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BINDING 13

Beautiful, waiflike, 15-year-old Shannon has lived her entire life in Ballylaggin. Alternately bullied at school and beaten by her ne’er-do-well father, she’s hopeful for a fresh start at Tommen, a private school. Seventeen-year-old Johnny, who has a hair-trigger temper and a severe groin injury, is used to Dublin’s elite-level rugby but, since his family’s move to County Cork, is now stuck captaining Tommen’s middling team. When Johnny angrily kicks a ball and knocks Shannon unconscious (“a so

LOOT

Abbas, the hero of James’ lively and symbolically rich third novel, is a poor 17-year-old artisan in Mysore in 1794 when he’s recruited by Tipu Sultan, the local ruler, to apprentice with Lucien Du Leze, a French clockmaker. Together they are charged with making an automaton of a tiger attacking a British soldier. The experience hones his carving skills, but just as importantly it introduces him to an intercontinental power play: Tipu, aka the Tiger of Mysore, is attempting to fend off an incur

EXTINCTION

What a glorious way to spend a honeymoon: Mark and Olivia Gunnerson go backpacking through the vast Erebus Resort in the mountains of Colorado, where scientists have “de-extincted” species like the woolly mammoth and other Pleistocene megafauna. Just watch the peaceful beasts at their watering holes. Behold the giant armadillos, and the indricothere that make mammoths look like dwarfs. The scientists have removed genes for aggression in these re-creations, so humans will be safe unless they’re

STILL TRUE

For the author, there’s nothing contradictory about being a journalist and an activist. “Authentic journalism is a quest to tell the truth,” Jackson writes in her preface. “The conflation of what is viewed as objective and white cultural bias has become a liability that has limited the scope of our media and stunted our capacity as Americans to see each other clearly enough to tell complete, nuanced and true stories.” This collection features many pieces that center her perspective as a Black w

SOUTH OF SOMEWHERE

Unlike her two older siblings, 12-year-old Mavis has never questioned her lavish life—full of vacations and shopping trips, not to mention a home in one of Chicago’s richest neighborhoods. She also doesn’t doubt her position as the most-favored child, her wildly successful mother’s “mini-me.” Then one day, her mother disappears, and the FBI shows up. With their home seized and bank accounts frozen, Mavis’ stay-at-home dad is forced to beg for help from the once-close sister he’s ignored for the

A LIFE FOR A LIFE AND OTHER STORIES

In “The Pit,” an unnamed narrator details their blue-collar job at the Basic Oxygen Lance Furnace. The “unbearable” heat that comes with slagging steel, coupled with inherent dangers (including a task that only a 300-pound man can do), give the impression that this workplace is the very pit of Hell. The casts in these eight tales lead ostensibly quiet lives that harbor turmoil: “Mountain Stone” finds Ginger Dressinger hoping to reconnect with the Rocky Mountains she visited years ago with her f

SAM'S NEW SISTER

Sam is used to being the littlest button in the craft box. Sometimes that’s a pain, but it also means Sam gets a lot of attention for being the smallest. When a new, smaller button—Maggie—is adopted, Sam is frustrated: Maggie copies him, tries to do things that are too advanced for her, and steals his favorite toy. Sam has no choice—he has to run away. But when Maggie follows him and almost gets swallowed up by the vacuum cleaner, Sam swings to the rescue (“Sam realized his sister needed a resp

SING IT LIKE CELIA

Mexican-born Salvadora Sanchez enjoys living in San Diego with her mom and singing and dancing to the music of her favorite salsa singer, Celia Cruz. But Salva’s world turns upside down when her mother, a hardworking nurse, fails to come home one night. Salva is forced to leave behind her school and beloved choir to move in with the long-absent father she barely knows. Papi takes them to live on a campground near a small town where he’s reporting for the Times on the detention and threatened de

THE FRAGILITY OF LIGHT

Everything’s looking up for Joshua Fitzpatrick and Sylvia “Sunny” Zielinski. The two, who hit it off in college, get married the summer after graduation. They’re absolutely smitten, whispering loving thoughts into each other’s ears on the day of their wedding, ready to build a new life together. But the lively wedding ends in disaster when, after a sudden flight of rage, Sunny throws cake at the crowd and flees the party. The next day, her new husband swiftly forgives her wedding-night tantrum,

FATHER OF MINE

In a story set in 1973 in small-town Wheeling, West Virginia, author Florio depicts a tightly knit clan struggling in an era when the Italian American mob is proliferating across the country. The author expertly sets the novel’s grim, menacing tone early on with the coldblooded contract killing of someone who paid for betrayal and treachery in blood. Protagonist Johnny Mesagne is described as someone who is “handsome, in a hoodlum sort of way,” and who’s a divorced father to estranged adult son

FLAGS ON THE BAYOU

Seriously in debt to business associate Minos Suarez, Charles Lufkin rents him Hannah Laveau, an enslaved woman he’s recently purchased. Things don’t go well for either Hannah, whom Suarez unmercifully assaults, or Suarez, who’s found castrated with his throat cut shortly after Hannah parts company with him. Just as Hannah is haunted by Samuel, the son from whom she was separated during the bloody Union attack on Shiloh Church, Lufkin’s nephew, Wade, who volunteered as a medical officer on the

AQUARIUM

Power is famous for inventing aquariums, which enabled her to study “a 4-inch long octopus, the Argonauta argo.” The researcher, who was born Jeanne Villepreux in Juillac, France, journeyed to Sicily in Italy to marry her fiance in 1818. Her fascination with the sea inspired her to study live marine creatures. To keep them alive for any significant length of time, they needed fresh seawater and food; the scientist first tried using glass vases with cork lids and later designed “simple glass cag

PROM BABIES

Black, biracial high school senior Mina is attending prom with her sort-of boyfriend—the white, evangelical captain of the football team. White junior Penney and her boyfriend—a senior of Ghanaian descent—plan a special, private after-prom party. Sheryl is white, lives in foster care, and wasn’t even planning on attending prom, until one of the popular guys asked her out. Each girl becomes pregnant and decides against termination. While the circumstances around the pregnancies are different, an

EVERY NIGHT AT MIDNIGHT

“Every night at midnight I turn into a wolf,” the young, brown-skinned narrator reveals. The affliction is mostly welcome. With nimble paws and a magnificent tail, this werewolf runs by moonlight, independent and speedy. Still, secretly turning into a wolf every night makes it difficult to maintain friendships and attend sleepovers. “There is no one else like me,” the child reports, at once reveling in the transformation and acknowledging how it has resulted in loneliness. Then a new girl arriv

UPSTAGED

It’s the summer before high school, and Ashton Price is excited for their six-week arts camp. In addition to stage managing and building sets for the “Cinderella”-inspired musical Ella, they’ll bunk with lead actor Ivy Santos. She’s the “PB” to their “J”—and maybe more? But then, things start to go wrong. The friends are assigned to different cabins, rehearsals keep Ivy super busy, and worst of all, there’s Lucas—a.k.a. Prince Charming to Ivy’s Ella. He’s always there with Ivy, being charming,

HER OWN DEVICES

In this loose sequel to the author’s Turkey Shoot (2018), Anna Burmeister is in transition, raising her 5-year-old son, Ramadi, in Piraeus, Greece, while still mourning his father, Mahmoud, who was killed in the earlier book. Mahmoud isn’t as far away as she thinks, as he’s been denied entry to Paradise (“Where I find myself now is very strange and lonely, a plane I have all to myself. Perhaps this is perdition and I am doomed to isolation for eternity”). One day, Anna witnesses a young boy, Sa

IN EXILE

Ansari never understood Tahira, the taciturn grandmother who lived with the author’s family for a decade until she died. Then an aunt casually revealed that Tahira had once walked out on seven children to be with another man. The “strict code of propriety” that governed family interactions kept Ansari from asking questions. However, when she was studying journalism in graduate school, Ansari began to probe her grandmother’s past through interviews with family members, historical research, and t

KENT STATE

In this follow-up to The Road to Disaster, his fresh history of the Vietnam War, VanDeMark—who teaches history at the U.S. Naval Academy and co-authored Robert McNamara’s Vietnam memoir—delivers the definitive book about the atrocity that took place at Kent State in early May 1970, when bullets from the guns of the frightened and thoroughly unprepared Ohio National Guard killed and wounded students protesting the war. Few authors have managed to capture the enormous scope and all angles of the

SPACE PIRATE BEARS

Dad, Jamie, and Abby, who have brown skin, curly hair, and toothy smiles, huddle up close to share stories of the faraway world of Princess Leona’s Star Defenders. This group of space heroes includes Prince Pilot, Captain Neigh the Space Horse, Cosmic Witch Bogwart, and Princess Leona herself. The cartoonish illustrations are vibrant, which makes the threat of the evil Doktor Drab even more daunting as he brings with him a dullness that drains the pages of color. But just as Princess Leona is c

INSOMNIACS AFTER SCHOOL

Nakami’s high school’s now-defunct astronomy club is the subject of rumors involving unrequited love, tragic deaths, and subsequent hauntings, but Nakami doesn’t believe in ghosts. He just wants to find somewhere quiet to nap—he’s stuck in a cycle of insomnia that’s leaving him exhausted and bad-tempered. But since he isn’t scared of the supposedly haunted observatory, he’s pushed by his classmates to fetch some supplies from a storage cupboard located there. In the process, he discovers that i