December 15, 2019: Volume LXXXVII, No. 24

Featuring 324 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's and YA books

KIRKUS VOL. LXXXVII, NO.

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DECEMBER

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REVIEWS

from the editor’s desk:

Our 2020 Wish List B Y T O M

Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N

B EER

# Chief Executive Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N mkuehn@kirkus.com

John Paraskevas

Over the past few weeks, the staff of Kirkus Reviews has been enveloped in a golden nimbus of book love, as we presented our Best of 2019 lists in fiction, picture books, middle-grade books, nonfiction, and young adult books. In this issue we highlight 100 of the best Indie titles published this year. Books are wonderful, we feel worthy, and all is right with the world.

Lots of heart emojis.

But hang on just a moment.

Kirkus sees thousands of books every year, and there’s plenty that we don’t like. For every outstanding work of literature brought forth by the publishing industry, there are dozens of others that are forgettable, halfTom Beer baked, or, occasionally, downright objectionable. We get it—this is a tough business without a surefire model for success, and publishers have to try a lot of different things to see what works.

But we’re critics first and foremost, and our job is to evaluate books honestly and fairly, good and bad alike. (Any author who has received a negative review from Kirkus will not be surprised to learn this.) So as we wind up 2019, we’re calling out some of the publishing trends we weren’t so crazy about.

Laurie Muchnick, Fiction Editor: Bland titles. Too many publishers go for them—and I do believe it’s the publishers, not the authors. When I got early galleys of Angie Kim’s Miracle Creek—one of our Best Books of 2019—it was called Miracle Submarine. You might not know what that means, but its intriguing, and you’d remember it, wouldn’t you? I’d like to see more publishers taking a chance on unusual book titles, especially after the success of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Eric Liebetrau, Nonfiction Editor: Blog Books. Now that seemingly everyone has a blog, many bloggers are publishing books, and most of them are disposable. If you can’t do more than lift your blog material and shove it between two covers with an introduction, don’t bother.

Vicky Smith, Children’s Editor: The infestation of “Baby Shark” books. Books crafted around viral sensations are an inevitable phenomenon of our age, and far more often than not they fail miserably at capturing whatever made their source material viral and sensational. “Baby Shark” books, for example, are impossible to enjoy without knowing the song. What’s a reader to do with lines like, “Baby shark! Doo doo doo doo doo doo!”? Without the tune, it’s just a lot of, well, “doo doo.”

Laura Simeon, Young Adult Editor: The gap in the market when it comes to younger YA readers. Sixth graders are worlds away from 12th graders developmentally. They’re also different from bright elementary kids who can “read up.” We can’t forget that YA covers a broad age range and it needs to serve kids at the younger end as well as older teens who are more sensitive or otherwise want less intense and explicit materials and kids who struggle with or dislike reading and who deserve high-quality, accessible materials.

Karen Schechner, Vice President of Kirkus Indie: The New York Times’ practice of ignoring self-published books. In 2018, indie authors published 1.7 million books. The Gray Lady doesn’t have to sift through all of them; she can start in this magazine’s Indie section and pick a good one, like anything by Jacob M. Appel, or email me, and I’ll make a few suggestions: kschechner@kirkus.com.

Now that we have that out of our system, here’s to more books we love in 2020!

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from the editor’s desk

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Vice President of Marketing SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com Managing/Nonfiction Editor E R I C L I E B E T R AU eliebetrau@kirkus.com Fiction Editor L AU R I E M U C H N I C K lmuchnick@kirkus.com Children’s Editor VICKY SMITH vsmith@kirkus.com Young Adult Editor L AU R A S I M E O N lsimeon@kirkus.com Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE mlabrise@kirkus.com Vice President of Kirkus Indie KAREN SCHECHNER kschechner@kirkus.com Senior Indie Editor D AV I D R A P P drapp@kirkus.com Indie Editor M Y R A F O R S B E RG mforsberg@kirkus.com Associate Manager of Indie K AT E R I N A P A P P A S kpappas@kirkus.com Editorial Assistant JOHANNA ZWIRNER jzwirner@kirkus.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor G R E G O RY M c N A M E E Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS Designer ALEX HEAD Director of Kirkus Editorial L AU R E N B A I L E Y lbailey@kirkus.com Production Editor C AT H E R I N E B R E S N E R cbresner@kirkus.com Website and Software Developer P E RC Y P E R E Z pperez@kirkus.com Advertising Director M O N I Q U E S T E N S RU D mstensrud@kirkus.com Advertising Associate TAT I A N A A R N O L D tarnold@kirkus.com Advertising Coordinator KELSEY WILLIAMS kwilliams@kirkus.com Graphic Designer L I A N A WA L K E R lwallker@kirkus.com Controller MICHELLE GONZALES mgonzales@kirkus.com for customer service or subscription questions, please call 1-800-316-9361

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contents special issue: best books of 2019 best indie books of 2019 REVIEWS...............................................................................................4 EDITOR’S NOTE.................................................................................... 6

15 december 2019 issue fiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS.........................................................55 REVIEWS..............................................................................................55 MYSTERY............................................................................................ 87 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY........................................................ 97 ROMANCE..........................................................................................99

nonfiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...................................................... 102 REVIEWS........................................................................................... 102

children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...................................................... 134 REVIEWS........................................................................................... 134 BOARD & NOVELTY BOOKS........................................................... 165 CONTINUING SERIES......................................................................177

young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...................................................... 182 REVIEWS........................................................................................... 182 CONTINUING SERIES..................................................................... 195

indie INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...................................................... 196 REVIEWS........................................................................................... 196 INDIE BOOKS OF THE MONTH.......................................................215

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special issue: best books of 2019

indie

THE PATRON SAINT OF LOST GIRLS

HIGH DIVE

Aitken, Maureen Southeast Missouri State Univ. Press (172 pp.) $18.00 paper | Oct. 8, 2018 978-0-9979262-7-9 A short story collection recounts significant episodes in a young Michigan woman’s life.

In this book, which won the 2016 Nilsen Literary Prize for a First Novel, Aitken (Writing/Univ. of Minnesota) gathers both new and previously published short stories into a singular anthology. The work centers on one character: Mary, a spirited writer and artist born in 1960s Detroit.

Although each piece can stand entirely on its own, together these brief glimpses weave a rich tapestry of a life, incorporating themes of family and romance, work and destitution, inspiration and addiction, determination and loss. Even the simplest moments have a sense of gravitas and quiet beauty; for example, while remembering picking raspberries with her grandfather, Mary comments, “As with the seasons before, I had only to look his way and consider how his pale, steady hand coaxed the berries away from their inevitable fall.” Indeed, Mary’s complexity as a protagonist will make it easy for readers to forget the work’s fictional nature. Whether she’s struggling to find fulfillment in a career or attempting to navigate a romantic landscape full of bittersweet choices, her emotions resonate with aching familiarity. What makes her exceptional is the strength that she demonstrates in the face of adversity, including a partner who’s addicted to heroin, a family member succumbing to cancer, and her sobering realization, as a child, of the abductions and murders that plague the streets of her city. Aitken doesn’t shy away from difficult topics in these snapshots; instead, she thrusts them boldly into view: “When you reached Brooklyn via Detroit, you had other stories, ones of yearning, of forging ahead, of seizing and tasting every drop you had left. You fought, with everything, to live.” Overall, the author delivers these stories with poetic grace, resulting in a book that will linger in the reader’s mind long after the final page.

A moving work that demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the human condition.

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Amon, Elizabeth Manuscript A middle-aged woman considers what constitutes infidelity in this debut novel.

As an award-winning photojournalist, Alex used to travel to war-torn parts of the globe to capture scenes of suffering, hoping to awaken the American public to problems that their government helped create. Now, she’s a 43-year-old mother of two who photographs family portraits in her Westchester, New York, studio.

Her lawyer husband, Martin, tells people that she left her previous job because she decided “It was time for something new”; Berks, her fellow photojournalist and former lover, accuses her of selling out in exchange for stultifying suburban bliss. Alex knows that neither description tells the whole story, but she isn’t quite sure how to frame her own life. She doesn’t miss the danger of her past work, but she does miss its exhilaration and sense of purpose. When her glamorous older sister, Maggie, casually mentions that their late father had an affair and that she herself is sleeping with a married man, Alex feels something spark inside her. She resolves to capture the essence of extramarital affairs in photos, starting by taking covert pictures of Maggie and her boyfriend. But the project forces her to confront her motives as a photographer; maybe her new obsession with “cheating,” she thinks, is a function of her compulsion to “chas[e] after other people’s sadness.” A lesser novelist would draw clearer lines between career and motherhood, history and loyalty, desire and morality. Author Amon, however, effortlessly balances such seemingly conflicting truths. She shows how the topic of infidelity shadows Alex’s own marriage as well as her protagonist’s interactions with her siblings and mother. Each conversation carries rich undertones of unspoken emotional baggage; the scenes with Berks are particularly loaded, featuring frustration, romance, comfort, jealousy, and admiration within the span of a few paragraphs. Amon, in clean, polished prose, poses messy questions: How do you enjoy your version of happiness in a world full of misery? And how do you appreciate a person’s love for you when you see that his or her love for someone else is greater?

A layered and insightful exploration of how people seek meaning in careers and relationships.

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THE TROUBLE WITH CHRISTMAS

AMAZING THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE Stories

Andrews, Amy Entangled: Amara (400 pp.) $7.99 paper | $7.99 e-book Sep. 24, 2019 978-1-64063-819-8

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Appel’s (The Cynic in Extremis: Poems, 2018, etc.) short story collection offers portraits of people experiencing new revelations.

In these eight poignant, insightful tales, award-winning author Appel—a physician, attorney, and bioethicist—continues to address many preoccupations that he’s explored in earlier works. One of his most prominent themes is the human tendency to alter the truth—often less to gain an advantage than to experience the sheer joy of invention. In the title story, Carlo, a VA hospital nurse, notes that he’s long been “fascinated by schemes and hoaxes”; when a patient goes missing (“We were short one lunatic”), he hatches a coverup plan, which he embroiders beyond necessity: “fabricating Dunham’s data—and pulling it off so effortlessly—was about as much fun as anything I’d done in years.” Several characters in other stories come to understand that human connection, like creativity, is a mysterious thing that can lead to unlikely attachments. In “Grappling,” Oriana Bingham, a wealthy young woman, insists on marrying Jeb Moran, a “gator grappler” who risked his life to save hers when she was 11; “A girl dreams that a man will put his life on the line for her,” she explains. Oriana stays loyal to Jeb, even though he’s crude, abusive, and drinks, but rejects Arthur Dobbins, a much more suitable man. Other stories similarly describe a loved one’s mystifying preference for someone unworthy. Illness, criminality, and broken lives or dreams appear in “Dyads,” “Embers,” and “Live Shells.” The hope of rescue, or at least comfort, underlies these tales, but the author shows how hope can only go so far in the face of sorrow, death, and bad decisions. Still, the stories are never morbid, as the author effectively balances them with humor and sharp observations about characters and settings. Some pieces have a surreal tinge, but generally, they hew closer to realism than Appel’s previous work.

Mordant, humorous stories that display a fine understanding of the human condition.

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Fake relationships, art forgery, and tacky decorations abound in this smalltown Christmas romance.

War hero and rancher Joshua Grady—known as “Grady” to his friends and family—is notorious in Credence, Colorado, for his grouchy demeanor, which increases tenfold at Christmastime. His feisty new tenant, Suzanne St. Michelle, is a born-and-bred New Yorker who’s taking a breather from reproducing paintings for museums and collectors; unlike her affluent art-world parents, she’s a big fan of the Christmas holiday. She doesn’t like Grady’s sour attitude, but she finds that her long-dormant muse has been awakened by his perfect face and physique. When Suzanne’s parents decide to spend the holidays in Credence to revive their marriage, she makes a deal with Grady; Suzanne will give him every painting that she’s made of him if Grady pretends to be her boyfriend—who loves Christmas. He’s eager to possess the artworks, which he considers embarrassing, and intrigued

by Suzanne’s beauty and grit, so he reluctantly agrees to her terms. As Grady and Suzanne’s mutual attraction flares and their false romance becomes reality, both rancher and artist wonder if their relationship will last after the holiday decorations come down. Via alternating third-person perspectives, Andrews gives Grady and Suzanne nuances, motivations, and backstories that clearly explain their characteristics and choices. Both are likable and frustrating, by turns, giving them a feeling of humanity that one doesn’t always find in holidaythemed romances, and their chemistry is both sexy and sweet.

Scenes depicting acts of love and sex—everything from a simple, closed-mouth kiss to full-on intercourse—are vivid and sensuous, with occasional moments of silliness that keep the story grounded. Andrews has clearly done research on art reproduction, and Suzanne’s struggle to prove her worth to her sculptor mother is the novel’s most compelling subplot. The ending will generate holiday spirit in even the most Scrooge-like reader.

A fun yet poignant story whose main characters are realistic and relatable.

Appel, Jacob M. Black Lawrence Press (152 pp.) $17.95 paper | $ 0.99 e-book Apr. 15, 2019 978-1-62557-705-4

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best of indie 2019 Choosing the year’s best books is always a good time in Indieland.

We’re usually blessed with a couple of mordant short story collections that reflect on our mixed-up world, like Jacob M. Appel’s Amazing Things Are Happening Here, which views the human condition with appropriate despair and levity, and Reuben “Tihi” Hayslett’s Dark Corners, whose black and brown and often queer cast faces “occasional eruptions of madness and the macabre.” Memoirs always have a strong showing; this year’s standout is Unlikely Friends, in which poet and SF writer Judith Moffett recounts her long friendship with Pulitzer Prize–winning poet James Merrill. But 2019’s most notable books are about the human outliers, those who’ve done the seemingly impossible.

Jared Beasley’s In Search of Al Howie tells the story of a Canadian extreme-distance runner. In this “quirky, captivating biography,” the jaw-dropping details quickly accumulate: To get to one multiday race, Howie ran hundreds of miles, completed the race, and ran hundreds of miles to the next; he hydrated with beer. Our reviewer says, “Like a tour guide, Beasley explores the cloistered world of extreme-distance running…where Howie became an icon but never a household name.”

Irv Broughton’s “big, satisfying book,” Where the Wings Grow, comprises 29 interviews with women who were the pioneers of domestic aviation. Our reviewer says, “These women broke barriers by being barnstormers, aerial acrobats, bush pilots, flight instructors, and participants in cross-country aerial races.”

Dr. Sarah Z. Mitić left her comfortable life (and a vacation in Greece) to treat soldiers and civilians during the 1990s Balkan wars. Our reviewer says of Mitić’s memoir, Life as Trauma, “Readers interested in the strife and unrest of the Balkan region, its divergent politics and populations, and the plights of its refugees will find Mitić’s narrative illuminating.” —K.S.

EISENSTEIN’S MONSTER

Bach, A.V. Tetracules Press (566 pp.) $17.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Oct. 27, 2016 978-0-9976812-0-8 Bach weaves a stunning debut out of disparate parts, melding settings and genres in this experimental literary novel.

This novel refuses simple description.

It follows its lead, Krishawn, who’s contending with a series of progressively worsening brain tumors. But what emerges from his struggle is more than merely a meditation on the meaning of life. It’s a journey from hedonism to psychedelics to SF, trafficking not in fablelike metaphor but in nuanced, even esoteric, dialogue. The novel presents a morass of stories, covering sex, death, and the rest of human experience through its cast and multifarious settings, all of which inform each other, from a mystical mountain-climbing expedition to an ambulatory phallus and beyond, shifting in both content and tone throughout.

It’s fitting that Krishawn’s most concerning cancerous growths are pressing on Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, brain structures responsible for speech and language development, respectively, as many stories seem sparked by accidents of language: “Krishawn had always thought it funny how ontology and oncology were separated only by a ‘c.’ ” But again, reading this novel is not only a matter of interpreting the disparate vignettes of the story as the degradations of a dying mind, drug-born hallucinations, or religious experiences pointing to larger universal truths. Rather, they are all of these things and none of them, calling on the reader to find the connections among the elements of this pastiche and make of them both a whole and a sum of parts. Readers will find the novel challenging, but it’s never boring; it discards the willful obfuscation of many experimental novels in favor of a feverish pace and a wildly emotional ride. Individual sections are readable on their own, and while the vocabulary may sometimes be obtuse, the structure and context keep meaning within reach, and readers ultimately feel more like they’re being taught this unfamiliar vernacular than taunted with it.

An incredible debut, as entertaining as it is outlandish, with at least one thing (and most likely many more) for everyone.

Karen Schechner is the vice president of Kirkus Indie.

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THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF BONTHE AND OTHER STORIES OF WEST AFRICA

WILLOUGHBY’S WORLD OF WONDER

Barnwell, Stephen Illus. by the author Antarctica Arts (182 pp.) $19.95 paper | Jan. 1, 2019 978-1-73396-490-6

Barnes, Gregory A. CreateSpace (194 pp.) $12.00 paper | $6.00 e-book Aug. 29, 2018 978-1-72192-656-5 Africans and Westerners wrestle with sickness, culture clash, and the turmoil of decolonization in these richly

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imagined stories.

Barnes (Jane Among Friends, 2017, etc.), who worked for the Peace Corps in Africa, sets his tales in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and other newly independent West African countries in the early 1960s as expatriates, villagers, bureaucrats, and beggars cope with the ferment of change. In “Getting to Bo,” an American builder has to choose between his efforts to keep his construction project on schedule and the pressing needs of a sick diamond miner. “The Legend of Death’s Staircase” follows an affluent expat couple, whose tidy marriage is shadowed by a tropical disease, as they’re drawn to the sinister remains of a slave market. Other tales feature a newly minted Nigerian official who takes over a government credit union from a British administrator, setting off a nerve-wracking turf battle among bureaucrats and politicians; a beggar afflicted with leprosy who struggles to get food in a world where every man’s hand is turned against him; and a villager that takes advantage of a missionary’s generosity by reselling malaria pills on the black market, leading to a crisis of betrayal and redemption. And in the title story, a beautiful young woman gets a mysterious illness, causing the Westerners around her—a priest, a doctor, a Canadian wanderer—to evaluate their relationships with her and their attitudes toward African culture. Barnes’ atmospheric yarns feel like a Graham Greene novel with aid workers instead of spies. He writes evocative descriptions of landscapes and village scenes peopled with a Shakespearean cast, from chiefs drenched in carefully calculated dignity to half-dead panhandlers to African and Western strivers tangled in bonds of mutual need and hostility, all illuminated by Barnes’ ability to fill a single sentence with a world of social and psychological nuance. (“Mrs. Flint wept harder; not the way his woman would weep, but as if she would rather burst than emit any sound,” an African man observes of a distraught white woman.) The result is a fine panorama of a complex, exotic yet startlingly familiar place.

A superb collection full of color and subtle explorations of character.

This illustrated fictional reproduction of a Victorian field guide helps identify imaginary and legendary creatures.

According to the Introduction, said to be written by Angus Willoughby, “CRYPTOZOOLOGIST AND NATURALIST,” this volume contains truthful accounts “of the strange and unusual in the world of nature” so that readers may be best prepared to encounter, propitiate, or avoid them.

The beings are grouped into four kinds of Folk (Fey, Wee, Great, and Wyre) and five types of Creature: those that live with people and those of the land, sea, air, and night. Each entry includes an illustration with size, habitat, and description. A Banshee,

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Beasley achieves a fluid narrative that makes the pages fly by, like the miles beneath Howie’s feet. in search of al howie

for example, is 4 to 6 feet tall; its habitat is “Houses; Dark and stormy nights”; and it “appears to those who are to suffer the death of a family member.” Many entries include helpful information: “Upon finding a Land Kraken in your barn or stable, it is recommended that you drive it out as quickly as possible.”

While some beings are familiar from folklore (such as Elf, Sasquatch, and Goblin), others are humorous inventions (Thinking Cap, Newsie, and Jackalope). An appendix provides an alphabetical index plus Folk calendars, a bibliography, and an advertising section (for example, “Dr. Pythagoras’ Patented Pixilation Cure”). Barnwell (Oneirognosis, 2015, etc.) is a professional artist, printmaker, and illustrator whose work has been exhibited internationally. The book’s images are perhaps the stars of this show—a brilliantly successful pastiche of Victorian engravings in their exquisite detail, subtle tonal and shading techniques such as hatching and crosshatching, and moodiness (romantic, whimsical, solemn, or eerie as suitable to the Creature or Folk described). The Victorian style offers some especially amusing images; Cyclops, for example, is a prosperous-looking, bearded gentleman with a better claim to his monocle than most. But the text, which describes absurdities in all Victorian seriousness, has a delightfully wry undertone and sometimes veers from the expected. Cyclopes, for example, “are cultured and civilized….

Sadly, to date, elected office has eluded them.”

A fanciful guide to nature’s wonders; beautiful, clever, and appealing in every way—a fine achievement.

GO DOWN THE MOUNTAIN

poised to seize property in the area. Bee’s mother has plans for her daughter to marry the government man—but Bee has her eyes on Miles, a big-shot government photographer, or perhaps Torch, a boy who grew up with her “on the mountain.”

Battle’s storytelling will draw readers in from the opening page: Why is Bee writing her daughter this letter—and who’s Amelia’s real father? The novel draws, in part, on real-life events; in the 1930s, Blue Ridge neighborhoods were indeed cleared to make way for Shenandoah National Park. Battle spends some time re-creating the atmosphere of the “nowvanished” area. Narrator Bee is a straight talker with an easy wit and a wry opinion on everything. When discussing Torch, for instance, she notes, “We came up like brother and sister but once I sprouted hooters, he got it in his head he wanted things to change.” The author effortlessly captures the timing and tenor of Appalachian speech patterns, and she conjures a world that may be unfamiliar to many, where the Hollow folk sing ballads and pass quart jugs of “white mule” (“that’s what us mountain folks called whiskey”). Readers are also introduced to unusual characters, such as Ruth Evers, described by Bee as a “kind of goddess…of wild and helpless things,” who makes medicine for the community using mountain plants, such as “prince’s pine and deadly nightshade,” and secretly keeps stillborn babies in mason jars. The world that Battle creates is unnerving and enchanting in equal measure and always utterly beguiling. The overall Southern drawl may grate on some, but those who are keen to burrow into the overlooked lives of mountain people will find satisfaction.

A vivacious, absorbing, and accomplished debut.

Battle, Meredith Mascot Books (224 pp.) $16.95 paper | $6.99 e-book Apr. 23, 2019 978-1-64307-013-1

IN SEARCH OF AL HOWIE

Battle’s first novel tells the story of a 1930s Blue Ridge Mountains community whose way of life is threatened by the government.

The novel opens with a letter from Bee Livingston to her 3-year-old daughter, Amelia, intriguingly stating that Amelia has been raised to believe that the wrong man was her father.

By way of explanation, Bee shares her life story so that when Amelia is old enough, she can judge what kind of man her biological father was, but she adds a warning: “You ought to know there are some downright ugly secrets in this story about your own kin and your mama to boot.” Bee’s story begins in “the Hollow,” the impoverished Blue Ridge region in Virginia where she was raised. Born Ada Anabelle, she was nicknamed “Bee” by her father, as she was always “buzzing around looking for... trouble.” When she’s still young, her father is killed when a religious snake-handling show goes tragically wrong. The girl is left in the care of her mother, but their relationship is like “oil and water.” As Bee grows older, she’s told that her father was a gambler who took out three mortgages on the family home. The state government, in the shape of the repugnant Mr. Rowler, is 8

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Beasley, Jared Rocky Mountain Books (272 pp.) $25.00 paper | $12.99 e-book Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-77160-338-6 An energetic work that chases the legend and captures the life story of premier Canadian extreme-distance runner Al Howie.

In an eccentric sport, Howie stood out. He would run hundreds or thousands of miles cross-country to the starting lines of multiday races—and then run to the next. Like a tour guide, Beasley (The Black Sheep, 2016) explores the cloistered world of extreme-distance running—involving races longer than standard 26.2-mile marathons—where Howie became an icon but never a household name. In 2014, the author found Howie, a silent shell of his former self, at a group home for the mentally ill. During the runner’s final two years, Beasley teased out recollections while tracking down documentary evidence and Howie’s friends and relatives, charting a path through memories and mythology. Howie, a native Scot, grew up in a hiking family and later enjoyed a hippie lifestyle before leaving his drug-addicted wife with their preschool-age son. He moved to Canada, where

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he was “on the run” long before his first race, which took place after he was 30. His stamina, flowing hair, and penchant for hydrating with beer defined him. In 1989, he became first to finish the 1,300-mile “Impossibility Race”—in 17 days, nine hours. In 1991, he ran 7,295 kilometers across Canada in 72 days, 10 hours—still the record—and two weeks later, broke his own 1,300-mile record. The book also reveals the relationships, personal demons, and twists of fate that shaped Howie, rendering the legend fully human—fearful and driven, flawed but likable.

Beasley, an actor, director, and screenwriter, writes in a cinematic fashion, interspersing flashbacks between chapters with third-person snapshots of Howie’s signature trans-Canada run.

He also seamlessly shifts focus from wide-angle settings to character close-ups, packs details into scenes without slowing the pace, and uses the colorful runners’ vernacular that christens a competitor a “manimal,” “alien,” or “freak.” Some may find the style hyperbolic, but they’d likely concede that if the author described a smoke-filled bar, they’d smell it. He achieves a fluid narrative that makes the pages fly by, like the miles beneath Howie’s feet.

A quirky, captivating biography.

book is a collection of essays, but she uses fictional techniques when appropriate, and some chapters are given over to very impressive poetry. She poignantly evokes a happier past in her chapters about Geoff (they were separated at the time of his death) and their young family. And a chapter titled “The Myth,” in which she asks Geoff questions directly, is exceptionally and deeply moving. There are even moments of goofiness in a chapter on a graveside service (“Planting Iris”), which may take some readers aback, although it’s clear that the author understood the need for occasional levity.

A keeper of a book by a talented author.

THE RED RIBBON A Memoir of Lightning and Rebuilding After Loss

special issue: best books of 2019

Bills, Nancy Freund She Writes Press (216 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.95 e-book May 28, 2019 978-1-63152-573-5

A debut memoir that recounts a woman’s tragic loss and hard-won survival.

On July, 23, 1994, lightning struck Bills’ husband and their son—pseudonymously called “Geoff ” and “Teddy” here, respectively—as they were kayaking off the coast of Maine. The strike took Geoff ’s life and nearly did the same to Teddy. The author and several members of her family, including Teddy’s older brother, “Simon,” and his wife, rushed to the hospital in the nearby town of York, Maine. It was initially touch and go for Teddy, but he came through. Then, as Teddy recuperated physically, he and the author faced psychological and spiritual recuperation—which sometimes seemed to be a matter of taking one step forward and two steps back.

After this tragedy, death seemed to shadow the author for the next few years; her aged parents back in Montana passed away, as did her uncle and Geoff ’s sister, who was such a rock for her after the lightning strike. These losses engender a booklong meditation on mortality. However, Bills does survive the ordeal, and an afterword lets readers know that today, she, Teddy, and Simon are all doing OK. Memoirs of loss and survival are rather common, but what sets this one apart is Bills’ extraordinary perceptiveness and writing talent, as when she notes that “I’m a woman with an emotional thermometer always in her mouth.”

Bills also raises intriguing questions, such as whether the obituary cliché “he died peacefully” is really ever true. Essentially the |

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ONE LESS RIVER

Blackhawk, Terry Mayapple Press (64 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.99 e-book | Jul. 9, 2019 978-1-936419-89-0 Blackhawk (The Whisk and Whir of Wings, 2016, etc.) offers a series of contemplative poems about solitude in nature and crowded city streets.

The poet delicately embroiders themes of separation and retreat into this elegantly conceived collection. The first line of the opening poem, “The Door,” asks, “Why is it lately closed to me?”

Although this immediately establishes a sense of being shut out, there’s no heavy sense of angst here: “I will not complain.

These grasses share the light. / They bend and catch the wind gracefully.” There’s an easiness with this state of separation, in part because it allows the speaker to receive gifts from nature that society can’t provide. The poem ends: “A sauna’s slats, so fragrant, wrap me now. / I’ve crawled into a barrel on the hill.” The speaker enters the sensually evocative interior of the sauna as a hermit crab enters its shell—an image to which Blackhawk returns later in the collection. The poet is a great observer of nature; in “The Woodcock,” for example, she writes, “I loved the feathers’ / deckled edges and the light weight it made / as I scooped it up and put it, limpsy and weak, / into an old canvas book bag.” This dazzlingly clever image magnifies the bird’s wing by comparing it to the rough-cut page of a book before the bird itself is slid into a “book bag.”

Blackhawk is equally at home playing the flâneuse, observing a city, as in “Noon in a Corner Café: The Sign,” in which the miscellany of urban life parades before her: “cups, traffic, taxis, / mopeds, their signature sounds.” But soon, the hard-edged, concrete metropolis melts into smooth natural imagery that looks beyond city living: “These stones / outlast us, pages / picked up by / the breeze can say almost / anything.” The poet makes her literary influences explicit, referencing Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and others—but although she draws from the American romantic movement, she shows no need to imitate it.

Refined, learned, and liberating poetry.

Jetta is a Firedancer, the youngest ever Third Rank master.

She can tame and vanquish fire with the power of dance—from infant flames to cunning hysths and even raging outbreaks of The Ancient itself. But Jetta’s reputation is tarnished. A year ago, fire claimed the village she was assigned to protect. Her life mate was killed and Jetta herself, injured. Although recovered physically, she has lost the unshakable confidence necessary to keep The Ancient at bay. Why then has the Circle of the Fire Clans sent her and her childhood friend Setti (a mere Second Rank journeyman) to investigate outbreaks of fire in Annam Vale? Annam is home not only to Stone Delvers—a clan of giants who mine the mountains for fire-dousing containment stone—but also now to Windriders, whose presence could easily fan the flames of The Ancient. Tensions run high. Many of the Delvers welcome Jetta, but others distrust her, believing her to be incompetent or even the cause of the conflagrations that she and Setti subdue. What’s worse, The Ancient grows shrewd. Fire has evolved and no longer bows to the traditional forms of the dance. If Jetta is to save Annam, she must unite its inhabitants and overturn an entire worldview. Bolich’s impressive novel captures the best elements of fantasy writing while avoiding most of the pitfalls. This series opener, though promising further development, is self-contained, its worldbuilding unobtrusive yet substantial. The characters are complex: Jetta with her impetuous, strong will; faithful, lovelorn Setti; the ethereal Windrider Sheshan (Jetta’s romantic interest); and down through the minor players. Their conversations, though stylized to an extent, are not stilted, and the conflicts and dangers at Annam arise naturally from the scenario, not from authorial trickery or incongruous decision-making. Readers will feel Jetta’s frustrations and uncertainty (“Those tunnels full of fire haunted her. The Delvers knew nothing of fire, had no concept of the danger in leaving The Ancient fretting behind a makeshift barrier of dirt. She pictured the Old Man patting at his prison with hands of fire…searching restlessly for a way out”) and her resolve. As the dance against The Ancient grows ever more perilous, the audience will gladly journey with her.

A gripping fantasy full of magic and heart.

LOVE THIEF The Legend of Ixmal the Healer

Bolton, David Black Rose Writing (225 pp.) $17.95 paper | $6.99 e-book | Nov. 1, 2018 978-1-68433-154-3

FIRE DANCER Masters of the Elements

Bolich, S.A. B Cubed Press (383 pp.) $13.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Mar. 6, 2019 978-0-9989634-7-1 In this debut novel, a talented but anguished master of fire must overcome her past failures and rally the inhabitants of a beleaguered village.

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In this debut ancient Mayan adventure, the son of escaped slaves chooses nonviolence while his father prepares to exact vengeance on his former masters.

Seventeen-year-old Ixmal, of the highland jungle Ppentaca people, visits an altar dedicated to Chac, god of rain. As his father and village chief, Totec, prepares to march an army into the Feathered Kingdom, Ixmal senses disaster ahead. Totec, once a slave in the Feathered Kingdom, listens to the guidance

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An invigorating read in an age of political and cultural division. athena’s choice

of Hunapu, the village prayer-maker, that now is the time for retribution. To ensure victory, the warriors will sacrifice a child, to which Ixmal says, “If you allow this slaughter, the cause is doomed.” Disgusted with his son, Totec marches without him across the No Name River and into Kuma lands. Initially, the force of 500 men encounters abandoned villages. Only when the Ppentaca begin burning a path toward the Feathered Kingdom’s capital of Ocochac do opposing warriors attack. Totec and his army are destroyed. Shanti, Ixmal’s mother, allows the teenager to leave the village to settle his father’s spirit. He follows Totec’s trail, arriving in the village of a woodcarver named Pich and his daughter, Sahache. After seeing Sahache perform a dance celebrating her passage into womanhood, Ixmal grows enamored and decides to settle with Pich as a farmer, all the while learning what he can of his father’s fate. Bolton offers a quiet thriller that will educate readers about ancient Mayan culture and myth. He places a glossary before the novel featuring terms like “yollotl” (heart, soul), though it’s fun to decode the Mayan vocabulary sprinkled throughout the narrative. Iku, a Kumanian who dreams of an invasion, is an intriguing villain who rises to prominence opposite Ixmal. The author roundly presents the inner lives of his cast, as when Pich wonders: “What quarrel” do the invaders “have with the Feathered Kingdom? That no elder had asked these questions troubled him.”

Perhaps most affecting is that these characters’ lives revolve around a harsh environment that, during stretches of drought, threatens society and any progress the enlightened king, Quetzal the Young, might hope for.

An excellent tale that serves as both a thriller and anthropological portrait.

the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence, the Third Core, enigmatically suggests to Bell’s supervisor that Athena is vital to solving the case. Meanwhile, Athena has been painting pictures of a ruined, vine-covered building that’s stuck in her head.

She soon travels to Chicago, the North American Union’s capital, for an interview with Capt. Bell. As Athena dreams of the mysterious building and of the phrase “Original Sin is Real,” she grapples with being a “Lonely Heart”—a woman who yearns for men to return.

Boostrom’s tale is fueled by sharp dialogue and challenging ideas, and it’s an invigorating read in an age of political and cultural division. His fictional world, with its population loss, nuclear terrorism, and risen oceans, is futuristic but familiar; rather than swiping right on a dating app, women swipe right in midair while using a contact lens–based web interface to schedule fertility consultations. This future is also apparently much safer without men: “Crime rates in the NAU were below 1%.” Boostrom frequently references famous paintings to emphasize Athena’s chosen field; his most poignant nod is to René Magritte’s Clairvoyance, which shows a man staring at an egg but painting a bird. According to Athena, this man does what she lacks the talent to do—“he’s viewing all of the egg’s future-promise and potential, fully brought to life.” The first two-thirds of the novel are a taut SF mystery, but the last portion fearlessly interrogates the roots of maleness. The book presents 2099 as a near utopia, aside from a rising suicide rate, which could imply that most women are saints but for the evil to which men drive them; however, the author also has the Third Core say that “some women will be more dangerous than the average man.”

A daring book that will stay in readers’ minds long after the final page.

ATHENA’S CHOICE

WHERE THE WINGS GROW Conversations With Pioneering Women Pilots

Boostrom, Adam Time Tunnel Media (276 pp.) $7.99 paper | $5.99 e-book | Jan. 18, 2019 978-1-79420-555-0 In this SF debut, men have gone extinct, and one woman must decide how society should continue.

It’s 2099, and 19-year-old Athena Vosh lives in the Algonquin Forest Zone of the North American Union. Her main source of income is her Citizen’s Benefit stipend, but she wants to become a landscape painter. She lives with her partner, Nomi James, who designs computer programs for “massage implants.”

Both women routinely print clothing and food and interact with their Advanced Artificially-Intelligent Scheduler and Home Assistant. But the strangest thing about their world is that there are no men in it. The last one died in 2051 from Y-Fever, a disease created to kill terrorists that mutated and killed every man on Earth, including transgender men, as well as some women. A company called Helix has been trying to find a cure so that men might someday return. When someone steals an incomplete map of a fever-immune “Lazarus Genome” from Helix’s mainframe, Capt. Valerie Bell of Public Safety investigates. Oddly, 12

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Broughton, Irv Open Look Books (586 pp.) $29.95 paper | $9.95 e-book May 6, 2016 978-0-912350-54-7

A collection of interviews with female fliers from the early years of avia-

tion history.

This big, satisfying book from Broughton (The Levees That Break in the Heart, 2016, etc.) consists of 29 interviews that he conducted over the past four decades with women who were, in their youth, rough-and-ready trailblazers in the realm of domestic aviation. These women broke barriers by being barnstormers, aerial acrobats, bush pilots, flight instructors, and participants in crosscountry aerial races. One is the legendary stunt pilot Dorothy Hester Stenzel, “a record holder in aerobatic flying, holding early world records in loops and several other categories,” who was born in 1910; another is Kimberley Olson, who entered the U.S. Air Force in 1979 and went on to become one of its eight female

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with a face that “suggests an intimacy with anguish.” The striking woman is Colonna, a poet and widow of military leader Ferrante Francesco d’Avalos. Thoughtful and brilliant, she was raised on the island of Ischia by Ferrante’s aunt, Costanza d’Avalos. Colonna’s marriage to Ferrante cemented a political alliance between her family and King Ferdinand of Spain. Since Ferrante’s death, Colonna has lived in seclusion, writing poetry and preserving her husband’s legacy. She is reluctant to rejoin society until a monk asks her to travel to Rome and advocate for the Capuchin order. Michelangelo admires Colonna and her poetry, and he asks for her advice interpreting the imagery in the Last Judgment. From this collaboration, an enduring and loving bond develops between Colonna and Michelangelo that sustains them through ongoing political and religious conflicts and personal tragedy. Cardillo’s (Island Legacy, 2017, etc.) latest book is a sweeping historical epic and a sensitively observed exploration of the passionate friendship between Colonna and Michelangelo. At one point the poet muses: “Michelangelo’s conversational style is like that of a surgeon with a knife about to slit open my chest to observe my beating heart. I am both

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flying squadron commanders. Olson recalls that, as a little girl, she looked at contrails crossing the Iowa sky and told her mother that she’d like to be a pilot someday. In all of these interviews, Broughton offers minimal exposition, setting up each segment with basic biographical information—most begin with a photo of the subject and occasional references to books they’ve written—and then launching straight into a series of questions that reveal his in-depth knowledge of each woman’s life and career.

Throughout the collection of Q-and-A’s, he wisely steps back and lets his subjects do most of the talking, showcasing their enormous personalities and often caustic wit.

The result is absolutely delightful. At one point, for example, Broughton asks pioneering flight academy owner Claire Walters when she first got into flying; she laughs and answers, “I think it started when I fell out of my crib, the first time I fell on my head. No, I was born this way, wanting to fly. I never planned to do anything else.” National aerobatic champion Patty Wagstaff recalls reading the flight-history novels of Ernest K. Gann and noting ironically, “It’s funny because [he] was pretty sexist... the women in his books are flight attendants or babes.” Veteran flight instructor Louise Prugh, born in 1916, responds to the interviewer’s calling her a pioneer with a simple humility of a kind that runs through most of the interviews here: “I just wanted to do it because I liked the world from the sky.” Broughton often showcases his subjects’ skills; when he mentions to flight instructor Amelia Reid that she must have come close to power lines during some of her woollier flights, for instance, she notes that she sometimes flew under them. Over the course of these interviews, Broughton uses playful tact and careful diligence to effectively bring the worlds of the various women to vivid life. A bit more interstitial narrative might have made for a smoother, more informative reading experience, along the lines of Keith O’Brien’s excellent 2018 book Fly Girls. However, the subjects here make such lively, funny, and wise company that readers will scarcely miss additional context.

An often gripping account of some fascinating women of the air.

LOVE THAT MOVES THE SUN Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo Buonarroti

Cardillo, Linda Bellastoria Press (528 pp.) $19.95 paper | $5.99 e-book Dec. 1, 2018 978-1-942209-54-6

When poet Vittoria Colonna meets Michelangelo, they discover a deep and profound connection in this historical novel.

Michelangelo is revered for his sculptures and paintings, and by 1534, his reputation is unparalleled. Summoned to Rome by Pope Clement VII, the artist prepares to work on the pontiff ’s legacy, the Last Judgment, a fresco depicting the second coming of Jesus. One afternoon, Michelangelo encounters a woman |

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It’s a testament to Carter’s skill that even as McKnight descends into debauchery and deceit, readers will still root for him. the banker who died

fascinated and terrified by his questions.” Ambitious in scope, the narrative covers 1500 to 1547, shifting between their relationship and Colonna’s childhood and adolescence on the island of Ischia, her marriage to Ferrante and his betrayal of her trust, and her development as a poet. While Colonna and Michelangelo’s friendship forms the emotional center of the novel, the poet’s story and her journey as a woman and a writer are dynamic and multilayered. The author also does a fine job exploring the religious views that inform Colonna’s and Michelangelo’s lives and works as well as the tension between the Roman Catholic Church and the writers and clergy who seek to reform it.

A stirring and emotionally resonant portrait of a pivotal relationship in the life of Michelangelo.

THE BANKER WHO DIED

Carter, Matthew A. Garin Ray Publishing House (450 pp.) $12.99 paper | $9.99 e-book May 27, 2019 978-1-73305-002-9 A young American international banker is seduced by high financial stakes—and multiple women—in this debut thriller.

Despite the fact that his marriage is collapsing, Zurich-based investment adviser Stanley McKnight leaves his wife, Christine, to fly to Moscow with Frenchman Pierre Lagrange, the senior managing director of the private Swiss bank Laville & Cie. “Be careful in Russia,” Christine warns him, before he goes. “I’ve heard it can be dangerous. Especially for such a handsome Yankee.” Soon, McKnight takes over the Russian clients of another banker, whose Maserati mysteriously flew off a mountain highway with him in it. Viktor Gagarin, one of the new clients, has an estimated worth of more than $12 billion and, in Lagrange’s words, “a definite tendency towards violence.” Gagarin wants to buy a new megayacht, and he wants Laville & Cie to conduct the deal, provide the loan, afford him anonymity in the transaction, and determine how to minimize his taxes on the purchase.

Gagarin’s wife, Mila, meanwhile, sets her sights on McKnight.

Although he’s had flings with Russian women, he knows that Gagarin’s wife could mean the death of him. Nonetheless, an adventure involving fast cars, gold bars, betrayal, and torture lies ahead. Lust, intrigue, glamour, and danger fill the pages of Carter’s well-written book. The California-born author’s experience in the Swiss private-banking industry, his many years living in Russia as an investment banker, and his fluency in Russian lend the novel a sense of authenticity. Amid all the banking maneuvering, this rich story offers plenty of shady characters. There are also vivid descriptions (“The tie wagged its tail, briefly flashing a Hermès label to the world”) and attention-grabbing dialogue (“Sweaty is good,” says Mila at one point). It’s a testament to the author’s skill that even as McKnight descends into debauchery and deceit, readers will still root for him.

An engaging read that’s right on the money.

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THE J HOROSCOPE

Chmielarz, Sharon Brighthorse Books (100 pp.) $14.99 paper | Jul. 1, 2019 978-1-944467-17-3 These collected poems imaginatively take the viewpoint of J, one of four writers of the Bible’s book of Genesis.

Chmielarz (Little Eternities: Poems, 2017, etc.), an accomplished poet, initially published several of these poems in literary magazines, including Commonweal and The Hudson Review. This collection focuses on connections between contemporary experiences and those recorded in ancient biblical texts. According to the epigraph from the 1990 work The Book of J by David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom, a hypothetical biblical writer called J was so named “for her intense interest in Yahweh’s character,” who was also called “Jahweh.” These poems are intensely interested in the stories that J allegedly collected and wrote down. They’re connected by 13 “intersections”—poems in italics that comment on or relate to the others. In “Intersection #1,” for example, the speaker considers mangoes, specifically their color and sweetness: “We danced to mango / close like lovers. Mango’s / sweetness melted us into life.” But experience can be bitter as well as sweet, as shown in the poem that follows, “Yahweh the Stork re the Family.” The narrating stork says, “I’ve seen it all—the father who killed his son, / the sons who threw their brother down a well”; nevertheless, “The next day I deliver another baby, a bundle / of trust”— trust being the first, and first forgotten, “contract with the world.”

Other poems are based on specific biblical episodes, such as Lot’s transformation into a pillar of salt, Noah’s Ark, Joseph’s betrayal, and prophetic dreams, while others touch on primal experiences, such as giving birth or experiencing a death in the family.

Several poems breathe freshness into old tales by centering on a woman’s point of view. In “The Boatman’s Wife,” for example, Noah’s long-suffering spouse wishes that she could fly away from “this whole mess”; her husband finds prophecy in raindrops and lets his beard get scraggly while she’s “corralling / the stupid hens.” Yet her practical nature finds release, with the poem ending in possibility: “At least she could save the birds. // At least, this one dove—.” The dove becomes a potent symbol not just of hope, but of freedom—saved by the wife’s longing to escape the ark and fly up into the wild sky. Several poems speak of loss, which was the focus of Chmielarz’s 2015 collection, The Widow’s House. The six lines of “Where One Becomes Two” are haikulike in their concise linkage of image to consciousness: “The old fox has died. / Now his mate is alone. / Now she must cross the river alone. // Look. / In the water. / Two foxes.” “Look” in the fourth line echoes the book’s epigraph, which begins “Look. A woman is writing on parchment,” which, in turn, calls to mind the more familiar translation, “Behold.” These connections, and the poem’s spare, stripped-down quality, demand that readers pay attention to the numinous link between spirit and body, so beautifully captured in the piece’s final line.

Thoughtful, bold, humorous, earthy, and humane—a superb collection.

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THE SPIRIT OF THE WAYNES

Cooper, Ethan CreateSpace (314 pp.) $14.00 paper | $2.99 e-book Jun. 2, 2015 978-1-5123-8409-3 In Cooper’s (Smooth in Meetings, 2014, etc.) novel, an unemployed, middle-aged man with a possible drinking problem must persuade his nonagenarian father

to give up driving.

Wriston Wayne, the retired chairman of the Boreal Bancorporation, lives in Florida with his second wife, Cindy. Charlie, his 50-something middle son and a real estate expert, has been unexpectedly laid off from TBF Bank in New York City. While he and his wife, Jane, are visiting Wriston and Cindy, the older man loses control of his Cadillac in the parking garage of their condo building. Charlie fears that a serious accident could be in Wriston’s future, but running errands in the car is one of

the few deep pleasures that the old man has left. The dynamic between the father and son is thrown into stark relief: Wriston loves Charlie, but he’s disappointed that he didn’t make it to the top of the heap in his chosen field (“Charlie never emerged from the pack,” he reflects). Charlie, meanwhile, agonizes over whether to stop Wriston from driving, but it’s taken out of his hands when the elderly man’s health declines precipitously in a matter of weeks. Meanwhile, Charlie’s late-night wine drinking persists. The focus and interiority of this novel are truly wonderful, and Cooper takes his time exploring what goes through his characters’ minds—principally Charlie’s, but also Wriston’s as he carefully navigates his beloved Caddy from his home to the Publix supermarket. Cooper has the old man note every turn and every lane change; it should be maddeningly boring, but instead, it gives readers a painful appreciation of a person who knows that he must be careful because his freedom is so tenuous. Interestingly, readers later get the same view of Charlie running errands himself as he wrestles with painful issues regarding his dad.

A poignant exploration of the complicated dynamic of fathers and sons.

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A moving saga of a woman wandering the world in search of home. bowing to elephants

FROM DREAM TO DELIVERY How To Do Work You Love, Love What You Do and Launch Your Dream Project

Daglow, Don L. Sausalito Media (523 pp.) $24.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 18, 2018 978-0-9967815-4-1

A Silicon Valley CEO–turned–company adviser uses the Socratic method to help readers clarify their ambitions, circumstances, and capabilities.

Daglow begins each of six major sections in this debut business book with questions that address such topics as defining projects, building teams, locating work sites, securing funding, managing risks, and thinking long-term. He asks readers to write thoughtful answers to these queries before reading his commentary, which is filled with anecdotes, observations, and tips drawn from his experience leading video game makers Electronic Arts and Broderbund, founding game developer Stormfront Studios, and advising new and established companies. The format mirrors his previous volume for video game designers, but the questions and comments here are designed to apply broadly to anyone with a “Dream Project.” That said, they’re particularly relevant for tech-based startups. He explores issues related to new products and services, retail shops, home-based solo operations, and new initiatives within large organizations. But although Daglow addresses readers’ dreams, he’s no Pollyanna; he also warns readers to conserve cash, avoid foolish risks, and not neglect family, and his watchwords are “balance and common sense.” He calls his approach “The Passion-Process-Product Method,” which considers an entrepreneur’s motivating passion to be foundational, and he offers practical steps toward achieving a profitable product. No single guide for entrepreneurs can cover everything, but Daglow’s touches on many essential startup challenges. The author also excels at probing internal issues in a company, discussing how one assesses commitment and prepares for failure.

His prose shows a clarity of thought and authority borne of experience. Daglow suggests that readers “Think of this book as a private discussion between you and me.” Then he adds, “Wait, check that. Think of this book as a private discussion between you and you.” Those who combine introspection with his seasoned counsel will gain not only a tutorial on business realities, but also insight into themselves.

A comprehensive, easy-to-read manual for people launching new ventures.

DEAR JANE

DelVecchio, Marina Black Rose Writing (172 pp.) $16.95 paper | $5.99 e-book | Jan. 3, 2019 978-1-68433-172-7 In DelVecchio’s debut, an adopted teenage girl haunted by her past finds solace in the pages of a classic novel.

Elektra Koutros was renamed Kathryn and nicknamed Kit Kat when she was adopted from Greece and sent to live with her new mother in Queens, New York. She has been looking for her true identity ever since. Her adoptive mother, Evangelia “Ann,” is a single Greek-American woman with no children of her own and a cold disposition. Her birth mother, Athanasia, was a prostitute. With the contrasting archetypes of the virgin and the whore for guardians, what Kit Kat longs for is a true mother figure.

Instead, she finds Jane Eyre, the classic work of literature whose heroine becomes her confidante and role model. Via diary entries recounting her childhood through her college years, Kit Kat tells her story in an earnest—and very strong—narrative voice as she confesses her darkest secrets. Although Ann is a vast improvement over Athanasia, who used to beat Kit Kat, her denial of her adoptive daughter’s past creates a palpable distance between them. In one scene, Kit Kat sits at the dinner table so quietly she can hear Ann’s stomach digesting her food: “The silences between us are now immeasurable, but the sounds of her fill every crack, every possible place unoccupied by words.” Told from the teenager’s perspective, the story leaves Ann’s innermost thoughts unsaid, and the effect is haunting. Did she truly believe Kit Kat was lying about her past, or did she feel in over her head because the social worker had told her the situation was better than it was? Some of Kit Kat’s siblings—Maria, Nicholas, and Stavros—spent time in orphanages, the homes of relatives, and with Athanasia and her boyfriend, Kristos, but none of them followed her to America.

She’s alone, angry, and, at one point, locked in the bathroom with a pair of scissors pointed at her own body. If her mother can’t break the silence, she’ll have to do it for herself.

With sophisticated prose, this gritty coming-of-age story blends the familiar and the unthinkable as the lead learns to use her voice.

BOWING TO ELEPHANTS Tales of a Travel Junkie

Dimond, Mag She Writes Press (256 pp.) $16.95 paper | $9.95 e-book | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-63152-596-4

An American woman’s trips to foreign lands help her come to terms with a troubled past in this memoir.

Dimond, a retired writing professor, juxtaposes scenes from her world travels with fraught episodes 16

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SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE UNDEAD CLIENT

Downing, M.J. Burns and Lea Media LLC (270 pp.) $10.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Jun. 1, 2019 978-0-9995083-4-3

Zombies take on the Victorian supersleuth in this debut homage to the Arthur Conan Doyle detective series.

It’s 1888, and Sherlock Holmes, assisted by newlywed John H. Watson and a posse of street urchins, comes to the aid of Anne Prescott, a nurse whose sister and fiance have disappeared. In improbably short order, he figures out the basics of the mystery: Mad scientist Emil LaLaurie is using a brain-destroying infection, assisted by the voodoo rituals of his confederate Alcee Sauvage, to turn slum dwellers into zombies. The ensuing struggle to stop the villains is a wellrendered tribute to the Conan Doyle classics that retains the

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from her personal life to tease out hidden resonances. She begins with an account of a three-year teenage sojourn in Italy in the 1950s, during which she contrasts the warmth of the local culture with her chilly relationship with her mother, a free-spirited artist, which left the young author feeling lonely and undervalued. Her adult travels took her to more exotic locales, which she intersperses with more family memories and Buddhist teachings that she adopted in maturity. At one point, for example, a nunnery in Burma evokes recollections of a childhood girlfriend’s family, which was as welcoming as her own was alienating. A 2013 visit to see Ho Chi Minh’s miraculously preserved corpse on display in Hanoi takes her back to a similarly hallucinatory acid trip that she had during the 1967 Summer of Love. A 2010 encounter with an elephant herd in Kenya, in which the adult females vigilantly guarded their calves, provokes a recollection of a time in 1966 when she briefly abandoned her husband and 1-year-old daughter for a fling in Las Vegas. She closes with a long, Proustian remembrance of her childhood hometown of San Francisco that takes in bohemian North Beach, the bustling downtown, and the Pacific Heights house where her grandmother led an elegant life that was full of disappointment.

The author’s loose-limbed narrative moves back and forth in time, telling a tale that’s less about specific events than it is about shifting moods in shifting places—sometimes anxious, plaintive, or grief-stricken and other times brimming with interest and wonder. The prose is gorgeous and novelistic, vividly depicting the pitiless African savanna (“Greasy-looking black vultures swooped and hovered and swooped again, pecking away at the sour-smelling carcass; they shrieked nervously”) and the mellow ambiance of Florence (“golden light reaching down and blessing an arched doorway, a cloud of cigarette smoke, as children scurried along with their soccer ball”). Much of the book’s sensuousness comes from its lavish descriptions of food, from elaborate feasts to a simple egg: “warm and comforting to hold in the palm of your hand, the creamy and sticky richness of the golden yolk, so good you must lick the little egg spoon clean.” At its haunted center is a wistful and wounded portrait of Dimond’s relationship with her mother, who is a changing landscape in her own right: She was movie-star glamorous in her youth, but the author describes how, in her decline, she had “the ugly wide calloused feet she tried to squeeze into pretty flats, the gnarled hands that she didn’t cherish anymore…her lipstick always seemed cracked.” Overall, this is not merely an account of strange lands and novel adventures, but also a moving saga of a woman wandering the world in search of home.

A luminous, engrossing meditation on family love and loss.

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The Aegis’ lavish, varied meals sound so absolutely mouthwatering that readers may wish for a cookbook tie-in. star- crossed

original style while updating the sensibility with combat feminism, queasy sex, and torrents of gore. Roaming a foggy, atmospheric London, Holmes is his old self, bursting with know-it-all pedantry (“It is perhaps a compound word from several terms in West African Kikongo…‘nzambi’ and ‘zumbi’ ”), unlikely deductions (“The particular callous patterns on the man’s right hand, the many injuries to his left, and the discoloration of his trouser legs all speak of a man accustomed to repairing shoes”), and curlicued trash talk (“I wish to assure you…that I am the least worthy of the agents of justice who will fall upon you soon and take you down to ruin”). But he’s also modern enough to declare that “it is high time, Watson, that we treat women as our equals,” and to insist that Anne get samurai training. The latter comes in handy as the heroes confront hordes of rotting, snarling, braineating, galumphing undead and mete out old-school dismemberments and beheadings. The grisly violence—“The meaty ‘snick-snack’ sound of a razor-sharp blade slicing through flesh and bone came from my right….The head spun for a second in the air above the creature’s torso, and a weird giggle escaped my lips”—darkens Downing’s vigorous series opener. So does Watson’s agitation as he conceives an ungentlemanly desire for the gorgeous Anne that only grows more intense as she gradually zombifies after getting bitten. Holmes fans may find the video game carnage and Watson’s somber obsessions to be a tonal clash with the Conan Doyle aesthetic of cerebral cool, but the brisk action and pitch-perfect Sherlock-ian aplomb make for a page-turner.

A gothic, ghoulish, but enjoyable version of Holmes.

STAR-CROSSED

Dunn, Pintip Entangled Teen (368 pp.) $17.99 | $7.99 e-book | Oct. 2, 2018 978-1-63375-241-2 As unrest grows in a food-strapped space colony, a young woman slated for leadership must make a heart-wrenching decision in this YA SF/romance novel.

When colonists arrived on their new planet, Dion, 60 years ago, they expected to find a fully habitable environment. All but a few terraforming pods sent ahead were destroyed, however, making survival tenuous. The colony adopted a drastic solution: the Aegis (people with suitable genes) receive a modification to become food incubators, eating heartily six times a day so that many more nutrients than they eat can be uncomfortably extracted from them in pill form. The other colonists consume only these pills, never tasting actual food. They, however, live full life spans, while all the Aegis but the king lose 60 years each. To retain strong leadership, every five years, a strong, fit colonist is chosen to sacrifice his or her organs to keep the king alive. Princess Vela, 17, of Thai descent, doesn’t always follow rules but still might be chosen over her sister as their father’s successor. First, though, she’s charged with administering this year’s Fittest Trials—agonizing in any 18

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circumstances but even harder with Vela’s childhood crush competing. Not only that, a saboteur threatens the colony.

Vela must use her head and heart to make the right choices on behalf of her people. Dunn (Seize Today, 2017, etc.) has an inspired idea in focusing Dion’s society around issues of food and eating, so primal yet seldom featured in SF. The Aegis’ lavish, varied meals sound so absolutely mouthwatering that readers may wish for a cookbook tie-in: “hummus and falafel and anchovy salad with olives and onions. Squid ink paella and cod fish omelet….Ceviche and fried plantains.” The power of this fundamental social divide is captivating, and it’s easy to see how it could lead to unrest, with have-nots growing, cooking, and serving meals they can’t even taste.

Vela’s emotions are rendered in the melodramatic bodily overreactions common to YA fiction, and it’s easy to guess the villain, but Dunn’s entertaining storytelling compensates.

An unusual focus on food only improves this intriguing coming-of-age story.

THE LATE BLOOMER

Falkin, Mark Rare Bird Books (320 pp.) $16.95 paper | $13.99 e-book Oct. 16, 2018 978-1-947856-54-7 Falkin (Contract City, 2015, etc.) synthesizes multiple unnerving apocalypse scenarios into something entirely new in this horror novel.

Kevin March of Austin, Texas, is revealed to the reader in fits and starts. He was once a slacker, idly dreaming of being a published writer, who spent a lot of time smoking marijuana and got kicked out of a marching band. But later, he’s determined and forthright, trying to stay alive with Kodie Lagenkamp, the girl he loves, as they confront what appears to be the end of the world. The novel is delivered in an epistolary style, ostensibly a transcript of Kevin’s late-2018 voice recordings, detailing his journey. This conceit gives the novel a strong voice that ably conveys the terror and uncertainty of Kevin’s situation, as well as the bleak wonder of a rapidly changing and crumbling environment.

The novel’s style also highlights the protagonist’s flair for poetic language, and the overwhelming situation that he finds himself in allows readers to learn more about him as he sees deeper into himself. The apocalypse itself is a mystery that drives the entire story, starting with a sound like whale song, a strange ripple in the Colorado River, shadows cast by nothing, and a glimpse of an inhuman monster in some trees. The crisis rapidly escalates as the adults die off—choking on a strange, fiberglasslike substance or killing themselves en masse, while young children change, becoming full of dark purpose and growing menace. Through all of this, Kevin has to contend with the possibility that survival is a false hope, but he also finds that recording and remembering are acts of defiance in and of themselves. Readers will feel a rising sense of trepidation with every page turn, but the brisk pace ensures that they’ll keep moving forward despite the danger. The secondary characters can

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sometimes feel slightly flat, as seen through Kevin’s eyes, but the depth of his own development and that of the world around him more than make up for it.

A compelling tale with a dynamic, engaging protagonist.

THE SCREAMING SKULL

Ferguson, Rick Phabulousity Press (492 pp.) $14.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Nov. 12, 2018 978-1-73256-621-7

In this debut novel, a so-called royal hero reflects on his life as upheaval awaits on the horizon.

King Elberon, lord of the Tradewind Isles, is about to turn 65 years old. He’s led an illustrious life of adventure and just learned from his friend Wilberd, who glanced through the Astral Telescope at

the monarch’s future, that he’ll live to be 130. Yet Elberon thinks mainly of the companions who’ll attend his birthday party in nine days, including the warrior Amabored and his former love Melinda the Blade. “When I finally get them all together,” he thinks, “I’m going to kill every last one of them.” He then begins detailing his youth among the Free Kingdoms of the Woerth and even the Multiverse after he told his father, King Olderon, that he wanted to visit Redhauke, a cosmopolitan city ripe with crime and opportunity. There, he met Amabored, the elf Lithaine, and the mage Redulfo. Given additional strength by the Girdle of Gargantua, Elberon joined the trio, and they became guards for Saggon, Over-Boss of the Thieves Guild. But Saggon’s shipments of pipeweed contained a secret over which Melinda battled the group. During this time, Elberon first encountered the Screaming Skull (when Melinda attacked him with it) and became embroiled in closing the Hellmouth beneath the Blue Falcon Inn. Later, he drank a concoction called the Flaming Telepath, which brought him to the First Universe and a meeting with Jo Ki-Rin, a chimerical creature who warned that Elberon must accept a quest to save all of creation.

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The “monomyth” at the core of Ferguson’s series opener is the same one that fuels innumerable fantasies, from Tolkien’s work to the Star Wars series. The winning difference here is the author’s tone, which would make the foulmouthed, fourth wall–smashing Marvel character Deadpool proud. Elberon calls Woerth a “chamber pot of competing cultures and religions from dozens of different universes.” This gives the author the widest possible canvas on which to scribble his own multicolored brand of mayhem—and the narrative leeway to quote Pulp Fiction. He discusses not only the Multiverse, wherein, most likely, “some pimply teenaged loser sits in his parents’ basement drawing” dungeons “on graph paper and randomly inserting monsters, traps, and treasure,” but also author Michael Moorcock, who deals vibrantly with alternate realities in his Elric series. Even Ferguson’s key villain, Koscheis, has echoes in “Sauron, Voldemort, Lord Foul...or Vladimir Putin.” This isn’t to say that the story is complete silliness. The prose frequently lets rip some epic imagery, as when “a house-sized mushroom cloud of napalm condensed out of the atmosphere, balled itself up into a miniature sun, and surged forth with a massive sonic boom.”

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And while the main characters riff humorously on archetypes— and the minor ones mock everything else (Father Frito of Lay, for example)—they experience events deeply. Elberon’s regret over cheating on average Melinda with gorgeous Cassiopeia brings humanity to a cavalcade of gonzo exploits. Readers will likely return for the sequel, perhaps more for the king’s unpredictable narration than the plot itself.

A joyously coarse and self-aware epic fantasy.

WHY I NEVER FINISHED MY DISSERTATION

Foley, Laura Headmistress Press (108 pp.) $15.00 paper | Aug. 18, 2019 978-1-73353-451-2

A collection of poetry offers a detailed journey through the author’s past.

“Because I heard the wind / blowing through the sun, / I left the lecture / on mathematics.” These opening lines from the poem “Fractalization” epitomize Foley’s (WTF, 2017, etc.) approach to writing.

She has no time for tedium; she refuses to feel trapped; and she is at home and inspired by natural, wide open spaces where individuals “see beyond / the limits” of a mind “numbed by numbers.”

Thematically diverse, her poetry is, in every sense, transporting. In “Little Rooms,” she describes herself as a fourth grader, carefully assembling a box to store her collection of gemstones.

In “After,” she is a grandmother at a protest march wielding the placard “Queer Grannies Against Trump.” Other poems depict her family—“Rumpelstiltskin” captures her father’s rage when she tells him she is to marry “the hunchback Moroccan,” and the title piece recounts the poet’s first steps into parenthood with a toddler who “sits, / squealing in the mess.” Foley also leads readers through the corridors of a mental health facility, where she recalls visiting her sister: “Quiet as death, / our footsteps echoing against the scarred wood.” The masterful poetry in these pages is replete with elegant lines that beg to be underlined in pencil and returned to repeatedly. For instance, the love poem “Beyond” opens with the beautiful and timely statement: “I don’t think of her as woman, or man, / just as I don’t gender sunlight / on my face the first coatless spring day.” Foley’s writing may appear sparse and reserved but it harbors a subtle power.

The poet’s greatest strength is her acute sense of observation.

She possesses the ability to thread sensuousness into the fabric of everyday life, as in “What the Dead Miss,” which portrays a visit to a filling station: “I hear music in the liquid trickling, / filling my tank to the brim, / music in my steady footsteps.”

After transforming seemingly commonplace sounds into auditory pleasures, she floors readers with the line “They say that’s what the dead miss most, / an ordinary day, spent like this.” This is a dazzling volume of poetry that delights in crisp imagery and tender recollections.

Understated, courageous, and deeply insightful poems.

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A highly effective blend of autobiography and spiritual manifesto. from cinders to butterflies

FROM CINDERS TO BUTTERFLIES A Spiritual Journey to Healing

THE UNMARKED GIRL

Frontin, Jeanelle Mark Made Group Ltd. (320 pp.) $9.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Jun. 29, 2018

Fratianne, Richard B. Franklin Street Books (196 pp.) $15.95 paper | Jun. 3, 2003 978-1-59299-018-4

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A burn unit doctor’s account of healing and transformation.

Fratianne, an emeritus professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University and the founder of the burn center at Cleveland’s MetroHealth Medical Center, combines his experiences as a physician with his unfolding faith journey as a Christian in this debut, crafting a narrative that centers on the concept of personal development: “Most of us never fully know or appreciate the person we can become,” he writes. “We do not fully explore our potential; our gifts and our talents or our qualities as human beings.” Fratianne and his team, which he calls his “extended family,” have treated many patients with pain and long-term trauma from serious burn injuries. In some ways, he says, the most challenging injuries are those to a victim’s sense of self. He notes how patients with scarred skin or deformed features felt afraid that they would be objects of pity or ridicule when they rejoined society. The stress of dealing with this brought Fratianne to the edge of quitting his job, but at this point in his story, he recounts a personal spiritual awakening—a sense that God was urging him to love his patients despite the enormity of their needs. His first response to God, he writes, was “I can’t. I can’t. They need too much; much more than I can give.” The author employs a highly effective blend of autobiography and spiritual manifesto in these pages, revealing how transforming the lives of others became possible by using what he calls the “supernatural gifts” of faith, hope, and love.

The religious elements of the memoir are skillfully interwoven with stories of the impressive achievements of the burn unit; specifically, he tells how the team worked wonders by always treating patients as beautiful people and by affirming every bit of progress that they made in their arduous journeys back to their everyday lives. Fratianne’s own health scare at the book’s climax only underscores the lessons that he so touchingly conveys throughout.

A straightforward and uplifting story of helping others through earnest Christian faith.

A debut YA novel sees a teen girl fight for acceptance in a world of ingrained prejudice.

The planet Mira is home to two races—the sun-dwelling Photaks and the light-averse Skotads. Sixteen-yearold Yara is a Photak, but unlike the rest of her tribe, she has no birth markings. She was found as a baby in the Greens, a shadowy realm where no Photak can remain long without falling to Light Blindness. Yara can live in the light so she cannot be a Skotad. Yet she can never be a true Photak either. Taken reluctantly into the tribe, she has remained an outsider to be shunned, feared, and despised. Her adoptive parents love her, as do the younger children, but apart from them,

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only Kristos, the Chief ’s son, truly accepts her. Yara is training to be a warrior with Kristos. Driven by the need to prove herself, she has become second to none in both the Photak fighting techniques and her own secretly developed style that is “notoriously difficult to predict” (“The offbeat moves came with their own rhythm, and from an outsider’s perspective, it looked like a dangerous, deadly dance”). On the Day of the Calling, Yara is chosen from all of the graduating trainees to defend the tribe in a ritual combat known as the inner fight. It’s her proudest moment, yet even in victory she faces disaster. For, unbeknown to Yara, her secret style mirrors that of the Skotads. Suddenly all of the tribe’s doubts come flooding back. With even Kristos now having second thoughts about her, Yara flees into the Greens—and meets a Skotad hunter who makes her question everything she’s been taught to believe. Frontin writes in the third person, mostly from Yara’s point of view, and quickly constructs an effortless blend of SF scenario, social allegory, and YA coming-of-age adventure. The prose is simple but effective, and the dialogue functional (although some of the monologues are a bit strained). But it is through characterization that the story soars. The plot spirals upward through broadly predictable yet still personal and distinctive patterns on the back of its character moments. As the first installment of a trilogy, the book lacks closure. Nevertheless, Frontin establishes Yara as a protagonist to follow and herself as an author to watch.

An engrossing SF/fantasy that breathes new life into old tropes.

many veterans, he never talked about his Army days, and Judith is intrigued. She eventually tracks Guy down. He is thrilled to make contact but is adamant about not living in the too-painful past. However, the book explores their atypical connection.

Gabin’s is a quietly powerful book, and Part 2 is especially engaging—a study in long-lasting hurt. She is not a flashy writer— no rococo flights to exploit and cheapen the pain. When Guy writes, “Your letter…brought back so many memories. It was a sorrowful and also a joyful time,” this is closer to Hemingway than to Faulkner—as it should be. Guy is a gracious host but gets angry when Judith presses him too much about the past.

He can’t forget the pain of his stunted childhood, the Holocaust, the French collaborators, and his mixed feelings now for Ben, the “father” who abandoned him. But he refuses to wallow in it. Judith captures him perfectly as “this witty, sardonic, damaged man who drinks too much.” The mystery of Ben’s behavior remains. Did he realize that he wasn’t the adventurer he’d hoped to be? Did he use his promise to Sylvia as a cop-out? We only know that he made a comfortable living for the family as an accountant and that he and Sylvia retired to Florida—almost a parody of the dutiful burgher’s life. This, Gabin seems to be saying, is how culture and experience shape a life. Ben perhaps was, in the final analysis, the typical well-meaning but naïve Yank.

A thoughtful delineation of characters and a sensitive study of a culture and an era.

TWO LIKE ME AND YOU

Gibbs, Chad Alan Borne Back Books (250 pp.) $12.95 paper | $2.99 e-book May 20, 2019 978-0-9857165-3-0

THE PARIS PHOTO

Gabin, Jane S. Wisdom House Books (506 pp.) $18.99 paper | Nov. 1, 2018 978-0-692-09751-9 Gabin’s (American Women in Gilded Age London, 2006, etc.) character-driven novel is set in Paris in the 1940s and present day.

Ben Gordon is pushing 30 and itching for real life to begin. He enlists in the good fight against Hitler, gets engaged to Sylvia Stern, a nice girl from the neighborhood, and is off to France, assigned to a military postal unit. He was asked to look up a family in Paris, which is how he meets Simone Daval; her mother, Mira; and her young son, Guy. Simone’s husband and her father, we eventually learn, were lured away and killed in the camps. The Germans are now on the run, but trauma remains. With their shared Jewish heritage—they get by in Yiddish—a strong bond develops between Ben and the Davals. Ben, a real mensch, tries to fill the void as a father figure for Guy and, inevitably, becomes something more than a friend to Simone. But he can’t bring himself to confess that he’s engaged. He is transferred to Frankfurt, and that is the last that the Davals hear from him. In Part 2, Judith Gordon and her brother, Michael, are going through their father’s effects after his funeral when Judith finds Ben’s photographs taken in Paris. Ben married Sylvia and had a good life, but like 22

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In this YA debut, a high schooler befriends the class loner and a World War II veteran.

Edwin Green is a junior at J.P. Hornby High School in Hornby, Alabama. His ex-girlfriend Sadie Evans became a celebrity after improbable events, revealed later in the novel, that happened on April 13, 2014, which Edwin calls “Black Saturday.” In the year since then, he’s been making YouTube videos in the hope of becoming famous himself and winning her back. Then, one day in history class, Edwin’s sad life is graced by Parker Haddaway, a gruff girl whom the teacher makes his partner in a class project. They must ask someone who lived through World War II a series of questions—and luckily, Parker knows just the man to interview: 90-year-old Garland Lenox, who lives at the Morningview Arbor rest home. They ask the cantankerous Air Force veteran about the first time he heard the name Adolf Hitler, and he says, “Doesn’t ring a bell.” He’s teasing them, of course, but the next time the teens visit, Garland has a serious proposal: He offers Edwin $25,000 to help him secretly go to France and reunite with his long-lost love, Madeleine Moreau. The notion is preposterous—but Edwin thinks that if they can complete

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the mission, he’ll finally become world-famous. Gibbs adds an unconventional sweetness, reminiscent of Jerry Spinelli’s 2000 novel Stargirl, to a tale of a trip to Saint-Lô, which the Allies bombed during WWII. Along the way, the author crafts lines that effectively illuminate both his snarky characters and modern society. Edwin, for example, narrates, “for at least half the famous people out there fame just fell on their heads like bird shit.” Garland, amid irreverent one-liners, provides a wealth of firsthand experience about the Second World War and midcentury America (“I joined the Air Force to get out of the damn woods and see the world”). Parker loves 1990s rap music, and Gibbs sprinkles lyrics throughout the story like confetti. As her fate intertwines with Garland’s and Edwin’s, the meaning of the book’s title comes into flower. In the end, Gibbs avoids easy, saccharine plot turns in favor of ones that strengthen his characters.

A smashing debut that’s both intimate and epic.

TRIPS People, Places, Poker

Goodhart, Arthur W. The Gate Press (263 pp.) $7.99 paper | $0.99 e-book Nov. 23, 2018 978-1-73128-961-2

Poker becomes the key to understanding life and history—though not to winning money—in this meditative gambling memoir.

Literary agent and novelist Goodhart (Cards, Kafka and Prague, 2016, etc.) entered Texas Hold ’em tournaments in Prague; Nottingham, England; and the French seaside resort of Deauville, pitting his eternal hopes against repeated, inexorable experiences of failure. Feeling overmatched by the obsessive young men in dark glasses and hoodies who dominate poker tournaments, he fortified himself with magical thinking—he found himself bargaining for divine assistance

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The wonder-filled, terrible future the author invokes feels uncomfortably real, inhabited, and just around the corner. sunlight 24

by offering a percentage of the prize money to charity if he triumphed—and conflicting advice from poker manuals, which had him lurching from his instinctive “tight weak” style of “doing nothing” whenever possible to ill-judged “loose aggressive” betting that occasionally won big pots but inevitably ended with him going bust. The author regales readers with engrossing poker play-by-play rendered in clipped but colorful jargon—“I’m up against Ace, Queen and 7s, way behind, at least until the flop when 10, Jack, 10 gives me a huge lead”—as he tries to figure the odds, suss out opponents’ thinking, and tame his own psychology as he veers between timidity and recklessness. (A glossary and appendix on the rules of Texas Hold ’em should help newbies decipher the goings-on.) He fills in the downtime between hands with beguiling travelogues, snatches of history—he interprets the tragic miscalculations leading to the outbreak of World War I as a kind of botched poker game—and wide-ranging intellectual ruminations. (He imagines a lunchtime meeting between Einstein and Kafka that might bring out their clashing perspectives on the universe as a coherent expression of scientific laws or a tissue of happenstance and enigma.) Goodhart infuses the mechanics of poker hustling with philosophical and literary resonances—“Hansen counsels using my chips, making some moves, stealing a few pots, going for it; Rilke suggests patience and discipline. Never listen to a poet”—in a piquant counterpoint that’s both insightful and entertaining.

An engaging picaresque that explores the role of chance and fate inside the casino and out.

ELLIE AND HER EMOTIONAL DRAGONS

Goodrich, Joseph Illus. by Van Wagoner, Traci Wisdom House Books (34 pp.) $19.99 | Nov. 16, 2018 978-1-73285530-4

A young elephant deals with her feelings with the help of four tiny dragons who live in her closet in this debut pic-

ture book.

Ellie the elephant has four magic dragons: Naz, who assists her when she’s afraid; Nali, who consoles her when she’s sad; Tully, who helps her check her anger; and Hani, who shares her happiness. When Ellie is startled by sounds in her new home, Naz tells her it’s all right to be scared and offers tips on how to handle her fears. When Ellie is unhappy because her father goes to work, Nali encourages her to draw a picture to lift her spirits. When a new friend rips her picture, Tully suggests she take deep breaths to calm down. In Goodrich’s clever tale about coping, the dragons provide sound counsel (“We can always draw another picture,” Tully asserts). Each dragon is in a bold color, which Van Wagoner (Nelson Beats the Odds Activity Guide, 2019, etc.) uses to great effect in a paint-splatter style. The dragons leave trails of brilliant hues when they fly, but other colors in the beautiful illustrations, such as the purple of Ellie’s skin or 24

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the gray of her noisy radiator, extend beyond their characters or objects to enhance the pages.

The dragons’ acceptance of the heroine’s reactions, their solid advice, and a kid-friendly elephant children can identify with should resonate with young readers struggling to manage their emotions.

SUNLIGHT 24

Graves, Merritt Time Tunnel Media (462 pp.) $14.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Jul. 31, 2019 978-1-949272-02-4 A jaded high schooler of the mid-21st century commits risky suburban burglaries to pay for the physical and mental modifications needed to stay current in a technology-blighted society.

Graves (Lakes of Mars, 2019) creates a memorably compromised first-person narrator/antihero in Dorian Waters, an alienated teenager in America circa 2030 (Oakland A’s references suggest a California locale), where advanced technology comes with a high price monetarily—and in other ways. Robots and artificial intelligence have taken most jobs. Environmental collapse has meant scorching sunlight most of the year and the extinction of beneficial insects and most animal species.

Humans have met the crises with nanotech and genetic modifications, including their own. Drones shaped like birds and bugs not only pollinate, but also provide constant, camera-feed surveillance everywhere. And people—if they are wealthy—may “Revise” on a cellular level, surviving outside without skin lotion and enjoying enhanced brainpower, stamina, musculature, and beauty. The son of ill-paid civil servants, Dorian started in school smart and athletic, but he has fallen badly behind, realizing he cannot compete—not in college, not in careers, not in romance—against expensively Revised upper-class kids. Taking a cue from RPG-spycraft video gaming, Dorian maintains a double life: hardworking student by day, burglar by night, thwarting the ubiquitous monitoring devices of affluent suburbia while methodically robbing rich neighbors with a classmate as his partner in crime. Dorian wants to finance physical and mental Revisions for them both and perhaps symbolically strike against the ennui and injustices of the system. Meanwhile, police start to close in. Even worse, Dorian’s secret is known to his 14-year-old kid brother, Jaden. Jaden is a self-diagnosed psychopath, and if the authorities knew his mental state, there would be harsh consequences for the household. Increasingly resentful of Dorian, Jaden nurtures his own, much darker plans.

Readers may be put in mind of popular YA dystopia authors riffing on Orwellian conformity (usually with a female protagonist); witness Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and Veronica Roth’s Divergent three-parter. But Graves, like bad-seed Jaden, is after bigger things (plus he wraps it all up in one sizable volume). While it may bear the trendy tag cyberpunk, this novel is one specimen of the computer-hype-happy SF genre whose

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grievances and characters would resonate with F. Scott Fitzgerald, who gets a shoutout here. The book’s facets include the inequities of class and wealth in America, the cri de coeur of young have-nots against privileged elites, and the desperation of a member of this Kurzweilian lost generation to reinvent himself (in a literally Edisonian sense, with neural links, surgical implants, and subdermal databases) for acceptance into a neo-aristocracy.

These actions turn out to be as disastrous for Dorian as they were for Gatsby (and, as with Gatsby, an unattainable girl provides added motivation and obsession). Unlike so much else in cyber-sploitation’s literary data archives, Graves does not concentrate on virtual-reality FX blasts, awesome mechas, or cool hacker tricks and capers. Yes, such ingredients are present, but the tropes never overshadow Dorian’s essential dilemmas, relationships, and dread, conveyed in a measured, sharply observant narrative that eschews merely fast-forwarding to the next act of mayhem. The wonder-filled, terrible future the author invokes feels uncomfortably real, inhabited, and just around the corner.

Teen-centered, future-shock tragedy of a high order, a literate upgrade over standard gamer-hacker SF.

KUMORI AND THE LUCKY CAT

Gray, Wendelin CreateSpace (244 pp.) $9.95 paper | $2.50 e-book | Jun. 14, 2016 978-1-5335-8213-3 In this literary dystopian novel, a young woman’s life changes radically as she listens to the advice of her Japanese cat figurine.

After World War III in 2090, three super-states have gobbled up the globe.

The Reorganization that followed reshuffled the masses and worked to erase all memory of their cultural pasts. It’s now 2138, and 30-year-old Kumori Ando of the superstate Eurasia lives in New Caledonia’s dreary southern sector, working a dull but reliable cubicle job. She has a rare memento from the old days, a cat figurine a few inches high with a beckoning paw, red-flecked fur, and gold highlights. Dubbed Lucky Cat, the figurine comes to life and talks to Kumori, often delivering

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advice. Kumori discovers Chen Wei, a young man sheltering in a dumpster, and brings him home. She learns he’s a member of the resistance movement, which aims to dismantle the Reorganization and give people freedom again. Kumori wants to join the movement as well, but she’s soon embroiled in the machinations of the secret police, whose ranks include her brother, Tsumori. He offers to get Kumori a good job and apartment in the cushy northern district, and she agrees, hoping to work undercover for the movement. Her exposure leads to a violent confrontation in which Lucky Cat shows her supernatural powers, growing to a gigantic size and destroying buildings. The adventure continues in further volumes. Much dystopian fiction can be heavy-handed, but Gray (Magic Hair, 2019, etc.) employs a spare, delicate style that’s effective, whether describing an interrogation, quiet scenes, or a huge cat’s rage: “Lucky Cat tore her way through the top few floors of that building, smashed the glass façade of the police station…with a kick of her hind leg and the whipping motion of her tail…shrieking as she went.” But the romance between Kumori and Chen is so understated as to seem anemic; what draws them together beyond happenstance? Chen’s comment, “Yeah, you’re cute enough,” is typical.

An absorbing, well-written blend of SF, surrealism, and Japanese magical-girl fantasy.

THE SALMON WAY An Alaska State of Mind Gulick, Amy Photos by the author Braided River (192 pp.) $29.95 | May 1, 2019 978-1-68051-238-0

A writer and photographer offers a thoughtful exploration of the vital role played by salmon in Alaskan communities.

Gulick (Salmon in the Trees, 2010), whose work has appeared in Audubon and National Wildlife, follows up her preceding book with this well-reported and gorgeously illustrated volume about the intimate, complex relationship between salmon and the Alaskan people. Salmon is a gift, the author explains, and those who receive it all share a “deep connection to these remarkable fish,” though they may sometimes disagree on the best way to use and protect the prize they’ve been given. Alaska is one of the few places that still has a flourishing population of wild salmon, Gulick asserts before interviewing people whose very existence depends on the continued health of salmon runs.

Some are transplants who run the sport-fishing businesses that attract tourists to America’s last frontier; others are commercial fishermen; and several are Alaska Natives who keep centuriesold traditions alive when they catch and preserve the flavorful fish. The author provides an up-close look at “the salmon way” as she ventures out on a fishing boat, travels by seaplane into the wilderness, encounters bears, and sits down for many meals as she gets to know “the salmon people of Alaska.” The result is a vivid portrait of a place that will likely be foreign to many readers; 18% of the population still harvests fish, game, and plants in 26

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order to survive. Those who embrace a subsistence way of life (either by choice or necessity) might seem poor to outsiders, but they “consider themselves the richest people in the world,” with access to the vast variety of nature’s bounty, as Gulick explains.

Her conversations with those who depend on salmon deftly show how the fish are a vital link in the state’s environmental and economic systems but also how they bind families and communities together. Few who read this illuminating book or see the author’s awe-inspiring color photographs will fail to come away with a sense that this is a way of life well worth preserving.

A rich, compelling look at a thriving yet increasingly threatened natural resource and those who depend on it.

INDIA In Search of the Fourth Veda

Gunderson, Phyllis Onesimus Publishing (237 pp.) $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book | Apr. 1, 2019 978-0-578-48110-4 An American sojourner seeks to unlock the riddles of India by investigating its mystical sciences in this scintillating memoir.

In 1994, 50 years old and newly divorced, Gunderson traveled to the Indian city of Coimbatore to teach English and do anthropological research. There, she experienced both delight at the country’s vibrant culture and challenges to her Western sensibilities. Hygienic standards—garbage piled in the streets for animals to eat, cockroaches in hospitals—unsettled her. Pervasive sexism rankled: She was refused service at hotels and restaurants because a woman alone was considered a prostitute, and when she went horseback riding, irate men tried to unseat her. As a window into the Indian mindset, Gunderson began studying the fourth Veda, an ancient primer on traditional practices—astrology, palm reading, numerology, herbal medicine—that influence much of Indian life. (Vedic astrology, she notes, can specify that a man “will suffer appendicitis in the 36th year of his life” and “be accused of killing a cow”; many arranged marriages are aborted when the couple’s horoscopes prove incompatible.) Gunderson’s consultations mix the uncanny with the comic. For example, two astrologers divine that she is divorced and blame bad karma from her past lives but can’t agree on whether she will die at age 67 or 75. Written in rich, sensual prose—“fissures in the sidewalks lead to open sewers, odor balanced by mounds of jasmine flowers in the street strung like corn to wear in the hair”—Gunderson’s memoir portrays the author as both ravished and appalled by the splendor and squalor of India. But she doesn’t exoticize the place; she grounds her openness with a wry skepticism and an analytic eye that susses out social nuances and draws rounded, complex character studies of people she encounters. The result is a fine, evocative rendering of the clash of India’s grungiest material realities and its most rarefied spiritual aspirations.

A vivid, thoughtful, entertaining take on Indian society and religion.

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Though the fast-paced narrative is brief, it proficiently displays Denver’s laudable qualities. denver moon: metamorphosis

THE ANGRIEST ANGEL

DENVER MOON Metamorphosis

Halt, Christopher CreateSpace (443 pp.) $15.95 paper | $2.99 e-book Sep. 20, 2018 978-1-72624-158-8

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An ultracool Mars private eye works a case of robocide in this SF prequel.

Destroying a robot, or botsie, on Mars is akin to murder and consequently a felony. When Jard Calder, a botstringer who runs botsies for prostitution, loses several of them to robocide, he hires Denver Moon. Someone has pulled only a part or two from each botsie and stolen its chip as well. With help from Smith, an artificial intelligence installed in Denver’s gun, the detective surmises the murder weapon is a mining tool. As Denver injected Smith with a copy of her grandfather’s memories, the AI often treats her like a beloved granddaughter and is protective

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A brilliant, reckless troublemaker appears to be the only person immune to the mind-control camouflage of benign aliens dwelling incognito on Earth.

An intro by the author’s psychiatrist explains that Halt (Pillars of Amorum, 2018, etc.) has ADHD and channels that disability into the protagonist of this opener to an SF trilogy. That foreknowledge sets up expectations of a disease-of-the-week TV movie (or something akin to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo vs. the Flying Saucers), which prove happily inaccurate. Caelans are not monstrous space invaders but a human-appearing alien race, both technologically and morally advanced well beyond Homo sapiens.

Hidden in elite positions in society, they’ve studied humankind with fascination for more than 50 years. A vital distinction between Caelans and earthlings: the aliens’ mental “psy” powers that they can use for protection and persuasion. This ability has kept the extraterrestrials’ secret—until they meet Chase Madison, an unstable Chicagoan diagnosed with ADHD. Chase has a history of violence but is also smart and fearless when it counts. Avery, a beautiful (but terribly naïve) Caelan scientist, and Nathan, her stolid fiance, try to evaluate Chase’s resistance to psy. An even bigger threat, however, is that Caelans on Earth are falling prey to negative traits—jealousy, thirst for power, and especially anger—that their species seemingly overcame eons ago. The Caelan “Regulus,” or leader (the author cleverly substitutes high-minded Latin for a purely invented alien language), having lost his wife, has literally gone mad with grief and is planning the unthinkable. The author’s premise may remind genre readers of Zenna Henderson’s humanistic The People stories.

Halt sets up rich, emotional character minefields and conflicts without letting his antihero’s pathology take the focus off the bigger picture. Much remains unresolved at the end (only the beginning of this saga). But readers of international SF who revere (deservedly) the Arkady and Boris Strugatsky classic Hard To Be a God will want to check out Halt’s thoughtful take on what can go wrong when incredible and supremely ethical outsiders try to blend in with the coarse natives. If Chase is a protagonist as volatile as Randle Patrick McMurphy, Halt’s prose stylings throughout are steady, sober, and finely honed, refraining from dropping Hollywood FX whammies in a manner more befitting Cylons than Caelans.

An SF series opener with ADHD as a key component that deserves all the attention it can get.

Hammond, Warren & Viola, Joshua Illus. by Lovett, Aaron Hex Publishers (130 pp.) $26.99 paper | $0.99 e-book Dec. 18, 2018 978-0-9997736-5-9

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of her. And she may need protection when her search for a murder suspect leads her to Blevin’s Mine, where someone from Denver’s past is invested in seeking revenge against her. Fighting to stay alive soon takes precedence over the case before she ultimately ends up in Mars City’s precarious lower levels. This is where Denver unravels the mystery, though the motive for robocide is not as straightforward as she may have anticipated. This graphic novel by the team of Hammond and Viola (Denver Moon: The Minds of Mars, 2018, etc.) is a collection of three comic-book issues. It’s an adaptation of the authors’ short story, which is included at the volume’s end, along with a gallery and concept art. Though the fast-paced narrative is brief, it proficiently displays Denver’s laudable qualities. She’s coolly apathetic, suggesting Jard find another investigator if he’s unhappy with her efforts, and composed even when certain she’s in danger.

Smith is a stellar companion, convinced that, despite being an AI, it loves Denver. Furthermore, the classic Smith & Wesson revolver’s “cannon mode” transforms it into a more powerful weapon. The dialogue is often brief but witty. Denver, for example, promises to buy Smith a new battery if they survive men out for her blood. The short story’s descriptive prose is akin to the novel’s illustrations: A shot from Smith “sliced through” people, “scattering their lifeless bodies across the floor.” Lovett’s (Boomer and Friends!, 2017, etc.) exemplary artwork makes the white-haired Japanese heroine look both formidable and chic. Panels are likewise vibrant, from the shadowy, bluetinged lower levels to Denver’s monochromatic perspective in sharp black and white.

The skilled, perpetually poised detective shines brightly in this series, be it a novel, comic book, or any other format.

DENVER MOON The Saint of Mars

Hammond, Warren & Viola, Joshua Hex Publishers (220 pp.) $26.99 | $14.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Jul. 9, 2019 978-1-73391-772-8 978-1-73391-770-4 paper

In the continuation of this briskly paced SF series, Mars private investigator Denver Moon investigates the possibility that invaders on the red planet are plotting to enslave human colonists.

Denver is working a case of missing persons when she stumbles on an alien’s lab with human experiments. She’s already aware of nameless, shape-shifting invaders on Mars and their attempts to control humans. But for now, Denver remains mum.

The colony of Mars City needs the aliens’ tech for successful terraforming. She subsequently takes a case for Jard Calder, who runs a botsie (robot) prostitution business. Church of Mars monks are disrupting his business, and Jard wants Denver to get Bishop Rafe Ranchard excommunicated. That shouldn’t be difficult since Denver previously had the bishop excommunicated when she discovered he was embezzling. Why the church’s leader, Cole Hennessey, reinstated Rafe is a mystery, 28

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and Hennessey isn’t returning Denver’s calls. With help from her trusty AI, Smith, who’s installed in her Smith & Wesson revolver, Denver quickly finds a link between the bishop and the aliens’ experiments on colonists. Rafe, however, is a menacing individual with botsies at his command, and the plot against humans is bigger and deadlier than Denver anticipated. Hammond and Viola’s (Denver Moon: Metamorphosis, 2018, etc.) novel deepens an ongoing mystery within the series. New readers will easily settle into the story, but it’s best read from the beginning.

The latest narrative deftly expands ongoing themes, from Denver’s relationship with her grandfather Tatsuo to her softening feelings toward botsies. In fact, botsie Nigel is her friend, and the image of Denver carrying and conversing with his head— his torso is on backorder—is a definite highlight. Despite relatively few characters, there are surprising turns among allies and apparent foes. And the prose, as always, is well imagined: “I closed my eyes against a blowback of detritus and sprinted as fast as I dared in the dark, a confetti made of charred leaves peppering my face and arms.”

Another blistering installment with a cool, clever female lead.

ÁNDALE PUSS Where to Next?

Handley, Warren Illus. by Gibbs, Erin Manuscript

A cat embarks on a journey and must figure out where she’s arrived in this debut picture book. Ándale Puss is a gray, overalls-wearing cat who packs her bag to travel the world. Parachuting into a new location, she’s not quite sure where she’s landed, only that she’s cold in the snowy environment. After encountering a local warthog who kindly serves her borscht (“She dips in her tongue, and then her whole head. / Her kitty cat whiskers are turning bright red!”), some Matryoshka foxes startle her, causing her to flee into a bookstore. There, a sympathetic bear bookseller hands her works by Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky. Later, Ándale Puss sees a sign for “Moskva” and realizes she’s in Russia. The charming feline is an enthusiastic narrator, and debut illustrator Gibbs’ watercolors present her full of energy along with a captivating cast of animals reminiscent in design, if not technique, of Richard Scarry. Handley relates the humorous adventure in accessible and flowing rhyming couplets. The interjections of Russian script, with suggested pronunciations and the English translations below, help readers feel how strange it must be for Ándale Puss to confront foreign phrases while exposing them to the sounds and shapes of another language. Endnotes describe how the author learned that a smile can bridge linguistic and culture gaps and help travelers make friends—a moral that the cat’s escapades wholeheartedly and effectively represent.

Beautiful, kid-friendly images and a charismatic feline narrator should hook young readers on this introduction to Russia.

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PUBLIC PARTS

DARK CORNERS

Harris, Joel W. Xlibris (598 pp.) $41.19 | $23.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Sep. 30, 2015 978-1-5144-0600-7 978-1-5144-0601-4 paper

Hayslett, Reuben “Tihi” Running Wild Press (102 pp.) $19.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Feb. 15, 2019 978-1-947041-22-6

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Racism and homophobia are among the eerie phenomena haunting these tense stories.

In this debut collection, Hayslett’s characters, most of them black, brown, and/or queer, have their personal problems complicated by their outsider status, by ominous politics, and by occasional eruptions of madness and the macabre. In “2016,” a black lesbian copes with her sister’s troubled pregnancy, her father’s cancer diagnosis, and an increasingly crazy presidential campaign while a ghostly skull that only she can see gradually materializes over her face when she looks in the mirror. In “Money Men,” an Atlanta prostitute who passes the time watching cable news while servicing her clients becomes obsessed with the Arab Spring revolutions she sees on TV. In the Twilight Zone­–ish “Super Rush,” a 35-year-old gay man begins an affair with a 19-year-old version of himself whom he encounters at a bathhouse; in “Denial Twist,” a gay man’s affair with a flamboyant drag queen is derailed by homophobic violence; and in “A Step Toward Evolution,” a Native American gay man who feels slighted by white gay men who use and discard him initiates a germ-warfare campaign. And in the disturbing “Come Clean,” two black children observe the bizarre changes in their mother after she is sexually assaulted by a white man and fear she is turning into a vampire. Hayslett paints this world in matter-offact realism that’s trimmed with deadpan humor and knocked only slightly off-kilter by incursions of the paranormal, conveying it all in brisk, evocative, grungily lyrical prose. “When your husband finally tells you he’s fucking Celia Washington, your ears fill with room-tone…it’s the first time in six months he’s not grinning like a two-dollar-idiot, and your vision crisps so sharp you can see every scraggly outline of lint on his jacket, and his breath feels like ten thousand wet pellets splashing your face as he says I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” growls the narrator of “Hope It Felt Good” as a wronged wife begins a bizarre metamorphosis. The author keeps the identity politics pervasive yet unobtrusive as his characters fight a twilight struggle against a world bent on erasing their realities.

A gripping collection of yarns in which social disadvantages take on monstrous shapes.

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In Harris’ debut novel, a dutiful son wants to make an honest success of his father’s auto parts business—but the mob may still be pulling strings behind the scenes.

Thirty-something Larry Levine has worked at his dad Big Moe’s Public Auto Parts in New York City since he was in college. All of a sudden, Big Moe decides to retire to Florida, leaving Larry holding a mostly empty bag. His dad not only left with most of the company’s funds—he also left a lot of questions unanswered. For example, Larry wonders about the mob’s connection to Public Parts when a sinister gentleman named Carmine lets Larry know that he’s not his own man but an owned man. Moreover, Larry finds out about the supposedly accidental death of mobster Abe Reles 30 years before; the man fell to his death just as he was about to rat out several other criminals.

Does that fact have something to do with why Moe decamped so hastily? What’s in the wind all these years later? Although Larry is desperate for answers, the old man is as cagey as ever.

Then Larry meets Ann Riordan, with whom he falls instantly and hopelessly in love—even though he’s a semihappily married man. Despite the turmoil caused by their relationship, Ann is also, as Larry’s executive assistant, the best thing to ever happen to Public Parts. The climax of the book is Larry’s trial after he’s framed for arson, receiving stolen goods, and other crimes.

How did he get into such a mess? Eventually, Big Moe—a widower whose health is failing fast—comes clean, to a degree, about what happened way back in 1941.

This is a very impressive debut, and although its nearly 600page length may be daunting to some, it is, in fact, a brisk and straightforward read. The book doesn’t focus on a huge cast— just Larry, the narrator, trying to reform Public Parts while dealing with his feelings for Ann and hers for him. These are, for the most part, well-rounded characters, precisely because Harris takes his time to develop them. Ann is shown to be competent, enigmatic, and eerily perceptive; Big Moe could have easily been a one-note character, but his love and care for his only son show him to have some depth. Larry’s wife, Laurie, is a study in exasperation, but she’s also there when the chips are down.

The dialogue is crackling and sly, and the long trial section, featuring the colorful Bernie “the Attorney” Schwartz, is priceless.

The novel also offers an intriguing hybrid of real and fictional characters. Reles, Meyer Lansky, Lepke Buchalter, and others are actual mob figures, but their stories mesh well with those of invented characters, including the Levines; Ann; the perky Dawn Sanders, who helps Ann out around the office; and the vengeful Detective John Mannion. Indeed, by the end of the novel, readers will find that the made-up characters feel like living, breathing people, as well.

An entertaining literary work with realistic characters.

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The author skillfully evokes varied voices, from washerwomen to drunken sailors to prim grandmothers. saint james infirmary

SAINT JAMES INFIRMARY

Heslin, Michael Three Knolls Publishing (170 pp.) $9.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | May 7, 2018 978-1-941138-92-2 A man and his buddy’s corpse journey through the South and its musical legacy in this novel.

It’s 1978, and washed-up folk singer Jim Logan is hanging out in New Orleans with his friend and one-time guitar partner Tom Parrish when Tom up and dies. Fulfilling a promise, Jim sticks Tom in a pine coffin, loads him into a 1951 Ford Country Squire station wagon, and sets out to drive him to Richmond, Virginia, for an improvised burial—all the while pursued by lowlifes in a Chrysler who want to retrieve a valuable diamond Tom swallowed before he died. That’s all the plot device needed to propel this luxurious shaggy dog story onward as Jim drives the back roads, observes the world passing by, and reminisces about his past, goaded by mellow conversational interjections from the voice of Tom’s ghost. The loose-jointed tale unfolds in episodic chapters, almost stand-alone short stories, that introduce Jim to people and places with a musical resonance.

He visits the grave of a Delta bluesman; bestows his guitar on a poor boy; gives a ride to a woman in red singing a mysterious song; tours the Shiloh battlefield and discovers a Union soldier’s letter home describing the music of runaway slaves; and visits Elvis Presley’s birthplace, finding it a site of brisk commerce and heartbroken recollections for fans of the King.

Jim also meets Chilly Antone, the once-well-known Senator of Western Swing, lobbying to get into the Country Music Hall of Fame; buys a banjo from a hillbilly luthier; spends an afternoon with an old flame; and drinks with other women, hardboiled and softhearted, in various bars where honky-tonk jukebox soundtracks play in the background.

Heslin’s (The Collapse of the Broadway Central, 2018) atmospheric yarn is less a linear narrative than a collection of character studies, landscapes, and soundscapes tied together by Jim’s ruminations on his own and the nation’s souls. It takes in an America of small-town cafes featuring seen-it-all waitresses, stolid national park rangers putting a wholesome face on the bloody chaos of the past, and the ceaseless current of traffic on highways washing past an archipelago of gas stations, set to the ubiquitous sound of pop, rock, and country and braying AM disk jockeys. The author skillfully evokes all these varied voices, from washerwomen to drunken sailors to prim grandmothers, in vignettes that are by turns pungent, funny, melancholy, and wistful, all rendered in a wonderfully impressionistic vernacular that brings to mind a blend of Faulkner and Kerouac. (“In the middle of a thunderstorm, smack inside the corporate limit of Burma Shave, you pick up Bessie Smith and you think you must be drifting off, there’s been no broadcast since the chicken and cornbread at Pep’s Missing Link Cafe, forty miles or so, but there she is, courtesy of a handful of watts somewhere, there she is on the outskirts of winter wheat with the victrola in her 30

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voice and your tank more full than empty.”) It’s not always clear where Jim and Tom are headed, but readers who like superb prose and compelling characters will be happy to ride along.

A spellbinding road trip.

AIR RAID A World War Two Murder Mystery Hodgetts, Eileen Enwright Emerge Publishing (367 pp.) $10.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Feb. 26, 2019 978-0-9982154-8-8

An inexperienced British solicitor— tasked with recovering a prominent woman’s missing child—finds himself embroiled

in a murder mystery.

In this novel set in England in 1952, Toby Whitby is a newly minted solicitor, awkward and less than inspiring, which makes it all the more unusual when he lands a major case. Lady Sylvia, countess of Southwold, wants to recover her daughter, Celeste, who she claims was abducted by Vera Chapman, a poor village girl.

Lady Sylvia conceived the child with Jack Harrigan, an American Army officer who was killed in Normandy in World War II. Since the countess cannot have another baby, Celeste is the sole heir to the considerable Southwold estate. Lady Sylvia was falsely told the child died in an air raid during the war but later discovered otherwise and asked her lawyer, Robert Alderton of Champion and Company in Brighton, to handle the legalities. But Alderton was found dead, violently murdered, and the file regarding Lady Sylvia’s case is mysteriously missing. Since Toby is now the only healthy solicitor at the firm—Edwin Champion is too unwell to manage the matter—he’s saddled with this responsibility. Toby turns out to be smarter than first impressions would indicate, and he begins to suspect that Lady Sylvia’s story is apocryphal, especially after her disgruntled gardener, Sam Ruddle, claims the child properly belongs to Vera. Shortly after, Sam is nearly murdered by a woman, hit over the head just as Alderton was. Whether or not Lady Sylvia is telling the truth, she has a motive to lie. Without a proper successor to the estate, it could become the property of her Australian relatives upon her death. Unmoved by tradition, they would surely sell it for quick cash.

In this series opener, Hodgetts (Imposter, 2019, etc.) adroitly constructs a labyrinthine plot of the best kind—complexly entangled enough to foil readers’ anticipations but not convoluted or impenetrable. In fact, the story races to a stunning conclusion at a relentless pace, a peculiar but artfully plausible tale.

At the heart of the narrative is Toby, a delicately drawn character: Diffident and bumbling, he’s also surprisingly perspicacious, charming, and even capable of great bravery. He was forced to sit out the war because of his poor eyesight but still managed to risk his life to save a group of children from perishing during an air raid. The author brilliantly inserts the conflict into the mystery as well. The disappearance of the child revolves around an air raid, and various characters remember that fateful day

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and, by extension, the wages of war itself, in different ways. And the entire ravaged country is a monument to those dark years, something observed by Toby, who can’t wait to leave: “For the first time in years, Toby was able to assess his surroundings without a paralyzing sadness for the destruction of his homeland; for the historic buildings that had been reduced to dust, for the ruined beaches, and the shattered dreams of a generation.”

An ingenious crime drama seamlessly woven into the backdrop of post–World War II England.

ROCK & ROLL WOODS

Howard, Sherry Illus. by Wolf, Anika A. Clear Fork Publishing (38 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 5, 2018 978-1-946101-68-6

HANDY HOWIE

Howe, Lizz Illus. by the author Blurb (24 pp.) $12.50 paper | Jan. 9, 2019 978-1-388-08065-5 A debut picture book from author/ illustrator Howe about a bright blue lobster that would give Wreck-It Ralph’s FixIt Felix Jr. a run for his money.

Handy Howie is a lobster mechanic who affixes tools to his tail in order to fix the cars of other animals in the area. His first |

AND THROW AWAY THE SKINS

Jones, Scott Archer Fomite (312 pp.) $15.00 paper | $4.99 e-book Mar. 2, 2019 978-1-944388-61-4 A cancer patient searches for direction and fulfillment in Jones’ (A Rising Tide of People Swept Away, 2016, etc.) novel.

In 2008, following a breast cancer diagnosis, Rebecca “Bec” Robertson undergoes a double mastectomy and begins aggressive chemotherapy. Her husband, William, is a chaplain in the U.S. Army serving in Afghanistan. Near the start of the novel, William boards a plane from Dallas to begin a journey back to Kabul, leaving his sick wife behind. As they part, there’s the sense that an emotional chasm is opening between them. Ever since Bec became ill, William has taken to treating her with excessive caution, and she senses his relief as they bid farewell to each other. Bec, meanwhile, feels a growing sense of detachment from him and a nagging suspicion that her recovery may be “Easier alone.” Furthermore, the couple is in dire financial straits; Bec chooses not to burden William with the knowledge that their money has “bled away” and that the bank is foreclosing on their house. Soon, she relocates to a cabin in New Mexico. There, she meets an oddball set of locals—the first of whom, Marcus, she finds sitting in her truck, expecting her to drive him somewhere. The narrative also looks back over Bec’s grueling childhood, her courtship with William when they were both teenagers, and her stoic efforts to carve out a life for herself after cancer—part of which may involve a relationship with an unpredictable former Marine named Michael.

Some readers may be unnerved by Jones’ unflinching descriptions of the physical realities of cancer treatment: “Tribal marks, two slices of purple thread ruled out in straight horizontal lines below her chest….At least they had left the

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When noisy new neighbors move into a bear’s quiet neighborhood, it takes him time to adjust in this debut picture book from author Howard and illustrator Wolf.

Kuda, a brown bear, loves the soft noises that fill his neighborhood, including a whooshing stream and the chirps of local birds. But during his walk, a new sound seems to attack him: “BOOM whappa whappa.” When Kuda asks Rabbit where the noise is coming from, Rabbit explains that they have new neighbors. Kuda’s surprised that Rabbit, Owl, and Squirrel all like the racket, and he soon goes home and buries himself in blankets and ear muffs. When he finds an invitation to a “ROCK & ROLL celebration,” however, he decides he’s had enough of being alone.

He sees friends dancing and playing music, and he slowly lets himself feel the rhythm, too. Soon, the new fox neighbor invites him to jam with them. Howard’s clever, onomatopoeic text is full of sound words that young readers will love, and her sensitivity in portraying Kuda’s difficulty in trying something new will resonate. An author’s note at the end describes sensory-integration issues and autism with clarity and compassion. Wolf ’s adorable, stylized cartoon animals and the rainbow-colored stream of the music make the woods feel welcoming.

A tale that offers a kindred spirit for readers who struggle with change.

job of the day comes when Grandma Pig Laura’s vehicle springs an oil leak; Howie fixes it, and she pays him in muffins. Later, two turkey construction workers have trouble with their dump truck when the back of it comes loose, an artist iguana has a flat tire, and vacationing Mr. Deer’s headlight goes out. Howie fixes everything in time to snuggle with his lobster children at bedtime. Howe’s rhymes are packed with humor, and the book should have lap readers and newly independent readers alike giggling about the crustacean mechanic’s antics. The author doesn’t seem to have rules about which of her fictional animals wear clothing, as some are fully dressed, and Howie only wears eight yellow boots—but the kid-friendly cartoon style will likely keep young readers from questioning this stylistic choice.

They may also appreciate the realistic drawings of Howie’s tools and how his tail looks like it’s on fire when he’s welding.

A fun and silly addition to titles about mechanics, helping others, and animal adventures.

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The author’s admiration for these beautiful creatures is clear. the wild herd

muscles underneath, so she didn’t have craters.” These graphic revelations of the treatments’ brutal violence can be difficult to read; in Bec’s case, surgeons are said to have “Cut away hunks of her body to fend off death.” Along the way, Jones vividly captures the character’s sense of emotional torment: “Sometimes she wanted something to blame, someone to scream at.” In her struggle for survival, Bec lives on a razor’s edge, and Jones subtly charts her progress and psychological shifts—which, the author points out, are also affected by medication: “At first, the steroids drove her crazy and the anticoagulants left her so vulnerable she feared to touch anything. When her desire for intimacy returned, she couldn’t find William.” As the story progresses, readers will be drawn ever closer to Bec—they’ll gain a profound understanding of the challenges she faces and be awed by her spirit of survival. But there are also feelings of joy in this harrowing novel, as Bec’s newfound conception of self arises from her sense of loss and despair. Overall, this novel offers a nuanced and thoroughly believable portrait of a cancer patient’s everyday life that offers hope and sadness in equal measure.

A deeply affecting and fearlessly descriptive story that charts the complexities of life with a potentially fatal illness.

KEEKEE’S BIG ADVENTURES IN LONDON, ENGLAND

Jones, Shannon Illus. by Uhelski, Casey Calithumpian Press (40 pp.) $16.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Nov. 19, 2019 978-0-9990661-6-4

A peripatetic calico cat visits London in this fifth picture book in a series.

KeeKee is a feline who travels the world by balloon, seeing such famous cities as Paris, Rome, and, now, London. The cat starts out with Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, where Will, a ram, makes her feel welcome. He offers to show her around, and they travel by double-decker bus and the Underground, visiting such tourist landmarks as Piccadilly Circus and the ravens at the Tower of London. After a pub lunch, they watch the changing of the Queen’s Horse Guard and are invited to tea by the corgi queen. KeeKee and Will look around the palace, then have a delicious tea. A London guide, glossary, and maps are included, plus links for KeeKee fans. Jones (KeeKee’s Big Adventures in Athens, Greece, 2014, etc.) provides a good beginner’s introduction to London that will be especially helpful for children visiting for the first time and needing orientation regarding lingo, food, and popular sights. Adults will enjoy in-jokes, such as the queen’s being represented by a corgi, the real-life queen’s favorite canine. Returning illustrator Uhelski’s illustrations are a huge plus, doing much to set the stage by depicting detailed landmarks and capturing KeeKee’s friendly personality.

A charming, beautifully illustrated guide to the English capital for kids.

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THE WILD HERD A Vanishing American Treasure

Kalas, Deborah Photos by the author Val de Grâce Books (160 pp.) $65.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-0-9976405-9-5 A stunning photo essay illuminating the lives and behavior of wild horses in the American West.

Debut author and professional photographer Kalas owned her first pony at age 6. Now in her 60s, she still rides six days a week. She tracked groups of wild horses—mostly at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and at the Return to Freedom Sanctuary in California—to craft this exquisite photographic record of a year in the horses’ lives. She introduces each seasonal chapter with brief observations on such topics as the formation of family units and the struggle to find food in winter, but it’s the photos that really tell the stories.

Readers see horses fighting, rolling in the dust, and sheltering under a rock ledge; at one point, a missing ear tip reveals the danger of frostbite. But there are comical moments, too, such as horses resting their muzzles on each other’s backs, magpies perched on horses’ rumps, and a colt affectionately biting its mother’s ear. Kalas knows all of her horse subjects by name but avoids cluttering the pages with captions. Instead, identifying information, including birth years (and death years where applicable), is listed in an appendix that repeats images as thumbnails. The author’s admiration for these beautiful creatures is clear. Only once does she edge toward anthropomorphism, when she imagines that two horses “had a few words together.” The slightly ornate, italic typeface sometimes distracts. However, the lighting and definition are crisp throughout, with frozen motion injecting dynamism and the colors of the scrub and hills often complementing the horses’ markings. The photos are mostly shot at eye level, but they occasionally employ unusual points of view, as when the photographer watches from above as horses move from the bottom left to the upper right of the frame. The landscape shots are just as impressive, and glimpses of a bison herd accentuate the wildness of the setting. Kalas ends with notes on wild horse behavior and offers details of three organizations working to protect them.

A gorgeous photographic tribute to striking animals.

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THE WORLD PUSHES BACK

Keizer, Garret Texas Review Press (96 pp.) $16.95 paper | Mar. 26, 2019 978-1-68003-184-3

KID CONFIDENCE Help Your Child Make Friends, Build Resilience, and Develop Real Self-Esteem

Kennedy-Moore, Eileen New Harbinger Publications (240 pp.) $16.95 paper | $13.55 e-book | Jan. 2, 2019 978-1-68403-049-1

special issue: best books of 2019

A new collection of poetry from an award-winning author of prose.

Keizer (Getting Schooled, 2014, etc.), a Guggenheim Fellow for general nonfiction, contributing editor for Harper’s, and the author of eight previous books, is best known as an accomplished prose stylist. However, during his decadeslong career, he’s also released a modest number of poems, some of which have appeared in such venues as the New Yorker, AGNI, and the Harvard Review. He collects many of them here in his first standalone volume of verse. Because the works cover a 40-year span, there’s no clear throughline, but the fact that they read as miscellany is no defect. Rather, it allows readers to observe a skilled writer and deep thinker as he roves far and wide with his insights.

The passage of time is a recurring concern; in “Now and Then,” for example, he thinks back to the days before the oppressive white noise of electricity: “How quiet they must have been, / the days before power / became so literally a household word. / I think that sounds were sharper / against that stillness, / bird songs and piano chords, / the voice that called your name.” In this piece, Keizer renders the author’s purest dream; after all, what writer doesn’t hope that his words might ring out more piercingly? Later, in “My Daughter’s Singing,” he looks forward to a moment when his child will have moved out of the family home: “already I am talking— / a year to go before she goes / to college, and listen to me talking— / in the past tense as she sings.” It’s a poignant testament to a father’s love, couched in a deft exploration of the future anterior. In “My Daughter’s Singing,” time’s flow is lamentable, but it’s also given readers this fine accretion of years of work. As Keizer writes, “Eventually you find the rhyme / for every word.”

Here, he has, and readers will be grateful.

Funny, touching, and addictively readable poems.

author takes pains to debunk some key concepts of contemporary child-rearing philosophy—the worst of which, she says, is the idea that one must compulsively and universally offer kids uninterrupted affirmation in order to build up their self-esteem.

Kennedy-Moore cites recent studies that hint at the problems of such an approach, and her tone is refreshingly blunt as she does so: “self-help gurus and inspirational articles often promote the idea that we have to love ourselves to have a happy, fulfilling life,” she writes. “This is nonsense.” In the place of this concept, she lays out a comprehensive set of guidance tips, designed to help parents to understand their kids’ needs and encourage them with direct communication and honest assessment—not blanket assurances that everything that they do is perfect in every way. Each of the book’s sections offers helpful subheadings, and a separate “Take-Home Points” graphic is designed to summarize key items from the text as a whole. Kennedy-Moore addresses the topics of making parental connections, assessing and building children’s competencies, and helping kids to become more decisive and deal with bullying. Throughout, she employs a clear, concise prose style and an unfailing directness, typified in lines such as “As parents, we can’t protect our children from having bad things happen to them.”

Kennedy-Moore has written many books on the subject of parenting and is on the advisory board of Parents magazine, and her expertise is obvious on every highly detailed page of this smart and assured manual. She buttresses each of the book’s subsections, and all of its points of contention, with ready citations as well as a comprehensive 19-page bibliography. On every topic, from sibling rivalry to cyberbullying to proper hygiene, the author’s tone is always staunchly realist (“Winning feels good, but it’s unrealistic for any of us to believe that we will win every contest”) and specifically practical (“To avoid [a] no-win battle, reach for the feelings behind the complaints, and try to tie them to a particular situation or a specific time”). Along the way, she always maintains the tone of quiet compassion that animates the book throughout. The author’s focus returns again and again to her conception of children’s self-esteem, which aims to anchor their sense of self-worth more solidly that other parenting guides tend to do. As a result, crucial insights abound in these pages. For instance, Kennedy-Moore acknowledges the extensive research into what many parents already know—that children have the potential to be incredibly mean—and she offers several helpful tips on countering bullying. At the same time, however, she stresses that children can also bully themselves with a pattern of self-criticism and that parents can help them to counter this tendency.

A wise and realistic program for instilling genuine selfesteem in children.

A guide to increasing children’s confidence and helping them realize their

full potential.

In this book, clinical psychologist Kennedy-Moore (What’s My Child Thinking?, 2019, etc.) promises readers a wide range of practical and effective parenting strategies. But first, the |

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THINGS THEY BURIED

DAHLIA IN BLOOM

King, Amanda K. & Swanson, Michael R. Ismae Books (504 pp.) $14.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Feb. 14, 2019 978-1-73357-830-1

Koehler, Susan Turtle Cove Press (152 pp.) $12.99 paper | Jul. 10, 2019 978-0-9859438-8-2

King and Swanson’s debut SF/fantasy novel uses dazzling worldbuilding and a hodgepodge of characters, cultures, and fantastic species to tell a powerful,

human story.

Aliara and Sylandair had gotten out, or at least they thought they had. They were once slaves, but after their master, Kluuta Orono, apparently died in a catastrophic explosion, they escaped and never looked back. Now, in 2084, they’ve built a life for themselves, trading on their wit, skill, and clout in the atoll of Dockhaven. When rumors of the survival of their former owner reach their ears, they have little choice but to investigate for themselves. Meanwhile, in the ramshackle port city, there’s a constant buzz of tragedy; in particular, children have been disappearing.

After the pair’s investigation turns up evidence of the cause of these disappearances, it soon becomes clear that something far darker is afoot. In this novel, the city of Dockhaven and the world of Ismae are nearly characters themselves, and the authors introduce a variety of unfamiliar humanoid species, such as the scaly draas and the imposing karju, as part of the complex setting as well as a nuanced mix of magic and science. The worldbuilding is nearly flawless in its execution, which will entice readers to immerse themselves in the story and acclimate themselves to its strangeness as they go. The novel also strikes a chord with its characterization; Aliara and Sylandair are shown to be very much in love, but they’re unscrupulous toward most anyone else and willing to lie to, steal from, or sacrifice others when necessary.

They’re extremely confident and skilled but also deeply scarred by their trauma at Orono’s hands, and they remember those experiences as they go about their daily lives. Meanwhile, Schmalch, a not-so-trustworthy thief for hire, offers an outsider’s perspective on the main pair as well as welcome comic relief. The intriguing plot makes excellent use of its primary characters, resulting in a breathtaking, harmonious read.

An empathetic, complex, and offbeat tale.

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A young girl in Appalachia during the Great Depression copes with her family’s move to a new farm in Koehler’s (The Com­ plete K-5 Writing Workshop, 2013, etc.) novel.

Dahlia Harrell is an 8-year-old girl in a family of tenant farmers in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

It’s the 1930s, and though Dahlia is in a loving family, not everything is quite right. She has recently recovered from a case of diphtheria. Money is tight. The family can eat what they grow and rely on the chickens and cow, Ol’ Rosie, but having cash in hand is rare. Dahlia thinks: “With enough money, a person could buy away any reason they ever had to feel afraid.” Though Dahlia’s world is small, her life on Harrell Mountain is full of wonder, mystery, and big dreams. Her brother Charlie believes there is buried treasure on the property that will make them as rich as the Rockefellers. Grandpa talks of the family’s history in the area as he and Dahlia lie on the ground gazing at stars. But her father breaks the news that the family will be moving to a new farm, one owned by another family. He hopes it will improve their circumstances, but to Charlie, it means giving up on the buried treasure, and Dahlia can’t imagine living far away from her grandfather.

But they do move—the girls in flour-sack dresses with cornhusk dolls—and a relief society steps in to give the kids new clothes for school. Nervous about her skills and fighting with her sister, Dahlia worries about her grandfather and wonders if she’ll ever be able to return to Harrell Mountain. Koehler’s Depression-era novel is concise but effective and weighty.

In a time of great change for Dahlia, Koehler paints a clear portrait of this family and their circumstances with writing that is subtle and strong. Dahlia’s world has just gotten much bigger, and her increasing awareness of herself as compared with others is thoughtfully described. Rich details abound on everything from meals to economics to a precious missing doll, but it’s the author’s gift for making a specific story so universal that stands out.

A well-crafted, beautiful novel about a fraught childhood moment.

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Lanning’s tale will get the audience thinking seriously about the effect every human endeavor has on the ecosystem. listen to the birds

WILD HARE

Koerber, Laura Who Chains You Books (184 pp.) $11.97 paper | $3.97 e-book Jun. 12, 2019 978-1-946044-51-8

THE EXPERIMENT

Lamont, Robin Grayling Press (288 pp.) $12.95 paper | $2.99 e-book May 16, 2019 978-0-9858485-8-3 This novel poses two tantalizing questions: What happened to a young investigator, and why are people in Half Moon, Vermont, having mysterious health problems?

Jude Brannock, a senior investigator at the animal rights group The Kinship, has given Tim Mains an undercover |

special issue: best books of 2019

Koerber (The Eclipse Dancer, 2018, etc.) offers readers an embittered narrator, a dystopic near future, and an intriguing, nuanced treatment of magic, nature, and justice in this urban-fantasy tale.

Bob Fallon is half-human and “half-forest spirit from the wild hare clan,” and he owns one of the last remaining bits of forested land in northern Wisconsin. It would be easy for him to dismiss humankind entirely—and on some days, that’s exactly what he wants to do. His clan’s mantra of “feed, fuck, fight” has governed a lot of his life, and he can’t help but feel a smoldering rage about the destruction of the forests and other injustices in his surroundings. Koerber’s characterization of Bob is perhaps the book’s strongest element; the protagonist’s jaded, acidic attitude will put readers perfectly into a noirish mindset. At the same time, Bob does a great job of providing context, both for the decaying world he inhabits and for his own limited abilities: “since I’m a fairy, why can’t I fix things?”

When Arne, one of his few friends, is jailed for failing to pay speeding tickets, Bob starts raising money for his release, but this is easier said than done, as Bob has spent years avoiding townspeople, doing begrudging odd jobs for them, or outright stealing from them—and the state adds Arne’s room and board to the fine every day. Bob works inside and outside the law as he runs afoul of local militia, a congressman with shady ties, and a host of other fairies, spirits, and tricksters. Overall, the story manages to weave together a complex tapestry of themes, from climate change to poverty to what qualifies as morality in a world that’s facing catastrophe. The prose is clear and concise throughout, giving readers a sense of each scene and character through the protagonist’s eyes.

A wrenching, complex novel that any fantasy fan would do well to pick up.

assignment: Infiltrate the facility at Amaethon Industries and, if the company is flouting the Animal Welfare Act, document it.

Tim is not only a rookie, but also Jude’s sometime lover. When reports from him suddenly stop, a worried Jude is off to Half Moon. Right off the bat, she is told that Tim has seduced young Heather Buck and introduced her to heroin (Jude is incredulous, rightly so). But drugs are definitely a big thing in little Half Moon, and soon Jude is nosing around that dangerous scene.

Meanwhile, residents are showing up with heavy bruising, nosebleeds that won’t stop, and similar afflictions indicative of blood thinners. Oh, and Jude is having attacks of vision loss. Animals are suffering at Amaethon, but that may not be the worst of it.

There may be a biotech disaster connected to the company’s experiments with “plant made pharmaceuticals.” The trials may have somehow gotten out of control. Could the PMPs be causing the rampant hemorrhaging? Jude eventually figures out who is to blame for the medical crisis and tries to bring the bad guys to justice in the hair-raising final chapters. What most impresses in Lamont’s (The Trap, 2015, etc.) third volume of her Kinship series is that things and people are not what they seem.

Could Tim be a double agent? And then there’s Heather: The Bucks think that their daughter is innocence personified. A drug dealer named Bobby Gravaux is no saint, but is he a killer?

Jude even suspects kindly Dr. John Harbolt of wrongdoing. So the author does a remarkable job of keeping readers off balance.

Lamont also clearly explains PMPs, a plot point that involves real-world science, not fiction, and teases readers with the side issue of Jude’s periodic blindness. In addition, the author can deftly summon up a clipped style that reveals character as much as subject. Here Lamont describes a black mutt: “Very thin.

Very fearful. And in this state, very dangerous.”

A riveting thriller and a welcome third installment of a series; the author is definitely a writer to watch.

LISTEN TO THE BIRDS

Lanning, K.E. Time Tunnel Media (304 pp.) $4.99 e-book | Apr. 4, 2019 This last installment of an ecofiction trilogy continues to explore the future history of an unfrozen Antarctica.

In the not-so-distant future, the melting of the polar ice caps has left Antarctica clear for human habitation.

Many of the first-generation settlers, like President of Antarctica John Barrous, are hoping to build a fair, democratic, and environmentally conscious society free of the powerful corporations that helped ruin the rest of the world.

With the help of the United Nations, hundreds of cold-climate animal species have been relocated to Antarctica’s Concordia Refuge, but they are now being threatened by poachers from a breakaway Christian cult led by the mysterious Ivan Zoric: “The sparse information on Zoric portrayed a man of humble beginnings morphing into an intelligent, charismatic fanatic. An exquisite manipulator to be sure, but was he the madman others

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rumored him to be?” John tussles with Zoric over a possible murder investigation, but the issue is brought to a head when a team of scientists working on the refuge, including John’s daughter, Ginnie, and his former girlfriend Lowry Walker, is kidnapped by the cult. The quest to get them back alive will take John out of the ordered streets of his capital, Amundsen, and into the still-wild backcountry of the land he supposedly governs.

Lanning’s (The Sting of the Bee, 2018, etc.) prose perfectly summons her winter utopia—Currier & Ives filtered through Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke: “A late winter storm had dropped a blanket of fresh snow overnight. After lunch, the clouds broke, and the sunlight sparkled on the snow as she glided across an open snowfield on her hovershoes.” The attention paid to the technology, economy, and environmental science of John’s Antarctica is far more compelling than one might think and helps increase its verisimilitude. The plot unfurls slowly but deliberatively, and though it at times feels more like a Western than an SF novel, readers will always be along for the ride. Like the best eco-fiction, Lanning’s tale will get the audience thinking seriously about the effect every human endeavor has on the ecosystem without sacrificing characters and story.

An imaginative, environmentally minded work of SF.

WALTZ AGAINST THE SKY

Larum, Glen Walking Three Bar T Publishing (400 pp.) $28.95 paper 978-0-9966865-0-1 Larum’s West Texas–based debut novel offers interconnected tales of murder and mayhem.

Indian Springs is a place of cattle ranches and oil rigs. It’s the current home of this novel’s large cast of characters, including Evan Blaine, a talented reporter whom guilt and regret follow like a weather front; brothers Dink and Del Downs, the former an innocent and the latter a career criminal; Omero Valdez, a psychopath whom one character calls “a sly one, like a coyote”; and naïve, young Tony Angione, who’s just passing through while hitchhiking from New Jersey to California. The law is represented by Sheriff Leo Blunt and, the next county over, Sheriff Brent Fulton and their underlings; some of them are truly bad to the bone, such as Chief Deputy Matt Ridgeway. The fates of all these luckless people eventually converge: Valdez kills a motel clerk in a $460 robbery, poor Tony gets picked up by the wrong people, and fugitive Del is caught while on the run. A later jailbreak and a hunt across multiple counties for the escapees will keep readers riveted to the end. Larum had a career as a newspaper editor in the West, and it shows; it’s clear that he knows what the particular emptiness of the region feels like— and he makes readers feel it, too. Each chapter focuses on a particular character; most are short but some not, as when Blaine’s past is explored or when Ridgeway and Deputy Jess Bruce track down the hapless Joe Dornick through mesquite on horseback 36

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or when Tony and Dink try to extricate themselves from untenable situations. The denouement is very cleverly handled, and it’s no spoiler to say that at least one major character winds up truly happy.

An excellent book about desperate people carefully depicted in minute detail.

WE GOT THIS Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart, and Humor

Ed. by Lindholm, Marika, & Dumesnil, Cheryl, & Shonk, Katherine & Ruta, Domenica She Writes Press (352 pp.) $17.95 paper | Sep. 10, 2019 978-1-63152-656-5 Seventy-five writers share the experiences, hardships, and triumphs of sin-

gle motherhood.

In 2015, Lindholm, a contributor to and one of four co-editors of this collaborative debut anthology, founded Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere, a social platform and “informative community for single moms, who currently raise 22 million American children.” This was the genesis for this collection, which seeks to eliminate the stigma of solo motherhood by combatting outdated stereotypes. Along the way, the essays show the writers’ grace, their humor, and even their mistakes. Readers will find some of the authors’ names familiar, although their stories may not be. Ariel Gore, the award-winning writer and founding editor of the periodical Hip Mama, shares lies that she told in the Sonoma County welfare office in order to keep both her child and her creativity alive. Iraqi writer Faleeha Hassan recalls fleeing her home country after appearing on dangerous militants’ “death lists”; in Turkey, she struggled to enroll her children in school—not just for their education, but for the warmth that their unheated apartment couldn’t provide. Amy Poehler of Parks and Recreation fame breaks down divorce with heartbreaking and sidesplitting hilarity. Among these and other well-known names are emerging writers, poets, and performers. They include writers with ties to ESME, authors of color, military mothers, and LGBTQ parents and those who were raised by them. The wellcurated collection is divided into seven chapters with strict, but never restrictive, themes, such as raising children, seeking help, and dating while single. Readers will be able to revisit these essays for laughs, inspiration, or a cathartic cry.

An engaging tribute to the heart, soul, and ingenuity of solo moms.

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The sparkling anthology showcases the vividness of haiku’s stripped-down but potent imagery. the wonder code

THE AUSSIE NEXT DOOR

THE WONDER CODE Discover the Way of Haiku and See the World With New Eyes

London, Stefanie Entangled: Amara (350 pp.) $7.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2019 978-1-64063-668-2

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The winsome Japanese verse form can restore a sense of delight and creative adventure to jaded hearts, according to this poetry primer and anthology.

Mason, a poet and editor of the online journal The Heron’s Nest, offers haiku as a cure for “the subtle ways in which our culture and times estrange us from wonder.” It’s a popular form because of its friendliness to poets and readers alike: three brief lines (or occasionally two or even one), with no confining rhyme schemes or meters. (The iconic 5, 7, 5 syllable pattern can be broken at will.) The resulting bite-size poems go down easily, but, the author argues, they pack great power within their diminutive expanse. He discusses haiku in the framework of Zen aesthetics, illustrating with poems gleaned from The Heron’s Nest. Haiku portrays the Buddhist principles of focusing on the ordinary and small-scale (“last night’s rain / cupped in a banana leaf / a small green frog” by Ferris Gilli) and finding a world in a grain of sand (“city sidewalk / colors swirl in a bubble / of spit” by Brenda J. Gannam). They capture life through rapt sense impressions (“autumn evening / the clink of carnival rings / on empty bottles” by Chad Lee Robinson). Evanescent and usually in present tense, they abide in the moment and evoke large meanings from concentrated images (“in the rest home lounge / the silent piano / its line of cracked keys” by John Hawkhead). And they traffic in everyday mysteries (“soap bubbles / how softly mother / bursts into laughter” by Kala Ramesh).

Mason situates haiku in opposition to a Western mindset that perceives objects as discrete and atomized. Haiku, by contrast, flows from a holistic Eastern worldview that sees everything as connected, in which “our perception of boundaries…starts to give way.”

Debut editor Mason includes nearly 500 poems in this sparkling anthology, showcasing the extraordinary versatility of moods and subject matter haiku can address and the vividness of its stripped-down but potent imagery. There are many landscapes and nature scenes (“winter hills / with each boot crunch / the scent of sage” by Jo Balistreri) as well as lyrically grungy urban tableaux (“dumpster / the iridescence / of starlings” by Bill Kenney) and suburban nightmares (“suburban darkness / only the rumble / of garbage can wheels” by Robert Forsythe). There is sensual intimacy (“click-clack / of the bead curtain— / the sway of her hips” by Sandra Simpson) and social satire (“singing gondolier / the passengers’ / fixed smiles” by Kay Grimnes).

There is birth (“circle of lamplight— / I complete the baby quilt / begun for me” by Carolyn Hall), aging (“sudden winter / the press of cold metal / against the paper gown” by Beverly Acuff Momoi), unbearable sorrow (“hot afternoon / the squeak of my hands / on my daughter’s coffin” by Lenard D. Moore),

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In USA Today–bestselling author London’s (How To Lose a Fiancé, 2019, etc.) latest romantic comedy, a hidebound Australian cartoonist and his American tenant find love.

Australian Jace Walters is a creature of habit. He eats plain porridge for breakfast every day after surfing at the beach and has gained a following for his comic strip series about a hermit.

His mother understands his autism spectrum diagnosis, but she also feels that he needs to leave his comfort zone; as a result, Jace finds himself saddled with temporary custody of a family friend’s two dogs. Meanwhile, American Angie Donovan learns that her Australian visa is expiring in just two months. She feels at home Down Under; she has money from a lawsuit settlement to live on and loves her volunteer position in a nursing home. One possible solution remains: She can get married to an Australian citizen. However, she had a lonely, traumatic childhood, so she doesn’t want a cold, paper marriage—she wants to fall in love, even if she only has two months to do so. Angie enlists Jace to help her find romantic prospects; soon, sparks fly between them, and they begin a passionate sexual relationship punctuated by picnics by the ocean and 1990s romanticcomedy movie marathons. After Jace proposes, however, their bond begins to crack: Can spontaneous Angie live with Jace’s dependence on routine, and can he learn to compromise for the woman he loves? Over the course of this book, London shows that she truly excels at character development; she makes sure that even relatively minor players, such as Angie’s yoga teacher, Chloe Lee, and Jace’s flirtatious brother, Trent, are fully fleshed out. The realistic yet witty dialogue jumps off the page, and the two dogs in Jace’s care are lovable and endearing even when they misbehave. Jace’s high-functioning autism is never treated in a stereotypical manner; instead, it’s portrayed as something that the character realistically struggles with. The main characters have sizzling chemistry together, and they face believable hurdles on the way to the inevitable happily-ever-after.

A sweet, sexy read featuring a couple that feels both true to life and aspirational.

Ed. by Mason, Scott Girasole Press (371 pp.) $24.95 978-0-692-93035-9

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UNLIKELY FRIENDS James Merrill and Judith Moffett: A Memoir

remembrance (“her last words / snow falling / on beech leaves”

by Jeff Hoagland), and enigmatic hope (“she said she’d return / as a seagull / which one” by Mason).

A superb haiku collection for readers who thought they didn’t like poetry, richly expressive and very accessible.

LIFE AS TRAUMA The Wartime Journals of an Anesthesiologist Mitić, Sarah Z. Unwritten History (354 pp.) $19.95 paper | Sep. 3, 2019 978-0-9709198-6-1

A war doctor shares her battlefront journals of aiding military and civilian casualties during the 1990s Balkan wars.

Belgrade-born Serbian physician, anesthesiologist, and debut author Mitić’s time as a trauma physician after the historic breakup of Yugoslavia is on brilliant display in these meticulous journals. Her journey began when she heard about the war in Yugoslavia while vacationing with her husband and two small daughters in Greece in 1991. “The people in Krajina are fighting for their lives and they need help desperately,” wrote the determined Mitić, who rushed home to Smederevo to make plans to travel to the war-torn region of Knin—even though her mother and brother both disapproved.

She arrived in Knin the next year and began working immediately at a hospital where “the wounded, the dying, and the dead are arriving from all directions.” At this early point in Mitić’s powerful narrative, she begins incorporating stories and profiles of the medical rescue staff and of the grisly casualties. As explosions reverberated throughout the region, and civilian anger and confusion at the disintegrating multinational army seethed, she saved lives—Croatian children, countless anguished soldiers, a suicidal young mother. Her humanitarian determination kept her working in the hospital despite exhaustion and sleep deprivation. Further travels brought her to a Kosovo clinic, where there was tension with arrogant Albanian staff; and to central Croatia, where “life [was] disappearing fast.” Mitić struggled to manage casualties while ensuring her own safety, harrowingly depicted in an account of an assault by an agitated sniper. The final section finds the author back at home dealing with a catastrophic personal tragedy. At times, the book’s graphic depiction of violence and bloodshed can be arduous to read. However, Mitić shows a knack for relating vivid details of the wounded, of families’ suffering, and of her devoted colleagues. She also unflinchingly sketches her own extended family’s haunted history. Readers interested in the strife and unrest of the Balkan region, its divergent politics and populations, and the plights of its refugees will find Mitić’s narrative illuminating.

A commanding chronicle of focused leadership and admirable humanity.

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Moffett, Judith Time Tunnel Media (544 pp.) $21.00 paper | $6.99 e-book Jan. 23, 2019 978-1-79298-040-4

Poet and science-fiction writer Moffett (The Bear’s Baby and Other Stories, 2017, etc.) recalls decades of friendship and correspondence with the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet James Merrill.

As a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1967, Moffett took Merrill’s poetry class and found him to be exotic and unique. It led to a nearly three-decade friendship, here preserved in letters and extensive journaling. Moffett went to Sweden to translate poetry, returned to America, and spent years in frenzied activity—writing, teaching, and moving from place to place—all the while sending her poems to Merrill for review. Their friendship was warm, if somewhat anxious on her part, and full of Merrill’s self-styled mystery (“the person who puzzles + fascinates us needn’t be a puzzle at all, so much as a key...to the unsolved puzzle of ourselves,” he wrote to Moffett in 1970. The closeted, gay Merrill didn’t let Moffett get too close when it came to discussions of sexuality, but she addressed it through literary criticism. A who’s who of the poetry world appeared at various conferences and readings, including Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, and Robert Bly, and Moffett provides color commentary. Her Merrill scholarship is exhaustive, as she spent years writing a book about his work while finding success with her own poetry. She and Merrill were rarely in the same place, but she lovingly describes a 1973 trip to Greece and moments at his New York City apartment. Both eventually struggled with serious health problems, but they remained close due to their obvious reliance on each other’s intellect and their lifelong dedication to their crafts. Moffett’s painstaking memoir is epic in length but remains consistently engrossing.

Particularly noteworthy is her desire to get to the root of her own fascination with Merrill, and she reaches some surprising conclusions about herself. She tells her own life story of struggle and success with undying fervor, and Merrill’s letters show him to be urbane, witty, a bit fussy, and generous when it mattered.

The two were different in many ways, but Moffett’s account of what they shared is authentic and impressive.

An absorbing, indispensable portrait of poets.

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Moskowitz does a splendid job of showing what the world looks like to the chronically but invisibly ill. sick kids in love

THERE YOU ARE

Morais, Mathea Amberjack Publishing (304 pp.) $24.99 paper | $11.49 e-book Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-948705-58-5

SICK KIDS IN LOVE

Moskowitz, Hannah Entangled: Teen (300 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64063-732-0

Two chronically ill teens navigate the joys and pitfalls of a relationship in this YA contemporary romance.

Of all the places where 16-year-old Isabel Garfinkel could meet a cute boy, the Ambulatory Medical Unit at Linefield and West Memorial Hospital in the Queens borough of New York City, wouldn’t seem the most likely. It’s her second time in the “drip room,” as it’s called, where she gets monthly infusions to treat the rheumatoid arthritis that she’s had for |

special issue: best books of 2019

Two St. Louis residents, united by music and a local record store, fall in love in Morais’ nostalgic debut novel.

Although it opens in 2014, most of this story unfolds during the 1980s and ’90s as it follows Octavian Munroe and Mina Rose during their childhood and teenage years. Octavian, the African American son of a professor and a poet, comes from a more stable household, although the death of his mother from cancer and his brother Francis’ issues with drug dependency cause complications. Mina, the daughter of an attorney who’s as eccentric as she is formidable, has a less stable home life, but she has the unquestionable advantage of being white in a city that’s rife with race-related issues. Octavian and Mina’s first meeting is in the fifth grade; later, they bond with friends at Rahsaan’s Records, where they later work, and they form a friendship that not even the tidal forces of their lives can tear apart. Morais conjures a very specific milieu—urban St. Louis in the 1980s and ’90s—in a way that makes it feel lived-in, and she populates the setting with a panoply of rich characters who express themselves with varying degrees of forthrightness. Although readers of the main characters’ generation may relate to the novel more than others due to its many specific cultural references, Morais gives it universality as well as specificity—particularly in her depiction of Octavian and Mina’s believable, multidimensional relationship.

They talk, argue, reconcile, and razz friends in language that’s heightened but never strained or unrealistic. Readers who have a low tolerance for nostalgia may want to look elsewhere, but for readers who enjoy a story of the robustness and fragility of love, Morais’ work is a must-read.

A novel that effectively intertwines ruminations on race, music, romance, and history.

11 years. This time, though, she can’t help staring at a new patient there—a boy her age named Sasha Sverdlov-Deckler.

She likes his quirky, appealing looks and wry sense of humor, and they bond over the fact that they’re both Jewish. Sasha has a rare genetic disorder called Gaucher disease, which isn’t fatal, in his case, but causes severe anemia, weak bones, and other problems. Although Isabel has several close and wellmeaning friends, she doesn’t have anyone who really understands what it’s like “to deal with the everyday slog of being sick.” She and Sasha hit it off, but she’s emotionally guarded and dislikes risks, and as a result, she doesn’t date. Sasha is patient and sweet, and their romance grows; amid a few arguments and setbacks, they forge a bond that gets them through their problems. As the advice columnist for her high school paper, Isabel asks questions and gathers others’ responses; by the end of the novel, she’s comfortable with not having all the answers. Moskowitz (Salt, 2018, etc.) does a splendid job of showing what the world looks like to the chronically but invisibly ill. For example, Isabel is often tired and aching, and she fears the judgment of others; she notes that even her physician father would question her getting a cab to go 15 blocks, a walkable distance for many, including people who are old or pregnant and “people with arthritis who are just better than me.”

Overall, the excellent character development lends depth and sweetness to the romance. Isabel’s relationship with Sasha helps her fight self-doubt and stand up for herself with laudable vigor, yet the novel never feels didactic.

A highly recommended work that’s thoughtful, funny, wise, and tender.

GIVE THEM UNQUIET DREAMS

Mulhern, James Kurti Publishing (258 pp.)

14.00 paper | Jul. 28, 2019 978-1-0822-4062-1 A novel presents an emotional story about coming-of-age, spirituality, and the mysteries that lie beyond everyone’s ordinary, waking moments.

At the age of 14, Aiden Glencar’s life is already complicated. He and his older brother, Martin, move between their grandmother, a domineering and occasionally kleptomaniacal Irish Catholic, and their Aunt Clara, who does her best to look after the boys and her own children, taking them to a New Age, nondenominational church. Aiden’s confusion regarding these contradictory philosophies and the strangeness of his living situation is palpable and becomes even more engrossing and sympathetic when he reveals his budding gay sexuality and his fears of what his family and faith might say about it. But it’s Irish folklore more than Christian faith that inscribes the boys’ lives, as Aiden has the second sight, conferring with his dead grandfather and witnessing weirder and more frightening spirits throughout the Boston streets. The boys’ mother has been committed to an asylum, and Aiden fights to

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get her released even as the spirits urging him to do so give him some doubts about his own sanity. The story continues from this complex setup, teasing out details of Aiden and Martin’s boyhoods in a lovingly rendered 1970s Boston while advancing the murky tale of the spirits Aiden sees, the gift he shares with his mother, and the bitter tragedies and hard-earned triumphs they portend. Mulhern’s (Useless Things, 2018, etc.) prose is strong, delivering readers a sense of the child in Aiden’s voice and a thorough, descriptive view of the world around him. Not only that, but the writing is elevated by a liberal use of quotes and sayings ranging from Bible verses to Thoreau and Yeats, grounding the various players’ cultural context. (At one point, Aiden muses: “Like Thoreau, I believe time is merely a stream we swim in. Someday the current of water will slip away, taking us with it, but the sandy bottom, eternity, will remain.”) Yet ultimately, it’s the rich characters who bring the novel to its greatest heights, as Aiden’s uncertainty, Martin’s protectiveness, their grandmother’s determination, and their mother’s wistfulness and grief make this a story about family and history and give the sense that everything and everyone are connected across time, whether or not those ties are immediately perceived.

A luminous, beautifully told fairy tale grounded in history and elevated by spirit.

THE INVISIBLE BOAT

Müller, Eric G. The Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (336 pp.) $18.00 paper | Dec. 7, 2013 978-1-936367-44-3 In this middle-grade novel, three children journey in a magical boat to help reunite humans with the elemental world.

It’s a sad day for the white Temple family when it has to leave Honey Creek Farm for the city. Before leaving, Julie, 11, and her almost two years younger brother, Leo, make several surprising discoveries, including a little bottle with an exquisitely made tiny ship inside, complete with a swan figurehead. They also meet a little man called Curly Beard, who explains how they can sail in the magical boat. But it’s not a toy; a crucial plan is afoot to save Earth from ecological disaster by reuniting humans with elementals like Curly Beard, “little folk…such as elves, fairies, wights, imps,” and more. (It’s unclear what these Old World beings are doing in what’s apparently North America.) Joining their mission is a new neighbor, Annabel, a pretty black girl around Leo’s age who walks with crutches. Healing the planet begins with aiding the Queen of the Waters, but first, the children must free Curly Beard, who’s been captured. Their path will be filled with danger and difficulty—but the kids have guides, resources, courage, and good hearts to help them. Many writers have tried to conjure up that true feeling of magic in their fantasy adventures, but Müller (Rounding the Cape of Good Hope, 2018, etc.) is one of the few who succeed. Lush, appealing descriptions stand out, as in an area packed with hundreds of captivating 40

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temptations that the children must resist: rooms full of sweet songbirds; “every imaginable toy”; intriguing weapons; jugglers and acrobats; and much more. Like C.S. Lewis, Müller offers effective characterizations (some may object to Annabel’s being described as “lame,” but her point of view is represented) and an exciting plot that’s ballasted by moral seriousness. The quest’s puzzles and challenges are original and involving, and the ending is genuinely moving. It also suggests further escapades to come—let’s hope so.

A delightful, compelling fantasy adventure sure to win fans.

FORTY STEPS AND OTHER STORIES

Murphy, Terrence iUniverse (206 pp.) $23.99 | $13.39 paper $3.99 e-book | Jul. 27, 2018 978-1-5320-5303-0 978-1-5320-5301-6 paper Sixteen tales span about 1,000 years as a New England town emerges, becomes an art colony and tourist destination, and faces a dark age.

This collection returns to Murphy’s (Assumption City, 2012) fictional community of Egg Rock on Massachusetts’ North Shore.

In an elegiac tone that brings to mind Edgar Lee Masters’ 1915 poetry collection Spoon River Anthology, the tales follow characters as they make important decisions and show the ramifications of their actions. The book opens with Vikings arriving at a “magical” paradise—the future Egg Rock. The stories then sail on to address the town’s early-1800s ice trade with the Caribbean; the impact of prejudice on Boston’s Irish community during a cholera epidemic; New England’s abolition and pacifist movements before the Civil War; the dangers of 1880s lighthouse-keeping; mental health care in the early 20th century; U-boat spying during World War II; the agony of veterans following various wars; and the rise of feminism. The book breaks the narrative flow with a compelling literary experiment, as “John’s Peril I” and “John’s Peril II” offer different outcomes for the same character. It’s reminiscent of author Jack Finney’s twig-in-a-stream concept in Time and Again (1970), showing how small occurrences bump into one another to alter history. Indeed, the idea of cause and effect forms a strong undercurrent in this collection—one that results in intriguing effects. In “Shore Leave,” for example, a lighthouse keeper’s wife teaches her son, Ben, everything she knows about the heavens (“She made sure Ben saw moonrises and moonsets and the morning and evening stars”), and, by doing so, she inadvertently sets in motion Ben’s undoing in “Bottoms Up.” Readers may wish that the author provided a map of the many characters in these tales, but they’ll still find it fun to track their connections.

A quirky, rich, and elegantly written epic.

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The book is at its most powerful when the narration combines with Bram’s psychology to create a feverish landscape of thought. miss lucy

WHAT WE TAKE FOR TRUTH

NORMAN’S GIFT

Olson, Michelle Illus. by the author Photos by the author Bellie Button Books (34 pp.) $18.95 | $9.99 paper | Nov. 15, 2019 978-1-73237-073-9 978-1-73237-074-6 paper

Nedelman, Deborah Adelaide Books (314 pp.) $19.60 paper | $7.99 e-book Jun. 15, 2019 978-1-950437-18-4

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The most charming button in picture books returns for a “Gift of the Magi”–style Christmas tale in this sequel.

Norman the Button is happy with his new life as a nose for Freddy Teddy. The two are inseparable—that is, until bedtime.

The stuffed bear’s awful snoring keeps Norman up at night, so he sleeps on his own in a dollhouse. One night, Norman overhears Freddy telling the rest of the toys that he has the perfect Christmas present for his close friend. Norman frantically tries to come up with a terrific gift for Freddy, but a car proves too expensive, a cellphone on sale turns out to be worthless, and the cake the button attempts to bake—complete with raw bacon and unbroken egg—is a disaster. Norman feels that the homemade present he finally concocts isn’t good enough for his pal. Luckily, Freddy truly appreciates Norman’s talents and loves his gift. Olson’s (Norman, 2018) signature puns (jokes the two friends read together put Norman “in stitches”; the snacks they share make Freddy “stuffed”) are fewer than in the first volume. But Norman’s misadventures help him learn to value his own talents and deftly reinforce the themes of the original story. The author’s posed photographs with digitally illustrated details are gloriously silly and sure to give adults giggles alongside their children.

The message that real friends value their pals most for being themselves couldn’t be delivered by a cuter button.

special issue: best books of 2019

A novel spins a story of hard choices and secrets, set in beautiful but ironically named Prosperity, Washington, in 1991.

Although the logging town of Prosperity at one time more than lived up to its name, that era is fading fast thanks to a new environmental awareness. It is tree-huggers against loggers, protecting the forest habitat versus feeding one’s family. Caught in the middle of this is Grace “Parrot” Tillman, whose mother died when she was a child. Her father died some years later, so the only family she has left is Aunt Jane, a bitter woman with no love for Prosperity or its loggers. Grace feels a strong pull to flee Prosperity, but fate has a way of intervening. Mill owner Jackson Dyer dies and leaves her an old cabin in his will. His wife tells Grace: “He wanted you to have your own place. Some place in Prosperity you could always call home and come back to if you ever left.” Later comes a bombshell: a huge secret involving Grace and her family that somehow the whole town managed to keep from her. Grace is devastated, then furious. The rest of the tale amounts to slow closure. While this is Nedelman’s (co-author: Still Sexy After All These Years?, 2006, etc.) first novel, she has two nonfiction books and a raft of short stories to her credit. She also has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and her practice inspired much of her intriguing new work. What could have been a straightforward polemic about tree-huggers and loggers quickly becomes much more subtle and nuanced than that. It is a late coming-ofage tale about Grace, a wonderfully drawn character, a young woman who doesn’t want to take sides, and the author lets her skirt that argument. Having taken over Aunt Jane’s cafe, the Hoot Owl—the endangered bird at the crux of this ecological battle—Grace just wants to survive and maybe bring the town together. Nedelman’s writing is adept with some surprising descriptions (“The town glowed like a bearded hermit stepping from his annual bath”). The tale’s only villain is a man named Nathan Roberge, who’s connected to Grace’s family; the other characters are desperate people but not evil. A key question hovers over the engrossing story: When push comes to shove, will everyone shove together?

An impressive environmental tale with an engaging heroine from a talented new novelist.

MISS LUCY

Orem, William Gival Press (232 pp.) $20.00 paper | 9.99 e-book Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-940724-20-1 Orem (Killer of Crying Deer, 2010, etc.) delivers a fictionalized account of the life of Dracula author Bram Stoker and the incidents that led him to create one of literature’s greatest monsters.

How does a single story command the high and low, the beautiful and the ghastly, the sacred and the profane? Or, as this novel asks, how does a single man contain these multitudes? In flowing, lyrical, and sometimes-unsettling third-person narration, Orem offers dark speculations on the life and mind of Abraham “Bram” Stoker. As the novel tells it, Bram is haunted from a young age—first by his own childhood illness and then, possibly, by literal ghosts. Despite the fact that his father seemed to give up on the possibility that he’d thrive or succeed

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in life, Stoker eventually joins the Lyceum Theatre as an aide to renowned actor Henry Irving. But life behind the footlights is not all well, and although Bram gets the opportunity to mix with high society and literary idols such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Walt Whitman, and Oscar Wilde, he remains very much in Irving’s shadow. The book is at its most powerful when the distant narration combines with Bram’s psychology to create a feverish, even horrifying landscape of thought; on the one hand, Bram idolizes Irving and treasures his own proximity to greatness, but on the other, he’s sickened by his own lack of literary success and seems overcome by envy. He’s also shown to be torn between his wife, Florence—a beautiful, aristocratic woman who’s emblematic of the society he wishes to join—and Lujzi Sido, a sweatshop worker who lives in squalid conditions but who makes him feel more alive than anyone else does. Personal and historical parallels later appear in Stoker’s greatest work, as faith, class differences, violence, beauty, and death coalesce in the figure of Dracula. But intriguingly, where Bram sees himself in that tale remains a constantly moving target.

A brilliant and imaginative tale of love, death, and literature.

THE WILD WAVES WHIST

Parekh, Erin Nelsen Illus. by Amini, Mehrdokht Drivel and Drool (20 pp.) $9.99 | Mar. 1, 2019 978-0-9984397-3-0 In their second Shakespearean board book, Parekh and Amini (Behowl the Moon, 2017) adapt Ariel’s songs from The Tempest for a tale of two children discovering the wonders of an island world.

A boy and a girl, both with brown skin, meet on the beach of a fantastic island that hints at the Caribbean setting frequently discussed in Shakespeare scholarship. With their dog, the children see crabs, sea turtles, wild island birds, and—in a lovely two-page spread—a crowing rooster. Other vibrant creatures fill the final pages—an ape, an antlered form hidden in shadow, a three-toed sloth, and a red panda all exist in harmony while the children play. Shakespeare’s familiar words are just as complex in their vocabulary as parents are sure to remember. But for the very young lap readers intended as this reinvented story’s audience, the sounds of the words will be more important than their meanings (“Courtsied when you have and kiss’d / the wild waves whist”). Amini’s textured, mixed-media illustrations create a gorgeous paradise filled with flowers and plants and a lack of Prospero or any other adult to disturb the children’s joy. The two kids will be easy for young readers to identify with, and their curious explorations should feel familiar to beachgoers.

A beach adventure pairs with the beautifully lyrical words of Ariel in this triumph of poetry and approachability.

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PRIYA DREAMS OF MARIGOLDS & MASALA

Patel, Meenal Illus. by the author Beaver’s Pond Press (36 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 26, 2019 978-1-64343-955-6

A girl finds a way to keep her grandmother from missing India in this pic-

ture book.

Priya’s house is the only one on her street with an Indian family. After school every day, she helps her grandmother Babi Ba make rotli for dinner. As they work, Priya asks Babi Ba what India is like. Her grandmother responds with highlights of India for each of the senses, describing the smells of the spice market, the sounds of the tuk-tuks and cows in the street, the “swish-swish of a sari,” the taste of hot cha, and the crowd with its mix of beliefs and customs. Babi Ba describes the marigold garlands, just like the one “hanging in the doorway” of Priya’s house. In the winter, Priya notices her grandmother’s sadness and discusses the marigold garland tradition with her school friends. They help Priya make a huge garland of paper marigolds for Babi Ba. Patel (Neela Goes to San Francisco, 2016) is an Indian American author whose “family is from Gujarat, India.” In her tale, Priya’s strong connections to her grandmother and her diverse classmates, who are so open to learning her traditions, offer a wonderfully ideal view of culture sharing. Patel’s drawings, rendered without hard lines but in brilliant colors inspired by her visits to India, capture the theme vividly.

A beautifully rendered, touching celebration of sharing traditions across generations and cultures.

POLLEN Darwin’s 130 Year Prediction

Pattison, Darcy Illus. by Willis, Peter Mims House (34 pp.) $23.99 | $13.21 paper | May 7, 2019 978-1-62944-119-1 978-1-62944-120-7 paper

Sometimes scientists take a long time to reach a conclusion—and the team of Pattison and Willis (Clang!, 2018, etc.) explores that idea in this look at a hypothesis about a moth and a flower.

In 1862, Charles Darwin received orchids in the mail (the variety is depicted in the beautiful mixed-media illustrations from Willis, who painted on newspaper to create textured images). When Darwin noticed that the star orchid’s nectary was unusually long, he envisioned the type of creature, a huge moth, that would have had to evolve to allow the flower to reproduce. In 1903, two entomologists found the hawk moth, which they believed to be the insect that Darwin imagined, with a lengthy, trunklike proboscis. But there was a problem:

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Pearson’s writing explores both the wonders of nature and the shifting landscape of the human mind. the sandpiper’s spell

“No one had seen the hawk moth pollinate the star orchid.” It wasn’t until 1992 that entomologist Lutz Thilo Wasserthal was able to verify that the moth and flower depended on each other.

Using plenty of science vocabulary made approachable through conversational text and Willis’ kid-friendly illustrations, Pattison captures the sense of wonder that comes from discovery, even if the proof arrives 130 years after the initial idea. The intriguing moment is well-told in this third installment of a picture book series, giving real insight into the scientific process and celebrating the determined researchers who strive to further human knowledge.

An illuminating introduction to Darwin and evolutionary development for young readers.

THE SANDPIPER’S SPELL Poems

Pearson, Tom Buen Parto Press (120 pp.) $19.74 | Mar. 31, 2018 978-0-9995951-2-1

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TWO STORIES A Sight To See & The Boatman

Peterson, Nolan Time Tunnel Media (85 pp.) $8.95 paper | $4.95 e-book Mar. 21, 2019 978-1-09-119910-1

Peterson (Snow-Blind, 2018) offers a pair of stories about characters coming to terms with death.

In “A Sight to See,” the shorter of this book’s two narratives, Adam is one of four astronauts on a one-way flight to Mars. When something collides with the spaceship, his three companions die, and Adam’s injury renders him blind. As the ship continues its course to the red planet, he sits alone in darkness and periodically communicates with Mission Control. He accepted the mission knowing that he would never again see his wife, Penny, but as he awaits what he believes is an imminent demise, he debates whether he made the right decision. In “The Boatman,” Charles is a professional guide for people who wish to die. He works at a company that constructs “death dreams,” in which people can choose the specific manner of their passing.

He keeps his job a secret from his father, who wouldn’t approve; Charles’ mother committed suicide a decade earlier. But his dad isn’t well himself, and he may soon decide how he wants to pass on—with or without Charles’ guidance. Peterson’s deathcentered stories, while occasionally gloomy, are still filled with hope. The author shows how Adam, for instance, doesn’t fear his demise, which he seems to view as a journey’s end; although his longing for Penny is sorrowful, he achieves a sense of closure before the tale concludes. Similarly, “death dreams” allow characters to experience happiness or heroism before they die. At times, the author’s lyrical prose cushions the bleaker concepts; for example, Adam believes that the Earth’s first living cell is continually reborn in each living thing: “We are an unbroken echo of all life before us,” he muses, “locked in a closed-loop system of death and resurrection.” Overall, Peterson’s stories promote an appreciation of life—although some readers may still shed tears.

A profound, dramatic, and emotionally resonant book.

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Pearson’s masterfully observant debut poetry collection scours littoral and urban landscapes.

“The Sandpiper’s Spell” is a six-part poem and epilogue that in its simplest interpretation is a walk along a beach to a forest. The poet becomes a beachcomber, picking out aesthetically pleasing images from the coastline: the way the “waning tide has left / a crescent of cooler sand” or the pattern of “red orange pine needles / cross hatching the ground.” The collection is structured so that each part of “The Sandpiper’s Spell” is followed by a series of short poems that briefly transport the reader away from the coastal setting before returning to the shoreline to continue the journey.

Childhood stands out as a recurrent theme. “Circus World” remembers “evaporating in a midday haze / on a back corner of childhood / the tree we climbed and stayed / past dark” and also that progressive loss of innocence, “you who kissed me / hard on the mouth / when we were both ten,” which leads inevitably to adulthood, where faded mementos of youth are all that remain, “still hanging in a corner / a netless basketball hoop.”

Other poems, like “Death of a...” leave the serenity of the ocean for a bustling city where a pedestrian is about to take a fatal step into the street. Pearson’s work—which rapidly shifts through a gamut of psychological states—is a welcome reminder that reading poetry is a vigorous mental activity. Poems such as “Day Dreams” showcase Pearson’s ability to create striking imagery.

Here, he effortlessly morphs shoreline detritus into clever caricature: “white bubbles button / his fish face / to his man body / an inverted voyeur / the bleached bones / of his ship / wrecked.”

As the collection progresses, the poetry becomes more clipped, abstract, and urgent but no less powerful: “nimbus / blood candy sky / sand in stone /snow on mountain / crimson salt bleeding rivers from / under the mountain’s petticoat.” Both vastly panoramic and deeply introspective, Pearson’s writing explores

both the wonders of nature and the shifting landscape of the human mind.

A startlingly intuitive new poet—one to watch.

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RANDALL AND RANDALL

Poper, Nadine Illus. by Gortman, Polina Blue Whale Press (32 pp.) $16.99 | $10.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-9814938-7-9 978-0-9814938-8-6 paper Young readers get a slice of science in this undersea tale about symbiosis.

Randall the pistol shrimp accidentally gets a new roommate when he snaps at a fish he believes is a threat. But the goby fish, also named Randall, offers to let the shrimp know when genuine predators are around. Unfortunately, the goby misidentifies plankton, a sand dollar, and a sea cucumber as dangerous foes, all the while singing songs that drive the shrimp to distraction.

Likewise, the noises the shrimp’s snapping claws make irritate the goby. After a huge fight, the goby leaves only to run into a real killer: a shark. Randall the shrimp to the rescue. His snapping scares the shark away, and the goby learns to value the sound and his shellfish friend. Based on a real-life symbiotic relationship, this silly tale makes the science approachable through the goby’s giggleworthy antics. Notes from ichthyologist Dr. John Randall describe the phenomenon for adults, and Gortman’s (Fishing for Turkey, 2016) closing illustrations supply diagrams of the charismatic creatures. The picture book’s cartoonish interior images deftly mix human and animal characteristics, showing the shrimp’s long antennae as mustaches.

Poper’s (Frank Stinks, 2017, etc.) simple English text seamlessly introduces a few straightforward Spanish-language phrases (“mi casa”) due to the coastal Mexico setting. The ingenious aquatic tale also encourages readers to realize they can find friendship even if they don’t see eye to eye with their cohorts.

A clever introduction to a scientific concept that includes an accessible moral.

but asserts that Benjamin, who directed the Confederate Secret Service, believed them to be genuine. Prindle argues that Confederates were involved in a plot to kidnap Lincoln, spirit him to Richmond, and ransom many prisoners, which then led to retributive schemes to decapitate the Union government.

Through 17 brisk chapters, the author sketches the Confederate officials, undercover operatives, and civilians who advanced the conspiracy. He tracks clandestine activities from Virginia to Maryland to Canada, connecting dots while adding detailed context. Prindle effectively captures the complexity and chaos of the war’s final months: Battlefield losses mounted, Lincoln won reelection, Confederate desperation grew, and after Richmond fell, a kidnapping plot became untenable. Booth found his own plot competing with another to blow up a portion of the White House during a Cabinet session. Prindle identifies the only official who could have authorized either plan, other than Davis himself: Benjamin, who escaped to England with a fortune from the Confederate treasury. Prindle, an author of three novels, displays fluent storytelling, rendering familiar history as a page-turner. His abundant endnotes and synthesis of obscure details ably reflect his 30-year avocation of studying and lecturing about the Civil War as an independent scholar.

A retired justice of the peace, Prindle’s granular accounting of the military tribunal, the executions of the conspirators, and the legal aftermath showcases his full skill set and typifies his discerning approach. Throughout, he gives competing views their due and carefully supports his own. Prindle’s conclusion relies on an “unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence,” as he admits, but readers need not be wholly persuaded to find it worthwhile reading.

A strong argument that deserves a spot in every Civil War buff’s library.

EAT LESS WATER The Solution to Worldwide Water Shortages Is in Our Kitchens

BOOTH’S CONFEDERATE CONNECTIONS

Prindle, Sandy Pelican Publishing Company (256 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 20, 2019 978-1-4556-2473-7 This thorough appraisal of President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination addresses the theory that John Wilkes Booth was part of a multifaceted conspiracy directed by Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin.

Prindle (Revolution II, 2012, etc.) begins with the 1864 Dahlgren affair. After a failed Union raid on Richmond, Southerners published documents found on Union Army Lt. Col. Ulric Dahlgren’s corpse that mentioned a plan to destroy the city and kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet.

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Ramirez, Florencia Red Hen Press (264 pp.) $17.95 paper | Nov. 1, 2017 978-1-59709-039-1

A fascinating cornucopia of methods to reduce water use through organic propagation and preparation.

In exploring efforts toward reducing global consumption of the Earth’s most precious commodity, writer, blogger, and public policy researcher Ramirez has developed a bountiful, delectable road map of farming innovation and conservationist food preparation. The Earth is two-thirds water, mostly saline, and by 2030, it’s estimated that half the world will experience freshwater scarcity. Preservation is a key conservation concern, writes the author, who regularly attends Earth Day events and promotes water-saving items like shower timers. After focusing on water-waste prevention in bathrooms, Ramirez, recognizing that “seven out of every ten gallons of water is used for food

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The author augments her own polished verse with references, allusions, and outright quotes from a wide variety of sources. radial bloom

production,” redirected her efforts to the kitchen, where much more could be saved. In a text bolstered by documentation and suffused with a true creative passion for resource preservation, the author presents a series of chapters on the interaction and integration of water with a variety of foods, liquids, production processes, and “on-the-edge farming.” Ramirez fully immerses herself in her subject with eye-opening field trips to resourceful water-sustainable croplands across America. Among them, a California dry biodynamic wheat farm thriving through the advent of cover cropping, a trailblazing rice farm, an aquaponic ranch in the Texas Plain, a “green” egg farming operation, and a Hawaiian organic shade-grown coffee plantation. Concerned conservationists, environmental and agricultural activists, and everyday farmers and consumers alike will be enticed by Ramirez’s passionately delivered and convincing combination of charming narrative, strategic resource preservation techniques, and pages of recipes ideas from crustless cheesecake to spinach quiche and chicken tortilla soup. “Be part of a change that will make a difference in creeks, rivers, groundwater, and oceans across the planet,” she encourages. “Start tonight at your kitchen table.”

Impeccable writing and practical, relevant, planetfriendly alternatives to reducing water consumption in cooking and agricultural production.

RADIAL BLOOM

Ratto Parks’ (Song of Days, Torn and Mended, 2015, etc.) mosaic novel pieces together the inner life of a woman through a succession of prose poems.

After alliteratively establishing her “normalcy” in the prologue—“Before you know the rest, you should know this: I live in a pleasant house on a quiet street in a modern-day Mayberry with mountains”—Ratto Parks’ protagonist proceeds to tell of her most irregular inner being in a series of poetic vignettes. The pieces focus on a man, perhaps a muse, perhaps a ghost, or maybe an adult version of an imaginary friend, a conjured personification of cravings, desires, and thwarted fulfillment; he is sometimes a lover, sometimes cruel, and sometimes just a friend playing catch with a baseball. Ratto Parks’ work is contemplative and original: “I sat at the end of the long hall of myself watching my life while I witnessed all of those sacred places invaded” or “the silent ghost of old traffic made every sound bright.” She augments her own polished verse with references, allusions, and outright quotes from a wide variety of people and sources: Dante, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, R.M. Rilke, and even John Wayne. Hallucinatory and dreamlike, the author repeatedly considers themes of loss either in water (“Then we finally gave in to the stones in our pockets and we sank through the salt brine”) or simply into thin air (“off like kites blowing endless through the ether”). Throughout, her |

FINDING CLAIRE FLETCHER

Regan, Lisa Thomas & Mercer (396 pp.) $15.95 paper | $4.99 e-book | Jul. 25, 2017 978-1-5420-4610-7 Suspense novelist Regan (Aberra­ tion, 2013, etc.) tells the story of a woman victimized by a twisted kidnapper and sexual predator.

At the book’s outset, readers find out that Claire Fletcher was kidnapped on her way to school 10 years ago, when she was 15. In the very next chapter, set in the present, 25-year-old Claire is in a bar, where she seduces offduty Detective Connor Parks of the Sacramento Police Department, whose own personal and professional life is in shambles.

They have a tryst at his apartment, but she quickly leaves so that she can return to her kidnapper before he realizes that she’s missing; she leaves Connor with her family’s address, trying to let them know that she’s still alive. When he finds out about Claire’s true situation, he becomes determined to find her. He gets help from his buddies on the force and from private investigator Mitch Farrell, an old family friend of the Fletchers. Claire was abducted by a twisted man with a dark past. For years, he’s been tying Claire up and brutalizing her—all the while declaring his love for her and telling her that she will come to love him. Eventually, though, she’s allowed a very small amount of freedom—which she uses to her advantage. Her kidnapper is assisted by a young woman named Tiffany, a runaway who sees Claire as a rival. The story effectively toggles between firstperson narration (from Claire’s point of view, in captivity) and a third-person perspective, which usually focuses on Connor.

Regan’s pacing is a marvel—one moment, she’s lingering on the grotesque, brutal treatment of Claire, and the next, she shifts gears to show Connor’s frantic pursuit of the kidnapper. The latter is truly a monster, and his portrayal will disturb readers’ sleep. Claire, meanwhile, is believably shown to be gutsy and resourceful under conditions that would crush even the toughest people. Tiffany’s minor role becomes a star performance, mixing evil with apparent innocence.

A wonderfully written crime tale that favorably compares to the work of Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke, and Elmore Leonard.

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Ratto Parks, Amy Folded Word (84 pp.) $12.00 paper | Nov. 15, 2018 978-1-61019-114-2

dream man and dream land prove as fickle as reality. He often comes and goes at whim; appearing and disappearing without warning: “He was there after the rain, in the night lawns, thick and arcing, and I could feel him leaving me, falling away from the fabric of human air.”

Brilliant, at once dense and ethereal; rewards multiple readings.

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THE GIRL PRETENDING TO READ RILKE

FRONTAL MATTER Glue Gone Wild

Riddle, Barbara Pilgrim’s Lane Press (212 pp.) $9.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Oct. 13, 2013 978-0-615-90432-0

Samples, Suzanne Running Wild Press (262 pp.) $24.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Oct. 15, 2018 978-1-947041-24-0

Riddle debuts with a pleasantly offbeat coming-of-age novel that looks back at the changing roles of women in the 1960s.

In 1963, 19-year-old Bronwen Olwen has just completed her junior year in a prestigious Portland, Oregon, college and is heading to Boston for a prime summer internship in a biochemistry lab—and, not incidentally, a couple of months of living with her boyfriend, Eric Breuner. He’s four years older, ensconced in Harvard, and working toward a junior fellowship in the biology department, where he’s a superstar. Indeed, Bronwen is daunted by what she accepts as his intellectual superiority. But this summer, she’s decided to become an expert in the literary works of early 20th-century Bohemian-Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke as her nonscientific area of proficiency, because “All the scientists in Eric’s crowd had a little niche, a subarea of nontechnical knowledge on which they could hold forth.” Her boss, Felix, is a strange whirlwind of frenetic energy, always “rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.” Bronwen helps him with some problem experiments, enabling him to complete his long-overdue doctoral thesis. Her grueling hours at the lab prove more gratifying than her time spent with the obnoxiously arrogant Eric and his cohort of pseudo-intellectual male scientists. However, it takes a series of crises to force her to reexamine her life. Although Riddle’s narrative is often humorous and frequently quirky, it also offers a stark reminder of the scientific community’s treatment of women joining its ranks in the ’60s.

For example, Felix can’t fathom why Bronwen would choose to study science given her other options: “Girls don’t just whimsically decide to give up a social life and nice clothes to hang around in smelly hellholes with slavedrivers like me ordering them around.” Throughout, Riddle mixes solid, straightforward storytelling with long, stream-of-consciousness sections in which the omniscient narrator jumps into Bronwen’s chaotic mental meanderings. The run-on sentences in the latter can be confusing at times, but they effectively reflect the protagonist’s inner struggle as familiar young adult angst meets bubbling social change.

A whimsical, funny, and poignant historical novel.

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A North Carolina woman re-examines her life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness in this memoir.

“Everything was fine. And then everything went to shit within twenty minutes,” Samples (English/ Appalachian State Univ.; A Mad Girl’s Love Song, 2016, etc.) writes of a fateful leg seizure at the age of 36 that ended with her in the hospital, diagnosed with brain cancer. Before that, she was enjoying her life teaching and writing and being part of a roller derby team. Her medical dramas revolved around Type 1 diabetes and her love-hate relationship with her endocrinologist. But now everything changed; as she puts it, “Diabetes is a slow, drawn-out death; cancer is a quick blow.” She writes in percussive sentences that jump from her diagnosis and treatment to moments further in the past and other stray thoughts.

She mused on the secret sex lives of her nurses and re-evaluated relationships as a parade of friends, family, and exes came to visit her. She dwells most notably on Chole (pronounced “Cole”) the “narcissistic sociopath” with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. She tells of Uber drivers who offered to pray for her, her partying sister who sent her drunken texts about conspiracy theories, and how she spoke directly to her own brain tumor, asking for its opinion on the life that it might be cutting short. “This is not a Tuesday with Morrie,” she writes, speaking to the existential weight and poetic form of her writing. At times, Samples repeats simple sentence structures over and over, like a record that has broken, but she marries this with short, smoothly written vignettes that manage to be frightening, sad, and humorous, all at once. At one point, for example, a nurse confuses her asymmetrical haircut for brain-surgery prep gone wrong. Samples also bravely commits to paper her darkest thoughts about dying and the most humiliating physical moments of her illness. Overall, her memoir perfectly reflects the chaos of her experience, but she guides readers through it by staying true to her belief that “honest writing is good writing.”

A uniquely poetic memoir with dark humor and profound insights.

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Schlack recounts her ideological journey with humor and nuance throughout this sometimes-wry, sometimes-lyrical memoir. this all-at- onceness

MY TODDLER’S FIRST WORDS A Step-by-Step Guide To Jump-Start, Track, and Expand Your Toddler’s Language

LARRY AND BOB

Schaufeld, Karen Illus. by Schwarz, Kurt Quidne Press (60 pp.) $19.95 | $5.95 e-book | Jun. 15, 2016 978-0-9972299-0-5

Scanlon, Kimberly O. CreateSpace (146 pp.) $12.95 paper | May 24, 2019 978-1-978371-90-3

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special issue: best books of 2019

Scanlon (Gratitude Journal for Kids, 2019, etc.), a pediatric speech-language pathologist, presents a guide to help parents understand, analyze, and enhance their children’s language development.

Learning one’s native tongue is an integral part of childhood—and one that often worries parents. Scanlon has created a rich handbook and workbook to give parents “competence and confidence” in language instruction. She begins by educating readers about early childhood language in order to show parents what to expect from their children and thus select appropriate “target words” for them. The author also provides four work sheets, designed to quickly analyze a toddler’s current level of language learning and determine directions for future growth. The next section is vital, as it lays out eight techniques to elicit first words (such as “Pause in Anticipation” and “Imitate, imitate, imitate”) as well as tips on creating a language-rich environment. Parents may already be employing some of these techniques on their own, but Scanlon effectively demonstrates each one to give readers clear notions of her language-enriching tools. The ideas for creating a language-rich environment, such as “hanging interesting pictures, postcards, maps, or photographs on walls…and chatting about them,” seem particularly beneficial. Finally, Scanlon provides a 30-day workbook that includes weekly planning sections and reviews and simple, repeated questions for each day, such as “What three things did I do today to encourage my toddler’s first words?” and “What will I do tomorrow to stimulate or further develop my toddler’s first words?” Throughout, the author draws heavily on peerreviewed research, yet she always makes the material easy to comprehend. The tone is consistently positive and encouraging even when the author discusses touchy topics, such as limiting screen time. Lastly, the work’s intuitive organization and creative formatting make it a comfortable reading experience.

An exceptional parenting book with clear-cut applications.

Two animal fathers form an unusual friendship in this quirky but touching picture book from author Schaufeld and illustrator Schwarz (The Lollipop Tree, 2013).

Larry is a bald eagle guarding his egg in a tall tree. Bob is a smallmouth bass, “protecting 19,003 eggs” in the river below.

When Larry catches Bob, the fish doesn’t simply accept his fate as a meal; he appeals to Larry, “dad to dad,” agreeing to let the eagle eat him in one year, after his own fry are grown. Larry is skeptical but makes the deal, and ultimately, this decision saves the life of his chick, Larry Junior, whom Bob later rescues when he falls into the river. When Bob finally goes to meet his fate, Larry can’t eat him—after all, the fish saved his son. Instead, they form an unlikely friendship. The eagle confesses that, as a solitary bird, he feels lonely, and Bob, despite being surrounded by other fish, reveals that he feels the same. For years, the predator and prey meet at a rock, swim and fly upstream together, and talk about their problems. But eventually, Bob’s age catches up with him, and he asks Larry to take him on one last flight. Overall, this is a touching story, and Schaufeld tells it in a calm, melodic style. The placement of the two male characters as caregivers and primary parents puts a nice spin on gender expectations. Schwarz’s realistic paintings are beautifully rendered and include some exquisite landscapes. Kids will enjoy finding the dragonfly that Schwarz has hidden on each page, but adults will appreciate the illustrator’s unique eye; for example, several paintings show the fish’s perspective from underwater, and the textured results are suitable for framing.

A well-constructed book that depicts a healthy male friendship.

THIS ALL-AT-ONCENESS

Schlack, Julie Wittes Regal House Publishing (238 pp.) $15.95 paper | May 31, 2019 978-1-947548-51-0 Youthful, left-wing idealism subsides into pragmatic careerism before returning in unexpected ways in this memoir.

At the start of this book, Schlack, the founder of market-research firm C Space, thinks back to growing up in a Jewish neighborhood in suburban Montreal and in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the 1960s. To her, it was an idyllic time despite the political and countercultural chaos around her. She recalls vacations at her family’s Quebec lake house, long evenings shooting the breeze with friends about possible UFO sightings, and youthful romance at a progressive summer camp. In high school and college, she got caught up in the anti-war movement, and

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she “went from flower child to anti-imperialist to ambivalent Maoist a few years later,” she says. She also wrestled with radical feminist stances on makeup, shaving, and traditional marriage.

The author carried her political commitments into the 1970s and ’80s when, married with kids, she worked at factories while trying to sway workers to her militant leftism—an effort that fizzled in the Reagan era. The narrative then skips ahead to the 2000s and Schlack’s career in tech startups and marketing—a milieu of moral ambiguity and hope. She felt heartened by the Occupy movement, appalled by Donald Trump, and conflicted over her role in a capitalist society that might be “ready to sacrifice the planet and the lives of younger generations to satisfy… limitless greed.” Schlack recounts her ideological journey with humor and nuance throughout this sometimes-wry, sometimeslyrical memoir. She riffs on what she sees as foibles of progressive dogma as well as absurdities of corporate culture, including a darkly hilarious incident in which a con woman almost financially destroyed the company where she worked. Schlack’s graceful prose balances cleareyed reflection with luminous passages that celebrate past passions, such as this one about the aforementioned summer camp: “As I try to summon up how I felt being there, what gets revived is the shocking carnality of my first French kiss, the energy stoked by being part of a group and feeling myself to be a pulsing cell in a larger organism.”

A thoughtful, witty, and evocative recollection of a life and the convictions that energized it.

FROM THE MIDWAY Unfolding Stories of Redemption and Belonging

Seligman, Leaf Bauhan Publishing (224 pp.) $22.50 paper | Sep. 5, 2019 978-0-87233-296-6

A collection of linked short stories about a cut-rate carnival show traveling through the American South during the early 20th century.

In 1910, patent medicine salesman Earl Beasley launches a “Traveling Amusements” show, and his first “human attractions” are people whom he’d been unable to cure with his concoctions.

Earl’s sons, Stan, Tom, and Earl Jr., take over in 1912, and they continue the family business with ruthless hucksterism, amassing a collection of people whom they market under such names as “Flipper Boy,” “Hammer Toe,” and “Lizard Man.” Each has a unique, poignant story, rooted in social segregation and a desire for autonomy and connection. Julian Henry, the aforementioned “Lizard” person, is embittered by both his father’s revulsion and his mother’s adulation. Tiny Laveaux, billed as the “World’s Smallest Woman,” escapes the tawdry reality of her daily exposure to the gawking public via transcendent sex with the armless “Hammer Toe.” Beulah Divine, the “World’s Largest Woman,” who’s perpetually forced to remain heavy by the profit-hungry Beasleys, endures a barrage of mocking taunts by cherishing a private secret—her real name. Cheever, 48

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an African-American roustabout, ran away from his difficult life as a sharecropper, only to find that the carnival is just another type of bondage. Seligman’s (A Pocket Book of Prompts, 2015, etc.) episodic narrative hangs on themes of loneliness, suffering, and the ascendance of human kindness. Although the setting might give rise to fears of stereotyping or sensationalism, each character emerges as a complex person who’s part of an unconventional but still familiar community. Seligman’s prose is vivid and captivating, as when she describes Julian’s first encounter with Tiny: “her eyes darting every which way until they landed on him like great splats of rain.” Her portrayal of a society teetering between the past and the future is subtle, and although many of the characters’ stories are sad, there are recurring moments of gentleness.

A riveting fictional meditation on the persistent drive to find acceptance and connection.

SECOND-CHANCE SAM King of the Junkyard

Sky, JoAnn Illus. by Tatulli, John Dogs & Books (25 pp.) $14.95 | $4.99 e-book | Aug. 13, 2019 978-0-9998430-4-8 A lonely canine gets a new lease on life in this picture book.

Sam is an adult shelter dog who dreams of having a family.

He wonders if the reason the young pups get adopted instead of him, when he’s already trained to fetch and sit, is because he has a crooked leg. When an elderly man who walks with a cane visits the shelter, he recognizes Sam as a kindred spirit.

Sam is thrilled, but his hopes are dashed when he realizes that his new home is a small shack next to a junkyard instead of the mansion he imagined. But as the man says: “We both know that sometimes things aren’t what they seem.” Sam soon discovers joy and “treasures” at the messy junkyard, finding a purpose, friends, and love. Sam’s initial struggle to see past the first impressions of his new life, despite having been the subject of that same type of scrutiny, rings true, and the sage old man’s words form the core of this touching story. Sky’s (Santa’s Dog, 2018, etc.) rhyming stanzas scan beautifully throughout, making this an easy read-aloud for group sharing. The rescue tale also features a vocabulary that’s approachable for newly independent readers. Tatulli’s (Fireworks in the Night, 2016) playful cartoon art, populated by animals and humans of all colors and ages, captures Sam’s spirit perfectly.

A moving tribute to shelter dogs, the humans who love them, and the wisdom of looking beyond outward appearances.

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For many Americans who are unfamiliar with Islam, Slocum’s book is a first-rate primer. why do they hate us?

WHY DO THEY HATE US? Making Peace With the Muslim World

THE WOMAN IN THE PARK

Slocum, Steve Top Reads Publishing (240 pp.) $12.78 paper | $8.99 e-book | Jul. 2, 2019 978-0-9986838-6-7

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In Sorkin and Holmqvist’s debut thriller, a married woman meets an alluring stranger and later becomes a criminal suspect.

Manhattanite Sarah Rock is certain that her husband, Eric, has been having an affair with his co-worker Juliette. Sarah, who has suffered from depression in the past, is experiencing “blackout periods” and having nightmares about her spouse and his suspected mistress. As a result, she’s been seeing therapist Helena Robin for months. With her two children away at boarding school, Sarah feels like she’s lost her sense of purpose. Then, one day in Central Park, she meets a handsome, charming man named Lawrence. Despite the brevity of their initial, platonic encounter, Sarah can’t get the stranger off her mind, and subsequent parkbench rendezvous quickly lead to an affair. Weeks later, the police visit Sarah to ask her questions about a missing person case. They’re looking for a woman whom Sarah has seen at the park; it turns out that Lawrence may have a connection to her, so Sarah is reluctant to tell the cops anything. More bombshells follow, and after the cops accuse Sarah of a very serious crime, she starts to realize that her sense of reality may be distorted. The authors’ sharply written and persistently tense tale is divided into two parts: The first follows Sarah’s growing relationship with Lawrence, and the latter offers a series of shocking revelations. Throughout, Sarah is an enigmatic, continually evolving protagonist. Readers are privy to Dr. Robin’s periodic notes, for example, which make it clear that Sarah has something buried in her past. Still, Sarah remains sympathetic, as her candid perspective makes her eventual paranoia seem reasonable. Her emotional responses are raw and convincing, as when she cries alone in a parking lot or examines her body for presumed flaws. Some readers will likely foresee a major plot turn before Sarah does, but her valiant attempts to make sense of what’s happening spark unexpected twists.

A delightfully complex mystery with a compelling protagonist.

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An exploration of Islamic beliefs and history that aims to challenge American Islamophobia.

Debut author Slocum, a former Christian missionary to Kazakhstan, writes that he was horrified at ignorant depictions of Muslims in American media after the 9/11 attacks. During his years as a missionary, he “never changed anyone’s mind to become a believer in the Bible,” he says, but his newfound Muslim friends left an indelible mark on his own life—particularly, the fact that their culture prized hospitality toward strangers.

The book begins by subverting popular American conceptions of Sharia law by rooting it in social justice, centered on protecting the poor and weak. Similarly, Islam’s “greater jihad,” he says, is not a literal holy war (a term first coined by Christian Crusaders) but rather “the internal struggle of living a life that is pleasing to God.” The book’s middle chapters offer a survey of Islamic history from Muhammad through the present day, highlighting both the wonders of the Islamic Golden Age and the horrors of European colonialism. To Slocum, the birth of the “dark blight” of Wahhabism in the 18th century marked a decisive turning point. Although the moderate Muslim majority rejected this absolutist ideology, he says, it gained traction in Saudi Arabia at the same approximate time that the West undergirded a Saudi monarchy linked with Wahhabism. Central to the book’s analysis of radical Islam is the notion that it’s a force of the West’s own making, from their support of the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to their installation of a brutal monarch in Iran. In doing so, Slocum is particularly deft at challenging the tropes that Islamic radicals hate American freedom or that Islam is an inherently violent religion. Although many in the West tend to associate Islam with Arabs, this book highlights not only the faith’s ideological diversity, from Sunnis to Shias to Ahmadis, but also Muslims’ ethnic diversity; only about 10% of the world’s Muslims hail from Arabic nations. Of course, none of this will be new to Islamic scholars or historians of the Middle East, but to many Americans who are unfamiliar with the topic, this is a first-rate primer.

A clear, concise, and thoughtful introduction to Islam.

Sorkin, Teresa & Holmqvist, Tullan Beaufort Books (224 pp.) $24.95 | Aug. 26, 2019 978-0-8253-0899-4

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THE BURDEN OF HATE

Starbuck, Helen Routt Street Press (216 pp.) $15.99 paper | 4.99 e-book Sep. 16, 2019 978-0-9992461-1-5

In her latest mystery-series entry, Starbuck (No Pity in Death, 2018, etc.) presents a slow-building tale of an escaped killer and a murdered priest.

Operating room nurse Annie Collins and assistant district attorney Angel Cisneros are about to be married when news comes that Ian Patterson, whom they’d been instrumental in putting away, has escaped from prison and is likely bent on revenge. Indeed, at the wedding reception, Ian shoots Angel, just missing his heart, and escapes. Thus begins almost 200 pages of taut suspense. The elusive Ian is always one step ahead of the cops as he taunts Annie with letters and surprise appearances, and Angel and Annie are soon at their wits’ end. Meanwhile, the Rev. Andrew Bingham, the young priest who was supposed to marry the couple but was called away at the last minute, is later found murdered. Annie gets involved in that case, of course, as she has the soul of a detective. Although everyone seemed to like Father Andrew, her digging unearths some revelatory details about his past. Detail and pacing are Starbuck’s strong suits, and she effectively shows how Ian’s threats of violence affect Annie and Angel’s relationship; their tempers flare as their fatigue and despair grow, and at one point, Annie wants to simply give herself up to Ian to have it over and done with. Indeed, Annie initially involves herself in the investigation into Father Andrew’s murder as an attempt to relieve her unrelenting fear. A final twist in the latter case shows a subtle appreciation of human nature and how relationships can become toxic. Overall, Annie is a wonderful fictional creation, and one hopes that she and Angel become a classic husbandand-wife crime-solving team.

A thriller that offers a master class in suspense.

THE THEORETICS OF LOVE

Taylor, Joe NewSouth Books (376 pp.) $28.95 | $8.69 e-book | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-58838-330-3

When a “puzzling glut of ritual murders” occurs in the area, Clarissa becomes a consultant to the Lexington police. She and Sgt. Willy Cox begin a relationship that’s later rocked by mutual infidelities and jealousies. Clarissa analyzes skeletons found in a mass grave, which could relate to a rumored “blood cult” from the early 1970s. These rumors are confirmed by a former hippie, Methuselah, who attended the university in that era. In a local forest shack, two dead bodies are discovered that have been there for a considerable length of time—an apparent double suicide. Meanwhile, a mentally ill man stalks a female student; another woman lives in his boardinghouse whom Clarissa dubs “Petite Artiste,” as she often stands outside and sketches Clarissa’s rented house—the same house where a woman whose body was found at the mass gravesite used to live. Another female boarder is romantically obsessed with the artist, and secretly follows her.

At the same time, three English students share a house—seemingly a separate story, yet their lives have points of connection with other characters, too. And an old man becomes a Lexington street-corner prophet, his stream of phrases taken as oracular by growing crowds.

As these various mysteries and relationships unfold, are solved, remain obscure, or end in violence or romance, characters consider the nature of chance and patterns. Along the way, Taylor (Pineapple, 2017, etc.) tells an entertainingly complicated, interwoven story that is, by turns, funny, horrifying, and tender. Philosophy, physics, literature, and historical events, such as the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, all play roles, making this a novel of ideas as well as a complex murder mystery. One of its chief ideas is the question of how much people actually contribute to pattern-making, rather than simply perceiving it. At one point, for instance, Methuselah, in a spot that was once occupied by a Civil War monument, comments on the “fermenting connection among a renegade Confederate general, his stallion, a methhead, and a hoaryhaired gent babbling unrelated babbles. Obviously, my friend Willy the dashing detective was getting to me with his Jungian synchronicities.” Different narrators, each with his or her own style, swap around storytelling duties, providing checks on different points of view as well as skillful revelations of character. It is somewhat disappointing when it’s revealed that a key to Clarissa’s character is repressed childhood trauma, which feels like an overused plot device. However, this is a relative quibble among so much inventive brio.

An intelligent, deeply felt, quirky, and original novel that lives up to its ambitions.

A forensic anthropologist encounters a series of complicated interconnections in this novel.

Dr. Clarissa Circle, an English major– turned–forensic anthropologist, has a mantra: “No one ever touches anyone.” She insists on it as her guiding principle, but it’s often questioned by other characters and tested by events, which connect to one another in numerous ways. In 1999, at age 32, Clarissa begins her first postdoctoral job as a new professor at the University of Kentucky.

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SAVE OUR SHIP

MY SISTER’S MOTHER A Memoir of War, Exile, and Stalin’s Siberia

Ungar, Barbara The Ashland Poetry Press (71 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 21, 2019 978-0-912592-74-9

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In this heart-wrenching debut memoir, a mother and child survive Stalin’s work camp then struggle to find inner calm in America.

As a child growing up in 1950s Chicago, Urbikas longed for a “normal” mom. Instead, her Polish-born mother, Janina, often told gruesome war stories and talked to herself in the mirror. But as Urbikas matured and suffered her own hardships, she began to understand her mother’s need to recount her past. On the extremely cold morning of Feb. 10, 1940, Communist soldiers pounded on Janina’s farmhouse door near Grodno, Poland, and informed her—a young, single mother—that she was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. She and 5-year-old daughter Mira were stuffed into lice-ridden train cars and taken to a remote logging camp in the Siberian wilderness. Fed little and plagued by vermin, disease, and blistering cold, Janina lugged a heavy ax 4 miles to and from work every day, where she chopped thick branches off trees. Meanwhile, poor little Mira was left by herself to wait in agonizing bread lines, often unsuccessfully. After years of torture, Janina and Mira—helped by a Polish army officer who eventually married Janina—escaped to England and then America. Urbikas’ flashbacks are seamless as she alternates chapters between her mother’s and sister’s stories—written in third person—versus her own first-person account. With many vivid sensory details—like “the grainy taste of…coarse rye bread”—the author’s lyrical prose instantly transports readers to the labor camp. This gripping page-turner is also filled with stark contrasts. For example, in the camp, Mira and Janina sleep together on a dirty, bedbug-infested cot, and when Janina feels a rat scrabble across her chest, she can barely lift her tired arm to heave it onto the floor. In contrast, one of Urbikas’ biggest worries is making the majorettes team in her American high school.

A realistic depiction of the effects of evil, Janina’s and Mira’s experiences are sometimes overwhelming. In one scene, a tiny girl drowns and nobody helps.

A painfully beautiful portrayal of an indomitable, loving mother’s survival.

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special issue: best books of 2019

A collection of 57 poems that sound alarms about current ecological, political, and cultural trends.

Ungar (English/Coll. of Saint Rose; Immortal Medusa, 2015, etc.) provides helpful notes to explain her inspirations for this impressive volume of free verse, which includes transgressive female voices of the past and present; Cassandra, Emily Dickinson, and Audre Lorde make appearances. Alphabetical order is a recurring theme, as is Morse code. The title poem makes reference to rising, polluted seas; the placement of seven lines of “SOS” in Morse code seems to form waves. Environmental disasters are another urgent concern, as seen in “Endnotes to Coral Reefs” and “Naming the Animals,” a partial list of extinct species that ends with a gut punch: “Four species an hour.” Language is also under attack, as revealed in “Elegy,” which alphabetically lists words eliminated from the Oxford Junior Dictionary (“bluebell,” “buttercup”) and arrays them as if they’re drifting away. In contrast, newly included words (“blog,” “broadband”) are clustered in a solid block of text. Clever manipulation of language, space, and punctuation abounds. “Quoth the Queane” riffs on the letter Q, while “To You, U” explores the personal and linguistic history of Ungar’s initial. “Après Moi” offers 21 variations on the phrase “Let them eat cake”— with “cake” replaced by evocative signifiers, such as “bump stocks,” “the lying press,” “tax returns,” “opiates,” and “paper towels.” Dystopian poems will resonate with many readers, such as “The Woman With a Live Cockroach in her Skull” and its slippery preposition: “She wakes screaming / each morning at the news.” “Man Bun Ken” is a humorous meditation on the fate of the latest iteration of Barbie’s companion: “Future archaeologists / may stumble upon his simulacra / & mistake him for a shape-shifting god.” The book is full of keen insights regarding the passage of time, whether one is attending a wedding with one’s first boyfriend, taking a nostalgic walk through the West Village, or observing a spider and her web. Overall, Ungar suggests that language and memory are futile attempts to impose order on the chaos that surrounds us.

A distress call that’s worth reading and heeding.

Urbikas, Donna Solecka Univ. of Wisconsin (312 pp.) $26.95 | $19.95 paper | $11.99 e-book Apr. 27, 2016 978-0-299-30850-6 978-0-299-30854-4 paper

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Wagner-Wright’s creativity brings an outstanding story of courage and fortitude to life. two coins

TWO COINS

FIND ME THEIR BONES

Wagner-Wright, Sandra Wagner Wright Enterprises (504 pp.) $17.99 paper | $4.99 e-book Feb. 1, 2019 978-0-9963845-4-4

Wolf, Sara Entangled: Teen (400 pp.) $17.99 | $7.99 e-book | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-64063-375-9

In this riveting historical novel based on true events, political tensions in a Scottish mission in 19th-century Calcutta, India, give rise to a sexual scandal.

Mary Pigot has been the superintendent of the Ladies’ Association Female Mission in Calcutta for 10 years before the Rev. William Hastie arrives in 1879. Hastie, the principal of the Scottish College, quickly finds fault with Pigot’s policies, practices, and mannerisms; for example, he feels that the orphanage that she manages isn’t up to Scottish standards of cleanliness. Hastie and his comrades also don’t agree with her proselytizing approach: “educate first, convert later—if ever.” Nor does Pigot share Hastie’s resentment toward members of the Free Church, which broke away from the Church of Scotland in 1843. She’s quick to assist anyone who needs help—even members of the local community whom Hastie finds questionable. The growing friction between Pigot and Hastie culminates in a formal investigation of the superintendent followed by libelous claims that she’s abusive, neglectful, incompetent, and immoral. Due to her casual demeanor with male colleagues, her enemies accuse her of “fornication” with an Indian man and a fellow missionary. To clear her name and take back her position, Pigot takes Hastie to court, leading to an unpredictable, sensational trial. Although the book is set in the 1800s, its approach to political, religious, cultural, and gender-related issues is surprisingly relevant. Wagner-Wright (Rama’s Labyrinth, 2015, etc.) paints India’s culture and climate in stunning detail: “March comes on like a slow fire. Another week, and we’ll have the humidity.” The realistic, intricate characters take turns narrating the tale, panoramically revealing themselves through their perceptions. At one point, for example, Hastie narrates, “I stop and take a breath, composing myself for this audience of fools.” The plot’s first half proceeds at an unhurried pace, but when the trial starts, its momentum resembles that of a competitive sporting event. Wagner-Wright’s extensive research allows her to stay remarkably true to history while her creativity brings an outstanding story of courage and fortitude to life.

A powerful story with a vivid setting, compelling plot, and multifaceted characters.

In this second book of Wolf ’s (Bring Me Their Hearts, 2018, etc.) fantasy/ romance series, a spirited, undead teen suffers the consequences of earlier perfidy.

Nineteen-year-old Zera has revealed her true form. She’s “Heartless”—an unkillable human puppet in thrall to a witch. Her task was to take Prince Lucien of Cavanos’ heart, but instead, she fell in love with him; saving him, yes, but only after deceiving and betraying him. Now that she’s failed in her mission, Zera is expecting death when her witch severs the connection between them.

Instead, she finds herself beholden to a new mistress—Lucien’s sister, Princess Varia, who’s returned from the dead and is determined to enforce a peace between humans and witches. Varia seeks the Bone Tree, a peripatetic talisman through which she will command an army of valkerax (gargantuan wyrms). To find the Bone Tree, Zera—on Varia’s behalf—must find out its location from a half-crazed valkerax. Yet if she does, what further pain may befall Lucien? Zera resolves to keep the prince safe, so no matter the cost to herself, she holds him at a distance.

Despite her duplicity, Lucien still has feelings for her. If she does Varia’s bidding, Zera will be made whole again—and is any love worth more than that? After the cliffhanger at the end of the last installment, Wolf resumes her story with aplomb in a continuation that’s both faithful to the first novel yet also a clear progression. The plot is twisty but not contrived, and the subject matter, though emotionally heavy, never feels as such, as it’s lightened

by Zera’s confident humor and breezy, present-tense narration.

She’s a strong protagonist who’s at once willful and selfless and buoyed by an irrepressible bent for badinage. Wolf introduces some new characters in this book, and they take delight in Zera’s sassy nature, just as readers will.

A seriously fun concoction of tragedy and melodrama.

NOW I SAY GOODBYE TO YOU

Wright, Brooks Blurb (354 pp.) $15.95 paper | Oct. 16, 2018 978-1-389-06047-2

A homeless man comes tantalizingly close to his old life and happiness only to question that joy.

In this novel, Wright (The Sky Is Far Away, 2018, etc.) gives readers a homeless, nameless man trying to survive after the mother of all housing bubbles has burst. He is somewhere in Florida, breaking into foreclosed houses in search of food.

He has bottomed out: He’s lost his job and his family and even 52

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spent a year in prison. He has also lost all hope and wants only to be left alone. Then he comes upon a little girl—as hungry and thirsty as he is—in an abandoned house. Try as he might, he cannot bring himself to desert her. He finds an abandoned cabin and a job with a guy who is scrapping a nearby defunct amusement park, Fun-O-Rama (a wonderful metaphor). The girl, whose name readers finally learn is Jessie, is severely traumatized and mute. Ever so slowly, she begins to trust the man (her first words to him: “Are you Jesus?”). When she falls sick, he gets her to a hospital. She recovers, but now the police are very interested in his relationship with this kid and in his past. Many more things happen, but it is his need for Jessie that drives it all. The ending is artistically risky but truer than the conclusion readers will probably crave. Wright is a flat-out wonderful writer.

The prose is crisp (“Unhappy should be a weather forecast like rain or snow”), the details spot-on, and the slow development meticulous. The nameless man—the first-person narrator—is an unforgettable character, always talking about the stories in life, like the “I Work Out and Exercise” and “Never Feed a Stray Animal” tales. He is in love with his bitterness but, try as he might, can’t excise his basic decency. This painful novel delivers heartbreak—but no sentimentality—and consummate thaumaturgy or, in the narrator’s words, “I’m both the magician and the trick.”

This tale of two survivors should move you, cajole you, upset you, and seduce you.

Wright, Catriona Nightwood Editions (256 pp.) $19.95 paper | $13.99 e-book Oct. 20, 2018 978-0-88971-339-0 Eclectic characters struggle with fluctuating careers and relationships in this collection of short stories.

When an unemployed English teacher in “Content Moderator” is desperate for work, an old high school friend has a job for her. But evaluating disturbing online images and videos that people have reported may be more than the unnamed narrator can handle. Seemingly innocuous individuals in Wright’s (Table Manners, 2017) powerful book often find themselves in arduous circumstances. In “Lean into the Mic,” for example, Amanda has been performing amateur stand-up comedy for two years. But the perpetually anxious woman isolates herself from others, compounding her already precarious marriage. Similarly, Angela, the titular, selfprofessed “Major Prude,” is nonplussed when her wilder friend Carla and her roommate/stepbrother, Liam, hook up. But the aftermath may threaten her relationships with both. These profound tales typically showcase resilient characters. Chrissie, in “Uncle Harris,” faces off against her estranged father’s brother, who she believes is plotting to take away her younger siblings. In the title story, a mandatory work event (a “talk” on |

THE LAST LETTER

Yarros, Rebecca Entangled: Amara (432 pp.) $10.57 paper | $7.99 e-book Feb. 26, 2019 978-1-64063-533-3 A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.

Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves.

Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by welldrawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle

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special issue: best books of 2019

DIFFICULT PEOPLE Stories

dealing with negativity) is an opportunity for a woman to come to terms with her brother’s recent fatal overdose. The author fills the pages with indelible prose and wry humor: Emily of “The Emilies” believes certain friendships are “as dutiful and potentially pointless as washing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.” Nevertheless, even the more comedic tales don’t forgo character insight. “Love Lasts Forever but a Tattoo Lasts Longer” features a decidedly unromantic wedding—near a prison visitation room with a priest who smells of hot dogs.

But the bride may prefer that her new husband stay in jail (“I’ll know where he is every second”). The final work, “Them,” is the collection’s highlight. In it, Kate is shocked to learn that her lesbian best friend, Taylor, now identifies as genderqueer and goes by the pronoun they. The absorbing story earnestly examines both Kate and Taylor, as the two must decide how this change will impact their lifelong friendship.

Potent, unforgettable tales and razor-sharp writing.

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Yocum skillfully varies the pace throughout this thriller and doesn’t shrink from brutal scenes of killings. valley of spies

but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing.

Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.

A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.

problem, about to become a grandfather, and still haunted by his own horrific childhood.

A taut, thoughtful thriller; third in a series but also works as a stand-alone.

VALLEY OF SPIES

Yocum, Keith Time Tunnel Media (328 pp.) $11.97 paper | $2.99 e-book May 12, 2019 978-0-9978708-3-1 Just months into early retirement from the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General, a former investigator accepts an agency contract to hunt for a missing person, one who knows his darkest secrets.

In Yocum’s (A Dark Place, 2018, etc.) third—and best yet—Dennis Cunningham thriller, Dennis finds that retirement and relocation to Perth, home of longtime girlfriend and Aussie policewoman Judy White, offers him a lifestyle so relaxed that it bores him. A mandatory meeting with the director of the CIA, whose flight has a stopover in Australia, livens things up. The director explains that Dr. Jane Forrester, a therapist approved to treat agency members, disappeared while visiting New Zealand. Key members of the CIA determine a specific foreign country is responsible for the abduction, and a counterstrike against that nation is likely. But before authorizing the attack, the director gives Dennis, who has a zest and a rep for tracking people down, two weeks to find Forrester—or discover what happened to her—and to confirm agency intel. The director explains there are lots of reasons why an adversary would want to get their hands on the therapist—she “knows too much about her patients. She knows their weaknesses, their vulnerabilities.” She, in fact, knew Dennis’—she had been his therapist.

The search for Forrester reconnects rough-around-the-edges Dennis with his former boss, Louise Nordland. The “tough, diminutive” ex-SEAL and Dennis had issues with each other in the past, but soon (sorry, Judy) sexual tension between the pair ramps up. Yocum skillfully varies the pace throughout this thriller and doesn’t shrink from brutal scenes of killings.

Dialogue rings true, and descriptions suit the genre: “He had a pronounced underbite that pushed his chin forward into a reptilian face.” Yocum metes out backstory organically, and his nonstandard characters range from a confident, sexy, blonde amputee to Dennis himself—known for a drinking 54

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fiction POSTSCRIPT

These titles earned the Kirkus Star:

Ahern, Cecelia Grand Central Publishing (304 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-5387-4659-2

GREENWOOD by Michael Christie.................................................... 60 JUST AFTER THE WAVE by Sandrine Collette; trans. by Alison Anderson......................................................................62 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE by Larry Kramer......................................72 THE GLASS HOTEL by Emily St. John Mandel..................................74 SAINT X by Alexis Schaitkin................................................................85 EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS by Peter Swanson..................................95 THE CITY WE BECAME by N.K. Jemisin........................................... 98 THE PRINCE OF BROADWAY by Joanna Shupe..............................100 THE WORST BEST MAN by Mia Sosa..............................................100

y o u n g a d u lt

Seven years after Holly’s husband’s death, fate brings her a strange opportunity to retrace her early days of grief. But will she discover that she hasn’t moved on after all?

Ahern (Lyrebird, 2016, etc.) returns to the story of her debut novel, P.S., I Love You (which inspired a movie, as well), in which Gerry Kennedy left 10 letters for Holly to find after his death—10 letters that eased her passage out of emotional paralysis. This sequel finds Holly building a new life, working at her sister’s vintage clothing store, biking the streets of Dublin after work each night, selling the house Gerry and she bought, and sharing the story of Gerry’s letters on her sister’s podcast. She’s found love with Gabriel, a burly yet sensitive tree surgeon. They are even ready to move in together.

When the podcast goes public, however, a group of terminally ill listeners asks her to teach them how to write letters to their soon-to-be-bereaved loved ones, too. As Holly struggles with whether to lead the P.S. I Love You Club, fearing that she will slip back toward her grief-stricken days, she has to confront whether she has really committed to Gabriel. But Ginika, an illiterate teen mom dying of cervical cancer, tugs hard at Holly’s heartstrings with her plea to teach her to write just one letter to her daughter, and Holly capitulates. As Holly encounters each of her newfound companions—ranging from a young man in remission to an elderly man in swift, emphysema-wracked decline—Ahern opens more doors to Holly’s lingering grief, pushing her to expand her social connections. But with Holly mentoring the writers rather than reacting to letters meant for her, Ahern’s tale pulls its emotional punch.

This well-intentioned but disappointingly sentimental sequel will delight only die-hard fans.

THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION by Daniel H. Wilson.....................62

THE CITY WE BECAME

Jemisin, N.K. Orbit (448 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-316-50984-8 |

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FOLLOW ME

truly alone?” Her popular account and active online persona have a downside, though: She’s got a stalker, one who is thrilled that she has moved to his town. Unfortunately, this is not the only implausible coincidence you’ll find here. Barber does provide a wide range of suspects to keep the reader guessing. Is Audrey’s stalker the creepy son of her landlord? An old friend of Cat’s or one of Cat’s co-workers? Or someone else entirely? Cat, meanwhile, has her own secrets and insecurities to hide. Narrated by Audrey and Cat and occasionally an ominous Him, the novel moves at a swift pace but requires a serious suspension of disbelief. Would a young woman really neglect to call the police when she catches a thief in her apartment? Still, despite such unlikely behavior, Barber invests her readers in the outcome.

A sometimes-implausible thriller that still keeps you guessing.

Barber, Kathleen Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-9821-0198-5 An Instagram influencer discovers the dangers of social media when she’s terrorized by a stalker after moving to a new city.

Audrey Miller lives her best life online in Barber’s (Are You Sleeping, 2017) second psychological thriller, a cautionary tale about the perils of social media. Audrey has just left her beloved Manhattan for Washington, D.C., to start a new job as head of social media at a Smithsonian art museum. She’s got longtime close friend Cat in the neighborhood, and Cat is always available for moral support despite her busy job as an attorney. Audrey also has old college boyfriend Nick, whom she can call when the nights get a little too lonely. But her millions of Instagram followers are what sustain her: “With a million friends at the palm of your hand, how could anyone ever feel

REMEMBERED

Battle-Felton, Yvonne Blackstone (254 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-9826-2712-6 Her son’s lynching during a 1910 streetcar strike takes a Philadelphia woman on a painful journey through her enslaved past.

As she sits by the hospital bedside of her dying son, Edward, Spring talks with the ghost of her sister Tempe, his birth mother. “I’m taking him home,” Tempe says, and she wants Spring to “lead him home” by telling Edward his family’s story. With the help of a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and personal testimonies she has collected, Spring begins with the story of Ella, a free woman kidnapped from Philadelphia in 1843 to lift the “curse” that keeps enslaved women on the Walker plantation barren. On the plantation, Ella develops an intimate, fraught relationship with Agnes, whose mother has been preventing pregnancies rather than see more children born enslaved. Nonetheless, Ella and Agnes both get pregnant; stymied in an attempt to escape, Ella drowns herself on the morning Spring and Tempe are born. The power of these scenes is muffled by several murky plot developments that flag a debut author’s imperfect control of her material. BattleFelton emulates Beloved by mingling a stark depiction of slavery’s cruelty with a folkloric portrait of African American culture, then adding an angry ghost, but she lacks Toni Morrison’s mastery of the complex narrative. However, the novel comes to a strong finish after an apocalyptic denouement on the Walker plantation at the end of the Civil War. Spring heads North with Tempe’s infant and is inspired to begin her scrapbook by fellow refugees’ stories of loved ones lost in the postwar chaos. In Philadelphia, she bitterly confront the limits of African American freedom in post-bellum society, limits also underscored in interpolated scenes showing how Edward got entangled in the strike. A lyrical vision of family reunion brings the novel to a moving conclusion.

Flawed but impressively ambitious and keening with emotion.

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MALICROIX

leaving, for three months. His ensuing stay makes up the bulk of this novel by Bosco, a writer long revered in his native France and who died in 1976. Bosco was nominated four times for the Nobel Prize in literature; this is widely regarded as his magnum opus. It is a slow and quiet novel given to long descriptions of wind and rain and the Rhône. Bosco never uses one word when, as the saying goes, he could use 20. Martial hasn’t brought so much as a book to occupy himself. He sinks into his solitary thought. “Everything around me was silent,” he says. “Nothing suggests unlimited space like silence. I entered that space. Sounds color an expanse and endow it with a kind of sonorous body.” And so on. After a while, Martial’s dreams become indistinguishable from his waking life.

There seem to be other figures on the island: Are they really there, or are they ghosts? Bosco doesn’t provide many hints. Readers partial to philosophical tangents will find much to enjoy here. Others may find themselves stranded.

Bosco’s novel is a work of tremendous lyricism, but his meditations can also grow ponderous.

Bosco, Henri Trans. by Zonana, Joyce New York Review Books (288 pp.) $17.95 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-68137-410-9

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A young man travels to a remote island to claim his inheritance.

Martial Mégremut can trace his heritage to two families: the gentle, even placid Mégremuts, whose name he bears, and the mysteriously wild Malicroix. When he hears that his great uncle, Cornélius de Malicroix, whom he has never met, has not only died, but also left him a small inheritance, he is intrigued: This Malicroix lived for more than a decade on a small island in the Rhône, with little human contact. Martial goes to the island, where he finds Balandran, a rough shepherd who served Malicroix, and Dromiols, an oddly hostile notary who has settled Malicroix’s accounts. Dromiols informs Martial that in order to keep the inheritance, he must stay on the island, without

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THE THIRD TO DIE

three days apart, every three years, has returned. With only six days to identify and catch the culprit, and only three days until he kills again, the team is “on a very tight clock.” What should be on-the-edge-of-your-seat suspense turns into a slog marred by pedestrian prose (“she heard nothing except birds chirping…”), a convoluted plot slowed down by a focus on dull bureaucratic infighting, and flat character development. The sole exception is the vividly drawn Kara. Smart, angry, defensive, complicated, she fascinates both the reader and Matt (“Kara Quinn was different—and he couldn’t put his finger on why”).

Inside this bloated novel is a lean thriller starring a strong and damaged protagonist who’s as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.

Brennan, Allison Harlequin MIRA (464 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-7783-0944-4 In Brennan’s (Nothing To Hide, 2019, etc.) new series launch, a hard-edged female LAPD undercover cop and an ambitious FBI special agent race to catch a serial killer before he strikes again.

On paid administrative leave since an incident with a suspect went wrong, a restless Detective Kara Quinn is on an early morning run in her hometown of Liberty Lake, Washington, when she discovers the flayed corpse of a young nurse. In D.C., FBI Special Agent in Charge Mathias Costa is staffing the new Mobile Response Team, designed to cover rural areas underserved by law enforcement, when his boss assigns Matt and analyst Ryder Kim to Liberty Lake. The notorious Triple Killer, who murders three random victims,

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THE CHILL

sirens wailing in the distance, the man warns Cassie: “Let her die, and I’ll let you live.” He then scrambles back to the road and flees in Cassie’s van. Using mug shots, Cassie identifies the thief and would-be killer as Carver Sweet, who is wanted for poisoning his wife. The Santa Rosa police assure Cassie of her safety, but the next evening, her husband, Sam, vanishes while trick-or-treating with their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey. Hours later, he sends texts apologizing and confessing to an affair, but although it’s true that Sam and Cassie have been fighting, she suspects foul play—particularly given the previous night’s events. Cassie files a report with the cops, but they dismiss her concerns, leaving Cassie to investigate on her own. After a convoluted start, Chavez embarks on a paranoia-fueled thrill ride, escalating the stakes while exploiting readers’ darkest domestic fears. The far-fetched plot lacks cohesion and relies too heavily on coincidence to be fully satisfying, but the reader will be invested in learning the Larkin family’s fate through to the toopat conclusion.

Chavez delivers a fraught if flawed page-turner that attempts too many twists.

Carson, Scott Emily Bestler/Atria (384 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-9821-0459-7

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In the pseudonymous Carson’s debut, something uncanny has awakened in the swelling depths of upstate New York’s Chilewaukee Reservoir, aka “The Chill.”

It’s been nearly 80 years since the town of Galesburg was flooded to build the Chilewaukee, and the town didn’t go easy. A small contingent of people rebelled, leading to shocking acts of violence.

Since then, an otherworldly evil has been waiting for the right time to take revenge against those responsible for destroying the town, which, on a clear day, can still be glimpsed just under the surface of the Chill. Opportunity presents itself in the form of Mick Fleming, chief engineer with the state’s division of dam safety, whose grandfather designed the dam. During an inspection, Mick’s concerns for the safety and integrity of the Chill— especially in light of recent unrelenting rain—are eclipsed by the appearance of a strange photographer who looks like a figure out of time, and Mick soon finds himself not quite in his right mind. Meanwhile, Gillian Mathers, an officer with the Department of Environmental Protection Police who has old familial ties to Galesburg, is sucked in when she responds to a report of an inexplicable murder at the dam that turns out to be something far stranger. Gillian, Mick, and others are soon drawn in by an insidious force, and inevitably, the sins of the past tragically collide with the present. The premise brims with creepy potential, and readers will learn more than they ever thought they wanted to know about dams and the challenges of harnessing a relentless force of nature that is often taken for granted. However, the meandering plot and muddled mythology eventually give way to scenes from a disaster film, with a thinly fleshed-out cast failing to provide the necessary emotional heft.

A waterlogged ghost tale.

NO BAD DEED

Chavez, Heather Morrow/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-06-293617-2 A good Samaritan incurs a psychopath’s wrath in this debut thriller.

Veterinarian Cassie Larkin is heading home after a 12-hour shift when someone darts in front of her car, causing her to dump her energy drink. As she pulls over to mop up the mess, her headlights illuminate a couple having a physical altercation. Cassie calls 911, but before help arrives, the man tosses the woman down an embankment. Ignoring the dispatcher’s instructions, Cassie exits the vehicle and intervenes, preventing the now-unconscious woman’s murder. With |

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Christie takes us to the end of the world and shows how we got there. greenwood

GREENWOOD

it’s because she descends not from the Greenwoods but from a founder of the all-encompassing Holtcorp, owner of Greenwood and much else, by way of her grandmother Willow. (Note all the woody names.) Therein hangs a tale that Christie staircases his narrative down to reach, generation by generation, one in which Jake’s antecedents love and admire the forests in which they dwell but still set into motion the machines that will one day ruin the Earth.

Willow is a free-spirited hippie whom we meet in the early 1970s, newly indignant to discover that the man she supposes is her father has derived his considerable fortune from having felled more oldgrowth forest than “wind, woodpeckers, and God—put together.”

But Willow—well, suffice it to say that the matter of her paternity isn’t at all clear-cut even if the forests her progenitors control have been. Christie skillfully teases out the details in a page-turner of a saga that complements sylvan books such as Sometimes a Great Notion and The Overstory, one that closes with Jake’s realization that, tangled lineage and all, a family is less a tree than “a collection of individuals pooling their resources through intertwined roots.”

Beguilingly structured, elegantly written: eco-apocalyptic but with hope that somehow we’ll make it.

Christie, Michael Hogarth/Crown (528 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-984822-00-0 Canadian novelist Christie (If I Fall, If I Die, 2015, etc.) takes us to the end of the world and shows how we got there.

“No one knows better than a dendrologist that it’s the forests that matter.” It’s 2038, and Jacinda “Jake” Greenwood is a guide in one of the last stands of old-growth forest in the world, a place to which wealthy eco-tourists, fleeing the dust storms and intense heat wrought by “the Great Withering” elsewhere, come to spend a few days in a tiny patch of green. One visitor, a former fiance named Silas, informs Jake, long an orphan, that she’s more than just an employee: The whole shebang belongs to her, and not just because she bears the same name as the Greenwood Arboreal Cathedral to which those well-heeled pilgrims flock. No,

A thriller

MIKE BROGAN “A frighteningly realistic, entertaining story.

Well-developed characters in a convincing real-world menace!”

– Kirkus Reviews “Compulsive new page-turner from a Writer’s Digest award-winner. Suspense from a master...”

– Midwest Book Review “Tense and engaging journey through corporate espionage and revenge.

A timely mystery thriller.”

– Foreword Reviews “Buckle up for a wild ride!”

– Loren D. Estleman, Four-time Shamus Award Winner

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THE TWO LIVES OF LOUIS & LOUISE

laugh…be alone together, to pretend no one else had ever seen [them].” But when Corisande jumps into the freezing water, dives to the bottom, and drowns, Amelia is left to face the world alone: “The wind swept through the Cartwright School and scattered us, leaves, across the sky. I went to a city and… found a room to sleep in, floorboards where I planted memories of you.” Coldiron’s language, which dances between poetry and prose, retains the soul of its source material while evoking the fragmentary nature of a young life in mourning. Her imagery, meanwhile, conjures a sensuous, gothic atmosphere—one as haunting and ubiquitous for the reader as Corisande’s ghost is in Amelia’s life. Most powerful, perhaps, is Coldiron’s ability to capture Amelia’s yearning for the physical touch of a body that is no more: “And there you are...your skin rosy as a peach…I crawl and I clutch at your calves and I crack open my heart to howl at the tree that curves over the gravestones, you, glimmering, the thing in my arms a flat stone carved with your name, Corisande.”

This story, however, is not only Amelia’s, and chapters narrated

by Corisande convey her own desperation to bridge the gap between the world of bodies and that of spirits. While not every

Cohen, Julie Orion/Trafalgar (320 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4091-7984-9

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One life takes off in two directions in Cohen’s (Dear Thing, 2016, etc.) provocative novel.

In 1978, a baby is born to Peggy and Irving Alder in the little paper mill town of Casablanca, Maine. In one universe, the baby is a girl named Louise; in a parallel one, a boy named Louis. Apart from gender, the two kids are exactly alike. They share “eye color, hair color, the curve of their smile, myopia, a mole on their thigh, a propensity to hay fever, their future love for salty food and science fiction.” But the difference in gender means a difference in the way they’re treated by those around them, including their best friends, twins Allie and Benny, and thus in the way their lives unfold. Cohen (Together, 2017, etc.) jumps nimbly between the two stories, starting with a brief section on the characters’ childhoods and then leaping to 2010, when Louise is a single mother working as a teacher in New York and Louis, on the edge of leaving a troubled marriage, has just finished writing his first novel. Both are bisexual, and both head back to Casablanca when they learn that their mother is dying of cancer. There, they come to terms with the differing events that led them to leave the town precipitously just after high school graduation.

While the book’s dialogue can be stilted and its plot occasionally melodramatic, Cohen explores her premise with curiosity and the kind of openness that recognizes that both those identified as male and those as female are limited by restrictive gender definitions. As compelling as the premise is, this is never simply a novel of ideas but a story about particular people in a specific place and time. Especially intriguing and carefully worked out are the Lous’ relationships with Allie and Benny, with some aspects of those relationships shaped by gender and others transcending it.

Bound to prompt fruitful discussion.

CEREMONIALS

Coldiron, Katharine KERNPUNKT Press (134 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-73232-515-9 In Coldiron’s (After Gardens, 2019) haunting novella, inspired by the Florence + the Machine album of the same name, two young women struggle to accept their lost love after death tears them apart.

Two months before their graduation from The Cartwright School for Young Ladies Amelia and Corisande, a young couple, take a boat out on the lake—their quiet spot to “scream or |

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An atmospheric and often terrifying roller-coaster ride with (literally) sky-high stakes. the andromeda evolution

reader will instantly take to Coldiron’s heightened language—it is sometimes difficult to settle into the dreamscape—the emotions of this passionate love story always feel sincere.

A gothic novella that captures the sensuality of both love and grief.

world has been erased. For as far as 11-year-old Louie can see, the once-familiar valleys, towns, and even the closest neighbors have been inundated with water, the result of an apocalyptic tidal wave that has left him, his parents, and his eight siblings stranded on an island that used to be merely the top of a hill. At first the family’s survival seems miraculous, but the waters are still rising, and, as the land they perch on shrinks and resources become scarce, the parents know they must seek higher ground or risk drowning. The father estimates that with 12 days of hard rowing they can reach an area likely to still be above water, but, with only one boat, there will not be enough room to carry all the children and all the supplies they will need to survive the dangerous passage. The parents must make the devastating choice of whom to leave behind and settle on the three middle children, Louie, Perrine, and Noah, intending to return for them as soon as they reach land. At this point the narrative splits. On the island, the three children—ages 11 to 8— struggle with the implications of their abandonment as their supplies dwindle and the water continues to rise. On the boat, the siblings and the parents grapple with the consequences of their new identities as, alternatively, the ones who were chosen and the ones who were forced to choose. In tense, tightly controlled, and genuinely devastating prose, Collette explores the existential dilemma of pitting the good of the many against the good of the few with both nuance and great linguistic beauty. In a time when families across the globe are being forced to make very similar choices due to war, forced migration, and the depredations of climate change, Collette’s evocation of the human reality of this philosophical logic puzzle is a timely and fiercely excoriating narrative.

A wrenching exploration of the consequences of survival.

JUST AFTER THE WAVE Collette, Sandrine Trans. by Anderson, Alison Europa Editions (304 pp.) $18.00 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 978-1-60945-567-5

In the aftermath of an environmental apocalypse, a family must make a terrible decision, the consequences of which will reverberate through the rest of their lives.

In French author Collette’s (Nothing but Dust, 2018) second book translated into English, half the

THE ANDROMEDA EVOLUTION

Crichton, Michael & Wilson, Daniel H. Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $29.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-06-247327-1 Over 50 years after an extraterrestrial microbe wiped out a small Arizona town, something very strange has appeared in the Amazon jungle in Wilson’s follow-up to Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain.

The microparticle’s introduction to Earth in 1967 was the disastrous result of an American weapons research program.

Before it could be contained, Andromeda killed all but two people in tiny Piedmont, Arizona; during testing after the disaster, AS-1 evolved and escaped into the atmosphere. Project Eternal Vigilance was quickly set up to scan for any possible new outbreaks of Andromeda. Now, an anomaly with “signature peaks” closely resembling the original Andromeda Strain has been spotted in the heart of the Amazon, and a Wildfire Alert is issued. A diverse team is assembled: Nidhi Vedala, an MIT nanotechnology expert born in a Mumbai slum; Harold 62

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Time to make room on that must-read list.

Heirs of Deceits Elizabeth Reinach Sir Gilbert Stanley shocked his social class by first employing his illegitimate children as servants, and later acknowledging them. Murder and chaos followed.

The Cost of Living A Novel D. L. Huntington

$20.17 paperback 978-1-9845-8983-5 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

Loving the Amazon

Rhonda Wells is a liberal journalist who has just graduated from college. Despite growing up wealthy, she holds a distain for the rich. When Rhonda is assigned to cover the plight of the homeless, she unwittingly uncovers a secret cult society intent on elevating the elite at the homeless peoples’ expense. Will she find a way to save the homeless?

Described as ‘raw and poetic’, Loving the Amazon delivers a sexual odyssey in erotic and confronting detail, involving the passion, suffering and truth of a fractured love.

$13.99 paperback 978-1-5320-7090-7 also available in ebook www.iuniverse.com

$20.69 paperback 978-1-9845-0442-5 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com.au

John Andrew Donix

Opening our Hearts

Blue Scorpion - Last Flight of the Ancients

REV. DR. PATRICIA ANN WILSON-CONE

Karen S Lee

This book will help you to have an expanded yet critical view on the subject of multiculturalism. You will begin to explore new meaning to the terms “multiculturalism” and “diversity.”

Simas and its allies become embroiled in a war. Evanna must return to her people, revive old alliances and take the treacherous path that lies before her.

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Multicultural Diversity

$20.69 paperback 978-1-7960-0249-2 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com.au

$19.99 paperback 978-1-9845-7224-0 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com

Did Extraterrestrials Bring Us to Intelligence on Our Planet?

A Scientist Speculates on the Sparse Information Available from Prehistory

Life and Death The History of Overcoming Disease and What It Tells Us About Our Present Increasing Life Expectancy as a Result of Present Day Actions John Durbin Husher

John F. Caddy Ph.D.

Life And Death takes the reader through the history of the development of medicine and details present day methods.

The author is convinced of the existence of advanced extraterrestrial species in this galaxy and beyond, and finds evidence for the impacts we experienced from them while being led towards civilization.

$24.95 paperback 978-1-4917-7780-0 also available in hardcover & ebook www.iuniverse.com

$22.95 paperback 978-1-5434-9374-0 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

Real Authors, Real Impact

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Odhiambo, a Kenyan xenogeologist; Peng Wu, a Chinese doctor and taikonaut; Sophie Kline, a paraplegic astronaut and nanorobotics expert based on the International Space Station; and, a last-minute addition, roboticist James Stone, son of Dr. Jeremy Stone from The Andromeda Strain. They must journey into the deepest part of the jungle to study and hopefully contain the dire threat that the anomaly seemingly poses to humanity. But the jungle has its own dangers, and it’s not long before distrust and suspicion grip the team. They’ll need to come together to take on what waits for them inside a mysterious structure that may not be of this world. Setting the story over the course of five days, Wilson (Robopocalypse, 2011, etc.) combines the best elements of hard SF novels and technothrillers, using recovered video, audio, and interview transcripts to shape the narrative, with his own robotics expertise adding flavor and heft. Despite a bit of acronym overload, this is an atmospheric and often terrifying roller-coaster ride with (literally) sky-high stakes that pays plenty of homage to The Andromeda Strain while also echoing the spirit and mood of Crichton’s other works, such as Jurassic Park and Congo. Add more than a few twists and exciting set pieces (especially in the finale) to the mix, and you’ve got a winner.

A thrilling and satisfying sequel to the 1969 classic.

manage to spell.” But just getting there puts eight-year-old Tracy in mortal peril. In “The Stateway Condo Gentrification,” teenage Tracy—still the smart one—realizes that in some ways living in the projects is “no different than living in those condos that weren’t more than four miles north of us on Michigan Avenue.…

You could see the entire city from our fourteenth-floor ramp.” It turns out to be a prescient observation.

Drain writes with fierce warmth about characters coping with crushing racism and poverty in this impressive debut.

HOUSE ON FIRE

Finder, Joseph Dutton (384 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 978-1-101-98584-7 Private investigator Nick Heller uncovers disturbing truths about a big pharmaceutical company after the fatal overdose of a war buddy addicted to its hugely profitable opioid, Oxydone.

Heller’s introduction to Kimball Pharmaceutical comes through Sukie Kimball—the consciencestricken daughter of the company’s founder—who approaches him at his friend Sean’s funeral. Sukie hires Heller to break into her billionaire father Conrad’s home office after his retirement party and lift documents that reveal Oxydone failed its clinical trials—proof that the drug was put on the market with full knowledge of its dangers. Heller, who attends the party in the family’s house as Sukie’s boyfriend, is surprised to meet someone he knows—Maggie Benson, a one-time flame from his stint in Afghanistan, who’s tonight wearing a wig and calling herself Hildy. When he sneaks down the hallway at 2 a.m. to try to find the papers, he finds Maggie on a similar mission, having been hired by another Kimball sibling to steal Conrad Kimball’s will.

Following a murder on the grounds and other setbacks, Sukie calls him off the case. But, determined to avenge Sean, who saved his life in Afghanistan, Heller puts himself in harm’s way in continuing his pursuit of those responsible for serial Oxydone deaths. Though Finder’s latest thriller is well timed and well intended, it lacks the punch of his best efforts. The plot, usually his strong suit, is wobbly (wouldn’t Heller be more than mildly surprised by Maggie’s presence?), leading one to believe that sticking to what Heller refers to as “the Agatha Christie aspect” of the case might not have been a bad thing.

A drug thriller with too few thrills.

STATEWAY’S GARDEN

Drain, Jasmon Random House (288 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 978-1-984818-16-4

A collection of linked short stories takes readers inside life in Chicago’s Stateway Gardens projects.

This debut book is set mostly in the 1980s in one of the South Side’s largest, most segregated housing projects. Stateway Gardens’ eight high-rise apartment blocks (built in the 1950s and demolished by 2007) formed a neighborhood notorious for grinding poverty, violence, drug use, and crime. Drain, who grew up in Chicago, writes intimately of the human experiences of those who lived there. The stories are linked by a group of characters who are relatives and friends of a pair of brothers, Tracy and Jacob. Tracy narrates several of the stories, beginning with “B.B. Sauce,” which takes place when he’s 6 years old. He’s the younger brother, “my mother’s smart child, but Jacob was the handsome one with the precious button nose and eyelashes that flapped like dove wings.” Their rivalry will play out for years. Neither boy’s father is in the picture, and several of the stories revolve around the heartbreaking irony of a single mother who works so many hours and jobs to support her children that she has no time to be with them. For Tracy, though, that’s just one of the realities of his world. It’s a world so harshly limited that in “Wet Paper Grass,” Tracy, Jacob, and their friend Jameel undertake a harrowing journey just to hang out on a community college campus miles away: “It was our summer resort….We imagined ourselves as those rich North Side white kids being sent to European cities we’d never 64

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Because a novel is worth a thousand tweets.

My Journey Back to Heaven

Unleash Your Natural Talent

Gabriel’s Story

A Logical Pathway to Sports Success

C. L. Rugg

Eugene Joseph McConnin

Archangel Gabriel becomes a human, with no memory of his past but has angel powers. He must learn how to survive his dual nature and recall his unknown previous life.

Unleash Your Natural Talent: A Logical Pathway to Sports Success will show you how to expand your potential by developing natural talent to exceed conventional expectations.

$28.99 paperback 978-1-7283-1191-3 also available in hardcover & ebook www.authorhouse.com

$13.79 paperback 978-1-7960-0466-3 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com.au

Origin of the Follower and His New Actions

Intrigue at 404 Appalling Street

About an Action Character with Unique Capabilities

George S. Haines In his mystery novel, Intrigue at 404 Appalling Street, George S. Haines pens a story with a dramatic and unexpected conclusion that will leave the reader surprised, amazed and smiling.

John Durbin Husher Axel Tressler is just your ordinary biology teacher in a California college—that is until the U.S. Agency calls on him as The Follower to solve a major problem.

A Unique Life at Sea

Proud Gods and Commodores

Captain Peter Skog

James McMillan

Captain Peter Skog shares his experiences sailing in Antarctica as a long time chief officer on board the MS Lindblad Explorer the ship that pioneered expedition cruising in Antarctica.

Proud Gods and Commodores is a collection of poetry and tales as well, written in a captivating but modern epic style that immerses and carries the reader like ancient classics.

$64.86 paperback 978-1-7283-8805-2 also available in ebook www.authorhouse.co.uk

$31.99 paperback 978-1-7283-0636-0 also available in ebook www.authorhouse.com

Modern Catholic Concerns

Hoo Lee Jing (Fox Fairy)

Peter Mazurek

A Novel

Modern Catholic Concerns reviews selected biblical evidence for and against the proposition of God’s existence and divinity with an assessment of the persuasive value of this evidence.

Margaret Zee

$27.59 paperback 978-1-7960-0576-9 also available in hardcover & ebook www.xlibris.com.au

$20.99 paperback 978-1-5462-7266-3 also available in hardcover & ebook www.authorhouse.com

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$23.99 paperback 978-1-5462-3395-4 also available in hardcover & ebook www.authorhouse.com

$20.99 paperback 978-1-5320-1020-0 also available in hardcover & ebook www.iuniverse.com

Hoo Lee Jing records the final days of legendary Old Peking—the enchanted city, which Eve Freeman revisits in her quest for purpose in her life.

Real Authors, Real Impact

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THIEF RIVER FALLS

one who tells her not to make things hard on herself because “all they want is the boy.” For Lisa, there seems to be no escape from the “Dark Star” she has been living under since two car accidents, a stroke, and a suicide claimed everyone in her family but her twin brother—who hasn’t been heard from in years.

Even if Lisa does give the runaway boy and the boy in the book the same name, she seems largely oblivious to the ties between her fiction and her reality. That’s odd considering the pains Freeman (The Crooked Street, 2019, etc.) takes to link them via excerpts of Lisa’s novel. His own plot is both shaky and stale, characterizations are not his strong suit, and he seems to have little understanding of how young boys speak.

A workmanlike thriller ruled by clichés and missed connections.

Freeman, Brian Thomas & Mercer (317 pp.) $24.95 | $15.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 978-1-5420-9336-1 978-1-5420-9338-5 paper After a runaway boy shows up at her home in rural Minnesota, thriller writer Lisa Power is pulled into a murder plot that is eerily similar to the one in her breakthrough bestseller.

The frightened boy, who is about 10 years old, is unable to say what he is running from because he can’t remember anything, including his name. A former nurse, the now famous Lisa takes him in, naming him Purdue (it’s from a French word for “lost,” she explains). She also gave that name to the boy in her bestseller, in which bad guys bury him alive after he witnesses a killing. As bits and pieces of the real-life boy’s memory return and the threat to him becomes clear, Lisa encounters cops who are not good and friends who are not trustworthy—including

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Crisp pacing, complex plotting, and a sympathetic good guy all make for a most satisfying read. too close to home

WHEN YOU SEE ME

closed to the public. A New York politician abuses his office, and McGrath threatens to toss him off a roof unless he agrees to make amends to people he’s hurt. “My name’s not important,” McGrath says. “I’m just a janitor. Here to clean up the mess you made. One way. Or another.” But mainly, he is at the courthouse to figure out how to deliver justice to Alex Pardew, who cheated McGrath’s father and likely contributed to the old man’s early death. Key to resolving that issue is finding a missing file that could have turned Pardew’s mistrial into a conviction. Oh yes, and he needs to find Pardew himself, not an easy task. Along the way, he chats up Len Hendrie, who wants to represent himself in an arson case— Hendrie readily admits to burning a house down as revenge for losing his own home in a stockbroker’s short-selling scheme. Characters clearly explain the short-selling concept, so the reader won’t need a business degree to follow the chicanery involved. McGrath relies on “old habits—old instincts, always looking for something sinister,” which he fears may not be serving him well this time. But he’s smart, determined, decent, and not all that violent as fictional

Gardner, Lisa Dutton (400 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-5247-4500-4

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Three Gardner fan favorites—FBI agent Kimberly Quincy, Sgt. D.D. Warren of the Boston Police, and serial-killer–survivor–turned-vigilante Flora Dane—team up to untangle a series of murders, and lots of small-town secrets, in the Georgia hills.

On a hike in the hills outside the quaint tourist town of Niche, Georgia, a couple finds the partial skeletal remains of Lilah Abenito, who went missing 15 years ago. Lilah was thought to be one of the first victims connected to Jacob Ness, who kidnapped Flora eight years ago when she was a Boston college student and held her captive, mostly in a coffin-sized box, for 472 days. The chance to link the deceased Ness to additional crimes is impossible to pass up, and FBI agent Kimberly Quincy invites D.D., Flora (who is a confidential informant for D.D.), and computer analyst Keith Edgar, Flora’s friend/ love interest, to be part of her task force. A search through the hills turns up a mass grave full of more skeletal remains.

While D.D. is updating the mayor, Howard Counsel, and his wife, Martha, who own the charming Mountain Laurel B&B, she becomes interested in their timid, fearful maid, a young Hispanic woman who’s brain damaged and unable to speak following a car accident when she was a child. When Martha suddenly hangs herself (or so it seems), D.D. realizes something very odd is going on at ye olde B&B. Gardner juggles multiple narratives, including that of the Counsels’ nameless maid, with ease. However, the involvement of two civilians in a major federal task force is initially hard to swallow, as are a few supernatural elements Gardner (Look for Me, 2018, etc.) shoehorns in. But Flora’s tentative romance with Keith and her realization that she might finally be thriving, not just surviving, are bright spots, as is Gardner’s evolving and sensitive exploration of trauma and its insidious, lasting effects.

These characters are so beloved that readers may not mind when a few twists veer dangerously close to the absurd.

TOO CLOSE TO HOME

Grant, Andrew Ballantine (336 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-525-61962-8

The second in the Paul McGrath suspense series (Invisible, 2019), in which the protagonist mops floors and pursues unofficial justice in a federal courthouse.

McGrath is a 20-year veteran of Army intelligence, and his current job as a nearly invisible janitor gives him free rein to go places in the building that are |

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PERFECT LITTLE CHILDREN

heroes go. And yet that Albany pol knows he’ll one day be a red splat on a sidewalk if he reneges on his vow to reform.

Crisp pacing, complex plotting, and a sympathetic good guy all make for a most satisfying read.

Grant has several great series going, and the janitor-inthe-courthouse theme is fodder for another.

Hannah, Sophie Morrow/HarperCollins (336 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-06-297820-2

A woman reunited with an estranged friend discovers that nothing about her has changed in 12 years—including the ages of her children—and can’t rest until she solves the mystery.

Beth Leeson has always wondered what happened to Flora Braid after their friendship fell apart.

But the Braids moved away, and they lost touch. Twelve years later, Beth decides to check on her and spies Flora coaxing her two small children, Thomas and Emily, ages 5 and 3, out of their car—which is crazy, because that’s how old the kids were when Beth knew them. By now they should be teenagers. And the Braids’ youngest child, Georgina, isn’t there at all. Beth isn’t crazy. She knows what she saw. Her daughter, Zannah, serves as a precocious sounding board for her evolving, and sometimes outlandish, theories: “Even if a science genius invented a drug that stopped people aging, they wouldn’t freeze their kids in time at three and five. Those are pain-in-the-arse ages. You might freeze your kids at, like, nine and eleven,” Zannah says to refute the idea that Thomas and Emily were part of a genetic experiment. But the simplest explanation they can think of— that the children are Thomas and Emily’s younger siblings— doesn’t quite add up. Why would Flora give all her children the same names? The question then becomes, how well did Beth really know the Braids? With a combination of social media stalking and amateur detective work, Beth tracks down Flora and her husband, Lewis, in both England and Florida and discovers that her old friends are leading double lives in more ways than one. Initially, the bond between the two women seems too weak to warrant such an intense search, but as Beth considers the problems that Flora might’ve been dealing with years ago that she hadn’t noticed, her curiosity thaws into genuine concern that turns her mission into a moral imperative.

Save a friendship, save a life—a surprising lesson for an unusual and absorbing thriller.

THE BIG LIE

Grippando, James Harper/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-06-291504-7 Want a break from the ruthless 24/7 cycle of political ups and downs? Stay miles away from this latest case for Miami attorney Jack Swyteck (The Girl in the Glass Box, 2019, etc.), ripped not so much from the headlines as from your deepest electoral nightmares.

Despite the manifest character blemishes—blustering, lying, uncontrollable adulteries, and tweetstorms that nearly got him impeached—President Malcolm MacLeod seems headed to a narrow victory over Florida Sen. Evan Stahl Jr., whose ratings took a nose dive when his refusal to identify the party with whom he’d cheated on his now-estranged wife, Gwen, of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, led to widespread speculation, eagerly fed by MacLeod, that his lover was (gasp!) another man. Stahl’s only path to the presidency is the hope that five members of the Electoral College will break ranks and cast their votes for Stahl, who won 5 million more votes than MacLeod despite losing the Electoral College. And at least one elector is ready to turn faithless: Charlotte Holmes, the associate and hand-picked successor to gun rights lobbyist Madeline Chisel. Will her principled defection start a groundswell? Not if MacLeod loyalist Paulette Barrow, the Florida attorney general, has anything to say about it. Barrow promptly files a suit against Charlotte as “unfit” so that the Republican governor, Terry Mulvane, can replace her with a reliable loyalist. Seeking Jack’s legal representation with the perfect come-on—electoral law expert Matthew Kipner “specifically told me not to hire you”— Charlotte stiffens her spine and prepares for weeks of public abuse. What she doesn’t prepare for is the wholly unexpected but obligatory trial for murder that simultaneously deepens her peril, confirms this headlong legal thriller’s genre credentials, and ensures that no one will mistake it for real life. The complications that follow are expertly spun, and the courtroom maneuvers on both sides are impressively baroque, but the gorgeous Electoral College premise marks the beginning of a wild ride that runs off the rails long before the fade-out.

The multilayered case gets so crazy that it may provide escapist solace after all.

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SECOND SISTER

Ho-kei, Chan Trans. by Tiang, Jeremy Black Cat/Grove (512 pp.) $17.00 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-8021-2947-5 A young Chinese woman suspects her younger sister’s suicide is not what it seems in this somber tale of investigation and discovery.

Siu-Man, the schoolgirl victim, had been the subject of online bullying after reporting a man for groping her on public transportation, a charge that resulted |

Time Tunnel:

The Twin Towers The Empire The Eclipse

timetunnel.one "Todd grippingly conjures a what-if time-travel scenario that’s unusually believable.” —Kirkus Reviews

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" Time Tunnel: The Empire was a crazy good adventure that I would have never expected from this sci-fi style book. It is a must-read that I could hardly put down.” —Manhattan Book Review "As the main characters carry out their exciting mission and remake history, readers will find it intensely satisfying, and the cliffhanger ending promises new thrills to come.” —Kirkus Reviews " Just like the first novel in the series The Twin Towers, The Empire is full of action, intrigue, and suspense. Richard Todd does a fantastic job of retelling historical events, which are brilliantly researched.”

—Seattle Book Review " The integration of the time travel storyline with the real events that happened on that day are seamless. If I didn’t know better, I would think this could have really happened." —Manhattan Book Review " Relationships are tested in this story; the only way to know how you truly feel about someone is to throw them in a situation together for which they are totally unprepared. The reader is able to delve deeper into the feelings of the characters and grasp a better understanding for the motivation of their actions. As in Twin Towers, there is action galore, and The Empire includes another story from history that originally ended badly, but now occurs in a way we would have liked for it to have played out. The ending was a complete shock, with another phase in the Time Tunnel series coming at a later date.”

—Tulsa Book Review The Towers will rise again Time Tunnel: The Twin Towers and Time Tunnel: The Empire by Richard Todd available on Amazon View book trailers at timetunnel.one For publication or film rights, contact laura.hinson@timetunnelmedia.com Time Tunnel Media

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MACHINES IN THE HEAD

in the man’s going to jail. Siu-Man’s older sister and guardian, Nga-Yee, can’t accept that her sister killed herself and hires a cyberhacker to see if the chat board posts against Siu-Man can be tracked down. The premise is a pretty slim reed, really more of an excuse to examine the simultaneously liberating and corrupting potential of the internet, the anonymity it affords people to say what they want, and the temptation that comes with it to indulge in gossip, invective, and maliciousness. Inevitably, the investigation leads beyond users to the tech companies content to exploit those temptations. The story is also a portrait of life on the economic fringes of Hong Kong, a city so expensive the inhabitants cling to the tiny government-issued housing as their only slim foothold. The sense of fatigue with which NgaYee comes home from a day’s work near the beginning of the novel hovers over the rest of it. Unfortunately, these threads are more interesting than the unfolding of Siu-Man’s fate.

This is a novel in which the motivating mystery feels swamped by the commentary surrounding it.

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Kavan, Anna Ed. by Walker, Victoria New York Review Books (192 pp.) $15.95 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-68137-414-7 Artfully strange short stories from a mostly forgotten 20th-century British writer.

Anna Kavan first appeared as a character in Helen Ferguson’s coming-of-age novel, Let Me Alone, in 1930. Ten years later, Kavan would reappear as Ferguson’s nom de plume. In the foreword to this new collection of stories, editor Walker asserts that this pen name freed Ferguson—who was also a journalist—to try new forms and explore “darkness, fantasy, madness and dystopia.” Ice (1967), Kavan’s eerily prescient novel about climate catastrophe provoked by human action and the last book to be published before her death in 1968, is probably her most well-known

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An intelligent, deeply felt family saga. the great unknown

work, but these stories—written over three decades—offer a fascinating study of a writer who was always evolving and are exceptional as literature qua literature. Many of these stories are set in hospitals—or places that might be hospitals or prisons or some combination of the two. Human existence in these spaces is depicted as a nightmare from which neither the protagonist nor the reader can awaken. First published in the New Yorker in 1945, “The Blackout” is the story of a soldier who knows that something terrible happened while he was on leave, but he can’t remember what, exactly, it was. As a doctor’s questions push him closer and closer to the truth, Kavan creates a sense of dread that she refuses to alleviate, leaving the reader in sickening uncertainty. Set in a psychiatric hospital, “Face of My People” is similarly horrific. “He glanced up at the waiting nurse and smiled at her. She was his best nurse; he had trained her himself in his own methods, and the result was entirely satisfactory.” This line occurs just a page and a half into the story, but Kavan has already created an atmosphere so obviously insalubrious that we shudder to think of what this doctor’s methods might be. Not every story succeeds. “The Gannets” is simply grotesque. “The Old Address” is both grotesque and maudlin.

A writer fans of experimental fiction should know.

from Rang’s and b’s points of view, the text is broken into short, sometimes-dreamlike sections that capture their teenage angst and moods. “I feel agony and I’m getting even more boring.” “I was incredibly hungry.”

A dark, dystopian view of South Korean adolescence, hopelessness, and the cruelties children are capable of inflicting on each other.

THE GREAT UNKNOWN

Kingman, Peg Norton (336 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-324-00336-6

Set in 1840s Scotland among homegrown intellectuals and science enthusiasts, this novel follows a young mother as she attempts to uncover the unsettling mysteries of her parentage.

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B, BOOK, AND ME

Kim Sagwa Trans. by Jeong, Sunhee Two Lines Press (160 pp.) $16.95 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-931883-96-2 In this coming-of-age novel by South Korean author Kim (Mina, 2018, etc.), two high school girls navigate violent bullies and absent, uncaring parents in an unnamed city on the coast.

“The city we lived in was ridiculous,” Rang announces to the reader, “because it was a city that imitated Seoul.” “Everybody who lived there was pretty much the same....Except there was one kid who wanted to be a fish.” This is Rang’s best friend, b. Rang points out that being a fish would mean having scales and being ugly, but b sticks to her guns: “I’ll go into the water and I’ll never come back out.” Rang’s parents show no interest in her while b’s are overwhelmed by poverty and her sister’s illness. Rang’s beloved Grandma is drifting toward senescence. Don’t ever get lost, she insists, or you’ll wind up at the End, a place north of the hill where “the abandoned people” live. Rang and b play at the beach, struggle to fit in at school, and hang out at a cafe called Alone (“Adults thought the name was ridiculous...b and I thought it was cool”), where they meet a bookish loner. Rang is targeted by bullies at school, boys identified only by their baseball hats who regularly kick and hit her until she bleeds, and no one but b ever steps in. The girls are straddling childhood and young adulthood without guidance or help. And when Rang inadvertently exposes b’s poverty, their friendship ends with devastating abruptness and pushes them separately toward the dreaded End. Told alternately |

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When Constantia Stevenson agrees to become a wet nurse for the precocious Chambers family, she does so under an unspoken condition: that no one may press her about her pseudonym. She’s known to the Chambers family as Mrs. MacAdam, “a name assumed out of discretion, for her husband’s sake,” as the savvy Chambers matriarch explains. Good-natured curiosity bubbles around Constantia, and she nurses her own infant, Livia, and the Chambers’ son, Charlie, against a familial backdrop of scientific discovery, heated debate, and progressive politics. The household and its guests are soon enthralled by the publication of the controversial new book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a proto–On the Origin of Species. Vestiges suggests, rather shockingly, “that everything...had come into existence through the uninterrupted operation of natural law.”

Stout creationists spar with the scientifically inclined at the dinner table, and even the gardener ponders natural selection as he regards his peach trees and rose bushes. As Constantia is drawn further into motherhood and family life with the Chambers, she is also overtaken with memories of her own childhood in India, where she was raised by a daring and reckless single mother. Kingman (Original Sins, 2010, etc.) deftly weaves Constantia’s uncertain past with the political and scientific mores of her present, allowing questions of origin and design, motherhood and family, home and empire, to inform and play off one another. While it takes some time for the plot to reveal itself, the novel at last gives in to the conventions of chance and coincidence that make fiction work—albeit not without character commentary on the nature of “remarkable coincidences...and accidental discoveries!” This richly observed novel of ideas will delight fans of A.S. Byatt’s Possession and Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Blue Flower alike.

An intelligent, deeply felt family saga.

be. At the beginning of the novel, his twin, David, is working in a gay brothel established by none other than J. Edgar Hoover in order to entrap and blackmail its clients; Daniel, meanwhile, is embarking on a medical career that will find him teasing out the virus. Early on, Daniel is smitten by a budding writer named Fred Lemish, who shares the attraction, knowing that “they both belong to a people the House of Representatives doesn’t want to see at all.” With a Joseph Heller–like satirical sweep full of goofy names and unlikely situations, Kramer examines the kinky sex lives of presidents and politicians, one in particular, Peter Ruester and his “wretched Lady Macbeth,” clearly meant to invoke the dreaded Reagans. Not far in the wings is Mordecai Masturbov, a soft-porn mogul who echoes Hugh Hefner, while down the road awaits Dereck Dumster (guess who?), another president whose judicial appointments “are filled with hatred for almost everything.” Gay and straight worlds collide, as Kramer chronicles, but never align: Though the book is a flawless exercise in black humor, it is also filled with righteous anger—and, as each page indicates, not without good reason.

Idiosyncratic, controversial, and eminently readable: a masterwork of alternative history.

PRETTY AS A PICTURE

Little, Elizabeth Viking (352 pp.) $27.00 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-670-01639-6

Murder and mayhem plague a film set on a secluded island off the coast of Delaware in Little’s (Dear Daughter, 2015, etc.) sophomore thriller.

When film editor Marissa Dahl takes a job on a new film directed by the talented but temperamental Tony Rees, she’s not given a script and must sign a mile-long nondisclosure agreement. It’s not ideal, but she needs the work. Escorted by an attractive ex– Navy SEAL named Isaiah, Marissa arrives on Kickout Island to find a bustling set, headquartered at a beautiful hotel, that is cloaked in secrecy and beset with dysfunction. Once Marissa gets down to work, she realizes that picking up the slack from the previous editor, who was fired for unknown reasons, won’t be smooth sailing and that the movie is based on the real-life unsolved murder of aspiring actress Caitlyn Kelly 25 years ago on that very island. Most folks assume that an eccentric ferry captain named Billy Lyle, a friend of Caitlyn’s, was the killer, but there was never enough evidence to convict. A few people, however, think he may be innocent. Marissa sets out to discover what really happened to Caitlyn with the help of Isaiah and two intrepid, tech-savvy 13-year-olds—Grace Portillo and Suzy Koh, whose parents work for the hotel. What she finds is a dead body and a whole lot of trouble. Readers fascinated with the behindthe-scenes machinations of a movie set will be enthralled, plus there’s a frisson of romantic tension between Isaiah and Marissa, and the island setting lends some spooky atmosphere. Snippets from Grace and Suzy’s true-crime podcast, Dead Ringer, are also

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE Volume 2: The Brutality Of Fact

Kramer, Larry Farrar, Straus and Giroux (896 pp.) $40.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-374-10413-9 An acerbic, brilliant history of the age of AIDS spills over into a second overstuffed, antic volume.

Screenwriter, playwright, and gay activist Kramer’s sprawling novel is narrated by an omniscient “Roving Historian,” but a killing virus has an ample voice, too: Four sentences in, it says, gamely, “I, too, am glad you’ve come back to learn more about my taking over the world.” But what to call it? Learned scientists, many of them ex-Nazis, have settled on “Underlying Condition,” having rejected “Fairy Flu,” “Gay Cancer,” and “An Unidentified Fatal Male Malady,” names popular among the malevolent straights—but, even so, “UC” doesn’t please the gay population, either, “which might be thought to like the name for the very reason that others don’t.”

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SURRENDER

sprinkled throughout. Though a killer on the loose adds a fair bit of urgency in the second half, the main focus is on Little’s singular narrator. Marissa relates to the world primarily through film and considers herself anything but typical: “It’s possible I’ve spent so much time watching movies that the language of film has infiltrated some primal, necessary part of my brain. I catch myself processing my own emotions in scenes, in shots, in dialogue.”

A quirky and distinctive heroine headlines this fun and fast-paced thriller loaded with cinematic flourishes.

Loriga, Ray Trans. by De Robertis, Carolina Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (224 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-328-52852-0 Spanish novelist and film director Loriga (Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore, 2004, etc.) traces the fortunes of a married couple progressing through an increasingly dystopian landscape.

Some dystopian fiction abounds with specifics, the better to comment on the present moment. Loriga’s novel—his third to appear in the U.S.—takes a more ambiguous and archetypal route. The narrator and his wife have been married a long time— long enough, at least, to have two sons old enough to be fighting in a war where they may or may not have been killed. When the novel begins, a silent child has been living with the couple for six months. “He was wounded when he arrived, which was part of why we started caring for him,” the narrator writes. The boy’s silence hangs over the book: Like the fate of the couple’s children, it’s unclear if it denotes something sinister or is a pause before a return to normalcy. Loriga balances granular details, such as the class differences between the husband and wife, with more ambiguous elements. The novel takes a shift into a more overtly science-fictional mode when the couple and their young charge are forced to move to a city—one where the buildings are transparent and privacy is a thing of the past.

There are hints here of the government’s potential for repressive violence and something unsettling happening with the regulation of hygiene, but, largely, life goes on. The narrator finds a job and settles into a routine, and it’s only after time passes that he begins to realize that things are very wrong in both this society and his marriage. At times the book’s subtlety feels too restrained, but its climax packs abundant weight.

Blending a realistic portrait of a marriage with a symbolic setting brings mixed results, but this novel still has plenty of power.

THE GLASS HOTEL

Mandel, Emily St. John Knopf (320 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-525-52114-3

A financier’s Ponzi scheme unravels to disastrous effect, revealing the unexpected connections among a cast of disparate characters.

How did Vincent Smith fall overboard from a container ship near the coast of Mauritania, fathoms away from her former life as Jonathan Alkaitis’ pretend trophy wife? In this long-anticipated followup to Station Eleven (2014), Mandel uses Vincent’s disappearance 74

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to pick through the wreckage of Alkaitis’ fraudulent investment scheme, which ripples through hundreds of lives. There’s Paul, Vincent’s half brother, a composer and addict in recovery; Olivia, an octogenarian painter who invested her retirement savings in Alkaitis’ funds; Leon, a former consultant for a shipping company; and a chorus of office workers who enabled Alkaitis and are terrified of facing the consequences. Slowly, Mandel reveals how her characters struggle to align their stations in life with their visions for what they could be. For Vincent, the promise of transformation comes when she’s offered a stint with Alkaitis in “the kingdom of money.” Here, the rules of reality are different and time expands, allowing her to pursue video art others find pointless. For Alkaitis, reality itself is too much to bear. In his jail cell, he is confronted by the ghosts of his victims and escapes into “the counterlife,” a soothing alternate reality in which he avoided punishment. It’s in these dreamy sections that Mandel’s ideas about guilt and responsibility, wealth and comfort, the real and the imagined, begin to cohere. At its heart, this is a ghost story in which every boundary is blurred, from the moral to the physical. How far will Alkaitis go to deny

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responsibility for his actions? And how quickly will his wealth corrupt the ambitions of those in proximity to it? In luminous prose, Mandel shows how easy it is to become caught in a web of unintended consequences and how disastrous it can be when such fragile bonds shatter under pressure.

A strange, subtle, and haunting novel.

THE ROCK BLASTER

Mankell, Henning Trans. by Goulding, George Vintage (192 pp.) $16.00 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-525-56616-8 This first novel from the creator of Kurt Wallender (An Event in Autumn, 2014, etc.), originally published in 1973, makes its English-language debut.

A 1911 explosion so nearly kills Oskar Johansson, the youngest member of a team placing and detonating dynamite for construction projects, that the local newspaper reports his death. Against all odds, however, he survives, minus one eye, one hand, several fingers, and half his penis. The frightful accident changes Oskar forever—or does it? Banished from his father’s house a year before the accident because of his interest in socialism, he moved in with like-minded colleague Magnus Nilsson and joined the Social Democratic Party. His visits in the hospital from Elly Lundgren, the young woman with whom he’s been keeping company, taper off and come to an end, and eventually he marries her sister, Elvira, with whom he maintains he’s found perfect harmony. The sexual urges he thought had finished return to him, and he fathers a son and two daughters. Years pass, marked by a highly characteristic parade of public events, private reflections, prose poetry, and prickly asides that will sound familiar to readers of Mankell’s memoir Quicksand (2017). Disenchanted by the failure of socialism to keep its promises to workers, a disillusionment that reflects the author’s own, Oskar leaves the SDP. His son expands his chain of laundries. His wife dies. He moves one last time, watches the summer come and go, shares some of his reminiscences with a faceless narrator but keeps others to himself, and suffers further reversals to his health before he finally dies in 1969, not long after turning 80. Although he’s known throughout his adult life as the man who survived a disfiguring accident, his own attitude is more stoic: “I don’t have much in the way of hands, but I can still pitch in.”

A quietly acerbic overview of 20th-century Sweden from the perspective of someone nobody expected to live to see it.

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How much is fiction? How much is memoir?

Who cares: It’s joyous. not even immortality lasts forever

NOT EVEN IMMORTALITY LASTS FOREVER

friends, and all manner of other captive audiences,” and, “over the course of all those tellings and re-tellings, the story took on something of a life of its own…and gathered unto itself certain adjustments, embellishments, flourishes, and adornments, to the point that eventually I wasn’t quite sure I still recognized it myself.” McClanahan’s project here, though—in both “A Work of Genius” and, the reader must assume, the tales that follow—is to shed these “fanciful trappings” and, using a mixture of “quasi-reliable details” and limited creative license, fix some core version of his story “permanently…in writing.”

Disclaimer aside, McClanahan then lures the reader—with his trademark jocularity and bountiful prose—through the wistful banalities of a midcentury, middle-American boyhood. His anecdotes wind together, flowing almost associatively, and cover topics such as his infatuation with cigarettes; his fraught relationship with his entrepreneur father (“we were a welloiled perpetual animosity machine”); a mismatched freshman year at a “Southern Gentleman’s college,” here called “Eustace J. Spoonbred University”; his friendship with Ken Kesey; and his lifelong appreciation for the Cincinnati Reds. If a couple of

McClanahan, Ed Counterpoint (192 pp.) $25.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-64009-260-0

Autofictional tales about the author’s Kentucky childhood, friendship with Ken Kesey, and relationship with his memories.

In “A Work of Genius,” the opening piece in this shaggy but moving collection, McClanahan (I Just Hitched in From the Coast, 2011, etc.) tells the story of the day, in 1947, when an aging bicycle performer named Kramer visited Brooksville, Kentucky, and more or less wowed the pants off young McClanahan (then age 14) with his “uncanny kinetic miracles of equilibrium and grace and strength.” In the seven intervening decades, McClanahan then says, he “recounted Kramer’s wondrous exploits times beyond number, to family,

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ST. CHRISTOPHER ON PLUTO

McClanahan’s stories seem fundamentally inessential—case in point: “Me and Gurney Goes Out on the Town,” in which the author recalls seeing (or says he does) a go-go dancer violently eject a verbally abusive patron from a seedy bar—the book, taken as a whole, performs a genuinely beautiful act of post hoc portraiture, eventually building into a protracted study of McClanahan’s relationship with the erosive nature of time and the happy-sad miracles of memory.

How much is fiction? How much is memoir? Who cares: It’s joyous.

McKinley, Nancy West Virginia Univ. Press (228 pp.) $18.99 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 978-1-949199-26-0

A kind and earnest debut collection of connected stories set in blue-collar northeastern Pennsylvania.

MK and Colleen, former classmates at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Elementary School, reconnect as middle-aged women, both working retail jobs in a mall that’s just months away from closing its doors. From the outside, they seem to live just on the edge of despair and economic ruin, except both have too much moxie. In “St. Christopher on Pluto,” for example, Colleen entangles MK in a plot to ditch Colleen’s car by the Susquehanna River for insurance money. While MK lectures Colleen on committing fraud, Colleen wisecracks and tells MK to lighten up. That’s the setup of many of McKinley’s stories: Bighearted, redheaded Colleen has a scheme (or a volunteer gig), and she wheedles practical MK, often the narrator, into coming along. These slice-of-life stories touch upon social issues on the verge of fracturing already economically stressed, conservative communities: immigration, America’s never-ending post–9/11 wars, the HIV epidemic, drug addiction, and the disappearance of good blue-collar jobs.

In “Complicado,” Colleen volunteers to photograph an ESL class graduation, but it turns out the women don’t want their pictures taken for fear of becoming the target of a rising tide of jingoism. Once she understands, Colleen yanks the film from her camera, and the party ends with the church organist’s offering her accordion to a young Mexican man, “the Latin sounds creat[ing] fusion in a room steeped with polka fests.” While we yearn for such happy endings in life, they can seem a bit treacly in fiction. When McKinley resists the lure of “Kumbayah” moments, she delivers emotionally devastating stories about how places with bleak economic futures hurt good, ordinary people—as well as how such people quietly craft lives full of intangible bounty.

Warm, generous stories.

THE HOLDOUT

Moore, Graham Random House (336 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-399-59177-8 A woman finds herself playing multiple roles—juror, attorney, investigator, and suspect—in this legal drama–meets– murder investigation set in Los Angeles.

Maya Seale, a white, bilingual transplant from New Mexico, is both a 36-year-old criminal defense attorney and a 26-year-old juror in a novel that jumps between two storylines, one set in 2019 and 78

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one in 2009. In the latter, Maya was the lone not-guilty holdout in a Los Angeles jury that eventually flipped and acquitted Bobby Nock, a 25-year-old black part-time English teacher, in a high-profile murder trial. Bobby was accused of killing one of his students, Jessica Silver, the 15-year-old white daughter of a property titan worth billions. But there was no body. Rick Leonard, a black juror, is plagued with guilt over the acquittal and dedicates a decade to discovering the jurors’ closely held secrets and proving Bobby’s guilt. These efforts result in a deal for an eight-hour true-crime docuseries on Bobby, the trial, and the jurors who acquitted him. After 10 of the 11 living jurors gather at a hotel in 2019 to begin taping, Rick is found dead in Maya’s hotel room. The book’s second storyline follows Maya, now a murder suspect herself, as she tries to clear her name.

Author Moore’s (The Last Days of Night, 2016, etc.) background as a screenwriter is apparent in this dialogue-heavy book that features a cast of more than two dozen and two storylines that unfold concurrently. The characters in each might be the same, but they are simultaneously heroes and villains, flawed people with god complexes, and individuals just trying to do their best

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for themselves and, perhaps, others. The characters’ emotions as they argue and discuss issues such as race and justice feel flat, however, as if actors are required to bring their voices to life.

An intriguing story that begs to be finished but reads as if it should be a bingeworthy TV series instead.

THE LAST DAY

Murray, Andrew Hunter Dutton (384 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-5247-4581-3 One woman must discover what lies at the center of a government coverup in this near-future thriller.

The year is 2059, and the Earth hasn’t rotated in 39 years. The Stop plunged parts of the world into darkness and others into everlasting sunlight. Britain lies right in the middle of a

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habitable zone, and the government has scrambled to build up its defenses to help its people while keeping others out. Scientist Ellen Hopper has been working on a rig out on the Atlantic for the past few years, away from the overbearing government and her failing relationships with her brother and ex-husband.

But when a group of government officials arrives by helicopter to tell her that her old mentor is dying and wishes to see her, she is once again whisked into a world full of citizens spying on each other, curfews, and oppression. With only her mentor’s promise that she will figure out “the truth,” Ellen must find what he has hidden away before the government can destroy it.

In his fascinating debut, Murray has crafted something original out of the classic “one person against a totalitarian government” trope. The world after the Stop is completely fleshed out and lived in, with explanations of how people eat, farm, work. The breakneck pace of Ellen’s trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities (and not always succeeding) makes for a fast read, with short chapters that propel the action forward. Ellen and David, her ex-husband, grew up post-Stop, so their interactions and personal issues grapple with what the world has become in

interesting ways. Thorne, Ellen’s mentor, shines in flashbacks.

The open ending leaves room for more exploration in a potential sequel.

An interesting new twist on a post-apocalyptic tale.

THE QUEEN’S FORTUNE

Pataki, Allison Ballantine (448 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-593-12818-3

The rise of Napoleon as narrated by his first fiancee.

The Clary sisters, Desiree and Julie, daughters of a recently deceased Marseille merchant, are trying to rescue their brother from revolutionary prison when they encounter Joseph di Buonaparte. Entranced by Desiree’s beauty, Joseph uses his influence on the Clarys’ behalf. Joseph

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Downton Abbey has nothing on 800-year-old Trelawney Castle. house of trelawney

attempts to court Desiree, but he’s edged aside by Napoleon, who pledges marriage after toying with her affections. But as military ambitions increasingly preoccupy Napoleon, Desiree is supplanted by Josephine. Reluctantly, Desiree joins her sister, newly married to Joseph, in Paris. Not overjoyed that her jilter is now an in-law, she is too much the lady to show resentment, which may have served the historical Desiree but not so much the fictional character. When, early in the novel, she is admitted to Napoleon’s inner circle, Desiree ceases to be a protagonist and becomes a passive, if acute, observer. Her proximity to the Little Corporal has some benefits—her marriage to Bernadotte, Bonaparte’s most trusted general, brings not only love, but riches. Although the politics and contradictions of Napoleon’s success, as seen through Desiree’s eyes, are riveting, this is well-traveled ground. Desiree’s point of view is too nonjudgmental to bring to the fore the ironies attendant on the trajectory of an impoverished Corsican who uses the revolution as a platform to exceed the excesses of the deposed and beheaded Bourbons. Likewise, the struggles of Josephine, who captivates Napoleon in part due to her age and experience and then displeases him for the same reasons, are related by Desiree with no particular insights to distinguish this treatment from the many more direct portrayals of the empress. Pataki’s ability to flesh out imperial grandeur and foibles with telling detail, on full display in her Habsburg novels (Sisi, 2016, etc.), is equally evident here; however the dramatic demands of a novel are not met.

All that is known of the historical Desiree is that she was a bystander—unfortunately, she remains so here.

latter portions as the narrator’s friendship with Ciara deepens (though, pointedly, the relationship remains platonic) as they try to find out who’s sending cassettes of eerie music to the station. And when seemingly bottomless holes begin appearing in town, the novel acquires a kind of deadpan comedy as the town begins to swallow up its own: “Then [the holes] started to consume furniture, and thoroughfares, and places where people might sometimes want to stand.” It’s no small feat to conjure up a town in fiction solely through what it lacks, but the place is hard to settle into, as a metaphor or anything else.

A conceptually ingenious if chilly dystopian yarn.

HOUSE OF TRELAWNEY

Rothschild, Hannah Knopf (368 pp.) $27.95 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-525-65491-9

An eccentric family of British aristocrats, their decaying ancestral home, and the financial crash of 2008 are the ingredients of Rothschild’s (The Improb­ ability of Love, 2015, etc.) romantic/ comic fairy tale.

Downton Abbey has nothing on 800-year-old Trelawney Castle with its four miles of hallways, a room for each day of the year, and 85 members of staff. But that was in its heyday.

Now Kitto, the future 25th Earl of Trelawney, is on his financial uppers, presiding over a freezing, crumbling semi-ruin. His wife, Jane, has sunk her own money into the castle but is still struggling to feed herself, their three children, and Kitto’s aging parents, the current earl and countess. Kitto’s sister Blaze, a talented stock picker at a London hedge fund, does have some money, but her company has just been bought by ruthless opportunist Thomlinson Sleet, which puts her in jeopardy. The plot starts to move when Jane and Blaze receive letters from their old college friend Anastasia, now dying and asking them to care for her daughter, Ayesha. The banking crisis swallows Kitto’s remaining money, and Jane kicks him out. After a family death, Blaze comes to the castle’s rescue, although she’s distracted by an on-and-off love affair with much nicer hedge fund squillionaire Joshua Wolfe. Rothschild writes well about these elite milieus, but hers is a broad, pantomime-ish tale stocked with simple, one-dimensional characters: flabby villain Sleet; indefatigably decent, endlessly deferred Wolfe; tirelessly sneery oldest son Ambrose. The flow is uneven—Kitto disappears for half the story; Blaze is exhaustingly inconsistent—and the book is both long and weakly paced. Trelawney does, however, finally get the upgrade it needs, and its dysfunctional family may be positioned for a sequel.

Deft narration fails to eclipse the inherent shortcomings in this patchy satire of entitlement (literally) with sentimental touches.

THE TOWN

Prescott, Shaun Farrar, Straus and Giroux (256 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-374-27852-6 A writer goes searching for vanished Australian communities in this dark allegorical debut.

The (fittingly) nameless narrator of this novel has a notion to write a book about the “disappearing towns of the Central West of New South Wales,” so he arrives in a (fittingly) nameless community to conduct his research. But what’s to investigate? Commerce seems restricted to a Woolworths and a bar nobody patronizes; the annual community get-together always degrades into fisticuffs; Ciara, the DJ at the local radio station whom he befriends, suspects nobody is tuning in; and the librarian has no history to point to. In some ways the novel can be read as a kind of lament for a disappearing sense of community and willful ignorance of the past; the nameless town is what you get when you have an infrastructure (homes, roads, train lines) but no sense of a social contract. But the narrator’s (and Prescott’s) affect is so cool that it resists characterization as a critique or satire; the novel at times recalls the slacker-lit of Douglas Coupland, all emotional blankness and deep skepticism about humanity. The novel gets something of a lift in its 82

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BESIDE MYSELF

traces Ali and Anton’s family history, from their parents to their grandparents and great-grandparents, on either side. Theirs is a Jewish family, but the fact that they’re largely secular doesn’t protect them from rising anti-Semitism in the USSR, especially after Stalin’s death in 1953. Meanwhile, Ali slinks through contemporary Istanbul, nominally searching for Anton as her identity, particularly her gender, begins to disintegrate—or to open up, depending on your perspective. Ali’s own perspective isn’t entirely intelligible. This is partly due to Salzmann’s cool, disaffected narrative voice, which is a wonder to behold but can also be a little too distancing: Anton never solidifies as a fully fledged character, and neither does the twins’ father, to whom much of their unhappiness is attributed. Still, these are relatively minor flaws. Salzmann has an expansive vision, and their experimentation with the form of the novel, even when it doesn’t always pan out, consistently intrigues.

An experimental novel spanning continents as well as generations explores the intertwining of family, gender, and identity.

Salzmann, Sasha Marianna Trans. by Taylor, Imogen Other Press (336 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-89274-644-3 A woman searches for her twin— and herself—while recounting her family history in the Soviet Union and West Germany.

Alissa, or Ali, was a child when she emigrated with her family from the Soviet Union to West Germany. She and her twin, Anton, traveled with their parents and grandfather by train. Years later, Anton disappears, a blank postcard mailed from Istanbul the only clue to his whereabouts.

So Ali goes to Istanbul. Her stay in the city more or less bookends this strange, fascinating first novel by Salzmann, a prolific writer of essays and plays and the founder of a small magazine, among other things, in their native Berlin. The meat of the book

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This killer debut is both a thriller with a vivid setting and an insightful study of race, class, and obsession. saint x

SAINT X

and the mild saline of equatorial ocean.” After the disaster, the focus shifts to Claire, who changes her name to Emily after her bereaved family moves to California but never escapes the shadow of the event. “I knew the exact day I outlived Alison.

Eighteen years, three months, twelve days.” When she moves back East for a publishing job in New York City, she crosses paths with one of the resort employees her sister was partying with the night she died. These men were exonerated in the matter of Alison’s death, but Clive Richardson was arrested for selling pot in the process; after prison, his life is so devastated that he immigrates to Manhattan. After Emily gets in Clive’s taxicab, her obsessive desire to know more about her sister’s death—which, by now, the reader fully shares—consumes her life. The complex point of view, shifting among an omniscient narrator, Emily’s perspective in first person, Clive’s immigrant story in close third, plus brief testimonies from myriad minor characters, works brilliantly. Just as impressive are Schaitkin’s unflinching examinations of the roles of race, privilege, and human nature in the long-unfolding tragedy. Setting the story in a fictional place, collaged and verbally photoshopped from

Schaitkin, Alexis Celadon Books (352 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-250-21959-6 The death of a teenage vacationer on a fictional Caribbean island reverberates through many lives, particularly those of her 7-year-old sister and one of the workers at the resort.

“Look. A girl is walking down the sand.…As she walks, heads turn—young men, openly; older men, more subtly; older women, longingly.…This is Alison.” A dangerous froth of sexual tension escalates around Alison Thomas, visiting Saint X from the wealthy New York suburbs with her parents and little sister, Claire. Schaitkin evokes her fictional resort with sureness—“the long drive lined with perfectly vertical palm trees,” “the beach where lounge chairs are arranged in a parabola,” the scents of “frangipani and coconut sunscreen

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THE LOST DIARY OF M

real Caribbean settings, is daring, but this writer is fearless, and her gamble pays off.

This killer debut is both a thriller with a vivid setting and an insightful study of race, class, and obsession.

Wolfe, Paul Harper/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $26.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-06-291066-0

A MADNESS OF SUNSHINE

A fictionalized diary of Mary Pinchot Meyer, the woman rumored to have stolen the heart of John F. Kennedy during his presidency.

Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania family, Mary Pinchot first met JFK when she was a teenager in boarding school. Years later, after marrying CIA agent Cord Meyer, Mary settled in Georgetown, where she and her husband regularly attended parties alongside several political heavyweights. It was in Georgetown that Mary reconnected with then-senator Kennedy. Following her divorce from Cord a few years later, Mary is thought to have developed an intimate emotional and physical relationship with JFK, and the book imagines this relationship as it may have evolved after Kennedy became president of the United States. Wolfe (Postcards From Atlantic City, 2015, etc.) uses Mary’s fictional journal to portray this elusive woman as a politically informed, bohemian artist whose forward-thinking attitudes may have played a role in Kennedy’s political decisions, especially during the Cuban missile crisis. The author’s Mary Pinchot Meyer is convinced that Kennedy loves her more deeply than he has any other woman, including his wife.

The closer Mary becomes with the president, however, the more she fears for her own safety. The author deftly simulates a complicated woman’s diary, creating a document that feels entirely authentic—which includes assuming a certain level of knowledge on the reader’s part about the primary players in several federal agencies of the early 1960s. True to its nature as a diary, the prose is often choppy and desultory, which results in a narrative that is sometimes difficult to follow. Even so, the author includes interesting political and historical details in the entries, shedding light on a woman with a front seat to American history.

A complicated and intimate story of JFK’s secret life, best suited for American history buffs.

Singh, Nalini Berkley (352 pp.) $27.00 | Dec. 3, 2019 978-0-593-09913-1

Soon after a widowed pianist returns to her tiny hometown in coastal New Zealand, a woman disappears, echoing the events of a summer when she was a teenager and everything shifted for her and her friends.

After burying her husband, Anahera Rawiri leaves London to return to Golden Cove, which sits next to the South Pacific Ocean and inside a “primal and untamed landscape.” Anahera has been gone for years, married to a rich playwright, living in London, traveling the world as a classical pianist. She’s remained close to her best friend, Josie, but only vaguely kept in touch with other Golden Cove friends; the teenage dissensions that began along social and economic lines in their group of friends grew into adult schisms exacerbated by betrayals and rivalries. Almost as soon as Anahera settles into the remote cabin her mother left her, beautiful young Miriama, who works at Josie’s cafe, disappears. When the village comes together to search for her, Anahera acts as a bridge for the local policeman, Will, who is still considered an outsider, and she soon realizes that her friends and the town may harbor dark secrets: “Everyone has hidden corners of their life, even the people we think we know inside and out.” As she and Will follow the clues and discover more about her friends, the townspeople, and each other, they connect in profound ways even as they begin to suspect the search for Miriama may be connected to the disappearance of three female hikers one summer when Ana was a teenager. Popular romance author Singh shifts to a new genre, New Zealand gothic, in which nearly every character—including the dense, ferocious landscape—has something to hide, and studying them is nearly as fascinating and compelling as solving the multifaceted mystery.

Astute, insightful, and descriptive storytelling; a strong step in a new direction for Singh.

SEPARATION ANXIETY

Zigman, Laura Ecco/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-06-290907-7

Can wearing the family dog in a baby sling save a troubled marriage?

“Wearing the dog is ridiculous. An act of desperation. I know this….But there is the loneliness. How I startle awake in the dark, panicked, full of dread, floating on the night sea on a tiny raft surrounded by all that vast blackness.”

Once-successful author Judy Vogel is beset by problems. Her writing’s dried up, her 13-year-old son is pulling away from her, her best friend is dying of cancer, her marriage is falling apart due to her 86

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husband’s extreme anxiety issues, and hers don’t seem much less serious. As the book opens, Judy and Gary are technically separated but still living in the same house. He addresses his condition with a low-stress job and weed; she finds her solace in a never-used BabyBjörn that turns up in the basement. In goes the family sheltie!—and suddenly, somehow it all doesn’t seem so bad. Zigman (Piece of Work, 2006, etc.) is adept at Where’d You Go Bernadette–style snarkery about her son’s progressive Montessori school, her own job writing posts for a health and happiness website—“Are dogs the ultimate antidepressant?”; “If just seeing the word cannabis makes you anxious, keep reading”—and a New Age creativity retreat the couple attend. But the central premise of the novel is a bit unsettling. When Judy first puts the dog in the sling, she’s aware that it wants to get out. Soon she convinces herself it’s nice in there. From that point on she pays so little attention to the actual dog that it could be a stuffed animal. She almost doesn’t seem to care about it as a pet or as a sentient being with needs. When she’s attacked by a group of people at the dog park who charge her with animal abuse, you wonder whose side you’re on.

The author gamely combines characters and caricatures, real pain and farce.

THE BURGLAR IN SHORT ORDER

Block, Lawrence Subterranean Press (144 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 29, 2020 978-1-59606-957-2

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Bittersweet news for fans who’ve missed Bernie Rhodenbarr even since The Burglar Who Counted the Spoons (2013): Everyone’s favorite bookseller/burglar is back for a 12th, and presumably final, volume, which is not a novel but a collection of short pieces.

The valedictory tone of Block’s Foreword and Afterword, the first a chatty narrative overview of the backstories behind each of the 13 reprints sandwiched in between, the second a playful dialogue between author and character, isn’t the only

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reason that this good news isn’t great news. Five of the items here are bite-sized monologues or dialogues in which Bernie and his pals hold forth on the Flat Earth Society, fictional New York murder sites, five books or series (Richard Stark, John Sandford, Agatha Christie) Bernie’s really liked, how stealing keeps Bernie honest, or why burgling isn’t what it used to be.

Another is Block’s longer but equally one-note reflection on the bizarre casting of Whoopi Goldberg as Bernie in the 1987 film Burglar, based on The Burglar in the Closet (1978). Three more are chapters excerpted from The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling (1979) and The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994).

That leaves exactly four short stories. In “A Bad Night for Burglars” (1977), Block auditions an anonymous precursor of Bernie. “Like a Thief in the Night” (1983) introduces Bernie to a female counterpart robbing the same office. A tabloid reporter hires Bernie to photograph the off-limits bedroom in Graceland in “The Burglar Who Dropped in on Elvis” (1989). “The Burglar Who Smelled Smoke” (1997) is a locked-library murder co-authored with Lynne Wood Block that’s as obvious as it is ingenious. Since all four of these stories have already appeared

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in Block’s comprehensive collection Enough Rope (2002), virtually all the reading material here is actually rereading material.

Fences pay burglars pennies on the dollar. Hungry fans will devour this skimpy opus despite the absence of new material.

ABOVE THE BAY OF ANGELS

Bowen, Rhys Lake Union Publishing (348 pp.) $14.95 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-5420-0825-9

A split-second decision is life-changing in this stand-alone Victorian-era mystery from Bowen (Love and Death Among the Cheetahs, 2019, etc.).

Isabella Waverly’s father is an aristocrat estranged from his family who’s fallen so far in the world that he sent his oldest daughter out to

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work as a servant at 15. Her only joy is learning to cook. When a girl is run over by an omnibus before her eyes, Bella automatically picks up an envelope the dead girl had been clutching. The envelope contains an invitation to apply for an under-cook position at Buckingham Palace that very day. Introducing herself as Helen Barton, Bella snags the job. She hides her new position from Louisa, the younger sister who’s marrying the son of a well-off family. She struggles to immerse herself in the persona of a girl from Yorkshire, explaining her upper-class accent by saying her father was a gentleman. The only fly in the ointment is the appearance of Helen’s brother, who blackmails her into finding a job for him, too. Bella’s passion for cooking and her work ethic soon endear her to the mostly male staff. Queen Victoria, who has an enormous appetite for rich foods, so enjoys Bella’s scones that she personally asks her to make them every day. When her majesty travels to Nice, Bella goes along and gets to put her knowledge of French to use. She develops a semiromantic friendship with the head chef at the hotel, which was built especially for the queen. Indeed, her life seems idyllic until Count Wilhelm, the betrothed of Princess Sophie, dies,

ostensibly from a poisoned mushroom Bella bought in a local market. Now she must juggle cooking and a suddenly active love life as she searches for a way to end her predicament.

A treasure trove of Victoriana, especially for foodies.

More history than mystery but a truly delightful read.

HERE COMES THE BODY

DiRico, Maria Kensington (304 pp.) $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-2534-9

Murder crashes the party.

Mia Carina would like nothing better than to see her dad, Ravello, a made man in Donny Boldano’s mob, go straight.

When she hears he’s won the Belle View Banquet Manor from hard-luck gambler Andre Bouras in a poker game, she

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rushes back from Palm Beach to help him run the place, hoping it will provide her dad with enough legitimate income to allow him to cut his ties with the underworld. Despite its dated décor and bone-shaking proximity to LaGuardia Airport, the catering hall has panoramic views out its windows that make it a worthy rival to the overpriced event venues in Manhattan—which Mia’s outer-borough friends drive her nuts by calling “the city.” (“Queens is the city” is her perennial retort.) And she proves her borough cred by moving in with her nonna in Astoria. But running a catering hall involves more than dealing with bridezillas like Alice Paluski, who’s determined to make her wedding bigger and better than her twin sister’s, or with momzillas like Barbara Grazio, Alice’s prospective mother-in-law, who’s determined to make the groom’s side of the wedding outshine the bride’s. She has to wrangle an ever changing cast of chefs, souschefs, waitstaff, decorators, DJs, and the occasional stripper, who all bring a host of quirks and baggage to the banquet table.

She also has to deal with more than one corpse. It takes all of Mia’s considerable ingenuity to keep Ravello’s first legit enterprise from becoming a ticket right back to the slammer.

Her zany cast will have readers wondering whether DiRico’s series debut is set in Belle View or Bellevue.

investigating Merveilleuse, providing two possible motives for his death. But Charlie was also pretty wild in his youth, and Liss can’t help wondering if there’s something in his past that got him killed.

Red herrings abound in this charming tale of smalltown life and big-time murder.

DRESSED UP 4 MURDER

Eaton, J.C. Kensington (320 pp.) $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-2455-7

An Arizona accountant with a penchant for solving murders lands a fishy case.

Sophie “Phee” Kimball might lead a dull life if it weren’t for her mother, Harriet Plunkett, and Harriet’s neurotic Chiweenie, Streetman. As it is, Harriet lives near her daughter in Sun City West and has a wide circle of zany friends who’ve helped Phee solve several mysteries (Molded 4 Murder, 2019, etc.) while she’s been working for Williams Investigations along with her boyfriend, Marshall, a former police officer. While Phee’s visiting Harriet one day, Streetman dashes over to the neighbors’ barbecue grill and unearths a dead body under a tarp. As usual, the overwhelmed local police ask Williams Investigations to help—er, consult. Harriet’s main concern is getting costumes made for the reluctant Streetman, whom she’s entered in a series of contests starting with Halloween and progressing through Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah, and St. Patrick’s Day. One of her friends is an accomplished seamstress who goes all out making gorgeous costumes that will beat an obnoxious lady who looks down on mutts. The dead man is identified as Cameron Tully, a seafood distributor, who was poisoned by the locally ubiquitous sago pine. At the first dog contest, Elaine Meschow has to be rushed to the hospital after she gets a dose of the same thing. The owner of a gourmet dog food company, Elaine is lucky enough to recover. After Streetman takes second place, Harriet’s team redoubles its efforts for the next contest while Phee and Marshall, who are moving into a new place together, continue to hunt for clues. A restaurant holdup and a scheme to use empty houses for hookups for high school kids add to the confusion.

You can’t help but chuckle over all the disasters, but in the end the heroine catches her prey.

A VIEW TO A KILT

Dunnett, Kaitlyn Kensington (288 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-4967-1265-3

Murder hits close to home for an unconventional Maine sleuth.

The most contentious question at the Moosetookalook town meeting is whether the hamlet should sell water rights to Merveilleuse International. It seems like an obvious move, but people are concerned about local wells drying up. Liss MacCrimmon Ruskin, who runs the Scottish Emporium and is active in town affairs, has her own opinion. So do her parents, Vi and Mac, who’ve recently returned to the area. Liss’ Aunt Margaret is off on a genealogy trip to Ireland (no, not Scotland), and when the two Scotties Liss is petsitting for her kick up a fuss in the yard, her husband, Dan, goes outside and finds a dead man. Chief of Police Sherri Campbell, a friend who’s relied on Liss’ keen senses before (Overkilt, 2018, etc.), recognizes that this is a case for dour detective Kelly Cussler of the Maine State Police. Liss has a moment of déjà vu when the dead man reminds her of her father, but the whole family is flabbergasted when fingerprints identify the body as that of Charles Edward MacCrimmon, a private eye living in Florida. Charlie was Mac’s brother, listed as MIA in Vietnam and thought dead for 50 years. When the police discover that Mac was the beneficiary of Charlie’s will, their suspicions prompt Liss and Vi to journey to Florida in search of answers. Why did Charlie return home after so long?

Under the floorboards in his house they discover papers hinting that Charlie may have been working for the government and 90

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A harrowing portrait of addiction, prejudice, and redemption. shattered justice

COCONUT LAYER CAKE MURDER

Fluke, Joanne Kensington (304 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-1889-1

A baker helps solve her sister’s boyfriend’s classmate’s murder.

Hannah Swensen is suffering from stress due to a trauma incurred in her last adventure (Chocolate Cream Pie Mur­ der, 2019) but alluded to only in the most elliptical terms in her current entry. Hannah’s stepfather, Doc Knight, is adamant: She must leave at once for vacation. He sends Hannah and her mom off to California for a stress-free holiday helping Hannah’s college friend Lynne Larchmont pack up her palatial home and move back to Lake Eden, Minnesota, where Hannah’s shop, The Cookie Jar, provides sweet treats for all. A New York minute after she arrives in Los Angeles, Hannah receives a hysterical call from her sister, Michelle. Michelle’s boyfriend, Lonnie, is the main suspect in the murder of Darcy Hicks, an old friend from high school. Since Lonnie is one of Lake Eden’s handful of police detectives, everyone else on the force is deemed ineligible to conduct the investigation, leaving only amateur sleuth Hannah to crack the case. Hannah moves back in, platonically of course, with her old flame Norman Rhodes, since her Lake Eden condo was the scene of that unspecified trauma and her husband, Ross Barton, has disappeared, or died, or maybe killed somebody—it’s not quite clear which. Hannah begins her investigation by checking out Brian and Cassie Polinski, who were with Darcy and Lonnie at the Double Eagle, a dive bar, the night of her death. But it’s hard for her inquiry to build up any steam because almost every chapter ends with copious directions for making another nifty treat, complete with tips on which brands to use, advice about where to buy the ingredients, and little anecdotes about the people who feast on the finished products.

Nearly as many recipes as Joy of Cooking, and about as much narrative.

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clan, who don’t trust the police. The morning after a bachelorette party for Brynn’s friend Dee Doherty, Brynn’s called to a crime scene, where a pair of ears hang from monkey bars along with the message “Hear No Evil.” She recognizes the stud in the ears as likely belonging to the male stripper who left the party with her distant cousin Mo Black. Wilco can find no body, just the foam take-out container used to transport the ears. Mo denies knowing anything about the dead man, Chance Walker, but her abusive husband, Hughie, must be considered a suspect.

Brynn, who’s addicted to alcohol and pills, reluctantly joins a counseling group, where she’s surprised to meet attractive assistant DA Jake Sheehan. A second crime scene features a severed tongue accompanied by the injunction “Speak No Evil.” Following a lead, Brynn and FBI agent Grabowski are attacked by Katie Doogan, with whom Brynn shares a sorry history: She had an affair with Kevin Doogan without knowing he was married and owes him for covering up the fact that her Gran, now in a nursing home after a series of strokes, once shot someone.

Meanwhile, the police dig into the two victims’ pasts, seeking a connection between them. Dangerous trips into a forest patrolled by militia members turn up some clues, but, unable to trust anyone but Wilco, Brynn finds her solo investigations ever more dangerous.

A harrowing portrait of addiction, prejudice, and redemption neatly encapsulated in a guileful mystery.

SANTA FE NOIR

Ed. by Gore, Ariel Akashic (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-61775-722-8 Shepherded by Lambda Literary Award winner Gore, 17 contributors offer peeks at the dark side of a city known for clean living with an arty edge.

Editor Gore quotes Christine Gledhill’s description of film noir as “a struggle between different voices for control over the telling of the story.”

But the stories in this installment of Akashic’s project to paint the world black complement rather than compete with each other. There are straight-up crime stories, like Hida Viloria’s “SOS Sex” and Candace Walsh’s “The Sandbox Story.” There are spooky ghost tales, like Jimmy Santiago Baca’s “Close Quarters,” Ana Castillo’s “Divina: In Which Is Related a Goddess Made Flesh,” and Israel Francisco Haros Lopez’s graphic short story “La Llorona.” Family drama has its turn in “I Boycott Santa Fe”

by Tomas Moniz and “Behind the Tortilla Curtain” by Barbara Robidoux. So does love gone wrong, as in Byron F. Aspaas’s “Táchii’nii: Red Running Into the Water.” But perhaps the most poignant stories are the ones that turn Santa Fe’s promises of physical beauty and spiritual healing against it. In Elizabeth Lee’s “Waterfall,” a spa where clients flock in hopes of rejuvenation becomes the scene of a grisly crime. A pristine Aspen forest turns into a deadly trap in Katie Johnson’s “All Eyes.” And an organic farm hides a terrible secret in Gore’s own “Nightshade.”

SHATTERED JUSTICE

Furlong, Susan Kensington (288 pp.) $26.00 | Dec. 31, 2019 978-1-4967-1172-4

A wounded Tennessee warrior tries to make sense of her life by looking into the lives of others.

Brynn Callahan is an Irish Traveller brought up by her beloved grandmother.

The Marines were her way out of Bone Gap, but she returned wounded both mentally and physically along with her cadaver-detecting dog, Wilco, who shares her afflictions. Now she works as a sheriff ’s deputy (Fractured Truth, 2018, etc.), facing prejudice from the community and her own |

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Danger lurks even in the water, as Ana June’s “The Night of the Flood” proves.

Readers will never look at hand-thrown pottery, heirloom tomatoes, or spectacular sunsets the same way again.

celebrates young Adrian Richland’s birthday party with some rabbit show and tell. Jules is so focused on all things rabbit that it’s a shock to the system when the party erupts in human drama.

Not only does Jules hear Adrian’s mother, Carina, arguing with guest Evelyn Montgomery, but later in the party, Evelyn is murdered, leaving Carina as the prime suspect. Carina approaches Jules about looking into who offed Evelyn, not only to save her own hide, but also because Jules has dipped her toe into investigating in the past (Left Fur Dead, 2019) and struck up a friendship with Sheriff Jack Carver to boot. Carina doesn’t know that Jules has a furry assistant who’s sure to make her investigation a success. Bun, the black-and-white rabbit who’s Jules’ favorite pet, communicates with her telepathically, and he quickly lets Jules know that he’s eager to help her dig into Evelyn’s murder.

The investigation the duo launch into Evelyn’s dealings with a local rabbit show reveal that the dead woman was a mean, nasty person with too many enemies to count. Which candidates finally summoned the gall to end Evelyn’s life?

Rabbit-obsessed readers (hands, please? anyone?) will love the dedication to all things bunny. Others may find themselves out in the cold.

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE FROSTED DOUGHNUT

Graves, Sarah Kensington (240 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-1134-2

Notch another corpse for Jacobia “Jake” Tiptree (Death by Chocolate Malted Milkshake, 2019, etc.).

After slowly working its way out of the red, Jake’s sweet shop is now one of the linchpins of the revitalized business district of Eastport, Maine. But she and her partner, Ellie White, are less than thrilled when Henry Hadlyme, star of the food tourism show Eat This! offers to include The Chocolate Moose on his podcast Eating on the Edge! which highlights off-the-beaten-track purveyors of New England fare. Hadlyme seems a little slimy to Jake and Ellie, and his interest in their treats seems less than sincere. But when he calls Jake “missy,” that’s it; the two chocolateers boot him out of their shop. He comes back with a vengeance—or at least, his corpse does. It turns up in the basement of the Moose with a stuffed parrot pinned to its shoulder and a cutlass jabbed through its chest in a gruesome nod to the ongoing Eastport Pirate Festival. Jake would love to present police chief Bob Arnold with a convenient alternative to charging her with Hadlyme’s murder. And there’s no dearth of suspects: A surreptitious trip to the Eat This! production trailer lets Jake know that pretty much everyone involved with the show hated Hadlyme. But finding out exactly who croaked the curmudgeon—and offering the chief some proof—proves to be a challenge to Jake’s and Ellie’s ingenuity, health, and welfare.

A treat for aficionados of shopkeeper-sleuth cozies.

DEATH IN AVIGNON

Kent, Serena Harper/HarperCollins (352 pp.) $16.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-06-286988-3 An English expatriate in France continues her affinity for murder.

As winter approaches, Penelope Kite is glorying in her new life in Provence.

More of Le Chant d’Eau is habitable, with fresh plaster, new wiring, and no further corpses in the pool (Death in Provence, 2019). The owners of the bakery in the village of St. Merlot look forward to her croissant purchases, she’s brave enough to host lunch for four of her neighbors, and she’s invited to play cello in a musical group in nearby Roussillon. Realtor Clémence Valencourt continues to visit Penny frequently even though their professional relationship is long over. She’s invited to dinner by St. Merlot’s handsome mayor, Laurent Millais, although no calories had been consumed during either of their earlier rendezvous. And equally dashing Gilles de Bourdan, owner of a small art gallery in nearby Avignon, is so charmed by Penny that he invites her on an overnight trip to visit his larger gallery in Nice. Perhaps the crowning achievement in Penny’s francification is her invitation to the opening of Nicholas Versanne’s exhibition at de Bourdan’s Avignon location. But the death of a fellow exhibitor, retired British barrister Roland Galbraith Doncaster, who keels over during the opening and expires in the hospital several days later, threatens Penelope’s place in Provencal society. As her suspicions grow, her new French friends seem to turn against her, and it takes the arrival of her childhood pal Frankie to right the ship. Even after the big reveal that prompts Penelope to unmask the killer, it takes

WHO’S DEAD, DOC?

Griffin, J.M. Kensington (304 pp.) $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-2058-0 A bunny-loving farmer hopes that her telepathic connection to her pet rabbit can help her solve another murder.

Jules Bridge has dedicated her life to the care of rabbits. Not only does she own and operate Fur Bridge Farm, a venue dedicated to bunnies, but she has a number of rescue rabbits, an onsite vet, rabbit fur spinning classes, and even a few pet rabbits of her own. Sharing her love of the species is Jules’ calling, and it’s all in a day’s work when she 92

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THE KING’S JUSTICE

quite a while for all the complications to unravel at a typical, leisurely Luberon Valley pace.

Spending more time in Kent’s heroine’s company is almost worth all the peregrinations. Almost.

MacNeal, Susan Elia Bantam (368 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-399-59384-0

WATCHING FROM THE DARK

How far can a multitalented woman be pushed before she breaks?

British-born, American-raised Maggie Hope has held an amazing series of jobs since moving to war-torn London.

She’s worked for Winston Churchill, traveled as a spy to Berlin and Paris, and escaped from a Scottish island where someone has been killing exiled Special Operations Executive agents (The Prisoner in the Castle, 2018, etc.).

She’s also found time to help the police apprehend Nicholas Reitter, a serial killer known as the Blackout Beast, who’s been sentenced to death for his crimes. And she’s developed a relationship with divorced, job-obsessed DCI James Durgin, who’s faced with a new serial murder case when suitcases filled with bones turn up in the Thames. Fed up with the SOE and close to losing control, Maggie’s taken on a dangerous job disarming unexploded ordnance for the bomb disposal unit. She works with conscientious objectors, many of whom are Italians in Britain—“Britalians”—whose relatives were interned as enemy aliens. After refusing Durgin’s request for help in the new series of murders, she’s dragged into the case when Reitter, now in the Tower of London, claims to know who the new killer is but will only talk to Maggie, who reluctantly agrees to visit him; he says he’ll give her the killer’s name if the king commutes his death sentence to life imprisonment. Durgin refuses to disclose to the public that each suitcase contained a white feather, suggesting that the killer may be targeting conscientious objectors. Maggie, angered by his caution, wonders if the killer might be connected to the Italian community. She ponders whether nature or nurture creates serial killers. Could she have inherited her own killer instincts from her mother, Nazi spy Clara Hess? A bit of code-breaking and some deeper insight into Reitter break open the case but put Maggie in the killer’s crosshairs.

Action-packed, intertwined mysteries featuring an introspective heroine and packed with little-known historical details.

Lodge, Gytha Random House (352 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-984818-07-2

A man reports the murder of his girlfriend, which happened while he was Skyping with her, in Lodge’s (She Lies in Wait, 2019) second English mystery.

At first the police don’t take the report seriously because the caller won’t give his name, but on a hunch, DCI Jonah Sheens and his team look into it, and they do indeed find the body of Zoe Swardadine.

From the start, there is a plethora of shady characters doing shady things to hide their shady secrets. Foremost among them is Aidan, the (married) boyfriend who called in the crime. The drama of his on-again, off-again relationship with Zoe may have been responsible for her complete transformation over the last few months of her life. And then there’s Victor, Zoe’s irascible co-worker, who may have nursed his own fantasies of a relationship with her, and Maeve and Angeline, Zoe’s best friends, who relied on her to pick them up every time they fell. As a picture of Zoe’s last few months begins to coalesce, Jonah and his team sense a malevolent presence at the heart of the case—someone who hated Zoe enough to murder her at her most vulnerable time. They rush to put the pieces together before one of their own is unwittingly put in danger. Lodge alternates between chapters following the investigation into Zoe’s death and chapters that recount the final 20 months of her life, allowing the reader to understand Zoe as a fully rounded and complicated character, not just a victim. This choice, trendy in thrillers but almost always effective when the characters are strong, consistently reminds us to look beyond simplistic binaries of victim and perpetrator, innocent and guilty, and recognize that all humans make problematic choices, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for bad.

Lodge’s choices celebrate the complexity of humanity and elevate this police procedural.

THE MISSING SISTER

Marr, Elle Thomas & Mercer (300 pp.) $15.95 paper | Apr. 1, 2020 978-1-5420-0605-7 Marr’s debut novel follows a San Diego medical student to, around, and ultimately beneath Paris in search of the twin sister she’d been drifting away from.

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around her sister Angela’s apartment, however, than she finds a message in the secret code the twins had developed as children: “ALIVE. TRUST NO ONE.” Is the corpse the police fished from the Seine 10 days after a murderous attack on the Sorbonne left two of her fellow students dead really Angela Darby’s? Sebastien, Angela’s boyfriend, has identified it as hers, but Shayna, her suspicions on high alert, is convinced that it’s not. Weighed down with resentment that Angela never came home for the funeral of their parents when they were killed in a car accident, urged on by the eerie intimacy she continues to share with her twin, and armed with the scant clues she’s drawn from the documents Angela left behind, she embarks on a search she can only hope will bring them together once more.

Can she trust Sebastien, whose solicitude suddenly erupts into something else when he kisses her passionately and murmurs, “Mon Angèle”? Or Jean-Luc Fillion, the foreign liaison at the American Embassy who places himself at her disposal? Or Louise Chang, the landlady whose mixed-race marriage echoes the twins’ own biracial roots? Or even Inspector Valentin, who disconcertingly suggests first that Angela may have been the victim of a serial killer and then that she may herself have murdered her fellow student and frenemy Emmanuelle Wood? As she tracks down clues amid the city’s historical brothels and the catacombs on which Angela had chosen to write her dissertation, Shayna feels increasingly close to her twin in ways that are both illuminating and profoundly disturbing.

Notable for its exploration of the uncanny bonds twins share and the killer’s memorably macabre motive.

her children and seems out of sorts and perhaps a bit too interested in Keenan, her old boyfriend. Phoebe fears that William’s seen the killer and gone into hiding and ponders who’d want Stephen dead. Local pub owner Joe Murdock, whose business depends on perry, almost came to blows with the American, and sheep farmer Fred Corbyn stands to lose pasture and watering rights if the property is sold. The villagers, who loyally try to give Keenan an alibi, pitch in to harvest the pears and make the perry while he languishes in jail and Phoebe and Eva seek to unearth a killer.

A stylish post–World War I mystery with plenty of twists and strong female characters fully capable of negotiating them.

MURDER IN AN IRISH COTTAGE

O’Connor, Carlene Kensington (304 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-1905-8 A newly fledged Garda jeopardizes her romance in pursuit of a killer.

Siobhán O’Sullivan, who helps her siblings run the family cafe in Kilbane, is secretly engaged to fellow Garda Macdara Flannery. Siobhán is on holiday from her day job (Mur­ der in an Irish Pub, 2019, etc.), so when Macdara’s cousin Jane calls with a frantic cry for help, Siobhán accompanies him to Ballysiogdun. Jane is legally blind and shares a cottage with her mother, Ellen, who’s estranged from her sister, Macdara’s mother. His mam is not easy to get along with, but Ellen, a bossy, retired schoolteacher, is even worse. They arrive to find a crowd of people near Ellen’s cottage, all agitating to have it bulldozed because they’re convinced that its location in the middle of a fairy path spells bad luck and because people who live in it keep dying. Just the night before there had been strange lights, screaming, and even a black dog, the final straw for a superstitious lot of local residents. Siobhán and Macdara find Ellen dead, poisoned or smothered or both, the body carefully posed and a window broken. Although the local Garda want no help from them, both are determined to investigate, especially since Jane is a suspect. Siobhán, who considers Macdara’s involvement tricky because he’s a relative, intends to follow every clue no matter where it leads. Luckily, the investigator is a friend from Garda college who’s willing to pass her information. Ellen was unpopular for so many reasons that there are plenty of suspects who may have wanted her dead: a local councilman, a professor writing a book on the fairy people, and several unhappy neighbors. Picking her way through a thorny thicket of alibis and lies, Siobhán uncovers hidden gold and hidden relationships. Can she also uncover a killer before the case ruins her romance?

Plenty of surprising twists and oodles of Irish charm make this an entertaining read.

A SILENT STABBING

Maxwell, Alyssa Kensington (304 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-1742-9

A titled lady and her clever maid solve yet another difficult case of murder.

It’s 1920. Lady Phoebe Renshaw and her maid, Eva Huntford, have been instrumental in solving many a murder, including, most recently, that of Phoebe’s sister Julia’s husband (A Murderous Marriage, 2018). Lady Julia, pregnant and moping around her grandparents’ home, still blames herself for her husband’s death. Phoebe is surprised to learn that the family’s longtime head gardener has retired, leaving the job to Stephen Ripley, brother to Keenan, whose orchard produces pears for the cider known as perry. Stephen’s debut is marred when he’s seen bullying the garden boy, William. So when he’s found dead in the garden, not even his brother seems all that sad—especially since Stephen was evidently conspiring with a brash American who wanted to buy the orchard and build a hotel on the heavily mortgaged property. In the absence of William, who’s vanished, Keenan is arrested by the local chief inspector, who sees no need to look further. Luckily, Eva’s boyfriend, Constable Miles Brannock, is keeping an open mind.

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A ghoulish killer brings a Boston bookseller’s list of perfect fictional murders to life. eight perfect murders

DEAD RINGER

after his tour in Vietnam. Being on the other side of the investigation doesn’t feel any more comfortable for Russ, who’s already struggling to help Clare cope with Ethan, their infant son; manage the absence of Officer Kevin Flynn, whose new job with the Syracuse Police Department involves some undercover work uncomfortably close to his former hometown; and face down the continuing threat to shut down his department and leave the New York State Police responsible for Millers Kill’s impressive slate of homicides (Through the Evil Days, 2013, etc.). For her part, Clare is pressed to welcome a new intern, Joni Langevoort, a seminary student from Manhattan who turns out to be transgender. Though Joni’s mother is warmly supportive of her daughter’s transition, just the proximity of the family’s wealth and power will ring alarm bells for fans of the series who join Russ and his fragile department in wondering whether they’re dealing with copycat crimes or no crimes at all—or whether the same person really could have murdered all three of those young women between 1952 and the present. The narrative hopscotches nimbly but not very revealingly among the three time periods right through the unsatisfying, early-arriving solution, which doesn’t slow down the continuing complications in all three time frames that reveal where the author’s heart really lies.

As ambitious as Spencer-Fleming’s best as long as you don’t expect a tidy whodunit.

Ryan, Annelise Kensington (352 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-2255-3 The death of a young drug user looks all too much like the work of a serial killer who’s already locked up.

Lacy O’Connor’s corpse shows a shocking amount of abuse for her 27 years on the planet. Not only are there track marks from heroin abuse and dental destruction from meth abuse, but there are five deep stab marks left by the coldhearted killer who dumped her body in the road. One of the wounds, however, holds a surprise: Medical examiner Izthak Rybarceski finds five yellow carnation petals tucked neatly inside. Even more uncanny is the recollection of Mattie Winston (Dead of Winter, 2019, etc.), the medicolegal death investigator who works with Izzy, of the forensic conference she attended a year ago where a colleague from Eau Claire told her about a serial killer who left carnation petals in his victim’s wounds. Eau Claire DA Pete Hamilton is none too happy to hear that a fifth victim may have turned up in time to exonerate Mason Ulrich, the man he sent to the Columbia Correctional Institution, convicted of four earlier deaths. Mattie and her husband, Detective Steve Hurley, find Ulrich’s account of his wrongful conviction credible, but their pursuit of justice for Ulrich is complicated by storms on the marriage front. Since Mattie’s first marriage to surgeon David Winston was fine until it suddenly wasn’t, she and Steve have never learned how to argue. And it’s a skill they’re really going to need, since, already mother to 2-year-old Matthew and stepmom to teenage Emily, Mattie suddenly finds herself expecting another child she’s not entirely sure she wants.

Marital woes bog down an otherwise ingenious whodunit.

EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS

Swanson, Peter Morrow/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-06-283820-9 A ghoulish killer brings a Boston bookseller’s list of perfect fictional murders to life—that is, to repeated, emphatic death.

The Red House Mystery, Malice Afore­ thought, The A.B.C. Murders, Double Indemnity, Strangers on a Train, The Drowner, Deathtrap, The Secret History: They may not be the best mysteries, reflects Malcolm Kershaw, but they feature the most undetectable murders, as he wrote on a littleread blog post when he was first hired at Old Devils Bookstore.

Now that he owns the store with mostly silent partner Brian Murray, a semifamous mystery writer, that post has come back to haunt him. FBI agent Gwen Mulvey has observed at least three unsolved murders, maybe more, that seem to take their cues from the stories on Mal’s list. What does he think about possible links among them? she wonders. The most interesting thing he thinks is something he’s not going to share with her: He’s hiding a secret that would tie him even more closely to that list than she imagines. And while Mal is fretting about what he can do to help stop the violence without tipping his own hand, the killer, clearly untrammeled by any such scruples, continues down the list of fictional blueprints for perfect murders. Swanson (Before She Knew Him, 2019, etc.) jumps the shark early from genre thrills to metafictional puzzles, but despite a triple

HID FROM OUR EYES

Spencer-Fleming, Julia Minotaur (320 pp.) $27.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-0-312-60685-5

The ninth case for Millers Kill Police Chief Russell Van Alstyne and his wife, Rev. Clare Fergusson, is actually three cases that span more than 60 years.

A young woman in a party dress is found dead out in the middle of McEachron Hill Road. Though there’s not a mark on her, everyone on the Millers Kill force instantly suspects murder because that’s the same spot where two similarly dressed women were found dead in 1952 and 1972. Neither earlier case was ever solved. In fact, the closest thing to a suspect in the 1972 case was Russ Van Alstyne, having some serious readjustment issues |

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COLLISION OF LIES

helping of cleverness that might seem like a fatal overdose, the pleasures of following, and trying to anticipate, a narrator who’s constantly second- and third-guessing himself and everyone around him are authentic and intense. If the final revelations are anticlimactic, that’s only because you wish the mounting complications, like a magician’s showiest routine, could go on forever.

The perfect gift for well-read mystery mavens who complain that they don’t write them like they used to.

Threadgill, Tom Revell (400 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-8007-3650-7 Threadgill (Dead of Winter, 2019, etc.) plunges a detective from the San Antonio Property Crimes Division into a deep-laid plot involving murder, kidnapping, and myriad other crimes above her pay grade.

Sure, Amara Alvarez would love to work for Homicide, but she doesn’t expect that to happen any time soon—not even after Marisa Reyes, whose 6-year-old son, Benjamin, was killed three years ago when his bus was struck by a freight train in a crash that left 17 schoolchildren and three other victims dead, gets a text message from Benjamin that says: “Help me, Mom.” Enzo Reyes keeps telling his wife that there must be some mistake, and none of the scant evidence Amara turns up gives any reason to hope, but Marisa is convinced that her boy is still alive. And her unwavering faith is seconded from an unexpected quarter when Daniella Delacruz, whose daughter Caterina was another victim of the collision, finds a note on her car’s windshield that says simply, “I’m sorry.” Odds are that the note was left by somebody who cut her off in traffic or nearly hit her car. But Amara’s sufficiently struck by the coincidence to dig deeper, especially when she realizes that Philip Dragan, one of two victims in a very contemporary double murder, was the man who told Daniella Delacruz he was sorry and that the forensic evidence in the three-year-old case strongly suggests that Marisa Reyes is on to something. That’s enough to pull her away from her latest case in Property Crimes—a series of nearly a dozen robberies by someone whose real goal wasn’t to take anything but to leave something behind—and get her assigned to a coveted spot helping the FBI. The closing movement doesn’t maintain the level of the buildup, but readers will root for Amara to get promoted to Homicide in the inevitable sequel.

No sex or cussing; just some truly horrifying crimes of violence, greed, and corruption.

FIREWATCHING

Thomas, Russ Putnam (368 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-525-54202-5 A Yorkshire detective untangles an old murder and new arsons.

DS Adam Tyler, a cold-case investigator for the South Yorkshire Police, is a bit of a loner, but his boss wants him to network more so he lets Sally-Ann, one of his civilian colleagues, talk him into joining a pub evening with the South Yorkshire Police LGBT Support Network.

He doesn’t plan to stay long, and when he meets a handsome man at the bar—“Sweetheart, he was everyone’s type. Even mine,” Sally-Ann says—he abandons the group to go home with him. The next morning, when he gets to work, Sally-Ann tells him there’s big news: The body of Gerald Cartwright, a local tycoon and shady character who disappeared years ago, has been found in the basement of his own house during a renovation ordered by his 21-year-old son, who’d just inherited it. Tyler manages to get himself assigned to the investigation though the detective who’s been working on it since Cartwright’s disappearance doesn’t want to hand it over to cold cases; he soon discovers the identity of his one-night stand: Oscar Cartwright, son of the deceased and potential suspect, which further complicates his position. Meanwhile, Edna and Lily, elderly Cartwright retainers of various duties, have begun receiving unsettling anonymous letters, and the whole community is rattled by a series of arsons that seem more and more likely to be related to the discovery of Cartwright’s body. As Tyler’s investigation slowly uncovers a sordid history of manipulation and abuse, the violence increases and he is assaulted several times. The repetitive nature of these assaults is a weakness in the book, but the richness of Tyler’s character and the vividness of his negotiation of his own sexuality and the casual bigotry in his community are effective. The subsidiary characters are lively and believable, the arsons are particularly well described, and though the plot sometimes seems gratuitously complex, this is a rewarding entertainment.

A good detective in an incendiary procedural.

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COLUMBUS NOIR

Ed. by Welsh-Huggins, Andrew Akashic (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-61775-765-5 The latest stage in Akashic’s master plan to paint the world black is marked by 14 new stories whose most appealing features are their come-hither titles and the different shades of noir they invoke, from light gray to pitch black.

The hallmark here is competent but unspectacular professionalism that ticks all the boxes but originality. Sex fuels the plots of Robin Yocum’s “The Satin Fox,” in which a vice cop’s |

romance with a junkie stripper is threatened by blackmail; Kristen Lepionka’s “Gun People,” in which a wife takes up with one of the contractors upgrading the place her accountant husband has purchased; Craig McDonald’s “Curb Appeal,” which follows a woodworker’s romance with an interior decorator to its all-too-logical end; Mercedes King’s “An Agreeable Wife for a Suitable Husband,” whose ill-assorted title couple plot to rid themselves of each other; Julia Keller’s “All That Burns the Mind,” in which an Ohio State University English teacher finds a sadly predictable way of dealing with two problem students; and Khalid Moalim’s “Long Ears,” whose heroine learns a great deal about an ancient accident and a present-day murder but keeps mum. None of the entries excels editor Welsh-Huggins’ “Going Places,” in which a rising politician’s wife and fixer collude to shelter him from the consequences of his peccadilloes; the nearest competitors are Chris Bournea’s “My Name Is Not Susan” (a retired football player’s lover is suspected when he and his wife, the lover’s friend, are murdered), Tom Barlow’s “Honor Guard” (a chronically disappointing son negotiates frantically to keep his father out of prison after an argument with a stranger turns deadly), and Daniel Best’s “Take the Wheel” (a tawdry, fast-moving tale of a pair of frenemies whose partnership in a coffee shop is threatened by some lethally laced heroin). The newly arrived Chinese student in Nancy Zefris’ darkly comic “Foreign Study” manages to stumble through town without occasioning a single felony, and Laura Bickle’s “The Dead and the Quiet,” Lee Martin’s “The Luckiest Man Alive,” and Yolanda Tonette Sanders’ “The Valley” are notable for their closing intimations of grace, that rarest of qualities in noir.

As for Columbus, it comes across much like other Midwestern cities in noir stories, which may be the point.

RANGER MCINTYRE: THE DUNRAVEN HOARD MURDERS

Work, James C. Five Star/Gale Cengage (248 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 19, 2020 978-1-4328-5948-0

When a treasure hunt at a Colorado mine turns deadly for some college students in the 1920s, a park ranger works with a lady friend who’s employed by the FBI to suss out the root of the trouble.

With a two-week vacation so close he can feel it, Rocky Mountain National Park Ranger Timothy Grayson McIntyre is torn away from fantasies about how much fly-fishing he can fit in when he’s roped into using his free time for an informal investigation as a favor to a friend. That’s fine with McIntyre, because the friend is FBI secretary Vi Coteau, and investigating at his sweetheart’s behest makes it likely that he’ll be spending time in close quarters with her. And no quarters could be closer than exploring Colorado’s labyrinthine mines, where upper-crust undergraduate Richard Leup and two fraternity brothers have been exploring in search of that well-known buried treasure, the Dunraven Hoard. One of the boys has been killed during the explorations, and the other two |

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seem the most likely suspects if the death turns out to be murder and not misadventure. Richard’s father, William, a friend of Vi’s, asks McIntyre and Vi to investigate, if only to keep Richard in the clear, though McIntyre needs no excuse to spend time with Vi outside the confines of her society set. McIntyre ponders motive and opportunity in putting together the pieces of the puzzle as the college boys, who’ve been given little individual personality of their own, are cut down one by one. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’d probably solve the mystery faster if he spent more time tracking the killer and less considering where Vi stores her gun.

This sturdy homage to 1920s national parks lacks the oomph that would make it memorable.

science fiction and fantasy THE LAST SMILE IN SUNDER CITY

Arnold, Luke Orbit/Little, Brown (368 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-316-45582-4 The debut novel from Australian actor Arnold is a fusion of paranormal fantasy and mystery set in a world where magic has been effectively destroyed by humans, forcing the supernatural population to live a radically diminished existence.

Fetch Phillips is a “Man for Hire,” which is another way of saying the down-on-his-luck, hard-drinking former Soldier– turned-detective will do just about anything to pay the bills.

When a principal from a cross-species school enlists him to find a missing professor—a 300-year-old Vampire named Edmund Rye—Phillips quickly agrees. Without magic, the Vampires—and all other supernatural beings—are slowly dying. So how difficult could it be to find a withered bloodsucker who is so weak he can hardly move around? After visiting Rye’s last residence—a secluded loft space in the local library filled with the Vampire’s research and writings—Phillips discovers that one of Rye’s students is missing as well: a young Siren named January. His investigation becomes complicated when more Vampires turn up dead and he is almost killed himself. While the mystery element of the storyline is a bit thin, the focus on meticulous worldbuilding and highly detailed backstory as well as the cast of fully developed and memorable characters (Simms, the reptilian cop; Peteris, the disfigured half-werewolf; etc.) are unarguable strengths. But the real power here is in Arnold’s use of imagery throughout.

His unconventional descriptive style brings a richness and

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Fierce, poetic, uncompromising. the city we became

A BLIGHT OF BLACKWINGS

depth to the narrative. Pete’s smile is “like a handbag with a broken zipper,” and the sound of Phillips’ falling from a building is “like someone stepping on an egg full of snails.”

The first installment of an effortlessly readable series that could be the illegitimate love child of Terry Pratchett and Dashiell Hammett.

Hearne, Kevin Del Rey/Ballantine (592 pp.) $28.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-345-54857-3

Book 2 of Hearne’s latest fantasy trilogy, The Seven Kennings (A Plague of Giants, 2017), set in a multiracial world thrust into turmoil by an invasion of peculiar giants.

In this world, most races have their own particular magical endowment, or “kenning,” though there are downsides to trying to gain the magic (an excellent chance of being killed instead) and using it (rapid aging and death). Most recently discovered is the sixth kenning, whose beneficiaries can talk to and command animals. The story canters along, although with multiple first-person narrators, it’s confusing at times. Some characters are familiar, others are new, most of them with their own problems to solve, all somehow caught up in the grand design. To escape her overbearing father and the unreasoning violence his kind represents, firegiant Olet Kanek leads her followers into the far north, hoping to found a new city where the races and kennings can peacefully coexist. Joining Olet are young Abhinava Khose, discoverer of the sixth kenning, and, later, Koesha Gansu (kenning: air), captain of an all-female crew shipwrecked by deep-sea monsters. Elsewhere, Hanima, who commands hive insects, struggles to free her city from the iron grip of wealthy, callous merchant monarchists. Other threads focus on the Bone Giants, relentless invaders seeking the still-unknown seventh kenning, whose confidence that this can defeat the other six is deeply disturbing. Under Hearne’s light touch, these elements mesh perfectly, presenting an inventive, eye-filling panorama; satisfying (and, where appropriate, well-resolved) plotlines; and tensions between the races and their kennings to supply much of the drama.

A charming and persuasive entry that will leave readers impatiently awaiting the concluding volume.

THE SECRET CHAPTER

Cogman, Genevieve Ace/Berkley (352 pp.) $26.00 | $16.00 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-593-19784-4 978-1-9848-0476-1 paper In a world of dragons, Fae, and timetraveling Librarians, an unlikely team, thrown together by circumstance, must steal a massive painting from a European museum.

Librarian Irene Winters and the dragon prince called Kai have only just had a chance to celebrate the good fortune of a recent treaty between the dragons and the Fae when a new, critical job presents itself in this new installment of Cogman’s (The Mortal Word, 2018, etc.) Invisible Library series. Chaos threatens the world in which Irene grew up, and it can only be stopped by the recovery of a text containing a one-of-a-kind story. To get it, Irene and Kai will have to bargain with Mr. Nemo, a secretive Fae who lives in a world outside the treaty and who has a penchant for feeding his enemies to sharks. Like all Fae, Mr. Nemo expects something in return—Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, to be precise—and he wants Irene and Kai to work with five other specialists to secure it. Traveling from Mr. Nemo’s tropical 1980s hideaway to a version of contemporary Europe, the crack teammates find themselves endangered by the presence of an anti-supernatural police force, and the angst present in Irene and Kai’s relationship intensifies as each comes to discover how little they know about the other’s motivations and allegiances. Cogman (The Mortal Word, 2018, etc.) slathers on the intrigue, layering and twisting together the plots of dragons, Fae, and Librarians alike to arrive at a conclusion that some may deem too cleanly rendered. Although one or two Fae members of Mr. Nemo’s seven-person heist team prove forgettable, the near-relentless mischief and mayhem make for an indulgent read.

A series installment that works well as a stand-alone, with final twists that will leave readers wanting more.

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THE CITY WE BECAME

Jemisin, N.K. Orbit (448 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-316-50984-8

This extremely urban fantasy, a love/ hate song to and rallying cry for the author’s home of New York, expands her story “The City, Born Great” (from How Long ’Til Black Future Month, 2018).

When a great city reaches the point when it’s ready to come to life, it chooses a human avatar, who guides the city through its birthing and contends with an extradimensional Enemy who seeks to strike at this vulnerable moment. Now, it is New York City’s time to be born, but its |

avatar is too weakened by the battle to complete the process.

So each of the individual boroughs instantiates its own avatar to continue the fight. Manhattan is a multiracial grad student new to the city with a secret violent past that he can no longer quite remember; Brooklyn is an African American rap star–turned– lawyer and city councilwoman; Queens is an Indian math whiz here on a visa; the Bronx is a tough Lenape woman who runs a nonprofit art center; and Staten Island is a frightened and insular Irish American woman who wants nothing to do with the other four. Can these boroughs successfully awaken and heal their primary avatar and repel the invading white tentacles of the Enemy? The novel is a bold calling out of the racial tensions dividing not only New York City, but the U.S. as a whole; it underscores that people of color are an integral part of the city’s tapestry even if some white people prefer to treat them as interlopers. It’s no accident that the only white avatar is the racist woman representing Staten Island, nor that the Enemy appears as a Woman in White who employs the forces of racism and gentrification in her invasion; her true self is openly inspired by the tropes of the xenophobic author H.P. Lovecraft.

Although the story is a fantasy, many aspects of the plot draw on contemporary incidents. In the real world, white people don’t need a nudge from an eldritch abomination to call down a violent police reaction on people of color innocently conducting their daily lives, and just as in the book, third parties are fraudulently transferring property deeds from African American homeowners in Brooklyn, and gentrification forces out the people who made the neighborhood attractive in the first place.

In the face of these behaviors, whataboutism, #BothSides, and #NotAllWhitePeople are feeble arguments.

Fierce, poetic, uncompromising.

THE UNSPOKEN NAME

Larkwood, A.K. Tor (464 pp.) $25.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-250-23890-0

Larkwood’s debut, the first of a fantasy series, begins in familiar fashion as a warrior-maiden adventure and gradually develops into a love story.

In this imaginative but never fully convincing universe, places may be reached via magical gates leading through a maze of dead and dying worlds. Magic powers derive from a rare, innate ability combined with power vouchsafed by a patron god. Csorwe is of a hominin race that sports tusks—these are functionless and, unfortunately, impossible to visualize without thinking “piggish.” In a narrative rendered in crisp, vivid prose, Csorwe serves the oracular shrine of a god–the Unspoken Name–but is destined soon to sacrifice herself. Then Sethennai, a wizard—his race has Spock ears—requesting a prophesy about the mysterious and powerful Reliquary of Pentravesse, offers her a choice: serve him and live, or marry the god and die. Csorwe chooses life and becomes Sethennai’s ninja. The wizard, formerly the |

ruler of the city Tlaanthothe, needs her to help reclaim his position from a scheming rival. Later, during a quest to secure the Reliquary, she will clash with the Qarsazhi, imperial interworld extortionists, and their powerful young wizard Shuthmili, who’s fated to be absorbed by their enforcement arm but, like Csorwe, never conceived other possibilities. Until this point, the story meanders, but finally the author finds a unique voice no longer dependent on boilerplate action, chases, escapes, torture, and fights. And when Csorwe and Shuthmili meet and fumble toward a relationship, we recognize heartfelt emotion, real substance, and an emergent theme: loyalties and the choices we make that engender them. These, along with the strong female leads, are solid foundations upon which to build.

A moderately promising entry that should find an audience.

r om a n c e THE SECRET SHE KEEPS

Dimon, HelenKay Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Dec. 30, 2019 978-0-06-289279-9

Secluded Whitaker Island faces a crime spree when Connor Rye comes for a vacation, but when an enigmatic beauty is in danger, he’ll risk anything to keep her safe.

Needing a break, Connor follows his brother Hansen’s footsteps to secluded Whitaker Island, but the night he arrives he’s attacked by someone in his pitchdark cottage and warned to leave. He’s surprised to learn that a mysterious woman named Maddie Rhine, who answers the phone for the police department, is responsible, and they have an unorthodox meet-cute when the local police chief, Ben Clifford, makes Maddie confess to Connor. She tells him that she thought he was breaking into the cabin, but that’s not true— she had been counting on having that cabin empty in case she needed to use it as a hideout since she had just gotten a threatening note saying “I found you, bitch.” The notes escalate and seem to threaten Connor as well. Connor and Maddie find themselves increasingly attracted to each other, and Connor becomes Maddie’s fiercest protector; meanwhile, Ben becomes more concerned that Maddie’s past is coming back to haunt her.

It turns out that Maddie used to be in the witness protection program. When a body turns up on the island and her old WITSEC handler follows, Maddie begins to think it may be time to run again, but she’d left WITSEC because she wanted a life— “Not her old one, but a life”—and now she finally feels like she’s getting there and may have met her perfect match. Yet even as she and Connor are contending with a dangerous enemy, they’re kirkus.com

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also navigating deep emotional wounds, and surviving physically might be less challenging than overcoming past traumas through honesty and vulnerability. Dimon’s second Whitaker Island–set romantic suspense once again plays up the remote location populated by a community full of secrets and fueled by gossip. Calm, capable Connor (brother of Hansen from Her Other Secret, 2019) is the perfect partner for rattled Maddie, and their journey to happiness is smart and satisfying, though slightly marred by a villain with hazily defined motivations.

Quirky and sizzling.

Shupe, Joanna Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Dec. 30, 2019 978-0-06-290683-0 A wild and bold uptown girl meets her match in a brooding casino owner bent on revenge against her family in this Gilded Age romance.

The Bronze House is the most famous and exclusive casino in fin de siècle New York City, attracting the social elite to its tables while enriching its powerful, enigmatic owner, Clayton Madden. Clayton rose from poverty up through the criminal underworld to amass his fortune, and he uses manipulation and physical violence to maintain it. Clayton is driven by revenge: He plans to ruin Duncan Greene, the wealthy builder who razed his childhood home to build a factory. Complicating this plan is the arrival of uptown debutante Florence Greene to the Bronze House. Florence is bored by society life and views marriage as a gilded cage. Inspired by playing euchre in her grandmother’s parlors, she dreams of opening an elegant casino for women but needs tutelage in business and gaming. Cold and unfeeling Clay is unexpectedly taken with Florence’s beauty, skill at gambling, and determination. Shupe (The Rogue of Fifth Avenue, 2019, etc.) dispenses with contrived conflict by having Clay inform Florence of his revenge plot and of his intention to seduce her if she will have him: “Your smile could electrify every street in the city.” Drawn to Clay’s intelligence, brute strength, and rugged good looks, Florence hopes to deter him from the revenge plan, if not the seduction.

The plot gallops delightfully through the brothels, casinos, fancy restaurants, and elegant salons of New York. As Clay and Florence grow closer, in part via sex scenes as blistering hot as they are inventive, in part via witty banter and genuine friendship, it becomes harder to separate their relationship from his need for revenge, and they must both rethink their loyalties and goals.

An absolute ace, guaranteed to thrill fans of great gambling-house romances by Sarah MacLean and Lisa Kleypas.

NEVER KISS A DUKE

Frampton, Megan Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 978-0-06-286742-1 A sudden loss of nobility leads a former duke to his future bride.

When is a duke not a duke? When he’s Sebastian de Silva and he’s just been informed that his parents were not legally married, so his claim to be the Duke of Hasford is null and void. Unsure how to handle this abrupt change in circumstances, he and his friend Nash stumble into Miss Ivy’s, a new gambling house gaining renown for allowing any person with sufficient funds to play. He’s immediately interested in the proprietor, Ivy Holton, a ruined aristocrat who chose to open her own establishment rather than marry the man who’d won her hand from her father in a wager. Though she also finds him attractive, he ends up working for her, and he needs to stay employed for the first time in his life, meaning he can’t pursue her. As they continue to work together, however, there are multiple chances for the two to explore the chemistry that’s obvious to everybody but them— and finally, a “spectacular opportunity” presents itself and the two kiss. Ivy immediately apologizes for taking advantage of an employee, though soon after she and Sebastian agree that “it wasn’t just a kiss,” and a relationship begins to bloom. But if anything is to come of their attraction, Sebastian will have to make his peace with his new place in the world, and Ivy will have to decide whether she is willing to sacrifice her hard-won independence. This is the first entry in Frampton’s new Hazards of Dukes series, and if it does not quite live up to the magic of her earlier books, it’s still satisfying. Though Frampton (Never a Bride, 2019, etc.) is able as ever in developing promising subplots and a strong heroine, the tension of the plot is frequently lost, and Sebastian’s motivations can seem muddled. Despite this, both hero and heroine are likable, their amorous scenes are delightfully steamy, and Frampton has set up future installments well enough that readers can look forward to them.

A capable historical romance featuring games of chance and games of the heart.

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THE WORST BEST MAN

Sosa, Mia HarperCollins (368 pp.) $15.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-06-290987-9

A Washington, D.C., wedding planner falls in love with her ex-fiance’s brother.

Three years ago, Lina Santos was jilted on the morning of her wedding.

Since then, she’s made a success of her small wedding-planning business, Dotting the I Do’s. When |

she’s given the opportunity to compete for a job as the inhouse wedding coordinator at an exclusive boutique hotel, she’s thrilled about the opportunity but nervous about the nonstandard interview format: She’ll be paired with a marketing specialist and will have five weeks to prepare a sales pitch of herself and the hotel’s services. The catch: Her partner is Max Hartwell, her ex-fiance’s brother, the one who encouraged him to back out of the wedding. Max knows working with Lina isn’t ideal, but it’s a golden opportunity to make a name for himself. The plot is classic “enemies to lovers” and is executed perfectly. Sosa (Crashing Into Her, 2019, etc.) deftly moves Lina and Max through a series of complex plot machinations that feel organic rather than contrived. Lina is a sympathetic and poignant character, fiercely loyal to her family and proud of her Brazilian heritage, and even though she’s an eminently capable wedding planner, she struggles with her fear of failure. Max has always come in second to his older brother, so he fights what feels like a forbidden attraction. As Lina and Max navigate thorny family dramas and professional challenges, they cautiously move from animosity to love and learn that “there are no do-overs in life...there are only do-betters.” It’s a slow-burn romance done perfectly right.

A captivating love story about two people who bring out the best in each other both professionally and personally.

may feel frustrated that the two of them don’t reach a compromise sooner. At the very least, the romance and setting are cute enough to persevere to a happily-ever-after, and animal lovers will enjoy seeing the distinct personalities of the Dorothy’s residents and their pets. More cynical romance readers may rankle at the saccharine setup and pampered pups.

Expect a toothache from this overly sweet contemporary.

COLD NOSE, WARM HEART

Wells, Mara Sourcebooks Casablanca (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-4926-9858-6

An antagonistic couple find love through meddling grandparents, troublesome pets, and a real estate rehab project in this enemies-to-lovers romance.

The Dorothy is a senior-living apartment complex with personality, but building manager Riley Carson knows she’s in a little over her head. After a public scandal involving her previous employer, a fancy resort, she left her job to help run her grandmother’s apartment complex in South Florida.

Unfortunately, the building is in desperate need of TLC, and Riley knows the residents’ fixed income limits the improvements that can be made. Caleb Donovan takes one look at the Dorothy and sees luxury condominiums in its future.

That would also mean displacing the complex’s residents and turning the beloved neighboring dog park into a parking lot. Though Caleb is clearly painted as the bad guy, looking to gentrify a neighborhood and run out its inhabitants, his motivations lie in saving his family business. It’d be easier to understand his plight if he didn’t drive around in a Porsche and clothe himself in high-end brands. The quirky characters, both human and animal, overwhelm the romance between Riley and Caleb; they’re far more entertaining than the main couple. The solution that would work for Riley and Caleb in terms of the Dorothy is obvious from the start, and readers |

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nonfiction THE SMARTPHONE SOCIETY Technology, Power, and Resistance in the New Gilded Age

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE COST OF LOYALTY by Tim Bakken........................................... 103

Aschoff, Nicole Beacon (240 pp.) $24.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-8070-6168-8

THE MAN IN THE RED COAT by Julian Barnes.............................. 104 THE AGE OF FOOTBALL by David Goldblatt.................................114 RACE AGAINST TIME by Jerry Mitchell.......................................... 123

THE AGE OF FOOTBALL Soccer and the 21st Century

Goldblatt, David Norton (624 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-393-63511-9

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How the ubiquity of smartphones has transformed society.

Sociologist Aschoff (The New Proph­ ets of Capital, 2015) provides both historical context and political insight, showing what is new in the current technological revolution and recalling earlier times when technology upended the status quo. As “the new Gilded Age” of the subtitle suggests, the author reminds us of how the automobile changed everything, especially the economy. Yet while radical change was widespread, society survived the aftershocks and advanced. “People have always been anxious about new technology,” writes Aschoff, without minimizing the profound imbalances the smartphone underscores, especially in terms of economic and social inequality. She shows how activists have used the smartphone to document police brutality against black citizens while police (and the government at large) have employed the same technology of interconnection for monitoring and surveillance. Two of the most important recent social movements—#MeToo and Black Lives Matter—are both phenomena that have spread virally through a culture enabled by smartphones. At the same time, this culture has allowed the mobilization of white nationalists and other dangerous elements. We get our news on our phones, form our political beliefs, and see them echoed by like-minded partisans. The smartphone has all but dissolved the distinction between the personal and the political while changing the way we shop, date, and present ourselves to the outside world, with which we so often connect by smartphone. All the while, we are enriching and enabling global empires through collected data and underpaid labor. “Our fantasies about the digital frontier,” writes Aschoff, “hide the hierarchical and ecologically destructive relationships of global capitalism.” The author doesn’t advocate for opting out, nor does she believe that the worstcase scenario is inevitable. Instead, she offers advice for pushing back and establishing some personal autonomy in the fight for “digital justice.”

A concise analysis of how best to live within the brave new smartphone world.

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A provocative, disturbing argument that a democracy is in trouble when it venerates the military unconditionally. the cost of loyalty

THE COST OF LOYALTY Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military

CLEARER, CLOSER, BETTER How Successful People See the World

Balcetis, Emily Ballantine (272 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-5247-9646-4

Bakken, Tim Bloomsbury (400 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-63286-898-5

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A social psychologist explores perception strategies that successful people rely on to reach their goals.

The methods that drive individuals to prosper in their careers or to meet challenging performance goals have been the fodder of numerous motivational bestsellers. In this ambitious new book, Balcetis (Psychology/ New York Univ.; co-editor: Social Psychology of Visual Perception, 2010) examines what she feels are the key elements that inform these strategies and how they specifically relate to ideas of perception. “In this book,” she writes, “I offer four strategies intended to quite literally reshape the way we see the world….

Each of these strategies serves a different function. Knowing about each, we can better prepare ourselves for the multitude of difficulties that we stand to experience as we tackle life’s biggest challenges.” The strategies include narrowing your focus (concentrating your attention allows you to tune in more effectively to the immediate task at hand); widening the bracket (bigpicture planning that allows for an organic change of course if needed); materializing (organized planning through checklists and progress summaries); and framing (enhancing your ability to gather objective feedback and learning how to read the emotions of others). In each chapter, Balcetis relays a series of brief profiles, ranging across multiple disciplines, that serve as examples of how these strategies can be manifested from different angles. She also shares her own goal-oriented story as she tracks her progress in mastering a drumming piece for an upcoming performance. With the exception of her somewhat indulgent drumming account, the author’s individual stories are relatable and often thought-provoking. However, in providing far too many random examples, the key arguments often lose focus; cumulatively, they distract from the flow of her narrative.

There’s a sense that Balcetis felt compelled to include every element of her research.

Compelling ideas about perception and goal setting that would have benefitted from a tighter narrative. (5 illustrations)

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A West Point professor deconstructs the many failures of America’s most beloved institution: the armed forces.

Bakken—the first civilian hired to teach law at West Point who was also a whistleblower and won a retaliation case against the U.S. military—delivers an angry polemic, arguing that America’s military is commanded by men of limited intelligence but self-serving loyalty to their institution. This didn’t matter before World War II, when peacetime forces were tiny and neglected. Since 1945, however, they have swollen massively, dominating civil society and operating free of constitutional restraints thanks to several Supreme Court decisions and fawning civilian leaders. Fervently admired—approval in polls never drops below 70%—the military has attained untouchable status from its commander in chief. Every president after Dwight Eisenhower has proclaimed unqualified esteem, and Congress, which last declared war in 1942, has surrendered its authority. Yet despite performing with spectacular incompetence in most wars since WWII, no general has been fired. Bakken places much blame on the service academies (West Point et al.), mediocre institutions awash in money whose draconian discipline and teaching methods date from their founding. Most instructors are junior officers with no specialty in their subject who rotate through for a few years, following a rigid syllabus from which they cannot deviate. Readers may pause in their fuming to recall that brilliant people rarely choose a career in the military—or law enforcement. Rather, members of the military join for the action and value courage and loyalty above all. They consider themselves a band of brothers, indispensable defenders of the nation, most of whose effete citizens lack their selfless dedication.

Warriors have always believed this, which is a mostly harmless situation unless they are calling the shots, which the author states is happening—and they are making a mess of it.

A provocative, disturbing argument that a democracy is in trouble when it venerates the military unconditionally.

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THE ART OF SOLITUDE

Batchelor, Stephen Yale Univ. (200 pp.) $23.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-300-25093-0

Barnes, Julian Knopf (288 pp.) $26.95 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-525-65877-1

A fresh, urbane history of the dramatic and melodramatic belle epoque.

When Barnes (The Only Story, 2018, etc.), winner of the Man Booker Prize and many other literary awards, first saw John Singer Sargent’s striking portrait of Dr. Samuel Pozzi—handsome, “virile, yet slender,” dressed in a sumptuous scarlet coat—he was intrigued by a figure he had not yet encountered in his readings about 19th-century France. The wall label revealed that Pozzi was a gynecologist; a magazine article called him “not only the father of French gynecology, but also a confirmed sex addict who routinely attempted to seduce his female patients.” The paradox of healer and exploiter posed an alluring mystery that Barnes was eager to investigate. Pozzi, he discovered, succeeded in his amorous affairs as much as in his acclaimed career. “I have never met a man as seductive as Pozzi,” the arrogant Count Robert de Montesquiou recalled; Pozzi was a “man of rare good sense and rare good taste,” “filled with knowledge and purpose” as well as “grace and charm.” The author’s portrait, as admiring as Sargent’s, depicts a “hospitable, generous” man, “rich by marriage, clubbable, inquisitive, cultured and well travelled,” and brilliant.

The cosmopolitan Pozzi, his supercilious friend Montesquiou, and “gentle, whimsical” Edmond de Polignac are central characters in Barnes’ irreverent, gossipy, sparkling history of the belle epoque, “a time of vast wealth for the wealthy, of social power for the aristocracy, of uncontrolled and intricate snobbery, of headlong colonial ambition, of artistic patronage, and of duels whose scale of violence often reflected personal irascibility more than offended honor.” Dueling, writes the author, “was not just the highest form of sport, it also required the highest form of manliness.” Barnes peoples his history with a spirited cast of characters, including Sargent and Whistler, Oscar Wilde and Sarah Bernhardt (who adored Pozzi), Henry James and Proust, Pozzi’s diarist daughter, Catherine, and unhappy wife, Therese, and scores more.

Finely honed biographical intuition and a novelist’s sensibility make for a stylish, engrossing narrative. (95 illustrations in color and b/w)

A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.

“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no lon­ ger a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.

A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.

PEARLS OF WISDOM Little Pieces of Advice (That Go a Long Way)

Bush, Barbara Twelve (256 pp.) $22.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5387-3494-0

A celebratory gathering of memories from Barbara Bush’s friends and family, featuring her own quotes.

“You might question how someone who left this good earth two years ago could be the author of a new book,” writes Jean Becker, who worked for Bush for nearly 30 years. “Simple, really. It was her words—that made this book possible. It is indeed written in her voice and in her 104

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and his flirtations with women prior to meeting Martha Custis, who, within a year, became his wife. Coe writes extensively about the slaves and indentured servants who called Mount Vernon home and the man who served as Washington’s personal aide throughout his life, including on the battlefield. The author has clearly done her homework, evident throughout the text in the letters and documents she quotes and the numerous sidebars and charts she incorporates, including a listing of the numerous animals housed at Mount Vernon. Coe juxtaposes her portrait of Washington’s political and leadership traits with a softer side of him as stepfather to Martha’s children, but she also shows his negligence toward his own mother. There is also a timeline, a list of “diseases survived,” and a handy bulleted section called “George Washington at a Glance” (his “dislikes” included “idle chatter,” “sitting for portraits,” and “slapstick humor”).

Evenhanded and engaging, this biography brings fresh insight to one of America’s most written-about leaders.

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spirit.” Beginning with a who’s who glossary of the extended Bush family and their circle, which included statesmen, writers, and celebrities, Becker loosely groups Barbara’s advice on family, living well, and literacy, among other topics. A patchwork (some may say scattershot), round-table approach yields colorful reflections on a woman who was known as “The Enforcer,” Barb, and, to her grandchildren, Ganny. More than the first lady’s advice—which draws on sensible optimism: “You can like what you do OR you can dislike it. I choose to like it, and what fun I’ve had”—it’s everyday situations that lead to original, unscripted quips. Sometimes, frightened staff recall Bush’s graceful way of handling the unexpected and of putting everyone at ease. Family who visited Kennebunkport recount her nononsense yet loving discipline, and friends who witnessed the Bushes’ marriage depict the couple’s mutual respect and banter.

Such memories reveal a plainspoken individual who was prone to faux pas yet could laugh at herself. Writings from Bush’s children mix gentle humor with awe, as when her son, Jeb, calls her parenting a “benevolent dictatorship.” This is a fond retrospective that sometimes repeats biographical details and nuggets of wisdom. In the author’s note, Becker apologizes for the repetition, which dilutes the focus. Readers seeking insight on a dynastic political family will find a down-to-earth, humanizing portrait of a much-loved matriarch. Those hoping for novel wisdom will find unsurprising comments on gratitude, kindness, love, and living fully with joy.

A tribute to an American icon that brims with love and hope.

YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST A Biography of George Washington

Coe, Alexis Viking (304 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-7352-2410-0

A biography of George Washington that debunks many of the tall tales surrounding his legacy.

When Coe (Alice + Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis, 2014), a former research curator at the New York Public Library, began gathering information for her latest book, she realized that most of the major Washington biographies had been written by men and were often biased toward a male perspective. Because this book avoids the male-centric viewpoint, it should make for interesting reading even for those who think they know Washington’s story. Coe shares the unvarnished truth about the man, exposing many of the myths about him. In one section, the author examines the “Lies We Believe About the Man Who Could Not Tell Them,” which include the “fact” that “He was the first president to live in the White House.” As Coe notes, “Washington helped choose the site of the White House, but John Adams was the first president to live there.” The author chronicles Washington’s battles in the French and Indian War |

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A provocative and maddening study of judicial activism for the benefit of the haves over the have-nots. supreme inequality

SUPREME INEQUALITY The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America

UNRIGGED How Americans Are Battling Back To Save Democracy

Daley, David Liveright/Norton (272 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-63149-575-5

Cohen, Adam Penguin Press (400 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-7352-2150-5

Equality is supposedly enshrined in the law of the land, but inequality reigns supreme thanks to a battery of rulings by

the Supreme Court.

From the time of the New Deal until the end of the Warren Burger era, the Supreme Court was an instrument of social policy for the benefit of the poor, shattering such things as the “anti-Okie laws” that made it a crime to transport a poor person across the borders of some 28 states and made it a highly desired career track to be a “poverty lawyer.” This track was followed by none other than Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who made her first Supreme Court argument against an Air Force policy that awarded higher benefits to male than female officers. However, writes Cohen (Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, 2016, etc.), the Nixon era saw the emergence of a right-tending court that poverty lawyers sought to avoid, one that, after Burger retired in 1986, took a definite shift toward favoring corporate interests over individual ones. The inequalities that ensued are of several kinds. Court rulings in the field of education, for example, have validated “the widespread model of overwhelmingly minority urban school districts surrounded by largely white suburban ones,” with the money flowing away from those urban centers and the concomitant “extremely high levels of school segregation.” A different ruling might have created equality of opportunity instead of a clear path to failure, Cohen suggests. Similarly, rulings on political campaign finance have favored corporations, as in the case of Citizens United, and other interventions in politics, as with Bush v. Gore, have worked against the “fundamental principle of American law that court rulings have precedential value.” Throughout, Cohen examines roads not taken, ones that might have “built a different society,” while noting that the court is likely to take an even more rightward tack in coming years.

A provocative and maddening study of judicial activism for the benefit of the haves over the have-nots.

An uplifting story of how grassroots political movements around the nation are forcing significant changes in how our government operates.

Former Salon editor Daley wrote his first book, Ratf **ked (2016), to show how Republicans in many states have used gerrymandering and voting manipulation to guarantee total control of many levels of government for years, even decades, into the future. Guided by powerful new algorithms, they made it virtually impossible for Democrats to defeat them. In his latest book, however, the author offers a much more hopeful outlook, writing about nonpoliticians who have started a powerful new political movement that is catching on across America and is showing every sign of accelerating. One story tells of a 27-year-old woman, an employee in a recycling nonprofit, who wrote on Facebook that she wanted to “take on gerrymandering in Michigan” and asked if anyone was interested. Ultimately, she was able to get portions of Michigan’s constitution rewritten. Similar movements soon followed in Colorado, Utah, Ohio, and Missouri, all of which faced powerful opposition, and all of which won. Then, as it became clear that 25 other states had passed laws designed to make it harder for Democrats to win elections—and more difficult for people of color to vote—citizens in those states joined the fight. They won battles dealing not only with gerrymandering, but also with such issues as voter ID laws, precinct closures, voting roll purges, voting rights for released felons, and more.

As Daley clearly shows throughout this inspiring text, it was always “ordinary” citizens who led the way, often people who had never participated in politics. They took to the streets, circulated petitions, ran for office, and launched or joined organizations, and they did it while facing overwhelming odds and severe opposition from elected officials. But they never gave up, and they almost always won.

A book for anyone who wants to effect major change but thinks they can’t.

LAST STOP AUSCHWITZ The Story of My Survival de Wind, Eddy Trans. by Colmer, David Doubleday (256 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 9, 2020 978-0-8575-2683-0

A survivor of the Holocaust chronicles his horrific experiences in the “barbed-wire hell” of Auschwitz.

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A Dutch physician, de Wind was transported to Auschwitz in 1943 and was alive when the Red Army arrived in 1945. He stayed at the camp, working as a doctor for the other survivors and writing this book. It was published in the Netherlands in 1946 but nowhere else, so this is its first appearance in English.

Readers who assume that victims marched directly from the trains to the gas chambers will quickly learn that many had to endure numerous other awful crimes before they were executed.

Auschwitz was not one but a series of huge camps, only one of which contained the crematoriums. An estimated 1.3 million were sent there, and about 83% died. The author begins with his train ride from a Dutch camp. Prisoners were locked in an ordinary freight car with a bucket for a toilet and no food or water for a trip that lasted three days, sometimes longer. Upon arrival, all luggage and valuables were confiscated; children, the aged, and the infirm were often immediately gassed. Jews capable of working as well as non-Jews were stripped naked, shaved, sprayed with disinfectant, ordered to choose clothes from a pile taken from dead prisoners, and packed into overcrowded barracks. Most worked in mines, quarries, heavy construction, or

factories, many operated by long-established Germany companies. The conditions were barbaric: The diet, which consisted of about 1,500 calories per day, according to the author, could not sustain even a sedentary person, so most died after a few months, and their skeletal bodies were burned. Auschwitz contained a few privileged institutions such as a hospital, food preparation facilities, and warehouses; prisoners assigned in these areas had a greater chance of surviving. That included the author, who delivers a harrowing account that contains the same horrors, unspeakable behavior, suffering, and occasional humanity revealed in other concentration camp memoirs.

A lamentably familiar, chilling reminder of the depths to which humans can sink.

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A poignant, highly moving memoir of tragic circumstances and a lifelong love of exploring. the adventurer’s son

THE ADVENTURER’S SON A Memoir

CODE RED How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite To Save Our Country

Dial, Roman Morrow/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $28.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-06-287660-7

A brisk account of a father’s search for his 27-year-old son, who vanished on a solo trek through Costa Rica’s Corcovado jungle.

Alaskan adventurer and ecologist Dial (Mathematics and Biology/Alaska Pacific Univ.; Packraft­ ing! An Introduction and How-To Guide, 2008) chronicles his quest to figure out what happened to his son, Cody. Fusing personal history with elegy and adventure, this arresting narrative of every parent’s worst fear begins with the author’s background and then recounts the Dial family’s many exciting excursions.

Meticulous memories of father and son exploring places like Alaska and Borneo establish Cody as a person who grew into a capable adventurer and biologist. In the second section, the author pieces together Cody’s volcano climbs and resourceful forays in Central America before contact with his parents ceased. His last email was written in Costa Rica in 2014, and its haunting last line—“…it should be difficult to get lost forever”—reverberates throughout the text. When he realized that his son may have disappeared, Dial left for Costa Rica to unearth the truth. With the assistance of his friends, wife, and an intriguing mixture of officials and locals (who weren’t always forthcoming with information), Dial confronted rumors of foul play and continued to sift through his own knowledge of his son’s character for clues. The author’s guilt at having sparked Cody’s interest in the wild mingles with the veteran adventurer’s tactical calm in the face of numerous obstacles. His descriptions of Costa Rica’s jungles echo with mystery, and, despite his grief, Dial’s writing remains measured and cleareyed. When he recounts how a TV crew took a sensational angle for the sake of drama, the author’s dismay is palpable. Two years later, Cody’s remains were found, and it was determined that his death was an accident, which brought his family some sense of closure. In its emotional restraint and careful descriptions of the wild, this is a slow-burning tribute.

A poignant, highly moving memoir of tragic circumstances and a lifelong love of exploring. (b/w photos)

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Dionne Jr., E.J. St. Martin’s (272 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-25647-8

The Washington Post columnist and NPR commentator offers a passionately reasoned argument for why both progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party must put aside differences to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

Seizing on the momentum of the 2018 midterm elections, Dionne Jr. (Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism From Gold­ water to the Tea Party and Beyond, 2016, etc.) is both articulate and enthusiastic about the need for the two liberal sides to work together, and he readily admits that he sounds like “a perhaps unwelcome counselor attempting to ease a family quarrel.” The success of the 2018 elections (“Democrats received 25 million more votes than they had in 2014”) underscores how the alliance of progressives and moderates, interested in protecting health care and reforming politics, can serve as the “model for the alliance that must come together again in 2020 and beyond.”

The author discusses the important mobilization of African American and Latinx voters, young people, and, especially, suburban women, many of whom have been disgusted by Trump’s “white ethno-nationalism, his lies, his extremist rhetoric, his self-centered irrationality.” Indeed, the election was very much about Trump, though not in the way he had hoped. Systematically, the author shows why bipartisanship, once the catchword, is not currently viable with the growing homogeneous, anti-immigrant Republican Party, which looks nothing like the “decent pragmatism” of the party of presidents Lincoln, Eisenhower, or even Nixon. The author then pursues the “crooked path” of the progressive story in America and the resurgence of democratic socialism in reaction to Reaganism and the continued rise of inequality even after the Clinton and Obama years.

Indeed, writes Dionne, the “socialist” proposals of universal health care, free college, and even the Green New Deal are not radical. Moreover, a Democratic coalition is needed to repair the many fractured relationships with American allies.

A well-argued and persuasive treatise by a deeply concerned journalist and citizen.

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THE PRINCESS AND THE PROPHET The Secret History of Magic, Race, and Moorish Muslims in America Dorman, Jacob S. Beacon (304 pp.) $28.95 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-8070-6726-0

A corrective portrait of an early-20thcentury chameleon who became an influ-

ential Muslim leader.

In this dense social history, Dorman (History and Core Humanities/Univ. of Nevada; Chosen People: The Rise of Ameri­ can Black Israelite Religions, 2013) takes a largely nonjudgmental view of Noble Drew Ali (1886-1929), the controversial founder of the Moorish Science Temple of America, a forerunner of the Nation of Islam. Despite the author’s evenhanded approach, Ali emerges as a con artist of unusual audacity. In a prodigious

feat of detective work, Dorman discovered that Ali was actually the circus magician Walter Brister, who faked his death in 1914 with the help of his wife, Eva, only to reappear years later and establish the Moorish Science Temple in Chicago. Styling himself as the Prophet Noble Drew Ali and Eva as the Grand Sheikess, he claimed to be the reincarnation of Muhammad and preached that black Americans “were in fact Asiatics of Islamic Moorish descent.” He flouted the law repeatedly: He had four wives simultaneously and was arrested for statutory rape, practicing medicine without a license, and the murder of an associate (a charge he beat, possibly by bribing the police). He made enough enemies that his death, officially attributed to tuberculosis and other causes, led some people to suspect he’d been poisoned. Dorman devotes much space to the antecedents of “Moorish Science”—e.g., Freemasonry, the Shriners, and “Orientalist tropes” like harems—which makes for a slow-paced narrative but one with a deep social context. He also finds Ali’s legacy in the fezzes worn by some rappers and in other pop-cultural outcroppings. At the end, he concludes that even if all the allegations about his subject are true, “there was something noble

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OLYMPIC PRIDE, AMERICAN PREJUDICE The Untold Story of 18 African Americans Who Defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitler To Compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics

about Noble Drew Ali.” Given that Ali was credibly accused of murder and child rape, the special pleading suggests that the author stumbled into the biographer’s trap of falling in love with a subject who requires the clearer eye he shows elsewhere in the book.

A flawed yet erudite narrative about the founder of a precursor of the Nation of Islam. (two 8-page photo inserts)

Draper, Deborah Riley & Thrasher, Travis Atria (320 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-5011-6215-2

Jesse Owens wasn’t the only black athlete who excelled at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This group portrait honors the others who helped prove Hitler wrong about white superiority in sports.

Eighteen African American athletes—16 men and 2 women—competed at the Berlin Olympics, all overshadowed

by Owens’ spectacular victories. Without neglecting the star runner and long jumper, this companion to a 2016 movie celebrates the other black members of the American team, most of whom competed in track and field events. As director Draper and veteran author Thrasher (American Omens: The Coming Fight for Faith: A Novel, 2019, etc.) show, many had overcome towering obstacles, including poverty, segregation, and pressure from black newspapers to boycott the Olympics. Whatever their challenges, the 17 lesser-known athletes stayed focused in Berlin, won 10 medals in addition to Owens’ four golds, and helped lay to rest Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy in sports. The authors describe competitors like 400-meter dash gold medalist Archie Williams in undemanding, present-tense prose well suited to a young adult audience: “Archie knows going back to school is a good thing. He will be bettering himself and not sitting around the house and getting into trouble.” This approach will hearten booksellers and librarians looking for inspiring, easy-to-read sports books for teenagers, but adult readers may be put off by oversimplified characterizations of Hitler and others: “The Nazi leader has no desire to race or compete. His idea of competition is to defeat his enemies or to make sure they can never line up against him in the first place.” Anyone seeking more complex nonfiction about U.S. athletes’ challenges in Berlin will find it in Daniel James Brown’s bestselling The Boys in the Boat or Andrew Maraniss’ recent young adult book Games of Deception.

A decent meal for sports-loving teenagers looking for role models but a thin soup for adults. (b/w images)

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HEAVEN AND HELL A History of the Afterlife Ehrman, Bart D. Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-50-113673-3

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A study of the development of Christian concepts of the afterlife.

Ehrman (Religious Studies/Univ. of North Carolina; The Triumph of Chris­ tianity: How a Forbidden Religion Swept the World, 2018, etc.) skims the surface in this offering for general readers. Having built an academic career on examining the veracity of the Bible, the author uses his platform to argue that ideas of heaven and hell lack meaningful merit in the Scriptures.

Ehrman begins with an overview of how the afterlife was treated in other ancient Western literature, such as the works of Homer and Plato, before moving on to the Hebrew Bible. Ehrman seems convinced that many readers will be surprised to learn that heaven and hell appear differently, if at all, in the course of Old Testament literature. He demonstrates that, at best, the ancient Hebrews believed in a vague afterlife. More likely, they believed that existence for individuals ended with death. By the time of Jesus, a natural desire for justice from the travails of life had led to a more developed concept of afterlife for the good while the bad met only with extermination. Turning to the teachings of Jesus, Ehrman is clear that “Jesus did not teach that when a person died they would go to heaven or hell.” Furthermore, he argues, “one of my theses is that a close reading of Jesus’s words shows that in fact he had no idea of torment for sinners after death.” The author brushes off scriptural references that seem to contradict these conclusions as unreflective of the words of “the historical Jesus.” Likewise, he discounts any ideas about hell attributed to Paul as later additions by other authors, an approach that echoes Erhman’s arguments in such previous works as Forged. The author concludes that although death is the ultimate mystery, he doubts it brings anything but oblivion, and he urges his readers to find comfort in their coming, dreamless sleep.

A readable book of popular Christianity that offers little new theologically.

As a reporter at the small-circulation Charleston GazetteMail in Charleston, West Virginia, Eyre won the Pulitzer for his writing on the huge shipments of opioids entering his region and how opioid manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and unethical doctors and pharmacists combined to put fatal doses of the dangerous painkillers into the hands of desperate patients. There have been numerous recent books about the opioid crisis—readers can’t go wrong with Sam Quinones’ Dreamland, Beth Macy’s Dopesick, or Chris McGreal’s American Overdose—and Eyre covers some of the same ground. However, what distinguishes his book is the author’s emphasis on the massive but nearly anonymous wholesale distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and McKesson, among others. Those companies shipped millions of pills to smalltown pharmacies that never could have needed such volumes; for instance Kermit, which has a population of less than 400 and was “drowning in prescription painkillers.” Eyre clearly explains how the Drug Enforcement Administration and the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy could have ameliorated the flood of pills but did nothing. Another powerful actor who

DEATH IN MUD LICK A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic Eyre, Eric Scribner (304 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-9821-0531-0

A Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter delivers his entry in the (sadly) growing literature about the opioid epidemic ravaging the country. |

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A graphic and often moving contribution to the important conversation about endemic sexism. stop telling women to smile

enabled the epidemic was West Virginia’s attorney general, Patrick Morrisey, a Republican politician who lied about his involvement and failed to recuse himself while his wife received payment from Cardinal Health as a lobbyist. While battling for disclosures via freedom of information lawsuits in the courts, Eyre located numerous victims of the indiscriminate pill shipments, including many users who had buried multiple family members and friends after they overdosed. Unsurprisingly, his accounts of his interactions with them are disturbing, moving, and heart-wrenching. Portions of the narrative feature firstperson narration, as the author illuminates how time-consuming, budget-busting investigative journalism functions despite circumstances that mitigate against it. The drama ratchets up as Eyre battles early-onset Parkinson’s disease.

Timely, depressing, engrossing reportage on an issue that can’t receive too much attention.

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STOP TELLING WOMEN TO SMILE Stories of Street Harassment and How We’re Taking Back Our Power

Fazlalizadeh, Tatyana Seal Press (256 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-58005-848-3

Anger fuels an artist’s project to publicize the prevalence of street harassment.

Painter and street artist Fazlalizadeh makes a compelling book debut that expands her public art series “Stop Telling Women to Smile.” The series began when she mounted three posters she drew of women’s faces—her own and two friends’— each captioned with a single sentence in protest of street harassment: “My Name is Not Baby, Sweetie, Sweetheart, Shorty, Sexy, Honey, Pretty, Boo, Ma” and “Women Are Not Seeking Your Validation.” As the posters gained attention, the project grew into interviews with—and portraits of—many women who talked about their experiences with vulnerability, fear, and mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion. “Street harassment,” writes the author, “is not an isolated issue” but rather part of “a long history of aggressive sexualization” that includes domestic abuse and sexual assault. Fazlalizadeh cites research showing that between 40% and 60% of women attest to having experienced street harassment in the Middle East and North Africa; 65% in the U.S.; 79% in India; 86% in Thailand and Brazil. She cautions against viewing men’s comments as evidence of sexual attraction; harassment, she writes, “is ultimately about power and dominance.” Most of the 10 women portrayed in this book recall being harassed even as children, often by adult men. “It’s always shocking how young we were,” one Asian American woman reveals. “When I was young,” a queer, gender-nonconforming Latinx reveals, harassment felt like “the cornering of a younger body into a very sexualized being.” Asian women and women of color often encounter stereotyped sexualization. “Not Your Asian Fetish, China Doll, Geisha,” one woman’s poster reads. Several interviewees identify as queer and one as trans, presenting an image that seems to threaten some men.

“For a couple composed of two women,” street harassment “will likely be layered with homophobia.” By capturing women’s rage and frustration, Fazlalizadeh hopes to create empathy, “ignite actions and engage communities of people.”

A graphic and often moving contribution to the important conversation about endemic sexism. (82 b/w illustrations/ photos)

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DOSTOYEVSKY READS HEGEL IN SIBERIA AND BURSTS INTO TEARS

THE LONG DEEP GRUDGE A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland

Földényi, László F. Trans. by Mulzet, Ottilie Yale Univ. (304 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-300-16749-8

Gilpin, Toni Haymarket (425 pp.) $21.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 978-1-64259-033-3

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A history of the relationship between the Farm Equipment Workers union and “International Harvester, once the country’s fourth-largest corporation and second to none in its antiunion animus.”

Labor historian Gilpin (co-author: On Strike for Respect: The Clerical and Technical Workers’ Strike at Yale University, 1988) has firsthand knowledge of the Farm Equipment Workers union and its relationship with International Harvester. Her father was there at the beginning of the FE, “a small union, now long defunct,” and later moved on to the United Auto Workers

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A collection of essays on why contemporary culture would do well to embrace transcendence.

Hungarian cultural critic Földényi (Theory of Art/Univ. of Theatre, Film, and Television, Budapest; The Glance of the Medusa: The Physiognomy of Mysticism, 2018, etc.) gathers 13 pieces, published in earlier versions from 1995 to 2012, that examine the spiritual and metaphysical consequences of the Enlightenment. The author regrets the loss of mystery in contemporary life, “the feeling that there is something incomparably greater than my own self.” That sense of the ineffable, he asserts, was suppressed during the Enlightenment, which promoted the idea that “only time and intellectual preparation were required in order to cast light upon all things—with no dark corners remaining anywhere unilluminated by the light of reason.” In essays that consider a wide range of writers and artists, including Dostoyevsky, Rilke, Goethe, Artaud, William Blake, Mary Shelley, Goya, and many more, Földényi underscores the importance of the metaphysical and warns against seeing “the renunciation of transcendence as a victory.” We are surrounded by the enigma of our own existence: “Each human life,” the author writes, “emerges thanks to a fracture, a break” that plunges us from nonexistence into existence and throws us back again.

In the title essay, the author imagines Dostoyevsky, exiled in Siberia, coming upon Hegel’s rationalistic philosophy of world history, which eliminated Siberia “as a setting for historical culture.” Exiled from the rest of Russia and now, by Hegel, from the progress of world history, Dostoyevsky responded at first with dismay. But gradually, he came to find new understanding— of himself, religion, and the Russian soul—far from “Hegelian repression.” Among Földényi’s essays on art, his consideration of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog stands out for its precise, lyrical prose and insights about art and science. Friedrich’s painting, the author argues, reflects the contradictory longing of German romantics to become eternally submerged in nature—or to turn around and “write rapturous interpretations of the absolute spirit embodied by that sea of fog.”

Perceptive meditations on humanity’s need for spiritual nourishment.

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Superb: Essential reading not just for fans of the sport, but also for students of geopolitics. the age of football

Union, which, writes the author, was “a ubiquitous presence as I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s—when unions still had more active members than retirees and newspapers maintained labor beats.” In 1885, IH’s iron molders called a strike, which went nowhere until they turned to collective action, taking the whole factory out. Because IH was the most anti-union company in America, its leaders held out longer than any other before accepting unions. This complex, well-researched, dense text includes the infamous Haymarket Riot and countless tales of bitter relations between labor and corporate elements. IH officials did much to try to forestall the unions, establishing industrial councils and employee representative plans, but it was not enough. The FE was a radical, multicultural union with seasoned, skilled, and dedicated organizers. It took them years of work to win coverage for unskilled labor and eliminate piecework. Eventually, they took their fight to the new IH plant in Louisville to fight the Mason-Dixon wage differential, a major issue. By the end of World War II, IH had accepted collective bargaining, but it wasn’t the end of the fight, as IH still hated FE and used the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the Taft-Hartley Act to help maintain their control. Gilpin follows every aspect of this “long, deep grudge” (sometimes too deeply for general readers), creating a useful labor history that could spark renewed interest in unions at a time when “activists are back at the drawing board.”

A comprehensive account that will appeal most to business historians and activists looking for direction. (b/w photos)

RUST A Memoir of Steel and Grit Goldbach, Eliese Colette Flatiron Books (320 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-250-23940-2

Ohioan Goldbach turns in a gritty memoir of working in a steel mill while wrestling with the world beyond.

“Steel is the only thing that shines in the belly of the mill.” The rest, writes the author, is hued in the greens and browns of dust and decay, muted and camouflaged. Appropriately, at the plant, she was just this side of anonymous, known as “#6691: Utility Worker.” Still, she was assured by fellow workers that the money she would make would be the envy of Cleveland, certainly more than what she’d make as the professor she wanted to become. Of course, there were plenty of drawbacks. Her first day, she heard the horrific tale of another woman on the line torn to bits—“her body just fell apart”—by an errant cylinder on a conveyor belt.

There were also dangerous forklifts and cauldrons and vats of magmatic metal. The world outside was full of terrors, as well.

Goldbach endured sexual assault and the onset of bipolar disorder and battled her parents on matters of religion and politics.

As a solid member of the blue-collar working class, union card in hand, she took a role as the resident liberal in the steel mill, a type so rare that her fellow workers seemed scarcely able to 114

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imagine it. Trumpian currents run deep in the mill, as she discovered, but when tragedy strikes, she learns, these “bunch of Joe Schmos” are as one: “There was no division so great that it could eclipse the unity that had been forged in the light of the mill’s orange flame.” The narrative sags every now and then, but one cheers for Goldbach when she’s finally offered the teaching post to which she’s so long aspired, entailing a massive pay cut and starting all over at the bottom, prepared to take that risk precisely because she has gained the necessary confidence on the shop floor—and saved enough to do so thanks to the decent, union-backed wages she earned.

An affecting, unblinking portrait of working-class life.

THE AGE OF FOOTBALL Soccer and the 21st Century

Goldblatt, David Norton (624 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-393-63511-9

A learned, wide-ranging study of football—soccer, that is—as something that’s much more than just a game.

The French philosopher Guy Debord devoted much attention to the spectacle, which is meant, writes Goldblatt (The Games: A Global History of the Olympics, 2016), to “not just distract but commodify, blind and stupefy too.” That’s one function of sports—namely, to keep us from recognizing what’s going on around us. The author, who may know as much about soccer as any person on the planet, takes the story far beyond that, into realms that particularly embrace politics, those systems that make things happen to people. One instance among dozens is the place of soccer in Hungary, a nation headed by a neofascist who once played the game himself and who has built an outsized stadium in his home village, “held up by huge, breathtaking trusses of laminated mahogany set in the great fan patterns of a Gothic cathedral.” Other intellectuals come and go in Goldblatt’s pages, including the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who commented, “football is popular because stupidity is popular.” The sneer is unnecessary, but the fact is that soccer is the world’s single most popular spot—and is even gaining ground in the U.S. and China, which had previously ignored it. Goldblatt does a lot of on-the-ground footwork to track the game’s fortunes, observing that Asia is emerging as a soccer power; Africa has superb players hampered by lack of money; and the game is growing by leaps even as the corruption surrounding it is breathtaking and even if it often seems an expression of warfare by other means, as when, in a match between South Korea and China, “Chinese authorities surrounded the Korean squad and the stadium with thousands of troops.” There’s no corner of the globe that Goldblatt doesn’t explore, and his book updates and overshadows Franklin Foer’s How Soccer Explains the World (2004).

Superb: Essential reading not just for fans of the sport, but also for students of geopolitics. (26 b/w photos)

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HOW TO BE FINE What We Learned From Living by the Rules of 50 Self-Help Books

Greenberg, Jolenta & Meinzer, Kristen Morrow/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $25.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-06-295719-1 The hosts of a popular podcast series write about their experiences living by self-help books.

In each episode of the podcast By the Book, Brooklyn-based hosts Greenberg and Meinzer (So You Want To Start a Podcast, 2019) take listeners through the ups and downs of living by the prescriptive rules of their mutually assigned self-help books.

The books represent a range of commercially relevant topics, from dieting to financial savings to the mystically aspirational.

Within each two-week run, the hosts discuss possible insights gleaned as well as individual challenges, and they relate how

their experiences may have affected their relationships with their spouses or friends. Humor is also important, hence the inclusion of occasional chestnuts such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus and Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints. In this book, the authors approximate the breezily chatty voice of their podcast, and they break it down into thematic sections: “13 Things That Worked,” “8 Things That Didn’t Work,” and “8 Things We Wish More Books Recommended.” The workable tasks included learning to declutter (Life-Changing Magic of Tidy­ ing Up) and preparing for death (The Art of Dying Well). Among the books that didn’t work were dieting books and works stressing the need for forgiveness, such as The Four Agreements. Throughout, the authors offer subjective commentary, more often triggered by specific impulses rather than the quality of the work they’ve chosen to live by that week. In the final section, they expand beyond specific books and delve into more personal issues. Greenberg advocates for talk therapy and medication (in her case, for treating ADHD), and Meinzer, “a world-class procrastinator,” advises accomplishing goals by approaching them in chunks. Though both offer some valid advice, neither seems

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BEING HEUMANN An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist

aware of the many notable books on these topics already available. For their avid listeners, there isn’t much in the way of new information or insights about the books or the hosts, and readers not familiar with the podcast don’t gain an understanding of why they approached this subject in the first place.

A rehash of the podcast that may interest established fans.

DO NOTHING How To Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving

Headlee, Celeste Harmony (288 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-9848-2473-8

An argument against the notion that “our carefully designed strategies and gadgets will make us better.”

As a popular radio host, journalist, and speaker, Headlee (We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter, 2017) has plenty of experience in trying—and often failing—to achieve the so-called work-life balance. “While I’d always been driven, I’d also been exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed,” writes the author of her years of struggle to advance her career, pay the bills, and manage the responsibilities of being a single mother.

She had hoped that “when I achieved financial stability, my stress would end.” However, the opposite was true: Once she was offered bigger money for speeches and other jobs, it was tougher to turn them down. “If your goal is less stress and more happiness,” she writes, “years of scientific research have proven that better than trading your time for money, it’s best to trade your money for time.” Easier said than done, and though Headlee remains highly productive, with a schedule that will leave many readers breathless, she does an effective job of showing how the Industrial Revolution changed the time-money equation, how multitasking makes us less focused and efficient, why connecting online rather than engaging in human interaction can be dehumanizing, and how you can feel better about your life by acting kindly. Among her many suggestions: Engage in conversation with four strangers per day; keep track of how you are spending your time, because you’re probably not as busy as you think you are; and acknowledge that downtime can make you more creative and productive as well as happier. Readers are advised not to take the author’s title literally, because there is so much that can be done to reassert the importance of leisure in life, including reading a book about it.

Headlee offers little groundbreaking information, but her advice is well taken and will prove useful for harried readers.

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Heumann, Judith with Joiner, Kristen Beacon (232 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-8070-1929-0

A driving force in the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act looks back on a long career of activism.

“An Occupation Army of Cripples Has Taken Over the San Francisco Federal Building.” So shouted a newspaper headline in the wake of one particularly vocal protest. According to disability rights activist Heumann, that was fine. “People weren’t used to thinking of us as fighters—when they thought about us at all,” she observes. Until the 1980s, disabled people were largely made invisible, with no easy means of access to the systems of transportation, employment, and other goods that the rest of the population often takes for granted. The author, who was paralyzed after a bout of childhood polio, might have been shunted off to an institution, as one doctor recommended, which was the usual practice in 1949.

Instead, her parents, orphans of the Holocaust, resisted. The system did not make much allowance for her outside such an institution. At first, she was taught by a teacher who came to her home for two and a half hours a week, then sent to “Health Conservation 21,” a New York school system program in which students were expected to remain “until we were twenty-one years old, at which point we were supposed to enter a sheltered workshop.” Instead, Heumann distinguished herself academically and got involved in the drafting of legislation that would effectively add disability to the classes of protected citizens under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To do so, she had to make the case that “discrimination against disabled people existed,” something that many people did not wish to acknowledge.

Then she had to find allies inside government on top of battling a host of foes, including conservative politicians and businesses “worried about what ADA would cost, in time and money.” Heumann prevailed, and following passage of the ADA after years of agitation, she worked for the World Bank and was appointed a representative of the Obama administration to advance civil rights for disabled persons internationally.

A welcome account of politics in action, and for the best of causes.

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A useful biography that provides an honest reckoning of Washington’s life and legacy. washington’s end

WASHINGTON’S END The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle Horn, Jonathan Scribner (352 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-5011-5423-2

A scholar of American history and former presidential speechwriter delves into the last poignant years of the first president and his struggle to define his legacy.

Finally leaving the nation’s capital of Philadelphia upon his successor’s inauguration on March 4, 1797, bound for his beloved Virginia home, Mount Vernon, George Washington did not realize how arduous his retirement was going to prove after eight years as president. He was 65 and healthy, yet the pressures were enormous, as Horn (The Man Who Would Not Be Washington: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War and His Decision That Changed American History, 2016) clearly delineates in this welcome new

biography of “America’s first post-presidency.” Mount Vernon was bleeding money and in disarray, requiring countless repairs.

Washington was in debt and could not rid himself of his numerous slaves because they belonged to the estate of his wife’s first husband. Furthermore, the construction of the new capital, Washington, was proving a headache of epic proportions—as was tension with France, prompting the new president, John Adams, to appoint Washington as commander in chief just when he was hoping to be left alone as a private citizen. In addition to entertaining numerous guests, including “a party of French princes, cousins to the guillotined king,” at Mount Vernon, Washington had to deal with his stepson “Wash,” who was turning out to be a loafer and miscreant. His dear friend the Marquis de Lafayette was imprisoned in Austria amid the French Revolution, prompting his wife to send the marquis’ teenage son to America to live with the former president as a refugee, though the president felt guilty for not being able to publicly shelter the boy sooner. In a readable style that includes an appropriate amount of quoting from primary sources, Horn ably captures the tension of Washington’s inner turmoil as he continued to deal with urgent dispatches and unwanted news from the capital.

A useful biography that provides an honest reckoning of Washington’s life and legacy.

ROUGH IDEAS Reflections on Music and More

Hough, Stephen Farrar, Straus and Giroux (464 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-374-25254-0 A potpourri of pieces (most about music) in a variety of keys and rhythms.

A prolific classical pianist, recording artist, and writer, Hough (The Final Retreat, 2018) has a lot on his mind. There are scores of entries here—the table of contents consumes eight pages—as the author addresses countless topics, from “The Soul of Music” and “Can Atonal Music Make You Cry?” to “Debussy: Piano Music Without Hammers” and “The Three Faces of Francis Poulenc.” Some are adaptations of previously published pieces, and others are versions of Hough’s blog posts. His subject matter ranges from music (history, technique, personalities, pianos, autobiography, even some obituaries) to sexuality (he writes in several places about being gay) to religion (he’s a Roman Catholic) to art museums, abortion, and more. All of the pieces are tightly focused— some are not even a page long, some of which readers may find themselves skimming over—and most are articulate and packed with questions for readers to ponder. (“I’m allergic to telling anyone what to do,” he writes early on.) Hough educates us on his routines, including how he likes to dress up to play and his practice methods while on the road, and he is unafraid to point out his own embarrassments—e.g., a broken pants zipper just before a performance. The author also consistently credits others who 118

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have greatly affected him: early teachers, colleagues, performers from earlier eras. Of course, some of the more technical pieces about playing the piano—uses of the pedals, how to play trills— will be of principal interest to other musicians. But much of the book is for general readers: Hough’s thoughts about wallpaper music (he hates it), comments about smoking, generous remarks about Americans (he’s from the U.K.), and discussions of favorite writers (he loves Willa Cather).

Proof that music is not just in notes; it’s also in words.

HIGH RISK A Doctor’s Notes on Pregnancy, Birth, and the Unexpected Karkowsky, Chavi Eve Liveright/Norton (288 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-63149-501-4

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Katchor, Ben Illus. by the author Schocken (496 pp.) $29.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-8052-4219-5

An account of once-popular New York restaurants that had a rich social and cultural history.

“Since, by choice or historical necessity, exile and travel were defining aspects of Jewish life, somewhere a Jew was always eating out,” observes cartoonist and MacArthur fellow Katchor (Illustration/Parsons, the New School; Hand-Drying in America, 2013, etc.) in his exhaustively researched, entertaining, and profusely illustrated history of Jewish dining preferences and practices. The Garden of Eden, he notes wryly, was “the first private eating place open to the public,” serving as a model for all the restaurants that came after: cafes, cafeterias, buffets,

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A maternal-fetal medicine specialist explores the intricacies of pregnancy.

Karkowsky (Obstetrics and Gynecology/Albert Einstein Coll. of Medicine) begins her high-risk tales with the account of a pregnant woman over 40 who “had almost no working organs in her body” and was on dialysis three times per week. Through meticulous monitoring and inhospital care, she had a successful cesarean delivery of a preterm infant who survived intensive care and went home. The author then takes readers through the key elements of each trimester. Initially, it’s often nausea and vomiting that, for an unlucky few, can persist through all nine months. Before IV hydration, such women could die. The second trimester is the time for genetic testing. Amniocentesis is a prime test for Down syndrome, but there are now less invasive tests for many genetic anomalies. An issue here is that false positives or negative rates can be high enough to make decision-making tough. Perils in the third trimester include preterm labor, stillbirths, hemorrhaging, and the soaring maternal blood pressure of potentially fatal preeclampsia/eclampsia. In addition to graphic accounts of complications, Karkowsky also examines how pregnancy care is evolving—not always for the better.

She deplores the fact that cesarean deliveries account for onethird of all births in America today (malpractice fears? financial gain?), and she is incensed that maternal mortality is high among white women but three times higher for African American women—and not because of socio-economic factors. She suggests implicit bias is at work. The author believes consent forms are a mess and hates that women seeking a vaginal delivery after a cesarean birth have to sign a consent form to permit it. Overall, Karkowsky urges better communication between doctors and nurses and doctors and patients, especially in conveying tragic news. She also makes frequent references to her own experiences as a wife and mother, subject to some of the risks she describes.

A solid primer on pregnancy risks as well as a cogent plea for progress to make childbirth even less perilous.

THE DAIRY RESTAURANT

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A much-needed addition to feminist discourse. hood feminism

milk halls, lunch counters, diners, delicatessens, and, especially, dairy restaurants, a favorite destination among New York Jews, which Katchor remembers from his wanderings around the city as a young adult. Dairy restaurants, because they served no meat, attracted diners who observed kosher laws; many boasted a long menu that included items such as mushroom cutlet, blintzes, broiled fish, vegetarian liver, and fried eggplant steak. Attracted by the homey appearance and “forlorn” atmosphere of these restaurants, Katchor set out to uncover their history, engaging in years of “aimless reading in the libraries of New York and on the pages of the internet,” where he found menus, memoirs, telephone directories, newspaper ads, fiction, and food histories that fill the pages of his book with colorful anecdotes, trivia, and food lore. Although dairy restaurants were popular with Jewish immigrants, their advent in the U.S. predated immigrants’ demand for Eastern European meatless dishes. The milk hall, often located in parks, resorts, or spas, gained popularity throughout 19thcentury Europe. Franz Kafka, for example, treated himself to a glass of sour milk from a milk pavilion after a day in a Prague park. Jews were not alone in embracing vegetarianism.

In Europe and America, shunning meat was inspired by several causes, including utopian socialism, which sought to distance itself from “the beef-eating aristocracy”; ethical preferences; and health concerns. A meatless diet relieved digestive problems, many sufferers found.

An informative, nostalgic evocation of a special urban dining experience.

HOOD FEMINISM Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot

Kendall, Mikki Viking (288 pp.) $26.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-525-56054-8

A book about feminism from the perspectives of those often left out of the conversation.

Kendall (Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women’s Fight for Their Rights, 2019) takes a magnifying glass and megaphone to the plights of marginalized women, many of whom are criminally overlooked or erased in mainstream feminist discussions of the hardships women face. The author frankly highlights how issues like race, food insecurity, gun violence, and poverty, among others, are all feminist issues, with many of them overlapping or serving to exacerbate others. Using history, pop culture, and statistics along with personal stories, Kendall demonstrates the problems with mainstream feminism’s lack of consideration of intersectionality. She purposefully shifts the focus to women who are generally treated as a footnote and holds up a mirror to feminism’s usual spokespeople by pointing out blind spots in a movement that claims to be for all women but which has shown itself to be exclusionary of most. A military veteran, wife, mother, and 120

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ardent opponent of respectability politics, Kendall shows how several talking points used by mainstream feminists and policymakers cause more harm than good to the groups they are trying to serve, and she supplies practical suggestions for ways to make worthwhile and sustainable changes. While acknowledging that no one is without flaws, Kendall also notes that we have a responsibility to make society a safer, more equitable place for women of all backgrounds. Sometimes, that involves stepping aside so someone more suitable gets the platform and support to do so. Kendall is a highly knowledgeable and inspiring guide, and she effectively builds on the work of black women who have, for ages, been working to better the lives of themselves and their communities. The book is an authentic look, from the perspective of a black feminist, at the ways mainstream feminism must be overhauled, from the personal to the policy level, and a demand that its practitioners do better.

A much-needed addition to feminist discourse.

THIN PLACES Essays From in Between

Kisner, Jordan Farrar, Straus and Giroux (272 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-374-27464-1 Astute, perceptive forays into America’s nooks and crannies.

In her debut book’s titular essay, about revolutionary deep brain stimulation for patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, Kisner writes that the barrier “between the physical world and the spiritual world wears thin and becomes porous.” She continues, “the thin places I’ve known aren’t always places, per se. Sometimes a thin place appears between people. Sometimes it happens only inside you.” Combining reportage and the personal essay, the author often finds herself involved in the subjects she discusses. In “Attunement,” she recounts when a “handful of kids delivered my soul to Jesus at summer camp.” But when she was 12, God just “vanished. I didn’t know why.” The essay traces her religious pilgrimage and fascination with Kierkegaard’s “tract on faith and doubt,” Fear and Trembling, and her “late-breaking phantom limb syndrome of the soul.” In “Jesus Raves,” Kisner chronicles her up-close and personal experiences with a church’s hip outreach to young people (“they could be J. Crew models, but they are pastors”).

“Stitching” focuses on “ ‘The Bloggernacle,’ a contingent of Mormon mothers who have taken over a sizable piece of the online aspirational lifestyle industry” with their anti-Trump message. “Habitus,” one of the best pieces, roams widely, from a debutante ball in Laredo, Texas, to border immigration to the TV show Say Yes to the Dress to matters concerning the author’s sexuality. In “The Big Empty,” Kisner explores the “enormous, hypersensory multimedia installations” of Ann Hamilton. As a good reporter, the author never judges the people she writes about, often finding common ground with them. She admires the “strange beauty” of the Shakers’ buildings and the “ecstatic,

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THEY SAID THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME Chasing the Dream On Obama’s Improbable Campaign

cathartic” quirkiness of their worship—“they simply shook and shook, overcome.” Later, Kisner joined in with a “little dance,” a “wiggle, an homage but also a mini-catharsis of the fine posture and right angles of the morning.”

Thoughtful, engaging, and informative essays from a writer to watch.

PHANTOM LADY Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock

Lane, Christina Chicago Review Press (400 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-61373-384-4

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Firsthand accounts of the Obama for America presidential campaign.

To oral historian Liddell-Westefeld, the impressive conviction of Barack Obama’s political campaigns was undeniable.

Initially a devoted campaign volunteer, the author eventually moved on to join the Obama White House staff. Prior to leaving his five-year post with the president, Liddell-Westefeld questioned what compelled so many youth to volunteer for the 2008 campaign and what could be gleaned from its organic success for use in future nominations. The answers are embedded in the

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A close-up look at the career of an influential woman screenwriter and producer in Hollywood.

Lane (Film Studies/Univ. of Miami; Magnolia, 2011, etc.) depicts Joan Harrison (1907-1994) as an unconventional woman who was the most enduring assistant and colleague that Alfred Hitchcock ever had. “Harrison would contribute to all of Hitchcock’s late British achievements…and his early Hollywood successes….Together, these films established Hitchcock as a master of the seriocomic thriller and gothic suspense.” The author continues, “plainly put, Alfred Hitchcock would not have become ‘Hitchcock’ without her.” The title refers not only to the “noir gem” that Harrison made for Universal Pictures in 1944, a film that featured a resourceful, independent woman, but also to Lane’s desire to restore the reputation of Harrison, who has been largely overlooked in Hollywood histories despite her stature at the time as “the most powerful woman producer in Hollywood.” The author closely follows her ambitious and clever subject’s career from her initial interview with Hitchcock at age 26 to her death at 87. While Lane’s attention to the details of Harrison’s career may seem excessive, what she reveals about the making of some of Hitchcock’s films is fascinating. As she chronicles Harrison’s journey from secretary to screenwriter to producer, she takes readers behind the scenes of such films as The Lady Vanishes, Jamaica Inn, and Rebecca as well as many others that Harrison worked on with Hitchcock.

We learn about casting decisions, script changes, the strengths and weaknesses of various actors, and the power of the studio moguls and censors. Lane also shows how Hollywood reacted to the redbaiting scare and the blacklisting that followed. The narrative is not all business, however. The author shows Harrison hobnobbing with celebrities in nightclubs, marrying the novelist Eric Ambler, and living well abroad.

A solid addition to the growing literature about women filmmakers, with greatest appeal to Hitchcock fans and movie lovers. (30 b/w photos)

Liddell-Westefeld, Chris PublicAffairs (256 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-5417-3061-8

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200 interviews he conducted with alumni of the caucus effort, including former field organizers and directors, volunteers, college students, activists, speechwriters, and many others who devoted their time and energies to the success of a hopeful underdog whom the author calls “America’s most unlikely president.” In addition to Liddell-Westefeld’s personal narrative about his experiences, scores of enthusiastic volunteers and supportive politicians contribute to a readable collective chorus of hopeful voices tirelessly promoting Obama’s patriotism, moral clarity, and honorable leadership. Each member of this fellowship applauds Obama for representing what former speechwriter Jon Favreau called “something different…something outside of Washington” in a country that sorely needed it.

As a campaign diary, the book succeeds in gathering representative perspectives from those who participated in its success.

Through its interview snippets, the text captures the decisive moments of the journey, from the first inklings of a party nomination at “Camp Obama” through the struggle to garner supporters and up to the final moments as history was made. Kal Penn, the actor and activist, felt “simultaneously very proud of the work that we had done and very humbled by what was about to happen over the next four years.” These voices, which also include David Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod, Alyssa Mastromonaco, and Obama himself, show the power of grassroots organization.

Adulatory reflections on a historic presidency sure to fuel hope for future elections.

LATER My Life at the Edge of the World

Lisicky, Paul Graywolf (240 pp.) $16.00 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-64445-016-1

Lisicky (MFA Program/Rutgers Univ.Camden), 60, returns to his early days as a young, gay man, which he previously wrote about in The Narrow Door (2016, etc.).

Throughout the author’s memoir, the focus is Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the early 1990s, when the author was awarded a residency fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center and was looking forward to escaping dark and dispiriting times at home.

It was October as he drove over the hill to view the small town nestled in the “curved coast of the harbor, shining.” Town, as he calls it, and his small room were his new home: “There’s no other place I’d rather be.” At the time, writes Lisicky, he felt he had been “dead too long,” and he was anxious to visit the catwalk that is Commercial Street. The first night, he picked up a tall, blond guy, and they had sex. Lisicky writes a great deal about sex in this memoir. “Sex for me is as essential as food,” he explains. This was the time of the AIDS epidemic, and the author cites a series of statistics that are still shocking nearly three decades later. In 1991, 20,454 people in the U.S. died of AIDS. By the mid-1990s, notes the author, 10% of Town’s gay 122

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population died. Written in short, titled sections, the memoir is brutally honest as Lisicky chronicles his search for companionship and love amid sadness, illness, and death. The next few years were a sexual roundelay as the author moved from lover to lover, with assorted affairs along the way. With each new issue of the Town’s Advocate, he turned to the obituaries: “Oh—that guy!...When he looked at me last week I looked back at him, and we were both citizens of Town.” Some readers may wish for more about literature and writing, but that is not the author’s focus here. Lisicky does a fine job capturing the emotional ambience of a special place consumed by both joy and fear.

A candid, scorching memoir that emits tenderness and sweet sorrow.

THE FIRE AND THE DARKNESS The Bombing of Dresden, 1945 McKay, Sinclair St. Martin’s (400 pp.) $32.50 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-25801-4

A history of the 1945 bombing that made Dresden “a totem to the obscenity of total war.”

On the evening of Feb. 13, 1945, writes British literary critic McKay (The Scotland Yard Puzzle Book, 2019, etc.), British bombers unleashed a savage attack on the Nazicontrolled city of Dresden, killing some 25,000 people and turning the “Florence on the Elbe,” as the elegant cultural center was known, into “a burnt and bloody wilderness.” The bombing was the focus of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, based on his experiences during the historic firestorm as a prisoner of war.

After describing life in Dresden before the bombing, McKay re-creates the nighttime attack in the words of residents as well as German officials, Allied commanders and bomb crews, and many others. “No one could ever imagine that our city would be the victim of a cruel and senseless bombing,” says Gisela Reichelt, who was 10 at the time. Hers was among many eyewitness accounts McKay examined in the city’s archives. Like others, she dismissed the nighttime air-raid alarms—they had always proven false—that preceded the dropping of nearly 4,000 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices. Payloads from hundreds of planes set the city on fire, tore buildings apart, and dismembered people in shelters. With good weather and few Nazi defenses, young airmen pursuing “just another target” found Dresden was “theirs to incinerate.” McKay’s harrowing narrative conjures the “satanic music” of passing aircraft and the burning of corpses whose stench was still recalled years later, all set against the daily malevolence of life under the Gestapo. Many immediately questioned the morality of bombing a city of limited strategic importance (it was a rail transport hub). American planes engaged in subsequent Dresden raids. The city, including its baroque churches and concert halls, has since been restored.

A full and powerful account of warfare that ignored the distinction between military and civilian objectives. (maps)

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A fine work of investigative journalism and an essential addition to the history of the civil rights movement. race against time

RACE AGAINST TIME A Reporter Reopens the Unsolved Murder Cases of the Civil Rights Era Mitchell, Jerry Simon & Schuster (448 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-4516-4513-2

Fast-paced account of the slow path to justice in a series of racially motivated murder cases.

Mitchell, a former reporter for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger who recently founded the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, arrived in 1986 to a city “bursting with New South pride and Old South prejudice,” one that, just a few years later, would be discomfited by the revival of interest in the “Mississippi Burning” case and like crimes of the 1950s and 1960s thanks to a movie by that name. Looking into that cold case, writes the author, “I had heard of people getting away with

murder before, but I had never heard of twenty people getting away with murder at the same time”—those 20 people had carried out the killings of civil rights activists in the name of white supremacy. In a Mississippi where Emmett Till’s killers confessed to the crime but still walked free, an all-white jury had acquitted a notorious racist, Byron Beckwith, in the murder of Medgar Evers—and Beckwith didn’t pay a cent for his defense, the bill having been picked up by an eager “White Citizens’ Council.” Through dogged investigation, sifting through reams of evidence and interviewing those who were on the ground at the time, Mitchell helped inspire law enforcement officials decades after those events occurred to secure sufficient proof to convict killers who had been at liberty for most of their adult lives. Even though many of the civil rights killings have still gone unpunished, often because the perpetrators are dead, others were reckoned for, including the Birmingham church bombing that killed four little girls, one perpetrator having long publicly bragged of having helped “blow up a bunch of niggers back in Birmingham.” That might have flown in the last days of Jim Crow, but, writes Mitchell, times have changed even in the

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YOU’RE NOT LISTENING What You’re Missing and Why It Matters

segregationist stronghold of Philadelphia, Mississippi: “The town that had once protected these killers now wanted to see them prosecuted.”

A fine work of investigative journalism and an essential addition to the history of the civil rights movement.

YELLOW BIRD Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country Murdoch, Sierra Crane Random House (384 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-399-58915-7

A murder on an Indian reservation changes lives—at least one for the better but most for the worse.

“For what? For a little bit of money?” Thus Marge Gunderson, the sheriff in the film Fargo, asking an unrepentant killer why so many people are dead at his hands. That might well serve as a refrain for this thoughtful work of true crime, its setting the badlands of North Dakota. There, writes journalist Murdoch, a man went missing in the newly opened oilfields of the Bakken boom. Few people gave Kristopher Clarke’s disappearance much thought until Lissa Yellow Bird, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation based on the Fort Berthold Reservation, made it her cause. When the author asked why she took an interest in the matter, Yellow Bird answered, “I guess I never really thought about it before.”

The road to becoming a freelance investigator was long and circuitous: Yellow Bird had worked as a prison guard, stripper, and bartender before doing time for possessing narcotics “with intent to deliver.” On the tangled trail of the missing Clarke, a truck driver who, like everyone else, had come to the Bakken for a quick buck, Yellow Bird found something like redemption. “It seemed to Lissa,” writes Murdoch, “that the oil fields contained endless ways for a person to disappear.”

Her narrative makes that much clear, as she chronicles Yellow Bird’s search across a vast, desolate landscape. What she discovered as she moved across that landscape was a microcosm of inept and principled cops, political divisions among tribes and clans, the ruinous effects of drugs and alcohol, and the always-appealing allure of fast money. “North Dakota is the only place in the country where somebody like me can go and make big money,” says one suspect. Thanks to Yellow Bird’s tireless search, the truth eventually emerged—with poor Clarke considered a “truly innocent victim” in an endlessly elaborate con game.

An impressive debut that serves as an eye-opening view of both the oil economy and Native American affairs.

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Murphy, Kate Celadon Books (288 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-250-29719-8

A lively debut that asserts the power of closing our mouths and opening our ears.

Houston-based journalist Murphy delves into the academic research on listening, which tends to be scantier than that on its noisier cousin, talking, and chronicles her interviews with those whose work revolves around hearing and paying attention, including a priest, a bartender, and a CIA agent. The author suggests that what might seem at first to be a passive activity is in fact an active, demanding one and a skill that can be learned with practice. At the basis of listening, Murphy maintains, is a sharp curiosity and the kind of openness that indicates the hearer has something to learn from the speaker. The author recommends thinking of active listening as a form of meditation. During a conversation, “you make yourself aware of and acknowledge distractions, then return to focus.

But instead of focusing on your breathing or an image, you return your attention to the speaker.” She points out that one of the primary obstacles to listening is the assumption that we know what someone is going to say, which means, unfortunately, that we’re least likely to pay attention to the people closest to us, including spouses, children, and friends. In a chapter that is particularly helpful and relevant in our increasingly polarized world, Murphy offers suggestions on “Listening to Opposing Views,” including recognizing the rather remarkable fact that when people with “staunch political views” are challenged on them, “their brains reacted as if they were being chased by a bear.” On a practical level, the author also recognizes that it’s not necessary to “listen to everyone until they run out of breath.” While the narrative runs out of steam toward the end, repeating points that have already been made, it offers enough valuable advice and concrete suggestions to make it worth reading, even for those who already think they know how to listen.

A valuable corrective for a talkative culture.

PAIN STUDIES

Olstein, Lisa Bellevue Literary Press (192 pp.) $16.99 paper | Mar. 4, 2020 978-1-942658-68-9 A meandering yet erudite exploration of the representation of chronic pain in history and popular culture.

Olstein (English/Univ. of Texas; Late Empire, 2017, etc.) suffers from chronic migraines. In total, she estimates, she has had a headache for 9.5 years of her life. Throughout this

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A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO BEATING DONALD TRUMP

Plouffe, David Viking (256 pp.) $25.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-9848-7949-3

Barack Obama’s former campaign manager and senior adviser weighs in on what it will take to defeat Donald Trump and repair some of the damage caused by the previous election’s “historically disturbing and perhaps democracy-destroying outcome.”

Plouffe (The Audacity To Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory, 2009) managed Obama’s successful campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His unsurprising goal in 2020 is to take down Trump, and he provides a detailed guide for every American to become involved beyond just voting.

Where the author is not offering specific suggestions for individual involvement, he engages in optimistic encouragement to put readers in the mindset to entertain his suggestions. Plouffe wisely realizes that many potential readers feel beaten down by the relentlessness of Trump’s improper behavior and misguided policies, so there is plenty of motivational exhortation that highly motivated readers might find unnecessary. When he turns to voting statistics, he’s on solid ground. Plouffe expresses |

certainty that Trump will face opposition from at least 65 million voters in the 2020 election. One of the author’s goals is to increase that number to somewhere between 70 and 75 million, which would be enough to win not only the popular votes for the Democratic Party nominee, but also the Electoral College by a comfortable margin. Some of that increased number can be achieved by increasing the percentage of citizens who vote, with additional gains from voters who vote for the Democratic nominee rather than symbolically supporting a third-party candidate. Plouffe also feels optimistic about persuading Obama supporters who—perhaps surprisingly—voted for Trump in 2016. As for individual involvement prior to November, the author favors direct action. Door-to-door canvassing is his favorite method, but he offers alternatives for those who cannot or will not take their opinions to the streets, including campaigning via social media. And while the author would love to change the Electoral College, he wisely tells readers they must live with it again this time around.

Though cheerleading occasionally grates, Plouffe offers good fodder for readers willing to put in the effort and follow his advice.

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slim, perceptive book, she wrestles with the challenge of expressing something that is essentially indescribable: “all pain” is “unknowable except while being lived.” As a poet, the author employs lyrical language (“left brow like a pressed bruise, an overripe peach you accidentally stuck your fingers into; top of head a china vase in a vise tightening, all angled echo and clamor”) as well as rhetorical questions and litanies in the attempt to characterize her pain. She includes alarmingly extensive lists of incidental migraine symptoms, medicines and therapies she has tried (“our fickle, beloved cures”), and side effects she has experienced. Her surprising points of reference range from Antiphon, the ancient philosopher who taught pain avoidance, to the TV show House, which starred a pain pill–gobbling misanthrope who solved medical mysteries. It’s harder to appreciate the relevance of a long discussion of Joan of Arc. Olstein seems to take Joan as a model for women speaking out in defense of their subjective experiences (in Joan’s case, hearing voices). All the same, the passages from her trial transcript are overlong. In general, Olstein relies too much on quotations from other thinkers—though, surprisingly, not Susan Sontag.

While the book joins a conversation rekindled by Anne Boyer, Leslie Jamison, and other contemporary authors, it is not quite as memorable as its antecedents. Still, Olstein’s blending of the personal and the academic is compelling, and her themes of catharsis, denial, and causality are well worth exploring. “Does our pain define us?” she asks. Ultimately, she concludes that pain has no essential meaning and is all up to chance. Yet there is dignity in resisting it—and in capturing it in words.

A quality addition to the literature on pain.

AMERICAN POISON How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise

Porter, Eduardo Knopf (272 pp.) $26.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-451-49488-7

An argument that racism as practiced by whites in the United States doesn’t just hurt people of color.

Born in Phoenix to a white American father and a darker-skinned Mexican mother, New York Times economics reporter Porter (The Price of Everything: Solving the Mystery of Why We Pay What We Do, 2011) writes from his personal experience as a perceived nonwhite and his professional perspective as a skilled journalist who has worked in Mexico City, Tokyo, London, São Paulo, and Los Angeles. The author clearly delineates a wide variety of conundrums that face American citizens, exacerbating divisions and hurting everyone. These include poorly funded public schools, many of them segregated by race and ethnicity; massive prison populations with no meaningful rehabilitation services for the inmates; untrammeled gun ownership leading to a form of violence unmatched anywhere else in the world; the criminalization of drugs without adequate recognition that addiction is often a curable disease rather than a reason to lock someone up; and housing discrimination, which leads to massive income inequality as well as other persistent societal ills. The author capably pulls the strands together to demonstrate one of the narrative’s most important ideas: how the U.S. lacks a true safety net, not just for people of color, but also for lower-income whites. Some of Porter’s examples fall outside conventional narratives about racism. For example, when labor unions exclude people of color

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A thoughtful and radically provocative collection. from our land to our land

as members in order to protect well-paid white laborers, worker solidarity becomes fractured, social unrest increases, and everybody loses as the funds for adequate health care drain community resources. When assistance to truly needy people of color is denied with the rationale of “welfare abuse,” low-income whites are left to drift as well. And as the author makes clear, none of this is new. “Trump’s election may have exposed America’s ethnic divisions to the unforgiving glare of the klieg lights,” he writes, but these problems “have been lying in America’s underbrush for a long time.” In a final chapter about the future, Porter finds little reason for optimism about reduced racism.

Another solid addition to the necessarily growing literature on one of America’s most intractable issues.

of disease avoidance and “remarkable recovery” will give even skeptics something to ponder. Though the text offers no ready answers or explanations, Rediger instills a glimmer of hope and possibility for those who may believe they have none.

Though certainly not the last word, this is an engaging “investigative journey into the phenomenon of spontaneous remission.”

FROM OUR LAND TO OUR LAND Essays, Journeys, and Imaginings From a Native Xicanx Writer

Rodriguez, Luis J. Seven Stories (224 pp.) $18.95 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-60980-972-0

CURED The Life-Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing Rediger, Jeffrey Flatiron Books (384 pp.) $28.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-19319-3

Fascinating bioscience on the phenomenon of spontaneous healing.

Board-certified psychiatrist Rediger, who is on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, first began exploring the mystery of patients with incurable illnesses and their miraculous regenerations early in his medical career. Raised with traditional Amish principles, the author was astonished by what he learned and now shares in this book, which also doubles as a pragmatic guide to improving general health. Rediger spent nearly two decades interviewing and studying survivors of irremediable diseases and conditions, and his expert analysis drives much of this intriguing volume. He first examines immune system “prodding” and hyperactivation and how factors like diet, stress, and emotion directly affect it— though, as the author notes, these factors are “often passed over in routine medical care.” He chronicles his visit to spiritual healing centers in Brazil, where the ill astonishingly recovered from dire diagnoses. He probes the complex and hotly debated mindbody connection and how one’s sense of identity and healing capacity are interconnected. Rediger, who also has a seminarian background, acknowledges that these episodes are exceptional, and while his research suggests that their instances have “slowly increased in both number and frequency,” they are relatively unexplainable by medical science. He stresses that since there are no clinical trials or double-blind studies to substantiate these incidences or ways of replicating their results, physicians “have to be anthropologists, detectives, and medical investigators.” Science aside, ultimately, it’s the dramatic survivors’ profiles and their moving stories of miraculous second chances that have the most profound impact. These patients illuminate how medicine, identity, diet, the mind, and human biology intersect to possibly trigger curative spontaneous remission. Arrestingly written and chockablock with practical, empowering medical information, this thought-provoking and convincing chronicle 126

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A distinguished Mexican American writer meditates on the place of Xicanx culture in what he sees as a sick and increasingly fragmented global society.

Reacting in part to the political upheaval and chaos that have characterized the last decade, Rodriguez (Borrowed Bones: New Poems From the Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, 2016, etc.) offers 12 essays that reflect on the meaning of identity while offering a vision of a more humane world. In “The End of Belonging,” the author responds to Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant, antiMexican rhetoric by celebrating his Native American ancestry, which predated the European conquest of the Americas. As the descendent of Indigenous people, he sees himself as a child of the Earth who transcends the fabricated boundaries of nation.

“I belong anywhere,” he writes. To counterbalance what he sees as the disease of capitalism brought to the Americas, Rodriguez advocates for a new “mythic imagination” in the essay titled “The Four Key Connections.” Through myths, people can find “sustenance for mind and soul.” Poetry is another avenue of healing the author believes society should explore. In “Poet Laureate? Poet Illiterate? What?” he discusses poetry as “medicine” that can not only “impact [but] change this world.”

Throughout the book, Rodriguez speaks about Xicanx cultural achievements with pride. In “I Still Love H.E.R,” he discusses the Xicanx–hip-hop connection and the influence of that connection on recording artists around the world. In “Low & Slow in Tokyo” he describes the impact of Xicanx popular culture on anti-establishment Japanese youth. In speaking about himself, Rodriguez is, as always, honest and forthright. In “Men’s Tears,” he speaks openly about his violent gang past and the lesson he eventually learned that “men should cry more, connect more, feel more.” “The Story of Our Day” details the author’s unsuccessful but impactful 2014 Green Party bid for California governor, a campaign that emphasized nothing short of revolutionary change. Powerful from start to finish, Rodriguez’s book celebrates Xicanx culture and wisdom while calling for muchneeded global healing.

A thoughtful and radically provocative collection.

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WE ARE NOT HERE TO BE BYSTANDERS A Memoir of Love and Resistance

IN PURSUIT OF DISOBEDIENT WOMEN A Memoir of Love, Rebellion, and Family, Far Away

Sarsour, Linda 37 Ink/Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-9821-0516-7

Searcey, Dionne Ballantine (304 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-399-17985-3

A celebrated Muslim American activist’s memoir of how she came into her identity as a social justice leader in post–

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9/11 America.

Sarsour, executive director of the Arab American Association in New York, grew up between two worlds: her parents’ Palestinian homeland and her native Brooklyn. She embraced both: for the warm ties she formed with relatives and the “brown, Black and beige kids” in a neighborhood that looked “like every nineties portrayal of [Brooklyn] ever seen in a Spike Lee joint.” She attended John Jay High School, a “notorious gang farm,” where she began to see how her life as a Muslim American was “inextricably interwoven” with the lives of all people of color. When 9/11 took place a few years after she graduated, Sarsour witnessed firsthand the way innocent Muslims suddenly became branded as terrorists. She began working with her father’s cousin Basemah, a social justice activist who ran the Arab American Association of New York. The author credits Basemah, who died tragically just four years later, with teaching her to “make waves…stir the pot…raise holy hell” when communities were in trouble. After Basemah’s death, Sarsour became involved in the fight to create a ground zero mosque as well as protests against the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policies, which targeted people of color. The author later joined forces with fellow activists Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez to work on both local and national social justice projects to end racial profiling. The trio organized the Women’s March on Washington to protest the election of a racist, misogynistic president. Despite these triumphs, Sarsour discovered that her own heightened visibility made her family a target for “an avalanche of hate” while compromising her role as a mother. Candid and poignant, this book offers an intimate portrait of a committed activist while emphasizing the need for more Americans to work against the deep-seated inequalities that still haunt the country.

A powerful memoir from a dedicated fighter for social justice.

The story of an American journalist’s experiences with extraordinary women in West Africa.

When Searcey was appointed West Africa bureau chief for the New York Times and moved to Dakar, Senegal, she knew there would be both personal and work-related hardships. What she didn’t fully anticipate was learning the true extent of the atrocities the women she interviewed had endured. In this revealing, sometimes heartbreaking memoir, the author shares the stories of the women she met. As she notes, these accounts never made it into the newspaper, or if they did, they didn’t receive the amount of attention they deserved because Donald Trump and the roiling political situation in the U.S. consumed most of the available space. Here are tales of violence and heroism as women and girls were kidnapped by the militant group Boko Haram, raped and/or forced to marry older militants, and ordered to serve as suicide bombers. With tremendous courage and a strong will to live, these women disobeyed orders; remarkably, they are able to talk about the many seemingly insurmountable obstacles they have faced. Searcey also discusses the more well-known Chibok girls and her attempts to interview and photograph them, which proved to be a lesson in patience and persistence.

She balances her tales of work with those of being a mother and wife and the strains and struggles placed on both she and her husband as they pursued life in a foreign country. The author demonstrates her journalistic skills by providing ample pertinent details to flesh out each chapter, centered around a different interviewee. As a mother and woman, she gives an honest account of her personal experiences. The combination is powerful and moving and brings much-needed attention to the plight of these women. For further difficult yet important reading on this topic, see Wolfgang Bauer’s Stolen Girls (2017) and Helen Habila’s The Chibok Girls (2016).

Empathetic, compelling narratives from a part of the world too often overlooked. (map)

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GOING HOME A Walk Through Fifty Years of Occupation

CRY HAVOC Charlottesville and American Democracy Under Siege

Shehadeh, Raja The New Press (224 pp.) $24.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-62097-577-0

A longtime resident of Ramallah, Palestine, reflects on the city’s transformation.

Orwell Prize–winning writer, lawyer, and human rights advocate Shehadeh (Where the Line Is Drawn: A Tale of Crossings, Friendships, and Fifty Years of Occupation in Israel-Palestine, 2017, etc.) interweaves personal revelations and political history in a candid, nostalgic reflection on life in Ramallah, where he grew up and has lived for the last 50 years. Walking around his neighborhood on the 50th anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, he recalls a place far different from the crowded, urbanized city of today. Ramallah, he writes, “used to have the charm and atmosphere of the mountain villages of Lebanon.” Store owners would keep caged songbirds outside their shops; their gentle chirping could be heard by everyone. Now, “their song has been replaced by the noise of traffic.” Parks have given way to high-rise developments, traffic-clogged crossroads, and commercial buildings: “In the past, it did not matter that there were no designated green areas in Ramallah, situated as it was in a large natural garden of its own.” Now the city is bereft of quiet places of respite. Even more crucial, Ramallah struggles under Israeli dominance and aggression, which have fomented anger and hatred and altered the city and culture dramatically. Shehadeh worked tenaciously to get rid of the occupation, but after the first Oslo Accord, which failed to create a Palestinian state, he has felt only resignation. His human rights activism has felt futile, leaving him to adjust to a deteriorating political situation as the occupation intensified and Israeli settlements expanded.

While much of the population has grown up under the occupation, the author remembers another world and regrets its loss.

The occupation, he writes, “has walked with me like a shadow, stalking me, sometimes posing a challenge but more often a threat.”

A moving memoir of the far-reaching challenges of life in the Middle East. (25 b/w images)

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Signer, Michael PublicAffairs (400 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-5417-3615-3

An insider’s account of the “madness and mayhem” of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 and the nightmare confrontation between free speech and public safety that the clash created.

Signer (Becoming Madison: The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father, 2015, etc.) was mayor of the progressive college town when hundreds of armed, torch-carrying protesters arrived, shouting “Jews will not replace us,” ostensibly to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee from removal. Although he lacked power in his ceremonial position (the city manager was in charge), Signer felt compelled to act: He was Jewish, an expert on demagoguery, and teaching a university course on race, policy and history. With a doctorate in political science, the author was committed to deliberative government. In this deeply introspective book, which addresses Donald Trump’s fearmongering rise to the presidency, Signer explains how he was “pushing the boundaries” of his job, encouraging different perspectives on the statue issue and upsetting many staff with his seeming meddling. Some citizens insisted on removing the Confederate monument; others, on keeping it as a “teachable moment.” Opposing “symbolic politics,” the author hoped to “recontextualize” the statue, using public space to tell the full story of race. With the “Unite the Right” rally imminent, Signer began seeking a “silver bullet” to avert violence between opposing protesters, enlisting advice and assistance from experts. His frustration at not being able to shape the outcome is palpable.

“I could have left more up to others,” he writes. He offers a thorough analysis of the “shortcomings” of First Amendment law and the failures of policing. Berating himself as sometimes “impetuous,” he emerges as a well-intentioned, proactive figurehead who suffered undeserved attacks on social media. Signer refuses to scapegoat, but it is noteworthy that most of those in power at the time are now gone.

A complex, disturbing, valuable tale of racial disharmony, government failure, and one man’s frantic attempts to save the day.

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A pleasing combination of terrific research and storytelling and engaging period visuals. driving while black

BARRY SONNENFELD, CALL YOUR MOTHER Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker

DRIVING WHILE BLACK African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights Sorin, Gretchen Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) $28.95 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-63149-569-4

Sonnenfeld, Barry Hachette (368 pp.) $29.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-316-41561-3

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How the automobile was both a machine of liberation and a potential peril for African Americans during the early decades of the 20th century—and beyond.

In addition to offering an eye-opening history of the terrible discrimination practiced routinely against African American drivers, Sorin (Director, Cooperstown Graduate Program/ SUNY; co-author: Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, 2008, etc.) also discusses her own family’s years of distress driving from New Jersey to North Carolina to visit relatives in the late 1950s. In the first few decades of the 20th century, owning a car demonstrated economic success, and that was certainly the case for a growing black middle class.

Moreover, driving in one’s own car meant not having to adhere to the humiliating Jim Crow laws regarding seating in public transportation. The right to move about among the states had always been considered a fundamental constitutional right— the 1920 Supreme Court case United States v. Wheeler assured the “free ingress and egress to and from any other state”—but that was “a right denied to African Americans.” While white Americans took to the road merrily, writes the author, they were “comfortable denying their black countrymen not only the right to travel freely but also the ability to use public accommodations”—and this is key in Sorin’s powerful story. When her family traveled south, they were sure to pack plenty of food and blankets for the children so that they did not have to stop at segregated restaurants and risk being denied a place to sleep.

The author provides an in-depth look at the significance of Victor Green’s (literally) lifesaving The Green Book—inspired by Jewish travel guides—first published in 1936 and expanded over the decades, which became the bible for African American drivers hoping to find amenable accommodations in gas and repair services, restaurants, hotels, etc. The author also discusses how the car became a vehicle integral to the civil rights movement.

A pleasing combination of terrific research and storytelling and engaging period visuals. (74 b/w illustrations)

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The director of The Addams Family and Men in Black tells all.

Sonnenfeld makes his debut as a memoirist with a brisk, funny recounting of his improbable rise to fame in the movie world. With a brief interlude as a cameraman for porn films—an experience he recalls in visceral detail—Sonnenfeld carved out a successful career as a cinematographer (Blood Simple, Raising Arizona), director of photography (Big, When Harry Met Sally), and movie and TV director (Addams Family Values, Get Shorty, and Pushing Daisies). The only child of a neurotic, manipulative mother who “had a very fluid relationship with the truth” and a philandering father, the young Barry was sexually abused by his mother’s first cousin, who lived with the family for a while. When Sonnenfeld confronted his parents about the abuse, they responded coolly: “don’t forget child molestation didn’t have the same stigma back then that it has now.” His mother smothered him with her fears, threatening to kill herself if he opted to go to a residential college, but she also encouraged him to go to film school when she saw that his career as a photographer was not taking off. Although his parents reneged on their offer to pay tuition—“Don’t be ridiculous. I would never say such a thing,” his mother exclaimed after he enrolled—NYU’s film school launched him into cinematography. Sonnenfeld offers a behind-the-scenes look at the many directors, producers, and actors with whom he worked. The Coen brothers, he writes, were “total novices” when they started filming Blood Simple, a low-budget movie that brought Sonnenfeld to the attention of Penny Marshall, who needed a cinematographer for Big. Sonnenfeld came to like Marshall despite her legendary indecisiveness and negativity; she balked at Sonnenfeld’s visual style and even Tom Hanks’ acting. The author was in the midst of filming When Harry Met Sally when volatile, unpredictable Scott Rudin summoned him to direct The Addams Family— after several other directors turned Rudin down.

Zesty anecdotes about family, marriage, and fatherhood combine with Hollywood gossip to make for an entertaining romp. (b/w photos)

LOST IN GHOST TOWN A Memoir of Addiction, Redemption, and Hope in Unlikely Places

OVERTURNING BROWN The Segregationist Legacy of the Modern School Choice Movement

Stout, Carder Health Communications (256 pp.) $16.95 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-7573-2354-6

A Hollywood psychologist’s account of his drug addiction and poverty and of his clean-and-sober return.

From the outside, Stout’s early life seemed perfect. Yet behind the privilege was unhappiness: Both of his parents drank excessively, and his father was more absent than present. As a preteen, the author experimented with alcohol and marijuana; before he was a teenager, he became bulimic. After his parents sent him to a prestigious boarding school in New Hampshire, Stout attached himself to a popular older student who introduced him to cocaine. Living in New York after college, reckless and without direction, the author exhausted his trust fund on a penthouse and spent most of his nights drinking and snorting cocaine with A-list actors and celebrities. “We were oversexed, libido-driven twenty-somethings without regular jobs to go to in the morning,” he writes. “We drank and laughed and carried on like we were invincible.” A few years later, Stout moved to Los Angeles, where he began his slide into crack addiction.

By 2003, he was living in a part of Venice called “Ghost Town,” named for the addict “ghosts” who haunted the streets. Without a job and almost homeless, he became a driver for a Shoreline Crips drug lord named Flyn who offered Stout the brotherly comfort and support he lacked. The author’s situation became even more dire after he became a drug runner for another Crip named Trech. Seeking a way out of the drug life but not sure how to proceed, Stout helped a woman he loved—who also happened to be Trech’s favorite prostitute—escape back home to Detroit. After Trech hunted him down and almost killed him, Stout finally left Los Angeles and returned to the East Coast, where he began the long road to recovery. Raw and engaging, this is both a cautionary tale about the hidden costs of privilege and a testament to one man’s eventual willingness to change to save himself.

A harrowing memoir of addiction and recovery.

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Suitts, Steve NewSouth (160 pp.) $25.95 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-58838-420-1

A civil rights activist and attorney convincingly demonstrates that Brown v. Board of Education barely put a dent in unequal public schooling.

As Suitts (Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution, 2005), the founding director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union, notes, the Deep South was the epicenter of resistance to school desegregation in the 1950s and ’60s. Politicians such as Orval Faubus, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace may have stood in schoolhouse doors and filed flurries of lawsuits, but, in the end, more sophisticated adherents to the segregationist cause found a subtle workaround: They would create a parallel system of private schools that could maintain racial separation while also benefiting from public dollars in the form of tax credits, vouchers, and even direct payments. There were countless faux declarations of “freedom of choice,” so long as black parents did not choose to send their children to white schools, while at the same time eliminating “any suggestion from the state constitution that there is a right of education or an obligation of the state to fund public schoolchildren.” Those schemes have since spread nationwide and are now ardently promoted by the likes of Betsy DeVos, the sitting secretary of education, part of whose considerable fortune comes from investments in private schools. “Freedom of choice” was subsequently enshrined by the libertarian economist Milton Friedman, whose utterances are held sacred by the right. As Suitts shows, although the cast of segregationist leaders of the past has been narrowed to “a small rogues’ gallery,” their legacy is widespread and their followers are legion while “contemporary private school patterns and practices…appear for what they are: legacies of class-based southern segregation used to evade Brown and multi-dimensional segregation of nonsouthern states before Brown.” Indeed, writes the author, more than half of American states now use vouchers to support private schools with public funds, making it likely that inequality will continue for a long time to come.

A powerful argument against the “virtual segregation” of schoolchildren enabled by vouchers, credits, and other instruments.

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An authoritative, lucid chronicle of Bach’s multifaceted musical context. bach’s musical universe

BACH’S MUSICAL UNIVERSE The Composer and His Work

THE DANCE OF LIFE The New Science of How a Single Cell Becomes a Human Being

Wolff, Christoph Norton (512 pp.) $40.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-393-05071-4

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A foray into the developmental biology of individual cells in an embryo.

While Zernicka-Goetz (Biology and Bioengineering/ Caltech) and co-author Highfield (The Science of Harry Pot­ ter: How Magic Really Works, 2002, etc.) discuss how the cells of early embryos arise, how they organize with such precision and direct their own development, and how they sense when something goes wrong, this is not a primer on embryology but rather an in-depth journey through the world of the research embryologist. Following the biology takes patience and focus for those not well versed in the science—“the mitochondrially targeted zinc-finger nuclease, or mitochondria-targeted transcription activator-like effector nucleases, enzymes that can be engineered to snip specific sequences of DNA, are used to recognize and then eliminate mutant mitochondrial DNA”—but the effort is repaid in spades. Readers engage with the whole process of fertilization as well as cellular specialization, cell cleavage, two-cell biases, and the developmental process. In her research, Zernicka-Goetz makes movies of fluorescently labeled cells “because they talk to each other with proteins and other molecular factors and respond to their surroundings.”

We learn that cooperation allows specialization and promotes diversity, spurring the embryo to self-organize. We follow the “dance” as the embryo becomes a multilayered organism. There are also intriguing discussions of how a blastocyst’s three types of cells arise and how they interact to make something as complex as the human body. The story has a memoirlike atmosphere, especially when Zernicka-Goetz turns to episodes of her life.

But she is never far from the science, as when she writes about her pregnancy and her son, who had chromosome irregularities, which became a topic of her research. Particularly beguiling is a chapter devoted to advances in creative biology—regenerative medicine, preimplantation testing, designer babies, embryo editing, genome editing—and all the attendant ethical concerns that surround them.

Meaty and entertaining, with the effort extended well worth the energy.

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A close investigation of Bach’s works reveals remarkable transformations.

Eminent musicologist Wolff (Adams University Professor Emeritus/Harvard Univ.; Mozart at the Gateway to His For­ tune: Serving the Emperor, 1788-1791, 2012, etc.) offers an erudite companion to his biography Johann Sebastian Bach (2000), a Pulitzer Prize finalist, with a detailed examination of the development of Bach’s creative process, goals, and achievements. Because Bach left no theoretical writings, Wolff selects from the composer’s prodigious oeuvre—including keyboard workbooks, toccatas, suites, sonatas, concertos, choral works, and oratorios—to focus on elements of musical design, engagement with other repertoires and genres, reassessment of existing conventions, and innovations. Facsimile pages are excerpted from an online library of Bach manuscripts. Bach, writes the author, “competed with himself constantly,” making “judicious revisions to his own works.” His competitive attitude also led him to pay careful attention to the works of other composers, past and contemporary, as he evaluated his own compositions. Also influencing his musical evolution were the demands of his changing professional duties: town organist, court organist and chamber musician, concertmaster, and cantor and music director in Leipzig, where he also directed the Leipzig Collegium Musicum for more than 10 years. As part of his duties in Leipzig, he was required to offer about 60 cantata performances yearly; although these did not have to be his own compositions, Bach added “a considerable repertoire of his own music” to his growing sacred and secular vocal compositions. Throughout his career, Wolff notes, Bach was “a passionate instrumentalist,” acclaimed for his performances on the organ and harpsichord, and he was frequently invited to give guest concerts. His prowess on the keyboard fed directly into his “pathbreaking approaches” to harpsichord and fortepiano. The author identifies Bach’s intense interest in exploring “all facets of the art of polyphony” as singularly characteristic of the composer’s musical language. For a musically sophisticated reader familiar with Bach’s works, as well as musical terminology and technique, Wolff ’s analyses have the potential of enriching the listening experience.

An authoritative, lucid chronicle of Bach’s multifaceted musical context. (85 illustrations)

Zernicka-Goetz, Magdalena & Highfield, Roger Basic (304 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-5416-9906-9

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Ja c k i e N y t e s , C E O o f I n d i a n a p o l i s P u b l i c L i b r a r y, F i g h t s f o r L i b r a r i e s — A n d Pa t r o n s [Sponsored]

By Megan Labrise

While serving on the Indianapolis City-County

hardworking life contrasts with her genteel aspirations

Council, Jackie Nytes wrote an impassioned letter,

(“But what she became was so much more important

on official stationary, to save a small branch library

than what her dreams and visions for herself might

in a low-income neighborhood 400 miles—and two

have been,” says Nytes, who still owns a tattered copy).

states—away.

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Nytes joined the fight against each proposed clo-

“Twice in my adult life they’ve tried to close that

sure. The Southwest Branch remains open to this day.

branch library in Green Bay,” Nytes says of the Brown

“Would I have advocated like that if I hadn’t had

County Library’s Southwest Branch, which she often

those very impressionable childhood experiences?

visited as a child growing up in Wisconsin. “Both

Probably not,” says Nytes, who sympathizes with the

times my parents called and said, ‘You have to help us

plight of city officials forced to stretch dwindling

stop this.’ ”

funds. “The notion many elected officials have is,

Fond memories flooded back: Stopping by the

‘Let’s be efficient and get rid of those little branches

library on the mile-long walk home from primary

and all that stuff,’ ” she says. “But I looked at it through

school. Reading “a ridiculous amount” of historical

the lens of that personal experience—where my neigh-

fiction and anything else that would transport her

borhood, my community, had their own library—and

to a bold, exciting new world. Discovering one of her

it mattered.”

all-time favorite books, A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess

As CEO of the Indianapolis Public Library, what

Streeter Aldrich, about a young pioneer woman whose

matters to Nytes is serving the capital city’s diverse

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communities in ways that satisfy their respective

order to pull that off when you don’t have a whole

needs. Approximately 873,000 people are served by

lot of staff, Baker & Taylor’s opening day collection

the 24-branch system, which received more than 13

program has been excellent. We’ve been very grate-

million walk-in visits and circulated 13,849,048 total

ful for it.

materials in 2018.

“Working with Baker & Taylor, we’ve had great

Five years ago, voters showed their support for

experiences profiling the collection to really meet the

the Library by approving a tremendous multiyear

needs and the demands of the community,” she says.

capital projects plan to renovate or relocate sev-

“It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach.”

eral branches through 2020. The plan included the

With an eye toward expanding accessibility

construction of a new 20,000-square-foot Eagle

beyond their brick-and-mortar locations, IndyPL

Branch in the city’s vibrant, multicultural westside

recently launched a tailored version of Axis 360, Baker

International Marketplace (opened June 2019) and a

& Taylor’s digital media circulation platform, enabling

new 15,000-square-foot Brightwood Branch in the

remote access to the e-material collections of partner

historic African American northeast neighborhood

schools across the city.

(opening spring 2020).

“When I think about our experiences with Baker &

“In today’s world, accessibility can be a real chal-

Taylor, I have a broad sense that they understand the

lenge,” Nytes says. “If you’re in a low-income family

importance of getting to ‘yes,’ ” she says. “When we

and your parents are working multiple jobs, there isn’t

say, ‘Well, that’s great, but that doesn’t quite work for

someone available to take you to the library. In a big

us, can you develop this aspect of it?,’ they work hard to

city where our transit has been slow to develop—it’s

get to ‘yes.’ We’ve seen this with Axis 360. The devel-

coming, but it’s got a long way to go—mass transit

opment has been very responsive to our priorities.”

hasn’t been the answer for our users. So when we’ve relocated the branches, it’s been with that in mind: understanding how people can get to us.”

That includes equipping users with the tools they need to thrive in the modern world.

“If we can equip children, young adults, and adults

And once they arrive, she says, there should be

to develop their reading and research skills through

an abundance of relevant and desirable materials for

access to information,” Nytes says, “then the likeli-

them to choose from. That’s why IndyPL chose Baker

hood of their upward mobility is going to improve.

& Taylor, a distributor of books and entertainment,

This has been identified as a significant challenge in

based in Charlotte, North Carolina, to outfit the

our community, and I think we have a real role to play

Eagle and Brightwood branches with curated opening

in helping people meet that challenge.”

day collections.

We’ve been pleased with that, and we really appreciated their responsiveness.”

Megan Labrise is the editor at large and hosts the Fully Booked podcast.

“Because several of the branches are being relocated, that means they’re getting bigger buildings and therefore bigger collections,” Nytes says. “In |

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children’s THE SPIRIT OF SPRINGER The Real-Life Rescue of an Orphaned Orca

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE BLACKBIRD GIRLS by Anne Blankman................................... 136

Abler, Amanda Illus. by Hastings, Levi Little Bigfoot/Sasquatch (48 pp.) $18.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-63217-212-9

THE SOCIETY OF DISTINGUISHED LEMMINGS

by Julie Colombet............................................................................... 140 BRINGING BACK THE WOLVES by Jude Isabella; illus. by Kim Smith.............................................................................150 STAND UP, YUMI CHUNG! by Jessica Kim....................................... 151 HAT TRICKS by Satoshi Kitamura.................................................... 151 SMALL MERCIES by Bridget Krone; illus. by Karen Vermeulen...... 151 A KID OF THEIR OWN by Megan Dowd Lambert; illus. by Jessica Lanan..................................................................................................152 SNAPDRAGON by Kat Leyh............................................................. 153 THE WOLF IN UNDERPANTS FREEZES HIS BUNS OFF

by Wilfrid Lupano; illus. by Mayana Itoïz & Paul Cauuet; trans. by Nathan Sacks........................................................................154 MOST WANTED by Sarah Jane Marsh; illus. by Edwin Fotheringham............................................................154 MAÑANALAND by Pam Muñoz Ryan..............................................159 THE TEMPEST by William Shakespeare; adapt. by Georghia Ellinas; illus. by Jane Ray..................................160 THE NEWSPAPER CLUB by Beth Vrabel......................................... 164 HELLO, DINOSAURS by Sam Boughton...........................................167

Abler relates the 2002 rescue and relocation of an orphaned orca in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on the efforts of two Canadian scientists for narrative effect.

The orphaned orca, called Springer, was first noticed swimming alone by a ferry dock near Seattle. She became a cause célèbre with the public, and scientists and government officials from the U.S. and Canada worked together to save Springer. She was captured, nursed back to health, and then transported back to Canada to successfully rejoin her original pod. The fairly lengthy text details all the complex steps and dramatic circumstances of Springer’s rescue and rehabilitation as well as her gradual acceptance and integration with members of her orca family. A heartwarming conclusion on the final page of the story introduces Springer’s own calf, named Spirit. Vibrant illustrations with broad blue expanses of sea and sky include a wide variety of perspectives and intriguing views of orcas swimming and breaching. The attractive cover illustration shows Springer breaching to the right, leading readers straight into the book. Human characters are diverse, including First Nations people who participated in Springer’s rescue. Additional material included as backmatter provides more specifics about the event, additional facts on orcas and their pods, a map of the rescue journey, and ways to improve the environment for orcas.

A spirited introduction to a fascinating rescue. (bibliography, resources) (Informational picture book. 6-10)

I LOVE MY TUTU TOO! by Ross Burach.............................................167 JUNGLE by Jane Ormes...................................................................... 173 ART THIS WAY by Tamara Shopsin & Jason Fulford....................... 174

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Careful lines add detail and depth while giving the perception of a tactile, orderly calm. violet shrink

HOW TO MAKE A SHARK SMILE How a Positive Mindset Spreads Happiness

Achor, Shawn & Blankson, Amy Illus. by Ranucci, Claudia Little Pickle Press (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-4926-9472-4

VIOLET SHRINK

Baldacchino, Christine Illus. by Mok, Carmen Groundwood (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-77306-205-1 A young girl prefers solitude and quiet activities to parties.

Violet likes to hunker in a makeshift tent to write and illustrate comic books, and she often wears her purple headphones around the house. But even though she enjoys cake and games, Violet definitely does not like parties.

Large groups of people make her so uncomfortable that she has adverse physical reactions, like hot ears and stomachaches. If she must attend a party, Violet imagines she is a different kind of animal that can better cope with these feelings, like a shark with no external ears to get heated. The character’s preferences and reactions mirror those of someone with autism, social anxiety, |

WHEN NUMBERS MET LETTERS

Barr, Lois Illus. by Laberis, Stephanie Holiday House (40 pp.) $18.99 | Jan. 21, 2020 978-0-8234-4052-8

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As the song goes: “Gray skies are gonna clear up / Put on a happy face!”

With an assist from Blankson, the author of the positive psychology guide The Happiness Advantage (2010) takes his message to children in this newly illustrated reissue of the 2012 title Ripple’s Effect, originally illustrated by Cecilia Rebora. A smiley dolphin named Ripple, new to the aquarium, is eager to make friends. Alas, she discovers that the other sea creatures live in fear of Snark, a bullying shark. Undeterred, Ripple teaches everyone a game in which players must stare into another’s face for seven seconds without smiling. Naturally, this elicits belly laughs among the aquarium’s denizens. When Snark investigates the newfound attitude of the formerly frightened, he’s pulled into the game, and thanks to his inevitable smile, all bullying is henceforth forgotten. Whether readers believe Ripple’s declarations that happiness is a choice (thereby circumventing the existence of depression and mental illness) is rather beside the point. Children are meant to glean from this book methods that help increase their own happiness, illuminated by the book’s backmatter. Alas, the story eschews practical methods of handling bullying. Nor, for that matter, does it confront the idea that sometimes a bully can experience great happiness… from the misery of others. Colorful, peppy art perfectly plays up the book’s un-nuanced can-do attitude.

Does this book have what it takes to help kids in any practical way? Go fish. (Picture book. 4- 7)

and/or sensory-processing sensitivity. The story’s climax comes before the Shrink family reunion, a particularly big party, when Violent and her dad have an open discussion about her feelings.

Violet states outright, “I don’t like parties,” along with certain other things, adding, “I don’t think I ever will.” Her dad listens, and when the reunion occurs, readers see a compromise: Violet brings her headphones and comic books, and she eats dessert under the table. Mok’s illustrations are in subdued hues, with a predominantly purple, green, and gray palette that pairs well with the dark purple print. Careful lines add detail and depth while giving the perception of a tactile, orderly calm. Among a multiracial cast including the extended family, Violet and her dad, both bespectacled, possess the white skin tone of paper and appear to be of Asian heritage.

A calm, effective model for stating—and listening to— needs. (Picture book. 6-9)

When a classroom empties for recess, scattered plastic numbers and letters get together to compare differences and similarities.

Unfortunately, the differences stand out more than the similarities. “A” argues with “1” about who really comes first; “E” criticizes the posture of “3”; “b” and “d” indignantly reject an offer from “6” to become triplets (“We are very different letters!” protests the former; “And we get mixed up enough as it is,” complains the latter); and both sides squabble about who’s most curvy. Tensions nearly break out into open war until, at the last moment, with a loud “STOP,” the wall clock’s Roman numerals step in (figuratively) to point out that if letters such as “I” and “V” can stand for numbers, there must be common ground. (Young readers unfamiliar with analog clocks, let alone Roman numerals, may need more than the glancing explanation provided.) Détente is restored (except for “A,” who can’t quite grasp the distinction between “first” and “number 1”) just as the children, a diverse lot in Laberis’ cartoon scenes, come tumbling back in. Fledgling readers further along in recognition skills will likely find Mike Boldt’s similarly premised 123 Versus ABC (2013) a cleverer romp, but those still needing some practice in minding their p’s and q’s will chuckle over this broader, simpler contretemps.

Wordplay? Count on it. (Picture book. 4-6)

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Blankman situates the seemingly distant horror of Chernobyl in a firmly human context. the blackbird girls

KRIT DREAMS OF DRAGON FRUIT A Story of Leaving and Finding Home Becher, Natalie & France, Emily Illus. by Woo, Samantha Bala Kids/Shambhala (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-61180-775-2

A Thai boy finds comfort in a Buddhist tale while adjusting to life in Chicago.

Young “Krit love[s] his home” in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He and his dog, Mu, run alongside temple stairs and duck “under dragon fruit carts in the market, past papaya and longans and red rambutans.” While celebrating the festival of lights, Krit releases his banana-leaf boat lighted with a candle on the river with his single wish: “Let nothing change.” Unfortunately, that night, his mother informs him the family is moving to Chicago to help with family business. The digitally painted grayscale city shrouded in snow proves a jarring change from the bright sunbathed colors of Thailand. Krit attempts to re-create familiar scenes, walking alongside the icy river and visiting markets only to be scolded by guards and staff for bringing his dog. Cold and dispirited, that night Krit requests a story from his mother, who tells a cryptic tale of Buddha’s finding a place to build his temple. Straightforward narration reveals the next day is a more fruitful one when Krit meets Dahlia, a white girl playing with a toy boat in the river. With Dahlia’s friendship, Krit looks at Chicago with new eyes, realizing the moral of his mother’s story and the true meaning of home. Woo builds on simple shapes and rounded edges to provide bright characters with charming backdrops.

A welcome modern tale of immigration featuring a Thai protagonist. (Picture book. 5-9)

THINGS YOU CAN’T SAY

Bishop, Jenn Aladdin (336 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5344-4097-5

There is so much that 12-year-old Drew can’t say.

He can’t ask his mom why, three years ago, his seemingly happy father killed himself. He can’t ask her why an old friend of hers, Phil, has suddenly shown up on his motorcycle and completely disrupted Drew’s life or whether or not, as he’s begun to suspect, that man is his real father. He can’t quite bring himself to tell prickly Audrey, the new helper at the library where he volunteers all summer, that he’s starting to really like her. And he can’t tell his best friend, Filipe, any of the things that are really on his mind. Perhaps the biggest thing he can’t communicate is that he’s terrified that whatever was wrong with his father could be haunting 136

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his future, too. In this believable, character-driven exploration of the long-lasting shadow suicide casts, Bishop imbues Drew, his loving mother, and Audrey with just enough insight to make their efforts to support each other fully believable. Drew’s emerging anger with his father is both poignant and tragically appropriate. Drew’s present-tense narration is candid and vulnerable, offering readers both mirrors for and windows to this particular, very difficult experience. The cast defaults to white. An author’s note discusses suicide and, together with an appended list of resources, offers direction for readers in search of support; in the acknowledgments, Bishop briefly describes her research.

A thoughtful examination of the slow, uneven recovery that follows a devastating loss. (Fiction. 10-14)

THE BLACKBIRD GIRLS

Blankman, Anne Viking (352 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-9848-3735-6

The citizens of the town of Pripyat, Ukraine, have always been assured that “an accident at a nuclear power station was a statistical impossibility.”

So when the morning of April 26, 1986, dawns red, with “unearthly blue” smoke billowing into the air, life proceeds as normal. Fifth grade classmates and rivals Valentina Kaplan and Oksana Savchenko, however, are worried. Their fathers, night-shift plant workers at the Chernobyl power station, have not yet come home.

Soon word gets out that reactor No. 4 has exploded, killing several workers and sending the rest en masse to the hospital, poisoned by the very air they breathe. Forced together by the sudden evacuation, the girls must overcome both their hatred of each other and the grief heaped upon them by the accident as they forge a new life in Leningrad with Valentina’s estranged grandmother, who harbors a dangerous secret. Blankman spins a stunningly complex tale out of simple words. By focusing her account on only the two young girls, Blankman situates the seemingly distant horror of the disaster in a firmly human context. Extensive research on historical events, names, cityscapes, and living situations enriches the story, which alternates perspective among Valentina, Oksana, and Rifka, Valentina’s grandmother. Rifka’s chapters take place during World War II, which initially deflects focus from the story somewhat, but they quickly find their place as the story’s heart as they introduce the blackbird, a symbol of eternal friendship. Ukrainian characters are assumed white; Valentina’s family is Jewish.

Out of the nuclear fallout springs a moving tale of love and loss. (Historical fiction. 9-12)

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ROOSEVELT BANKS, GOOD-KID-IN-TRAINING

Calkhoven, Laurie Illus. by Palen, Debbie One Elm Books (128 pp.) $14.99 | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-947159-18-1

Facing the prospect of missing a bicycle campout with friends Tommy and Josh, bikeless Roosevelt makes a deal

with his parents.

The question is: Can Roosevelt stay out of trouble for two weeks? It’s not going to be easy, as he not only has a welldeserved reputation as a fourth grade prankster to protect, but pushy classmate Eddie immediately opens a campaign to get invited in his place. Complicating Roosevelt’s strenuous efforts to toe the line rather than cross it (or at least not get caught), Calkhoven tucks plenty of narrow squeaks into her generously leaded narrative—along with alimentary banter, presidential

trivia (Roosevelt’s dog is named Millard Fillmore, and his little sister’s Kennedy), and a fantastically gross incident in which he tries to hide a frog by popping it into his mouth. Readers also see him wrestle with guilt as his loyal friend Tommy twice bails him out by taking the heat in his stead. That guilt leads at last to a blubbering confession to his (fortunately understanding) mom and dad, and in the end he gets his bike, his outing, and even a developing friendship with Eddie. Palen methodically diversifies the cast in her sporadic grayscale illustrations (Tommy’s black, Josh’s Asian, and Eddie’s white), and though Roosevelt and his mom present white, his dad and Kennedy both have somewhat darker skin.

Broad humor lightens the load of this lesson, and nuanced friendships enrich it. (Fiction. 8-10)

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THE TRAIN

Callaghan, Jodie Illus. by Lesley, Georgia Second Story Press (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-77260-129-9 In present-day Nova Scotia, a young Mi’gmaq girl hears an important story from her uncle.

Now that she is old enough, Ashley enjoys walking home alone after school, taking time to look for pretty stones and other treasures. One afternoon, Ashley recognizes her uncle where the train station used to be and runs to greet him. As they stand near the overgrown, weedy tracks, he tells her he is waiting for the train. Ashley can’t help but giggle, as she knows no train has traveled here for many years. But Uncle’s eyes tear up, so she asks him why he is so sad. Uncle then tells her the story of when his mother, Giju’, sent him and his siblings to meet the train as they often did when it arrived with rations from off the reserve. However, this time Giju’ made sure they took their winter coats and cried because she knew what they didn’t: that their lives would be changed forever. The children were herded onto the train and taken to a residential school, where their identities were stripped away. Even now, decades later, Uncle goes to the track to wait “for what we lost that day to come back to us.”

Through Uncle’s story, Callaghan (Mi’gmaq) presents a harsh topic in a gentle way. Lesley’s soft color palette and expressive characters blend beautifully with the story without lifting its heaviness.

Keeps a critical memory alive. (glossary, note) (Picture book. 4-8)

EVEN ME The Adventure of Two Girls Reaching Out To Share God’s Love

Camp, Adrienne with Camp, Bella with Camp, Arie Illus. by Cardarelli, Brit Harvest House (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-7369-7928-3

Adrienne Camp, who is best known as the spouse of Christian music artist Jeremy Camp, teams up with her daughters in her debut picture book.

Two blonde-haired, blue-eyed white girls are invited on the trip of a lifetime. After fundraising by a variety of means, the girls set off for Uganda and are immediately wrapped in love from the native Ugandans whose lives are “so hard and deprived.” Though their lifestyles are quite different, the girls realize that they and the “less fortunate” share similar dreams for the future. As they prepare to head home they also acknowledge that there is still much work to be done for the people they have met on their journey. Despite the glowing praise from African American evangelist Priscilla Shirer on the front cover, 138

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the book borders on disaster, from the renderings of the stiff, bug-eyed children to the stumbling verse: “Our hearts were burdened to think of all they go through. / We take things for granted, having so much while they have so few.” What images and words do ring out through the haze with any clarity speak less of sharing Christ’s love in the developing world and more of white-savior poverty voyeurism. There is no evidence of anything more than the shallowest of cultural exchange, and in fact the book is emblematic of the many concerns thoughtful leaders have expressed regarding short-term mission trips.

Self-congratulatory tourism masquerading as evangelical humanitarianism. (Picture book. 4-8)

THE ELEPHANT

Carnavas, Peter Illus. by the author Pajama Press (176 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-77278-102-1 A gentle story of depression and hope is told in this middle-grade Australian import.

Olive’s mother died when Olive was 1, and ever since, she has seen a large gray elephant following her father around. It follows him home from work, sits in the house next to him, and keeps him heavy and sad. Olive doesn’t know what to do about the elephant, but at least she has her maternal grandfather, who packs her lunch and picks her up from school, sometimes wearing a purple backpack that means a special adventure. One day, Olive, ignoring Grandad’s directive to put on her helmet, falls from a tree and receives a concussion. When she awakens, she sees a gray tortoise following Grandad around and blames herself. Olive confides in understanding friend Arthur. Together they devise a plan to get rid of the tortoise, and when that succeeds, Olive determines—with Grandad’s help—to make the elephant leave too. Carnavas takes the tough topic of caregiver depression and gives it a delicate, graceful touch. His plot weaves tightly together, and the ending twist is a lovely completion. Black-andwhite spot illustrations throughout give a visually accessible feel, as do the short chapters. All characters illustrated are the white of the paper.

A delicate, lovely story about caregiver depression that will validate and empower readers. (Fiction. 5-12)

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This beautiful, traditional tale is illustrated with a touch of magic. the phoenix of persia

LITTLE UNICORN IS SAD

Chien Chow Chine, Aurélie Illus. by the author Little, Brown (32 pp.) $12.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-316-53190-0 Series: Little Unicorn

When Little Unicorn feels an unpleasant emotion, he uses a breathing tech-

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nique to overcome it.

This translated French import features a unicorn with a magical mane, which changes color to show exactly what emotion he’s feeling. Negative emotions are presented as problems to be solved. An unadorned, didactic narrative explains that Little Unicorn had an argument with friends, and this is why he is feeling a sadness like “a giant gray cloud in his head.” His solution is to do a breathing exercise, which is presented step by step for readers on the following pages. Companion title Lit­ tle Unicorn Is Shy also follows this format. The illustrations are sparse, a small patch of color in a sea of white space, in which white unicorns differentiated mostly by mane and tale patterns are depicted. Unfortunately, rather than being the tools for selfregulation these books clearly strive to be, they create a sense that challenging emotions are problems children should be responsible for fixing. The breathing exercises are presented as solutions to the problematic emotions, but there is no explanation or context provided to support their effectiveness, which is questionable. For example, the breathing exercise presented in Little Unicorn Is Shy includes a portion of breath retention, which can actually be anxiety-producing in young children.

Give this emotional-literacy offering a pass. (Picture book.

4-8) (Little Unicorn Is Shy: 978-0-316-53210-5)

Simorgh saves the day with her wisdom, the storyteller and musicians pack their gear, and the little children can’t wait to hear the remainder of the story the next day. This beautiful, traditional tale is illustrated with a touch of magic by Sharif, who uses jewel-toned colors applied with a scratchboard effect that seems to pick out every feather on the Simorgh’s body. A QR code provides access to the soundtrack, in which each character is “voiced” by a different traditional Iranian instrument (explained in the backmatter).

A magical book takes readers to another world. (Picture book. 4-8)

Prepare for a Happy, Family–Filled with Familius!

"Dr. Carla Marie Manly provides clear directions and insights for a successful, satisfying journey that rings true. This book is a life-changer that gives new meaning to the term self-help"

THE PHOENIX OF PERSIA

Clayton, Sally Pomme Illus. by Sharif, Amin Hassanzadeh Tiny Owl (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 18, 2020 978-1-910328-43-9 Series: One Story, Many Voices

—Dr. Thelma Reese Available Now $18.99-ISBN: 9781641701419 Coming Soon:

A story of ancient Persia inside a story of 20th-century Iran accompanied by an easily accessible soundtrack.

A brother and sister in Iran run to the public park to listen to a storyteller backed by musicians narrate the tale of Prince Zal and the Simorgh, an ancient wise bird with the powers to make dreams come true. Zal is born to a Persian king and queen who have long awaited a child. However, when the king sees that the child’s hair is white as snow, he banishes the babe.

The Simorgh finds the crying baby abandoned in the forest and raises him with her chicks, teaching him poetry, science, the history of the universe, and all else a prince needs to know. The king finds Zal after 16 years of regret and offers him the throne, but Zal prefers to stay with the mother who raised him. The |

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Are You Living with a Narcissist? $16.99 - ISBN: 9781641702331

Buy the Avocado Toast $16.99 - ISBN: 9781641702386

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Colombet’s creatures have the look of those that appeared in the marginalia of old illuminated manuscripts. the society of distinguished lemmings

THIS IS A DOG

Collins, Ross Illus. by the author Nosy Crow/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-5362-1200-6 A dog makes sure it is the center of attention.

This winsome story takes the premise of a child’s first animal-identification picture dictionary (in fact the crossed-out title on the cover is My First Animal Book; the title is written beneath it in crayon) that has been hijacked by the first animal presented in the book: a dog. A black-and-white, floppy-eared mutt with a crayon in its mouth takes the story in paw and makes sure readers notice who is really important in the animal world. Each double-page spread offers the simple text “This is a [whatever animal is being shown]” together with an illustration of that animal. The dog, however, inserts itself into each spread: cavorting, teasing, or, in the case of the giraffe, peeing (sure to be a reader favorite) and in general stealing the spotlight. The animals’ expressions run the gamut from weary through surprised to annoyed and irritated to let readers know what they think about this forward dog. More than once (as with the title) the dog crosses out the printed text to write itself in: “This is a dog.” Eventually the animals tire of this self-aggrandizing behavior, and a page turn reveals that “This is a chase,” showing the animals in full pursuit of the dog. But the next page turn reveals that the dog is back in charge. If readers aren’t laughing out loud by now, they aren’t ready for this kind of metafictive play—give it a few months and bring it back out.

A clever, wonderfully silly, delightful romp. (Picture book.

3-6)

THE SOCIETY OF DISTINGUISHED LEMMINGS

Colombet, Julie Illus. by the author Peachtree (40 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-68263-156-0

It’s a relief to find a story about lemmings with a happy ending.

The lemmings in this picture book aren’t precisely cheerful. Their idea of fun is to “perform long and serious plays,” although they “play the piano exceedingly well!” Their activities always conform to a strict set of rules (10 of them) including, notably, “no unseemly or wild behavior.” Unlike the lemmings of legend, they do not march off a cliff, but they do follow the lemming tradition of making a “migration” into the ocean, where they face the risk of drowning. Fortunately, they’ve made a new friend, an enormous bear, who—in the tradition of a good parable—follows none of the rules but turns out to be extremely talented at swimming. The moral isn’t terribly heavy-handed.

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The lessons about tolerance and culture clashes are far outnumbered by the jokes. Many pages are nearly filled with lemming word balloons, as in a comic book. They’re also filled with lemmings: Colombet’s creatures have the look of those that appeared in the marginalia of old illuminated manuscripts, but in this book—to readers’ benefit—they take up just about every inch of the page. A surprisingly large percentage of the jokes actually work, and the lemmings in the pictures are delightfully wide-eyed and shaggy.

Even the most rule-bound reader will be cheered up by these stodgy lemmings. (Picture book. 5-10)

THE COOL CAT CLUB

Colton, Nicola Illus. by the author Tiger Tales (96 pp.) $18.99 | $6.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-68010-202-4 978-1-68010-460-8 paper Series: Jasper & Scruff What’s dapper cat Jasper to do with a scruffy pup?

Jasper lives on the top floor of a building surrounded by his books (arranged by cover color), fine art, and “bow ties in every pattern imaginable.” He knows what he likes and what he wants: Currently, he wants to have the right friends. He’s sure the Sophisticats are the right friends. Only the “finest felines” are admitted to the elite cat club, and Jasper longs to be one of them. To that end, he invites them to dinner and sets about making everything perfect. However, on a trip to the market just before the soiree, he’s followed home by a drooly puppy named Scruff. Jasper manages to get rid of him just before the Sophisticats arrive. Lady Catterly swans in and demands to be waited on; Reginald and Oswald arrive and enter their drink orders, too. Just as Jasper is about to serve, Scruff returns and trips him up. The Sophisticats throw attitude. Jasper tries to please. Nothing is good enough for them. When Scruff, behind closed doors, nearly demolishes the special, Jasper reflects on the behavior of all his guests…and picks the one he’d most like to spend time with. Colton’s series opener will entertain cat (and dog) lovers who are ready to make the leap to chapters. The four-color cartoon illustrations on every page of this British import cheekily move the tale along. Book 2, The Treasure Hunt, publishes simultaneously.

Odd-couple fun for a new generation. (Fantasy. 5-9) (The Treasure Hunt: 978-1-68010-461-5)

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WHAT’S THIS TAIL SAYING?

Combs, Carolyn Illus. by Morrison, Cathy Dawn Publications (32 pp.) $8.95 paper | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-58469-662-9

Tails communicate volumes in these encounters among many animals.

Animal interlocutors include a fox and a skunk, a beaver family, courting peacocks, a skink and a raccoon, and more. In every recto-verso sequence one animal responds with a tail action to another animal, with an explanation on the following page. The text is fairly simple and repetitive in format, blending prose and simplistic, rhyming phrases. A small monkey called a marmoset from Brazil (the location is mentioned only in the extensive backmatter) attempts to steal an egg from a nest. The text reads: “An egg thief is startled by a squawking mother bird. Fluff Puff.

What’s the marmoset’s tail saying?” After the page turn, the text reads: “I had a fright! Hold me tight! The family cuddles and

comforts the little one.” In the first picture, the baby marmoset’s tail expands to show its terror as the bird attacks it to save its young. When adult marmosets rescue their baby, the tails all go back to normal. The heavily detailed paintings realistically depict the animals and their environments, with meticulously rendered flora. A backmatter section for children includes animal descriptions (with small color photos) written at a higher reading level than the main text, and a separate one for caregivers includes an author’s note, tips for use, and related STEM and social-emotional–development activities.

Although the text is awkward, savvy adults can use the whole package to initiate conversations. (Informational picture book. 4-6)

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MY LIFE AS A POTATO

Costner, Arianne Illus. by the author Random House (272 pp.) $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-593-11866-5 978-0-593-11867-2 PLB The new kid in school endures becoming the school mascot.

Ben Hardy has never cared for potatoes, and this distaste has become a barrier to adjusting to life in his new Idaho town. His school’s mascot is the Spud, and after a series of misfortunes, Ben is enlisted to don the potato costume and cheer on his school’s team. Ben balances his duties as a life-sized potato against his desperate desire to hide the fact that he’s the dork in the suit. After all, his cute new crush, Jayla, wouldn’t be too impressed to discover Ben’s secret. The ensuing novel is a fairly boilerplate middle-grade narrative: snarky tween protagonist, the crush that isn’t quite what she seems, and a pair of best friends that have more going on than our hero initially believes. The author keeps the novel moving quickly, pushing forward with witty asides and narrative momentum so fast that readers won’t really mind that the plot’s spine is one they’ve encountered many times before. Once finished, readers will feel little resonance and move on to the next book in their to-read piles, but in the moment the novel is pleasant enough.

Ben, Jayla, and Ben’s friend Hunter are white while Ellie, Ben’s other good pal, is Latina.

On equal footing with a garden-variety potato. (Fiction.

10-12)

CAN I PLAY TOO?

Cotterill, Samantha Illus. by the author Dial (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-0-525-55346-5 Series: Little Senses

All young children learn that an enthusiastic “Can I play too?” is the fastest way to make new friends, but it isn’t always smooth sailing.

Two children sit together to build a train track. Anyone who has been around kids knows the chaos that can erupt between children trying to work together to build the perfect track.

However, it is also a chance for a lot of learning opportunities.

As readers turn the pages, they see one child take the lead as the other becomes more and more frustrated not to be heard. This is seen mostly in the children’s facial expressions and posture.

Ultimately, the child who’s not heard gets angry and storms off, leaving the other child confused. This child’s mother sees what has happened and jumps in with some helpful tools on reading others’ emotions and appropriately reacting to them: green, yellow, and red signals like a traffic light’s. The iconic smiley/ frowny faces that accompany this lesson nicely complement the 142

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clarity of Cotterill’s character depictions. (The child who dominates in play presents white; their playmate presents black.) It’s a simple lesson in empathy that can go a long way. The book wraps up with the children trying to build a new track and then putting into practice what they learned—a lesson that is definitely not limited to playtime.

An emotional-literacy booster to add to the regular reading rotation. (Picture book. 4- 7)

I FOUND A KITTY!

Cummings, Troy Illus. by the author Random House (40 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-9848-3186-6 978-1-9848-3187-3 PLB What’s Arfy to do when he finds a stray kitten in a drainpipe?

Arfy’s human’s allergic to cats, so his new buddy needs a home.

The pup picks up his pencil and writes a letter of introduction to the music teacher. “Scamper likes to eat, play, and poop in a box. He also likes to sing!” Scamper carries the letter to Maestro Mitch’s house. Mitch is charmed, but he sends Scamper back with a letter saying the kitten’s high notes are too much. Arfy pens a second letter, hoping to place Scamper with the triplet babies next door. Their snuggling turns out to be too much for Scamper; he runs away. Arfy’s third letter introduces Scamper to Emily Lugnut the mechanic, offering the puss as a mouser…but Scamper’s more interested in playing with the mice than catching them; Emily returns him with a note and an apology. Neither the talent agent nor the man with cat-themed decorations works out either. Scamper thanks Arfy in a note of his own. It’s only when the little furball enumerates his favorite parts of each attempted placement that Arfy realizes the perfect home for his new friend and writes one last letter of introduction. Cummings’ follow-up to Arfy’s winning debut, Can I Be Your Dog? (2018), is equally charming. The colorful and dynamic illustrations oppose each item of correspondence on verso against a scene on recto to tell the tale hand in paw with Arfy’s missives and the answering letters. Humans of diverse races live in Arfy’s town.

A heartwarming epistolary tale of helpfulness. (Picture book. 3-8)

THIS IS THE CHURCH

Cunningham, Sarah Raymond Illus. by Landy, Ariel Beaming Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-5064-4532-8

The familiar finger rhyme that begins “This is the church” is extended to explore a broad variety of places of Christian worship.

A child of color serves as guide through this ecumenical survey that’s conducted in rhyming couplets loosely modeled on its

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A handy companion for outdoor exploration. creek critters

THE HUNTER AND HIS DOG A Fantastical Journey Through the World of Bruegel De Bruyn, Sassafras Illus. by the author Eerdmans (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-8028-5534-3

A man and his canine emerge from a painting and race through some of their creator’s canvases before “returning home.”

In this wordless picture book imported from Belgium, children can follow the titular characters, two figures from Hunt­ ers in the Snow by Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. On each two-page spread, the illustrator playfully reinterprets Bruegel’s works by combining details from one or more paintings, creatively introducing youngsters to the artist’s oeuvre. Additionally, kids are challenged, Where’s Waldo?–style, to locate man and animal with every page turn. Pursuing a bird,

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inspiration. Starting with a megachurch that holds 10,000, the cheery narrator moves on to a tiny stone church in what looks like the British countryside, a Bible-study group in a private home, a circle of worshipers at a campfire, and people praying in secret in an “underground” church (literal-minded children will need some guidance here, as the two silhouettes pray framed by a ground-floor window). The absence of non-Christian religious symbols combines with abundant crosses throughout to imply that even the most informal-looking groups are Christian. Exclaiming that “the church follows God’s people wherever they go!” the child emphasizes that church is wherever believers are, including readers among that number in the final couplet: “On this day, the church welcomes you, / You’re part of God’s people, you’re the church too!” Oddly, the church doesn’t seem to be in any obviously non-Western setting despite Christianity’s worldwide reach. The illustrations depict a wide range of churchgoers, including people of many races, sizes, and ages as well as people with visible disabilities and of varied gender presentation. Notably, there are no readily discernible same-sex couples, undercutting the book’s broad message of inclusion.

Though mostly successful in the delivery of its core concept, this book falls short of true inclusivity. (Picture book. 3-6)

CREEK CRITTERS

Curtis, Jennifer Keats Illus. by Saroff, Phyllis V. Arbordale (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-64-351748-3 A girl shows her younger brother how the bugs they find in their creek tell them whether their creek is clean and healthy.

The narrator, a girl of color, lies on the bank of a creek with her little brother, who catches leaves from the water with a stick. She proposes investigating “how bugs can tell a story of clean water.” They run to their house and “grab the same tools that scientists use: rubber boots, a net, a bucket, and small paintbrushes.” They run back to the water and playfully explore its different parts. The narrator tells readers in a simple, expository present-tense what a riffle and a pool are and why the presence of “aquatic macroinvertebrates” shows that water is healthy.

They find a dragonfly nymph, a water penny, a mayfly nymph, and a caddisfly larva as they pick up rocks and sift through leaf packs. Their process of careful inquiry is as informative as their findings in this instructive exploration of a natural habitat. The text is rendered in a large font, good for precocious readers, and the pictures combine painted line drawings of the children and the environment with clear, enlarged images of the invertebrates in question. The backmatter includes drawings of additional macroinvertebrates, a field-notebook page, a life cycle matching activity, and a link to online quizzes and games.

A handy companion for outdoor exploration. (Informa­ tional picture book. 5-10)

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Du’s detailed illustrations bring to life the bustle of canal cities, capturing pivotal moments. china through time

the pair kick things off by escaping their picture through a large tear, reentering it after numerous adventures. There’s some fun to be had here, though kids are less likely to appreciate Bruegel than they are merely to seek hunter and dog and the ways they slip from one canvas into another. Missteps: Because illustrations include combined elements from various works, spreads aren’t labeled. Therefore, it’s difficult to name the paintings man and dog enter and exit. Specific artworks are identified via small details from the originals (alongside titles, dates, and owning museums) in the backmatter and are occasionally hard to discern. Those curious about which paintings man and animal visit must flip between spreads and “answers” in the back. The informative author’s note targets older readers.

It’s clever—but it won’t win Bruegel new fans or encourage repeat visits. (bibliography) (Picture book. 5-8)

BALLETBALL

Dionne, Erin Illus. by Flint, Gillian Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-58089-939-0 To ballet or to baseball? What’s a girl to do?

Nini loves ballet and her ballet outfits. Unfortunately, as her mother reminds her, it is time for baseball and her baseball uniform. Nini does not like anything about baseball—not her glove and not the field. The illustrations demonstrate her passive resistance in amusing vignettes that depict her practicing ballet moves, looking up at the sky, and flopped on the grass, a thoroughly ignored baseball next to her in each one. Her coach and her teammates remind her that baseball is a team sport and that everyone has to do their “best.” Then the coach has a little heart-to-heart with Nini about how ballet practice can improve performance on the baseball field. At the next game, her team is leading, but then an opposing player hits the ball into the outfield, where Nini and her glove are waiting. Yes, it is a perfect ending for a baseball player who knows how to plié and hold her glove in the right spot at the right time. Nini, who has lightbrown skin and fluffy brown hair, shares her round face and button eyes with all the other children, who are a mix of colors. The softly focused line-and-color illustrations highlight the yellowand-blue baseball uniforms and the green baseball field.

Pleasant fare for scheduled children. (Picture book. 4- 7)

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GARDEN JUNGLE

Druvert, Hélène Illus. by the author Thames & Hudson (32 pp.) $24.95 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-500-65224-4 A bored child takes his mother’s advice, and as he becomes more observant of his surroundings, the garden transforms into a dazzling jungle.

Opening scenes depict black silhouettes (with white details) against a lavender background; they channel the delicacy and whimsy of Arthur Rackham images. It is a bright coral butterfly that leads Tom into a series of seven, intricate, laser-cut pages that comprise the dense jungle. Each of these pages is decorated on both sides, and the sequence gradually transitions from midnight blue to mint green, the leafy layers and hanging vines of the card stock creating an illusion of depth and distance. Exotic birds, fragile flowers, and animals (including a cat that morphs into a leopard) punctuate the coolness with spots of coral. Tom remains a black silhouette as he climbs a tree and swims in a river. In contrast to this lush landscape is a pedestrian, singsong text told in aabb couplets (translated from the French): “Why not take a look at what’s outside your door? / You’ll find lots of things that you’ve not seen before,” reads the mother’s initial admonishment. Returning home, the protagonist is excited about his “journey” and anxious to revisit the jungle, suggesting that imagination is an antidote to boredom. Since the premise is not new and there is not much action, this title needed a more skillfully written narrative to rise above the rest.

A pleasure for the eye; the ear wants more. (Picture book.

4- 7)

CHINA THROUGH TIME A 2,500-Year Journey Along the World’s Greatest Canal Illus. by Du Fei DK Publishing (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-4654-8174-0

A trip through time along China’s Grand Canal.

As the longest and oldest canal in the world, the Grand Canal waterway stretches 1,115 miles (1,794 km). Traveling in time and space from construction in 486 B.C.E. in Yangzhou to the “ever-growing city” of Tianjin in 2020 C.E., readers are invited to “explore this ancient wonder [and] follow the fortunes of the canal and the people that lived along it, through good times and bad.” Panoramic landscape paintings span oversized double-page spreads. The mostly consistent perspective helps highlight that which stays similar and that which changes and makes for engaging page turns. Du’s detailed illustrations bring to life the bustle of canal cities, capturing pivotal moments in time. Readers will witness a military coup in Kaifeng (960 C.E.) on a wintry night lit by firelight as well as a “busy

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port...teeming with life” on a moonlit midnight at the Maple Bridge night fair in Suzhou (760 C.E.). Although it provides a brief historical overview, the journey along the canal is not linear geographically nor chronologically. Callout images to seek out and accompanying bite-sized facts to take in border each spread and guide the eye, however. Readers are invited to spot a “baby glimpsing the outside world for the first time,” a reservoir controlled by a sluice gate, a builder precariously “balancing on a unsteady plank,” and travelers burning incense for good luck. Lihua, a “street-smart, time-traveling cat” hidden in each spread, adds another propulsive layer.

Part informational text, part activity book, this brief but intricately illustrated journey should spark readers’ curiosity. (quiz, glossary) (Informational picture book. 7-10)

EXTREME OCEAN Amazing Animals, HighTech Gear, Record-Breaking Depths, and More

A longtime oceanographer invites readers to the excitement of exploring the ocean, “the blue heart of the planet,” and to help in its preservation.

National Geographic Explorer Sylvia Earle first met the ocean as a toddler. She’s been investigating its wonders ever since. Here, she introduces the world she loves through a series of short, extensively illustrated essays. The first three chapters take readers from the ocean’s surface down through the layers that humans have regularly explored to the mostly uncharted depths. Each spread covers a single topic, with relevant, captioned photos and boxed inserts full of further interesting details. Each chapter also includes a “That’s Extreme” example as well as a hands-on activity. Two spreads offer a timeline of modern ocean exploration. Earle’s narrative is full of anecdotes and personal feelings; it feels like her own voice, although coauthor Phelan shares title-page credit. After three chapters about ocean wonders, she turns to the causes and effects of ocean degradation (essentially, trash, overfishing, and humancaused climate change) and devotes a final full chapter to what can and is being done, with solid, workable suggestions for readers to take action. This is a model of thoughtful presentation of an uncomfortable subject, designed to attract middle-grade and middle school readers with its extremes in order to keep their attention while simultaneously helping them feel empowered to do something about the issues.

A surprisingly deep and successful dive. (glossary, resources, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 9-14)

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A Roman emperor learns the importance of respecting generations.

“The mighty Emperor Hadrian” rides through a small village on his great steed, causing fear in the inhabitants. But then a very old man emerges, carrying a small fig tree to plant. Hadrian is quite astounded, for the man is almost 100 years old and certainly will not live long enough to enjoy the fruit. The man explains that past generations left many fruit trees for him to enjoy, and he is doing the same for future generations. Three years pass, and the emperor returns to that same village, again causing fear. Except, of course, for that old man, who now happily holds a basket brimming with figs. He invites the emperor to enjoy some, just as his family has been able to do. When the emperor is sated, he remounts his horse, and the old man peers into the basket. The contents are no longer figs—they are gold coins. But for the old man, the true gift is the grove of fruit trees flourishing “for generations to come.” Elon’s lovely little tale, translated from the Hebrew, is adapted from the Midrash, stories that provide commentary on Hebrew Scriptures. Halberstadt’s artwork, resembling a pen-and-ink style, is expressive and not time-specific, mixing Hadrian’s Roman armor with mid-20th-century Mediterranean peasant garb. A duck provides silent but humorous asides. The emperor and old man both have pale skin, but there are children of color in the old man’s village.

Perfect for Earth Day and every day. (Picture book. 5-8)

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Earle, Sylvia & Phelan, Glen National Geographic Kids (112 pp.) $12.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-4263-3685-0

A BASKET FULL OF FIGS

Adapt. by Elon, Ori Illus. by Halberstadt, Menahem Trans. by Kahn-Hoffmann, Gilah Green Bean Books (32 pp.) $12.95 | Apr. 19, 2020 978-1-78438-472-2

THE THREE BILLY GOATS BUENOS

Elya, Susan Middleton Illus. by Ordóñez, Miguel Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-399-54739-3 A time-honored folktale gets a makeover with the addition of snappy Spanish vocabulary.

In what begins as a familiar tale, three goat brothers are prevented from crossing a river by an irritable troll. They must put their heads together to formulate a plan to get past the troll, but the thoughtful goats in this version of the story find opportunities for empathy and even new friendships when they begin to wonder why the troll is so grumpy and are able to help her with a combination of first aid and goodwill. A scary troll proves to be a new amiga when the goats choose to show her kindness. In her now characteristic style, Elya’s rhyming couplets seamlessly weave Spanish words into verses: “How many creatures can pass me? Ningunos! You kids will be part of mis desayunos!”

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Repetition of some phrases and vocabulary will benefit both emerging readers and those who are working to learn Spanish.

Ordóñez’s bold, geometric illustrations mesh with the simplicity of the plot and deliver lively visuals. Two of the goats have cute little beards; the troll looks like a blue brick with round ears and eyes, a V-shaped scowl, triangular pink nose and smaller triangular white fangs, and impossibly long arms. Byron Barton fans will appreciate the vibrant and uncluttered style.

An enjoyable addition to any folklore collection, this iteration of the classic story packs visual and linguistic punch. (glossary) (Picture book. 3-6)

A SPACE FOR ME

Falwell, Cathryn Illus. by the author Lee & Low (32 pp.) $18.95 | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-62014-963-8

Brotherly love wins out.

Young Alex narrates his frustration with his little brother, Lucas. The boys share a bedroom, and Alex complains, “He takes my stuff and makes noise and plays on my side of the room, in my space.”

Both boys have medium-brown skin and dark wavy hair. Their big sister, Emma, has her own room, and she resembles her brothers. She notices that Alex is upset and helps him create a space of his own outside. Alex is happy to play outside by himself until he notices Lucas gazing forlornly out the window. Alex can’t understand why his little brother isn’t happy to have their bedroom all to himself. Falwell’s colorful, textured collage art zooms in to capture the tender moment when Lucas tells Alex, “But I want to be with you.” The boys gaze at each other across the gutter from facing pages, the green of their bedroom walls now a lighter shade than in prior spreads, evoking a moment of peace and connection. Moved, Alex brings Lucas outside to make him a space of his own in their backyard, too. Closing spreads show the brothers playing together and alone, outside and inside, with illustrations taking pains to make it clear that although things are better, realistically, Lucas can still annoy his big brother sometimes.

Find space on the shelf for this sweet family story. (Pic­ ture book. 4- 7)

ALL WAYS FAMILY

Fernández Selva, Noemí Illus. by Losantos, Cristina Magination/American Psychological Association (64 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-4338-3152-2 An introduction to a range of reproductive possibilities and family structures.

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Paula is distracted at school. “We’re going to the doctor because my mom is pregnant. I get to see my little brother for the first time,” she explains to her teacher, Ms. Williams— although the accompanying illustration doesn’t depict the teacher and instead confusingly shows Paula joining her parents outside. The doctor visit is clearer, with expository text worked into the dialogue to introduce an ultrasound. When Paula shares her experience at school, Ms. Williams “explains the process of reproduction and fertilization.” Sadly, the text doesn’t do so here, nor on a page reading “Sexual intercourse is a common form of reproduction,” which depicts two nude adults standing apart with enlarged sperm and ovum floating between them. Fuller explanation arrives regarding assisted reproduction when Paula’s classmate asks her mother that evening how she came about without a father. That she wouldn’t know this already and that her mother’s suggested visit to a lab to observe intracytoplasmic sperm injection is so easily achieved both strain credulity. Efforts to include same-sex partners who build families with AR and adoption are laudable, though the adoption portion presents an oversimplified happily-ever-after narrative that belies the losses inherent in the adoptive triad. The book closes with a Q-and-A and a glossary but no sources or further resources. Ms. Williams is white while her students and their families are diverse.

No way. (Nonfiction. 4-8)

A GALAXY OF SEA STARS

Ferruolo, Jeanne Zulick Farrar, Straus and Giroux (320 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-374-30909-1 In sixth grade, Izzy Mancini’s cozy, loving world falls apart.

She and her family have moved out of the cottage she grew up in. Her mother has spent the summer on Block Island instead of at home with Izzy. Her father has recently returned from military service in Afghanistan partially paralyzed and traumatized. The only people she can count on are Zelda and Piper, her best friends since kindergarten—that is, until the Haidary family moves into the upstairs apartment. At first, Izzy resents the new guests from Afghanistan even though she knows she should be grateful that Dr. Haidary saved her father’s life. But despite her initial resistance (which manifests at times as racism), as Izzy gets to know Sitara, the Haidarys’ daughter, she starts to question whether Zelda and Piper really are her friends for forever—and whether she has the courage to stand up for Sitara against the people she loves. Ferruolo weaves a rich setting, fully immersing readers in the largely white, coastal town of Seabury, Rhode Island. Disappointingly, the story resolves when Izzy convinces her classmates to accept Sitara by revealing the Haidarys’ past as American allies, a position that put them in so much danger that they had to leave home. The idea that Sitara should be embraced only because her family supported America, rather

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The illustrations, rich with color and patterns, are their own celebration of light. flash and gleam

than simply because she is a human being, significantly undermines the purported message of tolerance for all.

A beautifully rendered setting enfolds a disappointing plot. (Fiction. 10-12)

FLASH AND GLEAM Light in Our World

Fliess, Sue Illus. by Le, Khoa Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) $19.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5415-5770-3

FRIDAY NIGHT WRESTLEFEST

Fox, J.F. Illus. by Player, Micah Roaring Brook (48 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-250-21240-5

A loving family masquerading as pro wrestlers rings in the weekend with a nocturnal cuddle-clash.

If love is a battlefield, bedtime surely qualifies as siege warfare—or at least a good scrap. Fox reimagines this household ritual through a new angle, with the whole family clad in homemade wrestling attire duking it out in a scarf-roped, blanket-matted squared circle in the living room. At the opening bell, Peanut Brother and sis Jellyfish no-sell Dangerous |

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Light appears in many forms, especially in celebrations.

Rays of sunlight sparkle on a garden. The northern lights swirl across an evening sky. From the morning sun to the nighttime moon, light shines all around. This book follows four children from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. The children never all meet, but several spreads include them all via interlocking backgrounds, highlighting their shared experiences. For instance, each child views Fourth of July fireworks with two parents or caregivers. (These pairs each present male and female.) Then each family observes its own winter celebration of lights: Yi Peng with a Thai family; Diwali with an Indian family; Hanukkah with a white family; Christmas with a black family. Concise stanzas of five or six syllables evoke the wonder, movement, or purpose of different light sources: “Shimmer / Glance / Blaze and dance” describes a beach bonfire. Backmatter covers the science of light, including composition, and some manifestations like lightning as well as holiday descriptions. The illustrations, rich with color and patterns, are their own celebration of light, particularly in their warm, golden glows. Similar light sources carry different meanings; a birthday candle’s flame gives off fairy-dust–like sparks for a wish while a collection of memorial candles burn strong and steady for healing. The book successfully depicts both scientific and cultural experiences in impressive variety and connections.

A ray of light, both illuminating and beautiful. (Informa­ tional picture book. 5-8)

Daddoo’s attempt to impose curfew. Player’s vivacious palette and dynamic brush strokes dominate each page, and the largerthan-life characters’ minimalist facial features ensure maximum expressiveness. The in-ring action is fast-paced, with Fox’s punchy text sprawling over spreads and emphatically discouraging silent reading. Be warned: This shout-aloud story demands the best from any caregiver’s inner MC, and the bright, punladen, affection-filled narrative is sure to inspire emulation.

Though Daddoo is initially caught off guard by a “WHEM BAM JAM SLAM-WICH,” he quickly turns the match into a literal slobberknocker by unleashing his patented “CODFISH KISSES.” Things are looking desperate for the Tag Team Twins until Mama-Rama gets home and turns on Daddoo, catching him in a classic “PARENT TRAP.” In the end, it’s Big Bald Baby who brings down the house with a “DIAPER OF DOOM,” and, after singing, brushing, flushing, and polishing off a book, the kids finally go down for the count. All family members have dark, curly hair and light-brown skin.

A boisterous blow off sure to tucker listeners out before they’re tucked in. (Picture book. 3- 7)

THE FAIRIES OF HONEYSUCKLE HOLLOW

Frampton, Robyn Illus. by Horton, Laura K. Imprint (32 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-250-12264-3

Earn fairy wings through kindness and love.

An unnamed narrator depicted as a white girl in a dress goes into the forest and finds a fairy named Lily, a dark-skinned girl with pointed ears and wings like a stained-glass dragonfly’s. One wing is broken, and she’s lost her key to Honeysuckle Hollow, where the fairies dwell. The child helps Lily search while also assisting Lily in her horticultural duties. Eventually they find the key, which is near the door to the hollow. Invited inside, the protagonist shrinks to fit, and the two new friends join the ethnically diverse fairies’ celebration. The Fairy Queen, who has tan skin and black hair, thanks the child for selflessly helping Lily with a pair of “earned” shimmering, butterfly-shaped fairy wings. The “Fairy Code” ends the book, promoting kindness, care of nature, and friendship. This story is contemporary fairy fodder, adequate for young readers eagerly devouring anything they can find but adding nothing new to the collection. The mediocre, first-person verse maneuvers clauses to fit its rhyme scheme: “Her name was Lily—she was from a land most don’t know. / A forest that’s called Honeysuckle Hollow.” The sweet and delicate pictures, created digitally, are pastel-heavy and feature items derived from plants, like petal-and-leaf fairy clothing or stem wands. Each spread contains scattered sparkles to add that omnipresent magical feeling.

Sparkling, shimmering, saccharine. (Picture book. 3- 7)

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A sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel. investigators

WHOO-KU HAIKU A Great Horned Owl Story Gianferrari, Maria Illus. by Voss, Jonathan D. Putnam (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-399-54842-0

The great horned owl takes wing through illustrations and haiku.

With the assistance of illustrator Voss, here, self-confessed “bird nerd” Gianferrari indulges her “fondness for raptors” by describing the life cycle of North America’s most common owl. Gianferrari spotlights a great horned owl family as a male and female make their home in an abandoned squirrel nest, lay three eggs, and then nurture the two owlets who hatch. Choosing the spare, declarative force of haiku to tell her tale, Gianferrari interestingly juxtaposes the raw, predatory nature of these birds, as the parents hunt prey and protect their young from numerous existential threats, with a verse form traditionally reserved for depicting nature’s more pastoral scenes: “Papa delivers a snake” and “alights on the nest” with “a skunk for supper” while “crows dive-bomb and caw.” Voss’ intricate double-page spreads often utilize inset panels to capture the tension of nature in action; especially effective is a gorgeous close-up highlighting mama owl’s razor-sharp talons and tawnyflecked eyes as “Red fox launches—pounce!” aiming for one of the newly flying owlets. As a bonus to this comprehensive window into nature, Gianferrari’s notes include engaging resources to help children better understand the unique qualities of this dominant predator.

Vivid and accessible: an illuminating portrait of one of nature’s most iconic birds. (Picture book. 3-8)

WATCH THIS! A Book About Making Shapes Godwin, Jane Illus. by Orpin, Beci Photos by Walker, Hilary Scribble (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 4, 2020 978-1-947534-99-5

This Australian concept book involves the whole body.

Twelve children bend, twist, and join limbs to form various shapes, all photographed against large, patterned pops of color.

Readers are introduced to each child by name on the title-page spread. The kids start simply, with circles and triangles. Some shapes are accomplished alone (a circle with one’s arms overhead or a “little” triangle with one’s fingers). But most shapes are a collaborative effort. (Whenever one child’s toes nearly touch another’s face, the apprehensive looks are priceless.) Walker expertly photographs from various angles, though the overhead shots are by far the most clever and amusing. The shapes start to get more complicated (a star, a diamond) until interpretations become a bit looser and more creative. Children standing 148

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side by side holding hands are a wavy line, and two others hiding behind Ari with arms straight out becomes a six-armed “Aritangle.” Orpin’s backgrounds and frames often echo the shapes in case extra reinforcement is needed. The children are racially diverse with names hinting at ethnic diversity as well, and playful touches (tongues out, gleeful smiles) expertly capture childlike exuberance.

A treat for all learners, kinesthetic or otherwise. (Picture book. 3-6)

INVESTIGATORS

Green, John Patrick Illus. by the author First Second (208 pp.) $9.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-250-21995-4 Series: InvestiGators, 1 A zippy graphic-novel series opener featuring two comically bumbling reptile detectives.

As agents of SUIT (Special Undercover Investigation Team) with customized VESTs (Very Exciting Spy Technology) boasting the latest gadgetry, the bright green InvestiGators Mango and Brash receive their newest assignment. The reptilian duo must go undercover at the Batter Down bakery to find missing mustachioed Chef Gustavo and his secret recipes. Before long, the pair find themselves embroiled in a strange and busy plot with a scientist chicken, a rabid were-helicopter, an escape-artist dinosaur, and radioactive cracker dough. Despite the great number of disparate threads, Green manages to tie up most neatly, leaving just enough intrigue for subsequent adventures. Nearly every panel has a joke, including puns (“gator done!”), poop jokes, and popculture references (eagle-eyed older readers will certainly pick up on the 1980s song references), promising to make even the most stone-faced readers dissolve into giggles. Green’s art is as vibrant as an overturned box of crayons and as highly spirited as a Saturday-morning cartoon. Fast pacing and imaginative plotting (smattered with an explosion here, a dance number there) propel the action through a whimsical world in which a diverse cast of humans live alongside anthropomorphized reptiles and dinosaurs. With its rampant good-natured goofiness and its unrelenting fizz and pep, this feels like a sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel.

Silly and inventive fast-paced fun. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)

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ALBA AND THE OCEAN CLEANUP

Hawthorne, Lara Illus. by the author Big Picture/Candlewick (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-5362-1044-6

ELMORE AND PINKY

Hobbie, Holly Illus. by the author Random House (40 pp.) $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-5247-7081-5 978-1-5247-7082-2 PLB Finding a best friend is easier than these critters realize.

The little porcupine introduced in Elmore (2018) has several friends, but he’s hoping to find a best friend. His uncle insists that getting one “just happens” and to “be patient.” Elmore shares his woes with Pinky the skunk. Both agree that best friends should share preferences, such as being nocturnal. In an episode straight out of Robert McCloskey’s Blueberries for Sal, Elmore is out picking berries when a bear cub and its mother burst onto the scene, scaring him. Hearing the cries for help, Pinky comes running and releases his characteristic scent, which all bears hate. Elmore, though, likes it since it reminds him of Pinky: “It’s so you,” he tells the skunk. Later, while making his blueberry pie, Elmore realizes that his best friend was |

ANIMAL TRACKS AND TRACES

Holland, Mary Arbordale (32 pp.) $17.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-64351-747-6

Holland continues her series on animal anatomy and adaptations with this look at the evidence animals leave behind.

The opening spread may mislead readers into thinking this is a book only about nocturnal animals, but many of the animals, not just their tracks and scat, can be spied during the day. Holland focuses on helping children both notice evidence of animals’ activities and learn a bit about the animal based on that evidence. Spot a track in mud or snow?

Count the number of toes to get a clue as to who made it, and the toes will point in the direction of travel. Vertical grooves in the bark of a tree may indicate that moose have been feeding there. You can identify an animal by its “poop,” or “scat,” and many use “pee” to mark their territory. You may be able to spot animals’ homes—beaver lodges and birds’ nests. Holland’s photos are, once again, a highlight, though a few are low-contrast and may be difficult to parse. Backmatter includes some matching activities and a few more signs of animals’ activities, several of which are fascinating enough to have warranted pages of their own. Readers will need a guidebook in many instances to make a positive ID. Readers will want to head directly out to search for clues. (Nonfiction. 3-9)

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When a reef fish becomes stuck in a plastic bottle, a caring human child not only rescues her, but also organizes an ocean cleanup.

Like many humans, Alba, an orange fish with white spots, loves to collect interesting and beautiful objects. As she grows bigger and older, she finds more trash and fewer treasures in her neighborhood—and her reef-dwelling friends disappear.

Still searching for treasures, she swims into a bottle to retrieve a pearl inside and becomes trapped. The bottle washes up on shore, where Kaia, also a collector of treasures and shown with long black hair and dark skin, comes to the rescue. Placing the fish temporarily in a bucket, she convinces her whole town to help clean “the mess that they had made.” Hawthorne’s stylized, posterlike illustrations initially show a bright, lively reef full of identifiable fish, coral, and other sea creatures. (A spread at the end introduces some of the other inhabitants, an opportunity for seek-and-find activities.) As the trash increases, the fish vanish. Near the end, a spread shows the windmill-powered town, cleaners on the beach, and even divers removing trash, making possible the busy reef scene that greets Alba’s safe return.

First published in England as Alba, the Hundred Year Old Fish, this hopeful fable may help very young readers think about the problem of plastic waste.

Unlikely—but the simple story and bright pictures underscore the importance of taking care of our ocean.

(Picture book. 3-6)

“right under [his] nose all along”—brave, clever Pinky. They share the pie, which is “half the pleasure” of making it. The story is endearing in its heartfelt simplicity, maintains sincerity, and reminds readers that there are fitting companions for all types. Hobbie’s illustrations are reminiscent of Beatrix Potter’s in style and content: Soft watercolor shading and strategic fine details depict animals in minimal clothes living naturally outside but with comfortable furnishings in their burrows. They have a charm all their own while evoking the classics.

Share this book with your best friend. (Picture book. 3- 7)

MINDFUL DAY

Hopkinson, Deborah Illus. by Ng-Benitez, Shirley Sounds True (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-68364-279-4 Two siblings awake in the same bed and enjoy a slow, deep breath; thus begins a mindful day.

Throughout this text, the young characters and their mother are shown connecting to the present moment through their senses—in other words, practicing mindfulness. They fully notice each daily task, from the mundane (crunching breakfast cereal, getting dressed) to the fun (shopping at a

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fruit stand, visiting the library). They feel the warm sun, hear the sounds of the city, taste the flavors of their food, and practice gratitude. Between each of these moments of purposeful awareness, they breathe intentionally, softly and slowly. Rather than instructing mindfulness to readers, as in Susan Verde’s I Am Peace, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds (2017), this narrative exemplifies how a day may be experienced when mindfulness is organically embedded within it. Mindfulness doesn’t render life solely blissful, and the characters are shown responding with urgency when appropriate, as when the day suddenly turns from mild to stormy. However, there is an unshakeable calm in narrative and illustration that permeates each task. The thick lines, bold colors, and emotive faces in the illustrations are appealing and complement the narrative well. All family members are Asian-presenting.

A solid demonstration of the benefits of mindfulness practice when it is applied to daily life. (Picture book. 5-9)

HOUNDSLEY AND CATINA AT THE LIBRARY

Howe, James Illus. by Gay, Marie-Louise Candlewick (48 pp.) $15.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-7636-9662-7

Three anthropomorphic animals share a story about community and life changes.

Houndsley, a dog who bakes muffins, Bert, a scarf-clad white bird, and Catina, a creative white cat, spend every Saturday at the library. They teach others to read, shelve books, and do yoga, respectively, generating a dynamic image of what goes on these days in libraries beyond sitting and reading a book. Cheery watercolor illustrations nestle with paragraphs of large, plain text with ample negative space for emergent readers. One Saturday, the normally cheerful librarian, a white bunny named Trixie, is unexpectedly downcast. The friends learn that Trixie is retiring to attend circus school, which means the library will be closing imminently. A hand-drawn sign announces a final chance to wish Trixie well and to return library books, and it also encourages everyone to “bring something special” for Trixie. As the week unfolds, each animal pursues thoughtful going-away gestures for Trixie, and one in the group puts thought toward how to save the fate of the library. Themes of kindness, adapting to sudden change, and pursuing personal growth make this early reader a touchpoint for conversations.

Even with these opportunities for dynamic discussion, the plot’s drama and stress are resolved in a quick and satisfying manner. A table of contents will make this outing feel like a chapter book, readers gaining confidence.

Gentle existentialism for emergent readers. (Early reader.

6-9)

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BRINGING BACK THE WOLVES How a Predator Restored an Ecosystem

Isabella, Jude Illus. by Smith, Kim Kids Can (40 pp.) $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-77138-625-8

Isabella and Smith explore the ecological effects of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995.

Seemingly simple yet remarkably comprehensive—a bit like the ecosystem web it describes—this picture book explains how the Yellowstone National Park ecosystem, deprived for 70 years of its apex predator, became overpopulated with elk and how it began to reclaim its balance with the reintroduction of wolves. While an anchor narrative tells the story of the park’s ecosystem changes, interspersed sidebars delve into adjunct topics. For example, recurring sidebars titled “It’s Elemental” describe the effects of climate and weather while others add deeper details, such as describing a wolf ’s physiological traits.

In this way, abundant amounts of information are presented in an easy-to-understand format. Colorful, posterlike illustrations add liveliness to the format and open up the whole design visually so the expansive topic feels unintimidating. It’s all here: how wolves, by being wolves, reduced the elk population, which allowed more plant life to grow, which brought more berries for bears and more habitat for insects and birds, which created more pollination—among many other restorations. Beyond gaining an understanding of this particular ecosystem, readers will no doubt grasp the concept of the vast interdependencies within any ecosystem. Bolded words within the narrative are defined in a glossary in the backmatter, which also includes further resources and an index.

Clear, comprehensive, and thoroughly accessible. (Infor­ mational picture book. 8-14)

THE GREAT UPENDING

Kephart, Beth Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum (272 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-4814-9156-3 A family struggles to keep their farm afloat and to afford medical care for 12-year-old Sara, who has a heart condition due to a disorder called Marfan syndrome.

Sara and her younger brother, Hawk, are kids who have grown up accustomed to being competent and useful, and their drought-stricken farm, which has been in their family for generations, can use all the help it can get.

Since she feels she’s letting her family down, it’s particularly hard for Sara to cope with her diminished physical abilities, and when surgery becomes inevitable, she and Hawk hatch a wild

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Kim has woven a pop song of immigrant struggle colliding with comedy and Korean barbecue. stand up, yumi chung!

scheme to raise the necessary funds that involves their mysterious, elderly tenant, known to them as The Mister. Lyrical first-person narration from Sara’s perspective—presented in short chapters that occasionally almost take the shape of brief poems—takes its time setting the stage for this tender, classic mystery. The rural Pennsylvania setting and family traditions, such as making half a dozen pies in one go, often feel like throwbacks in time though the novel is contemporary. Older middle graders and young teens with a taste for literary fiction will savor the language and appreciate the quirky, sympathetic characters, who are mostly white, or assumed to be, as race or ethnicity is not specified. Kephart describes her research and writing process in a closing note.

A meandering, gentle, lovely tale of a deeply bonded family, replete with a clever mystery. (Fiction. 10-12)

STAND UP, YUMI CHUNG!

Eleven-year-old Yumi Chung doesn’t have anyone to sit with at lunch, but she secretly harbors dreams of becoming a comedian. Shy + Asian + Girl = Comedian? Why, yes. Yes, it does.

Winston Preparatory Academy is a shy person’s nightmare.

Yumi hides from the beautiful girls and the bullies who call her “Yu-meat” because she smells like her parents’ Korean barbecue restaurant. This summer, her parents are demanding that she go to Korean summer school, or hagwon, to get a near-perfect score on the high school entrance exam—because that is the only way to attend an elite college, like her superachiever sister, a 20-year-old med student. Yumi collects all of her fears and frustrations (and jokes) in her Super-Secret Comedy Notebook.

When a case of mistaken identity allows her to attend a comedy camp taught by her YouTube idol, Yumi is too panicked to correct the problem—and then it spirals out of control. With wonderful supporting characters, strong pacing, and entertaining comedy bits, debut author Kim has woven a pop song of immigrant struggle colliding with comedy and Korean barbecue. With their feet in two different cultures, readers listen in on honest conversations, full of halting English and unspoken truths painting a realistic picture of 21st-century first-generation Americans—at least a Korean version. By becoming someone else, Yumi learns more about herself and her family in an authentic and hilarious way.

Readers will cheer the birth of this comedian. (Fiction.

9-12)

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Hattie the magician pulls amazing things out of her hat.

Emerging from her top hat, Hattie, a rabbit, welcomes everyone to her magic show, invites readers to repeat “Abracadabra, katakurico,” and see “what’s in the hat.” Initially, two pointy ears surface and then a surprised cat jumps out. Hattie repeats the same magic words, and the fluffy tail and ears of an energetic squirrel appear. Next Hattie’s magic words invoke a snakelike arm attached to a huge octopus followed by antlers belonging to a gigantic moose. For her next trick, Hattie reveals the gray trunk of an enormous, shocked elephant who’s temporarily stuck in the hat. Surely the hat’s finally empty now? But wait, Hattie has a “grand finale” still to come. The spare, repetitive, interactive text engages readers in chanting the magic words with Hattie and watching expectantly, guessing what will emerge next. The energetic illustrations rely on vivid colors, bold, black, hand-drawn outlines, simple shapes, and plain backgrounds to showcase Hattie in her yellow coat and red bow tie as she conjures the sequence of hilarious creatures from her magical hat. As the animals increase in size, they dominate the double-page spreads until Hattie’s growing menagerie explodes into a wild, wonderful “whole new world of friends.”

Dynamic, fun-filled, imaginative, and ideal for participatory reading aloud. (Picture book. 2-6)

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Kim, Jessica Kokila (320 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-525-55497-4

HAT TRICKS

Kitamura, Satoshi Illus. by the author Peachtree (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-68263-150-8

SMALL MERCIES

Krone, Bridget Illus. by Vermeulen, Karen Catalyst Press (162 pp.) $11.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-946395-17-7 Set in post-apartheid Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, this realistic story traces protagonist Mercy’s quest to speak up for truth and, consequently, for herself.

Eleven-year-old Mercy has lived with her two elderly foster mothers—“Aunt Flora” and “Aunt Mary” McKnight—since she was orphaned at the age of 5. Although their home is filled with love, the McKnight sisters are so poor that they reuse tea bags as many as four to five times and most of the furniture has been sold. To make matters worse, Aunt Flora is slowly losing her memory to Alzheimer’s, and their beloved house seems to be falling apart just as a greedy housing developer is eying their property. Painfully shy and reserved, Mercy struggles to cope with her school assignments and her complicated home life as she tries very hard not to stand out. When Mr. Singh moves into the McKnight house as a lodger, his stories about Gandhi’s

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As with the author’s first book, the vocabulary sets this title apart from many others for this age group. a kid of their own

peaceful struggle for independence inspire Mercy to stand up for herself. Krone’s characters are diverse, convincing, and full of life. The McKnight sisters are white, Mercy has dark skin and is likely of mixed heritage, Mr. Singh is Indian, and Mercy’s classmates are representative of South Africa’s diverse communities. The story stands on its own, but readers unfamiliar with South Africa might also benefit from concurrent research or discussion about South African history, cultures, and languages.

Sensitive, funny, and tender. (Fiction. 8-12)

INCREDIBLE JOBS YOU’VE (PROBABLY) NEVER HEARD OF

Labarre, Natalie Illus. by the author Nosy Crow/Candlewick (48 pp.) $19.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 978-1-5362-1219-8

From funeral clown to cheese sculptor, a tally of atypical trades.

This free-wheeling survey, framed as a visit to “The Great Hall of Jobs,” is designed to shake readers loose from simplistic notions of the world of work. Labarre opens with a generic sculpture gallery of, as she puts it, “The Classics”—doctor, dancer, farmer, athlete, chef, and the like—but quickly moves on, arranging busy cartoon figures by the dozen in kaleidoscopic arrays, with pithy captions describing each occupation. As changes of pace she also tucks in occasional challenges to match select workers (Las Vegas wedding minister, “ethical” hacker, motion-capture actor) with their distinctive tools or outfits. The actual chances of becoming, say, the queen’s warden of the swans or a professional mattress jumper, not to mention the nitty-gritty of physical or academic qualifications, income levels, and career paths, are left largely unspecified…but along with noting that new jobs are being invented all the time (as, in the illustration, museum workers wheel in a “vlogger” statue), the author closes with the perennial insight that it’s essential to love what you do and the millennial one that there’s nothing wrong with repeatedly switching horses midstream. The many adult figures and the gaggle of children (one in a wheelchair) visiting the “Hall” are diverse of feature, sex, and skin color.

Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book. 7-9)

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A KID OF THEIR OWN

Lambert, Megan Dowd Illus. by Lanan, Jessica Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-58089-879-9

In this companion book to A Crow of His Own (illustrated

by David Hyde Costello, 2015), Clyde the rooster returns with his star wake-up crow.

Regularly lapping up universal praise and adoration, Clyde is living a comfortable life on the farm until farmers Jay and Kevin introduce Fran the goat and her kid, Rowdy. Everyone is delighted to have a kid on the farm except for a jealous Clyde, who devises a plan to regain everyone’s attention. The next morning he uses a megaphone to make an extra loud wake-up call, but the noise doesn’t allow Rowdy the sleep he needs. His friend Roberta the goose asks him to tone it down, but he dials it up with amps and drums, crowing every time Rowdy tries to rest. Soon everyone is upset, and Clyde realizes he must do something to make up for his “foul behavior.” Lambert depicts how hard the change brought about by a new young one in the family can be while also addressing inclusivity and celebrating everyone’s unique voice. The charming watercolor illustrations include little hints that the two white, male farmers are preparing for another new arrival. As with the author’s first book, the vocabulary sets this title apart from many others for this age group. Rarely using verbs like “said” or “asked,” the text allows readers to discover “gushed,” “huffed,” and “gasped” alongside other crunchy vocabulary: “Resolve,” “bereft,” and “righteousness” are just a smattering.

A sweet and unusual new-baby story with an uncommonly broadening vocabulary. (Picture book. 4-6) (Note: Lam­ bert is a freelance contributor to Kirkus.)

NATTIQ AND THE LAND OF STATUES

Landry, Barbara Illus. by Kyak, Martha Groundwood (24 pp.) $18.95 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-55498-891-4

Told with Inuktitut words seamlessly folded in, a story of Arctic migration comes to life.

A group of Arctic animals gathers on a snowy bank to welcome the return of their friend nattiq, the ringed seal. “What did you see beyond our land?” nanuq, the polar bear, asks.

Alongside vivid, impressionistic illustrations from Inuit artist Kyak, the tale unfolds past “gigantic floating mountains of ice,” under the northern lights, and along a tundra bursting into bloom with Arctic cotton. As nattiq travels south, the seal is amazed to behold “strange statues” lining the shore. As they come closer into view, nattiq marvels, “I realize the statues are alive.” The trees nattiq observes change with the seasons: In the fall, “they whisper and nod…in their colorful coats” of red,

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yellow, and brown; through the winter storms, “the statues bend and roar”; in spring, birds build nests as the trees “open their arms to the creatures of the sky.” Context clues allow readers to surmise the definitions of Inuktitut words that are woven into the narrative, rendered first in the syllabary of the Indigenous language and then in romanized italics; older children may be able to guess at each word’s meaning and check the glossary for accuracy. Younger readers and Inuktitut students of all ages will appreciate this lyrical, respectfully rendered story by non-Inuit author Landry.

A sweet animal adventure and a valuable addition to collections featuring Indigenous-language text. (Picture book. 5-8)

SEEDS

Lemniscates considers seeds, both as tiny biological powerhouses and metaphors for human potential.

“Seeds carry the power of life. / So they embark on amazing adventures.” Clear, stylized illustrations show seed dispersal, via wind and an ant colony. A double-page spread depicts the stages of a pumpkin seed from germination to blossoming.

One vine—from one seed—“brings dozens of pumpkins. // And each pumpkin brings hundreds of seeds!” After examining an orchid’s progress from a tiny seed and observing that seeds can sprout in harsh conditions, Lemniscates swerves awkwardly into analogy. “A smile is a powerful seed. / … / But there are also seeds that bring anger and misunderstanding. / When those seeds grow, they pull us apart.” Indeed, two children formerly seen to be cooperating now engage in a tug of war over a basket of fruit they’ve picked. Bright pictures resemble a combination of print and collage, with swaths of textured color and snipped and applied shapes. Diversity is indicated by variations in hairstyle and skin tone. A harmonious conclusion shows a diverse group of friends playing ring-around-the-rosie accompanied by a vague address to readers: “Seeds have whole worlds inside them, / just like you.” While coaching from determined adults may enable young children to understand some of the metaphorical material, Lemniscates is on more solid ground with the clear botanical science that she introduces here.

Solid science concepts about seeds muddied by a segue into preschool pop-psych. (Picture book. 3-5)

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Lumberjanes comic books collaborator Leyh expertly blends fantasy and realism in her energetic debut solo middle-grade graphic novel.

“Our town has a witch. She fed her eye to the devil. She eats roadkill and casts spells with the bones.” Snapdragon knows the rumors, but after the “roadkill witch” rescues Snap’s beloved dog and agrees to foster abandoned possum babies, Snap starts to think all may not be as it seems. And it’s true: The town’s “witch” is actually Crocs-wearing, white-haired, one-eyed Jacks. Gruff but nurturing, Jacks takes Snap under her wing, teaching Snap her work of using bones from roadkill to build and sell anatomically correct skeletal systems. But it also turns out that Jacks is a witch, using magic to release the souls of roadkill back into nature, and Snap is desperate to find out if she can also channel magic. Leyh’s characters are fully realized, from Snap’s simultaneously overflowing skepticism and enthusiasm to her dynamic with her single working-while-in-school mom, from Jacks’ quiet history with Snap’s grandma to Snap’s new best friend’s transition to wearing skirts, loving nail polish, and being called Lulu.

Their world isn’t perfect: Snap and Lulu are bullied at school, economic struggles are apparent, and Snap’s mom’s abusive exboyfriend shows up more than once (including in a finale that has a twinge of deus ex machina). Jacks is white while Snap, her family, Lulu, and most secondary characters are coded as black— all, refreshingly, presenting with a realistic variety of skin tones and hair colors and textures.

Sweet and fierce, this is a must-have. (Graphic fantasy.

8-14)

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Lemniscates, Carme Illus. by the author Candlewick Studio (40 pp.) $14.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-5362-0844-3

SNAPDRAGON

Leyh, Kat Illus. by the author First Second (240 pp.) $21.99 | $12.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-17112-2 978-1-250-17111-5 paper

CLEM AND CRAB

Lumbers, Fiona Illus. by the author Andersen Press USA (32 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5415-9619-1 A young girl goes beachcombing and finds an unexpected friend.

Clem collects treasures both natural and human-made, and a small crab comes entangled in the plastic that makes up some of her collection. While heading home on the bus with her sister, Clem discovers that the crab has unwittingly stowed away in her pants leg. In her kitchen, she makes a home for the crab, then brings him to school along with all the plastic waste she found on the beach as part of her show and tell. Crab escapes, scaring and delighting her classmates, and the teacher tells Clem to take him back to the beach. Clem

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replies,”The beach is messy and dangerous. I try my best to keep it clean, but it’s a big job.” When she returns to the beach, she is delighted to find that her classmates are there already, helping to clean up. She feels much better about returning Crab to his newly pristine environment and makes a promise that she will always look after the beach: “for Crab, and all the other sea creatures.” Lumbers’ skillful, pleasingly composed pencil, crayon, and watercolor illustrations and simple but expressive text are perfectly suited to her story, capturing the ingenuous earnestness of her young protagonist. Clem and her sister are white; Clem’s classmates are diverse.

This sweet, feel-good tale about a can-do kid is in tune with its audience. (Picture book. 3-6)

THE WOLF IN UNDERPANTS FREEZES HIS BUNS OFF

Lupano, Wilfrid Illus. by Itoïz, Mayana with Cauuet, Paul Trans. by Sacks, Nathan Graphic Universe (40 pp.) $26.65 | $8.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5415-2819-2 978-1-5415-8694-9 paper In this sophomore graphic import, readers wonder why an underpants-bedecked wolf is complaining about the snow.

In the bucolic woods, the forest denizens welcome winter with its blanket of clean, fresh snow. They take all the proper precautions: winterizing their homes, bundling up in toasty coats and hats, and warming themselves over a piping-hot cauldron of cheese fondue. But amid all this wintry revelry, the wolf is behaving strangely, stomping through their festivities and continually proclaiming “They’re freezing!” Desperate to keep the large carnivore happy, the other critters try making him warm socks and a cozy hat to ward off the chill. When their efforts seem fruitless, fear drives them to gather and storm his house only to find something truly unexpected behind his door. Once again, Lupano has crafted another intelligent and approachable graphic fable; whereas he examined stereotypes and perception in The Wolf in Underpants (2019), he now explores socio-economic inequality, gently urging young readers to “try a little harder to be kind to others.” Itoïz and Cauuet’s busy illustrations pack in a lovely array of interesting and bustling characters reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s and mix full-page spreads against borderless panels, all employing a cool palette of blues and lavenders. Lupano’s message of kindness and perception shines without being cloying, making this quiet charmer a must-read.

A timely and accessible lesson delivered without any howling pedantry. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)

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MOST WANTED The Revolutionary Partnership of John Hancock & Samuel Adams Marsh, Sarah Jane Illus. by Fotheringham, Edwin Disney-Hyperion (80 pp.) $19.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-368-02683-3

The story of the partnership and unlikely friendship between Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

In a punchy prose style and with rich historical detail, Marsh emphasizes the differences between the rabble-rousers.

Wealthy Hancock, owner of ships and warehouses, “lived in a mansion with fifty-four windows high above Boston.” He was most interested in parties, fine wine, and looking his best in the latest fashions while being pulled around town in his golden carriage. Adams owned little, went about shabbily dressed, and was outspoken about politics. The Stamp Act prompted Hancock’s political awakening. Seeing an opportunity to recruit Boston’s wealthiest and most visible citizen to the cause of liberty, Adams invited Hancock to join in a peaceful boycott of British goods, the beginning of their powerful partnership. Fotheringham’s distinctive art depicts Adams as serious and surly and Hancock as dashing and arrogant. Most characters are white. A notable double-page spread depicts Hancock’s enslaved black house servant responding with an expression of disgust at the irony of Hancock’s words: “I will not be a slave. I have a right to the liberties and privileges of the English constitution.” In her author’s note, Marsh notes that Hancock owned enslaved people and that the phrase “all men are created equal” excluded equality for women and nonwhite people.

A lively, insightful look at the origins of the American Revolution. (timeline, bibliography, source notes) (Informa­ tional picture book. 6-10)

OUT OF A DARK WINTER’S NIGHT

McDonnell, Flora Illus. by the author Thames & Hudson (40 pp.) $16.95 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-500-65195-7 A dedicated search for the light, even in the darkest of times, leads one charac-

ter back home.

A child appears, seemingly nascent with the light, nude and frolicking. Donning a yellow rain hat, blue coat, and red galoshes (reminiscent of Paddington Bear), the industrious child sets out with a wheelbarrow full of assorted tools to chase the sun across village streets, pastures, and hills. Together with a goose and cat companions, the child tries to catch the sun’s bright rays. Dropping items as they progress, they reach the shore with only a small butterfly net just as the sun sinks

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Mysterious, amazing, threatened, but enduring, the ocean itself conveys the enormity of grief and possibility of healing. willa and the whale

below the watery horizon. Doggedly carrying on, the child briefly swims naked with the goose under the nighttime waves before they wash back to shore. A starry elephant appears with a lantern in its trunk, carrying the child back home as the sun rises. McDonnell’s minimalist text, with sentences stretched over several pages, conveys only the most general information, developing an atmospheric tale with layered meanings. One can metaphorically read an emotional journey of a sad, “dark” spot in life, emerging into “light,” happy times. Regardless, “hope” carries readers into a new dawn in the circular theme. Vast but simply designed landscapes dominate the wide pages with thick brush strokes and sweeping colors. The dark scenes are so saturated that readers may have to squint to make both them and the text out, a narratively appropriate feature. Conversely, the light scenes burst off the pages.

Delicately crafted, impressionistic hope. (Picture book.

3- 7)

EVERYONE’S AWAKE

An energetic, insomniac romp of an anti-bedtime book.

A wakeful child narrator recounts the goings-on in a large, multiracial family’s zany household long after everyone should be asleep. Rhyming verse with a singsong cadence details activities ranging from the mundane (“Grandma’s at her needlework. / Dad is baking bread. / My brother’s making laundry lists / of every book he’s read”) to the bizarre (“Now Mom just took an audience / with Queen Sigrid the Third. / My brother has just taught the cat a dozen dirty words”). It’s a rollicking read-aloud, but inconsistent line breaks may cause some to slip up upon first reading. Pop-culture references pep things up and range from the stodgy (Sinatra, “Clementine”) to the very contemporary (poke tattoos, the film Condorman), though the conceit drags on a bit too long. Throughout, Harris’ illustrations have a retro feel that evokes, at turns, Tomie Ungerer and Maira Kalman, and they expand on the details of the text to ratchet up the humor and drama—building on the mention of a lake to depict the setting not as a mere house but an elaborate lighthouse. The conclusion shows the narrator descending the stairs to find everyone asleep at daybreak, a predictable, yet satisfying, end.

Don’t sleep on this one. (Picture book. 3- 7)

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In the wake of her mother’s sudden death, Willa navigates a new course with her blended family and friends on an island off Washington state, with the help of a humpback whale.

After her parents divorced three years ago, Willa moved to Japan with her marine biologist mom.

Now back on Tupkuk Island, Willa, 12, struggles to adapt to her dad, new stepmom, three younger stepsiblings, and new baby.

When she’s on a welcome-home, whale-watching cruise with her dad, a humpback breaches close by and speaks to her. Willa, an exceptionally well-informed marine enthusiast, is enchanted.

When Willa calls her from the beach, Meg, a mature female who’s birthed and nurtured offspring of her own, offers a sympathetic ear and valuable advice on reinstating her friendship with Marc, her former best friend, coping with an overbearing, competitive classmate, and managing the mortification of being among the slowest on the swim team. Most of all, Meg’s there when Willa needs to pour out the grief that overwhelms her.

Willa’s journals and many marine references express her passion for the ocean while introducing fascinating, lesser-known wonders of the deep. Latinx Marc and his family excepted, the likable, rounded human characters are presumed white. Mysterious, amazing, threatened, but enduring, the ocean itself conveys the enormity of grief and possibility of healing; plausible, appealing Meg’s especially engaging. As Willa says: “everyone should definitely have their own whale.”

Moving and buoyant, an insightful tale of grief, loss, and resilience. (Fantasy. 8-12)

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Meloy, Colin Illus. by Harris, Shawn Chronicle (48 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-4521-7805-9

WILLA AND THE WHALE

Morris, Chad `& Brown, Shelly Shadow Mountain (256 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-62972-731-8

LITTLE MOLE FINDS HOPE

Nellist, Glenys Illus. by Garland, Sally Beaming Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-5064-4874-9

Hope can be found—if you know how and where to look.

In their dark underground burrow Little Mole tells Mama he’s sad. After she suggests he needs to look for hope, they begin a paw-in-paw exploration. Mama explains hope sometimes hides but waits to be found. As proof, she points to a seemingly lifeless bulb hanging at the burrow’s exit. Mama says the bulb’s not dead but will, upon feeling the sun’s rays, soon blossom into a daffodil. When Little Mole envisions this, Mama declares, “That is hope.” As the journey continues, Mama shows her little one other nascent signs of good things to come—bare trees and a chrysalis. Little Mole sees only dead objects. Still, Mama reminds him that each will soon emerge into glorious life,

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With its quick pace, modern heroes, and choreographed action, this is a strong fantasy title with K-pop undertones. the dragon egg princess

encouraging him to imagine the lovely transformations. Home again, Little Mole announces he understands. This gentle, comforting tale empowers kids to discover light in darkness on their own or with assistance from a warm, guiding hand. In support of this, a discussion guide for caregivers at the end provides simple facts about moles plus discussion questions and useful, empathetic tips to help a sad child find hope. The grainy illustrations add texture to the expressive moles, their cozy burrow, and their natural surroundings. The moles are as fuzzily warm as their relationship.

Sweet and reassuring for little moles—and humans too.

(Picture book. 3-6)

THE DRAGON EGG PRINCESS

Oh, Ellen Harper/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-06-287579-2

Inspired by Korean folklore, this is a fresh yet ancient take on middle-grade fantasy, filled with magic, supernatural creatures, the rise of darkness, and a dragon.

Jiho comes from a long line of forest rangers, protectors of the Kidahara, the magical woods in the center of the country. Five years ago, Jiho’s father walked into the woods never to be seen again, just like Princess Koko.

Joson’s king, still pining for his daughter, is being challenged by his younger half brother, Prince Roku, who enlists foreign aid to wipe out the deadly forest in the name of progress. Jiho, whose very presence negates magic, must band together with a rich collection of magical forest creatures and kids from outside Joson to stop the awakening of Luzee, the dark sorceress bent on destroying the world. The plot meanders at the start but gathers enough speed to keep the pages turning. Familial betrayal, environmental destruction, and the trickiness of trust collide in an existential race to stop the devastation. Themes recognizable from fantasy favorites such as The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and even Harry Potter are reconfigured with Asian-inspired settings and multicultural characters whose names and appearances are both Asian- and Westernderived. The familiarity, however, is spiced with enough novelty to satisfy those who devour fantasy titles.

With its quick pace, modern heroes, and choreographed action, this is a strong fantasy title with K-pop undertones.

(Fantasy. 8-12)

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GOD CARES WHEN I’M AFRAID

Omartian, Stormie Illus. by Warren, Shari Harvest House (32 pp.) $14.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-7369-7640-4

Inspirational author Omartian (the Power of Praying series) encourages children to turn to Jesus in prayer when they are afraid.

This book emphasizes to young children that fear is a common and natural feeling. It explains that there can be “good” fear, such as wariness of a dangerous animal. This fear helps to keep children safe. The author then goes on to depict a wide variety of other fears, fears that are “bad” and make children upset and fretful. Among this category are fears of the dark, of thunder, of bullies, of getting lost, etc. What to do about these “bad” fears? The author instructs child readers to pray to God when they are afraid. She makes it clear that God always listens to children’s prayers and wants to help. The bright but simplistically cartoony illustrations show diverse children in various situations that make them fearful and then depict the children praying about their fear. There is no larger discussion of fears and emotions—just an exhortation to pray to Jesus daily. Prayer may be an appropriate and efficacious response to fear of thunder or scary images on TV, but its utility with bullies is dubious, particularly as framed: “Lord, I am afraid of this person. Keep me away from him until You teach him how to have a kind and gentle heart.”

A bright, cheery book about the power of prayer that’s limited in both scope and audience. (Picture book. 4-8)

HERE IN THE REAL WORLD

Pennypacker, Sara Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-06-269895-7 An introverted boy fights to save an empty lot from auction.

Eleven-and-a-half-year-old Ware can’t wait to spend the Florida summer with his grandmother, enjoying “long hours free and alone.” Other adults—including his overprotective, hyperefficient mother and sports-loving father—discourage his being “off in his own world.” But when his grandmother takes a fall, he must trade privacy for “Meaningful Social Interaction” in the Summer Rec program. He finds sanctuary in nearby church ruins, where he meets cynical, secretive Jolene and bird activist Ashley. When the property is slated for auction, medieval-history buff Ware invokes the “Knights’ Code”—a feminist but nonetheless romanticized version of the code of chivalry—resolving to “be always the champion of the Right and the Good” and defend their refuge. Victory, however, takes unexpected forms. Though Pennypacker’s exploration of

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what “fairness” means is thought-provoking, one-dimensional characterization weakens such powerful themes as abuse, selfadvocacy, and self-acceptance. Tough-but-wounded Jolene is little more than a foil for the nearly angelic Ware, whose acute empathy even perceives a cut plant’s “cry of betrayal.”

(The intense pain his empathy causes him goes unexamined.)

Though introverted or sensitive kids may recognize Ware’s poignant struggles to connect with his parents, his heavy-handed portrayal—which his uncle folds neatly into the sensitive-artist trope—blunts some emotional impact. Most characters, including the kids, appear white; a supportive grocer is Greek.

A well-meaning but belabored recognition of introverts, artists, and activists. (Fiction. 8-12)

ASTER AND THE ACCIDENTAL MAGIC

A transplanted city girl and her magical dog embark on whimsical forest adventures.

In this debut volume of a new graphic-novel series, readers meet plucky Aster, a white girl unhappy about her move to an isolated mountain town. Within this offering, there are two stories. In the aptly titled first tale, “Aster Makes Some Poorly Thought-Through Wishes,” Aster meets a mysterious old woman who gives her an adorable white dog with a poofy tail whom Aster names Buzz. Buzz and Aster happen upon a froglike creature (delightfully) called the Trickster Rapscallion who offers her three wishes. She quickly discovers (as if the name was not warning enough) that the trickster’s wishes are fraught and must find her way out of her own badly worded choices. In the next installment, entitled “Aster Gets a Magical Fox Exceedingly Upset,” she once again encounters and learns more about the old woman who gave her Buzz as well as her connection to an enchanted power-hungry fox. The French team of writer Pico and artist Karensac have crafted an accessible fantasy with recognizable elements of our world (such as video games), but they nicely focus the plot on nature and the outdoors, where the incredible is often adjacent to the mundane. Fans of the comics and Netflix show Hilda will see much common ground here and should easily gravitate toward the many similarities.

All human characters are white.

An entertaining and lighthearted fantasy. (Graphic fan­ tasy. 7-12)

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Poulin, Andrée Illus. by Drouot, Lucile Danis Pajama Press (32 pp.) $18.95 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-77278-104-5

A pink flamingo finds his place in a monochromatic world.

The story opens with the information that “Zac the zebra and Poncho the panda are like two peas in a pod,” but readers quickly learn that the story revolves around Filippo, a blotchily pink flamingo desperate to be their friend. Filippo repeatedly asks the black-and-white animals if he can play with them and is met with refusal and ridicule on the grounds of his pinkness. His family members defend their hue with various logical explanations, but nothing soothes the hurt of exclusion, and Filippo worries that “Pink is for crybabies and silly princesses.”

But Ludo the lemur, lurking in the background of almost every spread, comes up to the sobbing flamingo and explains everything he loves about the color pink, ending with “I’m black and white, but I’d love to play with you.” The story ends with a whole crew of colorful animals playing together (sans panda and zebra). Bursts of color and rough, expressive animal cartoons carry the otherwise humdrum and uneven story. The use of present tense, abrupt transitions, and depthless prose fails to elevate the tried-and-tired you’re-great-as-you-are narrative seen in countless other picture books.

Look elsewhere, whether in search of a story about conformity, friendship, or just the color pink. (Picture book. 3-6)

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Pico, Thom Illus. by Karensac Trans. by Smith, Anne & Smith, Owen Random House (224 pp.) $20.99 | $12.99 paper | $23.99 PLB Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-593-12417-8 978-0-593-11884-9 paper 978-0-593-11885-6 PLB

TICKLED PINK How Friendship Washes the World With Color

THE LITTLEST VOYAGEUR

Preus, Margi Illus. by Pilgrim, Cheryl Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House (176 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-8234-4247-8 Stowing away with French Canadian fur traders in 1792, a loquacious red squirrel embarks on a life-changing adventure.

Each spring, Jean Pierre Petit Le Rouge, a squirrel with wanderlust, watches brave, strong voyageurs depart in canoes from Montreal and return the following autumn. Determined to be a voyageur, Le Rouge hides in a canoe paddled by eight stout voyageurs, part of a brigade of five. Soon his incessant chattering distracts the voyageurs, who become separated from the rest of the brigade, but, after ascending the highest tree, he points the crew back on course.

More than once, pesky Le Rouge barely escapes becoming squirrel ragout. He’s just beginning to feel like a real voyageur when they reach the trading post on Lake Superior, where he discovers the voyageurs exchanging their cargo for animal skins to return to Montreal. Heartsick, Le Rouge decides he cannot

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be a voyageur if it involves trading animal skins, unless he can change things. Le Rouge relates his story with drama and flair, presenting a colorful prism through which to view the daily life of a voyageur. Peppered with historical facts and (italicized) French phrases and names, this exciting, well-documented tale (with a contemporary animal-rights subtext) proves educational and entertaining. Realistic pencil drawings highlight Le Rouge’s memorable journey.

A rousing introduction to the life of a voyageur told from a unique perspective. (map, pronunciation guide, historical and biological notes, recipe, further reading) (His­ torical fantasy. 7-10)

OVER THE MOON

Proimos, James Illus. by Abbott, Zoey Chronicle (44 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-4521-7715-1

A girl raised by wolves sets out on her own.

When two wolves find a baby floating down a river in a basket, they decide to bring her home and raise her—even though, at first, one of the two wolves was hoping they would make her into a meal. The three become a loving, albeit unlikely, family, and their days are filled with happiness.

Things change when the girl sees a group of children reading.

When she talks to her wolf parents about it, they tearfully tell her to follow her dreams even if it means leaving them. And so the girl does: Every day, she attends school with other human children, where she learns to read. In the evenings, she comes back to her wolf family and teaches them everything that she has learned. Although their routines may have changed, the unlikely family’s happiness has stayed the same. The illustrations combine clear, bold outlines with fuzzy, soft swaths of color, a winsome combination. In addition to being beautiful, the pictures are often hilarious: One spread shows the girl and one of the wolves lifting their legs next to trees in the forest, a goofy image sure to make children and adults laugh. The text is stark and lyrical, and Proimos is particularly adept at using poetic devices like repetition to make the words sing. The girl has pale skin and a mop of black curls; most of her new schoolmates present white.

A weird and wonderful tale. (Picture book. 3- 7)

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GERALDINE AND THE MOST SPECTACULAR SCIENCE PROJECT

Regwan, Sol Illus. by Muzzio, Denise Schiffer (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 28, 2020 978-0-7643-5898-2 Series: Gizmo Girl

Motivated by the possibility of winning a prize, a second grade gadgeteer gets to work.

No sooner does young inventor Geraldine hear that there will be a prize for Best Second Grade Scientist in an unlikely classroom “science contest” than she races home to the boxes of random parts she’s extracted from various household appliances in the course of earlier tinkering. She proceeds to construct binoculars—using, somehow, old eyeglasses, “lenses” from a camera, cardboard tubes, and a mirror—that “will make it possible to see Mars from Earth!” (Um…should someone tell her she already can?) The illustrations depict Geraldine’s jumbled supplies as what looks like piles of dirt with the occasional electric plug or bottle sticking out, and most of her supposed inventions as visibly unworkable. Come the day, her contraption inexplicably stuns her classmates, winning out over a fishbowl ecosystem and a remote-controlled orrery (!), so (claims the narrator) proving to the class that she isn’t just a “mischievous daydreamer” but “a scientist!” (A false dichotomy if ever there was one.) Look for more credible STEM-centric role models (with worthier motives) in Andrea Beaty’s Ada Twist, Scientist, illustrated by David Roberts (2016); Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Johannes’ Cece Loves Science, illustrated by Vashti Harrison (2018); and elsewhere. Geraldine and most of her class present as white; there are two students with darker skin.

Doubtless well meant but a superficial view of what science both is and does. (Picture book. 6-8)

BE YOU!

Reynolds, Peter H. Illus. by the author Orchard/Scholastic (32 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-338-57231-5 An inspirational picture book offers life advice for readers who want to be themselves.

Replete with sparkling, often quirky illustrations of children living their best lives, this book is a gorgeous guidebook for those seeking encouragement while encountering life’s challenges. The children featured—a racially diverse group ranging from infants to preschoolers—cheerfully navigate the various injunctions that flow through the text: “Be curious.…Be adventurous.…Be persistent.…Be kind.” What is remarkable about the book is that even though the instructions and the brief sentences explaining them are at times vague, the illustrations

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Ryan beautifully layers thought-provoking topics onto her narrative while keeping readers immersed. mañanaland

expand on them in ways readers will find endearing and uplifting. Those depicting painful or challenging moments are especially effective. The “Be persistent” double-page spread shows a child in a boat on stormy seas; it’s rich with deep blues as it emphasizes the energy of wind and rain and struggle in the face of challenge. Together with the accompanying repeated phrase “Keep going, never stop. Keep going, never stop. Keep going, never stop,” this spread arrests readers. By contrast, the “Be kind. Be understanding” spread simply presents two children’s faces, one cast in blue and the other in gold, but the empathy that Reynolds conveys is similarly captivating. While there is no plot to pull readers through the pages, the book provides rich fodder for caregivers to use as teachable moments, both informally and in classroom settings.

Both beautiful and inspiring as graduation gift or guide to life. (Picture book. 3-6)

BLACK BROTHER, BLACK BROTHER

Following on Ghost Boys (2018), Rhodes delivers another middle-grade novel that takes on complex, historical topics while emphasizing young people’s agency and healing.

This outing starts with Donte Ellison wishing for invisibility, as compared to being a hypervisible “nighttime dark” student at upper-crust, overwhelmingly white Middlefield Prep. Maybe if he were invisible, he wouldn’t constantly be in trouble for doing nothing—unlike his older and much-lighter-skinned brother, Trey, who walks the hallways with cool. A tragic, unjust incident occurs early on when the headmaster sends for police officers to handcuff, arrest, and jail Donte after an incidental brush with a teacher. Donte’s mother (she is black and their father white) challenges the school on its racism, yet within the social world of the schoolyard, the injustice is further compounded by bullies’ smirks. Donte responds by devising a plan to make the school see him, in all his dignity, respect, and potential.

He leaves the upper-class Boston suburb where he resides and heads to the inner-city Boys and Girl Club, where he finds a former star fencer who now serves his home community. Through this mentorship and other new relationships, Donte discovers more about the gifts of his identity and the pride of cultural heritage. These lessons in self-discovery offer a deeply critical insight for young readers.

Placing biracial boyhood and the struggles of colorism at its center, the novel challenges readers to pursue their own self-definition. (Fiction. 8-12)

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Robbins, Karen S. Illus. by James, J. Schiffer (32 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 28, 2020 978-0-7643-5921-7

An introduction to the Stars and Stripes for younger readers.

This brief, rhyming history of our flag purports to explain its history and significance as a symbol of the United States. Its worthy goals seem to be stirring and engendering respect for the flag. However, the book’s rambling, unfocused narrative and inconsistent, clunky, stumbling rhythms likely won’t capture children’s attention or interest and may even confuse them.

The book also perpetuates the myth of Betsy Ross (whose surname isn’t mentioned) as our flag’s progenitor. Positives include a mention of immigrants; an explanation of the symbolism of each of the flag’s colors; and excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the Pledge of Allegiance.

Additionally, the backmatter features examples of U.S. flags from 1775 to 1960; rules of basic flag etiquette; and highly useful instructional guides to folding the flag and cutting stars. The very colorful illustrations far outshine the text and, indeed, are stirring, respectful, and thoughtful. Fort Sumter is juxtaposed with the Lincoln Memorial; a grizzled, brown-skinned veteran kneels at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial. Americans appear with diverse skin tones (one woman wears a hijab); some are depicted as if in old photos. One interesting page shows several states and the Indigenous words their names are derived from (though the original languages are not consistently identified).

You may salute this, but, except for the illustrations, this banner doesn’t fly high. (Picture book. 5-8)

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Rhodes, Jewell Parker Little, Brown (240 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-316-49380-2

AMERICA’S FLAG STORY

MAÑANALAND

Ryan, Pam Muñoz Scholastic (256 pp.) $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-338-15786-4 A boy journeys to self-discovery through the power of stories and traditions.

Eleven-year-old Maximiliano Córdoba is ready for an idyllic summer. He plans to work hard as a builder for his father and train for fútbol tryouts. Plus, Max hopes dad will take him to visit the towering ruins of La Reina Gigante, a haunted hideout used in the past by the Guardians to hide refugees as they fled Abismo, a war-torn, neighboring dictatorship. However, when Max must provide his birth certificate to join the team, he feels his dream summer crumble away. The document disappeared years ago, along with his mother, the woman with whom Max shares “leche quemada” eyes. Soon, Papá leaves on a three-week journey to request a new one, and Max finds himself torn between two desires: to know the truth about why his mother left when he was a baby and to make the team. As Max

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The text is perfectly matched by Ray’s jaw-droppingly beautiful illustrations. the tempest

discovers the enchanting stories his grandfather has been telling him for years have an actual foothold in reality, he must choose between his own dreams and those of others. Kirkus Prize winner Ryan (Echo, 2015) beautifully layers thought-provoking topics onto her narrative while keeping readers immersed in the story’s world. Although set in the fictional country of Santa Maria, “somewhere in the Américas,” the struggles of refugee immigrants and the compassion of those who protect the travelers feel very relevant.

This tightly packed, powerful fantasy contains resonant truths. (Fantasy. 7-14)

DREAM BIG, LITTLE SCIENTISTS A Bedtime Book Schaub, Michelle Illus. by Potter, Alice Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $16.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-58089-934-5

Budding scientists bed down.

It’s time to go to sleep, and kids all over the neighborhood are exhausted. Each page of this book features a different, racially diverse child climbing into bed in a room decorated according to their preferred STEM field. A dark-skinned, curlyhaired tot, for example, is a sleepy budding astronomer who sits cross-legged on a quilt decorated with planets under posters showing the moon’s phases. A lighter-skinned child wearing a hearing aid is a botanist who checks their potted plants before bedding down under posters of Thomas Meehan and George Washington Carver. A beige-skinned physicist who uses a wheelchair falls asleep next to a poster of Stephen Hawking and beneath a blanket patterned with positive and negative ions.

An Asian child in a pair of orange pajamas pulls out a bedroll in a room dedicated to anthropology. The rhyming text cleverly weaves context clues about each branch of science into the couplets, and the simple, clear language is fun and easy to read. The cartoon illustrations are packed with details, including a poster that declares, “Climate Change is Happening Right Now” in the room of meteorologist twins, and numerous photos of diverse scientists and activists including Gabriel Fahrenheit, Wangari Maathai, and Mary Anning. Children and adults alike will discover something new with each reading.

A clever and inclusive bedtime book about science and possibility. (Picture book. 3-6)

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THE TEMPEST

Shakespeare, William Adapt. by Ellinas, Georghia Illus. by Ray, Jane Candlewick (32 pp.) $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-1-5362-1144-3 Mirth, magic, and mischief abound in this picture-book retelling of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays.

Ariel, the beloved sprite whose conjurings precipitate the eponymous tempest, gets top billing in this adaptation and recounts the narrative in the first person. Through Ariel’s eyes, readers are introduced to the powerful Prospero, his lovely daughter, Miranda, and the shipwrecked nobles who are brought to the island to right an ancient wrong. Ellinas’ picture book largely divests the tale of its colonialist underpinnings and breathes three-dimensional complexity into the major and minor characters. Caliban, for instance, is monstrous due to his callous treatment of Ariel rather than because he is racially coded as savage. Another delightful change is the depiction of Miranda, who emerges as an athletic, spirited, and beautiful nature-child whose charms are understandably irresistible to Prince Ferdinand. The text is perfectly matched by Ray’s jaw-droppingly beautiful illustrations, which will enchant readers from the front cover to the final curtain. The greens of the waters and the blues of the island’s night sky are so lush and inviting that readers will wish they could enter the book. Peppered throughout the story are italicized fragments of Shakespeare’s dialogue, giving both young and older readers something to enjoy. Large, granite-colored Caliban is plainly nonhuman; the human characters present white; Ariel is a translucent, paper white.

A must-own adaptation chock-full of such stuff as kids’ dreams are—and will be—made on. (Picture book. 4-8)

BROWN SUGAR BABE

Sherman, Charlotte Watson Illus. by Akem Boyds Mills (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-63592-138-0

A caregiver responds to a child’s misgivings about being brown skinned by extolling the beauty of being a “brown sugar babe.”

Brown feet in toe shoes step over lion paw prints; a silhouetted figure wears a large Afro. An adult addresses a child: “When you were born, it was dark / behind your sleeping eyes.”

Soon after discovering “a world of color,” the child declares, “I’m pink,” and resists when the adult responds, “You’re brown like me.” The adult then lavishes upon the child—and readers—an almost dizzying number of endearing, beautiful, and often unusual expressions of what brown means. Brown is silent, like “tree rings that tell time,” or loud, like “the squeal of a violin.” Brown is accomplishments, like “a tutu and ballet

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slippers / poised to take flight,” and brown is affection, like “an after-bedtime-story / kiss goodnight.” Brown “has its own special flavor,” feel, smell, and sound. Warm images of children and loving adults in gold and dark browns hues complement the rhyming, poetic text, which is set in a large type that emulates hand printing. Perfect for responding to or preventing the feelings of inadequacy that too often plague brownskinned children, this book begs to be shared as a read-aloud with cuddles.

Soul food. (Picture book. 3-9)

MY NAME IS KONISOLA

Siegel, Alisa Second Story Press (152 pp.) $10.95 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-77260-119-0

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Smeallie, Kyle Illus. by the author Iron Circus Comics (200 pp.) $15.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-945820-48-9 Series: Softies

Planet Earth has exploded, and 13-year-old Kay seems to be the sole survivor.

Floating in space, Kay finds herself salvaged by a pink, reptilian extraterrestrial named Arizona, who helms a spaceship that collects space debris. Kay seems to quickly adapt to her new life as a passenger aboard the waste-collection vessel while Arizona and crew search the galaxy to find out what happened to Earth. In between and with plenty of banter among the characters, Arizona makes stops at different planets to sell the collected junk pile of space debris to buyers of all sorts. Over the course of planet-hopping through these bizarre experiences, Arizona starts to feel responsible for Kay and begins to worry about the impact of Kay’s loss of her home planet even as the acerbic Kay deflects whenever asked about the catastrophic event that has left her orphaned and stranded in space. Arizona is casually revealed to be gay and male; brown-skinned Kay’s ethnicity and heritage are unexplored. Though the plot is episodic, it’s tied together thematically with a critique of overconsumption, including how Earth’s waste pollutes beyond terra firma. The consistent ignorance of Earth on the part of the ETs Kay encounters is simultaneously a running joke and a wry comment on anthropocentrism.

A light space comedy laced with witty dialogue. (Graphic science fiction. 10-14)

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In this Canadian import, 9-year-old Konisola must adjust to a new life in Canada when she and her mother flee Nigeria.

Konisola is playing with her friends in the schoolyard in Nigeria when her mother appears at the gate, rushing her into a car and then directly into the airport. She hasn’t seen her mother in almost a week, since the night when her abusive uncle beat her. Now they are secretly flying to Canada, where they depend on the kindness of strangers for shelter.

When her mother ends up in the hospital with advanced cancer, Konisola moves in with Darlene, one of her nurses, and begins attending school. But how long will Darlene’s existing family tolerate having a troubled refugee staying in their home? And will the immigration hearing allow Konisola to stay in Canada?

The story is compelling and gives a sense of the uncertainties and difficult decisions that refugees face when they flee dangerous home situations. The generosity of the Canadians who help them is inspiring, especially since this is based on a true story. Unfortunately, the third-person present-tense narration, which awkwardly shifts perspectives between Konisola and the adults who care for her, treats the subject superficially, never quite delving deep enough into the emotions and relationships that make up Konisola’s world, including, critically, Konisola’s Muslim faith.

This slim book serves a purpose—just—until immigration stories that do the subject justice arrive on the scene.

(Fiction. 8-12)

SOFTIES Stuff That Happens After the World Blows Up

WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT I KNOW

Solter, Sonja K. Little, Brown (224 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-316-53544-1

A 10-year-old suffers, endures, rages, and heals after her uncle molests her.

When Tori turned 8, Uncle Andy gave her a hamster. But when she’s 10, he sexually abuses her in the basement. The single act happens right before Tori opens the first-person, freeverse narration by telling readers that once you know what she knows, “you can’t / not know. / In your face, / under your eyelids.”

Solter emphasizes the emotional effects both of the molestation and of the disparate reactions she encounters when others hear about it. At first, Mom doesn’t believe Tori, compounding Uncle Andy’s atrocity and giving Tori a terrifying “whooshingwave- / of-fire-and-ice-cold” in her body. She hears humming

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and buzzing inside her head. But her 8-year-old sister is (surprisingly, but believably and vitally) present for her, as is her best friend when Tori—after distancing for a while—steels herself to tell her. Tori’s arc is about healing, her free-verse story more a sketch than a fleshed-out deep dive, but it never skirts the big things: emotional suffocation, powerlessness, silence, anger, and recovery. Tori goes from wanting to “shatter” her own face and “dead eyes” to feeling the approaching summer beckon her, “hopeful / that I’ll join it / with all of its Maybes.” Race is unmentioned; Tori appears white or light skinned on the cover.

This offering of hope after trauma is, importantly, unromanticized. (author’s note, resources) (Verse fiction. 8-14)

THE STARS JUST UP THE STREET

Soltis, Sue Illus. by Davenier, Christine Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-7636-9834-8

Can Mabel and Grandpa convince others to shut off lights in order to stargaze?

Mabel’s grandfather loves telling tales of the night sky over the prairie where he grew up. Mabel is especially drawn to his stories of stars since she loves looking up at the five stars she can see from her bedroom window and the 19 “from her backyard in a narrow patch of sky.” She and Grandpa take a night walk, seeking the thousands of stars visible during Grandpa’s childhood. They enlist some neighbors to shut off lights and join them—then about 200 stars can be seen. Realizing that more stars will be visible only if the streetlights are temporarily off, Mabel and Grandpa appeal to the mayor—and are refused. Undaunted, the duo begins a campaign flooding the mayor’s office with support from many residents, but she still refuses, citing her commitment to safety even when a police officer and a parks and rec worker contradict her concerns.

Finally, Mabel finds a way to the mayor’s heart; the story ends with a community event that promises to become traditional.

Graceful, readable text underscores the protagonists’ loving relationship. The art—watercolor washes over ink—is a sweet complement, whether portraying daylight excursions or revelers under the increasingly starry sky. Mabel, Grandpa, and the mayor are white; there are people of color among town employees and residents.

It takes a village to control light pollution…gently inspirational. (Picture book. 3- 7)

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DON’T FEED THE COOS!

Stutzman, Jonathan Illus. by Fox, Heather Henry Holt (48 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-250-30318-9

If you give a coo a breadcrumb....

While not a cumulative story like Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond’s picture book about a mouse and a cookie, Stutzman and Fox’s latest collaboration does function as a silly cautionary tale of sorts: When the young protagonist of color fails to heed the text’s advice and gives a coo a breadcrumb, all heck breaks loose. The titular “coos” are pigeons, and like Mo Willems’ bird, they have one-track minds. Single-mindedly intent on getting ever more crumbs after the depicted child feeds just one coo, a whole flock follows the increasingly alarmed protagonist “through the park, down the street, all the way HOME.” This kid just can’t shake those birds! Avian havoc ensues in the clean-lined, stylized cartoons and then heightens as, “to thank you for feeding them, the coos will leave poos.” If it’s true that being pooped on by a bird brings good luck, Stutzman and Fox’s protagonist accrues some serious great fortune in the next spreads, which will undoubtedly provoke laughter among readers observing the bright white splotches that dot the pages like a most unappetizing sprinkling of popcorn. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em ends up being the poor, splattered child’s tactic, until a final return visit to the park reveals someone who’s been missing the coos ever since they left.

Coo-coo storytime fun. (Picture book. 3- 7)

IN THE RED

Swiedler, Christopher Harper/HarperCollins (288 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-06-289441-0 Hypothesis: If a 12-year-old with panic disorder gets stranded outside the colony during a planetwide emergency, he’ll need all his smarts and grit to survive.

Michael Prasad lives an ordinary life inside a biodome on a future terraformed Mars. Despite his math and science abilities, Michael has failed his suit certification test due to a panic attack and hasn’t been allowed out on the surface since. When his best friend, Lilith, shows him a secret airlock, Michael takes the chance to prove himself. Together, they steal a rover and drive out to surprise Michael’s dad at the magnetic field station. But when a solar storm wrecks the artificial magnetic field that shields the planet, they lose all satellite navigation and radio and eventually crash their rover. The friends must escape the deadly solar radiation on foot, navigating harsh terrain, mechanical disasters, and a worsening storm with dwindling supplies. Swiedler’s debut is a clever and exciting read that casts a key female character as an intrepid explorer

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The contradictions and the horrors of war are laid out in succinct, powerful prose. winter in wartime

and a supportive friend. Disappointingly, however, when it comes to space science, Lilith is an ignorant foil to the lone boy genius, who’s emotionally oblivious and thinks girls deliberately act confusing. Michael is biracial, with a South Asian father and white mother; other characters are implied white.

Engaging but androcentric. (author’s note) (Science fic­ tion. 8-12)

RUN, SEA TURTLE, RUN A Hatchling’s Journey Swinburne, Stephen Photos by Feuillet, Guillaume Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5415-7812-8

WINTER IN WARTIME

Terlouw, Jan Trans. by Watkinson, Laura New York Review Books (200 pp.) $12.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-68137-426-0 A Dutch teenager is caught in a web of wartime conspiracy.

When the German army invaded the Netherlands and Belgium, Michiel was 11. He thought war would be exciting and hoped it would last a long time. Now, in the winter of 1944, he wishes the war would end. The son of the mayor of a |

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The most fascinating part of this simple photo essay is the last statement made by the narrator, a baby leatherback sea turtle: “Someday I will come back to this same beach. I will lay eggs of my own.”

Although further explained in the backmatter (written for adults), this promise omits the fact that these turtles often travel 10,000 miles per year. As the main audience of this engaging description of leatherback sea turtles is very young children, and the book has a specific focus on the first days of life, the author sticks to a few details about the physical activities undertaken by the hatchling as she makes her way from the buried nest on a beach to the nearby sea. Readers might want to know where this beach is and where these turtles can be found, information not provided beyond the general statement that “They live in all of the world’s oceans.” This is not strictly true, as they are not found in the Arctic and Antarctic oceans.

These quibbles aside, the easy-to-read text in clear type on blue backgrounds combines with Feuillet’s large photographs (often close-ups) to give readers a step-by-step account of the new turtle’s emergence from the egg to the top of the nest, across the beach, to the water: “WATCH ME RUN!” An appealing, attractive, and accessible introduction to endangered sea turtles. (further information, further reading) (Informational picture book. 4-6)

rural village, Michiel knows how to keep a secret. No longer able to attend school, he runs errands and helps his family give shelter and sustenance to people walking hundreds of miles to bring food to their families in famine-stricken cities. He also listens with pride to Uncle Ben’s stories of his resistance work.

When Michiel’s neighbor is captured by the Nazis, Michiel becomes responsible for more secrets than he thought possible. As winter stretches on and Michiel strives to do the right thing, he becomes increasingly embroiled in dangerous situations that seem to precipitate terrible consequences. Originally published in Dutch in 1973 and newly translated here, this gripping tale of conspiracy and humanity is based on the author’s childhood memories of the war. Suspenseful third-person narration provides historically and culturally specific details along with insight into Michiel’s inner thoughts. The contradictions and the horrors of war are laid out in succinct, powerful prose.

Winding to a quiet yet satisfying ending, Terlouw laments the never-ending cycle of war. All characters are assumed white.

A nuanced perspective on World War II and a testament to the power of a young person to resist. (Historical fic­ tion. 12-16)

IT’S OKAY TO BE A UNICORN!

Tharp, Jason Illus. by the author Imprint (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-31132-0

Cornelius J. Sparklesteed knows he’s different, but he’s not sure that’s OK. On the isle of Hoofington, the Hoofapalooza festival celebrates “everything horse-tastic.”

Haberdasher Cornelius finds himself called to Mayor Mare’s office; the mayor wants the “most un-unicorny hat” that Cornelius can make for him for Hoofapalooza. You see, the horses of Hoofington say some pretty mean things about unicorns (“Their horns are too sharp!”; “They fart rainbows!”). That’s why Cornelius always hides his horn under a hat. The hat Cornelius makes for the mayor is so fantastic that Mare asks Cornelius to perform at Hoofapalooza. On Monday, Cornelius meets his doughnut-making friend Tilly and suggests some creative ideas for new flavors. On Tuesday, he meets painter Hablo and suggests rainbows for his Hoofapalooza mural. Wednesday, he offers tips to DJ Salad. And all week, Cornelius works on his costume, making it bright and sparkly, and broods about the mean things he’s heard around the island. As he prepares to perform, he sees his creative friends have used and improved on his ideas…and he puts on the pranciest of dance performances with a hats-off finish to the astonished cheers of the audience. Tharp’s goodnatured fable is bright and rainbow-y, with equines painted in fanciful colors. Its lightness and pep present a weighty subject in a way that will resonate with any who have felt “other.”

A sweet and goofy addition to the unicorns-embracetheir-uniqueness shelf. (Picture book. 3-9)

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A fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. the newspaper club

BIKE & TRIKE

Verdick, Elizabeth Illus. by Biggs, Brian Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-5344-1517-1 A battered old tricycle and a new bike make friends—but not without hitting a few bumps in the road.

Lulu and Trike have been together for years…but Lulu keeps getting bigger, and one day a brand-new birthday bike sails into the garage: “Watch this trick,” he crows, popping a wheelie and zooming through Hula Hoop. Ignoring Trike’s cautions about safety (“Aw, back off, old-timer”), Bike proposes a riderless race to the nearby woods. And so they’re off, with Trike struggling to keep up (“You can DO this,” he tells himself, “for Lulu and the way the two of us flew”). Then, seeing Bike careening heedlessly toward a cliff, Trike selflessly puts on an extra burst of speed to head off disaster with a mighty collision. “I guess I have a lot to learn,” says penitent Bike, and back to the garage they go, “two winners on wheels.” Verdick tells the tale in a characteristic mix of exuberant sound effects and euphonic phrasing, with short sentences making the relatively high page count fly. Along with kitting out shiny Bike with splendid streamers, lights, training wheels, and even a horn, Biggs pairs Lulu at the end with an equally thrilled little brother (both white) just the right size for a hand-me-down.

Everyone’s indeed a winner here, and the subtle message about safety consciousness is likewise right on track.

(Picture book. 4- 7)

THE NEWSPAPER CLUB

Vrabel, Beth Illus. by the author Running Press (208 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-0-7624-9685-3 Series: The Newspaper Club, 1

Eleven-year-old Nellie’s investigative reporting leads her to solve a mystery, start a newspaper, and learn key lessons about growing up.

Nellie’s voice is frank and often funny—and always full of information about newspapers. She tells readers of the first meeting of her newspaper club and then says, “But maybe I’m burying the lede…what Dad calls it when a reporter puts the most interesting part…in the middle or toward the end.” (This and other journalism vocabulary is formally defined in a closing glossary.) She backtracks to earlier that summer, when she and her mother were newly moved into a house next to her mother’s best friend in rural Bear Creek, Maine. Nellie explains that the newspaper that employed both of her parents in “the city” had folded soon after her father left for business in Asia. When Bear 164

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Creek Park gets closed due to mysterious, petty crimes, Nellie feels compelled to investigate. She feels closest to her dad when on the park’s swings, and she is more comfortable interviewing adults than befriending peers. Getting to know a plethora of characters through Nellie’s eyes is as much fun as watching Nellie blossom. Although astute readers will have guessed the park’s vandalizers, they are rewarded by observing Nellie’s factchecking process. A late revelation about Nellie’s father does not significantly detract from this fully realized story of a young girl adjusting admirably to new circumstances. Nellie and her mother present white; secondary characters are diverse.

Nellie Bly’s contemporary namesake does her proud.

(Fiction. 8-12)

WHERE’S LENNY?

Wilson-Max, Ken Illus. by the author Kane/Miller (32 pp.) $15.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-68464-070-6

A loving family learns and plays in this brightly colored picture book that promotes early literacy skills.

In this multiracial family, Daddy and Lenny have brown skin and tightly curled black hair, and Mommy has pale skin and straight black hair. The book opens as Lenny hides and Daddy sings and counts: “1 2 3 4 5 / Once I caught a fish alive. / 6 7 8 9 10 / Then I let it go again.” Each number is painted in a different color, which combines with the rhyme to engage young listeners in the learning. Lenny successfully eludes Daddy as a masterful hider, and Mommy and dog Wilbur complicate things for poor Daddy. Movement by the window is a wagging Wilbur, and a tap, tap, tap in the bathroom turns out to be Mommy fixing a light. A giggle under a bright red blanket with a lively print finally reveals Lenny, who is rewarded with lots of hugs and kisses. In companion title Lenny and Wilbur, the boy and his dog are best friends who enjoy each other’s company. It’s Wilbur’s bath day, which Wilbur obediently relishes. Lenny shampoos and brushes Wilbur’s fur, and Wilbur is rewarded with a treat.

In his characteristic style of thick black lines and visible daubs of paint, Wilson-Max beautifully renders this happy family. In both books gentle repetition facilitates learning.

Equally apt as a picture book for older toddlers and a beginning reader. (Picture book. 2-6) (Lenny and Wilbur: 978-1-68464-071-3)

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OIL

Winter, Jonah Illus. by Winter, Jeanette Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-5344-3077-8

THE LOST EGG

Yu, Brenna Burns Illus. by the author Candlewick (40 pp.) $16.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-5362-0492-6 Series: Hazel and Twig Hazel and Twig return for a tender, mouse-sized story about sisterhood, nature, and belonging.

In this follow-up to The Birthday Fortune (2018), Hazel and Twig are woodland discoverers of simple wonder. Hazel is the older sister, full of answers and slightly bothered by wandering younger sister Twig. Twig, bringing a toddlerlike joy to each page, undoes Hazel’s daisy chain, loses her own shoe, and finds an abandoned egg. With help from their parents (with Korean names of Umma and Appa, which mean mother and father), the sisters plan for the raising of their newfound egg, including flight lessons and worm catching. But when Twig is separated from the family, Hazel appreciates the importance of reuniting this baby with its parents. The care the mouse sisters show for the lost egg as they search for its nest is earnest and serious. They carefully compare its size and color to other eggs they |

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b o a r d & n o v e lt y b o o k s STIR CRACK WHISK BAKE A Little Book About Little Cakes

America’s Test Kitchen Illus. by Frost, Maddie Sourcebooks Explore (24 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-4926-7773-4

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In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.

The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash.

Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages.

Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?

Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informa­ tional picture book. 9-12)

find. In a world full of pastel-green grass and pink skies, delicate flora and fauna invite a closer look on every page. Done in ink and watercolor, the illustrations include one special page where Yu takes inspiration from the works of 18th-century naturalist James Bolton. In this outing, the Korean references are subtle, almost like a secret.

A gentle, wholly accessible tale of quiet curiosity, the love of family, and the hatching of eggs. (Picture book. 3-5)

America’s Test Kitchen invites young children to bake pretend cupcakes.

Smiling bowls, cups, and spoons guide would-be cooks through the basic steps of baking. The instructions start out clearly: “First, we gather the ingredients.” Then pretend takes over. Unfortunately, the applike instruction to “Use your finger to drag each one to the counter” makes no sense, as the ingredients don’t actually move, and unlike Hervé Tullet’s books, the page turn does not work the appropriate magic. Nor can the spilled flour on the next page be brushed off. Similarly, swiping a finger around the edge of a bowl will not mix batter, tapping pictures of eggs will not crack them, and bowls of dry and wet ingredients cannot be combined just by shaking them. Finally, after many pretend steps, the child can count down with the timer until the cupcakes are done. On the next spread they are asked to blow on the cakes to cool them enough to frost. Then a bowl of frosting magically arrives, and the child is invited to “dip your fingers in the frosting” to frost each cake. Yes, this is imaginary play. But simple, age-appropriate instructions—measure, mix, pour, bake, frost, sprinkle, enjoy—accompanied by clear illustrations would more effectively entice toddlers into the kitchen than this. Counterintuitively, there is no simple recipe with tips on baking with tots for caregivers.

Sweet idea, but these cupcakes are missing some key ingredients. (Board book. 2-4)

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FUN AT THE FAIR

things like cleaning up messes together or changing diapers, tasks which often fall to mothers.

Sweet and affectionate. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)

Illus. by Arrhenius, Ingela P. Chronicle (10 pp.) $8.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-4521-7493-8 This diminutive board book presents the delights to be found at a fair.

Tiny in both size and number of pages—just five double-page spreads— this will fit wee hands easily and will be easy to manipulate. The thick die-cut pages stack from smallest to largest, each page die cut to resemble the object it represents: a merry-go-round on recto and popcorn truck on its verso; an old fashioned train; a roller coaster; bumper cars; swings; assorted carnival games, and finally a Ferris wheel. While the saturated colors of the illustrations and the tactile book format will be appealing to the littlest readers, the limited, unattributed text is uninspired and flat: “Welcome to the fun fair! / Where the roller coaster goes up then down. / The bumper cars spin and zoom. / The swings swish and twirl. / And the Ferris wheel goes round and round. There’s so much fun to be had at the fair!” It’s a pity the text can’t rise to the level of excitement it promises fairgoers. The colorful and stylized illustrations portray a large number of people—equally divided between bright-pink and brown skin tones.

Little hands will enjoy holding this small, chunky book; adult readers can supply their own text. (Board book. 1-3)

MY DADDY AND ME

Ashman, Linda Illus. by Massey, Jane Cartwheel/Scholastic (20 pp.) $8.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-338-35976-3 There are so many different kinds of dads in the world that support their kids in so many different ways.

This rhyming board book follows fathers and children through a typical day for a toddler and parent, starting with waking up and continuing until bath-and bedtime. Dads are cheerfully involved in every activity, whether it’s giving their children breakfast, planting a garden together, or going for walks. In every picture, from morning until night, the fathers depicted are delighted by parenthood, and their children are thrilled to spend time with their dads. The watercolor-and-ink illustrations utilize a gentle, pastel palette to depict fathers and children with a variety of skin tones and racial backgrounds.

The lilting text reads aloud easily and is simple and predictable enough for even very small children to memorize and read along. “Daddy wakes before I rise. / Drinks his coffee. Rubs his eyes. / Sees me standing on the stair. / Picks me up. Smooths my hair.” Paired, the art and words create a loving, nurturing tone.

The book’s only shortcoming is its tendency to place the dads in fairly stereotypically male parenting activities, like teaching children to ride bikes or giving them baths, rather than doing 166

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MY BABY LOVES CHRISTMAS

Asim, Jabari Illus. by Whitaker, Tara Nicole Harper/HarperCollins (20 pp.) $7.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-06-288462-6

Holiday cheer with Baby.

“Baby loves candy canes wrapped in a bow. / Baby loves jingle bells. Baby loves snow.” Asim’s rhyming verse enumerates everything that Baby loves about Christmas: the wreath and its ribbons, the tree with gifts beneath it, a family Christmas carol singalong, making gingerbread “men,” hanging stockings, and, of course, Santa. Whitaker contributes ever-so-slightly retrotinged illustrations that recall stylings seen in mid-20th-century Little Golden Books. Where this offering departs from those hoary classics is in its joyous depiction of a black, onesie-clad toddler protagonist celebrating the rituals of the holiday within a black nuclear family. Baby and Mommy share ebullient black curls (Mommy’s are loose while Baby’s are confined with a ribbon); Daddy sports a close-cropped beard and a fade. Mommy’s skin is a tad darker than Daddy’s and Baby’s. Little listeners will love spotting the protagonist’s happy tabby kitten in each spread, and black families in particular will appreciate such thoughtful details as a black Nutcracker doll and black Santa among all the poinsettias and garland that bestrew the house.

With its gold-foil cover and celebration of commonly depicted Christmas traditions, it blends right in with other offerings produced for the season—and as it does, it stands proudly out.

A sweet and easy book to share with little ones at Christmastime. (Board book. 1-3)

SANTA’S COOKIE IS MISSING!

Ayala-Kronos, Chris Illus. by Passchier, Anne HMH Books (16 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-358-04054-5

Santa’s cookie disappears on Christmas Eve, and a series of cut-out concentric circles offers possible locations for the renegade treat.

The story in this board book is simple: “After our feast, Santa’s cookie goes missing! Where could it be? / Hanging on the tree? // Is it on the wreath?” And so the tale progresses, question after question, the circles growing smaller and smaller until at last the mystery is solved. The fun of this is the concentric circles, some adorned with red sparkles, others with shiny green foil. The best are the guesses in which the circle is cleverly included in the illustration, such as the middle snowball of a snowman or the center of a keyhole. The cookie is visible all

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Dinosaurs are rendered in a childlike style that makes even Tyrannosaurus rex not too terrifying. hello, dinosaurs!

along, including from the cover, but of course the mystery of where it actually is remains hidden throughout the book. Passchier’s illustrations depict Santa as white, but other characters, including elves, are diverse. There is a consistent color palette featuring the obvious red and green along with pastel pinks, blues, and greens. There isn’t a lot of detail in the images, allowing the focus to remain on the cutouts. The book ends with a bit of a wink to the readers: “Hey, where’s Santa’s milk?” The answer to that is also on the final double-page spread, and given where the cookie winds up, it should elicit a smile.

The playful design gives this Christmas book high appeal to young readers. (Board book. 1-3)

HIDE-AND-SEEK, BABY SHARK!

Illus. by Bajet, John John Cartwheel/Scholastic (12 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-338-60500-6

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Colorful, fun, and informative guide for pint-sized dinosaur enthusiasts.

Kid-friendly and more informative than most dino books for tots, this lift-the-flap dinosaur book is a great next step for any kid with an interest in the subject. Each double-page panorama—occasionally folding out to three or even four pages wide—is organized around types of dinosaurs or habitats. While most featured dinosaurs are land dwellers, prehistoric reptiles of the sea and sky appear as well. Dinosaurs are rendered in bright colors on a white background in a childlike style that makes even Tyrannosaurus rex not too terrifying.

Make no mistake, though; the king of the dinosaurs is clearly labeled “CARNIVORE.” Folding T. rex’s head back reveals a black-and-white handsaw, to which the text likens its enormous, sharp teeth. Another marginal illustration, captioned, “Watch out! T. rex is looking for its lunch,” shows a Triceratops specimen on a plate. Yet another reads, “Crushed dinosaur bones have been found in T. rex poop!” Several racially diverse kids appear in each scene, like toddler scientists variously observing, inspecting, and riding on the dinosaurs depicted. In addition to teaching the difference between herbivores and carnivores, the book also conveys a sense of the scale of these prehistoric beasts: Diplodocus is two school buses long, a Triceratops adult is the size of an elephant, and a Velociraptor is the size of a turkey, for example.

Sure to appeal to budding paleontologists everywhere.

(Board book. 2-5)

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A counting board book based on the popular children’s song “Baby Shark.”

Mommy, Daddy, Grandpa, and Grandma help Baby Shark play hide-and-seek. As each character swims to hide, the turn of the page removes a soft, raised, vinyl shark from the scene. Rhyming text includes the number of sharks remaining along with the directive for the next shark, and each two-page layout includes a singable line such as, “Run and hide, doo doo doo doo doo doo.”

(Woe betide the adult who doesn’t know the tune, as spoken, it sounds ludicrous.) The text and plot, such as it is, don’t always cohere. Grandma, for example, is invited “to play with me,” while all of the other sharks run (“running” sharks don’t quite make sense, but they do “run away” in the original song) and swim away. Baby Shark is told to “go hide-andseek” in the end—haven’t they been playing all along?—but really it’s just seeking. These idiosyncrasies sink this book.

The illustrations are plain and vary little from page to page.

Tiny sea creatures playing instruments are cute, but like the tambourine-playing sea horse that appears identical on two separate pages, they add little. Younger readers who adore the song will surely be charmed by the book even though its quality reads like a hurried cash grab capitalizing on the song’s popularity.

Stick with the song; skip the book. (Board book. 6 mos-2)

HELLO, DINOSAURS!

Boughton, Sam Illus. by the author Templar/Candlewick (16 pp.) $12.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-1-5362-0809-2 Series: Animal Facts and Flaps

I LOVE MY TUTU TOO!

Burach, Ross Illus. by the author Scholastic (32 pp.) $7.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-338-50427-9 Series: Never Bored Books

Under the guise of counting from one to 10, exuberant animals express their love for tutus.

A goofy-looking penguin declares its love for the pink tutu around its waist. Soon other animals join in: a bear, in a double-tiered purple tutu; a bug—in a “teeny tiny tutu,” of course; a toucan; a gnu—“who knew?”; two tunas; a ewe; an elephant; and a crocodile. But this is much more than a counting book; it is a rollicking tutu lovefest expressed with plenty of alliteration, rhythm, and, most especially, a clever play on homophones: “ ‘I know a ewe with a new tutu.’ / ‘You do?’ / ‘I do.’ / ‘Woo-hoo!’ / ‘Yodel-lay-hee-EWE!’ ” And that’s not all; there’s even a little sharing thrown in for good measure when the b o a r d & n o v e lt y b o o ks

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Illustrations make clever use of patterns that are sure to appeal to young eyes. be curious!

elephant reveals “I wish I had a tutu too,” and the crocodile responds with “I have TWO tutus! I can share my blue tutu!”

With 10 creatures now in tutus, “ENOUGH with the tutu talk already. It’s time to… / DANCE!” What fun, and then: “Phew.”

Burach’s bright cartoons are whimsical and humorous, the animals’ faces brimming with expression. Large, pink numerals appear on recto in each spread that introduces a new number while on verso they are spelled out in pink capital letters.

Who knew a tutu-clad clan could have so much fun?

(Board book. 2-4)

BE CURIOUS!

Cho, Joy Illus. by Stalker, Angie Cartwheel/Scholastic (16 pp.) $9.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-1-338-35634-2 Series: Oh Joy! A yellow cat leads readers through a world of color in this lift-the-flap book that is nominally about the five senses.

First, cat and readers follow a blue rabbit through a black “magical door” flap covering a die cut that leads into a room decorated for a birthday party, complete with a rainbow of hats, a ceiling crowded with multicolored balloons, and a speaker spewing a dancing pattern of musical notes. In this spread, the rhyming text asks children to talk about what they listen to that makes them dance and points out the color pink. This textual pattern continues, as the yellow cat smells and tastes cakes and cookies that are yellow, sees party hats stacked on the head of an orange squirrel, and feels a “cool breeze” blow through a blue sky. The flaps are well designed and easy for small hands to manipulate. Stalker’s illustrations make clever use of patterns that are sure to appeal to young, curious eyes. While the text is musically written and the illustrations are beautifully textured, the book doesn’t quite meet its educational potential. The color noted on each page, for example, is not always the dominant hue and therefore may be difficult for children to identify. The five senses are woven into most pages but not every page and therefore feel tenuously connected. Overall, though, the story is charming and the pictures enjoyable regardless of the educational message’s execution.

This colorful and clever tale may miss the educational mark but nails the entertainment. (Board book. 1-3)

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DON’T SHAKE THE PRESENT!

Illus. by Cotter, Bill Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (22 pp.) $6.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4926-9166-2

The concept is familiar: a board book that invites applike interaction.

Speaking directly to readers, Larry, a bulbous, purple monster with one tooth, tiny purple horns, and large, expressive eyes, explains, “This is my present. I REALLY want to open it, but I’m not supposed to yet.” The appearance of Santa on the last page confirms that the green package with its large red bow is a Christmas gift. Spoiler alert: The box is merely a decoy.

The “real present” is “something you’re always allowed to open: THIS BOOK!” In between, young readers are invited to shake the present to make it shrink, shake it up and down to stretch it tall, and shake it side to side to enlarge it to the margins of the spread. Children accustomed to enlarging pictures on a screen or tablet will understand the instruction to “SHRINK the present with your fingers” but will lose interest when nothing changes until the page is turned. The most successful interactions are when Larry “accidentally” pulls on the ribbons, but even that result—Larry is sucked into the box and expelled, screaming, “AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!” with a “BOING” and a “DOINK”—remains disappointingly static. Children used to instantaneous responses or those who’ve experienced the brilliant simplicity of Press Here will not be amused.

Not as great a gift as it thinks it is. (Board book. 2-4)

LITTLE FOAL’S BUSY DAY

Illus. by Donovan, Jane Monroe Sleeping Bear Press (18 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 15, 2019 978-1-53411-068-7

Follow a sleek black foal frolicking through an idyllic day.

Starring a long-legged, curious foal with a white star on its forehead that ensures recognizability even when it’s amid a crowd, this board book is clearly made by and for horse fanciers. Within sweeping, lush pastoral scenes, the foal wakes up next to its dam, gallops about, views other horses and animals, and returns to the barn to rest. Taking readers through the foal’s day seems intended to unify the narrative, but with only a tedious list of activities, the book feels like a collection of lavish horse paintings with extraneous text. The oils used in the full-bleed double-page spreads are a relatively uncommon board-book medium, and the resulting formal, nostalgic art is an attractive change of pace. Beyond the pretty, painterly art, however, the stiff language that eschews contractions sounds more reminiscent of an early reader than a board book: “It is time to go to the big field.” There are some attempts to involve readers, as when the omniscient narrator asks the foal to identify “who is walking in the grass.” Yet the answer—a cat—is obscured by grass. A frilly white typeset with swoops

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and curves seems oddly mismatched to the art and text’s solemn tone.

More a compilation of horse art than a book, this is nevertheless a loving ode to all things equine. (Board book. 2-4)

HAPPY HEART

Eliot, Hannah Illus. by Hammer, Susie Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (14 pp.) $7.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-5344-3202-4

ANIMAL WORLD 9 Mini Books

Illus. by Elkina, Ekaterina; Jirenkina, Elena; Korchemkina, Tatiana & Guz, Anna Clever Publishing (54 pp.) $16.99 | Oct. 22, 2019 978-1-948418-52-2 Series: Clever Mini Board Books This set of nine miniature board books introduces youngsters to animals spanning the globe.

Each book, measuring a little over 1¾ inches square and 1¼ inches thick, tackles a different set of creatures grouped by taxonomy (“Insects and Bugs”), habitat (“Forest Animals”), relationship with humans (“Pets”; “Farm Animals”), and more.

Each title contains five chunky double-page spreads with an animal appearing on the recto and a one-word label centered on the white background of the verso. Four different illustrators worked on the simple cartoon illustrations, and it shows, with styles varying dramatically. For example, the duck from “Birds” is a stylized but fairly realistic mallard, and the duck from “Life in the Pond” looks like it belongs in a child’s bathtub. The back of each book features one-ninth of a scene featuring a few of the creatures from inside the pages, and when the books are all flipped over, kids can assemble them like a puzzle. The |

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LITTLE HEROES OF COLOR 50 Who Made a Big Difference

Heredia, David Illus. by the author Cartwheel/Scholastic (24 pp.) $10.99 | Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-32642-0

A compendium of profiles of people of color who have changed the world.

Each page of this colorful board book contains between four and nine profiles of people of color whose activism and leadership have changed the world. The descriptive text for each leader chosen is extremely short—only one sentence long—quickly outlining each person’s background, heritage, accomplishments, and little else. Each profile is accompanied by a bobbleheadlike cartoon illustration of the leader in question, rendered with bold colors and nearly identical in their simplified facial features. The heroes chosen are diverse in terms of their race, ethnicity, gender, ability, and areas of expertise, including African American athlete and artist Ernie Barnes, Dominican fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, Kwakwaka’wakw artist Ellen Ka’kasolas Neel, and president of Ecuador Lenín Moreno, who uses a wheelchair. Although the range is impressive, it is also confusing: A few sentences of additional text sporadically appear, serving little purpose and breaking the flow, nor does there seem to be any unifying threads to the groupings. Additionally, some of the choices of heroes are questionable: Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, for example, was often criticized for engaging in corruption and doing little to further the cause of women’s rights, while “spiritual leader” Sudehanshu Biswas is hardly known even in his home country of India.

This book falls short of its promise. (Board book. 3-4)

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In this heart-shaped confection, the narrator declares their love for young readers.

The edges of each page are cut into different designs to emulate the sun’s rays, the outlines of trees, the Earth, flowers, and more and are frosted with a sparkly layer of glitter that resists the energetic rubbing of little fingers. In the center of each image is a tiny, emoji-like icon grinning at readers, and brightly colored accompanying spot art is sprinkled throughout. Enthusiastic, mostly rhyming text appears in a multicolored type on the verso. The pages increase in size with each page turn, for a layered look when closed, culminating with a giant heart that bookends the smaller opening one as the prose declares: “For you my heart grows / because I love you so!” While the binding is narrow, the whole enterprise is considerably sturdy. It’s an entirely forgettable but bright bagatelle, good for a few readings.

It is a hug, a kiss, and a valentine rolled into one—and just as fleeting. (Board book. 6 mos.-3)

set is contained in a sturdy box with a magnetic closure, each book nestled in its own candy-box–like section. Cover images for each title appear on the bottom of the box to aid in placing them back in storage, a superfluous feature. The square, blocky shape of the books may mean that they prove more popular for little fingers as toys than books.

High on play value and low on informational or literary content. (Novelty/board book. 1-3)

CERCA / CLOSE

Herrera, Juan Felipe Illus. by Gómez, Blanca Candlewick (14 pp.) $7.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-7636-9062-5 A bilingual Spanish/English spatialawareness concept book.

Herrera—U.S. poet laureate from 2015 to 2017—introduces the concept of proximity in a series of simple statements that b o a r d & n o v e lt y b o o ks

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start with a child getting ready to go out and end with the child approaching a friend’s house. The statements are presented first in Spanish followed by italicized English, effectively normalizing the Spanish. “Mi cuarto está cerca de la cocina. / My bedroom is close to the kitchen.” Gómez’s color-saturated illustrations portray a child in a jaunty striped T-shirt and two cute pigtails proceeding from bedroom to kitchen to door, daisies, apple tree, horses, and, finally, the friend’s house. By breaking up the journey into incremental “cerca / close” steps the author brings the close friendship into focus. Companion volume Lejos / Far starts with the same two characters under a lemon tree, with the friend—now the main character—looking back to the house in the distance. This time the emphasis is on places that are far: from lemon tree to house, city, ocean, and mountains.

As the child walks in the mountains holding a caregiver’s hand, clouds can be seen far above, and further than that is the sun: “El sol brilla sobre mí. / The sun shines over me.” Both the children and the adult have brown skin and black hair.

Quiet, simple, and sweet. (Board book. 2-4) (Lejos / Far: 978-0-7636-9062-5)

OPPOSITES

Honsek, Larissa Illus. by the author Familius (20 pp.) $8.99 | Aug. 1, 2019 978-1-64170-143-3 Anthropomorphized clay creations demonstrate oppositional pairs.

Whether these clay creatures are rolled into a round, “SMOOTH” ball or a “SPIKY,” hedgehoglike blob, Honsek imbues the colorful chunks of inanimate clay with a whole lot of personality. Though helped along by digitally rendered round, sparkling googly eyes, small, black smiles, and expressive eyebrows, the clay remains more abstract and symbolic than representational. Since there’s only the strikingly minimalist full-bleed backgrounds setting off the representations, the clay depends on little touches, such as differently sized eyes or a folded-over piece on a “BIG” flattened circle that implies hair, to lend personality and charisma. Portraying 11 different opposites, counting a set on the back cover, most of the concepts are clear and understandable. A representative pair shows a “LONG” purple snakelike creature meandering across a teal double-page spread juxtaposed with a “SHORT” blue wormlike one. Occasionally the duos delve into sophisticated use of color and shape theory, like a golden “HAPPY” critter with corners splayed outward contrasting with a slumped, droopy blue “SAD” one, though “HOT” and “COLD,” shown as a bright crimson flame and a spiky snowflake creation, may be too abstract for younger readers to easily interpret.

Simple yet sophisticated, this board book is fun from start to finish. (Board book. 1-4)

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YOGA BABY

Hovey, Amy Orca (24 pp.) $10.95 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-4598-1828-6

Wiggly babies are natural yogis!

Babies are constantly hard at work, learning how to make their bodies roll, crawl, pull up, walk, and sit independently. These foundational movements and the triumph of achieving them are expressed in this board book through beautiful full-color photographs. Diverse babies representing a spectrum of ages, skin tones, and gender presentation are shown moving their bodies into shapes and positions that resemble common yoga poses. The opposite page in each spread names a pose in bright text and includes three lines of rhyming text. For example, the photo that accompanies “Cobra Baby” shows a masculine-presenting toddler appearing to be of East Asian heritage lying prone and using hands to press chest and head off the ground, creating a shape reminiscent of bhujangasana, or cobra pose, while the text encourages, “tummy to floor / slither on your belly / and wiggle some more.” The shapes presented are natural for baby and toddler bodies, and the text, though mundane, is simple and brief. Young readers will delight in seeing images of real baby faces and bodies, and adults will enjoy watching their children mimic the movements they see, especially if they choose to move along too!

Adorable and well-designed for babies and toddlers.

(Board book. 6 mos.-3)

MAX’S RAINFOREST ADVENTURE

Jardine, Hannah Illus. by Waring, Zoe Clever Publishing (10 pp.) $7.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-948418-77-5

Max, a satchel-bearing brown, tailed monkey, explores his rainforest home.

On these extra-thick board pages, Max meets Charlie the crocodile, James the jaguar, and Tyler the toucan. Each critter, along with Max, shares details from their lives and makes an associated sound: “SNAP!”; “ROAR!”; “CROAK!” In the end, Max journeys home to tell his friends and family about his adventures. This slight narrative is told through simple prose and easy dialogue. Waring’s whimsical animals are inviting, with oversized eyes and childlike appeal in muted colors. Max, refreshingly, is never played for a fool but instead navigates his environment with friendly confidence and greets each animal as an equal. Also refreshing is the care taken to include only animals found in one specific rainforest habitat, in this case a South American one, rather than jumbling them together from around the world. The different spreads bleed into one another with little indication they are not part of the same scene, which may confuse toddlers still learning book

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Childlike illustrations provide clues to the action and give little learners much to talk about. mary had a little lamb

conventions. The format looks sturdy enough to withstand rough play. The full-size illustration of Max, shaped to look like his body, on the cover will appeal to the core audience.

A sturdy choice for toddler animal lovers with endearing art and a slight story. (Board book. 1-3)

MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB A Colors Book Jarvis Illus. by the author Candlewick (22 pp.) $8.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-5362-1111-5

BABY SHARK!

Lewis, Stevie Henry Holt (24 pp.) $8.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-250-26318-6 A trip to the aquarium triggers a “Baby Shark” flash mob.

A parent and child enter the aquarium hand in hand. “Will we see a shark?” the child asks. “Will we see a baby shark?” Of course they do: A cutely snub-nosed (and biologically impossible) shark pup smiles from the tank…and the earworm takes over. “Baby shark! Doo doo doo doo doo doo!” The verse repeats twice more, the “doo doo doo” printed in wavy lines, before it is punctuated by a concluding “Baby shark!” With the turn of |

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ONE MORE TIME A Story About Perseverance

Loewen, Nancy Illus. by Quintanilla, Hazel Michelle Words & Pictures (10 pp.) $12.95 | Sep. 17, 2019 978-0-7112-4441-2 Series: Bright Start Right Start

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This fresh take on the traditional nursery rhyme aims to teach colors to toddlers.

Childlike illustrations with chalked backgrounds provide clues to the action and give little learners much to talk about.

The first spread presents a spare winter scene with a cartoon sheep following a backpack-clad Mary, presumably on the way to school, presented in profile. The child seems to be looking back at the sheep. The sheep’s only line is “Baaa!” On the next spread, the sheep gives the side-eye to an orange tiger that exclaims, “Raar! Raaar! Raaaar!” while Mary marches confidently on. This pattern continues for a pink hippo, a red monkey, three blue bears, a purple mouse, a green crocodile, and a yellow giraffe.

Each animal comes with their own vocalization or sound effect.

The spreads grow more and more crowded and raucous until finally they all board a double-decker bus. (Mary is driving.) The text reads, “Now everywhere that Mary went, this colorful crew was there.” Surprise, they’re going to the park. “For Mary had packed the very best lunch… / just big enough to share.” There’s no telling how this feast—cake, an enormous submarine sandwich, hot dogs, drinks with swirly straws, fruit, doughnuts, even a piece of cheese for the mouse—ever fit in that one backpack, but that’s all of a piece with the overall whimsy. Companion title This Little Piggy takes on the numbers from one to 10.

Engaging fun with a well-disguised bonus lesson on colors. (Board book. 2-4) (This Little Piggy: 978-1-5362-1110-8)

the page, it is joined by “Mama shark!” and another child walks up. Cue “doo doo doo.” Then Daddy shark appears, and a third child joins the group, pointing as the earlier two make the “Baby Shark” hand motions. Grandma shark (distinguished by faint wrinkles around the lips, as is Grandpa on the next page—perhaps they forgot their dentures?) swims up next, and then all are seen grinning like the “hungry sharks” they are before the children, now numbering five, “run away!” to join their caregivers, “safe at last!” Kudos to Lewis for creating a plausible visual narrative and peopling it with diverse children. Like all the other “Baby Shark”–themed books in the current tsunami, however, it relies heavily on its readers’ preexisting familiarity with the song for its success.

An ephemeral but pleasantly coherent take on the viral hit. (Board book. 2-4)

Child-friendly examples teach toddlers socio-emotional skills.

In this Bright Start series entry, a grandfather teaches the narrator, a gender-ambiguous child, to ride the blue scooter they got for their birthday. In the process of trying, falling, and trying again, the child learns a lesson in perseverance. In companion title My Turn, Your Turn, Ms. Wright, who is presumably a teacher, helps Malik and Cora share a toy airplane that they were fighting over. Both books feature duotone cartoon illustrations that include characters of color: Grandpa and the narrator in One More Time are black while in My Turn, Your Turn, Malik is dark skinned, and light-skinned Cora is ethnically ambiguous. Textured, chunky pages will appeal to small, curious hands. Laudably, the narratives use examples that children will find both familiar and relevant. While the predictability of the storylines will appeal to young readers, the stories verge on the monotonous. In One More Time, for example, the author spends seven pages detailing how the protagonist learns to balance, then push, then balance and push, a description that feels tedious and does not contribute to the narrative. That said, the limited page length and simple language make these books ideal for teachers or parents looking for quick and easy tools to use to foster socio-emotional development.

High educational value offsets limited literary merit.

(Board book. 2-4) (My Turn, Your Turn: 978-0-71124-444-3)

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The gentle, pastel-colored illustrations keep the focus squarely on the child. baby belly

THE HAPPY SNAPPY CRAB

Illus. by Lucas, Gareth Tiger Tales (12 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 1, 2019 978-1-68010-584-1 Series: Peekaboo Pop-Up Fun

Little ones meet six different sea creatures in this sturdy, first pop-up book.

A pair of sea turtles, a shark, the titular crab, an orca, and more appear in each of the six double-page spreads. A pedestrian quatrain about each critter floats on the blue background, sharing a few whimsical, often zoologically inaccurate behavioral anecdotes: “There goes prickly pufferfish, / Big and round and plump. / He blows up like a balloon / When he feels like a grump!” (Additionally, the dubious expressions on the penguins’ faces belie the assertion that the orca is “friendly,” and evidently the octopus likes to tickle its friends.) Lucas’ cartoons with googly eyes and smiling faces in soft washes of color are goodhumored and endearing. The pop-ups will likely steal the show for any toddler, and the hardy pages will mean they will stand up to at least a few robust readings and play sessions. Brilliantly, a duplicate image of the featured creature appears behind the 3-D panel, meaning the book will still be usable if one or two of these panels go missing. It is unclear why the book is named for the crab when she appears in only two of the tableaux and is featured in but one.

A cheerful choice for young ocean lovers, but the popups far outshine the text. (Pop-up board book. 2-4)

YOU ARE A GIFT TO ME! Magsamen, Sandra Illus. by the author Cartwheel/Scholastic (22 pp.) $7.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-338-58943-6

A love letter from caregivers to their babes.

“You are a gift to me sent from above. / One I will always cherish and love!” Subsequent pages share eight further rhymed couplets expressing similar sentiments. Each couplet is paired with an illustration of an animal caregiver and smaller of the same species playfully interacting. Magsamen outlines each critter in her signature faux stitchwork. There are a dog and pup, an owl and owlet, and a sheep and lamb, to name a few.

Gender is never identified in the text, making the work useful for a broad spectrum of caregiver-child relationships. Most of the duos are sweetly enticing and adorned with hearts as noses or other decorations. Some of the duos are a bit too matched, as the grown-up chicken looks like an enlarged baby chick and both adult deer and fawn have antlers, bucking biology. Keywords in the rhymes appear written in colorful lettering and outlined in stitchwork, but the rest of the text appears in white; when the text is set on pale backgrounds, it might be difficult for those with vision issues to discern. On the first recto there 172

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is an illustration of a wrapped present on which grown-ups can personalize the book for the little ones in their lives.

Tender or saccharine depending on taste, but a sentimental gift choice for a wide range of caregivers. (Board book.

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BABY BELLY

Martin, Patricia Illus. by Bonilla, Rocio Magination/American Psychological Association (20 pp.) $7.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-4338-3179-9 Series: Get Ready Board Books As mom’s belly gets bigger and bigger, a young child watches and wonders.

In this wordless Spanish import, a young child—just about the height of mom’s belly—goes about a typical toddler routine: playing with toys; pulling a little elephant along in a cart; peeking over the sofa to watch mom reading; brushing teeth; eating; going out—all the while keeping an eye on mom’s growing belly.

At one point, intrigued enough, the child tucks a balloon under a striped T-shirt in mimicry. Eventually, an empty crib makes an appearance in the tot’s room, and the child can be seen feeling mom’s belly for movement. Soon enough, there’s a baby in the crib, and mom’s belly has flattened. In the last spread, instead of the toy elephant pulled in the first double-page spread, the new baby is being pulled along in the cart by a very proud-looking older sibling. The gentle, pastel-colored illustrations keep the focus squarely on the child. With no information offered beyond depictions of everyday scenes, the book allows little ones to provide their own narrative, and expecting parents can use it to encourage conversation on the upcoming event. Both mother and child are depicted with white skin and blond hair.

A sweet addition to the new-sibling bookshelf. (Board book. 2-3)

I LOVE YOU, LITTLE ONE

Illus. by Mason, Suzie Tiger Tales (12 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 1, 2019 978-1-68010-585-8 Series: Peekaboo Pop-Up Fun

Adoring animal mothers and their babies stand out (literally) on each board-book page.

Two lines of rhyming text per double-page spread describe a mother’s unconditional love. The verse is pedestrian at best and unengagingly tepid in its rhythm: “You are my sunshine, little one— / With you, the world is bright and fun.” Soft-edged illustrations show deer, penguin, squirrel, seal, bear, and elephant parent-and-offspring pairs. (The larger deer depicted has spots, just like its fawn, suggesting it’s a type not common to North America.) Each of the species represented does care for their

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SONIA SOTOMAYOR

young, but smiles and behaviors make it clear these are merely stand-ins for human caregivers and children. However, the idealized images match the sweet tone of the text and do not represent a range of realistic human emotions. Pick up Sandra Boynton’s I Love You, Little Pookie (2018) for a more genuine and toddler-appropriate expression of parental love. The pop-up feature on each spread is also superfluous. Simple cutouts bend forward as the page is turned but do not provide additional information or add to the slight storyline.

Altogether, a disappointment. (Board book. 1-3)

Oliver, Alison Illus. by the author HMH Books (20 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-328-51995-5 Series: Be Bold Baby

PETS

McDonald, Jill Illus. by the author Doubleday (26 pp.) $7.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-0-525-64759-1 Series: Hello World!

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Learn about domestic animals in the latest addition to McDonald’s Hello World! series.

Whether they are wild or domesticated, animals are fascinating creatures. In this cheery outing, McDonald introduces young readers to a variety of animals that live with humans, including rabbits, cats, frogs, and dogs. Companion title Arc­ tic Animals, on the other hand, focuses on the wild and wonderful creatures that live in the world’s coldest, northernmost region, including polar bears, narwhals, snowy owls, and puffins.

McDonald’s talent for curating relevant, fascinating, and childfriendly facts is fully on display in both of these volumes. Both books focus mostly on the physical characteristics of the animals and birds, pairing the descriptions with textured, collagestyle illustrations that also enliven the type, particularly in cases of onomatopoeia. Arctic Animals simply and clearly introduces concepts like hibernation and camouflage while Pets provides a bit of specific information about how to care for the animals depicted. It also includes questions on each two-page spread that invite children to participate in the storytelling by moving their bodies like the pets they are reading about: Readers are asked to “twitch” their noses like rabbits, “stretch” like cats, and “hop” like frogs. Both books are excellent choices for budding naturalists, zookeepers, veterinarians, and pet owners.

With its companion, a vibrantly illustrated, expertly written offering for young animal lovers. (Board book. 1-3) (Arctic Animals: 978-0-525-64757-7)

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor acts as inspiration for a series of exhortations.

Taking the life of Sotomayor as a springboard, Oliver invites children to “Be a good listener…an explorer…courageous… helpful…vocal…a mentor…just…a good sport…an inspiration… you!” (The last appears over a mirror set into the page.) Bold and colorful illustrations accompany each motivational call. In some instances the author has added a quote from Justice Sotomayor as well. For “Be courageous” for example, the accompanying quote is “Diabetes taught me discipline.” The illustration shows a sad-looking young Sotomayor sitting on a table in an infirmary while a nurse injects her with insulin. On the last page there is a bare-bones summary that helps explain some of the statements. As part of the same Be Bold, Baby! series, Oliver presents other motivational calls based on the life of author J.K. Rowling, following the same format. Here, children are encouraged to “Be a fan…a friend…a rebel…imaginative…persistent… resilient…bewitching…a light…magical…you!” In neither book do the illustrations significantly aid board-book listeners in their comprehension of the concepts introduced. Furthermore, Sotomayor and Rowling will mean far more to adults than to preschoolers. However, the books could be used as a basis for meaningful if rudimentary conversations.

There’s no need to rush out for this one. (Board book. 3-5) (J.K. Rowling: 978-1-328-51993-1)

JUNGLE

Illus. by Ormes, Jane Nosy Crow/Candlewick (14 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-5362-0831-3 Series: Animal Families

Arresting design, simple and useful content, and animal parents and babies: What’s not to like?

Together with Farm, its simultaneously publishing companion in the Animal Families series, this book is exquisite. The eye-popping neon colors and uncluttered, expressive, screenprinted artwork alone make both books worth the price of admission, but the entire presentation hits all the right notes.

Each two-page spread is devoted to a species of animal. The “daddy,” with proper nomenclature, appears on verso, “mommy,” with her appropriate term, on recto. The flap upon which “mommy” appears opens, revealing their young along with the proper term for babies of that species: “A daddy peafowl is called a peacock. / A mommy peafowl is called a peahen. Baby peafowl are called… / peachicks!” Each book features four species; b o a r d & n o v e lt y b o o ks

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the final spread has flaps on both sides that open up to reveal the four animal families depicted and the collective terms for families of each species: in the case of the jungle dwellers, a “memory” of elephants, an “embarrassment” of pandas, a “pride” of peafowl, and an “ambush” of tigers, for example. Farm features sheep, donkeys, chickens, and pigs. Kids will learn to tell jacks from jennys, rams from ewes, and foals from lambs, chicks, and piglets. Opening the flaps adds yet another level of interest for curious—and grabby—tots.

Whether readers are zoologists in the making or just fans of our animal friends, this book and its companion are sure to please. (Board book. 1-3) (Farm: 978-1-5362-0830-6)

TINY TRAVELERS MEXICO TREASURE QUEST

Pereira, Steven Wolfe Illus. by Jaramillo, Susie Encantos (22 pp.) $12.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-945635-22-9 Series: Tiny Travelers

Young armchair travelers are invited to join a treasure hunt around Mexico while learning a few Spanish words and geographical facts along the way.

The first double-page spread presents a colorful map of Mexico with some of the objects readers will find over the course of their journey as well as a few quick facts about Mexico.

A series of colorful and kid-friendly double-page spreads depict landmarks, customs, and foods to be found in different locales, always following the same format: A scene is depicted, basic information is presented in rhyming text, an object must be found, and a “DID YOU KNOW” fun fact appears. To aid children in their search, the object to be located usually is depicted with an aura or stars around it. Words in Spanish are printed in boldface and then presented phonetically. In Mexico City, for example, amid modern skyscrapers, children are invited to locate the statue of El Angel, before reading the “DID YOU KNOW?” fact: The statue is “covered with 24K gold!” There is a commercial angle to the outing, as children are encouraged at the end of the book to visit the website where they can get stickers for each object found in addition to other, related material for sale. The compositions are busy for younger board-book readers, but older toddlers and preschoolers should enjoy it.

A fun and engaging introduction to Mexico for the younger set. (Board book. 3-6)

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ART THIS WAY

Shopsin, Tamara & Fulford, Jason Phaidon (28 pp.) $19.95 | Nov. 18, 2019 978-0-7148-7721-1 Take a peek at art from a variety of different literal and metaphorical angles.

Veritably daring readers to look at art in a fresh new way, this innovatively designed board book features a variety of foldouts, flaps, and die cuts. From its disorienting upside-down first page, the authors use the medium to its best advantage. Never gimmicky, the format enhances readers’ understanding of the art.

A Lichtenstein pop-art page superbly uses a die cut as a frame to draw eyes to the half-toning that makes the piece work, and lifting a flap “Up” reveals a hanging Calder mobile. This is one of the rare board books that speaks to many ages: A long, colorful foldout of Warhol flower variants would be ideal for a baby to gaze at during tummy time. A Cindy Sherman–inspired shiny mirrored page with black glasses will attract toddlers’ eyes, but knowing it works as a disguise will intrigue preschool readers.

All of the carefully curated and concisely explained pieces of art are from the Whitney collection. They include sculpture, prints, mobiles, and photography, and male and female artists are showcased equally. The selections, which also include a street-art photograph of children playing with sidewalk chalk and an intriguing sculpture of a woman alongside her small dog, have broad child appeal.

Art appreciation with an ingenious twist. (Board book. 6 mos.-5)

COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS

Simon, Mary Manz Illus. by Hartley, Brian Beaming Books (52 pp.) $14.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5064-4854-1

Daily activities, prayers, and Bible verses count the 25 days to Christmas and tell the story of the Nativity.

As outlined in the opening address to caregivers, this lengthy and hefty board book is intended to help young children cope with the wait for Christmas Day and understand the story of Jesus’ birth. Each day of December has its own two-page layout that includes a brief piece of the story of Christmas, an interactive activity, a prayer, and a Bible verse.

Simon does a nice job of telling a complicated story in small parts over several days, making it digestible for young readers.

Some of the prayers include a fill-in-the-blank portion, a nice way to engage readers in the process of composition. Some of the activities are accessible using materials found around the house, such as making a paper-link chain, while others—making handprint wrapping paper, tying jingle bells on shoes—are less so. Hartley’s illustrations feature modern people in Western attire and occasional Biblical costume, representing a range of

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The adventurous Astro Kittens seem equally at home piloting spacecraft, spacewalking, or floating in zero gravity. astro kittens

ages and races. The cartoon style is cutesy but forgettable. Most critically, the board-book format doesn’t fit the busy content, requiring readers beyond the need for an indestructible book.

As a well-paced explanation of Jesus’ birth, it succeeds; the rest is superfluous. (Board book. 4-6)

WHERE IS MY PINK SWEATER?

Slater, Nicola Illus. by the author abramsappleseed (24 pp.) $8.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4197-3679-7

SNOW STILL

Surplice, Holly Illus. by the author Nosy Crow/Candlewick (22 pp.) $8.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-5362-0834-4 Follow a young deer as it explores a wintry landscape.

Enveloped in a puffy, padded cover that matches the softness of the delicate watercolor images within, the book depicts a fawn partaking in a mild snowy adventure. Pale white backgrounds of thinly lined, gray-washed trees and snowdrifts are tranquil while the tawny fawn’s coat, the red rose hips, and the snow-encrusted, olive-green leaves provide notes of colorful contrast. Limiting herself to one two-word phrase per page, all beginning with the word “snow,” the author manages to tell a |

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ASTRO KITTENS Into the Unknown

Walliman, Dominic Illus. by Newman, Ben Flying Eye Books (20 pp.) $8.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-912497-27-0 Series: Professor Astro Cat

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Rudy’s pink sweater is missing.

Readers are invited to follow him as he searches for the sweater.

Rudy is a blue creature with a piggy snout, bunny ears, a thin, tufted tail, and a distraught look on his face. His beloved pink sweater is gone. “It was a bit too small and showed his belly button. But it was his favorite.” Where could it be? In a search that doubles as a countdown from 10 to one, Rudy makes his way through the different rooms of the house—top to bottom, inside and outside. As readers open the wardrobe door, “TEN tumbling cats” provide the first hint as to the sweater’s whereabouts. Following the pink yarn that runs across the pages, readers encounter some surprising creatures in each location—including a crocodile sitting in an outhouse busily knitting—as well as flaps to open and die cuts to peek through. Just as he’s about to give up hope—someone must’ve taken it, but “who would love wearing it as much as he did?”— the answer is revealed: “Trudy! His number ONE sister. The sweater fit her perfectly.” And, as is the nature of stories with a happy ending, Rudy gets a new sweater that fits him, from the knitting crocodile, of course. Plot, interactivity, vocabulary, and counting all contribute in making this an engaging book for the upper edge of the board-book range.

A sweet and subtle book on sharing. (Board book. 3-5)

fairly concise story, though some combinations feel more germane than others. After emerging from a clearing, a “snow chase” after bunnies leads the fawn through a “snow find”—a meeting with songbirds perched on a branch—and into peril as the fawn leaves the safe forest for a “snow silent” open field. Showing the fawn small and alone amid the empty white landscape communicates just enough drama for a young audience but also warmly resolves it as the fawn finds its way back to parents, nuzzling and “snow safe.” Though there’s some mild anthropomorphization, the adventures feel plausible enough until the buck is shown caring for the fawn, which is not accurate. Still, if readers aren’t sticklers for authenticity, they’ll delight in finding the woodland animals and in that precious spotted deer.

Toddlers will fawn over this board book. (Board book. 1-3)

Once dinosaurs have begun to seem passé, space is the place for many toddlers, and the Astro Kittens are excellent guides.

Together with Astro Kittens: Cosmic Machines, its companion volume in this spinoff of the Professor Astro Cat series, this board book promises to present “advanced scientific theories through fun and engaging artwork”—and manages to do so without talking down to children. Both books are informationdense, but, for the most part, ideas are introduced in manageable bites. Concepts covered include rockets, traveling at light speed, wormholes, suspended animation, and the possibility of “alien life forms.” Astro Kittens: Cosmic Machines introduces telescopes (including the Hubble Space Telescope), the International Space Station, and even the “ideal rocket equation,” derived from “Newton’s second law of motion,” which few caregivers will able to verbalize unless they’re also astrophysicists!

Explaining wormholes to little ones will seem like child’s play by comparison. All of this would seem too much if not for the adorable Astro Kittens and the kid-friendly artwork and the inviting, “just imagine” tone of the writing. Each idea is presented with two easily digested statements and an annotated illustration explaining rocket or satellite parts, historical facts about space exploration, and the like. The adventurous Astro Kittens clearly love their work, and they seem equally at home piloting spacecraft, spacewalking, or floating in zero gravity.

Sure to fire imaginations and inspire questions caregivers may struggle good-naturedly to answer. (Board book. 3-6) (Astro Kittens: Cosmic Machines: 978-1-912497-28-7)

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The text is simple enough for even the mindfulness novice to understand and model while reading. listen like an elephant

LISTEN LIKE AN ELEPHANT

Willey, Kira Illus. by Betts, Anni Rodale (26 pp.) $7.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-9848-9410-6 Series: Mindfulness Moments for Kids Elephant loves using her big ears to notice all of the sounds around her, and readers can too!

This offering is one in a series of mindfulness practice books for children written by well-known children’s yoga-andmindfulness musician Willey. In place of a story, the vibrantly illustrated board book offers a simple and age-appropriate mindful-listening practice for children. Readers are invited to take a deep breath, still their bodies, and open up to all of the sounds around them, in all directions, up close and far away.

The instructions are straightforward, asking readers, “what do you hear?” The lack of superfluous text creates an introductory mindfulness practice perfectly suited to its audience and to the adults who share it with them. The illustrated jungle animals seem to shimmer as they serenely breathe and observe what they hear. There is no judgment about the sounds one may encounter; the objective is simply to observe what is. This restrained approach sets this book apart in the growing realm of mindfulness books for children. Although there is no additional information for adults about mindful-listening practice, the text itself is simple enough for even the mindfulness novice to understand and model while reading. Like its companion, Breathe Like a Bear, this is adapted from a longer, 2017 title for preschoolers also titled Breathe Like a Bear and is one of those rare board adaptations that works for its audience.

A wonderful adaptation of mindfulness practice into board-book format. (Board book. 1-4) (Breathe Like a Bear: 978-1-9848-9411-3)

SOUNDS

Illus. by Wilson, Katie Flowerpot Press (20 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4867-1649-4 Series: Discovery Concepts A board book inspired by Montessori principles features developmentally appropriate vocabulary and tactile elements.

Over 10 double-page spreads the book depicts nine musical instruments—trumpet, clarinet, cymbals, sousaphone, bass drum, saxophone, flute, glockenspiel, and snare drum—and a parade featuring all of them. A rough approximation of the sound of each instrument is the only text. The “plink” of the glockenspiel, “oom-pah” of the sousaphone, and “tootle-tootletoo” of the flute are clear, but attempts at onomatopoeia for the other instruments are less successful. (A QR code on the back cover provides access to sound files introduced by a robotic speaker.) The sounds are repeated as the entire marching band 176

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parades across the final spread, which also reveals the musicians to be a variety of races and ethnicities. A woman in the onlooking crowd wears a hijab. Though advertised prominently, the tactile elements really feel like an afterthought. On five pages, canvas textures hidden in small musical notes are almost indiscernible to tiny fingers. On four pages those canvas textures are placed somewhat arbitrarily on parts of each instrument. The larger tactile elements in the simultaneously publishing companion, Colors, are more prominent and therefore more effective. There, Wilson’s muted colors have undertones of gray so the blue is closer to teal and the pink is really coral, reducing its efficacy. The only text is the color name.

Underwhelming and offering little new for toddlers.

(Board book. 6 mos.-2) (Colors: 978-1-4867-1566-4)

NIBBLES The Monster Hunt Yarlett, Emma Illus. by the author Kane/Miller (30 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 1, 2019 978-1-61067-957-2

A book-chewing monster leads a young reader on a brief but merry chase through a volume of facts.

Having previously digested a Dinosaur Guide (2017), the librivorous Nibbles—resembling a toothy lemon drop in Yarlett’s cartoon scenes—here dives into a more encyclopedic repast. Successive spreads dish out niblets of information about the sun and moon, dogs and cats, images and words, and colors. Finally, a “jolly countdown” sends a smiling Nibbles blasting off in a rocket through an irregular die-cut hole in the rear cover. The narrator, a white lad, pants along behind, past various observers, both human and non-, offering side comments, through other cutouts and into occasional attached booklets.

Younger readers thrilling to the chase will likely blow right past the factual content, which is largely relegated to blocks of small, at times difficult-to-read type. It includes both a supersonic history of art from paintings made by “cavemen” on and a breathless reference to color mixing that scores a clean miss as none of the “primary” hues on splashy display are ever actually mixed (or, for that matter, true primaries). Still, along with droll (to some) views of lots of chewed-up books and pages, the dashes of information add a STEM-ish flavor to the escapade.

Brisk but uneven, with an appeal more vague than broad. (Novelty. 5-8)

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SIMON SAYS OPEN THE BOOK

Zebrowska, Emilia Illus. by Reagan, Susan Creative Editions/Creative Company (14 pp.) $8.99 | Aug. 6, 2019 978-1-56846-330-8

continuing series AMAZING AMPHIBIANS 30 Activities and Observations for Exploring Frogs, Toads, Salamanders, and More

Amstutz, Lisa Chicago Review Press (144 pp.) $16.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-64160-072-9 Series: Young Naturalists (Nonfiction. 8-12)

THE MIGHTY MISSISSIPPI

Bauer, Marion Dane Illus. by Wallace, John Simon Spotlight (32 pp.) $17.99 | $4.99 paper | Dec. 10, 2019 978-1-5344-5562-7 978-0-689-86950-1 paper Series: Wonders of America (Informational early reader. 5-7)

CLAUDE MONET

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When a preschool-age child imagines being inside a book, readers participate in the journey with Simon Says commands.

This board book starts on the cover with a dark-haired white child independently reading a book at bedtime. As the title suggests, readers open the book along with the protagonist, who becomes a part of the story set on the ocean on the first page. Each two-page layout includes a Simon Says command presented in a rhyming couplet with the significant verb printed in boldface: “Simon says open the book. / Have a look.” The directions throughout invite readers to participate as the protagonist does everything from traveling to the moon (“Simon says point to the sky”) to exchanging affectionate greetings with an octopus from the deck of a ship (“Simon says blow a kiss”). In the end, readers see the child snugly sprawled on the bed, with remnants of the imaginary travel in the surrounding room. Reagan’s illustrations convey the dark and stillness of the ocean and sky at night, everything washed in a gray tone. The parallels between what the child sees on the imaginary exploration and what readers see in the bedroom play up the beauty and reality of a child’s fantasy. Zebrowska’s rhyming Simon Says text invites readers to play along even if they’re not really on their way to the moon—a nice way to engage squirmy listeners.

Simon says open the book, read, and enjoy. (Board book.

1-3)

EARTHQUAKE!

Bauer, Marion Dane Illus. by Wallace, John Simon Spotlight (32 pp.) $17.99 | $4.99 paper | Dec. 10, 2019 978-1-5344-5561-0 978-1-4169-2551-4 paper Series: Natural Disasters (Informational early reader. 4-6)

Brownridge, Lucy Illus. by Bonne-Müller, Caroline Wide Eyed Editions (32 pp.) $15.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-7112-4877-9 Series: Portrait of an Artist (Picture book/biography. 7-10)

THE CLOUD KINGDOM

Charman, Katrina Branches/Scholastic (96 pp.) $4.99 paper | $24.99 PLB | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-338-30717-7 paper 978-1-338-30718-4 PLB Series: The Last Firehawk, 7 (Fantasy. 6-9)

NIGHT OF DANGERS

Clark, Zack Loran & Eliopulos, Nick Disney-Hyperion (400 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 17, 2019 978-1-4847-8861-5 Series: the Adventures Guild, 3 (Fantasy. 8-12)

PETAL’S PARTY

MAC CRACKS THE CODE

Coe, Catherine Illus. by Boyd, Chie Scholastic Paperbacks (128 pp.) $5.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-338-58913-9 Series: Lucky Bunnies, 2 (Fantasy. 6-9)

Barnett, Mac Illus. by Lowery, Mike Orchard/Scholastic (176 pp.) $12.99 | Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-59423-2 Series: Mac B., Kid Spy, 4 (Mystery. 8-12)

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THE LONG-LOST SECRET DIARY OF THE WORLD’S WORST HOLLYWOOD DIRECTOR

THE LOST TIDE WARRIORS

Collins, Tim Illus. by Lundie, Isobel Jolly Fish (200 pp.) $9.99 paper | $19.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-380-5 paper 978-1-63163-379-9 PLB Series: Long-Lost Secret Diaries (Fiction. 8-12)

THE LONG-LOST SECRET DIARY OF THE WORLD’S WORST TOMB HUNTER

Collins, Tim Illus. by Lundie, Isobel Jolly Fish (200 pp.) $9.99 paper | $19.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-384-3 paper 978-1-63163-383-6 PLB Series: Long-Lost Secret Diaries (Fiction. 8-12)

HENRY HECKELBECK NEVER CHEATS

Coven, Wanda Illus. by Burris, Priscilla Little Simon (128 pp.) $16.99 | $5.99 paper | Dec. 10, 2019 978-1-5344-6107-9 978-1-5344-6106-2 paper Series: Henry Heckelbeck, 2 (Fantasy. 5-9)

A PLACE FOR EVERYTHING Habit 3

Covey, Sean Illus. by Curtis, Stacy Simon Spotlight (32 pp.) $17.99 | $4.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2019 978-1-5344-4451-5 978-1-5344-4450-8 paper Series: The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, 3 (Early reader. 5-7)

THE CRIMS AT SEA

Davies, Kate Harper/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $16.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 978-0-06-249416-0 Series: The Crims, 3 (Adventure. 8-12)

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Doyle, Catherine Bloomsbury (320 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-1-5476-0272-8 Series: Storm Keeper’s Island, 2 (Fantasy. 8-12)

EVA’S CAMPFIRE ADVENTURE

Elliott, Rebecca Illus. by the author Branches/Scholastic (80 pp.) $4.99 paper | $24.99 PLB Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-29869-7 paper 978-1-338-29871-0 PLB Series: Owl Diaries, 12 (Fantasy. 6-9)

THUMP GOES THE RABBIT How Animals Communicate

Hodgkins, Fran Illus. by Morley, Taia Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $17.99 | $6.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-06-249101-5 978-0-06-249097-1 paper Series: Let’s Read and Find Out (Informational picture book. 4-8)

PINKALICIOUS AND THE MERMINNIES

TWO DOGS IN A TRENCHCOAT ENTER STAGE LEFT

Kann, Victoria Illus. by the author Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-06-284045-5 978-0-06-284044-8 paper Series: Pinkalicious (Early reader. 6-9)

SUPER RABBIT ALL-STARS!

London, Jonathan Illus. by Remkiewicz, Frank Viking (32 pp.) $16.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-9848-3636-6 Series: Froggy (Picture book. 3-8)

Falatko, Julie Illus. by Jack, Colin Scholastic (208 pp.) $9.99 | Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-35899-5 Series: Two Dogs in a Trench Coat, 3 (Fantasy. 8-12) Flintham, Thomas Illus. by the author Branches/Scholastic (80 pp.) $4.99 paper | $24.99 PLB Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-23984-3 paper 978-1-338-23985-0 PLB Series: Press Start!, 8 (Graphic fantasy. 6-9)

TBH, I FEEL THE SAME A Novel in Text

Greenwald, Lisa Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (256 pp.) $12.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-06-290622-9 Series: TBH, 5 (Fiction. 8-12)

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FROGGY BUILDS A SNOWMAN

ECLIPSE CHASER Science in the Moon’s Shadow

Loomis, Ilima Photos by Cowan, Amanda HMH Books (80 pp.) $18.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 978-1-328-77096-7 Series: Scientists in the Field (Nonfiction. 8-12)

A BIG-TIME PUZZLE

Sadar, Albin Illus. by Fabbretti, Valerio Simon Spotlight (32 pp.) $17.99 | $4.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2019 978-1-5344-2198-1 978-1-5344-2197-4 paper Series: Hamster Holmes (Early reader. 5-7)

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR

Sánchez Vergara, Maria Isabel Illus. by Degnan, Mai Ly Frances Lincoln (32 pp.) $14.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-7112-4567-9 Series: Little People, Big Dreams (Picture book/biography. 4-7)

THE BURIED CITY

Shuky Illus. by Waltch & Novy Trans. by Burrell, Carol Klio Quirk (104 pp.) $9.99 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 978-1-68369-147-1 Series: Knights Club, 2 (Graphic novelty. 8-12)

Sileo, Frank J. Illus. by Keay, Claire Magination/American Association (32 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-4338-3157-7 Series: Bee… (Picture book. 4-8)

Psychological

SO JELLY!

Simon, Coco Simon Spotlight (160 pp.) $17.99 | $6.99 paper | Dec. 10, 2019 978-1-5344-6029-4 978-1-5344-6028-7 paper Series: Donut Dreams, 2 (Fiction. 8-12)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GERONIMO!

Stilton, Geronimo Scholastic Paperbacks (128 pp.) $7.99 paper | Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-58753-1 Series: Geronimo Stilton, 74 (Mystery. 8-12)

THE BLACK FOREST BURGLARY

SHOWTIME SABOTAGE

Weaver, Verity Illus. by Huddleston, Courtney Jolly Fish (120 pp.) $7.99 paper | $18.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-416-1 paper 978-1-63163-415-4 PLB Series: What Happened?

(Mystery. 8-12)

SWITCHBACK SWITCHEROO

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BEE HEARTFUL Spread Loving-Kindness

FITNESS FIASCO

Weaver, Verity Illus. by Huddleston, Courtney Jolly Fish (120 pp.) $7.99 paper | $18.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-412-3 paper 978-1-63163-411-6 PLB Series: What Happened?

(Mystery. 8-12)

Weaver, Verity Illus. by Huddleston, Courtney Jolly Fish (120 pp.) $7.99 paper | $18.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-420-8 paper 978-1-63163-419-2 PLB Series: What Happened?

(Mystery. 8-12)

TROJAN HORSE TROUBLE

Weaver, Verity Illus. by Huddleston, Courtney Jolly Fish (120 pp.) $7.99 paper | $18.99 PLB | Jan. 1, 2020 978-1-63163-424-6 paper 978-1-63163-425-3 PLB Series: What Happened?

(Mystery. 8-12)

BAD BLOOD

West, Carly Anne Illus. by Heitz, Tim & Artful Doodlers Scholastic (240 pp.) $7.99 paper | Dec. 26,2019 978-1-338-59428-7 Series: Hello Neighbor (Horror. 8-12)

Stilton, Thea Scholastic Paperbacks (176 pp.) $8.99 paper | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-338-54698-9 Series: Thea Stilton, 30 (Mystery. 8-12) |

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Re n e l d a S e l l s o f Ta m p a - H i l l s b o r o u g h C o u n t y P u b l i c L i b r a r y : Re m o v i n g B a r r i e r s t o Ac c e s s [Sponsored]

By Megan Labrise Dè Shaun Johnson and Lisa Brown

When Renelda Sells was a stay-at-home mother, she

meetings. Knowing she would return to the work-

was always willing to take her three boys out to the

force after the kids were grown, she began to consider

hottest spot in town.

the library as a potential employer.

“The library was the center of everything,” Sells

“I remember walking up to one of the reference

says of the Carol Stream Public Library, in a close-knit

librarians and asking, ‘What do you have to do to

suburb just west of Chicago. “There was always some-

become a librarian?’ ” says Sells, who went on to

thing going on—it was a hub—you ran into everybody

earn an MLS at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

at the library. I remember thinking, ‘This is pretty

Champaign. “I thought it would be exciting to be in

cool: there are a lot of exciting things happening here.’

that world, to see what I could contribute as part of a

“I like what a library can be in the community,” she

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library.”

says. “It can be many things to many different people.”

Today, Sells is the manager of collections and

After all, the library had been many things to her:

technology at Tampa-Hillsborough County Public

a place to indulge an early love of reading alongside

Library—responsible for coordinating its collection

her sisters and brother growing up in Cleveland; a

management process, including acquisitions, and inte-

gateway to greater understanding as a college student

grating new technologies for the system’s 27 branches

(and eventual English major) in Massachusetts; and a

(and two associated libraries) fanning out around

vibrant resource for her young family, with storytime,

Tampa Bay on Florida’s Gulf Coast. By prioritizing

author events, book discussions, and community

technology and innovation, education, culture and

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leisure, and community engagement, Tampa-Hills-

statewide young readers initiative are announced each

borough County Public Library continues to thrive:

year, for example, they can clear out the old and bring

In 2018, the system received nearly 4 million visits

in the new.

and circulated more than 11.8 million items. In 2019,

“With Lease Books we have that flexibility of push-

it won the Florida Library Association’s Library of the

ing in some new things, experimenting, giving them

Year award.

some new life without committing home to materials

“The focus for our library is to remove barriers to access,” Sells says. “Our primary business is customer

that may not serve and will have to be weeded,” Sells says.

service. Obviously, with the collection, the priority in

And to expand Hillsborough County residents’

terms of access is being able to get those materials into

chances to check out e-materials, Tampa-Hillsbor-

the hands of the customer as quickly as possible. Try

ough County Public Library recently invested in a

to eliminate as much friction as possible, do whatever

Pop Up Library from Baker & Taylor. The plug-in

you have to do, to make it easier for the customer to

devices, which function as hotspots and don’t require

get what they need.”

additional staff to operate, allow patrons’ immediate

Ensuring a high volume of quality materials

access to the system’s wealth of e-books wherever they

that continue to circulate is just one of the reasons

travel. Sells says they plan to equip one of two book-

Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library partners

mobile vans, known as Library2Go, with the device,

with Baker & Taylor, a Charlotte, North Carolina–

bringing service to senior living facilities and commu-

based distributor of books and entertainment. With

nity centers.

high-powered collection-building tools such as col-

“We want to remove the barriers to access, but,

lectionHQ and ESP (Evidence-Based Selection Plan-

whatever we do, it needs to be sustainable,” Sells says.

ning), librarians can find the right collection to serve

“You don’t want to jump [into a new technology] and

diverse branches ranging from urban centers to rural

then you’ve got to get rid of it because you couldn’t

outposts.

handle it.

“Roughly 80% of our circulation comes from what’s

“Baker & Taylor help us with working toward

sitting on the shelf,” Sells says, “which means it’s very

achieving those priorities in the areas of education,

important that we have what they’re looking for when

culture and leisure, and community engagement,”

they come looking for it. If you don’t put the right

she says. “They’re responsive—they listen to our con-

material in the right community, it can sit on that

cerns—they’re very good about training. They make

shelf and die. Between collectionHQ and ESP, we’re

good suggestions for improvements we could make,

trying to be more intentional about where we place

but they’re not heavy-handed or forceful. They’re

items the first time, to give them a chance at life.”

helpful.”

They also use Lease Books, a program that allows libraries to temporarily increase their supply of popular titles, with the ability to return them when patron demand subsides. When the titles for a Florida |

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young adult THE NEW DAVID ESPINOZA

This title earned the Kirkus Star:

Aceves, Fred HarperTeen (336 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-06-248988-3

MISS YOU LOVE YOU HATE YOU BYE by Abby Sher......................192

An intense look at male body dysmorphia from the author of The Closest I’ve Come (2017).

David Espinoza has always been tormented for his skinny physique, but when the high school bully slaps him in the locker room and catches it on camera, the video becomes a viral meme in his Florida town. The Mexican American teen decides to join a gym and build enough muscle over the summer to lay to rest the incessant teasing. There, he meets bodybuilders who influence him to take steroids in order to speed up the results. With graphic detail, Aceves presents the psychological, physical, and emotional effects of muscle dysmorphia. David’s relationships fall apart—with his family, friends, girlfriend—and the author, who also experienced this disorder in his youth, authentically delineates the ramifications of this illness, which is more prevalent than many believe. After a shocking climax, David finally comes to grips with his addiction, perhaps a little too quickly, but readers won’t mind the not-so-pat resolution. Frank discussions about the sexual lives and drug use of adolescents add authenticity to the story, and the expletive-laden prose makes this more appropriate for older teens. Toxic masculinity, which is cringingly part and parcel of the testosterone-filled world that Aceves portrays, is threaded through the narrative in a contextualized way.

David’s friends are mostly Latinx—he has a Puerto Rican girlfriend and a Dominican best friend Searing and thoughtful. (author’s note, resources) (Realistic fiction. 14-adult) MISS YOU LOVE YOU HATE YOU BYE

Sher, Abby Farrar, Straus and Giroux (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-374-30701-1

CHILDREN OF VIRTUE AND VENGEANCE

Adeyemi, Tomi Henry Holt (416 pp.) $19.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-250-17099-6 Series: Legacy of Orisha, 2

In this follow-up to Children of Blood and Bone (2018), Zélie and company are back, and the future of Orïsha hangs in the balance.

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YES NO MAYBE SO

Albertalli, Becky & Saeed, Aisha Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (448 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-06-293704-9 Two 17-year-olds from the northern suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, work together on a campaign for a progressive state senate candidate in an unlikely love story.

Co-authors Albertalli (Leah on the Offbeat, 2018, etc.) and Saeed (Bilal Cooks Daal, 2019, etc.) present Jamie Goldberg, a white Ashkenazi Jewish boy who suffers from being “painfully bad at anything girl-related,” and Maya Rehman, a Pakistani American Muslim girl struggling with her parents’ sudden separation. Former childhood best friends, they find themselves volunteered as a team by their mothers during a Ramadan “campaign iftar.” One canvassing adventure at a time, they grow closer despite Maya’s no-dating policy. Chapters alternate between Maya’s and Jamie’s first-person voices. The endearing, if somewhat clichéd, teens sweetly connect over similarities like divorced parents, and their activism will resonate with many.

Jamie is sensitive, clumsy, and insecure; Maya is determined, sassy, a dash spoiled, and she swears freely. The novel covers timeless themes of teen activism and love-conquers-all along with election highs and lows, messy divorces, teen angst, bat mitzvah stress, social media gaffes, right-wing haters, friendship drama, and cultural misunderstandings, but the explicit advocacy at times interferes with an immersive reading experience and the text often feels repetitious. Maya’s mother is hijabi, and while Maya advocates against a hijab ban, she chooses not to wear hijab and actively wrestles with what it means to be an observant Muslim.

Best leave it at maybe so. (Romance. 14-18) |

SOLSTICE A Tropical Horror Comedy

Alison, Lorence Imprint (288 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-250-21989-3

Eighteen-year-old Adri spends her days bouncing between school and working at her family’s diner.

Her Peruvian immigrant parents have sacrificed to send her to one of Atlanta’s top private schools, so the pressure is on to do well.

Meanwhile, the Solstice Festival is going to be the music festival of the century: The lush Caribbean island setting and hobnobbing with the 1% while listening to hit acts justify the $10,000 price tag. Out of the blue, Adri’s BFF announces big news: Elena’s father has bought tickets for both the girls to attend Solstice. There is just one hurdle—Adri’s parents. They refuse permission, but she goes anyway and texts them from the plane.

After that it all starts to go downhill. Myla Island is beautiful but has no cell reception, the promised limos are not there to take them to the venue, and when they do arrive, nothing is ready— no tents, only one food truck, and forget toilets. But all that fades away once the first dead body shows up. Part teen drama, part horror story, this is a delightful novel that readers will want to finish in one sitting. The quirky, campy tone along with offpage violence that is never gratuitous or grotesque make it an appealing choice for younger teens and reluctant readers. Adri’s observations of socio-economic differences between entitled festival-goers and Myla locals add depth.

Perfect for anyone looking for humor with a side of death. (Horror. 13-18)

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Zélie, now a maji Reaper, has achieved her goal and brought magic back to Orïsha, but at great cost. Grief and loss are strong themes throughout the book, compounded by guilt for Zélie, who feels responsible for her father’s death. Zélie and her older brother, Tzain, try to help Princess Amari ascend the throne, believing her family dead—but Queen Nehanda, Amari’s mother, is very much alive and more formidable than they could imagine. The trio join the Iyika, a band of rebel maji working to protect their persecuted people from threats new and old.

Though the characters’ trauma reads as real and understandable, their decisions don’t always feel sensible or logical, often stemming from a lack of communication or forethought, which may leave readers frustrated. Though still commendable for its detailed worldbuilding, with an ending compelling enough to keep fans interested in the next installment, much of the book feels like navigating minefields of characters’ ill-advised decisions. All characters are black except for a secondary character with silky black hair, tan skin, and gray eyes “like teardrops.”

Second installments in trilogies sometimes slump— here’s hoping the third book is a return to the vibrancy of the first. (Fantasy. 14-18)

RED HOOD

Arnold, Elana K. Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (368 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-06-274235-3 Sixteen-year-old Bisou Martel’s life takes a profound turn after encountering an aggressive wolf.

Following an embarrassing incident between Bisou and her boyfriend, James, after the homecoming dance, a humiliated Bisou runs into the Pacific Northwest woods. There, she kills a giant wolf who viciously attacks her, upending the quiet life she’s lived with her Mémé, a poet, since her mother’s violent death. The next day it’s revealed that her classmate Tucker— who drunkenly came on to her at the dance—was found dead in the woods with wounds identical to the ones Bisou inflicted on the wolf. When she rescues Keisha, an outspoken journalist for the school paper, from a similar wolf attack, Bisou gains an ally, and her Mémé reveals her bloody and brave legacy, which is inextricably tied to the moon and her menstrual cycle. Bisou

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Begs for a sequel. the sound of stars

needs her new powers in the coming days, as more wolves lie in wait. Arnold (Damsel, 2018, etc.) uses an intriguing blend of magic realism, lyrical prose, and imagery that evokes intimate physical and emotional aspects of young womanhood. Bisou’s loving relationship with gentle, kind James contrasts with the frank exploration of male entitlement and the disturbing incel phenomenon. Bisou and Mémé seem to be white, Keisha is cued as black, James has light-brown skin and black eyes, and there is diversity in the supporting cast.

A timely and unabashedly feminist twist on a classic fairy tale. (Fantasy. 14-18)

THE DYSASTERS

Cast, P.C. & Cast, Kristin Illus. by Bifulco, Antonio Wednesday Books (128 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-250-26877-8 Series: Dysasters, 1 Teens discover they have elemental powers and are being hunted by their creator.

Foster Stewart has been on the run with her adoptive mother, Cora, for the last year, ever since Cora sold her supposedly deceased husband’s clinic. While attending a high school football game, she has a run-in with Tate “Nighthawk” Taylor, one of the players, only to find out he’s the reason they are in Missouri. Tate has always been special as the star quarterback in a small town—but his ability to see in the dark doesn’t hurt.

Just before taking the field, a tornado hits, leaving the teens alone and on the run from the Core Four, the original, genetically modified group designed to control the elements in the fight against climate change. Now at a safe house set up by Cora, they are tasked with finding six other teens with elemental powers before Dr. Rick Stewart and the Core Four can get to them.

The Casts, a mother-and-daughter writing team (Forgotten, 2019, etc.), craft a page-turning superhero origin story with a touch of romance. Bifulco’s (Three Sisters, 2018, etc.) black-and-white illustrations are expressive and intense, giving depth to each character’s emotions, although when elements are being manipulated the background is difficult to distinguish. Foster and Tate are white, and there is some diversity in secondary characters.

A good thriller for fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Fantastic Four. (Graphic science fiction. 14-adult)

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TURTLE UNDER ICE

del Rosario, Juleah Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (272 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-5344-4295-5 Two sisters struggle to overcome the loss of their mother.

Rowena is a star soccer player with an abundance of friends. Her older sister, Ariana, is quiet, has no talents or hobbies, and pushed away her only friend. At risk of not graduating high school and feeling like a failure, Ariana leaves in the middle of the night without telling anyone. When Row wakes up and finds her sister missing, she feels unmoored.

Seeking comfort, Row invites her best friend over but is instead forced to face her feelings head-on, including opening up about the fresh misery of her stepmother’s miscarriage. Meanwhile, on a bus heading to the city, Ariana must also confront her inner demons when she runs into her former friend. With a sea of sadness separating them, the sisters must find a way to overcome their own pain and open their eyes to each other’s suffering.

Told candidly in first-person free verse poems narrated by each sister, this story of siblings navigating the world without their mother is quiet and poignant. Use of plainspoken language to illustrate the intricacies of sisterhood and explore the depths of mourning makes this accessible for reluctant readers. Row and Ariana’s father and stepmother are Filipino; their late mother is cued as Chamorro.

A moving story about sisterhood, family, and overcoming the insurmountable mountain that is grief. (Verse novel.

12-18)

THE SOUND OF STARS

Dow, Alechia Inkyard Press (400 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-335-91155-1

A human teen and an alien invader make an unlikely and potentially dangerous connection.

When the spaceships came to Earth, there was confusion and then conflict— large numbers of humans died and the Ilori took over. Seventeen-year-old Ellie Baker managed to hold onto a trove of forbidden books, but her mother is falling into alcoholism and her father receives injections that make him an obedient Ilori servant. Lending books from her secret library makes Ellie feel less helpless even though she risks death for her transgression. Morris (or M0Rr1S) is a labmade, created to appear human and part of a unit sent to Earth to prepare for the true Ilori, who are susceptible to the Earth’s pollution.

Although his father is a high-ranking true Ilori, disdainful of feelings, Morris harbors a secret love of human music. He uses his knowledge of Ellie’s secret library to convince her to collect

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music for him, and their bond deepens when he saves Ellie from execution. The two set out on a harrowing cross-country escape while Morris plots to thwart his father. There is much to enjoy in this story featuring a complex black teen: Ellie is bright, resourceful, and coping with issues with body image and anxiety. Morris and his family are intriguing. The depiction of the world has many similarities to today’s society, and the overlay of speculative aspects fits seamlessly.

A promising debut that begs for a sequel. (Science fiction.

12-18)

THE WICKED EDGE

Elizabeth, Nicole West 44 Books (200 pp.) $19.95 | Dec. 1, 2019 978-1-5383-8256-1

A 10th grade girl searches for belonging.

From day one, as the “only white kid” at Smoholla Indian School on the Colville Reservation where she now lives, Helen White hears the laughter and feels the stares from her Native classmates. To survive the bullying, Helen pulls “further and further away,” trying to make herself invisible. Soon, Helen meets King BigElk, a “top / of the food chain” senior known “for being / wild.” Driven by a desire to belong, Helen casts off her “good girl” persona in an attempt to impress him. Though she gains acceptance, her decisions threaten to cross a dangerous line. While the character motivation and plot feel appropriately revealed within the free verse

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A skillful balancing act between high-stakes adventure, bloody fantasy, and character development. all the stars and teeth

format, Native readers and those familiar with Native cultures will notice what reads like a checklist for writing a reservation story, whether it’s moving into mom’s boyfriend’s “trailer,” spreading “sage and sweetgrass” smoke “with an eagle feather,” HUD housing, a mother in rehab, an absentee father, eighteen money, or hard-drinking, pot-smoking, late-night parties.

Other readers may not recognize as harmful stereotypes the litany of tropes portrayed. Additionally, by centering Helen as the “outsider” and describing her as a “minority” who sees herself as a “target” or feels she has “stopped existing,” Native characters become a supporting cast for serving the white character on her journey to self-awareness.

A novel for reluctant readers that perpetuates egregious and damaging stereotypes. (Verse novel. 14-18)

THE SEVENTH SUN

Forbes, Lani Blackstone (352 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-9825-4609-0 Series: Age of the Seventh Sun Series, 1 Mesoamerican mythology gets a long overdue epic fantasy treatment.

Prince Ahkin is immersed in interpreting concerning signs among the stars when he receives the tragic news of his father’s passing. With his untimely death, the mantle of leadership for the Chicome people falls to Ahkin.

In order to ascend the throne, Ahkin must choose a wife from among the royal daughters who, like him, are descended from the gods. Each has been blessed with unique abilities through the blood of their ancestors, but the first to catch his eye is the tempestuous Mayana. Descended from the goddess of water, Atlacoya, Mayana’s compassion and courage are quickly apparent. As she falls for the young prince however, her empathic heart leads her to question the blood sacrifice on which the religious traditions and future of the empire hinge. Can she lead a people whose traditions she cannot agree with? Though debut author Forbes uses Aztec mythology as her inspiration, she takes poetic license with the actual history and geography of the Aztec empire, downplaying the role of human sacrifice and including locations and deities not found in the original Aztec tradition. In the vein of Percy Jackson, take these wanderings from the source material with a grain of salt and simply enjoy the captivating story.

A page-turning adventure that, though imperfect, highlights a rich and relatively unknown mythological heritage that begs to be explored. (map, author’s note) (Fantasy.

13-18)

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THE OPPOSITE OF FALLING APART

Good, Micah Wattpad Books (352 pp.) $17.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-989365-06-9 Two teens must face their fears to save their relationship.

After losing his left leg in a car accident, Jonas wants a fresh start in college, away from pitying looks and his mom’s protectiveness. But he can’t bear to talk about his leg, and driving triggers post-traumatic flashbacks. Brennan knows about panic; she’d rather be writing than exposing her severe anxiety to college’s unpredictability. The teens’ paths collide, sparking a prickly friendship, but as their intimacy deepens, their insecurities threaten to drive them apart. Much of the tension unfolds in the protagonists’ heads; the author meticulously describes their respective struggles as they learn to trust themselves and each other. Their gradual romance is touching, albeit predictable. The emotional toll of Jonas’ disability and trauma on his family—particularly his older brother, who was driving—is believable, as is Brennan’s dad’s insensitivity toward her anxiety.

Unfortunately, copious and often extraneous exposition bogs down the pacing and dilutes the emotional impact. Though Brennan’s ambivalent, inconsistent use of anti-anxiety medication is a realistic plot point, its lack of resolution is frustrating.

The book situates whiteness as the default; Jonas’ mother is described simply as half Vietnamese—the family’s background otherwise is not specified—and her portrayal lacks nuance.

Brennan appears to be white; and Brennan’s college roommate from India has an Urdu given name and Sikh or Punjabi surname, a circumstance which is not explained.

A realistic, but wordy, portrayal of coping with anxiety and trauma. (Romance. 14-18)

ALL THE STARS AND TEETH

Grace, Adalyn Imprint (384 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-30778-1

A princess embarks on a dangerous path to the throne.

In the island kingdom of Visidia, where each person is allowed just one type of magic, only the members of the royal Montara family have the ability to wield the dangerous soul magic. Princess Amora is next in line to be High Animancer, but she must first prove to her people that she is powerful enough to use her magic to protect them. But something goes terribly wrong during a critical public ceremony, and Amora runs away with dashing pirate Bastian, whose rescue comes with a price: She must help him recover his own magic, stolen away by a dangerous man leading a growing rebellion

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that could bring down the whole kingdom. Debut author Grace wields her own magic with a skillful balancing act between highstakes adventure (here there be monsters, mermaids, and highseas shenanigans), bloody fantasy, and character development in a story with a lovable found family at its core. Amora yearns for adventure just as she welcomes her right to command her kingdom; her ferocious sense of duty and legitimate need to do good shine through. The novel’s further unravelling of dark secrets long kept comes with a recognized need for accountability and making amends which adds a thoughtful extra layer to the rich worldbuilding. Amora has copper-brown skin and dark, curly hair; other characters have a range of skin tones in this diverse world.

An accomplished, exciting debut. (guide to the kingdom) (Fantasy. 14-adult)

A LOVE HATE THING

Hattemer, Kate Knopf (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-9848-4912-0

A determined high school senior takes on her elite prep school’s patriarchal traditions.

In Hattemer’s (Here Comes Trouble, 2018, etc.) spirited coming-of-age story, senior Jemima Kincaid is ready to be through with high school.

Just seven weeks from graduation, the self-assured narrator has had it with the decades’ old sexist conventions of Chawton, her Northern Virginia private school, whose history is steeped in “Old White Dudes running shit.” As one of the class leaders, Jemima is expected not only to partake in Chawton’s historic end-of-year celebrations like prom and Powderpuff—the all-female flag football contest—but help plan and perpetuate

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Grandison, Whitney D. Inkyard Press (448 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-335-01604-1

THE FEMINIST AGENDA OF JEMIMA KINCAID

A teen from a rough neighborhood is taken in by a wealthy family and falls for their daughter.

Six months ago, 17-year-old Trice’s abusive father shot him, killed his mother, and then committed suicide. Trice was left in the care of his grandfather, but when he dies, his former employers, the Smith family, became Trice’s legal guardians.

Trice moves from Lindenwood, where he was secretly involved in a car theft ring, to the affluent Pacific Hills, getting a fresh start. Although Trice and the Smiths’ popular teen daughter, Nandy, used to be childhood playmates, when he moves in she’s rude because she thinks he is going to ruin her summer. They spend the summer fighting, although their mutual attraction is almost immediate. Debut author Grandison returns to the emotional fallout from the death of Trice’s family and his new beginning ad nauseum, testing the patience of readers. Fans of the TV show The O.C. and author Simone Elkeles’ Perfect Chemistry trilogy will recognize both the characters and plot.

Nandy and Trice are black, and while there is a multicultural cast of supporting characters, including Nandy’s brother who was adopted from Thailand, they are not well developed and their issues feel generic. The final drama that brings Trice back to Lindenwood is hard to believe, but the wrap-up is exactly what readers will want.

Familiar bad boy–meets–good girl—but it’s complicated—romance. (Fiction. 14-18)

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them. Nerdy, sassy, and passionate in her beliefs, Jemima is also conscious about being (like many of her peers) straight, white, and wealthy. A catalyst for Jemima’s growth is her best friend, working-class scholarship student Jiyoon Kim; her honesty heightens Jemima’s awareness around race, privilege, and internalized misogyny. Jemima also learns from her gay older brother, who describes his journey in overcoming internalized homophobia. When Jemima’s best-laid plans to rock Chawton’s patriarchal boat get hilariously shipwrecked, she’s forced to reckon in a thoughtful, incredibly compelling way with the consequences of acting on one’s convictions. Unfortunately, Jiyoon, who is described generically as Asian American, is a two-dimensional prop for Jemima’s character arc; references to her Asian identity lack emotional resonance and cultural texture.

Introspective in its exploration of budding sexuality and ethics; marred only by missteps in representations of diversity. (Fiction. 14-18)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE BEES GONE? Pollinators in Crisis

Hirsch, Rebecca E. Twenty-First Century/Lerner (104 pp.) $37.32 PLB | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-5415-3463-6 This slim volume details what scientists know about the long history and potential future of an important pollinator.

Hirsch (Garfield’s Almost-as-Great-asDoughnuts Guide to Math, 2019, etc.) opens the book with a narrative about Robbin Thorp, an entomologist who, in the 1990s, began monitoring habitats in Oregon and California for the nowvanished Franklin’s bumblebee. From this specific, vivid scene, the text zooms out: Chapter 2 discusses how bees likely evolved, and Chapter 3 lists other pollinators and describes several kinds of pollination. The remaining chapters cover topics including the physical structure of bees, the pesticides that kill them, and some efforts being made to ensure bees’ survival. The book ends on a hopeful note, with suggestions for things readers can do to help bees. Chapters are illustrated with color photographs and diagrams, and some include sidebars or entire pages’ worth of inserts about things like assisted reproduction. Details about scientists’ work will intrigue some readers, but the episodic stories become a bit difficult to track toward the end. Hirsch’s main point—that bees are pollinators who deserve our respect and protection for their role in growing the food we eat and feed to domestic animals—is woven throughout the text.

Accessible and concise, this volume teaches an important topic responsibly without being dry. (author’s note, glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, further information, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 12-16)

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THE BETWEEN

Hofmeyr, David Delacorte (416 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-0-385-74475-1 A young woman traverses a spacetime continuum to rescue her best friend and secure the future of seven worlds.

When Ana Moon and Bea Gold get into a fight that lands their school bully in the hospital, the two are forbidden to see each other. Ignoring their parents, the London teens meet on the Tube, where they are distracted from their conversation by the appearance of a stranger; handsome Malik Habib can’t keep his eyes off Ana. Suddenly the train crashes, time freezes, and Ana watches her best friend get snatched away by rotten-smelling, winged creatures called Reapers. Then everything starts spinning, Ana falls, and suddenly she is on a quest through the seven earths that make up Hofmeyr’s (Stone Rider, 2015) multiverse: Lūna, Bahram, Hermes, Jöve, Venetia, Kronos, and her own Earth, Sol. She is joined by Malik, Vidhan Blue, and Akuji Na, all of whom are Pathfinders, world-jumping guardians of hidden gateways from one world to the next, like her. An amalgam of various dystopian tropes, the exciting, fast-paced, though sometimes confusing action sequences fill in where the plot and language are a bit stale and dated (Akuji’s androgynous appearance leaves Ana surprised that she should be referred to as “she”). Ana is white, Bea is Jewish and white, and there is diversity throughout the cast.

Serviceable and fun, a basic dystopian novel that delivers action but no original punch. (Dystopian adventure. 14-18)

BREAK THE FALL

Iacopelli, Jennifer Razorbill/Penguin (336 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-593-11417-9 A gymnast’s road to the Olympics is complicated when her demanding coach becomes embroiled in a ripped-fromthe-headlines scandal.

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Lee is thrilled to make the U.S. gymnastics team alongside her best friend, Emma. Pain from a back injury is a constant threat, but Audrey isn’t about to let it derail her shot at Olympic gold in Tokyo. When her coach is arrested and accused of sexually assaulting Audrey’s teammate Dani, Audrey is surprised and dismayed that not everyone on the team believes Dani’s story. With Tokyo on the horizon, the fractured team must come together if they want to deliver a big win.

Audrey has also caught the eye of handsome snowboard champion Leo Adams, but there’s no time (well, maybe a little time) for romance. Readers looking for in depth #MeToo commentary won’t find it: While still compelling, the storyline provides

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References to fake news and a divisive government make this particularly timely. banned book club

more of a background for the nuts and bolts of competitive gymnastics, expertly capturing the excitement and pressure of being part of a high-level sports team as well as the mental and physical sacrifices. The dynamics between the teammates, while angst-y, feel mostly realistic, and the importance of women and girls supporting one another is emphasized. Audrey is biracial (her father is white, and her mother was adopted from Korea), Leo is biracial (black/white), Dani is Mexican American, and there is additional diversity in the supporting cast.

An uplifting quest for Olympic victory. (Fiction. 12-18)

BANNED BOOK CLUB

Kim, Hyun Sook & Estrada, Ryan Illus. by Ko, Hyung-Ju Iron Circus Comics (192 pp.) $15.00 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-945820-42-7 In 1983 South Korea, Kim was learning to navigate university and student political activism.

The daughter of modest restaurant owners, Kim was apolitical—she just wanted to make her parents proud and be worthy of her tuition expenses. Following an administrator’s advice to avoid trouble and pursue extracurriculars, she joined a folk dance team where she met a fellow student who invited her into a banned book club. Kim was fearful at first, but her thirst for knowledge soon won out. As she learned the truth of her country’s oppressive fascist political environment, Kim became closer to the other book club members while the authorities grew increasingly

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desperate to identify and punish student dissidents. The kinetic manhwa drawing style skillfully captures the personal and political history of this eye-opening memoir. The disturbing elements of political corruption and loss of human rights are lightened by moving depictions of sweet, funny moments between friends as well as deft political maneuvering by Kim herself when she was eventually questioned by authorities. The art and dialogue complement each other as they express the tension that Kim and her friends felt as they tried to balance school, family, and romance with surviving in a dangerous political environment. References to fake news and a divisive government make this particularly timely; the only thing missing is a list for further reading.

A tribute to young people’s resistance in the face of oppression. (Graphic memoir. 16-adult)

BENT HEAVENS

Kraus, Daniel Henry Holt (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-250-15167-4 Can Liv put the pieces of her life back together after her father’s mental breakdown?

In rural Bloughton, Iowa, Liv takes solace in the cross country team and the idea that she will be off to college before too long. Three years ago, her father, the high school’s former English and drama teacher, vanished only to return naked and talking about alien abduction. He disappeared for good eight months later. Liv and her friend Doug check the elaborate traps her father built in the woods during those eight months every Sunday. The teacher who replaced him decides to stage the same musical that was her father’s swan song, and after getting in trouble for an outburst over her insensitivity, Liv decides to destroy the traps…but discovers that one has caught an alien.

After hiding the horrifying creature in her father’s shed, they discover it has her father’s compass. In anger, Liv attacks the beast and then she and Doug torture it repeatedly as revenge for her missing father…but the alien is not what they perceive him to be, and as the truth is revealed, the horror mounts.

Kraus’ (Blood Sugar, 2019, etc.) newest horror fantasy (there is no science here) might inspire more anger than horror as the protagonists respond to otherness with violence. Outrage will likely be followed by laughter at the stagy, manipulative, overthe-top conclusion. Most characters seem to be white.

Few chills and even less logic. (Horror. 16-adult)

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THE UPSIDE OF FALLING

Light, Alex HarperTeen (288 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-06-291805-5

High school seniors do the fake dating thing.

Brett Wells has always been focused on football. Brainy Becca Hart’s faith in love was destroyed by her parents’ divorce. The two have little in common other than being pestered by their friends and families about the lack of a special someone in their lives. They embark upon a “fake relationship,” but, predictably, it gives way to a real one.

Debut author Light sprinkles in just enough charm and goodnatured romance as the narrative bounces between Brett’s and Becca’s perspectives to keep readers engaged but not overwhelmed by twee sentiment. Becca is a much better developed character than Brett (handsome yet doofy, he has the complexity of a golden retriever), and her chapters are the novel’s highlights. Brett’s whole deal is a bigger pill to swallow, but readers who go with it will find a pleasant story. The novel is a syrupy ode to what it feels like to slowly fall for someone for the first time, and that mood is captured effectively. Becca and Brett have chemistry that feels completely natural, but sadly there are some late-in-the-game plot mechanics that feel forced. Fortunately, the author seems as uninterested in these disruptions as readers will be: Things are resolved quickly, and the novel ends on a high note. Whiteness is situated as the norm; main characters are white.

A successful romantic enterprise. (Romance. 12-16)

OF CURSES AND KISSES

Menon, Sandhya Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-5344-1754-0 Rajkumari Jaya Rao has one goal during her time at St. Rosetta’s International Academy: to take revenge by breaking the heart of English aristocrat Grey Emerson.

Indian princesses Jaya Rao and her sister, Isha, begin their senior and sophomore years, respectively, at St. Rosetta’s near Aspen, Colorado, a school that has a reputation for well-kept secrets. The Emersons and Raos have had a feud for generations over a ruby that once belonged to the Raos and was stolen by the Emersons in the days of British colonialism. Now Jaya has discovered that the Emersons have dragged her little sister into the feud, and she will not rest until she has gotten her revenge. On a mission to break Grey’s heart, Jaya finds to her surprise that there is more to him than she thought. Grey, on the other hand, has lived as a recluse thanks to Jaya’s great-great-grandmother’s curse that makes his family

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Will inspire artists and nonartists alike. heroic women of the art world

fear he will die at age 18. Seeing Jaya at St. Rosetta’s wearing a shining ruby pendant fills him with terror. The story is told from the perspectives of both Jaya and Grey. Readers will empathize with both of them, although their long internal monologues may cause their attention to waver at times. Grey is white, and there is diversity among the secondary characters.

A lukewarm retelling of “Beauty and the Beast.” (map) (Romance. 12-16)

HEART OF FLAMES

Pau Preto, Nicki Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (640 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-5344-2465-4 Series: Crown of Feathers, 2

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As war threatens on the horizon, Phoenix Rider Veronyka fights to control her magic and learn the truth about her identity in this second installment of Pau Preto’s (Crown of Feathers, 2019) fantasy series.

Power hungry Lord Rolan sends soldiers into Pyra to provoke the Phoenix Riders into battle and force the Golden Empire’s Grand Council into declaring war. Now reunited with her phoenix and no longer in disguise, Veronyka hopes to prove herself a Master Rider and join the action. In the midst of her training, Veronyka strains to control her shadow magic, a secret power that gives her a mental link to Val, the reincarnation of the ruthless Ashfire queen. Shutting down her magic is the only way Veronyka knows to protect herself, but opening her mind may be the path to learning about her past. Slow-burning romance simmers between two pairings, one of which is a samegender relationship between two boys. Historical documents between chapters expand on the world and create suspenseful foreshadowing. However, the continued cisnormativity throughout the book detracts from the otherwise high quality of the prose, deeply developed world, page-turning plot, and thrilling, cliffhanger ending. Veronyka has golden-brown skin, and Rolan is white.

A fiery sequel that yearns for more. (Fantasy. 12-18)

profile begins with a dramatic moment in the artist’s life: meeting a queen, narrowly escaping the guillotine, surviving sexual assault by a teacher, and attending the 1939 New York World’s Fair. The role of this seminal experience in the artist’s life is then explained as the lens widens to describe the artist’s family life, training, style, and impact on the art world. The artists’ personal and professional lives are seamlessly entwined, and the personal fortitude of each woman is evident in the details of her story. Images of the artist and her work are included as well.

While not everyone covered here triumphed during their lifetime—Augusta Savage stopped making art and lived in poverty, for example—their contributions to the world of art and culture and their examples as daring, passionate creatives are fascinating. The artists portrayed are diverse in ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, and their chosen media.

Well-chosen and well-told, these artists’ stories will inspire artists and nonartists alike. (bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

HEROIC WOMEN OF THE ART WORLD

Pool, Eugene H. Tumblehome Learning (272 pp.) $22.95 | Jan. 20, 2020 978-1-943431-53-3

An art historian profiles women artists who overcame adversity in order to achieve professional success.

Some of the most accomplished women in the art world of the past five centuries faced difficulties, great and small, in the pursuit of their crafts. Despite their hardships, the women profiled in this book used their talents and left their marks. Each |

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Articulate, insightful, and funny. miss you love you hate you bye

THEODOSIA BURR Teen Eyewitness to the Founding of the New Nation

Quinones, Karen Cherro Twenty-First Century/Lerner (104 pp.) $37.32 PLB | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-5415-4275-4

The life and times of Theodosia Burr (1783-1812), daughter of Aaron Burr, third vice president of the United States, best known today from the hit musical Hamilton.

In presenting the story of Burr, the author uses correspondence and memoirs of contemporaries to provide a portal to the past. Readers learn that Theodosia had an unusual childhood. Her father believed in Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist theories; Theodosia studied a curriculum equal to that of boys.

As an upper-class girl from a prominent New York family, she had opportunities to meet and mingle with men who became household names in the early history of the U.S. Details about Theodosia’s upbringing, education, and activities are interspersed with information providing additional historical context. The writing is crisp, clear, and engaging. Full-color illustrations add visual appeal. The book does not delve much into issues of racial or ethnic diversity; there is a brief note about the Lenape, and the book notes that although Burr married a Southerner and lived on a plantation, there is no record of her thoughts on slavery. Although she died young under tragic and mysterious circumstances, Burr’s prominence as an educated, modern woman made her a role model for her time.

Interesting and accessible way to learn about early U.S. history through a remarkable young woman’s life. (timeline, glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, further information, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 13-18)

MISS YOU LOVE YOU HATE YOU BYE

Sher, Abby Farrar, Straus and Giroux (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-374-30701-1

The quiet half of two best friends grapples with growing apart in the wake of her BFF’s eating disorder.

Hank (Hannah) is dedicated to the electric glow of Zoe, her firecracker bestie. Where Zoe has star quality (and the resume to prove it), Hank is a dedicated audience. It’s a symbiotic relationship that gives Zoe the comfort of constant adoration (perfect for a social media junkie) and Hank constant backstage access (great for a girl with “mud-brown hair” and a one-friend focus). The loyalty devolves to something less healthy when Zoe’s eating disorder goes unchecked by fully aware Hank. But when a hero has shortcomings, speaking up doesn’t happen as easily as trying to avoid a betrayal. Told from Hank’s articulate, insightful, 192

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and pretty funny perspective, the chapters are punctuated by journal entries from Zoe (brief, chuckleworthy musings on recovery and double-crosses written from rehab). Both girls have tricky home lives (Hank is nervous her mom’s boyfriend will dissolve everyone’s memory of her dead dad; Zoe’s cheating father is divorcing her mother, who is more interested in Pilates and lamenting lost youth than parenting). Though Hank doesn’t see herself as captivating as Zoe, she doesn’t delve into pitiful self-deprecation (she knows she’s smart, loyal, and a talented musician)—a narrative choice that makes her eventual confrontation of Zoe believable. All main characters are white; Hank and her mother are Ashkenazi Jews.

Here’s how to speak up even if it hurts. (Fiction. 14-18)

WE, THE WILDFLOWERS

Simmons, L.B. Spencer Hill Press (391 pp.) $12.95 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-63392-111-5

When life becomes unbearable, four teens turn to one another for support in this emotional drama.

Unloved by her wealthy parents, depressed teen Chloe Campbell decides to take her own life. The suicide attempt is unsuccessful but does result in placement at the branch of Sacred Heart group homes reserved for teens dealing with trauma. There, she connects deeply with the other three residents who are similarly unwanted, uncared for, and misunderstood, and they quickly dub themselves the Wildflowers as a nod to their persistence and capacity for growth. The adolescents encourage each other to work through their pain and overcome struggles with frequent inspirational lectures. A will-they-won’t-they romance blossoms against all odds but is tested when the Wildflowers experience a devastating loss. The resulting turmoil brings new opportunities for trauma into the mix, and the teens face their most difficult season yet. Shining a light on mental health issues and structural abuse is important, but readers are left to puzzle over unanswered questions. The dialogue is wooden and peppered with curse words in a futile attempt to make the characters sound more authentically like teenagers. The Wildflowers are assumed white; one of them is gay and was rejected by his homophobic parents.

A strong message of hope in the face of adversity is overshadowed by stilted prose and a contrived plot. (letter to the reader) (Fiction. 14-18)

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INK IN THE BLOOD

Smejkal, Kim HMH Books (448 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-328-55705-6 Series: Ink in the Blood, 1

THE BLOSSOM AND THE FIREFLY

Smith, Sherri L. Putnam (320 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-5247-3790-0

Hope and affection bloom between a schoolgirl and a pilot in this bittersweet narrative set in Japan during the final months of World War II. Fifteen-year-old Hana is a member of a youth war group that tends to the tokkō, or special attack pilots, stationed at the Chiran Army Air Force Base. The girls do the pilots’ laundry, serve them meals, and line the runway to send them off on their deadly flights. Since nearly being buried alive during an air raid, Hana moves through each day as though already claimed by death—until one afternoon when she hears the sound of a violin for the first time. Seventeen-year-old Taro is a tokkō committed to defending his country at the cost of his own life, but he cannot abandon his love of music and takes comfort in practicing his instrument. Despite the traumas of war and the demands of duty, a chance encounter between |

REBELWING

Tang, Andrea Razorbill/Penguin (368 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-9848-3509-3 Series: Rebelwing, 1 On the brink of dystopia, a girl and a mechanical dragon help defend democracy in an alternate future Washington, D.C. Sassy prep schooler Prudence Wu smuggles banned media into Incorporated territory in order to supplement her meager scholarship. Though there are warnings of wyverns, war machines used during the Partition Wars, Pru cons her way past Barricade walls during a job and ends up on the run. A chance encounter with a frightening beast leads to her waking in her dorm with a blacked-out memory and a dragon mech imprinted on her mind. In anime-like fashion, with the help of her well-connected best friend and highly placed allies, Pru reluctantly agrees to pilot the dragon Rebelwing. The author deftly flies between levity and heartbreak, cracking jokes and inserting astute historical and political commentary into a setting where survivors of wars past struggle with fears for the future. Interludes featuring student chat boards and newsfeeds offer a fuller picture of events, however sometimes they are jarring, especially when they appear in the middle of action scenes. This will appeal to fans of mecha anime; young, fumbling romance; and stories about superintelligent teens trying the save the world. Prudence is ethnically Chinese, and the diverse supporting cast includes Korean, Latinx, and queer characters.

An exciting adventure. (Science fiction. 13-17)

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A strong debut that blends dark fantasy, ink magic, and theater.

When Celia was first chosen to be an inkling for the revered religion of Profeta, her mothers were delighted to give away their child to become a servant to the Divine. Using ink magic and tattoos to spread the Divine’s will to followers should have been an honor, but Celia and her best friend, Anya, soon learn that lies and torture are at the core of the corrupted religion.

Ten years later Celia and Anya manage to escape the temple and join the Rabble Mob, a traveling theater troupe. But their happiness and freedom are curtailed when the Divine herself catches up with them, upending everything they thought they knew. Celia will do anything to keep Anya and her new friends safe. The novel examines faith and the power of propaganda in a somewhat convoluted plot that finds its footing toward the end. With a focus on its central platonic female friendship, it also features a well-developed and genuinely touching found family, a slow-burning romance, and the climax to a tragic tale of vengeance that is a thousand years in the making. Celia and Anya are white within a racially diverse world. Every character has a tenor, a visible aura that reflects their chosen, individual gender identity.

The promising first in a duology with inspiring friendships and original worldbuilding. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)

the two leads to a connection that tethers them to each other.

Smith’s (Pasadena, 2016, etc.) thorough research is evident in the details that immerse readers in Hana’s and Taro’s lives. Their stories unfold at a measured pace; short chapters build readers’ anticipation and keep the pages turning. Romanized Japanese words are used throughout the text, grounding the novel in its setting.

A pensive depiction of young love and endurance amid wartime uncertainty. (map, author’s note, glossary, selected bibliography) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

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THE LAST CONFESSION OF AUTUMN CASTERLY

Tate, Meredith Putnam (368 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-9848-1349-7

When Autumn Casterly disappears, only her younger sister, Ivy, believes something is wrong.

Everybody knows Autumn is a bad girl, a drug dealer who often spends the night away. So when Autumn doesn’t come home one day after a drug deal gone wrong, no one bats an eye apart from Ivy. With the help of her close-knit group of friends, the Nerd Herd Club, Ivy starts to search—eventually unveiling the truth behind her sister’s deceptively strong facade. What Ivy doesn’t know is that the clock is ticking, and while Autumn’s body lies broken and hostage, her spirit has been trying to communicate with Ivy. The narrative alternates between Autumn’s violent story and Ivy’s determined search in a story about two sisters that blends the mundane with the supernatural. The ill effects of rape culture and the systemic lack of support for survivors are deftly explored, but the novel’s impact is ultimately marred by a contrived resolution. The fractured tonal shift between Autumn’s and Ivy’s narratives is an interesting, if jarring, choice (it’s hard to care about Ivy’s sweet but silly love triangle when readers know Autumn could soon be dead). The two main characters are white, and the novel has well-developed nonwhite and LGBTQIA characters. Ivy is fat and confident in her size; the fat-shaming she faces at school is addressed head-on.

A thoughtful if flawed thriller. (Thriller. 14-18)

NIGHT SPINNER

Thorley, Addie Page Street (400 pp.) $18.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-62414-888-0 A disgraced warrior fights to restore her sense of self amid war and intrigue in this tightly wound, laser-focused epic.

In Thorley’s (An Affair of Poisons, 2019) immersive sophomore effort, the Ashkar Empire is imperiled, and 18-yearold Enebish, eponymous Night Spinner and sympathetic narrator, isn’t sure where she stands. Wielding the powers of darkness and starfire, Enebish was part of an elite corps drawing its strength from elemental forces until she allegedly massacred innocents. Mutilated and stripped of her abilities, she’s been training eagles at a monastery alongside Serik, her irreverent, magic-barren friend/love interest, ever since. Meanwhile, a generations-long conflict with rival Zemya intensifies as internal rebels rescue criminals and pilfer supplies. Desperate for assistance, Imperial Army Commander Ghoa offers her adoptive sister a shot at redemption, tasking Enebish with capturing 194

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rebel leader Temujin. As she grows disenchanted with Ashkar’s self-deified Sky King and Ghoa, Enebish sympathizes with the rebels; soon enough, events force her to reconsider all her loyalties. Thorley’s strength lies at the intersection of worldbuilding and plotting, melding familiar tropes—geographically-defined peoples, gods old and new, a chosen-one narrative—with a gyre of duplicity and scheming that alternatively meets and subverts expectations. Characters hail from different fantasy locales but register as white.

Satisfies as a stand-alone and leaves fans of fantasy, mystery, and thrillers clamoring for more. (Fantasy. 14-18)

THIS TRAIN IS BEING HELD

Williams, Ismée Amulet/Abrams (304 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-4197-3493-9

A little-more-than-a-year in the life.

Isa and Alex have a pretty typical meet-cute: Alex holds the door open for her on the subway so the train won’t leave without her—which is good, because she has a very important dance audition to get to. Alex, meanwhile, has regular baseball practices not just with his team, but with his demanding father, who played for the Yankees for a year and a half before a drug addiction set him back. They represent two very different New Yorks: Isa’s welloff family is downsizing after her financier father lost his job and is also trying to keep her mother’s and older brother’s mental illnesses from tearing the family apart. Alex attends public school in Washington Heights and splits his time between his divorced parents; his mother works in a nursing home. What Alex’s parents and friends don’t know is that he’s a poet. Soon he’s writing poems for Isa and leaving them on the train car where at first they just keep happening to run into each other before they eventually meet on purpose, away from their parents and clashing friend groups. Blonde Isa is half Cuban and half white American; Alex is Dominican. Code-switching and bilingualism are realistically placed in dialogue throughout the text, without italics to disrupt the reader’s flow. Anxieties over mental health, socio-economics, and police and gang violence effectively complicate and deepen the narrative.

Heartfelt and meaty. (Realistic fiction. 13-18)

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continuing series

SENSATIONAL

Zdrok, Jodie Lynn Tor Teen (336 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-7653-9971-7 Series: Spectacle-Zdrok, 2

DAUGHTER OF CHAOS

THE SKY WEAVER

Ciccarelli, Kristen HarperTeen (400 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-0-06-256804-5 Series: Iskari, 3 (Fantasy. 13-18)

THE GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO GETTING LUCKY

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Eighteen-year-old Nathalie Baudin must once again use her unusual powers to unmask a killer in Zdrok’s follow-up to 2019’s Spectacle.

It’s 1889, two years since Nathalie, a morgue reporter for Le Petit Journal, learned that she could envision the last moments of a murder victim’s life by touching either the viewing pane in front of the body or the body itself. These powers resulted from blood transfusions by a controversial doctor, and the “gifts” conferred are different for each person, or Insightful. Nathalie’s gift is gruesome, but she enjoys working for police liaison Christophe as an Insightful adviser to help solve murder cases. Outside of work, Nathalie loves exploring the world showcases of the Exposition Universelle with her beau, Jules, also an Insightful, and her best friend, Simone, and her young man, Louis. When they stumble upon a severed head on a pedestal, they soon realize it’s only the beginning for a killer with a flair for the dramatic. The mystery takes a back seat to Nathalie’s personal growth as she struggles with her gift—which has its drawbacks—properly mourns for a friend, and weathers her institutionalized aunt’s decline. All main characters are white, but diversity can be found at the Exposition Universelle. The mystery is thin, but readers will enjoy exploring fin de siècle Paris with Nathalie and her spirited friends while they attempt to suss out a vicious killer.

An entertaining duology closer. (Paranormal historical thriller. 15-18)

Brennan, Sarah Rees Scholastic (368 pp.) $9.99 | Dec. 26, 2019 978-1-338-32606-2 Series: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, 2 (Fantasy. 14-18)

Lee, Mackenzi Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (128 pp.) $14.99 | Nov. 6, 2019 978-0-06-296716-9 Series: Montague Siblings, 1.5 (Romance. 14-18)

THE MAPLE MURDERS

Ostow, Micol Scholastic (304 pp.) $9.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-338-55262-1 Series: Riverdale, 3 (Fiction. 12-18)

THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS

Riggs, Ransom Dutton Books for Young Readers (336 pp.) $22.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-0-7352-3150-4 Series: Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children, 5 (Horror/fantasy. 12-14)

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indie STARMAN’S SAGA The Long, Strange Journey of Leif the Lucky

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: MS. NEVER by Colin Dodds............................................................. 200

Alexander, Colin Self (353 pp.) $3.99 e-book | Nov. 20, 2019

A WOUNDED DEER LEAPS HIGHEST by C.P. Mangel...................205 WHAT WE TAKE FOR TRUTH by Deborah Nedelman.................... 206

An American on humanity’s first voyage to another star system discovers peril, romance, and considerable mayhem on the contentious project.

It’s 2069 in Alexander’s (My Life, 2019, etc.) SF novel, and Leif Grettison is a Florida-based veteran who survived “the Troubles,” a Russian-Sino–United States war that scarred the mid-21st century. Now he’s a brainy graduate student with a girlfriend and an EMT job, neither valuing him very highly.

Leif impulsively enters a high-profile lottery to select a civilian to go into hibernation for dozens of years at a time on the “starshot,” humanity’s first deep-space exploratory voyage (via a ramjet craft) to another, presumably habitable system, not returning home for nearly 30 years. To his surprise, Leif is told he is the winner—after a front-runner drops out. Leif is disturbed to find that the carefully selected 33-person multinational crew includes bellicose Russians and haughty Chinese still holding childish grudges. In fact, the entire project is largely propaganda, a NASA/International Space Commission gambit to make the world’s superpowers cooperate and expend their energies on a work of pure science rather than trying to kill one another over influence and territory. Leif realizes his own windfall as a token Everyman onboard was no random selection but a calculated move to place a former American soldier amid the team of squabbling, nationalistic scientists in case trouble develops. And trouble sure does. This maiden-voyage setup is a recognizable one, and it’s no secret from the start that Leif will find romance with the bunkmate who despises him the most: a laser-eyed, razor-cheekboned female Chinese pilot (who actually flew against his squad in combat).

Still, the author skillfully steers the story. Alexander creates a good number of memorable jeopardy-in-space situations requiring steady nerves and know-how, and he evokes a nicely thought-out alien environment. The author even takes the story past the point where other writers might have pulled the curtain to ruminate on human society’s arbitrary evolutions and political-correctness pettiness (“snowflake” is a term used often here) and how being in suspended animation for long intervals doesn’t help. An opening prologue casting the tale as some sort of neo-Icelandic saga (paying tribute to Leif’s Nordic heritage), written in archaic language, is cute but, unlike the other rich material here, doesn’t really pay off.

A vigorous, intelligent reworking of familiar SF elements, featuring an American veteran who makes a long, international space voyage survivable.

BLOOD FIRE VAPOR SMOKE by Shann Ray...................................207

MS. NEVER

Dodds, Colin Dodds Amalgamated (402 pp.) $26.00 | $18.18 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-9721805-9-7 978-1-69078-814-0 paper 196

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WORDS NO BARS CAN HOLD Literacy Learning in Prison

released, are still human beings capable of moral redemption: She shows readers this through their writing. Moreover, the author makes a convincing case for the power of stories, not just to entertain and distract, but also to reimagine the writers’ very selves and supply the sources for inspiration that sometimes life itself refuses.

An affecting meditation on the ability of literature to empower inmates who are too often dismissively diminished by society.

Appleman, Deborah W. W. Norton & Company (160 pp.) $23.95 | $23.95 e-book | Jun. 18, 2019 978-0-393-71367-1

A literature teacher recounts her considerable experience instructing high-security prisoners and argues for a rehabilitation program that includes the liberating effect of creative writing.

Despite “incontrovertible evidence” that access to education can significantly reduce criminal recidivism, Appleman (co-author: Teaching Literature to Adolescents, 3rd Edition, 2016, etc.) concedes that convincing the public that convicts should be treated to what many regard as a forfeited privilege is a “tough sell.” Nevertheless, this is precisely the position she passionately—and inspiringly—defends. While most of the limited education provided for prisoners is vocational in nature, the author contends that an introduction to literature—in particular, the exercise of creative writing—can transform an inmate’s life. She avers that the “pedagogy of creative writing, with its emphasis on identity construction and narration, seems to provide opportunities for self-reflection as well as powerful clues to where the life courses of these incarcerated students might have been altered.” Appleman thoughtfully discusses her own experience teaching creative writing at a high-security correctional facility and poignantly relates not only the successes she witnessed, but also the limitations of an “environment that is not conducive to learning.” She includes profiles of some of her “incarcerated learners” as well as exemplary excerpts of their writing. Finally, she furnishes a bracingly honest reflection on the “school-to-prison pipeline,” what she considers “one of the most urgent educational issues of our time.” She discusses the possibility that a well-guided encounter with literature and writing could open up new ways of thinking—and ultimately choosing—for disadvantaged youngsters trapped in a grim cycle of self-destruction.

Appleman’s meditation is stirringly hopeful but not naively idealistic: She never denies the “brutal realities of the carceral state and the complexity of the population of those who live behind bars.” She also astutely explores the fundamental inhospitableness of prison to creative learning. A penitentiary is dehumanizing and despotic while education is humanizing and emancipating. Still, her argument is a ringing testament to the “transformative power of literacy” and the extent to which education can provide a “kind of oasis, or a glass bubble that floats fragilely in this sea of indignity.” The author writes not only lucidly, but also with great elegance and power. Her position is based on her profound experience as an instructor and a lover of literature—she has taught 150 incarcerated men. The writing samples she provides are simply extraordinary, not only because of their philosophical and poetical quality, but also because of the insights the writers demonstrate into their lamentable plights. Appleman does more than argue that these men, many of whom have committed heinous crimes and will never be

THE THIRD SYZYGY

Apseloff, Stanford Illus. by Cheval, Michael Ohio Distinctive Publishing (216 pp.) $28.95 | $2.99 e-book | Oct. 31, 2019 978-1-936772-22-3

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In this YA fantasy adventure, a girl’s visit to an art museum takes her into a magical land where she’s at the center of an ancient prophecy and mission.

Laney, a high schooler, is at the art museum doing research when she slips into a closed gallery to see an exhibition of surreal paintings by real-life artist (and the book’s illustrator) Michael Cheval. She begins to feel dizzy, the absurdist images spinning, when someone shouts “Get out!” Stumbling through the emergency exit, Laney finds herself lost in another world, a snowy forest. She eventually ends up in a cottage, where a woman greets her: “I am Shaka, the Guardian of Tarzetta Trail, the heir of the arrows, the dreamer of dreams.” Laney’s arrival has been prophesied, it seems; she is the foretold “Sorceress from the West.” Evil has come to Shaka’s land in the form of poisonous black fogs and marauding wolves. It’s Laney’s destiny to restore peace by journeying to a clearing in the West Woods in time for the syzygy, or solar eclipse, “the magical time when anything is possible!”

Shaka accompanies Laney, giving her some magical gifts to help the quest. Along their journey, the party meets friends and foes, encountering dangers and setbacks. Laney also learns more about how the black fogs arose from “greed and folly” and how to harness her powers, facing tests in Shaka’s world—and her own. Apseloff (Michael Cheval’s Magic, 2019, etc.) offers a heroine who’s initially apathetic but is challenged by circumstances to find inner qualities of courage, determination, and faith in destiny. The odyssey is varied nicely by side adventures, such as escaping a deadly ravine and crossing an ice-bound river. Linking the fantasy quest to a frightening and all-too-plausible, realworld situation is a smart move, deepening the resolution. The author has a good ear for fantasy diction, which helps create an appropriate sense of otherness for Shaka’s land. The attractive, accomplished black-and-white illustrations are well integrated with the storytelling, with Cheval’s (Michael Cheval’s Magic, 2019, etc.) lovely crosshatching and draftsmanship lending reality to the surreal.

A fine example of the quest story, beautifully illustrated.

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WE WERE GAY MEN IN THE FEMINIST REVOLUTION Articles, Pamphlets & Reflections on My Gay Activist Days in San Francisco, 1969-1972

NO NAPTIME FOR JANIE! A Hanukkah Tale Blumberg, Margie Illus. by Andriani, Renée MB Publishing (56 pp.) $12.95 paper | $6.99 e-book Sep. 12, 2017 978-0-9908430-6-1

Benton, Nicholas F. BCI Books (200 pp.) $15.00 paper | $6.99 e-book Sep. 7, 2019 978-1-64633-310-3

When a little girl can’t sleep at nap time, her grandmother teaches her to bake a pie for Hanukkah in this illustrated children’s book.

Janie, a red-haired white girl, just isn’t drowsy when it’s time for her to take a nap. Luckily, her grandmother is happy to put down her knitting: “I’m thrilled you’re awake! / We can bake a surprise— / A Hanukkah treat / For your tummy and eyes.”

Step by step, Janie’s grandmother shows her how to mix dough, line a pan, peel and cut apples, “stir in raisins,” “spread the filling,” and so forth. But where is the jam? After they look everywhere—likely and unlikely places—the jam is found. Helping to set the table and clean up the mess, Janie is finally ready for her nap. Later, the whole family celebrates the holiday (“Hanukkah, Hanukkah, / We love you. / Latkes, dreidels— / Lots to do! / Make a pie and / Sing a song… / Hanukkah, Hanukkah / Eight days long!”). Included are a glossary for Yiddish and Hebrew terms; instructions for playing dreidel and lighting the menorah; two Hanukkah songs; and an apple pie recipe. Blumberg (Bunny Romero’s White House Adventure, 2018, etc.) writes amusing rhyming couplets and quatrains in this warmhearted story.

With so much to enjoy, no wonder Janie can’t nap. The book does a lovely job of capturing the family fun and holiday spirit of Hanukkah while also teaching traditions. The illustrations

by Andriani (A Gefilte Fishy Tale, 2017, etc.) are very appealing, contributing to the storytelling with their soft tones and nicely realized details, such as a “KVELLING board” pinned with children’s awards, drawings, and writing.

An entertaining kids’ introduction to Hanukkah with attractive images.

Benton (Extraordinary Hearts, 2013) collects his writings from the post-Stonewall, pre–Harvey Milk era of the LGBTQ+ rights movement.

As a young gay man in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1960s, Benton became a passionate activist and writer in the gay rights movement. He published prolifically in such alternative outlets as the Berkeley Barb, the Berkeley Tribe, Gay Sunshine, and his own paper, the Effeminist. In this collection, he reveals how, by 1969, the gay movement had already split into two factions: “one which saw our liberation in the context of wider social currents and causes, and the other which insisted that activism be limited to striving to advance ‘our’ issues, solely.” Benton identified with the former, and the Effeminist sought to bring together the goals of the gay rights and feminist movements.

His topics include the Stonewall riots, Vietnam, racism, sexism, and politics, and there are firsthand accounts of protests, demonstrations, incidents of harassment, and cultural trends and happenings. These pieces provide a record of a specific era in the counterculture and offer valuable perspective for activists in today’s LGBTQ+ and feminist struggles. Benton’s prose is analytical and hard-hitting even when writing about film: “It’s about a male supremacist society where sex is a power trip,” he writes in a 1971 review of the prison-set film Fortune and Men’s Eyes. “It’s about cultural homosexuality, turned into simulated heterosexual acts performed by men on each other due to the physical absence of women. It’s real.” The book is primarily composed of writings from the same period, but more recent pieces that look back on that time are included as well. Benton asserts that he’s been written out of some versions of the era’s history, and there’s a self-promotional quality to the book that isn’t always subtle; one essay, for instance, is titled “4 Things I Am Credited With Helping To Accomplish in That Era.” As a set of primary source documents, however, these essays will give readers a wonderful, provocative look into the Stonewall generation’s political coming-of-age.

A stirringly combative and prescient collection from earlier days of gay journalism.

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THE CENTRAL PARK Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure

Brenwall, Cynthia S. Abrams (236 pp.) $50.00 | $31.10 e-book | Apr. 16, 2019 978-1-4197-3232-4 A stunning collection of architectural drawings that detail the original vision of New York City’s Central Park and offer a history of its evolution.

Central Park is more than just a “pastoral oasis” amid the din and clamor of urban life; it’s also an iconic landmark that’s been immortalized in popular literature and film. Debut author Brenwall, an art historian and conservator for the New York City Municipal Archives, expertly highlights the extraordinary cultural significance of the park, which, she writes, was |

Burton effortlessly weaves sweeping emotion and fine detail into compact sentences. far away bird

first imagined by two “visionaries”: landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing and poet and newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant, the latter of whom argued in 1844 that the densely populated and commercial city needed an “extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation.” The formal plan for the park—a remarkably innovative design collaboratively created

by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1858—called for a bucolic alternative to the “confinement, bustle, and monotonous street-division of the city.” The author rigorously conveys how this idea unfolded and changed as it became a politically bedraggled project that remained incomplete well into the 1930s; at one point, it was nearly abandoned for budgetary reasons, as it was considered an “unnecessary extravagance in a time of crisis.” Brenwall had access to more than 1,500 archival architectural drawings and plans related to the park, and she beautifully reproduces many here as well as gorgeous black-andwhite and color photos. Her thoroughness alone is impressive, as she highlights many design projects, including such famous park features as the Great Lawn and more quotidian ones, like its drainage system. The author relates the park’s development as a grand drama, showing how its successful conclusion was hardly foregone and how it required extraordinary creative genius and civic commitment. Also, her book astutely illustrates the park’s deeper significance—more than a “sylvan vision,” it also represented the democratization of space and stands as our “finest civic architectural tribute to the foundational American principles of equality and opportunity for all,” as architecture critic Martin Filler writes in a foreword. In addition, the book makes for a very handsome coffee-table tome.

A thrilling history of one of the world’s most famous urban parks.

FAR AWAY BIRD

Burton, Douglas A. Silent Music Press (394 pp.) $16.95 paper | Feb. 6, 2020 978-1-73302-210-1

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goes on to fall in love with the Hippodrome and theater life in general. This idyllic existence ends, however, when Magister Origen rapes her, and one night, she slashes him with a knife and flees for home. The magistrate then withdraws financial support for the family, and soon they face dire poverty. Their savior comes in the form of a handsome Roman officer who’s later revealed to be an important figure. He asks 19-year-old Theodora to work for him as a spy to get information from various men in power, by whatever means necessary. However, she later finds that she’s falling deeply in love with her new employer.

Over the course of this novel, Burton offers an elegantly written historical tale in which he effortlessly weaves sweeping emotion and fine detail into compact sentences: “Maximina pulled her daughters in closer, forming a protective embrace.

Theodora saw how the white gowns spilled down like milk upon the dark brown of the track, her mother rising above.” He also smoothly supplies accurate historical details as the story goes on, as when the aforementioned Roman officer gently corrects Theodora regarding the identity and occupation of his powerful adoptive father: “But yes, he’s Count of the Excubitors.” However, the author also sometimes offers occasional moments of physical description that can be a bit off-putting, as when he notes that “Theodora rubbed her teeth against her bottom lip.” British author Stella Duffy’s 2010 novel Theodora, which deals with the same main character, is far more brazen in its depictions of sex scenes than Burton’s is, although some readers will likely prefer the latter’s relatively genteel approach, which mostly veers away from sensationalism and focuses more on characterization. Theodora, in particular, is revealed to be a charming and strong-willed yet emotionally conflicted young woman, and she engagingly endeavors to exert her influence in a male-dominated society. The overall storyline is generally strong and compelling, and the writing is, for the most part, sharp and learned.

A well-researched rags-to-riches tale that’s told with confidence and enthusiasm.

IN THE NICK OF TIME

Burton’s debut historical novel, the first in a series about the Byzantine Empress Theodora, charts her journey from destitution to the throne.

The novel opens in Constantinople in the year 512. A rebellion is brewing in the city, and 14-year-old Theodora, along with her sister, Comito, is searching for their father, a bear-keeper named Acacius. The following morning, the siblings tragically discover that he has been killed in the unrest. Magister Origen, a local judge, suggests that their mother, Maximina, marry Samuel, a candidate for the bearkeeper post, in order to keep the profession in her family. Maximina agrees to this course of action, but she puts her foot down when the magistrate also recommends that both of her daughters be sent to dance school, where they’ll learn how to entertain men as actresses—and as courtesans. Despite her mother’s protests, Theodora agrees to attend the school, declaring that she wants to be “on stage for all to see. Someone beautiful and important.” Theodora

Cummings, Deedee Illus. by Mosley, Charlene Lulu Publishing Services $18.95 paper 978-1-951218-20-1

In this picture book from the team of Cummings and Mosley (This Is Earth, 2019), a boy accidentally receives a letter for Santa and discovers the real Christmas spirit.

Nick Saint, a boy with brown skin and a flattop haircut, is mostly interested in playing video games. He’s frustrated when the postal carrier mistakenly delivers a letter addressed to Santa rather than his new video game. But the letter begins to show Nick a new world. One of his classmates, Cooper, has lost his home, and he asks Santa for a new job for his mother and a truck for his brother. Nick realizes that he has so much more than others: “Never did it cross Nick’s mind that every child in his school did not have a home or even, video games to play.” |

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He tries to find a way to help Cooper, and although the solution comes a bit too easily, Nick’s transformation from a child concerned with material things to a kid who wants to help others rings true. Cummings’ heavy use of untagged dialogue may leave some readers puzzled, but the interactions between Nick and his mom are authentic, and his parents’ support is admirable. Mosley’s textured cartoon illustrations, which feature painterly backgrounds, ground the story beautifully.

This engaging holiday tale gives children—like the protagonist—a chance to investigate their own privilege.

to be a terrific writer of revelry, and he engagingly depicts camaraderie among fellow artists and among low-wage workers—particularly bartenders and kitchen staff. Cash’s capacities for drink and introspection also don’t go unappreciated by others: “You have lived the lives that men lead, quiet desperation, man,” says Carl, a literary magazine editor. “Fucking Thoreau, dude. You’re the mass of men.” In the novel’s final act, the author highlights Cash’s paranoia as he uncovers the true identity of “Suited Man” and begins to piece together another ugly truth about a terrible accident at the racetrack that may not have been an accident after all.

An often endearing book about an ongoing search for meaning.

SHINING MAN

Dills, Todd Livingston Press (327 pp.) $25.95 | $18.95 paper | Dec. 31, 2019 978-1-60489-234-5 978-1-60489-233-8 paper

MS. NEVER

Dodds, Colin Dodds Amalgamated (402 pp.) $26.00 | $18.18 paper | Nov. 1, 2019 978-0-9721805-9-7 978-1-69078-814-0 paper

In Dills’ (Triumph of the Ape, 2013, etc.) novel, a man wonders about the meaning of life while investigating his father’s disappearance.

In a prologue, Cash has just quit his job in the pit crew of Turner Bascombe, a famous, South Carolina– born automobile racer: “Reconsideration of life in the circuit…just wasn’t an option after all that had happened,” Cash thinks, and the novel looks back to when he was a fry cook at Henry’s Bar & Grill in North Carolina. One day, he received a vague phone message from a co-worker that his father, Ralph, was dead. He couldn’t believe it, and when he was unable to independently confirm the report, he packed up and drove to Chicago. At his father’s apartment, he found stacks of boxes and a cryptic note: “Son! In these boxes may you locate your ultimate salvation—or you might find nothing at all! Just a bunch of orange vests!” Cash decided to cut the vests into pieces and stitch the reflective bits into a suit. He puts it on and roams the streets, becoming known as “Shining Man”—performance artist and traffic scourge. Soon, a photographer takes pictures of him that end up in a local art gallery. Cash doesn’t find his missing father, but a second cryptic note from a mysterious figure (“Suited Man”) sends him to Birmingham, Alabama. There, he meets Turner Bascombe, who’s speeding down an interstate. He offers Cash a spot on his crew, so he moves to Charlotte, North Carolina, where interpersonal drama threatens to tear the team apart.

Although the central mystery of Cash’s father’s disappearance results in an unsatisfactory payoff, it ably serves its purpose as a narrative engine, turning the novel into an enjoyable picaresque as Cash undertakes an interstate adventure. The protagonist is meditative and eloquent but also a little dopey at times; at one point, he ruminates on his reflective suit in a manner that may have readers scratching their heads: “ ’twas a quest for light that, ultimately, given the task’s clear physicality, its mindful mindlessness, blinded me to the possibility of knowledge, of candor, truth.” Cash styles himself a modern-day Henry David Thoreau, but he likes beer more than he does inquiry into life’s true essence. Indeed, his musings often feel like the nonsensical near profundities of a pickled philosopher—but this isn’t always a bad thing. Dills shows himself 200

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In Dodds’ (Watershed, 2017, etc.) novel, an office worker with supernatural powers begins a relationship with a telecommunications tycoon whose dark, metaphysical secret is equally startling.

Farya Navurian lived on a version of Earth in which the glorious Greater Majestic Anointed Commonwealth of Ohio spanned a continent and her famous astronaut father was a deep-space ambassador. However, it didn’t last because Farya has a mysterious, apocalyptic ability: If she lets her attention wander and daydreams, tracts of reality simply diminish and dissolve, as if they’d never happened. Formerly large cities, such as Camden, New York, are suddenly unremarkable towns, and Ohio becomes a mundane Rust Belt state.

During these paradigm shifts, millions of people vanish; only a handful (notably, Farya’s surprisingly easygoing best pal, Ethan) retain memories of incredible, lost cultures and loved ones.

Guilt-ridden Farya winds up a downtrodden Jersey City office worker. Meanwhile, wealthy Metacom boss Bryan Lomoigne faces a dilemma. He wittily included a fine-print clause in his company’s cellphone contracts that grants Metacom “NonMortal Element Rights” from anyone signing up for their cheap gadgets; in other words, his customers sell their souls to him.

Some buy them back at heavy cost, but it’s basically a side hustle for Bryan, who’s the son of a deceased, dissolute rock star who fathered a large number of children. Faced with middle age and a failing marriage, Bryan wants to sell his business and devote himself to buying back his father’s song catalog. But Metacom has unusual business partners who have alarming methods of enforcing their will. When Bryan and Farya meet at a record swap—Thelonious Monk tunes help her maintain her equilibrium—they embark on a relationship despite the considerable paranormal baggage they both try to keep out of sight.

Dodds offers a transfixing, fantastic narrative that first seems like two separate, weird tales. It’s a fabulist, careening plot that’s reminiscent of the late-career, anything-goes fiction |

Glass tells an exciting story of brave deeds and the transformation of a government. rough ride to runnymede

of Kurt Vonnegut (such as 1997’s Timequake). The author executes the story with exacting, direct prose and characters who live and breathe in the mind even as their own realities seem built on shifting ground. He keeps the tale moving forward with sublime aplomb even though, at numerous points, the material could have easily gone off the rails. The vanished, fondly recalled Greater Majestic Anointed Commonwealth of Ohio, for example, is only sparingly hinted at; it wasn’t a paradise, but it certainly made for an interesting home address. Although that particular bit of business might serve as a nice metaphor for the mindsets of imaginative SF/fantasy readers who long to escape dreary daily reality, this is too broad and rich a work to pigeonhole as a collection of inside jokes. Instead, it shows great psychological and philosophical nuance, ruminating on relationships, family, commerce, art, sacrifice—and reading the fine print of company terms and conditions. Overall, readers will find it to be an exceptional work.

Existential dread takes on new meaning in a fantastical tale of shifting realities, second-chance romance, and unwanted business partners.

that they appeal mainly to “brand advertisers who care more about retweets and shares than they do about profitable customer generation.” As the strategies get more complicated, Donohoe skillfully clarifies his terms so that even beginners will be able to read along.

An in-depth and winningly frank marketing manual.

ROUGH RIDE TO RUNNYMEDE On a Quest To Stop a Bully

Glass, Cat Westbow Press (254 pp.) $35.95 | $19.95 paper | $3.99 e-book Aug. 29, 2019 978-1-973671-32-9 978-1-973671-31-2 paper

THE CEO’S DIGITAL MARKETING PLAYBOOK

Donohoe, Thomas J. Koehler Books (250 pp.) $34.95 | $17.95 paper | Nov. 15, 2019 978-1-63393-952-3 978-1-63393-950-9 paper A comprehensive guide to the intricacies of online marketing.

In his nonfiction debut, consultant Donohoe lays out a “battle plan” for businesses to take advantage of digital and direct marketing. Although this plan gets rather complex as it goes on, its goal is simple and straightforward: “Marketing is about turning people into customers—new customers or, even better, repeat ones,” the author says. His “playbook” revolves around a quartet of basic approaches (“The Core Four”) that businesses can employ immediately—beginning with “Tradename search engine advertising on Google and Bing”—and eight more techniques (“The Advanced Eight”) that may be used once one’s initial digital-marketing strategy has put the company on firmer ground, including “Advanced display advertising using a DSP: Demographic and Psychographic ‘up-funnel’ Programmatic.” Donohoe’s tone is one of controlled outrage when he talks about how few companies feel confident in their digital-marketing schemes; many CEOs, he maintains, are stuck in marketing’s past (“the internet is real,” he sardonically points out at one point). In fast-paced, insightful chapters, he takes readers on a thorough tour of standard digital sites and tools that businesses may use for marketing purposes, including search engines Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, social media sites, and music-streaming services. At all times, his manner is that of a no-nonsense insider. For example, he’s brutally honest in his opinions of Pinterest, Twitter, Pandora, and Spotify, asserting |

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In this debut middle-grade historical novel, a boy works to bring Magna Carta to reality in 13th-century England.

At harvest time in 1214, Taymor “Tay” Wallop, 14, is in a tough position. He’s inherited Swan Castle from his father, but the greedy King John is demanding an unaffordable inheritance tax and commandeering the stronghold’s harvest and farm animals. When Tay protests the unfairness of this, John gives him an out: get rid of the archbishop of Canterbury, who has offended the monarch by telling the country’s earls that the king must obey the law. As the brown son of a Syrian mother, Tay has already experienced discrimination, and fairness matters greatly to him. But if he doesn’t obey, the king will kill his father’s man at arms, Will, and Tay will lose Swan Castle. Early on his journey, Tay meets Archer, about 19, a talented bowman with a secret who’s been led by a dream to help the teen. Tay is impressed by the archbishop’s saintliness and can’t bear to kill him. Instead, the archbishop inspires Tay to embark on a mission to persuade the earls to support a new charter of fair play.

Soon joined by Lucy, 12, who’s running from a forced marriage, Tay and Archer travel the country, hoping against hope to succeed. Though beset by dangers, Tay’s faith brings him—and the country’s leaders—to Runnymede for the historic sealing of Magna Carta. Useful information on history, places, and people plus a glossary are included. In her novel, Glass tells an exciting story of brave deeds and the transformation of a government, backed up by historical and cultural details that bring this long-ago world to life. The characters are well drawn, and it’s especially nice to see a person of color in a time period too often imagined as solely white. While Tay’s experience is bolstered by prayer, nonreligious readers can still respond to the universal appeal of fairness and cheer for those who risked all to bring it about.

An engaging, compelling tale whose relatable young hero’s adventures link to a nation’s destiny.

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MEAL AND A SPIEL How To Be a Badass in the Kitchen

PARADOX Volume 1

Incognito Self (234 pp.) $14.44 paper | $4.99 e-book Apr. 26, 2019 978-1-79297-781-7

Horwich, Elana Olive Press (480 pp.) $49.95 | Dec. 7, 2018 978-0-692-13044-5

Complex Italian cuisine gets translated into a down-to-earth idiom in this

A debut volume of philosophical poetry wrestles with age-old questions—Who am I? What is real? What does it all mean?

The author of this book is somewhat of a paradox himself. On the final pages of his verse volume, Incognito writes that “i am simply sharing my thoughts that i enjoy, / for you to as well.” But this comes hot on the heels of a much more ambitious claim—“i do not want to create a new religion for you. / the point is to destroy your religions.” It’s rare to see such humility and such grandiosity couched so closely together, but perhaps that’s part of the point: The author—who goes by a pseudonym—isn’t here to comfort readers. Rather, he is here to strip away their illusions.

Iris Murdoch once said that we live in “a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.” Incognito is ready and willing to help with that task. Sometimes he does so in what amount to free verse poems. For example, “God’s Trip” opens with, “you never know you’re dreaming until you wake up. / maybe you’re locked in dreams of dreams / and reality is what you want it to be. / it’s only when you wake up that you realize / you wasted a dream by thinking it was real.” The repetition here is artful, and one of the tenets of the poet’s faith is that dreams give way to dreams that ultimately give way to reality. Elsewhere, Incognito dispenses with longer forms in favor of koanlike epigrams.

Here is one: “i found myself asking more questions without any answers / but the things we can’t explain eventually bring clarity.” That such obscurity might indeed eventually yield “clarity” is one of the author’s main hopes. Whether it ever does in this bold and provocative volume is likely up to readers. Incognito piles mystery upon mystery here, and some may be exasperated by the sheer number of unanswered questions. But perhaps answers are forthcoming because, as the poet notes on the book’s last page, Volume 2 will be out soon.

Daring poetry that isn’t afraid to think big.

tangy cookbook.

Horwich (7 Days of California Healthy Recipes, 2017), a professional chef and cooking instructor, spent five years in Italy soaking up regional cooking styles. Here, she presents a soup-to-nuts set of recipes in which she describes how to cook them and why to eat them. She includes detailed instructions on basics, such as ingredients (extra-virgin olive oil and canned tomatoes are essential), proper kitchen equipment, and cooking methods—from elementary procedures (“If you can throw whole vegetables into a pot, cover them with water, and then go take a nap for a couple of hours, you can make broth”) to complicated roasting and slow-cooking techniques. The mysteries of Italian cuisine are probed in depth, including the secrets of cooking pasta al dente as well as the secrets of eating it: “Bring the fork to your face, stick it in your mouth, pull out the fork and inhale the low-hanging strands of pasta into your mouth without making any noise.” She also covers principles of menu planning—don’t overdo the carbs, she says, and avoid mixing seafood with meat and dairy. There are about 100 recipes, ranging from simple salads and bread appetizers to roast lamb extravaganzas that include a day of prep work; other selections include traditional pasta, meat, and fish entrees and vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, and paleo fare. There are a few unusual leaps, such as “Lemony Quinoa Salad” and a latke recipe that nods to the author’s Jewish American background. The sumptuous, full-page color photographs of finished dishes are truly a feast for the eyes.

Horwich’s recipes and directions are lucid and easy to follow, and they offer beginners the chance to make sophisticated dishes. They’re also a treat to read, infused with a touch of whimsy (including a relaxed attitude toward measurements), much witty commentary—“my only defense against [some vegans’] moral superiority is childish ridicule”—and background lore and descriptions that have considerable literary flair, as when she observes that “the fig, like a woman, must be prepared delicately and served with the intention to awaken the sublime and the sensual.” But Horwich also writes about the emotional and even spiritual aspects of food, as when she urges readers to “Feel the grains of salt on your skin” as a way of “honoring the salt before you ask it to flavor your food.” The book is, in part, a love letter to Italy—one with wisps of romance (“This recipe was inspired by Edo, the kind of Italian man that American girls can’t help but fall for”) and plenty of local atmosphere: “Surrounded by the renegade left wing of Rome—artists, intellectuals, communists, laborers, Roman Jews, and ex-pats from all over the world—we ate, smoked, and worked on The New York Times’ crossword puzzle.” Readers will find it an engaging book to browse even before they take it into the kitchen.

A fine cookbook that’s also a funny, tasty evocation of Italian food culture.

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MALIBU BURNING The Real Story Behind LA’s Most Devastating Wildfire

Kerbeck, Robert MWC Press (262 pp.) $35.78 | $16.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Nov. 1, 2019 978-1-73347-053-7 978-1-73347-050-6 paper A writer offers stories of California residents caught in the flames of a deadly wildfire.

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Knight offers an appealing tale featuring humor and kid-savvy dilemmas. finn & botts

(the boy’s nemesis and the studio’s popular star magician). Embarrassed by a hitch in the trick, which requires an escape from chains and locks, and burned by more taunts from Felix, Finn is so upset that he cancels his plan to repeat the stunt at his school’s upcoming talent show. It doesn’t help that Felix manipulates him into playing a prank that earns good student Finn detention for the very first time. In this series entry, Knight (Finn & Botts: Double Trouble at the Museum, 2019, etc.) offers another appealing tale featuring humor and kid-savvy dilemmas. Encounters with class bullies, supportive interactions among Finn and his friends, and responsible adults to turn to as needed are regular components of the author’s plots. Here, a sneaky kid and his sidekicks get their comeuppance, Mr. Labanzo’s encouraging words give Finn the confidence he needs to try his trick again—unexpectedly facilitated by Felix, whose motive is suspect— and a mystery is solved. (Someone has accessed the school computer and changed students’ grades.) Meyers (Ballpark Mysteries 15, 2019, etc.) again captures fun and suspense in his full-page, black-andwhite, gray-toned illustrations of children who just happen to have the snouts and ears of pigs but are otherwise just regular human kids.

One small slip: presumably Knight meant to use the word “devious” rather than “deviant” in describing Felix’s smile.

An entertaining tale with realistic kids whom young readers can relate to and well-integrated, character-building messages.

TEN TALES OF A DARK TOMORROW

Kuhn, Kevin A. Beaver’s Pond Press (224 pp.) $16.95 paper | $1.99 e-book Oct. 31, 2019 978-1-64343-904-4

A collection of short stories explores aliens, strange planets, and grim futuristic worlds.

In his introduction, Kuhn (Do You Realize?, 2017) cites The Twilight Zone as an inspiration for his tales. Much like the classic TV series, the stories here, though primarily SF, cover assorted subgenres, including comedy, horror, and melodrama. “A Drink of Knowledge,” for one, follows three young boys sampling moonshine who are nearby when a meteor crashes to Earth. There may be something inside a meteorite they find, but is it malevolent? A few tales, like the opening “My Little Girl,” are akin to fantasies but also boast SF elements such as parallel universes and time travel. The narratives are generally about control, which often ties in with humans’ potentially bleak future. In “Terror on Pandor-3,” an archaeological crew discovers an ancient artifact that, the group soon learns, has the means to control it. That may be the same thing Alica, the artificial intelligence in “For the Hive,” is doing to humans—presumably to protect them from risks (for example, a black hole). Even aliens try to effect control via the Galactic Empire, which crops up in two of the more indelible stories: “The Case Against Humanity” and “Sally Ann, Queen of the Galaxy.” The Empire in “Case” is deciding

FINN & BOTTS Talent Show Tricks

Knight, Stew Dreamwell Press (106 pp.) $8.99 paper | $5.99 e-book | Jul. 25, 2019 978-1-73360-922-7

Discouraged after a trick goes awry, a kid magician gets the opportunity to wow his peers at the school talent show in this third installment of a chapter book series.

Last seen solving a spooky mystery during an overnight school trip to the local museum, third-grader Finn Fasser—with the help of his best friend, Botts—is eager to show off his new escape trick on the Labanzo Magic Studio stage. After three months of magic lessons with Mr. Labanzo, Finn is nervous but determined to be a success despite taunts from his classmate Felix |

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On Nov. 9, 2018, the Woolsey Fire spread from Simi Valley to Malibu, destroying 100,000 acres of land and forcing 250,000 people to evacuate. What debut author, actor, and longtime resident Kerbeck remembers of that day is “the terror of thinking you’re about to be burned alive in front of your kid.” His book, a collection of tales blending memoir, investigative journalism, and narrative, begins with his own harrowing account of the fire’s rapid descent toward his home. The author then goes on to reconstruct the stories of his neighbors. There are plenty of shocking close calls with “flaming embers”—one standout is the experience of Tanesha Lockhart, who had to “shelter in place” with the youths of a detention center. But Kerbeck also uses the residents’ recollections as a springboard to reach deep into the history of Malibu and the questions of liability surrounding California wildfires. Stars like Bob Dylan and Sean Penn make cameos, but what is more important to the author is the community of Malibu that exists at the edges of its multimilliondollar homes: the Morra family, which struggled, ultimately in vain, to buy a fire engine dedicated to locals; Valerie Sklarevsky, a hippie activist who lived in a covered wagon; and the Gonzalezes, who built their own doomed, wooden home themselves.

Throughout these and the other tales, the author deftly digs into the terror of that day, the deep connections these people felt to the land, and the varying factors that played a role in the Woolsey fire’s rapid development. His ample research allows him to makes surprising connections, linking the fire to the electric provider’s mismanagement and even possibly to nuclear testing in the 1950s while providing a thorough examination of the volunteer and Los Angeles County fire departments. Kerbeck writes about policy and history with the same urgency that he brings to cars engulfed in flames. And he focuses on just the right details—such as a high school production of Spring Awak­ ening and a lost collection of airplane models—to give a robust and very human face to Malibu and the increasingly frequent dangers it faces.

An engrossing, thorough, and revealing portrait of a beloved beachside community confronting disaster.

between admitting Earth to the organization and extinguishing humanity before it destroys itself. In the quirky latter tale, ruler-to-be Sally Ann is currently on Earth as a 12-year-old girl.

But as she’s bright and already popular with the galaxy’s citizens, corrupt individuals in power may want to prevent her impending reign. Kuhn writes in an unadorned style with minimal details, though there are more than enough to spark the imagination. For example, one character in “Teach a Man To Fish” describes planet Rakislav as “where the air’s not breathable, the sky’s always gray, and the most exciting thing you’ll see is the lightning show during a dust storm.” Despite all the fantastic goings-on, characters also grapple with serious, timely issues, including child abuse and racism.

Unpretentious and enthralling tales that feature SF elements.

in Italian and French are likely to frustrate many readers. Nonetheless, there is plenty to like in this rollicking, madcap story: historical details about the rebellious political forces sweeping the continent, vivid depictions of 18th-century styles and prejudices, and a naughty sense of humor.

A delightfully irreverent opera tale that should especially appeal to Mozart fans.

CASTLE OF SHADOWS A Family Saga

Lawton, Anna Trans. by Shugaar, Antony New Academia Publishing/ The Spring (376 pp.) $37.17 | $26.00 paper | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-73304-082-2 978-1-73304-081-5 paper

THE MURDER OF FIGARO A Musical Mystery

The lives of an Italian Piedmontese family are traced across generations in

Larson, Susan Savvy Press (200 pp.) $20.00 paper | $2.99 e-book Aug. 1, 2019 978-1-939113-33-7

this novel.

In the opening to this intricate family history, the firstperson narrator, Antigone, confides that “cameras have always played an important role in the lives of the Ducati family.” The book centers on a family archive, with the narrator describing various photographs and documents, then “filling in the narrative spaces with action and dialogue.” The first photo to be examined is a group portrait taken in 1908 outside the family seat, the castle of Cortalba in Piedmont. The picture depicts the narrator’s great-grandparents Pietro and Olga Ducati along with their daughter Ada, the narrator’s grandmother, and Giulia and Luca, two of their other children. The narrative springs from these characters. It is revealed how Pietro and his brother Leo traveled south to Rome for work and established a biscotti business, after which Pietro married Olga, the daughter of a Genoese ship owner, and bought the castle at auction. The work recounts the stories of numerous other family members, such as Andre, Leo’s son, who moves to Hollywood and establishes himself as a movie director, and Alma, daughter of Ada, who marries Dardo, an actor and direct relative of the pirate Sir Edward Walton. Luca, meanwhile, frequents a brothel and becomes infatuated with a savvy prostitute named Catarì.

Divided into three parts spanning the late 19th and 20th centuries, the novel charts how the family copes with rapid change across Europe, such as the rise of Fascism.

Featuring a cast of 15 principal characters and over 80 others, including a domesticated leopard, this tale has considerable scope that could easily have proved sprawling. Some concentration is required, particularly since a number of the players have similar names; Alma is also known as Mina, for example, and her daughter is called Nina. Yet the way in which the author refers to photos is a clever way of isolating particular stories and characters to limit potential confusion: “In all the photographs Luca is wearing the same stunned expression in his cerulean, lifeless eyes, and a faint smile seeking his audience’s approval: ‘I’m handsome, aren’t I?’ ” These passages, which exemplify Lawton’s (Amy’s Story,

Murder and mayhem threaten to derail the premiere of The Marriage of Figaro in this mystery.

It is April 21, 1786, and the first stage rehearsal of Mozart’s Figaro is about to begin in Vienna’s Court Theater. The opera is based on Beaumarchais’ anti-royalist play written in 1778 and banned but widely read in Vienna. The room vibrates with excitement and more than a little salacious gossip.

The melodramatic cast chatters away while assorted Viennese court luminaries indulge in contemptuous snickering. The composer, nervous but resplendently attired and meticulously coiffed, gives the signal to raise the curtain. A piercing scream rings out as a dangling body descends, entwined in the rigging. Herr von Haegelin, “the Imperial theatrical censor,” has evidently committed suicide—or was he murdered? So begins Larson’s (Sam, 2012) ribald, clever romp, a narrative brimming with lust, rivalry, deception, scandalous liaisons, and palace intrigue. The novel is written in the form of an opera, divided into Overtures, Acts, Scenes, and a concluding Stretto rather than chapters. Mozart’s friend and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, “Court Poet to the Italian theater,” is arrested on trumped-up charges and eventually accused of killing von Haegelin. Mozart is distraught, obsessively concerned with the premiere of his opera on the Viennese stage. He passionately bemoans his fate to his wife, Constanze, saying of Da Ponte: “I need him desperately to do the mise-en-scène and general diva pacification and crowd control! Some devilish plot is being worked to spoil my play!” Together, they strive to uncover the truth behind von Haegelin’s death. It is not necessary to be well versed in opera to enjoy Larson’s scathing portrait of demanding divas, pompous tenors, and an emotionally overwrought, albeit genius, composer. But some familiarity helps. The frequent use of genre-specific terminology and untranslated pieces of dialogue 204

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2017, etc.) keen and elegant descriptive skills, also tantalizingly hint at aspects of each character’s personality, which becomes more evident as the story unfolds. The result is a patchwork of lives that have been painstakingly sewn together. There is also a deep sense of Italian regionality to the tale. The players sip Moscato di Canelli and eat Biscotti Torinesi, both Piedmontese products. Translated from the Italian by Shugaar (The Athenian Woman, 2018, etc.), the narrative occasionally sounds unnatural or ungrammatical to the native English ear. This awkward passage is an example: “It’s not as if there weren’t fraternization among them. There was.” Similarly, candies are described as being “all wrapped individually, with legends written in different colors according to the flavor.” The use of legends is not incorrect, but labels would prove a more natural word choice. Still, this marginally off-key translation detracts little from an elaborate and farreaching tale that makes for compelling reading.

A family saga that boasts ambitious, sophisticated, and controlled storytelling.

HEART TO BEAT A Cardiac Surgeon’s Inspiring Story of Success and Overcoming Adversity― The Heart Way Lima, Brian Clovercroft Publishing (240 pp.) $14.99 paper | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-950892-35-8

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Lima deftly blends a useful guide with an absorbing autobiography; he doesn’t concentrate excessively on either one. The hardships he faced in his own life will likely elicit readers’ sympathies, including losing both parents and his family’s initially seeing his older brother’s schizophrenia as satanic possession. Although clichés at first saturate the book (“in it to win it”; “eyes on the prize”), they gradually subside as the account progresses. The author writes in an easygoing language that doesn’t condescend to readers. He’s instead humble (asserting that his above-average intelligence is not innate but the result of persistent studying) and occasionally self-deprecating (wryly mentioning his “critically acclaimed writing”). As a result, his criticisms of social media and the current culture of “safetyism” don’t come across as contemptuous. For example, he notes that the latter may adversely affect readers’ ambitions if they are too wary of taking risks. Lima playfully incorporates the volume’s main theme of putting your heart into what you do. Chapter titles, for example, typically consist of wordplay (“For the Most Heart, Gravitas is Essential”). He even includes a “handy mnemonic” for recalling the specific points of the subtitle’s “HEART Way” (Hard work; Eager or Entrepreneurial; Aligned; Resolute; Thoughtfulness). There are instances of repetition; despite a chapter on avoiding complacency, Lima repeatedly returns to this notion throughout the book (for example, doing the “bare minimum” or “just enough”). Nevertheless, the work’s short length prevents the reiterations from becoming too conspicuous.

Helpful advice from a keen, assertive, and relatable physician.

A WOUNDED DEER LEAPS HIGHEST

In this debut book, a cardiac surgeon recounts his successful medical career and offers a guide for readers wishing to achieve triumphs in their lives as well.

From the beginning, Lima proclaims his hope to inspire people from “all walks of life,” not simply aspiring doctors. Throughout the book, he details his personal history to reveal how he overcame obstacles. After his parents and siblings fled Cuba in the late 1960s, the author was born in Kearny, New Jersey, in 1976. At an early age, he was motivated to work harder in school after he watched a friend, also from a family of immigrants, win multiple awards at their eighth grade graduation. By high school, Lima focused on academics as well as athleticism, excelling in football. His devotion to the former was how he gained acceptance to Cornell University. He recalls that he accomplished this feat with a strong work ethic. He then stresses the importance of continuing to work hard even after finding success, citing “constant motion, growth, and development” as essentials. Another key element is gravitas, which in this book essentially means being consistently levelheaded under scrutiny or pressure.

This links with later points, such as remaining ambitious in the face of self-doubts and conquering fears of failure. While much of the volume involves the figurative heart, Lima allots the final pages to the literal one, discussing the “rapidly evolving field of advanced heart failure” and providing tips on promoting a heart-healthy lifestyle.

Mangel, C.P. Eyewear Publishing (664 pp.) $19.99 paper | Jun. 1, 2019 978-1-912477-25-8 A debut historical novel focuses on racial tensions in the South in 1950.

In this tale, the Horaces, a mixedrace couple, have moved from Chicago to fictional Kidron, North Carolina, because Titus’ Aunt Callula has bequeathed him the 600-acre ancestral homestead, begging him to settle there and keep it in the family. Fifteen-year-old Asa is the couple’s bright and perceptive daughter. The story is told through her eyes, eyes that are being opened to the rigid Jim Crow rules. Titus is a well-educated black man, former lawyer, and successful writer; Ardene is white and Jewish. To complicate things further, Asa could easily pass for white. Essentially this is a story about social cruelty.

The Ku Klux Klan is everywhere; stores and even hospitals are segregated; and with few exceptions, the hoi polloi are viciously and openly racist. Blacks bear the brunt of this, but Jews and other outsiders are barely tolerated. Threats are as pervasive as the weather and as subtle as thunder. The black community, used to this climate, tries to make the best of it. But Ardene is a natural fighter, determined to start to make things right. Asa |

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becomes deeply involved in a big project to renovate a house into a library for blacks and eventually helps people “check out the books they want” at the new library. But the idea of blacks reading is beyond anathema in Kidron, and a heavy price will likely be paid.

Mangel’s dark novel is a very ambitious undertaking and strong in many ways. The typography—left margin justified, right not, as well as artfully broken lines—signals loose blank verse. For most of the book’s 600-plus pages, the verse simply moves the plot along. But when the subject invites it, readers can hear the poetry, rather like a radio signal that fades in and out. For example: “Miss Junetene brings out an oval pie basket, sets / it on the table. ‘Asa, I have some lemon biscuit / for you mama and made them fig biscuit for you pa’ /… /… / The basket has a crisp ruffled trim of forest green / gingham. ‘That’s a pretty pie basket,’ I say.” Although poetry tends to draw readers’ attention to the words themselves and prose to the ideas those words serve, a work like this shows that the gap is not that wide. (Truly lyric poetry might be another matter.) The author delights in descriptions of all kinds, especially food, and delivers some memorable characters, like Virgil Hudson, Callula’s caretaker, immensely strong and kind; Sheriff Noah Emerson, the worst the South has to offer; Henryk, a brilliant Jewish hermit; and Miss Bertie, Asa’s teacher. Asa makes a perfect narrator and protagonist. She devours books that are well beyond her age—including, secretly, her father’s racy mysteries, written under the pen name Ovid White. And she is a useful mix of wisdom and innocence. Asa deals with the tension between sticking it out in Kidron (Ardene’s idealistic stubbornness) and Titus’ growing desire for the relative safety of Chicago. Doing the right thing versus saving oneself is a very hard question, one that should engage every reader.

An impressive segregation tale—not comforting by a long shot but true to its era and an intriguing experiment in textual form.

Take as just one example the striking piece “It’s Hard To Write Poetry in a Storm.” The poem opens: “It’s hard to write poetry / when the knife jams in / cowards sing / and you are left awash / like a piece of driftwood.” This brief stanza is a carefully crafted machine wound tight; so much drama bursts forth in the words.

All of which isn’t to say that the poet can’t still let loose. He does so in the arresting “Hit By A Car”: “You can see into your arm; strange innards blossoming like a sunflower; / you’re a trillion miles away looking down at yourself before the visage / of identity returns; the pain hot, a strange death in your throat.” In this and similar passages elsewhere, the author’s writing—like the poem’s sunflower—blossoms, flaring out in stunning bursts of detail and emotion. Nagin is drawn to violent imagery, from jamming knives to broken limbs. Yet these details feel less prurient than real and raw. They give readers the sense that something truly valuable is at stake.

A poetic feast as surprising as it is satisfying.

WHAT WE TAKE FOR TRUTH

Nedelman, Deborah Adelaide Books (314 pp.) $19.60 paper | $7.99 e-book Jun. 15, 2019 978-1-950437-18-4 A novel spins a story of hard choices and secrets, set in beautiful but ironically named Prosperity, Washington, in 1991.

Although the logging town of Prosperity at one time more than lived up to its name, that era is fading fast, thanks to a new environmental awareness. It is tree-huggers against loggers, protecting the forest habitat versus feeding one’s family. Caught in the middle of this is Grace “Parrot” Tillman, whose mother died when she was a child. Her father died some years later so the only family she has left is Aunt Jane, a bitter woman with no love for Prosperity or its loggers. Grace feels a strong pull to flee Prosperity, but fate has a way of intervening. Mill owner Jackson Dyer dies and leaves her an old cabin in his will. His wife tells Grace: “He wanted you to have your own place. Some place in Prosperity you could always call home and come back to if you ever left.” Later comes a bombshell: a huge secret involving Grace and her family that somehow the whole town managed to keep from her. Grace is devastated, then furious. The rest of the tale amounts to slow closure. While this is Nedelman’s (co-author: Still Sexy After All These Years?, 2006, etc.) first novel, she has two nonfiction books and a raft of short stories to her credit. She also has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and her practice inspired much of her intriguing new work. What could have been a straightforward polemic about tree-huggers and loggers quickly becomes much more subtle and nuanced than that. It is a late coming-ofage tale about Grace, a wonderfully drawn character, a young woman who doesn’t want to take sides, and the author lets her skirt that argument. Having taken over Aunt Jane’s cafe, the Hoot Owl—the endangered bird at the crux of this ecological

FEAST OF SAPPHIRES

Nagin, Matt Burning Flower Press (102 pp.) $5.99 paper | $2.99 e-book | Jun. 4, 2019 978-0-578-50812-2 A collection offers diverse poems packed with dramatic imagery.

Nagin (Butterflies Lost Within the Crooked Moonlight, 2017) is a man of many talents. He has directed films and worked the stand-up comedy circuit.

Perhaps it is this variety of life experiences that allows the promising poet to write ably in so many different registers in his latest collection of verse. Nagin’s previous book is a thrilling rush; it is indulgent, elaborate, and euphoric. His new volume shows him working in a more restrained mode. But this is no critique: If his poetry here is less effusive, it is also more compressed. Like the gem in the collection’s title, these poems are smaller, brighter, and sharper than those he’s written before.

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BLOOD FIRE VAPOR SMOKE

battle—Grace just wants to survive and maybe bring the town together. Nedelman’s writing is adept with some surprising descriptions (“The town glowed like a bearded hermit stepping from his annual bath”). The tale’s only villain is a man named Nathan Roberge, who’s connected to Grace’s family; the other characters are desperate people but not evil. A key question hovers over the engrossing story: When push comes to shove, will everyone shove together?

An impressive environmental tale with an engaging heroine from a talented new novelist.

Ray, Shann Unsolicited Press (210 pp.) $26.99 | $17.00 paper | $4.99 e-book Jun. 4, 2019 978-1-947021-94-5 978-1-950730-18-6 paper

THE NATURE OF INTUITION Understand & Harness Your Intuitive Ability

Percy, Nigel & Percy, Maggie Sixth Sense Books (271 pp.) $15.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Sep. 12, 2019 978-1-946014-38-2

A remarkably thorough tour of the nature of intuition, its important functions, and the means by which it may be sharpened for everyday use.

Nigel Percy and Maggie Percy (Dowsing for Health, 2018, etc.) observe that while everyone experiences some version of intuition, it remains elusive and resistant to rational explanation.

Also, it carries connotations of the supernatural as a revelatory epiphany, delivered by seemingly magical means. The authors, with impressive intellectual rigor and subtlety, attempt to provide a scientifically defensible account of intuition that still does justice to how it appears to transcend physical perception. In the interests of clarity, the authors stick to a fairly narrow definition of intuition: any perception that’s not reducible to the five senses or deducible by rational procedure that provides an “immediate insight or knowledge” that’s “associated with a different time or place.” They explore various ways in which intuitive judgment arises—relating them broadly to the “head,” the “gut,” and the “heart” and plumbing the biological science behind these perceptions with admirable caution. They also investigate what they see as the greater cosmic context of intuition, connecting it to concepts from modern quantum physics. In addition, the book includes a series of exercises designed to bolster intuition through the exercise of mindful self-awareness and the use of a proper diet. Overall, the authors contend that intuition is only secondarily an instrument of self-preservation—one that’s better understood as a means to enjoying life that is “happier, richer, deeper, and more fulfilling.” As they develop this conclusion, what finally emerges is a profound image of human life that isn’t reducible to any kind of materialistic conception: “Our common attitude toward ourselves as a purely mechanical set of systems is, however, deeply wrong. It would be difficult to ascribe sensations of a ‘gut feeling’ to such a machine.”

An intellectually nuanced account of a mysterious element of the human experience.

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In this collection of short stories, characters seek vengeance or strive for forgiveness.

Ray’s (Sweetclover, 2019, etc.) tale “Black Kettle” follows the titular, real-life Cheyenne chief, who fights to protect his people. Despite the tribe’s irrefutable surrender, Col. John Chivington leads a massacre at Black Kettle’s village. But the story, notwithstanding the chief ’s never-ending pursuit of peace, centers on revenge against Chivington. Characters in several of the tales yearn for retribution. In “Republic of Fear,” a grandfather sends his grandson to avenge the boy’s dead father; in “The World Clean and Bright,” a young tribe member tracks down those responsible for the deaths of a loved one’s parents. At the same time, individuals are also forgiving. The unnamed woman of the heart-rending “The Current Kings,” for example, seems willing to forgive the men who seize her with unmistakably malicious intent. And “The Debt Men” features two characters, Zach Harrelson and Phil Silven, with turmoil in their marriages.

Absolution may be in the cards for both even if only one man is truly deserving. Most of the tales unfold in Montana, including the unorthodox and curious “Love is Blindness.” In it, an affair threatens to separate married couple Michael White and Kristina Rosamonde, but a sudden injury will either split them apart or reunite them. A few historical figures, in addition to Black Kettle, make appearances. The protagonists of the collection’s sole poem, “City on the Threshold of Stars,” are Jan Kubiš and Jozef Gabčík, Czech soldiers who played a part in the assassination of the Butcher of Prague, Reinhard Heydrich.

The author, a clinical psychologist who “spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation,” tackles race in intelligent and sundry ways. It’s blunt in “Black Kettle,” as, perhaps unsurprisingly, the Cheyenne wish to kill Chivington while the colonel brazenly displays Native American scalps next to the United States flag. But “The Diplomat” is from the perspective of an American at an embassy in Africa; his own country’s racism sparks white guilt and a desire to help someone in need. And “Spirit of the Animal” is essentially a love story between Bird In Ground, a Cheyenne woman, and Jeroen, a white man she aids after he narrowly survives a wolverine attack. Ray aptly establishes characters who boast distinctive personalities and complex family ties. In “The Hunger, the Light,” Jakob hates his abusive parents, who, in turn, despise each other, and in “Fourteen Types of Belief,” gifted college basketball player Everett Highwalker takes inspiration from his dead half-Cheyenne father. While the stories have their share of hatred and death, the book doesn’t succumb to despondency. Myriad characters are steadfast in their beliefs, a stance that promotes strength. This is further exemplified by the author’s prose, which is poetic even when 207

THE KOMMANDANT’S HOUSE

describing the harsh elements some Cheyenne families face in “Black Wound”: “Northward still, flurries of snow placed white ledges on the limbs of trees and as the band progressed the sky turned dense until land and sky were one and the edges of the world had smoothed into a blanket under which their dreams and desires slept like animals of a forgotten country, like bears under the dark of den and breath.”

Incisive and riveting tales with a diverse cast courtesy of a skillful, expressive author.

Rowan, Marian Crux Publishing (278 pp.) $13.99 paper | $5.99 e-book Aug. 29, 2019 978-1-909979-83-3

Two women fight to preserve family, love, and truth in this debut historical novel.

Marguerite is 14 years old when her French village is invaded by the German army during World War II. It’s 1940, and the early days of the occupation remain relatively peaceful on the orders of Maj. Wolfgang Müller, the area’s Kommandant. Although her mother despises all Germans, Marguerite agrees to cook for the Kommandant and his staff and is surprised to observe that Müller is a kind, upright man. The novel alternates between Marguerite’s observations and the Kommandant’s letters and diary entries, which show that he remains a devoted husband and father, treats French citizens with dignity, and believes that his ultimate goal is to send the message that “Germany is beginning its momentous task of moulding Europe into its own likeness.” For Marguerite, the most momentous change is that she falls in love with a young German soldier and must hide her affair from her family. Meanwhile, the Kommandant faces a challenge from an officer who believes the area needs harsher policies, and he worries about the motivations of Nazis like this man, whom he considers “a bully in a uniform.” From this dramatic first section, the book jumps ahead 50 years to follow Catherine Swannell, who has been invited to visit her distant cousin Marguerite. Catherine becomes engrossed in reassembling the past, searching for answers to lingering questions about what happened long ago. In this thoughtful novel, Rowan brings the French countryside to life with gentle, lyrical descriptions. Nations may grapple with war around the globe, she suggests, but beauty can still be found amid the “rippling river,” the “silky golden stubble” of wheat, and the “rustling of birds settling” in the hedgerows of this close-knit village. The layered, sympathetic figure of the Kommandant provides the story’s major questions: How can good compete with an evil that follows no rules or code? And at what point do your intentions clash with your reality? There’s a sentimental streak to the romantic passages, but overall the author capably adds nuance to familiar set pieces.

An absorbing look at how the high-stakes circumstances of war reveal character.

JIMI & ISAAC 5B: SOCIAL SKILLS

Rink, Phil Self (114 pp.) $8.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | Nov. 6, 2019 978-1-69084-469-3

Bullying and incivility have gotten out of hand at a boy’s school: Can he and his friends find a solution?

In his series of issue-oriented books for a middle school audience, Rink (Jimi & Isaac 5a: The Brain Injury, 2014, etc.) frames his plots involving tween friends Jimi and Isaac around such issues as coping with self-doubt, making and keeping commitments, and dealing with unforeseen life changes. In this 10th installment, told in the first-person voice of Jimi, a jazz saxophonist, self-described science nerd, and wry observer of parental and peer foibles, fighting and arguing have escalated at his middle school. Jimi and his best friend, Isaac, along with Tom and bossy Mallory, get in a shoving match. As punishment, the principal assigns the four to figure out the answer to the increasing incivility on campus. Mallory gets carried away, forming a group called the CIVILians, positive that ordering people to obey her “be nice!” rules is the way to go.

Her method receives push back, sometimes literally, from kids resenting being told what to do. Soon, the CIVILians are being harassed by an opposing group called the Savages. Jimi, Isaac, and Tom want to expend as little effort in solving the problem as possible until increasing clashes between the groups indicate there are no easy answers to bringing people together. A favorite science teacher encourages the three boys and Mallory to think about the problem creatively. Rink has a terrific knack for placing relatable characters in realistic situations and giving them (and readers) food for thought, promoting discussion and problemsolving rather than spoon-feeding answers. A nuanced discussion at the dinner table about the definition of a bully awakens Jimi to the fact that bullying can take many forms and cause both physical and emotional harm. The author deftly adds an additional layer to the issue by having Tom express empathy for a bully he injured in order to protect a little kid, signaling his subsequent awareness that the offender is the product of an abusive home.

Engaging and thought-proving edutainment, with relatable tween characters facing realistic challenges, primarily from a young male point of view.

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HUNTING THE DEVIL

Schafer, Suanne Waldorf Publishing (300 pp.) $16.95 paper | $8.95 e-book Sep. 15, 2019 978-1-64316-597-4 A humanitarian doctor becomes embroiled in the Rwandan genocide.

Schafer (A Different Kind of Fire, 2018), “a retired family-practice physician,” plumbs |

The guide furnishes an accessible explanation of the always changing technological world, including its primary players. cybersecurity is everybody ’s business

readers can do is to formulate a multipronged strategy, “increasing the number of layers or security challenges.” Focusing on the personal user and small business owner, the author provides a comprehensive—and sometimes meandering—examination of virtually every patch of the computing landscape. He covers the quotidian—the limitations of passwords and the advantages of two-factor authentication, for example—and the more obscure, like the dangers posed by the trail of metadata internet users leave behind. The book also expertly mines the biggest security breaches in recent years for lessons, including assessments of the Yahoo, Ashley Madison, and Uber troubles. In the work’s concluding section, the author looks to the future and considers the promise and dangers of cryptocurrency, driverless cars, and even the susceptibility of older modes of transportation—planes, trains, and automobiles—to predatory hackers. His chief message is that, since the insufficient vigilance of any one digital user potentially exposes others to risk, the task of cybersecurity is a community effort: “Criminals piece together fragments of our hacked private information in order to form a full puzzle of our digital identities, but each piece of the cybersecurity puzzle we collect by learning how to protect ourselves can also effectively protect others.” The author’s command of the subject, including technical as well as historical knowledge, is magisterial. And besides his helpful, actionable advice regarding the protection of one’s digital life, the writer—who penned this book with his younger brother, debut author Craig W. Schober—furnishes an accessible explanation of the always changing technological world, including its primary players, such as Google and Facebook. But the volume sometimes digresses too far afield—readers in search of practical counsel can do without profiles of infamous hackers.

A thorough and astute manual on cybersecurity written with great clarity and authority.

THE IRREVERENT GUIDE TO PROJECT MANAGEMENT An Agile Approach to Enterprise Project Management: Version 5.0

CYBERSECURITY IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS Solve the Security Puzzle for Your Small Business and Home

Scott, Jason Lioncrest Publishing (322 pp.) $39.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Oct. 4, 2019 978-1-5445-0110-9

Schober, Scott N. with Schober, Craig W. Scottschober.com Publishing (338 pp.) $29.95 | $19.95 paper | $9.99 e-book Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-9969022-5-0 978-0-9969022-6-7 paper

An exacting guide for intermediate project managers seeking ways to perfect their craft and lead their programs to completion.

The challenges of a project leader are almost endless—budgets, schedules, deadlines, difficult workers, and other X factors that, often, only years of experience can offset. This guidebook takes away guesswork with a strict breakdown of numerous aspects of a project and the responsibilities that a manager will be expected to undertake. Communication is key, and entrepreneur Scott (It’s Never Just Business: It’s About People, 2019, etc.) offers examples of good email and meeting etiquette and describes how to maintain an agreeable, confident relationship with project owners and executives. He also provides samples of meeting

A guide explores the dangers of the digital world and the strategies to counter them.

Scott N. Schober (Hacked Again, 2016) begins his panoramically thorough tour of cybersecurity by painting a grim picture of a perilous technological time: “Nearly one million new malware threats are released every single day.” And there’s no “foolproof way” to inoculate oneself against the farrago of threats. The best |

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the depths of the genocide in Rwanda with this rousing novel that follows Dr. Jessica Hemings, whose volunteer medical mission to the country in 1991 carries life-threatening danger. The story opens as Hemings races through the mountainous forests of Rwanda and Tanzania after her Kirehe clinic is ambushed by a vicious militia. In Rwanda, she horrifyingly views the slaughtered bodies of innocent villagers and vows justice. Running alongside this main narrative are the escapades of Parisian war correspondent Michel Fournier, who is assigned to cover the ethnic discord in Rwanda, a place he’s never visited. He has not experienced the volatile political climate there between the Hutu and Tutsi populations. Also featured is Hemings’ still-smitten ex, Tom, who discovers she has vanished in Africa. Not for the faint of heart, Schafer’s descriptions are graphic and as real as the political strife and civil war that played out in East Africa.

Equally crisp is her storytelling as the narrative flashes back to Hemings’ uneasy arrival in Rwanda and her ensuing culture clash and political education, reflecting that “there was no escape from racism, even when only one race was involved.” After she notices the clinic’s lead physician, Dr. Cyprien Gatera, becoming neglectful to Tutsi patients, he is exposed as a Hutu radical and assaults and rapes Hemings, claiming her as his own. She escapes and remains on the run for weeks until reaching a Tanzanian refugee camp, depicted in the novel’s beginning, where she aids the ill and ultimately makes a decision to place herself in lethal danger again to save others. Though the book is lengthy and teeming with exacting, grim details, the story moves swiftly, portraying Hemings’ interactions with Fournier that become intimate. They empower her with the fortification to return to Africa after resettling in Paris and concoct a reckless revenge plot against Gatera. There’s plenty of sharp, suspenseful action to savor here in this impressively poignant, hauntingly realistic, and searingly moving tale. Schafer intensively explores themes of racism, violence, war, and human welfare.

Vivid, boldly written, life-affirming historical fiction drawn from the horrors of the Rwandan genocide crisis.

invites and minutes, project charters, and work and communication plans; along the way, he emphasizes consistency in naming and abbreviating for paperwork and calculating how much time should be allotted for each part of an agenda. The book closes with the hardest things to plan for—risks and unknown impediments—with in-depth approaches on maintaining control when things go wrong. This fifth version of Scott’s management manual is the same one that’s used as a training curriculum by the firm 120VC Project Management Services, which Scott leads, and it presents advice pieced together “from actively managing projects for the Fortune 100.” As such, it’s not a beginner’s resource; it makes heavy use of corporate jargon and expects readers to have knowledge of Waterfall and Scrum software development methodology and Critical Path and Enterprise project management. Its titular irreverence, barring occasional sarcasm and a Pulp Fiction reference, is directed toward a leadership style that’s devoid of deference. Even with its numerous, colorful charts, typefaces, and highlights, this is a dense and strict resource, with nearly half of the book dedicated just to getting to the first Friday of a project. This is somewhat broken up, however, by numerous tips, which effectively stress each section’s key points, and “Wisdom Comes With Experience” asides, marked by tiny illustrations of ninjas.

A guide, light in tone but serious in its teachings, that will lead project managers through good times and bad.

Second, Billy’s mental state goes off the rails, making Elizabeth more vulnerable than ever. And vulnerability makes Elizabeth dangerous. Scott’s (Hard Limits, 2019, etc.) second thriller set in San Francisco’s lesbian community takes an unusual tack for a fictional series, switching the focus to the continuing career of the villain of the previous book. The character of Elizabeth is skillfully drawn to be both sympathetic and slightly repellent: She is a damaged girl who has grown into a ruthless woman.

The suspenseful plot packs a lot of twists and turns into a short, tightly paced narrative and delivers more than one actual surprise as Elizabeth scrambles to save both her life and her booty.

Some readers may find the depiction of lesbian callousness and criminality to be distasteful. But the work rings true within its noir genre even if a deus ex machina, in the form of Elizabeth’s opportune friendship with the daughter of a Mexican drug lord, strains credulity.

An absorbing thriller about crime and betrayal featuring a lesbian antihero with a knack for overcoming her hard luck.

DIVISIBLE MAN Ten Man Crew

Seaborne, Howard Trans World Data (396 pp.) $14.99 paper | Nov. 14, 2019 978-1-7336834-2-5

HARD LUCK An Elizabeth Taylor Bundy Thriller

When Russian oligarchs try to meddle in American politics, a pilot who can fly invisibly tries to thwart them in this fifth installment of a series.

It’s been almost a year since the smallplane crash that pilot Will Stewart barely survived. It should have killed him—but instead, the accident has left Will with the gift of invisible floating, a phenomenon he calls “the other thing.” Over time, he’s learned more about his gift and how to control his flight with mechanical devices, although he’s still working on propelling himself through thought alone. He’s used the other thing to help his wife, police detective Andrea “Andy” Stewart, solve cases.

He’s rescued innocents, intimidated criminal bigshots into better behavior, and—through a still-mysterious process—cured some dying children. Will finally has medical clearance to return to work as a charter pilot for the Essex County Air Service in Wisconsin, but a quiet life isn’t in the cards. Special Agent Lee Donaldson turns up wanting Andy’s help with Josiah James, a racist talk radio host and conspiracy theorist. Since Will last saw Donaldson providing private security for a billionaire criminal, he’s not sure whether the agent can be trusted. But James’ hatemongering played a role in a local tragedy, giving the Stewarts motivation to look into him. Their investigation takes a turn when James is assassinated at a rally by an old man, leading Will and Andy into a complicated maze of conspiracy, the dark net, Cold War spycraft, and Russian interference in United States politics, all while attempting to protect the secret of the other thing.

Seaborne (Divisible Man: The Seventh Star, 2019, etc.), a former flight instructor and charter pilot, continues his winning streak in

Scott, Pascal Sapphire Books (264 pp.) $14.95 paper | $6.99 e-book Sep. 25, 2019 978-1-948232-81-4

In this novella, a lesbian ex-con enlists two co-conspirators in a multimillion-dollar heist only to find that there is little honor among thieves, even when they are lovers.

Elizabeth Taylor Bundy, sentenced to six years in prison for voluntary manslaughter, has finally been released to finish her time doing community service at the Omega Foundation, a halfway house in San Francisco. Omega’s founder, warden, and life coach is Billy Brandt, a Vietnam veteran and ex-junkie who runs the program with a fanatic zeal that frequently crosses the line into abuse. Nonetheless, Elizabeth is determined to keep her nose clean long enough to gain her independence and lay the groundwork for one last criminal enterprise: robbing a Brink’s armored truck of over seven million worn-out dollars destined to be destroyed in a federal facility in San Francisco.

Her ace in the hole for the venture is Mickie Forrest, a Brink’s driver who had once been her foster sister. But before it is even set in motion, Elizabeth’s foolproof plan begins to unravel as complications quickly pile up. First, she finds herself in bed with Mickie’s girlfriend, Denise, a charmingly amoral young woman with a “get-you-in-trouble look in her big brown eyes.”

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Thomas shows impressive skill at placing well-timed plot twists. arcade

this series, offering another page-turner. By having Will’s knowledge of and control over his powers continue to expand while the questions over how he should best deploy his abilities grow, Seaborne keeps the concept fresh and readers guessing. Information about what actually happened during the crash (which Will can’t remember) has been doled out by the quarter-teaspoonful, which is enticing—and sometimes frustrating. But the thriller nicely thinks through matters like Will’s being the perfect spy: “I don’t speak Russian. Or Arabic. Or any other language. I can’t read the Russian signs that say, ‘This Way To Secret World Takeover Laboratory.’ People don’t sit around chatting about their evil plans.” Meanwhile, Will’s enemies are becoming aware of him and perhaps developing techniques to detect him, which makes the question of how he can protect himself while doing the most good a thorny one. The conspiracy is highly dramatic yet not implausible given today’s political events, and the action sequences are excitingly cinematic. It does seem past time for Will to make some kind of plan instead of reacting to events, giving readers much to anticipate in the next volume.

Another compelling and hugely fun adventure that delivers a thrill ride.

determined, and can think for herself. All told, she makes a good guide to the steampunk setting. This tale is well described and very imaginative, featuring not merely the standard elements, but also several novelties (such as the fabulous notion of using liquid to store information). To a large extent, this series opener focuses more on worldbuilding than storytelling, but the action does heat up, and the pirates in particular come into their own (albeit while talking in heavy buccaneer accents that can be a bit off-putting). A smattering of high-contrast, black-and-white illustrations by Garbay (Le Voyage Extraordinaire, 2019, etc.) adds to the impression of Victoriana. Though not entirely satisfying as a stand-alone adventure, this volume has enough captivating material to draw middle-grade readers into the series.

An engaging introduction to a world of wonder and intrigue.

ARCADE

ANNABEL PICKERING AND THE SKY PIRATES The Fantastical Contraption

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Thomas, MF BookBaby (304 pp.) $15.99 paper | $2.99 e-book | Dec. 2, 2019 978-1-5439-8906-9 Thomas’ (A Sickness in Time, 2016, etc.) post-apocalyptic tale features a man hunting for his family and a lone technology company that’s survived the downfall of the power grid.

A series of electromagnetic pulses have rendered Earth’s electronic devices useless, throwing civilization back hundreds of years; most people call this event “the Change.” Vicious gangs, including the powerful, widespread Seventh, have hobbled law enforcement.

Before the Change, FBI agent Walter Jackson had traveled from Memphis, Tennessee, to California’s Bay Area in search of his wife and daughter. Sarah and college-bound Maddie had left him because his work always seemed to be his primary focus.

Now, eight years after learning Sarah’s grim fate, Walter remains in Sunnyvale as a cop, still searching for Maddie. One day, he and his partner, Hernandez, are investigating Seventh activity at an old roller rink. They break up a dogfighting pit, and one of the canines brings Walter to a corpse with a “red and black yinyang” symbol tattooed on its arm. Using additional information from an acquaintance called Captain Anthem, Walter locates the Palo Alto company Terrestrial Economic Solutions. In their heavily guarded and somehow electrically powered underground facility, he finds a video arcade. A woman named Sloan Holt runs it, allowing teenagers to play nonstop and live on the site. She enigmatically tells Walter that TES researches “neurological topics.” The complex truth is that TES sent a manned mission to the Trappist star system; Sloan’s brother, Frank, was a crewmember with whom they lost contact after the Change.

The author draws readers through his post-apocalypse in provocative stages. Echoes of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game (1986) and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011) set up the interlocking arcs of the characters, with each missing family in a broken world. The narration offers snarky critiques of

Shaffer, Bretigne Illus. by Garbay, Florian Fantastical Contraption $2.99 e-book | Nov. 19, 2019

A teenager goes on the run and flies with pirates in this middle-grade Victorian steampunk adventure.

Thirteen-year-old Annabel Pickering lives in an alternative history version of Victorian England, where all mechanical devices are steam-powered and airships flood the skies. Annabel is from the upper classes. She attends an elite girls’ school and from an early age has taken riding lessons. Her parents are both scientists. Annabel believes in England’s greatness and the sanctity of the queen. She’s never questioned the status quo. But then her parents are abducted— not even formally arrested—by the police. Suddenly everything changes for Annabel. She is forced to hide with the odd spinster from down the street (Miss Doubtweather) and her nonverbal niece and take flight with a crew of rough-but-kind pirates. Miss Doubtweather, it turns out, is part of a secret society of freethinkers, to which Annabel’s parents also belong.

The pirates are more accurately smugglers; breaking the law, yes, but upholding their own moral code. The more Annabel sees, the more she must question her assumptions. But where will this get her? Will Annabel escape the Queen’s Guards and rescue her parents or spend the rest of her days in prison? Shaffer (Urban Yogini, 2017, etc.) writes in the third person, mostly from Annabel’s point of view but also from other characters’ perspectives when she isn’t present. Annabel is a naïve protagonist and tends to follow rather than lead the plot. But she is courageous, |

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THE KNUCKLEHEAD OF SILICON VALLEY

how many people live today: “World-wide, precious snowflakes were...rediscovering how to survive without Twitter, skinny lattes, yoga pants, and beard wax.” He also mentions changes that happened before the EMP blasts; about mining asteroids for precious metals, readers learn that “Zuckerburg [sic] might have been involved after Facebook was broken-up by the Feds.”

After Walter and Sloan meet, their quests combine; the mystery of Frank’s crew drives the plot, with Maddie’s whereabouts taking something of a back seat. Interpersonal drama at TES simmers as a man named Ashif Showkat pines for Sloan; he’s a Blender, maneuvering “bots” remotely from a special pod to explore the Trappist planet. Sloan, like Walter, puts work ahead of love and believes that Ashif “expected her to be his prize, which was both embarrassing and flattering.” Nostalgia is a force unto itself, as when Walter discovers the arcade, packed with hypnotic lights and sounds. Far from being regressive, the characters’ faith in the past proves to be a way forward. Thomas shows impressive skill at placing well-timed plot twists. Revelations about who finances TES, the origin of the EMP blasts, and Frank himself send the narrative soaring.

A confident SF thriller that deftly addresses themes of resilience, faith, and the value of video games.

Vachon, G. Craig Genius Book Publishing (386 pp.) $17.95 paper | $4.99 e-book Oct. 23, 2019 978-1-947521-13-1 A debut comic thriller tells the story of a tech developer forced to go up against his own inventions to save the world.

Hacker Ralph Gibsen has worked in Silicon Valley for decades, gaining experience across the industry by saying yes to every opportunity.

Now in middle age, he works as an angel investor in altruistic companies: “Clam Pie made small investments in tech companies that tried to make the world a better place.” Unfortunately for Gibsen—who, in his personal life, is something of a hapless buffoon—he can’t always control who employs his technology or what they use it for. After he invents a tool that studies the human mind in order to pinpoint the exact moment a student learns something, he discovers that certain parties may be harnessing it to try to brainwash the public. What’s more, Gibsen may or may not have been acting as an unintentional spy. He’s forced to rely on some rivals, acquaintances, and strangers—who also may or may not be spies. (Even his own wife, Jen, might be one.) But can he trust them as he deals with the people coming after him? Can he even trust himself?

Vachon’s prose is often dense with the jargon of technology and investment but manages to animate even these subjects with a pulpy energy: “After four hours on the third day, the Parties to the agreement finally declared themselves amenable to the deal. Ralph wasn’t happy with the final product, but neither were his new partners.” Gibsen is an oddly compelling protagonist: Not quite an Everyman, he nevertheless frequently finds himself in over his head. The author delivers a complex, meandering plot with frequent hops between years and continents and a wryly conspiratorial worldview that feels more akin to Thomas Pynchon than Tom Clancy. Vachon certainly takes satirical views of Silicon Valley, the global economy, and the intersection of technology and authoritarian control, but the novel never gets preachy and usually errs on the side of theatrics.

A rambling, intricate, and highly amusing tale of cyberpolitics and spycraft.

This Issue’s Contributors # ADULT Maude Adjarian • Paul Allen • Stephanie Anderson • Rebecca Leigh Anthony • Mark Athitakis Colette Bancroft • Joseph Barbato • Sarah Blackman • Amy Boaz • Nastassian Brandon • Catherine Cardno • Tobias Carroll • Lee E. Cart • Kristin Centorcelli • Carin Clevidence • K.W. Colyard • Devon Crowe • Kathleen Devereaux • Amanda Diehl • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Kristen Evans • Mia Franz • Jackie Friedland • Amy Goldschlager • Janice Harayda • Katrina Niidas Holm Natalia Holtzman • Jessica Jernigan • Skip Johnson • Paul Lamey • Tom Lavoie • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Peter Lewis • Elsbeth Lindner • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Molly Muldoon • Jennifer Nabers • Christopher Navratil • Connie Ogle • Mike Oppenheim • Scott Parker • Jim Piechota William E. Pike • Steve Potter • Margaret Quamme • Stephanie Reents • Karen Rigby • Lloyd Sachs Bob Sanchez • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Wendy Smith • Kirby Sokolow • Margot E. Spangenberg • Charles Taylor • Claire Trazenfeld • Jessica Miller • George Weaver • Steve Weinberg Joan Wilentz • Wilda Williams • Marion Winik CHILDREN’S & TEEN Lucia Acosta • Maya Alkateb-Chami • Autumn Allen • Alison Anholt-White • Kazia Berkley-Cramer Elizabeth Bird • Marcie Bovetz • Linda Boyden • Jessica Brown • Shauntee Burns-Simpson • Timothy Capehart • Patty Carleton • Amanda Chuong • Tamar Cimenian • Jeannie Coutant • Erin Deedy Elise DeGuiseppi • Luisana Duarte Armendáriz • Brooke Faulkner • Rodney M.D. Fierce Amy Seto Forrester • Ayn Reyes Frazee • Laurel Gardner • Judith Gire • Carol Goldman • Melinda Greenblatt Vicky Gudelot • Julie Hubble • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Elizabeth Leanne Johnson • Betsy Judkins • Megan Dowd Lambert • Wendy Lukehart • Kyle Lukoff • Daniel Meyer • Yesha Naik Katrina Nye • Tori Ann Ogawa • Deb Paulson • Rachel G. Payne • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine Rebecca Rabinowitz Asata Radcliffe • Kristy Raffensberger • Amy B. Reyes • Nancy Thalia Reynolds Amy Robinson Christopher R. Rogers • Erika Rohrbach • Leslie L. Rounds • Katie Scherrer • John W. Shannon Lenny Smith • Mathangi Subramanian • Edward T. Sullivan • Jennifer Sweeney • Steven Thompson Lavanya Vasudevan • Tharini Viswanath • Christina Vortia • Angela Wiley • Bean Yogi INDIE Alana Abbott • Kent Armstrong • Julie Buffaloe-Yoder • Darren Carlaw • Charles Cassady • Michael Deagler • Stephanie Dobler Cerra • Steve Donoghue • Jacob Edwards • Joshua Farrington • Tina Gianoulis • Lynne Heffley • Jennifer Helinek • Justin Hickey • Ivan Kenneally • Barbara London Rhett Morgan • Randall Nichols • Joshua T. Pederson • Jim Piechota • Walker Rutter-Bowman Jerome Shea

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The book is adorned with spectacular shots by various photographers that reflect the beauty, delight, and restorative peace found in cars. never stop driving

THE FIRST AMENDMENT AND STATE BANS ON TEACHERS’ RELIGIOUS GARB

NEVER STOP DRIVING A Better Life Behind the Wheel

Walker, Nathan C. Routledge (290 pp.) $140.00 | $49.95 e-book | Sep. 4, 2019 978-0-367-18830-6

Ed. by Webster, Larry Motorbooks (192 pp.) $28.00 | $28.00 e-book | Jul. 23, 2019 978-0-7603-6341-6

An introspective collection of essays focuses on the joys found in automobiles, old and new.

Contemporary Americans are “chronically overstressed, overworked,” and tired. For Webster, a vintage-car enthusiast and former editor-in-chief of Road & Track, “there’s never been a better time to go for a drive” in a “four-wheeled escape pod.”

With contributions from over a dozen renowned auto enthusiasts from around the nation, this volume offers readers a collection of essays and vignettes that reflect debut editor Webster’s belief that cars are more than functional assortments of metal important only to get from place to place. The book’s essays explore such topics as the agony and thrills of finding the perfect vintage vehicle, the mentally restorative value of car repair, and the simple pleasures found in driving both for excitement and relaxation. Vignettes by some of the nation’s leading automobile columnists, such as Rob Siegel, provide musings on topics like “The Joy of Problem Solving” and the importance of learning from past mistakes. The volume concludes with interviews with Jay Leno, Mario Andretti, and others who discuss what their perfect “last drive” on Earth would look like. Brett Berk’s essay makes the case that worthy automobiles should be admired on the same level as majestic paintings or Frank Lloyd Wright homes, as modern forms of art that transcend mere function in their ability to evoke wonder and awe. Indeed, the book is adorned with spectacular shots by various photographers that reflect the beauty, delight, and restorative peace found in cars.

Even nonenthusiasts will find much to value in this collection, from its gorgeous photos to its impassioned prose that skillfully blends elegance and approachability. Constantly evolving in mechanics and design, in frequent need of maintenance and repair, and the products of multiple generations of failures and breakthroughs, cars are “the perfect embodiment of what makes us human,” according to Webster. In many ways, this is not just a book about cars—it also examines the importance of seemingly pointless hobbies that bring humans happiness, connections beyond themselves, and fulfillment.

An emotionally powerful love letter to cars and the human spirit.

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A writer offers an analysis of government bans on religious attire worn by public school teachers.

As Walker (Cultivating Empathy, 2016, etc.) observes, the perennial contest between political secularism and religious liberty is hardly new, but it seems to have hit a fevered pitch not just in the United States, but in Europe as well.

The author astutely unpacks one controversial issue at the heart of that tension: the permissibility of a state to ban public school teachers from donning religious garb while they work. The focus of the author’s study is a landmark statutory law passed in the late 19th century that did precisely that (“The first such ban of religious garb was instituted in Pennsylvania in 1894 and was clearly directed toward Catholic nuns teaching in the public schools”). This law remains the only one of its kind unsuccessfully challenged in the U.S. Walker applies a five-step analytical process to the law—“scaffolding” the work—that begins with a “synthesized” battery of judicial tests organized around just cause.

Additionally, he provides a searching account of the “quasquicentennial-old debate in the United States,” including a masterfully meticulous treatment of the relevant law and literature, the factual context, and a concluding legal analysis. The legal assessment focuses on the extent to which the Pennsylvania law potentially contradicts both the establishment of religion and the free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. The author finally concludes that the law is fundamentally indefensible on both counts. Among other reasons, it coercively “suppresses the religious identities of public servants” and favors some faiths over others. Walker’s credentials are unimpeachable: He’s the executive director of 1791 Delegates, a group of constitutional and human rights specialists. His command of the germane material—legal, historical, and even philosophical—is simply extraordinary. More than a legal argument, the book is a sweeping account of the nature of public education within a liberal democracy—its proper purposes and limitations. He also sensibly considers the broader international context, especially cases that have come before the European Court of Human Rights.

The author’s argument is a complex one, but it’s written in the kind of accessible, jargon-free prose that should be digestible for even the layperson.

A thorough, magisterial account of a timely and historically important legal debate.

FOOD IS THE CURE For the Overweight Disease

for weight loss. Offering plenty of inspiration for ordinary folks, chapters begin with a short, real-life success story, or “taste of victory.” For example, Willis’ pastor lost 20 pounds in two months and decreased his blood pressure from 160/80 to 125/75.

There are several before-and-after weight-loss photos (including of Willis), and the people in the shots look realistic—not model thin but wonderfully healthy.

An enjoyable and useful guide to a healthier life.

Willis, Buck Self (231 pp.) $34.97 paper | $9.97 e-book | Nov. 29, 2019 978-0-578-57712-8 A weight-loss manual dispenses nutrition and exercise advice to dieters.

Willis (The Overweight Cure!, 2018, etc.) began his journey to good health after he was in a near-fatal plane crash.

Suffering through 16 operations to rebuild his legs, he was obese when he first began medical school. Now an integrative, boardcertified holistic physician, he’s 55 pounds lighter than he was in his younger days. Calling himself his first patient, the author claims that he cured his “overweight disease” once he addressed the causes of his obesity—hidden food allergies. Divided into three parts, this cheerful, easy-to-follow self-help book begins by urging readers to determine the roots of their weight gain.

He also encourages them to eat natural foods—in single portions five times a day—to kick-start the body’s metabolism.

Those who have little time for exercise may be pleasantly surprised at Willis’ assertion that merely performing two minutes of high intensity aerobic exercise five times a day could be as beneficial for weight loss as working out for much longer periods. While that claim may be hard for some dieters to swallow, it could at least inspire sedentary folks to incorporate a little healthy movement into their daily routines. Section II provides some common-sense solutions, such as 32 simple exercises complete with clearly explained instructions and uncredited color photographs. Proving that eating healthy doesn’t have to be drudgery, the author adds some mouthwatering recipes in Section III, like “Annie’s Sautéed Pork and Potatoes.” This section also includes a short but practical blueprint for a 30-day plan

THE GHOST OF JOHNNY TAPIA

Zanon, Paul & Tapia, Teresa Hamilcar Publications (96 pp.)

9.99 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-949590-15-9

A biography chronicles the struggles and triumphs of a renegade boxer.

In this second installment of the Hamilcar Noir series, Zanon (Sinner and Saint, 2018, etc.) tells Johnny Tapia’s story, recounting the action in and out of the boxing arena where the fighter made his name. The author follows Tapia from his birth in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1967 and the savage murder of his mother when he was only 8 years old to his first boxing bout at 9 and beyond. He had his first professional match in 1988 and won the United States Boxing Association Super Flyweight title in 1990. But, as the author puts it, “unfortunately, his passion and desire in the ring played second fiddle to a destructive lifestyle” when the gloves were off, a destructive routine featuring a steady consumption of drugs and alcohol. Zanon describes a life of nearly constant brutality in which the boxer was actually declared DOA multiple times, either from violence or drug overdoses. This leads the author to contend that “Johnny stared death in the face more times than would seem physically possible.” The narrative describes the arc of Tapia’s professional life in economical but effective detail. This is by no means a classic of boxing nonfiction, but Zanon knows the sport well enough to keep these bouts intriguing. One of the story’s most moving nonboxing moments comes when Tapia learned that his mother’s murder had been solved but that he had no chance for personal vengeance. The killer was fatally struck by a car 10 years after the crime. Still, the bulk of Zanon’s book—written with the pugilist’s wife, debut author Teresa Tapia—involves the boxer’s increasingly serious swings between hard-fought professional matches and a long series of drug deals, arrests, and broken second chances. He became a world champion, but the strain of his various activities eventually affected his heart; he died in 2012. The work recounts all this with a good deal of momentum and little sentimentality.

The resulting portrait is that of a deeply weak and flawed man who could nevertheless exhibit a real zest for living.

A gritty, engrossing, and concise account of a boxer’s meteoric career and tortured personal life.

K I R K US M E DI A L L C # Chairman H E R B E RT S I M O N President & Publisher M A RC W I N K E L M A N Chief Executive Officer M E G L A B O R D E KU E H N # Copyright 2019 by Kirkus Media LLC. KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948- 7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, 2600Via Fortuna, Suite 130, Austin, TX 78746.

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Books of the Month IN SEARCH OF AL HOWIE

THE UNMARKED GIRL

A quirky, captivating biography.

An engrossing SF/ fantasy that breathes new life into old tropes.

THE J HOROSCOPE

THE WILD HERD

Thoughtful, bold, humorous, earthy, and humane—a superb collection.

A gorgeous photographic tribute to striking animals.

Jeanelle Frontin

Jared Beasley

Deborah Kalas, Photos by the author

THE SPIRIT OF THE WAYNES

NORMAN’S GIFT Michelle Olson, Photos by the author, Illus. by the author

Ethan Cooper

A poignant exploration of the complicated dynamic of fathers and sons.

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Sharon Chmielarz

The message that real friends value their pals most for being themselves couldn’t be delivered by a cuter button.

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take your place in the high court of faerie.

Finale to the #1 New York Times bestselling series by HOLLY BLACK

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FolkoftheAir.com | Available in hardcover, ebook, and audio wherever books are sold.