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REBELS WITH A CAUSE

Way, a professor of developmental psychology and the author of Deep Secrets, draws on considerable research, including her own longitudinal studies into the lives of boys, to show how society’s construction of “boy culture” undermines their well-being. That culture, she writes, “is rooted in ideologies that intersect with one another, including but not limited to patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, antisemitism, and Islamophobia.” As boys grow up, they learn that “soft” qualities, such as

THE MOCHI MAKERS

Endpapers hint at the treat that the child and Obaachan decide to make together, using a long-standing, matrilineal recipe. With Obaachan’s “strong, wrinkled hands” and the child’s “small, quick ones”—and their whole hearts—they prepare the rice (spilling only a few grains!). While it cooks, Obaachan tells the story of how she came to America, and the two play cards and sip green tea. Soon it’s time to put the rice in a mixer, “which pounds it into a sticky mound,” and pat rice balls into flat

THE CURSE OF EELGRASS BOG

Twelve-year-old Kess and her older brother, Oliver, have lived alone in the Unnatural History Museum ever since Mam and Da left for Antarctica on a research trip ever so long ago. Well, there’s also Shrunken Jim, a pickled, disembodied head Kess carries around in a jar, a staunch if unusual friend. Kess hopes that new exhibits will revitalize the museum, and when newcomer Lilou visits, Kess finds a partner in exploration—and what they learn in Eelgrass Bog upends everything Kess thought she kne

SUMMER NIGHTS AND METEORITES

The Jewish Barbanels, like modern-day Bridgertons, provide fodder for any number of romantic adventures; this time they’ve provided a perfect foil for Jordan Edelman, who wears black lace and fishnets (even on Nantucket) and lives life fully. She flirts hard, falls harder, and cries hardest whenever the inevitable breakup comes. Jordan manages to be both uncomplicated and a muddle of messy emotions: She worries about her single, widowed father and how he’ll cope with her impending departure for

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

LINGUAPHILE

In her fourth book, Sedivy, a Canadian academic specializing in linguistics and psychology and the author of Memory Speaks and Language in Mind, takes a personal tack, recounting how her life has been focused on the search for the essence of language. She grew up speaking several different tongues, which made her particularly sensitive to the twists and turns of language and how words connect to social conventions and the formation of identities. Eventually, “English would come to dominate all

MAMA'S LIBRARY SUMMERS

Two African American siblings dressed in blue shorts and striped shirts go to the library each week in the summer to pick 10 books. “Only books about Black people…no repeats,” Mama says, and “No more than three books on the same subject!” the white librarian says. After painstakingly choosing, the children haul their huge piles to the car where Mama waits, hot but too shy to enter. At home, everyone grabs a book and settles down: the narrator on the bed, the younger sister on the floor, and Mam

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 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