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GIRLS WHO BURN

Eighteen-year-old Addie Blackwood is preparing to head to Rutgers University in the fall, although she’s still reeling from the death of her sister, Fiona, last summer. Gifted ballerina Fiona’s death was ruled an accident, but Addie believes Fiona was murdered by wealthy, privileged Thatcher Montgomery. When the family gathers at their estate in Bier’s End, New Jersey, for their matriarch’s funeral, Addie comes face to face with Seth Montgomery, the boy she has unresolved feelings for, and his

UNREDEEMABLE AND OTHER STORIES

To read this debut collection is to confront the messy, fragile, joyful business of being alive. “Everyone is their most interesting while they’re becoming their best, not after,” says the eponymous character in “What Crissy Calls Becoming,” a wildly unpredictable story about a man who’s unlucky in love, his new acquaintance, and the intense, more-than-friends/less-than-lovers relationship they develop. It is this “becoming” that unites the characters in these stories, a broad cast that hails f

SEARCHING FOR JOHN DEWITT

On the front lines of World War I, there was no job as important—and as thankless—as that of the trench runner. Young soldiers were chosen for their athleticism and quick thinking to deliver messages on foot, a mission so dangerous that the life expectancy of a trench runner was normally mere days. “They understood their deaths would not be a matter of bad luck but the expected outcome of soldiers delivering messages through the muck and mazes of deeply dug trenches and the open spaces between

AT HOME WITH THE PRAIRIE DOG

This cute and clever rodent features in many children’s books. Patent’s, however, as the title hints, is more about the prairie ecosystem itself and the role of the prairie dog. Like the beaver in her 2019 book in this series (with photos by Michael Runtz) and the gopher tortoise in Madeleine Dunphy’s 2010 series contribution (with photos by Michael Rothman), this species is a keystone, supporting many others in its environment. Focused on some of the “roughly 150” other animals living “in and

MURDER AT THE WHITE PALACE

The Right Sort Marriage Bureau is the brainchild of former spy Iris Sparks and war widow Gwendolyn Bainbridge, who’s recently been declared sane by the courts after her husband’s aristocratic family tried to wrest control of her life and her son from her. Inspired by their success in matching clients looking for love, Gwen comes up with the idea of a New Year’s Eve dance that will bring customers together in a romantic setting. But finding a venue proves difficult until Iris’ current swain, Arc

BE WILD

In a series of comparisons that are, to say the least, stretched, Crandall invites readers to wash their ears and feet like jackrabbits, “make” their beds the way orangutans literally do every night, be good listeners like owls, which can “pinpoint even the tiniest scuffle of a mouse beneath the snow,” and look to other animals for similar behavioral cues. Some behaviors do seem at least somewhat analogous—she notes that a polar bear wishing to share another bear’s meal will ask permission “cal

WE GO TO THE PARK

Positioning the park as a liminal space, the spare, poetic text and beautifully unsettling art explore its endless possibilities as children play and wander: “It is the land beyond. / In the park, anything can happen.” The paintings, many of them two-page spreads showing trees, fields, and playgrounds, are arresting and reminiscent of Fauvism. Many evoke a raked theater stage, with the background appearing to rise in elevation. The flatness of the human figures and the absence of detailed facia

ANGÉLICA AND LA GÜIRA

As a parting gift, Abuelito gives the child an antique güira, a cylindric metal percussion instrument. As he scrapes the güira with a metal comb, Abuelito tells Angélica about their ancestors who played the instrument before her. “This güira has power,” he tells her. “It makes the music go slow slow or speed up—fast fast.” Angélica is excited to bring this piece of her beloved Dominican Republic back home to New York City; she plays it loudly whenever she misses Abuelito. Her family and her orc

TRUE BELIEVER

Veteran journalist Traub, author of What Was Liberalism? and The Freedom Agenda, delivers a memorable, admiring portrait of Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978). Son of a small-town South Dakota pharmacist, Humphrey graduated high school as the class valedictorian. After dropping out of college during the Depression, he returned a few years later to complete three years of classwork in two years. He also worked in a drug store to support himself and his family, and he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa

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

HOW TO SHOW UP AND SHINE IN LAW SCHOOL WITH GRATITUDE, GRIT, AND GRACE

With intimacy and vulnerability, Glimp, an accomplished graduate of Columbia Law School, shares not only her own experiences—from receiving her acceptance letter and her first failed test to taking the bar with a cracked tooth in hand—but also her practices of gratitude, mindfulness, and meditation to help “1Ls” succeed. These tools go beyond simple insights into the Socratic method or exam strategies, though those are here, too. The author provides tips for developing a Super PAC (or “Personal

SUNDAY MONEY

Claire Joyce loves basketball. John, one of her brothers, is a high school basketball star, though the kind of ball John and the other boys play is different from the sport available to girls like Claire—only certain “roving” players can move around the whole court in the girls’ games, and they have to wear restrictive uniforms featuring collars, skirts, and belts. Changes may be on the horizon, though: “Congress is looking at a bill that will allow girls to have equal access to sports money in

OF WHITE ASHES

In 1939, Ruby Ishimaru is a fourth grader in Waimea on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. She’s shattered by the death of her mother, who passed away during childbirth, and, two years later, by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, Ruby and her family members are rejected by people in their community, who suddenly see Japanese Americans as enemies. Koji Matsuo, who’s 10 years old in 1939, grew up on the island of Miyajima; he moves to Hiroshima with his family, who despair of Japan’s warti

THE THINGS WE'LL NEVER HAVE

In 1964, Everleigh is a 26-year-old woman living in London—a self-described “plain Jane” who works as a typist. Her betrothed, Gualtiero, is anything but plain, and he regales her with tales of his small hometown, Vigevano, and his vivacious, loving family that enjoys “enormous feasts that last for hours.” However, a month before their wedding, Gualtiero vanishes without a word of warning and takes with him half of the money they had saved for an upcoming trip to Italy. Both hurt and bewildered

THE WOMAN IN THE SABLE COAT

Adolescent friends Nina Woodrow and Rose Allen spend languid prewar summers together whenever Rose visits family in the quiet English village where Nina lives with her widowed father, Henry. A chance meeting with visiting Canadian Joey Roussin leads the girls and Henry to dine with him and his friends Guy and Kate Nicholson, a married couple who’ve just moved to the village. This meeting marks the beginning of Nina’s growing awareness of (and attraction to) to men, Guy in particular. Years late

THE EXTRAORDINARY CURIOSITIES OF IXWORTH AND MADDOX

The author pulls readers in from the start with a description of the mysterious, soon-to-open Extraordinary Curiosities shop, located on a narrow London lane. When 11-year-old Chloe Ashley ducks into the place after school to avoid the rain, she’s surprised to find tiny, pointy-eared folk, tidying up and arranging shelves of oddities. After Chloe meets the magician proprietors of the shop—Mr. Ixworth (short and tweedy, “with one of those funny ‘I’ve a bit of chocolate on my lip’ moustaches”) an

DARK DAYS

In his nonfiction debut, Reeves, the Whiting Award–winning author of the poetry collections King Me and Best Barbarian, rigorously analyzes works by Black cultural paragons, from Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison to Outkast and Michael K. Williams. The author balances this commentary with his own experiences as a Black man in America, including his childhood in the Pentecostal Church and conversations with his young daughter following the killing of George Floyd. “I gropingly understood that

THE WAR CAME TO US

It is easy to think about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in terms of geopolitical maneuvering and armchair commentary. The value of this book is that it demonstrates the real toll in lives lost and broken. Miller is a journalist who writes for a number of publications, but he has a deep connection with Ukraine, going back to a stint as a teacher in the Peace Corps. He emphasizes that the invasion is merely the latest chapter in the long story of conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and he delves

ROCKET PUPPIES

Light-skinned Snarly McBummerpants is busy sending out Mopey Smokes (evil-looking dark brown clouds) from his volcano on the Island of Woe to create a sad state of affairs. But the caped puppies, each equipped with a rocket and hailing from “the outer reaches of NOT-FROM-HERE,” use their abilities to conquer the morose McBummerpants and bring happiness back to everyone’s lives. The meticulously detailed illustrations carry the story, dark colors turning to rainbow hues and frowns turning to smi

RUNNING MATES

Edgartown, North Carolina, is split between its liberal Eastside and conservative Northside. Instilled with progressive values by her moms, Annabelle Morningstar, who’s cued white, embodies her neighborhood: She’s an executive committee member of the Liberal Liaisons, eats vegan, and is aiming for the Ivy League. But when her grades make these ambitions appear out of reach, she focuses on cross-country, joining a weekly conditioning club for student athletes who hope to be recruited by colleges