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MAX IN THE CAPITAL OF SPIES

One moment, Max Fredericks is standing in Volkspark in Berlin in 2021, searching for his tutor, Brady. The next, Max finds himself in East Berlin during the Cold War in 1965…where he’s in over his head. All he has to go on is a message that Brady sent to him, decades in the future: “Volkspark West. 10:15, where wolf and girl meet.” Part of this message soon makes sense when he sees a girl being forced into a van. After a moment of frozen indecision, he decides he’ll help the girl by mounting a

MELVILL

“Call me Herman.” Such a commandment could come from only one writer, Herman Melville, who stands at the center of Fresán’s narrative. Occupying much of that space, too, albeit in sometimes spectral form, is Melville’s father, Allan Melvill (the -e a typo that his son, the victim of a bureaucrat’s pen, stuck with, even as, later in the novel, he notes ruefully that his obituary in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, where several of his stories appeared, will render his name as Henry). Allan, born to a

EXPLORING GODDESSES OF WORLD MYTHOLOGY

Nardo explores the stories of female deities through five specific themes, opening with a chapter on mother goddesses before introducing goddesses of nature, death, war, and love. The text provides brief, general information about a variety of figures originating from Roman, Greek, Chinese, Hindu, Polynesian, Norse, and Aztec cultures, among others. Colorful illustrations and photos add visual interest to the pages, while descriptive captions provide context for each image. Informative text box

ONE LAST KILL

The Seattle Times is about to begin marking the 25th anniversary of a series of strangulations that mysteriously ended two years after it began without a single arrest. Determined to upstage the paper, police chief Marcella Weber orders Det. Tracy Crosswhite to reopen the case, partnering her with Capt. Johnny Nolasco, the superior officer whose empty-handed heading of the original investigation marks him as anything but superior. All the mysteries of the Route 99 Killer raised back in the 1990

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE

Baldoni, the author of numerous books on leadership, divides his latest into four tightly constructed parts. Part 1, which looks at how to care for an organization’s people during difficult times, concerns topics that include a definition of important values, such as moral integrity and humility; fostering resilience; “how leaders inspire during a crisis”; and leading with empathy. Readers familiar with the leadership book genre will undoubtedly recognize much of this material, but Baldoni ably

THE VIEW FROM HALF DOME

It’s 1934, and 16-year-old Isabel Dickinson has just finished her second year of high school in San Francisco when a tragic accident takes the life of her young sister, Audrey. Life at home with her mother, in the city’s rough Tenderloin District, had already become unbearable; now, as she struggles with Audrey’s death, she asks her friend Claude DeVille to drive her to Yosemite, where her older brother, James, is working for the Civilian Conservation Corps. She flees one day before dawn, unawa

ORIGAMI DOGS

In the titular story,Iris’ mother is a dog breeder, and as Iris takes care of her animals day in, day out, she’s reminded of her own loneliness and lack of autonomy. She makes origami dogs with an acquaintance at school, but she’s as alone there as she is at home. This story sets the tone for the rest of the collection, showcasing Reid’s talent for delving into character while still leaving room for reader interpretation. In “Shepherd,” Keith and his wife lost their baby and killed their marria

THE RED FOX RAN

On his first day at a new high school, sophomore Bay Haven hits it off with Abby. Actually, she’s the outgoing one who strikes up a conversation, roping Bay into her tiny clique, which includes Sasha and Felix. While they’re all close, Bay and Abby’s relationship verges on something deeper, even if they try convincing themselves and others that they’re “just friends.” But Bay harbors a secret he’s too afraid to tell his pals. He and his older brother, Blaze, have escaped a homeland that rendere

THE LOWER POWER

In 1992, Raven and Keith are former drug addicts who maintain their sobriety with steely resolve. Both have successfully weathered the crack-addled streets of New York for years, but the city has become increasingly brutal. Raven, five years clean and studying law while working with drug treatment placements for street criminals, has begun experiencing vivid nightmares. Upon learning that other Narcotics Anonymous members have been experiencing the same dreams, she panics. Harlem-born former ad

HUSH-A-BYE NIGHT

This colorful, simple tale combines a rhyming narrative with a repeating “hush-a-bye” refrain: “Hush-a-bye, sun. / Hush hush-a-bye, sky.” “Hush-a-bye, eaglets. / Hush-a-bye, nest.” As the text singsongs, the full-page, double-spread illustrations show the Lake Superior shore, each page turn highlighting various animals and plants that inhabit the area as the sun slowly sets, the sky and water change color, and the family settles in to roast marshmallows. While the rhythm may be calming, it does

WANDERING SOULS

“Everything will be alright, you’ll see,” 16-year-old Thi Anh promises her younger sister Van one night in 1978 as she and two of her brothers leave Vung Tham for a perilous boat journey to Hong Kong. Her parents have promised to follow with her other siblings, and once the family reunites, they plan to make their way together to an uncle’s house in America. Three months later, though, Anh and her brothers are orphaned, and they must make their way alone through refugee camps toward their assig

WHEELS OF LEGEND

The club—which includes friends Demelza and Nessa, Captain Honkers the goose, and Mr. Calenick, a pickled medieval knight with a detachable head—gains a new member when Jack arrives on the island (established in previous entries as being in Cornwall) with his white dad and Haitian mom as part of a traveling carnival with several secrets and a rusty old bicycle in serious need of proper tricking out. One of the secrets, it turns out, is that Jack is a descendant of a certain legendary Jack from

CARDBOARD CITY

Nikola and older sister Saida are both teens, although they do not know their exact ages. Raised by their grandmother, they have grown up in Cardboard City, an informal settlement formed by their Romani community in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Life there is difficult; winters pass hungrily, with egg cartons used to insulate the flimsy huts and discrimination from those outside their community feeling as biting as the cold. When Nikola’s talent for playing trumpet wins him the attention of

THE SOUND OF A GUITAR

Dazzled after watching her older cousin Keeley shredding with a band in the park, Mia uses book and web resources to find out about the history and construction of (acoustic) guitars. Then, after demonstrating with a simple kitchen physics experiment how sound waves work, she makes a cardboard instrument by stringing a cracker box with big rubber bands. Having shown her dad (and readers) how to control pitch and amplitude, she debuts at her grandpa’s backyard birthday party, and if “it didn’t s

RACEE ACEE AND THE TOBOGGAN RACE

Acee, Mia, Riley, and Tobias are ready for the annual toboggan race, but they want to give their sled a speedy edge. After brainstorming ideas, they decide to try bacon grease; it works, but it also attracts all the neighborhood dogs—so it’s “Back to the thinking porch.” The kids try crayon wax next, first coloring the bottom of the sled, then melting the wax to coat the bottom. After a test run, they decide the latter is the solution, and they apply a fresh coat for the race. Soon they’re raci

CRAFTING WITH COOKIE MOLDS

The author’s charming guide presents advice on creating decorations and useful household items from polymer clay with the help of an unexpected set of tools: cookie dough molds. The book, which is divided into two sections, is appropriate for crafters at every level. It begins with tips on materials, including a comprehensive list of mold brands and where to find them. Items like these are relatively uncommon in contemporary kitchens, but crafters who might be daunted by the idea of using them

THE SUMMER SOLDIERS

In 1776, Josiah Hartford becomes a soldier “quite by accident” after his 16-year-old brother, Patrick, is killed by British soldiers invading Concord in the Massachusetts colony. He joins the Continental Army, bristling with a desire for revenge, and particularly distinguishes himself as a swordsman at Breed’s Hill. Josiah is a troubled man; he got a girl pregnant out of wedlock in Boston, and she subsequently died in childbirth. Later, both of his marriage proposals to another woman, Mercy Wil

NO HORSES IN THE HOUSE!

“Balivernes!” (French for nonsense) says Rosa Bonheur when told that it’s “unladylike” to visit the horse market in Paris. And again, “Balivernes,” when she sees men allowed to cross-dress as members of the opposite sex but is (wrongly) told that she could never receive such permission. Drawn by Bron as a determined but very small, White-presenting child surrounded by towering horses and grown-ups in period clothing and, in group scenes, some variation in skin color, Bonheur comes across in Mes

1789

Allen (1929-2018) accepts the myth that Americans disliked the weak Articles of Confederation, which guided the Colonies through and after the Revolution. In fact, most Americans, from farmers to city workers, had few objections. Only the educated elite—northern lawyers and businessmen, southern planters—hated dealing with 13 separate currencies, banks, commercial regulations, and legal systems. Assembling in in 1787, they cobbled together the Constitution, a mixture of specific and ambiguous g

STILL POSITIVE

In 1990, doctors could not tell the author, a young mother, why she was growing increasingly exhausted. A comment from her mother about HIV seemed outlandish in light of the lack of credible information available about the new virus; “a white, heterosexual, young mom was not what they were looking for, even when her history and symptoms matched this infection,” she writes. Lewis observes that the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS as a “gay man’s disease” imposed an unfair hierarchal scale on who did o