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COURAGE, EVERY DAY

Tomorrow marks a momentous occasion for an East Asian–presenting child with pale skin and straight black hair: a musical performance in front of a crowd of people. “But there are thousands of butterflies fluttering in my tummy,” the child tells us. White-outlined butterflies surround the youngster. “I believe in you,” Papa says as he hands the protagonist a violin. “Have courage.” But what is courage? Papa catalogs many different types of bravery, from saving the day to making small but meaning

QUIET...

Although the late author wrote the poems in this book between her diagnosis in November 2010 and her death just even months later, their subject matter spans decades of her life. Reflecting on her youth in “Phyllip, the boy next door,” she muses, “We used to have such dreamy dreams.” “Our Lady of Angels” hints at her being a victim of bullying in a parochial school. She recalls moving from Chicago to Berkeley, California, as an adult, where “everything was a first.” “Augenblinck” consists of sn

AMSTERDAM ASCENDANT

It’s 1572 and the Netherlands are under the control of Catholic King Philip II of Spain, who is out to bring the Dutch to heel and beat back what he sees as Calvinist heresy that has taken root. The story proper opens dramatically with Maarten van der Voort and the Sea Beggars, essentially privateers, capturing a Spanish warship, which sets the tone for the next several years of back-and-forth fighting. Philip sets up a version of the Inquisition in Amsterdam, but eventually the Calvinists prev

LIFE CLUES

“What is true for children is true for all of us,” asserts the author, the co-creator of the Blue’s Clues franchise as well as the creator of the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Super Why! children’s television shows. In this book, Santomero outlines 20 “life clues,” concepts for adults to ponder while relating how these principles were weaved into her programs. A protégé of Fred Rogers, Santomero starts things off with Life Clue #1, “I Like You Just the Way You Are,” discussing how the vener

BROTHERS

Slate, author of Colored Cosmopolitanism and Lord Cornwallis Is Dead, worshipped his older brother, Peter, “my best friend and the closest thing I had to a father.” As an adult, the author realized that Peter would always be a mystery to him not just because of their seven-year age gap, but also because of the different experiences race imposed upon their lives. The brothers shared the same White American mother, but Nico’s father was White, Peter’s Black. Slate’s maternal grandparents at first

SMALL-GIRL TONI AND THE QUEST FOR GOLD

Small-Girl Toni is certain that stories—her stories—can change the world. Many adults in her predominantly Black community disagree, but Small-Girl Toni does what real-life Morrison will become known for when faced with doubt from critics—she tells stories anyway. Like stories about treasure in her town to draw her siblings into a hunt. The foursome pick blackberries as they search for doubloons in lonely Ms. Solomon’s backyard; they offer to walk Widow Sersee’s dogs in the hope the canines wil

A FATAL ILLUSION

Keira and Sebastian Gage have a well-founded reputation as private inquiry agents. So when Sebastian’s father, Lord Gage, is attacked in Yorkshire in 1832, they rush to his side along with their baby daughter, Emma; a small entourage of trusted servants; and Sebastian’s half brother, Lord Henry Kerr, whom Lord Gage has never acknowledged. Indeed, Lord Gage is a difficult, secretive man whose relationship with Sebastian is not an easy one for myriad reasons, including the elder Gage’s numerous a

OF PAINT AND PANCAKES

Jane McCorvey is an educator at prestigious private school Coolidge Academy, and a former athlete in her 20s with plenty of liveliness and optimism. Then one of her second-grade students, Erin Gustino, has a terrible biking accident; she suffers a brain injury that requires emergency surgery. Fortunately, it’s successfully performed by neurosurgeon Mike Silvers. Later, Erin’s affluent parents, Paul and Kelly, worried that Erin hasn’t psychologically recovered from her trauma, recruit Jane to he

FAMILY PACK

Having just survived a major battle to save humankind inCure(2022), Luna Auber,an inexperienced 20-something werewolf, is settling back into life at home in Camden, New Jersey. She spends her days working at Bizcocheria, a bakery she loves, spending her lunch hours with her newly lycanthropic boyfriend, Javier, and being mentored via Zoom by Birger, a librarian for The Lycanthrope Society (TLS), a group that “believes that humans and shapeshifters were meant to share the planet and allow one an

CARRIED ON THE WIND

Aiming, as Mabry explains in her afterword, to explore both our connections with the natural world and chaos theory in operation, this globe-spanning episode starts with a tan-skinned child who lives in Alaska breathing on a puff of dandelion fluff—some of which ends up in a Rufous hummingbird’s nest. Eventually, one of the baby birds grows up and flies away to Central America to pollinate a coral bean flower. One resulting red seed floats over the ocean to a West African beach, where a doodleb

VOLCANO EXPERTS ON THE EDGE

The expedition takes Owen, Katie, and Austin, a diverse group of young people depicted in Powell’s staid cartoon scenes, to the top of the Herdubreid volcano to test the theory that it’s gone from merely dormant to actually extinct. Having done this by collecting observational satellite data, employing a ground-based sensor (“This device sends out signals to measure movements in the ground”), releasing a drone to detect recently released sulfur and carbon dioxides, if any, and determining that

SCHLEMIEL COMES TO AMERICA

Schlemiel the tailor lives in Chelm, a town in Jewish folklore famous for fools. He fancies himself wise and a shrewd arbiter, and he just might be…at least, compared with the other Chelm residents. Look what happens when the mayor is frightened that a rock on the mountain looming over Chelm might fall. Some citizens carry the rock down to the village, and Schlemiel remarks they could have rolled it down instead. The villagers haul it back up to where they found it—then roll it down, crushing s

PAYBACK

Hanna Bloom is a highly motivated overachiever—the valedictorian of her high school class, she’s accepted into Northwestern University’s prestigious seven-year medical program. Her goal is to become a doctor just like her father, Roger, an objective she pursues doggedly to the exclusion of a normal social life—she never bothers to make close friends, and she enters college a virgin. But her ambitious career plans are waylaid unexpectedly when she’s abducted by a woman—she comes to know her only

LIKE THE APPEARANCE OF HORSES

This book follows several generations of one family—as well as a few others in their orbit—from the aftermath of World War I into the early days of the 21st century. It’s the final book in a trilogy, following The Sojourn (2011) and The Signal Flame (2017), but it can be read alone. The narrative moves backward and forward in time, which seems fitting for a novel in which the past looms as large as it does here. It opens in the 1930s, with Jozef Vinich, protagonist of The Sojourn, living in Pen

THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF PRAIRIE DOGS

Santos’ ancestors are Aztec healers, but he need not look very far back to find evidence of resistance. Don Julio escaped Mexico after his family perished in the Mexican Revolution. On the day he died, he blessed his 4-year-old grandson, Santos, with a long and gratifying life full of healing. Now Santos is a high school junior and a curandero, or faith healer. But there is talk in his hometown of Southland, Texas, about a monster who leaves carcasses behind. Santos is no monster, but for his s

CLOSING TIME

Boston-based jazz lover and alcoholic Elder Darrow owns a bar—the Esposito—but he’s been slowly losing his passion for the business, and the drinking is starting to catch up with him. When Elder’s best friend, Boston police detective Dan Burton, is gunned down in what appears to be a random liquor store robbery, Elder barely has time to grieve before mobster Mickey Barksdale shows up at the Esposito with a proposition. Mickey, who grew up with Burton, thinks the cop has been murdered, perhaps i

NOW THEY WILL KNOW I AM HERE

In Paris, a van carrying two “briefcase-size parcels” to the U.S. Embassy is ambushed, sparking an international crisis. The driver of the van is beheaded in the assault, suggesting merciless terrorists are involved. Enter American Tom Rivers, a CIA officer who formerly worked in Army intelligence. With his Luminox watch and ability to take a beating in the line of duty, he’s tasked with figuring out what’s going on. He meets a “smart, beautiful and dangerous” woman named Raz Jackson in Paris.

WHO OWNS THE MOON?

Grayling, the eminent British philosopher, worries about the planetary impact of the human pursuit of “profit and advantage.” The author claims that the prospect of valuable minerals on the moon and the planets, the commercial and military possibilities of low and medium Earth orbit, and the territorial longings of nation-states are likely to breed competition and conflict. Grayling particularly fears a repeat of what occurred in the late 19th century when powerful countries colonized Africa fo

VAL VEGA: SECRET AMBASSADOR OF EARTH

Sixteen-year-old Valeria “Val” Vega lives with her mother; her brothers, Miguel and Timoteo; and her uncle, Umberto Olmeda, a diplomat who’s often away traveling. When Umberto dies unexpectedly and mysteriously, Val and her family are plunged into grief. Then, Umberto’s colleagues Johnny, Wasala, and Pash-Ti, drop another bombshell. Umberto wasn’t an ordinary diplomat, they explain—he was Earth’s ambassador in an intergalactic council—and before he died, he’d named Val as his successor. Val soo

ANGER IS YOUR COMPASS

The author has drawn on his experience coaching individuals and couples to develop what he characterizes as a new approach to managing anger and establishing “emotional intelligence.” This book asserts that anger isn’t merely a negative force; it can also help to guide people in the direction of growth, healing, and peace by sparking self-reflection and analysis of anger’s root causes: “Pursuing the darkest side of anger will lead you to the brightest light within you,” he says. “The key is to