August 1, 2024: Volume XCII, No. 15

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

LEV GROSSMAN SEEKS THE HOLY GRAIL OF FANTASY FICTION

The bestselling novelist undertakes a retelling of the King Arthur legend for the 21st century

FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

THE BOOK OF SUMMER 2024

“WHAT IS THE book that everyone is talking about this summer?”

Traci Thomas, host of The Stacks literary podcast, recently posed this question to followers on Instagram. A couple of years ago, she suggested, it was Gabrielle Zevin’s totally irresistible novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, about a trio of college friends whose lives are transformed by the successful video game they create together. Last year, Traci argued, it might have been Yellowface, R.F. Kuang’s sly novel of racism and bad faith in the publishing industry—although I suspect that book was more buzzed about within the industry than outside it. But Summer 2024? Still up for grabs.

Kathleen Schmidt was already anticipating the lack of consensus back in May, when she posted on the social media platform X, “Is it just me or does it seem like there’s no ‘big’ summer fiction book this year?”

Schmidt is a savvy longtime book publicist who writes a Substack newsletter, Publishing Confidential , and though her conclusion might have seemed premature at the time, it appears she was onto something.

Replying to Kathleen’s post, I ventured that Kaliane Bradley’s The Ministry of Time (Avid Reader Press, May 7) could be a contender; nearly everyone I knew who had read the book—a clever mashup of speculative fiction and romance about a 19th-century polar explorer who

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travels through time and falls in love with the 21st-century minder assigned to resettle him— rhapsodized about it. Ministry was already a Good Morning America Book Club pick, which couldn’t hurt, but Kathleen wasn’t buying it: “I’m not sure that’s the book of the summer,” she wrote.

This week, I asked Kirkus’ fiction editor, Laurie Muchnick, what title she would nominate. “Women of all ages are reading Miranda July’s All Fours [Riverhead, May 14],” she told me, “about a 40-something woman who drops out of her life and checks into a hotel a few miles from home while her family thinks she’s driving cross-country for work. A bit of summer wish fulfillment?” I’ve certainly seen plenty of people reading All Fours in the wild—on my daily subway commute, at the beach over the July 4 holiday—so the novel may indeed be gaining traction.

As I’m writing this, Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s Long Island Compromise (Random

House, July 9) is about to come out, and this latest novel by the journalist and author of Fleishman Is in Trouble is certainly one of the most talked-about releases of the season. It’s the story of the Jewish Fletcher clan in a wealthy enclave of the titular suburb; they are still grappling, decades later, with the kidnapping of patriarch Carl—although the episode had a nominally happy ending with Carl’s release and the recouping of the $250,000 ransom. There’s certainly been a lot of anticipatory press for the novel, including our interview with the author in the July 1 issue. By the time this issue reaches you, we may have a better sense of the book’s impact—indeed, we may have to wait for Labor Day to truly know the book of Summer 2024. In the meantime, write to me with your candidates at tbeer@kirkus.com. The field is open.

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

TOM BEER

Co-Chairman

HERBERT SIMON

Publisher & CEO

MEG LABORDE KUEHN mkuehn@kirkus.com

Chief Marketing Officer

SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com

Publisher Advertising & Promotions

RACHEL WEASE rwease@kirkus.com

Indie Advertising & Promotions

AMY BAIRD abaird@kirkus.com

Author Consultant

RY PICKARD rpickard@kirkus.com

Lead Designer KY NOVAK knovak@kirkus.com

Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor ROBIN O’DELL rodell@kirkus.com

Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor

MARINNA CASTILLEJA mcastilleja@kirkus.com

Kirkus Editorial Production Editor

ASHLEY LITTLE alittle@kirkus.com

Copy Editors

ELIZABETH J. ASBORNO BILL SIEVER

Magazine Compositor

NIKKI RICHARDSON

Contributing Writers

GREGORY MCNAMEE MICHAEL SCHAUB

Co-Chairman

MARC WINKELMAN

Editor-in-Chief TOM BEER tbeer@kirkus.com

President of Kirkus Indie CHAYA SCHECHNER cschechner@kirkus.com

Fiction Editor

LAURIE MUCHNICK lmuchnick@kirkus.com

Interim Nonfiction Editor WENDY SMITH wsmith@kirkus.com

Young Readers’ Editor LAURA SIMEON lsimeon@kirkus.com

Young Readers’ Editor MAHNAZ DAR mdar@kirkus.com

Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE mlabrise@kirkus.com

Senior Indie Editor DAVID RAPP drapp@kirkus.com

Indie Editor ARTHUR SMITH asmith@kirkus.com

Editorial Assistant NINA PALATTELLA npalattella@kirkus.com

Indie Editorial Assistant DAN NOLAN dnolan@kirkus.com

Indie Editorial Assistant SASHA CARNEY scarney@kirkus.com

Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH

Contributors

Colleen Abel, Mahasin Aleem, Jeffrey Alford, Autumn Allen, Paul Allen, Kent Armstrong, Mark Athitakis, Nada Bakri, Colette Bancroft, Sally Battle, Robert Beauregard, Thomas Beheler, Heather Berg, Elizabeth Bird, Amy Boaz, Jessie Bond, Elissa Bongiorno, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Susan Breitzer, Jessica Hoptay Brown, Justina Bruns, Cliff Burke, Anna Calame, Catherine Cardno, Charles Cassady, Sandie Angulo Chen, Alec B. Chunn, Tamar Cimenian, Jeannie Coutant, MaryEllen D’Elia, Michael Deagler, Dave DeChristopher, Elise DeGuiseppi, Steve Donoghue, Melanie Dragger, Anna Drake, Jacob Edwards, Gina Elbert, Lisa Elliott, Lily Emerick, Chelsea Ennen, Jennifer Evans, Rosalind Faires, Joshua Farrington, Katie Flanagan, Hillary Jo Foreman, Renee Fountain, Sasha Fox-Carney, Mia Franz, Ayn Reyes Frazee, Jenna Friebel, Robbin Friedman, Roberto Friedman, Elisa Gall, Laurel Gardner, Jean Gazis, Chloé Harper Gold, Carol Goldman, Amy Goldschlager, Danielle Galván Gomez, Melinda Greenblatt, Michael Griffith, Tobi Haberstroh, Geoff Hamilton, Mara Henderson, Loren Hinton, Zoe Holland, Natalia Holtzman, Abigail Hsu, Ariana Hussain, Kathleen T. Isaacs, Wesley Jacques, Matt Jakubowski, Jessica Jernigan, Danielle Jones, Jayashree Kamblé, Marcelle Karp, Maya Kassutto, Ivan Kenneally, Colleen King, Katherine King, Stephanie Klose, Lyneea Kmail, Maggie Knapp, Andrea Kreidler, Megan Dowd Lambert, Carly Lane, Christopher Lassen, Tom Lavoie, Hanna Lee, Judith Leitch, Maureen Liebenson, Elsbeth Lindner, Coeur de Lion, Barbara London, Karen Long, Patricia Lothrop, Mikaela W. Luke, Wendy Lukehart, Kyle Lukoff, Leanne Ly, Michael Magras, Joan Malewitz, Thomas Maluck, Joe Maniscalco, Francesca Martinez, Gabriela Martins, Matthew May, J. Alejandro Mazariegos, Breanna McDaniel, Jeanne McDermott, Noelle McManus, Kathie Meizner, J. Elizabeth Mills, Tara Mokhtari, Clayton Moore, Rebecca Moore, Andrea Moran, Rhett Morgan, Jennifer Nabers, Christopher Navratil, Liza Nelson, Mike Newirth, Randall Nichols, Therese Purcell Nielsen, Katrina Nye, Tori Ann Ogawa, Connie Ogle, Mike Oppenheim, Andrea Page, Nina Palattella, Megan K. Palmer, Derek Parker, Sarah Parker-Lee, Hal Patnott, John Edward Peters, Vicki Pietrus, Margaret Quamme, Carolyn Quimby, Kristy Raffensberger, Darryn Reams, Caroline Reed, Stephanie Reents, Alyssa Rivera, Kelly Roberts, Amy Robinson, Christopher R. Rogers, Kristina Rothstein, Lloyd Sachs, Bob Sanchez, Keiko Sanders, Caitlin Savage, E.F. Schraeder, Gene Seymour, Jerome Shea, Madeline Shellhouse, Sadaf Siddique, Leah Silvieus, Linda Simon, Clay Smith, Leena Soman, Margot E. Spangenberg, Allison Staley, Allie Stevens, Mathangi Subramanian, Jennifer Sweeney, Deborah Taylor, Renee Ting, Lenora Todaro, Martha Anne Toll, Valeria Tsygankova, Bijal Vachharajani, Jenna Varden, Francesca Vultaggio, Elliott Walcroft, Katie Weeks, Vanessa Willoughby, Kerry Winfrey, Marion Winik, Bean Yogi

SURPRISES FROM THE SHOULDER SEASON

AUGUST IS AN in-between time in publishing: The beach-blanket blockbusters have already come out, but no one’s ready for the back-to-school feeling ushered in by the fall lists. It’s a good time for publishers to sneak in some interesting books that might get lost in the shuffle if they came out earlier or later.

When Australian writer Fiona McFarlane’s historical novel The Sun Walks Down came out last year, our review called it “a masterpiece of riveting storytelling.” Now McFarlane is publishing Highway Thirteen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Aug. 13), a collection of linked short stories revolving around a string of serial killings in 1990s Australia. Like Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women (2023), which considered Ted Bundy’s attack on a Florida sorority by focusing on the women who

survived, Highway Thirteen checks in on the killer’s neighbors, a politician who shares the killer’s name, and others with peripheral involvement in the crimes. Our starred review calls the book “addictively engaging, profoundly serious fiction from an underappreciated master.”

There Is a Rio Grande in Heaven by Ruben Reyes Jr. (Mariner, Aug. 6) is a collection of stories set among the Salvadoran diaspora, exploring the community’s challenges with an edge of strangeness. One man becomes obsessed with mangoes even as they ruin his life; a grandmother turns into a marionette; a man wakes up one morning transformed, not into a cockroach but into “a giant reggaeton star.” These are “haunting, tender, profound meditations on the experiences of Central American migrants and

their families,” according to our starred review.

Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, author of The Memory Police (2019), returns with a new novel, Mina’s Matchbox (translated by Stephen Snyder; Pantheon, Aug. 13), about a 12-year-old girl, Tomoko, who goes to live with her aunt and uncle in the summer of 1972. She’s captivated by her ailing cousin, Mina, who loves to read and collects matchboxes. “Facing complicated themes with deceptively simple language, [Ogawa] pulls off a neat trick here, painting everything in miniature and often in hindsight without losing the immediacy of Tomoko’s experiences,” according to our starred review.

The ”hums” in Helen Phillips’ new novel, Hum (Marysue Rucci Books, Aug. 6), are intelligent robots who have replaced dentists,

surgeons, police officers, and more. And now they’ve replaced May, whose job was teaching them language. To make money to support her family, May undergoes an experimental procedure that changes her face just enough to make her unrecognizable to surveillance cameras. When she uses the windfall to treat her family to a few days at the botanical garden, catastrophe soon follows and her children get lost. Our starred review calls it “a perceptive page-turner with a generous perspective on motherhood, identity, and the pitfalls of ‘progress.’”

Napalm in the Heart, the first novel from Catalan poet Pol Guasch (translated by Mara Faye Lethem; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Aug. 13) is another dystopian view of the world, but in this version the narrator is trying to reunite with his boyfriend, not his children. “An extraordinarily beautiful depiction of an extraordinarily ugly—and wholly credible—world in the making,” according to our starred review.

Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.

LAURIE MUCHNICK

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

The Red River of the North cuts a vivid track through the hardscrabble lives that anchor Erdrich’s surpassing North Dakota fiction.

This deft, almost winsome novel begins at night, with Crystal Frechette, a trucker. She’s hauling sugar beets and wearing “a lucky hat knitted by her daughter,” Kismet Poe. Her headlights are “peacefully cutting radiant holes in the blackness” when she glimpses a mountain lion vault across the road. It’s a sign, but of what? Kismet, finishing high school, is edgy, furious, and bored. Both Gary Geist, her school’s quarterback, and Hugo Dumach, a nerdy homeschooler, fixate on her as the angel destined to slay their wildly divergent demons. This

nutty love triangle kickstarts the plot; Kismet, in a futile stab at avoiding teen marriage, slips from a bridge into the cold Red River, floating downstream until she’s rescued. But true love here is the kind between mother and daughter. This pair, beset by the 2008 economic meltdown, proves expert in “getting trapped but at least not giving up.” Around them, a recent, communal catastrophe on the frozen river stays murky through three-quarters of the story. In counterpoint, the town’s daffy book club dissects Eat Pray Love and The Road, each session blooming into comic set pieces. Erdrich reaches for some of her fictional staples: a waitressing gig, multiple viewpoints, and, always, mixed-heritage Native people trying to grasp and

The Mighty Red

Erdrich, Louise | Harper/HarperCollins | 384 pp.

$32.00 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780063277052

transmit that heritage. Her writing feels both effortless and wise. She notes a boy’s “shy armpits” and how a soundproofed house can feel “inhuman, maybe even violent.” Even if a minor character, the Catholic priest, bogs down in caricature, Erdrich has few equals in braiding landscape and

sky into the marrow of her characters. Her poet’s origins are in full force as she folds in the sickening damage of fracking and pesticide-dependent agriculture, right alongside the sprouts of resistance. Love and tragedy mingle in this tender and capacious story.

Fittingly, this bittersweet tragicomedy is structured like an Oscar Wilde play.

THE WILDES

Kirkus Star

A Way To Be Happy

Adderson, Caroline | Biblioasis (240 pp.) | $16.95 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781771966221

Stories by an accomplished Canadian writer about the complexity of loneliness and the sweet relief of connection. In “Homing,” 62-year-old Marta leaves her husband, which is a “non-event” until she realizes how lonely she is, living in a new town and making feeble attempts to befriend her neighbors. Her despair starts to lighten when a flock of pigeons roosts in her shed; figuring out what’s brought them to her rental house forces her out of her shell. Taryn in “All Our Auld Acquaintances Are Gone” is adrift, a homeless addict. As she and a man who has promised to take her away—perhaps to recover— go from one fancy party to another on New Year’s Eve and steal from the guests, it would be easy to judge Taryn, except that the story swerves in a small, unexpected way. Adderson has a gift for finding the tender parts in characters, even unlikable ones. At 55, Ketman, the misanthropic grump in “The Procedure,” misses his late mother so much that he actually imagines she’s waiting just around the next corner of his colon, which he’s watching on screen during his colonoscopy. The best story here is “From the Archives of the Hospital for the Insane,” a piece about the power of women to care for each

other, even under difficult circumstances. Drawing from research on British Columbia’s Provincial Hospital for the Insane in the early 20th century, Adderson teases out the social-historical reasons for women’s “insanity” as well as why some women might prefer to live in an institution rather than out in the world. Adderson, best known in the U.S. for her children’s books, is a deft, masterful storyteller whose literary fiction surely deserves more attention. Confidently written stories by an author whose light touch suggests human pathos without pinning it down.

The Repeat Room

Ball, Jesse | Catapult (256 pp.)

$27.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781646221400

In an arcane future legal system, a garbage collector is called to serve as a jury of one. With his enigmatic approach, it’s hard to say that a surrealist like Ball is back on brand. That said, longtime readers will find this Black Mirror –flavored episode closer to The Divers’ Game (2019) or A Cure for Suicide (2015) than to his more conventional deliveries. Our point of entry into this peculiar world is Abel Cotter, a 40-something sanitation worker—he prefers “heavy-machine operator”— and a complete cipher despite a tragic backstory. Abel has been selected to serve on the jury of a futuristic justice system meant to focus on forward progress rather than corporal punishment, the ultimate goal being to

eliminate “unfit” individuals from society. Its execution depends on the titular device, a cryptic machine that enables the juror to experience the accused’s life firsthand, down to feelings, motivations, and regrets. Unlike a typical jury, this one is narrowed by process of elimination, a process starkly explained to Abel with warnings like, “You may be a coward. This has been taken into account,” and “This is not your regular life. Have a care.” Our glimpses of Abel’s experience evoke the TV series The Prisoner and the invasive justice parlayed in Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report Just when you think you’ve figured things out, Ball changes tempo midstream when we meet the accused. In the second half of the book, the unnamed defendant narrates his surreal, taboo relationship with his sister, set against the backdrop of an abusive household and culminating in her death. Ball puts down broad brush strokes here about bureaucratic justice versus human frailty, but the devil is in the details; his disorienting style and the unsettling atmosphere deliver a uniquely uncomfortable experience. A provocative vision of a world desperately in search of basic human compassion.

Kirkus Star

The Wildes: A Novel in Five Acts

Bayard, Louis | Algonquin (304 pp.)

$29.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781643755304

Bayard’s fictional vision of the Oscar Wilde scandal in 1890s England focuses on what the playwright’s choices, successes, and scandals cost innocent bystanders—particularly his family.

Fittingly, this bittersweet tragicomedy full of bad manners is structured like a Wilde play. The long first act, set on a Norfolk farm rented by the Wildes

during the summer of 1892—three years before Oscar’s infamous court cases— focuses on Constance Wilde’s discovery of Oscar’s physical relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas. Both Wildes skirt around what they know is happening with verbal wit, their spiritual intimacy and mutual affection as obvious as Oscar’s self-destructive passion for the charming narcissist, eternally boyish Alfred. Despite Oscar’s entreaties, the deeply hurt Constance departs Norfolk without him, although the marriage limps along (a situation reminiscent of the Kennedy marriage in Bayard’s Jackie & Me, 2022). The novel is concerned less with the historical facts of what happened next—Oscar’s failed libel suit against Alfred’s father and resulting incarceration for sodomy— than with the human fallout. The following acts concern Constance’s short, unhappy life after moving abroad to hide herself and her children from the ugly publicity, and then how each of the Wildes’ two sons, so intensely beloved in early childhood by both parents, ends up psychologically damaged in adulthood. Sexuality matters less in this telling than broader issues of sexual ethics, loyalty, and conformity. Oscar’s sexual orientation is less important than his selfishness, pride, weakness, and capacity for abiding love. As she grapples with her own sexual yearnings and sense of self-worth, Constance, an intellectual and supporter of women’s rights, is upset by Oscar’s loss of desire for her—their marriage began with mutual physical attraction—as much as by whom he desires instead. The truth is heartbreaking, but Bayard’s fifth act offers an implausible but satisfying solution Wilde himself might have written to send the audience home smiling. Bayard turns the Wilde family’s tragedy into an engrossing, eternally relevant fable of fame, scandal, and love.

Where the Forest Meets the River

Bowring, Shannon | Europa

Editions (304 pp.) | $18.00 paper Sept. 3, 2024 | 9798889660439

For more by Louis Bayard, visit Kirkus online.

A small town in northern Maine grieves the sudden death of a woman with postpartum depression. Bowring’s second novel revisits the town and characters from her debut, The Road to Dalton (2023). It’s five years later, 1995. “On the surface, nothing has really changed in Dalton since Bridget killed herself” at age 26, months after her first child, Sophie, was born. Below the surface, her death has transformed life for much of the town. As with her first novel, Bowring shifts perspective to a different character in each short chapter. It’s a large and lively cast. Many can hardly find time to grieve while parenting and working. Bridget’s husband, Nate, has quit the police force to work a mindless job in the Frazier lumber mill, owned by Bridget’s father. Bridget’s mother, Annette, is now an alcoholic and home-shopping-network addict. Old friends and lovers Bev (Nate’s mother) and Trudy, each married to a different man, are still together. Their love is tested when Trudy must care for her husband, Richard, after he has a heart attack. Bowring doesn’t create much tension in this novel, and there is no major twist or surprise. The focus is on the subtleties of her characters’ hearts and minds. At times, key character traits are repeated too often, as people are mired in comforting bad habits. But Bowring brilliantly evokes people’s inner lives through small, illuminating moments, not unlike Sherwood Anderson, and fills the novel with thoughtful and comic one-liners that ring true. Her love for these characters is apparent on every page, shining brightest in the tough but tender relationship Bev and Trudy share. “Bev

can’t believe that tiny word— us —can contain so much. All their love and all their stories. All their hopes and all their sorrows.”

A moving portrait of the ways people survive palpable, harrowing grief.

Kirkus Star

Eruption

Crichton, Michael & James Patterson Little, Brown (432 pp.) | $32.00 June 3, 2024 | 9780316565073

Two master storytellers create one explosive thriller. Mauna Loa is going to blow within days—“the biggest damn eruption in a century”—and John “Mac” MacGregor of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory leads a team trying to fend off catastrophe. Can they vent the volcano? Divert the flow of blistering hot lava? The city of Hilo is but a few miles down the hill from the world’s largest active volcano and will likely be in the path of a 15-foot-high wall of molten menace racing toward them at 50 miles an hour. “You live here, you always worry about the big one,” Mac says, and this could be it. There’s much more, though. The U.S. Army swoops in, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff personally “drafts” Mac into the Army. Then Mac learns the frightening secret of the Army’s special interest in Mauna Loa, and suddenly the stakes fly far, far beyond Hilo. Perhaps they can save the world, but the odds don’t look good. Readers will sympathize with Mac, who teaches surfing to troubled teens and for whom “taking chances is part of his damned genetic code.” But no one takes chances like the aerial cowboy Jake Rogers and the photographer who hires him to fly over the smoldering, burbling, rock-spitting hellhole. Some of the action scenes will make readers’ eyes pop as the tension continues to build. As with any good thriller, there’s

a body count, but not all thrillers have blackened corpses surfing lava flows. The story is the brainchild of the late Crichton, who did a great deal of research but died in 2008 before he could finish the novel. His widow handed the project to Patterson, who weaves Crichton’s work into a seamless summer read. Red-hot storytelling.

Kirkus Star

And So I Roar

Daré, Abi | Dutton (400 pp.) | $28.00 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593186558

Nigerian British writer Daré follows up The Girl With the Louding Voice (2020) with a suspenseful, eventful sequel.

The previous novel followed 14-year-old Adunni, who was raised in a Nigerian village with ambitions of becoming a teacher; after the death of her mother, though, her father forced her to marry an older man who already had two wives. When Khadija, the second wife, died during pregnancy, Adunni was afraid she’d be blamed, so she turned to a local man, Mr. Kola, who offered her an escape to Lagos—and then sold her into indentured servitude. As this novel begins, just days after the previous one ended, Adunni is staying with Tia, the neighbor who rescued her, and is about to enter a boarding school on scholarship. Unfortunately, those plans are interrupted when Mr. Kola and a chieftain from Ikati, the village where she grew up, appear at her door and accuse her of murdering Khadija, demanding she return to the village for judgment. Determined to clear her name, she goes with them—and Tia goes, too. The action unfolds over the next 24 hours as Adunni, awaiting trial, gets to know other girls accused of various “crimes” such as resisting genital mutilation and causing the failure of crops. Meanwhile, Tia journeys with

Part adventure yarn, part feminist manifesto, and completely captivating.

AND SO I ROAR

Adunni’s younger brother to find male relatives who will be able to attest for Adunni and the other girls. The novel alternates between the voice of Adunni, speaking in a version of English she has cobbled together, and Tia, an environmental activist who was raised in an upper-middle-class family and educated in the U.K. She has her own set of problems: Her estranged mother is dying, and her husband has discovered a stack of letters she wrote to a mysterious lover. Daré doesn’t shy away from melodrama; deaths, injuries, and children born to fathers whose identities are concealed pile up rapidly. But readers willing to go along for a ride will be treated to prose that is alternately poetic and comic, two heroines worth cheering for, and sharp insights into the contrast between urban and rural Nigeria. Part old-fashioned adventure yarn, part feminist manifesto, and completely captivating.

The Night We Lost Him

Dave, Laura | Marysue Rucci Books (320 pp.) | $28.99 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781668002933

When their father dies on the cliffs of his California estate, estranged half-siblings unite to investigate possible foul play. As Dave’s seventh novel opens, the reader learns something the characters don’t know: Hotel magnate Liam Noone did not fall by accident. He was pushed—by whom and for what reason are unclear. The police have deemed it an accident and closed the case, but his son, Sam, is not so

sure. Though he hasn’t seen his half sister, Nora, in years, he shows up at her workplace in New York to ask her to go with him to California to investigate. This part of the story is told by Nora in the first person. We get a lot of information about Nora—she has recently lost both parents, she’s an authority on neuroarchitecture, she is engaged to a New York chef but has an ex in the wings—but somehow don’t get much of a feel for her as a person as she and Sam race around investigating leads and having defensive, snappy conversations. A second narrative thread begins 50 years in the past and follows the development of a romance between Liam and a woman named Cory, who is not one of his three ex-wives, nor is she a woman named Cece with whom he had a mysterious connection. The novel relies on the tension created by all these missing puzzle pieces to plunge swiftly forward, but there’s nothing really at stake—no strong suspects, no wrongly accused, no contested inheritance; it’s all just digging up the secrets of a dead person so his children can understand him now that it’s too late. Actually, nobody really understands each other in this book, and as the characters suspiciously keep each other at arm’s length, the effect extends to the reader as well. Other potentially interesting topics—neuroarchitecture (designing spaces that support emotional well-being), the high-end hotel business—are similarly set up but not explored. A promising blueprint for a book that didn’t quite get written.

For more by Laura Dave, visit Kirkus online.

Reservoir Bitches

de la Cerda, Dahlia | Trans. by Julia Sanches & Heather Cleary Feminist Press (160 pp.) | $16.95 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781558613119

Thirteen “reservoir bitches” tell readers: Sit, stay, escúchame.

Mexican author de la Cerda’s English-language debut, a story collection translated from Spanish by Sanches and Cleary, presents a group of Mexican women facing down danger and tragedy at every turn. The “bitches” are women from different economic backgrounds—drug empire heiress Yuliana struts the streets in Louboutins, and teen mom Stefi works 12-hour shifts at a shoe store—as well as racial backgrounds—blond-haired and blue-eyed Constanza masquerades as a mestiza to aid her husband’s political campaign, and an unnamed narrator seeks revenge on her murderers after being resurrected by a figure from Mexican legend. De la Cerda’s narrators have lived very different, equally important lives, but their voices tend to blend into one another. Most have a similar sense of humor and code of ethics, and many make use of an irreverent tone, colloquial language, and nicknames for the reader, such as “fam,” “queen,” and “amigui” (each of these words appears in its own story—perhaps this is an attempt to distinguish their narrators). These tactics succeed in creating the enchanting feeling that one is sitting across from each narrator, being told their stories as a close confidante. This feeling remains even when we know the narrator is dead—which does not happen just once, but four times. The most prominent theme is the epidemic of femicide, specifically in Mexico. In one of her most powerful moments, de la Cerda writes, “Mexico is a monster that devours women. Mexico

is a desert of pulverized bone. Mexico is a graveyard full of pink crosses.”

The author’s demand that we bear witness to the senseless murders, in all their gruesomeness, of these bright young women is sobering and commendable. However, the sheer magnitude of loss and injustice displayed here means that the vengeance secured against the perpetrators, which is posed as badass feminist action, feels limp. De la Cerda sums it up best: “Being a woman means living in a state of emergency.”

House of Shades

Dillsworth, Lianne | Harper/ HarperCollins (256 pp.) | $30.00 July 16, 2024 | 9780358627920

A young Black woman in 19th-century London takes a job as a dying white man’s nurse and becomes an amateur detective. In 1833, Hester Reeves arrives for the first day of a new job at a foreboding mansion called Tall Trees. Hester is 23, a free Black woman who uses the title “doctoress” to indicate her skills as an herbalist. Up to now, she has used those skills mainly to treat the city’s sex workers at King’s Cross, with the support of her kind husband, Jos. Hester’s mother has died, leaving her to care for Willa, her pretty and headstrong younger sister. Willa’s factory job has brought her to the attention of her rakish boss, and Hester wants to move her family out of the city, farther from such temptations. So she jumps at the chance to undertake the care of the wealthy Gervaise Cherville for a month, as he settles his affairs before moving to his country estate to live out his last days. Hester’s skills are suitable—Gervaise is dying of syphilis—and the pay is generous enough to finance a move. She soon discovers Gervaise wants

something more from her. Years ago, he brought several enslaved women from his family’s plantation in Honduras to London. They escaped, but he is haunted by them and wants Hester’s help to find out their fates. She proves to be a good detective, but her discovery of what happened to the women could ruin lives. Complicating the situation are Gervaise’s sternly protective housekeeper, Margaret, and his son, Rowland, the very man Hester hopes to distance Willa from, who is eager to get his hands on his father’s estate. The plot has some interesting turns, and Gervaise’s situation as an enslaver coming to terms with his behavior has potential. But the book suffers from stereotypes and limited character development; Hester is so unfailingly upright she can come off as priggish, while Rowland is such a stereotypical villain he almost twirls a mustache. But with brisk pacing and plentiful historical detail, it’s still an entertaining read. This historical novel offers an unusual situation, but the trappings of the story are not as fresh.

Bummer Camp

Garvin, Ann | Lake Union Publishing (331 pp.) | $12.49 paper Sept. 1, 2024 | 9781662518560

A woman is pulled back to her childhood home, a Wisconsin summer camp, when financial woes threaten to derail it.

Cat McCarthy, 37, has spent two decades trying to create boundaries between herself and others; having grown up at a ramshackle theater camp and been responsible for her little sister and the other campers, she can’t handle the thought of letting anyone down, so she’s erected a protective shell and sailed through life alone. But when she unexpectedly gets pregnant on a second date, she’s

delighted about the baby that will be arriving and expanding her circle to two. Then, when she’s seven months along, her sister, Ginger, and nephew, Bard, text her—separately—saying they need help and asking her to come home. Their parents had taken a year off, leaving Ginger and Bard in charge, but Ginger had outsourced the responsibility to Bob, a shady motivational speaker she’s infatuated with, and his wife, Elaine, and the camp’s finances are a mess. Then Bob and Elaine disappear—apparently with all the camp’s money. What follows is a whirlwind week as Cat tries to get ready for the camp’s upcoming fundraising gala and figure out how to help her family and the camp’s staff—including Gary, a groundskeeper she finds distractingly attractive. Disentangling the financial mess at a remote location without phones or internet—Bob locked up everyone’s cell phones for a “media detox program,” and he seems to have cut the wires on the landline—is tricky for Cat, especially while heavily pregnant and with the gala looming. Invitations have been sent but no supplies ordered, and there is no way to cancel the event. This is a slow-moving, optimistic tale that still has a sense of urgency; it leans toward celebrating people’s differences while looking at their quirks as individual traits rather than abject failures. A sweet novel that combines a little love story and a lot of sisterly bonding in the beautiful Wisconsin woods.

Robert B. Parker’s Buzz Kill

Gaylin, Alison | Putnam (320 pp.)

$30.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593715642

An offer she can’t refuse sends Sunny Randall poking around greater Boston in search of someone who may not even be worth finding. Although Sunny’s repeatedly turned down millionaire Bill Welch,

who wants her to look for Dylan, the son who’s been missing for two weeks, she’s in no position to say no to Bill’s imperious wife, Lydia. So concerned is Lydia over Dylan, the Gonzo CEO responsible for an energy drink that’s perked up thousands of customers, that Sunny starts her search that same day. It’s no mystery why Dylan might have gone into hiding. Gonzo was being sued, and Dylan was being threatened by Rhonda Lewis over the death of her 17-year-old daughter, Daisy, who went into cardiac arrest after downing three Gonzos mixed with alcohol, and somebody had sent him more than two dozen text messages reading simply “MURDERER.” Nor have things settled down at Gonzo in Dylan’s absence. Product developer Trevor Reed is shot to death; Dylan’s old pal Sky Farley, now Gonzo COO, is lucky to survive her own shooting; and even Sunny’s receptionist, Blake James, ends up imbibing a little too much Gonzo for his own good. The case is so complicated, in fact, that solving it will require an out-of-theblue brainwave from Sunny, and even after she starts to put the pieces together, it’s clear that some of them fit together more neatly than others. Not up to Gaylin’s first tour with Parker’s franchise, but good enough to keep fans abuzz.

My Lesbian Novel

Gladman, Renee | Dorothy (152 pp.) $16.95 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781948980234

An experimental novel about writing a conventional novel.

“How will you start the novel you wish to write?” This is the opening sentence of a novel Gladman has, in fact, already written. The person who answers this question is Renee—designated by the initial “R” throughout the book— who might be the author of this

novel, might be a character with the same name as the author, or might be both. R is in conversation with I. As R and her interlocuter continue to discuss R’s new novel, R refers to Gladman’s earlier works of fiction, which are also R’s earlier works of fiction. R explains that she’s working on a romance novel—more specifically, a lesbian romance novel. By now it should be clear that this is not a novel in any conventional sense of the word. The novel that R is writing as this interview stretches out over a period of years ultimately sheds many of the tropes associated with romance novels. R describes having to think about plot—something that has never interested her as a writer before—but readers looking for plot will be disappointed. What they will find instead is reflections on writing and reading. Gladman’s exploration of lesbians in fiction both popular and “literary” is interesting, as are her descriptions of how she works. As the text progresses, it becomes increasingly self-referential. R insists that she and the protagonist of her lesbian novel are different people, but she has to say this because it seems like maybe they are. By the time R explains that she doesn’t like to abandon a novel because then she has to write a novel about not being able to finish that novel—something Gladman already did in To After That (2008)—readers may be experiencing a sense of vertigo.

Playful, insightful, and potentially exasperating.

Peggy

Godfrey, Rebecca with Leslie Jamison Random House (384 pp.) | $29.00 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780385538282

Rich, restless, driven by “grand dreams” and fears of a family curse, Peggy Guggenheim sets out to find the bohemian life for which she yearns.

Godfrey worked on this book for 10 years before dying of cancer in 2022; using the manuscript and notes she left behind, Jamison finished the book, immersing the reader in Godfrey’s vision of the intense and willful Guggenheim as she progresses from adolescence to womanhood: “I wanted a future of gangsters or poets; I wanted violence and beauty.…” At 14, after her father—traveling with his mistress—dies on board the Titanic, Peggy, her mother, and two sisters must downsize, but they are still wealthy members of New York society, living under Mrs. Guggenheim’s expectations of conformity. Peggy, meanwhile, even in her teens is testing the limits of her position, deceiving her mother about what she’s studying in school, flirting with both sexes, questing constantly “for another kind of life.…A life among artists.” A job in an avantgarde bookshop introduces her to some of those creative people, including Laurence Vail, a sculptor known as the King of Bohemia. Moving to Paris, marrying Vail, and having two children with him, Guggenheim begins to claim her chosen identity. More appealing in its earlier, questing, formative half, the novel turns more glamorous and sensational in its later chapters. Guggenheim’s friends and many lovers come to the fore, while famous names pervade the text—Man Ray, Hart Crane, Emma Goldman, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett (one of those lovers). Issues of class, antisemitism, modernism, sexuality, women’s rights, and politics are discussed, and there’s plenty of drama. Peggy’s marriage turns abusive; her older sister dies in childbirth, and her younger is accused of killing her two sons after they fall to their deaths. The story concludes as Peggy reaches 40, but a coda set in Venice 20 years later crams in the art purchases for which she is mainly remembered. It’s a devoted, creative version of the life, often in romantic

thrall to the mercurial, impulsive, insulated figure at its center. A vivid, indulgent imagining of the legendary collector.

Kirkus Star

Small Rain

Greenwell, Garth | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) | $28.00 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780374279547

Greenwell, who has written so evocatively about desire and sex in What Belongs to You (2016) and Cleanness (2020), now probes something quite different: life-threatening illness. With no warning and a violent eruption of pain so intense it felt like someone “plunged a hand into [his] gut and grabbed hold and yanked,” the narrator suffers an infrarenal aortic dissection—a tear of the inner layer of his aorta. It’s a sometimes fatal malady that usually happens to people older than the narrator, who’s in his 40s. Deeply reluctant during the pandemic to go to the hospital in Iowa City, he endures the pain at home until his partner, L, convinces him to get treatment. The medical staff is alarmed, and also titillated, by encountering such a rare malady. The narrator of this autofiction endures lab test after lab test and must learn how to be powerless— how, for example, to refrain from using the bathroom near his ICU bed by himself or how to walk there without tangling the many wires and IV lines threaded from his body. As usual in a Greenwell novel, the tangents are tantalizing, and with so much time

A vivid, indulgent imagining of the legendary collector.

spent inert and left to ponder, the narrator finds his imagination flying beyond his hospital bed to the fracturing of his family, his life with and love for L, and the implications of their disastrous home renovations. But this is a novel about bodies and how weird they are, and Greenwell often returns to thinking about them. “What a strange thing a body is,” he writes, “…and how strange to have hated it so much, when it had always been so serviceable, when it had done more or less everything I had needed until now, when for more than forty years it had worked so well.” There’s more suspense here than in Greenwell’s previous work, as the reader is eager to discover the outcome of the narrator’s illness: How will he get out of the ICU and return to life?

Greenwell—such a finely tuned, generous writer—transforms a savage illness into a meditation on a vital life.

Lesser Ruins

Haber, Mark | Coffee House (296 pp.)

$18.00 paper | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781566897198

A widowed professor struggles with writing, coffee, antisemitism, and dance music.

The narrator of Haber’s elliptical, mordantly funny third novel can’t get his mind in order. Now that he’s left his job teaching humanities and philosophy at a community college—he won’t say if he quit or was fired—he’s determined to finish his long-gestating book-length essay on Montaigne. But interruptions abound. He’s still mourning the recent death of his wife from dementia, his DJ son keeps calling to natter on about trends in electronic dance music, and he can’t stop obsessing over his former employer’s disciplinary hearings or the artists’ retreat where he befriended a brilliant but troubled sculptor. The novel’s orthographic structure underscores the narrator’s near-derangement: The book is effectively three long paragraphs, rife

LEV GROSSMAN

In his new novel, the author takes on the holy grail of fantasy fiction: the legend of King Arthur.

BY AMY GOLDSCHLAGER

Lev Grossman’s blockbuster Magicians Trilogy deconstructed Narnia and set the standard for novels that take place in magical universities (after all, Harry Potter didn’t even complete high school!). Now, in The Bright Sword (Viking, July 16), the author takes on an even more towering fantasy icon: King Arthur. Grossman grew up with a strong connection to Britain (his mother is from London) and clearly has been thinking about the legend of Camelot for some time; he confirms that an episode of The Magicians in which the students turn into birds is an intentional echo of a section from T.H. White’s The Once and Future King. He has assuredly done the reading, from the medieval renderings of the story composed by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Malory to the 19th-century poetry of Alfred Tennyson to the Arthurian novels of the past century, among many others.

“One of the great things about Arthur is this: There is no real canon,” Grossman says. “There are just a million different stories, each one of which is slightly different.” Speaking to Kirkus via Zoom from Australia, he explains how he developed his own version of the Camelot legend, which begins in a most unusual place: after King Arthur and most of his knights have died in the Battle of Camlann. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why is the King Arthur legend so enduring?

Obviously, the Arthur story is about themes that are universal and transcendent, about the end of a golden age and aspiring to divine ideals that humans can’t really ever attain. But there’s something unique about the Arthur story in that it is, on the one hand, so central to Western culture. And yet it also has this strange ability to transform it. Arthur begins as a kind of Welsh resistance hero in the battle to keep out the

I realized what an opportunity this was, to write about these knights who usually aren’t placed center stage.

Saxons. And then he becomes different things to different people, century by century. So it’s first this monumental story, and also strangely polymorphous. Hopefully, it has morphed again in The Bright Sword.

Is there still something more to say about Arthur? And why should you be the one to say it?

For most of my life, I thought that we had come to the end of the King Arthur story. I was very, very devoted to The Once and Future King when I was younger, and then [Marion Zimmer Bradley’s] The Mists of Avalon, which has become problematic. [Ed.: Bradley’s daughter accused her of abuse in 2014.] And then Bernard Cornwell and so many other amazing tellings of the story. But the stories I was reading still didn’t feel quite contemporary. They felt no less great, but they felt as though they belonged to the past. And it nagged me, this question of what King Arthur the 21st century needs. It occurred to me to write about the world that Arthur left behind, this kind of dark, chaotic Britain that follows his death. That was when I felt, Here’s the story. Here’s some blank space on the map that needs to be filled in

What issues should a 21st-century King Arthur story address?

I began to think about Arthur’s Britain as a post-colonial country. Britain is a country that is trying to decolonize in the wake of the Roman occupation. People were moving from one place to another, including the Saxons moving from Saxony to Britain. And Arthur’s job from the earliest tales is to keep the Saxons out. It’s about having Britain for the British, and he wants to keep the immigrants out. That was an aspect of the story that I felt that I had to face up to, because it was very real. Then there are other things having to do with representation. Again, you look for blank spaces on the map, for stories that haven’t been written yet. And I was very aware that there hadn’t been stories about the knights who were gay, or trans, or disabled, or neurodivergent, or having mental

health issues, or who weren’t white. These are all the stories that were still left to be told, even after 1,400 years. It seemed like such a wonderful opportunity to get to tell them. And it made me think of White—whose own sexuality was far from straightforward—and yet he couldn’t write about that. All he could write about were straight romances, because of the time he lived in. But times have changed and you can write those stories now.

How did that perspective direct your choice in creating characters for The Bright Sword? These are the members of the Round Table that most readers don’t know much about. When I started thinking about telling the story of what happened after Camlann, the first thing I did was look and see, well, who’s left? And the answer is: hardly anyone. Camlann was a total disaster, and almost everybody died. But there are a few; there’s a handful of knights. At first, I was perplexed by this. And then I realized what an opportunity this was, to write about these knights who usually aren’t placed center stage; you can take them from the margins and bring them to the center and tell their stories.

I took many liberties in pulling out the backstories of these knights. For example, there is a scene in Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur where Dinadan gets dressed up as a woman by Lancelot, I think as a joke. There’s no indication that he was trans. But there were obviously gay people on the Round Table, and I’ll eat my hat if there wasn’t somebody trans as well. I picked Dinadan because he’s funny; he’s meant to be very witty. And that’s the one piece of characterization he gets in the Arthurian tradition. He’s got a sharp tongue. And I thought, Right, I want to hear that. I want to hear what he has to say.

But your protagonist, Collum of Mull, is entirely your own invention. Why was it important to have someone new observing this world? Lots of reasons. I’ll tell you the two main ones. One, of course, is to give

Grossman, Lev Viking | 688 pp. | $35.00 July 16, 2024 | 9780735224049

the point of view of somebody who’s coming into Camelot from the outside. And the other thing is that Colum is, in many ways, a shadow of Arthur. His life has the same outlines. Just like Arthur, he grew up in rural obscurity. He had a somewhat traumatic childhood and then he left that all behind him, except he could never leave it all behind him. The difference being Arthur’s story is always about Arthur’s death. Le Morte d’Arthur. It gives you the spoiler right up front: Arthur dies.

Obviously it’s one of the great stories, one of the great tragedies. And yet one of the questions I asked myself was, well, there are a lot of people who lived on after Arthur died and had to make their way in this essentially post-apocalyptic world that he left behind. I really wanted somebody who was going to live in that world and was going to have to try to figure out how to go forward without Arthur and maybe even solve some of the problems that Arthur couldn’t.

Amy Goldschlager is a writer and editor in Brooklyn.

with lengthy sentences that often end in very different places from when they began. So it’s not hard to see why the narrator’s book project has failed to come together, and his complaint that “the modern world has destroyed the ability to have a single unfettered thought” seems a scapegoating of his emotional disarray. As he shares more about his life, comic incidents rise to the surface, like his ill-fated effort to maintain an espresso machine under his classroom desk. But darker details emerge as well, about his wife’s rapid decline and the antisemitism the sculptor and her family experienced. Soon, the narrator’s obsession with finding space to think—a “mental Sahara,” as he puts it—begins to feel more like a dereliction of moral duty to his family and students. Though Haber tells this story in long sentences, the language never becomes ungainly or abstractly Gertrude Stein–like. And as the narrator cycles between joy, regret, and frustration, the language echoes his struggle. (“Was my life merely procrastination and delay, a false endeavor never to bear fruit?”) But while the narrator’s mind is chaotic, Haber’s command is steady. An inventive meditation on grief and art.

The Examiner

Hallett, Janice | Atria (464 pp.) | $29.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781668023426

A mystery unfolds through email, letters, essays, and online correspondence. Six students begin a one-year master’s degree program in multimedia art at a British university that has recently been forced to cut many of its fine arts programs and redesign the degree with an eye toward art’s business relevancy. They come together as strangers, representing an eclectic mix of ages and backgrounds. Some are artists, while others have more tangential connections to the art world. But over the course of the year, strange

things happen. Someone appears to go missing, or maybe is even dead. Something is stolen. Almost everyone has secrets, including the leader of the program. The novel actually begins at the end, when an external examiner brought in to assign grades instead gets drawn into anomalies in the documented online conversations and some additional emails and materials that have been made available to him. He prepares to confront the students as they unveil their final project, an installation designed for RD8 Systems Ltd., a tech and communication business. Novels structured like a series of message-board postings almost inevitably feel gimmicky and all too clever. This one surprisingly breaks that mold. Though we spend nearly 500 pages primarily in the online company of only a few characters, Hallett skillfully introduces twists as much as halfway along. The secret to the book’s success lies in the realistic, somber tone that only grows darker as truths are revealed. Played for comedy, the whole thing would have seemed superficial, but as a commentary on art’s current role in academia and business, as well as the darker side of human ambition and gullibility, Hallett’s unconventional novel proves both creative and astute. Dare we say it? A tour de force.

Obligations to the Wounded

Kalimamukwento, Mubanga | Univ. of Pittsburgh (200 pp.) | $24.00 Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780822948360

A debut collection about women living in Zambia and abroad. Winner of the 2024 Drue Heinz Literature Prize, Kalimamukwento’s stirring stories explore the lives of women weighing their debts to tradition and family against their desire to break free and express their true selves. In “Azubah,” Funso has to return home to Zambia to care for the mother who never seemed to love her. The past still has a grip on her, even though she believes she has bought her freedom by moving to America and

remitting her “Black Tax” with every paycheck to ensure her mother is cared for. In “Inswa,” the young female narrator discovers her sexuality with her best friend, another girl, and would rather endure her mother’s abuse than give up the pleasure she’s found. Kalimamukwento has an eye for the poetic possibility of the natural world. After her first kiss, the narrator says her “stomach exploded into an army of golden flying termites, spilling out of their underground castles after a December storm,” and her ears “filled with bees fighting to escape.” In “Mastitis,” another standout, the narrator loses her mother the same day she gives birth to a daughter, though her mother reappears—an apparition—with sage advice and common sense when the narrator needs her most. This collection covers a lot of ground—from the price of privileging English over one’s native language to the dehumanizing U.S. immigration system, from the AIDS epidemic in Zambia to illegal adoption rings. These are complicated and important issues, but at times it feels like Kalimamukwento is cataloging all the social ills that Zambian women face and the steep cost of global imperialism rather than slowing down and deepening our understanding of the particular women and girls who are emmeshed in these heartbreaking circumstances. Timely and at times wrenching stories about contemporary Zambian women fighting to establish their identities.

Kirkus Star

The Third Realm

Knausgaard, Karl Ove | Trans. by Martin Aitken | Penguin Press (512 pp.) | $30.00 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780593655214

Knausgaard delves deeper into the lives of Norwegians affected by the emergence of a new heavenly body. This novel is a continuation of

the series launched with The Morning Star (2021) and The Wolves of Eternity (2023). Though perhaps “remix” is a better term: The book covers many of the same incidents in the previous novels, but from different characters’ perspectives. In The Morning Star, a man named Arne was puzzling over the state of his emotionally troubled wife, Tove; here the anguish is clarified via Tove’s narration. The earlier novels looked at the ritual murder of a group of black-metal musicians from a reporter’s point of view; here, the police investigation and a young woman in the musicians’ circle take center stage. And Syvert, an undertaker and central character in Wolves, extends the discussion of the new star’s impact and whether it’s delivered immortality to humanity. As throughout the series, Knausgaard is using everyday people to explore knotty questions about God’s existence, our need for spiritual connection, and the fine line between religious devotion and mental illness. Unlike its predecessors, this one benefits from the lack of an extended gassy disquisition on philosophy and science (though there’s a relatively short detour into neurology). It also has more narrative energy than its predecessors, particularly in the sections dealing with the ritual killings. Geir, the detective, comes out of crusty-cop central casting, but the procedural is engrossing and disturbing. Readers who come to this book first will find an entertaining story about people sorting through spiritual, domestic, and emotional confusion. But those who’ve read the prior novels will get a deeper sense of just how fascinating, frustrating, and unknowable we can be to each other, and the consequences of that disconnection. Typically contemplative for Knausgaard, but unusually propulsive as well.

One ironic plot twist plays on the publishing world’s infamous slush piles.

THE SEQUEL

Kirkus Star

Overstaying

Koch, Ariane | Trans. by Damion Searls Dorothy (176 pp.) | $16.95 paper Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781948980197

A woman adrift finds her life upended by a traveling stranger. The nameless protagonist in Swiss playwright and artist Koch’s debut novel has “come to rest” in her parents’ house in her small hometown, her parents having moved away. A self-described “tomb-keeper,” the protagonist lives among the detritus of her childhood home and memories associated with it. She feels deeply disconnected from her hometown and its inhabitants but is unwilling to leave. The novel opens with her noticing “the visitor,” who seems to have “materialized from the void,” at the local bar. Though she keeps her distance from other townspeople, she is drawn to the stranger and invites him to live with her. Immediately, their relationship is all extremes; the house holds them together as their odd behaviors force them apart. Seemingly, the longer the visitor stays, the more deranged the protagonist becomes. When the down-on-his-luck visitor begins to shed his sadness and flourish, the protagonist realizes she cannot control him or herself anymore: “The visitor has nested in me to such an extent that no matter how hard I try to rebel against him I am in the end only destroying myself.” The plot, if you can call it that, must be excavated from beneath the protagonist’s thoughts, feelings, and memories. Realism gives way to exaggeration that melts into the absurd. Disparate vignettes offer jarring glimpses into the protagonist’s

psyche, including her increasingly strange and complicated dynamic with the visitor—as well as her distant relationship with her parents and siblings. It can be easy to miss the moments of humor and beauty that litter Koch’s novel while navigating the meandering and peculiar prose. One such moment is when the protagonist approaches the visitor for the first time: “It’s too bad that we always miss the beginnings of things, while the ends of said things always hammer into our bodies.” The novel’s ending offers a new beginning for the protagonist, which she thankfully does not miss this time around. Layered, experimental, and fragmented, this novel embraces the strangeness both in and around us.

Kirkus Star

The Sequel

Korelitz, Jean Hanff | Celadon Books (304 pp.) $29.00 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781250875471

A less-than-griefstricken widow follows in her novelist husband’s bestselling footsteps but finds that someone knows more about her than is safe—for either of them. Anna Williams-Bonner has no burning literary vocation, and she certainly has no need to bury herself in work to recover from her spouse’s tragic supposed suicide. But an idle remark while she’s on the road promoting Jacob Finch Bonner’s posthumously published final work prompts her powerhouse agent—the one she inherited along with Jacob’s royalty checks—to get her into an

For more by Karl Ove Knausgaard, visit Kirkus online.

artists’ colony; Anna, whose years working on a Seattle radio show prepping a lazy boss for author interviews have given her zero respect for the literary world, figures it can’t be all that hard to produce autobiographical fiction exploiting her alleged bereavement. Readers of The Plot (2021) already know that Anna is not at all what she seems, and this successor volume’s deliciously nasty narration (third-person, but from Anna’s point of view) creepily depicts the inner life of a perennially aggrieved, viciously vindictive, and alarmingly resourceful sociopath. At a signing for her novel, a Post-it note stuck inside one copy of the book warns Anna that someone knows about the past she has worked assiduously to bury. Tracking down this threat to her new prosperity and status requires Anna to revisit that past, and as she does readers learn in grim detail about the long trail of misdeeds she’s left behind her. One wonderfully ironic plot twist plays on the publishing world’s infamous slush piles, unsolicited manuscripts that molder unread for years in editorial offices; another reveals a rare misstep by Anna. A slew of barbed characterizations—there are no good guys here—add to the mean-spirited fun. The conclusion suggests that Korelitz may decide to emulate Patricia Highsmith and keep her antisocial protagonist around for more enjoyably amoral outings. Wicked entertainment.

Kirkus Star

Us Fools

Lange, Nora | Two Dollar Radio (340 pp.) | $18.95 paper Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781953387516

Fareown are raised by parents Henry and Sylvia on an Illinois farm. The backdrop is rather mundane, but the family is anything but. Henry and Sylvia, sexually affectionate to a fault, spend much of their time in the throes of passion while their daughters pore over books of ancient mythology, feminist philosophy, and other esoterica. They refer to themselves as “junk kids” and partake in strange intellectual rituals “just as the classics had taught us to do.” Jo, the elder sister, was born “a nine-pound skeptic,” prone to rebelling against anything and everything. She speaks in an unusually erudite manner, spouting baroque truisms—“We are surrounded by America with its orgies of barbarism”— in between mental breakdowns and general hell-raising. Bernie, meanwhile, yearns to escape the suffocating poverty of the rural Midwest but only ends up a moderate distance away, at a university in Chicago. In spite of her attempts to sever her past (and the ever-present threat of mental illness, which has plagued so many Fareown women before her), she notes, “I would never escape the web that was my family. I would never break from that group of individuals facsimiled for America.” Her aching to understand herself, her family history, and, of course, her beloved sister takes her across the country, a mystical and darkly humorous voyage rife with bizarre interactions and apt cultural references. Lange’s debut novel is a refreshingly sardonic take on the decaying ideal of the American dream, with an anti-capitalist tilt. At the end of it all, this is not just a brilliant bildungsroman: Like the classics that the Fareown sisters quote ad infinitum, it’s a lush, uncanny mythology itself.

Kirkus Star Shred Sisters

Lerner, Betsy | Grove (304 pp.) | $28.00 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780802163707

The younger of two siblings grows up the shadow of her beautiful, reckless, mentally ill sister.

Two peculiar sisters navigate the pain and beauty of growing up in rural America.

In the 1980s, Joanne and Bernadette

A wonderfully shrewd, surreal, and comical odyssey through a crumbling American landscape.

“Here are the ways I could start this story,” Amy Shred says, offering three choices in a brief prologue to memoirist and literary agent Lerner’s debut novel. “Olivia was breathtaking.” “For a long time, I was convinced that she was responsible for everything that went wrong.” “No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.” The engaging, thoughtful voice established here goes on to unfold the story of Amy’s childhood, coming of age, and early adulthood, all profoundly shaped by the wild trajectory of her older sister: a rebel, a runaway, a mental patient, a dropout, a thief, a missing person. Amy herself— called Bunny or Bun in the family—is the classic supersmart miserable outsider, bullied at school, friendless, always bewildered at the utter unfairness of life. What could be a nice normal Connecticut Jewish family is anything but as Amy’s parents are pushed far beyond their ability to cope, and ultimately their ability to stay married. Amy finishes a science major at college in three years and throws herself into graduate work at a lab at Columbia University, zigzags into publishing, finally loses her virginity, meets the man she will marry, and goes into therapy. The story unfolds with the verisimilitude of a memoir: Amy’s nuanced relationships with her mother, her father, and her partners are all utterly convincing and relatable. Her mother, Lorraine, is a particularly fine creation, both a very specific East Coast Jewish type and an archetypal maternal presence. “In the months and years after she died, I often saw the world through her eyes,

For more by Betsy Lerner, visit Kirkus online.

as if I had inherited her mantle of judgment, her scoreboard in the sky.” Many of us know that feeling exactly. A seamlessly constructed and absorbing fictional world, full of insight about how families work.

The Fallen Fruit

Madison, Shawntelle | Amistad/ HarperCollins (448 pp.) | $28.00 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780063290594

An intriguing hybrid of historical romance and fantasy suggests that going back in time may be one way to weed out generational trauma.

“My family tree has poisoned roots,” Cecily Bridge-Davis announces at the start of this haunting saga about the “curse” of time travel. It is May 1964 and Cecily, an African American professor of history, has come into possession of her father’s 65-acre patch of Virginia farmland. When she leaves her Tennessee home to see what’s there, she finds an empty cabin, a spool made from a maple tree, and a family Bible with a yellowed flyleaf listing the names and birth dates of every Bridge family member born on the farm from the 1760s to the 1920s. She also hears from an elderly local about a long-ago murder-kidnapping implicating one of her ancestors. Which turns out to be slightly less shocking than discovering the reason why some of those ancestors vanished for decades: One Bridge offspring in each generation is somehow transported back in time. She also finds a map with locations of strange containers along with a list of “Bridge Family Rules” for time travel: “Never interfere with past events.” “Always carry your freedom papers.” “Search for the survival packs in the orchard.” “Do not speak to strangers unless absolutely necessary.” Cecily presses her inquiry into the family’s

temporally peripatetic history all the way back to the 18th century and such precursors as Luke, whose tumble through time takes him from freedom to slavery and eventually into the Continental Army, where he undergoes the travails of Valley Forge. After her forays in the library for more information, Cecily herself is compelled to leave 1964 for 1911, where she takes a different identity and eventually gets a teaching job in circa 1924 Washington, D.C., where she tells one of her students, a young woman named Amelia Bridge, that they’re related and that “Millie” must make the most important time jaunt of their shared family history. Sometimes all this gets even more complicated than it reads here. But Madison shows considerable skill and narrative control. To her credit, it’s hard not to be reminded of Octavia Butler’s Kindred , as well as The Time Traveler’s Wife and some of Ray Bradbury’s time-displacement stories. A crafty, page-turning spin on chronicling Black family history.

Kirkus Star

A Great Marriage

Mayes, Frances | Ballantine (320 pp.) $30.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593498989

A broken engagement raises two questions: What makes a great marriage, and what do wedding vows really mean? This book delivers a grand love story with plenty of surprises,

while admirably steering clear of treacle and melodrama. Dara Willcox, a well-to-do, lively North Carolinian headed to law school, falls for British architect Austin Clarke when they meet at a New York art gallery. The book opens with a celebratory engagement dinner marred by an ominous spilled glass of red wine. Dara’s parents, Lee and Rich, are portrayed as having a “great marriage.” Grandmother Charlotte, the Willcox family’s titanic matriarch, offers wit and gravitas based on her epic second marriage. The engaged couple is surrounded by friends eager to participate in the wedding preparations. If the beginning of the novel presents a few too many points of view and fluid verb tenses, the story clarifies when Austin discovers a major obstacle to the wedding. Dara cancels the ceremony without telling anyone the reason. Austin returns to London, where we meet his father, an antiquarian bookseller, and sister, who’s in a similar business. Austin reconnects with and leans on his sister as he navigates the thickets of his predicament, telling her that in “those old maps you and Dad love, there’s always a dragon creature in the choppy waters where the known world ends. That’s where I am swimming.” Austin matures within these waters, while Dara takes advantage of her privilege to avoid thinking too much. Despite this setup, the characters deepen and mature over the course of the novel, making it easy for readers to empathize with their differing opinions and behaviors. Old-fashioned morality comes into play, with refreshing and satisfying results.

The pleasure of this book is in its rare combination of eloquent writing, human insights, and page-turning storytelling.

A crafty, page-turning spin on chronicling Black family history.

THE FALLEN FRUIT

Blue Sisters

Mellors, Coco | Ballantine (352 pp.)

$27.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593723760

A year after the death of their sibling, three surviving sisters are in rough straits.

Nicky Blue was the third of the four Blue sisters and, by everyone’s account, the cream of the crop—even their cold, distant mother had a soft spot for her. Though no one thought of her as a drug addict, Nicky died at 27 of a fentanyl overdose; she had become addicted to painkillers due to the unending torment of endometriosis. But now that they’ve had time to stew over it, each of the survivors can see that she should have known. Avery, the oldest at 33—she basically raised the others due to their mother’s lack of interest and their father’s alcoholism—is thought of by everyone as perfect. A lawyer in London, happily married to a loving wife, 10 years sober, she’s actually utterly miserable and has begun to act out in ways that threaten to blow up her life. Bonnie, the second oldest, has already exploded hers—she ditched her career as a world-class boxer and is now likely to lose her job as a bouncer at a club in Los Angeles. Lucky, the baby of the family, is the furthest gone—a supermodel since the age of 15, she’s partying so hard day and night that even the relaxed standards of the fashion workplace can no longer accommodate her. Mellors’ sophomore novel lays a thick foundation of grief, addiction, and self-loathing before bringing these three together in New York to clean out Nicky’s stuff from their childhood apartment, which their heartless mother has decided to sell, and in short order they are just about clawing each others’ eyes out. The bad decisions, bad behavior, and bad news just keep coming until a few positive plot developments in the final chapters, then a fairy-tale epilogue. Maybe it was Mellors’ intention to challenge the reader in this way, but in the end, it seems like a lot of heavy

A boy and his stuffed bear head into the woods.

INTO THE UNCUT GRASS

lifting to illustrate well-worn points about sisterhood and addiction. One does come to agree with the characters that the most likable of the group has been killed off.

Into the Uncut Grass

Noah, Trevor | Illus. by

Sabina Hahn

One World/Random House (128 pp.)

$26.00 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593729960

A boy and his stuffed bear head into the woods. Having captured readers’ attention with Born a Crime (2016), his bestselling memoir of growing up in South Africa, comedian and television host Noah has written a parable about decision-making. As he puts it in a brief prologue, “It’s about disagreements and difference—but it’s also about how we bridge those gaps and find what matters most, whether we’re parents or kids, neighbors, gnomes, or political adversaries. It’s a picture book, but it’s not a children’s book. Rather, it is a book for kids to share with parents and for parents to share with kids.” With plentiful illustrations by Hahn and in language aimed at young listeners, it tells the story of a small boy so impatient to start his Saturday adventures that he rebels against the rules of his household and heads out without brushing his teeth or making his bed, despite the reminders of his stuffed bear, Walter. “We can’t just run away,” protests the bear. “Your mother will miss you. And where will we sleep? And who will make us waffles?” “We’ll build our own house,” the boy responds. “And we’ll grow our own waffles!” From there, the pair go on their walkabout, encountering a garden gnome, a pair of snails, and a gang of animated coins who have lessons

to offer about making choices. Though the author suggests in the introduction that adult readers might enjoy the book on their own, those looking for a follow-up to the memoir or a foray into adult fiction should be warned that this is not that book.

A sweet bedtime story.

Capital & Ideology: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Piketty, Thomas & Claire Alet | Illus. by Benjamin Adam | Abrams ComicArts (176 pp.) | $22.99 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781419777059

A graphic treatment, with attendant simplifications, of French economist Piketty’s difficult study of capitalism and its failings. Piketty’s opus would seem an unlikely candidate for translation into what used to be called a comic book. Complete with a fictional family to humanize the dismal-science edge (whence the “novel” part of “graphic novel”), it opens with Piketty’s account of France’s ancien régime and its three estates (the clergy, the nobility, and all the rest), an economy based on deep inequalities. That gulf is reinforced by a proportional or flat tax, which, as one panel puts it, “since the rich stay rich, and the poor stay poor…thus favors the wealthiest group.” Contrast this with progressive taxation, where the “highest incomes are more heavily taxed, for the good of all society,” and you begin to build a bridge. Anathema to free-marketers and libertarians, that system worked in France, the U.S., and other advanced countries until the 1980s and ’90s, when, once those taxes were rolled back, “multiple elites” began to contend on left

and right, each in turn building a base that reflects “the return of the educational cleavage,” the left representing educated globalists and the right building on the less educated nationalists. At present the latter seems to be ascendant, and, as a character representing Piketty at the lectern asserts, 1% of the population owns 27% of global wealth, more than twice as much as the poorest half. What’s to be done? Piketty has never been short of policy recommendations, and the graphic treatment captures some of the key ones, including cracking down on taxes evaded (which, if paid, “would pay the annual salary of 34 million nurses”), taxing carbon emissions, instituting “genuine social ownership of capital” by giving employees meaningful shares in their employers’ businesses, and more. It doesn’t quite add up to a novel—it’s really more like Piketty for Dummies. A relatively accessible approach to a subject that may still—beg pardon—tax readers without training in economics.

Two-Step Devil

Quatro, Jamie | Grove (288 pp.)

$27.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780802163134

In 2014, a visionary 70-year- old man develops a bond with a captive teenage girl that could change both their destinies.

The Prophet, who lives off the grid in a cabin near Lookout Mountain, Alabama, paints his divine visions and sells vegetables, biding his time until God calls him into action to send apocalyptic warnings to the U.S. president. One day, while the Prophet is hunting for supplies for his art projects at the town junkyard, a mysterious car pulls up at the gas station across the road, out of which emerges a bearded man in a vest, a woman with hair the color of a Coca-Cola can, and a teenage girl—who has zip ties on her wrists. The Prophet soon comes to believe that the girl is not only one of God’s “Innocents” but also the “Big Fish,” so he must save her from her captors.

After a dramatic rescue, he brings her to his cabin to recuperate, and he realizes that he must send her to the White House with his prophecy about the cosmic battle that will threaten to destroy the U.S. if its people do not repent. A tender friendship develops between the girl, named Michael, and the Prophet as they wrestle with their pasts and the difficult choices they must make about the future.

Tarrying in the background is the Two-Step Devil, hissing doubt about the Prophet’s and the girl’s divine destinies. Or, perhaps, Two-Step is merely telling the truth that the Prophet (and the rest of humanity) is too arrogant or afraid to reckon with: “The first humans did not fall; they rose. I lifted them into personhood,” the Devil chillingly asserts. By alternating between perspectives and pushing the novel’s formal boundaries, Quatro daringly explores the evils and mercies, large and small, that steer the courses of human lives.

A searing and innovative allegory for our turbulent times.

Quarterlife

Rege, Devika | Liveright/Norton (416 pp.) $29.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781324095491

A n ambitious, unusual, formally risky novel that attempts nothing less than a fullscale portrait of India circa 2014.

The book begins with three principals: Naren, a hard-charging management consultant who, in the opening scene, decides to leave the U.S. and return home to an India undergoing both rapid development and a surge of Hindu nationalism; Amanda, Naren’s white American college friend, who (in part to extricate herself from a romance that’s soured) accepts a teaching fellowship in a Muslim-majority slum; and Naren’s younger brother, Rohit, a filmmaker with whom Amanda gets involved. About a quarter of the way through, it opens out into something odder and more ambitious, incorporating many more characters, a more panoptic

Where They Last Saw Her

Rendon, Marcie R. | Bantam (336 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593496527

A young Native American woman confronts pervasive violence, standing up for others who might be dismissed or forgotten. Quill is running near her home on Minnesota’s Red Pine reservation when she hears a scream—and then silence. Spooked, she brings her husband, Crow, to help examine the area the next day, finding signs of a scuffle and a single beaded earring left behind in the snow. The tribal cops search the forest to no avail.

>>> view of India on the cusp of becoming a world power. The book’s nearest American analogue is probably Tom Wolfe and his “social x-ray” novels: sprawling, multivocal, rococo in style, bristling at every seam with big ideas. The good news is that Rege is a talented young writer, finely attuned to the psychology of her characters. The less good news: Despite some compelling characterization (for example, Kedar, Rohit and Naren’s cousin, a reckless journalistic firebrand, and Omkar, an angry young nationalist filmmaker), the novel can feel chaotic— there are so many people that no one feels quite fully inhabited, and the book flits quickly on to the next. (Wolfe called his method “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” and here Rege ups the number of feet to three billion or so.) The characters can sometimes feel, too, like types or mouthpieces, a suspicion that’s encouraged by Rege’s decision, at the end, to introduce the first-person voice of the novelist. Overstuffed, yes, occasionally bewildering, yes—but a lot of that reflects, persuasively, the author’s sense of India’s exciting, fractious, sometimes dangerous profusion of factions and energies. A promising first outing by a skilled writer.

Kirkus Star

Book to Screen

Steven Spielberg To Produce Adaptation of James

Percival Everett will adapt his bestselling novel for a feature film.

Universal Pictures has acquired the rights to Percival Everett’s bestselling novel James, according to an announcement in Variety. Steven Spielberg will executive-produce the project through Amblin Entertainment, and the author himself will write the screenplay.

World of Reel also reports the hiring of New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi to direct; Waititi won an Oscar for his Jojo Rabbit screenplay and is currently directing the screen adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. He was also the director of Next Goal Wins and Thor: Ragnarok

James is Everett’s reworking of Mark Twain’s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the

point of view of Jim, the enslaved character who rafts the Mississippi with Huck. The novel was published in March to rave reviews and became a New York Times bestseller. In a starred review, a Kirkus reviewer wrote, “One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.”

Everett, who has published more than 35 books since 1983 and was the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle in 2021, moved from cult status into the limelight with the recent success of the film American Fiction, based on his 2001 novel, Erasure.

There is no word yet on casting for the James adaptation.—M.W.

Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Steven Spielberg

For a review of James, visit Kirkus online.

V.E. Schwab To Sign Entire First Print Run of Book

The fantasy author’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil will be published by Tor in 2025.

Get the Sharpies ready—V.E. Schwab has her work cut out for her.

The bestselling fantasy author has revealed that she will sign the entire first print run of her next book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, to be published by Tor Books next year.

Tor has announced market distribution of 500,000 copies, with the actual print run to be determined closer to publication.

Schwab, 36, is the author of more than 20 books, including YA series and adult fantasy titles. In a starred review, a Kirkus critic called her 2020 bestseller, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, “a darkly romantic and suspenseful tale by a writer at the top of her game.”

Schwab told the

AND HEARD

fact it will take me months to sign means I’ll get to catch up on TV shows guilt-free.”

The new novel will trace the entangled stories of three women whose bodies are “planted in the same soil,” beginning in 16th-century Santo Domingo and continuing through 21st-century Boston.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is slated for publication in June 2025.—M.W.

Jenna Maurice

V.E. Schwab

For reviews of books by V.E. Schwab, visit Kirkus online.

KIRKUS REVIEWS

So Quill and her two best friends, Punk and Gaylyn, use their community ties to investigate because they know the truth: “There are between two thousand and five thousand missing and murdered Indian women in this country. Nobody gives a shit.” This novel is Rendon’s way of bringing attention to these often ignored stories. The ravages of racist governmental policies, poverty, and addiction, along with the lawless nature of the camps for men working on the pipelines near the reservation, create a perfect storm of violence. A woman is drugged and nearly kidnapped at a local casino; her cousin is kidnapped, then escapes. When a young girl is abducted from a Walmart bathroom then found murdered, Quill and her friends can no longer stand by in silence. Through it all, they run, finding it a way to quiet the anxiety, the frustration, the anger of being treated by the larger world like they don’t count. Quill is a charismatic character, strong and fierce in both her independence and her love for her husband, children, and community, willing to risk herself to keep others safe. This novel is written in protest of the epidemic of missing Indigenous women and centuries of painful history: “We have lived with losing loved ones for century after century.” But it also lifts up the healing power of female friendship, motherhood, and generational knowledge: “And we still have babies and keep loving.” Rendon’s book will break your heart, but it will also inspire and inform.

The Divide

Richter, Morgan | Knopf (304 pp.)

$27.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593685679

A former actress turned fake psychic finds herself embroiled in a Hollywood murder Jenny St. John knows she’s not much of a psychic. But since her fortunes fell apart in Hollywood, she’s not sure how to scrape together a living other than by using her distinctly un-supernatural powers of

observation. Jenny’s path to screen success was once bright: At 18, like so many aspiring actresses, she left her home in the Midwest and arrived in Los Angeles full of hope and promise. She landed a role in an indie film, working with up-and-coming director Serge Grumet. The movie failed, but Serge exceled, sailing up the auteur ranks as swiftly as Jenny’s career disintegrated. Now, years later, Serge has been found murdered, and his ex-wife, Gena, an artist of note, has disappeared, too. When a cop shows up with questions and Jenny realizes the missing Gena looks exactly like her and has been taking credit for her movie role for years, she finds herself drawn into the mystery of who killed Serge. Richter isn’t afraid to ask a lot of her audience: Not only must readers accept the doppelgänger story—could two women look that much alike?—but they must also buy the idea that one of Gena’s friends would pay an unsuccessful fake psychic to investigate a murder instead of hiring a private investigator or just waiting for the police to solve the crime. If you’re able to gloss over such unlikely developments, you’ll discover a strange originality in this book, which offers a bit of a twist on the standard Tinseltown crime story.

This Hollywood thriller requires a suspension of disbelief but offers a few unique twists.

Radical Empathy

Romm, Robin | Four Way (192 pp.)

$19.95 paper | Sept. 15, 2024 | 9781961897182

Romm’s second story collection toys with passions and responsibilities, not necessarily in that order.

The book opens with the O. Henry Prize–winning “Marital Problems.” An unnamed narrator and her husband, Victor, search for a dead bird their daughter has entombed within Victor’s estranged late father’s binocular case, while Victor rages over the incompetence of their contractor and the narrator distracts herself with

sexual fantasies (both about the contractor and about her friend, a single mom). This story is a knockout—its characters are brilliant, their relationships meticulously muddled by conflicting impulses and passing fancies—and yet it does not overshadow the nine that follow. The theme of motherhood is especially prominent, a throughline from Romm’s The Mother Garden (2007). In the title story, Brown University student Elisa sells her eggs to a famous actress to secure an economic cushion for herself. After graduation, she uses the money to begin building her dream life in New York City, but, when headlines and photos of the actress and her daughter begin to circulate, Elisa is beset by the feeling that she’s done something terribly wrong. “What To Expect” also involves donated gametes—39-year-old Emily uses a sperm donor to start a family solo and, once she’s pregnant, decides to sell the unused sperm to a woman who used the same donor for her first child. An unexpected connection leaves Emily unsure whether she’s just feeling the baby fluttering about or if there might be true-love butterflies in there, too. Though this book is deeply sincere (the title is indeed self-descriptive), there are wry, even cheeky moments to be found: “A Gun in the First Act,” named for a Chekhov quote, flips an interview for an academic position on its head when shots are fired at the annual AWP conference. And of course, it helps that Romm’s prose is consistently swoonworthy: “We stand silently, all the possible words drying up, wicked back into the heavens to rain on someone else.”

A tactile, magnetic collection.

Intermezzo

Rooney, Sally | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (464 pp.) | $29.00

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780374602635

Two brothers— one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives,

and their even more tangled relationship with each other.

Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-outand-touch-them real. Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.

Welcome to Glorious Tuga

Segal, Francesca | Ecco/Harper Collins (368 pp.) $28.99 | July 2, 2024 | 9780063360457

A young veterinarian travels to a distant island to study tortoises and finds more than she’d bargained for.

In her latest novel, Segal has whipped together a fictional island, Tuga, “the size of an English county,” that is its own “miniature world, a British Overseas Territory… founded on the principles of compassionate collectivism by a series of deliberate arrivals, terrible calamities and happy accidents.” The book starts with a young research veterinarian, Charlotte Walker, sailing from London to Tuga for a fellowship to study the endangered gold coin tortoises native to the island. She gets off to a rocky start: There’s overwhelming seasickness, for one thing, and, for another, the handsome young doctor she meets on the ship turns out to be not quite as available as he’d first presented himself. But once Charlotte gets used to the “bugs and creepy crawlies and biting things, and the terrifying isolation and claustrophobia when all around the sea roiled and there was no way on or off, just water and sky and the purgatorial emptiness of that unbroken horizon,” she quickly finds herself falling in love with both the island and its inhabitants. As a reader, it’s hard to resist falling in love right alongside Charlotte. Instead of driving, island residents get around by catching a ride on a donkey; there’s also a single taxi driven by a man who calls himself “Taxi,” who also serves as the only radio announcer. Then there’s a pair of prepubescent best friends, Annie and Alex, who run roughshod over the island and whose devotion to each other is

Packed tight with quirky characters and their foibles.

sweetly moving. Charlotte soon finds herself enmeshed in much more than she’d bargained for—including the mystery of her own paternity. If the book has any flaws, it’s that not every character has been fully fleshed out—some of the more minor personalities can seem a bit flat. But the primary joy of this delicious book is still in getting to know the island’s peculiar characters, whom Segal treats with a gentle, quirky sort of amusement. A summery read packed tight with quirky characters and their ongoing foibles.

The Trials of Lila Dalton

Shepherd, L.J. | Poisoned Pen (368 pp.)

$27.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781728298429

A practicing barrister’s first novel presents a junior barrister who’s beset by a mind-boggling series of obstacles when she’s suddenly called to defend an accused bomber.

Start with the fact that there’s a formidable body of evidence that Jonathan Eades planted four bombs that killed 27 people and injured more than a hundred in Abbott House, a Home Office building on Assumption Island, on the 50th anniversary of Heinrich Himmler’s suicide. Eades associates himself with the far-far-right group O87, which espouses violence in the name of purifying the race, and he was seen by one witness who thought his behavior suspicious and by several others as he was fleeing the scene. A more immediate problem for Lila Dalton— who’s assigned to defend him after her senior colleague Pat Singh, the Queen’s Counsel who’d originally taken the case, is seriously injured in a car accident—is that she can’t remember anything about Eades, or the bombing, or even herself when she suddenly “look[s] up to find twelve strangers staring back at [her].” Lila gradually realizes what her name is, and where she is, but even those details come across as

Sinaki’s prose is dense with sensory detail.

MEDUSA OF THE ROSES

new information, not memories. Luckily, she seems to have some muscle memory of how to conduct herself in a courtroom, and she scores points against an improbable number of witnesses whom wily prosecutor Alasdair Paxton calls to testify. But how is she to cope with the presiding judge’s sexual advances toward her, or the anonymous message that commands her, “Get him off or you’ll never see her again,” or the phantom presences that pop up around her, or her own arrest for murder? Though the answers to these questions are even more far-fetched than the questions, it’s abundantly worth plowing forward even if you end up disappointed. A striking debut that will leave readers hungry for more nightmare tales from its author’s fertile imagination.

Medusa of the Roses

Sinaki, Navid | Grove (256 pp.) | $27.00 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780802163035

Two gay men must navigate a partnership defined by secrecy and violence in this Iran-set noir.

Anjir has been in a tempestuous clandestine relationship with his childhood friend Zal since they were both teenagers. In a culture of deadly homophobia, they have stayed together—not sharing a home, but having regular assignations—perhaps longer than they should, but finding new life partners is simply too dangerous. Zal has carved out a safer public life for himself by marrying a wealthy woman named Mahtob, but Anjir has a lonelier day-to-day routine: working at a hotel and staying in an

apartment owned by his uncle, who lives in America. To escape this untenable situation, the two concoct a plan straight out of the VHS bootlegs of 1940s film noir they watch together: They’ll kill Mahtob, and Anjir will have gender reassignment surgery and become Zal’s second wife. The scheme is possible because of a peculiar Iranian policy, described by Leyli, a transgender woman Anjir befriends: “Strange government. Could kill you for being gay, but will foot the bill if you agree to a sex change.” When Zal disappears after being brutally beaten while with another man, Anjir must unravel the truth of what happened and decide whether to go forward with their plan alone. Sinaki’s prose is dense with sensory detail and mythological allusions, but his dialogue, which has neither a naturalistic cadence nor the caustic wit typical of the genre, proves a stumbling point. Likewise, some poetic turns of phrase seem off by a word (e.g., “Afterward, we made planets by connecting thorn wounds on my arm”), interrupting an otherwise hypnotic flow.

A muddled but memorable descent into love and betrayal in queer Tehran.

The Lightning Bottles

Stapley, Marissa | Simon & Schuster (304 pp.)

$28.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781668015766

A reviled musician chases clues that her former bandmate and husband is alive and searches for him, accompanied by an unexpected party.

In 1999, 17-year-old Henrietta Vögel listens to a radio broadcast commemorating five

years since Elijah Hart, “front man of the multiplatinum-selling husband-andwife duo, the Lightning Bottles,” disappeared in Iceland. Jane Pyre, Elijah’s disgraced bandmate and wife, arrives in rural Wölf, Germany, and discovers that the secluded farmhouse she purchased as an escape has a close neighbor—none other than Hen, who insists that Elijah is alive and trying to communicate with Jane via street art, convincing Jane that they have to follow the clues in the art to find him. Lengthy flashbacks that start 10 years earlier show Elijah and Jane, born Janet Ribeiro, bonding and falling in love from 2,400 miles apart via music-focused BBS chat rooms and lengthy letters. Jane travels to Seattle to be with Elijah and they form the Lightning Bottles, though their romance and rise to fame are plagued by friendship drama, family tragedy, sexism against Jane, a legal battle over song ownership, and addiction. Some readers might be pleased to recognize real influential people (William Orbit, Steve Albini, a female musician clearly based on Sinéad O’Connor) and places (Sin-é, Central Saloon) in the Seattle music scene of this era. The costs of fame, especially addiction, are huge themes throughout the book, so it’s unfortunate that the writing around addiction is grating. The pacing of the novel is also terrible—the improbable scavenger hunt in the late 1990s is overshadowed by the sections charting the Lightning Bottles’ rise to and fall from fame, and multiple major would-be conflicts or revelations are summarized and resolved in mere paragraphs. Readers looking to indulge their nostalgia may find something worth discovering in these pages; anyone searching for quality prose should look elsewhere.

A literary misfire soaked in 1990s musical nostalgia.

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Kirkus Star

The Restless Wave: A Novel of the United States Navy

Stavridis, James | Penguin Press (400 pp.)

$30.00 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593494073

An ambitious naval ensign and his girlfriend wake up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“I love being at sea,” muses young Scott Bradley James. “I could live forever out here.” So he attends the Naval Academy, graduating in 1941. The story proceeds at an unhurried pace as it develops a decent but far from perfect man. Scott scrapes together the money for his girlfriend’s illegal abortion, from which she dies. The academy tests the honesty and honor he had thought were at his core. A cheating scandal erupts; though guilty, he’s not caught. Both events weigh heavily on his conscience as he begins his naval career. In Hawaii, a woman nicknamed Kai enters his life as an integral part of the tale. In bed with her, he’s technically AWOL when Japanese fighters attack Pearl Harbor, but he’s close enough to race back to his crippled ship, the USS West Virginia, as the fight rages. Afterward, ambition, guilt, and jealousy gnaw at his soul, though he keeps the latter in check. Still, goddamn it, other people are getting the medals— like Chief Petty Officer John Finn, who earns a Medal of Honor—and not him? “It’s like I wasn’t even there,” he thinks. He wants to be “in the center of the inferno.” But he grows with his duties at sea and begins to show his mettle. Meanwhile, his relationship with Kai is on the brink of falling apart because he’s gone so long and writes her only infrequently. Will she wait for him? Because a war is on, no one can plan ahead. A Marine might step on a land mine and alter the trajectory of his friends’ lives far into the future. There is an interesting mix of fictional and historical characters: Scott and Kai are imagined, while the admirals and John Finn are not. (That hero was

badly wounded at Pearl Harbor but lived to age 100.) Stavridis’ own love of the Navy (where he’s a retired admiral) shows well on these pages as he weaves war with the “career and personal voyage of Scott Bradley James.” The ending leaves an uncertain future, as the war is far from finished, and the author plans a sequel. Readers will enjoy this first-rate naval fiction.

Tell Me Everything

Strout, Elizabeth | Random House (352 pp.)

$27.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593446096

A group of familiar characters cluster around an almost-romance between writer Lucy Barton and lawyer Bob Burgess. Strout’s latest novel is essentially a collection of stories, many of them shared by Lucy and Olive Kitteridge, who somewhat arbitrarily set this plotline in motion by telling Bob, “I have a story to tell that writer....I wish you would have her come visit me.” Lucy relocated to Crosby, Maine, with her ex-husband, William, during the pandemic, conveniently bringing together the people and backstories from most of Strout’s previous fiction. Among those returning with new chapters in their histories are Bob’s brother, Jim; sister, Susan; and ex-wife, Pam; along with his current wife, Margaret, a local minister who may be ousted by a parishioner whose defining quality is that he sleeps during services. The parishioner’s motive is never specified, which suits the overall tone of a novel anchored in the central premise of Strout’s work: “We all are such mysteries.” When Olive asks Lucy with irritation what the point of one of her stories is (readers may be wondering the same), Lucy answers, “People and the lives they lead. That’s the point.” A murder case in which Bob is defending a man accused of killing his mother offers the only firm closure here; more typical is another twist in the long-running issue of who was responsible for the death of Jim

Kirkus Star

Suggested in the Stars

Tawada, Yoko | Trans. by Margaret Mitsutani New Directions (224 pp.) | $16.95 paper Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780811237932

Tawada’s madcap band of friends continues their wandering in a sequel to Scattered All Over the Earth (2022). Concerned with finding another surviving native speaker from her lost homeland—presumably Japan after an environmental disaster—so she can converse in her mother tongue, Hiruko and her growing group of idiosyncratic searchers located Susanoo, who was working as a sushi chef in France. To the group’s chagrin, Hiruko’s countryman appears to be aphasic. One of the group, Knut, refers Susanoo to a doctor he knows in Copenhagen for treatment. In each character’s voice, in successive chapters, the story of how the group expanded and how they each found their (often circuitous) way to Copenhagen is told. Backstories are further revealed and the circle of friends grows, but the group continues to view itself as a unit seeking to help one of their own. Dreams and dreamlike sequences punctuate the saga, and the narrative is replete with references to Tawada’s favored animal, the bear (as well as robots, snakes, and Lars Von Trier!). Issues of nationalism, language acquisition, and the

>>> and Bob’s father, which culminates with the declaration, “No one will ever know.” Even Bob’s growing attraction to Lucy, though it reaches a crisis, subsides without definitive resolution. Strout’s tenderness for her characters and her belief that love is the only force in human lives as powerful as our essential loneliness are as moving as ever. But this all seems like very well-plowed terrain. Strout’s many fans will love this sweet, rambling tale. More critical readers may feel it’s time for her to move on.

A residence for women in 19th-century Minnesota is at the center of a mystery.

THE MESMERIST

relative values of silence versus speaking are explored, along with a strong concern for the damaged earth. Comic passages skewer cultural misapprehensions—if everyone assumes you’re a yogi because you’re from India, you might as well invent some yoga poses—as well as the dissonant personality exchange between two characters, the extremely unpleasant and authoritative aphasia specialist Dr. Velmer and Nanook, an Eskimo (“‘Isn’t the correct term Inuit?’ ‘He doesn’t belong to the Inuit tribe’”) who is often mistaken for Japanese. As part of a planned trilogy, the work ends with hints of the group’s further travels. A summary of the plot and characters from Scattered All Over the Earth is helpfully included before the text, which was translated from Japanese by Mitsutani, a frequent collaborator with Tawada. Trippy, poignant, and thoroughly inventive.

Songs for the Brokenhearted

Tsabari, Ayelet | Random House (352 pp.)

$29.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780812989007

A family’s tangled past comes to light. In her debut novel, Israeli Canadian memoirist and short story writer Tsabari gently unfolds two narratives: one about young Yaqub and Saida, who fall in love in an Israeli camp for Yemeni immigrants in 1950; the other about Zohara Haddad, a graduate student, newly divorced, who returns to Israel from New York in 1995 after her mother, Saida, dies. The teenage Yemeni lovers are ill-fated: Saida

is married with a child, and when her husband discovers the relationship, Yaqub is forced to flee. A few months later, Saida suffers an even more devastating loss. Forced to place her tiny son in the camp’s nursery, she cannot find him one day when she goes to breastfeed. Although she’s told that the child became ill and died, Saida, for the rest of her life, nurses the hope of finding the baby, whom she’s certain was put up for adoption. Zohara discovers the complexities of her parents’ lives when she cleans out her mother’s house: Tapes of her mother singing unfamiliar love songs, a mysterious photograph, and stories written in someone else’s hand all reveal long-hidden secrets. Tsabari sets Zohara’s story in the context of the social and political unrest that has long vexed Israel and Palestine. The Oslo Accords have just been signed, inciting ferocious protests. Tensions flare between Ashkenazi Jews and Yemeni Jews, and stereotypes and superstitions abound. “Maybe,” Zohara thinks, “Israeli anger was also a manifestation of helplessness, of grief. This was a nation of migrants, exiles and survivors, people who fled from genocide and persecution only to arrive at this place where wars never end….” With Zohara as a central character, Tsabari examines the effect of loss on a woman struggling to define herself as a Jew, a scholar, and an Israeli. A timely, well-crafted tale, imbued with cultural and personal sorrow.

The Mesmerist

Woods, Caroline | Doubleday (336 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780385550161

A charitable residence for women in 19th-century Minnesota is at the center of a murderous mystery.

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The Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers offers the women who reside there a chance to begin their lives anew. When its newest resident arrives with a dirty gown on her body and vivid bruises on her neck, it causes a stir, but not a shock. The woman, who is silent even when asked her name, is christened Faith Johnson and asked few other questions. Soon, though, the home, which prides itself on the transformational impact it has on the women who live and work there, is rocked by rumors concerning the mysterious Faith. Abby Mendenhall, board treasurer for the Sisterhood of Bethany, asks Faith’s roommate, May, to investigate the suspicious circumstances of her arrival. While Faith and May grow closer, the other “inmates” keep their distance from the pair. Faith is accused of being a Mesmerist, capable of convincing others to do her bidding, and Abby thinks the death and disappearances plaguing local brothels might be traced to Bethany Home’s newest charge; in the newspapers, a swirl of accusations mounts against the residence’s practices. As the journalists circle closer, Abby’s decisions increasingly straddle the line between doing the right thing and seeming to. In the backroom of one of the local brothels, a former tenant asks her, “What did you expect me to do, anyway? Go work as a seamstress? They’re paid three dollars a week now, Mrs. Mendenhall. A month’s bed and board can be as much as twenty. How’s a girl to live?” “How’s a girl to live?” is this book’s central question. Faith, May, and their peers are scrabbling for a livable

For

by Ayelet Tsabari, visit Kirkus online.

future among a few meager offerings: marriage, poverty, or brothel. Each woman must consider how to do the right thing, how to create a good life, and what those ideas, once examined, truly mean. The trust that ebbs and flows among the characters is this novel’s strength; the supposed suspense at its center feels muted and dry by comparison.

An atmospheric turn through a real-life 19th-century scandal.

Now You Owe Me

Wright, Aliah | Red Hen Press (248 pp.) $18.95 paper | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781636281568

Wright explores the ravages of psychopathy on society through the lives of two young killers. The Zanetti twins, Benjamin and Corinthia, are marked by violence from an early age, witnesses to their father committing a brutal murder. Both disgusted and fascinated by this traumatic event, they begin to take out a latent propensity for violence on animals. When Corinthia threatens to escalate by killing their younger brother, Ben intervenes and Corinthia is gravely hurt, which spurs their mentally ill mother to begin locking Ben in the basement. Ben and Corinthia eventually run away to live with their wealthy grandmother, whose kindness is not enough to undo years of abuse and erratic behavior. When she dies, it doesn’t take long for them to go hunting female students from the local university, abducting and killing them. Several years later, a strong, savvy Black final girl–type named Amanda Taylor puts the pieces together to save her roommate, identifying the perpetrators of the string of murders. Only, this is not the full story. Wright throws in a pretty sharp twist about two-thirds of the way through the novel (and a less successful one at the end), but by

that point, having spent so much time in the damaged lives and psyches of Corinthia and Ben has taken a toll. This book is a lot. It’s unflinching, but the violence is graphic and the psychoses incredibly disturbing. The writing is also uneven; there are almost comedic moments—“Ben saw red—and not just blood, either”—that clash with unwieldy sentences like this: “Equal parts sweet and short-tempered, Amanda was a walking paradox who always smiled before narrowing her dark brown eyes when she was angry.” There’s nothing wrong with variety, but this speaks to a larger unevenness in the novel’s style. It’s hard to tell, in the end, whether we are being asked to sympathize with the twins—and if we can, what does that expose about us?

An extremely dark exploration of serial killing. Even an admirable final girl can’t balance the ick.

Misinterpretation

Xhoga, Ledia | Tin House (304 pp.) $17.95 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781959030805

An interpreter living in Brooklyn throws herself into the lives of acquaintances to avoid confronting her own life. The unnamed narrator, a woman from Albania, is married to Billy, an American professor of film. Billy asks his wife to focus on translation work while taking a break from interpreting, as interpreting seems to interfere with her ability to remain present. But she takes a job serving as an interpreter for Alfred, another

Albanian immigrant, first for a dental visit and then for therapy to confront his demons from the war in Kosovo. The therapist fires her after the first session, for both identifying too closely with the client and getting lost in her own thoughts. From there, the narrator acts impulsively without considering the repercussions. She tries to help a struggling Kurdish woman desperate to evade a stalker and a former client who needs a new immigration attorney. All the while, she’s prone to reveries and what appear to be dissociative episodes that leave Billy stupefied. When they reach an impasse, he accepts a six-month artist’s residency in Hungary. The night before he departs, his wife follows strangers to a party where she gets high on mushrooms and falls asleep. As a wife and a protagonist, she proves wonderfully and frustratingly off-kilter. Eventually she flees New York to visit family in Albania. The novel heats up in the second half, when she returns to Brooklyn, where some of the consequences of her previous heroics materialize to thrilling effect. These suspenseful moments punctuate otherwise meandering tangents. While intriguing at times, the narration relies heavily on rhetorical questions and digressions loosely tied to the story by way of the protagonist’s saying that so and so or such and such “come to mind.” Some of the associations are more interesting than others. The author is at her best when she reveals her thematic concerns and her characters’ interiority, through their idiosyncrasies, interactions with one another, choices, gestures, and dialogue. This debut novel explores the ways traumas of the past can impact how we experience the present.

An extremely dark exploration of serial killing.

5 Musical Novels for Your Playlist

Isabel Banta

Willy Vlautin

Another lively outing for Berenson’s dogged crime solver.

PUMPKIN SPICE PUPPY

The Phantom Patrol

Benn, James R. | Soho Crime (352 pp.)

$27.95 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781641295437

World War II is finally ending. Or is it?

Paris. December 1944. U.S. Army captain Billy Boyle and his stalwart sidekick, Kaz— Lieutenant Piotr Augustus Kazimierz—are patrolling the Père Lachaise cemetery along with a group of Counter Intelligence Corps agents. Ever since France was liberated following the D-Day invasion that summer, there’s been a rash of vandalism and looting and, most seriously, the theft of priceless art. Explosions disrupt this evening’s vigil and turn the cemetery into a crime scene. The search for the art thieves sets Benn’s plot in motion: Are these random miscreants or members of a nefarious Nazi syndicate? The complex investigation provides a solid pretext for visits to notable French locations like Versailles and a spirited recounting of deeply researched aspects of the war effort, a compelling hallmark of this long-running series. A brutal multiple murder adds heat and urgency to the search. Billy Boyle fans will appreciate cameos by series regulars Big Mike Miecznikowski, who like Billy was a cop before the war, and Diana Seaton, Billy’s love interest, as well as actor David Niven, who served in the unit on whose exploits the novel is partially based. Although Boyle’s 19th adventure eventually takes the reader to the bloody Battle of the Bulge, with scenes of gritty action, weaponry, and satisfying historical detail, it’s often a sobering reflection on the devastating consequences of war. Benn’s absorbing series continues at a high level.

Pumpkin Spice Puppy

Berenson, Laurien | Kensington (192 pp.)

$22.95 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781496750624

A fall fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, takes a nasty turn when a pet store owner is murdered in his shop. In many ways, Howard Academy’s Thanksgiving fundraiser is a big hit. Donations are pouring in, fueled by a treasure hunt in which local merchants offer prizes in exchange for tokens—shaped like pumpkin spice muffins, of course—that students can find scattered around their shops. The hit takes an abrupt nosedive when the headmaster’s assistant, Harriet Bloom, sends special education tutor Melanie Travis over to Willet’s Pet Supplies to investigate a complaint from the owner. Melanie, whose household includes four champion standard poodles and Bud, a rambunctious mixed breed, seems like the ideal person to talk to Mr. Willet. But she’s too late for the conversation. Her claim to fame as a dog mama is eclipsed by her alternate persona of corpse magnet when she finds the genial shopkeeper slumped over his desk with a knife in his back. The only witness to the crime is Cider, Willet’s Chow Chow, and Cider didn’t get to witness much, since the killer locked the frantic pup in the storeroom before dispatching his owner. Once the local police arrive, they’re unsurprised to see Melanie at the scene of yet another suspicious death. And of course Melanie, who has a fundraiser to save, can’t wait idly for them to plow their methodical way through the evidence. Fortunately, her concern for Cider’s

fate gives her an excellent excuse to nose around until she discovers more than enough evidence to prevent the law enforcement professionals from barking up the wrong tree.

Another lively outing for Berenson’s dogged crime solver.

What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust

Bradley, Alan | Bantam (320 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593724514

Rejoice, fans of fiction’s youngest franchise detective: Flavia de Luce is back after a five-year hiatus, and she hasn’t aged a bit. Flavia’s never been more alone. Her beloved father, Col. Haviland de Luce, has died, leaving her an orphan; her sister Ophelia is off on the grand tour with her bridegroom; and her sister Daffy (Daphne to the uninitiated) is bound for Oxford. Flavia would be entirely on her own if it weren’t for her father’s war comrade Arthur W. Dogger, now a gardener who’s accepted 11-year-old Flavia as a full partner in his detective agency; her orphaned cousin, Undine; and Margaret Mullet, the cook at Buckshaw, the de Luce home in Bishop’s Lacey. And Flavia may be about to lose this last companion, because when her neighbor, retired civil servant Maj. Tommy Greyleigh, suddenly dies, Insp. Hewitt thinks that Mrs. Mullet fed him a dish of poisonous mushrooms. Since Flavia knows more about poisons than anyone else alive in 1952, she eagerly jumps to the defense of Mrs. Mullet, who’s questioned and released. But that’s not enough for Flavia, who’s become convinced that Maj. Greyleigh was assassinated on the orders of Asterion, a shadowy figure in that equally shadowy intelligence force, the Nide, where Flavia’s father and her aunt Felicity once reportedly worked. No one remotely associated

with the Nide, or with the nearby American service base at Leathcote, will utter a word about the dread Asterion, so it’s up to Flavia to smash every taboo in her quest for truth, justice, and diversion.

Nobody could possibly unite intelligence work, mythological monsters, and village gossip as adroitly as Bradley’s heroine.

A Messy Murder

Brett, Simon | Severn House (192 pp.) $29.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781448311033

Ellen Curtis, the decluttering expert of SpaceWoman, is called on to tidy up the suspicious death of her latest client’s husband.

Now that their daughters, Chloe and Kirsty, are grown and gone, Theresa Carter thinks it’s high time that she and her husband downsize. Before they can leave Staddles, their spacious home outside the West Sussex village of Amberley, they’ll have to get rid of clothing, books, papers, tools, and the rest. What may need downsizing most urgently is Humphrey Carter’s ego. Though he’s no longer a journalist or a chat show host, the approach of his 80th birthday finds him still a freelance celebrity trailing clouds of glory, at least in his own skies. Humph’s self-infatuation has crashed to an end by the time Ellen finds him dead from an overdose of sleeping pills in his bottle of Famous Grouse—exactly the recipe he’d once prescribed for octogenarians in a column for the magazine Rant Ellen finds at his side. The circumstances scream suicide, but Theresa’s not so sure. She wants Ellen to look deeper into the case, and her recommendation of Ellen’s services to Niall Fitzpatrick, the longtime producer of Humph’s TV show whose wife died of cancer six months ago, seems designed specifically to help Ellen gather more evidence. But that won’t

be easy, since Ellen’s also busy helping her friend Dodge figure out who’s stealing the wood he’s recovered from old houses and dealing with the drama provided by her own children, animator Ben and online fashion writer Jools, whose stint of working for SpaceWoman after a mysterious breakdown clearly won’t last forever.

Solid, unspectacular, and, despite its title, as economically told as if the story had been decluttered itself.

The Dark Wives

Cleeves, Ann | Minotaur (384 pp.)

$29.00 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781250836847

In the north of England, DI Vera Stanhope and her team labor to uncover the connection between a teen missing from a children’s care home and a pair of murders.

When Chloe Spence disappears shortly after Josh Woodburn, a staffer at the Rosebank Home, is killed, she has to be considered a suspect. Chloe is a bright 14-year-old whose father left the family and whose mother is in a psychiatric hospital, and after Vera reads her diary, she thinks her innocent. The system that cares for troubled children is falling apart, and the private companies that run much of it don’t much care. Vera, who’s earned a reputation for solving weird cases, feels guilty over the recent death of a member of her team, leaving her to work with the proven DS Joe Ashworth and the ambitious

new DC Rosie Bell. Chloe had been attending the well-regarded Salvation Academy, but her diary makes clear that plenty of problems were being pasted over to maintain the school’s good name. The staff at the home say only that Chloe was a loner who had a crush on Josh, a university student from a well-heeled family who took the job to impress the girl he loved, a save-the-world type. The next to die is another resident of the home, an older boy who sells drugs. It looks like an overdose to everyone but Vera, who smells more murder. Her biggest concern is finding Chloe— who’s deeply afraid of trusting anyone—before the killer does. An excellent character-driven entry that highlights major problems in Britain’s child welfare system.

The Alaska Sanders Affair

Dicker, Joël | Trans. by Robert Bononno HarperVia (544 pp.) | $30.00 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780063324800

Eleven years after the 1999 murder of aspiring actress Alaska Sanders in New Hampshire, acclaimed young novelist Marcus Goldman spearheads a new investigation into what had been an open-and-shut case. Goldman, whose first novel “propelled [him] to the summit of American letters,” has some experience in criminal matters. After a long-missing teenage girl’s body was exhumed from the garden of his close friend and distinguished mentor Harry Quebert, he proved the man’s innocence. Writing

An excellent mystery highlights problems in Britain’s child welfare system.

THE DARK WIVES

about that case had cured his writer’s block. Now, teaming up with his tormented friend Perry Gahalowood, the cop who oversaw the Sanders investigation, he quickly determines that the two troublesome young men convicted of Alaska’s lakeside killing didn’t do it and sets out to find the guilty party—all the while collecting material for his next opus. Swiss author Dicker’s breakthrough, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair (2014), was a procedural in extremis; this sequel likewise pores over details both revealing and extraneous, contains flashbacks within flashbacks (everyone gets a back story), and sometimes leaves the main story altogether. Alaska is a blank page until more than two-thirds of the novel have gone by. Dicker knows how to spice up his narrative with, among other things, Goldman’s three failed romances and teasing appearances by the missing Harry Quebert, who leaves mysterious notes inside little statues of seagulls. But, perhaps not helped by the translator, the dialogue is as flat as a pancake. A megamystery that gives new meaning to the term painstaking.

The House on Graveyard Lane

Edwards, Martin | Poisoned Pen (400 pp.)

$16.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781728297989

A showstopping exhibition of violence in London’s wellnamed Hades Gallery is only the prologue to the latest Golden Age mystery for Rachel Savernake.

Damaris Gethin, the Queen of Surrealism, has ended her yearslong creative drought with an exhibit called “Artist in Crime.”

Among the guests on hand for her opening are her ex-lover Capt. Roderick Malam, once-popular songwriter Evan Tucker, social butterfly Kiki de Villiers, and Rachel, whom Damaris, decked out as Marie Antoinette, asks to solve a murder—her own future murder. A few minutes later, she climbs the platform to a guillotine installed in the gallery and executes herself. Rachel, convinced that the suicide she just witnessed must have been a reaction against some grievous wrong visited on Damaris, vows to track down the instigator. But Edwards shoves both women, living and dead, aside to throw the spotlight on someone who never appears or is even named: the VIP whom Kiki has become involved with, a liaison so threatening to England’s national security that Clarion crime reporter Jacob Flint is forced to kill the story he’s been writing on Kiki, who removes herself to Sepulchre House, a home her wealthy husband keeps in Rye. That’s where Duncalf, an assassin commissioned by His Majesty’s government, is sent to kill her. So many more complications follow that readers who are still focused on the riddle of who moved the Queen of Surrealism to end her life will be grateful for the retro Cluefinder that will remind them of all the revealing earlier passages they passed over unawares.

A veritable anthology of whodunit and thriller tropes and character types from between the wars.

A veritable anthology of whodunit and thriller tropes from between the wars.

A Dark and Stormy Knit

Ehrhart, Peggy | Kensington (336 pp.)

$8.99 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781496749574

Murder provides a bit of a disruption to a quiet New Jersey suburb. When a storm cuts short Arborville’s annual Halloween parade and bonfire, Wilfred and Bettina Fraser retreat with their neighbor Pamela Paterson to enjoy some hot spiced cider. But a commotion outside interrupts their cozy evening as trick-or-treaters discover a dead body on Adrienne Haskell’s front porch. Once Adrienne identifies the body as that of her radical feminist sister, Mel Wordwoman, the three friends go back to the Frasers’ house, where Wilf reheats the cider and they resume their conversation.

Ehrhart’s tale goes on pretty much in that matter-of-fact vein, interspersing details about Mel’s death with descriptions of the heady aroma of Pamela’s coffee and sartorial details of Bettina’s olive corduroy pantsuit. Eventually, Adrienne persuades Pamela and Bettina to accompany her to Greenwich Village to look over her sister’s apartment, although it seems as if the opportunity for Adrienne to wear a “buttery-yellow sweater” and a supple leather jacket on a trip to the city is at least as important to her agenda as looking for her sister’s killer. Very little in this tale of suburban intrigue is worth more than a shrug; when her sometime boyfriend Pete Paterson, whom Pamela met because of the coincidence of their having the same last name, announces that he’s getting back together with his estranged wife, Pamela duly notes that “we had some nice meals” but otherwise expresses few regrets. Even for a cozy, it’s hard to get a pulse point here.

John Cheever it’s not.

Bad Liar

Hoag, Tami | Dutton (416 pp.) | $30.00

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781101985434

Third in a series—after A Thin Dark Line (1997) and The Boy (2018)—featuring a pair of married detectives in Louisiana.

A body lies on the bank of a bayou, his face and hands obliterated by a shotgun blast. He has no ID. Why, police wonder, didn’t the killer use any of the countless places one might dump the body forever in the alligator-infested swamps of the south Louisiana French Triangle? Then at the local sheriff’s office, B’Lynn Fontenot makes a frantic scene because no one will look for her missing adult son. But Det. Antoinette “Annie” Broussard listens with compassion and promises to investigate the young man’s fate, for better or worse. Is he the homicide victim? DNA testing will take time. Meanwhile, Annie muses that “B’Lynn could hold onto a sliver of hope, and the thing about slivers was that they were usually painful and often left a scar.” Then a second man is reported missing, and the Partout Parish sheriff’s office gets busy. A former high school football star had become hooked on painkillers years earlier after a 350-pound kid landed on him during practice. Was it an accident? That’s part of the gripping plot that opens a window into Cajun culture. Lt. Nick Fourcade leads a division of several detectives that includes Annie, who’s his wife. She’s just returned to work after having been badly hurt on the job, and he’d like her to take it easy. But “when trouble comes calling, you are seldom out of earshot,” he says. Nick and Annie are a well-matched pair both professionally and maritally, and they are decent, loyal, and tough. Spousal abuse, drug addiction, jealousy, and revenge cloud the lives

Osman fans will be glad to hop on that private jet and go along for the ride.

WE SOLVE MURDERS

of victi ms and suspects alike while characters like Nick pepper their dialogue with a Cajun patois: a fool is a couillon, a runt is a pischouette. Nick is far more endearing to Annie, whom he privately calls ’Toinette. Hoag is a terrific crime writer, but readers have had to wait long stretches to catch up with Nick and Annie: It’s been six years since book no. 2 and it was 21 years before that. Maybe Hoag will lessen the gap next time. Anyway, the ending just might make a reader’s eyes well up. C’est vrai.

A gripping crime yarn from one of the best.

Furever After

Kelly, Sofie | Berkley (288 pp.) $28.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593548738

An amateur detective is approaching happily-ever-after with her beau, but she’s committed to one last case as a way to support a murdered man she let down in life. While some might picture the life of a librarian for Mayville Heights Free Public Library to be normcore, Kathleen Paulson’s is anything but. Not only has she had a hand in solving a string of mysteries in her small Minnesota suburb, but the helpers she’s relied on in doing this work have ranged from her fiance, Det. Marcus Gordon, to her two magical cats, Owen and Hercules. Owen, originally from an unusual cat colony on Wisteria Hill, has the ability to disappear and reappear seemingly at will, and Hercules can

walk through walls and other solid objects. Both are pretty handy to have around when mystery calls, as it does once again when Kathleen finds that Will Redfern has broken into the library and been killed mid-burglary.

A fighter for the underdog, Kathleen vows to solve Will’s murder as a way of caring for someone society had given up on. She also continues her mentorship of Riley Hollister, a bright young girl whose family hasn’t been there for her time and again. With Kathleen’s wedding to Marcus just two months away, her schedule is full of cake tastings and bridesmaid dress approvals, but she can’t help but try to solve Will’s murder, maybe this time with Riley’s help.

Checks all the boxes on the way to the happiest of endings.

Kirkus Star

We Solve Murders

Osman, Richard | Pamela Dorman/ Viking (400 pp.) | $27.00 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780593653227

The Thursday Murder Club takes a break while British TV personality— and bestselling author—Osman introduces another lovable group of unwitting investigators.

Amy Wheeler and her father-inlaw, Steve, have a special relationship. They talk on the phone every day but in a particularly British way, communicating important things while chatting

A little history and a little mystery provide just the right mix in this tale.

DEATH SCENE

about the weather. Steve is a former London cop who’s retired to the small town of Axley, and since his wife died he’s retreated into a routine of playing with his cat, Trouble, and attending Quiz Night at the local pub. Amy works as a bodyguard for Maximum Impact Solutions, a private security company, traveling the world and having adventures. Her husband, Adam—Steve’s son—works in finance and also spends most of his time traveling; they view their relationship as a long-term bet and don’t mind not seeing much of each other for now. Things begin to go sideways, though, while Amy is on a private island off the coast of South Carolina guarding Rosie D’Antonio, a Jackie Collins-esque novelist who’s being threatened by a Russian oligarch who took offense at one of her books. The problem is that three other clients of Amy’s firm have been killed in three separate incidents, each murder occurring when Amy was nearby. Is someone sending her a message? Then the only other person on Rosie’s island, an ex–Navy SEAL hired by Amy’s boss to back her up, tries to kill Amy, and the race for answers is on. Amy begins by reaching out to the only person she can trust—Steve. Rosie isn’t going to be left out of the excitement, so, aided by her private jet, the three set off on a journey around the globe as they try to figure out what’s going on while keeping Amy (and Rosie) alive. As in Osman’s other series, they cross paths with a variety of people—including drug-dealing politicians, customs agents, and social media influencers—who may or may not be

inclined to help them, and watching the unlikely threesome charm each other and (almost) everyone they meet is a delight. The mystery isn’t all that mysterious, but Osman fans will be glad to hop on that private jet and go along for the ride.

Death Scene

Perry, Carol J. | Kensington (304 pp.) $8.99 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781496743664

A move into programming proves anything but routine for Salem, Massachusetts, TV reporter Lee Barrett Mondello. Married less than a year ago to Det. Sgt. Pete Mondello, Lee expects and hopes for greater stability as program director than she enjoyed as a reporter. But Bruce Doan, station manager at WICH-TV, likes his staff to be willing to “wear more than one hat .” So Lee finds herself snarled in late October traffic as she races to meet with someone from Paragon Productions about a documentary story on the making of their upcoming feature film, Night Magic Rumors about budget overruns and preproduction headaches abound, but it’s the antics of the temperamental star, Darla Diamond, that cause the most grief and provide the biggest potential draw for Lee and her audience. Of course, someone kills the troublesome diva, but her death doesn’t end the story. Lee begins a search for answers to the mystery and for anything that will help hook her audience into her

narrative, from the history of the Salem Witch House to an 1898 poisoning in Dover, Delaware, the first documented case of the U.S. Postal Service being used to help commit murder. Perry’s account of what a field reporter turned program director needs to pay attention to in covering an evolving story provides a novel twist on the small-town-snoop formula. As every reporter knows, getting the scoop is every bit as important as getting the bad guy.

A little history and a little mystery provide just the right mix in this good-natured tale.

Death and the Visitors

Redmond, Heather | Kensington (336 pp.) $27.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781496749031

The Congress of Vienna brings a host of foreign dignitaries but precious little prosperity to the Godwin family in 1814 London. In the run-up to the congress, the Godwins host Polish Princess Maria and her Russian husband, Dmitry Naryshkin, in their damp, creaking house on Skinner Street in hopes that the pair will support their literary efforts. Although Mary Godwin finds it wonderful that her late mother Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman “has made it all the way to Russia,” the practical value of this literary achievement is virtually nil. The Naryshkins’ promise to support the Godwins’ library evaporates when Dmitry is killed. In this rambling and episodic sequel to Death and the Sisters (2023), the feckless William and Mary Jane Godwin remain incapable of running a household. After having her French maid thrown in jail for allegedly stealing a dress, brutal Mary Jane forces her stepdaughter, Mary, to become the family cook. The ingenuity with which the

future author of Frankenstein conjures up meals without money is truly a marvel, but her herculean domestic efforts leave the story stuck in the waiting room. Percy Bysshe Shelley, who’s still married to Harriet Westbrook, makes vague promises to deliver some diamonds to the impoverished Godwins, but his main service to the family is taking Mary and her stepsister, Jane, out for fresh air. Interest in Dmitry’s murder is fleeting and its solution perfunctory. The most romantic figure is Lord Byron, who appears in a brief cameo at the house of his mistress.

Readers who know how the ShelleyGodwin tale ends will wonder how it will ever get there.

Passions in Death

Robb, J.D. | St. Martin’s (368 pp.) | $30.00 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781250289568

Lieutenant Eve Dallas is called out of bed to investigate the late-night strangling of a bride-to-be at her and her fiancee’s joint bachelorette party.

On top of her wedding to Fancy Feet shoe store manager Shauna Hunnicut a few days away, street artist Erin Albright is looking forward to something else: a surprise honeymoon in Maui, a trip Shauna’s always dreamed of taking, that Erin’s financed by unexpectedly selling three paintings. Feverish with excitement, Erin ducks into a privacy room at the sex club Down and Dirty to don her Hawaiian apparel but never comes out. Assuming from the

get-go that “somebody Albright knew and trusted killed her,” Dallas and her partner, Det. Delia Peabody, question Erin’s studio mates and the friends she shared with Shauna in search of someone who objected to her marriage enough to kill her—or a collector of her canvases looking for a quick and dirty way to drive up their prices. In an investigation that’s unusually sharply focused for this futuristic series, Dallas and Peabody initially spend most of their time spitballing theories about possible killers and checking the alibis of the leading candidates. As the grind grinds on, things get distinctly more interesting when they narrow their focus to two favored suspects: Shauna’s ex-lover Greg Barney, who’s now the cohab of the brides’ mutual friend Becca DiNuzio, and Erin’s ex-lover ChiChi Lopez, a stripper who clearly enjoys displaying her body to paying audiences. They both fit the profile that consulting psychologist Dr. Mira provides to a T. So which of them did the deed— or was it someone else entirely? Steadily rising tension more than makes up for the absence of surprises. This is, after all, a procedural.

The Grim Steeper

Rue, Gretchen | Crooked Lane (304 pp.) $29.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781639108657

A witch’s magic powers help solve a murder in Raven Creek, Washington. Phoebe Winchester inherited The Earl’s Study, a

book- and tea shop, from her Aunt Eudora. She also inherited a mansion, half of Main Street, an orange cat named Bob, and her witchy powers. Despite all these resources, she’s nervous about her first tie-in with an author, birder Sebastian Marlow, who arrives with an entourage but not his business manager, Deacon Hume, whom he fired after Phoebe had made all the arrangements with him. The tension Phoebe’s noticed among the members of Sebastian’s group goes from bad to worse when Deacon shows up. Even so, the book signing is successful, and a hike is planned for the next day, when Sebastian hopes to spot a bird thought to be extinct. When Phoebe arrives at the B&B where she’s arranged for the group to stay, she learns that Sebastian’s been murdered. Knowing of Phoebe’s sleuthing experience, Det. Patsy Martin asks her to keep an eye out for clues without doing any serious investigating. Despite this warning, Phoebe joins private investigator Rich Lofting, her childhood friend and current love interest, in snooping around. Since Sebastian wasn’t in the room assigned to him, could his death have been the result of mistaken identity? In addition to dealing with the murder and with magical powers not entirely under her control, Phoebe investigates a sleazy lawyer trying to buy up the town with help from a local real estate agent. A lot more problems come along before Phoebe, with help from her friends, can solve the crimes.

Mystery and magic combine in this charming tale of murder and mayhem.

more by Gretchen Rue,

Navola

Bacigalupi, Paolo | Knopf (576 pp.)

$30.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9780593535059

A kindhearted heir to a banking fortune in a fantasy analog of Venice receives several brutal lessons concerning how little such kindness will serve him.

Intelligent, nature-loving Davico di Regulai dreams of becoming a doctor and marrying his foster sister, Celia. It is obvious to all that he doesn’t have the ruthlessness and strategic ability of his ambitious, arrogant father, Devonaci, who, despite his lack of noble blood, not so secretly controls the city of Navola through his vast banking interests. But as the heir to the di Regulai estate, Davico has no choice but to ineffectively follow the path his father has laid out for him—which certainly does not include medicine or becoming Celia’s husband. His struggle to live up to his family’s considerable reputation is so acute it gives him ulcers. Meanwhile, Devonaci’s plots have earned him many enemies, some lurking more closely than he knows; unfortunately, not all of them are as weak and foolish as he supposes, leaving Davico in a very vulnerable position. Is there anyone he can trust? Is there any use or value to his own unique talents in the treacherous society that he calls home? He will be forced to find out. The plunge of this political fantasy into grimdark might feel shocking, but it’s not like the author doesn’t provide plenty of warning. Throughout the narrative, the reader is shown that Davico’s honesty and unwillingness to harm others put him at a great disadvantage in his society; infused with painful and realistic political maneuvering, this is not a classic epic fantasy in which the good must prevail. And yet, the novel’s climax shares significant elements with a fantasy from that era: Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber (1970). Perhaps both authors drew from the same historical source; perhaps it’s an

homage. It’s a bit jarring when so much of the story has a wonderful freshness to it. But regardless of the source, the book employs these plot elements extremely effectively. And it is clear that Bacigalupi has his own kind of epic in mind; despite the already hefty page count, this is only the start of a significant and painful journey and some considerable character development.

Sharp enough to draw blood.

Kirkus Star

The Mercy of Gods

Corey, James S.A. | Orbit (432 pp.)

$27.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780316525572

The first installment in the pseudonymous Corey’s Captive’s War series begins an epic narrative about a subjugated humankind and its tenuous survival in the midst of an ancient war.

When the godlike Carryx—who have “ruled the stars for epochs”—and their minion races arrive around the planet Anjiin, the humans who live there are conquered seemingly without effort. After one-eighth of the population is quickly killed, those worthy of saving are separated and taken offplanet, back to one of the Carryx’s world-palaces. Once there, the remaining humans realize they’ve finally had some important scientific questions answered: “Alien life exists, and they are assholes.” The humans’ predicament is simple: If they’re not beneficial to the Carryx in some way, their entire race will be eliminated. Trapped in a massive prison world with hundreds of other enslaved races, elite researchers like Dafyd Alkhor and Tonner Freis must stay alive long enough to prepare some kind of retribution against their alien overlords. While the character development is exceptional, the pacing breakneck, the emotional intensity off the charts, and the worldbuilding simply extraordinary, it’s the sheer scope

of the narrative—the Carryx’s backstory, their “long” war, the countless sentient races they’ve conquered and/or destroyed, etc.—that will have science fiction fans befittingly blown away. The sense of wonder associated with the story’s magnitude is simply breathtaking. Here is just an example of one of the Carryx’s world-palaces: “The huge arcs of alien structure, one part building and two parts the bones of strange gods, glittered with a million other windows like theirs. The ziggurats that marched along the curve of the planet, poking their sullen bronze heads up above the clouds, were a cityscape twisted by nightmare, starkly beautiful but vast enough to induce vertigo.”

The beginning of what could be Corey’s most epic—and entertaining—series yet. Simply mind-blowing.

Blackheart Man

Hopkinson, Nalo | Saga/ Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) | $28.99 Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781668005101

An ambitious young man tries to protect his magical homeland from external invaders and internal secrets. Veycosi’s future is bright—at least, according to Veycosi. A citizen of the island nation of Chynchin, he’s in training to become a “chantwell,” someone trained to gather and share knowledge. And while the people around him, including his superiors and even his two fiances (Chynchin marriages are usually in threes), think Veycosi is overly confident in his schemes, he knows he’ll impress them with his plan to use explosives to clear the blockage in one of the pipes that brings water to the city of Carenage. And while Veycosi’s plan works— mostly—he accidentally destroys a precious book. His punishment is a fool’s errand: collect folk tales about the legendary witches who saved Chynchin from invaders. But when mysterious ships appear at the harbor, the question

of saving the island from outside invaders becomes frighteningly urgent. Hopkinson fills Chynchin to the brim with immersive details, from the oral tradition of the chantwells, to the tensions between different social groups, to the distinctive and engaging voices of her characters. However, there is too much of a good thing, and the story might have been served better by spending more time with one plot thread rather than splitting into several more after the invaders arrive.

A magical adventure with a few too many twists and turns.

Kirkus Star

She Who Knows: Firespitter

Okorafor, Nnedi | DAW (176 pp.)

$25.00 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780756418953

A young woman named Najeeba grapples with her place in the world.

Readers of Okorafor’s Who Fears Death (2010) will be familiar with Najeeba, who becomes the powerful mother of the titular protagonist, Onyesonwu. But this prequel begins when she’s just an impulsive girl and she feels called to accompany her father and brothers on their annual journey on the salt road—a trip customarily unavailable to girls. Despite the threat of becoming a social outcast, even to her closest friends, stubborn Najeeba goes along to help collect the salt left in the dead lake and sell it at the large desert market several days’ travel from their village. While on her first trip, Najeeba has a strange encounter with a witch in the desert, and the contact changes her—what she sees, what she dreams, and who she becomes. Her spirit begins to move outside herself. Transformative experiences on the road and reading done at the village’s Paper House lead to more questions than answers. As Najeeba delves deeper into the mysteries surrounding the salt road and her family history, she must confront not only external forces but also the

A savagely satirical take on the consequences of repressive doctrine.

ALIEN CLAY

transcendent power within herself. The villagers may grow to accept Najeeba’s journeys on the salt road, but they won’t accept her as a vendor of salt, and there is no guarantee other villages will endorse her participation at all. As always with Okorafor’s work, the prose is sharp and immersive, the characters provide insight into family drama and healing, and the narrative seamlessly blends elements of fantasy, folklore, and speculative fiction. The sandy, salty, dusty landscape is vivid, and the reader will learn alongside Najeeba that, just as there are ancestors in life and in stories, there are fruitions and consequences and descendants, too. This is the first in a trilogy of novellas—only the beginning of Najeeba’s story. While this book may be short, its impact is anything but small.

Kirkus Star

Alien Clay

Tchaikovsky, Adrian | Orbit (416 pp.) $19.99 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780316578974

A dissident is condemned to dangerous work on a distant world containing mysterious ruins from a vanished alien society.

Professor Arton Daghdev’s xenobiology research violates the orthodox principles of the governing Mandate, which dictates that science must support the idea that humans are the pinnacle of all evolution, everywhere. He’s also been secretly dabbling in more direct revolution—or at least, talking about it—but the authorities don’t know that. For his academic trespasses, he’s shipped

off to serve as convict labor on the planet Kiln, where ancient ruins suggest there was once an intelligent race. His job is to find the remains of this race and furnish evidence of just how much like humanity it was. Instead, he discovers a world full of metaspecies—communities of symbiotes who have united into single organisms—and a sullen population of convicts who cannot trust each other enough to pull off a successful uprising against the sadistic commandant and brutal guards. The symbiotes of Kiln seem anxious to add humans to their collection; unfortunately, such attempts usually lead to madness and/or death for the human. But a catastrophic encounter with one such group of life-forms provides Arton and his fellows with both insight into the race of the builders and a possible way of winning liberation. The biological puzzle of life on Kiln depicted here is fascinating, reminiscent of biologist/SF author Joan Slonczewski’s The Children Star (1998). The biological aspect of the story is a tool to support Tchaikovsky’s primary message, which is a vivid illustration of how suspicion can undermine both an authoritarian regime and any potential resistance to that regime. In this novel, a lack of honesty and poor communication can literally kill. But at the same time, all talk and no action is no path to success, either. A savagely satirical take on the consequences of repressive doctrine and the power of collective action.

For more science fiction and fantasy reviews, visit Kirkus online.

Sparks fly between a witch and a curator, but magic may be keeping them apart.

BEST HEX EVER

Second Tide’s the Charm

Blumberg, Chandra | Canary Street Press (304 pp.) | $18.99 paper

Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781335476999

After five years together and three apart, two marine biologists are unexpectedly reunited by work in South Carolina. It’s been three years since Hope Evans’ and Adrian Hollis-Parker’s long-distance—yet all-encompassing— relationship fizzled out when Hope decided she needed more time before moving in together. She’s spent that time helping a recently widowed friend with her children and her new recreation business on Lake Michigan, while Adrian accidentally went viral helping a beached shark. He’s parlayed the attention into a thriving social media presence and YouTube channel that’s enabled him to further his research and build the life he thought he always wanted. Shark research—and their feelings for one another—are the most important things to both of them. With encouragement and concern from Zuri, Hope’s friend in Michigan; Adrian’s cousin Marissa; and Gabe, Adrian’s cameraman, Hope and Adrian work through their feelings for one another as they conduct shark research and outreach over the course of the summer. The story is told in alternating points of view, and Hope and Adrian are each consumed by missing the other, wanting to do their best work, and concern about getting their hearts broken again. The emotions that arise when they’re near

each other is described in great detail. People looking for a few pages to read before falling asleep every night will appreciate the cyclic nature of the couple’s thoughts.

A slow-moving story in which people trying to do their best find their happy ending.

Haunted Ever After

DeLuca, Jen | Berkley (352 pp.)

$18.99 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593641217

A woman relocates, only to discover that her new home is haunted. The small coastal community of Boneyard Key, Florida, is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in America. In 1897, a hurricane devastated the town, and the small group of survivors who stayed to rebuild found they could communicate with the ghosts of people who were killed in the storm. When Cassie Rutherford is priced out of the Orlando housing market, she looks further afield and feels lucky to have found a great deal on a house overlooking the water in Boneyard Key. She assumes the local businesses like Nick Royer’s coffee shop, Hallowed Grounds, are just leaning into the mythology for tourists, but she quickly learns the locals really believe in ghosts. After Cassie moves in, her laptop won’t take a charge in the house (“like an electricity vampire had stolen in during the night”) and half the outlets don’t seem to work at all, so she starts working from Nick’s coffee shop. He reveals that she’s the

proud owner of Hawkins House, the most haunted place in town, plagued by the ghost of Sarah Hawkins, a woman whose husband died in mysterious circumstances and who chased school kids off her property until her death in the 1940s. Cassie laughs it off until Sarah’s ghost starts communicating with her through the magnetic poetry on her fridge and a local ghost hunter assures her Sarah’s spirit is friendly. Meanwhile, Cassie and Nick’s flirtatious banter quickly evolves into casual dating. The first time he enters her house, though, things go sideways: They have a strange, aggressive argument, and Sarah’s ghost uses the magnets to urge Cassie to “get him out.” DeLuca has a keen eye for describing life in a small tourist town with a quirky cast of characters, but her plotting is predictable. Cassie and Nick are two nice people who can’t be together until they’ve (literally!) put old ghosts to rest.

An interesting ghost story outshines a tepid romance.

Kirkus Star

Best Hex Ever

El-Fassi, Nadia | Dell (320 pp.) | $18.00 paper | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780593871799

Sparks fly between a witch and a museum curator, but magic may be keeping them apart.

Dina Whitlock’s London café, Serendipity, has a reputation as a place where “good things [happen],” but what none of Dina’s customers know is that all her delicious treats are made with a bit of actual magic. Coming from a family of witches, she has a spell for everything, whether it’s giving a friend a dash of luck with a job interview or crafting a tea blend that calls back a fond childhood memory. What she can’t figure out, though, is how to ditch the hex that’s been

hanging over her since her last brutal breakup. It’s not easy getting close to someone when there’s a literal curse in the picture, designed to put any romantic partners in harm’s way. Then Scott Mason walks into Serendipity, and all Dina’s resolutions about closing herself off to love fly out the window. Well, almost. The tall, dark, and handsome curator for the British Museum is her type in every way, but Dina can’t run the risk of sentencing him to a string of bad luck. Fate, however, seems to have a plan for them: It turns out that one of Dina’s best friends is getting married to one of Scott’s, and guess who’s in the wedding party? As they travel to the countryside for a weekend of celebration and witchy rituals, Dina and Scott fight their attraction to each other at every turn in an attempt to keep the focus on their friends in the lead-up to the wedding, but they can’t deny they want to be more than pals. Can Dina lift the hex and give herself a long-deserved chance at love, or is this romance cursed from the start? El-Fassi’s debut romance is a delightfully magical story with a welcome helping of spice. An emphasis on female friendship and Dina’s connections with her family—Moroccan on her mother’s side and Welsh on her father’s—adds a heartwarming throughline, but the real star of the story is the steam between Dina and Scott. A soft, spicy romance with perfect fall vibes.

Morbidly Yours

Fairbanks, Ivy | Putnam (356 pp.) $18.99 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593851869

boots–wearing Lark Thompson arrives in Galway for an animation gig, the last thing she expects to find is a pile of black body bags mistakenly sent to her apartment. It’s not enough that the loss of her husband follows her everywhere—grief had to live right next door. The body bags belong to Lark’s neighbor Callum Flannelly, the local mortician. A sheepish Irishman with a slight stutter, Callum isn’t your stereotypical undertaker: He’s tall, rugged, and quite hospitable despite his vocation. Not one to be a stranger, Lark makes herself at home as Callum’s friendly neighbor. After all, she needs some form of distraction to avoid the massive guilt she still harbors in connection to Reese’s death. Soon enough, Lark learns that she isn’t the only one battling demons. Callum is at risk of losing his funeral home, Willow Haven, if he doesn’t secure an heir to carry on the family business. According to his granda’s will, Callum has six months to find a wife—or his estranged father will be able to take over Willow Haven for good. When Lark learns of Callum’s predicament, she finds it the perfect distraction for her. But as Lark sets Callum up on demi-romantic dates and coaches him through his social anxieties, he can’t help but notice that he never wants their time together to end. Can Lark be the girl Callum was waiting for, or is she steadfast in her vow to never marry again, lest she risk another heartbreak? This is a unique take on a second-chance romance; after all, it’s a love story that’s largely about death. Lark and Callum are patient with one another, with a mutual understanding that’s touching and satisfying. Readers will be hard-pressed not to swoon over the lovably gruff Callum, and the slow-burn passion and adorable flirting make for a perfect cozy read. A combination of poignant and heartwarming, this is a quirky love story you won’t forget.

Rise and Divine

Harper, Lana | Berkley (336 pp.) | $19.00 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780593637982

T he Witches of Thistle Grove series concludes with an enchanting queer romance. It’s time for the Cavalcade, a month-long festival that happens every 20 years and commemorates the four founding witch families of Thistle Grove. Dasha Avramov has lineage from two of those families, but what makes her a rarity is that she’s a devil eater. When a dark magical entity appears amid the celebration, Dasha must access a mysterious land of death on the other side of the veil to uncover more information. This place gives her euphoric feelings, but she has a history of spending too much time there and not wanting to return to the living realm where she’s grieving her deceased parents and regretting breaking the heart of Ivy Thorn, the love of her life. To save her town and win back Ivy, Dasha has to confront her fears, pain, and grief. Harper’s exquisite, descriptive prose once again shines and fully immerses the reader in this alluring, magical world. Although the book is a bit slow to start, the reader’s patience is rewarded with thoughtfully developed depictions of grief, a moving look at meaningful family and friend relationships, and passionate romance. Dasha has hurt her loved ones in the past, and it’s easy to empathize with her as she grows and atones. For fans who have been around since the beginning of the series, the appearance

A bubbly Texan with a tragic past and a shy Irish mortician become unlikely friends in Fairbanks’ charming romance. When Dolly Parton–loving, pink cowboy

A bubbly Texan and a shy Irish mortician have an unlikely romance.

MORBIDLY YOURS

Kirkus Star

This winsome

story is just what the doctor ordered.

BIG WITCH ENERGY

of many familiar characters will be appreciated.

A heartfelt romance with rich lore and richer emotions.

Kirkus Star

Big Witch Energy

Harper, Molly | Sourcebooks

Casablanca (336 pp.) | $16.99 paper Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781728276823

A witch trapped in her hometown reunites with her high school sweetheart.

Caroline Wilton’s family suffers from a deadly curse: If any of them leaves the island of Starfall Point off the coast of Michigan, they are killed in a freak accident within 24 hours. This includes Caroline’s older brother, Chris, who fell off a bridge after leaving to meet a girl he met online. For years, the Wiltons have been swamped by grief, and Caroline has lived a kind of half life, working at her family’s worn-down restaurant and bar and having flings with tourists. Everything changed a year ago, when Caroline developed magical powers and realized she’s a witch. She and two other women, Riley and Alice, formed a small coven that helps ghosts trapped on Earth reach the afterlife. Caroline is shocked when her high school sweetheart, Ben Hoult, returns to Starfall Point, newly divorced and with his two teenagers in tow. Ben’s ex-wife only wanted the money and prestige of being a doctor’s wife, caring little for him or the children. He hopes that moving to his childhood home will create a safe place to heal. Ben is delighted to discover Caroline is still single, and the

two fall back into an easy, sweet romance. Then his kids develop their own paranormal talents, and Ben is forced to admit that ghosts, magic, and curses are real. When an evil ghost threatens Caroline and the kids, the coven suspects the malevolent presence might also be responsible for the Wilton curse. Caroline wonders what the future will hold if she has the freedom to leave town. Harper is an expert storyteller, effortlessly weaving together the second-chance romance between Ben and Caroline with multiple subplots and a large, quirky cast of characters—some of whom are ghosts. The plot moves along at a brisk, pleasing pace, and even the late-stage exposition dump feels charming. This winsome, magical story is just what the doctor ordered.

Kirkus

Star

The Break-Up Pact

Lord, Emma | St. Martin’s Griffin (320 pp.) $18.00 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781250845306

Two friends agree to fake-date each other after their respective breakups go viral. June Hart never thought she’d become a meme, but when her boyfriend of 10 years ambushes her on a reality show, her crying face leads to the wrong kind of attention on social media. Suddenly, her beachside tea shop is earning all manner of lookie-loos, with every influencer trying to get a glimpse of her in person, but June’s most unexpected customer turns out to be a blast from her past. June hasn’t spoken to her childhood friend Levi Shaw in years, but it turns out he’s

navigating his own very public, very viral breakup, and their combined internet fame could be what they both need to change the conversation. When a candid pic of the two of them winds up online, it sets comment sections ablaze with speculation that they’re moving on with each other—so June and Levi decide to lean into the rumors and pretend to date. They’ll both benefit from the headlines, after all, since June is hoping the additional business will save her shop from going under and Levi wants his ex to take him back. As any aficionado of the romance genre knows, however, relationships that begin in the most dishonest of circumstances soon lead to the discovery of very real feelings. Lord’s adult debut has a strong emotional core, grounded in the weighty history of its main romance and the complexity of navigating long-buried love. The whole book is narrated by June, who has a lot to deal with, and it’s a relatable rollercoaster for anyone who has ever found themself at an impasse in life.

A charming story about the power of second chances.

Kirkus Star

The Truth According to Ember

Nava, Danica | Berkley (384 pp.) | $18.99 paper | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780593642603

A Chickasaw woman fudges the truth on a job application and soon finds herself unable to keep up with her lies. Ember Lee Cardinal is unhappily working at a bowling alley, stuck plunging toilets when she knows she’s capable of more. She desperately wants to be an accountant, but she doesn’t have the money to finish her degree. After yet another job application is rejected, she has an idea—what if she tells a few little lies on her application? She exaggerates her qualifications, saying she has a degree when she really just took a couple of classes, and lists her race as white

instead of Native American. And it works—she gets the job. Ember finds out that it’s actually possible to learn these accounting skills on the job, and soon she’s so successful at work that she earns a promotion. But it’s not all number crunching and spreadsheets; Ember also can’t help but notice Danuwoa Colson, the company’s Native American IT guy. The two of them get closer, and Ember realizes that he’s everything she’s been looking for in a man, but their company explicitly forbids interoffice dating. Also, Danuwoa doesn’t know she lied about some major parts of her application, and soon Ember finds herself lying even more. As their feelings get stronger, Danuwoa becomes impossible to resist…but Ember will need to be honest, with the people around her and herself, if their relationship has any chance of working. As an enrolled citizen of the Chickasaw Nation, Nava brings a sense of realism and heart to her debut. Ember’s journey is about her career and her romantic life but it’s just as much about accepting her family, her history, and the help of everyone around her. Nava blends deeper themes, like Ember’s fraught relationship with her brother and father as well as the racism she experiences at work, with fun and always welcome rom-com tropes like “just one bed.” Ember and Danuwoa’s intense sexual tension leads to plenty of steamy scenes and a relationship that’s both enjoyable and satisfying to read. A captivating romance that effortlessly balances laugh-out-loud scenes and heartwarming family moments.

Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour

Nguyen, Nora | Avon/HarperCollins (304 pp.) | $18.99 paper Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063381506

When Evie Lang’s beloved bohemian Auntie Hảo leaves her a house in San Francisco on the condition that she go on a matchmaking trip in her late father’s birth country, the recently single and jobless poet takes the plunge. Having grown up in the American Midwest with a white mother, Evie has never been to Vietnam, and her introduction to her paternal heritage has her lurching into traffic to save a rooster and being scolded by a motorbike-riding man who turns out to be the CMO of the tour she’s joining. Adam Quyền is recovering from a failed relationship, working for his sister’s startup, and trying to please their demanding parents. He takes a clinical approach to life, and Evie is an unexpected curveball thrown in his path. Despite their sexual and emotional chemistry, the two are grappling with insecurities both professional and familial, and their attraction wars with their financial, parental, and cultural differences. Written in third-person alternating points of view, the novel imagines how people from such different worlds and perspectives can find love and common ground. Nguyen, who writes literary fiction as Thao Thai, grounds Evie’s manic-pixie traits in a sadness and self-consciousness that skirts cliche while giving the prosaic Adam chances to display his caring nature. Nguyen writes of Vietnam lovingly, avoiding exoticization by weaving details of the country’s present and past (and its diaspora) into the trips Evie and Adam take together. Funny and emotional in turns, a love story set amid modestly rich Asians in modern Vietnam.

Enemies to Lovers

Williams, Laura Jane | Putnam | $19.00 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593719473

The chief marketing officer of Love Yêu, a Vietnamese tourism-plusmatchmaking service, is drawn to an Asian American poet on a luxury road trip.

An academic and her brother’s best friend reconnect on a family holiday. Two years ago, while working on her Ph.D. in English, Florence Greenberg was

overtaken by anxiety and imposter syndrome, forcing her into a monthlong hospital stay and a brief medical leave from her studies. But after time and consistent therapy, Flo is ready to stop being treated like glass—she wants to let loose. And what better way to bring her soul to life than by leaving gray Scotland for a two-week family vacation in Greece? Holiday Flo is in full swing, tanning and drinking aperitivos at the villa, and she’s even successfully blocked out her brother’s constant nagging. But Flo’s vacation-induced calm disintegrates when her brother’s best friend—and her own lover turned enemy—joins the group. Unbeknownst to their daughter, Flo’s parents had included Jamie Kramer in their annual Greenberg vacation plans. Shortly after her breakdown, Flo and Jamie almost got together...only for him to abruptly slip a note under her bedroom door dismissing their fling. Now, Flo is forced into close proximity with Jamie for two weeks with nothing to console her still-raw heartbreak except her utter hatred of him. Can Flo make it through the Greenberg summer holiday in one piece? Can closeness actually make the heart grow fonder? Williams’ latest romance is set in an enviable Mediterranean locale, though Flo’s family dynamics and juvenile brothers often disrupt the serene setting. Given an inordinate amount of accidental flashing, fart jokes, TikTok humor, and note passing, it’s hard to believe these men are renowned lawyers, academics, and soon-to-be fathers. Even the title is a bit exaggerated, as Jamie and Flo behave less as enemies and more as petulant teenagers. Their budding relationship offers little in the way of grand romance, but it serves enough drama and spice for a breezy beach read. A quick romance that falls short in substance.

Nonfiction

BLOCKBUSTERS AND MINOR HITS

IF YOU LOVE summer SF blockbuster films, you’ll find this season a tad thin. Last year they didn’t show up at all, the screens dominated by Barbie and Oppenheimer. This year we’re up for mere retreads of the Alien, Mad Max, and Crow franchises, with a flicker of promise only in the pairing of Deadpool and Wolverine for F-bombing superhero mayhem, which doesn’t quite count as science fiction.

Things were different in the 1970s and early ’80s. First, as Chris Nashawaty documents in The Future Was Now (Flatiron Books, July 30), came Star Wars , which thrilled geeks in the summer of 1977. More beyond-the-stars masterworks followed until we hit the summer of 1982, when Blade Runner, Tron , E.T., and The Thing hit the

theaters in rapid succession, a flurry of SF creativity that’s never been equaled. There’s a reason for that, writes Nashawaty, for soon afterward the suits wrested power from the creatives, tightened budgets, and skimped on niceties like scriptwriting and special effects, leading to turkeys like Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Masters of the Universe. It’s instructive, though, that the 1982 hits remain in heavy rotation on the streaming services, where audiences have migrated.

It’s not science fiction, but David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet remains a compelling study in psychotic dysfunction, personified by the maniacal Dennis Hopper and the louche Dean Stockwell. It’s a weird flick, essential for fans of existential horror

(entomology too), and its very weirdness lands it in Greil Marcus’s canon. In What Nails It (Yale Univ., Aug. 27), Marcus, the renowned rock critic, ponders the opening sequence in particular, joining it to his meditations on the “old, weird America” of documents like Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” Beauty and resistance to ugly authoritarianism go hand in hand—a useful lesson in this long, hot election summer—if only we open our eyes. As Marcus memorably writes, “There are whole worlds around us that we have never seen.”

One world not often visited lies in that part of the Venn diagram where casual sex, heaps of drugs, and—yes—opera intersect. That’s the world described in brilliant composer Ricky

Ian Gordon’s Seeing Through (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, July 23), which recounts a golden age of its own, its soundtrack courtesy of Joni Mitchell and Stephen Sondheim. It’s the music that, Gordon writes, is “the cause of most of my joy in life, as well as much of my unhappiness,” the latter served up against a time when the carefree 1970s gave way to the remorseless and ugly ’80s, those SF classics notwithstanding. Robyn Hitchcock, the brilliantly idiosyncratic rocker, finds his happy place in 1967 (Akashic, July 2), a year of extraordinary music (Sergeant Pepper, Are You Experienced? ). Hitchcock is unapologetically nostalgic for his teenage world of Nehru jackets and sandalwood incense. His own musical career took off a few years later thanks in part to the great producer Joe B oyd, whose second book, a celebration of world music called And the Roots of Rhythm Remain (ZE Books), hits the shelves on Sept. 3. At 750 pages, it’s a blockbuster itself—and just the thing for music lovers.

Gregory McNamee is a contributing writer.

The dizzying highs and nauseating lows of a landmark broadcasting career. She was the only one of her siblings to be born in the U.S. after her parents arrived from China in 1945. By her twenties, Chung tells us, she had morphed from a meek youngest who “never uttered a peep” into “someone who was fearless, ambitious, driven, full of chutzpah and moxie, who spoke up to get what she wanted.” Convinced that she was the equal of her white male colleagues in journalism, she would need every bit of that gumption in the decades that followed, as she smashed through barriers of sexism and racism with stints at each of the three networks. Sentences like this one—

“I thought the Gingrich controversy was the worst incident I would face while coanchoring the CBS Evening News, but what was to come made Bitchgate pale in comparison”— lead us from one crisis to the next. The most humiliating occurs in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, when Dan Rather (of the many people who come off badly in this book, he is the worst) sabotaged her career in a way she could never fully recover from. As for narcissistic divas Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer: “Each time I’d pop my head up, Barbara or Diane would whack me with a spongy hammer.” Her personal life is full of juice; she and husband Maury Povich had

Connie: A Memoir

a long-distance open relationship for many years before they married, allowing her exciting interludes with characters like Ryan O’Neal. (She jumps in her sports car, tells him to follow her, and... “Feel free to use your imagination.”) At the end of this long road come

sweet signs of her impact on the culture: a Connie Chung rest stop on the Garden State Parkway, a strain of marijuana that bears her name, and, most movingly, a whole generation of Chinese American girls named Connie. An irreverent, inspiring chronicle of a great life.

Kirkus Star

Roman Year: A Memoir

Aciman, André | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (368 pp.) | $30.00 Oct. 22, 2024 | 9780374613389

The author of Call Me by Your Name returns with a lush memoir of a turbulent time spent in Rome during his adolescence.

When Aciman’s family was expelled from Egypt, they were forced to abandon relative security for a life of emotional and financial strain in Italy. The author, his deaf mother, and his younger brother became refugees in the vast city of Rome, where he knew little Italian and even less about how to navigate their newfound poverty—a situation made worse by the tight-fisted financial control imposed by his uncle, a man described as “a pistacchio chiuso, a closed pistachio, sealed, impregnable, impossible to pry open—i.e., constipated.” Between his uncle’s verbal reprimands and habit of keeping a close tally on every small expenditure allotted to them, the family had few recourses. Nearly always in the position of the interpreter between his mother and frequently cruel uncle, the young Aciman was thrust into heavy responsibility. As much as possible, he retreated into books, and his education led him to love Rome. In vibrant, emotive prose, Aciman immerses readers in that time and place. In addition to evocative yet uncompromising descriptions of their shoddy apartment off Via Appia Novia—“drab, ill-lit stores everywhere, and so much soot on buildings that time had discolored them. The grandeur of imperial Rome had no place here”—the author also captures the glory of late morning in Piazza di Spagna, where “there were colors everywhere, everything and everyone was beautiful.” Aciman’s recollections of a brief yet memorable period of his adolescence move forward with passion and intensity, rich with imagery and poignant

memories. Ultimately, he creates an appealing combination of coming-of-age narrative and profound reflection on the concept of home.

An absorbing exploration of the challenges and slivers of beauty that formed life as a refugee in Rome.

Didion and Babitz

Anolik, Lili | Scribner (352 pp.)

$29.99 | Nov. 12, 2024 | 9781668065488

A study of two writers uncomfortably entwined. After Eve Babitz (1943-2021) died, her biographer Anolik came upon a letter from Babitz to Joan Didion (1934-2021) that startled her. Filled with “rage, despair, impatience, contempt,” it read like a “lovers’ quarrel.” “Eve was talking to Joan the way you talk to someone who’s burrowed deep under your skin, whose skin you’re trying to burrow deep under.” That surprise discovery suggested a “complicated alliance” between the two. In sometimes breathless prose, with sly asides to the “Reader,” Anolik draws on more than 100 interviews with Babitz and many other sources to follow both women’s lives, tumultuous loves, and aspirations before and after they met in Los Angeles in 1967, sometimes straining to prove their significance to one another. “Joan and Eve weren’t each other’s opposite selves so much as each other’s shadow selves,” she asserts. “Eve was what Joan both feared becoming and longed to become: an inspired amateur.” At the same time, “Joan was what Eve feared becoming and desired to become: a fierce professional.” Didion had just won acclaim for Slouching Towards Bethlehem when Babitz, newly arrived from New York, began socializing with her and her husband, John Gregory Dunne. The reticent Didion and the sensual, energetic Babitz could not have been more different, and Anolik clearly prefers Babitz. “I’m crazy for Eve,” she admits, “love her with a fan’s unreasoning abandon. Besides,

Joan is somebody I naturally root against: I respect her work rather than like it; find her persona—part princess, part wet blanket—tough going.” Their relationship—hardly a friendship—fell apart in 1974 when Didion and Dunne were assigned to edit Babitz’s autobiographical novel, Eve’s Hollywood. Babitz, resentful of Didion’s attitude and intrusion, “fired” her, pursuing her writing career on her own. Didion soared to literary fame; not, alas, Babitz. A cheeky, gossipy dual biography.

Kirkus Star

The Most Powerful Court in the World: A History of the Supreme Court of the United States

Banner, Stuart | Oxford Univ. (656 pp.)

$39.99 | Nov. 4, 2024 | 9780197780350

T he fiery language directed at SCOTUS obscures a fascinating, complex story, says this engaging book. The past decade has seen waves of vitriol directed at the Supreme Court from one side or another, so it is refreshing to find a book that sets out the institution’s history without histrionics. Banner is a distinguished legal academic who has written a series of interesting books, including How the Indians Lost Their Land, The Death Penalty, and The Decline of Natural Law, and his intention here is to explain how the Court has operated since its founding. A point that is often missed is that the Court focuses on appeals, judicial review, and technical issues of law. It can, if it chooses, hear cases where the facts are in dispute, but those are unusual. It is often seen as leaning toward the conservative side of the spectrum, but in the 1960s and 1970s it was certainly of a liberal bent. Critics often claimed, then, that in decisions like Miranda, Brown, and Roe, it was ignoring public opinion, going beyond its constitutional role, and

creating disruption. When the Court became more conservative, its previous supporters and opponents switched sides and arguments, apparently without a hint of irony. Banner lays out the reasoning in recent cases like Dobbs but is scrupulously evenhanded, offering no opinion about the legal merits of either the decision or the dissent. He notes that calls for changing the Court to affect decisions, such as by increasing the number of judges, are not new but have never received much support. For its part, the Court often shows a surprising independent streak. Banner avoids jargon wherever possible, and the result is a book that is accessible, intelligent, and colorful.

With clear-minded authority, Banner tells the story of a crucial, but misunderstood, part of the constitutional structure.

Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life

Beck, Richard | Crown (592 pp.)

$33.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593240229

The war on terror comes home to roost. Beck was 14 when the Twin Towers collapsed in 2001, an event that his Philadelphia school’s administrators overlooked in the interest of pursuing a regular learning day of quizzes and lectures. Once home, he was bombarded, like everyone else, with images of “the most visually spectacular attack in the history of armed conflict.” Soon enough, the country mostly united in its resolve to hunt down the terrorists, the images would grow more obscure, and “the war grew difficult to see.” By Beck’s account, the global war on terror has proven at every point an unwinnable boondoggle with numerous ill effects, not least the rise of the security state in the U.S. A case in point, Beck writes, is the new World Trade Center, built atop the ashes of the old one, “a dead zone” of “bollards, surveillance booths, and sally ports” that, while impeding the

The cost we’ve paid at home for chasing terrorists abroad.

HOMELAND

heavy foot traffic of the old WTC, does nothing to protect the place against a committed suicide bomber. The post-9/11 militarism that swept America, Beck conjectures, “did nothing to make people safer, and it didn’t make people feel safer, either.” Indeed, the gloomy pallor of paranoia was perfectly in keeping with an ever more unequal economy and the renewal of the 1960s-era culture wars, with anyone who dared question American policy canceled, from Susan Sontag to Bill Maher to the Dixie Chicks. Beck makes some long reaches that turn out to be quite reasonable, upon further reflection. For one, is it any surprise that social media corporations should join the security state in furthering technologies meant to aid in “knowing as much as possible about as many people as possible following September 11”?

A well-reasoned, evenhanded account of the cost we’ve paid at home for chasing terrorists abroad.

Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks

Bjornerud, Marcia | Flatiron Books (320 pp.) $28.99 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781250875891

A story of a lifelong love for our “wise old planet.”

“Earth is vibrantly alive,” writes geologist Bjornerud, “and speaking to us all the time.” This she has believed since she first began working, though she has not always felt comfortable admitting it. Scientific orthodoxy demands a dispassionate and analytical approach; animism is taboo in the academy. Now, after several other

geology books for general audiences (Reading the Rocks , Timefulness, Geopedia), Bjornerud has written the story of her deepening relationship to the idea of an “animate, sentient, and creative” Earth. Thirty years into her career, she is no longer wary of owning this belief. In fact, she argues, we may need it now more than ever. Our species is dangerously out of alignment with “the system that sustains it,” fantasizing about Mars or the “metaverse” as potential new human homes. If we were to understand that Earth is “distinguishe[d] from its lifeless siblings” by its sacraments and rituals—if we “came to think of ourselves as Earthlings with deep bonds of kinship with each other, and all components of nature”—we might get ourselves into sync with that system. Bjornerud would like readers to feel love for the Earth, but it can be difficult to get passionate about abstractions; her passion for the planet comes across most vividly in the book’s specifics. When Bjornerud explains in interesting, accessible language how plate tectonics makes Earth’s volcanoes different from those on Mars, how the appearance of vegetation altered the life cycle of sandstone, or what it is like to live in tents and study rocks in polar bear country under a midnight sun, readers can experience for themselves an earth scientist’s enthusiasm and joy in knowledge. Urgent lessons about the Earth, told through one geologist’s career.

For more by Marcia Bjornerud, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

She-Wolves:

The Untold History of Women on Wall Street

Bren, Paulina | Norton (352 pp.)

$29.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781324035152

A significant study of the trailblazing women who broke through the Wall Street barrier. In this illuminating account of a collection of important women in the financial industry, Bren, author of The Barbizon , focuses primarily on Wall Street from the 1960s to the present day, noting how the finance sector retained its sexist culture even as American society was changing around it. During this era, the first generation of women worked as secretaries and typists, laying the foundations for the next wave of women who had graduated from business schools. They took jobs as researchers and analysts, but most found themselves locked out of the big-money trading jobs in the male-dominated industry. Bren tracks the careers of several women who, through ability and persistence, managed to move up. Still, it was a constant battle against tokenism, excuses, and unapologetic sexism, and women found themselves working twice as hard for half the recognition. Legislation prohibited discrimination in hiring and promotion, but the more insidious problem was the old-boy networks, fueled by boozy lunches and post-work outings to strip clubs. “The female pioneers of Wall Street…pushed into uncharted territory not knowing what awaited them there other than men, lots of men, few of whom were going to roll out a welcome mat.” Nevertheless, progress continued, and some women went on to establish their own trading firms. Throughout this fascinating business and cultural history, Bren

Writing with flair and passion, Bren salutes the courage and talent of true groundbreakers.

SHE-WOLVES

fleshes out the story with instructive anecdotes, and she provides a series of biographical sketches in an appendix. While the situation has markedly improved, there are still far too few women in positions of power and leadership in the finance industry. We might hope that Bren returns to the subject in another decade or two for a further assessment.

Writing with flair and passion, Bren salutes the courage and talent of true groundbreakers.

Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction

Brotton, Jerry | Atlantic Monthly (192 pp.)

$27.00 | Nov. 5, 2024 | 9780802163684

With a compass to show the way, a professor of English and history undertakes an engaging journey of discovery.

Finding your way from where you are to where you want to go might seem like an easy concept in today’s digital world, but there many colorful stories about the history of direction and navigation. In his latest book, Brotton, author of A History of the World in 12 Maps and The Sultan and the Queen, unravels them. Even ancient societies had an organized sense of direction, linked to the rising and setting of the sun, and the constant North Star and its southern equivalent were some of the first astronomical features to be recognized. The result was a division of the world into four basic directions, with rare exceptions—e.g., the Aztecs

had five color-coded cardinal directions. The next big step was the magnetic compass, which, when coupled with reliable methods of calculating latitude and longitude, led to transoceanic travel and the convention that North would be located at the top of maps. That idea has continued, but many terms, such as “Middle East,” have little to do with geography and more to do with political considerations—in that case, the outlook of the British Empire. Likewise, the value of the term “the West,” which usually means the European and English-speaking parts of the world, depends largely on where one is standing. The author worries that the new dominance of GPS and smartphones could disconnect us from a shared sense of place as well as a relationship with the natural world. Thus, he offers a piece of advice: On the next clear night, look for the North Star, and think about all the others who have done so.

Brotton keeps his complex story moving, knitting technical information and anecdotes into a vivid tapestry.

Kirkus Star

A Day in September: The Battle of Antietam and the World It Left Behind

Budiansky, Stephen | Norton (304 pp.)

$32.50 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781324035756

The September 1862 battle recounted through the lives of nine participants. Historian/ biographer Budiansky

reminds readers that Robert E. Lee did not assume command until a year after hostilities began. During that time Confederate President Jefferson Davis, aware that the North possessed far more resources, had adopted a defensive policy, certain that to win the South had only to emulate Washington’s successful strategy during the Revolution: avoid outright losses and make the war unacceptably expensive for the enemy. By the time Lee took over, this strategy was working, according to Budiansky and most contemporary observers. No deep thinker, Lee assumed that generals attack, a disastrous policy for a weaker adversary, though spectacularly successful at first because he faced incompetent opposition epitomized by Union general George McClellan. Disorganized and vainglorious, McClellan showed a maddening reluctance to attack and vastly exaggerated the size of Lee’s army. He could have annihilated Lee at Antietam but bungled it. No scholar has yet explained why, when a copy of Lee’s plans fell into McClellan’s hands, he did nothing for days while Lee frantically recalled his units and then, still outnumbered, fended off McClellan’s confused, piecemeal attack, which produced equal slaughter on both sides. Budiansky chooses equally compelling supporting figures. Physician Jonathan Letterman worked to reform the shameful Union medical care system. Wounded repeatedly, Oliver Wendell Holmes barely survived three years as a junior officer and recorded his painful descent from dreams of glory to squalor and death. Alexander Gardner shocked the public with photographs of the dead, though few showed corpses decapitated, disemboweled, missing limbs, or partially devoured by marauding pigs. Also, Budiansky notes, Gardner staged some photos, moving around corpses “to conform to some idealized representation of death.” Buttressed by four additional, equally cogent portraits, these masterful mini-biographies give the famous battle a compelling human face.

A masterful addition to the crowded shelf of books about Antietam.

Kirkus Star

Exvangelical and Beyond: How American Christianity Went Radical and the Movement That’s Fighting Back

Chastain, Blake | TarcherPerigee (288 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593717073

A former evangelical unpacks what it means to deconstruct that faith.

Chastain grew up evangelical and went to an evangelical college, aspiring to be a pastor. Coming to “a more open-minded and historical understanding of Christianity” there, he became alienated by the “militant, conservative faith” that seemed contrary to its spirit. In 2016 (not coincidentally, the year of Trump’s rise to power), Chastain created the term “exvangelical” to denote a person who has left evangelicalism, launching a podcast and hashtag of the same name. The term has since taken on a life of its own, with the hashtag to date boasting 1.7 billion impressions on TikTok (“a platform I hardly ever post to,” the author comments). In his highly readable first book, Chastain explains why the term found such deep resonance, especially in online spaces, among populations of people leaving the evangelical church and losing their faith, though not always both and not always in that order. As he carefully points out, “the term [exvangelical] acknowledges personal autonomy because, although it does define past experience, it...doesn’t try to dictate what people who leave evangelicalism should believe.” In addition to describing the online movements and communities that have taken shape around this idea, the author provides readers with an in-depth history of American evangelicalism from its roots in the 1840s through its rise to cultural dominance in the years since. Those who grew up evangelical may particularly relate to Chastain’s Christian pop culture references, but his inclusive, personable writing will appeal

to readers of all backgrounds. Beyond theology, “evangelicalism can also be understood as a public, an imagined community, a market, and a voting bloc,” he argues, and Christian nationalism has risen in influence to impact the lives of every American, whether they consider themselves believers or not. A timely exploration of evangelicalism’s influence and how former believers find meaning beyond it.

Ordinary Disasters: How I Stopped Being a Model Minority

Cheng, Anne Anlin | Pantheon (304 pp.)

$27.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593316825

Musings on race, gender, parenting, and mortality. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, race and gender scholar Cheng was already battling cancer. She was also parenting two children, navigating an interracial marriage, grieving the death of her father, and managing her aging mother. During this time, the author writes, “it felt as if I was at war with everyone, including my partner and my own body.” The purpose of the essays she collects here, Cheng states, is to find “a way back to myself, or more accurately, to arrive at a self that I have yet fully owned.” On this journey of self-discovery, she writes about her memories of her grandparents in Taiwan, her experience of anti-Asian hate during the pandemic, her changing relationship with her teenage son, her husband’s incomplete understanding of her racial experiences, and her childhood in Savannah, Georgia. While many of her essays hone to traditional narrative structures, others lean toward the inventive, most notably “Things Not To Do to My Daughter When I’m Old,” a poignant, tongue-incheek list of the author’s mother’s foibles that she hopes will not become her own. The strongest essays are the most personal, in which Cheng speaks frankly, vulnerably, and insightfully

about how her multiple identities affect the most important aspects of her life. In these pieces, she flows effortlessly between her relationships and insecurities and scholarly, historical, and pop culture references. While a few of the essays temporarily break this mesmerizing spell by slipping entirely out of the personal and into the academic, overall this is a lovely collection. Tenderly written essays form a beautifully intimate memoir.

For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today

Cosgrove, Elliot | Harvest/Morrow (240 pp.)

$29.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063417472

A distinguished New York City rabbi reflects on being Jewish during a time of renewed hostility between Palestinians and Jews. The Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel turned Cosgrove’s life and the lives of his fellow clergy “upside-down.” Furthermore, “in the week that followed (and before any Israeli counterattacks), over 150 anti-Israel rallies were held across the United States.” Cosgrove was suddenly confronted with difficult questions about the nature of “diaspora Jewry’s obligations to Israel” in a post-Shoah world. Jews living outside of Israel often live in a state of cultural tension characterized by “the disorienting struggle to integrate…multiple selves” and multiple ways of expressing affiliation with Judaism. Complicating the situation is the conflicted political situation in Israel, which has manifested in assassinations—like that of Yitzhak

Rabin, who championed a framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and, in more contemporary times, a hard turn toward militant authoritarianism. The author notes that many among the younger generations of diaspora Jews feel that “the Israel they love does not love them back, or even care that [they] exist.” At the same time, anyone attempting to speak about Jewish issues in the U.S., even nonpolitical ones, may find themselves shut down— as Cosgrove was at a university lecture after the Hamas attack in 2023. Part of what makes this book so compelling is the author’s willingness to criticize Israel for being antidemocratic in its hardline Zionism while also expressing his deep and abiding love for it. In a world where diatribe trumps civil discourse, Cosgrove’s moderate, carefully reasoned approach, grounded in both history and biblical scholarship, is a welcome balm. “God knows, we are all in need of a place to start,” he writes. “Wholeness and brokenness, every step of the way, on our journey toward the Promised Land.”

Searching, soulful reading for exceedingly difficult times.

Dorothy Parker in Hollywood

Crowther, Gail | Gallery Books/ Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) | $29.99 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781982185794

A sympathetic account of the legendary writer, social activist, and mordant wit.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was one of the most quotable writers of the 20th century.

Searching, soulful reading for exceedingly difficult times.

FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS

Though her witty remarks are perhaps better remembered than her literary achievements, she published several acclaimed collections of short stories and poems. Early in her career as a Vanity Fair writer and theater critic, she gained fame as a founding member of the infamous Algonquin Round Table. This fame helped fuel Parker’s dual ascent as author and celebrity. While more often associated with New York, she spent considerable time in Hollywood as a screenwriter. In this latest biography, Crowther, author of The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath, explores the substance of these years. Much of Parker’s screenwriting was uncredited, yet she earned two Oscar nominations, including for the original A Star Is Born (1937). This period also sparked her active involvement in civil rights issues, which continued through her final years. Crowther traces Parker’s tumultuous marriages, love affairs, and the spiraling course of her erratic personal life, marred by lengthy bouts of alcoholism, suicide attempts, and a reputation for mean-spirited conduct. Parker’s life has been well documented, notably in Marion Meade’s Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? (1987). Crowther seeks to provide an updated clinical examination of how shattering experiences, especially Parker’s two miscarriages, likely exacerbated her volatile behavior and potentially stunted greater literary productivity. Though credible, the author fails to deeply examine whether Parker may in fact have grappled with serious undiagnosed mental health issues. Parker was undeniably talented and charismatic, yet the story of her long, staggering decline and her unrelenting self-destructive excesses can wear thin. Crowther’s relatively succinct portrait benefits from its comparable brevity to previous volumes on Parker’s life.

An ambitious, thoughtfully researched portrait of an often brilliant yet irascible talent.

For more by Gail Crowther, visit Kirkus online.

Billionaire, Nerd, Savior, King: Bill Gates and His Quest To Shape Our World

Das, Anupreeta | Avid Reader Press (320 pp.)

$32.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9781668006726

Secrets of a billionaire.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and published reports, Das, finance editor at the New York Times, focuses on technology titan Bill Gates’ manipulation of money and power “to hide in the shadows or shine on the stage” as he pursues his goals in business, politics, policy, and philanthropy. Central to her investigation is the “ever-widening inequality” blighting American society along with the culture’s persistent veneration of billionaires. “The American dream,” Das writes, “loosely holds that in a land of liberty, boundless opportunity, and free enterprise, individual merit, hard work, and a sprinkling of luck are the keys that unlock fortune.” As Das chronicles Gates’ evolution from Microsoft’s nerdy creator to beneficent philanthropist, she shows that his education at private schools, strong family ties, and more than a sprinkling of luck were factors in his success. As a businessman, he was notoriously arrogant. His divorce from Melinda French Gates disclosed lifelong womanizing. More than 2,000 people depend on the Gates fortune for their livelihoods, Das notes, including “a small army of communications professionals” who work “to shape the public persona of Gates in a way to elevates his stature to benefit his foundation’s goals and burnish his individual brand.” Their task became especially onerous when Gates was linked with Jeffrey Epstein, whom he continued to see even after allegations against Epstein became widely known. “Why Gates hung around with Epstein may remain a head scratcher forever,” Das admits. But that failure of judgment, as well as ruthless business practices and marital betrayal, have been glossed over. Today, she finds, “the world

has a completely refurbished image of Gates, the jagged edges of the monopolist softened by the halo of the philanthropist.”

A sharply incisive portrait.

American Scary: A History of Horror, From Salem to Stephen King and Beyond

Dauber, Jeremy | Algonquin (464 pp.)

$32.00 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781643753560

A scholarly study of the horror genre’s cultural roots and meanings. One might expect a book about the history of horror stories in America to be a romp through scares and dares. However, Dauber, a professor of Jewish literature at Columbia and the author of American Comics and Jewish Comedy, takes his subject very seriously, emphasizing the psychological and cultural issues that underlie the genre. The author notes that the first European settlers of America brought their taste for Gothic horror with them, and the aesthetic was easily integrated into the shadowy forests of New England. As Dauber chronicles, macabre tales played a role in the Salem witch trials and, later, the fear of slave uprisings. The author examines the work of authors like Lovecraft, Bierce, and Poe, seeing themes that still echo in today’s writers. When cinema appeared, horror movies abounded, a trend Dauber connects to the alienation associated with industrial capitalism. He follows this idea to the popular taste for the fantastic, including stories about vampires, zombies, and aliens. At the same time, there was a rise in the horror of reality: serial murders, random killings, and psychopaths on the run. In recent times, the emergence of the splatterpunk subgenre has meant an avalanche of special effects gore. Dauber sees all this as driven by—and reflected in—the nature of American society, which he depicts as endlessly oppressive and malevolent, featuring strong

Dauber’s knowledge is unquestionably extensive, but his psychohistorical approach means that his audience will be limited.

The World in Books: 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction

Davis, Kenneth C. | Scribner (464 pp.)

$29.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781668015599

In an age of screens, AI, and shrinking attention spans, a good book is more important and valuable than ever. For the bibliophiles among us, the recurring question is: What should I read next? Davis, a prolific writer and author of Great Short Books: A Year of Reading—Briefly, is ready with some 52 recommendations. His list stretches from The Epic of Gilgamesh to the current day, and it includes the seminal works of every major faith. Each entry includes an excerpt from the work, a biographical note on the author, and a discussion on its particular value. Davis also provides a recommendation on what to read next, which might be further writing by the same author or material in a related genre. His focus is on short books and essays; wherever possible, he places the piece within the author’s larger output. He casts a wide net, from Plato, Sun Tzu, Sappho, and Aristotle to Dante, Machiavelli, Marx, Voltaire, and others. Davis makes a point of including authors of color, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Baldwin, as well as key feminist writers like Virginia

>>> elements of racism and misogyny. That last part is hard to argue, but his overlong critique eventually becomes tiresome. Moreover, Dauber’s writing style is dense and often convoluted. Ultimately, this book is more for dedicated cultural analysts than readers who simply like the occasional dose of frightening and/or violent creative catharsis.

THE KIRKUS Q&A: ELLEN ATLANTA

How Kylie Jenner’s lip augmentation led this writer to a reevaluation of beauty culture—and a debut book.

BY AMY REITER

“I’VE BEEN WRITING this book my whole life, documenting what it’s like to grow up on the internet,” says Ellen Atlanta over Zoom ahead of the U.S. release of Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women (St. Martin’s, Aug. 6).

Born in the U.K. in 1995, Atlanta blogged through her teens. Working in salons before transitioning to brand consulting, she was often asked what was important about, say, getting your nails done.

“We’d say, ‘Nothing. It’s about using beauty to incite conversations around bodily autonomy and feminism,’” she recalls.

Then, in the mid-2010s, a shift occurred that Atlanta attributes partly to then-teenage Kylie Jenner’s lip augmentation. “Overnight it went from self-expression and fun—hair braiding and nail art—to young girls injecting their faces with filler and Botox to achieve a very prescriptive ideal face and body,” says Atlanta, who once spent a day with Jenner for a story she was reporting. “This idea that getting your face injected is empowering? The industry had become so divorced from what I started out in.”

So just before the pandemic, Atlanta quit her job and began writing an update of Naomi Wolf’s feminist manifesto, The Beauty Myth, for the Instagram age, which “felt urgent,” she says. “I think of [the book] as a time capsule of what it felt like to exist as a woman growing up in this space.”

Atlanta spoke to Kirkus about the debut that our critic, in a starred review, calls “courageous, revealing, and occasionally painful.” Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

funds. It created this culture in which it felt like everyone else was cured—and you were still struggling. Having to do these things secretly became more insidious.

What was your research process?

I interviewed all different types of women. The amount of shared suffering—stories that came up over and over again—was unsettling. We don’t realize how common these experiences are. Once I gave someone permission to speak about how they felt about their body, the floodgates opened.

narrative of they’re not harming anyone. There’s a direct impact. They feed this idea that women are defective, that you have to be constantly improving. They also feed this narrative of natural beauty as the utmost virtue. So they’re holding this liminal space where they’re not going to admit they’ve had anything done because to do so would be to admit deceit, and yet they’re parading an aesthetic that requires artifice to maintain.

Tell me about the moment your perspective shifted. I thought, How complicit have I been in an industry that’s maybe been more harmful than I’ve realized? I quit my job. It was peak Instagram feminism. There was a piece of merch going around: “Girls doing

whatever the fuck they want.”

All this messaging around “empowered.” I was talking to intelligent, talented, capable women and still hearing about food groups we couldn’t eat or how to edit your pictures before posting or to look presentable to raise business-venture

Where do the Kardashians fit in?

They’re the faces of this hyperaugmented culture— Kylie specifically. I’ve spoken to so many women who started getting lip filler in their teens because of Kylie Jenner. So I resent the

You write that as soon as women make gains, the beauty ideal tightens its grip. How are beauty standards used to keep women down?

So many ways. Think about the gender pay gap and then that women are expected to invest [money] in beauty work, which is so much more expensive for women than men. Even a haircut can be

double the price, let alone the list of things you’re expected to do versus men, who just have to shower, cut their hair. Women are expected to do their lashes, eyebrows, skin, nails, hair, hair removal, very specific body composition. On top of that you’ve got Botox and filler and whether you’re going to visibly age, because that’s now a choice. We’re at an economic disadvantage and then we have to invest more to achieve some parity.

How did the internet change the trajectory? It was gradual. The early internet wasn’t image based. Having access to a camera on your phone at all times, the advent of selfie culture, has hugely changed beauty culture. In any other historical period, you would have seen the faces of a few hundred people in your town. Today, I could easily see a thousand images, and an algorithm pushes those deemed most beautiful to the top.

Now, as a teenage girl, you might see Kylie Jenner, your friend from school, your auntie all on one feed, with no differentiation. So instead of looking at celebrities on a billboard or magazine, where you can detach from the messaging, everyone’s on the same plane. It’s flattening expectations for young women and girls. They feel like they should look like Kylie Jenner because she exists in the same realm as their friends.

I may never forget the young girl you interviewed who doesn’t go out because she doesn’t want to be seen unfiltered.

What was scary was that when she said that, all the girls around her were like, “Mm-hmm, yeah!”

What about online harassment?

The way women are attacked online is linked to beauty culture, to their images, to the way men feel entitled to dissect, dominate, and discuss women’s bodies even when it’s irrelevant to the discussion. It’s inherent in incel culture, these very specific roles and how

women should show up in the world. So many women experience online abuse, and those who haven’t experienced it have witnessed it. That’s how control functions: You don’t have to have been a victim yourself; you just have to believe that you could be if you step out of line.

Does that worry you?

When I wrote the book, my parents’ concern was, Are you putting yourself on a chopping block? I talk about abortion and my experience

Instead of thinking about what looks good to other people, think about what looks good to you.

Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women

Atlanta, Ellen

St. Martin’s | 384 pp. | $30.00 Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781250286222

with domestic violence— very personal things. But it felt worth it to bring women’s experiences forward. In a year’s time, I might feel different. It’s concerning how many women are saying less and dampening their opinions, not wanting to be visible in an age where you have to be visible to be successful. We’re on this tightrope: You must be beautiful to be visible. But, also, don’t be too beautiful. And if you are too visible, we’re going to tell you you’re ugly or how we’d abuse you and violate your body.

I’ll ask you the question you’ve asked others: How can we create a more beautiful future for women and girls?

For me, the answer is “sorority is self-care.” We can make a more beautiful future by thinking and acting as a collective, making decisions with our sisters, mums, aunties, cousins, and friends in mind. Also refusing to exist in 2-D. A more beautiful future is one in which women and girls enjoy every dimension of life. Instead of thinking about what looks good to other people, [think about] what looks good to you, what tastes good for you. Eat delicious food. Speak up. Be the woman you needed when you were a kid. Combine that collective action of the ’60s and ’70s with the introspection we’ve learned, and instead of focusing on how we can fix ourselves within this eternally optimizing culture, turn that critical lens onto the culture and make decisions that are better for everyone.

Amy Reiter is a writer in Brooklyn.

Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, and bell hooks. Elie Wiesel, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison each find a place on the list. Davis admits that his collection is necessarily arbitrary, and he provides a short afterword to explain the reasons for his selections, as well as an appendix of other choices. One appendix, “My Ten Favorite Great Short Nonfiction Books,” includes work by Sappho, Douglass, Thoreau, Orwell, Didion, and Elizabeth Kolbert, in addition to John Hersey’s landmark Hiroshima. “I hope I have provided a rich reservoir of contemplation, insight, inspiration, and resistance, and perhaps even a glimmer of truth,” Davis writes. In that, he has succeeded. A wealth of succinct, entertaining advice.

Kirkus Star

Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America

Davis, Rebecca L. | Norton (448 pp.)

$35.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781631496578

Intimacy in America.

Historian Davis draws on a wealth of scholarly and archival sources, from love letters to legal testimony, to create a surprising look at Americans’ attitudes about sex, gender, sexual identity, and erotic practices over the past 400 years. As she proceeds chronologically, Davis centers each chapter on particular individuals who highlight salient issues for the period. In the 1600s, for example, Thomas or Thomasine Hall, who now may be deemed intersex, assumed male or female gender, depending on the circumstances. Hall’s behavior unsettled a community that insisted that gender be expressed in one’s outward appearance. By the late 17th century, those who wanted to live a different gender from the one assigned at birth faced laws banning cross-dressing. Davis examines sex among Indigenous peoples, whose

Ingenious stories in the service of deep natural history.

THE GENETIC BOOK OF THE DEAD

sexual practices were quashed by Spanish Catholic colonizers, and among enslaved people and slavers. “American slavery,” she writes, “created a marketplace for the description and pursuit of illicit sex acts,” particularly the sexual exploitation of women by their masters. Davis recounts the ferocious crusade by Anthony Comstock, in the late 19th century, against “obscenity,” as he defined it, which included mailing information about birth control, and the equally ferocious crusade, a century later, by Suzanne Pennypacker Morris against abortion. Generations of Americans “loved and lusted after one another without a distinct vocabulary to name their desires,” without censure, until the advent of sexologists, who decided that “queer desire was proof of a primitive sexuality” and incited legal and medical condemnation. The Kinsey reports on human sexuality, however, published in 1948 and 1953, offered an alternative to a heterosexual/homosexual binary. In this time of fierce debates over issues such as abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and medical treatment for transgender youths, Davis offers a powerful corrective to a static picture of the past. Deeply researched and revealing.

The

Genetic Book of the Dead:

A Darwinian Reverie

Dawkins, Richard | Yale Univ. (360 pp.) $35.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780300278095

The famous evolutionist meditates on his favorite topic. Dawkins, bestselling author of The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion, and numerous

other landmark books, argues persuasively that every living creature’s body and behavior can be read as a book. Confronted with a hitherto unknown animal, a future biologist could decipher its entire evolutionary history. Today’s scientists lack the technology and fossil record to deliver a detailed account, but few are more qualified than Dawkins to make the effort. Demonstrating more good sense than many of his colleagues, he makes generous use of photographs and Lenzová’s expert illustrations. The author emphasizes that every individual’s genes came to be the way they are over many generations through random drift and mutation guided by natural selection. Sexual recombination ensures that the gene pool is stirred and shaken, while mutation sees to it that new variants enter the pool. Natural and sexual selection determine the shape of the average genome changes in constructive directions. Individuals, species, and the physical DNA die, but the information in the DNA can last indefinitely. Having laid the groundwork, Dawkins proceeds with several dozen mind-bogglingly fascinating anecdotes describing animals, often wildly disparate, dipping into the ancient history of their DNA to solve problems in similar ways. A mole is a mammal, and a mole cricket is a bug. Adapted to life underground, they have evolved to look nearly identical. The same applies to marsupial and modern placental mammals, who have evolved separately for more than 150 million years. The cuckoo learns nothing from its parents, whom it never encounters, yet its DNA provides everything it needs to know from the species’ long history, including its song and its eggs, the design of which invariably changes to resemble eggs in the nest it parasitizes. Ingenious stories in the service of deep natural history.

On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service

Fauci, Anthony S. | Viking (496 pp.)

June 18, 2024 | 9780593657478 | $36.00

The long-anticipated memoir. Fauci served as director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for 38 years. He was widely known and admired within his profession but not to the general public until the Covid-19 epidemic. A talented researcher, he did groundbreaking work on immune and infectious diseases at the NIH and then became NIAID director at age 43. Except for a rare nod toward his family, Fauci confines himself to his professional life, delivering an illuminating, expert account of our government’s encounters with infectious diseases over the past 50 years—stories that involve as much politics as science. Almost as soon as he took office in 1984, AIDS emerged as a worldwide catastrophe that dominates the book, later joined (but not superseded) by Covid-19. Along the way readers learn about battles against SARS, Ebola, Zika, malaria, tuberculosis, bioterrorism, and even influenza. Well before Covid-19, Fauci appeared in the media regularly, giving many the impression that he directed America’s public health policy. In fact, that’s the responsibility of the CDC in distant Atlanta (NIAID supports research), but Fauci was on hand in Washington, so reporters and officials regularly sought him out. President Trump assumed that Covid-19 would disappear after a few months. As it worsened and Fauci kept delivering bad news while others told the president what he wanted to hear, Trump and his staff began accusing Fauci of disloyalty and then incompetence. Quickly falling in line, congressional Republicans peppered Fauci with invective and investigations. The author describes several

Trump aides as obnoxious; others were supportive; Trump himself gets off fairly lightly as often charming but bombastic and deeply ignorant. Fauci could not have led and expanded NIAID without the considerable political acumen he exercised under seven presidents, but he leaves no doubt that Trump tried him sorely. Most readers will appreciate this evenhanded account, though probably not unforgiving Trump supporters.

Five Banners: Inside the Duke Basketball Dynasty

Feinstein, John | Duke Univ. (200 pp.)

$29.95 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781478026716

A veteran author and sportswriter chronicles the success of the Duke men’s basketball program, coached by one of the sport’s all-time greats. Feinstein, author of many bestselling sports books, including A Good Walk Spoiled and The Legends Club, has been a Duke insider since his days covering the Blue Devils for the student newspaper in the 1970s. He uses that long-held access to chronologically document the story of head coach Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski’s four-decade career in Durham, which included five national championships and 12 appearances in the Final Four and ended with Krzyzewski as the winningest head coach in men’s college basketball history. As is often mentioned in the book, Feinstein was present at a program-changing meal at a Denny’s restaurant following a season-ending loss relatively early in his tenure that had boosters, fans, and local media calling for Krzyzewski’s job. He examines Krzyzewski’s approach and strategy in building a powerhouse amid the changing landscape of college basketball; the intense rivalry between Duke and the University of North Carolina, particularly with then–head coach Dean Smith; and Krzyzewski’s tumultuous relationship with his collegiate coach

and mentor, Bob Knight. Throughout, the author presents Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils in angelic light, and the axe he has to grind with Knight (the subject of the author’s A Season on the Brink) is petty. Furthermore, his snarky attitude toward other programs, coaches, and some fellow media members does nothing to disabuse stereotypes about Duke graduates and fans. While it is understandable that Feinstein has essentially written a love letter to the program he has adored since late adolescence, it’s a shame that a book about such a compelling and complex American sports figure as Krzyzewski is a one-note bore. For a more balanced treatment, check out Ian O’Connor’s Coach K . A hagiography of Coach K.

The

Greta

Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls: A Memoir

Gaines, Steven | Delphinium (210 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781953002426

Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll. In his 20s, directionless and drifting, Gaines was living in Manhattan, still under the care of the “talented Freudian psychiatrist” who had treated him during his long hospitalization after a suicide attempt at age 15. As he revealed in his memoir One of These Things First, Gaines struggled with his homosexuality: “I was a gay Jewish kid who lived in a thicket of self-hatred above his grandma’s bra and girdle shop in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a shtetl twenty-five minutes by train and a chasm of erudition from Manhattan.” He worked at an auction gallery, where he moved furniture and faked antiques, and lived in seedy short-term rentals. Encouraged by his psychiatrist, he pursued women in hopes of “curing” his attraction to men, but after one emotional affair, he had an epiphany: “I learned I had to stop trying to love

women and I had to stop trying to figure out why I couldn’t, and I had to stop being ashamed of it.” Yet, a decade of psychoanalysis didn’t cure his abiding self-loathing. Sex looms large as Gaines recounts the gritty ambience of New York in the 1970s, fueled by assorted drugs and rife with gay sex. At Max’s Kansas City, the Factory, and Studio 54, he cavorted with characters that led to his unlikely—and ultimately successful—career as a writer. An encounter with Marjoe, who became a star Pentecostal preacher as a child, inspired Gaines to write his biography; meeting a bartender at Studio 54 led to his writing The Club, a roman a clef so incendiary that he was threatened with lawsuits by celebrities who recognized themselves. He fled to California, where the former manager of the Beatles hired him to write the band’s story. In lively episodic chapters, Gaines shares the coincidences and chance meetings that brought his books into being. A gossipy, raunchy memoir.

Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World

Godfrey-Smith, Peter | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (336 pp.) | $29.00

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780374189938

A scientist muses on how living creatures constructed today’s Earth. Godfrey-Smith, professor of the history and philosophy of science at the University of Sydney and author of Other Minds and Metazoa, writes that this is the

third book in a series. Not straightforward natural history, it’s a thoughtful meditation on how the actions of organisms, even the most primitive (ticks, snails), have generated the world humans have inherited. At the same time, “the portion of Earth occupied by wild nature, its place in the whole, shrinks and recedes.” Life, present for 3.7 of the 4.5 billion years of Earth’s existence, has engineered our planet no less than volcanism and plate tectonics. In the first half of the book, Godfrey-Smith delivers a steady stream of examples of nonhuman life going about its business. Even bacteria learn, communicate, migrate, and build. As evolution proceeds, minds enter the picture. “What are minds doing here?” is a question that preoccupies the author throughout the book. “Minds— through perceptions, thoughts, plans, and intentions—guide action,” he writes. “Actions serve the interests of organisms, and whether this is intended or not, actions can also transform the world.” The second half of the book involves humans, with a heavy emphasis on that perennial favorite, consciousness, which, like so many human accomplishments—e.g., tools, language, engineering—turns out to be well distributed across the animal kingdom. The author ends with a plea to preserve the wild nature that we are now destroying—not from what seems an aesthetic admiration of its beauty, “but a sense of kinship and gratitude.” This is not a history of life. For that, readers should consult David Quammen’s The Tangled Tree, followed by Godfrey-Smith’s previous two books (although he insists that’s not necessary).

Enlightening insights into the natural world and our often perilous relationship to it.

Enlightening insights into the natural world and our often perilous relationship to it.

Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World

Hancox, Dan | Verso (288 pp.) | $29.95 Oct. 22, 2024 | 9781804294482

A n examination of the rich history of crowds in entertainment, sports, and politics. A crowd can free people from restrictive social norms while creating a different, temporary set of connections, states Hancox, a London-based freelance journalist and author of The Village Against the World. He argues that crowds allow us to “embrace a bit of chaos in life: to let ourselves go with the flow of the crowd, in order to be more truly ourselves.” This engaging message seems persuasive as Hancox explores carnivals, soccer games, mosh pits, and other examples of crowds. Other parts of the text, however, appear to be primarily vehicles for Hancox’s ideological views; too often it seems he is selecting and shaping evidence rather than letting it speak for itself. For example, he frequently refers to French polymath Gustave Le Bon, who examined his country’s revolutionary violence in a book called The Crowd (1895) and concluded that crowds could easily turn into mobs and therefore had to be controlled. Hancox thoroughly disagrees and makes a fair case for his negative assessment, but devoting so much of his time to arguing with a book published in 1895 looks suspiciously like setting up an ancient straw man instead of providing contemporary examples of fallacious criticisms of crowds. Indeed, Hancox’s position seems to be that crowds connected to liberal or progressive issues are vibrant, articulate demonstrations of democracy, while those connected to right-wing causes are quasi-fascist mobs. He investigates an interesting phenomenon and offers a host of colorful anecdotes, but not all readers will want to wade through his left-leaning politics to find them. Ideological bias undercuts some interesting analysis.

Kirkus Star

They Call You Back: A Lost History, a Search, a Memoir

Hernandez, Tim Z. | Univ. of Arizona (272 pp.) $30.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780816553617

In searching for the stories of 28 Mexicans killed in a 1948 plane crash, a multidisciplinary artist comes to better understand his own experience and identity. Hernandez’s new gracefully understated book is partly a continuation of All They Will Call You, as the author gathers stories from the descendants of victims of the 1948 Los Gatos Canyon plane crash. It is also his attempt to answer a question he is frequently asked about that work and how and why he came to it in the first place. Since the publication of All They Will Call You in 2017, and the ensuing attempts by the California State Senate to more appropriately identify and honor the victims, more families have found Hernandez. Their stories entwine with his own history, which reaches back generations, including the premature and unjust death of a close relative, to explain the author’s motivation for, and obsession with, uncovering the details of people killed more than 75 years ago. Though Hernandez describes a set of incidents that led him to investigate the Los Gatos crash, there are deeper truths involved. The author characterizes his writing and research as the work, most fundamentally, of the crash victims themselves, calling and prompting him from beyond the grave. “History is not as passive as we think it is,” he writes, as he probes elements both mythic and mystic. As Hernandez skillfully brings forward new histories and remembrances of the crash’s victims, their loved ones, and their descendants, he drives toward essential truths of his identity, particularly as a writer, touching on themes of historic trauma, the meaning and importance of inheritance, and the vital quest to fill voids. With an unapologetic

humility, commitment to restoring lost dignity, and deep understanding of human connectedness, Hernandez is a model storyteller.

Entrancing, reverential, and beautiful.

The Spamalot Diaries

Idle, Eric | Crown (208 pp.)

$25.00 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593800485

A Monty Python member offers a glimpse into the making of a very silly musical. Spamalot, based on the 1975 comedy Monty Python and the Holy Grail, debuted on Broadway in 2005. This book is the diary Idle kept throughout rehearsals and production, “the story of a most unlikely theatrical hit, from the first read-through in New York to the first previews in Chicago until finally, a Broadway opening.” The author began the script in 2001, when he realized the source material was perfect for a musical. “It already had three great songs, there are no horses onstage, and the quest for the Holy Grail is Wagnerian in scope,” he writes. “Not the Ring cycle exactly, more the Rinse cycle.” Idle covers everything: lining up the cast and crew, including longtime friend Mike Nichols as director; arguing over the script and songs; figuring out technical details, such as “how we are going to make the Killer Rabbit fly around the stage”; and the staging of the show, including “Opening Knight” on Broadway. He includes lyrics from deleted songs, emails, and copious anecdotes, such as the time “two huge New York cops” recognized him in front of the theater and wished him good luck with the show. Idle is also candid about health issues, from a tendon injury to food poisoning in Chicago to his teenager daughter’s “severe bipolar episode” before the Broadway opening, for which he blames himself: “I have been absent these many months, fathering a musical. What a terrible price to pay for success.” The author offers plenty of comedy to delight fans. Despite

some clunkers, the text includes many hilarious bits, as when he begins an email to Nichols with, “Hello, mein Führer. Is that too formal?”

An amusing behind-the-scenes look at a unique Broadway smash.

An Image of My Name Enters America: Essays

Ives, Lucy | Graywolf (336 pp.)

$20.00 paper | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781644453117

Five essays weave together myriad topics, connecting personal experience to culture and history. Ives, the author of many well-received works of fiction, poetry, and criticism, including Loudermilk and Life Is Everywhere, harnesses her extraordinary intelligence, knowledge, and background in a collection that radiates from her experience of pregnancy and childbirth at 40. The first, “Unicorns,” offers a deep dive into the history of unicorn iconography, as the author ties it to her passion for a childhood toy in sentences such as these: “The My Little Ponies seem to lack the sorts of mnemonic affordances (e.g., writing or social institutions) that would allow them to retain intergenerational memories, and, in any case, although baby My Little Ponies exist, the My Little Ponies appear to be immortal, unaffected by death”; “The unicorn, nickering behind bluish trees, is so natural, so much a part of what is natural, which is to say so much not a part of what is human, that it does not exist. It fades into the mist of a human fantasy about the natural world.” In the titular essay, Ives puzzles out the mystery of her heritage and discovers a surprising connection to an essay she wrote in college, and she also discusses her obsession with museum period rooms and the Assyrian genocide.

“Earliness, or Romance” is an illuminating examination of the “cursed” film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, while “The End” is an abecedarian as well as a

record of a nervous breakdown, a beautiful collage proceeding through the alphabet with Kafka, Richard Rorty, Winona Ryder, and many others in attendance. Finally, in “The Three-Body Problem,” Ives connects Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel to the matters of pregnancy and childbirth. A dazzling display of knowledge, wit, ratiocination, and prose style, though possibly blinding at times for lesser mortals.

Kirkus Star

What If We Get It Right?: Visions of Climate Futures

Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth | One World/ Random House (400 pp.) | $28.00 Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780593229361

Interviews with experts who are successfully combating climate change. Marine biologist Johnson traces her love affair with the ocean to a family vacation in 1986, when her parents took her on a glass-bottom boat ride in Key West, Florida, where she got to marvel at what was left of the area’s coral reefs. Today, she is the founder of Urban Ocean Lab, “a policy think tank for the future of coastal cities.” Despite the fact that her job exposes her to some of the world’s worst environmental catastrophes, Johnson is also hungry for optimism, specifically, for proof that by working together people can mitigate the effects of climate change and undo the damage we’ve so carelessly caused. She writes, “We need something firm to aim for. Something with love and joy in it. And we need the gumption that emerges from an effervescent sense of possibility.” This desire for practical, joy-based approaches to climate change led Johnson to conduct a series of interviews with environmental activists, thinkers, and scientists who move conversations away from litanies of what we’ve done wrong and toward the

An

inspiring compilation of voices from the environmental

justice movement.

WHAT IF WE GET IT RIGHT?

question, “What if we get it right?”

These wide-ranging interviews span issues ranging from artificial intelligence as a tool for preventing climate change to racial justice in homestead farming to divestment as a means of redirecting capital away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable solutions. In addition to asking perspicacious questions and curating a diverse and brilliant set of voices, Johnson leads us through the material with a witty, brainy frankness that renders this often dense, potentially depressing material into an exuberantly hopeful read. An inspiring compilation of voices from the environmental justice movement.

Blood Loss: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism, and Art

Lane, Keiko | Duke Univ. (312 pp.) | $26.95 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781478030799

A Japanese American queer woman remembers witnessing the devastation of the AIDS epidemic in Los Angeles in the 1990s. In 1990, 16-year-old Lane, who now works as a psychotherapist, attended an art exhibition themed around World AIDS Day. The experience kicked off the author’s involvement with ACT UP. Through her work for the organization, Lane met Cory, a gay Puerto Rican man living with AIDS. Although Lane identifies as a lesbian, she and Cory entered into a sexual relationship that exposed her to some of the worst aspects of the disease. For example, the author describes how one night, Cory begged

Lane to bring him the pills he had collected for the purpose of suicide if the disease became unbearable. As she recounts, the author also had an intimate relationship with Steven, a Black novelist who died before Lane had the ability to reconcile with him after they had a falling out. Although these losses build across the emotional, passionate narrative, Lane consistently reminds readers that this “is a love story.” At its best, the book is a poetic yet often devastating account of the worst of the AIDS epidemic, as well as the profound intimacy Lane experienced during this period. “What is sex for?” she asks. “To whom and to what do we consent when we are in moments of deep crisis?....We are trying to pull each other back from the chasm of absence toward something we want to be connection, want to be life, want to be longevity, a promise even as we know it, is momentary, a flash-bang.” The final third of the book, which travels too quickly through the years between the first protests to the present, feels disconnected from the rest of the story. A lyrical but imperfect memoir about activism around the AIDS epidemic.

The Position of Spoons: And Other Intimacies

Levy, Deborah | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (176 pp.) | $26.00 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780374614973

Short essays collectively providing insights into a writer’s practice and her life as a reader.

“It’s always a pleasure,” writes three-time Booker

Prize nominee Levy, “when the balance between enigma and coherence is in the right place.” Many of these disparate texts were originally published as commissioned introductions to novels or articles in journals, but together they acquire an electric energy as they begin to take the shape of an untethered, free-form autobiography. Levy writes of her teenage admiration of Colette and her first encounter with Marguerite Duras. She pens two discrete celebrations of Violette Leduc and a rhapsodic short tribute on Hope Mirrlees, whose Paris: A Poem was first published by Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press. She declares that the essays of Elizabeth Hardwick are “of value to anyone interested in the ways in which women are made present in literature.” And while her focus lies predominantly on under-celebrated 20th-century female artists and writers, she repeatedly strives to find something bigger than simple feminist appreciation. “It is so important,” she writes while discussing photographer Francesca Woodman, “to have a grip when we walk out of the frame of femininity into something vaguer, something more blurred.” A few texts are underdeveloped and feel as if they were limited by an arbitrary word count; others, like “The Mortality Project” and a long introduction to J.G. Ballard’s novel Kingdom Come, feel like thematic outliers. Despite a few flat notes, it becomes apparent that these parts work in concert to create the vague blurriness she alludes to in her Woodman tribute. In the poem for Swiss surrealist Meret Oppenheim that gives the collection its title, she writes, “It is hard to find a form for freedom / Deep, light, unstable, ageless / Shifting, raw, slippery, lonely // But we do / We do find it.” The Position of Spoons points the way. An elegant, minimalist collage.

Squanto: A Native Odyssey

Lipman, Andrew | Yale Univ. (272 pp.)

$28.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780300238778

The story of the Native American who helped Plymouth’s English settlers survive their first year in the New World.

Tisquantum, better known as Squanto, was the Wampanoag Indian who served as the interpreter and guide for colonists who arrived on the Mayflower in 1621. American popular culture has preferred to render him as a simple “friend of the white man”; in this book, Barnard history professor Lipman restores his complexity. The author explores both the known and unknown elements of Squanto’s life to argue that he was a man motivated by “communal concerns and his personal ambition.” Lipman initially examines Tisquantum’s early years in Plymouth, known to Natives as Patuxet. In the absence of written records, he chooses an ethnographic approach, grounding his observations in “daily life, material culture, language, religion, social structure, and government” in Wampanoag society. Lipman then follows the adult Squanto, who was sold into the European slave trade, on his forced travels to Malagá, London, and Newfoundland. Though little is known of Tisquantum’s time in exile, Lipman offers glimpses of captive life through the stories of other captured Natives. Lipman then reenvisions Squanto’s traumatic homecoming to a Patuxet ravaged by plague. Tisquantum navigated this new world using two historically documented skills: his linguistic fluency and ability to persuade, both of which had served him well during captivity. The author suggests that during this time, Squanto became deluded about his powers. His attempt to depose a Wampanoag leader named Ousamequin, “revealed his arrogant, conniving, and reckless side” and led to his downfall, followed by his death from what a white settler called

“an Indean feavor.” Engaging and well researched, this book about the mysterious life of a Native American icon will appeal primarily to historians and those with an interest in early American culture.

A balanced, thoughtful blend of biography and history.

Is Earth Exceptional?:

The Quest for Cosmic Life

Livio, Mario & Jack Szostak

Basic Books (336 pp.) | $32.00 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781541602960

What is life, and where, besides earth, might it exist?

Bestselling author and astrophysicist Livio and Nobel Prize–winning professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago Szostak admit that neither question has yet been answered, but they assert that recent decades have seen spectacular advances. They ask: Did life develop through a freak chemical accident, or is it inevitable under the right conditions?

As long as life exists on only a single planet, the answer remains speculation, but discovering a second example would open the floodgates to a universe teeming with life. Unlike other universal goals (world peace, a cure for cancer), this one seems on the verge of being achievable. Researchers have demonstrated that simple compounds present on the early Earth can trigger chemical reactions that produce building blocks of the earliest protocells: nucleic acids for their genes, amino acids for their proteins, lipids for their cell walls. The authors’ warning that “there is quite a bit of chemistry involved” is no exaggeration; they proceed with details of processes, reactions, and molecular structures that may flummox readers who are unfamiliar with college biochemistry and may breathe a sigh of relief when they reach Chapter 7 (halfway through the main text) and the focus changes to astronomy. In searching for life in our

For more by Deborah Levy, visit Kirkus online.

Toughing It Out in Tough Times

Three new memoirs of endurance and survival make for gripping listening.

BY MARION WINIK

IT’S BEEN MORE than three decades since the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering that Salman Rushdie be killed for the “blasphemies” of his novel The Satanic Verses. By 2022, Rushdie had long since emerged from years of hiding and was enjoying a tranquil existence with his fifth wife, the writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths. But that August, as he took the stage at the Chatauqua Institute in Western New York state to speak on “the importance of keeping writers safe from harm,” an attacker rushed up and stabbed him 15 times, partially blinding and nearly killing him. In Knife:

Meditations After an Attempted Murder (Penguin Random House Audio, 6 hours and 22 minutes), the author describes his slow, difficult recovery; his reluctant return to a high-security lifestyle; and his thoughts about his attacker, whom he calls the A. His warm, grandfatherly voice fills with all the emotions he describes—the outrage of the assault, the tenderness of his marriage, the wonder inspired by several unusual coincidences: He had just finished writing Victory City, a novel in which the protagonist is partly blinded, and he had dreamed, two nights before

the attack, of being stabbed in an arena. Rushdie’s narration makes this riveting memoir an unusually absorbing listening experience.

Some may remember Hawaiian Surf, a short-lived but popular men’s cologne from the 1960s. Also short-lived was the fortune Guy Trebay’s father made from his brainchild. Trebay’s memoir, Do Something: Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of ’70s New York (Penguin Random House Audio, 6 hours and 29 minutes), is the sad story of a deeply fractured family, but the author’s skill in creating characters—from his charismatic, irresponsible father to his wild, felonious, currently incarcerated sister and well-known figures like Candy Darling and Andy Warhol— makes for a lively chronicle. It’s become almost de rigueur for memoirists to read their own audiobooks, but Trebay, whose voice is familiar to those who follow New York Times fashion podcasts and videos, passed the mic to Edoardo Ballerini. Ballerini has been called the “voice of God” for his narration of everyone from Tolstoy to Thich Nhat Hanh, but I was not initially convinced that his cultured tones would be ideal for the story of Trebay’s Long Island childhood and down-and-out days as the tallest and skinniest denizen of Manhattan’s druggy arts scene. However, the elegance and complexity of Trebay’s prose style turns out to

be Ballerini catnip. There’s no real plot but much scenery to enjoy along the way.

If it’s plot you’re looking for, Brittney Griner’s memoir of her harrowing and insane ordeal in the Russian prison system is a nail-biter, even if we already know how Coming Home (Penguin Random House Audio, 10 hours and 36 minutes) turns out. Griner and her talented co-writer, Michelle Burford, bring every part of the WNBA baller’s nightmare vividly to life, from the hasty packing that left two nearly empty cannabis vape cartridges in a zippered compartment of her duffel to the terrors of the spinning blade in the fabric-cutting workshop at the prison camp where she spent a gulag winter in damp clothes and frozen dreadlocks. The remarkably deep-voiced Griner—she mentions her voice as one of the many things she has been bullied for in her life, along with her height, her flat chest, her race, and her sexual orientation—reads the introduction, epilogue, and (surprisingly moving) acknowledgments herself; retired professional golfer Andia Winslow does a bravura job with the rest. It’s both infuriating to learn of the hate mail Griner has received since her release and inspiring to hear her read the names and tell the stories of other hostages currently imprisoned around the world.

Marion Winik hosts NPR’s The Weekly Reader podcast.

solar system, Mars and Venus have proved a disappointment, but promising water oceans exist on moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere as well as rivers, rain, and seas, although they’re of liquid methane, not water. From the first planet discovered around a distant star 29 years ago, the number has grown into thousands, and Earthlike planets make up a significant fraction. Livio and Szostak conclude that, to date, hard evidence of alien life hasn’t appeared, but they deliver a compelling account of what would constitute proof. Everyone has high hopes for the next generation of probes and telescopes.

The latest on a fascinating search.

Two Wheels to Freedom: The Story of a Young Jew, Wartime Resistance, and a Daring Escape

Magida, Arthur J. | Pegasus (336 pp.)

$29.95 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781639367221

This surprisingly breezy tale of a young man’s flying under the Nazi radar in Berlin belies the peril facing Jews during the war.

Prolific author

Magid fashions an incredible tale of derring-do in defiance of the murderous Nazis. Cioma Schönhaus (birth name Samson), the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants who ran a mineral water business in Berlin, grew up in the left-wing Jewish quarter of Scheunenviertel. Having once moved to Palestine years earlier, the Schönhaus family was essentially stateless but determined to stay in Berlin. Amid the hostile rise of the Nazis, with the gradual, insidious erosion of rights for Jews in professional and private life, in 1939 Boris and Fanja enrolled their young son in the Jewish work camp Bielefeld, then in a Jewish art school. Events began to happen fast: Boris was jailed for selling butter on the black market; their apartment was bombed; and rumors began leaking out about

With passion and expertise, Marcus sounds a strong call to action.

TAMING SILICON VALLEY

what “going east” meant. Working at a tailor shop making uniforms for Germans, Cioma meets an intrepid friend, Det, who tells him, “As long as you look confident, you can’t go wrong.” Det’s advice stays with him after his parents are taken in a transport. Cioma, exempt from transports because he now works in a rifle factory, gets jobs forging documents and eventually goes underground. With money, aliases, and a carefree demeanor that charms women—and time running out as others around him are betrayed and perishing—he buys a bike and decides to cycle to the Swiss border. His risky flight and ultimate triumph come late in the book, almost as an afterthought in this plucky young man’s arsenal of survival tricks. An amazing story that would seem unlikely if it were not so well documented.

Kirkus Star

Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us

Marcus, Gary | MIT Press (240 pp.)

$18.95 paper | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780262551069

An esteemed academic shows why AI needs firm regulation, which can only come through public pressure. With the release of ChatGPT, AI burst into the public consciousness, accompanied by voices sounding warnings about its dangers. Marcus, NYU professor emeritus of psychology and neural science and the author of The Algebraic Mind and Kluge,

delivers a significant entry in the rapidly expanding literature on the positives and negatives of AI. “What we have now is a mess, seductive but unreliable,” writes the author. “And too few people are willing to admit that dirty truth.” In the early chapters, Marcus recounts the mistakes of AI creators and systems. Some of them are comical, and many of them are frightening, but the errors should be avoidable. The author argues that current AI systems were released prematurely in a race for market share. Moreover, the companies that promote them are now more interested in making money than fixing the problems. In other words, things will get worse before they get better. Big Tech has been effective at stopping attempts at regulation of AI, through political alliances, clever marketing, and vague promises of self-regulation. The author argues convincingly for the necessity of public pressure to spur regulators into action, with a campaign that would lead to laws based on transparency and accountability. It will be a long and difficult process. “I suggest we start with one simple act,” writes Marcus. “Let’s stand up for all the artists, musicians, and writers we love, and boycott Generative AI companies that use their work without compensation or consent.” This seems like a good place to begin; some of the author’s other proposals sound more hopeful than realistic. Nevertheless, this book is an important contribution to a crucial debate. With passion and expertise, Marcus sounds a strong call to action.

For more by Gary Marcus, visit Kirkus online.

The Flitting: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons, and Butterflies

Masters, Ben | Tin House (336 pp.)

$18.95 paper | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781959030812

L iterary son seeks to connect with his outdoorsman father by exploring the latter’s lifelong fascination with butterflies.

Masters, who teaches English literature and writing at the University of Nottingham, is a devotee of American popular culture, while Dad, “steeped in natural history,” spent his life in the fields and woods of rural Northamptonshire. In this moving memoir, Masters cares for his terminally ill father while taking a crash course in lepidoptery. His “butterflying journey” goes beyond “trophy butterflies up in the canopies” to encompass poetic descriptions of their various forms of beauty, such as the “tiny white bit of punctuation on each hindwing of the Commas, short breaths for dead clauses.” Masters alternates passages of his lessons in natural life with stories from the lives of famous literary lepidopterists such as Vladimir Nabokov and Virginia Woolf. Nabokov advanced methods for classifying butterflies and identified a new species; Woolf portrayed her fellow novelist E.M. Forster as a pale blue butterfly. But for all of the entomological references Masters finds in great books, nature poetry, and pop culture, his memoir really resonates when he gets personal and describes the deepening of the father-son relationship in the face of imminent death. Along the way of his transformation “from butterfly-ignorer to butterfly-obsessive,” Masters brings his writerly skills to bear, such as when he describes the silver-washed fritillary as “an ingenious piece of orange origami powering above and disappearing into the hedgerow.”

There are paeans to great insects like the purple emperor with its “owlish eyespot” and the white admiral with its “leopardish underside.” His

recollections of his naturalist father and their late-in-life connection is replete with butterfly themes and imagery, but ultimately it is the humanity of their story that compels.

A heartfelt remembrance.

Freedom Was in Sight!: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region

Masur, Kate | Illus. by Liz Clarke | Ferris and Ferris Books/Univ. of North Carolina (176 pp.)

$24.00 paper | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781469680187

A graphic history of American Reconstruction, followed by a brief text overview, a chronology, and an appendix of primary sources.

Historians have traditionally seen Reconstruction as a set period that began at the close of the Civil War in 1865 and concluded with the start of the Hayes presidency in 1877. However, Northwestern history professor Masur suggests in the introduction that Reconstruction actually started with the Civil War and ended definitively in the 1890s after “biracial political coalitions had been systematically defeated.”

Rather than using a narrative history to make her points, Masur “speaks” through Emma V. Brown, a real-life teacher and advocate for Black education who lived through both the war and Reconstruction. Co-author Clarke, a South African illustrator, brings Brown’s narration to life in colorful comic book–style illustrations that capture the turbulent 19th-century world in which Brown lived. The narrator begins by referencing ex-slave Harriet Jacobs’ influential memoir, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl , which was published just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. After that, she focuses primarily on the struggles the Black community faced to build new post-enslavement lives in 1865. Some, like Brown, fought to establish schools to educate Black children; others,

like George T. Downing, fought to give Black men the vote. Still others, like social reformer Frederick Douglass and journalist Ida B. Wells, rose to national prominence through their efforts to fight the growing tide of racism that, by the 1890s, was manifesting as mob violence and federal laws that curbed the national government’s power “to protect people’s rights when local and state authorities refused to do so.”

Recalling this earlier time of profound social division in America’s history, Masur and Clarke’s unusual collaboration celebrates the men and women who battled the forces of white supremacy to gain their rightful place as citizens.

Engaging reading for all ages.

A Return to Common Sense: How To Fix America Before We Really Blow It

McGowan, Leigh | One Signal/Atria (240 pp.)

$28.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781668066430

The creator of the popular PoliticsGirl media brand weighs in on the countless problems with the U.S. government and political system and how to fix some of them.

Taking her cue from Thomas Paine, McGowan offers “Six American Principles” that offer Americans a way to free themselves from the tyranny of political dysfunction and rebuild a broken democracy. The first principle—America is the land of freedom—has undergirded the thinking of citizens and politicians for nearly 250 years. However, the author argues persuasively that some Americans, by virtue of race, class, and gender, are freer than others, and many of them actively use their power to oppress others. She traces the origins of this problem back to the white, land-owning, male framers and the documents they created as guidelines for the “American experiment.” To ratify the Constitution, they made allowances for slavery, granted smaller states equal power in the Senate, and counted African Americans as three-fifths

Clear revelations about how abuse of congressional power and political dysfunction have never been so egregious.

FOOLS ON THE HILL

of a person. If racism, inequality, political gridlock, and corruption have overwhelmed the body politic, it is because they grew out of these exclusions and exceptions. The other principles McGowan brings forward—for example, that everyone should have the opportunity to rise and that the law applies to every single citizen, regardless of status—will remain ideals for as long as these issues go unresolved. She further observes that adherence to long-standing political traditions, including lifetime appointments for Supreme Court justices, must be reconsidered, even if that means amending the Constitution, which the framers intended as a “living document” for a developing nation. For true change to happen, American citizens must put aside their complacency and vote while actively holding those in power accountable: “The question is: Are we willing to work for it?”

Accessible and urgent civic advice—hopefully, those who need it will pay attention.

Fools on the Hill: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House

Milbank, Dana | Little, Brown (320 pp.)

$32.00 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780316570923

An up-close look at the “clown show” of rightwing extremists who continue to fail to govern in Congress. Washington Post columnist Milbank,

a veteran Capitol Hill observer and author of The Deconstructionists and O Is for Obama, resolved to limit his journalistic focus to the House of Representatives. His weekly essays from 2023 to early 2024 form the basis of this collection, enhanced by additional reporting, analysis, and context. The author presents the chaos, incompetence, and self-created crises in the House in three parts: Disinformation, Dysfunction, and Disunion. He explains how GOP gerrymandering created House seats from uncompetitive districts, enabling the “craziest SOBs” to hold the balance of power. Anyone following the past two years of national news will remember the lowlights: Kevin McCarthy’s path to the Speakership over 15 ballots and capitulation to the “fringiest elements of the right wing”; the near-default on the federal debt, “playing chicken with the American economy”; threats of government shutdown; the only speaker ousted in U.S. history; and the resulting three-week “free-for-all” search for a new speaker. Election denier Mike Johnson has created his own record of failure and dysfunction, killing a bipartisan border deal and endangering U.S. aid to Ukraine and Israel. Much else from this dismal era of congressional misrule will be familiar to citizens who have been paying attention: national leaders legitimizing white nationalism and demonizing immigrants, or the obsessive impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden without “a shred of evidence.” Milbank brings useful detail and nuance to his portrait of this broken political system. For example, we learn that Matt Gaetz left a draft of his “Motion to Vacate” the Speaker on a changing table in a Capitol restroom and that Marjorie Taylor Greene thought “indictable crimes” was pronounced “indicktable.”

Clear revelations about how abuse of congressional power and political dysfunction have never been so egregious.

Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers

O’Connor, Ian | Mariner Books (368 pp.)

$29.99 | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9780063297869

A dispiriting yet readable biography of gridiron great Aaron Rodgers, his own worst enemy.

“Rodgers was widely regarded to be among the two or three most talented players ever at the most glamorous position in American team sports,” writes O’Connor, who has authored bios of other larger-than-life sports figures, including Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick, and Derek Jeter. Rodgers has played through monstrous injuries and inspired his teammates to greatness. Yet he constantly rubbed people wrong with a self-confidence that smacked of arrogance, though walking the walk by excelling at basketball and baseball as much as football. Despite his talent, his mechanics gave pro scouts pause. As his college coach at Cal explained of Rodgers’ fired-at-earlevel signature pass, “Aaron’s was unusually high mainly because his back arm was high….He was higher than the rest of our guys. But I didn’t mess with it because he was phenomenal.” It may have been that passing style that led pro managers to believe that Rodgers couldn’t be taught, for which reason he was selected by the Packers late in the draft in 2005. There lay the seeds of the weighty chip he would bear on his shoulder, but there was more that detracted from his undeniable on-field skill—e.g., his off-putting comments about 9/11, his “divorce” from his parents and siblings, his lying about being vaccinated for Covid-19 out of his conviction that the vaccine was “experimental gene therapy that changes your DNA,” and his fascination with UFOs and seemingly every conspiracy theory to come along. Though well publicized individually, in

the aggregate these foibles make for dismaying reading, and they diminish Rodgers in the face of competition like Peyton Manning and, more recently, Patrick Mahomes.

A well-crafted portrait of perhaps the most talented QB of all time, allowing for a flaw and faux pas for every TD.

Toxic Tropics: A Horror Story of Environmental Injustice

Oublié, Jessica | Illus. by Nicola Gobbi | Trans. by Irene

Vázquez

| Photos by

Vinciane Lebrun

Street Noise Books (240 pp.) | $23.99 paper Nov. 5, 2024 | 9781951491345

A graphic exploration of how Guadeloupe and Martinique became among the most polluted places on Earth. In 2018, Oublié moved to her mother’s island home of Guadeloupe with one goal: to start a life away from the dangers and unrest of her native Paris. However, as soon as she arrived, it became clear she had stumbled into the midst of an ecological crisis caused by chlordecone, a pesticide the island’s banana farmers had used for decades. Oublié immediately sent an email to Luc Multigner, a professor of epidemiology she saw on a TV talk show. Her meeting with him became the first step in an unexpected two-year research journey that would take her to Martinique, Europe, and the U.S. and lead to 136 interviews with scientists, farmers, historians, and documentary filmmakers. Oublié and Gobbi use colorful, comic book–style drawings interspersed with photographs, showing how chlordecone, a pesticide developed in the U.S., came to the islands. When a weevil infestation threatened the banana crops that were the islands’ main export, the French government allowed the use of chlordecone in 1973. After tests found that the pesticide was a long-lived carcinogenic, France banned it in 1990. By then, however, the damage was done: The land, water, and surrounding ocean would continue to be contaminated for hundreds of years.

Probing more deeply, Oublié discovered a shocking complacency among ordinary French West Indians, and she hints that the French government and white-owned banana plantations had been complicit in the use of chlordecone despite its dangers. By turns thoughtful and devastating, this book reveals how a little-discussed pesticide problem points to a brand of colonialism that continues to cause suffering to people and the environment in the name of profit: “What aspects of our health are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of a production-driven economy?” Unnervingly illuminating.

Armed With Good Intentions

Peeples, Wallace | 13A/Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) | $28.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781668036259

A n ex-con turned online influencer reflects on how he overcame the poverty and dysfunction that led him to a life of crime and recidivism. Philadelphia native Peeples grew up in a lower-middle-class neighborhood with his mother and siblings. Most people, including his mother, had jobs, though some, like his absent father and older brother Stevie, stole or sold drugs. Following in his brother’s footsteps, Peeples tried his hand at petty theft, marveling at the “rush” it gave him. The police arrested him nine days after his 11th birthday for snatching a gold chain from a girl’s neck. For the next six years, he was in and out of juvenile hall until he was finally arrested at age 17 for armed robbery and put into a state penitentiary. Peeples became a model prisoner and was granted an early release into a halfway house. But within a year, he was again arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to 27 years in prison. The passage of time “humbl[ed] the beast” in Peeples; gradually, he began changing the thinking that had been at the heart of his many mistakes. He journaled about his life, found role models in successful entrepreneurs and

marketers like Anthony Bourdain and George Lois, and learned how to appreciate tender emotions his hardened facade had kept him from accepting. Peeples broke prison rules to start a social media page to help others stay out of prison. Though punished for his actions, he was eventually released by a prison board who understood that his potential to help others like himself was “endless.” Peeples’ many followers will no doubt appreciate this book, as will anyone seeking to forge a meaningful path from adversity to success. Candid and uplifting.

Kirkus Star

A Wilder Shore: The Romantic Odyssey of Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson

Peri, Camille | Viking (480 pp.) | $35.00 Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780670786190

Portrait of an unconventional literary marriage. Journalist Peri draws on considerable archival sources to create a perceptive portrait of the unlikely marriage of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) and Fanny Osbourne (1840-1914). Stevenson, “a university-educated writer from a prominent family in Scotland,” had just passed the Scottish bar. Fanny grew up in Indiana, lived in a mining camp with her philandering husband and three children, and most recently had settled in San Francisco. Eager to escape a stultifying marriage, grieving the death of her eldest son, she took her remaining children to France, where she and her daughter planned to study art. There she met Stevenson, also eager to escape; he was intent on pursuing a writing career, much to his father’s disappointment. They were a study in contrasts: Stevenson, skinny, unkempt, sickly; Fanny, attractive and forthright, with a personality “as big as the American frontier, with a blend of

female sensuality and masculine swagger.” They quickly fell in love. Peri recounts the couple’s peripatetic journeys. They visited with Stevenson’s family in Edinburgh and traveled to Davos, Switzerland, for tuberculosis treatment. In the English resort town Bournemouth, they kindled a friendship with Henry James, in town to care for his sister. They went to the U.S., where the author of Treasure Island , Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped was hailed as a celebrity, and to French Polynesia on the first leg of two years of travels. A chain smoker with many medical maladies, Stevenson died in Samoa. Fanny proved more than a caregiver for her invalid husband: “She was a sharp critic and observer, and had a colorful imagination, qualities that he valued and relied on,” Peri comments, noting that he left his writing at her bedside each night for her to critique. Although Osbourne’s work came after Stevenson’s health and writing, Peri’s extensive exegeses of her stories judge them to “sit comfortably and creditably among those of other female magazine writers of her day.”

A richly detailed chronicle of two eventful lives.

Low-Hanging Fruit: Sparkling Whines, Champagne Problems, and Pressing Issues From My Gay Agenda

Rainbow, Randy | St. Martin’s (224 pp.) $28.00 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781250327147

A New York Times bestselling queer social commentator/comedian transforms his personal and political pet peeves into an uproarious act of civic responsibility.

Nothing is sacred in this collection of 24 satirical essays. A self-proclaimed privileged white male “whiner” who believes “there are simply right and wrong ways to do just about everything,” Rainbow satirizes everything from “stupid people” and their total “lack of common sense” to his Chinchilla Silver Persian cat and the Jewish mother he adores and also admits he would like to murder. One of his favorite targets is social media, in particular those with small followings who dare call themselves “content creators.” The author sees their never-ending quest to flood the internet with videos of themselves doing the “unextraordinary” as “influenza” rather than influence. At the same time, he mocks his own dependency in “A Dear John to Social Media.” Rainbow writes, “I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me, but I’m losing myself in you.” His most favorite targets, however, are political. With delightfully bold effervescence, Rainbow counters the threat of a renewed MAGA agenda with one he calls FAGA: “Finally America’s Gay Again!” He then lays out plans for restoring American fabulousness, which include dressing all public school children in Bob Mackie–designed sequin uniforms and installing one “bad-bitch drag queen” for every radically conservative justice on the Supreme Court. To help reduce the need for air conditioning in the age of climate change, all Americans “will receive a super-cute Randy Rainbow tank top with matching booty shorts” made from “the most economically efficient nylon clothing China can offer.” Tart, sassy, and hilariously funny from start to finish, Rainbow’s book offers laughter as a tonic for troubled times. Brazenly funny and sharp.

Leaf, Cloud, Crow: A Backyard Journal

Renkl, Margaret | Illus. by Billy Renkl Spiegel & Grau (192 pp.) | $24.00 Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781954118522

An observation journal to accompany the author’s essay collection The Comfort of Crows In her acclaimed 2023 book, Renkl, who also wrote Late Migrations and Graceland, At Last, contemplated the changes taking place in her backyard in Nashville over the course of the four seasons, with a particular focus on the repeating patterns that occur in nature. Here, the author hopes to inspire others to “pay close, sustained attention to the natural world in whatever form you have access to it.” As Renkl notes, “Before I was a writer, I was an observer, and I still think of myself as an observer first. Every day I go outside and spend at least a little time tuning out the distractions and responsibilities of my life.” Divided by season, the journal offers a space for nature enthusiasts to make notes and observations each week of the year. To help guide readers, the journal also includes passages from The Comfort of Crows, as well as writing prompts based on questions Renkl explored during the same week each year. “In the process,” writes the author, “I hope you will fall in love with your wild neighbors the way I have fallen in love with mine.” While engaging with the natural world, she notes, you will likely encounter events that may be painful to witness, such as the bloody manifestations of the food chain, the effects of climate change, and human-caused habitat destruction. Though often heartbreaking, these elements offer moments for contemplation and reflection. Renkl also includes a resources section to assist beginning observers in identifying plants and animals found in their local areas, offering suggestions for related apps, field guides, and native plant databases. Renkl’s brother, Billy, also

contributed to this project, creating the artwork found throughout the book. A lovely companion for your outdoor adventures.

Kirkus Star

The Color of Everything: A Journey To Quiet the Chaos Within

Richards, Cory | Random House (368 pp.)

$30.00 | July 9, 2024 | 9780593596791

The noted climber and photographer writes about mountains and images—but more, about the mental illness that has dogged his every journey.

“For those of you who are here for adventure and climbing and pictures, that’s all in here, but this is not a book about that,” writes Richards. Every major mountain figures in these pages, but each is colored by the author’s bipolar disorder—if that’s the correct term; as he has learned, numerous issues could be at play, including possible PTSD. As the author recounts, there are plenty of reasons for PTSD: his parents’ divorce, drug abuse for self-medication, a constantly busy mind constrained by terror atop the usual adolescent uncertainties. “Nature is the only reprieve I get from my hyperactive brain,” writes Richards, and so he has found solace in ever greater outdoor challenges, coupled with a love of literature and an irreverent approach to it (“In the Bible, everyone comes from a fucked-up family”). Love, work, health care: All mingle in this memoir, a highlight of which is the author’s photographic work on Everest that landed him a gig at National Geographic A low point was being accused of inappropriate behavior, which caused him to lose that connection, “a massive piece of my identity and life.” The author’s handling of that situation is refreshingly self-aware and non-evasive, and although the magazine retracted its findings, Richards sensibly chose to

move on, reflecting what seems a healthy response to stress. For all the introspection, there’s also plenty of mountain adventure—to often gruesome effect, as he recounts one climber’s body after another strewn across the terrain: “I think of all the friends and people I’ve known who are no longer and lose count because my brain is too slow.”

An affecting memoir that speaks to resolve and courage in the face of fear.

Crisis Averted: The Hidden Science of Fighting Outbreaks

Rivers, Caitlin | Viking (320 pp.)

$30.00 | Oct. 8, 2024 |

9780593490792

Epidemiology has delivered critical advances in public health, according to an expert in the field.

The Covid-19 pandemic was a global tragedy, says Rivers, an epidemiologist who specializes in outbreak science, but it was also a crucial learning experience. As the first event of its size since the 1918 influenza pandemic, it provided tools, experience, and a heightened level of awareness about public health issues. It demonstrated, as well, that global coordination could take place despite political and cultural divisions. Rivers believes that accomplishments of public health are one of the great human success stories, boasting such remarkable achievements as the eradication of smallpox and the near-defeat of polio and several other plagues. The irony, however, is that some of the most important events in the field, when epidemics have been identified, contained, and defeated at an early stage, have gone largely unnoticed. There is, apparently, little media interest in people remaining healthy. Rivers tracks through the history of epidemiology, explaining how the pieces were gradually put together and the progress of epidemics was mapped. An effective response requires many players: doctors who first encounter the signs, a system

The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy

Rose, Deondra | Oxford Univ. (352 pp.)

$29.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780197776599

An academic history of the multipolar role of HBCUs and their long-term effects on civic engagement. In this follow-up to Citizens by Degree, Rose, a professor of public policy and political science at Duke, provides a solid combination of in-depth statistical analysis and participation-based interviews. The author effectively establishes how they “have provided Black Americans with access to knowledge, skills, and opportunities needed to drive socioeconomic progress.” Furthermore, she writes, “as centers of Black excellence and amplifiers of Black voices and ideas, Black colleges represented a powerful threat to White supremacy.” Rose begins with the emergence of HBCUs in the mid-19th century and their central role in Black aspirations against the explicit marginalization of Jim Crow, then moves through the civil rights legislation of the mid1960s. She shows how, over the

>>> for reporting, diagnosticians to define the pathogen, laboratory scientists to develop treatment methods and vaccines, and a reliable mechanism for delivery. New threats are appearing at an accelerating rate, with outbreaks that demand a large-scale mobilization of resources occurring about every two years, notes Rivers. She is optimistic about the capacity of the system to respond, with national and international agencies providing important avenues for cooperation. The author clearly knows everything there is to know about her subject, and she writes with clarity, insight, and authority. An informative, accessible package, useful as an examination of the road behind and the path ahead.

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decades, “government support for HBCUs pales in comparison to lawmakers’ esteem,” and she tracks a complex, intriguing narrative of these institutions’ progress during Reconstruction, followed by violent backlash as segregationist attitudes hardened. Despite their numerous obstacles, the author terms these hardy schools “essential institutional structures that made scholarly resistance to racism possible.” Prior to the Civil Rights era (in which students were engaged), the schools were not seen as interconnected; the apparent post-1960s openness of “predominantly White colleges” led to a “dramatic reimagining of their central purpose.” The bonding experienced by students at HBCUs demonstrates their continued relevance; despite the greater diversity other schools now embrace, they remain “uniquely empowering spaces.” Overall, Rose concludes, “HBCUs have played a central role cultivating highly engaged Black citizens.” Though occasionally dry, the discussion is informative, based on surveys and statistics and the author’s wise use of anecdotal recollections by multigenerational subjects.

Substantive documentation of the underestimated, long-term effect of these unique colleges on Black life and success.

On Xi Jinping: How XI’s Marxist Nationalism is Shaping China and the World

Rudd, Kevin | Oxford Univ. (656 pp.)

$29.99 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9780197766033

A disturbing study of the mentality of China’s leader, who has no doubts about his country’s ascension and his own role in it.

Rudd is a former Australian prime minister and president of the Asia Society, and he currently serves as the Australian ambassador to the U.S. He is also a veteran China-watcher, as he demonstrated in his 2022 book The

Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the US and Xi Jinping’s China. In this book, the author focuses on the underlying reasons that frame Xi’s ideology. Xi has recently moved firmly to the Leninist left on domestic policies, exerting greater control over the private sector and consolidating surveillance methods. In foreign policy, he blends China’s imperial history with Marxist ideas of the inevitable victory of socialism. In the middle section of the book, which Rudd admits can be heavy going, the author examines the many speeches, books, and articles on Xi for signals and clues. Xi believes that the collapse of the West in general, and the U.S. in particular, is in sight, and China will then take its rightful place as the world’s leader. Xi’s ideology involves a bits-and-pieces approach, but he believes that the elements fit together without contradiction. He is likely to stay in office for another decade, at least, and his eventual successor will likely follow in his footsteps. Rudd provides huge amounts of detail on Xi and current affairs in China, which gives the book an authoritative tone but sometimes makes it hard to follow. Nevertheless, there is great value in understanding how your opponents—or enemies—think, and policymakers in Washington, D.C., should pay attention to Rudd’s prodigious research. The author effectively unravels the thinking of Xi, finding him to be part emperor and part revolutionary socialist.

Kirkus Star

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures

Rundell, Katherine | Doubleday (224 pp.)

$26.00 | Nov. 12, 2024 | 9780385550826

L iterature, folklore, history, and science inform these profiles of 22 endangered species. The award-winning author of young adult books

and a superb biography of John Donne turns her sharp literary style and wit to endangered animals in this brisk, eye-opening, thoroughly entertaining book. Animals who exhibit “everlasting flight, a self-galvanizing heart and a baby who learns names in the womb” may seem like inventions, she writes, but the natural world is “so startling that our capacity for wonder, huge as it is, can barely skim the surface.” Meet the speedy swift, the American wood frog, and the dolphin. Early on, Rundell reminds us that we’ve lost “more than half of all wild things that lived.” The quick Australian wombat, one of poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s favorite pets, is “one of the rarest land mammals in the world.” It’s possible that some rarely seen, slow, half-blind Greenland sharks are more than 500 years old. She’s furious that America has refused to designate the giraffe as an endangered species, even though its numbers have dropped 40% in 30 years. She relishes the strength of the coconut hermit crab, named after the hard-shelled fruit it can crack open, whose intricate group interactions “make the politics of Renaissance courts look simplistic.” Of the eight species of bear, six are at risk or endangered, and “the number of hares in Britain has declined by 80 percent in the last century.” Storks, conversely, are a “true success story of back-from-the-brink.” Other animals she regards with reverence and concern for their future are seahorses (the majority of their species could be gone by 2050), pangolins (“the world’s only rainbow mammal...currently the most trafficked animals in the world”), and the blind, iridescent golden mole, which can hear ants and beetles crawling aboveground. Young and old will savor Rundell’s infectious enthusiasm for these remarkable and infinitely varied creatures. A clarion call for preservation by way of a delightful bestiary.

For more by Katherine Rundell, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car

Rybczynski, Witold | Norton (272 pp.) $29.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781324075288

A design specialist looks under the hood of some of the most iconic and beautiful cars ever to hit the road.

Rybczynski, an architect by profession, has written many fascinating books about design, looking at buildings, furniture, and tools. The author is particularly interested in the intersection among functionality, aesthetics, and economics, so turning his attention to cars was a natural step. He has owned numerous cars through his life, and he uses their stories to frame the narrative. He also delves into early automotive history. It was a long road to a working vehicle, and there was a lengthy debate about the best power source. Gasoline eventually won and became the model for the following decades. In the postwar years in the U.S., the popularity of cars exploded, and they got bigger and more ornate. In an exhausted Europe, where taxes made gas expensive, the trend was toward small, cheaper cars, although later BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Fiat produced some design classics. Rybczynski has respect for Japanese cars, although the emphasis on efficiency has led to a global homogenization of automotive design. He devotes a section to high-end sports cars, which at their best can look like streamlined sculptures on wheels. In the past decade, minivans and large SUVs have taken over the roads, although the author cannot

really bring himself to like them. He understands the reasons for greater safety and energy efficiency, but he laments that digital tech in cars has taken much of the enjoyment out of driving. “Cars are machines,” he writes, “but like buildings they are also cultural artifacts.” Throughout, the author presents a breezy, entertaining package that will be a fun read for a wide audience—not just car enthusiasts.

Rybczynski has some great stories to tell, and his love for his subject shines through on every page.

The Money Trap: Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble

Sama, Alok | St. Martin’s (304 pp.)

$30.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781250332844

Finance whiz and hedge fund trader Sama recounts a far from ordinary stint in the C-suite.

Sama opens with a scenario worthy of a Matt Damon hero: threatened with blackmail by an unnamed bad guy, he connects with two ex-Mossad agents in downtown London who deliver the news that “there is a conspiracy to remove you from your job” and demand a cool million bucks to make it go away. Go away it does not, and Sama’s narrative is peppered with ulcer-inducing moments trying to dodge the unknown threat. There’s big money at stake: Sama is a key advisor to Japanese investor Masayoshi Son, who has $100 billion at his disposal. Sama had had sightings of Son in earlier jobs: in the mid-1990s, Son, for instance, had thrown $100 million at Yahoo, which turned in

A sometimes bumpy but always thrilling ride on the high-finance roller coaster.

$30 billion before the tech bubble burst. Feeling undervalued at Morgan Stanley—“I should have walked away, but I didn’t,” he writes. “Nobody does; nobody walks out of the money trap”—Sama gladly went to work for Son, only to discover that megazillionaires can be odd ducks with idées fixes that don’t always pay off in reality. In Son’s case, he was smitten by Adam Neumann’s WeWork, which, on paper at least, aligned with Son’s own mantra, “My goal is happiness for everyone. Nobody should be sad. I want technology to make people happy.” Son’s seed money certainly made many a tech startup happy, especially in the ride-share space, although many ventures failed to come through. With billions of dollars swirling around his narrative, Sama is a helpful interpreter of how such things as derivatives and Amazon’s “consumer value proposition” work—or don’t. Throughout, he is an engagingly funny, self-aware, and often rueful narrator.

A sometimes bumpy but always thrilling ride on the high-finance roller coaster.

Kirkus Star

Linguaphile: A Life of Language Love

Sedivy, Julie | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (336 pp.) | $29.00 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9780374601836

A remarkable book about how language is an essential trait of human beings—and also one of the most mysterious. In her fourth book, Sedivy, a Canadian academic specializing in linguistics and psychology and the author of Memory Speaks and Language in Mind, takes a personal tack, recounting how her life has been focused on the search for the essence of language. She grew up speaking several different tongues, which made her particularly sensitive to the twists and turns of language and how words connect to social conventions and the formation of identities. Eventually, “English would

come to dominate all the others, jostling its way to the front of everything.” She cites research investigating why certain sounds, such as l and m, seem to make words more attractive, while t and d have the opposite effect. Our understanding of language changes over the course of our lives, starting with infants struggling to knit the words together. Sedivy notes that her own grasp of meaning has become richer as she has entered middle age, even as she occasionally forgets a word or two. Along the way, the author explains how poets and novelists think about language in unusual ways, the differences between spoken and written language, and how deaf people have developed a complex syntax and vocabulary for signing.

Throughout the text, Sedivy interweaves her professional observations with recollections of how she communicated, or failed to communicate, with important figures in her life. In the end, she discovers the answers she has been searching for, realizing the simplicity and necessity of saying the right words to draw us together. Her love of her subject shines through in her graceful writing, resulting in a pleasing, sometimes beguiling read. Sedivy blends a tender memoir with a fascinating study of how language defines the human condition.

Kirkus Star

Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses

Sheftall, M.G. | Dutton (560 pp.)

$36.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593472255

The first in a planned twobook series offering a comprehensive, moving mix of history, science, and interviews with the last hibakusha (“atomic bomb sur vivor/victim”).

“What were those tens of thousands of people doing when they died?” So asked Abe Spitzer, B-29 radio operator on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki missions. That question serves as the

A major contribution to our understanding of and reckoning with a catastrophic event.

HIROSHIMA

motivation and epigraph for this deeply researched work by Sheftall, a professor of modern Japanese cultural history at Shizuoka University. The author has lived in Japan since 1987, teaching in the university system and writing about the Japanese American experience during World War II, including a book about the kamikaze, Blossoms in the Wind. He bases this compassionate, wide-ranging work on interviews with hibakusha, witnesses to the first atomic conflagration on Aug. 6, 1945 (only a handful are still alive). Sheftall uses a moment-to-moment approach to situate a diverse cast of characters—including military officials, all-girl volunteer units, students, and families—on that summer day in Hiroshima, a samurai castle town that had become a rail depot and military port, somehow spared from Curtis LeMay’s firebombing campaign over the prior six months. Although there had been sightings of Col. Paul Tibbets’ Enola Gay and its accompanying weather planes that morning, Japanese officials did not sound the air sirens. Sheftall also examines the development of atomic energy and its massively destructive power. “The bombs’ hundred-meter detonation heights… guaranteed that every one of their victims suffered at least a second or so of (literally) searing agony,” writes the author. These grisly details are often painful to read but necessary in order to understand how survivors sought aid, cremated the dead, and built a lasting peace memorial. Significantly, Sheftall writes about the overlooked Korean and Taiwanese survivors and the guilt trauma of survivors afterward.

A major contribution to our understanding of and reckoning with a catastrophic event.

Kirkus Star

There Was Night and There Was Morning: A Memoir of Trauma and Redemption

Sherbill, Sara | Union Square & Co. (272 pp.)

$26.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781454955313

A haunting account of family, abuse, faith, and survival. In her poignant debut memoir, Sherbill examines her childhood as the daughter of a rabbi who led his congregants with grace but terrorized his family with his temper. “Caught between the desire to live a holy life and the dark impulses that plagued him,” she writes, “my father was a man I both idolized and hated.” Her experiences of domestic abuse colored not only her relationship with family, as seen in the extremely close bond she shares with her younger siblings, but also her connection with faith. Sherbill writes intimately about the Sabbaths she shared with her family throughout her childhood and how Judaism touched every part of her life, especially the way she related to her father. “Sometimes people go looking for God because they have no mother or father,” writes the author. “What about us? We had a mother and a father, but our father had hurt us, and our mother had not protected us. We had a mother and a father, but still we felt like wanderers. That is where God comes in.” While the topics Sherbill discusses, including abuse and religion, may be difficult for some readers to approach, her narrative voice and honest characterization of herself and her family lend depth to the text. In describing her

father, she writes, “He talks about ahava and yirah, love and fear. ‘The two are linked together,’ he tells me, as though I don’t know.” Sherbill’s lyrical style gives just enough detail to keep readers grounded without overwhelming the narrative’s broad scope. The book may be a tough read for those who have lived through similar circumstances, but her reflective and redemptive voice will leave readers with hope.

A poetic story about one woman’s search for redemption of faith and family after abuse.

Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon

Sherman, Lauren & Chantal Fernandez Henry Holt (320 pp.) | $29.99

Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781250850966

An investigation of the ups and downs of an iconic American brand. Sherman and Fernandez bring extensive journalistic experience inside the fashion industry to their examination of Victoria’s Secret, a business and brand that had a significant effect on the concept of female sexuality for several decades. The company began as a struggling retail chain that was taken over by charismatic executive Les Wexner, who was quick to realize that in the 1980s, women were ready to splurge on intimate apparel sold in pretty, energetic, colorful stores in malls. He led the company to remarkable heights and turned it into a cultural icon. The annual Angels show, featuring supermodels in glittery undergarments, became a key event of the fashion calendar. The company was marketing sexiness—or, rather, a hyped-up version of sexiness— with a large dose of commercialized fantasy mixed in. However, as the authors show, success contained the seeds of failure. Wexner failed to understand the rise of social media, and the company was a latecomer to online shopping. Younger women blamed the company for

reinforcing stereotypes, and a series of revelations about the misogynistic culture behind the scenes created more problems. The company took another major hit when Wexner was associated with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his former financial manager. The authors are unsure about the extent of the damage from the Epstein scandal, but it certainly did not help a company that was already reeling. Wexner tried to recast the company’s image for a new era, but nothing worked.

“In the years since Les walked away…the brand’s sales have gotten better, then worse, then mostly settled into a state of slow and steady decline,” write the authors—though it still owns “18 percent of the intimates market share” in the U.S.

A dynamic, fair-minded chronicle of the rise and fall

The Rising: The TwentyYear Battle To Rebuild the World Trade Center

Silverstein, Larry | Knopf (368 pp.) $35.00 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780525658962

One of the nation’s most successful real estate magnates details what it took to rebuild and revitalize the 9/11 site.

As he recounts, Silverstein had secured a 99-year lease on the Twin Towers less than two months before 9/11.

In this first-person account of his business success and navigation of the bureaucratic maze known as the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the author explains how he used his knowledge, authority, and acumen to follow through on his nearly instantaneous decision to rebuild and revitalize the site and properly memorialize those murdered in the atrocity. In addition to amply demonstrating his entrepreneurial and political adroitness, Silverstein displays a talent for making the complex and high-stakes game of New York City commercial real estate—and the associated legal and insurance wrangling that 9/11 made even more difficult—surprisingly interesting.

His seemingly good and decent nature shines through his prose, as does considerable wisdom gleaned from a wildly successful career that many times looked as if it would plunge beyond the precipice—but was bolstered by loyal friends, associates, and, most of all, his devoted and tough-as-nails wife, Klara. Silverstein’s poignant and heartfelt description of what was lost—and what endured—in the wake of 9/11, including the anguished resolve to keep moving forward and weighing whether to rebuild or consecrate the entire site as hallowed ground, will resonate with anyone who experienced that tumultuous period. “The precise details are buried deep in my mind,” he writes. “Even decades later they are apparently too painful to relive fully.” At the same time, the author provides a deeper perspective and understanding to younger readers who did not experience it. Throughout, Silverstein writes with panache, wit, and grace, and his is a story worth savoring.

A compelling personal account of a uniquely American comeback.

On Freedom

Snyder, Timothy | Crown (368 pp.) $32.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780593728727

An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom. In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An

of Victoria’s Secret.

individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy. An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.

The Traitor’s Daughter: Captured by Nazis, Pursued by the KGB, My Mother’s Odyssey to Freedom From Her Secret Past

Spicer, Roxana | Viking (464 pp.)

$26.00 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780735246539

A daughter sets out to discover how her mother managed to survive the bloodletting of World War–era Russia.

“There is a Russian proverb, Roxana,” Spicer’s mother warns in this rollercoaster of a narrative. “Be careful where you dig, you may find worms.”

The author turns up worms aplenty in this work of investigative reportage, her subject her mother, who made her way from Russia across Europe and then to Canada during the tumultuous war years. What stories her mother told her didn’t always add up: Why, for instance, did she leave home in the Ural Mountains at 15? Why did she have that fading tattoo, about which “it was forbidden to ask”? Why would Spicer’s Canadian father have insisted that her Russian mother loved Stalin when her mother said, “That sonofabitch. Somebody should have killed the bastard.” As Spicer conducted her research, working in Russian and German archives and visiting sites that may have been waystations on her mother’s path, she gathered bits of truth. For example, her mother had had a Russian husband, about whom, confronted, she said, “Believe you me, after him, I was ready for the camps.” As a Red Army soldier, she was indeed a POW in concentration camps, proving useful to her captors because she was fluent in German. Did she have to do more, as did women prisoners forced into brothels at Ravensbrück and other camps? “I’ve been right in the middle of it. Every face of that rotten war,” her mother said simply, safe in Saskatchewan after marrying a Canadian soldier to escape repatriation to Stalin’s Russia and there likely being sent off to the Gulag as a traitor for having been captured in the first place. A work that ably interrogates memory and fact to highlight the difficulty of arriving at truth in history.

The Gangs of Zion: A Black Cop’s Crusade in Mormon Country

Stallworth, Ron | Legacy Lit/Hachette (288 pp.)

$30.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781538765944

most people view as contradictory: I am both a Black man and a cop.” So writes Stallworth, whose improbable adventures as a Colorado detective yielded the book and film BlacKkKlansman . Of this episode he writes, modestly, “I wasn’t put in narcotics because I was exceptional. I was put in narcotics because they needed a Black face to penetrate Black environments.” After running afoul of higher-ups, Stallworth went to Arizona, agreed with Public Enemy’s assessment of the place (they hated it), and moved north to Salt Lake City, where he discovered a thriving Mormon subculture of Crips and Bloods. In that milieu, Stallworth did prove himself exceptional: he was able to make sweeping busts largely because the other cops were blissfully unaware of or wanted nothing to do with the problem. It may seem a surprise that Mormon Utah should be a hotbed of gangbanging and drugtrade turf wars, but by Stallworth’s account the land of the Saints is awash in crack, meth, and various other non-caffeinated substances. One surprise for Stallworth was the relevance and lure of gangsta rap, which, growing up in the ’60s, he wasn’t especially attuned to. He soon became an adept, with a perhaps surprising understanding of why a song like “Fuck Tha Police” should resonate—and why the rappers had a point. “The more I learned and lectured, the more I defended the artists’ freedom of expression,” Stallworth writes. That didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for getting the job done until, once again, he ran athwart of the suits upstairs, about which he writes at length and with considerable—and understandable—frustration.

A provocative memoir that illustrates, as if there were any question about it, how strange the world is.

Mormon Crips? Yes, courtesy of the collision of suburban ennui and “gangsta” culture via West Coast rap acts. “I inhabit two identities that

For more about undercover law enforcement, visit Kirkus online.

Landing the Paris Climate Agreement: How It Happened, Why It Matters, and What Comes Next

Stern, Todd | MIT Press (264 pp.)

$32.95 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780262049146

The United States’ chief negotiator chronicles the intricate negotiations leading to the landmark 2015 accord.

Stern dubs the Paris climate agreement an action framework that “immediately changed the game on climate change.” He spells out in great detail the extent to which the success of a multilateral agreement involving 195 nations hinged on seemingly endless talk and innumerable meetings. Beginning with the 2009 Conference of the Parties, he situates the reader in the many discussions required to resolve language concerning such issues as each country’s emission goals, the differential treatment of developed and developing countries, and the degree of transparency to ensure compliance. These negotiations occurred in a multitude of “pull-aside conversations,” restaurant dinners, “impromptu huddles,” side meetings, telephone calls, and intragovernmental consultations. They necessitated lawyers, diplomats, technical analysts, political operatives, policy advisors, and wordsmiths who understood the “constructive ambiguity” of this consensus-based process. In his first-person account, Stern generously praises his staff, political leaders such as President Obama, and the many people who offered cogent advice and artfully chaired critical meetings. On December 12, 2015, COP 21 adopted

an agreement Stern characterizes as “ambitious” and “durable,” shifting the paradigm and sending the message that “we were heading for a global low-carbon future.” (That assertion is tempered by the fact that in 2016, President Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement.) In his conclusion, Stern proposes that continued progress toward managing climate change depends on “political will and human motivation” and “a broad change in hearts and minds.” Admirable sentiments, but hardly helpful for guiding others through the nuances and legalities of multilateral negotiations. Though this account from the U.S. point of view is valuable, a full assessment of the Paris agreement awaits other perspectives, particularly from developing countries. A crash course in the intricacies of multinational climate change policy.

JFK Jr.: An Intimate Oral Biography

Terenzio, RoseMarieLiz McNeil Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (432 pp.) $29.99 | July 16, 2024 | 9781668018514

John Kennedy Jr. was always in the spotlight, but separating the man from the myth is a hard task.

Oral biographies are strange literary creatures, prone to selective memory on the part of the interviewees and careful editing from the compilers. When the subject died young and tragically, these problems are compounded. So one might approach this account with a certain wariness, especially as Terenzio had a lengthy

Will appeal to those with a special interest in the Kennedy clan, but other readers might give it a miss.

JFK JR.

professional relationship with Kennedy and has already written a book about him, Fairy Tale Interrupted. It is not clear that there is anything meaningful to add, although Terenzio and People magazine editor at large McNeil have rounded up scores of people who knew Kennedy in some way, from his childhood growing up in the White House as the president’s toddler son to his death in an airplane crash in 1999 at the age of 39. Much of his life was defined by the famous photograph of him saluting the flag-draped coffin of his father. He could never escape his name and legacy, although he often seemed unsure about whether he wanted to live a private life or go into the family business of politics. Several contributors say that Kennedy showed “promise,” but this is only speculation. The overall tone is one of nostalgia, and the picture of Kennedy that emerges is more like a cardboard cutout than a real person. It is difficult to understand the purpose of this rehash of familiar material. Will appeal to those with a special interest in the Kennedy clan, but other readers might give it a miss.

Vote With Your Phone: Why Mobile Voting Is Our Final Shot at Saving Democracy

Tusk, Bradley | Sourcebooks (304 pp.)

$17.99 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781464221101

A rousing call for Gens Z and Alpha to leverage technology and save democracy. “We are in the middle of a five-alarm fire, and mobile voting is the only scalable way to solve the primary turnout problem and put the fire out.” So writes Tusk, who had a variety of political jobs in the last few years, including a stint with fallen Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, convicted of multiple felonies, who had his 14-year sentence commuted by Donald Trump. Blagojevich, Tusk comments, had “the shockingly crazy and shockingly honest”

opinion that his job was “winning elections, not actually being governor.” That leads Tusk to a hard political truth: the only time you matter to a politician is if you can help them win an election. So, he concludes, “the path to a better system is not about personalities, but about incentives....Hold [politicians] accountable for actual progress and actual results. And if they don’t deliver, you’ll throw them out.” Tusk’s manifesto is far broader than its title suggests—he proposes term limits to combat political complacency—but the phone-voting piece is important. He has developed a secure voting system that gathers votes by means of encrypted cell messaging and tabulates them in clean rooms not connected to the internet, enhancing security. The system has obvious virtues, not least of them that virtually everyone has a cell phone, while not everyone (Native people on remote reservations, elderly shut-ins, military personnel outside the country, and so forth) can get to the polls. Couple this ease of technology with the fact that by 2028 the combined members of Gen Z and Gen Alpha will number 131 million, “the largest group of eligible voters in the country,” and Tusk sees them as inclined to the left. Small wonder that Republican legislators fear Tusk’s call—and good reason for progressive activists to take it up. A sensible, convincing program to expand voting rights and democratic virtues.

The

Second Fifty:

Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond

Whitman, Debra | Norton (336 pp.)

$29.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780393867657

officer for the AARP, will help many readers along the path. Of course, physical and mental health is likely readers’ leading worry, so the author starts there. According to a recent Harvard study, women live an extra 14 years, and men 12, if they adhered to “five healthy habits—a good diet, exercise, a healthy body weight, no smoking, and very limited alcohol intake.” As the author notes, dementia is now more feared than cancer. Following her recommended habits reduces the risk modestly, but it’s best to start young. Whitman’s discussions on paying for old age and managing dying are frighteningly illuminating. American retirement rests on three systems: pensions, Social Security, and savings. Pensions are nearly nonexistent in today’s business world; Social Security will continue (that it will go bankrupt is a myth), but it cannot serve as someone’s sole source of income. Savings are essential, but poor people are not able to save adequately, and poverty rates have been rising since the 1980s. Almost everyone wants to die at home, but the work involved is grueling and expensive. Although enormously helpful, hospice and palliative care services are underfunded and enmeshed in bureaucracy; furthermore, doctors are often slow to get involved. Whitman’s concluding summary is sensible but sober. Most readers are aware that poverty levels, income disparities, and lack of social service support place the U.S. in a precarious position, and no big changes are in the works. Straining to find good news, the author describes state programs to assist the elderly and imaginative “grassroots innovation” that may or may not catch on. Alas, no one expects action from Washington, D.C.

Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation

Wineapple, Brenda | Random House (544 pp.)

$38.00 | Aug. 13, 2024 | 9780593229927

Another account—and among the best—of the spectacular 1925 trial of John Scopes, the Tennessee teacher accused of breaking the state’s law against teaching evolution.

Valuable advice about the second half of life. Getting old is not for the faint of heart, but this lucid guide by Whitman, chief public policy

An unedifying yet essential reference on dealing with aging.

The trial itself was a media circus covered by a mob of reporters, most notably and zestfully Henry L. Menken, a fierce, take-no-prisoners polemicist already a national figure. Looking beyond its circus atmosphere, award-winning historian Wineapple notes that the trial “raised issues that have perplexed America since its founding and still do today.” The traditional villain, prosecution lawyer William Jennings Bryan, was a progressive who crusaded for the poor, but he shared the religious fundamentalism, ignorance of science, and casual bigotry common at the time. Hero of stage and screen as well as biographers, his trial opponent Clarence Darrow was a dazzling courtroom lawyer and genuine foe of injustice but also, in Wineapple’s portrait, a shady character: vain, arrogant, and greedy. Defending Scopes, Darrow made brilliant arguments for freedom of speech and religion and called experts to explain evolution, but the jury did not get to hear them because the judge ruled that the jurors’ sole purpose was to determine whether Scopes had broken the law. Evaluating the famous interchange in which Bryan took the stand promising to defend the Bible’s literal truth,

A moving and heartfelt graphic memoir.

Kirkus Star

Wineapple shares the common judgment that he did a terrible job of it, commenting, “William Jennings Bryan had been no match for Clarence Darrow.” Nonetheless, many observers accused Darrow of humiliating Bryan, who attracted a good deal of sympathy and died five days after the trial. Following Scopes’ conviction, the ACLU, which had organized his defense, tried unsuccessfully to remove Darrow’s team from the appeals in favor of more conservative lawyers. What followed was an anticlimax largely ignored by the media: Tennessee’s Supreme Court reversed Scopes’ conviction on a technicality. Aiming to avoid further fireworks, it upheld the Tennessee law but with so many qualifications that it was unenforceable. The notorious “monkey trial” in expert hands.

All Our Ordinary Stories: A Multigenerational Family Odyssey

Wong, Teresa | Arsenal Pulp Press (240 pp.) | $21.95 paper Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781551529493

A Canadian cartoonist and writer pieces together the unspoken lives of her Chineseborn parents.

When Wong, author of a previous graphic memoir, Dear Scarlet, visited her mother, Sandy, in the hospital in 2014, she became aware of how poorly she spoke Cantonese and how disconnected she felt from her now deeply depressed mother. Determined to understand the reasons behind the distant relationships she had with both Sandy and with her emotionally absent father, Frank, the author began revisiting her past. Language was only one part of a problem: Her immigrant parents were also blue-collar working people who “weren’t around much” during her childhood. Probing further, Wong realized that the distance also had to do with the personal stories her parents had avoided telling her—e.g., about the dangerous

A sensible, convincing program to expand voting rights and democratic virtues.

VOTE WITH YOUR PHONE

escapes they made to Hong Kong during the Communist Revolution. Through spare, pen-and-ink images and simple language, Wong imagines Sandy and Frank’s respective histories, skillfully interweaving them with strands of the life the family shared in Canada. Plunging deeper into the past, the author also imagines the lives of her mysterious paternal great-grandfather, who came to Canada early in the 20th century to “lift his family out of extreme poverty.” Despite “overwhelming racism,” exemplified by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 and in forced separation from loved ones in China, her great-grandfather persisted, doing everything he could to “give his family a good life from afar.” What emerges from the fractured segments of Wong’s story is not just a poignant tale of intergenerational trauma, but also an inspiring portrait of familial dedication that embraces wisdom, grace, and love. “I am the descendant of people who stepped out into the unknown and found a way to live,” she writes. “A child of survivors, many generations back.”

A moving and heartfelt graphic memoir.

10 to 25: A Groundbreaking Approach to Leading the Next Generation―And Making Your Own Life Easier

Yeager, David | Avid Reader Press (320 pp.) $30.00 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781668023884

A psychologist counsels that the way to win young people’s hearts and minds is to treat them like grownups—after a fashion.

“By taking young people

seriously and giving them the support they need to earn impressive reputations, we give them a route to status and respect.” That’s the nub of University of Texas psychology professor Yeager’s repetitive but instructive look at how adults misapprehend developing minds over the extended adolescence that lasts from 10 to 25. There’s a world of difference between the ends of that age spectrum, but they share, Yeager urges, that need to be taken seriously and treated respectfully. This isn’t the soft everybody-gets-a-trophy view, but it does go against the disciplinarian tendencies of so many adults—one a neighbor of Yeager’s in Austin, Whole Foods founder John Mackey, who complains that young people “don’t seem to want to work.” Wrong, Yeager counters: young people don’t want a mindless job with micromanaging bosses with “the enforcer mindset,” which holds people to high standards without providing much support. Just as counterproductive, Yeager holds, is “the protector mindset,” focused on keeping expectations low for young people judged too vulnerable to deal with pressure. No, Yeager counters, what’s wanted is an adult mentor who will hold young people accountable while giving them the keys to success. Yeager’s prescriptions, repeated throughout the book and reinforced with exercises, are backed by both anecdotes and a broad range of psychological studies, all pushing the notion that young people deserve to be greeted with an attitude of “inclusive excellence” and the view that they can be taught to attain their best.

An encouragement to be encouraging, and an approach that seems worth trying on the next surly teenager to come along.

Children's

PICTURE-BOOK PORTRAITS OF THE ARTISTS

I HAVE A confession: I often prefer picture-book biographies to those aimed at grown-ups. Reading adult biographies, I sometimes struggle to keep track of names and dates, and I find myself losing track of what matters most: Who was this person? What did it feel like to know them, to be them? In a picture book, however, that comes through loud and clear, in large part due to the illustrations—these images are indeed worth thousands of words. That’s particularly true for books about artists, where visuals are so crucial. I’ve come across several recent young readers’ artist biographies that especially stand out. Of course, kids are the primary audience for these texts, and these books will speak to them. They make seemingly distant subjects feel deeply relatable and will encourage children to follow their own artistic passions.

Readers of Gary Golio’s Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava (Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers, Jan. 16)

might be surprised to see E.B. Lewis’ watercolor illustrations—a stark, realistic style would seem more apt for the biography of a photographer. But Lewis’ impressionistic images, paired with Golio’s elegant use of figurative language, are the ideal way to convey the book’s potent message: “Life is how you look at it.” Children will come away moved by DeCarava’s ability to find meaning in the quotidian as he walked the streets of Harlem; those eager to see the photographer’s work should follow the leads in the backmatter.

Lisa Robinson’s Gifts From Georgia’s Garden: How Georgia O’Keeffe Nourished Her Art (Neal Porter/ Holiday House, March 19), illustrated by Hadley Hooper, follows the artist as she leaves New York City for New Mexico, where she not only paints but also gardens and prepares lavish meals for her friends. This sumptuous work will push readers toward profound realizations: Something as simple as planting a seed can be an

artistic endeavor, and artists have rich lives that extend far beyond the canvas.

With Mr. Pei’s Perfect Shapes: The Story of Architect I.M. Pei (Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins, May 28), author Julie Leung and illustrator Yifan Wu offer insights into the man responsible for designing everything from the Louvre Pyramid to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Readers who see architecture as pure science, not art, will rethink that assumption; Pei’s reverence for nature is on full display in this gracefully illustrated tale, as is his longing to make a mark on the world.

Many young museumgoers believe there’s a great chasm separating them from

the artists whose work they’re observing. But, as Yevgenia Nayberg makes clear in A Party for Florine: Florine Stettheimer and Me (Neal Porter/Holiday House, July 16), nothing could be further from the truth. Intrigued by a self-portrait of Stettheimer, a young girl begins drawing parallels between herself and the painter, such as their Judaism and their love of art. The youngster also starts seeing the world as her hero did: “full of color and full of sunrise.”

Nayberg’s whimsical prose and brilliantly surreal artwork create a fantastical setting sure to set readers’ own imaginations whirling.

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

Seeing both her beloved brother and a special tree succumbing to a mysterious disease, a child in Mexico City sets out to find a cure. Ever since what 10-year-old Lola will only call “The Thing That Happened,” she’s been helping Alex, her 14-year-old brother who’s struggling with “the Darkness.” But her concern takes on real urgency when she spots gray spots on his skin that grow along with his increasing exhaustion and withdrawal. At the same time, plants in their garden and the Tree around which their house is built develop crusty spots and gray leaves, despite

the care of the chaneques (nature spirits invisible to all but Lola). And when, in hopes of finding help for the Tree, she travels to its progenitor, the mighty Tree of Sources in the magical realm of Floresta, she discovers that the malady has been caused by a new young queen whose struggles offer a clue to the cause of Alex’s affliction. Frequent glimpses of wondrous sights and folkloric creatures give the tale a flavor of magical realism, and on the way to a transformative closing twist, Valenti’s characters reflect on the importance of letting some things go in order to

Fighting Words By Leonarda Carranza; illus. by Erika Medina

Jonty Gentoo By Julia Donaldson; illus. by Axel Scheffler

Kwame Crashes the Underworld By Craig Kofi Farmer

Still Sal By Kevin Henkes

100

One Wise Sheep By Ulrich Hub; illus. by Jörg Mühle; trans. by Helena Kirkby 101

Wake Up, Moon! By Lita Judge

In Praise of Mystery By Ada Limón; illus. by Peter Sís

Lola

Valenti, Karla Arenas | Illus. by Islenia Mil Knopf | 256 pp. | $17.99 | September 10, 2024 9780593177006

allow others to grow, offering much food for thought for readers who are similarly stuck. Final art not seen. A quest undertaken for love and healing, replete alike

There’s a Ghost in the Garden By Kyo Maclear; illus. by Katty Maurey 111 Griso By Roger Mello; trans. by Daniel Hahn 112 No Place for Monsters By Kory Merritt 113

The Boldest White By Ibtihaj Muhammad & S.K. Ali; illus. by Hatem Aly 114

Drawn Onward By Daniel Nayeri; illus. by Matt Rockefeller

with astonishing marvels and provocative themes. (author’s note, notes on terms and concepts, reader’s guide) (Fiction. 9-13)

115 A Map for Falasteen By Maysa Odeh; illus. by Aliaa Betawi

116

Lucas and the Capoeira Circle By Joana Pastro; illus. by Douglas Lopes

119 Chooch Helped By Andrea L. Rogers; illus. by Rebecca Lee Kunz

121 Animal Countdown By Laura Vaccaro Seeger

77

Lola By Karla Arenas Valenti; illus. by Islenia Mil

127 A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga; illus. by Matt Rockefeller

128 Weirdo By Tony Weaver Jr.; illus. by Jes Wibowo & Cin Wibowo

130

Up, Up, Ever Up! By Anita Yasuda; illus. by Yuko Shimizu

A

blueprint for effective social

action: simple, savvy, and tried and often true.

STACEY SPEAKS UP

Stacey Speaks Up

Abrams, Stacey | Illus. by Kitt Thomas Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063271876

Voting rights activist and former gubernatorial candidate Abrams’ latest picture book sees her younger self taking a stand against injustice.

The delight of “TacoPizza Fryday”—a special lunch that the whole school voted on—turns sour for elementary schooler Stacey when she notices that some students are excluded because they can’t pay. Sympathetic school librarian Mr. McCormick explains that the “complicated” rules about who qualifies for free lunches leave some children out; he gently suggests that she and her friends address the school board rather than starting with a demonstration. Initially reluctant to speak in public, Stacey decides to lead a petition drive instead. She eventually nerves herself to stand up at the meeting to plead for a policy change, and when the board puts her off, she joins her friends in gently pressuring her principal every Friday with a list of kids who were left out that week. Thomas fills the illustrations with exaggeratedly wide eyes and open mouths; the crowds of diverse cheering, sign-waving students present rousing images of collective action and, at the end, collective triumph. “Imagine what else all their voices could change…together,” the author concludes pointedly, cogently adding in her closing note that sometimes “you feel like you’re fighting only for yourself, until you look around and

realize that others are simply waiting for someone to go first.” Though the story is fictional, backmatter references real-life examples of Abrams learning to “speak up and take action.”

A blueprint for effective social action: simple, savvy, and tried and often true. (child hunger resources) (Picture book. 7-9)

Aisha’s Colors

Adani, Nabila | Candlewick (32 pp.) $17.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781536235401

A n Indonesian family embarks on their annual road trip from Jakarta to Grandma’s countryside village.

Aisha wants a new and exciting trip. The young narrator’s friend Jennie will be spending time in the snow (“white and crisp and crunchy”), while another pal, Dimas, will be floating under blue skies in the turquoise of a hotel pool. Stopping at a roadside stall for es campur, the family delights in the snowlike shaved ice dessert. They later look out the window at the sparkling blue ocean. But when their car breaks down, a frustrated Aisha sulks in a field, envious of the family’s neighbor Siregar, who visited an aquarium last year and saw “tropical fish of every color.” Looking up, Aisha sees the sky painted with a multitude of vibrant, fish-shaped kites and is suddenly filled with a newfound awe and joy. There are colors all around, Aisha realizes as the family arrives at Grandma’s. The youngster’s favorite is sunny yellow, like Grandma’s kebaya and the soto soup she prepares them for the evening meal. Adani’s mixed-media illustrations are soft and muted, with few strong lines among

bright, buttery colors, matching the gentle, uplifting mood of the book. Illustrations of Jakarta include signs in Indonesian and other facets of daily life, while scenes at Aisha’s grandmother’s house depict traditional Javanese architecture; Adani gives readers a window into the differences between urban and rural Indonesian life—as well as a lesson in learning to appreciate everyday beauty.

A familial tale of gratitude and finding wonder in the world. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

Black Star

Alexander, Kwame | Little, Brown (384 pp.) $17.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780316442596

Series: The Door of No Return, 2

A Black tween’s world revolves around her love of baseball and her grandfather’s stories of his African homeland. Charlene Cuffey loves baseball; she was captivated after seeing a Negro Leagues game. Despite her mother’s disapproval, Charley dreams of becoming the first girl to be a professional pitcher. She also loves her grandfather Nana Kofi’s stories and his attempts to teach her his mother tongue of Twi. Nana Kofi was captured from his community and brought to America as a boy; later he fought in the war to end slavery. When Charley responds to a bully’s taunts by challenging him to a game, she’s determined to win. Unfortunately, she makes decisions that place her and her community in danger. This highly anticipated second volume in The Door of No Return trilogy reintroduces Kofi to readers as an elder, revealing how he survived, gained his freedom, established a family, and passed on his legacy of resilience to Charley. Alexander skillfully builds on the strengths of the first installment in portraying a strong sense of community and family, often in the face of capricious violence. Charley is a well-crafted

character who embodies her tightknit family, her heritage, and her keen mind. The presence of real-life historical figures and events helps capture the tenor of life in segregated Virginia, while the beautifully flowing poetry contributes to the book’s engaging qualities. A powerful and thoroughly satisfying blend of sports, history, family saga, and self-discovery. (author’s note) (Verse historical fiction. 10-18)

Kirkus Star

How To Sing a Song

Alexander, Kwame & Randy Preston Illus. by Melissa Sweet | Quill Tree

Books/HarperCollins (32 pp.) | $19.99

Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780063060937

This jazzy primer guides readers in noticing surrounding sounds—and feeling the ones that bubble up from within.

For their third collaboration—following How To Read a Book (2019) and How To Write a Poem (2023)—Alexander and Sweet are joined by composer, performer, and author Preston (Piscataway). Here, they focus on creating music. The narrative poem begins by calling for an attentive spirit: “Hush. / Now, / turn up your ears / and listen / to the / concert / happening / all around / you.” The delicious language refers to a bird’s “playful trill” and the “warble of / belching / frogs.” Alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, and humor flow through the directives on deep breathing and transforming responses to nature into toe tapping and finger snapping. Ultimately, readers—and the chorus of diverse characters depicted—are instructed to “wail / out each / wondrous / word.” These gifted creators bring to life a potentially abstract concept in ways that will appeal to children who instinctively dance, leap, and spin to song. Sweet’s note on choosing “op” (optical) art to convey sound is fascinating. Her hypnotic optical illusions weave through and around people in motion,

buzzing bees, lively landscapes, and snippets of sheet music—all in glorious collages, punctuated with her signature pink accents. Hand lettering throughout employs different colors, sizes, and saturation to convey volume and pacing. A joyful ode to the manifold pleasures of musical expression. (author’s note from Preston) (Picture book. 4-7)

Monster Tree

Allen, Sarah | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (272 pp.) | $17.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780374390976

A young boy mourning the loss of his father confronts a terrifying tree. Art always bonded seventh grader Linus Hyde to his painter father. When Linus’ dad realized his son had color blindness, he introduced him to charcoals, and Linus delighted in the shades of gray he could create. When Dad dies unexpectedly, Linus feels he can no longer draw and barely touches his beloved supplies for nearly a year. He and his mom move into a new house, and he spies a creepy-looking tree in neighbor Maude’s yard. With the help of friends Abby and Spencer, Linus investigates a possible connection between the tree, a series of disappearances, and Maude. It turns out that art may be the only thing that can save them. Allen’s examination of grief and rage situated amid very real horror conjures genuine scares as emotions manifest both positively and negatively. Anxious, impulsive, and introspective Linus’ journey of self-actualization and selfpreservation is both accessible and visceral, culminating in a thrilling tale of healing. While some aspects of the plot feel somewhat underdeveloped, the scares ratchet up unrelentingly in a page-turning frenzy as Linus fights to save himself, his town, and his family. Linus and Abby (who wears hearing aids) present white, and Spencer is cued Black.

A searing exploration of the intersection of grief and horror. (Paranormal. 9-13)

Call Me Roberto!: Roberto Clemente Goes to Bat for Latinos

Alonso, Nathalie | Illus. by Rudy Gutierrez Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (40 pp.) | $18.99 Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781635928112

Despite years of racism and discrimination, Roberto Clemente became a baseball legend. Born in 1934, Clemente grew up in Puerto Rico, where he played baseball using a tree branch and a tin can. At 19, he left the island to play professional béisbol but spent most of his time on the bench. In 1955 he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates; fans “[loved] Roberto’s bold style,” but as a Black Puerto Rican man who spoke English with an accent, he encountered bigotry. Despite his acrobatic plays, his teammates mocked him, newspapers dubbed him a showoff, and many insultingly called him “Bob.” By 1960 he was an All-Star who led the Pirates to victory in his first World Series. Although he was passed over for MVP because of racist attitudes and suffered further injustices while training with the team in segregated Florida, he finished the season with a .351 batting average and in 1961 won his first Gold Glove. Sports journalist Alonso weaves Spanish words into the story and ratchets up the narrative’s energy with play-by-play descriptions of Clemente’s athleticism. Caldecott honoree Gutierrez’s vibrant mixed-media illustrations evoke urban murals or Afro-Caribbean fabrics, pulsing with swirls, designs, and actions saturated in color and fueled by emotion. Alonso’s author’s note offers more context and emphasizes that though Clemente wasn’t the first Afro-Latine player on an American or National League team, he nevertheless made important strides. An inspirational, fast-paced biography of a man who broke barriers for athletes of color. (timeline, glossary, translation of a quotation, selected bibliography, illustrator’s note, archival photographs, photo credits) (Picture-book biography. 7-10)

Amari and the Despicable Wonders

Alston, B.B. | Illus. by Godwin Akpan

Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (400 pp.)

$17.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780062975225 Series: Supernatural Investigations, 3

Robbed of magical powers, Amari faces her greatest challenge yet as the League of Magicians and rival Bureau of Supernatural Affairs head for a decisive showdown.

As the war escalates, Amari’s older brother, Quinton, and most of the rest of the Bureau are set on shuffling her off to safety. Her friend turned nemesis, Dylan Van Helsing—the League’s powerful new head—is also proving himself able to outmaneuver her at every turn. Alston stacks the deck against the determined 13-yearold and her loyal band of sidekicks in this third series entry. Even though Amari’s loyalty and determination wind up playing important roles, the author must introduce new element anti-magick (a formerly theoretical way to “balance magical equations”) if she’s to have any hope of succeeding. Ancient inventions called Wonders are the only source of anti-magick, and Amari and friends set out to locate them. A subplot involving a faun with mind-control powers and delusions of grandeur feels unfortunately underdeveloped, but as in previous entries, there’s plenty of battle action to keep readers entertained but (for the squeamish among them) little explicit gore. The story winds its way through twists both comical and tragic on the way to a poignant resolution that affirms both the faith that underdog Amari’s elders have in her abilities and her place within the community. Returning series fans will come away happy. As previously established, the cast behind the Black lead is racially diverse. Final art not seen. A rousing tale. (Fantasy. 8-12)

The Inventor’s Workshop: How People and Machines Transformed Each Other

Amos, Ruth | Illus. by Stacey Thomas

Magic Cat (64 pp.) | $22.99

Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781419773488

Tours of imaginary spaces where 10 world-changing inventions were cooked up. Thomas’ riveting mix of intricate timelines and broad, high-ceilinged workspaces—both excitingly packed with small but precisely drawn tools, plans, portraits, prototypes, working models on crowded shelves, and bins of bits and pieces waiting for assembly— instantly draw the eye. However, the quick snatches of history and description that Amos, former teen inventor and co-host of the YouTube channel “Kids Invent Stuff,” chucks in amid all the glorious clutter merit attention too. For each of the inventions, which range from clocks to computers, light bulbs and photography to methods of recording and broadcasting sound, the author offers quick overviews of essential components and significant evolutionary leaps on the way to today’s smartphones and TVs, GPS systems, internal combustion engines, and electric bicycles. She skips nearly all mention of negative effects these may have had on people or the environment. Still, with particular attention to female innovators and those of color, she makes the act of invention personal by directing nods to many historical notables: computer pioneers from Ada Lovelace to China’s Xia Peisu; mathematicians such as NASA’s Katherine Johnson and her colleagues; Black Canadian engineer Elijah J. “The Real” McCoy; and

Mexican Modernist photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo, to name just a few. A genial, inclusive ramble through the annals of invention. (glossary, further reading) (Nonfiction. 7-10)

Abzuglutely!: Battling, Bellowing Bella Abzug

Aronson, Sarah | Illus. by Andrea D’Aquino | Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (40 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781635928075

A vigorous biography of politician and activist Bella Abzug (1920-1998). Aronson begins by grounding Abzug’s progressive worldviews in her Jewish childhood and highlighting her outspoken subject’s earliest feats of activism, including reciting Kaddish for her father at age 13 in the men’s section of a gender-segregated synagogue. Abzug’s work fundraising for Zionist organizations is briefly mentioned; some readers may wish for more context. Covering her law career and political involvement—Abzug was the second Jewish woman to serve in Congress—Aronson touches on prominent allies such as Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm as well as her critics’ dismissals. D’Aquino’s expressionistic ink, colored pencil, and wax crayon illustrations match Aronson’s verve and admiration, spotlighting Abzug in vivid reds and depicting her in open-mouthed poses to demonstrate her relentless campaigning for social change. The author’s fervent rhetoric sometimes results in confusing moments. Her explanation for why Abzug wore hats—“she had to wear hats, because those wide-brimmed

An adoring and inspirational life story, as ardent as its subject.

ABZUGLUTELY!

beauties represented authority and power”—may not make sense to all readers, but many will be swept past these occasional flourishes by the combined force of Abzug’s and Aronson’s determination. An author’s note offers more information about Abzug’s beliefs and causes, from the well known (Title IX) to the overlooked (the Equal Credit Opportunity Act). An adoring and inspirational life story, as ardent as its subject. (author’s note, timeline, bibliography, photos, photo credits) (Picture-book biography. 5-10)

Three City Kitties

Barron, Ashley | Owlkids Books (32 pp.)

$18.95 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781771476034

Who says you have to step outdoors to feel the bustle of the city?

Three indoor cats named Nori, Yeti, and Flo fill their day with ordinary fun in a two-story loft apartment. Paper cut-out illustrations show the felines with their faces up against the glass, gazing at birds on the sidewalk. Barron also portrays outside scenes from the cats’ indoor viewpoint: racially diverse passersby looking in to wave hello to the cats, dogs on the pavement “do[ing] what dogs do” (i.e., pooping). Nori, Yeti, and Flo play with recently delivered boxes, bury their faces in their food during mealtime, bathe themselves while sprawled on the couch, and chase one another around the plants in the apartment. Upbeat, rhythmic verse sets a lively tone. The layers of paper and mixed media work to color the inside and outside worlds with equal depth and detail. Use of different angles shows the apartment and the outside city through multiple vantage points, from the floor beneath the couch where the trio hide from a delivery person to the elevated view of the city skyline from the upper windows. Readers are left with the sense that though these kitties never set a paw outside, their lives are nevertheless rich and vibrant.

Pet lovers, especially feline fanciers, will smile at this slice-of-life depiction of indoor cats. (Picture book. 3-7)

The Secret in the Tower

Beattie, Andrew | Illus. by Elena Dall’Aglio Sweet Cherry Publishing (304 pp.)

$8.95 paper | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781802635539

Series: Tales From the Middle Ages, 1

A lowly 12-year-old apprentice aspiring to become a surgeon in 1480s London is an oddity; even stranger is one who resembles an imprisoned royal. Amid the ongoing Wars of the Roses, King Richard III has entered London with his troops, prepared to keep Henry Tudor from claiming the throne. Jack Broom, who lives with his apothecary aunt, Old Mother Broom, overhears adults speaking of chilling terrors. Many believe that Richard stole the throne from the deceased King Edward’s sons—two boys he locked in the Tower of London. Jack becomes acutely aware of the controversy when Richard’s soldiers, mistaking him for one of the princes, threaten him in a terrifying encounter: With his gray eyes and shock of blond hair, he’s a double for Richard Plantagenet. Even though people of his class don’t usually study with famed surgeons, Jack had previously hoped to enter the Tower to apprentice with Dr. Argentine. Now, as a child who knows nothing of the parents he can’t remember, he seeks entry to uncover the truth about both Edward’s sons and his own lineage. Jack’s goals align when courageous new friend Alice asks for his help with treating an unnamed patient in the Tower. Well-drawn characters populate this tightly plotted, strongly paced page-turner, which features intriguing reveals about secret identities and plentiful details about the deadly intrigues of the time.

Gritty and exciting: Readers will be hooked by the ruthless historical elements and compelling mystery. (map, historical note) (Historical adventure. 8-12)

Yes! No? Maybe So…: Amazing Answers to More

Than 250 MindBlowing Questions

Beer, Julie & Paige Towler | National Geographic Kids (224 pp.) | $29.99 PLB July 9, 2024 | 9781426375859 PLB

Fascinating answers you never knew you needed to a broad range of questions. Compiling a list of questions organized into eight chapters covering a variety of topics—from animals to UFOs— Beer and Towler offer fact-based answers or theories. The first chapter features questions such as, “Can dogs tell time?” (Hint: They use their noses.) The history chapter poses the question of whether pirates’ victims were really forced to walk the plank, and the answer may surprise you! Space and physics have a chapter all to themselves, which dives into topics such as time travel and the intriguing matter of what space smells like.

“Why do we dream?” is discussed in the chapter on being human; scientists don’t have a definitive answer, but the authors explain current beliefs that dreams allow the brain to process data and sort information. The closing chapter, covering “All Things Weird and Wild,” addresses mysterious phenomena. Readers will appreciate the interesting interviews with a diverse range of experts, including paleontologist Nizar Ibrahim and toy designer and entrepreneur Cas Holman, as well as the bright graphics and humorous photos. The answers are informative and comprehensive and written in easy-to-understand language, making this colorful work suitable for a variety of ages. Readers may wish for a list of resources to support further research into the various topics. Engaging and energetic; learning should always be so fun. (glossary, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 8-13)

A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree.

CHICKA CHICKA HO HO HO

The Train of Dark Wonders

Bell, Alex | Illus. by Beatriz Castro | Rock the Boat/Oneworld (320 pp.) | $8.99 paper Aug. 6, 2024 | 9780861545988

Series: A Train of Dark Wonders Adventure, 1

Stowing away on a magical circus train leads a child to friends, adventures, and all the candy she can eat. Friendless, bullied, 11-yearold Bess is thrilled to inherit her grandfather Henry’s Odditorium, but maintaining the museum’s peculiar exhibits turns out to be a challenge: Where, for instance, is she going to get magic beans to feed the toothy, whispering flowers growing all over the ramshackle mansion’s walls? Fortunately, Pops also left her a letter steering her to the titular train; unfortunately, the ensuing ride through the underground tunnels of the intercontinental Troll Network deposits her in the Land of Halloween Candy, which has turned creepy under the influence of a powerful magician known as the Candymaker. But Bess delights in weird and scary things and has, moreover, found fire witch Maria and other young allies aboard the train. Neither the sinister Candymaker nor the Land of Halloween’s cute resident gummy bears turn out to be quite what they seem—so, around an intrepid protagonist, a redoubtable supporting cast, a highly caloric setting, and all sorts of magical creatures from sugar spiders and ninja mice to dragons both huge and pocket-size, Bell weaves a tale shot through with the worthy insight that it’s not always possible to tell good from evil at first glance. In both the narrative and Castro’s atmospherically gothic illustrations, Bess is cued white;

the rest of the human cast includes racial diversity.

A delightful, multilayered confection, sweet and sharp at the core. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Alex Wise vs. the Cosmic Shift

Benton-Walker, Terry J. | Labyrinth Road (272 pp.) | $17.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 9780593564332 | Series: Alex Wise, 2

Twelve-year-old Alex Wise is back, trying to save the world from the next phase of the apocalypse. Alex’s adventures with 10-year-old sister Mags, best friend Loren, and budding love interest, 13-year-old demigod Liam, are moving forward after their defeat of Death in the first series entry. Now, they must travel from West Los Angeles to Las Vegas to stop the Horsemen of the apocalypse from finding Calamity—“an amalgamation of magic from each of the Divine Six deities who created Paradisum many millennia ago”—and ingesting their powers to take over the multiverse. No biggie. Along the way, Alex wrestles with his deepening emotions, which have nothing to do with his being possessed by a nonbinary god named Orin and everything to do with feeling like everything he says and does is an utter failure, even though he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Benton-Walker inserts elements (such as the history of bustling Black towns’ being destroyed by white supremacists) into the narrative as reminders to the characters—and readers—that they’re

fighting for a future they can help shape. This context helps balance the inner conflicts the characters must face in order to keep heading toward an uncertain future. Some of the slang used by these young Black suburban superheroes feels dated, but the care given to rounding out their portrayals through action and dialogue is superb. Another captivating caper. (author’s note) (Fantasy. 9-13)

Peanut Jones and the Illustrated City

Biddulph, Rob | Macmillan Children’s Books (384 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781035042692

A young girl creates a door to a magical world made of illustrations. Twelve-year-old Pernilla “Peanut” Jones is having a miserable year: Her beloved father (who drew something new for her Packed Lunch Post-it Note Collection daily) has disappeared, and her practical mum has transplanted her from the school she loves to St. Hubert’s School for the Seriously Scientific and Terminally Mathematic. When Peanut happens upon a mysterious pencil, she discovers that whatever she draws with it becomes real. With her new friend, Rockwell, and her genius younger sister, Little-Bit, she draws a door. The trio enters the Illustrated City of Chroma, where the nefarious mayor, Mr. White, is determined to eliminate all creativity using his machine, the Big X. Together the kids (and an adorable scribble of a dog named Doodle) join forces with the Resistance, battling dastardly droids to infiltrate a pernicious prison named the Spire in hopes of saving Chroma. Biddulph’s series opener is a heavily illustrated page-turner that leans on familiar genre tropes; fans of portal fantasies will find much to enjoy here. More experienced readers may find the

twists predictable and the cliffhanger ending foreseeable. Biddulph imbues this smoothly written work with humorous elements and a STEAMbased slant, name-dropping famous artists, inventors, and scientists. Peanut and Little-Bit appear white, and Rockwell reads Black.

A quirky and accessible portal fantasy that covers well-trodden ground. (glossary) (Fantasy. 8-12)

Esma Farouk, Lost In the Souk

Boersen, Lisa & Hasna Elbaamrani | Illus. by Annelies Vandenbosch | Floris (32 pp.)

$18.95 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781782508854

Separated from Mama in a bustling souk, young Esma Farouk enlists the help of some unlikely characters. Esma travels with Mama, Papa, and three siblings to see extended family in Morocco. Every time they visit, their suitcases are packed with gifts to give—and, on their way home, with presents they’ve received from relatives. Sporting a pair of brand-new green slippers, Esma heads to the souk with Mama and Auntie Fatima. Captivated by the vibrant sights, sounds, and smells, Esma is distracted watching snakes slithering and dancing to music. Oh no. Esma is lost! Distressed, the child cries out for Mama. A series of friendly locals, including water carriers, a man with a monkey, and a group of acrobats, come to Esma’s aid, suggesting that the youngster visit a fortuneteller, who just might have some answers. The souk bursts to life through the bold and sometimes humorous illustrations, rendered in digital gouache, watercolor, and colored pencil. This engaging, heartwarming book offers many young readers a window into Moroccan culture, highlighting a community’s warmth and the unexpected kindness of strangers through the perspective of a resilient and intrepid youngster. A delightful and satisfying adventure. (Picture book. 4-7)

Great Minds of Science: A Nonfiction Graphic Novel

Bolden, Tonya | Illus. by David Wilkerson

Abrams Fanfare (128 pp.) | $15.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781419752698 | Series: Black Lives, 1

Profiles of nine Black men and women who have made significant contributions in scientific or technical fields. With this work of graphic nonfiction,

Bolden has two goals: introducing potentially lesser-known achievers while offering readers suggestions for professional careers. In lively language, the author traces the careers of five women and four men: beginning with Matilda Evans (1872-1935), a South Carolina physician who founded multiple clinics and hospitals, and ending with marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson (b. 1980). In between, Bolden presents scientists in several fields, as well as a commercial airline captain and a self-taught inventor. All smile encouragingly at viewers from Wilkerson’s squared-off scenes when not standing in thoughtful, dignified poses in characteristic settings, and though the panels aren’t sequential, a few of them feature direct quotes in dialogue balloons. Each entry closes with a timeline and an inset box with additional names or facts; source notes at the end include references to exchanges between the author and some of her subjects. Tightly overlapping pictures and detached blocks of text battle with one another for space on many pages, which makes the narrative hard to navigate at times. Still, as role models, these nine are well chosen for their range of professions and backgrounds and are almost certain to be new to young readers. A promising series kickoff, sure to stir the imaginations of burgeoning scientists. (Collective graphic biography. 9-12)

Chicka Chicka Ho Ho Ho

Boniface, William | Illus. by Julien Chung Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781665954761

Series: A Chicka Chicka Book

A Christmas edition of the beloved alphabet book. The story starts off nearly identically to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (1989), written by John Archambault and the late Bill Martin Jr, with the letters A, B, and C deciding to meet in the branches of a tree. This time, they’re attempting to scale a Christmas tree, not a coconut tree, and the letters are strung together like garland. A, B, and C are joined by the other letters, and of course they all “slip, slop, topple, plop!” right down the tree. At the bottom, they discover an assortment of gifts, all in a variety of shapes. As a team, the letters and presents organize themselves to get back up on the Christmas tree and get a star to the top. Holiday iterations of favorite tales often fall flat, but this take succeeds. The gifts are an easy way to reinforce another preschool concept— shapes—and the text uses just enough of the original to be familiar. The rhyming works, sticking to the cadence of the source material. The illustrations pay homage to the late Lois Ehlert’s, featuring the same bold block letters, though they lack some of the whimsy and personality of the original. Otherwise, everything is similarly brightly colored and simply drawn. Those familiar with the classic will be drawn to this one, but newcomers can enjoy it on its own.

A successful swap from coconut tree to Christmas tree. (Picture book. 3-5)

For more holiday picture books, visit Kirkus online.

The Hero Twins and the Magic of Song

Bowles, David | Illus. by Charlene Bowles Cinco Puntos Press (80 pp.) | $15.95 paper Oct. 29, 2024 | 9781947627697

Series: Tales of the Feathered Serpent, 2

Twin demigod brothers endeavor to fulfill their destinies despite familial troubles. Shirking their responsibilities, One Hunahpu (the demigod of maize) and his brother, Seven Hunahpu, wander into dark and glum Xibalba, the Underworld. A trick by the cruel King and Queen of the Dead leads to the brothers’ deaths. One Hunahpu’s skull is placed on a tree branch in Xibalba as a gruesome reminder. There, Lady Blood—Underworld daughter of Duke Pooling Blood and Duchess Peeling Scab—meets and falls in love with the maize demigod’s soul. Soon pregnant with twin boys destined to “change the world forever,” Lady Blood flees to the Overworld to escape the wrath of the Xibalba rulers and finds refuge at the house of One Hunahpu’s goddess mother, who cares for his eldest (and abandoned) sons, Hun B’Atz’ and Hun Chowen. Once born, Hunahpu and Xbalanke gradually learn to wield the magic of song to free their father and uncle. But first, the heroic twins must deal with their angry and envious older half brothers. This latest installment in David Bowles’ series devoted to Mesoamerican folklore weaves demigod-filled bombast with fanciful hijinks, star-crossed romance, and heaps of humor. Charlene Bowles’ artwork continues to leverage bold lines,

earthy tones, and fluid action to further delight. An ominous cliffhanger hints at more intriguing exploits in the next volume. An engrossing tale of fledgling heroics. (author’s note) (Graphic fantasy. 8-14)

The Chronicles of Viktor Valentine

Brewer, Z | Quill Tree Books/ HarperCollins (272 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780063245723

The start of seventh grade might be the worst thing to happen to Viktor Valentine, and that’s saying something. The town of Nowhere is as exciting as it sounds. Honestly, Viktor doesn’t have much going for him, even by Nowhere standards, except for Damon, his sole, tried-and-true friend, who joins him for junk-food binges and virtual vampire killings. When school starts, Viktor meets a few new faces, including the girl from the family that just moved in across the street, who’s actually nice to him. Viktor is excited to maybe have a new friend, but he’s distracted by the weird way his dad’s been acting lately…like coming home late at night, with blood on his face and shirt (the sight of blood makes Viktor faint). His assigned reading of Dracula for English class gets him wondering about some less-than-savory possibilities. This tale walks the line between casual and actual horror—it combines plenty of dad jokes and talk about garlic with on-page blood and serious discussions of taking lives—and Brewer manages to balance it all well. Viktor

The history of the world presented through an intimate lens.

spends a lot of time with new people at school, but these connections aren’t developed enough later in the story to make the interactions feel relevant. Still, the story clearly sets readers up for sequels, and perhaps these relationships will get more payoff in future entries. Characters are cued white.

An appealing choice for fans of spooky stories. (Paranormal. 8-13)

On the Small Hill Where the Girls Take Off Their Shoes

Buitrago, Jairo | Illus. by Linda Wolfsgruber Trans. by Elisa Amado | Greystone Kids (44 pp.) | $19.95 | Aug. 27, 2024

9781778400506 | Series: Aldana Libros

A parcel of land turns out to be steeped in history. On the top of a small hill, a group of young girls relax under the sunny sky with their shoes off. Unbeknownst to them, this spot was the site of events both exciting and monotonous, from the prehistoric reign of the dinosaurs and the planting of an oak tree to a man walking his dogs among the literal ruins of times past. As time marches on, a small community is eventually formed where the group of girls gather to continue living their lives without shoes. Buitrago’s tender text, translated from Spanish, lovingly recalls the past while focusing on present-day experiences throughout. Wolfsgruber’s monotype collage art, with earthy tones of brown, orange, and green, conveys the passage of time, with the spreads at the beginning presented through a haze that clears up as the story progresses—much like a memory itself. Themes of displacement run through the narrative, with quick glances at a family seeking refuge from an unnamed war and a flock of birds left without a home after the felling of a tree. Readers will come away curious to learn more about the histories of their own communities. Human characters vary in skin tone. The history of the world presented lovingly through an intimate lens. (Picture book. 4-7)

Camp Twisted Pine

Burch, Ciera | McElderry (272 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781665930574

Preteen Naomi likes learning about nature from books and the internet, not from firsthand experience.

But Naomi’s parents need some time to figure out their divorce, so she’s going off with her younger twin brothers, Aman and Omar, to Camp Twisted Pine in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Camp is just as miserable as she predicted, but Naomi manages to make friends with (and maybe develop a hint of a crush on) Jackie, a hard-of-hearing girl who uses both English and ASL. Naomi’s logical, rational mind makes it hard for her to bond with her other cabinmates, especially when they start telling stories about the Jersey Devil. But maybe the Jersey Devil is real—and maybe he’s kidnapping campers. Or maybe the oddly young head counselor has something to do with the mysterious disappearances? Then there’s the highly invasive and subtly unnatural kudzu that’s growing throughout the forest. Naomi is a lovable, nerdy protagonist who resides in a world where the adults, though often well meaning, aren’t listening and it’s up to the kids to save the day. The story is fun and gently spooky with no real scares, and it’s likely to spark readers’ interest in ecosystems and conservation. A genuine love and knowledge of the Pine Barrens is evident in the details of the setting. Naomi presents Black, and the supporting cast is racially diverse.

Part campfire tale, part eco-fable, all charm. (Paranormal. 8-12)

Part campfire tale, part eco-fable, all charm.

CAMP TWISTED PINE

My Grammie’s House

Button, Lana | Illus. by Skye Ali Tundra Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781774880784

Carter Avery’s Tricky Fourth-Grade Year

Buyea, Rob | Delacorte (352 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593376188

For more by Ciera Burch, visit Kirkus online.

There’s more to a home than the house and its contents. No real estate agent ever gave a tour like the one this young protagonist gives to a couple considering a house that is up for sale. That’s because this home once belonged to the child’s Grammie. This exploration is personal and full of poignant—and humorous— memories. “You’ll love every single thing about it,” the child tells the couple before they step inside. The little one keeps up the perky patter while describing unique features of the rooms and exterior. It’s obvious the child has spent much time here. The child points out a tree perfect for climbing in the front yard and swings in the backyard. And the little one will gladly share Grammie’s scotch cake cookie recipe. At tour’s end, the child offers to be the couple’s new friend: “I live pretty close, so I could come visit. I bet my Grammie would like that.” This sweet story emphasizes that happy memories linger in a home even after its residents are no longer physically present; indeed, treasured memories are at a home’s heart. Though it’s never explained why Grammie isn’t here, many will assume she has passed, and children should feel reassured they can carry beloved relatives’ legacies forward even after their loss. The cheerful illustrations depict Grammie’s former possessions in pink outlines; the child is light-skinned, while the couple is brown-skinned. A tender tale about a home and memories filled with love and warmth. (Picture book. 5-8)

A challenging fourth grader faces the “meanest and nastiest” teacher in the school. Readers will recognize Carter Avery when he blurts out a rude question about the port-wine stain on Ms. Krane’s face in their first meeting. He’s the kid with no filters. He struggles with writing. But, like Mr. Terupt in Buyea’s popular series, Ms. Krane knows how to deal with even the most difficult kids. She has challenges besides wiggly Carter and his nemesis, “bossy” Missy Gerber. Some parents don’t approve of Ms. Krane’s choice to have a baby as an unmarried woman. Buyea weaves all these elements into a suspenseful account of Carter’s year, told in the boy’s believable first-person voice. Readers will fill in the blanks in his unreliable narration, because they know kids like him—they may even share many of his difficulties. Carter doesn’t have friends among his classmates, but he does have caring adults in his life: the grandmother who’s raised him since his parents died, bus driver Mr. Wilson, and Farmer Don, whose eggs Carter and Grams buy. They’re patient with his behavior and his questions. They help him (and readers) understand donor insemination and why judgmental gossip is a problem. Carter decides that his secret mission will be sticking up for Ms. Krane as she has stuck up for him: becoming a good student and proving she’s a good teacher. His success is gratifying. Most characters present white.

A school story that’s full of heart. (Fiction. 8-11)

THE KIRKUS PROFILE: OLIVER JEFFERS & SAM WINSTON

The author/illustrators pay tribute to an oft-overlooked literary classic: the dictionary.

BY MAHNAZ DAR

WHEN ADULTS ARE asked about the books they remember most fondly from childhood, the dictionary isn’t usually the first one that comes to mind. That may change with the publication of Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston’s The Dictionary Story (Candlewick, Aug. 6). Their playful and inspired picture book follows a dictionary who, envious of the other books on the shelf, decides to tell a story; things go awry as the definitions come to life and wreak havoc.

The book is Jeffers and Winston’s second book together; they previously teamed up for A Child of Books (2016), a love letter to classic literature, and both were thrilled at the opportunity to reunite. “I think we just used the book as an excuse to spend some time together,” quips Jeffers. He and Winston spoke to

The Dictionary Story

Kirkus via Zoom from their studios in, respectively, Belfast and London.

Incorporating photography, typography, painting, and handwriting, The Dictionary Story is a collaboration in every sense of the word. Jeffers and Winston worked on both the story and the visual elements: Jeffers was responsible for the gouache and ink illustrations, while Winston worked with typography, depicting the words in the dictionary vividly moving across the page. The book took roughly seven years to complete and presented numerous challenges.

Coordinating Jeffers’ images with the typography was especially difficult. Referring to a scene where an alligator begins making his way across a page, bumping the definitions out of

alignment, Jeffers explains, “We have to know where the alligator is standing and what the words are underneath. So we have to do the drawing first, then work out what words are here, roughly. Then you’ve got to write the definitions. Then I have to redo the drawing to see where the feet, say, interact or there’s some kind of movement in the text.”

To depict the dictionary itself, they used a prop book created by Winston’s partner, Haein Song, a bookbinder. Photographs of the dictionary, which becomes physically distressed over the course of the narrative as the characters make mischief, were integrated into the book. “A lot of time went into the research,” Winston says, from the book’s deckled edges to the pages

Jeffers (left): Yasmina Cowan; Winston: Andy Sewell

themselves—archival paper from the 1930s and ’40s.

Though Jeffers and Winston live in different cities, both agreed that they needed to physically be in the same room to create the book. “The way that I work is often very sporadic and spontaneous,” says Jeffers. “And there’s a discipline to Sam’s practice that I greatly benefited from. So he sort of encouraged me gently to protect pockets of time that we could be together and just sort of see what happens. And that was good for my life in general but also was integral to the creation of the project.”

Jeffers adds, “[With] every single project I’ve ever begun…nothing has ever turned out the way that you think it’s going to turn out.” It can be easy for writers to feel disappointed “because it’s not perfect or it’s not going the way [they] thought it would. [But] nothing ever does; you just have to adapt and react as you go.” The strategy applies equally to Jeffers and Winston’s dictionary character, whose story takes some wild turns and who eventually learns to accept herself.

Notably, the book includes actual definitions—but these aren’t the cut-and-dried definitions of MerriamWebster. Marmalade is referred to as “perhaps the main reason that the universe came into existence,” while rose is defined as “a plant with thorns and scented flowers that gave birth to a million love poems and greeting cards (to varying degrees of success).”

Winston took the lead on crafting the definitions. “There’s 25 pages’ worth of unique definitions,” he says. He estimates the book’s word count as close to 20,000, “which for a picture book is probably a record.” The definitions aren’t front and center; readers could easily overlook how witty they are on a first perusal. “It’s like having a little whisper in someone’s ear whilst they’re reading the book,” Winston says. “That’s a lovely kind of intimate way of meeting adults in some ways.”

Jeffers, who last year published Begin Again , a heavily illustrated work marketed for readers of all ages, hopes that grown-ups will enjoy The

Dictionary Story. Though he’s a consummate picture-book creator— kid lit fans will recognize his signature style from The Day the Crayons Quit (2013), written by Drew Daywalt—he’s never set out to write specifically for children. “I’ve always thought that if I can hit that sweet spot of a kid gets it, but an adult gets something from it, too, then I’m entertaining both the memory I have of myself as a child, but also me as a walking, functioning adult.”

The creators’ fascination with words is at the heart of the work. The idea for the project was born in 2001, when Winston self-published a book called A Dictionary Story (trade editions were published later), a work of poetry that makes inspired use of typography. “It basically had words on one side, and it had all the definitions on the other side.…I love the idea...that words are constructed from other words that have their own definitions, [which] are constructed from other words that have their definitions,” he says. “It’s almost like this infinite web.”

Both Jeffers and Winston remember becoming aware of the power of words as children. “My grandma used to say, ‘If you can read, you can cook. If you can read, you can basically do anything.’ And I’ve

I love the idea that words are constructed from other words that have their own definitions.

always thought about that. It’s like a key to unlock anything,” says Jeffers. Winston, who has dyslexia, struggled with reading as a child but loved stories. “I had a really hellish time with dictionaries and words and language,” he says. He viewed mastering language as a trade-off. “OK, I’ll put in the time to basically work out what this is because I like the fun bit, which is narrative and storytelling....If you can unpack this code, suddenly you’re allowed access into this amazing universe.”

Despite that initially rocky relationship with reading, Winston remained passionate about words and language. To prepare for The Dictionary Story, he visited Oxford University Press, where the Oxford English Dictionary is actually written; he was shown a physical room and told, “‘This is where all the words that aren’t in the dictionary are kept.’ I [thought], Wow, that’s a really beautiful metaphor for how language has a shoreline of what you can and what you can’t say. And our hope is that this book is basically a little bit of that.” Winston urges young people to experiment with those boundaries. “The creative world is just an inch away. Anything can become a story.”

Jeffers and Winston hope that readers of The Dictionary Story will come away eager to play with words, just as the authors did when they worked on the book. Jeffers waxes rhapsodic about his and Winston’s joyful experiences, referring to their collaboration as a “room for play, or as you call it, the sandpit, when we would get together. You can create a sandpit anywhere.” Addressing Winston, he says, “I remember what my daughter said when you were here and her grandmother showed up. She said, ‘Granny, this is Sam. Don’t tell anybody, but he’s secretly a big kid.’”

Winston says, “In Taoism, they’ve got this idea of an uncarved block. Inside, there is every possible sculpture. And for me, that’s what the dictionary is. It’s all the stories, but we haven’t sorted out the punctuation and the order. Hopefully, people see it as a steppingstone into creative writing.”

Are You Nobody Too?

Cane, Tina | Make Me a World (320 pp.)

$17.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593567012

An eighth grader in Greenwich Village finds solace in a kindred spirit during turbulent times.

Emily has loved books ever since leaving the orphanage in China to live with her white adoptive parents. But now that she’s been forced to move to Chien-Shiung Wu School (“named for a physicist who… // …was a total badass”), reading is a lifeline. Losing touch with her best friends and the scariness of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic are bad enough. Even worse: Almost everyone at her new school speaks Cantonese and is already learning Mandarin. It’s just Emily and a few white and Black kids who are beginning speakers. Her family expects her to feel grateful for a chance to “get in touch with her roots.” Instead she feels exposed, embarrassed by her lack of cultural and linguistic knowledge. Amid her loneliness, she discovers Emily Dickinson, whose poems help her process complicated feelings about adoption, loss, race, and belonging. There’s also a mysterious connection between the two Emilys—could Dickinson’s ghost be guiding Emily to open up to new possibilities like making friends? Many readers will find this verse novel’s approach to Dickinson’s poems illuminating: They’re riddles to be solved, presented alongside contemporary Emily’s rephrased passages. Insights from adults in Emily’s life offer wisdom that readers may find thought provoking, although they may wish for some

humor to offer occasional reprieve from the heavy themes. Concisely captures big, serious ideas about life and relationships. (books and art referenced) (Verse fiction. 11-14)

Kirkus Star

Fighting Words

Carranza, Leonarda | Illus. by Erika Medina | Annick Press (32 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781773219011

A boy’s anger literally buzzes to life and runs amok in the shape of words.

When Ali notices his cousin Ama mistreating his insect book, he moves to snatch it from her hands. During the skirmish, a page gets ripped out. In anger, Ali lets loose a yell; scrawled letters unexpectedly fill the air. His rage builds until he screams, “I HATE YOU!!!” The anthropomorphized letters quickly jump into action, attacking Ama and tearing up the couch and Abuelita’s special cushions. Despite Ali’s objections, the letters continue their fiendish assault. Soon, the devious letters go outside, smashing bushes and flowers. One letter even attempts to hurt a bee! Inspired by his insect book and joined by Ama and Abuelita, Ali rushes to stop the letters with a net, learning how best to release his anger along the way. Adopting a refreshingly empathetic perspective, Carranza adroitly depicts Ali’s transformation. The child’s wrath turns to observation—of the impact of hurtful words uttered amid a cloud of pain— and then to a recognizable potential to undo unintended emotional wounds

Concisely captures big, serious ideas about life and relationships. ARE YOU NOBODY TOO?

while still acknowledging that initial anger. Overall, it’s an excellent message to potential anger-prone readers, wrapped in an understanding tone. Medina’s brisk, dynamic artwork whisks the action from page to page, boasting humorous creature letters with mean smiles and gruff frowns. The brownskinned characters read as Latine. A perceptive consideration of the effects of anger—and a much-needed blueprint for how to deal with them. (Picture book. 4-7)

The Secret Office

Cassidy, Sara | Illus. by Alyssa Hutchings Orca (88 pp.) | $8.95 paper | Aug. 13, 2024 9781459839465 | Series: Orca Echoes

A capable pair of siblings show initiative and perseverance as they help their mother and themselves. Nine-year-old twins Henry and Allie love their apartment building, which feels like a “big hug,” but their afternoon activities there are now circumscribed. Their mother, Sam, needs quiet and privacy to work from their small quarters. The impressive duo, responsible for minor cookery and laundry, don’t complain; they look for solutions. They seek out headphones for Sam so they won’t hear the disembodied voices of her co-workers. When they discover a mysterious locked basement room, they resolve to turn it into an office for Sam. With determination, cleverness, hard work, and luck, they overcome financial and situational obstacles. Minor plot thickeners include their discovering that a Black woman architect designed the building, the superintendent’s reconnecting with an old friend, and Henry’s learning to discipline a neighbor’s exuberant poodle. The narrative is lively and well paced, with admirable characters and conflicts that are neatly but believably wrapped up. The family is deeply committed to safeguarding the environment: They walk rather than drive, and they make a point of

avoiding aerosol cans, which can’t be recycled. The twins are big on sharing and caring; Allie reads a book on manners, and Henry makes clear that he’s “allergic to lying.” Realistically detailed, cartoonstyle black-and-white drawings help set the scene. The twins present white; the cast is diverse.

A gently told, wholesome adventure in apartment living. (Chapter book. 6-8)

Aiko and the Planet of Dogs

Cayuso, Ainhoa | Illus. by Christoffer Ellegaard | Trans. by Irene Vázquez Levine Querido (32 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781646144648

Space exploration gets wacky with an unexpected discovery.

Young astronaut Aiko lives by herself aboard Spaceship B-Troot; she travels the universe searching for life. When Aiko spots a new planet, she comes in for a landing. It’s a bumpy ride, but she makes it. She transfers to an octopuslike “exploratory capsule” to safely scope things out. At first, Aiko doesn’t see anything. But when she finds the perfect spot for a selfie and poses to take it, she accidentally falls from a cliff, and the capsule breaks. Alone, Aiko wanders until she gets lost, then falls asleep. The next day, she awakens, surrounded by a bevy of talking pooches—descendants of the “valiant astro-dogs sent into space by humans.” Aiko wants to rush back to Earth to share her discovery. The dogs, still understandably wary of humans, imprison Aiko. But when she proves that she’s trustworthy, they agree to let her go—and Aiko promises not to tell anyone about the planet of dogs. But, as the narrator asks, can readers keep the secret? This French import is a fun spin on what might have happened to real-life space dogs. Buoyed by whimsy and a distinct candy-color palette, Ellegaard’s cartoon illustrations mix full-page spreads and comiclike panels. Aiko, who has pale skin, is delightfully childlike in both appearance and action.

An imaginative treat for dogs and humans alike. (Picture book. 4-8)

Stokes: The Brief Career of the NBA’s First Black Superstar

Chapman, Ty & John Coy | Illus. by Lonnie Ollivierre | Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.)

$19.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781728492490

A wrenching tale of glittering prospects cut short by mischance.

“Nobody had ever seen a guy his size score, defend, rebound, dribble, and pass so well.” Some may quibble with the authors’ decision to bill Maurice Stokes as the NBA’s “First Black Superstar,” but they convincingly contend that his versatility changed the game for Black players. Moreover, few if any basketball players of any race have had a stronger start to their careers— which makes it all the more tragic that he suffered a head injury during the last game of the 1957-58 season (his third as a pro) that left him paralyzed from the neck down. With therapy, he did eventually regain limited movement. Along with providing an inspiring example of hard work in the face of overwhelming obstacles, this brief account presents a moving friendship tale. Stokes’ white teammate Jack Twyman not only stepped up to help make financial arrangements for his care for the remaining 12 years of his life, but he also co-organized the first of what became an annual fundraiser game. In realistically modeled painted scenes, Ollivierre depicts racially diverse teams and figures with individualized, animated features; Stokes lights up the room before and after the accident, and before a closing recap with photos, he joins some of his successors in a final lineup of recognizable basketball luminaries from Bill Russell to Shaquille O’Neal and Stephen Curry.

A poignant might have been, worth remembering and still as cogent as ever. (source notes, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)

Message in the Mooncake

Chow, Sapphire | Illus. by Xiaojie Liu

Barefoot Books (32 pp.) | $17.99

Oct. 1, 2024 | 9798888592281

A young girl plays a part in resisting Mongolian occupation in Yuan dynasty China.

As Su-Ling and her Ma-Ma shop in the market, Su-Ling excitedly tries out her kung fu Tiger Kick. Their experience is somewhat tainted by the presence of a Mongolian guard; to prevent revolts, a law forbids Chinese people from gathering. Back at home, Pa-Pa informs them that there is indeed a rebellion planned. The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, and messages with the time of the rebellion will be distributed inside mooncakes. Unfortunately, the guards might search adults carrying the traditional treats. So Su-Ling volunteers to make the delivery to her uncle Ming. Pa-Pa instructs Su-Ling to light a green lantern to signal a successful delivery or a red one to call off the revolt. Su-Ling sets out, but the same guard from the market soon spots her. Su-Ling plays it cool, though inside she’s anxious, and her quick thinking saves the day and allows her to proudly carry a green lantern home. Throughout, tiger imagery symbolizes her inner strength and courage. Chow’s well-paced narrative effectively builds suspense. Liu portrays characters with exaggerated proportions and uses bold colors and textures to make the pages pop with movement. Backmatter notes that the story is based on a well-known legend and discusses the Mongol occupation, the Mid-Autumn Festival, kung fu, and mooncakes. An appealing retelling of a notable folktale. (timeline, author’s and illustrator’s notes) (Picture book. 5-8)

For another mooncake story, visit Kirkus online.

Paint With Ploof

Clanton, Ben & Andy Chou Musser | Tundra Books (56 pp.) | $18.99 | Oct. 29, 2024

9781774881941 | Series: Ploof, 2

The adorable anthropomorphic cloud introduced in Ploof (2023) returns for more interactive fun. Ploof is ready to create a rainbow but needs some help. An unseen narrator asks readers to lend a hand: “Let’s begin with a rainbow shape. Do you see any?” “Can you try blocking the wind?” Children become an integral part of moving the plot forward as they “mix” colors for the rainbow and provide Ploof with words of encouragement. The rainbow doesn’t turn out how Ploof wanted it to, so readers give the cloud a moment to cry (rain falls from Ploof) and take deep breaths. The book ends on a positive note with an invitation to play again. Ploof is a sweet and approachable little cloud, with large eyes and a simple smile. Set against a pale blue background, the puffy cumulus paints the sky with swaths of pastel rainbow colors. Not only are the questions and physical interactions a nice fit for the toddler and preschool crowd, but the story also offers sound guidance on coping with uncomfortable feelings. It’s an ideal option for caregivers to read aloud one-on-one and for teachers to share with a group of students. Engaging, appealing, and validating— social-emotional learning done right. (Picture book. 2-4)

Team Chu and the Wild Ghost Chase

Dao, Julie C. | Illus. by Chi Ngo | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) | $19.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 9780374388850 | Series: Team Chu, 3

and sister Iggy and Marta Morales—are invited to enter Tuba, their feline TikTok sensation, in the Spooky World Pet Gala fashion show, Vietnamese American siblings Clip and Sadie Chu are thrilled to tag along. But it turns out that the theme park is famed for more than the pet show: It’s also the haunt of the ghostly Weeping Lady, who pops up all over, including in mirrors, leaving behind a trail of water. But who was she, and why isn’t she moving on? The search for answers sends the group of friends scrambling all over sprawling Spooky World, including a few places that are off-limits to younger guests. The story’s suspenseful moments come more from the inventively terrifying rides and other attractions than supernatural events, making this work appropriate for those seeking milder frights. Dao also explores conflicts and anxieties involving Sadie’s efforts to hide her struggles in middle school (thanks to placement tests that landed her in too many advanced classes) and a friendship rift between Clip and his bestie over the quest to become soccer team captain. All fences are neatly mended in time for the story to wrap up on a buoyant note. Ngo’s occasional illustrations add to the atmosphere. Friends negotiate bumpy relationships against a backdrop of gentle chills and thrills. (Adventure. 8-12)

Our Joyful Noise

Davis, Gabriele | Illus. by Craig Stanley | Atheneum (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781665920919

Is a Halloweenthemed amusement park haunted by a real ghost? A squad of young sleuths takes on the case. When their friends—brother

Beloved Black spirituals and other songs have inspired this picture book centered on cherishing the soulful, jazzy sounds of everyday family life.

“We move to the sounds / that FLOW through our days.” Laced with onomatopoeia, the story follows a multigenerational suburban Black family over the course of a week, from home to school to the park, and more. The children awaken to Mama humming “as

she / PLOP, PLOP, PLOPS / freshpicked berries into the pot,” while their feet make a “PUMPA, PUMPA, PUMPA” sound as they race to the school bus. Stanley’s realistic digitally rendered illustrations depict warm, immersive scenes of a soul food family dinner, Sunday church service, and a father soothing his children into a good night’s rest. Davis concludes with an annotated bibliography of sorts, spotlighting some of the songs that are sampled throughout: “Oh Happy Day,” “My Favorite Things,” “Wade in the Water,” and the relatively more recent “Joy in My Soul.” Driven by the harmonious and graceful notes of Black social life, the narrative focuses on moments of shared joys certain to help this family through even the most challenging times.

Music has a message, and in this charming tale, the message is love. (Picture book. 4-8)

Pablo and Splash

Dempsey, Sheena | Bloomsbury (240 pp.) $12.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781547616176

Series: Pablo and Splash, 1

In a tale that ranges through space and time, two Antarctic penguins in search of warmer climes fall afoul of technology with a taste for pranks.

Sick of the cold (she huddles in the middle of the flock and sports a cozy hat and scarf to boot), Splash chivies her cautious, krill-loving buddy, Pablo, into joining her in a waddling exodus that’s cut short when the two fall into a hole in the ice. Happily, at the bottom lies a hidden lab where lightskinned, pink-haired genius Professor O’Brain has just put the finishing touches on a device she dubs the TimeBender—a name that doesn’t quite do the talking vehicle justice: Responding to Splash’s yen for “somewhere hot,” it hies the dumbfounded duo off to the Sun, where they are moderately singed, and then back to an Earthly beach…in the Cretaceous period.

Casting Pablo as the long-suffering straight penguin opposite his reckless, but not entirely feckless, counterpart, Dempsey plays the pair nicely against each another. One picks up the slack through numerous misadventures whenever the other melts down, and the comical banter never lets up. The tale, as light and cheery as the cleanly drawn cartoon panels, ends where it began, with the travelers lounging beneath the southern lights and chowing down on krill pops. The author even appends drawing lessons and notes on all the toothy prehistoric creatures who nearly had penguin for dinner.

A “krilly” entertaining odyssey. (Graphic adventure. 7-10)

Still There Was Bread

Detlefsen,

Lisl

H.

|

Illus.

by David

Soman | Harper/HarperCollins

(40 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9780063216556

Nana spends a cozy morning teaching her grandchild how to make their family’s special pull-apart bread. The recipe for “Nana rolls” has been in the family for generations, and finally it’s the grandchild’s turn to learn. As they gather ingredients, Nana tells the child narrator—affectionately referred to as Little Pickle—the story of how her own Nana made the bread: She gathered eggs from the chicken coop, milked the cow, and stirred the dough with a wooden spoon instead of using the stand mixer that Little Pickle can turn on with the push of a button. Nana reflects on how the sharing of bread kept the family connected even when they were physically apart. Even through tough times, “still there was bread.” Nana and Little Pickle talk about the many reasons people bake together, and Nana lists types of bread made around the world: focaccia, challah, naan, fry bread, and more. Cheerful, immersive pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations bathe Nana and Little Pickle in sunlight and emanate the warmth of the kitchen as they bake. This sweet story is full of heart, spotlighting the importance of intergenerational connections

A mouthwatering celebration of family, sharing, and fresh-baked bread.

STILL THERE WAS BREAD

and the comfort of home. The characters read white.

A mouthwatering celebration of family, sharing, and, of course, delicious, fresh-baked bread. (author’s note, Grandma Moe’s recipe for Nana rolls) (Picture book. 3-6)

Jonty Gentoo: The Adventures of a Penguin

Donaldson, Julia | Illus. by Axel Scheffler | Scholastic (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781546134206

Jonty Gentoo, a brave, determined zoo penguin, embarks on an epic journey. When Jonty Gentoo hears about penguin colonies at the South Pole, he yearns to go there. Eventually he escapes, leaving his loving aunts (no parents are mentioned) and caring keepers in search of adventure. Unclear on the concept of a geographic pole (he’s initially confused when he encounters a flagpole, a barge pole, and a tent pole) and tired of walking, he jumps into the sea and delightedly swims through sparkling, food-filled waters. But when he emerges onto the ice, he finds no penguins, even after weeks pass. Bearded seals threaten to eat him, and the polar bear who saves him breaks the news: Jonty has traveled north. A tern accustomed to globe-spanning migration offers guidance, and “the bird in the sea and the bird in the air” travel south. Exhausted, Jonty lucks onto an Antarctic expedition ship and is taken aboard. On land he sees emperor and Adélie penguins and finally a “heartwarming huddle of gorgeous gentoos.” The story is heartwarming, too,

and the rhythms rock us through the miles of migration with reassuring and spot-on rhymes. Jonty and the bear are accurately depicted, though slightly anthropomorphized. Scheffler’s firmly outlined art gives humans (who vary in skin tone) flat profiles but depicts whales, swordfish, owl, seals, and more in beautiful color and detail.

The small hero’s grit and happy ending guarantee another success for this popular author and illustrator duo. (Picture book. 4-8)

Christmas Forever: Escape to the North Pole

Dutton, Elysa | Illus. by Manu Montoya Random House (40 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9780593430989

Five beloved Christmas ornaments attempt a daring escape. Every year a family (referred to as “the humans”) decorate their tree with a macaroni angel, a star, a brownskinned ice skater, a snowman, and a tan-skinned gnomelike creature. The ornaments love the festivities but are sad that they spend most of their time in a storage box. Christmas is so exciting that they want it to last all year long. But the North Pole is the only place where that can happen. So the ornaments hatch a plan to sneak into Santa’s sleigh when he visits and finally fulfill their dreams of an endless Christmas. Tiptoeing across garlands and sliding down candy canes, they descend the tree. But they have a nemesis to foil—the cat. Unfortunately, one ornament is left behind. Do the others go on or turn back and give up a

Kirkus Star

life of Christmas cookies, hot tubs filled with hot cocoa, and presents galore? Animated vignettes showcase each step of the intrepid journey. Telling the story from the ornaments’ perspective offers an intriguing twist. Young readers may unpack their favorite decorations and view them in a whole new light this year. The human characters—who sleep through everything—are depicted with varying shades of brown skin. A creative Christmas caper. (Picture book. 3-6)

The Flicker

Edgmon, H.E. | Feiwel & Friends (288 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781250873972

In a world devastated by a solar flare, siblings embark on a perilous journey across a scorched landscape.

Stepsisters Millie and Rose are alone, caring for their baby half brother, Sammy. They decide to join forces with a multiracial band of survivors calling themselves the Lost Boys—drama camp counselor Ben and his theater troupe—as they navigate the treacherous remnants of the Appalachian wilderness. The girls hope to reach South Carolina and Millie’s maternal grandma, a Seminole elder. Millie’s struggle to preserve her Seminole heritage amid the chaos contrasts sharply with Rose’s attempts to suppress her grief and memories of her late daddy, who was white. Rose grapples with memories tied to her daddy’s stories of the Sanctuary, a mysterious community of survivors he’d hoped to reach. As the journey progresses, Rose explores questions of gender identity. Their journey is fraught with danger, especially from the Hive, a sinister and exploitative corporate group. An encounter with the Hive becomes a matter of life or death for the Lost Boys and the siblings and leads to the shocking truth about the Sanctuary. The

transformation from vulnerable children to resourceful young adults culminates in a dramatic confrontation with the Hive. Edgmon’s middle-grade debut skillfully blends action and emotion, offering a compelling look at what it means to pull away from climate defeatism.

A compelling coming-of-age story focused on cultural heritage, gender, and chosen family. (Post-apocalyptic. 10-14)

Squirrel-ish

Edlund, Bambi | Owlkids Books (32 pp.)

$18.95 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781771475174

A rat tries to masquerade as a squirrel.

“You know who has it easy?” the rat asks readers. “Squirrels.” Rats get chased with brooms or sprayed with water, and they elicit screams. Squirrels, on the other hand, get free peanuts at the park. After realizing that squirrels and rats aren’t physically all that different, the rat attempts to alter its appearance until it lands on a guise that’s convincing and squirrel-ish enough. Unfortunately, even the dogs are fooled, and they pursue our hero with a resounding and excited “SQUIRREL!” The protagonist narrates in first person, directly addressing readers, which will make little ones feel like the rat’s buddy—a choice that’s sure to have them giggling along. The cartoon illustrations are highly appealing and crucial to the storytelling, as when the rat’s makeshift squirrel tail (fashioned from dry spaghetti noodles) gets wet in the rain. The rat’s whole face is expressive, right down to its ears, and the comic-book feel of some of the layouts

conveys action and keeps the pace moving. There’s also plenty for adults to enjoy: After the rat’s broomstick tail becomes a hit, the rodent ponders starting a “Re-Tail Store.” All readers will smile as a squirrel longingly watches the rat easily dodge an eager pup and sighs: “Rats have it sooo easy.”

A perfectly goofy, inviting testament to the familiar adage about the grass being greener on the other side. (Picture book. 4-6)

Matt Sprouts and the Day Nora Ate the Sun

Eicheldinger, Matthew | Andrews McMeel Publishing (304 pp.) | $12.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781524888718

Series: Matt Sprouts, 2

An unusually perspicacious goat helps a Colorado seventh grader build character in this tumultuous summer fling. As in Matt Sprouts and the Curse of the Ten Broken Toes (2024), Eicheldinger embeds insistent messages about the importance of kindness and empathy into a contrived (if generally entertaining) ruckus. Looking for a summer job that isn’t labor-intensive but mindful of his dad’s requirement that it should “build character,” Matt agrees to tend Nora, a neighboring farmer’s googlyeyed goat, for eight days. After first discovering that Nora will eat anything from shoes to his girlfriend Grace’s science project and can escape any pen, even one secured with a combination lock, he goes on to learn—from interactions with the

Siblings embark on a perilous journey across a scorched landscape.

THE FLICKER

oddly reticent new kid, Bobby Joe—the truth of his mother’s repeated observation that the best way to understand others is to learn what’s in their (metaphorical) backpack. Led by Nora, who turns out to be a good listener as well as comic relief, a lively cast buoys the tale and proves bighearted enough to show general willingness to make and accept apologies. As a result, all conflicts arising due to mishaps and misunderstandings are dispelled in the end. The human cast is largely cued as white in both narrative and occasional humorous cartoon line drawings. Lesson heavy but leavened with humor and humanity. (Fiction. 10-13)

Merry Christmas, Zoo

Eickholdt, Lisa & Lola M. Schaefer | Illus. by Laura Watkins | Chronicle Books (40 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781797216560

Animals deserve merry Christmases, too. This cheery story, expressed in bouncy verse, will not only entertain young readers, but also open their eyes to a most delightful behind-the-scenes practice that goes on at holiday time in many zoos. If kids enjoy visiting zoos around the winter holidays, they may well witness the evidence of the activities discussed here. Opening with a riff on Clement C. Moore’s classic “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” the narrative describes the efforts of zoo personnel and many volunteers as they prepare “Christmas presents” for the animals in their charge. Treats including fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats are cut into holiday shapes, and toys, for play and enrichment opportunities, are giftwrapped, decorated, and delivered by Santa so that the animals can enjoy nourishing, healthy snacks and revel in entertaining fun. Giraffes munch on kale wreaths; otters, penguins, and polar bears enjoy fish encased in ice blocks; tigers pounce on papier-mâché “zebras”; seals play with balls; and hippos chew edible stars off trees in their enclosures.

And, like many young children and pets, zoo animals adore ripping up wrapping paper and ribbon. The dynamic, colorful digital illustrations will elicit big smiles from animal lovers. Human characters are diverse in terms of age and race; Santa presents white.

A winning treat for yuletide collections and displays. (information on how real zoos observe Christmas) (Picture book. 4-8)

Barnaby Unboxed!

Fan, Terry, Eric Fan & Devin Fan

Tundra Books (80 pp.) | $19.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781774882436

Reprising The Barnabus Project (2020), the Fan brothers revisit the reopened Perfect Pets store, which sells adorable boxed creatures with engineered, interactive personalities. Barnaby, “half mouse and half elephant, with just a dash of flamingo,” is anxious about the exciting new Perfect Pets on offer. As the last Barnaby on the shelf, will he ever be chosen? Then, a light-skinned little girl does just that. At first, the pair are inseparable. She reads him bedtime stories; he helps her with chores. And every Saturday morning, they watch Barnaby and Friends (our hero is a branded tie-in to this popular TV show). Everything changes one day when they tune in to find that Barnaby’s been replaced by new “Rainbow Barnaby.” When the girl’s father won’t buy the colorful new Pet, the girl’s interest in plain pink Barnaby wanes. As her father walks him one rainy Saturday, Barnaby slips his collar, intending to run away just “long enough for people to miss him.” Days become months. Barnaby escapes a feline “orange beast,” discovers other lost Pets in a dumpster, and encounters his Rainbow doppelgänger, who disparages Barnaby’s dirty, now-gray fur. In the park, squirrels teach Barnaby their wild ways, sheltering him all winter. Spring brings a reunion with the searching girl, who reawakens Barnaby’s memories. The

Fans’ deft pictures combine intricate details and ground-level perspective, conveying empathy for children and the even smaller creatures that populate their world. Human characters are diverse.

Joy, despair, reunion, community— delightfully, all here. (Picture book. 4-9)

Kirkus Star

Kwame Crashes the Underworld

Farmer, Craig Kofi | Roaring Brook Press (352 pp.) | $17.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781250900265

A grieving 12-year-old from North Carolina finds comfort, a sense of purpose, and epic adventures in the afterlife. Kwame is reluctant to travel with his parents to Ghana for a celebration of the life of his beloved, sorely missed grandmother. He feels out of place there, not Ghanaian enough for his relatives. So what changes his mind? Perhaps it’s meeting his grandmother as a dynamic child of about his age following an involuntary leap into the underworld of Asamando? Or learning that he carries a fragment of Asase Yaa, Mother Earth? Or it might be facing threats including a sea monster and Asase’s conniving sons Tano the river god and Nansi the trickster. He also repeatedly rescues and is rescued by his game-loving, longtime bestie, Autumn Choi, who leaps intrepidly after him from the living world brandishing a sword she bought online and a fierce attitude honed by years of being bullied for being hard of hearing (the friends communicate using ASL) as well as Black and Korean. Ultimately, Kwame understands that he’s American by birth but Ghanian by heritage—and that, through his connection with Asase, he’s charged with everyone on Earth. Debut author Farmer tells a grand tale, funny and terrifying in turns, steeped in

Ghanaian spirituality and folklore, and wrapped around themes of identity, obligation, true friendship, and devastating loss. Readers will come away admiring Kwame and the redoubtable Autumn.

Heroic feats aplenty amid explorations of rich cultural and personal landscapes. (map, author’s note, glossary) (Fantasy. 9-13)

Amazing Grapes

Feiffer, Jules | Michael di Capua/ HarperCollins (296 pp.) | $29.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780062963833

A traumatized family heals most of its cracks as it bumbles from Meanyopolis to Truphoria. It’s been more than six decades since Feiffer illustrated Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, but he’s still sending young people into metaphorical fantasy realms to meet quirky residents and bumble along on personal quests toward self-actualization. Here, the horrifying prospect of getting a new dad, home, and siblings propels quarrelsome Pearlie and contrary little brother Curly into the Lost Dimension of Ephemera. They’re followed by older sister Shirley with her hunky but dimwitted fiance, Earl, and finally their indecisive mom, who sings the titular song (“I cried, I sighed, / alone, I’d moan, / ’twas grapes / that set me free”). Mommy, in a protracted search for her true identity, becomes the real protagonist. Or at least, by the end, she sends her children on their ways and evinces the most change among the characters. Accompanied by a dog/cat named Kelly and a wildly mutable monster representing

doubt (or something like it), various members of the clan encounter locals, from the Feary (“rhymes with scary”) Queen to an attacking troupe of dapper, dancing, deadly Elegantics. The story culminates in a wedding and a last reprise of the theme song. In the art dialogue balloons, bright colors and scribbly lines feature more prominently than the human figures, who are posed with balletic grace. Main characters present white.

Imaginative and dazzlingly theatrical at the end, though on the long and wandering side. (Graphic fantasy. 11-16)

A Moving Story

Ferry, Beth & Tom Lichtenheld | Illus. by Tom Booth | Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.)

$19.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780063218666

A little panda’s most treasured possession is misplaced as movers pack up her family’s belongings.

The bear brothers Pete and Tiny—of Gentle Giant Movers—are tailor-made for their jobs. They’re strong and organized, with a soft touch. Moving day at the Panda family’s house seems to be going smoothly until the littlest panda realizes that her pet turtle is missing, just as the last box is stored tightly in the back of the moving truck. Remembering their mantra that “nothing and no one [is] too small or too slight to treat just right,” the brawny bears unpack every last box and search every item. The story has a happy ending, which makes important points for little readers who may be feeling jittery about an upcoming move: Every single belonging will be

carefully packed and retrieved, and every family member—even pets— will be accounted for. Pete and Tiny are an adorable pair, with wide grins, matching uniforms, and white-gloved paws. The illustrations capture details such as labels on boxes and the punny tagline on the brothers’ truck, “The Bearers of Good Moves.” Hazy pastel pinks and purple shadows masterfully mark the passage of time as the sun sets on a long day of packing.

A reassuring message delivered in an endearing package. (Picture book. 4-6)

Mr. Round and Mr. Square

Fitti, Patricia | Clavis (32 pp.)

$19.95 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9798890630810

It’s all in how you look at things. Orangeskinned Mr. Round and beige-skinned Mr. Square live opposite each other. Everything about them suits their respective names: Mr. Round’s face, house, and car are round. Mr. Square’s face, spectacles, hat, house, and car are square, as are his dog and plants. The guys perceive things differently, too. When a bird flutters by Mr. Round’s window, he observes that the animal is close by, but Mr. Square retorts, “NO! The bird is far away.” And as the two neighbors gaze at an array of animals, Mr. Round concludes that the dog is last in line. From Mr. Square’s perspective, however, “The dog is first in line.” Both are perfectly correct in their respective judgments. Young children will have a wonderful time meeting these jovial neighbors and exploring basic math concepts (shapes, quantities, spatial relationships, distances, perception, and relativity) as well as colors. But there’s another message here, and we’re not just talking math. At the end of the day, seeing things differently—and being OK with that—is what life’s all about and what unites neighbors. Witness these fellows’ final convivial picnic. This winning charmer, originally published in

Belgium and the Netherlands and translated from Dutch, includes lively, colorful illustrations incorporating fonts that reflect the protagonists’ shapes; the book uses rounded type for Mr. Round’s dialogue and a sharper, squared type for Mr. Square’s.

Don’t be a square: Everyone gather round for this adorable concept book. (Picture book. 3-6)

Knots

Frakes, Colleen | HarperAlley (240 pp.)

$24.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780063247178

A preteen’s tangled hair becomes symbolic of her life.

Twelve-year-old Norah, hoping to look cool for her first day of middle school, begs her mom’s permission to dye her thick, dark hair blond. Despite being told it’s a job for a professional, Norah attempts to bleach it herself. Her younger sister, Lark, tells her she looks “like a gerbil”— but Norah fixes the disastrous results by dyeing her hair blue. School isn’t as bad as Norah fears, until a classmate shares a story of parental neglect that results in already-anxious Norah and her peers being interviewed by a police officer. When a conflict of interest relating to her prison guard parents’ jobs means Norah’s mom and Lark will move away from Eastern Washington for the rest of the school year, her dad’s overtime hours leave Norah mostly on her own. Despite her parents’ belief that she’s the “good kid” who’s ready for this much independence, Norah struggles. Another disastrous attempt to dye her own hair draws unwanted attention from her teacher and makes her worry about Child Protective Services. Frakes offers a sympathetic portrait of Norah and her conflicted, realistic family, who read white, but the story is short on plot. Norah continues to feel responsible for adult problems while being unable to change her family’s narrative; only her hair gets better. The vibrant,

Much-needed encouragement to look up and see the world!

LOOK

expressive drawings ably carry much of the setting and characterization. A sympathetic slice-of-life story. (author’s note, additional comics, photos) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Bookie and Cookie

Gómez, Blanca | Rocky Pond Books/Penguin (40 pp.) | $18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593696804

Bookie and Cookie are two best friends who inhabit the facing pages of a book. Brown-skinned Bookie lives on the left-hand page and pale-skinned Cookie on the right. True to their names, Bookie loves to read and Cookie is an accomplished baker. They spend lots of time together, but Bookie soon notices they always meet on Cookie’s side. Bookie invites Cookie over to his page, but Cookie resists, insisting his page is nice and there is no reason to change. When pressed, Cookie admits he doesn’t like Bookie’s page because it’s unfamiliar. Upset, Bookie storms off, leaving both sad and alone. Each friend tries to think up a way to get the other over to their side to reconcile. Bookie tries his hand at making his own batch of cookies, using a recipe from a book, of course, and the trepidatious Cookie decides to try something new—having a cookie with Bookie on the left-hand page. Bookie and Cookie demonstrate that conflict between friends isn’t a deal breaker, but rather an opportunity to deepen a relationship and practice flexibility. Illustrations are bright and charming, crafted from a delightful array of bold shapes that add playful details to the story. The book emphasizes that understanding and compromise are essential for resolving conflicts and strengthening friendships. Social-emotional learning done right. (Picture book. 3-7)

UP!

Look Up!: Fontaine the Pigeon Starts a Revolution

Gondolfi, Britt | Illus. by Amanda Romanick Paw Prints Publishing/Baker & Taylor (32 pp.)

$18.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9781223188089

Poo on you! Literally. Fontaine the pigeon is fed up with screenobsessed humans’ obliviousness to the world, so he convenes a meeting of the birds. Their unanimous decision: Drop poo on malefactors who glance down at their phones. “Targets” will be forced to look up after bombardment! Following the first “hit,” a mother quickly glances up, curious about “that bizarre scream,” because Fontaine has issued a battle cry—“VIVA LA REVOLUTION!” No screen remains untouched because, when someone glances down, “a glob of bird poop” knocks their phone to the ground. Finally, a child says, “I think these birds want us to give these phones a rest.” Everyone realizes they’ve forgotten nature, the importance of using their words—and each other. The moral: Thank the birds, and “when you are outside, keep your phone in your pocket…and your eyes up and wide.” Children will giggle at this tongue-in-cheek rhyming tale, set in New Orleans, and will hopefully get the point, which applies to adults, too: Screen time should be minimized and engaging with the world optimized. While the consequences outlined here are mined for exaggerated humor, this serious idea should spark conversations. The colorful, graphic novel–like illustrations are appealing and incorporate creative typefaces and speech bubbles; human characters are diverse. Much-needed encouragement to look up and see the world! (Picture book. 5-8)

SEEN AND HEARD

Picture Book by Jennifer Aniston Coming This Fall

Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life will be the actor’s first book.

Jennifer Aniston will make her literary debut later this year with a children’s picture book inspired by a special dog.

HarperCollins will publish Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life, written by Aniston and illustrated by Bruno Jacob, in the fall, the press announced in a news release. It describes the book as a “relatable and heartwarming story.”

In 2021, the Emmy Award–winning Friends actor introduced the character Clydeo, an animated dog based on her own canine companion, Clyde. Clydeo, which was developed by the the animation studio Invisible Universe, currently boasts more than 48,000 followers on Instagram.

In the book, HarperCollins says, Clydeo tries to find a hobby that will hold his interest. “Clydeo doesn’t love to surf like his uncle,” the publisher says. “He isn’t into painting blindfolded like his cousin. And digging for dinosaur bones like his aunt is definitely not his thing. Clydeo tries everything he can think of, but nothing seems to make his world sparkle. Will Clydeo ever find what he loves to do most?”

Aniston said in a statement, “I could not be more thrilled to

For more celebrity picture books, visit Kirkus online.

be taking Clydeo and his stories to publishing, where he will hopefully inspire children and dog lovers alike with his adorable journey to find his true passion.”

Clydeo Takes a Bite Out of Life is slated for publication on Oct. 1.

—MICHAEL SCHAUB

Jennifer Aniston

5 Picture Books To Help Build HumansBetter

The Rescues Best Day Ever

Greenwald, Tommy & Charlie Greenwald Illus. by Shiho Pate | Red Comet Press (48 pp.) | $14.00 | Sept. 17, 2024 9781636551173 | Series: The Rescues, 2

Stressful new adventures provide opportunities for three rescue pets to comfort and support each other.

A series of tersely told episodes that are spread out over the pages in easily digestible bits follow an adorable trio: a cat named Tiger and two dogs named Moose and Bear. The pets accompany their brown-skinned human, Cathy, to a new place (the vet’s), where they are painlessly “poked, squeezed, and checked,” then later fret when Cathy goes out without them—but finally enjoy a group cuddle when she comes back. In between, Tiger and Bear squabble over a favorite chair at naptime until Moose urges them to share, and a thunderstorm becomes less scary when Bear tells the other two that the “alien elephants” outside are afraid of moose and tigers. In Pate’s luminous, freely brushed illustrations, the feelings of the very young-looking animals are patent on their expressive faces at each moment, and the authors, too, help out less analytical readers by having their characters both sum up the accumulated lessons explicitly (“Moose taught us how to share!”) and respond to Cathy’s closing “How was everyone’s day?” with a silent but fervent “It was the best day ever. Just like every day.”

Sweet, low-key lessons in togetherness. (Early chapter book. 5-8)

A wise, thought-provoking tale about the true meaning of charity.

THE MIDNIGHT MITZVAH

Step Into My Shoes

Halikia, Alkisti | Illus. by Fotini Tikkou

Lantana (32 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781915244925

A French child learns about empathy by trying on other people’s shoes and imagining what their lives are like.

Brown-skinned Matou walks to school alone every day now that Mom works in Paris. One Friday, school lets out early, and while heading home, Matou notices different kinds of shoes lined up outside the mosque, including a pair of pristine white and orange athletic shoes—almost Matou’s size! The child can’t resist trying them on. Later, after returning the shoes, Matou sees their owner, a well-dressed boy, getting into a sleek car. Maybe he doesn’t walk much, Matou thinks. Each week Matou tries on new shoes and ponders their owners’ circumstances until one Friday, Matou runs straight home—the child is planning to spend the afternoon with Mom! Excitement turns to anger when Mom gets home late. Now Matou must try to step into Mom’s shoes and consider her perspective. Halikia effectively sets up the story’s central conflict by showing Matou characterizing the shoes’ owners based on their footwear and trying to understand their points of view. Tikkou’s blend of digitally rendered illustrations and photographs creates visual interest and a touch of whimsy with an earth-toned palette and splashes of bright color.

A sweet tale grounded in teaching compassion and seeing the world from other perspectives. (Picture book. 5-9)

Popcorn

Harrell, Rob | Dial Books (288 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593697924

A middle schooler tries to survive his worst day ever. Seventh grader Andrew Yaeger has a lot on his mind. Money is tight, his beloved grandmother is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and the biggest bully in school is after him. To make matters worse, it’s picture day, and Andrew’s mom desperately wants one good photo of him. But after taking a basketball to the face in gym class, getting knocked into a trophy case by his bully, and getting sprayed with grape juice thanks to a friend’s explosive sneeze, Andrew’s anxiety starts to simmer. When he gets a call from his mom saying that his grandma has gone missing, his anxiety escalates from simmering to boiling— and he starts to wonder whether he can withstand the pressure. One bright spot is the presence of Aisha “Jonesy” Jones, his lifelong best friend— although their friendship is shifting as she spends more time with her basketball friends. Harrell’s conversational tone, snappy pacing, and realistic dialogue make each chapter eminently readable. The accompanying black-and-white doodles, notes, and comics lend humor to some serious situations. Harrell does a fantastic job of explaining the symptoms accompanying anxiety and panic attacks in simple terms, with Andrew feeling “like I’m in hot oil and I might pop” or “there’s a blue whale…crushing my chest.” Readers will also appreciate the accurate

depictions of talk therapy and of the tics that accompany Andrew’s OCD. Andrew is white; Jonesy is Black. Heartwarming, insightful, and surprisingly funny. (author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Star

Still Sal

Henkes, Kevin | Greenwillow Books (256 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780063389625

Series: A Miller Family Story

Sal Miller’s sense of self is shaken just before the start of first grade. The protagonist of Oh, Sal (2022) confronts new challenges. For one thing, Sal’s younger sister, Poppy, now 2, is sharing what used to be Sal ’s bedroom with her. And Sal’s high expectations for the first day of school are disappointed when her best friend and next-door neighbor, Griffen, is assigned to a different classroom. Griffen’s teacher, the charmingly named Ms. Flowers, seems pretty perfect. By contrast, in less bubbly Ms. McCormick’s class, Sal’s nametag mistakenly reads “Sally,” and Ms. McCormick’s tour of the school is fairly dull. Sal—bright and full of opinions and interest in the world around her—wears her feelings and hopes close to the surface. Fairly sophisticated language and observations stretch the target audience to include third and fourth graders for whom first grade may be a distant memory (or even, for some, never experienced in person). Henkes’ graceful, easy prose, sharp insights, and impressive ability to convey the way children think shine here. He invites readers to empathize with Sal, feeling her disappointment and annoyance with a world that doesn’t always understand her as well as the satisfaction with small victories that bring her back to herself: getting used to a major haircut and learning to connect with

Ms. McCormick. Spot art from Henkes is scattered throughout. Characters’ races and ethnicities aren’t mentioned; previous titles cued characters as white. A delightful, understated triumph. (Fiction. 6-10)

Wonder & Awe

Herzig, Annie | Paula Wiseman/ Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781665947534

On a snowy day, a child in a red coat creates a new pal. The young narrator rolls and stacks three balls out of snow, pops on blue earmuffs and a cape, and inserts a carrot nose, thus making a snowgirl called Wonder. Wonder comes alive and helps the child recognize the beauty all around. The girl realizes: “I’m in awe.” As winter goes on, the relationship deepens and the child is unaccountably sad when Wonder melts. The youngster cries in Mom’s arms; the world turns colorless until the child notices a golden feather and then a bird’s nest. The little one’s interest in creatures and people has been reawakened. The child enjoys a happy summer, engages with diverse classmates, and looks forward to reconnecting with Wonder as the weather turns cold. Illogically but magically, Wonder reappears without the child’s help. As the book comes to a close, the pair savor home-baked springerle cookies and hot drinks. The wintry, multimedia illustrations have a pinkish, yellowish, and bluish glow, illuminating the white snow. When Wonder disappears, gray descends, until the warm bright colors of summer come back when feelings and awe reenter the child’s life. This quiet seasonal story reminds readers to look to nature and the imagination for emotional support. Mom and child have light beige skin.

A friendship tale to keep readers warm all winter long—and beyond. (Picture book. 5-7)

The Midnight Mitzvah

Horowitz, Ruth | Illus. by Jenny Meilihove | Barefoot Books (32 pp.)

$17.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9798888592342

Helping others is a very fine thing to do. Hanina Chipmunk loves gathering nuts; she also enjoys the praise she receives for sharing them with others. But not everyone appreciates her thoughtfulness. Mathilda Squirrel gruffly rebuffs Hanina’s offerings. Leon Mouse explains that Mathilda, once a champion nut gatherer, isn’t so mobile anymore and feels self-conscious about requiring assistance. While helping is a mitzvah (or a good deed), so is not embarrassing someone while doing so. Hanina wonders how to accomplish both missions, finally deciding to work at night. Diurnal Hanina knows she’s violating forest rules by venturing out under cover of darkness, but contemplating hungry Mathilda emboldens her to work through startling nighttime forest noises. Even scarier is Hanina’s terrifying confrontation with the nocturnal Great Horned Owl—a chipmunk predator—who ultimately sympathizes with her explanation for the evening escapade. Released by the owl, Hanina delivers her bounty to Mathilda’s door at dawn. She hides when a delighted Mathilda, none the wiser, finds them. Heading home, Hanina concludes that helping someone secretly is best. This sweet, simply told story is based on a tale from the Talmud, one of Judaism’s central texts. It will resonate with children who are generally altruistic by nature; adults may want to encourage a pro-con discussion of clandestine generosity. Stylized illustrations, rendered in gouache, pencil, and crayon and featuring an all-animal cast, make wonderful use of color to depict day and night.

A wise, thought-provoking tale about the true meaning of charity. (information about the Talmud and giving, definitions of diurnal and nocturnal animals) (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

One Wise Sheep: An Untraditional Christmas Story

Hub, Ulrich | Illus. by Jörg Mühle | Trans. by Helena Kirkby | Gecko Press (88 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781776575954

In this inspired take on the Nativity, seven sheep venture from their field to find a special baby. In a droll narrative intentionally packed with anachronisms, the small flock, each with a distinguishing characteristic (a leg cast, a retainer in a case, a snuffly nose), hears the news about the miraculous baby from a goat. Finding their shepherds gone (they heard the good tidings earlier from angels), they set out to visit the town where the baby is said to be. Various misadventures ensue, and the sheep encounter other animals, including a donkey who tells them: “A couple of guys on camels just turned up in strangely shaped hats, bringing all kinds of gifts from the East.” Unfortunately, they learn that the baby and his family have moved on from the manger in a scrapyard. The sheep are indeed disappointed, having created their own present: a song that starts out “Si-i-lent niiiight”—a song that they speculate will be known for centuries. Occasional illustrations begin with the sheep depicted in line drawings with mono-color washes; more color is added along the way. Hub manages a rare feat—a strikingly original Christmas tale that balances whimsy, wry humor, and moments of joy and tenderness. Originally published in German and spawning an

animated film in that language, this tale begs to be read aloud, provided the listeners already know the traditional version of the Nativity story.

A Christmas tale to hold the whole family spellbound. (Fiction. 6-12)

Team Canteen: Rocky Road

Jahn, Amalie | Pixel+Ink (384 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781645952565

Series: Team Canteen, 1

Four seventh graders help each other find confidence.

After struggling to fit in, Tasha, Billie, Raelynn, and Claire finally found their people at summer camp. But now, they must separate and return to their own challenging realities. Talented hockey player Billie longs to pursue theater, but pressure from his dad holds him back. Claire struggles with shame over her family’s financial hardships and anxiety caused by her father’s volatile anger. Raelynn, who loves gaming but knows it won’t make her popular, is tormented by sibling rivalry and her fraternal twin sister’s rejection. Tasha feels insecure and resentful as her adoptive dads add a recently orphaned niece and her destructive dog to their family. Though their situations differ, the friends are on parallel journeys. Can they find the courage to tackle new experiences and relationships and ultimately be their true selves? Thankfully, they’ve got each other…plus the hot pink feather boa they found on their last night of camp, which they share through the mail whenever one of them needs extra luck. Readers may find wisdom in the validation and vulnerability within their

Sweetly underscores friendship as a lifeline to self-acceptance.

TEAM CANTEEN

group texts, and they’ll root for Team Canteen as they discover ways to express their feelings and personalities. The chapters rotate among the main characters’ points of view, proceeding through the school year until it’s time to reunite at camp. Raelynn reads Black, and the other leads are cued white. Sweetly underscores friendship as a lifeline to self-acceptance. (Fiction. 10-14)

Where To Hide a Star

Jeffers, Oliver | Philomel (48 pp.)

$22.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593622247

A boy, a star, a Martian, and a penguin all return for a tale of games gone awry. Jeffers reintroduces his droll hero, who appeared in his previous picture books Lost and Found (2006), How To Catch a Star (2004), The Way Back Home (2008), and Up and Down (2010). The boy loves playing games of hide-and-seek with two of his friends, a penguin and a star. The star isn’t adept at hiding, while the penguin is overly fond of the same hiding spot. When the penguin accidentally gets wedged among some rocks, the boy places the star in a rowboat while attempting to dislodge the penguin. The boat immediately sets sail for the North Pole. Unable to find his missing friend, the boy enlists the aid of his Martian pal and, with the penguin in tow, they head out on a rescue mission. A rescue, that is, until they find that someone else has befriended the star. What will become of the star? Like Jeffers’ other boy-related tales, this one is distinguished by its tone; the author/illustrator excels at cultivating a rose-hued melancholy sweetness that will linger long after the book is closed. The palette of the textured watercolors changes according to location and emotion, with the firmament above appearing in a striking final black-andwhite culmination.

A gratifying story of loving and letting go. (Picture book. 4-6)

A mighty mouse displays the right stuff once again.

MOUSETRONAUT SAVES THE WORLD

Kirkus Star

Wake Up, Moon!

Judge, Lita | Atheneum (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 29, 2024 | 9781665939256

A little squirrel awakens its woodland friends for an exhilarating night of wintry playtime. “The storm is over. The stars are out. But one little squirrel is not in bed.” Colored pencil and watercolor illustrations depict a warm, snug home for the red squirrel, who gazes out from the tree knot that serves as a window to a starry night. Having donned a red ski cap, the squirrel excitedly slides down a snowy slope to awaken its friends: “Wake up, snow!” The phrase “wake up” recurs as a fox, an owl, and a bear are roused. A tense moment with the bear soon turns to merriment when the friends remember that “bears just roar when they’re having fun.” The tender, lyrical text deftly employs rhythm and rhyme. Always simple linguistically but sometimes profound in content, it extends the wake-up call to the natural landscape and to concepts that include “shy glances” and “taking chances” and, of course, friendship. In appearance and behavior, the animals have the charm of Beatrix Potter’s anthropomorphic characters: Well-executed natural details combine seamlessly with human attributes in rich, harmonious natural settings. Full-bleed art shows animals gliding, sliding, creating snow bears, and finally curling up with cocoa and bedding down to sleep—each page in this gently humorous tale would make a superb winter holiday card. That rare gem—a gorgeously crafted tale for the youngest readers that radiates beauty, warmth, and wit. (Picture book. 3-5)

Picture Day at Dino Play

Julian, Sean | NorthSouth (32 pp.)

$19.95 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780735845527

A prehistoric play group provides an ideal social environment for reptilian tots. Brightly pastel mini-dinosaurs arrive at bespectacled pterodactyl Miss Beak’s place—introduced in Norman’s First Day at Dino Daycare (2021)—on class photo day. Freda the triceratops is wearing her favorite hat atop her vermillion ruff. When they play outside (in a witty Mesozoic landscape accessorized with toys and cobblestone structures), Freda sits out: She doesn’t want to dirty the precious hat. But eventually she can’t resist the fun and begins jumping, digging, and riding scooters with her dino classmates. As she glides down the slide, her hat flies off, but she doesn’t notice until Norman asks about it at lunchtime. Suddenly she’s frantic, rushing around in search of the beloved straw hat. A teary Freda reveals that her grandmother gave her the hat. Miss Beak is understanding: “It can be upsetting when we lose things…especially the things we love.” The friends all agree to help look, and together they search everywhere. Then Norman notices a bird in a tree, sitting on a comfy nest—Freda’s upturned hat. Seeing the delicate eggs inside, Freda generously gives the hat to the bird, and Miss Beak creatively alters the afternoon’s art activity to hatmaking: a clever success and a lovely conclusion to this quiet yet satisfying tale.

A sweet sherbet-tinted tale of accepting and adapting. (Picture book. 4-8)

Mousetronaut Saves the World: Based on a (Partially) True Story

Kelly, Mark | Illus. by C.F. Payne

Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) | $19.99 | Sept. 10, 2024

9781665910224 | Series: Mousetronaut

In senator and former astronaut Kelly’s latest, NASA’s smallest space traveler undertakes his third, and so far most important, space mission.

News of a huge asteroid hurtling toward Earth sends Meteor the Mousetronaut—at the head of a likewise furry crew from MASA (the Mousetronaut Advanced School of Aeronautics)—blasting into space for a try at nudging the massive rock away from its deadly course. The mission is successful but takes a suspenseful turn when damaged heat shields necessitate an unplanned landing on the moon and a rescue mission from Earth. As on previous missions, Kelly loads his astrotale and its lengthy afterword with astronomical and technical data related to solar system dynamics, Mars (where the expedition lands for a quick refueling) and other planets, plotting trajectories, and actual missions and plans designed to cope with both the problem of orbital debris and with the all-too-real threat of a major meteor strike. Payne adds an overview of the planets and their orbits to realistically detailed views of mice in spacesuits and racially diverse groups of human space experts and government officials, including the white-presenting president herself in her oval office. A mighty mouse displays the right stuff once again. (further reading, websites) (Picture book. 7-9)

This snappily paced story is brimming with child appeal.

KATRINA HYENA, STAND-UP COMEDIAN

Penguin’s Egg

Kemp, Anna | Illus. by Alice Courtley Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781665963251

A father rockhopper penguin— accidentally separated from his mate and their egg— uses many kinds of transportation to return home.

“By a frozen sea, where the snow falls fast, / and the whirlwinds rage and storm, / a rockhopper egg, in a stony nest, was lying safe and warm.” As the book opens, readers see a whimsical, gently humorous image that immediately suggests a loving family: a mated pair of rockhoppers—with their signature yellow-tufted heads—nestled against each other. The parents and the prized egg before them all wear colorful, knitted scarves. Active, swirling blues and whites portray their frigid environment. While the penguins sleep, Dad’s ice floe breaks off. He awakens, panicked, in an urban, non-snowy harbor. He must get back to his soon-to-hatch egg in Antarctica! Charmingly funny anthropomorphic animals of various species help him, including a bear who gives him a plush teddy for his “tot.” The rhythmic verses move the simple story along. Page turns cleverly lead to end rhymes that reveal the penguin’s next mode of transportation: “train,” “van,” and “chopper.” One spread’s verses reference 19 methods of transportation— including pogo stick and elephant—all vividly illustrated in bright colors. The climax is Dad’s realization that he can swim for the journey’s final stretch, avoiding orcas and jellyfish. The ending is predictably heartwarming. A hero’s journey for bedtime or naptime. (Picture book. 3-6)

It’s Hard To Be a Baby

Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781419767333

A knowledgeable narrator describes the challenges of coming into the world, surviving your first years, and beginning to grow up.

The many babies depicted here in detailed multimedia illustrations are healthy, plump, and very well loved. They and their families are diverse in terms of race; some infants belong to same-sex couples. The narrator addresses the babies directly, detailing their lives in utero: “You just kicked your feet! Turned somersaults! Partied! And you got to be naked, which is the best!” Birth brought with it a host of problems: “You have to tell these people everything. When you’re hot. When you’re hungry.” The humorously authoritative voice continues: “But hang in there, babies. Good things are coming.” The babies will discover their hands and feet, they’ll start sleeping through the night, and they’ll learn to crawl and walk. There’s a bit of a surprise ending when the narrator is revealed. (Some readers may have even noticed the speaker lurking on earlier pages.) The illustrations depict harried grown-ups attending to these new arrivals. One especially amusing image shows a parent trying to hold a baby amid a chaotic plumbing situation; on another spread, parents struggle to get a stroller safely down the subway steps. Adults and many preschoolers will certainly smile with recognition at the experiences portrayed, though the book is a bit too sophisticated for babies themselves. New big siblings will get a kick out of this—as will first-time parents. (Picture book. 3-6)

Katrina Hyena, Stand-Up Comedian

Kohn, Sophie | Illus. by Aparna Varma Owlkids Books (64 pp.) | $18.95

Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781771475655

What do you do when you’re fundamentally different from your peers?

Katrina doesn’t stand out from her pack in looks, but unlike other spotted hyenas, whose laughs signal danger, she chortles at everything ridiculous. A giraffe straddling a puddle for a drink? Snakes who have accidentally knotted themselves together? Katrina’s own shadow? All staggeringly funny. She fantasizes about performing a stand-up comedy routine but has little chance at finding a willing audience; the other hyenas are irritated by what they take to be Katrina’s constant false alarms and want her to stop laughing. Naturally, her dream is to make her too-grave clan giggle at her jokes. After the pack narrowly evades an attack from Gary the lion, who likes to eat hyenas with hot sauce, Katrina stages a show to relieve their stress. Despite the group’s initial resistance, she does make them laugh at some groanworthy jokes that will delight early readers. With just a few sentences per page, presented in well-spaced lines rather than daunting blocks of text, this snappily paced story is brimming with child appeal. The many amusing, soft-lined vignettes are tinged with cartoon anthropomorphism, and the warm sienna palette provides atmosphere. Whether stage-struck or shy, readers will chuckle at the protagonist’s jokes and cheer for her determination and confidence. (Early chapter book. 5-8)

For more by illustrator Aparna Varma, visit Kirkus online.

Klein, Cheryl B. | Illus. by Juana Medina | Abrams (32 pp.) | $18.99

A child-friendly tale

packed with all things winter.

IT’S WINTER!

Theodora Hendrix and the Curious Case of the Cursed Beetle

Kopy, Jordan | Illus. by Chris Jevons Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781665906869

Series: Theodora Hendrix, 2

A human child in England helps the undead and supernatural creatures who raised her confront a threat to all organized monsterdom. As if a sour new head teacher who seems bent on forcing her expulsion isn’t trouble enough for light-skinned, redheaded 10-year-old Theodora, the sudden arrival of imperious Inspector Mary Shelley and sneering Ratsputin, her snake-tailed rodent sidekick, cranks up the tension at home—otherwise known as the London branch of the Monstrous League of Monsters. Kopy populates her work with a variety of creatures, from motherly Mummy the mummy and house dad Dracula to Sherman the talking tarantula, Goldie the giant human-headed cobra, and gargoyles named Bob and Sally. In keeping with the light overall tone, Theodora is perfectly at ease among all the creepy characters, and in Jevons’ many black-and-white illustrations they look more cartoonish than frightening. The humor even takes a sly turn when Goldie hints at the precise kind of monster that Shelley is with the observation that, while not all monsters are authors, the opposite may not be true. Proving that she is as capable of tackling an evil home invader with keen martial arts moves as she is organizing a festive Halloween fair for the community, Mummy is the

hero of this second series entry. But Theodora joins Dexter, her Nigerian British classmate who has a stutter, and others in a successful act of civil disobedience at school, offering her a chance to shine, too. Monstrous but with a wink. (Paranormal mystery. 8-12)

Harold Hates To Hibernate

Kousky, Vern | Random House Studio (40 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 29, 2024 | 9780593712337

Series: Harold the Bear

Worried his crow friends will forget him when he hibernates, Harold refuses to let himself fall asleep. Harold hopes the fall days he spends with his pals will never end, but each day shortens “until it’s dark before playtime has even begun.” When the other bears remind Harold that it’s almost time for hibernation, he decides to find a way to stay awake. With the crows by his side supporting him, Harold tries to fight off his sleepiness, to no avail. Although this follow-up to Harold Loves His Woolly Hat (2018) expands on the relationship between Harold and the crows, familiarity with the first book isn’t necessary to enjoy the sequel—and readers will be happy to see that there’s more give-and-take this time. Expressive and dynamic watercolor, pencil, and pen illustrations accompany this gentle story about life transitions and long-lasting friendships. Each time Harold thinks of a new idea to stay awake, the crows fly away. Page turns build suspense, but they always return with a gift to help Harold, who declares with escalating emphasis that he doesn’t need to hibernate. This paired

repetition lends itself to audience engagement during storytime and creates a satisfying narrative arc. As Harold finally accepts that he needs sleep, the resolution offers reassurance without dismissing his emotional journey.

Sweet and soothing. (Picture book. 3-6)

It’s Winter!

Kurilla, Renée | Little, Brown (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780316570138

Series: Celebrate the Seasons, 2

A look at hallmarks and celebrations of the coldest season. Winter’s here, and there are icicles, snow gear, sledding, and snowball fights, of course. Inside, kids make decorations, snuggle under warm blankets, and sip hot chocolate. We also see kids celebrating a variety of holidays. Children play dreidel and enjoy latkes while a menorah sits in the window. Some hang ornaments on a Christmas tree; others observe Kwanzaa. Youngsters also ring in the new year with “fizzy drinks to clink.” Several kids perform a dragon dance on Chinese New Year, and in February, the little ones exchange valentines at school. The scope and vocabulary make this a perfect book to share with preschoolers both in a classroom setting and at home, and the rhyming gives it a read-aloud-friendly cadence. The illustrations perfectly encapsulate the blustery cold of winter as well as the comfort of hunkering down inside, thanks to wisps of wind across windowpanes and cozy, blanketed kids. All the scenes are fully imagined and well drawn, with plenty to observe, from squirrels peeking in at the kids making crafts and a bird’s-eye view of the town where a menorah sits in a house and a car sports decorative antlers. The quality rhymes and meaningful illustrations make this a worthy selection. The kids depicted are diverse in terms of race and ability.

A child-friendly tale packed with all things winter. (Picture book. 3-5)

The Bakery Dragon

Kurtz, Devin Elle | Knopf (48 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780593710968

Ember the dragon realizes that his true skill isn’t stealing gold, but rather baking and sharing it.

Try as he might, tiny, adorable Ember doesn’t measure up to his fellow dragons, who excel at scaring villagers into handing over their gold. After a kind baker offers him shelter during a storm, he learns her trade and bakes a batch of droolworthy, toasted golden loaves. Once the other dragons get a taste of his delicious baked goods, Ember and the baker establish a successful business arrangement, and he finally finds his (baker’s) gold. Ember is an approachable dragon, with a glint in his eye, deep-red scales, and a confident, pint-size stance. Little readers will appreciate his tenacity and triumphant discovery of a special talent. The illustrations are a feast for the eyes—in particular, a scene depicting a giant chamber filled with piles of gold, even a golden toilet! Images of the cozy bakery, the sumptuous baked goods, and the gleaming sunrise are suffused with an appropriately golden glow. The message is clear, the story well told, and the dragons and baked goods appealing and fun. The red-haired baker presents white; villagers of color appear as well. The dragons vary in size, color, and features.

Standout visuals bring a delectable tale to life. (Picture book. 4-6)

How To Fool Your Parents: 25 Brain-Breaking Magic Tricks

Kwong, David | Illus. by Michael Korfhage Harper/HarperCollins (192 pp.) | $12.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780063140585

Aspiring magicians, gather round!

Despite the title’s hint at transgression, the tricks covered here are all in good fun, though the first one involves getting parents to promise (in writing) something they’d otherwise probably not endorse. But Kwong assures us that “parents want to be fooled .” (And none of the tricks requires a rabbit, at least.) The author clearly explains plenty of illusions, from making your cellphone disappear to flattening a quarter to identifying a crayon by color without looking at it. He specifies what supplies are needed, describes the setup, and lays out steps. Korfhage’s drawings offer both careful depictions of the sequence and casual decorative vignettes. Kwong also suggests a backup plan in case readers flub a trick. A glossary defines specific terms, such as ditch and load . Sidebars provide tidbits about famous tricks and magicians of the past, such as Talma, known for an illusion called “Asrah the Floating Princess.” Kwong also covers disabled magicians, including Richard Turner, a blind card mechanic. After the first section, devoted to sleight of hand, Kwong branches out to explore technology-based magic, mentalism, and tricks based on codes. Math and chemistry play a role in some tricks;

An irresistible chance for kids to get the inside track on knowledge for a change.

an understanding of psychology is essential. The author urges readers to “practice, practice, practice” before performing, and he warns them “to use your new powers for good, not evil!” Final art not seen.

An irresistible chance for kids to get the inside track on knowledge and power for a change. (Nonfiction. 8-12)

Sheep Number 19

Lacasa, Blanca | Illus. by Jorge Martín

Trans. by Cecilia Ross | NubeOcho (36 pp.)

$17.99 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9788419607768

Series: Somos8

A disgruntled sheep who never gets to be counted finds a way to be included. Tan-skinned Mrs. Ophelia, who sports fashionable glasses and a poof of curly gray hair, needs to count sheep each night or she’ll never fall asleep. Once she counts to 18, however, she immediately dozes off. Poor sheep number 19, Ramona, never gets a turn. She’s ready to leap over the fence just like the others but is never called to duty. So Ramona takes things into her own hooves. She tries altering her “19” label so it reads “1,” and she attempts to be first in line by farting in order to drive the other sheep away. Nothing works. So instead, Ramona leads a gentle revolt. She gets the flock to realize that it’s unfair that the same sheep get to jump every night. They work out solutions that allow all the sheep to get a chance at showing their stuff, regardless of number. At times there’s “a great deal of numeric confusion,” but luckily, Mrs. Ophelia doesn’t seem to mind. She sleeps on. The ending is a bit harried, but this inspired tale, translated from Spanish, will elicit plenty of guffaws for the silly, wide-eyed sheep’s antics. Martín’s scribbly, energetic style makes the sheep bound off the page. Combined bedtime and numeric fun. (Picture book. 4-7)

A familiar story distinguished by striking illustrations.

A FRIEND FOR RUBY

A Friend for Ruby

Laguna, Sofie | Illus. by Marc McBride

A & U Children/Trafalgar (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781761067648

A lonely girl finds friendship and a sense of purpose when she meets an otherworldly sea creature. When Ruby discovers the creature, lost and washed up on the shore, she decides to let it stay in her beach hut. Ruby, who’s often teased at school, is grateful for a friend, and she ventures to the bakery to find it food. Eventually, after the creature destroys Ruby’s grandmother’s garden, Ruby realizes it can’t stay. The baker’s daughter, Sonya, helps Ruby and Granma return the creature to the ocean, where it’s reunited with its community; as the tale ends, friendship blossoms between Ruby and Sonya. While the story is somewhat predictable, the hyperrealistic illustrations, a combination of digital painting, acrylic, and oil paint, are utterly engrossing. They make incredible use of shadow and light, and the water looks real enough to touch. The sea creature is both captivating and slightly terrifying, with multiple circular rows of teeth and familiar features reimagined and recomposed: a lizardlike tail, a narwhal’s tusk, and octopus arms extending from its large head. The scene of the ocean monsters together is a sight to see; they appear almost alien and may intimidate little ones, though some will be entranced. Ruby and Granma are light-skinned, while Sonya is Black.

A familiar story distinguished by striking illustrations. (Picture book. 4-6)

Song of the Dolphin Boy

$8.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781035034710

A lonely boy’s first friends are dolphins, but he can’t save them from deadly pollution alone. In the tiny, remote Scottish village of Stromhead, 11-year-old Finn McFee lives in a tumbledown cottage with his depressed dad. There are just 11 children in his primary school, and the only ones near his age want nothing to do with him. Finn longs for friends, but even more, he wants to know what happened to his mum, who disappeared when he was 2. His dad forbids him to go near the cove, but Finn finds solace in contemplating the water. After a bully chases him off the harbor wall, he discovers a magical connection to the sea and makes friends with a pod of dolphins. But their lives are soon endangered by the release of 5,000 promotional balloons by a new supermarket. Finn needs the other kids’ assistance—and friendship. Along the way, Finn learns the truth about his mother—and that kids can make a difference, even if adults give up. Finn, who’s cued white, has long been surrounded by rumors about his mother; he ultimately finds camaraderie with peers who also feel isolated, including Pakistani British Amir and Ethiopian and Scottish Jas. The themes of friendship, belonging, and environmental activism are admirable, and the gentle writing, reminiscent of older classics, is lovely. The character development feels somewhat onedimensional, however. Black-and-white line drawings enhance the text.

A story of modern threats to sea life grounded in Scottish legend. (map, poem) (Fiction. 8-12)

Welcome to Nowhere

Laird, Elizabeth | Illus. by Lucy Eldridge

Macmillan Children’s Books (352 pp.)

$8.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781035034734

Omar and his family are forced to flee their home and navigate the treacherous landscape of war-torn Syria. The story begins in Bosra, a vibrant city where witty and charming 12-year-old Omar enjoys a relatively comfortable life with his parents and siblings. He dislikes school and daydreams of becoming a successful businessman. But Omar’s world is turned upside down as political unrest spreads across the country. When a bomb destroys his family’s apartment, they are forced to leave, marking the start of their painful journey as refugees. They first seek safety with relatives in a village, but trouble follows them as Musa, Omar’s older brother who has cerebral palsy, starts filming the political protests. The family decides to make the dangerous journey to Jordan, where they settle in the Za’atari refugee camp, a place Omar finds desperately boring. Their new lives are unforgiving and dehumanizing, and resources are scarce, but Omar and his family make the best of what they have. Laird’s empathetic storytelling, supported by Eldridge’s evocative art, is accessible and inviting for a wide range of readers. The character development is particularly noteworthy: Omar’s growth from a carefree boy to a responsible young adult is believable and inspiring, and he never loses his charm. Cultural and historical details provide insights into Syria and its people. A compassionate, heart-wrenching work that helps readers understand the profound losses people suffer during wartime. (foreword, map, author’s note, organizations) (Fiction. 9-12)

Laird, Elizabeth | Illus. by Peter Bailey Macmillan Children’s Books (224 pp.)

Jacqueline Woodson Wins a Boston Globe–Horn Book Award

The Remember Us author received the prestigious fiction award for young readers’ literature.

The winners of the Boston Globe–Horn

SEEN AND HEARD

New Book by Raina Telgemeier Coming in 2025

Scholastic says The Cartoonists Club is a collaboration with Scott McCloud.

Bestselling author and illustrator Raina Telgemeier has a new middle-grade graphic novel on the way, People reports

The Graphix imprint of Scholastic will publish The Cartoonists Club, a

AWARDS

Book Awards have been revealed, with Jacqueline Woodson among those taking home the prestigious prizes for children’s and young adult literature. Remember Us by Jacqueline Woodson received the fiction award. Woodson’s middle-grade novel, in which a Black tween deals with the fallout of deadly fires in her community, was based on Woodson’s own experiences growing up in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood. In a starred review, a Kirkus critic called the book “an exquisitely wrought story of self and community.”

Woodson is the author of a slew of award-winning titles for children and teens (Brown Girl Dreaming, Miracle’s Boys) as well as several adult novels ( Another Brooklyn, Red at the Bone). She has served as Young People’s Poet Laureate and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020. The picture-book award went to writer and illustra tor Sydney Smith for  Do You Remember?

collaboration with Scott McCloud, next spring.

According to the publisher, the four young members of the titular club come together to learn about creating comics, each bringing different strengths and limitations to the project. Scholastic notes that the book combines narrative, art instruction, and “comics magic” to showcase the power of storytelling and “inspire a new generation of cartoonists.”

The nonfiction/poetry winner was The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity, written by Nicholas Day and illustrated by Brett Helquist. —M.W.

Telgemeier posted about the project on the social media platform Bluesky, explaining that she and McCloud have been working on the book since 2020. “I have wanted such a book to exist since I began writing for kids. Heck, since I was a budding cartoonist myself!”

Telgemeier has written and illustrated a series of autobiographical illustrated books:  Smile  (2010),  Drama  (2012), Sisters (2014), Ghosts  (2016), and

Guts  (2019). Collectively, her books have sold more than 16.4 million copies, according to her publisher.

McCloud is the author of The Sculptor and the editor of The Best American Comics 2014, among other titles. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Awards Hall of Fame in 2021. The Cartoonists Club is scheduled for publication on April 1, 2025. —M.W.

For a review of Remember Us visit Kirkus online.

Raina Telgemeier

For reviews of Raina Telgemeier’s books, visit Kirkus online.

Jacqueline Woodson

6 STEAM Books for Back-to-School

Brought to You by Tundra Books

An ode to how books can be windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors.

NOT ANOTHER BANNED BOOK

Dungeon Runners: Hero Trial

Larwood, Kieran | Illus. by Joe Todd-Stanton Nosy Crow (224 pp.) | $9.99 paper Sept. 3, 2024 | 9798887771410

Series: Dungeon Runners, 1

With good friends in your corner, you don’t have to be the biggest, strongest, or fastest to win.

It’s time for the season final of the Dungeon Run, a televised game in which teams compete in a race to escape a dungeon. Kit, a diminutive young gnorf—“part gnome, part dwarf”—is content to merely watch until, in a thrilling twist, one team meets an untimely end and a spot opens up in the competition. Backed into a corner by a bully named Breg, Kit decides to enter despite having no experience, no magical powers, and no team. With the application deadline looming, Kit scrambles to pull together a group, eventually meeting a gnorf named Sandy, whose magical claim to fame is making sand castles, and Thorn, a vegan vampire who knows first aid: a ragtag group of misfits if ever there was one. Upon entering the dungeon, the three quickly learn that their friendship and loyalty to one another are their greatest strengths and may just give them the edge they need to beat out the competition. Humor, relatable characters, a fast and fun storyline, and some interactive elements will hook young readers from the start. Todd-Stanton’s illustrations are charming and plentiful, an asset both for new chapter-book readers and those who typically prefer graphic novels.

This series opener will leave kids eagerly awaiting the next installment. Friendship and gamesmanship form the core of this heartwarming underdog adventure. (map) (Fantasy. 7-10)

Between Flowers and Bones

Leiloglou, Carolyn | Illus. by Vivienne To WaterBrook (288 pp.) | $9.99 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593579572

Series: The Restorationists, 2

In this second series entry, a girl and her cousin try to solve a mystery as members of a secret society. Georgia’s family are Restorationists; they have special Gifts that allow them to interact with paintings as part of a generational group charged with preventing their enemies, the Distortionists, from changing works of art into something malignant. Her cousin Vincent’s rare Gift as an Artist makes Georgia’s Navigation skills feel redundant, and in her struggle to prove herself, she makes a dangerous mistake that allows their estranged aunt, Adelaide, to find them. Adelaide blackmails them into stealing a valuable painting with the help of a young Indian Wanderer named Ravi, and the cousins’ only hope is to set aside their differences and learn to work to each other’s strengths. Georgia is a compelling, complicated character experiencing complex and changing family dynamics. Despite plenty of fast-paced action, the story has a gentle feel and offers mild suspense. The highly emotional kids are at

times precociously wise and articulate. The abundant messages about morality, particularly the consequences of pride, are directly and indirectly rooted in Christianity. To’s whimsical illustrations add extra depth to the characters’ experiences. The wealth of art references provides great educational connections, and the author’s note provides interesting context for them; a list of referenced paintings is included. Vincent reads white; Georgia’s dad is implied white, and her mom is from Mexico.

A sweet and thoroughly researched story with a firm moral grounding. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Not Another Banned Book

Levy, Dana Alison | Delacorte (320 pp.) $17.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780593649053

Seven Massachusetts middle schoolers team up to fight school censorship. For eighth grader Molly Claremont, Ms. Lewiston’s Book Club is a place where she feels a reprieve from worries, such as conflict with her former best friend and grief over her brother’s death. When Ms. Lewiston is put on administrative leave and her classroom library is gutted, Molly recruits the LBC members in schemes to right these wrongs by sneaking into book-banning meetings, attempting a school walkout, writing to a famous author, making a short video, and more. After these failed escapades, Molly wonders if she can even make a difference—and she distances herself from her family and friends, hiding her problems. Readers familiar with some of Levy’s earlier works will recognize several book club members: Molly and Theo, who are white, Jax, a Black boy with two dads who has ADHD, and makeup artist and free spirit Alice, who is cued only as not white. Other LBC members include death-metal guitarist Mik, a Black boy

who’s gay, and white siblings and athletes Alex and Kait. They work together to show why broad, inclusive representation in books matters. Written in Molly’s first-person presenttense voice, the often-humorous narrative is sprinkled with text messages and book references. Levy shows both the sometimes-scary complexities of middle school life and how stepping into someone else’s story can lead to empathy. An ode to how books can be windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)

Kelcie Murphy and the Race for the Reaper’s Key

Lewis, Erika | Starscape/Tor (384 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781250208378 | Series: The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts, 3

Freed at last, evil King Balor makes his move against the long-divided Lands of Summer and Winter in this climactic Celtic-inspired series closer.

Readers may well wonder how the two fiannas, or bands of student warriors—led by light-skinned Kelcie on the Summer side and by “ruddy brown” Lexis on Winter’s—are ever going to overcome Balor. As fiendishly powerful and clever as he is, Balor spends most of this story forcing or tricking them into doing his bidding while sending monsters out on successful diversionary attacks. Still, the young folk have a hard-won ability to work together as well as the advantage of being on the side of right. And so, along with rescuing one another from his onslaughts of kelpies, spider-trow, fire foxes, bane bats, and other terrors, they’re able at last to find a way to close the Abyss separating the Lands and bring the Never-Ending War to a decisive close. Despite plenty of fighting, Kelcie suffers few personally meaningful losses. By the end, Kelcie,

who’s at the head of a sprawling fantasy cast of diverse species, not only renews relationships with both of her immortal parents but at last exchanges a sweet kiss with her royal anam cara (“soul friend”), Niall, wrapping events up in a way that will satisfy returning fans.

A tidy resolution for a derivative but adventuresome trilogy. (glossary) (Fantasy. 9-12)

Kirkus Star

In Praise of Mystery

Limón, Ada | Illus. by Peter Sís

Norton Young Readers (32 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 |

9781324054009

In U.S. Poet Laureate Limón’s debut picture book, soaring images and lyrics invite contemplation of life’s wonders—on Earth and perhaps, tantalizingly, elsewhere.

“O second moon,” writes Limón, “we, too, are made / of water, // of vast and beckoning seas.” In visual responses to a poem that will be carried by NASA’s Europa Clipper, a probe scheduled for launch in October 2024 and designed to check Jupiter’s ice-covered ocean moon for possible signs of life, Sís offers flowing glimpses of earthly birds and whales, of heavenly bodies lit with benevolent smiles, and a small light-skinned space traveler flying between worlds in a vessel held aloft by a giant book. Following the undulations of the poet’s cadence, falling raindrops give way to shimmering splashes, then to a climactic fiery vision reminiscent of Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night before finishing with mirrored human figures made of stars. Visual images evocative of the tree of life presage what Límon writes in her afterword: that her poem is as much about “our own precious planet” as it is about what may lie in wait for us to discover on others. “We, too, are made of wonders, of great / and ordinary

loves, // of small invisible worlds, // of a need to call out through the dark.” A luminous call to think about what is and to envision what might be.

(Picture book. 7-10)

Rafa and the Wrong Legs

Lucas, Angie | Illus. by Ana Sanfelippo Marble Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781958325223

A young child gets temporarily lost. Rafa and Mama are shopping in a supermarket. “Big boy” Rafa can’t fit in the cart, so Mama tells him to stick close by. Rafa dutifully holds on to the cart as Mama navigates the aisles. In the bakery, the Cookie Man offers samples; Rafa tries several before stuffing one in his pocket. He and Mama move on to the produce section, where Rafa clings to her leg. A strawberry bounces to the floor; Rafa follows its trajectory, attempting to catch it. When he does, he triumphantly tries to show it to Mama—except the legs beside him aren’t hers! Rafa runs through the store, past many legs— none of them Mama’s. Finally, he sits, tearfully, and pulls a cookie from his pocket—then hears a loudspeaker announcement from the bakery. This gives him the bright idea to head that way—past numerous legs—back to the Cookie Man, who calls Mama. A joyful reunion ensues. This to-the-point cautionary tale is one that children must heed and learn from and a scenario that caregivers and kids should discuss together. Youngsters who have been in Rafa’s shoes may find it tense—and will be relieved at the outcome. Adopting a child’s-eye view of the world in many scenes, the colorful illustrations brim with kid appeal. Rafa and Mama are light-skinned; background characters are diverse.

Highlights a real-life situation that children and their grown-ups should talk about and be prepared to avert. (strategies for grown-ups to share with children) (Picture book. 3-6)

D Is for Dog!

Lynas, Em | Illus. by Sara Ogilvie | Nosy Crow (32 pp.) | $14.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9798887771083

A rambunctious romp with all things pup. This exuberant alphabetical “leash on life,” a U.K. import, will please dog lovers and may even turn less enthusiastic kids into canine fanciers as they scamper through the ABCs with different dog breeds. (Everyone will appreciate “P is for poop.”) Each letter describes something a dog is doing, feeling, or being: “A is for action,” “F is for flopping,” and “M is for muddy.” (“X marks the spot for an excellent hole.”) The rousing narrative is delivered in vivacious verse, as lively as the gaggle of Labradors “leaping with lolloping joy” after a Frisbee. (This is a nifty vocabulary developer, too.) Each double-page spread features one to three letters, with each letter represented by a dog breed whose name begins with that letter. (“H is for happy” depicts a husky panting over a bone, while “I is for itch” is accompanied by a scratching Irish wolfhound.) Each letter is highlighted in large, colored, capitalized type. Dog breeds aren’t named within the text, but a helpful “dog dictionary” on the final pages identifies each pup depicted within so readers can match the dog to its letter; a pronunciation guide for some breeds would have been helpful. The illustrations are animated and cheerful. A QR code links to an audio recording of the book—a nice touch. D is for delightful—readers are barking up the right tree with this tale. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Star

There’s a Ghost in the Garden

Maclear, Kyo | Illus. by Katty Maurey Enchanted Lion Books (56 pp.)

$18.95 | Oct. 22, 2024 | 9781592704057

There are ghosts all around us if you look hard enough. When a child stays with a beloved grandparent, the two spend their time working in the garden. The youngster, who narrates, notes that there’s at least one ghost residing in their green space, evidenced by overturned pots and little trinkets left behind. As Grandpa and child, both light-skinned, continue to work, they reflect upon the whereabouts of these phantoms, on times gone by (“at the back of the house… there was an old bathtub…I would sit in…enjoying the sun like a sleepy turtle,” Grandpa tells the child), and on the beauty of just being. As the child’s visit comes to an end, the pair re-create the bathtub from Grandpa’s past using the very flora they so lovingly tended to; they sit in it and contemplate together. This quiet yet powerful book perfectly captures the emotional resonance of fleeting moments and the imprints they leave behind. Maclear’s stunning text is lengthy yet deliberately paced (“memory has a geography just like the world”), suggesting the meandering feeling of revisiting memories. Rendered in a light, earthy palette, Maurey’s dreamy gouache illustrations are a natural complement to the text, further evoking feelings of stillness,

D is for delightful—readers are barking up the right tree with this tale.

remembrance, and the strong yet gentle bonds of family. A subtle but potent look at the ephemeral nature of life—and a reminder to cherish memories. (Picture book. 5-8)

Boy Underground

Marinov, Isabelle | Illus. by Paula Zorite Clock Tower Publishing (320 pp.)

$8.95 paper | Sept. 24, 2024

9781802635515 | Series: Boy Underground, 1

Hugo, an autistic boy with a deep fondness for maps, explores the tunnels beneath Paris, seeking lost treasure and the friendship he craves.

Smells, loud sounds, and bright lights can be overwhelming for 12-year-old Hugo; his habit of wearing sunglasses indoors has led to the nickname “Spy,” used even by his former friend Alex. Most of the time, Hugo appreciates his photographic memory and other neurodivergent abilities, although they’ve gradually distanced him from Alex and his other former friend, Julie. Even reviewing the social story cards used by his perceptive occupational therapist, Mathilde, doesn’t help his attempts at friendship. During a school field trip, Hugo learns of the network of tunnels beneath Paris, extending far beyond the famous catacombs. This revelation leads him to research historical maps at the public library. The librarian tells him of the cataphiles, underground explorers, and their accepting and nonjudgmental ways. She also tells him about the Urban eXperiment, a secretive cataphile group, and a bottle of chartreuse that was discovered beside the skeleton of the man who got lost while trying to steal it. It’s rumored to be belowground in a secret wine cellar—and Hugo wants to find it. Hugo’s self-aware first-person narration invites readers into his sensory experiences. Charming illustrations add to the enjoyment. Occasional French words and Briticisms can be

An evocative, enchanting tale of the quest for community.

GRISO

deduced from context. Julie is of Chinese descent, and most other characters read white.

A thoughtful adventure about navigating changing friendships and the mysterious tunnels beneath Paris. (Adventure. 8-12)

Rainbow Bear

Martin Jr, Bill & Michael Sampson Illus. by Nathalie Beauvois

Brown Books Kids (32 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 29, 2024 | 9781612546445

A young brown bear ends his hibernation in a most colorful fashion. Little Bear awakens from his winter’s sleep. Yawning, stretching, and patting his tummy, he’s ravenous and searches for Mommy in their cave. She suggests going outside and eating purple berries. Little Bear eats berries of various colors—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, navy, and, finally, purple. After each feast, Little Bear says, “Hungry little me!” When he’s at last finished, he’s covered in different-colored juices. When Mommy sees her multihued “little Messy Bear,” he laughingly corrects her: “No, Mommy, I’m your little RAINBOW BEAR! HAPPY LITTLE ME!” This is a very simple, sweet introduction to the basic colors (color names are capitalized and printed in their respective colors). Some adult readers may be confused about why the authors opt for “navy,” a name children may be unfamiliar with, rather than “indigo.” (There’s some debate in the scientific community about whether indigo should be in the ROYGBIV rainbow.) Beauvois’ delightful collagelike illustrations are a remarkable homage to brilliant collaborations between the late Martin and Eric Carle, such as the classic picture book Brown Bear, Brown Bear,

What Do You See? (1963). An endnote briefly explains hibernation and rainbows. A charmer about bears, colors, food, and rainbows: What’s not to love?

(Picture book. 3-6)

My Hive: A Girl, Her Grandfather, and Their Honeybee Family

May, Meredith | Illus. by Jasmine Dwyer Cameron Kids (32 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781951836825

“T he most important thing to a bee is its family.”

The narrator of this lyrical picture book knows this because she’s been watching her grandfather tend his bees around their home, “where the mountains hug the sea.” Today is a special day, because Grandpa has invited his grandchild to help with the harvest in his Honey Bus. Donning boots and veils, the beekeeper and his young helper pull “wooden frames heavy with honeycomb” from the hives and carry them into the Honey Bus. (This unusual honey shed goes unexplained in this book, but curious adults may want to seek out May’s 2019 memoir, The Honey Bus, to learn more.) The honeybees’ devotion to their family clearly resonates with the child—an attitude that can be inferred from spare details shared with seeming casualness. The child lives with “my grandpa and granny, [and] my mom….But mostly it’s just Grandpa and me—Granny teaches at the elementary school, and Mom is often in bed with a headache.” The illustrations glow with honey yellows. Swirling organic shapes evoke the natural setting and underscore the tale’s gentle tone; even the geometric hexagons of honeycomb seem to flow into one another like drops of honey. Grandpa

and grandchild have pale skin; his hair and mustache are black, while the narrator’s hair is brown.

A sweet affirmation of a grandfather’s love. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

Griso:

The One and Only

Mello, Roger | Trans. by Daniel Hahn

Elsewhere Editions (38 pp.) | $19.95 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781962770088

A unicorn traverses the world, searching for another of his kind. Translated from Portuguese, this Brazilian import, from a prolific master of the imaginary realm, zigzags through time and cultures to track the rare beast. When readers first glimpse Griso, his black body is edged with white and blue dots. The third-person narrative explains that “the last of the unicorns… was galloping all across the plains in search of another…just like him.” A chart at the book’s end notes that this portrayal is based on seventh-century Germanic art. The animal transforms in each mesmerizing spread, appearing in the color/style of the new art form: a Persian bas-relief, ancient Greek vase painting, a Tang dynasty mural. Mello trusts viewers to make these visual leaps as the shape-shifter interacts with horned whales, buffalo, and, at the height of danger, a medieval knight on a horse whose armored head bears a spike. The text unites the disparate compositions into a brilliantly cohesive story, presenting context about the time of day—e.g., bedtime—or the unicorn’s feelings of terror or loneliness. While Griso’s goal is unmet in one sense, in a scene set in Egypt, he does connect with another unique creature—the last of the winged horses, who is also weary, “having flown all across the plains in search of… another just like him.” Editor Claudia de Moraes’ musings on unicorn sightings provide concluding inspiration. An evocative, enchanting tale of the quest for community. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

No Place for Monsters: Little Nobody

Merritt, Kory | Clarion/HarperCollins (304 pp.)

$15.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780063283985

Series: No Place for Monsters, 3

In this third series entry, twin terrors rise to threaten the thoroughly haunted town of Cowslip Grove: the child-snatching Boojum and a school board that’s hostile to progress and inclusivity.

Tim Burton meets Edward Gorey in Merritt’s extravagantly gothic figures and settings, infusing his latest eerie outing with equal measures of chill and charm. Drifting about town in search of its original name, Little Nobody, a small wight covered in tattered paper scraps becomes an enthralled witness to the activities of a group of schoolchildren. They’re rehearsing a stage version of Tololwa M. Mollel’s Rhinos for Lunch and Elephants for Supper! under the direction of beloved new teacher Ms. Padilla, whose expansive approach to culture and science has put the shorts of certain local parents in a twist. Meanwhile, the Boojum readers met in former episodes has returned, whispering that change of any sort threatens Little Nobody’s survival and must be fought by burning down the school. In a measured, somber narrative that switches between ordinary text and neatly hand-lettered passages, the ghostly wanderer passes through realms mundane and supernatural, meeting other spirits and coming to understand the value and power of stories even as events culminate in hard choices and terrifying confrontations. Along with again proving that he’s a dab hand at creating a compelling, spooky atmosphere and authentically terrifying monsters, Merritt leaves readers with both a satisfying ending and opportunities to reflect. The human cast is racially diverse. A creepy delight, with themes both timeless and topical. (Horror. 9-12)

More rousing fare for budding buccaneers and potential pacifists.

THE DUKE’S CURSE

The Duke’s Curse

Mone, Gregory | Illus. by Berat Pekmezci Amulet/Abrams (240 pp.) | $15.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781419756856 | Series: Sea of Gold, 2

Denied one legendary treasure found in the series opener, rival pirates converge on a second one. Separated and forced to flee from the golden trove found in Sea of Gold (2023), young Fish and his companions, Nate, Daniel, and Nora, are swept along in a three-way race to locate a fabled cargo of gems lost years ago. They stop off in Venice for chases, escapes, and a search for clues to the treasure’s location in a flooded library before heading onward to a small Greek island and a climactic tussle. Fitting nicely into the role of protagonist as he spends much of the tale struggling with conflicting loyalties and impulses, Fish also gets plenty of chances to play the hero: He shows off his exceptional skills as a diver and displays such an ability to avoid getting hurt while resolutely refusing to carry a weapon or fight back that he turns a whole pirate crew toward nonviolence. Still, the three treasure-hunting captains are each colorfully distinct in their own ways, and there’s much (nonfatal) cannon fire, swordplay, betrayal, and getting thrown overboard to carry the plot along briskly. Fish is a white boy from Ireland; passing mentions, for example, of pale or brown skin are the only clues in this entry to the cast’s racial makeup. More rousing fare for budding buccaneers and potential pacifists. (Adventure. 9-12)

The Curse of the Dead Man’s Diamond

Morrell, Christyne E. | Delacorte (320 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780593707609

A girl searches for a cursed diamond while struggling emotionally after a major move. Charlotte Hess and her dad have just relocated from New York City to Casaluna, Florida. Their creepy new home, Winklevoss Manor, has been torn apart by treasure hunters looking for a cursed diamond rumored to have been hidden there by the former owners, who haunt the house to this day. The truth? Arthur and Ada Winklevoss do haunt the old manor— but so does mean-spirited Leopold Guffman, who fell down the stairs and died while looking for the diamond. When Charlie learns about the house’s history, she decides that the priceless gem is going to be her ticket back to the land of good pizza, a place where the cockroaches have the decency not to fly. She enlists the help of ghost-loving new friend Sarah and medium Madame Rayna, hoping to learn enough about the Winklevosses’ lives to figure out where they would have hidden the diamond. Though the novel is filled with amusing moments, especially when the ghosts learn that they can haunt the Hesses’ electronics, emotion drives the story; readers will ache for Charlie as she grieves her recently deceased grandmother and navigates tricky friendships. The chapters alternate between Charlie’s point of view and those of the ghosts, providing additional context and characterization. Main characters are cued white.

Ghosts get equal billing with the living in this sweet tale about finding home.

(Paranormal mystery. 8-13)

The Panda’s Child

Morris, Jackie | Illus. by Cathy Fisher

Otter-Barry (96 pp.) | $24.99

Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781915659057

A boy, saved by a panda mother and blessed by the forest, outwits a group of trappers who have captured the panda’s child.

Dreamy watercolors and narrative in verse tell the story of a baby boy who goes missing in a forest in what appears to be China. When he is found seven days later in a panda’s cave, villagers regard both panda and boy with great reverence, as the panda clearly kept him alive. Nine years later, a group of strangers arrives with horses, elephants, brocade and furs, and animals, including a baby panda in a bamboo cage—all gifts for “the great ruler Alexander.” As the horrified villagers look on, the boy begs to accompany the travelers, telling them that he knows how to keep the panda alive for their journey. Assuming the boy has betrayed the pandas to whom he owes everything, the villagers turn away, but the clever boy has a plan. This large-format, fully illustrated book has the trim size of a picture book, but its three chapters of verse, sophisticated vocabulary, and extensive symbolism suggest an audience of older children or even adults; it may struggle to find an audience. Illustrations vacillate between dreamscapes and hyper-realistic human and animal figures, while tiger imagery included early on foreshadows later events. The work is imbued with respect for the natural world, along with a certain unease in the telling and the violence of the outcome.

A weighty parable honoring the natural world, visually stunning but likely to leave youngsters cold. (Picture book. 8-adult)

Kirkus Star

The Boldest White: A Story of Hijab and Community

Muhammad, Ibtihaj & S.K. Ali | Illus. by Hatem Aly | Little, Brown (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780759555716

Series: The Proudest Blue, 3

Olympic fencer Muhammad, co-author Ali, and illustrator Aly team up for another tale about young Faizah.

Faizah adores summer Fridays, attending Jummah prayers at the mosque with her mom and big sister, Asiya. Faizah loves fencing lessons, too—except when she must perform in front of her peers. Are they staring at her because she’s messing up? Faizah prefers to fade into the background: At the mosque, she feels safe in the crowd behind the imam, and at home, she shadows Asiya’s fencing moves. When the coach asks if she’ll compete in the fencing tournament, Faizah is reluctant. But after her mom imparts some wise words on courage (“Water the roots for the right reasons, and bravery will grow. Exactly when you need it to”), Faizah learns step by step how to show her skills in front of people, so that when it’s the right time to be bold, she can step out from the crowd. This heartwarming story centering a Black Muslim family and their community showcases lessons from Muhammad—the first Muslim American woman to wear a hijab while competing in the Olympics—about fitting in, faith, and confidence. With Eid on the horizon for Faizah and her family, her busy summer days and anticipation of the holiday result in a vividly depicted milestone in a young girl’s life. Aly’s energetic illustrations reach new heights with compositions that get inside Faizah’s mind and heart.

A winning tale to be shared over and over. (authors’ notes) (Picture book. 4-8)

Sleepy Snuggles

Murray, Diana | Illus. by Charles Santoso Clarion/HarperCollins (32 pp.)

$19.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780063255234

Nothing’s so soothing at bedtime as a tender parental snuggle.

On each successive page, a different animal parent—a bunny, a bear, a bee, a hen, a sheep, a pig, a duck, a fish, a frog, a robin, and, at last, a human—tucks a precious babe in and tenderly kisses the little one. Expressing themselves in gentle, lilting verse with the cadence of a soft lullaby, these parents wish their babies a loving good night. Each spread begins with the word snuggle: “Snuggleduckling, snuggle-duckling, / not another quack!” Youngsters listening to these soothing words will not only be lulled into peaceful slumbers themselves, but will also glean some easy science lessons as the animal parents describe their children’s physical characteristics. The bear mentions its youngster’s “tiny claws,” the hen points out her chick’s “pointy beak,” and the duck refers to the duckling’s “downy back.” Each parent also identifies its little one’s bedding. The little bunny gets tucked into a bed of “garden leaves,” the bee in a “golden hive,” and the sheep in a “grassy field.” Rendered in a warm palette, Santoso’s illustrations, created digitally and with handmade textures, are as plush and comforting as the downy blanket enfolding the human “snuggle-baby” in the final spread. (It’s no coincidence that the cuddly infant is surrounded by stuffed toy versions of the animals in the story.) Human characters present white. Make this irresistibly snuggly book a part of your nightly bedtime ritual.

(Picture book. 3-6)

For more by Diana Murray, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Drawn Onward

Nayeri, Daniel | Illus. by Matt Rockefeller | HarperAlley (40 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780063277168

A grieving young boy goes on an impossible adventure and returns, healed.

Nayeri’s text is minimal, even cryptic: just about 50 words, spooled out over the page turns in brief, elliptical spurts—and then reversed, conveying an entirely different meaning. Little listeners are unlikely to notice the clever construction initially, so beguiled will they be by Rockefeller’s lush, jewel-toned images. They set the scene first in a cozy, medieval-esque cottage beset by grief: A weeping child huddles next to a sorrowful bearded adult; above them hangs a painting of the child as a happy toddler cuddled between the bearded adult, now smiling, and a beaming woman. All are tan-skinned. The text reads, “She was gone.” In extremis, the child flees to the forest and pulls a sword from the ground. From there the adventure emulates a video game’s many levels, including an encounter with fearsome spiders, an underground ride in a rickety cart, a plunge into a sea serpent’s lair, and more. At the end of his quest—the middle of the book—there’s an ethereal woman, an agonized question, and the sublimely reassuring answer. The boy’s journey home traverses the same territory, but with smiling confidence. The illustrations are so filled with detail that they demand repeat visits, which will prompt little ones and their

grown-ups to explore both text and subtext further. Entrancing and complex. (Picture book. 4-8)

Mystery at the Biltmore

Nelson, Colleen | Illus. by Peggy Collins Pajama Press (136 pp.) | $16.95 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781772783278

Move over, Eloise at the Plaza: It’s Elodie at the Biltmore.

Ten-year-old Elodie LaRue’s art crime investigator parents leave her in the care of Miss Rosa and head off for the summer. Elodie, a resident of the exclusive Upper West Side Biltmore—a fictional building based on New York City’s Apthorp—decides to prove her detecting chops in the hopes that her often-absent parents will let her join them next time. She begins looking into the disappearance of a valuable pair of earrings from the apartment of a Biltmore icon, famous landscape architect Mrs. Vanderhoff. Elodie meets a boy her age, new arrival Oscar Delgado, and enlists his help. They learn that last night, Mrs. Vanderhoff heard a strange voice in her apartment and suspects her housekeeper, Agnes, of letting an accomplice in to steal the jewelry, but Elodie heeds Miss Rosa’s warnings that the hired help often unfairly comes under suspicion. Elodie questions Freddy the doorman; Mr. Ray, the flower deliveryman; Mr. Franklin, an orchid-fancying resident who’s had a falling out with Mrs. Vanderhoff; another doorman; and aerialist Daniela Wallenda, who lives in #9A. Nelson draws out the mystery, planting clues and red herrings, explaining

An entertaining blend of quirky characters and locked-room puzzle.

good reasoning, citing evidence, and providing a satisfying solution. The Biltmore staff and inhabitants are a whimsical bunch, and many colorful, mildly caricatured, detailed vignettes attractively highlight the action. Elodie is pale-skinned, while Oscar is olive-skinned; the supporting cast is diverse. An entertaining blend of quirky characters and locked-room puzzle. (author’s note) (Fiction. 7-10)

A Two-Placed Heart

Nguyen, Doan Phuong | Illus. by Olga

Tu Books (368 pp.) | $24.95 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781643796420

It’s 1996, and 12-year-old Bom is caught between two worlds. The Vietnam War had a lasting impact, leaving the country ravaged, so Bom’s family moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in hopes of a better life. But five years on, Bom is still struggling to fit in. She longs for her relatives in Vietnam and worries that she’s losing her “Vietnamese-ness” as her command of her native tongue slips away a little each day. Her younger sister, Bo, doesn’t understand her struggle: She’s too young to remember their past and declares that she’s simply American. To keep their Vietnamese cultural heritage alive, Bom decides to write about their family history on her father’s old typewriter. Through captivating free verse, Nguyen paints vivid, immersive scenes in this fictionalized memoir, which spans events from Vietnam in 1975 through the following two decades. The story features a large cast of characters, adding depth through glimpses of other perspectives and experiences. Some of the vignettes and musings wander and repeat, but they feel organic and true to the nature of memories. The author seamlessly captures the rich cultural traditions of Vietnam and the strong bonds and dynamics of large Vietnamese families. Nguyen doesn’t shy away from depicting the stark realities of famine, war,

Lee

immigration, and loss, tempering some of the more heart-wrenching moments with compassion, love, and hope.

An emotional journey that beats with an authentic heart. (note to readers, glossary, family tree, author’s note) (Verse historical fiction. 9-13)

Splinter & Ash

Nijkamp, Marieke | Greenwillow Books (368 pp.) | $18.99 | Sept. 10, 2024

9780063326262 | Series: Splinter & Ash, 1

Can a disabled princess and her gender-nonconforming squire make a difference to their country’s war efforts?

Twelve-year-old Princess Adelisa, who goes by “Ash,” uses a cane and braces due to her easily dislocated joints. After six years away at school, she’s returned to Calinor, where discontented nobles—and her older brother, Crown Prince Lucen—dismiss her as “crippled” and “damaged.”

Twelve-year-old Splinter, who uses she/her pronouns and is neither a girl nor a boy, longs to be a squire, despite custom restricting this role to boys. When her bravery and sense of justice impress Ash, Ash sponsors Splinter as her squire and companion, but bullying from other squires, especially Lucen, makes Splinter’s quest challenging. On the day Lucen’s actions get Splinter ejected from the squires, Ash is kidnapped. Splinter—and a guilty Lucen—go in pursuit. Nijkamp illustrates the price of betrayal in many forms. Nobles, unhappy with the queen’s more equitable policies, aggravate the war with the Ferisian Empire by betraying Calinor for promises of power. Ash and Splinter, while spying for Calinor to unmask traitorous nobles, agonize over necessarily betraying friends and helpers in the process, and Lucen betrays his sister’s trust. The characters all have depth and flaws and believably grow into stronger versions of their true selves who value their own self-worth. The limited worldbuilding may be addressed in sequels. Major characters are cued white.

A thoughtful fantasy exploring loyalty, self-worth, and the ethics of war beyond the battlefield. (map) (Fantasy. 10-13)

Thunderbird: Book 3

Nimr, Sonia | Trans. by M. Lynx Qualey Center for Middle Eastern Studies (120 pp.)

$18.00 paper | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9781477327524

This trilogy closer from Palestine that’s translated from Arabic transports readers further back in history as Noor seeks the final two phoenix feathers that will seal the crack in the wall between worlds and keep humanity safe.

Noor comes to in Aelia, as Jerusalem was known in 638 C.E. under Roman rule. Her ankle is broken, she doesn’t speak Aramaic, and she longs for her normal life in Ramallah. But at least she has Sabeeka, her steadfast djinn companion in the form of a black cat—and there’s the excitement of seeing Muslim historical figures she recognizes from school textbooks. With Sabeeka’s assistance as interpreter (and a clever bit of ventriloquism), Noor finds teenage twins Julian and Helena, who, like previous helpers across time, look remarkably like her and possess magic rings like her own. The siblings, who have forbidden magical healing abilities, have barely welcomed them before all four are swallowed up by a slithering creature and taken to the bleak world of the Baku Salaa beyond the wall, where the humans’ blood is wanted as a cure. Fortunately, they’re helped by the Sakarik, a community living under constant threat from the Baku Salaa. With time running out, nonstop action propels the foursome through a series of risky and high-stakes events. Although the climax arrives a bit abruptly, the vivid worldbuilding and strong sense of place throughout are engaging, and Noor’s voice is well developed. A satisfying, uplifting ending to an imaginative and original adventure. (Fantasy. 11-14)

Kirkus Star

A Map for Falasteen: A Palestinian Child’s Search for Home

Odeh, Maysa | Illus. by Aliaa Betawi

Henry Holt (40 pp.) | $19.99 Oct. 22, 2024 | 9781250896704

A young girl turns to her family members to help her answer the question, “Why isn’t Palestine on the map?”

Falasteen and her schoolmates sit around a world map searching for their countries of origin. When Falasteen asks why she can’t find Palestine, her teacher responds, “I think there’s no such place.” A concerned Falasteen goes home after school, eager for answers. Her grandfather, grandmother, and mother each provide a response that tells her family’s story and strengthens her sense of identity. Drawing inspiration from her own grandmother’s experience of displacement in 1967, the author tells a poignant story of longing and sadness mixed with a persistent hope for a return to a historic homeland and reunification with family. The book is notable for both its honesty and its sensitivity on the topics of “settler colonialism” (a term defined in the backmatter) and expulsion. Incorporating cultural touchstones such as spinach pies and the winding branches of olive trees, Betawi’s delicately beautiful illustrations evoke nostalgia for a place dear to Falasteen and her family’s hearts. Odeh walks a fine line, framing her story in a way that young readers will readily understand while never sugarcoating difficult realities. Her book fills a gap in representations of the Palestinian diaspora, offering a much-needed insider’s perspective. The author’s note provides vital personal and historical context, making this an invaluable teaching tool.

A haunting, powerful, and crucial tale of culture and identity. (resources for adults) (Picture book. 5-10)

Dogs and Us: A FifteenThousand-Year Friendship

Pantaleo, Marta | Trans. by Debbie Bibo & Yvette Ghione | Groundwood (48 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781773067711

A fetching tribute to a long and fruitful association between two species. “It doesn’t take much for us to understand each other,” writes Pantaleo, in Bibo’s translation from Italian, “but it hasn’t always been this way.” In the simply phrased narrative that follows, prehistoric humans and early wolves hunting mammoths gradually come together. Then, as eras pass, humans are depicted in the conventional dress of many cultures and periods posing with differing breeds of dogs—in war and peace, in work and play—up to modern views of people and pooches in settings both rural and urban. “Together forever,” she concludes, “dogs and us!” For families in search of canine companions, she appends portraits of 35 domestic breeds, plus a dingo standing in for wild strains; each comes with brief notes (translated by Ghione) about its history, distinctive characteristics, and dispositi on. In the illustrations, two-legged figures, though stylized in dress and features, are nearly as diverse as the array of affectionate four-legged ones, and the message that there is a dog for everyone—and vice versa—comes through clearly. A quick overview with a bit of historical perspective sure to enrich the natural bonds between dogs and dog lovers. (Informational picture book. 5-9)

A fetching tribute to a long and fruitful association between two species.

DOGS AND US

Gracie Under the Waves

Park, Linda Sue | Illus. by Maxine Vee

Allida/HarperCollins (176 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780063346291

For more by illustrator Debbie Bibo, visit Kirkus online.

Gracie convinces her parents to take her and her little brother, Ben, snorkeling in Roatán. Though her ultimate snorkeling goal is the Maldives, Korean American Gracie knows that baby steps are necessary to get her family from New York to the other side of the world, so she compromises by suggesting Honduras for spring break. Gracie also knows that patience is key when dealing with impulsive, boundary-crossing Ben. Gracie finds joy in seeing fairy basslets, butterflyfish, and other marine wildlife, but as Ben’s behavior grates on her and she learns about the threats faced by the world’s reefs, she’s brought to her boiling point. Gracie’s attempts to engage Ben in her interests fail to create a cohesive story. Her parents also leave her to do more than her fair share of caring for Ben—a choice that the author never unpacks or pushes back on. Frequent lectures from those who run the dive shop and the local marine park offer valuable information about protecting reefs but feel preachy and clunkily inserted. Ben behaves more like what an adult thinks a 6-year-old talks and acts like. While some readers may share Gracie’s passions, her descriptions of snorkeling and fishing are often disrupted by inorganic language and actions. Final art not seen. An imbalanced mesh of sibling squabbles and overly didactic reef advocacy. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-11)

Kirkus Star

Lucas and the Capoeira Circle

Pastro, Joana | Illus. by Douglas Lopes Atheneum (40 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781665924771

A young capoeirista learns to reawaken his ginga. Anticipation blooms as the day of Lucas’ batizado, or moving-up ceremony, arrives. Dressed in his abadá, Lucas shows off his capoeira moves with each swift kick and arm swing. If he can demonstrate his finest moves to the roda (or circle) before Mestre sweeps him to the ground, Lucas will receive a new corda and a cool nickname. As Lucas practices, his little sister, Lilica, joins in, falling in the process. Tears come, and Mamãe consoles her: “It happens. We all lose our confidence from time to time.” Uh-oh. Will a suddenly nervous Lucas lose his ginga at the capoeira circle? At the park, the roda welcomes Lucas and his family, and the batizado commences. Lucas’ friends demonstrate their moves one by one until the Mestre calls for Lucas. Unable to move, Lucas grabs his dependable tamborim and drums to the rhythm—“tuk-tuk-tek”—to regain his ginga. Full of dynamic language set at a precise pace, Pastro’s cadenced prose builds up Lucas’ inner journey through the rush of initial excitement, anxieties of creeping dreads, and joys of eventual triumph. Similarly, Lopes’ superb artwork depicts the elegance of capoeira via larger-than-life stances and extravagant gestures, all shaded in warm colors. A quick addendum provides details on the historical importance of capoeira and its role in Afro-Brazilian culture. Lucas and

his family read Black, while the capoeira circle is racially diverse. A marvelous celebration of inner strength and courage. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

12 Ways To Get a Ticket to Space

Peridot, Kate | Illus. by Terri Po Wide Eyed Editions (64 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780711286375

You, too, can reach space, someday!

From taking a trip in a space balloon to building a rocket or sending a message into space, Peridot catalogs a dozen ways for aspiring space travelers to fulfill their dreams. The book’s tagline, “How To Blast Off From Planet Earth in Your Lifetime”—specifically, the last three words—is the key to this compilation of visions for space travel in the near future. Some already exist for the lucky or wealthy few; some are still in the planning and funding stage; and some are attainable with study and work. Much of the text is necessarily based on speculation (“All being well, you will soon become the first person to pilot a homebuilt rocket into space”). Given that most titles about space travel focus on particular missions, this one provides a fresh perspective. The lively design is filled with text boxes and balloons and relatively short paragraphs set on dramatic backgrounds. The book contains a lot of information, but it isn’t always clear just how to follow the text, which jumps around as one’s stomach might in zero gravity. The more straightforward layouts provide relief, including a gallery of space travelers, a spread describing astronaut training, a comparison of rockets, and suggestions for strengthening one’s chances of becoming a space traveler. The digital illustrations portray racially diverse people, but the skin- and hair-color details of real people aren’t always accurate.

A starry-eyed look at tomorrow’s space travel. (resources, glossary) (Nonfiction. 8-10)

A starry-eyed look at tomorrow’s space travel.

12 WAYS TO GET A TICKET TO SPACE

How Carrot and Cookie Saved Christmas

Perl, Erica S. | Illus. by Jonathan Fenske

Penguin Workshop (40 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593662366

Carrot and Cookie unexpectedly fill Santa’s shoes in a grand adventure. It’s Christmas Eve, and Carrot still doesn’t have a present for bestie Cookie. Pickle points out that getting a gift should be “no big dill,” but Carrot needs something “EXTRA special.” Cookie’s “also in a jam.” What should Cookie get Carrot? Cupcake’s idea— adding sprinkles to every problem—is “a little half-baked.” Ultimately, neither Carrot nor Cookie gets anything for the other. Anxiety gets the best of them both. The pair eventually decide to “spill the beans” at their annual Christmas Eve sleepover. But their confessions are interrupted by a “Ho-ho-ho…achoo!” as a gingerbread Santa bursts onto the scene. Bad news: Santa is sick and going to have to cancel Christmas. Good news: Cookie and Carrot volunteer to save the day. They recruit various vegetables to replace the broken reindeer (including “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Radish”) and put Santa to bed. Can they get everything delivered in time? This follow-up to When Carrot Met Cookie (2021) is as wholesome as it is funny. The dialogue-driven story (with speech bubbles) asks readers to suspend disbelief and trust in “veggie power”—they’ll willingly do so. Perl and Fenske’s commitment to the punny, perishable world makes for some delectable details—even the moon is made of cheese!

A sweet treat for the holiday shelves. (Picture book. 4-8)

When Digz the Dog Met Zurl the Squirrel: A Short Tale About a Short Tail

Pine, Chris | Illus. by Chuck Groenink Flamingo Books (40 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780593528228

In film star Pine’s debut picture book, a dog and a squirrel overcome mutual distrust and forge a friendship. Before Digz began living with kind, light-skinned Ms. Pincher on Appletree Lane, he eked out a lonely existence at the dog pound. Now he considers himself king of the yard. Zurl the squirrel used to have an inferiority complex because her tail was shorter than her peers’. After her father’s pep talk, she felt better—and now considers herself queen of the yard. When she trips over Digz’s nose one day, the two start trading insults: Digz is a “ding-a-ling dope” and a “dummy”; Zurl is a “furry turd.” When a menacing Digz corners Zurl, she becomes frightened, but Digz summons a sense of empathy. Spoiler alert: “They were different, of course, but just the same in their hearts, / and in friendship these two were never apart.” Rhymes, near rhymes, and rather awkward rhythms tell a tale whose simple plot is stretched by delving into the psychological backgrounds of the titular characters. The text is wordy and sometimes trite. But the masterful art and layout will keep readers engaged. Muted colors and gentle lines create a comforting outdoor space, while the dog pound is appropriately stark and dark. Both protagonists have semirealistic bodies, as well as facial and bodily expressions that display an amazing range of emotions. Every character, from Zurl’s siblings to a tiny snail, is endearing. Uninspired writing rescued by extraordinary art. (Picture book. 3-5)

The Sherlock Society

Ponti, James | Aladdin (352 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781665932530

Series: The Sherlock Society, 1

Toxic waste dumped in the Everglades gives a quartet of middle school sleuths their first case.

Leading Carl Hiaasen fans over familiar ground, Ponti pitches 12-year-old Alex Sherlock and his 13-year-old sister, Zoe, with school friends Lina and Yadi as sidekicks, into a summer caper. It all begins with the hunt for a supposed fortune buried decades ago by Al Capone, culminates in a narrow escape from an exploding yacht, and ultimately exposes a smooth-talking bad actor shady enough to bring in even federal authorities. As the kids’ live-in Grandpa, a retired investigative reporter, delivers pointers on how to conduct interviews and sift evidence while grandly driving them around South Florida in his classic Cadillac, Roberta, the budding detectives display sharp wits, eyes, and negotiating skills. The last come in particularly useful when they’re dealing with their lawyer…who’s also their mom. Both the plot and the chain of evidence take logical courses, and since Dad is a marine biologist and Lina’s a recent transplant from Wyoming, Ponti is able to use their dialogue to highlight the local culture and larger ecological issues. Main characters present white, apart from tech wiz Yadi, who is cued Latine. An environmental mystery featuring lots of clever detecting, a bit of danger, and real felonies to investigate. (Mystery. 9-13)

The Idea in You

Questlove | Illus. by Sean Qualls

Abrams (32 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781419738265

Musician, producer, and music journalist Questlove offers encouragement for young dreamers.

“An idea can come from anywhere. Start here: Reach up into the sky and unhook a star.” As this work opens, a young child with dark skin and a large Afro gazes out the window at the night sky and finds inspiration for a newly formed idea. Each page includes suggestions for coming up with and honing an idea. “Look at it from one side. Look at it from the other side. Toss it, turn it, spin it, flip it upside down.” “It may need a little sweetness, or maybe some umami, building a depth of flavor.” The motivational text is paired with dark, otherworldly, mixed-media illustrations, rendered in acrylic paint, paper, collage, and pencil, which demonstrate the limitless potential of ideas. Together, the words and visuals offer readers opportunities to explore how to turn their thoughts into realities. While the book is stirring, it may go over youngsters’ heads; some references will leave little ones perplexed. The abstract nature of the instructions and illustrations make this work better suited for the audience the book is dedicated to: presumably older readers nurturing their inner child. Poignant, though laced with truths more likely to resonate with adult readers. (Picture book. 6-9)

Rory the Remarkable Dragon

Rammell, Kathryn | Orchard/ Scholastic (40 pp.) | $18.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781339043159

For more by James Ponti, visit Kirkus online.

From the moment she hatches, it’s apparent that Rory is different. (Readers will love being in on the joke: Rory is no dragon at all; she’s a chicken!) At school, the principal notices that there’s something off as Rory struggles with flying lessons (“She flies so fast, we can’t even see her!” concludes her teacher), has trouble breathing fire (her teacher lauds her for her self-control), and loses her appetite at lunch when her classmates sit down to a meal of roast chicken. Finally, the principal realizes why Rory stands out: She’s a vegetarian dragon! Despite all her differences, Rory’s discipline earns her a place as the youngest treasure guard in dragon history. This story upends readers’ expectations and celebrates Rory’s very obvious differences. The skills that set her apart from her peers also make her uniquely talented. It’s a humorous tale about standing out in a crowd that works on a surface level but also hits a little deeper. Rammell’s illustrations are appealing and cartoonish; the principal is full of personality with oversize pink horn-rimmed glasses, a beaded necklace, and overdrawn lipsticked lips. Rory has wonky eyes and a fitting, perpetual look of confusion. The other dragons are cute and friendly, depicted with different colors and horns and teeth of various shapes and sizes. Sweet, silly, yet meaningful. (Picture book. 3-6)

The Chainbreakers

Randall, Julian | Henry Holt (272 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781250882028

Rory isn’t like other dragons, but she still finds a place among her peers at the Dragon Academy.

Violet Moon, 12, must bring the Five Heavens together for a dangerous mission to save her father. Beneath the ocean waves lies the realm called the Tides of the Lost, with “water above and water below but air in between.” In this space, the people of the Five Heavens, descendants of the Sun People—“children of a gold continent”—have found refuge from the

Chainmakers, who sought to enslave them. This is where Violet, a Black girl, lives as a Reaper with her father, Virgil, the captain of the Mooney. She’s spent her life at the helm of the Heaven of Horizon’s ship, helping to save Passengers, or souls, who are lost in the waters. But a Passenger rescue mission is thwarted by the Children of the Shark, Chainmakers transformed into ghostly shark-demons. They capture Violet’s father, who vanishes into the Depths. The Mark of the Scythe, a lavender tattoo, is transferred to Violet, acknowledging her as the Mooney ’s new captain, and she sets off to save her father and the others who have been pulled into a dark, dangerous lair. Violet is a powerful lead who’s sharp-witted and brave and leans on friends when needed. The eloquently descriptive worldbuilding will paint vivid images in readers’ minds. A magical high-seas adventure led by a strong girl with a powerful message of hope. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Find Her

Reno, Ginger | Holiday House (224 pp.) $17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780823454808

A story of persistence and family love emphasizing respect for animals, elders, and cultural customs.

Twelve-year-old Wren, who’s Cherokee and white, has exceptional tracking skills. Her family seems to have a knack for detective work; her dad’s the town’s police chief, after all. Even though her mom vanished over five years ago, Wren remains determined to find her. But her mom is just one of the many Indigenous women in Oklahoma who have gone missing, and Wren feels pain and frustration that no one is doing more about this tragedy. Wren follows her maternal grandmother Elisi’s advice to use her “finder feelings” to reunite missing pets with their owners. During a school project, she and class partner Brantley uncover an animal mystery and

work together to find the criminal. Relying on her Wolf Clan knowledge, Wren recognizes her responsibility to protect animals, herself, and others. Debut author Reno (Cherokee) offers readers a powerful story that explores heart-wrenching themes, including Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, animal torture, child abuse, and bullying. Informative backmatter expands on the epidemic of MMIWG and the meaning of the red handprint symbol, as well as Cherokee history in the book’s setting of Fort Gibson. Elisi is a source of guidance, humor, and comfort to Wren. After a slower start, the mystery unfolds, and once Wren is in pursuit of the culprit (with help from Brantley), the story takes off and will grip readers.

A dramatic and captivating call for attention. (author’s note) (Fiction. 10-14)

All the Books

Rocco, Hayley | Illus. by John Rocco Little, Brown (48 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780316512749

The magic of a public library, revealed. Piper Waterstone, a plump little chipmunk with a voracious appetite for reading, never lets her books out of her sight. They are so special to her that she can’t bear to part with them, so instead, she carries them with her wherever she goes. As her collection grows, however, transporting it becomes increasingly difficult. One rainy afternoon, her bike wobbles, and her wagon full of books spills onto the

wet street. They get soaked. Piper is devastated. A gentle mole sees her plight and ushers her into the closest building—which happens to be the library. Piper looks up, mouth agape and paws clasped in wonder. This building is full of books! A glow from the majestic windows (or possibly the magic) envelops her and the mole librarian as they face the endless bookshelves. If Piper is going to join the library, she needs to learn to share the books that she loves so dearly. Is that a commitment she is willing to make? Deep, warm tones, with bright spots of gleaming lamps, wrap the space in comfort and coziness, while the anthropomorphized animals have a sweetly old-fashioned air. Notably, there’s nary an electronic device in sight. A loving ode to libraries, more needed than ever in a world of increasing book bans. (Picture book. 4-7)

Kirkus Star

Chooch Helped

Rogers, Andrea L. | Illus. by Rebecca Lee Kunz | Levine Querido (48 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781646144549

A young Indigenous girl attempts to get along with her infuriating little brother. Sissy has a mischievous 2-year-old brother called Chooch—an affectionate nickname based on the Cherokee word for boy or son. No matter what the usdi (baby) does, he “just gets away with everything”—from painting streaks through Elisi’s mural to making a mess of Edutsi’s grape dumpling flour. Each

Native life and language are at the center of this beautiful sibling story.

CHOOCH HELPED

transgression is followed by the same refrain: “Chooch helped.” Sissy has less tolerance for her brother’s “assistance,” and the last straw comes when Chooch damages her clay pot. After the fed-up narrator screams at the little boy, her parents yell at her, bringing the beleaguered sister to tears. But Chooch shows up to do what he always does—with his arms around a sobbing Sissy, “Chooch [helps].” Sissy comes to understand that young children learn by watching others and that her patience helps Chooch grow. Author Rogers and illustrator Kunz, both members of the Cherokee Nation, portray Sissy’s older sisterhood with tenderness; illuminating backmatter explains the links between the story and the creators’ own heritage. The touching narrative and its universal lesson are brought to life through Kunz’s powerful images, which make stunning use of collage to illustrate the children’s rich familial and cultural webs. Readers’ hearts will be warmed by Sissy and Chooch’s relationship and by the moving representation of Cherokee traditions. Native life and language are at the center of this beautiful sibling story. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, instructions for creating a pinch pot, glossary) (Picture book. 4-10)

Eyes on the Ice

Rosner, Anna | Groundwood (200 pp.)

$14.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781773067377

A young boy living in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia finds his loyalty tested when he must choose between his father and the game he loves. Set in 1963, the novel follows 10-year-old Lukas and his poor but happy and close-knit family. Lukas loves reading contraband hockey publications and dreaming of the NHL. When Lukas’ family gives him and his brothers ice skates and hockey sticks, the boys eagerly learn how to play hockey at the nearby outdoor rink. Lukas’ and older

A fulsome appreciation of these intelligent, social, nearly ubiquitous corvids.

HOW TO KNOW A CROW

brother Denys’ skills on the ice are quickly noticed, and they’re recruited by a local youth league. Life under the watchful eye of the secret police is stressful, even more so when Lukas discovers that his father is hiding something. Then the worst happens— Lukas’ dad is arrested for crimes against the state. Under pressure by the secret police to throw a hockey game, Lukas and Denys make a difficult decision that affects everyone around them. Rosner strikes just the right balance, weaving in historical context in manageable tidbits that never feel dense or overwhelming. She maintains suspense through strategic pacing as Lukas encounters peril. Though this is a work of fiction, an author’s note reveals an interesting historical parallel.

An absorbing window into recent history. (historical note, map of Europe in 1963, glossary, discussion questions) (Historical fiction. 8-13)

The Days After Christmas

Rudd, Maggie C. | Illus. by Elisa Chavarri Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780374390167

Families enjoy the quiet after Christmas.

Christmas chaos has led to postChristmas calm in this story that sees racially diverse families cleaning up, quietly enjoying toys, and appreciating nature. The smiling children of each family help tidy and sip cocoa with nary a meltdown. Rudd’s simple but uneven rhymes in a flexible ABCB pattern anchor the quotidian days. Singular words are rhymed with plurals, and attempts at slant rhymes fall flat;

sometimes the language becomes unnecessarily repetitive: “Now it all seems too finished, / too over, too ending.” Chavarri’s art, too, is greetingcard cheery and wrapping-paper ready. The illustrations of holiday memories that open and close the book are generic gift boxes, pine trees, and candy canes rather than specific toys or holiday foods. The tale lacks a central family or character for readers to follow. The strongest scene is a three-spread sequence set outdoors when children hang birdseed ornaments for critters and play in the snow. There, the narrative includes a rhyme that works: “You tromp through the woods— / jumping rocks, watching birds— / and find magic in nature / without noise, without words”—a lovely way for families to experience the post-holiday doldrums.

A tree-trimmed holiday narrative that doesn’t hang together. (directions for birdseed ornaments, other ideas for activities after Christmas) (Picture book. 3-6)

How To Know a Crow: The Biography of a Brainy Bird

Savage, Candace | Illus. by Rachel Hudson Greystone Kids (120 pp.) | $21.95 Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781771649162

A fulsome appreciation of these intelligent, social, nearly ubiquitous corvids. Centering attention on the

American crow, Savage takes a fictive female she names Oki (“Hello” in Niitsitapi) from hatchling to new mom. Along the way, she dishes out heaping helpings of research-based facts and observations about crow species and

behaviors worldwide. Indignantly rejecting “murder” as a collective noun (“That’s so mean!”), she maps out seasonal rounds in extended families loosely organized in larger flocks— explaining how crows play, communicate, construct nests, nurture and train their young, use and even make tools, and generally display every sign of being “alight with awareness.” Poignantly, she notes that while mosquito-borne West Nile virus occasionally makes humans and other sorts of birds ill, for crows it carries a nearly 100% mortality rate. “American Crows,” she writes, leading up to the close, “often lead complex lives, full of drama and intimacy”—“a caws for amazement,” as she puts it elsewhere, and fledgling naturalists will agree. Hudson’s close-up illustrations and spot portraits, appearing on nearly every page, ably support the claim. Human figures rarely appear but seem to show some diversity.

An absorbing study—certainly “caws” for further investigation. (author’s note, glossary, resource lists, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)

Quantum Interstellar Sports League

Savage, J. Scott | Illus. by Brandon Dorman Penguin Workshop (272 pp.) | $14.99 Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593662304 Series: Quantum Interstellar Sports League, 1

With ownership of the entire Earth at stake, a seemingly random group of young athletes is tasked with winning an intergalactic football tournament.

Because everyone chosen for the Planet Earth Defenders team is under 14 and none have ever even played football, they’ve clearly been set up for failure. So, can the squad, led by its terrified and unathletic designated quarterback, Wyatt, figure out how to leverage the various basketball, gymnastics, ballet, arm wrestling, and other

skills it does have in time to save the world? Losing 72-6 to the hulking alien Droglidorians in the first game doesn’t inspire confidence; still, throwing out the standard playbook turns out to be a good first step. And, as outrageously brutal, toothy, toxic slime–spitting opponents come and go, the team jells together in time to face the Yextals—the biggest, meanest, most carnivorous foe of all—in the finals. Wyatt turns out to have such an unexpected knack for leadership and, in the crunch, clever improvisational skills that he comes away with a new, well-earned sense of self-confidence. In his narrative and Dorman’s free-wheeling, all-action scenes, the Defenders appear as a notably diverse bunch, both multiracial and, as it includes several immigrants from other planets, multispecies. The large font, ample white space, fast pace, and abundant illustrations will attract reluctant readers.

Gridiron heroics in space, with spotlights on the personal and collective value of team play. (Science fiction. 8-11)

Kirkus Star

Animal Countdown

Seeger, Laura Vaccaro | Neal Porter/ Holiday House (32 pp.) | $19.99 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9780823448678

Bold graphics with “I spy” die cuts deliver a compelling call to save endangered and threatened species.

Seeger is well established as a master of the concept book, and her latest offering lives up to this reputation for excellence. It reads like a mashup of her earlier titles The Hidden Alphabet (2003) and Green (2012); she adopts a layout similar to the former and an ecological ethos like the latter while presenting the numbers 10 through one. The first spread shows the word ten on the verso in sans serif knockout type against a murky backdrop, while the facing page depicts the numeral 10 organically formed by the hazy background, revealed through

a die-cut window in a brown gatefold page. When the gatefold is lifted vertically, the 10 appears as part of a reflective, watery setting where 10 sea otters huddle, adorably gazing out at readers. Ensuing spreads continue this pattern, showing nine elephants (the 9 formed by a pachyderm’s trunk), eight giraffes (the 8 appearing in markings on the animal’s fur), and so on. Seeger’s choice of a countdown provides a subtle message about the dwindling numbers of the portrayed animals, all of which, according to the backmatter, are “threatened or endangered, some critically.” Thumbnails with additional facts about the animals round out this artful, necessary picture book.

Count on Seeger for powerful, accessible art for young readers. (further reading) (Picture book. 2-6)

The Loneliest Place

Senf, Lora | Illus. by Alfredo Cáceres Atheneum (368 pp.) | $17.99

Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781665934602

Series: Blight Harbor, 3

Evie returns once more to the Dark Sun Side, a terrifying land of nightmarish creatures. This trilogy closer takes place just weeks after 12-year-old Evie narrowly escaped the Dark Sun Side in 2023’s The Nighthouse Keeper. Evie has been living with her aunt Desdemona, believing her parents’ lives were lost in a house fire—but she discovers they’ve been held captive in the Dark Sun Side by the demented creature called the Clackity. Evie, who’s cued white, strikes a bargain with the Clackity and embarks on a series of quests: Succeed, and she gets her parents back; fail, and she risks losing her own life. Accompanied by the lovable Bird, her tattooed companion who’s nestled into her skin and sends her warnings, Evie bravely uses her resourcefulness and altruism to tackle tasks that take her through places like an otherworldly

ocean, desert, and forest. The most captivating of these expeditions takes her to the Winterlands, a place that’s striking and chilling in its beautiful descriptions. It’s only in this world that Cáceres’ otherwise evocatively creepy black-andwhite illustrations fail to capture the vivid, haunting beauty described in the text. Senf’s storytelling is riveting and wildly imaginative, and her story is populated with unique, otherworldly creatures and characters. Evie’s deathdefying crusade makes for a satisfying, compelling closing to the series. A fitting finale for a top-notch series. (Horror. 9-12)

Bog Myrtle

Sharp, Sid | Annick Press (156 pp.) $19.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781773218922

Two sisters’ fates are changed when one encounters a unique creature in the forest. Living together in a drafty house, pale-skinned siblings Beatrice and Magnolia are opposites in many ways. Short, wide Beatrice is happy and curious, whereas lanky Magnolia is cranky and tyrannical. One day Beatrice ventures into the nearby forest and meets Bog Myrtle, a giant, gray-skinned spider woman who’s deeply committed to protecting the forest and is known for turning people into flies and eating them. She gives Beatrice some of her magic silk. With the help of the spiders that live in their home, Beatrice turns the silk into a soft, warm sweater for Magnolia. Greedy Magnolia sees an opportunity to make money by creating and selling more sweaters; she exploits Beatrice and the house spiders until her cruelty is no longer tolerated. With its short text and many simple, expressive, and attractive full-page illustrations, this book will entice young readers. Older kids, however, will likely have a better understanding of its sometimes challenging vocabulary and themes of sustainability and labor rights. These thought-provoking topics are smartly woven in as the story maintains a sharp

humor and folktale feel throughout. The sisters epitomize the classic folktale binary of good and evil, and it’s wonderfully satisfying when they each get what they deserve at the end, all infused with a slightly twisted sense of humor. Kindness is key in this droll and charming tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Wind Is a Dance

Shumaker, Debra Kempf | Illus. by Josée Bisaillon | Kids Can (32 pp.) | $19.99 Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781525308758

A lyrical meditation on winds, from gentle breezes to hurricanes and tornados. As multicolored leaves and bushes join a cast of young people of diverse skin color and body shape to dance balletically through Bisaillon’s increasingly swirly outdoor scenes, Shumaker offers both free verse appreciations and brief prose descriptions of wind types. After framing a general definition in terpsichorean terms—“Warm air leaps high, while cool air bows low”—the author progresses from a light breeze to helpful tailwinds that propel a soccer player to “ornery” headwinds encountered by a cyclist and on to more severe derechos. Finally, readers see a tornado doing little visible damage to a set of scattered houses in the art despite “twisting, turning, tearing up / everything in its winding path.” So, the author concludes, “How would you describe the wind today?” Readers eager to discover more about this inescapable atmospheric phenomenon will find further information about

each kind of wind’s origin and characteristics in an afterword, which caters to budding meteorologists with a note on how anemometers work, some record-breaking blows, and a chart of the Beaufort scale.

Downplaying wind’s violent potential, a series of pirouettes both airy and informative. (print and web resources) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

This Is How We Play: A Celebration of Disability & Adaptation

Slice, Jessica & Caroline Cupp | Illus. by Kayla Harren | Dial Books (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780593529904

Whether they “sing, learn, sign” or “stim, dance, crawl,” families who are diverse in terms of ability— all based on real people—enjoy a fun-filled day.

A grandpa cheers as a child who uses a prosthetic leg plays basketball; a child explores the boardwalk with Mama, who drives a mouth-controlled wheelchair; kids play puppets with an aunt who appears to be developmentally disabled and lives independently with a nurse’s help—all amply demonstrating the refrain: “With love and adaptation, this is how we play!” A father signs a bedtime story, and the families’ busy day winds down: “With love and adaptation, this is how we… // ZZZZZ ….” Though the rhyming text occasionally feels forced, Slice and Cupp, themselves disabled, realistically acknowledge challenges while keeping an upbeat, reassuring tone. They note that sometimes “bodies are not much fun. / They hurt and ache—can’t jump

A lyrical meditation on winds, from gentle breezes to hurricanes and tornados.

or run.” The accompanying image shows a child and an adult who uses a walker and takes medication; the two, on “days like this…love to cuddle. / Read our stories, nap and snuggle.” Harren’s detailed portrayals of myriad physical, sensory, and developmental conditions warmly embrace disability’s broad spectrum, and characters’ faces radiate love and enthusiasm. Backmatter includes a glossary of depicted conditions (unfortunately describing Braille as a language rather than a writing system) and tips for caregivers on addressing disability with children. Characters are racially diverse. A wonderfully inclusive celebration of disability and family. (Picture book. 4-8)

Tig

Smith, Heather | Tundra Books (160 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780735267497

A once-neglected child forges connections. Eleven-year-old narrator Tig (short for Tigger, a nickname her mother bestowed on the bouncy child) finds it difficult to trust the comfort and safety of her new home. Her mother abandoned the family several harrowing months before, running off with the boyfriend who physically and emotionally bullied Tig for years. Tig relied on big brother Peter, named for her late father, to figure out how to keep warm and fed in the cold, empty house. Now Peter helps her adapt to an unfamiliar situation. She’s wary, defensive, and angry as she navigates the first weeks with Uncle Scott and his partner, Manny. The couple adopt a bull terrier for Tig and are steadfast in the face of Tig’s rage and hurt. Tig’s voice is convincing and intelligent, with notes of longing, sadness, and hope. The narrative doesn’t address whether Tig’s mother will face legal consequences and only fleetingly mentions contact with a social worker, but it’s clear that her new home with Uncle Scott and Manny is a permanent

one. New friends Jacob and Jonah, Guten Morgen the dog, and Tig’s ambition to become the cheese-rolling champion of Wensleydale all help develop a sense of belonging. Jacob and Jonah are Filipino; Tig and her family are implied white. A moving, accessible tale of trauma, laced with a compelling sense of optimism. (Fiction. 9-13)

Leo’s First Vote!

Soontornvat, Christina | Illus. by Isabel Roxas | Knopf (48 pp.) | $18.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593644263

Young Leo learns that every vote counts. Leo couldn’t be more proud of Dad, who just became a U.S. citizen and earned his right to vote—and Leo gets to go with him when he casts his vote for the president. At school, there will be a mock presidential election, and Leo’s excited. But when Cousin Ray announces that he’s not voting (“Do you really think one person is going to make a difference?”), Leo feels discouraged. Cautiously bolstered by reminders that people are still fighting for the right to vote in the U.S. and abroad, Leo casts a vote. When Leo’s teacher tallies the results, it all comes down to one ballot! Later, when the polling place is nearing closing time, Leo encourages others to stay in line, knowing that every vote matters. Soontornvat conveys a timely and accessible message of the power and importance of participating in the democratic process. Roxas’ mixed-media illustrations depict a community diverse in terms of age, race, and religion. Leo’s family is brown-skinned, though we don’t learn about their heritage. Facts about the U.S. voting process are integrated throughout the story; practical backmatter expands on that information. In a callback to Leo’s mock election, Soontornvat details several states’ House of Representatives elections in which one vote decided the outcome. Publishes simultaneously in Spanish.

An invaluable addition to any young citizen-in-training’s bookshelf.

(Picture book. 5-9)

The Haunted Mask

Stine, R.L. | Adapt. by Maddi Gonzalez | Illus. by Maddi Gonzalez | Graphix/Scholastic (160 pp.)

$12.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781338879391

Series: Graphix Goosebumps

In this graphic novel adaptation of one of Stine’s most beloved Goosebumps books, a Halloween mask inspires brutal scares… for a price.

Carly Beth Caldwell is easily frightened; everyone picks on her, from classmates Chuck and Steve to her little brother, Noah. This Halloween, however, she intends to get revenge by using a particularly hideous mask purchased from the forbidden section of a mysterious costume shop. It’s way more effective than her mom’s homemade duck outfit. But, like any horror story curio, it comes with dangerous warnings and high-stakes instructions. As Carly Beth and her best friend, Sabrina, set out for a night of trick-or-treating, Carly Beth finds that the mask makes her absolutely terrifying, but it also threatens to take over her personality, turning her into something of a local menace. Eventually, she finds she’s unable to take it off. Readers who recall the original tale will relish watching timid Carly enact her righteous vengeance at the risk of her own identity. The artwork sells her scaredy-cat reactions as effectively as her masked, monstrous moments. Some comedic elements balance the body horror, such as a cute cameo from Stine and gag comic strips that close out the book. Carly Beth and her family are light-skinned; Chuck and Steve are tan-skinned; Sabrina is brown-skinned. Successfully injects new life into a thrilling Goosebumps classic. (information on adapting the book into comics form, search-and-find game) (Graphic horror. 8-12)

A warmhearted historical adventure embedded in Nordic folklore.

MADSI THE TRUE

A Bindi Can Be...

Subramaniam, Suma | Illus. by Kamala Nair | Kids Can (32 pp.) | $21.99

May 7, 2024 | 9781525308031

A young child explores the significance of wearing a bindi, a colored dot that many South Asians wear on their foreheads.

Excited to make bindi powder, the child and Paati (Grandmother) gather natural ingredients. While blending turmeric, ku nkumam stone, sandalwood powder, and ghee into a clay pot, the child is enthralled as the mixture magically transforms from sunshine yellow to a deep red. The young narrator playfully experiments with different bindi shapes. The child wears it as a flower, a star, and even a crescent moon. It adorns the youngster’s forehead on celebrations such as Diwali, Navaratri, and Vaisakhi.

The child says that wearing the bindi “centers me” on restless days; it “fills me with the energy of the sun” and “lets me see the world as one.” The cartoonlike bright, vibrant illustrations in earthy browns, yellows, and maroons create a cheerful backdrop for the story. The text feels a little superficial, however; readers unfamiliar with the bindi and its significance may be left wondering why the bindi is so important to the protagonist, though the author’s note offers more information, including many names for “bindi” across India. The winsome illustrations can’t quite make up for the tepid text. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

101 Dogs: An Illustrated Compendium of Canines

Swinney, Nicola Jane | Illus. by Romy Blümel | Big Picture Press (128 pp.)

$14.99 | Oct. 1, 2024 | 9781536238419

An entertaining ramble through a roster of purebred canines, from the “flufftastic” Samoyed to the French bulldog—currently the most popular breed in the U.S.

With just a perfunctory nod in the frontmatter to Labradoodles and other “designer dogs,” Swinney offers a mix of familiar and potentially lesser-known picks from the estimated 350 recognized breeds. She devotes a paragraph to each canine’s physical characteristics, uses as a work or hunting animal, supposed personality, and likely ancestry. In smaller type at the bottom, she adds briefer notes on ranges of size and weight, life span, maintenance requirements, trainability, and, just for fun, what the dog likely would and wouldn’t say if it could talk. (English cocker spaniel: “Look, pheasant!” “I’m sad.”) Readers on the hunt for a family pooch or detailed care instructions should look elsewhere; casual ones won’t mind the omissions (Airedale, American pit bull) or that the entries come in no evident order. Blümel creates frequent visual links by pairing many of her strong-lined, lino cut–esque paintings, contrasting, for example, a sleek saluki with a shaggy Alaskan malamute (both chewing on or sniffing at shoes) or showing a bloodhound tracking the facing page’s corgi. The arbitrary arrangement will stymie systematic research, but even confirmed

students of the canine clan are likely to find new breeds to cherish here. Bowsers for browsers. (index) (Nonfiction. 7-10)

The Queen of Ocean Parkway

Tash, Sarvenaz | Illus. by Ericka Lugo Knopf (240 pp.) | $20.99 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593809792

Sometimes, time travel is necessary. Eleven-year-olds Roya Alborzi and Amin Lahiri live in 2024 but also, briefly, in 1949, 1974, and 1999. Iranian American Roya’s mom is the superintendent of their 100-year-old apartment building, which is dubbed the Queen of Ocean Parkway; Amin’s family are new residents. Roya helps her mom and observes the tenants, writing about them for her podcast. One day, she overhears married couple Stefanie (who’s cued Black) and Katya (who’s Russian American) speaking about a cursed fortune—and soon after, Katya is gone. Stefanie explains to Roya and Amin, who’s of South Asian descent, that at 25-year intervals, members of Katya’s family, the Petrovs, have received fortunes but also disappeared after visiting the family’s fortunetelling machine at Coney Island. And there begins an amazing adventure. Using the original fortune to guide them, the intrepid duo finds Grandmother’s Predictions, the waxwork machine, which tells them they have one chance to save Katya. Grandmother also sends them time traveling into the past, where they meet other vanished Petrov women. Roya also hopes that she can make a change in the past that would save her father from dying. Although the plot contains sometimes-confusing twists, turns, magic, coincidences, and unforeseen consequences, the resolution is entirely original, and the characters are distinct individuals whose worries, quirks, and foibles will engage readers’ sympathies. The sights, sounds, and

atmosphere of Brooklyn are integral to the proceedings and enhanced by Lugo’s illustrations. Suspend disbelief and enjoy this adventure. (family tree) (Mystery. 9-12)

Madsi the True

Taylor, S.J. | Atheneum (304 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781665938822

Three young people set out on a quest through enchanted woods. In 1750 Norway there are a lot of superstitions about the Northern Lights: Grown-ups say that standing under them will burn your hair off or that they’ll “grab you and drag you right up into the sky.” A year ago Madsi’s older sister, Lisbet, went to see the Lights and never returned. Madsi, who’s desperately missing her and feeling guilt-ridden about the argument they had the night she left, sneaks out to ask the Lights to give Lisbet back. But the Lights respond by sending another girl down from the sky instead. Torin has glowing hair the same brilliant green as the Lights, and she very much wants to return to them. So, joined by Espen, the annoying boy who lives next door to Madsi, the girls set off to ask the witch of Innerdalstårnet mountain for help. Along the way, they encounter monsters and enchanted creatures including giants, trolls, a gnomelike nisse, the undead gjenganger, and a beautiful huldra. They also befriend a nomadic, reindeer-herding brother and sister, Dánel and Ruvsá, who are Indigenous Sámi people. The book brings 18th-century Norway to life, immersing readers in the folkloric setting. Over the course of the journey, each character learns to reframe

stories they’ve long believed about themselves, gaining strength and letting go of guilt along the way. The bittersweet ending leaves room for hope. A warmhearted historical adventure embedded in Nordic folklore. (Adventure. 8-12)

The School for Wicked Witches

Taylor, Will | Scholastic (256 pp.)

$7.99 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781339042671

A clever young witch yearns to belong in a world of good and evil. Ten-year-old witch Ava Heartstraw plans to use her magic to help her family of poor brick-moss farmers living at the edge of the Impassable Desert. In order to become a full-fledged witch, Ava, who has “sand-colored skin and wavy brown hair,” will need to study at West Oz Witch Academy with other magical youths. But when Ava fails the magic demonstration to confirm her enrollment at WOW Academy, she’s deemed wicked and sent to the School for Wicked Witches instead. In reality, this school turns out not to be as terrifying as Ava expected. Nevertheless, she wants to do what it takes to escape, rectify this error, and reclaim her rightful place at WOW Academy. In the process, Ava navigates evolving friendships, bullies, and her newfound, powerful water witch magic. In this series opener inspired by L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, Ava embarks on an odyssey not unlike that of Dorothy. A colorful cast of quirky characters appear, often at unexpected times, leaving many loose ends that may be addressed in future installments. The pacing feels unbalanced,

An entertaining ramble through a roster of purebred canines.

DOGS

and the story concludes rather abruptly with a cliffhanger ending. The characters are fantasy-world diverse and have a variety of skin tones and hair colors. Charming characters help compensate for a choppy plotline. (Fantasy. 8-12)

Doña Quixote: Flight of the Witch

Terciero, Rey | Illus. by Monica M. Magaña Henry Holt (240 pp.) | $22.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 9781250795496 | Series: Doña Quixote, 2

Lucia Castillo, a descendant of Don Quixote, is back to save her town once again in this sequel to Doña Quixote: Rise of the Knight (2023).

After taking on the knight’s helmet following the passing of her abuelo, Mexican American Lucia was able to stop her town from being destroyed by its monstrous mayor with the help of best friend Sandro. Since then, she’s become a local hero, helping everyone with their magical (and nonmagical) problems. But juggling her duties as a knight with homework and chores proves to be much more difficult than she thought. Abuelo said it was the helmet wearer’s responsibility to protect others on their own; he warned her that it’s a lonely life. But what happens when you can’t do everything by yourself? When owls begin stealing people’s prized possessions, Lucia realizes that something bigger could be afoot. Between failing grades, a coven of evil witches, and arguments with her parents and Sandro, Lucia has more on her plate than ever. As she works to solve the avian mystery, she learns to balance each aspect of her life: relationships, school, and, of course, heroics. The bright illustrations creatively depict Lucia’s exploits, from the magic of her knight’s helmet to memories of Abuelo, which appear in sepia tones. The creative formatting of the panels enhances the story’s engaging nature. Another fun, magical adventure bolstered by meaningful life lessons. (notes on making a graphic novel) (Graphic adventure. 8-12)

An eye-catching and enjoyable ode to cats, in all their mischievous glory.

Lone Wolf Gets a Pet

Thomas, Kiah | Illus. by K-Fai Steele Neal Porter/Holiday House (48 pp.)

$16.99 | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9780823457786

Heavens, no, Wolf doesn’t need a pet for companionship: He’s still a proud misanthrope. In his second outing, Wolf yearns for just one thing: jelly beans. But the whole stock has been bought up for prizes in a Best Pet competition. Wolf doesn’t like pets, but to score jelly beans, he concludes, he needs a special animal. Watching a hiker’s dog sitting up and rolling over convinces Wolf that a pooch will win him the beans. But his decision to adopt a dog ends with canid conflict. Wolf’s attempts to prop sunglasses on his adopted cat don’t end well, either. Next, Wolf mounts a saddleless horse, but his sinister lupine smile makes the horse bolt. At the contest, Wolf opts to bring a goldfish. The other pets show off their paces: The cat gives a high-five; the horse hugs the judges. Wolf’s goldfish is trouble-free, but it doesn’t do a thing and doesn’t earn a prize. But the winner of the grand prize is quite taken with the goldfish…perhaps there’s a way for Wolf to get the coveted jelly beans after all. Refreshingly, Thomas lets Wolf remain his reclusive self—a choice that will readily endear him to readers. From the hiker’s lumpish dog to the grinning horse with a selfie stick and, finally, a blissed-out Wolf making jelly bean angels on the floor, the droll art contributes as much to this amusing story as the understated text does. A dryly humorous celebration of solitude—and jelly beans. (Early reader. 6-9)

My Vampire vs. Your Werewolf

Tobin, Paul | Bloomsbury (272 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781619639010

Series: The Versus Series, 1

American, and Gabe has dark skin and “wiry black hair.”

A fun twist on a classic monster feud. (Paranormal. 8-12)

I Quit

I QUIT For more by Kristen Tracy, visit Kirkus online.

Four young Trainers prepare for a Versus battle of epic proportions. Nine-year-olds Gabe Basuldua and Hayden Fracasso and 10-year-olds Joon Baker and Tradd Risso are on opposing Trainer teams within the Crafters Guild. The guild, a secret society that specializes in monster battles, exists not only to protect civilians from roving monsters but to integrate monsters into a world where they can safely express their true natures; being pushed into hiding has been bad for monsters’ mental health. Using medallions made by the Crafters Guild witches, Trainers can protect themselves from specific monsters, allowing them to locate and train those creatures for battle. After intense studying, Gabe and Hayden find Count Drustan, the perfect vampire to enter battle with. Similarly, Joon and Tradd locate a werewolf named Redd Sampayo and convince him to fight for them. With their monsters registered and their medallions in hand, all that’s left for these Trainers is to set their monsters up for battle. So, who will win, vampire or werewolf? Set in Tacoma, Washington, this comedic, action-filled tale meshes interesting characters and worldbuilding with a classic vampire versus werewolf narrative. Alternating points of view and quick pacing make this an enjoyable and entertaining read that’s perfect for Pokémon fans. Hayden and Tradd are white, Joon is Korean

Tracy, Kristen | Illus. by Federico Fabiani Farrar, Straus and Giroux (40 pp.)

$18.99 | Oct. 22, 2024 | 9780374392192

A recently adopted cat is living luxuriously until the strict house rules force the “bad kitty” to quit.

Waiting for adoption is a sad reality for the cat until a young girl spots her and takes her home to bask across chairs, sofas, and freshly folded laundry. Everything is peachy until the cat realizes there are rules: No eating bread, no chasing the baby, no fun. The cat decides to quit and finds herself outside in the dark, with no warmth and nothing soft to sleep on. Rescued from the outdoors by her owner, she happily returns home. In a classic tale of “the grass is always greener,” this feline realizes that life is much better at home than out in the wilderness. The cat is orange with a black striped tail, and the illustrations are mostly from her perspective. The standout images are the nighttime scenes, such as one of the cat peering out the window, backlit in orange. Readers who are paying attention will get a kick out of how the illustrations show the cat technically following the rules (she doesn’t eat the bread, but spilled kibble is free game!), and cat owners everywhere will relate to the antics of this fickle feline. Human characters are light-skinned.

An eye-catching and enjoyable ode to cats, in all their mischievous glory. (Picture book. 3-6)

Jesús assumes his most significant role yet: caring for Mamá’s beloved plantitas.

MAMÁ’S MAGNIFICENT DANCING PLANTITAS

Mamá’s Magnificent Dancing Plantitas

Trejo, Jesús | Illus. by Eliza Kinkz Minerva (48 pp.) | $18.99

Oct. 10, 2024 | 9781662651069

Little Jesús assumes his most significant role yet: caring for his Mamá’s beloved plantitas. While Mamá watches her novela, a bored Jesús does chores, resulting in a mess. So Mamá comes up with an idea. Can Jesús be a big brother to her plants while she enjoys some TV time? Jesús is thrilled; an only child, he welcomes the idea of having plant siblings. With the self-appointed title of Chief Plant Officer, Jesús gets to work the next day. He cleans up the soil around the snake plant, chills out with the bunny ear cactus, and checks in with the Swiss cheese plant. When Jesús notices that Mamá’s cherished golden pothos plant looks a little sad one afternoon, he throws an impromptu dance party to cheer it up. Unfortunately, he knocks the plant over. “Ooooh noooo! Man down!” With Papá’s assistance, Jesús and Mamá come together to ensure her plantita looks better than ever. A companion to the resplendent Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock (2023), Trejo and Kinkz’s latest collaboration amuses with similar madcap humor and shenanigans, focusing on the supportive mother-son relationship briefly glimpsed in the earlier book. As always, the miniature scamp’s hijinks and wry observations bring the laughs—though the antics feel a little over-the-top this time—to the

forefront, matched in zany intensity by the bright, frenetic illustrations and abundant speech bubbles that break up the main text. Characters are Latine. Publishes simultaneously in Spanish.

Another enthusiastic romp. (Picture book. 4-8)

The Man Who Didn’t Like Animals

Underwood, Deborah | Illus. by LeUyen Pham | Clarion/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780358567134

Is it possible that once, Old MacDonald didn’t actually live on a farm— or that he didn’t even like animals?

Underwood takes her signature flair for fairy-tale reinvention—on full display in retellings such as Interstellar Cinderella (2015), illustrated by Meg Hunt—and brings it to the world of nursery rhymes. “Old MacDonald” may not have much drama or conflict, so Underwood has smartly imagined a prequel in which a tidy man who dislikes animals reluctantly takes in the creatures that show up one by one on his doorstep. The man’s stance gradually changes; “I don’t like cats” evolves into “Maybe THIS cat isn’t so bad” as he discovers how much more rewarding life is when shared with his new companions. Pham’s busy, animated illustrations convey the main character’s trajectory; the opening endpapers show the man turning his nose up at every pet he encounters as he walks through town, but as he

adopts more and more animals, his home becomes brighter and filled with life and sound. When the neighbors complain, he sends the animals away, only to discover the heartbreak of returning to life as it was before. Neither the farm nor the name “Old MacDonald” is revealed until the last spread—a delayed punchline that’s sure to delight. Old MacDonald presents Black; his neighbors are racially diverse. Perfect for animal lovers and preschoolers with nursery rhymes still fresh on their minds. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Star

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

Warga, Jasmine | Illus. by Matt Rockefeller Harper/HarperCollins (224 pp.) | $19.99 Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780062956705

A missing painting, a floating girl, and a mustachioed man: a lonely almost-12-yearold vows to figure it all out. Middle school has been terrible for Rami Ahmed, and now a painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum, where his mother works as the cleaning crew supervisor. Only the cleaning crew, Ed the security guard, and Rami himself were in the building on the day of the painting’s disappearance. As the theft draws unprecedented interest in the small, largely overlooked museum, the pressure of suspicion starts to grow. When a mysterious girl appears to Rami in the museum—and he recognizes her as the girl who’s portrayed in the stolen painting—he’s certain that she holds the key to its whereabouts. After Rami joins forces with Indian American classmate Veda, an aspiring sleuth, he finds himself in increasingly unexpected situations. The mystery drives this exquisitely paced story that unfolds in short chapters that readers will quickly

consume. The characters, though, are the beating heart of this tender, quiet tale. From Rami, the only child of a now-single immigrant mother from Lebanon, to the museum director, who “had that accent that most rich people do…fancy and well educated,” to Agatha, the sun-seeking turtle from the garden by the Penelope who observes, learns, and wants to give joy—each character is drawn with texture, depth, and warmth. Rockefeller’s evocative illustrations enhance the text. A slowly unfurling delight. (Mystery. 8-12)

Weirdo

Weaver Jr., Tony | Illus. by Jes Wibowo & Cin Wibowo | First Second (320 pp.) | $14.99 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781250772879

After enduring relentless bullying, a boy learns how to embrace his true self with the support of family and fellow blerds. Debut author

Weaver got used to being the new kid; in this graphic memoir, he shows how he relied on his love of comics, anime, and video games to navigate challenges. But entering seventh grade at an elite pressure cooker of a school was different—those passions made Tony a target of vicious bullying; feeling trapped, he attempted to die by suicide. Soon after, he reluctantly started therapy and entered a new school, this time determined not to stand out. But Tony found the Literature Club, bonded with other delightfully nerdy Black students, and rekindled his love of writing, gradually realizing that being unapologetically himself was exactly what he should do. Tony’s journey to joy and self-love is funny, relatable, and empowering. His story is rendered in a simple yet dynamic art style that skillfully uses different colors plus video game and comic motifs to reflect his emotional state and growth. The

artwork grounds the otherwise abstract journey of self-discovery, delivering a nuanced depiction of healing from fear and a reminder that we can all become the hero. Fans of Jerry Craft and Jarrett Krosoczka will appreciate this honest, hopeful portrayal of recovery from even the darkest places. Readers will also enjoy spotting the many anime and gaming references. A powerful, poignant reminder that you are always worth fighting for. (author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 10-16)

Fast Cheetah, Slow Tortoise: Poems of Animal Opposites

Westera, Bette | Illus. by Mies van Hout Trans. by David Colmer | Eerdmans (40 pp.) $18.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780802856357

In this Dutch import, Westera, author of the Batchelder Honor book Later, When I’m Big (2023), offers a lighthearted lesson in antonyms.

Sixteen pairs of animal opposites are portrayed in poems titled according to their primary characteristics. Like the titular duo, some pairs intrinsically embody their traits: A butterfly’s “Dazzling” appearance diverges from a moth’s “Plain” coloration, which also augments its ability to camouflage itself. A “Patient” spider awaiting prey in its web contrasts with a “Restless” blowfly as it debates where to land. A snake of unspecified species garners a “Dangerous” designation, while a facing earthworm, similarly sized in the accompanying illustration, is “Harmless.” “No need to be afraid of me. / I wouldn’t hurt a fly. / I don’t eat bugs / or caterpillars. / Just autumn leaves.” A

preening turkey is “Fancy” while a self-effacing chicken is “Everyday.” Often, the contravening traits are anthropomorphized: The nonmigratory house sparrow is “Contented,” while the swallow’s migratory behavior earns it an “Adventurous” label. Westera even bucks convention by assigning a pig the quality of “Tidy,” reserving “Messy” for the warthog. The short, free-verse poems rely on first-person, matter-of-fact personification, dabbling in qualities such as braggadocio and self-effacement. Van Hout’s cheerful illustrations (reminiscent of Douglas Florian’s) alternate full-bleed double spreads with separately composed facing pictures, one with a colored background and the other set against white space. Her palette emphasizes butternut-gold and bluegreen hues. A well-designed layout presents the facing poems with respective left- and right-justified margins. Breezy, colorful, and fun. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)

Lefty

Willems, Mo | Illus. by Dan Santat Union Square Kids (40 pp.) | $18.99 Dec. 3, 2024 | 9781454951483

Willems continues his forays into the world of informational texts with an unusual overview of our lefthanded history. Two hand puppets (actual hands, there’s no felt here) named Lefty and Righty appear on a makeshift stage to present a story to the reading audience. They deliver shocking news: Historically, a person could get in “really, really BIG

A powerful, poignant reminder that you are always worth fighting for.

WEIRDO

Kirkus Star

An encouraging celebration of persistence and self-expression.

THE WIRE ZOO

trouble” for being left-handed. As far back as ancient times, people would hide their left-handedness to fit in. Otherwise, “you might be fired or arrested or teased or thrown out of your village!” While incorporating the occasional choice callback to other Willems books—for instance, the phrase “Hubba Whaaaa!?!?” from The Duckling Gets a Cookie (2012)— the book empowers left-handed children to understand that “you can’t be born WRONG…RIGHT?” It takes very little to extend such a lesson to other groups forced to conform to society’s norms. As Lefty says, “If you’re hiding who you are, you feel rotten.” Meanwhile, Santat (clearly having a ball) draws historical sections in the style of Puritanical pamphlets, Greco-Roman friezes, and 1950s ad campaigns. Our main characters are real hands with illustrated glasses perched on top, allowing the artist to portray all kinds of emotions through their little drawn eyes. Humans depicted are diverse; the hands are light-skinned. A handy message goes down smooth when delivered with a little history and a lot of shameless silliness. (Picture book. 4-7)

Wishbone

Winans, Justine Pucella | Bloomsbury (304 pp.) $17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781547612574

After rescuing a two-tailed cat, Ollie and his sister find their wishes coming true. Ollie Di Costa has already come out as trans-

gender, but when Jake Barney, his old friend turned bully, publicly mocks his reading about demiboys, it kick-starts an awful afternoon, especially because popular Noah Choi witnesses the whole incident. Ollie and older sister Mia go to the beach (one place they escape their constantly fighting parents), and there, strange black vines drag Ollie beneath the sand into a world where everything’s backward and smoke pours out of gray-skinned people’s eyes. Ollie escapes after saving Wishbone, a two-tailed cat, and he and Mia soon realize that all their problems—lack of money, unrequited love, mean classmates—go away just by expressing their desires in front of Wishbone. But these wishes come with negative consequences for others. Mia wants to stop, but Ollie can’t let go of his anger with the world. After isolating himself from the pain others cause him, Ollie must now discover his true friends before he finds himself cursed. Though some clunky elements disrupt the narrative, Ollie’s journey from hurt and angry loner to someone who lets himself love and be loved by his friends is earned and earnest. Snappy humor, a genuine cast of characters, and sweet moments spent baking and hanging out with Wishbone and Noah, Ollie’s crush, balance the queerphobia and familial strife. Ollie and Mia are white, and Noah is Korean American.

A quirky magical romp with real depth. (Horror. 9-13)

The Wire Zoo: How Elizabeth Berrien Learned To Turn Wire Into Amazing Art

Wing, Natasha | Illus. by Joanie Stone Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 29, 2024 | 9781665940764

How sculptor Elizabeth Berrien became “Godmother of Wire.” Elizabeth loved animals but could never draw them as she saw them: composed of graceful lines. With her right hand, she could draw only scribbles. When she knitted using both hands, however, “her brain began rewiring her eyes and hands to work together.” But Elizabeth, who’d been taught to use her right hand despite being left-handed, couldn’t master drawing, and her high school art teacher’s dismissal of her “sloppy work” nearly convinced her to give up art altogether. Fortunately, another teacher, Mr. Curran, encouraged creative problem-solving, renewing her enthusiasm. When he gave her a roll of wire, Elizabeth’s hands could finally express “the beauty she’d seen all her life.” With practice, she figured out how to shape wire into animals, which earned her acclaim as a “true wire sculptor” and led to her biggest challenge: creating a life-size winged horse exhibit. Working through pain and fear of failure, Elizabeth triumphed. Invited to be an animal park’s resident artist, Elizabeth realized that, with her sculptures, she was at last sharing the animals’ “energy lines, their life forces,” with the world. Though somewhat static, Stone’s soft-edged illustrations clearly convey Elizabeth’s emotions, and the artist’s struggles to conform to right-handed drawing will resonate with readers who move, think, and learn in ways that differ from expectations. Backmatter includes further biographical details and color photos of Berrien’s work. Elizabeth presents white; background characters are racially diverse. An encouraging celebration of persistence and self-expression. (Picture-book biography. 5-8)

For more by Justine Pucella Winans, visit Kirkus online.

An empowering tale about how our present is shaped by our past.

THE MANY PROBLEMS OF ROCHEL-LEAH

The Case of the Missing Tadpole

Winkler, Henry & Lin Oliver | Illus. by Dan Santat | Amulet/Abrams (80 pp.)

$14.99 | Oct. 15, 2024 | 9781419766817

Series: Detective Duck, 2

In actor Winkler and author Oliver’s follow-up, Willow the duck’s sleuthing skills draw attention to another environmental threat at Dogwood Pond. Once more, Snout the weasel menaces prey, but rather than eating Franny the frog, he wants her to whip up her fried flies at her lily-pad cafe. It’s closed, though, because Franny has an emergency: Her child, Tad the tadpole, has gone missing. Willow immediately begins assessing the evidence and enlists her adoptive beaver dad for some reconnaissance. Sal the salamander—a huge fan of comic books—speculates wildly, while Flitter the dragonfly searches from above. When a human boy’s glasses fall into the pond and onto Harry the catfish’s eyes, his sharper vision shows him the blue-green algae now choking part of the pond, along with an agitated three-legged frog. Willow’s incisive questions start leading to the mystery’s solution as Aaron the heron joins the aerial search. Facing her fears, and with help from her pals, the Pond Squad, Willow eventually discovers that the mystery is rooted in human-caused environmental issues; the forest ranger—the father of the bespectacled boy—tells his son about humans’ role in inadvertently

introducing the algae and identifies a solution. Quips and asides enliven the aquatic action and provide relatable humor, while numerous colorful cartoon vignettes reflect the pond’s many angles. Expanding her expertise, this detecting duck doesn’t disappoint, and neither does this entertaining sequel. (Early chapter book. 6-9)

Kirkus Star

Up, Up, Ever Up!: Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains

Yasuda, Anita | Illus. by Yuko Shimizu Clarion/HarperCollins (48 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063242418

Climber, climate activist, mother, and inspiration. Growing up in Japan, Junko Tabei (19392016) was eager to scale mountains even as a child. From her first climb of Mount Chausu at age 10, Junko knew this life was for her. As an adult, she often heard the message that mountains weren’t for women, that she should stay home with her family. A determined Junko “became a mother who climbed for her daughter” and set an ambitious goal—becoming the first woman to climb Mount Everest. “Ganbarimasu!” she and her fellow female climbers say, a Japanese word translated as “We will give it our best.” With the help of Tibetan Sherpas, an all-female team of climbers, and her own ingenuity using kimonos to create

gear, she reached the top, despite a devastating avalanche. But this would not be Junko’s last mountain to climb, nor her last trip to Everest. Concerned about the environmental cost of the litter left on the famous mountain and the future of the Tibetan people, she gave back and inspired through words and deeds—cleaning the slopes and planting trees. Yasuda’s captivating, poetic prose weaves powerful metaphors and cultural touchstones into this powerful biography. Shimizu’s dreamy illustrations layer calligraphy-brushed outlines in India ink with digital color to immerse readers in blue skies, pink blossoms, and white mountain snow—Junko’s home.

A joyous celebration of a life built on resilient dreams. (author’s note, timeline, glossary, bibliography, source notes) (Picture-book biography. 4-9)

The Many Problems of Rochel-Leah

Yolen, Jane | Illus. by Felishia Henditirto Apples & Honey Press (32 pp.) | $19.95 Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781681156392

A young Jewish girl longs to learn to read. Rochel-Leah’s problem? She lives in a shtetl in Russia in the 1830s, a time when girls aren’t permitted to read. Only boys learn to read Hebrew in the Jewish school so they can study the Torah, a tradition going back generations; they also learn languages such as Yiddish and Russian. Her three brothers teach her a few letters, then chase her away so they can study. Rochel-Leah appeals to the rabbi: “Rules can be broken… or changed.” Fiercely persistent, she peeks through the school window, observing the lessons, even sitting on her father’s ladder for a better view. The rabbi notices her—and, amazingly, allows her to enter, admitting that rules “can be bent a little.” He

accepts that it must be divine will for a girl to want “to read this much.” Rochel-Leah eventually learns to read and becomes a teacher. Yolen reveals in an author’s note that this “true(ish)” tale about one of her relatives, passed down through generations, is part of her family’s lore. This warm offering about a determined young person demonstrates how families are enriched by stories from their past; it’s a testament to the importance of preserving the memories of those who have preceded us, for our identities are determined by our histories. The earthy digital illustrations, made by combining paper texture and digital brushes, expertly capture the setting. An empowering tale about a resolute young person and how our present is shaped by our past. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)

Banned Books, Crop Tops, and Other Bad Influences

Young, Brigit | Roaring Brook Press (320 pp.)

$17.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781250901514

Anxious and retiring middle schooler Rose Stern is grateful for her parents and BFF, Charlotte— they’re her entire world. But lately she’s been wondering if that’s enough. Rose’s perspective shifts after meeting new student Talia, who’s moved from New York City to their small Michigan town. Talia, who’s Jewish like Rose, vocally challenges the status quo, even openly questioning their teachers. Rose is in awe. Talia encourages Rose to read a fictionalized account of a Jewish refugee’s tragic experience after being denied entry to the U.S. during World War II. Rose, whose father’s family lost many people during the Holocaust, is deeply moved but later learns that this book, among others, has been

Expanding her expertise, this detecting duck doesn’t disappoint, and neither does this entertaining sequel.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING TADPOLE

pulled from the school library. She’s confused, especially after discovering that Charlotte’s mother is playing a role in the book challenges. Rose feels empowered when she, Talia, and a few other marginalized students form the Banned Books Brigade to read and discuss challenged titles. The topic is timely and sensitively handled, and the discussions the kids have allow for a range of responses, including outrage and understanding. As Rose comes into her own, tensions with Charlotte rise. When Charlotte betrays her, Rose’s parents’ response makes things even worse. The palpable tensions and intensely dramatic emotions feel believable for the age group, setting the scene for a life-changing, life- expanding episode—one in which Rose must find her voice and take charge. A relevant and riveting story of friendship, books, and personal growth. (discussion questions) (Fiction. 8-12)

Is a Book a Box for Words?

Ziefert, Harriet | Illus. by Mercè Galí Red Comet Press (34 pp.) | $18.99 Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781636551258

An intriguing title sparks a host of connections and associations. Boxes are everywhere: on doorsteps, thanks to online shopping; in our cupboards and fridges, as foodstuffs. Boxes of all sizes hold clothes and

toys. They house people in glass towers and animals in crates or sometimes shoe boxes. Money, fishing tackle, and even planes, bees, and brains can be said to be kept in boxes. Stringed instruments can be boxes that hold music; games of hopscotch and foursquare are played within chalk drawings made up of boxes. Ziefert’s book evokes Mary Ann Hoberman and Betty Fraser’s classic A House Is a House for Me. Halfway through, the text switches from assertions to interrogatives (the preferred sentence form for many Ziefert books). But this one never answers the title query. It never hints that a book can be so much more than words. Still, the author offers plenty of food for thought; young dreamers will have plenty to mull. Though sometimes strained, the rhymes mostly work, but random jumps in rhythm and meter will keep readers on their toes. The inventive book art combines photo elements with neon color and a lively black linework that changes in thickness for pleasing variety. A bright pink bear with an elongated snout and tiny toes appears in several illustrations; the few human figures are amusingly cartoonish and vary in skin tone. Eye-catching inspiration to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. (Picture book. 5-8)

For more by Harriet Ziefert, visit Kirkus online.

Young Adult

GEMS FROM THE SMALL PRESSES

THE AVERAGE READER may not think much about the publishers behind their favorite books, although they likely recognize the names of the bigger players. But small publishers greatly enrich the literary world. They don’t typically have the budgets to invest in splashy advertising, but they’re staffed by people with a passion for books who actively support new writers and take risks on valuable titles that aren’t surefire commercial hits. A diverse publishing industry benefits everyone. Don’t let these original and intriguing new releases pass you by.

The Stones of Burren Bay by Emily De Angelis (Latitude 46, May 4): This charming, atmospheric debut comes from a Canadian publisher specializing in northern Ontario authors as well as “narratives about the unique landscape and culture of the region.” Here, the well-developed contemporary Manitoulin Island setting is interwoven with a story of immigration from Ireland, as a grieving teen girl finds solace in nature and rediscovers her passion for art.

A Bridge Home by Mona Alvarado Frazier (Piñata Books/Arte Público, May 31):

This Houston-based publisher, which is “dedicated to the publication of children’s and young adult literature focusing on U.S. Hispanic culture,” is publishing Frazier’s evocative sophomore novel, which immerses readers in 1970s California. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the growing Chicano movement, Jacqui Bravo dreams of college while facing social inequalities and family financial struggles. Grapefruit Moon by Shirley-Anne McMillan (Little Island, June 11): Targeting “the best new Irish writing for young readers,” this Dublin publisher was founded by Siobhán Parkinson, the first Laureate na nÓg, or Irish children’s laureate. McMillan’s latest is a raw, honest work with nuanced characterization set in a Belfast private school. A friendship forms between working-class Drew, who’s desperate to fit in, and popular Charlotte, whose privilege can’t protect her from an ex-boyfriend’s revenge porn.

The Lost Souls of Benzaiten by Kelly Murashige (Soho Teen, July 23): Manhattan’s Soho Press specializes in “bold literary voices, award-winning crime fiction, and groundbreaking young adult fiction.” This deeply emotional debut presents readers with a startling hook: Machi, a

Japanese American teen who has stopped speaking after suffering trauma, visits a Shinto shrine, where she prays to the goddess Benzaiten, asking to be transformed into a robot vacuum cleaner.

My Life as a Chameleon by Diana Anyakwo (IgKids, Aug. 3): This debut by a Nigerian and Irish author made a splash upon its U.K. release last year; now a New York–based “independent press dedicated to publishing original literary fiction” has brought it here for U.S. readers to enjoy. This often gut-wrenching tale delves with honesty and insight into biracial and bicultural identity, mental health struggles, racism, and other topics that will resonate widely.

Mighty Millie Novak by Elizabeth Holden (Flux, Aug. 20): An imprint of Minnesota publisher North Star Editions, Flux focuses on being a “consistently provocative and independently alternative” publisher of YA books. This rollicking debut harnesses the energy of roller derby, which becomes a lifeline for a queer teen dealing with family conflict and social isolation. As well as improving her skills on the track, Millie navigates some thorny relationship issues as she comes into her own.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.

LAURA SIMEON

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

EDITOR’S PICK

High school friends must survive a haunted graduation party. When valedictorian Arden’s perfect future—a private college that guarantees medical school admission—is derailed because her feuding, divorced real estate agent parents spent her tuition money on Bucktown’s notoriously haunted house, the Deinhart Manor, she’s devastated. All she’s ever wanted was to dismantle the fatphobic and racist medical system that works against people of color like her (Arden is Black and Puerto Rican). Luckily, her two best

friends, Remi and Maddy May, have a moneymaking plan to save her college dreams: charging admission for a graduation party at the spooky, abandoned manor. White queer Remi can’t wait to see her crush at the party; bilingual Mexican American Maddy May has a complicated relationship with her drama club co-star, the Romeo to her Juliet. The celebratory mood quickly changes once the teens realize the house won’t let anyone leave. Teaming up with her former fling, Nathaniel, a Black science geek, Arden and her friends work

Killer House Party

together to figure out why the manor wants to keep everyone inside. In her latest, Anderson revamps the haunted house narrative while weaving in complex characters whose

bonds and hope for the future can save them all. A hauntingly beautiful take on a classic horror story that will leave readers’ skin crawling in the best way possible. (Horror. 14-18)

The Last Summer Before Whatever Happens Next

Burke, Bee | Islandport Press (240 pp.)

$18.95 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781952143823

For Claire Hart, being a townie in a bucolic seaside town in Maine in 1980 means always being aware of what she is not: rich like many of the summer visitors. For high school valedictorian Claire, this is a “summer of freedom”—a gift from her dad before college. What starts off as a random day in town becomes a turning point in the cadence of the next few weeks when Claire is swept up by Pepper Toohey, daughter of a plumbing supplies magnate, and brought along on her family fun day. Claire’s not just meeting one Toohey—she encounters a whole network of cousins, including Pixie, Pike, and Cheddar. Claire’s invited onto their yacht, and she spends her first relaxing day in forever sailing with them. She even earns a nickname, “Flipper,” when she dives into the cold water to save Cheddar’s mom’s Schipperke who’s fallen overboard. And so begins a summer of stepping into a world she’s only heard whispers of, one revolving around lawn games, clambakes, and drama. A Toohey bad boy takes an interest in Claire, and of course, there’s the blond, enigmatic Pepper and the lure of her alpha girl friendship. This book reads as a cautionary tale, one that highlights the temperamental nature of class schisms. The story is deceptively straightforward: Readers will root for Claire throughout, and a surprise twist at the end has a visceral impact. Characters are cued white. A beach read that explores enduring social themes. (Fiction. 14-18)

Cuban food, culture, and immigration stories are seamlessly woven throughout.

GUAVA AND GRUDGES

Guava and Grudges

Castellanos, Alexis | Bloomsbury (336 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781547613717

A teen enlists help from an unlikely source to make her culinary dreams come true. Rising senior Ana Maria Ybarra loves helping at her family’s Cuban bakery. Her dad wants her to take over the struggling business, but, dreaming of attending pastry school in Paris, she enters a scholarship competition for “Latin American students interested in furthering their food-related education.” Meanwhile, her mom wants her to attend a good college like UCLA, and it’s on a college tour in Los Angeles that Ana Maria meets handsome Cuban American Miguel Fuentes. They share one incredible day—and an unforgettable kiss—before parting, likely for forever. When Miguel suddenly appears at a party in Ana Maria’s small Washington state hometown, they have the same strong connection, but it’s ruined by the revelation that Miguel is a cousin of the Morales family, who run a nearby Cuban bakery that went viral with their dessert burritos. Thanks to a decadesold betrayal, the Ybarras don’t trust the Moraleses. Still, struggling with the social media aspect of the scholarship contest, Ana Maria secretly accepts help from talented aspiring cinematographer Miguel. Their chemistry is undeniable, but they’ll have to overcome their family feud if they want to be together. This fun, heartwarming story of

star-crossed lovers centers on a relatable lead who’s struggling with her family’s expectations and her own desires. Cuban food, culture, and immigration stories are seamlessly woven throughout, enriching the characterization and setting. A sweet and delectable love story. (recipe) (Romance. 12-18)

Aisle Nine

Cho, Ian X. | Harper/HarperCollins (272 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780063206809

In this debut, a 17-year-old store clerk tries to avoid the hell portal in aisle nine. After sustaining head trauma, Jasper wakes with no memory of the past. He finds evidence that his parents died on Hell Portal Day, which fell on Christmas nearly two years ago, when tens of thousands of portals to hell suddenly opened all around the world. Jasper stumbles back into his job at Sundown City’s Here For You mart, the site of one particularly menacing portal. The portals periodically spew out more violent demons, which are barely kept at bay by the Vanguard Corporation. All of this has become quite normal for the general public, but Jasper is haunted by a recurring image of four wraiths—and a sense that things are about to get worse. Humor and late-20th-century pop-culture references lighten the tone: Jasper’s roommate is a talking cat plushie, for example. As is often the case with this genre, plot takes precedence over character

For another summer read that digs into deep topics, visit Kirkus online.

development. Jasper is understandably something of a blank slate, and the rest of the cast is filled largely with stock types. Still, the plot twists are clever enough to keep the pages turning. Kyle, the main girl character (and potential love interest), is Taiwanese American; Jasper has “floppy dark hair and darker eyes.”

An intriguing corporate military state apocalypse fueled by nightmares and served with a side of romance. (Fiction. 12-18)

Holly Horror: The Longest Night

Corpora, Michelle Jabès | Penguin Workshop (320 pp.) | $19.99 | Aug. 13, 2024 9780593523117 | Series: Holly Horror, 2

In a small, eerie Massachusetts town, a mystery that’s been only partially solved begs to be untangled. Two weeks ago, Evie Archer discovered a place called the Shadow Land, a dark underworld where restless spirits reside. Though she and her brother, Stan, escaped and returned safely to their family, Evie’s crush, Desmond King, did not. While everyone else accepts his probable death, Evie won’t accept that he’s really dead. Whatever has been unleashed is affecting other people in town, and a dark hypnosis begins to spread. Evie searches for the notes her ghostly friend, Holly, mentioned, and with the help of (living) friends Tina Sànchez, who’s Puerto Rican, and Sai Rockwell, an Indian and white boy from England, she begins to piece together a mystery stretching back generations that will lead her to answers about Desmond’s fate, as well as the real source of the Shadow Land’s darkness. This unsettling, well-paced story unfolds with enough twists and unpredictability to keep even seasoned horror readers rapt. The characters are entertaining

and distinctively drawn despite the plot-driven narrative. Multiple ghost stories, complex family dynamics surrounding Evie and Stan’s unreliable father, and a satisfying ending round out a fun, frightening winter holiday–season novel that’s perfect for fans of authors such as Kate Alice Marshall and Ginny Myers Sain. Evie’s family presents white; Desmond reads Black.

A page-turning sequel with a little bit of everything for teen horror fans. (Horror. 12-18)

Practical Rules for Cursed Witches

Cottingham, Kayla | Delacorte (432 pp.) $19.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9780593813973

A spirited witch tries to break a curse and finds true love along the way.

The women of Delilah Bea’s family are cursed: Anyone who falls for one of them will immediately forget their beloved. Delilah is determined to break the curse during her Calling, during which she has six months to successfully complete a quest or lose her magic forever. But when a stranger named Kieran Pelumbra turns up and invokes an obscure rite, he compels her to attempt to break his family curse instead. In the influential Pelumbra family, one member of each set of twins drains the power of the other until eventually the weaker one dies—and Kieran is the unlucky twin who’s slated for death. He and Delilah set out to find his twin sister, Briar. The two have been

separated all their lives. When they locate Briar, she and Delilah immediately butt heads, but over time, forced proximity and their shared goal lead to friendship and eventually romance. In this charming Sapphic fantasy, Cottingham has crafted a believable, unfussy, and enjoyable fantasy world that contains baking magic and a library of curses. The cast of characters is colorful and lovable, from obstinate yet compassionate Delilah to prickly, mysterious Briar to the utterly endearing crew of the aeroship they use to travel. The author balances the romance and fantasy elements well and maintains a steady pace throughout. Major characters are cued white.

A magical journey sure to delight lovers of love. (Fantasy. 14-18)

This Ravenous Fate

Dennings, Hayley | Sourcebooks Fire (480 pp.) $18.99 | Aug. 6, 2024 | 9781728297866

In an alternate Harlem in 1926 that’s soaked in blood and secrets, former best friends Elise Saint and Layla Quinn grapple with the murders plaguing their city—and the feelings they have for each other. Vampires, or reapers, abound in Jazz Era Harlem. For 18-year-old Black girls Elise and Layla, the outlook is bleak. Five years ago, Layla lost her parents, became a reaper, and tried to kill her best friend. The attack caused Elise to leave for Paris, but now she’s back for the 10-year anniversary party of the founding of the Saint empire,

Ghost stories round out a fun winter holiday–season novel.

HOLLY HORROR

one built to kill reapers. Layla, armed with a knife, breaks into the Saint mansion, frightens Elise’s younger sister, and confronts Elise. Soon after, Layla is blamed for a vicious attack on Saint associates. The girls find themselves teaming up to investigate, working toward the goal of finding a cure for reaperhood. Elise and Layla’s simmering friction drives the book, making their interactions a highlight. Scenes with other characters sparkle—such as those featuring gangster Jamie (whose loyalties are unclear) and Elise’s confidant, Sterling (a reaper hunter whose white mother fled the Deep South after his Black father was lynched)— while others fall flat, leading to uneven pacing. The worldbuilding is also inconsistent and confusing at times. But this duology opener, packed with themes of racial, emotional, and generational trauma, features gorgeously written prose that will leave readers wanting more. An atmospheric, tension-filled fantasy debut. (content warning) (Fantasy. 15-18)

The Beauty of Us

Doctor, Farzana | ECW Press (304 pp.) $15.95 paper | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781770417694

In a boarding school in Ontario in 1984, three young women wrestle with personal histories and presentday challenges. This novel, set at elite Thornton College, is told from three perspectives: those of young French teacher Nahla, who’s originally from Beirut, new student Zahabiya, who’s Indian Canadian, and wealthy senior Leesa, who’s white. Nahla is hired for her first teaching position following the sudden death of Sylvie, the school’s last French teacher. Zahabiya, an outlier in her family, is grappling with loss, a new family dynamic,

Thoughtfully explores crushes, crushed dreams, and friendships.

THE BEAUTY OF US

and the fact that she’s not as well off as some of her classmates. Queen bee Leesa targets Zahabiya and her newfound group of racially diverse friends. Beneath the surface of their ordinary school lives—including homework and love interests—lies something more. Sylvie’s soul seems to be lurking and trying to say something to Nahla, who also finds a mysterious notebook that Sylvie left behind. Leesa, meanwhile, is hiding a big secret that implodes, affecting all their lives. The author successfully gives distinctive voices to all three protagonists, sharing their compelling family stories and struggles, their everyday losses, and their triumphs in the face of bigger ones. Over the course of the academic year, the two students and their new teacher come to terms with their own conceptions of family, self-confidence, and love and what it means to fit in.

Thoughtfully explores crushes, crushed dreams, and friendships. (resources) (Fiction. 15-18)

Shadows of Perl

Elle, J. | Razorbill/Penguin (448 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780593527733

Series: House of Marionne, 2

Secrets of the past and familial tensions abound in this sequel that teases forbidden romance. Quell’s connection to her toushana, or dark magic, poses such a great threat to the magical Order of grand Houses, haughty debutantes,

and high-stakes bureaucracy that the powerful Dragun brotherhood has determined she must die. Jordan, a former lover still hurt by Quell’s decision to bind to her toushana, is leading the charge—and unbeknownst to them both, Yagrin, his brother who has long hated the Order, has sided with Quell under false pretenses. The narration alternates among the voices of Quell, Jordan, and Nore, who wants a simpler life than her role as heir to the House of Ambrose can afford her; she’s dedicated to resolving this problem by any means necessary. The racially diverse cast of characters is large and at times unwieldy, but as Quell decides to leave the safe houses that have kept her hidden and reenter the world of lavish magical balls to find her long-lost mother, reminders of the earlier volume—beautiful gowns, cattiness, fish-out-of-water awkwardness—bring all the threads together, allowing for continued worldbuilding and a fuller story. Ultimately, Quell and Jordan’s tension boils over into the passionate romance it was always meant to be as the two partner with Yagrin and Nore to reveal the Order’s biggest secrets and potentially change the future of magic forever.

A romance born from danger with a fantastic buildup. (author’s note, histories of the houses, map, lexicon) (Fantasy. 13-18)

For another fantasy romance, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Please Be My Star

Elliott, Victoria Grace | Graphix/ Scholastic (240 pp.) | $15.99 paper Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781338840407

A teen strives for authenticity while battling imposter syndrome in this graphic retelling of The Phantom of the Opera Eleventh grader Erika Early has just moved from Atlanta to Texas with her family, bringing with her a lot of emotional baggage. Eager for a fresh start, she chooses a striking green blazer from a thrift store to be the focal point of her signature look. When Erika joins the theater group at Gaston Valley High School, she meets Julie Karimi, a white girl with a flair for sarcasm. Julie discovers Erika’s secret crush on good-looking Mexican American Christian Dominguez, and she introduces Erika to him and more of the racially diverse theater kids, including Miguel Hinojosa and Morgan Tsang. Erika and Christian discover a shared love for music and comics; the chapters reference a playlist featured at the end. After Erika writes her play for the school’s One Act Stage Festival, her four new friends become her cast and crew, bringing her closer to her crush. But Erika’s anxiety and obsessive behavior, including a secret she’s desperate to keep hidden, threaten these new bonds. Blue-eyed, auburnhaired Erika’s social anxiety is portrayed as a grayed-out doppelgänger who voices her self-doubts and negative self-talk in black speech bubbles. Erika’s struggles with mental health strike an empathetic chord that will resonate with readers. The clean, inviting art features varied panel shapes and perspectives and highlights the characters’ emotional expressions. Manga-style art animates this

charming story of self-discovery. (Graphic fiction. 14-18)

After Halastaesia

Franck, Janina | Snowy Wings Publishing (294 pp.) | $14.99 paper Sept. 24, 2024 | 9781958051757

A fever dream of a story offering more questions than answers.

Sixteen-yearold Ben is growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, but he recently journeyed to a distant land. After waking from a coma following a serious accident, Ben struggles with feeling like “a nobody—just another kid in high school.”

Although he was unconscious for about three months, he spent just over a year in Halastaesia, a land where he was a popular hero who “even got the girl.” His psychiatrist, however, believes that the trauma is causing “mild schizophrenic episodes” and that his memories were just coma dreams. The book’s intriguing setup falters when it comes to the central question of whether Ben truly experienced two different worlds. The story flounders without a cohesive vision driving it in a single direction and is impeded by a plot that is overly complicated and character development that relies heavily on tropes and cliches. The two central conflicts in the book—Ben’s being torn between two girls (one in this world and one in Halastaesia) and

a battle between good and evil—aren’t built on firm enough foundations to be compelling and, as a result, the cliffhanger ending is more confusing than dramatic. Main characters are coded white. An interesting premise hindered by too many subplots, underdeveloped characters, and a resolution that fizzles. (Fantasy. 12-16)

Kirkus Star

Immortal Dark

Girma, Tigest | Little, Brown (432 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9780316581448

An orphaned teenager tries to connect her sister’s disappearance to their family’s decadeslong relationship with vampires. Nineteen-yearold Kidan Adane wants nothing to do with her family’s horrifying rules and traditions, which stipulate that Kidan and her sister, June, who are Black girls of Ethiopian heritage, must honor soul-binding contracts with dranaics, or vampires. After their parents died, the sisters were placed in foster care with Mama Anoet. For years, Kidan had thought they were safe from evil—until Silia, their maternal aunt, unexpectedly died, and June and Kidan became the last two living members of House Adane. When June is abducted in the middle of the night by an unknown assailant, Kidan traces the clues to Uxlay University, where worthy leaders are taught how

A sweepingly imaginative narrative that artfully explores the dark heart of desire.

A sharp sense of humor comes through in well-timed breaking of the fourth wall.

THIS BOOK KILLS

to protect a hierarchical society in which humans and vampires harmoniously coexist. Kidan believes that June was taken by Susenyos Sagad, the formidable vampire who’s bound to her family’s bloodline. As she dives deeper into this cruel new world, the line between her hatred of Susenyos and her growing fascination with him begins to blur. Debut author Girma’s trilogy opener offers a richly detailed, sweepingly imaginative narrative that artfully explores the dark heart of desire, rage, and loss through expansive worldbuilding. Kidan’s powerful characterization is layered, and her journey toward the truth has been crafted with a cinematic eye.

A fresh, arresting entry in the vampire genre that revels in violent, bloody delights. (map, content warning) (Fantasy. 15-adult)

This Book Kills

Guron, Ravena | Sourcebooks Fire (368 pp.)

$11.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781728296906

Sixteen-yearold Londoner Jesminder

Choudhary is horrified when one of her classmates is killed—especially when she finds out that the murder scene was re-created from one of her writing assignments. When news breaks of Hugh Henry Van Boren’s death, Jess receives a chilling anonymous text: “Thanks for the inspiration. I couldn’t have killed Hugh without

you.” Jess, who’s of Indian descent and a scholarship student at Heybuckle School, knows that she would make an easy scapegoat for the outraged parents of her classmates if they discovered the connection with her story. When it appears that the police are unable to properly investigate the crime, and the Van Borens’ private investigator proves incompetent, Jess and her best friend, Clementine-Tangerine Briggs, take matters into their own hands. Could the killer be Millie Calthrope-NewtonRose, Hugh’s ex-girlfriend who was furious at him for cheating on her? Could it be someone in Jess’ Gifted and Talented class who had easy access to her murder mystery assignment? Or is there a connection between Hugh and the Regia Club, a secret society that wields immense influence at the school? The book is structured as a retrospective written by Jess, whose reliance on a scholarship heightens her awareness of her wealthier, mostly white, classmates’ privileges and entitlement. She has a sharp sense of humor, which comes through in her sarcastic commentary and well-timed breaking of the fourth wall. The supporting cast includes some queer representation. A proper prep school puzzler. (Mystery. 13-18)

The Lies We Conjure

Henning, Sarah | Tor Teen (400 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781250841063

Thirteen guests. Two imposters. Two directives. Three days. One murder. When a mysterious woman approaches high schoolers Ruby and Wren while they’re working at Ye Olde Falafel Shoppe at the local Renaissance festival, her offer seems too good to be true. Wannabe starlet Wren is thrilled by the intrigue, but sober Ruby is cautious. Their task seems simple: impersonate the woman’s absent granddaughters at a dinner party at the infamous Hegemony Manor in exchange for $2,000 each. But events quickly spiral out of control when the Hegemony family matriarch collapses and the girls are thrown into a game that involves fighting for their lives in a world where nothing is as it seems and secrets and lies abound. This novel offers a compelling take on the classic locked-room mystery. The plot unfolds at a measured pace, and well-developed clues and red herrings keep readers guessing until the very end. Moments of levity and tenderness balance out scenes of high emotional tensions and darkness, and Henning’s command of figurative and situationally informal language is masterful. Although the characters feel a bit flat at times—their innermost thoughts and motivations occasionally obscured by the narrative—and the romances sometimes feel like an afterthought, it’s easy to become invested in their struggles as they come together to unravel the web of truths and lies. Ruby and Wren are cued white; there’s some racial diversity in the supporting cast. A well-crafted, fantastical thriller. (Supernatural thriller. 14-18)

For another private school mystery, visit Kirkus online.

The Brujos of Borderland High

Laurel III, Gume | West 44 Books (200 pp.)

$25.80 PLB | Aug. 1, 2024

Series: West 44 YA Verse

An accessible and witchy romantic adventure told in verse.

Alejandro Zamora’s brujería is the ability to see the past. Lately he’s been particularly fixated on bygone times—ever since his boyfriend dumped him after cheating on him. Trying to avoid more pain, Ale vows not to fall in love again, but even focusing his energy on his classes at Borderland High, a magical school in Texas, seems difficult when mysterious events start happening. Ale’s deck of brujo cards is only supposed to contain 40 cards, but people keep finding extras with his initials on them. A giant cicada with murderous intent breaks into school, and then, to top it all off, there might be someone watching him. At least Ale can still count on his dad and his friend Zander Avaloz to be by his side as his emotional state worsens and he feels lower and lower. But a brujo who looks just like him starts wreaking havoc with Cold Magic—a sinister, forbidden type of magic that “freezes / your heart / alive”—and the situation worsens as everyone except for Zander believes Ale is responsible. The poems are laid out within a gorgeous interior design that resembles tarot cards and at times takes the form of text threads. This exciting story about believing in

love again, set in an intriguing and magical world, seamlessly weaves Spanish into the reluctant reader–friendly text.

A sweet and hopeful story of queer love and brujo magic. (glossary) (Verse paranormal. 12-18)

It Won’t Ever Be the Same: A Teen’s Guide to Grief and Grieving

Leigh, Korie | Free Spirit Publishing (128 pp.) | $16.99 paper Sept. 10, 2024 | 9798885543842

Leigh, who has a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology, offers a calm look at dealing with loss that acknowledges people’s widely varying reactions. Early on, the author acknowledges many different sources of grief, including divorce, displacement and separation, medical diagnoses, and even environmental concerns, but the book largely presents responses to death. Leigh explains that losses can be ambiguous, intergenerational, or anticipatory. She identifies the different aspects of self that can be affected by grief, including emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being and relationships with others. Later portions of the book deal specifically with each of these elements. Brief first-person descriptions of some teens’ own experiences (and even some of their artwork) punctuate the author’s clear, warm, expert voice. She suggests many opportunities for readers to examine and express their feelings and preserve memories. In addition to describing what grief is and how it feels, sections of

A gripping meld of vivid worldbuilding, ecological folklore, and action sequences.

the book provide both reassurance and practical ideas on how to find meaning in grief, how to redefine yourself and construct a new life following a loss, and more. Small icons indicate recurring features in the book labeled “Reflect,” “Give It a Try,” “Intention,” and “Feel.” Leigh directly addresses grieving readers, although other readers, who might simply be seeking insight on how to support a bereaved friend or relative, will find much to appreciate here. A useful, jargon-free guidebook to navigating sorrow’s undiscovered country. (activities, resources, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Star

Undergrowth

Lima, Ricky | Illus. by Daniele Aquilani

Top Shelf Productions (304 pp.)

$24.99 paper | Sept. 3, 2024 | 9781603095440

In a dystopian world in which humans live in hiding and alien monsters consume what remains of Earth, a group of friends are reborn. Their destiny? To save the world.

Red, Bloom, Willow, and Ash are grappling with their precarious futures as young people growing up in a dying world. But just as all seems lost in the wake of tragedy, they gain the ability to fight back against the invaders and protect the planet by controlling ancient dryads who have immense strength and untapped capabilities. Each clash brings new hope, strengthens their friendships, heals their grief, and demonstrates the importance of resistance. The story balances many complex and nuanced themes, exploring moral lessons around the corruption of altruism by greed and power, the lasting consequences our choices have on others, and the fight (even against seemingly insurmountable odds) against ecocide and climate change. Regeneration, second chances, and cycles of growth are central to the narrative, which emphasizes the >>>

THE KIRKUS Q&A: JEN WANG

An alienated teen finds solace in nature in the author/illustrator’s new graphic novel.

BY CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH

ASH HAS ALWAYS felt alone—different from other kids, who would rather think about pop stars than what’s happening to the climate, and misunderstood by their family, who have too much going on to pay attention to them. Now that Ash is a teen, they start to think that some time spent alone in the wilderness might alleviate their alienation and provide solace. In the graphic novel Ash’s Cabin (First Second, Aug. 13), bestselling author and illustrator Jen Wang has penned a poignant tale of self-discovery that Kirkus’ critic, in a starred review, calls “searing and radiant.” Gentle illustrations evoke the beauty of the wild and capture Ash’s journey—its challenges and its joys—in all its complexity. Wang spoke with Kirkus by Zoom from Los Angeles; the following has been edited for length and clarity.

things like how to start a fire or identify plants.

What inspired Ash’s Cabin?

Some of my favorite books as a kid were survival kid lit, like Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins , Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet, or Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain. That sort of thing was really appealing to me. I started thinking, What if I could do a book like that, but as a graphic novel, where there are diagrams and drawings of what the shelter would look like, things like that I found to be really fun?

Once I started writing it, I had to think: If I were a kid now, what are the things that would make me want to leave home? If

I were 15 years old now, why would I feel so drawn to run away? That’s where it started, and it kept growing from there.

The book was a treasure trove, the little diagrams and to-do lists and guides—it was like two books in one. How did you do the research?

I was already reading and looking at this kind of stuff for fun. There’s a whole community of people who are very into survival—it’s their hobby. There’s a lot of information out there on YouTube and in books. I even took a one-day class that teaches you basic

It’s not like I’ve ever been camping alone—I’m not into solo survival myself. It was just a lot of fun research. And I tried not to get bogged down in the details. I felt like the most important thing was just making sure that it felt believable enough while keeping what the character was going through emotionally as the focus.

Ash’s family is so perfectly depicted—they love Ash and want to help but just don’t get them (that proposed trip to Disneyland!). They’re very well meaning and generally supportive. They want everything to be OK. But there are three kids; it’s a handful. The way I imagined it, it’s one of those things where they

just don’t know what to do with Ash, and they’re just kind of busy and just not able to spend the kind of time figuring out what’s going on.

You’ve accomplished something that’s difficult for writers: to write an engaging story where art and a greater social message are combined without being heavy-handed. Anytime I’ve tried to write something with the specific intention of getting a political point of view across, it just doesn’t work, because there’s not really a story there. I’m just telling you something that you could read in a blog post. Writing a full story helps you move away from that because you have to think about the characters. Every charac -

ter I’ve ever written is me in a way, but also separate enough from me that I can think about them as characters. They represent experiences that I’ve had, but I don’t necessarily have their same back stories or their same reactions to things. And I think that makes it easier to give context to the message. I don’t feel like I’m speaking through the character. I watch Ash make mistakes, and see that they have their own flaws; all that makes it a more human experience. I don’t end up with a pure message.

Which parts of Ash’s Cabin feel most personal to you?

I think of myself at that age, when I was just very disconnected from people and alienated from my peers, but there was always that glimmer of Oh, here’s this teacher who seems really kind. Or some figures that aren’t really your peers,

but they give you the sense of what there is to come, what more you’ll discover about yourself. Now I realize they’d probably seen other kids like me before. Now I can put myself in both shoes. I can remember being a teenager, but I also understand what it is to be that adult and see a young person and want to tell them that you know it’s tough now. It’s tough now, but you’re not alone, and you’ll learn so much about yourself and about the world.

How did your career get started? Do you have any advice for someone who might want to begin writing and illustrating like you? I was always interested in drawing and writing, any kind of storytelling. When I was a kid, I imagined I was going to work in animation. But once I discovered manga in high school, it felt like something I could start

doing. I didn’t have to get a job working at a studio; I could just start drawing comics in my sketchbooks—and that’s where it all started.

There are always young people who want to know how to get into writing or drawing or whatever it is they’re interested in. I always tell them that the most important part of it is just being passionate and starting to do it, because a lot of people get stuck at the starting gate or they feel like they need permission to do it. The point is, you can be your own teacher. If you want, you can go to art school; if you want to take classes, that’s totally cool. You should do it if that’s what you want, but if that’s not accessible to you, or if you’re not ready for it, you can just start drawing in your sketchbook. You can just start writing; do whatever you can to get those juices flowing. You

don’t need any special equipment. Everybody has access to the internet, to tools you can draw with. You can write and draw with your peers or share on social media if you want. The barriers are much lower now.

And, you know, anytime you have people who are very passionate about something—I think you’ll find comics just so happens to be one of those mediums that has a lot of very passionate people, either readers or creators. Now you can connect with people who don’t live in your city, you can go to conventions or just be online and find other people on social media. Tell people that you read their comic and you liked it, and they can do the same for you.

Christine Gross-Loh is the author of Parenting Without Borders and The Path.

Every character I’ve ever written is me in a way, but also separate enough from me that I can think about them as characters.

A valuable and affirming overview of depression’s many layers.

NOT

JUST A BAD DAY

belief that everyone is capable of doing good and evil—and of changing. Dynamic, colorful illustrations convey both the weight of emotionally heavy moments and the high-stakes energy of combat scenes. The robotlike aliens and dryads as well as the hauntingly beautiful wilderness scenes are portrayed with a striking use of light, shadow, and perspective. The main and side characters are racially diverse. A gripping meld of vivid worldbuilding, ecological folklore, and action sequences that challenges and enthralls. (character designs, concept art, alternate covers) (Graphic science fiction. 13-18)

Not Just a Bad Day: Understanding Depression

Moragne, Wendy & Tabitha Moriarty

Twenty-First Century/Lerner (112 pp.)

$38.65 PLB | Sept. 10, 2024

Series: Healthy Living Library

An age-appropriate conversational discussion covering depression’s signs and symptoms, who is affected and why, and possible treatments and preventions. This overview covers basic facts about depression and its complex set of symptoms, pointing out how they vary from person to person, including how long depression lasts and how much it might affect someone’s day-to-day life. The text, which is written in a clear and concise way, doesn’t patronize teens or sugarcoat the data. The illustrations and graphs are easy to read and support the evidencebased information, which is offered in a just-clinical-enough manner

throughout. The authors clarify commonly held beliefs about depression, its causes and treatments, break down the stigmas and myths surrounding the subject, and carefully describe depression’s various iterations. Readers learn that anyone can have depression, no matter their gender, race, age, or socioeconomic status. The book makes sure to mention relevant social and economic factors, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, racism, and being unhoused, and it includes information specific to gender and sexuality, which are often overlooked in medical studies. Along with walking readers through diagnosis and treatment options in a way that could prepare them for their own experiences, the text includes information on suicide and its prevention. Quotes from experts included throughout add important context. The stock photos depict a diverse range of young people.

A valuable and affirming overview of depression’s many layers and comorbidities. (content warning, glossary, source notes, bibliography, resources, further reading, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

Touch of Death

Munsell, Taylor | CamCat Books (320 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780744310238

A young death witch struggles to prevent a bloody prediction from becoming reality. Georgiana Colburn keeps her distance from everyone, literally; her death magic allows her to see ghosts and to experience a person’s moment of death

through skin-to-skin contact. Separated from the world with the additional assistance of fashionable gloves, George is an otherwise normal teen who juggles being unpopular at school with her death witch duties to her beloved grandma, who’s the coven’s Supreme. Although she previously only spent time with best friend Felix Davies, George is drawn to the friendly new witch, Trixie. Meanwhile, she’s being haunted by the ghost of Jen, a recently deceased popular mean girl. When Silas, another new student, instantly attracts attention with his good looks, all George can think about is what she saw when they collided: his brutal murder at her hands. With Trixie’s guidance, George rushes to master her magic before her vision can come true. George and Trixie’s slow-burn romance in the background of the story avoids common tropes and is surprisingly emotionally mature. Although observant readers will see the final reveal coming, the central themes of family bonds, death, and grief are well executed and add complexity. The discussion of consent and the importance of touch in the context of George’s magic together add a realistic dimension to an otherwise underdeveloped magic system. George reads white, Trixie is cued Black, and Felix has brown skin.

An entrancing, emotionally insightful story with a somewhat predictable ending. (Fantasy. 14-18)

When the World Tips Over

Nelson, Jandy | Dial Books (544 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 24, 2024 | 9780525429098

A mysterious stranger is the key to unraveling decades-old family secrets. Twelve years ago, winemaker Theo Fall drove away from Paradise Springs, California, leaving behind his pregnant wife and two young sons. Now, the three Fall children

Will make readers wish they could immediately reach for the second volume.

SUNDERWORLD, VOL. 1

carry scars from their father’s abrupt disappearance. Twelve-yearold Dizzy is perpetually afraid of losing people. Her older brothers have their own struggles: 17-yearold Miles is hiding a fathomless chasm of sadness beneath his perfect facade, and 19-year-old violinist Wynton is brilliant but broken, chasing the sound of his father’s trumpet at the bottom of a bottle. But the arrival of rainbow-haired Cassidy at the precise moment each sibling is at a pivotal crossroads sets everything in motion for the members of the Fall family to discover the truth behind the fraternal curse that seems destined to destroy them. Miles and Dizzy embark on a wild pilgrimage, aided and abetted by Sandro, a dog who communicates telepathically, and Felix, a dreamy bisexual sous chef. Composed of multiple interwoven timelines, the story is part folktale and part epistolary novel. It’s also 100% Nelson’s signature fabulism and evocative, lyrical prose, which rewards those who stick around through the slow start and occasionally overwrought language. Readers will be satisfied by the emotional collision of the various plotlines and the richly drawn main and secondary characters. Main characters read white. A Technicolor fever dream offering readers a sensory feast. (Fiction. 14-18)

For another genre-defying coming-of-age tale, visit Kirkus online.

Sunderworld, Vol. I: The Extraordinary Disappointments of Leopold Berry

Riggs, Ransom | Dutton (336 pp.)

$21.99 | Aug. 27, 2024

9780593530931 | Series: Sunderworld, 1

Seventeen-yearold Leopold Berry discovers that the realm of Sunder from his favorite TV series, Max’s Adventures in Sunderworld, is in fact a real place with very real stakes.

When Leopold starts having bizarre visions, such as of a raccoon with its tail on fire and a speeding red trolley in the middle of busy Los Angeles traffic, he suspects he’s getting glimpses of the extraordinary place called Sunder, a fantasy world from his beloved show. He confesses his visions to his best friend, Emmet Worthington, and the pair wind up using a special token to take the trolley, Angels Flight, into Sunder. There, they discover that the complex world of sparks—people with magical abilities—includes connections to Leopold’s mother, who died when he was 12. At the heart of it all, Leopold is trying to figure out why he’s been pulled into this world and whether there’s more to him than his deep fear of being “average and insignificant” and dealing with his father’s frustrated rages. Riggs’ writing is tight and well paced. Some incredible action scenes leap off the pages, and Sunder is a blur of dangerous situations, well-drawn characters, and magical

devices. The ending will make readers wish they could immediately reach for the second volume.

Leopold, like most of the cast, is cued white; Emmet is Black. A fully imagined fantastical world with compelling characters and a nail- biting cliffhanger. (Fantasy. 13-17)

A Greater Goal: The Epic Battle for Equal Pay in Women’s Soccer—And Beyond

Rusch, Elizabeth | Greenwillow Books (304 pp.) $19.99 | July 9, 2024 | 9780063220904

This thorough history of the U.S. Women’s National Team centers on the players’ decadeslong battle with the U.S. Soccer Federation for pay equity.

Rusch tells the story chronologically and enriches her writing with clever soccer-inspired language. She uses well-cited primary and secondary research to highlight voices and stories from the racially diverse (though majority-white) group of athletes. The thrilling accounts of memorable moments on the pitch vividly contrast with the crushing realities of the team members’ unfair treatment by their employer. Though the book includes multiple perspectives and opinions, the featured narratives and examples pertaining to the team’s salary, working conditions, and more make a compelling case in favor of the women athletes. The text shows the players’ successes, letdowns, solidarity building, and resolve with depth and honesty. The team’s collective bargaining and legal processes are clarified in detail, offering important context and informing readers’ understanding beyond the world of soccer. While individual players receive the spotlight, the focus remains on the entire team’s shared risk-taking and their commitment to

present and future generations of players worldwide. Rusch notes gender diversity beyond the malefemale binary in passing. The broader conversations and accounts relating to gender equity and equal pay are expansive, however, encouraging readers to learn more and get involved in this global issue. An engaging, informative, and valuable contribution to the historical record. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

The Temptation of Magic

Scott, Megan | Harper/HarperCollins (416 pp.)

$19.99 | Aug. 27, 2024 | 9781335006950

An 18-year-old girl’s days of hiding her true supernatural identity are tested when she’s embroiled in the mystery surrounding a prominent professor’s death. The Palmers are a secretive supernatural family in Cornwall, England. Nicole and her brother, Dylan, pretend to only be Seers like their father and younger sister, Bells, but they’re actually Empyreals— rare, powerful hunters who can shape-shift into any being’s deadliest predator. Nicole knows that if she and Dylan ever transform, the Wake, or shadowy organization that controls the paranormal world and killed their Empyreal mother, will force them to join their ranks or die. Nicole believes she can decode a final message from her mother hidden in The Wild Hunt of Odin , a famous folkloric painting, but after Diana Westmoore, the professor and art collector who owns the painting, dies suddenly, the Wake send their best Empyreal assassin, Kyan McCarter, to retrieve the painting and hunt the supernatural killer. Kyan and Nicole are immediately drawn to each other, even though he’s lived monastically for centuries, and she’s been taught to avoid the

Wake at all costs. Their forced proximity causes proverbial sparks to fly. Filled with intriguing worldbuilding, a swoony forbidden romance, and a diverse collection of fascinating mythological creatures who coexist in the human and supernatural worlds, this series opener is ideal for fans of Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and Sally Green. Main characters are cued white, Dylan is queer, and the supporting cast includes diversity in race and sexual orientation. A promising, page-turning romantasy. (Fantasy romance. 14-18)

Rebel Fire

Sei Lin, Ann | Tundra Books (352 pp.) $18.99 | Sept. 3, 2024 9781774884010 | Series: Rebel Skies, 2

Kurara pieces together her fragmented memories to face the sins of her past in this follow-up to Rebel Skies (2024). At the end of the first book, Kurara discovered that she’s a shikigami—a sentient being made out of paper that’s typically controlled by a human Crafter. Pursued by Princess Tsukimi, who’s obsessed with shikigami, Kurara and her friends Haru, Sayo, and Tomoe rush to reunite with the flying ship Orihime at the Great Stream. Along the way, they find another shikigami whose mind is slipping—a bear named Banri whose songs stir memories within Kurara. Her goal is

to free all shikigami from needing a mental bond with a Crafter. Clues from her past and hints from Haru lead her to believe that the two of them are bonded by the blood of a Star Tree, which grants them their agency. Even though Banri says that no Star Trees remain, and Haru insists they were all cut down by Crafters, Kurara believes the dream she had about a Star Seed. The well-plotted narrative shifts among the third-person viewpoints of Tsukimi, Kurara, and Himura (a Crafter) as they pursue their own interests and converge on the ancient Crafter village of Kazami. Many secrets are revealed as this Japaneseinspired fantasy reaches a chilling climax. The introduction of new creatures and some shifts in political power and goals strongly hint at another installment.

Intrigue coupled with fascinating reveals make for a thrilling adventure. (maps, glossary of terms and places) (Fantasy. 12-17)

Quick Guide to Evaluating Information Online

Steffens, Bradley | ReferencePoint Press (64 pp.)

$33.95 | Sept. 1, 2024 | 9781678208141

A n accessibly written guide that helps readers confront the epidemic of online falsehoods with tips on information literacy. This compact volume covers a number of critical topics. Teens learn that while software filters are designed to screen

Intriguing worldbuilding, a swoony forbidden romance, and a collection of fascinating mythological creatures.

for hate speech, violence, and pornography, when it comes to bald lies, they are largely on their own. Steffens proffers helpful advice, explaining how bots often spread false information that proliferates due to malice, attention seeking, or commercial interests. He explains ways in which disinformation threatens democracy, individual well-being, and social cohesion and notes that advances in AI might help combat the flood of deepfakes and other AI creations that could potentially have a huge impact on commerce, politics, and security. An entire chapter is devoted to avoiding financial scams and phishing. In the chapter entitled “Recognizing Bias,” Steffens includes important information about cognitive biases and how they interact with algorithms to lead us into dangerous echo chambers; he points readers to media watchdog sites and explains lateral reading strategies to bolster awareness. Another chapter warns against hazards such as catfishing, romance scams, and sextortion. Up-to-date sources and brief summaries of memorable cases bolster this concise but thorough overview. Specific advice and meaningful context make this a strong introduction to online safety. (sources, further research, websites, index, picture credits) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Lily’s Just Fine

Stewart, Gill | Illus. by Lucia Types Clock Tower Publishing (320 pp.)

$9.95 paper | Sept. 24, 2024

9781802635508 | Series: Galloway Girls, 1

Lily Hildebrand, 16, wants to “take life by the scruff of the neck,” and over a summer in Newton St. Cuthbert on the coast of Scotland, she endeavors to do just that.

After Lily’s boyfriend breaks up with her on their way home from

The coastal Scottish setting, good pacing, and robust plot will keep readers engaged.

LILY’S JUST FINE

prom, she decides that she needs something new to do and joins the town’s annual Gala Week planning committee. With Lily’s fresh ideas there’s plenty to organize, including flyers, a parade, and a regatta. Retiring classmate Tom Owen is also helping out, and strong-willed Lily at first underestimates him before recognizing that a special boy has been right there all along. As the summer unfolds, she learns that she can’t lead or plan her way out of every situation, and that uncertainty is OK—listening and asking for help aren’t weaknesses. This novel, written at a level that’s accessible to reluctant readers, touches on themes such as friendship, chronic illness, mental health, and allyship with the LGBTQ+ community. Plentiful details describing the coastal Scottish setting, good pacing, and a robust plot will keep readers engaged. Other strengths include the universally recognizable aspects of small-town life. Sarah, Tom’s sister who’s struggling with an undiagnosed illness, is particularly well drawn. While this series opener is narrated by both Lily and Tom, her character development is stronger; readers may be left wanting to know more about Tom. Main characters are cued white.

A breezy summer romance and journey toward self-discovery, buoyed by important themes. (Romance. 13-18)

The Key to Surviving Summer

Van, Sandi | West 44 Books (200 pp.) | $25.80 PLB | Aug. 1, 2024

This suspenseful novel in verse for reluctant readers uncovers a smalltown secret and considers the ties that bind the living with the beyond. Sixteen-yearold Moe is unhappy with her parents’ decision to spend the summer in a quaint lakeside cottage that’s filled with spiderwebs and located near a town marked by a tragic history. She doesn’t want to be away from her best friends, Amber and Julia, who are bonding at camp counselor training without her. One day as she’s exploring the lake, Moe meets a young boy named Zeke, who shows her a cave where she finds an oddly shaped key attached to a rusty chain. Soon afterward, Moe begins to experience disruptive visions of a girl from the past. Emotionally shaken and isolated, Moe begins to doubt her friends’ reliability. Trying to understand the strange girl’s secrets, she seeks clues at the local library and embarks on a quest with Zeke to solve the town’s mysteries. Moe’s visions reveal tensions involving a trio of girls from the 1950s that mirror her present-day concerns; she worries that distance will rupture the bond she shares with Amber and Julia. Layered with anxieties about self-doubt and friendship challenges, this satisfying story delivers quick pacing and an emotional core

For another hi-lo romance, visit Kirkus online.

with wide appeal. A gently mounting tension serves as the backdrop for discovery, and realism anchors Moe’s visions. Characters largely read white.

A bingeable mystery.

(Verse mystery. 13-18)

Night Owls

Vishny, A.R. | Harper/HarperCollins (368 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9780063327306

Jewish mythology, Yiddish theater, and New York City history meet in the present day.

The Sender sisters, Molly and Clara, are surprisingly successful 18-year-old co-managers of a revived Yiddish theater on Second Avenue in Manhattan. That’s because they’re also more than a century old; Molly and Clara are Estries, undead women from Ashkenazi lore who turn into blood-drinking monsters and can fly around on owls’ wings. They’ve done a good job of keeping their true identities a secret, but of course, new love interests complicate everything. Molly’s girlfriend, Anat, gets possessed by a dybbuk who might have ties to Molly’s past. Clara would insist that she doesn’t have feelings for Boaz, their Syrian Jewish employee, but his ability to see the dead and his family’s possession of a magic ring turn everyone’s world upside down. The plot becomes a bit rudderless once the action picks up in the various storylines, circling around several

loci but never quite making the stakes and motivations feel clear or urgent. Debut author Vishny’s writing is at times muddy but mostly unobtrusive and is most successful when re-creating scenes from older history. Overall, the story excels at taking relatively hidden aspects of Jewish history, contemporary community life, and bubbe meises (or fables) and making them feel fresh and vibrant. A spirited retelling of lesserknown tales. (author’s note) (Paranormal. 14-18)

The Henna Start-Up

Wajid, Andaleeb | Duckbill (272 pp.)

$12.99 paper | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780143463689

Seventeen-year-old Abir Maqsood, a Muslim girl from Bangalore, India, has her life all planned out. She hopes to ace her exams, study software engineering, and make her own life choices. Her conservative, working-class parents, keen to get her married off, think otherwise. When Abir’s mother, a part-time bridal henna artist, is cheated out of her full compensation, a seething Abir ensures the clients pay up. This success inspires her to want to continue helping her mother—and after Abir hears about an incubation program competition, she dreams up a henna service app for booking and prepayment. Executing this plan involves teaming up with her friend Keerthi, her crush, Sahil, and the annoying

Paints a realistic and relatable portrait of barriers that girls must deal with.

THE HENNA START-UP

class Casanova, Arsalan. As the group presses on with an app prototype, Abir finds herself caught in a web of changing feelings, deception, lies—and her parents’ wishes. The fast-paced story skillfully tackles issues of class, societal constraints, and first brushes with romance with spirit and humor. Abir’s strength of conviction and belief in her abilities make her a likable, well-defined character. The writing paints a realistic and relatable portrait of barriers that girls from conservative families must deal with. Though the enemies-to-lovers trope is continually underscored, the book posits many thoughtful questions about societal restrictions and shows there is room for grace in shifting one’s perspective about oneself and others.

A delightfully inspiring story that champions loving yourself.

(Romance. 13-18)

What Is This Feeling?

Weber, Robby | Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $19.99 | Sept. 17, 2024 | 9781335009951

A fun, musical theater–themed romp through New York City. Teddy Mc Guire believes in luck. The small- townFlorida 18-yearold is convinced that his lucky friendship bracelet will help him and his best friend, Annie Taylor, win the scavenger hunt during their end-of-senioryear drama club trip. Winning means going to an after-party where he’ll get to meet superstar Benji Keaton—and Teddy is Benji’s biggest fan. Only, Annie gets suspended and can’t go after all, leaving Teddy to partner with brooding tech crew member Sebastian Hodges, who’s also gay. Teddy must somehow draw Sebastian out of his shell and get him

Racism, past and present, adds tension as Noni brings history to light and reckons with her sense of identity.

TANGLEROOT

invested in trying to win. For his part, Sebastian would happily skip the scavenger hunt, but their adventures nevertheless draw the pair closer. Teddy is an endearing and lovable protagonist, and readers will root for him as he experiences the big city—and an unexpected romance—for the first time. Weber skillfully captures the excitement, sadness, fear, and nerves Teddy feels as he ponders life after graduation. The magic of New York City is on full display, making it another character in the story as the metropolis serves as a stunning backdrop for Teddy’s coming of age and the adventures awaiting the characters in young adulthood. The scavenger hunt also provides a strong structure for the unfolding plot. Main characters read white. Effervescent and heartfelt. (Romance. 13-18)

Murder on a Summer Break

Weston, Kate | Harper/HarperCollins (304 pp.)

$19.99 | Sept. 10, 2024 | 9780063260320

Two feminist detective best friends are back to solve a string of killings at an influencer festival. Kerry and Annie achieved minor notoriety following the events of 2023’s Murder on a School Night . Annie named them the “Tampon Two” after they found the perpetrator of a series of murders

involving period products in their small English village of Barbourough. In the year since, both girls have landed internships: Kerry at the local newspaper and Annie at the Ministry of Justice in London. Annie is desperate for more fame, however. She wants to be like the feminist influencer they both admire, Winona Philips: “Smart! Political! Worshipped by all!” Although Annie so far has only two followers on the popular ReelLife platform, the girls are attending the local Festival of Fame, during which influencers will have the chance to connect with their fans. Soon, however, sexist “prankfluencer” Timmy Eaton is found dead with a condom covering his face (“proving that it really does fit all sizes. #Ad”), though the inept local police characterize it as an accident. The absurd, over-the-top scenarios elevate this mystery into an effective, scathing indictment of influencer culture. As Kerry and Annie begin their investigation in earnest, two more influencer murders take place. Clever plot twists abound, and zany influencer antics keep the story entertaining. Most characters read white. A clever, laugh-out-loud parody offering spot-on social commentary. (Mystery. 14-18)

Kirkus Star

Tangleroot

Williams, Kalela | Feiwel & Friends (336pp.) Oct. 15, 2024 | $19.99 | 9781250880666

For another book featuring teen girl sleuths, visit Kirkus online.

In this mystery set in the rural South, a teen from Wellesley, Massachusetts, faces racist legacies and the enduring implications of enslavement Sophronia “Noni” Reid is devastated when her mother makes her give up a dream internship in costume design to move to Magnolia, Virginia. Her mom, an esteemed researcher in the field of Black literature, is the new president at an elite liberal arts college in her small hometown, and frustrated Noni, who feels like she’s living in her mom’s shadow, struggles to adjust. Their new home, Tangleroot, was built by Noni’s great-great-greatgrandfather, who was enslaved there. While she’s exploring the former plantation’s cemetery, Noni discovers a grave belonging to a Sophronia Dearborn, who died in 1859 at the age of 18 and was buried with her baby boy, who died the same day. Hoping to learn more, Noni accepts a commission from one of the area’s most influential—and racist—white families to sew a dress based on one her seamstress great-great-grandmother designed for one of their forebears. Along the way, the history of the dress and the search to learn more about the other Sophronia lead to the unearthing of long-buried secrets. Each well-chosen detail Williams includes of Noni’s daily life, quest for autonomy, and search for answers is essential to this coming-of-age story. Racism, past and present, adds palpable tension as Noni brings her family’s true history to light and reckons with her own sense of identity.

A gripping and heartbreaking debut. (content warning, author’s note) (Mystery. 13-18)

SEEN AND HEARD

YA Romance by Jason Reynolds Coming This Fall

The author’s TwentyFour Seconds From Now… will be published in October.

Jason Reynolds’ first young adult romance novel is coming later this year, Cosmopolitan reports.

Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books will publish Reynolds’ Twenty-Four Seconds From Now… in the fall. The press describes the novel as an “unfiltered and undeniably sweet stream of consciousness story of a teen boy about to experience a huge first.”

Reynolds is one of the country’s most celebrated authors of books for young readers. He won a Kirkus Prize for his 2016 novel As Brave as You and a Carnegie Medal for his 2019 novel-instories, Look Both Ways, which was also a National Book Award finalist. He has also received five Coretta Scott King Honors.

Book to Screen

Young Sherlock Series in the Works

Guy Ritchie will direct Hero Fiennes Tiffin in an adaptation of Andrew Lane’s YA novels.

Prime Video is developing a series based on Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes series of young adult novels, Deadline reports.

His new novel follows Neon, a teenager who meets a girl named Aria after being chased by a dog in a church parking lot. The two begin dating and then contemplate taking a big step in their relationship.

“And right this second?” the publisher writes. “Neon is locked in Aria’s bathroom, completely freaking out because twenty-four seconds from now he and Aria are about to…about to…Well, they won’t do anything if he can’t get out of his own head (all the advice, insecurities, and what

Lane’s eight-book series, published in the U.S. as Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins, kicked off in 2010 with Death Cloud, which follows the legendary detective as a 14-year-old on

ifs) and out of this bathroom!”

Reynolds announced his new book on Instagram, writing, “Black boys deserve love stories, too.” Twenty-Four Seconds From Now… is slated for publication on Oct. 8.

—MICHAEL SCHAUB

summer vacation in the country, investigating two mysterious deaths.

Other installments in the series include Rebel Fire, Black Ice, and Fire Storm The most recent novel in the series, Night Break, was published in 2015.

The series will be directed by Guy Ritchie, known for films including Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Ritchie is no stranger to Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic character: He directed the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective, and its 2011 sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Hero Fiennes Tiffin ( After, The Woman King) will play the title role in Young Sherlock.

“In Young Sherlock we’re going to see an exhilarating new version of the detective everyone thinks they know in a way they’ve never imagined before,” Ritchie told Deadline. “We’re going to crack open this enigmatic character, find out what makes him tick, and learn how he becomes the genius we all love.”

Lane shared news of the project on the social platform X, writing that he is “on edge waiting to see what the TV team do.”—M.S.

For reviews of the Sherlock Holmes: The Legend Begins series, visit Kirkus online.

Hero Fiennes Tiffin

For reviews of Jason Reynolds’ books, visit Kirkus online.

Jason Reynolds

6 Page-Turning Beach and Poolside Reads

By Becky Dean

By MK Pagano

By Abigail Hing Wen

Chatham Greenfield

Indie

LITERARY EXCURSIONS IN THE CITY BY THE BAY

LONG BEFORE SAN

Francisco became best known as a center of high finance and high tech, it cemented its reputation as an inspirational place of high culture and high art. Here are three very different books, all recommended by Kirkus Indie, that showcase the best that the City by the Bay has to offer:

In San Francisco Pilgrimage: Memoir of a Lifelong Love Affair With My City (2022), travel writer Tania Romanov offers a wideranging and personal survey of the city where she makes her home. During the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the usually gregarious author says she “felt rudderless and lost.”

Then she read her friend Phil Cousineau’s book The Art of Pilgrimage (1998), which inspired her to go on a voyage of her own: For seven days, she would “walk in San Francisco, my hometown, on a pilgrimage in search of my city and myself.” In these pages, she vividly describes her explorations and the memories they sparked. Among the places she visited were the Haight-Ashbury district, where she recalls the first time she entered the public library on Page Street,

Lands End, where she gleefully rode her bike as a youth, and Hunters Point, Diamond Heights, Pacific Heights, and many others. Along the way, she poignantly recounts her very early years at the San Sabba refugee camp in Trieste, Italy. The book is a remarkable tribute to San Francisco and, as our reviewer notes, an “eloquent and timely search for meaning.”

At one point, Romanov writes of walking through the city’s Chinatown, “wandering slowly, savoring the small side streets and the architecture.” That famous neighborhood is the focus of Richard Aston’s The Calligraphy of San Francisco Chinatown (2022), which offers a panoply of full-color photos of lavish Chinese writing on street signs, store displays, windows, banners,

advertisements, and so on—everywhere that “characters may order… direct, inform, solicit… entice and invite.” The calligraphic art is often striking, and Aston thoughtfully explores the tradition’s rich history while employing a sharp visual sense: “These images captivate both for their aesthetic appeal and for the meaning and structure they bring to the everyday life of bustling Chinatown,” reads Kirkus’ review.

San Francisco, of course, has a deep literary legacy. It’s the home of City Lights Bookstore, with its connection to Beat Generation writers, and it’s the titular locale of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City (1978) and its sequels. It’s also well known as the setting of Dashiell Hammett’s classic private-eye novel The Maltese Falcon (1930), and Peter Kageyama continues that venerable tradition with his latest whodunit, Midnight Climax (2024), set in the city in 1959. Detective Katsuhiro “Kats” Takemoto investigates the murder of sex worker Mai Su Han, which leads him to secret government experiments that call to mind the CIA’s illegal MKUltra program of drug testing. One of the people who helps Kats is none other than real-life novelist Ken Kesey, who would later write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962). “This tightly written novel will appeal to those who enjoy tales of Cold War–era intrigue, San Francisco history, and 20th-century Asian American cultural life,” writes our reviewer.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.

Illustration by Eric Scott Anderson

DAVID RAPP

EDITOR’S PICK

In Lee’s paranormal romantic thriller, a young woman in New Orleans is plunged into a terrifying but intriguing underworld after striking a bargain for her brother’s life.

Twenty-four-year-old trauma nurse Cate Holloway’s life takes a dramatic turn when her 19-year-old brother, Channing, is rushed to the ER with a gunshot wound while she’s on duty. Even more shocking for Cate is the discovery that Channing is in debt to the notorious Gage crime family, who practically rule New Orleans. They distribute the street drug “clover,” pay off all the right people, and even own the hospital where Cate works. She resolves to keep Channing safe, and directly confronts crime boss Lachlan Gage at the lavish Avalon Hotel. Lachlan

presents Cate with a bargain: trade her soul in exchange for her sibling’s. Cate accepts, even though she thinks the idea is ridiculous, and seals the deal by taking a bite of an apple Lachlan gives her. She’s then transported to a realm called the Otherworld, where she finds out that the Gages are fae royalty, and that getting out of a fae bargain is almost impossible. Now tethered to Lachlan, she has to figure out how to free herself; along the way, she must navigate fae politics between royal families, a blossoming friendship with Lachlan’s sister Ciara, and her own undeniable attraction to Lachlan himself, who just might be more than the monster she thinks he is. Lee’s skillfully written dark urban fantasy novel is infused with classic

Filthy Rich Fae

Lee, Geneva | Entangled Amara | 364 pp. $14.39 paper | June 25, 2024 | 9781649375773

fae lore, humor (“So, you claim that you aren’t pixies or garden gnomes,” Cate muses), and meticulous worldbuilding. All the major characters, and especially the fiercely independent and capable Cate and the rakish yet family-oriented antagonist / love interest Lachlan, are well developed and compelling. The book’s richly detailed descriptions of clothing,

architecture, and fae customs will immerse readers in the Otherworld and cause them to linger long after the final page. Readers may particularly enjoy the steady buildup of romantic tension and appreciate that the relationship resists problematic tropes, instead emphasizing consent and mutual respect. A lush, sensual page-turner for fans of urban fantasy, folklore, and dark romance.

Genesis Echo: Book 1: Monomyth

Anderson, D. Hollis | Self (401 pp.)

$14.99 paper | April 22, 2022 | 9798808656956

A nderson’s galaxy-spanning YA SF novel rewrites the history of humankind. Ancient humanity was a successful and glorious space empire, spanning the “Verse” in symbiotic partnership with another species—the gentle, sasquatchlike Rothen. Humanity and Rothen-kind complemented each other spiritually and intellectually; then an insidious alien species called the Greys (the spindly, bigheaded types of UFO lore) used a horrific zombie-creating virus and other weapons to overthrow humans, taint their “meta-mind” artificial intelligence tech, and exterminate most Rothen. For 70,000 years, the Greys have indoctrinated captive humans with fake history and sham science and warehoused them on an alien gulag-planet—Earth—where archaic myths about dragons, mages, and monsters draw on distorted memories of the truth. A small number of humans persist in the cosmos, resisting the Greys and their equally horrid allies. Rain is a bully-hating, Earth schoolgirl ignorant of her messiahlike status, even as her multiple superpowers emerge. Lor is another human orphan wonder-girl with interesting abilities, who’s hunted by Greys on a horrific clone-factory planet that has a small, rare population of Rothen. Tonjin is a legendary warrior from another world whose actions on the planet Rien—humanity’s true home world—are destined to turn tragic. Numerous cliffhanger actions take place on multiple stages in Anderson’s novel, and it’s a puzzler how the timelines match up. The kind-of-cool narrative is part space-opera comic book, and part metaphysical conspiracy saga that recalls Philip K. Dick’s famous theory that humans are secretly trapped by evil forces in an illusory but soul-stifling and awful prison. However, Anderson’s version has Wookieelike beings; a tangible Star Wars

influence comes through, as does a debt to The Hunger Games, although the author credits Orson Scott Card’s work as an influence. A lengthy afterword describes the long gestation of the manuscript and the decision to render it as YA-level reading. Sequels are planned.

A woolly and complicated space opera that combines several familiar elements.

Gardens of Plenty

Arias, Ron | Self (399 pp.) | $19.99

$16.99 paper | March 18, 2024

9798884677951 | 9781950444663 paper

In Arias’ historical novel set in the 16th century, a teenage orphan signs up as a ship’s boy on the Mynion, a British trading ship headed for the West Indies.

Joseph Fields is 13 years old in 1567, when he flees the orphanage where he’s lived since his parents and sister succumbed to the plague two years ago. His father was a scrivener, as was his father before him, and Joseph learned the skill at his dad’s knee. He gets a job on a trading ship and sails away from England with only three significant possessions: his mother’s wooden spoon, her comb for removing lice and nits, and his father’s penknife, which has a cryptic engraving on the handle. Each will prove to be invaluable on his dangerous journey. The Mynion sails first to Spain and then to the western coast of Africa, making stops along the way to pick up abducted men, women, and children to be sold into slavery in the Indies. Joseph, who changes his name to José when he reaches Spanish-occupied Mexico, is struck by the cruelty that the African people face. He forges a bond with Hassan, a kidnapped Black Muslim, and the English crewmembers call José a heretic—as do the Spaniards who later conquer the ship. After he’s set ashore near Veracruz, he’s quickly captured and enslaved by local tribespeople, and he sets his mind to escaping his captors. Joseph/José is a captivating narrator throughout. He faces

storms and battles during his first full year at sea, and that’s just the beginning of a dramatic, vividly detailed saga that covers two decades of hair-raising adventures, including tragedies, a love affair, and a surprising discovery about the protagonist’s past. Arias packs the narrative with late-16th-century history, as seen through the eyes of a frightened, naïve young lad who develops into a sturdy, resourceful, and compassionate character. It’s a skillfully written and engaging exploration of the toll of racial and religious bigotry, as well as a story of bravery, friendship, and survival.

An action-packed and historically rich novel with a compelling lead character.

Warsaw Testament

Auerbach, Rokhl | Trans. by Samuel D. Kassow | White Goat Press (423 pp.) $32.95 | $24.95 paper | July 2, 2024 9798988677390 | 9798988677383 paper

A first-person account of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust, combined with later reflections on the period. As explained in the introduction of Auerbach’s unforgettable memoir, translated by Kassow, the author kept a secret diary during the war, recalling her life in the Warsaw Ghetto. While she describes historical events, like Germany’s invasion of Poland, in harrowing detail—“The corpses buried underneath collapsed houses filled the air with the stench of death that, combined with the smell of smoke, hung over Warsaw during all the years of the occupation”—Auerbach primarily focuses on day-to-day life in the ghetto and tributes to fellow writers, artists, workers, and librarians. She begins her diary recounting the last prewar generation of Jewish writers in Poland, where she was a young journalist in the summer of 1939. When Germany invaded, she took up work in a public kitchen. Avoiding what she calls the Great Deportation, Auerbach attributes her survival to luck. Within the regular waves

of horror of 1942 and 1943, there were brief moments of hope, such as the excitement when Mussolini fell in the summer of 1943. Auerbach recalls the collective anticipation at the time: “Like most people in Warsaw I was full of excitement....I fantasized and spoke nonstop about what would come next.” She also details the valiant struggle and tragic death of Emanuel Ringelblum, the organizer of the secret ghetto archive, without whose help this book most likely wouldn’t exist. Despite the dire conditions, an artistic movement flourished between November 1940 and July 1942, which, thanks to the Yiddish Culture Organization and local librarians, was documented. In the final section, Auerbach describes leaving the Warsaw Ghetto in March 1943 and reflects on life on the Aryan side. This poignant account isn’t meant to be read in one sitting but revisited over time. Alongside Auerbach’s direct writing and reflections are quotes and testaments from others, providing a comprehensive view of Jewish life in the ghetto during the Holocaust. Includes extensive endnotes, biographical notes, and a chronology.

A poignant testament to the endurance and character of the Jewish community during one of history’s darkest times.

The Bulgarian Training Manual

Bonapace, Ruth | Clash Books (266 pp.)

$18.95 paper | June 4, 2024 | 9781960988102

In Bonapace’s satirical novel, a young woman embarks on a strange journey from New Jersey to Bulgaria and back again.

Cristina Acqualina “Tina”

Bontempi lives in a flood-prone, illegally rented basement apartment in Hoboken, New Jersey, where she barely scrapes by as a real estate agent. She spends her time smoking cannabis and working out with her fitness-obsessed friend-with-benefits, Steve. Her whole life changes after he gives her a copy of The Bulgarian Training Manual, a physical and mental fitness

guide “kept secret by the Communists.” Tina dabbles in some of the manual’s self-help schemes, including a communion-wafer diet (popularized by a 14th-century nun who “helped unify Italy and brought the Pope back to Rome, all the while eating her way across Europe with communion wafers”) and “HypnoTan” sessions, which involve a tanning bed and hypnotism. Eventually, she realizes that, despite the “secret” nature of the manual, a surprising number of people at her gym are aware of its existence. She becomes captivated by its teachings, and she finally makes an impulsive decision to fly to Bulgaria to help “restore the Ancient Gym to its place of honor.” After she arrives, she meets a host of quirky characters, including a woman known as Baba Yaga who immediately offers her a communion wafer (“‘Eat,’ she says, ‘but never on the same day as candy corn. It is ancient Bulgarian way’”) and Mohawk, another fitness fanatic who worships the manual’s teachings—and who believes that vital pages are missing from it. It doesn’t take long before some people, including Baba Yaga, suspect that Tina may hold the key to unlocking the guide’s full potential.

As this summary indicates, Bonapace is clearly uninterested in constructing a narrative based in reality. Instead, she presents a tale of a determined protagonist on a weird, winding path toward self-fulfillment, while skewering everything from diet culture and religion to beauty trends and gym bros. Tina’s tough New Jersey attitude sometimes edges a bit too close to parody, but as she apparently bumbles her way toward enlightenment, her brash, unapologetic air makes the story of her hotheaded journey to Bulgaria worth reading. The dialogue is about as realistic as it can be, considering the utterly absurd topics that the characters discuss. But it’s Tina’s narration that proves to be the most entertaining element, as when she ruminates on why Romeo and Juliet has endured: “It said right in the prologue that the play would take two hours. That’s a lot of useful information. Most books don’t do that…Think about it. Shakespeare is still around after all these years for a reason.” Over the course of the novel, there are plenty of moments

that will make readers laugh out loud, including the manual’s guide to various bodybuilder meal plans, including a feeding tube diet, a baby food diet, and a virtual diet (in which one simply pretends to eat). It’s a wild ride that’s most fun when readers put their assumptions aside.

An absurd romp through modern culture with a disarmingly appealing protagonist.

The Lost Portal

Borja, Lenore | SparkPress (344 pp.)

$17.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2024 | 9781684632602

Series: Mirror Realm, 2

New mythologies emerge in Borja’s extravagant YA fantasy sequel, featuring fresh character lore and prophetic dreams. One year following the disappearance of the Mirror Realm in the series opener, The Last Huntress (2022), 19-year-old Hadley Caldwell, one of four young huntresses chosen by the demigoddess Philautia to guard humanity from demons, receives a strange message from the remaining gods, who’ve been hijacking her dreams: She must find the Portal of Osiris, so that the gods may have new lives in the mortal world. Hadley and the other huntresses— Alice, Olivia, and Soxie—embark on a new journey to retrieve the Portal without using their previous connection to Philautia’s Realm. Also, Hadley receives an unwelcome message from her father: Her estranged brother, Caleb, has been sentenced to jail after years of running the family’s illegal chop shop. This unexpected mix of fantasy, family drama, and friendship comes together almost seamlessly. Borja offers vivid depictions of dusty Arizona and bustling Cairo, where the girls investigate the Egyptian god Osiris and his connection to Hades, the Underworld, and the Mirror Realm. The novel’s dream sequences are a significant highlight, providing character development and narrative cohesion; they include Hadley’s worst memories of her brother

and grandfather, as well as delightful and haunting portrayals of well-known Greek deities, including Poseidon in a snorkel and flippers calling forth a sea monster and Hermes as a UPS delivery man. Additional storylines carry over from the previous novel, including the questionable origins of Alice’s soul and the trials of her relationship with David, a protector of huntresses; however, these themes aren’t as appealing as Hadley’s relationships with Caleb and her family, or the sisterly bond between the four huntresses. A tale that skillfully blends aspects of Greek and Egyptian myths with modern family drama.

Eddie Hest vs. Suburbia

Castoro, Catherine | WunderWay Publishing | Sept. 6, 2024 9798986714264

In Castoro’s madcap novel, a single mother leaves the city for the suburbs and finds herself the target of the community’s chief bully and blackmailer.

Eddie Hest loves living in Detroit and doesn’t want to move, but her landlord has sold the building where she resides. Divorced from her young daughter’s drug-addicted father, Eddie has only 30 days to find a new place for herself and Grace. Eddie has always been a bit of a nonconformist (think purple hair and a variety of tattoos) with a strong streak of independence, but she’s fiercely committed to being a “good mom” to Grace, and that requires setting up a stable home. After borrowing the down payment from her mother, she purchases a small house in Shady Hollow, a Detroit suburb. Once Grace enrolls in fourth grade in her new school and joins the soccer team, Eddie learns how strange her new hometown is. When she picks Grace up from practice, Eddie sees that no adults are there to supervise the children. She emails the coach to ask why the children were left alone. Days later, Eddie is accosted, berated, and threatened by a “Psycho Soccer Mom” who turns out

to be the coach’s wife; Eddie is now in the crosshairs of the tyrant of Shady Hollow. (“Never! Ever! Question what he does. Or you’ll have to answer to me!”) Castoro’s imaginatively constructed novel is narrated by Eddie, who records psychiatric “sessions” in an empty room in which she listens only to her own voice; through these recordings, readers follow her string of suburban misadventures as she’s pulled into the bizarre machinations of Psycho Soccer Mom. The narrative is bolstered by an eclectic assembly of secondary characters, and Eddie is an energetic, edgy protagonist. Breezy, conversational, and often biting prose propels the action in an unconventional storyline that manages to be simultaneously absurd and tender, all the while offering a lesson in the power of self-affirmation. An entertaining beach read, a bit wacky but with plenty of heart.

Kirkus Star

NOLA Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy

Champagne, Brooke | University of Georgia Press (192 pp.) | $24.95 paper April 1, 2024 | 9780820366531

A writer reflects on her craft and the inspiration she’s drawn from the vibrant chaos of her family and her New Orleans hometown.

Champagne opens her essay collection with a discussion of when she started to teach creative writing at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge: “Often, we sucked. Still, we taught anyway.” Champagne eventually learned to play the performative role of “expert-cumdoofus” and build rapport with students through games such as “Two truths and a lie,” which becomes a recurring theme. The essays weave in and out of her memories, offering shifting perspectives on the Big Easy and her boisterous family members. Among the most influential person in her life was her tough Ecuadorian grandmother, Lala. In

“Cielito Lindo,” Champagne describes their late-night hunts for beignets through the French Quarter and begins a dialectic on the different “worlds” of English and Spanish. In “Lying in Translation,” she grapples with how some of Lala’s actions might be seen by others as abusive: “I still ask myself if I can be trusted to know what I felt across my two languages and cultures,” she writes. These ideas come into focus much later in “Bobbitt,” in which Champagne’s searing analysis of the Lorena Bobbitt trial ties together powerful reflections on culture, gender, false memories, and translation. In “What I Know About the Chicken Lady,” Champagne’s French Sicilian father recounts his use of crack cocaine and his dalliance with voodoo, and later, in “Exercises,” Champagne simultaneously deconstructs their contentious relationship and her efforts to find her own voice as a writer.

Violence seems to lurk around every corner in Champagne’s essays, like the active shooter present at the hospital during the birth of her daughter (“Push”) or the harrowing carjacking at the center of “Nice Lady.” The latter is a standout, allowing Champagne to push further into her ideas on false narratives, address her thoughts on racism, and completely change the way readers will think about the word pop forever over the course of one terrifying paragraph. Whether she’s recounting a cruel game played by her mother or taking her sister to a job interview at a strip club, the author draws from a dizzying number of influences before distilling them into singular, powerful moments. Her family stories are somehow simultaneously soulful, comforting, electric, and possibly dangerous—much like her well-studied setting, the city of New Orleans. Her descriptions give the place an alluring sense of magical realism, which she then balances with a deadpan sense of observational and self-deprecating humor. Some tangents and metaphors—such as her extended analysis of her place in the Gen X spectrum, or the metatextual piece “McCleaning With the Dustbuster”— have less impact than others. She’s at the height of her powers when she focuses on

telling and re-telling her lived experiences. Each essay and stray thought invites readers further into her processes, even when they feel contradictory or convoluted. As she notes herself, “Humans contain multitudes.”

A compelling collection that explores a unique life from many angles.

The Art of Strategic Communication: A Police Chief’s Guide to Mastering Soundbites, Storytelling, and Community Engagement

Cook, Christopher | Indie Books International (300 pp.) | $20.00 paper April 4, 2024 | 9781957651705

Cook, a suburban Texas police chief and instructor, offers advice on how to craft messaging that puts lawenforcement, public safety, and government agencies in the best light.

The author has instructed thousands of people on various aspects of media relations as a social media guru and PR specialist. However, when he graduated from the police academy in the 1990s, there was no such communications training for officers—and certainly no multiplatformed communications landscape, as we know it today. He’s acquired a good deal of communication knowledge and experience during his many years of on-the-job training, but, as the author points out, there are many law enforcement agencies that have yet to understand the importance of a comprehensive strategy: “We continually overlook the basics of releasing facts to the public, media, and our employees. Why is that?” As such, his book is effectively a communications boot camp for cops and other agency employees. It highlights everything from how to have a plan ready to go during times of crisis to understanding how officials may look on camera. Indeed, Cook excels in his thoroughness and attention to the smallest elements: “Just ensure the people in the background

are not fidgeting with their phones, picking their noses, or making unpleasant facial expressions or grimaces,” he notes in a section about press conferences. Cook’s narrative tone is warm, friendly, and accessible throughout this comprehensive tutorial, and his tips on how to successfully navigate social media, branding, and image management are so thorough that they can easily be applied to enterprises outside of law enforcement and government work. The police chief also gets high marks for consistently stressing the importance of being forthright, truthful, and transparent in any messaging campaign: “Being open and honest with negative news about the agency will build trust,” he notes.

An essential guide for any public agency that regularly communicates with the public, and one that will likely be useful for those in other fields.

How Contempt Destroys Democracy: An American Liberal’s Guide to Toxic Polarization

Elwood, Zachary | Via Regia (242 pp.) $13.95 paper | April 14, 2024 | 9798987528358

A podcaster and professional poker player calls for a return to civil discourse in this political commentary. Like most political liberals, Elwood was devastated by President Donald Trump’s election in 2016. In his anger and confusion, he says, he turned to social media, posting “long winded, righteous” screeds on how voting for Trump “represented a failure of a basic

morality test.” He even designed a line of “Trump is Garbage” bumper stickers that he sold online. Looking back on his initial response to the election, Elwood notes that while he wanted people to feel “judged and shamed” for electing Trump, his rhetoric made his Republican acquaintances even more entrenched in their support of the president. The author, writing as someone who’s fought in the trenches of America’s culture wars, says that the “fog of war” has blinded both sides of the aisle and has fostered a “vicious cycle” in which “extreme emotions help create extreme beliefs, which in turn create extreme emotions.”

As a retired professional poker player, Elwood is a keen observer of human behavior who’s written multiple books on how to read other people’s “tells.” He now hosts a podcast, People Who Read People, that focuses on human behavior and psychology. Drawing on his lifelong fascination with the human psyche, Elwood encourages those on the political left to make a sustained effort to understand Trump supporters. For instance, he notes how many liberals see Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric as explicitly racist, but some Hispanic Trump supporters interpret the same rhetoric differently.

The author asserts that having contempt for Trump may be “warranted,” but he cautions against making broad accusations against rank-and-file Republicans, which may make them retreat to more extreme beliefs. Understanding one’s political rivals, he writes, “doesn’t mean agreeing, or supporting, or condoning ” them. Elwood acknowledges the role that Trump played in ratcheting up extreme rhetoric nationwide, but he argues that it is up to his opponents to create an alternative narrative that eschews “contempt and fear.” In addition, he makes an effective

An essential guide for any public agency that regularly communicates with the public. THE ART OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION

This engrossing and gritty survival romance pulls no punches.

SWITCHING TRACKS

case for why combative discourse erodes the public trust. The final chapter offers practical advice on encouraging depolarization; he urges readers, for example, to push back on extremism on their own side of the political aisle and to “engage with the other side’s more rational beliefs.” Three appendices offer resources for further reading and examples of what the author sees as polarizing language. Readers on the right may disagree with Elwood’s personal politics (“Trump is a very dangerous person”), and those on the left may disagree with his neoliberal emphasis on civility. Still, the book does make compelling arguments, based on astute observations and backed by solid research. This brief, accessible book is complemented by an array of full-color diagrams, charts, and screenshots from X (formerly known as Twitter). Its conversational writing style makes for an engaging read, but the lack of clear divisions between chapters makes its stream-of-consciousness approach a bit dizzying at times.

A well-argued, if occasionally disorganized, vision of political politeness.

Patterns: The Mystical Journey of an Ordinary Life

Gaydos, H.L. | Atmosphere Press (174 pp.)

$44.99 | $35.99 paper | June 11, 2024 9798891322226 | 9798891321861 paper

Visual artist and professional nurse Gaydos observes major and minor moments from her life through the lens of spirituality and art.

The author, who grew up in the 1950s, approaches her memoir with the

eye of a painter, “layering memories and reflections over character” in the same way that artists paint new images over old. In her account, memories connect to other memories, from mid-1980s Texas to early-1990s Colorado and beyond, and from adulthood to childhood and back again; her commentary on all these events is made richer by hindsight. Gaydos walks readers through a host of extraordinary and mundane moments, from a deeply transformational 10-day retreat to a Navajo reservation in the late 1980s to quiet reflections on the wonder of the Colorado landscape in 1992: “The sheer immensity of it emphasizes my insignificance, and yet I feel exalted, grateful. I am part and parcel of the magnificent wonder before me. Moving through this motionless moment, there is no distance of time or space between me and this astonishing spectacle.” Included in each chapter are images of Gaydos’ collages, based on the ancient technique of papier collé, in which pieces of paper are glued together to form a picture. The works, with their bold colors and muted, blurred images, each represent specific memories. Gaydos’ eloquent and warm narrative voice will encourage many readers to reflect on their own life experiences. Her self-professed influences are wide and varied, from Carl Jung to Joseph Campbell, and they seem to inspire her to fearlessly try new things, as when she tells of taking a trip in 1991 from Texas to the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, to attend a weeklong workshop led by a “well-known Russian iconographer.” As one reads of her boldness and pensiveness, one gets an engaging view into the author’s mind. Philosophy and spirituality seem to be the guiding lights in her life, but her observations encompass many other fields, as well. A thoughtful, winding reflection that gently challenges readers to recognize the patterns of their own lives.

Switching Tracks: Out of the Trash

Gibson, Lena | Black Rose Writing (365 pp.)

$19.95 paper | Jan. 31, 2024 | 9781685133641

Having uncovered a secret that could bring down corporate overlords, a scavenger in postapocalyptic America goes on the run with an itinerant train-hopper in this novel.

In 2195, 20-year-old Elsa lives with her great-grandmother Granny Lee in SoCal (formerly Southern California), a political prison-cum-slum defined not by guards or walls but rather by economic privation and the bullying oversight of GreenCorps. This corrupt, exploitative organization rose to power under the pretense of salvaging the environment and upholding civilization after the plague-driven societal Collapse. Elsa and Granny Lee work the Heap, a mound of garbage whose layers date back to the early 21st century. Elsa digs while Granny Lee stands guard with her shotgun, “which she wasn’t shy about using.” They trade scrap metal for food and water tokens. Life is tough but bearable until 22-year-old Walker and his adopted brother, Hayden, come along. The men are “hoppers” (itinerants who sneak passage aboard trains), and Hayden has a drug habit. In trying to rob Granny Lee, Hayden leaves her injured and unable to work. Without Granny Lee’s protection, Elsa is forced to take a job serving drinks in a brothel. Walker, too, has found work there (as a bouncer). When he saves Elsa from being brutally raped by a GreenCorps man, the two flee SoCal on the trains, taking with them her last find: a metal tube that contains maps to six pre-Collapse seed vaults. With a price on their heads, can Elsa and Hayden keep clear of their GreenCorps pursuers? Gibson writes in the third person, primarily from Elsa’s and Walker’s perspectives but occasionally from those of teenage pickpocket Tatsuda and widowed ex-rebel Caitlyn. In this series opener, the prose is polished, the dialogue unobtrusive, affording no distraction from Elsa’s bleak life. The world portrayed, while one

of extreme hardship, seems very much in keeping with current societal trends. One particularly sobering aspect of the book is the disproportionate helplessness experienced by women, especially regarding sexual violence. Elsa’s matter-offact wariness of vigilante rape is a disquieting precursor of what she faces in the brothel. Elsa and Walker are relatable characters in whose plight—and romance—readers will invest. Though downbeat in content, the story is light on its feet and moves with assurance toward the sequel.

This engrossing and gritty survival romance pulls no punches in revealing its enviro-economic dystopia.

Kirkus Star

Feedback: Uncovering the Hidden Connections Between Life and the Universe

Golledge, Nicholas R. | Prometheus Books (264 pp.) | $25.98 Nov. 21, 2023 | 9781633889330

A leading climate scientist reflects on the origins and interconnectedness of life in this sweeping nonfiction book.

“Earth had a difficult start,”

Golledge writes in the book’s opening lines as he describes a planet with superheated temperatures that was “continuously assaulted by extraterrestrial impacts.” Yet, at play across the eons of Earth’s early history was a network of interconnected changes that would give rise to life. Massive lightning storms that heated clay minerals to 1,000 degrees hotter than their melting point created “fossilized storm rocks” that, when eroded over time by acid rain, provided “a continual supply of the building blocks needed for molecules such as DNA.” In Golledge’s epic, poetic retelling of the history of life through a scientific lens, he consistently emphasizes the “unseen changes that bring about gradual improvements by refining, little by little,

the way a system works.” These interlocking feedback systems are the invisible hands, as the author describes them, that shape life on Earth. The rise of humans as Earth’s dominant species also contributed to reshaping the planet. By the end of the last ice age, Golledge notes, “species after species went extinct” due to the overhunting of large prey. After the book’s imposing accounts of Earth’s early history, its middle chapters provide a longue durée account of human society from early civilizations through our “coming of age” via space exploration in the 20th century. Golledge lucidly covers the ways climatic and geological feedback systems have shaped cultures and societies. “Climatic switching that could, in a geologic instant, trigger sweeping cascades of environmental change” would be interpreted by their human victims as the “Wrath of the Gods,” and civilizations developed complex religious explanations. The rise of intricate religious systems exacerbated humanity’s tribalistic tendencies, with negative outcomes such as war and persecution that fostered us-versus-them mentalities. The book’s more philosophical concluding chapters ruminate on the essential web of life, comparing our consciousness, for instance, to an old-growth forest that is “wired for healing” and provides communal protection and identity that transcends a single, isolated tree. The book’s final chapter reflects on how the scientific lens of feedback offers insights on finding beauty and meaning in life, the arts, and literature. Indeed, the book’s emphasis on culture— and its ample interdisciplinary references to literature, art, religion, philosophy, and history—make the work stand out from other scientific primers. One cannot escape the fundamental questions of philosophy, existence, and meaning when engaging with the book’s scientific inquiry. A professor of glaciology at New Zealand’s Victoria University of Wellington, Golledge is a renowned climate scientist whose work on Antarctica has appeared in dozens of peer-reviewed scientific journals and has been referenced in the New York Times, National Geographic, and more. Through measured, nonpoliticized analysis, the book also offers a damning, if subtle, rebuke of climate change denialism in its emphasis on the ways in which humans contribute to

environmental degradation. As groundbreaking as his research may be, Golledge best shows his talent by distilling complicated science into an accessible, engaging work that includes a 20-page glossary. The book’s almost lyrical narrative, comparable to the metaphysical lure of Carl Sagan’s compelling commentary on the cosmos, is accompanied by almost 400 research endnotes.

A scientific tour de force that tackles the ubiquitous questions of life and meaning.

Artistic and Life-Like: Photography in Washington, 1850-1900

Greyhavens, Tim | Grey Day Press (280 pp.)

$54.31 | May 1, 2024 | 9798218367930

A n independent historian of the Pacific Northwest presents a wellresearched account of how photography developed alongside settlements that would become Washington state.

Well illustrated, delightfully told, and shrewdly cited, Greyhavens’ work is a masterpiece of local history. With a natural storytelling voice, the author takes readers through the delightful world of late-19thcentury photography, interspersing dense explanations of photographic processes with colorful descriptions of the people who used them, beginning with the Prosch family, who began their association with the art as owners of a daguerreotype gallery in Newark, New Jersey; they would later come to own the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “a powerhouse of photojournalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.” The book is told chronologically, each chapter beginning with a concise timeline of the decades it covers to orient readers in the larger political landscape, as the book’s history takes readers through the period of the Civil War and beyond. The book is richly illustrated with archival photographs, their subjects meticulously traced in captions and corresponding text. Greyhavens doesn’t shy away from the impact of European settlement on Indigenous peoples in the American West.

As such, the author features photographs of many Indigenous subjects and explains how they were taken with an impressive level of detail, drawing on archival material. Indeed, Greyhavens’ rich, varied, and well-organized bibliography effectively reveals the thoroughness and high quality of his research. Overall, this is a compelling survey of Washington state’s history with an emerging artistic and technological medium.

A punctilious Western photo history that focuses on a turbulent time of political and social change.

Chasing Through Time

Hodgson, Tara | FriesenPress (264 pp.)

$19.99 paper | April 18, 2024 | 9781038302175

In Hodgson’s YA novel, two teens separated by more than two decades find each other via a mysterious computer link.

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Saulson lives in fictional Meference County in January 2001; Emma Stephenson, who’s also a sophomore at local Cardothia High School, lives in January 2022. Despite living in two different eras, the two girls become fast friends, bonding through online chats after a strange electrical storm forges a link across time between their two computers. Emboldened by the anonymity of the chat, both girls quickly share the struggles they’re facing in school, although Sarah is more forthcoming than Emma, at first. Sarah’s best friend has cut her off with no explanation; Emma briefly dated a popular classmate at school, and a risqué photo that she sent him appeared on his public social media page. He’s now dating her former friend, and ever since, Emma has endured a flood of cyberbullying from her classmates. Although the details of their difficulties differ, both girls have feelings of isolation and despair in common and advise each other accordingly. Hodgson portrays the emotional depths of both Sarah and Emma in a way that feels authentic, and it will ring true

for teen readers facing similar situations. However, the two main characters accept the reality of the time bridge a bit too readily, asking each other only a few questions—mostly about 2022 internet lingo—before they’re satisfied. Also, despite their emotional closeness, they can’t intervene in each other’s lives; Sarah grows more confident with support from her parents, but Emma’s family is more distant, and she feels trapped in a downward spiral. This crisis comes to a head toward the end of the novel and leads to a reveal that perceptive readers will have seen coming from the second chapter. Still, the plot turn ties the threads of the narrative together in a satisfying way.

A resonant exploration of the emotional lives of high schoolers with a time-bending twist.

Millie

Hoyle, McCall |

Shadow Mountain (208 pp.) |

March 5, 2024 | 9781639932337

A street dog learns to trust humans in Hoyle’s middlegrade novel. Life hasn’t been easy for a stray border terrier separated from her mother and siblings. The humans who took her in abandoned her, and Big Guy, the canine who taught her how to survive on the streets, has never returned from his food hunt. Now the terrier cares for another stray, Little Pup; the two of them make a home in an alley behind a bakery. But she can’t evade “the dogcatcher” forever, and she winds up alone in an animal shelter. Fortunately, teacher and dog trainer Lee Berry adopts her and names her Millie. The ever-wary former street dog adjusts to her new life and an array of new smells, slowly warming up to Lee and Lee’s lovable golden retriever, Bella. While Millie hopes to one day reunite with Big Guy and Little Pup, she’s also happy to run into Tori Smallwood, the bakery owner’s young granddaughter, who had shown

her four-legged alley neighbors nothing but kindness. Hoyle’s canine hero narrates this sentimental tale. Although Millie understands most of what humans say and do, her reliance on scents aptly showcases her distinctive dogginess. That nose of hers, for example, instantly picks up strangers before they’re in sight, and Tori emits a welcome and familiar “perfume of bread.” Even with the harshness Millie endures, this upbeat story zeroes in on the positives; Millie and Little Pup may be living outside in the dead of winter, but that doesn’t stop the puppy from playing in the snow. Readers truly see things through Millie’s eyes, from the reasons she’s extra cautious around certain humans to the odorous “message” she leaves Little Pup. Not surprisingly, each of Keele’s crisp, beautifully shaded black-andwhite illustrations features Millie in her small but sturdy form, flaunting an irresistible beard.

A marvelous, tenderhearted tale featuring a charming and cuddly terrier protagonist.

The Essential Skills of Wilderness Survival: A Guide to Shelter, Water, Fire, Food, Navigation, and Survival Kits

Knight, Jason | Alderleaf Press (164 pp.) $29.87 paper | Sept. 15, 2022 | 9798985691801

K night’s practical guide instructs readers how to stay alive when things go wrong in nature.

Technological innovations of the smartphone era have made it easier than ever to wander off the beaten path. Even so, apps like Instagram and Google Maps can sometimes give hikers and campers a false sense of security, leading the unprepared and/or unlucky into potentially dangerous situations where a change in the weather—or a failure of technology— can leave them stranded. With this guide, the author, who co-founded the Alderleaf Wilderness College, offers “a tried, true, and tested approach to each of the core

Illus. by Kevin Keele

$16.99

priorities that must be addressed in wilderness survival situations. It is a cohesive system for taking care of the most pressing survival needs both with and without modern gear.” Applicable to natural disasters in addition to wilderness misadventures, Knight’s system covers the basics—shelter, water, fire, food— readers would need to survive temporary, unplanned crises (as opposed to planned, long-term periods outdoors). Just as important, Knight helps prepare readers psychologically to meet the unexpected and to avoid panic, set priorities, assess danger, and recognize signs of exposure, dehydration, starvation, and other serious conditions. From knowing what plants are edible to boiling water with hot rocks to constructing one’s own debris tipi (with a roof angle slope of 45 degrees), Knight gives key advice for getting through the hours and days one might have to survive before being rescued. Knight writes with a practiced economy, making even the least appealing activities feel manageable: “Bullfrogs, for example, can be found all over North America and are considered an invasive species in many areas of the country. They also happen to be a reliable source of meat.” The book comes with numerous photographs and illustrations, which are especially helpful for precise tasks, like crafting a bow drill set to start a fire. It’s a slim guide—truly no more than necessary. But that only adds to the sense that these are need-to-know skills. A cleareyed fundamentals manual that makes the wilderness feel survivable.

One Night Only

Knudsen, Shelby | East Shore Books (326 pp.) | $18.23 paper July 11, 2024 | 9781068850523

A troubled rock star struggles with the double whammy of drug addiction and cancer in Knudsen’s novel. On the night of what’s supposed to be her last show ever, struggling musician Sky Black runs into a

A richly textured saga of a gay everyman moving from self-doubt to pride.

THE MAJESTIC LEO MARBLE

17-year-old boy named Sam behind Vancouver’s Imperial Theatre, in an alleyway home to “the destitute and addicted.” Though she already has plenty to deal with—an agonizing pain in her throat, the impending end of her career, and a heartbreak she can’t shake—Sky, three years into addiction recovery herself, sees something in Sam and invites him to watch the show. As it turns out, Sam isn’t the only unexpected guest that night: Rod Birk, an executive from Space Monkey Records, stops by and is immediately captivated by Sky’s performance. Birk rushes to sign her to the label, injecting new life into her career. Sam, who happens to be a talented guitarist, joins Sky’s band and is swept up in the excitement. Sky even begins to reconnect with Joe, her ex-boyfriend and former bandmate. But just as everything seems to be falling into place for her, she’s diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. Against medical advice, she refuses treatment in order to keep performing. The pain and stress of her condition, coupled with the ceaseless demands of her newfound stardom, push her ever closer to her previous excesses. Knudsen’s novel is tense and unrelenting; the author masterfully creates an immersive, claustrophobic atmosphere as Sky’s health, relationships, and sense of self become increasingly strained. Sky remains a likable, if flawed, protagonist throughout, and readers will find themselves rooting for her even as she makes questionable decisions. Though the story is engaging, however, it’s not particularly innovative—the plot is fairly formulaic, and the supporting characters, namely Sam and Joe, are underdeveloped. In trying to incorporate both of their storylines, Knudsen falls short in affording either ample attention, lessening their emotional impact.

An overstuffed but absorbing novel about the price of fame.

The Majestic Leo Marble

Lee, R.J. | Madville Publishing (268 pp.)

$22.95 paper | Aug. 20, 2024 | 9781956440935

A gay man searches for love in postStonewall New Orleans in Lee’s brooding romance.

In 1946, Leo Marble, still ensconced in his mother Louisa’s womb, mystically imbibes a gay sensibility straight from a performance of the Broadway musical Carousel. Growing up in Beau Pre, Mississippi, Leo develops a fine singing voice just in time to star in a high school production of Carousel, which makes the girls swoon over him; he dutifully goes steady with one as “camouflage” while secretly pining for a football player. College brings Leo’s first requited—but chaste—relationship with a man. After graduating, Leo moves to New Orleans to write for the Times-Picayune and dives into the city’s thriving gay bar and disco scene. He also joins the New Orleans Gay Resources Coalition, where he mans the volunteer help line and organizes a march to protest the anti–gay rights campaign of entertainer and orange juice spokeswoman Anita Bryant. Heading into the 1980s, lonely Leo hunkers down as the AIDS epidemic rages but finally finds love with handsome TV weatherman Jay Wilkinson. Lee’s portrait of Leo’s life is subdued but well observed (the author adds a touch of magical realism) as the narrative traces the gay community’s modern success story. Apart from one incident in which he is tackled by a heckler at a demonstration, Leo personally faces little overt homophobia and seems to easily surmount the crumbling barriers to inclusion. (A series of coming-out scenes with family and

co-workers all go well; even elderly Granny Marble gushes with acceptance.) The novel’s drama comes mainly from Leo’s anxieties over a future that seems uncertain and loveless, which Lee depicts in plangent, evocative prose (“He could turn on the gas from one of the burners, lie down and just go to sleep. He hadn’t figured out what would happen after that”). He’s not all that majestic, but readers will root for Leo as he struggles to shake off his isolation and embrace life. A richly textured saga of a gay everyman moving from self-doubt to pride.

Death in the Jingle Jungle

Levine, Lenny | JK Publishing (197 pp.)

$14.99 paper | April 5, 2024 | 9798218383657

A commercial jingle composer is framed for murder and becomes the target of repeated assassination attempts in Levine’s novel. In 1979, Ernie Lanier and Annie Sands have been together for nearly a decade. He was once the lead singer and bass player for a band called Generation Gap that rose to prominence in the 1960s, in part for its fierce opposition to the Vietnam War; she was in the Love Notes, a popular band that had one of its singles top the charts for months in 1962. Now, they’re firmly entrenched in the establishment they once so stridently opposed, writing and performing commercial jingles, and doing well enough to afford a garden apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—a delicious irony in a book brimming with them. (Ernie wrote the jingle for a Clio-winning commercial selling dandruff shampoo, solidifying his place in the industry after only three years working in it.) One day, Ernie engages in

an acrimonious argument with Harold Gordell, music director for ad agency Picknitter and Ogrely, an imperious man with more power than social grace. Shortly after, Harold is discovered dead, shot in his own office and clutching Ernie’s music in his hand. Unsurprisingly, Det. Lloyd Raymond is quickly convinced Ernie is the culprit; Ernie is just as quickly convinced he is being framed, a suspicion confirmed when he realizes someone broke into his home and left behind a picture (of Harold and Richard Nixon) stolen from Harold’s office. Later, Ernie is violently mugged on the street, and the perpetrator shoves the gun used to kill Harold into his pocket. The good news is that Raymond now comes to believe Ernie; the bad news is that, after failing to frame him, Harold’s murderer now turns his attentions to killing Ernie as well. Levine paints an extraordinary picture of the commercial jingle world, an industry whose silliness (some of the jingle lyrics provided are hilariously banal) is belied by the savage nature of its competitiveness. As Annie sardonically puts it, “Wonderful business, isn’t it?” The deeper Ernie digs into the identity of his would-be killer, the more he is reminded of how volatile his profession is, riven by rivalry and massive financial stakes and rife with hard drugs. The author is guilty of some minor literary missteps, specifically some corny prose. When Ernie realizes his and Annie’s lives are in peril, he commits to finding his assassin, and his resolve is expressed with cinematic melodrama: “Whoever this motherfucker is, he doesn’t just have the cops to deal with. He’s got me.” Additionally, the conclusion of the story is so formulaic that it renders the climax disappointingly anticlimactic, though it’s intended to be an electrifying crescendo. Still, none of these flaws fatally undermines the narrative, which is worth the price of admission for its striking portrayal of a genuinely

A captivating tale that artfully explicates a strange profession.

peculiar industry, one that permeates our lives but likely remains a mystery to most. This is an endlessly entertaining novel—funny, edifying, and immersive. A captivating tale that artfully explicates a strange profession.

The First Meow

Lincoln, L.L. | Illus. by Simone Jones Puffer-Ray (77 pp.) | $11.99 paper Nov. 15, 2023 | 9798989186303

A young girl finds humankind’s first feline friend in this graphic novel for children by author Lincoln and illustrator Jones. Over 9,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, the villagers of Crescent Moon diligently farm the land, occasionally risking excursions into the nearby treacherous woods for fruits and seeds. One spring, Crescent Moon’s seed stores are emptied by thieves. If the residents don’t plant seeds within the week, the village chief explains, “the crops won’t grow. We’ll starve within the year.” Shala, the fastest person in the village, volunteers to find the seeds outside the settlement. She braves rushing rivers as she tracks the thieves’ tiny tracks through the forest, but she soon gets lost in the dark. She then finds a surprising ally in a kindly, amber-eyed cat named Nan, who strikes a deal: If Shala shares her home with Nan and her family, she’ll use her night vision to lead the girl to the stolen seeds. As Shala stumbles and crashes through the forest, the pair develop a call-andresponse method to keep track of each other in the dark: “Follow me!” Nan shouts, and Shala responds “Ow!” Shala is overjoyed when she finds what she’s looking for, but she’s not out of the woods—either literally or figuratively— and will need more help from the forest’s cats to find her way home. Lincoln’s sparse text with bouncy rhyming couplets will carry readers along to the heartwarming conclusion that “a cat is someone on whom you can depend.”

Jones’ full-color illustrations are

sometimes quite busy, crowded with highlights and shading, but they offer excellently creepy visuals, including images of terrifying, seed-stealing villains. The story concludes with a brief series of facts about the first real-life domesticated cats in the Fertile Crescent. Young readers with felines of their own will be charmed by the cheeky just-so explanation of the sound that their pets make when speaking to their human friends. All human characters are depicted with brown skin and black hair. This straightforward but lively fable is the cat’s meow.

The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits To Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors

Mautz, Scott | Peakpoint Press (360 pp.)

$28.49 | May 7, 2024 | 9781510780583

Mautz offers a concise overview of best practices for confident, decisive, and effective business leadership.

In his fourth book, the author, a former Procter & Gamble senior executive, distills his principles of “mental strength” into a concise how-to guide for personal development. Drawing on experience and research, Mautz defines mentally strong leaders as those who have “the ability to regulate their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to achieve exceptional outcomes, despite circumstances.” (He’s careful to differentiate this concept from general mental health.) The author provides a bit of background in a brief introduction, then dives into detailing what mental strength is, what it isn’t, its key traits, and why it matters, illustrating his points with brief stories. Mautz asks, “How mentally strong are you?” and presents a 50-question self-assessment to help readers identify existing strengths and areas for “leveling up.” (The text helpfully correlates the assessment questions section by section to inform specific habit-building tools in

later chapters.) Chapters are dedicated to six leadership habits, including Fortitude, Confidence, Boldness, Messaging, Decision-Making, and Goal-Focus. In turn, each of these items comprises several sub-habits that are paired with corresponding tools. (For example, the tool for the confidence habit “Exude Executive Presence” is the “Integrated Aura model.”) Each tool is explained in detail and includes an initial small step for getting started and a helpful tactic for bouncing back from the inevitable lapses. The final chapter features a “MAP (Mental Action Plan)” that guides readers toward maintaining a regular practice for building their own habits. Diagrams and charts illustrate many of the tools, and each chapter also includes a list of references. Templates for many of the suggested exercises and the MAP are available for download from the author’s website, both singly and collected in a workbook format.

The author’s insights into what makes leaders and their teams effective are astute and well explained, and his recommendations are eminently sensible. While the book may not break new ground, it presents useful ideas—such as identifying limiting beliefs, cultivating self-acceptance as an antidote to perfectionism, paying attention to what’s not being said, and reframing problems as challenges—accessibly and persuasively. The text is organized in a way that’s easy for readers to follow and refer back to as needed. Mautz’s prose style is crisp, direct, and down to earth, and his tone is consistently upbeat, empathetic, and encouraging: On procrastination, he writes, “Consider the pain of not completing the task. If there isn’t any, by the way, consider eliminating the task…the next time you catch yourself slipping back into procrastination, give yourself a pat on the back—you noticed it! No small feat.” The pithy advice on difficult conversations includes such nuggets as “Focus on the predicament, not the personality”; “The pain is temporary, the positive is permanent”; and “Am I just confusing ‘difficult’ with ‘different’?” In today’s fast-paced, constantly changing workplaces, “where adversity is becoming the norm more than ever, where the things that wear us down, professionally and personally, are

in ever-increasing supply,” this book is a welcome addition to the professional development tool kit for thoughtful and ambitious business leaders.

A clearheaded guide to building the mental muscles needed to lead teams through adversity to success.

Detroit White Girl: A Memoir of Growing Up in Detroit

McMurray, Constance | Palmetto Publishing (118 pp.) | $12.99 paper May 7, 2024 | 9798822927179

McMurray offers a compact personal history of growing up in Detroit before and during “white flight.”

In her first book, the author, a retired attorney, gives a thoughtful account of growing up in a neighborhood on the west side of Detroit that experienced racial change during her lifetime. She sets her story against the backdrop of the socioeconomic history of post–World War II Detroit. McMurray describes a fairly comfortable childhood only marred by her father’s drinking problem and early death. Growing up in what she portrays as an almost exclusively white world, she notes that the demographic diversity she experienced was largely limited to people belonging to different Christian denominations, including Catholicism and the Greek Orthodox faith. The author poignantly recounts her memories of not being allowed to socialize with the few Black kids then in her orbit, never understanding why—she was not in a position then to question the choices made for her (“At the time I didn’t know how to express my feelings, but instinctively it didn’t feel right”). McMurray’s book finishes with an account of her coming of age during the Civil Rights Movement and race-based unrest in Detroit. The author recalls the first Black friends she made as a young adult and regrets the missed opportunities of her younger years. McMurray’s narrative builds effectively but seems to end abruptly. Throughout the book she

provides readers a compelling picture of a childhood marked by de facto segregation and too-often-unacknowledged Northern racial prejudice, but readers are left wanting to know more about how the Civil Rights era changed her life and possibly shaped her legal career, as well as her thoughts regarding the current state of the city of Detroit. Still, this is an engaging personal remembrance of a time and place whose story still needs to be told. The text includes a section of personal and family photographs. A thoughtful, elegiac work that leaves the reader wanting more.

Outrider

Montgomery, Mark James | Ston3house (226 pp.) $23.13 | $15.99 paperback | June 1, 2023 9798218212186 | 9798218260408 paper

Montgomery takes readers on a manhunt into Indian Territory in the Old West in this adventure novel.

Del Loveless, a straight shooter in every sense of the word, is a federal peace officer in the service of Judge Isaac Parker of the Western District in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Judge Parker (who was a real person, known to history as the “Hanging Judge”) is obsessed with the apprehension of one Robert Elias Crail. Crail was his prized deputy until he went rogue and began spreading death and mayhem throughout the Oklahoma Territory. When Crail is captured, it’s Del’s job to escort him back to Ft. Smith in a maximum-security wagon-mounted cage. What could possibly go wrong? (Everything, as it turns out.) Meanwhile, the security detail was to be led by a hotshot federal marshal named Brass Singleton, a man whose exploits are celebrated in the popular dime novels of the day. Many setbacks along the trail follow, including an unexpected plot twist. Meanwhile, through it all, Crail is determined to kill Judge Parker before that august jurist can send him to the gallows. (Parker is described as having a “high-backed [chair] with thick tufted leather that supported his spine and his

rulings.”) Montgomery clearly loved crafting this story: In some ways, he has too much fun, shoveling so many elements into the story that it sometimes feels like a sendup of the genre. Crazed cameo characters? Check. Flash flood? Check. Prairie fire? Check. Beautiful tough-as-nails mixed-blood lover for our hero? Check. The writing is sometimes a tad overheated, but it can often ambush us with poetry: “The ruts that led across the plains and into the course of time” is one of many unexpected linguistic delights in this wild and woolly tale. An immensely entertaining Wild West yarn from a talented and witty writer.

You Are Beyond Who You Are

Moterassed (Spitama), Bahram FriesenPress (72 pp.) | $28.15

$16.40 paper | Dec. 18, 2023 9781039198739 | 9781039198722 paper

Moterassed conducts an exploration of the philosopher Zarathustra’s teachings in this nonfiction work. In this slim volume, the author interprets the philosophy of the ancient prophet Zarathustra. (Before Muslims took over Persia in the seventh century, Zarathustra’s teachings, known as Zoroastrianism, served as Persia’s state religion.) The author notes that people strive for contentment, but the Western world presents challenges; Westerners primarily value their bodies, desires, emotions, and minds, none of which, per Moterassed, leads to enlightenment. Psychological counseling seeks to heal the ego, but the author, who is a psychotherapist himself, suggests that personality should be dropped entirely. The author asserts that personality is a construct of our environment, a mask obstructing the true self, “a dark cloud that blocks the sun.” Only when we embrace nothingness can we reveal our pure essence. Moterassed’s slightly humorous parables often center around this theme—in one of them, a mystic places

himself above God, because he’s been told that nothing is higher than God (the mystic considers himself to be nothing). The author argues that developing certain attributes can help readers attain this higher state, noting that it’s important to keep an elevated quality of thoughts, stay balanced, and practice inner discipline; when at last we fully know our true selves, we will grasp eternity. (Moterassed describes eternity as one wave that rejoins the vastness of the ocean, or a circle that has no discernible beginning or end.) One of the most attractive qualities of Zarathustra’s teachings for a modern audience is the way they embody gender parity—masculine (Ahura) and feminine (Mazda) attributes are evenly split, and every person contains the principles of both sexes. Moterassed’s book may be short, but the length works to his advantage. There is no filler, so every idea hits with great force, and the book is easy to reread. With less time to get distracted, readers can engage in the book’s ideas with the full consciousness that the author suggests as a way to practice meditation. A brief but satisfying encapsulation of Zoroastrianism.

Kirkus Star

Lost Elawn: An Elk Riders Legend

Neill, Ted | Self (303 pp.) | $14.99 paper April 7, 2024 | 9798884763340

In Neill’s re visitation of his Elk Riders fantasy series, a young woman seeks a fabled treasure to save her village. This offbeat fantasy novel acts as a stand-alone alternate take on the concepts and characters in the author’s five previous Elk Riders novels published in 2016, beginning with In the Darkness Visible and concluding with The Magus. As the story opens, Gabriela Carlyle has brought her brother, Daven, to a ceremony presided over by a healer named Arkmaven, hoping that the meager offering she’s brought

might result in a miracle cure for the compulsive behavioral quirks that have led village bullies to refer to her sibling as “half-witted.” Her prayer isn’t granted, though, and she’s dealing with her disappointment the following day when chaos erupts in the village. Strangers called the Servior have come to Gabriela’s island village of Harkness seeking to purchase the ominous black tower at the center of local religious life. Gabriela, Daven, and an unlikely band of misfits (along with a noble elk character named Adamantus) embark on the sailing vessel Elawn in search of a hidden treasure that will allow the village to retain ownership of the tower. The group encounters pirates, armed combat, and other personal challenges along the way. Neill jumps into this tale with clear confidence that he’s not just rebottling old wine; fans of the Elk Riders series are sure to find this book fascinatingly different, even as it retains some similarities. To highlight its “alternate history” aspect, the author even alters character names (Gabriella from the previous books is Gabriela here, and Dameon is Daven). Neill’s prose is always evocative (“The movement of carts, horses, and people,” reads a passage about a submerged town, “had been replaced by silt and sand swirling through forests of seaweed and tall marsh grasses”), and he presents vivid descriptions at every turn; at one point, for instance, Gabriela notes a character’s hands as being “slick and hot with his blood.” Also, the emotional heart of the book—Gabriela’s evolving and deepening affection for her troubled brother—glows with sincerity. A terrific and involving alternate version of a fantasy world.

Dodging Cupcakes

Pashley, Laura | STEMpire Press (237 pp.)

$22.50 | June 1, 2024 | 9798218961749

A charming, celebratory account of the Naval Academy Class of 1957.

SHAKING UP THE WORLD

The new kid brings a bright new spark to an old town in Pashley’s middlegrade novel. Seventh grader and inventor Mindy Bright may

have roots in Oglesby, Illinois, the rural town where her father grew up and her late grandmother lived, but she feels like a stranger when she moves in. The most alien thing about her new home is the school, Korn Wotel, which is housed in an old motel that was repurposed after the original school burned down 40 years ago. Mindy has trouble fitting in at first, when a classmate named Derek puts gum in her hair on the school bus. She quickly becomes the target of gentle mockery from the other students. She in turn judges them for their faded clothing and country ways. (“She felt like the shiny new screw in a jar of rusty old nails.”) As she tries to navigate this new social scene, Mindy is paired up with a boy named Charlie to create a booth for the school’s annual fall carnival. The carnival is the school’s main fundraiser, and boy, does the Korn Wotel need it: They’re barely able to keep the lights on, much less make necessary repairs and improvements. Mindy is excited to put her engineering skills to the test but keeps stumbling in her relationship with Charlie until it feels like she’s ruined their burgeoning friendship. She has to put all her skills to the test—both social and STEM— to save her partnership and her school at the carnival. Pashley’s debut will have readers rooting for Mindy even as they wince at her mistakes. Mindy is both eager and fallible, and thus relatable as she works out where she belongs in the long term. The narrative is evenly paced with pleasant surprises, such as Mindy’s classmates’ friendliness and the appearances of quirky characters like Ms. Caster and Locker Boy. Pashley seamlessly integrates Mindy’s STEM projects so that they appear as part of the overall fabric of her life, making for easy inspiration for scientific-minded readers.

A well-rounded novel about the importance of home that will have young readers excited about STEM.

Shaking Up the World: Stories of the Naval Academy Class of 1957

Ed. by Paulk, James D. | BookLogix (339 pp.) $19.99 paper | May 10, 2024 | 9781665306737

Graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy’s 1957 class share stories of personal triumph, military service, and sacrifice in this nonfiction anthology. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, who served as a submarine officer before entering the private sector with Procter & Gamble, Paulk first wrote about his time at the academy in his 2023 memoir, Swimming for Our Lives. So popular was the book with fellow alums that dozens of graduates from the 1957 class contributed to this anthology of short essays from their time at the academy and beyond. Paulk’s class first arrived at the academy for “Plebe Summer” in 1953, and their initial number of 1,160 midshipmen dwindled over the next four years to 848 graduates. Their class year corresponded with rising Cold War tensions; within a year of Paulk’s graduation, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite and the USS Nautilus nuclear submarine completed the first submerged transit of the North Pole. In this celebratory collection of 81 anecdotes, graduates recall the ways the academy prepared them for success. Among the 1957 class graduates was Charlie Duke, who writes, “I fell in love with airplanes during my junior year at Annapolis.” Duke would go on to serve NASA’s Apollo missions and remains the youngest person to walk on the moon. Other graduates include Adm. Bruce DeMars, who served as director of the U.S. Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program,

and Brad Parkinson, who helped develop the Global Positioning System (GPS). While the vignettes offer humorous and laudatory reflections on the academy, a number of authors also honor those who have sacrificed their lives in service. Two 1957 alumni were prisoners of war for more than five years after being shot down during the Vietnam War, and many more were killed in the conflict. Bob Brown, for example, flew 300-plus combat missions in Southeast Asia before being killed in action in 1972 while flying on a mission from Thailand to North Vietnam. In a particularly gripping entry, Jerry Barczak shares his experiences as a hostage in July 1985 while he was a passenger on the hijacked TWA flight 847 in Cairo, Egypt. Other graduates found success outside of military service, like Bob McElwee, who worked for more than 20 years as a referee for the National Football League. The variety of voices gives readers a fly-on-the-wall perspective at a class reunion as dozens of 1957 graduates celebrate their accomplishments and reflect on their glory years at the academy. It’s not often that a book with so many different authors works so well, and it’s a testament to Paulk’s decision to provide a venue for his fellow alums to tell their stories rather than attempt to write his own history of the class. The book’s engaging, conversational narratives are accompanied by a wealth of full-color photographs and conclude with a photo gallery of the academy and a class reunion. From chance meetings with actor Gregory Peck to harrowing rescues at sea in the Indian Ocean, this is a fascinating glimpse into the experiences of a single Naval Academy graduating class.

A charming, celebratory account of the Naval Academy Class of 1957.

Right Hand of the Resistance

Peters, Paul Michael | Owl Club Media Group (276 pp.) | $29.99 | $19.99 paper | June 4, 2024 9781733088381 | 9781733088374 paper

Linked dystopian stories explore the future of migration and global politics in Peters’ speculative novel. In his preface, the author invokes The Canterbury Tales and One Thousand and One Nights as inspirations, presenting his own future world through a series of distinct points of view. In the first chapter, parishioners gather in the basement of a crumbling church, recounting how “the world we knew crumbled into madness overnight.” One man raises a stump where his right arm used to be and is identified as a follower of the faith of Francisco Jesús De La Vega, who leads the Resistance of the Right Hand. In the chapter that follows, readers learn more about Francisco, through his own account and that of Dona Ávila, an immigrant (“pilgrim” in the language of the novel) seeking political asylum from the tyranny of Amazonia. Through Dona Ávila’s perspective, Peters develops his modern immigrant metaphor, detailing the brutal immigration process that involves a chemical spray-down, forced head shaving, and manual labor on farms in PaxAmericana (the former United States of America, the story implies). As the connections between characters and the rise of Francisco become clearer, the narrative’s scope broadens to include people in power, including the president of PaxAmericana preparing a speech about the border (known as “the Barrier”) and an interpreter working for the People’s Pacifica Party, a stand-in for China. The

A compelling vision of a possible future, filled with insightful commentary.

future world the author creates feels consistent and well realized, though the eastern nations, including a Russia analogue, are not fully explored. While some of the stories contain a fair amount of speechifying (the pace starts to lag in the dialogues between politicians and reporters), pulpy twists and Peters’ natural flair for action scenes keep the larger narrative consistently engaging. Readers will hope the author chooses to expand this world further in future volumes. A compelling vision of a possible future, filled with insightful commentary.

Flat: An Edgy Tale of Accidental Discovery

Rabin, Neal | Ponderosa Publishers (344 pp.) | $14.99 paper June 30, 2024 | 9780997046823

Rabin presents a seafaring novel about a man’s search for self, featuring pirates, royalty, and plenty of adventure. The story centers on Lanning Delaford, the adopted son of the baker at Algeciras Palace (Molly Cortez) and a ship captain. He owes a good deal of money to the local viceroy, Roderick Gagnez, and ship owner Don Espinosa; he also seeks to know more about himself, having grown up with only blurred visions of his father and no memories of his mother at all. Lanning is approached by Minister Goodman, due to his knowledge of Tangiers, to carry out a mission by ship to retrieve a child the king had out of wedlock, so that he might have a more suitable heir to the throne. Along the way, they partner up with Capt. Destemido, a privateer for King Manuel of Portugal. The novel culminates in an epic sea battle between Lanning and explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who’s a threat to their mission. Before long, Lanning finds himself on an island, greeted by a family member who thought the captain had died many years ago. Overall, the author has a talent for creating characters that push back against cliches. Prince Ferdinand of Algeciras, for

example, is introduced not as heroic or noble, but as delightfully spoiled; the pirates lack cleverness, and various players’ collective faults make them endearing and relatable. The book has some great one-liners, as when Don Espinosa says to Lanning, “Why do you insist on vomiting upon my generosity, defecating on my kindness?” The author explains some of the mechanics of sailing in a way that’s impressively engaging and provides effective context for the seafaring terminology. Finally, despite all the humor, the novel has potent moments of wisdom, revealed during characters’ moments of introspection.

A riveting and hilarious adventure at sea.

Fatal Cure

Rogers, John Baird | Gotuit Publishing (378 pp.) | Aug. 1, 2024 | 9781732226241

Gene therapy takes a deadly turn in Rogers’ medical thriller. In this fourth installment of the author’s MayfieldNapolitani thriller series, Joe Mayfield and his wife, Louise “Weezy” Napolitani, hope to land a new client for CyberSol, their cybersecurity company: the Swiss firm APX, a supplier of materials used in gene sequencing. APX recently acquired Gerontin Therapeutics, a start-up that developed a rapid infusion method that can help fix “bad genes in otherwise healthy people.” Former Gerontin scientist Ella Sonesgard, now an APX VP, tells Joe that former employee Daniel Manly and some of Gerontin’s intellectual property have gone missing. But when Joe and Weezy travel from their Bethesda office to meet with Ella in Boston, the cybersleuths are told she is unavailable; instead, company CEO Vic Neuchtermeier, whose shoulders “spoke to hours on the weight bench,” meets with the pair to close out the project, explaining that finding the missing employee and intellectual property is not a priority. However, as they have already surmised that Daniel is in Boston (and because

Weezy’s family lives there), the couple remain in Bean Town. They learn from Weezy’s brother that a neighborhood friend, a congressman fighting higher drug prices, has died suddenly of a rare disease. About the same time, a U.S. senator collapsed and died, possibly as a result of recently received prophylactic gene therapy. When Ella is diagnosed with hemophilia, it appears gene therapy has been weaponized. Readers familiar with the series will enjoy this fast-paced entry; newcomers, however, may be puzzled when pieces of backstory are blurted out and wonder if the messagereceiving aural implants and other futuristic gizmos in the story were explained thoroughly in previous books—their existence is assumed here. The characters’ relationships and dialogue—particularly between Joe and Weezy—are realistic, playful, and sexy. Humor snakes throughout the narrative, and the descriptions are inventive, such as the image of Weezy’s male relatives being “built like boxes with legs.” The book is topical, with large portions addressing gene therapy and climate change and its deniers, and the ending is killer. A thrilling jump into the deep end of the (gene) pool.

Walk the Earth as Brothers

Rozycki, Henry | Addison & Highsmith Publishers (300 pp.)

$27.49 | April 9, 2024 | 9781592113866

In Rozycki’s historical novel, Jewish brothers in 1939 Poland are forced to abandon their professional ambitions when the Nazis invade.

Brothers Daniel and Ian Ciszek both have big futures planned: Daniel, the older of the pair, is a budding architect and has just written a manifesto that he hopes will change the face of the industry and attract enviable commissions in Warsaw. Ian is headed to Nancy, France, to begin studying engineering. However, these aspirations are waylaid by historical forces bigger than both of them

when Hitler’s forces invade Poland, a catastrophe affectingly depicted by the author. In dire need of money and a place to live, Ian joins a group of communist revolutionaries and is drawn into a dangerous plan to hijack a cigarette truck. He falls in love with the beautiful Alicia, but she remains an exasperating enigma to him; even her name, he learns, isn’t real. Meanwhile, en route to see his father, Joseph, and transport him to safety, Daniel, in short order, finds himself a soldier in the Polish army; he’s captured by the Germans and sent to a gulag in Siberia. He manages to lift himself out of the “endless line of identical days” by joining a group of engineers building a secret tunnel and also finds love with Nadhya, a literary scholar pushed into exile. Rozycki doesn’t break any new historical or literary ground here—in fact, this is a pastiche of wartime tales with which most readers will be familiar. However, the story doesn’t read as stale because the plight of the brothers is conveyed so poignantly. Ian is the more fascinating of the two protagonists—on the one hand, he was raised to take great pride in his Polish citizenship, and on the other, he is stung by the vicious antisemitism of his fellow countrymen, a predicament that leaves him conflicted about his nation’s fate at the hands of Hitler. This is a dramatically lively novel as well as a historically rigorous one. A moving tale about the irrepressible tide of history and the fates of the individuals subjected to it.

Silas on Sundays

Shoemaker, Joel | Illus. by Lintang Pandu Pratiwi | Wildling Press (32 pp.)

$22.95 | $13.95 paper | June 4, 2024 9781957833132 | 9781957833125 paper

A nonbinary child does whatever they can to get out of going to church on Sunday in Shoemaker’s LGBTQ+ picture book.

“At home, Silas can be whoever they want” to be. Over the course of their week, they are a star quarterback, then a graceful ballerina in a pink tutu, then a famous

paleontologist. But on Sundays, Silas’ parents make them go to church, the one place they don’t feel like they can be themselves, stuffed into a suit and made to sit still. Silas has many clever tricks to get out of going, but their parents recognize their anxiety and devise a plan to show their child a welcoming place to worship where they will feel safe to be who they are. Pratiwi’s illustrations are colorful and kinetic, bringing to life Silas’ active imagination and the joy in their homebound adventures. While most of the book’s activities are portrayed as pretend, Shoemaker demonstrates that Silas is equally resourceful in the real world, turning back their parents’ clock to avoid another Sunday. The book’s message is refreshing: Even confident LGBTQ+ children can chafe under rigid rules that force them to present in ways that don’t fit, particularly when they’re unsure if allies or others like them will be present. Like the best children’s books, this one offers an important lesson for kids and adults alike. A charming story about finding your place.

Children of Mandrake

Stein, Jesse | Illus. by Meng Samantha Shui Atmosphere Press (336 pp.) | $20.00 paper April 25, 2024 | 9798891322516

In Stein’s YA novel, the only children in Mandrake, an isolated town surrounded by a circular river, go on a mysterious journey. The lore of the town runs deep, and tween Donna, as the narrative’s resident expert, guides readers through its complicated history. It turns out that various legendary creatures—including a monster called Hojo (for whom the Hojo River is named), the Swamp King, and the Great Sphinx Moth—are very real, and closer to the town than Donna or young Truman could ever have guessed from the stories they’ve been told. They encounter all these creatures and more after they set off from Mandrake on a quest bestowed upon them by Donna’s witchy mother,

Aunt Ginny—ostensibly to find a cinnamon tree to make the perfect pecan pie for Donna’s upcoming 13th birthday. It’s the first time that either Donna or Truman have ever left Mandrake, and they do so on a pontoon, guided by Aunt Ginny’s tiny alligator named Regina. They must withstand many perils along the way, including “live oaks” (living, moving trees that try to grab them), swamp bears, and “the Bagman,” who tries to kidnap them. Donna and Truman eventually realize that their quest is about more than cinnamon and that their fate is tied to that of Mandrake itself. Stein’s worldbuilding is complex, which is sure to appeal to some fantasy fans. At first, the setting seems to be a nonspecific fantasy world dominated by swamps, although an alligator named Ruth Gator Binsburg and a few other contemporary references situate it as real-world adjacent—at least to some degree. Indeed, the swampy environment is reminiscent of real-life areas of Louisiana and the Florida Everglades, and readers may find the disconnect between the magical realism and the modern elements to be a bit disorienting at times. Gorgeous full-page, full-color illustrations by Shui, stylized as postcards, appear at the end of most chapters and add a rich layer of vibrancy and authenticity to the wild environment described in the text. An engaging, original tale for those looking for elaborate worldbuilding in their fantasy fiction.

Art Therapy Activities for All Ages: An Artful Approach to Health and Healing

Stewart, Joan | FriesenPress (184 pp.)

$39.99 | $26.99 paper | March 28, 2024 9781039177055 | 9781039177048 paper

Stewart’s guide provides step-bystep instructions for various therapeutic art projects. After running a preschool for 10 years, the author switched directions and concentrated on helping seniors. She found that, with modifications, the same type of art instruction that is fun for

children just beginning their lives can also serve a population with many years behind them (“You never stopped being an artist,” Stewart notes). The guide includes projects suitable for stroke recovery classes. After suffering a stroke, people may have difficulty with their own facial expressions, manual dexterity, and isolation; recommended projects include drawing faces representing emotions onto balloons and painting different types of masks; some have themes, such as Mardi Gras, Halloween, and Phantom of the Opera, or use mixed media for decoration. (Per the author, these projects may especially resonate with stroke survivors, whose changed appearances may make them feel they’re in disguise already.) All of the activities encourage social interactions. Stewart also discusses obstacles older adults might face, such as dementia and hearing or vision loss. The book is well structured and organized. Activities are grouped into categories, like “brain,” “memory,” “senses,” and “teamwork.” Each project is rated with symbols; for example, dollar signs signify the cost of the supplies, and each clock-face symbol represents half an hour of preparation time. Stewart lists the specific supplies needed and provides steps to follow for every activity. She sometimes includes templates to use, such as the shape of a mask, a tree, or a set of postcards. Photographic examples give readers further ideas for how each project might look. Some of the simpler activities, such as cutting up magazines or drawing partner portraits, don’t seem to require the detailed instructions they’re given, and readers may wish for more stories about the author’s classes to give inspiration and add interest. But Stewart’s focus on an older population that is usually overlooked is admirable, as is her emphasis on making art fun for people of all abilities.

A good resource for art therapists, teachers, and caregivers.

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Until My Last Breath: Fighting Cancer With My Young Heroes

Vitale, Dick & Scott Gleeson

Nico 11 Publishing & Design (192 pp.)

$34.99 | Jan. 1, 2024 | 9781957351452

A n emotional journey of hope, love, loss, and perseverance by legendary basketball commentator Vitale, with co-author Gleeson. In this inspirational tribute and call to action, the author—a Hall of Fame broadcaster with ESPN and a three-time cancer survivor—highlights his work to fund cancer research and inspire others. Vitale honors the motto of his friend, basketball coach and broadcaster Jim Valvano (“Don’t Give Up…Don’t Ever Give Up!”), who founded the V Foundation for Cancer Research a year before his own death from cancer in 1994; the author has been a committed fundraiser for the organization ever since. Readers are taken behind the scenes of Vitale’s medical journey, including struggles with lymphoma in 2021 and 2022 and vocal-cord cancer in 2023. Vitale has long put a spotlight on the urgent need for pediatric cancer research through galas and various media platforms, and the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund at the V Foundation has granted more than $84 million to top researchers around the United States. Throughout, Vitale employs his trademark voice and style in these photo-rich pages, entwining his own cancer stories with those of pediatric cancer patients, whose courage, he says, has profoundly affected him. The book includes the accounts of a dozen such young people, all sharing invaluable lessons of hope and perseverance. Vitale recounts his own battle with vocal-cord cancer, which involved “35 grueling radiation treatments spread over six weeks—including a double treatment on Fridays” and left him unable to speak for months. The ordeal wasn’t just a crushing blow to his livelihood, he says; it also took away his “greatest weapon to fight for children.” He tells of experiencing dark moments during his cancer

treatment, but he also notes how he persevered with the strength and support of family members and by remembering what his parents always told him: “Never Believe in Can’t, Richie.” The book culminates in the author’s triumphant return to broadcasting, marking his 45th season with ESPN—a milestone that underscores his determination. A touching celebration of strength and an inspiring story of dedication.

An Impossible Life: A True Story of Hope and Mental Illness

Wasden, Sonja & Rachael Siddoway

A Possible Life (380 pp.) | $27.99

$19.99 paper | Jan. 8, 2024

9798989798025 | 9798989798018 paper

Wasden offers an account of navigating life with bipolar disorder in this memoir, co-written with Siddoway, her daughter. The book begins in a hospital emergency room in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2007, where Wasden’s husband, Mitch, took her in for a mental health evaluation. There, the doctor asked her if she wanted to die: “I didn’t want to be alive, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be dead either,” she narrates. “I just wanted out of the pain.” The narrative then alternates between her relationship with Mitch and the six days she spent in a mental hospital. Later, she was prescribed medication that worked for her, and she confronted the stigma that came with a mental illness diagnosis. There was an added feeling of despair in her journey, as her father also struggled with mental illness and eventually died by suicide in 2011. Four years later, after a family argument, the author attempted suicide; shortly afterward, her son went to live with his aunt and uncle, and she and Mitch separated. A friend introduced her to dialectical behavior therapy, which involved cultivating mindfulness, tolerating negative thoughts, regulating emotions, and finding ways to communicate better with others; she found that

DBT yielded positive results. She later worked to rebuild her relationships with her husband and others and to pay off some of her significant credit-card debt with a new job. Overall, this multilayered book is incredibly potent as it delves into heavy subjects with impressive nuance. It centers on the author’s experience with bipolar disorder, but it also reads like a love story at times, showing how the author and her spouse made sacrifices to support each other’s dreams. One scene that particularly stands out features Mitch taking the author to get chocolates at Target, so she would have a treat to pair with her medication. Later, when the author asked him why he’d stayed with her, he responded, “I remember the girl I married. I still love that girl, and I hoped one day she’d come back to me.”

An important and emotional read about mental health, family, and hope.

Summer Triangle

Webster, Elizabeth | Atmosphere Press (370 pp.)

$18.99 paper | April 23, 2024 | 9798891320055

Th ree women face personal reckonings in Delaware in Webster’s debut novel, which highlights the power of female friendship. The Summer Triangle is an astronomical phenomenon in which three unrelated stars appear linked and shine most brightly when seen together. Such is the relationship between Natalie, Eliana, and Allegra, three resilient women in their mid-30s. As the story unfolds, each woman finds herself at a crossroads where she must face weighty challenges and painful truths. Natalie is a successful interior designer whose unfaithful spouse is leaving her; she and her two kids spend the summer with her childhood friend, Eliana, in the coastal Delaware town of Rehoboth, where they grew up. Eliana’s life appears idyllic, but she’s struggling as a mother of young twins who’s given up her career as a translator. Allegra is an outsider—a supermodel whose life has been sabotaged by a psychologically abusive ex-husband. The

three women meet when Natalie attempts to visit her childhood home, where Allegra now lives, and although the initial encounter goes badly (“We wouldn’t want to intrude,” says Eliana, and Allegra replies, “But that’s exactly what you would be doing: intruding”), they soon form a bond. The snappy, skillful dialogue flows naturally and provides each character with a distinctive voice. The plot moves along at a satisfying clip, never tempting readers to skip ahead. Each character’s arc is significant, but it’s Natalie who anchors the book, and whose story of recovery from abuse is the most complex and poignant. Some storylines are predictable (when Eliana’s brother meets Allegra, for instance, the trajectory of their relationship is easy to guess), but most twists and turns are unexpected. These women may be financially successful and remarkably attractive, but their problems are relatable and never seem trivial. Many serious themes arise, including the complexities of motherhood, marriage, and career and how friendship allows people to tackle past traumas. Romance is in the air, as well, along with more prosaic concerns and a lot of soul-searching.

A captivating page-turner about three friends letting their true selves shine.

Daisy’s Near Catastrophe:

Based on the True Tale of a Missing Kitten and the K9 Team That Helped To Rescue Her

Westgate-Silva, Debra | Illus. by Yorris Handoko | Luminohr Books (32 pp.) $17.96 | $12.99 paper | May 7, 2024 9798988185444 | 9798988185451 paper

A kitten searches for her best friend, a dog, in Westgate-Silva’s picture book. Based on the true story of a K-9 pet rescue team, the book begins when a family places their pets in separate kennels to go on vacation. Daisy, a kitten, and Bear, a dog, are usually inseparable. The feline escapes to look for her pal, but she gets lost in the city and

becomes frightened. As days and nights pass, a neighborhood lady calls Daisy by her name; bowls of Daisy’s favorite food appear wherever she goes, and a crate in the park accidentally traps a raccoon, who’s later freed. Occasionally, Daisy catches a whiff of Bear in the air. She eventually realizes that her family may be searching for her, so she takes a leap of faith. Handoko’s full-color, cartoonstyle illustrations effectively animate the animals’ expressions and drop nontextual clues: A woman holds a lost-cat flier featuring Daisy’s name, and maps show the characters’ proximity to one another and hint about a K-9 team’s role. The crisp, dynamic prose captures Daisy’s moments of fear and triumph, which provide consistent excitement. Backmatter includes a narrative of the real events that inspired the story, which provide context for a second, more nuanced reading. An inspiring, multilayered reminder that true friends are hard to find.

Anela’s Club

Yamashiro, D.K. | Koehler Books (208 pp.) | $17.95 paper May 10, 2024 | 9798888242223

After her brother’s sudden death, a teen girl struggles to find a future for herself beyond her loss and trauma in Yamashiro’s debut YA novel.

“Two months ago, my brother, Jake, died,” confides Anela Lee, a 15-year-old of Italian and Polynesian descent whose already difficult and impoverished family life all but disintegrates in the wake of the tragedy.

Before Jake’s death, Anela’s parents ignored her, putting their focus solely on her brother’s high school football career. Previously an exceptional student, Anela now isolates herself from friends and lets her grades swiftly decline. But Miss DeGracia, her social studies teacher, refuses to give up on her, and during a school trip to the State House, she introduces Anela to the firebrand senator Nastasia Yen Strasberg. Strasberg offers the girl a job and a mentor, sharing stories of youthful hardship not unlike Anela’s own suffered by men who would become American presidents. These hard-luck tales of historical figures (in combination with the lessons in self-confidence that Jake instilled in her) guide Anela toward reforging relationships with lost friends and her contrite mother—and, ultimately, to an essay contest that offers a pathway to Harvard College. Yamashiro has long studied the childhood traumas of American presidents and relates many of these stories here through the character of Sen. Strasberg in a seamless, organic manner, offering informative parallels to Anela’s journey. Equally impressive is the Boston-based community the book depicts; many of Anela’s neighbors, peers, and mentors are revealed to also be silently carrying their own burdens. (These problems are presented as being equally relevant, even if some characters are more socially or financially privileged than the protagonist.) The story never portrays poverty in an exploitative way or as a moral failing. Instead, adversity is presented as something that, if not surrendered to, can shape an individual—an important lesson for readers of any age.

An inspiring story of teenage resilience and how trauma need not be an insurmountable obstacle.

An inspiring, multilayered reminder that true friends are hard to find.

DAISY’S NEAR CATASTROPHE

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