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OUR WORST STRENGTH

According to Richardson, some key traits lodged in the American ethos, such as self-reliance and maintaining privacy, seem positive but have contributed to increasing widespread isolation; trauma lessens when burdens are shared as a group, but too often Americans are expected to find their own solutions. Sally, a participant in the author’s study, is a nurse mourning the tragic death of her sister. (Richardson uses research gleaned from a sampling of older Americans aged 45-74.) Her co-workers

MY GUARDIAN

The light-skinned, blond-haired girl cowers, hides, and flees from the scribbly black blob. Wherever the child goes, it follows, and she feels alone in her struggle. “I asked other people to help me, but nobody else could see it,” she explains. “I don’t even know if they believed me…” Finally, unable to continue, the girl stops and listens to the monster. She comes to a realization: “I understood that it didn’t want to hurt me. It was there to warn me of danger!” The creature is her anxiety, an

WESTFALLEN

It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlle

VIVIAN VAN TASSEL AND THE SECRET OF MIDNIGHT LAKE

Twelve-year-old Vivian Van Tassel has extraordinary fencing skills, a short temper, a passion for Harry Potter books, and a dead mother—for which she blames herself. Moving to her mother’s hometown of Midnight Lake just exacerbates her negative feelings, as she endures bullies and nasty teachers at her new school. Still, despite insisting she doesn’t want friends, Vivian does gradually connect with four Beasts and Battlements gamers. Then, while doing a local history project, Vivian discovers u

HOPE IS THE THING WITH FEATHERS

In the first stanza of this poem, Dickinson calls hope “the thing with feathers”; she extends the metaphor by referring to hope perching and describes it singing “the tune without the words.” The second stanza leaves no doubt of the poet’s intent; here, she refers to hope as “the little bird.” Children who read or listen to the poem will understand that referent; whether they’ll comprehend the overall poem isn’t clear. Depicting birds and birdhouses, the illustrations won’t leave young readers’

CLARION CALL

Neve and her girlfriend, Alexandria, have made it back to Newgrange Harbor, Massachusetts, after traveling through the Gate that Neve has spent her life protecting from the monsters that try to pass through it. But Aodh, her antagonistic cousin, has followed her—and even worse, her sisters are stuck on the other side. Neve isn’t supposed to get back any memories of her previous lives until she turns 18, but they’ve started trickling in anyway, making her more confused than ever about whom to tr

THE ZOO-CHOO TRAIN

As the sun sets, a brown-skinned child with curly black hair, acting as the conductor of the titular Zoo-Choo train, ushers each of a zoo’s residents back into their homes. They begin with a single lion coming back to his den before moving on to a pair of giraffes sleeping neck-to-neck and a trio of hippos sinking into a pond. When the conductor looks for the expected set of five penguins, however, they find that four of them have vanished. With the remaining penguin, the conductor must go back

NARCAS

As a feminist journalist, Bonello, Mexico City–based senior editor for Latin America at VICE World News, is acutely aware of gender stereotypes held by both the drug cartels as well as the mostly male journalists who cover the narcos and don’t question those stereotypes. “The patriarchy of the cartels seems very real,” she writes, “but to assume women don’t have a capacity for violence or a thirst for power and status is just another narrow gender stereotype that grossly misunderstands and unde

A BIG JUICY EARTHWORM

Chicken pals Pipo, Bud, and Kenny create ingenious playthings from found objects: A box becomes a pirate ship; a bag becomes a kite. Above all, they love being together. One day, they find half a watermelon. While Bud and Kenny immediately start devouring the succulent fruit, Pipo is more interested in the nearby earthworm whose head temptingly rises aboveground. But, as hard as Pipo pulls, he can’t dislodge it. Finally, Pipo uses a fishing rod to yank it out: success! Except…this worm’s no wor

FAR OUT

After rescuing, falling in love with, and marrying movie star Goldie Saint Helen, Iraq veteran and former FBI agent Blake Deco has the perfect life: He spends his days screenwriting and managing his popular restaurant along the beach, and Goldie is up for an exciting part in Far Out, a movie about a 1960s private eye named Gypsy Star. But their Shangri-La implodes when Goldie bonks her head in a bad car accident and develops dissociative amnesia. “Her reality and fantasy have overlapped, and sh

AGREEMENT UNDER THE STARS

Thanks to farms, homes, and development, the forest is getting smaller and smaller. Animals who used to live in harmony find themselves in a cramped, loud environment. At an emergency meeting, a committee decides that some of the animals will be active during the day, while others will be active at night. The night animals postulate that they were assigned their time slot because they aren’t as beautiful as the others. When a poacher sets traps at night, the nocturnal animals try to warn the ot

TEACHING EDDIE TO FLY

Arthur, a small bear, is friends with Eddie, an ostrich. After Arthur asks Eddie why he doesn’t fly, Eddie explains that he wasn’t taught. Solicitous Arthur decides to play teacher. He enjoys giving lectures and illustrates aeronautical principles on a chalkboard. Next, Arthur instructs Eddie to flap his wings, but nothing doing. More lessons ensue. Eddie is lifted in a hot-air balloon, jumps off a diving board, tries stilts, and dangles from a parachute. Arthur decides to ask some birds how th

YOUR VOICE, YOUR VOTE

Young Quetta and her mother and grandmother take a long ride on two different buses (standing room only). Once they arrive at their polling place, they see a long line of community members, and they settle in to wait…and wait…and wait. It’s a big day—Grandma has even donned her Sunday hat, though it’s Tuesday. If it’s such an important day, though, why does Quetta’s mother still have to go to work? the girl wonders. And as it begins to rain, Quetta suggests going home. That opens up a conversat

HAVE YOU SEEN MIKKI OLSEN?

According to the to-do list tacked to the wall, the penguin has three very important responsibilities every day: fishing, chopping plenty of wood, and purchasing “sticky icky fish.” Through it all, the penguin has a constant companion by his side: Mikki Olsen, his beloved, bright pink bear. They are inseparable. But one day, a “sticky icky fish” accidentally gets stuck to Mikki Olsen. When the penguin sits on the toy, Mikki Olsen gets stuck to the penguin’s posterior, and his routine starts to

STARLING HOUSE

Opal’s life in Eden, Kentucky, has never been easy. When their mother died, teenage Opal faked her way into getting custody of her younger brother, Jasper, and years later Opal and Jasper are still struggling to make ends meet. Jasper is an exceptionally bright and creative boy, and Opal desperately wants to scrape together enough money to send him out of Eden to a fancy private school with all the resources he deserves. Opal has always been mysteriously drawn to Starling House, a big old mansi

CRAB BAIT

In 1888, the city of London is abuzz over the sensational murders of Jack the Ripper in the East End, but over on the West End—in a neighborhood known as “Clubland” for its concentration of gentleman’s clubs—another murderer is at work. The most infamous of the clubs is Sizar’s, a place where boys from poor backgrounds can rise in the world so long as they’re willing to “bend.” Former Navy man Stewart Marsh sorts boys for Sizar’s; when he can, he sneaks down to Brighton to go for a run on the b

AN OTHERWISE PERFECT PLAN

All Gwen Pendergrass knows about her father is that her mother, Karen, met him in Las Vegas. The only pictures Gwen has of him are on a strip the couple took in a casino photo booth. For the 16 years since then, it’s been just Gwen and her mom, living in a one-bedroom apartment on Karen’s waitressing earnings. Karen wanted to be a writer, but mothering duties took precedence. Trying to help her mom realize her dream, Gwen secretly applies, on Karen’s behalf, to a writing program at Yale, but ev

MIRANDA MOOSE LOVES ORANGE JUICE

Miranda Mae Meredith Moose has a passion for orange juice. One morning, she awakes craving gooseberry jam and her favorite drink, but the latter is nowhere to be found in her home. The local shopkeeper is also out of orange juice, and thus unable to help her, so she tries her friend, Miss Hallie Hen, but to no avail. Hallie directs Miranda to Miss Cassie Cow, but she only has milk and butter at home, regretfully telling Miranda (in Brazdzionis’ signature rhyming couplets): “Oh noooo, Miss Miran

TAP DANCING ON EVEREST

In 1988, Zieman, then a 25-year-old medical student, signed on as the medical officer for a team of climbers aiming to ascend the challenging East Face of Mount Everest. As she recounts in a lively, gritty memoir, the project was daunting: “Our small team of six had four climbers, a photographer, and me.” Besides taking a route that had been climbed only once before—with a large team and more guides—her team “were purists, nimble, using no oxygen or Sherpa support.” Her decision to go confounde

A PLACE TO PAUSE

The latest in a series presents 32 pieces with settings that range from Africa to Asia to North America, with many stops along the way. The collection is evenly split between poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, with three interviews with authors added for background. Outside of the table of contents, the book makes no effort to distinguish when a piece is fiction or not, although with the poems this is generally self-evident, as with Mark Jacobs’ quasi-dystopian story “After the Meltdown,