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THE EVER-CHANGING EARTH

Following a distant glimpse of a small Asian child named Kûn pedaling through a modern landscape past outsize ghostly images of turbulent waters and immense prehistoric creatures, Baker-Smith rewinds to a view of the dinosaurs’ cataclysmic demise. He then goes further back to depict the massive interplanetary collision that produced our moon and, after millions of years of raging storms, led to the appearance of teeming life in unusual forms that evolved over eons into those of today. Meanwhile

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Joaquín Rodrigo (1901-1999) began composing music as a young man in Valencia, Spain, at a school for the blind, where he learned a complex variety of braille that allowed him to make musical notation before dictating it to his assistant. “Being blind affected every aspect of Rodrigo’s life and brought him closer to music through an acute aural sense,” write Suárez-Pajares and Clark, both professors of musicology. Today, he is best known for his Concierto de Aranjuez, “the key with which Rodrigo

THE MURDERESS

When Los Angeles train station authorities force open two leaking, putrid-smelling trunks, the dismembered female bodies they find horrify them. Yet what leaves them especially aghast is the idea that Ruth Judd, the pretty young woman who presents a claim ticket for the trunks, could possibly be involved in what clearly appears to be murder. Notaro carefully reconstructs the Depression-era period in which this real-life crime took place and presents a sympathetic portrayal of Ruth, who manages

BLAME MY VIRGO MOON

Newly 15-year-old Cat really wants her new girlfriend, Morgan, to get along with her friends, but they’re just not gelling. English Cat is part of the fashion-conscious, makeup-wearing group surrounding her school’s queen bee, Siobhan, while Irish Morgan hangs with an edgier, goth-leaning cohort. To make matters worse, Morgan and Siobhan are both running for head girl. The competition gets fierce, and to avoid favoring one person over the other, Cat auditions for the school play, Romeo and Juli

THE LONG HISTORY OF THE FUTURE

It was sci-fi writer William Gibson who said that the future is already here; it’s just very unevenly distributed. Kobie, a contributing editor at Wired and the futures editor at PC Pro, would probably agree, as she romps through a series of gee-whiz ideas for machines that have failed to fulfill their much-hyped promise. The author examines AI, robots, hyperloop transport, brain-computer interfaces, and smart cities, among other concepts, with her eyes open and tongue in her cheek. She chronic

THE BARNYARD SANG IN THE MERRIEST WAY

The Tanner family travels cross-country to their grandparents’ farm in Evergreen, Louisiana, for an anticipated Christmas celebration. However, they become concerned when a when the heat fails to work at the local church after a cold snap. Where will everyone celebrate? This fun adventure celebrates family and community, and Ketsviil’s illustrations offer a bright, engaging color palette to convey the upbeat tone of the Louisiana-set narrative. The often-crowded pictures balance a sense of chao

BIG RIVER

Photographer and biologist Moskowitz and nature writer Pearkes survey, in words and images, the enormous Columbia River Basin, stretching from British Columbia to Nevada and from Montana to the Pacific Ocean, its many rivers now punctuated by dozens of dams. The book opens with an expansive essay by Pearkes on the Basin’s natural and human history, including the ancient geology and glaciology that forged its rugged landscape, the evolution of salmon and their epic upriver migrations from the se

ALL ABOUT PENISES

“Lots of people have penises!” Solot and Miller cheerfully explain. “Maybe you’re curious to learn more about penises.” What follows is a fairly straightforward text about anatomy, with a sprinkling of social and emotional learning. A helpful diagram differentiates between the base, the shaft, the head, and the urethra, while illustrations depict both circumcised and uncircumcised penises (an entire paragraph in the robust “Additional Information for Parents and Caregivers” section at the end i

SING BY THE BURYING GROUND

Boruch describes her 31 short essays as thoughts, “triggered by surprise,” that have collected into unexpected pools: “thought becoming thought in spite of what I may have predicted or never wanted really.” She gives much thought to poets such as Frost, Auden, Plath, Langston Hughes, Hart Crane, Elizabeth Bishop, and Seamus Heaney—a list appended to the essays cites many more. Her most lyrical pieces focus on the singularity of particular writers and on poems themselves: how, for example, “a so

THE FUTURE LIES

After her father’s death, Juniper sets out for Denver. She arrives injured, repressing the traumatic events that claimed her sister and left Juniper pregnant. Her entry into the city disrupts the Network, the all-pervasive artificial intelligence that oversees humanity’s degradation. The disruption allows Calvin (avatar name: Doc) to abscond from the deadly, immersive video game that he and others play for extra privileges and the entertainment of the masses. Freed from his gritty gilded cage,

BLACK WOMEN TAUGHT US

Jackson, a political science professor and columnist for Teen Vogue, presents these 11 essays as “love letters” to influential Black women “who built our movements and taught us how to love ourselves whole.” The author links their personal history with a vital tradition of intellectualism and activism spanning nearly two centuries. Jackson considers celebrated figures such as Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston, and Audre Lorde, but they also examine less well-known ones, including Fannie Lou Ha

I SEE COLOR

As an emphatic corrective to the oft-repeated but misguided phrase “I don’t see color,” luminous digital illustrations offer an unabashed education in race, culture, and the history of hard-fought social justice wins. An omniscient narrator sees a full palette, from the “smoky quartz” of Elizabeth and Roy Peratrovich, Tlingit activists whose advocacy led to the United States’ first anti-discrimination laws, to the “golden embers” of Native Hawaiian protesters such as Haunani-Kay Trask, who push

THREE KINGS

Balf, author of The Darkest Jungle and The Last River, reconnected with swimming while recuperating from cancer, and his enthusiasm led him to “the origin stories of several of the best swimmers of that time—Americans Duke Kahanamoku and Johnny Weissmuller, and Japan’s Katsuo Takaishi.” The author chronicles the dramatic contests at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, meandering through multiple societies and a generous time frame. “Anything was possible in the record-setting age,” he writes, “a

EVERYONE LOVES CAREER DAY BUT ZIA

Zia’s class is hosting Career Day. When her teacher asks whose parents can come to school to talk about their jobs, Zia keeps her hand down, uncertain that Mama will be able to come. When she asks, Mama says she’s worried that the students won’t understand her English. “I can teach you more English,” Zia responds. But Mama can’t miss work. When Mama makes Zia a beautiful red dress to wear to Career Day, Zia has an idea. On Career Day, after the other students’ parents have talked about teaching

READY OR NOT

Cassie Donato and her three best friends have big plans to live it up before setting off on their post–high school lives. But while the London-bound Latine musician Nico, body-positive Asian artist Marcy, and Aaron, who’s Black and headed to Harvard, all seem certain of who they are and where they’re going, Cassie, who reads white, is taking a gap year to work at her family’s diner, and she isn’t so sure what she wants. All she knows is that this is the last chance for their friend group to be

UNSHAKABLE ELEANOR

From volunteering with “poor immigrants” as a young woman to chairing the UN Human Rights Commission, Roosevelt works to overcome her shyness and stand up for people on the margins. Markel’s swift survey lays out a dizzyingly impressive list of accomplishments: supporting labor reform in the 1920s; advancing the rights of women, poor people, and African Americans in the ’30s; fighting racism against Japanese Americans and Black people during World War II; and championing human rights worldwide

THE DAY BELL FOUND HER SOUND

Bell, a solitary, music-loving mouse, has no one to make music with. She sings to the “music” she hears at home—her teapot, rainfall, snow falling. Bell hears music everywhere. Her favorite song is the “bustling melody of life” beneath her window. Determined to join in, she grabs her “loudest noisemakers” and heads downstairs. Bell toots her trumpet, but no one hears; it doesn’t feel right anyway. Bell notices a nearby band and joins in on her keyboard. But when one of the band members points o

I CAN DO IT EVEN IF I'M SCARED

This sensible, comprehensible guide for kids—and adults, too, if we’re honest—explains how to tap into the Brave You, the “strong and bold part of you deep inside.” Yep, even when you’re feeling uncertain, nervous, queasy, frightened, or all of the above, within you lies a resilient inner person. How do you find the Brave You? Katzenberger encourages little ones to imagine what the Brave You sounds and acts like. “Next, play pretend and watch what happens.” The author proposes that readers enga

MAY THE WOLF DIE

The discovery of a dead body turns Nikki Serafino’s idyllic getaway on the Bay of Naples into a busman’s holiday, and not a pleasant one. Nikki works as a liaison between the U.S. military and the Italian police, investigating crimes involving U.S. service members. She and cop colleague Valerio are aboard her pride and joy, the Calypso, when a corpse gets tangled underneath. Shortly afterward, Nikki’s investigating an apparently minor car accident involving American naval commander Charles McAl

EMPIRE'S SON, EMPIRE'S ORPHAN

In 1913, Ikbal Shah, the son of minor Indian nobility, traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to become, as historian Green writes, “entangled in the larger contests of empire and its unraveling.” After treating wounded soldiers from the battlefields of World War I, he abandoned his plans to become a doctor and instead turned to writing. He married a Scottish woman and set to work crafting a literary and journalistic career that coincided with the postwar resurgence of Scottish nationalism, which adm