she help him refresh the restaurant’s menu by emailing other eateries to learn their sourcing methods. She reaches out to a Maine restaurateur named Ethan Mills, but her heart’s not really in it. When Penelope discovers the extensive rehabbing work Travis had been doing on a creepy camper he’d bought on impulse, she decides to finish the renovation and take her kids on an epic road trip—from the Keys to Oregon to New York and back—to revive her own interest in life. This well-worn road-trip plot is familiar territory, but Manley invests the story with an involving combination of humor and pathos. The author captures the awesome sights the family sees on their adventures and winningly distills them into observations that will resonate with any readers who might feel stuck in ruts themselves: “The people we meet and how they shape us—love us—were the rivers that ran through us,” Manley writes, and readers will hope Penelope’s deepening relationship with Ethan will run strong and clear. An enjoyably readable and thoroughly heartwarming novel about starting over in life.

The Cicada Spring

McBride, Carolyn | Make Waves Press (354 pp.) $14.99 paper | April 12, 2024 | 9798990295803 Series: Potomac Shores, 1

The first novel in McBride’s series explores second chances during Covid-19.

Katie Young, an IT systems director who’s nearly 50, feels

adrift as a new empty nester in her small town near Occoquan, Virginia. It’s the early 2020s, and Covid, quarantines, office shutdowns, and furloughs are everywhere. Her daughter, Belle, heads to college, and Katie lands a new job in Miami. A lifelong boater, she meets James Conway “JC” Bland III at a Miami marina; a whirlwind romance leads to a quick marriage proposal. Despite nagging doubts, she says yes. JC’s yacht becomes a metaphor for their damaged marriage. (“She saw the imperfections first. The crazing in the porthole glass, faded curtains, a water stain in the ceiling.”) The newlyweds sail to Key West, snorkel at Dry Tortugas National Park, and party with new friends and fellow boaters, including Rhiannon and her husband, Corde. McBride ably limns the women as they develop their friendship, sharing confidences and “quarantinis” at bonfires with the other “Beach Bonfire Babes.” Life shifts abruptly, however, when Katie’s mother contracts Covid and dies. Katie moves into Bonnie Brae, her childhood Virginia home, to settle the estate. We learn more about Bonnie Brae, a “red-roofed Cape Cod” that abuts the Potomac River (“The shoreline was right on a protected bay across from a national wildlife refuge”). She finds strength to assess her new marriage and to plan her future with help from friends and Deke, who works for the Potomac Science Center and shares many common interests with Katie. McBride adeptly intertwines the lives of Katie and Rhiannon, and themes of love, family, loss, and betrayal emerge. The author sets a vivid scene (“The sun was just rising in the east, and a white layer of fog rose from the surface of the water as if the river was lifting its

bedtime blanket”), and her storytelling consistently engages. An involving tale that balances struggle, love, and hope.

Rescue Run: Capt. Jake Rogers’ Daring Return to Occupied Europe

Miller, John Winn | Bancroft Press (342 pp.) | $27.95 | Jan. 1, 2025 9781610886437 | Series: Peggy C Saga, 2

In Miller’s sequel novel, American merchant marine Capt. Jake Rogers and his faithful crew of sailors outpace ruthless Nazis on land and sea as they pursue another rescue mission. When readers first meet Rogers, he’s got his hands full evading U-boats that are prowling the cold waters of the North Atlantic during World War II. Few men are better suited to lead a daring rescue mission deep inside occupied Holland than this skilled sea captain, and he proves himself worthy of his international comrades-in-arms’ steadfast devotion. Nazi SS officers and their craven collaborators are holding a Dutch Jewish woman named Miriam Maduro, the love of Rogers’ life, inside occupied Holland’s infamous Oranjehotel prison. In this follow-up to The Hunt for The Peggy C (2022), Miller juxtaposes these two opposing forces wonderfully through the use of clear, economical prose that manages to convey pathos and high adventure in equal measure. Careful, specific attention to detail, as in descriptions of the clothing worn by the resistance fighters and the German soldiers (“an SS officer’s gray wool cap with white piping around the crown, the Nazi eagle and skull on the front, and a silver bullion chin cord strapped across the shiny black Vulkanfiber visor”) lend a powerful authenticity to the harrowing world that Miller creates. Maduro, whose

imprisonment inspires Rogers’ incredible acts of bravery, is no damsel in distress; she’s just as heroic as he is, disguising herself as a Red Cross medico named Hedda ten Boom in a bold attempt to help as many concentration camp prisoners as she possibly can before she’s captured herself. Stark depictions of Miriam’s confinement are harrowing and stand on their own without resorting to sentimentality. When Miriam gets an opportunity to deliver an act of retribution, Miller renders it without moralizing or commentary. Indeed, action never fails to reveal character throughout this brisk thriller.

A fast-paced and immersive wartime adventure yarn.

The Strophes of Job

Morrissey, Ted | Twelve Winters Press (196 pp.) $32.87 | Feb. 14, 2024 | 9798989108640

Two families seek a midwife in Morrissey’s literary novel. In 1907, in a rural Midwestern village, two women go into labor during a snowstorm.

Emma Houndstooth is the only midwife in the area, and both women are desperate to have her by their side. Roberta Frye has sent her daughter, Bitty, out into the deep snow to Houndstooth Farm, but the girl quickly becomes lost in the blizzard. She’s forced to take shelter in the Hollis Woods, a local forest named for the “Hollis children who, decades before, wandered one by one into the unnamed woods until all five were gone, never heard from again.” Meanwhile, Emma—who hasn’t overseen a successful birth in nearly two years—has traveled to the bedside of 16-year-old Sarah Johnson, whose pregnancy is being kept a secret by the rest of her family. Other characters are on the move as well that night: a farmer grieving his

declining wife, the coroner forced to store the dead in a shed in winter, and two young men, one of whom may be the father of Sarah’s baby (not to mention a pack of increasingly bold coyotes—and a possible Native American crow-god). As they seek out the midwife and one another, these characters can’t help but disturb their respective pasts, as if leaving footprints in the falling snow. Morrissey’s lyrical prose, which changes its rhythm depending on which character’s head he inhabits, captures the textures and cosmologies of this small, hard world. Here he describes the contents of a farmer’s almanac: “a planting chart aligned with the zodiac, the many uses of a poultice made from Indian mint and reduced goat urine, how to predict the weather with a pig’s spleen, the best broths for earache, how to use an ox skull to intensify the light from a bullseye lantern.” This is a ghost story that changes shape as often as its ghosts do, and patient readers will enjoy every permutation.

A snowy gothic tale of life, death, and birth.

The

Ideas That Rule Us: How Other People’s Ideas Rule Our Lives and How To Change It

Murphy, Nathan J. | Prepolitica (306 pp.)

$18.99 paper | May 1, 2024 | 9781068611001

A researcher explores the power of ideas in this debut nonfiction book.

“Ideas,” writes Murphy, “cut the fabric of our being and determine who we are.” With a focus on the ideas that shape our actions, beliefs, and notions of family, the author contends that the question of “Whose Ideas Am I?” is far more important than the more ubiquitous rumination, “Who Am I?” Per the author, some of modern society’s primary assumptions—such as the idea

that wearing a collared shirt with a knotted tie somehow transforms a middle-aged man into a professional— would be mocked by societies with other ideas of success. While pointing out some of the absurdities baked into daily life, Murphy is particularly effective at highlighting our propensity to accept bad ideas. From Aztec heart sacrifices and European religious wars to the rampant consumerism that drives today’s society, it’s clear to the author that “practical realities created by our imagination are not always wonderful.” (Murphy writes that consumerism is an “antisocial ideology” undergirded by the flawed assumptions that “new is always better than old” and “want supersedes need.”) While the author, the founder and lead researcher at the think tank Prepolitica, has long focused on the ways in which political ideologies hamper data-driven policy, this book is interdisciplinary in its approach. The cogent narrative, backed by 350 scholarly endnotes, draws on 21st-century neuroscience and evolutionary biology and incorporates lessons from sociology, history, and anthropology. Geared toward practical solutions—a central argument of the book is that “abstracted life is miserable, lonely, and stressful”—the work concludes with a list of pragmatic ways to help readers better examine and potentially move beyond counterproductive ideas. At just under 165 total pages and full of drawings, diagrams, photographs, and other visual aids, this is an accessible book that strikes a fine balance between academic research and engaging prose. Readers driven by political, religious, or other ideologies will be challenged—the book is a good reminder to question the conventions that shape our lives. A well-researched, thought-provoking reconsideration of society’s sacred cows.

For more Indie content, visit Kirkus online.

The Boldly Inclusive Leader: Transforming Your Workplace (and the World) by Valuing the Differences Within

Norman, Minette | Greenleaf Book

Group Press (200 pp.) | $20.49 Aug. 8, 2023 | 9781956072112

Leadership consultant and speaker Norman offers a book of practical tips and stories about inclusivity and how to employ it as a business leader.

Over a 30-year career in the software industry, the author has learned a lot about leadership, and this book’s 10 chapters each tackle a subject with advice on how to take inclusive leadership from theory to practice by setting the proper tone, getting comfortable with discomfort (“Your first step could be to try to understand what is making you so uncomfortable. One obvious reason is realizing that you are not an expert in diversity, equity, and inclusion”), learning to listen, building trust, employing empathy and compassion, welcoming all voices, embracing differences, running inclusive meetings, mentoring (“To what degree am I willing to learn from others, rather than being the expert leader?”), and being bold. All are important topics for leaders seeking to embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the author presents each in an engaging format, using stories from her career, research she’s done along the way, accounts of real-life applications, and, at the end of each chapter, daily and weekly exercises on the topic at hand, as well as self-reflective questions. The book combines the practices and questions into a single list at the end of the book, too—a small but thoughtful addition that makes the material easily accessible. Indeed, the book’s overall structure is inviting and easy to follow, and chapters can valuably be read in order or separately, although the chapters do effectively build upon one another when read in sequence.

Norman’s prose style is easygoing, with reader-friendly elements including pull quotes on many pages for easy access (such as “You show up as an inclusive leader every day, not just when it’s convenient”). Norman’s anecdotes from her own executive career are pertinent and engaging.

A book that offers a pleasing and effective mix of psychology, experience-based wisdom, and helpful advice to create a happier and more productive workplace.

The Frost Wings: Arctic Fox Rescue

Peña, Marisa | Snowdrop Books (101 pp.)

$14.99 | $5.99 paper | April 2, 2024 9781960834010 | 9781960834003 paper

A charming chapter book for young readers about four fairy friends who must work together and use special powers to save a stranded arctic fox pup. North Everstar and her fellow fairies Lucy Dawn, Willow Brightfrost, and Charm Iceglade are recruited to join the Frost Wings, a team that aims to protect the animals of the arctic tundra. Their positions come with superpowers, bestowed upon them by the Arctic Fairy Queen, which are unique to their individual personalities. For example, Lucy receives the power of healing, due to her love of taking care of animals, and Charm receives magical mending thread, because she has a talent for crafting things. The fairies support one another, work through their emotions, and overcome obstacles as a team throughout the rescue, providing an engaging narrative with a good message for children. Their mission to save the adorable young arctic fox, Pounce, takes them out onto an ice floe in the ocean, leads to a close encounter with a polar bear, and requires them to outwit Blaze, a mean rival fairy. The simple prose is well suited for a young chapter-book

audience and communicates the fairies’ emotions accessibly and authentically. Black-and-white cartoon illustrations throughout enhance the text, bringing the arctic landscape and creatures to life. Willow is portrayed as Black and Charm appears to have brown skin; North and other characters are portrayed with pale skin. One unexplained element is that although it’s established that the fairies feel cold, the illustrations only depict them as wearing summery, short-sleeved clothing instead of weather-appropriate outfits. The book also includes a few pages of fun facts about arctic animals at the end, which bolster the story’s descriptions of the environment.

An often delightful series starter in an unusual setting, with educational moments and appealing illustrations.

The Ordeals of Elly Robin

Quaver, P.D. | Self (368 pp.) | $12.00 paper July 6, 2020 | 9798638792855

In Quaver’s novel, an orphaned musical prodigy is consigned to a children’s asylum before escaping and living as a hobo.

Six-year-old Elly Robin doesn’t like to speak and shies away from direct eye contact—traits that cause many people in the American West to mark her as “touched.” She’s also an incredibly talented musician, and plays piano in her parents’ vaudeville act, wowing audiences to the extent that she has become the troupe’s star attraction. She and her parents travel by train with the troupe from Omaha to Denver, through Salt Lake City, Boise, Seattle, and Portland, Oregon. Elly loves her music and is doted on by many members of the troupe. It turns out, however, that a killer is living among them—strangling teenage girls the last night in each city, before the act moves on. Elly sets out to discover who the culprit is, and uncovers their identity while in San Francisco, just as the earthquake of 1906 devastates

the city. In the confusion, she’s taken not only for an orphan, but also for an “imbecile,” and sent to the Marysville Benevolent Christian Asylum for Unfortunate Girls, a brutal, for-profit institution where many inmates are taken as subjects for experimental treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy. Traumatized and widely thought to be unable to talk, Elly nevertheless makes friends with 12-year-olds Hattie Limburg and Martha “Drooly” Dooley. For two years, her life is miserable, though bearable. Then tragedy strikes, and Elly escapes from the asylum and disguises herself as a boy, begging door to door with new acquaintances—both friendly and mean.

Quaver writes primarily from Elly’s third-person perspective, displaying an accomplished prose style that serves admirably both to relate the story and to evoke the historical setting. The racial and socioeconomic prejudices of this era are clear, but presented in such a way that Elly is mostly shielded from them. Thus, she’s given free rein of the train upon which the troupe travels, and happily visits her friends Smiley Hobson and Ah Lin in the “Colored Car.” It’s only during a street altercation, away from the protection of the troupe, that she hears Smiley referred to by a slur. Quaver respectfully approximates the speech patterns of uneducated and ESL characters, but does so in a manner that never seems cartoonish. Characterization is a strength of the book and is effectively realized not just in the person of Elly, but also throughout the troupe, the asylum, and the unhoused community she encounters. The story, which initially presents itself as a cozy mystery, takes a sudden and shocking turn when the earthquake hits. From this point on, Elly truly does experience an ordeal, and readers will be invested in her plight. However, they may lament the lack of a cathartic upswing—at least in this first novel in a nine-volume saga. A dozen full-page line drawings by the author help break up the narrative and set scenes.

An immersive, if downbeat, historical novel that captures both the wonder and wretchedness of the American West of the early 1900s.

The Revolutionary Ecological Legacy of Herbert Marcuse: The Ecosocialist EarthCommonWealth Project

Reitz, Charles | Daraja Press (276 pp.)

$23.03 paper | July 3, 2023 | 9781990263811

A scholarly look at ecological dangers, racism, global capitalism, and other topics from the vantage point of philosopher and political thinker Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979).

Reitz, a recognized expert on the philosopher, social critic, and political theorist Marcuse, tackles a wide range of other subjects in these pages, from LGBTQ+ rights and ecosocialism to the women’s movement and the dangers of the “financialization of Nature.” He aims to deconstruct some of Marcuse’s ideas in the context of a rapidly changing world. The driving force behind the book is the author’s elaboration of Marcuse’s notion that nature must be respected and seen as an ally if societies are to maintain the structure they’ve fought for. The current state of ecological destruction around the world, which is due to climate change and leaders’ apathy, puts a disproportionate burden on parts of the world that are unable to defend themselves, Reitz asserts: “Poor, vulnerable and cash-strapped nations that contribute little or nothing to global warming see the trickles that drop into their empty bowls from market mechanisms, while their citizens are displaced from their territories, forced to bear a disproportionate burden of real climate actions.” The author also includes many footnotes, as well as occasional charts and figures, as in the graph “Calculating Income Flow to Capital,” which provides visual information to support his numerous points.

Reitz writes for a wide-ranging academic audience, and his text would be equally at home in philosophy, political science, or environmental science classrooms; he clearly expounds on a wide range of Marcuse’s musings over a long career. As might be expected, Reitz’s narrative voice remains objective and

rather dry in tone, with a clear and rightful emphasis on research. Reitz’s book also serves as the basis for the EarthCommonWealth Project, which he describes at length as “searching for a new system of ecological production, egalitarian distribution, shared ownership, and democratized governance having its foundation in the ethics of partnership productivity with an ecosocialist and humanist commitment to living our lives on the planet consistent with the most honorable and aesthetic forms of human social and political fulfillment.” Still, although Reitz approaches the concepts and ideas with a sense of intellectual rigor, he also does his best to make them approachable as well. At one point, for example, he compares his attempts to add to the discourse reignited by Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees (2015) and Richard Powers’ The Overstory (2019) to an orchestra: “A philharmonic performance also has its understory. Imagine all the instruments on the stage without players. Consider each violin or French horn or clarinet in terms of its matter and form and its developmental history, each different in sound, shape, and structure from its predecessors in centuries past.” These types of comparisons help to ground Reitz’s work and tease out its nuances for curious readers.

A dense, thoughtful breakdown of various theories related to modern worldwide crises.

The Monarchs

Sabbas, Mark | Koehler Books (412 pp.) $30.95 | $22.95 paper | June 25, 2024 9798888242704 | 9798888242681 paper

Sabbas’ YA SF novel follows a group of largeeyed teens with special abilities. In the near future, the skies are filled with toxic mist, democracy has been demolished, and most of the population has reverted to farming communities. Seventeen-yearold Samuel Helenis is being held in “the Facility,” where “everything in the labs [is]

colorless, from the walls to our mandatory robes to the emotions of the ones who [test] us like rodents.” He has eyes twice as large as the average human’s and a mind that can “manipulate matter in ways not considered normal,” though this ability is not under his conscious control, even after 10 years of experimentation at the Facility. Samuel is in love with Evelyn Agartha, an orphan who lives near the Facility, but he can’t quite bring himself to admit it to her. Everything changes when a dozen black-robed, large-eyed children storm the Facility. They kill Samuel’s tutor in front of him and burn Evelyn’s village, claiming the actions are necessary parts of the current struggle. Samuel and Evelyn are not convinced and instead escape into the woods—the natural world, which they have never experienced before. After some misadventures, they encounter Luna, a psychic with telepathic powers who wants to lead them to a safe haven. Along the way, they learn more about the conflict between the government and the feared large-eyed children (“The military will want to hunt down everyone like us”). Throughout, Sabbas evocatively includes regular references to Alice in Wonderland and popular songs. The story has obvious affinities with the X-Men comics and movies, but while many elements are derivative (and the final third can be a bit of a slog), some bright dream sequences and references to larger cosmic themes set the yarn a bit apart from standard dystopian kids-with-special-powers fare. A thought-provoking and spiritual dystopian quest.

You Slept Where?: Calamities of a Clumsy Businesswoman

Sellers, Brenda Prater | Archway Publishing (440 pp.) | $28.46 | Jan. 26, 2023 | 9781665722773

has a lot to share about her travels over the years—particularly about offbeat places she’s spent the night, including an underwater lodge in Florida and a one-room inn shaped like a beagle in Idaho. These locations were not happenstance, but selected with the careful planning of a dedicated voyager. The author, who often had to travel to faraway places for work, explains that she had an extensive to-do list that encompassed a wide range of potential destinations.

Sometimes she visited these places with her husband, Big Ed, and at other times she was alone. Throughout it all, she has, more often than not, taken photographs with a dream of one day having a credit in National Geographic. Readers follow along as the author looks for wigwams on Route 66, indulges in a chocolate bath in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and takes a mule ride to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Amid the fun, though, she also details the deteriorating health of her parents. She tells of how her father, a lifetime farmer and a practical sort, liked to point out such things as how she need not pay to sleep in a former grain silo in Akron, Ohio, when she could sleep in a silo on his farm for free. Despite her dad’s lifetime of vigor, the pressures of old age eventually took their toll. She also describes how her mother suffered from dementia, which led to difficulties in her later years. As her mother’s memory faded, she says, a great deal was lost, including family recipes that vanished “like writing on a chalkboard that had been erased.”

being pulled over on Route 66 is lengthy and without much payoff; after she recalls singing him a Bruce Springsteen song, she follows up by stating that it “didn’t seem to be helping me bond with the officer.” Overall, though, the book presents well-developed accounts of people and places—including some locales that the average person may never have visited. By the end, readers will not only have new ideas for travel destinations, but also more empathy for aging loved ones.

An offbeat but affecting set of remembrances.

Alphabet by Heart

Shriver, Jeanne & Mark K. Shriver | Illus. by Laura Watson | 4U2B Books & Media (32 pp.) $19.99 | June 18, 2024 | 9780829454833

This part-memoir, part-travelogue ventures to quirky locations and discussions of serious topics. Sellers, the president of global manufacturing company Chroma,

This mixture of obscure travel locations and harsh truths about aging makes for a distinct and highly personal combination. Readers can never be sure if the next chapter will be about staying in a house where Lizzie Borden once lived or about the author’s father playing down the seriousness of a health issue. Whatever the topic, however, a sense of humor often shines through. When her dad apparently developed a crush on one of his nurses, he decided to bring a picture of his younger self to the hospital—a recollection that readers may find both funny and touching. The laughs in some of the travel pieces sometimes feel forced, however. The author’s account of her attempt to “build a rapport” with a police officer after

Jea nne Shriver and Mark K. Shriver’s alphabet book aims to inspire young children with a story about emotional intelligence and inclusivity. With simple rhymes, the authors use the alphabet to encourage children to consider how the letters can form powerful words, such as empathy (“Empathy tells others / they are never alone. / Imagine their feelings, / and make them your own”), care, understand, and trust; it’s a structure that gives the 26 letters a deeper meaning. Although similar ABC books exist, the sincerity of this book’s text is deeply felt as it suggests that the most profound learning happens in the heart. It also serves as a reminder to parents and children alike that what matters most is how kind one is to other people. Watson’s colorful cartoon illustrations depict diverse characters with various skin tones and abilities. Multigenerational portrayals give voice to adult caregivers who may read this book aloud to little ones. The tone is light, vibrant, warm, and optimistic, and the book would be a great read for children between the ages of 2 and 6 who are just beginning to navigate the social landscape. A sweet picture book that values social growth as much as academic learning.

Tahoe Local: Lessons From the High Life

Tomer, Trish | Luminare Press (318 pp.)

$26.71 | $18.95 paper | March 18, 2024 9798886794236 | 9798886794229 paper

A journalist relates tales from her life in the eastern California wilderness.

In her nonfiction debut, Tahoe Mountain News columnist Tomer regales readers with stories of her experiences in the wild Tahoe region, where she moved 50 years ago for, as she puts it, the same reason any girl moves to the mountains: “so I’d never have to shave my legs again,” she writes. “Or wear nylons. Or dresses, except for church, which I no longer attend, having received a lifetime ban at the age of twelve.” In the pages that follow, she episodically recounts a string of stories ranging from the tense to the heartfelt, with a vein of humorous thankfulness running through all of it: “If we pause to think, which I seldom do,” she writes, “gratitude helps us cope with the stresses of life,” and this tone informs every anecdote she shares. She relates when she and her unnamed “Hubby,” during her pregnancy, were living in Fish Springs, “a cow-skulls-hanging-on-barbed-wire-fence acreage, renowned for its climate’s similarity to hell,” when her water suddenly broke and “I put an end to the evening festivities by requesting a mop and a ride to the hospital.” She reflects on her high school days, navigating the school’s “toxic aerosol cloud of dime store cologne…industrial-strength Right Guard deodorant…and hairspray so sticky it became a fly trap.” She tells all of this with an easy storyteller’s grace and perfect pitch, gently ushering the reader from one wistfully amusing scene to another. The author’s humor often has a great sense of timing, as when she writes that she and Hubby usually celebrate their wedding anniversaries by sitting on the deck, gazing lovingly into the foam of their microbrews, and asking, “What the hell were we thinking?” Ultimately, it’s Tomer’s enthusiasm for life that’s the

most touching part of the book: “It’s easy to forget you’re sixty-six when you’re feeling six,” she writes, and her readers may feel young again as well. An upbeat and funny series of reminiscences about Tahoe living.

Naked Girl

Wallack, Janna Brooke | Self (350 pp.) $18.99 | $14.99 paper | March 9, 2024 9798892125710 | 9798869214751 paper

In Wallack’s novel, a brother and sister survive a shocking upbringing of drugs, cults, and neglect. In 1979, Sienna “CeeCee” and Siddharta “Siddhi” Jones are 6 and 5 years old, respectively, living with their father, Jackson, in Miami—more specifically, in Xanadu. That’s the name of their house where Jackson sells drugs, leads a sex cult, and rants about the Bhagavad Gita. With their mother dead from an overdose (and their grandmother and aunt proving to be equally disappointing parental figures), they fend for themselves, watching, year after year, as different “Babies” (Jackson’s term for his sex-addicted followersturned-drug-mules) come and go from Xanadu. They try in vain to get themselves adopted by a traditional family and even forge papers to enroll in the local elementary school, but all their efforts are in vain as Jackson’s drug-dealing cult only grows in size and ambition, slowly devouring the children’s innocence in the process. As the 1980s draw to a close and the siblings reach high school age, the author moves from CeeCee’s first-person narration to a shifting perspective as the adolescents come to terms with their strange, toxic father and begin to wonder how they could possibly move forward in the world without him. Manic walks through hurricanes, deadly overdoses, and even sexual assault are all parts of these children’s brutal world, but Wallack cleverly walks a tightrope in her writing, balancing the horrors with a child’s unwavering imagination and naïve sense

of wonder (moments in which CeeCee instinctively shepherds Siddhi away from orgies are at once shocking, tender, and comical). The book’s latter half feels more aimless, unsure of where its characters should be heading, but CeeCee’s perspective remains surprising and engaging. It’s through her that the author develops a distinctive and emotionally rich voice delivering succinct observations as devastating as any of the horrible events themselves, such as her simple summary of how she felt others saw her family and Xanadu: “We were degenerate aliens. No matter what or where.”

An endearing and fascinating perspective on a uniquely volatile and dangerous childhood.

Iron Dad: A Cancer Survivor’s Story of Discovering Strength, Life, and Love Through Fatherhood

Weigel, Paul | Three Piques Blinked (226 pp.)

$14.95 paper | June 11, 2024 | 9798989953400

A man finds purpose and strength in becoming a father despite the challenges life throws at him in Weigel’s debut memoir. When the author was in his 30s, instead of having life all figured out (as his father told him he should), he was desperately miserable. When Weigel was challenged to run a 5K race, it unlocked something in him that led him to mountain climbing, marathon running, and Ironman races, discovering a new passion. Soon after, he met Michelle, with whom he quickly fell in love; they married and weathered life’s changes before finding themselves expecting a child, whom they named Natalie. The author’s descriptions of being a father, and of what it meant to him, are particularly poignant when juxtaposed with brief passages about his own childhood spent with seemingly loveless parents who were incredibly hard on him and his sister, Laura. The narrative becomes more difficult when

Weigel, as a father of a young child, is diagnosed with colon cancer. The author outlines processes, symptoms, tests, and treatments in time-stamped excerpts from the cancer blog he wrote as he underwent his journey. Here, the writing grows intense and more matter-of-fact, taking readers through the experience with Weigel and his family moment by moment, which is incredibly powerful (if occasionally uncomfortable). At all times, the author is honest and open, a remarkable feat for someone who confesses that he was disconnected from everyone around him. The book has three principal narrative threads: Weigel’s evolution as an athlete, his fight against cancer, and his path through fatherhood. They interweave throughout the text, all revealing his character—ultimately, the book suggests that he was reborn through the arrival of Natalie, when he “fell in love for the first time, unconditional, no judgment, no analysis.”

A hopeful story of resilience and determination to find one’s place in the world in the face of adversity.

Chris and Me: A Memoir About a Friendship

White, James P. | Self (100 pp.) | $6.95 paper Dec. 13, 2020 | 9798580859019

White offers a memoir about friendship and creative culture in Southern California. This work chronicles the author’s life after he moved his small family from Texas to California. Although he initially took a job running bakeries for a businessman who had recently fled Iran, White eventually settled into a position at the University of Southern California. Part of his job was to recruit writers for the faculty—he would bring on board authors such as James Leo Herlihy, author of the novel Midnight Cowboy (1965). When the author wrote his first novel, Birdsong (1977), he received words of praise from an older, established writer named

Christopher Isherwood (who is best known for his novel Goodbye to Berlin [1939], which inspired the musical Cabaret). It was not long thereafter that White traveled to Santa Monica to meet Isherwood; the encounter sparked a friendship that lasted until the older man’s death. Throughout his California adventures, the author discussed many personal topics in regular conversations with Isherwood (the two “talked about things that interested us both” on the phone). After Isherwood’s death, the author was given access to his extensive collection of papers and correspondences. (He also had the odd privilege of reading about himself in Isherwood’s diary.) At 100 pages, this memoir makes for a fast, informative read. The narrative launches readers into a specific time in Southern California—with references to writers like Herlihy and the artist David Hockney, the pages evoke a bygone Los Angeles full of creative, sometimes forgotten, people. Readers may need to further investigate some of the individuals who appear, like Robert Pirosh and Gloria Stuart, to fully appreciate their stories. Though a casual mention of, say, Franco Zeffirelli may not have the widest appeal, the highly specific and personal nature of White’s memoir makes for a touching account.

A brief yet intimate and cleareyed look at artists and camaraderie in a changing world.

Against All Enemies

Wing, Thomas M. | Acorn Publishing (434 pp.)

$25.99 | $15.99 paper | Oct. 13, 2023 9798885280549 | 9798885280532 paper

The Chinese government wages war against America on land and sea in Wing’s military suspense novel. Navy Commander Bill Wilkins mans the U.S.S. Nicholas destroyer deployed to the South China Sea. A surprise cruise missile attack from a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy frigate on American

soil has already claimed the life of his retired Naval officer brother, John, in San Diego when Wilkins learns of the ambush. He then sees a Chinese warship idling in nearby waters, and his own ship is bombed. Adrift in the western Pacific, Wilkins must use every bit of knowledge and experience in his arsenal to save what’s left of his crew and his ship in enemy territory. Meanwhile, high-level Washington politicians, including the newly elected president (who provoked the attack after abruptly ending a peacekeeping policy with China), seem befuddled and grossly ill-equipped to navigate international hostilities of this magnitude. Adding to the global unrest is Russia’s intention to seize the opportunity to plot a nuclear strike on America while the nation is vulnerable (“Once we’ve restored our position in Eastern Europe, we’ll look to the south and regain the oil regions”). NATO, meanwhile, is on the verge of disintegration. The novel’s action occurs primarily in the western Pacific, where Wilkins scrambles with the remaining members of his crew, and Moscow, where manipulative counternegotiations are discussed while strikes are carried out. Wing parlays his three-decade experience as a former U.S. Naval officer to craft Wilkins, a steely, determined military official whose commanding presence and strategic actions are both galvanizing and unifying to his many subordinates. The story is consistently busy with rapid-fire developments and a generous cast of military brass and influential (if misguided) political dignitaries. Because of the intensity of the plot points and missile-driven action sequences, several key and auxiliary characters are left only superficially developed, and the author’s overuse of acronyms, while adding to the authenticity of the narrative, may confound readers less familiar with military jargon. Still, Wing has written a heavily atmospheric and alarmingly believable story of war, honor, patriotism, and allegiance that will leave fans of political intrigue satisfied. A tense, fleet, and authentic-feeling addition to the military thriller genre.

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