February 15, 2024: Volume XCII, No. 4

FEBRUARY 15, 2024 | VOL. XCII NO. 4

FEATURING 337 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children’s, and YA Books

SLOANE CROSLEY REFLECTS ON A YEAR OF LOSS The witty essayist and novelist gets serious in a powerful new memoir, Grief Is for People

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

WHO WANTS TO read a sad book—isn’t there enough misery in real life? That’s the position a friend of mine takes whenever I try to recommend another melancholy new novel or downbeat memoir. (I really should know better by now.)

Point taken. I appreciate a cheerful, humorous read as much as the next person, and often that’s just what the book doctor ordered. But sometimes a book that looks squarely at sadness offers readers a kind of balm. We’re not alone in going through grief and loss, and here’s how someone else faced it— someone better than most of us at expressing the experience in words.

That’s how I felt while reading the new book by Sloane Crosley, who appears on the cover of this issue in

an illustrated portrait by artist Reiko Lauper. Crosley is known for slyly comedic essays in collections like I Was Told There’ d Be Cake (2008) and Look Alive Out There (2018), and for her trenchant novels The Clasp (2015) and Cult Classic (2022). Her latest, Grief Is for People (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Feb. 27), is something quite different: the account of losing a close friend and former boss to suicide. That death was immediately preceded by a robbery—her apartment was broken into and some jewelry of sentimental value was stolen—and this unlikely pair of events allows Crosley to explore the nature of loss and the often strange ways that we humans react to it.

Our starred review calls it a “marvelously tender

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memoir”; be sure to read Marion Winik’s interview with Crosley on p. 60.

Though their styles are entirely different, it’s hard to read Grief Is for People and not think of Joan Didion’s now-classic 2005 book about grief, The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she calmly analyzes her own state of mind after the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and during the concurrent illness of their daughter, Quintana Roo Dunne.

Didion’s 2011 book, Blue Nights, considers her own mortality in the wake of Quintana Roo’s death not long after. Neither book is easy to read, but at the right moment in the right hands, they are true gifts.

“Not for everyone,” warns our reviewer of Blake Butler’s Molly (Archway Editions/ powerHouse, 2023), “but it could mean the world to those facing similar shocks and losses.” The author’s wife, poet Molly Brodak, died by suicide in 2020 at the age of 39; Butler was left with his own stunned grief

but also the revelation, found in Brodak’s journals, of her infidelity. (Brodak herself had written a memoir, Bandit, about her bankrobbing father.) Through the book’s “sprawling, philosophical interior monologue,” Butler processes these developments and seeks an understanding of a complicated life.

One book I know better than to press on my self-protective friend is Sonali Deraniyagala’s Wave (2013).

The Sri Lankan author lost her husband, children, and parents in the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, and in this raw book she explores her wild, unhinged grief. The author examines the painful subject in pared-down (yes, Didionesque) prose; our reviewer found reading the starred book “almost as cathartic as writing it must have been.”

And isn’t catharsis what the best art can offer us?

TOM BEER

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

IN PRAISE OF SAD BOOKS

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Contents CHILDREN ’ S

FICT ION 4

Editor’s Note

5

Reviews & News

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Profile: Diane Oliver

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On the Podcast: Marie-Helene Bertino

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Booklist: Books To Get Your Book Club Talking NONFICT ION

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Editor’s Note

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Reviews & News

60

On the Cover: Sloane Crosley

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Recent Audiobooks

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On the Podcast: Erika Howsare

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Booklist: Must-Read New Memoirs

One of the most coveted designations in the book industry, the Kirkus Star marks books of exceptional merit.

OUR FRESH PICK A literary demonstration of how the iconic actor has lost none of her energy, flair, and fiery intelligence.

Read the review on p. 55 PURCHASE BOOKS ONLINE AT KIRKUS .COM

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Editor’s Note

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Reviews & News

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Q&A: Drew Daywalt

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Booklist: Books for Tween Sports Fans YOUNG ADULT

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Editor’s Note

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Reviews & News

150

Q&A: Soyoung Park

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Booklist: Books for Nature-Loving Teens INDIE

160

Editor’s Note

161

Reviews

177

Booklist: Indie Books of the Month

ON THE COVER: Sloane Crosley, illustration by Reiko Lauper, based on a photograph by Beowulf Sheehan.

Background by NOKFreelance via Adobe Stock.

CORRECTION: The illustrator for the Jan. 1 cover portrait of Lesa Cline-Ransome and James E. Ransome was Randy Glass.

Interested in reprints, permissions, licensing, or a framed review? Please contact The YGS Group at: 800.290.5460 or email: Kirkus@theygsgroup.com.

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Co-Chairman HERBERT SIMON

Co-Chairman MARC WINKELMAN

Publisher & CEO MEG LABORDE KUEHN mkuehn@kirkus.com

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

Chief Marketing Officer SARAH KALINA skalina@kirkus.com

President of Kirkus Indie CHAYA SCHECHNER cschechner@kirkus.com

Publisher Advertising

Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU eliebetrau@kirkus.com

& Promotions RACHEL WEASE rwease@kirkus.com Indie Advertising & Promotions AMY BAIRD abaird@kirkus.com

Author Consultant RY PICKARD rpickard@kirkus.com Lead Designer KY NOVAK knovak@kirkus.com Social Media Coordinator SEYANNA BARRETT sbarrett@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor ROBIN O’DELL rodell@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Senior Production Editor MARINNA CASTILLEJA mcastilleja@kirkus.com Kirkus Editorial Production Editor ASHLEY LITTLE alittle@kirkus.com Copy Editor ELIZABETH J. ASBORNO BILL SIEVER Magazine Compositor MARISELA SMUTZ

Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK lmuchnick@kirkus.com Young Readers’ Editor LAURA SIMEON lsimeon@kirkus.com Young Readers’ Editor MAHNAZ DAR mdar@kirkus.com Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE mlabrise@kirkus.com Senior Indie Editor DAVID RAPP drapp@kirkus.com Indie Editor ARTHUR SMITH asmith@kirkus.com Editorial Assistant NINA PALATTELLA npalattella@kirkus.com

Indie Editorial Assistant DAN NOLAN dnolan@kirkus.com Indie Editorial Assistant SASHA CARNEY scarney@kirkus.com Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Writers GREGORY MCNAMEE MICHAEL SCHAUB

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Contributors

Colleen Abel, Jeffrey Alford, Paul Allen, Jenny Arch, Kent Armstrong, Mark Athitakis, Sally Battle, Robert Beauregard, Kazia Berkley-Cramer, Ty Billman, Elizabeth Bird, Ariel Birdoff, Sarah Blackman, Amy Boaz, Jessie Bond, Nastassian Brandon, Melissa Brinn, Jessica Hoptay Brown, Jeffrey Burke, Timothy Capehart, Catherine Cardno, Tobias Carroll, Charles Cassady, Ann Childs, Carin Clevidence, K.W. Colyard, Rachael Conrad, Emma Corngold, Jeannie Coutant, Kim Dare, Michael Deagler, Cathy DeCampli, Dave DeChristopher, Elise DeGuiseppi, Amanda Diehl, Steve Donoghue, Melanie Dragger, Anna Drake, Jacob Edwards, Gina Elbert, Lisa Elliott, Lily Emerick, Katie Flanagan, Mia Franz, Jenna Friebel, Jackie Friedland, Robbin Friedman, Omar Gallaga, Maura Gaven, Chloé Harper Gold, Carol Goldman, Melinda Greenblatt, Valerye Griffin, Michael Griffith, Christine Gross-Loh, Vicky Gudelot, Tobi Haberstroh, Dakota Hall, Geoff Hamilton, Silvia Lin Hanick, Bridey Heing, Mara Henderson, Katrina Niidas Holm, Natalia Holtzman, Kathleen T. Isaacs, Darlene Ivy, Wesley Jacques, Jessica Jernigan, Danielle Jones, Mikayla Kaber, Jayashree Kamblé, Marcelle Karp, Maya Kassutto, Ivan Kenneally, Colleen King, Katherine King, Lyneea Kmail, Andrea Kreidler, Carly Lane, Chelsea Langford, Tom Lavoie, Judith Leitch, Maya Lekach, Donald Liebenson, Maureen Liebenson, Elsbeth Lindner, Coeur de Lion, Corrie Locke-Hardy, Barbara London, Patricia Lothrop, Georgia Lowe, Wendy Lukehart, Kyle Lukoff, Isabella Luongo, Leanne Ly, Michael Magras, Thomas Maluck, Collin Marchiando, Gabriela Martins, J. Alejandro Mazariegos, Breanna McDaniel, Dale McGarrigle, Sierra McKenzie, Zoe McLaughlin, Don McLeese, Noelle McManus, Kathie Meizner, J. Elizabeth Mills, Sabrina Montenigro, Clayton Moore, Lisa Moore, Rebecca Moore, Molly Muldoon, McKenzi Murphy, Christopher Navratil, Liza Nelson, Mike Newirth, Therese Purcell Nielsen, Sarah Norris, Katrina Nye, Tori Ann Ogawa, Connie Ogle, Mike Oppenheim, Andrea Page, Derek Parker, Hal Patnott, John Edward Peters, Jim Piechota, William E. Pike, Steve Potter, Margaret Quamme, Judy Quinn, Kristy Raffensberger, Matt Rauscher, Evelyn Renold, Kelly Roberts, Lauren Roberts, Amy Robinson, Lizzie Rogers, Lloyd Sachs, Bob Sanchez, Caitlin Savage, E.F. Schraeder, Jerome Shea, Polly Shulman, Maia Siegel, Linda Simon, Laurie Skinner, Arthur Smith, Jennifer Smith, Wendy Smith, Margot E. Spangenberg, Mo Springer, Allie Stevens, Jenn Strattman, Mathangi Subramanian, Jennifer Sweeney, Deborah D. Taylor, Paul Teed, Desiree Thomas, Caroline Tien, Renee Ting, Laura Villareal, Christina Vortia, Francesca Vultaggio, Elliott Walcroft, Erica Weidner, Amelia Weiss, Sam Wilcox, Angela Wiley, Kerry Winfrey, Marion Winik, Adam Winograd, Livia Wood, Bean Yogi, Jean-Louise Zancanella

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A FICTIONAL LENS ON THE VIETNAM WAR SOMETIMES IT SEEMS like the river of novels about World War II will never run dry—readers are always eager for a new angle, or even a retread of an old angle, perhaps because it was the last war in which the U.S. felt like the unquestioned good guys. And the winners.

Lately, though, there have been a number of books about the Vietnam War and the years leading up to it, written by both Vietnamborn and U.S.-born authors.

Perhaps Americans are ready to read about a more complicated conflict.

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Artist and writer Marcelino Truong was born in 1957 in the Philippines, where his father was a Vietnamese diplomat; he’s also lived in Vietnam, the U.S., Britain, and France.

His graphic novel, 40 Men and 12 Rifles: Indochina 1954 (translated by David Homel; Arsenal Pulp Press, 2023), follows a painter named Minh who’s conscripted by the Communists to create propaganda for their revolution, though he’d rather be painting nudes of his girlfriend. “It’s a fascinating look at a

troubling and complex time,” our review says, “and Truong’s art has an appealingly clean, direct style, while his writing conveys wit and heart.”

Caroline Vu was born in Vietnam in 1959 and moved to Canada—where she works as a physician—when she was 11. Her latest novel, Catinat Boulevard (Guernica Editions, 2023), begins in Saigon during the war and then follows its characters through the aftermath. Mai and Mai Ly are teenage girls, and then women, who come from very different backgrounds, one privileged and one poor; Mai has liaisons with American soldiers and flees the fall of Saigon on a helicopter while Mai Ly works as a spy for the Viet Cong. “Dazzling and impassioned, this novel evokes history from a perspective often overlooked—that of its survivors,” says our review.

Andrew X. Pham was born in Vietnam in 1967 and fled with his family 10 years later.

After writing two nonfiction books—Catfish and Mandala (1999), a memoir, and The Eaves of Heaven (2008), about his father’s life—he’s now written Twilight Territory (Norton, Jan. 23), a novel set in the 1940s and ’50s, when the Japanese invaded Vietnam to displace the French occupiers. A

young woman named Le Tuyet develops a relationship with Yamazaki Takeshi, a Japanese major, and their love becomes intertwined with resistance and violence.

Our starred review calls it “an engrossing story set amid a rich historical background.”

Two recent books focus on American women in Vietnam in the 1960s. In Absolution (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), Alice McDermott introduces a group of corporate and military wives whose attempts to “help” the people they meet in Saigon are a double-edged sword. “This transporting, piercing, profound novel is McDermott’s masterpiece,” according to our starred review.

And in The Women (St. Martin’s, Feb. 6), Kristin Hannah focuses on Frances McGrath, who enlists as an Army nurse after her brother dies in the war. “Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail,” according to our review. While the secondary characters are thin and the ending predictable, this is “a dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.” Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

LAURIE MUCHNICK

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EDITOR’S PICK A timely coming-of-age story about art and love from the author of The Third Rainbow Girl (2020).

This novel begins with a middle-aged photographer describing a lengthy bout of depression and isolation with oblique—but very telling— references to how the death of her “housemate” factored into her sense of despair.

When she finally reemerges, she encounters “two white kids” in a coffee shop and follows them home. Then this unnamed observer disappears—for a while—as she tells the story of Bernie (who “looked like a thin girl”) and Leah (who “looked like a fat boy”).

Within a handful of pages, Eisenberg establishes her novel’s central themes and the context in which this narrative is taking place. The physical setting is

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

Philadelphia, although Leah and Bernie will embark on a road trip that takes them through central Pennsylvania—a place that is very much itself while also serving as synecdoche for flyover America. The 2016 presidential election and the Covid-19 pandemic offer temporal touchstones.

Shifting mores around sexuality and gender, the complicated demands of social justice movements, how we deal with bad people who create good art, and the difference between recording and actually seeing are just some of the topics Eisenberg lays out before setting her Gen Z protagonists loose to explore them. Bernie and Leah meet when Bernie answers an ad that begins “Four Swarthmore grads, looking for a fifth housemate” and ends with “Queer

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The Hebrew Teacher

By Maya Arad; trans. by Jessica Cohen

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Wild Houses

By Colin Barrett

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The Garden

By Clare Beams

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Housemates Eisenberg, Emma Copley | Hogarth 352 pp. | May 28, 2024 | 9780593242230

preferred (we all are).” There are also mentions of proactive communication and a chore wheel. In this household, Bernie is an outsider, someone who is not attuned to—and not at all invested in—this kind of intentional living, and Bernie’s difference changes Leah. Eisenberg works through the issues she sets before the reader at the beginning of her novel with

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Clear

By Carys Davies Housemates

By Emma Copley Eisenberg

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The Possessed

By Witold Gombrowicz; trans. by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

love and nuance. Or maybe it’s better to say that she lets her main characters fumble along in a world in which these issues matter. If that sounds pedantic or prescriptive, it’s not. Eisenberg has a poet’s eye for truth, and her prose is gorgeously precise and empathetic while remaining cleareyed.

Emotionally rich and quietly thought-provoking, this is simply a stunning debut.

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Lies and Weddings

By Kevin Kwan

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My Beloved Life

By Amitava Kumar

What Happened to Nina?

By Dervla McTiernan

The Sicilian Inheritance

By Jo Piazza Reboot

By Justin Taylor The House of Broken Bricks

By Fiona Williams

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Close to Death

By Anthony Horowitz

Death in the Details

By Katie Tietjen Sunbringer

By Hannah Kaner The Mars House

By Natasha Pulley

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In a Not So Perfect World

By Neely Tubati Alexander FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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An urgent, sweeping call to arms for the protection of books everywhere.

THE BOOK CENSOR’S LIBRARY

Begin Again Acton, Helly | Avon/HarperCollins (416 pp.) $30.00 | April 2, 2024 | 9780063345348

A 36-year-old London woman dies and finds herself with the opportunity to revisit five crossroad moments in her life to see what might have been.

Frankie McKenzie is a disappointment to herself. Working for a tabloid where she writes a weekly column poking fun at celebrities’ normal lives and gaffes, she’s happily single and has no interest in getting married, yet judges herself harshly for her choices.

She’s unhappy with her lack of drive to accomplish anything, her lack of positive thinking, her feelings of abandonment from her divorced parents, and her paired-off and/or more settled friends Alice, Tom, and Priya. The night she dies—her birthday—she’s set up on a blind date with a very nice man, but she sneaks away because she just can’t fathom trying yet again to find someone to serve as her plus-one. She stops at her local kebab shop on the way home, but at the door she slips, hits her head, and dies. After that, she arrives at The Station, where she’s told she’s one of the lucky ones who will be able to revisit—for 24 hours—five versions of her life that might have unfolded after key decisions. Once she’s done that, she can decide to rejoin one of them or go forward to The Final Destination. Author Acton has written a surprisingly charming story that shows how what-ifs don’t have to pen a person in, and everyone can write 6

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the story of their future with every choice they make.

A thoughtful exploration of how fear ties people to the past, but shouldn’t, and how small choices can lead to big changes.

The Book Censor’s Library Al-Essa, Bothayna | Trans. by Ranya Abdelrahman & Sawad Hussain Restless Books (272 pp.) | $18.00 paper April 2, 2024 | 9781632063342

How dangerous can books really be?

When the narrator of Al-Essa’s novel is hired by his unnamed dictatorial government as its new book censor, he doesn’t expect to embark on a twisted, perilous reckoning with the power of literature.

He is meant simply to read books and either approve or ban them, searching for illicit mentions of queerness, democracy, the Internet, or the Old World. He is certainly not supposed to engage in literary interpretation.

Despite his best efforts, however, Al-Essa’s protagonist succumbs to the power of storytelling and gets sucked into the rich, sticky, unsettling, all-encompassing world of stories.

Eventually, he will uncover a hidden world of book lovers and libraries and risk his career, family, and life for these books’ success. In the novelist’s world, language is a threat: “Language was not a smooth surface—it was a roller-coaster, a sponge, a gateway.”

Al-Essa, who is Kuwaiti, skillfully illustrates both the joy in stories and the discomfort they can wield—as

mighty conveyors of disruptive meaning. Al-Essa’s plot and prose are satirical and absurdist, blooming with metaphors and episodes so fantastical one almost forgets their societal relevance and gravity. Indeed, the paradox of Al-Essa’s writing is that the parodic adventures of her prose, which make the novel so engaging, occasionally border on the farcical, in danger of spinning away from the book’s moral and political center. “Books could hear, bite, multiply, have sex. They had sinister protocols to take over the world, to colonize and conquer…,” but this exuberance threatens the intensity and focus of her progressive argument.

An urgent, sweeping call to arms for the protection of books and book lovers everywhere.

Kirkus Star

The Hebrew Teacher: Three Novellas Arad, Maya | Trans. by Jessica Cohen New Vessel Press (320 pp.) | $17.95 paper March 19, 2024 | 9781954404236

Three Israeli women adjust to life in the United States.

In the title story of Arad’s latest book, an older Israeli woman reflects on nearly half a century spent in the American Midwest, where she teaches Hebrew at the local (unnamed) university. It’s been a quiet life spent scrupulously building up an academic program in Hebrew and Jewish studies. Lately, however, enrollment in Ilana’s classes has fallen: “What will happen,” she wonders, “if Hebrew ends up like Hindi or Polish, with just a beginners’ class offered every two or three years?” Just then, a flashy young professor—also Israeli—is hired, and Ilana is caught off guard: Yoad, with his complicated critiques of Israeli politics, seems intent on undermining not just Ilana’s work, but also the comfortable assumptions on which she’s K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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based her life. It’s a quiet, novella-length story, meticulously observed, with remarkable shades of subtlety and nuance. What could have easily become a political screed is, instead, a gentle inquiry into aging, what it means to be relevant, academic ambition, and, most particularly, the morality of Zionist politics. The other two novellas that make up this volume are just as intricately realized. In A Visit (Scenes), Miriam visits her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in Silicon Valley, where she quickly discovers fault lines in her son’s apparently stable family. Make New Friends tackles the insipid—and occasionally insidious—world of social media when Efrat tries to help her daughter adjust to middle school life.

Each story is marked by the meticulousness of Arad’s observations and the depth of her insights. While her stories follow traditional forms, unmuddied by narrative experimentation, the wisdom she culls from them is tremendous.

The quiet subtlety of Arad’s prose only pulls the strength of her insights into higher relief.

The Triumph of the Lions Auci, Stefania | Trans. by Katherine Gregor & Howard Curtis | HarperVia (384 pp.) $18.99 paper | March 12, 2024 9780062931702

Auci chronicles further generations of the legendary Florio family in a follow-up to The Florios of Sicily (2020).

Covering the years between 1868 and 1893, Auci details the continued expansion of the Florios’ wide-ranging empire, which includes holdings in manufacturing, shipping, mining, fishing, and winemaking.

Now under the direction of Ignazio— whose devotion to the business overrules almost all other interests— the enterprises contribute to the expansion of Sicily’s importance in the Italian economy and culture. Ignazio’s K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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marriage to a woman of minor nobility enables the family to begin its rise above the class of tradesmen and merchants so maligned by Sicilian nobles, and Auci delivers a dramatic portrait of the heartaches, triumphs, and machinations occurring in the wealthy but striving household.

Giovanna, Ignazio’s wife, occupies a place of lesser importance among his interests due to his preoccupation with industry and, perhaps, a past love. Her sometimes-thwarted affection for her spouse, however, does not prevent Giovanna from assuming her place in industrial royalty and providing heirs to ensure continuity for the business.

As Auci’s narrative unfolds, events within the household and in the halls of Italian banks and government affect the stability of the family’s position as the “lions” of Sicilian industry. The actions of Ignazio’s namesake and successor, Ignazziddu, lead to a cliffhanger ending hinting at further installments. Gregor once again translates Auci’s colorful work—which is the basis for the Hulu miniseries The Lions of Sicily—this time in collaboration with Curtis. A helpful Florio family tree precedes the text, and Auci launches this volume with a summary of the family’s previous triumphs. In addition, the historical backdrop of each of the novel’s four sections is explained at length in notes at the end.

A compelling combination of historical sweep and family drama.

My Name Was Eden Barker-White, Eleanor | Morrow/ HarperCollins (304 pp.) | $28.00 Feb. 27, 2024 | 9780063341296

When a teenage girl is revived after nearly drowning, she insists on being called by a new name. Is it trauma—or is she possessed by the spirit of her dead twin?

When Lucy Hamilton’s daughter, Eden, is pulled from a nearby lake in

the English countryside, it looks like the worst has happened—until she begins to breathe again. But while still in the hospital, she starts to insist that her name is Eli, which was the name of her unborn brother lost to vanishing twin syndrome. When Lucy and James bring their child home, she cuts her hair, begins to dress more androgynously, and continues to insist that her name isn’t Eden. On one hand, Lucy is relieved, because her relationship with her child has been combative for some time, and this new incarnation is sweet and demonstrative; on the other, she’s concerned, understandably, about what’s really going on. James has no time for this drama; he’s super busy with work (and maybe an affair?) and then his mother dies in a fall down the stairs. Then a boy from Eden’s school is hit by a car.

Across these spikes of action, Lucy is also dealing with her own repressed childhood trauma. The strangest thing about this novel is that, despite the title, Barker-White never directly writes in the voice or perspective of Eden, focusing primarily on Lucy as narrator with an occasional chapter dedicated to Charlie, Eden’s best friend. Instead, we are left to try to solve an unsolvable mystery, with insufficient clues and a twist at the end that offers no clarity. The other discomfiting thing is that we are offered a character who seems to identify as male, totally out of sync with his female body, and we are asked to consider this strange and even villainous. At one point Charlie asks whether Eden “want[s] to actually be a boy,” but Eden rebuffs the question; it seems tone deaf not to explore this possibility more directly.

Some interesting exploration of the “evil twin” cliche, but ultimately too ambiguous.

For more fiction reviews, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

Wild Houses Barrett, Colin | Grove (272 pp.) | $27.00 March 19, 2024 | 9780802160942

In this adroit debut novel, several already unbalanced characters from a small town in the west of Ireland find their lives thrown into disarray by an ill-conceived kidnapping.

Anxious and depressed 20-something Dev Hendrick, whose beloved mother has recently died and whose father is semi-confined to a local mental institution, is living on the dole and occasionally babysitting a shipment of drugs or two when he’s approached by his cousins, two local drug-dealing brothers who have decided to incentivize a former comrade, Cillian English, to pay what he owes them by kidnapping, holding for ransom, and threatening to kill his feckless teenage brother, Doll. After the brothers stash the bewildered kidnappee in Dev’s basement, the only thing Doll has going for him is the existence of an intelligent and resourceful girlfriend, Nicky Hennigan, who, though she’s rapidly losing interest in him, doesn’t want to see him dead. Maintaining a tone of dark humor, Barrett deftly ramps up the suspense in a situation where life and death depend on the moment-by-moment choices of characters who have “the unreliability, but also the dangerous decisiveness, of creatures who did not understand their nature and did not care to understand it.”

While focusing on one fraught weekend, Barrett takes the time to let the reader get to know the characters involved in this mess in all their complicated and sometimes heartbreaking glory. In particular, Nicky, orphaned young and essentially raising herself, stands out as someone both of the town and on the brink of separating herself from it. Without losing the 8

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plot, Barrett peppers each page with wry observations on primary and peripheral characters, including Dev’s dead mom’s “increasingly unintrepid” little dog, the kidnapper who has “a face on him like a vandalised church,” or Doll puffing on a nearly defunct joint “like he was giving it CPR.” A pointed and poignant commentary on life on the edges in rural Ireland.

Kirkus Star

The Garden Beams, Clare | Doubleday (304 pp.) $28.00 | April 9, 2024 | 9780385548182

In 1948 Massachusetts, a young wife enters a mysterious residential program to help her carry a pregnancy to term.

Having suffered five miscarriages, Irene Willard arrives at an estate in the Berkshires that serves as a treatment facility for pregnant women with similar histories. High-spirited and impetuous, Irene isn’t thrilled to be so tightly monitored by the married doctors who run the program, but Irene’s husband, shaken by his wartime service, desperately wants children.

Because of him, Irene endures calisthenics and communal gardening, hormone shots and psychotherapy.

Most acutely, she endures Dr. Bishop, the woman who spearheads the program with steely ambition. When Irene discovers an untended walled garden on the back of the property, she realizes it may be the source of the house’s unsettling atmosphere, with ramifications for both Irene and Dr. Bishop that are beyond either of their comprehensions. In many ways, this novel is sister to Beams’ debut novel, The Illness Lesson (2020); both feature a women-centered community, dubious health treatments, and animal omens.

But here Beams leans into horror influences—The Haunting of Hill House, Rosemary’s Baby, plant horror,

even Stephen King—and into the tropes of the maternal gothic. (“She’d had no idea love could swirl with horror this way,” Beams writes of Irene.) While many authors have explored the way the pregnant body is a haunted body, Beams’ writing sets her apart, shimmering against the dark subject matter. She also navigates a minefield, as Irene’s treatment is based on a synthetic hormone used in the 1940s that caused both birth defects and health risks for the mother; where a lesser writer might have fallen back on ableist tropes of “monstrous” children, Beams treats her subject with a careful moral imagination.

Like an overgrown garden—untamable, lush, and wild in ways lovely and terrifying.

The Good Deed Benedict, Helen | Red Hen Press (304 pp.) $19.95 paper | April 9, 2024 | 9781636281124

Set in 2018, Benedict’s latest follows a group of women who have sought refuge on the Greek island of Samos.

The book begins with the frantic rescue of an infant found at sea by Hilma, an American tourist recuperating from a mysterious trauma suffered at her home in New York. Switching among Hilma’s perspective and the voices of four refugees living in a sprawling, squalid refugee camp, the novel depicts the crises of each woman. Amina is a 19-year-old who has been recently released from one of Bashar al-Assad’s torturous prisons in Syria, haunted by the past and longing for her mother.

Leila, a Syrian widow with two young sons, is desperately trying to locate her daughter, Farah, and infant granddaughter, captured by smugglers in Turkey. Nafisa, a Sudanese woman who has endured civil war, gang rape, and the murder of her family, is suffering from increasingly poor health.

Reversing Homer’s Odyssey, Benedict K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Bond has created a lived-in world where magic runs just under the surface.

THE FRAME-UP

illustrates the obstacles each refugee faces in her quest to leave home, capturing the myriad tragedies that have befallen them in frank but empathetic prose. The stark contrast between the refugees’ stories and Hilma’s attempts—following her “good deed”—to become a savior only exposes the egotism of her mission. The reader is invited to witness both the hostility with which European countries receive Black and brown refugees and the performativity of white guilt. Revealing the ways racism has been systemically encoded in law and the seemingly Sisyphean task of being granted refuge, Benedict interrogates the constructions of race, nationality, and human-made borders. As the roads of the refugees and Hilma converge, the novel comes to an emotional conclusion, reminding us that hope is still to be found in the most desolate of places and prompting the reader to consider why and how we ask a person to prove their own humanity.

An insightful reminder of our responsibilities to one another, more important now than ever.

Simpatía Blanco Calderón, Rodrigo | Trans. by Noel Hernández González & Daniel Hahn Seven Stories (256 pp.) | $18.95 paper March 5, 2024 | 9781644213650

When a man loses his wife, who’s left him and their country behind, he gains an unlikely mission from his father-in-law.

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wronged? In Hollywood, if there are animals involved, you’d find a man redeemed by their love, but this story is more complex and emotionally resonant than that. As the book opens, our protagonist, Ulises Kan, a part-time teacher and film buff, doesn’t have much going for him, but his country, Venezuela, has seemingly gone off the rails. Here, Blanco Calderón revisits the ongoing political and economic crisis that he used to great effect in his debut, The Night (2022). A silver lining emerges when General Martín Ayala, Ulises’ Bolivar-worshipping father-inlaw, dies suddenly, leaving a note for him. “The Apocalypse is nigh. Sadly, I won’t be here to see it. It’s your task to build the ark and put your woman and your animals there and hold for 40 days.” The general’s dying wish was to transform Los Argonautas, his beloved estate, into a home for the stray dogs plaguing the streets of Caracas. With the help of veterinarians Jesús and Mariela Galíndez, who are working through their own grief, and a corrupt lawyer named Aponte, Ulises sets about his task. Things get complicated when Ulises reconnects with an old flame, Nadine, who immediately moves in, bearing secrets. There’s a lot going on here, not least Ulises’ observations about the Christlike nature of dogs and clever insights derived from films like The Godfather. Added to the mix are a fascinating side plot about a century-old caretaker, schemes to steal Los Argonautas, unexpected deaths, and the little-known work of Australian-born novelist Elizabeth von Arnim, which Nadine discovers among the estate’s hidden treasures.

An unpredictable fable that counters a nation’s hopelessness with the universal need for meaning and connection.

The Frame-Up Bond, Gwenda | Del Rey (352 pp.) | $18.00 paper | Feb. 13, 2024 | 9780593597736

A woman has to run one last big job with her estranged gang in this magical heist novel.

Growing up, Danielle Poissant was surrounded by a tight-knit group of career criminals led by her mother, Maria, a master art thief.

Along with a mysterious partner, Archer, Maria would orchestrate elaborate heists with the help of her crew, including, when she was older, Dani, who had the magical ability to create a perfect copy of any piece of art. This all came crashing down when Dani was 17 and she gave her mother up to the FBI. Now, years later, Dani’s been living on her own with her dog, Sunflower, pulling small cons on people who deserve it to get by. When she’s approached by Archer in a bar in St. Louis, he offers her one more job, a job that requires getting the old crew back together, including Dani’s former best friend and her ex-boyfriend. The reward is great but time is short as Dani has 10 days to steal a painting, confront her past, and face her mother for the first time in a decade. Bond has created a lived-in world where magic runs just under the surface, from criminals with special powers to average people who hide their abilities. The combination of magic and thievery is fun, simultaneously adding more tricks to the crew’s arsenal and causing them more potential trouble. Watching Dani try to reconnect with people who were once her family while trying to pull off a bigger job than she’s ever done provides both depth and real stakes, especially in her strained relationship with her mother. There’s weight behind the emotions: a decade of hurt to push through. Every moment feels earned.

A fun romp with magic, mystery, and big feelings. >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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THE KIRKUS PROFILE: DIANE OLIVER Despite her early death and small body of work, this singular writer is getting the recognition she deserves.

BY NATALIA HOLTZMAN

ONE DAY IN May 1966— just a month before she would have graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and two months before her 23rd birthday—a brilliant young writer named Diane Oliver was killed in a motorcycle accident.

During her brief life, Oliver published only four short stories; three more were published posthumously. Still, the meticulousness of her observations, the astonishing depth of sympathy for her characters, and the clarity of her deceptively simple prose are palpable. Neighbors: And Other Stories (Grove, Feb. 13), a new collection of Oliver’s work that describes the day-to-day (and occasionally surreal) lives of Black Americans forced to endure prejudice, segregation, and poverty in the Jim Crow South, gathers previously published and unpublished stories with an introduction by novelist Tayari Jones.

Oliver’s “ability to distill the everyday struggles and humiliations experienced by African Americans in the ’50s and ’60s with such 10

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clarity and imagination is extraordinary,” Elise Dillsworth, the literary agent representing Oliver’s estate, writes in an email. Dillsworth was instrumental in both the assembling and the publication of Neighbors; she first encountered Oliver’s name in an essay by writer/critic Michael A. Gonzales that appeared in The Bitter Southerner, an online magazine of storytelling. Dillsworth, who focused on African American

studies when pursuing her master’s degree, says she surprised that she’d never heard of Oliver. Gonzales himself had run across Oliver by chance when, “[g] uided by spirits, one overcast morning,” as he puts it, he plucked a book from his shelf (Right On!, an anthology of African American fiction published in 1970), flipped through it, and landed on Oliver’s story The author in 2023 “Neighbors.”

In “Neighbors,” a family prepares, emotionally and practically, for their young son, Tommy, to desegregate his school the following day.

“He’s so little,” Tommy’s mother whispers. In its subtlety and raw power, Oliver’s depiction of the family’s plight—protect their son by keeping him sheltered (and segregated) or expose him to the dangers of an infuriated white world— is tremendous.

Gonzales writes that he “was blown away by the narrative power [Oliver] demonstrated.” Dillsworth felt the same way. After

reading Gonzales’ essay, she began tracking down Oliver’s extant work: both the anthology and the small magazines (The Sewanee Review and Negro Digest) where Oliver had first published her stories.

In a Zoom interview, Dillsworth says she was astounded by “the maturity of the writing…[and] the depth of observation in someone so young.” Her detective work led her from a former classmate of Oliver’s to the librarian at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and eventually to Facebook, where she discovered Oliver’s niece, Kim McGregor—and, through Kim, Diane’s sister, Cheryl Oliver.

After hiring Dillsworth to represent Diane’s estate, Cheryl and Kim produced a treasure trove: a box stuffed full with Diane’s stories, many of them previously unpublished. These were manuscripts that Cheryl had typed herself. “I remember typing the stories after she passed,” Cheryl says. “My mom organized them and

You could tell, having produced this much work at that age, that [writing] was something in her blood.

Neighbors: And Other Stories Oliver, Diane

Grove | 272 pp. | $27.00 Feb. 13, 2024 | 9780802161314

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Peeler Studios

P R O F I L E // F I C T I O N

had them all in a box—had everything about her in a box.” The box had sat, untouched by anyone outside the family, for decades.

Dillsworth says she had a moment of nerves when she first encountered the new work—maybe it didn’t measure up to the previous work. But, she says, “it was incredible to find stories that were just as strong.”

Dillsworth took Oliver’s work to editors from Faber in the U.K. (where she is based) and Grove Atlantic in the U.S. Together, they compiled the collection, deciding which stories to include and in what order.

Dillsworth says that she and the editors (both have since moved on to other jobs) performed only a light copy edit of the stories, “but nothing was changed in terms of sentences or anything like that.” Luckily, she adds, “there was no need.”

When Peter Blackstock, deputy publisher at Grove Atlantic, inherited the book from his departing colleague, he was presented not with a polished manuscript but with a set of scans of typewritten pages—the very typewritten pages that Cheryl and her mother had put together after Diane’s death. It was like “something from the archives,” Blackstock says. “You just felt the history and the weight of it somehow.”

Having encountered Gonzales’ essay, as well as a two-part episode on Oliver that writers Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton produced for the Ursa Short Fiction podcast, Blackstock could see that interest in Oliver’s work was growing.

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“You could tell, having produced this much work at that age…that [writing] was something in her blood,” he says.

For Blackstock, the force of Oliver’s stories extends from her characters, whom “you feel are absolutely alive, and…burst off the page,” to “the cadences of dialogue and gesture that evoke the period she’s writing in,” to “the surprise that’s in these stories— there’s such variation within them…and they take these unexpected turns.”

But Blackstock was also moved by the eerie and almost surreal quality of some of them, which he likens to work by Gogol or Daniil Kharms, whose stories are “so much rooted in [a particular] place and yet they’re so surreal and they’re so timeless.”

Originally published in 1967, “Mint Juleps Not Served Here” describes a Black couple living in a remote forest with their son, who doesn’t speak.

When a white caseworker turns up (“We didn’t know you people lived so deep in the forest,” she says), things take a violent turn.

Throughout the story, Oliver maintains a seemingly impossible balance in tone between social realism and the otherworldly horror of a fairy tale—or a Jordan Peele film.

“One thing that’s very characteristic of [Oliver’s] work,” Blackstock says, “is this bleeding in of the surreal—or sometimes it’s the psychological state of the characters she’s writing about—into this very realist world.”

According to Cheryl Oliver, when Diane was still alive, their mother tried to discourage her from publishing “some of these stories because they were about family members and close friends,” and she worried about their reactions. Diane “was describing people as they were,” Cheryl says, and “sometimes people aren’t that nice.”

Their mother’s worry “didn’t stop [Diane] from writing.…That typewriter was going all the time,” Cheryl says, recalling their childhood in Charlotte, North Carolina, where their mother taught piano lessons and their father served as a teacher and administrator.

Even more than writing, Cheryl remembers Diane as “always reading when she was growing up—she was always reading a book.”

“When it was time for dinner and my mom would call us to [the table],” Cheryl says, “[Diane] would stay in her books and not come.” At one point, their parents actually had Diane’s hearing checked, Cheryl says, “but they soon realized that she just was able to tune everything out.…It became a joke.

They’d go check on her and say, ‘Oh, well—Diane’s with her book people.’”

Now that her sister’s collection has finally been published, Cheryl says, “I think she’d be clicking her heels.…She’d be like—in a nonchalant way—‘I’m so surprised.’”

Natalia Holtzman is a writer whose work has appeared in LitHub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Millions, and elsewhere.

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The Last Philosopher in Texas: Fictions and Superstitions Chacón, Daniel | Arte Público $18.95 paper | March 31, 2024 9781518508042

A clever collection of stories exploring fantasy, superstition, and Chicano identity.

Chacón’s stories deal with small magic: the mysticism of conversations with relatives or finding a familiar face in an unfamiliar setting. In the opener, “My Crazy Tía,” the narrator’s aunt instructs her in time travel over breakfast. It’s a quirky introduction to a wholly entertaining collection that focuses on the bending of reality and sliding through time and space. In “The Flickering Quasar,” for instance, a Christian man falls for a Wiccan woman and becomes, in a Vonnegutian sense, unstuck from time. Where Chacón shines most, though, is in his clever cultural commentary, his exploration of Chicano selfhood. In “Borges and the Chicanx,” he pokes fun at academic stereotyping with a Chicano professor unfamiliar with Latin American literary greats, and in “If Tonantzin Worked at Cracker Barrel,” he places an Aztec goddess in, yes, a Cracker Barrel. The world of this book is one where an albañil, a bricklayer, can “[look] like a god” and where a man’s life is magic as it is “made up of streetlamps and dogs.”

Currents of humor underscore the text; for example, while working at Starbucks, Jesus Christ (yes, the real one) purports to the narrator that he can provide anything: “Anything. Salvation?

Eternal love? A muffin?” Bits of brujería are sprinkled through stories labeled “Superstition,” which cover everything from the rules on placing photos of dead people who hated each other in the same room to the steps to manifest love at first sight. Perhaps the most characteristic representation of Chacón’s sense of humor comes in 12

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“Superstition: The Day of the Dead,” in which the possibility of spiritual possession is bookended with a pragmatic warning: “it would make you moodier than you have ever been.”

Witty, humorous stories about the magic of everyday life.

The Audacity Chapman, Ryan | Soho (288 pp.) | $27.00 April 2, 2024 | 9781641295628

The spouse of a scandal-plagued entrepreneur drowns his sorrows at a Caribbean retreat.

Chapman’s second novel, following Riots I Have Known (2019), centers on Guy Sarvananthan, the son of Sri Lankan immigrants, a failed composer, and, as the story opens, the husband of a vanished wife, Victoria Stevens. Her kayak was found empty in San Francisco Bay and it looks like she’s drowned, but Guy surmises that she’s likely faked her death before word gets out that her startup, which claimed to have a cure for cancer, has come up empty. Rather than head west from New York to play-act as a concerned husband, he co-opts Victoria’s invitation to the Quorum, a Davos-style masters-of-theuniverse gathering on a private island owned by a Bezos-ian figure. From there, Chapman’s novel becomes a satire of the ultrarich on two tracks.

Chapters narrated by Victoria describe her escape to Joshua Tree, meticulously tracking her wellness and productivity while rationalizing her fraud. Guy, meanwhile, insinuates himself as a boozy, druggy habitue of the billionaire set, at least until Victoria’s fraud is revealed (“I don’t want to think about any problems,” he says. “My goal is ruinous intake”). Which is to say that both of Chapman’s leads are contemptible, if to a purpose: He means to expose how moral rot infects the 0.25 percent, mainly by showing how the gathering, ostensibly meant for the sake

of organized, well-financed do-gooderism, degenerates into self-interested squabbling. But though he has a keen eye for the foibles of the new gilded age, Chapman has done his job almost too well—his efforts to make Guy a nuanced character (immigrant, artistically talented, skeptical) make his ultimate narcissism and blithe selfdestructiveness all the more frustrating.

Unlikable characters are fair game in fiction; abjectly, determinedly hollow ones are a tougher sell.

A cutting, if frustrating, eat-therich yarn.

Kirkus Star

Clear Davies, Carys | Scribner (208 pp.) | $24.00 April 2, 2024 | 9781668030660

A minister is sent to evict the last inhabitant of an isolated island in the North Sea. It’s 1843, and two major upheavals are roiling Scotland. First, the barbaric Clearances, in which landowners replace their “impoverished, unreliable tenants” with profitable occupants like sheep, have finally made their way to Scotland’s austere northern islands. Second, one-third of Scotland’s Presbyterian ministers have revolted against landowner-controlled church appointments—and consequently deprived themselves of any income. Reverend John Ferguson is one of these suddenly impoverished ministers, which is why he agrees to voyage 400 miles into the North Sea to evict a barren island’s sole remaining tenant. Armed with a pistol and a calotype image of his wife, Mary, John is dropped off and told that the boat will return in a month. He’s barely there a day, however, when he falls off a cliff and is rescued by Ivar, the lonely man he’s there to remove. The two men do not share a language, but while Ivar tends John’s wounds and teaches him words like leura (“a period of short, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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unreliable quiet between storms”), he finds himself increasingly attracted to John…who is too ashamed to admit that he’s come to kick Ivar out of his home. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles away, Mary learns something about this particular clearance that causes her to set off in search of her husband. Will John come to reciprocate Ivar’s more-than-filial feelings? Will Ivar leave peacefully? Will John’s hidden pistol bring the leura to a harsh and sudden end? With her characteristically buoyant prose and brisk sense of plotting, Davies crafts a humane tale about individuals struggling to maintain dignity beneath competing systems of disenfranchisement. But while a lesser author might allow their characters to be terminally lashed by these historical travesties, Davies infuses John, Mary, and Ivar with refreshingly fantastical levels of creativity and grace, which helps them find a startling new way to avert disaster.

A deft and graceful yarn about language, love, and rebellion against the inhumane forces of history.

I Cheerfully Refuse Enger, Leif | Grove (336 pp.) | $27.00 April 2, 2024 | 9780802162939

Amid the dystopian collapse of the near future, a musician embarks on a quixotic voyage from the shore of Lake Superior.

There’s both a playfulness and a seriousness of purpose to the latest

from the Minnesota novelist, a spirit of whimsy that keeps hope flickering even in times of darkest despair.

Things have gone dangerously dark along the North Shore, and likely for the country as a whole. A comet is coming that augurs ill, a pandemic has wreaked havoc with the public health, an autocratic despot and raging populism have made books and booksellers all but treasonous. There are corpses floating in the lake from climate change, and there are numerous instances of people swallowing something that kills them; the dead are generally considered seekers of whatever comes next (which has to be better than this) rather than suicides.

As narrator Rainy sets the scene, “The world was so old and exhausted that many now saw it as a dying greatgrand on a surgical table, body decaying from use and neglect, mind fading down to a glow.” Rainy is a bass player in bar bands, a jack of a variety of trades, and devoted husband to Lark, a bibliophile who runs the local bookstore. Before the collapse of the publishing industry, a cult author had been set to publish a volume with the same title as this novel, and finding one of the few advance copies has been like a holy grail for Lark.

Then a copy finds her, courtesy of a fugitive pursued by the powers that be, and whatever tranquility Lark and Rainy had achieved is shattered. Rainy takes to the lake to escape the fugitive’s pursuers and reunite with Lark. He experiences a variety of hardship, challenge, and adventure, yet somehow lives to tell the tale that is this novel.

The novel’s voice remains engaging, and its spirit resilient, against some staggeringly tough times.

The effect is appealingly weird, as if the uncanny valley took literary form.

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Island Rule Flynn, Katie M. | Scout Press/Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) | $27.99 | March 5, 2024 9781982122201

Set primarily in California, this short-story collection mixes the mundane and the bizarre with an authority stemming from its concrete sense of place.

This collection of linked stories takes its name from a hypothesis positing that small mammals may grow larger on islands while large mammals may grow smaller. While teaching a geography class at San Diego State University at the outset of the Obama administration, a professor reflects on how the theory manifests in her home country, a nameless island nation run by a dictator known for dressing in skimpy bathing suits.

Ostensibly protecting her small daughter from bad influences, a San Francisco mother takes a dislike to a clique of schoolgirls who hang out near her home, inviting more trouble than she can possibly realize. Some of the stories stay firmly or mostly anchored in realism, focusing on characters and conflicts that feel all too plausible: A child of divorce forced to move from Oklahoma to Minnesota disappears; a perpetually single woman is invited camping by an old friend; a survivalist teaches her nephew the ruthless ways of the wild. Other stories, however, veer into supernatural or dystopian territory. A Hollywood agent has a monstrous encounter during a drug trip. A professional image rehabilitator “polish[es]” reputations for a living.

Characters sometimes recur, typically in the form of passing references, but certain objects, events, and threats serve as the overarching throughline: a set of teeth extracted from the mouth of a 17th-century Norwegian explorer, mysterious mounds of human bones that fuel rumors of a serial killer on the prowl, the tragic death of a cosmonaut in a spaceflight accident, the constant FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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specter of environmental disaster.

Some stories feel tighter and more polished than others, and the collection as a whole could be more cohesive, but the overall effect is appealingly weird, as if the uncanny valley took literary form.

A compelling exercise in worldbuilding and genre blending that toggles among the recent past, present, and near future.

Kirkus Star

The Possessed Gombrowicz, Witold | Trans. by Antonia Lloyd-Jones | Black Cat/Grove (416 pp.) $17.00 paper | March 19, 2024 9780802162526

Eighty-five years after the Nazi invasion of Poland interrupted its original serial publication, Gombrowicz’s second novel receives its first complete Polish-to-English direct translation.

Marian Leszczuk, a working-class coach, travels to a boardinghouse in the Polish countryside to train wealthy tennis prodigy Maja Ochołowska. A few kilometers away stands an ancient castle, bordered by mist and “reedchoked marshes,” inhabited by the batty Prince Holszański and his secretary (and Maja’s fiance), Henryk Cholawicki. Leszczuk and Maja are drawn into a conspicuously stormy relationship, spurred by their uncanny physical resemblance to one another and by “something deeper and more elusive.” Cholawicki, jealous of Leszczuk and determined to inherit the prince’s fortune, tries to guard both Maja and the castle’s valuables from interlopers. Meanwhile, the prince dodders around his massive castle in a terrified fugue, convinced that “pretty much the whole place is haunted.” Professor Skoliński, another boarder, yearns to study the castle’s antiques rather than leave them 14

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“lamentably wasted at the mercy or lack of mercy of a demented aristocrat”—but Skoliński soon realizes the castle is “in possession of unclean forces” fueling the prince’s insanity.

Crumbling antiquity, petty scheming, romantic comedy of manners—these are the foundations of an unpredictable gothic pastiche, both brazenly funny and deeply spooky. The short paragraphs fly by, buzzing with intrigue and danger. Even when sentences circle the same woebegone or paranoid sentiments, there is the sense of mounting pressure. Gombrowicz acutely renders the interiority of his capricious characters, most of whom are prone to double-dealing and quick to take offense at social transgressions; their erratic behavior is explained with striking clarity. Lloyd-Jones’ translation crackles with choice phrases, deftly capturing Gombrowicz’s gorgeous scenic descriptions, mordant sense of humor, and evocations of lurking horror.

A delightful revelation of an interbellum novel from one of the great Polish modernists.

The Invisible Hotel Ham, Yeji Y. | Zando (320 pp.) | $28.00 March 5, 2024 | 9781638931379

A young woman struggling to find her way in South Korea wrestles with the generational grief of a country torn asunder.

This ethereal debut novel, at once a horror story and a bird’s bone–delicate exploration of trauma, is filled with ghosts. Like many of the menaces imagined here, the story never fully materializes, but that doesn’t prevent the atmosphere from being chilling. Our narrator is Yewon, a young South Korean woman. She has some school under her belt and dreams of going to college in Australia or living in a real city like Seoul instead of the small town where she’s just

finished her last day at a dead-end job and lives with her disparaging mother.

Yewon’s running monologue is straight-laced, but Ham somehow conjures up a delicious tension among her lead’s longing to become something, the little tragedies unfolding around her, and the spooky aftereffects of the Korean War. There’s Yewon’s sister, who is pregnant and getting a divorce from her husband. Broadening her horizons are her best friend, Min, and Tae-kwun, a young engineering student she dates. There’s not much time for fun, though. There’s the old North Korean woman Yewon agrees to drive to a prison to visit her brother, which reminds Yewon that her own brother, Jae-hyun, is stationed at a military base close to the DMZ. There’s her father, dead from a factory explosion in Saudi Arabia. Most of all, there’s her mother ritually washing the bones of their ancestors in the bathtub where Yewon was born. All of these simmering tensions lead to Yewon’s increasingly frightening visions of the titular hotel: “I was a guest. Traveling far from home, come to a foreign place. A stranger to where I arrived.

Though I don’t remember coming to a hotel or traveling at all. I don’t want a room. I need to get out.”

An intriguing debut—not a story of war, but of a nightmarish visit to its echo chamber.

Chronicles of a Village Hiện, Nguyễn Thanh | Trans. by Quyên Nguyễn-Hoàng | Yale Univ. (144 pp.) $20.00 paper | April 2, 2024 9780300276404

small village in A Central Vietnam weathers political upheaval, social change, and the vicissitudes of history and time in the author’s first novel to be translated into English.

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A Nobel Prize–winning novelist reveals his inner Elvis Costello.

THE SUMMER WE CROSSED EUROPE IN THE RAIN

childhood in a sleepy, unnamed village at the foot of the Mun Mountains. As a boy he herds cows and scares birds away from the family rice crop. In a jacket woven of mountain palm leaves, he plays happily in the rain. The villagers’ quotidian worries over weather, rice, and cotton are disrupted by warring political ideologies and “the blood-soaked purge of [their] homeland…” People disappear without warning. The narrator’s father is taken away for being “lettered”; his mother, killed in a bomb raid. Later he loses his first sweetheart and his brother.

Regimes topple and change. But the stories go on. In dreamy, discursive prose written with no capital letters, with commas and few periods, the narrator loops back and forth from present to past, to local myths passed down through the generations, excerpts from a local 18th-century writer, tales of French colonists, reminiscences about the village’s first radio, words of a childhood lullaby: “these are the chronicles of my village, the vessels of remembering and reminiscing, tale upon tale of yesterday, yesteryear, yestercentury or yestermillenia, now plainly precise, now hazily adrift, an abundance, or maybe an overabundance…” While there’s no plot in the traditional sense, the book bursts with characters, poetry, philosophy, romance, violence, and struggle. “my village remained a small fragment of the world,” the narrator explains, “and yet it carried all of the aspirations ever possessed by mankind…” In the world of the book, history is shifting, plastic. Even the dead can sometimes return. “history is only a draft copy, son…,” the deceased father tells him. “nothing is true.”

A dreamlike, original, strangely hopeful book.

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A Good Happy Girl Higgins, Marissa | Catapult (256 pp.) $27.00 | April 2, 2024 | 9781646221974

A troubled woman, haunted by the abuses of her past, attempts to build a future that includes both punishment and forgiveness.

Helen is in her 30s, working as a low-level attorney in Boston; she often uses the office as a set for her side project running “a private social media account where [she] stream[s her] feet for women.” While the foot-fetishist camming site does occasionally lead to in-person meetups, at the novel’s opening Helen is in the market for a longer-term arrangement with Catherine and Katrina—or “the wives”—a married couple she met through an app dedicated to erotic role-play. Helen requests that the wives “mother [her] meanly,” and the symbiotic interplay they create among control, nurture, sexual pleasure, and pleasurable sexual pain fulfills the needs of all three partners. In many ways this seems like an ideal situation for Helen, whose online activities may be revealed to a decidedly un-kinkfriendly IT department at work, but Helen’s past trauma reflects on every part of her present life, including her ability to envision the future. While Helen was in college, her parents were convicted and jailed in a horrific case of elder abuse that left her grandmother near death. Helen visits her grandmother in the nursing home regularly, but she’s also in contact with her father, who wants her to be a character witness to help him get

parole. Torn between the desires to punish and please her father, Helen’s self-destructive tendencies threaten to destabilize every relationship she has built, including the one she has established with herself. Helen and the wives are compelling characters whose desires—even at their most macabre—stem from relatable places.

However, while the book as a whole creates a moving portrait of Helen’s suffering and the potential for healing she finds in the “warm cruelty” of her chosen family, the overly technical depictions of the novel’s many sexual encounters strip away a sense of authentic passion. The result is a stilted distance in the very scenes where the prose should rise to a fever pitch, robbing them of their power.

Full of desire but somewhat lacking in passion. Nevertheless, a provocative read.

The Summer We Crossed Europe in the Rain: Lyrics for Stacey Kent Ishiguro, Kazuo | Illus. by Bianca Bagnarelli Knopf (120 pp.) | $22.00 | March 5, 2024 9780593802519

The Nobel Prize– winning novelist reveals his inner Elvis Costello.

“I’ve built a reputation over the years as a writer of stories,” says Ishiguro, “but I started out writing songs.” Never an underachiever, Ishiguro reveals that in fact he’d written more than 100 songs by the time his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, was underway. Though the songs, he allows, were “mostly ghastly,” their writing provided a useful apprenticeship in verbal economy: Along the way, he notes before revealing any of the lyrics themselves, he learned from the challenges a song imposes, such as conveying meaning in just a few words, telling a story, and drawing a reader’s emotions into the >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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P O D C A S T // F I C T I O N

Fully Booked

Novelist Marie-Helene Bertino talks Beautyland on a special 2024 preview episode. BY MEGAN LABRISE

EPISODE 355: MARIE-HELENE BERTINO

EDITORS’ PICKS:

The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho, illus. by Kate Milner (Candlewick) Ant Story by Jay Hosler (HarperAlley) Waiting for the Monsoon by Rod Nordland (Mariner Books) Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman (Norton) THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me by Donna Gordon Chasing Shadows: Genesis by Zachariah Jones Sister by Leia M. Johnson, illus.

by S.J. Winkler Anna’s Promise by D.G. Schulman Fully Booked is produced

by Cabel Adkins Audio and Megan Labrise.

Beowulf Sheehan

To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.

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On this episode of the Fully Booked podcast, Marie-Helene Bertino takes us behind the scenes of Beautyland (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jan. 16), “a coming-of-age story in which the main character is, literally, out of this world” (Kirkus).

Bertino is the author of the novels Parakeet and 2 A.M. at the Cat’s Pajamas and the story collection Safe as Houses. She currently teaches in the creative writing program at Yale University and lives in New York state.

Here’s a bit more from our starred review of Beautyland: “In Northeast Philadelphia, in the Earth year 1977, Adina Giorno is born to a woman destined to be a single mother. The baby is too small, and her mother, observing her under the hospital phototherapy lamp, thinks she looks ‘other than human. Plant or marine life, maybe. An orchid or otter.

A shrimp.’ One reason for this might be the lamp’s unearthly blue-green light, or the fact that the baby is early and the mother traumatized by her difficult birth. Another might be the fact that Adina is actually otherworldly, an alien life form from a planet 300,000 light-years away, sent to infiltrate human society and ‘take notes.’ This Adina does assiduously all throughout her childhood and adolescence in 1980s and ’90s Philadelphia, where she lives with her Earth mother.…The notes themselves…are sent via a fax machine Adina’s Earth mother scavenges from the trash and sets up in her bedroom.…

As Adina grows and her circle of influence widens…[she] becomes more and more aware of how different she feels from her Earthling friends.…A compelling, touching story that weds Bertino’s masterful eye for the poignant detail of the everyday with her equally virtuosic flair as a teller of the tallest

Beautyland

Bertino, Marie-Helene

Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 336 pp. | $28.00 Jan. 16, 2024 | 9780374109288

kinds of tales—so tall, in this case, they are interplanetary.”

We begin our conversation about Beautyland with the question, “What’s your relationship to this novel at this point in time?” We talk about whether she was lonely while writing Beautyland; whether loneliness holds a negative connotation for her; a New York Times article about reading parties. Additional topics include how protagonist Adina is a journalist whose beat is humanity; what Bertino considers to be her beat; embarrassing adolescent journals; types of people; the work of Saul Bellow; and how terrible and beautiful it is to be alive.

Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick share some of the most eagerly anticipated titles of 2024.

Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts the Fully Booked podcast.

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game without, one hopes, undue mawkishness. The present volume gathers a modest 16 songs, illustrated

by Italian artist Bagnarelli, whose work is charmingly suggestive of the eerily whimsical productions of Japan’s Studio Ghibli; the lyrics are matched, via the magic of a QR code, with recorded versions sung by jazz chanteuse Kent. When she told Ishiguro that his songs were sad, he replied, “However sad, however bleak the song became, there had to remain an element of hope.” Sad some of the lyrics may be, but they’re also craftily wordy in a way that Cole Porter might envy: It ain’t “Begin the Beguine,” but “I want to be awakened by a faulty fire alarm / In an overpriced hotel devoid of charm” has its evocative qualities, while Leonard Cohen might not have been displeased had he penned the lines “Like a bird caught mid-flight by a barbwire fence / I kept going for a time before falling.” Ishiguro isn’t going to force Joni Mitchell into retirement, but it’s a well-intended effort overall, and an interesting side note into a way of storytelling other than that for which the author is known.

For fans of literate pop as much as of Ishiguro’s body of work.

Inside the Mirror Kapur, Parul | Univ. of Nebraska (362 pp.) $26.95 paper | March 1, 2024 9781496236784

In post-independence Bombay, twin sisters struggle to meet their parents’ expectations and pursue their artistic passions.

Jaya and Kamlesh Malhotra are both following dual tracks, Jaya studying medicine while exploring her interest in painting and Kamlesh studying teaching and dance. Their parents are eager for them to be educated but see their creative hobbies as interests to be 18

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indulged only until they are married.

But India is changing rapidly in the mid-1950s, and Jaya begins spending time alone with Kirti Dasgupta, a man she’s met at medical school, threatening her reputation. At the same time, she becomes engaged with Bombay’s flourishing and male-dominated modern art world. Her desire to pursue her artistic practice puts her on a collision course with her parents, and her decision to move in with another single woman causes a rift with Kamlesh, who despite her anger at Jaya is pursuing her own dreams of acting on the stage and screen.

Interwoven with stories of the Malhotra family’s struggles against British rule and the violence of partition, which forced them to flee Punjab for Bombay, the novel interrogates the midcentury clash of modernity and tradition as the Malhotras grapple with both. The narrative can obscure the family’s history, which is introduced throughout the book, but the lack of clarity doesn’t take away from the rich legacy of rebellion Jaya and Kamlesh inherit or, in their way, advance.

An engaging examination of female independence and familial devotion.

Kirkus Star

My Beloved Life Kumar, Amitava | Knopf (352 pp.) | $29.00 Feb. 27, 2024 | 9780593536063

A quiet, appealing, deceptively ambitious Indian (and Indian American) family saga covering 1935-2020.

The novel looks at the outset like old-fashioned realism: a sympathetic, slowly cumulative account of an “ordinary” life. Jadunath Kunwar is born in a superstitious backwater without electricity. A good student, he’s first in his family to attend college (a highlight is meeting Tenzing Norgay,

fresh from summiting Everest). Jadu becomes a modestly successful historian, a husband, father to a daughter. His life’s most dramatic events occur around its edges: his mother’s near-fatal cobra bite during her pregnancy, the theft of his daughter’s dowry by a cutpurse, a brief stretch in jail after a protest. The author’s daring here takes the unusual form of modesty, quiet, calm; few big plot elements arise, and Kumar leaves lots of space for digression, anecdote, observation, and Jadu’s well-meaning mildness. Kumar’s patience—and the reader’s—pays off handsomely, though, when we jump forward to the end of Jadu’s life as seen through his daughter Jugnu’s eyes and grasp the book’s full sweep. The crowning (minor) glory of Jadu’s career is a Fulbright year at Berkeley in 1988.

That trip abroad becomes the spur or permission Jugnu needs, after her husband commits a crime and her marriage founders, to settle in the U.S. as a journalist for CNN. The novel follows the father and daughter all the way to the Covid-19 pandemic, and along the way it provides an immersive, poignant portrait both of India over 85 years and of the whipsawing experience of being an Indian citizen of the larger world. But mostly, in the end, it pays tribute to two people who make noticing, attentiveness, and storytelling the central pillars of their lives. Late in the book, Jugnu encapsulates the novel’s premise and ambition when she says, “I believe strongly that we are in touch with a great astonishing mystery when we put honest words down on paper to register a life and to offer witness.”

An immersive, moving portrait that steadily gathers intensity, vividness, and surprise.

For more by Amitava Kumar, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

Lies and Weddings Kwan, Kevin | Doubleday (448 pp.) | $29.00 May 21, 2024 | 9780385546294

Let us not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Or, maybe let’s.

In his second follow-up to the blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, Kwan continues to wrap fairy-tale love stories in glitz, glamour, couture, fine art, and delicious wit. (It’s possible that the author is on a diet because the food component seems slightly less dominant than usual.) This time, our star-crossed lovers are Rufus Gresham, Viscount St. Ives, a man whose beauty has been driving women to distraction since he was photographed in his boxers ironing a dress shirt at age 16, and Eden Tong, a young doctor who lives with her widowed father on the family property at Greshamsbury Hall.

Though Rufus has been madly in love and planning to marry Eden since childhood, he is about to run into a solid wall of opposition from his mother, Lady Arabella. Since she and Lord Gresham have managed to drain the family coffers, she is determined to save the family by having each of her three children marry serious money.

But right from the start, when an active volcano interrupts the wedding of daughter Augusta to Scandinavian royalty, things don’t go her way. Often hilarious epigraphs and fourth-wallbreaking footnotes include this: “Founded in 1875 in Venice, Tessitura Luigi Bevilacqua was also the official supplier of precious fabrics to the Vatican until Pope Paul VI decided to tighten the belt on luxury goods. (This would explain the pillows from Target I saw in the waiting room during my last audience with the Pope.)” One also enjoys the gossip articles, invitations, and menus sprinkled through the text, and the little icons used to signal location changes—Hawaii hibiscus, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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London Big Ben, Greshamsbury tea set, Houston oil derrick, etc.—are adorable.

Still more brilliant escapism among Kwan’s 1 percenters. Too much is never enough.

Ellipses Lawrence, Vanessa | Dutton (288 pp.) $28.00 | March 5, 2024 | 9780593472774

A young woman falls under the spell of an older mentor.

When Lily Michaels—a queer, biracial, 32-year-old writer at a fashion magazine—meets and charms Billie “B” Aston at a charity function, she feels like the stars have finally aligned. B is the president and chief creative officer of a prominent beauty company and a powerful queer woman whom Lily idolizes. When B tells Lily she wants to mentor her, Lily jumps on the opportunity. As Lily deals with the demands, injustices, and microaggressions of her job, she becomes more and more reliant on texting B for advice. For her part, B keeps Lily on a leash while simultaneously keeping her at arm’s length: B reels her in with guidance and innuendos, and then goes silent. Lily is no fool but can’t quite seem to extricate herself from this enchanting correspondence: “And how was it that Lily could be fully aware of B’s deception—that casual reference to a coffee meet-up that B clearly had no intention of actualizing—and continue to actively participate in her own manipulation?”

Lily’s relationship with B quickly becomes the center of her universe as she finds herself entangled in the older woman’s seductive web, unable to think about much else. Ironically, as Lily fears the way social media is encroaching on her media job, she simultaneously becomes glued to her phone, much to the detriment of her in-person friendships and her relationship with her girlfriend, Alison. While B’s characterization falls a little flat,

and Lawrence’s exploration of digital media and the rise of Instagram influencers doesn’t amount to much, through Lily, Lawrence paints a layered portrait of a woman at a crossroads.

A fresh take on power, manipulation, and self-discovery.

Jaded Lee, Ela | Simon & Schuster (336 pp.) $27.99 | March 19, 2024 | 9781668010990

The life of a young London lawyer falls apart when she becomes the victim of acquaintance rape.

This debut novel’s tone of angry earnestness is set by Jade, its narrator, whose name is the Anglicized version of her actual name, Ceyda. The child of immigrants, a Korean mother and a Turkish father, Jade is both an obedient, loving daughter and a careerist happy to assimilate into the British upper classes.

She relishes the security she’s found in her relationship with her posh British boyfriend, Kit Campbell, and in her increasingly responsible position at a prestigious law firm. Then one night at a work party, Jade is plied with liquor by a senior partner only to wake up the next morning in her bed, naked and hungover, her pubic area sore.

Although deeply unsettled, she is unable (or unwilling) to remember what happened until increasing physical pain and flashes of terrifying memory force her to face the knowledge that she’d been raped. Suddenly, all the security she’s assumed proves ephemeral. The career she’s worked so hard at becomes uncertain. Her relationship with her parents suffers, and Jade recognizes that Kit is an entitled twit. Through Jade’s trauma, novelist Lee portrays the double whammy faced by women of color, who not only suffer the misogyny and abuse of powerful predatory men, but also endure the long-term effects of racism, classism, and anti-immigrant FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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prejudice. While Lee drives home her points successfully and Jade’s reactions are complicated, other characters and their interactions too often seem intended as talking points. Jade’s pragmatic, don’t-rock-the-boat friend is balanced by her impassioned, wants-to-rock-the-boat friend, while no male characters except Jade’s saintly father are trustworthy, and almost all are sexual predators.

Lee’s novel reads like a strong case study of societal evils but misses coming to life as fiction.

The Woman Who Looked Like Sophia L.: An E-Mail Romanza Leviant, Curt | Dzanc (188 pp.) | $17.95 paper | Feb. 20, 2024 | 9781950539918

In this short e-pistolary novel, a seasoned American author, Giorgio, is caught between reality and fantasy in pursuing his infatuation with an Italian beauty.

He meets the full-lipped, bikini-clad Sofia on a beach in Parma, where he’s overwhelmed by her stunning resemblance to Sophia L. (as in film legend Loren, whose surname is never stated) and instantly smitten. She is overjoyed to discover that not only is he reading an Italian translation of the same novel she’s reading, The Yemenite Girl (the title of Leviant’s reputation-making 1977 book), but he wrote it. They flirt and hug and part as friends, with plans of seeing each other sometime again. The rest of the novel consists of emails between them in which she reveals she has two unsatisfactory relationships she is unable to end—one with her icy Finnish husband and another with a married Italian—and he shamelessly does all he can to get her to leave both men. He counts on his “surreptitious allure” doing the trick. Sofia writes in faulty English, occasioning dozens of authorial asides by Giorgio in which he 20

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pores over the possible hidden meanings of her Freudian lapses, misspellings, and shifts in her terms of endearment (“carissimi,” for example, to the less intimate “caro”). As for his own emailing difficulties: “When I wrote to her, I was split in two. My forked pen, i.e., my keyboard, said one thing while my heart/mind was thinking another.” Even with its interesting reflections on modern language and allusions to the likes of Dante, Dali, and Epicurus, the novel ultimately strains to be more than a stylistic exercise. The alternate beginning and ending aren’t needed.

But the work is lifted by its wry charm and creepy cleverness. You can’t help rooting for Giorgio, sort of.

Amore, the new-fashioned way, with awkward results.

Negative Space Linden, Gillian | Norton (176 pp.) | $26.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781324065548

A woman teaching at a Manhattan private school witnesses a suspicious encounter between a faculty member and a student.

Taking place over the course of one week, this debut focuses on the accrual of small cracks in the life of the narrator, a wife and mother of two small children, set against the massive fissure of life during Covid-19. One Monday, after arriving at her part-time job teaching English, she witnesses a senior colleague, Jeremy, alone in a classroom with a ninth grade student, Olivia. Jeremy is the advisor to the school literary magazine, Negative Space, and Olivia is on staff, so this encounter seems normal—except that the classroom door is closed, and the narrator witnesses Jeremy lean in to touch his head to Olivia’s, a gesture she feels compelled to relay to the school administration. As the week unfolds, Linden treats this narrative thread with a weight equal to other events

tugging at the woman: an ongoing dental emergency for her anxious daughter; a fainting episode; a husband who spends his time on Zoom calls or spritzing his pandemic-purchase plants; a looming scandal in Olivia’s wealthy family; and, of course, the gradually escalating fallout of the narrator’s decision to report the ambiguous gesture she saw. The decision to balance all these facets equally diffuses some of the potential drama of the novel, and the narrator’s “numbness” and uncertainty, though consistent with her world-weariness, contribute to a restrained style that some might find detached, even dissociated. Ultimately, though, Linden is a miniaturist, and the precision with which she works, whether describing a child’s existential bedtime angst or Zoom audio glitches, can be as satisfying as any more explosive plot.

A subtle and promising debut about the hazy liminality of late pandemic life.

In the Shadow of the Greenbrier Matchar, Emily | Putnam (352 pp.) $18.00 paper | March 12, 2024 9780593713969

Four generations of a Jewish family find their fates tied to a mysterious and glamorous hotel.

The historic resort in Matchar’s latest is a real property in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. Its secret, chronicled here, has long been disclosed. But although this renders some of the book’s mystery anticlimactic, the real heart of the story is Matchar’s examination of the hardships faced by four generations of a Jewish family in rural America. Far from the crowded tenements of the big cities, the Zelners must contend with antisemitism, poverty, and painful secrets in a small, isolated, and often K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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hostile community. Matchar reveals the journeys of each generation, the Zelners’ trials interwoven with the fate of the magnificent hotel, a magnet for the wealthy and famous. The gentle patriarch, Sol, starts his life in America as a door-to-door peddler, then opens a general store in the shadow of the hotel. His daughter-in-law, Sylvia, a dissatisfied immigrant from Poland accustomed to finer things, works at the hotel during World War II, when it becomes a luxurious camp for German and Italian diplomats (an affair with one of the latter tempts the married Sylvia, who has just had her first child).

Later, her daughter, Doree, embarks on a romance with a mysterious man working at the hotel while Sylvia’s son, Alan, is convinced there’s a conspiracy behind some new construction there.

In the 1990s, Doree’s son, Jordan, a Washington Post reporter, sets out to uncover the truth. Some storylines turn out to be more compelling than others, as is often the case with multigenerational novels, with some dubious developments in Doree’s narrative and Jordan’s segments feeling superfluous except as a means to an end. But Sol’s and Sylvia’s plotlines allow Matchar to offer a glimpse into American Jewish history.

An interesting story about antisemitism, family secrets, and Jewish life in rural America.

The Swan’s Nest McNeal, Laura | Algonquin (320 pp.) $29.00 | March 12, 2024 | 9781643753201

The clandestine love affair between Victorian poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning is set against a background of slavery and injustice in Jamaica, with implications for the Barrett family, “dirtied by profit from the West Indies.”

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declares, in 1845 England, in a letter to the invalid Barrett, whom he has never met yet already admires for her work and searching intelligence. Too fragile to be visited during the winter, Barrett prevents Browning from calling for five months, but the couple exchange a frantic correspondence, while their siblings meet socially in a circle that includes proto-feminist and abolitionist Lenore Goss. While spending time in Jamaica, where her family owns a sugar plantation, Goss met one of Barrett’s brothers, Sam, who was managing his own family’s plantation. Before his death from yellow fever, Sam had taken a Black woman, Mary Ann Hawthorne, as his mistress, and had a child with her, David. Mary Ann and David have recently come to London seeking acknowledgment from the Barrett family and an education for the boy, requests that are denied by the clan’s patriarch, a stern, controlling figure who dominates Elizabeth’s life and health. Browning, younger and poorer but ardent, wants to marry Barrett and take her abroad for her health, a commitment viewed anxiously by his sister, Sarianna, whose lot is to tend their elderly mother. While the men have freedom, it’s the women’s predicaments and situations that interest McNeal, switching among them sympathetically until the poets make their escape, marrying secretly and fleeing to Italy. Now the storyline hews more closely to the two central figures and their romantic but precarious journey, while maintaining a sensitive watch on its scattered cast.

An eternally satisfying love story is retold, backed by a detailed examination of colonial privilege.

Kirkus Star

What Happened to Nina?

McTiernan, Dervla | Morrow/HarperCollins (336 pp.) | $30.00 | March 5, 2024 9780063042254

A young Vermont woman goes missing and her boyfriend is the prime suspect.

“My name is Nina Fraser.

There is a good chance that you know who I am.”

The novel begins with a prologue in the voice of its 20-year-old title character, who relays the history of her relationship with her boyfriend, Simon Jordan, and a particular weekend they spent hiking and climbing at his parents’ new place near Stowe. It ends like this: “I went downstairs to tell Simon that we were over and that I never wanted to see him again.” From this point, other voices take over, including those of Nina’s parents, Leanne and Andy; Simon’s mother, Jamie; and Matthew Wright, the detective who’s investigating Nina’s disappearance. With the support of a few other characters, they are responsible for piecing together Nina’s story and bearing witness to the things they know—and the things they suspect—which will change all their lives. We learn that Nina never came home from that weekend trip with Simon, nor has she been in touch with her family. We learn that Simon, who was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, has a sense of entitlement and a shaky alibi. We learn that each of the parents >>>

A young Vermont woman goes missing and her boyfriend is the prime suspect.

W H AT H A P P E N E D T O N I N A?

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F I C T I O N // S E E N A N D H E A R D

New Nineteen Eighty-Four Audiobook in the Works Andrew Garfield and Cynthia Erivo will star in the Audible production of George Orwell’s novel.

The booming voice of Big Brother, the peals of clocks striking 13, and the squealing rats of Room 101 are coming soon to a pair of earbuds near you.

The Amazon-owned audiobook and podcast company Audible announced that it’s producing a star-studded audio adaptation of George Orwell’s classic 1949 dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

For our original review of Nineteen Eighty-Four,, visit Kirkus online.

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Among the actors attached to the project are Andrew Garfield as the novel’s hero, Winston; Cynthia Erivo as his love interest and fellow dissident, Julia; Andrew Scott as resistance leader O’Brien; and Tom Hardy as the voice of notorious totalitarian ruler Big Brother.

The production, which has the approval of Orwell’s estate, will also include a score co-written by Matthew Bellamy, frontman of the band Muse, performed by a 60-piece orchestra, according to a story in the Hollywood Reporter.

Audible says the adaptation will remain loyal to the source novel while taking some liberties with its contents, “going deeper into Winston and Julia’s love story.”

Director Destiny Ekragha said, “I can’t wait for everyone to hear what the Andrews, Cynthia, and Tom have done with these iconic characters.”

The audio adaptation is scheduled for release on April 4, the 40th anniversary of the first diary entry that Winston writes in the original novel.

—MARK ATHITAKIS

Eri vo: Jason Dav is/ WireImage; Gar field: Tim P. Whitby/Get t y Images for The Red Sea International Film Festi val

SEEN AND HEARD

Cynthia Erivo, left and Andrew Garfield

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AWARDS Mystery Writers of America Announce Grand Masters Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine will receive the top honors at this year’s Edgar Awards.

Page: Jean Fogelberg; Stine: Mike Coppola/Get t y Images

Authors Katherine Hall Page and R.L. Stine will receive some of the mystery world’s highest honors at this year’s Edgar Awards.

The Mystery Writers of America, the group that administers the Edgars, has announced that Page and Stine are the recipients of its prestigious Grand Master awards, representing the “pinnacle of achievement in mystery writing.” Previous Grand Masters include Agatha Christie, Sue Grafton, Walter Mosley, Sara Paretsky, Stephen King, and Michael Connelly.

Page will be honored for her long line of “The Body in the…” titles, which launched in 1990 with her debut mystery, The Body in the Belfry.

Stine is best known for his Goosebumps series of children’s books, which have sold more

For reviews of books by Katherine Hall Page, visit Kirkus online.

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than 400 million copies in 32 languages.

“The first Grand Master was Agatha Christie in 1955. I am stunned to be standing in her—and all the others’—shoes,” Page said in the release.

“Thank you MWA for the thrill of a lifetime.”

Stine similarly evoked past greats in his statement: “Tony Hillerman.

Elmore Leonard.

Mickey Spillane. Ruth Rendell: Those were the MWA Grand Masters when I first started attending the Edgar Awards over 30 years ago. If you had told me then I’d be on that list someday, would I have believed you? I don’t think so. I’m surprised and truly honored.”

The release also noted that Michaela Hamilton, executive editor at Kensington and editor in chief of Citadel, will receive its Ellery Queen Award, honoring “outstanding writing teams and outstanding people in the mystery-publishing industry.”

The awards will be presented as part of this year’s Edgars ceremony, scheduled for May 1 in New York.—M.A. —M.A.

Katherine Hall Page, left, and R.L. Stine

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would do anything to protect their children. And so the stage is set for revelation, revenge, and tragedy.

McTiernan turns the traditional thriller on its head by exploring the why and the what over the who. There isn’t a lot of mystery here, but there is deep humanity; it’s a meditation on grief, and helplessness, and what it means to parent a child who might not live the life you thought they would—or might not be the person you want them to be—and how death removes from each of us the illusion of choice or control over past, present, or future. And that is truly haunting.

“The wages of dying is love,” Galway Kinnell once wrote. McTiernan asks if that’s enough.

Fury Mendoza, Clyo | Trans. by Christina MacSweeney | Seven Stories (224 pp.) $17.95 paper | Feb. 13, 2024 9781644213711

Sex, revenge, death, and hidden histories populate a rough landscape in this experimental debut.

The first novel by acclaimed young Mexican poet Mendoza opens with two soldiers, Lázaro and Juan, who’ve decided to desert. (No place and time are given, but the era of the Mexican Revolution is a reasonable surmise.) As they wander, they share stories or muse on their pasts, while encountering people with their own pasts to share; they discuss homosexuality, selling their souls to the devil, and prostitution. Before he dies, Lázaro recalls his urge to locate his father, who abandoned him as a child and violently abused his mother; discovering he had the same father, Juan heads to the desert to track him down and kill him for “sowing the seed of his cursed bloodline everywhere he passed.” This spine of a plot, however lurid, matters less than the lyrical, phantasmagoric, symbolic 24

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Sex, revenge, and death populate a rough landscape in this spiky debut.

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tenor of the prose, through which Mendoza explores the fragile, fluid nature of the human body. Characters shift gender and even species, morphing from dog to human and back again; the dead speak; an extended sequence takes place in a morgue, with erotic overtones that couldn’t underscore the book’s themes of life and death more overtly. It’s bemusing, at times baffling stuff, but the bleak, eerie mood is well sustained. MacSweeney, an expert at translating tricky Spanish-language writers like Valeria Luiselli and Elvira Navarro, cleanly captures Mendoza’s urge to pile narrative upon narrative and maintains a poker-faced tone even when the storytelling is at its most transgressive.

However confusing, the novel sustains the idea that cruelty is humanity’s inheritance; “so much pain had been stored in his well that it was now almost full,” Juan recalls, and he’s not the only one.

A moody, spiky yarn of inherited loss and violence.

Granite Harbor Nichols, Peter | Celadon Books (320 pp.) $29.00 | April 30, 2024 | 9781250894816

A British novelist turned Maine police detective finds himself investigating a horrific murder.

Nichols follows up his innovative novel The Rocks (2015) with a more familiar type of thriller. In its opening scene we meet three teenage boys, gleefully skateboarding the nighttime streets of sleepy Granite

Harbor. When Shane splits off from the group, an observer in a pickup truck rolls after him, a montage of images racing through his brain. “He was beneath the small blond girl riding him like a rocking horse....He was pinned to the ground as boys and girls spread their legs above him....In the woods with Ivan, the Master...[t]he hanging coyote was speaking his name....In his mouth he tasted the bitter pus....” Think we might have a serial killer on our hands? Very soon we will learn the horrific details of his murderous routine, as will Det. Alex Brangwen, the interesting Brit at the center of the novel’s large, well-developed ensemble cast. As Alex was beginning a successful writing career in the U.K.—he was shortlisted for the Booker Prize—his pregnant American wife, truly a bitch on wheels, insisted on moving home to have her baby.

Maine, she decided, telling Alex it was beautiful, full of writers, and he’d love it there. But, unfortunately, things went south with both the marriage and his third novel, and he ended up working at the local police department, whose chief, Belinda “Billie” Raintree, had read his books and thought the skill set would translate. Now Shane’s desecrated body turns up on the grounds of the Settlement, a local archaeological site where many locals work as historic re-enactors, Goody this and Goodman that. Shane was a friend of Alex’s now-teenage daughter Sophie, and she and the other two skateboarders become even more alienated from their parents after the murder—particularly problematic because Mr. Weirdo still has them in his sights.

Well-written, character-driven portrait of small-town New England meets Silence of the Lambs. Strong stomach a plus.

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The Age of Magic Okri, Ben | Other Press (288 pp.) $16.99 paper | Feb. 13, 2024 9781635422689

A fantasy written

by Booker Prize– winner Okri.

This most unusual journey of eight characters to “a mythic, a magical, state of being” called Arcadia is perhaps a novel, perhaps a poem; one might read it either way, the author suggests.

It is a work of vivid imagination and language in which reality bends and blends with unreality. The plot is minimal, and the protagonists— mainly Lao and Mistletoe—face no antagonist. They are part of a documentary film crew, which gives them a reason for their train journey from Paris to Switzerland. Along the way, a Quylph (whatever that is) speaks to Lao in his sleep, asking what he is afraid of—Malasso, perhaps, as everyone else is? Malasso, he who has “featureless power and malignity” and a name that sounds like Badass, is a vague threat: Film crew director Jim must “transcend Faust, and solve the enigma of the Devil.” The word Arcadia seems to carry special meaning: The first letter of the alphabet begins a journey, while the last takes you home. And “a” is also in the middle, so you can begin again.

“Never move far from the alpha of life.” Lao and Mistletoe engage in a highly poetic sex scene: “no longer of this world” and “low rhythmic wail”?

Okay. But then, “Somewhere up in the mountains a stray rocket went off.”

What? With all the buildup, there should be an 8.3 magnitude earthquake. Anyway, expect plenty of white For more by Ben Okri, visit Kirkus online.

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space—Chapter 1 is only one sentence, for example: “Some things only become clear much later.” Such clarity will not illuminate every reader’s mind, though. Some will reach the end of the book and think, Huh? Or worse, shrug. To quote Gertrude Stein about Oakland, there is no there there.

Enjoyable for much of the prose, but not a strong story.

Pride and Joy Onomé, Louisa | Atria (336 pp.) | $27.99 March 12, 2024 | 9781668012819

A story of grief and faith within a Nigerian Canadian family.

Newly divorced Joy Okafor Bianchi is a life coach hanging by a thread as she struggles to ensure that every last detail of her mother’s 70th birthday goes according to plan. Her dreams of a perfect celebration are dashed when her 13-year-old niece discovers Mama Mary has died in her sleep, on Good Friday no less. Further complicating matters, Mary’s sister, Nancy, is convinced her sibling will rise again on Easter Sunday owing to a premonition involving a brown cow. Immediately, Mary’s passing turns into an absurdist spectacle as news reporters and community members flock to the house to witness this miracle. Unsurprisingly, disaster, insensitivity, and long-buried family secrets soon follow.

YA novelist Onomé’s adult debut features a sprawling cast of characters that ultimately prove too unwieldy to manage effectively. Perspectives rapidly rotate, and one-off characters with no clear narrative significance nevertheless take up precious space. While the author creates compelling young people who struggle with grief appropriately for their age, the adults tend to be unlikable at best, immature at worst. At one point, out of nowhere, a character remarks, “Isn’t it weird how our kids are pretty much the same age,

except you got pregnant out of wedlock?” with all the subtlety of a middle school mean girl. Joy’s mild demeanor feels less like relatable meekness than pathological spinelessness. However, Onomé’s rich portrayal of Nigerian culture, foods, and traditions provides much-needed grounding, and her skillful handling of the difficulties first-generation children face as they straddle two or more cultures remains ever relevant.

An uneven novel that’s strongest when it simply sits with a child’s grief.

Nothing but the Bones Panowich, Brian | Minotaur (336 pp.) $28.00 | April 16, 2024 | 9781250835246

In this prequel to Panowich’s earlier novels about McFalls County, Georgia, we learn that Clayton Burroughs, who’s shunted into a supporting role here, led an eventful life before becoming sheriff.

Nelson McKenna’s always had it tough. Born with a deformed hand and a cloudy mind and regularly beaten by his father, he had precious few friends in high school, where his sudden, violent turn against a bully brought him into uncomfortably close contact with Gareth Burroughs, Clayton’s wealthy, unscrupulous father, who’s willing to do anything to protect his extensive interests. When Nelson, now known simply as Nails, senses a dispute between patrons of Tuten’s Chute, the bar where he works, he lashes out again, this time leaving Robbie Price dead. Given $8,000 in traveling money and promised a safe landing by Gareth’s agents if he makes it to Jacksonville, he takes it on the lam with Dallas Georgia, the girl he rescued. Their modern-day odyssey, revolving around a relationship that unfolds in unexpected ways, is further complicated by the fact that both Robbie’s brother, attorney Alex Price, and Nails’ old friend Clayton are FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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searching for him with very different goals in mind. Clayton’s hunt puts him clearly at odds with his father, who’s protecting Nails for reasons of his own and only up to a point. The familiar story of fugitives on the run is intensified by the contrast between Nails’ mental challenges, which combined with his hulking stature make other people see him as a monster, and his essential sweetness.

A moving, deeply felt take on Bonnie and Clyde whose inexorable trajectory still allows room for plenty of twists.

Finding Margaret Fuller Pataki, Allison | Ballantine (416 pp.) | $30.00 March 19, 2024 | 9780593600238

A fictionalized take on the trailblazing life of 19thcentury feminist Margaret Fuller.

Much has been written about Fuller, including a Pulitzer Prize– winning biography published in 2014. But Pataki believes Fuller still hasn’t gotten her due—especially in comparison to her male contemporaries. Hence this novel, which begins in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1836, when the 26-year-old Margaret—home-schooled by her father and highly educated for a woman of her time—first visits Ralph Waldo Emerson. Waldo, as he was known, becomes her great mentor and friend, and soon Margaret is keeping company with the likes of Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this telling, Emerson and Hawthorne are wildly attracted to her—Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is thought to have been inspired by Fuller—but remain tied to their traditional wives. Though not exactly lonely, Margaret, who narrates her story, is portrayed as a woman alone, struggling with financial woes. Yet soon enough she is making a name for herself, leading groundbreaking conversation groups for women; editing The Dial, journal of the 26

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Transcendentalists; writing books; and working for social reform. After she signs on as a journalist for the NewYork Tribune, editor Horace Greeley sends her to report from Europe as the first female foreign correspondent.

Margaret eventually arrives in Italy to cover the country’s fight for independence and begins an affair with a Roman soldier, Giovanni Ossoli, with whom she has a baby. Despite these dramatic events, much of the novel is earnest and tame, the opposite of a page-turner. There’s a lot of clumsy exposition and literary name-dropping, with dialogue nowhere near as lively as the characters speaking it.

The author never finds her subject in this mostly lackluster account of a memorable literary figure.

Kirkus Star

The Sicilian Inheritance Piazza, Jo | Dutton (384 pp.) | $28.00 April 2, 2024 | 9780593474167

In this multigenerational novel inspired by Piazza’s own family, two women tell a story that begins in Sicily a hundred years ago and leads to a return

in the present day.

The first narrative belongs to Sara Masala, a Philadelphia chef whose husband has just filed for divorce and full custody of their daughter; on top of that, her once-thriving restaurant has gone bankrupt and her great-aunt Rosie has died. It had always been Rosie’s dream to visit her birthplace in Sicily and take Sara with her, but now Sara will be making the trip solo— Rosie booked and paid for a nonrefundable ticket and hotel room for her.

Although it seems impossible for Sara to leave right now, Rosie threw in one more twist—leaving Sara a deed to a plot of land that belonged to Rosie’s mother, Serafina. If Sara sells it, she can use the money to save her restaurant

and, hopefully, her family. Sara makes the journey to the ancient mountain town of Caltabellessa and is taken under the wing of Giusy, the innkeeper and town gossip. As a child, Sara was always told that Serafina had died from the flu before she could make it to America. Giusy rips that idea apart when she drops the bomb that Serafina was actually murdered. As Sara digs into century-old secrets, her presence becomes a growing threat to the town’s carefully protected way of life.

Interspersed with Sara’s journey is a secondary narrative belonging to Serafina, who provides context with Caltabellessa’s history and the challenges faced by women in early-20thcentury Sicily. Serafina’s story is the beating heart of this novel, an honest look into the sacrifices of a young mother: “I barely had time to remember all the things I once wanted, all the lives I hoped to lead, but sometimes the desire all flooded back and I felt a small death.” This novel almost feels like two books in one, but the stories are inextricably bound, most effectively through the way Piazza writes about the universal experience of what it means to be a woman and a mother.

Fans of historical fiction, women’s fiction, and mystery novels will be equally dazzled.

Bitter Water Opera Polek, Nicolette | Graywolf (128 pp.) $16.00 paper | April 16, 2024 9781644452837

In Polek’s debut novel, a woman fastens herself to reality through the spectral projection of a creative icon.

Gia is floundering against a deepening depression: She’s on leave from the college where she teaches and is recovering from a breakup that is, by her account, entirely her fault. Then she writes a letter to Marta Becket, a (real-life) artist, dancer, choreographer, K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A literate, gothic tale of murder, madness, and intergenerational conflict.

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and actress who died in 2017. She’s read Marta’s memoir and writes: “I wonder if you, too, are able to see my life in full, and could be brought down to attend to it.” She mails the letter with a watercolor in place of an address. A week later, Marta is on her porch wearing lime-green shoes, conjured by her imagination. The intensity of Marta’s convictions and accomplishments awes Gia—her life and passions seem incredibly grand, nothing like the modest ripples of Gia’s mother and grandmother. Marta quietly cares for Gia, offering distraction, completing household tasks, and turning her gaze to art, but still this is not enough for Gia to “leave the things that make [her] small.” She strikes out alone, first to a cottage in some indistinct woods and then to Death Valley, where Marta’s most gleaming relic, the opera house she breathed into life, still stands. Polek creates striking, high-contrast images of each place Gia floats, half-tethered to her worldly connections and responsibilities.

Though she has one eye trained on “the despairing antipossibility of [her] past” and one on “the possible despair in [her] future,” her narration burnishes each thing she encounters, collects, considers, and leaves to rot in her present: “a deer, with its eyes eaten away by fish,” a “small crooked pear tree,” “rabbit stew with mushrooms.”

Gia stumbles into healing like a fawn, but her breathtaking sensitivity makes this rebirth story worthwhile. As all quotations and biographical details attributed to Marta are genuine, the novel also acts as an introduction to the life of a fascinating artist.

A delightfully peculiar meditation on imagination—as maladaptive crutch, creative tool, and steppingstone to peace.

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Wolf at the Table Rapp, Adam | Little, Brown (480 pp.) $30.00 | March 19, 2024 | 9780316434164

A literate, gothic tale of murder, madness, and intergenerational conflict.

Rapp’s latest opens with a central mystery: A young man wanders into a small town in 1951, identifies himself to 13-year-old Myra Lee Larkin as Mickey Mantle, and commits a triple murder worthy of Charles Starkweather. He disappears, leaving a familial memory that will endure, in the form of whispers and a baseball card, for the next half century. Myra, a good Catholic girl who tries to hold to her faith, is one of six children who inevitably drift apart. One, Alec, presents a foreboding figure early on: “His soaked hair makes him seem sinful and ghoulish.” Everyone in Myra’s life, it seems, is touched by mental illness: her father, an uncommunicative war veteran; her free-spirit sister, who tries on every fad of the 1960s; her husband, a straight shooter who descends into schizophrenia, convinced that a light bulb is ordering him to kill Myra and their son, who grows over the years to be both a successful writer and a man himself in need of psychiatric medication; Myra’s grandson, who has apocalyptic visions of cloudscapes. And then there’s brother Alec, whose career opens in this book with a spasm of bloodshed, many more of which punctuate the narrative. Rapp can write up a storm, but the story he presents, as his characters attempt to

understand one another over the course of their lives, is relentlessly gloomy and violent, as if channeling the spirit of Cormac McCarthy. It’s improbable, too: Except in fiction, the chance of being surrounded by that much mental illness seems vanishingly small. Still, willing suspension of disbelief and all, Rapp is a sharp and witty observer (“Their father is staring at his plate as if the ham will provide a solution”), and his narrative commands attention.

A beautifully told but relentlessly grim tale that ends well for almost no one.

The Paris Novel Reichl, Ruth | Random House (288 pp.) $29.00 | April 30, 2024 | 9780812996302

A stiff, lonely young woman takes a life-changing trip to Paris.

After suffering a miserable childhood at the hands of her narcissistic mother, Stella St. Vincent is surprised to receive an envelope labeled “For My Daughter” after Celia’s death in 1983. In it is a piece of paper that says “Go to Paris”; the money to pay for the trip will only be released after it’s booked. This is just the beginning of a silly story with a wildly overcaffeinated plot and characters that are not even close to real people, foremost among them an annoying protagonist who can’t stop shooting herself in the foot even as she miraculously finds her tribe and discovers her extraordinary gifts for eating and cooking. Though she lacks the instincts of a fiction writer, Reichl fills her second novel with the high-flying writing about food, wine, places, and clothes that have made her nonfiction work a well-deserved success. In fact, according to an author’s note, this book grew out of her editor’s request that she expand a chapter from her memoir about trying on a little black dress in Paris.

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B O O K T O S C R E E N // F I C T I O N

Book to Screen

Gareth Cat termole/Get t y Images

Harlan Coben Talks New Series on CBS Mornings His novel Fool Me Once is now a Netflix series starring Michelle Keegan and Richard Armitage.

Harlan Coben stopped by CBS Mornings to discuss the Netflix adaptation of his novel Fool Me Once.

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Coben’s book, published in 2016 by Dutton, tells the story of Maya, a widowed veteran whose life is thrown into disarray after she sees nanny cam footage of her husband—who was slain two weeks earlier—playing with their 2-year-old child.

A critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “a tale guaranteed to fool even the craftiest readers a lot more than once.”

The Netflix series based on the book premiered on Jan. 1; it stars Michelle Keegan (Coronation Street) as Maya and Richard Armitage (Hannibal) as Joe. Other cast members include Adeel Akhtar (Sherwood), Joanna Lumley (Absolutely

From left, Joanna Lumley, Harlan Coben, Michelle Keegan, and Richard Armitrage.

Fabulous), and Emmett J. Scanlan (The Fall).

Coben, an executive producer on the series, discussed the origin of the novel, saying, “All my friends were starting to get into having nanny cams in the house, so I was trying to think of what would be something that would really shock the heck out of you.”

Coben also talked about the decision to adapt the novel as a series rather than as a film.

“One of the problems sometimes is you try to condense this really twisty story—every episode ends in a huge twist—into an hour and a half or two hours,” he said. “Sometimes things get lost. So in this case we were able to expand a little bit.”

—MICHAEL SCHAUB For a review of Fool Me Once, visit Kirkus online.

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ingredients have been added, including a search for a forgotten 19th-century woman painter; appearances by culinary figures like Marc Meneau and Jean Troisgros and literary figures like John Ashbery, James Baldwin, and Allen Ginsberg; a nasty Mr. Darcy–style love interest; and the search for Stella’s father, whom she either does or doesn’t want to find depending on the page. But the food writing is almost worth the price of admission, ranging from the horrific to the euphoric. Here’s Stella eating ortolans, whole baby birds: “All her senses were concentrated in her mouth as her teeth crashed down again and again. She felt the skull crackle and tasted what must be brain. It was hot, it was primitive. It was exciting.”

A somewhat ridiculous novel, nicely marbled with fine food and travel writing.

Sing, I Rohan, Ethel | TriQuarterly/Northwestern Univ. (320 pp.) | $24.00 paper April 15, 2024 | 9780810147171

A middle-aged California woman struggles to be true to herself.

Ester Prynn, whose mother named her in admiration of Hawthorne’s passionate heroine, lives in the small coastal town of Half Moon Bay with her husband and two teenage sons. One morning, at the convenience store where she works for an angry, misogynist boss, a masked robber barges in, violently threatening her and her co-worker, making off with a few hundred dollars, and, it turns out, unsettling Ester’s life. Restless and unfulfilled, Ester is a familiar character: a woman who has devoted herself to the care and feeding of her family, is bored with her husband and frustrated by her sullen younger son, and is watching her father succumb to 30

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dementia while she confronts her fears about aging. The long-ago deaths of her mother and college boyfriend still haunt her. She fantasizes about “packing up and starting over someplace new, where no one knew her,” but she doesn’t have the money, or the will, to leave Half Moon Bay. As Rohan’s novel gently unfolds, Ester is prodded toward different paths of self-discovery. One is joining a newly formed women’s chorus. When the director asks for suggestions for the group’s name, Ester suggests Sing, I: “a salute,” she explains, “and a commitment to putting ourselves and our voices front and center.” Another is quitting her dead-end job. She soon finds a better one, as hostess at a popular restaurant, where she is shaken by her attraction to her female boss. Rohan’s panoply of characters— cisgender, transgender, lesbian, nonbinary, and pansexual—bring diversity to Ester’s small world. “Don’t you think most of us are on a spectrum,” a transgender woman opines, “and we could go any which way depending on attraction and connection.” That’s the question Ester and her friends ask themselves as they examine deeply held prejudices and hidden desires.

Issues of sexuality and gender complicate a predictable plot.

Lucky Smiley, Jane | Knopf (384 pp.) | $29.00 April 23, 2024 | 9780593535011

A stroll through recent American history with a modestly successful singer-songwriter.

More than three-quarters of Jodie Rattler’s account of her life is a straightforward realistic text, spiked with dry Midwestern humor, about growing up in St. Louis with a single mother supported by a closeknit extended family. Jodie has been lucky, she tells us, since age 6, when

her uncle took her to the racetrack and gave her a share of his winnings.

That $86 roll stays with her through a musical career that she never has to work at very hard, thanks to a novelty Christmas hit she wrote while still in college in 1969. The royalties bankroll her through the next half-century, including a long trip with a serious love affair in England and a bohemian residency in New York enlivened by 23 lovers (she kept a list). Jodie’s down-to-earth descriptions of writing songs, cutting a few albums, and singing with various bands is reminiscent of Smiley’s nuts-and-bolts dissection of fiction writing in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005), as is her blunt narrative voice. Her creator riffs on this similarity with running appearances by “the gawky girl” Jodie knew slightly in high school, unmistakably Smiley, though her name is never mentioned. St. Louis (Smiley’s real-life hometown) is the lovingly rendered setting for the most moving scenes after Jodie moves back to care for her aging grandparents and alcoholic mother. The rest of the locales are more generic, as are the current events dropped in to situate Jodie’s experiences chronologically. At its close, the novel takes an apocalyptic leap into the near future that matches Smiley’s darkest pages in A Thousand Acres (1991) and The Greenlanders (1988). This abrupt change of tone is presumably intended to spotlight the way extremes of every variety from climactic to political have become the norm, but it makes for a jarring conclusion to an otherwise low-key novel.

Intelligent and tough-minded, as Smiley’s work always is, but capped by an oddly disjunctive finale.

For more by Jane Smiley, visit Kirkus online.

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Monsters We Have Made Starck, Lindsay | Vintage (304 pp.) $18.00 paper | March 26, 2024 9780593471036

Years after a crime, the mother of the child perpetrator faces monsters: her guilt, her scary daughter, and an evil creature called the Kingman.

Opening with the transcript of a 911 call from 2008, when two 9-year-old girls stabbed their 16-year-old babysitter and left her in a ditch, Starck tells this spooky tale through a combination of documents and sections that unfold from the points of view of several characters.

After Sylvia’s daughter, Faye, and her best friend, Anna, pulled those art knives out of their backpacks, the subsequent trial and media sensation totally shattered Sylvia’s family. Now, 23-year-old Faye has abandoned the toddler she became pregnant with while in custody and gone on the lam.

Her disappearance coincides with a new wave of crimes possibly associated with the Kingman, a malevolent creature “who crept out of the Internet” to inspire children to acts of violence—a figure with whom Faye and Anna were fascinated. When Faye’s baby gets dropped off with Sylvia, she calls in her estranged husband to babysit and goes to hunt down her daughter. As a thriller, the book is well constructed, expanding to include stories of violent and missing children in history and literature and tense scenes with a creepy professor in the woods near Lake Superior.

Unfortunately, the forward motion is

continually dragged down by Sylvia’s guilt, self-doubt, and yearning for her estranged husband. “As the floor bucked beneath my feet and the mounted moose curled its dead lips into a snarl and a familiar silhouette glittered darkly, bewitchingly, just beyond the bounds of my vision, I asked myself for the hundred-millionth time why I failed so utterly to keep her safe.” As maddening as it may be to her, this perseveration becomes a problem for the reader, too.

Fans of novelized true crime and horror will love the premise but wish for less rumination.

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties Sutanto, Jesse Q. | Berkley (304 pp.) $29.00 | March 26, 2024 | 9780593546215

Meddy Chan’s honeymoon with her dream mate is interrupted by theft, hostage taking, and abduction. But it’s nothing the aunties can’t handle.

At a chaotic celebration outside Jakarta, where Meddy’s extended family has gathered to celebrate Chinese New Year, a red gift packet containing the title deed to a valuable parcel of land in downtown Jakarta that Abraham Lincoln Irawan, who’s long carried a torch for Second Aunt Enjelin Chan, has earmarked for his creditor Julia Child Handoko, accidentally ends up in the hands of one of Meddy’s cousins. Learning of the mishap, Julia Child—a rival businessperson who’s the perfectly

Meddy’s honeymoon is interrupted by theft, hostage taking, and abduction.

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law-abiding head of a conglomerate, not another triad leader, Abi blandly assures Meddy—pressures the family to recover the deed by imprisoning Nathan Chan, Meddy’s new husband.

It’s a testimony to the size of that family gathering that the discovery of a photograph showing the gift recipient kicks off a lively discussion of who she is and that the identification of the young woman in the photo with her as Annabelle leads to a further discussion of whose daughter she is.

Because Rochelle, the friend of Annabelle who ended up with the deed, is the granddaughter of Kristofer Kolumbes Hermansah, a third absolutely legitimate businessperson, the family’s attempt to retrieve it from Annabelle leads to still further complications. As the pot boils, the tone remains light and the frantic complications rollicking, though the four aunties, Meddy’s mother and her three sisters, make a much less powerful impression individually than as a group.

Sutanto’s hilarious triptych ends with a finale that could just as well have been titled “An Auntie You Can’t Refuse.”

The Missing Tanzer, Ben | 7.13 Books (272 pp.) $19.99 paper | March 21, 2024 9798989121427

A married couple grows apart in the wake of their daughter’s disappearance.

Some crises bring families closer together; others shatter them. The latter is the case in Tanzer’s new novel, which is pitched somewhere between Tom Perrotta’s suburban ennui and Ian McEwan’s tales of psychological turmoil. Narrated in alternating chapters by Hannah and Gabriel, the novel opens in the wake of their teenage daughter, Christa, going missing with her slightly older FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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boyfriend, Josh. Soon enough, we learn that Hannah and Gabriel have been in a relationship since they were both in high school. Theirs is a close-knit community; John, the police officer on the case, is a former classmate of theirs. Early in the novel, the couple ponders what might have made Christa leave; Gabriel thinks, “We don’t know what we did to cause this. What clues we missed.” But as the months pass, the long-standing fissures in the marriage become more apparent. By the novel’s halfway point, Hannah opts for candor, thinking of Gabriel, “I kind of hate him and I’ve hated him for so long now.” She confides in her father’s fiancee about her lack of experience outside her marriage; throughout, there are hints that she could be bi- or pansexual but never had an opportunity to explore those feelings. A confession Gabriel makes late in the book at an AA meeting suggests he’s at a similar state of arrested development. By the novel’s final third, both Gabriel and Hannah are seeking escapes, whether physically or mentally. As Gabriel phrases it, “We are our memories, pain, and habits, and we’re destined to wallow in and repeat them, unless we can become unstuck, and find a way out.”

A taut, incisive look at two lives as they slowly implode.

Kirkus Star

Reboot Taylor, Justin | Pantheon (304 pp.) | $28.00 April 23, 2024 | 9780553387629

A former child actor sees possibilities for reinvention in a media landscape dominated by recycled intellectual property.

David Crader experienced a measure of success as an actor when, as a teen, he co-starred on Rev Beach, a supernatural-tinged TV drama that, despite a lack of critical appreciation, 32

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An affecting character study and excoriating indictment of the way we live now.

REBOOT

attracted a cult audience. Now approaching middle age, David has struggled with alcoholism in the intervening years and is the twice-divorced father of a young son, Henry.

Adrift and unhappy, he gets by doing voiceover work for video games and half-heartedly running a bar. When Rev Beach unexpectedly becomes a hot commodity again—it was a fluke streaming sensation during the pandemic lockdown—David receives an offer from his old co-star (and first ex-wife), Grace Travis, to reboot the series, provided he can convince Rev Beach lead actor and current superstar Shayne Glade to participate. While there’s plenty of plot (the story also concerns another Rev Beach actor’s political career, various natural disasters, the machinations of radicalized Internet subcultures, and David’s fraught family drama), the narrative also overflows with witty and incisive ideas. The theme of rebooting animates every thread— characters strive to reinvent themselves, start new families and careers, and rewrite their histories while an all-consuming media vortex endlessly recycles and recombines content (Shayne stars in “the stage musical adaptation of David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis”). Taylor’s prose is unfailingly engaging as David’s internal monologue cycles through sophisticated pop cultural analysis, rueful self-reflection, and sundry conspiracy theories (Hollow Earthers and lizard people get an airing), and there is true poignancy in David’s interactions with his child and in his fumbling attempts at redemption.

Taylor’s fluency, intellectual nimbleness, and playful sense of humor call to mind the work of David Foster

Wallace; the reader can easily imagine David Crader’s video game adaptation of Infinite Jest.

An affecting character study and excoriating indictment of the way we live now.

Table for Two Towles, Amor | Viking (464 pp.) | $28.80 April 2, 2024 | 9780593296370

In his first collection, Towles sequel-izes his debut novel, Rules of Civility (2011), with a 200-page novella and adds six short fictions involving unlikely encounters and unexpected outcomes.

Set in the late 1930s, the novella, Eve in Hollywood, extends the story of Evelyn Ross, nervy sidekick of Rules protagonist Katey Kontent. On a train from New York to Los Angeles, the flinty, facially scarred blond, impulsively rejecting a return to her home in Indiana, strikes up a friendship with widowed former homicide cop Charlie Granger. They meet months later in L.A. when Eve’s cutely met new friend, starlet Olivia de Havilland, is blackmailed over surreptitiously taken nude photos. In classic noir fashion, an untrustworthy man of significant girth is at the heart of the plot. The book’s other lively pairings include a used bookseller and a young would-be writer who finds his calling forging signatures of famous authors for him (Paul Auster plays a key role); a newly committed concertgoer and an older patron who drives him to distraction by secretly recording the music; and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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two travelers stranded at the airport who share a cab ride to a hotel, where one of them transforms from a harmless nice guy into a raging alcoholic and the other attempts to drag him away from the bar on desperately phoned orders from the man’s wife. Towles has fun leaping ahead with his narratives. In a cruel twist of fate, a peasant in late-czarist Russia pays a price for daring to profit from holding people’s places on excessively long food lines in Moscow.

Towles sometimes lays on the philosophical wisdom and historical knowledge a bit, but the novella and all the stories are treated to his understated (and occasionally mischievous) irony.

A sneakily entertaining assortment of tales.

These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart Wasserstein, Izzy | Tachyon (176 pp.) $16.95 paper | March 12, 2024 9781616964122

In this gritty thriller set in a future Kansas City, a trans woman named Dora investigates the death of her ex-girlfriend Kay. The book begins as an effective murder mystery, with Dora—a security specialist and unofficial detective—suspecting Kay was killed by someone in the tightknit commune Dora had been part of years ago. But it turns into much more as her investigation progresses and visions of the past resurface. To find out what happened to Kay, Dora must regain the trust of community members she left behind following a furious disagreement over her proposed security measures, which conflicted with the community’s guiding principles of anarchic self-determination. Before Dora can get a handle on anything, a new drug circulates in the community, more people go missing, a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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feud between major corporations threatens the commune, and she is confronted with a most unexpected assailant—Theo, a clone of her pre-transition self. Classic genre tropes, including an impulsive, damaged detective and noir-style dialogue, are expanded through a trans protagonist and the complex relationship she develops with her pre-transition clone—a most delightful surprise of a character. Dora’s rogue independence and search for answers are problematized by Theo’s existence and strong will to live.

Within a twisted conspiracy thriller is a compelling slice of queer life, uninterested in simple representation.

An irresistible afterword will leave readers eager for more from Wasserstein. This book is perfect for anyone interested in community politics, body politics, the craft of writing, or a page-turning thriller.

A noir that explores crime, security, gender, and selfhood.

Christa Comes Out of Her Shell Waxman, Abbi | Berkley (400 pp.) | $17.99 paper | April 16, 2024 | 9780593198780

When her famous father returns from the dead, a prickly scientist’s life is thrown into chaos.

Christa Liddle was only a toddler when her father’s plane crashed in the Alaskan wilderness. But his death was more than just a personal tragedy—it was also a global one, because Jasper Liddle was a famous conservationist and explorer with a television show and even a line of stuffed animals. Christa, her two sisters, and her mother eventually moved on after his presumed death, but Christa never fully recovered from being in the spotlight. As an adult, she spends her days researching snails on a remote island in the Indian Ocean, relishing her solitude and the lack of

(human) company. That is, until her father turns out to be alive after all.

Christa winds up back in her family home and surrounded by people with whom she has complicated relationships—and that includes Nate, a family friend who is now quite attractive and quite obviously into her.

As Jasper goes on an apology and explanation tour that includes an appearance on Oprah, Christa has to decide if forgiveness is possible…and whether a return to civilization (and a life with companions other than snails) is in the cards for her. Waxman displays her usual talent for creating main characters who are wry and great with a one-liner. Although the plot could have been heavy, Waxman and her characters keep it light and focus on the humor of Jasper’s misadventures. Christa is endearingly antisocial (as she says when explaining why she prefers the company of snails: “Humans talk so much and look at you expectantly, as if you’d been paying attention”), and it’s satisfying to watch her come out of her shell as she accepts the chaos of her family and learns to make peace with the past.

A fun novel that manages to blend romance, family drama, and animal facts.

Lublin Wilkinson, Manya | And Other Stories (160 pp.) | $19.95 paper | April 2, 2024 9781913505943

A journey through a disintegrating Poland in the years before the Holocaust.

Wilkinson’s characters start with an apparently simple goal: Three young Jewish friends, Elya Grynberg, Ziv Nagelbach, and Kiva Goldfarb, depart from Mezritsh, their small Polish village, for the market town of Lublin, where they will sell brushes for the village’s wealthy manufacturer, Kiva’s Uncle Velvel. Their journey has a FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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fairy-tale-like quality; villages with names like Prune Town and Village of Lakes dot the way—until they don’t anymore, and the boys find themselves lost in a landscape haunted by abandoned villages and roving bands of Cossacks. In this new world, the bonds of trust among the friends start to unravel, but Elya is determined to make it to Lublin no matter the cost.

His dark jokes provide some of the novel’s most powerful moments: “A young lad…who perished in the Odessa pogrom, goes up to Gan Eden where he meets Adoshem and tells him a vitz. Not just any vitz. A pogrom vitz. But Adoshem is not amused. ‘That’s not funny,’ Adoshem says. ‘I guess you had to be there,’ replies the lad.” Just as effective are the moments when the narrative jumps into the future to reveal villagers’ ultimate fates in a world moving fast toward the Holocaust. As the boys’ journey stretches on in the novel’s present, however, they can only intuit the sorrows to come. What they don’t know is that, even as they walk on, home has already changed.

A tale that uses humor to counterbalance tragedy asks if it’s too late to go back home.

Kirkus Star

The House of Broken Bricks Williams, Fiona | Henry Holt (352 pp.) $27.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781250896766

Something heavy hangs over members of the Hembry family as they navigate their individual griefs.

Tess and Richard are fighting. “I don’t know what’s worse, them fighting or them being silent,” their son Sonny thinks. His twin, Max, feels the cracks forming in their family as well. The twins’ differing skin colors are a source of speculation in their small English town. Sonny takes after his mother, 34

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who has “brown skin, shiny brown like a conker,” and Max takes after his dad, “pale and peaky.” And though they’re twins, they’re treated differently by outsiders. Tess and Sonny endure microaggressions, and Sonny intuits that when his mother is “not thinking about London, she’s dreaming about owning a house in Jamaica.” In addition, there’s an unnamed something hanging over the Hembrys’ heads and causing pain.

The chapters alternate among the perspectives of each family member, some in first person and some in a close third, exploring the ways each character views their household and the larger landscape of the town.

Williams’ elegant prose is enriched by vivid descriptions such as this, from Sonny: “I dream about house bricks glowing tangerine orange in the evening sunlight. Over in Hector’s field, the hawthorns are covered in dark red berries....In the grass, acorns shine like wet gems.” Williams delays the revelation of what’s caused the rift in the family, skillfully using foreshadowing to keep the reader invested: “‘We can’t keep pretending this is normal,’ [Richard] continues evenly, his gaze fixed on his own face—gaunt, almost ghostly, so pale, with dark shadows weighing down his eyes. The last fourteen months have aged him ten years.” There are many more hints like this woven into the narrative for readers to pick up and begin seeing the full picture. The chapters are divided into sections called Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer, which mirror the household’s moods. Whether or not the family will stay together depends on the changing seasons.

A subtle, complex, and gorgeously written delight.

For more fiction reviews, visit Kirkus online.

But the Girl Yu, Jessica Zhan Mei | Unnamed Press (164 pp.) | $18.00 | March 5, 2024 9781951213985

A graduate student travels across the world to establish independence from her immigrant family— but finds herself unable to outrun her inheritances.

The Malaysian Australian narrator of Yu’s novel—referred to only as “Girl”—is pursuing a Ph.D. on Sylvia Plath when, out of the blue, she’s awarded a Commonwealth scholarship and invited to a residency in Scotland, where she plans to write a postcolonial novel. Once there, she’s met with a slew of well-meaning yet deeply painful microaggressions.

Struggling to write, often finding her novel and Ph.D. topics “embarrassing,” she spends much of her time reflecting on her family back in Australia—Ma, Ikanyu, and Ah Ma—who are simultaneously loving and overbearing. Girl grapples with the burden of being a second-generation immigrant expected to be wildly successful; she recalls the tough-love attitude with which her grandmother raised her and contemplates the tricky relationship between herself and her mother: “She couldn’t completely understand me because she only understood me through the lens of herself. I was her double, her antagonist and her everything. It made me want to vomit and rise to the occasion.” Yu’s novel succeeds best in its examination of family ties and immigrant legacy—in what ways does Girl mimic or reject the behaviors and expectations of her family?—as well as in its stringent critique of the current cultural and political climate, shown primarily through Girl’s conversations with fellow artists at the residency who consider diversity a “trend.” But the novel’s critique can sometimes become a little too involved in its own ironies, too K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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complicatedly satirical for its own good: After receiving flowers from a program director whose intentions Girl is suspicious of, she wonders, “Was the vase racist? Could a specific breed of flower and type of vase be racist? I hated that I would also wonder about that.” Considerations like these, amusing yet superficial, threaten to dull the sharpness of her more exacting analyses.

A punchy, aching meditation on the stories we inherit and the stories others place upon us.

Thirst Yuszczuk, Marina | Trans. by Heather Cleary | Dutton (256 pp.) | $28.00 March 5, 2024 | 9780593472064

A vampire who has seen the rise and fall of civilizations and a young woman struggling to cope with her mother’s terminal illness become unlikely companions in the city of Buenos Aires.

In Yuszczuk’s novel—her first to be published in the U.S.—the streets of Buenos Aires run red with blood.

Told in two parts that span the course of several centuries, the story begins with a nameless vampire recounting the exceedingly violent events of her long and lonely life. After witnessing the brutal deaths of her Maker and her sisters at the hands of enraged villagers—in a scene that is delightfully reminiscent of old black-andwhite monster movies—she flees Europe for the distant coast of Argentina. Soon to be ravaged by the arrival of yellow fever, Buenos Aires provides her with an endless supply of fresh blood and the anonymity and discretion that she so greatly desires.

As time passes, though, the city proves itself to be equally unsafe for a creature of the night. In the wake of betrayal and tragedy brought on by her nature, and after meeting a young cemetery groundskeeper who is K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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entranced by both her beauty and her monstrosity, she locks herself inside a coffin in an abandoned tomb to live out a solitary and thirsty eternity. The story picks up years later in a modern Buenos Aires with a young woman who is struggling to help care for her ailing mother as well as with her own motherhood. As she traverses the city, telling readers about her life with an alarmingly robotic sense of remove, she comes into possession of a mysterious key that has been passed down through her family and which eventually leads her to the vampire’s tomb. Sex and violence take center stage in this gothic tale as the horrors that Buenos Aires and Yuszczuk’s characters face continue to slowly unfurl. The novel takes its time, building gradually to the electric moment when the two women finally meet, but it struggles with pacing and tends to tell readers about its world rather than show them. What truly shines are the author’s knowledge of vampire lore and her dedication to creating a monster who could easily join the ranks of Dracula and Nosferatu.

A blood-soaked tale of sex, love, and ennui that would make Anne Rice proud.

A Revolver To Carry at Night Zgustova, Monika | Trans. by Julie Jones Other Press (160 pp.) | $15.99 paper April 9, 2024 | 9781635423808

This quasihistorical work views Vladimir Nabokov and his wife, Véra, at different points in their lives.

Zgustova, a Czech-born writer living in Spain, looks first at Vladimir in 1977 in Montreux, Switzerland, as his nimble mind dances among memories—boyhood in St. Petersburg, exile in Berlin—while struggling with his last novel and last illness. The third

chapter focuses on a pivotal episode that is referred to throughout the book, Véra’s ultimatum in Cannes, 1937, as Vladimir’s lover, Irina Guadanini-Kokoshkin, visits the French resort to find out where she stands. Zgustova traces Véra’s thoughts and memories on a long, snowy drive to Boston in 1964 to rejoin her husband after seeing their son, Dmitri, perform with the Metropolitan Opera. The final section finds the widowed Véra in Montreux still tending to her husband’s work and thinking about how Irina got into some of his novels. The book, smoothly translated by Jones, ends with a bibliography of some 25 volumes.

The meandering portrait of the couple features many real-life allusions and details that will be familiar to cognoscenti (with perhaps a few liberties taken). But it is Véra who emerges as Zgustova’s central figure, the person who often carries in her purse the gun in the title, although her main weapon is her will. Her Cannes ultimatum quashes Vladimir’s last great love, and she closely monitors her flirtatious genius thereafter. She insists on their leaving the U.S., a country he has come to love, and Dmitri says at one point that “keeping him in Montreux is her vendetta against him. She’s a Mafia boss.” Yet Stacy Schiff in the biography Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): Portrait of a Marriage (1999) sees her shielding, controlling dominance as largely aimed at making it easier for him to write.

Zgustova’s angle on Véra looks harshly black and white in areas where gray seems fairer.

A provocative take on an intriguing marriage.

For more by Monika Zgustova, visit Kirkus online.

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SEEN AND HEARD Ann Patchett Says Florida County Banned Her Books The author went on Instagram to reveal that Orange County removed two of her novels from schools.

Author Ann Patchett took to Instagram to share that two of her books—The Patron Saint of Liars and Bel Canto— are among nearly 700 that have been banned from schools in Orange County, Florida.

“Hi, everybody…it’s a pretty big day for me personally,” a smiling Patchett says in a video posted on the account of Parnassus Books, her Nashville, Tennessee, bookstore. “I just got a call from PEN America that two of my novels have been banned in the

Orange County School System in the state of Florida.”

The author goes on to note that her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, which revolves around a “home for unwed mothers in rural Kentucky,” doesn’t include any sex and does involve pregnant young women who opt not to have abortions.

Bel Canto, meanwhile, is about a “terrorist situation in South America,” an opera singer, and the power of art and music to bring people together, according to Patchett.

“It’s true that, in the end, the terrorists get shot,” she adds. “But maybe in the state of Florida that would be OK, too, because they don’t ban guns.”

“Be careful,” the author concludes, holding up copies of the two novels. “Don’t read these books.”—AMY REITER

Ann Patchett

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Emil y Dorio

For more on book bans, visit Kirkus online.

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SEEN AND HEARD Keanu Reeves Will Co-Write His First Novel The actor will collaborate with author China Miéville on The Book of Elsewhere.

Brian Bowen Smith

Whoa—Keanu Reeves is writing a novel.

Del Rey announced that the Matrix and John Wick star will publish his first novel, The Book of Elsewhere, a collaboration with genre-hopping bestselling novelist China Miéville (The City & the City).

According to a release, the novel is set in the world of BRZRKR, the bestselling comic series Reeves co-created in 2020. The book “follows an immortal warrior on a millennias-long quest to discover the key to his immortality—and perhaps, a way to free himself from it.”

“It was extraordinary to have the opportunity to collaborate on The Book of Elsewhere with one of my favorite

For more on books

by China Miéville, visit Kirkus online.

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authors, China Miéville,” Reeves said in a release, adding that his collaborator “came in with a clear architecture for the story and how he wanted to play with the world of BRZRKR.…I was thrilled with his vision and feel honored to be a part of this collaborative process.”

Miéville praised Reeves as a creative partner, admiring “how glad [he was] to experiment together, how open to true collaboration.”

The Book of Elsewhere is just one part of an ever-expanding universe of BRZRKR, which will include a Netflix live-action adaptation (starring Reeves), as well as an anime spinoff, also produced for Netflix.

The Book of Elsewhere is scheduled for publication on July 23.—M.A.

Keanu Reeves

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Rhythm and Clues

Home Fires

Blacke, Olivia | St. Martin’s (304 pp.) $9.99 paper | March 26, 2024 9781250860125

Booth, Claire | Severn House (256 pp.) $29.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781448310807

Three sisters try to keep their record store/coffee shop afloat before and after murder intervenes.

Juniper Jessup left a lucrative job in Oregon to help her sisters, Tansy and Maggie, run their late parents’ shop in Cedar River, Texas. Propelled by the rush of interest in vinyl among young music lovers and a taste for fresh java shared by Texans of all ages, Sip & Spin Records has started to break even. Before the Jessup sisters can even begin to squabble over the store’s still-unrealized profits, venture capitalists Zackary Fjord and Savannah Goodwin swoop down with a proposal to become silent partners. Zack leans toward high-priced inducements, like box seats to a professional hockey game.

Savannah is low-key, wooing the sisters with visions of the ways Fjord Capital’s infusion of cash could help their business grow. Zack’s high-pressure campaign grinds to a halt when he’s killed by a brick that comes through his car window during a torrential rainstorm. Police detective Beau Russell, Juni’s wannabe boyfriend, isn’t convinced that Zack’s death is murder, but Savannah is, and she begs Juni to help find her partner’s killer. In a novel twist on the universally-hated-victim formula, Savannah introduces Juni to shop owners whose businesses are thriving because of Fjord’s help in addition to others who genuinely hated Zack’s guts. The more she investigates, the more Juni realizes that like business and life, murder is complicated. The investigation takes patience and finesse, but ultimately, amateur detection triumphs.

A well-paced probe into a messy death highlights the rewards of joining ingenuity with persistence.

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A shorthanded police department in Branson, Missouri, deals with a major disaster and an unexpected murder.

Sheriff Hank Worth is at the funeral for an unpopular medical examiner with top law enforcement officials from southwestern Missouri when everyone’s beepers go off. All that’s left of the Skyrocket fireworks warehouse is a still-burning crater containing an unknown number of dead bodies. The authorities know that about 14 people worked there.

Faye Halliday, who owned the place with her husband, is both hysterical and evasive. Because of the possibility of a terrorist attack, help arrives from several federal agencies even as Worth tries to deal with reporters without mentioning this possibility. His second-in-command, Sheila Turley, returns early from medical leave to help out despite her pain. The best information Worth gets is from a young man who worked at Skyrocket before he enlisted in the Marines. He tells them about a mysterious locked room that doesn’t appear in the building plans. In the absence of the ME, Turley calls on the University of Missouri, which sends its entire pathology department and a forensic anthropologist to identify the bodies.

Skyrocket was in financial trouble and may have been cutting corners, but Worth suspects the locked room holds the key to the mystery. His life is turned upside down when the

For more by Claire Booth, visit Kirkus online.

pathologists uncover years of sloppy work by the late ME, who listed cardiac arrest as the cause of death for many people without even examining them. One of those people was Worth’s mother-in-law, whose death two years earlier now seems to have been murder.

An excellent procedural with the added attraction of a difficult, personally painful mystery.

A Murder Most French Cambridge, Colleen | Kensington (304 pp.) $27.00 | April 23, 2024 | 9781496739629

More accurately, Four Murders Most French, since none of the homicides entangling Julia Child’s circle in postwar Paris seems any more Gallic than the others.

Joining Julia at a tasting during a monthly meeting of her wine club at L’École du Cordon Bleu, her neighbor, friend, and amanuensis Tabitha Knight is on hand to watch Chef Richard Beauchêne taste his very last wine, an 1893 Volnay Clos de la Rougeotte that he samples just before keeling over. Cyanide, thinks Tabitha, whose determination to stay away from anymore murders is on a collision course with her sense that she’s channeling Agatha Christie.

Although Inspecteur Étienne Merveille wholeheartedly endorses her reluctance to get involved, she’s left with little choice after she recognizes Louis Loyer at another event as the chef who was arguing with Beauchêne on the evening of his last libation only moments before Loyer uncorks an 1871 Sauternes that turns out to be his last round as well. Assuming that the two poisonings (more will follow) can’t be a coincidence, Tabitha wonders if it’s a coincidence that she’s been on the scene for both of them and begins to make a cautious list of other people who were present for both deaths. Considering that she’s K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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The solution to the puzzle is merely icing on the cake of this madcap confection.

THE WITLESS PROTECTION PROGRAM

not much more interested in the suspects than her author, Tabitha does a highly effective job of identifying the culprit and tipping her hand in a way that forces her once again to employ her Swiss Army knife to rescue herself from certain death.

Neither the characters nor the mystery makes nearly as much of an impression as the setting and the cuisine.

The Witless Protection Program DiRico, Maria | Kensington (304 pp.) $8.99 paper | March 26, 2024 9781496744623

The untimely return of her ex means the only wedding New York City caterer Mia Carina can’t host is her own.

After numerous false starts, Mia’s gorgeous beau Shane Gambrazzo finds the perfect time and place to pop the question: between the third and fourth innings of a Mets-Dodgers game. Unfortunately, after Mia’s enthusiastic “Yes!,” as the kiss cam pans over the crowd, the flustered bride-to-be sees the face of her supposedly deceased ex-husband, Adam Grosso. After several more sightings, Adam finally approaches Mia and tells her the Witness Protection Program has relocated him under the name Gerald Katzenberger. Mia’s quandary over having both a fiance and a husband mercifully ends when Adam’s corpse is found near the Astoria house Mia’s grandmother purchased as a wedding K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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present for the happy couple. Instead of worrying about too many husbands, now Mia frets over too many suspects. If she can’t figure out which of Adam’s many enemies killed him, one or more of her friends may end up spending her wedding day in the slammer instead of at the reception.

Adding to her distress, the online coverage of Adam’s death broadcasts the news that the house Mia’s Nonna bought for her was the former residence of the late cartoonist Dan Fee, which brings a horde of Fee fans into the street to call for the place to be declared a historic landmark.

Whether Mia will ever live happily in her new home with her handsome hubby is little in doubt, but the road to wedded bliss is paved with a whirlwind of fun.

The solution to the puzzle is merely icing on the cake of this madcap confection.

Off the Air Estes, Christina | Minotaur (320 pp.) $28.00 | March 26, 2024 | 9781250863850

Estes’ debut follows a Phoenix TV news reporter as she struggles to identify a colleague’s killer— and possibly land an interview with same.

At least Jolene Garcia doesn’t have to worry about any more rivalry from Larry Lemmon, the most popular radio host in town: He’s probably dead, maybe poisoned, perhaps courtesy of cyanide-laced cookies. No detail, however small, is definite until it’s confirmed and

attributed, and although Jolene’s cop friend, Commander Jim Miranda, is willing to dole out information drop by drop, he won’t talk on the record. So Jolene watches in helpless fury as she’s scooped by inexplicably Emmy-winning SoCal hairpiece Jessica “JJ” Jackson, outmaneuvered by newbie network reporter Jeffrey Cooper, and stonewalled by differently leaning community activists Phillip Ellys and Ignacio Cortez, whose frequent differences with Larry make his producer, Ralph Flemski, dangle them as likely suspects. Both the likably whiny narrator and her author are less interested in solving the case than in making a case for, or against, the challenges of journalism in the multimedia age. It makes perfect sense that when Jolene is rescued from a face-to-face with a murderer who shows up at their climactic meeting better prepared than she is, her paramount concern is whether she’ll get an exclusive on the story. An appended Content Advisory warns that the tale “contains references to abandonment, ageism, animal cruelty, child neglect, classism, homelessness, racism, sexism, sexual coercion, and substance abuse.”

It’s all there, but don’t get your hopes up: This is PG homicide.

The leading takeaway is a question: Why don’t more of those scrums among dueling reporters and sources end in murder?

A Deadly Walk in Devon George, Nicholas | Kensington (304 pp.) $27.00 | March 26, 2024 | 9781496745262

A bewildering murder draws a retired sleuth back into the saddle.

As retired San Diego detective Rick “Chase” Chasen looks forward to a vacation in his beloved England with his pal Billie Mondreau, he wistfully remembers multiple previous visits to England with Doug, his partner in FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Horowitz fans will rejoice.

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business and in life, who passed away six years earlier. Chase and Billie join the Wanderers, a colorful tour group led through Devon by “walk leader” Sally and “walk manager” Howie. It’s a chirpy group of tourists except for tycoon Ronnie Gretz and his wife, Summer, who arrive in a thundering Bentley. Summer’s graciousness does little to take the edge off the sour mood of her husband, who immediately declares that “someone is out to get me.” Chase and Billie’s empathy make them natural confidants of the troubled duo. Some suspicious incidents that may indicate a legitimate threat against Gretz increase Chase’s vigilance. A walk near a cliff turns eerie when a fog descends. The fog lifts to reveal Gretz’s corpse. Chief Inspector Teddy Kilbride and his sidekick, Detective Constable Darren Bright, arrive to investigate. Chase, latching on to the detective, introduces the likelihood of murder. The previously amiable party turns more prickly and altogether more interesting as restless murder suspects are forced to pause their adventure in short chapters featuring headings that pinpoint location and time. George’s series debut is crisply written, laying a solid groundwork for further whodunits featuring an unconventional pair of sleuths in Chase and Billie.

A middling mystery with some offbeat elements and a detecting duo both vital and venerable.

For more by Anthony Horowitz, visit Kirkus online.

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Kirkus Star

Close to Death Horowitz, Anthony | Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) | $27.00 | April 16, 2024 9780063305649

What begins as a decorous whodunit set in a gated community on the River Thames turns out to be another metafictional romp for mystery writer Anthony Horowitz and his frequent collaborator, ex-DI Daniel Hawthorne.

Everyone in Riverview Close hates Giles Kenworthy, an entitled hedge fund manager who bought Riverview Lodge from chess grandmaster Adam Strauss when the failure of Adam’s chess-themed TV show forced him and his wife, Teri, to downsize to The Stables at the opposite end of the development. So the surprise when Kenworthy’s wife, retired air hostess Lynda, returns home from an evening out with her French teacher, JeanFrançois, to find her husband’s dead body is mainly restricted to the manner of his death: He’s been shot through the throat with an arrow.

Suspects include—and seem to be limited to—Richmond GP Dr. Tom Beresford and his wife, jewelry designer Gemma; widowed ex-nuns May Winslow and Phyllis Moore; and retired barrister Andrew Pennington, whose name is one of many nods to Agatha Christie. Detective Superintendent Tariq Khan, feeling outside his element, calls in Hawthorne and his old friend John Dudley as consultants, and eventually the case is

marked as solved. Five years later, Horowitz, needing to plot and write a new novel on short notice, asks Hawthorne if he can supply enough information about the case to serve as its basis, launching another prickly collaboration in which Hawthorne conceals as much as he reveals. To say more, as usual with this ultrabrainy series, would spoil the string of surprises the real-life author has planted like so many explosive devices.

Gloriously artificial, improbable, and ingenious. Fans of both versions of Horowitz will rejoice.

The Hollow Tree Miller, Philip | Soho Crime (384 pp.) $27.95 | April 2, 2024 | 9781641295581

A second darkly atmospheric mystery takes journalist Shona Sandison far from her Edinburgh base, the present day, and whatever passes for her comfort zone.

“DEATH SHOCK AT HOTEL WEDDING” screeches a tabloid headline after Daniel Merrygill, an old school friend of the bride, Vivienne Banks, steps off the roof of the Poet’s Hotel before the horrified gaze of Shona, who’d been invited to Dunoon by Viv, the longtime editorial secretary at the Edinburgh Post, where Shona worked before she was made redundant. The wedding is put on indefinite hold as the police question Shona and try to figure out why Dan killed himself. As it turns out, he’s not the only school chum of Viv whose life has been shortened. He and his sixth-form classmates at Ullathorne Comprehensive have been bound together for 32 years, ever since Viv’s brother, Andrew, went missing, presumed dead, at the tender age of 18. Shona, who’s unhappy about having to freelance as a practitioner of “churnalism,” is certain that Dan’s suicide is linked to a series of cryptic messages she’s received, and nearly as K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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certain that the crux of the mystery concerns Gary Watson, the Member of Parliament for Tyrdale whose star has been rising despite two things Shona doesn’t know about: the violent death of his wife years ago and the scandalous conduct of his private life.

But how can she possibly put all the pieces together when no one involved, including Viv, will talk to her, and she keeps getting urgent messages about the health and welfare of her aged father back home? No wonder most readers will figure out where this is all going long before she does.

Auld acquaintances who should be forgot.

Long Time Dead Payne, T.M. | Thomas & Mercer (400 pp.) $16.99 paper | April 1, 2024 9781662511301

The discovery of one corpse too many in a couple’s Liverpool gravesite reopens a seven-year-old case with explosive complications.

Police Constable Kate Armitage and newspaper editor Ellie Sands were shot before the eyes of shop assistant Sally Doneghy back in 1997. Ellie survived, Kate didn’t, and the likely shooter, drug dealer John Lively, vanished. The case has languished since then, mainly because Ellie’s brain damage has prevented her from constructing coherent sentences, let alone identifying the man who shot her. Then, in 2004, Lively surfaces in a literal fashion, his body unearthed by a

gravedigger preparing for the late Brian Walters to join his wife.

Gathering her investigative team, DI Sheridan Holler—who joined the force in the so-far-unfulfilled hope of identifying the person who ended the life of her beloved brother, Matthew, when he was only 12—is astonished when DS Anna Markinson drops the bombshell that Lively and Kate Armitage were shot by the same weapon. As nursing home caregiver Joni Summers labors to interpret Ellie’s incoherent utterances, Sheridan obsessively asks who could possibly have had reason to kill both these victims seven years apart. The answer will require a complex and unconscionably extended series of flashbacks and postludes that may leave readers wondering what all those remaining pages are for. But Sheridan and her team are never less than compelling, and the significance of the clever leading clue will elude most readers even though Payne flourishes it at every opportunity.

Worth every interminable minute it takes to wind down.

Ash Dark as Night Phillips, Gary | Soho Crime (312 pp.) $27.95 | April 2, 2024 | 9781641294744

The 1965 Watts riots kick off a new series of puzzles and dangers for freelance news photographer Harry Ingram.

When LAPD officers, meeting the violent tide of protests with violence of their own, beat Black

The 1965 Watts riots create dangers for a freelance news photographer.

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activist Faraday Zinum to death, one of the horrified spectators just happens to be Harry, who captures the moment in a photo that gets widely reprinted in both Black- and white-owned newspapers. For his trouble, he’s beaten and arrested, his camera is snatched from him, he’s invited onto Louis E. Lomax’s TV show, and white preservationist Betty Payton hires him to look for her missing friend Mose Tolbert, owner of Restoration Building Supply.

Mose’s parlous finances lead Harry to focus on Gavin Rickler, the investor/ gambler who owns the upscale Emerald Room but sometimes provides cash to ordinary people, as he evidently did to Mose at the suggestion of Albert Domergue, whose sister, Arlene, keeps the books at Restoration.

It’s not giving too much away to say that Harry’s search for Mose is almost totally eclipsed by the criminal malfeasance he unearths along the way. A willingness to break every law in sight unites Robin Hood figures like Harry’s lover, Anita Claire—a field deputy to Councilman Tom Bradley, who together with her parents robs from the rich and donates to organizations that serve the poor—and members of the LAPD, who play a pivotal role in the real-life MacGuffin Harry eventually discovers.

Like Walter Mosley, his obvious model, Phillips is less interested in telling a story than evoking a world— and what a world!

Nosy Neighbors Sampson, Freya | Berkley (384 pp.) $18.00 paper | April 2, 2024 9780593550526

A Victorian house’s disparate residents join forces to solve a tragic crime and keep their place in the property.

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neighbors’ comings and goings, and even more particularly the details about how each and every thing her neighbors do might be a legal violation, or maybe just an affront to common sense, something Dorothy has in abundance. She’s most vexed when a girl with pink hair shows up at the door looking for a room even though all the tenants know subletting their spare rooms is illegal. The impertinence! The troublemaker, Kat Bennett, is equally aggrieved to have come all the way to the village of Chalcot without landing a place to live, but the real renter, the friendly Joseph Chambers, makes a strong pitch when he finally meets her, and Kat moves into the multi-unit building after all. Although Kat’s not one to put down roots, there’s something charming about Shelley House and its occupants, especially Reggie, Joseph’s adorable Jack Russell. Kat’s almost relaxed when a tragedy shakes things up and forces her and her neighbors to come together. As they keep trying to protect their homestead from opportunistic landlord Fergus Alexander, the occupants of Shelley House must get to know each other a lot better to find out who might have tried to hurt one of their own.

Personalities clash as secrets are revealed, threatening either to divide the occupants forever or to galvanize them in the fight.

The tenants are as crafty and charming as the house in this all’s-well-that-ends-well tale.

Death and Glory Thomas, Will | Minotaur (304 pp.) $28.00 | April 23, 2024 | 9781250864925

A pair of Victorian enquiry agents take on an apparently routine assignment for an unlikely quartet of clients that leads to some truly weird complications.

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The Civil War may have ended nearly 30 years ago, but that doesn’t deter four officers from the Confederate army—General James Woodson, Brigadier David St. Ives, Colonel Zebedee Beaufort, and Captain Manuel Cortes—from leaving the far-flung places in Latin America where they’ve been soldiering on to gather in London, where they ask Cyrus Barker and Thomas Llewelyn to wangle them an audience with Lord Rosebery, the prime minister.

Granted 15 minutes on the PM’s schedule, they waste no time in demanding that England fulfill an 1865 treaty that promised to deliver the Confederacy an ironclad warship.

Things can’t possibly go well for the Crown whether it grants or denies the request, since the nation will either be breaking faith with its most hallowed diplomatic practices or ratifying the Confederacy as a going concern in 1894. Though Barker and Llewelyn have already served their primary function, they can’t ignore the genie they’ve helped escape from the bottle, and in short order they accompany St. Ives, a notorious sensualist, to some of London’s most tawdry fleshpots, dig up information they hope can impugn all four of the envoys-come-lately, and follow up hints that link the treaty to both the recent murder of former U.S. senator turned Confederate diplomat Jubal Slidell, the last survivor of the real-life seizure of two Confederate officers from HMS Trent during the war, and two wildly unlikely historical figures who are supposed to have died long ago.

Nothing that follows lives up to Thomas’ extravagant premise, but then nothing could.

For more by Will Thomas, visit Kirkus online.

Kirkus Star

Death in the Details Tietjen, Katie | Crooked Lane (288 pp.) $29.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781639107186

A World War II widow solves a crime the police would rather ignore.

Loosely following the story of forensic-science pioneer Frances Glessner Lee, Tietjen relates the sad tale of Mabel “Maple” Bishop, a lawyer who moved with her husband, Bill, a physician, to rural Vermont in search of a safer and kinder life than the one they’d had in Boston. After Bill’s death in a field hospital in France, Maple learns that his estate amounts to a meager $12.67. Bill’s willingness to treat Elderberry’s sick whether or not they could pay had left his practice in the red. Despite her husband’s generosity, the people of Elderberry still regard Maple as an outsider, and, on top of that, no one will hire a woman to work as a lawyer.

Maple has gotten to know Ben Crenshaw, owner of the local hardware store, while buying supplies to make meticulously crafted dollhouses. When he suggests she might want to display her dollhouses in his store and sell them, her hobby becomes a means of supporting herself. But while delivering her first sale to local farmer’s wife Angela Wallace, Maple makes a grim discovery: Angela’s husband, Elijah, hanging from a noose in his barn. The police dismiss Elijah’s death as an accident, but Maple believes otherwise. Now her dollhouses take on a third life: from pastime to livelihood to crime-fighting tool. To prod the police into action, Maple recreates the crime scene in miniature to show how an accidental death was impossible.

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THE CLOCK STRUCK MURDER

the truth. Firm, uncompromising, and sometimes rubbing her neighbors the wrong way, Maple sees details others overlook and, guided by an unwavering moral compass, pursues questions the police have left open.

Tietjen gives all of her characters rich, full inner lives as they interact in ways that are both aesthetically and morally complex.

A compelling account of how the toll of war extends far beyond the battlefield.

Blood Mountain Valdés, Alisa Lynn | Thomas & Mercer (334 pp.) | $28.99 | April 16, 2024 9781662507151

A wealthy family’s elk hunt turns into something far more dangerous, forcing a newly minted game warden to struggle to keep everyone safe.

New Mexico game warden Jodi Luna isn’t even out of her probationary period when she begins to get warnings from her boss about being too animal-friendly, as if game wardens should be more hunter-friendly. Jodi, a writer in an earlier life, won’t let the criticism derail her second career. She’s old enough to have a sense of self and justice, and keeping order runs in her family. Just ask her oldest, Ashley Romero. Though she didn’t even know that they were related until recently, Ashley, as the Rio Truchas sheriff, must interact a good deal with Jodi in her role as game warden as they try to navigate their complex relationship. Jodi’s younger daughter, Mila Livingston, who’s equally K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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justice-minded, is a member of the Gato Montes School’s Wildlife and Conservation Club, where she met her latest boyfriend, Sterling Evans.

Sterling’s family is different from other local families. They have bottomless wealth and the ability to hire Jodi to facilitate a weekend elk hunt in the Sangre de Jesus mountains. Jodi isn’t eager to spend the weekend with the uber-wealthy and their entitled kin, some of whom don’t take a shine to a woman in a position of authority. But since she’s brought Mila with her, she has some good company, too. What happens next involves perils more urgent than cultural clashes. Mila, Jodi, and the whole Evans clan find themselves in the crosshairs of a dangerous killer, or killers, during a dangerous freeze and power outage.

Lots of background enriches the plot but slows the forward motion.

The Clock Struck Murder Webb, Betty | Poisoned Pen (320 pp.) $16.99 paper | April 9, 2024 9781728269931

Hordes of tourists and broiling heat test the resolve of an American woman set on finding a killer in 1920s Paris.

Zoe Barlow was exiled to France by her racist family after secretly marrying a Black man and having his baby. The newborn was literally ripped from her arms and she doesn’t even know if her daughter survived. Subsisting on a small allowance, poker winnings, and the sale of her paintings, she’s built up a circle of Parisian friends from

artists to aristocrats, and every penny she can spare goes to the Pinkerton Agency, which is looking for her baby. When her favorite clock is broken by a drunk guest at her weekly poker game, she purchases a replacement from Laurette Belcoeur, one of two sisters who run a small flea market in Montparnasse, but she gets more than she bargained for—the replacement clock turns out to be wrapped in a painting by Marc Chagall, who’d had most of his canvases stolen and sold by a so-called friend while he was away in Russia.

Hoping to discover where Laurette got the painting, Zoe finds not only more of Chagall’s work but also Laurette’s bloody body. The inspector in charge of the case is once again Henri Challiot, Zoe’s married lover.

Zoe returns what she found to Chagall without telling Henri. In her spare time, she reads to Henri’s wife, Gabrielle, who’s in a coma following a stroke—though, unbeknownst to anyone, she’s regained enough of her faculties to plot Zoe’s death. The 1924 Olympics keep the city crowded, but despite the crowds, the heat, and her many problems, Zoe can’t forget Laurette’s murder and puts herself in danger searching for motives for what seems a senseless death.

A complex and fascinating mystery adorned with historical characters from Marc Chagall to Johnny Weissmuller.

For more by Betty Webb, visit Kirkus online.

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6 Novels To Get Your Book Club Talking 1 The Storm We Made

By Vanessa Chan

A chilling exploration of the costs of human weakness and desire, in a compelling and vividly wrought historical context.

2 You Dreamed of Empires By Álvaro Enrigue

An offbeat, well-turned riff on anti-colonialist themes.

3 Mrs. Gulliver

By Valerie Martin

Irresistible—a funny, sexy romp that’s also smart, even wise.

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4 My Friends

4

6

5

By Hisham Matar

A subtle, graceful, intimate exploration of loss and disconnection.

5 Leaving

By Roxana Robinson

Elegantly structured and written, shimmering with feeling and truth.

A triumph.

6 Ours

By Phillip B. Williams

For more great book club fiction, visit Kirkus online.

A multilayered, enrapturing chronicle of freedom that interrogates the nature of freedom itself.

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An Education in Malice Gibson, S.T. | Redhook/Orbit (352 pp.) $25.20 | Feb. 13, 2024 | 9780316501453

A retelling of Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella Carmilla, in which vampires and poets investigate eternity.

Laura Sheridan arrives at Saint Perpetua’s Women’s College in Massachusetts in 1968. A cherubic churchgoer fresh from Mississippi, she manages to nudge her way into the selective senior poetry seminar despite her nerves and naïveté. At the first meeting, Professor Evelyn De Lafontaine selects Laura to recite a poem, lavishing her with frightfully incisive attention. In the same seminar is Carmilla Karnstein, a beautiful student Laura met briefly at the opening bonfire, staring daggers at her. Carmilla appears captivated by De Lafontaine and seems to have more than a teacher’s pet relationship with her. De Lafontaine invites Laura to an exclusive breakout seminar, and she enters the professor’s apartment to find Carmilla the only other attendee. The girls jostle for their professor’s affection, reciting Marlowe, scribbling poetry, and exchanging (increasingly) heated glances. Laura puzzles over the relationship between her rival and her mentor—until she sees De Lafontaine sink her fangs into Carmilla’s willingly proffered neck. Over the course of absinthe-soaked evenings and bloody, sleepless nights, Laura learns that lurking beneath Saint Perpetua’s is a labyrinthine, sinister world to which she has been invited. “Right and wrong don’t exist, Laura,” Carmilla tells her. “There is only art and ugliness…” There is plenty of artful ugliness to follow, a fusion Gibson seems to relish. There are wrists fettered with ribbon, throats stained with blood and lipstick, and corpses with fresh pink nail polish. Gibson crams her sentences with erudite references befitting her painfully well-read protagonists. Carmilla, 46

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Laura, and De Lafontaine are all somewhat lacking in dimensionality, each an archetypal collection of traits building the plot to a stale conclusion.

What the story lacks in freshness it makes up for in ambience; from sinful all-night salons to hedonistic Halloween parties, Laura’s world thrums with dark pleasures that will leave you wanting more.

A gleam-in-its-eye seduction of a story that may not ultimately satisfy.

Annie Bot Greer, Sierra | Mariner Books (240 pp.) $28.00 | March 19, 2024 | 9780063312692

A robot’s sentience chafes against her programming’s restraints.

Using shells grown from abandoned human embryos and proprietary central intelligence units (CIUs), the Stella-Handy company manufactures male and female bots (Handys and Stellas) that can be programmed to provide their owners with housekeeping services, child care, and intimacy. As a Stella set to “Cuddle Bunny,” Annie should exist solely to satisfy her wealthy owner, Doug; that clarity of purpose is complicated, however, by the fact that, a year and a half ago, Doug placed Annie in autodidactic mode. Though Annie’s self-guided quest for knowledge and growth does make her seem more human, it occasionally conflicts with her prime directive—a situation evidenced when Doug’s best friend, Roland, pays a surprise visit. After Doug falls asleep, Roland convinces Annie to have sex with him and not tell Doug: “A secret will make you real,” he says. Doug has a history of doling out vindictive punishments when Annie upsets him, so when he discovers her infidelity, she flees, terrified he’ll erase her CIU or turn her off. But even if she finds someone willing and able to deactivate her tracking feature, the question remains:

Can Annie survive in this world without Doug? Greer’s tale unfolds courtesy of a close third-person-present narrative that beautifully captures the way Annie experiences life, at once as a computer and as an emotionally intelligent being. The nuanced plot titillates while sensitively exploring issues of consent, self-empowerment, and domestic abuse.

Provocative and powerful.

Jumpnauts Hao Jingfang | Trans. by Ken Liu | Saga/ Simon & Schuster (368 pp.) | $18.99 paper March 12, 2024 | 9781534422117 Series: Folding Universe, 1

Blending elements of adventure SF with Chinese history and mythology, Hao follows a group of unlikely heroes as they attempt to avert two looming catastrophes: a war between adversarial superpowers and a botched first contact with benevolent aliens who could facilitate humankind’s next evolutionary step.

Set in 2080, the story begins when Jiang Liu, the rebellious youngest son of a politically powerful family and founder of the “world’s largest hacking collective,” is made aware of fluctuations in pulsar emission patterns near Earth. After attempting to meet with Yun Fan—an archeologist working in the Museum of the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang—Jiang Liu finds that Qi Fei, the head of a top-secret Chinese military research institute, is also looking to meet with the reclusive Yun Fan in search of answers to the cosmic questions. Yun Fan informs the two men—who obviously don’t trust each other—that a massive alien ship is approaching Earth and that her mission is to enter the ship. With the world’s two warring factions, the Pacific League and the Atlantic Alliance, desperately seeking to possess the alien ship’s secrets, Yun Fan and K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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company enter the ship first—and find, among wonders beyond their wildest imaginations, that almost everything they knew about human history has been incorrect. The integration of Chinese history and myth throughout the narrative—the Terracotta Army buried with the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; Confucianism; Daoism; fenghuang; qilin; and more—gives the narrative added depth.

The themes explored, involving humankind’s violent and self-destructive tendencies, conclude with a glimmer of hope: “For all mankind to be one brotherhood is the grand dream of every great teacher in our history, and now we know it is also the article of faith of cosmic civilization.”

A deeply philosophical and thoughtprovoking story of humankind’s search for its destiny in the cosmos.

Kirkus Star

Sunbringer Kaner, Hannah | Harper Voyager (384 pp.) $18.99 paper | March 12, 2024 9780063350106

In a world where old gods can pass away, new divinities may be born.

Hseth, the fire god whose cult murdered Kissen’s family in Godkiller (2023), is no more.

However, problems continue to mount for the intrepid young warriors who managed to kill her. The orphaned Inara and her minor-god companion, Skedi, persevere on a seemingly unending search for answers—she to the questions surrounding her paternity, he to an illustrious past he cannot recall. In the aftermath of the climactic battle, King Arren has chosen a path that his best friend, Elo the baker-knight, cannot bring himself to follow, and Elo must reckon with the ramifications of turning his back on his liege. Just as Arren stokes the fires of his own illicit K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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cult—with himself as figurehead—a resistance movement to save what remains of the world’s outlawed gods begins to heat up. Unable to come to terms with Elo’s desire to keep her away from the dangers of war, Inara makes a rash decision that ultimately sets the stage for mass unrest shortly before Arren’s victory tour arrives at their doorstep. Meanwhile, a presumed-dead Kissen fights her way back from the shores of the god who saved her life, only to find herself at odds with her friends’ and family’s goals. You see, Elo, Inara, and the rest have forgotten one very simple rule: Dead gods can always come back.

Tested alliances fuel this tightly plotted found-family thrill ride. The worldbuilding is complex, but the reader never feels bogged down beneath its weight. As with the previous installment, queerness and disability are woven into the fabric of the narrative; Kissen and her sisters are queer and disabled, a prominent secondary character is transgender, and several tertiary couples are gay and lesbian. Although the pacing does become a little too frenetic in the novel’s final chapters, as the point of view switches rapidly among protagonists, Kaner has penned another page-turner in this projected trilogy.

A bold series continuation from a fantasy author to watch.

Kirkus Star

The Mars House Pulley, Natasha | Bloomsbury (480 pp.) $29.99 | March 19, 2024 | 9781639732333

A refugee forms an unusual alliance with a Martian senator who favors antiimmigration policies. Bonus: extra-large mammoths!

Known for her twisty steampunk historical fantasy, Pulley turns to science fiction set a few generations from now to explore topics

of political interest today: climate change, immigration, gender, political corruption. January Stirling is the principal dancer at the Royal Ballet when rising waters turn the corps du ballet, along with the rest of London, into climate refugees. Exhausted and starving, he accepts a spot on a ship to Tharsis, the Chinese colony on Mars.

Gravity on the smaller planet is only a third as powerful as on Earth, so new arrivals—Earthstrongers—have bigger muscles and sturdier bones than the tall-but-frail Mars-born Natural people. Earthstrongers are required to wear metal “cages” to weaken them and keep them from accidentally (or otherwise) injuring Natural people.

On Mars, perceptible gender differences are considered primitive and uncouth, and Natural people use they/ them pronouns. New arrivals are segregated into Earthstrong housing and restricted to manual labor, for which they’re paid a pittance and pressured to undergo “naturalisation” to weaken them, a dangerous medical process that leaves many in wheelchairs. An encounter with Senator Aubrey Gale, a politician who’s pushing an anti-Earthstrong agenda, catapults January into one of Pulley’s signature complex plots involving twins, a love triangle, linguistics, a mysterious disappearance—or is it a murder?—and various de-extincted Arctic animals (polar bears, mammoths). The worldbuilding is whimsical rather than rigorous, more effective at (and perhaps intended for) contemplating extremes of the present than at predicting the future.

Full of charming details and gender-bending gallantry, this imaginative thriller is a pleasure to read.

For more by Natasha Pulley, visit Kirkus online.

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When I Think of You Ariel, Myah | Berkley (368 pp.) $18.00 paper | April 16, 2024 9780593640593

A short-lived college romance is rekindled years later when exes reunite to make a movie.

Kaliya Wilson has always wanted to be a filmmaker, but after years of facing racist and sexist gatekeeping as a Black woman, she has almost given up on that dream. So when her first boyfriend, Danny Prescott, walks into the studio where she’s a receptionist and offers her a job on his new movie, she can’t resist taking him up on it.

The talented young director comes from a storied Hollywood lineage and is making a movie based on his parents’ interracial relationship, which began in the Jim Crow South, and their happy marriage. Kaliya is moved by the project, and not only that— she’s attracted to Danny again, and he seems to reciprocate her feelings. But his previous abandonment, his current personal life, and professional complications including their boss-employee relationship make her doubt they can have a happily-ever-after. The novel shines in its depiction of Danny’s parents’ story and in the scenes where the author weaves in Black joy and art, such as a call-and-response double Dutch jump-rope episode and the work of quilter and portraitist Bisa Butler. The flashbacks to the romance between Kaliya and Danny during their college years in New York effectively evoke the thrill of first love.

The couple’s present-day relationship is weaker, however, because misunderstandings, separation, and obstacles both internal and external (including a clichéd female rival) abound, evoking old-school romance sagas. The third-act breakup and the fast-forward to a year later are meant to cement Kaliya’s newfound independence, but it feels like happiness deferred one time too many.

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An enjoyable but uneven Hollywood-set love story that calls out racism in the film industry.

Truly, Madly, Deeply Bellefleur, Alexandria | Avon/HarperCollins (336 pp.) | $18.99 paper | April 30, 2024 9780063258532

Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a divorce lawyer clash on a podcast over their differing perspectives on love.

Truly Livingston has made her name—and her reputation—on her belief in the power of the happily-ever-after. As a successful historical romance author, she bases her stories on the real relationships in her life that have been going strong, including her parents’ marriage. But when she walks in on her fiance cheating on her, and then her parents reveal that they’ll be separating, Truly feels like everything she thought she knew about love has been turned upside down. Naturally, that’s the perfect time for her to appear on a successful podcast and lend her best relationship advice, right? Truly doesn’t want to be sitting across from the other guest, divorce lawyer and self-professed realist Colin McCrory, when she’s not at her best, and as soon as Colin opens his mouth, she finds herself caught between his handsome appearance and his unattractive outlook on love. When their repartee starts to get a bit too personal, Truly makes a quick exit, swearing that she’ll never appear on the podcast again—until Colin reaches out and asks for a do-over.

Emailing turns into texting, which turns into random run-ins all over town, and soon Truly’s having a hard time remembering why she thought Colin was so irritating in the first place. There’s also evidence that their growing chemistry is the definition of fire, and Colin’s admission that he doesn’t mind Truly bossing him

around in more ways than one stirs her up, too. Bellefleur’s knack for snappy dialogue and engaging character dynamics is on display.

Although secondary relationships aren’t fully fleshed out and not every plotline is given a satisfying resolution, the journey of Truly and Colin’s romance is well worth following.

An irresistible, banter-filled romance.

A Governess’s Guide to Passion and Peril Collins, Manda | Forever (304 pp.) $16.99 paper | March 26, 2024 9781538725603 | Series: Ladies Most Scandalous, 4

Collins adds another heroine to her Ladies Most Scandalous Series, featuring a coterie of freethinking Regency ladies who are dedicated criminologists.

Jane Halliwell’s father, a British ambassador to Rome, died by suicide, and the Foreign Office hushed it up.

Mr. Halliwell, it seemed, had lost a fortune at the gaming tables. His wife and daughter, disgraced and penniless, were forced to leave Italy. Mrs. Halliwell was taken in by a Scottish cousin, who had room only for one, so Jane became a governess to the family of her father’s old colleague Viscount Gilford. In the guise of a weeklong international symposium to study advances in horticulture, Gilford has invited the future ruler of Roskovia— from whom the British hope to buy a cutting-edge communications machine—to stay at his home in London and planned a formal dinner.

In a satisfying literary device, a reluctant Jane is ordered to leave the schoolroom when a guest sends her regrets and Lady Gilford requires an extra woman to keep an even count at table. Also attending is “breathtakingly handsome” Lord Adrian Fielding, who was Jane’s girlhood crush when he was a young diplomat K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Two record-setting trivia nerds set out to dethrone a game-show champion.

W H AT I S L OV E ?

in Rome. He notices she is no longer a girl, and she learns how deeply he regrets having had to leave her family at their time of need. After dinner, asked to fetch a shawl for Lady Gilford, Jane finds the viscount in his study with a knife through his chest.

Scotland Yard DI Eversham (whose wife is co-author of the newspaper column “A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem”) tells Jane and Adrian that Gilford was found with a quotation from Machiavelli’s The Prince in his pocket, along with a pressed rose. Jane suddenly remembers that her father was also found with Machiavelli and a pressed rose among his belongings—which means that her father did not die by suicide. The sleuths discover that another diplomat who was in Rome at the same time also died mysteriously with a similar quotation and flower. The pair’s passion for uncovering the identity of the serial killer charges and embraces their deepening passion for each other.

Collins’ crime/romance combination continues to be a fun and successful formula.

What Is Love?

Comfort, Jen | Montlake Romance (351 pp.) | $16.99 paper | Feb. 27, 2024 9781662516443

Two record-setting trivia nerds combine forces to dethrone a gameshow champion.

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up to ADHD. Knowing a little about a lot is what earns her a spot on the trivia game show Answers!, where she beats stuffy Theodore Ferguson III, a Princeton professor and holder of the show’s record for longest winning streak. Maxine isn’t sure whether Teddy was dazzled by her natural genius or distracted by the fact that they’d shared a steamy kiss the night before the taping. Regardless, both players are eager to face one another again, and their only hope is to make it onto the Answers! tournament of champions. Once there, though, they’re both up against the undefeated Hercules McKnight, who Maxine thinks is a “fake-tanned douchebag.”

Neither she nor Teddy wants to see Hercules win, so they vow to help each other strengthen their weak categories. Through clandestine meetings ripe with sexual tension, Maxine and Teddy hone their skills.

The quiz show setting makes a compelling pressure-cooker of an environment; unfortunately, it overstays its welcome, beginning to feel like a gimmick for increasing Maxine and Teddy’s forced proximity.

The characters’ opposite natures are what keep the momentum of their romance going. They play well off one another, slinging cutting barbs and sexy flirtations faster than their speed on the buzzer. Teddy, buttoned up and Oxford educated, often clashes against Maxine’s bold, brash, and affable nature. Her goal for being on Answers! is to show that intelligence isn’t tied to degrees and that one’s desire to learn can be cultivated in a more personal way. This is a romance for readers who love “smart is sexy” main characters or prefer banter as part of their foreplay.

Sincerely, the Duke Grey, Amelia | St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $8.99 paper | March 26, 2024 9781250850430

Needing an heir, a duke picks a woman at random to be his bride, not knowing she has her own secret reasons for entering a marriage of convenience.

Until now, Roderick “Rick” Cosworth, the Duke of Stonerick, has not prioritized getting married, despite his maman’s wishes. However, recent recurring illnesses have made him aware of his own mortality, so, in a feverish haze, he selects a name from a list of suitable ladies and writes a brief proposal letter. Miss Edwina Fine recently traveled from York to London to find a husband, so she accepts the duke’s odd proposal under the stipulation that he help find husbands for her two sisters before the end of the season, per her father’s last wishes.

She doesn’t reveal that the trio are triplets. Because of their unique birth as well as their red hair and green eyes, their father hid them away, afraid that society would shun them as oddities. Rick and Edwina feel instant attraction, but their secrets and fears stand in the way of their developing love. This breezy, lowstakes historical romance has a fun setup but becomes repetitive as it goes along. Rick and Edwina are likable and realistically flawed, but their stubbornness—particularly Edwina’s insistence on finding husbands for her uninterested sisters—becomes laborious and starts to strain credulity. While the core story is appealing

For more by Amelia Grey, visit Kirkus online.

A sizzling and smart rivals-to-lovers romance with a half-baked setting.

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and the couple makes a charming pair, there’s too much padding and extended conflict, seemingly just to fill the page count.

A pleasant love story that becomes overly drawn out.

Kilt Trip Kiley, Alexandra | Canary Street Press (336 pp.) | $18.99 paper | March 5, 2024 9781335009296

An American travel consultant finds romance in the Scottish Highlands.

Travel consultant Addie Macrae has been to more than 70 countries, but none has been more important than her latest: Scotland. Her mission is half work, half heritage trip: First, revamp the family-owned Heart of the Highlands tour company and save it from bankruptcy, even if that means adding a few tourist traps to the itinerary. Then, if time—and Addie’s penchant for ignoring her emotions— allows, explore the places her late mother visited and loved years ago, and find a way to finally come to terms with her death. If Addie thought maneuvering through sheep-laden highways and years of repressed grief was hard, dealing with the company owner’s son turns out to be downright impossible. Logan Sutherland, a sexy, kilt-wearing man with a killer brogue, wants nothing to do with Addie’s “gimmicky” ideas and tired tourist destinations. Instead, he’s steadfast in his belief that tours should offer magical, singular moments rather than social-media-ready sights, even if it means losing money here and there.

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length. Will she be strong enough for another goodbye? Kiley’s novel is a tale of love, loss, and the rediscovery of self through nature and reflection. The author deftly weaves Addie’s conflict of head and heart with Logan’s compassion and patience, and it doesn’t hurt that his swoonworthy looks and accent jump right off the page.

With an immersive Scottish setting, historical tidbits, and steamy fun, this is a bonny debut.

Weekends With You Paige, Alexandra | Avon/HarperCollins (320 pp.) | $18.99 paper | April 9, 2024 9780063316522

An American florist and a Londoner with wanderlust find their chemistry is at odds with their circumstances in this debut.

When Lucy Bernstein moves into her best friend’s warehouse flat in London, she’s pleased to discover that tall, handsome Henry Baker is one of her seven new flatmates. But it turns out that Henry is only in town one weekend a month—the rest of the time he’s traveling as a photographer and auditioning other places to live. Each chapter is one of his London visits, which double as “Warehouse Weekends”—times the flatmates dedicate to hanging out together and being tourists in their own town. They are a fun, rowdy bunch, and though it can be tricky to sort out the names and personalities, there’s good banter and vicarious living to be had here. Henry reciprocates Lucy’s attraction, but the logistics are against them. Lucy vacillates between holding back to protect herself and trying to give it a chance. Henry vacillates between flirting with Lucy and saying London has “nothing for him.” While the book makes their mutual attraction very clear, it’s less detailed on other reasons to root for them. Neither has much in the way of a backstory. Henry’s

soul- and new-home-searching suggest something unsettled in him, but outside of it being an obstacle to a relationship with Lucy, it’s not explored. Lucy, meanwhile, has a classic case of wanting but not clearly asking for things, then being filled with resentment when she doesn’t get them. This is a relatable trait, but a frustrating one, and it would make her more sympathetic to have it grounded in something, or for her to have some self-awareness around it. A subplot about the flower shop she works for and her seemingly thwarted dreams for advancement there underscore the problem.

Its unique setting is this novel’s strong suit.

Pretend You’re Mine Score, Lucy | Bloom Books (474 pp.) $18.89 paper | Sept. 30, 2022 9781728282565

A down-on-herluck woman agrees to pose as the girlfriend of a member of the Army National Guard who’s about to be called up.

Harper didn’t intend to end up in Benevolence, Maryland, but that’s what happens when you storm out of your apartment post-breakup without your phone or wallet. When she gets off the highway looking for a pay phone to call her college roommate, she sees a man assaulting his girlfriend in a parking lot and quickly intervenes. Luke Garrison, who comes across the scene as the guy is slugging Harper, admires her tenacity; he and his sister, Sophie, offer to help Harper get back on her feet, but first she has to make it through the night without money for a hotel or even gas to put in her car. Luke offers to let Harper stay with him, and—of course—there’s only one bed. Which they share.

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family off his back? She’d only have to do it for a month, till his unit deploys to Afghanistan, and it’ll give her a place to stay while she figures out the next steps for her life. Big feelings abound as angst is piled on top of angst. Between Harper’s repressed desire to be loved while maintaining her independence and Luke’s unaddressed grief, which makes him lash out in truly hurtful ways, there are many moments of emotional whiplash. Everyone here needs therapy, but instead, the main romantic couple defaults to extremely poor communication styles, toxic behavior patterns, and lax boundary setting. A happily-ever-after between Luke and Harper feels like a bad idea for both of them. Even the small-town environment is a downer, with a slew of misogynistic side characters.

An uphill battle.

The Phoenix Bride Siegel, Natasha | Dell (336 pp.) $18.00 paper | March 12, 2024 9780593597873

After losing her first great love to illness, a 17thcentury Englishwoman falls for a forbidden man.

Cecilia couldn’t believe her good luck when she married William Thorowgood, the boy she’d always loved. Unfortunately, soon after the wedding, William falls victim to the plague and succumbs to a quick death.

Following this loss, Cecilia spirals into a deep depression. Her sister, Margaret, takes her in, hoping to nurse her back to health. When days turn to weeks with no improvement, Margaret’s power-hungry husband, Robert Eden, declares Cecilia must take a new husband or remove herself from their home by the end of summer. Desperate to save Cecilia from an uncertain future, Margaret seeks help from David Mendes, a Jewish doctor from Portugal with a reputation for fixing incurable ailments, including melancholy. Cecilia K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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is initially taken aback by David’s unfamiliar customs, but she soon begins to appreciate his quiet manner and thoughtful care. Before long, the pair develop a genuine friendship, and David’s visits help Cecilia improve—so much so that she begins sneaking out of Margaret’s home to explore London.

These outings lead to a chance meeting with David, which ignites a new relationship between them. It’s clear they’re developing deeper feelings for each other, but given their vastly different backgrounds, their love is an impossibility. With rich prose and a plethora of delightful period details, shifting between Cecilia’s and David’s first-person perspectives, the story deftly explores their feelings of unlikely connection, as well as the isolation and hopelessness that can accompany loss of a loved one. Despite the sorrow burdening both main characters, the plot moves forward at an engaging clip, and the author manages to include sprinkles of levity at just the right pace to prevent the book from feeling oppressively bleak. While the writing often feels too modern, with characters acting in a manner too familiar or uttering surprisingly modern phrases, the story is sufficiently engaging to render the anachronisms forgivable.

A well-crafted and enchanting historical love story.

Kirkus Star

In a Not So Perfect World Tubati Alexander, Neely | Harper Perennial/ HarperCollins (352 pp.) | $17.99 paper March 19, 2024 | 9780063292949

A heartbroken video game designer who’s determined to remain single ends up at a tropical resort with a man who might be able to break her resolve.

Sloane Cooper is nursing a broken heart after having been cheated on by the man she thought was the love of her

life. She tries to avoid her feelings by focusing on her career—she’s gunning for her dream job at Catapult, a top video game company. At her first interview, the all-male team seems to doubt that she can focus on work instead of her personal life, so she promises she’ll remain single and devote her life to work. That’s no big sacrifice for Sloane—until her neighbor Charlie invites her on a trip to an all-inclusive resort in Turks and Caicos. She barely knows Charlie, but he’s desperate to win back his ex and thinks having a mysterious new girlfriend will make her jealous—especially if said mysterious girlfriend is in all the photos he posts of the trip his ex was supposed to go on with him. Sloane eventually agrees, figuring she can use some distraction-free time in paradise to work on the game design Catapult asked her to submit. What she doesn’t count on is discovering how great Charlie is—he’s supportive, funny, and sexy. But he’s on this trip to get his ex back, and Catapult is counting on her to stay single and deliver her best work. “What happens in Turks and Caicos stays in Turks and Caicos” might wind up being harder for Sloane to stick to than she thought.

Tubati Alexander proves herself a master of the slow burn as Sloane and Charlie try to fight the feelings they have for each other. Their chemistry leaps off the page, and the tropical beach setting is delightfully romantic while leading to funny moments like a scavenger hunt with other resort guests.

Sloane and Charlie are both wellrounded characters, and watching their relationship slowly build is incredibly fulfilling. But the story is just as much about Sloane’s personal growth, and it’s satisfying to see her fight the sexism in the gaming industry.

A perfectly escapist rom-com.

For more romance reviews, visit Kirkus online.

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Nonfiction LIKE MANY PEOPLE , I dislike Valentine’s Day, from the sticky-sweet Hallmark sappiness to the social pressure to lavish your significant other with expensive jewelry or overpriced flowers—and no, it’s not just because I’m single! But at least the holiday is an excuse to talk about love, something we all need, and this February brings a few unique books about various forms of love.

Alice Wong, acclaimed author of Year of the Tiger, is back with Disability Intimacy: Essays on Love, Care, and Desire (Vintage, April 30), an appropriate follow-up to Disability Visibility. In this edited volume, the author opens up the possibilities of love and intimacy “beyond ableist interpretations,” in the words of our reviewer. For nondisabled readers, this book should prove revelatory, as Wong and the contributors—including John Lee Clark, Khadijah Queen, Naomi Ortiz, and Aimi Hamraie—create an inclusive narrative tapestry that is “not only a joy to read but also a welcome introduction to innovative, intensely 54

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liberating approaches that are sure to change the way [we] feel about traditional notions of intimacy.”

In Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story (Little, Brown, Feb. 20), Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams and The Recovering, explores love through the lens of both motherhood and marital turmoil. When their daughter was born, the author and her husband had spent a few years in therapy, and the demands of caring for a newborn exacerbated their conflict. Jamison recounts how the problems grew deeper after her mother came to help with the baby.

In a nuanced, tender, open-hearted narrative, Jamison presents a thoughtful meditation on early parenthood, what our reviewer calls “intimate recollections on motherhood and commitment.”

The mother-daughter relationship emerges from a different angle in Patti Davis’ Dear Mom and Dad: A Letter About Family, Memory, and the America We Once Knew (Liveright/ Norton, Feb. 6), a follow-up to the author’s book on Alzheimer’s, Floating in the

Deep End. Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s daughter immerses readers in a world few know: the complicated dynamics of a president’s family. “Humane, elegiac, and wise,” writes our reviewer, “this book moves smoothly through its portrait of a complicated family and of the daughter who learned the lessons of patient acceptance that family had to offer.” Well written and consistently intimate, this is “a fully candid and profoundly moving memoir.”

Last but not least is Sloane Crosley, who’s interviewed on page 60. Her latest book, Grief Is for People (MCD/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Feb. 27), is a significant step forward for an author who has already written multiple acclaimed books of fiction

and nonfiction. In her latest, she digs into fraught philosophical and emotional territory, chronicling her love for a former colleague in the publishing world who died by suicide. According to our starred review, “Crosley’s memoir is not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work about a colleague’s recent suicide.…The book is no hagiography—she notes harassment complaints against [her friend] for thoughtlessly tossed-off comments, plus critiques of the ‘deeply antiquated and often backward’ publishing industry—but the result is a warm remembrance sure to resonate with anyone who has experienced loss.”

Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

LOVE BEYOND VALENTINE’S DAY

ERIC LIEBETRAU

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EDITOR’S PICK A literary demonstration of how the iconic actor has lost none of her energy, flair, and fiery intelligence.

These days, Dench (b.

1934) is often thought of as the flinty M of several James Bond movies, but she spent the bulk of her career on the stage, mainly performing Shakespeare plays. In this follow-up to And Furthermore, the author looks back at her experiences via conversations with her fellow actor and close friend Brendan O’Hea. This was necessary because Dench’s eyesight is failing, but her memory is razor-sharp and her knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays is encyclopedic.

Her starting point was Macbeth, which remains one of her favorite plays. She also

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

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has a liking for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and King Lear, but she has mixed feelings about The Merchant of Venice and Coriolanus. Her first professional role was as Ophelia in Hamlet; later, she played Gertrude. Even at the age of 89, Dench retains an impish sense of humor, and she has plenty of stories about mischief and mayhem behind the scenes. Impressively, she quotes large chunks of various plays from memory. She insists that none of her performances are definitive, and she believes that there are as many interpretations of Shakespearean roles as there are actors. This view underscores her appreciation of the wide-ranging work of the

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Shakespeare The Man Who Pays the Rent Dench, Judi with Brendan O’Hea St. Martin’s | 288 pp. | $30.00 April 23, 2024 | 9781250325778

Bard, which she sees as entirely relevant to our era: “Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all in there in his plays: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, everything….

Shakespeare has examined every single emotion….His writing has the capacity to

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make us feel less alone.”

Through these lively conversations, Dench creates a highly satisfying mix of fun, insight, and art.

Dench’s memoir of the roles she has loved is a witty, thoroughly entertaining romp through the Shakespearean world.

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This Part Is Silent

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My Black Country

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Love Is a Burning Thing

By Nina St. Pierre

Every Living Thing

By Jason Roberts

Hell Put to Shame

By Earl Swift

An Emancipation of the Mind

By Matthew Stewart

Age of Revolutions

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On Gaslighting Abramson, Kate | Princeton Univ. (224 pp.) $24.95 | March 19, 2024 | 9780691249384

A philosopher’s consideration of the broader implications of the toxic behavior known as gaslighting.

“Gaslighters chip away at people’s sense that they can trust their own judgment,” writes Abramson, a professor of philosophy at Indiana University. Since the term has “entered the colloquial lexicon,” she writes, “there’s been a commensurate surge in academic theorizing about gaslighting,” first in psychoanalytic literature as a form of “projective identification.” The author argues that, contrary to some recent discourse, gaslighting is “best understood as a form of interpersonal interaction rather than as a feature of social structures. To put it a bit starkly, people gaslight, social structures don’t.”

While arguing against such a structural redefinition, she maintains that gaslighting is generally perpetrated by men, and that marginalized groups are most likely to be gaslit. “Sexist and racist norms can frame gaslighting [and] be employed as leverage by the gaslighter,” writes Abramson. Over seven scholarly chapters, the author focuses on the essential qualities of gaslighting and the tools and motivations of the gaslighter, while limning differences between other “awful” behaviors—e.g., simple manipulation or lying—in order to emphasize “moral reasons to distinguish gaslighting from other morally problematic ways of interacting.” Abramson suggests it is scarily ubiquitous in contemporary relationships, since gaslighters rely on emotional tools including love and empathy and, whether as intimate partners, abusive parents, or unethical bosses, wish “to destroy even the possibility of disagreement.” Abramson capably references related fields like psychoanalysis and gender studies. Her approach to this hot-button issue is thoughtful, yet the academic nature of 56

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her discussion might lose lay readers, as it often relies on repetition for emphasis and wanders through long, jargony passages based on a limited number of case studies or cultural references.

Fuel for debate about the semantic and emotional injuries inherent in personal relationships and social marginalization.

Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice Ahn, Eddie | Ten Speed Press (208 pp.) $24.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781984862495

A Bay Area activist recounts roads taken and not in this graphic memoir.

Ahn’s grandfather, displaced from his home by civil war in Korea, was never quite at ease again—and, “in service to his own dreams and lacking acumen, he failed to take care of his own family.” The author admits to feeling discomfited by that assessment, fearing that the same could be said for him.

Lacking the entrepreneurial drive of his own parents, he earned a law degree but then went into nonprofit work in the Bay Area, even as his classmates took more lucrative jobs. At the same time, he developed skills as an artist that he puts to good use in this book. One of Ahn’s principal concerns as an advocate is the ever-growing specter of climate change—which, ironically, set him on a work schedule that could take him to half a dozen states in a single week, planting his carbon footprint meters deep. At least as a commissioner of the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission, Ahn has been able to make contributions to lessen that carbon footprint. The narrative ranges from the intensely personal, such as the author’s complicated relationship with his parents, to the universal, including the devastating effects of the

Covid-19 pandemic on so many people in need and the extraordinary demands it placed on frontline workers. Ahn’s work as an advocate was also tested, putting him to the task of “thinking through the next step: how to work together and emerge from the crisis.” Humane and sensitive, Ahn makes clear that the work of a nonprofit is endless and far from easy, but, as he toasts himself over dumplings, “Here’s to hoping a lot of work can lead to something worthwhile.”

Inspirational reading for progressives seeking to make a difference in the world.

American Negra: A Memoir Alford, Natasha S. | Harper/HarperCollins (288 pp.) | $28.99 | Feb. 27, 2024 9780063237100

A journalist chronicles her life journey as the child of a Black father and Puerto Rican mother.

As CNN analyst Alford recounts, when she was young, she never quite knew how to express her identity. Her Puerto Rican mother was raised in New York City, while her father was a Black custodian from Syracuse. An only child, the author grew up in Syracuse acutely aware of her otherness, in terms of skin color, hair texture, and her Spanish-speaking mother. Early on, she identified more with her Black relatives, who helped her develop “an idealized version of Black womanhood that equated to regality, community leadership, and wisdom.” At the same time, her mother encouraged her: “You are Black. You are Puerto Rican. And you are a girl. That’s three strikes against you—but you can be anything you dream of being.” A gifted student, Alford excelled at oratory in the Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics, and she went on to attend Harvard as part of K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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“the first incoming freshmen class to have access to a little website called TheFacebook.” Her hard-charging lifestyle as a dedicated journalist took a toll, first in the form of a blood disease, and then lupus. “I had spent my whole life working twice as hard to prove myself, to the world and my own self,” she writes. “I’d managed to avoid becoming a statistic for both the communities I came from—but now I was among the sick.” After stints as a hedge fund manager and educator, Alford joined the Black news website TheGrio, where she is now the vice president of digital content. The author doesn’t delve deeply into her personal life, but her career arc will prove inspiring for aspiring journalists, especially those of color.

A heartening and instructive portrait of a young woman’s search for identity.

Rich World, Poor World: The Struggle to Escape Poverty Allawi, Ali A. | Yale Univ. (688 pp.) | $35.00 April 23, 2024 | 9780300214284

A sweeping study of “how the poor countries of the world have struggled over the decades to escape their condition of impoverishment.”` Allawi, former prime minister of finance for Iraq and author of The Crisis of Islamic Civilization, is a fine writer, scholarly and opinionated yet evenhanded. By 1945, he writes, few denied that the imperial powers had exploited colonies mercilessly and that the decolonization movement was unstoppable. The author delivers a chronological account of what followed: American hegemony, the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the continued rise of the U.S. as a global superpower. Familiar events and political figures appear, but Allawi emphasizes efforts to aid developing nations and introduces a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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large cast of economists, many unknown to general readers, whose widely varied ideas influenced government policy. Readers may be disappointed to learn that numerous expensive 20th-century campaigns to eliminate poverty have yielded unimpressive results. The 1980s triumph of the free market, driven by the policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and the 1990s collapse of the Soviet Union, did not improve matters. As the 21st century began, economists puzzled over rare exceptions, including the four “Asian Tigers”—Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore—who rose to prosperity despite expert warnings against government interference in the free market. Their governments interfered with great success. Then the floodgates opened, and world poverty plummeted, but this was “mainly accounted for by the incredible expansion of the Chinese economy.”

Experts still struggle to explain how a nation ruled by a one-party system with little concern for human rights has produced this miracle. Allawi delivers insightful theories but has no favorite, and he avoids joining colleagues in their predictions—many now 30 years old—of China’s imminent collapse.

Fine history and equally fine economics, though the author offers more questions than answers.

Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories Almond, Steve | Zando (256 pp.) $18.00 paper | April 9, 2024 | 9781638931300

A bestselling author explores both the technical and personal aspects of the writing craft in a series of essays.

Almond’s philosophy of writing is simple: “Every single person on earth is a

storyteller [because we] are all trying to understand the story of our lives.”

To that end, he offers readers wisdom culled from a career as an “apostate journalist”-turned-fiction writer and teacher. In the first section, the author focuses on five essential story elements: plot, characterization, chronology, narrative voice, and an opening paragraph that offers “the promise of a good story” and “the assurance that [readers] will be taken care of rather than taken for granted.” In discussing each element, Almond draws examples from a refreshing variety of writers that include luminaries such as Fitzgerald and Hemingway and lesser-known lights like John Williams and Megha Majumdar. The second section grapples with the “origins of story,” which Almond sees as emanating from the darker, more forbidding places of the human psyche, home to obsession, fear, desire, and doubt. For Almond, the best writing will always express “radical subjectivity” and feelings that are “unstoppable…crazed and shameless.” In the final section, the author turns his attention to elements of the writing life. He offers unique perspectives on old problems like writer’s block, which he understands as a gift meant to help writers find their way to more “egoless prose.”

Drawing on his many years as a teacher, Almond also offers observations on effective workshop environments, the best of which foster the humility—rather than empty, excessive self-regard—that helps writers endure setbacks. At times overly quirky but always candid and humane, Almond’s book will appeal to writers of all different skill levels seeking insights into the wondrous art of storytelling. The author concludes with an informative FAQ section.

An engaging reading guidebook to the writing life.

For more from Steve Almond, visit Kirkus online.

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A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes Bale, Anthony | Norton (320 pp.) | $29.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781324064572

A globe-trotting history of medieval travelers.

In this appealing survey, Bale, a London-based professor of medieval studies and author of Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life, has turned up a surprising number of travel guides and personal accounts beginning around 1000. At the time, travelogues mixed truth with fabrications, eyewitness testimony with antique fantasies; some were written in libraries by monks who had nothing better to do. Most of them acknowledged the grim reality of the times: “Written travel guides bear more than a passing resemblance to survival manuals; places were described in terms of how best to be endured rather than enjoyed.” During the Middle Ages, traders and adventurers traveled for pleasure, but the dominant form of medieval travel was the pilgrimage. Executed properly, it was no holiday, but rather an act of self-punishment and self-reform.

Inevitably, with masses of the devout on the road, there appeared the trappings of mass tourism, with paid agents and suppliers, inns, ferries, and money-changing stations. Absent modern standards of sanitation, law enforcement, and medicine, these circumstances produced experiences that no modern reader would tolerate, but they make for an entertaining text. After setting the scene, Bale delivers a steady stream of extracts from his sources. The majority describe Europeans crossing the continent to the Holy Land, which despite intense suffering from their travels they greeted ecstatically; their enthusiasm did not diminish even after observing unimpressive holy sites, which seemed mostly to consist of dilapidated churches and saints’ 58

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An illuminating juxtaposition of two 19th-century trailblazers and their relevance to scientific history.

N AT U R A L M AG I C

body parts. The author provides accounts by Europeans who traveled still farther and by pilgrims from the Muslim world and Far East, who recorded their impressions and experience of the West with both wonder and misunderstanding. While readers may want to skim innumerable descriptions of churchly architecture, mostly they will marvel at what traveling humans endured hundreds of years ago.

A wise, well-informed historical study.

Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science Bergland, Renée | Princeton Univ. (440 pp.) $32.00 | April 30, 2024 | 9780691235288

How a legendary poet and an iconic scientist shared a vision of enchanted life.

In this adventurous study, literature professor Bergland pairs Dickinson and Darwin to chart a profound transitional stage in Western intellectual history: a shift toward the separation of scientific and artistic perspectives. The author demonstrates how both figures rejected this shift, and their scrupulously attentive considerations of the natural world affirmed the presence of mysterious, awe-inspiring energies and interconnections. Bergland skillfully outlines the intellectual contexts in which both produced their masterworks and draws out affinities among their core assumptions. The author’s close

reading of a number of Dickinson’s poems places them in relation to her advanced scientific knowledge and awareness of Darwinian theory, and the author argues convincingly that a good deal of Dickinson’s writing can profitably be interpreted “as part of a conversation with Darwin and his interlocutors.” This approach results in an often engaging decoding of the poet’s more obscure allusions and helps us understand the significance to her writing of a sense of the final unity of all life. Also rewarding is Bergland’s commentary on the resistance to Darwin’s ideas among scientists, theologians, and laypeople and on his passionate response to observing natural wonders. Some of the author’s attempts to draw out intriguing parallels between the two figures are strained—as in her commentary on some of their personal habits and the trajectory of their creative output—but she makes a strong case for the intellectual commonalities between them.

Bergland is compelling in her suggestion that “Darwin’s and Dickinson’s voices can help us recover our sense of ecological meaning,” for “their lives and works whisper to each other and to us, telling us of the natural magic at the roots of our green world.”

An illuminating juxtaposition of two 19th-century trailblazers and their relevance to scientific history.

To read more about the Middle Ages, visit Kirkus online.

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Minority Rule: The RightWing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It Berman, Ari | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (384 pp.) | $30.00 | April 23, 2024 9780374600211

An exploration of the relentless actions of the right-wing movement seeking to counter the collective voice of the majority.

With the 2024 election looming and democracy’s fate potentially at stake, Berman, the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot (2015), traces the deliberate efforts of extreme right-wing conservatives over recent decades to limit control of the country’s majority interests to maintain Republican dominance. This trend began with Pat Buchanan’s 1992 White House bid. As Berman notes, Buchanan’s “nativism, racism, and skepticism toward democracy foreshadowed the ideology that now defines the Republican Party.” The author highlights subsequent underhanded policies by polarizing figures like former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who suppressed voting rights, and Kansas attorney general Kris Kobach, who instituted high-profile anti-immigration policies. These actions fall in line with the strategy of Donald Trump and his allies, who actively engage in voter suppression, district manipulation, judicial influence, and historical whitewashing—and all are backed by substantial funding from billionaire donors. In consistently insightful prose, Berman delves into the Constitution’s founding intentions, emphasizing its design for a system of checks and balances, and he shows how institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate, with two senators per state regardless of population, can be leveraged to undermine the true will of the people.

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West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s outsize influence on national politics.

Despite these challenges, Berman highlights recent grassroots victories and underscores the potency of state initiatives in countering extremist right-wing threats and preserving a hope for American democracy. “State constitutions empower popular majorities in ways that the federal constitution does not,” he writes.

“They were specifically designed to be a majoritarian counterweight to the countermajoritarian features of America’s political institutions.”

A richly documented political book with significant current relevance.

The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time Bertch, Jane | Ballantine (304 pp.) $30.00 | April 9, 2024 | 9780593500422

A Midwestern “meat-and-potatoes-eating gal” chronicles how she opened a successful cooking school in Paris.

Bertch has lived and worked in Europe for two decades, and in 2009, she founded Le Cuisine Paris, now “the largest nonprofessional culinary school in France.” In her first book, the author offers valuable, often hilarious nuggets of lived wisdom—and not just in terms of cooking. Originally from Chicago, Bertch targeted finance as the way to a wider world, first working in London before being transferred to Paris as a “relationship banker” in the early 2000s. The author recounts how, early on during her time in France, she was lonely, spoke little French, and was shunned by most of her older colleagues. Eventually, she realized that everything in the city is “coded…from its professional trajecto­ries to its wardrobe,” and she had to learn the ropes the hard way, via faux pas. She began to understand that most people focus on one thing and disdain being

“well-rounded,” and relationships develop slowly through trust and referral. “They wanted to put me in a box, but I didn’t fit in a box,” writes Bertch. “Instead, with my red hair, American accent, and audacious ideas, they considered me a circus animal.”

Dissatisfied, the author quit her job and started a cooking school with her then-boyfriend, Olivier, who helped open doors for her. They were unable to “seduce” the concierge of the building, who considered the school a “nuisance,” so they found a new space in the fashionable Marais on the Quai de l’Hôtel de Ville, with its promising busy foot traffic. Despite numerous obstacles, including the terrorist attack on the Bataclan concert venue, the fire in Notre Dame, and the pandemic, Le Cuisine Paris has become a highly successful business.

An inspiring story that will appeal to foodies and budding entrepreneurs alike.

The Secret Mind of Bertha Pappenheim: The Woman Who Invented Freud’s Talking Cure Brownstein, Gabriel | PublicAffairs (336 pp.) $30.00 | April 16, 2024 | 9781541774643

Revisiting the life of one of Freud’s first patients— known as Anna O—to rethink the condition once known as hysteria.

“The night before he died, my father, Dr. Shale Brownstein, a retired psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, gave me an essay he had written about Bertha Pappenheim and Sigmund Freud and Freud’s mentor, the great Viennese physician Dr. Josef Breuer.” Brownstein begins with strong memoir material, vividly recalling his fascinating father, whose interest in Pappenheim the younger Brownstein adopted as a personal project that sustained him through “the worst years of [his] life,” including his wife’s death and the pandemic. From there, >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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ON THE COVER

SLOANE CROSLEY

The essayist and novelist, known for her droll observations, confronts the suicide of a close friend.

BY MARION WINIK “THERE’S NOT MUCH point in me writing Russell a job recommendation at this

juncture,” writes Sloane Crosley ruefully of her beloved former boss Russell Perreault, who died by suicide in 2019. She then spends several paragraphs extolling the talent and commitment of this book publicist for almost 30 years at Knopf and Vintage, where his clients included Joan Didion, Robert Caro, E.L. James, and James Frey. Crosley worked for Russell (his last name is not used in the book) for a decade, before she left in 2011 to write full-time, producing three highly successful collections of humorous essays (I Was Told There’ d Be Cake, How Did You Get This Number, and Look Alive Out There) and two novels (The Clasp

Let’s start with the title, which appears as a line in the book. Can you explain it?

As the book opens, my apartment is burglarized, and it really drives me nuts: the violation of it, and the actual missing jewelry, which includes the few family heirlooms I own— owned—and the fact that I was personally targeted somehow.

As I become obsessed with solving the mystery of the burglary, I decide to try something that seems over the top, which is to hunt down some kind

My hope is that [this book] saves a few people from the self-help aisle.

Beowulf Sheehan

This is Crosley’s first book-length work of nonfiction.

and Cult Classic). Grief Is for People (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Feb. 27), her first book-length work of nonfiction, was described in a starred Kirkus review as “marvelously tender”—“not only a joy to read, but also a respectful and philosophical work.” We spoke to Crosley recently on a video call; our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

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of grief group. I don’t know, at that point, if I’m going to physically show up to someplace with folding chairs or dip into an online forum to air my woes—but then I find that there is really nothing for this type of predicament. Grief groups are for people.

Then you lose Russell.

And I realize what real grief is. While the pain of being burglarized may be hard to understand until it happens to you, the loss of a loved one, no matter how they die, is something that [people have] a bone-level understanding of.

Grief is for people, not for things sounds like a silly lesson for a superficial child. But that’s the point. It forces the question: Well, who or what is it not for? Actually, objects were so important to Russell. My objects were so important to Russell. No matter how much Russell’s death may have been a sort of healthy reframing of the robbery, the book makes the case that grief is also for jewelry.

You draw a direct line between the two events, anchoring them both in the moment of writing. Just a few pages in we read, “In truth, I am writing these words on the evening of August 27, 2019. It’s a Tuesday.

The Amazon is on fire. It’s been two months since the burglary. It’s been one month since the violent death of my dearest friend. This occurred on the evening of July 27, 2019.” Talk about the decision to unfold the narrative in the present tense, almost in real time.

In some ways, the book is also about how you tell a story—it’s got a sort of undercurrent of being a craft book without being heavy-handed about it, hopefully. In the very first paragraph I talk about how the thief comes into my apartment through my bedroom window, but I get in through the front door, and the metaphor is, How do we enter this story?

Though normally I tend to let things settle a little bit before I write about them, this time, the tears weren’t even dry, so the decision to talk about the actual experience of writing is K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Grief Is for People Crosley, Sloane

MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux 208 pp. | $27.00 | Feb. 27, 2024 9780374609849

also about trying to put some sort of collar on this monster grief.

Also, the events of the book take place from June of 2019 to June of 2020: pretty neatly a year. I think that was left out of the press materials for good reason, because it sort of harkens back to that early-aughts trend of “My Year of [Fill in the Blank].”

Spoken like a former book publicist.

One thing the press materials do say is that the book is in some ways a departure for you. And I thought, Well, she’s written humorously and philosophically about plenty of semibad experiences in her essays.

What’s the departure?

My essays are based in the humor of exasperation, very much in the spirit of “What fresh hell is this?”—only asked during moderately hellish times. This time, something horrific has happened. It changes the texture of the writing. For me, the point of comedy is to articulate something that everyone is familiar with but has not been articulated in that way before. Humor is in the gap. If this book seems like a departure, it’s because the gap is wider. My hope is that it saves a few people from the self-help aisle, a place where nobody ever points out how ridiculous grief is.

And yet, speaking of self-help, the

book is organized into five sections that reflect the classic stages of grief, denial, anger, depression, et cetera.

From the start, I wanted the book to be in fi ve parts, before I applied the stages. When a lead came up in the mystery of the missing jewelry and I realized that “bargaining” might be a more literal part of the story—of course that’s one of the famous Kubler-Ross phases—it just worked.

Like when you unfurl a picnic blanket, and it falls into place on the first try.

But you might have noticed, the stages are not in the traditional order, and the last bit is not “Acceptance,” because, honestly, I accept jack shit.

It’s “Afterward.”

It’s similar to the way I use the title—that is, not completely seriously.

In the same way society says, This is what you’re allowed to mourn, not this, it also tells you how you’re supposed to do it. Though I think the idea that grief is like a video game, where you finish one stage and go to the next, has been debunked. I tried to bat these ideas around without mocking them.

What do you think Russell would think about the book?

You assume he’d read it. He read very little of what his writer friends wrote, especially former employees. And then, to have this much focus on him, I think, would make him deeply uncomfortable. This is someone who did take his own life, who, at least in the end, had a desire for self-erasure.

But I think he’d give in eventually, and then he would be proud. He would like the way I wrote the story, even if I didn’t get everything right.

In the book, I mention that Russell didn’t get an obituary in the New York Times, though we tried and tried. I like to joke that I got 200 pages’ worth of pissed about it. But truly, one of my reasons for writing the book was to preserve him, to say, Not so fast.

Because if I didn’t capture losing him, it would be like losing him twice.

Marion Winik hosts the NPR podcast The Weekly Reader.

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the author dives into an exploration of Pappenheim’s life, which began with “hysterical” illness but ended with her work as “a writer, activist, and organizer, and the leading Jewish crusader against the Mädchenhandel, the ‘girl business,’ the sex trade in young women.” The treatment that Pappenheim co-created with Breuer and Freud gave rise to “a new kind of talking cure, a new kind of listening cure, practiced by doctors whose primary field of study is the neuroanatomy of the brain.”

Today, these conditions are known as functional neurological disorders (FNDs), encompassing often-disastrous physical symptoms that cannot be traced to a clear biological cause and for which modern versions of the talking/listening cure are now dominant. Brownstein interviewed numerous FND patients and doctors, presenting Sacksian case histories, including one involving Oliver Sacks himself. Other strands trace the lives and work of Breuer and Freud. While this well-researched book bears some similarities to the author’s previous work, The Open Heart Club, in this case his personal connection to the topic is less direct, so we get a bit less of his wonderful personal writing and lower stakes overall.

For those who have a connection to the condition it explores, this thoughtful book will be most welcome.

Combat Love: A Jersey Girl’s Search for Home Camerota, Alisyn | Rare Bird Books (356 pp.) | $28.00 | March 26, 2024 9781644283714

A journalist recounts emotional wounds.

Emmy Award– winning CNN anchor Camerota chronicles the loneliness, betrayal, and abandonment that led her on “a lifelong search for that elusive place called home.” The only 62

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child of divorced parents, she grew up living with her mother in suburban New Jersey; her father was a mysterious presence even before he left the family. Though she adored her mother, she never felt she was really the center of her mother’s life. Describing herself as an “endearing misfit,” Camerota became passionately enamored with the punk rock band Shrapnel, whose music—especially the song “Combat Love”—and performances dominated her adolescence. “I knew Shrapnel was more than just music,” she writes.

“Shrapnel was an aspiration, an identity. Shrapnel became my ticket to tribal belonging.” She was wrenched from her tribe, though, when her mother uprooted her to move to Olympia, Washington, to follow a man. Camerota was desperately unhappy—until she met her handsome next-door neighbor. The author reveals years of difficult relationships, her struggle to find a place to live after her mother left Olympia with yet another man, and her constant feeling of hunger. “But was it true that I didn’t have enough food?” she reflects. “Or was the insatiability about something else entirely?” After college, she “relentlessly chased” two goals: becoming a reporter and finding love.

She worked for Ted Koppel’s production company, where her boss was a cruel narcissist; became a reporter for America’s Most Wanted; joined a “merry mix” of young staffers on a new morning show—until it was canceled; and then took a job with Fox News, which ended, unsurprisingly, in a bitter showdown with Roger Ailes.

Now at CNN, married and a mother of three, Camerota is where she has always wanted to be: at home.

A candid chronicle of hard-won survival.

For more unique parenting advice, visit Kirkus online.

Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs To Be Carney, Timothy P. | Harper/HarperCollins (368 pp.) | $29.99 | March 19, 2024 9780063236462

A parenting book that focuses on giving children room to grow, take some risks, and discover themselves.

The premise of this book is that many of the problems in U.S. society can be traced to a variety of parenting failures.

Anxious, fearful parents are creating a generation of anxious, fearful children, according to American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Carney, author of Alienated America and father of six children. “Our kids, as of this writing, have forty first cousins,” he writes.

“Our big family is tied up with our view on parenting culture.” The author laments the rise of helicopter parenting, where children are relentlessly monitored, shuttled from one class to another, and pushed too hard to succeed. Lower your expectations, Carney advises, and give them plenty of free time to play, explore, and socialize. He points to the value of community events where parents can volunteer and children can simply have fun. Another issue he discusses is the trend toward one-child families, which has led to a “baby bust.” Carney has little time for adults who are so frightened of the future that they do not want to have children at all. “Fear and sadness are the bread and butter of the Western media,” he notes. “In any corner of daily life, the press can find a reason for terror or despair….But the fear and sadness are not just about the climate or a pandemic. We have to come back to anthropology: we simply do not see people as good.” However, Carney is optimistic about the human capacity to solve problems. Raising children, he believes, is the most satisfying and important thing a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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person can experience. Some readers will disagree, but for aspiring parents, the author is an encouraging guide.

With practical views and advice, Carney offers a road map toward better parenting.

What Would Reagan Do?: Life Lessons From the Last Great President Christie, Chris with Ellis Henican Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) | $30.00 | Feb. 6, 2024 9781982160661

A long, revealing, and sometimes sort-of-correct stump speech in honor of “the last great president.”

The title seems a neat twist on the fundamentalist what-wouldJesus-do trope, but in his way, Christie is just as much a true believer, one who longs to be seated at the right hand of Reagan. His hero isn’t just the Great Communicator; he’s also the great uniter (who inarguably pulled a lot of white supremacists and government haters), the great statesman, the great friend to all people everywhere.

Christie cuts to the chase: “His version of conservatism very much included achieving stuff.” Stuff? Though he had to be dragged to it kicking and screaming, he actually pushed through a little funding for AIDS research, “despite his generational misunderstandings about the origins of the virus.” He may even have saved us from being obliterated by nuclear war.

Christie does acknowledge the disaster of the Iran-Contra affair, which “provoked bipartisan uproar, launched televised congressional hearings, and… delivered federal felony indictments to a wide swath of Reagan’s foreign policy team.” Apart from that, “by the usual standards of twentieth-century America, Reagan had had a remarkably scandal-free administration.”

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presidency of Reagan with the sordidly corrupt presidency of Donald Trump, who at every turn the author presents as the anti-Reagan. Where Reagan saw hope in America and a beacon on every hill, Trump’s “squinting eyes conjured up the exact opposite.”

Where Reagan sought to serve the people, Trump sought to help himself to the public trough. As on the campaign trail, Christie is snide, indignant, and excoriating, and his lashings of vituperation are the best and most convincing part of this otherwise undistinguished book.

One doesn’t have to admire Reagan to concur with Christie’s disdain for the “blustery loser” in today’s headlines.

Kirkus Star

After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations Cline, Eric H. | Princeton Univ. (352 pp.) $32.00 | April 16, 2024 | 9780691192130

A brilliant survey of the ancient world’s recovery from a series of crises.

In 1177 B.C., classicist Cline described the cataclysmic end of the Bronze Age, its civilizations undone by war, climate change, famine, and other ailments. In this follow-up, he examines eight civilizations of the ancient eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, including the Greeks, Egyptians, and “Neo-Assyrians,” to show different responses to those crises. This period is often termed “the first dark age,” but that designation is useful in only a few cases. For example, the Egyptians, beset by invasions and a decline in imperial power, turned inward, “hobbled by a government riddled with intrigue, not to mention problems with succession and rivalries that occasionally resulted in two, three, and sometimes even four rulers in different parts of Egypt at the same time.” Having lost nearly half their population, the Greeks rebuilt,

while the ancient Israelites took advantage of the power vacuum to dominate the region that forms the present country and beyond. Cline is as interested in continuities as in ruptures.

He discounts the idea of a “Dorian invasion” of Greece, for example, to look at survivals from the doomed Mycenaean civilization, including the belief in gods such as Zeus. Cline also explores historical moments seldom mentioned outside the professional literature, such as the coalition of kings that allied against the Assyrian king Shalmaneser—unsuccessfully, as it happens, allowing him to expand his empire. The author writes with an eye to the present and future as well as the past, applying the characteristics of the “winners” among these societies to draw lessons for what may be hard times to come, given war, disease, and, yes, climate change. One lesson: “Be as self-sufficient as possible, but do call on friends for assistance when needed.”

Another: “Keep the working class happy.”

A superb work to interest history buffs of every period.

Kirkus Star

Everest, Inc.: The Renegades and Rogues Who Built an Industry at the Top of the World Cockrell, Will | Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) | $28.99 | April 16, 2024 9781982190453

An examination of the modern history of Mount Everest and its guiding industry.

In this enlightening book, Cockrell, an adventure writer for Outside, Men’s Journal, and other publications, expertly traces the industry behind the majesty. As the author notes, the media has presented the mountain in a variety of ways: “Some painted Everest as the tragic, overcrowded mess, some the FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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A lyrical and uncompromisingly honest memoir.

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awe-inspiring natural wonder, some as the ultimate symbol of human triumph.” Furthermore, the narrative is often “hijacked,” presenting a “skewed view of the mountain, especially what it’s like today.” In order to tell the complete story, writes the author, we must acknowledge “uncomfortable facts and inconvenient truth.” At the center of much of Everest’s historical controversy is the relationship between Westerners and the Sherpa people.

During the mid-1980s, climbing Everest became “more of a logistical challenge than technical one,” as climbers began taking advantage of technology to increase their chances of reaching the summit. Over time, Western guide companies began welcoming people with more diverse backgrounds and less technical climbing experience. As the mountain began to become overcrowded, Sherpas, “indisputably…the backbone of the industry,” began to feel increasingly marginalized and unappreciated, particularly by Westerners. Tensions came to a head in the mid-2000s when a series of tragedies befell the mountain, resulting in Sherpas demanding a voice and seeking reforms. From Texan Richard Bass to Nepal-born Nirmal Purja, Cockrell details the gnawing desires that have brought climbers to the top of the world, offering illuminating firsthand accounts and perspectives of mountain climbers, guides, Sherpas, and anyone else involved in the Everest industry. Fortunately, a promise of hope exists, as Cockrell relates: “For most guides, Western and Sherpa alike, that appears to be the feeling in Everest base camp today, that integration and cooperation, not elimination, is the way forward.”

An astute history and powerful cautionary tale.

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No Son of Mine: A Memoir Corcoran, Jonathan | Univ. Press of Kentucky (248 pp.) | $29.95 | April 1, 2024 9780813198514

A West Virginia– born writer reflects on how coming into his identity as a gay man led to a painful estrangement from his beloved mother.

Corcoran was his religious mother’s “golden child,” the bright, ambitious son who left their tiny Appalachian town to attend Brown University. His achievements partially made up for her marriage to an unfaithful man who gambled away their money, but when he came out to her at age 20, she disowned him and, suddenly, Corcoran’s past was “wiped clean” of all the “relationships, geographies, histories” he had ever known. All that remained was the present, which included a relationship with a Jewish student named Sam and a desperate desire to fit in among wealthy Brown students while “hold[ing] onto the things [he’d] known” from West Virginia. Corcoran’s life post-estrangement was further complicated by calls from his mother that threatened he would die of AIDS and burn in hell. These and other experiences, including her fraudulent use of Corcoran’s credit card for food money, traumatized the author and tested his relationship with Sam. Even after the two moved to New York to build their adult lives together, Corcoran still watched “for her dark shadow to hover over [them] and tsk.”

Haunted by their on-again, off-again relationship, the author struggled to make sense of the violent bond that held him and his once-loving mother together, a bond that mellowed after his father died and her own health began to decline. Only then, broken and alone, was she finally able to offer an apology for the “devil that had been inside her.” Skillfully weaving together emotion, memory, and geography, Corcoran creates a memorable narrative tapestry that delves into the dark complexities of love while exploring a gay man’s hard-won path to self-acceptance.

A lyrical and uncompromisingly honest memoir.

A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria Crampton, Caroline | Ecco/HarperCollins (336 pp.) | $29.99 | April 23, 2024 9780063273900

An up-to-date study of hypochondria, which has been around for centuries but has become more widespread in the digital age.

In her adolescent years, Crampton, author of The Way to the Sea, had a serious encounter with blood cancer. After grueling treatment, she recovered, but the experience left her with hypochondria, the elusive and exhausting feeling that every minor pain or change in her body was a sign of approaching disaster. This book is her attempt to understand the condition. As she embarked on her research, the author discovered that the condition is surprisingly common. At the most intense end of the scale are people whose lives have become severely limited, to the point that they will hardly leave their rooms for fear of contagion. At another level are those who will try any potion or procedure to cure an ailment that is entirely K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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imaginary. Some hypochondriacs will begin to believe they have an illness because they have read about it or seen a documentary on it. The internet has been a major contributor to this phenomenon, writes the author. A “cyberchondriac,” she notes, “gets trapped in a never-ending spiral of increasingly doom-laden internet searches.” The rise of social media has seen the proliferation of so-called wellness specialists, who provide a remedy for whatever it is a person with a credit card thinks they have. As Crampton shows, there are serious attempts to treat hypochondria underway, and methods related to treatment for PTSD show promise.

However, a real understanding of the condition is a long way off. As for herself, Crampton believes that writing the book provided valuable perspective and insight into her own struggles. “I am ill and I am well,” she concludes. “I am still here.”

Poetic and personal, this book reveals a condition that is debilitating and often hidden.

Beneath the Surface of Things: New and Selected Essays Davis, Wade | Greystone Books (264 pp.) $27.95 | April 30, 2024 | 9781778400445

An acclaimed essayist takes a deep dive into cultural issues at home and around the world.

Aside from being a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Davis held the interesting title of Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013. The essays in his latest book, following Magdalena, reflect his extensive travels and investigations, ranging across subjects as diverse as the history of the coca leaf to spiritualism in India. The author wrote most of the pieces during the pandemic, “the unhurried months K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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when one who had traveled incessantly was obliged to stay still.” One of his best-known essays, “The Unraveling of America,” first published in 2020, is a lengthy contemplation on how the pandemic fits into the larger picture and history of the country. He sees the pandemic as a critical turning point, although this idea seems less strong as the crisis recedes in the rearview mirror. The best pieces display Davis’ expertise as an anthropologist, the area where he seems most at home.

“The anthropological lens allows us to see, and perhaps seek, the wisdom in the middle way, a perspective of promise and hope,” he writes.

Regarding climate change, he is scathing about the way that the dogma of the prevailing narrative has suppressed debate and compromise, replacing the development of viable, cost-effective solutions with meaningless, doom-laden rhetoric. Davis accepts the inherent validity of non-Western cultures and religions, although sometimes his desire to see all sides of a question means that he fails to arrive at any answer at all.

Ultimately, this book is more about consideration than finality, tension rather than coherence. It is not for readers who want straightforward conclusions, but Davis offers plenty of food for thought.

Davis knits history, sociology, faith, and scientific inquiry into a colorful, meditative tapestry.

Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner Dykstra, Natalie | Mariner Books (512 pp.) $37.50 | March 26, 2024 | 9781328515759

The life of a preeminent art collector.

Isabella Stewart Gardner (18401924), designer and founder of a Boston museum filled with her collections, was born into money and married into

more. When she wed Jack Gardner in 1859, she joined one of the wealthiest, most powerful families in America. As Dykstra, author of Clover Adams, portrays her in a thoroughly researched, sympathetic biography, Gardner resisted the role of socialite to become a discerning patron of the arts.

She was “a woman who saw what was expected of her as a Boston matron and decided to be something else. She made sense of her long life through far-reaching travel, avid collecting, and an all-consuming pursuit of beauty.”

Dykstra reports those extensive trips in detail, making much of the biography read like a travelogue of places and famous people, including Henry James, John Singer Sargent, James Whistler, and Henry Adams. Along the way, Gardener shopped—for clothing, silks, pearls, and art. She could afford whatever appealed to her: Vermeer, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Titian, among many more.

Bernard Berenson, at the start of his career as a prominent connoisseur and art dealer, counted Gardner as his most important client. Her comings and goings, “musical occasions” and parties, were noted in the press. “Mrs. Jack Gardner is one of the seven wonders of Boston,” a reporter exulted in 1875. “There is nobody like her in any city in this country. She is a millionaire Bohemienne. She is eccentric, and she has the courage of eccentricity.” Dykstra deals with Gardner’s reticence—her diaries do not reveal her innermost feelings— with intelligent conjectures. “It is said that no more self-contained woman ever lived,” the Boston Journal noted in a profile. Ultimately, the author captures the sweep and energy of her life, and the book includes photographs and artwork.

A richly detailed biographical portrait.

To read our review of Magdalena, visit Kirkus online.

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A U D I O B O O K S // N O N F I C T I O N

Mad, Mad World

Three recent audiobooks explore mental illness and obsession in fascinating detail.

BY MARION WINIK WHILE AUDIOBOOK

Lauder, opening with vivid scenes of their New Rochelle, New York, school days and their years at Yale. Though the friendship always had a competitive streak, it was a hare-and-tortoise situation: Lauder was the acknowledged supergenius, Rosen the dazzled sidekick. As the course of events and changes in Lauder’s personality begin to drive them apart, Rosen enriches the memoir with interviews and research, putting the personal story in a finely developed political, historical, and cultural context, while keeping the emotional tension high with his candor, vulnerability, and considered self-implication.

Similar topic, different regional accent, same verdict on the narration: Meg Kissinger’s flat

Michael Finkel reads the fascinating afterword, where he explains how he reported The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession (Penguin Random House Audio, 5 hours and 39 minutes), there’s no better choice for the main narration than actor Edoardo Ballerini, whose elegant vocal style fits the topic perfectly. As our reviewer points out, “Finkel’s play-by-play of each theft has the pacing and atmosphere of a good suspense tale,” and his depiction of the personalities of Stéphane Breitwieser and his girlfriend, Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, effectively enlists the reader’s sympathies as they pull off their obsessive-compulsive capers.

Between 1994 and 2001, with Anne-Catherine acting as lookout or providing distraction, Breitwieser “liberated” over 300 pieces of art valued at close to $2 billion. His motivation for the heists was not financial; rather than sell a single statue or painting, he kept the whole stash in his attic apartment in his mother’s house. From the descriptions of the couple’s secondhand couture outfits to the exact manipulations of the Swiss Army knife that freed the works from their displays, the detail Finkel provides is fascinating. (The printed book contains maps and reproductions of the stolen art; one wishes for a PDF with the audio version.)

Headphones: Juk ka A ahlo/Unsplash

memoirs may gain potency when read by their authors, there are times when I’ve thought, Maybe they should have gotten a professional involved. But Jonathan Rosen’s slightly hoarse voice, with its New York Jewish accent, is so appealing and apropos, his reading of complicated and difficult material so careful and clear, it makes the listener’s experience of his personality and his investment in the story even stronger. Rosen earned a starred Kirkus review for The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions (Penguin Random House Audio, 16 hours and 43 minutes), his account of his relationship with boyhood friend Michael

Chicagoland vowels, her judicious sprinkling of all-American idioms (“Shut up!” to express disbelief, “freakin’” when nothing else will do), and the tenderness, anger, and disbelief that can be heard in her voice all enrich While You Were Out: An Intimate Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence (Macmillan Audio, 11 hours and 8 minutes). Born in 1957, Kissinger was the fourth of eight siblings, two of whom died by suicide. Or as she puts it with characteristic straightforwardness: “Take two alcoholics—one with bipolar disorder and the other with crippling anxiety—and let them have eight kids in twelve years.

What could possibly go wrong?” Plenty, of course, but while she doesn’t hold back on the hard parts—her father’s violent rages, her mother’s unexplained disappearances, eventually revealed to be institutionalizations—she also vividly evokes the love, high spirits, and humor that underlie the relatively happy childhood she managed to have nonetheless. Like Rosen, she gives an account of the last half-century of mental health legislation, making what our reviewer calls “an impassioned argument for reform in caring for the afflicted.”

As for calling in the professionals: While author

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Familiarity Breeds Content: New and Selected Essays Epstein, Joseph | Simon & Schuster (480 pp.) | $19.99 paper | April 16, 2024 9781668009727

A warm collection from a writer who loves to play with words.

The prolific, opinionated humorist Epstein offers up yet another collection of essays, from 1978 to 2023, starting off with a wry piece on the significance of jokes— “punch lines from jokes rattle around quite comfortably” in his head “alongside lines of poetry”—followed by an essay on letters—“I adore mail”—followed by a lovely survey of same in literature. He’s as adept at discussing juggling as he is at doing it, and, generally speaking, he believes there are “not two but four kinds of generalization.” The typical Epstein essay is besotted with aphorisms, his and others’. In “This Sporting Life,” this “couch athlete” proclaims his desire “to free myself of my bondage to watching sports.” Epstein easily slides from topic to topic: friendships, being a good guy, the seven deadly sins, especially gluttony, ex-smoker Epstein on smoking, fame, hats, envy (he’s desirous to have a “good name among a select audience of the genuinely thoughtful”), blurbs (“my blurbs truly aren’t worth dying for”), cats or dogs, and short men and women. On aging, he wrote at 50 that he hoped to reach “ninety-seven” (he’s now 86) but sadly confesses he probably won’t “write a novel as long and as good as Proust’s.” Epstein’s effusive about his love of reading. As a young man he began reviewing books for pay—“exhilarating.” In “The Bookish Life,” all “means and no end,” he heaps praise on Willa Cather—the “greatest twentieth-century American novelist.” He closes with a rather censorious essay on taste, confessing to not liking tattoos, rap music, and the inauthentic Bob 68

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Dylan, letting him “blow in his own rather pretentious wind.”

Friendly, personal essays in the Jean Shepherd mold.

Dare To Say No: Policing and the War on Drugs in Schools Felker-Kantor, Max | Univ. of North Carolina (288 pp.) | $27.95 paper | April 2, 2024 9781469679044

Intriguing social chronicle of the DARE anti-drug education program.

Felker-Kantor builds on prior work on policing with an account of the stealthy rise and fall of DARE, which began in Los Angeles in 1983 under aggressive chief Daryl Gates. While often ridiculed, the once-ubiquitous DARE programs, which featured officers in uniform as “teachers,” normalized the presence of police in everyday life. “DARE attempted to give the police a human face,” writes the author, “while simultaneously expanding the scorched-earth policing” of the drug war. Felker-Kantor takes an evenhanded approach, showing how DARE benefited many parties, attracting support from educators, politicians, and donors, as well as police officers who emphasized their bonding experiences with schoolchildren. Early on, few noticed how it concealed the racialized mechanics of “zero tolerance” prohibition and normalized the unnecessary presence of police in schools. In the 1980s, DARE expanded in line with the Reagan era’s conservatism, which “placed the family, personal responsibility, and morality at the crux of the drug war.” The author documents how DARE accrued political power as it was franchised nationwide, becoming a nonprofit in 1987, while gaining corporate sponsors and a merchandising arm. “By the mid-1990s, DARE had become a cultural icon of its own,” writes the

author, while ignoring the structural roots of drug abuse and how middle-class suburban students’ experience with the program diverged from that of students from marginalized communities. Yet pushback accrued by the late 1990s, due to both parental backlash and studies suggesting the program did not influence behavior. “The continued attention DARE received, whether praise or mocking, demonstrated the deep impact the program had on American society, politics, and culture,” writes the author. While his central points can be repetitive, his straightforward account of DARE’s insidiously authoritarian growth is insightful and instructive.

An approachable consideration of an unexamined aspect of the failed war on drugs.

Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness Fleming, Renée—Ed. | Viking (464 pp.) $35.00 April 9, 2024 | 9780593653197

A collection of essays about the health benefits of music and the arts.

Editor Fleming, an acclaimed soprano and arts/ health advocate, introduces readers to current research and practices related to the healing power of the arts. Among the contributors are scientists from leading research facilities, practitioners, educators, and musicians and writers, including Richard Powers, Ann Patchett, Rosanne Cash, Zakir Hussain, and Yo-Yo Ma, who share their personal experiences. Many readers are aware of the power of music to reduce stress. However, there is an interesting misconception that classical music is superior to other genres when it comes to relaxation. While calm music is “often associated with relaxation, a wide variety of music styles and ways of engaging with music can promote stress relief,” writes Joke Bradt, a boardK IR KU S R E V IE W S

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certified music therapist. While studies show that introducing music to children at an early age improves cognitive and brain development, as well as language skills, some school districts are still apprehensive about implementing music programs. Indre Viskontas, director of the Creative Brain Lab at the University of San Francisco, clearly demonstrates why they shouldn’t be hesitant: “Instead of taking time and resources away from the core curriculum, music programs in schools motivate kids to attend, and drive up graduation rates, GPAs, and good behavior.” The contributors also provide concrete evidence to support the ways music therapy and art-based interventions can assist patients with dementia and other debilitating conditions, including Alzheimer’s, PTSD, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, as well as depression and loneliness. While some of the topics repeat across the essays, they are no less compelling, and most of the pieces complement each other. Francis S. Collins, the former head of the Human Genome Project, provides the foreword.

A must-read for anyone who questions the health benefits of music.

The Breakthrough Years: A New Scientific Framework for Raising Thriving Teens Galinsky, Ellen | Flatiron Books (560 pp.) $32.99 | March 26, 2024 | 9781250062048

A fresh look at adolescence.

Nearly 500 pages on this topic may seem excessive—except to the harried parents of teens.

Two centuries of experts have used personal experience, religion, ideology, and tradition to describe how to raise children. In this massive compendium of research on teenage brain science, Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, author of Mind in the Making, Ask the Children, and The Six Stages of Parenthood, presents the results of a lifetime of her own study of K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A deeply researched parenting guide with more than the usual emphasis on the facts.

THE BREAKTHROUGH YEARS

parenting and child development, offering countless useful, concrete facts often missing from similar books over the decades. The author emphasizes that young people are not adults; assessing them using an “adult yardstick” sets them up for failure.

Since 1904, when the first study of adolescence as a distinct developmental stage appeared, it’s been described as a time of “storm and stress.” With the use of high-tech scanners, modern-day scientists have revealed that the brain’s reward system develops more quickly than its control system. This seems to explain teens’ risky behavior, but Galinsky maintains that they never stop learning. An ongoing theme is that “challenges” (i.e., poor behavior) are an opportunity to teach, and adolescents need to feel they have a choice over how they live. In Galinsky’s autonomy-supportive approach, adults don’t solve problems; they engage children in learning to provide their own solutions. While there is no shortage of homilies, testimonials, and anecdotes, the author does not dispense the wisdom of a master healer a la Doctor Spock. She writes as a veteran scientist, usually preceding advice with the results of a study or an expert’s analysis. Dense with bullet points, lists, and tables, it resembles a textbook more than an advice manual; like a textbook, it rewards careful study.

A deeply researched parenting guide with more than the usual emphasis on the facts.

For more on parenting teens, visit Kirkus online.

The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City’s Anexos Garcia, Angela | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (272 pp.) | $29.00 | April 30, 2024 9780374605780

A Stanford anthropology professor examines the largely invisible world of Mexican community drugrehabilitation centers known as anexos.

Garcia, author of The Pastoral Clinic, stumbled upon the anexo system when a driver she hired in Mexico City took her to the facility that had treated his daughter.

She quickly learned that these informal facilities were “refuges” for substance abusers. “I grew up in a family that suffered from addiction problems,” she writes. “During my three years of research, several of the people I knew and cared for were incarcerated or had overdosed and died.” The author discovered that while officials called anexos “garbage cans for trash,” others saw them as spaces that could benefit the impoverished and protect them from the dangers of a violent society.

Compelled to learn more about them, Garcia gained access to several facilities across Mexico City. Her first encounters with anexo leaders and the people they oversaw surfaced memories of her own youth, part of which she spent living with runaway teens. The author’s connection to the largely invisible community self-help network to which anexos belonged only intensified as she continued her research and learned of the methods FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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used to purge anexados of their addictions. Garcia also learned that staff members routinely administered beatings and insults, but dedicated workers provided important space for testimony, “a way of expressing and interpreting violence on different discursive levels.” Set against the background of the ongoing drug war in Mexico, this probing book raises ethical questions about the use of violence as a rehabilitative tool. It also illuminates the role of the U.S. in perpetuating human suffering through military aid, illegally trafficked guns, and its insatiable hunger for drugs while immersing readers in Garcia’s own struggle to overcome the demons of a painful past.

An engaging and insightful book.

Kirkus Star

Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life Held, Shai | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (560 pp.) | $32.00 | March 26, 2024 9780374192440

An exploration of the role of love in Jewish scripture, ethics, and practice.

Held, president of the Hadar Institute and author of The Heart of the Torah, provides an erudite look at what lies at the heart of the Jewish faith.

Noting that some view Judaism as based on justice, tradition, law, or other elements, the author argues convincingly that love is the central tenet. Held’s thesis stems from the concept of hesed, a theme in the Torah commonly translated as “lovingkindness.” Hesed is both an important aspect of God and a central command for God’s people. From it, the author identifies a wide variety of applications for love in Jewish thought as well as in daily life. Beginning with love within the family unit, he moves on to the 70

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A highly literate, thought-provoking, persuasive argument for the centrality of love in the Jewish faith.

JUDAISM IS ABOUT LOVE

love of neighbor, stranger, and enemy.

Held explores human dignity in depth, seeing the creation of each person in God’s image as a basis for Jewish ethics. He also discusses love in the face of evil, asking how a God of love can be rationalized with the existence of widespread suffering. The author concludes that God provides us with the ability to love and, further, admonishes us to love; but in the end, he provides us with free will to do so or not. “God implants a capacity for love within us,” writes Held, “but God does not determine whether and how we exercise that capacity.” The author balances the academic strength of a scholar with the pastoral sensitivity of a rabbi. Readers will be intrigued by the dizzying array of references to Jewish teachers across the centuries, as well as philosophers, Christian theologians, and others, and he approaches topics such as family relations with practicality and nuance.

A highly literate, thought-provoking, persuasive argument for the centrality of love in the Jewish faith.

Ancestral Genomics: African American Health in the Age of Precision Medicine Hilliard, Constance B. | Harvard Univ.

(208 pp.) | $32.95 | April 16, 2024 9780674268609

A Black evolutionary historian and mother makes the case for systematizing the ways in which ethnic origins influence modern genomic medicine.

While Hilliard was a visiting professor in Japan, joint pain led her to consult a local physician for relief.

The doctor correctly diagnosed her with arthritis, but incorrectly diagnosed her with kidney failure. When she returned to the U.S., the author received a clean bill of health from a laboratory that used her race to assess her kidney function. The doctor “handed me a lab report and directed my attention to the left-hand corner of the sheet,” she writes. “A tiny box that read ‘Race—African Amer­ican’ had been checked.” The distinction puzzled Hilliard, who understood race as a social—not biological—construct. Her research into modern genetics and the Black community convinced her that the accepted “colorblind approach” to race in medicine was faulty. Specifically, the author discovered that although African-origin genes are more diverse than European genes, the Human Genome Project’s emphasis on sequencing European genes has led diagnosticians to use European genes as a universal reference point.

Consequently, modern medicine bases diagnoses on European models that ignore African origin adaptations, rendering current medical practices at best ineffective and at worst harmful.

For instance, Hilliard discovered how adaptations that allowed her African ancestors to survive in salt-deprived regions now render Black people vulnerable to hypertension and how unnecessary calcium supplementation in lactose-intolerant Black women can lead to increased rates of breast cancer.

The author’s arguments are well argued and deeply researched, and her use of memoir is poignant and effective. At times, the prose will be too dense for general readers, but K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Hilliard presents a thought-provoking take on the influence of race on modern medicine.

A scholarly book about damaging Eurocentric approaches to genetics that will reward dedicated readers.

Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami Houghton, Vince & Eric Driggs PublicAffairs (256 pp.) | $29.00 April 23, 2024 | 9781541774575

A history of American-supported covert operations undertaken by Cuban exiles against Castro’s communist regime.

Although Houghton and Driggs claim that “this book is partially a retelling of the Cold War through the lens of our hometown, Miami,” the city is seldom discussed.

Miami was a place where anti-Cuban CIA operations were headquartered, Cuban exiles were recruited and trained, Cuban refugees (and spies) took up residence, and propaganda was crafted, but this hardly makes Miami “a city built by spies.” Furthermore, claiming that it was “a clandestine battleground for intelligence” seems an exaggeration. Although U.S.-backed counterinsurgency efforts directed at Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Bolivia had ties to Miami, this still does not raise the city to the status the authors claim for it. Houghton and Driggs focus on the efforts by Cuban exiles, between 1959 and 1989, to overthrow the Castro government and the involvement of the U.S. government in enabling clandestine operations and welcoming (or not) Cuban refugees. In To read our review of Foodtopia, visit Kirkus online.

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doing so, the authors chronicle the details of a number of well-known historical events: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, the Mariel boatlift that brought approximately 125,000 refugees to the U.S. in 1980, and the 1999 controversy over returning 5-year-old Elián González to his father in Cuba. However, the authors never create a strong enough framework to give these tales broader significance appropriate to the Cold War theme.

Houghton and Driggs clearly understand the recent history of Miami and intelligence initiatives, have a wealth of knowledge about the many organizations and individuals in the Cuban exile community, and deftly reveal the roots of U.S.­­-Cuban political power, but they do not provide the perspective that would make Miami credible as a “covert city.”

An adequate account of a failed attempt at regime change and the ineffectiveness of Cold War spycraft.

A Gardener at the End of the World Kelley, Margot Anne | Godine (240 pp.) $28.95 | April 2, 2024 | 9781567927344

An essayist explores how the first year of a global pandemic turned her gardening hobby into an extended reflection on the ways that the spread of food and disease has shaped human history.

Kelley, the author of Foodtopia, opens with a contemplation of the “gorgeous possibility” held by the seed packets she bought in January 2020 for the spring growing season in Maine. Three months later, the author was suddenly plunged into the uncertainties created by the pandemic.

Lockdowns and her own cancer-compromised immune system forced Kelley to stay at home. In addition to tending her garden on the grim days that followed each other in formless succession, the author researched past

pandemics to understand Covid-19’s effects on a present in which truths— even scientific ones—had become relative. Soon Kelley began meditating on the interconnectedness of seeds and disease. She learned that the viruses that had caused all major plagues throughout history had a penchant for “hitching rides” from human and other animal hosts. So did seeds, which humans exported and imported, as Columbus did when he brought onions and garlic to Hispaniola, some seeds of which returned to Europe on ships infected with the bacteria that would cause the great syphilis epidemic of the late 15th century.

Kelley further notes that language itself developed in ways that suggest a kinship between seeds and viruses. By the mid-1800s, for example, the word “germ”—originally derived from germen, the Latin word for “seed” or “sprout”—came to be associated with germ theory, the idea that microorganisms could invade a body, replicate within it, and cause illness. Interweaving elegantly pastoral descriptions of a far-flung northern landscape haunted by climate change, Kelley transforms musings about a gardening hobby into a rich—and richly instructive—historical journey through human history.

An eloquent and thought-provoking narrative.

Kirkus Star

This Part Is Silent: A Life Between Cultures Kim, SJ | Norton (160 pp.) | $17.99 paper April 16, 2024 | 9781324064763

An academic wrestles with truths of family, immigration, and her profession.

Kim immigrated from Seoul to rural North Carolina as a young child, then moved to the U.K. as a young adult. In this piercing collection of essays, she folds her experiences as an >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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IN THE NEWS Joan Acocella Dies at 78 The award-winning critic and author was known for her writing about dance and the arts.

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Joan Acocella

My Ántonia author’s work has often been misinterpreted.

This month marks the publication of her book The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays, a collection of her pieces on various literary works, from the Book of Job and Gilgamesh to novels by Marilynne Robinson and Elena Ferrante. In its starred review, Kirkus praises the book as “a top-notch collection full of information, elegance, and humor.”—M.A.

Gar y Ger shof f/Get t y Images for the New Yorker

Preeminent dance and literary critic Joan Acocella has died at the age of 78.

According to a report in the New York Times, the cause of death was cancer. For decades, Acocella served as one of the leading critics on the staff of the New Yorker, where she covered modern dance and ballet, as well as books. In 2009 she received the Nona Balakian Citation from the National Book Critics Circle.

Acocella began her career as an editor at Random House before writing on the performing arts for Dance magazine and numerous daily newspapers.

Shortly after receiving a Guggenheim fellowship in 1993, she was hired by the New Yorker.

In addition to her role as New Yorker dance critic from 1998 to 2019, Acocella published numerous books, including an acclaimed 1993 biography of the dancer and choreographer Mark Morris, and Willa Cather and the Politics of Criticism, an assessment of how the

For more books by Joan Acocella, visit Kirkus online.

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S E E N A N D H E A R D // N O N F I C T I O N

Posthumous Memoir by Lisa Marie Presley Coming in Fall Daughter Riley Keough will help to complete the untitled book.

Jef frey Mayer/ WireImage

A posthumous memoir by Lisa Marie Presley will hit shelves this fall.

Before her death in January 2023 at the age of 54, the daughter of Elvis Presley had been recording hours of tapes about her life, according to a press release from publisher Random House.

Helping to complete the memoir is Presley’s daughter, director and actor (Daisy Jones & the Six) Riley Keough.

“Few people had the opportunity to know who my mom really was, other than being Elvis’ daughter,” Keough said in the release. “Working on preparing her autobiography for publication has been a privilege, albeit a bittersweet one. I’m so excited to share my mom now, at her most vulnerable and most honest.”

According to Random House, the book will recount Presley’s experiences growing up in Elvis’ famed Memphis, Tennessee, mansion,

For more celebrity memoirs, visit Kirkus online.

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SEEN AND HEARD Graceland; and her brief marriages to pop icon Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage. (Her first husband, Riley’s father, was musician Danny Keough.) The book will also discuss the loss of her son, Benjamin, who died by suicide in 2020.

Presley launched a music career of her own in the early 2000s; her debut album, 2003’s To Whom It May Concern, received a Gold certification from the RIAA. In 2019 she contributed the foreword to Harry Nelson’s book The United States of Opioids, in which she discussed her addiction to opioids and painkillers.

The book, which does not yet have a title, is slated for publication on Oct. 15, with a simultaneous audiobook read by Keough and featuring previously unreleased audio of Presley’s commentary.

—M.A.

Lisa Marie Presley in 2015.

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“immigrant twice over” into her academic research on the Southern Gothic and a professional memoir of sorts. The author describes exchanges between her and her Korean cousins as well as those between her and her employers and mentors in British academia, many of which offer a haunting exemplification of embedded power dynamics and racial condescension. Kim creatively and effectively experiments with format through pointed page breaks, plot points and insights hidden in footnotes, varied use of the second person, and one essay structured almost like a screenwriter’s sketch. However, the true force of the text rests in the way the author uses silence—e.g., Korean characters inserted without translation, unadorned quotes from her research subjects (especially Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa), and shadowy personal details. Rather than drawing readers into the discrete and measured intimacy of many memoirs, Kim leans into the inaccessibility of one’s full experience as interpreted by another. The author’s quiet absences sharpen the edges of her inspection of entrenched, implied superiority and easy erasure in discussions of race and in the expectations of immigrants.

They heighten her meditations on the historical, contemporary, and potential future harm caused by insensitive classroom discourse, failure to administer either credit or blame, and the temptation to avoid “the urgency of harder, harsher truths.” Resisting academia’s rigidity, Kim materializes as a teacher who takes her role seriously as she calls herself and her readers to action: “Ask why. Ask why without a question mark at the end.

Say all the silent parts out loud. Thrive in discomfort.”

A radically brilliant work.

For more arguments against car culture, visit Kirkus online.

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City Limits: Infrastructure, Inequality, and the Future of America’s Highways Kimble, Megan | Crown (352 pp.) | $30.00 April 2, 2024 | 9780593443781

An extended argument against car culture and the continuing proliferation of highways.

Austin-based journalist Kimble has been witnessing firsthand the consequences of living in the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan area, with its lack of affordable housing, sprawling urban footprint, and increasing traffic gridlock.

Traveling through the eight miles of downtown via the north-south interstate used to take eight minutes, but by 2019, that had stretched to 32 minutes; in 2045, it is expected to take 223 minutes. The more sensible alternative would be improved public transit, but “transit functions best when it connects people across densely occupied places,” which doesn’t describe so much of urban Texas, with metro Dallas–Fort Worth “covering more area than the states of Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island combined.” Kimble’s case studies center mostly on Texas cities, with forays into the experiences of highway architects and anti-highway activists elsewhere. While the book is full of solid information and sometimes appalling data, to say nothing of sound arguments for such things as reenvisioning the federal government’s role in funding, it’s overlong and could have benefited from a little less purely anecdotal, human-interest journalism. Still, Kimble capably proposes a sustained rethinking of urban infrastructure, untangling highways from cities that serve as chokepoints and recognizing more widely the long-established fact that traffic expands to fill such motorway space as is made available to it, so that no road, however new and shiny, ever does a thing to ease the jam. We’ve

been going at it in exactly the opposite direction, notes the author.

“Between 1993 and 2017,” she writes, “the hundred largest urbanized areas in the United States spent more than $500 billion adding new freeways or expanding existing ones”—and the resulting congestion far outstripped the rate of population growth.

A convincing case for removing highways and shaping cities meant for people, not cars.

The Pirate King: The Strange Adventures of Henry Avery and the Birth of the Golden Age of Piracy Kingsley, Sean & Rex Cowan | Pegasus (384 pp.) | $28.95 | April 2, 2024 9781639365951

An account of the life of a notorious British pirate and the first English novelist as they intersected in the shadowy world of royal espionage.

In 1978 in Edinburgh, a letter found by historian Zélide Cowan opened up the hidden life of the brash pirate Henry Avery, thought to have vanished once he engineered his attack on the riches-laden Mughal ship Ganj-i Sawai (Gunsway in English) in 1695. A traumatized youth brought up around the docks of Bideford and Plymouth in Devon, Avery turned to piracy as retribution after being disinherited. He managed to turn the mutinied ship Charles II into the murderous Fancy and set out for Madagascar, lying in wait in the Red Sea for the passing Gunsway and returning with fabulous riches for the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the “ruler of 158 million people.” As marine archaeologist Kingsley and shipwreck hunter Cowan recount, Avery made a fortune and apparently disappeared, with a huge bounty on his head and his crew hunted far and wide. Meanwhile, his contemporary Daniel Foe (nom de plume Defoe), K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Poets and war are a winning combination in the hands of a seasoned historian.

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son of a prosperous candlemaker, became a failed merchant and dissenting pamphleteer, promoting the reign of William of Orange and later Queen Anne. Much of his work led him to imprisonment. The letter seems to reveal that Avery and Foe were friends—both avid Protestants, both fascinated by the sea—and co-conspirators for the royal spy agency, helping to plot the union of England and Scotland in 1707.

Moreover, the research shows that Avery did not vanish, but actually bought his freedom and royal protection by working like Foe as a spy. The authors untangle a web of conspiracy and subterfuge to create an engaging story of the golden age of piracy, following the adventures of two enormously enterprising men.

An intriguing unraveling of a mystery that “beggars belief.”

Kirkus Star

Muse of Fire: World War I as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets Korda, Michael | Liveright/Norton (352 pp.) $29.99 | April 23, 2024 | 9781631496882

A fresh look at World War I, which has been largely “defined in our minds by its poetry.”

Korda, author of Clouds of Glory, Ike, and many other works of history and biography, delivers a captivating account of six soldier poets: Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, and Wilfred Owen. Spectacularly handsome and flamboyant, Brooke belonged to the progressive generation that rejected Victorian prudery and was more open to progressive ideas.

He went to war with enthusiasm, like most of his class, and died before disgust set in. An American living in Paris in 1914, Seeger enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. Later poets recorded the horrors of war, but Seeger was one of the last to celebrate its glory: “And it was our pride and boast to be / The instruments of Destiny.” Readers may recognize two survivors, Graves and Sassoon, from their postwar writings, as well as Owen, who was recognized by many as the greatest of the war poets before his death days preceding the armistice. Rosenberg, the son of an impoverished Russian immigrant Jewish family, had his talent recognized from childhood, winning prizes, honors, and patronage but little income. He enlisted in 1915, possibly because he needed money.

Remaining a private, he suffered miserably and wrote his best poetry before being killed in April 1918.

Alternating between the early lives of his subjects and their experiences in the trenches while delving into their poetry might be disorienting, but Korda is an expert, so his intertwining narratives intersect in illuminating ways. Readers will enjoy his portrayal of the early-20th-century British poetry establishment, where everyone seemed to know everyone else and mutual support was the rule. The book includes a generous selection of photos and illustrations.

Poets and war are a winning combination in the hands of a seasoned historian.

Borderline: The Biography of a Personality Disorder Kriss, Alexander | Beacon Press (288 pp.) $28.95 | April 30, 2024 | 9780807007815

The evolving status of a misunderstood mental illness.

In this probing study, Kriss, author of The Gaming Mind, traces the history of what is now known as borderline personality disorder, alongside a detailed account of the author’s therapy sessions with a young female patient diagnosed with it. A psychologist with extensive experience treating BPD, Kriss argues that its sufferers have generally been mischaracterized and neglected by health professionals; that it seems to arise via particular environmental stressors encountered in childhood; and that, contrary to popular belief, there are real possibilities for treating it successfully. More broadly, he contends that the insights he has gained in treating his patients are relevant to everyone, for the dysfunction seen in people diagnosed with BPD is simply a pronounced version of a universal human condition: “The borderline experience exists, to some degree, in all of us.” The author’s account of his interactions with his patient are insightfully and plausibly rendered, as are the challenges involved in intervening in a disorder that often leaves patients resistant to treatment and prone to self-disabling behaviors. Kriss provides an illuminating survey of the prominence of the disorder in the history of psychology and psychiatry, and readers will gain a keen appreciation of how sexist assumptions have led to useless or damaging interventions. The author presents a compelling case for a revision of how BPD is categorized and for the value of innovative therapeutic approaches. As he concludes, the lessons we learn by studying this disorder are profound, with far-reaching implications. “BPD, for its FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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millennia-old status as an outlier, can teach us how to be a healthy kind of normal, if we are willing to listen,” he writes. “It is the story of how one moves from chaos to stability.”

A revealing exploration of borderline personality disorder and the future of therapies addressing it.

Dispersals: On Plants, Borders, and Belonging Lee, Jessica J. | Catapult (288 pp.) | $27.00 March 12, 2024 | 9781646221783

Sweeping histories and personal narratives of our entangled lives with plants.

In this followup to Two Trees Make a Forest, British Canadian Taiwanese author Lee delivers a memoir couched in botanical and environmental history.

Chronicling the tension in her familial history of migration and travel and evoking a naturalist’s sense of an individual within an ecological system, the author presents a vision of belonging that relies on flux, extraction, and replanting rather than stasis. She follows the lead of “plants that, in dispersal, might teach us what it means to live in the wake of change.” In a narrative that often brings to mind Robin Wall Kimmerer, Lee strives to trace the often unseen yet volatile interface between plant and human life.

The subjects of chapters have recognizable features that guide readers to broader narratives of that shifting border. Cherry trees, when exported from Japan, appear as unnatural features abroad and symbols of national influence often in colonial contexts, and they typify a host of historical arborists tracing nationalist lineages in trees. The tea leaves that fixated a national thirst continents away in turn fueled systems of British colonial extraction and influence in China, India, and the Caribbean. Individual species fallen upon by humans with specific hungers and ambitions soon 76

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adapt to these new environmental demands and in turn shape the desires and worldviews of their propagators.

Lee asserts that as much as this influence is anthropogenic, it would be wrong to say that these plants do not shape our human evolution, captivating our tastes, consuming our attentions, and determining our political histories.

Throughout, the author laces her histories with a subtle and personal optimism. Just as those plants replanted far from home, we can adapt to transition, dispersal, and recollection.

An insightful meditation on nature and identity within “a world in motion.”

Wicked Problems: How To Engineer a Better World Madhavan, Guru | Norton (288 pp.) | $29.99 March 26, 2024 | 9780393651461

An investigation of how to “advance engineering concepts for cultural use.”

Madhavan, senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering and author of Applied Minds: How Engineers Think, emphasizes that there are three categories of engineering problems: hard, soft, and messy. Hard problems are solved by tools, a formula, or perhaps another invention.

Soft problems involve human behavior, so they are not solved, only “resolved.” Traffic congestion can be eliminated only at a cost no one will pay, so solutions are never optimal, only “good enough.” Messy problems emerge from ideology—e.g., the refusal to wear masks during the pandemic. Madhavan’s solution to messy problems involves words like “reframing” or phrases like “respecting cultural sensitivities.” In fact, systems engineering has a good record with all three categories, which, taken together, form the “wicked problems” of the title. Madhavan extols the work of the Wright Brothers, whose first flying machine “transformed the

world.” However, it didn’t transform those machines into useful transportation because learning to fly while actually flying was dangerous, so piloting remained an occupation for adventurous young males for the next two decades. Madhavan maintains that the still obscure Edward Link deserves as much recognition as the Wrights. His Link Trainer, now in universal use, converted piloting from a risky game into a profession in which students learn their craft on the ground rather than inside a machine that could kill them. The systems engineer’s job is so complex that each of Madhavan’s six chapters discusses an area that they deal with: efficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilience. His concluding epilogue is less a summary than a high-minded, well-informed criticism of engineering education’s concentration on technical achievement to the near exclusion of “cultural, ethical, social, and environmental issues.”

A thoughtful review of how engineers approach their most intractable problems.

Never Leave the Dogs Behind: A Memoir Madia, Brianna | HarperOne (208 pp.) $26.09 | April 2, 2024 | 9780063316096

The author of Nowhere for Very Long returns with a tale about how solitude and dogs can heal wounds.

Madia moved to the desert outside Moab, Utah, in May 2020, fleeing from the pain of leaving her husband and a vicious barrage of online harassment. She writes, “A handful of people would make dozens and dozens of anonymous accounts to send what amounted to hundreds of messages” berating her for the breakup and even the accident that almost killed their dog. “People claimed to know things about me, about my life,” K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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she continues. “Even if they knew nothing, the internet still provided them the perfect place to pretend they did.” She responded by taking refuge in a used van with a vista of “the smoldering ashes of all the bridges I’d burned while I, myself, had been on fire.” As in her previous memoir, Madia recounts in raw detail her depression, mania, guilt, anger, and struggle to survive, emotionally and physically. She was not really alone, however. Besides two pet pythons, she lived with four rambunctious dogs. “Sometimes,” she admits, “I forgot I wasn’t a dog until other people were around.” Her life felt chaotic: “I was drinking myself to sleep, starving myself to a silhouette, and living in a relative state of squalor simply because it felt like that’s what I deserved.”

Blaming herself for her husband’s alcoholism and the failure of their marriage “had become a form of survival. If everything was my fault, that meant I had some sort of control over it…that meant I could make sense of it, fix it, never let it happen again.”

Gradually, Madia came to see that she could take care of herself and become someone “who could learn to forgive herself for those times when she didn’t know how.”

An intimate memoir of shattering pain.

Jerusalem Through the Ages: From Its Beginnings to the Crusades Magness, Jodi | Oxford Univ. (592 pp.) $34.95 | March 26, 2024 | 9780190937805

A thorough look at the archaeological record of the city’s rich history as it parallels—or deviates from— the biblical record.

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remains of the Temple Mount over the centuries. The author, who has collaborated with many of the specialists noted in the book, moves from the topographic record—the first settlers of the small hill near the Temple Mount called it “foundation of the god Shalem,” not “city of peace,” as later accounts rendered it—through the work of significant modern archaeologists and surveyors whose sometimes-accidental discoveries revealed the incredible depth to the land and its people. These include Edward Robinson, Eli Smith, Charles Warren, Conrad Schick, and Kathleen Kenyon, among many others. Magness tracks the growth of the city over the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, from early Canaanite towns to the consolidation of power after King David’s conquest in 1000 B.C. The Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C. destroyed Solomon’s Temple and sent the Israelites into exile, depopulating the land. The subsequent Persian period allowed the rebuilding of the Temple, after which the site experienced civil war, the Roman annexation in 63 B.C., and important expansion under Herod the Great and his successors.

Magness lingers on the Christian record and the churches constructed during the Byzantine era, such as Constantine’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, then moves into the Islamic era, followed by the Crusades, which led to relentless bloodshed that has not ceased in the present day. The author also examines water systems, jars, walls, coins, tombs, dwellings, and remains to tell a riveting story of people and their faith.

An all-encompassing survey of a city’s physical presence and the historical record it reveals.

Bones Worth Breaking: A Memoir Martinez, David | MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux (400 pp.) | $18.00 paper April 9, 2024 | 9780374610951

A memoir of death, addiction, family history, and recovery.

“Drugs were what I knew before the mission, and drugs were what I went back to,” writes Martinez of an interlude that found him proselytizing for his Mormon faith in Brazil. The drugs are constant throughout this often repetitive memoir, which has an MFA workshop feel to it, if grittier than most: There’s heroin, cocaine, and every other sort of mind-altering substance, consumed against a bookish backdrop that finds the author writing while using: “My dreams had merged—my love of books and my need for drugs—or the dream and nightmare were fighting one another.”

His younger brother was less fortunate: Though intelligent and observant, and though, as Martinez writes, “we were more stupid than dangerous,” he wound up being ground down by a legal system that disproportionately punishes people of color. On that note, Martinez teases out an identity with many strands: bloodlines from Africa, Brazil, Indigenous South America, and Europe, with a history that implicates “my Portuguese ancestors…[who] forced my African ancestors into boats and brought them across the Atlantic.”

Later, the author writes, “What I know is that I am an other in a nation >>>

A thorough look at the archaeological record of the city’s rich history.

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P O D C A S T // N O N F I C T I O N

EDITORS’ PICKS:

Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu (Walden Pond Press/ HarperCollins) Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava by Gary Golio, illus. by E.B. Lewis (Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers) John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community by Raymond Arsenault (Yale Univ.)

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Atlantic Monthly) ALSO MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE:

The Disapparition of James by Anne Ursu Gordon Parks: How the Photographer Captured Black and White America by Carole Boston Weatherford, illus. by Jamey Christoph Fighting With Love: The Legacy of John Lewis by Lesa ClineRansome, illus. by James E. Ransome The Disaster Tourist by Yun Ko-Eun, trans. by Lizzie Buehler THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS:

Air-Conditioned Bus Tours by David G. Swanson The Sins of Kings by Daniel Thomas Valente Liar, Alleged by David Vass

Meredith Coe

Storm Cloud Rising by Jason Lancour Death Is Potential by Bob Burnett

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Fully Booked Erika Howsare calls us to contemplate our cervine compatriots.

BY MEGAN LABRISE EPISODE 353: ERIKA HOWSARE

On this episode of the podcast, journalist Erika Howsare discusses The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship With Our Wild Neighbors (Catapult, Jan. 2), a fascinating exploration of a species with which we share our habitat—creatures we may notice but may never fully comprehend.

Howsare, a writer, journalist, and poet from southwestern Pennsylvania, holds an MFA from Brown University and lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of central Virginia with her family. In a starred review, Kirkus calls The Age of Deer “outstanding natural history writing” that will foment readers’ interest in and appreciation for these complex creatures.

Here’s a bit more from our review: “‘Deer are the largest wild animals we still live with in any widespread way, one of the signal species of our time, as firmly established in our cities as in our national parks,’ writes journalist Howsare. They are definitely not tame, but it’s a fallacy that they prefer untouched wilderness.…In parallel with bison, they were driven nearly to extinction by hunters after the arrival of European settlers. During their low point in the early 1900s, they survived in isolated pockets, but conservation and restocking supercharged them into a spectacular wildlife restoration success story—so much so that they began to wreak havoc on farms, parks, and gardens.…Howsare is not a hunter, but she is evenhanded, agreeing that to eat meat and oppose killing animals doesn’t make sense. She delivers sympathetic portraits of her brother, an avid hunter, and of hunting ranches, largely denounced by the hunting establishment, where customers pay a small fortune to shoot deer and other wildlife.”

The Age of Deer: Trouble and Kinship With Our Wild Neighbors Howsare, Erika

Catapult | 368 pp. | $27.00 Jan. 2, 2024 | 9781646221349

Howsare begins by telling me some of the inspiration behind her work. We discuss a wide range of topics, including how deer helped shape modern park aesthetics, how the U.S. deer population has changed in our lifetimes, debunking deer myths, and the deer beds she discovered behind her Virginia home. Then editors Laura Simeon, Mahnaz Dar, Eric Liebetrau, and Laurie Muchnick share their top picks in books for the week.

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

To listen to the episode, visit Kirkus online.

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and world that demands categorization.” Martinez’s prose comes to life when he honors his late brother, and he is also insightful on his break with the church, which he condemns as being characterized by “racism, obsession about sin, right-wing politics, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia.” His views of academia are scarcely less excoriating, as he rightly questions why the faculty of his school is overwhelmingly white while only a little more than a third of the students are. It all adds up to a mixed bag, and though it’s not The Basketball Diaries, it has its moments.

An adequate exercise in remembrance, punctuated by memorable moments of resistance and righteous anger.

In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA, Unmasked Mendez, Jonna H. | PublicAffairs (320 pp.) $30.00 | March 5, 2024 | 9781541703124

A veteran CIA agent tells… well, some.

Mendez, co-author of Argo and The Moscow Rules, was recruited in the early 1960s, wooed by the “well-heeded martini drinkers” who roamed around Cold War Europe. She signed on after marrying a man who looked for the sort of adventures a CIA agent might expect—and then, it being the early ’60s, found that her own adventures were largely administrative. Worse, when a woman working for the CIA was assigned to the U.S., she lost any seniority or promotions she had earned, distinctions “rendered null and void the moment you returned to or departed from DC.” Male agents faced no such indignities, but Mendez agitated, and as a member of an agency-appointed “Petticoat Panel,” she pressed for equal pay and other forms of equity that were actually adopted, well before other federal agencies made similar efforts.

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early on that the “soft skills” she and other women possessed, such as listening closely, “were an asset, not a liability.” She racked up plenty of hard technical skills as well, eventually becoming adept at creating disguises and working with highly placed Hollywood artisans such as an Academy Award–winning makeup artist to make masks that “could conceal the presence of mixed ethnicities in apartheid South Africa… or obscure the presence of a western visage in North Korea.” A climactic point in the text comes with the brilliant subterfuge that allowed a number of American diplomats to escape from Iran during the hostage crisis, disguised as members of a film crew—a “caper” that landed Mendez and her husband their own places in Hollywood, even if, in her case, as “a novelty—a female spy who’d risen in the ranks of the CIA.” Fans of true espionage will enjoy Mendez’s stories of a formative era in intelligence history.

Traces of Enayat Mersal, Iman | Trans. by Robin Moger Transit Books (214 pp.) | $18.95 paper April 2, 2024 | 9781945492846

One woman’s search to uncover the story of Enayat al-Zayyat (1936-1963), a figure in Egyptian literature who nearly disappeared from the canon.

In 1963, al-Zayyat killed herself just days after hearing publishers were not interested in her novel Love and Silence. Mersal

describes the novel’s steadfast contemporary relevance, its “feminist ‘consciousness,’” and how “you sense the ponderous influence of contemporary romance novels, but elsewhere it is modern, strange, limpid, and beyond categorization.” Yet the novel is “entirely absent from every history of twentieth century Egyptian and Arabic literature.” In this sharp investigation, Mersal fights against al-Zayyat’s erasure, piecing together the author’s short life and illuminating Egypt’s literary scene and the many societal difficulties faced by a young creative woman in the 1960s. Mersal writes like a detective who lets their case get personal: She calls al-Zayyat’s tragedy “seductive” and recognizes the obsession in her own research. “It had begun to dawn on me that I wasn’t fully in control of myself,” she acknowledges. “I was writing these long emails and sending them out the way some people put a message in a bottle and cast it into the sea: not because they want it to be found, but because they will do anything they can to sleep.” The author traces her leads back as far as she can, and her exhaustive research often sidelines her storytelling. For example, the discovery of a renamed street sparks a sluice of records from the city-planning and surveying offices, and Mersal introduces an investigation of al-Zayyat’s kindergarten with the story of a wartime freighter docking in Alexandria. Excessively thorough, Mersal eventually reveals secrets about her subject’s depression and unhappy marriage, reframing the book into a profound work that is more about al-Zayyat’s mental health than about her being simply a curiosity of world literature.

A resonant literary biography by way of fractured, obsessive sleuthing.

Fans of true espionage will enjoy Mendez’s stories of a formative era in intelligence history.

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We Loved It All: A Memory of Life Millet, Lydia | Norton (272 pp.) | $27.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781324073659

The acclaimed novelist’s first work of nonfiction examines the interconnected web of creatures on planet Earth.

In the modern era, despite increasing species endangerment and extinction, we continue to extract resources, hastening the destruction of the natural world. As Millet writes in one memorable passage, “Our way of life is not a triumph anymore but a mass suicide.” In the past 50 years, wildlife populations have declined by an average of 69%; in the biodiverse regions of Central and South America, that number is near 94%. Using the terms species aloneness or species loneliness, the author examines “a dawning era in which the solitude we already know—as individuals of a deeply social species who are more and more shut off from our own physical communities—will be echoed by a greater silence gathering around.” In the wake of such immense animal loss, how do we define ourselves in the sudden quiet? Millet suggests looking to children’s respect and empathy for animals. By adulthood, we tend to define ourselves not as part of the animal kingdom, but by our “humanness,” creating a divide where there could be a bridge. In lucid prose, the author illustrates the stories of several fascinating species, bringing us into their wondrous worlds. She also writes about the people in her life with similar insight and livelihood—her parents and children appear among other notable figures. While individual elements are compelling and well rendered, the occasionally jumbled structure restricts opportunity for narrative absorption. Readers may wish for deeper treatments of emergent themes of animal welfare and conservation. Still, the author offers a K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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well-written, poignant lament for the greater animal kingdom to which we owe not just our survival as a species but our joy and companionship.

A philosophically tinted testament to the challenge of loving animals in an epoch defined by extinction.

Technocapitalism: The Rise of the New Robber Barons and the Fight for the Common Good Napoleoni, Loretta | Seven Stories (272 pp.) $21.95 paper | April 16, 2024 9781644213292

The author of Rogue Economics warns us that “high-tech-savvy entrepreneurs” are monopolizing the economy, exacerbating inequality, weakening the state, and placing “the common good in jeopardy.”

Italian journalist Napoleoni believes that we live in a “new paradigm” of accelerating change in which the present and future overlap. In this “Present Future,” she writes, “humanity and politics seem unaware of the empowering of technology and refuse to embrace the epochal change that will allow us to leap into a better future.” The villains are cyberpunks whose quest for individual freedom and mistrust of government have led to such problematic technologies as cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens, and artificial intelligence. Moreover, the digitalization of money and its unrestrained printing are undermining both Wall Street and the state as a whole. Tech titans such as Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are particularly dangerous. Napoleoni’s gallery of malefactors also includes the Space Barons—e.g., Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson—who are using satellites and reusable launch vehicles to commercialize low Earth orbit. The Space Barons also tout the colonization of space, a project the author considers futile and a retreat from the challenge

of climate change. She calls for national and international governmental bodies to rein in digitalization, but she also celebrates blockchain technology for its support of individual privacy, reliance on trust, and enabling of collective decision-making.

Blockchain technology is revolutionary and “powerful enough to potentially redesign everything, including human relationships.” Napoleoni vacillates between a critical assessment of computerized technologies and enthusiastic embrace, while also being ambivalent about state regulation.

Despite internal inconsistencies, her argument is well documented and addresses the real threat that the economy’s financialization poses to democratic institutions and personal freedom. We are, she claims, “sleepwalking towards dystopia.”

A heartfelt plea for greater vigilance in a world increasingly controlled by advanced digital technology.

The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions Norton, Michael | Scribner (288 pp.) $28.00 | April 9, 2024 | 9781982153021

A Harvard behavioral scientist provides validation for “ritualistic behavior.”

Norton pries apart personal from religious ritual—i.e., a series of actions performed in just the same way as a species of magical thinking, though ritual can be much more than that. He recounts, for example, that just as Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has to have a slice of shepherd’s pie before taking the stage, the author followed a pattern of singing and reading to lull his young daughter to sleep. “I instantly and unthinkingly transformed into a shamanic madman,” he writes. That shamanic madness has many purposes: It FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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supposedly effects desired behavior, helps separate ordinary from sacred spaces, and brings luck. The author also pries apart ritual from habit, suggesting that if you don’t care whether you shower or brush your teeth first, then you’re a model pragmatist, but if you observe a certain order, you’re performing a personal rite that may seem meaningless but is full of meaning all the same. A habit, notes Norton, is “the what,” and the ritual is “the how,” and between the two lies a world of difference. Those personal rituals, our own hows, lend a sort of purpose to our lives, and if they’re shared, as one might do in a church or a club, “they do bring the larger group together and serve as an affirmation—reminding us that together we have gotten through this experience before.” As Norton assures us, rituals have their uses, whether the annual practice of spring cleaning or preparing dishes for a Thanksgiving feast—and they become, in time, the basis of tradition, just as we very likely learned those rituals from parents and other elders.

A good-humored, gentle exhortation to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and add a little magic to our lives.

The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complications Oster, Emily & Nathan Fox | Penguin Press (272 pp.) | $28.00 | April 30, 2024 9780593652770

A guide to the trials and tribulations of second pregnancies.

In the first part of the book, Oster, author of Expecting Better, and Fox, a maternal fetal medicine specialist, offer “a general framework for how you might approach a pregnancy with or after complications.” The second part offers “condition-specific chapters.” Oster 82

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has written extensively about pregnancy, parenting, and health economics, and her goal in this book is “to bring maternal health complications into the light” and provide “an avenue toward more productive conversations with their providers.”

The authors emphasize preparation of all kinds, and they cover everything from gestational diabetes and preterm birth to “severe maternal morbidity” and postpartum mental health. When it comes to records and medical history, “ground yourself in the necessity of accuracy and honesty, both for yourself and for your provider.” The authors recommend a litany of questions for medical providers, including, “Are you able to explain in simple terms what happened to me and, if you know, why it happened to me?” Throughout, the authors include instructive first-person accounts of women. Of preterm birth stories, for instance, Oster writes, “While the experiences these two women had were extremely different, the feeling of trauma is not.” Regarding the specific trauma of miscarriage, the authors are encouraging and empathetic: “The majority of miscarriages are due to a genetic abnormality in the embryo (it’s not your fault).…With time, continued trying, and sometimes interventions, nearly all couples will have a successful pregnancy (there is every reason to be optimistic).” The authors also recommend screening for preeclampsia at every prenatal visit because “it can happen to anyone without warning” and “often has no symptoms until later stages.” On every page, the authors offer extensive research and support: “It is perfectly reasonable to want a repeat cesarean.

It is your birth!”

A comprehensive, empowering resource.

For a unique perspective on early motherhood, visit Kirkus online.

On Giving Up Phillips, Adam | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (160 pp.) | $26.00 | March 26, 2024 9780374614140

A British psychoanalyst examines the “essential and far-reaching ambiguity of a simple idea.”

Phillips, author of Unforbidden Pleasures, Becoming Freud, and Attention Seeking, premises his latest book on the notion that giving something up—or giving up on something—is based on beliefs about change. “We give things up when we believe we can change; we give up when we can’t,” he writes. Underlying that assumption is that life itself is always worth living, an assumption many are questioning at a time when the planet is in dire social, political, and ecological crisis. Turning to writers and thinkers like Kafka for illumination, Phillips suggests the two-sided nature of giving up: “defeatedness and sacrifice, or failure and compromise, or weakness and realism.” At the same time, he also suggests what few discuss. In giving up, humans can take “sadistic pleasure” in such possibilities as suicide, what Camus would call the most “serious” of all philosophical problems. Yet most will choose to carry on, which leads Phillips to ask, “What is worth surviving for?”

Darwin would suggest that survival itself is the endgame, while Freud would suggest that it is pleasure. Yet Phillips finds these “answers” to be as reductive as they are problematic. He offers a partial “answer” of his own by building on Freud’s ideas about loss, which is itself at the heart of all forms of giving up. Loss—being forced to reckon with it—is perhaps a catalyst needed to spur both transformation and inventiveness, which is perhaps the one great hope that remains for humankind. Some readers may find the author’s tendency to speak in high-culture abstractions not to their K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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taste. However, those who enjoy heady engagement with ideas from the upper registers of literature, philosophy, and psychology will undoubtedly find this book exhilarating.

A thought-provokingly cerebral meditation.

Kirkus Star

I Will Show You How It Was: The Story of Wartime Kyiv Ponomarenko, Illia | Bloomsbury (288 pp.) $28.99 | May 7, 2024 | 9781639733873

A remarkable on-the-ground report from the Battle of Kyiv in 2022.

War reporting is perhaps the most difficult branch of journalism. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer drama: the blood and the thunder, the sense of history being written, the images and the noise. Ponomarenko, a Ukrainian journalist and co-founder of an online newspaper called the Kyiv Independent, makes no attempt to be impartial in his account of the roughly six-week battle for Kyiv, a city that he loved. “We were just moments away,” he writes, “from bidding farewell to our home and our way of life.” He kept posting his reports during and after the battle, describing the invasion as “one of the most tragic— and the most bizarre—events in modern history,” serving as “the opening act of the biggest European bloodbath since 1945, and one of the most shamelessly trumped-up, absurd, and unnecessary wars the world had ever seen.” The author mixes in pieces of the increasingly unbelievable statements from the Russian government, with Putin claiming victory even as his tanks were reduced to smoking wrecks. Ponomarenko notes that it was often hard to see through the fog of war, but the Russian attacks on the city’s civilian precincts told K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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their own stories. In fact, the slaughter of innocents merely hardened the resolve of the Ukrainian population to endure and fight. The author ends with the Russians retreating to their strongholds in the east. While he believes that Ukrainian forces will eventually prevail, the cost is massive.

The book lives up to its title, with countless pages that are alternately heart-rending, stomach-churning, and even inspiring. This is an important story, and Ponomarenko tells it with passion and intelligence.

A revelatory portrait of the horror and absurdity of the conflict spiked with much-needed threads of humanity and hope.

Kirkus Star

My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future Randall, Alice | Black Privilege Publishing/ Atria (288 pp.) | $28.00 | April 9, 2024 9781668018408

A Nashville-based songwriter and music publisher recounts an unlikely success story while celebrating the contributions of Black Americans to country music.

The winding stream that rolls below Clinch Mountain, where country music was supposedly born, surely lapped at the feet of one Eslie Riddle, a Black guitarist who likely taught Mother Maybelle Carter the “foundation of the Carter Family sound.”

Everyone’s heard of Mother; no one’s heard of Riddle. It’s an erasure that troubles Randall, who argues with impeccable scholarship born of reading, close listening, and lived experience that country music is Black music, albeit with the “trace of Black folk whitewashed out of the rural South, the rural West, out of rural America on country radio and

records.” Yet it’s there, and it won’t be silenced or denied. Randall is a firsthand witness to the struggle, the first Black woman to write a No. 1 country song, and she portrays forgotten and half-remembered greats such as Lil Hardin, Linda Martell, O.C. Smith, and Ray Charles (who may have made his bones as an R&B singer but also released a keystone album called Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music). Randall listens to country music with open, welcoming ears. In her canon, the Supremes fit into the Black country tradition, as do the Allman Brothers and John Prine. Steve Earle is a brother-in-arms; so is Quincy Jones, about whom the author delivers an entertaining tale of home invasion that fortunately turned out well. (“Quincy,” she writes, “is a whole lot more Black Country and Black Country–adjacent than most folks realize.”) Occasionally tart but more often both forgiving and patiently instructive, Randall tallies the debt that all country music owes to so many Black artists over the centuries.

Essential for country fans—a delightful, inspirational story of persistence, resistance, and sheer love of music.

Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America Reid, Joy-Ann | Mariner Books (352 pp.) $30.00 | Feb. 6, 2024 | 9780063068797

biography of A Medgar Evers and his wife, Myrlie, who made a lasting partnership during the early Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi before his murder in 1963.

MSNBC host Reid, author of The Man Who Sold America, weaves in details of the larger civil rights struggle through the intimate story of Evers and his >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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Tom Williams/CQ -Roll Call, Inc v ia Get t y Images

Book to Screen

HBO Will Adapt George Santos Biography Frank Rich will executiveproduce a film based on Mark Chiusano’s The Fabulist.

George Santos might have been expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives,

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but he’ll be heading to the silver screen—kind of.

HBO Films is planning an adaptation of Mark Chiusano’s The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, according to Deadline. The book, published by One Signal/ Atria last November, is a biography of Santos, who served as a Republican representative from New York from January 2023 until his expulsion from Congress on Dec. 1, 2023.

A critic for Kirkus calls the book “well-researched.” It chronicles the unlikely rise of Santos, who has been accused of lying about his

biography, education, religion, and job history.

Santos was expelled from Congress after the House Ethics Committee issued a report claiming that there was “substantial evidence” that he engaged in illegal financial behavior. Santos is facing a federal indictment on fraud charges; his trial is set for September.

The film adaptation of The Fabulist is being written

by Mike Makowsky (II Think

We’re Alone Now, Bad Education). Makowsky is an executive producer on the film alongside Frank Rich, the former New York Times columnist who also executive-produced the HBO series Veep and Succession.—M.S.

George Santos For a review of The Fabulist, visit Kirkus online.

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not-always-smooth family life. Evers hailed from Black sharecroppers in Decatur, Mississippi, and he had gained new insight into American segregation while serving in England, Belgium, and France during World War II. When he returned to the U.S. in 1946, he was determined to challenge systemic racism, starting with registering to vote in his county.

While a student at Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College in Lorman, Mississippi, Evers met Myrlie Louise Beasley, a 17-year-old musician from Vicksburg; they were married within a year, cutting short her singing dreams.

Reid emphasizes both Evers’ devotion to his growing family, first while living in Mound Bayou and working for Magnolia Mutual Life Insurance, and his absolute commitment to the civil rights struggle, serving in the Jackson office of the NAACP. His relentless traveling around the state and frequent absences, along with visitors constantly at their home, caused friction in the couple’s marriage. Moreover, Myrlie, whom the author interviewed extensively for the book, was constantly fearful for her husband’s safety. The lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, the bus boycott movement in Montgomery, Alabama, organized by Martin Luther King Jr., and James Meredith’s determination to crack segregation at the University of Mississippi in 1961 all helped galvanize Evers to action, increasing his profile as well as the danger to his life. His shooting was the first in a string of horrific assassinations in the South. Reid follows the three trials of the killer to his ultimate conviction in 1994.

A poignant tale reminds readers of Evers’ continuing significance.

Kirkus Star

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race To Know All Life Roberts, Jason | Random House (448 pp.) $35.00 | April 9, 2024 | 9781984855206

Exciting chronicle of the battle “to complete a comprehensive accounting of all life on Earth.”

Roberts, author of A Sense of the World, traces the lives and careers of two 18th-century naturalists whose opposing perspectives made them, and their followers, rivals: Carl Linnaeus, a misogynist self-promoter and holder of a “diploma-mill medical degree,” invented binary nomenclature and a classification system that assigned plants and animals into kingdoms, classes, orders, families, and species.

George-Louis de Buffon, an aristocratic natural historian in charge of France’s royal gardens, saw the natural world as thrillingly complex. Linnaeus believed that life on Earth was unchanged from the moment of God’s creation. “It was against faith,” Roberts writes, “to envision new species coming into existence, or existing ones fading into extinction.” De Buffon, on the other hand, believed all such systematic approaches were reductionist and flawed, and that of Linnaeus, “the least sensible and the most monstrous.”

Species, he posited, changed by adapting to their environments. Both men defended their views in widely read tracts: De Buffon’s 35-volume Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particuliere

A lively, panoramic contribution to the history of science.

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reflected his own minute investigations; Linnaeus, author of continual revisions to his Systema Naturae, sent acolytes to conduct research in the field, where they sometimes perished. Because of his “easily grasped classification system,” which included racist classifications of humans, Linnaeus prevailed, while de Buffon’s reputation plummeted.

Roberts examines the men’s legacies as natural philosophy became science, and science branched into biology, zoology, and genetics. Linnaeus’ systems were complicated by the discovery of microscopic life and blooming biodiversity; towering figures confronted the stark evidence of evolution. Among the scientists that feature in this well-populated narrative are George Cuvier, Darwin, Thomas Henry Huxley, Agassiz, Mendel, and Hugo de Vries, each confronting the controversy incited by Linnaeus and de Buffon.

A lively, panoramic contribution to the history of science.

Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged From Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World Roll, David L. | Dutton (544 pp.) | $32.00 April 23, 2024 | 9780593186442

An intriguing historical study of a major presidential transition period.

Some historians view Harry Truman’s presidency as little more than a footnote to the eventful, tumultuous Franklin Roosevelt era. In his latest book, Roll, author of George Marshall and The Hopkins Touch, shows that nothing could be further from the truth. The author examines the period between Roosevelt’s death in 1945 and the 1948 election, which saw Truman unexpectedly win office in his own right. The two men had known each other, but not particularly well, and bringing Truman onto the Democratic ticket in 1944 was largely a way to K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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displace the far-left Henry Wallace. As vice president, Truman had been cut out of important decisions and information, so he was entirely unprepared when Roosevelt died. Roll describes how he initially focused on continuing Roosevelt’s policies about fighting the war and winning the peace, but he gradually brought in his own ideas and became entirely his own man after the 1948 victory. He was logical and systematic on issues such as the use of the atomic bombs, the rebuilding of Germany and Japan, opposition to the Soviet Union, and support for a Jewish homeland, which Roll explores. On the domestic front, Truman moved much further on civil rights than Roosevelt had done, winning support from Black leaders.

Many of his policies were bitterly opposed, but he mostly prevailed, always emphasizing that the buck stopped on the presidential desk. Roll tells the story with authority, although some of his detours, such as the chapter on Roosevelt at the Tehran conference in 1943, seem to stray a long way from his theme. However, for readers who are not familiar with Truman, Ascent to Power is informative and accessible.

With solid research, Roll brings to life a short time frame that laid the foundation for the decades to come.

Swamp Kings: The Murdaugh Family of South Carolina and a Century of Backwoods Power Ryan, Jason | Pegasus Crime (352 pp.) $29.95 | April 2, 2024 | 9781639365678

The tale of a Lowcountry crime dynasty operating with impunity under cover of the law.

In 2023, high-profile lawyer Alex Murdaugh was charged with 99 crimes, including fraud, grand larceny, drug dealing, and the murders of his wife and son.

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As Charleston-based journalist Ryan, author of Jackpot and Race to Hawaii, shows, these crimes were a chain.

Murdaugh became addicted to opioids, stole to fund his habit, and killed to hide his stealing. In doing so, writes the author in this sometimes slow-moving but grimly fascinating story, Murdaugh summed up a long familial legacy, with ancestors who made fortunes and reputations as kingpin lawyers in the swamp country near the Georgia line.

They were effectively a law unto themselves, allied with secessionists, segregationists, moonshiners, and corrupt officials who lorded over their less fortunate neighbors, especially those of color. Occasionally, a Murdaugh would spend political capital on a progressive cause. In 1935, Randolph Murdaugh advocated for women to serve on juries because “their presence would have a good influence,” even as he insisted that “the testimony of a single White witness…was preferable to the accounts of six Black men.” Some of that early Murdaugh power was eventually diminished by federal inquiries and prosecutions, but by the time Alex came around, he was untouchable—almost, with the judge noting that Murdaugh, having sentenced plenty of people to death “probably for lesser conduct,” was lucky not to be headed to the electric chair. Ryan’s prose can wax purplish—“True dominion of this isolated swath of the South once belonged to someone as territorial and unyielding as the cottonmouth, as opportunistic and vicious as the alligator”—but his story unfolds with the care of a well-plotted procedural.

A searing, disheartening true-crime study, indicting a legacy of crime stretching out over centuries.

For more on the Murdaugh case, visit Kirkus online.

Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen Scanlon, Suzanne | Vintage (368 pp.) $19.00 paper | April 16, 2024 9780593469101

A chronicle of survival amid mental and familial turmoil.

From March 1992, when she was 20, to August 1994, Scanlon was a patient at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, sent there after she attempted suicide. In an intimate, unsparing memoir, she recounts her stay in the hospital, the despair that led her there, and her tenuous road to stability. The author’s depression was born of grief: When she was a child, her mother died of cancer, a loss that her father and siblings never mentioned. Within a year, her father remarried, and his new wife had no sympathy for her stepdaughter’s anguish. “I was on my own with my broken self,” Scanlon writes, terrified “that my life was broken with my mom gone, that no one would ever truly see me or know me again.” She developed an eating disorder that “offered some fleeting sense of control, and it would consume me for many years.” Hating her mother for abandoning her, she “turned that rage back onto myself: I should be dead.” In the “foreign country” that was the hospital, Scanlon was treated by a rolling roster of psychiatrists and was prescribed a cornucopia of medications; in time, she “got better at being a mental patient.” With “complete and naive trust in the authority of the medical establishment,” she wanted “to give them what they wanted”—a sick woman. Although she gained insights into the cause of her problems, she admits, “there is a great gulf between an awareness of a problem and an ability to change.” She found greater insights from narratives by women who themselves confronted madness: Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ntozake Shange, >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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For more memoirs, visit Kirkus online.

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5 Must-Read New Memoirs 1 Everywhere the Undrowned

2 Fingers Crossed

3 The Last Fire Season

A masterful literary memoir about caring for those responsible for our trauma.

Often harrowing, often cautionary, and an altogether fine, self-aware study of a life in rock.

Insightful and alarming, hopeful and consistently engaging.

By Stephanie Clare Smith

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By Miki Berenyi

By Manjula Martin

4 Get the Picture

By Bianca Bosker

A delightful book on an inspiring topic by a writer who could make dust sparkle.

5 What Have We Here?

By Billy Dee Williams

Normally, the successes of an attractive actor wouldn’t make for great reading, but Williams makes it all sound fascinating.

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Audre Lorde, among many others.

Literature taught her, finally, “to find comfort in the pre-existing condition of being human.”

Astute reflections on fragility, healing, and wholeness.

The Performer: Art, Life, Politics Sennett, Richard | Penguin (256 pp.) $30.00 | April 23, 2024 | 9780300272901

A professor of sociology and the humanities investigates many forms of performance, from theatrical to political.

Sennett, who began his latest book as rightwing demagogues came to power, notes that the most distressing of them was Trump, whose “malign performances...draw on the same materials of expression as do prayers, Bach cantatas or the ballets of George Balanchine.” By comparison, he cites a Roman god and states that “art made in the good spirit of Janus focuses on process rather than a finished and fixed product.” Drawing on extensive research and his experience as a cello player, Sennett “considers the unsettling, ambiguous, dangerous powers of performed expression.” In these far-ranging pieces, the author touches on the importance of ritual; cites Diderot’s The Paradox of Acting in stating that “the less deeply a performer feels, the more they can make an audience feel”; notes the troubling phenomenon of dramatized violence that is “larger than life,” like the ridiculous outfits people wore during the storming of the U.S. Capitol, which “can be accepted, and enjoyed,” thus inuring people to a tragedy’s severity; details the ways in which demagogues manipulate audiences by “playing on their hurt”; and shows how expertise at staging, as with Bayard Rustin and the 1963 March on Washington, can be “a challenge to power.” Sennett’s examples are so 90

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wide-ranging—from commedia dell’arte to Noh theater, Hannah Arendt to Merce Cunningham—that he sometimes obscures his central thesis, but that doesn’t diminish the power of much of the text. Many details are unforgettable, as when he writes that a problem in the early days of enclosed theaters is that they stank: “People bought chicken wings and sausages from roving vendors, and peed in the plentiful pissoirs located in the corridors.”

An engaging if overstuffed work that describes the tools performers use to create a lasting effect.

Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood Sisson, Gretchen | St. Martin’s (320 pp.) $29.00 | Feb. 27, 2024 | 9781250286772

A sociological study on the contemporary practice of adoption.

As a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, Sisson has spent years studying reproductive health, abortion, and adoption. In an opening case study, the author describes a young woman who was physically abused by her boyfriend and had no familial support, requiring her to join “a cohort of American women that is remarkably small,” numbering only about 19,000, forced to “relinquish” their newborns. Most adoptive parents are white and prosperous enough to devote time and resources to raising families, which poor mothers do not have. The number is small because, in many cases, abortion is preferential to carrying a child through to birth. Not all of Sisson’s many subjects are poor: The 100 women in her sample sets “represented the full range of American life—their paths had all led them to adoption at one point, one way or another, but they were often on

different trajectories.” Interestingly, she notes, poor families are not less capable of raising children, contrary to conservative arguments; it is access to resources that makes for differentials of outcome. The author also shows how adoption is a big business. More than half of the adoption centers in the U.S. are affiliated with evangelical churches, and they receive millions of dollars in public funding in many states. A built-in contradiction exists in the ideology of adoption: The women who keep their children are often considered inadequate to be mothers, but by giving up their babies, “they are better parents because they do not parent their child; the permanent separation rendered by adoption redeems them of their deviations and deficiencies.” Sisson concludes by deeming adoption the product of inequalities that speak to “social and systemic failure.”

A provocative, urgent look at a severely dysfunctional system, with children as the victims.

How To Be Old: Lessons in Living Boldly From the Accidental Icon Slater, Lyn | Plume (272 pp.) | $28.00 March 12, 2024 | 9780593471791

A memoir from the woman behind the popular “Accidental Icon” Instagram account.

Slater takes readers for a ride through her starlit 1960s, challenging contemporary stereotypes about age. Along the way, she creates a guide for how to find youthfulness and self-confidence at any age.

Arranged in a series of lessons the author has learned during the past decade, the narrative brings us into her spotlight, where both her insecurities and confidences are clear to see.

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she now has nearly 1 million followers across her platforms. However, it wasn’t just her fashion style that piqued interest; it was her vulnerability, wrinkles, and silvery hair that had followers engaged and celebrating her vibe. She didn’t look like the typical model, but she was authentic. Slater emphasizes that surface-level beauty is temporary and fleeting, but inner self-confidence can shine through at any age. “I found the line between costume and fashion, experimental yet elegant, rebellious yet dignified, being youthful without trying to look young,” she writes. “I suppose this back-and-forth is how I came to be known for having a unique sense of style. It’s how I told a different story about how to be old.” People responded to her willingness to display herself unapologetically despite her age and the expectations that come with it. The book contains a generous selection of photos revealing Slater’s unique sense of style, and the author presents each chapter as a chance to learn from her experiences, showing how “we increase in value as we grow older.” Slater’s genuine enthusiasm radiates throughout the text; her tales of resilience and about the evolution of her self-confidence suffuse each page, effectively challenging societal constructs about age.

A charming, relatable tale about the power of reinvention.

Other People’s Words: Friendship, Loss, and the Conversations That Never End Soep, Lissa | Spiegel & Grau (200 pp.) $28.00 | April 16, 2024 | 9781954118355

An homage to two deceased friends and the ways in which their voices persist.

“In grief,” writes Soep, an audio editor, “our voices find life through the dialogues they contain.”

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When in graduate school at Stanford, the author and her now-husband, Chas, grew close with two couples: Mercy and Christine, then Emily and Jonnie. After decades of sustaining friendship, Jonnie and Christine passed away, the former in a freak swimming accident and the latter from an inexplicable illness. This book memorializes these relationships; of her and Chas’ interactions with Mercy and Christine, the author writes, “the four of us fell into a friendship that was no less a love-of-my-life because it crisscrossed two couples and didn’t last.” Soep heavily references Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin, in whose work she finds liberation. “Inside our words,” she writes, “we are never without companions.” Soep’s memoir interweaves stories, her friends’ ongoing, remembered voices, and Bakhtin’s life and ideas, including his conviction, by virtue of dialogue, that “even death is but an incomplete departure.”

Throughout the book, the author revisits former and ongoing dialogues with Jonnie and Christine, respectively. As life moves on for others following their deaths, Soep pays homage to their preserved—indeed, persevering and profound—presence as well as her own capacity to hear and imagine. “We have not yet reached the end,” she writes. Soep includes many pages of old email exchanges, which allows for a direct transmission of voices, albeit in a limited context. On Soep’s wedding day, Christine told her, “In conversation there will be the unspoken.”

Now, the author finds that “there is also the reverse. In the unspoken, there is conversation.” She concludes, in part, “Every word is ours and other people’s at the same time.”

A genuine, highly personal, thoughtful memoir and memorial.

For a global perspective on finding solace and inspiration after tragedy, visit Kirkus online.

No Bullet Got Me Yet: The Relentless Faith of Father Kapaun Stansifer, John | Hanover Square Press (320 pp.) | $30.00 | March 12, 2024 9781335006066

A wartime priest serves as a case study for sainthood.

Stansifer, a writer and producer, recounts the life of a young Catholic priest, Emil Kapaun (1916-1951), a veritable “man of God” who ministered to practitioners of all faiths while he was a POW during the Korean War. Even before being captured after China sent a massive army in support of Kim Il Sung’s North Koreans, Kapaun rendered extraordinary service, such as writing hundreds of notes to the families of men who had been killed in combat.

“This, to the best of my knowledge, is definitely not required of an army chaplain,” notes one of the interlocutors Stansifer has assembled in this volume, a captain who survived captivity. Kapaun, malnourished and maltreated, did not survive. One sight that many of the returned POWs remember is that of the priest’s gold ciborium—the lidded goblet that holds the eucharist—disappearing into history in the hands of the camp commandant’s daughter. One striking artifact that did not disappear was a crucifix hand-carved in Kapaun’s honor by a Jewish pilot and smuggled out of the camp in pieces when the prisoners were finally repatriated at the war’s end in 1953. Kapaun’s remains were buried in a mass grave, about which the author remarks, “The Communists were afraid of him even in death….To this very day, the Communists are still afraid of him.”

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sainthood, “potentially…the Patron Saint of POW-MIAs.” By the long-established rules of the Catholic Church, and to trust this earnest account, it should come as no surprise were that to happen.

A forgotten hero of a nearly forgotten war receives due honor in these pages.

The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis Stephanopoulos, George with Lisa Dickey Grand Central Publishing (368 pp.) | $35.00 May 14, 2024 | 9781538740767

A behind-thescenes look inside the White House Situation Room.

Stephanopoulos, co-host of Good Morning America and author of All Too Human, served as Bill Clinton’s senior adviser for policy and strategy. His position and history as a Washington, D.C., insider allows him to examine a series of crises through the story of the Situation Room, located in the subterranean bowels of the White House complex.

The author explains that the room was set up in the wake of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, which John F. Kennedy blamed on poor advice. The idea was to centralize information collection and give the president a dedicated space for decision-making, with a permanent staff of geopolitical experts.

Stephanopoulos tracks events ranging from the defeat in Vietnam, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, to 9/11, examining the management styles of the presidents and other key figures and punctuating the story with interviews wherever possible. A peculiar element is that, despite its importance, for a long time, the place itself was unimpressive, much like a dull corporate meeting room. New communication equipment and technology were gradually added, and by the time of the operation to 92

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eliminate Osama bin Laden, the president could watch events unfold in real time. In fact, the problems of the current era are information overload and the temptation to micromanage.

In early 2023, the room was remodeled into “a digitally advanced, ergonomically designed, smartly configured complex,” and it is now known as the WHSR (pronounced “whizzer”). This transformation was inevitable and necessary, although the author clearly feels a twinge of nostalgia. Recounting a history that might have been lost, Stephanopoulos presents an interesting package for political aficionados as well as general readers.

An effective blend of political analysis and personal stories, tied together at the epicenter of crisis management.

Kirkus Star

An Emancipation of the Mind: Radical Philosophy, the War Over Slavery, and the Refounding of America Stewart, Matthew | Norton (400 pp.) $32.50 | March 26, 2024 | 9781324003625

Equality, humanity, and power were at the heart of America’s second founding.

In Nature’s God, Stewart examined the ideological and theological underpinnings of America’s founding fathers. Now turning to what he calls the nation’s second revolution, the Civil War, he offers a deeply researched history of the philosophical bonds that linked three monumental figures of the time: Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Theodore Parker. The author argues persuasively that the “radical philosophical vision that originated in early modern Europe” fueled both the American Revolution and the widespread European revolutions of 1848 and then tracked back across the Atlantic. Stewart closely examines the role of religion in antebellum America,

when a “theology of the propertied classes” emerged as a justification for slavery and for the violent treatment of the enslaved. Douglass called religious slaveholders “the worst.” Piously citing scripture as justification, Confederate states proposed a Christian Republic with “benevolent Christian masters and grateful Christian slaves.” In the North, not immune to racism, none of the major religious denominations “endorsed abolition before the war broke out.” Abolitionists were branded as infidels. The Civil War, then, was more than a conflict over slavery; it pitted self-proclaimed God-fearing white Americans against religious skeptics like Lincoln and nonbelievers like Parker. The war also laid bare the pervasiveness of insidious economic inequality, not only between whites and Blacks, but between white oligarchs, owners of huge cotton plantations, and the middle class and poor whites who made up the rest of the country’s population. Slavery, Stewart asserts, “is best understood as a device through which the propertied exploit the entire nation by mobilizing one part of society to enforce the oppression of another at the expense of both.” After the war, proslavery theology led to a conservative counterrevolution that still permeates Christian nationalism and the religious right.

A sweeping, penetrating historical narrative.

Kirkus Star

Love Is a Burning Thing St. Pierre, Nina | Dutton (304 pp.) | $28.00 May 7, 2024 | 9780593473825

An essayist and culture writer examines the connections among systemic oppression, suffering, and spiritual development.

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Historical true-crime tale that demonstrates the all-too-real horrors of the peonage system in the American South.

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emerged alive, and during her recovery, a nurse taught her about Transcendental Meditation. This origin story of sorts accumulates layers of complexity and premonition as the author describes her youth, bracketed by both poverty and her mother’s desperate pursuit of faith, primarily in the shadow of California’s Mount Shasta, a significant site for New Age seekers.

Without a reliable anchor, St. Pierre spent her life between homes and mythologies, nodding to the theoretical possibility of everything but unable to actually believe anything. Her mother’s “spiritual framing of actual injustice” acted as both tether and release, desensitizing the author to eccentricities that were really symptoms and driving her to bodily vices such as drinking. Trying to make sense of her past, her mother, and her place in her mother’s life in the wake of her death, St. Pierre crafts a vivid, richly textured, harrowing memoir of her bond, both steadfast and delicate, with her mother.

At its most basic, this is a story about growing up with a parent who, St. Pierre came to recognize, had a mental illness. However, the author shows humility and compassion with her mother’s story, and she offers contextualizing background research that teases apart compounding, victimizing influences of patriarchy and capitalism that drive single mothers—especially those who do not conform to society’s expectations—to religion, spirituality, or even conspiracy theories to create a For more from Earl Swift, visit Kirkus online.

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sense of safety. Sifting through signal moments in her past, St. Pierre emerges with a treatise for thinking about not only mental illness and family trauma, but also the ability of belief to alternately empower, embattle, and release.

An exhilarating, heart-rending familial portrait.

When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others Strauss, Elissa | Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster (320 pp.) | $28.99 paper April 23, 2024 | 9781982169275

A mother of two examines the evolution of her relationship with caregiving.

As essayist and former Slate writer Strauss recounts, she entered motherhood determined to avoid the “obliteration” of self predicted by white feminist authors like “Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, and Virginia Woolf,” all of whom exposed the common belief that “caregiving gets in women’s way.” The author’s experience with parenting, however, troubles this truth: “I had put so much energy into figuring out how not to lose myself to caregiving that I completely ignored the possibility that I might, in fact, find some of myself there.” Strauss embarks on a deep exploration of caregiving’s potential to shape individuals and societies in positive ways. During this intellectual journey, Strauss digs into philosophical and spiritual practices that center care; shares new research on the ways in which care can reduce incidences of

domestic violence by liberating men from toxic masculinity; and attempts to quantify the economic contributions of unpaid care work within the frame of late-stage capitalism. The author’s circumspection leads her to a series of specific, frank, refreshing observations about the impact care has had not only on her sense of self, but also in her understanding of her most important relationships. Strauss’ reliance on predominantly (though not exclusively) white, cisgender literature limits the material she considers and, as a result, the scope of her epiphanies. Considering the author’s demonstrated capacity for thoughtfulness using this limited canon, it is easy to believe that inclusion of the works of feminists of color like Audre Lorde, disability activists Alice Wong and Mia Mingus, and reproductive justice pioneer Loretta Ross—all of whose thinking Strauss skirts but never fully analyzes—would have led to deeper, more nuanced, and more interesting conclusions.

A compelling but incomplete memoir about feminist approaches to caregiving, parenting, and family.

Kirkus Star

Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America’s Second Slavery Swift, Earl | Mariner Books (432 pp.) $32.50 | April 2, 2024 | 9780063265387

Historical truecrime tale that demonstrates the all-too-real horrors of the peonage system in the American South.

In his latest book, Swift, author of Chesapeake Requiem, Across the Airless Wilds, and Auto Biography, unfurls the heinous acts that took place in 1921 at a Georgia farm known as The Murder Farm, where 11 Black men were found shot, bludgeoned, or FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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drowned at or near the farm. Held by a form of debt slavery known as peonage, these men and others were maliciously killed by the farm’s owner, John Sims Williams, in order to keep secret the unspeakable acts that took place there. As the FBI began searching Williams’ land for evidence of malfeasance, bodies were found in the nearby river tied at the neck to bags of rocks. So began the investigation and trial that brought the dark, then-commonplace racist practices of Georgia’s white citizens into the spotlight of the nation. Swift provides word-for-word accounts from Clyde Manning, the farm boss whom Williams threatened to kill should he not commit the murders, as well as trial transcripts and newspaper reports that clearly show the deeply entrenched racist system that dominated the South in the early 20th century. The author fully exposes the hellscape that enabled peonage to thrive, with hundreds of lynchings and mass murders of Black people by white mobs. “It seems too tranquil a setting for the lessons it offers,” writes Swift about the river where the bodies turned up. “That the past lurks close.

That we haven’t learned as much as we think we have. That maybe we never do.” This unflinching narrative will make readers examine not only America’s dark history, but also the disheartening parallels that exist today.

A gripping, memorable work that wholly confronts a hellish past that continues to bleed into the present.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles Tan, Amy | Knopf (320 pp.) | $35.00 April 23, 2024 | 9780593536131

A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.

In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully 94

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quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs— observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed.

“We have a relationship,” she writes.

“I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me.

Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?”

Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

For more on birding, visit Kirkus online.

The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony Tometich, Annabelle | Little, Brown (320 pp.) | $30.00 | April 2, 2024 9780316540322

A food writer’s account of her mother and her influence.

Tometich opens with the extreme yet amusing lengths that her mother, a Filipino immigrant, has gone to in order to protect the fruit of her beloved mango trees. That story serves as an entrée into the more general volatility and stubbornness of the author’s mother, who arrived in the U.S. from Manila as a nurse and married the only child of a well-to-do New England family. Her immigrant determination clashed with his lack of direction and urgency, creating a childhood for Tometich and her siblings that was marked by the storms of violent tempers. One might expect the memoir of a food writer to discuss how either food or writing were cornerstone elements of her youth, reprieves from chaos and grief. But the sense that Tometich gives of having almost fallen into her career (in which she has enjoyed a fair amount of success) as a restaurant critic belies the skill with narrative and language that she displays. Her showing is stronger than her telling; with power and resonance, the author recalls vivid and visceral details that gave contour to her childhood—some perhaps expected in the narrative of a first-generation American, others more severe and startling. As the writer ages, starts her own family, and builds the distance and perspective required to contextualize her mother’s story and character, certain passages seem to rush to a tidy conclusion, with almost cliché reflections. However, these attempts at a clean resolution counterbalance a text that, on the whole, leans into the struggles of both mother and daughter, without forcing peace K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A thought-provoking tour of recent history and its considerable discontents.

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between or within either of them.

Tometich’s measured tenderness and understanding grant complexity and authenticity to a story about finding one’s identity and owning its source.

A well-paced, nuanced memoir by a practiced storyteller.

The House of Being Trethewey, Natasha | Yale Univ.

(96 pp.) | $18.00 | April 9, 2024 9780300265927

The former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner reflects on how geography and history shaped her creative career.

Trethewey’s earliest memories take place inside her grandmother’s “shotgun house” outside of Gulfport, Mississippi. Later, the author would learn that her birthplace was located on Highway 49, “a legendary highway of the Blues,” and that her birthday was on “the hundredth anniversary of Confederate Memorial Day.” These literal and metaphorical intersections deeply influenced Trethewey’s life by inspiring her to study her grandmother’s Black vernacular (“the language that connected us across time and space”), her awareness of the ways in which America systematically erases Black history and culture, and her obsession with permanently inscribing her mother’s existence— and her untimely death—into the historical record. “To have dominion over oneself, to be the sovereign of the nation of self, one must be the writer of the story,” she writes. By the end of this brief text, part of the publisher’s Why I Write series, Trethewey K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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concludes that for her, “the language of poetry creates a space for what I’ve lost to carry on, a momentary stay against the inevitable.” It is this recovery of losses—e.g., family memories of the Ku Klux Klan burning a cross across the street from her grandmother’s house, the contributions of Black soldiers to the Union’s victory in the Civil War, the upkeep of her mother’s gravesite—that has driven the author’s storied career for decades. In this lyrical, thoughtful volume, Trethewey not only makes surprising, insightful connections between personal and national history; she also paints a profound portrait of unresolvable grief. Though it adheres to the series format, the text feels like a long-form essay. While a satisfying read, many of the narrative’s nuanced but neat conclusions could merit more exploration.

A thoughtful meditation on a celebrated poet’s reasons for writing.

Kirkus Star

Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present Zakaria, Fareed | Norton (400 pp.) | $29.99 March 26, 2024 | 9780393239232

Of revolutions good and bad, born of intentions good and evil.

In this wideranging historical survey, political commentator Zakaria, author of The Post-American World, considers the present era to be “revolutionary in the commonly used sense of the word,” involving fundamental changes marked

not necessarily by advances but instead retreats into ideologies once overcome.

Donald Trump, in this regard, is “part of a global trend,” the proponent of a politics of resentment against the other, whether nonwhite newcomers or members of the so-called urban elite.

Some revolutions have had better angels at their hearts. The establishment of the Dutch Republic, for example, brought with it a “celebration of individual rights…[and] toleration of religious minorities,” along with an entrepreneurial spirit that made Holland the wealthiest nation on the planet. Similarly, the British government supported inventors and technological innovation after the Glorious Revolution, which introduced “parliamentary rule and market capitalism,” giving the nation a decided leg up on more hidebound neighbors. Throughout this intellectually stimulating book, Zakaria asks and answers large questions, such as why the U.S., alone among industrial nations, never developed a socialist movement. (One part of the answer is that the U.S. never experienced feudalism as such, and its ruling class “obscured the strict lines of class conflict that fed socialism.”) Absent socialism, the country instead developed a liberal democracy along the lines of the old Dutch Republic, for better and worse. Zakaria writes, “Liberalism’s great strength throughout history has been to free people from arbitrary constraints. Its great weakness has been the inability to fill the void when the old structures crumble.” That’s about where we are today, with old structures collapsing on every side and no fresh solutions in view—certainly, the author concludes, not from the right wing.

A thought-provoking tour of recent history and its considerable discontents.

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MAHNAZ DAR

CHILDREN’S BOOKS have always taught lessons, from the terrifying cautionary tales in Heinrich Hoffmann’s Der Struwwelpeter (1845) to Brendan Wenzel’s Caldecott Honor–winning They All Saw a Cat (2016), which invites children to ponder perspective. But what can kid lit teach grown-ups? Plenty, as a handful of new picture books demonstrate. These tales will resonate with young readers, but they’ll also give adults a stronger understanding of how children perceive the world.

The little ones in Liana Finck’s You Broke It! (Rise x Penguin Workshop, Jan. 23) are a naughty bunch…or are they? A piglet is scolded by its parent for wallowing in the mud; a rain cloud tells its child to “Stop crying!”

Finally, a forlorn octopus, chastised for not keeping its hands to itself, speaks for all the creatures—and youngsters the world over—when it responds, “I am just being me.” New Yorker cartoonist Finck’s slyly humorous, minimalist line drawings pair well with her brief text 96

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for a witty yet warm reminder that what appears to be misbehavior is often just kids doing what comes naturally.

Eyes That Weave the World’s Wonders, by Joanna Ho with Liz Kleinrock, illustrated by Dung Ho (Harper/HarperCollins, Jan. 23), centers on an Asian child adopted into a white family. Noticing that “no one in my family has eyes like mine,” the child grapples with questions of identity. The family’s love for the protagonist is palpable, but, as Kleinrock notes, adoption—especially transracial adoption—can evoke complicated emotions. Adults who still have a “colorblind” mentality will find this work illuminating.

In Lauren Castillo’s Nana in the Country (Clarion/ HarperCollins, Feb. 20), the grandmother from the Caldecott Honor–winning book Nana in the City (2014) visits her grandchild.

The child is eager to show Nana the ins and outs of farm life, but Nana doesn’t need much guidance; she

seems perfectly at home. The little one goes to bed feeling deflated, but when a sheep gets lost in a storm that night, the child proudly takes charge. Castillo’s illustrations exude tenderness, while her narrative conveys an important but oft-overlooked childhood need: to be seen as an authority, at least sometimes.

Steve Asbell’s Flap Your Hands: A Celebration of Stimming (Lee & Low Books, March 26) is an ode to self-stimulating behavior.

Upbeat verse invites kids to cope with overwhelming feelings by kicking their feet or waving their wrists, while mesmerizing art pulses with energy. Asbell notes that while adults often dissuade children from stimming, it’s a crucial part of many autistic people’s identities— something that should be

actively celebrated rather than merely tolerated.

While many adults preach body positivity, some are still critical of their own bodies—messages that children then internalize.

The title character in Isabel Quintero’s Mamá’s Panza (Kokila, March 26), however, exudes self-love.

She smiles as her little one drums on her panza, or belly, and lets the child pretend it’s a mountain.

Mamá’s ample belly is lovingly depicted in Iliana Galvez’s gracefully composed images, and her powerful words will hopefully encourage readers of all ages to embrace their own bodies: “My panza kept you alive and keeps me alive as well.

How could I not love it?”

Mahnaz Dar is a young readers’ editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

KID LIT CAN ALSO SPEAK TO GROWN-UPS

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EDITOR’S PICK Family stories and a love of learning were seeds planted in the child who would become one of the world’s most important writers.

Born in 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, Chloe Ardelia Wofford grew up listening to her mother’s singing and stories and her grandfather’s violin. The musicality and narratives remained with her, as did a love of language. She started to read early, the only child in her first grade class to do so. She continued to listen to and absorb the world around her, developing skills that eventually sent her to Howard University. There she adopted the name Toni as she studied English

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

literature and drama; she also met Harold Morrison, whom she would later marry.

She witnessed firsthand the racism that existed in the nation’s capital. As a professor, then as an editor, she promoted neglected works of Black writers.

While managing motherhood and a career, she began to craft her own novels and built a unique body of work that captured the attention of the world; in 1993, she won the Nobel Prize in Literature—“the first Black woman so honored.” Writing in second person and addressing Morrison herself, Weatherford skillfully weaves together the various aspects of the writer’s life in

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Witch Hunt

By Andrea Balis & Elizabeth Levy; illus. by Tim Foley

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Ahoy!

By Sophie Blackall

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Kicked Out

By A.M. Dassu

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Survival of the Fittest

By Rebecca Donnelly; illus. by Misa Saburi

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A Crown of Stories: The Life and Language of Beloved Writer Toni Morrison Weatherford, Carole Boston Illus. by Khalif Tahir Thompson Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins | 48 pp. $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780062911032

a lyrical account that flows and reveals her rich contributions. Weatherford emphasizes the role of listening, grounding Morrison in her family and community. Making wonderful use of collage,

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Hello, Sun

By Julie Downing

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A Game of Noctis

By Deva Fagan

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Wires Crossed

By Beth Fantaskey; illus. by ONeillJones

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The Other Side of Perfect

By Melanie Florence & Richard Scrimger

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Aloha Everything

By Kaylin Melia George; illus. by Mae Waite

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Thompson’s evocative paintings enhance the text, beginning with a striking cover image.

Transcendent and deeply resonant. (author’s note, timeline, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 4-8)

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Made in Asian America

By Erika Lee & Christina Soontornvat

Bye Land, Bye Sea

By René Spencer & Rodolfo Montalvo; illus. by Rodolfo Montalvo

Two Wheels

By David Gibb; illus. by Brizida Magro

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Out of the Valley of Horses

By Wendy Orr

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Why We Dance

By Deidre Havrelock; illus. by Aly McKnight

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I Was

By Katherine Hocker; illus. by Natasha Donovan

Shine

By Bruno Valasse

Lightfall

By Tim Probert

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If You Run Out of Words

By Felicita Sala

A Crown of Stories

By Carole Boston Weatherford; illus.

by Khalif Tahir Thompson

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All That Grows

By Jack Wong

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Quiet celebrations of connections with nature and the passage of time.

O U R W O O L LY B E A R

it a grave, somber feel. “Anything is possible” repeats throughout, though it’s less clear what is possible if one doesn’t have a supernatural talking umbrella. Characters’ skin tones tend to change from page to page, depending on light and shading.

Imaginative but limited. (Picture book.

4-7)

Not Just the Driver!

Ackerman, Sara Holly | Illus. by Robert Neubecker | Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) | $18.99 | April 9, 2024 9781665936378

A paean to airtraffic controllers, bus mechanics, subway signal maintainers, and the other support personnel who ensure that transportation systems work.

Snappy rhyming verse introduces the question: “Who guides floating fleets with ease / and water-travel expertise? / Who checks weather, minds the clocks, / brings the ferry in to docks?” A car ferry, yacht, fishing boat, container ship, and more—even a green submarine with yellow polka dots—crowd the waters in a representative double-page spread. With the turn of the page, readers see the answer, rendered in jaunty, blocky lettering: “IT’S NOT JUST THE CAPTAIN!” The verse continues, detailing the work of the land-based dispatchers, who sit in an office on the wharf labeled “Harbormaster” as the ferry pulls in to its berth. Support crews for buses, trucks, subways, trains, and planes are also introduced, with Neubecker’s characteristically busy cartoons depicting happy passengers and workers of many different racial and gender presentations; one, a harbormaster, uses a wheelchair. The verse rollicks along as smoothly as these varied vehicles move, carrying readers through concise descriptions of jobs and roles they may never have considered, until they reach the final, exuberant line: “TEAMWORK HELPS THE WORLD TO 98

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MOVE!” Picture-book shelves are groaning with celebrations of transportation, but this one stands out in its salutary commitment to shining a spotlight on support teams.

A warmly inclusive addition to the things-that-go genre. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-6)

Umbrella Arevalo Melville, Elena | Scallywag Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 | April 2, 2024 9781915252371

Park denizens find magic in an umbrella.

Clara, a young girl with messy, dark hair, is in an almost-perfect park, but there’s no one for her to play with. She picks up a long black umbrella lying on the ground. It looks old and worn, but it turns out to be magical. It thanks Clara for her kindness and encourages her to look inside it, because “anything is possible.” Opening the umbrella, Clara is rewarded with a cat to play with.

Then the umbrella continues to give; an old man in a wheelchair gets an elephant friend to help him pick apples, and fussy toddlers are distracted by a band of butterflies.

Watching all this, however, is Mr Fox, an anthropomorphic canine in a natty suit, who commands the umbrella to make him “rich, rich, rich!” He is summarily drenched by a localized rainstorm and gives the umbrella back so everyone can enjoy its freely given bounty. This old-fashioned story is wooden at times, while the loose, blue-and-gray-toned illustrations give

Our Woolly Bear Arthur, Katie | Owlkids Books (32 pp.) $18.95 | March 12, 2024 | 9781771476003

A brightly colored caterpillar is discovered and adopted by two siblings likewise clad in woolly coats.

After carefully setting their fuzzy find in a cozy nesting spot of pine needles and pebbles, Lou and Edie race home.

Reading books and researching on the computer, they learn that the hatchling will overwinter beneath a rock or a log and in spring will wondrously become “an Isabella Tiger Moth with wings of gold.” Meanwhile, as autumn passes into winter, the frizzy-haired siblings snuggle under cozy quilts at home and spot their friend (or perhaps others like it) outside on walks through their woodsy neighborhood. Arthur portrays her black and gold caterpillar(s) with large eyes for an extra measure of visual appeal and depicts the young protagonists in comfy domestic settings when they haven’t bundled up to ramble beneath cloudy skies through chilly but idyllic meadows or down to a beach awash in autumnal light. Residents and visitors who are diverse in skin tone gather at a farmers market in one image. The eye-catching illustrations and the whole tone of the briefly told episode will leave readers feeling snugly wrapped up. And in a final scene, where dark and snowy days of winter give way to spring, a golden-winged moth perches in the foreground as the light-skinned human family gathers to plant a tree on the lawn beyond.

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Quiet celebrations of connections with nature and the passage of time.

(Picture book. 6-8)

Mermaids’ Song to the Sea Aston, Dianna Hutts | Illus. by Renée Kurilla | Hippo Park/Astra Books for Young Readers (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 30, 2024 | 9781662640285

Cheery mermaids sing to their marine neighbors.

Three mermaids, sitting on a coral reef’s rock, pick up their harps and visit underwater friends at day’s end. They bless each finned and shelled resident, whether they dwell and swim in the sea as individuals or in groups.

The trio also deliver blessings to mammals, such as otters and whales, and seabirds. Readers will learn interesting bits of information not only about the variety of fascinating creatures that live under the waves, but also about group names for some of these animals: herds of seahorses, squads of squids, and shivers of sharks.

Children may be confused by some fish dubbed “kings,” “queens,” “goats,” “surgeons,” and so on, when what’s meant are kingfish, queenfish, goatfish, bat ray, surgeonfish, etc. The endpapers, featuring the creatures included in the book, accompanied by labels, are helpful, though there’s no mention that all these creatures wouldn’t live together in the same waters. At the end, the mermaids are also blessed as they bed down for the night. Overall, this bland, albeit genial, narrative will be most appreciated by mermaid mavens. The verse is sprightly, though For more by Dianna Hutts Aston, visit Kirkus online.

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sometimes clumsy, while the colorful digital illustrations, dominated by hues of green and blue, vividly depict adorable, anthropomorphized animals, undersea vegetation, and racially diverse mermaids.

Hand this to fans clamoring for new mermaid titles; they’ll learn something, too. (Picture book. 4-7)

I Heard: An American Journey Avery, J. Nailah | Illus. by Steffi Walthall Charlesbridge (32 pp.) | $17.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781623543822

A lesson about the pride and perseverance that inform African American identity.

An adult invites a group of Black children— diverse in terms of skin tone and hairstyle—to gather around and listen. The story begins with Mother Africa and extends into a rich tapestry of ancestry, adversity, and accomplishments. With vibrant imagery and punchy rhyming verse, the book tells readers of African royalty and warriors, trans-Atlantic enslavement, the bravery of those who worked toward liberation, and community organizing and hard-fought institutional change. Contemporary figures appear: President Barack Obama, voting rights activist Stacey Abrams, and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Avery writes in broad strokes about the “countless demonstrations…displayed throughout the nation” but also gets specific about Civil Rights activism, with references to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Divine Nine consortium of Black fraternities and sororities. The result is an accessible work that offers readers much to reflect upon while presenting aspects of African American history and culture that may be new to young readers—and that may prompt further research. An author’s note and

appended information on topics and key terms provide a poignant starting point for that research.

Before enslavement and beyond the Civil Rights Movement, African American culture presented in full color and powerful rhyme. (Informational picture book. 5-10)

On Friday Afternoon: A Shabbat Celebration Babay, Michal | Illus. by Menahem Halberstadt | Charlesbridge (32 pp.) $17.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9781623543570

Young Leelee and her dog, Pickles, prepare for Shabbat one busy Friday afternoon.

With the spiraling structure of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (1985), the book follows the duo from one activity to the next. Leelee and Pickles must clean up the crumbs they dropped while eating challah, which leads to them finding loose change under the couch. They decide to donate the money, but the tzedakah boxes are full, so Leelee empties out a flowerpot to use instead. Onomatopoeic interjections, encouraging a readaloud experience, are included throughout, beginning with the simple clink of a coin and escalating to the “Pah! Bah-bah! Rah!” of a trombone that Leelee finds when searching for a shoe. This discovery leads, naturally, to a parade through the street, with Leelee and Pickles inviting the neighbors and friends they meet home for dinner. The penultimate spread calms both characters and readers with the sights and sounds of candle-lighting before the Shabbat meal begins. Expressive cartoon illustrations depict a brownhaired, olive-skinned Jewish family enjoying a loving, if hectic, afternoon.

A close-up of detritus under the couch and a long shot of a mother putting on earrings in a mostly tidy house convey the dynamism of the scene; Leelee’s curly pigtails bring an enormous FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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energy all their own. Repetition and mounting lists create a propulsive rhythm as sunset draws nearer.

Leelee’s community is a diverse one.

Warm and lovely. (author’s note) (Picture book. 3-8)

Out of the Blue Bach-Lauritsen, Rebecca | Illus. by Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard | Trans. by Michael Favala Goldman | Enchanted Lion Books (92 pp.) | $18.95 | March 19, 2024 9781592704019

There’s something lacking in a boy’s perfectly organized, perfectly predictable life.

What could it be?

With distinctly metaphorical overtones, this Danish import follows a house’s solitary resident through a daily routine that’s always the same. The boy greets the cactus on the bedside table, tends to the neatly sorted garden, irons a shirt, and does other chores before bidding the cactus good night. One night, though, he dreams of falling into a pile of fur…and the next morning scattered shoes, a tipped-over cactus, and a footprint lead him to the conclusion that there must be A BEAR in the house. And so there is! It turns out to be a playful one, though, and even if the onceorderly house is soon anything but, after a day’s romp the two companions tumble together into bed in joyful, well-earned exhaustion. Even the cactus is suddenly blooming. In pale, finely controlled images in neutral hues with subtle touches of blue and pink, Kjærgaard pairs a light-skinned figure of indeterminate age and a massive, shaggy playmate in spartan but comfortable settings. BachLauritsen brings her spare narrative to an open-ended close (“Suddenly, there it was. Just like that. Out of the blue. But at first it wasn’t there”), without ever specifying what “it” is, which leaves the particular nature and agent of the positive change open to interpretation.

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Elliptical but reassuring to reflective readers facing uncomfortable life or family changes. (Picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Star

Witch Hunt: The Cold War, Joe McCarthy, and the Red Scare Balis, Andrea & Elizabeth Levy | Illus. by Tim Foley | Roaring Brook Press (240 pp.) $20.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781250246813

A pointed account of a fear-mongering demagogue’s quick rise and meteoric fall.

As in this trio’s previous collaboration, Bringing Down a President: The Watergate Scandal (2019), this history is written as a playscript, with a cast of dozens of political figures, journalists and other witnesses, and victims and their descendants offering snippets of verbatim testimony with commentary by the omniscient narrator, “Fly on the Wall.” Setting them against a backdrop of events of the time, Balis and Levy clearly establish how contemptible the headline-seeking, accusationflinging Joseph McCarthy (“A pimple on [the] path of progress,” as President Eisenhower once put it), and Roy Cohn, his bulldog lawyer, were. The piecemeal narratives also create clear pictures of the course of the Red Scare (and the contemporaneous anti-gay Lavender Scare) and the ugly efforts, led by FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, to insinuate connections between communism and the nascent Civil Rights Movement. In the end, for all

the whipped-up fear and grandstanding, as one of Hoover’s aides at last admitted, “We didn’t have enough evidence to show that there was a single communist in the State Department.” The storytelling approach serves as a reminder that history happens to real people in real time. “We want to emphasize,” the authors conclude, “that historical witch hunts affect regular people like the ones you know.” Final art not seen.

A scorcher that exposes shameful attitudes, personalities, and events that might seem eerily familiar. (author’s note, timeline, note on sources, source notes, further reading, image credits, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)

The Schlemiel Kids Save the Moon Barbakoff, Audrey | Illus. by Rotem Teplow The Collective Book Studio (32 pp.) $17.95 | April 9, 2024 | 9781685556037 Series: The Schlemiel Kids of Chelm

Siblings outshine not-too-bright grown-ups in this take on Yiddish folklore.

Sam and Sarah Schlemiel are walking along the beach with their parents when Dad notices that the moon has fallen into the water.

Neighbors are alarmed: The moon’s stuck! How will they see at night? The siblings try explaining, but no one listens. After all, this is Chelm, where adults aren’t famed for their smarts. A neighbor volunteers to pull the moon from the lake; another attempts to scoop the moon into her bucket; both are unsuccessful. At the wise rabbi’s

An enjoyable, rollicking read.

Fun by the light of the moon—or anytime.

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house, everyone offers preposterous solutions and prays. Sarah whispers her own idea to Sam. Next morning, a tearful Sarah tells the rabbi that she and Sam want to see the moon before the townspeople set it free, but they can’t visit the beach alone. So the rabbi escorts them to the beach—and is shocked to realize the moon is gone!

He concludes the prayers “lifted” it into the sky! Everyone marvels at his wisdom—everyone except the two smart children. Readers will relish this comically fresh, fast-paced tale. An author’s note explains that stories of Chelm and its hilariously ignorant residents have been passed down for years (though this tale is set in the present). Colorful illustrations enliven the humorous proceedings. Sam and Mom are brown-skinned, while Sarah and Dad are lighter-skinned; townsfolk are racially diverse. Most males wear skullcaps or head coverings.

An enjoyable, rollicking read. Fun by the light of the moon—or anytime.

(Picture book. 5-8)

The Great Influenza: The True Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History (Young Readers Edition) Barry, John M. | Adapt. by Catherine S. Frank | Viking (240 pp.) | $17.99 April 16, 2024 | 9780593404690

An updated young readers’ adaptation of the 2004 adult bestseller by the same name.

This holistic approach to the influenza pandemic that ravaged the planet just over a century ago starts with the development of modern medical institutions in the U.S., documenting the fight for academic rigor and the effort it took for clinicians to implement the scientific method. These scientists met their crucible when a scary new flu mutation arose among World War I soldiers. The volume does a remarkable K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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job of concisely explaining the biology at play (both in the disease and the scientists’ attempts at solving the crisis), the geopolitics of the time, and the role of wartime propaganda in spreading misinformation (such as how the “Spanish flu” misnomer came to be). Throughout, SARS-CoV-2 is used as a relatable touchpoint for readers familiar with the Covid-19 pandemic through the use of hard facts, such as the numbers of people infected and killed and the impact of dangerous mutant swarms of RNA viruses. The engaging text highlights women’s roles in various capacities, though only a few are mentioned by name; the revolutionary scientists were “an exclusive group that included very few women.” The meticulously researched book also mentions factors—both socioeconomic (crowded living spaces) and biological (a population’s previous exposure to influenza)—that resulted in the virus hitting some ethnic groups harder than others.

A strong, multifaceted narrative sure to create enthusiasts of science and geopolitics. (key figures, timeline, glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)

The Sea Hides a Seahorse Behrman, Sara T. | Illus. by Melanie Mikecz The Collective Book Studio (32 pp.) | $18.95 April 2, 2024 | 9781685556440

How seahorses quietly elude the many marine predators on the prowl.

Young readers may be excused for thinking that the hapless seahorse doesn’t stand a chance, with every turn of the page revealing yet another menace—from eels, parrotfish, and crabs to squid, turtles, jellyfish, and bluefin tuna— gliding by in search of a snack. As it turns out, though, the distinctively shaped little fish are good at hiding, and along the sandy bottoms and brightly hued reefs of Mikecz’s seascapes, they can be spotted lurking

unobtrusively…changing colors to match their backgrounds, floating behind tufts of sea grass, and swimming amid schools of smaller fish while intertwining tails to mate and give birth to clouds of small fry. The titular refrain coils sinuously throughout the alliterative narrative (“An octopus undulates silently, / gliding and grasping with eight arms. / And the sea hides a seahorse…”). Behrman concludes with pages of facts about seahorses, as well as information on how to help them and where to go to see and to learn more about them.

Because many wild species are endangered or in decline due to habitat destruction, she discourages keeping them as pets but does include leads to sources for farmed specimens.

A simple, sonorous introduction.

(Informational picture book. 5-7)

Kirkus Star

Ahoy!

Blackall, Sophie | Anne Schwartz/ Random (48 pp.) | $19.99 | April 2, 2024 9780593429396

Using one’s imagination is a lot easier when everybody is on board.

“What are you playing?” an amused parent asks a small child. The little one cries out resolutely, “I’M NOT PLAYING!” After all, a storm is on its way, and it’s time to fit out the ship. The adult’s gentle protestations (“Um, I kind of need to vacuum the rug”) are no match for the undeniable fact that the rug is, in fact, the ocean.

Soon enough the two are raising the mainsail, swabbing the poop deck, hoisting the burgee, and more (a For an interview with Sophie Blackall, visit Kirkus online.

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helpful glossary of sailing terms is included). In spite of the occasional cell phone interruption (the child, facedown on the rug, laments, “We are in the doldrums” when the adult takes a call), all is put right when the adult gets back into the spirit of things, fielding an attack against a giant squid (aka the vacuum cleaner). Rescues, distress signals, hungry sharks—it all adds up to a wonderful time. That rug is never getting vacuumed. Blackall slips with ease between fantasy and reality, and young readers will have oodles of fun watching as socks morph into seagulls and paper towel tubes become telescopes. It’s also nice to see a book where the notion of turning off your cell phone is aimed more directly at the parents than the kids. All characters are light-skinned.

those instructions prove so bizarrely effective in earning him support from the in crowd that he barely notices that he’s failing math and alienating longtime friends. But just before everything collapses in one massively humiliating tangle, Noah (rightly) begins to suspect that his future self is hiding something. The author delivers the ensuing round of confessions, revelations, and frank self-analysis with a heavy hand, but all of this does leave Noah able to embrace his own distinctive mix of qualities and abilities and mend the personal and academic fences he’s heedlessly trampled. López draws expressive faces, allowing characterization to come through clearly in the illustrations. Noah and his family present white; there is ethnic diversity among supporting characters.

This Again?

The Boy Who Said Wow

Borba, Adam | Illus. by Mercè López Little, Brown (304 pp.) | $16.99 April 16, 2024 | 9780316553186

Boss, Todd | Illus. by Rashin Kheiriyeh Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781534499713

A middle schooler runs for class president with help from an unusual campaign adviser— his future self.

Readers with overachieving older sibs will feel for Noah Nicholson, who’s obsessed with following in the footsteps of his valedictorian older brother, now a Harvard freshman, although Noah’s at best an average student. Also, despite strenuous campaigning, he hasn’t a prayer of winning the upcoming class president election—until, that is, a shocking meeting with his doppelgänger. Future Noah informs him that, thanks to the time machine their brilliant scientist parents are about to whip up, he’s come back from next week and can guide him to victory—if present-day Noah follows certain instructions to the letter. Though odd,

Music moves a nonverbal child to speak.

The narrator explains that Ronan was “born quiet. Some days he hardly says a word.” Today, when Father and Mother suggest outings to the beach or park, he’s quiet. But he looks up when Grandfather bursts in and proposes attending a concert. With refreshing optimism, Grandfather proclaims it “an adventure,” though Ronan’s parents worry about the “challenge” and “risk” of taking him to a performance. And when Ronan, his dog, and Grandfather reach Symphony Hall, an adventure it is. When the music starts, Ronan is swept away in a whirl of notes. Collectively, the instruments sound like “a sky full of stars,” sending him and his cheerful pup into a space-themed reverie. Boss notes that “the darker instruments sound cool

Avast, me mateys! This be good clean fun on the salty seas. (Picture book. 3-6)

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A bit heavy on lessons, but readers will have fun getting there. (Science fiction. 10-13)

and frightening” and the lighter ones sound “warm and friendly” but does not name the instruments, a missed opportunity to deepen readers’ understanding of the music enthralling Ronan. Audience and orchestra members alike are moved to laughter and applause when the music stops, and an awed Ronan utters his first “WOW!” Kheiriyeh’s endearing, pastel-hued cartoon illustrations convey Ronan’s astonishment and joy.

Though an author’s note explains that the story is based on an actual nonverbal child’s experience of a Mozart piece in 2019, details such as Mother’s pearls and housedress and Grandfather’s finned car evoke a bucolic 1950s setting. Ronan and his family present white; background characters are racially diverse.

A heartwarming testament to music’s emotional power. (Picture book. 4-6)

The Bumblebee Garden Casey, Dawn | Illus. by Stella Lim Floris (28 pp.) | $18.95 | April 23, 2024 9781782508625

hen Ben spots W a queen bumblebee in the garden, his grandfather shares what he knows about its biology.

It turns out Grandpa knows an awful lot: that bumblebees nest underground, that their life cycle is metamorphic, that they pollinate foods such as strawberries, that wildflowers provide forage for them, that they hibernate through the winter, and more. Grandpa’s lessons play out over the course of a year, each season bringing new opportunities to share his knowledge with his curious, bespectacled grandson. (A concluding spread reinforces the information with a clear, annotated diagram.) Ben’s little sister, Hana Mae, provides humorous parallels to bumblebee behavior, as when Ben laughingly wraps her up in a blanket to mimic a bumblebee’s cocoon. Many spreads present the garden action on full-bleed pages; the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A harrowing yet hopeful look at the manifestation of mental illness.

PUZZLED

white pages opposite feature blocks of text and close-up, scientifically accurate vignettes of the bumblebees in their nest. Occasional onomatopoeia is set in display type. Though the story focuses on bumblebees, young readers who have learned about honeybee biology will infer facts about differences between the insects, such as bumblebee queens’ solitary natures.

The book doesn’t mention threats to bumblebees, just encouragement to nurture them. Illustrations suggest that Ben and Hana Mae are biracial, with an Asian-presenting mom and white-presenting dad and grandfather.

A gentle, lovely introduction to a ubiquitous but lesser-known insect.

(Picture book. 4-8)

This Is a Window Conrad, Lauren Paige | Minerva (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781662651595

An ode to childhood play and the boundlessness of imagination.

The tots in this book embark on wild flights of fancy. The space between two coats in a closet becomes a window. A bookshelf with stuffed animals is transformed into a zoo. A picnic table doubles as a boat and a train. Concise sentences describe each scene: “This is an office. And now it’s a store.” Playful questions invite reader participation: “If this is a hat, could this be a shoe?” The accompanying image depicts a child first wearing a shoe as a hat and then using a pillow as a shoe. Soft, flat illustrations full of texture and pattern provide visual K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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interest without becoming overwhelming. The art makes clear what’s happening in each scene while still leaving room for readers to imagine alternate scenarios. On one page, a child plays in a hole dug by a dog. The child sits in the hole, puts a toy inside, and then fills it in, but readers can also come up with their own interpretations of what the little one is doing—or chime in with what they’d like to do. Adults sharing this book with children will marvel at the sense of wonder it conveys, while children will eagerly accept the invitation to use their own imaginations. The children have a range of different skin and hair colors.

Perfectly captures the rich, fulfilling world of childhood fun to be found in the seemingly mundane. (Picture book. 3-5)

Puzzled: A Memoir About Growing Up With OCD Cooke, Pan | Rocky Pond Books/Penguin (226 pp.) | $23.99 | $13.99 paper April 16, 2024 | 9780593615614 9780593615621 paper

An Irish boy navigates coming of age while living with OCD in this graphic memoir.

At 10, Pan realized he was different from his friends. While they obsessed over Pokémon cards, Pan, who has light skin and a mop of tousled brown hair, found that he battled intrusive thoughts that kept him awake well into the night. He calls these thoughts “the Puzzle.” His efforts to find

solutions included repetitive prayers, compulsive counting, and an eventual descent into disordered eating, all while navigating his school career. Pan attends a Catholic school and questions whether he’s possessed by the devil, if God is speaking to him, or if he’s just plain “crazy.” When his symptoms turn physical, he seeks help from myriad specialists. The doctors find nothing physically wrong with him, so he takes to the internet for assistance and stumbles upon his eventual diagnosis of OCD. The cheery colors in many of the panels serve as a stark contrast to the dark thoughts in Pan’s head, while the blue-gray panels illustrating Pan’s thought spirals emphasize his distress.

Pan’s striking story handles mental health with care and precision, dispelling myths about OCD and providing readers with the language necessary to discuss its signs and symptoms. Readers will also appreciate the quick yet comprehensive overview of cognitive behavioral therapy treatment toward the end.

A harrowing yet ultimately hopeful look at the manifestation of mental illness. (content warning) (Graphic memoir. 10-14)

Emma Full of Wonders Cooper, Elisha | Roaring Brook Press (40 pp.) | $18.99 | April 2, 2024 9781250884763

A big, yellow hound dog has small, wonderful dreams.

Emma’s dreams are doggily simple. Rendered in gray, they manifest above her contentedly slumbering form: “singing, dancing, rolling in grass, splashing in For an interview with Elisha Cooper, visit Kirkus online.

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THE KIRKUS Q&A: DREW DAYWALT The author of The Day the Crayons Quit embraces the absurd in his latest picture book.

BY MICHAEL SCHAUB

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Can you speak about the origin of this book?

There was an animation from when we were kids called Duck Amuck. It was Daff y Duck, and he’s talking to the animator, and the animator is wrecking the cartoon and keeps changing the sets and painting things on Daff y Duck. This was by Chuck Jones, the master. I always thought, I want to do something like that.

But for this particular book, the idea is from about 12 years ago. I took my daughter, who was 8 at the time, to Barnes & Noble.

She’d grabbed one of those board books that are cut out to look like an animal, and this one was in the shape of a puppy. And then every page you turned was also in the shape of a puppy, and it was called The Puppy Book.

And then my daughter says, “You know what would be funnier, Dad? If it was called The Kitty Book.” And I

laughed out loud. I was like, Oh my God, that’s genius. I 100% stole this idea from my daughter. I used to get storytime with both my kids.

I would read to them and say the wrong things, but they knew the book so well that they’d be like, Hey, wait, hold on a minute. Objection, Your Honor. I would make a game of it and say the wrong thing throughout. And I thought, Wouldn’t it be fun for parents, grandparents, and teachers to have a book that’s wrong?

There’s a scene where the narrator temporarily humors the bookmark and says the right thing, then backtracks and goes back to saying the wrong things.

Do you think that kind of humor—where the absurd turns back toward the normal and then back toward the absurd again— is something that appeals to kids?

Cour tesy of the author

BEFORE DREW DAY WALT can be asked a question about his new children’s book, he has to attend to his pug, Sam, who is clamoring to be freed from his pen.

“I lead a very real life, unfortunately,” Daywalt explains with a laugh. “Dogs, kids. It’s funny. I wanted to be Quentin Tarantino back in college, and I ended up being Erma Bombeck. I’m not sure what turn I made along the way.”

Whatever turn that might have been, Daywalt has innumerable fans—both kids and adults—who are glad he made it. He started his career in television and film, writing and directing comedy and horror. Then in 2013, he published his debut children’s book, The Day the Crayons Quit, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, about a boy whose colorful art supplies go on strike, all with their own demands. The book was a massive hit, spending months at the top of the New York Times bestseller list and spawning several sequels.

Daywalt’s latest, The Wrong Book (Philomel, Feb. 27), illustrated by Alex Willmore, introduces another inanimate object come to life—a yellow bookmark who becomes increasingly angry as the narrator makes mistake after mistake. He’s confused when a dog that says “BURRRRP!” is identified as a bicycle, and apoplectic when the narrator calls a shark (who says “BAWK BAWK BAWK” and “COCK-A-DOODLE-DOOO!”) a “yummy hamburger.”

The bookmark (whom Daywalt fondly refers to as “L.G.,” for “Little Guy”) eventually learns to embrace the absurdity and roll with it.

Daywalt spoke to Kirkus via Zoom from Southern California, where he lives. Our conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

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I do, because at that point they’re going to be disappointed that it’s getting normal again, and then when it goes even more haywire, it’s even more satisfying. It’s anticipation. It’s a rhythm.

That’s one of the things I work really hard on in my books: the rhythm.

I used to be a script doctor here in Hollywood, and I always felt like dialogue is the rhythm of all narrative.

In this book, I very much wanted the dialogue between narrator and bookmark to ebb and flow, and then there’s a big laugh.

OK, we’re calming down. OK, bigger laugh. OK, all right— well, no. And then eventually by the end, the wheels come off the wagon, and he’s like, If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. And he just goes bananas on the last page.

Do you see the ending of the book as giving kids permission to embrace the absurd?

I do. I grew up on Monty Python. They’re not just funny; they’ve got their finger on what makes humans work, and they were role models for me. When I look at a picture book like this, I try to put in something for everyone. For instance, I’ll have a poo-poo joke or something about underwear, but I’m also going to teach the kids about Basquiat or Renoir. I have quotes in my books from philosophers. I did one book about Schrödinger’s cat without anybody realizing it was about Schrödinger’s cat.

The same goes for this one, because at the heart of it, I’m teaching children about onomatopoeia without them knowing it.

That actually escaped me!

See, I snuck it in on you! If you tell kids, All right, it’s lesson time, they’re like, Oh, it’s boiled peas. But if you can sneak the lesson in, disguise it as cotton candy

and hot fudge and all that stuff, then they’re like, Oh, all right. I’ll take that lesson.

Was this the first time you worked with Alex Willmore on a book?

Yes. Alex is amazing. He was brought to my attention by my editor, Jill Santopolo. My family and I were at the Seattle airport, and I got this email from Jill, saying, Hey, can you look at these illustrators? And I’m like, Oh, thank God. I have something really cool to do. My kids and I pored over [the work of] these different illustrators and they were all great, but Alex blew them away.

I can’t remember exactly which book was on his website, but there was one little detail in one little illustration that my son pointed out. It was a kitty cat or something, with such a funny expression that I was like, That’s it. I just love the tactile nature of [Alex’s] art.

You can almost peel the

characters off and hold them.

Do you ever get letters or emails from young readers?

I do, and it’s the best part of my job now. Well, it’s the second best. The best part of my job is when I go to a school or a bookstore, and I get to sit in the chair on the reading rug and perform the book. That’s number one.

Number two is getting the letters, because you’re Santa Claus—you get a letter and it’s in crayon.

I have a chest full of letters. There was one that I got to two years late.

Sometimes they’ll mail me back: Well, here’s Jordan now. It’s two years later, and now he’s taking art classes and drawing Viking ships or whatever he’s doing. He wouldn’t put down his crayons. It’s the ultimate honor as a writer.

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.

I grew up on Monty Python. They’re not just funny; they’ve got their finger on what makes humans work.

The Wrong Book

Daywalt, Drew; illus. by Alex Willmore Philomel | 40 pp. | $18.99 Feb. 27, 2024 | 9780593621967

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water, going for walks,” and eating.

After she wakes and eats, she naps again, sprawled on her back, tummy distended, the very picture of canine bliss. Pages turn, with Cooper’s lyrical text focusing on Emma and her sensations: “The days went on, shifting and taking shape, and now there were times when her whole body felt strange, but there was no stopping the days.” A gently curving line of overlapping Emmas, rising, stretching, scratching, shifting, and resettling, underscores time’s march. Adult readers may be anxious at this point, fearing Emma’s impending death with the page turn—but no, it turns out Emma’s been literally full of wonders, and she gazes mildly at a puppy emerging from her own body. Then there they are, seven little Emmas, and they now embody her dreams.

Cooper’s brushy, loose watercolors, outlined in swoops of ink, complement his Emma-focused text. She resides in a human home, but her owner appears only as tan-skinned hands extending from the margin to offer a bowl of food, caress her snout, or towel off a pup. In this way, Cooper invites readers into Emma’s interiority, allowing them to sit quietly and wonder with her.

A sweet and unexpected addition to the waiting-for-baby shelf. (Picture book. 4-6)

The Brainiac’s Book of the Body and Brain Cooper, Rosie | Illus. by Harriet Russell Thames & Hudson (64 pp.) | $17.95 April 16, 2024 | 9780500652459 Series: Brainiac’s, 2

A riveting hodgepodge of body/brain facts and features, from crania to coccyxes.

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parts, Cooper tosses off quick observations on various topics: how the brain learns, how food is digested, senses other than the five best known ones, histories of dissection and of gross obsolete medical practices, and bits of our body that have become “leftover” by evolution. Cooper includes reasonably sensitive if basic guidelines for recognizing and accepting select varieties of disabilities, neurodiversity, and gender expression—the last supplemented by a glossary of “gender words” at the end. Throughout the loosely arranged spreads, an interactive component is added by simple tests (look at 12 objects for 15 seconds and write down everything you remember, invite your peers to identify different ice cream flavors while pinching their noses), demonstrations of optical and muscle reflex quirks, and projects such as a “Poopcorn Experiment” for researchers who want to time their food’s digestive journey. Young readers seeking systematic tours of human anatomy or the history of medicine will have to look elsewhere, but they’re likely to find plenty of surprising facts and insights here.

Fascinating fare for amateur anatomists. (glossary, online resource list, index) (Nonfiction. 8-10)

Gather Round Covell, David | Viking (40 pp.) | $18.99 March 26, 2024 | 9780593327630

The ancient comfort of a campfire’s glow provides both a space for new friends and a sturdy brace against the dark.

“Aren’t we lucky / we’re not alone?” An adult, a child, and a dog travel through the wilderness until it’s time to set up camp.

“Gather rocks. // Rocks all around. / Let’s make a fire / before the sun goes down.” After the trio gather tinder, the resulting flames seemingly produce phoenixes and foxes in their flickers. The night might be shadowy

and scary, but soon food is cooking over a roaring fire. Fellow hungry travelers then join in, providing songs and company amid fireflies and roasted marshmallows. Noting in the gentle afterword that “a campfire is a living thing: Just like you,” Covell explains how to safely tend one, bank it, and put it out. In this way the book celebrates the campfire and recognizes how fire helps foster a sense of community, but Covell also acknowledges the harm fires can do if left untended. Innovative art constructed from digitally collaged cut paper, charcoal, chalk, “all kinds of pencils, and a pinch of salt” will keep young readers enthralled, particularly if they notice the little red ant that pops up in almost every scene. The human protagonists are brown-skinned; other characters are racially diverse.

The darkness and unknown are no match for people, song, and the warmth of a good fire in this reassuring paean to community. (Picture book. 4-7)

Biggest Secret Ever!

Coven, Wanda | Illus. by Anna Abramskaya Simon Spotlight (352 pp.) | $14.99 March 5, 2024 | 9781665948340 | Series: Middle School and Other Disasters, 3

Heidi Heckelbeck is a witch and first-year student at Broomfield Academy, a boarding school that educates magical and nonmagical kids alike.

Heidi’s an ordinary tween, concerned with clothes, friendships, crushes (currently on Nick Lee, who’s not in the School of Magic), and her tenuous relationship with Melanie, her often-mean “broommate” and acquaintance from home. She’s also excited about learning witchcraft and is pleased to receive private magic lessons from Mrs. Kettledrum. Her teacher instructs her in calming meditation techniques as a prelude to K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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A riveting hodgepodge of body/brain facts and features, from crania to coccyxes.

THE BR AINIAC’S BOOK OF THE BODY AND BR AIN

mind-reading and emergency spells.

Sometimes Heidi writes spells enthusiastically but incorrectly, however, with unintended consequences. She also faces a difficult decision about revealing a big secret about new friend Isabelle. Heidi pushes the boundaries of appropriate behavior (both in the real world and the magical one) and must think hard about self-discipline. Breezy and fun, this volume will satisfy devotees who have enjoyed following this engaging character since she was in elementary school, with each entry slowly but surely moving up in complexity as Heidi grows and becomes a little more serious. Her latest adventures are delivered with the usual humorous grayscale illustrations and fonts that vary in size and style, moving the story along quickly. The volume will entice new fans, welcome reluctant readers, and please those who have been awaiting Heidi’s latest exploits.

Isabelle reads Black; other central characters are cued white.

Fun middle school antics with a dollop of light magic and considerations of loyalty. (Fiction. 9-12)

The Mighty Onion Crilley, Mark | Little, Brown (240 pp.) $14.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780316490313 Series: The Mighty Onion, 1

The road to superhero success is paved with collaboration challenges for a pair of middle schoolers in this series opener.

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Quigly is not an artist—or at least not one who can draw the kind of art he needs. His eye fixed firmly on fame and fortune, he’s thrilled when he comes up with a hero whose superstrength comes from eating radioactive onion rings. So convinced is Eliot of the great potential of this idea that he persuades talented classmate Pamela Jones to draw the first episode. Though Eliot’s unselfconscious enthusiasm and unchecked confidence in his own genius are annoying and get him in trouble, the first installment of The Mighty Onion is championed by Pam and Eliot’s teacher and wins them followers and fan mail. Eliot soon runs afoul of his illustrator, however, since he fails to yield any artistic ground to Pam in storylines, dialogue, or anything else.

His bumpy journeys to understanding his calling as a writer as well as grasping the elements of a sincere apology are convincing and very funny. Collage elements—crumpled drawings, torn pieces of paper, inspirational stickers, and a couple of fortune cookies—add energetic visual interest to this hybrid graphic novel/ notebook narrative. Main characters read white; Dr. Hubris, the greenskinned, goblinlike supervillain of Eliot and Pam’s comics, inexplicably sports a Nehru jacket and topi.

Highly entertaining. (Graphic fiction.

9-13)

For more by Mark Crilley, visit Kirkus online.

Mama in the Moon Cronin, Doreen | Illus. by Brian Cronin Rocky Pond Books/Penguin (40 pp.) $18.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780593698204

After Baby sloth takes a tumble, he notices the nighttime life around him while waiting for his mama to retrieve him.

Baby sloth loves snuggling close with his mother up high in the trees as the moon looms overhead. But when he falls from the tree, he’s frightened. To calm and distract him as she makes her way down to get him, Mama points out the night’s beautiful sights: bright yellow flowers, wriggling pink worms, and brilliant blue moths.

When Mama and Baby sloth are together again at last, all the colors erupt together, a symbolic celebration of the sloths’ love and reunion. Brian Cronin expertly plays with shadow and light, the moon a guiding light. The shadowy, complex darkness results in a backdrop perfectly paired with the splashy hues of the night life. Even Mama herself blends into the trees and darkness, while Baby’s peachy fur and pink nose draw readers’ eye and focus.

For much of the book, Mama is obscured from readers, just as she is from Baby after his fall. For such concise writing, the book has many layers of story, which means that there’s plenty for readers of all ages to take from its pages.

A sweet, compelling tale of motherchild love. (Picture book. 2-5)

I Am Book Cull, Joren | Penguin Workshop (48 pp.) $18.99 | March 5, 2024 | 9780593659243

A story finds its audience.

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reason it’s been moved to New School Elementary, where it hasn’t enjoyed nearly the same level of popularity.

Pimply teenagers pull it off the shelf and rip out pages, other kids drop it on the floor or use it to conceal comic books, and, during a classroom read-aloud, one child yells, “The art is bad in this book!” This triggers an identity crisis, with Book trying to change itself into a horror story, a fantasy book, or a dictionary, like its other literary friends. But those helpful stories remind Book that “each person’s perfect book is…different from each other,” and at the end Book goes home with an excited reader. What could have been an important message about individuality and the right to read is muddied by a meandering plot, extremely busy illustrations, and inconsistent rhyme. Some books about books play with the creative limits of a metatext, but this one gets lost in its own goofiness, trying to stay on top of contemporary slang (“That’s so cringe!”) rather than delving into anything deeper.

An exuberant attempt at exploring metafiction that fumbles. (Picture book. 5-8)

Madame Badobedah and the Old Bones Dahl, Sophie | Illus. by Lauren O’Hara Walker US/Candlewick (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781536233568 Series: Madame Badobedah

Mabel’s comrade in imaginative exploits is no stranger to daring deeds.

As Mabel strongly suspected when she first met the titular character in Madame Badobedah (2020), the “longest, oldest, best-ever guest” of the Mermaid Hotel really does have “jewel thief” on her resume of wild occupations. Mabel, a selfproclaimed adventurer, adores the glamorous and slightly rascally old lady. When Madame Badobedah 108

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invites her to open one of the many drawers in her “dressing table of dreams,” two stories emerge. Taking an enormous tooth out of a drawer, Madame Badobedah explains that she pulled it from the jaw of a triceratops in pain. Meanwhile, the green glow from another drawer seems quite suspicious, and Madame B says they’ll have to return the mysterious object tonight. The pair venture through Madame Badobedah’s Mermaid Closet that evening and arrive at the Natural History Museum, where the bones of an iguanodon, a T. rex, and a triceratops—all Madame Badobedah’s old friends—come to life for Mabel.

Finally, Madame B returns the mystery item—an emerald that she spontaneously pocketed years ago while giving a lecture. Madame Badobedah is a wonderfully appealing character who proves that you’re never too old for an adventure, while precocious, earnest Mabel has a pitch-perfect narratorial voice. O’Hara’s bright watercolors are whimsical and just a little retro. Characters present white.

Marvelous fun: Who wouldn’t want a friend like this? (Picture book. 4-9)

A Kurta To Remember Dalvi Pandya, Gauri | Illus. by Avani Dwivedi Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 15, 2024 | 9781534113107 Series: Own Voices, Own Stories

An Indian child prepares to move to a new country, leaving beloved grandparents behind.

Surveying a pile of half-packed moving boxes filled with all the things the family will need, the child wonders, “What about the things my heart will miss?” In the next room, the protagonist’s Aaji is hard at work on her sewing machine, making a kurta for the child. But this isn’t just any kurta; it has pockets. Aaji explains that she’ll fill the pockets with objects that will remind the child of family and home: sweet-smelling flowers, bangles, and a clay lamp. Still upset, the

protagonist asks what will happen if the flowers’ scent fades, the bangles break, and the oil lamp goes unlit. In response, Aaji and Ajoba sing a Hindu prayer that will remind the little one of the unbreakable bond between grandparents and grandchild. The main character reveals a secret worry: “What if you forget me some day?

What if I forget you some day?” The protagonist assuages these fears by stitching two more kurtas—for Aaji and Ajoba. Accompanied by simply sketched, vibrantly illustrated images, this wonderfully rhythmic text perfectly encapsulates the trepidation that many immigrant children feel when they leave family and memories behind, though at times the small font of the text gets lost amid the art. A glossary with photos defines the Marathi words used in the story.

A tender tribute to the importance of preserving memories of one’s homeland. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

Kicked Out Dassu, A.M. | Tu Books (386 pp.) | $23.95 April 23, 2024 | 9781643796871

This stand-alone companion to Boy, Everywhere (2021), which centered on Syrian refugee Sami and his family’s flight to Manchester, England, is told from the perspective of Sami’s best friend, Ali. In this volume, the boys deepen their camaraderie, face racism, and fight for a friend, all while 13-year-old Ali faces personal turmoil. Ali and Sami are living their best lives, relaxing poolside with their friend Mark at the luxury home his mum bought with lottery proceeds. But her racist boyfriend accuses 16-year-old Aadam, an unaccompanied minor taken in by Sami’s family, of stealing money, and he kicks the visitors out.

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With Aadam’s asylum case in jeopardy, leaving him at risk of deportation to war-torn Syria, the boys band together to organize a fundraiser the best way they know how: with their soccer skills. They even successfully recruit a famous Premier League player for their charity match! Ali faces a huge life change when his absentee father moves nearby, and the seemingly perfect half brother he doesn’t know joins his school. Dassu expertly handles difficult topics relating to the adversity and othering that asylum-seekers and refugees face in ways that are relatable for young readers. She broaches the storyline that explores Ali’s personal life with sensitivity, showing the internal upheaval following his father’s reappearance, including themes of rejection and anger. This novel is an engaging modern tale that serves to build empathy.

An important and triumphant read. (glossary, author’s note, resources) (Fiction. 11-14)

Girls of the World: Doing More Than Ever Before Davis, Linsey & Michael Tyler | Illus. by Lucy Fleming | Zonderkidz (32 pp.) | $19.99 March 5, 2024 | 9780310749660

Calling all girls: Stand up and be counted!

Stepping up and speaking up, doing what needs to be done, expressing themselves, dreaming big dreams: This is what girls do and what they’re capable of. Girls are out there and in the forefront of things, both individually and collectively.

You’d better believe it’s a “great truth all people should know. / The girls of the world are ready to go!” This uplifting, empowering book, expressed in jaunty verse, depicts different girls who are diverse in skin color, hair color and style, race and ethnicity, religion, and physical ability (two use wheelchairs; one uses a prosthetic leg and crutches).

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from mechanic to newscaster; painting; publicly voicing opinions and ideas; and, notably, uniting with other girls so as to affirm each other’s strengths and bolster belief in themselves. Girls would seem to be the primary readership here, but young boys might well learn to better understand and respect a thing or two about their female siblings, relatives, classmates, and neighbors. The colorful illustrations, which portray wide-eyed, mostly smiling girls and young women on the path to success, are cheery and expressive.

You go, girls—read, be you, stay excellent, and achieve! (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Nothing: John Cage and 4’33” Day, Nicholas | Illus. by Chris Raschka Neal Porter/Holiday House (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9780823454099

An introduction to an (in)famous concert work that asks the musical question: What is to be heard when no lyrics, no score, and no instruments are played?

Describing, and then in a far wordier postscript explaining, what the piece known only by its length is all about, Day recounts its 1952 premier, during which pianist David Tudor sat on stage for the indicated time doing—as Raschka repeatedly inscribes with page-filling glee in his luminous, exuberantly brushed images of the scene—“nothing.” Audience reactions were understandably mixed: “We have been tricked, they say. They do not use their inside voices.” But it wasn’t a trick; Cage, gifted since birth

with (as the author puts it) “massive ears,” wanted audiences to realize that “there is always something to hear inside the silence.” He goes on to explain that each time the piece is performed, “the audience hears something different. They hear whatever there is to be heard in that moment.” Younger readers should have no trouble buying in to the notion, and for older foot draggers, the ensuing smaller-type essay eloquently builds a case for Cage’s sincerity with further details about his boundarypushing works and his involvement with Zen. The backmatter also includes photos of the composer, a copy of the “score,” and a bibliography of titles aimed mostly at adults.

Goofy yet profound. (Informational picture book. 6-9)

Anxious De Luca, Luciana | Illus. by Natalí Barbani Annick Press (32 pp.) | $18.99 March 19, 2024 | 9781773218373

A child processes a difficult emotion.

A young girl sometimes feels odd. The world becomes overwhelming, and it’s hard for her to find her balance. Everything seems dark and scary, and the girl doesn’t want to dance or meet new friends; she just wants to scream. But she’s learned in these moments to ask for help and breathe slowly and deeply. When she does, she finds a sense of balance once more. The book has a gardening and nature theme, which creates a focused, stimulating visual landscape. The color

A tender tribute to the importance of preserving memories of one’s homeland.

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literally drains out of the protagonist when a bout of anxiety overtakes her, and it returns when she feels calm and centered. The protagonist appears to wear moth or butterfly wings—a symbol of growth, perhaps?—and in one scene, a group of children wear other animal get-ups (mouse ears, a snail’s shell). The large flowers of the garden can be menacing when depicted in grayscale or luxurious in their vivid hues—symbolic of the child’s emotional state. This tale offers encouragement to readers experiencing similar emotions; backmatter includes suggestions, strategies, and resources for parents and caregivers. On the pages that are sapped of color, the child has paper-white skin, but later in the book, she’s depicted as brownskinned; other children are diverse.

Beautiful and reassuring. (Picture book. 3-6)

Tiny Troubles: Nelli’s Purpose Diao, Sophie | Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) | $19.99 | April 9, 2024 9780063214460

Two plant pals seek meaning in life.

Nelli wants a purpose. Worthi doesn’t know what that is but suggests they search in the forest. With Worthi’s help, Nelli frees a frog stuck to a spiderweb. Then the pair meet an overturned stink bug; Nelli sets it upright. The bug suggests that Nelli “look…within” for her purpose, but Worthi decides they’ll continue looking “without.” Nelli’s now beset with worries. What if her purpose is in the ocean or outer space? Staunch ally Worthi calms her. Some bees suggest that Nelli start by thinking about what she most loves to do. Nelli responds that she enjoys being with Worthi. In the end, she believes she still hasn’t found her purpose, but Worthi reminds her—and readers—of their accomplishments today: helping 110

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Hello to a glorious new exploration of nature’s delights for young readers.

HELLO, SUN

others. Worthi makes it clear that Nelli unwittingly found her purpose after all by being kind and helpful; Worthi finds a purpose, too: being Nelli’s supportive friend. This message is delivered quite subtly, and kids may not pick up on it. Still, this comical, thought-provoking story will win hearts. The colorful digital illustrations, often set in vignettes or panels, burst with good cheer. With round heads and chubby little limbs, the anthropomorphized plants cut adorable figures. The characters’ dialogue is set in different colors in speech bubbles.

Sweetly philosophical. (Picture book.

4-7)

Kirkus Star

Survival of the Fittest Donnelly, Rebecca | Illus. by Misa Saburi | Henry Holt (112 pp.) | $17.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781250805317 Series: Survival of the Fittest, 1

In a game show format, six animals pitch natural qualities or features that have inspired human technological innovations.

Shark Tank has nothing on this wild creature smackdown. The panel of judges is literally a tank of sharks, and the six contestants range from a peacock mantis shrimp with a super-fast punch and a shy gecko with nanohairs on its feet that can grip nearly any surface to a confident humpback whale sporting hydrodynamic bumps, or tubercles, on its fins.

“Sponsored” by the growers of Leafy Green Solar Curtains (“The only curtains that store sunlight as energy… while they block your neighbors from seeing you play video games in your underwear!”), the contest ultimately awards one lucky winner a Best in Engineering Design. But Donnelly goes on to explain why, for instance, the whale’s lumpy tubercles inspired more aerodynamic fan blades and how the gecko’s toes have led to advances in spacecraft and to devices that allow humans to stick to glass walls. Along with leaving plenty of space for the variously timid or aggressive pitches and lucid anatomical descriptions, Saburi’s tidily drawn cartoon panels give both the banter and the presentations a properly rapid flow that adds to the fun and suspense. “Nature,” as the hermit crab host observes at the outset, “was the first inventor—so let’s see what we can learn!”

An epic clash, well worth the investment. (Graphic nonfiction. 8-11)

Kirkus Star

Hello, Sun Downing, Julie | Neal Porter/Holiday House (32 pp.) | $18.99 | April 16, 2024 9780823452057

Sunshine brings a fresh new beginning.

Rays of sparkling sunshine herald a new day.

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come out to forage, frolic, and, when necessary, hide from predators. (Some creatures use the occasion to nap.)

Greetings, daytime. So long, nighttime! But, for all its shimmering beauty, daytime is fleeting; before you know it, night shadows encroach.

Soon, the sun will set, and it will be evening. The stars and moon will emerge, and just like that, it will be time to bid farewell to the sun and daylight. Told in charming, succinct verses that scan very well, this is a most worthy companion to Downing’s Hello, Moon (2021). Text and images meld wonderfully to bring a fresh perspective to what’s going on in nature during the daylight hours. The author/illustrator makes clear that each new day is radiant and full of possibilities. The text features numerous words beginning with S, perhaps paying homage to the word sun. The artwork, created with colored pencil, watercolor, and liquid acrylic, then combined digitally, is dazzling, with brilliant hues leaping from the pages. Children will especially appreciate—and learn from—the various animal activities depicted throughout.

Hello, sun; hello to a glorious new exploration of nature’s delights for young readers. (Picture book. 4-7)

A Treasure of Measures Downs, Mike | Illus. by Joy Hwang Ruiz Chronicle Books (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 9, 2024 | 9781797212159

Measure with pleasure!

This marvelously written book, expressed in jaunty verses that scan beautifully, teaches readers how to measure all sorts of things, using a variety of standard measuring units, such as seconds, inches, years, decibels, and lumens. (Did we mention that the book is also a nifty vocabulary developer?) Perhaps even more important, the volume challenges youngsters to get creative and “measure” intangibles such as life K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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experiences—including friendship. In other words, “How about getting some measuring done / in ways that are wildly, wonderfully fun?” Readers can measure bike rides not just by distance, but by feeling the “whooshing of wind as we go,” rainfall by how many puddles we can skip and hop into, and growth “in how far we jump, in how high we swing.” And how about considering books not just in terms of the numbers of pages read or time spent reading, but by counting how many monsters are in a story or how many times we laughed, cried, or cheered for the tale’s heroes? Cheerful, dynamic illustrations, rendered in ink and pencil and colored digitally, depict characters who are diverse in terms of race and age. Children will love volunteering their ideas for measuring things in their own lives.

Measure this book in the big smiles it will elicit. (systems of measurement, units of measurement in this book and beyond, let’s measure together!)

(Informational picture book. 6-9)

I Want To Be a Scientist Driscoll, Laura | Illus. by Catalina Echeverri | Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) $17.99 | $5.99 paper | Feb. 20, 2024 9780062989659 | 9780062989642 paper Series: I Can Read!

Aspiring young scientists, take heed!

Traveling on a ship to the North Pole would seem an adventure in itself, but the young, unnamed narrator, whose mother heads up a team of marine biologists, also gets to meet eight other scientists involved in other specialties.

On almost every page of this early reader, we encounter someone engaged in different fieldwork: a hydrologist, a microbiologist, a geologist, a seismologist, a climate scientist, a meteorologist, a zoologist, and an astronomer. As the narrator thinks about careers in science, more specialty roles—botanist, epidemiologist, and physicist—are

added to the list. The work of these scientists is clearly and simply explained. (Appended is a short list with descriptions of 10 specialties.) The unfussy illustrations are washed in glowing colors, with many shades of blue; when snow forms the background, the scientists’ bright jackets pop. The ship itself is a fire-engine red. Beginners might need help reading or pronouncing some of the researchers’ special fields, but overall this is an engaging introduction to a wide and important area of work. The scientists include men and women and are racially diverse.

The narrator and Mom are lightskinned; the child uses crutches.

An informative and accessible child’s-eye view of STEM careers.

(Early reader/nonfiction. 4-8)

This Is Not My Lunchbox!

Dupuis, Jennifer | Illus. by Carol Schwartz Tilbury House (32 pp.) | $18.95 April 15, 2024 | 9781668936856

What do animals eat? Find out!

In a lush green woodland, a light-skinned child sets up a tent and hungrily opens a red lunchbox. Aaargh! It’s crawling with insects and spiders! “No thank you! I will NOT eat that! This is not my lunch box. This lunch box belongs to the…” A page turn reveals the answer: “downy woodpecker.” Over the course of the book, the child opens more differently colored lunchboxes to reveal the food preferences of a jumping mouse, black bear, praying mantis, moose, wood frog, red fox, American robin, skunk, lightning bug, and white-tailed deer. Each time, the same refrain appears. The contents are alliterative: “gnarly nuts, wiggling worms, tangy truffles”; “a fuzzy fly, an angry aphid, a meaty moth.” There’s no soft-pedaling some predators’ diets: Skunks do eat furry moles, and foxes do consume the little cousins of the cute mouse featured earlier. The child turns down many items that >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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S E E N A N D H E A R D // C H I L D R E N ' S

SEEN AND HEARD New Novel Will Imagine Anne Frank’s Pre-Diary Life Alice Hoffman’s When We Flew Away will be published by Scholastic this summer.

Andreas Arnold/Picture Alliance v ia Get t y Images

Bestselling author Alice Hoffman will release a middle-grade novel that imagines what Anne Frank’s life was like before she began keeping a diary.

Hoffman’s forthcoming book, When We Flew Away: A Novel of Anne Frank Before the Diary, is slated for release by Scholastic on September 17. Written with the cooperation of the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank House, the book was initiated by Scholastic editors Lisa Sandell and Miriam Farbey, who tapped Hoffman for the project, the Associated Press reports.

Hoffman is a prolific author of fiction for adults, best known for her 1995 novel, Practical Magic. She has written many works of magic

realism, fantasy, and historical fiction, including a 2019 novel about a young German Jewish girl set during the Holocaust, The World That We Knew.

In a statement issued

by Scholastic, Hoffman called Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl, which she read at age 12, “the book that affected me more than any other.”

She added, “It changed the way I looked at the world. It changed the person I was and the person I would become.”

Anne Frank House Executive Director Ronald Leopold said in a statement that he hoped the book would “persuade young readers that contributing to a better world is both necessary and possible.”—A.R.

For more books by Alice Hoffman, visit Kirkus online.

A copy of Anne Frank’s original diary.

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humans typically eat: strawberries, eggs, fish, and corn. But Schwartz’s precise, radiant, richly colored illustrations make even mealworms and larvae look tasty. On the final double-page spread, the child (whose own rainbow-hued lunchbox holds fruit, a cucumber, yogurt, and crackers) is one of a dozen diverse kids holding colorful lunchboxes, with most of the featured animals peeking from the trees behind them.

A clever and lovely introduction to animal diets. (animal matching game) (Informational picture book. 4-8)

How Animals Sleep Dvořák, Jiří | Illus. by Marie Štumpfová Trans. by Benjamin Lovett | Red Comet Press (40 pp.) | $18.99 | April 16, 2024 9781636550978

Bedtime in the animal world.

Sixteen animal species are portrayed sleeping in appropriate habitats in this Czech import. Each spread includes a brief piece of text set directly on a full-bleed image.

Designed, most probably, to be read aloud to sleepy preschoolers, the narrative emphasizes sleep-time behaviors: Polar bears are “tucked in by the white blanket,” and the “briny bed” of sea otters “rocks them till morning.” This would make a good bedtime choice for children who relish facts. But some of this information isn’t strictly true. We’re told that giraffes dream of “juicy acacias” and that cats dream of rodents and creamy milk—pure speculation, even with the technology available to today’s scientists. The author notes that hazel dormice “live in almost every forest” and that readers likely haven’t encountered them only because dormice are nocturnal—neglecting to specify that this species is native to Europe. He also states that “once a bumblebee leaves its nest, it never returns.” Bumblebees in the U.S., however, are social creatures that live in underground hives. On the whole, 114

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though, this appealing, child-directed narrative is smoothly written. The other animals covered include pelicans, parrotfish, seals, flamingos, green tree pythons, foxes, peacocks, camels, dogs, and common swifts—an interesting and unusual assortment brought to life by Štumpfová’s beautifully rendered screen prints.

A lushly illustrated and soothing bedtime read—but look elsewhere for animal facts. (Informational picture book. 4-7)

Earnest Sandpiper’s Great Ascent Ering, Timothy Basil | Candlewick (48 pp.) $18.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9780763697358

A young bird discovers that it takes persistence and confidence to accomplish one’s goals.

Today, the Sandpiper children will learn to fly. Two of them are ready; the third, Earnest, isn’t. Earnest’s siblings fly like pros immediately. But Earnest holds back. Fortunately, his parents and siblings are patient. They offer Earnest guidance and reassurance but don’t force the issue. The rest of the family flies down the beach on a practice run, leaving Earnest alone. He makes a flying attempt but fails. Soon he spots a free-flying balloon and follows it into the water. Alas, one of Earnest’s legs becomes tightly entangled in its dangling red ribbon, which itself becomes entwined around a log.

The tide’s rising, and Earnest’s cries for help go unanswered until…the sight of his returning family finally arouses sufficient belief in himself that he feels ready to fly. Earnest flaps his wings hard, which snaps the tangled ribbon, thus freeing him to take glorious flight, to the cheers of his proud family—and of readers, who’ll have been rooting for Earnest all along. This reassuring story is about bolstering self-esteem and doing things at one’s own pace; would that everyone were

surrounded by the encouraging support and love Earnest enjoys. The colorful charcoal, ink, and acrylic illustrations are cheerful and expressive. An author’s note offers more information on the dangers balloons pose to wildlife.

The empowering message here: It’s OK to take your own sweet time, so just believe in yourself. (Picture book. 4-7)

Water: Discovering the Precious Resource All Around Us Fadeeva, Olga | Trans. by Lena Traer Eerdmans (56 pp.) | $18.99 | April 9, 2024 9780802856227

A wellspring of facts and reflections about our watery world.

Following the drift of Wind (2023), Fadeeva places a lightly tan-skinned child dressed in an easily visible red shift in her flowing illustrations—nearly all done in blue-dominant hues. The little one plants a tree over deep layers of groundwater, boats down a river and through a flooded town, and otherwise leads young viewers into glimpses of some of the many ways we use and interact with water. Text translated from Russian and presented in a question-and-answer format offers a wealth of information on topics from the water cycle to why seas and oceans are salty (and why some are saltier than others). Fadeeva also considers water deities in select ancient cultures worldwide and explores human uses for water, such as bathing, commerce, undersea exploration, and freshwater delivery systems through history. Some For more by Olga Fadeeva, visit Kirkus online.

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An achingly authentic and relatable examination of adolescent friendship.

WIRES CROSSED

of the questions encourage broader thoughts: “Why does it rain?” “What is life without water?” “What do humans think about water’s mysteries?” Though the power of water to shape lives and landforms comes through clearly, the author also sounds a cautionary note at the end about the threat that pollutants, particularly microplastics, pose not just to our oceans, but to our own well-being.

Almost as deep as it is wide. (Informational picture book. 7-9)

Kirkus Star

A Game of Noctis Fagan, Deva | Atheneum (320 pp.) | $17.99 April 9, 2024 | 9781665930192

In Dantessa, where people’s Great Game rankings determine their status, Pia accepts a deadly challenge to save her grandfather.

Three hundred years ago, the prince of Dantessa challenged Death to a game and won.

Now, magically arbitrated gaming drives the island’s culture, and 12-year-old Pia Paro is finally old enough to participate. Then her grandfather loses his status, and an arbiter of the game’s magical constructs disappears him to labor as a pawn. Desperate for the money that can save Gramps, Pia joins the Seafoxes, a team comprising four other impoverished players who are attempting the deadly game of noctis.

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and cheat) are slim, though. Even harder is competing against a team that includes Renzo, Pia’s former best friend, whose actions lost Gramps his job and home. Perhaps the Seafoxes’ only chance is to change the rules.

Dantessa’s Venetian-inspired world of canals and palazzos is intricately built, lush with sensory detail, and a vividly imagined magical gaming culture. Pia is a resilient, brave, and empathetic character. Struggling with the Great Game’s innate unfairness and Renzo’s inexplicable betrayal, she wants to follow her grandfather’s advice to play safe but risks it all for a chance at greater change. Both the lead and supporting characters are distinct and intriguing, and the action is expertly paced. Diversity in skin tone and sexuality is casually woven into the story.

A richly creative magical adventure about challenging an unfair status quo. (Fantasy. 10-13)

Kirkus Star

Wires Crossed Fantaskey, Beth | Illus. by ONeillJones Clarion/HarperCollins (240 pp.) | $24.99 April 30, 2024 | 9780358395447

A 13-year-old navigates middle school’s constantly shifting social dynamics.

Everything is changing for STEM-loving Mia. Her best friend, Addy, has been pulling away, seemingly more concerned with elevating her social standing. When Mia hears that Tariq,

her bestie from science camp, is moving to her town, she’s initially excited—until she sees that Tariq has shed his bespectacled boyish look and is now confoundingly cute and sporty.

Mia is suddenly keenly aware that her family (fanboy father, coupon-clipping mother, and insect-loving little brother), who once seemed lovably quirky, now embarrass her. When a teacher announces the school’s Science Olympics, Mia and Tariq decide to team up with artsy Kinsey and disorganized Evan. But the group’s dynamics begin to erode: Could Tariq and Kinsey like each other? As the school’s first dance and the Science Olympics near, Mia must reconcile first crushes, friendship squabbles, and the daily ups and downs of the constantly changing landscape of middle school. Fantaskey’s endearing stand-alone graphic novel captures the gentle angst of this age with pitchperfection, combining empathetic characters with gentle humor that’s reminiscent of the work of Kayla Miller and Raina Telgemeier. Vivid full-color illustrations in tidily arranged panels highlight facial expressions, emphasizing the characters’ emotions throughout. Mia’s dad has brown skin and straight black hair; her light-skinned mom is blond and blue-eyed, and there’s racial diversity in the supporting cast.

An achingly authentic and relatable examination of adolescent friendship.

(Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Princess Pru and the Switcheroo Fergus, Maureen | Illus. by Danesh Mohiuddin | Owlkids Books (32 pp.) $18.95 | April 16, 2024 | 9781771475341

Oddly, no one seems to notice when a princess and her hulking, gray-skinned best friend switch roles.

Despite having two loving royal dads, a pet ostrich, and an “ogre-tastic” best friend (introduced in 2023’s FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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Princess Pru and the Ogre on the Hill), Pru chafes at having to eat her veggies before dessert and go to bed at a set time. So she jumps at Oggy’s suggestion that they slip into the local town for makeovers and then swap places.

But while fashionably clad Oggy charms oblivious Kings Karl and Knish (one tall, crowned, and, like Pru, light-skinned; the other short, a bit darker, and sporting a turban) by eating 47 bowls of stewed spinach and actually going to bed early that night, Pru finds his drafty, sparely furnished tower a lonely place. Actually, neither one is entirely happy with the change.

So when the burly “princess” is snatched away by a dragon the next day, by the time Pru arrives for the rescue, both are ready to switch their identities along with their (unusually stretchy) outfits. Playing the “Prince and the Pauper” premise for belly laughs, this comical poke at class and gender expectations features properly boisterous cartoon illustrations, culminating in a festive shower of “ogre-friendly treats” from racially diverse crowds of cheering villagers greeting the returning adventurers.

Tweaks conventions with tongue firmly embedded in cheek. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Star

The Other Side of Perfect Florence, Melanie & Richard Scrimger Scholastic (256 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781339002859

A gripping story, told in two voices, about the need to belong.

Cody Stouffer, who’s white, is growing up in an unpredictable environment with an absent mother and an abusive father. He craves safety and security. Thirteen-year-old Autumn Bird, who’s Cree, lives in a wealthy Toronto neighborhood with her parents, a doctor and an artist, and 116

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she hangs with the cool group at school. One night, she finds Cody lying semiconscious on the ground near her home, unwashed and physically battered. Although she’s ignored him at school, Autumn is moved by Cody’s plight. He’s terrified of being sent back to his father, so she sneaks him into her father’s art studio.

When Autumn’s parents inevitably discover his presence, they model empathy and compassion, even though Cody’s been influenced by his father’s racist attitudes toward Indigenous people and makes deeply insensitive comments, angering Autumn. As Cody tries to navigate his confusing new life, he’s unsure of whom to trust.

Autumn, relying on her own instincts, is on a path to figuring out her authentic place among her friends.

Florence (Cree and Scottish) and Scrimger layer their characters’ alternating voices with insightful descriptions and metaphors. Both young people display a degree of confidence and grow over the course of the book as they learn to better discern their circumstances while dealing with subtle acts of exclusion.

An evocative narrative about identity, community, and the power of nurturing relationships. (Fiction. 9-13)

Mavis the Bravest Fraser, Lu | Illus. by Sarah Warburton Godwin Books (32 pp.) | $16.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781250344823

Knitting and bravery go hand in hand in this poultry-rife ode to locating the courage within.

Mavis? She’s never claimed to be the bravest chicken in the barn. That honor goes to her friend Marge, who urges Mavis to seek out the wide world beyond their safe little yard. But Mavis, snug with her knitting, is happy to stick with what she already knows. After all, to her, everything seems scary. “Nighttime… and daytime…and anything HAIRY! / LOUD things and FAST things and

anything WHIZZY!” But when a thief makes off with Sandra the sheep, Mavis finds a well of courageousness inside of herself that she never knew she had. The theft of Sandra doesn’t make a great deal of sense except as a necessary plot point; indeed, it’s the weakest element of an otherwise enjoyable paean to inner strength.

Really, though, it’s Mavis’ heroic knitting that’s the savior of the day, and Warburton’s charming art renders both the crafting and the barnyard denizens with equal aplomb (her chickens sport charming knitted tops and colorful handkerchief headwear).

The gentle rhyming text comes close to cloying didacticism but remains steady throughout. Both farmer and thief present as white.

Evildoers beware! This little chicken is finding her pluck and inspiring kids everywhere to do the same. (Picture book. 3-6)

The Invisible Story Gamboa, Jaime | Illus. by Wen Hsu Chen Trans. by Daniel Hahn | Lantana (36 pp.) $18.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781915244765

A self-conscious book meets its perfect reader.

Unlike the library’s more well-known stories, which boast stunning illustrations or golden letters, the titular book has never been read. Shelved in a dark corner, it shies away from readers’ glances, chanting, “I’m just a ghost, nobody can see me.” But one day, a blind girl specifically seeks out the book. It vehemently protests as she starts to open it…and finally it confesses that it’s blank. Undaunted, the girl reveals that the book isn’t meant to be read via sight. Its seemingly blank pages are written in braille, “the language you read with your fingertips.” Happily, the book realizes that “no one story [is] better than any other, that they [are] just different.”

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page, which evokes a sense of invisibility, while jewel-toned creatures suggest enticing adventures as they swirl from open books. Sadly, mixed messages mar this tale, translated from Spanish.

The book’s being “hidden away” implies that it’s been segregated from the other titles, which feels incongruent with the morals of inclusion and acceptance. While the girl’s “crystal” voice and “bright as a butterfly” laugh suit the story’s fairy tale–esque tone, they may also evoke the trope of portraying disabled people as angelic.

Though informative backmatter correctly defines braille as a writing system rather than a language, this important distinction is unfortunately omitted from the primary text.

A well-meaning and eye-catching work that nevertheless misses the mark. (Picture book. 4-6)

Wake Up, Little Pin!: The Story of a Sleepy Sapling Garbutt, Loretta | Illus. by Marianne Ferrer Owlkids Books (32 pp.) | $18.95 March 12, 2024 | 9781771475600

A mother pin oak calls on the help of forest creatures and even fungi in the soil to wake her leafy offspring after a long winter’s sleep.

At Mother Pin’s request, Red Squirrel asks Vole to loosen the ground by digging tunnels and enlists Porcupine to poop out a “nutritious breakfast” at Little Pin’s base. Mother Pin also asks the underground filaments of fungal mycelia to send some of her own nourishing sugars to the seedling’s roots. Anthropomorphic though all this might seem, the word choices reflect a concept that the author explains in her afterword—that forests are a responsive, interdependent “Wood Wide Web” in which trees do communicate and really may recognize and care for saplings. In her graceful watercolors, Ferrer sticks to naturalistically rendered flora and fauna in K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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depicting a seasonal transition; woodland frogs leap into freshets of snowmelt, birds perch on budding branches, mushrooms sprout in profusion, and the sunlight takes on a green cast as days pass and Little Pin slowly leafs out to fullness. Taking a bit of forgivable poetic license, Garbutt concludes that “the two trees…felt happy to be part of their forest family.”

Though this tale centers on an awakening, the peaceful, idyllic tone makes it an apt candidate for bedtime sharing, too.

An intimate and accurate picture of a natural cycle. (further reading) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Saving Delicia: A Story About Small Seeds and Big Dreams Gehl, Laura | Illus. by Patricia Metola Flyaway Books (40 pp.) | $19.00 April 9, 2024 | 9781947888449

Maintaining Earth’s biodiversity, one seed at a time.

Young Kari basks in the delicia tree’s shade. Old Otis tells her that when he was young, the trees grew everywhere. Kari can’t imagine such abundance. Now there’s only one delicia tree; every summer, townsfolk share its fruit. After Kari’s family finishes their portion, she saves the seeds. She asks Otis about planting them to grow more trees. He explains that a blight destroyed the old ones.

There’s no cure, so it would kill new plantings, including the remaining tree. Undaunted, Kari develops a “Top Secret Project” to collect seeds and save them in Otis’ freezer. Months later, Kari reveals her surprise to Otis, with a sign over the freezer: “Kari and Otis’s Seed Bank.” He’s delighted, but, shortly after, he and the last delicia tree die. The following year, scientists discover a cure for the blight; Kari plants her seeds. The book ends with the adult Kari, sitting in a delicia

orchard, regaling kids with stories about her childhood, when there was only one delicia tree. They can’t even imagine. This uplifting, economically told tale is about hope and how one generation inspires another; it reassuringly reminds children that they can improve the world. The colorful, appealingly childlike illustrations suit the straightforward narrative. Kari is pale-skinned, Otis is brown-skinned, and background kids are diverse.

This sweet story may very well plant seeds of inspiration in readers’ minds. (author’s note) (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

Aloha Everything George, Kaylin Melia | Illus. by Mae Waite | Red Comet Press (40 pp.) $19.99 | April 23, 2024 | 9781636551128

A Hawaiian girl learns the true meaning of the word aloha.

A baby girl is born on an island in the moonlight; she and the island share a heartbeat. As she grows up, she learns to be swift like the honu (turtle) and smart like the he‘e (octopus), but the island knows that there’s more for her to learn. Through the hula, a traditional Hawaiian storytelling dance, she discovers how the islands were formed. She learns about her ancestors, who traveled to these islands in mighty canoes by navigating with the stars, and about her people’s folklore, filled with heroes, adventures, and love. Finally, Laka, the goddess of hula, descends and says, “Tell the ka‘ao with pride / On these islands we live / with our lore by our side.” The child has learned to take pride in who she is For another book about Hawaii, visit Kirkus online.

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and what the word aloha means—“to give love, compassion, and honor to everyone and everything around you.”

Mesmerizing, metered verse combines English and Hawaiian words for a rich tale of Hawaiian history, culture, ecology, and legends. Showing a deft use of light and shadow, the vibrant images bring the text to life, with a few wordless spreads throughout. A glossary and pronunciation guide are included, with cultural context provided for the various words.

A stunning tribute to Hawaiian culture and identity. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Star

Two Wheels Gibb, David | Illus. by Brizida Magro Candlewick (32 pp.) | $17.99 April 9, 2024 | 9781536231397

The youngest in the family gets some wheels!

“Everyone in my family has a bike,” says the young narrator.

“But I don’t.”

Dad, a bike enthusiast, has several, including a recumbent one (“If he gets too tired, he even has a bike he can lie down on and take a nap”). When the family goes out cycling together, the narrator has always ridden in a baby seat on Dad’s bike—until now. “I want a bike of my own!” says the child. So Dad gives the little one a hand-medown tricycle. “It has one…two… three wheels,” observes the protagonist. “I ride it in the yard.” Later, Dad provides a two-wheel, pedal-less balance bike. Our hero practices riding “down the yard…between the bushes…around the cat…and a little bit over the flowers.” When Dad presents a bright red bike with training wheels, “It’s the most beautiful bike I’ve ever seen.” Dad explains that “the little wheels are just until you get the hang of it.” When it’s time to take the training wheels off, the little one experiences the heart-thumping anticipation, exhilaration, and surprise 118

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Crackles and pops like the confections at the center of this story.

C H U R R O S TA N D

of a solo ride. This straightforward, at times humorous narrative deftly captures a young child’s viewpoint, brought to life by gorgeously textured, collagelike images. This is an engaging and relatable look at how skills are acquired through practice; laudably, Gibb makes clear that learning to ride a bike doesn’t happen overnight. The family is brown-skinned, and everyone wears a helmet while riding.

Simple, encouraging, and charming.

(Picture book. 2-7)

Proper Badger Would Never!

Glattly, Lauren | Illus. by Rob Sayegh Jr. Flamingo Books (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9780593528167

Think carefully about your next party’s guest list.

Badger’s been invited to a birthday party— well, sort of. The invitation blew out of the mail carrier’s bag, and he picked it up. Badger’s always wanted to attend a party, and he’s sure the host will want to meet him. He’ll act very proper because he knows parties require perfect decorum. But things go less than smoothly. The other guests notice odd occurrences: Someone has made a cozy nest out of all the wrapping paper, clawed the birthday cake, burrowed into the host’s bed, attacked the piñata, used the hallway rug as a toilet, and buried the cheese platter in a potted plant. Who’s responsible? All the clues (pink icing on his snout, pawprints on the wall) make it clear that Proper Badger is to blame, but, as the narrator repeatedly tells us, “Proper Badger doesn’t know, because he did

not do this.” Fed up, some guests believe Proper Badger should vamoose, but Proper Badger’s not quite ready to leave. This riotous tale, told in a tongue-in-cheek voice, will have kids chuckling and eagerly discussing whether they’d want to attend a party with Proper Badger. The colorful illustrations are energetic; Badger’s innocent expression is adorable. The birthday girl presents Black; the guests are diverse in terms of race and physical ability.

A giggle inducer and a fun read at an upcoming birthday party. (Picture book. 5-8)

Churro Stand González, Karina N. | Illus. by Krystal Quiles | Cameron Kids (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781951836955

Lucía and Santiago help their mother sell delicious fried pastry sticks on the streets of New York City.

Lucía, who narrates, helps Mamá make treats that will be covered in cinnamon sugar and served with chocolate sauce. Mamá rolls a suitcase filled with churros as the family travels to Manhattan, where they’ll sell their wares from a pushcart. Mamá joins a diverse community of street vendors who run newsstands and sell a variety of items. Ice cream proves more popular on this hot day, so the children draw sidewalk chalk directions to lure customers to the stand; after a storm washes away the chalk, Mamá joins forces with the ice cream vendor to create delicious churro sundaes. This tale of a small business K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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succeeding is bolstered by illustrations that use perspective to create an almost 3-D effect that makes the action feel immediate and intimate. Spotlighting the power of community, this sweet (pun intended) story is warm and welcoming. An appended glossary defines Spanish terms used in the book, though the tale’s first two words—crujido and estallido—are omitted. The family is cued Latine. In an author’s note, González discusses how the many women who sell churros in subway stations in New York City, as well as her own hardworking mother, inspired the narrative.

Crackles and pops like the confections at the center of this story. (photograph, list of street vendor advocacy groups) (Picture book. 5-7)

The Keeper of Stars Harris, Jennifer | Illus. by Dorothy Leung Owlkids Books (32 pp.) | $18.95 April 16, 2024 | 9781771475686

A bear in the heavens subs for a child’s father.

Each night, Milo reads stories with his mother and taps a photo of his dad three times. After his exhausted mom falls asleep, Milo hitches a ride on a fiery comet and cleans up the sky, which is filled with “balloons, stray feathers,” and, once, some “very unmanageable ducks.”

Then Milo and the Keeper of Stars, a huge blue bear with a spangled coat, bathe and shine their five-pointed charges, who sometimes become a bit unruly. When Milo and the Keeper are done, they share sandwiches and cocoa and admire the sky. Returning home, Milo again taps his dad’s picture and For more by Jennifer Harris, visit Kirkus online.

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gets into bed, knowing “the stars are always there…even when you can’t see them.” It’s never made explicitly clear where Milo’s father is, but the boy appears to be working his way through some complex emotions. This very subtle approach to a parent’s absence drags a bit in the middle, and little ones may not entirely understand how Milo’s devotion to star cleaning relates to his father. But the fantasy of floating out one’s window, soaring on a comet, and hanging out with a big guy in the sky is enthralling, sustained by the imaginative illustrations. Amid the colorful simplified characters, the bear is majestic. Milo and his mother are tan-skinned.

Some of the loftier themes may go over readers’ heads, but they’ll enjoy this journey through the cosmos nonetheless. (Picture book. 3-7)

Kirkus Star

Why We Dance: A Story of Hope and Healing Havrelock, Deidre | Illus. by Aly McKnight | Abrams (40 pp.) | $18.99 Feb. 6, 2024 | 9781419756672

A Native child takes part in the Jingle Dress dance.

Preparing for a powwow is a family affair: Regalia is mended, hair is braided, and bannock sandwiches are packed for lunch in anticipation of breaking the fast. In this spirited ode to Jingle Dress dancing, Havrelock (Saddle Lake Cree Nation) follows one girl’s journey as she takes part in this Anishinaabe ceremonial dance with her community. Evocative watercolors

by McKnight (Shoshone-Bannock) bring these healing, ceremonial garments to life, from their rainbow of colors to the tin cones that produce the iconic “TINK-TINK-TINKTINK” sounds of the dance. Helpful backmatter notes that though there are many stories about the origins of the Jingle Dress dance, all of them describe it as a response to the

influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that “resulted in the healing of a sick child.” Indeed, the young narrator states that “we dance for those who can’t.” With its moving illustrations, this reverent celebration of an important Indigenous ritual stands out. Young readers will be drawn in by the mesmerizing art and the narrator’s courage to dance despite all “the butterflies in my stomach.”

Several performers and spectators have visible disabilities.

A powerful story that will have hearts beating in time with the pounding drums and dancers’ bounce-steps. (author’s and artist’s notes, about the Jingle Dress dance) (Picture book. 5-10)

A Little Bit Super: With Small Powers Come Big Problems Ed. by Henderson, Leah & Gary D. Schmidt Illus. by Jarrett J. Krosoczka | Clarion/ HarperCollins (288 pp.) | $18.99 April 23, 2024 | 9780358683421

A collection of 13 short stories by acclaimed authors for young people featuring kids who use real and imagined superpowers to positively affect their lives and those of others.

The kids in these entries are dealing with many common challenges: wanting to fit in, feeling shy, longing for real friendships, and developing courage. In Pablo Cartaya’s “2.4 Seconds to Sonder,” Maximiliano has become accustomed to fading into the background: His time-jumping abilities take him into the bodies of “random extras in history,” but he learns that “nobody’s life is random or pointless,” whether they’re noticed or not. In Nikki Grimes’ “Shift,” which is told in poetry form, Imara uses her shape-shifting abilities to try to blend in with the mean girls at her school, but this doesn’t make her happy. She learns an important lesson: >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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ISBN: 979-8218176198

A small, anxious dog with big concerns.

Will Willie make it?

“An appealingly illustrated work with an upbeat message about trying new things.”

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B O O K L I S T // C H I L D R E N ' S

6 Books for Tween Sports Fans 1 Duel

1

2

3

By Jessixa Bagley, illus. by Aaron Bagley

4

Intense and complex, exploring siblings’ grief, love, and forgiveness.

2 Who Got Game?: Basketball: Amazing but True Stories!

5

By Derrick D. Barnes, illus. by Jez Tuya

Fast-break fun for both students and non-students of the game.

3 Slugfest

By Gordon Korman

The pastries aren’t all that’s sweet in a tale rich in wins both public and personal.

4 Kid Olympians: Summer: True Tales of Childhood From Champions and Game Changers

By Robin Stevenson, illus. by Allison Steinfeld

More inspiring tales of young dreamers and achievers.

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5 Dancing in the Storm

6

By Amie Darnell Specht & Shannon Hitchcock

Educational and encouraging.

6 The Longest Shot: How Larry Kwong Changed the Face of Hockey

For more middle-grade sports books, visit Kirkus online.

By Chad Soon & George Chiang, illus. by Amy Qi

An informative and engaging biography that pays tribute to an extraordinary life.

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“Who are they to say / I’m not perfect / exactly the way I am?” In Pam Muñoz Ryan’s “Matchmaker,” Sofia Delvechio uses mystical powers from her family’s matchmaking business to build a friendship network and help others. This collection of stories, which is divided into two sections—“The Power of Discovering Who We Are” and “The Power of Being Who We Are”—is broadly appealing; the diversity of characters, powers, and voices serves to highlight the protagonists’ inner lives and the importance that relationships play in helping them develop their senses of self. Final art not seen.

An engaging and imaginative look at the powers of childhood. (Anthology.

8-12)

If Lin Can: How Jeremy Lin Inspired Asian Americans To Shoot for the Stars Ho, Richard | Illus. by Huynh Kim Liên & Phùng Nguyên Quang | Charlesbridge (40 pp.) | $18.99 | April 16, 2024 9781623543723

A pep talk featuring Jeremy Lin, the first athlete of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA. “Have you ever been told that you can’t?” With growing rhetorical force, Ho asks readers if they’ve ever felt misunderstood or disheartened.

“You’re not alone,” he reassures them.

“Have you ever turned on a television or opened a newspaper and discovered someone who looked like you?” The author goes on to show how Lin shrugged off naysayers and those who “made fun of his size, his race, and his game.” As a professional player, he was cut from his first team and continued to warm benches. He persevered, however, until, one February night in 2012, he was at last given the opportunity to show his dazzling stuff and ignited a season of “Linsanity” with the New York Knicks. Illustrations of 122

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three solitary, Asian-presenting children alternately ignored or surrounded by scoffing peers give way to scenes of the young Lin enduring similar treatment, including, in one scene, hearing catcalls from a darkskinned young skeptic standing next to a light-skinned one mocking Lin’s eyes. But he works through it all and is ready when his chance comes to shine.

“Now ask yourself,” the author concludes, “if Lin can, why can’t I?” Good question.

A slam dunk choice for role modeling. (more information on Lin, afterword, author’s note, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Star

I Was: The Stories of Animal Skulls Hocker, Katherine | Illus. by Natasha Donovan | Candlewick (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781536223132

An invitation to contemplate what animal skulls can reveal about their previous users’ senses and behaviors.

Donovan’s carefully detailed skulls, most placed on the ground in outdoorsy settings, make it easy to follow Hocker’s beautifully penned poetic references (“I tasted bark, then heartwood / heard sticks snap as the tree fell”). In the backmatter, readers will find more expansive descriptions of what the size and placement of these skulls’ “arches and ridges and caverns of bone” might suggest about the eyes, noses, and diets of the six once-living creatures, from lynx to hummingbird, that appear in the flesh on alternating spreads. There’s also a seventh bony image here: human, with major parts labeled, following earlier views of young observers with brown skin intact and their crania still protecting minds able to think and discover. (The author’s remark that “you can learn your father’s language and your

grandmother’s too” obliquely hints at Native American roots for at least one of the children.) The ontological title, which does double duty as a running refrain, encourages more philosophical reflection, as does a closing claim that “just like you,” animals also have “thoughts and memories, curiosity, intelligence, and consciousness.”

Heady lessons in reasoning from evidence, with food for deeper thought. (resource list) (Informational picture book. 7-10)

Bless Our Pets: Poems of Gratitude for Our Animal Friends Ed. by Hopkins, Lee Bennett | Illus. by Lita Judge | Eerdmans (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9780802855466

Fourteen poets express (mostly) affection for their beloved pets.

With the sole exception of Charles Ghigna (“I pray some day I’ll learn to love / a friendly snake or two. / But heaven knows I’m grateful that— / this one belongs to you!”), the contributors offer misty-eyed sentiments sure to warm the cockles of any pet owner’s heart. Between opening odes by Ann Whitford Paul and Rebecca Kai Dotlich to (respectively) a kitten and a puppy and closing tributes to aging companions of the same furry sorts by Prince Redcloud and the late Hopkins, each entry pours warm feelings on a different type of animal, from goldfish to guinea pig to galloping steed. Judge’s lyrical but realistic watercolor and colored pencil scenes enhance the overall mood with portraits of cute, button-eyed creatures, usually in intimate pairings with For more by Lee Bennett Hopkins, visit Kirkus online.

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Heady lessons in reasoning from evidence, with food for deeper thought.

I WAS

children of racially diverse presentation…or at least glimpses of hands offering tasty treats or bare feet being warmed on a fuzzy tummy. The title for this work is appropriate, with several of the poems framed as prayers.

Along with being short enough to read at one bedtime go, the book artfully transitions from poems about dancing and galloping to those about rest and sleepy coziness.

Short and sweet. (Picture book/ poetry. 5-8)

Year of the Puppy: How a Puppy Becomes Your Dog Horowitz, Alexandra | Adapt. by Catherine S. Frank | Viking (256 pp.) | $17.99 April 16, 2024 | 9780593351307

A dog cognition researcher adopts a puppy and observes her development through a scientific and personal lens.

This guide to dog development is organized chronologically, from the birth of a litter of puppies through each week of their development until they are adopted. The book continues through one puppy’s first year as she adapts to home life, and the family members— Horowitz, her husband, her son, two older dogs, and a cat—adjust to her presence. The author folds plenty of scientific information about canine development and socialization into her personal narrative, using advanced vocabulary that’s defined in-text. In parallel with her observations of new family member Quiddity—Quid for short—the author tacks on K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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information about a litter of puppies who are being raised to be working dogs, for whom the training and expectations are very different than for family pets. The book also features cute photos, fun lists (“Some things the puppy has eaten/chewed that are not for eating/chewing: an observational study”), and even an Ear Semaphore Code chart. Horowitz acknowledges that dog cognition researchers “can be too close to our subjects to see them well,” which may be especially true if the dogs are their own, but readers interested in a dog’s world and how humans and dogs communicate will find a wealth of information here.

A focused and earnest guide for young dog lovers. (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Not a Smiley Guy Horvath, Polly | Illus. by Boris Kulikov Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House (32 pp.) $18.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780823449873

You can be happy, even if your face doesn’t show it.

As a newborn, Ernest enjoys his parents’ smiles, and he realizes he has a nice family.

As he gets older, he discovers many more smilers among relatives and neighbors. He wishes he could also meet some elephants, but, as he notes, “You can’t have everything.” The smilers want him to smile, too, but contorting his face like that isn’t Ernest’s thing. He tries it once, but after that—nah. He does other things his parents like: He learns to walk, talk, and eat neatly; he can even put on his snowsuit by himself. Yet they still

expect grins. They take him on outings to stimulate smiles, but nothing works.

Ernest’s parents finally capitulate and get him his longed-for elephant, named Marcia, whom he brings to kindergarten for show and tell.

Walking home afterward, Ernest tells his parents that he is a happy child, just not a smiley one—which makes them happy. This is an offbeat story, but it’s not just about smiling per se.

Rather, it sends reassuring messages: It’s OK to be who you are, and others should accept you for being yourself.

The gouache-and-watercolor illustrations are lively and comical and will elicit chuckles. Ernest and his family are light-skinned; background characters are diverse.

Children will smile more than once while reading this quirky tale—even if its protagonist probably wouldn’t.

(Picture book. 5-8)

Do Mommies Ever Sleep?

Howard, Kim | Illus. by Karen Obuhanych Little, Brown (40 pp.) | $18.99 March 26, 2024 | 9780316669665

Where do moms get their energy?

The baby protagonist starts things off by putting the question out there: Do mommies ever sleep?

Newsflash: Real-life children, particularly egocentric babies and toddlers, never ask this question. Yet this little one, who narrates in rhyme, seems genuinely concerned about how much Mommy manages to do, without stopping to rest for even a minute.

Mommy seems to be attentive to her child’s every need, though she looks haggard and frazzled. In fact, the baby eventually becomes worried at how exhausted Mommy is and decides it’s time for some shut-eye: “I’ll show her bedtime’s fun!” The young narrator guides Mommy through a familiar bedtime routine, giving her a bath, reading her a story, singing with her, tucking her in under a cozy blanket, giving her a hug and a kiss, turning off FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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the light, and saying a final “I love you” before the little one settles down for the night, too. This gently humorous, knowing story has an adult sensibility and will make a good gift for baby showers and new parents.

Though the rhymes are a tad clunky, the illustrations, created with colored pencil and acrylic-painted paper collage, are lively and endearing.

Mommy has lightly tanned skin, while her baby is brown-skinned.

An exuberant story that might encourage older children to consider Mom’s needs more often. (Picture book. 4-7)

Facing Mighty Fears About Being Apart From Parents Huebner, Dawn | Illus. by Liza Stevens Jessica Kingsley Publishers (80 pp.) $14.95 paper | April 18, 2024 9781839974649 | Series: Dr. Dawn’s Mini Books About Mighty Fears, 7

A clinical psychologist offers savvy strategies for coping with a common childhood anxiety.

“So, being apart happens.”

Despite a page design best described as utilitarian, this series entry offers clingy young readers and their concerned parents both a reassuring message and some helpful tools for getting past the angst.

Huebner offers a lengthy catalog of animal parents who, much like human ones, “go to great lengths to keep their babies safe.” These examples are printed as “Fun Facts” on images of small loose-leaf pages taped in below the widely spaced text. The author also provides techniques for coping with panic responses through breath control and describes a method for breaking down separation experiences—from sleeping in a separate bedroom to starting school—into incremental steps. A denser following section lists tips and observations calculated to relieve caregivers’ anxieties about 124

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easing children through the process.

Huebner closes with generous sets of print and online resources for both of her intended audiences (plus a plug for her video series). In keeping with the narrative’s tone of casual confidence, Stevens tucks in cartoon images of animals and a racially diverse human cast that includes children of various ages, one of whom uses a wheelchair.

Sound, despite the uninviting look.

(Nonfiction. 6-10)

Secret Gardeners: Growing a Community and Healing the Earth Hurme, Maija & Lina Laurent | Illus. by Maija Hurme | Trans. by Sofia Karlsson & Jen Pulju Porter | Pajama Press (48 pp.) $19.95 | April 30, 2024 | 9781772782479

Three young city dwellers help create a community garden.

While spying on their neighbors, Bianca, Luna, and Billy accidentally break through a fence into the overgrown backyard of an abandoned house. They recognize a woman named Amy, who wants to plant a no-dig garden. With their parents’ permission, the children join in. Other helpers, some of whom are transplants from other countries, contribute labor and expertise and begin to form a community. A trip to a beekeeper adds interest and excitement (plenty of facts on bees are included, too). The kids share the bounty of vegetables and fruit and build a treehouse. When a proposed parking garage threatens the garden, Luna’s sleuthing and some activism result in a

happy ending for the community. The text is in a small font (and even smaller in the carefully labeled and laid out colored sidebars), making it a better option for solo or one-on-one reading than for storytime. Nevertheless, readers will come away with plenty of insights about gardening, though some details (such as the growing of black currants) in this Swedish import are specific to northern Europe. Sunny colored pencil-crayon drawings brim with information; the pages can be crowded, but they are never busy.

Bianca is brown-skinned; Amy, Luna, and Billy are light-skinned; the community is diverse.

A nimble combination of mystery, activism, and gardening instruction. (information on carbon dioxide, no-dig gardens, and pollination; glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-9)

I Am More Than James, LeBron | Illus. by Niña Mata Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) | $21.99 April 2, 2024 | 9780063306608

NBA superstar James follows up his New York Times–bestselling I Promise (2020) with another inspirational picture book.

“When they ask me who I am and what it is I do, I say I can do anything because I know it’s true.” The diverse youngsters in this book are a confident bunch who know they’re capable of anything. A Black child who uses a wheelchair throws a basketball in the air before opening up a laptop: “I can dribble and I can code; either way I’ve got game.” A light-skinned child paints

A nimble combination of mystery, activism, and gardening instruction.

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a mural: “I create new worlds with the swish of a brush, and I rally for change.” A Black child holds a microphone surrounded by musical notes while a pair of pups look on happily: “I rhyme about a brighter tomorrow.” Other kids dance across tightropes, plant a garden, and read.

The empowering affirmations feature action verbs: “I’ll reach my goals,” “I will succeed,” “I can climb the highest mountains.” Images of smiling children set against swirling, vibrant backgrounds give the book an exuberant, uplifting feel. Backmatter includes an author’s note from James and an image of an empty picture frame—encouragement for readers to draw their own self-portraits.

Interactive, fun, and motivating.

(Picture book. 3-8)

Sing High, Sing Crow Krulik, Nancy | Illus. by Charlie Alder Pixel+Ink (112 pp.) | $12.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781645952022 Series: The Great Mathemachicken, 3

Chirpy the chick comes up with a peaceable response when the raucous rehearsals of an avian rock band perched in the trees cause sleepless nights in the

chicken coop below.

The jays, crows, and other corvid members of the Crow Family Band caw all the louder after boorish poultry bully Clucky sourly complains about their “noise.” In a demonstration of gravity, they also hurl acorns at the chickens. But Chirpy finds a harmonic solution to the problem when she takes a trip to the local public school, where she often secretly listens in on lessons, and learns about rhythm and pitch… and makes the “eggs”-citing discovery that musical notes are fractions. Back at the coop, she composes a lullaby (“Sing the quarter notes fast / Cheep cheep cheep cheep / Sing the whole notes slooooow / Cheeeeeeeep / You’re getting K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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sleepy at last / Off to dreamland you go”), forms a band (Cheep Trick), and soon has both feathered flocks singing themselves to sleep in sweet “caw-ncert.” Sporting a bow decorated with musical notes, Chirpy is easy to spot among the avians in Alder’s grayscale and yellow illustrations, and the human children in school are depicted with a range of skin tones.

Clever puns and endearing characters help Chirpy’s “There’s math in music” message shine.

Conflict resolution in the farmyard, with musical notes and a few sly yolks. (instructions for making a paper plate tambourine) (Animal fantasy. 7-9)

Lucky Duck Kurtz, Chris | Illus. by Jennifer L. Meyer Clarion/HarperCollins (208 pp.) | $18.99 Feb. 27, 2024 | 9780063311343

From hatch day on, Frank strives to make his mother proud.

Frank believes that ducks are the best of all birds, but…is he a duck?

He was a late hatcher from an oversized egg, he has huge feet, and he hates snails. His mother tells him that one day he’ll make her proud, but he can’t help feeling jealous of his duck siblings. When several bullying teenage ducks challenge him to seek out amulets to keep a fox away, he eagerly agrees—finally, a way to prove himself! Frank journeys through the forest, encountering dangers and new pals alike. Eventually, he learns the truth: He is a goose. Will he be able to accept his new identity? Ultimately Frank is rejected by the other ducks except for his mother and siblings, and he chooses to leave behind both his family and his new friends and to set off on his own. Though the writing initially feels repetitive, it strengthens as Frank sets off on his quest. Charming spot art adds whimsy. However, while the narrative centers on animals, many will see it as an adoption story

and may find it alienating. Frank’s mother seems far more accepting of his brother and sister—something that the author never grapples with—and Frank’s decision to leave could inadvertently send the message that adoptees may never truly belong with their adoptive families.

A well-meaning tale of identity laced with unsettling implications. (Fiction.

8-11)

When You Meet a Dragon Kyi, Tanya Lloyd | Illus. by Udayana Lugo | Orca (40 pp.) | $21.95 April 16, 2024 | 9781459838642

In this parable, a tot discovers and implements activism.

A small, brown-skinned child, accompanied by a racoon sidekick, tries to alert people in a city to an impending threat: an enormous, sky-filling, fire-breathing dragon.

Initially folks laugh or deny that dragons exist, but the protagonist’s persistence overcomes resistance, and soon many pitch in to fill water buckets. A bigger child who’s “wise and patient” (and fearless) climbs a ladder to the dragon’s ear to try to persuade it but fails. Everyone works hard to clean up the smoldering consequences. The dragon defies them, but the dozen committed people (and animals, including the raccoon, a squirrel, a dog, and a cat) vow never to give up. Soon their numbers grow as people from other towns arrive to help.

The dragon, looking miffed, finally just departs—but leaves a huge mess and doubts in its wake. Will it return?

Maybe, but everyone now knows how to rally others and work together, and For more by Tanya Lloyd Kyi, visit Kirkus online.

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no one will have to “face it alone.” The illustrations are cheery; the characters are stylized but easily differentiated, and pages where the colorful art leaves no room for a vacuum alternate with well-composed designs against white space. The dragon is awe-inspiring but not nightmarish.

Teaches a worthwhile lesson in grit and teamwork. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Star

Made in Asian America: A History for Young People Lee, Erika & Christina Soontornvat Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins (320 pp.) $19.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9780063242937

This adaptation of Lee’s The Making of Asian America (2015) fills a considerable gap in American history.

Historian Lee and Soontornvat, an acclaimed author for young people, establish the relevance of their work by opening with recent events: examples of everyday anti-Asian racism experienced by contemporary teens, the escalation of hate crimes during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the absence of Asian American history in school curricula. They then jump back to the 13th-century Western fascination with the “Orient” and the evolution of these attitudes. This context lays the groundwork for understanding the perceptions of Asian Americans as “other,” a running theme alongside issues such as the continual struggle for civil rights and the broad range of diverse experiences within Asian America. While the book covers events in roughly chronological order, some chapters explore broader topics—the model minority myth and evolving perceptions of Asian women, for example. The authors present many well-known events (Japanese American incarceration, the 1992 L.A. Koreatown riots) through the lens of ordinary young people; these relatable 126

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An endearing tale about the importance of fostering love and connection.

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narratives create a compelling tapestry of stories, and the rich photos offer additional context. The authors’ resonant message is that “Asian American history is not made up of one single story. It’s many. And it’s a story that you have to know if you want to understand the history of America.”

An eminently readable, consciousness-raising U.S. history told from a fresh perspective. (authors’ notes, source notes, bibliography, image credits, index) (Nonfiction. 9-14)

The Best Spot To Pee in NYC Lee, Hyesu | Tra Publishing (40 pp.) $18.99 April 9, 2024 | 9780966438857 Series: The Best Spot To...

Nine-year-old Su walks her poodle, Dutch, through New York, “pawsing” at some popular landmarks.

The author biography hints that this South Korean import is inspired by Lee’s actual dog, though the real Dutch is probably neither magenta nor the size of an elephant. Still, this larger-than-life portrayal certainly makes him easy to spot. Su responds to his urgent request for relief with a meandering walk that takes the two from the city’s longest slide on Governor’s Island to the dino skeletons and blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History.

But her repeated “How about right here?” is invariably met with some objection—the Empire State Building is too high, the Statue of Liberty is watching (it is, too, with a comically

forbidding stare), Times Square is too bright—until, at last, a tree outside their apartment proves the perfect spot to let go. “YESSS! SOOOO GOOD!” Though this may not be a comprehensive guide for tourists, Lee’s itinerary includes some favorites such as the renowned children’s bookstore Books of Wonder and Joe’s Pizza; her street and subway scenes likewise capture local flavor with only slight exaggeration, being populated with anthropomorphic figures of several species in hues from around the color wheel. Likely a stand-in for the South Korea–born author, Su is pinkskinned, dark-haired, and freckled.

Comments at the end about each stop don’t mention restrooms for humans but do identify which are “dog-friendly.”

A hilarious romp through the Big Apple. (Picture book. 5-7)

A Garden Called Home Lee, Jessica J. | Illus. by Elaine Chen Tundra Books (48 pp.) | $18.99 Feb. 6, 2024 | 9781774880470

Mama dislikes the cold, but her child is determined to help her appreciate winter.

The child watches from the window, rapt, as snow falls. But Mama, bundled in her quilted jacket, “doesn’t like the winter.”

The child, who narrates, adds, “She never wants to go outside.” Mama misses the mild winters and humid climate of her homeland, but the protagonist has never been there and knows it only from Mama’s bedtime stories. But this winter, they’ll be K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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visiting Mama’s sister. As the two arrive in Mama’s homeland (though it isn’t explicitly named in the text, backmatter makes clear that it’s Taiwan), the child sees rolling hills golden with sunshine and thinks, “No wonder Mama doesn’t like winter!” A packed schedule eventually leads mother and child up the mountains. Mama also teaches her child about the vegetables they eat on Uncle’s farm. When they return home, Mama stays indoors, bundled up. Meanwhile the child does some research and finds a way to bring Taiwan to Mama. Touched by the little one’s dedication, Mama brightens.

Charming cartoon illustrations are infused with a warm glow, even during wintry scenes. The narrator’s growing appreciation for nature and love for Mama shine throughout the concise, matter-of-fact text. A guide to the plants mentioned follows.

An endearing tale about the importance of fostering love and connection—no matter where home is. (Picture book. 5-8)

Free To Learn: How Alfredo Lopez Fought for the Right To Go to School Levinson, Cynthia | Illus. by Mirelle Ortega | Atheneum (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781665904278

A tribute to a courageous family of undocumented immigrants who went to court to secure their child’s right to a free public education.

Basing her account on a 1977 case in Texas and adding dialogue but using real names, Levinson tells the tale from 9-year-old Alfredo’s point of view. Traveling north from Zacatecas, Mexico, with his tío, Alfredo slips past the Border Patrol and joins his loving Amá and Apá at last in Tyler. But he’s forced to watch sadly from his window as other children go to school—until the morning his parents pack up the car (in case they have to flee afterward) and sneak into the local federal K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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courthouse to testify before a judge.

There the Lopez family hears their lawyer argue that a new state law barring undocumented children from free public schooling is neither fair nor, according to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that everyone is subject to equal treatment under the law, legal. As the author notes in her more detailed afterword, the latter argument not only convinced the judge but also held all the way through multiple appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, giving Alfredo and millions of other undocumented students since then the right to attend school in every state. Most of the figures in Ortega’s warm illustrations (the judge and lawyers excepted) are brown-skinned; Alfredo, bright-eyed and usually smiling, looks equally comfortable in both Mexico and the U.S. and (at last) in school.

Frank and sympathetic in presenting a lesser-known landmark in the struggle for human rights. (notes, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Here and There Lu, Thea | Eerdmans (36 pp.) | $19.99 April 23, 2024 | 9780802856234

Two parallel stories describe men who live different lives.

Dan, the owner of a small cafe, lives Here, in a town by the sea, while Aki lives There, on a boat on the water. On each spread, Dan is featured on the left-hand side and Aki on the right. Lu uses delicately colored pencil strokes and patterned paint strokes to ground Here in a palette of browns, while There is awash in blues. She employs deliberate language that initially implies opposites but in fact shows that the two have similar feelings.

Dan, who has never left his hometown, “wonders what life is like in other places,” while Aki, who’s “never had a place to call home…wishes for an old friend to talk with.” A typical day has Dan opening his cafe,

“looking forward to the people who stop in.” Aki usually arrives in port, “thinking about the people he might meet.” What do they have in common? Regardless of where either one is, their connections with others make for a joyful life. The narrative, originally written in English and Chinese, ends satisfyingly as the two men each reminisce about a special day when Dan welcomed a seafaring stranger into the cafe and Aki visited a cafe where people felt like family, and the two sides of the page finally meet.

Dan’s cheeks are drawn with pops of beige, while Aki’s skin is blue-tinged.

Warm and thoughtful. (Picture book. 4-8)

Dancing Through Space: Dr. Mae Jemison Soars to New Heights Lukidis, Lydia | Illus. by Sawyer Cloud | Whitman (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 4, 2024 | 9780807514580

Early passions for science and for dance rocketed Mae Jemison into Earth’s orbit.

When introducing a young Mae, whose curiosity about the natural world was equaled only by her inability to sit still, Lukidis frames her brief portrait of the future astronaut around those twin qualities. So it was that science “gave her courage” and dance “gave her determination” to complete her medical studies, keep her body flexible and strong, and weather setbacks on the way to becoming “the first Black woman to fly into space.”

As the shuttle orbited “in a slow choreography,” the author writes, Jemison “danced through space / and floated among the stars.” In Cloud’s illustrations, she stands out both for her balletic poses (on the ground as well as in microgravity) and as the one whose eyes are almost continually looking up and forward. In an afterword, the author includes a quote from Jemison about how science and FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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dance are linked; Lukidis explains that the two “work together to give us a fuller understanding of who we are.”

Along with adding further biographical detail, the closing timeline notes that Jemison was inspired by her own role models, astronaut Sally Ride and Star Trek actor Nichelle Nichols, to apply for the space program.

A quick but lyrical character study.

(Picture-book biography. 6-8)

Quiet Night, My Astronaut: The First Days (and Nights) of the War in Ukraine Lushchevska, Oksana | Illus. by Kateryna Stepanishcheva | Tilbury House (40 pp.) $18.99 | Jan. 16, 2024 | 9781668936818

A child chronicles the first 10 days of the Russia– Ukraine War, cuddling her beloved astronaut doll and addressing an imagined “super powerful astronaut in the sky.”

Lushchevska’s text sensitively conjures a child’s wartime fears, hopes, and daily experiences. Ia’s father becomes a soldier for Ukraine, and his joking phone calls brighten her days. She, her mother, and their dog, Pifa, recalibrate their daily lives in Kyiv around air raid sirens, curfews, and reassuring communications with friends, relatives, and professional colleagues. (Ia’s mother, a writer, interacts with the writers’ organization PEN.) Taking dangerous but treasured walks, making posters to encourage solidarity, and exercising together in their apartment help them cope with social disruption. There are moments of despair: On day six, Ia reports, “Today is March 1, our first day of spring, and my pencil is not drawing.” Soon, the pair prepare to leave Kyiv for a safer place with relatives. Amid smoke and broken trees, Ia spots a child’s toy rabbit on the road. That they must rush to their car without picking it up crystallizes a poignant symbol of war’s effect on children. Stepanishcheva’s inventive 128

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illustrations, in a patriotic palette of blue and yellow accented with black and red, underscore the family’s closeness despite the upheaval.

Portrayed huddled inside a go bag, encircled in Ia’s absent dad’s arms, or entwined, reunited, amid a cultural floral motif, the family—like Ukraine—will survive.

A heartfelt message as the Russia– Ukraine War rages on. (author’s note, discussion questions) (Picture book. 6-10)

The Goat and the Stoat and the Boat Lynas, Em | Illus. by Matt Hunt Nosy Crow (32 pp.) | $17.99 April 2, 2024 | 9798887770529

In a castle moat, a stoat and a goat vie for control of a boat.

A stoat is having fun in a small sailboat. A goat jumps aboard uninvited, to which the stoat responds, “This is a boat for a stoat not a goat.” A struggle ensues as the two push and shove; readers will need to rotate the page to see the disastrous results. Even worse, after both animals are thrown off the boat, the stoat is unable to float in the water. When the goat allows the stoat to rest on its belly, all is put right. The goat saves the stoat and earns its friendship—along with joint ownership of the boat. “Now this is a goat and a stoat boat.” The final scene shows the two enjoying a picnic by the castle. Lynas’ verse is modeled after “The House That Jack Built”: “This is the goat / that sat in the boat.” “And this is the goat / in the

colorful coat / that saw the stoat…”

The rollicking rhyming text and bold illustrations in saturated pastels that look like cut paper make for an engaging read-aloud choice. A QR code on the back cover links to a free audio recording of the book.

Winsome wordplay and rhymes make for steady sailing on this journey to friendship. (Picture book. 4-7)

Rumie Goes Rafting Marentette, Meghan | Owlkids Books (36 pp.) | $18.95 | April 16, 2024 9781771476355

Photos of endearing plush critters bring to life the adventures of an impetuous young hero.

Rumie has a harelike white head, curved ears shorter than a rabbit’s, smoothly fuzzy but not plush fur, an orange bodysuit over a firm, flexible frame, and a long, striped, tufted tail.

Uncle Hawthorne, clearly of the same species, sports a smart tweed vest.

Convincingly posed on a tiny bentwood bridge, Rumie regretfully sees that the stream is too low for Uncle Hawthorne’s rowboat. But a ladybug floating on a leaf sparks inspiration: a raft! Uncle is on board with the idea, and together they build a small craft, with ribbons trailing from the mast. Rumie is eager to go, and when Uncle says that life vests will be needed for their safety test tomorrow, Rumie doesn’t listen. In the morning, Uncle oversleeps, so Rumie leaves to “just check on the raft.” Rumie unties it, pushes it into the water, and jumps aboard.

Excitement (“I’m sailing!”) turns to

A funny, heartfelt tale of a child grappling with sensory sensitivity.

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alarm at some unexpected rapids, until Uncle averts disaster. There’s no scolding or punishment, but Rumie realizes: “I think I should have waited for you this morning.” The photos are cleverly done, with objects and accessories to scale, and the pair’s enchanting home’s interior, apparently inside a hollow tree, evokes the settings of Mary Norton’s The Borrowers (1952).

Enticing and adorable. (Picture book. 3-7)

What Does Little Crocodile Say at the Birthday Party?

Montanari, Eva | Tundra Books (40 pp.) $17.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781774881576 Series: Little Crocodile

Happy birthday, Little Crocodile.

This newest book in the series begs to be read aloud, and adults shouldn’t be surprised when young listeners chime in on the oft-repeated sounds accompanying each party activity.

Preparations for Little Crocodile’s birthday begin early with a bubble bath: “GLUB GLUB.” Little Crocodile’s parents make paper chain decorations with scissors that go “SNIP” and a stapler that goes “CLICK.” After Little Crocodile’s animal friends arrive, the air pump goes “PFF PFF PFF PFF” as it blows up balloons, but when one balloon escapes and pops, both Little Crocodile and a guest cry. Luckily, there are more balloons to share and plenty of activities still to come. The final curtain on a puppet show marks the end of a great party. Each page contains one or two short sentences, perfect for the youngest listeners; adults should allow plenty of time for audience participation. The colored pencil and chalk pastel illustrations have a neutral background but also contain pops of colorful details and plenty of movement to make each page turn a delight. Little ones will learn what to expect at a birthday party, including blowing out candles K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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and posing for lots of pictures.

Gift-giving is only a minor part of this story, which emphasizes oldfashioned fun and games and party manners, such as saying thank you.

Make room on your bookshelf for this party in a book. (Picture book. 2-5)

I Really, Really Don’t Like Parties Morgan, Angie | Crocodile/ Interlink (40 pp.) $18.95 April 2, 2024 | 9781623711146

A girl learns to cope with her aversion to parties.

When Dora’s friend Rashid invites her to his birthday party, she doesn’t want to go. She’s already been to a party and found it overwhelming. Dora’s mother encourages her to attend, saying that she’ll have fun and see all her friends—a claim Dora finds both suspect and unappealing. Although she produces a litany of excuses, ranging from a gorilla stealing her party clothes to a multitude of fake injuries, her mother insists that she try it out. As predicted, the party makes Dora miserable—that is, until she crawls under the table and discovers a boy who, like her, prefers a quiet atmosphere. Thanks to Tom, Dora enjoys herself so much that the next time she’s invited to a party, she goes willingly just to see her new friend. This book’s clever design, inspired use of typeface, lighthearted illustrations, and wonderfully silly text combine for an accessible entry point to a serious topic. The author provides a workable coping mechanism for introverted and neurodiverse party guests while honoring and accepting varied perspectives. While the protagonist’s mother initially seems to ignore her concerns, by the end it’s clear that she wasn’t trying to force Dora into attending the party but rather simply wanted to give the child a chance to make her own decision. Dora is light-skinned,

Rashid and Tom are brown-skinned, and the other partygoers are diverse.

A funny, heartfelt, and respectful tale of a child grappling with sensory sensitivity. (Picture book. 3-7)

Hello Day: A Child’s-Eye View of the World Mylie, Charlie | Abrams (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781419768132

A child greets the world and everything in it.

Young children understand that there are many fascinating things to say hello to everywhere. The world’s wonders deserve their due. Even when a loving parent is taking you to storytime, you don’t want to rush when there are sights and sounds to greet. So it goes for the leisurely tyke in this colorful, bouncy rhyming story, narrated by the child. The parent suggests that the pair hurry, but the little one is determined to salute everything they encounter.

Beginning at home, the kid welcomes the day itself, then an apple, easily reachable from the shelf, then a pair of boots—which the little one dons independently. “Hello” to neighbors, then to various outdoor urban critters, vehicles, and cacophonous street sounds. The kid’s got to say hello to the “holes” in the sewer while “plinking” rocks into them! So what if the two of them miss the bus?

Finally—the library, but hello, no food or drink inside. They sit outside as the child finishes the apple, and the adult spies something magical inside the fruit—and HELLO!—thanks to a playground detour, the parent finally appreciates the world from the tot’s perspective. This charming tale is enlivened by ebullient ink and crayon illustrations; young ones will relate and say “hello” to this one pronto. Characters have fanciful skin tones; the protagonists are depicted with hues of yellow.

“Hello” to an effervescent take on early childhood’s fascination with the world. (Picture book. 3-6) FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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A Little Bit of Everything

The One Where Bert Learns To Ride a Bike

Narayan, Meghana | Illus. by Michelle Carlos | Sleeping Bear Press (32 pp.) $18.99 | March 15, 2024 | 9781534112926 Series: Own Voices, Own Stories

Naylor-Ballesteros, Chris | Nosy Crow (32 pp.) | $17.99 | April 2, 2024 9798887770444 | Series: Frank and Bert

A lyrical ode to the experiences that make people who they are.

After Amaya is born, her parents repeat an affirmation to her every day: “You have a little bit of Mama in you, / and a little bit of Papa. / You have a little bit of where you go, / and a bit of who you meet. / You have a little bit of the things you do, / and a bit of who you want to be.” Sure enough, Amaya experiences many things for the first time, some concrete, such as encountering the ocean and going camping, and some intangible, such as using her imagination. And when Amaya meets her newborn sister, she introduces herself with a version of the affirmation she has embodied. Each event is described with carefully chosen imagery and sentiments, both poetic and poignant, that make clear she is maturing. Over the course of her adventures, more details emerge, including her mother’s South Asian ancestry and her father’s Chinese heritage. Saturated, watercolorlike images reminiscent of Michaela Goade’s style create a lush atmosphere that complements the graceful text, though, after babyhood, Amaya is depicted as roughly the same age throughout, a lost opportunity for showing growth over the years.

A sweet and enchanting exploration of identity. (Picture book. 4-8)

Frank the fox and Bert the bear ride again—literally.

In Frank and Bert (2023), the pair realized that friendship is more important than winning. In this sweetly funny latest outing, they discover some more truths: Self-confidence can be bolstered by a friend’s support, promises need to be kept for trust to develop, and eyes-on-the-road is a good rule. The duo want to ride together, but Bert consistently swerves and crashes. Frank devises “a brilliant plan,” pledging to “hold on to [Bert’s] bike…while he practices NOT wobbling.” This plan works until Frank decides to let go, since Bert is doing so well. Toppled again, an angry, upset Bert abjures bike-riding, but Frank has another idea: a passenger seat. Bert climbs in happily. Soon Frank, exhausted by pedaling the hefty bear up a 90-degree hill, begs Bert to walk. But, newly confident, Bert is sure he can pedal them both down. Frank fears the worst but trustingly gets into the seat, and Bear speeds them safely home: “Of course I did it,” he explains, “because you were right behind me all the way.” Frank sports a bright blue helmet; Bert’s helmet is shocking pink. Frank’s two-wheeler is acid yellow, and Bert’s comically small bike is chartreuse.

Against the animals’ subdued brownish fur and the minimal backgrounds, these lively touches pop.

A tender tribute to the joys and complexities of the parent-child bond.

A MM A’ S SA R I

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Subtle changes in the duo’s deadpan expressions convey their feelings.

A touching tale of friendship and shared achievement. (Picture book.

2-6)

Star Wars: The High Republic: Escape From Valo Older, Daniel José & Alyssa Wong | Illus.

by Pétur Antonsson | Disney Lucasfilm (384 pp.) | $14.99 | Jan. 30, 2024 9781368093804 | Series: Star Wars: The High Republic

Far from Republic aid, beyond the impassable Stormwall, four young Jedi and an aspiring space pirate band together to fight the tyrannical Nihil regime.

After the fall of Starlight Beacon, Jedi Padawan Ram Jomaram followed his instincts back to his home planet, Valo, in hopes of gathering a resistance, but when he arrived, the conquering Nihil had already beaten Valo into submission. Under the guise of the Scarlet Skull, Ram persists alone, until three stranded younglings discover his hideout and insist on joining him. Fourteen-year-old Zyle Keem, descendant of a legendary pirate, burns for the chance to prove themself on a dangerous mission, but once again, their mother leaves them behind in boring safety. When Zyle overhears rumors about a treasure trove of medical supplies submerged on a sunken ship on Valo, they seize the opportunity for glory. This coming-of-age adventure thrusts into hyper speed from the opening scenes, fueled by high action, suspenseful conflict, and perilous stakes. Older and Wong develop a racially diverse and casually queer cast of complex characters, including the antagonists.

As Ram, Zyle, and the younglings team up, they navigate attachments, duty, stirring romantic crushes, and desire for belonging. Color illusK IR KU S R E V IE W S

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trations capture the cinematic drama at key moments in the story, and vivid descriptions bring the Force to life.

The narration provides enough context for this installment of the High Republic series to stand alone.

An immersive and compassionate adventure. (timeline) (Fantasy. 8-13)

Kirkus Star

Out of the Valley of Horses Orr, Wendy | Pajama Press (224 pp.) $18.95 | April 30, 2024 | 9781772783117

An Australian family sets off on an adventure and gets stranded in an enchanted valley for seven years.

Honey lives with her Nanna, Momma, Papa, and younger brother, Rumi, in the valley of the horses. They arrived on Honey’s fourth birthday, and now her eleventh is approaching, and her father is sick. Honey decides she’ll be the one to find an ambulance for Papa, even if it means heading back to “the wide world,” which they originally left because of a “terrible sickness.” Nanna’s grandfather said that he lived in a valley of magical horses for seven years when he was a child. Now Moongold, one of the special horse protectors of the valley, helps Honey find her way across the bridge the family originally used when they arrived (though Honey worries it might disappear, separating her from them forever). Each chapter ends with a text message from the family members left behind, enabling readers to piece together the situation and understand more than Honey does. Once Honey leaves the valley, the perspective shifts between her and Rumi as their storylines converge.

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speculative story has a just-right mix of fantasy and reality, excellent descriptions of the settings (both enchanted and realistic), and a strong main character with an important quest. Honey and her family read white.

A beautifully executed, fantastical what-if tale for right now. (Q&A with the author) (Fiction. 8-12)

A Forest Full of Music Overmeer, Suzan | Illus. by Myriam Berenschot | Clavis (32 pp.) | $19.95 April 23, 2024 | 9781605379913

A young rabbit longs to sing.

Toby, a brown puffball with ears sticking straight up to a triangular point, hears the blackbirds singing every night and wishes that he could join them. But his mother admonishes him: “Silly boy,” she tells him. “Rabbits can’t sing.”

Still, Toby is determined, and his friend Tim, a bushy-tailed squirrel, encourages him to follow his dream.

Unfortunately, when Toby opens his mouth, a horrible screeching sound comes out instead of a beautiful melody. Embarrassed, Toby runs into the woods. He cries and stomps his feet in anger. But, in a moment of transformation, those staccato noises turn out to be music of their own.

Ambient nature sounds—the tap of a woodpecker’s beak, a deer banging his antlers against a tree—combine to create a grand woodland concerto.

Thrumming with onomatopoeias, the sounds swirl between hues of greens and yellows that brighten the forest setting. Originally published in Dutch, this tale is a bit wordy, but love and respect for music—and how it can be expressed in unexpected ways—shine through. Appended “Rabbit Tips for Making Music” encourage readers to stomp, tap, clap, and make other sounds to fill the room.

Amma’s Sari Parappukkaran, Sandhya | Illus. by Michelle Pereira | Abrams (40 pp.) | $18.99 March 19, 2024 | 9781419767685

A child of South Asian descent has conflicting feelings about a parent’s sari.

Every morning, the young narrator delights in the “rustle” of Amma’s sari. Although at home, Amma’s sari seems like “a magic carpet,” out in the world, it feels like a liability. Strangers stare with confusion or curiosity at Amma’s outfit, and the protagonist, unnerved, asks if Amma would ever consider wearing something different. Amma responds by relating a series of memories: loving aunts clad in colorful saris and feelings of safety beneath the skirt of her own mother’s sari. Though Amma’s sari makes the protagonist feel “calm as a fish in water,” the child still frets about the attention the outfit draws from the people they pass. When the two go shopping, the child feels embarrassed and attempts to disappear into the crowd. But when the protagonist gets lost, the sari’s visibility becomes priceless. The author masterfully honors the protagonist’s complex emotional reaction to Amma’s sartorial choices. The first-person narration not only results in a beautifully layered character, but also imbues the mother-child relationship with nuanced affection. Pereira’s shimmering, pastel palette gives the book a magical feel. The protagonist’s community is racially diverse.

A tender, lovingly rendered tribute to the joys and complexities of the parent-child bond. (Picture book. 4-8)

For more by Sandhya Parappukkaran, visit Kirkus online.

Reframes the idea of what music might be. (Picture book. 4-7)

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Likely to spur readers to forge a stronger bond with the natural world.

GET OUTSIDE!

Not My Cat Patton, Stacey | Illus. by Acamy Schleikorn | Denene Millner Books/ Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781665927963

Is “Not My Cat” the right name for this feline?

Staceypants, a Black artist and gardener who wears colorful trousers, lives in a quiet neighborhood and does not like messes. When a fluffy gray cat appears, Staceypants sets out some tuna. But Staceypants is far too busy for a cat—plus, they scratch the furniture…and use a litter box, YUCK!—so the feline is dubbed “Not My Cat.” The cat might have other ideas, however. She continues to visit, and the two of them do yoga, eat breakfast, take selfies, sunbathe, and nap. Where does Not My Cat go when she’s not with Staceypants? “Maybe, like me, she spends a lot of time alone. Maybe, like me, she is cautious about making friends and keeping them too.” One day, Not My Cat doesn’t show up.

One day turns into many. After weeks of worry, Not My Cat returns, and a joyful Staceypants realizes that maybe the cat needs a name change.

Inspired by the author’s own experiences (photos of Patton and her cat are appended), this is a sly, sweet tale of friendship. Staceypants’ musings on Not My Cat’s whereabouts hint at yearnings—and fears—of making new connections. The digitally rendered illustrations pop with texture and color; they’re a fine match for the text and make it clear that a real friendship is blossoming.

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Sure to be catnip for all cat fans, whether reluctant or enthusiastic.

(Picture book. 3-8)

Get Outside!: How Humans Connect With Nature Payne, Leah | Orca (48 pp.) | $21.95 April 16, 2024 | 9781459836877 Series: Orca Footprints, 30

There’s more than one reason to spend a little more time outdoors.

Payne argues that humans are part of nature and should be engaging with the natural world more often and more effectively. She opens with a short history of humans’ relationships with the natural world, noting that the “nature deficit” many of us experience today isn’t universal; she offers examples of Nordic and Indigenous Canadian practices. She explores how people’s abilities to spend time in nature is affected by racial and socioeconomic inequities. The author discusses ways we’ve learned from nature; how we can harness solar, wind, and other forms of natural power; and how we can adapt in the face of climate change. A final chapter describes nature-based activities and outdoor education. Payne gives readers a list of items to bring before exploring the outdoors and reminds them to respect the natural world. Her Canadian perspective is clear, both in her examples and her suggested resources. The text is accessible, if at times a bit didactic, though readers will likely already be on her side and will appreciate the encouragement she provides. Frequent sidebars and subheadings will help readers follow the

flow of the work. Stock photos enliven the text and depict diverse people as well as cityscapes and attractive outdoor environments.

Informative and likely to spur readers to forge a stronger bond with the natural world. (resources, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-14)

And the Winner Is . . .

Pirrone, Francesca | Clavis (32 pp.) $14.95 | April 23, 2024 | 9781605379937 Series: Piggy, 6

Piggy deals with disappointment by finding the bright side.

Originally published in Dutch, this latest series entry finds Piggy painting a picture for an upcoming art contest while his friends play nearby. While roller-skating, Mouse becomes distracted and turns to look at Piggy’s work. He skates into Rabbit, who’s stretched out practicing floor yoga.

Hurt and angry, Rabbit pushes Mouse, who rolls right into Piggy. Piggy accidentally tears the painting. Mouse and Rabbit are contrite, but Piggy is crying, and Bird, Turtle, and Cat are also sad. Then Mouse has an idea: They’ll all join in patching up the hole and painting their own contributions over it. Piggy considers the makeshift result “a masterpiece,” but the judges disagree. Is Piggy upset? No! “I’ve already won first prize—because I have the best friends in the world.” The final spread shows all the friends happily painting a big blue canvas together.

Piggy wears the same gold sweater as in the other books, and once again, small touches of color stand out against white backgrounds and black lines. Previous installments have focused on a constellation of related traits—kindness, caring, collaboration, and sharing—and this latest follows suit, with delightful results.

Another sweet, warm outing with a most endearing hero. (Picture book. 3-7)

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I Hate Love Pirrone, Francesca | Clavis (32 pp.) $18.95 | April 30, 2024 | 9798890630230

Hedgehogs deal with the highs and lows of romance.

Harry the Hedgehog is frustrated to hear that his friend Randy can’t help him search for worms in the long grass. Instead, Randy’s going off to watch the sunset with his newfound paramour, Becky. “Ever since Randy met Becky, he’s been as dull as a donkey,” says Harry. “I hate love! I’ll go worm hunting by myself.” As Harry dramatically marches away, a sweet female hedgehog named Annie greets him, but he snarls and stomps off, breaking his glasses in the process. Detailed and energetic pictures capture curmudgeonly Harry as he goes off on his own to find worms and is suddenly entranced by what appears to be a beautiful floating hedgehog hiding in the grass. Could this be love? Why won’t the mysterious hedgehog speak? Why doesn’t she respond to the worms, acorns, cherries, and flowers he’s offering?

And what about the lovestruck Annie, who is waiting in the wings? Though somewhat meandering, this story, originally published in Dutch, has charm and is sprinkled with warmth and gentle humor; it will elicit oohs and aahs (and perhaps a few ageappropriate groans) from its young audience, and future romantics will find satisfaction in the happy if rather predictable ending. It should also make a pleasing choice for Valentine’s Day.

A quirky tale of romance, hedgehog-style. (Picture book. 3-7)

Butterfly on the Wind Pottle, Adam | Illus. by Ziyue Chen Roaring Brook Press (40 pp.) | $18.99 March 12, 2024 | 9781250821973

A child feels the support of Deaf people around the world.

Aurora, a young Deaf girl, is nervously practicing the fairy tale she’ll soon sign at her school talent show. A butterfly appears, and she signs the ASL word for butterfly, creating a breeze that sends the creature around the world. As it flutters by, other Deaf children and families make the sign for butterfly, too, adding their own wind and eventually leading to a colorful tornado of butterflies that comes back to Aurora, supporting her as she enters her talent show. Aurora’s talent show worries are a jumping-off point for the real point of the story: the connection between Deaf people around the world. Pottle envisions a world where families sign with their Deaf children and Deaf people are linked by their language. This story shows that the slight wind created by signing may seem small but can subtly transform the world, creating, as Pottle puts it in an author’s note, “a fantastic storm that could shift mountains and rearrange rivers.” This brief but touching tale is a fun read for all, though its important message will especially resonate with Deaf children. The brightly colored illustrations lovingly capture the characters’ signing as butterflies swirl

Sure to be catnip for all cat fans, whether reluctant or enthusiastic.

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across the pages. Aurora is lightskinned with dark hair; other characters are diverse.

Simple yet poignant and loving. (ASL alphabet) (Picture book. 3-8)

Wonka Pounder, Sibéal | Viking (304 pp.) $17.99 | Dec. 19, 2023 | 9780593528686

The local chocolate cartel doesn’t stand a chance when Willy Wonka comes to town in this novel spun from the screenplay for the 2023 film Wonka, which is set in the world of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Freshly returned from years of early travels at sea and clad in a very special coat and hat once owned by a magician, the future bonbon baron hopes to open a shop right next to the three renowned chocolatiers of the big city’s Galeries Gourmet.

Slugworth, Fickelgruber, and Prodnose turn out to have other plans, but being (along with all their minions) stupid, clownish, and corrupt, they’re only temporarily able to divert the colorful candy king from achieving his dreams. The tale features a cast divided into thoroughly hissable villains and poor but honest supporters, fronted by a properly enigmatic protagonist.

Wonka has bottomless pockets full of unappealing supplies for creating morsels with marvelous effects—literally uplifting Hoverchocs containing “microscopic hoverfly eggs” and hair-restoring eclairs that owe their magical quality to a drop of “yeti sweat.” The cast reads as white, with the notable exception of Shorty-Pants, its single cranky, orange Oompa-Loompa, who ultimately saves Wonka from a chocolatey death and winds up head of the brand-new Wonka factory’s tasting department. That doubtlessly well-meant effort to buff up the FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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obtrusively racist element in Dahl’s original at least helps to counter this work’s flatter prose.

A shiny, if superficial, prequel.

(Fantasy. 9-12)

Seven Ghosts Priestley, Chris | Union Square Kids (144 pp.) | $8.99 paper | April 2, 2024 9781454954873 | Series: Everyone Can Be a Reader

Young finalists in a ghost story contest get a special tour of a haunted house.

Grimstone Hall was once an ancient English manor; now it’s a conference center, hotel, and venue for writing festivals.

Jake and the other writing finalists are invited to tour the grounds to draw inspiration for a story they’ll each write about Grimstone. They explore, led by their guide, Mrs. Fox, who tells them stories of six children who died grisly deaths throughout the manor’s history. Jake seems to be the only one who notices strange occurrences—a puddle here, a silent, pale girl there.

He assumes Grimstone’s employees are attempting to make the ghosts seem real, but the tale of the seventh ghost may hold the answers. Though short in length, this title packs a morbid punch with each child’s violent death (by gunshot, freezing, burning) and ends on a hair-raisingly creepy note. While the brevity of the ghost stories keeps the deaths from being handled with much depth, middle-grade readers will be hooked by the twists and turns (many of the tales involve dark and intriguing misdeeds). Sketchy illustrations For more by Chris Priestley, visit Kirkus online.

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sprinkled throughout add visual interest and are fittingly unsettling.

Characters’ races and ethnicities are not specified, though many are described as being pale.

A quick, compelling read perfectly suited to its target audience. (Horror.

10-14)

Kirkus Star

Lightfall: The Dark Times Probert, Tim | HarperAlley (256 pp.) $24.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780063080911 Series: Lightfall, 3

With Kest gone, Bea, Cad, and friends confront a new threat: If they cannot recover the sun, their entire planet will soon freeze.

Ninety-four days ago, the birdlike spirit who devoured the sun was defeated after also destroying the artificial Lights that supported life on Irpa. Our protagonists depart for the Citadel of Knowledge, seeking information about the missing sun. Between weapons practice and road patrols, Bea practices the magic that the Arsai use to tap into the consciousness of all living things.

Probert depicts her anxiety and self-doubt as dark, blobby ribbons or frantic spirals of text swirling around her. A recurring vision of another spirit leads Bea to question Kest’s true motivations. The Citadel’s resources enable Alfirid to finally translate Cad’s mysterious scrolls and lead the group to the site of an ancient tragedy, upending their beliefs about their world. This third series entry features deeper character development and introspection, creating a more intimate, though no less compelling, narrative that strengthens the characters’ relationships and invites further exploration of topics such as media literacy, bias, and the politics of historical record-keeping. Vibrant, expressive art showcases the characters’ personalities and emotions, the

coziness of woodland camp scenes, and the striking diversity and scale of the settings the travelers traverse. Most main characters resemble humansized, anthropomorphized animals; Bea has light skin and purple hair.

A resonant, richly layered adventure with a modern yet timeless emphasis on emotional intelligence, courage, and empathy. (map, alphabets) (Graphic fantasy. 8-12)

Queenie Jean Is in Trouble Again Read, Christine | Heritage House Publishing (224 pp.) | $14.95 paper April 2, 2024 | 9781772034790

Enter the world of a spirited, neurodiverse fifth grader with ADHD. Queenie Jean Merriam, a precocious red-haired white girl, moved with her family to West Vancouver from a small town in Ontario. Her fresh start at her new private school starts off badly when her dad, trying to get stuck gum out of her hair, accidentally gives her a terrible haircut. Worse, Queenie keeps ending up in trouble, especially with the principal. Queenie impulsively talks out of turn, can’t control the volume of her voice, and struggles to fit in socially. Some wealthy mean girl classmates make things especially hard, but thankfully, two kind new friends help her navigate the school’s social dynamics and the upcoming mandatory speech competition. Queenie’s first-person voice, marked by rambling monologues and bursts of creative thinking, conveys her inner world and good intentions. Her narration includes misspelled emails and lists, which will be relatable to readers who have similar difficulties.

Queenie’s parents support her patiently and with humor and help her navigate emotional outbursts, focus on her homework, and integrate herself into her new school. In the end, Queenie’s resilience is symbolized by her crossing K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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Simultaneously candid and heartbreaking yet warm and engaging.

THREE SUMMERS

a swinging bridge that she’s terrified of, foreshadowing her ability to overcome fear, stigma, and academic barriers.

Short chapters and comedic moments make this an appealing read.

Comedic fiction that celebrates strengths and reveals the challenges of living with neurodiversity. (Fiction.

8-12)

Signs of Hope: The Revolutionary Art of Sister Corita Kent Rockliff, Mara | Illus. by Melissa Sweet | Abrams (40 pp.) | $19.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781419752216

An evocative tribute to the style and spirit of a countercultural pop artist.

“She is small and quiet, but her art is big and loud.” Rockliff leaves most of the biographical details of Sister Corita Kent’s (1918-1986) meteoric public career to the closing timeline and focuses instead on conveying her methods and message as her students might have experienced them. The author asks readers to follow the artist’s practice by using a hole cut through a piece of cardboard—or, alternatively, a cell phone camera—as a “finder” to isolate and see anew portions of the common, everyday world’s surrounding scenes and signage. She captures her subject at work clipping words from advertisements and magazines to make uplifting, politically aware collages and luminous screen prints.

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what we have learned.” Along with nods to some of Sister Corita’s own works and writings, Sweet incorporates similar assemblages of words against bright, vibrant abstract backgrounds to accompany glimpses of the smiling but serious-looking white artist, in both traditional habit and “modern” dress, hard at work amid groups of students and marchers who are diverse in terms of skin tone.

A buoyant invitation to see the world and to look for artistic ways to improve it. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, quote sources, further resources) (Picture-book biography. 7-10)

Three Summers: A Memoir of Sisterhood, Summer Crushes, and Growing Up on the Eve of War Sabic-El-Rayess, Amra with Laura L. Sullivan | Farrar, Straus and Giroux (352 pp.) $18.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9780374390815

In this memoir, a young Bosniak Muslim girl comes of age with her larger-than-life cousin over three summers leading up to the Bosnian genocide.

Amra’s beloved older brother died from complications of Marfan syndrome, leaving a gaping hole in her family members’ lives.

Amra’s mom tried in vain to help her make friends who might pull her out of her deep depression, but it was only when Amra connected with Žana, her estranged aunt’s daughter, that she again felt a zest for life. Over the next three summers, Amra and Žana are

inseparable, spending time with family and friends on the banks of the glistening emerald waters of the River Una. Žana truly lives out loud, and she inspires a confidence in Amra that she never knew she had. But their seemingly unbreakable bond of sisterhood is threatened by ethnic tensions and looming war: Žana’s father is a Serb from a Chetnik family, a nationalist group who killed Muslims in Kosovo during World War II. Sabic-El-Rayess shared later parts of her story in her YA memoir, The Cat I Never Named (2020). This compelling volume runs the gamut of emotions— grief, humiliation at the hands of bullies, the rush of a first crush, and the devastation of being treated with hate. This moving and deeply personal story is framed in a way that makes the larger political, religious, and ethnic complexities accessible.

Simultaneously candid and heartbreaking yet warm and engaging. (family tree, author’s note, timeline, where they are now, sources) (Memoir. 8-12)

Kirkus Star

If You Run Out of Words Sala, Felicita | Abrams (48 pp.) | $18.99 April 9, 2024 | 9781419766886

When a young girl seems unable to get her father’s attention, a simple question brings it back.

Dad chats with a friend at the supermarket, talks on the phone while cooking, and texts while the young protagonist dons pajamas. Feeling neglected, the child wonders what will happen if he runs out of words: “Will you have any left for me?” The father’s expression registers guilt and embarrassment. With unruly dark hair and a massive upper body ending in tiny feet, he’s a robust yet comical and affable character. He explains that if faced with a language deficit, he would visit the Elves’ Word Factory; upon FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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seeing the containers of “small talk” and “dad jokes,” he’d select “infinity” to guarantee a steady supply. But what if he gets lost on his way back? The child asks a series of “what ifs” as she enacts various incredibly flexible poses on her bed, a stuffed rabbit mirroring her acrobatics—all set against uncluttered white pages. By contrast, detailed, mixed-media settings portray Dad’s increasingly outlandish scenarios of his journey home: He builds a rocket, rides a narwhal, and drinks a shrinking potion so he can fit on a mouse-led rescue boat. Ultimately, loving words and the dramatic reveal of the “infinity” bottle amaze and delight the daughter—and readers.

The child is light-skinned; Dad is brown-skinned.

With humor, heart, and oodles of child appeal, this tale models a flawed but devoted parent’s mastery of love languages. (Picture book. 3-6)

What Makes Us Human Santos, Victor D.O. | Illus. by Anna Forlati | Eerdmans (48 pp.) | $18.99 March 5, 2024 | 9780802856258

Published in partnership with UNESCO, in honor of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, linguist Santos’ latest considers the relationship between language and culture.

“I have been around for a very long time. Longer than toys, dogs, or anyone you know.” Presented as a long-form riddle, this tale is narrated by language itself, though that’s not revealed until the end. The illustrations accompanying the lyrical text are striking in their texture and detail. On a spread featuring a tan-skinned person and a dog in an elevator, the text reads, “I am sure you saw me today. / Or heard me. Or felt me.”

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the elevator buttons—it’s clear that language is far more than spoken words or visual text. The story’s main purpose, however, is to raise awareness about disappearing languages, because “When one of me disappears, a culture may also disappear.” Indigenous people are depicted throughout the narrative, but they aren’t identified in the text (though a few written examples of their languages are included), which undercuts the message about preserving culture. The backmatter (which notes that about half the world’s living languages will become extinct by 2100) offers more context, but the narrative’s focus on general humanity keeps the book from accomplishing its stated goal of exploring the significance of protecting Indigenous people and their languages.

Artful and attractive but somewhat muddled in its messaging. (author’s and illustrator’s note, note from UNESCO) (Picture book. 6-10)

A Sundae With Everything on It Scheele, Kyle | Illus. by Andy J. Pizza Chronicle Books (44 pp.) | $17.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781797221625

A quantum physicist takes her child on a ride through the universe, complete with an epic stop in the icecream-iverse.

Mom has come up with her greatest invention: “a device for seeing through space and time INTO OTHER DIMENSIONS!” She gazes up at her control panel, showing her child the different universes, including one where everything is made of lava, one where everything is ice, and even one devoted to cream. The child is eager to visit the ice cream universe, so off they go! The young narrator points out that Mom’s device is intended to allow users to see other universes, not visit them, but, as Mom responds, “What better way to see than in person?” The two blast off and zoom from universe

to universe, grabbing bowls, visiting the spoon-iverse, and hitting up all of the toppings-iverses. The child wishes there were a world where all of these incredible things existed at once. Mom knows the perfect place and steers them home. The story is told in the first person by the child; readers will experience all the joy, wonder, and yumminess right alongside the protagonist. The illustrations are colorful and cluttered, a jumble of spoons, toppings, faces, and whimsy.

Though at times the art is a bit busy, it suits this goofy, wildly entertaining space-themed story. Mom is brownskinned and pink-haired, while the child has light-tan skin.

A wonderfully silly, out-of-this-world adventure. (Picture book. 3-6)

Oh, Are You Awake?

Shea, Bob | Illus. by Jarvis | Candlewick (40 pp.) | $17.99 | April 2, 2024 9781536226584

In this tale from two veteran picture-book creators, a wide-awake lion demanding bedtime stories from a sleepy penguin takes center stage.

As Penguin prepares to enter slumberland, Lion asks for a story.

Penguin promises to tell one later and falls asleep, but Lion’s loud drumming jolts Penguin awake from a wonderful dream about a robot giving out candy.

Lion begs to hear about the “sweet candy dreams,” but Penguin says, “Not now Lion. It is time to close our eyes and dream dreams.” Penguin slips into another dream, now donning a unicorn horn and flying on a unicorn’s back—until “CRUNCH, CRUNCH” noises (Lion is eating from a bag of Bob’s Crunchies, perhaps a reference to the book’s author) cause Penguin and the unicorn to hurtle toward a gaping dragon’s maw. Penguin chastises Lion before falling back to sleep to dream of driving a puppy train…when “BOING! BOING!” K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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noises ring out, this time from Lion’s trampoline. Penguin relents and tells a cursory account of the night’s dreams, but Lion complains that Penguin is lazy. Penguin is truly exhausted and finally tells a story that puts Lion to sleep. While the last joke falls a bit flat, the funny alternating dialogue (Penguin’s in black, Lion’s in blue) and soft digital illustrations sure to spur young listeners’ imaginations make for an entertaining bedtime romp.

Enticement into dreamland for children requesting just one more bedtime story. (Picture book. 3-5)

The City Sings Green & Other Poems About Welcoming Wildlife Silverman, Erica | Illus. by Ginnie Hsu Clarion/HarperCollins (40 pp.) $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780358434566

With this poetry collection, Silverman and Hsu offer encouragement for those worried about the planet.

Vivid verse brings to life a variety of global efforts toward environmental stewardship and revitalization. Each piece offers a close observation of a regionally specific ecological problem and solution; a brief paragraph of text offers more information. “For the Bees” explores how the people of Oslo, Norway, created a “highway” made up of roof gardens and bee boxes to help honeybees, which face threats due to habitat loss and climate change.

Another poem details how an initiative in Chicago resulted in people turning their lights off at night to help migrating birds. The result is a distilled

portrayal of a world in crisis as well as an optimistic portrait of how a small handful of people, working together, can respond and avert crises. Though it’s clear that our planet faces grave danger, readers will come away feeling that positive change is within their grasp. In lesser hands, this work could have become heavy-handed, but it does what poetry does best: It captures small, meaningful moments with heart.

This purposeful collection offers an entry point for deeper conversations about the human role in preservation and protection of the natural world.

Hsu’s realistic yet whimsical full-color illustrations add a human touch and reflect diversity in skin tones throughout.

Upbeat conservationist verse. (how you can help, more to explore, resources for families and educators, children’s books celebrating city wildlife) (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)

Clara and the Birds Simpson, Emma | Milky Way Picture Books (52 pp.) | $20.99 April 4, 2024 | 9781990252341

Clara feels trapped by her designation as a shy child, but an encounter with an imperiled bird forces her to break out of her shell.

Narrated in a poetically formal, third-person style with the vibe of an old-school nature documentary, this tale follows Clara, a blond, paleskinned bird aficionado. Clara lives life on the sidelines, watching birds intuitively “soar and glide in endless

Tackles a potentially tough topic with a blend of whimsy and warmth.

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spaces,” while she herself is stuck, longing to join in on her classmates’ games but unable to “find her voice.” A striking image of Clara enclosed inside an eggshell is a perfect metaphor for this emotional confinement. When she decides to search a forest for birds, the story has a distinct lull in pacing.

Though scenes of Clara meandering through the woods ruminating on “old, gnarly roots” and vibrant insects are aesthetically lovely and demonstrate Simpson’s mastery of delicate linework and botanical elements, this section feels sluggish. The story picks up once Clara locates and saves a bird entangled in some string and leaves the forest, ready to soar. Her shyness no longer defines her; she knows she can “be brave, sociable, and curious.”

Wispy, watercolorlike backgrounds in a limited palette of sky blue, gold, and charcoal highlight the birds and Clara’s expressive face.

A contemplative text for quiet readers, but those who persist may hear the birds sing. (Picture book. 5-10)

A Hat Full of Sea Smith, Maudie | Illus. by Jen Khatun | Lantana (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781915244666

During a hospital stay, a grandfather receives magical gifts from his granddaughter.

Grandpa Jim has a small window in his room, but this peek into the wider world isn’t enough—at least not according to his doting granddaughter Cora. She sets out to help him experience different places. First up, the sea. Using a wide-brimmed hat with a red sash, Cora catches “the cold-water ripples and the white foaming waves,” as well as “the softness of the sand and the seagull cries all wrapped up in the wind.” She brings it all back to Grandpa Jim, and the waves seem to cover him, like a blanket. After delivering the moon, the fun and excitement of a fair, a countryFEBRUARY 15, 2024

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side field of flowers, and more, Cora is bereft when she drops the hat near a train. But Grandpa Jim tells her that it was her, not the hat, that cheered him up. The art is as playful as the concept, with images made up of loose lines and filled with solidly bold colors. The typeface is small, with some scenes becoming wordy and busy amid the imaginative scenery. Grandpa’s ailment is not discussed, though his stay is only temporary; children visiting relatives in the hospital will find the tale relatable and reassuring. Cora is brown-skinned and dark-haired, while Grandpa Jim is light-skinned and white-haired.

Tackles a potentially tough topic with a blend of whimsy and warmth.

(Picture book. 4-7)

Circle of Love Smith, Monique Gray | Illus. by Nicole Neidhardt | Heartdrum (32 pp.) | $19.99 March 12, 2024 | 9780063078703

A young Indigenous girl feels deeply connected to her community.

In the foreword, Cree/ Lakota/Scottish author Smith discusses tawâw, a nêhiyawêwin (Cree) word meaning “there is always room.” This value is at the heart of her story, told from the perspective of young Molly. Molly describes the various emotions she feels as she interacts with those around her: “When Kôhkom and her wife, Kôhkom Raven, sing a welcome song, I feel connected.” “When my uncles and I play peekaboo with their baby, I feel love.” Molly and family, friends, and elders gather at an intertribal community center for a feast. Together, they prepare for a ceremony, make a food offering, and share bannock and soup.

Queer and gender-nonconforming relatives figure prominently in Neidhardt’s (Diné) vibrant images; Molly’s community is lovingly portrayed as one that includes people with many gender expressions, skin 138

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tones, and styles of dress, and the words “love is love” appear throughout the book’s colorful spreads. This is a beautiful and moving glimpse into the rich intersections of Indigenous cultures and the Native queer and trans people who co-create them. Backmatter includes an author’s note in which Smith reflects on her own identity as a two-spirit person, a glossary, and information on the importance of Native community centers and Indigenous LGBTQ+ people.

with 2-D painted inserts of diverse people, flora, and fauna, embody the visual cacophony of Snyder’s text. A lively farmers market scene contains visual depth, colorful details, and plenty of discoverable patterns. The walk home leads the parent and child through woods teeming with mushrooms, bright leaves, and wildlife. The occasional blurring of the photographed backgrounds is a bit jarring, evoking more a camera’s eye than a child’s visual experiences.

Look

Sona Sharma, Looking After Planet Earth

A celebration of community, queer Native families, and Indigenous joy. (note from Heartdrum authorcurator Cynthia Leitich Smith) (Picture book. 5-10)

Snyder, Gabi | Illus. by Samantha Cotterill Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster (48 pp.) $18.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781665905404

In this companion to Listen (2021), illustrated

by Stephanie Graegin, Snyder encourages children to develop perceptive looking and pattern-seeking as coping tools for the frequent visual overwhelm of daily life.

A pregnant parent and a child— both ginger-haired and whitepresenting—navigate a busy autumn day, with stops at a garden, a farmers market, a pond, and a wooded trail.

The child carries a sketchbook gifted by the parent, making drawings of patterns spied in textiles, butterfly wings, and the starry night sky.

Throughout, the text directly addresses readers, pointing out patterns, encouraging them to find others, and suggesting physical activities that add kinesthetic possibilities for pattern-finding. Snyder identifies the striped pattern made by a kitchen chair’s cast shadow—“Light, dark, light, dark”—then asks, as the pair leave the house, “Where else can you discover stripes?” Cotterill’s hand-built mixed-media constructions, replete

A warm invitation for children to find mastery and calm in looking. (glossary, pattern activities) (Picture book. 4-7)

Soundar, Chitra | Illus. by Jen Khatun Candlewick (128 pp.) | $15.99 | Feb. 13, 2024 9781536231960 | Series: Sona Sharma

A young girl convinces her community to be more ecoconscious.

One Friday morning, Miss Rao tells Sona Sharma and her classmates about pollution and climate change.

Inspired, Sona embarks on a mission to protect the planet. At first, her enthusiasm leads to some not-so-great ideas, including hiding her baby sister’s diapers and switching off the electricity in her house. Eventually, she settles on a more achievable goal: banning artificial powders from the upcoming neighborhood kolam competition.

Going through with her idea, however, may anger her maternal grandmother, who wins the competition every year using these colorful pollutants. Sona seeks advice from her paternal grandfather, who judges the contest.

Can Sona find a way to help the planet without alienating her family? Set in India, this tale shines with its protagonist’s sincerity and makes a complex, daunting topic feel accessible to a young audience. Sona’s relationships K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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with various family members help move the plot forward; her conversations with her toy elephant are especially charming. Black-and-white illustrations peppered throughout break up the action. Though the book doesn’t speak to the importance of systemic action in combating climate change, it will nevertheless give climate-anxious children a muchneeded sense of control.

An optimistic tale of eco-activism that’s sure to buoy little ones worried about the state of the planet. (Fiction.

7-11)

Kirkus Star

Bye Land, Bye Sea Spencer, René & Rodolfo Montalvo Illus. by Rodolfo Montalvo | Roaring Brook Press (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 30, 2024 | 9781250246721

A boy on land and a girl at sea overcome language barriers to become friends.

A girl wearing a white, wide-brimmed hat steers a boat, worry across her face. “I’m lost.” A boy in a red-orange cap holding a conch shell on a string stares out at the sea.

“Soy náufrago.” She sees land and heads toward it. He spots the boat, hoping for a friend rather than a foe.

As each child notices the other, their mutual trepidation leads to an unexpected initial encounter.

“AAAAAAAH!” “¡AAAAAAA!” Both children, however, soon realize they have nothing to fear. Amid island backdrops brimming with rich blues, greens, and oranges, the girl and the boy take tentative steps toward one another. A problem: She speaks English; he speaks Spanish. To For more by Rodolfo Montalvo, visit Kirkus online.

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communicate, the girl and the boy explore the island and share a little of their worlds. Eventually, the children voyage off the island in the boat, but a sudden storm splits them up. Will the friends reunite? Restrained and spare but potent text whips up an exceptional tale of kinship, where English and Spanish words often converge in meaning. Montalvo’s watercolor, gouache, and graphite artwork brims with verve, leveraging unusual perspectives, thoughtful frames, and vivid tones that culminate in a sublime gatefold. The girl reads as white, while the boy has light brown skin and is cued Latine.

A radiant tale of adventure and friendship. (Picture book. 4-8)

Gaga Mistake Day Straub, Emma & Susan Straub Illus. by Jessica Love | Rocky Pond Books/Penguin (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 2, 2024 | 9780593529461

Grandma’s so-called errors are enough to drive anyone gaga—but in the best possible way.

On Saturdays, when Gaga visits her 4-year-old grandchild—who narrates the story—she “makes lots of mistakes.”

Sometimes she wears her fuzzy slippers on her ears. Or she and her grandchild switch their eyeglasses so neither of them can see a thing. Or she substitutes a chocolate bar for chewing gum, rationalizing, “Isn’t that gum? You can chew it.” Gaga sees nothing wrong in reading an upside-down book to the child. On treks to the park, the pair walk backward. Occasionally, the protagonist’s parents disapprove of Gaga’s ideas, such as feeding their child marshmallows before dinner or filling the tub to overflowing with soap bubbles. But grandchild and Gaga agree that “mistakes are fun, aren’t they?” This is a gently comical tribute to warm, deeply loving grandmothergrandchild relationships. Gaga clearly

understands that adults can easily form close bonds with kids if they use humor, behave in a childlike manner themselves, and appreciate a youngster’s sense of wonder and absurdity.

The message here is that more grown-ups should make the “mistake” of loosening up a bit. The dynamic pencil, watercolor, and gouache illustrations are as freewheeling and entertaining as grayhaired Gaga, who is pale-skinned; the protagonists and the parents are brown-skinned.

Who wouldn’t love spending time with a memorable grandmother like this?

(Picture book. 4-7)

My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story Takei, George | Illus. by Michelle Lee Crown (48 pp.) | $19.99 | April 30, 2024 9780593566350

Star Trek actor and activist Takei looks back on a childhood marked by war and injustice, transformed by parental heroes.

Takei was 4 years old in 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Soon after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, decreeing that Japanese American people be imprisoned in concentration camps. Takei and his parents and younger siblings were forced to leave their home in Los Angeles and live in a series of camps— first at the San Anita racetrack and later at Camp Rohwer, Arkansas, and Tule Lake, California. Takei offers an unflinchingly honest, child’s-eye view of these events: stalls stinking of horse manure and filled with bugs and germs, sweltering barracks guarded by sentry towers with armed soldiers.

Mindful, though, of young readers’ sensibilities, he interweaves moments of levity and escape: movie nights, a baseball league, a dog named Blackie, a snowball fight, and more. His parents’ courage shines through, too: Mama transforming their dismal FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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surroundings into a home; Daddy serving as manager of their block. Lee’s mixed-media illustrations depict children in brightly colored outfits set against backgrounds of earth tones and deep blues to capture readers’ attention and underscore the individuality of the imprisoned citizens. Lee also inserts visual details to complement Takei’s evocative text. An author’s note details the harassment Takei’s family experienced as they rebuilt their lives in L.A. A candid yet tender glimpse at a bleak chapter in U.S. history. (glossary and pronunciation guide, photographs) (Picture-book memoir. 4-9)

Juneteenth Is Tripplett, Natasha | Illus. by Daniel J. O’Brien | Chronicle Books (40 pp.) $17.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781797216805

An African American child celebrates Juneteenth with her family.

The unnamed young narrator awakens to the smell of Daddy’s brisket cooking. She and her family pull up chairs and watch as a parade of dancers and musicians proceed down their street. Later, they go to Granddaddy’s house, which is decorated with flags commemorating the occasion. As family members arrive, more voices are added to the mix. Some play basketball; others listen to music. After prayers, the family enjoys a meal full of food; the child notes the numerous red items there, and backmatter explores the significance of the color to Juneteenth and in West African cultures. Granddaddy discusses the day’s historical importance and explains why they must remember those who came before them and who struggled and persevered. The final spreads proclaim that Juneteenth is an American holiday for all: “Juneteenth is all of us. We are America.” Told from the perspective of a child finding joy and wonder in her family’s traditions, this story strikes a balance 140

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between the celebratory aspects of the holiday and its historical origins. The strength of family and the power of community come through clearly.

O’Brien’s lively and colorful digital illustrations enhance the tale.

A solid introduction to the holiday’s history and traditions for the youngest audience. (bibliography) (Picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Star

Shine Valasse, Bruno | Tundra Books (32 pp.) $17.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9781774884287

A gentle look at fear, darkness, strength, and light.

The tiny moth-child narrator (a tot with a paperwhite human face and multiple appendages, along with antennae and wings) opens with ponderous thoughts: “This is a story about stars. No, it’s a story about fear.

Or maybe it’s a story about me?” It is, in fact, all three. The young moth is afraid of the dark but also enchanted by the night sky. There must be a way to explore the stars without encountering any nighttime predators. Tucked between mushroom caps, the moth learns the art of camouflage. The moth also finds other nocturnal friends to flit around with in the dark. But sinister eyes peer up from the shadows.

Suddenly, large, sticky tongues shoot out, putting the insects in danger. Our intrepid hero musters up the courage to unleash a surprising inner strength.

On a triumphant double-page spread, the protagonist’s confidence shines, wings spread wide. Valasse’s textured natural world, filled with lush foliage in teal, rust, and mustard renderings, has a classic feel, while the spare story veers quietly through the moonlight.

The work’s apt title encompasses both the moth’s journey of self-discovery and the luminous art.

Coco and the Caterpillars Valério, Geraldo | Groundwood (40 pp.) $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781773067988

Four very hungry caterpillars meet a fowl end.

While Coco the chicken eagerly chases insects, the young narrator, a devoted gardener, spots six tiny eggs on a tall plant resembling milkweed. The child asks readers to keep the eggs a secret from Coco—a wise decision. A steady supply of snacks distracts the chicken until six monarch caterpillars hatch.

When the snacks run out, the narrator dashes off for more but fails to take Coco along. The opportunistic chicken ravenously scarfs caterpillars (“Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!”) before being waylaid by a stomachache (“Urgh!”). A tear slides down the narrator’s cheek, but after caring for Coco, the child happily finds two surviving caterpillars. Coco, now averse (“Not yummy!”), leaves them alone, and we see them each make a chrysalis, emerge with rumpled wings, deposit eggs on the plant, and fly off, leaving two chrysalides behind. The brief, easy-to-follow text consists entirely of dialogue between the protagonist and Coco. Valério’s simplified, attractive forms were created with watercolor, paper collage, and colored pencil. The round-headed, brown-skinned narrator has bright button eyes. The setting is minimal; Coco and the butterflies are standouts in orange and red.

An age-appropriate introduction to the beautiful, vulnerable monarch butterfly. (Informational picture book.

3-6)

For more by Geraldo Valério, visit Kirkus online.

Truly shines. (Picture book. 3-7)

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Black boy joy, hurt, anxiety, and perseverance relayed with charm.

MID AIR

Are You Listening?

Verde, Susan | Illus. by Juliana Perdomo | Abrams (40 pp.) | $15.99 April 9, 2024 | 9781419761652 Series: Sensing Your World

A child reflects on auditory experiences in this immersive ode to mindful listening.

As the book opens on a bustling park, a blond, light-skinned child informs us that “the world is busy.” We see someone speaking on a cell phone, an airplane flying, a musician playing the violin, a baby babbling—all familiar, noisy experiences. But when the child’s eyes are closed, these sounds become waves, represented as colorful lines and squiggles. The young narrator explains that when we actively listen, we “begin to understand.” Sounds such as “the noisiness of nature” become differentiated, and the little one picks up on “the humming of a bee sipping from a flower” and “the whispers of a breeze talking to the tree” and realizes that “everything is alive.” Deeper listening—not just to words, but to “the sadness, joy, wonder, or excitement” in conversation—promotes empathy and caring; Verde offers a welcome reminder that when we listen to our own bodies, we’re better equipped to care for ourselves. Vibrant, stimulating illustrations depict a diverse world, featuring people of varied skin tones (some with visible disabilities) and a home with two male-presenting parents. Simple questions such as “What do you notice when you listen?” provide opportunity for conversation and reinforce understanding. Verde includes an easy but K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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effective mindfulness exercise in her author’s note.

A lovely reminder that listening is more than hearing. (Picture book. 3-9)

Mid Air Williams, Alicia D. | Illus. by Danica Novgorodoff | Caitlyn Dlouhy/ Atheneum (320 pp.) | $17.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781481465830

Tragedy strikes a trio of friends, but as the remaining duo grieve and grow apart, high school looms.

Darius and Isaiah first became friends as the only Black kids at robotics camp, but with new student Drew added to the mix, the three skater kids from Michigan use their humor, friendly wagers, and Guinness World Records ambitions to overcome almost anything—from bullies to missing dads. But the sudden death of Darius, who was hit by a car while being harassed by a stranger, isn’t something Drew and Isaiah can easily overcome.

Isaiah, a secret plant lover and not-so-secretly sensitive 13-year-old, narrates the feelings of loss and anxiety that overwhelm the last months of middle school and cause a rift between him and Drew, since both boys are grappling with big feelings of guilt, blame, and regret over Darius’ death.

Each free-verse poem is presented with the emotive rhythm and pacing of a kid who’s just as afraid of what his peers think as he is of not being seen as man enough in his dad’s eyes. Isaiah is sent to live with his aunt and uncle in

North Carolina for the summer for a bit of a fresh start, which proves to be a necessary diversion that yields new friends, new perspectives—and first kisses!—for the boy who hid so much of himself from a world that made him believe he had to. Occasional pen-andink–style art complements the text.

Black boy joy, hurt, anxiety, and perseverance relayed with charm.

(Verse fiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Star

All That Grows Wong, Jack | Groundwood (32 pp.) $19.99 | March 5, 2024 | 9781773068121

A child learns to share a love of plants and gardening with an older sister.

Two siblings stroll past lemon cake–scented magnolias, budding quince trees, and blooming daffodils in early spring.

The children tend the garden, and as the older sister shares more nuggets of information, such as how wild dandelion can be eaten with spaghetti, the young narrator listens earnestly. But the more the child learns, the more questions emerge, and the child lies awake at night overwhelmed with thoughts. Why are only some plants called vegetables, and what makes some of them flowers and others weeds? How does the child’s older sister know so much?

When an experiment in the garden leads to a discovery that stumps big sis, the child gains a sense of ownership and confidence as a gardener.

The hopeful ending provides quiet reassurance to curious beginners daunted by the unknown. Wong’s impressive command of color, light, and shadow in his textured pastel illustrations makes each scene thrum with life. Readers can almost feel the sunlight on their skin and hear the busy sounds of a fertile springtime garden. The protagonist’s thoughtful musings are bound to spark further curiosity in readers as they examine FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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their own observations and ideas about the natural world. The characters present East Asian.

A gentle and meditative origin story of a budding young gardener. (Picture book. 4-8)

Popo & Meimei Can Help Wu, Cathy | Little, Brown (40 pp.) | $18.99 April 23, 2024 | 9780316500708

A young girl and her grandmother help each other conquer the trials of their shared day.

Meimei (Mandarin for little sister) is working to be independent, but she needs help pouring milk, putting on her jacket, and harvesting green onions. At every turn, her Popo (grandmother) is there to wipe up messes, offer a helping hand, and teach Meimei how to garden. Capable, kind Popo is always ready to offer encouragement and a new activity. “Cheer up!” she tells Meimei after a wheelbarrow spill.

“Let’s make dumpling soup.” Though Meimei speaks in English and Popo in Mandarin, the two clearly understand each other. Later, the phone rings. When Popo answers, the English words pouring out of the receiver are illustrated as a scrambled, garbled mess. Seeing Popo’s distress, Meimei realizes that it’s her turn to be the helper. Bright cartoon illustrations and spare text effectively convey the affection and respect that these two have for each other, despite their language barrier. This sweet story offers an introduction to the immigrant experience while celebrating the love between a grandparent and a grandchild. Meimei and Popo’s conversations appear as speech bubbles, with words in simplified Chinese characters, pinyin transliteration, and English.

A moving tribute to the tender moments found in a bilingual, multigenerational household. (Picture book. 4-8) 142

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The ABCs of Queer History Yasmin, Seema | Illus. by Lucy Kirk Workman (64 pp.) | $18.99 April 30, 2024 | 9781523518548

An alphabetical introduction to queer history that honors joy, creativity, and resistance.

Written in upbeat, rhyming couplets and featuring bright, full-page illustrations, this work takes readers on a journey, from “A is for abundant, because we are many” to “Z is for zeal, of which you have plenty, / to share all you know about these queer histories.” The people covered include activists Marsha P. Johnson and Harvey Milk, actors George Takei and Elliot Page, musicians Bessie Smith and Lil Nas X, and writers James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Yasmin keeps the text brief, offering just enough information to spark interest; the endnotes offer more information on the people mentioned.

The author also explores terms such as two-spirit, x-gender, and genderqueer.

Many letters of the alphabet often stand for more than one word and emphasize the feelings, values, and impact of queer history rather than simply providing facts: “O is for the optimists that we must be.” “R is for reminisce, rejoice, and renew.” Some letters are more robust in content than others, and the text’s rhythm is inconsistent, making for an awkward read-aloud. But the playful illustrations capture the celebration of resistance in scenes of community that invite visual exploration. The book’s message is a worthy one, detailing queer history and

encouraging young readers to become a part of it.

Insightful and validating. (terms and figures) (Illustrated nonfiction. 5-10)

Quiet as Mud Yolen, Jane | Illus. by Nicole Wong Magination/American Psychological Association (32 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781433841538

“I’m quiet as mud when I’m alone.”

Inspired by a quote from author Margaret Wise Brown, Yolen offers a gently paced ode to the silent and softspoken. Appropriately, only one or two lines occupy each page, letting Wong’s pastoral illustrations take the lead. An unnamed young narrator floats through the sky, frolics across fields and forests, and goes on family picnics while sharing various similes, many rooted in nature. “I’m quiet as the stars” and “silent as a sandwich / when it sits uneaten on a plate,” says the little one. “I just like hearing the world spin by.” Though surrounded by a supportive family, the narrator is “quiet as mud when I’m alone.” Muddy footprints feature throughout, with the whole family looking (happily) grubby by the end, together in the garden behind a yellow house. Whatever reasons readers may have to be quiet, they’ll find Yolen’s words reassuring.

Being quiet lets the protagonist pay attention to things others might miss, such as “the songs that the rocks all sing.” The child is also “happy to hear my heart beat / with its own steady thud-thud-thud.” Yolen has crafted an idyllic safe space for daydreamers,

An alphabetical introduction to queer history that honors joy and resistance.

THE ABCS OF QUEER HISTORY

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shrinking violets, and selectively mute little ones and a sweetly surreal alternative point of view for everyone else. The protagonist is light-skinned, as are most family members.

Mild-mannered mindfulness that leads by example. (Picture book. 2-7)

Lost & Found: Based on a True Story Yu, Mei | Union Square Kids (128 pp.) $16.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781454945475

YouTube artist and content creator Yu makes her graphic novel debut with a story inspired by her family’s move from their native China to Canada.

Drawn with an exuberant smile and bouncing ponytail, young Mei is initially thrilled to leave home. She imagines that in Canada she’ll have plenty of new friends and a spacious bedroom—and that she’ll encounter cuddly polar bears. Reality proves to be much more difficult. Mei neither speaks nor reads English, and, upon disembarking from the plane, she realizes that the language barrier is much scarier than she could have anticipated. Things only get worse when she arrives for her first day of school. She’s unable to communicate with the other students or even to ask to go to the bathroom; her day is full of fear and humiliation.

While Mei’s struggles with language form the central and most fully developed conflict, she must also navigate other challenges, from her first bologna sandwich to the realization that her parents, too, are struggling to adapt to their new home. Yu’s manga-style art is full of silly and dramatic flourishes that perfectly capture the overwhelming For a review of another graphic novel about immigration, visit Kirkus online.

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experience of culture shock. Mei uses creative thinking and her love of art to find her way, and readers will rejoice at the winsome hero’s triumphs.

Charming, funny, and full of heart. (note about spelling, author’s note, English-Mandarin Chinese glossary, bonus story) (Graphic memoir. 7-10)

Sami’s Special Gift: An Eid al-Adha Story Yuksel, M.O. | Illus. by Hüseyin Sönmezay Charlesbridge (32 pp.) | $17.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781623542962

A grieving child finds a reason to celebrate on Eid al-Adha.

It’s Eid al-Adha, Sami’s favorite holiday.

Every year Sami’s family goes to a carnival, but he’s having trouble getting into the spirit of things this year, because his grandfather recently passed away. Just as his family is getting ready to leave for the Eid prayer at the mosque, Sami’s parents reveal a surprise gift from his grandmother in Türkiye: his grandpa’s favorite Eid necktie! After the prayer, it’s time to head to the carnival, but first the family stops by a homeless shelter where they volunteer. A young boy sees Sami’s tie and is wistfully reminded of his favorite toy. Sami reflects on his own blessings and decides that giving will bring as much joy as receiving. Focusing on a holiday that’s less widely written about than Ramadan, Yuksel makes an important contribution, penning a story that’s both a mirror for young Muslims and a window for those unfamiliar with Muslim traditions. The message of giving generously and showing gratitude shines through. Sönmezay’s illustrations are soft and spare in some places and richly detailed in others, with the expressiveness of the characters sweetly captured on each page.

Sami and his family are Turkish; his community is a diverse one, and the little boy Sami helps is light-skinned.

An author’s note thoughtfully provides

additional context about Eid al-Adha and homeless shelters.

Caring and sharing drive this charming tale. (glossary) (Picture book. 4-8)

A Rose, a Bridge, and a Wild Black Horse Zolotow, Charlotte & Crescent Dragonwagon | Illus. by Julie Morstad Cameron Kids (32 pp.) | $18.99 March 26, 2024 | 9781951836740

The late Zolotow’s 1964 classic is stylishly updated by her daughter (author Dragonwagon) and

illustrator Morstad.

“Guess what I’ll do,” a girl tells her mother. As the mother reclines on a picnic blanket, observing her daughter, the child proposes a range of activities: “I will do all your arithmetic for you.”

“I’ll fight anyone you don’t like and win.” “I’ll capture a wild black horse and tame him for you to ride.” “I’ll pick the pinkest rose for you to smell.” The original edition centered on an older brother talking to his younger sister.

Changing the characters to a mother and child gives the book a special poignancy, particularly when it ends with, “I’ll leave you a friend to keep you company, while I explore the world.”

Morstad’s black-eyed heroines often appear expressionless, as when the girl states, “I’ll build you a bridge that is bigger than any bridge in the world,” and the two stand back-to-back, their faces unsmiling. Yet by and large, there is real affection between these characters. Morstad even incorporates some mixed media, amusingly utilized when the girl breaks whole rocks apart for her mom. The result is a deep and abiding love that still acknowledges that someday the child must depart.

Dragonwagon’s afterword ties the book’s mother-daughter connections together further. The characters have paper-white skin.

Themes of familial ties and inevitable separation make for a marvelous reinterpretation of a beloved picture book. (Picture book. 4-7) FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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TEEN READS FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH EACH FEBRUARY, Black History Month shines a spotlight on the experiences, legacies, and contributions of Black Americans. It’s a time to honor stories that should be part of the everyday fabric of our lives all year round—from school curricula to the entertainment industry, book publishing, and more— but are too often relegated to the sidelines or distorted to fit preconceived notions.

Fortunately, this year starts off with a number of fantastic YA reads by Black

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authors that offer a range of different ways to engage with Black history and contemporary life.

Two new volumes harness the power of poetry to move us emotionally in ways that prose often cannot achieve: Poemhood: Our Black Revival: History, Folklore & the Black Experience: A Young Adult Poetry Anthology, edited by Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, and Erica Martin (HarperTeen, Jan. 30): This rich collection pulls together poems spanning centuries, arranged so

that they are in conversation with one another and followed by brief outros that offer meaningful context.

Together, as the editors write, the poems demonstrate what is “at the center of every folktale—a universal truth.”

Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson, illustrated by Ekua Holmes (Kokila, Feb. 13): Two Coretta Scott King Book Award winners collaborated on this memorable combination of vibrant artwork and wise, insightful poetry: “I have no Black Girl Magic / to give today. // Today, I am regular. / Not insufficient, / not more than enough. / Just me. Just right.”

Memoirs such as the following provide teen readers with valuable models for facing challenges and moving ahead: Everything I Learned About Racism I Learned in School by Tiffany Jewell (Versify/ HarperCollins, Feb. 27): In this thought-provoking, must-read memoir, a Black biracial antiracist author and educator opens up in honest and vulnerable ways, sharing episodes and insights from her school years. Her experiences are amplified and expanded through the interspersed reflections of other contributors of color.

How the Boogeyman Became a Poet by Tony Keith Jr. (Katherine Tegen/ HarperCollins, Feb. 6): This

LAURA SIMEON

inspiring memoir in verse by a gay spoken-word artist and educator follows the author from his childhood in greater Washington, D.C., to becoming a first-generation college student. Keith grappled with affirming, despite many obstacles, that “I am meant to be here with purpose.”

The page-turning readability of genre fiction is an ideal vehicle for exploring equity and injustice in engaging ways, as these books show: Out of Body by Nia Davenport (Balzer + Bray/ HarperCollins, Feb. 6): This gripping debut thriller follows Megan, an Atlanta teen who’s thrilled to make a new best friend in magnetic and exciting LC. But it all goes wrong when Megan wakes up inhabiting LC’s body; her journey back to herself explores themes of trauma and Black girlhood.

Tender Beasts by Liselle Sambury (McElderry, Feb. 27): The latest from rising star Sambury, a Trinidadian Canadian author, digs into questions of privilege and race through a compelling supernatural horror story that will keep readers guessing until the end, as a teen girl races to investigate a murder that’s been pinned on her brother.

Laura Simeon is a young readers’ editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

Young Adult

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EDITOR’S PICK A misunderstood thespian stops at nothing to obtain a lead role in this modern retelling of Shakespeare’s Richard III. At Bosworth Academy, theater is a battlefield, and scholarship student and senior Rory King is sick of rotting in the trenches. She’s a loyal member of the Princely Players, her school’s esteemed theater troupe, but she’s been relegated to lowly ensemble parts for years.

Now she’s ready to claim her spotlight. There’s just one problem: Pam Hanson, the iron-fisted director, repeatedly fails to see Rory’s potential. Luckily, Rory’s engineered a diabolical scheme to take what she’s

These Titles Earned the Kirkus Star

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earned, and she invites readers to witness it unfolding just as she planned. Like Shakespeare’s hunchbacked Richard III, Rory, who’s fat, is scorned for her body—but like him, she’s also clever, ruthless, and singularly focused. She has no qualms about exploiting anyone in pursuit of her goals, including her castmates, caring teacher Miss Keating, and even her closest friends.

Through a narrative format that shifts between the first and third person, moves forward and backward in time, and incorporates prose, play scripts, and even a musical score, Rory’s numerous misdeeds are revealed: spying, forgery,

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Right Here, Right Now

By Shannon Dunlap

Made Glorious Eagar, Lindsay | Candlewick | 400 pp. $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9781536204674

blackmail, sexual manipulation, and more. Reimagining Richard III as a toxic theater kid rather than a crownhungry noble is thought provoking. Her skulking and plotting make for quite the

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By Lindsay Eagar

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Off With Their Heads

By Zoe Hana Mikuta

spectacle, propelling readers to the bitter, catastrophic end. Save for Miss Keating, who’s Black, all named characters are white.

Sensationally tragic.

(Fiction. 14-18)

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By Hamish Steele

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Every Time You Hear That Song

By Jenna Voris

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Your Blood, My Bones Andrew, Kelly | Scholastic (368 pp.) | $19.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781338885071

Redheaded Wyatt Westlock returns to her family’s farmhouse following her father’s death; she’s there to burn it to the ground.

But she finds Peter, her childhood friend, chained in her basement.

Wyatt releases him, unaware of his secret: He’s immortal and has been ritually sacrificed by generations of members of Wyatt’s family in order to keep hellish monsters from invading our world. His only escape from the cycle of death and rebirth is to kill Wyatt, the last Westlock. Although each of them can only survive if the other dies, their unspoken love for each other keeps them locked in an uneasy truce. Without Peter’s bones, the darkness in the forest creeps closer, bringing with it terrible creatures and eldritch horrors. The couple must explore Wyatt’s own wild magic if they hope to save their doomed romance. Andrew delivers an emotionally intense story of star-crossed lovers whose story unfolds against the backdrop of an isolated farm that’s visited by terrifying birds, menacing hooded figures, and a creature that uses powers of mimicry to hunt. The farm is so vibrantly described that it thoroughly connects the characters to the setting both physically and emotionally, reflecting the bleakness of the choices Peter and Wyatt face. The rot, mold, and mildew that creep over the farm are almost tangible; so too is the longing Peter and Wyatt feel for each other. All characters read white.

A tragic and grotesque romance that will enchant fans of dark fantasy and horror. (Dark fantasy. 14-adult)

Hearts Still Beating Archer, Brooke | Razorbill/Penguin (336 pp.) $19.99 | April 2, 2024 | 9780593698327

For 17-year-old Mara Knight, the battle to become human again is just the beginning.

With the Tick—the ancient Letalis Tichnosis virus—wreaking havoc on the world, Mara gets bitten by someone who’s been infected, and she turns into one of the mindless, brain-eating creatures who aren’t dead but certainly aren’t alive, either. When Mara gains consciousness some time later (after being given Dyebucetin, an experimental drug), she’s deemed safe to be around and is resettled on the Island to live with her godparents.

While Samantha and Isaac Blake and their two young children are pleased to see her, Rory, their older daughter, who used to be a close friend and crush, treats Mara with anger and suspicion.

While Mara struggles to come to terms with the horrific time she spent as a murderous monster, traumatized Rory grapples to rediscover her trust and her own humanity. This original, adventure-filled love story unfolds in chapters that alternate between the two girls’ points of view. Their voices are at times difficult to differentiate, but the will-they-won’t-they tension between them is delicious. Readers will delight in this well-built near-future dystopian world, and they’ll root for Rory and

The story propels readers inexorably toward its shocking climax.

THE BOOK OF DENIAL

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Mara, who are cued white, on their journeys to find themselves and express their love for each other. A fascinating political subplot adds a rich extra dimension to this accomplished post-apocalyptic debut.

A richly realized and distinctive queer zombie romance. (Dystopian romance.

14-18)

Blood Justice Benton-Walker, Terry J. | Tor Teen (480 pp.) | $19.99 | April 23, 2024 9781250825957 | Series: Blood Debts, 2

The Trudeau twins return with a vengeance to protect themselves and their loved ones as a conflict as old as the gods stirs in this second series entry.

Nine months ago, Cris and Clem balanced the scales of justice with the help of Papa Eshu, restoring their family’s place in their community and their mother’s rightful position as Queen of the Gen Council.

Not everyone who wronged Cris or her family got the punishment they deserved, however. With the blessing of a god older than Papa Eshu, Cris takes justice into her own hands. Meanwhile, Clem sinks beneath the weight of a secret: His resurrection ritual shattered the soul of Yves Bordeaux, his boyfriend, who’s trapped between life and death. Jean-Louise Petit, the necromancer who promised to help, abandons Clem when they learn that the Moon King, a terrifying and dangerous god, used them to escape into the natural realm. The violent murder of the mayor thrusts Cris and Clem back together as the cycle of history repeats itself, and their mother takes the blame for a crime she didn’t commit. Cris’ and Clem’s frustrations boil into rage at the social systems around them, designed to perpetuate injustice. As with Blood Debts (2023), this story grounds mystery and magic in relevant real-world issues, demonstrating how the past continues to K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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shape the present. The cast of characters is primarily Black.

A supernatural force of satisfying fury. (author’s note, magic chart, family trees) (Fantasy. 14-18)

The Final Curse of Ophelia Cray Calella, Christine | Page Street (384 pp.) $18.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781645678724

Two sisters find themselves and each other on the high seas.

Sixteen-yearold Ophelia Young has never felt at home on the island of Peu Jolie, where she lives with her father, stepmother, and anxious half sister, Betsy. She’s ostracized because of her resemblance to her absent birth mother, the “cursed” pirate queen Ophelia Cray.

After witnessing Cray’s hanging, Ophelia steals her sister’s identity and joins the Imperial Navy, hoping to make a new life for herself. When their father dies while Ophelia is away, Betsy vows to find her and bring her home. The chapters, told in the third person, alternate between following Betsy and Ophelia as they chart their own courses of self-discovery, and the story is filled with sadistic pirates, mutinous crews, and newfound friendships. The clunky, unpolished prose is frequently cringeworthy, however, filled with awkward similes, self-conscious dialogue, and excessive telling rather than showing. Ophelia, who has “wild curls” and “light olive” skin, is coded as aromantic and asexual; Betsy, who has “blond hair,” “rosy cheeks,” and “an appealing roundness,” is agoraphobic. Betsy’s For another book exploring AfroCaribbean families, visit Kirkus online.

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male love interest is this fictional world’s equivalent of South Asian.

While it’s exciting to see characters with these underrepresented identities having high-seas adventures, the weak prose undermines this strength.

Readers looking for diverse stories of swashbuckling ladies should pick up Mackenzi Lee’s The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy or C.B. Lee’s A Clash of Steel instead.

Skip this one for more seaworthy tales. (note to readers) (Adventure.

14-18)

Aunty supports Coi in becoming her own woman by sharing feminist texts; the book contains an implicit critique of the “strong Black woman” trope and also unpacks the fallout when a woman isn’t “a good mother.” Carter’s language isn’t dazzling, but his prose is clean, and he weaves in pop-culture references, adding a layer of relatability for young readers.

An emotional story of family and growth. (Fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Star

And Then There Was Us

The Book of Denial

Carter, Kern | Tundra Books (232 pp.) $17.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9781774883402

Chávez Castañeda, Ricardo | Illus. by Alejandro Magallanes | Trans. by Lawrence Schimel | Unruly (148 pp.) | $24.95 Jan. 30, 2024 | 9781592703623

A teenager, whose family has roots in Trinidad and Jamaica, juggles anxiety and grief after the sudden death of her mother.

It’s been over four years since 18-year-old Coi last heard from her estranged mother, Crissy, who breaks the silence between them with an unexpected call. It’s a terse exchange, filled with hostility, and results in Coi’s having a panic attack. Her father offers constant support, yet even his cocoon of protection can’t buffer her from the dramatic shifts and ongoing fallout between his former partner and only daughter. Coi voices a glaring truth about her expectations of the flawed mother who rejected her: “She didn’t have to be perfect.” Aunty, Crissy’s younger sister, “was always present,” however, recognizing the early signs of turmoil between Coi’s parents. After Crissy gets in a fatal car accident, Coi grapples with repairing the rifts and ruptures within her family; initially, she’s barely on speaking terms with her maternal grandmother. The first-person perspective immerses readers in Coi’s feelings, including her understandably sharp anger and disappointment, as the book explores themes of reconciliation and overcoming familial conflicts.

A boy attempts to rewrite the vicious history of violence toward children.

In this innovative work by noted Mexican creators that’s translated from Spanish, a boy who’s read “many tales of terror—about monsters, the dead, ghosts, haunted houses” is drawn to secretly read the horror story his father is writing. He encounters passages that detail shocking, murderous brutality by adults toward children. The unnamed narrator at first wonders why his father would invent such tales, but newspaper clippings Papá has saved describe acts of unspeakable cruelty from history: “I think now that I would prefer it if they were his own, if he had invented them, if these horror stories only ever happened inside his book.”

Mamá has a special letter she “unfolds from time to time to read until she cries.” At school, the teacher describes the murder of the Holy Innocents, reassuring the class, “Don’t worry, those things happened in the past.”

But our narrator, all too aware that history repeats itself, cries out, “Where was history when the children were murdered?” Later, seizing upon a FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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solution, he adds “not” throughout his father’s notebook: “These men…did not seize any infant they found with their two bare hands. Then, with those same naked hands, they did not put an end to them.” The story propels readers inexorably toward its shocking climax. Striking black-and-white illustrations in a variety of styles, including photography and graphic design, frequently incorporate lines of text into the art and heighten the emotional impact.

Unforgettable. (Illustrated fiction.

14-adult)

Shackled: A Tale of Wronged Kids, Rogue Judges, and a Town That Looked Away Cooper, Candy J. | Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers (192 pp.) | $19.99 April 2, 2024 | 9781662620133

A detailed examination of the origins and impacts of a juvenile justice scandal that rocked Pennsylvania from 1996 to 2009.

Under the judicial tenure of Judge Mark Ciavarella, thousands of children in Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County were shuttled into a for-profit youth prison that he had a hand in designing. Along with fellow judge Joe Conahan, personal injury lawyer Robert Powell, and commercial real estate developer Robert Mericle, Ciavarella orchestrated the imprisonment of misbehaving young people while profiting from their punishment. He followed a zero-tolerance policy, meting out the harshest sentences, no matter the crime. Under this judicial paradigm, Ciavarella funneled young people who entered his courtroom into Pennsylvania Child Care, the for-profit youth prison that was lining the conspirators’ pockets. This clear and detailed account, which includes interviews with some of the victims, examines not 148

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only how this facility came into being and how its benefactors profited from the imprisonment of children but also how earlier events, such as the 1959 Knox Mine Disaster, paved the way for a culture of government corruption in Luzerne County and allowed the “cash for kids” scheme to happen. Well researched and concisely reported, this heart-wrenching story is presented in an easy-to-follow and appealing manner. Supporting images of various figures, places, and pieces of evidence provide thought-provoking breaks in the text that emphasize just how real this miscarriage of justice was.

An informative and accessible exploration of a major prison crisis with direct relevance to youth. (author’s note, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)

Out of Blue Comes Green Corey, M.E. | Page Street (320 pp.) | $18.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781645679325

A young trans man looks for love and acceptance.

The protagonist, who’s deadnamed Kayla and often goes by Kay or Nate, doesn’t have it easy. He wants to be more out and proud at his high school, but after cutting his hair and playing frontman in his band, Blue, he becomes the target of unrelenting bullying from both family and peers. He develops an all-consuming crush on classmate Christine after she mistakes him for a cis boy, and if that’s not bad enough, his beloved dog, Sasha, recently died.

The high school senior, who reads white, struggles constantly with feeling masculine enough, consciously trying to embody the worst of patriarchal gender roles while simultaneously feeling uncomfortable with them. In a plot crowded with coincidences, he manages to lie his way into a part-time job at an animal shelter, starts dating a new girl with a rainbow “love is love is

love is love” button on her backpack, and machinates to try to get his band the spot playing at prom. Despite a heavy reliance on texting and social media, this feels like a story from an earlier time: The teen’s Minneapolisarea high school seems to not have anything resembling a gay-straight alliance or queer community, his knowledge about transmasculine identities wavers inconsistently, and the repetition of toxic male stereotypes feels out of place.

The struggles and successes in this novel will appeal to the angstiest of queer teens. (Fiction. 14-18)

This Night Is Ours Davis, Ronni | Little, Brown (336 pp.) $11.99 paper | April 16, 2024 9780316373616

A teen finds herself at a crossroads while navigating family pressures and her own desires for her life.

Eighteen-yearold Brandy Bailey graduated from high school a few weeks ago, and now she must decide what to do next. Her dream is to attend art school; she has an online store and even sells sketches to friends. But it’s complicated: Brandy’s absent white father is a noted artist, but her mother, who’s Black, would prefer for her to become a nurse, like two generations of women before her. When Brandy is accepted into nursing school, her worst fears are realized, and she begins to spiral. On top of the turmoil over her future career, Brandy is drawn into a closer relationship with former classmate Ben Nolan, a white boy “whose voice and For another 24-hour romance, visit Kirkus online.

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face and entire presence” made her “adrenaline spike every day.” Brandy faces the most stressful, anxiety-filled day of her life, but Ben—who also has big creative dreams—is ready to come along for the ride. Davis successfully takes on the challenge of telling a story that unfolds over the course of a single day. Each chapter opens with a time stamp, and there’s just enough exposition to set up the central characters; readers will be engaged as they experience Brandy’s monumental night of self-discovery set against the backdrop of the town carnival.

Quick pacing and clever writing make this an appealing coming-of-age story.

(Fiction. 14-18)

Black & Irish: Legends, Trailblazers & Everyday Heroes Diop, Leon & Briana Fitzsimons Illus. by Jessica Louis | Little Island (176 pp.) | $17.99 paper | April 9, 2024 9781915071231

Twenty-five profiles of notable figures, presented by Diop, the founder of the organization Black and Irish, and team member Fitzsimons, introduce readers to a shifting national identity.

A common refrain throughout the profiles, which are matched with shorter pieces about other significant people, is that the Black Irish community is still being developed and formed. The book also highlights people—such as Oscar-nominated actress Ruth Negga and influential activist and tailor Jude Hughes— who’ve been working for many years to ensure that the contributions of Black Irish people are acknowledged and to help change society for new generations. Each mini biography details the subject’s experiences with growing up in Ireland or moving to and living there. The strongest sections allow space for the featured person to explore their hopes for the future of Black K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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people in Ireland (especially youths who are coming up in the wake of significant social justice movements, such as the 2020 protests against George Floyd’s murder) and to expand on the resilience necessary to keep moving forward. Related quick facts are peppered in text boxes throughout, such as the definition of microaggressions and information about the West African Yoruba ethnic group. Louis’ colorful portraits open each segment, celebrating the varied backgrounds represented by these figures.

An informative tribute to Black Irish heroes past and present with hopeful messages for those yet to come.

(Nonfiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Star

Right Here, Right Now Dunlap, Shannon | Little, Brown (288 pp.) $18.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9780316415422

In 1998 Ohio, a teen’s split-second decision underscores the different trajectories that lives can take.

One summer afternoon, Elise, who’s late for her fast-food job at the mall, attempts to pass a slowmoving vehicle as a garbage truck approaches from the opposite direction. Dunlap explores two different outcomes against the backdrop of physicist Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds theory. Alternating chapters follow violinist Anna, who feels the pressure of having a perfectionist mother, and Liam, whose heavy metal band takes precedence over choral commitments at school. In Anna’s chapters, no accident occurs: She attempts to live up to her mother’s expectations at the expense of intense wrist pain, navigates her friendship with Elise (who doesn’t understand Anna’s intensity), and has awkward run-ins with Liam, Elise’s cousin and Anna’s crush since childhood. Liam’s chapters include an impromptu escape from Elise’s wake

with Anna and their subsequent conversations about grief. Liam, who lost his older brother as a child, is no stranger to Anna’s feelings of emptiness and guilt. Over time, the two find healing in expressing their stories through music and eventually share their work publicly. Dunlap masterfully weaves together common occurrences in the two storylines, all of which add depth. Liam’s and Anna’s alternating voices are honest and raw as they deal with substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and controlling relationships. Neither scenario ends neatly, but the story ends by highlighting hope and connection. Characters are cued white.

A thought-provoking, beautifully executed exploration of choices and possibilities. (Fiction. 13-18)

Compass and Blade Greenlaw, Rachel | Inkyard Press (336 pp.) $19.99 | Feb. 27, 2024 | 9781335012326

A girl tries to save her father and learn the truth about her own identity.

Growing up on the isle of Rosevear, Mira has always felt called to the ocean in a way she suspects her fellow islanders aren’t. Working as a wrecker with other villagers, her job is to save survivors from the ships they lure toward shore to illegally plunder. Mira can’t help but feel suffocated by her life. Her father is loving but “a little too stifling”; he’s especially protective since Mira’s mother died doing the same work that she now does. But when the watch—the governing force of their region—set a trap to catch them, Mira’s father is captured and sentenced to death. Mira, desperate to save him, finds herself seeking help from Seth, a survivor of one of her isle’s own wrecks. Following a gut feeling and a set of coordinates found in her mother’s belongings, Mira sets out to save her father. She’s >>> FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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Y O U N G A D U LT // Q & A

THE KIRKUS Q&A: SOYOUNG PARK The South Korean author brings her acclaimed dystopian novel to U.S. readers.

BY CHRISTINE GROSS-LOH

How did you decide to write fiction, and why write for teens in particular?

I’ve been full of imagination my whole life. As far back as middle school, I dreamed of becoming a worldwide bestselling novelist. But it was hard to find any Korean literature that had made a global impact. I thought I needed to learn English to write books, and I went to the United States in high school as an exchange student. Being a stranger 150

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abroad taught me a lot, and I became a “realistic dreamer”—I decided that working as a journalist would help me become a better writer in the long run.

However, I soon realized that if I was investing this much effort, time, and energy into creating stories, I might as well become a writer. Ten years after my time in the U.S., this realization led me to quit my job, and I returned to my journey chasing my dream.

And yes, Snowglobe is a YA novel, but I didn’t write it just for teens. I simply wanted to write an entertaining adventure that included elements of everything I like, and it turned out to fall into the YA genre. I loved Chobahm, the main character, for her pure mind that can be misled as well as her great courage in correcting her mistakes. I don’t think these qualities are exclusive to teenagers, but the story would have been very different if Chobahm were in her 20s.

Reading about the worlds you’ve created—the open world and the Snowglobe world—is such an immersive experience.

I wanted to create the biggest reality show studio ever, which in the book is called Snowglobe because of its see-through hemi-

sphere dome. And a city that size needs a big cast.

But it wouldn’t make sense for people to give up their privacy 24/7 for nothing, so I decided to make the open world a super-cold place, like a constant brutal winter with an average annual temperature of -50°F. Snowglobe is the sole warm city in the world, and that gives people a strong incentive to sign up as Snowglobe actors, even if it means giving up their privacy. The harsh outside conditions, too, made the lifestyle of people outside Snowglobe unique and interesting to describe.

You weave themes of personal identity and socioeconomic inequity together in a fascinating and original way.

The self cannot exist without others, and in the

Nara Shin

SNOWGLOBE (DELACORTE, FEB. 27) is a riveting work of speculative fiction set in a frozen dystopian world. Soyoung Park’s 16-year-old protagonist, Jeon Chobahm, is a denizen of a climate-ravaged society where the temperature hovers at -50F. For Chobahm and her fellow citizens, extreme cold dictates every moment of their lives. The only respite in their bleak existence is entertainment TV broadcast from Snowglobe, a city enclosed by a large glass dome and the only warm place left on Earth. The cost of living in Snowglobe? Having your life broadcast 24/7 on reality TV to the open world. And indeed, when Chobahm is invited to Snowglobe, she discovers that the glamorous lives of the elite Snowglobe residents are not all that they appear.

This utterly absorbing book, translated from Korean by Joungmin Lee Comfort and the first in a projected duology, is currently being adapted for a film by the producers of Parasite. Soyoung Park corresponded with us by email from her home in South Korea; her responses have been edited for length and clarity.

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modern day there are far too many other people online shaping our own perceptions of self, our emotions, and our lives. It’s getting harder to be how I am without constantly comparing myself to other people. I wanted to write about this issue in Snowglobe because my eternal theme in writing is personal identity. Additionally, I believe socioeconomic inequity is one of the most important factors in shaping a person’s identity, so I couldn’t create a world without accounting for that.

I like what you say about the self not existing in a vacuum, and that our constant comparisons to others are significant in shaping who we are. In what ways do you think that our online lives have accelerated this trend, for better or for worse? Is there anything positive about constantly watching

other people’s lives—for escape, for distraction, for entertainment?

Every human wants to be seen, recognized, and cared for while finding a way toward self-expression.

Social media helps people fulfill these desires and makes us feel connected with each other in a convenient way. But we easily forget that social media is also media. Media is edited content, which means we see an edited version of others on social media. That’s why we may feel like everyone’s lives are happy except for our own. I love the phrase “Don’t compare your own behindthe-scenes with others’ highlights.” As long as we keep that dictum in mind, social media can be a handy entertainment tool.

Although your characters have Korean names, there isn’t anything explicitly Korean about the setting or

the characters. How did you decide to make that choice?

Snowglobe’s location is somewhere in Korea during the new glacier era, and Chobahm lives on the Korean Peninsula. That’s why lots of characters have Korean names. But it’s after the chaos from climate change has erased national boundaries, so people in the book identify themselves as a member of the community they live in, not by nationality.

What’s your writing process?

When I work on a story, I typically write the same amount every day once I get on the right track. My biggest obstacle is dealing with the stress of filling a blank space with something that has never before existed. For an easy slide into my work, I start with editing what I wrote the day before. (Warning: Do not try

I believe socioeconomic inequity is one of the most important factors in shaping a person’s identity.

Snowglobe

Park, Soyoung

Trans. by Joungmin Lee Comfort Delacorte | 384 pp. | $20.99 Feb, 27, 2024 | 9780593484975

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to edit it perfectly; it’s just for warm-up.) While working, I play Friends on my iPad. With six adorable friends on my desk, I don’t feel alone during my solitary work. (Caution: Most writers do not watch a show while they write!) At the end of the workday, I leave myself a rough storyline to work on the next day. It helps me not to worry about the next day’s work while I’m in bed.

What was your greatest motivation in writing Snowglobe?

When I said before that my dream was to become a worldwide bestselling novelist, I didn’t mean that I wanted to be all that famous or rich. My goal was to entertain as many people as possible with my story. I knew how imagination and story can make us happy, and I wanted to share that wonderful feeling with others.

I feel so fortunate.

Recently, I feel like my dreams are coming true, with Snowglobe being translated into 10 languages to reach global readers. There was a time when I thought I had to actually write a book in another language to achieve my dream. Now I know I don’t need to do that.

(It’s so enjoyable to see the characters translated into English, thanks to Joungmin Lee Comfort’s amazing translation work. Each character feels so fresh and new.) You don’t need to change yourself into something you are not—this is what Snowglobe tells you.

Christine Gross-Loh is the author of Parenting Without Borders and The Path.

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thrown together with the members of a ship’s crew, all of whom, it seems, have their own secrets to keep. While the narrative initially lacks momentum, it eventually gains speed, delivering twist after satisfying twist. Some of the characterizations lack depth and the romance would have benefitted from being more fully developed, but beautiful imagery builds an engrossing world that’s tough to leave behind.

Mira is cued white; some secondary characters are brown-skinned.

A slow-building but ultimately satisfying fantasy adventure. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)

The Last Boyfriends Rules for Revenge Hubbard, Matthew | Delacorte (368 pp.) $19.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9780593707173

When three queer best friends in Alabama are inspired by The First Wives Club to exact revenge on their terrible exes, a homophobic school initiative takes their mission in an unexpected direction.

Ezra Hayes, who’s coded white, is accustomed to hiding in plain sight, but he feels that he’s fallen by the wayside once his two best friends, Lucas Rivera, who’s cued Mexican American, and Finley Lewis, who’s Black, get into relationships. Ezra thought his summer romance with Presley, the school’s star football player, would finally give him the chance to feel like the main character.

But when Ezra discovers that Presley is cheating on him, Lucas and Finley also open up about the poor treatment they’ve received from their partners.

Each teen has his own plan for revenge, and they set up an anonymous TikTok account called “Last Boyfriends.” Ezra decides to run against Presley for Winter Formal Lion King; he also burns Presley’s varsity jacket and posts the video to TikTok, tagging it #breakupchallenge. When 152

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their account goes viral, and Ezra’s Lion King campaign comes under fire (from the same leadership that dissolved the gay-straight alliance and is censoring library books), the trio’s priorities change, and they begin fighting for queer students everywhere.

The friendships are fun and believable, Ezra’s single father is heartwarmingly supportive, and exciting twists keep the plot moving.

A pride-filled story complete with sass, love, and a timely message.

(Fiction. 14-18)

Pretty Furious Johnston, E.K. | Dutton (224 pp.) | $18.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781984816139

A group of teenage girls takes social justice into their own hands.

Living in a small town comes with its challenges, and during their last year of high school, five best friends take action, using their birthday wishes to address the multitude of injustices they see in their community on a daily basis.

Maddie Carter, Jenny Hoernig, Mags Sharpe, Louise Jantzi, and Jen Dalrymple, all of whom read white, go to school in Eganston, Ontario, and decide to use their privileged status as “good girls” to fight back against harassment, bullying, and intolerance. They start off by poisoning the grass at their local Catholic church in response to the church’s harsh treatment of an 18-year-old who had an abortion. Told in five separate perspectives, this is a true-to-life portrait of teen girls’ friendships; the portrayal of the ties that bind the protagonists is the highlight of the novel. Unfortunately, the premise is flimsy and not fully realized. While the concept of taking their town’s injustices into their own hands is commendable, and the friends mention issues ranging from the arrival of Syrian refugee families to

efforts at Reconciliation with Indigenous communities, the surface-level feminism feels hollow, and the girls’ activist values aren’t explored in sufficient depth. Additionally, even though the novel opens with an annotated list of characters, the vast array of cast members is difficult to follow.

An underdeveloped and ultimately unsatisfying read. (Fiction. 14-18)

The One That Got Away With Murder Lundy, Trish | Henry Holt (384 pp.) | $19.99 April 16, 2024 | 9781250292162

A teenage girl finds herself plunged into the middle of a complicated murder mystery.

When Lauren moves to Happy Valley, Pennsylvania, just before her senior year, the last thing she wants is to get involved in more drama. When she left everything she knew behind in California, desperate to start over in a new place with her mom and her mom’s new boyfriend, all she brought with her were terrible memories of an unimaginable trauma.

But Lauren’s plans fail when a no-strings-attached hookup with classmate Robbie Crestmont unwittingly entangles her in something dangerous: She learns that Robbie’s suspected of murdering Victoria Moreno, his on-again, off-again girlfriend. A soccer teammate warns Lauren, “Every girl the Crestmonts date winds up dead.” Further complicating matters, Trevor, Robbie’s younger brother, is suspected of being involved in the death of his girlfriend, For another mystery revolving around a powerful family, visit Kirkus online.

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Jess Ebenstein. Lauren struggles to believe this is true, and she can’t help but dig further into the mystery of the two girls’ deaths, in the process uncovering a shockingly messy web of secrets and lies that may be riskier than she realizes. While some of the sections alluding to the mystery behind Lauren’s personal history drag, and her motives occasionally feel unrealistic, the plot is overall fast paced and engrossing, building up to an ultimately rewarding climax and resolution. The main characters, who are cued white, are supported by an ethnically diverse supporting cast.

Satisfyingly twisty. (Mystery. 14-18)

The Last Star Chaser Lunetta, Demitria | West 44 Books (200 pp.) $25.80 | April 16, 2024 | 9781978597112 Series: West 44 YA Verse

A family vacation in outer space on a luxury spaceship goes horribly wrong.

Zenna is on a two-week family vacation on the Star Chaser, but she’s stuck babysitting her annoying, spaceobsessed 8-year-old brother, Kain, and she’s not into any of it. When a devastating solar flare collides with the ship, everyone is instructed to head for the escape pods, but Zenna’s parents aren’t with them—they’re at the onboard spa. Panicked but seizing control and taking responsibility, Zenna ushers Kain into a pod. They have a jerky landing on the planet Skoll, and as they head into the alien terrain, the siblings watch more pods streak “across the cotton candy sky.”

Soon after, the Star Chaser crashes.

They follow the smoke, hoping to find their parents, along the way befriending a giant blue, orange-eyed wolf, whom they name Spike. They also encounter a group of menacing prison-bound teens, whose leader, Jet, threatens Zenna and Kain. But Spike protects the siblings, scaring the K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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juvenile delinquents away. Later, as Zenna, Kain, and Spike take refuge for the night, Arron, one of the prisoners, shows up. He’ll help them find the Star Chaser, but can they trust him?

This accessible story captures the fast-paced momentum of a survival story with a vulnerable realism, with Zenna confronting challenge after challenge. Most characters read white.

A thrilling science-fiction narrative with appeal for reluctant readers.

(Verse science fiction. 12-18)

This Is Me Trying Marie, Racquel | Feiwel & Friends (368 pp.) $19.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781250891389

A pair of queer small-town teens grapple with the loss of their friend.

As she begins her senior year, Beatriz Doughtery, who’s Irish and Colombian, is still grieving her dead boyfriend, Bryce, who took his own life when they were in ninth grade. His death hangs over Bea and her diverse friend group; to cope, Bea has distanced herself, hiding under her newly adopted goth look. When Santiago Espinosa returns to Vermont from California to look after his abuelo and finish high school, Bea’s furious.

While almost everyone else welcomes him back, as far as she’s concerned, Santiago has been MIA since the funeral, leaving her to make sense of things without her childhood best friend. But Santi has been struggling, too: When he left town, he wasn’t on speaking terms with Bryce, and in the wake of Bryce’s suicide, that’s been an unbearable weight. Now, he’s seeking the connection with Bea that he’s lost.

The story is told from both their perspectives, allowing readers further insight into Santi’s and Bea’s broken hearts. But the will-they, won’t-they drama of forgiveness drags as Beatriz and Santiago circle around each other, their collective guilt and formidable lies gnawing at them. The impact of Bryce’s

suicide is prevalent throughout this novel, whose characters desperately try to reconcile themselves with their memories of a friend and urgently attempt to live in the moment.

An overly introspective dive into the murky landscape of lies, love, and forgiveness. (content warning, resources) (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Star

Off With Their Heads Mikuta, Zoe Hana | DisneyHyperion (416 pp.) | $19.99 April 23, 2024 | 9781368099066

Young women from Isanghan are forced into Wonderland— but even if they survive, they will never be the same.

Caro, Icca, and Tecca are inseparable, sharing a fascination with magic and a disdain for their backwater Ward. The three queer girls explore the painful practice of witchcraft—controlling birds and melding with shadows—and scheme to one day overthrow the White Queen. But when tragedy strikes, Caro and Icca are sent to Wonderland Forest, where they’re at the mercy of the vicious, ravenous Saints. If they claim four Saints’ heads, they’ll be freed, but the strains of Wonderland cause their love to fray. Later, separately, two of them still hunt Saints, unable to completely escape the pull of the forest, though one now works for the new Red Queen, Hattie.

Hattie has her own plans for the Saints—and for Caro and Icca, too—yearning to twist them into something new. Bloody, vicious, and dark, this is a thoroughly engrossing tale of relationships between girls who are rapidly growing up. While the novel loosely follows the shadows of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the characters, world, and plot are altogether different, strange, and compelling.

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fantasy country of Isanghan are clear, as the characters, for example, wear hanbok and write and converse in Korean.

Twisted in the worst—or best—ways.

(Fantasy. 14-adult)

The Lady of Rapture Raughley, Sarah | McElderry (496 pp.) $21.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9781534453623 Series: The Bones of Ruin Trilogy, 3

Iris’ friends and foes take center stage as they reconcile the impact of their choices in this follow-up to The Song of Wrath (2023).

In the wake of Iris’ murder, Max, Rin, Berta, Lulu, and the larger cast of curious characters are thrust into the wrath of the other Hiva, who orchestrated Iris’ demise.

Having exacted his revenge, Hiva gives humanity one year before they face destruction. The third-person narration brings readers into the minds of Max and Rin as their paths diverge: Max is set to become Hiva’s guide while Hiva searches for a reason to spare humanity, and Rin sets off to find a way to stop Hiva’s threat. In an effort to draw Iris to him and continue plotting humanity’s downfall, power-hungry Adam is focused on bringing Britain into the great war that’s brewing. Unbeknownst to all, Iris is waiting in the Earth’s core to be reborn and exact her revenge.

Even as the characters’ paths converge toward a cataclysmic event, bringing forth the responsibilities they have to each other, they question loyalties and examine the purpose of life. This trilogy closer slowly unveils the cores of its diverse cast of characters, forcing them to reconcile their beliefs and in turn offering more insights into what makes them tick. There’s plenty of cryptic plotting and action to keep readers engaged as they gradually make their way toward an unpredictable conclusion.

A sobering end to an unusual trilogy.

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Definitely Not a Love Story

Without a Shadow

Recinos Seldeen, Claudia | West 44 Books (200 pp.) | $25.80 | April 16, 2024 9781978597143 | Series: West 44 YA Verse

Reynolds, H.J. | CamCat Books (320 pp.) $19.99 | April 9, 2024 | 9780744308341

An endearingly romantic story told in engaging verse for reluctant readers.

Ana Morales doesn’t have the most positive views of love: Her parents are always fighting, and her sister seems to collect breakups. Simply put, Ana says, “Love is / something / I want no part of.” But Regina, Ana’s best friend since first grade, has “the password / that lets her into / the VIP room / of my heart.”

Still, Regina’s relationship with her girlfriend is full of ups and downs, which certainly doesn’t convince Ana to give romance a shot. Instead, she’s far more interested in writing stories “that tell the truth…that change the world.”

When her teacher Mr. Diaz announces a fiction contest, she’s laser-focused on winning. But the theme is “teamwork,” the short stories must be written in pairs—and Ana’s been assigned to work with her former childhood best friend, Alejandro Garcia. He’s into romance both as a genre and in real life. They’re forced to hang out again, and Ana may start to see Alejandro in a different light, but some real-life drama is right around the corner, ready to remind Ana why she’s protecting her heart. Full of symbolism, this first-love story is told in short poems that unfold in chronological order and also explore the love between family and friends. All main characters are Latine.

Captivating and sweet. (Verse fiction.

12-18)

Adlai uses her shadow to steal—but it’s never occurred to her that someone would try to steal her shadow.

Adlai Bringer has a secret talent: Her father taught her the Shadow Game, in which her shadow sneaks away to steal trinkets from the vendors at the desert market.

Once she sells enough of her stolen goods, she’ll be able to leave the orphanage that’s been her home since her father died. One day, Adlai’s shadow picks the wrong mark, and the owner of the unusual pocket watch she tried to steal stabs her, killing her and taking away part of her shadow. But Adlai learns that shadow wielders like herself don’t always stay dead. Resurrecting herself and running away into the desert, Adlai questions everything her father taught her about using her shadow. If she can steal and cheat death, what other powers does she possess? The story unfolds in the kingdom of Zodian, where people are diverse in skin tone; golden-haired Adlai reads white. Adlai is a sympathetic protagonist who grows wiser as she follows her path to greater power.

While the pacing is uneven, Reynolds uses the slower middle portion of the story to unravel the complex magical system that underlies shadow-wielding.

The mythology and lore of shadow powers are well developed and convincing.

The classic magical orphan story gets a refreshing twist. (Fantasy. 13-18)

A heartfelt culmination of the themes and relationships among a found family.

DEADENDIA

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Putting Balloons on a Wall Is Not a Book: Inspirational Advice (and Non-Advice) for Life From @blcksmth Schneider, Michael James | Penguin Workshop (48 pp.) | $12.99 April 30, 2024 | 9780593662250

An inspirational modern art picture book from a popular Instagrammer.

Known for his poignant, funny, and pointed truths displayed in Mylar balloon letters or spelled out in fake flower petals, artist Schneider shares his work on Instagram through his account, @blcksmth. Containing both his own advice (such as “If being hard on yourself worked it would have worked by now”), as well as quotations from others, this collection of highlights from the account is organized according to three themes: “On Self-Love and Self-Growth,” “For When You Doubt Yourself,” and “Advice for Your Future Self.”

Together, they create a whimsical advice book for the moment. The short essays introducing each section are conversational, funny, and designed to inspire and uplift readers, much like the art itself. The 16 images from Schneider’s posts are set against bright, solid-colored backgrounds that make the photos pop and are juxtaposed with quotes on the facing pages that add deeper meaning to the pieces being highlighted. Though there isn’t a lot of meat to this book, in the introduction, Schneider discusses his journey to making art and his lack of formal training, making the content and process feel accessible to readers.

For another emotionally affirming read, visit Kirkus online.

Not just for fans and followers; an art advice book for those seeking solace and encouragement. (Nonfiction.

13-adult)

Kirkus Star

DeadEndia: The Divine Order Steele, Hamish | Union Square & Co. (256 pp.) | $24.99 | April 23, 2024 9781454949015 | Series: DeadEndia, 3

The nature of reality is at stake in this trilogycapping finale.

Following the events of DeadEndia: The Broken Halo (2019), Norma is to be made the new queen of Hell, a ritual that sets apocalyptic consequences into motion. When angels and demons battle over opposing mythologies, how will everyone pick sides? If that isn’t stressful enough, Barney attends a family reunion where his transmasc gender and his boyfriend are scrutinized. The book balances the supernatural and the personal at every turn, such as when Badyah squares her opposition to so-called angels with her Muslim faith. The characters and their interactions never get old—and not just because of the time-loop shenanigans. They alternate between friendly ribbing and heartfelt confessions, whether acknowledging the sheer camp of a golden spacesuit or confessing confusion over one’s sexuality. The action reaches fever pitches, and the art conveys an apocalyptic sense of scale for scenes of angelic battle and includes dramatic beams of light for a dimension-rending spell. Each plane of existence in this adventure boasts its own color scheme and aesthetic. The story never loses sight of the characters who drive the story, and the beautiful art, revealing dialogue, and careful worldbuilding together contribute to creating a well-earned impact.

A heartfelt culmination of the themes, lore, and relationships among a found

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family that’s fighting to save reality. (cast of characters, animated series pitch samples, production art) (Graphic fantasy. 13-18)

The Darkness Rises Stokes, Stacy | Viking (336 pp.) | $19.99 April 9, 2024 | 9780593327692

A Dallas high schooler struggles with the consequences of her secret gift.

Whitney Lancaster was 7 when she first started seeing black clouds over people’s heads. Her grandmother had the ability to see them, too. They’re an alert that something ominous is about to happen to the person. Whitney’s instinct to the gathering darkness is to warn people in some way, to tell them not to get on the highway or to offer advice: “You should go see your doctor.

For a checkup.” Sometimes it works, but sometimes it backfires, like that time she stopped classmate Dwight Hacken from jumping off a rooftop.

Dwight’s very much on her mind as Whitney starts senior year, her heart plagued by last year’s shooting in which Dwight killed eight people, something for which she blames herself. If only she hadn’t saved him, maybe those people would still be alive. It seems someone else feels that way, too; they’re leaving threatening notes for Whitney, demanding a public confession—or else. In this thriller, Whitney must find out who’s blackmailing her, and she must do so before someone close to her dies. Gun violence haunts this heartbreaking narrative that unfolds in incremental spates of panic. It’s a heavy topic, but the treatment isn’t heavy-handed.

Whitney is a girl trying to juggle how to use her gift while also accepting the consequences of her choices. Most characters are cued white.

A subtle commentary on the aftermath of gun violence. (content warning) (Paranormal thriller. 14-18) FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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Rainbow! Volume 1 Sunny | Illus. by Gloomy | Graphix/ Scholastic (224 pp.) | $24.99 March 5, 2024 | 9781339011318 Series: Rainbow!, 1

A teen works her way through anxiety, bullying, and her mother’s substance abuse but also experiences love in this coming-of-age series opener.

Boo Meadows, a robustly imaginative fat 17-year-old with pale skin and red hair, wishes she were a fashionable, magical monster fighter. In reality, she’s an ordinary high school senior who works as a waitress and can’t seem to stay focused in class. Her awkwardness isn’t helped by her classmates’ unkindness or the fact that she’s the one keeping her family afloat financially due to her mom’s persistent issues with drugs and alcohol. When Mimi Rosero, a new girl with brown skin, green hair, and an ultra-cool attitude, moves to town, Boo can’t believe they could ever become friends. This budding, possibly romantic, relationship provides the hopeful emotional core of this graphic novel. Despite its pastel color-scape, the story depicts weighty themes such as parental abandonment and mental health issues. The book has some viscerally tragic moments, and this opening volume offers no easy resolution and an ending that feels somewhat arbitrary, but the quick pace, inclusive cast, and inviting illustrations will make it appealing even to reluctant readers. Teens will be curious to see where the next entry of this series, which launched on

For another graphic novel exploring the power of friendship, visit Kirkus online.

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Tapas Media, will take this intimate, unflinching, and vividly drawn tale.

Realism that doesn’t shy from heavy subjects, portrayed with imagination and heart. (Graphic fantasy. 12-18)

I’ll Be Waiting for You

from Scotland, isn’t in the picture.

Imogen and Leander are cued white.

Heartfelt and moving, with enjoyable paranormal elements. (Fiction. 13-18)

The Lightning Circle

Turk, Mariko | Little, Brown (320 pp.) $18.99 | April 30, 2024 | 9780316703444

VanSickle, Vikki | Illus. by Laura K. Watson Tundra Books (224 pp.) | $17.99 March 26, 2024 | 9781774882498

After losing her best friend, a teen who’s fascinated by the paranormal attempts to move on.

Natalie Nakada and her best friend, Imogen Lucas, used to spend summer vacations together at the Harlow Hotel, a popular haunted site in Estes Park, Colorado. Then, a year ago, Imogen passed away suddenly due to an undiagnosed congenital heart condition. Following lots of therapy, Natalie’s ready to tackle her senior project: filming an audition for the TV show Ghost Chasers: Teen Investigators at the Harlow Hotel. But she’s dismayed to learn that “killjoy” classmate Leander Hall—a New York transplant who insults everyone in his column in the school paper—will be there, too. For Leander, it’s personal.

He reveals that his widowed mother was exploited by the hotel’s resident medium, Madame Althea, and manipulated into relocating to Colorado. Natalie agrees to help prove she’s a fraud, although she’s torn when Madame Althea can seemingly communicate with Imogen. Natalie also glimpses what might be Imogen’s ghost. Turk explores friendship, self-esteem, grief, and memory in a deftly paced narrative that toggles between flashbacks to Natalie’s history with Imogen and the present, in which romantic feelings begin to grow between her and Leander. Eventually, Natalie makes peace with her journey, coming to honor Imogen’s confident belief in her potential. Natalie was raised by her Japanese American mom; her biological father, a grad student

Seventeenyear-old Canadian camp counselor Nora Nichols’ boyfriend has broken up with her right before her arrival at the all-girls Camp Cradle Rock in West Virginia.

The “wounds / are still tender,” and Nora is hoping to leave everything behind, concentrate on getting to know her fellow counselors, and embark on “a fresh start.” Sitting in the Lightning Circle, a tradition inspired by a legendary camp story that builds a connection between the six young women counselors, Nora finds self-love and healing from the pain of unrequited love and rejection. The interconnectedness that “passes / from hand to hand” in their circle is metaphorically compared to the “electricity” of lightning. This story in journal form emphasizes sisterhood. In the poem “The Recovery Position,” one counselor reveals an eating disorder.

The counselors support the younger campers with their own concerns— homesickness, fitting in socially, getting a first period. The free-verse poetry’s accessible diction speaks to teenage voices and is punctuated with nature imagery, symbolism, and details that vividly and nostalgically recall traditional camp experiences, from fingers that are “sticky from sucking on watermelon rinds” to “dancing barefoot in the grass.” Nora writes about shells, mountains, rivers, trees, and horses, and each poem is accompanied by beautiful illustrations, including portraits of the campers and images of everyday objects and flora and fauna. Ultimately, Nora movingly reflects on the perspective K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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she’s gained from “this magical space.”

Characters largely read white.

An inviting take on feminine wisdom and the power of collective self-transformation. (Verse fiction. 12-18)

Kirkus Star

Every Time You Hear That Song Voris, Jenna | Viking (320 pp.) | $12.99 paper | April 2, 2024 | 9780593623398

An ambitious teen reporter sees solving a superstar’s mystery as a way out of being stuck in her small Southern town.

Aspiring reporter Darren Purchase, a white bisexual 17-year-old, wants nothing more than to escape Mayberry, Arkansas, even if it means leaving the comfortable companionship of her neighbor’s front porch and no longer listening to country music legend Decklee Cassel with her mom. Recently deceased Decklee, who was from Mayberry herself, famously spent the last 50 years creating a time capsule to be revealed after her death—but when it’s opened, it turns out to be empty.

Then the local radio station plays a prerecorded message from Decklee introducing a scavenger hunt to find the time capsule contents and claim a $3 million prize. Darren and Kendall Wilkinson, the brown-skinned boy she’s known since second grade and her gas station co-worker, team up to solve the mystery, embarking on a once-in-alifetime road trip across the South. The chapters alternate between the evocative first-person perspectives of Darren in the present day and Decklee from the 1960s until shortly before her death; on the way, she climbs the ladder of the music industry and reckons with the personal cost of stardom. Lesbian Decklee, with her trademark curly blond hair and sequined costumes, navigates an unfair world and heterosexist expectations. The parallel narratives are K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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richly vivid and expertly woven together into an unexpected conclusion.

Discoveries of love, legacy, and self take center stage in this musical tapestry of a novel. (Fiction. 14-18)

Deep Is the Fen Wilkinson, Lili | Delacorte (416 pp.) $19.99 | April 16, 2024 | 9780593562703

A girl who fears magic comes into her own power as she tries to stop her friend from joining a covert society.

Merry, whose mother was cursed by a witch and died, lives in the town of Candlecott in Anglyon, where she’s inseparable from her two best friends, Teddy and Sol. Teddy decides to join the Order of Toadmen, “a secret gentlemen’s society” whose members wield magic that Merry suspects is both illegal and dangerous. Hoping to protect Teddy, she accepts an offer from Caraway, the boy she’s in competition with for the top ranking at school, to attend a mysterious Toad ceremony. There, she uncovers secrets both personal and societal, and her understanding of the world she lives in—and how she should behave in it—is drastically altered. Merry, with her headstrong nature and intense love for her friends and family, is an engaging first-person narrator, and her enemies-to-lovers romance with Caraway unfolds in believable beats; Wilkinson also writes supporting characters like Teddy and Sol in a compelling and nuanced way. The magic system is intriguing, particularly Merry’s ability to see the silver and brown mettle, or “strands of life-force,” that drives it. The mysteries of the Toadmen keep readers in suspense, with Merry gradually uncovering truths about their rituals that connect to the larger social structure of Anglyon and threaten Merry’s own future. Most major characters are pale-skinned; Sol has brown skin.

An entertaining, well-characterized foray into a world of magical secrets.

(Fantasy. 14-18)

Punk Rock Karaoke Xunise, Bianca | Viking (256 pp.) $24.99 | $17.99 paper | April 23, 2024 9780593464502 | 9780593464526 paper

Three punks on the verge of adulthood vow to have a summer they’ll never forget.

Black 19-yearold Ariel Grace Jones loves English punk band the X-Ray Spex, best friends Michele Covarrubias and Gael Certi, moshing in the pit, and playing in their band, Baby Hares. Now it’s the summer after high school, and in between going to—and playing in—as many gigs as possible, everyone’s making plans for the future. The three self-styled misfits grapple with feminist punk ideologies while trying to hold down jobs, support their families, and figure out their futures in a world that feels like a toxic wasteland of labor exploitation. As the trio grow into adulthood and their own aspirations, they deal with the complexities of romance and first-time sex, the ups and downs of both alternative and traditional families, and their changing relationships with oppressive societal beliefs. This impressionistically drawn graphic novel, illustrated predominantly in bright shades of purple, green, and yellow, has a pace as breakneck as a two-minute hardcore song and is a love letter to young punks. With its zine-inspired aesthetic and tone, this debut, which centers gender and racial diversity, welcomes anyone interested in exploring alternative scenes with a feminist-leftist bent. The story closes with a zine highlighting the punk community and values.

A vibrant, inclusive, feminist, punkrock homage, guide, and comingof-age story. (Graphic fiction. 14-18) FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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B O O K L I S T // Y O U N G A D U LT

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6 Books for Nature-Loving Teens

1 The Wild River and the Great Dam

By Simon Boughton

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A fascinating blend of social and environmental history and engineering.

5

2 Poison Town

By Elyssa Campbell

An absorbing story of grassroots environmental activism by teens.

3 The Atlas of Us

By Kristin Dwyer

Gripping and authentic in the ways it portrays grief and shows how moving forward means having to let go.

4 The Sixth Extinction (Young Readers Adaptation)

By Elizabeth Kolbert

A wide-ranging, urgent, and emotionally effective call to action.

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5 The Twenty-One

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By Elizabeth Rusch

A moving and absorbing account of an urgent case.

6 Savi and the Memory Keeper

For more YA books for environmentally minded readers, visit Kirkus online.

By Bijal Vachharajani; illus. by Rajiv Eipe

Lush, imaginative, and emotionally insightful.

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Indie SUPERHERO FATIGUE?

Nonsense! OK, maybe some of the recent big films in the genre have felt a little…less than Marvelous? A bit Disappointingly Corny?

Fear not, true believers: Indieland is here to save the day with some characteristically fresh takes on the tropes—no capes required.

In Search of Rohan Chang (2022) by Lincoln Lee will appeal to fans of the Miles Morales–led Spider-Verse movie franchise. Like the young Spider-Man, Rohan Chang—the titular protagonist of this superhero fantasy—is an ordinary New York City teen juggling family responsibilities, academic pressures, and adolescent drama with the emergence of extraordinary superhuman abilities (Rohan can fly and teleport). Lee’s novel goes darker, exploring themes of racism and centering a conflicted hero tormented by internal voices who’s tasked with stopping a serial killer. Our review praises the novel as an “incredibly creative superhero fantasy tale that brings together elements of various cultures.”

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Howard Seaborne’s 2022 novel, Divisible Man: Ten Keys West, is the 10th (!) installment in a series featuring Will Stewart, a charter pilot who doesn’t need a plane to fly. Will and his tough-as-nails police detective wife, Andy, take on the shadowy Company W, a sinister paramilitary insurgent group. With elements of the police procedural and military thriller grounding the high-octane superhero action, this novel feels like “the best possible combination of the Odd Thomas novels of Dean Koontz and the Jack Reacher novels of Lee Child,” according to our starred review.

The Silver Prison, a 2023 fantasy novel by Peter Shokeir, is a comedic yarn set in the 22nd century amid a never-ending war against terror. Genetically engineered supersoldier Slate is burdened with an unremovable silver helmet and, after being prematurely awakened from hibernation, a snarky attitude. On the other hand, he’s superhumanly strong, capable of flight, and shoots lightning from his hands, which is all pretty unassailably cool. He’s also funny:

“I expected to be tortured, not massaged by Fabio,” he drawls in the course of receiving a pistol-whipping.

Our review says the story “feels like an insouciant version of an X-Men comic” and calls the novel “a rollicking SF romp with cinematic action, entertaining banter, and an appealingly scruff y protagonist.”

J. Michael White’s Jestin Kase and the Terrors of Shadow Metal (2023) finds the hero, a superpowered 15-year-old who creates armor and weapons from the magical “dragon metal” coursing through his veins, in over his head again in this sequel to Jestin Kase and the Masters of Dragon Metal.

Battling a giant monster is nothing out of the ordinary

for Jestin; he’s more concerned about his burgeoning relationship with his crush, Jacob Colt. Of course, if the dark entity currently extending its foul tentacles throughout the city has its way, Jacob and the rest of Chicago’s population are going to be in no position to engage in romance. Prone to panic attacks, gay Jestin is a distinctive creation and irresistibly funny: “I’m fine.

Totally not crazy. Now let’s go talk to the vampire elf of living shadow sitting in our dungeon,” he quips at one point. Our review concludes, “A droll, charming protagonist carries this uproarious magic-laden tale over the finish line.”

Arthur Smith is an Indie editor.

Illustration by Eric Scot t Ander son

SUPERHERO TALES WITH A FRESH SPIN

ARTHUR SMITH

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EDITOR’S PICK A fake mystery writer finds herself searching for stolen jewelry and missing— or possibly devoured— persons in exuberant 1937 Hollywood in this frothy period yarn.

When bestselling mystery writer Dame Alice Cartwright declines to traipse from the English Cotswolds to L.A. to do contracted rewrites of her Lady Irwin’s Diamonds screenplay, her New York publisher Dermot Delaney panics over the prospect of returning her $25,000 advance from the Farley Brothers studio.

Fortunately, he hits upon the absurd workaround of sending office assistant Penelope Greenleigh to Hollywood, posing as the author, to do the rewrites.

Arriving in L.A. as Dame Alice, sporting a gray wig, frumpy British tweeds, and an improvised English accent that doesn’t always obscure her Jersey roots, Penelope is whisked to the storied Chasen’s restaurant to hobnob with Hollywood stars, wannabes, and sharks, including Lady Irwin’s hack director, Skipper Farley; the

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picture’s vain star, Zsa Zsa Le Coque, currently carrying on an adulterous affair with Argentinian playboy Federico Fulco; and baleful gossip columnist Hattie Holiday, who immediately marks Penelope as an impostor.

More panic ensues when Zsa Zsa disappears from Chasen’s along with the $30,000 Miramar Diamonds necklace used as the movie’s titular prop. Taking after Dame Alice, Penelope starts sleuthing, assisted by gal pal Molly Lopez, handsome Det. Jake Chu, pixilated oil heiress Emerald Elliman, and Skipper’s factotum, Toby, a teenage wunderkind who’s addressing Hollywood’s direst medical problems by inventing early versions of Botox, collagen lip injections, and Alka-Tonic, a hangover remedy made of 100 percent relabeled vodka. Penelope and her posse rummage through glitzy parties, swanky mansions, and the chic Beverly Hills Hotel in pursuit of the necklace but come up dry—until the real Dame Alice unexpectedly arrives and threatens to expose Penelope’s charade.

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The Limits of My World

By Gregory Coles

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Archipelago

By H.R. Hawkins

Dame Alice Hits Hollywood Mahoney, Allie | Wrenfield Books 193 pp. | May 23, 2023

Journalist and author Mahoney provides a fun panorama of an old Hollywood that’s very much like a classic screwball comedy: glamorous, slightly tawdry, and full of glorious grifters remaking themselves from starry-eyed hicks into silver-screen deities. The cheerfully ridiculous plot makes no more sense than is necessary to keep the characters buzzing as they wander through Hollywood landmarks, spy Marx Brothers on the horizon, fend off the occasional mobster, theorize about a possible cannibal murder of a beer maker by a chowder manufacturer, and generally mill about firing witticisms at each other. Penelope is a passive heroine: She mainly plays straight woman to the colorful antics of the various supporting characters who dominate the plot until Dame Alice arrives to impart some direction to the narrative. Still, Mahoney’s 169

Finding Foxtale Forest

By Madeleine Hewitt; illus. by Victoria Layne

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whip-smart prose and sparkling dialogue supply plenty of entertainment, from bitchy repartee (“‘I’m 40 myself, though you’d probably never guess!’ offered Emerald merrily. ‘What birthday is coming up for you, Hattie—70? Or was that a few years ago?’”) to material-girl reverie (“‘There are some diamond mines and about a million acres of land,’ said Zsa Zsa, trying unsuccessfully to suppress the dollar signs which had appeared in her huge blue eyes. ‘But I love Federico for himself. I mean, he’s gorgeous’”), to droll suspense (“‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ I whispered. ‘That Morty chopped up Barry King, and turned him into soup?’ asked Molly. ‘You bet I am!’”). The result is a laugh-out-loud whodunnit that sends up Hollywood’s beguiling nonsense.

An effervescent Tinseltown romp, crackling with atmosphere and nutty humor.

Dame Alice Hits Hollywood

By Allie Mahoney

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Murder in the Mangroves

By Angie Ross

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The Pianist’s Only Daughter: A Memoir Adams, Kathryn Betts Self (241 pp.) | $13.99 paper Nov. 14, 2023 | 9798393872144

This debut memoir centers on a woman’s spirited life with artistic parents whom she helped care for in their later years.

Adams was born in 1950s Connecticut to a male concert pianist and a female poet. Both of her parents earned money as teachers—her mother, Jane, working at a community college, and her father, Donald, giving piano lessons. While Jane was a loving and attentive mother, the author had a somewhat volatile relationship with her father. Donald’s states, for example, weren’t predictable, and family members had to monitor his “blue moods,” when he would lie on a sofa or bed in an apparent funk. He was passionate about perfecting his keyboard skills (“He obsessed about how to interpret certain phrases and got himself stressed about how much emotion to put into his playing”). He also threw the family into turmoil with more than one affair with a piano student. Adams ultimately forged her own path by going to college, which led to a career in social work, and eventually starting a family of her own. But her parents, who even after splitting up somehow found each other again, needed their daughter as they aged. Both Jane and Donald contracted diseases, including Parkinson’s and a variety of cancers. Because constant care was essential, the author’s parents took up residence in a senior living facility, often moving to other rooms or places, depending on their ever changing physical and mental conditions and Medicare’s limited coverage. Adams and her husband also relocated her parents to be closer to their California home, since Jane and Donald’s only child remained fiercely loyal to her family.

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Adams’ sharp prose delivers myriad details about her and her parents’ lives, though she devotes much of this memoir to her parents. She undeniably had a closer bond with her mother and, at times, resented her father. As described in this book, Donald was selfish, often putting his own needs (his piano playing or misguided romantic impulses) ahead of his family’s. Even in his later years, his “complaints and emotional outpourings” dominated the conversations with his daughter.

Meanwhile, the account, which unfolds chronologically, reveals Jane’s gradually worsening condition via a series of heart-wrenching scenes. It’s an unflinching portrait of aging and a not-always-flattering glimpse at medical care in the United States. For example, the author recounts nurses and doctors who appeared either indifferent or ignorant of her parents’ medical histories, and a “skilled nursing facility” that truncated a Medicare-covered three-night stay to observe Jane’s condition, forcing the author to pay out-of-pocket fees. Most impressively, this book boasts a swift pace, covering numerous decades as well as a handful of cities and states where Adams and her family lived.

This work skillfully spotlights historical events, too, such as the rise of feminism in the ’70s and the Covid-19 lockdown starting in 2020. The author couples the real-world backdrop with such sublime touches as snippets of her parents’ love letters and emails, along with a few of her mother’s poems.

Adams also includes a number of personal photographs, from images of her parents as kids and later a married couple to pictures of the two when they were older, relying on wheelchairs.

An enthralling account that traces the highs and lows of a family dealing with aging.

For more Indie content, visit Kirkus online.

Still Needs Work Barker, Ellen | She Writes Press (296 pp.) | $17.95 paper June 11, 2024 | 9781647426804

A widow living in her run-down Kansas City childhood home contemplates her next moves.

Marianne is at a conference in San Francisco when Sharon, her Baltimore-based boss, gives her a heads up: HR will soon inform her of a department-wide layoff, and she’ll lose her telecommuting data job. She recently (and reluctantly) moved back to Kansas City, Missouri, from California following the loss of her husband, who died from “a long and expensive illness that left me able to afford only this wretched little house in this wretched neighborhood.” As Marianne looks for new jobs and collects severance and unemployment, she also works part time at the local hardware store, with its owner and sons helping her fix up her house and her ideas spurring store sales. She continues to work at the store even after Sharon sets her up with a contract position at a Chicago startup, which is partly remote but requires some on-site visits. By the novel’s end, Marianne experiences an incident near her home that forces a decision about whether she should move to Chicago for a full-time position or take a technology support job at the local school system for half the salary. California-based Barker, whose previous book was East of Troost (2022), has once again set a novel in the changing Kansas City region that she hails from with a lead who sometimes feels out of place.

While it’s a bit puzzling that Marianne bought this house in this area, given that her parents “moved away in the mid-1970s,” Barker has crafted a relatable, weary modern worker in Marianne, who’s full of wry observances. (“All I’ve done so far is determine that I want to make a living by sitting on my butt at home.”)

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A fun fantasy tale that offers informative entomological facts.

J E R E M Y A N D T H E B E E T L E TA K E D O W N

An incisive, warm take on juggling the realities of home, work, and income.

The B.A.B.Y. Book: Best Advice for Baby & You Brewer, Karen L. | Fostering Healthcare Communications (377 pp.) | $18.99 paper Sept. 13, 2023 | 9781961473003

Brewer discusses what mothers and babies should anticipate during the postpartum hospital stay and beyond in this guide.

As a nurse with over 20 years of experience caring for mothers and newborns during the postpartum period, the author outlines what a new mother should expect to experience at the hospital from delivery to discharge (the book also covers situations likely to arise during the early days at home).

First, Brewer presents a detailed look at a mother’s hospital care during delivery and after birth. Second, she outlines the postpartum hospital journey for the baby. Finally, the author addresses feeding issues and other challenges that might emerge, such as how to manage hospital visitors and what emergency signs to watch out for beyond the hospital stay. Serving as a reference that parents can refer to before, after, and beyond delivery, this resource is invaluable, both educational and practical. The text balances expert knowledge with humor and a conversational tone. It also offers advocacy for appropriate pain relief, a useful Q&A section for each topic, and excellent examples of how to find quick remedies for various vexing K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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situations (for example, the “5 S’s” a parent might apply when responding to incessant crying—Swaddling, Shushing, Swinging, Side or Stomach Positioning, and Sucking). Brewer offers a kind and open-minded perspective to parents who opt against breastfeeding or circumcision while gently educating about the necessity of vaccines with real-world, relatable examples. Although the occasional attempts at levity can lead to the euphemistic treatment of body parts (“to lend a little humor to our teaching, I will utilize ‘hoo-hah’ or ‘nether region’ a few times during this lesson”), and the different sections could be more clearly delineated, this guide expertly anticipates the concerns parents will have and deftly addresses them. The author has assembled an authoritative yet humble primer to this essential topic.

A much-needed companion for mother and child as they venture through the postpartum period.

Jeremy and the Beetle Takedown Brown, Sallana | SunGate Publishing (50 pp.) | $11.99 paper | Nov. 15, 2023 9781962245012

Brown introduces youngsters to the concept of invasive insect species in this picture book.

Young Jeremy is in science class and excited to learn that the new study topic is entomology—the study of insects. Ms. Birch explains to the class that they’ll learn about bugs in the classroom for a bit and then go outside to observe them

in the wild. As the kids catch insects and overturn stones to find grubs, they come across a swarm in a small forest area. Several kids, including Jeremy, use their entomological knowledge to figure out what the bugs are. Jeremy overhears the beetles saying things such as “we are emerald, not green,” and figures out that they’re emerald ash borer beetles. The kids understand they must do something about this invasive species, as they’re killing trees. After Ms. Birch calls a tree specialist, the beetles begin speaking again; Jeremy decides to explain to the bugs the necessity of sharing. Gouveia’s full-color cartoon illustrations are adorable, and the kids in Jeremy’s class are illustrated with care to make them each distinct characters. They’re portrayed with a range of skin tones; most are children of color, including Jeremy. In some places, the small text is a bit hard to read, but overall, Brown delivers an accessible STEM-oriented story.

A fun fantasy tale that offers informative entomological facts.

A Minimalist Ethic for Everyday Life: How To Avoid Conflict—And Why Chapelle, Daniel | Self (114 pp.) | $4.95 paper | Sept. 28, 2023 | 9798862608106

Psychologist Chapelle presents a self-help guide organized around minimalist principles.

The author draws on an array of literary sources from Christian, Jewish, Taoist, and Buddhist traditions to offer some life lessons via two guiding precepts, which he clarifies early on: “Don’t be a schmuck” and “When in doubt, don’t.” He presents reflections without preaching; “There are zero arguments here,” he writes, “only a presentation of ideas that add up to a single but profound ethic.” In each chapter, he explores a different philosophical or spiritual tradition, FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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usually by focusing on a single pivotal figure such as Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Socrates, and using them as a standard for an entire set of ideas: “The Buddha,” he writes, for example, “taught the most radical, profound, comprehensive, subtle, compassionate, and practical philosophy, psychology, and educational program the world has ever produced.” Along the way, Chapelle intersperses broader insights into ideologies running through various bodies of literature; he asserts, for instance, that all three Abrahamic religions insist on loving one’s neighbor as oneself and adds: “That is easy for Him to say but difficult for us to do.”

He employs a similarly accessible, conversational tone throughout, which helps to ground his frequent calls for change: People must become more than “emotionally empty consumers of bread and circuses,” he urges, and be vigorous advocates for “a new evolutionary future.” This recurring theme of self-improvement dovetails skillfully with the drive for personal transformation at the heart of works like the Tao Te Ching, and Chapelle does an effective job of clarifying this aspect in his book, as when he notes, “Meditation does not say: Search for truth and wisdom, and that way, you will find happiness. It says: Stop adding commentary to your experiences.”

An engaging philosophical tour and straightforward advice guide.

Provocative and imaginative SF about space-going humans constrained by language and technology.

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1666 Chilton, Lora | Sibylline Press (224 pp.) | $17.00 paper April 2, 2024 | 9781960573957

hilton’s historiC cal novel imagines the harrowing tale of three Virginian Patawomeck women who survived the 1666 massacre of the men of their tribe and were sold into slavery.

The small Native American Patawomeck tribe make their home in northern Virginia, near the Chesapeake. In 1666, frustrated with the tribe’s refusal to sell their land or accept the Virginia Governor’s Council’s choice for a new chief, the council chooses to respond with violence. On one summer night of that year, the Virginia militia enter the Patawomeck territory carrying their “thunder sticks” and savagely shoot every adult male in the village. They seize babies and corral the women, who are placed on a ship and sold into slavery in Barbados. Among these women are Ah’SaWei (Golden Fawn), a young mother, and her close friend, NePa’WeXo (Shining Moon). Once in Barbados, Ah’SaWei, her mother, and her daughter are sold to the Mount Faith Manor Plantation, owned by master Russell White, a Quaker. They are luckier than Xo and her daughter, who are purchased by the vicious, sexually avaricious master James Lewis of the Sugar Grove Plantation. In alternating chapters, Ah’SaWei, whose name is changed to Rebecca, and Xo, renamed Leah, narrate their tales of struggle and survival—on the ship, on the plantations, and after their triumphant return to the colonies in 1669. Packed with Indigenous culture and customs and sprinkled with tribal terminology, the narrative is vivid, magnetic, and chilling. The author is herself a Patawomeck descendant, and she’s combined scant available written records with tribal oral history to inform her creation of two

emotionally powerful, vibrant female protagonists. Mixed in with the tragedies that befall these women are humorous moments, such as their descriptions of the English men: “They rarely bathe, their breath and teeth repulsive. They are hairy and filthy; they cover themselves with woven layers, fetid with sweat and dirt.” Several sections move languidly, but plenty of action, tears, cheers, and historical detail work to keep the pages turning.

A disturbing, absorbing, and valuable addition to the literature of cruelty inflicted upon Indigenous peoples.

Kirkus Star

The Limits of My World Coles, Gregory | Walking Carnival (336 pp.) | $14.99 paper Dec. 1, 2023 | 9781939953209

In Coles’ SF novel, humankind has divided into two factions, dangerously separated from each other by incompatible languages and cosmologies, each claiming to be exclusively “human.”

The author plunges readers into a deliberately puzzling and cryptic environment known as the “universe,” an enclosed, apparently subterranean, mechanized structure. Its human inhabitants, when not ensconced in a limitless virtual reality called the “digiscape,” carry on daily duties within a culture that emphasizes cycles of test-tube births, maturation, and regular refittings of “skin,” actually high-tech, close-fitting exoskeletons that effectively render their wearers cyborgs. There’s a counterpart to this “underworld”— the seldom-visited “overworld,” where raw materials are funneled to the cyborgs by a largely nontechnological tribe of surface-dwelling, agrarian “Natchers,” humans so far removed from their brethren as to now be K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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regarded as undesired aliens. Kanan, a young underworld resident, turns out to be one of the occasional aberrant nonconformists—he flees a painful skin-upgrading ceremony and ends up in the overworld, a captive of the tribalistic Natchers, who have grown to mistrust and resent the armorplated folk from below and conduct periodic raids for dwindling supplies.

Flashback chapters inform readers that this bizarre social construct began centuries ago as a hopeful, pioneering deep-space expedition from Earth to colonize a distant planet. Over generations it evolved into something terribly different. The author’s gradual revelation of the true nature of the “universe” is masterful, accented by themes of subjective perception, self-deception, and language; words in the underworld and overworld have gradually grown apart in meanings and intent, reinforcing prejudices that subvert and divide both sides (each of which stubbornly claims to be truly “human”). The author has written about LGBTQ+ topics in nonfiction, and it’s noteworthy that personal pronouns have become irrelevant and sexless in the confines of the “universe,” though this may not necessarily reflect a gender-fluid mindset. As one character observes, “Everyone is blind in their own way. And in their blindness, they see what those with different eyes are blinded to.”

Provocative and imaginative SF about space-going humans constrained by language and technology.

The Reset Datta, Avi | Bublish (526 pp.)

Feb. 1, 2024 | Series: Time Corrector, 3

In Datta’s SF series entry, a trillionaire tech entrepreneur and inventor in the near future is hesitant to use his superpowers to “reset” the universe, as he might delete his loved ones.

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The series’ central conceit is that certain humans are born with innate “Time Corrector” powers that allow them to halt or reverse time and thus rewrite reality. This talent is bound to a rare Earth substance called intreton—a key element in everything from clean energy technology to cybernetic limbs, digital mind transfer, and artificial intelligence. In the early 21st century, super-genius Vincent Abajian is the incredibly wealthy leader of the cutting-edge Quantum World, a company that makes positive and progressive use of intreton. The inventor is a Time Corrector—intreton is part of his physiology, in fact—but his life hasn’t run like clockwork. As a bullied orphan, he bonded with Japanese Dutch violin prodigy Akane, who disappeared in a strange space-time storm. As an adult, he met the alluring but inconstant classical pianist Emika. Terrorists and traitors targeting Vincent and Akane turn out to be manipulated by Philip Nardin, a mega-tycoon who has an alter ego named Oliver Journe from a different reality. Nardin is covetous of Vincent’s power, and Oliver turns out to have an important connection to the Quantum World CEO. Vincent can radically manipulate the timestream and do a “reset,” saving numerous victims, foiling Nardin’s bad guys, and maybe even erasing himself.

Taking such a drastic step would also delete the existence of Nozomi, Vincent’s cherished daughter with Emika. Scoundrels in the governments of the United States and Japan are converging on the dueling trillionaires, attempting to exploit intreton and its ramifications for the weapons market. Vincent must find a path through the tangled relationships and cause-and-effect paradoxes.

Characters frequently maintain multiple identities, and there are diverging/merging timelines, illusions, ever-shifting rules, and even double take–inducing walk-on roles

by Zeus and other figures of Greek mythology (especially Chronos, the personification of time itself ); indeed, readers will find that the narrative is

more intricate than the inside of a complex pocket watch. In order to help readers through the curlicues of multiple perspectives, flashbacks, flashforwards, and do-overs, Datta provides a plethora of footnotes (“This is a continuation of a scene from ‘Omurice,’ chapter 15 of The Winding, Time Corrector Book 1,” reads one), which makes one wonder whether the e-book version ought to have been tricked out with some helpful hyperlinks. In the home stretch, after leading readers through corporate shenanigans and combat-SF, the plot becomes a drama of second-chance destinies and romantic what ifs, guiding readers through histories that have technically already occurred. It should be predictable, but for those hardy adventurers who tough out the loopier bits, the storyline will hold their interest as the many gears, cogs, and coils of fate mesh and unwind.

If Back to the Future is elementary time travel, this is the stuff of doctoral theses.

This latest series installment delivers an intricately recursive time-hopping tale of heartache and skullduggery.

Ghosted: Dating & Other Paramoural Experiences Eisenstein, Jana | Atmosphere Press | (288 pp.) | $18.24 paper Dec. 13, 2021 | 9781639881529

Eisenstein investigates the horrors of dating in this debut memoir.

The author spent her college years sober and largely without sex. When she moved to a new city for graduate school, she decided she would do things differently: She was going to party, flirt, and hook up with men. “More often than not, my friends would have to peel me off the face of a stranger at last call, or share an uncomfortable Metro ride with me and whatever new acquaintance I decided to bring home. I had no idea FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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A compassionate book that provides intriguing insights and useful strategies.

W H Y D I D I J U S T E AT T H AT ?

what I was doing, but I sure loved doing it.” But her participation in hookup culture led to plenty of confusion and dissatisfaction, such as the time Eisenstein met a man at a loud bar and brought him all the way back to her apartment before realizing he was Deaf…and already engaged. She concluded after a few years that this lifestyle wasn’t the best way to meet Mr. Right, but what other options did she have, really? As the author moved from her 20s to her 30s, living in multiple cities and trying multiple dating methods, she kept running up against the same problem: strange men, awkward encounters, and unmet needs in her own life that kept her from finding happiness. Was Eisenstein destined to be haunted forever by the promise of an ideal partner whom she could never find?

The author’s cutting prose and eye for detail allow her to paint pictures of dates that are by turns lovely and hideous, such as the evening sitting “at the edge of the harbor on a warm summer evening, cracking crabs as the sun went down,” which ended, shockingly, with her date licking her face: “He began slowly and deliberately tracing the outside of my lips with his tongue, then gradually moving outward along my cheek in wet circles.” While the book more than satisfies as a mortifying collection of bad dates, Eisenstein’s greater achievement is excavating the deeper dissatisfactions that underlie so much of contemporary dating culture.

A sharp dating memoir that’s by turns funny, freaky, and sad.

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Why Did I Just Eat That?: How To Let Go of Emotional Eating and Heal Your Relationship With Food Ellis, Lisa D. | Morgan James Publishing (226 pp.) | $19.95 paper Jan. 9, 2024 | 9781636982090

Registered dietician Ellis offers a self-help guide for people with unhealthy eating patterns.

“Food Cuddler,” “Food Whisperer,” and “Procrastin-Eater” are just a few of the author’s creatively named categories in this book, which aims to help readers analyze and improve their dysfunctional relationships with food. Eating should be a simple process, she asserts; the main reason to eat is hunger, and fullness is the cue to stop. What Ellis terms “Emotion-Triggered Eating” is often subconscious, however. Early humans lived in a time of food scarcity, she notes, and anxiety was once a function of survival, making people hardwired to overeat and self-soothe with food.

Ellis mixes biological and psychological concepts with empathy. Using anonymized composites of her own clients, she offers relatable studies that show how past and present family dynamics can play a role in disordered eating: “Kavitha,” a “Less-Structured Eater,” is a busy mother who never gives herself time to eat, making her a “professional grazer.” Widowed Annamaria, a “Food Cuddler,” uses

comfort food to give her “a big hug from within,” numbing her grief; as a child, she was encouraged to eat in times of sadness or disappointment.

Ellis’ writing is brisk and engaging, and the book contains a quiz to gain awareness of one’s eating patterns.

Advice includes keeping a food diary, using a hunger/fullness meter, engaging in mindful eating practices, and keeping a record of one’s moods. Ellis also includes comforting affirmations for each category, always emphasizing that an important part of healing is self-love. After readers narrow down their own eating styles, they would do well to read sections for other categories as well, as there’s much wisdom to be found in these pages.

A compassionate book that provides intriguing insights and useful strategies.

NAIMERA: Sapient Quest Ganzberger, Michael David Self (286 pp.) | $13.99 paper Nov. 8, 2023 | Series: NAIMERA, 2

In Ganzberger’s SF thriller sequel, the truth is out there—and it’s dangerous.

The idea that unidentified aerial phenomena exist has long been a nuisance for governments worldwide. U.S. Marine Col. Scott Jennings hires an illusionist, the Amazing Adriano, to come up with a holographic trick that will “prove” to the public that UAPs (commonly known as UFOs) are an elaborate hoax. Jennings’ real plan, code-named Sapient Quest, is more complicated; he and others in the government believe that UAPs are real, and they’re planning to use the illusion to help them uncover an actual alien object. Added to this secret team are famed astrophysicist Miles Pierce and Kim Harrod, creator of drones called Naturally and Artificially Intelligent Chimeras, or NAIMERAs. These bioengineered beings are described as K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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“living, versatile, high-tech ‘brain[s].’”

It turns out that a synthetic alien species, the Ocets, plan to leave their dying planet and resettle on Earth after their advance party eradicates all life there. The extraterrestrials whom the task force seeks have been studying humanity for decades. As Miles is dying of cancer, Kim uses his recorded memories to create his NAIMERA heir, Niles, who discovers the Ocet scouts and the threat they pose to Earth. Using Miles’ scientific knowledge, he determines the best way to fight them, although suspicion and misunderstanding among nations could stop the plan in its tracks.

Ganzberger deserves credit for developing a new twist on the alien invasion plot. The most intriguing character is easily Niles, since the NAIMERA-human hybrid gets the best of both species. The rest of the characters, though, be they human, Ocet, or NAIMERA, are less memorable and never quite come to life. When the obnoxious Ocet leader opines that the “bipeds” (humans) are destroying their planet, many readers may nod their heads in agreement, even as they hope for the aliens’ defeat. The narrative speeds along nicely, even though only Niles is aware that he’s racing against the clock. Overall, it’s an engaging adventure, although readers may be able to predict where it’s all headed.

An often-gripping alien invasion tale starring an extraordinary creation.

Grandpa’s Garden Gardella, Tricia | Illus. by Karen Donnelly Self (28 pp.) | $26.00 | $10.99 paper Nov. 8, 2023 | 9781959412274 9781959412267 paper

In this picture book, a community garden is the scene of a delightful vegetable feast.

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Gardella introduces readers to each of the ingredients for a healthy meal that the grandkids assemble. They begin with that classic staple, lettuce, then move on to radishes, celery, and more.

The author describes the appearance and role of each part of the salad: “These are the beets, pickled or plain, / Painting the lettuce with their rich, red stain, / And bringing some softness to the luscious salad / That comes from Grandpa’s garden.” Confusingly, Gardella’s verse style echoes that of the classic rhyme “This Is the House That Jack Built,” but misses the opportunity for each line to build on the previous one to create a long, continuous string of steps for salad-making. As the meal takes shape, readers will find that one of the most important additions to the salad does not grow in the garden, but instead is the multiracial family that sits around the table to eat it. Donnelly’s brightly colored, highly detailed illustrations demonstrate how to prepare the ingredients, such as putting the lettuce in a salad spinner and grating the carrots. Together with Donnelly’s instructive pictures, this engaging story encourages sustainable practices and a community mindset among its readers, who may still be learning where their food comes from.

A sweet tale about coming together to enjoy home-grown food.

The Dogs of Avarice Gemmell, John G. | Self (300 pp.) $19.99 | $10.99 paper | Oct. 5, 2023 9781805412403 | 9781805412380 paper

In Scottish author Gemmell’s debut novel, a man’s shadowy past catches up to him, jeopardizing his life and his family.

It’s 2022, and forensic accountant Stephen Whyte lives in a suburb of Glasgow with his entrepreneur wife, Lisa, and two kids.

His safe life is turned upside down in an instant when two agents from the National Crime Agency show up at his

door with a warning: “We have reason to believe that your life may be at risk.”

After he’s taken from his home and placed in a safe house, Whyte realizes that his years living anonymously in the witness protection program are over. More than a decade before, he helped to convict his former employer, criminal kingpin Matty O’Hare, of multiple crimes. These included extortion and money laundering and gave O’Hare a 15-year jail sentence. At the safe house, he meets old acquaintance Tony Fowler, a thief who also worked for O’Hare and whose life is also in danger. When the safe house proves very unsafe indeed, Whyte must not only find a way to stay alive, but also salvage his fractured relationship with his wife, who knew nothing of her spouse’s criminal past. Powered by intertwining nonlinear storylines— one in the present day and the other beginning back in 1985—the author does a masterful job of disclosing kernels of backstory and slowly connecting the various elements of Whyte’s and O’Hare’s lives, including their families. Additionally, the author’s social commentary throughout adds another layer to the narrative tapestry. Impressively deep character development and dynamism, relentless pacing, and nonstop action make this an impressive page-turner.

A moving crime novel about family, excess, and ultimately redemption.

Resilient: Surviving My Mental Illness Grace, Liz | Sisters Ignited Media and Publishing (279 pp.) | $17.37 paper June 30, 2023 | 9781990533112

Grace offers a challenging but candid account of mental illness and its impact in this memoir.

As a 17-yearold, the author was still struggling to cope with her mother’s death from breast cancer seven years earlier, a struggle made FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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more difficult by the lack of emotional support from her family. Although very bright and outwardly stable, Grace practiced dangerous self-harm to deal with her persistent anxiety and low self-esteem. When her father announced unexpectedly that he was about to remarry, to a woman poorly equipped to handle her new stepdaughter’s challenges, the author was thrown into intense emotional turmoil and increasingly considered suicide.

Readers will be shocked by Grace’s account of mental health workers who concluded, despite evidence to the contrary, that her behavior was simply attention-seeking and repeatedly used physical force to restrain and medicate her. But this book also contains an inspiring story of resilience; coping not only with ongoing mental illness but also profound hearing loss, the author courageously set out to become an occupational therapist. Grace’s account of her descent into psychological crisis is made vivid and compelling by the use of her early diary entries, which bring readers into direct contact with her mental illness. She comments on these passages and develops their meaning in plain text, but they appear largely unedited, and, as such, testify to the confusing and deeply painful impact of mental illness on a human personality. “What’s wrong? What’s right? What’s normal?” she asks herself at one point. “Everything is so twisted in my mind.” Because the author is honest and detailed when writing about her experiences, this book can be challenging and even disturbing at times. But in the end, it is the author’s candor and her unwillingness to look away from the reality of mental and physical illness that make her book so valuable.

An honest and inspiring account of a young woman’s struggles with deafness and mental illness.

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Kirkus Star

Archipelago Hawkins, H.R. | Gull Rock (402 pp.) | $15.99 paper | Jan. 2, 2024 | 9781399972512

An isolated cluster of star systems, following decades of isolation, suddenly open their borders to share their idealistic philosophy and political system in Hawkins’ SF novel.

The story unfolds thousands of years in humanity’s far future.

Teleportation-gateway technology (still not well understood) has spread humankind throughout the galaxy, spawning competing empires and conflicting ideologies—at times such entities might cooperate for a common interest (mainly profit), but otherwise they endlessly plot against each other. An isolated star cluster, the Archipelago, suddenly expels all outside corporate interests, deactivates its gates, and quarantines. After 50 years, an unorthodox invitation (“Well, it has been a while hasn’t it?

How are you all? How are the kids?”) issues from the “Arc,” inviting delegates from other power blocs to tour the Archipelago’s new, eco-based utopian society (and, perhaps, re-establish trade relations). The selected diplomats, are, of course, also professional intelligence-gatherers, armed with nanotech spyware and poised to subvert whatever the Archipelago has achieved. Ren Markov, whose late parents originated from the Arc system, is the representative of the Core Planets Federation.

Hard-drinking and disillusioned with his career in skullduggery on a decadent ruling planet, Ren is somewhat sympathetic to the Arc’s hopeful vision of sustainability but still mistrusts his hosts’ carefully choreographed propaganda and the dark hints of tyranny at the edges of their communelike social structure.

Hawkins’ mature SF narrative (which, with its weary operative hero, may

remind readers of the literary espionage novels of John Le Carré) is short on ray-gun blasts or romance but long on thoughtful debates on the nature of a fair society, ethical government, and planetary stewardship; the story is sadly persuasive in its depiction of Homo sapiens many millennia in the future still fighting one another out of greed and nationalism. Some dangling loose ends after the denouement point toward potential sequels, and readers will be eager for more visits to this universe.

Civilized, intellectual SF about society, politics, and empire building.

The Circle of Willis Hedger, H.G. | Wild Rose Press (416 pp.) | $19.99 paper Feb. 14, 2024 | 9781509253456

In Hedger’s ambitious debut novel, two damaged people in rural Oklahoma strive to heal.

Readers meet Leotie “Leo” Lightfoot when Ray Shipworth, an EMT, finds her passed out alone in an abandoned “party” warehouse. She was left there by her loser boyfriend, Jake. Ray gets her stabilized and to the hospital. Meanwhile, Ray is planning to propose to his airhead girlfriend, May, when she dumps him. (May and Jake deserve each other; it’s a pity they don’t get together.) Ray joins the Army and spends one tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan. He comes home almost irreparably shattered with PTSD. Leo is haunted by the fact that she’s never known her mother.

When she finds out that she’s grown up being lied to about her mother, she’s devastated and runs off—back with Jake. So it goes with both of them: one step forward and two backward until, through patience and reaching out to others, both to give and receive help, they placate their demons and wind up in a place that any reader could see coming a mile K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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An entertaining, educational, and empowering story for young readers.

F I N D I N G F O X TA L E F O R E S T: B O O K O N E

away. And that’s OK; one can still appreciate the complications that arise, though some are a bit silly or contrived, developments that a lazy playwright might fall back on (looking at you, May). Hedger often overheats the prose—when a character takes an honest look at his relationship, she writes, “He examined their tenure together with removed rationale.” Despite this habit, she makes Leo and Ray very sympathetic characters. Hedger’s description of the horrors of the front lines are appropriately terrifying, as is the degradation that Leo suffers under Jake. A nice ironic bit: While Ray is dodging real, deadly, bullets, stoner Jake is playing Call of Duty in a haze of pot smoke.

This debut novel has a lot of promising material, patchy though it is.

Readers will be drawn in by the characters’ struggles to save themselves and each other as they fall in love.

Kirkus Star

Finding Foxtale Forest: Book One Hewitt, Madeleine | Illus. by Victoria Layne | Self (224 pp.) | $25.00 Dec. 1, 2023 | 9798988564058

Hewitt’s whimsical fantasy for young readers features a group of five diverse 9-year-old girls and their adventures in a magical realm.

The novel begins by following five seemingly disparate storylines, each focusing on a 9-year-old girl: They K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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include Danielle “Dani” Flores, who lives in California and loves music and riding her bike; Paxton “Pax” Dawes, a Tennessee girl whose fractious twin sisters drive her crazy; Amy Wong, who resides in Texas and is about to start third grade in a new school; hard-driving Michigander Keziah “Kez” Williams; and Evangeline “Eva” Franklin of New York City, who loves hanging with her career-oriented mother and wants things in her life to be organized.

One by one, the girls are visited by a talking fox who brings them to Foxtale Forest, a wondrous place where all stories begin: “The leaves, grass, and tree trunks…glittered like the inside of a treasure chest.” Once there, the girls magically travel through portals into stories that need their help to have happy endings. One of the obvious strengths of this novel, aside from the highly identifiable and endearing young characters, is the sense of wonder created through the imagery. When helping a desert town battling drought and scary cloud creatures, the girls stay at an inn with beds as “soft as marshmallows.” A boy from the town is described as having “a haystack of hair.” In another adventure, when the girls attempt to help the captain of a steamship obsessed with treasure hunting, they discover a door that opens “with a groan like an old man standing up.”

Additionally, the existential lessons imparted on the power of friendship, kindness, and love will surely affect readers. The narrative is complemented by visually stunning fullcolor illustrations throughout by Layne, which enrich the reading experience exponentially.

An entertaining, educational, and empowering story for young readers.

Dezun Hou, Daniel | Povascha Press (242 pp.) $14.99 | $6.99 paper | Oct. 24, 2023 9798989189908 | 9798989189915 paper

In Hou’s SF novel, residents of a colonized planet struggle to survive in a fight over valuable resources.

At some point in Earth’s future, humanity escapes the dying planet and scatters throughout the universe.

A civilization called Stolis uses an artificial star to sustain life; a material called Sol, necessary to feed Stolis’ star, must be mined from planets that Stolis colonizes. The human residents of one such planet, Dezun, attempt to fight back but fail. Twenty-six years later, a revolutionary group again tries to remove the Stolisians from Dezun.

The story is told in scattered scenes from assorted third-person perspectives, including those of Stolisian colonizers, Dezuni rebels, and other inhabitants of Dezun who aren’t fully invested with either side. One of the main characters is Lyas, a 17-year-old half-Dezuni, half-Stolisian human hunter raised by his single mother, Inaal. Unbeknownst to Lyas, Inaal was one of the rebel leaders in the initial uprising 26 years earlier. Hou’s short novel manages to work in a lot of worldbuilding. Some characters, such as Lyas, explore Dezun’s physical landscape, which gives Hou a natural way to describe its flora and fauna.

Other characters’ stories, such as those of rebel Nakell and colonizer Cerin, allow for discussions of geopolitics.

Lyas’ introductory scene has him hunting tollut, which appears to be a deerlike creature; not only does this scene describe the environment, but it also hints at the workings of the world’s economy and provides a sense of Lyas’ character; when he eventually finds a tollut, he not only spares it when he discovers it’s blind and injured, but he also bandages its wounds. During Cerin’s first encounter with Dezun’s environment, Hou’s FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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prose stands out: “The forest before her was thickly enrobed in snow, with not a single spot or branch left untouched by the cold blankets.”

A vividly described tale of interplanetary anti-imperialism.

The Girl in the Water Howse, Joseph | Illus. by Janet Howse Nummist Media (356 pp.) | $27.00 $16.99 paper | Sept. 6, 2022 9781738788651 | 9780995287853 paper

Howse’s literary novel follows a Russian woman in the waning days of the Soviet Union.

Nadezhda “Nadia” Mikhailovna is the daughter of a shipping clerk and a factory worker. At a young age, she moves with her family from Estonia to Odessa. At 16, she’s sent back to Estonia to live with her grandmother, a spirited woman who weathered World War II, in the city of Tallinn.

While in Estonia, Nadia learns of an “occurrence” at the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant that forces the evacuation of a place called Chernobyl. After visiting with Grandma, Nadia is off to see her sister, Nastya, in Kiev. She also interacts frequently with her childhood friend Ida Ivanova, an ethnic German who had “gone to a boarding school for orphans.” Ida undergoes shock therapy before she eventually gets to live in an apartment with a computer scientist. As the pensive Nadia goes from place to place and interacts with many people, readers learn her thoughts and impressions.

She considers history to be “a melancholy treasure-house” and often reflects on her own and others’ memories. For example, Nadia embarks on a playful mission to find the grave of a cat that died in 1940 simply because the act helps an old man remember his family. Throughout the novel, the author provides a rich cross-section of the population: 170

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Nadia’s grandmother recollects how, during World War II, she “rode to Berlin on the gun mantlet of a T-34-85,” and her brother-in-law, a police officer, asks repetitive questions. Bland dialogue, however, sometimes drains the momentum (“He asked about you and your friend. He said he saw you earlier” or “Your clothes are in the dryer”).

As realistic as such exchanges may be, they can make scenes drag. But on the whole, Nadia’s journey is a memorable one. She comes of age in places as diverse as Estonia and Ukraine, which, while beset by Soviet malaise, abound with colorful characters.

An inviting, though dialogueheavy, dive into the fragile world of a fading empire.

Bad Bones: A Charlie McGinley Mystery With Bullets, Babies and Bebop Ingraffia, Sam | Self (245 pp.) | $7.99 paper Oct. 21, 2023 | 9798864683156

In Ingraffia’s novel, a successful writer of mysteries finds himself at the center of a real one when he unearths a human skull in his front yard.

In this third installment of the author’s Charlie McGinley Mystery series, Charlie attempts to plant a tree in his New Mexico front yard because his jazz-loving adoptive father, Buddy, says that “planting a tree when you have a kid is good luck.” Charlie’s wife

(his third), Mickey, is expecting their second child in a matter of months.

But instead of resulting in luck, Charlie’s digging produces a skull, and when a team of authorities gets involved, they find more bones, including two additional skulls, each with a bullet hole in the back. Walter Reddeck, the mayor of the tiny town of Coyote Falls, is part of the investigative team, as is Professor Malia Chee, the youngest tenured instructor in the Forensic Anthropology Department at the University of New Mexico, and its only Indigenous woman. Also present is Connie Cruz, editor of the local paper, and an ex-friend of Chee’s for reasons unknown. Because Charlie is accustomed to researching the books he writes, he works to solve his front yard mystery. But Chee warns him repeatedly to back off, especially when he comes up with a much more recent date for the killings than she does. In addition to his research, Charlie is guided by Ben, his long-dead Navajo spirit guide.

Charlie also talks about the case to his dead birth mother, a Navajo “dream talker.” Some readers may be turned off by the inclusion of not-of-this world characters who help solve the mystery, but others will enjoy the book’s magical realism. The human characters are fleshed out and often humorous until turning deadly.

The backstory could be trimmed, but in general, the pacing is good, and painterly descriptions of the area are woven throughout the narrative.

Although this novel is part of a series, it could stand as a read-alone.

Proverbial skeletons in closets and actual ones buried in the yard help make this a bone-ified good mystery.

The human characters are fleshed out and often humorous until turning deadly.

BAD BONES

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The Mole People Landt, Kevin | Ryland Publishing April 30, 2024 | 9798223653110

A young woman struggling with mental illness joins a colony of subterranean outcasts beneath Las Vegas.

Voices, hallucinations, and paranoia haunt Suzie Franks, a first-year college student in Portland, Oregon, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child. She struggles with bouts of delusion and causes outbursts on campus. When confrontations with other students escalate, she’s given an ultimatum: Take medication or risk expulsion. Suzie, afraid of the drug’s side effects, which include weight gain, refuses to take it and slowly alienates her friends and supporters before disappearing entirely. She winds up on a bus to Las Vegas after meandering around the country—turning away from her supportive boyfriend and mother in the process—and she joins a clan of people who live in the flood channels beneath the city. The tension builds in the novel’s second half, with the terrifying “Wonderman,” who leverages power, drugs, and influence to control the other tunnel dwellers, serving as an ongoing danger. Another looming threat is a bad rainstorm, which could wash everyone away and which forces Suzie to either face her past or risk drowning. Despite all her flaws, Suzie is so likable that her ongoing struggles are harrowing to watch. Landt gives readers a clear sense of what life is like for Suzie, whose oppressive, imagined voices are clearly rendered. The structure of the novel doesn’t entirely work, however. The most involving section—the lead’s descent into mental illness and underground living—could have come earlier in the novel. Much of Suzie’s prior life, before running away to Las Vegas, is less interesting and gets undue attention. Also, pivotal relationships are left unexplored until K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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the novel’s denouement. Still, Suzie’s is a unique, absorbing tale, full of drama and memorable scenes.

An uneasy, riveting glimpse at life in the shadows, anchored by a compelling main character.

Abnormal Ends McBee, Bryan | Atmosphere Press (360 pp.) | $19.99 paper Aug. 22, 2023 | 9781639889716

A veteran detective struggles to solve the defining case of his career in McBee’s novel.

The investigations of 13-year FBI special agent Juan McCormack have hit a critical roadblock. Despite the fact that he’s apprehended 12 serial killers in North America, no one on the force will acknowledge the connections he’s drawn between them.

The novel is set in a future in which tech advancements allow texts and email messages to be read in one’s peripheral vision, palm-embedded keys can unlock doors, and, most notably, Consensual Visage Projectors can change a person’s outward appearance and what they view, smell, or feel. The detective thinks that someone is hacking into and manipulating CVP technology and forcing people to kill others. However, McCormack is unceremoniously fired after being framed for insubordination, and his case histories are erased. Forced to investigate the case independently, the ex-FBI agent teams up with Dominique “Dee” Fydorova, one of the only manipulated killers to survive after murdering her victim. Together with other tech experts, they sift through digital footprints, skirt police surveillance, examine code fragments and data dumps, and avoid the digital assassin trying to hijack their implants.

McBee’s prose keeps up with the fierce momentum of his plot as McCormack digs deeper into the unsolved murders and scrambles to apprehend the killer

before he and Dee become the next to die. The book thoroughly explores the theme of technological manipulation as the characters battle unseen digital threats and the exploitation of citizens for monetary gain. Mystery fans and tech-savvy readers will find this multilayered combination of an SF novel, a suspense yarn, and a technothriller to be a cut above others of its ilk.

A visionary, futuristic police procedural that buzzes with imagination and intrigue.

The Cliffs of Schizophrenia McCook, Jake & Laurette McCook BookBaby (246 pp.) | $17.99 paper Dec. 15, 2023 | 9798350925968

Jake McCook and his mother recall their joint struggle with his schizophrenia in this memoir.

While in preschool, at only 4 years old, Jake McCook displayed such remarkable focus his teacher noticed and recommended, to his parents’ dismay, that he be put on medication. Laurette McCook saw her son as quirkily eccentric and impressively creative, not the bearer of some treatable dysfunction. As he grew older, though, he showed more troubling signs: “Crippling social anxiety,” paranoia, and panic attacks became increasingly common.

Sometimes, he was afraid to eat food he was convinced was poisoned, and he believed that there were spies scrutinizing his life—terrifying fears chillingly related by the authors.

During his teens, Jake began to self-medicate with alcohol, and by the age of 21 he was a heavy drinker, For more Indie content, visit Kirkus online.

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alcohol consumption being the only way he knew to quiet the ceaseless turmoil in his own mind. Finally, Jake was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a search for an effective cocktail of drugs to stabilize his behavior began, as did Laurette’s often frustrating quest to make sure he took those drugs and refrained from drinking.

The authors relay their parallel tales in turns, each contributing a series of generally brief meditations, the totality of which adds up to an extraordinary look into the disease and the challenge of its management.

Here Jake reflects on the most daunting aspect of schizophrenia—its incurability: “The absolute permanence of schizophrenia is a nightmare.

I can’t imagine having to deal with it my entire life. I go to sleep with schizophrenia, and I wake up with schizophrenia. This is on a loop in my head, and I can’t believe the power it has over me.” Laurette’s side of the story—her combination of bottomless hope and “parental PTSD”—is equally poignant. This is a captivating story, one as instructive as it is dramatically powerful and as heartbreaking as it is inspiring.

An unflinchingly realistic look at a little-understood disease.

A Change of Location Porter, Margaret | Gallica Press (336 pp.) | $15.99 paper April 16, 2024 | 9798985673456

An American woman is wooed by the English countryside—and a dashing country gentleman—in Porter’s debut contemporary romance novel.

Hannah Ballard, an American film location scout, is in England trying to find the perfect setting for an 18th-century historical epic called Forsaken Fortune.

She finds herself trying to cater an impromptu party to promote her employer, Acorn Films. When she 172

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An encouraging remembrance with an emphasis on lessons learned.

JUMP ON THE TRAIN

wanders into an artisanal cheese shop called Wincott & Sons, she’s served

by Martin Latimer, who instead of being a cheesemonger turns out to be the Marquess of Milverston (and, oddly, the landlord of the cheese shop), an archetypal handsome aristocrat and “a charming guy who has a title and an enormous country house.” When he discovers why Hannah is in England, he suggests she come visit him at Stanwell House. The house is located in the county of Somerset in Milver Vale, which he believes is perfect for the film.

Hannah sets off to meet him, and as soon as she arrives and agrees to Martin’s scheme, she finds herself slowly falling in love with the area and with the dashing Martin. Porter has perfectly captured the romance trope of finding unexpected love while traveling to new places. The author also deftly portrays the machinations of a twentysomething career woman who’s somewhat closed off to romantic intrigue. Porter skillfully immerses readers in the fictional Milver Vale and vividly evokes British village life, from pubs to fun characters to countryside exploits. Despite the idyllic setting, Hannah lives in constant fear of her name being circulated too widely, which could mean attracting unwanted attention to her family: primarily her Uncle Chase, who’s served prison time for manslaughter. Martin is on a crusade to support the welfare of the village and hopes that the production might bring more business in. While this is undoubtedly a novel of romantic escapism, Porter never gets treacly or predictably sentimental.

A charming sojourn to the English countryside for readers who enjoy smart love stories.

Jump on the Train: A Dyslexic Entrepreneur’s 50-Year Ride From the Leisure Suit to the Bowery Hotel and a New York Solar Farm Rosengarten, Gerald | Amplify Publishing (296 pp.) | $28.00 | Feb. 20, 2024 9781637556160

Rosengarten shares the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial career in this memoir.

They say if you can make it in New York City, you can make it anywhere—but doing so in the tumultuous era of John Lindsay’s mayoral administration during the late 1960s and early ’70s was especially difficult. The author’s background, which includes bipolar disorder, electroshock therapy, dyslexia, and no college degree, made things even more challenging, but he persevered and found outlets for his creativity in a series of entrepreneurial projects. His greatest claim to fame is the leisure suit, which he created in 1971; the genesis of this era-defining fashionwear was a knit fabric he found on the racks at the textile mill where we worked.

The leisure suit changed the men’s fashion industry seemingly overnight, appearing on theTonight Show and in the pages of GQ. “You wouldn’t wear a regular suit in a restaurant or at a party,” Rosengarten writes. “That was for the ‘squares.’” Its meteoric rise and precipitous fall are documented here, as are the author’s lesser-known projects, such as the Rainbow Reader: colored screens that aimed to help K IR KU S R E V IE W S

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people with dyslexia to read with greater ease. Each chapter tells a singular entrepreneurial story, related in a straightforward manner without rancor or score-settling: “Feel free to enjoy them in sequential order or by which interests you most,” the author recommends. The prose isn’t as inspired as Rosengarten’s projects, such as his forays into real estate, which included converting empty industrial buildings into lofts and building the Bowery Hotel, “an iconic New York City destination for A-List celebrities, real New Yorkers, and tourists,” and a Long Island–based solar farm that reflected his newfound “environmentalbased goals.” However, the author’s story may inspire budding or even experienced entrepreneurs, as along with his successes, he had several projects go bust: “You can learn from both the good and the bad,” he writes.

“It all just makes you stronger.”

An encouraging remembrance with an emphasis on lessons learned.

Kirkus Star

Murder in the Mangroves Ross, Angie | Self (241 pp.) | $11.99 paper Nov. 20, 2023 | 9798867613327 Series: Pete Brown Mysteries, 1

A small town by the water is shaken when an online influencer is killed in Ross’ mystery novel.

Shae Brunell has worked hard to establish and run her business taking tourists to see the jellyfish at night in Florida’s Endless Islands. But everything goes pear-shaped when, on a tour, she discovers the dead body of Emily Larson, an influencer with an aggressive online following. Shae soon finds herself being harassed by internet sleuths; her business seems to be all but over. She turns to her friend Pete Brown, who grew up with her on the island, for help in her time of crisis.

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police, but the chief’s response is less than helpful—Emily’s death has put a damper on local business, and those in charge want the matter swept under the rug before the economy suffers permanent damage. The death is ruled accidental, but many find that hard to believe, and some say those in power are trying to cover something up (“Why hadn’t the police done some simple investigation?”). As Pete continues to try to help, he learns that Shae is hiding some pretty big secrets about what happened the night she found Emily’s body. He also discovers that Catherine Mellon, a sweet woman who’s practically royalty on the island, has her own secrets to hide. The author delivers an excellent mystery with many unpredictable twists and turns.

The alternating point-of-view perspectives of Shae and Pete create a compelling contrast regarding the mystery (and each other). Ross masterfully provides clues to the murderer’s identity while leading readers off track with red herrings. The large cast of characters is engaging and varied, including Shae, the small business owner struggling to make ends meet; Catherine, the ostensibly upstanding citizen; and Sheriff Carter, who seems unwilling to go against his superiors’ motives.

depicted as middle class and overwhelmingly white. She doesn’t want to be different and is embarrassed by her mother’s accent and non-Western behavior (especially her focus on homework and her lack of tactile affection). One night Jade disavows her Chinese heritage, but then she learns of her mama’s family history and reconsiders. Stad narrates in the first person and effectively captures Jade’s insecurities and uneasy search for self-identity. Menson (My Heart Will Stay [2020]) complements the story with a deft, uncluttered drawing style. Some clever imagistic juxtapositions suggest emptiness and uncertainty (when Jade worries about fitting in or not being American enough, for instance) amid swirling shades of red, yellow, and aqua. All of this evokes a rich family history and exudes strength and unity whenever her mom or Chinese culture enter the picture. One of the book’s notable features is that Jade isn’t singled out by those around her. Her sense of not belonging comes from within and is tied to her not knowing her mother’s personal history. Once Jade understands that her mama’s love is no less real or strong for being expressed differently, she can finally embrace her own cultural origins.

Mama’s Love Language

I Can See for Miles: Overcoming the Past and Running to My Future

Mystery fans will be delighted by this first installment in a promising new series.

Stad, Elisa | Illus. by Ry Menson Ginger Lotus Press (31 pp.) | $21.98 $12.99 paper | Nov. 8, 2023 9798988378518 | 9798988378501 paper

A young biracial American girl struggles with her Chinese heritage in Stad’s debut picture book.

“My name is Jade. I live in two worlds. My mama is Chinese and my dad is American.

Who am I?” Jade, who presents as Chinese, feels out of place in a society

A frank and fulfilling journey of self-acceptance.

Stuart, Hollie | Marathon Publishing (259 pp.) | $16.99 paper Nov. 6, 2022 | 9781737274216

Human resources professional and keynote speaker Stuart presents a memoir of the hard work of healing from the trauma of abuse.

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was upended when her father died suddenly in 1983, when she was 8 years old. Her mother, in order to support her four children, moved the family to Oklahoma City. The change was jarring, but Stuart adjusted by letting her “natural silliness” show, making friends, and finding refuge in reading and long-distance running.

Then, in 1988, when she was 13, two neighborhood boys sexually assaulted her in her home multiple times over several months. She was unable to tell her family, as she felt that she was somehow at fault: “I had to carry this heavy burden and live with the belief that I was a terrible person and deserved what had happened to me.”

Although she found success as a corporate manager in adulthood, she contended with PTSD from the attacks, including experiencing feelings of inadequacy, nightmares, anxiety, and deep depression.

Distance running and spirituality helped her cope, and graduate studies and travel strengthened her empathy and expanded her perspective. To alleviate her PTSD, she used alternative reiki treatments, consulted with an “angel therapist” while also getting traditional therapy, took medication, and received support from a life coach. This thoughtful book will give hope to many readers who may be dealing with similar difficulties, as when she tells of her realization that “just because I was struggling didn’t mean I was failing.

I can endure my darkest moments and still survive.” Over the course of this book, she also writes lyrically and inspiringly about personal achievements, such as a transformative climbing expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro: “The night sky transformed from navy to fluorescent blue, the unrisen sun illuminating the volcanic peaks. Even though I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and was dehydrated, nauseous, and exhausted, I felt enraptured.” Overall, the book is a testament to the importance of never giving up.

An inspirational remembrance that offers powerful accounts of therapeutic experiences.

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Surviving Gen X Szewczyk, Jo | Illus. by Lizzie Nicodemus | Self (310 pp.) $19.95 paper | 9781989225400

In Szewczyk’s novel, Las Vegas serves as a playground for young people exploring relationships, sexuality, and the still-new internet in the 1990s.

An unnamed taekwondo fighter narrates this novel, navigating his everyday life, friendships, and relationships during the turbulent final decade of the 20th century. His anecdotal journey consists of wild parties, rendezvous, hangovers, and hookups. A “Fetish and Fantasy Ball” culminates in the end of his long-term relationship with a ballet dancer named Daphne but marks the beginning of his friendship with a French little person named Gene, who becomes the narrator’s dependable partner-in-crime in various questionable activities, as well as his confidant.

Later, at a Fourth of July party, he meets a bold, wisecracking, and deeply troubled young woman who calls herself Trixie; finally, online, he connects with Annie, with whom he falls deeply in love. Although Annie and the narrator don’t meet in person until nearly midway through the story, she’s the focus of several short stream-of-consciousness chapters, including the first, and they’re often accompanied by Nicodemus’ penand-ink illustrations of women in bondage. Other short chapters feature Trixie and a doctor named Michelle who’s suffering from lupus. In his

semiautobiographical novel, Szewczyk plunges readers into a seedy world, often as seen through the eyes of a ruthlessly descriptive narrator. The nameless protagonist initially appears to be callous, but his relationships endearingly uncover the kindness and vulnerability hidden behind his crassness and recklessness. A notable example is his friendship with Gene; the narrator pays tribute to Gene’s brother, whom he helped care for as he was dying of complications from AIDS: “Jim, the only guy who could kick my ass; Jim, the guy who took on an entire anti-gay protest in front of Gipsy’s…Jim, the guy who lost over 150 pounds in a few weeks.” Annie and Trixie are also multifaceted characters, written with empathy and compassion, especially in their relationships with their own bodies.

Fans of postmodern literature will enjoy this vivid, dark, and sometimes humorous tale.

An intimate, gritty, and compelling exploration of love, loss, sex, and trauma.

The Reluctant Conductor Turner, Tim & Moisey Gorbaty Bessarabian Publishers (242 pp.) | $27.99 Nov. 9, 2023 | 9798218267544

An indomitable man guides his Jewish family through the horrors of World War II in Eastern Europe in this debut novel.

Readers meet Elazar Gershovich in 1922. But the backstory is that, in 1903, the Gershoviches were living a

A moving family tale with a strong cast that readers will love.

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A gripping and emotionally intelligent tale of resentment and loss.

BITTERROOT

comfortable life in Kishinev, Moldova, when the Christians attacked the Jews in a pogrom. Little Elazar was thrown from a window, his brother Hershel had his leg broken, their mother was gang-raped, and two siblings were murdered. The family fled north to Kalarash, Moldova, and started over. Now, Elazar is an accomplished violinist in his musical family (Papa loves the accordion, Mama prefers the clarinet, and Hershel plays percussion). Yet the protagonist longs to test his wings.

But first, what he really wants is a girlfriend. He becomes smitten with Ita Kaplan, a winsome young artist from a wealthy family. Unfortunately, she plans to join her three sisters in Paris, and France is too daunting for Elazar. Then there is Mariam Gabashvili, but, since she’s not Jewish, Papa forbids the match. Soon, plans change for Ita (because of the political landscape), and so she marries Elazar and they have two children, Rivka and Ira. When the war comes, Elazar and his family and Hershel and his wife—their two sons are conscripted by the Russians—flee east ahead of the German bombardment. After a monumental trek—on foot, by train, and by boat—they end up in Uzbekistan for the duration of the war. Lice are a constant scourge, and these pests are probably responsible for a family member contracting typhus. At war’s end, Elazar and his clan make their way back to Moldova and the bombed-out ruins. But will the treasure that Elazar buried in the backyard in Kalarash and the violin he hid in the cellar still be there? Will there be music as these irrepressible survivors try to rebuild their lives?

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considering what is going on in the main protagonist’s part of the world.

Elazar, the narrator, carries the story and will win readers over right from the start. There is subtle humor in his desperate search for his dream girl, equal parts idealism and lust. And Ita is a surprise. Readers will expect that, coming from an affluent family, she would not be able to handle adversity.

But when the world comes crashing down, she is by no means a quitter.

She is in fact a resourceful mother and loving wife through thick and thin (mostly thin). And Elazar is forever the optimist because positivity costs nothing, and pessimism is pointless, at least in his eyes. A scene involving the family members fighting typhus is beautiful and poignant (Dickens would approve). Of course, in war everyone suffers, and one would hope that the misery would bring common understanding and forbearance. But not in Moldova. In the Kalarash shtetl, a simple code evolves. In a precarious universe, you live every day as if it’s your last, so “one: have some fun, two: try to do some good, and three: don’t screw anyone over too badly.” Surely, there are more exalted codes of conduct, but these people are not given to moral preening.

A moving family tale with a strong cast that readers will love.

For more Indie content, visit Kirkus online.

Bitterroot Vitello, Suzy | Sibylline Press (296 pp.) $18.00 paper | May 21, 2024 9781960573964

In Vitello’s novel, a young widow grapples with an attack on her family.

The small former mining town of Steeplejack rests at the foot of Idaho’s Bitterroot Mountains. It’s there that Hazel Zapf was raised, and where she returns after some years away to marry her high school sweetheart, Ethan Mackenzie, and work as a forensic artist. “I draw dead and maimed bodies for a living,” Hazel puts it simply. Of Japanese descent on her mother’s side, Hazel likens the work to the tradition of Kusôzu, “the practice of capturing the beauty of a posthumous body’s organic decomposition. It serves as a meditation on impermanence and transcendence.” When, a few years into their marriage, Ethan is killed in a car accident, Hazel’s first impulse is to draw his body, there in the morgue, as a way of processing the loss. Soon after Ethan’s death, Hazel finds herself playing landlord to Corinda Blair, the surrogate mother of her gay twin brother’s baby, a woman she has despised since high school.

When that brother, Kento, is shot at the baby’s gender reveal party by the surrogate’s estranged husband, Hazel finds herself at the center of a trial that unleashes a flood of racism and resentment against her family that has been building for generations. Might the rediscovered letters of her great-grandfather, a Japanese American veteran whose family was interned during the Second World War, provide a lesson on how Hazel should move forward? Vitello’s crystalline prose elegantly captures the numbing grief that grips Hazel for much of the novel. Here she describes her own awareness of it as she focuses on building a house in the aftermath of Ethan’s death: “Even as the new house FEBRUARY 15, 2024

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took shape, I remained frozen. Inert as a slug during summer’s drought.

The folks at Grief Group had finally stopped calling, and one day, I woke up to the realization that if I kept pushing folks away, I would, soon, be peopleless.” These memorable characters nimbly embody the larger cultural forces at war in contemporary America.

A gripping and emotionally intelligent tale of resentment and loss.

The Atrocity Engine Waggoner, Tim | Aethon Books (316 pp.) | $28.99 | April 30, 2024 9781949890891

Agents of a clandestine, evil-combating organization struggle to counter an apocalyptic threat in Waggoner’s supernatural thriller.

Neal Hudson is a 20-year veteran of Maintenance, a company that protects Earth from monsters that pass through “dimensional tears in space.” Tormented by the still-fresh loss of his cherished partner, Neal is saddled with unwanted rookie Gina Sandoval.

They’re both Surveyors in the small American town of Ash Creek, keeping their eyes out for entropic energy surges, a sign that something or someone has been “Corrupted” by an interdimensional interloper. A recent run-in with Corruption convinces Neal that an ultra-evil group, the Multitude, has a plan brewing.

Indeed, Multitude apprentice Rachel is recruiting people she’s Corrupted to gather essential supplies; she’s constructing a machine that could bring her immeasurable power, although there’s a chance it could obliterate the entire planet and a sizable portion of the solar system. In either case, Neal and Gina, who aren’t even allowed to carry weapons, must thwart her wicked scheme. Waggoner masterfully builds a series-worthy 176

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A thought-provoking novella that carefully explores the role and reach of technology.

THE ZOMBIE PHILOSOPHER

narrative, sprinkling exposition throughout without decelerating the narrative’s brisk momentum. Various characters and pertinent jargon are gradually and deftly introduced, from Rachel’s potential victims to such things as the Corruption-defying chemical Expugent and the extradimensional realm Shadow. The brightest elements of the book are the characterizations of Neal, Gina, and Rachel. Gina is especially intriguing—she’s an ambitious new agent who comes from a wealthy family, and, since her parents and siblings all work at Maintenance, she’s eager to prove herself. At the same time, Neal’s surprising history with Gina’s father invigorates the new partners’ developing relationship. Despite this first installment’s gratifying ending, there’s plenty of material left for sequels to flesh out.

This gripping dark fantasy boasts an indelible cast and an unwavering pace.

The Zombie Philosopher Wagner, Richard | Illus. by Paul Forney Page Publishing (92 pp.) | $13.75 paper July 26, 2022 | 9781662482595

In Wagner’s novella, a man buys a robotic servant with remarkable capabilities.

Edward Collier is a software consultant living a comfortable life in a futuristic society. Technology has improved greatly. There are flying cars, electricity largely comes from solar power, and humanoid servants are

available for purchase. In this society, crime is rare, and poverty has been virtually eradicated (“The social safety net had been extended to the point that everyone received a stipend sufficient to live on; nobody had to work unless they wanted to”). Edward is extremely curious about the robot servants. He orders a male and waits the two weeks for delivery. Once “Brent” arrives, Edward sets about programming him. Brent will need to cook, but Edward also wants him to play chess and tennis. The robot is performing well, and all seems promising. A burglar breaks into Edward’s home, and Brent capably defends life and property, shooting and killing the armed thief. The burglar’s family files a wrongful death lawsuit, but the judge dismisses it. During the hearing, however, Brent says something curious: He wants his freedom.

He has gained so much knowledge that he now wants to become a philosopher, writer, and lecturer—a development that intrigues and pleases Edward. Together, he and Brent decide to explore the idea of whether he’s conscious or if consciousness is even possible for robots. Wagner’s novella, set in a utopia where most social problems have disappeared, gamely explores the concepts of sentience, AI, and free will. Edward delves deeply into technology, but the story is really about Brent, who’s concerned with epistemology, or the theory of knowledge. His rather quick journey into philosophy is described well, with an eye toward ethics and morals.

Brent’s ponderings about whether he can be conscious are interestingly portrayed throughout the story.

A thought-provoking novella that carefully explores the role and reach of technology.

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B O O K L I S T // I N D I E

Indie Books of the Month 1 The Story of Neeps and Tattie

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2

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By Amy Johnson and Diane Madden; illus. by Abigail Gray Swartz

A charming tale sure to pique kids’ interest in Scotland—and tortoises.

2 Above the Ground

By Dan Lawton

An enthralling work of history told with intelligence and urgency.

3 Mystery Force

By Ted Neill; illus.

by Suzi Spooner

Dynamic, upbeat, and seriously enjoyable tales.

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4 A Body of Fates

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By Kenneth Evren

A powerful look at love, loss, and what it means to be human.

5 Blessed Hands

By Frume Halpern; trans. by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub

A fascinating short story collection offering glimpses into the lives of those usually unobserved.

5

6 The Strange Beautiful

By Carla Crujido

Dazzling, magical narratives, full of delight and sorrow.

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New Picture Books From Names You Might Recognize!

On Sale 3/5

From #1 New York Times bestselling author and cohost of the TODAY show

Hoda Kotb

Ph

oto

by J

a ke C h

essum/Trun

c hi k Ar

ve

comes a book about finding hope in ordinary places.

Bestselling duo

Jamie Lee Curtis

P h ot

o by Oliver Bukowsk

y

On Shelves Now

and Laura Cornell explain why waiting can be wonderful—and give young readers a reason to cheer all year round!

A celebration of self-expression from

On Sale 6/4

Jonathan Van Ness,

Ph oto

by Danielle Lev

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itt

New York Times bestselling author and star of the hit show Queer Eye.

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