2019 Kirkus Prizes Also in This Issue: Interviews with Jami Attenberg, Ashley Bryan, Kekla Magoon, and More from the Editor’S Desk

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Featuring 288 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's and YA books

KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVII, NO. 20 | 15 OCTOBER 2019 REVIEWS

Read about all 18 Finalists for the 2019 Kirkus Prizes Also in this issue: Interviews with Jami Attenberg, Ashley Bryan, Kekla Magoon, and more from the editor’s desk:

Chairman The 2019 Kirkus Prize Finalists HERBERT SIMON

President & Publisher BY TOM BEER MARC WINKELMAN #

Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN [email protected]

John Paraskevas Editor-in-Chief TOM BEER It’s that time of year again, when we at Kirkus honor the best [email protected]

Vice President of Marketing books that we’ve reviewed in the previous year. Over the course of SARAH KALINA several months, three panels of dedicated judges have considered [email protected] Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU a host of books to come up with a list of 18 finalists in three cat- [email protected] egories. Any book that received a Kirkus Star since Nov. 1, 2018, Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK was eligible—356 fiction titles, 306 nonfiction titles, and a whop- [email protected] Children’s Editor ping 602 young readers’ literature titles in total. VICKY SMITH [email protected]

My colleagues and I are people who get excited about great Young Adult Editor LAURA SIMEON Tom Beer books—it’s our job, after all—but there’s a special electricity in [email protected] Editor at Large the office the day we make the finalists public; we’re proud of the list and of the work MEGAN LABRISE [email protected] that our judges have done. The winners will be announced in a special ceremony at Vice President of Kirkus Indie KAREN SCHECHNER the Austin Public Library on Thursday, Oct. 24, and the winner in each category will [email protected]

Senior Indie Editor receive a $50,000 prize. DAVID RAPP Please visit KirkusReviews.com and follow us on social media to learn more about [email protected] Indie Editor MYRA FORSBERG these titles and to find out the winners once they are announced. For this issue, our [email protected] editors have also written about the finalists in their respective sections. Here’s to Associate Manager of Indie KATERINA PAPPAS another year of great books and a bumper crop of outstanding finalists—we hope [email protected] Editorial Assistant you’ll add them to your own reading list. JOHANNA ZWIRNER [email protected]

Mysteries Editor FICTION: THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor GREGORY McNAMEE

• Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis (Knopf) Copy Editor BETSY JUDKINS

Designer • The Other Americans by Laila Lalami (Pantheon) ALEX HEAD Director of Kirkus Editorial LAUREN BAILEY • Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf) [email protected] Production Editor CATHERINE BRESNER • Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine Harcourt (FSG) [email protected] Website and Software Developer PERCY PEREZ • On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press) [email protected] Advertising Director MONIQUE STENSRUD • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) [email protected] Advertising Associate TATIANA ARNOLD The judges for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Fiction are: bestselling author Min Jin [email protected] Advertising Coordinator Lee; editor, writer, and critic David L. Ulin; and Michelle Malonzo, buyer KELSEY WILLIAMS [email protected]

and bookseller at Changing Hands Bookstore in Arizona. Graphic Designer LIANA WALKER [email protected]

Controller MICHELLE GONZALES [email protected] Continued on p. 4 for customer service or subscription questions, please call 1 800 316 9361 Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/print-indexes Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/submission-guidlines - - - Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising- Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add Cover design by Liana Walker opportunities

2 | 15 october 2019 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 5 The Kirkus Star is awarded REVIEWS...... 5 to books of remarkable EDITOR’S NOTE...... 6 INTERVIEW: JAMI ATTENBERG...... 14 merit, as determined by the INTERVIEW: STEPH CHA...... 24 MYSTERY...... 30 impartial editors of Kirkus. SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY...... 33 ROMANCE...... 34 nonfiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 37 REVIEWS...... 37 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 38 INTERVIEW: TOM MUELLER...... 52 INTERVIEW: ADRIENNE BRODEUR...... 58 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 75 REVIEWS...... 75 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 76 INTERVIEW: ASHLEY BRYAN...... 82 INTERVIEW: KEVIN NOBLE MAILLARD...... 92 BOARD & NOVELTY BOOKS...... 99 CONTINUING SERIES...... 109 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 112 REVIEWS...... 112 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 114 INTERVIEW: KEKLA MAGOON...... 118 INTERVIEW: LONDON SHAH...... 122 CONTINUING SERIES...... 124 Strawberry-blonde Circassian American Allie indie flies under the radar of Islamophobes but can’t INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 125 escape her own inner turmoil in Nadine Jolie REVIEWS...... 125 Courtney’s insightful #ownvoices novel. EDITOR’S NOTE...... 126 INTERVIEW: AMY GULICK...... 132 Read the review on p. 112. QUEERIES: SHELLY ORIA...... 140 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as INDIE BOOKS OF THE MONTH...... 149 they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. FIELD NOTES...... 150 You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on our website by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password, APPRECIATIONS: JACK KEROUAC, 50 YEARS AFTER please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or HIS PASSING...... 151 emailing [email protected].

| kirkus.com | contents | 15 october 2019 | 3 from the editor’s desk: The 2019 Kirkus Prize Finalists

NONFICTION: • Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest by Hanif Abdurraqib (Univ. of Texas) • When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back: Carl’s Book by Naja Marie Aidt, translated by Denise Newman (Coffee House) • How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir by Saeed Jones (Simon & Schuster) • Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday) • The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You by Dina Nayeri (Catapult) • No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury) The judges for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction are: Kirkus Prize and Pulitzer Prize winner Jack E. Davis; critic Richard Z. Santos; and bookseller at Miami’s Books & Books Aaron John Curtis.

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:

Picture Books:

• The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Versify/HMH)

• Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo (Candlewick)

Middle Grade:

• New Kid by Jerry Craft, color by Jim Callahan (HarperCollins)

• Genesis Begins Again by Alicia D. Williams (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum)

Young Adult:

• On The Come Up by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)

• The Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border by Juan Pablo Villalobos, translated by Rosalind Harvey (FSG)

The judges for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Young Readers’ Literature are: award-winning author Mitali Perkins; Kirkus critic Hanna Lee; and Professor of Library Science at North Carolina Central Uni- versity Pauletta Brown Bracy.

4 | 15 october 2019 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | fiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: SALTWATER Andrews, Jessica Farrar, Straus and Giroux (304 pp.) FOLLOWERS by Megan Angelo...... 7 $26.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-0-374-25380-6 TO THE EDGE OF SORROW by Aharon Appelfeld; trans. by Stuart Schoffman...... 8 A young woman lays bare her memo- CESARE by Jerome Charyn...... 11 ries in a fragmented debut. “It begins with our bodies. Skin on THE BLAZE by Chad Dundas...... 12 Skin. My body burst from yours. Safe together in the violent dark and yet A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD by Therese Anne Fowler...... 13 already there are spaces beginning to

CLEANNESS by Garth Greenwell...... 15 open between us,” begins Andrews’ debut novel: a meditation young adult on mother-daughter relationships and finding a place to call THE BEAR by Andrew Krivak...... 18 home. The coming-of-age story is told from the perspective of Lucy, a millennial trying to navigate her present while examin- NIGHT THEATER by Vikram Paralkar...... 22 ing her past. Present-day Lucy lives in her late grandfather’s cottage in Ireland, where she recounts her memories of childhood CREATURES by Crissy Van Meter...... 28 in northern England. In short vignettes, she remembers the PROCESSED CHEESE by Stephen Wright...... 29 absence of her alcoholic father, the experience of learning to communicate with her deaf brother, and the way her beautiful THINGS IN JARS by Jess Kidd...... 30 mother struggled to keep everyone (including herself) together. She also recounts her wild youth, her university experience in STEEL CROW SAGA by Paul Krueger...... 33 London, and the litany of unnamed men who circle her. Lucy’s thoughts constantly return to her mother—the first and great PROCESSED CHEESE love of her life—and their relationship, which has become strained over the years. As a child, she thought: “I would for- Wright, Stephen Little, Brown (400 pp.) ever be in her orbit, moving towards her and pulling away while $28.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 she quietly controlled the tides, anchoring me to something.” 978-0-316-04337-3 The natural untethering that happens between mothers and daughters is remarkably rendered—the heartsickness given gravitas equal to romantic relationships. Andrews is undoubt- edly a talented writer, but this book seems more concerned with sentence-level beauty than narrative. The lovely minutiae of the vignettes sometimes overshadow or crowd out the book’s larger themes. Despite this, Andrews’ writing explores themes like memory, home, womanhood, and mother-daughter relationships with shattering clarity: “Girls with orange cheeks in push-up bras brushed past us, smelling of the future” and “that safe, yellow space of bedtimes and steamy kitchens.” A beautifully written experimental novel that lacks narrative momentum.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 5 the kirkus prize for fiction: the finalists

I’m thrilled to introduce the six final- derously, persuasively insists that reckoning with the border will ists for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Fiction. make deep demands of both our intellectual and emotional re- Our dedicated judges—Michelle Malzono, serves.” a buyer at Changing Hands Bookstore in Territory of Light by Yuko Tsushima, Arizona, and Kirkus reviewer and author translated by Geraldine Harcourt (Far- David L. Ulin—have chosen an exciting rar, Straus and Giroux), recounts a year and diverse group of finalists. Author Min in one young woman’s life after she splits Jin Lee (Pachinko) will be joining them to up with her husband. “Tsushima’s prose determine the winner on Oct. 24. is achingly elegant, well worth linger- Cantoras by Carolina De Robertis ing over,” according to our review. “But (Alfred A. Knopf) tells the story of five there’s also a quiet simplicity, even banal- queer women in Uruguay beginning in 1977, when they create ity, to her style and what she allows us to a world for themselves in the face of a violent military dictator- see of her narrator’s life: domestic ritu- ship that’s raping, jailing, and disappearing gay people. “Call- als like waking up, washing, shopping ing themselves cantoras, or women who for groceries, cooking, and all the rest. sing, [the friends] take a weeklong trip to Grace hovers above the banal and the Cabo Polonio, a sleepy, secluded coastal transcendent alike.” village, where they find a haven among On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by horrors. On the beach, the women laugh Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press) is “a raw late into the night, make love unabash- and incandescently written foray into edly, and share secrets over whiskey and fiction by one of our most gifted poets,” yerba maté.” The novel, which follows according to our review. A young Viet- the women for more than 30 years, is an namese immigrant “writes a letter to his immersive reading experience; as our re- illiterate mother in an attempt to make view says: “Rich and luscious, De Rober- sense of his traumatic beginnings….The tis’ writing feels like a living thing.” result is an uncategorizable hybrid of The Other Americans by Laila Lalami (Pantheon) is a mur- what reads like memoir, bildungsroman, der mystery and a family story told in a “structurally elegant” way, and book-length poem. More important according to our review. The dead man is than labels, though, is the novel’s earnest Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant and open-hearted belief in the necessity and restaurant owner, who was killed by of stories and language for our survival.” a hit-and-run driver after closing up one The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday) tells the night. The chapters circle among the per- story of Elwood Curtis, “a law-abiding, teenage paragon of rec- spectives of Driss’ daughter, a jazz com- titude, an avid reader of encyclopedias poser; the local police detective; the man and after-school worker diligently over- who owned the bowling alley next door; coming hardships that come from being an undocumented laborer who witnessed abandoned by his parents and growing the accident; and several others. Our re- up black and poor in segregated Talla- view says that “Lalami is in thrilling com- hassee, Florida.” None of that saves him mand of her narrative gifts….Nuanced from being unjustly arrested and sent to characters drive this novel, and each voice gets its variation.” the infamous Nickel Academy, “a mon- Lost Children Archive by Valeria strously racist institution whose stu- Luiselli (Alfred A. Knopf) is “a power- dents, white and black alike, are brutally ful border story, at once intellectual and beaten [and] sexually abused.” Inspired heartfelt,” according to our review. “An by a real-life Florida reform school, unnamed New York couple, both audio Whitehead’s latest “displays its author’s documentarians, [are driving with] their facility with violent imagery and his skill at weaving narrative children, ages 10 and 5, to the Arizona- strands into an ingenious if disquieting whole,” according to our Mexico border. The father wants to ex- review.—L.M. plore the remnants of Apache culture there; the mother, who narrates much Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor. of the book, is recording an audio essay on the border crisis….Luiselli thun-

6 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | FOLLOWERS quality runs over everything in sight for the course of the novel. Angelo, Megan In the 2051 plot, we meet Marlow, a young wife in Constellation, Graydon House (432 pp.) California, a closed town populated with government-selected $26.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 celebrities devoted entirely to the production of a reality show 978-1-525-83626-8 watched by everyone who does not live there. “Is it me or does Mar have kinda chubby armpits,” asks one of Marlow’s more than How far will our addiction to screens 12 million followers, watching her stretch before getting out of and our obsession with social media go? bed in the morning. “NOOOOOOO NO ONE WANTS TO And how much will we pay for it? WATCH ANOTHER PILL AD—PUT THE MARLOW FLA- The bill is large indeed in Angelo’s first MINGO SMACKDOWN BACK ON!!!!!” screams another novel. In alternating narratives beginning when Marlow gets upset with her network-issued storyline and in 2015 and 2051, she creates two chilling throws a fit. Both the 2015 and 2051 plots revolve around a mys- versions of celebrity culture in techno-hell. It all starts with a post terious event called the Spill, which feels somewhat less original on a website called Lady-ish written by staff blogger Orla Cad- and interesting than the buildup to its reveal. However, the joy den. “Sooo What Does The World’s Most Expensive Brow Gel of the details continues all the way to a denouement in Atlantis Actually Do? One Instagram It Girl Finds Out” is the first of a (formerly Atlantic City), where the relationships we have begun series of pieces Orla concocts (down to scrubbing the writing off to suspect between the characters of the two plotlines are untan- a tube of Maybelline for the photo shoot) to boost the profile gled and confirmed. of a wannabe Kardashian type—actually her roommate, Floss, Endless clever details and suspenseful plotting make whose drive to be famous in the absence of any talent or notable this speculative-fiction debut an addictive treat. young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 7 TO THE EDGE been exchanging insults with a feckless and hotheaded Ameri- OF SORROW can president named Ronald Rump, and the two countries find Appelfeld, Aharon themselves in a tense nuclear confrontation. Some of Rump’s Trans. by Schoffman, Stuart hawkish aides urge him toward a preemptive strike, but more Schocken (304 pp.) apocalypse-shy advisers persuade Rump that he can achieve $26.95 | Jan. 14, 2020 hero status and win the Nobel Peace Prize if he undertakes a 978-0-8052-4342-0 last stab at diplomacy, a one-on-one meeting in the Bangistani capital, Petrobangorski. America’s European allies are terrified Edmund, a 17-year-old who has lost by the prospect of what these two touchy tin-pot tyrants might his parents to the German genocide, do when they face off, but what can they do but stand aside and narrates this tale of Jewish partisans in hope? Meanwhile, a British minister vacationing in a tiny village Ukraine on a mission to save Jews who in the south of France happens upon a Gascon woman selling are being sent by train to death camps. courgettes at a farmers market who is a perfect doppelgänger Holed up in the forest, the fighters conduct raids on farm- for Rump. An idea dawns, and with the help of several allies and houses and peasants’ homes for food and supplies, doing their their spy agencies, plus a shiny new tractor, the Zucchini Con- best to limit themselves to “considerate looting.” That need spiracy is set into motion. The book is politically pointed, yes, increases as their ranks swell from the mid-40s to nearly 200 but one never imagines that the flashing blades are anything but with the addition of freed prisoners who need to be nursed prop swords; this is more burlesque than satire. It’s supremely back to health. The only doctor in the group, an anti-Semite silly and cheerful—think Kingsley Amis with all the black bile they abducted from his home, tends to the ill and the wounded drained out. Not all the jokes land, but Balding keeps things against his will. The fighters’ spiritual priestess of sorts is the moving quickly, amiably, wittily. frail Grandma Tsirl, who comes to believe that the physical and Not the place to go for subtlety but a fizzy romp with an spiritual worlds are one—that “death is an illusion.” Edmund, inspired bit of slapstick near the end. who suffers intense guilt over abandoning his parents (at their insistence, to escape the Nazis), reconnects with them through dreams. One of the book’s key themes is the need to reconnect WELCOME TO THE PINE AWAY with one’s heritage even when faced with evil incarnate. Music MOTEL AND CABINS and literature play a large role in sustaining the Jewish fight- Bivald, Katarina ers’ ties to humanity. First published in Israel in 2012, the book Sourcebooks (448 pp.) is immediately recognizable as Appelfeld’s through its spare, $16.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 eerily understated approach, which records atrocities from a 978-1-4926-8101-4 grim remove. Unlike many of the brilliantly allusive author’s novels, this one makes explicit reference to the Holocaust, After her death, a friendly ghost but there’s still a dreamlike quality at work. The naturalness watches over best friends at the no-frills of the setting is in contrast to the artfully detached feel of the Oregon motel where she used to work. dialogue. In Schoffman’s translation (his first of an Appelfeld Henny Broek has just reunited with novel), the language lacks the seductive pull of other works by Michael, her high school sweetheart, Appelfeld, but the story moves toward its climax with the usual when a truck driver accidentally runs her over. She leaves disquieting force. behind her co-worker, MacKenzie; her stoic father; and the Another haunting and heartbreaking tale of the Holo- patrons of the Pine Creek Motel. Soon news of her death caust from one who survived it. summons the motel’s absentee owner, Camila, a trans woman who left town before her transition. With her soul in limbo, Henny waits silently for her friends to enjoy their reunion THE ZUCCHINI CONSPIRACY and be happy. But first, they’ll have to address the small-town Balding, Timothy politics that drove their group apart. In high school, when Upper West Side Philosophers (204 pp.) MacKenzie came out as gay, her friends rallied to stop an anti- $22.00 paper | Dec. 15, 2019 gay ballot measure from passing. From there, the group split 978-1-935830-67-2 in two. MacKenzie stayed at the motel, encouraged by the community support. But Camila left to reinvent herself in LA, Balding’s third work of fiction, billed and Michael moved away to pursue a career as a geologist in as “the first-ever Donald Trump novel,” rockier locations, breaking Henny’s heart. Just when they’ve is a free-wheeling farce, a three-ring cir- all begun to heal from their grief over Henny’s death, a Chris- cus—or maybe a three-wheeling farce tian organization stages a protest to shut down the motel over circus. morality concerns. As the motel fills with misplaced towns- Bangistan, a former Soviet republic people divided by the controversy, it becomes a sanctuary for now ruled by a kleptocratic dictator and his brother, has inau- some and a scapegoat for others. The protest looks bigger gurated a Twitter account (@bestdespot) that has for months online than it does in person, adding a touch of realism. As

8 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | As ever, Black’s gifts of rich description and deft characterization are on display. the secret guests

hatred threatens her otherwise idyllic town, Henny watches UNMAKING GRACE from beyond, hoping to see evidence of love after life. Boswell, Barbara A celebration of life in which friendship, community, Catalyst Press (240 pp.) and a room for the night are gentle antidotes to prejudice. $16.00 paper | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-946395-23-8

THE SECRET GUESTS A girl comes of age as South Africa Black, Benjamin transitions from apartheid to democracy Henry Holt (304 pp.) and the violence of her home life paral- $27.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 lels the terror of the outside world. 978-1-250-13301-4 Fourteen-year-old Grace falls for her neighbor Johnny, but their youth- During German bombing raids on ful romance is short-lived. Authorities of the apartheid regime London during World War II, the young detain Johnny during a raid of student protesters. Meanwhile, princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are Grace’s family life descends into chaos as her father’s physical secreted away to Ireland for protection. and emotional abuse escalates. By the time Nelson Mandela Clonmillis Hall has seen better days. becomes president of a new South Africa and Johnny resurfaces A large estate in rural Ireland belonging more than a decade later, Grace has married her college sweet- to the Duke of Edenmore, Clonmillis, by virtue of Ireland’s heart and become a mother. She has created the picture-perfect neutrality in the war, feels a world away from the bombs rain- life, but her past proves too powerful to suppress. The first part

ing down on England. But during a secret meeting in Dublin, young adult arrangements are made: King George’s two young daughters need to be kept safe during the Blitz, and remote Ireland seems the perfect place. The result is a series of domestic and professional frictions of nationality, class, religion, and gender. There is Dick Lascelles, the louche, charismatic diplomat in charge of the arrangements. Detective Garda Strafford, whose Anglo- Irish background sets him somewhat apart from his country- men, oversees the estate’s security. Special Agent Celia Nashe, posing as a governess, is caught between her professional duties and being a surrogate caretaker to the serious elder princess, code-named “Ellen,” and the fiery younger girl, “Mary.” There is the irascible Duke and his household staff, who have varying levels of knowledge of the plot, and then there are those outside the estate who would seek to undermine the safety of everyone on it. Black (the pen name of Booker Prize–winning novelist John Banville) continues his storied career in the same vein as his most recent novel, Wolf on a String (2017), a historical mystery set in Prague, though his return here to his native Ireland is a welcome one. As ever, Black’s gifts of rich description and deft characterization are on display, and if the first half of the novel is more leisurely than a typical political thriller, its second half positively gallops. When you’re done binge-watching The Crown, pick up this multifaceted wartime thriller.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 9 of the novel takes place in 1985, unfolding from Grace’s and her study of postmodern fiction Disquiet( on the Western Front, 2016), father’s alternating points of view. Mary, Grace’s mother, must has hit upon an immensely interesting concept for her debut figure out how to protect herself and Grace with few resources novel, one that allows her to dig deep into psychology, philoso- beyond her wits; Patrick, Grace’s father, is full of a rage that phy, physics, and, most importantly, politics as Daphne shakes consumes his hopes of ever being a decent family man. Grace, Garrett out of his indifference toward the cultural turmoil of their only child, must make sense of how the people respon- the late ’60s. But the book wears its historical details stiffly, and sible for her well-being cause such harm. Part 2 is all about a the book’s idea-heavy passages work against the plot’s natural grown-up Grace in 1997, and Boswell renders her conflicting momentum. emotions and actions with vivid language as Grace risks the A promising premise that is sometimes too clever for new, safe life she has built to be with her first love. “Somewhere its own good. in her body, that body made up not of platelets and cells but of memory and forgetting, of love and the places that shape, a nerve jangled,” Boswell writes as Grace and Johnny are reunited. A DOG’S PROMISE The author does not hold back on how domestic violence oper- Cameron, W. Bruce ates, on how survivors of abuse, like Grace’s father and Johnny, Forge (384 pp.) so often become perpetrators of abuse themselves. While the $26.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 novel is not gratuitous, it is graphic; there are some harrowing 978-1-250-16351-6 scenes, but this book is not medicine that needs be swallowed because of the importance of the issues at hand. The novel cre- Bailey, an adorable malamute–Great ates drama while confronting intersecting systemic oppressions Dane mix, finds his purpose in helping a and intergenerational trauma by foregrounding its characters’ young boy and his family navigate life’s needs, wants, wounds, and aspirations. The prose is taut with tribulations. both clarity and complexity. Cameron (A Dog’s Way Home, 2017, A smart, compassionate portrayal of one woman’s quest etc.) offers the next in his series of books to end the cycle of violence. tracing the reincarnated souls of good dogs who go to heaven but are recalled to Earth as guardian angels of a sort for troubled children. Happily ensconced in dog paradise, filled with THE SCHRÖDINGER GIRL toys, sticks, and miles of shoreline to run, Bailey promises his Brett, Laurel previous owners to be a good dog again for another child. Of Kaylie Jones/Akashic (336 pp.) course, returning to the mortal realm as a puppy means that $16.95 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 Bailey’s memories of his previous lifetimes will be erased—at 978-1-61775-729-7 least until he reunites with his beloved Ethan, his owner from the first book in Cameron’s series. Bailey (renamed Cooper) A psychology professor encounters a is given to a paraplegic boy named Burke, who trains him as a teenage girl who exists as multiple incar- service dog. The work pays off when Burke can finally go to a nations, each living in a separate reality. real school, but soon enough, Burke’s family must take on the During a sudden downpour in 1967, school district, which opposes having a dog in the classroom. Garrett Adams is browsing in a crowded Worse, the Trident Mechanical Harvesting Corporation’s bookshop on Columbus Circle when a drones have trespassed on the family’s land, prompting Burke’s crowd of people push in to escape the rain. As he starts read- father to shoot one with his rifle, thus risking a second lawsuit. ing a book about Schrödinger—he of the famous cat-in-a-box On the homefront, Burke’s older brother, Grant, is having thought experiment—Garrett impulsively decides to ask any trouble accepting Burke’s disability. And on the romantic front, customer to lunch who also comes and picks up the book, hop- Bailey’s love for his soul mate, a boxer named Lacey, inspires ing for an impromptu discussion about philosophy. When the both Burke and Grant to find true love, too. Told from Bailey’s next taker turns out to be a teenage girl named Daphne, Gar- perspective, Cameron’s tale reflects on human behaviors that rett strikes up an unlikely friendship with the precocious young confuse dogs, from the sad capture of Bailey, his mother, and woman. Soon after meeting, the two visit an art gallery and siblings to his adoption by a loving family beset by companies encounter a painting that is, without question, of Daphne. The threatening their land and eco-friendly farming practices. The only trouble is, she insists she never sat for it. When Garrett effect is, unfortunately, more juvenile than deeply philosophical. makes a visit to the artist, he learns Daphne was in Boston with Fans of Cameron’s series will delight in this latest syr- the painter at the exact same time that Garrett visited the New upy installment. York gallery—with Daphne. Thus begins Garrett’s wild journey to put together the pieces of how Daphne can seem to be two (and later more) people at the same time. With the help of the gallery owner and an old college friend who now practices psy- chotherapy, Garrett follows his Alice, or Alices, down the rabbit hole of late 1960s youth culture. Brett, who has written a critical

10 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | In Nazi Germany, an orphan boy of lowly origins grows up to become an enforcer for German military intelligence. cesare

CESARE has 19 “wives,” even more guns, and a friendly relationship with A Novel of War-Torn several right-wing militias. However, although the novel takes Berlin place from 1990 to 2000, the election of Donald Trump has Charyn, Jerome clearly prompted its author to do some thinking about her pre- Bellevue Literary Press (368 pp.) vious willingness to declare her characters “no-wing.” Chute is $26.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 at pains to have Gordon denounce “Republican bullshit” and 978-1-942658-50-4 “so-called Christians” to his militia buddies, and she’s backed off her previous contempt for middle-class progressives; Settle- In Nazi Germany, an orphan boy of ment residents form a relationship of wary mutual respect with lowly origins grows up to become an a group of left-wing grassroots organizers. Nonetheless, Gor- enforcer for German military intelli- don’s and his author’s hearts are always with “the poor, meek, gence and the helpless pawn of a vixen- dishonored, deformed, disheartened, and displaced,” and ish mystery woman. Chute makes it brutally clear that until the left gets over its dis- Half-Jewish orphan Erik Holdermann was raised by pros- taste for “redneck[s]” and poor whites who refuse to be manipu- titutes from the age of 9 before being sent to an orphanage. lated by racists, the same people will keep running the world. When it is discovered there that he has a living uncle—albeit (The sexual power of teenage girls is another third-rail topic a cruel and distant one who disowned Erik’s late mother for she fearlessly tackles.) The action here runs parallel to events in marrying a postman—he is sent to the uncle’s farm, where he The School on Heart’s Content Road (2008) and Treat Us Like Dogs is regularly beaten up by boys wearing Nazi pins and nearly dies and We Will Become Wolves (2014) but spotlights different peo- after becoming trapped in a barn during a frigid winter storm. ple from her vast cast of characters. Fifteen-year-old Brianna

Erik’s life takes a momentous turn during cadet school when, young adult with a show of brute force, he saves a man being beaten by a gang of street toughs; that man turns out to be Adm. Wilhelm Canaris, head of the military intelligence service. Canaris takes Erik under his wing, dubs him Cesare (a reference to the “magician” in the silent film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and counts on him to threaten or disappear anyone who gets in his way. That can mean someone from the Gestapo or SS—even as he serves the Nazi regime, Canaris is dedicated to saving or safely exporting Jews. Erik’s half-Jewish mystery woman, Lisa Valentiner, with whom he has been obsessed since he was a boy, is both a member of the Jewish underground and the wife of a Nazi officer. It’s a nebulous world in which the Gestapo, which recognizes the need for Jews in any spy network, employs half-Jews to lure other half-Jews out of hiding. The 82-year-old Charyn’s latest work in a distinguished career is subtitled “a novel of war-torn Berlin,” but that doesn’t begin to prepare readers for this edgy, hallucinatory, full-throttle fable. Cabaret, Moby-Dick, Shakespeare, Rosa Luxembourg, “Jewish jazz,” traveling executioners dubbed Hansel and Gretel, a hump-backed baron—they’re all in the mix. A darkly entertaining, eye-opening novel.

THE RECIPE FOR REVOLUTION Chute, Carolyn Grove (768 pp.) $28.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-8021-2951-2

Third volume in Chute’s blistering series about the Settlement, a radical, politically incorrect collective of the dis- orderly and disaffected in rural Maine. The Settlement revolves around “Prophet” Gordon St. Onge, who rails against corporations, the media, and the war machine; he also

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 11

Vandermast, newest of the wives, emerges as the leader of the THE BLAZE Settlement’s younger generation; their end run around Gordon Dundas, Chad toward even more radical dissent drives what there is of a plot. Putnam (384 pp.) A manifesto and a mass rally prompt increasingly menacing $26.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 government harassment and a warning of more nefarious deeds 978-0-399-17609-8 to come from corporate CEO Bruce Hummer, his conscience apparently pricked by his rapidly growing cancers. A few juicy A combat veteran returns from Iraq personal conflicts keep the novel from devolving entirely into with a traumatic brain injury and must a political tract—but then again, Chute’s fierce political vision confront a forgotten past in this literary has always been the most interesting thing about her work. thriller by the author of Champion of the Messy, confrontational, way too long—and essential World (2016). reading. Matthew Rose only returns home to Montana to take care of affairs after his father’s suicide. He meets up with Georgie Porter, his ex–best friend and a reporter KINGDOMTIDE for the local newspaper. Thanks to an IED in Baghdad, “his Curtis, Rye memory had been scrubbed clean,” so he doesn’t remember her Little, Brown (304 pp.) or anyone else he used to know in Montana. But people know $28.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 him. Walking late at night, he witnesses a house fire and sees an 978-0-316-42010-5 apparently homeless man leaving the scene. Abigail Green has been housesitting for the lesbian couple who owns the house, A bitterly unhappy forest ranger and her death in the fire leads the police to suspect a hate crime finds a purpose in her search for an old against the owners. But a cop tells Georgie, “There’s a lot more woman who might have survived disaster going on here than you know....She’s not who you think she is.” in this darkly humorous debut novel. Bits of memory slowly return to Matthew while Georgie digs In 1986, a small plane crashes on a deeply into the tragedy for the newspaper. A candy store had blue-sky day into a peak in the Bitterroot burned years before, and Matthew is troubled at the thought National Forest, a 1.6-million-acre wilderness straddling Mon- he might have been involved somehow. Now a police officer tana and Idaho. The only survivor is 72-year-old Cloris Waldrip, is murdered, another house is set ablaze, and Matthew nearly who’s on vacation with her husband of 54 years. Alone and trau- drowns in a frozen river. Matthew and Georgie both sense matized, she’s determined to make her way home to Texas. At the that connections exist between past and present tragedies, but start she’s a nice Methodist lady who pulls up her stockings and what could they possibly be? The renewed friendship is tenta- retrieves her handbag from the wreckage before setting off down tive and platonic for the two main characters, who both care the mountain, but her civilized layers will be peeled away by weeks, deeply about the truth. In time they make a terrible discovery then months of harsh conditions and loneliness. Bitterroot for- that leaves their own fates uncertain. A wounded veteran and a est ranger Debra Lewis is recently divorced (after finding out her strong newspaperwoman combine with a well-constructed plot husband had two other wives—“He’s in prison for trigamy”) and to spin a plausible and engaging tale. It brings to mind Owen hell-bent on drinking herself to death. But finding Cloris, who Laukkanen’s Deception Cove with its pairing of solid male and she believes survived the crash, becomes her mission. Through it female protagonists. she meets a widowed search-and-rescue specialist named Steven This one wins far more on characters and danger than Bloor and his sullen teenage daughter, Jill. Chapters recounting on bloodshed. Keep books like this coming, Chad Dundas. Cloris’ struggle to survive alternate with those describing Lewis’ search and her entanglement with the Bloors. Cloris’ chapters are by turns thrilling, poignant, and hilarious, carried along by her GOOD GIRLS LIE irresistible first-person narration. She is so matter-of-fact, wry, Ellison, J.T. and indomitable it’s not hard to imagine she’s a granddaughter of Harlequin MIRA (464 pp.) True Grit’s Mattie Ross. Lewis’ part of the story is less engaging, $16.99 paper | Dec. 30, 2019 in part because its third-person narration lacks Cloris’ winning 978-0-7783-3077-6 voice. Lewis’ work life is oddly more outlandish than Cloris’ wilderness journey; so many wacky colleagues and eccentric locals After the gruesome deaths of her jostle for space with the weird Bloor family that the Fargo-esque parents, a 16-year-old English girl sets humor can seem strained. And Lewis’ alcoholism is so prodigious a terrifying string of events in motion that, after she’s guzzled six or seven bottles of wine in one day, it’s when she moves to Virginia to attend an hard to credit her staying conscious, much less driving mountain elite all-girl prep school. roads. But both she and Cloris find paths to self-discovery, and When coding whiz Ash Carlisle gets eventually some will be saved. a scholarship to The Goode School in Marchburg, Virginia, A captivating survival story alternates with a less sat- she’s anxious to leave England, and a trove of bad memories, isfying look at a midlife crisis in this promising first novel. behind. After all, her abusive father’s death by overdose and

12 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com |

A riveting, potentially redemptive story of modern American suburbia that reads almost like an ancient Greek tragedy. a good neighborhood

her mother’s subsequent suicide would traumatize any child. legal battle over a dying tree. As the novel builds toward its dev- Ash is determined to keep her head down and her grades up, astating climax, it nimbly negotiates issues of race and racism, with an eye toward college. However, her accent and outsider class and gentrification, sex and sexual violence, environmental status paint a target on her back, and she soon catches the eye destruction and other highly charged topics. Fowler (A Well– of haughty and beautiful Becca Curtis, a senior who rules the Behaved Woman, 2018, etc.) empathetically conjures nuanced school with near impunity. But Ash intrigues Becca, and it’s not characters we won’t soon forget, expertly weaves together their long before Ash’s social standing takes a turn, and she’s inducted stories, and imbues the plot with a sense of inevitability and into Ivy Bound, Becca’s secret society. Unfortunately, Ash’s urgency. In the end, she offers an opportunity for catharsis as hope for a new beginning starts to unravel when her roomie, well as a heartfelt, hopeful call to action. Camille, takes a fatal header off the bell tower and dark secrets Traversing topics of love, race, and class, this emo- from Ash’s fraught past, including the circumstances surround- tionally complex novel speaks to—and may reverberate ing the deaths of her parents, start clawing their way to the beyond—our troubled times. surface. Ellison throws in all the elements of a good gothic: a school history chock full of murder and mayhem; secret societies; and halls rumored to be haunted, but Ash swings wildly from sympathetic to insufferable. Readers cheering her devil- may-care attitude and initial resistance to mean-girl shenani- gans will be frustrated to see her eventually groveling at the feet of Becca and her cronies, especially after the cruel hazing they put her through. Ellison juggles multiple narratives that weave

past and present with ease, but with the book approaching 500 young adult pages, readers may be exhausted from all the melodrama once they finally reach the messy, over-the-top denouement. Overwrought and underwhelming.

A GOOD NEIGHBORHOOD Fowler, Therese Anne St. Martin’s Press (288 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-250-23727-9

A riveting, potentially redemptive story of modern American suburbia that reads almost like an ancient Greek tragedy. When the Whitmans, a nouveau riche white family, move into a sprawling, newly built house next door to Valerie Alston-Holt, a black professor of forestry and ecology, and her musically gifted, biracial 18-year-old son, Xavier, in a modest, diverse North Carolina neighborhood of cozy ranch houses on wooded lots, it is clear from the outset things will not end well. The neighborhood itself, which serves as the novel’s narrator and chorus, tells us so. The story begins on “a Sunday afternoon in May when our neighborhood is still maintaining its tenuous peace, a loose balance between old and new, us and them,” we are informed in the book’s opening paragraph. “Later this summer when the funeral takes place, the media will speculate boldly on who’s to blame.” The exact nature of the tragedy that has been foretold and questions of blame come into focus gradually as a series of events is set inex- orably in motion when the Whitmans’ cloistered 17-year-old daughter, Juniper, encounters Xavier. The two teenagers tumble into a furtive, pure-hearted romance even as Xavier’s mom and Juniper’s stepfather, Brad, a slick operator who runs a successful HVAC business and has secrets of his own, lock horns in a

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 13

INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Jami Attenberg

IN ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS, THE NOVELIST WRITES ABOUT A MONSTROUS NEW ORLEANS PATRIARCH AND HIS SYMPATHETIC, DAMAGED FAMILY By Cherise Wolas Zack Smith granddaughters. Indeed, Alex was the first character to come to Attenberg. “I had this idea of a person visiting the city as a tourist, sitting at a hotel rooftop bar, talking about the impending death of a family member. I heard her voice while I was driving, and I started the first chapter that day.” When Victor has a heart attack, each Tuchman experiences a moment of clarity, and as the family members arrive, or don’t, at Victor’s bedside, Attenberg offers up their lifetimes, leaving room for interpretation, which occasionally foreshadows the unexpected. “I have an idea about what a character means when they say something, but I don’t like to overstate things. I structure my books so there’s just enough flexibility that the reader can access it in a personal way.” About the Tuchmans being Jewish, Attenberg says, “Whenever you write a book about a Jewish family, and you’re Jewish, you have an access point...and the dysfunction of families is universal if done right.” About the Tuchman name? She laughs. “Tuch reminded me of tuchus [Yiddish for ass], and I kind of think of them as assholes.” Jami Attenberg’s sharply compelling seventh nov- The Tuchmans are thorny, especially cold, aloof el, All This Could Be Yours (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Barbra, who hadn’t wanted children. “There was nev- Oct. 22), is a New Orleans–set family drama that un- er a moment when I didn’t know her,” Attenberg says. folds over the “day of mortality” for patriarch Victor “She’s a specific type of mother, but I tried to write her Tuchman. He’s monstrous—a cruel husband and fa- with compassion. I gave her certain gifts along the way ther, but he’s not Attenberg’s focus. “I had an idea of a so she wouldn’t feel so alone and so her life wouldn’t be bad guy who could justify anything he does,” she says. so dreary. I wrote my way into feeling more sympathet- “But I put him in a coma in the first three pages…be- ic to her.” About all her characters, she says, “I either cause I didn’t want him to be an antihero. I’m explor- start out not liking them and must write my way into ing a specific family that has been entrenched in the liking them, or I start out liking them and write my patriarchy and examining the damage he caused.” That way into not liking them as much. But I always must damage has been profound for wife Barbra—keeper of go through this process no matter what!” Victor’s secrets who, as Attenberg writes, “asked for New Orleans features vividly in the novel. Atten- nothing but the objects she loved”—and for daughter berg wrote her bestselling novels The Middlesteins and Alex, son Gary, daughter-in-law Twyla, and, later, the All Grown Up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she

14 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | lived for many years, but New Orleans is where she bought a house, and it’s the city she now considers home. Victor and Barbra’s relocation to New Orleans is precipitous—Victor’s reason for choosing the city will shock—and they are still newcomers, “people who take pleasure in the city but don’t know who’s making the city run and work,” as Attenberg describes the Tuchmans and the tourists who make it a prime destination. When Attenberg began All This Could Be Yours, GUILTY NOT GUILTY she knew she was also “going to write about charac- Francis, Felix Putnam (384 pp.) ters who had lived there all their lives.” Leaning into $27.00 | Nov. 19, 2019 “the kaleidoscopic nature of the book” was suggested 978-0-525-53679-6 by her editor and novelist Laura van den Berg, one of The husband and brother of an unsta- her readers, and as these true New Orleanians bump ble woman who’s been strangled get into up against the Tuchmans in unpredictable ways, their a battle royal over which of them will get well-imagined, entwined stories provide texture and the other convicted of her murder. insight into the city’s history. Fragile, childless art historian/curator Amelia Gordon-Russell always enjoyed Attenberg says that writing about New Orleans was, cordial relations with her brother, High Court enforcement offi- for her, the riskiest thing about All This Could Be Yours: cer Joseph Bradbury, until three years ago, when their widowed “The people who live here have such a sense of owner- mother, Mary Bradbury, provoked Joe by selling the family home and moving to smaller digs close to Amelia and her hus- ship of the city,” she says. “I will always think of this band, freelance business consultant William Gordon-Russell, book as my first New Orleans book. I hope the people who doubles as an honorary steward at the Warwick racetrack. of New Orleans like it. I do think it’s the best thing Even since that perceived slight, Joe’s been increasingly hostile I’ve written.” to Bill and increasingly intent on turning Amelia against him.

When Amelia is found strangled by a dog’s leash, Joe, who did young adult the finding, is quick to accuse Bill—who’d unwisely acquired a Cherise Wolas is the author of The Resurrection of Joan police record for sex with a minor many years ago—of her mur- Ashby and The Family Tabor. All This Could Be Yours der and provide DS Dowdeswell of the Thames Valley Police with evidence against him. Dowdeswell and his cohort ques- received a starred review in the Aug. 15, 2019, issue. tion Bill, question him again, hold him, release him, and give him many anxious hours before he produces an alibi that makes them give up on him. Now Bill, who’s been struggling mightily to interest Dowdeswell in Joe as a possible suspect, finds himself taken more seriously. Joe, spluttering his innocence as loudly as he’d ever trumpeted Bill’s guilt, finds himself first in a prison cell and then in the dock. The trial is suitably turbulent no matter who’s on the stand, and at times it seems there’ll never be a way to choose between the two men’s stories. But Francis (Crisis, 2018, etc.), pulling out one of the hoariest clichés in the genre, provides a final twist that combines ambiguity and decisiveness. Virtually nothing about horses, despite the Francis byline, but a banquet of juicy he said, he said moments.

CLEANNESS Greenwell, Garth Farrar, Straus and Giroux (240 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-0-374-12458-8

Greenwell depicts the emotionally haunted life of an expatriate American teacher in Sofia, Bulgaria—who seems to be the same unnamed character who narrated his highly praised debut novel, What Belongs to You (2016). At the heart of that last novel was Mitko, a gay hustler who fueled the narrator’s pained desire, then disgust, and ultimately empathy, but he doesn’t appear here. The narrator pushes more sexual boundaries this time, and Greenwell admirably pushes

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 15 them too by depicting those desires with an unflinching frank- and ears everywhere, and to complicate things, Jazz is falling for ness. Sadomasochism, unprotected sex, the narrator’s voyeuris- Sofia Russo, the sultry assistant principal of Joaquin’s school, tic attraction to one of his students: They are all elements of who’s dealing with her own problems. Heard expertly blends the story, portrayed in Greenwell’s precise, elegant style. The nearly nonstop thrills and some genuinely surprising twists with narrator’s experience seems to align with Greenwell’s; the spot-on social commentary that makes an impact without get- writer has acknowledged the autofictional nature of his writing. ting preachy. Depictions of rough sex bookend the novel, but it’s the narra- Just try to put this one down. tor’s relationship with Portuguese student R., who appeared briefly inWhat Belongs to You, that occupies most of Greenwell’s attention. Both marooned in Sofia, the men are happy together HERE I AM! until they acknowledge the futilities both of staying in Bulgaria Holdstock, Pauline and in a long-distance relationship. One of Greenwell’s talents is Biblioasis (256 pp.) making everyday occurrences feel dramatic and full of ambiva- $15.95 paper | Jan. 21, 2020 lence and nuance, but the scenes featuring the relationship at 978-1-77196-309-1 the heart of the novel suffer a bit in comparison to the dramatic sex depicted in other sections. Still, the simple beauty of the After his mother dies, a 6-year-old writing is something to behold. Here he is evoking a wind from English boy stows away on an ocean liner Africa that assaults Sofia: “There was something almost malevo- and embarks on a poignant voyage of lent about it, as if it were an intelligence, or at least an intention, discovery. carrying off whatever wasn’t secure, worrying every loose edge.” “When I got up the sea was pink,” Brave and beautiful. says Frankie Walters, describing his first day aboard the Gloriana. Having found his mother, Patti, dead in their Southampton, England, home and unable to get his THE KILL CLUB unsympathetic teacher, Miss Kenney, to believe him so that Heard, Wendy she could call the authorities, Frankie has run away from his Harlequin MIRA (368 pp.) school and snuck onto the ship. His plan is to go to France, find $15.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2019 a police station, and ring his traveling salesman father, Len, but 978-0-7783-0903-1 he soon discovers that the vessel is sailing to America. Readjust- ing his agenda, Frankie adapts to life at sea as a secret passenger, In Heard’s sophomore thriller (Hunt scrounging a piece of cheese from the pool deck and sleeping ing Annabelle, 2018), a desperate woman behind a pile of deck-chair mattresses. He staves off loneliness at the end of her rope is drawn into an and panic attacks by counting—the ship’s 12 decks, sea gulls intriguing, but deadly, scheme. spotted (0)—and gradually making the acquaintance of a blind Twenty-eight-year-old Jasmine “Jazz” man named Gordon Knight and his guide dog, Alec. Narrated Benavides has had enough of her ex– in turn by Frankie and the adults in his life, this eighth novel foster mother, Carol. Jazz moved out a while back and barely by British-born Canadian author Holdstock (The Hunter and the makes ends meet stocking supermarket shelves in between gigs Wild Girl, 2018, etc.) is a moving tale about the invisibility chil- with her band. Her 13-year-old brother, Joaquin Coleman, still dren suffer when they are not heard and seen as their unique lives with the uber-religious and physically abusive Carol, who selves. Like Roddy Doyle in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha, Holdstock is actually his adoptive mother. That and Jazz’s criminal record inhabits the mind of a bright, funny, and sensitive child through are the reasons that Jazz has been unsuccessful in getting the exuberant, playful language that doesn’t mask the darkness of diabetic Joaquin away from a woman who speaks in tongues and his life. Frankie’s description of curling up on his dead mother’s denies him his insulin because she believes God will heal him. lap is heart-rending. However, the final chapter with the adult When Jazz must literally break into Carol’s house to deliver his Frankie, now Frank, as narrator feels a bit tacked on. The sud- medicine, things come to a head, and Carol beats Jazz with a den shift in tone from little boy to middle-aged man is jarring. baseball bat. A solution to the Carol problem comes in the form An unforgettable story about one very special child. of a phone call from a blocked number. The mysterious caller will make Carol go away for good, but Jazz will have to kill someone else in return. Like pay it forward but with a syringe loaded with deadly poison. The caller explains that the overarching mission is to bring justice to those who were robbed of it by a broken system. With Joaquin’s life on the line, Jazz doesn’t hesitate for long, but when she fails to take down her target, all hell breaks loose. The LAPD is frantically investigating the deaths they’ve dubbed the Blackbird killings, and Jazz is running out of time. The scrappy Jazz can kick ass with the best of them, but the Blackbird killer, who pulls all the strings, seems to have eyes

16 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | A 20-something Florida house-flipper navigates the land mines of young adulthood. bright lights, medium-sized city

BRIGHT LIGHTS, MEDIUM- WHY I WRITE? SIZED CITY Hrabal, Bohumil Holic, Nathan Trans. by Short, David Illus. by the author Karolinum Press (300 pp.) Burrow Press (620 pp.) $20.00 | Dec. 15, 2019 $25.00 | Dec. 10, 2019 978-80-246-4268-0 978-1-941681-61-9 A collection of formative fiction A 20-something Florida house-flip- from a writer whose work has earned per navigates the land mines of young comparison with Joyce and Beckett. adulthood. Beyond Central Europe, Hrabal might Holic (American Fraternity Man, 2013, best be known for Closely Watched Trains (1965), his novel adapted etc.) captures the essence of the novel he’s sending up here, Jay into a movie which won an Oscar for best foreign film in 1968. McInerny’s Bright Lights, Big City (1984), while transposing it to This collection’s “Cain,” subtitled “An Existentialist Short Story,” a more boring place—Orlando, Florida, circa 2009—offering offers an earlier version of that tale in the first-person account of way less cocaine and replacing the Brat Pack vibe with a True a man who says he’s “leaving on a quest for simple human happi- West–ish rivalry between brothers who are not nearly as inter- ness, to harmonise [his] life to [his] thoughts”; he finds his life esting as Sam Shepard’s angry siblings or McInerny’s 1980s- and identity jumbled by a train trip that presents complications era stereotypical coke addicts. Constructed as five “books,” he had never anticipated, with hospitalization and pregnancy which are entangled but not orderly, the novel tracks the arc of among the consequences. The cornerstone of the book might

20-something loser Marc. He’s been abandoned by his fiancee, young adult Shelley, as well as his business partner, Edwin, who left him with 10 lousy properties right on the eve of the real estate bubble’s bursting. He’s also estranged from his well-meaning but ruthless father. One of the troubling qualities of this novel about a privileged dude is that it’s often, well, whiny; Marc is a sad sack whose narrative drama only changes when he’s forced to take in his freeloader bro, Kyle. The first book is constructed as a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel, which might or might not resonate with readers but definitely reflects Marc’s gloomy existential crisis in which any decision seems like torment. Through all the books, there are endless sequences of Marc, Kyle, and their various friends watching the end of the Orlando Magic’s 2009 NBA season, broken up by odd jolts in style. The third book dives deep into Marc’s childhood, ending with him being assaulted after another drunk, angry night out. The next volume gets even stranger, abandoning Marc’s first-person narration for a series of vignettes from the points of view of Marc’s brother, his friends, the mayor of Orlando, and a long-dead, legendary man named Orlando Reeves, a soldier killed during the Seminole war. It all comes to a head during a friend’s wedding, constructed by the narrative as a “Final Exam” for Marc, forcing him to take stock of the decisions he’s made and just what it means to be a “grown-ass man.” Though punctuated by clever cartoons, it’s still too long and not very funny.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 17 A moving post-apocalyptic fable for grown-ups. the bear

well be “The Sufferings of Old Werther,” which at 84 pages is A GOOD MAN easily the longest piece, written in a first-person stream of con- Katz, Ani sciousness that combines various narrative strands, jumping from Penguin (224 pp.) one to another and then back again, in a manner reminiscent of $17.00 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 Finnegans Wake. The translator’s notes say that this is the first of 978-0-14-313498-5 Hrabal’s pieces to draw inspiration from his uncle, who is credited as collaborator on the subsequent “Protocol” and to whom “A A successful Manhattan adman believes Schizophrenic Gospel” is dedicated. Many of the stories employ his family comes first—but commits an second-person narration, addressing the reader as “you,” instead unthinkable act against them. of the more common first- or third-person perspectives, and The world in which the events of most often the prose is dense, without conventional paragraph- Katz’s disturbing debut novel unfold is a ing or punctuation, with sentences flowing over pages. The tone dangerous place. Mass graves are discov- throughout is dark comedy, exploring human absurdity and car- ered in Damascus. College students set themselves on fire to nality amid a universe that is at best senseless, if not malevolent. protest against their deportations. There are school massacres, “You insist the world can be perfect only in its totality,” says one hunger strikes, police shootings, a paramilitary presence on the character, “meaning that good and evil are both necessary, other- streets. Against this unsettling backdrop of violence and disas- wise it would come crashing down.” ter—which doesn’t feel that far removed from American life in Early work from a writer who merits a larger readership. 2019—Thomas Martin unspools his dark confession. Thomas is an adman in Manhattan. He spins stories for a living, making “things like death seem clean and manageable—attractive, even.” TRACK CHANGES Thomas’ troubled childhood has provided him with a unique Kashua, Sayed view of emotional disaster and prepared him well for his career. Trans. by Ginsburg, Mitch His abusive father was a drunk, his mother a cowering, terri- Grove (242 pp.) fied wreck. His older sister committed suicide, and his younger $26.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 sisters exist in an extended adolescence, wandering aimlessly 978-0-8021-4789-9 through the wreck of the family house on Long Island. But Thomas has built a better life for himself. He fell in love, got An Arab Israeli man reckons with married, had a daughter. He’s working on an important account. the mistake that determined the course He’s transformed. He is, he tells us, a good man, one who takes of his life. care of his family. But Thomas is not a reliable narrator, and his The narrator of Kashua’s (Native, 2017, account slowly unravels as Katz reveals his inner turmoil. And if etc.) latest novel is a writer, of sorts. He he’s such a good man, why did he buy that threatening billy club ghostwrites memoirs for the clients who seek him out—most of online for “psychological protection”? As she expertly builds a them elderly, most of them Jewish. Occasionally he inserts his own growing sense of dread, Katz creates an unsettling atmosphere memories among their narratives. He himself is Arab and for most of paranoia, fear, and rage, hinting at the catastrophe to come of the novel goes unnamed; eventually, though, a minor character through ominous comparisons to the tragic operas Thomas asks, “Are you Saeed?” and he answers, “Yes.” Saeed grew up in loves. This is the sort of relentless novel you can’t put down Tira, a Palestinian village in Israel. At some point, something went even when you’re afraid to read what happens next. wrong, and Saeed left for Jerusalem. Now, he and his wife and chil- An unnerving and absorbing exploration of modern dren live in Illinois, and it’s been almost 20 years since he’s seen the masculinity and how the seeds of violence are sown. rest of his family. It’s Saeed’s mistake, whatever it was, that Kashua is primarily concerned with. He circles around it, revealing details only gradually. If he meant for this strategy to hold the reader in THE BEAR suspense, he isn’t entirely successful: The result feels too drawn Krivak, Andrew out, as if we’ve been strung along for too long, with too little to Bellevue Literary Press (224 pp.) show for it. Saeed’s mistake has to do with a short story he wrote $16.99 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 years ago, and his wife, it turns out, was the primary victim. So it’s 978-1-942658-70-2 unfortunate that his wife, whose name is Palestine, never emerges as a fully-fledged character. Saeed has nothing more insightful A moving post-apocalyptic fable for to say about her than that “she’s beautiful, so beautiful,” and she grown-ups. never gets to speak for herself. The most moving parts of the book, We’re not entirely sure why it is in fact, don’t have to do with Saeed’s mistake at all. These are the that an unnamed man and his unnamed descriptions of the prejudice and discrimination Saeed faces at daughter are an endangered species, the hands of his Jewish colleagues, a topic that Kashua has already but we do know, after the man dies, written about, more effectively, elsewhere. that the animals call her “the last one.” Before his demise, the A rambling novel about regret strays too close, too man teaches his daughter how to hunt, make snowshoes and often, to self-pity. arrows, comprehend the ways of the trees and the seasons in

18 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | their mountain stronghold; they read “poetry from poets with really in love with but then we couldn’t get Guillermo to direct strange names like Homer and Virgil, Hilda Doolittle and Wen- and then I kind of fell out of love and I fired everybody?” The dell Berry, poems about gods and men and the wars between narrator digs in her heels—after all, she needs a place to raise them, the beauty of small things, and peace,” and they talk night her daughter, Pep, hide her ex-con sister, Fin, and entertain her and day about the things that matter. Krivak (The Signal Flame, book club, currently reading “a multigenerational family saga 2017, etc.) delivers no small amount of poetry himself in what set in the Burmese mountains in the winter of 1806, written by might have been a cloying exercise in anthropomorphism, for a queer-leaning Bangladeshi paraplegic.” This means war. once the preteen daughter is alone, a noble-minded bear takes A high-thread-count sheet of jokes swathing a plot as care of her, avoiding “the place of the walls” where humans once slender as its eating-challenged narrator. dwelled in favor of alpine lakes and, in winter, a remote cave. A puma joins in the adventure to provide food while the bear sleeps, assuring her that she will become part of a story “for the forest to remember for as long as there is forest beneath the sun.” Part of the girl’s task is to bury her father on the distant mountaintop next to her mother’s grave, then, as the years pass, to honor them, “a girl no longer, though forever their child.” A literary rejoinder of sorts to Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us (2007), Krivak’s slender story assures us that even without humans, the world will endure: The bears and mountain lions will come into their own in a world of buckled roofs and “ruined

books,” and they themselves will tell stories under the light young adult of the Great Bear. That’s small comfort to some humans, no doubt, but it makes for a splendid thought exercise and a lovely fable-cum-novel. Ursula K. Le Guin would approve. An effective, memorable tale.

BEEN THERE, MARRIED THAT Levangie, Gigi St. Martin’s (336 pp.) $27.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-1-250-16681-4

A Hollywood divorce with all the trimmings: luxury real estate, lawyers, TMZ, plastic surgery, an Oscar, and a night in jail. It begins at the narrator’s 48th birthday party, where her A-list movie star husband, Trevor, toasts her…work ethic. “My fertility is on its last heaving throes, my eggs scrambled and crapping out, waving the white maxi pad. All that’s left for me is flushing and sweat. Soon, I will be all dried out, a human tumbleweed, rolling along Sunset Boulevard to guzzle martinis at the Polo Lounge,” she says. Rushing along in a torrent of inner monologue, snappy dialogue, puns, memes, and wisecracks, the narrator of Levangie’s (Seven Deadlies, 2013, etc.) latest goes from the birthday celebration to a book party with signature cocktails called “Tres Dead- lies” and “Deadlies on Arrival”—suggesting that the author, a former Hollywood wife herself, knows whereof she speaks. When the narrator gets home, she finds the code to the gate of her “mid-century California ranch-style estate in the famed Palisades Riviera” has been changed. After she climbs over, the guard, ordered to keep her out, tasers her. “I’m putting this marriage in turnaround,” announces the extremely self-absorbed Trevor. “You know, like when I had that cartel project I was

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 19 BORN SLIPPY survivor, Romy’s progression from suspect to the freedom of her Lutz, Tom own small apartment takes months. But despite her willingness Repeater (296 pp.) to pretend otherwise for the authorities, her true goal is not to $16.95 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 assimilate into a world she has been catechized her entire life to 978-1-912248-64-3 believe will soon end. She must find her siblings, who have been placed with her mother’s sister, Sarah, and return to the safety of A man of modest ambitions falls the cult in its second location, in Scotland, one that the authori- under the spell of a shallow and rapa- ties know nothing about. There are some gruesome tasks she cious billionaire. must undertake first, however, and she performs these with alac- Frank, when we meet him in 2000, rity. The reader discovers what led to the cult members’ demise just wants to build a high-quality house as the dark and twisting story jumps back and forth among times, in Connecticut and start a new life after places, and people, covering the 20 years that Romy grew up a failed relationship. Dmitry, the teenage son of distant acquain- within the Ark, training for survival and preparing for the end of tances in England, happens to be around to help, though he’s the world. A confusing mass of detail at the beginning of the book an incompetent tradesman and his main talent is roping Frank settles into a disturbing exploration of religious fervor and how (or “Franky,” as he calls him, much to Frank’s annoyance) into belief can be used to justify the worst impulses of humankind. schemes redolent of prostitution and insurance fraud. Cutting Author Marwood (The Darkest Secret, 2016, etc.) has a deft touch the cord isn’t so simple for Frank, though: Over the dozen or so in this pre-apocalyptic tale. years after they meet, Dmitry pulls Frank into his orbit, be it for A gripping, unexpected novel with graphic elements sleazy low-grade dalliances with women and drugs or sleazy high- that are not for the faint of heart. stakes money laundering. “What sick shit within you responds to him?” a girlfriend asks Frank, and that’s the core question of the first novel by LutzAnd ( the Monkey Learned Nothing, 2016, THE BODY OUTSIDE etc.), editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. Tonally, the novel THE KREMLIN aspires to be an intellectual thriller, heavy on the intellectual part; May, James L. though the plot pivots on an explosion in 2013 that seems to have Delphinium (416 pp.) Dmitry’s hands on it, the story mainly follows Frank’s ongoing $28.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 moral hand-wringing over multiple aspects of Dmitry’s life. Lutz 978-1-883285-84-5 carefully chronicles Frank’s inner storms (references to The Third Man are just one echo of Graham Greene here), though Dmitry Serving time in the mid-1920s in is less resolved. Lutz alternates between making him a mere alle- the notorious Solovetsky prison labor gory of capitalist greed or an outright cartoon of it (right down camp, located on an island that used to to the oversized penis). “It would be a gigantic error to settle for be a monastery, a 20-year-old student is being a capitalist pig when I can, with not an iota’s more effort, pressed to help investigate the murder of be an imperialist pig,” Dmitry declaims. The clash of sensibili- a fellow prisoner with whom he was acquainted. ties between Frank and Dmitry gives the novel a queasy frisson, The student, Anatoly “Tolya” Bogomolov, was convicted of though one wishes it had more to say about the mind of the pig. possessing forbidden books. The dead man, Gennady Antonov, An entertaining neonoir about the wages of greed. found floating in the bay, had been in charge of restoring prized icons in the former monastery building. Tolya is drawn to the investigation, which requires him to deal with fussy, aging detec- THE POISON GARDEN tive Petrovich, for two reasons: The job will lighten his labor in Marwood, Alex the camp and improve his “accommodations,” and he is a fan of Penguin (400 pp.) forensic crime novels featuring such sleuths as Sherlock Holmes, $16.00 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 Nick Carter, and Nat Pinkerton. But with a real killer on the 978-0-14-311052-1 loose, Tolya discovers the folly of “modeling [himself] on literary detectives.” At the risk of becoming the next victim, and upset- After what looks like a mass suicide ting the authorities, he must get close to a female prisoner with on the grounds of a cult’s commune in whom Antonov had an affair; uncover the significance of the Wales, the three known survivors are icons, which were in the possession of monks when the monas- forced into modern British life in this tery occupied the space; and uncover a secret conspiracy involv- psychological thriller. ing White Army officers. Tolya’s account, which stretches into Romy, pregnant and almost 21, and the 1930s and ’40s, is written in the form of a detective novel. By her two half siblings, Eden, 15, and Ilo, 13, are the only survivors turns clever and revealing, May’s novel keeps the brutality largely found alive in Plas Golau—home of the Ark commune—when an in the background while following Tolya’s more intellectual inter- ungodly stench leads the authorities to the grounds. More than ests. The narrative can get dry, but this is a fine debut. a hundred people have died from poisoning, their bodies rotting A brainy if sometimes saggy novel that presents a dif- in the sun where they fell as they sought help. As the only adult ferent spin on the prison-camp novel.

20 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | A genre-busting tale rife with ghosts, history, and music, at once lyrical and street-wise. the book of lost saints

THE PURSUIT OF doesn’t want to try again for a baby. As Mia reels from Harri- WILLIAM ABBEY son’s decision, she and Oliver begin to research their unlikely North, Claire dream connection. They have so much in common, and being Orbit (464 pp.) with him is easier than being around her withdrawn husband. $16.99 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 It’s clear that the two of them are connected in some way—but 978-0-316-31684-2 what does that mean? Should Mia be with Oliver or Harrison? Oakley (Close Enough To Touch, 2017, etc.) skillfully navigates sev- A suspenseful tale of the truths that eral twists and turns, never settling for a predictable plot. The lie hidden in the human heart. tension ratchets up quickly in the last third of the book as the English doctor William Abbey stood characters hurtle toward the somewhat shocking event that by and said nothing while a white mob finally reveals why Mia and Oliver are meant to be in each oth- set a Zulu boy on fire in Natal in 1884. er’s lives. Readers expecting a simple happily-ever-after should The boy’s mother cursed him, and now the shadow of the boy look elsewhere, but those looking for a Me Before You–style sob- who died follows him implacably wherever he goes. As the fest are in the right place. shadow draws near, Abbey sees the truth in people’s hearts; if it A heartbreaking and thought-provoking exploration of reaches him, someone he loves dies. Where he sees a curse, oth- fate, love, and choice sure to bring on a few tears. ers see a tool, and before long, he’s drawn into service as a spy. Abbey says he wants a cure for his condition, but it’s when he meets a woman like him that what he truly wants, and what he’ll THE BOOK OF LOST SAINTS do to get it, starts to become clear. North (The Gameshouse, 2019, Older, Daniel José

etc.) has reached back into her seemingly bottomless bag of Imprint (336 pp.) young adult tricks and pulled out another striking and unusual story—and $26.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 this one marries an original concept with a straightforwardly 978-1-250-18581-5 suspenseful plot, making it more accessible than some of her other recent work. “Truth,” says one of the truth-speakers, “is A New Jersey man reckons with his imperceptible to human eyes, because we are so caught up in family’s history during the Cuban revolu- being ourselves that we are never simply here, seeing, here, tion with the help of a needy and persis- being, here.” This is a world-spanning cat-and-mouse chase that tent ghost. tackles big questions about the nature of truth and whether we Ramón’s day-to-day life is pretty can ever really know one another or ourselves. simple: work (he’s a security guard at a True love, life and death, what’s worth dying—or kill- hospital), play (he’s a popular party DJ), and romance (he’s in a ing—for: It’s all here in this gripping, bloody, and haunting relationship, if a shaky one, with a co-worker). His Cuban heri- novel. tage is of only passing interest to him, in part because the family lore is so obscure. Did one aunt really kill herself when Castro took power? Did another really escape? Marisol, one of those YOU WERE THERE TOO aunts, isn’t clear on the details herself; and, being dead, her sole Oakley, Colleen investigative option is to haunt Ramón’s dreams and prompt Berkley (352 pp.) him to do the legwork. This ingenious setup by fantasy and YA $16.00 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 pro Older (Freedom Fire, 2019, etc.) gives the narrative an eerie 978-1-9848-0646-8 vibe while still taking its history seriously and wraps a tangible story around the notion that history haunts us. A subplot that A woman finally meets the man of puts Ramón under threat from an expat Cuban underworld her dreams, literally, then must decide chief further stresses the point and makes the story more than what to do about it. a genealogy exercise. Ramón’s travels reconnect him with fam- Mia and her doctor husband, Harri- ily and ultimately deliver him to Cuba in a fine sequence that son, have recently moved from Philadel- clears up some of his and Marisol’s inquiries while introducing phia to a small Pennsylvania town. Mia him to a country that’s actively oppressive when not merely spends most of her time trying to convince local art galleries bureaucratic. (The trip also introduces him to Havana’s fur- to show her work and grieving the loss of three very wanted tive but defiant gay subculture.) Older trusts the reader won’t pregnancies. Although their marriage is largely happy, Mia closely scrutinize what Marisol can and can’t do as a ghost, and is keeping a secret from her husband and everyone else—for the plotting is rough-hewn. But its voice is solid: Older’s nar- years, she’s been having dreams about a man she’s never met. rative smoothly alternates between Ramon’s macho demeanor She assumes he’s just a figment of her imagination, but then she and Marisol’s more gentle and pleading voice; from America’s sees him at the grocery store—and runs into him again when hard-nosed culture to Cuba’s more worn-down one; and from Harrison treats his sister for appendicitis. His name is Oliver, ghost story to literary family saga. and he’s been dreaming of her, too. Meanwhile, Mia and Har- A genre-busting tale rife with ghosts, history, and rison’s relationship hits a significant roadblock—he decides he music, at once lyrical and street-wise.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 21 NIGHT THEATER an American writer who’s decamped to London struggles to Paralkar, Vikram attain intimacy when all he seems to attract are men who don’t Catapult (224 pp.) want to be in relationships with him. “I was one of those things $16.95 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 that can be used only once,” he worries. “People like Derek, I 978-1-948226-54-7 thought...they were able to have boyfriends and still find the time for trysts...whereas it was all I could manage to be some- In this otherworldly novel, a can- one’s someone else.” In the hilarious “Sky Writing,” a man tankerous surgeon in a remote village in boards a flight and tells a college student sitting next to him India attempts to revive a dead family. the story of his doomed relationship with a wealthy capitalist, A surgeon is about to leave his clinic whose love requires him to travel around the world intermi- for the night when a teacher, his preg- nably; meanwhile, he pursues potential romance with a flight nant wife, and their boy make a special attendant. “Bliss” finds a young man sheltering the thug who request. They are undead, recently murdered by attackers, but murdered his mother, for reasons that no one—not even the an angel has promised them that if the surgeon repairs their man himself—can make sense of. Stories like these find Peck injuries by dawn, they’ll be returned to the land of the living. in fine, counterintuitive form, spinning fiction from the most The surgeon; his only assistant, a pharmacist; and her husband unlikely and captivating premises, writing in a mode that rides are confronted with an impossible task—to heal these ghost- the line between horror and erotica. When he allows himself beings in an antiquated operating room ill-equipped to mend to step out of his self-fashioned quirkiness the stories attain a even earthly bodies in a single night. “Whatever he was feel- level of emotional honesty that stuns. However, Peck too often ing now—the fear and fatigue—the night would only magnify falls prey to his own impulses toward provocation, resulting in it.” Physician-scientist Paralkar (The Afflictions, 2014) does not stories that nauseate without much intellectual payoff. In “Not name his misfit cast of characters. Their anonymity alludes to Even Camping Is Like Camping Anymore,” a 5-year-old fixates their perilous circumstances and distressing exile. His prose on a teen boy in terms that are explicitly sexualized. Peck han- is sharp and melodious, and within these enchanting passages dles the subject more for laughs than thought, and the result is a is a haunting contemplation of life, death, the liminal space in story that plays into dangerous stereotypes about gay men. The between, and the dogged search for resurrection. Resurrection collection’s final two stories, “Summer Beam” parts one and two, isn’t reserved only for the dead, however. The surgeon, though end in a disgusting incident of misogynist violence that haunts, he possesses a heartbeat and other signs of life, is trapped in but only because it feels willfully mean-spirited and poorly a kind of purgatory himself. Three years earlier, in an act of plotted. revenge against him, a former colleague sullied the surgeon’s A fresh collection marred by its author’s insistence on reputation, forcing him to leave his large private hospital in provocation. the city to practice medicine in the middle of nowhere. His bitterness is palpable and tinges every aspect of his days. And yet, underneath it all, he manages to scrape together some sem- IMAGINARY MUSEUMS blance of humanity. “We hope that before we die we’ll find some Polek, Nicolette final truth, a magic bulb to switch on and make all the wrong Soft Skull Press (128 pp.) paths disappear. Until then, all we can do is walk through thorns $15.95 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 and try not to trip.” 978-1-59376-586-6 A beguiling and unforgettable fable. In her debut, Polek delivers a wide- ranging batch of 26 very short stories. WHAT BURNS Rather than settling for one or two Peck, Dale guiding themes, Polek offers an enjoy- Soho (216 pp.) able balance of light and dark subject $16.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 matter, sweet and bitter characters, cud- 978-1-64129-082-1 dly and cruel moments. A handful of the stories veer into fantasy and fable. She has immense talent for sudden, quietly affecting A collection of inventive stories turns of phrase, luminous details, and word choices that firmly about queer life that is often too edgy for pin images down. A mathematician awakes one morning with a its own good. headache and finds “a gray lump, translucent like a cube of gela- Peck (Night Soil, 2018, etc.) returns tin” on her pillow. At an office building, a dropped ball dwomps“ with his first story collection, with tales down the staircase, blinking around corners.” In “Pets I No that circle around questions of belong- Longer Have,” there’s “a turtle from Florida, forgotten on the ing, entrapment, violence, and the frustrated desire for intimacy. rooftop of my parents’ car.” Other memorable animals include Most often Peck trains his attention on relationships between a 90-pound rabbit, an albino wolfhound named Mercy, and a queer men, most of which are laced with melancholy if not pet owl named Squash. “The Dance,” one standout, is a love outright misanthropy. In “The Law of Diminishing Returns,” story haunted by a couple’s laziness: “It is as though the lexis

22 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 23 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Steph Cha

THE AUTHOR’S NEW THRILLER, YOUR HOUSE WILL PAY, DRAWS ON A REAL-LIFE LOS ANGELES KILLING IN THE RUN-UP TO THE CITY’S 1992 RIOTS By Gene Seymour

Maria Kanevskaya Cha, a 33-year-old Korean American born and raised in Southern California, was too young to remember those events with any clarity. “I actually didn’t hear about it until I heard a radio interview in 2013. I think I knew at some point I was going to write about it because those early ’90s seemed to make up an important part of our history, as people in the Los Angeles community and as Korean Americans.” By the time the idea for Your House Will Pay first took hold, Cha had been in the middle of her trilogy of mysteries (Dead Soon Enough, 2015, etc.) featuring a feisty 20-something Korean American, Raymond Chandler–be- sotted PI named Juniper Song. While those thrillers were as absorbed as Chandler’s with the social and cultural milieu of Los Angeles, Cha knew she needed to raise her game in telling the story of two Angeleno families, one Ko- rean named Park, the other African American named Mat- thews, dealing with the decades-old-but-still-incendiary fallout of an incident similar to the Harlins case. “To be honest,” Cha concedes, “writing the Korean family was 10 times easier even though they’re not at all like my family.” Grace and Miriam Park are two very different sisters, with Grace, good-natured and naïve, closer to their At some point, Steph Cha says, research for a novelist can mother than Miriam, who is more sophisticated—and rel- only do so much. The imagination has to step in and say, atively jaded. When their mother is wounded in a drive-by in essence, facts are facts, but a story needs people, and shooting, Grace is shocked to learn from Miriam that the you’ve got to let them come onto the page and help you attack could be retribution for shooting a black teenage tell the truth. girl almost 30 years before. “I knew a lot of families like Such stakes are higher with the explosive material mak- the Parks who weren’t in this country as long as mine were ing up Your House Will Pay (Ecco, Oct. 15), Cha’s gripping, and where the language and political differences between haunting thriller inspired by the real-life case of Latasha generations are more pronounced. Those parts were very Harlins, who was shot to death in 1991 by a Korean woman natural to me. It took more work for me to write about who mistakenly believed the African American teenager Shawn and his family.” was trying to rob her Los Angeles convenience store. The “Shawn” is Shawn Matthews, an African American ex- incident, coming 13 days after the videotaped beating of convict and furniture mover whose sister Ava was the vic- Rodney King by LA police officers, helped fan the flames tim of that aforementioned shooting. Shawn, in desperate of racial unrest leading to the city’s 1992 riots. search for a life as quiet and placid as Grace’s, is interrogat-

24 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | ed by an LAPD detective for the Parks’ mother’s shooting, and while he has an alibi that can be verified, the same can’t be said for the rest of his family. To better render the Matthews, Cha says, “I had to read histories of black migration to Los Angeles, which is complicated because there were patterns to that migration before the 1990s and different patterns that came afterward.” These, along with interviews and conversations with black LA residents, helped, but Cha says the first third of the of their feelings is a separate creature within the house. Like book dealing with Shawn and his family went through a fat cat that holds all their secrets and stolen glances.” In the title story we meet Annie, who “had large pores and spent a several drafts. “My husband and my agent were my first lot of money covering them up. Annie also had unspeakable readers, and they could tell how different the nuances and grief and a master’s in history.” Several of the longer stories do details were between the Parks and the Matthews, and I less with more. Some offer sharp social commentary, a bit like Diane Williams but with more warmth and vulnerability. Even knew I needed to work harder, do more research, talk to the more academic or abstract pieces have a core of compas- more friends, and keep sounding people out. sion, as in the half-page list story “Girls I No Longer Know,” in In the end, she says, “I really painted it stroke by stroke, which the entrancing catalog includes, “The girl who emptied and at some point, though I couldn’t tell you exactly when flower food packets into her lotion” and “The girl in my mother who disappeared over time, and the girl who tried to find her.” or how, it felt as though I’d achieved a level of depth with A moving, impressively varied first collection. the African American family that matched the Korean family. Once I felt that both sides had a similar richness TOPICS OF CONVERSATION and texture, then I trusted myself to go forward with the Popkey, Miranda story, though my research never stopped.” Knopf (224 pp.) Cha’s commitment to such “texture” seems to have $23.95 | Jan. 9, 2020 978-0-525-65628-9 paid off. The starred Kirkus review of Your House Will Pay young adult singles out the book’s “warm, astute sensitivity toward An unnamed narrator navigates characters of diverse cultures.” female identity—her own and in gen- “I have no hard figures to prove this,” she says, “but I eral—through a series of conversations that span the course of 20 years in Pop- think that the best way to sharpen people’s empathic pow- key’s painfully sharp debut. ers is through fiction. It’s how you find out and better ap- Popkey begins in Italy. Our narra- preciate people who live, speak, and behave differently tor, a grad student in English, is spend- from whatever you’re used to. It’s as true for writers as it ing August on vacation with a more glamorous friend’s family, earning her keep minding their 7-year-old twins. One night, is for readers.” the mother, an Argentinian psychoanalyst, recounts her own romantic history, a lesson in the gendered dynamics of power. Gene Seymour is a writer and editor living in Brooklyn and has But what captivates our narrator is the woman’s certainty, her Nation Washington Post belief in her own story. “I, at twenty-one, did not, had not yet written for the , the , and CNN.com. settled on the governing narrative of my life. Had not yet real- Your House Will Pay received a starred review in the Aug. 15, ized the folly of governing narratives,” she recalls. This is the 2019, issue. question that propels the novel; it is a book of ideas—about power and gender, about desire, about loneliness and rage— but it is also, at its core, a novel about storytelling, about the quest for a stable narrative that can explain us to others and to ourselves. Ten years later, at an art exhibit in San Francisco— the work is by a Swedish video artist whose subject is “female pain”—our narrator and a friend discuss heartbreak with detached cruelty. This is the underlying premise of their relationship, that they are both bad people; or at least, that is the story they tell themselves and so the story that unites them. Two years after that, in Los Angeles, divorced, the narrator is armed with another story to explain her behavior to herself: “that I have been, that I continue to be, best at being a vessel for the desire of others.” The first sections of the novel are incisive, often biting, but mannered, as though the narrator’s own oppressive self-consciousness has rubbed off on the prose. But halfway through, at a mommy group in Fresno, the novel takes a turn, going from cool to coolly wrenching, as Popkey layers something like tenderness. A rich and rigorous dissection of how we construct who we are.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 25 THE EMPTY BED as workers still leaves them ostracized from mainstream British Sadowsky, Nina society. His apartment is shabby and overpriced, but bigoted Ballantine (320 pp.) authorities won’t hear one man’s complaints about living condi- $27.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 tions. So with a few fellow West Indian immigrants, he proposes 978-0-525-61987-1 strength in numbers: The group will collectively buy a piece of property. For Selvon’s purposes, the scheme is largely an oppor- When a young woman goes missing tunity to explore the diversity of the Caribbean immigrant in Hong Kong, a “fixer” named Cath- community. (“To Englishers...if a man say he come from Tobago erine agrees to help find her. or St. Lucia or Grenada, you none the wiser.”) To that end, the Eva Lombard is miserable in Lon- novel is constructed around seriocomic “ballads” about each of don; she moved there with her husband the individual participants. One man pretended to arrive from and intended to focus on getting preg- India to score better housing; one man was a hardcore carouser nant, but Peter works all the time at his investment firm, and only to fall for the woman who chastised him the most about it; she feels completely isolated. So when she notices someone one man’s musical ambitions are waylaid by a drug bust. Serv- following her, her anxiety leads her to pick a fight with Peter ing as a counterpoint to the men’s nonserious approach to get- on their anniversary trip to Hong Kong. Angry, they go to bed ting ahead is a group of women who try to keep them on task, separately, and when Peter wakes, Eva is gone. He contacts though they’re disregarded out of sheer misogyny. Plotwise the his affluent and connected employer, Forrest Holcomb, who novel is a bit shabby, its resolution pat (Selvon’s 1956 novel, The in turn asks for help from his former lover Catherine, a shad- Lonely Londoners, covers similar turf and received more acclaim), owy figure who runs a witness relocation/rescue business on but the lyricism of Selvon’s narration, evoking Bat’s voice, and the darknet, helping move and protect victims of abuse as well his keen eye for the ironies that infuse the immigrant experi- as high-profile whistleblowers and their families. Catherine’s ence and the racism it contends with make it a sharp and sur- operatives head to Hong Kong to locate Eva, who is on the prisingly funny short novel. run with help from her own shadowy figures—an ex-boyfriend A modest but valuable addition to the canon of migrant and a friend-turned–restaurant owner with ties to the triads, fiction. the network of gangsters who run Hong Kong. With the help of Catherine’s operatives, Peter and Eva are reunited, but they remain a target for the unknown assailants. As Eva and Peter THE NETWORK fight for their lives, Catherine investigates the man who was fol- Shaw, L.C. lowing them, because he looks awfully familiar….There’s a defi- Harper/HarperCollins (400 pp.) nite cinematic vibe to Sadowsky’s (The Burial Society, 2018, etc.) $16.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2019 novel, especially as the characters rush around Hong Kong in 978-0-06-295090-1 Jason Bourne–type chase scenes. Catherine and her mysterious network are impressively connected and intriguingly motivated, The search for the 30 magical sil- and the woman herself is a fascinating study of power, empathy, ver coins Judas received for betraying and efficiency. The short chapters push the action to breathless Jesus drives a thriller with Dan Brown heights. aspirations. Surrender to the action and intrigue, leave logic by the Teens die imitating a perverted real- wayside, and enjoy this whirlwind adventure in Hong Kong. ity show. A U.S. senator expires on a div- ing trip after a fishy anti-vaccine vote in Congress, and bad guys move in to kidnap his pretty young wife. A pregnant woman THE HOUSING LARK is imprisoned and abused by a sadistic doctor at an evil insti- Selvon, Sam tute. Who you gonna call? Jack Logan (not Jack Ryan, but close), Penguin (160 pp.) investigative journalist–turned–action hero, who fortunately $13.00 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 has taken an evasive driving class and done a stint undercover 978-0-14-313396-4 as a bodyguard in Colombia. Logan is the creation of Shaw, a pseudonym of Lynne Constantine, who, together with her sis- A reissue of Selvon’s 1965 novel about ter, writes under the name Liv Constantine (The Last Time I Saw a group of Caribbean immigrants pooling Yo u , 2019, etc.); since the cover proclaims this “A Jack Logan their resources to buy a home in England. Thriller,” it’s apparently the first of a series. If Tom Clancy Novels like Zadie Smith’s NW and inspired the character’s moniker, Dan Brown is the model Monica Ali’s Brick Lane are descendants for many other elements, down to the wooden writing and of the work of Selvon (1923-1994), a Trini- laughable, expository dialogue. “I mean, exploiting vulnerable dadian novelist who moved to London in 1950 and soon began teenagers for ratings with no regard to the consequences. It’s chronicling the lives of Caribbean immigrants there. Those unconscionable.” “The same Saint John who wrote the Gospel?” immigrants arrived to address England’s labor shortage, but as Maybe you have to read it in context to get the joke; do so at Battersby, the lead character here, soon learns, being welcomed your own risk. While Brown often uses Christian mysticism

26 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | This is vintage Martin Cruz Smith. Fans of Arkady Renko will be pleased. the siberian dilemma

and iconography as plot elements, Shaw’s story makes faith MR. NOBODY itself central. The good guys are saved, and the bad guys rep- Steadman, Catherine resent Satan; they need those silver coins back to support their Ballantine (368 pp.) various evil plans. “What does increasing the abortion rate do $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 for your cause?” one character asks another. “There’s nothing 978-1-5247-9768-3 more precious in the eyes of God than new life. Anything I can do to destroy those lives, I’ll do. If I can prevent the birth of just Drenched with seawater, bleeding one true believer who might shape the world in a better direc- from a head wound, and missing his tion, I’ll have done well.” memory, a man awakens on Holkham A Christian fable with a right-wing agenda lurks Beach in Norfolk, England. Written on beneath the surface of this action/adventure debut. his hand is a clue, but a clue to what? His identity? Or something more sinister? Once taken to the hospital, the man initially called Mr. THE SIBERIAN DILEMMA Nobody is dubbed Matthew, and although he cannot speak, Smith, Martin Cruz brain scans reveal no physical trauma. When the leading neu- Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) ropsychiatrist is unable to take on the case, he recommends $27.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 Emma Lewis, who is eager to seize the chance to prove her new 978-1-4391-4025-3 theories about fugue states. True fugue states are rare, but Mat- thew’s case seems authentic, and his brain scans share an odd The latest in the Russian crime series anomaly with a previous case from years ago. Yet taking on Mat-

featuring detective Arkady Renko (Tatiana, thew’s care requires signing nondisclosure forms, leaving Emma young adult 2013, etc.) takes the reader to forlorn Sibe- wondering who is protecting this man. Worse, for the first time ria and frozen Lake Baikal. in 14 years, Emma will have to travel back to Norfolk, where Renko is Investigator of Special something happened that left her so traumatized that she and Cases in Moscow. When his girlfriend, her family needed new names. Once there, Emma reunites with Tatiana—an investigative journalist who receives plenty of hate Chris Poole, an old friend from school who’s now working for mail and death threats—doesn’t arrive home as expected on the the police department. Romance sparkles, but Chris’ journalist Trans-Siberian Express, he’s worried about her. She had gone to wife, Zara, may hold cards spelling trouble not only for Emma, Irkutsk, deep inside Siberia, to research a story about oligarch but also Matthew. Steadman (Something in the Water, 2018) once Mikhail Kuznetsov, “who is not only running for president…he’s again brilliantly paces the action from the very first scene: a car running for his life.” It’s a story that could make her famous but wreck about to happen at whiplash-inducing speed. With each could also get her killed, so Renko wants to know she is safe. step, confusion descends, blurring the path forward with deli- Totally wrapped up in her project, she neglects to let him know ciously gothic twists. As in all good thrillers, lights unexpect- she plans to stay there a while longer. So when Renko’s superior edly snap out, a creepy house is hidden down a tree-woven lane, sends him to Siberia to report back about Kuznetsov, “a known and long-buried secrets emerge. As Emma takes charge of her enemy of the people,” and to interrogate a Chechen prisoner patient, his memories slowly entangle their pasts together, and accused of attempted murder, the trip fits in well with his need exposing those secrets may imperil Emma’s very life. to find Tatiana and reassure himself that she’s OK. She doesn’t A spellbinding thriller perfect for those dark and communicate much, though, making her “a very difficult stormy nights. person to be in love with.” On the flight to Irkutsk he meets Rinchin Bolot, who quickly becomes his factotum, or jack-of- all-trades. “What’s a factotum?” Renko is asked. “I’m not sure, ABIGAIL but I seem to have one.” Bolot is a great character with a wry Szabó, Magda sense of humor. More importantly, he is a many-faceted asset Trans. by Rix, Len to Renko: “Bolot was an iceberg, all bright surfaces and hidden New York Review Books (360 pp.) depths.” For his part, Renko is decent, smart, and appealing, $16.95 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 hardly a stereotypical tough guy. And when he’s confronted by 978-1-68137-403-1 an enormous bear, his shooting skills could use sharpening. The story appropriately ends with the Siberian dilemma, where one Sequestered at a boarding school person faces a terrible choice. Everything just feels Russian, as during World War II, a rebellious teen- though the author hikes to his hut from the taiga, warms his ager confronts secrets, lies, and danger. frozen fingers at the wood stove, pours himself a vodka, and sits Published in Hungary in 1970, and down to type. translated into English for the first time This is vintage Martin Cruz Smith. Fans of Arkady by Rix, this intricately plotted novel by Renko will be pleased. Prix Femina Étranger winner Szabó (1917-2007) (Katalin Street, 2017, etc.) complicates a predictable coming-of-age tale by setting it in perilous times: War rages, patriotism incites bitterness

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 27 and bigotry, and a clandestine resistance movement stealthily floated away.” Then Christina receives a letter from Andy’s father arises. When 14-year-old Gina is sent suddenly from her home stating that he’s purchased the buildings on the wharf and will be in Budapest to an elite religious school in the provinces, she raising the rent. Christina and the other shopkeepers decide to feels deeply bereft: of her beloved governess, who was forced to band together to change Oscar’s mind. Only if she successfully return to her native France; of her aunt’s delightful tea dances; challenges Oscar will Christina ever feel secure in a relationship of encounters with a handsome lieutenant with whom she is with his son. As usual, Thayer’s novel is so full of details about life infatuated; and, most of all, of her father, whom she loves so on Nantucket that the island becomes its own character. Several deeply that she “felt the world complete only when they were moments are so sweet they’ll make your teeth hurt, but the holi- together.” Protected, indulged, and self-absorbed, Gina suf- day feasts, caroling, and general Christmas spirit help the novel fers protracted (and somewhat irritating) adolescent angst. She fall squarely within its genre of satisfying Christmas romances. hates the academy: Once a medieval monastery, it looms like Told in a plot-focused, accessible prose, the book maintains its a fortress; girls, dressed in black uniforms, their hair braided lighthearted tone throughout, never delving too deeply into unfashionably, are forbidden to bring jewelry, scented soaps, or Christina’s feelings toward her own family, her friendships with even toothbrushes from home. Obedience to Christian pre- the other shopkeepers, or the classist attitudes of her friends. cepts and school authority is strictly enforced—and, by Gina, A wholesome Christmas tale full of adorable characters repeatedly flouted. She breaks rules, antagonizes her teachers and unexpected kindnesses. and classmates, and mocks rituals and traditions, including the girls’ veneration of a statue they call Abigail, which has the uncanny power to know everything that happens at the school CREATURES and offer warnings and sage advice. “All my life I have been a Van Meter, Crissy wild thing,” Gina reflects. “I am impatient and impulsive, and I Algonquin (256 pp.) have never learned to love people who annoy me or try to hurt $25.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 me.” But when her father, visiting unexpectedly, reveals the rea- 978-1-61620-859-2 son he had to send her away, she vows to behave and realizes that Abigail is watching over her. Far from a supernatural being, A first-time novelist explores the Abigail’s real identity, Gina believes, is “someone inside these curses and blessings of a childhood fortress walls who lives a secret life.” shaped by unreliable parents and an Urgent moral questions underlie a captivating mystery. unforgiving sea. This spiky, elliptical novel, which takes place on a fictional island off the LET IT SNOW coast of Southern California, begins with a beached whale. The Thayer, Nancy inescapable odor and massive, macabre presence of the corpse Ballantine (272 pp.) are just two of the challenges Evangeline faces as she prepares $20.00 | Oct. 15, 2019 for her wedding. Her long-absent mother has arrived uninvited. 978-1-5247-9868-0 And it’s possible that the groom, a fisherman, has died at sea. While the whale is, in any practical sense, the least of Evie’s wor- A Nantucket shopkeeper falls for ries, it feels horribly emblematic of her circumstances—maybe one of the island’s wealthiest bachelors even of her whole existence. As she tells her story, moving back in this Christmas season feel-good tale. and forth in time, it becomes clear that Evie has a history of The novel begins as Christina Anto- finding fixations to distract her from the most difficult aspects nioni prevents a 9-year-old girl from shop- of her life. Ultimately, though, the subject she would like most to lifting stickers from her Nantucket toy escape is the one she studies the most closely: her father. Evie’s shop. Christina strikes a bargain with the sullen girl, who intro- dad is a beguiling figure, someone who provides for himself and duces herself as Wink, convincing the child to come back and his daughter as a raconteur and a drug dealer. When Evie’s a kid, work in the store for a short period. If Wink returns, Christina his exceptional charm is just as crucial to their survival as his will pay her the meager sum required to purchase the stickers. ability to score cocaine or produce epic weed. Sometimes they Wink not only returns, but is so disarming that Christina offers are the guests of wealthy friends who like to party. Sometimes her a regular job. It turns out Wink is the granddaughter of Oscar they live in cheap apartments. Sometimes they are homeless. Bittlesman, one of the richest men on Nantucket. When Wink’s This instability makes Evie somewhat immune to her father’s mother visits the store with her brother, Andy, Christina feels an charisma. As she grows up, we see how this colorful but volatile instant attraction to him. She attempts to talk herself out of the upbringing leaves her with real emotional deficits. Van Meter crush, relying on internal dialogue that she refers to throughout does not allow her narrator to luxuriate in self-pity, though. the story, somewhat artlessly, as her “Inner Christina.” However, Some of the most heartbreaking moments in this novel are the Andy takes an interest in her and wears down her defenses. “Her most simply told, and there are scenes of beauty and magic and Inner Christina told her she absolutely could not count on this dry humor amid the chaos. And Evie is self-aware enough to evening amounting to anything at all, but here with him now, acknowledge her own complexities and shortcomings. so close that they could reach out and touch, all common sense A quietly captivating debut.

28 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | Dark, harrowing, and wildly funny. processed cheese

PROCESSED CHEESE WE WISH YOU LUCK Wright, Stephen Zancan, Caroline Little, Brown (400 pp.) Riverhead (320 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 $26.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-0-316-04337-3 978-0-525-53493-8

Wright (The Amalgamation Polka, Two crafty graduate students plot 2006, etc.) holds up a fun-house mirror their revenge when a famous novelist to our money-obsessed society—and, abuses her power. after a while, the distorted reflection The collective voice that powers grows uncomfortably close to real life. this novel belongs to the classmates of It’s one of the oldest and most per- Hannah, a quiet but well-traveled writer sistent hypotheticals haunting our collective dream life: Sup- with a keen editorial eye; Leslie, an outspoken erotica writer pose a big bag of money drops from the sky right in front of you who keeps sex off the page in all her workshop submissions; and there’s nobody around to claim it. Such is the astonishing, and Jimmy, a brilliant but reserved poet suffering from depres- intoxicating situation facing Graveyard, an economically chal- sion. When Simone, Jimmy’s workshop leader at the prestigious lenged resident of Mammoth City, the grandest metropolis in Fielding low-residency MFA program, tears Jimmy’s submission an alternate-universe America. He and his wife, Ambience, are apart in front of the entire class, the small community is shaken literally rolling in their fat new pile of fresh dough, unaware that by her viciousness. Simone’s criticism pushes an already fragile the bag belongs to MisterMenu, a master of the universe inhab- Jimmy over the edge, and Leslie and Hannah leap into action

iting a luxury penthouse in the 52-story Eyedropper Building to prove Simone’s not just a bad teacher, but an egomaniacal young adult with his jaded, aggrieved ex-supermodel wife, MissusMenu, plagiarist. Zancan (Local Girls, 2015) writes in the third person who, in a fit of pique, threw the bag at him and watched it sail plural as the Fielding graduates attempt to re-create what hap- “over the parapet” and “into the anonymous city.” As Mister- pened the year before they parted ways. “Maybe it was because Menu contrives with dark forces to retrieve his lost sack, its Hannah, Leslie, and Jimmy’s story was more interesting, always seemingly inexhaustible contents are being heedlessly, giddily and finally, than the unfinished novels we kept in drawers after flung all over town by Graveyard and Ambience. The happy we graduated and the chap books we self-published, that it couple begins their spending spree by “refurbish[ing] their always drew us back in,” the narrators write, considering their dilapidated lives with product purchased almost exclusively in continued fascination with graduate school drama. In its best the TooGoodForYou District.” That clause alone exemplifies moments, the novel captures the quirky habits and strange some of the dry wit served by Wright, whose deconstruction personalities of those who are forced to love and practice their of American myths using page-turning narrative and unsettling art in stolen moments, in two week intervals, during a low- imagery was previously displayed in such novels as Going Native residency MFA. But it also, at times, belabors what could be (1994). Even as his characters’ indulgence in empty pleasures a powerful story about institutional power and the collective becomes ickier, riskier, and more life threatening, Wright sus- responsibility of storytelling in order to build suspense. “We tains a vision that comes across like an updated “Thimble The- wouldn’t think anything of it until later, though,” the narrators ater” comic strip from the 1930s juiced with the free-wheeling, insist as they recount Hannah and Leslie’s maneuverings. “At whacked-out comedy of a vintage 1970s Firesign Theater LP. the time it was only happiness we felt.” When Zancan at last The book’s unending stream of uproarious faux brand names— gets down to the business of telling the story, she captures the such as StandUpAndCheer, DominationDonuts, the Gibe & fraught environment of almost-grown-ups on campus in sharp, Cloister 418 firearm, and WalleyedMonks Champagne—doesn’t unsparing detail and with lyrical momentum. While the clam- distract from the ferocious and mostly effective assault on orous chorus of her collective narrator occasionally elbows our own world’s obsession with getting, spending, and having, the thread of the plot out of the way, Zancan nevertheless asks whether it’s sex, drugs, guns, cars, clothes, appliances, or shelter. intriguing questions about power, complicity, and the urge to This dark, harrowing, and wildly funny novel somehow tell someone else’s story. both challenges and affirms that tried-and-true adage: A sinuous, shape-shifting campus novel that promises Money isn’t everything. more heft than it delivers.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 october 2019 | 29 really LEAR; its status as a quantum machine, America’s open- mystery ing bid to establish a world-dominating quantum internet, is top secret. One of those people is federal special agent Capt. Calli Chase, “a nerdy scientist whose hobby is to moonlight as DEATH BEE COMES HER a security guard” for NASA Protective Services. That’s a great Coco, Nancy skill set for her to have, for hours before the installation is set Kensington (352 pp.) to begin, and shortly after electrical engineer Vera Young, an $7.99 paper | Dec. 31, 2019 outside contractor, reports her ID badge stolen, someone or 978-1-4967-1976-8 something trips an alarm in the deep-sunk “Yellow Submarine” tunnel linking NASA buildings 1110 and 1111. As a winter storm The Oregon coast replaces Mackinac and a partial government shutdown inch toward the site, Calli Island and honey stands in for fudge in and Maj. Fran Lacey, a multiphobic officer of the NASA police, Coco’s new cozy series, which sticks to investigate the suspicious site and find no reason the alarm a familiar pattern (Fudge Bites, 2019,etc.). should have gone off. In the meantime, though, there’s poten- Together with her Havana brown cat, tially more disturbing news: Vera Young seems to have hanged Everett, Wren Johnson, who’s settled in herself after dousing her body in bleach—a possible-crime Oregon to be near her Aunt Eloise, lives scene that gives Cornwell a chance to show off her trademark above the shop she owns, Let It Bee, which specializes in all forensics. If Vera didn’t kill herself, who did? Could it have been things honeybee. During one of the beach walks Everett enjoys her sister, Neva Rong, the CEO of Pandora Space Systems? Or on his leash, he alerts Wren to a dead body. Handsome beat cop Calli’s own twin sister, Carme, a wraithlike, teasingly equivo- Jim Hampton arrives on the scene to find her clutching a paper cal figure whose presence Calli keeps sensing even when she’s that was in the dead woman’s hand, a label from one of Wren’s nowhere to be found? Fans mourning Scarpetta’s absence will lip balms. The woman is Agnes Snow, the wife of ex-mayor console themselves with a death grip on the myriad technical Bernie Snow and a fierce crafting rival of Aunt Eloise. Wren details, an equally strong, even more tormented heroine, and becomes a person of interest when the police discover poison the determined neglect of the remaining characters. in the lip balm. Lawyer Matt Hanson, taking her case pro bono, In place of human interest, savor all those acronyms: warns her not to talk to the police in his absence. So instead she HIRF, FOD-1, EVA, OEM, TLC, PSS, DARPA, PONGS, talks to everyone else. Although she must watch as her reputa- PRCH, STM, SPIRNet. tion in town is torn to shreds, she still has friends who believe in her, from her sales manager, Porsche, to 911 operator Josie, and of course Aunt Eloise. Despite repeated warnings from Hamp- THINGS IN JARS ton, the three of them chat up the locals, hoping to provoke Kidd, Jess gossip and elicit possible motives for killing Agnes and fram- Atria (384 pp.) ing Wren. They wonder if the cash deposits Agnes was making $27.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 into her bank account could be blackmail payments that would 978-1-9821-2128-0 provide a good motive for murder. When Everett is apparently catnapped, Wren, desperate to find him, ignores warnings that Lady detective Bridie Devine searches would keep her out of trouble. for a missing child and finds much more Personable characters and lots of honey lore make for than she bargained for. an informative but mundane read. Bridie Devine is no stranger to the seedy underworld of Victorian London. An accomplished detective with medical QUANTUM training, she sometimes helps the police by examining bodies Cornwell, Patricia to determine the cause of death. Bridie recently failed to find Thomas & Mercer (352 pp.) a lost child, and when she’s approached about another missing $28.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 child, the daughter of Sir Edmund Berwick, she isn’t enthusias- 978-1-5420-9406-1 tic about taking on the case. But Christabel Berwick is no ordinary child. Sir Edmund has hidden Christabel away her whole The creator of Medical Examiner life and wants Bridie to believe this is an ordinary kidnapping. Kay Scarpetta (Chaos, 2016, etc.) peers Bridie does a little digging and learns that Christabel isn’t his into space and finds just as much skul- daughter so much as his prized specimen. Sir Edmund believes duggery there. Christabel is a “merrow,” a darker and less romanticized ver- Less than nine hours from now, a pair sion of a mermaid. Bridie is skeptical, but there are reports of astronauts, Peggy Whitson and Jack of Christabel’s sharp teeth, color-changing eyes, and ability to Fischer, are scheduled to install a Low drown people on dry land. Given that Bridie’s new companion Earth Atmospheric Reader in the International Space Station. is a ghost who refuses to tell her why he’s haunting her, Bridie Only a handful of people with NASA know that LEAR isn’t might want to open her mind a bit. There’s a lot going on in this

30 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | A limo driver snoops her way through Dublin’s fair city for answers to her friend’s death. dead in dublin

singular novel, and none of it pretty. Bridie’s London is soaked THE MISSING AMERICAN with mud and blood, and her past is nightmarish at best. Kidd Quartey, Kwei (Mr. Flood’s Last Resort, 2018, etc.) is an expert at setting a super- Soho Crime (432 pp.) natural mood perfect for ghosts and merrows, but her human $25.95 | Jan. 14, 2020 villains make them seem mundane by comparison. With so 978-1-64129-070-8 much detail and so many clever, Dickensian characters, readers might petition Kidd to give Bridie her own series. The author who followed Accra’s Creepy, violent, and propulsive; a standout gothic Chief Inspector Darko Dawson through mystery. five cases Death( by His Grace, 2017, etc.) debuts a new series heroine, a female investigator too principled for the DEAD IN DUBLIN Ghana Police Service. Murphy, Catie It takes a long time for Gordon Tilson to disappear. First Kensington (352 pp.) the D.C. widower forms a romantic attachment to his Facebook $7.99 paper | Dec. 31, 2019 friend Helena Barfour; then he sends her gifts totaling $4,000 978-1-4967-2418-2 after her sister is injured in a traumatic accident; then he impulsively flies to Accra to see how he can help her in person; then A limo driver snoops her way through he realizes she doesn’t exist and he’s been scammed; then, egged Dublin’s fair city for answers to her on by his journalist friend Casper Guttenberg, he overrules his friend’s death. original impulse to slink back home and decides instead to

Megan Malone, a driver for Lepre- stay and investigate; and finally, six weeks after his arrival, he young adult chaun Limos, is horrified when food vanishes. His son, Derek, who disapproved of everything from critic Elizabeth Darr falls dead at the feet Helena to the trip, follows him to Accra, where he hires private of the bronze statue of Molly Malone, detective Yemo Sowah to find out what’s become of his father. famous fishmonger and tragic heroine of a beloved Irish song. Sowah has recently taken on a new operative, Emma Djan, Liz and her husband, Simon, had just come from the restau- who was bounced from the police force after she refused the rant where Megan had delivered them. But as a former combat aggressive advances of Commissioner Alex Andoh, the director- medic, an expatriate from Austin, Texas, and a friend of the general of the CID. But Andoh is only the tip of an iceberg of Darrs, she’s not one to stand helplessly by and wring her hands. corruption that would cover all of Ghana if it weren’t for the At least she can help Fionnuala Canan, the restaurant owner, tropical weather. The web of deception also includes Nii Kwei, who’s devastated not only that a patron died after eating there, who’s tossed aside his degree in political science to become a but also that the place will have to be closed during the inves- sakawa boy, making his living through online scams; DI Doris tigation and, incidentally, that Liz might have been a victim of Damptey, the eminently bribable officer who arrests Nii and food poisoning from her meal. If the restaurant closes, it could turns him loose moments later; Godfather, the shadowy head also take down Fionnuala’s business partner, Martin Rafferty, of the sakawa empire; whoever ordered the assassination of and his associated nightclub, which is also off limits during the presidential candidate Bernard Evans-Aidoo; and several other investigation. What with propping up Fionnuala, trying to com- high-placed citizens whose identities will surprise only Emma. fort Simon (and Liz’s parents too), and looking after a homeless Notable for its Ghanaian atmosphere and its densely dog and her newborn puppies, Megan has her hands full, espe- imagined criminal web in which every point is connected cially as the mysteries start piling up. Was Liz having an affair to every other. with a younger woman? Who’s sending out video blogs of Liz after her death? Is Simon quite the devoted husband he seems? What was his connection to Martin Rafferty? And who—wait a WINTER GRAVE minute—has killed Martin? Although Megan tries to cooperate Tursten, Helene with Detective Paul Bourke, she has the amateur sleuth’s ten- Trans. by Delargy, Marlaine dency to work independently and a little outside of the law, like Soho Crime (336 pp.) someone who’d look through the files of a USB drive found in $26.95 | Dec. 3, 2019 Megan’s limo before turning them over to Bourke and maybe 978-1-64129-076-0 perform a little breaking and entering. Although neither Megan nor the reader finds quite all the answers, her irrepressible Detective Embla Nyström (Hunting debut provides a lively entry in the Dublin Driver Mysteries. Game, 2019) returns to the Gothenburg A bad review can kill a restaurant—but what if a restau- region’s Violent Crimes Unit just in rant kills a reviewer? time to head the search for two missing children. After missing the school bus home, 9-year-old Amelie Holm hitches a ride with Kristoffer Sjöberg, the cousin of her friend Tuva. That’s the last that anyone sees of her—unless you

| kirkus.com | mystery | 15 october 2019 | 31 count the fact that 17-year-old Kristoffer, who’s on the autism whereabouts. Listening to Jaki’s concerns and recalling her own spectrum and doesn’t talk much under ideal circumstances, success with investigations in the past (Feral Attraction, 2018, eventually says that he dropped her off at her house. In the etc.), Cassie’s certain that she’s the one who can find the miss- meantime, his father, wealthy intermittent alcoholic Olof Sjö- ing feline, even if it puts her in danger. berg, has lawyered up and warned the police to stay away from Feline-focused, perhaps to the detriment of human his son. And so they do, distracted at first by the fatal stabbing characters—and what’s more cat than that? of Norwegian gangster Robert Halvorsen. When a second child, 6-year-old Viggo Andersson, disappears, Embla and her VCU teammates get more interested in the case, especially because AND DANGEROUS TO KNOW the fathers of the two vanished children have been close friends Wilde, Darcie since they were children themselves. A body turns up in a Kensington (304 pp.) remote ditch, but it’s that of Strömstad police officer Viktor $26.00 | Dec. 31, 2019 Jansson, not one of the missing children. Ugly online rumors 978-1-4967-2086-3 outpace the investigation, and while the police are still trying to put the pieces together, someone, evidently convinced that Rosalind Thorne (A Purely Private Kristoffer is behind both disappearances, sets fire to Sjöberg’s Matter, 2017, etc.) proves her acuity, her home, killing him and sending Kristoffer to the hospital, where resourcefulness, and her general use- he’s attacked yet again by an assailant wielding a knife just like fulness for a third time when she helps the one that stabbed Robert Halvorsen. “What the hell is going shield a member of the aristocracy from on in Strömstad?” wonder the members of the Regional Crime embarrassment. Center, doubtless echoing the sentiments, and maybe even the Ever since her debt-ridden father abandoned his family tone, of many readers. But don’t tell that to Embla, a former when she was a teenager, Rosalind has made her own way in the boxing champ who may never fight again but has at least made world. Temporarily rejecting Devon Winterbourne’s proposal a highly satisfactory sexual connection. on the grounds that a woman in her reduced circumstances Tursten eventually ties all the strands together, but the is no proper match for the future Duke of Casselmaine, she effect is more sad than logically or dramatically memorable. depends instead on the generosity of friends to sustain herself and her redoubtable housekeeper, Mrs. Kendricks, in their tiny but ferociously respectable household in Little Russell Street. GONE, KITTY, GONE In return for their largesse, Rosalind is willing to help even Watkins, Eileen the most compromised of the haut ton avoid the scandals that Kensington (304 pp.) would otherwise cost them their places in society. And few are $15.95 paper | Dec. 31, 2019 more compromised than Lady Melbourne, who clings to her 978-1-4967-2297-3 place atop Britain’s social ladder in spite of the rumor that her youngest son is actually the child of the Prince of Wales. But When a young singer’s famous pet an affair between her daughter-in-law, Lady Caroline Lamb, and gets catnapped, she relies on a cat fancier George Gordon, Lord Byron, threatens to dislodge her from to solve the case. her perch unless Rosalind can manage to retrieve a packet of Now that she’s got wheels, Cassie letters from the tempestuous poet that has disappeared from McGlone is ready to take Cassie’s Lady Melbourne’s study. She and Mrs. Kendricks repair to Comfy Cats, her boarding and groom- Melbourne House, and while they try to make sense of the ing business, on the road. What better way for her to advertise dysfunction that surrounds them, Rosalind receives word from her expanded business than by setting up a grooming demo her good friend Adam Harkness of the Bow Street police that a at the North Jersey Cat Expo, whose inaugural meeting is in woman whose body was delivered to him several days ago actu- her hometown of Chadwick? At least that’s the suggestion of ally met her fate in the courtyard of that stately mansion. Solv- hype man Perry, who’s trying to promote the event. Even the ing both the theft and the murder puts Rosalind’s considerable famed young singer and actress Jaki Natal is scheduled to make intellect to the test, but she handles the double challenge with an appearance along with her Instagram-famous Scottish fold, typical Regency aplomb. Gordie. The attendee who most intrigues Cassie, however, is Wilde’s heroine is not only a useful woman but a highly her own mother, a lifetime ailurophobe who just may be chang- entertaining one. ing her tune now that she’s dating a cat fan. After her grooming demonstration, Cassie meets up with her boyfriend, local vet Dr. Mark Coccia, to go see Jaki and meet Gordie. A freak power outage interrupts the presentation, and in the ensuing mayhem, Gordie disappears. And in case you care, some security guard dies, perhaps murdered, though Watkins doesn’t give him the dignity of a name. When Detective Angela Bonelli shows up to investigate, it’s almost as if her primary focus isn’t Gordie’s

32 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | RELENTLESS “princella” Cerúlia. The people of Weirandale worship a water Wilson, Shawn spirit, Nargis, who grants each queen a special gift called a Oceanview (288 pp.) Talent. Cressa herself is able to meddle with memories, for $26.95 | Dec. 19, 2019 example, and her mother possessed supernatural strategic abili- 978-1-60809-370-0 ties that served her well in battle. Cerúlia, however, appears to have none, because surely her insistence that she can talk A veteran Washington cop catches an to animals is only her young imagination running wild. When unsavory and complex case that cuts too Cerúlia’s many pets warn her about assassins creeping into the close to home. royal chambers, the girl is able to save herself and her mother. Detective Brian Kavanagh, known as Cressa uses her Talent, which actually extends to forcing anyone “Brick” because of his red hair, is called to to tell her the truth, to root out traitors among the aristocracy, the Tidal Basin with partner Ron Hayes to led by the power-hungry Lord Matwyck. Fearing for her daugh- snag a floating corpse. Rather than wait for the police dive team, ter’s life and her own, Cressa takes Cerúlia and flees. Thinking they hop a locked fence to retrieve the body. Later, at Boland’s Cerúlia will be safer away from her mother, Cressa takes the Mill, Brick’s watering hole of choice, he confronts another prob- girl to a kind peasant family and adjusts their memories so they lem. Crusty proprietor Eamonn Boland’s not at his usual post, believe Cerúlia is their adopted daughter. Kozloff’s debut is the regaling patrons; when he finally arrives, the elderly Eamonn first of four Nine Realms books, and Tor plans to publish them looks decidedly unhealthy. He’s beside himself about the absence over just four months. Luckily, the series opener is a strong of Jose, a normally reliable busboy. Brick and Rory, Eamonn’s start, so readers will be grateful for the short wait before Book nephew, go to Jose’s apartment, where they discover his corpse, 2. Kozloff sets a solid stage with glimpses into other characters

clearly a victim of murder. Brick manages to coax Jose’s ginger and nations while keeping the book together with a clear, pro- young adult cat, Elvis, out from under the sink, but there’s no sign of the sis- pulsive plot. ter Jose lives with. Saddest news of all: She’s the girl in the Tidal A new series starts off with a bang. Basin. Her name is Maria Delgado, and she’s from Guatemala. Brick and Ron’s investigation begins with interviews of Jose and Maria’s neighbors, a stereotypical array of Hispanic sex offenders, STEEL CROW SAGA wife beaters, and gang members. The brokenhearted Eamonn, Krueger, Paul meanwhile, decides to accompany the two young victims back to Del Rey/Ballantine (528 pp.) Guatemala. When Brick finds evidence that Maria may be the $27.00 | Oct. 1, 2019 victim of a serial killer, he gets little support at his precinct. Must 978-0-593-12822-0 he strike out on his own to find the perp? Like her D.C. Dirty Harry, Wilson’s debut novel A post-colonial fantasy draws on is bluntly effective. It lacks finesse but offers pace and Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino timeliness. cultures for a multinational tale of political intrigue. The nations of Sanbu, Shang, and Dahal have thrown off the colonial rule of the Tomodanese Empire. A Sanbuna troop is delegated to science fiction escort the captured Iron Prince Jimuro to the vacant throne of Tomoda so he can establish a new, peaceful, and presumably and fantasy conciliatory relationship with the other nations. The plan falls apart when a splintersoul, a Sanbuna man with the frightening (and believed impossible) power to shadepact (i.e., bond) with multiple animal spirits and to steal others’ pacts from them, attacks the ship carrying the prince. Only the prince and A QUEEN IN HIDING one of his escort survives: Sgt. Tala, who has hidden her own Kozloff, Sarah ability to forge shadepacts both to a crow and to her brother Tor (496 pp.) Dimangan—a bond considered taboo. Jimuro and Tala struggle $12.99 paper | Jan. 21, 2020 toward the Tomodanese capital of Hagane, trailed by a group of 978-1-250-16854-2 Tomodanese noble rebels; the eccentric Shang princess and law enforcement officer Xiulan, who models herself after a fictional A queen and her young daughter are Holmes-ian detective and hopes that capturing the prince will forced to separate and go into hiding lead to her own throne; Xiulan’s new partner and potential crush, when a corrupt politician tries to take the clever but emotionally bruised Jeongsonese thief Lee Yeon- over the kingdom. Ji; and the splintersoul Mayon, who has some strange and deadly Queen Cressa of Weirandale is wor- motives of his own. Like some other contemporary authors, ried about her 8-year-old daughter, the Krueger (Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge, 2016), who’s Filipino

| kirkus.com | science fiction & fantasy | 15 october 2019 | 33 American, eschews the tropes of high fantasy established in Wistful yet hopeful, the story is a needed addition to late-20th-century novels inspired by European cultures, set a genre that usually celebrates the romances of younger during conflict, and expressing a fairly dichotomous morality. protagonists. In contrast, this Asian-influenced sociopolitical drama explores the complications that ensue after the war, when no one’s hands are clean. Characters face the consequences of the choices they LETHAL REDEMPTION made during the conflict and consider whether it’s possible to Hunt, April rise above deeply ingrained prejudices and forge alliances with Forever Press (416 pp.) former enemies. Such grave matters are leavened by amusing $8.99 paper | Nov. 26, 2019 banter, solid action, and two charming nascent romances of 978-1-5387-6338-4 opposites. As tasty as the mushroom adobo that appears in the An FBI profiler gets sucked into book both as food and metaphor. extracting the vice president’s daughter from the frightening cult she herself defected from as a teen—which means going undercover with the man who broke her heart and facing her mother, romance who’s now the right hand to the cult leader. At 13, Grace Steele escaped The Order of the New Dawn, the cult her mother had dragged her to when she was 5. Enfolded into her Aunt Cindy’s family, she immedi- SOMEONE TO REMEMBER ately gained four male cousins and fell in love with their best Balogh, Mary friend and neighbor, Cade Wright. The two were inseparable Berkley (272 pp.) until Grace graduated from college, when Cade reenlisted for $23.00 | $5.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 another tour as an Army Ranger instead of beginning their 978-0-593-09972-8 well-planned life together. Hurt and furious, Grace joined 978-0-593-09973-5 paper the FBI as a profiler and kept Cade at arm’s length. However, when the vice president’s daughter joins the cult, Grace is A Westcott novella that celebrates brought in to help and must work with Steele Ops, the secu- the second-chance love of a couple in rity company Cade runs with her cousins. It’s clear the cult’s their 50s. recruiters aren’t taking the provided bait, though they’d bite Nondescript spinster Matilda West- immediately if it were Grace on the hook. Cade and Grace go cott temporarily abandoned her typi- undercover as a couple and allow themselves to be reeled in. cal role as the backdrop for her aristocratic Regency family to Soon they find themselves on the compound in the middle of bring about the happy ending of Someone To Honor (2019). Here, nowhere and have to play the part of acolytes even as Grace’s Balogh gives her a romance of her own with a former suitor 36 mother, now partner to the cult leader, is suspicious and hos - years after she turned him down (like Anne Elliott in Jane Aus- tile. Yet as she’s thrown back into the nightmare of her child- ten’s Persuasion). Charles Sawyer, Viscount Dirkson, is surprised hood, Grace remembers what’s truly important: Cade and to learn that he still has feelings for his first love, whom he the family of her heart. The mission may be the catalyst for thought he had forgotten soon after she rejected his marriage her true happiness…if she and Cade can survive. Hunt’s pace proposal. Now a grandfather with a newly forged connection to and tension are spot-on, though a complicated backstory and the Westcotts, he finds himself reestablishing their connection some details that demand a bit too much suspension of dis - in the hope of a new outcome. Matilda, who had convinced her- belief occasionally weigh the book down. self that she made the right decision as a young woman, finally High-stakes, sizzling romantic suspense. faces her own cowardice—a realization aided by her mother’s apology for having advised her wrongly. Surrounded by a supportive extended family, she must decide if her youthful love has truly withered or she is willing to let it flower in her middle age in defiance of public mockery. The on-the-shelf heroine’s growth into a full-fledged person will not surprise anyone who knows the author’s ability to reframe women characters. This novella is introduced by a letter from Balogh explaining the development of the Westcott family series and summarizing each of the earlier novels, and the book ends with excerpts from each of them. While these may help new readers or refresh the memories of those who have forgotten the details, others may be put off by what could be perceived as padding.

34 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | ANYONE BUT A DUKE Mason Fredericks, a naturalist whose viscount father generously Krahn, Betina bankrolls his research. Alas, Grace’s womanly virtues are lost Zebra/Kensington (320 pp.) on Mason, so she enlists the help of anthropologist Sebastian $7.99 paper | Aug. 26, 2019 Holloway to generate some attention-getting buzz. Seb finds 978-1-4201-4351-5 it all too easy to “pretend” to be infatuated with the confident, intelligent, and lovely Grace, but, in a gender-swapped Pygma An American “dollar princess” seeks lion, he needs lessons in etiquette before anyone will believe he refuge on a long-lost duke’s country is a serious rival. As he puts it, “I’m just a tongue-tied scholar estate after having been rejected on the in scuffed boots. The idea that anyone could mistake me for a marriage mart only to find him alive and suave man about town is ludicrous.” Grace and Seb show off well. their fauxmance at the usual Regency romance haunts, grow- Sarah Bumgarten, the youngest daugh- ing closer every day. The friends-to-lovers plot always requires ter of a prominent Nevada mining family, a certain obliviousness, but both protagonists are ignorant to is expected to follow in her sisters’ footsteps and find a husband a credibility-stretching degree. Otherwise, Grace and Seb are among England’s aristocracy. After enduring an earl’s very pub- delightful together, and Seb is a breath of non-alpha-hero fresh lic rejection, Sarah retreats to the vacant, neglected country air. When the dashing Duke of Rotherby, Seb’s boarding school estate of Arthur Graham, the Duke of Meridian, her sister’s chum, arrives to impart some roguish lessons, he almost ends up brother-in-law. Finding Betancourt in disrepair, spunky Sarah, outshining his pupil. Luckily, his book is next in The Union of surrounded by a bevy of beloved animals, puts her formidable the Rakes. Should be satisfying for readers of Courtney Milan skills to work refurbishing it. Her temporary refuge eventu- and Tessa Dare.

ally becomes the home she has always dreamed of, until the A sweet faux suitor romance between two scientist young adult duke’s shocking return. Six years prior, Arthur, was a shy natu- friends who find a new passion in one another. ralist who allowed his greedy uncle to run Betancourt. He had been awakened to both the possibility of love and to his ducal responsibilities by Sarah’s older sister, Daisy, only to find his ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS hopes dashed when his younger brother stole her away. He had IS YOU fled England for far-off lands, enduring a series of misadven- Liasson, Miranda tures, which changed him completely. Now “he had come home Forever Press (672 pp.) to find [Daisy’s] younger sister—the very image of Bumgarten $8.99 paper | Oct. 29, 2019 energy and vitality—had taken up residence in the heart of his 978-1-4555-4185-0 lost inheritance.” Sarah and Arthur work together to shield Betancourt from his greedy relatives and other enemies, get- A longtime crush is complicated by a ting to know and admire one another in the process. Arthur’s surprise pregnancy in Liasson’s (The Way elaborate adventures off the page strain credulity, and too many You Love Me, 2019, etc.) small-town holi- subplots and too little character development hamper the day romance. effectiveness of the romance, but Krahn’s prodigious talent still Kaitlyn Barnes has a lot going on draws the reader in. with running her coffee shop, looking A busy historical with lots of action to sustain an other- after her teenage niece, and now dealing with an unplanned wise tame romance. pregnancy. After a one-night affair with Rafe Langdon, the man she’s loved for years, Kaitlyn is surprised to learn she’s pregnant, though she’s on two forms of birth control and MY FAKE RAKE never thought she’d have a baby at her age: 31. Kaitlyn vacil- Leigh, Eva lates between shock over the pregnancy and thinking about Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) just how attractive Rafe is; both points are hammered home $7.99 paper | Nov. 26, 2019 to an annoying degree. Rafe is painted as the town charmer, 978-0-06-293240-2 but his flirtatious mask hides a painful history: He still carries a significant amount of grief over the loss of his fiancee Frothy first in a series of historical and their unborn child after a fatal car accident. Though he’s romances inspired by classic 1980s teen known Kaitlyn all his life, Rafe is wary of love, marriage, and movies. fatherhood; he isn’t sure he can take another loss. Readers In this Regency romance with a who enjoy small-town romances will find all the usual suspects: decidedly modern feel, Leigh (Dare To quaint shops, meddling yet good-natured townspeople, and Love a Duke, 2018, etc.) pairs the blue- twee holiday cheer. However, the way womanhood is intrinsi- stocking daughter of an earl with a cally linked to motherhood here gives the book a sour taste. bookish commoner. Lady Grace Wyatt is a scientist, content It’s an antiquated message set in a town that feels untouched studying reptiles and amphibians until her ailing father begs her by diversity or the modern world, given that women are get- to find a husband. She has a man in mind: handsome, charming ting pregnant well past age 31 these days. The friends-to-lovers

| kirkus.com | romance | 15 october 2019 | 35 romance is serviceable. Kaitlyn and Rafe are likable main RESTLESS RANCHER characters, though reading about the minutiae of their day- Ryan, Jennifer to-day responsibilities grows tiresome. As a contemporary Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) holiday romance, this is fine, but the book’s deeper message $7.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 is rather hurtful. 978-0-06-285190-1 A cookie-cutter contemporary that’s oddly obsessed with motherhood. A destitute rancher betrayed by the people he trusted is brought back to life by a no-nonsense accountant with a WISH UPON A COWBOY troubled past. Marts, Jennie Family betrayals drive the plot of the Sourcebooks Casablanca (384 pp.) second book in Ryan’s (The Me I Used To $7.99 paper | Nov. 26, 2019 Be, 2019, etc.) contemporary Western 978-1-4926-8908-9 series about women who were raised together as virtual sisters while their mothers worked at the Wild Rose Ranch, a Nevada A young widow fights to regain cus- brothel. Sonya Turner, one of them, is a forensic accountant tody of her son while working as a house- looking for a radical change of pace after being passed over for keeper to the town heartthrob in this a promotion at her firm. When her sister Roxy invites Sonya contemporary holiday romance. to join her in Montana to restore a dilapidated home and Fresh out of jail for embezzle- neglected ranch, she jumps at the chance. Sonya loves “the wide ment, Harper Evans has taken a bus to open spaces, hills that rose to mountains in places, and the crisp Creedence, Colorado, to reclaim custody clean air,” but she soon realizes that the owner, Austin Hubbard, of her son, Floyd, from her mother-in-law. After the death of is in need of renewal himself. Disowned by his father, dumped her husband and grandmother, Harper’s life began to collapse by his girlfriend, and drinking way too much, he has just about until her flighty mother offered her a bookkeeping job. The given up. Sonya helps lift Austin out of helplessness, showing job was a cover for her mother’s embezzlement schemes, some- him how to stand up for himself against his ruthless and greedy thing Harper only realized when it was too late. When she’s sent father while he helps Sonya support her abused mother. Aus- to jail for two months, she entrusts 8-year-old Floyd to Judith, tin’s and Sonya’s enemies generate hair-raising, violent plot her late husband’s mother. Though Judith readily accepts cus- turns, but Austin’s father is such a cliché readers will expect tody of Floyd, there is no love lost between the two women, him to mutter something like, “I would have gotten away with and Judith isn’t sure Harper is stable enough to care for the boy. it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids” when he finally gets Though Judith is painted as a villain, readers may feel inclined his comeuppance. to side with her given that Harper doesn’t have the emotional A sweet romance wrapped around an inheritance mys- or financial security to take care of a child. Logan Rivers is run- tery and surrounded by family trauma. ning his family’s ranch while his father handles business elsewhere, but the responsibility is larger than he can manage. He’s already run through a slew of housekeepers who misinterpret the job as a way of auditioning to become his wife. When he meets Harper after he had to fire another woman for making a pass at him, she strikes him as the perfect person to fill in over the holidays, given that her stay in Rivers Gulch is only temporary. Harper’s baggage eclipses everything else in the book, and though it’s obvious she wants to be a good mother, no family court would ever agree to put Floyd in her care until she can demonstrate she’s built a healthy environment for him. Logan is a sweet romantic hero but nothing spectacular. Think of him as the equivalent to plain white bread: bland but serviceable in a pinch. Emotionally exhausting.

36 | 15 october 2019 | fiction | kirkus.com | nonfiction ANGER IS MY MIDDLE NAME These titles earned the Kirkus Star: A Memoir Andersen, Lisbeth Zornig THE STARS IN OUR POCKETS by Howard Axelrod...... 39 Trans. by Mussari, Mark AmazonCrossing (230 pp.) THINK OUTSIDE THE BUILDING by Rosabeth Moss Kanter...... 57 $24.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-5420-1590-5 COUNTERPOINT by Philip Kennicott...... 59 A courageous chronicle of abuse and THE HOUSE OF YAN by Lan Yan; trans. by Sam Taylor...... 60 redemption. Danish activist, economist, and A HOUSE IN THE MOUNTAINS by Caroline Moorehead...... 63 writer Andersen writes with striking

clarity about the first two decades of her life. The book is not young adult THE ART OF RESISTANCE by Justus Rosenberg...... 66 only a personal story of success in the face of ongoing trauma, but also an exploration of interventions that fell short. Follow- MY WAR CRIMINAL by Jessica Stern...... 68 ing a chronological format, the author catalogs the unimaginable cruelties she endured during her formative years within TRANSCENDENCE by Gaia Vince...... 71 family encounters, foster care, group homes, and orphanages. Each account includes missed opportunities for intercession on SPRING RAIN by Andy Warner; illus. by the author...... 72 the part of someone with the capacity and opportunity to help her emerge from “a childhood characterized by betrayal, vio- WILMINGTON’S LIE by David Zucchino...... 73 lence, and sexual assault.” Andersen’s candor about the trusted adults who repeatedly violated her illuminates painful yet vital insights about how to recognize and address the sometimes- THE STARS IN contradictory and often undermining effects of childhood OUR POCKETS trauma. As she chronicles how she overcame years of extreme Getting Lost and abuse to eventually thrive, Andersen’s revelations of intimate Sometimes Found in the betrayals are often chilling, and many readers may be shocked Digital Age or outraged. They should continue to read, however, because Axelrod, Howard the book advances an important broader purpose: undergirding Beacon (200 pp.) the value of survivors’ voices as instrumental to guiding future $23.95 | Jan. 14, 2020 policies, advocacy, and change. Closing with descriptions of 978-0-8070-3675-4 visits with her incarcerated brother and estranged mother, the author shows the difference that successful interventions can make. Her history of trauma shaped her lifelong passion for protecting vulnerable populations, and this tightly distilled collection of memories serves as an urgent call to public action and reform with regard to children’s rights. This is a triumphant, empowering book that calls into question current patterns of intervention and challenges popular conceptions about what it means to believe young girls. “Whether you’re a neighbor, a social worker, a schoolteacher, or a grandparent, you must and should act,” writes Andersen. “In this book, you’ll meet many people who acted on my behalf. I hope they will inspire you to reach out as well.” A potent memoir of fragility and transcendence.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 37 the kirkus prize for nonfiction: the finalists Leah Overstreet On Thursday, Oct. 24, we will announce alive, creating an unforgettable book that is “written with mas- the 2019 winner of the Kirkus Prize for terful control of both style and material.” Nonfiction. As the editor of the nonfiction New Yorker staff writer Patrick Radd- section, I have the pleasure of facilitating en Keefe, acclaimed author of The Snake the process with the judges—Kirkus re- head, turns to Irish history in Say Noth- viewer Richard Santos and Books & Books ing: The True Story of Murder and bookseller Aaron Curtis, who chose the fi- Memory in Northern Ireland (Double- nalists, and Pulitzer and Kirkus Prize–win- day), the riveting story of “a cold case in ning author Jack E. Davis, who now joins Northern Ireland [that] provides a frame them to select a winner. It’s a truly Hercu- for a deeply observed history of the Trou- lean task, not just because of the massive bles.” The author follows the facts of a amount of reading involved, but also be- 1970s kidnapping and killing in Belfast, cause there are so many worthy books among the 300-odd starred delivering a “reconstruction of events titles eligible for the prize. I’m excited to spread the word about and the players involved [that] is care- these six outstanding titles, all of which are deserving of the prize. ful and assured.” A consistently engaging Moving alphabetically, first up is my stylist, Keefe offers “a harrowing story of favorite music book of the year, Hanif politically motivated crime that could not have been better told.” Abdurraqib’s Go Ahead in the Rain: Tackling one of the most contentious issues of our day, Dina Notes to A Tribe Called Quest (Univ. of Nayeri’s The Ungrateful Refugee (Cata- Texas Press). A brilliant follow-up to his pult) may be the best book I have ever previous collection, They Can’t Kill Us Un- read about refugees, immigration, and til They Kill Us, this book is a master class the many fraught elements of identity, in artist appreciation and cultural criti- cultural preservation, and assimilation cism, all woven together with elements involved. Nayeri expertly weaves togeth- of memoir and consistently astute obser- er her personal story—she was born dur- vations about what makes Tribe such an ing the Iranian Revolution and came to iconic collective. Our reviewer sums it up America when she was 10—with unpar- well: “Even those who know little about the music will learn much alleled insight about the refugee experi- of significance here, perhaps learning how to love it in the process.” ence. “With inventive, powerful prose,” In what we call “a stirring, inventive writes our reviewer, “Nayeri demon- masterpiece of heartbreak,” Danish poet strates what should be obvious: that ref- Naja Marie Aidt requires just 150 pages ugees give up everything in their native to completely devastate readers with her lands only when absolutely necessary—if they remain, they may heartbreaking and moving account of face poverty, physical torture, or even death.” Not just “a unique, coping with the death of her son. When deeply thought-out refugee saga perfect for our moment,” this Death Takes Something From You Give book packs multiple revelations on every page. It Back (Coffee House) is stylistically in- Another of this year’s timeliest and most relevant books is No ventive and poignant on every page (the Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know English translation is by Denise Newman). About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us “The difficulty of articulating grief,” notes (Bloomsbury), by reporter Rachel Lou- our reviewer, “is itself a cliché of the grief ise Snyder. Few books have addressed memoir, but Aidt’s shattering of genre domestic violence with such a remark- forms both under- able combination of insight and empathy. scores the feeling of speechlessness and It’s not an easy read but a necessary one, gives it a palpable shape.” and our reviewer nails it in the final line: Saeed Jones, another gifted poet, “Bracing and gut-wrenching, with slivers turns to memoir, as well, in How We Fight of hope throughout, this is exemplary, for Our Lives (Simon & Schuster), a sleek, moving reportage on an important sub- powerful coming-of-age story focused ject that often remains in the dark due to on Jones’ struggle with his sexuality and shame and/or fear.” —E.L. sense of self and his complicated relationship with his mother. The prose is under- Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor. stated, never unnecessarily poetic, which allows the subject matter to come fully

38 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | The wide focus of a generalist makes readers reflect profoundly on what we lose as the cyberworld tightens its leash. the stars in our pockets

KILLER HIGH THE STARS IN A History of War in Six Drugs OUR POCKETS Andreas, Peter Getting Lost and Oxford Univ. (344 pp.) Sometimes Found in the $29.95 | Jan. 2, 2020 Digital Age 978-0-19-046301-4 Axelrod, Howard Beacon (200 pp.) Since time immemorial, soldiers $23.95 | Jan. 14, 2020 have consumed mind-altering substances; 978-0-8070-3675-4 Andreas (International Studies/Brown Univ.; Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made A provocative inquiry into the neces- America, 2013, etc.) delivers an impressive, sity of “a new map with the digital world often unsettling history of six. and the traits it calls for, and with the old physical world and the Alcohol has inspired soldiers since ancient times. Now traits it calls for, and with the borders clearly marked where the frowned upon because it muddles their skills, it still remains two realms conflict.” popular. Opium has an equally long history and only fell from Refreshingly, Axelrod (Director, Creative Writing/Loyola grace when, highly refined in the 19th century, its addictive prop- Univ. Chicago; A Point of Vanishing: A Memoir of Two Years in Soli erties excited moral condemnation. Nicotine has “lightened the tude, 2015, etc.) doesn’t deliver a screed against cybertechnology inevitable hardships of war” so well that there were serious cam- but rather a series of philosophical meditations on the conse- paigns during both world wars to collect cigarettes to send over- quences of connecting ourselves digitally to the point where

seas. Only after 1975 were they not included with soldiers’ food young adult rations. The only psychoactive that has never been condemned is caffeine, which has become a 21st-century essential for fighting troops and is not just administered through coffee or soda anymore, but also Red Bull and other energy drinks. Cocaine is not necessarily a soldier’s drug, but its prominence as a target in the war on drugs makes it relevant to Andreas’ study. Fighting illegal drugs is a police matter, but treating it as a war is politically popular and allows vast amounts of money to be spent. The author delivers a painful account of the failed five-decade war on drugs, now mostly directed against cocaine, which has destabilized many Latin American nations, especially Mexico. Cocaine now costs much less than it did decades ago. A product of modern chemistry, the first amphetamines appeared in the 1930s, and their fiercely energizing effect, similar to cocaine but much longer acting, made them the ideal battlefield drug. During World War II, military leaders loved their performance- enhancing qualities, and doctors prescribed enormous quantities, especially during the early years. Although now officially condemned, soldiers value them for duties requiring long peri- ods of alertness. Fear, boredom, and fatigue are a soldier’s lot, and this is a skillful account of how they have long dealt with it.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 39 the realm of the screen is a world unto itself. In the woods of military. The author condemns Donald Trump’s three predeces- Vermont, where he had found sanctuary from media stimuli, he sors, who embraced the new order despite admitting that there reflected on how “everything I encountered—or didn’t encoun- were problems that they declined to fix. “Himself a mounte- ter—was quietly altering my sense of time, my sense of place, bank of the very first order, Trump exposed as fraudulent the and the quality of my attention and memory. What I was expe- triumphalism that served as a signature of the post–Cold War riencing was changing how I was experiencing.” His return to decades,” writes the author. “On this score, Trump mattered civilization resulted in sensory overload, as long walks in the and bigly.” Few readers would argue with Bacevich’s conclusion woods gave way to crowded sidewalks of pedestrians focused that today’s critical issues are fettering free enterprise in favor on the experience provided by their earbuds and omnipresent of those it excludes, confronting China’s new superpower sta- smartphones, both connecting and isolating each one of them. tus, and dealing with climate change, but they’re not catching Throughout this illuminating journey, Axelrod explores how on. Many Republicans grouse about Trump, but no groundswell conversational inquiry has reduced itself to texts and tweets, opposes him. Democrats promote programs to fight poverty how a Google search has convinced a civilization that every- and promote social justice, thrilling their faithful but not for- thing it needs to know can be known instantly, and how GPS mer Democrats, some of whom still appreciate Trump’s flam- gives us directions that undermine the serendipity of finding boyant rhetoric. one’s own way. He discusses the concept of “neural Darwin- A brilliant but ultimately discouraging analysis of how ism,” how “natural selection happens on both sides of your eyes” America messed up its big chance. and “certain populations of neurons get selected and their connections grow stronger, while others go the way of the dodo bird.” The author also ponders identity, interaction, mystery, WHAT’S YOUR PRONOUN? and the strange sense of returning to one place, physically and Beyond He and She geographically, while adapting to the cyber realm, where “we’re Baron, Dennis effectively living in two places at once.” Liveright/Norton (272 pp.) The wide focus of a generalist makes readers reflect $25.95 | Jan. 21, 2020 profoundly on what we lose as the cyberworld tightens its 978-1-63149-604-2 leash. A thorough history of pronoun debates. THE AGE OF ILLUSIONS Guggenheim fellow Baron (Emeri- How America Squandered Its tus, English and Linguistics/Univ. of Illi- Cold War Victory nois; A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and Bacevich, Andrew J. the Digital Revolution, 2009, etc.) examines what seems like a Metropolitan/Henry Holt (256 pp.) contemporary question with a historical lens. In this primer, he $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 reveals a centurieslong search for a singular gender-neutral pro- 978-1-250-17508-3 noun in English, dispelling persistent myths that such a quest is a recent effort or the product of politically correct motivations. A brief, painful, and thoughtful anal- The author traces the discussion of the search further than ysis of how “the passing of the Cold War skeptics may expect, adding a full chronology, dating back to could not have been more disorienting.” the 1790s, that tracks invented alternates. In addition to exten- More than three decades ago, the sive notes on the editors, educators, writers, and others who United States took credit for defeating communism, and have added their opinions and alternatives to the effort, Baron pundits predicted wonderful things. Readers wondering why also archives insights on the popular and common uses of a sin- they never happened should turn to the latest from Bacevich gular “they.” Like the plural and singular form of “you,” “they” (Emeritus, History/Boston Univ.; (Twilight of the American Cen is a word people have used consistently for centuries, even by tury, 2018, etc.). He notes how pundits proclaimed that, as the those who dispute the choice for grammatical imprecision. In sole superpower, we would lead the world to a better future with chronicling this ongoing argument over accuracy, intent, and global corporate capitalism enriching everyone. Freedom, in meaning, Baron demonstrates the long-standing efforts to seek, this new era, required a new conception that emphasized indi- identify, and create alternates for the oft-maligned phrase “he vidual autonomy. The author laments the decline of traditional or she.” Arranged thematically, some chapters overlap in con- morality, and he argues that completing the new order is the tent, but overall, they offer helpful, nuanced considerations concept of presidential supremacy, including a freedom to make about the power and politics of attempts to control how lan- war, which presidents employ enthusiastically. Although still guage evolves. Whether based on authorial intent or individual considered sacred, Bacevich writes, our Constitution no longer identity, Baron’s catalog of the missing singular form also offers describes a government of three equal branches. The results? detailed proof that inventing, discovering, or seeking gender- Military operations regularly fail at great expense. Unfettered neutral pronouns is not a new endeavor. The author’s playful free enterprise has enriched the middle class but excluded tone imbues the text with friendly sensitivity, and readers will many. The most secure career for a high school graduate is the appreciate his decades of research and meticulous attention to

40 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | documents and sources. The result is a book that reflects the took his talents and ran with them. Whether that adds up to transformational capacity of language. his being “the most remarkably beloved rock and pop artist A lively book for language lovers, those confused about of rock history,” as Bego (Eat Like a Rock Star: More Than 100 uses of they/them, and anyone curious about writing while Recipes From Rock ’n’ Roll’s Greatest, 2017, etc.) writes, is surely gendered. (20 b/w illustrations) debatable. The remark is suggestive of the tossed-off way in which the author treats a subject who deserves deeper consideration. It’s inarguable that John turned his skills as a pianist ROCKET MAN and crowd-pleasing showman to materially impressive ends, The Life of Elton John earning and spending millions of dollars while working his way Bego, Mark through trauma and “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Pegasus (384 pp.) Bego, who has authored biographies of Tina Turner, Cher, Billy $28.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 Joel, and others, covers all the familiar ground: John’s lifelong 978-1-64-313313-3 musical partnership with Bernie Taupin; the dazzling costumes and improbable acrobatics onstage; the friendships with Lady Straightforward biography of Sir Diana and, for that matter, Ru Paul; the decades of decadence; Elton John, master of rock piano and the generosity to charity; the dawning realization that his hab- camp performance. its, as John put it, had made him “a piano-playing Elvis Pres- Part Mona Lisa and part Mad Hat- ley”; and the willful recovery. An effort to tie the book to the ter, John astounded his parents with his unrelated movie Rocketman yields only the observation that child-prodigy skills at the piano at the age of 3 and, early on, Elton John can now add “cinematic hero” to his resume. Philip young adult

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 41 A penetrating portrait of a complex political thinker. machiavelli

Norman’s Elton John (1992), albeit slightly updated in reissue, provocatively for his relevance to our own times. “He heralds cuts off three decades ago; even so, it is by far the better book, tempests,” writes the author, “not to avert them, but to teach us digging deeper into John’s life and work. Bego’s book is filled to think in heavy weather.” with glancing chapter titles (“Glitter and Be Gay”) and painful A penetrating portrait of a complex political thinker. turns of phrase (“Whatever he does, he does it one hundred and (illustrations throughout) fifty percent, whether it is doing drugs, having wild parties, or alphabetizing his CD collection”). In the end, this biography is an exercise in superficiality, about as muscular as a handshake GIVE ME LIBERTY from Andy Warhol, who “would present his hand like he had A History of America’s just handed you a dead chicken.” Exceptional Idea For ardent collectors of Eltoniana only. (16 pages of color Brookhiser, Richard and b/w photos) Basic (304 pp.) $28.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-54-169913-7 MACHIAVELLI The Art of Teaching People Historian and biographer Brookhiser What To Fear (John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Boucheron, Patrick Supreme Court, 2018, etc.), senior editor Trans. by Wood, Willard of National Review, grounds his spirited Other Press (160 pp.) argument for American exceptionalism in the idea of liberty. $22.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 “We have been securing it, defining it, recovering it, and 978-1-59051-952-3 fighting for it for four hundred years,” writes the author. He chooses 13 public statements, written or orated from 1619 to How Machiavelli’s writings can guide 1987, which he believes “define America as the country that political action in times of stress. it is, different from all others.” Although acknowledging the In a slim, beautifully illustrated volume, French historian nation’s “dark chapters” of oppression, brutality, and injustice, Boucheron (History/Collège de France; France in the World: Brookhiser focuses on men and women who defiantly fought A New Global History, 2019, etc.) distills the life and works of for liberty, offering lively biographical and historical vignettes Renaissance writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), with that set the stage for each of the documents he examines. These the goal of restoring “the face of Machiavelli that lies hidden include the minutes of the Jamestown General Assembly, which behind the mask of Machiavellianism.” The author of The Prince, provided that decision-making in the colony would be by vote; Boucheron believes, was more than a “wily and unscrupulous the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657, a statement of grievance strategist” who crafted a cynical guide for tyrants and “put vio- sent to Peter Stuyvesant—“a martinet and a bigot”—to insist on lence at the heart of political decisions.” Serving for 15 years as religious freedom; the narrative of the trial of John Peter Zenger, secretary of the chancery in Florence, he witnessed political which allowed the press in Colonial America to flourish; the intrigues at home and abroad and, in 1512, became implicated Declaration of Independence and, later, the Constitution; the in a coup that resulted in his imprisonment, torture, and exile. Gettysburg Address; the Monroe Doctrine, which warned “cor- Within a year, deeply disillusioned with statesmen who failed rupt, oppressive systems” to stay away from America; and the to act with speed and decisiveness, he wrote The Prince, which, Declaration of Sentiments formulated by suffragists at Seneca surprisingly, he dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, a member of Falls. The author also looks at some lesser known protestations the family that had destroyed Florence’s republican govern- for liberty: the constitution devised by the New-York Manumis- ment—and Machiavelli’s career. Both the context and content sion Society, a group of “oddball Quakers and Manhattan elit- make The Prince an enigmatic, controversial text: Did Machia- ists,” to confront “the injustice done to those among us who velli write for princes “or for those wanting to resist them?” Was are held as slaves” and help them to share in “civil and religious he offering “instruction to the powerful” in the art of tyranny liberty”; Emma Lazarus’ poem “The New Colossus”; William or “instructing the people on what they have to fear”? Bouch- Jennings Bryan’s “Cross of Gold” speech; Franklin Roosevelt’s eron believes that he addressed his book to princes who have 16th fireside chat, of 1940, which underscored America as “the attained power through conquest, force, guile, or luck and arsenal of democracy”; and Ronald Reagan’s exhortation to tear therefore must find the means “both to preserve the state” and down the Berlin Wall. Without liberty, Brookhiser concludes, their own position. Characterizing most humans as “ungrate- we can be nothing but “a bigger Canada or an efficient Mexico.” ful, fickle, liars, and deceivers,” Machiavelli advised a prince to An engaging history of admirable episodes from Amer- always expect “the worst from those he governs.” Boucheron ica’s past. concurs with that assessment: “You make laws, or avoid making them, anticipating their most nefarious use,” he asserts. Because Machiavelli is a “thinker of alternatives who dissects every situation into an ‘either or else’ ” and is acutely sensitive to the mutability of political situations, Boucheron argues

42 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | RACE OF ACES enemy fire for the next three years, taking tremendous losses. WWII’s Elite Airmen and the At the same time, Kenney saw put into service the faster, more Epic Battle To Become the maneuverable Lockheed P-38 Lightning combat plane. A raid Masters of the Sky on a Japanese airfield in the Aleutians proved the worth of the Bruning, John R. P-38 combined with the earlier P-39 Airacobra fighter and B-24 Hachette (320 pp.) bomber. In time, several pilots, including Richard Bong and Ger- $29.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 ald Johnson, had kill counts in the two dozen range, and the race 978-0-316-50862-9 was really on. This led some to take major risks, as when a pilot named Tom Lynch violated the rule “never to make a second The air war in the Pacific takes a strafing run over the same target” and was blown out of the sky competitive turn in this overstuffed tale. over New Guinea. A surprising moment comes near the end of It was a stroke of genius on the part of the war, and the narrative, when Charles Lindbergh travels to the George Kenney, a general in the U.S. Army Air Forces, when, in theater and flies with the aces even though, as a civilian, he risks the early days of World War II, he orchestrated a visit from Eddie being summarily executed if captured. The war had become so Rickenbacker, the great ace from the previous global conflict, and savage that neither side was offering any quarter, but Lindbergh set up a contest that would award the first pilot to match Ricken- “had little interest in Japanese atrocities” but instead “heaped backer’s kill count of 26 enemy planes with a bottle of bourbon. scorn and moral outrage on his fellow Americans.” A sad coda The pilots under Kenney’s command, as Bruning (Indestructible: comes when two aces who survived the war died soon after in One Man’s Rescue Mission That Changed the Course of WWII, 2016) aviation accidents. writes in an overlong but generally satisfying account, immedi- Combat aviation buffs will enjoy Bruning’s explora-

ately got to work, hopping from island to island under intense tions of a little-known history. young adult

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 43 CONFLAGRATION WHY WE CAN’T SLEEP How the Transcendentalists Women’s New Midlife Crisis Sparked the American Calhoun, Ada Struggle for Racial, Gender, Grove (288 pp.) and Social Justice $26.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 Buehrens, John A. 978-0-8021-4785-1 Beacon (324 pp.) $32.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 Calhoun (Wedding Toasts I’ll Never 978-0-8070-2404-1 Give, 2017, etc.) argues that Generation X women find middle age harder than A detailed account of how the New those older or younger. England transcendentalists and their The author is in her 40s and not church allies promoted and supported the battles of abolition- enjoying this stage of life. In her latest, she offers a combina- ism and women’s rights. tion of her memories, recycled research, and interviews with Buehrens (Universalists and Unitarians in America: A People’s “women who, by virtue of being middle class, grew up with rea- History, 2011, etc.), the former president of the Unitarian Uni- sonable expectations of opportunity and success.” Calhoun is versalist Association of Congregations and author, returns with far more successful when she focuses on the problems of being an inspiring history of men and women devoted to various forms a middle-aged American woman than when she attempts to of liberation. Some of the author’s principals are well known— define the nebulous differences between baby boomers, Gen Emerson, Thoreau, Julia Ward Howe, and other notables of the Xers, and millennials and to convince readers that Gen Xers era and movement—but numerous others step out from his- are suffering in ways that those older and younger aren’t and tory’s shadows and reveal themselves to be quite deserving of won’t. She defines Gen Xers as those born between 1965 and the attention Buehrens awards them. Charles Follen, Frederic 1980 (data supplied by the Pew Research Center). On the basis Henry Hedge, James Freeman Clarke, Caroline Wells Healy of scanty evidence, Calhoun identifies them as being latchkey Dall, Lydia Maria Francis Child—these and numerous others kids and children of divorce and hampered by receiving “two played key roles in abolitionism and/or women’s rights, and primary messages” from their childhoods as the offspring of the author gives them their due. Some other celebrated names overly optimistic feminist mothers: “One: Reach for the stars. appear, as well: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Darwin (many Two: You’re on your own.” The author argues, for example, transcendentalists embraced On the Origin of Species), Frederick that Gen X kids were uniquely scarred by being witnesses to Douglass, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Emily Dickinson, the Challenger spaceship disaster, neglecting to acknowledge and, especially, John Brown. Buehrens follows him from Ohio that other generations—if generations can even be separated to Kansas to Boston (two visits there, including one to the bed- so neatly—had their own public traumas. Much of the book side of Charles Sumner, who was recovering from his assault is devoted to demonstrating the suffering of “her” generation: in the Senate by Preston Brooks) to Harpers Ferry and to his “Gen X women undergo a bone-deep, almost hallucinatory panic death. The transcendentalists, though troubled by Brown’s vio- about money,” she writes, blaming this alleged state of mind on lence, supported his goals, and both Emerson and Thoreau paid the fact that “much of Gen X graduated into a weak job market.” tribute to him after his death. “Brown was no religious liberal,” Calhoun is on firmer ground when she discusses the stressors writes the author, “but rather a staunch Calvinist, with the feel that affect middle-aged women in general: menopause and the of an Old Testament patriarch and the fervor of a prophet.” The physical changes that precede it, the challenges of dealing with tone of the text is somewhat academic, occasionally dry, but older (and less appreciative) children and aging parents, and the the stories themselves, as Buehrens points out, tell us as much fact that aging inevitably means that some life choices are no about ourselves as about those long gone. These people remain, longer viable. he writes, “quite near,” and we can take inspiration from “their An occasionally amusing and insightful but scattershot prophetic insight, courage, and example.” exploration of midlife woes. A clear, sometimes-vibrant picture of the varieties of heroism that appear in battles for human rights.

44 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | A broad-ranging, provocative examination of a problem that is likely only to grow. hunger

HUNGER BECOMING A MAN The Oldest Problem The Story of a Transition Caparrós, Martín Carl, P. Trans. by Silver, Katherine Simon & Schuster (240 pp.) Melville House (544 pp.) $26.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 $29.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 978-1-982105-09-9 978-1-61219-804-0 A transgender man chronicles his An award-winning Spanish novel- physical and psychological transition. ist and journalist chronicles his travels In 2017, author and social justice around the world revealing our collective activist Carl (Artist-in-Residence/Emer- inability to “provide millions of people son Coll.) was just seven months into tes- with enough food to…live healthfully.” tosterone hormone therapy when he began to be addressed as “There is no plague as lethal, and at the same time, as avoid- “sir” by service staff at a Manhattan hotel. It was a celebratory able, as hunger.” So writes Caparrós (Professor-at-Large/Cornell moment for the author, who was then just shy of his 51st birth- Univ.; Valfierno: The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa, 2008, etc.), day. Born Polly in Elkhart, Indiana, Carl spent “decades trying asserting that as many as 800 million people experience life- to know her, shape her into something that I can bear to live threatening hunger every day. Sometimes this hunger is due to with,” but his life as a female was a futile battle with a persistent famine, which, he writes, can be justified, so to speak, by the biological need to be male, which led to depression, rage, and fact that its cause is often war or an accident of weather; more multiple suicide attempts. Carl’s family life was equally complex

often it can be traced to the whims of bureaucracy and “the young adult banality of evil.” Whatever the cause, by his estimate, five children die every minute around the world from hunger. Caparrós describes his travels to Argentina, Niger, India, and the U.S. to examine food insecurity, famine, agricultural inefficiencies, climate change, and the like. The author concludes that hunger is a product not of biology but of economics. In a time of great inequality, the haves owe their fortunes to the fact that there are so many have-nots, and “the capitalist machine doesn’t know what to do with hundreds of millions of people” it considers to be “surplus.” The capitalist critique is well considered if sometimes diffuse. The author’s argument takes on greater force when he works with the data to make significant points, such as the fact that Argentina, which produces enough export crops such as soybeans and maize to feed 300 million people, still cannot manage to take care of its own precisely because its resources are flowing outward. “How is there not enough?” he asks, answering his own question by placing the Argentine example in the context of the globalized commodity system. In that context, even as Argentina has managed to replace its rural laborers with machines, “it hasn’t figured out what to do with those people.” Thus, they starve. A broad-ranging, provocative examination of a problem that is likely only to grow.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 45 and traumatic. He writes lucidly of early abusive behavior by his v. Wainwright, among many others—is spun through the writ- parents and, later in life, how their confusion and transphobia ers’ perspectives and distinct approaches, the resulting distil- made becoming their son an uphill battle. His transition also lation provides insights that are both riveting and refreshingly began eroding his marriage when he completed an elective dou- diverse. This is not solely a book about controversial decisions ble mastectomy in 2013, yet his desperate need to finally “see so much as one that traces the ACLU’s efforts at attending to more dimension to the world” and connect to his true gender the importance of the rule of law, the role of the courts, and persisted despite despair and misinterpretation. Throughout the significance of legal reform. It’s a timely and cohesive love the memoir, Carl examines the nature of toxic and fragile mas- song for freedom, sung by an impressive roster of contributors, culinity and acknowledges lifelong issues with the problem- including Neil Gaiman, Jesmyn Ward, George Saunders, Mar- atic male gender. “I want to punch men long before I become lon James, Salman Rushdie, Meg Wolitzer, Liyun Li, Elizabeth a man,” he admits. Combining political debate and discourse Strout, Jacqueline Woodson, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aleksandar on gender equality, the author’s elegant yet powerful prose will Hemon, and Lauren Groff. hopefully promote action from readers. His reflective memo- Fiery, focused, bold voices address groundbreaking ries often read like poetry, as when describing his own private decisions. process as an “evolving bodily transubstantiation where in one moment I am material subject matter to be consumed and in another I feel like a holy essence, my body and blood both sacri- HILL WOMEN ficed and blessed into being.” This moving narrative illuminates Finding Family and a Way the joy, courage, necessity, and risk-taking of his gender transi- Forward in the Appalachian tion and the ways his loved ones became affected and eventually Mountains enriched by it. Chambers, Cassie A passionate, eloquent memoir about how “complex Ballantine (304 pp.) stories of humanity [and] our capacity for imagination are $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 what give us hope.” 978-1-984818-91-1

A family memoir that celebrates the FIGHT OF THE CENTURY inspiration of strong women within a Writers Reflect on 100 Years rural culture most often characterized as of Landmark ACLU Cases patriarchal. Ed. by Chabon, Michael & Waldman, Ayelet Chambers, a member of the Democratic National Com- Avid Reader Press (320 pp.) mittee, knows how fortunate she was to experience the world $27.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 beyond her Appalachian home in Kentucky and, especially, to 978-1-5011-9040-7 graduate from Yale and Harvard Law. Yet she could not have done so without the examples of her mother, the first in her A well-curated collection of the most family to graduate from high school as well as college, and her influential cases of the American Civil grandmother. “I don’t have enough ways to honor them, these Liberties Union, published to mark the women of the Appalachian hills,” she writes. “Women who organization’s 100th anniversary. built a support system for me and the others. The best way I Husband-and-wife team Chabon and Waldman (co-editors: know is to tell their stories.” Chambers provides information Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, 2017) about Appalachia in general, including the poverty and lack of present a finely edited almanac of lively, contextually grounded resources, the collapse of the coal and tobacco industries, and stories that read like the greatest hits of freedom. Written by the drug epidemics that have decimated the region. There are some of today’s most popular and celebrated authors, these also stories that illuminate the hardworking spirit and flashes essays serve as history lessons, cautionary tales, and calls to of hope among the populace, the women in particular. People arms. Considered in terms of contemporary cultural values in these communities supported each other because they knew and changes, the contributors explore a variety of issues with that no one else would; “generosity was both an insurance policy an eye on broad efforts of the ACLU to protect the rights of and a deeply held value.” But the primary story is personal, as vulnerable populations. For people of color, immigrants, reli- the author chronicles how she left home to discover a world of gious minorities, LGBTQ community members, and others privilege amid the privileged. After graduating from Yale, she whose rights have been threatened or undermined by patterns had “figured out the system, the code, the secret password into of discrimination, the collection informs ongoing movements this world that had seemed so mysterious for so long….But…as for justice. However, it’s not all praise, as some contributors I fit in more at Yale, I fit in less in the mountains. I didn’t know offer well-reasoned criticisms of ACLU actions. Throughout, how to be both of these people at the same time.” The various the contributors deftly handle the promises and challenges of narrative strands come together as Chambers returns home to the courts and their decisions, covering such issues as privacy provide legal aid to those who can’t afford it. She relates the rights, intellectual freedom, and women’s rights. As each legal stories of women battling poverty, domestic violence, drug case—including Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education, Gideon habits, and other ills that run rampant throughout the region.

46 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Ultimately, it was home in Kentucky that she found her pur- MURDER YOUR DARLINGS pose, identity, and voice. And Other Gentle Writing A welcome addition to the expanding literature about Advice From Aristotle to coming-of-age in Appalachia. Zinsser Clark, Roy Peter Little, Brown Spark (352 pp.) FRANCHISE $27.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 The Golden Arches in Black 978-0-316-48188-5 America Chatelain, Marcia A jam-packed book of advice for Liveright/Norton (336 pp.) would-be writers. $28.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 Poynter Institute senior scholar 978-1-63149-394-2 Clark (The Art of X-Ray Reading: How the Secrets of 25 Great Works of Literature Will Improve Your Writing, 2017, etc.) has become An exploration of the complicated something of a guru when it comes to how-to writing books. role of fast-food restaurants in low- Written in his usual easygoing, conversational, and encourag- income black urban neighborhoods, ing style, his latest is a compilation of writing advice from more with an emphasis on McDonald’s. than 50 of his favorite books about writing. Covering a wide Though most of the book covers the 20th century, Chate- range of topics, including language and craft, voice and style, lain (History and African American Studies/Georgetown Univ.; storytelling and character, and rhetoric and audience, the author

South Side Girls: Growing Up in the Great Migration, 2015) begins in young adult August 2014, when a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown. The resulting unrest—some of it violent, some peaceful, all of it racially charged—took place in and around a McDonald’s location owned by a black businessman. “The Florissant Avenue McDonald’s,” writes the author, “was both an escape from the uprising and one of its targets.” Chatelain characterizes her book, in part, as “the story of how McDon- ald’s became black.” She makes a convincing case that racial tension, the civil rights movement, and fast food all combined to change the dynamic of mostly black communities ignored by white power structures. Fast food is generally unhealthy and can certainly lead to obesity. Chatelain realizes that low- income blacks are regularly demonized by whites for making poor nutritional choices. However, as she clearly explains, those apparent “choices” are not often real choices because residents lack access to supermarkets stocking healthy food offerings or eateries offering healthy, affordable menu items. “Today, fast-food restaurants are hyperconcentrated in the places that are the poorest and most racially segregated.” As McDonald’s became the dominant fast-food chain across the country, the white management began awarding franchises to black busi- nesspeople. Almost never, however, did blacks receive locations in economically viable neighborhoods. Through case studies, with Cleveland as one extended example, Chatelain explores the relationships between black franchisees and black residents. In addition to nutritional value and the prices of menu items, the author also cogently examines franchisee support for neighborhood initiatives, such as breakfast feeding programs aimed at low-income children, financing of community centers, and the number of jobs, minimum wage or otherwise, for black residents. Chatelain’s impressive research and her insertion of editorial commentary will prove educational and enlightening for readers of all backgrounds. An eye-opening and unique history lesson.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 47 Convincing evidence that evolution endowed us with a need for friends, support, comfort, stimulation, and, ultimately, happiness. friendship

focuses on one or two writing lessons from each book. In each evaluate the type of parent they really are. Much of what David- chapter, Clark also provides a pedagogical “Tool Box” of ideas Weill discusses is straightforward and common sense, but hav- and suggestions and “Lessons” for students to try out: “Read a ing it compiled into a logically progressive text that identifies lot and write a lot”; “Write Up to your readers, not Down.” The the key ways we mimic our parents and then provides helpful book’s title comes from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s On the Art of ways to work around these issues makes this book a worthy read Writing (1916), in which the author suggested, “Draft, purge, for parents of children of all ages. murder. Before you murder that darling, you must create it.” Easy-to-assimilate lessons on creating a healthy and Clark argues that William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The respectful relationship with your child. Elements of Style is the “great-granddaddy” of all books on writing. For “millions of reluctant writers,” it told them that the “writing craft is not an act of magic, but the applied use of both FRIENDSHIP rules and tools.” Besides the old standards, there are some nice The Evolution, Biology, and surprises—e.g., George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Extraordinary Power of Life’s a “must read” that “was published in a significant year: 1776.” Fundamental Bond Stephen King’s “odd bit of advice” in On Writing—to read “bad Denworth, Lydia writing so you can learn what not to write”—is practical and Norton (320 pp.) wise. Clark deftly mixes writing advice with personal memoir $26.95 | Jan. 28, 2020 and toots his own horn in an appendix that includes summaries 978-0-393-65154-6 of his own books, including Writing Tools—“more than 200,000 copies have been sold in several formats.” Exploring the science of friendship. A generous, witty, and exuberant teacher inspires writ- In the past few decades, friendship ers to “know more and feel more.” has become the target of studies by neuro- and social scientists who have established that seeking and building connections to others is essential for human sur- PARENTS UNDER vival. As Scientific American contributing writer Denworth (I Can THE INFLUENCE Hear You Whisper: An Intimate Journey Through the Science of Sound Words of Wisdom From a and Language, 2014, etc.) notes, the science has its roots in the Former Bad Mother studies of the mother-infant bond as well as the animal behavior David-Weill, Cécile work of Konrad Lorenz and others, later field studies of chim- Other Press (240 pp.) panzees, macaques, and other primates, and, more recently, the $15.99 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 work of primatologist Frans de Waal. Their observations can 978-1-59051-056-8 now be complemented by advances in technology. For example, near-infrared spectroscopy has been used to show that a section How to avoid making the same mis- of the brain of a 5-month-old infant lights up when the baby sees takes as your parents. a video of a mother playing peekaboo but not when viewing, say, When many of us become parents, an animated toy. The evidence from brain scans, genetic studies, we vow to raise our children differently than we were raised. and other physiological data underscores how social connectiv- Far too often, however, we fall back on automatic responses ity has been built into our systems; we demonstrate a “need to to our children that actually correlate to how we were raised, belong.” Denworth traces this need over the lifetime, discuss- whether it’s a positive or negative response. David-Weill (The ing the behavior of toddlers, preteens, adolescents, and adults. Suitors, 2013, etc.) takes a close look at how our unconscious Of special interest is a second major growth spurt in the brain actions, what we might call parental instincts, are actually that occurs during puberty and features rapid growth in the reproductions of our own parents’ behavior and how we must emotional sections of the brain. At this time, scans show that consciously regulate and evaluate our reactions if we truly seek the mere presence of peers lights up reward areas of the brain— to take a different approach to parenting. Throughout the text, a possible spur to impulsivity and risk-taking. (Most teenage the author includes numerous examples to illustrate the wide driving accidents happen when friends are in the car and not range of ways we follow what we learned as children, whether when the driver is alone.) The author also discusses social net- it’s choosing a bedtime, deciding what foods to serve, or disci- works and social media (not likely to replace face-to-face friend- plining rambunctious children in the back seat of a car. She also ships). In addition to examining the scientific underpinnings of addresses more intriguing topics, such as why we can resent hav- friendship, Denworth capably demonstrates how loneliness, an ing to raise our children, the amount of time we should devote increasing hazard as Americans age and lose friends and family, to our children so they ultimately gain independence, and how is truly a health- and life-threatening condition, and there are squabbling over minor issues can be a way to hide from larger, things to be done to avoid it. more urgent issues—depression, drug use, etc. At the end of Convincing evidence that evolution endowed us with a the book, a comprehensive “Practical Guide” provides par- need for friends, support, comfort, stimulation, and, ulti- ents with advice on the do’s and don’ts they can follow so they mately, happiness. don’t become their parents as well as a series of questions that

48 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | EDUCATED FOR FREEDOM the era’s frustrating potential: James McCune Smith (1813-1865) The Incredible Story of Two and Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882). Smith and Garnet met Fugitive Schoolboys Who as boys at a New York school and grew to be both friends and Grew Up To Change a Nation rivals, achieving unprecedented honors in a society that viewed Duane, Anna Mae black Americans as inherently inferior. Smith graduated first in New York Univ. (240 pp.) his class at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, and he was $30.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 the first African American to hold a medical degree and the first 978-1-4798-4747-1 to run a pharmacy. His approach to the abolitionist movement was to collaboratively support and work within institutions An overlooked story of two impor- expanding freedom, often relying on his medical expertise to tant African Americans who impacted refute assertions of black inferiority. By contrast, the fiery Gar- the slavery debate at a critical moment net used a combative approach as a minister to advocate a kind in American history. of black nationalism that, at times, embraced separating black Many historians focus on Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, and white Americans as the only way to achieve true freedom. Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Mary Church Terrell Garnet acquired a reputation as perhaps the most eloquent as the leading African American civil rights advocates of the black orator of the time, outpacing even Douglass in the eyes of 19th century. Yet Duane (English/Univ. of Connecticut; Suffer many. Duane departs from the traditional biographical format— ing Childhood in Early America: Violence, Race, and the Making of the surveying from childhood to adulthood—and instead weaves Child Victim, 2017, etc.) reminds us of two critical black leaders biographical events together through a focus on documents at who influenced the national civil rights debate and symbolized the school Garnet and Smith attended as children. The result young adult

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| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 49 A readable, enjoyable contribution to the history of science. heaven on earth

creates a provocative tie between their childhood challenges HEAVEN ON EARTH and the work they pursued as adults. How Copernicus, Brahe, A compelling tale of two boys and their struggle to Kepler, and Galileo forge a path for freedom out of a slave nation. Discovered the Modern World Fauber, J.S. Pegasus (336 pp.) THE NEW WORLD ECONOMY $29.95 | Dec. 3, 2019 A Beginner’s Guide 978-1-64-313204-4 Epping, Randy Charles Vintage (352 pp.) Four scientists collaborate in the $16.00 paper | Jan. 21, 2020 quest to understand the heavens. 978-0-525-56320-4 In the 1500s, there was scant cooperation among scholars of different countries: Books and papers Thoroughgoing survey of the glo- were slow to travel, and great discoveries sometimes remained balized, interleaved economy and its unrecognized for decades. Computer scientist Fauber focuses discontents. on four founding fathers of modern astronomy who sought If there is a single takeaway from each other out and advanced some central ideas in what was management consultant Epping’s (A then an act of heresy. Copernicus was the forerunner in a time Beginner’s Guide to the World Economy, 2001, etc.) book, it’s that when “there was no place named ‘America,’ no light bulbs, no chaos is king and control nearly impossible, whether of a com- vaccines, no nationalism, no cheap steel, no secular state, no mand economy or of world trade. “Success in the new fusion accurate clocks…and almost no books.” Working with such economy,” he writes, “may depend in large measure on learn- tools as he had, he advanced a thesis that boldly stated that ing that we can’t control everything.” Just so, there are many Earth is not the center of the universe and that “all the spheres variables in determining whether an economy is performing revolve around the Sun,” a heliocentric notion that put him at well or poorly and no single gauge of success or failure; trying odds with the Catholic Church in a time of schism. Figuring to impose that control on it may produce inflation on the one in the story in roughly equal measure are three other scientists hand or recession on the other—or, for that matter, the mix of who pushed the “Copernican heresy” further: Johannes Kepler, both known as stagflation, “a worst-case scenario.” The author Tycho Brahe, and Galileo Galilei. The story of their discover- takes a somewhat contrarian view on certain matters: While ies, aided by primitive telescopes, mathematical intuitions, and he notes the shortcomings and costs of cryptocurrency, among long letters back and forth, is well known; what Fauber does them the fact that “bitcoin mining” annually uses as much well is humanize these four residents of the pantheon of sci- energy as the entire nation of Ireland, he also opines that “the ence. An overweening letter from Brahe to Kepler, for instance, current system isn’t necessarily better than an alternative sys- opened the door to a personal visit, although Kepler scrawled tem using cryptocurrencies.” Epping looks at the facts of global in the margin, “Everyone loves themself!” Brahe was a strange trade and, without naming names too pointedly, exposes the man, though, as Fauber shows, not without reason: He had been folly of trade wars, tariffs, and other hallmarks of economic kidnapped as a baby and raised “in splendid isolation by a boor- nationalism: “Politicians who speak of ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ in ish uncle and his coy wife”; Galileo’s mother “stole from him, trade don’t understand that all trade in goods and services is bal- spied on him, and fought with Marina, mother of his children.” anced by monetary transfers moving in the opposite direction.” The writing is sometimes a touch too casual—Galileo, writes In the global sphere, it’s more sensible to blame governments the author, was born “too early to see the lax republican model that “allow most of the new wealth to flow into the coffers of of Venetian government spread over Europe like jam on toast”— the rich” than to blame globalized trade for our woes. Among but the story is seldom less than fascinating. the other topics that Epping discusses are the externality of A readable, enjoyable contribution to the history of sci- pollution, hitherto seldom factored into the cost of doing busi- ence. (b/w illustrations throughout) ness but now increasingly important to reckon with, and the economic behavior of different generations, from the acquisi- tive and consumptive baby boomers to the comparatively frugal (necessarily, as it happens) millennials. A welcome user’s manual for anyone invested in the market or otherwise engaged in the financial sphere.

50 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | CHEATERS ALWAYS WIN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS The Story of America AND MAJORITY RULE Fenster, J.M. The Rise, Demise, and Twelve (272 pp.) Potential Restoration of $28.00 | Dec. 3, 2019 the Jeffersonian Electoral 978-1-5387-2870-3 College Foley, Edward B. A lighthearted romp through several Oxford Univ. (256 pp.) centuries of cheating at popular Ameri- $29.95 | Jan. 2, 2020 can pursuits. 978-0-19-006015-2 Cheating isn’t what it used to be, argues historian Fenster (Jefferson’s Amer The Electoral College works, most of ica: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a the time—but that’s not good enough. Nation, 2016 etc.) in this quirky dishonor roll of cheaters from the Foley (Chair, Constitutional Law/Ohio State Univ.; Ballot Colonial era to the present. Americans blithely tolerate lapses Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, 2016) their forebears might have condemned. “The abandonment of offers a brief history of the Electoral College, a description of the stigma against cheaters is a trend in our times across every how it’s supposed to work, an analysis of its occasional failures pursuit,” writes the author. With a wit that ranges from dead- to select the majority candidate, and suggestions about how pan to sardonic, Fenster shows how “cheating has found a com- to prevent breakdowns. In a text sometimes dense with detail, fortable place” in fields that include politics, business, higher featuring numerous tables and charts, the author reminds us

education, bridge tournaments, and NASCAR races. Consider of several important points about the Electoral College: It was young adult the Kansas biology teacher who, after discovering in 2001 that designed for a two-party system; the Founders wanted major- 28 of her students had plagiarized work for a project, gave them ity rule; the original (and somewhat hasty) 1787 conception was all zeroes, which effectively left them failing the course; the replaced with the 12th Amendment in 1803, an amendment principal supported her, but parents protested, and the school that we still employ. Along the way, Foley provides informa- board ordered her to pass all but one of the cheaters. Compare tion that will probably surprise some readers. For example, it the young plagiarists’ get-out-of-jail-free card with punish- was during the time of Andrew Jackson that we began moving ments faced by cheaters of yesteryear: the producers of the toward a winner-take-all approach, even for candidates who rigged 1950s game show The $64,000 Question, investigated by received only a plurality, not a majority, of votes. In 1860, Lin- the government, or runner Rosie Ruiz, stripped of her title after coln received only about 40% of the popular vote—and “zero faking a victory in the women’s division 1980 Boston Marathon. popular votes” in nine states in the South. Nonetheless, the Fenster ascribes the destigmatizing of cheating in part to the process worked fairly well in the 20th century, with a couple of waning moral influence of elders like grandparents—“America notable exceptions: the elections of 1992 (Clinton v. Bush) and should have thought of that when it traded in ancestor worship 2000 (Bush v. Gore). In the latter case, writes the author, the for descendant worship”—and tarts up the history with devices system totally failed. In 2016, the result probably did not reflect like a twee self-interview and a California marriage counselor’s the majority. Foley notes that most Americans want the major- “Test to Identify Chronic Cheaters and Whether a Spouse Who ity candidate to win; to make that more certain, he suggests that Has Strayed Will Do So Again.” There are also digressions into states institute methods to ensure it. Among his ideas is what topics such as the author’s golf game (at times “I shoot a neat he calls “the majority-rule requirement”—voters, for example, 67—per hole”). The flippant tone of much of this book—enter- could rank-order their choices (in a multicandidate race), thus taining as it can be—is often at odds with its serious and well- ensuring an eventual majority winner. taken points about the normalization of cheating in America. Learned and tightly focused—but also a demanding A timely subject gets a treatment at times too clever for text requiring keen attention and an open mind. its own good.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 51

INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Tom Mueller

THE AUTHOR OF CRISIS OF CONSCIENCE DISCUSSES WHY WHISTLEBLOWERS DO WHAT THEY DO—AND HOW THEY PAY THE PRICE By Mary Ann Gwinn Dave Yoder With a prominent whistleblower again in the news— filing a complaint about President Trump’s call to the president of Ukraine—Crisis of Conscience couldn’t be more timely. Mueller, a Harvard graduate who divides his time between Italy and Spokane, Washington, answered questions about the book. Here’s an edited version of the conversation:

You write that whistleblowers “are not like most of us.” What does it take to become a whistleblower? There’s a definite conviction in whistleblowers about what’s right and what’s wrong. They’ll say something like, “I’m a rules kind of girl.” They’re not willing to bend their conscience to suit their organization’s demands. One value they hold quite often is a strong sense of, Who’s the victim in what I’m doing? Would I do this if it were my mother or brother? It’s the golden rule, one of the most ancient and ethical of principles.

How have financial rewards written into some whistle- In our skeptical age, whistleblowers are both loved and blower protection laws affected whistleblowing? loathed. American whistleblowers are celebrated in mov- Financial awards make it possible to attract a very skilled ies and popular culture, portrayed by stars such as Meryl legal defense team. That’s good if you are a whistleblower. Streep (Silkwood), Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) and Rus- You’re going up against a phalanx of white-collar lawyers sell Crowe (The Insider). But in real life, they’re condemned who will eat you for lunch if you don’t watch out. as disloyal, self-serving, and even traitorous if they reveal It’s not payment for services rendered. It’s a payoff the deepest secrets of the U.S. government. for lifetime loss of income. So often, whistleblowers are Author and journalist Tom Mueller turned his curiosity blackballed in their industries for doing things that may about whistleblowers into a mammoth project. He worked have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. for seven years on Crisis of Conscience: Whistleblowing in an Age of Fraud (Riverhead, Oct. 1). His 596-page book is a Often whistleblowers are shunned by their former co- history of whistleblowing, a psychological profile of the workers, though they were admired before they spoke whistleblower, and an examination of what whistleblow- out. What’s the psychology of that compulsion? ers endure once they reveal waste, fraud, and malfeasance. It’s basic human evolution. We’re wired by hundreds of He profiles whistleblowers in health care, high finance, thousands of years of drifting across an ancestral savanna the federal departments of energy and defense, and the with our band of relatives. Ninety-nine percent of our evo- National Security Agency, one of the nation’s most secre- lutionary history was an extended camp with kin. We treat tive intelligence organizations. The whistleblower’s odys- our own people kindly and with value-sharing and egali- sey “takes years and years, and it never ends,” says Mueller. tarianism. But that other group drifting across the savanna “Even when they’ve “won,” they still have this sinking feel- may take our prey animals and even kill us. ing that the wrongdoing has not been stopped.” The reason whistleblowers typically give is a higher loy-

52 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | alty—to make sure the company keeps its good name or that arsenic didn’t poison the water, an obedience to God and society. But within the group there’s a stronger sense that we’re the chosen ones. The violence of the retaliation is caused by the fact that these drives have deep evolution- ary roots.

The national security whistleblowers seem to have the toughest time. What recourse do they have to the kind THE GUILTY FEMINIST of retribution you describe in this book? You Don’t Have To Be Perfect I wish it was different, but they really have no recourse. To Overthrow the Patriarchy Frances-White, Deborah The government is able to spin their reports of fraud, Seal Press (320 pp.) waste, abuse, and misconduct into treason. It’s been that $28.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 way through several presidents, including Obama. It’s ex- 978-1-58005-954-1 traordinarily difficult for a national security whistleblower to speak out without going to jail. Anyone who raises From the London-based Australian co-creator and host of their voice against the national security establishment is The Guilty Femi nist podcast comes a book-length version going to be crushed. of that program. A stand-up comedian who also hosts the award-winning You write that “the rise of whistleblowing is an index of BBC Radio 4 series Deborah Frances-White Rolls the Dice, the a society in distress.” Explain. author opens her chapters with the phrase “I’m a feminist Many whistleblowers tell me that “I hate the word whis- but” and proceeds with an example of a cause of remorse, such as lying about one’s weight by 20 pounds or mistaking Betty tleblower; I was just doing my job.” Nuclear safety en- Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique for the name of a classic per- gineers, compliance officers in hospitals—these are fume. Throughout the narrative, there are abundant examples arenas that if things go wrong, people will get hurt. We of Frances-White’s weaknesses and the rifts between good shouldn’t have a special category of humans called truth- intentions and human behavior, and she encourages feminists young adult tellers. We should just tell the truth more. We are drift- to shed their guilt and take up their “most unapologetic and persuasive voice.” In Part 1, the author provides a capsule his- ing toward the money; we are hard-wiring that into our tory of the feminist movements and her opinions on their sig- laws and regulations. nificance. In parts 2 and 3, Frances-White broadens her reach, Whistleblowers may not be much fun at cocktail par- taking on the air of the podcast, which she describes as a micro- ties, but boy are they important for society. climate where women are given power, space, and the assumption of brilliance. The text features a mix of various pieces from the podcast. She includes her own angry speech about Brexit, Mary Ann Gwinn is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist in her stand-up comedy bit satirizing how women undermine Seattle who writes about books and authors for several publi themselves, an irony-filled piece on Harvey Weinstein, and her cations. Crisis of Conscience received a starred review in the feminist rewrite of the famous speech in Henry V, which ends Aug. 1, 2019, issue. with the rousing cry, “God for Women, Feminism, and Saint Angelou!” Frances-White also muses on the diet industry, the fun of makeup, being open to other people’s struggles, toxic masculinity, Donald Trump, female fertility, sexism in religion (now an atheist, she was raised as a member of Jehovah’s Wit- nesses), and women’s own sexual submission fantasies. Confi- dently opinionated, the author gives other feminist writers a voice, introducing them proudly and interviewing them intelligently. Fans of the TV series Fleabag will relish her lengthy interview with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, its creator and star. A bit of a potpourri but a witty book full of insights, opinions, and good advice.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 53 A well-written exploration of the mind-body connection. physical intelligence

WITCHES PHYSICAL INTELLIGENCE The Transformative Power of The Science of How the Body Women Working Together and the Mind Guide Each George-Allen, Sam Other Through Life Melville House (288 pp.) Grafton, Scott $17.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 Pantheon (288 pp.) 978-1-61219-834-7 $26.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-5247-4732-9 A quirky, wide-ranging look at women’s lives. A state-of-the-science survey of how Tasmania-based writer and musician our brains enable our bodies to do their George-Allen makes an engaging book work. debut with “a memoir of learning, and unlearning,” motivated When we walk toward a wall, why don’t we smack into it? by her realization that despite being a feminist, she had “inter- Because the body has an “intelligence” that enables us to do nalized misogyny.” In a patriarchal society, writes the author, things like translate signals about distance, materiality, pro- women are discouraged from banding together because “iso- prioception, and related matters that, writes Grafton (Chair, lated women are easier to sell things to, easier to control, more Neuroscience/Univ. of California, Santa Barbara), “are almost easily compressed into the very few ways to acceptably be a primordial in their simplicity” but that encompass the whole woman.” Hoping to counter the assumption that all women history of evolution, “stretching all the way back to the appear- are “catty, backstabbing, untrustworthy bitches,” she set out ance of the most basic forms of locomotion in vertebrates.” The to investigate women whose identities are connected to their concept of “physical intelligence” is something that has tended senses of community: teenagers banding together to follow to be studied only in its superlative sense, in the performance of fashion trends or protest gun violence; girl bands; beauty vlog- top athletes or persons placed under the most extreme of envi- gers and bloggers who “construct a narrative completely devoid ronmental conditions. In everyday cases, the mental processes of the male gaze”; sportswomen who find emotional power in used for our actions “are, more than anything, different kinds of training their bodies; dancers; midwives, who provide “the pur- learning machines that the brain has available for acquiring and est expression of care for women, by women, with women”; maintaining physically derived knowledge.” A climber and dis- sex workers; farmers; nuns (“a whole bunch of women hanging tance hiker, Grafton takes many of his examples from his own out together, doing secret spiritual things”); and witches. “If experiences outdoors under conditions that sometimes invite a witch is a woman on the margins,” writes the author, “then taking things for granted but that instead require constant vigi- we’re all witches.” Dance, she discovers, serves as more than lance, the mind connecting sensory information to appropriate artistic expression. “The women I spoke to,” she writes, “use responses—appropriate because, so often, doing the wrong dance to preserve culture, tackle body dysmorphia in refugee thing can lead to disaster. All of this requires sophisticated girls and facilitate discussions about race and intersectionality.” neural circuitry that in turn yields a kind of “sixth sense” whose Although ballet has been criticized for insisting that dancers discovery has fueled debate among philosophers and brain “spend a lifetime whittling their bodies into ethereal objects,” scientists for decades: “How could a person consciously and George-Allen finds, instead, that it gives women a chance “to willfully move while being utterly unaware of her own body’s be unapologetically physical, to strive for athletic excellence, movements?” Arriving at an answer deepens our understanding and to be rewarded with unadulterated praise.” One of the of this sixth sense of movement, which turns out to be more most interesting chapters focuses on transgender women. As a important than the other senses in getting us around in the straight, white, cis woman, the author grappled with the ques- world. It involves such complex mental processes as being able tion of what makes a woman, finally concluding that gender to “conceptualize dynamic force” and areas of the brain that is complex and socially constructed, “like money, or manners: range from the higher-reasoning cortex to the elemental cer- imagined, held together by shared belief.” As she talked with ebellum, which “keeps track of a massive list of comparatively a friend who transitioned, the author admits, she felt her own minor adjustments or tweaks to each movement to make them identity transform from “a whole, dull thing” into “a million work well under a variety of conditions.” brilliant bits.” A well-written exploration of the mind-body connection. An uplifting celebration of women’s power through communion.

54 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY WE ARE INDIVISIBLE Grayling, A.C. A Blueprint for Democracy Penguin Press (640 pp.) After Trump $35.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 Greenberg, Leah & Levin, Ezra 978-1-9848-7874-8 One Signal/Atria (368 pp.) $27.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 A magnificent recapping of the his- 978-1-98-212997-2 tory of philosophy, as it stands apart from theology, in the classic model of A manual for saving democracy from Bertrand Russell, as “an invitation and an its current “existential threat.” entrance.” After the 2016 presidential election, In the hands of British scholar and wife-and-husband team Greenberg and journalist Grayling (Master/New Coll. of the Humanities; Levin used the insights they learned while working as con- Democracy and Its Crisis, 2018, etc.), it is a delight to engage in gressional staffers who “could demystify Congress and show this sweeping history of the great thinkers throughout the ages, people how scaring the crap out of their own representatives from pre-Socratics to the present. Moreover, in the last sec- was their most effective tool for resisting Trump” and his many tion of the book, the author offers a considerably shorter yet enablers within Congress. The online guide they created went fair introduction to Indian, Chinese, Arabic-Persian, and Afri- viral and became the blueprint for this book. Importantly, the can philosophy (hindered only by the “veil” of language, yet he authors understand, at a deep psychological level, elected offi- ends with a challenge to readers to address this surmountable cials’ obsession with attaining reelection. Encouraging con-

difficulty). The attempt to “make sense of things” has plagued stituents in each congressional district to band together in real young adult humanity for centuries and has also led to its great advances, life—not only online—served as the foundation for Greenberg especially the “rise of modern thought” in terms of empiricism and Levin’s 19-point guide. “Individuals have opinions; groups and rationalism as they gained momentum from the 17th century. have power,” they write. As digital viewers of the guide began These great forces unharnessed philosophy from the strictures banding together to form groups dubbed “Indivisible chapters” of religion, culminating in the essential concept, particularly by (there are now more than 5,000), the authors realized they Immanuel Kant and his fellow Enlightenment thinkers, that needed to quit their jobs in order to manage the groundswell the “autonomy” of man meant “self-government, independence of resistance. Soon, Greenberg and Levin had received enough of thought, and possession of the right and the responsibility to donations to hire a central staff dedicated to advising the locally make choices about one’s own life.” As Grayling notes, this is based Indivisible chapters. From bitter experience, the authors “essential to the life worth living,” a matter dear to the very “first” knew that tactics developed previously by tea party advocates philosophers: Thales, who relied on observation and reason to and other far-right constituents demonstrated effectiveness in “know thyself,” and Socrates, for whom the first great question shaking up elected politicians of all ideologies. Near the open- was how to live. As he moves into the more recondite reaches ing of this book, readers will find all 19 points set out on two of “analytic” and language philosophy of the 20th century, the consecutive pages, and they include “Don’t Be Boring,” “Pic- author mostly keeps the narrative from becoming overly aca- tures, or It Didn’t Happen,” “Don’t Get Defensive About Your demic. Unfortunately, there is a disturbing lack of women phi- Privilege,” and “Primaries Are Good If We Make Them Good.” losophers across Grayling’s 2,500-year survey, even under the The remainder of the book takes each lesson in turn. Some of cursory rubric of “feminist philosophy.” The author’s approach the tactics are meant to help attain short-term policy initia- is especially refreshing due to his acknowledgement that few tives. Ultimately, however, the tactics, used wisely, are meant to philosophers were truly unique (even Buddha or Confucius); defeat Trumpism by replacing his supporters on Election Day. often what was required for lasting significance was a kind of The authors clearly explain how a long history of civic engage- luck and a stable of devoted followers. ment in the U.S. can be reignited leading up to the 2020 election. Despite its glaring absence of women philosophers, The subtitle says it all: a useful guide to moving for- Grayling’s accessible omnibus will provide a steppingstone ward after Trumpism. for the student or novice.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 55 A heartfelt and haunting memoir just right for the current political and social climate. children of the land

CHILDREN OF THE LAND WOUNDED SHEPHERD Hernandez Castillo, Marcelo Pope Francis and His Harper/HarperCollins (384 pp.) Struggle To Convert the $26.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 Catholic Church 978-0-06-282559-9 Ivereigh, Austen Henry Holt (416 pp.) An acclaimed Mexican-born poet’s $30.00 | Nov. 5, 2019 account of the sometimes-overwhelm- 978-1-250-11938-4 ing struggles he and his parents faced in their quest to become American citizens. A praiseful portrait of Pope Francis. Hernandez Castillo (Cenzontle, 2018, British journalist Ivereigh (Fellow, etc.) first came to the United States Contemporary Church History/Cam- with his undocumented Mexican parents in 1993. But life in pion Hall, Univ. of Oxford; The Great Reformer: Francis and the the shadows came at a high price. Immigration and Customs Making of a Radical Pope, 2014) presents a hagiographic biogra- Enforcement raided their home on multiple occasions and phy of the Francis papacy to date. In a detailed study packed eventually deported the author’s father back to Mexico. In with insider tidbits, the author examines various overarching this emotionally raw memoir, Hernandez Castillo explores issues that have affected and defined the Francis era. In addi- his family’s traumas through a fractured narrative that mir- tion to the inescapable issue of priestly abuse, Ivereigh also rors their own fragmentation. Of his own personal experiences, discusses such topics as Vatican finances, rehabilitation of he writes, “when I came undocumented to the U.S., I crossed divorced Catholics, human rights crises, and gender and sexu- into a threshold of invisibility.” To protect himself against pos- ality controversies. An overarching theme is the problem of sible identification as an undocumented person, he excelled in clericalism, which the author defines as “the perverse idea that school and learned English “better than any white person, any clerics of any sort—bishops, priests, consecrated persons—are citizen.” When he was old enough to work, he created a fake superior to non-clerics, who are treated as inferiors.” Clerical- social security card to apply for the jobs that helped him sup- ism, writes Ivereigh, has pervaded Catholicism for years and port his fatherless family. After high school, he attended col- tainted it in countless ways, leading to many of the problems lege and married a Mexican American woman. He became an the church faces today. Whereas clericalism leads to a distance MFA student at the University of Michigan and qualified for from those the church is meant to love, Francis is consistent in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which promoting “closeness” in every possible way. Ivereigh presents allowed him to visit his father in Mexico, where he discovered Francis as a nearly flawless figure, “an old Jesuit spiritual master” the depth of his cultural disorientation. Battling through ever with “native cunning” who “truly imitates Christ.” The clos- present anxiety, the author revisited his and his parents’ origins est the author comes to criticizing Francis is in the chapter on and then returned to take on the difficult interview that quali- the abuse crisis, in which he admits that Francis made certain fied him for a green card. His footing in the U.S. finally solidi- missteps in his handling of specific cases. Francis’ critics, on fied, Hernandez Castillo unsuccessfully attempted to help his the other hand, are “Pharisaical” examples of “naked legalism.” father and mother qualify for residency in the U.S. Only after He even goes so far as to call them “neo-Donatists,” referring his father was kidnapped by members of a drug cartel was the to an ancient heresy marked by a lack of mercy. Francis, “the author able to help his mother, whose life was now in danger, master bridgemaker in an era of angry wall builders,” is pre- seek asylum in the U.S. Honest and unsparing, this book offers sented as standing nearly alone against a moribund church and a detailed look at the dehumanizing immigration system that a misguided world. Ivereigh’s connections with church insid- shattered the author’s family while offering a glimpse into his ers—connections he does not hesitate to highlight—make for own deeply conflicted sense of what it means to live theso- an interesting read. His lack of objectivity, however, detracts called American dream. from an otherwise intriguing study. A heartfelt and haunting memoir just right for the cur- A good read for Francis devotees but far from unbiased rent political and social climate. journalism. (8-page b/w insert)

56 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | THINK OUTSIDE MEMORY CRAFT THE BUILDING Improve Your Memory With How Advanced Leaders the Most Powerful Methods Can Change the World One in History—From Medieval Small Innovation at a Time Bestiaries to Tibetan Kanter, Rosabeth Moss Mandalas PublicAffairs (352 pp.) Kelly, Lynne $28.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 Pegasus (320 pp.) 978-1-5417-4271-0 $27.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-64-313324-9 How experienced leaders in business and other professions can act on their An Australian “memory champion” “youthful idealism” and make a difference in addressing complex offers some tricks of the trade. societal problems. The human brain processes huge amounts of sensory data Harvard Business School professor Kanter (Move: Putting every day, only some of which gets lodged in it for future access. America’s Infrastructure Back in the Lead, 2015, etc.) directs Har- This can be a problem when trying to remember, say, the name vard’s Advanced Leadership Institute, which, since 2008, has of a person—for which reason cultures from around the world helped some 500 retired CEOs and others gain the “outside-the- have developed memory-training regimens. “A highly trained building, silo-busting” skills needed to take on “messy, complex memory was greatly admired in the classical Greco-Roman era,” systems problems” ranging from income inequality to human writes Kelly (The Memory Code: The Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter trafficking. In this striking book, the author distills the lessons Island and Other Ancient Monuments, 2017). “Not only was it use- young adult learned in the program, in which successful men and women, ful in politics and speech making, it was also a terrific way to eager to do good measured in lives improved rather than income show off.” So it was that the Roman philosopher Seneca lined earned, explore societal issues of interest, take classes on rel- up 100 students, had each recite a line of poetry, and then evant topics outside their own area of expertise, and use their repeated the lines in order—and then backward. Kelly exam- “capabilities, connections, and cash” (the latter not necessarily ines the techniques employed to perform such prodigious feats, their own) to create cross-sector coalitions in pursuit of social among them the “memory palace,” a mental construct made up change. Drawing on 50 case studies and hundreds of interviews, of rooms, pieces of furniture, and such that are then populated Kanter tells riveting stories of “bold, imaginative” leadership: A with facts and figures. The author writes that she has more Trader Joe’s CEO fights hunger, an Anheuser-Busch CEO con- than 1,000 such locations—and other memory experts have fronts educational disparities in St. Louis, a European banker many more. Among the other techniques that she discusses are creates partnerships to finance improved ocean health, and a “visual alphabets in the shapes of animals and humans,” narra- Hong Kong investment banker helps women work in South- tive scrolls that develop character-rich stories to aid memory, east Asia. In each case, the societal issue is rife with ambigu- ingenious mnemonic devices, memorizing long sequences of ity and conflict, with no single organization in charge, and numbers by means of attaching sounds to them, and perhaps the challenge is to find fresh, convention-defying approaches the most useful brain-as-muscle exercise by which one should engaging many stakeholders. The author stresses the care with review a piece of information five times over three months in which participants must approach an issue, how they develop order to move it into long-term memory. Kelly’s book takes a the ability to conduct “multiple efforts on multiple fronts,” and gee-whiz approach to a scholarly body of literature that includes the challenges of working “across disciplines and institutional Frances Yates’ classic books on Renaissance memory studies silos.” She is sometimes repetitious, but mainly to emphasize and recent works of neuroscience such as Daniel Levitin’s The the powerful potential of her approach. Time alone will reveal Organized Mind, but the narrative covers the ground well and the outcomes of these projects, she writes, but they hold much entertains as it travels. promise and could well serve as models for others. Of benefit to anyone seeking to remember a scrap of This realistic and hopeful manual shows how accom- information for more than a couple of minutes. plished individuals can tackle problems whose victims often lack resources to take action.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 57 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Adrienne Brodeur

A MOTHER, A DAUGHTER, AND A SHARED SECRET MAKE FOR COMPULSIVE READING IN THE AUTHOR’S CLEAREYED MEMOIR, WILD GAME By Megan Labrise

Julia Cumes It was a meeting with potential editors (many of whom had mother stories to share) that drove home the univer- sality of what she’d written. “We all have mothers, and they’re incredibly powerful people in our lives,” Brodeur says. “It can be a very complicated relationship; that was what was relatable. So while I heard stories that were very different from mine, they all were similar in wanting love and wanting to please.” “I knew only what pleased my mother; I didn’t have a moral compass,” Brodeur writes in Wild Game, remember- ing the sultry summer night in 1980 when her mother, Mal- abar, woke her up to confess she’d shared a kiss with her second husband’s married best friend. Brodeur’s adolescent complicity in the resultant affair complicated her relationship to truth and desire for many years to come. “I love my mother, and I hope that comes across in this book,” she says. “I really do. But do I feel like I got a lot of life’s important lessons from her? I do not. I feel like most of it was what I learned in response or in contrast.” At age 14, Adrienne Brodeur began abetting her glamorous mother’s extramarital affair. Forty years—and many, Megan Labrise is the editor many twists—later, Brodeur’s cleareyed memoir of its toll at large and hosts the Ful- set off a 14-bidder U.S. auction. “Very unexpectedly to me, ly Booked podcast. Wild believe me,” says Brodeur, who runs Aspen Words and co- Game was reviewed in the founded Zoetrope Magazine with Francis Ford Coppola. Aug. 15, 2019, issue. “Don’t get me wrong, I felt like I was writing a strong book,” she says of Wild Game: My Mother, Her Lover, and Me (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Oct. 15), which ultimately sold for an unnamed seven-figure advance, “but also a singular and specific book. I did not see this as all the women in the world who abetted their mother in their extramarital love affairs were going to come climbing out of the woodwork.”

58 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Elegant prose graces a deeply thoughtful memoir. counterpoint

COUNTERPOINT THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR A Memoir of Bach and ON PALESTINE Mourning A History of Settler Kennicott, Philip Colonialism and Resistance, Norton (224 pp.) 1917-2017 $26.95 | Feb. 18, 2020 Khalidi, Rashid 978-0-393-63536-2 Metropolitan/Henry Holt (352 pp.) $30.00 | Nov. 19, 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Kennicott, 978-1-62779-855-6 senior art and architecture critic of the Washington Post, makes his book debut A systematic history of Palestinian with an absorbing meditation on grief. persecution and a fair-minded agenda for Unsettled by the death of his mother, the author was drawn mutual dialogue and recognition with the Israelis going forward. to Bach’s Goldberg Variations, especially Glenn Gould’s 1955 Khalidi (Modern Arab Studies/Columbia Univ.; Brokers of recording, an emotional, aggressive interpretation, “clarifying Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, 2013, as with colored light the intertwining lines of Bach’s thirty varia- etc.), the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, is the descen- tions.” As a piano student years before, he had not mastered any- dant of several illustrious early scholars and statesmen who thing by Bach, preferring instead dazzling pieces by Beethoven, attempted to navigate the first peace between the two peoples Schumann, and Brahms: “fast and with lots of drama.” Now, he claiming ancient ties to the same land. The author begins this decided to confront the challenges of the Variations. “I had no dogged chronicle of Palestinian injustices with a poignant let-

illusions that I would ever master them well enough to be satis- ter he unearthed in a Jerusalem library, written in 1899 by his young adult fied by my performance,” Kennicott writes. “Rather, it seemed a great-great-great uncle, the mayor of Jerusalem, to the “father way to test life again, to press upon it and see what was still vital,” of Zionism,” Theodor Herzl, reminding him respectfully of the to attain “clarity, accuracy,” and, not least, a sense of order and folly of embarking on a Jewish nation within an already inhab- control. This desire for control in the face of sorrow, mortality, ited land and urging him “in the name of God, let Palestine be and loss recurs as a contrapuntal theme as the author chronicles left alone.” Of course, that did not happen, and the Zionist his obsession with the Variations—their place in Bach’s oeuvre, vision gained momentum thanks to “international and imperial reception, and demanding technique—along with a memoir forces” such as the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, which, of growing up in a tense household dominated by his moody, Khalidi notes, was “a declaration of war by the British Empire brittle, often vindictive mother, whom he wishes he could bet- on the indigenous population.” The author also examines the ter understand. As he questions what it means to truly know declaration of the state of Israel in 1947; the Six-Day War of a piece of music, he asks, as well, what it means to know any 1967; the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, directed at neutralizing person. During adolescence, he found in music “a refuge” from the Palestinian Liberation Organization; the first Palestinian chaotic family life, “an adult space where I was fully responsible uprising, or intifada, which began in 1987 and shifted the locus for my actions.” At home, practicing piano functioned as a kind of disaffection from outside to inside the country; and the mas- of “wordless communication”; “I would make music for an ideal sive Palestinian demonstrations that have taken place in Israel mother who didn’t exist, and she listened to a son who, through as Hamas and the PLO played out their power struggle. Khalidi music, spoke without irony, or condescension.” Now, as an adult, is clear about the “ideologically bankrupt political movements” he seeks in music not solace, nor epiphany, nor a “miraculous that have made up Palestinian leadership, and he recognizes the entrée to higher consciousness,” but instead a “raw moment of need for a better understanding of how to positively affect pub- openness” to “an emotional resignation that is beyond pleasure, lic opinion in the U.S. Yet he also presses for significant work or healing, or anything that can be captured in words.” inside Israel, namely “convincing Israelis that there is an alter- Elegant prose graces a deeply thoughtful memoir. native to the ongoing oppression of the Palestinians.” A timely, cogent, patient history of a seemingly intrac- table conflict told from a learned Palestinian perspective.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 59 THE MAGICAL LANGUAGE Times columns, lucidly explaining often confounding economic OF OTHERS issues. Prefacing each of 18 sections with a cogent overview, the A Memoir author takes on topics that include social security, health care, Koh, E.J. the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath (essays that comprise Tin House (216 pp.) more than a third of the book), the myths of austerity, Europe’s $22.95 | Jan. 6, 2020 economic problems, tax cuts, trade wars, inequality, climate 978-1-947793-38-5 change, and, not least, the damage being inflicted by Donald Trump and his enablers. Many of the pieces are hard-hitting How a series of letters helped the arguments against zombie ideas, “an idea that should have been author understand why her parents left killed by evidence, but refuses to die.” Zombie ideas, Krugman when she was a teenager. asserts, are put forth by “influential people” who “move in cir- When Koh (A Lesser Love: Poems, cles in which repeating” such ideas “is a badge of seriousness, an 2017) was 15, her mother and father left her and her older brother assertion of tribal identity.” Alternatively, ideas such as climate in California to move back to Korea, where Koh’s father had change denial, which persist despite prolific evidence, are “bet- been offered a lucrative job. “It was the kind of opportunity,” ter described as cockroach ideas—false claims you may think she writes, “others might envy or criticize….Both position and you’ve gotten rid of, but keep coming back.” There are plenty pay left a knot of amazement on my parents’ faces.” The posi- of villains in Krugman’s crosshairs: the “anti-labor” extremist tion was supposed to last three years, after which they would Brett Kavanaugh, “flimflam man” Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, return to their children. But then the contract kept getting Bernie Madoff, George W. Bush and his “fraudulent march to extended, leaving the author feeling abandoned. Her mother war,” and Ronald Reagan, to name a few. Many essays focus on wrote letters and called home on a regular basis, but Koh strug- the current president. “It’s not just that Trump has assembled gled with her absence. Years later, she rediscovered the box of an administration of the worst and dimmest,” writes the author. tear-stained letters written primarily in Korean and set about “The truth is that the modern GOP doesn’t want to hear from translating them. In the process, she began to see her mother serious economists, whatever their politics. It prefers char- in a more rounded, fleshed-out form and to fully comprehend latans and cranks, who are its kind of people.” Krugman is a the love transmitted through her mother’s words and her ongo- serious economist who detailed his intellectual focus and style ing pleas for forgiveness for leaving her daughter at such a in a 1993 essay, “How I Work.” He cites four rules that guide pivotal age. Koh was also able to understand more about her his research: listen to intelligent views; question the question; grandmother, who witnessed the terrible 1948 massacre on Jeju “dare to be silly”; and “simplify, simplify.” All serve him—and his Island, and what it means to be a mixture of Korean, Japanese, readers—admirably. and American. The author includes her translations of some of Shrewd, witty, informed essays that are much needed her mother’s letters as well as the originals. Her bewilderment in our anti-intellectual age. regarding her mother’s decision is deeply evident, as are her gradual perceptions about how the move affected her mother. Koh also provides information on her travels to Japan, where THE HOUSE OF YAN she studied, and her brief stint as a dancer in Korea, and she A Family at the Heart explains how she eventually found her way into a poetry writing of a Century in Chinese program in college and how that further helped her grasp the History feelings embedded in her mother’s letters. Lan Yan Intimate, subtle insights about a unique mother- Trans. by Taylor, Sam daughter relationship. Harper/HarperCollins (432 pp.) $17.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 978-0-06-289981-1 ARGUING WITH ZOMBIES Economics, Politics, and the A powerful memoir of the Cultural Fight for a Better Future Revolution and its aftermath by pioneer- Krugman, Paul ing investment banker Lan Yan. Norton (416 pp.) The author opens with a scene in which eight security $29.95 | Jan. 28, 2020 officers surround her grandfather. “I am crying,” she recounts, 978-1-324-00501-8 “because I am not used to all this yelling, all these staircase stam- pedes, all this banging on doors.” With this dramatic opening, Penetrating analyses of urgent, con- the author describes the arrest of her grandfather in the early troversial problems. years of the Cultural Revolution. It did him no good to insist Krugman (Economics/City Univ. of on seeing an arrest warrant, because there was none: Under New York; End This Depression Now!, 2012, the revolution’s explosion of seething populism, the country etc.), winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sci- was no longer a state ruled by law. Soon Lan Yan and her fam- ences, gathers more than 90 articles, most from his New York ily were also suspect, tarred by association with a supposed

60 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | counterrevolutionary who had long been a devoted associate subsistence. Loewenstein lays out a case that is provocative but of Mao Zedong. Mao had had disagreements with the Soviet broad: It is inarguable that Richard Nixon used the drug war as Union a decade earlier over his Hundred Flowers liberalization a proxy for suppressing protest on the part of youth and ethnic campaign, which the Soviets feared would open the govern- minorities, but it takes more evidence than the author provides ment to ideological questioning; said one Soviet official, “This to land the argument that the drug war is a front for “the US is exactly the kind of incitement to bourgeois thinking that we goal of finding reliable, if autocratic, partners to secure regions have seen in Hungary!” It didn’t help the author’s case that it rich with valuable resources, including oil and gold.” was her father who translated the Soviet official’s words into A sometimes overwrought but pressing survey call- Chinese. After her grandfather was taken away, her father was ing into question a war that would seem to benefit only its accused of being a Russian spy. The author, herself interned, combatants. graduated from high school but was denied permission to teach, as she had wanted to do: “Their argument was that, since I came from a ‘problematic’ (i.e., counterrevolutionary) family, they INDESTRUCTIBLE believed that I would have to be reeducated, and that in any The Unforgettable Story of a case I was not fit to educate others.” Allied with Deng Xiaop- Marine Hero at the Battle of ing, Lan Yan instead emerged as a rising figure in the new era of Iwo Jima state capitalism, becoming a partner in a French international Lucas, Jack H. with Drum, D.K. law firm that helped open the Chinese market and then heading Morrow/HarperCollins (288 pp.) a bank with a predominantly female leadership, defying the fact $16.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 that “the world of banking is, just like the legal world, still very 978-0-06-279562-5

misogynistic.” young adult A thoughtful, astute narrative that helps Western read- A World War II Marine chronicles ers understand the rise of the new China from the ashes of his time in the service, culminating terror. (first printing of 20,000) in the act that won him the Medal of Honor—and how that event changed his life. Lucas, the youngest Marine to be awarded the medal, grew PILLS, POWDER, AND SMOKE up in North Carolina; an unruly farm boy, he was sent to a mili- Inside the Bloody War on tary school when his mother remarried. The school brought out Drugs the best in him, believing as he did in honor and duty. When Loewenstein, Antony news of Pearl Harbor arrived, he wanted to enlist and fight the Scribe (352 pp.) Japanese immediately. But at 14 years old, he was too young. In $19.00 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 what became a pattern for his Marine career, he persuaded his 978-1-947534-94-0 stepfather to lie about his age and was soon in basic camp. Sent to a stateside assignment, he went AWOL to get to Hawaii, A critique of the war on drugs, which, then stowed away on a troopship bound for Iwo Jima, where, on by the author’s account, is mostly a war his second day of combat, he threw himself on two grenades to on the poor and dispossessed. save the other members of his squad—and lived. His post-ser- Build a wall on the border with Mex- vice career was in general considerably less exciting, other than ico, says Donald Trump, and voilà: no more drugs. As Jerusalem- a murder plot against him. Lucas comes across as a highly patri- based Australian journalist Loewenstein (Disaster Capitalism: otic man who was a serious hell-raiser, especially in his youth. It Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe, 2015, etc.) observes, that is the story that carries readers through rather than the qual- assertion flies in the face of reports from the government’s own ity of the writing. Considering that he spent only two days in Drug Enforcement Agency that drugs predominantly enter combat, the author’s escapades before he ever got to Iwo Jima, the United States via airports and seaports, not via land. All as well as his various stratagems to get himself into the combat the same, the Trump administration “has brought the drug war zone, carry the bulk of the interest. There is very little on the back with a vengeance, though it’s arguably far less effective in battle that readers casually familiar with the war in the Pacific convincing people than in the past.” Indeed, Americans have don’t already know, and one suspects that Drum had a good deal embraced a hitherto unthinkable laissez-faire attitude in terms to do with getting the memoir into publishable shape. Still, if of cannabis, if not other drugs. The author examines several you were sitting in a bar with a veteran recounting these sto- fronts in a war fought by Western governments, especially the ries, you would almost certainly stay to hear them—and buy the U.S., on harder drugs that “are consumed nightly in such major teller a drink or two to keep them coming. cities as London, Sydney, New York, and Paris.” A U.S.–spon- Colorful war stories told by a man whose patriotism sored coup in Honduras, argues Loewenstein, made the country and heroism are sufficient to command our respectful more vulnerable to exploitation by the cartels while interdiction attention. (16-page b/w photo insert) campaigns elsewhere have amounted to “a convenient justifica- tion to ostracize, demonize, imprison, ignore, or kill the most marginalized,” for whom the drug trade is a means of simple

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 61 PRAVDA HA HA AN IMPECCABLE SPY True Travels to the End Richard Sorge, Stalin’s of Europe Master Agent MacLean, Rory Matthews, Owen Bloomsbury (368 pp.) Bloomsbury (448 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 14, 2020 $30.00 | Dec. 17, 2019 978-1-4088-9652-5 978-1-4088-5778-6

The acclaimed British travel writer The life of a master secret agent who, and historian retraces his trip after the fall unique among modern spies, infiltrated of the Berlin Wall to explore what hap- the highest echelons of both the Ger- pened to the hopes and promises of 1989. man and Japanese governments during This time, MacLean (In North Korea: Lives and Lies in the State World War II. of Truth, 2017, etc.) traveled in the reverse direction, from Mos- Journalist and historian Matthews (Stalin’s Children: Three cow to Berlin. His six-month journey included Estonia, Ukraine, Generations of Love, War, and Survival, 2008) might be suspected Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and little-known Transnistria. of irony with his title, taken from an observation by the trai- As the author relates, the promise of democracy lasted only so tor Kim Philby, for though John le Carré considered Richard long. Drawn by the newly dynamic economies, the money- and Sorge (1895-1944) “the spy to end spies,” he was sometimes power-hungry moved in. The rise of nationalism—which built dangerously undisciplined. He praised Stalin in a room full of on Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt’s teachings that Germans’ utopia Nazis, got drunk in a Tokyo bar and called Hitler “a fucking was stolen by existentially different and alien opponents—has criminal,” and, while working in the German Embassy in Japan, created enmity and violence toward migrants, the poor, and loudly predicted that Germany would lose World War II. Born other marginalized groups. Having used his characteristic tal- in the frontier town of Baku but raised in Germany, he served in ent of drawing insight from those he meets, the author offers the trenches on the Eastern Front, where he was converted to fascinating profiles throughout: the Russian chicken czar who communism. Good with languages and charismatic, he became shared his rare hallucinogenic truffle, one of the many oligarchs a spy for the Soviet Union, working in China and then Japan. enjoying the new wealth, at least for the moment; and a Nige- His reports to his Soviet spymasters were not always believed, rian refugee who told the harrowing story of his unflinching though they were accurate and full of dire warning. The spy ring determination to get to London. One of MacLean’s contacts that he put together in Tokyo had access to the highest levels described how Russian tacticians were able, by 2007, to shut of both Japanese and German intelligence. One key question down Estonian cyberspace and then take over Georgian gov- centered on whether Japan would join with Germany to attack ernment websites and interfere in Crimea, Ukraine, France, and the Soviet Union; Japan concentrated its efforts on controlling the U.S. Not just a travelogue, this is a consistently engaging yet Southeast Asia instead, as Sorge predicted, which allowed Stalin fearsome book that effectively traces the rise of national iden- to free up thousands of tanks and planes and many divisions of tity as a myth that paves the way for racism, xenophobia, and troops to fight against the Germans. Eventually, Sorge slipped even genocide. “Thirty years ago,” writes MacLean, “Europe up and was imprisoned and executed. Matthews dismisses the became whole again….In Berlin, Prague and Moscow I’d danced long-held conspiracy theory that Sorge and the Soviets knew of with so many others on the grave of dictatorships….I convinced the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor before it happened. As he myself that our generation was an exception in history, that we’d writes, although the Soviets benefited greatly from the work of learned to live by different rules, that we were bound together Sorge, whom he calls “brave, brilliant, and relentless,” Sorge was by freedom….I’ve remade this journey—backwards—to try to in danger of being forgotten in the post-Stalin era until he was understand how it went wrong.” “rehabilitated” under Khrushchev and elevated to the “official Another engrossing book from an author who is much pantheon of Soviet saints.” more than just a travel writer. Fans of Alan Furst and similar authors will find this true-espionage story fascinating.

62 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | A bold case for seeing God in a whole new way. saving god from religion

SAVING GOD FROM RELIGION The author now turns to the Piedmont region of Northern A Minister’s Search for Faith Italy and the city of Turin, which was a hotbed of fascism but in a Skeptical Age also the epicenter of the resistance. Moorehead relies heav- Meyers, Robin R. ily on the diaries of participant Ada Gobetti, who, along with Convergent/Crown (240 pp.) Bianca Serra, Frida Malan, and Silvia Pons, formed a core group $25.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 within the thousands of women who drove the resistance from 978-1-984822-51-2 1943 to 1945. Under 20 years of Mussolini’s rule, women were expected to be submissive and produce children. “One of the A radically new way for churches to key beliefs in Fascist ideology,” writes the author, “was that men see God: Look around, not up. and women were inherently different.” But being ignored as If the church is to survive, writes insignificant made them perfect couriers and concealers of mes- pastor and author Meyers (Spiritual sages, escapees, and arms. These women, who produced under- Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance, 2015, etc.), ground newspapers, led strikes, and transported escapees, were it must start relating to God in a different way. Believers must crucial to the resistance, and Moorehead clearly delineates their focus less on what they believe and more on what they should determination and heroism throughout the exciting narrative. do. As a map for what the path that he believes the church After Mussolini’s fall, Italy secured an armistice with the Allies, should follow, the author points to the Sermon on the Mount, but the Germans moved in to take over the country. Thus, a which contains every detail Jesus ever taught but says noth- multifaceted war began, but was it civil war, a war of liberation, ing about what one must believe. The sermon focuses entirely or a class war? With multiple governments and armies, it was on action and the importance of working for justice, which, chaotic. The Italian army had little leadership, and most of the

Meyers points out, is the same gospel that the Hebrew Bible’s soldiers abandoned their posts. With more than 100,000 dis- young adult major prophets preached many years earlier. The author banded soldiers, it fell to the women to help. In the Piedmont argues that in order to manifest this new approach to religion, hills, a dozen separate groups eventually winnowed down to a we must stop looking for God “up there” and start seeing God six-party coalition while help from the Allies was difficult to as existing on our level, literally in our relationships with oth- find. Turin’s Liberation Day, April 26, 1945, was organized by the ers: “Instead of concluding that we are ‘a little lower than God,’ women of the resistance and featured a complete stoppage of we might consider something that is both more frightening factories, trams, courts, and shops. The partisan groups, men and more empowering: that we are the very image of God, and and women, quickly established government offices and han- that our treatment of one another is our treatment of God.” dled expected reprisals. This is a highly satisfying conclusion to Meyers is blunt here: If the church doesn’t make working for the author’s series. justice its reason for being, it will continue hemorrhaging Excellent, well-presented evidence of the incalculable members until it dies. However, the author is not all doom strengths and abilities of women to create and run a coun- and gloom. He firmly believes that if churches make justice try. (b/w photos; maps; chronology) their primary concern, they will become relevant again and continue to be a source of wisdom and transformation. This may not be a book for all believers, but Meyers believes a sig- ANIMALKIND nificant audience is waiting, which he characterizes as “every- Remarkable Discoveries one who is struggling with the old and narrow definitions of About Animals and the God but has yet to see any coherent and comprehensive way Remarkable Ways We Can Be to reimagine the Ultimate Mystery.” Kind to Them A bold case for seeing God in a whole new way. Newkirk, Ingrid & Stone, Gene Simon & Schuster (304 pp.) $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 A HOUSE IN 978-1-5011-9854-0 THE MOUNTAINS The Women Who The founder and president of People Liberated Italy From Fascism for the Ethical Treatment of Animals Moorehead, Caroline emphasizes the importance of having “love, understanding, and Harper/HarperCollins (432 pp.) respect for all animals.” $29.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 Newkirk (One Can Make a Difference, 2008, etc.) and Stone 978-0-06-268635-0 (The Trump Survival Guide, 2017, etc.) aim to celebrate nonhu- man species and to argue against using them for scientific and In the final volume of the Resistance medical research, clothing, entertainment, and food. Among Quartet, Moorehead (A Bold and Dan animals’ “many talents, languages, and complex cultures,” the gerous Family, 2017) continues her work authors reveal astonishing facts about sea and air migration; exalting the women of World War II who saved their countries communication among frogs, primates, and birds; cognitive from fascism. abilities; courtship and fidelity; grief and mourning; animal

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 63 empathy; and various forms of play. They highlight the variety modified seesaw, and the Knoteks’ other victims endured simi- and sophistication of animal intelligence, such as the Brazil- lar cruelties. Olsen had access to the sisters, Dave Knotek, and ian torrent frog’s intricate forms of tactile, vocal, and visual a grandmother. Yet his overheated and repetitive prose robs communications. The authors underscore animals’ capacity the victims’ heart-rending stories of the high emotional impact for emotion: Prairie vole parents, for example, stay together they deserve. The three sisters are TV movie–ready tropes: for life; animals who live in closely knit groups—such as goril- Nikki, the strong-willed oldest; Sami, the accommodating mid- las and elephants—exhibit ritualistic behavior when a family dle child; and Tori, the baby who understood nothing until she member dies. “Animals love,” write the authors. “They grieve. understood everything. As for their mother, “Shelly was Cujo. They feel emotional pain. They worry. And they can anticipate Freddy Krueger. The freaky clown, Pennywise, from It.” For all pain.” After a wide-ranging and enlightening overview of animal its sordid details, the book never satisfactorily answers a ques- wonders, the authors devote several chapters to campaigning tion at its heart: In the sort of small town in which everyone against cruelty and exploitation. They point out that animal tends to know everyone else’s business, how did the Knoteks’ testing is an “extremely wasteful” method of finding treatments horrific crimes go undetected for so long? for human diseases, and they cite several noninvasive meth- Murder, torture, and sisterly love milked for all their ods—e.g., experiments on stem cells, 3D–printed organoids, potential melodrama. computer simulations, and bioinformatics—that are effective research methods. Not surprisingly, the authors argue against wearing clothing with fur or leather, claiming that much leather HUMBLE PI imported from China comes from “the hides of domestic dogs.” When Math Goes Wrong in They also describe in horrifying detail the injuries to sheep in the Real World the shearing process, advocating for a number of plant-based Parker, Matt and synthetic alternatives to wool. Similarly, they advocate “a Riverhead (336 pp.) whole-food, low-oil vegan diet” of plant-based substitutes $27.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 for meat, eggs, butter, and cheese. As for entertainment, the 978-0-593-08468-7 authors suggest, not convincingly, that virtual reality and “lifelike animatronics” can substitute for seeing a real animal. A pleasant exploration of our deeply An impassioned plea for preserving animals’ lives. held incompetence at mathematics. Comedian and YouTube performer Parker (Things To Make and Do in the IF YOU TELL Fourth Dimension: A Mathematician’s Journey Through Narcis- A True Story of Murder, sistic Numbers, Optimal Dating Algorithms, at Least Two Kinds of Family Secrets, and the Infinity, and More, 2014), who hosts a show on the Science Chan- Unbreakable Bond of nel called Outrageous Acts of Science, claims bluntly that humans Sisterhood are stupid at dealing with numbers. “We were not born with Olsen, Gregg any kind of ability to understand fractions, negative numbers, Thomas & Mercer (428 pp.) or the many other strange concepts developed by mathemat- $24.95 | Dec. 1, 2019 ics,” he writes, “but, over time, your brain can slowly learn how 978-1-5420-0522-7 to deal with them.” Ironically, it is engineering and computer glitches, not pure math, that make up much of the book. Build- A true story of three abused sisters ings and bridges collapse because someone gets the numbers who helped put their mother behind bars. wrong. A squadron of advanced jets crossing the Pacific sud- Nobody seemed to notice when a live-in babysitter van- denly lost their electronics because their navigation computer ished from the home of Dave and Shelly Knotek in tiny Ray- program, which must keep track of time, couldn’t deal with mond, Washington, in 1994. Then two more of the family’s crossing the International Date Line. They followed an older boarders disappeared, and Shelly’s three daughters suspected plane nearby to a safe landing. A corporation, searching for an the frightening truth: The couple had murdered the missing employee named Jack Null, could never find him because “null” people. In his latest true-crime book, Olsen (Lying Next to Me, to a computer means “no data.” People named Blank, Sample, 2019, etc.) follows the half sisters, whose fears proved justified and Test also cause trouble. A number divided by a really tiny when—after the older two went to the police with the approval number becomes very large. The result of dividing by zero is of the third—Shelly and Dave were arrested in 2003 and sent to meaningless; no proper computer will deal with it. Humans prison for their roles in the deaths of babysitter Kathy Loreno yearn to predict the unpredictable; the author shows how a truly and two others. It’s a grim tale, told in 85 short, James Patterson– random event (a lottery draw, a coin flip) has no influence on esque chapters, leavened only by the sisters’ courage, strength, the following event. No matter how many times heads appears, and love for one another. For years, Shelly inflicted sadistic the chance of tails remains 50-50. The only way to increase your abuses on her boarders and her daughters as Dave helped or chance of winning the lottery is to buy more tickets. If black stood by passively. Loreno was drugged, beaten, starved, and comes up four, five, or 10 times in a row on the roulette wheel, subjected to a crude form of waterboarding using a bucket and gamblers rush to bet on red because it is “due”—but it isn’t.

64 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Nonsense, blunders, and delusions make for good reading, so A NEW WORLD BEGINS Parker’s relentless litany will have a wide appeal. The History of the Fun reading for nonmathematicians. French Revolution Popkin, Jeremy D. Basic (640 pp.) FIGHTING CHURCHILL, $35.00 | Dec. 10, 2019 APPEASING HITLER 978-0-465-09666-4 Neville Chamberlain, Sir Horace Wilson, & Britain’s A veteran chronicler of French his- Plight of Appeasement: tory follows the wild-eyed forces that 1937-1939 impelled the Revolution as well as the Phillips, Adrian troubling aspects that kept them from Pegasus (368 pp.) meeting their goals. $29.95 | Dec. 3, 2019 Wisely, in order to help readers grasp the enormity of histor- 978-1-64313-221-1 ical currents converging at this moment in the late 18th century, Popkin (Chair, History/Univ. of Kentucky; From Herodotus to A complex tale of the political rivalry H-Net: The Story of Historiography, 2015, etc.) uses two real char- that underlay a key episode in 20th-century world events. acters to help illustrate his points. On one hand, Louis XVI was Although the efforts of Neville Chamberlain to preserve the “living symbol of the hereditary privileges and social inequal- the peace in Europe by accommodating Hitler’s demands for ities the revolutionaries were determined to overturn.” He grew

territory have long been viewed as an act of moral cowardice, up to believe he was the country’s patriarch and that, as he said, young adult British historian Phillips (The King Who Had To Go: Edward “every profession contribute[ed], in its own way, to the support VIII, Mrs. Simpson and the Hidden Politics of the Abdication of the monarchy.” On the other hand, a young glazier named Crisis, 2017, etc.) notes that it had a certain logic, since going Jacques-Louis Ménétra would have been lumped into what to war with Germany might put the entire British Empire at became the powerful force of the “Third Estate”—i.e., every- risk. That empire, he writes, “had been built in the days when one who was not royal or clergy. In contrast to the upper classes, France was its only challenger, but now Germany, Japan, and who focused intently on maintaining the rigid status quo, com- the United States had the resources to put its standing to the moners such as Ménétra seemed at the mercy of erratic fluctua- severest of tests.” The behind-the-scenes architect of appease- tions in received ideas from the press as well as yearly harvests, ment was Chamberlain’s adviser Horace Wilson; arrayed against the whims of landlords, prices of food, and collective violence. them was Winston Churchill, who insisted on a vigorous pol- Yet, as Popkin astutely points out, “even if few of them could icy of containment. Chamberlain was willing to go to unusual read and write, peasants had a strong sense of their rights.” The measures to placate Hitler, including giving in to his demands growing crisis of the country’s bankruptcy, thanks in large part that African colonies seized by Britain after World War I be to Louis’ insistence on financing the American Revolution to returned to Germany—at the risk, the British understood, that spite rival England, meant forcing the king into reluctant, see- the colonized peoples might become ardent Nazis and new sawing measures. The fomenting ideas of the Enlightenment, as enemies. (In any event, notes the author, those peoples were epitomized in Diderot’s Encyclopédie (which Louis owned), were never consulted about whether they wanted to be ruled by a the same as those that spurred the Americans, but the outcome foreign power in the first place.) Chamberlain and Wilson cal- was violently different. The author underscores how the French culated wrongly that the economic costs of rearmament would example might have “foreshadowed totalitarian excesses more help keep Hitler in check, and they also took the curious posi- than social progress” and how liberty for some did not spell lib- tion that Churchill and his allies in government proved a greater erty for all, especially slaves and women. danger to the peace than the fascist dictators then in power. In A fresh, welcome new interpretation of the French Rev- the end, it became clear that Britain would not be able to avoid olution. (15 b/w illustrations) war, and Churchill accordingly rose to serve as prime minister in Chamberlain’s stead. Churchill, though vain and capable of exercising questionable judgment, was ordinarily a hard fighter CANYON DREAMS who bore no grudges, but Phillips writes that he seems to have A Basketball Season on the taken pleasure in stripping Wilson of his positions and making Navajo Nation his life otherwise difficult after Chamberlain’s fall. Powell, Michael A fresh interpretation of the question of appeasement Blue Rider Press (272 pp.) that will interest students of 20th-century history. $28.00 | Nov. 19, 2019 978-0-525-53466-2

A New York Times sportswriter follows a Navajo basketball squad through a championship-seeking season.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 65 The author’s writing style is crystal-clear and understated, as he wisely allows the drama to unfold from the events themselves. the art of resistance

The Navajo reservation is, as sports reporter and one-time the mobituaries is a section dealing with cases similar to the “rez” resident Powell writes, as big as Britain and as remote as one(s) he has just discussed. His section on people confused for the moon. Chinle, Arizona, one of its most populous towns, each other shows his playful sense of humor—e.g., he includes hosts a high school that draws students from a huge area. Into Joan of Arc and actress Joan Van Ark. As his lengthy Works it, a few years ago, came a coach, “respected although perhaps Consulted testifies, Rocca has done his homework: His sources not beloved,” who imposed discipline on a team used to playing include not only biographies and histories, but also interviews “rez ball”—fast, explosive—and took them to the semifinals in a (where possible) with the people involved. Occasionally, a small state where they were always the underdogs who had to travel error intrudes—Mary Godwin was not yet Mary Shelley when for hours to get to their nearest opponents. The point guard she began work on Frankenstein—but the research is generally was a foot shorter than the “strapping white boys” they went up sound throughout. Though much of the tributes are funny and against. Another player dreamed of going to college and stud- wry, others are quite moving (Sammy Davis Jr., a “supernova ied advanced calculus, a course taught at Chinle High by a Paki- talent”). Rocca also reminds us of some long-forgotten figures— stani immigrant. Coach Mendoza is tough and demanding, the comedian Vaughn Meader, for example, who rocketed to fame students sometimes resentful; yet they pull together, scrappily with his John F. Kennedy impersonations and then plummeted taking down their opponents game by game, “a coiled snake… after JFK’s death. Political attitudes are sometimes patent, vibrating and ready to strike.” For all the exotic locale, Powell sometimes not. could have easily fallen into sporty clichés. He doesn’t, instead A spicy blend of humor, irony, wit, facts, fable, and delivering a deeply felt portrait of life in a place where alcohol heart. (two-color illustrations throughout) is a constant killer and the outside world ever encroaching but that, despite poverty, is so beautiful that Navajos mourn being outside it. The author writes with elegance about the Diné THE ART Bikéyah, or Navajo world (“night’s cold had acquired a knife- OF RESISTANCE sharp edge and Spider Woman had knit a million stars into a My Four Years in the milky glow”), and his on-the-boards scenes are full of action, French Underground: if sometimes too closely focused on the repeated motif of the A Memoir mean coach who “often…lashed at the Wildcats for their mis- Rosenberg, Justus takes and uneven effort even in victory” while leading them to Morrow/HarperCollins (304 pp.) unprecedented achievement. $28.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 As exciting as a full-court press and a thoughtful study 978-0-06-274219-3 of young athletes in a world little known to outsiders. A gripping memoir from an Eastern European Jew who fought in the French MOBITUARIES Resistance. Great Lives Worth Reliving Born in 1921, Rosenberg, who has received a Purple Heart Rocca, Mo & Greenberg, Jonathan and a Bronze Star from the U.S. Army for his service in World Illus. by Butler, Mitch War II, thrived within a loving Polish family into his teenage Simon & Schuster (384 pp.) years. His residence in Danzig meant immersion in both Pol- $29.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 ish and German culture, and his parents believed that Danzig’s 978-1-50-119762-8 well-integrated Jewish population would escape the rise of Hitler and his Nazi supporters. When that optimism began to The creator of the Mobituaries pod- crumble, the 16-year-old Rosenberg departed Danzig to study cast fleshes out that material and also in Paris. (Nobody knew then that most of his relatives would includes a wealth of supplementary essays and other new be slaughtered in the Holocaust. Rosenberg’s parents and sister information. survived, but the author would be separated from them until Writing with Greenberg (English/Montclair State Univ.; The 1952.) The German invasion of France interrupted Rosenberg’s Cambridge Introduction to Satire, 2019, etc.), CBS Sunday Morn studies. On his own, with dwindling cash, he decided against ing correspondent Rocca (All the Presidents’ Pets, 2004) displays trying to flee the Nazi juggernaut. Instead, he found a path to his eclectic interests, ranging from Lord Byron, who makes two joining the underground resistance against the Nazis, centered separate appearances, to the New Jersey Turnpike service areas. in occupied France and comprised of fighters from a variety Most major sections feature a “mobituary,” which is a lament, of backgrounds, including expatriate Americans. Rosenberg sometimes serious, sometimes ironic, sometimes amusing, for offered special value as a Resistance guerrilla for multiple rea- someone or something no longer with us. Among these are sons: Given his blond hair and other physical features, he did Thomas Paine, the original Siamese twins, medieval medical not “look Jewish.” His baby face meant that he could easily pass practices, Prussia (“always coming up in the context of wan- as a schoolboy. He spoke Polish, German, Yiddish, and English. ton militarism, which made me think…I’m pretty sure it must be He could subsist on meager resources during wartime hardships. German”), the idea of homosexuality as a mental illness, Billy He welcomed all assignments offered by Resistance command- Carter, Farrah Fawcett, and myriads more. Following most of ers, and he was fearless. The narrative unfolds chronologically,

66 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | in semi-diary format, and while readers will know, of course, without inconveniencing the rich, and America prospered. that Rosenberg avoided death, the narrative tension is continu- A provocative argument that wealthy men built Amer- ous, as the author recalls imprisonments, escapes from confine- ica and did a good job. (8-page b/w photo insert) ment, and successful missions against the Nazis. The author’s writing style is crystal-clear and understated, as he wisely allows the drama to unfold from the events themselves. As the war MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF wound down, Rosenberg was unsure about his future. Eventu- CARSON MCCULLERS ally, he settled in the U.S. and has taught language and literature A Memoir for 70 years. Shapland, Jenn A welcome addition to the World War II memoir shelf. Tin House (288 pp.) $22.95 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-1-947793-28-6 THE FOUNDING FORTUNES How the Wealthy Paid for An intimate look at the life and loves and Profited From of Carson McCullers (1917-1967). America’s Revolution “To tell another person’s story,” Shap- Shachtman, Tom land observes in her deft, graceful liter- St. Martin’s (352 pp.) ary debut, “a writer must make that person some version of $29.99 | Jan. 21, 2020 herself, must find a way to inhabit her.” The author knew little 978-1-250-16476-6 about McCullers before she became an intern at the Harry

Ransom Center, a repository for writers’ and artists’ archives at young adult An ingenious examination of how the University of Texas. Responding to a scholar’s request, she money played the central role in the discovered eight letters from Swiss writer and photographer founding of the United States. Annemarie Schwarzenbach to McCullers that struck Shapland As prolific historian ShachtmanHow ( the French Saved immediately as “intimate, suggestive” love letters. For Shapland, America: Soldiers, Sailors, Diplomats, Louis XVI, and the Success of a at the time suffering the end of a “major, slow-burning catas- Revolution, 2017, etc.) points out, fighting Britain was extremely trophe,” the letters marked a “turning point.” Within a week, expensive. Lacking the power to tax, the Continental Con- she cut her hair short. “Within a year,” she writes, “I would be gress performed terribly in their efforts to supply the army, but more or less comfortably calling myself a lesbian for the first this obscures the fact that it spent a great deal of money and time.” The letters inspired further research, focused especially many men got rich. Partly, this was inherent in the primitive on McCullers’ sexuality, about which Shapland found intrigu- administration of 18th-century governments. Paid no salary, ing evidence in transcripts of her taped therapy sessions with officials took a commission from money that passed through Dr. Mary Mercer, begun when McCullers was 41 and which their hands, a practice that encouraged corruption. It was McCullers described “as an attempt of writing her autobiogra- also not illegal to mix public and private business, so officials phy.” In addition, following the sessions, McCullers wrote let- purchased from themselves or their friends. Due to slow com- ters to Mercer “awash in the joy of self-revelation” and her “love munication and scanty legal protection, merchants and buyers for Dr. Mary.” The more Shapland discovered about McCullers, relied on promises, personal guarantees, risky loans, and favors. the more convinced she became that McCullers was a lesbian Genuinely patriotic merchants like Robert Morris, as well as who had been intensely in love with several women. Identifying less admirable figures, took terrible risks and often suffered for with McCullers “as a writer, as a queer person, as a chronically ill it. Morris died poor. The feeble confederation that followed person,” Shapland felt she had special insight into her subject’s independence exasperated those concerned with foreign affairs, life. At the same time, looking to McCullers “as a role model,” trade, raising capital, and collecting debts but not the average she wondered if she was “reading into her queerness”: impos- American. Shachtman emphasizes that no mass movement ing her own life story, and her own needs, on McCullers, in part demanded change. The Constitution was championed “by a to rescue her from “retroactive closeting by peers and biog- very small subset of the country’s wealthy. If we add to the fifty- raphers.” Shapland interweaves candid self-questioning and five men who attended the Constitutional Convention, twice revealing personal stories with a nuanced portrait of a writer or three times that number of nondelegates who later took the who confessed her loves were “untouchable” and her feelings lead in urging ratification…the total is at best a few hundred “inarticulable.” men.” They looked after their own interests, and their priori- A sensitive chronicle of a biographer’s search for truth. ties were social order, contracts, collecting debts, and a strong currency. However, as the author shows, unlike the ultrawealthy today, most embraced equality of opportunity. Shachtman carries his account past the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, who opposed powerful governments, banks, and (in theory) great wealth. Despite this, the author maintains that his elimina- tion of taxes and regulations increased equality of opportunity

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 67 An utterly compelling chronicle from a master scholar and clear writer. my war criminal

DON’T BELIEVE A WORD (b. 1949) has led a fascinating life in and outside of the ring: a The Surprising Truth About poor child who became a rich man; an overweight man and a Language world-class athlete; a devoted man who has been married five Shariatmadari, David times; a sports commentator; a reality show subject and sitcom Norton (336 pp.) actor; and, of course, a home-shopping network star who sold a $27.95 | Jan. 7, 2020 staggering number of meat cookers. Most pertinently, he went 978-1-324-00425-7 toe-to-toe with some of the best pugilists in the history of a quintessential American sport. In his first book, Smith (Sport The beauty and intrigue of language. Management and History/Nichols Coll.) approaches his sub- Shariatmadari, a linguist and Guard ject in a scholarly manner, and readers receive such conclusions ian editor, is anxious to remove linguistics as, “He had not yet achieved the ‘emotional invulnerability’ of from its ivory-tower encampment and a soul aesthetic even if he looked the part,” and are regularly make it understandable for general readers. He cuts “through the referred to more than 50 pages of footnotes. Unquestionably, fallacies and folklore that cloud our understanding” of this social the author did his homework, including research into declas- science and provides some entertainment along the way. The sified government documents, and he takes readers to far-flung author begins with the age-old myth that “language is going to locales, including Zaire in 1974 for the famous “Rumble in the the dogs.” On the contrary, language is “constantly evolving….It’s Jungle” with Muhammad Ali. “Like a matador,” writes Smith of the speed of change, within our own short lives, that creates the the fight, “he circled the ring, using his fists and his words to illusion of decline.” A history of the word “toilet” helps Shariat- manipulate Foreman into a position for the estocada. Foreman madari shatter the myth that the origin of a word, its etymology, looked to gore him, but he had been weakened by seven rounds is a guide to its true meaning. How a word sounds when spoken, of Ali’s physical and verbal banderillas.” In addition to Fore- the “very fount of our self-expression,” is largely unconscious. man’s bouts, the author also offers detailed (sometimes overly The shapes of our vowels and consonants, as well as accents, can so) examinations of how those fights came to be, illustrating the change “whether you know it or not.” Can animals speak? Meet nature of the sport—what Foreman says is “truly a gangster’s Alex, an African grey parrot that could respond to complicated game”—more than providing a nuanced picture of the man. questions and even create a metaphorical compound. He said Although not for the casual fan—if those exist in box- “rock corn” to describe dried corn. Using a specially designed ing anymore—students of the sport will find plenty to chew board of symbols, Kanzi, a bonobo, can respond to around 3,000 on. (photo insert) words. The author also delves into where dialects come from, how to decide where a language begins and ends, and African Ameri- can Vernacular English. AAVE has been branded slang or ghetto MY WAR CRIMINAL language, but using it “to help students acquire standard English Personal Encounters actually speeds up that process.” Are some languages better than With an Architect of others? Korean is held up by some as a “superior” language while Genocide German is a “time-honoured whipping boy.” Mandarin is “slow Stern, Jessica but dense, Spanish quick but light.” Shariatmadari enters into Ecco/HarperCollins (352 pp.) the fray over the noted linguist Noam Chomsky’s controversial $28.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 belief that language is instinctual. He votes no. Inquiring minds 978-0-06-088955-5 curious about epenthesis backronyms and heteronymy will find answers here. This scrupulously researched work An at-times quite challenging but agile and lively intro- by a skilled interviewer of “imprisoned duction to language. (5 illustrations) perpetrators” focuses on the making of the genocidal Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić. Between 2014 and 2016, Stern (Global Studies/Boston Univ.; NO WAY BUT TO FIGHT Denial: A Memoir of Terror, 2010, etc.) held a dozen conversa- George Foreman and the tions with the war criminal, now imprisoned for life in the Sch- Business of Boxing eveningen Prison in The Hague. Though interviews with such Smith, Andrew R.M. high-profile war criminals had not been sanctioned by the Inter- Univ. of Texas (408 pp.) national Criminal Tribunal—the first international war crimes $29.95 | Jan. 10, 2020 court established since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials at the 978-1-4773-1976-5 end of World War II—the ICT ultimately agreed, acknowledging Stern’s meticulous methods and hoping her research might An account of a punch man–turned- yield valuable information about Karadžić’s motives. Karadžić pitchman and the business in which he came to power as the former Yugoslavia’s ethnically divided fed- made his name. erations began to declare their independence in the early 1990s, A two-time heavyweight champion and the once-dominant Serbs of Bosnia, in the minority to the of the world and Olympic gold medalist, George Foreman majority Bosnian Muslims, feared (or were incited to fear) that

68 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | they were losing their status and privileges. The culmination of let the shadow of death make the light in your life only seem fear and hate erupted in the genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995, brighter.” These are the sort of sentiments upon which count- when the Bosnian Serb army captured the town and executed less self-help books are constructed, but Talbot demonstrates thousands of surrendered men and boys. Appearing as a cul- the conviction of someone who has been there and back and tured, intelligent “gentleman,” Karadžić created a whole other now knows what is really at stake. entity as an “energy healer” and poet while on the lam for 12 A book Talbot likely wrote mainly for himself, but years, and he believed that he was a hero for his beleaguered it should provide inspiration for others facing similar people. Stern’s account of their interviews is a riveting battle of challenges. the wills, as the author chronicles her battle against Karadžić’s manipulation and attempts to see some remorse. Yet he was unrepentant in protecting “his” people from exaggerated WHY WOMEN READ FICTION threats and demographic changes, and he used fearmongering The Stories of Our Lives tactics that Stern recognizes as being currently practiced by Taylor, Helen the U.S. government. Ultimately, the author provides a subtle, $18.95 | Oxford Univ. (288 pp.) powerful illustration of terror that resonates today, especially Jan. 2, 2020 regarding the resurgent white supremacist movement. The 978-0-19-882768-9 deep, extensive footnotes and detailed timeline attest to Stern’s meticulous research. More than 500 women share their An utterly compelling chronicle from a master scholar connection to stories. and clear writer. (abbreviations guide; dramatis personae; timeline; Intrigued by women’s enduring love maps) of fiction, Taylor (Emerita, English/ young adult University of Exeter; BFI Film Classic on Gone With the Wind, 2015, etc.), who twice directed the Liver- BETWEEN HEAVEN AND HELL pool Literary Festival, sent a detailed questionnaire to women The Story of My Stroke she knew, worked with, or met at literary or bookshop festivals Talbot, David and events and conducted lengthy interviews with women writ- Chronicle Prism (176 pp.) ers and publishing professionals, all to answer her overarching $22.95 | Jan. 14, 2020 question: “What does fiction reading mean to women?” Draw- 978-1-4521-8333-6 ing on their responses, the author offers intimate revelations of how, where, and why women read fiction; what they read; A near-death, new-life memoir by and how women writers see themselves as “gendered (or not).” the San Francisco author and founder of Although some findings are predictable—e.g., women read “not Salon. just for entertainment and escape, but to help us get through In short chapters that had their gen- life’s daily trials and major challenges”—many readers convey, esis on Facebook, Talbot (The Devil’s with clarity and sincerity, their deep emotional response to Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret novels, characters, and authors. Reading, one woman said, “has Government, 2015, etc.) recounts a year of recovery, upheaval, and taken me to places I longed to go and some I did not want to go.” transformation following the stroke that almost killed him. He Women’s most loved books also were unsurprising, with Pride also reflects on the pace of the stress-filled career that brought and Prejudice and Jane Eyre high on the list and Jane Austen as him to this precipice, in his mid-60s, while he was still trying to most women’s favorite writer. Some readers from diverse eth- navigate his way through considerable Hollywood challenges in nic, class, and racial backgrounds, a minority of Taylor’s respon- attempting to bring his books to the screen. As the hard-charg- dents, sought out books they believed could improve “their life ing CEO and editor-in-chief of Salon, he championed progres- chances and social mobility.” Noting the popularity of romance sive investigative journalism at a time when the industry was novels, erotica, and mysteries, Taylor has found that evolving heading toward a financial abyss. “I believed then that Salon attitudes about sexual relations have made romance fiction “a was worth dying for. We were caught up in history’s hurricane,” dynamic form” that questions archetypes such as the young he writes, with the somewhat messianic self-importance that naïve heroine seduced by an experienced older man, and pub- occasionally typifies his tone. (Talbot also compares himself lishers of romance increasingly realize the commercial poten- to the revered mystic monk Thomas Merton, though “not reli- tial of attracting LGBTQ writers and readers. Women writers gious.”) Though the author is a Type A personality in overdrive, offer candid insights about the particular challenges they face. his lessons should strike a responsive chord in many readers. Some, for example, have been frustrated by publishers’ and crit- “My stroke did not just change my life,” he writes. “It saved ics’ assumptions. “There is still a disposition,” Hilary Mantel my life.” By necessity, he slowed down, he lost a lot of weight, complained, “to think that when a woman writes books, she and he pared his existence down to the essentials and became must be commenting on The Woman Question, or on ‘What focused on what really matters. He made his peace with death. do women want?’, as if she cannot pull away from personal He learned to “live each moment like it’s your last, because it preoccupations.” just might be. Embrace your mortality. Even celebrate it. And A warm celebration of the power of fiction.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 69 A solid primer on how to put the power of bad to good use. the power of bad

WHY I AM NOT A BUDDHIST Queensland), co-authors of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Thompson, Evan Human Strength (2011), the power of bad can be filed under the Yale Univ. (240 pp.) negativity effect, the “universal tendency for negative events $26.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 and emotions to affect us more strongly than positive ones.” We 978-0-300-22655-3 revel in praise for a much shorter time than we wallow in criticism. We are fed a constant diet of negative imagery because A scholarly response to mainstream bad sells (if it bleeds, it leads). Regardless, write the authors, Western Buddhism. “bad can make us stronger in the end.” Though it may be dif- Following in the tradition of Ber- ficult to negate the negativity, the authors show how not to be trand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian, ruled by it. Their prescriptions have mostly to do with refram- Thompson (Waking, Dreaming, Being, ing the context of the negative, isolating the rotten apple so it 2014, etc.) delivers a timely rebuttal to doesn’t contaminate the remainder of the barrel. These specific what he calls Buddhist modernism, the idea, loosely, that Bud- strategies have a common-sensical tone: Learn to be as creative dhism is not a religion but a science of the mind. Thompson with your praise as you are with your criticism. Protect your- confronts Buddhist modernism as it has been popularized by self, and don’t expect bad apples to change on their own. Focus writers such as Robert Wright, Sam Harris, Stephen Batch- on making a good first impression. Regarding retail, they write, elor, and Joseph Goldstein by returning Buddhist teachings “no matter how crazy or obnoxious the customer, end on a good and practices to their cultural contexts. Mindfulness medita- note.” (True to the negativity effect, a single one-star review tion, for example, is commonly understood today to reveal the on Yelp will yield more hits than numerous five-star reviews.) nature of the mind, but as Thompson points out, it “is a prac- Occasionally, the authors venture into less obviously popular tice that shapes the mind according to certain goals and norms, areas—e.g., when we advocate penalties over prizes. A case in such as making the mind calmer and less impulsive.” He makes point is their call for “less carrot and more stick” when it comes similar arguments about other central positions of Buddhist to grading students, especially in college. So is their suggestion modernism, such as the illusory nature of the self, the meaning for doomsayers to “put your money where you doom is.” As they of enlightenment, and the scientific evidence for the truth of write, “if doomsayers want society to spend large sums dealing Buddhism. Thompson shows all of these to be far more com- with a threat, they should be willing to put their own cash—and plex and contested within Buddhism than is widely claimed reputations—on the line.” That pronouncement may not seem by modernists. Alongside his criticisms, Thompson offers a reasonable in the face of something like climate change, but positive vision of Buddhism’s place in a larger cosmopolitan- otherwise, the authors’ advice rings true. ism. He wishes, finally, “to be a good friend to Buddhism.” If A solid primer on how to put the power of bad to good he is a friend, though, he is an awfully stern one. As vigorous use. and informed as Thompson’s approach is, it is ultimately more impressive than engaging. One advantage Wright, Harris, and Batchelor have over Thompson is that each is a more elegant I AM NOT YOUR SLAVE stylist. But the precision and technicality of the book are cen- A Memoir tral to Thompson’s project. He can’t very well get into the weeds Tjipombo, Tupa with Lockhart, Chris as he needs to without getting muddy. While this reality may Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review preclude him from the wide readership his antagonists know, (256 pp.) it is a price he pays voluntarily in an effort to keep his readers $27.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 honest. 978-1-64160-237-2 The forceful, if labored, argument Western Buddhists need to hear. A Namibian woman’s account of how she survived being kidnapped and forced into a global human trafficking network. THE POWER OF BAD When one of Tjipombo’s father’s How the Negativity Effect wives accused Tjipombo’s mother of witchcraft, both were Rules Us and How We Can exiled to another village for one year to allow family “tensions to Rule It ease.” They stayed with her uncle, Gerson, whose lively house- Tierney, John & Baumeister, Roy F. hold the author came to love. Then a business deal involving Penguin Press (336 pp.) Tjipombo’s father and an associate of one of Gerson’s business $28.00 | Dec. 31, 2019 contacts went sour, and Tjipombo (a pseudonym) was unex- 978-1-59420-552-1 pectedly called upon to serve as the contact’s house girl for one year. The author soon discovered that the man actually wanted Coping strategies for the negativity her for a prostitution ring that extended across southern Africa. bias that pervades our daily lives. A witch doctor subjected her to a bloody ceremony to mark her For City Journal contributing editor as his “daughter.” If she tried to escape, she or members of her Tierney and social scientist Baumeister (Psychology/Univ. of family would die. Herded with other captive women into trucks,

70 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Tjipombo was sent to a camp where middlemen from China ordering the world and expressing our values, whether in the abused and raped her. From there, she was put on another monoliths of Easter Island or in cities conquering the natural truck that stopped in the Sudan. There, she became a servant environment. Lastly, the concept of time helped organize life, and sexual slave for members of the Sudan People’s Liberation eased trade, removed uncertainty in interactions, and allowed Army and visiting Sudanese government officials. An escape us to predict events in an unknown future. The author draws on attempt landed her back in the hands of the traffickers who had extensive travels and many interviews with scientists to offer originally captured her. The men put her on a ship bound for vivid accounts of these forces at work in the lives of our “cul- Dubai, where she became the live-in servant for a rich, powerful tural forebears.” family. Her life “consisted of little beyond sleep and work,” until A provocative, highly readable take on our astonishing one family member called the Jackal forced her into an inter- emergence from the primordial soup. national sex slave “harem” the family used to entertain visiting officials. Tjipombo finally escaped after she stole the cellphone of a high-ranking American official who had made cellphone PITY THE READER videos of their sexual encounter and threatened to blackmail On Writing With Style him. In this harrowing, unsparing memoir, the author docu- Vonnegut, Kurt & McConnell, Suzanne ments unimaginable brutality against women with dignity and Seven Stories (432 pp.) grace and provides readers with an urgent education about the $32.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 devastating scope of human trafficking in the modern world. 978-1-60980-962-1 Difficult but necessary reading. Seminal views and guidance on writ-

ing from Kurt Vonnegut Jr., freely anno- young adult TRANSCENDENCE tated by a former workshop student. How Humans Evolved Vonnegut is best remembered for his Through Fire, Language, novels such as Cat’s Cradle and Slaughter Beauty, and Time house-Five. However, during a career that spanned more than Vince, Gaia five decades, he also published several autobiographical essay Basic (352 pp.) collections, and much of this writing referenced the writing $30.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 craft. In this latest posthumous work, a project that was com- 978-0-465-09490-5 missioned by the Vonnegut Trust, McConnell—a former Von- negut student at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently a Award-winning British science writer writing instructor and author—has drawn from a hefty assort- Vince (Adventures in the Anthropocene: A ment of Vonnegut’s writing, including letters, essays, speeches, Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made, and lectures, to structure her thematic chapters around Von- 2014) describes how the interplay of our genes, environment, negut’s views on the inspiration, mechanics, and profession and culture made us “the only species to determine its own of writing. Taken together, the chapters paint an expansive destiny.” portrait of Vonnegut’s life and career, with examples of how In this captivating story of evolution from the Big Bang to personal experiences often directly contributed to his work. A the present Anthropocene, the former Nature and New Scien profound example was his experience as a prisoner of war dur- tist editor traces four key elements—fire, language, beauty, and ing the World War II firebombing of Dresden, which he bril- time—that have allowed humans to grow from “an endangered liantly recounted in Slaughterhouse-Five. “That event, and others, puny primate on the savannahs of Africa to become the most fueled his writing and shaped his views,” writes McConnell. “(It numerous big animal on Earth.” In thoughtful explorations, the did not, however, as is often assumed, initiate it. He was already author shows how each of these forces contributed, in powerful, headed in the direction of being a writer when he enlisted.)” often surprising ways, to humankind’s dominance. Fire made Though much of his writing is served up as fragmented bits possible resources beyond our own muscle power, changed to support the choppy narrative, for the most part Vonnegut’s the food density of the landscape, and cooked meats, making practical advice and acerbic humor remain richly articulated. them easier to digest. Fire also offered protection for childbirth, He stresses the need to be entirely passionate about whatever enabling us to grow bigger brains, become sociable, and acquire the subject matter is and to bring as much clarity to the writ- cultural know-how. “Making and controlling fire gave humans ing as possible, which is accomplished mainly through extensive an amazing ability to transform the stuff of our planet into the revisions. The downside of McConnell’s approach is that too materials of our manmade world,” writes Vince. Language gave often her own voice intrudes on Vonnegut’s lessons. In fact, her us oral stories—“collective memory banks”—to guide and bind writing comprises nearly half of the book, and with frequent us, took the form of writing 5,000 years ago, and now makes references to her own opinions on writing and teaching, she “cumulative cultural evolution visible” through Wikipedia, stretches her role beyond what would seem appropriate for where vast amounts of cultural information are conveyed with such an annotated collection. fidelity to many people at once. Beauty, much valued, spurred An uneven assemblage of memoir and writing advice trade in trinkets and helped give rise to permanent settlements, that will interest devoted readers of Vonnegut’s work.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 71 The political and psychological potently intertwine within this highly charged memoir. spring rain

SAM SPRING RAIN One Robot, a Dozen A Graphic Memoir of Engineers, and the Race To Love, Madness, and Revolutionize the Way We Revolution Build Warner, Andy Waldman, Jonathan Illus. by the author Avid Reader Press (288 pp.) St. Martin’s Griffin (208 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 $19.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-5011-4059-4 978-1-250-16597-8

Gripping tale of a robot arm and an A cartoonist uses his art to connect unexpected application to which it was the world he sees collapsing outside with the psychological put to work. state crumbling within. Laying down courses of bricks is difficult work, requiring In 2005, Warner (Brief Histories of Everyday Objects, 2016, masons to lift tons of materials daily. From this observation etc.) broke up with his girlfriend and moved to Beirut, where came a light-bulb moment: A New York architect named Nate he felt rootless, stateless, unsure of his bearings, and unstable Podkaminer pondered whether it would be possible to automate in ways that reminded him of his past. There was a history of the process by using a robot. Employing members of his family, mental illness in his family, and he questioned his sanity, iden- he set out on the quest to construct what, in one iteration, was tity, and grip on present, past, and future. “In my diary,” he “an oversize contraption—capable of laying forty-pound cinder writes, “I felt like a character in a story that I was writing years blocks as well as four-pound bricks—powered by an undersize later.” Identity remains a tricky concept for him, and besides, motor, resting on undersize rails.” With tinkering, writes Wald- “memory is a tricky business.” The author experienced his inner man (Rust: The Longest War, 2015), Podkaminer and company turmoil amid a particularly explosive period in Lebanon, a time were able to cook up SAM, for “semi-automated mason,” semi- of assassination and strife with Syria and fear from bombings because while the machine, built up from a Swiss-made robotic by unknown perpetrators (an attack from within or by outside arm, was able to lift and set down bricks, it required human forces?), as well as U.S. aggression toward the Middle East under masons to point and clean up the mortar bonding them. (The the George W. Bush administration, inflamed anti-American Swiss firm “thought a bricklaying robot was crazy.”) No one sentiment. Warner found kindred spirits and a community of involved was a bricklayer as such but instead process engineers sorts among Beirut’s gay and lesbian subculture, in whose com- and the like. The real bricklayers, as one might expect, were sus- pany he began questioning his sexual identity or at least open- picious and a little hostile at first; one said, “if a robot told me ing himself to possibility in the absence of his girlfriend. The where to lay bricks, I think I’d shove it off the scaffold!” Though tone throughout is matter-of-fact and dispassionate, which jux- assured that humans were in charge and that jobs for masons taposes against the crazed desperation of his powerful artistic would grow, since lowering the cost of laying bricks would mean expression. “I was drawing my comic. I was drawing on my walls. more brick buildings would go up in the place of steel and glass, I was drawing on myself,” he writes. He wasn’t alone in his feel- the firm continued to meet resistance—but kept on plugging all ings about how the world was driving him mad or reflecting the the same, to quietly triumphant ends. As one learns a great deal madness within. “A bomb going off every three days is enough about geology from John McPhee and computers from Tracy to make anybody crazy,” noted a woman with whom Warner Kidder, Waldman offers a lively, accessible overview of the became casually involved. “But anyway, it’s not just Lebanon! bricklayer’s art, which is much more complex than one might Look at America. Bush just won reelection. That dumbass… think. Apart from engendering an appreciation for the uses of invaded Iraq only two years ago!” Ultimately, the author left technology, the author also adds to the literature surrounding Lebanon with some of his sanity and identity intact, and when the dignity of artful labor. he returned years later, he did so with fresh eyes and haunted Human meets machine, and both prevail in an engag- memories. ing story of technology and discovery. The political and psychological potently intertwine within this highly charged memoir. (b/w illustrations throughout)

72 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | A CENTURY OF VOTES FOR THE MATH OF LIFE WOMEN AND DEATH American Elections Since 7 Mathematical Principles Suffrage That Shape Our Lives Wolbrecht, Christina & Corder, J. Kevin Yates, Kit Cambridge Univ. (330 pp.) Scribner (288 pp.) $24.99 | Jan. 1, 2020 $26.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-31-663807-1 978-1-982111-87-8

What influences women’s votes? A welcome addition to the math-for- Following their well-researched study people-who-hate-math genre. of women voters immediately after the In his first book, Yates, the co-direc- 19th Amendment was ratified in 1919Counting ( Women’s Ballots: tor of the Centre for Mathematical Biology at the University Female Voters From Suffrage Through the New Deal, 2016), Wolbrecht of Bath, cheerfully promises to arm readers “with simple math- (Political Science/Univ. of Notre Dame) and Corder (Political ematical rules and tools that can help you in your everyday life: Science/Western Michigan Univ.) extend their inquiry to the from getting the best seat on the train, to keeping your head present, offering an authoritative academic analysis of how when you get an unexpected test result from the doctor….We women voted in presidential elections over the last 100 years. will also…observe math in action as we highlight the steps we After an overview chronicling the fight for suffrage, the authors can take to help halt the spread of a deadly disease.” Evolution organize their investigation by historical period: the 1920s and primed organisms to avoid danger; calculating has no survival

’30s, marked by a world war and Great Depression; the 1940s advantage, so humans lack a talent for it, a deficit the author young adult and ’50s, when traditional gender roles seemed entrenched; the finds irresistible. Yates also looks at the mammogram- anec late 1960s and ’70s, when second wave feminism “challenged dote, which serves as proof that even smart people mess up: A and transformed” assumptions about women’s interests and woman has a positive mammogram. If mammograms are 90% the Voting Rights Act brought African American women to the accurate and 1% of women have undetected breast cancer, what voting booth; the 1980s, when pollsters discovered the gender are the odds that this is bad news? Given a choice, many doc- gap; and 21st-century elections, ending with the defeat of the tors will say 80% when the answer is about 9. They forget that first woman presidential candidate. The authors assert that 10% of the 99 healthy women will also test positive. Yates also two factors traditionally have been thought to shape women’s points out the common mathematical errors that occur in the voting behavior: distinctive gender (women have “distinctive court system, where many fall for the “prosecutor’s fallacy.” For traits, values, and capacities”) and resource inequality (women example, an accused person wears the identical shoe size as the have less access to political information than men). Although criminal. Since only 4% of the population wears that size, the until the 1960s, women were less inclined than men to vote, in prosecutor claims that there is a 96% chance that he is guilty. the ’60s and ’70s, the turnout gap “narrowed to nothing,” and Along with useful tips and intriguing examinations of a wide women became “more supportive than men of social welfare variety of algorithms (useful and useless), Yates loves deliver- programs.” In the ’80s and ’90s, women were more likely to vote ing curious facts, in the vein of Freakonomics, and readers will than men and also more likely than men to support Democratic be thankful. For example, almost every human possesses more presidential candidates, whom they deemed more progressive than the average number of legs. Amputees lower the average, than Republicans. Drawing on abundant research data, the and no one has three. authors reveal that a consistent theme among candidates is that All but the stubbornly innumerate will enjoy this amus- “women’s interests are fundamentally tied to motherhood and ing mathematical miscellany. the home,” but they argue convincingly—and often densely— that “women are not just one kind of voter and are not mobi- lized only by their gender per se.” Rather, distinctive gender WILMINGTON’S LIE traits and access to resources intersect with race, employment, The Murderous Coup education, social class, and religion. “Gender matters,” they of 1898 and the Rise of write. “It is just not the only thing that matters.” White Supremacy A sturdy scholarly contribution to women’s studies and Zucchino, David political analysis. (figures throughout) Atlantic Monthly (336 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-8021-2838-6

A searing and still-relevant tale of racial injustice at the turn of the 20th century. In 1898, the city of Wilmington, North Carolina, was unusual in the South for having a government that included

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 october 2019 | 73 African Americans. Many moving parts went into that development, including the short-term disenfranchisement of Con- federates during Reconstruction, the ratification of the 15th Amendment, and the rise of a prosperous black middle class in the port city. As Pulitzer Prize winner Zucchino (Thunder Run: The Armored Strike To Capture Baghdad, 2004, etc.) shows, it was met by an organization that “acquired a formal name proudly embraced by Democrats: the White Supremacy Cam- paign,” the goal of which “was to evict blacks from office and intimidate black voters from going to the polls.” The product of a politician and a newspaper editor, the movement took a paramilitary turn when thousands of “Red Shirts” turned up to besiege Wilmington in what amounted to a coup d’état, the only violent change of government in the history of the nation, though certainly not the only instance of racial violence. The author writes, meaningfully, “for whites in Wilmington, blacks had ceased to be slaves, but they had not ceased to be black.” The coup, in which at least 60 blacks died, was successful. It replaced the city’s government with an all-white one, and it led to widespread disenfranchisement throughout the South. The newspaper editor, Josephus Daniels, moved on to Louisiana and campaigned for white supremacy there, promulgating a voter- suppression law that, in New Orleans, “helped reduce the number of black voters from 14,117 to 1,493.” Efforts by the biracial Republican Party in North Carolina to undo the wrong were met with indifference even by Republican President William McKinley. The complexities of racial division and party politics in a time before the Republicans and Democrats effectively switched sides are sometimes challenging to follow, but Zuc- chino’s narrative is clear and appropriately outraged without being strident. A book that does history a service by uncovering a shameful episode, one that resonates strongly today.

74 | 15 october 2019 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | children’s These titles earned the Kirkus Star: BIRD HUGS Adamson, Ged Illus. by the author STRONG VOICES by Tonya Bolden; illus. by Eric Velasquez...... 78 Two Lions (40 pp.) $17.99 | Jan. 1, 2020 ITCH by Polly Farquhar...... 80 978-1-5420-9271-5 WHEN YOU TRAP A TIGER by Tae Keller...... 85 Watch out, Hug Machine (Scott Camp- bell, 2014), there’s another long-limbed ARIBA by Masha Manapov...... 88 lover of squeezes in the mix. IN A JAR Bernard, a tiny, lavender bird, dejectedly sits atop a high by Deborah Marcero...... 88 branch. His wings droop all the way to the ground. Heaving

CHIRP by Kate Messner...... 88 a sigh, his disappointment is palpable. With insufferably long young adult wings, he has never been able to fly. All of his friends easily took THE HEART OF A WHALE by Anna Pignataro...... 90 to the skies, leaving him behind. There is nothing left to do but sit in his tree and feel sorry for himself. Adamson amusingly BEING FROG by April Pulley Sayre...... 91 shows readers the passage of time with a sequence of vignettes of Bernard sitting in the rain, the dark, and amid a cloud of I LOVE ME by Sally Morgan & Ambelin Kwaymullina...... 106 paper wasps—never moving from his branch. Then one day he hears a sob and finds a tearful orangutan. Without even think- GOODNIGHT, RAINBOW CATS by Bàrbara Castro Urío...... 107 ing, Bernard wraps his long wings around the great ape. The orangutan is comforted! Bernard has finally found the best use of his wings. In gentle watercolor and pencil sketches, Adam- WHEN YOU TRAP son slips in many moments of humor. Animals come from all A TIGER over to tell Bernard their troubles (a lion muses that it is “lonely Keller, Tae at the top of the food chain” while a bat worries about missing Random House out on fun during the day). Three vertical spreads that neces- (304 pp.) sitate a 90-degree rotation add to the fun. $16.99 | $19.99 PLB Readers will agree: All differences should be hugged, Jan. 28, 2020 er, embraced. (Picture book. 4-7) 978-1-5247-1570-0 978-1-5247-1571-7 PLB A PICTURE BOOK OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON Adler, David A. Illus. by Collins, Matt Holiday House (32 pp.) $17.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 978-0-8234-3961-4 Series: Picture Book Biographies

A short, occasionally revealing profile of an immigrant who got the job done. Joining other children’s-book creators attempting to ride the Broadway phenomenon’s coattails, Adler creates a distant, even staid, portrait of Hamilton’s character. Opening and closing with accounts of the Burr duel, he also drops in a few too many names without sufficient context. Still, along with- not ing his subject’s major public achievements in war and peace

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 75 the kirkus prize for young readers’ literature: the children’s finalists

Leah Overstreet With fall comes book awards season, “If I opened / my classroom’s wooden door / not knowing how and here at Kirkus we are on the edges to read / or / speak in English, / imagine,” leading to the final of our seats as we wait to learn which exhortation: “imagine what you could do.” Castillo uses ink and books will be awarded the Kirkus printmaking to depict the scenes Herrera evinces, her South- Prize. Six finalists have been named in western palette of ochre, teal, and brown giving them a coziness the Young Readers’ Literature catego- that reinforces the intimacy of Herrera’s direct address. ry, determined by two stalwart judges: Jerry Craft’s New Kid (Harper/HarperCollins) invites distinguished educator Pauletta Brown readers to come along on scholarship kid Jordan Banks’ sev- Bracy, professor of library science enth grade year at a snooty New York at North Carolina Central Universi- City prep school. Equal parts painful ty and recipient of the 2019 Coretta and hilarious, the graphic novel nails Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award Jordan’s acute discomfort as one of for Lifetime Achievement, and Kirkus reviewer Hanna Lee, the few African American students youth services coordinator at First Regional Library in Mis- among both peers and teachers who sissippi. Four of these finalists are children’s books—two pic- see him primarily through the lens ture books and two middle-grade books—while two are YA; of stereotype. Craft’s illustrations, my colleague Laura Simeon covers those two in her column. ably abetted by Jim Callahan’s col- As I watched the judges winnow and discuss, winnow and ors, take full advantage of the form, discuss, I couldn’t help thinking how hard their job was, as interleaving Jordan’s story with his this year produced some truly fantastic books. It would have own cartoons—he’s an aspiring art- been impossible for them to go wrong, and I am thrilled with ist—and artfully flirting with the their children’s choices. surreal to communicate Jordan’s Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson’s The Undefeat feelings. One running joke in which ed (Versify/HMH Books), one of the picture-book finalists, Jordan and fellow African American classmate Drew playfully gives me chills every time I open it. Nelson’s magisterial oil cope with white teachers’ inability to see black students as in- portraits of African Americans dividuals is sheer brilliance. throughout history leap off the Genesis Begins Again (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum) by page—literally, in the case of Jes- Alicia D. Williams also finds its protagonist the new kid in se Owens, who hurdles forward, school. Genesis and her mother are his right fist and left foot uncon- astonished when, after their most tained by the page margin. They recent eviction, Dad moves them pair perfectly with Alexander’s from Detroit into a single-family measured, impassioned poem, home in suburban Farmington Hills, which celebrates the indomita- where she is one of just a few black bility of the African American students. Williams tenderly sketch- spirit. “This is for the unforget- es a dysfunctional family headed by table. / The swift and sweet ones / who hurdled history / and a primary-breadwinner mom and a opened a world / of possible.” The pages’ stark white throws dad whose alcoholism is a constant both words and images into relief, and one breathtaking im- source of trauma. That readers see age-free page, dedicated to “the ones who didn’t” survive Genesis’ love for her father as well as America’s cruelty, delivers a gut punch. her fear speaks to debut author Wil- If The Undefeated gives me chills, Juan Felipe Herrera and liams’ sensitivity and skill. But Gen- Lauren Castillo’s Imagine (Candle- esis’ most constant concern is her wick) warms me to the core. It’s an- dark skin, which has made her a target of derision both among other picture-book poem of possi- her peers and within her own family. Watching Genesis find bility that shows how this Mexican a way to love herself and to live up to her name will open up American migrant farmworkers’ readers’ hearts to her, and they’ll be rooting for her all the way. son became U.S. poet laureate. It’s Award-winning author Mitali Perkins will be joining Pau- a syntactically complicated syllo- letta and Hanna in Austin on Oct. 24 to determine the winner. gism that nevertheless rolls beauti- I can’t wait—and I’m so glad I don’t have to choose. —V.S. fully as a read-aloud, each “if” statement punctuated by an “imagine”: Vicky Smith is the children’s editor.

76 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Adler brings the language and examples to kids’ level—eating a cookie takes a few seconds. telling time

and making some references to his private life, he does frankly TELLING TIME note in the main narrative that Alexander was born to unmar- Adler, David A. ried parents and in the afterword that he was taken in for a Illus. by Miller, Edward time by a family that may have included a half brother. (The Holiday House (32 pp.) author also makes a revealing if carelessly phrased observation $18.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 that he helped to run a business in his youth that dealt in “many 978-0-8234-4092-4 things,” including “enslaved people.”) Collins’ neatly limned painted scenes lack much sense of movement, but he’s careful Frequent collaborators Adler and with details of historical dress and setting. Most of his figures Miller launch another one into outer are light skinned, but there are people of color in early dockside space—literally. views, in a rank of charging American soldiers, and also (possi- His exploration accompanied by space-themed illustrations bly) in a closing parade of mourners. Multichapter biographies and beginning with how the day is broken into smaller units— abound, but as a first introduction, this entry in Adler’s long- hours, minutes, and seconds—and the difference between a.m. running series won’t bring younger readers to their feet but does and p.m., Adler launches into how to read the two types of fill in around the edges of Don Brown’sAaron and Alexander: The clocks: analog and digital (instead of using the word “colon,” the Most Famous Duel in American History (2015). text reads that the “numbers [are] separated by two dots, one Serviceable as assignment fodder or as a gateway to dot on top of the other”). He concentrates on explaining how to more searching studies. (timeline, bibliography, notes) read analog, breaking the book into spreads that define “clock- (Picture book/biography. 7-9) wise,” the three hands and how long they take to travel once around the clock, telling the hour, telling the minutes, and many

examples, which also add in useful vocabulary like “half past,” young adult SOLIDS, LIQUIDS, GASES, AND “quarter past,” and “quarter to.” Backmatter includes a glossary PLASMA of terms boldfaced in the main narrative and an author’s note Adler, David A. about sundials, daylight savings time, military time, and time Illus. by Raff, Anna zones (the duo tackled this topic in depth in Time Zones, 2010). Holiday House (32 pp.) Miller’s crisp, colorful art features five astronauts (two present $18.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 white, two have brown skin, one has green skin; two sport pig- 978-0-8234-3962-1 tails). Throughout, Adler brings the language and examples to kids’ level—eating a cookie takes a few seconds; passing a tray Simple experiments and kid-friendly of them around may take a few minutes; and baking them could language teach concepts about matter to take an hour or more—though the concept of a “number-stop” young audiences. as the distance/time between numbers on the clock face is a bit The creators of Light Waves (2018) have teamed up again to awkward. create another engaging science book for kids. This time, the Time to add this to collections. (Informational picture book. four states of matter are the topic at hand. The duo delivers 6-10) scientific information alongside eye-catching illustrations with details that will delight. The book opens with the clear explanation that “Matter is anything that takes up space, even the JONI smallest space, and has some weight, even the smallest weight,” The Lyrical Life of Joni and it builds from there. As a family prepares a birthday party Mitchell for Grandma, readers learn more details about matter and Alko, Selina its different forms: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A dog wear- Illus. by the author ing safety glasses and two children with dark brown hair and Harper/HarperCollins (48 pp.) peach skin tones (and no safety specs) conduct simple experi- $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 ments that correspond with each form that matter takes. The 978-0-06-267129-5 complex scientific information covered in the book is made accessible and age-appropriate using typical party items such This biographical introduction to as a chocolate bar, ice cubes, and balloons. The text includes iconic songwriter Joni Mitchell traces the creative influences plenty of details for budding young scientists without becom- in her life. ing too dense. Explanations rooted in easy-to-replicate experi- Growing up on the Canadian prairie, Mitchell was a “rest- ments drive concepts home and make for an educational and less girl” who “danced in wide-open spaces,” learned bird calls interesting read. from her mother, painted on her bedroom wall, composed mel- Adler and Raff bring a hands-on quality to scientific odies on the piano, and often felt “like an upside-down bird on explorations of matter. (glossary) (Informational picture book. a wire.” Encouraged by a teacher in junior high school to write 4-8) poetry, Mitchell bought a guitar, briefly attended art school in Calgary, started composing music and singing in Toronto, suffered an unhappy marriage, performed in Greenwich Village

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 77 What separates this collection from others is the way Bolden gives readers a critical historical context. strong voices

with contemporary folk singers, and eventually became a “very SUMMER NORTH COMING famous singer.” Influenced by the world around and within her, Bentley, Dorothy Mitchell “painted with words,” turning her words and feelings Illus. by Bartram, Jessica Bromley into songs that poignantly captured her time’s sadness, beauty, Fitzhenry & Whiteside (32 pp.) love, hope, and yearning for freedom, and Alko’s poetic text $19.95 | Nov. 20, 2019 and vibrant illustrations effectively convey this. Mixing media 978-1-55455-465-2 that include acrylic paint, found objects, and wildflowers, the double-page spreads (reminiscent of Chagall’s dreamlike paint- A full-color experience of the seasons ings) reveal an intense, impassioned Mitchell in various venues in Canada’s north. as she moves through the stages of her life, singing her sorrow In Bentley’s poetic text, the smell of “fragrant muskeg rose” and painting her joy, appropriately surrounded by a kaleido- and the climbing sun welcome readers to the north’s summer. scope of exuberant swirling colors, images, and lyrics from her In the accompanying illustration, readers notice two brown- best-known songs. skinned children paddling a rowboat in a pond. As the story An inspired and creative ode to the inimitable Joni continues, these same children take part in other activities as Mitchell. (author’s note, discography, bibliography) (Picture well: berry picking, swimming, playing in the rain, and staying book/biography. 4-8) up late. Soon summer fades, and outdoor labors shift to fish drying and food storing. With “summer north waving” goodbye, the children spend the longer evenings indoors with three char- MIDDLE SCHOOL BITES acters assumed to be family: darker-skinned mother and grand- Banks, Steven mother and their lighter-skinned father. When winter finally Illus. by Fearing, Mark arrives, the piles of snow offer their own unique moments of Holiday House (304 pp.) fun—outside and indoors—with a multicultural cast of friends $13.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 and their families. Although strongly visual phrases, such as 978-0-8234-4543-1 “stained hands” (from “summer pick berries”) and “trees flaming Series: Middle School Bites, 1 yellow,” combine with equally bold phrases that appeal to the other senses to create a lyrical celebration of life in all its cycles, All Tom Marks wants is to be an readers desiring a plot-driven tale or one rich in character devel- ordinary kid—invisible, in fact. But opment will notice their absences. Additionally, while Bartram’s it’s hard to be invisible when you’re a texture-creating techniques enhance muted, earthy-toned illus- Vam-Wolf-Zom. trations, providing the depth and nuance found in nature, an Tom’s many plans for middle school include the “Girlfriend overall lack of cultural specifics (beaded leather footwear is a Plan,” the “Easy Grade in Art Class Plan,” and, most importantly, notable exception) gives the double-page spreads an emotional the “Invisible Tom Plan.” He does not, naturally, have a “What If flatness. I Turn into a Vampire-Werewolf-Zombie Plan.” The day before For nature lovers or those seeking season-relevant medi- school starts, however, what should be a perfectly routine visit tations for classroom reflection and discussion.(Picture book. to his grandmother’s cabin in the woods goes horribly awry, as 5-8) he is bitten by a bat, a mangy dog, and what seems to be an eerily lifelike zombie prop within the span of several hours. Now Tom must juggle disturbing physical changes alongside tough classes, STRONG VOICES locker sharing, friendships old and new, a persistent bully with Fifteen American an unfortunate home life, and the ubiquitous desire for accep- Speeches Worth tance. Tom’s first-person narration is frank and engaging; much Knowing of the novel’s humor arises from his wry, self-aware commentary. Bolden, Tonya A good portion of the remaining humor is drawn from Fearing’s Illus. by Velasquez, Eric grayscale spot cartoons, with their exaggerated facial expres- Harper/HarperCollins (128 pp.) sions and exquisitely scratchy details. The monstrous premise, $19.99 | Jan. 21, 2020 though admittedly far-fetched (so much so that its being far- 978-0-06-257204-2 fetched is directly addressed in a prologue), adds a delightful twist to the classic navigating-middle-school plot. The colorful As the subtitle indicates, 15 landmark American speeches, personalities of Tom’s family, classmates, and teachers further each preceded by an introduction from Bolden that directly enrich this not-so-spooky saga. The cast defaults white. conveys needed history to the under-12 set. This series opener is a howling good time. (Fantasy. 8-12) This collection treats readers not only to well-known ora- tory, such as Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream,” Fred- erick Douglass’ “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July,” and Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” (rendered here in standard English as “I Am a Woman’s Rights”), but also to some that are not as famous but still a necessary part of the discourse about

78 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | what the American experiment meant and still means to differ- SKY’S SURPRISE ent people affected by it. Seneca chief Red Jacket’s explanation Coe, Catherine to white American missionary Jacob Cram that “we do not wish Illus. by Boyd, Chie to destroy your religion, or take it from you; we only wish to Scholastic (128 pp.) enjoy our own” is powerfully resonant today, for instance. What $5.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 separates this collection from other anthologies that celebrate 978-1-338-58911-5 spoken patriotism is the way Bolden gives readers a critical his- Series: Lucky Bunnies, 1 torical context—explaining, for example, that Patrick Henry was enslaving black people even as he fiercely opposed Britain’s Sky’s friends try to cheer her up enslaving the white colonists with unreasonable taxes. Velas- when she isn’t chosen for a bounce festi- quez contributes luminous oil portraits, rather disappointingly val in this rabbit fantasy. portraying Truth as an angry black woman but otherwise ably For weeks, joke-cracking Sky (a giving strong faces to these strong voices. real punny bunny) has been practicing for Bright Burrow’s big A golden celebration of the multicultural voices who Bounce-a-Lot festival. She practices hard in order to be selected demand that the U.S.—and the world—do better. (author’s as a Bouncer so she can participate instead of just watching. note, illustrator’s note, timeline, sources, permissions) When she doesn’t make her class’s team, she’s beyond disap- (Nonfiction. 10-14) pointed, disengaging from her jokes, friends, and activities she once enjoyed. The other bunnies try to cheer her up with various foods and attempt to persuade their teacher to let her on the FEED YOUR MIND team. What finally does the trick is surprising Sky with the role

A Story of August Wilson young adult Bryant, Jen Illus. by Chapman, Cannaday Abrams (48 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-4197-3653-7

One of America’s greatest modern playwrights is introduced to generations of younger readers in this lyrical picture book. August Wilson, the Pulitzer Prize–winning African Ameri- can dramatist, is best known for his 10-play Century Cycle, which chronicles the African American experience through different decades in the 20th century. Because his work is targeted toward adults, many young readers might be unfamiliar with Wilson’s life or achievements. Thanks to this timely and elegant picture book, that oversight is now corrected. Conceptually separated into two acts, the book frames Wilson’s life as a play in free-verse form, immersing readers in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, a multiracial enclave where Frederick August Kittel Jr. is raised by his hardworking single mother. Act 1 chronicles Wilson’s search for his name and voice, and Act 2 showcases his extraordinary life’s work of using them to bring the African American experience to the stage. The book’s primary goal may be to present Wilson’s life, but it is also an eloquent love letter to literature and a celebration of its power to inspire, to instruct, and to provide hope, guidance, and direction. Bryant’s accomplished free verse and newcomer Chapman’s evocative, realistic illustrations operate in perfect synergy, celebrating the genius of Wilson the playwright while never losing sight of the complications, hardships, and imperfections of Wilson the man. A must-have for those who want children to learn about one of the stage’s greatest bards. (Picture book/biography. 6-9)

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 79 of commentator for the Bounce-a-Lot’s final event, allowing her BO’S MAGICAL NEW FRIEND verbal talents to lend her a measure of participation. The posi- Elliott, Rebecca tive messages of the book, such as supportive friendships, are Illus. by the author disturbingly undercut by the bunnies’ habit of complimenting Scholastic (80 pp.) one another through putting themselves down. The storyline is $4.99 paper | Dec. 26, 2019 cluttered by numerous elements that are introduced but seem 978-1-338-32332-0 to have no payoff (or any real bearing on anything). The climax Series: Unicorn Diaries, 1 of the story, in which Sky decides to skip the festival, imperiling her yet-unknown commentator opportunity, introduces ten- A unicorn learns a friendship lesson sion but is quickly resolved when she decides to attend after all, in this chapter-book series opener. making it a moot moment. Boyd contributes grayscale cartoons Unicorn Bo has friends but longs for (final art not seen). The series’ second outing, Petal’s Party, pub- a “bestie.” Luckily, a new unicorn pops lishes simultaneously. into existence (literally: Unicorns appear on especially starry Readers should hop on past this series opener. (Fantasy. nights) and joins Bo at the Sparklegrove School for Unicorns, 7-10) (Petal’s Party: 978-1-338-58913-9) where they study things like unicorn magic. Each unicorn has a special power; Bo’s is granting wishes. Not knowing what his own might be distresses new unicorn Sunny. When the week’s WHERE IS MOMMY? assignment is to earn a patch by using their unicorn powers to Cummings, Pat help someone, Bo hopes Sunny will wish to know Bo’s power Illus. by the author (enabling both unicorns to complete the task, and besides, Bo Holiday House (32 pp.) enjoys Sunny’s company and wants to help him). But when the $15.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 words come out wrong, Sunny thinks Bo was feigning friend- 978-0-8234-3935-5 ship to get to grant a wish and earn a patch, setting up a fairly Series: I Like to Read sophisticated conflict. Bo makes things up to Sunny, and then— with the unicorns friends again and no longer trying to force Waking from a nap, a child is shocked their powers—arising circumstances enable them to earn their to find that Mommy, who had been cud- patches. The cheerful illustrations feature a sherbet palette, dled with the child on the couch, is missing and sets off with using patterns for texture; on busy pages with background orange tabby Max to try and find her. colors similar to the characters’ color schemes, this combines The child picks up clues such as Mommy’s slippers, reading with the absence of outlines to make discerning some indi- glasses, and scarf during the search. While Max finds Mommy vidual characters a challenge. The format, familiar to readers of right away, it takes the puzzled child a little longer. Readers will Elliott’s Owl Diaries series, uses large print and speech bubbles likely find Mommy as quickly as Max does, making them feel to keep pages to a manageable amount of text. like they are in on a secret. A part of the appeal of this early A surprisingly nuanced lesson set in confidence-build- reader geared toward rising first graders is that children are ing, easy-to-decode text. (Fantasy. 5-8) likely to relate to that sense of panic and concern the child experiences upon noticing that Mommy is gone—and the sense of relief when Mommy is finally found. The illustrations are ITCH crisp, page-filling, and colorful, and both the protagonist and Farquhar, Polly Max have expressive faces. The use of white space makes the Holiday House (240 pp.) large, sans-serif type easy to follow and read. The text is pat- $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 terned, aiding decoding: “Here are her slippers. / Here are her 978-0-8234-4552-3 glasses.” Additionally, there are many different visual patterns incorporated into the illustrations, like stripes, polka dots, and Isaac faces so many complications in checks, which readers can identify after the story to help rein- sixth grade: bullying, loneliness, guilt, his force early math skills. The same can be said for the many ani- mother’s two-month business trip, tor- mals, colors, and shapes throughout the book as well. Mommy nadoes—and the itch. and child both present black. Isaac’s been trying to fit in since mov- This hardworking early reader is definitely worth ing from New York State to rural Ohio. checking out. (Early reader. 5-7) He’s learned about football, for, despite his engineer parents’ sports apathy, the Ohio State Buckeyes are a religion around this (seemingly predominantly white) town. Isaac even lets his classmates call him Itch, the nickname he earned because of his chronic condition. Isaac has what he calls “the itch” and what the doctors call “idiopathic angioedema.” Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Isaac gets an uncontrollable itch and swells up with massive hives, making his hands “look like raw hamburger

80 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Garza shows a new mastery of his characters and fictional world in this latest installment. maximilian and the curse of the fallen angel

meat.” Of course, Isaac’s not the only kid in sixth grade with MAXIMILIAN AND THE CURSE health troubles. His best friend has life-threatening food aller- OF THE FALLEN ANGEL gies, and so does the weird new kid; both need EpiPens. A deft Garza, Xavier touch with unusual details keeps the narrative from getting Illus. by the author bogged down in medical drama: Isaac has an after-school job at a Trans. by Crosthwaite, Luis Humberto pheasant farm, a preoccupation with the texture of sandwiches, Cinco Puntos (224 pp.) and a lucky peanut shell. Lyrical, pensive prose unexpectedly $12.95 paper | Jan. 17, 2020 isn’t a harbinger of tragedy; these kids have regular lives, shaped 978-1-947627-31-4 by their grave health concerns but not overwhelmed by them. Series: Max’s Lucha Libre Adventures, 4 This meditative #ownvoices read refreshingly treats chronic illness as just one of life’s myriad complexities. The legendary Guardian Angel bat- (Fiction. 10-13) tles a nefarious new foe in Garza’s solid fourth entry in the Max’s Lucha Libre Adventures saga. Wedding bells loom when Tio Rodolfo declares that he’s BONNIE & BEN RHYME AGAIN marrying a former flame and fellow luchadora named Maya, aka Fox, Mem the Silver Star. His tio’s announcement worries Max. Will the Illus. by Horacek, Judy Guardian Angel continue to wrestle? When Max’s fears prove Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) true and Tio Rodolfo reveals that he’s ready to abandon the $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 luchador lifestyle, a new problem arises. Who will be the new 978-1-5344-5352-4 Guardian Angel? Barely about to enter high school and still

in training, Max knows he’s not quite there yet, but an unex- young adult Siblings Bonnie and Ben show off pected challenger to the throne—his little brother, Robertito— the numerous nursery rhymes they know while they walk with startles the budding luchador. As the Guardian Angel prepares friend and mentor Skinny Doug. for his final match against the Fallen Angel of Catemaco, an When they reach a familiar hill, they launch into “Jack and up-and-coming lucha libre fiend, Max wrestles with his hero’s Jill.” The sight of a couple of sheep ahead prompts a recital legacy as well as his own destiny. Though the format for this tale of “Little Bo Peep.” A plum tree they happen upon brings on remains the same as in earlier series outings (English text on the “Little Jack Horner.” And a hairy black spider hanging from a left page, Crosthwaite’s Spanish translation on the right page, lamppost elicits “Little Miss Muffet.” After the stars come out with illustrations sprinkled in), Garza shows a new mastery of on their return home, “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” precedes his characters—all Mexican—and fictional world in this latest their going to bed, all rhymed out. Fox and Horacek previously installment. Apart from Max’s continued growth, each charac- teamed up for the effervescent Where is the Green Sheep (2004) ter shines, no matter how small an appearance they may make. and do so again to create a delightful narrative anchored by a In the end, what readers get is an assured, joyous story full of repeated rhymed refrain. Between each traditional verse Skinny lucha libre antics and poignant familial bonding. Doug exclaims: “I love it, I love it! / Well done, and hurrah! / Max’s finest adventure thus far.(Fiction. 8-12) Can you tell me another? / How clever you are!” (This will read as assonance in most parts of the U.S. but is likely a perfect rhyme in Fox’s native Australia.) The colorfully stylized car- SISTERS FIRST toon artwork, familiar from the duo’s previous work, gives this Hager, Jenna Bush & Bush, Barbara Pierce jaunty, rambunctious outing extra flair as the nursery characters, Illus. by Kaulitzki, Ramona painted in an array of skin hues, join in to trail Bonnie, Ben, and Little, Brown (40 pp.) Skinny Doug (all white-presenting). $18.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 Fox’s inimitable rhyming text and Horacek’s buoyant 978-0-316-53478-9 illustrations offer youngsters another winning choice. (Picture book. 3-5) A paean to sisterhood by the former first daughters. Although the co-authors are twins, their rhyming, first-person text is in the voice of a girl praying for a baby sister: “Please make her kind, with an enormous heart, / clever too, and very smart.” Her wishes are prompted by her observations of other sisters, whom the accompanying cartoon art depicts as diverse pairs of girls, including two brown-skinned children with wavy brown hair and a white-appearing girl holding the hand of a small child who appears black, with dark skin and afro-puffs. The narrator is blonde with light skin, and her sister is born with a similar complexion but reddish-brown hair. The big sister is chagrined

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 81 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Ashley Bryan

THE 96-YEAR-OLD ARTIST REVISITS HIS WORLD WAR II LETTERS AND SKETCHES TO CREATE A RICH WARTIME AUTOBIOGRAPHY, INFINITE HOPE By Mark Athitakis

Gabe Souza-PortlandGabe Portland Press Herald via Getty Images when he received his draft notice. He was eventually sent to the European theater, where he worked as a stevedore and was part of a company of black soldiers who delivered supplies, dug foxholes, and searched for land mines in advance of D-Day. The experience introduced Bryan not just to the horrors of war, but discrimination within the armed forces. The military was segregated, and, as he explains in the book, black soldiers were often assigned the most onerous and dangerous tasks. To convey his experience, Infinite Hope is a rich work of collage, integrating Bryan’s narration with letters he sent back home to New York, paintings of people he met during his travels through France, and sketches of his fellow soldiers. The drawings gave him a connection to his Army buddies—and, he concedes, occasionally got him out of work. At 96, Ashley Bryan has had one of the most accom- “Sometimes in a company, if there’s someone who plished careers in contemporary children’s literature. they called different, you’d have a hard time, but they He’s written and illustrated dozens of works about never looked on me as different,” he says. “They loved the African American diaspora, addressing slavery my drawing, and often in the midst of work would say, (Freedom Over Me), folktales (Beautiful Blackbird), and ‘Oh, you go ahead and draw.’ ” music (I’m Going to Sing), earning multiple awards “Why does man choose war?” Bryan wrote in one along the way. But it took a long time for him to con- of his notebooks at the time. After V-E Day, Bryan template one of his most formative experiences as an remained stationed in Europe, where he chroni- artist: his Army stint during World War II. cled the devastation left after the fighting stopped: “Drawing was a way of surviving because war was Infinite Hope includes his drawings of the ruins of the so dreadful,” he says. “The anguish and suffering was Rouen cathedral as well as displaced adults and chil- so horrible, all around me. Drawing was a kind of es- dren. And though Infinite Hope is written for children, cape, a way of making sense of myself.” he felt no compulsion to soften its message. As Bryan explains in his illustrated autobiogra- “I always think of children as sitting on the lap of phy, Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey From World an adult explaining the difficult things of history,” he War II to Peace (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum, Oct. 15), says. “I don’t go by the age thing. To me, the most in 1943 he was an art student at New York’s Cooper wonderful photographs are those of a little child sit- Union—the only black student there at the time— ting on the lap of an adult with an open book and the

82 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | adult reading and talking and explaining things of life to the child that come up in the book.” The message of Infinite Hope emphasizes tenacity in the face of adversity, a point reflected in its title, taken from a quote by Martin Luther King Jr.: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” A hint of that optimism is conveyed in the colorful paintings that bookend the book, to realize that having a baby sister isn’t all she’d expected, but frustration abates when she reflects on her earlier prayer and which Bryan produced using his sketchbooks as in- thinks, “If kindness was what I was asking of you, / I needed to spiration. “Fifty years ago, those paintings would be kind and patient, too.” As the baby grows, the sisters achieve the loving, close bond the narrator prayed for. While the core have been dark—grays and blacks,” he writes. “But sentiment might well move readers, the bland art stops short of in really looking at those sketches now, I saw a beau- expanding or enriching the text, and the writing both falters in ty there—the beauty of the shared experience.” cadence and descends into cliché, as in lines reading “And with time…we found a rhythm, your hand locked in mine. / We sang These days, Bryan is engaged in his foundation, duets and danced in rain and sunshine.” the Ashley Bryan Center in his hometown in Maine, Not a first pick.(Picture book. 3-6) which maintains his archives and promotes his interest in storytelling. But Bryan is also still writing and PENGUIN & MOOSE illustrating books, continuing his series of titles fea- Hall, Hannah C. Illus. by Chernyshova, Anna turing works by black poets. “I’m working on illus- WorthyKids/Ideals (32 pp.) trating Langston Hughes’ poem ‘My People,’ which $16.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 I chant all the time,” he says. “I’m sort of known by 978-1-5460-1433-1 that. ‘The night is beautiful, / So the faces of my peo- Penguin wants to fly. Can best friend young adult ple.’ ” Moose help? Penguin has the “perfect plan” to achieve the goal of flight, and Moose has his antlers, which are perfect for carrying things. Mark Athitakis is a frequent contributor to Kirkus and Unfortunately, Penguin’s strategy, involving balloons for liftoff The New Midwest Infinite Hope followed by flailing his flippers, fails. Moose offers a ride home. author of . received a Penguin then thinks to use a tall tree as a jumping-off point, but starred review in the Sept. 15, 2019, issue. it proves to be a little too far off the ground for a height-challenged bird. Moose offers a ride on a swing, instead. Moose then suggests wrapping Penguin up in a cocoon, because caterpillars fly away when they emerge from one. Penguin gets overheated, sleepy, and hungry, and he decides to head for home, where Dad is in the kitchen baking cookies and dishing out a lesson. Penguin may not have succeeded in flying but he certainly has a “good friend” in so many ways. That lesson is reinforced by something that Mama has written on their kitchen chalkboard from Proverbs 17:17, namely: “A friend LOVES at all times.” Cookies and kite-flying for the friendly duo follow. The illustrations for this pleasant message are loosely outlined in black with splashes of blues and oranges against a white background. The biblically inspired message is clear: Friendship is a good thing. (Picture book. 3-6)

STOOP SALE TREASURE Haydu, Corey Ann Illus. by Uribe, Luisa Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (128 pp.) $12.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-06-287825-0 Series: Hand-me-Down Magic, 1

Haydu introduces two young cousins in a new chapter-book series for young readers. Del (short for Delfina) and Alma are cousins, best friends, and, as of moments ago, neighbors on 23rd

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 83 Avenue. Alma and her family have moved away from their old even an upside-down jellyfish (“It isn’t easy to explain /How lakeside home to the brick walk-up apartment building where she’s so smart / without a brain”) looks drowsy. Alma’s father’s side of the family lives in the city. On the ground At once eye-closing and eye-opening. (glossary) (Infor level is the Curious Cousins Secondhand Shoppe, and on the mational picture book/poetry. 6-9) second, third, and fourth floors are Abuelita, Titi, cousins, and more of their Puerto Rican family. When Abuelita takes the girls to a stoop sale, Del finds dangling clip-on earrings and is DOT. UNPLUGGED promptly convinced that they are magical. After a couple flaw- The Jim Henson Company less, magical days (readers might call them just lucky), Alma is Candlewick Entertainment (32 pp.) fed up with Del’s earrings and crushingly denies their magic. $16.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 Convinced the earrings are causing them to fight, Alma decides 978-1-5362-0983-9 to steal them and puts them out on the stoop for a passerby to take. Readers learn along the way that Alma feels “left out Deny devices, turn off, tune out. of” her own family, having lived apart from the rest of them That’s the unsubtle message in this pic- for most of her life. They may well wonder why Alma’s family ture book. has moved, but the story focuses on the conflict between the It’s raining. Indoors, Dot and her cousins. Told in alternating third-person with minimal Spanish bestie, Hal, are playing a video game. Dad’s at his computer; interspersed, the actual plot lacks luster, and the focus on mun- Mom’s at her circuit board. Suddenly, the power goes out. Mom dane details slows the book’s pacing. Perhaps, with the scene remembers it’s the National Day of Unplugging, announcing now set, the series’ next volume will pick up. Uribe’s grayscale this means using “Nothing that runs on anything but our good depictions are essential companions, depicting Del with dark old imaginations.” When the family descends to the basement skin and Alma as pale. searching for something to do, Scratch the dog finds a spinner Everyday magic fails to create a spark in this book. game. Each of its five segments bears a simple image represent- (Fiction. 6-9) ing a task a player must perform when the arrow they spin lands on it. Creative play ensues, and Dot concludes that “Unplug- ging is fun!” The story will work equally well as a lapsit or a A SONGBIRD DREAMS OF read-aloud to a group. It’s OK the exhortation’s obvious; kids SINGING will get that there’s life beyond the plugged-in kind. The color- Poems About Sleeping ful, cartoon illustrations are flat, but faces are expressive (even Animals the dog’s). Dot, with strangely slate-gray hair, is garbed in yellow Hosford, Kate boots and a pink, polka-dot dress. She and her mom have pale Illus. by Potter, Jennifer M. pink skin; Dad’s skin is light tan; Hal is brown-skinned. The Running Press Kids (40 pp.) final page informs readers that the National Day of Unplugging $19.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 is the second Friday in March and lists 50 “unplugged” activities. 978-0-7624-6714-3 Readers/listeners should be encouraged to suggest and engage in other device-free pursuits. Somniferous verses, paired with scientific observations, Yank those plugs, everyone. Connect with family and survey styles of sleep in the animal world. friends instead. (Picture book. 4-6) Firmly in control of language and rhyme schemes but varying tone and tempo as she goes, Hosford marvels at the sleep habits of 18 creatures. These range from sperm whales (“Oh NIKKI TESLA AND THE mighty mothers of the sea / Why do you slumber vertically?”) to FELLOWSHIP OF THE BLING fire ants (“You didn’t know, perhaps / That this ant takes power Keating, Jess naps. / It’s quite a short collapse. / (Sixty seconds will elapse.) / Illus. by Marlin, Lissy How many naps will there be? / About two hundred and fifty- Scholastic (288 pp.) three.” In the substantial prose glosses that accompany each $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 short poem, she offers further downtime marvels, such as how 978-1-338-29525-2 some whales sleep head up or head down, or even drift between Series: Elements of Genius, 2 the two positions, and a tale of a desert snail that was exhibited at the British Museum as an empty shell for four years, then suc- Nikki works through abandonment cessfully revived. Nor does she leave readers in the dark about issues while joining the rest of her Genius how some animals rest parts of their brains in succession or the Academy class in taking on a mad, bad differences among nocturnal, diurnal, crepuscular, and cathem- scientist. eral creatures, covering these facts in an opening author’s note. In a storyline high on angst and action but airily free of inter- In Potter’s suitably dreamy, subdued illustrations, floating sea nal logic, the Genius Academy squad is abruptly dispatched to otters hold paws, ocelot cubs nestle in a cozy hollow, a “flam- the Galápagos Islands to find a hidden ring with unknown but boyance” of flamingos stand one-legged in shallow water, and dangerous “technologies.” Could the mission have anything to

84 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Keller infuses this tale with a sensitive examination of immigration issues and the complexity of home. when you trap a tiger

do with Nikki’s long-thought-dead criminal father or a similar DETENTION IS A LOT LIKE JAIL ring made by his rival? Keating continues to name and model Kelly, Brynn her cast after actual historical figures; it’s a cute tweak, but she Illus. by Borngraber, Elizabeth squanders any scientific could-be–ism as, in a cloud of vague West 44 Books (88 pp.) references to “cellular realignment” and “nanomachines,” she $18.95 | Dec. 1, 2019 has the rings magically transform wearers into another per- 978-1-5383-8226-4 son, animal, or monster (clothes included) with a wish backed Series: The Bad Kids in 4B, 1 by any strong emotion. Being so obsessed and enraged by her dad’s long absence, for example, that she has trouble thinking Like the other children in classroom of anything else, Nikki turns out to be a dab hand at changing 4B, Jordan Stein is constantly in trouble, herself and others into ferrets…a skill that plays a crucial role yet no one truly understands how family in the climax as the “crazed” but clever baddie, despite violent life may affect his behavior. mood swings oddly reminiscent of Nikki’s own, nearly pulls off Four months ago, Jordan’s father was taken to jail, and a slick escape. In all, it’s a sad follow-up to a promising first out- Jordan still doesn’t know why. His tearfully struggling mother ing. Nikki presents white; her fellow geniuses are diverse. wants to protect Jordan and refuses to give him the full story. A slapdash contraption made up of contrivances and The accessible, slim chapter book never says that his mom is losing STEAM at every joint. (Science fantasy. 10-13) battling depression, but all the signs are there. Meanwhile, Jor- dan hates school and never wants to go, believing he will be able to drop out and make his way as a welder like his father. This WHEN YOU TRAP antipathy to school could be due to his teacher, who is con-

A TIGER stantly sending him to the detention-happy principal. “Deten- young adult Keller, Tae tion is a lot like jail,” Jordan realizes as he serves his time. The Random House (304 pp.) author hints at but never fully develops this exploration of how $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Jan. 28, 2020 the school-prison nexus operates in U.S. society, where unmet 978-1-5247-1570-0 human needs are masked as individual delinquency instead 978-1-5247-1571-7 PLB of deeper institutional failures. Jordan, with newfound illicit creative success with a stolen spray paint can, finds himself at A young girl bargaining for the health a crossroads: He can continue to associate with his up-to-no- of her grandmother discovers both her good friends—or make the better choice, an undermining mes- family’s past and the strength of her own sage. The book studiously avoids racial descriptions. voice. Refusing demeaning single stories about “troublemak- For many years, Lily’s Korean grandmother, Halmoni, has ing” children, Kelly could make something truly transfor- shared her Asian wisdom and healing powers with her predomi- mative but opts for a convenient landing. (Fiction. 10-14) nantly white community. When Lily, her sister, Sam—both biracial, Korean and white—and their widowed mom move in with Halmoni to be close with her as she ages, Lily begins to see a THE SERIOUS GOOSE magical tiger. What were previously bedtime stories become Kimmel, Jimmy dangerously prophetic, as Lily begins to piece together fact Illus. by the author from fiction. There is no need for prior knowledge of Korean Random House (40 pp.) folktales, although a traditional Korean myth propels the story $18.99 | $21.99 PLB | Dec. 3, 2019 forward. From the tiger, Lily learns that Halmoni has bottled up 978-0-525-70775-2 the hard stories of her past to keep sadness at bay. Lily makes a 978-0-525-70777-6 PLB deal with the tiger to heal her grandmother by releasing those stories. What she comes to realize is that healing doesn’t mean Bet you can’t make this goose smile, health and that Halmoni is not the only one in need of the no matter how hard you try. power of storytelling. Interesting supporting characters are TV personality Kimmel’s first foray into picture books pres- fully developed but used sparingly to keep the focus on the sim- ents a feathered grump with a scowl that is proof against any ple yet suspenseful plot. Keller infuses this tale, which explores kind of foolery: Try putting a chicken on her head, dressing her both the end of life and coming-of-age, with a sensitive exami- as a moose, or even trucking in a snail pizza—this goose won’t nation of immigration issues and the complexity of home. It is crack. Breaking now and again into verse, he challenges read- at one and the same time completely American and thoroughly ers to give it a try in a foil mirror: “Cluck like a chicken / moo informed by Korean culture. like a cow / be doofy, be goofy / any way you know how”—and Longing—for connection, for family, for a voice—roars sure enough, eventually a grin bursts out to replace the grimace to life with just a touch of magic. (Fiction. 10-14) despite a multipage struggle to hold it in, and off prances the goose in a pair of (gender-bending) tighty whities. Yes, she’s become “a SILLY goose (thanks to you),” the narrator proclaims, and what’s more, “YOU are a silly kid.” A hand-lettered

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 85 Tai’s hero’s journey is intertwined with his experience as a first-generation Vietnamese American. green lantern: legacy

narrative in block printing big enough to take up most of the Green Lantern Corps, an “intergalactic peacekeeping force.” space accompanies thick-lined cartoon views of a goosey glare Not only was his bà secretly a “space cop,” but she was “proba- that dares readers to crank up the volume, and the last page bly the best among [them].” Under the tutelage of fellow Green turn reveals a final tweak that may add a few grown-up voices to Lantern Iolande and his new Corps mentor, John Stewart, Tai the younger chorus of giggles. learns how to wield the green ring as the planet’s next guardian. The goose is all that’s serious here…and that not for In this Green Lantern installment, Lê blends traditions old and long. (Picture book. 5-7) new alike. Familiar faces and references that will please established Green Lantern and DC Universe fans abound. Like Tai’s interpretation of the Green Lantern uniform, his hero’s journey WORLD’S WORST PARROT both hits all the comic-book beats and is intertwined with his Kuipers, Alice experience as a first-generation Vietnamese American. Tong’s Orca (128 pp.) energetic panels, dominated by greens, oranges, steel blues, $14.99 paper | Jan. 28, 2020 and purples, keep the visuals dynamic, and cultural details are 978-1-4598-2375-4 a delight. In this diverse Coast City neighborhood battling impending corporate redevelopment, Tai entrusts his secret After Ava inherits a parrot from a identity to his two best friends, Tommy, who presents white, barely remembered great-uncle, her and Serena, a brown-skinned Latina. efforts to maintain an idealized image Community and compassion combine in this fresh take seem to crumble. on comic-book tradition. (Graphic adventure. 8-12) Ava has successfully used social media to depict herself as leading a perfect life, hiding that her father has TURN IT UP! recently abandoned their family, that her older brother, Gregg, A Pitch-Perfect History of is an aggravating tease, and that her mother is both depressed Music That Rocked the World and angry. Still, by posting attractive selfies and a running Levy, Joel monologue of her supposed beautiful life, Ava has managed to National Geographic Kids (192 pp.) acquire several hundred followers. The parrot, Mervin, is a chal- $19.99 | Dec. 17, 2019 lenge—noisy, destructive, and demanding lots of attention. As 978-1-4263-3541-9 soon as Gregg posts a photo of the parrot at his worst, Ava’s two BFFs, Kim and Kim, promptly (and seemingly inexplica- A 40,000-year-long jam with an bly) dump her, apparently put off by Mervin’s messiness. Only international cast of players and cultures. later, as Ava begins to bond with another classmate, does it The spirit of scat is definitely alive become clear that the Kims have become more interested in in the presentation, as each single-topic spread tosses together hunky Gregg than in Ava (making their rejection of her even a busy collage of period images or photos with colored boxes less understandable). Characters (default white) are predictable filled with quick takes on a style or genre, significant instru- and only superficially depicted, and the ups and downs of Ava’s ments and technical innovations, and, for (relatively) more social media and school images are equally lacking in nuance. recent eras, select composers and performers from troubadour Only the lively parrot and Ava’s growing understanding of and Castelloza to Rihanna. Moving quickly on from prehistoric affection for him rise above average. bone flutes, the more-or-less chronological history focuses on Best for those interested in pet birds. (Fiction. 9-12) the European and, later, North American scenes but does spare occasional nods for Indigenous and non-Western music. More often it lets distinctive styles from other continents take the GREEN LANTERN stage—following introductions to Wagner and Puccini with a Legacy look at Asian opera, for instance, and giving Indipop, Afropop, Lê, Minh J-pop, and K-pop quick solos of their own. Hip-hop and house Illus. by Tong, Andie music are invited to the party, but gangsta rap is not, nor is Tupac DC Zoom (144 pp.) (or, for that matter, any reference to profanity, violence, or even $9.99 paper | Jan. 21, 2020 drug or alcohol abuse). Still, themes of racial prejudice and iden- 978-1-4012-8355-1 tity do play through pages devoted to the blues, big bands, R&B, and rock-’n’-roll, and the balance of men and women artists is A young Green Lantern discovers carefully measured from the outset. Frequent leads to relevant how to envision the future. musical selections on the web furnish a soundtrack. Thirteen-year-old Tai Pham wakes Quick, bright, danceable, and splashy, if only ankle from a dream to see his grandmother’s jade ring by his side. deep. (Nonfiction. 11-13) Confused, Tai learns from Bà Noi that the ring has chosen him—and then the next day she’s passed. Suddenly, the Coast City junior high schooler is introduced to the existence of the

86 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | CHINESE NEW YEAR COLORS confide her extreme difficulties, fearing the outcome. Perhaps a Lo, Richard washed-up major league player who might just be her long-lost Illus. by the author father could be the solution. Setting her story in 1977 in a small Holiday House (40 pp.) Maine town, Long does little to create a strong sense of time or $18.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 place, and even though baseball is a major theme, it, too, takes 978-0-8234-4371-0 the bench to the strong, attractive personalities that flavor this character-driven coming-of-age tale. It’s those lovingly crafted A color-concept book with a bilin- people, seemingly all white, who elevate the story above the rest. gual, cultural twist. Entertaining and emotionally resonant. (Historical fiction. Chinese New Year gets a daring new 9-12) look. A single color dominates a complete page spread. On recto, the name of the featured color in English is displayed on a white background while both the traditional Chinese charac- STAMP SAFARI ters and a romanized rendition, complete with accent marks, Macintosh, Cameron appear below in an inverse color scheme. A single cultural Illus. by Atze, Dave object related to Chinese New Year fully occupies the right. West 44 Books (144 pp.) Here Lo’s talents shine with his renderings. The composition $12.90 paper | Dec. 15, 2019 is simple, with the object sitting solo, centered within the line 978-1-5383-8468-8 of sight. Artistic liberties are tastefully taken, with the object Series: Max Booth Future Sleuth portrayed in a singular color that is occasionally contrary to

tradition. Yet no embellishments are lost in the deceptively His third outing sends 25th-century young adult spare composition. This is best observed on the portrait of the ragamuffin Max on a dramatic rescue teapot. Lo makes sure that no flower, leaf, or curly twirl of its mission. details is omitted. The objects seem to pop due to the skilled Investigating the nature of a small, sticky square that bears shading and tricks of perspective. The background itself teems the likeness of ancient tennis superstar Neptune Williams with textures, with occasional splatters of paint, bleeding edges, forces Max to descend from Skyburb 6 to smoggy but prosper- and blooms of watercolor that unevenly occupy the space. ous Bluggsville. There, not only are he and his airborne kind Vocabulary-wise, the only outlier is the use of the word “Ceru- reviled as “shadies,” but his beloved beagle-bot falls into the lean” instead of “light blue,” which may require an explanation. clutches of archnemesis Capt. Selby and is shipped off to be A guide describing each object follows. reprogrammed. There’s nothing for it but to sneak back into Bright and bold, this will certainly catch the eye of the drab vocational institution from which he had escaped two every reader. (Picture book 2-5) years before and save his prized robo-pooch. With help from friends and a bit of techno-wizardry, he carries the caper off with aplomb. But the mysterious artifact fizzles, as no one really JOSIE BLOOM AND THE wants it except Max’s ex-roomie Brandon, who just happens to be EMERGENCY OF LIFE a Neptune Williams fan and in an anticlimactic exchange casu- Long, Susan Hill ally identifies it as a postage stamp. Neither the narrative nor Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster Atze’s cartoon drawings (in which all the human figures except (288 pp.) Brandon, a few background faces, and the long-dead Williams $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 are white) add enough detail to make the setting more than 978-1-5344-4427-0 vaguely futuristic, and the prejudice against class rather than race may ring oddly in American ears (the series is an Austra- Orphan Josie Bloom’s grandfather is lian import). Still, independent readers might find the rescue’s acting very peculiar, leaving her to take chases, escapes, and mild suspense absorbing. Macintosh tacks up the slack. a disquisition on postage stamps to the end. Signs of Grandpa’s problem are A mild futuristic caper. (Science fiction/mystery. -7 9) everywhere. Wads of money appear in unexpected places, like inside a bologna package. Grandpa not only won’t explain where the money’s coming from, but now he’s started blurting out random words and phrases: “Lima beans!” Worst of all, he seems to have lost track of the need to pay bills. An intrepid person, Josie figures out how to use the checkbook and the rudiments of banking. It’s the mortgage that seems like the final straw. What will happen if she can’t find the money to make the monthly payments? Throughout all her trials, she’s supported by Winky, her steadfast classmate, a talented baseball player who’s gradually going blind. Her teacher is also helpful, but Josie’s afraid to

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 87 ARIBA allow them to continue to share their lives with each other. The An Old Tale About illustrations feature simple, cartoonlike characters. But while New Shoes the drawing style may be simplified, sophisticated patterning Manapov, Masha and color design, as well as intricate pen work, create a lush Illus. by the author and detailed world. The artist moves between small inserted Enchanted Lion Books (40 pp.) panels and large spreads to great effect, creating whimsical and $17.95 | Nov. 5, 2019 uplifting art that perfectly matches the text. In the art, Marcero 978-1-59270-300-5 builds a visual vocabulary for the meaning and importance of memories. As Evelyn opens a jar and stars from Llewelyn’s night Marcus hears a funny tale about a pair of new shoes from sky swirl and fall around her, readers will feel the warmth of his grandfather. friendship and the wonder of the world as well. Marcus is thrilled about his new shoes. He can’t stop mov- Stunning. (Picture book. 4-8) ing. He shows them off to everyone. When he tells his grandfather about them, Grandpa has a story to share. A boy named Ariba who lives in a small mountain village gets a pair of brand CHIRP new shoes, sturdy and big, with room for his feet to grow. Those Messner, Kate wonderful shoes take Ariba on special adventures. But when Bloomsbury (240 pp.) Ariba’s friends start moving to the city, Ariba wonders “what the $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 sky was like over there, beyond the high mountains.” His shoes 978-1-5476-0281-0 get him to the city, where “the sky had become very small,” and soon “he forgot to ever look up.” When he buys a new pair of “Sometimes courage is quiet.” shoes that “fit his new life,” he tries repeatedly to discard the Mia’s life turned upside down a year now-used shoes, but each time, someone recognizes them as his ago when she broke her arm during a and returns them to him. He gives up trying to rid himself of gymnastics routine, so a family move them and lets them carry him back to see the sky again. This back to Vermont, where Mia’s paternal story is great fun to share with young listeners, who will giggle grandmother lives, seems like the perfect each time the shoes make their way back to Ariba and will be fresh start. Gram farms crickets as an alternative food source, delighted to recognize Ariba’s shoes at the end. Older readers and Mia is eager to help out during the summer. Things start will appreciate the gentle thread about staying connected to going wrong at the farm, however, and Gram is certain that sab- one’s roots. The vibrant, printlike illustrations—in bold colors, otage is the cause. With the help of new friends made and new emphasizing red, yellow, and green, on thick, soft paper—per- skills acquired at the day camps her parents force her to attend, fect the silly yet meaningful story. Marcus and Ariba have brown Mia is determined to keep Gram’s beloved business from failing. skin; other characters are fantastical shades of mustard yellow, But to grow past obstacles internal and external, she must first paper white, rusty red, and charcoal black. find the courage to speak out. This story defies categorization: Read it, share it, laugh out loud. (Picture book. 3-10) It’s at once a friendship yarn, a summer idyll, a mystery, and a push for female empowerment. Messner deftly weaves together myriad complex plot threads to form a captivating whole. Char- IN A JAR acters are well drawn and multifaceted; all are imbued with a Marcero, Deborah rich individuality, from earnest, increasingly confident Mia to Illus. by the author the never seen farmhand James who attends all his husband’s Putnam (40 pp.) baseball games. The women, tellingly, remain at the helm $17.99 | Jan. 21, 2020 throughout. They are entrepreneurs, activists, engineers, may- 978-0-525-51459-6 ors; they are mothers, daughters, friends, lovers. Each woman’s rise is its own story, giving Mia a supportive space in which she Two rabbits collect shared memo- can come to terms with her own conflicts. Mia and her family ries in jars—visualizations of intangible are white; the supporting cast is vigorously diverse. moments that build their friendship and Rich, timely, and beautifully written. (Fiction. 10-14) help sustain it when one moves away. Llewellyn is a collector of rocks and feathers and other mundane items until he meets Evelyn. Together they experience a sensational sunset, which he scoops into a jar for her. The memory of that event softly glows like a night light in its jar, bringing warmth and comfort to her as she sleeps. The bunnies’ jars soon become filled with experiential wonders: snowball fights and hot cocoa, exploring tulip-filled fields and playing until their shadows grow long at dusk. After Evelyn moves, it takes a glittering meteor shower for Llewelyn to realize the jars might

88 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Minnema (Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe) maintains a deft balance of perspective between generations in this quietly funny tale. johnny’s pheasant

INSECT SUPERPOWERS a new tutor, new hairstyle, and new bedroom…that’s a lot of 18 Real Bugs That Smash, changes for someone so itty bitty. She likes the tiara, but the Zap, Hypnotize, Sting, and rest upset her tummy. Will understanding parents and friends Devour! be enough to help her through? This series starter features large, Messner, Kate inviting type, short chapters, and black-and-white cartoon illus- Illus. by Nickell, Jillian trations of large-headed, supercute creatures on nearly every Chronicle (80 pp.) page. Young readers facing changes will identify with Itty’s emo- $17.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 tions, though most won’t be given the option to refuse it, as she 978-1-4521-3910-4 is. For those new to chapter books who are obsessed with kitties, princesses, and fairies, this earns a glitter-spewing shooting The insect world is buzzing with star…all others should have the insulin handy at first exposure. superpowers! Empty calories surround some emotional truth. (Fan Jumping on the superhero bandwagon, Messner and Nickell tasy. 4-8) bring readers a fascinating and fun read that is heavy on action but light on the details. Designed like a graphic novel, the book introduces 18 insects that have extraordinary abilities. Along JOHNNY’S PHEASANT the way, readers learn about the biological classification system Minnema, Cheryl and a sampling of insect orders. Nickell’s illustrations keep the Illus. by Flett, Julie pages turning, as insects are presented as the superheroes (or Univ. of Minnesota (32 pp.) supervillains) of the book: “The Decapitator” (also known as $16.95 | Nov. 1, 2019

the Asian giant hornet) is surrounded by action lines and has 978-1-5179-0501-9 young adult thunderbolts of power emanating from its viselike mandibles. Other details, such as the benday dots backgrounding the yel- When Johnny and Grandma come low information boxes, create a subtle nod to comic books of home one day from shopping, Johnny spies something near the old. Messner’s text flows smoothly in this action-packed- for roadside ditch. mat but suffers from its lack of space, and this compression They pull over and discover it is a pheasant with beautiful may cause confusion, as when the text on the yam hawk moth feathers. Johnny says it’s sleeping; Grandma notes that it’s “still vacillates between the generic and the specific. Other editorial soft.” Johnny says he’ll make a nest and care for it. Grandma choices are less than pleasing. The first scientific name men- suspects that it has been run over by a car and says she could use tioned includes a phonetic pronunciation guide, but none of its feathers in her crafting, but Johnny rejoins, “Silly Grandma, the others do. The backmatter is anemic, consisting of a seven- he’s not ready for craftwork, he’s sleeping.” As they are putting book, two-website bibliography. Based on the format, the book the pheasant in the trunk of the car, Johnny mimics its cry, say- will be popular, but be ready to recommend supplemental titles ing, “Hoot! Hoot!” After settling the pheasant at home in the to readers who expect more than cursory information. box, the pheasant awakens. Confused, it flies and lands on top As flashy as a butterfly but needs a swarm of support. of Grandma’s head—much to her surprise—and then escapes (Graphic nonfiction. -8 12) out of a window. Before it returns to the wild (Johnny accuses Grandma of scaring it away with talk of crafting), the pheasant leaves behind a surprise for Johnny. Minnema (Mille Lacs Band THE NEWEST PRINCESS of Ojibwe) maintains a deft balance of perspective between gen- Mews, Melody erations in this quietly funny tale. Both Johnny’s enthusiasm and Illus. by Stubbings, Ellen optimism and Grandma’s pragmatism are fully believable—any Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (128 pp.) child who has found a dead or injured animal will relate. Flett’s $16.99 | $5.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 (Cree-Métis) characteristically spare illustrations depict this 978-1-5344-5494-1 tender relationship, careful details such as Grandma’s game of 978-1-5344-5493-4 paper solitaire further developing these loving Indigenous characters. Series: Itty Bitty Princess Kitty, 1 This dead-bird story with a happy ending rewards children’s optimism. (Picture book. 3-7) Change can be very scary even for a princess kitty. The setup reads like a sendup. Cotton-candy–colored kit- ten Itty Bitty lives in a castle in Lollyland with her parents, King and Queen Kitty. She loves going to school and playing in Goodie Grove with her friends Luna Unicorn, Esme Butter- fly, and Chipper Bunny. When an announcement fairy surprises Itty and Luna with the news that Itty’s eighth shooting star is on its way, they know this means that Itty will be an official princess in just a few days. She soon learns this means she’ll have

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 89 Even the youngest of readers will sense that this is a whale of a romance. the heart of a whale

SLAMDOWN TOWN single large-font sentence identifying the letter of the alphabet Nicoll, Maxwell and the species (“G is for Green Lips Moth”) with a paragraph Illus. by Smith, Matthew of information. These vary widely in both amount of informa- Amulet/Abrams (224 pp.) tion and relevance, many of them addressing moths in general $14.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 rather than a specific moth. C (cow moth), for instance, talks 978-1-4197-3885-2 about how most moths land (wings spread, as opposed to butterflies, which usually land with their wings folded), and D (dia- An 11-year-old wrestling fanatic trans- mond moth) makes a snarky comparison to a Delta Dart fighter forms from scrawny to brawny in this jet. Though several pages talk about ways moths camouflage series-launching debut. themselves, it’s not until the letter I that the term is used: “This Despite his small frame, Ollie has yellow moth is camouflaged when sitting on a yellow flower.” wrestling in his blood. Though she now Other entries teach readers about wing scales, anatomy, moths’ works as a referee, his mother reigned as the local scene’s attraction to light, their life cycle, a bit about what they eat and undisputed champion until the dastardly Werewrestler stole what eats them, and a few other differences between moths and an underhanded victory. Ever since, Slamdown Town Arena has butterflies. struggled to stay afloat—and Ollie can relate. When he isn’t Indeed, moths do deserve to be recognized, and this a daydreaming the sixth grade away, he’s either grappling with good springboard. (Informational picture book. 4-9) big brother Hollis or struggling to keep pace with Tamiko, his brainiac best friend (Japanese American, she’s the book’s only significant person of color). Everything changes when Ollie THE HEART OF discovers a piece of magic gum that turns him into a towering, A WHALE muscle-bound contender. Eager to vanquish the Werewres- Pignataro, Anna tler, Ollie enters the ring as “Big Chew.” His episodic matches Illus. by the author pair with studying online instructional videos that explain the Philomel (40 pp.) importance of captivating costumes, titillating trash talk, and $17.99 | Jan. 28, 2020 sensational signature moves. Despite its larger-than-life per- 978-1-984-83627-4 sonalities, this third-person narrative lacks compelling character: Attempts to lay the verbal smackdown fall flat (“moody The flora and fauna of the ocean respond to a lonely whale’s music”?), and action sequences seem somewhat illogical (a leg beautiful music by helping him find another whale. drop into a bear hug?). Ollie earns a title shot, but along the way, “Whale’s song was so beautiful it could reach the farthest his career takes its toll: His grades slip, he loses his dog-walking of faraways.” Over a double-page spread, a simply drawn white job, his friendship with Tamiko collapses, and Slamdown Town whale—detailed with a large eye, a small mouth and fins, and a faces financial ruin. Can Ollie save the squared circle and repair small lavender heart—swims past a variety of pastel-hued sea his personal life without breaking kayfabe? denizens. The lyrical text is set in type that emulates hand- Not a curtain-jerker—but more a formulaic midcard lettering. Watercolors are the appropriate choice for a tale that than a marquee match. (Fiction. 8-12) occurs in a sea full of creatures—with an occasional glimpse of land and sky as well as a cheerfully colored sailboat and light- house. Collage, pencil sketching, and washes produce a dream- NOT A BUTTERFLY like effect that also feels sweetly humorous. A double-page Alphabet Book spread of sea horses lounging atop spirited jellyfish is especially Pallotta, Jerry whimsical. Musical terms are cleverly used to describe the sing- Illus. by Bersani, Shennen ing whale’s positive effects on others (“a cheerful symphony Charlesbridge (32 pp.) for a sad urchin”). After several pages of poetic lines about the $17.99 | $7.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 talented singer, readers learn that his heart feels “empty.” The 978-1-58089-689-4 ocean carries his sighing wish across miles of lovingly rendered 978-1-58089-690-0 paper sea habitats until the solo becomes a duet. Although the flap copy speaks of friendship, even the youngest of readers will “It’s about time moths had their own book!” sense that this is a whale of a romance. Beneath its warmth is Pallotta extends his many topical alphabet books (most a poignant reminder of the loss to all if whale songs become recently The Crab Alphabet Book, illustrated by Tom Leonard, history. 2019) with this seeming rebuttal to the glut of butterfly books. A sweet cetacean story. (Picture book. 3-5) Collaborator Bersani’s Prismacolor pencil and Photoshop illustrations are hands-down the stars here. Up-close pictures in brilliant, naturalistic colors and patterns dazzle the eye and will surely send readers out the door to hunt for some moth species. (The absence of a map and info about individual species’ ranges may hamper them, though.) Pallotta rounds out the

90 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | MADAM C.J. WALKER BUILDS along—just when it’s Goose’s turn to be the caller—throw- A BUSINESS ing an unexpected, hilarious wrench into the proceedings and Rebel Girls bringing the story to a riotous conclusion. This honking good Timbuktu (128 pp.) tale is told entirely through speech balloons, with dialogue that $12.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 reveals much about characters’ distinctive personalities; addi- 978-1-7331761-9-4 tional comic relief is supplied by a trio of red squirrels, wryly Series: Rebel Girls Chapter Books commenting on the goings-on from their tree perch. Delicate cartoon illustrations add wit and humorous energy to the fre- A novel for young readers that cel- netic events, including expressive faces and the dapper attire in ebrates the life of bold, black self-made which the players are dressed: Goose sports a backward blue millionaire Madam C.J. Walker. baseball cap, for instance. Sarah Breedlove is the first child Giggling readers won’t duck out from playing the game born in her family after slavery, but she is orphaned at 8. After once they’ve savored this funny tale. (Picture book. 4-7) living with her older sister and unkind brother-in-law, Sarah decides to take her future into her own hands. At 14, she marries Moses, a man she meets at church, and together they have STRAW a little girl, Lelia. Moses is lynched when Sarah is 20, and she Rosenthal, Amy Krouse decides to leave the Deep South, settling in St. Louis and then Illus. by Magoon, Scott Denver. Although mentions of hair are threaded throughout Disney-Hyperion (48 pp.) the quick-moving tale, Sarah does not begin working with $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020

hair-care products until years later, when she enters the upper 978-148474955-5 young adult echelon of black society. Readers will learn about the sensitive Series: Spoon topic of black women’s hair, the lesser-known Annie Turnbo’s important role in encouraging natural hair, and Sarah’s brilliant A cautionary tale about making experiences last. business savvy and determination. No one can deny that when The riotous utensil community Rosenthal and Magoon barriers stood strong for both women and blacks, Sarah stood introduced in Spoon (2009) and continued in Chopsticks (2012) firm in rising to meet those challenges and providing opportu- returns for a series conclusion starring a blue-and-white–striped nities to blacks. Bright matte illustrations, dominated by deep bendable straw who “has a great thirst for being first.” Straw greens, brick reds, and rich browns, appear every few pages slurps up everything in sight, from the water in a flower bowl and extend the book’s message. Ada Lovelace Cracks the Code to a cup of tea, while friends look on in dismay. Since nobody publishes simultaneously, and both books have several pages of else seems to be competing with Straw, both his fervor and their activities in the backmatter. unhappiness feel ungrounded. But when Straw tries to speed An inspiring story for any young girl waiting to make through an icy drink, he’s laid low by brain freeze and “his heart her mark on society. (Historical fiction. - 8 12) (Ada Lovelace sank,” an awfully dramatic response. Straw’s friend, a novelty Cracks the Code 978-1-733-1761-8-7) straw with loop-de-loop eyes, helps him appreciate the pleasures of taking in life slowly, and Straw is forever changed, suddenly appreciating the colors, textures, and experiences in the I AM GOOSE! world. At bedtime, a parent kisses him and explains that “what Rohner, Dorothia you’re feeling is called awe, Straw.” By the end, “sometimes he Illus. by Nastanlieva, Vanya still wants to be first. Butmost of the time, Straw wants to make Clarion (32 pp.) the good things last.” Magoon’s energetic cartoon illustrations $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 are fun to look at, but the lengthy story drives its point into the 978-1-328-84159-9 ground, and neither the problem nor the resolution is interesting enough to convince hasty children to slow down their cen- Duck, duck…who? tral nervous systems. That’s what literal-minded Goose Doesn’t quite hit the spot. (Picture book. 3-6) wants to know when, seated among various animal pals playing the familiar circle game, callers keep tagging the “goose”—but the other animals, not the actual goose in their midst. Continu- BEING FROG ally bypassed, Goose becomes incensed and increasingly dis- Sayre, April Pulley ruptive. Rabbit, irate after repeated attempts to calm Goose Photos by the author down with assurances that eventually everyone will have a turn, Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster (32 pp.) demands order. Goose presents a chart that lists physical char- $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 acteristics of geese and nongeese! By now civility is in shambles, 978-1-5344-2881-2 and furious Rabbit threatens to end the game. Chastened, players reconvene, the game resumes, and lo, Goose is finally This photo essay about the eponymous amphibian includes tagged! But then…a new group of (hint) waddling players comes simple rhyming sentences both informative and appreciative.

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 91 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Kevin Noble Maillard

FOR HIS FIRST CHILDREN’S BOOK, A LAW PROFESSOR AND FATHER FOUND A SUBJECT IN HIS NATIVE FAMILY’S FOOD TRADITIONS: FRY BREAD By Kathie Meizner Chris Owyoung old, and I was having a hard time finding contemporary books about Native kids that weren’t about Thanksgiving or Pocahon- tas. Most were written by non-Natives, and all were about people that lived long ago, like some mythical vanished community. Where were the lullaby books, the I-love-my-dog tales, the golden rule books about Native people? I found a few books for young children by Julie Flett and Cynthia Leitich Smith, but I knew there could be more. So I naïvely thought, “I’ll just write my own.” As if it is as simple as that! Connie very politely declined my first draft ofFry Bread, which I can only describe as “bouncy.” She told me to circle back with something “deeper, more poetic, and a touch more abstract.” And that’s what I did.

Are there picture books you especially love for yourself as an adult? As a parent? I fall apart every time I read City Dog, Country Frog. There is so much emotion conveyed in as few words as possible. The People Could Fly is a classic, and I was so happy to have my children ask for it independently. I like reading Epossomundas with my children because my old Southern lady accent is impeccable. (I channel my mother, whose voice sounds like a topographic map). And I have a newfound appreciation for anything by Vir- ginia Lee Burton, who is the champion of all good things verging on obsolescence. Kevin Noble Maillard is a professor of law at Syracuse and There are a lot of variations in recipes for fry bread. For in- writes for the New York Times and the Atlantic. He is originally stance, you use yeast instead of baking powder. from Oklahoma and is a member of the Seminole Nation, Me- I also use corn meal, which may be sacrilege to some people. kusukey Band. Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (Roar- My recipe, one that I perfected over many failures, was given ing Brook, Oct. 22) is his first book for children; he recently dis- to me by old ladies in my family. This is the beauty of this very cussed the book, which has illustrations by Juana Martinez-Ne- simple food that originated from Indian removal. What does it al, with Kirkus Reviews. mean to be real? Authentic? Legitimate? This is my bread and How did Fry Bread come about? Did you begin with this ex- butter of research. Who gets to decide, especially when you pansive, universal idea for the book? believe in your own identity? Can someone else tell you that I first approached [editor] Connie Hsu [at Roaring Brook you’re “wrong?” That’s how I’ve always felt about the way that Press] with an idea for a board book. My oldest son was 2 years I make fry bread, because it has slightly different ingredients, a

92 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | different shape, and a different color. But it’s still fry bread. So, I’m writing about a familiar subject—except this time the audience is just shorter.

How is fry bread a tradition in your family now? I have two young children, and I taught them to make it. I have this great video of them with flour all over their faces while mixing the dough. (I don’t let them around me when the The first verso states boldly: “A frog / is a being. / It is watch- oil is hot, though). We always make it on holidays, and I’ll fry ing. / It is seeing.” The photograph across the gutter presents a close-up view of a green frog’s face against a blurry, muted, out- up a batch for their parties at school. Health-conscious Man- door background. The simple verses scan well throughout. Many hattan parents of their friends will ask, “what is this delicious of the sentences use “It” to refer to the frog whose life is being fried bread?” And this bread takes hours to make! You have to studied; just one “It” has a different antecedent, which throws a slight curve during initial reading. However, this small book of clear out an entire morning and afternoon to make the dough, relatively few words manages to say a lot. Some pages give readers mix it, let it rise, prepare the oil, fry it, and then get it to wher- a rudimentary understanding of a frog’s daily life and the life cycle ever you’re going while it’s still hot. I love to walk in a room of a frog. Others provide gentle reminders that these are sen- tient creatures whose lives are only partly understood by human with the big steel bowl covered with a cloth and see everyone’s beings. (“Does it ponder? / We don’t yet know.”) The excellent faces light up. photography—with sharp images that join the text in provoking humor, interest, and reverence—attests to the author’s note Your Author’s Note hints that you were able to make sug- about spending a good deal of time observing frogs at a nearby pond. The author’s note itself is lovely: While offering fascinat- gestions for the art in progress. ing details about her own encounters with specific frogs, it also Juana and I talked a few times in secret, because we weren’t clarifies for young readers the difference between scientific and sure how the editors would like it. (They loved it.) There was anecdotal research—and the value in both. The youngest readers will love the photographs and rhymes; slightly older children will an unbelievable amount of back and forth over the visual poli- also appreciate the author’s note. young adult tics of drawing Native people: No red cheeks. No bare feet. Sound tadpole philosophy. (resources) (Informational pic Discussions about skin tones. Discussions about hair. We had ture book. 3-6) numerous readers, including Elise McMullen-Ciotti [Chero- kee Nation] and Traci Sorrell [Cherokee Nation], who were HUNDRED FEET TALL Scheuer, Benjamin amazing. I was completely surprised that Juana put my entire Illus. by Williams, Jemima family in the book! She asked me to send her pictures, but I Simon & Schuster (40 pp.) $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 had no clue that she was going to include the children, who 978-1-5344-3219-2 now believe they are famous. I saw the first illustrations on my iPhone on the 2 train in New York, tears streaming down To reach full potential, living things as diverse as seeds and children need to be nurtured. my face. Seeing these familiar faces really pulled it all together When an anthropomorphic two-parent rabbit family with for me. a bespectacled child finds a little brown seed under a tree, they bring it home with the “promise that [they will] help it to grow.” With some good earth, water, light, and lots of love, the planted Kathie Meizner manages a public library in Maryland and reviews seed first grows invisibly, then a green stalk, leaves, and roots children’s books for Kirkus Reviews and the Washington Post. Fry appear, and finally the tree is large enough to plant outside and grow to the titular height of 100 feet. As the seed develops, Bread received a starred review in the July 15, 2019, issue. clear, full-color, cartoon illustrations show the rabbit family also nurturing the bespectacled child into a budding scientist, artist, and avid reader. Sharp-eyed young listeners will note that one parent’s belly expands with the passage of time as well, and they’ll be ready for a touching scene when the new baby arrives home to greet the newly minted older sibling. Once planted outside, the grateful tree, which addresses the young bunny directly throughout, thanks the child “for the love you’ve shown / to a little brown seed that you found in the fall. / I hope that you visit and climb in my boughs, / and together we’ll stand at a hundred feet tall.” Easy, well-metered rhyme, a repeating and expanding refrain, and words and musical notation on the rear endpapers combine to create a new storytime and music- circle favorite. A sweet paean to the nurturing power of love. (Picture book. 3-6)

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 93 Joins the growing and necessary category of picture books that feature modern diverse characters doing everyday things. boxitects

BOXITECTS against the navy-blue vastness above a quiet farm. Text is set pri- Smith, Kim marily in gray and white against dark backgrounds, a large-font Illus. by the author serif type ensuring legibility. The stately text and stillness of the Clarion (40 pp.) images give the book a solemn air that is leavened with, first, “a $17.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 midnight snack” of Lucky Charms and then a dream balloon 978-1-328-47720-0 flight that takes a brown-skinned child with long puffy hair over a sea of “pink and purple clouds.” Meg stands out as a brilliant boxi- This will have young readers hoping to stay up for a tect—until Simone comes along. glimpse of “colors unseen.” (Picture book. 3-6) Meg makes all sorts of things out of boxes: “tiny houses, tall towers, twisty tunnels,” and inventions no one else had seen before. When Meg goes to Maker School, she finds “blanke- THE STOLEN SLIPPER teers, spaghetti-tects, tin-foilers, and egg-cartoners,” but as the Staniszewski, Anna first boxitect in class, she feels special. But then Simone comes Illus. by Pamintuan, Macky along. She’s brilliant and creative like Meg—and a boxitect, Scholastic (96 pp.) just like Meg. Instead of hitting it off, the two are immediate $4.99 paper | Dec. 3, 2019 rivals, trading snide remarks and criticizing each other’s work. 978-1-338-34975-7 When the school competition rolls around and students have Series: Once Upon a Fairy Tale, 2 to work in teams, the boxitect team is the one that is not going smoothly. Meg and Simone split up the materials and compete Mystery solvers Kara and Zed help with each other to make the better half. But when their infight- crack the Cinderella case in the second ing proves disastrous, the pair quickly learns to work together, Once Upon a Fairy Tale chapter book. gaining skills and friendship. The story arc contains just enough Handsome, dashing Prince Patrick suspense to keep readers interested, and the humorous text is and his cute puppy, Duncan, stop in at Kara’s family shoe shop engaging. Smith’s cartoon illustrations are a combination of because the glass slipper left behind by the mysterious woman double-page spreads, full-page scenes, and smaller vignettes who captured his heart at a ball—his only clue to finding her— that use a variety of shapes, patterns, and contrasting colors for has been stolen from his library, and he’s looking for leads on a lively and creative maker’s world. Meg’s brown skin and puffy who made it. As it was fairy godmother–made, Kara’s parents hair and Simone’s Asian presentation put this in the growing can’t help, but Kara offers her sleuthing services, together with and necessary category of picture books that feature modern her best friend, Zed. When the offer is quickly rejected (after diverse characters doing everyday things. Patrick consults his adviser), Kara decides they’ll solve the mys- Personality and a developmental message successfully tery anyway. While the villain (and motive) behind the crime combine for STEAM fun. (Picture book. 3-8) is revealed early, setting a trap for and catching said villain is only half of the puzzle. The other half is finding the shoe so that Cinderella’s story can proceed on schedule. The mystery is WHAT COLOR IS NIGHT? well-structured for its age group, with all of the pieces (includ- Snider, Grant ing red herrings) laid out early and then spotlighted at crucial Illus. by the author moments, enabling readers to solve right alongside the racially Chronicle (44 pp.) diverse heroes—in the black-and-white illustrations, Kara and $15.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 Cinderella are pale while Patrick and Zed have dark skin. The 978-1-4521-7992-6 art’s expressiveness buttresses the characterization and highlights key amusing animal moments (a welcome carryover from If you think the night is black, think series opener The Magic Mirror, 2019). again. Young readers will be enchanted. (Fantasy/mystery. 5-8) Snider’s elegant nocturnal idyll explores the many colors visible to those who “look closer.” The dark blue sky, “a big yellow moon beginning to rise,” the glow of red neon in the city and of faraway yellow headlights in the country, the glowing green eyes of raccoons on the prowl—it turns out the night is fairly pulsing with colors. Thick ink outlines rooftops, sinuous tree branches, skyscrapers, moths, and more; the appropriately nighttime palette will have eyes straining a bit to see dark-gray outlines against dark-blue sky and black foreground shapes. For all that his shapes are simplified, at times even childlike in their line, the effect is startlingly realistic. The sky above the neon-lit city glows murky orange from the light below; in contrast, “a thousand silver stars spilled across the sky” are crystalline white

94 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | EVEREST party back to the trapped boy for a dramatic rescue. The source The Remarkable Story of for this story was a book incorporating the memories of Abe’s Edmund Hillary and Tenzing boyhood friend, explained in an author’s note. The well-paced Norgay text includes invented dialogue attributed to Abe and his par- Stewart, Alexandra ents. Abe’s older sister, Sarah, is not mentioned in the text and Illus. by Todd-Stanton, Joe is shown in the illustrations as a little girl younger than Abe. Bloomsbury (64 pp.) All the characters present white save for one black man in the $21.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 rescue crew. An oversized format and multiple double-page 978-1-5476-0159-2 spreads provide plenty of space for cartoon-style illustrations of the Lincoln cabin, the surrounding countryside, and the spooky This is the story of how Edmund Hillary, a white New cave where Abe was trapped. This story focuses on the incident Zealand beekeeper, and Tenzing Norgay, a Tibetan yak herder, in the cave and Abe’s rescue; a more complete look at Lincoln’s became the first two men in recorded history to reach the top life is included in an appended timeline and the author’s note, of Mount Everest. both of which include references to Lincoln’s kindness to ani- In addition to presenting the childhoods of these two men mals and to other pets he owned. and their mutual obsession with summiting the highest moun- This heartwarming story of a boy and his beloved dog tain in the world, the book traces the history of European expe- opens the door for further study of our 16th president. ditions to Everest, the triumphant climb itself, and the effects (Picture book. 4-8) the victory had on Hillary’s and Norgay’s adult lives. Through- out, Stewart emphasizes that reaching the top was a group

effort involving many more men than are usually credited. The PIECE BY PIECE young adult text is accompanied by Todd-Stanton’s dazzling illustrations Tan, Susan that subtly and effectively incorporate relevant facts. Unfortu- Illus. by Wong, Justine nately, despite its engaging tone and Norgay’s prominent billing, Peabody Essex Museum (40 pp.) the book’s historical perspective is distinctly colonial. The nar- $19.95 | Nov. 19, 2019 rative spends considerably more time on Hillary’s history than 978-0-8757-7239-4 on Norgay’s, and it skims over major world events that would have affected the geopolitics of the climb. It makes only passing Missing her grandmother, a young mention of South Asian independence struggles and provides Chinese American girl finds comfort in no analysis as to why, after the expedition, Hillary was knighted a museum. and Norgay was not. Furthermore, the text does not acknowl- For Emmy, “museums have always been a special place for edge the fact that the expedition was limited entirely to men Nainai and me,” and all summer they explored them together even though women may have had the skills to accompany during Nainai’s visit. Already missing their trips and meals the party: Indeed, readers learn that Norgay married a Sherpa of dumplings, Nainai gives Emmy a blue blanket made up of woman, whose absence from expeditions to Everest before her mementos before returning to China. The differing textiles and untimely death goes unexplained. patterns are beautifully rendered in layered, uneven strokes of This well-illustrated text is undermined by its unwill- color. In an attempt to cheer Emmy up, her dad takes her to ingness to engage with colonial history or systemic sexism. a museum with a special exhibit: a traditional house brought (Nonfiction. -8 12) over from China. The plan seems doomed from the start when Emmy loses her beloved blanket. Yet elongated descriptions narrate how Emmy finds bits of blue and comfort in each room. HONEY, THE DOG WHO SAVED Bit by bit, Emmy comes to terms with her longing for Nainai ABE LINCOLN and realizes commonalities with her dad, himself an immi- Swanson, Shari grant. A happy reunion with the blanket marks the end of her Illus. by Groenink, Chuck emotional journey. Wong provides a warm, textured palette Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (40 pp.) with thick black lines to describe both simply drawn figures $17.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 and elaborate ornamentation. At times the expression of the 978-0-06-269900-8 illustrations seems inhibited by the elaborate details that can dominate the pages. This tale is based on the Yin Yu Tang house, A slice of Abraham Lincoln’s child- which traveled from China’s Huizhou region to the Peabody hood life is explored through a fictional- Essex Museum in Massachusetts; further information about it ized anecdote about his dog Honey. is found in a concluding note. When 7-year-old Abe rescues a golden-brown dog with a A multilayered, emotional tale that is occasionally broken leg, he takes the pup home to the Lincolns’ cabin in overtaken by its rich visual detail. (Picture book. 6-9) Knob Creek, Kentucky. Honey follows Abe everywhere, including trailing after his owner into a deep cave. When Abe gets stuck between rocks, Honey goes for help and leads a search

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 95 I CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING of one’s roots. Families and cultures are composed of genera- Taylor, Stephanie tions of fallible human beings who make both brave and oppor- Illus. by Brenlla, Laura tunistic decisions with wonderful and terrible results. Whether Strong Arm Press (34 pp.) this young readers’ adaptation will have broad appeal among $11.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 its intended middle-grade and YA audience is debatable. Nev- 978-1-947492-32-5 ertheless, it is well written and personable. To those intrepid young readers with a genuine interest in genealogy, family his- A determined tot is ready for change. tory, and the interplay of the two with larger cultural and his- This youngster, with a shock of brown hair, pink skin, and torical events, this will be a welcome addition. big, bold eyes, can change (almost) anything. Strong first-per- A truly human story for those with a keen interest. son narration radiates purposeful strength. Basic, everyday (Memoir. 10-16) tasks such as getting dressed (“I can change the clothes I wear. / I can change my socks and shoes”) lead to small victories: “I can change a seed into a tree” (with the help of a watering can). LITTLE CLOUD Larger circumstances beyond a small child’s control require a The Science of a Hurricane bit more imagination: “I can change a rainy day into a day at sea.” Wagstaffe, Johanna (A cardboard boat sails through a puddle.) Taylor, co-founder of Illus. by McLaughlin, Julie the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, knows about Orca (32 pp.) big ideas. Alas, too many ideas are strung together in this pack- $16.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 age, which muddles the intended empowerment message. The 978-1-4598-2184-2 narration attempts to flow from concrete changes to more abstract ones: “I can change my feelings into words. / I can An on-air meteorologist chronicles the development of a change ideas into things.” However, the platitudinous ending hurricane for very young readers and listeners. —“But I can change the world!”—falls flat. Occasional rhyme (“I In her simple primary narrative, Wagstaffe tells the story of can change myself from being shy. / I can make myself say hi”) the development of a small, anthropomorphic cloud. Formed results in choppy scansion. Brenlla’s retro art helps to enliven from evaporation and condensation off the west coast of Africa, this list of buoyant encouragements. it grows into a tropical disturbance, then a depression, and Positive—but not quite powerful. (Picture book. 3-6) finally a hurricane with a proper name, Nate. A second, smaller block of text labeled “Weather Fact” on each page or spread provides further facts about hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones. FUTUREFACE The cheery, digitally collaged illustrations add even more infor- A Family Mystery, a Search mation, including names of cloud formations; parts of the water for Identity, and the Truth cycle; and both the stages and the anatomy of hurricanes. As About Belonging (Adapted Nate’s journey continues, he (having gained a gender with the for Young Readers) name) travels across the ocean and nears land, where people Wagner, Alex make preparations. Luckily, he’s slowed before making landfall, Delacorte (320 pp.) and his winds have weakened. He shrinks to a serious rainstorm $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Jan. 28, 2020 and finally a small cloud again. Illogically, and contrary to geo- 978-1-9848-9662-9 graphical facts, “he realized he would roll over the tall moun- 978-1-9848-9663-6 PLB tains along the coast before he made landfall.” A final spread includes more hurricane facts, including the potential effects Television journalist Wagner steps of global climate change. Canadian scientist Wagstaffe is accu- into the world of nonfiction for young readers with this adapta- rately shown as a blonde white woman reporting the storm on tion of her 2018 adult memoir of the same title. TV; other humans in the illustrations are racially diverse. Growing up as a half-Burmese and half-white mixed-race Probably clear enough for early weather watchers. child, Wagner rarely felt strong ties to any particular identity or (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8) heritage. When extended family lets slip their suspicions that her father’s side of the family may have Jewish roots, Wagner latches onto the possibility, which sends her on a deep dive into her roots on both sides of her family. In the vein of the now-ubiquitous celebrity genealogy shows, Wagner first traces her mother’s roots in Burma, a country her family fled during political upheaval in the mid-20th century. Later she turns to her father’s purported roots in Luxembourg before finally testing the waters of commercial DNA testing. Along the way she discovers that family stories of heroes and villains are rarely so clearly defined; rather, nuance is the order of the day regardless

96 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Dylan’s rural setting shows how isolation can come in many forms, a feeling many readers will understand. high and dry

HIGH AND DRY partners with Lolo, her grandfather, to build a rain tank that Walters, Eric will save their village in the Old World from a threatening mon- Illus. by Gendron, Sabrina soon. Also returning is Dawn Vogel, who, in “Fixer Upper,” tells Orca (88 pp.) the story of a young Indian girl who dreams of joining a Mars $12.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 mission to escape the ruins and devastation of Earth. These are 978-1-4598-2310-5 standouts; other stories, many from authors included in previous anthologies, have a sense of tameness that’s at odds with A sensitive young boy’s act of bravery the genre. saves the life of a beached orca. An uncharacteristically uneven collection of specula- Lonely now that the summer’s over tive storytelling. (Science fiction. 10-14) and the vacationers have left the isolated island his family has recently moved to, Dylan will spend the winter being home-schooled by his art- GRIFFITH’S GUIDE FOR ist parents. He misses friends, recess, and gym, but he enjoys DRAGON MASTERS walking the island’s shoreline, kayaking, and watching the pod A Dragon Masters of orcas that lives nearby. While exploring the beach with his Special Edition grandfather, he notices that the orca pod is distressed, and they West, Tracey find a young pod member stranded on some rocks in an inlet Illus. by Loveridge, Matt with the tide going out. Thanks to resourceful thinking and Scholastic (144 pp.) bravery on Dylan’s part, they keep the young orca from drying $6.99 paper | Dec. 3, 2019

out and being harmed until it is high tide again and he can be 978-1-338-54034-5 young adult floated back to sea and his pod. The natural world predomi- Series: Dragon Masters nates the narrative, and scientific information is seamlessly woven in. Accessible for transitioning readers and graced with An informational guidebook to the the occasional grayscale illustration, the book offers fast-paced characters and worldbuilding of the Dragon Masters series. action and tension surrounding the whale’s fate—both will keep It seems that Griffith of the Green Fields, the royal wizard of readers invested. Dylan and his mom appear to have darker skin the kingdom of Bracken, wants to compile his wizardly research than his dad, but race is indeterminable. Dylan’s rural setting and wisdom into a book, so he has enlisted his friend “Tracey of shows how isolation can come in many forms, a feeling many the West” to pull together a Dragon Masters guidebook from readers will understand. his notes and the contributions of his other friends. The book A page-turning transitional chapter book with a satis- is primarily organized into illustration-heavy two-page spreads fying ending. (Fiction. 6-9) consisting of maps, character profiles (with plenty of information on each Dragon Master’s type of dragon, of course), important objects, and snippets of the world’s history. The diversity YOUNG EXPLORER’S among Dragon Masters is foregrounded. The book explicitly ADVENTURE GUIDE states that the Dragon Masters come from all over the world Volume 6 (which is reflected in their racial presentations in the full-color Ed. by Weaver, Sean & Weaver, Corie illustrations as well as the cultural notes and illustrations of the Dreaming Robot (418 pp.) regions they come from). Furthermore, some have disabilities, $17.95 paper | Dec. 1, 2019 as they are no barrier to a person’s becoming a Dragon Master; 978-1-940924-44-1 all candidates need is to “have good hearts.” Though most profiles provide plenty of context clues as to any given character’s The Weavers bring readers their ethnicity and their kingdom’s real-world analog, a map placing sixth volume of galactic tales starring characters on continents shaped like Europe, Africa, Asia, and kids confronted with a variety of futur- Oceania erases ambiguity. There is an inescapably “It’s a Small istic challenges, some not so far-fetched. World”–esque feel to it all, but it certainly means well. The The editors have made a conscious attempt at expand- informational format works well for reluctant and below-grade- ing authorial diversity. In “Oduduwa: The Return,” Nigerian level readers, and it will help maintain interest in the series for Afrofuturist Imade Iyamu has created a world where humans maturing readers more inclined to game guides than fiction. have been colonized and are raised for food by a species capable A good resource for established fans. (Fantasy. 6-10) of “znog,” or mind-communication. Asian American author Andrew K. Hoe reminisces about fried sea cucumbers in “In the Night City,” in which siblings Kiam-Lin and Dylan awaken from their stasis-pods to neutralize a mysterious serpent that threatens thousands of sleeping Chinese settlers in the underwater city of Sui-Fa. In “Cloudcatcher,” written by returning Filipinx American author Marilag Angway, bored 11-year-old Jaz

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 october 2019 | 97 Readers will delight in the silly antics and wacky wordplay. one mean ant

A NUMBER OF NUMBERS against discouraging comments and then smiling and looking Wood, Amanda & Jolley, Mike out at readers, hands extended to say, “I’m gonna push through!” Illus. by Sanders, Allan Ensuing pages show children of different races, genders, and Wide Eyed Editions (48 pp.) abilities all repeating the “push through” mantra in the face of $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 adversity. Also depicted are diverse famous people (bios in the 978-1-78603-537-0 backmatter) who’ve “pushed through” to meet success, including President Barack Obama, activist LaDonna Brave Bull A fresh set of broad, busy visual Allard, and physicist Stephen Hawking. scrambles from the creators of An Alpha It’s encouraging—but not revolutionary in its call for bet of Alphabets (2018). individual grit rather than collective change. (Picture book. In cartoon scenes rendered with a retro look, illustrator 5-9) Sanders goes from one unicyclist up to a teeming orchestra with 20 choristers and 188 instruments to spot, followed by a U.S. map with the states identified just by initials and a build- ONE MEAN ANT ing site with 100 hard hats to count. Along the way, he strews Yorinks, Arthur triads of folktale characters (bears, goats, mice, etc.) on one Illus. by Ruzzier, Sergio spread, arranges sextets of knights and cannonballs through- Candlewick (48 pp.) out a cutaway castle on another, and invites viewers to identify $16.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 the occupations of 11 train passengers, trace a maze to match 17 978-0-7636-8394-8 items with their owners, and like challenges. Efforts throughout to reflect at least a modicum of racial diversity in depictions of An irascible ant becomes lost in the human figures may run aground on an Ark full of pairs includ- desert until an upbeat fly arrives. ing a white Noah and his equally pale wife—not to mention the This ant is mean: “so mean, grapes stereotypical feather-headdressed Native American with tee- would shrivel and turn into raisins when pee and totem pole in North Dakota—but do put this one up he looked at them.” He bosses everybody around, too. So preoc- on some of Waldo’s more parochial excursions. Also, younger or cupied with this activity is he, the ant finds himself completely less visually acute viewers may find the art’s clean lines and har- lost in the desert. Ranting and raving, he complains that there’s monious color schemes easier on the eye than more-challenging “no water in this stinkpot place.” A fly lands, and the ant stresses albums like Manuela Ancutici’s I Spy 123, with photographs by their dire situation, but the cheerful fly’s inexplicably immune Ruth Prenting (2017), or even Walter Wick’s classics. to the ant’s histrionics. When the fly removes a pine needle Some miscues but overall an engaging entry in the seek- from the ant’s side (not previously visible in the illustrations), and-find genre.(Picture book. 5-7) the ant suddenly feels different (“good” and “thankful” don’t come naturally). The insects exit the desert in tandem, with the fly forging optimistically ahead and the ant yelling warn- I’M GONNA PUSH THROUGH! ings. Ruzzier’s distinctive cartoon illustrations utilize fine black Wright, Jasmyn outlines and pastel-hued washes to render the ant and fly with Illus. by Wright, Shannon exaggerated facial expressions and body language. With his Atheneum (40 pp.) beady eyes, twisted antennae, snarling mouth, flailing legs, and $17.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 diminutive red body, the ant certainly looks mean while the 978-1-5344-3965-8 larger, blue-green fly with his gossamer wings and goofy, gap- toothed grin appears an affable, unflappable foil against a back- A picture-book encapsulation of ground of empty desert and open sky. Readers will delight in the the author’s Push Through education silly antics and wacky wordplay of these unlikely companions movement. just as much as they’ll enjoy the conversational, tall-tale voice An extensive author’s note explains that Wright came up adopted by the narrator. with the “words and hand movements of the original Push A zany, hilarious first in a planned trilogy.(Picture book. Through mantra” as a teacher endeavoring to explain what 3-7) “resilient” means. She says she “wanted [her students] to know that their past doesn’t define them, their present doesn’t have to hinder them, and their future is waiting on them.” While readers may find strength in this affirmation, they may also note it seems wholly reliant on individual perseverance rather than systemic change to dismantle oppression. The primary narrative opens with the statement “YOU can push through anything!” while illustrator Wright depicts a young brown-skinned child in profile, hair in beaded braids, and looking determined. The next spread shows the same child with hands over ears

98 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - 1) - 7562 - 4521 - 1 - (My Day: 978 Day: (My 2) - Listen to a few bars of famous Mozart Mozart famous of bars few a to Listen I LOVE MOZART I LOVE My First Sound BookMy First Sound Cartwheel/Scholastic (10 pp.) Billet, Marion Billet, $9.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-338-54710-8 3) - includes Day the same My touchable elements with Showcasing—or Showcasing—or at least playing—six different Mozart Despite an educational veneer, this is mostly a noisy toy This one is mostly about the look and feel, but little readers book. (Board book. 1 broader categories like “make” and that “draw” allow for more larly styled produced produced by a tiny speaker compressed within a board book is primaryon heavy are illustrationsdigitally rendered Flat, poser. pieces, the book’s pages include clear, inset plastic buttons with with buttons plastic inset clear, pagesinclude book’s the pieces, will enjoy touching. (Board book. 0 valiantly attempt to interpret the music, with bears in classi- not especially clear fact, or unless crisp. the In book is partially is played by a young tortoise; somewhat more successful is the metaphors, such as the “merry and bright” tropical birds that text, text, include rich vocabulary such as “shivering,” “slogging,” they recognize the the sound music quality or not. Predictably, that “Sonata Facile,” a piano piece that “moves swiftly along,” of clothing—surprising, given the title and content. The simi- ond snippet of music. Some will such be as familiar, a variation Little on Twinkle Star,” and “Twinkle some less so—but little ones will likely enjoy pushing the buttons repeatedly whether opened to the final page, the sounds are somewhat muffled, a they as enough charming are they but nuance, on low and colors cal garb dancing to “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” It’s confusing enjoy the “Clarinet Concerto.” compositions, as interpreted by animated cartoon animals. cartoon by animated as interpreted compositions, embedded chips; each triggers a short, approximately 20-sec and “fastening.” There are some inconsistencies, as with the and clear images. It’s lacking in tiny details but includes enough enough includes but details tiny in lacking images.It’s clear and fuel for the imagination. features such as belt and zipper to be defined and identifiable. fuss with. The colors are all bold, each page with eye-catching distinct problem for a book dedicated to an orchestral - com dramatization of the short text’s (somewhat forced) musical The descriptive words, though often presented without - con “rain” “rain” page, which is the only featured word that an isn’t article - - - 11) - | 15 october 2019 | 99 books | kirkus.com | board & novelty also had red hair, and he Penelope loves living with her mother her with living loves Penelope A A 10-year-old girl with “hearing- Series: TouchWords TouchWords Series: before-hearing” discovers the truth CLOTHES Chronicle (16 pp.) on the outskirts of the swamp forest. In about her powers and her absentee dad. and her absentee about her powers house little their in Elizabeth Granny and Chicken House/Scholastic (288 pp.) House/Scholastic Chicken $16.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 Zinck, Valija Zinck, Illus. by. Alexander, Rilla Alexander, by. Illus. $17.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 | Dec. 3, $17.99 978-1-4521-7561-4 ALL THE COLORS OF MAGIC ALL THE COLORS 978-1-338-54061-1 Clothing items a child may wear throughout the year pre- The charming, comforting, and enjoyable tale of a magi All of the usual suspects appear in this one, from hats to bottle-green dress. It’s a cheerfully childlike perspective, add- boots and everything in between. Each double-page spread bad traffic accident, just before falling asleep, Penelope notices Penelope notices accident, just before falling bad traffic asleep, hair color or morose gray envelopes, but to the everyday: her house, speckled red and green like a dragon; a blue shoelace; a places places its focus on the illustrations and tactile elements. The pocket. This design makes the book particularly friendly for pe’s mother pe’s has spent several weeks in the hospital following a with some kind of paste to protect her, and it has something to with some her, kind of protect paste to was a and baby, now he’s stopped sending Slightly money. sur real touches that include a talking road keep the action light. ing warmth even when Penelope is angrying warmth even or frightened. when Penelope red. Penelope learns her mother has been painting her hair gray hair her painting hasbeen mother learnsher Penelope red. identifies a category of clothing and presents a list of simple, sented in a distinctive touch-and-feel board book. in a distinctive touch-and-feel sented she doesn’t smell fire—and when she wakes up, her hair is bright is hair her up, wakes she when fire—and smell doesn’t she gray hair, gray she hair, smells like fire, and she sometimes answers ques the smallest of hands; it’s easy to get a sense of line and shape their seemingly all-white village, Penelope stands out: She has tions she hasn’t yet been asked. But one evening, after - Penelo cal girl discovering her (family and hair) roots. (Fantasy. 8 could could do a little magic. But he walked out on them when she from running an open palm across it, no little parts or flapsto descriptive words. More picture dictionary than story, the book the story, dictionarythan picture More words. descriptive do with her long-vanished father. He Penelope’s concern with Penelope’s color extends not just to the magic of “shirt” page, for example, includes a striped tee with a raised board & novelty books & novelty board POTTY ALL-STAR gameness of the furry firefighters, the proceedings should excite Burach, Ross and delight most tots. Illus. by the author Short, sweet, and engaging; a sing-along introduction Scholastic (22 pp.) to furry first responders.(Board book. 1-3) $7.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 978-1-338-28933-6 WHO AM I? A young, diaper-wearing basketball A Peek-Through-Pages Book player makes a play to use the potty. of Endangered Animals The tyke, with amber skin, brown eyes, and neck-length Clare, Rachel brown hair held in place with a sports headband, takes a couple Illus. by Flach, Tim of “shots” at using the toilet and is unsuccessful. The sports Abrams (48 pp.) language continues as the youngster is coached by a grown-up, $18.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 continues to train, heads for the “hoop” (aka the toilet seat), 978-1-4197-3646-9 and successfully makes it to the potty before the buzzer sounds. Three grown-ups, likely immediate and extended family mem- A selection of endangered or threat- bers, all with medium brown skin tones, act as the cheering ened creatures play peekaboo with view- crowd. All the stages of using the toilet are modeled, including ers in this vivid gallery of close-up portraits. flushing (which is the “swish” of the basketball net) and hand- Extracted from Endangered, his much larger 2017 coffee- washing. The toddler receives a new uniform—a pair of under- table book for adults, Flach’s photographed figures are all rivet- pants—and closes by encouraging readers to keep on practicing. ing—mostly extreme close-ups, all reproduced with knife-edge While the sports metaphors may go over lots of little heads, this clarity, and generally posed against flat black backgrounds that gender-neutral title breaks down the steps for using the potty make the colors and patterns of feathers, fur, and scales pop. clearly and concisely in the punchy and positive text. Burach’s The design is finicky. Portraits, printed hints (“I am a gentle illustrations are lively and animated and employ warm, bright giant with a heart-shaped nose”; “I may be a very big cat, but you colors. Appropriately enough, the characters resemble bobble- won’t hear me meow”), the titular refrain, and occasional filler head dolls with their large eyes and oversized heads. scenes of concealing foliage or further details are all arranged to Tots in training will find this a helpful and entertaining incorporate either die-cut holes through which the full pictures playbook. (Board book. 1-4) can be glimpsed or small uncut circles that seem to wish they were die cuts. Still, viewers will likely barely notice the incon- sistency, having been brought eye to eye with animals includ- THE WHEELS ON THE ing a panda, a polar bear, an axolotl, a rolled-up white-bellied FIRE TRUCK pangolin, a magisterial Philippine eagle, and other rarities large Burton, Jeffrey and small, each of which positively radiates a fierce, expressive Illus. by Brown, Alison presence. Preceding a final page of general advice for planetary Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (16 pp.) caretakers, the animals regather to explain how deforestation, $5.99 | May 21, 2019 pollution, and other negative human behavior have threatened 978-1-5344-4244-3 their continued existence. Light on specific information but big on visual impact. “The Wheels on the Bus” gets an extra syllable, a siren, a (Informational novelty. 6-8) hose, and a snazzy new ladder. This variation on the popular children’s song should hit the spot with budding truck aficionados among the diapered GOD MADE THE OCEAN set. The text is a straight adaptation of “The Wheels on the Collins, Sarah Jean Bus,” with firetruck and firefighting themes replacing the sights Illus. by the author and sounds of a bus rider’s commute. The siren goes “Woo- Tyndale Kids (22 pp.) woo-woo,” the lights go “Flash, flash, flash,” the riders “hold $7.99 | Jun. 4, 2019 on tight,” the ladder goes “up, up, up,” and the hose, of course, 978-1-4964-3633-7 goes “swish-swish-swish—now, the fire’s out.” The book won’t Series: God Made win awards for originality, but it should be a toddler pleaser. The colors on the cover are an explosion of reflective red foil against A theological exploration of the ocean-dwelling creatures a bright yellow background; the interior colors are more muted and how God made them. but still bright and cheery. The firefighters and onlookers are With two sentences per double-page spread, Collins intro- anthropomorphic animals in firefighter costume or civvies, as duces young readers to sea horses, octopuses, manatees, spot- the case may be. Characters include a racoon, some bunnies, a ted leopard rays, and more. Some of the couplets rhyme and fox, and a woodchuck, among others, all rendered in an acces- some just almost rhyme, but all share a factual tidbit about the sible, cartoony style. Between the bright colors and the smiling featured sea critter and how they were created by God’s design.

100 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | Sweet and playful, with clear examples of how to share love with friends and family. little eva loves

The animal facts are a mélange of the intriguing (sardines swim LITTLE EVA LOVES in schools, “mov[ing] like a shimmering ball”) and the vague Elliott, Rebecca (beluga whales have a “special sound”). While God is referred to Illus. by the author with the masculine pronoun, the imagery is based in the natural Cartwheel/Scholastic (16 pp.) world and the doctrine is broad, allowing this title to appeal to $6.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 many faiths. Collins’ flat, geometric images, featuring heavily 978-1-338-54910-2 patterned backgrounds, soothing colors, and depictions of sea creatures stripped down to their basic shapes, are a mixed bag. Elliott capitalizes on the success of Some are harmoniously soothing, like the jellyfish swimming her beginning-reader series Owl Diaries with a new Eva Wing- through a chain of bubbles, while others are cluttered and con- dale story for the board-book audience. fusing, such as the rectangular blocks of blue that background Describing an abstract concept like love for young toddlers the oysters. The project ends with a heavily patterned sun rising is difficult. Too often the concept is reduced to sugary plati- (or setting) over an equally busy ocean with the declaration that tudes. In contrast, Eva Wingdale’s straightforward explanation God cares for the creatures of the ocean, but “he cares for you is sweet but far from saccharine. Brief rhyming text on the left even more!” paired with pictures of young owl Eva and her friends on the A mostly pleasant excursion for families seeking a God- right make the abstract concrete. “I love lending a helping hand” centered introduction to aquatic life. (Board book. 2-4) is illustrated by a picture of Eva holding an umbrella for an owl friend. Sharing treats and “big laughs that reach my toes” are fairly easy to illustrate. “Dressing up in silly clothes” doesn’t MAIL MOVERS seem to have much to do with love but is a convenient rhyme

Coyle, Finn while conveying playful camaraderie. Eva is just as colorful and young adult Illus. by Bassani, Srimalie expressive here as in the beginning readers. Her friends and Flowerpot Press (14 pp.) family are as diverse as one might expect from a collection of $8.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 cartoon owls with bulging owl eyes, spindly owl legs, and bright, 978-1-4867-1648-7 almost garish costumes. It takes some searching to identify Eva Series: Finn’s Fun Trucks on each page. Her pink face, her only consistent characteristic, is sometimes obscured by the costume changes on each page. Young vehicle maven Coyle goes Still, it’s a positive and affirming message about love. postal in the latest installment of Finn’s Fun Trucks. Sweet and playful, with clear examples of how to share While previous books in this series introduced a variety of love with friends and family. (Board book. 1-4) specialized and potentially unfamiliar vehicles to young readers, this book features five familiar but dissimilar conveyances that do the same job in different locales. An ethnically diverse group AN ABC OF EQUALITY of mail carriers deliver the mail by means of truck, snowmobile, Ewing, Chana Ginelle bicycle, boat, and motorcycle, depending on the country and Illus. by Morgan, Paulina landscape where they live. As in previous books in the series, Frances Lincoln (52 pp.) each vehicle is named by its driver on verso and illustrated on $14.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 the facing page, with three key features labelled. In past books, 978-1-78603-742-8 the drivers would ask readers to guess what each vehicle does; readers would then open the flap with the vehicle’s picture on Social-equity themes are presented it to see it in action. In this book, the question is slightly differ- to children in ABC format. ent; for example, “I drive a snowmobile. Can you guess where I Terms related to intersectional inequal- deliver the mail?” When the flap is opened, readers see a mail ity, such as “class,” “gender,” “privilege,” “oppression,” “race,” and carrier on a snowmobile racing through deep drifts in northern “sex,” as well as other topics important to social justice such as Canada. The truck is used in the U.S., the bicycle in the Neth- “feminism,” “human being,” “immigration,” “justice,” “kindness,” erlands, the boat in Venice, Italy, and the motorcycle in Tokyo. “multicultural,” “transgender,” “understanding,” and “value” are Young readers learn that different settings require different named and explained. There are 26 in all, one for each letter of solutions and get an introduction to world geography at the the alphabet. Colorful two-page spreads with kid-friendly illus- same time. Heavy Haulers publishes simultaneously, hewing to trations present each term. First the term is described: “Belief the series’ familiar format. is when you are confident something exists even if you can’t see Once again, the Finn’s Fun Trucks series delivers. it. Lots of different beliefs fill the world, and no single belief is (Board book. 2-6) (Heavy Haulers: 978-1-4867-1647-0) right for everyone.” On the facing page it concludes: “B is for BELIEF / Everyone has different beliefs.” It is hard to see who the intended audience for this little board book is. Babies and toddlers are busy learning the names for their body parts, familiar objects around them, and perhaps some basic feelings like happy, hungry, and sad; slightly older preschoolers will probably

| kirkus.com | board & novelty books | 15 october 2019 | 101 Illustrations are colorful, uncluttered, and humorously engaging. baby botanist

be bewildered by explanations such as: “A value is an expression curl proceeds to present a number of simply stated and easily of how to live a belief. A value can serve as a guide for how you understood plant facts. As with the previous books, the illustra- behave around other human beings. / V is for VALUE / Live tions are colorful, uncluttered, and humorously engaging, and your beliefs out loud.” baby has a sidekick; this time it is a blue-and-yellow snail. After Adults will do better skipping the book and talking planting a seed, Baby wonders what plant will grow. The text with their children. (Board book. 4-6) explains that some plants have roots and some do not, and they might grow on water or underground. In a simple acknowledgment of a healthy diet, the book states “Baby’s favorite foods all SWAN LAKE come from plants.” Children are also presented with food they Flint, Katy may not recognize as coming from plants, such as noodles and Illus. by Courtney-Tickle, Jessica chocolate. In the end, the seed that Baby has planted, watered, Frances Lincoln (24 pp.) and kept in the sunlight “grows into a flower for Mama!” and $24.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 with that comes a big thank-you hug from Mama. 978-0-7112-4150-3 A nice addition to this baby-attuned series. (Board book. Series: The Story Orchestra 2-4) A look-and-listen (albeit briefly) adaptation of a favorite ballet story. UNICORN A diverse cast of dancers fills the pages of this very basic Hegarty, Patricia retelling of a Russian classic of the ballet repertoire. The spread- Illus. by Galloway, Fhiona spanning illustrations are busily filled with lakeside swans Tiger Tales (16 pp.) sporting fancy, feathery costumes along with many trees, deer, $8.99 | Sep. 1, 2019 foxes, and rabbits. The palace is pink and glittery and replete 978-1-68010-597-1 with chandeliers, curtains, and fancily costumed guests. There, Series: My Little World Odile, malevolent-looking daughter of the evil sorcerer Roth- bart, dances with Prince Siegfried and tricks him into believing A vibrant, tactile guide to colors. that she is the lovely Odette, the enchanted swan, who looks Each page features happy unicorns prancing through vari- bereft. The audience-pleasing national dances of Act 3 are not ous landscapes introducing the different colors of the rainbow. mentioned in the text nor depicted in the illustrations. Stag- A die-cut arch appears in the middle of each page, giving tiny ings of Swan Lake have always had various endings, some happy fingers a chance to flip pages. Descending in size with each page and some not so, as Prince Siegfried and his beloved Odette turn, it is a modified rainbow that corresponds with the pas- are united only in the afterlife. This version has them living tel hue introduced on each page. The surrounding images are happily ever after on Earth. The gimmick of this title is the 10 detailed, placing the unicorns in lush settings where children brief (10 seconds or so) sound clips that barely hint at the very can identify multiple creatures and plants in the various hues. beautiful score. Adults taking children to a performance may The rhyming text is bouncy and fun to read aloud, and the let- find this useful as an introduction, but listening to a suite of the ters float whimsically on the page, making it easy for emerging music would be a better idea. The refreshingly inclusive cast- readers to follow along. Relatively advanced vocabulary such ing—Siegfried, Odette, and Odile have brown skin, and there as “galloping” and “swish” will keep older readers engaged. The are many courtiers of color—does not mitigate the book’s flaws. co-published Flamingo focuses on counting, each page featuring Swans abound and good defeats evil in a simplified bright pink birds and chicks playing on sandy beaches through- retelling. (author’s note, glossary) (Picture book/novelty. 4-7) out the course of a beautiful, sunny day; its die-cut gimmick is simply the shape of a flamingo’s body, and both its text and illustrations are more pedestrian than Unicorn’s. Overall, the books BABY BOTANIST are enjoyable enough but do not stand out, making them a solid Gehl, Laura choice but not necessarily an exciting one. Illus. by Wiseman, Daniel Introduces colors in a pleasing but not outstanding way. HarperFestival (22 pp.) (Board book. 1-3) (Flamingo: 978-1-68010-598-8) $8.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-0-06-284132-2 Series: Baby Scientist

In this newest addition to the Baby Scientist series toddlers are introduced to the basics of what a botanist does. The book starts with a simple and straightforward explanation of its subject matter: “Who studies plants? / Baby Botanist does!” Wearing a white lab coat with yellow polka dots, a brown- skinned child with a purple hair bow holding up its one little

102 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - - 2) - Not Not everything that looks yummy Prestel (30 pp.) Prestel MY BIG BOOK OF SOUNDS $9.95 | Sep. 17, 2019 $9.95 | Sep. 17, Jones, Amanda Amanda Jane Jones, Kiko Illus. by Jones, Cree Lane by Jones, Illus. $19.99 | Aug. 26, 2019 Aug. $19.99 | 978-3-7913-7405-5 Twirl/Chronicle (24 pp.) Twirl/Chronicle YUM YUMMY YUCK YUMMY YUM Illus. by the author Illus. Trans. by Hardenberg, Wendeline A. Wendeline by Hardenberg, Trans. 978-2-40801-285-4 3) - Snazzy illustrations in the service of preachy, disap Grab this one instead of a multitude of narrowly There are so many genuinely yummy foods in the world, like like world, the in foods yummy genuinely many so are There A vocabulary-building book with a twist. A Alternating between two- and one-page spreads, this board baby on the the cover, very last spread is the only one with pho- belongs in our tummies! book features bustling, detailed pictures accompanied by focused, lesser-quality picture dictionaries for babies. pointing text. (Board book. 6 mos. world world with their mouths. In particular, a page that suddenly very good. In this book, the loosely patterned text classifies nothing overdone—it succeeds in its purpose. nothing overdone—it succeeds regret it” and “looks can be deceiving” that seem meant for the it’s not completely overwhelming. Aside from the adorable Asian adorable the from Aside overwhelming. completely not it’s in-cheek humor often end up sounding preachy, as the narrator in-cheek humor end often up sounding preachy, images as “yum,” or “yummy,” “yuck,” elucidating for children ice ice cream, milk, doughnuts, and watermelon. Unfortunately, syndrome and a couple babies of color. Overall, no gimmicks, sequitur that feels more a like lecture than an organic place for tographs of people, and it includes both a white baby with Downwith baby white a both includes it and people, of tographs ticated for small children, using phrases like “you’ll immediately immediately “you’ll like phrases using children, small for ticated tongue- at attempts book’s the problematically, more Even it. to the difference between what sugar higher a have to tend looks foods “yummy” Overall, good. tastes good and what actually that designs whimsical and colors of palette cool a feature tions The language sophis the too same ageis often appropriateness. the story go. to there are also plenty of things that may look yummy—such as content content than those labeled “yum.” The simple, clean illustra- crayons, coins, sand, and Band-Aids—but that just don’t taste adults reading the book aloud rather than the children listening listening children the than rather aloud book the reading adults are perfect for very young readers. Unfortunately, the text lacks text the veryfor Unfortunately, perfect readers. are young admonishes young children for the developmentally appropri- the exploring of terrifying—pattern often and gross ate—albeit features instructions on how to properly wash hands is a non (Board book. 1 - - - 9) - . The Nutcracker | 15 october 2019 | 103 books | kirkus.com | board & novelty Between Between guidelines for a letter to A A large-format board book with 101 A A front-cover advent calendar with Santa on Dec. 1 and the full text of FIRST 101 WORDS Book With Flaps Highlights Learning pp.) (14 Highlights CHRISTMAS IS COMING! CHRISTMAS IS COMING! die-cut flaps cues 24 seasonal activities for the run-up Christmas. to Highlights for Children Highlights Chronicle (72 pp.) $9.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 $17.99 | Oct. 15, 2019 | Oct. 15, $17.99 978-1-68437-660-5 A Highlights Hide-and-Seek A Highlights Hide-and-Seek Illus. by Hickey, Katie by Hickey, Illus. 978-1-4521-7407-5 Safe—if unexceptional of content (and physically prob The book’s The approach book’s is straightforward: contains pagesIt of lematic in library settings). (Novelty anthology. 6 bird, introduced as the guide poses on questionsthe front cover, bles a mix of amusements. These include games, recipes, lumi- before all coming together in a crowded living room to open labeled photographs arranged by Some category. of the images photographs photographs of items including animals, parts. vehicles, and body presents on Christmas morning. Except for the occasional white white and people of color) celebrate in various combinations numbers, shapes, and sounds. For those looking to save shelf narias and other crafts, jokes (“How does a sheep say ‘Merry receive receive proper notice. With the exception of the luminarias, space, space, it condenses what could have been eight books into one. ing together, and otherwise valuing family and community all sions of “The Elves and the Shoemaker” and small businesses nestled closely together in snowy landscapes; yummy treats; and wrapped gifts. Sweater-clad figures (both things found at home, during mealtimes, and outdoors—in addition to the usual suspects such as trucks and cartoonanimals. A to readers on each page: “Which picture shows a four?” nice It’s touch and helps boost The interaction. photographs themselves traditions depicted skew toward generic Western European/ carol and hanging it’s star, a secularized and nonsectarian view of the holiday season, but the values of sharing, giving, eat evergreens and ornaments and depictions of tidy homes and are clear and brightly colored againstneatly brightlyin and backgrounds colored clear solid are aligned blocks. While the design makes the pages appear busy, are printed on flaps thatencourage readers to identify colors, Christmas’?” “Fleece Navidad!”), and songs—plus retold ver North American observances. North The items themselves are largely familiar to young readers— The illustrations, as cozy as the contents, offer festoons of “ ’Twas the Before Night “ Christmas” ’Twas on Dec. 24, assemHickey - simple, one-word labels in clean black text. Words are grouped ROAR! ROAR! I’M A according to themes such as “In the house,” which features keys, DINOSAUR! a vacuum cleaner, and a computer arranged in a neat grid, and Lodge, Jo “In the Bedroom,” which features a charming scene of a mother Illus. by the author putting a baby to bed in a crib. As the book progresses, the Cartwheel/Scholastic (10 pp.) words move farther away from the familiar, touching on tools, $8.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 transportation, musical instruments, and a wide variety of wild 978-1-338-54781-8 and domestic birds and animals. The battery-operated bar to the right of the pages allows children to press a button coded Little ones can move the wings, feet, tail, or mouth of three with an icon specific to each respective page. When pressed, different dinosaurs and one pterosaur via sliding panels. a female voice reads the words on the appropriate page aloud, On one double-page spread, young readers meet a friendly along with accompanying sounds, such as the shake of a rat- stegosaurus as the text reads “Stegosaurus / Stomp! Clomp! / Go tle, the ring of an alarm clock, and the soft notes of a musical its great big feet.” A one-sentence fact on the species (“Stego- mobile. One press results in a full reading of every word on the saurus was as long as a bus!”) floats in a smaller font on the page, page, something that may not be intuitive to very young chil- and a pronunciation guide in parentheses sits in the bottom-left dren used to buttons being coded to one, and only one, sound. corner. The sounds “Stomp! Clomp!” are printed again near the The bold, solid blocks of color keep the illustrations interesting arrow directing little digits to an embedded panel to push up or without cluttering them, and the human characters are varied pull down, making the creature stomp and clomp its feet. This in skin tone, hair texture, and gender presentation. pattern is repeated three more times on other spreads featur- Overall, a solid choice for both very young children and ing a pterodactyl with wings to flap, a diplodocus with a tail to children who are just beginning to read. (Board book. 6 mos.-4) swish, and a tyrannosaurus rex with jaws to snap. Lodge’s art is pleasingly flat and cartoony, employing simple shapes and patterns, googly eyes, bold colors, and playful smiles. While the PEPPA’S GIANT PUMPKIN book is slight on page count, the thick pages, sturdy panels, and Lizzio, Samantha easy-to-manipulate sliding mechanisms mean the interactive Illus. by eOne features are likely to survive several hours of robust play. Even Scholastic (10 pp.) though the image is later repeated on the inner pages, the T. rex $7.99 paper | Jul. 30, 2019 on the cover steals the show with eyelids and mouth that shift 978-1-338-33922-2 in a playfully menacing manner with each slide of the panel. Series: Peppa Pig This should be a hit. (Board book. 1-3) Peppa hopes to join her classmates in a Halloween pumpkin competition in this adaptation of a story from the popular Brit- THE AMICUS BOOK OF ABC ish television program Peppa Pig. Lundie, Isobel With the help of Granny and Grandpa Pig, Peppa turns Illus. by the author her giant pumpkin, which is the size of a compact car, into a Amicus Ink (26 pp.) jack-o’-lantern. The trio is flummoxed when it comes time to $8.99 | Aug. 6, 2019 transport the pumpkin to the competition, so they call on Miss 978-1-68152-568-6 Rabbit and her helicopter to airlift the pumpkin to the festivi- ties as Peppa and her grandparents ride inside. Peppa arrives A collage-based approach to the just in time for the contest and wins the prize for best flying ABC’s. pumpkin. The scenes look as if they are pulled directly from the In both this book and the co-published The Amicus Book of television show, right down to the rectangular framing of some 123, Lundie couples expertly rendered graphic collage with ono- of the scenes. While the story is literally nothing new, the text matopoeia-packed text to introduce children to the alphabet is serviceable, describing the action in two to three sentences and counting, respectively. The illustrations in these books are per page. The pumpkin-shaped book and orange foil cover will particularly impressive, featuring layers and textures that make likely attract youngsters, whether they are Peppa fans or not. the images bounce off the pages: The jar of “jelly” has satisfying This TV rerun in board-book form has nothing new to globs of strawberry goo surrounding an octagonal jar. While the offer. (Board book. 2-4) pictures in ABC are child friendly—including a friendly dinosaur, a goofy-looking goat, and a kite that swishes across the page—the images in 123, which include a fried egg and house plants, feel more adult. In both books, small missteps, such as choosing “ship” for S in ABC, thereby using a blend instead of the phonetic sound, and placing six collaged bees atop a low- contrast waxy yellow background in 123, indicate a lack of familiarity with best practices for introducing children to letters and counting. Generally, though, the detailed pictures coupled with

104 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - (Board book. 4) - A toddler’s first guide to the Western Western to the first guide toddler’s A GOODNIGHT, GOODNIGHT, CONSTELLATIONS Running Press Kids (20 pp.) Press Running $9.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 Illus. by McAlister, Rachel by McAlister, Illus. 978-0-7624-9460-6 jolly. - Festive fun. (Board book. 1 This carefully illustrated, simple introduction will The book begins with Orion, which is arguably the most 4) - Santa will overlook him because he is “too little / And Santa’s become become accustomed to the clipped book’s tone, but the repeti- blue-green backgrounds allow the flashy copper fox and pale- lation in a few sentences. The whole concept of constellations is constellations of concept whole The sentences. few a in lation leaves as the fox curls up in a den carpeted with a cozy blanket ket and bedecked with lights; it’s a gratifying ending. The text work best when paired with other resources. which four stars supposedly represent the body of a reclining with an appropriately tiny trim, a diminutive fox worries that readers, who will the book. wish it carried throughout maiden. No maiden. matter No how complex the image may be, the whim- young delight will that element tactile a add cover the imageon reindeer all have a vintage, 1950s look that well complements sical, cartoon drawings help children imagine the pictures that stars and clouds in the black night sky make a wonderful - con is related in a staccato rhythm, and it takes a verse or two to skinned Santa, with his “ruby-colored” cheeks, to look vibrant. sled too high.” But the “teeny tiny fox”—and toddler - listen the dog it is As supposed the to represent. book continues, the the ancients found between the stars. The soft, gently drawn trast to the brightly rendered depictions of the constellations. tion or endnote, so caregivers and educators will need to look the straightforward story. the straightforward story. tive “teeny tiny” refrain it’s holly-jolly, with is Visually, catchy. tiny pat”—all images that are sure to delight youngsters. Santa constellations. in Cassiopeia, like abstract, more and more grow constellations elsewhere for further context or - extension activities. Addition clean-looking digital art using simple geometric shapes to ers—is reassured that he won’t be forgotten when the titular ally, embossed text on the ally, back cover and the raised feel of the familiar and easiest constellation to find, and follows with fairly advanced for a young audience, and there is no introduc form triangular trees and grinning circular, snowman while icy fun-sized “teeny tiny treat,” finishing up the visit with a “teeny Canis Canis Major, a collection of stars that looks remarkably like The text is The simple text and straightforward,- describing each constel The rotund Santa, the angular and sleek fox, and a team of wee 2 “teeny “teeny tiny Santa” not only notices the fox, but brings him a

3) - (The

4) teeny tiny santa tiny teeny - 0) - (Board book. 1 Visually, it’s holly it’s Visually, | 15 october 2019 | 105 books | kirkus.com | board & novelty 35980 (Board book. 2 - 338 - 1 - 3) - 569 - ’Twas the Night Before Christmas! Before Night the ’Twas is Precious, Precious, nursery-style animals and In In this hodgepodge collection, - Magsa A smallA fox receives a special holiday 68152 - plants decorate the pages of five classic religious adages. men illustrates childhood prayers with her moons, a There’s and strongflowers. heart traditional faux quilting style, featuring tal cartoon animals, and grinning suns, theme throughout, with a heart-shaped candy-colored candy-colored pastel tones, too-sentimen- PRAYERS FOR LITTLE FOR HEARTS PRAYERS Cartwheel/Scholastic (16 pp.) Cartwheel/Scholastic (10 pp.) 1 $5.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 | Sep. 17, $5.99 $6.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 TEENY TINY SANTA Illus. by Chou, Joey Illus. Illus. by the author Illus. 978-1-338-31849-4 978-1-338-35981-7 Matson, Rachel Matson, Magsamen, Sandra Magsamen, - Blandly pleasant; entirely skippable. How How often do young children fear the world is too big and With its companion, colorful, beautifully illustrated be seen easily against the background, and the occasional - col purely derivative, with alterations that drastically truncate and poorly, particularly to ears accustomed to the original. Both visitor: a Santa who is just his size. visitor: written white letters that don’t written always white letters havethat don’t enough contrast to with a child in the lap. remove all the character of the original poem. It reads aloud nose on a lamb and similarly shaped birds’ wings. It’s cute but simultaneously publishing sounds just a little off. The poems are written in thin, hand- hold somewhatto is unwieldy that size tall,trim a narrow share additions to the ABC and 123 shelves. to to beginning readers who are just starting to recognize words the verb-packed text in both books give readers a delightful overwhelming to notice them? In this adorable board book orfully highlighted and patterned words cramp the page. The or altered, as when “I see the moon and the moon sees me” receives me” sees moon the and moon the see “I when as altered, or and letters. almost entirely generic. Some of the traditional sayings, such as additional lines about kissing “nighty-night.” that meter a have most and None original, the to much adds additions of these feeling of motion, and the vocabulary and text are well suited (’Twas the Night Before Christmas!: 978 the Night (’Twas Amicus Book of 123: 978 Book of 123: Amicus “God made the sun,” are re-created verbatim; others are expanded Onomatopoeic words repeated three times add energy and rhythm. i love me

LITTLE FINGERS BALLET should never be underestimated.) Some might make readers Mireles, Ashley Marie laugh if they weren’t so awful: “la región de Andrés” for “la Illus. by Skomorokhova, Olga región andina.” And the final blow comes with the use of the Familius (10 pp.) word “Latino.” This term is a uniquely United States construct $16.99 | Sep. 16, 2019 to refer to people from Latin America living in the United 978-1-64170-155-6 States. Cacao may have been used as currency on Latin Ameri- can trade routes, but it was not used on “Latino trade routes.” Children are invited to play by slipping pink or blue-and- Moreover, people are described by their demonyms, so Pablo white tights on their fingers, putting them through die-cut Neruda is not a “Latino poet,” he is a Chilean poet. holes in either or both of the female and male leads, and danc- It is hard to be “Proud to be Latino” when so many mis- ing to scenes from six ballet classics. takes abound. (Board book. 4-6) Each ballet is represented by one double-page spread. Cop- pélia (incorrectly spelled “Coppèlia”), the titular doll, dances for Dr. Coppelius. Cinderella and her prince perform steps at a ball. ’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE Solor flies high in La Bayadère. The Snow Queen pirouettes for CHRISTMAS the King. Romeo and Juliette turn and step, and, finally, a swan Moore, Clement C. dances for a prince. The ballets are not named, and while Cin- Illus. by Cutting, David A. derella and an enchanted swan may be familiar to very young Flowerpot Press (20 pp.) readers, La Bayadère, a Russian ballet set in India, Romeo and $7.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 Juliette, based on the Shakespeare play about doomed lovers, 978-1-4867-1774-3 and The Snow Queen, based on the Hans Christian Andersen Series: Flowerpot Holiday tale, most likely are not. All the dancers—some white and some brown-skinned—are round-faced with big eyes and blushing The complete text of “A Visit From cheeks. It is not clear what the suggested activity can actually St. Nicholas,” delivered on board pages. accomplish without any accompanying music or background The poem is as jaunty as ever, but it’s not natural fare for information on the ballets. The steps that appear in the text in board-book readers due to its length. On average, three stan- boldface (“relevés,” “battements,” “attitude turn,” etc.) are not zas appear per double-page spread; they are set mostly in white explained and are difficult if not impossible to mimic using fin- type that floats over the dark, nighttime scenes. Cutting’s mod- gers. Furthermore, in addition to the occasional typo, there is eled, cartoony art is an uneven mix. Some images, such as St. a maddening plot mistake in the brief text: It is not the “lead Nick’s face and beard, are quite detailed—indeed, his wrinkles swan,” Odette, who performs the 32 “fouettés” in Swan Lake; it and smile are often eerily unchanging from page to page, sug- is the Black Swan. gesting a cut-and-paste job—but both the first-person narra- A flop.(Novelty board book. 3-5) tor of the poem and the reindeer appear blurry. Many of the scenes feel too crowded for the format, especially the double- page spread showing and naming the eight reindeer, who are PROUD TO BE LATINO sandwiched together in a foreshortened string, making them Food / Comida difficult to identify and count. At times the art defies logic— Mireles, Ashley Marie readers will wonder why this family would leave candles burn- Illus. by Valle, Edith ing on their Christmas tree after they had gone to bed. At other Familius (18 pp.) times, it does not completely reflect the text; Santa looks a little $12.99 | Sep. 1, 2019 too clean after he comes down the chimney despite the text’s 978-1-64170-154-9 explicit “ashes and soot.” Human characters all present white. An overcrowded, uneven package. (Board book. 3-5) A board-book introduction to the different foods of Latin America. Attractive and colorful illustrations present foods from dif- I LOVE ME ferent Latin American countries alongside text that mentions Morgan, Sally & Kwaymullina, differences and commonalities. Double-page spreads present Ambelin the information in English on the left-hand side and Spanish Illus. by the authors on the right. Unfortunately, there is a mistake in the Spanish on Andrews McMeel (24 pp.) almost every page. An article that does not match its noun: “un $8.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 gran comida.” Nouns that do not match their adjectives: “papas 978-1-5248-5116-3 fritos,” “algunas salsa.” Plain old proofreading mistakes: “hoja de lurel” (for “hoja de laurel”), “pasterlería” (for “pastelería”), This Australian import is a 24-page affirmation of self- “coco caliente” (presumably for “cocoa caliente,” which is more worth for children everywhere. commonly known as “chocolate caliente” but in any event has Morgan and Kwaymullina, both from the Palyku people nothing to do with coconuts). (The power of proofreading of the Pilbara region of Western Australia, use traditional

106 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - (Board book. GOODNIGHT, CATS RAINBOW Chronicle (26 pp.) Cartwheel/Scholastic (14 pp.) 101 TRUCKS Urío, Bàrbara Castro Bàrbara Urío, Prince, April April Jones Prince, $10.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 5, | Nov. $10.99 $8.99 | May 28, 2019 $8.99 | May Illus. by the author Illus. Illus. by Kolar, Bob by Kolar, Illus. 978-1-4521-8213-1 978-1-338-25938-4 And Other Mighty Things Other Mighty Things And That Go That It It doesn’t dig deep for truck information, but it hauls This oversized board book covers trucks of all types, from There really are 101 different trucks, and readers can even In In this Catalonian import, a simply outlined white house As a bevy of colored cats arrive one by one, small die-cut 3) - high-interest illustrations for young fanatics. bile is listed as a “helper” truck even though the “carriers” are brightly colored die-cut window illuminates, letting readers lights and grille become facial features. Even with this anthro- know that kitty has made it safely a inside. soothing Using - con pomorphization, each still has an impressive amount of detail. versational tone that’s ideal for bedtime reading, the omniscient omniscient the reading, bedtime for ideal that’s tone versational windows burst into color. windows burst into returnhome. friendsfeline to of collection prismatic a for waits narrator narrator cozily describes the domestic scene that awaits each ing familiar favorites. in the big white house!”—before bidding each allgoodnight. It ing indoors; with a page turn, that cat disappears and another some trucks are listed under confusing The headings. bookmo- straightforward. The general, brief descriptions of each type see (and count!) them all together on the finalspread. Each tures of an additional 15 or more. The text itself is simple and can make understanding the work of cles—the for the planer,” example—a “cold Additionally, challenge. less-common vehi- on the verso while the recto presents stand-alone, labeled pic construction vehicles to farming equipment. construction vehicles to cat—Little Brown Cat, for instance, returns “to a big warm bed warm big a returns “to instance, for Cat, Brown cat—Little bedded all kitties the showing page snugglyfinal a in culminates aschaser”“trencher” the “storm see- and in willdelight and also are helpful, but none of the individual trucks individual havethe explanations. of none but helpful, are defined on the previous spread as “bring[ing] books or baggage.” or books “bring[ing] as spread previous the on defined double-page spread features a different truckdifferent double-pagea type,features short spread a with action in one show illustrations accompanying The description. On the verso, readers meet and glimpse the cat that’s head- Because the illustrations largely appear with no context, this Enthusiasts will love the inclusion of trucks lesser-known such The illustrations are cute, all rendered so that the front head- 1

| 15 october 2019 | 107 books | kirkus.com | board & novelty DRAWS LITTLE BIG NATE Peirce, Lincoln Peirce, $7.99 | Sep. 3, 2019 $7.99 A BLANK Illus. by the author Illus. 978-1-5248-5178-1 Andrews McMeel (12 pp.) Andrews McMeel 4) 3) - - It’s slight, but it’ll be enjoyed by little siblings who have In In this junior version of popular Peirce’s Big Nate series, a You You just gotta “love, love, love” this joy-filled book. Young Nate Young brainstorms different animals he might draw been looking for their own personal intros to Big Nate. before falling asleep. key key with bananas in its ears will alienate readers familiar with way my toes make art.” Onomatopoeic words repeated three wonderfully expressive, and there’s a sweetly unpolished feeling unpolished sweetly a there’s and expressive, wonderfully next-to-last page,next-to-last one child with crossed arms looks directly at readers to ask, “Who else would I be?” before returning to the I love, love, love me!” refrain, “And rhyme “I love me! I love my ears. I love my laugh. / I love the nately, the ending falls flat, making the bookcome across more nately, new box of crayons.” In silly rhyming couplets with a pleasant make make a child loved and lovable. Vibrant, patterned colors in in fan base waiting to fall in love with little Big - Unfortu Nate. sensibly abandoned in favor of clarity; there is no attempt to swirling bands of color emphasize smiling the brown-skinned joyous children, sometimes message. joined by Two a black- gap-toothed, preschool-age Nate sees possibilities in his “brand- his in possibilities sees Nate preschool-age gap-toothed, times (“tap,” “thump,” etc.) add energy and rhythm. On the that emphasize their singularity and seem to radiate self-love. the degrading, historical association of monkeys with people of people with association monkeys of historical degrading, the taneity. Young readers will be drawn to the comical touches, like like touches, comical the to drawn be will readers Young taneity. octopus, octopus, all in bold saturated colors. Alas, the “too silly” mon- cadence, cadence, Nate lists and imagines animals he might draw but and-white and-white spotted dog, are haloed in variously colored auras a “too chilly” penguin wearing a knitted wool cap or a “too inky” “too a or cap wool knitted chilly”a wearing “too penguin a as a series of illustrations designed around a forced joke than a worthy story of its own. Still, it’s a visual treat: face Nate’s is about the drawings imagines,Nate which mimic a spon- child’s and drifts off having “draw[n] a blank,” never committing to any to committing never blank,” a “draw[n] having off drifts and forced. “Thin” is and rhymed forced. “Thin” “loud” with with “green,” “proud.” deep, rich hues frame each page while dots, stripes, stars, and quickly rejects his ideas: a toad as “too bumpy!” or a cricket as in drawn character, well-known a features it Since all. at drawing But when a rhyme is not readily available, the rhyme scheme is Peirce’s familiar cartoon style, this Peirce’s board book will have a built- The occasional rhymes in the text are unobtrusive but not (Board book. 2 (Board book. 1 Aboriginal-style Aboriginal-style art to illustrate the unique attributes that African descent. “too “too jumpy!” On the final page,Nate fulfills the wordplay title’s down. Each cat is introduced with a colored typeset, helping LET’S FIND THE TIGER children predict what color window will appear next, and the Illus. by Willmore, Alex cat’s names vary, with both basic monikers like Little Pink Cat Tiger Tales (12 pp.) and those with pizzazz, like Little Lime-Green Cat, allowing $9.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 the text to be predictable without feeling formulaic. Ironically, 978-1-68010-583-4 the roughly silhouetted cats are the weakest part of the book, and the rainbow colors are somewhat muddied, though they’re Search the jungle for the missing still striking in the windows. Made of durable cardboard, the tiger. die-cut pages are sturdy and will hold up to enthusiastic fingers. Tiger is missing! Where can he be? Addressing readers Eclectic and effective—this board book is the cat’s directly, this book takes them through a series of false leads meow. (Board book. 1-3) throughout a vibrant jungle filled with life. A striped tail, for example, turns out to be a snake, tiger-sharp teeth are revealed to belong to a crocodile, and it seems the curly whiskers are ONE MORE WHEEL! actually the feathers of a tropical parrot. Finally, readers find A Things-That-Go Counting the tiger asleep in his cave—and when he wakes up, he’s ready Book to play! Each page of this lift-the-flap board book features Venable, Colleen AF clever comparisons between tigers and other animals in the Illus. by Russo, Blythe jungle. Companion title Let’s Find the Penguin is a similarly enter- Odd Dot (22 pp.) taining if not so coherent tour of polar regions, introducing $12.99 | Aug. 20, 2019 young readers to animals and terrain typical of a frozen eco- 978-1-250-30759-0 system. It, however, commits the too-common sin of conflat- ing Antarctica with the Arctic, placing a mélange of elements A large, green reptile and a beaver roll out vehicles with an in the same implied environment: penguins, puffins, and polar ever increasing number of wheels in this counting book. bears; trees, icebergs, and, cringe-inducingly, igloos. In both, The crocodilian creature begins the counting exercise by interactions are well designed, ranging from soft felt flaps sure happily riding on a unicycle and stating “One wheel!” via speech to delight little fingers to precisely cut peepholes on the intri- bubble. The beaver storms off in a huff—a scribbly black cloud cately illustrated pages. Likewise, the pictures, rendered in cool, over its head—and comes back on a bicycle declaring, “One soothing colors, are beautifully thought out, including just the MORE wheel!” Each page turn brings with it another vehicle right amount of detail to allow readers to discover something with “one more wheel” than the conveyance prior as the critters new with each return visit. try to out-do each other, shouting the titular repeated phrase. Charmingly fun. (Board book. 1-4) (Let’s Find the Penguin: There’s a monster truck with four wheels, a five-wheeled desk 978-1-68010-582-7) chair, and a race car with six wheels. A white numeral printed in a large, colorful quarter-circle in the upper-left-hand corner indicates the number of wheels. This is useful, as several of the UP DOWN INSIDE OUT contraptions have wheels that are difficult to count. The roller Yoon, JooHee skates’ eight wheels are too small, for instance, and many of Illus. by the author the wheels are hard to discern as they are on the far side of the Enchanted Lion Books (64 pp.) vehicles, as in the case of the nine wheels on the boat trailer/ $19.95 | Sep. 10, 2019 pickup truck combo. On the final double-page spread the bea- 978-1-59270-280-0 ver and reptile have finally joined forces to drive a 10-wheeled locomotive that pulls “ALL THE WHEELS!” Readers can then A cast of eccentric humans and ani- review all the contraptions that have come before with two tele- mals enacts 18 aphorisms in this interac- scoping panels that slide out in graduating sizes from the final tive title. page. Russo’s droll cartoons on white backgrounds enliven the Employing red and blue—and the range of tones that lay- project, as do three spinnable wheels on the cover. ering yields—Yoon has created a series of prints that will both Toddlers will likely enjoy the vehicles, but, as a count- amuse and give pause. On verso, a red-hot wall foregrounds “A ing book, this one doesn’t add up. (Board book. 2-4) watched pot [that] never boils” while four chefs on the recto, surrounding an enormous box of realistic-looking pasta, stare impatiently. (Skin color varies from literal white or black to speckled blue or crimson.) Flaps, die cuts, and a gatefold create anticipation and delight as surprises are unveiled in the ever shifting, surreal world. “You are what you eat” reveals a child’s head transformed into a gigantic broccoli floret. The heat of the reds and the busyness of abundant textures and patterns are mitigated by creamy white backgrounds or deep, moody blues, as when a man in the night opens his black trench coat to reveal

108 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult 9) 8) - - 12) - 8) - 12) 12) - - continuing series continuing Series: The Asian Hall of Fame of Hall Asian The Series: Series: Survival Tails Series: Survival 3 of Once, Wizards The Series: Sky Pony (288 pp.) Sky Pony 2 P., and Mister Series: Me Series: My Community Series: My Series: Ranger Rick Series: Ranger I WANT TO BE A PILOT TO BE I WANT I WISH I WAS A BISON I WAS I WISH WORLD WAR II WAR WORLD KNOCK THREE TIMES KNOCK THREE Charman, Katrina Charman, Cressida Cowell, Little, Brown (224 pp.) Little, Brown (400 pp.) Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) Harper/HarperCollins Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) Harper/HarperCollins Bové, Jennifer Farrer, Maria Farrer, Driscoll, Laura Driscoll, $16.95 | Nov. 15, 2019 15, $16.95 | Nov. $7.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 paper | Oct. 15, $7.99 2019 | Oct. 15, $17.99 $8.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2018 5, $8.99 paper | Nov. $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 5, $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Nov. $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 5, $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Nov. THE DISCOVERY OF ANIME & MANGA ANIME OF DISCOVERY THE (Informational picture book. 5 (Informational (Historical fantasy. 8 fantasy. (Historical 8 (Fantasy. (Fantasy. 8 (Fantasy. (Informational early reader. 4 early reader. (Informational (Early reader. 4 (Early reader. Immedium (40 pp.) Immedium Illus. by Calle, Juan by Calle, Illus. Illus. by Rieley, Daniel by Rieley, Illus. Illus. by Echeverri, Catalina by Echeverri, Illus. 978-1-59702-146-3 978-0-316-47793-2 978-0-316-50842-1 978-1-5107-3911-6 paper 978-0-06-243250-6 978-0-06-243249-0 paper 978-0-06-243226-1 978-0-06-243225-4 paper JOE’S NEW WORLD Amara, Phil & Chin, Oliver Amara, 12) - continuing series | 15 october 2019 | 109 | kirkus.com | continuing 2) - CHRISTMAS PUPPY Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (12 pp.) Little Simon/Simon & Schuster $7.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 | Sep. 17, $7.99 Yoon, Salina Yoon, by the author Illus. 978-1-5344-4343-3 A Wag My Tail Book My Tail A Wag Puppy’s enthusiasm and waggable tail high hold appeal Puppy finds Christmas presents under the tree for all of his This tour de force of concept andconceptdesignThis of willforce tourde engage the Yoon gives life to Puppy, complete with a movable,complete wagging gives life Puppy, to Yoon brisk pace and predictable The pattern. joy of making Puppy’s his store of stolen watches, illustrating “Even a clock broken is for little readers. (Board book. 1 uses a familiar trope, it will certainly with its toddlers appeal to until he hears the classic and Ho!” Ho! “Ho! discovers his gift— minds and hands a wide of swath ages. of (Novelty. 5 wolf, wolf, and opportunities for comparison and reflection, as, for right twice a day.” Yoon right dishes twice up Yoon a absurdity day.” in the form of an mal’s gift Puppy finds on the next page. He persists with no luck no with persists He page. next the on finds Puppy gift mal’s searches for his but finds only those for his animal friends. young reader. tail wag or slowly excitedly delight any back and forth is sure to the same position throughout the book, with his expressions tions are signature in Yoon’s simple style of bold colors with top top of the book (he hunches down under the tree throughout). tail. Knowing that he has a gift under the Christmas tree, Puppy Puppy tree, Christmas the under gift a has he that Knowing tail. changing to show his growing disappointment. The illustra- example, when the same conjoined figures are paired with the elegantly dressed pig, a sense of danger with a rabbit-hunting a thick black outline, offering just the right amount of detail. and spokes on the wheels of the train. While the story itself accessible accessible from every page. Because of this, Puppy remains in a bone. Puppy’s felt-covered tail protrudes over the pages at the pagesat the protrudesover tail felt-covered Puppy’s bone. a and, later, “Two heads are better than one.” heads are better “Two and, later, friends uncover his own. as searches to he Onomatopoeic Onomatopoeic text on the bottom right corner of each page (“Squeak! Squeak!”; “Meow! Meow!”) foreshadow which ani- (unfortunate) (unfortunate) choice “Liars and gossips twins,” are siamese [sic] There are labeled gift tags, tiny candy canes on wrapping paper, It wags with pullIt the of smooth a left-to-right sturdy tab that is WAKE UP, CRABBY! THE INVASION OF THE SCUTTLEBOTS Fenske, Jonathan Lawrence, Mike Illus. by the author Illus. by the author Branches/Scholastic (48 pp.) First Second (192 pp.) $4.99 paper | $23.99 PLB | Nov. 5, 2019 $14.99 paper | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-338-28161-3 paper 978-1-250-19109-0 978-1-338-28163-7 PLB Series: Star Scouts, 3 Series: Crabby (Graphic science fiction. -8 12) (Fantasy. 5-9) ROXY CHRISTMAS CAROL & THE SHIMMERING ELF Miles, Ellen Fouch, Robert L. Scholastic Paperbacks (96 pp.) Sky Pony (254 pp.) $5.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 $15.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 978-1-338-30306-3 978-1-5107-5099-9 Series: The Puppy Place, 55 Series: Christmas Carol, 2 (Fiction. 7-10) (Fantasy. 8-12) HOW LAMB IS THAT TINY TOUGH Pantermüller, Alice Hanlon, Abby Illus. by Kohl, Daniela Illus. by the author Sterling (160 pp.) Dial (160 pp.) $12.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 $15.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 978-1-4549-3625-1 978-0-525-55397-7 Series: My Life as Lotta, 2 Series: Dory Fantasmagory, 5 (Graphic/fiction hybrid. -8 12) (Fiction. 6-8) THE TYRANT’S TOMB THOMAS EDISON Riordan, Rick Lighting the Way Disney-Hyperion (448 pp.) Houran, Lori Haskins $19.99 | Sep. 24, 2019 Illus. by Mazali, Gustavo 978-1-4847-4644-8 Harper/HarperCollins (32 pp.) Series: The Trials of Apollo, 4 $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 (Fantasy. 10-14) 978-0-06-243288-9 978-0-06-243287-2 paper SLAP SHOT Series: I Can Read! History Sabino, David (Informational early reader. 4 8) - Illus. by Fiadzigbey, Setor Simon Spotlight (40 pp.) SKYSCRAPERS $17.99 | $4.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 The Heights of Engineering 978-1-5344-4442-3 Kerschbaum, John 978-1-5344-4441-6 paper Illus. by the author Series: Game Day First Second (128 pp.) (Informational early reader. 5-7) $19.99 | $12.99 paper | Nov. 19, 2019 978-1-62672-795-3 SLUMBER PARTY SPARKLES 978-1-62672-794-6 paper Series: Science Comics Siwa, JoJo Amulet/Abrams (128 pp.) (Graphic nonfiction. -9 13) $6.99 paper | Oct. 15, 2019 978-1-4197-4328-3 Series: JoJo & BowBow, 4 (Fiction. 6-9)

110 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult continuing series | 15 october 2019 | 111 | kirkus.com | continuing 9) - 9) 11) - - Stanton, Joe Stanton, - Series: Brownstone’s Mythical Collection, 3 Mythical Series: Brownstone’s Scholastic (128 pp.) 3 Princess, Series: Diary of an Ice Series: Executive FUNction ON THIN ICE THIN ON KAI AND THE MONKEY KING KAI MONKEY THE AND HOW DID YOU MISS THAT? MISS YOU DID HOW Soontornvat, Christina Soontornvat, Smith, Bryan Smith, Boys Town Press (32 pp.) Press Town Boys Flying Eye (56 pp.) Flying Eye $18.95 | Oct. 22, 2019 $5.99 paper | Oct. 1, 2019 paper | Oct. $5.99 $10.95 paper | Oct. 8, 2019 paper $10.95 (Graphic fantasy. 5 fantasy. (Graphic (Fantasy. 6 (Fantasy. (Fiction. 5 (Fiction. Illus. by the author Illus. Illus. by Szucs, Barbara Szepesi Barbara by Szucs, Illus. Illus. by Griffin, Lisa M. by Griffin, Lisa Illus. 978-1-912497-11-9 Todd 978-1-338-35399-0 978-1-944882-45-7 A Story for Teaching Self-Monitoring A Story Teaching for young adult ALL-AMERICAN These titles earned the Kirkus Star: MUSLIM GIRL Courtney, Nadine Jolie ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL by Nadine Jolie Courtney...... 112 Farrar, Straus and Giroux (432 pp.) $17.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 FLOWERS IN THE GUTTER by K.R. Gaddy...... 113 978-0-374-30952-7

A HEART SO FIERCE AND BROKEN by Brigid Kemmerer...... 115 Allie Abraham is tired of being a “receptacle for unguarded Just Between Us JANE ANONYMOUS by Laurie Faria Stolarz...... 120 White People ignorance” and discomfort. Moving from place to place with her Circassian Jordanian professor father and white American psychologist mother, Allie has been a chameleon, blending in as the perfect all-American girl. Very few people know that Allie is actually Alia and that both her parents are Muslim. Her mother converted upon marrying her no-longer-practicing father, who encourages his daughter to take advantage of the pale skin and reddish-blonde hair that help her avoid being profiled. Allie yearns to connect to her religion and heritage—and to her Teta, the grandmother with whom she is only able to communicate in broken Ara- bic. Her new boyfriend, Wells Henderson, seems so genuine and likable, unlike his father, a conservative, xenophobic cable newscaster. As Allie embraces all the parts of who she is and confronts Islamophobia, she wonders if others can fully accept her growth. The book handles the complexity and intersectionality of being a Muslim American woman with finesse, addressing many aspects of identity and Islamic opinions. Allie, who has a highly diverse friend group, examines her white-passing privilege and race as well as multiple levels of discrimination, perceptions of conversion, feminism, sexual identity, and sexuality. While grounded in the American Muslim experience, the book has universal appeal thanks to its nuanced, well-developed teen characters whose struggles offer direct parallels to many other communities. Phenomenal. (Fiction. 13-18)

FLOWERS IN THE GUTTER Gaddy, K.R. Dutton (320 pp.) $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-0-5255-5541-4

112 | 15 october 2019 | children’s | kirkus.com | FLOWERS IN child. To complicate matters further, other clones—who are THE GUTTER not Similars—infiltrate Darkwood, and Emma and her friends Gaddy, K.R. uncover a plot that threatens not only the lives of everyone Dutton (320 pp.) they care about, but also the world as they know it. Hanover $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 wastes no time delving right into the action; readers unfamiliar 978-0-5255-5541-4 with the first book may get lost. This duology closer is largely predictable and often filled with loopholes, but the fast-paced Gertrud, Fritz, and Jean were among narrative and one unexpected plot twist make for an engaging many young people who confronted fas- ride. As before, most of the primary characters read as white, cism in this little-known true story of and supporting characters remain underdeveloped. Despite teenage resistance in Nazi Germany. its flaws and often implausible turns of events, the novel calls Based on firsthand accounts and his- attention to larger questions of identity, selfhood, and what it torical documents, Gaddy’s debut tells the story of the loosely means to be human. affiliated nonconformist youth groups known as the Edelweiss An overall entertaining read. (Dystopia. 13-16) Pirates. Meeting in secret, camping in the woods, and attempting to avoid mandatory recruitment into Hitler youth organizations, their resistance activities ranged from scatological THROW LIKE A GIRL pranks and vandalism to flyering and sabotage to simply playing Henning, Sarah guitar and wearing their hair long. Though largely composed of Poppy/Little, Brown (368 pp.) straight Christians, many from socialist and communist families, $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020

the groups welcomed gay and Jewish youth. This matter-of-fact 978-0-316-52950-1 young adult narrative shows how youth can stand against an overwhelming tide of fascism. It implicatively asks readers, “what would An impulsive punch in a high-profile you do?” while highlighting the actions of young people who game ends up costing softball star Olive refused to be complacent—and the consequences they suffered Rodinsky almost everything she values. for it. It challenges common narratives that reserve praise for High school junior Liv—or “O-Rod”— resistance for the politically centrist middle and upper classes. is willing to try just about anything to play The author weaves a lesson in historiography into an already again…even supercute Grey Worthing- fascinating story, effectively utilizing black-and-white photo- ton’s crazy plan that she could be his backup quarterback. Liv’s graphs, excerpts from primary sources, and images of historical toughness and talent shine through in the detailed portrayals of documents in chapters that are divided into short, dynamic seg- football training, practices, and games; while the thrills of the ments that will sustain readers’ interest. sport aren’t downplayed, the hard work and injuries (the risks An eye-opening account of tenacity that brings the of concussion are a running subplot) are ever present. And if efforts of young anti-Nazi activists vividly to life. (histori- her sweet romance with Grey feels a bit rushed, the strength cal note, source notes, bibliography, photo credits, index) Liv draws from coaches, teammates, and friends comes through (Nonfiction. 12-18) as rock solid. It’s an unexpected delight to read a “girl on the football team” plot that does not revolve around sexist objec- tions (not that Liv doesn’t encounter a few); nor are homo- THE PRETENDERS phobic attacks on her sister, her mother’s cancer, her family’s Hanover, Rebecca precarious financial situation or race (Liv and Grey are white; Sourcebooks Fire (416 pp.) supporting characters are realistically ethnically diverse) made $17.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 the focus. Instead, Liv’s major obstacle is learning to forgive and 978-1-4926-6513-7 trust again: the family who doesn’t respect her decisions; the Series: The Similars teammates who keep secrets; the boyfriend with an agenda; and, above all, her own flawed, complicated, driven, triumphant self. In this sequel to The Similars (2018), This charming sports story reflects classic tropes of the genre tensions rise as the villains reveal a ploy while still feeling fresh and relevant. to exact revenge on the Ten and their A winner. (Fiction. 12-18) families and ultimately take over the world. When Emma Chance returns to her elite boarding school, Darkwood Academy, for her senior year, things are different: Her best friend, Ollie Ward, is back while Levi Gravelle, Ollie’s clone and Emma’s love interest, has been imprisoned on Castor Island. More importantly, Emma is coming to terms with the contents of a letter from Gravelle which states that she is Eden, a Similar created to replace the original Emma, who died as a

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 113 the kirkus prize for young readers’ literature: the ya finalists

Our 2019 Kirkus Prize judges con- their lived stories. They are exemplary works that sidered more than 600 starred ti- honor teens’ need to engage with the world. tles when selecting the six Young In On the Come Up, Brianna is an aspiring rapper at- Readers’ Literature finalists, which tending an arts magnet school. A young black woman include a graphic novel as well as who has undeniable musical talent, drive, and a lov- prose, nonfiction as well as fiction. ing circle of family and friends, she also faces bias What they have in common is trust from teachers whose preconceptions lead them to in the ability of young readers to see her as “aggressive.” The novel addresses the com- engage with painful, uncomfort- mercialization of rap—repackaged for the consump- able subjects. tion of white suburban youth—while showcasing it as Adults can be anxious about emotionally weighty a powerful art form that gives voice to many. It con- books for youth, but children and teens already live fronts socio-economic disparities, the struggles of with harsh realities. What is more critical than the the working poor, and the lack of support for recov- content alone is how it is presented—the adult au- ering addicts. Above all, it is a celebration of courage thor’s awareness and ability to communicate age ap- and hope. propriately and without condescension. Develop- The Other Side presents the harrowing true stories mental appropriateness does not equate to sugarcoat- of 11 young people who es- ing life, doing a disservice to young people who are caped violence and perse- trying to make sense of the difficult things they expe- cution in Central America, rience and observe. seeking safety in the Unit- Even those who may seem not to be touched by ed States. The courage it issues addressed in our finalists are affected by them; took for already trauma- they live in a society where dominant value systems tized teens unaccompa- shape whose voices are heard, whose images are nied by adult relatives to at- erased, whose history is taught. While some teens are tempt this hazardous jour- all too aware of this, others can learn a great deal from ney comes through vividly. books. By contrast, a sheltered, unaware adult author Mexican novelist and jour- compounds the authority of age with the power dif- nalist Villalobos changed ferential of their mainstream-culture voice, reinforc- some details to protect the ing unconscious biases in some while further margin- young people’s identities alizing others. but allows the raw honesty Our two YA finalists, On of their words to shine through. Whether teen read- the Come Up by Angie Thom- ers are themselves refugees, friends and classmates of as (Balzer + Bray/HarperCol- refugees, or only know of these topics through news lins) and The Other Side: reports and adults’ conversations, the power of these Stories of Central American narratives will resonate, leaving an indelible impact. Teen Refugees Who Dream —L.S. of Crossing the Border by Juan Pablo Villalobos, trans- Laura Simeon is the young adult editor. lated by Rosalind Harvey (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), present insider voices: the former written from personal experience, the latter giving teens a platform to share

114 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | This sweeping, romantic epic repeatedly turns the tables on fantasy tropes. a heart so fierce and broken

EVERY OTHER WEEKEND both countries, prompting thoughtful consideration of their Johnson, Abigail distinct social and cultural traditions—and just enough time for Inkyard Press (432 pp.) romance to blossom. Like Harper in A Curse So Dark and Lonely $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 (2019), Lia Mara proves herself the undisputed hero right up to 978-1-335-92909-9 the stunning conclusion. This sweeping, romantic epic repeatedly turns the tables on the fantasy tropes that readers might Two teens from broken families find be expecting. Apart from Harper’s brother’s boyfriend, who is solace in one another’s company. black, the majority of characters appear to be white; Harper has After the death of his oldest brother, cerebral palsy. Adam and the rest of his family grieve in This nuanced sequel offers new perspectives and ways that pull them apart. When Adam’s emphasizes the value and complexity of both sibling and father moves out, Adam and his other romantic relationships. (map) (Fantasy. 13-18) brother alternate weekends with each of their parents. At his father’s apartment complex, Adam meets his neighbor Jolene, a 15-year-old aspiring filmmaker who is a pawn in her parents’ REVERIE bitter divorce. Her father cheated on her mother with a much La Sala, Ryan younger woman, and Jolene is forced to spend every other Sourcebooks Fire (416 pp.) weekend with her since her father is never home. Though $17.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 details of their situations differ, Adam’s and Jolene’s lives paral- 978-1-4926-8266-0 lel one another as they develop a special kinship in which Jolene

is a balm to soothe Adam’s grief and anger with his father and A teenager fights to keep a series of young adult Adam offers a critical remedy for Jolene’s deep-rooted loneli- baroque fantasy worlds from tearing his ness. Though the story feels long-winded at times, Johnson reality apart. (Even If I Fall, 2019, etc.) has written a complex and emotion- Something terrible happened to ally charged character-driven story that explores a variety of Kane Montgomery at the old mill in painfully human themes, including loss and emotional abuse. his Connecticut hometown—or he did Adam’s and Jolene’s struggles will draw readers in, and the slow- something terrible there; but with his memory of the night gone, burning romance will touch readers’ hearts. The book situates even he couldn’t tell you what. Now Kane has to prove that whiteness as the norm; Jolene’s father’s girlfriend is Asian, and he’s stable enough to go back to school, a task made infinitely two of Jolene’s friends are dark skinned. more difficult by visions of spiderlike monsters and mysterious Heart-wrenching and hopeful—a reminder that we can encounters with a glamorous, overtly queer person named Dr. change our stories. (Fiction. 13-18) Poesy. When Kane and his friends—bullied Ursula Abernathy, queen bee Adeline Bishop, golden boy Elliot Levi, and gorgeous, moody Dean Flores—are pulled into a series of immersive fan- A HEART SO FIERCE tasy worlds generated by the minds of their town’s residents, AND BROKEN Kane must figure out whom to trust and whom to save before Kemmerer, Brigid fantasy destroys reality completely. The narrative and aesthetics Bloomsbury (496 pp.) are joyously, riotously queer, reveling in moments of sensuality $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 between Kane and other boys as well as in Dr. Poesy’s drag- 978-1-68119-511-7 queen ensembles and the over-the-top fantasy worlds. Adeline Series: The Cursebreaker, 2 and Dean are brown-skinned, Elliot is Jewish, and LGBTQ secondary and background characters suffuse the story. While A group of young people forge unex- the plot is predictable, the story’s many pop-culture influences pected bonds that are tested when they feel derivative, and the prose often rings hollow and thesaurus- must choose between love and duty. happy, the themes of creating one’s own reality and fighting The enchantress’s curse has been against the rules imposed by the world you’re born into will ring broken, but no happily-ever-after awaits Princess Harper and powerfully true for many young readers. Prince Rhen; Rhen struggles with severe PTSD while rumors A colorful, queer fantasy pastiche. (Contemporary fantasy. spread of an heir with magical abilities, weakening his claim to 14-18) the throne. While the queen of Syhl Shallow regroups after a failed invasion, her elder daughter, 18-year-old Lia Mara, makes a doomed attempt to negotiate peace with Rhen. Meanwhile, Rhen’s former guard commander, Grey, has been captured and questioned about his knowledge of the mysterious heir. When Rhen’s conditioned fear of magic leads him to do the unthinkable, Lia Mara helps Grey escape. Their journey, told through alternating first-person perspectives, provides a Cook’s tour of

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 115 Engrossing and engaging. the map from here to there

THE MAP FROM HERE is drawn into the Korean War. Tender moments between Fergus TO THERE and his mother and the odd but interesting friendship between Lord, Emery Fergus and Duke are unfortunately not enough to offset the dry Bloomsbury (400 pp.) writing and underdeveloped plot. The too-fast pacing leaves $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 little room to form attachments to any of the characters or pro- 978-1-68119-938-2 vide enough historical context for the events at hand. While promising at first, this quick read results in little enjoyment, An immersive senior year experience, much like one of Fergus’ listless, aimless summers. All American beginnings and endings included. characters seem to be white. After an amazing summer with her A lackluster story with forgettable characters. (Histori screenwriting partner, Maeve, in New cal fiction. 12-14) York City, Paige Hancock’s life back home in Oakhurst, Indiana, is looking up—reminders of the drowning death two years earlier of her boyfriend, Aaron, and STRANGE EXIT her reoccurring anxiety issues notwithstanding. But the start Peevyhouse, Parker of her senior year heralds changes for relationships that give Tor Teen (320 pp.) her life stability: with her tightknit friendship group; new boy- $17.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 friend, Max; outgoing younger sister, Cameron; and divorced 978-0-7653-9942-7 parents, whose relationship seems on the mend. She also works through wavering feelings about her college options—the safe A young woman must free those in-state public university or private schools in New York and trapped in a simulation aboard a failing California? Enter Paige and friends’ bucket list for a final year spaceship before it’s too late. of bonding! The theme of separation runs throughout the book, It’s been decades since Earth was from her friends’ changing to Paige’s own evolving views on life. devastated by nuclear war. A lottery Screenplay references that frame the narration of Paige’s life granted a group of San Francisco teens and descriptions of how she deals with her anxiety make the the chance to board a billionaire’s spaceship and remain in sta- story shine. The well-developed ensemble cast includes diverse sis until the Earth is ready for their return. But something has family structures and shifting friendship dynamics that mirror gone wrong with Paracosm, the simulation meant to provide a Paige’s own evolution in this satisfying story that ties up all the safe haven for their minds. The ship’s systems are failing, food loose ends. Paige and most main characters are white; one of is running out, and if its inhabitants don’t awaken, returning Paige’s close friends is biracial (black and Polish), one is lesbian, home might not be an option. Seventeen-year-old Lake is able and there is diversity in secondary characters. to dip in and out of the sim without losing herself, and when Engrossing and engaging. (Fiction. 14-18) she rescues a boy named Taren, he insists on helping—but the sim, and some within it, has other ideas. The landscape is shot through with a pervasive sense of dread that follows Lake and MINESWEEPER Taren as they navigate the often dangerous corners of the Para- Lynch, Chris cosm. However, the inevitable twist offers little surprise, and Scholastic (192 pp.) the narrative grows fuzzy toward the end. Still, Peevyhouse (The $18.99 | Dec. 3, 2019 Echo Room, 2018, etc.) deftly explores the grief that Lake and 978-0-545-86165-6 Taren carry for their home planet and the loved ones they left Series: Special Forces, 2 behind, which inevitably shapes their virtual world. Most characters are white, but some diversity is suggested through names A surfer joins the U.S. Navy and fights of secondary characters. in the Korean War. A not-quite-satisfying but still heady trip into a creepy, Fergus Frew Junior loves the ocean surreal virtual world. (Science fiction. 13-18) despite its being the reason his father, Fergus Senior, died. It’s June 1949: Fer- gus has just graduated high school and has no plans except for catching sweet waves on the beach. On one such day, Fergus meets Duke, a U.S. Marine who borrows his surfboard without asking. Despite Fergus’ being hotheaded and having no interest in making friends, the two form a bond over their love of the sea. All the while, Duke—embittered by his experience with other Marines—encourages Fergus to join the Navy, selling it as an opportunity for a comfortable life living in pleasant locations. A tragic accident prompts Fergus to listen to his friend’s advice, and he joins the Navy with perilous consequences, as he

116 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | IT’S MY LIFE dark energy take a dramatic and dangerous turn, Tamsin finds Ramey, Stacie that everything she thought she knew about the people she Sourcebooks Fire (336 pp.) cares for may not be as it seems. Dialogue is sometimes stilted $10.99 paper | Jan. 1, 2020 and self-conscious (“If you continue with this version of your 978-1-4926-9452-6 rocket boots, I believe you’ll make your twin sister, Rosie, an orphan,” Tamsin chides a classmate), and on the whole char- A Jewish girl struggles to accept her acters feel underdeveloped. The illustrations lean toward a cerebral palsy and advocate for herself. classic superhero comic-book style, and inset panels include Sixteen-year-old Jenna Cohen feels science facts as they pertain to the plot. This blending of fact different from other girls. Her CP and fiction isn’t disruptive, but neither is it as effective as other saddles her with spasticity, seizures, comics that blend STEM and story (Secret Coders, The Earth and speech problems, and she relies Before Us) or other comics with footnotes or sidebars (Unbeat- on mobility aids ranging from elbow crutches to a motorized able Squirrel Girl, for example). The teen students have diverse wheelchair. Her well-meaning parents make all of her medical racial and ethnic identities; Tamsin is Indian American, and decisions, subjecting her to a series of surgeries and ineffective Garyn is a young woman of color. treatments. But when Jenna discovers that her CP was caused Enjoyable enough—but not universe-expanding. (Graphic by medical malfeasance, she enlists her lawyer uncle to fight for science fiction. 12-16) medical emancipation. When she’s not dwelling on her doctor’s mistake or hanging with her gay best friend, Ben, Jenna’s living an imaginary life as her beautiful, confident, nondisabled

alter ego, Jennifer. In Jennifer’s persona, she catfishes Julian, young adult her sweet, dyslexic childhood crush, kindling a bantering text- message romance dotted with described emojis—but soon, pre- tending isn’t enough. Unfortunately, Julian’s one-dimensional portrayal weakens the romantic tension. Jenna’s close, conflicted relationship with her parents and fierce bond with her siblings are believable, as is her desire for a say in her treatment; however, a late twist is jarringly implausible. Though Jenna’s curiosity about what might have been if not for her doctor’s error is understandable, her nearly relentless self-pity risks alienating readers long before her rather abrupt realization that “[her] real life has far exceeded [her] fantasy one.” All characters appear to be white. Well-intentioned but unsatisfying. (Romance. 13-16)

SCIENCE! The Elements of Dark Energy Robinson, Ashley & Inman, Jason Illus. by Pittman, Desiree’ & Kinzie, Becka Bedside Press (112 pp.) $14.99 paper | Dec. 3, 2019 978-1-988715-27-8

Supergenius teens explore the potentials of dark energy and uncover secrets at their school. The Prometheus Institute is a science academy for gifted students that seeks to “cultivate the greatest minds of this generation.” Here students specialize in quantum mechanics, mechanical engineering, advanced genet- ics, and more. Tamsin Kuhn Trackroo is no exception. The daughter of the school’s previous, deceased headmaster and a protégée of its current one, Tamsin is a theoretical and applied physicist determined to use a hologram of her father to understand and avenge his untimely death. But when the experiments her roommate (and maybe-girlfriend), Garyn, is conducting on

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 117 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Kekla Magoon

IN HER NEW NOVEL, THE AUTHOR OF HOW IT WENT DOWN RETURNS TO THE FICTIONAL NEIGHBORHOOD OF UNDERHILL—AND ANOTHER POLICE SHOOTING By Bethany C. Morrow Alice DodgeAlice she recalls. Devastatingly, the book was released one month after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Magoon might not have known that a slew of extrajudicial killings would follow or that 2014 would see the Black Lives Matter movement begin, but she did believe that young adult literature could participate in what she calls “a general consciousness.” “A lot of the narrative in How It Went Down was about the discussion of [the victim’s identity],” Magoon says. “In the case of Trayvon Martin, that question drove the narrative significantly, because there was this pressure to say...if he was up to no good then maybe what happened to him was deserved.” To that end, Magoon’s novel presented more than a dozen characters, all of whom are convinced of wildly differing narratives, forcing the reader to speculate as well. Years later, Magoon has returned to Underhill in a story set two years later. In Light It Up, she imagines a In Kekla Magoon’s new YA novel, Light It Up (Henry different shooting affecting the same community. In Holt, Oct. 22), 13-year-old Shae Tatum, a special needs writing about compounding tragedies, she shines a black girl, is shot and killed by a white police officer in light on the way in which these recurring incidents have the fictional neighborhood of Underhill. With remark- permanently and profoundly impacted the lives and able fluidity, Magoon introduces a circumstance so fa- psyches of black Americans. miliar that one might expect a kind of morbid fatigue; From the killing, the narrative moves like a golden instead readers are ensnared from the first of many spiral, growing wider and wider as members of young powerful vignettes. Shae’s community find out about the murder and learn In 2014, Magoon published another novel set in the victim’s identity. Using multiple points of view, Underhill. After Trayvon Martin was killed, she began which made the first novel so engaging, Magoon- suc writing How It Went Down, a book that tells the story ceeds in crafting a living, breathing community, deftly of Tariq Johnson, a black teen gunned down by law en- exposing the way these tragedies gnaw at the back of forcement. While it would go on to receive a Coretta the inhabitants’ minds. Before they know that it has Scott King honor, Magoon recalls how difficult it was to happened again, they know that it can. Alongside them, get it published initially. “People thought, everybody’s readers experience the speed at which life and death talking about Trayvon right now, but is that even gon- collide in this oft-misrepresented world, and the tri- na be a conversation by the time your book comes out?” umph of the new novel might be that Magoon is able to

118 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | illuminate the ecosystem of neighborhoods that often get flattened, reduced to street or city names, in ways that erase the inhabitants. Magoon showcases those closest to the death and the difficult task of living on. In Light It Up, Magoon also undertakes a telling challenge. “I wanted to erase that piece of the narrative that is about...whether this person deserved to die in the way that they did,” she explains. “I wanted THE TOLL Shusterman, Neal the conversation to be about what happens when this Simon & Schuster (640 pp.) truly is a wrongful shooting.” Magoon decided to make $19.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 978-1-4814-9706-0 the victim younger, even more vulnerable, and female. Series: Arc of a Scythe, 3 Sadly, she acknowledges, the result is not what one might hope. After all, black women—both young and The sins of the founding scythes now reap terrible rewards in this trilogy adult—have also been brutalized by law enforcement. conclusion. In the end, Magoon concedes, “Every effort that I try The Thunderhead—a benevolent, nigh-omniscient, nanite-controlling arti- to make to say this is an innocent character, there’s evi- ficial intelligence—still runs the world but speaks only to Greyson dence from society that [bias is] going to infect this ex- Tolliver. Now deified as the Toll, prophet of the Tonists, Greyson perience just because this person is black.” attempts to advise a populace abruptly cut off from the Thunder- head’s gentle guidance. For the scythes—allegedly compassion- Despite her illustrious career, Magoon is all too ate and objective executioners whose irreversible gleanings aware of the tightrope walked by black authors who control the post-mortal population—the Thunderhead’s been face skepticism over the necessity of continuing to silent for centuries, but recent scythedom unrest now tests the Thunderhead’s noninterference. Untouchable and unhinged, write about what she calls “controversial shootings”— Scythe Goddard, self-appointed Overblade, encourages unre- young adult and who also receive more attention and support for stricted and prejudiced gleanings. Formerly formidable opponents Scythe Anastasia (Citra Terranova) and scythe-killer novels that do. “While to me it’s vitally important that Scythe Lucifer (Rowan Damisch) are now fugitives, saved from we continue to grapple with these issues...we’re always the sea but pursued by Goddard’s allies. Even in a post-national, dancing on this line of needing to push the envelope of post-racial world, Capt. Jerico’s meteorologically influenced gender fluidity surprises some, but as Goddard’s bigotry indi- what [black authors] are allowed to publish.” Light It cates, discrimination plagues even the post-mortals. Shuster- Up, with an ambitious style to match its searing com- man (Dry, 2018, etc.) wryly unravels organized religion and mentary, does just that. delivers a scathing takedown of political demagogues. Yet the whirlwind of narrators, sly humor, and action scenes never obscures the series’ central question: If most death is imper- Bethany C. Morrow is the author of the novel Mem and edi manent, and age can be reset, what’s the meaning of life? Long but strong, a furiously paced finale that reaches Take the Mic: Fictional Stories of Everyday Resis- tor of for the stars. (Science fiction. 14-adult) tance. Light It Up received a starred review in the Aug. 15, 2019, issue. SCAVENGE THE STARS Sim, Tara Disney-Hyperion (336 pp.) $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-368-05141-5 Series: Scavenge the Stars, 1

A rags-to-riches story with the promise of revenge. At 17, Amaya “Silverfish” Chandra is a prisoner aboard a debt collector’s ship, where she has been worked to the bone under the watchful eye of Capt. Zharo. When she ignores the captain’s orders and rescues a mysterious man—who goes by the name Boon—from drowning, Silverfish is told that her sentence aboard the ship will be extended. Boon offers her a unique opportunity—more wealth than she can begin to imagine—in exchange for her help exacting revenge upon Kamon Mercado, a merchant in the multicultural city of Moray. Silver- fish undergoes a makeover and rigorous training under Boon’s

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 119 A testament to how the mind can reshape reality in order to survive. jane anonymous

tutelage and learns to not only behave like a lady, but also to con JANE ANONYMOUS and manipulate people. Told alternatingly from the perspectives Stolarz, Laurie Faria of Silverfish and Kamon Mercado’s son, Cayo, the first novel in Wednesday Books (320 pp.) Sim’s (contributor: Color Outside the Lines, 2019, etc.) new duol- $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 ogy is rich in detail and well written despite its rushed ending. 978-1-250-30370-7 The romance is heterosexual, but the book creates a world in which people who are culturally and racially diverse and/or non- An abducted teen recounts her har- binary are fully accepted and unremarkable; Amaya is brown- rowing captivity. skinned, and Cayo is bisexual. While there are few descriptions Stolarz (Shutter, 2016, etc.) ups the of Moray and the lands around it, the historical setting brings to psychological ante by crafting a confes- mind a subtropical land under European influence. sional narrative in which her 17-year-old Captivating worldbuilding and empathetically etched protagonist is taken and held for months characters make Scavenge the Stars a light and enjoyable read. against her will. Gutsy first-person narrator “Jane Anonymous” (Fantasy. 14-18) tells her story by alternating between two troubling presents. “THEN” details the moments leading up to and including her gripping “seven months away” while “NOW” tells what has WE USED TO BE FRIENDS happened since her escape to the “girl who sleeps in her closet Spalding, Amy with a knife tucked beneath her pillow, trusting no one but Amulet/Abrams (368 pp.) herself.” Though the cast of characters—from Jane’s abductor $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 to Jane, her family, and friends—exhibits a blanched, generic, 978-1-4197-3866-1 suburban quality, the depth of psychological intrigue is absorbing and the twist on the Stockholm syndrome, disturbing. Jane’s The friendship of two girls, best probing monologue while captive details both the mental and friends since kindergarten, unravels dur- physical coping mechanisms she developed and convincingly ing their senior year of high school. displays her unwitting realizations, such as her heightened sen- Kat, whose mother died two years sory awareness borne of being confined. But Jane’s return also ago, lives with her father. James (named clearly shows the fallout of her torment—not only for her, but after her father) lives with her mother for those who care about her as well, demonstrating just how far and father—but her parents are heading toward a divorce. Both life is from being back to how it was before she was taken and girls are also experiencing the ending of relationships with their prompting Jane to wonder if her shattered psyche will always boyfriends. Despite both dealing with absent mothers and bro- be “far beyond repair.” This novel is` a testament to how the ken hearts, the girls’ paths forward are quite different and lead mind can reshape reality in order to survive. Main characters to the end of their friendship. At the root of their breakup is are white. how honest the girls are with themselves and with each other: Powerfully graphic. (Fiction. 12-18) useful topics for any teen to consider. Over the course of the year, Kat discovers she is bisexual. The subplot of her relationship with her girlfriend, Quinn, is handled smoothly, without HOPE IN THE MAIL hand-wringing on anyone’s part. In fact, LGBTQ rights take an Reflections on Writing and unexpected central role as classmates start a fight for them to be Life crowned “prom couple.” James and Kat each tell their version Van Draanen, Wendelin of senior year’s challenges in alternating chapters. Kat’s story Knopf (304 pp.) is told moving forward while James’ story is told in reverse. At $17.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 times this helps to maintain suspense, but it also proves annoy- 978-1-9848-9466-3 ing, as motivations remain murky until the end. Set in Burbank, California, the book features seemingly white protagonists; This thorough, well-voiced guide diversity in secondary characters is indicated through names. to becoming a writer covers everything A good exploration of the heartbreak of losing a friend— you need to be published, starting with and learning about oneself in the process. (Fiction. 13-18) developing the right attitude. From building believable characters to finding an agent to designing a book cover, Van Draanen’s (Wild Bird, 2017, etc.) guide to becoming a writer has it all. Beginning with her personal history as the child of hardworking Dutch immigrants, the author encourages future writers to be gritty, describing her own relentless pursuit of her craft even during a decade of constant rejections from major publishing houses. She then moves from the attitudes necessary for creative work to the more practical details: how to find a narratorial voice, how to structure

120 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | a mystery, and how to find and work with an editor. Through- ONLY LOVE CAN BREAK out, she uses moments of perseverance and struggle from her YOUR HEART own life to urge aspiring writers to keep going, no matter what Webber, Katherine challenges—internal and external—they must face down. Van Scholastic (352 pp.) Draanen’s voice is charmingly no-nonsense, and the themes $18.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 she explores are sure to benefit aspiring writers of many ages. 978-1-338-57877-5 Unfortunately, though, by insisting on the connection between hard work and success, Van Draanen ignores structural issues A teenage girl refuses to let go of her that prevent writers from marginalized backgrounds from grief over her dead sister until an emo- breaking into publishing with the same ease as mainstream tional crisis obliterates her carefully con- peers. Furthermore, small moments of ignorance unredeemed structed facade. by self-reflection—such as shaming her childhood bully for her Five years after the death of her looks and repeatedly using the charged term “hoodlum” in a beloved older sister, Reiko Smith-Mori expertly manipulates context that is loaded with class-based assumptions—make her her seemingly perfect life to avoid talking about Mika even unexamined privilege difficult to ignore. if she sees her and talks to her every day. A chance moonlit A thoughtful and entertaining how-to guide weakened encounter with social outcast classmate Seth hurtles Reiko by serious diversity-related missteps. (Nonfiction. 14-adult) into a clandestine romance that leads to turmoil. At first, Rei- ko’s shame at dating below her social standing in the popular crowd may make her difficult to sympathize with, but Seth’s LIE TO ME about-face from gentle nerd to cocky, insensitive bro stabs

Ward, Kaitlin young adult Scholastic (256 pp.) $10.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 978-1-338-53810-6

Amelia tries to go back to being a normal teenager after nearly dying from a fall, but when other local girls start turning up dead, she thinks what happened to her was no accident. But who would want to hurt her? Her creepy neighbor? A jealous girl from school? Her best friend, who’s harboring a secret? Her new boyfriend is willing to help her figure it out. Her relationship with Liam started after her fall, and it’s intense—not only because of how she feels when she’s with him, but also because of the yearslong feud between Liam and Amelia’s brother, Hunter. Adding to the confusion is Amelia’s blooming attraction for her friend Grace, which doesn’t dissipate even after Amelia starts dating Liam. In a novel that struggles to maintain the tension, Ward (Where She Fell, 2018, etc.) explores what it’s like to suspect the people closest to you of wanting to cause you harm. This is a worthy premise, but the plot feels obvious and predictable while the dialogue often feels trite and forced, causing the book to lag in energy and suspense. Most characters are white; Grace has brown skin and is a lesbian. A mystery romance that works too hard on both fronts. (Suspense. 12-15)

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 121 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES London Shah

IN THE LIGHT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD, THE YA NOVELIST IMAGINES THE EARTH COVERED BY WATER—AND CLIMATE CHANGE WAS NEVER FAR FROM HER MIND By Chelsea Ennen

how a major modern city like London would function underwater? [I analyzed] our current society, reading books on ocean- ography, exploring the scientific requirements of such a world, spending far too much time on countless forums that discuss and predict future technologies, watching as many deep-sea programs as possible, chatting with marine biologists and oceanographers, and discussing specific ideas with research scientists and companies designing and manufacturing deep-sea vehicles. I sometimes struck very lucky: The CEO of a leading submersibles manufacturer very generously guided me through a submersible driving tutorial via Skype!

You write that the oceans rose due to an asteroid attack, but you also write about a culture that refuses to adjust to a new reality. Were you thinking at all about climate change as you worked on this novel? Yes, throughout. I imagine we wouldn’t work with the environment beneath the waves any more than we’ve worked with it above the surface. I suspect greed and ignorance would still largely drive our actions, and the cost to the natural world The first volume in London Shah’s debut YA series, The Light would remain the least of our priorities. The only reason cli- at the Bottom of the World (Disney-Hyperion, Oct. 29), is an ad- mate change wasn’t the cause of my fictional calamitous floods venture set in a near-future world where a cataclysmic aster- is all the research said it simply wasn’t plausible for sea levels to oid has caused the oceans to rise and cover civilization. When have risen to that extent anytime this century. When I consid- 16-year-old Leyla McQueen wins a spot in a submersible race ered bending the facts about climate change it felt very wrong, through underwater London, she hopes to win and use the as if I were sensationalizing something too real and devastating. prize to free her imprisoned father. But the government doesn’t And so I decided the disaster would be the outcome of an as- want to let him go, and Leyla must learn what secrets her lead- teroid strike that released all the water previously held in deep ers are hiding in the deep. Shah, who lives in London, recently subterranean reservoirs. answered our questions about the book. When the prime minister refuses to free Leyla’s imprisoned The novel opens with the London Marathon, a thrilling sub- father, Leyla begins a journey full of disturbing discoveries, mersible race through a sunken city. How did you figure out particularly about her government. Why do you think it’s

122 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | important for young adults to read about resistance and develop the ability to think beyond what they’ve been told? History has proven those seeking control will always cause divisions among the people, play on our fears, manipulate the pull of nostalgia, and ‘other’ those unlike ourselves. This needs highlighting to children from early on, so they are able to recognize this phenomenon when they encounter it. Books are a even harder at the heart. Reiko’s affluent Palm Springs lifestyle great place to start. [Teens] need to know that anything that is contrasted with Seth’s trailer home, and as their romance feels wrong to them can and should be challenged. We must grows, Reiko finds herself questioning her privilege. Ultimately, help them see that things don’t have to be the way they are in Reiko’s romantic journey and reflections lead her to accept and move on from her sister’s death. Reiko’s first-person narrative this world they’re stepping out in. And that very often, lives— is a carefully constructed web that will have readers taking and usually those of the most vulnerable—depend on their ability switching sides as the characters develop and change. She is to think beyond what they’ve been told. a nuanced, sensitively drawn protagonist—though she lacks authentic, internal biracial and bicultural tensions and texture. From Oscar Wilde to Hermione Granger, you include lots of Reiko has a white American mother and a Japanese immigrant father; her best friend is Mexican American, and Seth is white. literary references in the novel. What stories have inspired An emotional roller coaster with a heroine who prevails. you most as a writer? (Fiction. 14-18) Science fiction/fantasy narratives will always be my first and biggest love, though I don’t read hard sci-fi or high/epic fanta- CITY OF STONE AND SILENCE sy. I’m more excited by speculative fiction, urban fantasy, and Wexler, Django Tor Teen (368 pp.) light sci-fi. A few of the many stories I discovered and found $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 inspiring and unforgettable before and during my own writing 978-0-7653-9727-0

Series: Wells of Sorcery Trilogy, 2 young adult journey are: Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, P.D. James’ The Children of Men, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, V.E. Schwab’s Having recently assumed leadership, Isoka must help her crew survive in a A Darker Shade of Magic, Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles, Adam new land and take control of Soliton in Silvera’s They Both Die at the End, Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in this well-executed sequel. the Ashes, Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone, G. Willow After leading everyone to safety from Wilson’s . In recent years I’ve found the SF/F the Vile Rot, Isoka is the new leader of Soliton’s crew. Set on a Alif the Unseen predetermined path, the ship arrives at its destination, the Har- penned by people of color to be especially inventive, fresh, bor. The Harbor is an ancient city of stone ziggurats encased in and all-round brilliant. a dome of Eddica—or Spirits—magic. Living in a delicate balance are the Cresos clan aristocrats, monks called the Minders, and Prime, an Eddicant who terrorizes everyone with the living Chelsea Ennen is a writer in Brooklyn. The Light at the Bottom dead. Isoka must find a way to take control of the Harbor and to save her sister, Tori. What Isoka doesn’t know is that of the World received a starred review in the Aug. 15, 2019, issue. Soliton Tori has been sneaking away from her luxurious life to help at a lower-ward hospital and sanctuary for runaway mage-bloods. When Isoka doesn’t show up for Tori’s birthday, Tori’s search for answers brings her into the middle of a rebellion. Using her secret power of Kindre, Tori bends minds as she seeks Isoka. Alternating between the two sisters’ points of view, each chapter is captivating and ends in suspense. Wexler (Ship of Smoke and Steel, 2019, etc.) does not disappoint, delving deeper into Isoka’s journey but also exploring Tori’s life, thereby revealing hierarchal problems and discrimination in this highly diverse, magical society. A magical, enthralling must-read. (map, Wells of Sor- cery list) (Fantasy. 14-adult)

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 october 2019 | 123 continuing series

REBEL Lu, Marie Roaring Brook (384 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 978-1-250-22170-4 Series: Legend, 4 (Science fiction. 12-17) CAPTURING THE DEVIL Maniscalco, Kerry Jimmy Patterson (464 pp.) $18.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-316-48554-8 Series: Stalking Jack the Ripper, 4 (Mystery. 15-18) WHEN SHE REIGNS Meadows, Jodi Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (544 pp.) $17.99 | Sep. 10, 2019 978-0-06-246946-5 Series: Fallen Isles, 3 (Fantasy. 13-18) DECEPTION Terry, Teri Charlesbridge Teen (368 pp.) $18.99 | Oct. 29, 2019 978-1-62354-106-4 Series: The Dark Matter Trilogy, 2 (Science fiction. 12-18)

124 | 15 october 2019 | young adult | kirkus.com | indie THE LIFE These titles earned the Kirkus Star: WRITING WORKBOOK How To Work Through Your SUNLIGHT 24 by Merritt Graves...... 130 Life’s Unresolved Emotional Experiences ÁNDALE PUSS by Warren Handley; illus. by Erin Gibbs...... 133 Aihi BalboaPress (148 pp.) PUBLIC PARTS by Joel W. Harris...... 134 $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Aug. 20, 2015 THE AUSSIE NEXT DOOR by Stefanie London...... 137 978-1-5043-3662-8

A debut guide urges readers to transform their lives and bet-

ter understand themselves through a series of straightforward young adult writing exercises. At age 29, the author discovered the process of life writing— a way of using the written word to interpret and understand your own life story—as she was going through a divorce. She found the act of writing about her past gave her “a new sense of self-possession,” and over the subsequent 25 years, the university professor and narrative psychologist has refined the process she used and shared it with others. One advantage of life writing, according to Aihi, is that it can be largely self-directed, though she wisely suggests that readers identify mental health professionals they can contact if working through past issues becomes too difficult to deal with alone. Most people should simply be able to follow the eight life-writing exercises included in this book, all designed to help them come to terms with “a certain set of unresolved life experiences.” The exercises instruct readers to reflect on their names, relationships with their fathers and mothers, childhood homes, and certain significant past events, among other topics. The emphasis is not so much on recounting facts but rather on identifying the specific emotions those recollections spark. By returning to the past, life writing “allows the younger-you to express herself or himself in ways she or he could not at the time.” Easy-to-follow instructions for each exercise are delivered in a friendly, supportive style. Because the process is personal, there is no pressure to share the work that results with others, which should make the technique accessible to nonwriters. The goal is not necessarily to produce a clear narrative of a life or a publishable story but instead to achieve a kind of inner peace and over- PUBLIC PARTS all sense of well-being. Those who complete all the exercises Harris, Joel W. should “feel lighter, more relaxed, and more present.” Xlibris (598 pp.) Those interested in reflecting on their personal paths $40.91 | $23.99 paper | $3.99 e-book could benefit from completing the insightful lessons in Sep. 30, 2015 this workbook. 978-1-5144-0600-7 978-1-5144-0601-4 paper

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 125 literary labyrinths

Literary novels can be difficult to THE TRUTH CIRCLE define. Many experts believe they fea- Ayers, Cameron ture stronger characters and richer Time Tunnel Media (565 pp.) explorations of the human condition $14.00 paper | Jul. 7, 2019 than genre tales. According to the 978-1-07-909058-1 critic Terrence Rafferty, “Literary fic- In Ayers’ debut horror novel, six tion, by its nature, allows itself to daw- strangers on a spiritual journey turn on dle, to linger on stray beauties even at one another while facing a terrifying the risk of losing its way.” menace in the woods. Kirkus Indie recently reviewed A handful of people meet in Pennsyl- three literary novels that tackle such vania to go on a trip organized by a company called Mystic Tours. The clients include brokerage CEO weighty subjects as mortality, psychic visions, and murder. Ken Berman and personal trainer Gabriella “Gaby” Moreno as In A.V. Bach’s Eisenstein’s Monster, well as Beverly Sutton, Coop, Lamar, and the decidedly unso- a man must deal with a series of brain ciable Wade. John Lightfoot, a Shawnee member of the Chal- tumors while pondering the idiosyn- akatha tribe, is the group’s guide on what’s billed as a weeklong crasies of language (“Krishawn had “quest for a new you.” He drives them all to a remote campsite always thought it funny how ontolo- in the wilderness, and that evening, each experiences a vision gy and oncology were separated only during a purification ceremony in the sweat-lodge wigwam that also acts as their sleeping quarters. By morning, however, by a ‘c’ ”). Along the way, the author John has mysteriously vanished, along with his van. Everyone provides an assortment of tales in- is understandably shaken by this turn of events, and Wade volving various elements of the hu- exacerbates their unease with his solo hunting excursions and man experience. Our reviewer calls violent tendencies. But nighttime proves to be even worse, as the book, which earned a Kirkus a strange, ominous black mass stalks the forest, and only light Star, “an incredible debut, as enter- appears to keep it at bay. The group struggles to find a way out of the woods and a method of communicating with the out- taining as it is outlandish.” side world. But it isn’t long before they descend into a vicious Dead Mentors by Sandra Nichols focuses on Sophia spiral of deception, accusations, and betrayal. Ayers’ characters Deming, a restless 54-year-old Florida resident, and John are a motley bunch who each have very different motivations; Burns, a psychic who can see the crucial events of her life Coop, for example, is initially excited to go on what will be his and detect the auras and spirits surrounding her. Deming second spiritual retreat, and Ken is solely interested in the survival training’s physical components. Everyone harbors secrets, finds a play calledThe Antiquity, written by her dead mother, which inspires her to embark on a momentous journey. as well, which range from the tragic to the appalling. These all gradually come to light, which keeps the pace brisk and opens “Well-written and compelling; will appeal to both fans of up numerous plot possibilities. Although Wade is unsettling the paranormal and serious students of the human condi- from the beginning, other group members also prove to be vol- tion,” our critic writes. atile or have unexpectedly shady pasts. The black mass, mean- A murder and a fatal car accident while, is a persistent threat that Ayers describes in proficient, rock the black and white communi- dreamlike passages: “the fog-like haze of steam rising from the ties of Winston-Salem, North Caro- endless swirls of ash decorating the landscape.” Many readers will likely be able to predict the ending, but an earlier plot twist lina, in Friday Calls by E. Vernon F. is genuinely surprising. Glenn. Set in the 1950s, the story A sharply written and delightfully unnerving tale. offers a host of striking characters, including Homer Kenny (“Kenny is the fellow who is there if anyone needs anything—The Master of the Job, the Errand, the Task”). Accord- ing to our reviewer, Glenn delivers “a lyrical Southern tale of rippling effects.” —M.F.

Myra Forsberg is an Indie editor.

126 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | WILLOUGHBY’S WORLD A PATH SIMILAR OF WONDER A Play Barnwell, Stephen Brisibe-Dorgu, Gesiere Illus. by the author AuthorHouse (110 pp.) Antarctica Arts (182 pp.) $23.85 | $13.99 paper | $3.99 e-book $19.95 paper | Jan. 1, 2019 May 14, 2019 978-1-73396-490-6 978-1-5462-3620-7 978-1-5462-3621-4 paper This illustrated fictional reproduc- tion of a Victorian field guide helps iden- A play focuses on gender inequality, tify imaginary and legendary creatures. kidnapping, and rape in Africa. According to the Introduction, said The work begins with a conversation to be written by Angus Willoughby, “CRYPTOZOOLOGIST between Abade, a “top public servant,” AND NATURALIST,” this volume contains truthful accounts and his “homemaker” wife, Ladaba. The opening lines indi- “of the strange and unusual in the world of nature” so that read- cate the level of patriarchal dominance in the household, with ers may be best prepared to encounter, propitiate, or avoid them. Abade castigating his wife for not having his breakfast ready. As The beings are grouped into four kinds of Folk (Fey, Wee, Great, the play progresses, Abade’s staggering cruelty and misogyny and Wyre) and five types of Creature: those that live with peo- are revealed. In a conversation with Aliyah, a friend and neigh- ple and those of the land, sea, air, and night. Each entry includes bor, Ladaba confides that Abade attacked and raped her when an illustration with size, habitat, and description. A Banshee, she refused to have sex. Ladaba then discovers that her husband

for example, is 4 to 6 feet tall; its habitat is “Houses; Dark and also raped their maid, Sarafa. Ladaba approaches a female lawyer, young adult stormy nights”; and it “appears to those who are to suffer the but in a male-dominated society, the odds are stacked against death of a family member.” Many entries include helpful infor- Abade’s being prosecuted. The play also introduces Danlade mation: “Upon finding a Land Kraken in your barn or stable, it and Tanmu, a married couple who met at medical school and is recommended that you drive it out as quickly as possible.” respect each other as equals. Their lives are turned upside down While some beings are familiar from folklore (such as Elf, Sas- when their daughter, Asa, is kidnapped and held for ransom. A quatch, and Goblin), others are humorous inventions (Thinking third narrative deals with Dansibe, “a true African who believes Cap, Newsie, and Jackalope). An appendix provides an alpha- the measure of a man is determined by the number of seeds his betical index plus Folk calendars, a bibliography, and an adver- loins bring forth.” Agbere, one of his three wives, is confronted tising section (for example, “Dr. Pythagoras’ Patented Pixilation with the fact that she is “one big baby factory.” The play draws Cure”). Barnwell (Oneirognosis, 2015, etc.) is a professional art- attention to issues of violence and inequality in Africa but does ist, printmaker, and illustrator whose work has been exhibited not establish a specific sense of place. A passing reference to internationally. The book’s images are perhaps the stars of this the “UAC” (United Africa Company) of Nigeria suggests a pos- show—a brilliantly successful pastiche of Victorian engravings sible location, but that country is never mentioned directly. in their exquisite detail, subtle tonal and shading techniques Brisibe-Dorgu (Love So Pure, 2019, etc.) possesses the ability such as hatching and crosshatching, and moodiness (romantic, to shock her audience by writing frank conversations about whimsical, solemn, or eerie as suitable to the Creature or Folk taboo subjects. Dansibe and his friend Ledi witness a man with described). The Victorian style offers some especially amusing AIDS being beaten by a gang on the street. Ledi reveals: “That images; Cyclops, for example, is a prosperous-looking, bearded pathetic man’s idea of a cure” for his AIDS “is the blood of a gentleman with a better claim to his monocle than most. But virgin!” and goes on to say, “This man goes about raping little the text, which describes absurdities in all Victorian seriousness, girls aged no more than six years!” Despite the playwright’s has a delightfully wry undertone and sometimes veers from the never pulling her punches, the work has its failings. Her writing expected. Cyclopes, for example, “are cultured and civilized…. often lacks consistency. For instance, Kamo, a security guard, Sadly, to date, elected office has eluded them.” “appears dead” but a few lines later “will be alright.” A strong A fanciful guide to nature’s wonders; beautiful, clever, editor is also needed (“helter shelter”; “LAdaba”; “clean your.?”). and appealing in every way—a fine achievement. Still, this disturbing play draws powerful attention to urgent human rights issues and succeeds in delivering an important message. A flawed but brutally truthful drama about Africa.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 127 COYOTE ALIBI PADDLE TO PADDLE Burges, J. & Burges, D. Chapin, Lois Naaltsoos Press (285 pp.) Nightingale Rose Publications (152 pp.) $14.99 paper | $5.99 e-book $6.69 paper | May 29, 2019 Feb. 24, 2018 978-1-889755-10-6 978-0-9998573-2-8 Chapin’s masterful poetry collection A would-be paralegal and her attor- traces the arc of a lifetime—growing up ney boss take the case of a woman in a violent household, teenage rebel- accused of murdering her unpopular hus- lion, parenthood, and reuniting with an band in this novel. estranged mother. In the mid-1980s, Sage Landing, Ari- Chapin’s debut carries a disclaimer zona, is a tiny town hard by a Navajo reservation, the kind of stating that it’s a work of fiction. Still, this poetic meditation on place where everyone knows everybody else’s business. Thirty- lost innocence feels chillingly real. The opening poem, entitled something Navajo narrator Naomi Manymules is a divorced “Proverbs 29:15,” examines Mary’s parenting of Jesus through con- mother of two with “only half of a paralegal certificate,” the temporary eyes: “Seems like Jesus’ mom / was cool. / Encouraged just-hired office assistant to attorney Grant Carson, a- new him to argue, / and disagree, / let him hang out / with older friends.” comer from Phoenix in his late 40s. Walking around late one The poem has a spike in its tail, ending: “If only Mary / had writ- night, Naomi unexpectedly becomes a witness to murder when ten / Child Guidance, / and not Ellen, / the cult leader.” The poet she hears gunshots from the lake below. The next day, Willard takes a jab at Seventh-day Adventist Ellen White, whose instruc- Highsmith is found shot to death. Since he was “a crooked son tional book on child care placed an emphasis on purity, among of a bitch with lots of enemies,” possible suspects are many, other virtues. The proverb referred to in the poem’s title reads: beginning with his Navajo wife (and Naomi’s friend), Ellen, “A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom, but a child left undisci- whom Willard mistreated. Naomi is sure that Ellen is innocent; plined disgraces its mother.” Here, Chapin introduces issues her alibi makes sense—she drove the long way home after a central to the collection, written from the perspective of Lois, a coyote crossed her path to the east, a Navajo omen not to be daughter whose unstable Adventist mother brutally wields the ignored. When Ellen is arrested, Carson agrees to represent her. rod of punishment. Writing in the first person, Chapin captures He and Naomi sift through clues, suspects, and complications, the innocence of childhood with nostalgic beauty, such as in the including an ever growing potential conflict-of-interest prob- poem “Fishhook”: “we dig holes / to China / and set up Match- lem with other clients; out-of-town thugs; and personal attacks. box car / cities in the dirt.” This innocence is soon punctured, Can Ellen’s coyote alibi hold up? Though set in a landscape and disturbingly so, in the poem “Black and White and Read All similar to Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, this series opener by the Over”: “The escalating voices / and inevitable pleas for mercy / husband and wife team of J. Burges and D. Burges (Graves Gate, followed by / the sounds of a scrawny boy being beaten / by an 2003) takes a lighthearted approach while still honoring Navajo obese woman / happened just about / every night.” culture. That ethos is integral to the plot in large and small ways, Chapin’s matter-of-fact language makes the revelation even whether Ellen’s alibi or how to conduct oneself during a job more troubling, particularly this chilling line: “Last night / she made interview (“The correct white protocol was to ask directly for him bleed / all over the paper, or maybe / she incited our father to what you wanted”). The story’s local flavor is also seen in char- participate.” The collection charts a young girl’s coming-of-age, and acters like Abraham Bingham and his multiple wives: “Pligs— Chapin’s writing grows markedly more assertive and muscular to short for polygamists—are just another minority around here.” reflect this: “Her sharp nails were inches / from my face, / but now Naomi’s voice is amusing and sharp, as when she dubs a shady I was taller than her / and my grip was more / than physical.” Subse- character’s canine a “dog moll.” The authors do a fine job of quent poems describe how Lois escapes to become both “an excom- keeping readers guessing until the very end. municated fundamentalist” and a parent herself. She describes her An enjoyably twisty mystery with appealing characters own experience of parenthood, with its grave challenges but also and a vivid setting. moments of enlightenment, such as when climbing with her son: “His life was once again / in my hands / with the pleated blue cord / attached to each of our / bellies.” Chapin’s mode of expression may be laconic, but she possesses the power to touch the reader, often at the most unexpected of moments. The collection twists emotionally once again when Lois accompanies her long-estranged, now-ailing mother to the hospital for treatment. Dealing with the darkest of issues, including domestic violence, addiction, and rape, this collection can be emotionally challenging. Chapin is nonetheless an alarm- ingly skilled poet whose devastatingly powerful debut demands a cover-to-cover read in one sitting. Acutely observant writing; unsettling and life-affirming in equal measure.

128 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | Though Farley’s novel touches on some serious themes, such as abuse, this story is really a modern-day fairy tale. life on loan

LIFE ON LOAN struggling U.S. economy, orphanages are an easy way for the Farley, Ashley unscrupulous to make money, practically selling children. In Lake Union Publishing (301 pp.) one of these “asylums” in Las Vegas live three exceptional kids. $10.99 paper | Oct. 8, 2019 Mykl is only 5 years old but is secretly a genius with problem- 978-1-5420-4386-1 solving skills beyond most adults. Ditto for muscular teen James, who hides behind a slow-witted demeanor. Both are protectors Two women change their lives to of Dawn, a beautiful, iron-willed blind girl, so they conceal rediscover themselves in this novel. their gifts to remain in the harrowing environment. But—after Olivia Westcoat is a writer in South a ghastly ordeal—the three are detected, recruited, and trans- Carolina who has lost interest in the ported to a clandestine, subterranean desert facility (though direction of her blog. She’s sick of the named the City, it’s obviously inspired by Area 51 legends). high-society drama she’s been covering There, Above-Top-Secret Cmdr. Jack Smith shows the orphans and yearns to write a book. Lena Browder is a wife and mother astounding new technologies: cold-fusion energy, faster-than- who is in desperate need of an escape from her abusive husband light communication, innovative space travel, longevity-pro- and ungrateful daughter. Both women hop on a plane and leave ducing DNA, and other miracles that could advance humanity. their troubles behind, bumping into each other at an airport on But, Jack says, revealing these wonders would trigger all-out war a layover. The old college friends decide to swap houses for a and attacks by greedy, rival nations—especially China—which month, with Olivia traveling to Lena’s small vacation cottage are planning an apocalypse to weaken the U.S. for conquest. in the Northern Neck of Virginia and Lena heading to Olivia’s Jessica Stafford, a college graduate of extraordinary moral chic condo in Charleston. Though it takes time to adjust to character, is another of Jack’s hires, and she and James visit the

the pace of their new lives, Lena and Olivia begin to relax and Vegas casinos—filled with assassins—to play a dangerous game young adult envision a new future. Lena rediscovers her love of photogra- against the Chinese. Just how perilous it is unravels in the ava- phy as she wanders the streets of Charleston and engages with lanche of closing chapters that take an already over-the-top the city’s friendly residents. And in the quiet of a river cottage, premise way further than most readers would expect. Despite Olivia unwinds and begins her novel. Yet their life swap is not the presence of children and young adults as key protagonists, without complications. Olivia finds herself falling for the hand- it would be wrong to label this tale YA, though it carries the some widower next door, who is still struggling with his wife’s gee-whiz enthusiasm of golden age sci-fi (where clever gadgetry death and his relationships with his children. And Lena stum- was usually the solution, not the problem, and Fu Manchu types bles across a case of elder abuse and ends up in some serious like those found here grated somewhat less in the stereotype legal trouble. Though Farley’s (Only One Life, 2019, etc.) novel department). But the giddiness is tempered with gruesome vio- touches on some serious themes, such as abuse and the loss lence and a grim verdict on what it might actually cost to bring of a loved one, this story is really a modern-day fairy tale with forth a utopia of benevolent technocrats. The author’s remark- some enjoyable but unsurprising events. Her main characters able storytelling skills make the novel a proper page-turner, are well crafted and relatable, though some of the supporting although some elements (a lengthy subplot about a serial killer cast lacks nuance. Lena’s acquaintance Jade is a classic villain in particular) don’t quite gel with the others. who is “evil and manipulative” while Lena’s daughter promptly An impressive sci-fi tale despite some peculiar twists and somewhat inexplicably matures in the space of a few weeks. and retro turns. But maybe that’s all part of the fairy tale. And who doesn’t love a story of good versus evil that seems headed for a happy ending? Swapping houses never looked so good in this light and MAGIC IN THE LEAVES sweet romantic comedy. A Boy in Wisconsin Fleming, J Lee Illus. by Gerdes, BJ THE PROMETHEUS EFFECT Westbow Press (38 pp.) Fleming, David $15.15 paper | $3.99 e-book | Feb. 4, 2019 CreateSpace (498 pp.) 978-1-973650-97-3 $14.99 paper | $2.99 e-book Jul. 27, 2017 A boy’s grandfather teaches him how to build a clubhouse 978-1-973769-64-4 out of leaves in this picture book from debut author Fleming and illustrator Gerdes. In the mid-21st century, three orphans Six-year-old Iranian American Adrian decides that, rather land on a Nevada base that pits amazingly than vacation in Paris with his parents (where “he had been…a advanced technologies and spy networks HUNDRED times”), he’d like to visit his grandparents in Wis- against the threat of a new world war. consin. Grammy and Grandpa live on farmland surrounded by The world of 2040 is not a safe place woods, and at first, Adrian is enchanted by the animals he sees, to be in Fleming’s debut sci-fi novel. Nations scheme against and he and Grammy play outside together. When Adrian gets one another ruthlessly; oil reserves are running out; and in a bored and homesick, Grandpa teaches him to make a house out

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 129 of leaves. Adrian rakes, picturing the magical clubhouse that protest song. It’s all a bit random and jumbled, but Foster offers he’s building, and he starts making big plans for it. Although a a tasty feast of curious and intriguing lore for readers (and writ- thick snow nearly ruins his dream, Adrian realizes that imagina- ers) looking to spice up their language. tion is the key, and he builds a snow clubhouse that’s even better An intriguing romp for word and trivia mavens. than the leafy one. Beautifully shaded, highly realistic colored- pencil illustrations bring Adrian to life, though each clubhouse is marred by an unnecessary “No Girls!” sign. The prose is acces- IF I COULD... sible, with simple sentences, but its placement feels uneven; for Grandma Krazy example, the first page is intimidatingly full of text while other Illus. by the author spreads have only a single line. Still, Adrian’s imaginative adven- Xlibris (26 pp.) ture will likely draw young readers in. $21.99 paper | Jun. 27, 2019 A celebration of imagination with vivid drawings and a 978-1-79604-347-1 creative protagonist. 978-1-79604-346-4 paper

What changes would you make to GHETTO TO GHETTO the world, if you could? Grandma Krazy Yiddish & Jive in (Bears, Bears Everywhere, 2018) pitches Everyday Life silly, rhyming ideas in her second picture book. Foster, Herbert L. The narrator begins by imagining spending one’s life on the CreateSpace (178 pp.) beach and goes on to present some notions that are plain silly $20.00 paper | Apr. 19, 2019 (such as getting honey from chimpanzees rather than bees) and 978-1-72746-535-8 others that are idealistic, such as ending all violence. The last section of the book features a series of rhymed questions, ask- The languages of the Jewish and ing readers what their world would be like: “If I could make my black ghettos have enriched the wider own world, that’s what I’d do. What about you?” The repeated American vernacular, according to this pop-linguistics book. sounds in the rhymes introduce new vocabulary words (“vaca- Foster (Ribbin’ Jivin’ and Playin’ the Dozens, 2012, etc.), an tions” and “altercations”; “sandcastle” and “dismantled”) and emeritus professor of education at the State University of New make each page fun to read aloud. The full-color illustrations York at Buffalo, explores the mainstream success of two minor- feature a predominantly white cast, with few people of differ- ity verbal cultures. After a fun but pretty hard vocabulary test— ent skin tones, even in crowded scenes. When the book directs “NOSH is to FRESS as NEBBISH is to: a) shtchav b) shnuk c) questions to the reader, however, it invites them to imagine a shmatte d) baleboss”—the work’s centerpiece is a lengthy glos- world that may better reflect their experiences. The images of sary of selected Yiddish and Jive expressions that have entered silly, sneezing snakes, people flying in capes, and a bowl of veg- common parlance. The former include such essential Yiddish- etable candy, among others, nicely match the text’s humorous isms as “kosher,” “bagel,” “tush,” and “chutzpa” along with more tone. The rhymes’ lack of strict meter may also encourage read- exotic concepts like “farklempt”—agitated or depressed—and ers to write their own. the arcane anatomical terms “putz,” “schlong,” “schmuck,” and A creative ode to imagination with fun-to-read phrases. “shvantz,” all of which denote a feature of the male reproductive system. Jive entries include the classics “bling-bling” and “booty call”; the somewhat dated “playin’ the dozens” (meaning com- SUNLIGHT 24 petitive yo’-mama insults); locutions that most people don’t Graves, Merritt know came from the ghetto, like from the “get-go” and “24/7”; Time Tunnel Media (462 pp.) and arcane terms for white people, such as “Mr. charlie” and $14.99 paper | $2.99 e-book “ofay”—the latter said to come from the pig Latin for “foes.” The Jul. 31, 2019 author’s entries give dictionary definitions along with exten- 978-1-949272-02-4 sive usage examples gleaned from books, movies, newspaper articles, ads, and even license plates. “ISHLPKDS” (I SCHLEP A jaded high schooler of the mid-21st KIDS) declares the plate on one mom’s minivan. Additional century commits risky suburban burglar- chapters offer a miscellany of information and historical back- ies to pay for the physical and mental ground. These include sections on gentiles who spoke Yiddish, modifications needed to stay current in including novelist Ralph Ellison and actors James Cagney and a technology-blighted society. Michael Caine; “Shabbos goy,” gentiles who performed chores Graves (Lakes of Mars, 2019) creates a memorably com- forbidden to Jews on the Sabbath, among them Colin Powell, promised first-person narrator/antihero in Dorian Waters, an Harry Truman, and Elvis Presley; the Harlem Renaissance; the alienated teenager in America circa 2030 (Oakland A’s refer- “Green Book” guide used by black motorists and travelers to ences suggest a California locale), where advanced technology find accommodations in the segregated South under Jim Crow; comes with a high price monetarily—and in other ways. Robots and “Strange Fruit,” Billie Holiday’s famous anti-lynching and artificial intelligence have taken most jobs. Environmental

130 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | The chemistry between the two main characters burns hot from their very first meeting, and it remains so for the rest of the novel. always with you

collapse has meant scorching sunlight most of the year and ALWAYS WITH YOU the extinction of beneficial insects and most animal species. Hagen, Layla Humans have met the crises with nanotech and genetic modifi- Time Tunnel Media (322 pp.) cations, including their own. Drones shaped like birds and bugs $14.99 paper | $3.99 e-book not only pollinate, but also provide constant, camera-feed sur- Sep. 10, 2019 veillance everywhere. And people—if they are wealthy—may 978-1-68646-876-6 “Revise” on a cellular level, surviving outside without skin lotion and enjoying enhanced brainpower, stamina, musculature, and A steamy contemporary romance fea- beauty. The son of ill-paid civil servants, Dorian started in turing a reluctant hotelier and the public school smart and athletic, but he has fallen badly behind, real- relations expert who works for him. izing he cannot compete—not in college, not in careers, not in Reid Davenport is in charge of the romance—against expensively Revised upper-class kids. Tak- Hollywood-based Davenport hotel ing a cue from RPG-spycraft video gaming, Dorian maintains chain after his father suffers a stroke. His dyslexia makes it even a double life: hardworking student by day, burglar by night, more difficult for him to learn the ins and outs of the business, thwarting the ubiquitous monitoring devices of affluent sub- and his famous ex, Marion, is spreading malicious rumors about urbia while methodically robbing rich neighbors with a class- him to the tabloid press, saying that he’s an insensitive jerk. mate as his partner in crime. Dorian wants to finance physical Reid had planned to just let the scandal blow over, but when his and mental Revisions for them both and perhaps symbolically teenage sister, Bianca, says that her classmates are saying bad strike against the ennui and injustices of the system. Meanwhile, things about him, he breaks down and calls a public relations police start to close in. Even worse, Dorian’s secret is known firm, which puts Hailey Connor on the case. At first, Hailey

to his 14-year-old kid brother, Jaden. Jaden is a self-diagnosed believes Reid to be stuck-up and unpleasant, but she changes young adult psychopath, and if the authorities knew his mental state, there her mind when she sees how he clearly cares for his younger sib- would be harsh consequences for the household. Increasingly ling. She’s completely onboard with the PR job when she finds resentful of Dorian, Jaden nurtures his own, much darker plans. out that Marion cheated on Reid with his former hotel manager. Readers may be put in mind of popular YA dystopia authors The more Hailey works with Reid, the more she starts to fall riffing on Orwellian conformity (usually with a female protago- for him—and the attraction is definitely mutual. This is the lat- nist); witness Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies trilogy and Veronica est installment in Hagen’s (Fighting for You, 2019, etc.) Connor Roth’s Divergent three-parter. But Graves, like bad-seed Jaden, Family series, featuring the final Connor sibling. The chemistry is after bigger things (plus he wraps it all up in one sizable vol- between Reid and Hailey burns hot from their very first meet- ume). While it may bear the trendy tag cyberpunk, this novel is ing, and it remains so for the rest of the novel. Family is clearly one specimen of the computer-hype-happy sci-fi genre whose important to both of the main characters; Hailey’s parents died grievances and characters would resonate with F. Scott Fitzger- when she was 11, so she’s tight with the surviving Connors. The ald, who gets a shoutout here. The book’s facets include the other family members who appear over the course of the story inequities of class and wealth in America, the cri de coeur of are also well developed. Their appearances add welcome depth young have-nots against privileged elites, and the desperation to Reid’s and Hailey’s lives and offer readers something beyond of a member of this Kurzweilian lost generation to reinvent the primary drama about falling in love and dealing with exes. himself (in a literally Edisonian sense, with neural links, surgi- An entertaining and engagingly written tale that will cal implants, and subdermal databases) for acceptance into a please fans of its genre. neo-aristocracy. These actions turn out to be as disastrous for Dorian as they were for Gatsby (and, as with Gatsby, an unat- tainable girl provides added motivation and obsession). Unlike CONUNDRUMS OF so much else in cyber-sploitation’s literary data archives, Graves INDIGNANT BLISS does not concentrate on virtual-reality FX blasts, awesome Haliday, D.J. mechas, or cool hacker tricks and capers. Yes, such ingredients Poetry Attic (90 pp.) are present, but the tropes never overshadow Dorian’s essen- $12.95 paper | Jun. 1, 2019 tial dilemmas, relationships, and dread, conveyed in a measured, 978-0-9847218-2-5 sharply observant narrative that eschews merely fast-forward- ing to the next act of mayhem. The wonder-filled, terrible With a post-Beat outlook, this vol- future the author invokes feels uncomfortably real, inhabited, ume of poetry considers difficult truths and just around the corner. about a declining civilization. Teen-centered, future-shock tragedy of a high order, a “Once I was a beatnik,” declares the literate upgrade over standard gamer-hacker sci-fi. opening line of “The Smell of Polynesian Capital,” and in some ways Haliday (Young American Blues, 2012) still is. Much of this collection recalls works by such writers as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso. Like them, Haliday employs long, loose lines; unexpected phrasing; wordplay; and musical rhythms. And like them, he defies the conventional

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 131

INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Amy Gulick

AN INDEPENDENT AUTHOR AND NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER TELLS READERS THE VERY HUMAN STORIES BEHIND ALASKA’S WILD SALMON By Rhett Morgan ing trees, catching frogs, and imagining I was living with elephants and lions in faraway lands. In the second grade, my teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I drew a picture of me sitting next to a chimpanzee—just like my childhood and present-day heroine Jane Goodall.

When did you first start writing about and photographing nature? When I was 6 years old, I wrote and illustrated a tiny, little six-page book about trees. That first endeavor planted the seed, but it wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I began publishing my work in magazines.

What was most important to you in publishing your work independently? It was critical that I work with an imprint whose emphasis is the conservation of wild places. I make my books to make a difference—to tell stories of nature After getting sidetracked by a career in finance, and its importance to both wild and human com- avid naturalist Amy Gulick returned to her main pas- munities in the hope of spreading the message that sion: writing about and photographing nature. Gulick these places need to be conserved. To work with a has been contributing to magazines for 25 years now, but mission-focused publisher was essential in creating since 2010, she has also produced books focused on the books that could both convey my vision and reach delicate, fascinating ecosystem of Alaskan wild salmon. appropriate audiences. Her first book,Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest, was released through the nonprofit conser- How did the wild salmon in Alaska first catch vation imprint of Mountaineer Books and won an Inde- your attention? pendent Publisher Award and a Nautilus Book Award. In researching my first book, I found that the common This year, Gulick is showing readers the human side of language that everyone spoke was “salmon.” And no this story with The Salmon Way: An Alaska State of Mind, matter where I went and who I met with, I always left focusing on different Alaskans’ deep relationship with with salmon in my hands. I was so touched by this gen- “these extraordinary fish.” erosity, and I learned that people view wild salmon as a gift. The fish are a gift to the land, water, animals, plants, What made you interested in nature as a subject? and people. And when you’re on the receiving end of a I was one of those kids who was always outside climb- gift, you give thanks, you give back, and you share.

132 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com |

What gave you the idea to collect stories from the communities involved in fishing? I was intrigued that there is still a place in the world where the lives of people and wild salmon are inextri- cably linked. Throughout my travels, I asked everyone I met how he or she values salmon. And you know what? Everyone gave me the same answers: family, community, culture, well-being, connection to a home stream and and mainstream. For example, “Polynesian Capital” plays with chiming phrases like “Zoot suit riot or grapefruit / diet?”— to the land. The Salmon Way is a celebration and explora- which could be parsed as “Protest or conformity?” Long lines tion of the web of human relationships made possible of pressured speech follow: “Mix the two maniacally for a stale- free sunrise / routed toward that inner state of tumultuously / by these extraordinary fish. unstraightened affairs frozen in hot light of loneliness,” concluding with “Where has significance gone?” Despite today’s What will help these communities to continue? “betrayed delusions,” the poet nevertheless finds causes for sat- isfaction, even in fakery itself, like a street magician’s “smoke- In order for that to happen, salmon must have a healthy screen, / velvet top hat tipped to a magic afternoon on Haight. habitat in order to thrive. But the threats to salmon in // I can’t surrender the cosmos, / nor San Francisco absurdity, / assistant in lace more lovely / than the magic.” Beneath the mis- Alaska are greater than they’ve ever been—large-scale direction and patter, there are grace and beauty, whether of the extractive development that damages habitats and the afternoon, the assistant, or even the hat. Many poems wrestle impacts of climate change and an acidifying ocean. And with civilization’s horrors and the speaker’s unwilling complicity. “The Empire Builder,” for example, takes its name from a yet if wild salmon can thrive, it’s a good indication that passenger train operating across formerly Native American other species can too, including us. Our lives are linked. land—an image of an empire’s nature and cost: “Riding smooth iron scars across a cold American night, / effortless, except for the coal pumped, / except for history travelled upon.” As with

Rhett Morgan is a writer and translator based in Paris. other works, the piece can become baldly didactic (“our righ- young adult teousness / that Natives were slain for / and the Slave’s blood was traded for”), but the piece’s emotional basis comes through strongly. While many poems show cause for despair, the speaker also sees reason to hope: “Waves may consume the highway, / but some path will lead on.” Celebration and elegy underlie these poems and their deep engagement with America’s turmoil.

ÁNDALE PUSS Where to Next? Handley, Warren Illus. by Gibbs, Erin Manuscript

A cat embarks on a journey and must figure out where she’s arrived in this debut picture book. Ándale Puss is a gray, overalls-wearing cat who packs her bag to travel the world. Parachuting into a new location, she’s not quite sure where she’s landed, only that she’s cold in the snowy environment. After encountering a local warthog who kindly serves her borscht (“She dips in her tongue, and then her whole head. / Her kitty cat whiskers are turning bright red!”), some Matryoshka foxes startle her, causing her to flee into a bookstore. There, a sympathetic bear bookseller hands her works by Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky. Later, Ándale Puss sees a sign for “Moskva” and realizes she’s in Russia. The charming feline is an enthusiastic narrator, and debut illustrator Gibbs’ watercolors present her full of energy along with a captivating cast of animals reminiscent in design, if not technique, of Richard Scarry. Handley relates the humorous adventure in accessible and flowing rhyming couplets. The interjections of Russian script, with suggested pronunciations and the English translations below, help readers feel how strange it must be for Ándale Puss to confront foreign phrases while exposing them to

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 133 the sounds and shapes of another language. Endnotes describe section, featuring the colorful Bernie “the Attorney” Schwartz, how the author learned that a smile can bridge linguistic and is priceless. The novel also offers an intriguing hybrid of real culture gaps and help travelers make friends—a moral that the and fictional characters. Reles, Meyer Lansky, Lepke Buchalter, cat’s escapades wholeheartedly and effectively represent. and others are actual mob figures, but their stories mesh well Beautiful, kid-friendly images and a charismatic with those of invented characters, including the Levines; Ann; feline narrator should hook young readers on this intro- the perky Dawn Sanders, who helps Ann out around the office; duction to Russia. and the vengeful Detective John Mannion. Indeed, by the end of the novel, readers will find that the made-up characters feel like living, breathing people, as well. PUBLIC PARTS An entertaining literary work with realistic characters. Harris, Joel W. Xlibris (598 pp.) $40.91 | $23.99 paper | $3.99 e-book TO SAVE THE NATION Sep. 30, 2015 Kass, Robert E. 978-1-5144-0600-7 Robert E. Kass/Carob Tree Press 978-1-5144-0601-4 paper In Kass’ debut thriller, a lawyer takes In Harris’ debut novel, a dutiful son a case that pulls him into the dark world wants to make an honest success of his of organized crime and the grim legacy of father’s auto parts business—but the a past Argentinian conflict. mob may still be pulling strings behind In 1976, a small private jet crashes in the scenes. the Sierra Madre in Mexico, killing all Thirty-something Larry Levine has worked at his dad Big three passengers. One of the victims is Moe’s Public Auto Parts in New York City since he was in col- Ricardo Guttmann, a prominent Argen- lege. All of a sudden, Big Moe decides to retire to Florida, leav- tine banker who’s rumored to have links to the left-wing Mon- ing Larry holding a mostly empty bag. His dad not only left with tonero guerillas—a paramilitary organization whose principal most of the company’s funds—he also left a lot of questions source of income is ransom from kidnappings. Then a scandal unanswered. For example, Larry wonders about the mob’s con- surrounding Guttman’s employer surfaces—more than $200 nection to Public Parts when a sinister gentleman named Car- million has gone missing from the company coffers, and Gutt- mine lets Larry know that he’s not his own man but an owned mann is the only person who could possibly explain the discrep- man. Moreover, Larry finds out about the supposedly acciden- ancy. Later, a charred body is found, but some people believe tal death of mobster Abe Reles 30 years before; the man fell to it isn’t Guttman’s. In 2017, American lawyer N. David Winkler, his death just as he was about to rat out several other criminals. who once represented Guttmann’s company, coincidentally Does that fact have something to do with why Moe decamped meets Maria Theresa Romero, who believes that she may be so hastily? What’s in the wind all these years later? Although the banker’s daughter. Maria has evidence that suggests that Larry is desperate for answers, the old man is as cagey as ever. her mother was a prisoner during Argentina’s notorious Dirty Then Larry meets Ann Riordan, with whom he falls instantly War of the 1970s, in which the right-wing dictatorship in power and hopelessly in love—even though he’s a semihappily married sent death squads after dissidents. It also appears that her adop- man. Despite the turmoil caused by their relationship, Ann is tive father, an Argentine military officer, may have played a role also, as Larry’s executive assistant, the best thing to ever hap- in her mother’s death. Kass intelligently plumbs the depths of pen to Public Parts. The climax of the book is Larry’s trial after those violent Argentine years, following Winkler’s investigation he’s framed for arson, receiving stolen goods, and other crimes. into Guttmann’s disappearance after he takes Maria on as a cli- How did he get into such a mess? Eventually, Big Moe—a wid- ent. The author is an attorney, and his knowledge of his story’s ower whose health is failing fast—comes clean, to a degree, legal landscape is impressive, as is his expertise on the history of about what happened way back in 1941. Argentina. The prose is straightforward and unadorned, for the This is a very impressive debut, and although its nearly 600- most part, but sometimes a touch melodramatic; for example, page length may be daunting to some, it is, in fact, a brisk and upon meeting Maria, Winkler declaims, “If your mother was straightforward read. The book doesn’t focus on a huge cast— right about this, you are the daughter of an infamous man, and just Larry, the narrator, trying to reform Public Parts while our meeting is either an amazing coincidence or some sort of dealing with his feelings for Ann and hers for him. These are, divine intervention.” The plot is also gratuitously labyrinthine. for the most part, well-rounded characters, precisely because However, Kass poignantly evokes the generational ramifica- Harris takes his time to develop them. Ann is shown to be com- tions of Argentina’s most notorious period, in which unspeak- petent, enigmatic, and eerily perceptive; Big Moe could have able atrocities were committed. easily been a one-note character, but his love and care for his A feast of political intrigue and an astute exploration of only son show him to have some depth. Larry’s wife, Laurie, Argentina’s nefarious past. is a study in exasperation, but she’s also there when the chips are down. The dialogue is crackling and sly, and the long trial

134 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | Keyser’s personal anecdotes are succinct and revealing—and they all play into his argument for assisting others to help one’s business. you don’t have to be ruthless to win

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE THE CALIFORNIA IMMIGRANT RUTHLESS TO WIN King, Barbara Anne Keyser, Jonathan Cypress Point Press (392 pp.) Lioncrest Publishing (312 pp.) $14.99 paper | $2.99 e-book $19.81 paper | $6.99 e-book Feb. 19, 2019 Jul. 29, 2019 978-1-73353-690-5 978-1-5445-0424-7 In this debut novel, a Croatian immi- A former “ruthless” commercial real grant forges a life for himself at the start estate broker makes the case for selfless of the 20th century. business models in this debut book. When 16-year-old Martin Petrovich As the child of Christian mission- leaves his hometown of Dubrovnik on a aries living in Papua New Guinea, Keyser grew up helping ship bound for the United States, he knows that he may never those with even less than his parents had. After the family’s see his parents and siblings again. An uncle he has never met is eventual return to the United States, his parents struggled waiting to give him a job in San Francisco. Then Martin can send financially, trying to survive on his mother’s meager salary as money home to his relatives. Under his uncle’s tutelage and full a teacher, but they still managed to give back to the commu- of his own ambition, Martin resolves to work hard and learn nity. The author soon left this benevolent world behind for everything he can in hopes of establishing a business of his own. UCLA, where he set his sights on making money. He eventu- Yet soon the devastating earthquake of 1906 brings the city to its ally learned to lie “with sincerity” as a commercial real estate knees, destroying buildings and taking the lives of many loved

broker and achieved great success by misleading clients and ones. In the aftermath, Martin settles in Watsonville, a Califor- young adult stealing opportunities from co-workers—the norm in that nia town that holds fewer painful memories. Over the course business. But at a conference in Miami, Keyser was intro- of the novel’s ambitious scope, King neatly summarizes many duced to a radical idea that merged the triumphs he expected important political and cultural moments of the time. Martin with the teachings of his childhood: a model for developing is affable and honorable, verging on excessively flawless. During long-term relationships that could be based on selfless service his long and rich life, readers see him pour his soul into opening to others. He soon began helping people with no expectation a restaurant, struggle with the law during Prohibition, serve as of reward or compensation and ultimately built a client base a naval convoy escort during World War I, and watch his own more robust and loyal than any that could be forged with back- sons enlist in World War II. A special virtue of the story is the stabbing tactics and traditional sales strategies. He has since author’s focus on the diversity of the Watsonville population taken this idea into his own firm and established himself as and the changing sentiments of the American public toward a “thought leader” in the industry, hoping to motivate oth- specific nationalities. In addition to the large band of Croatian ers to take on his methods of service, “flat structure” (with- American characters the protagonist befriends, standouts in out traditional hierarchy), and an inclusive, caring company the cast include Ken Nakamura, a Japanese American commu- culture. The author wisely divides his book into two sections, nity leader whose family is placed in an internment camp, and the first being autobiographical and the second more ofa Hector Lopez, a Mexican laborer who helps Martin maintain guide to implementing his model. His personal anecdotes are Ken’s farm in his absence. Through these relationships, King succinct and revealing—such as the humiliating childhood and her players advocate for universal kindness and acceptance moment when his principal realized he only owned one pair of of marginalized groups. A slogan created to unite the town sum- jeans—and they all play into his larger argument for assisting marizes Martin’s own outlook best: “Strength in diversity. Unity others in order to help one’s business. The lengthier how-to in cooperation.” Although the writing occasionally sounds very section’s main arguments and buzzwords, like “being present” similar to a history textbook, Martin’s tale is full of persever- and “being disruptive,” become slightly repetitive, but Keyser ance, integrity, and humanity. complements his writing with extensive further reading lists An American success story that deftly emphasizes the and short, useful summaries. The tactics he has used in his country’s multicultural heritage. own firm also go far beyond the world of real estate, touching on how gratitude, honesty, and service can improve just about any team dynamic. Valuable, inspiring arguments for a more thoughtful approach to building a successful company.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 135 OLD NEW WORLDS GRIEF COUNTRY A Tale of Two Immigrants A New Way of Thinking Krummeck, Judith About Loss Green Place Books (360 pp.) Larkin, Stephanie $24.95 | Oct. 25, 2019 Ahadi Publications (214 pp.) 978-1-950584-09-3 $8.95 paper | May 1, 2018 978-0-9976983-3-6 In this cross-genre work, Krummeck (Beyond the Baobab, 2014) interweaves a A widow shares hard-won advice memoir of her immigration to America with those facing bereavement. with a creative imagining of her great- Larkin (Introduction to Chizigula, 2019, great-grandmother’s journey to South etc.) lost her husband, Ron, to brain Africa as a missionary’s wife. cancer. Two months after his death, she became the full-time In January 1815, English newlyweds Sarah and George caregiver for her mother, who had Alzheimer’s. This new role Barker traveled to Portsmouth to board a ship bound for the kept her from feeling the true weight of her loss. Based on her Cape of Good Hope. During their voyage to Africa, where research, she believes she suffered from “delayed grief.” More- they planned to do missionary work with the Khoikhoi people, over, she suspects she had experienced “anticipatory grief,” a an armed American merchant ship fired on their vessel. It was term coined by psychiatrist Erich Lindemann in 1944, start- the first of many perils that the couple would face during their ing with Ron’s diagnosis. By weaving in expert opinions on travels. The author says that she felt a sense of kinship with “grief work,” the author gives a more nuanced picture of the her great-great-grandmother Sarah after she herself emigrated bereavement process than is conveyed by Elisabeth Kübler- from Cape Town to the United States, 182 years later. She tells Ross’ now-discredited five stages. Larkin fleshes out the models of meeting her future husband, an American French-horn by describing her own sorrow’s emotional range. Throughout player, while working as a radio host in Johannesburg and goes the book, she uses the effective metaphor of grief as a coun- on to recall how she later became immersed in the story of her try made up of various states, such as Numbness, Depression, missionary forebears. Drawing upon family archives, her study Social Withdrawal, and Self-Absorption. The main text is inter- recounts two radically diverse personal journeys that link spersed with essays and poetry written at different points on her across the ages. Krummeck’s own story is written as a mem- grief journey; these offer windows into her state of mind at the oir, but Sarah’s reads like a historical novel, with factual mate- time. For instance, in an early poem she writes of Ron: “He is a rial and imagined dialogue side by side. These forms elegantly shadow of himself / A ghost, walking backwards / Away from my dovetail when the author inserts her first-person perspective outstretched hand / But never beyond true love’s grasp.” Larkin into Sarah’s narrative: “Sarah had conceived her fourth child maintained her emotional health through faith, bereavement around the time of their third wedding anniversary—I like to support groups, and purposeful work with refugees. She found, think on their wedding anniversary.” Krummeck also evoca- though, that she had to adjust her expectations when “invis- tively describes the landscape through her ancestor’s eyes: ible friends” dropped out of her life. Figuring out her ongoing “The clean air was pure and rich, the redolent earth a tawny role in her stepchildren’s lives was an additional challenge. The ochre.” The present and past meld well, creating a sense that most helpful sections of the work generalize from the author’s the author has a foot in both worlds. Nevertheless, this will experiences to give lists of what a widow needs in the first few prove an uncomfortable read for those who view the Barkers’ months (most importantly, for people to simply “acknowledge missionary vision negatively. For example, George declares, “I her loss”) and what not to say (“at least…” and other platitudes). work to try to give these people a life of dignity and purpose,” It’s common to compare grief, Larkin notes—claiming that the implying that the Khoikhoi people are incapable of either loss of a child is worse than that of a husband, for instance—but without guidance. Krummeck portrays George as being pro- such judgmental attitudes are unconstructive. Every death is gressive for his time, as he stood against apartheid in its “fledg- painful, as she convincingly argues. ing form.” Still, such issues are sure to divide reader opinion. A personal, relatable study of grief. Elegantly crafted writing on contentious subject matter.

136 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | London shows that she truly excels at character development; she makes sure that even minor players are fully fleshed out. the aussie next door

BUILDING WITH CERTAINTY THE AUSSIE Empowering the NEXT DOOR Astute Owner With London, Stefanie Evidence-Based Construction Entangled: Amara (350 pp.) Levine, Robert & Burns, Georgeann $7.99 paper | Aug. 27, 2019 Time Tunnel Media (124 pp.) 978-1-64063-668-2 $17.50 paper | $12.00 e-book Jul. 17, 2019 In USA Today–bestselling author Lon- 978-1-07-527521-0 don’s (How To Lose a Fiancé, 2019, etc.) latest romantic comedy, a hidebound Aus- A pair of experts offer a guide for the tralian cartoonist and his American ten- management and funding of construc- ant find love. tion projects. Australian Jace Walters is a creature of habit. He eats plain This collaborative work from the team of Levine and Burns porridge for breakfast every day after surfing at the beach and (Capital Projects and Healthcare Reform, 2015) expands from a has gained a following for his comic strip series about a hermit. couple of starkly simple opening assertions. “News articles are His mother understands his autism spectrum diagnosis, but she full of stories of monumentally botched schedules and budgets,” also feels that he needs to leave his comfort zone; as a result, the authors write. “Even projects that are said to be on time and Jace finds himself saddled with temporary custody of a family on budget often have scope and content significantly reduced friend’s two dogs. Meanwhile, American Angie Donovan learns from the original concept in order to meet those schedules and that her Australian visa is expiring in just two months. She feels

budgets.” As they observe, despite the best efforts of experts at home Down Under; she has money from a lawsuit settle- young adult and advisory panels, virtually every building project is still ment to live on and loves her volunteer position in a nursing plagued with the likelihood that it will be late, over budget, or home. One possible solution remains: She can get married to an scaled back from its original design. Drawing on the authors’ Australian citizen. However, she had a lonely, traumatic child- long experience in the industry, their new book provides a hood, so she doesn’t want a cold, paper marriage—she wants series of straightforward and useful ideas to fix this endemic to fall in love, even if she only has two months to do so. Angie problem, a process of evaluating projects rooted in evidence- enlists Jace to help her find romantic prospects; soon, sparks based design. The process has multiple components (Levine fly between them, and they begin a passionate sexual relation- and Burns stress throughout their succinct manual that seem- ship punctuated by picnics by the ocean and 1990s romantic- ingly simple answers to any of these issues are almost always use- comedy movie marathons. After Jace proposes, however, their less and can be damaging), sharing the main theme of increasing bond begins to crack: Can spontaneous Angie live with Jace’s the knowledge of the owners engaged in the projects. As the dependence on routine, and can he learn to compromise for the authors deftly point out, those owners should recognize the woman he loves? Over the course of this book, London shows need to educate themselves rather than complacently relying on that she truly excels at character development; she makes sure others; they should build an understanding of “the nuances of that even relatively minor players, such as Angie’s yoga teacher, the planning-design-construction industry”; and of course they Chloe Lee, and Jace’s flirtatious brother, Trent, are fully fleshed should prioritize communication at all levels and stages, break- out. The realistic yet witty dialogue jumps off the page, and the ing down the “silos” that tend to form when multiple groups two dogs in Jace’s care are lovable and endearing even when they are involved in any complicated, long-term project. The authors misbehave. Jace’s high-functioning autism is never treated in a have devoted their careers to enterprises involving health care, stereotypical manner; instead, it’s portrayed as something that but, as they note, all projects share general concerns with cost, the character realistically struggles with. The main characters schedules, and scope. All owners will benefit from the concen- have sizzling chemistry together, and they face believable hur- trated experience and wisdom delivered in these pages. The dles on the way to the inevitable happily-ever-after. specific construction details will change from project to project, A sweet, sexy read featuring a couple that feels both but the clear common sense advocated here is universal. true to life and aspirational. A concise, forceful, and entirely cleareyed program for getting the waste and disappointment out of the construction business.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 137 NURSES ON THE INSIDE UNDER THE Stories of the HIV/AIDS COTTONWOOD TREE Epidemic in NYC El Susto de la Curandera Matzer, Ellen & Hughes, Valery Meyer, Paul & Meyer, Carlos Tree District Books (244 pp.) Illus. by Hardy, Margaret $18.99 paper | $4.99 e-book North Fourth Publications (166 pp.) Jun. 11, 2019 978-1-951072-01-8 A debut graphic novel focuses on a zany family adventure in the American In this debut book, two nurses show Southwest. how the advent of the HIV infection The Meyer brothers take readers to permanently altered a vulnerable minor- New Mexico in 1949. A mischievous boy ity and the boundaries of global health care. named Carlos Lucero loves teasing a local elderly woman. But Based on actual events in their lives, career clinicians the woman is not just an average citizen: She is a curandera, or Matzer and Hughes begin their intensive, exquisitely moving healer. Carlos sees her as an old witch, and he manages to snatch narrative at the end of the 1970s in a Manhattan hospital where a cookie known as a bizcochito from her home. After Carlos rapid-onset, opportunistic infections like pneumocystis carinii takes a bite of the treat, he is swiftly turned into a calf. Amadeo, pneumonia first began immobilizing gay men at alarming rates. the victim’s older brother, and his friend Monree need to figure From the first hints of a “Gay Cancer” to future milestones in out how to turn Carlos back into a boy. The first idea is to go to disease developments and pharmaceutical intervention, the Monree’s grandfather. The man is a shaman, but, unfortunately, authors diligently and compassionately narrate firsthand how he is currently out of town helping a grandson on a vision quest. a community joined together throughout the ’80s and ’90s to To make matters worse, the boys realize that the curandera care for the dying, to inspire solidarity through candlelight vig- is following them, and she doesn’t seem happy. Her ability to ils, to extinguish stigma and shame, and to fight for the right change into different animals only frightens the duo more. The to die with dignity. With seamless ease, the book’s timeline boys make their way back to the Lucero home, where more of smoothly oscillates back and forth from Matzer’s and Hughes’ the family becomes involved. But how will they manage to save historical trajectories through their grueling nursing school Carlos and battle a woman skilled in magic? Even if it seems years into their close friendship and essential work with AIDS unlikely that Carlos will remain a calf forever, the journey to his patients. Supplementing this poignant chronicle are reflec- redemption is full of twists, comedy, and sprinklings of Spanish. tions from both authors on the positive and negative aspects The authors provide a helpful glossary at the end that translates of that indelible era. As an open lesbian who was closeted when the Spanish words like “abuelo” (grandfather) and “cueva” (cave). the epidemic began, Hughes remarks that she used to view the And the tale’s humor, much like many of the earthy colors entire period of death and disease “through my identity as a gay used by debut illustrator Hardy throughout the book, comes woman, but lately, I think I have viewed it as a New Yorker. I through strongly. For instance, a large talking rat named José felt that way especially after 9/11.” For lay readers, clinical foot- with a fondness for beer, cheese, and dancing tends to steal all notes are sprinkled throughout, offering explanations and spe- the scenes he appears in. In addition, whenever people become cific terminology on disease symptoms and medical procedures. creatures, they retain something of their human looks (José has Structured in an intensely personalized manner with heartfelt a mustache), and the results are cute and amusing. By contrast, prose and intimate, exacting details, the work ushers readers more serious portions can languish. The curandera is given a right into the authors’ AIDS ward, where sick men and women backstory to explain her cruelness. She mourns a tragic event in lay dying, at the mercy of homophobia and cruel bias, as disease her past yet her method of coping seems a little hard to believe researchers rushed to demystify and mitigate the medical car- even by quirky villain standards. Nevertheless, the narrative nage while perplexed politicians vacillated. The book is also a never drags and offers plenty of action. There are chases, mon- touching tribute to the resilience of a community; its unified, sters, and episodes of family bonding galore. There is even room unconditional allies; and the human kindness that continues to in the end for some sentimentality. interconnect everyone in times of horrific atrocities. “Despite A fantastical and satisfying romp near the Rio Grande. all the bullshit that happens,” Matzer declares, “most of us come together when we need to.” An accessible, universal, heartbreaking, and gut- wrenching AIDS chronicle.

138 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | The author’s descriptions, especially of settings, are a joy, whether the location is a fantasy landscape or a detective’s office. the invisible boat and the molten dragon

THE INVISIBLE BOAT AND THE A TEACHERS QUEST MOLTEN DRAGON Loving Our Students, Serving Müller, Eric G. Their Future Needs, and Waldorf Publishing (396 pp.) Saving the Schools $21.00 paper | Dec. 2, 2017 Murphy, Brian L. 978-1-943582-98-3 Manuscript

Three children continue their mis- A California educator shares his sion to ensure the world’s survival in this thoughts on teaching, classroom man- fantasy sequel. agement, and American schools. In the first installment of this Murphy (Drugs, Death, and Auras, series, the white Temple kids—older 2009) had the noble goal of wanting sister Julie and her brother, Leo—along with their African to teach, but in the early 1970s, jobs were scarce. Instead, he American neighbor Annabel—sailed in a magical, invisible pursued a business career that lasted 18 years. A layoff got him flying boat on a quest to free water sprites from theirmon- thinking about what to do next; he followed his passion and strous captors. This was the first step in reuniting humans started a second career as a teacher. Now a classroom veteran, with elementals (such as dwarfs and fairies), ushering in the Murphy seeks to educate prospective teachers with this book. new age of light. But a great battle is still to be fought, with He relies on his own experiences, liberally sprinkling classroom the children playing an essential role. As Brathnar, King of anecdotes throughout the volume. Each chapter raises a ques- the Dwarfs, explains, many forces “desire the destruction of tion that the author attempts to answer, such as “How Does

the inner light and our shared world….Earth’s fate depends One Decide What Grade to Teach?” and “What Do You Do young adult on you.” The kids make a long and perilous journey to bring About the Non-Productive Child?” The chapters are short, and the Water of Light from deep underground and distribute it the answers are generally helpful and instructive, infused with (in the form of magical seeds) as healing medicine for Mother Murphy’s passion for teaching. The text often includes strong Earth’s droughts and wildfires. The threesome also discover opinions honed by his business background; for example, about what’s happened to Annabel’s missing older brother, Mas- “non-productive” children, he writes: “Not once in all the years sud, and retrieve an essential artifact that helps them and I was in the business of manufacturing did one of the units on the elemental powers battle Zuratrat, the fearsome Molten the production floor REFUSE to be developed in a more useful, Dragon. Succeeding could heal the world, gain a treasure, more well-developed form. To the chagrin of teachers, students and make many wishes come true. The author continues the do this all the time.” Some of the author’s ideas about classroom fun, thrills, and lively characters from the series opener (The management are creative, such as an inventive technique he Invisible Boat, 2014) in this follow-up for fourth graders and learned from another teacher “that makes use of how [students’] up. Readers learn more about the neighbors in the Temples’ brains are actually wired.” On the other hand, the chapters that brownstone who contribute to the quest; Mr. Hoover, for walk through the teacher-union relationship and California’s example, is a private detective, and he helps the three chil- methods of school evaluation are a bit dry, technical, and too dren nail down clues related to Massud. Müller’s (Rounding state-specific to be of broad interest. Perhaps the most intrigu- the Cape of Good Hope, 2017, etc.) ending nicely brings all the ing content, which addresses a wider audience than prospective good guys together for a conclusion that’s logical and satisfy- teachers alone, is the author’s expansive commentary about a ing. The author’s descriptions, especially of settings, are a joy, failed education system. Most notably, Murphy observes that with well-chosen details to linger over, whether the location public schools are largely focused on preparing students for col- is a fantasy landscape, a magic shop, or a detective’s office. As lege when they should also be providing vocational options for before, the book has an urgently serious message of ethical non–university-bound pupils. His novel concept of appointing responsibility to the environment, but it doesn’t feel preachy an “Educational Convoy,” or group of stakeholders to look out thanks to the story’s highly colored adventures. for each child’s interests, is bold and refreshing. A fine tale with well-conceived quests, strong charac- Rambling at times but a candid, intelligent, and heart- ters, exciting confrontations, and a delightful resolution. felt look at teachers and the education system.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 139 QUEERIES Shelly Oria, Editor Of Indelible In The Hippocampus

By Karen Schechner Dror Sithakol they’re looking forward to reading Indelible even though the topic doesn’t interest them much, simply because they spotted some names on the list of contributors they admire. Some- thing I love about the book is just how stylistically diverse it is—because of the mix of genres you mentioned but also because you get extremely personal accounts next to essays that are more like think pieces (and they will make you think, potentially even alter your thinking), gut-wrenching moments next to flat-out funny ones, etc. That, too, I hope, is a trait of the book that makes it easier for different types of readers to engage. And when you engage, you’re having a conversation and participating in the larger one. I don’t know that that’ll happen, of course; changing minds, even just a few, or making some people consider a new perspective—that’s a big, heavy weight to put on the shoul- ders (spine?) of a pretty small book. But if it does happen, if I hear from some readers that Indelible made them see or get In Indelible in the Hippocampus: Writings From the Me Too something they didn’t before—well, then I’ll feel like we’ve Movement (McSweeney’s), a diverse contingent of writers— done our part. including black, Latinx, Asian, queer, and trans women— offers fiery responses to gender-based harassment and vio- How did the collection come about? lence. The collection uses humor, ire, and insight to show The book came about when I emailed Kristina Kearns—then that by recording and retelling #MeToo stories, we can, as Executive Director of McSweeney’s—asking if she’d like to contributor Quito Ziegler says, start to “see through the publish a short story I’d recently finished. This was October turbulence to the light ahead.” Our reviewer notes that 2017, soon after Harvey [Weinstein was first accused of sexual Indelible “functions as an empowered testament and trea- assault]. I never imagined #MeToo would become the global tise, a book for anyone interested in social justice.” We talk movement it’s become; I assumed the conversation and re- with editor and contributor Shelly Oria about the catalyst vived hashtag would stay in the news for a week at most. That for the collection and her hopes for its impact. story I’d written, “But We Will Win,” is told from the point of view of a woman whose ex-girlfriend ran into traffic to escape Indelible in the Hippocampus, a multigenre collection, sexual street harassment. The narrator began murdering men uses a range of styles and tones—wry, revelatory, funny, on occasion after that as a way of coping with her grief and rage. devastating, serious, seriocomic, informative, galva- It’s a commentary—though that’s perhaps a bit reductive—on nizing. How do you hope it might change or inform the the anger women have had to swallow for so long and also a way readers view the #MeToo movement? metaphor for the necessity to ruin some existing structures to Um, can I use this list of adjectives as a blurb for Indelible? I make room for the new. love it. I emailed Kristina thinking I should try to publish this One of my hopes in this context is that the book reach- timely story of mine as soon as I could. My email started an exes some folks that maybe haven’t been too interested in the change between us; pretty soon we were talking about a book, #MeToo conversation until now. Quite a few people (well, and soon after she asked if I’d be the editor. white, straight men) have told me in the last few months that

140 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | Throughout the collection, narrators gain strength from recounting or reframing #MeToo moments; for example: “It starts when you say it in words, that first push of bravery. The shock of hearing yourself tell another human: I was raped.” What is it about storytelling that allows for this alchemy? There’s such power in language and in the written word in particular. I also work as a life and creativity coach—I’ve had my private practice for over a decade now—and so much of the GOD CREATES A SNAKE work I do with clients involves various types of assignments Peterson, Charles Illus. by Russell, Brian they complete in writing. For most people—people, not just The Underfold (32 pp.) writers—writing is a necessary path to healing. Or at the very $12.99 paper | $3.99 e-book least, speaking, and naming. Trauma can never shift form if it’s Aug. 13, 2019 978-0-9859277-3-8 stuck inside our head. In this short picture book, debut The #MeToo movement, as essential as it is, doesn’t re- author Peterson expands a simple joke ally address the sexual assault faced by people of color into a fun story. The book opens with a view of a building labeled “Creation and trans and gender-nonconforming communities. Is Station.” Inside, a snake and a cat sit in a waiting room. The that something you wanted to counter in Indelible? snake is called in to have a meeting with God—portrayed as Oh, absolutely. This is such a messed-up brand of exclusion: a large, bearded man with skin that looks like a starry sky. He Women of color, queer and trans women, so many women tells the newly created snake that he’ll be able to crawl on land, climb trees, and swim. When God asks if the reptile has any who deal with gender-based bias and violence on a daily ba- other questions, he replies, “How fast will I run?” God ner- sis, fell outside the parameters of acknowledgment and dis- vously notes that they “ran out” of legs. Then a centipede walks course because the narrow idea the movement initially put in to ask God if it’s really necessary for him to have 100 legs.

The snake is annoyed, and God says, “You weren’t supposed young adult forth for the type of woman who gets harassed or assault- to see that.” Russell’s (What I Remember About Dinosaurs, 2012) ed was “Beautiful Straight White Cis Woman Actress.” And images are cute, dynamic, and colorful throughout. The text is of course everyone was talking about the hashtag as though chiefly dialogue, presented in cartoonish word bubbles, which it was something new, so there was also a lot of erasure of will make the story appealing to young readers with an affinity for comic books, which this one resembles. Although the title Tarana Burke’s work, who’d started the movement back in and depiction of God may lead one to believe that this is Judeo- 2006. In light of all that, it’s safe to say inclusivity was a top Christian fiction, the book contains no specific religious allu- goal for us in assembling writings for Indelible. sions, making it appropriate for all audiences. An amusing book for joke-obsessed early readers.

Karen Schechner is the vice president of Kirkus Indie. Indelible in the Hippocampus received a starred review in the July 15, GREYBORN RISING Sandy, Derry 2019, issue. Caribbean Reads Publishing (332 pp.) $20.99 | $12.00 paper | $6.99 e-book Jul. 1, 2019 978-1-73382-993-9 978-1-73382-992-2 paper

In Sandy’s debut fantasy novel, the last surviving member of a Trinidad- based group must stop evil from sweeping civilization. Trinidadian Le Clerc is a member of the Order, which hunts paranormal menaces from a magical realm called the Grey. On a recent mission in the Paria forest, Rohan—along with his cousin Dorian; his grandfather Isa; and fellow Orderman Kimani—battled the werewolflike lagahoo. All the members of the group were killed except for Rohan despite the fact that all had enhanced senses, stamina, and reflexes. Now he’s the last living member of Stone House, which works alongside Wood and River Houses under the guidance of the Watchers’ Council. They keep track of breaches from the Grey into humanity’s realm, known as the Absolute. (A third realm, the Ether, contains heaven and hell.) The morning after laying his relatives to rest, Rohan patrols the trails

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 141 surrounding Stone House. He’s shadowed by Voss Prakash, who marveled at a marathon’s 26.2-mile distance: “That’s longer who was sent by the Watchers to protect Rohan until he can than the drive between Bowling Green and Toledo.” In another appear before the Council to report on Isa, Dorian, and Kimani vignette, the author’s college-age stepson Rik got up early on a (whose body, it turns out, is missing). At the Council’s behest, Sunday morning to hand the author Gatorade during one mara- Rohan and Voss join forces with Lisa Cyrus, an inexperienced thon. Other race locations included California, New York, and seer. Together they must stop Lucian, an “obeah man,” or sor- Ontario, although most occurred in Ohio and Michigan. The cerer, who wants to merge the Grey and the Absolute, pitting route descriptions offer evocative passages: “For me, that Big humanity against primal forces. Sandy crafts a ghoulish tale Ten Run was about learning how to love a place for the first from elements of Caribbean folklore and shows a great love for time, and nothing can quite match that feeling.” The epilogue gory action. History plays a vital role, as well, as scenes set in finds the author taking a chilly December run in Greenville, the early 19th century depict plantation culture and add weight South Carolina, where he nicely ties together the book’s nar- to the brief appearance of Katharine, a helpful “soucouyant,” or rative strands; he cleverly inverts the chronology here so that blood-drinker. Characters such as Tarik Abban, a young pick- the events of the epilogue precede the prologue’s, suggesting pocket, and Clarence Jeremy, a terminally ill sex worker, repre- that he will need all the lessons he learned in order to face an sent more realistic horrors of city life. The author truly excels, unknown future. however, in his meticulous plotting involving supernatural ele- Ideal for runners but accessible to all readers seeking ments. Artifacts such as teleportation boxes and creatures such wisdom and inspiration. as the gigantic Moongazers generate entertaining mayhem. There are also moments of unnerving prose, as when “Fat grubs with black beady heads” were “hitting the ground...like rain on FORBIDDEN VEGETABLES leaves,” which make this an unforgettable read—and Sandy, a A Timothy & Alix name to watch. Murder Mystery A masterful tale that illuminates terrifying creatures Smalley, Bion in Caribbean lore. Illus. by the author Time Tunnel Media (103 pp.) $12.95 paper | Jul. 6, 2019 TEN MARATHONS 978-1-07-835530-8 Searching for the Soft Ground in a Hard World An orange-skinned man with carrot- Schneider, Doug like features, his dwarf friend, two university professors, and a Saybrook Publishing (128 pp.) movie star become embroiled in a murder mystery in Smalley’s $14.99 paper | $7.99 e-book (The Bare Bear, 2015, etc.) graphic novel. Mar. 7, 2019 Lanky circus performer Hugo the Carrot Boy doesn’t know 978-1-73352-730-9 his roots, having grown up on a farm with neglectful adoptive parents. But he does have an old photograph of geneticist A runner shares life lessons in a debut Carter Millwheel, who’s currently at Lake Shore University in memoir that combines inspirational text, Chicago. Hugo has a plan involving the scientist that could a tour guide, and a career survey. result in substantial cash, so he heads to the college with his pal The prologue of this book features a fraught phone call Balthazar, “the World’s Mightiest Dwarf.” At Lake Shore, pro- between Schneider and his elderly mother, who’s in decline fessor Alix Fitzsimmons convinces her boyfriend, fellow profes- due to Alzheimer’s disease and terminal cancer; this gives way sor Timothy Legend, to attend an upcoming protest rally that to the author’s childhood memories of Bowling Green, Ohio. anti-technology activist Julian Potkin is spearheading. Alix was Long-distance running, a grueling activity that engages body, planning to cover the rally for a local newspaper, but she gets mind, and spirit, initially provided the author with stress relief; sidetracked by the arrival of famous actress Goldie Hart, who’s he relied on it during exams, as he faced uncertainty about his at the university on a film shoot. Goldie initially asks Alix for educational options, and when he had troubles in his first mar- directions, but the two women quickly become friends. Mean- riage. The book’s prominent themes include dedication, pacing, while, Hugo disguises his distinctive carrot features on campus stamina, self-awareness, and the humility that comes with occa- and retrieves research material from Millwheel’s lab; he subse- sional stumbles. Most chapters begin with the date and location quently blackmails the geneticist with information about a par- of a particular marathon, Schneider’s running time, and a rel- ticular experiment. Before long, someone turns up dead, and evant quotation. He employs marathons as structural devices, amateur detectives Alix and Timothy investigate the handful allowing him to explore his relationships, with a focus on his of people who had motive and opportunity to commit murder. relationship with his supportive second wife, Elaine. After they Despite some intermittent violence and sexual themes, Smal- received terrible news, he writes, “we were in such a daze that ley’s graphic novel’s tone is one of lighthearted fun. Timothy is I couldn’t even taste the pepperoni” in their pizza. Schneider often appealingly facetious, and greedy Balthazar has a loyalty thus succeeds at underscoring critical moments through plain- to Hugo that’s endearing. Over the course of the story, there are spoken language, as in a touching anecdote about his father, a few surprises involving connections between a few characters,

142 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | Stephens offers a fantasy focusing on primal good and evil that should entrance fans of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. samuil and the legendary snow owl

and the murder mystery plotline is consistently engrossing. MOONFLOWER IN However, readers may find it bewildering that quick-witted Alix AUTUMN RAIN and Timothy must rely so heavily on the latter’s artificial-intel- Collection of Short ligence project—especially when a second murder points to an Stories & Poems obvious suspect whom the two professors don’t seem to con- Stone, Ilish sider. Smalley’s bold, black-and-white illustrations are skillfully Time Tunnel Media (190 pp.) organized, rendering occasional directional arrows unnecessary. $10.42 paper | $2.99 e-book An unorthodox but diverting whodunit featuring col- Apr. 22, 2019 orful characters. 978-0-578-49758-7

These short stories, poems, and a SAMUIL AND THE LEGENDARY novella explore surreal landscapes of SNOW OWL emotions and relationships. Stephens, Randall The first four parts of this collection each contain a short iUniverse (336 pp.) story followed by three related poems. The final section fea- $34.99 | $20.96 paper | $5.99 e-book tures a novella and a single poem. A sense of surrealism and Apr. 17, 2019 uncertain identity underlies these pieces, as in the opening tale, 978-1-5320-6998-7 “The Antonym of Flower is Wind,” which begins with a dream- 978-1-5320-6996-3 paper like image: “The swan that sleeps on people’s bellybuttons.” It’s offered by a young woman called Lorelei, who fascinates the

This debut historical fantasy sees a narrator, but he eventually realizes that “something was leav- young adult Russian family battle dark forces in the ing” inside her, going somewhere he can’t follow. Over the years, wilds near the Black Sea. some things remind him of Lorelei: the harmonica, fireflies. In In 1840s Russia, 17-year-old P’etro Fedorchak fights in the narrator’s mailbox is a letter from Lorelei telling him: “You’re the Allied Shadow War. He joins comrades Samuil “The Fox” over there, over in the real world. I’m not there….You’d never find me.” Wolowitz and Dimitri “The Bear” Popovitch against human He remembers her saying she can’t ever be human, and “in some soldiers and demons coming from a forest by the Black Sea. ways, you’re just like me.” The accompanying poems use associ- Samuil perishes in the war but P’etro returns to Moscow a hero. ated imagery; in “No Longer Human,” for example, “the fireflies During the celebratory parade, he saves a young woman named float / then no longer glow / … / So you, too, / so warm and lov- Ilia from being trampled by runaway horses. Later, he works ing, may no longer stay.” In another story, “A Silent Anemone,” a on her family farm, where the two fall in love. They marry and man claims to be from Venus, and the narrator (who pretends to move to Bakota, Ukraine, to start a family of their own. When be deaf but isn’t) can’t help believing him. In other tales, char- Ilia becomes pregnant, she’s sure it will be a boy, and they plan acters transform themselves, confront death and evanescence, to name him Samuil. One evening, P’etro notices an other- and look for the real and unreal within the mundane. In his worldly fog rolling in from the forest. This is the night Ilia book, Stone (I’m a Duck With Alligator Fingers, 2018) writes in a gives birth, but not without complications. P’etro crosses the captivating magical realist vein. His images are dreamy, too, and countryside to fetch aid from Galina, the wife of their friend often melancholic: A girl who tries to sail her ship to the moon Ivan “The Boar.” P’etro ends up in a magic cave that leads to discovers that “even in the myth, the moon failed.” Romance, a cabin in the “Borderlands.” He encounters a “dark presence” or at least the promise of it, underlies many of these stories, that says, “I am he who will destroy everything and everyone with the mysterious embodied by an attractive young woman. you love.” Luckily, P’etro’s family doesn’t face this evil alone. A dream girl isn’t the freshest trope, but it’s complicated by an Nikolai of the Caves and his hound, Wolf Killer, will help. For aura of unease or alienation. At times, the author overrelies on his series opener, Stephens offers a fantasy focusing on primal cultural touchstones, especially songs, to establish taste and good and evil that should entrance fans of The Lord of the coolness credentials (including “Another World” by Kinoko Tei- Rings trilogy. The heroes embody natural icons, and readers koku; “The Dandelion Girl” by Robert F. Young; and Dalí’s The see P’etro “the Rock” earn his name during the war for being Persistence of Memory). “strong, unmovable, and true.” The narrative hops forward in Intriguing journeys through ambiguous states of being. stages, checking in on P’etro’s son, Samuil, as a 3-month-old baby, then at ages 8 and 12. Fabulously realized ambiance, utilizing mist and wild cat screams, portrays the eerie Southern Forest as a place of deepening weirdness. Grounded human elements, like P’etro’s traumatic flashbacks to the war, allow the supernatural motifs to ramp up evenly. This first volume’s magical crescendo should create loyal readers who will return for more fairy tale–style grandeur. A captivating start to an Eastern-flavored and methodically built fantasy epic.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 143 TIME TUNNEL unusually believable. His time machine’s origin and develop- The Twin Towers ment have a strong, plausible basis, and his characters’ back- Todd, Richard stories and personalities provide realistic motivations. The Time Tunnel Media (410 pp.) research project also makes a thorough case for choosing 9/11 $12.95 paper | Sep. 5, 2019 as a vital historical inflection point—not only because of the 978-0-578-52240-1 attacks’ impact, but also because the activities and locations of the hijackers before the events are well known. As the main A soldier travels back in time to pre- characters carry out their exciting mission and remake history, vent the 9/11 attacks and save his wife’s readers will find it intensely satisfying, and the cliffhanger life in debut author Todd’s first sci-fi ending promises new thrills to come. thriller in a duology. A compelling premise that’s strengthened by solid sci- On Sept. 10, 2001, Maj. Kyle Mason, entific explanations, well-rounded characters, and nail- a sandy-haired, green-eyed, and chiseled U.S. Army Special biting suspense. Forces soldier, can’t believe his luck: “He was newly wed to the most beautiful woman on the planet, and he was at the zenith of his career.” His 35-year-old wife, Padma Mahajan, a few DEAD MANKIND WALKING years his senior, is the vice president of a Wall Street invest- Townsend, Johnny ment bank with offices in the World Trade Center. After the Booklocker.com, Inc. (240 pp.) next day’s disastrous events, Kyle’s life is torn asunder; grief- $15.95 paper | $3.99 e-book stricken, he spirals downward into depression and resigns Feb. 25, 2019 his commission. Then, in 2008, Gen. Aaron Craig asks him, 978-1-64438-034-5 “Major, what if you could change everything?” Kyle, reinstated as a lieutenant colonel, soon joins a secret research project A collection of political and cultural in Nevada that’s been operating for decades. Scientists have essays tackles big issues. constructed a time machine, and the project’s mission is to “Most of my life I’ve been called avert the 9/11 attacks by assassinating the hijackers before both unrealistically naïve and overly they can carry out their plan. Although Kyle and his partner, cynical,” writes Townsend (Human Com Col. Annika Wise, are highly prepared, they face unexpected passion for Beginners, 2018, etc.) in the introduction to this vol- difficulties on the mission, which takes a surprising turn. ume, which covers many of the most divisive fault lines in the Todd grippingly conjures a what-if time-travel scenario that’s current political moment. Perhaps both of these things are requirements for a progressive—or at least one with a sense of humor—which is what the author reveals himself to be as This Issue’s Contributors he opines on such topics as religion, capitalism, and the bal- # looning climate crisis. He gets into narrower issues as well, ADULT including in his critique of Israel’s Palestinian policy from the Colleen Abel • Maude Adjarian • Mark Athitakis • Colette Bancroft • Joseph Barbato • Amy Boaz Catherine Cardno • Lee E. Cart • Kristin Centorcelli • Joshua Claybourn • Devon Crowe • Dave perspective of a Jewish American (albeit one who converted to DeChristopher • Amanda Diehl • Bobbi Dumas • Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Anjali Enjeti • Chelsea Judaism after leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Ennen • Kristen Evans • Mia Franz • Jackie Friedland • Amy Goldschlager • Michael Griffith • Janice Saints of his youth). He writes about why classes on race, gen- Harayda • Peter Heck • Natalia Holtzman • Matt Jakubowski • Jessica Jernigan • Skip Johnson Jayas- hree Kambel • Tom Lavoie • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Peter Lewis • Don McLeese Gregory der, and social justice should be mandatory in the workplace. McNamee • Clayton Moore • Sarah Morgan • Ismail Muhammad • Christopher Navratil Connie He bemoans the internecine fighting in the Democratic Party Ogle • Mike Oppenheim • Scott Parker • Jim Piechota • William E. Pike • Margaret Quamme between moderates and progressives, all of whom seem more Carolyn Quimby • Amy Reiter • Lloyd Sachs • Leslie Safford • Bob Sanchez • E.F. Schraeder • Gene Seymour • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Clay Smith • Wendy Smith • Leena Soman • Margot E. willing to blame Democrats than denounce the Republicans. Spangenberg • Rachel Sugar • Tom Swift • Claire Trazenfeld • Jessica Miller • Steve Weinberg • Joan Each essay comes from Townsend’s particular perspective of Wilentz • Wilda Williams • Kerry Winfrey • Marion Winik growing up gay in the conservative confines of the Latter-day

CHILDREN’S & TEEN Saints church as well as the pull between the traditions of his Lucia Acosta • Autumn Allen • Marcie Bovetz • Linda Boyden • Jessica Anne Bratt • Christopher A. upbringing and the necessities of an inclusive modern society. Brown • Jessica Brown • Timothy Capehart • Patty Carleton • Ann Childs • Amanda Chuong Through anecdotes, observations, and a fair bit of ranting, the Tamar Cimenian • Eiyana Favers • Rodney M.D. Fierce • Ayn Reyes Frazee • Laurel Gardner • Judith Gire • Carol Goldman • Vicky Gudelot • Gerry Himmelreich • Julie Hubble • Kathleen T. Isaacs author attempts to cajole America back into some semblance Darlene Sigda Ivy • Danielle Jones • Betsy Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • Megan Dowd Lambert • Lori of common sense. Townsend writes in an energetic prose that Low • Wendy Lukehart • Kyle Lukoff • J. Alejandro Mazariegos • Katrina Nye • Sara Ortiz • Rachel balances crankiness and humor. “When Facebook developed G. Payne • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Andrea Plaid • Asata Radcliffe • Kristy Raffensberger Amy B. Reyes • Christopher R. Rogers • Leslie L. Rounds • Lenny Smith • Rita Soltan • Mathangi its additional line of emojis to satisfy users who wanted to do Subramanian • Steven Thompson more than simply Like another person’s post or comment, we were happy,” begins one essay. “After all, if a Friend posted INDIE Alana Abbott • Rebecca Leigh Anthony • Kent Armstrong • Darren Carlaw • Charles Cassady about their dying cat, we could hardly click Like in response.” Michael Deagler • Stephanie Dobler Cerra • Steve Donoghue • Megan Elliott • Joshua Farrington The book reads more like a collection of newspaper columns Morgana Hartman • Matthew Heller • Justin Hickey • Ivan Kenneally • Collin Marchiando • Rhett Morgan • Jim Piechota • Alicia Power • Sarah Rettger • Mark A. Salfi • Jerome Shea • Barry Silverstein than a work of cultural criticism (and many of these pieces Holly Storm • Emily Thompson • Amanda Toth • Lauren Emily Whalen did originally appear as editorials). How much readers will

144 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | Treese’s prose is strong and naturalistic throughout, giving readers deep insight into the characters’ thought processes. the language of divorce

agree with the author will likely depend on their own political EDUCATION FROM A DEEPER beliefs. That said, those who share his worldview—and per- AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY haps feel that same cynic/naif dichotomy within themselves— PERSPECTIVE will applaud his arguments, particularly those regarding the Enhanced by Relating to seriousness of climate change. Social-Emotional Learning A rambunctious volume of short, well-crafted essays (SEL) Based on Mindfulness, from a man with a strong point of view. Self-Awareness & Emotional Intelligence Watagodakumbura, Chandana THE LANGUAGE OF DIVORCE Time Tunnel Media (250 pp.) Treese, Leanne $15.00 paper | Aug. 1, 2019 Filles Vertes Publishing (404 pp.) 978-1-0721-1375-1 $16.00 paper | $3.99 e-book Sep. 10, 2019 An educator proposes a research-based teaching method 978-1-946802-39-2 that incorporates broad aspects of the human mind and personal development. A debut literary novel focuses on a In this second edition of his debut book, Watagodakumbura troubled couple’s relationship dynamics. makes a case for what he calls “authentic” education, a holistic What happens when cracks start to practice that maximizes learning by being more responsive to form in the ideal life? Hannah and Will students’ needs and concentrates on deep lessons rather than

Abbott embody the picture-perfect rote memorization. The work guides readers through research young adult existence, with their supportive marriage, beautiful home, on brain development, learning styles, and the creation of and two wonderful kids. But when each starts to suspect the knowledge (Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Daniel Siegel, other of infidelity, the ordinary points of friction in any rela- and Rick Hanson make appearances in the text, as do frequent tionship spiral into a major crisis. The plot really kicks off mentions of Bloom’s taxonomy and Maslow’s hierarchy), deliv- when Hannah seeks advice from a divorce attorney, dramati- ering a greater understanding of what it means to be educated. cally escalating tensions until neither spouse can stop their The author establishes the many ways in which contemporary stories from taking on lives of their own. It’s at this point educational environments do not meet student needs and keep that the novel truly shines, with the introduction of David pupils from reaching their maximum potentials, and he shows Dewey and Rachel Goldstein, Will’s and Hannah’s respective how many aspects of modern life could be improved by a wider attorneys, as point-of-view characters, lending the portrait approach to the learning process. He then provides readers of the couple more depth. Additionally, the lawyers spur with examples of how authentic techniques can be used in the the proceedings forward, rapidly escalating tensions even classroom while acknowledging the difficulty of implementing as their personal and professional lives become increasingly these strategies within the current education milieus. The book entangled with the Abbotts’. But an unexpected opportunity is aimed at students of pedagogy and classroom teachers who presents itself when Will and Hannah get an offer to appear deal with the practical applications of education research, and on a reality TV show about divorcing couples. With the gor - it stays focused on its specialist audience throughout the text. geous backdrop of St. John and millions watching, the two Watagodakumbura is passionate about the potential ben- are surrounded by distractions and temptations, but they efits of authentic education. The work serves as a generally may also finally have the breathing room to think things over compelling argument for revisiting the traditional approach the right way and decide whether this is an ending or a new to teaching and learning, acknowledging that it represents a beginning. Treese’s prose is strong and naturalistic through- substantial change from the status quo: “Authentic education out, giving readers deep insight into the characters’ thought per se is a catalyst for a holistic transformation our societies processes and sticking close to their perspectives. The story need in the educational forefront, not a patch to be applied, also occasionally skips around in time, especially toward the to be swayed in the presence of economic or market changes beginning, which provides a detailed look at the relation- with a narrow perspective or to suppress one problem until ship. If there is a fault in the characterization, it’s that Will we encounter another, much bigger one.” The arguments are and Hannah lean toward the archetypal. He’s spontaneous based on solid and substantial research, with full citations. while she’s fastidious; she’s composed when he’s childish. While the volume skillfully addresses the conceptual aspects These are familiar tropes, but the humor, the momentum of of the education system’s shortcomings, it is particularly the plot, and the complications and viewpoints presented by effective in identifying concrete, accepted practices that limit Rachel and David more than make up for any sense of rote students’ potential development, such as the use of multiple- familiarity. Ultimately, this nuanced and empathetic novel choice questions and the imposition of artificial time limits. balances the difficult and the heartwarming, managing to The book also does an excellent job of explaining why adapt- become more than the sum of its parts. ing to the neurodiversity and varied needs of the student A clever, incisive character study that explores romance population is a benefit both to individual pupils (who are not and strife. marginalized by rigid definitions of learning and achievement)

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 145 and society (which gains the talents of more productive folks or Only Will Decision Chart” that clearly lays out whether a while isolating fewer who do not conform). The author pres- trust is advisable in a given situation. In the first part of the ents a strong case for the dramatic changes he advocates and book, Willingham candidly, and humorously, writes about the benefits of “an integrated human development-focused “Wordy Lawyer Words”: “Like doctors, lawyers need to make sustainable system.” The prose is occasionally awkward things confusing so we can charge a lot of money.” He goes on (“Many students, especially in teenage and early adulthood, to deftly explain common legal terms and define types of prop- may feel the learning environment in a more neutral manner”; erty from a legal perspective. There’s also a useful discussion “Under prevailed social contexts”). But there are also plenty of of estate planning as well as what might happen if one doesn’t vivid metaphors and imagery that will draw readers’ attention adequately look ahead. The second part of the book includes a and make the complex topic manageable. clear comparison of “probate with no will” and “probate with An ambitious and well-argued approach to redesign- will.” For readers considering a trust, the third section lays out ing the educational environment to better respond to stu- numerous reasons to go with that option as well as a rundown dent needs. of various types of trusts. Willingham uses relevant examples from his own practice as well as hypothetical cases as he intelligently discusses beneficiaries and estate taxes, among other DO I NEED A WILL issues. The author’s “Tips and Tricks” in the book’s third part OR A TRUST? are noteworthy in that they not only suggest possible strategies Willingham, Taylor Phillip for creating certain trusts, but also ways to reduce legal fees. Time Tunnel Media (175 pp.) A witty, digestible legal guide. $29.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Jun. 7, 2019 978-1-07-063083-0 THREE DEGREES AND GONE Willis, J. Stewart A lawyer uses humor to enliven a dis- Black Rose Writing (316 pp.) course on wills and trusts. Willingham (Why Should I Care? I’ll Be Dead, 2017) directly and authorita- As climate change turns the United tively answers the question posed in the book’s title, but he States into a storm-ravaged swamp in the does so in a style that’s enjoyable, conversational, and engaging. late 21st century, three sets of refugees Each chapter in this book of legal advice starts with an amus- attempt an unauthorized border crossing ing quotation from comedian Jim Gaffigan, which makes it into Canada in Willis’ (Deadly Highway, anything but stuffy. The author intuitively divides it into three 2018, etc.) post-apocalyptic tale. parts that discuss the definitions of legal terms, the basic differ- In 2086, most of Florida and New Orleans no longer exist ences between wills and trusts, and the reasons to create a trust. thanks to rising sea levels. Georgia swells with homeless people, An instructive introduction is augmented by an excellent “Trust and waves of migrants struggle north to Canada, where right- wingers in the Ottawa government have tried locking down the border. Texas, a fetid bayou, is where the Wilkins family dwells,

KIRKUS MEDIA LLC safe but discontented in domed, bleak corporate oil-company housing. They’re surprised when beer-drinking, abusive patri- # arch Frank Wilkins agrees to leave for Canada for a fresh start; Chairman HERBERT SIMON in truth, he just wants to rejoin his younger mistress, who moved there. Divorced Savannah accountant Harry Sykes, his house President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN ruined in a hurricane, embezzles from a disaster relief fund so that he and his college-age son can flee north. In corrupt Chi- Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN cago, Cynthia “Cyndie” Sherwood is the pampered but fed-up # trophy wife of a successful but philandering lawyer. Using his ties to the migrant-smuggling underworld, she joins a transport Copyright 2019 by Kirkus Media LLC. with her disgruntled, adolescent daughter in tow. The narrative KIRKUS REVIEWS (ISSN 1948-7428) is published semimonthly by Kirkus Media LLC, brings the entire ensemble together for a harrowing exploit. In 2600Via Fortuna, Suite 130, Austin, TX 78746. Subscription prices are: plainspoken and quietly unnerving language, Willis effectively Digital & Print Subscription (U.S.) - 12 Months ($199.00) gives weight even to minor characters and sometimes manages Digital & Print Subscription (International) - 12 Months ($229.00) to jolt readers with unexpected revelations. Readers who are Digital Only Subscription - 12 Months ($169.00) Single copy: $25.00. looking for future-tech thrills or creatively envisioned ruins in All other rates on request. an apocalyptic-dystopic milieu may be disappointed, though; POSTMASTER: aside from subcutaneous identification chips, self-driving Send address changes to Kirkus Reviews, PO Box 3601, Northbrook, IL 60065-3601. autos, drones, and roll-up pocket computers, the sci-fi gim- Periodicals Postage Paid at Austin, TX 78710 and at additional mailing offices. mickry quickly falls away. Instead, this is an elemental drama

146 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | The author manages to craft some memorable characters while maintaining a swift pace and a mounting sense of pressure. passover

of fairly ordinary, often uncouth people on an arduous, quaver- TIPS LAWYERS WISH ing journey, pushed to their limits and crossing boundaries—of YOU KNEW nations, of laws, of morality—for the sake of survival or just Going It Alone at plain selfishness. the Courthouse An exceptional story of the future that quietly sounds Zeigler, Ann D. an alarm about extremities of human behavior. Rio Grande Books (158 pp.) $17.95 paper | $7.99 e-book | May 6, 2019 978-1-943681-42-6 PASSOVER Yocum, Jeff A veteran attorney takes readers on iUniverse (262 pp.) a tour through America’s legal labyrinth. $34.99 | $20.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Debut author Zeigler is well qualified Apr 30, 2019 to serve as a guide through the maze of 978-1-5320-7364-9 the U.S. legal system, having spent more than 30 years practicing 978-1-5320-7362-5 paper law in the federal courts. And in this book, she delivers a handy primer aimed at legal novices who may not know the difference A string of unexplained deaths points between a deposition and a disposition. “This book is for every to a septuagenarian Holocaust survivor ‘normal’ person who comes in contact with the American legal in this mystery. system, voluntarily or otherwise,” she writes. In 17 crisp chapters, In the spring of 2019, Dr. Chris the author takes readers through the state and federal courts; the Malone of the Centers for Disease Control arrives in a remote different types of cases, from civil and criminal to probate and town in Minnesota to investigate a rash of unexplained and bankruptcy; and the vexing details of legal protocols. “When you largely symptomless deaths. The deaths mirror others in small hear the knocking that signals the judge is entering the court- towns in Idaho and Pennsylvania, leaving 74 casualties in total. room, and the courtroom deputy says ‘All rise!’ you need to be Malone is most drawn to “one bizarre fact that stood out from absolutely silent (and stand until the judge says those present can all the rest—all the deaths from three separate sites thousands be seated). Silent,” she emphasizes. A particular focus here is to of miles apart occurred in the same twenty-four-hour period. make civil procedure less scary, noting that the rules for conduct- And then no more. It was…as if someone had flipped a switch.” ing litigation “were written by and for lawyers. They are shorthand Malone soon discovers that the deceased were all known drug reminders of many weeks of suffering in law school.” There’s even users, which leads her to a rehabilitation program launched by a comprehensible introduction to hearsay and advice for jurors— a company called Tudos Pharmaceuticals. Tudos founder, Jakob “Ignore most of what the lawyers tell you....The only thing that Bauer, is a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp where, counts in a trial is the evidence—what the witnesses say and what as a child of only 4 years old, he caught the eye of the infamous the documents say.” Zeigler has a breezy, familiar style (“Making Josef Mengele. The altruistic and innovative Jakob has since a will won’t make you dead”) and draws a little on her own experi- been ousted from control of the company for not being prop- ences in the legal trenches. After a lawyer didn’t show up for a erly profit-motivated, but could he have something to do with hearing, the attorney’s secretary, whom the author called at the these mysterious deaths? Something that goes all the way back judge’s instruction, was “very politely unhelpful....Finally I told to the horrors he experienced at Auschwitz long ago? Yocum’s the secretary she needed to call the judge, because I was tired of (The Eyes of God, 2005) prose has the detailed efficiency of a being yelled at over someone else’s bad behavior. The secretary police report: “Chris could tell at a glance that Pilsner had been burst into tears and told me the lawyer had dropped dead dur- in that same office for decades. Tall stacks of journals, bulging ing a trial in a different court a week earlier.” Some readers may file cabinets, and a well-worn carpet told the whole story. It was wish for more personal anecdotes and a less superficial approach a familiar tale for most of the pathologists she had met in her to the subject, but Zeigler succeeds in her aim of making the legal career.” The author manages to craft some memorable charac- jungle more navigable. ters—Malone and Jakob are the standouts—while maintaining From the maddening minutiae of legal etiquette to a swift pace and a mounting sense of pressure. The use of such the rules of civil procedure, this work makes the courts dark history as background for what is ultimately a bit of escap- less daunting. ism will likely turn off some readers, but those interested in Auschwitz or Mengele may be intrigued by Yocum’s attempts to grapple with the subject. A well-constructed, Auschwitz-related epidemiolog- ical thriller.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 october 2019 | 147 IRON MAIDENS AND THE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS US Navy Gunboats Versus Confederate Gunners and Cavalry on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, 1861-65 Zimmerman, Mark ZIMCO Publications (184 pp.) $24.95 paper | Sep. 7, 2019 978-0-9858692-5-0-9

A military history book focuses on the Civil War campaigns on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers. In his characteristically detailed style, Zimmerman (Guide to Civil War Nashville, 2nd Ed., 2019, etc.) provides a thorough battle history of Union Navy gunboats and Confederate gunners and cavalry in eastern Missouri, middle-to-western Tennessee, and western Kentucky. The unique geography of this region made the military campaigns there different from anywhere else during the Civil War. In one of the only places where the Union extensively deployed its “brown-water navy,” military tacticians on both sides had “no gameplan to consult” as the “rules were created as the battles were fought.” Virtually no other site in the war pitted Union gunboats against Confederate cavalry and field artillery. Adding to the lore of the Tennessee and Cumberland campaigns was that they featured some of the most famous figures of the Confederacy, including Kentucky’s John Hunt Morgan and Ten- nessee’s Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. In addition to their distinctiveness, the author argues that the conflicts along the Tennessee and Cumberland were critical to the ultimate success of the Union forces in the war. While most of the information in these pages has been covered by historians for a century, Zimmerman’s contribution is his ability to synthesize vast quantities of arcane military data into an accessible package. The book abounds with maps, fort schemat- ics, charts, and photographs. It also features many well-placed insets with vignettes on particular weapons, people, and places. Civil War scholars may be perturbed by the lack of footnotes and references, though the volume does contain a bibliography that cites a number of academic books. General audiences and Civil War enthusiasts alike will be drawn to the work’s aesthetic appeal and ample use of visual aids. The volume concludes with a travel guide to the region’s battle sites that is particularly insightful, given the author’s active participation in numerous state and local Civil War preservation societies. An engrossing, comprehensive examination of key Civil War river battles.

148 | 15 october 2019 | indie | kirkus.com | INDIE Books of the Month

ATHENA’S CHOICE SICK KIDS IN LOVE Adam Boostrom Hannah Moskowitz A daring book that A highly recom- will stay in readers’ mended work that’s minds long after the thoughtful, funny, final page. wise, and tender.

WHERE THE MISS LUCY young adult WINGS GROW William Orem Irv Broughton A brilliant and imagi- An often gripping native tale of love, account of some death, and literature. fascinating women of the air.

THE BANKER THE WOMAN IN WHO DIED THE PARK Matthew A. Carter Teresa Sorkin & An engaging read Tullan Holmqvist that’s right on A delightfully the money. complex mystery with a compelling protagonist.

| kirkus.com | books of the month | 15 october 2019 | 149 Field Notes

By Megan Labrise Sheehan Beowulf Kate Sweeney

“Susan had a novelist’s expectation about how certain events are meant to go in life. We know she rewrote events from her life and added fiction, like the essay she wrote about meeting Thomas Mann as a girl. That essay is really about her mother and her own sexuality. But you can see how she is taking something that happened to her and converting that reality into a metaphor. It’s similar to her cancer. I’d argue that her nonaccurate recounting of her illness is actually more useful than a journalistic blow-by-blow. A lot of people kept fighting through their own illnesses because of Susan’s accounts. That’s what’s so fascinating “I’m writing from a perspective of a about her fictionalization of herself.” fan who’s willing to be wrong, and —Benjamin Moser, author of Sontag: Her Life and Work, in conversation with Gary Indiana eager to be wrong almost. I think in Interview Magazine people like a critic who’s not certain, “I agree that giving certain experiences the form she did, whether it was true or you know? I came up reading music not, was very helpful to people. It was generative. I will say it was sad for me to critics who were singularly gifted at read that she bought into a lot of the myths that she was supposedly dispelling. telling me how to feel and why. My But that’s a human thing to do, isn’t it?” hope is that we’ve moved past that.” —Gary Indiana, in response —writer and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, author of Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to Heidi Ross A Tribe Called Quest, Kirkus Prize finalist “It was horrible to write. It was like and longlist nominee for the National Book Award in Nonfiction, at the Ringer Thelma and Louise going over a cliff. I made so many errors in judgment….I thought, ‘This is like death.’ But actually it was like burning a cake. I thought, “Well, I am celebrating by getting a ‘I’m going to stand here in the kitchen mammogram and driving four sepa- and eat these little fluffy things and rate carpools. I love you all but espe- throw everything else.’ ” cially the @nationalbook judges.” —Ann Patchett on the series of false starts —Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of that led to her latest novel, The Dutch , nominated for the Fleishman Is in Trouble House, in the New York Times National Book Award fiction longlist, on Twitter Submissions for Field Notes? Email [email protected].

150 | 15 october 2019 | field notes | kirkus.com | Appreciations: Jack Kerouac’s Final Days, Half a Century Ago

BY GREGORY MCNAMEE Tom Palumbos Jack Kerouac was not a happy man in 1969. It had been a dozen years since his novel On the Road had been published to much acclaim and excitement. The era of the Beats had passed into that of the hippies. His old friends Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, and Neal Cassady joined in the next-generational fun, but Kerouac told interviewer Ted Berrigan, “I don’t know one hippie anyhow….I think they think I’m a truck driver.” He didn’t like hippies, even as he bragged of “having smoked more grass than anyone you ever knew in your life.” He proclaimed himself “pro-American,” a supporter of the war in Vietnam, while Burroughs and Ginsberg and company were “very socialistically minded.” Yet Howl and Naked Lunch sold and sold while Kerouac was left to lament the poor reception of his novels Satori in Paris and Va n -

ity of Duluoz even as he hoped that “earlier readers would come back and see what 10 years had done to my life young adult and thinking.” For the most part, they didn’t. In the first half of 1969, Kerouac told a later interviewer, he had made only $1,770 in royalties, the equivalent of about $12,750 today. Granted, he allowed, he had added $3,000 to the trove that summer with a syndicated op-ed piece about “the Communist conspiracy.” His cohort had split up at the beginning of the ’60s, Kerouac said, each going his own way. He added, “And this is my way: home life, as in the beginning, with a little toot once in a while in local bars.” “Home life”

meant living with his elderly, paralyzed mother in a small house in downtown St. Bettmann Petersburg, Florida, which He Called “A Good Place To Come Die.” A “little toot” meant sitting in a chair in the living room with a constantly replenished glass of whiskey and a flow of beer, watching television. “Once in a while” meant showing up at a couple of bars down the street at opening time and arguing about politics for a few hours. His wife, Stella, who shared his mother’s house, called him “a very lonely man.” He got into a fistfight at one such tavern in the late summer of 1969, and it didn’t go well for him. He had been speaking in a stereotyped version of Southern African American speech—the same kind of speech he employed in his posthumously published novel Pic—when he was beaten, patrons reported. Though sympathetic to the racial injustices a young man faced in the South, the novel was not well liked, and it soon went out of print. A few weeks after the fight, on Oct. 21, 1969, Jack Kerouac died of cirrhosis of the liver. He was 47 years old. Kerouac had better fortune posthumously. Late in 1975, Allen Ginsberg and Bob Dylan visited his grave and, Ginsberg wrote, “traded lines improvising a song to Kerouac underground beneath grass and stone.” The visit anticipated the widespread rediscovery of Kerouac’s work, particularly On the Road, which has never been out of print since, now half a century after its author’s passing. Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor.

| kirkus.com | appreciations | 15 october 2019 | 151 THE LBYR RAVE REVIEW AND INTERVIEW

“The important message of of this explorer. He and his crew left Michaela Goade: France in April 1534. Months later, Carti- I was first drawn the book is that commonality er anchored his ship in what we now call to the world of between humans outweighs the Gaspé Bay. He and his crew would not be Encounter because differences . . . the message alone long. Over 200 Stadaconans arrived it represents an presented is easily understood and to fish for mackerel. We know that Cartier indigenous voice needs to be shared.” —SLC allowed his crew to visit ashore. We know shining a light on an Stadaconans chose to trade with them. often misrepresented part of history, Encounter originated from the question, and that in itself is very powerful to me. “What might have happened outside of It carries messages that are universal and Cartier’s watchful gaze?” timely, communicating on many levels. Brittany didn’t shy away from a complex My answer focuses on two working peo- issue and I found that so inspiring. It’s ple: Fisher and Sailor. I chose “Fisher” and very exciting to think that Encounter can “Sailor” to reflect their unwritten histories. help open the door to important conver- Cartier rarely referred to the Indigenous sations. peoples he met (or members of his crew) by name. Additionally, I found that the prominent role and reverence given to Mother Nature Cartier’s refusal to name Indigenous peo- fed my creative spirit, as the story provid- ples may reflect his sense of European ed many opportunities to create a rich and superiority. Indeed, Cartier describes Sta- vibrant natural world. I love that the land- 9780316449182 HC daconans as “the sorriest folk.” Encounter scapes Fisher and Sailor journey through READY TO READ 10.1.19 challenges colonial hierarchies that linger and the animals they meet along the way today. Children may be taught to think of are all instrumental in helping them under- a sailing ship as an advanced technology. stand their similarities. LBYR: What inspired you to create They may not be taught about the strug- Encounter and what do you hope readers gles Europeans (like Cartier) faced upon At the end of the day, that’s what I’d love take away from it? reaching shore. In my retelling, it is Fish- to see readers take away from this story er who shares environmental knowledge. —that despite our differences in how we Brittany Luby: An Fisher ushers Sailor safely through the speak and what we wear to the color of interest in unwritten day. our skin, there is always a path to com- histories inspired me mon ground. When we remember and to create Encounter, Ultimately, Encounter is designed to chal- acknowledge the history we carry with us, a story based on a lenge narratives of discovery. It shows Eu- that path forward is powerful and prom- real French explorer’s ropeans unsettled in their geography and ising. travel notes. Jacques in their thinking. Cartier was the name

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