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THE MEXICAN DREIDEL

Danielito loves Janucá (Hanukkah), and tonight, he and his Bobe will light the first candles. Danielito doesn’t know any of the kids in his grandmother’s neighborhood, but when he sees them playing trompos (tops) in the street, he asks Bobe if she has one. “No,” she tells him. “But I have a dreidel!” The local kids let Danielito join in, and when his dreidel is the last top spinning, something magical happens. Each fallen trompo the dreidel touches starts spinning again, and soon the dreidel is

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 HORSE

“Please,” whispers Al Ward, “please give me the strength to pull the trigger and let it be over.” Al isn’t contemplating suicide. An old horse has wandered into the abandoned Nevada mining camp that Al calls home, and he wants to put it out of its misery. The camp belonged to his late great-uncle Mel, who mined it for years with no success. Al would stay there and dry out whenever the excesses of life as a journeyman guitarist and songwriter became too much. But now the horse, scarred and bleed

STORIES FROM CHARLESTON STREET

The author was born in 1942 in Chicago, and his Polish American family lived in Bucktown, a neighborhood of Eastern European refugees. Like most kids, the young author delighted in running wildly around the neighborhood, and that’s how he broke his left leg one Halloween—as the title of this collection’s opening story, “Look Both Ways,” teases. Other stories showcase other accidents, as when he later broke the very same leg. These recollections reflect the settings in which Skaleski grew up, in

A CHRISTMAS TO REMEMBER

Henry Adams, Kansas has a rich historical legacy as a town that was founded by freed slaves. In the first book of this long-running series, Bernadine Brown bought the town on eBay and saved it from dying. She also found community and the love of her life, Malachi July. In this installment, Bernadine and Mal have put past dramas and betrayals behind them and are finally ready to tie the knot. While excited and committed to marriage, they each secretly worry about what will happen when they combi

TOGETHER IN A BROKEN WORLD

The story opens in Elk Springs, Montana, after society has fallen into ruin, due to a disease known as the Infection that either kills people outright or turns them violent. Seventeen-year-old Zach first sees 18-year-old Aiden passing through town, and after they form a relationship, Zach shares some of his supplies with the newcomer. Aiden aims to continue his trek to the University of Washington to deliver vials of the original version of the Infection to researchers looking for a cure. He at

THE END OF EDEN

Attempting to fully comprehend the magnitude of global climate change can feel next to impossible. In this deeply researched and disturbing book, photographer and environmental writer Welz helps us understand it “through smaller stories.” Moving among far-flung ecosystems—e.g., the Mojave Desert, South Africa’s Cape Floral Region, the high-altitude grasslands of Central Asia—the author presents climate change in focused snapshots. Each case study of an ecosystem tracks how small increases in lo

WOODROW WILSON

Historian, lawyer, and former Congressman Cox writes that Wilson was the first Southern Democrat to occupy the White House since Andrew Johnson. Scholars have long considered him a giant among presidents for his progressive reforms and leadership in World War I. They have not ignored his flaws, emphasizing the censorship, suppression of civil rights, and persecution of war opponents. Cox will have none of that. Sticking to the historical record but keeping Wilson’s achievements in the backgroun

A HELL OF A STORM

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 was, as Brown explains here, “almost certainly the most lethal piece of legislation to ever clear Congress.” In reversing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and allowing slavery to expand into vast new western territories, the act deepened divisions between North and South and pushed the country toward civil war. This engaging history first examines the precarious balance struck between sectional differences at the nation’s founding, then charts its dramatic demolit

THE TIME KEEPER

The orphaned Malcolm lives in Mrs. McCardle’s Home for Children and is apprenticed to Jack Alexander, a clockmaker and inventor. Malcolm’s good friends with Jack’s son, Peter, and is a regular visitor to the Alexander home, where Peter’s aunt also lives. The novel unfolds around two intertwining and mysterious misfortunes that strike the family: a strange illness that Peter succumbs to, followed by Jack’s murder. Mahoney explores the world of Edinburgh’s first generation of female physicians th

RUMAYSA

Rumaysa is back in this sequel to Rumaysa: A Fairytale (2023), this time with a spin on the classic fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.” The purple onyx necklace gifted to her by her friend Sulieman takes her to “enchanted lands and troubled people,” those who are most in need. Among other adventures, she helps a mermaid escape captivity and saves Little Red Riding Hijab from a wolf. Yet, all Rumaysa wants is for the necklace to return her to her parents. After she rescues a young boy

MY DADDY IS A COWBOY

The child, who narrates the story, kisses Abuelita goodbye. Then Daddy and the little one head to the ranch on his motorcycle. They greet their horses: a shiny black mare called Power for Daddy and a spunky brown pony named Clover for the child. They ride their horses through the quiet streets of the city, and the child relishes Daddy’s undivided attention as well as the thrill of being the only ones awake. Daddy tells stories about learning to ride as a child, and they see the city begin to wa

FAMILY LORE

Acevedo’s widely anticipated new novel, her first for adults, begins with an oblique bit of magic: Flor, who for her whole life has been able to predict when and how people will die, announces that she will be holding a living wake for herself, and all her siblings are invited (and their children, too). Whether Flor has predicted her own death—or anyone else’s—doesn’t become clear to either the reader or Flor’s family until later. In the meantime, we’re introduced to Flor’s sisters, Matilde, Pa

AMIL AND THE AFTER

After leaving their beloved home in Mirpur Khas, which is now part of the newly created Pakistan, 12-year-old twins Amil and Nisha are living in Bombay with their doctor father, paternal grandmother, and beloved family cook. While Amil (whose late mother was Muslim and father is Hindu) is grateful for their newfound safety, he’s haunted by memories of their flight. Nisha kept a diary during their journey, and when she suggests Amil should draw to express his feelings, he begins sketching the fa

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

GENTLEST OF WILD THINGS

Sixteen-year-old Eirene and her twin, Phoebe, who have light brown skin and curly black hair, live in Zakynthos, a town controlled by Leandros, a descendant of Eros. Women there are manipulated by Leandros’ Desires, magic that seemingly brainwashes them into being under their husbands’ control. After Alexandra, Leandros’ 18-year-old wife, dies suddenly and mysteriously, he decides to marry beautiful Phoebe, wooing her with lavish gifts. When Stavros, the sisters’ cousin and guardian, agrees to

THE NOTEBOOK

British publisher and diarist Allen brings his love of notebooks to a lively, wide-ranging history of bound blank pages. Notebooks, he writes, “interest me as a technology that has had tangible effects on the world around us.” The author started keeping a journal in 2002: “Writing a diary made me happier; keeping things-to-do lists made me more reliable (which in turn made those around me happier), and I learned never to go to a doctor’s appointment, or a meeting of any kind, without taking not

ROGUE JUSTICE

Last time out, Keene, a Black woman in her late 20s who worked for loose cannon Justice Howard Wynn, who’s White, used damaging information he had gathered before falling into a coma to help force the semi-Trump-ish President Brandon Stokes (a reviled authoritarian wannabe but one with a deep intellect) at least temporarily out of office, as his Cabinet used the 25th Amendment to sideline him. Now, on the eve of Stokes’ impeachment trial, Keene stumbles on what turns out to be a revenge plot to

MOLLY MAE'S MILKSHAKES

Moocow Meadows is famous for its milk, thanks to prize cows Ma and Pa Moocow. Two of their daughters—Eliza B. and Clara Bell—produce award-winning milk, but dungaree-wearing Molly Mae proves unable to produce it at all. Molly Mae is upset until her chicken friend, C.K. Doodle, encourages her to pursue other interests. She tries painting, dog walking, singing, accounting, and other things, all with a lack of aptitude. In the end, though, she proves a dab hand at mixing milkshakes—so Moocow Meado

A MYRIAD OF TONGUES

Everett, a professor of anthropology and psychology and author of Numbers and the Making of Us, offers an enlightening examination of human communication based on the findings of linguist fieldworkers—himself included—as well as researchers in areas such as cognitive psychology, data science, and respiratory medicine. Whereas early theories about language commonalities and evolution were largely based on languages spoken in “Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) societ