Jeanine Cummins Also in the Issue

Featuring 367 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children's and YA books

KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 2 | 15 JANUARY 2020 REVIEWS

Jeanine Cummins The author of American Dirt on her urgent new novel about a Mexican migrant and her 8-year-old son p. 14 Also in the issue: Garth Greenwell, Peggy Orenstein, Anna-Marie McLemore, and more from the editor’s desk: Dispatches From Trumpland Chairman BY TOM BEER HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN

John Paraskevas # It’s still early in 2020, but the impeachment proceedings and the Chief Executive Officer November presidential election have kept politics front and center in the MEG LABORDE KUEHN book world while President Donald Trump continues to make news—and [email protected] Editor-in-Chief inspire anguished analysis—with every utterance and tweet. You can be sure TOM BEER much more ink will be spilled in the months to come. [email protected] Vice President of Marketing This week sees the release of two works of investigative journalism that SARAH KALINA look at the 45th president and his circle. Announced in mid-December (and [email protected] embargoed until publication), The Fixers: Bottom-Feeders, Crooked Law- Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU yers, Gossipmongers, and Porn Stars Who Created the 45th President (Ran- [email protected]

dom House, Jan. 14) shines a light on the lawyers and media figures who Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK have enabled and protected Trump throughout his career; it’s by Wall Street [email protected] Tom Beer Journal reporters Joe Palazzolo and Michael Rothfeld, who won the Pulitzer Children’s Editor VICKY SMITH Prize last year. [email protected] Meanwhile, Andrea Bernstein, Peabody Award–winning co-host of the podcast, Trump, Inc. Young Adult Editor delivers American Oligarchs: The Kushners, The Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power LAURA SIMEON (Norton, Jan. 14), a close examination of these intertwined real estate clans, joined by the union [email protected] Editor at Large of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Our review, which, due to an embargo, will only be published MEGAN LABRISE online on Jan. 13, calls it a “painstaking documentation of a relentless culture of corruption.” [email protected] Vice President of Kirkus Indie Not enough for you hardcore news junkies? Here are some other recent releases that dig deep KAREN SCHECHNER into the world of Donald Trump: [email protected] Senior Indie Editor Crime in Progress: Inside the Steele Dossier and the Fusion GPS Inves- DAVID RAPP tigation of Donald Trump by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch (Random [email protected] Indie Editor House, Nov. 26): Fusion GPS is the Washington, D.C., research and analysis MYRA FORSBERG firm helmed by the authors, two formerWall Street Journal reporters. Their [email protected] reporting led to the notorious Steele Dossier, and here they lay out their Associate Manager of Indie KATERINA PAPPAS findings for the general reader. Kirkus’ reviewer calls it “red meat for Trump [email protected]

foes and a convincing denunciation of the Republicans’ ‘win-at-all-costs Editorial Assistant JOHANNA ZWIRNER electoral strategies.’ ” [email protected]

The Mueller Report Illustrated by the Washington Post, illustrated by Jan Mysteries Editor THOMAS LEITCH Feindt (Scribner, Dec. 3): If you didn’t tackle all 700-plus pages of The Muel Contributing Editor ler Report when it was published back in April, you can now sprint through GREGORY McNAMEE what our reviewer calls “a lively, graphic version of the foundational docu- Copy Editor ment in the current presidential impeachment process.” BETSY JUDKINS Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos by Peter L. Bergen (Penguin Designer Press, Dec. 10): Though Trump was endorsed by nearly 90 retired generals ALEX HEAD Director of Kirkus Editorial and military officials during his 2016 campaign, a CNN national security LAUREN BAILEY analyst shows that as president he has consistently alienated the Pentagon [email protected] Production Editor and staff of the National Security Agency while burning through generals CATHERINE BRESNER tapped for top posts (Mike Flynn, H.R. McMaster, Jim Mattis, John Kelly). [email protected] Website and Software Developer Kirkus’ review of Trump and His Generals doesn’t mince words: “More hard- PERCY PEREZ hitting, abundant documentation of a woefully incapable president’s litany [email protected] of failures.” Advertising Director MONIQUE STENSRUD Finally, take your pick of the published results of the impeachment [email protected]

report: The Impeachment Report: The House Intelligence Committee’s Advertising Associate TATIANA ARNOLD Report on Its Investigation Into Donald Trump and Ukraine (Broadway [email protected]

Books, Dec. 17) features an introduction by presidential biographer and Graphic Designer former editor-in-chief Jon Meacham, and The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry LIANA WALKER Newsweek [email protected] Report (Melville House, Dec. 17) is published flip-book style, with the official report on one side Controller (blue cover) and the response of House Republicans (red cover) on the other. MICHELLE GONZALES Enjoy your reading—there are just 294 days until Election Day. [email protected] 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 photo courtesy opportunities Jeanine Cummins

2 | 15 january 2020 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 4 The Kirkus Star is awarded REVIEWS...... 4 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 6 to books of remarkable ON THE COVER: JEANINE CUMMINS...... 14 merit, as determined by the INTERVIEW: GARTH GREENWELL...... 18 QUEERIES: CAROLINA DE ROBERTIS...... 24 impartial editors of Kirkus. MYSTERY...... 38 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY...... 43 ROMANCE...... 46 nonfiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 51 REVIEWS...... 51 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 52 INTERVIEW: PEGGY ORENSTEIN...... 58 INTERVIEW: ILAN STAVANS & JOSH LAMBERT...... 64 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 84 REVIEWS...... 84 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 86 INTERVIEW: SCOTT SIMON...... 92 INTERVIEW: LILY WILLIAMS & KAREN SCHNEEMANN...... 98 BOARD & NOVELTY BOOKS...... 127 CONTINUING SERIES...... 135 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 137 REVIEWS...... 137 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 138 INTERVIEW: ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE...... 142 The death of the oldest Torres daughter INTERVIEW: GIBBY HAYNES...... 146 leaves her three sisters and widower father CONTINUING SERIES...... 154 grief-stricken; being haunted by her spirit indie shakes everything up. Read the review of INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS...... 155 Samantha Mabry’s latest on p. 148. REVIEWS...... 155 EDITOR’S NOTE...... 156 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as INTERVIEW: JERRY CRAFT...... 162 they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. INDIE BOOKS OF THE MONTH...... 177 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, SEEN & HEARD...... 178 please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or APPRECIATIONS: ZADIE SMITH’S WHITE TEETH AT 20...... 179 emailing [email protected].

| kirkus.com | contents | 15 january 2020 | 3 fiction These titles earned the Kirkus Star: ARTFORUM Aira, César Trans. by Silver, Katherine New Directions (80 pp.) THEN THE FISH SWALLOWED HIM by Amir Ahmadi Arian...... 7 $12.95 paper | Mar. 31, 2020 CONJURE WOMEN by Afia Atakora...... 9 978-0-8112-2926-5

FIEBRE TROPICAL by Juliana Delgado Lopera...... 13 A collection of stories about one writer’s obsession with, of all things, a THE NIGHT WATCHMAN by Louise Erdrich...... 17 magazine, attainable but difficult to find THE OTHER BENNET SISTER by Janice Hadlow...... 23 in a way he often finds maddening. Argentinian writer Aira (Birthday, 2019, etc.) has produced LAKE LIKE A MIRROR by Sok Fong Ho; more than 100 books, a good number of which have been trans- trans. by Natascha Bruce...... 26 lated into English. His works tend to be slim and offbeat—a zombie novel here ( , 2015), a kidnapping there ( MARGUERITE by Marina Kemp...... 29 Dinner Ema the Captive, 2016)—but they’re always eminently readable. Even NEW WAVES by Kevin Nguyen...... 30 this one, which is, yes, pretty much about hunting down a magazine and then, after having taken out a subscription, wait- THE MOUNTAINS SING by Quê Mai Phan Nguyên...... 31 ing for it to come in the mail. Is this fiction, as it’s labeled, or THE KING AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD nonfiction? Aira’s work is so personal and frequently peculiar by Arthur Phillips...... 32 that it doesn’t make much of a difference. He’s spent a couple THE ICE CREAM MAN & OTHER STORIES by Sam Pink...... 32 of decades thinking about Artforum, judging by the dates at the end of each story—not so much about the magazine’s content THE MAN WITHOUT TALENT by Yoshiharu Tsuge; as his difficult quest to obtain it. Naturally, he turns each inter- trans. by Ryan Holmberg...... 35 action into a beautifully crafted experience, even in the most banal circumstances. Take the opener, “The Sacrifice,” written REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD by Anne Tyler...... 35 in 1983, in which an issue of Artforum saves the narrator’s other SHARKS IN THE TIME OF SAVIORS by Kawai Strong Washburn...36 diligently acquired magazines from a particularly vicious rainstorm. Later there are contemplations of the magazine’s price, RUNNING OUT OF ROAD by Daniel Friedman...... 41 translated here by Silver as $10, and the personal glory of finally getting a subscription. In 2002, a short-tempered writer goes THE HONEY-DON’T LIST by Christina Lauren...... 48 searching for a trove of Artforums spotted, by happenstance, by IF I NEVER MET YOU by Mhairi McFarlane...... 49 a friend. “Conjectures” and “Melancholy” describe the narrator’s state of mind while he waits impatiently for the next issue to arrive in the mail. The writer’s obsession with the magazine NEW WAVES is also explained in the context of his life, in which he’s always Nguyen, Kevin had “the problem of empty time, of ominous afternoons like One World/Random House the open mouth of an abyss.” This book is a slim affair, but for (320 pp.) those who want to understand the mindset of an authentic col- $27.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 lector, it comes straight from the heart. 978-1-984855-23-7 A marvelous little collection about compulsion, obsession, and the extraordinary joy that a simple pleasure can bring.

4 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | GOLD DUST and whose hair is a “rebellious mane.” She makes demoralizing al-Koni, Ibrahim visit after demoralizing visit to these salons, where her hair is Trans. by Colla, Elliott “pulled…this way and that,” subjected to treatments “whose Hoopoe (139 pp.) abrasive chemicals require the use of latex gloves,” or worked $16.95 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 into weaves at “a breakneck speed over four hours” (only to 978-1-61797-069-6 come undone soon after). But in this essayistic novel, Almei- da’s first to be translated into English, Mila’s hair isn’t simply Pensive tale of the many things that a matter of personal anguish. “The truth is that the story of can go wrong in a supposedly simple life. my curly hair intersects with the story of at least two countries The gold dust of Libyan novelist al- and, by extension, the underlying story of the relations among Koni’s title is just one of the disruptive several continents: a geopolitics.” Indeed, interwoven seam- temptations that confront Ukhayyad, lessly throughout are stories and memories of her family: Her who, like the protagonist of the author’s Angolan grandfather’s life as a nursing student in Luanda, the novel The Bleeding of the Stone (2001), lives in mountainous smell of her Portuguese grandmother Lúcia’s hair—“Feno de country deep within the Sahara. As the slender story opens, Portugal soap, tobacco, and oiliness”—as a young Mila combs Ukhayyad is proudly boasting of the piebald Mahri camel that a it, her long strolls through Oeiras, in Lisbon, with her often tribal leader has bestowed upon him. (As the translator notes in absent mother. What Mila seems to be revolving around with an illuminating afterword, “the novel assumes that readers will all these shifting reminiscences is the fundamental doubleness readily recognize a difference of character between purebred of who she is. She introduces a photographic “self-portrait”: the and regular mounts.”) Ukhayyad has reason to be proud of his famous 1957 photo of Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock

prize ride, but too much pride leads to disaster. It doesn’t help Nine, walking to school as white people behind her gawk and young adult that the sheikh crows, “Whoever owns a Mahri like this piebald even bare their teeth. “I am all of the people in that portrait at will never complain for want of noble values. You’ve honored once,” Mila declares. “The raging girls in the photo are the ner- our homes, O noble youth descended from noble men!” Sure vous tremor (which brings me shame) when a black man on the of himself, Ukhayyad is stunned when the poor camel comes streetcar answers the phone, speaking loudly. ‘Shhh: pipe down,’ down with a bad case of mange, the cure for which involves they say to me, I say to him, I say to myself. ‘Can’t you see the his striking out into the remotest stretches of the desert in others?’ ” Almeida writes long, destabilizing, often disorienting search of silphium, a fennellike curative plant long since extinct paragraphs, where successive sentences can shift radically in except in one faraway valley. The camel suffers, but then so does time and space. But the reader is pulled along throughout by Ukhayyad; he finds a bride, but the bride he chooses earns him a sly, evasive humor—where unreliable memory ends, Almeida his father’s disownment, and when it turns out that he has a seems to say, storytelling begins. powerful rival, he has a fight on his hands. The storied piebald Heady and smart, if you can follow the novel’s complex, camel, meanwhile, looks more and more pathetic. Worse things associative train of thought. still will befall him, as they will to Ukhayyad, a blood curse on his head. Al-Koni’s story, simply and elegantly told, has all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy—or, better, all the tribulations THE GRINGA of Job, though without the redemptive reward—in a narrative Altschul, Andrew punctuated by hints of pre-Islamic belief mixed in with Quranic Melville House (432 pp.) admonitions: “Didn’t Sheikh Musa say that it was woman who $27.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 drove Adam from the garden of paradise?” 978-1-61219-822-4 If Franz Kafka had lived in the Sahara, this is a story he might have told, bleak but memorable. The making of a freedom fighter—or a terrorist, depending on one’s point of view. THAT HAIR Altschul (Lady Lazarus, 2008) takes Almeida, Djaimilia Pereira de his storyline pretty much straight from Trans. by Becker, Eric M.B. the headlines, offering a fictionalized Tin House (168 pp.) treatment of the case of Lori Berenson, the American activist $15.95 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 who served a 20-year prison term in Peru for her affiliation with 978-1-947793-41-5 a revolutionary group. Just so, Leonora Gelb is a young Jewish woman from New Jersey who, inspired by a professor, travels to A half-Portuguese, half-Angolan Peru to enlist in a revolutionary group headed by philosophers, woman uses her hair to interrogate her a group that she insists is not a terrorist organization even if position between two cultures. people all around it have a habit of dying. Leo, as everyone calls The hair salons in Lisbon don’t know her (save those who call her “la gringa” or Comrade Linda), is quite what to make of Mila, who moved naïve and fervent; a critical point in the narrative comes when at 3 years old from Luanda, the capital of Angola, to Portugal she rejects her visiting father’s offer to fly her home: “She won’t

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 5 does little women hold up to an adult reading?

Little Women was one of the first ice soon afterward. Smiley sees Amy as Jo’s foil, a char- books I ever read that wasn’t about acter who has to be just as complex and rounded as Jo, Nancy Drew or the Bobbsey Twins; “as ready to learn, though in different ways, and ready to I always associate it with my grand- do battle so that their conflict will force them to learn mother, an elementary school teach- from their experiences.” er, who liked to brag that I was read- Reading March Sisters led me to another nonfiction ing it in third grade even though it book—Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and was written on a sixth grade level. Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux (Norton)—an But as time went by, I became more enjoyable overview of Alcott’s life and the influence of attached to other books about girls her novel over the years. I was glad to be reminded of who write, and I’ve reread Anne of Green Gables and the what can only be called Alcott’s feminist way of looking Betsy-Tacy books more often than Alcott’s masterpiece. at the world. While most Little Women fans know that Al- I dug out my Illustrated Junior Library copy the oth- cott married Jo to professor Bhaer only because her pub- er day—check it out online, it has the best illustrations— lisher insisted on it, it’s refreshing to see her skeptical at- to get ready for the Greta Gerwig movie that’s opening titude to her own transcendentalist father, who would soon. I’ve never managed to watch a film version all the never compromise his ideals enough to earn a living for way through because the onscreen March sisters could his family: “It requires three women to take care of a phi- never live up to the images I had of them, influenced by losopher, and when the philosopher is old the three wom- those Louis Jambor illustrations. But I figured that I’m en are pretty well used up.” It isn’t surprising that Loui- old enough, and far enough removed from my emotion- sa never got married herself. My 16-year-old son learned al attachment to Alcott’s characters, to see what Gerwig about Bronson Alcott in his U.S. history class this year, does with the story. And in the meantime, I reread the but the textbook didn’t even mention that he was Lou- book to see how it holds up. isa’s father, which I found astonishing. Who is the more Starting from the first line, it felt like coming home: important figure in American history? I find it hard to “ ‘Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,’ imagine anyone not saying Louisa. —L.M. grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.” Even for a girl who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, that’s an enticing opening. I was Laurie Muchnick is the fiction editor. surprised by how many other scenes and specific lines I remembered, and especially the chapter titles: “Beth Finds the Palace Beautiful,” “Amy’s Valley of Humilia- tion,” “Meg Goes to Vanity Fair,” “Laurie Makes Mischief, and Jo Makes Peace.” I was also surprised that the sisters were more rounded characters than I remembered, especially Amy. I wasn’t disappointed that the youngest March wound up marrying Laurie—whom I, along with generations of readers, had thought was meant for Jo, not least because he was my namesake—but found myself thinking them perfectly matched, with Amy much more mature and self-aware than I remembered. This turns out to be an opinion shared by Jane Smi- ley in March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women, a new book from the Library of America featuring essays by four authors about the four sisters: Kate Bolick on Meg, Jenny Zhang on Jo, Carmen Maria Machado on Beth, and Smiley on Amy. Machado still holds a grudge against Amy for burning Jo’s manuscript, which, she says, “created a lifelong terror of losing the only copy of one’s words,” and thinks it would have been more satisfying if Jo had let Amy drown when she fell through the

6 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | be who they want her to be, who they’d raised her to be: an to decipher. In addition to providing a lot of detail about the investment, they’d no doubt call it, one that’s now in jeopardy.” art of taxidermy, Anthony offers meditations on the intercon- Years after her incarceration, writer Andres, another young nectedness of all things. There are also ghosts and Nazis, in case American, travels to Lima, despairing of his country after 9/11: all that isn’t enough. “I was a castaway, lost in Amurka: a country I didn’t recognize, Weirdly compelling and compellingly weird. or didn’t want to recognize.” Tracking down Leo’s story without ever meeting her save at one crucial turn, he concludes that she’s much like him, someone who hates her country for the THEN THE FISH ill it does in the world. It takes Andres considerable time, as it SWALLOWED HIM does Leo, to discover that things are not always what they seem, Arian, Amir Ahmadi that some people are to be trusted and others feared. When he HarperVia/HarperCollins (304 pp.) does, Andres suffers the sad disillusionment of the one-time $25.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 true believer, sure that his fate is to return home and take up 978-0-06-294629-4 a despised bourgeois life, his time in Peru “something I told at cocktail parties.” Altschul’s story is psychologically rich and A Tehran bus driver is arrested dur- closely observed, though it moves slowly, sometimes grindingly ing a strike, making him a pawn of so, odd given the onrushing events he describes. Iranian politics and a victim of cruel A sensitive portrayal of the search for meaning in an imprisonment. unforgiving world. Yunus, the narrator of this brisk and piercing protest novel, is a demure middle-aged man ENTER THE AARDVARK young adult Anthony, Jessica Little, Brown and Company (192 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-0-316-53615-8

A story of taxidermy, political intrigue, and love between men from the author of The Convalescent (2009). The story begins at the beginning—or close enough. It begins with the birth—or close enough—of our planet. Several eons pass over the next few pages until a Victo- rian naturalist traveling in Africa encounters his first aardvark. Then another story begins, and in this story, “you”—these sections are narrated in the second person—are an up-and-coming young Republican legislator with a Ronald Reagan fetish. These two stories become intertwined when an aardvark specimen Sir Richard Ostlet sent to his friend and lover Titus Downing, a taxidermist, is delivered to Alexander Paine Wilson’s D.C. town house. As both narratives unfold, it becomes clear that Wilson and Downing have a great deal in common. The taxidermist is compelled to be circumspect about his relationship with Ostlet because what they do together is an actual crime in 19th-century England. For Wilson, coming out is impossible not only because of his political party, but also because he doesn’t even define himself as gay. Yes, he has frequent and very enjoyable sexual encounters with a philanthropist named Greg Tampico, but they’re just two straight guys who happen to enjoy sex with other men. The aardvark serves as a sort of intermediary between these two men and their lovers. Resur- recting this strange beast allows Downing to stay connected with Ostlet even after Ostlet has abandoned him and married a woman. When a FedEx truck dumps this selfsame aardvark on Wilson’s doorstep, he sees it as a message from Greg—one that the congressman will spend most of the novel struggling

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 7 who’s striven to keep the turmoil of Iranian politics at arm’s reckons with the consequences of his political ignorance and length: The 1979 revolution was overshadowed by his father’s an ill-advised affair that’s used as further ammunition against death and his mother’s ensuing depression and maybe suicide. him. A few books and some bad judgment do not an enemy of So he’s blithely confident his participation in a 2005 drivers’ the state make, but Arian expertly tracks Yunus’ gears’ turning strike can only be perceived as a reasonable plea for better from anger to depression to self-judging. Yunus’ mental dis- treatment, not part of a global insurrection against the Ahma- orientation is as punishing as his beatings and, as the closing dinejad regime. What’s the harm of reading Foucault and pages show, leaves lasting harm. Marx with fellow union members? Plenty, the regime believes, A distressing, smartly interior tale of the horrors sown and after Yunus beats a young counterprotester in a fit of anger, by oppressive politics. he’s arrested, sent to Tehran’s fearsome Evin prison, and told his victim was the son of the transportation minister. Whether the allegation is true or not, Yunus’ prison stint becomes an unjust torment of beatings, forced confessions, and the slow-creeping madness of solitary confinement. (In one well- turned, poignant scene, he pleads with a fly not to abandon him.) This novel, the first in English by the Iranian-born Arian, is scaffolded with familiar tropes of kangaroo courts, false statements, and good-cop, bad-cop routines. But the author writes about Yunus’ plight with a plainspoken, lacerating intensity. Moreover, Yunus is a richly imagined character who

8 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Life in the immediate aftermath of slavery is powerfully rendered in this impressive first novel. conjure women

CONJURE WOMEN The Herd, emphasis on “her,” is the hottest, most sought- Atakora, Afia after co-working space in New York City—there’s even a waiting Random House (416 pp.) list. Founder Eleanor Walsh prides herself on her exclusive yet $27.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 inclusive safe space for “women and marginalized genders” and 978-0-525-51148-9 seems genuinely dedicated to nurturing and inspiring creativity and joy. She’s hired her most trusted friends to keep the wheels An engrossing debut novel explores turning, including publicist Hana Bradley, whom Eleanor has the lives of emancipated slaves strug- known since their Harvard days. Now Hana’s sister, Katie, a gling to survive in the years just after the journalist, has come to New York after a failed book deal and a Civil War. yearlong stint caring for their sick mother. Katie would love to Atakora’s historical novel is set on a score a spot at the Herd with Hana’s help, but Eleanor won’t hear ruined plantation in the rural South so of Katie jumping the waitlist, and meanwhile someone has been remote that its black inhabitants have rarely seen white peo- defacing the Herd offices with misogynistic (to say the least) graf- ple in the years since the war ended. In some ways, freedom fiti. While Eleanor and Hana juggle that crisis, Katie sells her hasn’t yet changed their lives; with few resources and little agent on a book about Eleanor, but everything blows up when knowledge of the outside world, most of them have remained Eleanor disappears. It turns out that Eleanor is hiding a closet- on the land they used to work for the late Marse Charles. The ful of skeletons which soon come tumbling out. But, of course, book’s protagonist is a young woman named Rue. She is the Eleanor isn’t the only one with secrets. Katie, who is white, and town’s midwife and healer, having learned her skills from her Hana, who is adopted and is described as having dark skin, have a mother, Miss May Belle, who was beloved and trusted by fraught history, which is revealed via alternating narratives. This

her neighbors (and occasionally called upon to cast curses). young adult After her mother’s death and amid the chaos that follows the war, Rue reluctantly takes May Belle’s place. Although Rue has lived among them all her life, the townspeople begin to turn against her after she delivers a baby for a woman named Sarah. Born with a caul, pale skin, and strange black eyes, the boy, called Bean, unnerves them. Then other children fall ill; despite Rue’s herbs and tinctures, some die, and whispers spread—is she a healer or a witch? The townspeople turn for comfort to a charismatic itinerant preacher called Bruh Abel, and Rue must decide whether he’s an adversary or an ally, all while keeping a dangerous secret. Based in part on narratives of formerly enslaved people gathered by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, the novel gives its characters complex lives, rendered in well-crafted prose. Although Ata- kora writes of such horrors as lynchings, beatings, and rapes, most of her story focuses on the intense relationships among people trying to make sense of a world turned upside down. Mother-child relationships, especially, are at the center of the book. Using frequent flashbacks to “slaverytime” and “wartime” and occasional jumps to the future, Atakora structures a plot with plenty of satisfying twists. Life in the immediate aftermath of slavery is powerfully rendered in this impressive first novel.

THE HERD Bartz, Andrea Ballantine (336 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-984826-36-7

The enigmatic founder of an exclusive female-only co-working space suddenly disappears, stirring up a maelstrom of secrets in Bartz’s (The Lost Night, 2019, etc.) new thriller.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 9

tension fractures them at a time when they need each other the debut novel with the introduction of Defense Intelligence most, adding a heavy dose of angst to the central mystery. Bartz Agent Matt Drake. After an op in Syria went sideways and his whips up a fast pace and adequate suspense, though character best friend was maimed, Drake walked away carrying heavy development suffers a bit in the process. However, once the emotional baggage. Haunted by those he couldn’t save and in dominoes begin to fall in the twisty finale, readers will likely be self-imposed exile from his wife in order to protect her, Matt turning pages too quickly to mind. wants nothing to do with his old life at the Defense Intelligence A soapy and fun woman-centric thriller. Agency. But when he’s brought back under duress to help stop terrorists from using an untraceable chemical weapon against Americans, Drake feels a lurking sense of obligation, and before WITHOUT SANCTION he knows it he’s back on duty. The seeming purity of Drake’s Bentley, Don call to serve is contrasted with the petty political infighting Berkley (384 pp.) within the highest reaches of government. A chief of staff for $27.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 the president is angling to jam a CIA director who has politi- 978-1-9848-0511-9 cal ambitions of her own, and Drake’s mission falls right in the middle of this elaborate political scheme. While the flow of the A spy dealing with personal trauma is story seems most natural during the shoot’em-up action scenes, called back into action to stop the use of this is a novel with an emotional core, and that may be what a dangerous chemical weapon. makes it stand out from other thrillers of a similar ilk. A former Army helicopter pilot and A page-turner with the kind of small details that lend FBI special agent, Bentley delivers his unquestionable authenticity.

10 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com |

The death of an American bicyclist in Vietnam sets off a race to avert further catastrophe. the red lotus

DON’T YOU KNOW I LOVE YOU as we will learn, is near a rodent research lab. The present action Bogart, Laura takes place over a countdown clock of 10 days, beginning in Dzanc (224 pp.) Vietnam, where the new couple is on a bike tour. Austin goes $16.95 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 for a solo ride, telling Alexis he wants to pay respects by visiting 978-1-950539-13-0 the locations where his uncle was killed and his father wounded during the war. When he doesn’t return, Alexis goes out look- An accident sends a young woman ing for him, finding a few packets of energy gel that we already back to her broken home in this debut know Austin dropped on the road while being abducted—by novel. Douglas. Pressing Austin for information, Douglas drives a dart Angelina Moltisanti went to college into Austin’s hand. Vietnamese police discover Austin’s body intending never to return to her parents and a post-mortem concludes that he was killed in a hit-and- in Baltimore. Just weeks after graduation, run collision. While identifying the body, though, Alexis notices however, she’s in a car crash that shatters her left hand and wrist the wound on Austin’s hand and suspects foul play. Back in New and her hopes of becoming a full-time artist. With no other York, she hires Ken, a PI, to investigate. Quang, a Vietnamese options, she and her recently adopted dog, Valentina, return police captain, suspects that Austin was a smuggler, but of what? home to live with her violent father and passive mother. Her Alexis soon learns that Austin had lied about many things, not father, Jack, becomes obsessed with getting Angelina a large least his true mission in Vietnam. What characters learn, and settlement for her arm while her mother, Marie, just wants when, is critical. Abetted by shifting points of view, seemingly her to be close again and perhaps to make a friend, something disparate elements eventually converge to create a burgeoning Angelina has never been good at. In low spirits, Angelina takes a sense of dread. Italicized, anonymous first-person comments,

part-time job as an assistant at the construction firm where her young adult father works and starts spending time with Janet, a co-worker of her mother’s at Belle’s Beauty Boutique who’s Angelina’s age and a breath of fresh air in her life. Angelina struggles with the specter of trauma that haunts her home life, her attempts to get back into her art, and her burgeoning relationship with Janet, the stress threatening to overwhelm her. With her relationship with her father still volatile, it’s only a matter of time before it all catches fire. Bogart manages to thread the ghost of past violence into every scene so that when things are finally explained, there is no shock but only understanding. Every character is deeply flawed but written with compassion, even Jack. The book is narrated in a close third-person perspective that rotates among Angelina, Marie, and Jack, so the reader understands where they are coming from even if it’s hard to reckon with their choices. Bogart’s prose is exceedingly thoughtful, and the cycle of abuse is deftly explored, though it may touch too close to home for some readers. A well-crafted tale of domestic abuse and recovery.

THE RED LOTUS Bohjalian, Chris Doubleday (400 pp.) $27.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-385-54480-1

In Bohjalian’s (The Flight Attendant, 2018, etc.) breathless thriller, the death of an American bicyclist in Vietnam sets off a race to avert further catastrophe. Alexis, a doctor at an unnamed university hospital in Manhattan, met Aus- tin six months ago when he came into her ER with a bullet in his arm, fired by a junkie in a bar where Austin and a chance acquaintance, Douglas, were playing darts. Austin works as a fundraiser at the same hospital. In fact, his office, significantly

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 11

interspersed throughout, cite the long history of rats as quickly and educated in America and Morocco, Jeehan Nathaar finds evolving plague carriers—most recently, of antibiotic-resistant her life upended when she witnesses the 9/11 terrorist attacks in pathogens. Among many tantalizing questions: Austin’s former New York City. After involuntarily abandoning her Ph.D. disser- boss Sally is Douglas’ lover—where do her loyalties lie? In fact, tation in ancient history, she’s working as a corporate temp in an whose side is Douglas on? And what is in those packets? environment where her ethnic and religious identities make her Bohjalian manages to keep us guessing and turning an object of suspicion and even open hostility from co-workers pages until the very end. who demand an answer to the question, “Why do you hate us so much?” Seeking an excuse to flee these pressures, Jeehan impul- sively accepts an invitation from Ali, a young Moroccan journal- DUNE SONG ist who’s her casual romantic partner, to join him in reporting a Bouziane, Anissa M. story on the plight of migrants fleeing through the Sahara and Interlink (368 pp.) across the Mediterranean. But from the time she arrives in Cas- $16.00 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 ablanca to find that Ali instead has departed for Spain, her life 9781623719418 takes a decidedly different turn. Finding her way to a remote desert lodging and suffering from both physical and emotional In the wake of 9/11, a Moroccan debilities, she takes up residence with Lahcen, Fatima, and their American woman seeks refuge in the teenage son, Fareed, in the process discovering the futility of land of her ancestors. distance as a remedy for her angst. Bouziane’s debut novel sub- Born in the United States to a tly explores Jeehan’s malaise in both the fear-filled atmosphere Moroccan father and a French mother of post–9/11 New York City and the harshly beautiful and unforgiving Moroccan desert, moving smoothly between those settings in terse, mostly alternating, chapters. In the latter locale, she’s especially adept at blending psychological realism with mystical elements that underscore the gulf separating the cultures of West and East. The story’s final third, in which Bouz- iane injects some thrillerlike elements as Jeehan comes face to face with the evils of human trafficking, feels underdeveloped compared to the rest of the novel, but that shortcoming ultimately doesn’t detract overmuch from the book’s dominant mood or themes. A sophisticated examination of cross-cultural tension at the dawn of the 21st century.

THE EIGHTH GIRL Chung, Maxine Mei-Fung Morrow/HarperCollins (480 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-06-293112-2

A young woman with dissociative identity disorder is drawn into a criminal enterprise when her best friend starts working at a London gentlemen’s club. Each day is a potential struggle for budding photojournalist Alexa Wú, who, as the Host, must juggle the alternate personalities inside her head. She collectively calls them the Flock, which includes 9-year- old Dolly; belligerent and protective Runner; elegant and calm Oneiroi; and the Fouls, who are unpredictable and conniving. Alexa also has dissociative amnesia: She loses time, often awakening to realize she can’t remember recent events. Her new psy- chiatrist, Daniel Rosenstein, gives Alexa tentative hope for the future, and she has the support of her beloved best friend, Ella, who is one of only a few people, including Alexa’s stepmother, Anna, who know about Alexa’s disorder. When Ella gets a job at a strip club called Electra, Alexa is horrified, but it doesn’t keep

12 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com |

A rich, deeply felt novel about family ties, immigration, sexual longing, faith, and desire. fiebre tropical

her from dating Electra’s sexy bartender, Shaun, and hanging out FIEBRE TROPICAL at the club with Ella. It’s soon clear the sleazy Navid, who runs Delgado Lopera, Juliana the Electra, has a hand in some decidedly shady activities, and Feminist Press (240 pp.) Alexa reluctantly agrees to help Ella bring him down, leading her $17.95 paper | Mar. 4, 2020 into a hellish rabbit hole of depravity. Alexa is an overwhelmingly 978-1-936932-75-7 sympathetic protagonist. The motivations of men understand- ably consume her—she was sexually abused by her father, and her In U.S.–based Colombian author mother killed herself—and she assumes that most are out to use Delgado Lopera’s coming-of-age novel, a and control her. Alexa and Ella repeatedly take outrageous risks, 15-year-old Colombian girl struggles with leaving readers to wonder why Alexa doesn’t just call the police her identity and her burgeoning sexuality. already, and following Alexa’s movements within the narrative is Dragged unwillingly from Bogotá to often confusing. Alexa and Daniel both narrate, and while Dan- Miami, crammed with her mother and sis- iel’s sessions with Alexa are intriguing (if readers can stomach his ter into her grandmother’s apartment at the Heather Glen Apart- growing lust for her), the space devoted to his nonprofessional ment Complex, Francisca misses her friends and her former life. life feels like filler. Where Chung, who is a practicing psychoana- But she can’t go home, because “this wasn’t a Choose Your Own lytic psychotherapist, really shines is in the frenetic juggling of Migration multiple-choice adventure.” In a scene early in the book, Alexa and her Flock, and some significant narrative gaps do come her mother insists on baptizing a child she miscarried 17 years (mostly) into focus after the big twist is revealed. before, using a plastic doll from a discount store as a stand-in baby. The well-worn trope of the unreliable narrator soars to Manic one moment and sad the next, Mami has joined the Iglesia new heights in this flawed but often fascinating debut. Cristiana Jesucristo Redentor, an evangelical Colombian church young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 13

COVER STORY Jeanine Cummins

THE AUTHOR OF AMERICAN DIRT HAD TO OVERCOME HER OWN FEARS TO WRITE THE STORY OF A MEXICAN MIGRANT AND HER SON FLEEING CARTEL VIOLENCE By Megan Labrise Joe Kennedy County, New York, “because I was resistant to writing from a Mexican migrant woman’s point of view. I was afraid. I was afraid that I didn’t have the right, frankly, to do it.” This, despite years of travel to Mexico and the southern United States to research culture, migration, topography, and life in the borderlands.” Then, various factors gave her the courage. “The principal one was that my father died the week before Trump was elected,” she says, “very unexpectedly. He was in the prime of his life, he was healthy, and he died at the dinner table. Just fell over and died. And my grief was extraordinary. I’ve had trauma before in my life— I’ve written about it—but that grief incapacitated me for a long time. When I began to emerge from it, I had a painful new perspective on what really mattered to me and what didn’t.” Cummins is the author of two novels, The Outside Boy and The Crooked Branch, as well as the bestselling memoir A Rip in Heaven, the wrenching account of the rapes and murders of her two teenage cousins, who were thrown off a bridge in St. Louis, Missouri, by a gang of four men in 1991. Her brother, 19 at the time, was beaten and forced to jump. He survived. The pain of touring to promote the book led Cummins to say she’d never write another memoir. “Four months after my dad died, all my fear went out In 2013, Jeanine Cummins conceived American Dirt the window,” she says. “I dragged my laptop into bed (Flatiron, Jan. 21), a novel about a Mexican mother and with me and wrote the opening scene to American Dirt. son forced to flee for the United States when a local The two drafts I had written before went right into the cartel threatens their lives. This fiction would honor garbage. I started clean, and I wrote the whole book in the real experiences of the hundreds of thousands of about 10 months.” migrants who, for hundreds of thousands of reasons, A palpable grief, sense of urgency, and rage against have attempted the dangerous journey to El Norte. injustice fuel American Dirt’s electrifying opening But four years and two drafts into writing it, she still scene: a massacre at a backyard barbecue in a placid hadn’t reached solid ground. Acapulco neighborhood. “The first two drafts I wrote were terrible,” Cummins, “One of the very first bullets comes in through the a U.S. citizen, says by phone from her home in Rockland open window above the toilet where Luca is standing,”

14 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | the novel begins. “He doesn’t immediately understand ly, they are geographically situated so as to be the cor - that it’s a bullet at all, and it’s only luck that it doesn’t ridor for our appetite for drugs. But they are a whole strike him between the eyes. Luca hardly registers the people and country and culture with depth and texture mild noise it makes as it flies past and lodges into the and history and beauty and art. A million Lydias and a tiled wall behind him. But the wash of bullets that fol- million Lucas.” lows is loud, booming, and thudding, clack-clacking As Kirkus writes in a starred review, “Lydia and Luca with helicopter speed. There is a raft of screams, too, are utterly believable characters, and their breathtak- but that noise is short-lived, soon exterminated by the ing journey moves with the velocity and power of [a] gunfire. Before Luca can zip his pants, lower the lid, freight train….Intensely suspenseful and deeply hu- climb up to look out, before he has the time to verify mane, this novel makes migrants seeking to cross the the source of that terrible clamor, the bathroom door southern U.S. border indelibly individual.” swings open and Mami is there.” The effect was intentional. “The very first no- Lydia Quixano Pérez and her 8-year-old son, Luca, tion that I wanted to turn on its ear, that somehow are attending the quinceañera celebration at her moth- migrants are Other, that they don’t look like us, they er’s house when three unidentified gunmen open fire don’t sound like us, they’re not relatable,” Cummins on the family. They hide in the bathroom to survive. says. “They are.” Among the 16 dead is Lydia’s husband, an investigative journalist who recently unmasked a drug cartel king- Editor at large Megan Labrise hosts Kirkus’ weekly podcast, pin. Lydia has cause to believe the gunmen will return Fully Booked. American Dirt received a starred review in when they realize she and Luca are not among the dead. the Nov. 1, 2019, issue. Cummins’ preternatural ability to conjure this vibrant horror prompted Stephen King to write, by way of recommendation, “I defy anyone to read the first seven pages of this book and not finish it.” “All of my favorite books,” Cummins says, “begin- young adult ning when I was 10 years old and read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, have that magical, transportive quality where they can put you inside the skin of a person whose life experiences are different from your own and really make you see the world in a new way. So I’ve always wanted to write novels that would do that for people, that would provide that kind of portal into a different life experience.” Cummins draws in readers with cinematic detail— a single drop of blood on a green bathroom tile; a narcotraficante plucking chicken off the family’s grill— and compelling interiority that juxtaposes Lydia and Lu- ca’s profound terror with inevitable intrusions of modern life. As Luca hears bullets whiz by, he notices the radio tuned to “¡La Major 100.1 FM Acapulco!” On the run, they make haste for a commuter railroad station that shares a building with a Sephora and a Panda Express. “In this country, our notions about what contemporary Mexico looks like are ridiculous,” Cummins says. “It’s either a beach resort hotel, where everyone is here to serve you, or it’s dusty, dirty poverty. Those are our ideas of contemporary Mexico, when, in fact, Mexi- co has as many college graduates as the United States does—percentagewise, per capita, they send as many of their citizens to college as we do. They have a bur - geoning middle class. They have a tremendous problem with corruption and impunity, and, unfortunate-

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 15 in “a stinky room in the Hyatt Hotel nobody cared to vacuum.” In HEX the car on their way there, the doll stares at Francisca with a fixed, Dinerstein Knight, Rebecca plastic smile. “Are you happy now, asshole, I wanted to say....You’re Viking (224 pp.) still dead, pendejo.” With a whip-smart, unapologetic voice pep- $26.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 pered with Colombian slang, Francisca pulls us into her new life 978-1-9848-7737-6 in “Yanquilandia.” Trouble arises when she meets Carmen the pastor’s daughter, who wants her to accept Jesus into her heart. Fran- A tale of poison and obsession set cisca imagines God in “a dentist’s waiting room checking in with amid the toxic halls of academe. the receptionist every so often, Did Francisca receive my son in her Expelled from her graduate program heart yet? (said no God ever).” Instead, she finds herself falling in in biological science after a lab-mate love with Carmen, threatening her family’s tenuous place in the dies, a victim of the group’s toxicological immigrant community. Though the plot revolves around a coming- experiments, Nell Barber is left obsessed out story, the great strength of Delgado Lopera’s writing lies in its and unmoored. Though once she’d been focused on oak trees, layered portrayals of these characters and their world. “Women in she is now consumed by the need to finish the dead girl’s project my family possessed a sixth sense...from the close policing of our to “neutralize botanical toxins,” to combine the poison and its sadness: Your tristeza wasn’t yours, it was part of the larger collec- antidote. Now it is Nell’s mission, working alone in the exile of tive female sadness jar to which we all contributed.” her Brooklyn apartment, to build “a poison that undoes itself.” A rich, deeply felt novel about family ties, immigra- Yet it is not the work that is at the heart of her obsession but tion, sexual longing, faith, and desire. Simultaneously raw her mentor, Dr. Joan Kallas. The novel itself is a series of journal and luminous. entries, all addressed to her absent beloved. “As with the old work, the new work is for you, Joan,” Nell writes. “What isn’t for you?” The rest of Nell’s world is populated with Joan-adjacent players. There is Joan’s husband, Barry, the self-important and use- less Associate Director of Columbia Undergraduate Residence Halls—less a threat to Nell than a man-shaped afterthought— and Nell’s two best friends, Tom and Mishti, who, as students in good standing, still have access to the privilege of Joan’s presence, both enrolled as nondepartmental students in her class. Mishti is a beautiful chemist; Tom is a beautiful medieval and Renaissance historian and also Nell’s ex-boyfriend. Soon, all six of them are intertwined, a web of sex and betrayal, with Joan (always) at the center. It is a lush and brooding novel, over-the- top in its foreboding, with Dinerstein Knight (The Sunlit Night, 2015) walking the delicate line—mostly successfully—between the Grecian and the absurd. As a string of weirdly mannered sentences, it is a joyfully deranged pleasure; as a novel, though, the experience is frustratingly hollow, populated by characters who only come to life in the book’s final third. Admirably bold if sometimes hard to care about.

THRESHOLD Doyle, Rob Bloomsbury (336 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-63557-414-2

Drug binges, orgies, and techno…oh my! “For my purposes, a novel is simply a long chunk of prose in which whatever is said to have happened may or may not have actually happened, even if the author doesn’t bother to change his own name.” So, now that we’ve got that straight, we can plunge into the experiences of “Rob Doyle” during a 20-year-long Wanderjahr. Irish autofic- tionist Doyle’s (This Is the Ritual, 2017, etc.) third book is a series

16 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | The efforts of Native Americans to save their lands from being taken away by the U.S. government in the early 1950s come intimately, vividly to life. the night watchman

of vignettes set in Sicily, Paris, Berlin, and beyond, framed by a encounters a vision of beings, “filmy and brightly indistinct,” series of letters to a friend, a woman also writing a book. His descending from the stars, including Jesus Christ, who “looked Geoff Dyer–esque lack of delusion about himself and his quest just like the others.” Patrice Paranteau is Thomas’ niece, and makes his report reliably refreshing. In Sicily, surrounded by she’s saddled with a raging alcoholic father and financial respon- beautiful women, he is so undone by sexual frustration that he sibility for her mother and brother. Her sister, Vera, deserts the finds relief at the farmers market. “I had the sense, eating those reservation for Minneapolis; in the novel’s most suspenseful olives that were so plump and juicy that the eating of them was episode, Patrice boldly leaves home for the first time to find a rapturous, almost a sexual, experience, that I had never really her sister, although all signs point to a bad outcome for Vera. eaten olives before, that the puny, meagre, olive-shaped things Patrice grows up quickly as she navigates the city’s underbelly. I’d bought in jars in Ireland were not so much olives as insults Although the stakes for the residents of Turtle Mountain will to olives, shameful betrayals of the olive experience.” In Kash- be apocalyptic if their tribe is terminated, the novel is more mir, he isolates himself on a houseboat in order to scientifically an affectionate sketchbook of the personalities living at Turtle study the effects of ketamine. “I imagined I was conducting Mountain than a tightly plotted arc that moves from initial des- important research at the limits of consciousness, but I see peration to political triumph. Thomas’ boyhood friend Roder- now I was just getting fucked up on a boat.” In Berlin, he dances ick returns as a ghost who troubles Thomas in his night rounds, all night at an immense sex club where “every freak in Europe for example; Patrice sleeps close to a bear and is vastly changed; had apparently converged.” As necessary as eating or laugh- two young men battle for Patrice’s heart. ing, dancing gives him “access to a state of unselfconsciousness. A knowing, loving evocation of people trying to survive There was always someone older or younger, nakeder or weirder with their personalities and traditions intact. than you….” So is he writing “the great backpacker dropout novel” or “the great Berlin techno novel? he wonders. Whatever it is, it young adult provides one of the wildest experiences you can have without regrets or hangovers. If you long for your misspent youth—or didn’t have one—here you go.

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN Erdrich, Louise Harper/HarperCollins (448 pp.) $28.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-06-267118-9

In this unhurried, kaleidoscopic story, the efforts of Native Americans to save their lands from being taken away by the U.S. government in the early 1950s come intimately, vividly to life. Erdrich’s grandfather Patrick Gour- neau was part of the first generation born on the Turtle Moun- tain Reservation in North Dakota. As the chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in the mid-1950s, he had to use all the political savvy he could muster to dissuade Utah Sen. Arthur V. Watkins (whom Erdrich calls a “pompous racist” in her afterword) from reneging on long-held treaties between Native Americans and the federal government. Erdrich’s grandfather is the inspiration for her novel’s protagonist, Thomas Wazhushk, the night watchman of the title. He gets his last name from the muskrat, “the lowly, hardworking, water-loving rodent,” and Thomas is a hard worker himself: In between his rounds at a local factory, at first uncertain he can really help his tribe, he organizes its members and writes letters to politicians, “these official men with their satisfied soft faces,” opposing Watkins’ efforts at “terminating” their reservation. Erdrich reveals Thomas’ character at night when he’s alone; still reliable and self-sacrificing, he becomes more human, like the night he locks himself out of the factory, almost freezes to death, and

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 17 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Garth Greenwell

THE AUTHOR OF WHAT BELONGS TO YOU REVISITS THE CENTRAL CHARACTER OF THAT NOVEL. BUT DON’T CALL CLEANNESS A SEQUEL By Claiborne Smith Oriette D’Angelo National Book Award. The cover of Cleanness is a close-up of a man’s back so that it’s sinuous and wavy, not noticeably a back at all. “What is this thing? A book about cleanness?” someone new to Greenwell could be excused for wondering. Greenwell says that he and his publisher “went back and forth” about whether to label the book. It’s as if Greenwell and the publisher were saying, You figure out what this book is; we’re not helping you. The ambiguity of the book’s presentation and the con- jecture of categorizing it are endemic to the story it tells. Cleanness puts center stage something touched on only briefly in What Belongs to You—the narrator’s shifting, conflicted relationship with R., a Portuguese student studying in Sofia. In the new book, Greenwell abandons any mention of Mit- ko, the alternately charming and pitiable hustler whom the unnamed narrator of What Belongs to You falls for and then, ultimately, rejects. The fraught and risky dance of desire between those two characters captivated readers. But Greenwell is still interested in risk: namely, whether the unnamed narrator of Cleanness and R. will jeopardize There are a few words you might want to avoid in describ- comfort and their futures to stay together. The possibility ing Garth Greenwell’s Cleanness (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jan. (or impossibility) of conducting a long-distance relationship 14): “novel,” even though the book follows the stories of sev- with R. is the perfect Greenwell subject: freighted with emo- eral characters over the course of its various chapters, as we like tional guesswork even though the narrator and R. try to be novels to do. Don’t use “sequel,” for although Cleanness features upfront with one another about what they feel and wheth- the same protagonist that anchored Greenwell’s hit What Be er their relationship can survive the distance. What is the longs to You (2016)—an American from the South who’s teaching other person feeling? Will he be loyal in another country? Is English in Sofia, Bulgaria—its author is certainCleanness is not physical closeness everything in a relationship? Greenwell’s a sequel (also don’t use “prequel”). The book has a table of con- piercing language feels poetic, vulnerable, honest—even if tents that lists nine chapters and each chapter has a title, like (especially if?) it’s painful: you’d see in a short story collection, but you can forget about calling it a “short story collection.” How about “book”? R. dropped his bags and stepped onto the bed, jump- The question of how to categorize Cleanness isn’t aca- ing up and down a few times, and I laughed with him, demic. Although What Belongs to You garnered many acco- even as I sensed, just past the edges of what we felt, a lades, there are still readers who don’t know his first novel hovering dread. It was a habit of mine, to rush toward was named one of the best books of the year by more than 50 an ending once I thought I could see it, as if the fact of publications in nine countries; or that the book was a finalist loss were easier to bear than the chance of it. I didn’t for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was also longlisted for the want that to happen with R., I struggled against it; he

18 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | was worth struggling for, I thought, as was the person I found I was with him.

There are other kinds of risk that will catch the notice of readers: for example, the threat to both the narrator and one of his students if the narrator pursues sex with that student. There’s also danger in a boundary-pushing experience of BDSM sex, which in Greenwell’s hands is erotic and thrilling but also existential. “I felt with a new fear how little sense LIKE FLIES FROM AFAR of myself I have,” says the narrator, “how there was no end to Ferrari, K. Trans. by West, Adrian Nathan what I could want or to the punishment I would seek.” Farrar, Straus and Giroux (224 pp.) Readers often think about the presence of autobiogra- $25.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 phy in Greenwell’s work, like they do when reading Marcel 978-0-374-23994-7 Proust, Christopher Isherwood, Elena Ferrante, or Karl Ove A darker shade of absurdist noir fea- Knausgaard. Like his narrator, Greenwell taught English in turing an Argentine businessman, as con- Bulgaria. His partner, Luis Muñoz, teaches in the Spanish temptible as he is successful, who finds and Portuguese department at the University of Iowa and his life inexplicably falling apart. The opening of this short novel finds is a noted Spanish poet, inviting comparison with Cleanness’ Mr. Machi in the afterglow of a fellatio-induced, cocaine-driven R. Greenwell would prefer for the guessing game to disap- orgasm, luxuriating in his obscenely opulent success, as he pre- pear. “I get so frustrated when people ask me to what ex- pares to take a drive. “He doesn’t need to wonder what success is, because he can feel it in the potent purr of the accelerator tent is it true,” he acknowledges. “I do feel really ferociously beneath his right foot, in the cushioned upholstery, in the that I reject any attempt to collapse invention and autobi- power steering, in the sunlight and the stares of astonishment ography.” Something that might have happened to Green- and envy reflecting off the BMW’s gloss finish,” writes Ferrari, well becomes an element in one of his books; but in fiction who works as a subway-station janitor in his native Buenos

Aires after having been deported from the United States in the young adult it’s necessarily not going to be exactly like the writer’s own 1990s. This is his first work to be translated into English, and experience. “Even if I wanted to look at a page and tell you it could pass as a madcap mixture of Kafka, Bukowski, and Jim what actually happened, I can’t do it,” he says. Thompson. In quick order, the corrupt, politically connected Mr. Machi finds his tire sabotaged and his trunk somehow occupied by a corpse whose face has been mutilated beyond recogni- Claiborne Smith is the former editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews tion. Then more clues seem to link Mr. Machi himself to the and the literary director of the San Antonio Book Festival. Clean- murder. He has no idea who the victim is, who the perpetrator was, or why he has been targeted. The book follows his efforts ness received a starred review in the Oct. 15, 2019, issue. over one day to dispose of the body and the evidence and to discover the motive and culprits. He “feels there’s no bottom to the pit he’s fallen into,” and his attempts to dig himself out find him falling deeper in. He believes he has no enemies, but as he ponders his predicament, it appears to the reader that pretty much everyone he knows could have wished him ill—his wife and their children, his employees and partners, his rivals. His daughter’s boyfriend is a writer who supports himself with menial work (like the author) and has plans to write a detective novel much like this one, in which Mr. Machi would be the protagonist “and terrible things would happen to him.” Though ultimately unsatisfying as a mystery, it works as an existential parable, with a protagonist whose charac - ter is destiny.

THE COMPANIONS Flynn, Katie M. Scout Press/Simon & Schuster (272 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-9821-2215-7

In the near future, the dead can choose to return to the world of the living—as something not quite human. Set in a slightly futuristic, quarantined California, Flynn’s debut novel opens after a devastating virus has decimated

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 19 huge swaths of people. Borders are closed, cities are highly sur- he gets inside, and then gives the task force assembled to catch veilled, and death is no longer black and white. Metis, a med- him a description of the UNSUB—unknown subject—and his tech corporation, has ownership of all companions, or machines car that’s just detailed enough to suggest something truly shock- the dying can upload their consciousness into. Companions can ing, and readily identifiable, about him. Sheriff’s Department either be wards of their families or sold to strangers—but they investigator Gil Alvarez finds the theory Caitlin’s based on Han- are all denied basic human rights. Spanning decades and conti- nah’s evidence too far-out to believe, but Caitlin herself is a true nents, the novel is told from the perspectives of eight characters believer. Determined that she won’t be outmaneuvered by a killer (human and humanoid alike) whose lives intersect and overlap who’s dramatically stepped up the pace of his murderous attacks, because of Lilac, a companion unlike the rest. After having been breached his self-imposed limits, and now threatens her star murdered as a teenager, Lilac has spent decades as a companion— witness with abduction and worse, she hunkers down to catch a one of the first, in fact. When she discovers she can defy her pro- quarry whom she says is “like nothing I’ve ever dealt with”—as if gramming, Lilac begins to search for her murderer. From there, she doesn’t know that descriptions like that just set the bar even she comes into contact with other characters, including Cam, a higher for the inevitable sequel. former employee at an elder-care facility; Rolly, a teenager living Gardiner has mastered the art of the serial-killer saga on his family’s diminished farm; and Gabe (short for Gabrielle), without an ounce of fat. a spunky yet wounded 9-year-old orphan. Flynn’s characterization is strong throughout, but Gabe is particularly well-drawn. At first, she’s angry, grief-stricken, stubborn, and unwilling to show THE PERFECT WORLD OF weakness. Her emotional journey throughout the novel feels MIWAKO SUMIDA absolutely earned. In the midst of a character-driven narrative, Goenawan, Clarissa Flynn’s simple and evocative writing shines: “It’s not supposed Soho (288 pp.) to be possible for a companion to dream, but I can feel it, like a $25.00 | Mar. 2, 2020 lozenge on the tongue, both present and disappearing all at once.” 978-1-64129-119-4 Though the plot sometimes feels too convenient, the novel raises important questions about humanity. If companions have memo- When a Tokyo university student ries and can feel emotions like love, pain, anger, and sadness, are hangs herself in a remote forest, three they not human? If not, what makes us human in the first place? devastated friends seek to understand A suspenseful, introspective debut. why. Reluctantly attending a group blind date, Waseda University student Ryusei Yanagi is immediately THE DARK CORNERS OF attracted to Miwako Sumida, whose “serious expression behind THE NIGHT a pair of old-fashioned thick-rimmed glasses” and blunt manner Gardiner, Meg are at odds with her prettier and flirtier girlfriends. “She seemed Blackstone (352 pp.) sensible,” Ryu thinks. As they bond while browsing in an English- $26.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 language bookshop and reading together in the library, Ryu falls 978-1-982627-51-5 in love with Miwako, sensing a softness and compassion behind her hard exterior, but she refuses to date him. Fumi, Ryu’s trans- Los Angeles may not have snow at gender sister, is also intrigued by the stubborn and standoffish Christmastime, but it’s got the next girl, whom she hires as a painting assistant for her studio. Eight best thing: a stone-cold serial killer who months later, Miwako is dead, and a grieving Ryusei travels with provides FBI behavioral analyst Caitlin Miwako’s close friend Chie Ohno to Kitsuyama, a mountain vil- Hendrix (Into the Black Nowhere, 2018, lage where Miwako spent her final days, to find answers. Mean- etc.) with her third, and perhaps most while, in Tokyo, Fumi receives an unexpected visitor who might chilling, adversary. hold a clue to Miwako’s suicide. Set in the same moodily atmo- What kind of person breaks into houses when the whole fam- spheric Japanese world as her acclaimed debut novel, Rainbirds ily is home, executes both parents, but leaves the children alive (2018), Indonesian-born Singaporean writer Goenawan explores to live with their nightmares? Only someone, as Caitlin tells her via the perspectives of Ryu, Fumi, and Chie how a carefully boss, CJ Emmerich, who has “deliberately created surviving wit- crafted facade of hardened perfection can crumble under the nesses.” The Midnight Man, as he’s soon dubbed, dispatches four weight of painful secrets and shame, leading to tragedy. Although married couples, leaving behind such memorabilia as scrawled the nature of Miwako’s hidden past becomes apparent early on, messages proclaiming “I am the legion of the night” and images she is such a compelling protagonist that the reader doesn’t mind of eyes drawn in blood on a baby’s forehead in suburban homes the obviousness. Like Japanese brush painting, the author’s sim- scattered around Los Angeles County before Caitlin, already reel- ple, clear prose captures Miwako’s vulnerability and complexity. ing from the hospital bombing that nearly killed her best friend, Also vividly drawn are Fumi and Chie, each having built their own ER nurse Michele Ferreira, catches her first real lead. Hannah unusual protective personas that are gradually revealed. Guillory, a plucky sixth grader, finds the Midnight Man attempt- An eerie and elegant puzzle. ing to break into her house, rouses her parents to call 911 before

20 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 21 GUESTS OF AUGUST from the French. She’s eager to learn what the novel, which por- Goldreich, Gloria trays a marriage on the rocks, has to say about her and her hus- Severn House (224 pp.) band, Jeff. Grasping Liane Curran sees summering at the inn as $28.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 a way to experience the ways of old money while her desperate 978-0-7278-8972-0 husband, Michael, is hoping for an infusion of that money into his teetering startup. Patrician financier Mark Templeton and Five families return to a New Hamp- his carefully groomed, alcoholic wife, Andrea, return from Cali- shire country inn anticipating a long fornia to New Hampshire every August to commemorate the summer idyll. Will the simmering ten- loss of their son, Adam, and to offer their condolences to the sions boil over, or will the long, sunny widow and son he left behind. Wendy and Donny Templeton, days work their magic? who live not far from the inn, dutifully roll up for this mourn- Novelist Daniel Goldner, who’s been ful ritual of sternly enforced family bonding. Author Goldreich coming to Mount Haven Inn since he was a boy, is seeking sol- (After Melanie, 2019, etc.) litters the tale with details that read ace as his marriage founders. Economist Simon Epstein, his more like 1969 than 2019: A teenager wears Jean Nate perfume; longtime friend, is there for him along with Simon’s free-spir- a college student drives a “roadster”; women under 70 wear ited wife and three teenagers. The Edwards family has also been their hair in “lacquered helmets”; the developer of cutting-edge coming to Mount Haven for years, keeping their family vacation software has his spreadsheets on paper. Whatever the inciden- inviolate. But this year, as their teenagers squabble and the mar- tal details, the characters are all seeking an old-fashioned sum- riage has lost its luster, Susan Edwards has smuggled in a golden mer: antiquing, kayaking on the lake, piecing together puzzles, professional opportunity to translate a much-lauded new novel and turning to each other for comfort and renewal. Ambling and impossibly old-fashioned: a melodrama in which nothing much happens.

THE SHAPE OF FAMILY Gowda, Shilpi Somaya Custom House/Morrow (352 pp.) $27.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-0-06-293322-5

After calamity strikes, the members of the Olander family struggle to find their paths back to each other. The children of an American father and an Indian mother, Karina and Prem Olander have learned to stick together. Thirteen-year-old Karina defends Prem, 8, from school bullies and even walks hand in hand with him on the way home, but she wants her time alone, too. Pushing Prem away one afternoon so that she can spend time trying on makeup and talking to her best friend, however, leads to a deadly accident. With each chapter telling the story from a different family member’s perspective, Gowda (The Golden Son, 2016, etc.) traces the fallout lines with compassion and a keen eye for the lies we tell ourselves to avoid facing our own demons. While Prem watches from someplace after death, his and Karina’s parents split up, with their father, Keith, submerging himself in his work in the financial industry and making some ethi- cally questionable decisions. Their mother, Jaya, drifts away from everyone, rediscovering her spirituality, spending hours in ritual- ized prayer, building a temple in the family’s home, and following the teachings of a prominent Hindu guru. With Prem’s chapters underdeveloped, Gowda focuses primarily on Karina, tracing her spiral first into depression and then into self-destructive behavior. Once she leaves for college, Karina is primed to fall in love, to be betrayed, and to find solace at the Sanctuary. A communal farm headed by the charismatic Micah, the Sanctuary offers Karina meaningful work surrounded by people who embrace her, bearing

22 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing. the other bennet sister

witness to her sense of guilt. But as Karina begins to suspect that when she sings poorly at a party and older sister Elizabeth Micah may not be quite who he claims to be, Gowda ratchets up goads their father to cut her off in front of everyone. The sis- the tension, shifting gears into a thriller late in the game, setting in ters’ friend Charlotte, who marries the unctuous Mr. Collins motion the family’s reunion. after Elizabeth rejects him, emerges as a pivotal character; her A deft, patient portrait of grief. conversations with Mary are even tougher-minded here than those with Elizabeth depicted by Austen. In Part 2, two years later, Mary observes on a visit that Charlotte is deferential but THE OTHER remote with her husband; she forms an intellectual friendship BENNET SISTER with the neglected and surprisingly nice Mr. Collins that leads Hadlow, Janice to Charlotte’s asking Mary to leave. In Part 3, Mary finds refuge Henry Holt (448 pp.) in London with her kindly aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gar- $28.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 diner. Mrs. Gardiner is the second motherly woman, after Long- 978-1-250-12941-3 bourn housekeeper Mrs. Hill, to try to undo the psychic damage wrought by Mary’s actual mother, shallow, status-obsessed Mrs. Another reboot of Jane Austen?!? Bennet, by building up her confidence and buying her some nice Hadlow pulls it off in a smart, heartfelt clothes (funded by guilt-ridden Lizzy). Sure enough, two suit- novel devoted to bookish Mary, middle ors appear: Tom Hayward, a poetry-loving lawyer who relishes of the five sisters inPride and Prejudice. Mary’s intellect but urges her to also express her feelings; and Part 1 recaps Pride and Prejudice William Ryder, charming but feckless inheritor of a large for- through Mary’s eyes, climaxing with the humiliating moment tune, whom naturally Mrs. Bennet loudly favors. It takes some young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 23 QUEERIES Carolina De Robertis, Author Of Cantoras

By Karen Schechner

Pamela Denise HarrisPamela Denise when their bond began, right in the bleak times. This book is inspired by the lives of real women whose stories I’ve been listening to for 18 years, and I’ve always been stunned at their courage in coming out to each other in an era of terror and silence, the way they forged something gorgeous out of simply seeing each other.

Cantoras is an immersive experience—whether you’re describing a cantora in the surf at Cabo Polonio (a tranquil seaside village) or in a political prison. What goes into creating a rich setting? I do an enormous amount of research for my novels, including reading all the scholarly texts I can get my hands on, but also what I think of as research through the body. What does a place feel like, smell like, sound like? How about 30 years ago? I strive to use everything I can to offer the reader transport, immersion.

Each cast member feels so fully imagined… Thank you! They began as composites inspired by real women and gradually became their own unique selves as I wrote. It was important to me to allow them room to breathe, to be complex and textured people, especially as portrayal of Carolina De Robertis’ Kirkus-starred novel, Canto queer women in mainstream culture all too often stays in the ras—about five queer women who create a seaside haven realm of two-dimensional sidekick. to weather authoritarian rule—was a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize and an in-house favorite. It’s easy to see why You’ve said on social media: “The thing is, not too many Cantoras (cantora means singer in Spanish and is slang for les- years ago, the sight of the words lesbian and Uruguay- bian) would have been any fiction judge’s pick. It’s an imagi- an in the same sentence over in the New York Times native, high-stakes story set in Uruguay that considers the could have bowled me over. Even if that sentence had sea, queer identity, love, lust, PTSD, bravery, and storytell- had nothing to do with a book I’d written.” Can you say ing. Our reviewer calls it “a stunning novel about queer love, more about that? womanhood, and personal and political revolution.” Here I remember the first time I saw an Uruguayan flag in a Pride we talk with De Robertis about creating her cast, cultural parade in San Francisco in 1999—I sobbed right there on possibilities within Uruguay, and sharing yerba mate. the sidewalk. I’d internalized a deep message that I couldn’t be both queer and Uruguayan, from my parents, from soci- The novel begins in 1977 Uruguay with the military dic- ety, from lack of representation or access to stories. When tatorship in full force. Why start there? we’re told we can’t exist, there is less air for us to breathe. This novel places the friendship between five queer women That’s why seeing a sentence like that stuns me, not only for at the center of the story, so I knew the book had to open the book, but for what becomes culturally possible.

24 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | You depict many delightful Uruguayan traditions, like drinking yerba mate, which becomes part of the women’s routine at the seaside shack. What does yerba mate mean to the women? Everything! There’s a deep, elaborate culture around drinking yerba mate. It’s deeply communal and connective, as it’s enjoyed in a circle, with people taking turns drinking from the same gourd. It’s how I start my day here in Cal- ifornia, with my wife, passing the gourd back and forth, maneuvering to orchestrate the estrangement of Mary and talking. I’m supremely lucky that my wife, who is African Tom, so clearly right for each other, but debut novelist Had- low manages it with aplomb in a bravura passage describing a American and not originally Uruguayan, is a die-hard ma- walking tour of the Lake District rife with seething complica- tera, a drinker of mate. tions furthered by odious Caroline Bingley. Her comeuppance at Mary’s hands marks the welcome final step in our heroine’s What are you working on now? transformation from a self-doubting wallflower to a vibrant, self-assured woman who deserves her happy ending. Hadlow I’m delighted to say that my next novel, The President and the traces that progression with sensitivity, emotional clarity, and a Frog, is actually slated for publication in 2021. It’s inspired by quiet edge of social criticism Austen would have relished. José Mujica, former president of Uruguay, and it’s a kind of Entertaining and thoroughly engrossing. political parable, a quixotic search for what it takes to for- tify one’s spirit in desperate times. Oh, and I’m also about THE RETURN to translate Cantoras into Spanish—so, yes, I’m keeping busy. Harrison, Rachel Berkley (304 pp.) $26.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 Karen Schechner is the vice president of Kirkus Indie. Cantoras 978-0-593-09866-0 received a starred review in the July 1, 2019, issue. Two years ago, Julie disappeared

while hiking alone in Acadia National young adult Park. Now she’s back. Julie’s husband, Tristan, and her best friends, Elise, Mae, and Molly, were devastated when she didn’t return home from her trip. After a year, a funeral was held with no body. Everyone close to Julie was certain she was dead except for Elise, and on the two-year anniversary of her vanishing, Julie proves Elise right. Tristan finds her sitting on their porch swing with no memory of the time she was gone. With so many questions surrounding Julie’s return, Elise is surprised when Mae arranges a girls’ trip to the Catskills’ eclectic (themed rooms!) Red Honey Inn over Columbus Day weekend. Julie is the last to arrive, and her emaciated appearance is jarring. She’s not the vibrant woman Elise remembers, but she’s undeniably her beloved friend, and the four look forward to a fun reunion. The weather is frightful, though; Elise’s room is frigid; and Julie is acting very oddly, to say the least. Julie was a vegetarian, but now she has a ravenous hunger for rare meat and smells like an abattoir. Then there’s the shadowy figure Elise keeps glimps- ing in her room. Harrison skillfully portrays the bond between the four longtime friends, complete with secrets and tension, but always against a background of palpable affection. As Elise, who narrates, says, “I’m so happy to be with them and to be the version of myself I am when I’m around them.” Unfor- tunately, though, it’s increasingly obvious to Elise, Mae, and Molly that they need to get to the bottom of what’s happening to Julie, who is deteriorating before their eyes. Harrison successfully sustains a low, visceral dread throughout that eventually builds to a shocking crescendo, and whispers of The Shining haunt the Red Honey Inn’s gloriously gaudy halls. Patient readers who appreciate a slow burn with an explosive payoff will be rewarded. This girls’ trip has teeth. A stylish and well-crafted horror debut.

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 25 LOVE, DEATH & RARE BOOKS witness to a suicide that changes her life. But is she stalking the Hellenga, Robert friends of the dead girl, or are they stalking her? It seems to be Delphinium (350 pp.) both, as Hendricks and Pekkanen (An Anonymous Girl, 2019) $26.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 unfold another one of their intricately plotted, female-focused 978-1-883285-85-2 thrillers. Rage about rape and sexual abuse underlies the plot as Google searches, dating apps, and hacked phones move it Hellenga’s episodic novel traces the forward, making this a thriller of the moment. Here, the evil fortunes of a family-owned bookshop men are on the sidelines—the women are pitted against each and the lives it touches. other in a complicated game of cat and mouse. Shay, who is Chas. Johnson & Son, Ltd., a pur- lonely, insecure, and broke, is easily drawn in by the cool and veyor of used and collectible books, is confident Moore sisters, who ply her with beauty makeovers, a pillar of its Hyde Park neighborhood, a “sea-blue leather purse,” “a sugar cookie scented Nest candle, near the University of Chicago. Gabriel, the third generation of with notes of Tahitian vanilla and bourbon infused caramel,” the Johnson book dynasty, begins work as a teenager in the shop and, most devastatingly, the illusion of friendship. But socially alongside his grandfather Chaz and father, Charles Jr. Begin- awkward, highly observant Shay, who makes her way through ning in 1970, in each chapter the action jumps ahead by days, life by recording statistics and factoids about human nature in a months, or years. We learn about the rare book trade, auctions, “Data Book,” can only be fooled so long. “Between 73 and 79 per- the appraisal process, and the escalating price wars as private cent of homicides during a 15-year period were committed by collectors passionate about books are outbid by billionaires offenders known to the victim,” she notes. Good thing to know. seeking just another trophy. Milestones in American booksell- The authors dole out clues in a series of interlocking flashbacks; ing are checked off. Johnson’s is one of the many bookstores to finally we get the detail that makes the pieces come together, be bombed for stocking The Satanic Verses. The juggernaut of with just a few little issues to argue about in your book club. big-box bookselling rolls over independent stores—and then Lots of frenzied flipping back and forth for readers who comes Amazon—but, still, Johnson’s endures. Only the increas- like to figure out the puzzle. ing movement of the collectible book trade to online sales deals the death blow. Meanwhile, Gabe grows up and grows older. His mother deserted the family long before; and his first love, LAKE LIKE A MIRROR Olivia, deserts Gabe for Yale, where an affair with a professor Ho, Sok Fong leaves her pregnant. Olivia will return to give birth to daughter Trans. by Bruce, Natascha Saskia and, later, to manage the Hyde Park Borders store, but Two Lines Press (240 pp.) whenever Gabe’s romantic hopes rise, she dashes them. Now $16.95 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 in his 50s, Gabe, who has never married, sells everything and 978-1-931883-98-6 buys a house teetering on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Then Borders’ bankruptcy and Olivia’s own belated maturity Dreamlike stories about Malaysian take a hand. Partly owing to a supporting cast of colorful eccen- women in mysterious circumstances. trics, including Father Gregory, desperate to unload the library The stories in this collection—Ho’s of a defunct Catholic college; Delilah, scion of a funeral home first book to be translated into English— chain; and Augie, a garrulous elderly former gangster, the story follow a dreamy logic. In “Lake Like a ambles along amiably, never failing to instruct and, somewhat Mirror,” a teacher’s students remind less often, entertain. Gabe never fully emerges as a character her of a “herd of elk in long grass, nestled meekly against one since his role is principally that of a spectator to the lives of oth- another.” Later, when a deer leaps out in front of her car, she ers as well as his own. swerves off the road. In “Aminah,” several women have been A novel with the feel of a rambling memoir. detained by Muslim authorities who believe they’ve strayed from their faith. One of the women sleepwalks at night, naked and unchecked—none of the guards want to apprehend her YOU ARE NOT ALONE in that state. Ho’s stories, which center almost exclusively on Hendricks, Greer & Pekkanen, Sarah women, have an eerie quality, an otherworldly elegance, many St. Martin’s (352 pp.) of them with uncanny images: Cats yowl at the edges of that $27.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 rehab center, and some of the women perform shadowy exor- 978-1-250-20203-1 cisms late at night. But as misty-edged as these stories can be, Ho also makes pointed critiques about politics and culture in Witnessing a suicide proves almost her native Malaysia. The teacher in “Lake Like a Mirror” fears fatal for the witness herself. for her job when one of her students comes out, in a video Shay Miller would not have been on he posts online, after reciting a sexually explicit e.e. cum- that subway platform had she not taken mings poem she’d taught in class. In “Radio Drama,” a clus- the 22 seconds required to tie up her ter of women gossip at the hairdresser’s. Someone, they hear, ponytail. Because she did, she is the sole has committed suicide, and they speculate about her reasons.

26 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | young adult

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 27 Her husband probably took a mistress, they think. “But a THE GRACE KELLY DRESS mistress was only natural, once a man made a bit of money!” Janowitz, Brenda They conclude: “For a wife to kill herself over it, well, that was Graydon House (336 pp.) just silly.” Throughout this fine collection, Ho’s touch is only $16.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 lightly apparent. She has created a world in these stories that 978-1-525-80459-5 is entirely, and uniquely, her own. Straddling the surreal and the pointedly political, Ho A wedding dress designed in 1958 reveals herself to be a writer of immense talent and range. Paris is passed along the generations in this three-part story about the women who wore it to walk down the aisle. MADE IN SATURN This is the tale of one wedding Indiana, Rita dress. One-third of the story follows its Trans. by Hutchinson, Sydney design and construction by Rose, a hardworking seamstress and And Other Stories (124 pp.) orphan who creates the dress for Diana Laurent when Madame $15.95 paper | Mar. 24, 2020 Michel—the head of the atelier where Rose works—suddenly 978-1-911508-60-1 dies without naming a protégé to take over the business. The daughter and granddaughter of the original woman who wore Singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle, the dress adapt it in two subsequent generations to make it their a recovering drug addict, tells audiences own. College-student Joan inherits the dress from her mother, that people ask the wrong question of those and one-third of the book details her ill-advised engagement in trying to get clean. Rather than asking why 1982 to a man she doesn’t particularly care for even though she they use, they should ask why they hurt. longs for a grand wedding and the inclusion of so-called “Prin- This sentiment runs through Indiana’s fifth novel. In it, cess Diana sleeves” on the dress. The remaining third of the Argenis Luna has been sent to a Cuban drug detoxification clinic book details successful video game app developer Rocky’s wed- run by Dr. Bengoa. The arrangement took some string pulling ding planning in 2020 as she prepares to marry her love, Drew, from Argenis’ father, a high-ranking bureaucrat in the Domini- a venture capitalist, and her inheritance of the dress, which she can Republic’s ruling party, who called in a favor from the physi- does not want to wear. Author Janowitz (The Dinner Party, 2016) cian. The two had once been political comrades, forging a bond has created a frothy story where unlimited money and love during a 1967 Latin American Solidarity Conference. At the flow freely. The tale touches ever so lightly on weighty issues— time, both were filled with revolutionary fervor. Now, 37 years drug use and overdoses, death, infidelity, a quest to find a birth later, the men are middle-aged and weary. José Alfredo, the dad, mother, and gay rights. Joan’s story has the most depth, but it has become rich and powerful, and Bengoa has become a hack hangs together uneasily with Rose’s and Rocky’s as a result, as physician, providing rich junkies with injections of Temgesic to it is a much earthier exploration of self, autonomy, and maturity wean them from heroin. José Alfredo, meanwhile, wants to help than is offered by the other two stories. his 27-year-old son, a once-promising artist, get his life back A story for fans of happily-ever-after, where love and on course. But it won’t be easy. Argenis hates his negligent and acceptance resolve every problem and money is no object. philandering father and is filled with contempt for him. At the same time, he’s grateful to be in Havana, especially after meeting comely Susana. Recovery, however, is never seamless, and A BOND UNDONE as memories of childhood flood back, Argenis has to confront Jin Yong both the love and deprivation that marked his coming-of-age. Trans. by Chang, Gigi Along the way, he is aided by people who include a Cuban drag St. Martin’s (544 pp.) performer, his aunt Niurka, his mom, Etelvina, and a former art $18.99 paper | Mar. 24, 2020 professor. Still, despite their considerable assistance, Argenis 978-1-250-25011-7 remains haunted by the image of Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Will he, like the son in the painting, find rescue, or will he Second installment in popular Chi- be consumed by an overbearing father? nese writer Jin Yong’s immensely popular A deeply nuanced, atmospheric, and graphic depiction Legends of the Condor Heroes series (A of mental illness, drug addiction, and recovery. Hero Born, 2019). Louis Cha Leung-yung, pen name Jin Yong, died in 2018, having sold hundreds of millions of books in Chinese (and Korean and Vietnamese), all in the wuxia, or martial arts, tradition. Imagine Jackie Chan by way of Tolkien and you’ll have some sense of how the books work, their chapters peppered with improbably epic brawls among mythologi- cal figures with names such as Apothecary Huang, Hurricane Chen, and Cyclone Mei. This second volume finds hero Guo

28 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Kemp writes with a careful restraint that makes the emotional explosions all the more powerful when they come. marguerite

Jing and his beloved Lotus Huang battling their way across a the book loses steam in the second half, becoming muddled by countryside in which the bad guys seek the occult knowledge several drawn-out plot points and unnecessary scenes that do tucked away inside a martial arts manual whose devotees know little to move the story forward. Is Daisy truly dead, or will she all kinds of deadly kicks and punches. “You are a disciple of find a way to return to the living? Is Violet on her way to suf- Twice Foul Dark Wind,” growls Tiger Peng the Outlaw by way fering a tragic setback? By Daisy’s third ill-advised attempt to of an introduction, and Lotus responds, “You promised to let reappear to her traumatized family and friends, it’s hard to keep me go if you couldn’t name the school of my kung fu within ten caring either way. moves.” Ten moves should have been enough, especially since A promising debut that gets bogged down by poor pac- Lotus has already defeated the Three Horned Dragon and ing and a too-neat ending. the Dragon King of the Daemon Sect, friends of Tiger Peng’s. It’s not brawn but brains that get Lotus out of that particular pickle. Meanwhile, Guo Jing, who, having grown up among MARGUERITE Mongol raiders and who thus “could tell the size of a herd by Kemp, Marina ear,” has plenty of adventures of his own, including falling into Viking (320 pp.) the company of a “sworn brother” who invites him to join him $26.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 for some merry martial combat in the underworld; resisting the 978-1-984877-83-3 siren song of a magical death-dealing ditty; and embarking on a journey upon the “boundless sea” without telling Lotus of his Centering her first novel around a itinerary—all grist for the next volume. On that score, fans of rural French village and the young Pari- the series should rejoice that more books await, though their sian who has come there as a traveling

publication will reportedly be spread over a number of years, nurse, British author Kemp writes about young adult requiring plenty of patience. the cost of suppressed passions—love, A delightful entertainment, especially for readers guilt, revenge—and the risk of secrecy. versed in Chinese mythology or steeped in the films of Jet Twenty-four-year-old Marguerite Demers is caring for the Li and company. elderly, gravely ill Jérôme Lanvier at his worn-down estate outside the village of Saint-Sulpice. Marguerite has taken the job to avoid Paris, her well-to-do parents, and guilty memories con- DAISY COOPER’S RULES cerning her sister, Cassandre, four years younger than her, who FOR LIVING came down with meningitis when Marguerite was 15. Margue- Keily, Tamsin rite’s nursing career is a form of repentance for not having saved Park Row Books (336 pp.) her sister. Secretive, obsessively self-blaming Marguerite rel- $16.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 ishes isolation, but she is sucked into incendiary undercurrents 978-0-77-83-0974-1 roiling within the village and inside Jérôme’s family. Crises arise from crossed purposes, not simple misunderstandings; Kemp On a routine evening milk run, doesn’t let her characters off the hook that easily: They make 23-year-old Londoner Daisy Cooper slips choices, often unwise, that affect not only themselves, but oth- on the icy pavement, hits her head, and ers. Their opposing needs, desires, and angers tighten like a dies. noose around the characters’ lives. Marguerite allows herself to When Daisy follows the light, she become a pawn in the hostilities between her difficult patient wakes up in an office space that is more clinical than heavenly. and his adult sons. Jérôme is no stock literary curmudgeon with There she meets Death, personified by a handsome man with a soft heart. Always a bullying tyrant to his three resentful, still mesmerizing green eyes and some bad news—there has been needy sons, Jérôme knows they hate him and hates them back. a clerical error. Daisy was not meant to die until the ripe old Meanwhile, Suki Lacourse, a local villager’s Iranian wife, tries age of 92. Now stuck in limbo until further notice, Daisy kills to befriend Marguerite as a fellow outsider. Suki harbors deep time by taking on a job as Death’s assistant—where she is both bitterness toward the local women who never accepted her, in a help and a hindrance—and spying on her boyfriend, Eric, and particular Brigitte Brochon, whose husband, Henri, rejected best friend, Violet, who is struggling with a resurgence in clini- Suki’s sexual advances years before. Desperately in love with cal depression following Daisy’s departure. As Daisy and Death Henri, aware she is not his equal in looks or brains, Brigitte feels process souls, including a murdered woman and plane crash threatened by attractive, smart women like Suki and now Mar- victims, they form a special connection through exploring guerite. But Henri, the one man in town who has won Jerome’s loss and its inescapable afteraffects—not only on the dead and respect, cannot escape his own secret and accompanying shame. those they leave behind, but on Death himself. These moments When he and Marguerite come together, the repercussions are are obviously crafted to make the reader ruminate on their disastrous. own mortality, but what could be emotionally manipulative or Kemp writes with a careful restraint that makes the schmaltzy is surprisingly affecting in Keily’s hands. With the emotional explosions all the more powerful when they intriguing mystery of Daisy’s is-she-isn’t-she death, witty dia- come. logue, and romantic tension, Keily hits all the right notes. But

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 29 Startup culture and science fiction collide in this debut novel about love, loss, and coming-of-age. new waves

HURRICANE SEASON to miss them, to find them. That someone might be Clara, a Melchor, Fernanda teenage dropout who works the Atlantic City strip as a psychic Trans. by Hughes, Sophie and occasionally has visions. She can tell there’s something dan- New Directions (224 pp.) gerous at work, but she has other problems. To pay the rent, she $22.95 | Mar. 31, 2020 begins selling her company, and then her body, to older men. 978-0-8112-2803-9 One day she meets Lily, another young woman who’d escaped the depressing decay of Atlantic City for New York only to A dead Witch in a Mexican village be betrayed by a man. She’s come back to AC because there’s prompts a host of locals to share rumors nowhere else to go, and she spends her time working a dead- and memories of her checkered life and end job and drinking herself into oblivion. Together, Clara and violent death. Lily may be able to figure out the truth—but they will each lose Mexican writer Melchor’s first book something along the way. Mullen’s style is subtle, flowing; she published in English is remarkable for switches the narrative voice with each chapter, giving us Clara the sheer force of its language. Its eight chapters are each one and Lily but also each of the victims. At the heart of the novel paragraph long, and they’re usually very long paragraphs, often lies the bitter observation that “Women get humiliated every constructed of page- or pages-long sentences. The format gives day, in small stupid ways and in huge, disastrous ones.” Mullen the impression that we’re occupying the space of a host of char- writes about all the moments that women compromise them- acters who’ll brook no interruption, even if their storytelling is selves in the face of male desire and male power and how they lurid, digressive, and/or unreliable. But all agree that a bad thing learn to use sex as commerce because “men are always promised has happened: The corpse of a local Witch who trades in “curses this, no matter who they are.” The other major character in the and cures” has been discovered floating in an irrigation canal, novel is Atlantic City itself: fading; falling to ruin; promising an “seething under a myriad of black snakes.” The chapters that fol- old sort of glamour that no longer exists; swindling sad, lonely low attempt to fill out the backstory: She allegedly killed her people out of their money. This backdrop is unexpected and husband and cursed his sons, hexed relationships over money, well rendered. might actually be a man, delivered abortions, and provided a A lyrical, incisive, and haunting debut. druggy and boozy safe haven for young gay men. What’s true or not matters less than the Witch’s role as the village scape- goat, the person upon whom everyone places their shames and NEW WAVES secrets. Two virtuoso chapters underscore the depth of feeling Nguyen, Kevin and disquieting intensity Melchor is capable of, one turning on One World/Random House (320 pp.) a girl impregnated by her stepfather and the blame and embar- $27.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 rassment rained upon her, the other about a closeted young man 978-1-984855-23-7 in a Bosch-ian milieu that takes byways into drugs, violence, and bestiality porn. It’s tough stuff but not gratuitously so: The Startup culture and science fiction narrative moves so fast the slurs and gross-outs feel less like collide in this debut novel about love, attempts to shock and more like the infrastructure of a place loss, and coming-of-age. built on rage and transgression. The place is suffused with “bad Lucas and Margo are best friends, vibes, jinxes...bleakness.” Whether the Witch was its creator or or something like it. The two cynical firewall is an open question. 20-somethings brave the oppressive Messy yet engrossingly feverish. Melchor has deep whiteness of startup culture together, downing beers at the reserves of talent and nerve. bar around the corner from their office and commiserating about their clueless, immoral bosses. “Being black means you’re merely a body—a fragile body,” confesses Margo, a talented PLEASE SEE US engineer with a penchant for SF, over drinks. “If there was a Mullen, Caitlin machine that could do it, I’d change places with you right now, Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster Lucas….I would be an Asian man and I would move through the (352 pp.) world unnoticed and nobody would bother me.” In retaliation $26.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 for being pushed out of their company, Margo decides to steal 978-1-9821-2748-0 user data and convinces cautious Lucas to help. But when she is suddenly struck and killed by a car, Lucas is left to navigate their In Atlantic City, the bodies of sev- theft—and the emotional roller coaster of working in big tech eral women wait to be discovered and a as a minority—on his own. Nguyen, a former digital deputy edi- young psychic begins having visions of tor for GQ and a veteran of Google and Amazon, has a keen eye terrible violence. for satire. He illuminates how “lean” startup companies led by They are known only as Janes 1 young white men with little management experience manufac- through 6, the women who have been strangled and left in the ture crises only to dodge responsibilities to their users and staff. marsh behind the seedy Sunset Motel. They wait for someone “I started Phantom with lofty principles, and I haven’t given up

30 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | on them,” says one CEO without irony. “But we’ll never achieve of love and family. The novel lapses into sentiment at times, but those ideals...if we run out of money first.” Running alongside it mainly honors the complexity of its setting. the dystopian horrors of Nguyen’s workplace satire are the A richly imagined story of severed bonds amid conflict. warmth and humor, sadness and vulnerability of Lucas’ and Margo’s voices. Using text messages, voicemails, message board posts, and short story snippets, Nguyen’s novel spirals inward LAST COUPLE STANDING to capture the hang-ups, cultural obsessions, and fuzzy ambi- Norman, Matthew tions of his characters. “I’d hoped leaving behind all my mate- Ballantine (288 pp.) rial possessions would mean leaving behind all the things I’d $27.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 become: a cruel friend, a workplace creep, an alcoholic,” Lucas 978-1-984821-06-5 muses from his new, nomadic life in Tokyo. “Or maybe I was all those things to begin with.” At last confronted with his own A couple decides to save their rela- poor romantic and workplace behavior, Lucas must decide how tionship by attempting an open marriage. he will honor his friend’s memory and whether he will work to Jessica and Mitch Butler have a become a better person in the hazy promise—or possible trag- happy marriage. Well, happy enough. edy—of the future. Married for years with two children, it’s A blistering sendup of startup culture and a sprawling, inevitable that they won’t feel the swells ambitious, tender debut. of passion every day, right? But when their three best couple friends get divorced around the same time, Jessica and Mitch start to reevaluate things. They thought their friends’ marriages

THE MOUNTAINS SING were fine, but something tore them all apart. And, naturally, Jes- young adult Nguyên, Quê Mai Phan sica and Mitch start to wonder if the same thing could happen Algonquin (352 pp.) to them. So, to stave off the divorce that now seems inevitable, $26.95 | Mar. 17, 2020 they try something dramatic: an open marriage. More spe- 978-1-61620-818-9 cifically, an “evolved” marriage, one that allows each of them to have sex with other people, with several rules in place (no A sweeping tale of one family’s shift- repeats, no one they know, etc.). Jessica immediately hits it off ing fortunes in Vietnam across half a with a young, sexy bartender who sweeps her off her feet, but century. Mitch has more trouble connecting with women. And both of The first novel in English by the them realize, with help from their divorced friends, that dat- Vietnam-born Nguyên (The Secret of Hoa ing is a lot different now that apps are on the scene. Although Sen: Poems, 2014) centers on the Trån fam- Jessica and Mitch’s plan may be a bit out of the box, their rela- ily, living in North Vietnam during three conflict-struck gen- tionship and feelings are believable. Norman (We’re All Damaged, erations. Her lens turns to two characters in particular: Dięu 2016, etc.) also creates a plethora of rounded, quirky side char- Lan, who grew up amid Japanese and French occupations, and acters, including Jessica’s teenage therapy patient Scarlett and her granddaughter Huong, who uses Dięu Lan’s stories to try Mitch’s nerdy student Luke. When all of those characters come to piece together what happened during the war. It is a largely together in the story’s climax, the result is a scene worthy of a grim portrait. Dięu Lan watched as her father was beheaded Shakespearean comedy. by Japanese soldiers and saw the whole region suffer through a A quick-witted and ultimately hopeful look at what it long famine; the six children who weren’t killed during the war takes to make a marriage last. suffered PTSD or had their own children born dead, deformed from their parents’ exposure to Agent Orange. The novel’s major set piece and most effecting sequence follows Dięu Lan AFTER ME COMES THE FLOOD as she is stripped of her livelihood in the midst of Communist Perry, Sarah North Vietnam’s “Land Reform” policy that demonized traders Custom House/Morrow (272 pp.) like herself; she’s forced to abandon her children, one by one, $16.99 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 to protect them from retribution. Her daughter (and Huong’s 978-0-06-266640-6 mother) Ngoc, a doctor, survives the war but comes home badly traumatized, and nobody knows where Huong’s father is; the In this eerie debut novel from Perry girl’s sole tangible connection to him is a carved bird whose (Melmoth, 2018, etc.), now published in name gives the novel its title. For all the loss Nguyên depicts, the U.S. for the first time, a man becomes though, her story is invitingly and gracefully told. She is par- lost in the woods only to be welcomed by ticularly adept at weaving in folktales and aphorisms to create a household of strange but passionate a vivid sense of place. Huong’s love for her homeland is compli- residents. cated by her family’s struggle and her refusal to see Americans Tired of the summer heat, John Cole sets off from his Lon- as pure evil (“By reading their books, I saw the other side of don bookshop to visit his brother, who lives by the sea. But them”), punctuated by a final twist that challenges her notions John never arrives. In the dark Thetford forest, his car breaks

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 31 down, and he loses his way in the woods. At the end of a path, a nobleman who suffers a public seizure, he is passed along— he reaches the door of a grand mansion. The young girl who regifted—to the epileptic. Ten years pass; Ezzedine, now opens it seems to recognize him. “John Cole! Is that you? It is “Matthew Thatcher,” has adapted to his fate by converting to you, isn’t it—it must be, I’m so glad. I’ve been waiting for you Christianity and by expunging—to the greatest extent possible— all day!” So begins Perry’s unsettling debut, which shuttles all memory of his homeland and former happiness. Meanwhile, between fairy story and allegory without ever resolving into a Queen Elizabeth is dying, heirless, and the leading candidate for single shape or genre. The house is both magnificent and men- the throne is King James VI of Scotland. But James’ bona fides acing, with “broken chandeliers trailing chipped strings of glass as a Protestant—his parents were Catholic, as is his wife, and drops,” a glass eye constantly changing hands, and empty meat rumors abound of his secret papism—are in doubt, which could hooks dangling in the kitchen. Consumed with dread and guilt reignite the long sectarian bloodbath recently ended. Who bet- about being an imposter, John chronicles his days with the resi- ter to peel the theological onion that is James, thinks the cun- dents in a journal that reads like a fever dream. There’s Hester, a ning spymaster Geoffrey Belloc, than the only Muslim in the fiercely protective matron and former actress; Elijah, a former empire? And so Ezzedine/Thatcher is regifted again, this time preacher who has lost his faith and fears going outside; Walker, to the Scottish king. Phillips’ incorporation of history—includ- a chain-smoking, card-playing devil in a rumpled tuxedo; Eve, ing an entertaining side plot about Elizabethan theater—shows a coquettish pianist who longs for attention; and the siblings the sure hand and psychological acuity he is known for. One is Clare and Alex, otherworldly changelings who seem at once reminded of Hilary Mantel’s magisterial Wolf Hall but perhaps capable of complete innocence and total guile. Unlike Perry’s more pointedly of Graham Greene’s novels, which also often following two novels, plot matters less than mood here—confu- center on theology and spycraft and often feature a protagonist sion, uncertainty, and endless possibility unfold over the week exiled, like Ezzedine, to some seedy outpost of foreignness and of John’s stay. Even the sundial in the garden tells “two times amorality. at once.” What connects this fragile household together? Who A rare combination of literary finesse and quick-paced is sending Alex cruel poison-pen letters? Why does Eve make plot—and another triumph from the versatile Phillips. John feel “pain set up very low in his stomach…as if hooks had been pushed through his flesh”? And whose place has John actually taken? Like Shirley Jackson, Carmen Maria Machado, and THE ICE CREAM MAN other evocative masters of the gothic, Perry circles closer to & OTHER STORIES answers without ever dispelling the magic that holds her narra- Pink, Sam tive in breathless suspense. Soft Skull Press (288 pp.) A mysterious fable about honesty and deceit, love and $16.95 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 self-loathing, and our sometimes-doomed quests for inner 978-1-59376-593-4 peace. Pink’s (The Garbage Times/White Ibis: Two Novellas, 2018, etc.) latest book con- THE KING AT THE tinues his eyes-wide-open exploration of EDGE OF THE WORLD the many underbellies of modern life. Phillips, Arthur It’s almost impossible to describe Random House (288 pp.) one of Pink’s books without relying on adjectives chronically $27.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 overused to evoke a certain type of 21st-century voice-driven 978-0-8129-9548-0 urban realism. His books are gritty, it’s true; also cynical, often vicious, funny in a wry, despairing sort of way. The characters The first novel in nine years from that populate Pink’s world are junkies and drunks, homeless Phillips (The Tragedy of Arthur, 2011, etc.) veterans and runaways, people laboring at brutally absurd is another bravura performance: a tale of jobs, people lost in the overwhelming trash of their lives. Yet espionage and theological intrigue set in the feeling one leaves a Pink novel with is less world-weariness Elizabethan England. or disgust than the recognition of a tremulous, wavering kind The book begins with a Turkish expedition in 1591 to Eng- of belief in tenderness, beauty, and hope. Expressing itself in land, “a far-off, sunless, primitive, sodden, heathen kingdom at Pink’s signature single-sentence paragraphs, and replete with the far cliffside edge of the civilized earth.” One of the delega- onomatopoetic belches, squelches, slurps, and titters, the voice tion’s reluctant conscripts is Mahmoud Ezzedine, the sultan’s that narrates this book is no exception to this rule. Pink splits personal physician, who leaves behind a comfortable life and the stories into three geographically defined sections and pro- a beloved wife and son. But at sojourn’s end, Ezzedine—who’s ceeds to follow his frequently unnamed narrators through the become friendly with a British physician/naturalist and familiar frozen alleys of Chicago to the blazing cul-de-sacs of Florida with British irony and raillery—makes a remark that, overheard, and back up north to the stark fields of Michigan. Along the allows a conniving rival to trap him; if reported to the sultan, way readers look through the eyes of a murderous dishwasher the jest would result in the doctor’s execution. So Ezzedine is who hates you (every you) more even than the ramekins he left in England as a “gift” to Elizabeth’s court, and when he saves washes; a novice ice cream man finding a species of the sublime

32 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | A fast-paced blast from the past. westwind

in doing “maybe the first job [he] ever had where people were WESTWIND happy to see [him]”; a wedding caterer, awash in the beauty of Rankin, Ian the banal, who comes to an unlikely tête-à-tête with a magnifi- Little, Brown and Company (272 pp.) cent, and dangerous, stag. There are young women who have $27.00 | Jan. 7, 2020 stomped the guts out of rats, friendly meth addicts willing to 978-0-316-49792-3 guide the narrator to the best local tattoo shop, many beloved animal companions, and many beloved, if often unsalvageable, Rankin fans ready for a break from human friends. Pink, who is also a visual artist and a musician, Inspector John Rebus’ inimitably dour continues exploring a world of the relentlessly profane with the Edinburgh (In a House of Lies, 2019, etc.) kind of tender humanity usually reserved for stories more inter- will welcome this reprinting of a state-of- ested in the redemption of their characters. Pink is far too hon- the-art high-tech international thriller est to fall into this trap. His characters don’t need redemption from 1990. so much as they need a sandwich, or a blanket, or someone to As the U.S. prepares to pull all its troops from Europe in a talk with in order to pass the time, and herein lies the collec- prophetic “America First” move, two apparently unrelated inci- tion’s greatest, and most surprising, strength. dents provoke panic among the Brits who face abandonment A voice like none other writing today—Pink is riveting. by their partners in the historic special relationship. One is the period of 3 minutes and 40 seconds during which the satellite Zephyr goes dark, losing all contact with its monitors on the HOUR OF THE ASSASSIN ground. Although it soon returns from the blackness, control- Quirk, Matthew ler Paul Vincent is deeply shaken by the interruption. He shares

Morrow/HarperCollins (352 pp.) his fears with fellow monitor Martin Hepton, and soon both of young adult $27.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 them are up to their floppy drives in danger. The other problem 978-0-06-287549-5 is more serious from the get-go: The space shuttle Argos crashes to Earth in the middle of a heretofore routine flight, killing Former Secret Service man Nick all five members of the American crew and leaving only Maj. Averose becomes a pawn in a deadly Michael Dreyfuss, the sole British participant, alive. Like Vin- political conspiracy in the nation’s capi- cent, Dreyfuss instantly senses that the failure of the craft on tal when he is framed for the murder of a which he’s hitched a ride is only the tip of a much larger iceberg. former CIA director. And as subsequent events will quickly show, the two incidents Twenty-five years ago, a young are indeed only the most obvious nodes of an international—or, woman was found dead at a summer gathering attended by more precisely, post-national—web of intrigue. Picking out the future senator and current presidential hopeful Sam Mac- leading malefactors from a cast that includes military officers, Donough. The wealthy power broker looking to plant him in career diplomats, agents of the American and British secret the White House will do anything to keep secret what hap- services, and the odd professional assassin who all look equally pened that night. A month before the killing of the CIA direc- untrustworthy is less rewarding than uncovering the deep-laid tor, a one-time flame of Nick’s who had been at that summer and remarkably simple plan behind all the shenanigans. A bonus party came to him seeking protection and then disappeared in this new edition is Rankin’s refreshingly candid Introduction, with her secrets. Nick, who, as part of his two-person security which emphasizes the vicissitudes of his early career in a way business, stages mock home invasions for potential targets to that will either inspire wannabe writers or lead them to despair. identify potential security weaknesses, escapes the scene of the A fast-paced blast from the past…and (who knows?) CIA director’s killing but not the crosshairs of the killers. Nick maybe the immediate future as well. holds them off with the help of his trusty female tech assistant and a one-time Marine buddy who is now a successful contractor in Washington. Quirk is good at describing fancy trappings. LITTLE WONDERS A rich man’s suit boasts “Milanese stitches and a silk latch hid- Rorick, Kate den behind the lapel.” Another fat cat drinks Dujac premier cru, Morrow/HarperCollins (384 pp.) a French pinot noir. But the characters themselves are lacking $15.99 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 in the details and dimensions that would make them interest- 978-0-06-287721-5 ing. And the plot, usually the strong point for the author of The Night Agent (2019), is predictable. Two mothers struggle with the A formulaic thriller that ranks with Quirk’s lesser hypercompetitive world of their chil- efforts. dren’s elite New England preschool. Quinn Barrett just wants everything to be perfect—her house, her job, her marriage, and, most importantly, her son’s preschool. That’s why she’s the Parent Association president, aka the person who gets everything done. But when her

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 33 son refuses to wear his (homemade, of course) costume in the to suspect that his mysterious client is actually North Korean school Halloween parade, Quinn has an adult-size tantrum— Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Fortunately, Chu has some and, unfortunately, it’s caught on video. Now Quinn is known backup from his mother, who’s a member of a secretive anti- as “Halloween Mom” on the internet and in the preschool halls. terrorist task force called Zero Day, and an absent father who Daisy McGulch Stone, who just moved to town with her hus- pulls his weight when he needs to. It’s a pretty good thriller, but band and daughter, was the one who took the video. She didn’t it’s also very much a book for gamers by gamers. If acronyms mean for it to go viral and ruin Quinn’s perfect image, but she like MMORPG, PvP, or PPML throw you for a loop, this might can’t tell anyone that now. As a blue-haired, tattooed, D&D– not be the ride for you. Gamers for life who can pry themselves loving geek, she already doesn’t fit in, and she doesn’t want off the controller will certainly dig this digital-era whodunit. everyone to know she’s the reason their school is in the head- Good characters, keen social commentary, and propul - lines; all she did was send the video to her best friend in Cali- sive action sequences with a bit too much tech jargon. fornia, who passed it along. However, Quinn and Daisy have more in common than they think, and they form an unlikely friendship that makes both of them feel more at home in their WOLF homogeneous surroundings. But as Quinn’s life keeps blowing Stern, Herbert J. & Winter, Alan A. up and Daisy attempts to be herself, both women must figure Skyhorse Publishing (576 pp.) out how to make the best of circumstances they never expected. $27.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 Rorick (The Baby Plan, 2018), who is also a television writer and 978-1-5107-5108-8 producer, includes plenty of nerdy pop-culture references, and her chatty, slightly snarky voice makes the pages fly by. Daisy’s A deeply researched novel about Hit- and Quinn’s struggles to fit into their roles as mothers while ler’s rise to power, co-authored by Stern, following their career dreams are relatable and often hilarious. a former federal judge, and Winter, a Refreshingly, Rorick resists the catty mom dynamic and makes novelist (Island Bluffs, 2015. etc.). even the meanest moms appear both sympathetic and human. In a German army hospital in 1918, A funny, highly readable look at modern mom culture two soldiers meet. One, the narrator, has and the dangers of parenting in the age of viral videos. lost all memory of his past, even his identity, so a doctor assigns him the name of a dead soldier, Friedrich Richard. Richard shows kindness to the man suffering from hysterical blindness 88 NAMES in the bed next to him. The blind man calls himself Wolf, but Ruff, Matt his real name is Adolf Hitler. They form a strong friendship, Harper/HarperCollins (320 pp.) and Richard later follows Hitler into the Nazi Party. Richard $26.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 is a not-entirely-sympathetic narrator who stands 6-foot-7 978-0-06-285467-4 and “doesn’t shy away from a fight,” willingly bashing heads to defend his friend. But he shies away from talking about his An extreme gamer who has con- past, especially when he learns he’s inadvertently been given cocted a scheme to monetize his exper- the name of “a dead Jew.” Meanwhile, Hitler “demanded total tise gets into trouble navigating a virtual loyalty, but he also gave it…even to friends who disappointed world that starts to intrude on his real him.” “Friedrich,” he says, “you must stay close to me. Always. life. You are the only one I really trust.” Even knowing that Richard Following in the footsteps of Ernie defended a bearded Jew against three thugs, Hitler promotes Cline, who hit the geek gold mine with Ready Player One (2011), him to SS Obergruppenführer. “Our Friedrich is well known for Ruff (Lovecraft Country, 2016, etc.) takes his shot at a near-future his tender heart,” he says. The fictional narrator proves a great gaming world that’s more grounded than most virtual-reality tool to show Hitler up close, based on the authors’ research. universes but also more complex. Our main protagonist is John For example, historians often portray Hitler as pathologically Chu, the founder of Sherpa, Inc., a consulting firm that guides afraid of women. Richard tells a woman that “Hitler’s romance new gamers through a variety of mostly VR–based video games. is with Germany,” not with fräuleins, but Hitler is attracted to He has good partners in Jolene, a more mature African Ameri- young women and girls, including his niece Geli, who commits can gamer who won’t take any of his shit, and Anja, a brilliant suicide after ol’ Uncle Adolf leaves her for another woman. In young player whose permanent injury has left her on life sup- 1934, Richard visits a dying man in Dachau but is long since port, albeit with thought-controlled access to the VR world. hopelessly ensnared in the Nazi juggernaut. As the novel ends, Unfortunately, he also has a nemesis in Darla Jean Covington, the horrors are only beginning. his virtual ex-girlfriend, who is clearly holding a grudge. The An engrossing look at a monster. kicker comes when Chu is approached by a man named Smith on behalf of a pseudonymous client named Mr. Jones, who wishes to pay him an astonishing $100,000 per week for his exclusive services. Lurking in the background is Ms. Pang, an enigmatic Chinese woman who might be a spy. Soon Chu begins

34 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Suffused with feeling and very moving. redhead by the side of the road

THE MAN afternoons deals with tasks in the apartment building where he WITHOUT TALENT is the live-in super. He’s the kind of person, brother-in-law Dave Tsuge, Yoshiharu mockingly notes, who has an assigned chore for each day: “vac- Trans. by Holmberg, Ryan uuming day…dusting day….Your kitchen has a day all its own” New York Review Comics (240 pp.) (Thursday). Dave’s comments are uttered at a hilarious, chaotic $22.95 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 family get-together that demonstrates the origins of Micah’s 978-1-68137-443-7 persnickety behavior and offers a welcome note of comedy in what is otherwise quite a sad tale. Micah thinks of himself as This first English-language edition a good guy with a good life. It’s something of a shock when of a work by influential Japanese comic- the son of his college girlfriend turns up wondering if Micah book artist Tsuge follows an impoverished, might be his father (not possible, it’s quickly established), and embittered comic-book artist whose unconventional search for it’s really a shock when his casual agreement to let 18-year-old riches keeps him in league with schemers at the fringes of soci- Brink crash in his apartment for a night leads Micah’s “woman ety—much to his wife’s angst and young son’s distress. friend,” Cass, to break up with him. “There I was, on the verge Whether it’s selling stones he finds near his home, repairing of losing my apartment,” she says. “What did you do? Quickly and reselling cameras bought from a junk store, or even carry- invite the nearest stranger into your spare room.” Indignant at ing people on his back across a shallow river, Sukezö Sukegawa first, Micah slowly begins to see the pattern that has kept him will do just about anything for money—except create the comic warily distant from other people, particularly the girlfriends books for which he has received critical acclaim. He pridefully who were only briefly good enough for him. (They were always resents the lack of money in comic books, though he fails to the ones who left, once they figured it out.) The title flags a

sell any stones either. Sukezö’s pursuits introduce him to shady lovely metaphor for Micah’s lifelong ability to delude him- young adult characters, such as the alcoholic head of an “art stone” associa- self about the nature of his relationships. Once he realizes it, tion and the man’s libidinous wife, and to outsiders such as a agonizing examples of the human connections he has uncon- homeless man whose uncanny connection to birds allows him sciously avoided are everywhere visible, his loneliness palpable. to effortlessly gather exquisite specimens for sale. Though These chapters are painfully poignant—thank goodness Tyler is Sukezö’s wife resents his inability to make money—and the too warmhearted an artist not to give her sad-sack hero at least costs associated with his offbeat vocations—Sukezö provides the possibility of a happy ending. for the family in his own, unbalanced way, as when he combines Suffused with feeling and very moving. a stone-hunting trip to the countryside with a hiking trip for wife and son. The trip is a disaster: Sukezö’s asthmatic son melts down over the train schedule, fecal matter likely slips into the THE COLDEST WARRIOR family’s noodles, and the three of them lie by a river and wryly Vidich, Paul contemplate suicide. Tsuge’s raw and profound work is equal Pegasus Crime (224 pp.) parts pathos and poetry, streaked with irony and ribaldry. His $25.95 | Feb. 4, 2020 lines are beautifully clean and wonderfully expressive, the pages 978-1-64313-335-5 sometimes presenting expertly cartoonish simplicity and other times almost photorealistic detail. Tsuge has a soft spot for out- A CIA coverup slowly unravels. siders yet is acutely aware of how they can end up dead in a field In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson either somewhere, covered in their own filth. jumped or fell from a window of the Humanity stunningly observed—a treasure. Hotel Harrington. In 1975, at a Senate hearing, it was publicly revealed that he had been subjected to a CIA experiment REDHEAD BY THE involving LSD, but the fact that he had been a CIA employee SIDE OF THE ROAD and the details of his work for the agency went undiscovered. Tyler, Anne Internal records of the death were missing, and the director, Knopf (192 pp.) himself unaware of the actual circumstances of Wilson’s death, $25.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 asks Jack Gabriel to investigate and report the real story if 978-0-525-65841-2 he can. Gabriel knew Wilson and that he worked in the germ warfare laboratories, and from that starting point he begins to A man straitjacketed in routine explore the questions surrounding Wilson’s death. As he works, blinks when his emotional blinders are potential witnesses die “accidentally,” avenues of inquiry dry up, removed in Tyler’s characteristically ten- and a substantial coverup becomes apparent. Then an anony- der and rueful latest (Clock Dance, 2018, mous source offers a few tips, and Gabriel begins to under- etc.). stand the true extent of the CIA’s crime: They murdered one Micah’s existence is entirely orga- of their own. There remain questions, though, and in the pro- nized to his liking. Each morning he goes for a run at 7:15; starts cess of trying to assess who and why, Gabriel’s own life becomes his work as a freelance tech consultant around 10; and in the perilous. Overall, the novel’s pace is a little slow and the plot

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 35 By turns lyrical and gritty, a moving family story focuses on the aftermath of miracles. sharks in the time of saviors

one-dimensional, but the characters of Gabriel and his family SHARKS IN THE TIME and of Wilson’s surviving family are vivid and sympathetic. Vid- OF SAVIORS ich (The Good Assassin, 2017, etc.) acknowledges that his novel is Washburn, Kawai Strong based on the story of Frank Olson, who “fell or jumped” from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux a New York City hotel room in November 1953, and fidelity to (384 pp.) historical fact may account for the pace and plotting. But this $27.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 fidelity also reveals a shameful instance of postwar conduct and 978-0-374-27208-1 the arrogance of the powerful. A worthwhile thriller and a valuable exposé. By turns lyrical and gritty, a moving family story focuses on the aftermath of miracles. MICHAEL KOHLHAAS From its opening pages, this debut Von Kleist, Heinrich novel juxtaposes the realities of life for a working-class Hawai- Trans. by Hofmann, Michael ian family and the mysticism of the Native culture that shapes New Directions (144 pp.) them, with surprising results. Augie and Malia and their chil- $14.95 paper | Mar. 31, 2020 dren—sons Dean and Nainoa and daughter Kaui—find their 978-0-8112-2834-3 lives forever changed when, during a boat tour, little Noa falls overboard and is rescued by sharks, unharmed, as witnessed Foundational novella of the German by a boatload of passengers. It’s an echo of old legends that romantic era, celebrating a folk hero of is reinforced a few years later when the boy heals an accident the 1530s. victim’s injuries (although his mother offers an origin story First published in 1810, the year that suggests he was marked by the old gods from conception). before von Kleist committed suicide at Noa’s gift is a source of both wonder and cold hard cash, not 34, this short, elegant novel is well known to students of Ger- to mention a baffling burden for a kid. In chapters narrated in man literature. It’s easy to see why Franz Kafka should have turn by each member of the family, the siblings grow up, Dean esteemed it so much, drawing on it for books like The Castle and and Kaui always feeling they are in their brother’s shadow, all of The Trial: The hero of the piece is a law-abiding man who con- them balancing on the edge of poverty. Dean is a talented ath- fronts an obdurate bureaucracy and loses—though not without lete, Noa and Kaui top students, and Augie and Malia manage a fight, for, as von Kleist writes, “his sense of justice led him to send all three to the mainland for college. But with the family to robbery and murder.” The eponymous horse trader travels fractured, all of them struggle, and only some find redemption. a well-worn path to market only to find a new tollbooth block- Washburn’s prose is lush and inventive; a native of Hawai’i, he ing his way. It seems that Wenzel von Tronka, heir to the newly portrays the islands and their people with insight and love. He deceased lord of the territory, is exercising his royal privilege skillfully creates distinct voices for each of his narrators: resent- to issue visas to cross it for a fee, and although Kohlhaas pro- ful Dean, wisecracking Kaui, happy-go-lucky Augie, and Malia tests that “he had passed this frontier seventeen times in the the true believer: “The kingdom of Hawai’i had long been bro- course of his life without any such document,” he is forced to ken—the hot rain forests and breathing green reefs crushed leave two horses from his string as security. Arriving in Dresden, under the haole commerce of beach resorts, skyscrapers—and the regional capital, Kohlhaas learns both that this demand for that was when the land had begun calling. I know this now collateral was imposed arbitrarily and that his captive horses because of you.” That “you” is Noa, sweet and bighearted and have been ill treated, though the lawsuit he files is eventually wrecked by his unasked-for powers. Their stories go in unex- dismissed as a “baseless fuss” thanks to von Tronka’s influence. pected directions, from hilarious to heartbreaking. That’s reason enough for him to become a fierce avenger who Striking style, memorable characters, and a believably sets out in fury to reclaim what’s his—and, in the orderly realm miraculous premise add up to a beautifully crafted first novel. of the Electorate of Saxony, such outlaw acts, no matter how well justified, are enough to earn a person a death penalty. Von Kleist complicates the story, which he relates as a matter-of-fact UNIVERSAL LOVE chronicle, with a few neat twists toward the end, quietly satiriz- Weinstein, Alexander ing both the legal system and the imperial order of his day while Henry Holt (240 pp.) suggesting that the quest for justice is more likely to backfire $26.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 on the petitioner than be rewarded with anything other than 978-1-250-14435-5 “near-universal mourning.” A masterwork that, 220 years on, holds up well thanks Eleven new stories about our poten- to this fluent translation. tially weird future. Weinstein (Children of the New World, 2016) made a big splash in SF with his debut collection and follows it up with nearly a dozen stories that are just as

36 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | creepy and will fit right in if you’re watching Black Mirror. The is a lieutenant with the Nassau customs agency, and Doc’s only opener, “The Year of Nostalgia,” comes especially close to that hope of thwarting his search for Lydia Johnson, the treasure particular flavor; it concerns a family trying to deal with grief hunter’s widow Doc helped to disappear, may be to assume the by interacting with their hologram relatives. In “Beijing,” we role of Morris Berg, the informant Ray wants to engage to get find people living in the last days of the climate crisis erasing information that will sink Doc—unless of course he discovers unpleasant memories of the things that hurt them most. “Com- that Morris and Doc are one and the same. fort Porn” takes the concept of Tinder and similar apps to an The plot, like so many of Doc’s recent adventures, tends unpleasant destination. Really, it’s all a prescient warning about to wind down rather than up, but a good time is had by all. technology, not that we really need a warning at this point. In “We Only Wanted Their Happiness,” indulgent parents give their kids access to information that turns them into little mon- DARLING ROSE GOLD sters. “True Love Testimonials” is, yes, a little weird, with its Wrobel, Stephanie post-Tinder confessions about how to hook up with, say, a guy Berkley (320 pp.) you can make look like your ex, or hosting “morphing orgies.” $26.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 Things get stranger. In “Childhood,” the kids...malfunction, 978-0-593-10006-6 and we’ll leave it at that. Inevitably, in “Sanctuary,” we discover aliens, but in the most unusual and dangerous place imaginable. The daughter testified, the mother Time travel? Sure, why not? In “Infinite Realities,” we meet went to prison, and their small town someone trying to find the version where they get it right, for hoped that would be the end of it. But once. We’re running out of time, so to speak, but there’s some- old habits—and old grudges—die hard

thing to say about abandonment in “Mountain Song” and, finally, in Wrobel’s debut novel. young adult another dry look at the end times in “Islanders.” Rose Gold Watts was never sick, but In dark times, we get entertainment that reflects the her mother, Patty, with her bottle of ipecac syrup, was. After world we’ve made. Welcome home. discovering that her mother had spent the better part of two decades poisoning and starving her, the then-teenage Rose Gold testified in the trial that sent Patty to prison for aggravated SALT RIVER child abuse. Five years later, with the support of her hometown, White, Randy Wayne Rose Gold has purchased the house where her mother grew Putnam (384 pp.) up and begun renovating it to create a safe place to raise her $27.00 | Feb. 11, 2020 infant son, Adam. She leaves everyone in her tightknit commu- 978-0-735-21272-5 nity reeling when she reconciles with the newly released Patty and offers her a place to stay. With this framework in place, the Two distinct sets of chickens come novel alternates between the two women as first-person narra- home to roost for Sanibel Island marine tors in the past and present. The obviously manipulative Patty biologist Dr. Marion Ford and his guides readers through her attempts to get back on former improbably wealthy beach-bum pal Tom- friends’ and neighbors’ good sides, all the while waffling over linson (Caribbean Rim, 2018, etc.). whether and when she should exact her revenge via her daugh- Delia Carapoulos is a beautiful young ter’s greatest weakness: Adam. Meanwhile, Rose Gold pitches woman, a recent graduate of Eckerd College, a starry-eyed fan the narration into the past, covering the five years her mother of Tomlinson’s, and also, according to her, his biological daugh- spent in prison, which the former victim of neglect spent trying ter, a revelation that shocks him out of his desultory amatory to forcibly connect with family members she had long believed fantasies about the nubile visitor. In fact, she’s only the advance were dead. Wrobel builds tension by tearing down and knock- guard of a tidal wave of offspring made possible by Tomlinson’s ing away everything the audience believes they know, leaving a endless sperm donations a generation ago. Now the anything- mountain of questions regarding Rose Gold’s present-day life but-proud papa’s data has been released to several of the chil- and her relationship with Patty. This thriller speeds toward its dren looking to track him down, not all of them happy about conclusion in true page-turner fashion, without feeling rushed. the news of their paternity. One reputed son, Jayden F. Griffin, A taut tale that will keep you guessing until the very end. makes such an impression on his arrival at Sanibel that he’s hauled off by the feds and charged with terrorism and murder. By the time Tomlinson finally appeals to Doc Ford for help, his buddy is awash in an equally unwelcome reprise of his own past: the appearance of several variously threatening characters convinced that he can lead them to late, legendary treasure hunter Jimmy Jones’ lost millions. All right, Leo Alomar, the first of these latest intruders into Doc’s life, isn’t really a special investigator with the IRS’s Whistleblower Program. But Rayvon Darwin, the lover of Alomar’s estranged wife, Nanette, really

| kirkus.com | fiction | 15 january 2020 | 37 CHAMPAGNE COWBOYS mystery Banks, Leo W. Brash Books (267 pp.) $18.99 paper | Mar. 2, 2020 SHE LOVER OF DEATH 978-1-73242-264-3 Akunin, Boris Mysterious Press (272 pp.) Prospero “Whip” Stark, the ex–base- $26.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 ball pitcher who owns Arizona’s Double 978-0-8021-4814-8 Wide trailer park, juggles three murder cases, two of them with uncomfortably Akunin returns to 1900 Moscow, personal connections. where a suicide club’s numbers threaten Whip’s girlfriend, KPIN-TV reporter to diminish to the vanishing point unless Roxanne Santa Cruz, calls him one morn- evergreen investigator Erast Petrovich ing to ask him to check up on Ash Sterling, the mortally ill Afghan Fandorin (The Coronation, 2019, etc.) can war hero and admitted leader of the Champagne Cowboys, a put an end to its distressing trend. highly successful gang of thieves, whom Roxy’s been interviewing Masha Mironova arrives in Moscow with a modest inheri- in what looks like his final days. And so they are. Accompanied by tance, a strong aversion to her native Irkutsk, and a starry- his buddy Cashmere Miller, Double Wide tenant and convicted eyed determination to be reunited with Petya Lileiko, a felon, Whip finds Sterling shot to death, presumably before he carelessly attractive swain from the big city who’d wooed her could spill the beans about the Foothills murders, whose victims, as Harlequin during his visit to her hometown. What she finds attorney Paul Morton and his wife, Donna, were good friends is a little different from what she’d expected. At first the suitor of Whip’s. Evidence placed the Cowboys at the murder scene, who’d effortlessly pried her away from her designated fiance and although Sterling insists that he and his buddies would seems hardly to recall her; when he does, he whisks her off to never kill anybody, he hinted the night before his death that he a club hosting the Lovers of Death, where the cultish leader knew more about the case than he’d told anyone. Prompted by Blagovolsky, who’s dubbed himself Prospero, lords it over an the discovery that the Cowboys included Sterling’s fellow vets ill-assorted gathering that includes Prospero’s assistant, Oph- Pvt. Titus Ortega and Lance Cpl. Vincent Strong, Whip (Double elia; noted poet Lorelei Rubinstein; seductive Kriton; medi- Wide, 2018) is eager to pursue Sterling’s killer and even more cal dissector Horatio; accountant Caliban; twins Rosencrantz eager to discover who shot the Mortons. But there’s a third case and Guildenstern; grammar school student Gdlevsky; Petya’s that will always be first in his heart: the fatal stabbing of Cristy fellow university student Avaddon; and Petya himself, who’s Carlyle, for which Whip’s father, Sam Houston Stark, a beloved known to the group as Cherubino. All of them share a consum- professor at Arizona State before he got dragged down by her- ing interest in suicide. Ophelia, a medium, calls on the spirits oin, was arrested, tried, and imprisoned. It’s bad enough that of the group’s late members to inform the group which among leads in this cold case are scant; what’s even worse is that Wanda them has been nominated for self-slaughter. But soon after Dietz, the Tempe Police Department detective who arrested Masha, who adopts the sobriquet Columbine, is admitted to Sam, shows absolutely no interest in following them up. Whip’s the Lovers of Death, Ophelia’s demise leaves the group cast- adventures bring him up against a broad spectrum of variously ing about for an alternative way to decide which candidates untrustworthy and clueless types, from a priest with an eye for should be moved to the head of the queue. Meantime, alarmed the dollar to a “food court twerp” whose hilariously demented by the rash of suicides and suspecting that the club may be dialogue seems copied verbatim from a comic strip. linked to anti-czarist terrorists, Lt. Col. Besikov arranges for As the heroine aptly says: “It’s a Hallmark movie except Fandorin, operating under his own pseudonym, to infiltrate for all the dead people.” the group. The results, including the alter ego that conceals Fandorin, are creepily entertaining though never exactly mysterious in the ways you might expect. MURDER MAKES SCENTS Akunin continues to notch the most consistently var- Breecher, Christin ied approaches to the adventures of the Great Detective on Kensington (272 pp.) record. $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-4967-2141-9

Die-hard Yankee candle maker Stella Wright (Murder’s No Votive Confidence, 2018) gets caught up in a trans-Atlantic murder plot. Stella thoroughly enjoys her trip to Paris even though her mother, perfume expert Millie Wright, who’s scheduled

38 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Both darker and more absurd than previous romps, the latest Montalbano is a bracing cautionary tale. the safety net

to speak on a panel entitled “The Art of Scent Extractions” at incident at a school is added to his crowded plate. When disaf- the World Perfumery Conference, gets preempted by a murder. fected teens emerge as the prime suspects, Montalbano fears Sadly, once they’re back home in Nantucket, things get even for the state of the world. weirder. Stella receives an anonymous note threatening her mom Both darker and more absurd than previous romps, the if Stella doesn’t turn over a secret formula hidden in Millie’s bag. latest Montalbano is a bracing cautionary tale. Her mom can’t help because she’s in the hospital courtesy of an overenthusiastic attempt by Stella’s cat, Tinker, to befriend her. While trespassing on a suspicious sailboat, Stella meets MIMI LEE GETS A CLUE U.S. Agent Sarah Hill, who warns her that well-known anarchist Chow, Jennifer J. Rex Laruam plans to disrupt the upcoming Peace Jubilee using Berkley Prime Crime (336 pp.) a stolen formula he secreted in Millie’s bag after he stabbed the $16.00 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 agent guarding it back in Paris. Ignoring the advice of her friend 978-1-9848-0499-0 Andy Southerland, a Nantucket cop, to leave detection to the professionals, Stella tries to unmask the elusive Laruam. As she The death of a questionable dog spies on a bevy of unlikely suspects, the plot spirals further and breeder implicates a pet groomer who’s further out of control: There’s a Canadian couple staying at an forced to depend on her telepathic cat Airbnb run by Stella’s cousin Chris who whisper sweet but sus- for help. picious nothings in the dark, a shovel-wielding schoolmarm, a To celebrate the opening of Mimi gang of old geezers who have a collective crush on Millie, a sur- Lee’s LA pet grooming business, Holly- prise 30th-birthday party planned by Stella’s beau, Peter Bailey, woof, her sister, Alice, gives her a ball of white fluff, a cat Mimi

and an even more surprising impromptu airplane ride. promptly dubs Marshmallow. While her personal and business young adult Utter non-scents. interests focus mainly on dogs, Mimi can’t help but be charmed by Marshmallow, who objects to his name and his characterization as anything other than sleek and elegant. And Mimi is all THE SAFETY NET too aware of Marshmallow’s reluctance to take on the cuddly Camilleri, Andrea pet role because he’s somehow able to telegraph his thoughts Penguin (272 pp.) into her head. Before Mimi can think too much about whether $16.00 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 her conversations with her cat mean that she’s losing her mind, 978-0-14-313-496-1 she has to rely on her connection to Marshmallow to solve a crime. After store benefactor Pixie St. James has sent several Murder, meltdowns, and a boister- high-end clients to Hollywoof, Mimi realizes that their expen- ous Swedish film crew bring chaos to a sive Chihuahuas are the victims of health issues traceable to veteran police chief and his Sicilian com- cut-rate breeder Russ Nolan’s shady practices. After confront- munity in this 25th mystery by Camilleri, ing Russ, Mimi learns that he’s been killed and that the lead who died in July. detective on the case is sure Mimi is to blame. As if this weren’t Inspector Montalbano has his hands trouble enough, Alice’s new principal is determined to cut her full when a television crew from Sweden invades his bailiwick. position as a kindergarten teacher, and Mimi and Alice’s Ma, a To celebrate the linking of Vigàta with its sister city, Kalmar, fiercely opinionated Malaysian woman, calls on Mimi to save Swedish TV is filming a movie about a romance between a Alice’s job. The stress of Russ’ death and Alice’s predicament Swedish girl and a “youth from Vigàta.” All this bustle is a nui- makes Mimi unable to concentrate on her romantic interest, sance to the world-weary Montalbano (The Other End of the Line, neighbor Josh Akana, until she realizes that maybe his new job 2019, etc.), who coincidentally finds himself investigating an as an attorney can help keep her on the right side of the law. But odd case that involves the cinema. Ernesto Sabatello has discov- Mimi’s number one hope is Marshmallow, who can communi- ered a reel of film from decades ago: a collection of shots taken cate with the pups Russ was raising and possibly figure out the by his father, Francesco, once a year over a series of years. The real killer before Mimi is arrested. boring film shows just a patch of wall, apparently unchanged A frothy, fun series debut with little reliance on mystery year after year. Montalbano is intrigued, but it takes him quite to keep things interesting; insert your own cat pun here. a while to focus on this puzzle when distractions come in the form of a melee between Swedes and Sicilians and the need to referee the marital battle between his quirky detective, Mimì, and Mimì’s wife, Beba. This last becomes unexpectedly serious when Mimì attempts suicide. The discovery that Francesco had a twin brother named Emanuele, who apparently committed suicide in 1957, makes the case even curiouser. Montalbano’s attentiveness to Swedish visitor Ingrid and her blond bear sidekick, the director Gustav, puts a new wrinkle in his relationship with girlfriend Livia. Then another investigation concerning an

| kirkus.com | mystery | 15 january 2020 | 39 THE BOY FROM THE WOODS Did the handsome osteopath and police doctor from subur- Coben, Harlan ban Ohio really kill his wife, Marilyn, in their bedroom while she Grand Central Publishing (432 pp.) was pregnant with their second child? Bay Village mayor Marsh $29.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 Dodge, Cuyahoga County coroner Dr. Samuel Gerber, and 978-1-5387-4814-5 Cleveland Press editor Louis Seltzer all think so, and county pros- ecutor Frank Cullitan has persuaded 12 jurors to agree. Three Coben’s latest darkest-suburbs thriller years after the 1954 murder, though, Erle Stanley Gardner, the sets a decidedly offbeat detective on the creator of both the fictional Perry Mason and the real-life Court trail of a crime with overtones unmistak- of Last Resort, wants Nate’s A-1 Detective Agency to review the ably redolent of once and future presiden- evidence. Nate’s job isn’t to exonerate Sheppard: “I’m just an tial elections. unbiased investigator making sure justice was done,” he assures Wilde is called Wilde because nobody’s Gerber. His inquiries, notable for their noncommittal thor- known his real name from the moment a pair of hikers found him oughness in scattering suspicion, end when a Florida inmate foraging for himself in Ramapo Mountain State Forest 24 years confesses to the murder, raising reasonable doubt for Nate and ago. Now over 40, he’s had experience as both a lost boy and a pri- Gardner but not for the county, which refuses to reopen the vate investigator. That makes him an obvious person to help when case. So Sheppard continues to languish in prison, garnering a his godson, Sweet Water High School student Matthew Crimstein, new German fiancee, until 1966, when his new defense - attor expresses concern to his grandmother, attorney Hester Crim- ney, F. Lee Bailey (one of the very few characters here to appear stein, that his bullied classmate Naomi Pine has gone missing. under his own name), engages Nate once more to review the Matthew doesn’t really want anyone to help. He doesn’t even evidence in search of new leads and ultimately succeeds in get- want anyone to notice his agitation. But Hester, taking the ting his conviction thrown out and a new trial ordered. Readers time from her criminal defense of financial consultant Simon who peek ahead to the closing note by Collins (Girl Can’t Help Greene (Run Away, 2019) to worm the details out of him, asks It, 2020, etc.), which acknowledges that “I changed my mind Wilde to lend a hand, and sure enough, Wilde, unearthing an about the identity of the killer or killers half a dozen times dur- unsavory backstory that links Naomi to bullying classmate ing the research for this novel,” will know better than to expect Crash Maynard, whose TV producer father, Dash Maynard, is a definitive, or even a definitive-sounding, solution. close friends with reality TV star–turned–presidential hope- A sober, bracing time machine, more fiction than his- ful Rusty Eggers, finds Naomi hale and hearty. Everything’s tory, that ends on an authentically inconclusive note. hunky-dory for one week, and then she disappears again. And this time, so does Crash after a brief visit to Matthew in which he tearfully confesses his guilt about the bad stuff ALL KINDS OF UGLY he did to Naomi. This second disappearance veers into more Dennis, Ralph obviously criminal territory with the arrival of a ransom note Brash Books (176 pp.) that demands, not money, but the allegedly incriminating vid- $16.99 paper | Feb. 3, 2020 eotapes of Rusty Eggers that Dash and Delia Maynard have 978-1-941298-20-6 had squirreled away for 30 years. The tapes link Rusty to a forgotten and forgettable homicide and add a paranoid new Former Atlanta cop and sometime ripped-from-the-headlines dimension to the author’s formi- investigator Jim Hardman doesn’t real- dable range. Readers who can tune out all the subplots will ize how his own life will change when find the kidnappers easy to spot, but Coben finds room for he agrees to look for the grandson of a three climactic surprises, one of them a honey. wealthy Georgia family. Now that Coben’s added politics to his heady brew, Powerful, wealthy, and politically con- expect sex and religion to join the mix. nected Harrison Gault’s grandson, also Harrison, is supposedly in London, but no one has heard from him. The Gault family lawyer asks Hardman to fly over and see DO NO HARM what he can find out. (This being the 1970s, cellphones aren’t an Collins, Max Allan option.) Once there, Hardman discovers several hints and also Forge (304 pp.) meets Anna, a mysterious young Polish woman. But when both $27.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 Hardman and Anna are back in Atlanta, things go from bad to 978-0-7653-7829-3 worse, with lies, drugs, and money complicating everything. This novel is the 13th and final book in a series that was published in Nathan Heller (Better Dead, 2016, the 1970s (The Buy Back Blues, 1977, etc.). The author died in 1988, etc.) broadens his portfolio of real-life and thriller writer Lee Goldberg, a fan, found, edited, and pub- investigations by reopening the Sam lished this current volume through Brash Books, a small press he Sheppard murder case on behalf of two initially co-founded expressly to bring Dennis’ work back into different clients who engage him nine print. Considering the excellent prose and Chandler-esque dia- years apart. logue, it’s surprising that Dennis never found acclaim.

40 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Screamingly funny and achingly sad. running out of road

Tight plotting and a hero resembling Philip Marlowe; RUNNING OUT readers will want to discover the earlier books in this lost OF ROAD series. Friedman, Daniel Minotaur (288 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 THE LAST PASSENGER 978-1-250-05848-5 Finch, Charles Minotaur (304 pp.) Facing the inevitable decline of old $27.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 age, a feisty detective is forced to assess 978-1-250-31220-4 his past. Buck Schatz (Don’t Ever Look Back, When a violent murder scene yields 2014, etc.) stared down a formidable array no obvious evidence, private detective of adversaries during his career on the Memphis police force, Charles Lenox must solve one of his from low-level grifters to escaped Nazi commandants. And not most complex cases yet. all the bad guys were on the other side. Stuck-up supervisors and In this third prequel to the series kkklannish colleagues let Buck know that as a Jewish cop in the (The Vanishing Man, 2019, etc.), Lenox South, he’d need to be twice as good to be considered even half is deep in a chess match with Lord Deere, neighbor and hus- as good. Still, he’s never had an adversary as ruthless as his latest band to close friend Lady Jane, when Inspector Hemstock nemesis: his own body. He and his wife, Rose, consult a caval- from Scotland Yard knocks on his door with news of a mur- cade of doctors: a neurologist to help befuddled Buck manage

der. Lenox arrives at Paddington Station soon after and meets his moderate dementia, a cardiologist, an audiologist, a gastro- young adult Joseph Stanley, the stationmaster on duty, as well as the con- enterologist, and an ENT. Now Dr. Feingold, an oncologist, has ductor of the train where the body was found. When searching been snuck into the mix. Overwhelmed by medical decisions he the victim’s pockets reveals no form of identification, Lenox can barely understand, much less participate in, Buck takes ref- discovers that the only real clue is the lack of evidence: The uge in something he finds much simpler and clearer: the battle murderer has gone so far as to remove the label from the between good and evil. Carlos Watkins, an NPR reporter, wants victim’s suit jacket. Commissioner Sir Richard Mayne gives to rehash an old case of Buck’s. Chester March, who was con- Lenox permission to assist with the case—an unpopular deci- victed for killing a bunch of women in the 1950s, is finally slated sion with most of the force. Eager to prove his value, Lenox to be executed for his crimes, and Watkins wants to use him to and his butler, Graham, go in search of passengers on the train make a public case against capital punishment. Buck’s lawyer from Manchester to London and scan the papers for word of grandson, Tequila, warns him to steer clear, but when has Buck a missing person. While the Yard suspects gang involvement avoided a fight? Should you, will you, and how can you fight the linked to Manchester, Lenox’s investigation places this mur- reaper are questions Friedman handles with amazing grace. der on a global scale when the first person connected to the Screamingly funny and achingly sad. victim turns out to be American. Politics across the pond are at a boiling point, with the Abolitionist movement gaining strength and whispers of civil war growing louder by the day. A CONSPIRACY OF BONES The commentary around this is sobering, as it seems so far- Reichs, Kathy fetched to Lenox that civil war could be a possibility, and yet…. Scribner (352 pp.) As the private detective continues to contemplate motive, he’s $27.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 often distracted by Lady Jane’s attempts to find him a suit- 978-1-9821-3888-2 able match and end his reign as most-eligible bachelor. This subplot almost takes the spotlight away from the mystery Another sweltering month in Char- while it provides satisfying backstory for key relationships in lotte, another boatload of mysteries the series. Avid mystery readers will enjoy Lenox’s thorough past and present for overworked, over- review of his sleuthing process, not in the sense of “this is how stressed forensic anthropologist Temper- I solved this” but rather “this is how I could have done better.” ance Brennan. Overall, a bit more history than mystery. Choose this if A week after the night she chases but you revel in atmosphere. fails to catch a mysterious trespasser outside her town house, some unknown party texts Tempe four images of a corpse that looks as if it’s been chewed by wild hogs, because it has been. Showboat Medical Examiner Margot Heavner makes it clear that, breaking with her department’s earlier practice (The Bone Collection, 2016, etc.), she has no intention of calling in Tempe as a consultant and promptly identifies the faceless body- her self as that of a young Asian man. Nettled by several errors in Heavner’s analysis, and even more by her willingness to share

| kirkus.com | mystery | 15 january 2020 | 41 the gory details at a press conference, Tempe launches her own behind all their criminal activity is appealingly simple. Through investigation, which is not so much off the books as against the it all, Corey serves as an investigator and narrator every bit as books. Heavner isn’t exactly mollified when Tempe, aided by ebullient as Andy and a lot more diligent. In fact, longtime fans retired police detective Skinny Slidell and a host of experts, puts may wonder why Rosenfelt saw the need to create a new series a name to the dead man. But the hints of other crimes Tempe’s that follows the pattern of Andy’s 20 successful cases so closely. identification uncovers, particularly crimes against children, If he thought Paterson needed more wiseacre crime fighters, he spur her on to redouble her efforts despite the new M.E.’s sple- was undoubtedly right. netic outbursts. Before he died, it seems, Felix Vodyanov was Don’t be fooled by the brand-new packaging. If you linked to a passenger ferry that sank in 1994, an even earlier U.S. liked Rosenfelt’s rollicking previous series, you’ll like this government project to research biological agents that could one too. control human behavior, the hinky spiritual retreat Sparkling Waters, the dark web site DeepUnder, and the disappearances of at least four schoolchildren, two of whom have also turned MRS. MOHR GOES MISSING up dead. And why on earth was Vodyanov carrying Tempe’s Szymiczkowa, Maryla own contact information? The mounting evidence of ever more Trans. by Lloyd-Jones, Antonia and ever worse skulduggery will pull Tempe deeper and deeper Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt down what even she sees as a rabbit hole before she confronts a (368 pp.) ringleader implicated in “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. $25.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?” 978-0-358-27424-7 Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. An affluent 19th-century wife and aspiring sleuth perseveres in the face of police skepticism to probe a series of sus- THE K TEAM picious deaths in Cracow. Rosenfelt, David A provocative prologue introduces an anonymous killer Minotaur (304 pp.) sneaking away after examining a frail corpse. The year is 1893, $27.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 and restless Zofia Turbotyńska struggles, because of her pro- 978-1-250-25719-2 vincial roots, to be accepted in Cracow high society. Keeping an efficient household for her husband, esteemed medical The creator of Paterson attorney professor Ignacy Turbotyński doesn’t satisfy her. So she under- Andy Carpenter’s dog-friendly myster- takes various projects to occupy her time and prove her worth. ies launches a new series starring several When her cook, Franciszka, asks for time off to visit her grand- of Andy’s friends and enemies, includ- mother at Helcel House, Zofia decides to solicit the residents ing the canine client he represented in for donations to a charity raffle she’s organizing for the benefit Dachshund Through the Snow (2019), with of scrofulous children. The benevolent nuns who run the house a supporting role for Andy himself. are receptive. On her initial visit, Zofia notices a bit of a stir Judge Henry “Hatchet” Henderson, whose courtroom has over Mrs. Mohr, a resident who’s gone missing. Her reading of provided the arena for so many of Andy’s shenanigans, is threat- Poe surely has an effect on her, for when she visits Helcel House ened with blackmail, and he wants the newly formed K Team— again, Zofia takes the initiative to question the staff about the retired cop Corey Douglas; his canine partner, Simon Garfunkel; still-missing resident. Strangely invigorated, she undertakes a Andy’s fearsome investigator, Marcus Clark; and Andy’s wife, search of the premises and discovers Mrs. Mohr’s body hidden Laurie Collins—to identify and neutralize the threat, which under a blanket in the attic. The consensus is a fatal fall while he plans to keep confidential by paying Andy a dollar to take wandering. Zofia is not so sure. When another Helcel resident the case as his lawyer. At first the team’s inquiries into which is found murdered, Zofia alone links the two deaths and dog- of Henderson’s recent cases (the manslaughter conviction of gedly proceeds to investigate. In a nod to Victorian convention, ex-boxer John Lowry? The freeing of self-confessed embezzler Szymiczkowa (the pseudonym of partners Jacek Dehnel and Nina Williams on a legal technicality? The acquittal of Ponzi- Piotr Tarczysńki) begins each chapter with a wry summary of scheming broker Drew Lockman?) provoked the blackmail lead what’s to come. nowhere. Then they lead to hints of a financial manipulation A delightful debut whodunit written with abundant wit conspiracy on a grand scale. By the time they lead to Equi-net, and flair. Pray for a series to follow. an electronic communications network that handles securities trades for people who’d like to keep them private, five people have been murdered, with more slated to follow. The one place they don’t lead is to continued confidentiality, as Henderson learns to his sorrow. The net of deceptions, double-crosses, and professional assassinations gets pretty knotty, but although the conspiracy involves an awful lot of guilty parties, the gimmick

42 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Victorian atmosphere abounds in a twisty, exciting tale of danger and lost love. the death of me

THE DEATH OF ME agree to look for a missing man at the behest of his friend Yancy Tjia, M.J. Stands Close. Yancy’s current squeeze, Sally Maddis, has mis- Legend Press (288 pp.) placed her brother, Jesse, a freelance journalist who went to $15.95 paper | Mar. 1, 2020 the Mystical Mountain Hunting Lodge in search of a story. The 978-1-78955-048-1 lodge, which provides prime hunting parties for rich and famous men from movie stars to gangsters, could presumably supply A Victorian courtesan with a side- plenty of fodder for a muckraker like Jesse. Lane’s attempt to line in detection faces danger while her interview manager Weston Myers is disrupted by lodge secu- mother is plunged into even deeper rity, a nasty group of toughs that includes May Doherty, who trouble. admits tossing Jesse off the property but claims not to have seen Heloise Chancey (A Necessary Murder, him since. Sally reveals that she works up at the lodge almost 2018, etc.) is visiting Paris with her cur- every weekend entertaining wealthy men who have little inter- rent lover, Lord Hatterleigh, and Violette, a French-speaking est in hunting and fishing. Although fearful of flying, Lane gets maid she’s borrowed for the trip in lieu of her usual personal Henry Banks to take him up in his plane so he can search the servant, Amah Li Leen, a Chinese woman who’s actually her property for Jesse. Sure enough, he spots Jesse’s jacket and, after mother—a secret they keep between themselves. Sir Simon landing, finds his badly beaten body and picks up a few rolls of Somerscale has asked Heloise to visit him in debtors prison, film before security shows up. When Weston arrives, he seems where, knowing of her detective skills, he asks her to travel to shocked to see the body. Sheriff Clements enjoys so many perks a sordid part of town to meet someone who may be involved from Weston that he has zero interest in helping Lane, who in a sinister and murderous plot the government has recently must also contend with Dan Dan Uster, a wanted killer hiding

uncovered. Back in London, Amah returns from a walk to dis- on the property. The discovery that several women have been young adult cover that their house has been ransacked, but nothing seems to murdered and buried on the property prompts Lane to risk his be missing, including the item she most prizes, an earring that life and that of his deputy, who poses as a good-time girl, and was her mother’s and whose mate is in the possession of Helo- uncover the truth. ise’s absent father. Made up as a man with Violette as her date, Thrills aplenty as the cunning Marshal displays the Heloise arrives at a raffish bar, where she meets an American survival skills he learned in the trenches of the Great War. named Ripley, barely escapes a brawl, and realizes that Hatter- leigh’s pistol has been stolen from her pocket, where a booklet has been left in its place. As for Amah, first she’s blackmailed by a mysterious couple who’ve come into possession of the other earring and then she’s kidnapped while carrying jewels she science fiction planned to pawn for the money to buy the earring back. After Violette is mistaken for her temporary mistress and murdered, and fantasy Heloise returns to London, where the government asks her to search for a possible bomber. Posing as a governess and hiring a room in a dicey neighborhood, she meets Ripley again and mingles with revolutionaries while Amah desperately tries to escape her captors and discover where they found the earring PROVIDENCE that offers a clue to the whereabouts of Heloise’s father. Barry, Max Victorian atmosphere abounds in a twisty, exciting tale Putnam (320 pp.) of danger and lost love. $27.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-0-593-08517-2

THE MARSHAL AND THE A heavily armed starship heads into MYSTICAL MOUNTAIN deep space to combat a race of alien Wendelboe, C.M. invaders. Five Star (234 pp.) Australian author Barry (Lexicon, $25.95 | Mar. 18, 2020 2013, etc.) made his bones on satires of 978-1-4328-6836-9 corporate life before diverging into fast- paced fantasy with his last offering. Seven years later, he swerves Retired lawman Wendelboe’s second yet again into hard science fiction that bears influences from tale of an introspective Depression-era everything from Ender’s Game to The Martian to 2001: A Space U.S. Marshal trying to keep the peace in Odyssey with a dash of Starship Troopers and the Alien franchise Wyoming. here and there. The title refers to a massive starship, the fifth Nelson Lane (The Marshal and the of its kind, which has been dispatched to find and kill an inva- Moonshiner, 2018) isn’t much interested in catching bootleg- sive alien species known to most earthlings simply as “salaman- gers or foreclosing on ranchers down on their luck. But he does ders.” This follows a first-contact skirmish seven years earlier

| kirkus.com | science fiction & fantasy | 15 january 2020 | 43 that left its survivors devastated and led Earth’s leadership to behind it, preferring to focus on the much less interesting Aspi- develop massive AI–driven ships designed for zero-casualty rin. As taking care of his supernatural “daughter” increasingly warfare. While Providence is a big ship, it has a small crew, con- interferes with Aspirin’s hard-drinking, womanizing routines, sisting of commander Jolene Jackson, weapons specialist Paul the relationship slowly (and not very convincingly) transforms Anders, life manager Talia Beanfield, and intelligence officer him into a responsible man who’s ready for love and parenthood. Isiah “Gilly” Gilligan, the civilian tasked to the starship by the The authors bring a refreshing perspective that avoids Surplex corporation. They’re a diverse bunch, representing a lot the genre’s clichés, but this is not the best example of their of character tropes, from the square-jawed captain to the secre- work. tive madman to an unlikely survivor. Their current mission is to go into what the military terms the “Violet Zone,” a communications dead zone akin to Star Trek’s intergalactic nebulas. THE FORTRESS After a series of successful raids on the salamanders, things go Jones, S.A. awry when the ship’s AI starts malfunctioning and the enemy Erewhon (288 pp.) grows more tactical, ultimately forcing the crew to the surface $16.95 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 of a planet where they’re forced not only to struggle to survive, 978-1-64566-002-6 but also to face their enemy instead of simply nuking them from orbit. (It’s the only way to be sure). Yes, the plot and the Misandry replaces misogyny in this technology are lightly derivative of other works in the SF canon, pseudo-feminist revenge fantasy. but at least Barry is pinching all the cool stuff from the best Jonathon Bridge was born into influences. money, and his success as an executive Something for everyone: space combat, interpersonal has only increased his wealth and power. tension, and aliens, ultimately leading to a story about Cocaine binges and sexual harassment survival. are, as far as he is concerned, perks of privilege. His one saving grace is his wife, a free spirit and dedicated journalist. When Adalia learns what her husband has been getting up to at the DAUGHTER FROM THE DARK office, she offers him one chance to win her back: He can spend Dyachenko, Marina & Dyachenko, Sergey a year as a supplicant in The Fortress, a colony ruled by a society Trans. by Hersey, Julia Meitov of women called the Vaik. It is her hope that this experience will Harper Voyager (304 pp.) cure him of his narcissism. “You need to learn insignificance, $25.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 Jonathon.” The best science-fiction authors invent new worlds 978-0-06-291621-1 to use as laboratories in which to interrogate real-world problems, either to test out solutions or issue a warning. Jones (Isa A playboy learns a life lesson from belle of the Moon and Stars, 2014, etc.) does not do this. What she a supernatural waif in the latest fantasy does instead is create a fictional universe in which it’s accept- from a prolific, Ukrainian-born husband- able to delight in the degradation of men. What’s in store for and-wife writing team. Jonathon becomes clear as soon as he enters The Fortress, when When Alexey Igorevitch Grimalsky— he is stripped and subjected to a body-cavity search. His clothes DJ Aspirin to fans of his radio show and disco nights—finds a are replaced with a form-fitting tunic that barely covers his 10-year-old being menaced by bullies in a dark alley, he thinks genitals. Over the course of a few hundred pages, Jonathon will he can rescue her, turn her over to her parents or the authori- endure forced labor and sexual servitude. He will be compelled ties, and go on his way. But the Dyachenkos (Vita Nostra, 2018, to have sex with a child. He will be penetrated by a man without etc.) have other plans for their protagonist. Willful Alonya his consent. The Vaik, inscrutable and lascivious, are cartoon insists on staying with Aspirin, offering two different stories women crafted from tired patriarchal tropes. The sex scenes— to account for herself. Is she Aspirin’s daughter, the product of of which there are several—range from ludicrously appalling a long-forgotten love affair? Or is she an immortal being from to bizarrely gruesome. The alien trappings—the strange ways another plane who has come to Earth looking for her missing of the Vaik, the imaginary plants and animals—are gewgaws, brother? Neither sounds especially plausible to Aspirin, but apparently intended to distract the reader from the fact that there’s evidence to back up both. A mysterious visitor produces this is, in essence, nothing more than sadomasochistic porn. a birth certificate listing Aspirin as Alonya’s father; and Alonya’s Wildly unimaginative and just generally gross. teddy bear comes to life when the little girl is menaced, tearing her attackers to pieces. Alonya’s brother, she explains, is an artist, but true art is impossible in their perfect home, so he has come to imperfect Earth, taken on human form, and forgotten his true self. To rescue him she must learn to play a magical tune on enchanted violin strings; when her brother hears it, he will remember himself. This reverse-Orpheus setup is intriguing, but the Dyachenkos offer only glimpses of the mythology

44 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | THE LAST HUMAN more or less split into trillionaires and debtors. Debtors inherit Jordan, Zack their family’s debt, increasing it exponentially over time. To Del Rey (448 pp.) pay it off, many sign up to become slaves for a predetermined $27.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 amount of time, with the “choice” to inject a drug called 978-0-451-49981-3 Dociline that turns them into a kind of blissful zombie who has no memory, pain, or agency for the duration of their term. The Jordan’s ambitious debut novel is drug is supposed to wear off within two weeks, but when Elisha an epic science-fiction adventure that Wilder’s mother returned from her debt-paying term, it never chronicles the journey of an orphaned did, leaving her docile indefinitely. To resolve the rest of his Human girl—believed to be the last family’s debt, Elisha becomes a Docile to none other than Alex member of an extinct species—from Bishop, the CEO of the company that manufactures Dociline. interstellar pariah to potential savior of He invokes his right to refuse the drug, one of the only Dociles her infamous race. ever to do so. Alex enacts a horrifying period of brainwashing Sarya the Daughter lives with her adopted mother, Shenya in order to modify Elisha’s behavior to mimic that of an “on- the Widow—a giant, spiderlike “apex predator…wrapped in med.” The resulting relationship between them is disturbing. lightning and darkness”—on an orbital water-mining station in As Alex wakes up to his complicity in a broken system—“I am the rings of a giant gaseous planet. As a citizen of the Network, Dr. Frankenstein and I’ve fallen in love with my own monster”— a vast accumulation of intelligence consisting of millions of he becomes more sympathetic, for better or worse. As Elisha species that has enabled faster-than-light travel and prevented suffers not only brainwashing, rape, and abuse, but the recovery conflict for a half-billion years, Shenya has protected Sarya that must come after, his love for—fixation with, dependence

and lied about her true identity: She is a Human, the one race on—Alex poses interesting questions about consent: “Being young adult destroyed by the Network because of its destructive tenden- my own person hurts too much….Why should an opportunity cies. But when a bounty hunter attempts to abduct Sarya and hurt so much?” However, despite excellent pacing and a grip- her home is destroyed, the little Human finds herself on the ping narrative, Szpara fails to address the history of slavery in run and all alone in a universe inhabited by godlike intelligences America—a history that is race-based and continues to shape who may be using her as a pawn in a much deeper game. As she the nation. This is a story with fully realized queer characters learns more about her race’s tumultuous relationship with the that is unafraid to ask complicated questions; as a parable, it Network, she begins to realize that even one small, moderately functions well. But without addressing this important aspect of intelligent bipedal being can make a difference, even when it the nation and economic structures within which it takes place, involves conflicts with godlike entities. The sheer scope of the it cannot succeed in its takedown of oppressive systems. story is noteworthy, from the various intelligence tiers, which An engrossing and fast-paced read that doesn’t hit the include groupminds and sentient planets, to the colossal set- mark it aims for. tings (orbital stations, spaceships, the end of the universe, etc.). The theme of free will also packs a powerful punch. But while the grand-scale premise of the narrative is laudable, the story THE SISTERS GRIMM gets unwieldy in places, and the momentum suffers. Addition- van Praag, Menna ally, Sarya—while an intriguing character—never becomes fully Harper Voyager (448 pp.) three-dimensional, and the emotional impact of her journey $26.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 feels muted and detached, overshadowed by the massiveness of 978-0-06-293246-4 the story unfolding around her. A flawed but satisfying SF adventure that is, at times, On their shared 18th birthday, four mind-blowing. half sisters, who’ve only met in a dream world, must fight to the death to appease their demonic father, the nefarious Wil- DOCILE helm Grimm. Szpara, K.M. Cambridge residents Goldie, Scarlet, Tor (496 pp.) Bea, and Liyana don’t remember meeting each other in their $27.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 childhood dreams of visiting Everwhere. They don’t remember 978-1-250-21615-1 the immense powers they possessed there—powers of earth, air, water, and fire. Indeed, they have no idea theyhave sisters or who The relationship between a young their father really is. But as their 18th birthday fast approaches, debtor and the trillionaire who owns him their powers begin to manifest in the real world. Their father’s serves as a parable for the ills of capitalism. soldiers, fallen stars disguised as men forever destined to hunt Debut novelist Szpara imagines an “Grimm Girls,” soon close in on their quarries. Only Leo, who only slightly more dystopian United inexplicably finds himself falling for Goldie, questions the point States than the one that exists today, in of this battle between good and evil and if he can bring himself which the wealth gap has grown so large that the country is to kill Goldie, thereby sacrificing himself. As each girl is drawn

| kirkus.com | science fiction & fantasy | 15 january 2020 | 45 to one another, to their hunters, and to Everwhere, they must begins attempting to kill off Zuma’s Ghost crew members, Car- choose a path of light or darkness. The winner of the battle, as michael must figure out if the attacks are connected to the far as Grimm is concerned, will help him shape the dark fate upcoming Games, her investigation into the LifeEx mystery, or of the mortal world. This tale is van Praag’s (The Dress Shop of both. While the multidimensional character of Carmichael— Dreams, 2014, etc.) first attempt at a fantasy epic and, unlike her who happens to be asexual—and other female characters (like previous work, suffers from a muddled premise, vague stakes butt-kicking Petty Officer 1st Class Altandai “Jenks” Khan) are that don’t become clear until halfway through the book, and the story’s obvious strength, there are noticeable flaws. Carmi- narration-induced whiplash. She jumps too quickly between chael’s complicated relationship with Jenks at times strains the several out-of-sequence chronologies and many different char- bounds of believability. Additionally, the pacing and fluidity are acters’ points of view. Meanwhile, the reader can’t be sure who is erratic, particularly in the later Games sequences, which come actually telling this story—Goldie, who narrates some sections across as rushed and don’t fit organically with the overall narra- in first person, an omniscient narrator who sometimes talks to tive flow. “you,” or whomever is telling the other characters’ sections from A military sea novel set largely in space: Patrick O’Brian a third-person-limited perspective. On worldbuilding alone, meets Elizabeth Moon. van Praag’s atmospheric prose, intriguing premise, and diverse cast of characters receive high marks, but fantasy isn’t just about worldbuilding. There simply isn’t enough time spent with each character for readers to connect with them. Being cagey about key story elements does this plot a disservice as well. And while romance it’s admirable that van Praag tackles themes of surviving child abuse, violence, and sexual assault, along with caring for grandparents and parents with mental illnesses, they sadly often get lost in the meandering narrative. UNDERCOVER BROMANCE This is a fantasy premise with great potential, but too Adams, Lyssa Kay much experimentation doesn’t allow it to thrive. Jove/Penguin (352 pp.) $16.00 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-9848-0611-6 A PALE LIGHT IN THE BLACK Wagers, K.B. A local club owner helps a recently Harper Voyager (432 pp.) fired sous-chef get revenge on her boss. $25.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 Liv Papandreas puts up with a lot 978-0-06-288778-8 from her boss at Nashville’s hottest restaurant—Royce is verbally abusive and Character-driven military science takes credit for his staff’s recipes—but fiction, the first installment in Wagers’ the final straw is when she witnesses him sexually harassing NeoG series revolves around Maxine and groping a hostess in his office. After Liv is fired, she vows Carmichael, a lieutenant in the Near- to bring his abuse to light. Her unlikely ally is Braden Mack, Earth Orbital Guard who has spurned her brother-in-law’s charmingly smarmy friend. Mack is out- the influence of her powerful family and raged when he hears about Royce’s actions; he wonders why followed her own path into space. he never noticed the man’s predatory behavior, and he enlists Set in the year 2435—centuries after the nebulous Collapse— the other men in his romance-reading book club to help Liv the narrative begins with Carmichael’s being assigned to Zuma’s bring Royce to justice. Their shock at Royce’s actions might Ghost, a NeoG ship with a close-knit crew that has done well strike readers as naïve; on the other hand, Liv and Mack’s deci- in the Boarding Games, an annual competition that pits vari- sion to go after Royce without consulting lawyers or the police ous military infiltration teams against one another for bragging is both inexplicable and reckless. After an overly long setup, rights. As if being the person to replace a beloved crew mem- the revenge plot is put on hold to develop the wan romance ber (who got promoted) wasn’t bad enough, the perception of between Liv and Mack. Neither of them trust emotional her dynastic family name (her parents are both Navy admirals) entanglements, so they agree to a no-strings affair while they makes her assimilation even more difficult. With four months use Mack’s superficial knowledge of romantic suspense to fig- until the next Games, Carmichael has the added pressure of ure out how to bring Royce’s misdeeds to light. Adams (The not only doing her high-pressure job, but of performing well in Bromance Book Club, 2019, etc.) clearly intends for Royce to the hypercompetitive matches. Her life quickly becomes even be a Harvey Weinstein–like figure: He threatens to end Liv’s more complicated when the salvagers they apprehend onboard career, orders his thugs to follow Liv and Mack, and pays off a missing system jumper turn up dead shortly after being taken the many women he has harassed. Unfortunately, the tone into custody. Traces of a substance link the dead to LifeEx, a of the novel reduces #MeToo to a madcap caper, including company that produces a life-extending serum and that Carmi- fart jokes, traffic jams, and macho posturing. The victims of chael’s sister coincidentally heads as its CEO. When someone Royce’s sexual harassment are used as a plot device, allowing

46 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | Graceful, lyrical, and charming. engaged to the earl

Liv, Mack, and the other book club members to swoop in and MY WAY TO YOU save the day. Bybee, Catherine A romance attempting to tackle #MeToo misses the mark. Montlake Romance (368 pp.) $12.95 paper | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-5420-0980-5 ENGAGED TO THE EARL Berne, Lisa A young woman trying to keep her Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) siblings together in their California home $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 contends with a series of natural disasters 978-0-06-285235-9 and is thankful for help from a chivalrous Public Works supervisor who tempts her After landing one of Regency Lon- to relinquish some of her control. don’s most eligible bachelors, a debu- Two years after her parents died in an accident, Parker tante begins to question her decision Sinclair is fighting to keep her family’s home and make when a childhood friend returns to Eng- sure her younger sister stays in college and her brother fin- land after years of self-imposed exile. ishes high school. She’s not prepared to deal with a Santa Years ago, when she was 14 and her Clarita Valley wildfire in her backyard. While the house family was frightfully poor, Gwendo- barely survives, the forest around them is destroyed, leav - lyn Penhallow asked her 17-year-old neighbor, Christopher ing them vulnerable to mudslides. Enter Colin Hudson, a Beck—who’d inherited a fortune from his uncle—to run recently promoted supervisor in the LA County Public

away and marry her, saving her family financially and help- Works Department, who oversees an enormous, monthslong young adult ing Christopher escape his complicated relationship with project engineered to channel water around existing homes. his father. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t come into the money Colin and his crew create a command post on Parker’s prop- until he was 21, so the plan wouldn’t work. Instead, Gwendo- erty, and he comes to admire her tenacity and intelligence. lyn’s older brother Hugo married an heiress (The Bride Takes The two inch into a relationship, but his protective nature a Groom, 2018), and Christopher ran away to make his way clashes with her independence and need to control her envi- in the world. He returns to London just as Gwendolyn is ronment as much as possible. Yet when the Sinclair home is enjoying her first season and has accepted the hand of the threatened again by unrelenting rain, Colin and his family Earl of Westenbury after they saw each other from across the offer Parker and her siblings a circle of people they can trust room at Almack’s and fell in love at first sight. Gwendolyn and lean on. Author Bybee (Faking Forever, 2019, etc.) draws is blissfully happy until Christopher comes back to town, on her own dramatic experience with fires and mudslides to and then she meets her future mother-in-law. Christopher is create a satisfying love story between two people who would composed and comfortable in his own skin. Meanwhile, the never have met if not for disaster. The personal romantic more time Gwendolyn spends with her fiance, the more she conflicts are slightly weak, but the sheer force of Mother realizes they won’t suit: “Perhaps that might sustain him for a Nature’s meddling makes for fascinating reading, and the lifetime—that kind of superficial adoration—but it wouldn’t gradual weaving together of Colin’s and Parker’s families, me.” Berne’s latest Penhallow title is another sophisticated, along with an emotionally wounded tenant—whose attrac- elegantly written study on character and love, slightly under- tion to Colin’s brother sets up a second book in the series, mined by a romantic misunderstanding with a secondary presumably—gives additional emotional weight and texture character that feels far-fetched given the otherwise exem- to the story. plary intelligence and insight of the main couple. Neverthe- A fascinating novel that aptly balances disastrous cir- less, the subtle comparison of the quick “love at first sight” cumstances and healing romance. romance versus the slow-building, deep-rooted love between characters is lovely and satisfying. Graceful, lyrical, and charming. THE EARL TAKES A FANCY Heath, Lorraine Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) $7.99 paper | Mar. 31, 2020 978-0-06-295190-8

A bookstore owner whose family has high expectations for her marriage prospects falls in love with a neighbor who could undermine those plans—or not. Fancy is the youngest sibling in the lowborn Trewlove crew, who have taken the Victorian London town by storm.

| kirkus.com | romance | 15 january 2020 | 47 Her older siblings have all made fortunes, and all but one has readers to identify with the feelings of the characters. The vil- married well, but she’s well aware that they intend for her to lain does double duty as both Gwyn’s ex and the major’s profes- marry best. “The man had to be titled. Not the second son or sional antagonist but feels like a plot device without substance. the third, but the first.” She is determined not to disappoint A related subplot about espionage is an unnecessary addition them but also wants to be happy. She loves running her book- meant to pad out the story’s drama. The novel also relies a little store, using it as a community outreach center with an ad hoc too much on the reader’s prior knowledge of the family—it lending library, children’s storytime, and adult literacy classes. is the second in Jeffries’ Duke Dynasty series (Project Duchess, As her introduction to society approaches, she meets her new 2019, etc.)—and some details require a rereading to register. neighbor, Matthew Sommersby, and what she doesn’t know Standard Regency fare with a cast of gentry who are is that he’s actually the Earl of Rosemont, just coming out of fairly indistinguishable from many such characters. mourning for his wife and hiding from society since every eligible lady wants to marry him. When he first meets Fancy, he believes she’s a scheming debutante, yet as the two share a THE HONEY-DON’T LIST variety of adventures across London and she convinces him to Lauren, Christina tutor literacy students, Sommersby begins to look at the world Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster through new eyes and is confused by Fancy’s open nature and (320 pp.) generous spirit. Fancy is falling in love with Matthew but feels $16.00 paper | Mar. 24, 2020 obligated to marry well, and Matthew waits too long to tell her 978-1-9821-3864-6 his true identity, causing a rift between them and risking their happiness. Heath continues her charming Sins for All Seasons A toxic workplace nurtures an intoxi- series with two captivating main characters and the regular cast cating romance in Lauren’s (The Unhoney of fascinating Trewloves, though Matthew’s continued convic- mooners, 2019, etc.) latest. tion that Fancy is conniving wears thin. Rusty and Melissa Tripp are the Slightly shaky for the usually impeccable Heath but married co-hosts of a successful home- still a lively, heartfelt, entertaining read. makeover show and have even published a book on marriage. After catching Rusty cheating on Melissa, their assistants, James McCann and Carey Duncan, are forced to give up long- THE BACHELOR scheduled vacations to go along on their employers’ book tour Jeffries, Sabrina to make sure their marriage doesn’t implode. And the awkward- Zebra/Kensington (288 pp.) ness is just getting started. Stuck in close quarters with no one $7.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 to complain to but each other, James and Carey find that the life 978-1-4201-4856-5 they dreamed of having might be found at work after all. James learns that Carey has worked for the Tripps since they owned A war veteran and a woman who has a humble home décor shop in Jackson, Wyoming. Now that suffered a personal betrayal are thrown the couple is successful, Carey has no time for herself, and she together during her debut London sea- doesn’t get nearly enough credit for her creative contribution son in 1809. to their media empire. Carey also has regular doctor’s appoint- Gwyn Drake is a 30-year-old heiress ments for dystonia, a movement disorder, which motivates her who’s been avoiding marriage because to keep her job but doesn’t stop her from doing it well. James of a past liaison that threatens to cloud was hired to work on engineering and design for the show, but her future prospects. When her brother asks their cousin by Rusty treats him like his personal assistant. He’d quit, too, marriage, estate gamekeeper Maj. Joshua Wolfe, to be her body- but it’s the only job he can get since his former employer was guard in London, she worries about keeping her secrets from shut down in a scandal. Using a framing device similar to that both and avoiding infamy. Seriously wounded and left with of Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, the story flashes forward to a disability after a naval battle, Joshua just wants to serve his interview transcripts with the police that hint at a dramatic country again, but being forced to spend time with Gwyn is ending to come, and the chapters often end with gossip in the tempting him to risk intimacy and marriage. The novel is conform of online comments, adding intrigue. Bonding over bad cerned with representing veterans’ issues, notably PTSD, and bosses allows James and Carey to stick up for each other while with highlighting the unfair and unequal consequences, physi- supplying readers with all the drama and wit of the enemies-to- cal and emotional, that women face in sexual relationships, lovers trope. especially with predatory men. Gwyn’s wariness also comes When a book has such great comic timing, it’s easy to from her wealth (and Joshua’s lack thereof) while his stems finish the story in one sitting. from his leg impairment and scarring. Though the themes are worthwhile, the romance is uneven in tone, with sudden bouts of passion between the couple interspersed with arguments, doubts, and dishonesty. Most of the episodes, whether in parks, ballrooms, or London streets, feel wooden, never quite allowing

48 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | McFarlane has created a very funny, very romantic story with deep emotional impact. if i never met you

IF I NEVER MET YOU department manager at Goodwin’s Emporium, the department McFarlane, Mhairi store her family owned”—to marry an English duke, which Morrow/HarperCollins (432 pp.) turned out to be a disaster. When she returns, Goodwin’s is a $15.99 paper | Mar. 24, 2020 pale shadow of its former glory, thanks to her brother’s mis- 978-0-06-295850-1 management, while the store across the street, Dalton’s, is the reigning retail palace, a success fueled by her first love’s busi- A jilted British attorney gets more ness sense and a desire for revenge against the family who made than she bargained for when she agrees him feel less than. Beatrice maneuvers her brother out of the to a fauxmance with the office playboy. picture, then proceeds to turn Goodwin’s around, creating a Laurie Watkinson has a corporate law destination store for women. Meanwhile, Dalton and Beatrice job she loves, dear friends, and Dan, her enter into a secretive “rivals by day, lovers by night” relation- dependable live-in boyfriend who works ship. However, as their emotional and professional stakes rise, in the same firm. When Dan sits her down one evening, Laurie Beatrice’s success and moxie make her the target of a menacing expects anything but to hear him say he’s moving out; and then enemy, threatening her and the store, and the couple must face to hear soon after that he has a new girlfriend. Hoping for a bit of what their true feelings are for each other. Rodale continues her revenge, newly single Laurie agrees to pose as “Phony Goddess” Gilded Age Girls Club with another empowered heroine get- to “Greek God” Jamie Carter, her new colleague and a known ting things done and the dashing hero who loves her exactly the “soulless womanizer.” Jamie is gorgeous and charming but needs way she is, though it takes him a while to realize it. The romance to appear settled to secure a promotion, and he thinks earning has texture and intensity, including a peek into Beatrice’s moth- the affection of Laurie, the firm’s “golden girl,” is the surest route. er’s backstory that adds depth to the characters’ journeys, and

Jamie and Laurie are attracted to one another, make each other the book’s generally lighthearted tone is tempered by histori- young adult laugh, and, they learn, have childhood trauma in common. Jamie cally accurate details reflective of the backlash aspiring women is a classic playboy felled by love who’s written endearingly and often faced. convincingly: “I scoffed at the idea anyone could make you see An entertaining, thought-provoking addition to this your life through new eyes and I’m so, so glad to be wrong.” Lau- captivating series. rie’s intelligence and acerbic wit—especially as they relate to navigating English society as a woman of color—are strengths that can obscure uncomfortable feelings. Thanks to a selfish, absen- HOW TO LOVE YOUR ELF tee father, an unconventional mother, and, she now realizes, a Sparks, Kerrelyn partner who never encouraged her to grow as a person, Laurie Kensington (416 pp.) puts her own desires last. Giving the novel an expanded palette $15.95 paper | Mar. 1, 2020 beyond the romance, Laurie’s friendship with Jamie is just one of 978-1-4967-3004-6 several changes in behavior and attitude that help her to regain a sense of her own agency and importance. McFarlane’s gift is A mysterious woodsman joins forces writing romantic comedy that depicts a recognizable world—in with an earnest princess to stop a plot this case, the culturally diverse world of young professionals in that could ruin both of their kingdoms Manchester, England—without dimming the luster of shining in this fantasy romance. moments of humor, love, and connection. Princess Sorcha keeps a close eye on McFarlane has created a very funny, very romantic her loved ones, constantly living in fear story with deep emotional impact. that her brother and adopted sisters will be taken away from her. When she uncovers a plan to murder her brother and steal his queen, Sorcha throws herself (quite literally) into ruining AN HEIRESS TO REMEMBER the enemy’s coldhearted scheme. In the fray, she is taken pris- Rodale, Maya oner to be used as leverage. Her freedom comes at the hands Avon/HarperCollins (384 pp.) of a man known only as the Woodsman. A Robin Hood–esque $7.99 paper | Mar. 31, 2020 hero, he leads a secret rebellion to overthrow the corrupt fam- 978-0-06-283884-1 ily in power in his woodland country. With Sorcha’s ability to harness fire and the Woodsman’s talent for communing with A Gilded Age heiress returns home nature, they realize their combined magical strength is the key after her disastrous marriage just in to protecting those they love. Sorcha’s close circle of friends time to save her family’s failing depart- and family rely heavily on previously established relationships ment store from the clutches of her first from prior books, and the setup is a direct relation to past love, who’s become Manhattan’s premier events. Newcomers to Sparks’ (Eight Simple Rules for Dating a retailer and has sworn to ruin her family Dragon, 2018, etc.) Embraced by Magic series will undoubtedly yet still makes her heart pound. be lost when attempting to understand character connections Sixteen years ago, 20-year-old Beatrice Goodwin walked and references to previous skirmishes and battles. The relation- away from the boy she loved—“Wes Dalton, a mere associate ship between the hero and heroine is background noise to the

| kirkus.com | romance | 15 january 2020 | 49 tangled web of political machinations by cartoonish villains, but the inventive setting and depth of worldbuilding prevent this from feeling too much like a paint-by-numbers, cookie-cutter fantasy romance. But while Sparks’ crafting of distinct kingdoms and fantasy races is the strongest part of the series, this installment carries on the earlier tradition of middling, glacially slow romances. An adventurous fantasy romp only for the die-hard fan.

FORBIDDEN PROMISES Williams, Synithia Harlequin HQN (352 pp.) $7.99 paper | Jan. 25, 2020 978-1-335-01324-8

A violinist tries to ignore the attraction she feels toward her sister’s ex-husband. Years earlier, India Robidoux suppressed her feelings of attraction toward her sister Elaina’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Travis Strickland. India and Travis shared an incendiary kiss on the night of her 22nd birthday while he and Elaina were on a break. India hoped it would be her chance with Travis, but she was devastated when Travis instead proposed to her sister two weeks later. Unable to cope with her feelings, India fled and spent the next six years in Europe playing violin with an international orchestra. India finally returns home to Jackson Falls, North Carolina, intending only a brief stopover before an audition with the Los Ange- les Philharmonic, but she’s immediately pulled into the family orbit to support her brother’s Senate campaign. The romance between India and Travis is on the back burner as Williams (His Pick for Passion, 2019, etc.) introduces the Robidoux family and many substantive but soapy subplots, most of which center on the machinations of India’s father, Grant. As the CEO of Robi- doux Tobacco, Grant has meddled in his children’s lives to shore up the respectability of the family and the company. India loves her father but is determined not to let him decide her fate. As she and Travis reconnect, they find it impossible to ignore their simmering attraction. Travis is less hesitant about his feelings for India, not willing to make the mistake of letting her go again. Even though the romance gets off to a slow start, this is a pleas- ingly angst-y novel about forbidden lovers finding each other. A romance for readers looking for equal parts passion and family drama.

50 | 15 january 2020 | fiction | kirkus.com | nonfiction THE ONES WE’VE BEEN These titles earned the Kirkus Star: WAITING FOR How a New Generation of THE LOST FAMILY by Libby Copeland...... 54 Leaders Will Transform America I’VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE by Evan James...... 66 Alter, Charlotte Viking (320 pp.) WHY WE’RE POLARIZED by Ezra Klein...... 67 $27.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-525-56150-7 HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD by Robert Kolker...... 67 Time magazine correspondent Alter’s THE GREAT RIFT by James Mann...... 70 debut looks beyond the stereotypes of

millennials as “entitled” and “snowflakes” in a surprising group young adult CAPITAL AND IDEOLOGY by Thomas Piketty; portrait of a new generation of political leaders. trans. by Arthur Goldhammer...... 75 Millennial voters lean left by a 2-to-1 margin, and they are unlikely to bear out the popular wisdom that people grow more OAK FLAT by Lauren Redniss...... 76 conservative as they age, the author argues, backing up her conclusion with persuasive statistics and other hard data. Decades WHAT WE INHERIT by Jessica Pearce Rotondi...... 76 of social science research have shown that political views are formed in early adulthood, and “once young people pick a side, UNWORTHY REPUBLIC by Claudio Saunt...... 77 they usually stay there.” So America must come to grips with millennials’ priorities—such as climate change, student debt VIGIL by Jeffrey Wasserstrom...... 79 relief, and affordable health care—and Alter aims to help by combining a wide-angle view of her generation with close-ups CALIFORNIA EXPOSURES by Richard White; of young elected officials. Along with a few Republicans, she photos by Jesse Amble White...... 81 profiles Democrats including Pete Buttigieg, the presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana, mayor; Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, the New York congresswoman; and Braxton Winston, CAPITAL AND IDEOLOGY a Charlotte city council member and veteran of street protests Piketty, Thomas who decided to change the system from within after returning Trans. by Goldhammer, from a demonstration unable to “pick up his baby daughter Arthur because his dreadlocks had so much tear gas in them.” Alter Belknap/Harvard Univ. can be glib (Afghan war veteran Buttigieg wasn’t a natural for (976 pp.) the military because he “sucked at sports” and “hated fighting”) $39.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 and, when writing about millennials’ parents, patronizing and 978-0-674-98082-2 cutesy: “The boomers were defined by a sense of individualism, so when they had kids, they weren’t just any kids: the boomers’ kids must be super-duper special.” However, the author’s spirited narrative offers much solid reporting on how millennials’ views have been shaped by forces like Instagram, the Harry Potter books, and the Occupy movement. Her young politicians emerge as less entitled than enthusiastic against the odds: Whatever their differences, most succeeded not by bowing to their parties’ tribal elders but by bushwhacking trails, often driven mainly by “instinct and grit.” A trove of facts about millennial voters and politicians that gives off a whiff of condescension to their elders.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 51 launching 2020 with activism in mind Leah Overstreet As the Donald Trump impeach- over, the legal expenses and enor- ment process continues to dominate mous corporate settlements—for the headlines, I thought it would example, at Fox News, Google, and be useful to highlight a few January Goldman Sachs—along with the loss books that focus on activism and call- of key leaders and even bankruptcy ing out injustice in a variety of forms, are slamming the corporate world’s from racism to sexism to corruption. bottom line, forcing a change in cul- Full Dissidence (Beacon, Jan. 21), ture.” This book should serve as a the latest from ESPN The Magazine solid steppingstone for that much- senior writer Howard Bryant (au- needed culture shift. thor of The Heritage and The Last Hero, A Collective Bargain (Ecco/ among other books), is a collection of “forceful, justifi- HarperCollins, Jan. 7), by Jane McAlevey, is a welcome ably angry essays connected by the theme of white su- “battle cry for union rights in a time premacy negating the full citizen- hostile to labor organizations,” ac- ship of black Americans,” as our recording to our reviewer. The author viewer writes. In lesser hands, the is a forceful voice for labor, but she tone of these pieces could have is not just a tough talker (though come across as merely caustic, but she is undoubtedly that). She com- Bryant is a consummate profession- bines historical data with telling an- al, and his insights on sports, politics, ecdotes to provide an often disturb- and their intersections with race and ing yet necessary portrait of laborers class are consistently insightful. constantly battling corporate inter- Fight of the Century, edited by ests for basic rights, and, important- the all-star husband-and-wife team ly, she shows how “women and peo- of Michael Chabon and Ayelet ple of color fare better economically with unions than Waldman (Avid Reader Press, Jan. 21), celebrates the without them.” American Civil Liberties Union and its 100-year battle Running Against the Devil (Crown Forum, Jan. 14), against civil injustice. The roster of by Rick Wilson, is, in the words of our reviewer, a “stri- contributors is impressive—Neil dent excoriation of [Donald] Trump with a hard-hitting Gaiman, Jesmyn Ward, George assessment of Democrats’ chanc- Saunders, Marlon James, Salman es of winning the next presidential Rushdie, Meg Wolitzer, Liyun Li, election—a victory that is crucial Elizabeth Strout, Jacqueline Wood- for saving the country.” In the same son, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aleksan- angry, often hilariously vitriolic tone dar Hemon, and Lauren Groff—and that characterized his previous book, the editors do a fine job of curation. Everything Trump Touches Dies, the As our reviewer writes, “this is not former Republican strategist takes solely a book about controversial on all aspects of the president’s cor- decisions so much as one that traces rupt empire, relentlessly dissecting the ACLU’s efforts at attending to the importance of the his many lies and the countless ways rule of law, the role of the courts, and the significance of he is damaging the process of de- legal reform.” mocracy. Some readers may find the author to be overly #MeToo in the Corporate World (Harper Business, acerbic, but considering his nefarious target, his acidic at- Jan. 28), by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, views the #MeToo move- tacks seem justified, and the book makes a suitable read- ment through a corporate lens, showing the pervasive- ing companion for the impeachment proceedings. —E.L. ness of sexual harassment in the workplace. Significantly, writes our reviewer, the author demonstrates “that sexual Eric Liebetrau is the nonfiction and managing editor. harassment is all about power, and when it occurs at work, the entire workforce can suffer demoralization. More-

52 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | THE CATALYST HOW TO EAT How To Change Anyone’s All Your Food and Diet Mind Questions Answered Berger, Jonah Bittman, Mark & Katz, David L. Simon & Schuster (288 pp.) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (256 pp.) $26.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-9821-0860-1 978-0-358-12882-3

The way to change someone’s mind— Anything you want to know about about anything—is not to be more what, when, and how to eat. persuasive; instead, find out what is pre- Food gurus Bittman (How To Cook venting change. Everything: Completely Revised 20th Anni Time and again, Berger (Marketing/Wharton, Univ. of versary Edition, 2019, etc.), special adviser Pennsylvania; Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape on Food Policy at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, Behavior, 2016, etc.) has discovered in his research that “push- and Katz (The Truth About Food: Why Pandas Eat Bamboo and ing harder” does not sell a car, change someone’s vote, or get a People Get Bamboozled, 2018, etc.), founding director of the Yale- child to eat spinach. It is not more information, facts, or rea- Griffin Prevention Research Center, bring their expertise and sons that are needed. You change minds, he writes, by “remov- common sense to answering myriad questions about diet and ing roadblocks and lowering the barriers that keep people from nutrition. “The artful (or at least competent!) blend of science taking action.” Indeed, “the more we hear about what is pre- and sense is what we believe to be our signature contribution,”

venting someone from changing, the easier it is to help.” In each young adult chapter, the author focuses on the key forces that encourage inertia: the tendency to push back when someone is trying to convince you, attachment to the status quo, reluctance to make big changes, uncertainty, and the need for more corroboration. Berger draws on research and case studies and offers intriguing anecdotes. He shows how a Florida anti-smoking effort built trust with teenagers, asking them what they wanted and encouraging their own decision-making rather than telling them what to do; and how a rabbi befriended a harassing Ku Klux Klan member and convinced him to abandon his extrem- ist views. The author describes how people shed their “status quo bias” when they realize the cost of doing nothing and why identifying and exploiting a “movable middle” can win over swing voters. Uncertainty can be overcome by making new things easier to try by offering free samples. A reluctant boss’s mind can be changed by enabling her to personally experience a novel approach to customer service. Detailed case studies include the story of how Americans abandoned their considerable reluctance to eat less desirable cuts of meat during World War II (with better cuts going to the military) when given recipes for using liver in meatloaf. A well-written guide that can be useful in both business and personal life.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 53 Up-to-the-minute science meets the philosophy of identity in a poignant, engaging debut book. the lost family

write the authors, as they impart their views on various diets, automobile, assembly line, and labor movement. Christman’s whether it’s advisable to always eat breakfast (“there is nothing text is pointed and often very funny as he ponders a subject that holy about breakfast,” they assert), what makes a good snack has been hiding in plain sight: “The Midwest is, in fact, con- (apples, walnuts, bananas, carrots, hummus, bean dip, salad are stantly written about, often in a way that weirdly disclaims the fine), whether dairy is good or bad (it depends on what you’re possibility that it has ever been written about before,” as writ- eating and what dairy replaces), and whether there are any true ers describe with wonder their “discovery” of great museums, superfoods (the idea of a superfood “is a marketing ploy”). They restaurants, literature, and deep cultural resources. Though ring in on how much protein an average person needs, the dif- much of the tone is dark and acerbic, the author finds glimmers ference between complete and incomplete proteins, the dif- of hope in the region as “a moral frontier,” where Americans ference between saturated and unsaturated fats and between might best face the considerable challenges of capitalism and fructose (the natural sugar found in plants) and high-fructose climate change. corn syrup, which is processed in factories and contains about A provocative analysis. You’ll never think of Peoria in 45% glucose. Overall, the authors advocate eating unprocessed the same way again. foods from local sources, which leads to “reducing carbon footprint, supporting local economies, eating seasonally (and fresh), knowing where your food comes from and how it was THE LOST FAMILY raised…all these are inarguably positive attributes.” They deal How DNA Testing Is with debates over questions such as eating eggs, avoiding foods Upending Who We Are that cause inflammation, adding probiotics to one’s diet, using Copeland, Libby artificial sweeteners, getting enough antioxidants, and whether Abrams (304 pp.) to take vitamin and mineral supplements, which “should be sup- $27.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 plements to a good diet, not substitutes for one.” The authors 978-1-4197-4300-9 are straightforward when they can’t resolve a controversy (such as the health benefits of taking a multivitamin mineral mix) and A fascinating account of consumer cite scientific studies. genetic testing’s “fundamental reshap- A sensible guide to health from two genial experts. ing of the American family” over the past two decades. Swabbing your cheek and sending off for personal DNA MIDWEST FUTURES results is increasingly common, for the curious as well as for Christman, Phil family historians and those in the dark about their parent- Belt Publishing (150 pp.) age. In her impeccably researched debut, journalist Cope- $26.00 | Apr. 7, 2020 land traces the development of “genetic genealogy,” a field 978-1-948742-61-0 created by citizen scientists. Whereas 1970s genealogists relied on microfilm archives and in-person interviews with A Midwestern author surveys an relatives, their yearslong searches only shortened by lucky amorphous region that resists easy discoveries, today’s genetic “seekers” can get answers within categorization. days. In 2000, FamilyTreeDNA became the first company to According to Christman (English/ offer at-home DNA testing, followed by Ancestry.com and Univ. of Michigan), everything you think 23andMe. The author chronicles her meeting with the founder you know about the Midwest is wrong. of FamilyTreeDNA, her visit to the Family History Library It isn’t as flat as you think, nor as normal and nice. It isn’t as in Salt Lake City, and her correspondence with 400 DNA white, or as boring, and it isn’t as hopeless as its Rust Belt corro- testers. Many received shocking results but agree it’s better sion would seem to indicate. The boundaries of this multistate to know the truth, even about abandonment, rape, or incest. region are also murky, described with an “antiquated nickname Copeland highlights a few representative cases—e.g., a father that stuck.” As the author notes, the name “Middle West” was who had a second family and a woman who didn’t learn she initially used to describe Tennessee. In fact, there is no univer- was adopted until age 51. Foundlings and children of sperm sal agreement on any single state as Midwestern, though Illinois donors often meet (half-)siblings they never knew existed. comes closest in consensus. (Even there, those in Chicago tend But the anchoring storyline is that of Alice Collins Plebuch, to consider themselves Chicagoans rather than Midwesterners.) who was surprised when her saliva sample indicated that she Christman assembles the narrative to resemble a grid, an orga- was half Eastern European Jewish instead of 100% British/ nization of “six rows containing six prose ‘plats,’ each approxi- Irish. Copeland presents her quest for her late father’s true mately 1,000 words long.” Within this orderly construction, heritage as a riveting mystery with as many false leads as any there is plenty of disorder, or at least ambiguity, as the author crime novel. Along the way, the author thoughtfully probes surveys the territory along historical, political, moral, and eco- the ethical dangers of genetic testing, including conflicting nomic lines. He looks at the Jeffersonian era of the first survey, privacy rights, an essentialist view of race, unexpected medical when the area was the Western frontier, and the transforma- results, and DNA databases being used in crime-solving. As tions wrought by the railroad (and the Underground Railroad), she notes, it’s a fast-moving field in need of regulation, and

54 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | she engrossingly examines the many questions that arise, both College, the University of Michigan, Columbia, and the Uni- practical and rhetorical: “What makes us who we are? Blood? versity of Iowa, among others, returns with a series of diverse Family? Culture?” arguments to support the title. He begins with a section about Up-to-the-minute science meets the philosophy of teachers who influenced him (both on and off the page), focus- identity in a poignant, engaging debut book. ing on John Updike, John Gardner, and James Baldwin, and he later notes the popular decline of the Johns and the rise of Bald- win. Delbanco then examines five texts that, he argues, have WHY WRITING MATTERS been enduring influences on “our daily behavior,” including Delbanco, Nicholas The Communist Manifesto, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Lady Chatterley’s Yale Univ. (296 pp.) Lover, and he explores the concepts of originality, plagiarism, $26.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 and imitation. Among the most original writers, he writes, are 978-0-300-24597-4 Flannery O’Connor and Virginia Woolf. Throughout, Delbanco offers comments about the history of writing and why it is so A veteran novelist and teacher of cre- significant, and he laments the decline of truth in language ative writing offers a salmagundi of ideas (Donald Trump receives stern words). Interwoven into the nar- for the latest volume in the publisher’s rative are playful and instructive moments for readers, and the “Why x Matters” series. author makes frequent use of famous quotations to support his The author of numerous novels and arguments. In fact, the text is chockablock with quotations— works of nonfiction, Delbanco Curiouser( some identified, some not (among the latter, “world enough and Curiouser: Essays, 2017, etc.), who has taught at Williams and time” from Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”). young adult

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 55 Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal. untamed

Delbanco has a lot to say about teaching and offers some long— UNTAMED sometimes overlong—sequences about a writing seminar (with Doyle, Glennon lengthy offerings by students) and eight pages devoted to the Dial (352 pp.) reproduction of a course syllabus he used for many years with $28.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 his creative writing students. 978-1-9848-0125-8 Playfulness and gravity mix with quotations and creation in this mélange of styles, tones, and textures. More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal WHAT IS THE GRASS freedom. Walt Whitman in My Life In her third book, Doyle (Love War Doty, Mark rior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-chang- Norton (272 pp.) ing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father $25.95 | Apr. 14, 2020 of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, 978-0-393-07022-4 Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”— A renowned poet uses Walt Whit- the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about man’s poetry to mirror his own life and the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt to demonstrate the power of words. like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She Doty, who has won the National followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on Book Award for Poetry (2008) and her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a numerous other prizes, is the author of 10 poetry collections downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle (Deep Lane, 2015, etc.) and three memoirs (Dog Years, 2007, etc.). found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. In this new volume, the author combines biography and poeti- Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage cal analysis of Whitman (whom he’s greatly admired for most of was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering his life) with autobiographical material, much of which details choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced his romantic and domestic relationships with men. Throughout, before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, Doty displays a number of his gifts and writing techniques. He whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecom- chronicles his visits to sites relevant to Whitman’s story, including court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism ing Brooklyn; Manhattan (“New York pulls me up out of myself, of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your chil- just as it must have done for Whitman”); his final home in Cam- dren the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns den, New Jersey; and his impressive tomb in Camden, which, are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, Doty writes, Whitman visited while it was under construction. white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and He reveals a profound understanding of Whitman’s life and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, poetry, paying close attention to “Song of Myself,” “Calamus,” but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” and others. Doty also alludes periodi- friends and familial references to personify their impact on her cally to other poets (especially Hart Crane and Emily Dickinson life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in as well as some contemporary colleagues) and discusses Whit- length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, man’s friendships with Bram Stoker and Oscar Wilde. Through as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital Doty’s eyes, we see Whitman not only as the writer who trans- lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narra- formed American poetry (Doty credits him for inventing free tive is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share verse), but as a tireless self-promoter (he reviewed himself from the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and time to time) and as a man of many passions. Fans of Whitman reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency. will surely enjoy Doty’s extensive passages of exegesis, and many Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of readers will admire the author’s occasional descriptions of his female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness own revisions of his ideas about Whitman’s diction and poetic and renewal. design. Throughout, the author exudes an exuberance about life and words that rivals that of his subject. Also informative (and necessary) are Doty’s evocations of 19th-century Brooklyn and New York City. A captivating paean to Whitman combined with an unblinking self-examination.

56 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | DARK TOWERS FRANCI’S WAR Deutsche Bank, Donald A Woman’s Story of Survival Trump, and an Epic Trail Epstein, Franci Rabinek of Destruction Penguin (272 pp.) Enrich, David $17.00 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 Custom House/Morrow (416 pp.) 978-0-14-313557-9 $29.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-0-06-287881-6 A Holocaust memoir by a secular Czechoslovakian Jew who was 22 when A deep-reaching look at the inner she was rounded up with her family to workings of Deutsche Bank, Donald be deported to Terezín in 1942—only the Trump’s lender of choice. first step of her wartime misery. At the heart of this aptly titled book is the suicide of a Epstein (1920-1989) wrote this brief, striking memoir in Deutsche executive in 2014 and the subsequent quest of his the mid-1970s, largely for the benefit of her children. Her son to find out the reasons for it. That story, well rendered by daughter, Helen Epstein (The Long Half-Lives of Love and New York Times finance editor Enrich The( Spider Network: How Trauma, 2017, etc.), a writer who struggled her entire life to a Math Genius and Gang of Scheming Bankers Pulled Off One of the grasp her mother’s awful wartime experiences and her own Greatest Scams in History, 2017), takes many twists and turns, but trauma as the child of Holocaust survivors, could not face its outlines are familiar: A corporation with a dodgy history returning to it until recently. Here, she does a fine job of clari- (including financing the construction of Nazi death camps) fying some of the detail and characters. A youthful zest for life

goes straight for a time, guided by people of conscience who young adult are eventually overwhelmed by executives willing to let ethics slide in the quest for profit. The latter category includes a banker who sat onstage at Trump’s inauguration—and without whose legally problematic help, Enrich suggests, Trump would never have attained office. While many financial institutions refused to lend to Trump because of his habit of reneging, Deutsche was “the only mainstream bank consistently willing to do business” with him—and at the time of the presidential election, he owed the bank $350 million. But did he really, or was the bank merely a front for funding from other sources headquartered in Moscow? The author works his way through a spaghetti tangle of leads with all sorts of unsavory connections, including the family of Trump’s son-in-law, members of whom “were moving money to the Russians at the same time that Russia was interfer- ing in the American presidential election.” The implications are more than suggestive. What is inarguable, by Enrich’s account, is that Deutsche suffered through a clash of corporate cultures by which one side strived to comply with such things as financial stress tests while worrying that a newly elected Trump would default, leaving it “the ugly choice between seizing the president’s personal assets or not enforcing the loan terms,” even as the other continued corrupt practices for nearly two decades. Following the money becomes easier in this thoroughly researched, if dispiriting, work of investigative journalism.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 57 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Peggy Orenstein

FOR BOYS & SEX, THE AUTHOR SPENT MORE THAN TWO YEARS INTERVIEWING TEENS AND YOUNG MEN ABOUT THEIR SEXUALITY AND ATTITUDES. IT’S AN EYE-OPENER. By Marion Winik Tia & Claire Studio Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity (Harper, Jan. 7) is the result of more than two years of surprisingly raw and poignant conversations with young men ages 16 to 22. “Most of what they said to me, they had never told anybody,” says Orenstein, “whether it was the need to appear invulnerable and never cry (how they operate in hookup culture), or gay boys talking about going on Grindr and having sex with adult men, or boys feeling they’d been sexually abused or coerced by a partner.” The liveliness and variety of these discussions is indicated by a few chapter titles: “Welcome to Dick School,” “Get Used to It: Gay, Trans, and Queer Guys,” “Heads You Lose, Tails I Win: Boys of Color in a White World,” “If It Exists, There Is Porn of It.” This reader, a mother of two boys and a girl, found the latter chapter a shocking education. “Regard- less of your child’s gender or sexual orientation,” she says, “you need to spend some time looking at PornHub. If you’re imagining they’re looking at Playboy, or porn from 20 years ago, you’re just wrong. Anything you can imagine—and many things you’d rather not imagine—are on there, for free. According to Orenstein, young male porn users report less satisfaction with their sex lives, with their performance in bed, with their female partners’ bodies. “What porn tells Back in the day, parents of boys would tell Peggy Oren- you is that you can have hot sex with a cold heart, and that’s stein how relieved they were—everybody knew boys were what hookup culture also tells you.” easier. That got no argument from Orenstein, the author of Hookup culture is the prevalent approach to sexuali- Girls & Sex (2016) and Cinderella Ate My Daughter (2012) and ty on college campuses, and according to Orenstein, it has the mother of a daughter herself. now “drifted down” to high school. Its rules: Physical inti- Then a few years back, she realized that parents of boys macy is the precursor to emotional intimacy, not the other were in swiftly rising waters. way around. Everyone has to be wasted when the interac- “It’s a combination of awareness of sexual assault on tion occurs. Afterward, the participants must affirm that the campus, the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the sheer encounter was meaningless by behaving less friendly to one breadth and depth of sexual misconduct across every sector another than they did before. of society,” she said in a recent phone interview. At the same “They use the phrase ‘catching feelings’—as if feelings are time, as she documents in eye-opening detail in her latest a disease,” says Orenstein. “I have never had a conversation book, the internet has made porn a daily habit for a vast sec- with young people about hookup culture that doesn’t de- tor of the young male population. volve into their unhappiness about hookup culture.”

58 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Her conclusion? “Not just for the sake of their partners, but for their own health and well-being, we have to help boys develop a counternarrative….We have an opportunity to bring boys into the conversation about gender dynamics, sexual ethics, pleasure, emotional connection, and vulnerability, to allow them to develop a more expansive vision of masculinity.” Boys & Sex is fascinating reading, and just handing it to a boy is a great way to start the conversation—even if you comes through despite “Franci’s” many travails. She demon- have to have the talk from opposite sides of a cracked-open strates a fierce determination to adapt and prevail amid the harshest conditions. First, she watched as her parents, middle- bedroom door, as one parent reported. What does your son class members of the German-speaking community in Prague, think of Wyatt, the one-time king of hook-up culture? Or were brutally separated from her at Terezín to be sent to the Dylan, who was molested by a female friend at a party? Dev- Nazi death camps. Life in the barracks of Terezín was fraught but bearable, and Franci keenly observes the hierarchy of sur- on, a college athlete who used to be a girl? vival, where the well-connected enjoyed benefits not available For those unlikely to read a book, Orenstein recom- to all, and “a whole new standard of behavior evolved, much mends Chanel Miller’s victim statement and the apology of of it self-sacrificing and noble, but also frequently selfish and Dan Harmon, creator of the popular animated show amoral.” Married hastily to a young man from home who was Rick able to help them survive by his canny trading instincts, until and Morty, to the writer he sexually harassed for years. Both he was caught and disappeared, Franci was herded into the are on YouTube. cattle cars for transport to Auschwitz in May 1944. There, her “The conversation about sex and intimacy—it’s not just cousin made her aware of what was burning in the chimneys; she “became conscious of a peculiar odor in the air, like burn- one talk, and it’s not in a silo,” says Orenstein. “It’s part of a ing hair or bones.” From then on, the author refers to herself larger idea of what kind of human you’re raising, what kind by her camp tattoo number, A-4116, and she chronicles how of citizen.” she endured the brutal conditions and disease at several women’s camps by using her sewing and electrical skills.

Further useful testimony from an unspeakably terrify- young adult The Big Book of the Dead Marion Winik is the author of and ing era. (b/w photos; map) a regular reviewer for Kirkus, the Washington Post, and other Boys & Sex publications. received a starred review in the Nov. 15, LEGENDARY CHILDREN 2019, issue. The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life Fitzgerald, Tom & Marquez, Lorenzo Penguin (288 pp.) $17.00 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-14-313462-6

How the reality TV show RuPaul’s Drag Race both draws on and influences ideas and inspiration from the LGBTQ community at large. The LGBTQ community has come a long way, write married bloggers Fitzgerald and Marquez (Everyone Wants To Be Me or Do Me, 2014). It is no longer bound by outdated laws restricting men’s clothing choices or being declared mentally ill. Here, the authors focus on a unique, historically defiant subculture of gay life: drag queens. They spotlight liberators and “street queens” like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who, when faced with the “attempted social genocide” of their demographic, openly confronted and defied designated societal norms and demanded their rights. Elsewhere, the authors celebrate the pivotal personalities who have impacted LGBTQ life through outreach, activism, or within their own personal devo- tion to drag culture—e.g., Charles Pierce, Jim Bailey, Divine, Leigh Bowery, Lypsinka, and José Sarria, among many others. The authors consistently cross-reference a host of LGBTQ cultural touchstones (“Herstory” lessons) with Drag Race and how it continues to represent queer culture. Fitzgerald and Mar- quez are generous with show references, sketch and lip-sync- ing challenge analyses, and how contestants on the show have drawn either acclaim or derision (or both) through their on-air

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 59 Daring readers will be inspired to overcome similar challenges— and armchair travelers won’t be disappointed. amazon woman

interactions. A description of the show’s Speedo-clad “Pit Crew” history and culture, “invented themselves.” Friedman also dis- dovetails with a discussion on desire and male physique, and cusses the nation’s reluctance to accept its responsibilities as the authors compare queens mastering the “art of shade” with the “sole world power” and the tensions between its techno- the “reading” performers in the 1991 drag documentary Paris Is cratic and industrial working classes. Burning. Informative, entertaining, melodramatic in its obses- A provocative, idea-filled burst of prognostication. siveness, and written with equal amounts of insight and wit, the book serves as a commemorative archive of drag in American life. Younger LGBTQ readers and RuPaul devotees will most AMAZON WOMAN appreciate the authors’ dedication to accurately chronicling the Facing Fears, Chasing movement, detailing how race and gender blend harmoniously Dreams, and My Quest to within the drag culture, and the minute details of a colorful and Kayak the Largest River from often controversial show that continues to mature. Source to Sea Part history lesson, part appreciation for the LGBTQ Gaechter, Darcy movement and a show that continues to thrive because of it. Pegasus (304 pp.) $27.95 | March 3, 2020 978-1-64313-314-0 THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM A well-paced tale of outdoor America’s Discord, the adventure. Coming Crisis of the 2020s, “We are all, I suppose, confined to specific destinies and mine and the Triumph Beyond seems to be chasing rivers.” So writes Gaechter, who decided to Friedman, George mark her 35th birthday—making her ancient, by competitive Doubleday (256 pp.) kayaking standards—by traveling the length of the Amazon $30.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 River from source to outlet. Why do such a thing? Because it’s 978-0-385-54049-0 there, of course, and no woman had been known to do it before, and there’s no time like the present. Still, in the company of The Austin-based forecaster argues her longtime partner and a likeminded Brit, she tackled the that “impersonal forces” will drive events project, emerging 148 days later after crossing South America in the 2020s, “one of the more difficult periods” in American from the Andes to the Atlantic. The physical challenges were history, but prosperity will follow. extraordinary, although, the author notes, “keeping a cool head Friedman (Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe, 2015, is the most important skill in kayaking, though by far the most etc.), an adviser to corporations and government and the founder difficult to master.” There were plenty of opportunities to exer- of Geopolitical Futures, has a cyclical view of American history, cise that skill, for on top of the churning whitewater rapids and which argues that predictable cycles of “crises, order, and rein- odd critters were the more dangerous denizens of the rainforest, vention” have shaped outcomes since the birth of the nation. including illegal loggers, Shining Path guerrillas whose “primary We are “simply passengers on the American roller coaster,” he operations…now happen in remote jungle areas and involve writes matter-of-factly. Two major cycles control “actors and the lucrative drug trade,” and soldiers of fortune who could be events”: an institutional cycle occurring every 80 years (marked quick with the trigger finger. Then there were the more quotid- in the past by the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World ian culture clashes, for, as Gaechter patiently notes, “time is a War II) and guiding the relationship between the federal govern- point of contention between North Americans and Peruvians,” ment and other parts of the nation; and a socio-economic cycle, making an important rendezvous all the more difficult to sched- which changes the dynamic of the U.S. economy and society ule. Was it worth dying in that jungle war zone in order to exer- at 50-year intervals and has produced the industrial class, baby cise her coveted freedom, she asks? The answer was no—but boomers, and the middle class. Friedman predicts these com- then again, as she writes, “I’d invested a lot of time and suffering plex forces will converge in the 2020s to “destabilize” American already,” reason enough to press on to the next canyon, rapid, life and begin a “period of failures” marked by indifference to anaconda, sulk, argument, and bad feeling (“I didn’t want the politics, low growth in productivity, and increasing unemploy- person I loved acting like an asshole and lunatic, and that’s what ment. The 2030s will be a murkily described “period of creation” I often felt Don was doing”) while vanquishing inner doubts. that will “redefine” the social landscape and ameliorate the The author includes a glossary of kayak terms. problem of dysfunctional federal government by introducing Daring readers will be inspired to overcome similar military governing principles (subordinates do not deviate from challenges—and armchair travelers won’t be disappointed. the commander’s intent). Many readers will balk at the author’s (16 pages of color photos) too-neat cycles and the notion that leaders do not play a major role in shaping events. In support of his theorizing, he offers a sharp analysis of American life, especially the roots of the knack for reinvention that allows the nation to start over after crises. Americans invented their country, he writes, and lacking shared

60 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | MASTERING THE PROCESS actually want to do,” she writes, “is show you how a particular From Idea to Novel process that I’ve developed over time works for me.” Before George, Elizabeth George begins a novel, she conducts extensive research. Here, Viking (336 pp.) she includes photographs she took of the seaside in Cornwall $28.00 | Apr. 7, 2020 where the novel is set and discusses how she was looking for 978-1-9848-7831-1 a location to establish tone and atmosphere. What she discovered “ended up giving me an entrée into my novel.” Once An up-close and personal class in she has found a “plot kernel” and the settings, “everything writing a novel. else rises from the characters: the subplots, conflicts, theme, Most authors of how-to-write books motifs, agendas, and the shape of the through line of the story.” provide numerous excerpts and samples The author creates elaborate prompt sheets from which a of work from successful, published character “rises up and tells me who he is.” In other chapters, authors in order to show aspiring writers how it’s done. Hot George explores dialogue, voice, point of view, and plot devel- on the heels of her last Inspector Lynley mystery, The Punish opment. A key to the George method of writing is the “THAD,” ment She Deserves (2018), the award-winning George breaks or “Talking Heads Avoidance Device,” which is an “action that this tradition by analyzing a single novel, Careless in Red (2008), accompanies dialogue.” Writers must “avoid writing a scene one of her Lynley mysteries. The excerpts are extensive and that comprises only dialogue and taglines.” The author con- sometimes quite lengthy, so expect spoilers. Throughout, the cludes with a detailed discussion of the importance of revising. author calmly teaches by example, pragmatically walking read- “I’m a perfectionist,” she writes, but she doesn’t include much ers through numerous sections of the lengthy novel. “What I on language or style. Each chapter includes optional exercises. young adult

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 61 Sharp, provocative, timely reading. after the last border

The author’s nuts-and-bolts approach may be a tad too dry for AFTER THE LAST BORDER some fledgling writers. Two Families and the Story of “Take what you like and leave the rest,” writes George Refuge in America early on. It’s good advice for approaching this book. (b/w Goudeau, Jessica images) Viking (368 pp.) $27.00 | Apr. 28, 2020 978-0-525-55913-9 THE UPSIDE OF BEING DOWN How Mental Health Struggles An Austin-based journalist and immi- Led to My Greatest Successes grant activist interweaves narratives of in Work and Life two refugees with a history of modern Gotch, Jen with Bertsche, Rachel American refugee resettlement policies. Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster World War II transformed the United States into a global (288 pp.) leader in refugee resettlement. However, as former Catapult $27.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 columnist Goudeau shows in her moving debut, the American 978-1-9821-0881-6 dream has since become out of reach—both within and without U.S. borders—to immigrant asylum-seekers. Drawing on exten- A heartfelt memoir from the founder sive interviews with two refugees she helped to resettle as well and chief creative officer of ban.do, a as historical research, the author draws attention to a resettle- “bright, optimistic multimillion-dollar lifestyle company.” ment problem that has reached crisis proportions. She centers In this humorous tour behind the happy brand, Gotch the narrative on two women: Mu Naw, a member of a perse- explores her challenges balancing her mental health, her per- cuted minority in Myanmar, and Hasna, a refugee from the Syr- sonal life, and a startup company—and it’s not all polka dots and ian civil war. Both were granted a chance to resettle in the U.S. glitter. The author addresses the hurdles of finding proper care, in the first and second decades, respectively, of the 21st century, support, diagnosis, and medication for mental health concerns a time when the number of refugees globally had reached all- and augments this narrative with personal tools and tips that time highs but the number of refugees offered resettlement in will resonate with readers struggling with similar issues. A more the U.S. had reached historic lows. Yet because Mu Naw was explicit acknowledgment of how barriers of access affect peo- Christian and Hasna was Muslim, the two had distinctly differ- ple may have broadened the book’s reach, but the bright tone ent experiences. Mu Naw faced the inevitable discrimination and candid effort to destigmatize the topic are refreshing. At that came with immigrant status. Nevertheless, many white times, the interjected one-liners detract from the author’s story, Americans offered the social and financial support that allowed grabbing punchlines at moments of emotional height and over- her and her family to leave poverty behind and become middle shadowing deeper themes. However, this lighthearted, relaxed class within the span of a decade. Hasna, who arrived in the U.S. style has endeared Gotch to her many fans and followers, who just a few months before the election of Donald Trump in 2016, will enjoy the close-up tour of her career and personal life. Some found herself facing a far more hostile atmosphere and uncer- of the more reflective insights stem from her business experi- tain future. Most of the people who helped her and her fam- ences. As she writes, she stayed open to learning within every ily were Syrian American. When American travel bans against role, from temporary work all the way up to CCO. Chronicling Muslims, including Syrian refugees, went into effect in 2017, her how she has found and nurtured mentoring relationships and hopes of reuniting the members of her war-fractured family attended to the ongoing work of managing a staff, growing a faded. In a detailed text that moves smoothly around in time, business, building a brand, and cultivating creative partnerships, Goudeau effectively humanizes the worldwide refugee crisis Gotch offers a candid glimpse at the balance of stamina and while calling much-needed attention to a badly broken Ameri- passion required to be a successful entrepreneur. “There’s a very can immigration system. real risk of losing yourself, your health, and your life outside of Sharp, provocative, timely reading. work if you aren’t careful,” she writes. At its best, the narrative captures the energy and enthusiasm required to build a startup company and provides strategies for maintaining an optimistic outlook. Ultimately, Gotch’s feel-good focus conveys a positive message about a long journey toward emotional stability. An upbeat look at dealing with life’s curveballs.

62 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | ON VANISHING UPSTREAM Mortality, Dementia, and The Quest To Solve Problems What It Means To Disappear Before They Happen Harper, Lynn Casteel Heath, Dan Catapult (240 pp.) Avid Reader Press (320 pp.) $26.00 | Apr. 14, 2020 $30.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-948226-28-8 978-1-9821-3472-3

A compassionate collection of essays Psychology meets neuroscience and examining dementia from an unusually self-help in this engaging study by busi- hopeful point of view. ness writer Heath (co-author: The Power As a Christian minister and chaplain, of Moments: Why Certain Moments Have first-time author Harper has spent considerable time working Extraordinary Impact, 2017, etc.). in assisted living and memory loss facilities with those expe- If the fish floating down a river have three heads, then it riencing varying degrees of dementia. Initially reluctant, like behooves any curious-minded person to travel upstream and many of us, to deal with older people experiencing the disease, find out why. Just so, if half of high school students are failing she gradually began to understand those she worked with as in a certain district, then one can either try to throw money complicated people and to think about the many ways in which and words at the problem (“Stay in school, kids!”) or venture our misunderstanding of dementia leads us to stop paying atten- into the alien territory outside the classroom to find out how to tion to those affected by it—to see them as “vanishing” before keep them going. That’s just what happened in Chicago, writes

they actually die. In fact, argues the author, they are vividly Heath, where teachers formed interdisciplinary teams offer- young adult alive and sensitive to the presence of others and often capable ing support to legions of at-risk students, determining that if of increased “compassion, honesty, humility.” In these essays, first-year students can be kept on track, they’re likely to stay some of which were published in various journals, Harper in school to the end—and wind up making at least $500,000 explores with an open mind and empathetic imagination the more over a lifetime as compared to their dropout peers. The question of why “we—those whom the dementia activist Mor- author examines numerous turning-point moments when find- ris Friedell termed the ‘temporarily able-brained’—need them ing “upstream” things to fix might have led to better and differ- to vanish. Why are we so eager to view them as disappearing or ent results. For example, when, in 1974, a scientific paper was disappeared?” She explores how our often unconscious biases published describing a disappearing ozone layer, that was the lead us to assume that people are “gone” when they are actu- time to do something about it—not now. “Creating urgency” is ally right in front of us, longing for connection. She ponders the one task the would-be problem-solver must address. Another is possible link between Shakespeare’s King Lear and dementia, getting the right people on board to create desired effects, such considers Ralph Waldo Emerson’s relatively peaceful encounter as lowering teen drug use by making it outré: “What if drug and with the state, and reflects on her own experience of sleepwalk- alcohol use came to feel abnormal in their world rather than ing and the ways it helps her understand dementia. “While I normal?” A change of mindsets is rarely easy, but it can be done, do not presume I can or should know in full the experiences of and best so, by Heath’s account, by looking farther along at the another,” she writes, “I wondered if sleepwalking might be one chain of events than the problem itself. That habit of mind, he point of correspondence.” Harper moves smoothly between writes, helps explain why the incidence of death by thyroid abstract reflections and concrete experiences, reflecting often cancer is so low in South Korea, and it also points to a central on the effects of dementia on her grandfather and on her rela- truth: “Systems have great power and permanence; that’s why tionship with him, her fears that a genetic link to the disease upstream efforts must culminate in systems change.” may have been passed down to her, and her encounters with A smart, provocative book that guides readers to better many individuals, all described in strikingly specific terms, sur- decision-making when confronting seemingly intractable viving dementia in their own ways. problems. Helpful, sometimes moving insights into a situation many will face.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 63 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Ilan Stavans & Josh Lambert

WITH A NEW ANTHOLOGY, TWO SCHOLARS CELEBRATE THE LONG AND RICH HISTORY OF THE YIDDISH LANGUAGE IN AMERICA By Donald Liebenson

Kevin Gutting that this is an immigrant language that compares to other immigrant languages. There are many in the audience who do not know Yiddish who are reading the subtitles and connecting with the play.” The two spoke with Kirkus on a conference call about how Yiddish is trending. Who nu?

What is your relationship to Yiddish? Josh Lambert: I grew up in a Jewish community in Toronto, Canada. My grandfather was an immigrant from Poland. My mother understood Yiddish but never spoke it. My grandparents never spoke Yiddish to me. In grade school and high Ilan Stavans school, Yiddish was never mentioned. But then in my un- dergrad studies at Harvard, a professor taught me some Yid- Ilan Stavans, who, with Josh Lambert, co-edited How Yid dish literature in translation. As I moved on to grad school, dish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish (Rest- my professors suggested it was time to stop reading transla- less Books, Jan. 21), can’t help but be amused that an anthol- tions and learn the language. By that point my grandfather ogy charting the relationship between Yiddish and America had passed, and I had lost that link to the last native Yiddish was done by a Mexican and a Canadian. speaker in my family. I studied the language with teachers The impetus for the anthology was to mark the 40th an- and academics. niversary of the Yiddish Book Center, says Lambert, who Ilan Stavans: Yiddish was my first language. I am a grand- serves as its academic director. “It’s an amazing moment for child of Eastern European Jews from Ukraine and Poland. this scrappy institution that Aaron Lansky basically started Some of them couldn’t make it to the U.S. because of immi- in the back seat of a car,” he says. “He was trying to convince gration quotas. They ended up in the Caribbean and eventu- people that Yiddish is interesting. This anthology really cel- ally in Mexico. Yiddish for me has always been the roots, the

ebrates that.” Michael Grinley The anthology spans more than a century of essays, fiction, play excerpts, cartoons, memoir, good old-fashioned wordplay, and more. There are even Crisco recipes for Jew- ish housewives from Proctor & Gamble. Stavans, publisher of Restless Books and a Lewis-Se- bring professor of Humanities, Latin American, and Lati- no Culture at Amherst College, echoes that Yiddish is far from a dead language. How else to explain the box-office smash that is the all-Yiddish revival of Fiddler on the Roof that opened off-Broadway last February. “I am fascinated by this phenomenon,” Stavans says. “People connect with Yiddish sometimes through nostalgia, sometimes through a sense Josh Lambert

64 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | grounding. It connects me to a long chain of generations who have come before. Yiddish has not perished but is thriving in all sorts of ways. It is resil- ient and passionate; there are things you can say in Yiddish that you can’t say in any other language. New generations are THE ANGEL AND THE ASSASSIN taking to it. It’s a thrill. The Tiny Brain Cell That Changed the Course What is the most rewarding of Medicine thing for you about putting Jackson Nakazawa, Donna Ballantine (320 pp.) together this anthology? $28.00 | Jan. 21, 2020 IS: An anthology is a portal that opens to a new world, as 978-1-5247-9917-5 if to say, “If you go through this door or turn this page, you will discover a world that will be your own.” You want read- How the brain’s microglial cells affect the body and the mind. ers to become searchers so that after sampling an author in From 2001 to 2006, science journalist Jackson Nakazawa the anthology, they will go to the library and ask for that au- (Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology thor’s books. and How You Can Heal, 2015, etc.) was stricken, for the second time, with Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease that attacks nerves, causing paralysis. As she recovered, she What Yiddish expression or proverb most resonates experienced cognitive and psychological changes that urged her with you? to question the connection between physical immune dysfunc- JL: Az men est khazer, zol shoyn rinen iber der bord—If tion and brain-related and psychiatric illness, a connection that

went against the prevailing medical belief that the brain could young adult you’re going to eat pork, you might as well let the juices soak not be affected by immune disorders. The author’s investiga- your beard. It means that if you’re going to do something tions led her to the work of scientists across many disciplines— you shouldn’t, you might as well enjoy it. neurobiology, genetics, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and immunology—several of whom she profiles in lively detail: IS: It’s Isaac Bashevis Singer’s epigram that opens the book: the caffeine-fueled Beth Stevens, for one, a MacArthur fellow “We have to believe in free will. We have no choice.” It’s a who directs a laboratory, and Jonathan Kipnis, whose graduate statement of Jews going against the current that is often school professors, decades ago, did not encourage his experi- tragic, but we move forward and have to believe we will sur- ments in the immune system–brain connection. Translating scientific research into brisk, readable prose, Jackson Nakazawa vive in the ways and the language we have been carrying on reports on breakthrough discoveries regarding microglial cells, for some time. which function as the brain’s white blood cells, with “enormous power to protect, repair, and repopulate the brain’s billions There is truly something for everyone in this anthology. of neurons and trillions of synapses, or to cripple and destroy them.” But besides functioning as helpful “angels,” they also can Do you have to be Jewish to enjoy it? spin into overdrive in response to stressors such as infection, JL: I certainly hope not. No one thinks you have to be Brit- environmental toxins, trauma, physical or emotional abuse, and ish to enjoy Shakespeare. Yiddish culture is exciting and sur- chronic mental stress. When these stressors appear to microg- lia as if they are biological pathogens, the resulting “frenzied” prising and totally compelling for anyone who’s interested. microglial activity can lead to depression, anxiety, cognitive IS: In regard to Shakespeare, if you’re British you have a impairment, forgetfulness, lethargy, and similar symptoms. The sense that this is a history that touches you. I would say you author follows three autoimmune sufferers whose psychological don’t have to be Jewish, but if you are Jewish it does help. symptoms were significantly improved by one of the new therapies resulting from microglial research: transcranial magnetic stimulation, neurofeedback, gamma light therapy, and fasting Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer for the Washington diets. Scientists in many fields, writes the author, are looking into a microglial connection to Alzheimer’s disease, with the Post, the Los Angeles Times, VanityFair.com, and Vulture.com. hope that if the cells can be rebooted and reprogrammed, they How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed can “help reverse the ravages” of the disease. Yiddish received a starred review in the Nov. 1, 2019, issue. A fascinating look at cutting-edge research with profound implications.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 65

A remarkably insightful and entertaining collection from a talented voice. i’ve been wrong before

I’VE BEEN FRONT ROW AT THE WRONG BEFORE TRUMP SHOW Essays Karl, Jonathan James, Evan Dutton (368 pp.) Atria (256 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 31, 2020 $17.00 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-5247-4562-2 978-1-5011-9964-6 The chief White House and Wash- Wry, contemplative personal essays ington correspondent for ABC provides reflecting on travel, intimate connec- a ringside seat to a disaster-ridden Oval tions, and the pursuit of a writing life. Office. In this debut collection, James (Cheer It is Karl to whom we owe the cur- Up, Mr. Widdicombe, 2019) memorably revisits experiences from rent popularity of a learned Latin term. Questioning chief of his past, whether random encounters or more significant life- staff Mick Mulvaney, he followed up a perhaps inadvertently changing events. In each case, he reveals impressive candor honest response on the matter of Ukrainian intervention in and depth of thought about his formative years and his devel- the electoral campaign by saying, “What you just described is opment as a writer. The journey wasn’t always smooth, and a quid pro quo.” Mulvaney’s reply: “Get over it.” Karl, who has the author is forthcoming about some of the many jobs he been covering Trump for decades and knows which buttons has had over the years, including answering phones at the San to push and which to avoid, is not inclined to get over it: He Francisco Ballet during Nutcracker season, a brief summer inter- rightly points out that a reporter today “faces a president who lude at a gelato stand in Seattle, and an extended writing sab- seems to have no appreciation or understanding of the First batical (“writing aside, the primary gift of a residency is ample Amendment and the role of a free press in American democ- time half-free from the expectations of the world”) and stint at racy.” Yet even against a bellicose, untruthful leader, he adds, the Carson McCullers house in Columbus, Georgia. Frequent the press “is not the opposition party.” The author, who keeps travel to both familiar and remote locations throughout the his eye on the subject and not in the mirror, writes of Trump’s world allowed James to chronicle complicated and occasion- ability to stage situations, as when he once called Trump out, ally awkward interactions with foreign cultures. Throughout, at an event, for misrepresenting poll results and Trump waited he reflects on the nuanced challenges of personal interaction until the camera was off before exploding, “Fucking nasty in any form, from bonding with job associates to investing in guy!”—then finished up the interview as if nothing had hap- more enduring friendships, or from navigating the challenges pened. Trump and his inner circle are also, by Karl’s account, of finding enduring love to casual hookups with strangers. “The masters of timing, matching negative news such as the revela- pursuit of sex, which at times feels like it’s all masks, all theater, tion that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election with dis- can demand so little real exposure,” writes James. “What petri- tractions away from Trump—in this case, by pushing hard on fied me was that I wanted more than sex from Karim: I longed the WikiLeaks emails from the Democratic campaign, news to fall fully in love with him, which is much more frightening— of which arrived at the same time. That isn’t to say that they love demands that you rest in place offstage, endure heroic manage people or the nation well; one of the more damning passages of time together, time in which one must confront, stories in a book full of them concerns former Homeland continually, the tired, the ridiculous, the warty actor behind the Security head Kirstjen Nielsen, cut off at the knees even while role.” Cutting gay cultural clichés, the author skillfully reveals trying to do Trump’s bidding. his complex inner life. Attuned to the broad expectations or No one’s mind will be changed by Karl’s book, but it’s a struggles of being a contemporary gay male, he is also deft in his valuable report from the scene of an ongoing train wreck. exploration of the personal and financial difficulties of anyone living in our current era. A remarkably insightful and entertaining collection THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE from a talented voice. ANDREA DORIA The Sinking of the World’s Most Glamorous Ship King, Greg & Wilson, Penny St. Martin’s (352 pp.) $29.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-1-250-19453-4

The history of an infamous shipwreck. In 1956, in dense fog, the Italian ship Andrea Doria sank off the coast of Nantucket, within miles of its destination at the port of New York. King and Wilson (Twilight

66 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com |

of Empire: The Tragedy of Mayerling and the End of the Habsburgs, around the deepest political cleavage of the age.” Following the 2017, etc.) bring to their brisk, vivid narrative the prodigious passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, many white Southern research that marked their history of another maritime disaster, Democrats became Republicans, and the parties turned con- Lusitania (2015). But where the 1915 attack on a British liner by sistently liberal and conservative. Given a “true choice,” Klein a German U-boat, killing all aboard, affected international hos- maintains, voters discarded ideology in favor of “identity poli- tilities, the sinking of the Andrea Doria did not even dent the tics.” Americans, like all humans, cherish their “tribe” and dis- fortunes of the liner industry. Most passengers and crew were trust outsiders. Identity was once a preoccupation of minorities, rescued; later, many took other ocean voyages. Nor did the ship but it has recently attracted white activists and poisoned the itself, which boasted beauty, modernity, and a special brand national discourse. The author deplores the decline of mass of Italian glamour, have the significance of the Titanic, which media (network TV, daily newspapers), which could not offend seemed a microcosm of social strata and aristocratic hubris. a large audience, and the rise of niche media and internet sites, Passengers on the Andrea Doria included a few hugely wealthy which tell a small audience only what they want to hear. Ameri- Americans, traveling first class, returning from extended Euro- can observers often joke about European nations that have pean holidays, while some Italians who boarded in Naples found many parties who vote in lock step. In fact, such parties coop- themselves in claustrophobic accommodations. Most, though, erate to pass legislation. America is the sole system with only were simply well-off. There were several clergymen and two two parties, both of which are convinced that the other is not actresses, one the wife of Cary Grant. The authors offer lively only incompetent (a traditional accusation), but a danger to the biographies of select passengers and crew, setting the stage for nation. So far, calls for drastic action to prevent the apocalypse the drama that occurred at 11:11 p.m. on July 25, 1956, when the are confined to social media, fringe activists, and the rhetoric of Swedish liner Stockholm, with an inexperienced seaman at its Trump supporters. Fortunately—according to Klein—Trump is helm, smashed into the Andrea Doria’s starboard side, “demol- lazy, but future presidents may be more savvy. The author does young adult ishing all in its path” and causing “a horrible cacophony of death not conclude this deeply insightful, if dispiriting, analysis by and destruction.” The authors masterfully evoke the anguish proposing a solution. that ensued as passengers—panicked parents and frightened A clear, useful guide through the current chaotic politi- children, among them—crawled across the dangerously listing cal landscape. ship and perilously descended into lifeboats. Within hours, several rescue vessels arrived, including another luxury liner. The authors’ recounting of the aftermath of the disaster—investiga- HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD tion, litigation, and the lives of many survivors—though infor- Inside the Mind of an mative, seems anticlimactic in comparison to the tense drama American Family of the event. Kolker, Robert An assured, absorbing history of a disaster. (8-page color Doubleday (416 pp.) photo insert; 8-page b/w photo insert) $29.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-0-385-54376-7

WHY WE’RE One family’s history reveals the mys- POLARIZED tery of schizophrenia. Klein, Ezra In a riveting and disquieting narrative, Avid Reader Press (336 pp.) Kolker (Lost Girls: An Unsolved American $28.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 Mystery, 2013) interweaves a biography of the Galvin family with 978-1-4767-0032-8 a chronicle of medicine’s treatment of, and research into, schizophrenia. Don and Mimi Galvin had 12 children—10 boys and A sharp explanation of how Ameri- two girls—born between 1945 and 1965. Religious beliefs—both can politics has become so discordant. parents were Catholic—were not the only reason for their fecun- Journalist Klein, co-founder of Vo x , dity. Mimi seemed to crave the distinction of “being known as a formerly of the Washington Post, MSNBC, mother who could easily accomplish such a thing.” In addition, and Bloomberg, reminds readers that Kolker speculates, the children may have assuaged an abiding political commentators in the 1950s and ’60s denounced Repub- feeling of abandonment, including by a husband more focused licans and Democrats as “tweedledum and tweedledee.” With on his career than his family. Mimi was a perfectionist who con- liberals and conservatives in both parties, they complained, vot- trolled every aspect of the children’s lives: chores, enriching after- ers lacked a true choice. The author suspects that race played a school activities, and feelings, which she believed should best be role, and he capably shows us why and how. For a century after repressed. Insisting that they were raising a model family, the the Civil War, former Confederate states, obsessed with keep- Galvins refused to acknowledge problems, such as violent fights ing blacks powerless, elected a congressional bloc that “kept the among the older brothers, which the parents dismissed as merely Democratic party less liberal than it otherwise would’ve been, roughhousing. The other brothers felt lost, ignored, “less than the Republican Party congressionally weaker than it otherwise safe, treated like a number and not a person.” The eldest, Don- would’ve been, and stopped the parties from sorting themselves ald, was the first to exhibit signs of schizophrenia, with bizarre

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 67 A compelling history that brings forgotten heroes back in the spotlight. the women with silver wings

behavior that repeatedly landed him in mental hospitals; soon, the spot. Lance delivers a lively, if often technical, description five brothers followed, all with the same diagnosis, manifested of the many experiments, models, calculations, and explosions somewhat differently, including sibling sexual abuse. Meanwhile, that persuaded her and her doctoral committee that this is what Mimi pretended everything was normal—until she could not happened to the Hunley. hide the family’s suffering. With each diagnosis, “she became An entertaining account of research that solved a his- more of a prisoner—confined by secrets, paralyzed by the power torical mystery. that the stigma of mental illness held over her.” Kolker deftly follows the psychiatric, chemical, and biological theories proposed to explain schizophrenia and the various treatments foisted THE WOMEN WITH upon the brothers. Most poignantly, he portrays the impact on SILVER WINGS the unafflicted children of the brothers’ illness, an oppressive The Inspiring True Story of emotional atmosphere, and the family’s festering secrets. By the the Women Airforce Service 1980s, the Galvins became subjects of researchers investigating Pilots of World War II a genetic basis for the illness; those extensive medical records Landdeck, Katherine Sharp inform this compelling tale. Crown (416 pp.) A family portrait of astounding depth and empathy. $28.00 | Apr. 21, 2020 978-1-5247-6281-0

IN THE WAVES A pilot and aviation historian makes My Quest To Solve the her book debut with a deeply researched Mystery of a Civil War history of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, a group of more Submarine than 1,100 civilian fliers who, during World War II, made a val- Lance, Rachel iant contribution to the military. Dutton (400 pp.) In 1942, writes Landdeck (History/Texas Woman’s Univ.), $28.00 | Apr. 7, 2020 Eleanor Roosevelt called women pilots “a weapon waiting to 978-1-5247-4415-1 be used,” spurring the project of recruiting members for the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, led by a “coolheaded and Surprising new facts about the first personable” young woman, Nancy Love. Competing with Love submarine to destroy an enemy ship. for leadership was another acclaimed flier, ambitious, outspo- The culmination of years of develop- ken Jacqueline Cochran, who lobbied for her own position; as a ment by Confederate designers led by marine engineer Horace compromise, she was put in charge of the Women’s Flying Train- Lawson Hunley, the Hunley killed two crew teams during testing ing Detachment, with her graduates moving on to Love’s ferry- (Hunley was among those killed) and a third on Feb. 17, 1864, ing group. In 1943, the Army Air Force merged the groups into when it sank a Union blockader in Charleston Harbor with a the WASP. Chosen from more than 25,000 skilled applicants bomb at the end of a 20-foot pole. Ironically, since submerg- who already had considerable flying hours, the members of the ing had proved a death sentence, the submarine traveled on the WASP underwent rigorous additional training to earn their surface during its successful attack. This dramatic feat gained coveted silver wings. Freeing male pilots to fly bombing mis- it mythical status, and great excitement followed the exhuma- sions, the WASP ferried more than 12,000 military planes and tion of the wreck in 2000. An engineer working for the Navy, engaged in training exercises with gunners. Landdeck reveals Lance was studying at Duke University for a doctorate in bio- racism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia within both programs. medical engineering, and her thesis research concerned the When two women were reported to be dating, they were imme- effect of underwater explosions on humans. Most occurred dur- diately dismissed. The media portrayed the women pilots with ing World War II, so these occupied her until a thesis adviser glowing articles in the first months of their service, but as the suggested that she give thought to the Hunley. She complied war wound down and the Allies were increasingly successful, and turned up an intriguing puzzle, which she delivers to read- male flight instructors in the War Training Service complained ers. When recovered, the submarine was intact with little vis- that the women were trying to steal their jobs. Cochran’s efforts ible damage. “All eight men inside were found resting at their to bring the WASP into the military, ensuring them benefits battle stations,” she writes. “None showed any signs of skeletal and pay equal to male service members, inflamed the protests. trauma. None appeared to have made any attempt to escape Congressional bills failed, and the WASP was described as an the vessel.” The narrative combines description of the author’s “experiment” that was no longer needed. Drawing on memoirs, research into what happened after the explosion with a detailed archives, and interviews with surviving WASP members, Land- history of events on that night in 1864, including biographies deck creates palpable portraits of many women’s experiences of those involved and careful examinations of the eight victims. and their lives after the program was disbanded. In Hollywood, an explosion hurls the hero through the air; A compelling history that brings forgotten heroes back he brushes himself off and walks away. In reality, most bomb in the spotlight. (30 b/w photos) blasts mutilate their targets, but a sufficiently strong shock wave can produce internal injuries that can kill someone on

68 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | FACEBOOK MY SISTER The Inside Story How One Sibling’s Transition Levy, Steven Changed Us Both Blue Rider Press (592 pp.) Leyva, Selenis & Leyva, Marizol with $30.00 | Feb. 25, 2020 Chammah, Emily 978-0-7352-1315-9 Bold Type Books (256 pp.) $28.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 Wired editor at large and longtime 978-1-5417-6295-4 tech reporter Levy (In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives, An award-winning TV actress and 2011, etc.) explores the inner workings of her trans sister tell the story of how they the social media giant. learned to navigate the difficult, often While attending Harvard, Facebook founder Mark Zuck- troubled waters of gender transition. erberg “took a laissez-faire attitude toward classes” while deep A year after Selenis’ mother and father became foster par- within projects such as Course Match, which allowed students ents, they took in—and later adopted—a child named Jose. to see who was signed up for which classes—good for those Immediately, Selenis noticed he was different. As a baby, “his cry seeking candidates for a winning study group, one might say, was desperate,” as though he was already “struggl[ing] with his but also a fine tool for a stalker. Levy explores the morally neu- existence.” In a three-part narrative that moves between Selenis tral world that Zuckerberg built with Facebook, an enterprise and her adopted sibling, the pair offer an intimate, often mov- whose every technological feature disguises means to gather sal- ing account of their journey toward loving acceptance of each

able data on the user’s movements, preferences, political lean- other. Part I deals with the years before that sibling’s transition young adult ings, and the like. Those features, of course, have put Facebook into Marizol. Using masculine pronouns and Marizol’s male very much in the news as a vehicle for delivering “fake news.” deadname, Selenis recalls how Jose loved to play with hair and As one advertising executive noted, looking at the growth of makeup. Despite Selenis’ support, he still faced pressure from “ruble-denominated accounts” surrounding the 2016 presiden- his adopted family to conform to a masculine gender identity. tial election, “it was one hundred percent knowable that [the Seeking answers and support from social media and elsewhere, Russians] would use social media in this way.” Defending him- Jose first identified as gay before coming out to Selenis. But a self in the wake of the massive data mining undertaken by com- question she posed—“did [he] want to be a woman?”—cata- panies such as Cambridge Analytica, Zuckerberg has retreated pulted Jose into the period of transition and self-acceptance, behind the shield of free expression, though belatedly acknowl- which the authors cover in parts II and III. Moving beyond edging that consumers might not want their private data to be the confines of his Bronx Latinx community, contact with other so easily accessed. “For the past twelve years,” writes Levy of trans individuals proved liberating. However, transitioning the choice between more or less privacy, “Zuckerberg had been into Marizol meant facing often painful, sometimes danger- ranking those values incorrectly.” For all his criticisms, the ous circumstances. In and out of Selenis’ life, Marizol turned author, who enjoyed free access to Zuckerberg, is less dismissive to sex work to support herself and later experienced abuse at of Facebook and its intentions than Roger McNamee, whose the hands of a sadistic boyfriend. Meanwhile, Selenis’ work as book Zucked (2019) condemns the company’s demonstrated dis- a TV actress (most notably on Orange Is the New Black) brought regard for its users’ rights. If changes for the better come, they’ll her into contact with trans actor and activist Laverne Cox, who likely be grudging. Levy makes it clear that Zuckerberg believes helped her better understand Marizol’s struggles. Determined in the essential benefit to the world of his mission even if he is to help her sister, Selenis brought her sister to a New York “the man who some think has done as much destruction to that LGBTQ center where Marizol could safely come into her own. world as anyone in the business realm.” Fiercely honest, this book not only chronicles a harrowing jour- Of considerable interest to followers of technological ney to self-acceptance; it also celebrates an interpersonal love trends, futurists, and investors. that transcends the bounds of blood and family. Bold, raw, and courageous.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 69 A significant work of American history. the great rift

DON’T GO CRAZY THE GREAT RIFT WITHOUT ME Dick Cheney, Colin Lott, Deborah A. Powell, and the Broken Red Hen Press (256 pp.) Friendship That Defined $16.95 paper | Apr. 7, 2020 an Era 978-1-59709-815-1 Mann, James Henry Holt (432 pp.) A daughter grows up in the whirl- $32.00 | Jan. 15, 2020 wind of her overbearing father. 978-1-62779-755-9 Once misdiagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, Lott (Creative Writing/ A useful review of the hard-right shift Antioch Univ., Los Angeles; In Session: The of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Bond Between Women and Their Therapists, 1999) recounts growing Cold War, delivered via a comparative study of two of the semi- up with a father whose craziness seemed infectious. “My father nal players. and I were not ordinary,” writes the author; “oh no, we had As Mann (George W. Bush, 2015, etc.) shows in this illuminat- formed an alliance around being extraordinary.” In Lott’s noisily ing dual biography and history lesson, early on in their careers, dysfunctional family, she and her father, Ira, bonded against her Colin Powell and Dick Cheney both hitched their stars to top mother and brothers, who thought Ira was irritating, infuriat- government insiders who helped propel them to the highest ing, and more than a little eccentric. Ira coveted his daughter’s levels of power. Powell, the amiable, popular soldier, was an aide attentions, making her his confidante, flattering her looks and to both Frank Carlucci and Casper Weinberger at the Defense talent. She was a genius, he insisted, and he would gain fame and Department and National Security Council—before becoming fortune as the genius father of a child prodigy. Lott adored him, national security adviser in 1987. Cheney, “the quiet conserva- even when he treated her “like an adult playmate, like a collabo- tive,” became Donald Rumsfeld’s aide during Gerald Ford’s rator.” She refused to see him as others did: a bizarre neurotic. brief administration before assuming the role of White House Usually wearing nothing but underwear, Ira was a jokester, an chief of staff. Both men, notes the author, achieved stellar exhibitionist, and a narcissist who hogged the center of atten- appointments during George H.W. Bush’s administration and tion. He was also a hypochondriac, intensely focused on what led a “good war” that expelled Iraq from Kuwait while agree- he thought were symptoms of dire diseases and hypersensitive ing, prudently, not to extend the war into Baghdad. Yet it was in “to any minor shift in the environment.” While Ira complained George W. Bush’s administration that the two—Cheney as VP, with “operatic intensity” about various physical ailments, the Powell as secretary of state—began to diverge in thinking and children strived to get their mother’s attention by complain- action. Cheney’s “blueprint” was essentially to keep the U.S. as ing even more loudly: of severe allergic reactions, mysterious the world’s dominant military superpower after the collapse of rashes, and rare strains of salmonella, despite Ira’s “relentless the Soviet Union and actively “block” any hostile rival. Powell attempts to protect us from food poisoning.” Ira did have some maintained a centrist position and urged caution and restraint, serious health problems, including asthma, borderline diabetes, especially regarding another war with Iraq. Cheney pushed for high blood pressure, and obesity; through the years, he became aggressive “antiterrorist measures,” including the controversial addicted to painkillers and sleeping pills, supplied by “a sympa- and ultimately self-defeating “black sites” and “enhanced inter- thetic and equally addicted local pharmacist.” After his mother rogation” measures, while Powell emphasized working with U.S. died, Ira descended into depression, refusing to shower, shave, allies. Both men would develop their own “tribes” of followers. get dressed, work, or eat anything but “soft foods suitable to Yet, tragically, it was Powell who became the poster child for the a toddler’s palate.” He became obsessed with death and dying, invasion of Iraq, duped by U.S. intelligence into making a false and since Lott was viscerally in tune to his needs, she became casus belli of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction. obsessed, too, pushed almost to the brink of sanity. The friendship was over, and the split caused deep rifts in the A candid, unsettling family portrait of madness and country at large. Still, as Mann demonstrates thoroughly in his enduring love. insightful dissection of their relationship, Powell was as complicit and eager a participant in the nation’s disastrous ventures as Cheney. A significant work of American history.

70 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | KING OF THE WORLD SOMEBODY’S GOTTA DO IT The Life of Louis XIV Why Cursing at the News Mansel, Philip Won’t Save the Nation, but Univ. of Chicago (608 pp.) Your Name on a Local Ballot $35.00 | Mar. 1, 2020 Can 978-0-226-69089-6 Martini, Adrienne Henry Holt (240 pp.) A wonderfully meticulous look at $25.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 Louis XIV (1638-1715) from a leading his- 978-1-250-24763-6 torian of France. “Even by royal standards,” writes A fresh and funny memoir by a pro- Mansel (Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s gressive wife, mother, and writer/editor Greatest Merchant City, 2016, etc.), “the family into which the who ran for local office for the first time in middle age—and future Louis XIV was born…was a nest of vipers.” He ascended won—on a shoestring budget. to the throne at age 4, and during more than three decades of After the 2016 presidential election, Martini (Sweater Quest: the king’s 72-year reign, France was at war. Louis nurtured a My Year of Knitting Dangerously, 2010, etc.) channeled her rage lifelong fascination with the army and fighting as well as danc- into knitting pink pussyhats for the #Resist movement from ing. After the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661, Jean-Baptiste her home in Oneonta, New York. When that didn’t banish her Colbert became Louis’ minister and proved to be one of the anger, she asked a locally active Democrat how else she might ablest in the history of France. He economized, kept accurate help, and he urged her to run against the Republican incumbent

accounts, reformed taxes, and introduced a new code of law for the District 12 seat on the Otsego County Board of Repre- young adult while expanding trade and France’s colonies. “Louis was a man sentatives. As a political newbie, Martini was skeptical, but she in pursuit of glory,” writes the author, “a king devoted to dynas- signed on after learning that she could keep out-of-pocket costs tic aggrandizement and a leader bent on national expansion.” low (“in the hundreds, not…thousands” of dollars) and continue He introduced a postal system, street lights, and boulevards. to work for the alumni magazine for SUNY Oneonta. Local His finest creation, of course, was Versailles, to which Mansel, officials’ decisions, she realized, could affect people’s daily lives who displays an expansive knowledge of French history, devotes more than state or federal politics: “North Korea is important,” significant attention. Louis controlled every aspect of construc- but it won’t matter “if everyone in your neighborhood has tion and effectively deserted Paris in its favor. He was famously rabies because the county Board of Health has no money.” In a micromanager, particularly in wartime, though he lacked the this entertaining memoir, the author describes the highs and talent of diplomacy and often listened to poor advice. France lows of her successful campaign and first two years of repre- was involved in wars on all sides, fighting to expand her borders senting a rural area with about 800 voters in a “deep, deep red” at the Rhine, drawing away imperial forces from the Ottomans, county. She also chronicles her interviews with officials in other invading the Netherlands, and trying to infiltrate the Spanish states, including Liz Walters, a member of the Summit County throne. Louis also fiddled in English politics, accepting James II (Ohio) Council, who warned the author, “you go in expecting in exile and supporting invasions. He used the Stuarts to try to The West Wing. What you really get is a combination of Parks and break up Scotland, Ireland, and England and forestall his neme- Recreation and Veep.” With self-deprecating wit, Martini recalls sis, William of Orange. Louis’ revocation of the Edict of Nantes the victories of the Otsego board, such as getting smartphones brought about a devastating diaspora, which was only slightly for social services workers who, until 2017, used “county-issued offset by the influx of Jacobites into France. Throughout, the flip phones,” and problems like the “dark money” that floods narrative is dense but readable, and the 110-page notes and bib- even into small-town races. She doesn’t sugarcoat the chal- liography section attests to Mansel’s prodigious research. lenges, from five-hour meetings to family time lost to doorbell- An impressive, comprehensive biography of the Sun ringing, but she frequently offers strategies for meeting them, King—a must-add to any Francophile’s library. (illustrations; and her overall message is hopeful: Democracy works—at least maps; family trees) at the local level. Comic relief—and lots of useful tips—from a journalist with a side hustle as a county official.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 71 A heartening narrative of family, transformation, and courage. the rumi prescription

THE HOPE OF GLORY THIS IS BIG Reflections on the Last How the Founder of Weight Words of Jesus From the Watchers Changed the Cross World—And Me Meacham, Jon Meltzer, Marisa Convergent/Crown (144 pp.) Little, Brown (304 pp.) $22.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 $28.00 | Apr. 14, 2020 978-0-593-23666-6 978-0-316-41400-5

A new approach to an old Christian Parallel stories of a woman on Weight subject. Watchers and the life of the woman who Time contributing editor Meacham created the diet program. (Chair, American Presidency/Vanderbilt Univ.; The Soul of Amer When New Yorker and New York Times contributor Meltzer ica: The Battle for Our Better Angels, 2018, etc.) is best known for (Girl Power: The Nineties Revolution in Music, 2010, etc.) came his political and biographical writing. He won a Pulitzer Prize across the obituary for Jean Nidetch (1923-2015), the housewife for his biography of Andrew Jackson and has written biogra- who invented Weight Watchers, she decided she wanted to join phies of George W. Bush, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin the program and to learn more about Nidetch. As the author Franklin. In this brief book, the author takes a detour to exam- writes, she has struggled with her weight since she was a small ine the last seven phrases Jesus spoke from the cross. Because child, and she was intrigued to learn how Nidetch overcame her those words have been the subject of endless writings over hun- own issues and created the internationally known diet program. dreds of years, readers may question the necessity of exploring Meltzer interweaves her story of weight gain and loss with that them again. Meacham’s answer is not to explain what the words of Nidetch. The combination creates an informative picture of mean but rather use them as a springboard for sermons to Epis- what life is like for obese women who constantly obsess about copalian audiences on Good Friday and the origins of the Chris- food. Nidetch’s biggest downfall was eating boxes of chocolate- tian faith. The author claims that the words cannot be taken covered marshmallow cookies in the bathroom where no one literally because the Bible was written centuries ago, either in could see her. It took an incident at the grocery store, when she Greek or in Hebrew that was translated into Greek and then was mistakenly identified as pregnant, to set her on the track to translated into English. All of this can be notoriously difficult creating Weight Watchers. “To say that it was a moment that she to track because the languages are so different and the mean- would never forget,” writes Meltzer, “that would define and trans- ings of words change with time. Still, Meacham approaches his form the rest of her life, is an understatement.” The author fol- subject from what he calls “Christianity’s foundational belief… lowed the program for a year and offers details about each month. that Jesus was in fact the ‘Christ’—in Greek, the ‘anointed She tried out various meetings but quickly got bored with her one’—who died and rose again to redeem and restore a fallen meals and eating only her allocated points for the day. Meltzer world that is to be reborn as what John the Divine called ‘a new also discusses other diet plans, her struggles with finding men in heaven and a new earth.’ ” On Jesus’ apparently forgiving his her life who accepted her without judgment, and the frustrations murderers, the author asks: If Jesus’ crucifixion was foreor- she felt that her weight often defined her in other people’s eyes dained by God, why should those who carried out God’s wishes before they got to know her. Her story will resonate with readers be punished? Meacham’s answer: Luke included those words so who have struggled with weight and body image issues. that any Jew or gentile hearing them could feel exculpated from A straightforward memoir of struggling with obe- responsibility in his murder. Originally written as sermons and sity and finding inspiration from the founder of Weight featuring Episcopalian imagery, this book will be most appreci- Watchers. ated by devout Episcopalians. A middling contribution to Christian studies. (b/w illustrations) THE RUMI PRESCRIPTION How an Ancient Mystic Poet Changed My Modern Manic Life Moezzi, Melody TarcherPerigee (272 pp.) $27.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-0-525-53776-2

In a book that is more memoir than how-to manual, Moezzi (Haldol and Hyacinths: A Bipolar Life, 2014, etc.) chronicles her effort to apply Rumi’s 13th-century poetry to her 21st-century life.

72 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Some readers may be surprised that the bestselling poet in Germany. Even then, she had no idea he was Jewish—“I was the United States is a Muslim mystic who died nearly 750 years absolutely oblivious as a child”—and remained largely in the ago. Moezzi, however, isn’t the least bit stunned that Rumi’s dark until her father died and left her a box of papers that held words resonate with contemporary Western readers; it just a memoir of his bold escape to Berlin. In this elegantly struc- took her a while to embrace them herself. She grew up in Ohio tured debut, the author reconstructs with considerable literary “dodging dead Persian poets” because her father “is a tried-and- finesse the life of her father, who owned 297 pocket watches—a true Rumi addict, and like most children of addicts, I grew up unifying motif and organizing metaphor that readers may see as resenting the object of my father’s addiction.” But as an adult, his metaphorical attempt to replace time stolen by Hitler. She the author decided to mine the Sufi mystic’s poetry to seek rem- also offers vivid images of Terezín (renamed Theresienstadt by edies for some of her own modern maladies—e.g. anxiety, fear, the Nazis), where her grandparents were interned before they etc.—and found his words life-changing. Each of the chapters died in Auschwitz. Because Terezín was nominally a transit and begins with a diagnosis and ends with a prescription, featur- labor camp rather than a death camp, prisoners could send and ing stanzas of Rumi’s work that Moezzi translated and studied receive letters and packages, and the author includes poignant with her father. Though Rumi’s poetry and its impact on her excerpts of some of the letters. life are noteworthy, there are two narrative elements that stand A multilayered memoir written from the unusual per- out more. First, the author’s prose offers an intimate, endearing spective of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter who grew up in look at her relationship with her father. Second, Moezzi weaves Latin America. (b/w photos; map; family tree) throughout the narrative discussions of her interminable efforts to destigmatize both Islam and mental illness—not in a self- promoting way but as an advocate for herself and others; the WAR DOCTOR

book could shatter a variety of prejudices and stereotypes. Fur- Surgery on the Front Line young adult thermore, the author’s translation of Rumi’s poetry will appeal Nott, David to many readers because it’s well distilled and reads much like a Abrams (368 pp.) series of aphorisms. Moezzi doesn’t claim to fully understand or $26.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 precisely apply Rumi’s ancient wisdom; she’s simply telling the 978-1-4197-4424-2 story of how his body of work has influenced her life. A heartening narrative of family, transformation, and A physician’s memoir of service in courage. war zones around the world. Even during training, British surgeon Nott thrilled to hear stories of colleagues WHEN TIME STOPPED who delivered care in poor, often war- A Memoir of My Father’s War torn nations. After receiving a post at Charing Cross Hospital and What Remains in London in 1992, he proceeded to do the same. Many inter- Neumann, Ariana national charities, such as the Red Cross, require a substantial Scribner (336 pp.) commitment, so they often attract retirees or the wealthy. Like $28.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 many physicians in their prime, Nott chose to work with Doc- 978-1-982106-37-9 tors Without Borders, founded in France, which accepts volunteers for as little as a few weeks. Almost immediately, the author A London-based former foreign cor- was sent to Sarajevo, under siege during the vicious civil war respondent for Venezuela’s Daily Journal in the former Yugoslavia. There followed tours in Africa, Iraq, uncovers the true story of her Jewish Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti, Palestine, and, more recently, Syria, father’s double life during World War II. where he encountered countless heartbreaking examples of the When he learned that he was scheduled to be deported enormous suffering humans inflict on each other in times of from Nazi-occupied Prague to a concentration camp, Hans political violence and war. Quickly learning that dealing with Neumann took a brazen step: He hid in plain sight, assuming the catastrophic injuries from explosives and high-velocity bul- a false identity and going to work as a chemist for a supplier lets required skills not taught during surgical training, he found of the German war machine in Berlin. That daring feat alone himself making lifesaving decisions under primitive conditions, might make his story unique, but there is much more to it. often without technical aids. Most readers will know what to After the war—during which his parents and 23 other relatives expect, and Nott does not disappoint, delivering riveting, gen- were murdered by the Nazis—Neumann settled in Caracas, erally gruesome stories of victims who came under his care and and he and his brother founded a paint company that became the professionals, mostly admirable, who worked with him. He an international conglomerate. He and his glamorous second is not shy about discussing his work, so readers will learn much wife attained an enviable position in Venezuela: rich, cultured, about how battle surgeons go about their job. Nott soon dis- well respected, and socially prominent. Neumann hid his Jew- covered that this was knowledge other volunteers and nearly all ish roots, but the author, the couple’s only daughter, found an local doctors were also lacking, so he began to teach a course early clue to his erstwhile double identity when she stumbled entitled “Surgical Techniques in Austere Environments,” which as a girl on the fake ID card that had enabled him to work in caught on. The author’s efforts to publicize these horrors made

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 73 A brutally sublime tale of derring-do that transports as well as teaches. the impossible first

him well known—and this book was a No. 1 bestseller in Brit- THE IMPOSSIBLE FIRST ain—but unfortunately persuaded no Western governments to From Fire to Ice—Crossing take action to end them, which they (unlike the humanitarian Antarctica Alone organizations) had the power to accomplish. O’Brady, Colin A series of gripping and fascinating medical stories. Scribner (304 pp.) $28.00 | Jan. 28, 2020 978-1-9821-3311-5 STEALING HOME Los Angeles, the Dodgers, The tale of a solo trip across Antarc- and the Lives Caught in tica, on skis and pulling a sled of supplies. Between It had never been done before: to Nusbaum, Eric make a crossing of Antarctica alone, PublicAffairs (352 pp.) unsupported and unassisted, via the South Pole, a 930-mile $28.00 | Mar. 24, 2020 trek in temperatures substantially below zero and wind chills 978-1-5417-4221-5 doubling the cold. Undaunted, O’Brady, who experiences a “ferocious, uncontainable optimism that boils over inside me at A well-known tale of racial injus- the beginning of almost any new challenge or adventure,” has tice given a fresh look by sportswriter set a number of speed records in such events as climbing the Nusbaum. tallest peaks on all seven of the continents and climbing to the The construction of Dodger Stadium is an epic well known highest ground in each of the 50 states. He is also a triathlete in the history of Southern California. The author digs deep to of note, so there was little doubt about his physical prepared- find stories from the canyon where the stadium was built,a ness to take on the Antarctic adventure. When he writes about place made by Mexican and Mexican American families who the “inspirational path of the polar pioneers before me, and were covenanted out of other neighborhoods in Los Angeles. what they’d taught the world about endurance, strength, and The early residents could climb the hill above the canyon and perseverance,” you know he is on solid ground. However, this see the skyline of a growing metropolis whose new City Hall adventure would take more than two months in a formidable, appeared “like an arrow pointing upwards to the infinite pos- monotonous landscape. As we see, the mental challenges in sibilities of Southern California—or perhaps like a giant middle dealing with such an environment occupied much of his time. finger aimed directly at [them].” When the 101, a multilane O’Brady is a confident, crafty storyteller, and he has plenty of major highway, was built, the isolation was complete—until, captivating stories to tell about his exploits and his family life, when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved across the country, the three which he intertwines with his voyage. Many of his tales have neighborhoods of Chavez Ravine were deemed an ideal spot for an underlying theme of audacity accomplished through “grit, a stadium. Nusbaum charts the course of what happened next, purpose, and a growth mindset.” He also has a charming part- as neighbors banded together and activists set about agitating ner in his wife, Jenna, and it is a pleasure to see them work- for their rights, all to no avail, and with jail sentences for some. ing together to get through the rough spots, whether winning One aspect of the story is that, a decade before the Dodgers over a new sponsor or talking the author through especially arrived, the area was slated for modernist public housing, but difficult moments. She helps to humanize O’Brady, so he is not the project was shelved in a Cold War era in which such uto- simply a robotic master of control and discipline. This inner pian enterprises smacked of communism. Instead, capitalism saga works hand in hand with the physical challenges to make won out: Deeds were bought and sold, properties condemned, for a full tapestry of remarkable experience. construction companies and developers enriched. A nice twist, A brutally sublime tale of derring-do that transports as as Nusbaum writes toward the end of his illuminating narrative, well as teaches. is that barely anything seemed to go right as the stadium was going up. With the passage of time, the communities of Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop faded from memory. “Baseball may NOTES FROM AN APOCALYPSE have mystical powers, but it cannot erase the past,” writes the A Personal Journey to the author near the end. “It cannot redeem us.” That’s just right, End of the World and Back and Nusbaum does good work by reminding readers of what O’Connell, Mark was lost in the name of municipal bragging rights. Doubleday (272 pp.) Provocative, essential reading for students of Califor- $26.95 | Apr. 14, 2020 nia history. 978-0-385-54300-2

An around-the-end-of-the-world tour in the company of a smart, funny, and thoughtful guide. Near the beginning, O’Connell (To Be a Machine: Adventures Among Cyborgs, Utopians, Hackers, and

74 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | the Futurists Solving the Modest Problem of Death, 2016) describes idea of social justice would seem to be only that the big ones eat watching a video of an “emaciated polar bear” struggling to the little ones, the principal justification being that the wealthi- find food. “It occurred to me then that the disgust I felt was a est people became rich because they are “the most enterprising, symptom of a kind of moral vertigo,” he writes, “resulting from deserving, and useful.” In fact, as Piketty demonstrates, there’s the fact that the very technology that allowed me to witness more to inequality than the mere “size of the income gap.” Con- the final pathetic tribulations of this emaciated beast was in trary to hypercapitalist ideology and its defenders, the playing fact a cause of the animal’s suffering in the first place.” To live field is not level, the market is not self-regulating, and access in the modern world is to be complicit in its decline; nothing is not evenly distributed. Against this, Piketty arrives at a pro- new there. But what can/should/will we do about it? The author posed system that, among other things, would redistribute makes no attempt to persuade us to drive electric cars and wealth across societies by heavy taxation, especially of inheri- sequester carbon. Whether visiting underground shelters in tances, to create a “participatory socialism” in which power is South Dakota, billionaire refuges in New Zealand, or the exclu- widely shared and trade across nations is truly free. The word sion zone around Chernobyl, he studies the end of the world “socialism,” he allows, is a kind of Pandora’s box that can scare from a decidedly detached perspective. About a retreat he people off—and, he further acknowledges, “the Russian and attended in Scotland, he writes, “this was not the sort of explic- Czech oligarchs who buy athletic teams and newspapers may itly romantic endeavor I would ordinarily involve myself in, not be the most savory characters, but the Soviet system was what with the unwieldy carapace of cynicism I had allowed to a nightmare and had to go.” Yet so, too, writes the author, is a grow around me over the course of my adult life.” This kind of capitalism that rewards so few at the expense of so many. self-awareness around his project enables the humor O’Connell A deftly argued case for a new kind of socialism that, uses to cope with horror. His wry tone is effective in exposing while sure to inspire controversy, bears widespread discus-

the ridiculousness of many of the survivalists and technoliber- sion. (158 illustrations; 11 tables) young adult tarians he encountered. “If my portrayal of him [the owner of a luxury underground shelter] seems to be verging on the mode of caricature, even of outright grotesquerie, it is only because THE BETTER ANGELS this was how he presented himself to me in fact.” It might be Five Women Who Changed a bit much if O’Connell weren’t able to offer a sincere and life- Civil War America affirming response to all the grimness: Things have always been Plumb, Robert C. bad and about to get worse. Nihilism can follow from that, but Potomac Books (272 pp.) it doesn’t have to. $32.95 | Mar. 1, 2020 A contribution to the doom-and-gloom genre that 978-1-64012-223-9 might actually cheer you up. Portraits of five women who leaped into action during the Civil War—and CAPITAL AND whose contributions have proven essen- IDEOLOGY tial and lasting. Piketty, Thomas Writer and marketing consultant Plumb (Your Brother in Trans. by Goldhammer, Arthur Arms: A Union Soldier’s Odyssey, 2011) chronicles the Civil War Belknap/Harvard Univ. (976 pp.) contributions of five women who moved into active roles that $39.95 | Mar. 10, 2020 men had normally filled. A young Clara Barton, a teacher from 978-0-674-98082-2 North Oxford, Massachusetts, who had been working as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., was horrified by A massive investigation of economic the conditions of the military camps around the city and was history in the service of proposing a motivated to begin a campaign to mobilize supplies for them. political order to overcome inequality. Her tireless efforts and advocacy eventually led to the establish- Readers who like their political man- ment of the American Red Cross. Harriet Tubman, having made ifestoes in manageable sizes, à la Common Sense or The Commu her way to freedom before the war along the Underground Rail- nist Manifesto, may be overwhelmed by the latest from famed road from Maryland to upstate New York, along with her family, French economist Piketty (Top Incomes in France in the Twentieth became an active nurse and scout for the troops in South Caro- Century: Inequality and Redistribution, 1901-1998, 2014, etc.), but lina, operating behind enemy lines. She was known as “Moses it’s a significant work. The author interrogates the principal of her people” and “General Tubman” for her work on behalf forms of economic organization over time, from slavery to of black refugees, though she was never properly acknowl- “non-European trifunctional societies,” Chinese-style commu- edged or compensated by the military. Harriet Beecher Stowe, nism, and “hypercapitalist” orders, in order to examine relative an ardent abolitionist, was outraged by the alarming national levels of inequality and its evolution. Each system is founded developments of the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive on an ideology, and “every ideology, no matter how extreme it Slave Act and wrote the hugely influential Uncle Tom’s Cabin in may seem in its defense of inequality, expresses a certain idea a righteous fury. Despite a suffocating marriage, Julia Ward of social justice.” In the present era, at least in the U.S., that Howe made a literary name for herself, spurred by the spectacle

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 75 As a work of advocacy, the book is compelling and convincing; as a work of art, it is masterful. oak flat

of troops marching to write the war’s anthem, “Battle Hymn of THE POWER NOTEBOOKS the Republic,” in 1861. Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the popu- Roiphe, Katie lar women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, had been tenaciously Free Press (256 pp.) advocating for a national Thanksgiving Day, though it was ulti- $27.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 mately President Abraham Lincoln who proclaimed the day on 978-1-9821-2801-2 Nov. 26, 1863. In addition to his straightforward biographies, the author also looks at the women’s postwar years and offers A collection of personal journal extracts from their writings. entries from the feminist writer that An inspirational work of history that touts such char- explores power dynamics and “a sub- acter traits as persistence, courage, faith, and compassion. ject [she] kept coming back to: women strong in public, weak in private.” Cultural critic and essayist Roiphe OAK FLAT (Cultural Reporting and Criticism/New York Univ.; The Violet A Fight for Sacred Land Hour: Great Writers at the End, 2016, etc.), perhaps best known in the American West for the views she expressed on victimization in The Morning Redniss, Lauren After: Sex, Fear, and Feminism (1994), is used to being at the center Illus. by the author of controversy. In her latest work, the author uses her personal Random House (288 pp.) journals to examine the contradictions that often exist between $30.00 | Apr. 21, 2020 the public and private lives of women, including her own. At 978-0-399-58972-0 first, the fragmented notebook entries seem overly scattered, but they soon evolve into a cohesive analysis of the complex This artistically and thematically power dynamics facing women on a daily basis. As Roiphe profound account of a controversial min- shares details from her own life, she weaves in quotes from the ing initiative on land that the Apaches of writings of other seemingly powerful female writers who had Arizona consider sacred suggests a culture clash of irreconcil- similar experiences, including Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beau- able differences. voir, Virginia Woolf, and Hillary Clinton. In one entry, Roiphe As she has demonstrated in previous books, MacArthur fel- theorizes that her early published writings were an attempt to low Redniss (Illustration/Parsons School of Design; Thunder & “control and tame the narrative,” further explaining that she has Lightning: Weather Past, Present and Future, 2015, etc.) has a scope “so long and so passionately resisted the victim role” because she that extends well beyond the conventional limits of the graphic does not view herself as “purely a victim” and not “purely pow- novel. Here, she frames her provocative narrative with artistry erless.” However, she adds, that does not mean she “was not that evokes the awe and wonder of Native origin stories and the facing a man who was twisting or distorting his power; it does timelessness of eternity. Against this majestic artistic backdrop, not mean that the wrongness, the overwhelmed feeling was not Redniss chronicles the machinations of a mining company there.” Throughout the book, the author probes the question of boasting massive profits as they battle the Natives of the region, why women so often subjugate their power in their private lives, who “consider themselves to be at war with the United States.” but she never quite finds a satisfying answer. The final entry, As one activist notes, “we were kicked out of these holy places. however, answers the question of why she chose to share these The Apache religion survived…with the hope of returning one personal journal entries with the public: “To be so exposed feels day to the ancestral homelands. There was always that proph- dangerous, but having done it, I also feel free.” ecy: that the final fight between the Apache and America would An intriguing examination of the complexity of female be for our religion.” On one side are jobs and millions of dollars, power in a variety of relationships. though within the context that mining operations have an expi- ration date, in this case likely four decades, and that the Arizona landscape is littered with ghost towns, examples of what hap- WHAT WE INHERIT pens after the boom goes bust. On the other side are ancient A Secret War and a spiritual values and traditions that long predate the intrusion Family’s Search for Answers of white settlers and their mistreatment of those who had pre- Rotondi, Jessica Pearce ceded them. Amid the gorgeous illustrations, Redniss provides Unnamed Press (288 pp.) plenty of historical context about how the American govern- $26.00 | Apr. 21, 2020 ment has violated its own agreements with those tribes—and 978-1-951213-07-7 how it continues to do so. Yet the author refuses to oversimplify, giving voice to those who feel that standing in the way of prog- A debut memoir about a family who ress simply perpetuates so many of the problems endemic to searched for their loved one for decades. communities who have suffered such abuse. Until her mother’s death, Brooklyn- As a work of advocacy, the book is compelling and con- based writer and editor Rotondi knew vincing; as a work of art, it is masterful. very little about Uncle Jack, who disappeared in Laos in 1972 and “stayed missing” for 36 years. The author discovered boxes

76 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | of letters and declassified documents that showed decades of inedible melons,” and she herself is a “pig for pleasure.” How- research into his whereabouts, much of it conducted by her ever, she also cultivates a sensibility of not wanting to delve too grandparents, Ed and Rosemary. Ed, who had been a POW dur- deeply into poems lest their magic be spoiled. That’s reasonable, ing World War II, was not convinced when the American gov- up to the point where she takes it out on other writers, from ernment told him his son had died in a plane crash over Laos, a gentle chastisement of those who keep notebooks to a more so he spent the rest of his life digging for the truth. Eventually, aggressive field report from a writers’ conference, in which she Rotondi’s mother took up the search, followed by the author. felt an “abstract contempt for everyone in attendance.” Ryan’s As part of their search, Ed and Rosemary requested packets of love of poetry is palpable and intense, but she approaches writ- information under the Freedom of Information Act, attended ing about it as if it were, well, a bit of a joke. When it comes to hearings, protested the lack of government concern about the poetry, she writes that “in order to listen we must be a little bit POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia, and clung to the belief that relieved of the intention to understand.” their son was still alive. Ed even visited Laos but was unable An impassioned, sometimes prickly tribute to the to access the crash site. Years later, Rotondi and a friend fol- poet’s art. lowed his footsteps, gathering shreds of information from the locals, many of whom were nervous about talking openly with Americans. The author’s precise attention to detail conjures up UNWORTHY REPUBLIC the jungle heat and humidity as well as the pervasive poverty The Dispossession of that plagues Laos, and she effectively captures her family’s daily Native Americans and the struggle and the toll their quest took on their personal health. Road to Indian Territory The narrative is moving and dramatic as the author shares the Saunt, Claudio

alternately heartbreaking and triumphant moments of this Norton (416 pp.) young adult intergenerational search for the truth. At intervals in the well- $26.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 written text, Rotondi also shares details about the CIA’s “Secret 978-0-393-60984-4 War” in Laos, where, “between 1964 and 1973, the United States dropped two million tons of cluster bombs…a planeload of A powerful, moving argument that bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years.” the state-sponsored expulsion of the An inspiring and revealing story of one family’s pursuit 1830s was a horrendous turning point for of the truth about their son. the Indigenous peoples in the United States. The systematic expulsion of Native Americans—Saunt (American History/Univ. of Georgia; West of the Revolution: SYNTHESIZING GRAVITY An Uncommon History of 1776, 2014, etc.) uses “deportation,” Selected Prose “expulsion,” and “extermination” as more accurate terms than Ryan, Kay “removal”—would not have happened without a law passed Grove (208 pp.) by Congress and approved by the executive branch, which $25.00 | Apr. 14, 2020 occurred at the end of May 1830. The largely Southern-backed 978-0-8021-4818-6 measure eagerly endorsed by President Andrew Jackson, who had made the “voluntary” movement of Native peoples west The Pulitzer Prize–winning former of the Mississippi a defining point of his candidacy, began U.S. poet laureate considers her craft and implementation with money to remove the largely prosper- inspirations with a smirk and the occa- ous farming Choctaw of the South westward. These were the sional dash of snark. first peoples to be expelled under the 1830 law, which allowed The essays and reviews in Ryan’s (Erratic Facts, 2015, etc.) their land to be appropriated by whites. It was an expensive and first prose collection reveal a careful poet who’s also careful not chaotic operation, not to mention horrendously inhumane, as to take her job too seriously. Quite often, she responds with those forced off their land endured miserable conditions, as bemusement—if not outright laughter—at the confusions and observed and documented by Alexis de Tocqueville in late 1831. ironies in work she admires, laughter being “one of the body’s Other expelled peoples included the Senecas of Ohio and the natural responses to shock.” Marianne Moore’s abstracted verse Sauk and Meskwaki on the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, is “at once ridiculous and immensely cheering”; Wallace Stevens’ and Saunt poignantly chronicles the movements of the dispos- poems “have a hilarity that isn’t funny, a joie without the vivre”; sessed. When cholera broke out, it decimated these Indigenous Annie Dillard is “hilarious...the terrible child experimenting communities on the move. The author incisively examines the upon the innocent parental flesh.” Reading the puckish Stevie various fictions propagated at the time to assuage the national Smith, Ryan declares, “it gives me so much hope, to see language conscience about the dispossession—e.g., that Native peoples get pantsed.” None of which is to say that the author is dismis- were a desperate people dying out (many were quite prosperous) sive of understanding poetry in sophisticated ways; the book is and that they were leaving their homes voluntarily. Moreover, rich in close readings of works by Smith, Robert Frost, Emily the lands west of the Mississippi were not known or mapped, Dickinson, and Philip Larkin. Plus, her choices of metaphor and the conditions were barren and uninhabitable. Saunt esti- are delicious: Moore’s inscrutable lines land “in one’s lap like mates the enormous wealth lost by the Indigenous families, the

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 77 Both veteran and budding storytellers will learn a great deal from Storr’s pages, which themselves add up to a meaty yarn. the science of storytelling

millions expended by the government, and the hideous wealth THE SCIENCE OF in land and resources gained by the speculators, colonizers, and STORYTELLING cotton barons. The author also notes how these systematic Why Stories Make Us Human mass deportations “became something of a model for colonial and How To Tell Them Better empires around the world.” Storr, Will A significant, well-rendered study of a disturbing Abrams (304 pp.) period in American history. (37 illustrations) $25.00 | Mar. 10, 2020 978-1-4197-4303-0

THIS IS SHAKESPEARE British novelist and science journal- Smith, Emma ist Storr (Selfie: How We Became So Self- Pantheon (368 pp.) Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us, 2018, $28.95 | Apr. 21, 2020 etc.) peels back the neuroscience of what 978-1-5247-4854-8 makes stories work. A good story—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, say, or Drac A brisk study of 20 of the Bard’s ula—operates on rules that its makers may have internalized but plays, focused on stripping off four cen- may not be able to enumerate. One is that the creator of a story turies of overcooked analysis and tangled builds a model world that readers then colonize and rebuild. In reinterpretations. one study, subjects “watched” stories as they were being related “I don’t really care what he might by casting their eyes upward when events occurred above the have meant, nor should you,” writes line of horizon, and “when they heard ‘downward’ stories, that’s Smith (Shakespeare Studies/Oxford Univ.; Shakespeare’s First where their eyes went too.” Tracking saccades when stories land Folio: Four Centuries of an Iconic Book, 2016, etc.) in the introduc- on a person is one thing, but there are fundamental observation to this collection. Noting the “gappy” quality of many of tions that storytellers have long known: Character is more his plays—i.e., the dearth of stage directions, the odd tonal important than plot, for instance, and, as Storr puts it, “every and plot twists—the author strives to fill those gaps not with story you’ll ever hear amounts to ‘something changed.’ ” A skill- psychological analyses but rather historical context for the ful storyteller will then build the promise of change close to ambiguities. She’s less concerned, for instance, with whether the beginning, as with E.B. White’s opening to Charlotte’s Web: Hamlet represents the first flower of the modern mind and “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” Humans being self-centered instead keys into how the melancholy Dane and his father if social critters, another fundamental element is that we all like share a name, making it a study of “cumulative nostalgia” and to be the hero of our own epics—our lives, that is—which helps our difficulty in escaping our pasts. Falstaff’s repeated appear- explain our attraction to other such heroes and the journeys ances in multiple plays speak to Shakespeare’s crowd-pleasing they face, which involve at least a couple of failures before get- tendencies. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a bawdier and darker ting it right. Moreover, we like the vicarious experience of chaos exploration of marriage than its teen-friendly interpretations while yearning for stability in our own lives, which explains the suggest. Smith’s strict-constructionist analyses of the plays value of a good tale full of reversals. As for that old rule about can be illuminating: Her understanding of British mores and avoiding clichés like the plague? It turns out that the brain theater culture in the Elizabethan era explains why Richard III doesn’t fire quite so blazingly when it hears a familiar phrase as only half-heartedly abandons its charismatic title character, and when it hears a fresh new metaphor, reason enough for the care- she is insightful in her discussion of how Twelfth Night labors ful writer to try to find a new way of turning a phrase. to return to heterosexual convention after introducing a host Both veteran and budding storytellers will learn a of queer tropes. Smith’s Shakespeare is eminently fallible, col- great deal from Storr’s pages, which themselves add up to laborative, and innovative, deliberately warping play structures a meaty yarn. and then sorting out how much he needs to un-warp them. Yet the book is neither scholarly nor as patiently introductory as works by experts like Stephen Greenblatt. Attempts to goose FIGHTING FOR SPACE the language with hipper references—Much Ado About Nothing Two Pilots and Their Historic highlights the “ ‘bros before hoes’ ethic of the military,” and Fal- Battle for Female Spaceflight staff is likened to Homer Simpson—mostly fall flat. Teitel, Amy Shira A brief but sometimes knotty and earnest set of studies Grand Central Publishing (432 pp.) best suited for Shakespeare enthusiasts. $30.00 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-5387-1604-5

A dual biography reveals women’s trailblazing roles in aviation. Spaceflight historian TeitelBreak ( ing the Chains of Gravity: The Story of

78 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | Spaceflight Before NASA, 2016), who was an embedded journalist the five languages she already knew. Along the way, she spent with the New Horizons mission to Pluto team in 2015, brings time in Moscow, Baghdad, and Beirut, sometimes embedded considerable excitement and knowledge about U.S. space pro- with troops and sometimes hanging out in hotels with other grams to her close look at the life and career of two pioneer- journalists waiting for a story to break. Her descriptions of her ing women pilots: Jackie Cochran (1906-1980) and Jerrie Cobb experiences at all the sites are vivid and precise. Among the (1931-2019). At the start of her career, Cochran fought to be assignments that clearly meant the most to Ward were her sev- taken seriously, facing down men who tried to discourage her. eral stints in Syria, where several sources to whom she became The winner of multiple awards for her flying prowess, she was close disappeared, leaving her both bereft and conscious of her the only female entrant in the 1937 Bendix race, which added “a own privilege as a foreign journalist able to leave the country. new women’s cross-country speed record” to her accomplish- Even more than her other jobs, the time in Syria taught her that ments. In 1938, she was named “First Lady of the Air Lanes.” At “the idea of ‘making a difference’ in journalism is as seductive as the start of World War II, she established the Women’s Flying it is dangerous….The reality is that we are not there to solve the Training Detachment, a precursor to the Women Airforce Ser- problem, we are there to illuminate it.” Although Ward focuses vice Pilots program, instituted at 120 Air Force bases, where more on her assignments than her inner life, it’s obvious that as women pilots tested planes, flew simulated operations, and flew her time on the job continued, she suffered physical and emo- cargo, weapons, and personnel around the country. Cochran tional tolls, and the risk of “burning out amid one high-pressure directed the WASP program and flew bomber planes during trip after another” became higher. At the end of the book, she the war. She also became a war correspondent for a magazine writes about how, after a brief respite for a marriage and the that her wealthy and doting husband bought to facilitate her birth of a baby following a pregnancy that placed her at risk of overseas assignments. In 1956, Cochran lost a congressional contracting malaria in Bangladesh, she was back in the field in

bid, but she used her celebrity and money to support women’s Afghanistan. young adult training as aviators. Cobb, a generation younger, confronted A thoughtful account of the excitement and pitfalls of the same prejudice against women pilots that Cochran faced. A war reporting. (8-page color insert) NASA administrator who opposed a female astronaut program once described himself as “one of the old school” in favor of keeping women “barefoot and pregnant.” Nevertheless, Cobb VIGIL proved as ardent as Cochran, submitting herself as a test sub- Hong Kong on the Brink ject for astronaut training, recruiting other women pilots, and Wasserstrom, Jeffrey lobbying with NASA director James Webb to admit women as Columbia Global Reports (120 pp.) astronauts. Cobb faced opposition not only from NASA, but $15.99 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 also from Cochran, who adamantly opposed women’s astronaut 978-1-73362-374-2 training; wielding her high-level political connections (Lyndon Johnson was a friend), she saw Cobb’s efforts quashed. A longtime observer of Hong Kong A well-researched contribution to women’s and avia- protest movements argues that the tion history. autonomy of the region is being eroded by Beijing authority—not gradually and probably irreparably. ON ALL FRONTS In this well-organized, strikingly relevant work, Wasser- The Education of a Journalist strom (History/Univ. of California, Irvine; Chinese Characters: Ward, Clarissa Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land, 2012, etc.) Penguin Press (336 pp.) argues that the designation of Hong Kong by China and Brit- $28.00 | Apr. 14, 2020 ain in the handover of 1997 as a Special Administrative Region 978-0-525-56147-7 enjoying “a high degree of autonomy” is being threatened. While originally the Western assumption was that Hong Kong, as the A London-based foreign correspon- region bringing much of the economic boom to China, would dent looks back on a career covering life be too valuable to Beijing to disrupt by its repressive measures, in war zones. the reality seems to be that Beijing’s tentacles are pervasive Now chief international correspon- and continue to tighten. Disappearances of protestors, forced dent for CNN, Ward, who has won an confessions, the threat of extradition law, the installation of Emmy and two Peabody Awards, was the only child of a wealthy puppet legislators, the resistance to universal suffrage—these American mother and a British investment banker father who are just a few of the familiar “screws” that mainland officials separated when she was young. Raised first in New York and are implementing. The author provides a penetrating review then in London, the author studied comparative literature at of the situation through on-the-ground reporting and inter- Yale until 9/11 inspired her to seek a career in journalism. Begin- views with protest leaders like Joshua Wong and Chris Patten, ning with an overnight desk assistant’s job at Fox News, where the last British governor of Hong Kong. Wasserstrom works she experienced the “pervasive sexism” others have reported through the history of the region as a British colonial hub of there, she worked her way up in journalism, adding Arabic to trade in the mid-1800s and its subsequent enormous economic

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 79 No surprises here—just vintage Watts. just so

growth, overtaking even Shanghai after World War II. “Shang- BLOODY OKINAWA hai, after falling in 1949,” writes the author, “was an example of The Last Great Battle of a Golden Goose that the Communists killed not long after tak- World War II ing control of it.” While there have been many victories for the Wheelan, Joseph democratic movement since renewed protests this year—e.g., Da Capo (368 pp.) pushing back against a new “moral and national education plan,” $30.00 | Mar. 3, 2020 which smacked of censorship—the protest movement’s other 978-0-306-90322-9 demands—directly electing the chief executive, the release of prisoners, investigation of police brutality, and immediate uni- The final campaign against Japan versal suffrage, among them—have not been met. Without civil receives expert handling. disobedience and international pressure, Wasserstrom fears Former AP reporter and veteran that Hong Kong will become a “captive colony of Beijing.” military historian Wheelan (Midnight A passionate, important study of the current affairs of in the Pacific: Guadalcanal—The World War II Battle That Turned a volatile region. the Tide of War, 2017, etc.) reminds readers that by the time an immense armada descended on the island of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, Japanese leaders knew the war was lost. With victory JUST SO out of the question, defenders concentrated on the mountain- Money, Materialism, and ous south, where they dug massive underground shelters and the Ineffable, Intelligent tunnels, producing a huge interconnected complex largely Universe immune to Allied firepower. It was also invisible from the air, so Watts, Alan the invaders did not know what they were getting into. Taking Sounds True (216 pp.) lessons from earlier landings where resistance survived intense $17.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 bombing, American ships and planes delivered the greatest 978-1-68364-294-7 bombardment of the war, which devastated Okinawans and their cities but barely touched the defenses. American forces Playful and prophetic dispatches met little opposition at first, but the Japanese had also learned from the intersection of philosophy and from earlier battles that defending beaches was impossible in spirituality. the face of superior naval firepower. Wheelan describes the Watts (Out of Your Mind: Tricksters, Interdependence, and the brutal fighting that seized northern Okinawa and the surround- Cosmic Game of Hide-and-Seek, 2017, etc.), who died in 1973, loved ing islands over the next few weeks before turning to the main to startle his readers by exposing their erroneous assumptions resistance in the south which soldiers encountered a week after about themselves and the world. Nothing in his latest posthu- landing. The campaign that followed featured heroism on both mous publication will shock Watts initiates more than his asser- sides, horrendous casualties and suffering as well as atrocities— tion that, “ideally, you only attend one seminar or read just one mostly but not entirely by the Japanese—as U.S. forces slowly book and never have to come back to me again. It’s not the best battled south. “The battle of Okinawa,” writes the author, “was business model, but as far as my livelihood is concerned, there neither the climax nor the resolution of the Pacific war, but its are always more people out there foolish enough to pay atten- battle royale—fought by the United States with crushing power tion to me.” With Just So, Watts is closing in on 50 books to his and ferocity, and by Japanese forces with calculation, abandon, name, most of which cover Zen, Taoism, Vedanta, and Christi- and fatalism.” Wheelan delivers excellent analyses and anec- anity mixed with British and American cultural criticism. That dotes and biographies of individuals from both sides, but the the author is witty and insightful on these themes is why read- narrative is mostly a long series of unit-level actions down to the ers return again and again to only slight variations on them. company and platoon level. Military buffs will eat them up, but To adapt one of his best-known sayings, “the point of reading general readers may skim. Watts is not to learn something from him; the point of reading For World War II enthusiasts, a fine history of an iconic Watts is to enjoy it.” So his son, Mark, has a solid platform to battle. keep turning out these volumes assembled from archived lectures (the number of posthumous volumes has now surpassed those Watts himself saw through to publication). The challenge for such a project is to get the lecture segments to cohere into something that feels like a book—and hopefully one that offers something that lectures themselves, which are readily available online, do not. On this count, this latest mostly falls short, but the author’s charming style is enough to overcome the book’s structural shortcomings. He’s as good as he ever was on ecology, the self, and what does and does not make for a good life. No surprises here—just vintage Watts.

80 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | CALIFORNIA THE INFORMATION TRADE EXPOSURES How Big Tech Conquers Envisioning Myth and Countries, Challenges Our History Rights, and Transforms Our White, Richard World Photos by White, Jesse Amble Wichowski, Alexis Norton (320 pp.) HarperOne (304 pp.) $45.00 | Mar. 17, 2020 $28.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 978-0-393-24306-2 978-0-06-288898-3

Masterful explorations of the Golden State by a leading his- Media analyst and New York City torian of the American West. government official Wichowski exam- White (American History/Stanford Univ.; The Republic for ines the evolving relationships of nation-states and technology Which It Stands: The United States During Reconstruction and the firms in the modern world. Gilded Age, 1865-1896, 2017, etc.) teams with his photographer Building on a 2017 Wired article, the author proposes that son, Jesse, in a fruitful, highly illuminating collaboration born of tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are “net a dare to shape a historical text out of an assemblage of images. states,” battlefields and weapons alike in the political and mar- The result is, the author admits, incomplete: The story of Watts tial realm. “Net states are entities that act like countries,” she is absent, that of Silicon Valley hinted at, and “the state’s fre- writes, as with Silk Road, which, though manifestly engaged in quently peculiar politics sometimes enter the story, but more illegal activities, also had a kind of sovereign right over private

often do not.” Nonetheless, White dismantles and builds at data entrusted to it by its users. In that case, when two govern- young adult the same time, interrogating the well-worn story of Sir Francis ments wrestled over legal access to that data, a tech company, Drake’s landing at Point Reyes and complicating the subsequent Microsoft, sheltered it—a precarious situation, to be sure, inas- enshrinement by Episcopalian monument builders with the much as tech companies such as Google and Amazon are in the fact that their hero was a pirate, which “made the celebration business of selling cloud storage to both government agencies of his religious faith incongruous.” The author returns to Point and private individuals who might rightly object to their data Reyes to recount the working-class immigrants who made a liv- being sold. Wichowski examines the behavior of net states ing there, a narrative of Japanese and Italian households that IRL—in real life, that is—in such places as hurricane-damaged picnicked together but were subjected to different fates when Puerto Rico, where Tesla and Google turned out to be more World War II arrived; that narrative is braced by historical pho- helpful than the federal government. She looks deeply into tographs and Jesse’s sweeping landscapes. White’s principal issues of privacy and the rights of technology users, whom so interest lies precisely with those working people who made many of the net states seem to regard as mere troves of data. California, among them the Native peoples who labored in the Wichowski notes that infrastructure improvements are likelier irrigated orchards and vegetable beds outside the main mission to be made by net states than “real” ones, all with a clear eye compound at San Fernando: “Gardens were for contemplation toward a future in which they are truly sovereign. She concludes and relaxation; in the huertas, people worked.” At Point Reyes her eminently accessible, deeply researched exploration by again, he examines the lives of the men, women, and children proposing that business models change so that consumers can at the “alphabet ranches” (named D Ranch, F Ranch, and so more easily protect their data—but for a price, for “if our data, on) who worked as tenants in places where the ranchers hoped privacy, and sense of power are precious to us, then we need to “that good years would outnumber bad.” Sometimes they were offer something else that’s valuable. And just about everyone right, a fact that has kept people coming to California in end- values money.” That may strike some as blackmail, but it seems less numbers for generations. White gives them voice, writing eminently sensible given how much of it is afloat in the world, thoughtfully of the many cultures and ethnicities that have con- especially in the hands of nefarious actors. tributed to building the state. Civil libertarians as well as geopolitics buffs and tech Necessary reading for students of California history geeks will find much of value here. and a model for place-based historical studies to come. (109 color illustrations; 9 maps)

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 81 THE WATERGATE GIRL ODETTA My Fight for Truth and A Life in Music and Protest Justice Against a Criminal Zack, Ian President Beacon (288 pp.) Wine-Banks, Jill $28.95 | Apr. 14, 2020 Henry Holt (272 pp.) 978-0-8070-3532-0 $27.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-250-24432-1 One of the leading voices of the mid-20th-century folk revival receives A timely reminder of a notorious her biographical due. scandal that resulted in a president’s In a narrative that is both effectively impeachment. researched and engagingly readable, In 1973, Wine-Banks, now a legal analyst for MSNBC and Zack (Say No to the Devil: The Life and Musical Genius of Rev. Gary formerly Illinois solicitor general and deputy attorney general, Davis, 2015) is convincing in his argument that Odetta Holmes joined a government task force assigned to investigate the (1930-2008) has been underappreciated for too long, and he Nixon administration’s burglary of the Democratic National shows how and why her reign as the “Queen of Folk” was over Committee headquarters in the Watergate building. In her before folk music hit its commercial peak. When folk music, absorbing debut memoir, the author recalls her experiences progressive politics, and the civil rights movement were forg- as a young lawyer participating in what was then “the biggest ing a unity of conviction in the 1950s, the young Odetta was political scandal in US history”: questioning witnesses, wresting clearly the right artist at the right time, with a moral fervor in tapes from the White House, dealing with blatant sexism from her powerful lower register that could bring audiences to their some of her male colleagues and superiors, and, at the same knees. She wasn’t threatening in the manner of ex-convict Lead time, facing the deterioration of her marriage. Among the wit- Belly, and she hadn’t suffered the blacklisting taint of Pete nesses, Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods proved frustrating Seeger and other more overtly leftist singers. With her regal for Wine-Banks, who worried that her demeanor in confront- bearing and impressive vocal talents, Odetta proved inspira- ing the stalwart Woods reflected her “youth and vulnerability.” tional to audiences and fellow artists alike. “When I first heard Repeatedly questioned about the erasure of 18 minutes from her…my knees went to jelly,” said Joan Baez, who then rose to a crucial White House tape, Woods maintained that she had fame as younger white performers began to find the commer- done it accidentally. Also frustrating was the wily Jeb Magruder, cial success that had eclipsed anything Odetta had achieved— whom the author characterizes as a consummate liar, whose and deserved. Their success made her bitter, and she felt that testimony was vital for the case. “Often, when I questioned even her longtime manager, Albert Grossman, had betrayed her. Magruder,” Wine-Banks writes, “I could feel my chest tighten- Odetta charged that as the first client managed by the man who ing and my voice turning harsh and scolding.” Despite Nixon’s would become a legend with a stable including Bob Dylan and refusal to hand over the key tapes, claiming that no court could Peter, Paul, and Mary, he “built his business on my back and I “compel a president to any action,” a grand jury, comprised of never benefited from it.” Stronger management might well ordinary Americans, did just that, “unafraid to challenge the have nurtured her potential as an actress and helped her to nav- president of the United States, the most powerful man in the igate the sea changes of the 1970s through the end of the cen- world.” The author’s portrayal makes the impeachment process, tury, when her performing draw diminished and her recording which received bipartisan support, seem almost quaint. Today, career stalled. She also battled alcohol addiction and was often she sees history repeating itself in a “more complicated political, branded as difficult offstage. Regardless of her struggles, Zack social, and cultural landscape than existed in the 1970s.” “Like brings her back into the spotlight. Nixon,” she writes, “Trump is corrupt, amoral, vindictive, para- An effective biography that demonstrates Odetta’s noid, ruthless, and narcissistic.” But he is more dangerous, she wide, deep legacy. (photo insert) believes, “because he exceeds Nixon in hatefulness and venal- ity” and “puts in peril the fundamental principles on which our nation was founded.” A penetrating, firsthand view of history.

82 | 15 january 2020 | nonfiction | kirkus.com | A searing account of how the author came to terms with her ex-husband’s unexpected death from a hidden drug addiction. smacked

SMACKED A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy Zimmerman, Eilene Random House (272 pp.) $27.00 | Feb. 4, 2020 978-0-525-51100-7

A searing account of how the author came to terms with her ex-husband’s unexpected death from a hidden drug addiction. A few years after their divorce, New York Times contributor Zimmerman found her ex-husband, Peter, dead in his Del Mar, California, home. She knew he had been struggling for more than a year with “weight loss, chronic flu, sleepiness, ‘nodding’ (falling asleep suddenly), bruises, sores, [and] scratching.” He was also missing family get-togethers and outings with their two teenage children. A couple months before his death, Peter had told her that doctors had diagnosed him with an autoimmune

disorder called Hashimoto’s disease. But his autopsy told a dif- young adult ferent story: Peter had died from “some combination of infection and heart failure” brought on by “injection drug abuse.” In her candid reflections on their marriage and the months leading up to his death, Zimmerman revisits her interactions with Peter to understand how and why the man who seemed to have everything—a partnership in a respected law firm, a beautiful home, and more money than he ever dreamed possible—would succumb to cocaine and opioid addiction. As she recounts, Peter had displayed many signs of drug abuse, including forgetfulness and increased hostility, and their son had even reported seeing him unpack an Amazon box full of “cotton balls and Band Aids and needles and alcohol pads.” Yet Zimmerman had missed them all because her upper-middle-class ex-husband did not fit the stereotype of an addict. Her subsequent research into white-collar drug abuse revealed that while genetics had likely played a role in Peter’s death; so had the brutal demands of the modern working world. Many of the young professionals she interviewed reported the need to turn to performance-enhancing psycho-stimulants like Adderall and LSD to manage those demands. Intimate and disturbing, the narrative chronicles the tragic impact of drug addiction on a family and lays bare truths about a success-at-all-costs capitalist society in which many social relationships are becoming fractured. A timely reading experience in these hectic times.

| kirkus.com | nonfiction | 15 january 2020 | 83 children’s JUDAH TOURO DIDN’T WANT These titles earned the Kirkus Star: TO BE FAMOUS Ades, Audrey WINDOW by Marion Arbona...... 85 Illus. by Mildenberger, Vivien Kar-Ben (32 pp.) LIKE NOTHING AMAZING EVER HAPPENED $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 by Emily Blejwas...... 87 978-1-5415-4561-8 ONE LITTLE BAG by Henry Cole...... 89 The successful business life and sub- MADAME BADOBEDAH by Sophie Dahl; sequent philanthropy of one of early illus. by Lauren O’Hara...... 94 America’s wealthiest and most pious Jews are recounted in a picture-book biography. A STOPWATCH FROM GRAMPA by Loretta Garbutt; Raised by his uncle, Isaac Hays, a founder of Boston’s first illus. by Carmen Mok...... 100 bank, Judah learned much about shipping, real estate, and trade before setting off on his own at the dawn of the 19th century. SUMMER SONG by Kevin Henkes; illus. by Laura Dronzek...... 102 A quiet, private man, Judah made his fortune in New Orleans CHILD OF THE UNIVERSE trading New England products. After being wounded during by Ray Jayawardhana; the War of 1812, Judah began to concentrate on putting his illus. by Raúl Colón...... 104 wealth toward charitable causes. Simply drawn illustrations WHEN MY BROTHER GETS HOME by Tom Lichtenheld...... 106 in muted brown, gray, and blue hues have both a childlike feel and the look of crayons or colored pencil in combination with IN THE ROLE OF BRIE HUTCHENS... by Nicole Melleby...... 109 watercolor; this results in a humble view not often seen in representations of New Orleans and appropriately reflects the THE GHOUL by Taghreed Najjar; illus. by Hassan Manasra; story’s themes. The easy-flowing narrative tells how this son of trans. by Michel Moushabeck...... 111 a rabbi in a Sephardic immigrant family adhered to the Jewish tradition of giving inconspicuously, to causes both local and all THE LONELY HEART OF MAYBELLE LANE over the world, hoping to avoid recognition for his good deeds. by Kate O’Shaughnessy...... 112 Some of these were paying for the freedom of enslaved Afri- can Americans, a few of whom are included in one illustration HIKE by Pete Oswald...... 113 alongside the pale-skinned Judah. The author’s notes provide PRAIRIE LOTUS by Linda Sue Park...... 113 some added information about the benefactor’s family and his legacy. ¡VAMOS! LET’S GO EAT by Raúl the Third; illus. by the author A candid introduction to a little-known figure in Jew- with Elaine Bay...... 116 ish American history. (Picture book/biography. 7-9) YOU CALL THIS DEMOCRACY? by Elizabeth Rusch...... 118 LITTLE ONE THE BEAR IN MY FAMILY by Maya Tatsukawa...... 120 Almada, Ariel Andrés TRENDING by Kira Vermond; illus. by Clayton Hanmer...... 122 Illus. by Wimmer, Sonja Trans. by Brokenbrow, Jon THE WEATHER’S BET adapt. by Ed Young with Steven Cowan; Cuento de Luz (32 pp.) illus. by Ed Young...... 126 $16.95 | Feb. 1, 2020 978-84-16733-72-9 IN THE GARDEN by Emma Giuliani...... 131 A precious paean to a beloved child. A POTATO ON A BIKE by Elise Gravel...... 131 Two parents’ gentle welcome to their young child lovingly explains what to expect of the world. This introduction to the wonders and adventures all around and that lie ahead is matched by colorful, whimsical illustrations

84 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Arbona’s teeming scenes should inspire both close observation and new compositions by young readers/artists. window

featuring flowers, foods, animals, diverse people and landscapes, CHIA AND THE FOX MAN toys, and more. There’s so much to see and explore, little one! An Alaskan Dena’ina Fable And guess what? As the adults help the child to grow, their off- Adapt. by Atwater, Barbara J. & spring will, in turn, “through the eyes of a child,” help them Atwater, Ethan J. “discover the world once again.” This Spanish import expresses Illus. by Dwyer, Mindy sweet sentiments, and even though the book enters an already- Alaska Northwest Books (32 pp.) crowded field of similar titles, it will make a fine gift at a baby $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 shower or just after a child’s birth; further, it provides vocabu- 978-1-5132-6267-3 lary to help new parents tell their child what the world has to offer and how they can navigate it together as a loving, sup- Chia, an orphaned boy, is used to portive family. Whether the book works equally successfully going to bed unloved and hungry until the night he hears an as a read-aloud to a young child is open to question, however, unusual noise. as some concepts may confuse very little ones. The delightful Alone and with no one to care for him, Chia seeks refuge illustrations lift this above many others of its ilk; the captivat- in the house of a rich man of the village, as is the custom. This ing opening spread shows the sleeping face of a brown-haired winter, however, life is rough for everyone: Hunters and fisher- white infant surrounded by birds, butterflies, and flowers as the men work hard, but they return home at night empty-handed. adults tell the child that “Everything around you has been cre- Still, Chia, like all the villagers, has chores to be done: cutting ated for you.” firewood, hauling water, feeding the dogs. One night, a fierce A charming if adult-centric ode. (Picture book. 3-5) wind blasts open the door, and the rich man shouts for him to latch it. Chia will, but first he has a hunch. Going into the storm,

he discovers Fox Man chopping at a glacier with a duguli. Spon- young adult WINDOW taneously, Chia seizes the axe, reasoning that without it, Fox Arbona, Marion Man cannot continue causing the wind and snow. Chia narrates Illus. by the author his story in the first person, describing his distress when Fox Kids Can (32 pp.) Man confronts him back in the rich man’s house, demanding $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 his duguli back; he needs it for his work. Chia understands he’s 978-1-5253-0136-0 done wrong and returns the tool—and the villagers’ fortunes improve. The Atwaters retell this Alaskan Dena’ina teaching Braids flying, bespectacled Martha heads home from school, story, learned from their great uncle, folding Dena’ina words vividly imagining what’s behind the windows lining an urban in where appropriate. (Phonetic pronunciations are provided street. on the page, and there is a glossary in the backmatter.) Dwyer’s While Martha, looking up, traverses each otherwise blank, muted but lively use of color and line brings the story to life. white verso page by degrees, each recto’s deceptively staid, Gracefully teaches a critical life lesson. (Picture book/folk delicately rendered window “opens” along a centered gatefold, tale. 4-8) revealing multifarious black-and-white scenes with decidedly surreal touches. Behind a ledge with drooping potted plants, a veritable torrid zone thrives as a gardener tends its elaborate WHO GOT GAME? flora and fauna. A shuttered window hides vampires playing bad- Baseball: Amazing but True minton among a colony of bats. A dainty fringed shade obscures Stories! a woman straight from Grimm, reading 101 Ways To Cook a Child Barnes, Derrick as her cauldron bubbles. (Her intended victim, ostensibly hav- Illus. by Bajet, John John ing consumed the conspicuously included How To Escape, bolts Workman (176 pp.) right out of the picture.) French Canadian author/illustrator $12.95 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 Arbona’s wordless tableaux include magical mushrooms, bio- 978-1-5235-0553-1 luminescent sea creatures, a sleeping giant, and a cozy library full of reading animals. Kids will appreciate the use of “almost A fizzy compendium of baseball feats, 20” felt pens for these pictures, whose fine lines, crosshatching, firsts, and lore from Newbery Honoree and Kirkus Prize winner and infinitesimal dots evoke Edward Gorey. The visual mayhem, Barnes (Crown, illustrated by Gordon C. James, 2017). meanwhile, channels Jon Agee, Fernando Krahn, and even Mad Although Barnes doesn’t really stick to the “unheralded magazine. The 13th gatefold lands Martha at home in a cozy figures and untold stories” he says he’ll highlight, still he does bedroom surrounded by objects that were transmogrified in tuck some less-heralded hijinks and heroes into an anecdotal earlier illustrations and where, flopped on the floor, the child rush that captures the “joy and wonderment that is baseball.” draws. Most humans are as white as the page; people of color So, along with tributes to the likes of Satchel Paige and Negro are tinted gray. Leagues founder Rube Foster, he tips a cap to Ozzie Vergil, the Arbona’s teeming scenes should inspire both close first Dominican major leaguer; slugger Hank Greenberg, the observation and new compositions by young readers/art- “Hebrew Hammer”; “Tommy John” surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe; ists. (Picture book. 4-8) and four African Americans who played professionally before

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 85 period power 50 years after margaret

Leah Overstreet “We must—we must—we must in- period is not a magical thresh- crease our bust!” old to cross from girlhood to 2020 is a big anniversary year: womanhood but a natural, often the 100th anniversary of the 19th messy and uncomfortable, regu- Amendment; the 200th anniver- lar occurrence that is just part of saries of the launch of the Beagle their lives. and Maine’s statehood; the 400th Abby, Brit, and Christine anniversary of the descent of Eng- give Sasha tips on how to use lish colonialists on the Wampano- the supplies her mother word- ag—or the landing of the Mayflow lessly leaves on her bed fol- er at Plymouth Rock, if you prefer. lowing discovery of her daugh- But there’s another anniversary that may not get quite ter’s stained jeans, their frank, so much attention, and that’s the 50th anniversary of friendly wisdom reaching young the publication of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. readers effortlessly. “I don’t wear [tampons] on my pain- Since 1970, Judy Blume’s classic ful cramp days,” says Brit, who struggles with endome- novel has ushered countless girls triosis. “Have you ever taken out a dry tampon?” asks through puberty despite the per- Christine, with a grimace that communicates everything sistent actions of prudish adults Sasha needs to know to allow her to conclude, “I don’t to keep it out of their hands. think I’m ready for tampons just yet.” Abby provides val- I remember when it made the idation: “It’s whatever floats your boat.” rounds of my fifth grade class- Their story includes more than periods, encompass- room, revealing to us the mys- ing academics, extracurriculars, and nascent physical at- teries to come. I don’t recall any- traction to both boys and other girls—just like those of one ever doing the bust-building so many adolescents who have periods. But the deep- exercise 35 times, as Margaret’s red duotone art makes sure menstruation’s on readers’ friend Nancy instructs, “if you minds, and threading through the girls’ daily lives is Ab- ever want to get out of those by’s activism to get their school to keep the feminine-hy- baby bras.” Nor did my friends giene vending machines stocked—or better yet, provide and I keep a Boy Book. But we all waited on tenterhooks, supplies for free. Her cleareyed understanding of the ca- just like Margaret, for our periods to start. sual misogyny that underlies the so-called “pink tax” is Kirkus’ reviewer did not seem to love the book. bracing, framing menstruation as one front in a fight for Though they felt that Margaret’s quest for a faith iden- gender equity. tity was “promising,” they found “danger in the preoc- It’s not a totally inclusive book; Abby’s reflection that cupation with the physical signs of puberty.” They are “obviously, women aren’t the only ones who menstruate” downright disappointed that, after a brief cessation of may have readers wishing for a prominent trans or non- communication with the divine, Margaret “resumes talk- binary character to add real-world complexity. But in its ing to God…to thank him for that telltale sign of wom- feminist reexamination of Margaret’s “preoccupation,” anhood,” her period. Kirkus’ disapproval did nothing to it is, as our reviewer said, “just bloody perfect”—for cis keep Blume’s book from rooting itself in the adolescent girls teetering on the edges of their periods in our times experiences of millions of readers. and maybe for the next 50 years. —V.S. Flash-forward 50 years to Go With the Flow (First Sec- ond, Jan. 14), written by Lily Williams and Karen Schnee- Vicky Smith is the children’s editor. man and illustrated by Williams. (An interview with the authors appears on page 98.) This graphic novel ages its protagonists a few years; Abby, Brit, and Christine are high school sophomores who come to the rescue of new classmate Sasha when her first period arrives on the day she wears white jeans to school, an act that turns this trio of fast friends into a quartet. For these cis girls, their

86 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Jackie Robinson. Not to mention a nine-inning, 49-run game LET’S DANCE! and another that went 33 innings. In formal, neatly drawn car- Bolling, Valerie toons, Bajet tones down some of the wilder incidents, giving Illus. by Diaz, Maine his subjects—even mascots—dignified presences and, usually, Boyds Mills (32 pp.) welcoming smiles. Fans budding or confirmed will need to look $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 elsewhere for an organized baseball history or highlights reel, 978-1-63592-142-7 but they will come away feeling as if they’d sat in the bleach- ers with a true enthusiast who’s helped them earn “some idea Dancing is one of the most universal elements of cultures of how much of a challenge it was for players of color, players the world over. from outside the United States, and for women to be part of In onomatopoeic, rhyming text, Bolling encourages readers this beautiful game.” to dance in styles including folk dance, classical ballet, break- An ebullient collection of stunning comebacks, awe- dancing, and line dancing. Read aloud, the zippy text will engage some athletes, and achievements both grand and dubious. young children: “Tappity Tap / Fingers Snap,” reads the rhyme on (bibliography, glossary) (Nonfiction. -9 11) the double-page spread for flamenco; “Jiggity-Jig / Zig-zag-zig” describes Irish step dancing. The ballet pages stereotypically include only children in dresses or tutus, but one of these danc- LIKE NOTHING ers wears hijab. Overall, children included are racially diverse AMAZING EVER and vary in gender presentation. Diaz’s illustrations show her HAPPENED background in animated films; her active child dancers gener- Blejwas, Emily ally have the large-eyed sameness of cartoon characters. The

Delacorte (224 pp.) endpapers, with shoes and musical instruments, could become young adult $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Apr. 14, 2020 a matching game with pages in the book. The dances depicted 978-1-9848-4848-2 are described at the end, including kathak from India and kuku 978-1-9848-4849-9 PLB from Guinea, West Africa. Unfortunately, these explanations are quite rudimentary. Kathak dancers use their facial expres- Justin and his family are struggling to sions extensively in addition to the “movements of their hands adjust to life now that his father has died and their jingling feet,” as described in the book. Although in an accident—or was it suicide? today kuku is danced at all types of celebrations in several coun- One winter day in 1989, Justin’s father, a Vietnam War vet- tries, it was once done after fishing, an activity acknowledged eran who was obviously struggling with the aftereffects of his in the illustrations but not mentioned in the explanatory text. military service, stepped out for a moment. A little while later The snappy text will get toes tapping, but the informa- he was killed by a trolley in their Minnesota town. Justin is tion it carries is limited. (Informational picture book. 4-6) haunted by the loss of his father and the way it has twisted their lives. To keep them afloat, his older brother, Murphy, has self- lessly given up baseball to work at the KFC, and his mother, too, FINN AND THE is working long hours. At school, Justin can feel everyone’s eyes INTERGALACTIC LUNCHBOX following him, making it hard to regain any sense of normalcy. Buckley, Michael But there are many bright moments. Cute girl Jenni has taken Delacorte (288 pp.) a deep interest in him, and she’s not the only one. Justin’s best $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Apr. 28, 2020 friend, Phuc, bus driver Rodney, and an almost-homeless man 978-0-525-64687-7 named Benny H. also gently provide needed support. With deli- 978-0-525-64688-4 PLB cious, evocative writing, each character is lovingly depicted, and even a brash classmate that Justin misjudges has an illuminat- Can the fate of the universe depend ing backstory. As he navigates the days that follow his father’s on a unicorn lunchbox? death, it’s the goodness in all of these caring people that fills Eleven-year-old Finn Foley, his mother, his heart. History—both his father’s and the Dakota nation’s, and his younger sister, Kate, moved to on whose land their town is built—becomes a way for Justin to Cold Spring near the Hudson River when his dad walked out. He make sense of the present. Phuc is the only Vietnamese kid at hates it. Every day since school started, bully Lincoln Sidana has their school; other characters assume a white default. made his life miserable. Their most recent dust-up lands them Filled to the brim with optimism, friendship, and the in the principal’s office, locked in until they become friends. joyous wonder of innate goodness—fabulous. (Historical Totally unlikely…but then so is a wormhole opening in Kate’s fiction. 10-14) lunchbox, brought by Finn to school by mistake. The wormhole sucks Finn in and spits out a high-tech robot named Highbeam. Finn is quickly sucked back to Earth, but a strange piece of alien technology has grafted itself onto his chest—and every time he touches the lunchbox, he zips through space. Highbeam’s from a part of the universe where a race called the Plague—they look

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 87 like giant locusts—has conquered and laid waste to countless NOT PLAYING BY THE RULES civilizations. The Plague wants the wormhole generator, and 21 Female Athletes Who now they know about Earth. Can Finn and friends defeat an Changed Sports intergalactic scourge? Buckley kicks off his new SF/adventure Cline-Ransome, Lesa series with this high-energy, slightly sarcastic opener. Realistic Knopf (48 pp.) kids, wild aliens, and unicorns sure to surprise readers add to $18.99 | $21.99 PLB | Apr. 21, 2020 the fun. Finn presents white, but the supporting cast is multi- 978-1-5247-6453-1 ethnic, mostly cued by naming convention (Lincoln’s implied 978-1-5247-6454-8 PLB South Asian). The whizz-bang, globe-threatening finish has clo- sure but sets up Book 2 nicely. Focusing on mostly U.S. athletes, If the laughs don’t keep the pages turning, the action Cline-Ransome offers snapshots of some revolutionary athletes will. (Science fiction. -8 12) who brought change to the gender makeup of sports. Organized by date of birth, starting with Constance Apple- bee, a British immigrant who, in the early 1900s, brought field NAZI PRISON CAMP ESCAPE hockey to U.S. college campuses as a women’s sport, and end- Burgan, Michael ing with present-day baseball star Mo’ne Davis, this showcases Harper/HarperCollins (112 pp.) a small selection of women athletes in successive double-page $15.99 | Apr. 28, 2020 spreads. The design is flashy, but it also gets in the way of the 978-0-06-286036-1 book’s effectiveness. Each bio includes a full-page photo with Series: Great Escapes an inspirational quote printed over it in cursive type; these are unreferenced, often decontextualized, and sometimes confus- The tale of a real-life pilot’s many ing. Within the bios, the writing is engaging, with ample use of attempts to escape from German pris- direct quotes by and about athletes, capturing their personali- oner-of-war camps in World War II. ties and achievements. There is no introduction, however, and Bill Ash, a poor, white Texas man, is with no statement of scope or mission, it leaves readers to won- so eager to fight Nazis that he can’t wait der why these specific athletes and facts were chosen. The hard- for America. Instead, more than a year before the United States to-read white text on brightly colored backgrounds is at times joins the war, Bill goes to Canada and enlists in the Royal Air anecdotal, and with no source notes or any kind of bibliographic Force. He loves being a Spitfire pilot, but he’s soon shot down in references, readers cannot follow up or verify details. Each France and, after some time in hiding, is sent to Stalag Luft III, a bio ends midcareer, but a backmatter section titled “After the POW camp. Protected by the Geneva Conventions, the POWs Whistle” gives a wrap-up of each athlete’s life. Unfortunately, are treated much better than Nazi prisoners in concentration the absence of pagination will make it hard for young readers camps or death camps (explained in one of several historical to cross-reference these with the main bios, and it is only here sidebars). That doesn’t mean Bill is content to stay safely impris- where the athletes’ more controversial sides come to light. oned, however. Desperate to get back to the fighting, he unsuc- Multiple design flaws make this a hard pass. (Collective cessfully attempts to escape from imprisonment time and time biography. 10-14) again even as the Nazis punish him with time in “the cooler.” Some of his attempts are merely opportunistic, such as dashing from a work detail for freedom. Others are elaborate, such as a CROCODILES NEED pleasantly gross tale of digging a tunnel underneath the latrines, KISSES TOO complete with ingenious contraptions jury-rigged from Red Colby, Rebecca Cross relief parcels. With the POWs’ (historically accurate) Illus. by Dullaghan, Penelope insulation from the war’s atrocities, this becomes a mostly low- Viking (40 pp.) stakes, exciting tale of wartime derring-do. Invented dialogue $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 tips this story over into fiction. 978-0-451-48007-1 A soldier’s stubborn persistence in a sanitized but still interesting adventure. (author’s note, bibliography) Even rough animals need affection. (Historical fiction. -8 10) Rhyming verses with bang-on scansion declare that animals who are considered noncuddly still need cuddles: “Despite their lumpy, bumpy hide, / toothy mouths stretched open wide, // just like me and just like you, / crocodiles need kisses too.” These porcupines, rattlesnakes, vultures, sharks, tigers, tarantulas, and gorillas also need squeezes, nuzzles, smooches, and tickles. The animals’ textually described dangerousness juxtaposes with the art, which shows gentle creatures: A rattlesnake’s “pointy fangs” are too rounded to puncture anything; tigers evoke mischievous toddlers; a

88 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Meticulous attention to composition, textures, and period detail makes each page a delight. one little bag

porcupine’s “prickly spines, / sharpened quills raised up in lines,” THE WONDROUS far from being raised, actually angle downward as the critter DINOSAURIUM peers meekly out from behind a tree. A shark fin is daunting, Condon, John and a tarantula’s huge legs crawling out toward readers may Illus. by Brown, Steve startle them, but both sharks and tarantulas have affable smiles Maverick Publishing (32 pp.) and harmless, curved bodies after each page turn reveals the $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 whole creature. An ending twist changes the crocodile into a 978-1-84886-474-0 (brown-skinned) child in a crocodile suit, receiving hugs from a (lighter-skinned) adult. Dullaghan’s illustrations use acrylic Yet another child learns that dino- paint texture well. However, they have a casual air and a lack of saurs make exciting, if chancy, pets. punch that, instead of creating meaningful juxtaposition with On the prowl for a pet, Danny walks past shop windows the verses, dilute the text’s hardiness and specificity. Sometimes displaying puppies and kittens to enter the titular storefront… the art leans toward the saccharine—rattlesnake bodies form- where “Mr. Ree, purveyor of prehistoric pets,” offers him any ing a heart—and Colby’s cloying ultimate moral that “children dino he might desire. Unfortunately his first pick,Diplodocus lon need affection too” isn’t particularly useful to child or adult gus, eats half a ton of veggies per day; his second, Tyrannosaurus readers. rex (“Ooh, brave choice”), is too, well, “drooly”; and later ones— Genial but forgettable. (Picture book. 2-5) unnamed but brightly patterned, smiling, and recognizably depicted in Brown’s cartoon scenes—prove likewise impracti- cal or unsatisfactory. (Confirmed dinophilesmight be able to tag ONE LITTLE BAG the unidentified beasts, but there is no key for paleontological

An Amazing Journey young adult Cole, Henry Illus. by the author Scholastic (48 pp.) $18.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 978-1-338-35997-8

This wordless picture book traces one brown paper bag’s journey: from timber and manufacturing through the hands of a small, white boy and his single father to those of the next generation. The skilled black-ink drawings lend a look of pleasant harmony to all the characters that populate the pages, from woodland creatures to humans of various ages and gender and racial presentations. Meticulous attention to composition, textures, and period detail—starting around the 1960s—makes each page a delight. The common feature of each scene is a brown paper bag, which the protagonist’s father decorates with a red heart on his son’s first day of school—the book’s only pops of color. After its first use for the boy’s lunch, the bag becomes a never-ending vessel-of-all-trades. As the boy grows up, the bag serves as, among other things, a de facto lampshade over a flashlight to quell nightmares; a bag for automotive tools; receptacle for an engagement ring when the protagonist, now a young man, proposes to his girlfriend, a black woman; a petal container for the wedding’s flower girl; and a collection bag when the protagonist’s child gathers seashells with grandpa. Because there are no words, children are left to draw their own conclusions from an eventual drawing of the grandfather’s empty chair. (Is he wintering in some warm place? The planting of a pine seed- ling, its roots protected by that paper bag, offers an alternative interpretation.) The subtitle will disappoint those who equate “amazing” with narratives outside a common, middle-class, het- eronormative life. However, the bag’s durability is amazing— and, according to the author’s fascinating note, not impossible. Beautifully effective as both nostalgia trip and lesson in conservation. (Picture book. 3-7)

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 89 Beautiful, realistic paintings show refugee children and adults working, playing, sharing, and making the best out of what they have. wherever i go

newbies.) Condon works the well-worn premise to a happy As Abia moves through Shimelba Camp, she is full of pride resolution, as the pet Danny finally brings home in a box turns and hides neither her skills nor her vibrant imagination. She out to be not an ordinary tortoise, as his mother thinks at first plays pretend with her friends on the fields, sings while pump- sight, but a spiky-tailed, tortoiselike Meiolania from the Middle ing water from the well, and soothes her baby cousin to sleep. Miocene, small enough to pick up…at first, anyway. Aside from Abia shares her story as a self-described queen in the camp, a background figure in one scene, the human cast is uniformly bearing a crown fashioned from acacia twigs by her father. white. José Carlos Andrés and Ana Sanfelippo’s Adopting a Dino Beautiful, realistic paintings portray the challenging everyday saur (2019), Jason Cockcroft’s How To Take Care of Your Dinosaur lives of refugees in the northern Ethiopian camp and, notably, (2019), and Diego Vaisberg’s Dino (2018) are but three recent show refugee children and adults working, playing, sharing, and examples of the superior treatments available. making the best out of what they have. Their life is difficult but A bland but amiable iteration. (Picture book. 6-8) not pitiable, and although Abia’s father longs to move on, Abia is dubious about leaving the only life she’s known. Queen Abia listens to her mother narrating how they ran away from their ANIMOLOGY village when she was a baby, escaping fighters and then lions and The Big Book of Letter hyenas. She is proud of her story and takes it with her as her Art Alphabeasts family gets resettled in a developed country and adjusts to life Coote, Maree there after over seven years of living as a refugee. She is Queen Illus. by he author Abia wherever she goes. The book is enriched with an informa- Melbournestyle Books/Trafalgar (72 pp.) tive note by the author about refugees and lists of additional $24.99 | Feb. 1, 2020 children’s books about the topic. 978-0-9924917-9-6 A fine addition to children’s literature about refugees, resettlement, and resilience. (Picture book. 6-9) A large-format letter-art menagerie from the Australian creator of Spellbound: Making Pictures With the A-B-C (2016). FINALLY, SOMETHING Coote freely mixes typefaces, sizes, weights, and orienta- MYSTERIOUS tions but uses only the letters in the names of her animals (often Cornett, Doug repeatedly) to create 36 portraits—each on its own spread and Knopf (256 pp.) rendered in a different, vivid color scheme. Presented in no $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Apr. 14, 2020 discernible order, the animals, ranging from frog to koala, with 978-1-9848-3003-6 elk, crab, and Afghan hound, among others, in between, are all 978-1-9848-3004-3 PLB composed of elaborate swirls and cascades, from which viewers are invited to pick out the letters with help from typographi- Only children, rejoice! A cozy mys- cally consonant captions. While the pictures alone are an eyeful, tery just for you! (People with siblings the rhymed quatrains that accompany each add not only further will probably enjoy it too.) letter-related prompts, but fresh washes of wit: “The hues of a Debut novelist Cornett introduces chameleon / Depend on what she’s kneeling on.” (The emu’s ref- the One and Onlys, a trio of mystery-solving only kids: Gloria erence to being on a “coat-of-arms” may confuse readers on this Longshanks “Shanks” Hill, Alexander “Peephole” Calloway, and end of the Pacific, but a closing page of typographical and nat- narrator Paul (alas, no nickname) Marconi. The trio has a knack ural-history notes, in very tiny type, includes an explanation.) for finding and solving low-level mysteries, but they come up Budding letter detectives who’ve honed their skills on similarly against a true head-scratcher when the yard of a resident of themed outings such as Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich’s mag- their small town is covered in rubber ducks overnight. Work- isterial Bembo’s Zoo (2000) or Michael Arndt’s clever Cat Says ing ahead of Officer Portnoy, who’s a little on the slow side, can Meow (2014) will still find their work cut out for them here. Paul, Shanks, and Peephole solve the mystery? Cornett has a lot A fresh tribute to the creative possibilities of letter- of fun with this adventure, dropping additional side mysteries, a form art: stylish and sophisticated. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9) subplot about small businesses, big corporations, and econom- ics, and a town’s love of bratwurst into the mix. Most importantly, he plays fair with the clues throughout, allowing astute WHEREVER I GO readers to potentially solve the case ahead of the trio. The tone Copp, Mary Wagley and mystery are perfect for younger readers who want to test Illus. by Mohammed, Munir D. their detective skills but are put off by anything scary or gory. Atheneum (32 pp.) The pacing would serve well for chapter-by-chapter read-alouds. $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 If there are any quibbles, it’s the lack of diversity of the cast, as 978-1-5344-1919-3 it defaults white. Diversity exists in small towns, and this one is crying out for more. Hopefully a sequel will introduce addi- A child describes her life in an Ethio- tional faces. pian refugee camp. Delightful fun for budding mystery fans. (Mystery. 8-12)

90 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | MACCA THE ALPACA an anti-bullying tale with a satisfying comeuppance. The pre- Cosgrove, Matt sentation of Macca as totally good and Harmer as totally bad, Illus. by the author however, feels like a missed opportunity, as the lack of nuance Scholastic (24 pp.) renders the narrative patently pedantic. There is also a cringe- $14.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 worthy use of the term “karma” that appears when the llama 978-1-338-60282-1 bully plummets down the mountain. The inaccurate application of a spiritually significant term to imply that bad actors get Macca, an uber-cuddly alpaca, lives a what is coming to them simply because it rhymes conveniently carefree life until he crosses paths with a with “llama” is dismissive and borderline offensive to adherents llama bully. of Hinduism and Buddhism. The llama, not-so-subtly named Harmer, is downright awful. This moralizing modern fable favoring brains over He kicks, yells, taunts, and steals in a single page of illustration. brawn missteps. (Picture book. 4-8) An allegorical story ensues in which Macca and Harmer face off in what turns out to be a battle of wits. With each challenge presented, Macca bests Harmer not through brute strength but through the clever use of a tool. At the final challenge, racing up a mountain, Macca’s lithe physicality proves an asset, as his nim- ble body easily navigates the rocks. There is much in this book that readers will surely enjoy. The illustrations are emotive and humorous. The rhyming text is enjoyable to read aloud. It is young adult

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 91 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Scott Simon

THE NPR HOST BASED HIS MIDDLE-GRADE NOVEL, SUNNYSIDE PLAZA, ON A REAL-LIFE GROUP HOME IN CHICAGO WHERE HE ONCE WORKED By Kathie Meizner

Marcos Galvany experiences in my life…and I hadn’t expected it to be. I just took it as a job to make ends meet. Working there you began to understand [the residents] as people with really rich, full lives. Pity was replaced with real admiration and even friendship. The experience affected my view of life, what it means to be a human being, a writer, a reporter, a father. I’ve always wanted to write something set in a home like that. Our daughter Elise, who’s now 16, told me, “You ought to make it a novel for young readers, because you always said the stuff you read when you’re my age really stays with you.” I studied the language with teachers and academics.

At the Seder the guests tell about their own pharaohs, about freedom and liberation, just as Sal and her fellow residents of Sunnyside Plaza begin to recognize and embrace their own agency. Yes, and I think that was why the scene was there. I wanted to come up with something that would get them in Es- ther’s home and with Lon and his fiancee. I wanted to surround them with respectful and even loving outsiders but in a circumstance where they could be a part of things. Both of our daughters are adopted, and I remembered the first Sed- er dinner that we went to with our now 16-year-old in our arms. You get to the part about the little baby left in the bul- rushes—it’s hard not to think of the little girl in your arms who was left on the street in China. I wanted to bring those Scott Simon is an award-winning journalist, NPR host, people together to note that one way or another we all in Chicago Cubs fan, father, and author of nine books. His this country have that kind of story. For Sal and for Mary most recent, Sunnyside Plaza (Little, Brown, Jan. 21), is a nov- it’s also an understanding that they fit into the world—the el for middle-grade readers. Simon spoke with Kirkus about world can open its arms for them. the story and its inspiration. The scene where Sally and her friends go out to solve a Your author’s note says that Sunnyside Plaza is a thank crime is a bit scary, but they’re so immersed in it. you to the people who knew you when you were a I wanted there to be that combination of trepidation on be- young man working in a halfway house. half of the reader yet excitement in the hearts of Sally and her Yes. It wasn’t called a halfway house. It was the Approved friends. They were testing their wings in the greater world and Home at 909 West Wilson Ave. in Chicago. The residents found they could do it. There’s the woman who yells at them in called it a hotel. Working there was one of the transformative the restaurant, but other than that they run into people who

92 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | are either very considerate or at the worst maybe a little indif- ferent….I thought it was important to put them on their own outside of the confines of Sunnyside Plaza. I enjoyed doing that and walking those steps on the North Side, as a matter of fact.

Were there things you had to leave on the cutting room floor? As always, there’s something that’s interesting but doesn’t quite fit. The advice that Elise, our oldest daughter, and her MERMAID SCHOOL best friend Adelaide gave me was “don’t make the book any Courtenay, Lucy Illus. by Dempsey, Sheena longer than The Old Man and the Sea.” They thought it was Amulet/Abrams (128 pp.) the perfect length for a book! $14.99 | Feb. 18, 2020 978-1-4197-4518-8 Series: Mermaid School, 1 Were there parts of Sally’s character that surprised you? A new student at Mermaid School is I think that’s why you write a novel—for the characters to bullied. take over, isn’t it? I found that she was developing her own Marnie’s levelheaded mother assures her Mermaid School’s lovely while Chris- sense of humor and insight. In the home, people would tabel, her vivacious celebrity aunt, recalls getting into loads of come in from the outside to repair or deliver something. trouble—mostly earned, as she was a rule-averse prankster. In They would look around with curiosity. Some people were an often seen trope, Marnie’s first encounter with a fellow student is with bully Orla. The teachers, remembering the chaos good and wonderful, but some would say things like, “Well, Christabel left in her wake, aren’t inclined to give Marnie the are the people here nuts or something?” as if [the residents] benefit of the doubt when she falls victim to someone else’s were deaf and their feelings, to be disregarded. When we prank—obviously Orla’s. But when Orla’s meanness is noticed see that happen to Sally and understand implicitly that this by other students, who then shun her, Marnie sympathizes with

her, learning the rather convoluted root of Orla’s hostility. Evi- young adult is not the first time, she has strength and pride in how she dently Christabel promised to play Orla’s sister’s song on the addresses it. By the time she delivers that last speech, it’s a radio but didn’t, depriving Orla’s sister of a showbiz career and character teaching me things. I was so glad for that. As I was forcing her to go and work in the dangerous Gulf of Mexico, where she’s gone missing after a hurricane. Following formula just telling our family the other night, I miss her already. to a T, Orla runs off and gets in trouble, and Marnie follows after to save her, and then everyone becomes friends. From Kathie Meizner manages a public library in Maryland and reviews a character-development standpoint, Marnie’s goodness is Kirkus Reviews Washington Post undermined by her lack of personality. Marnie, her family, her children’s books for and the . best friend, and Orla are white; mermaids of color are pres- Sunnyside Plaza received a starred review in the Oct. 1, 2019, issue. ent as second-tier characters. Readers who notice a throwaway line about Marnie’s absentee father’s career mining natural gas may hope for further exploration in sequels. Unless mermaids really float your boat, toss this one back out to sea. (Fantasy. 7-11)

THE BIGGEST STORY Coyle, Sarah Illus. by Taylor, Dan Kane/Miller (32 pp.) $12.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 978-1-68464-045-4

When Errol’s mother is too busy to tell him a story, she convinces him that he can make up and tell one himself. After a few jumping jacks and a headstand in the garden, Errol’s big story begins. Word quickly spreads about his project, and soon Errol, with brown skin and cottony black hair like his mom’s, finds himself surrounded by talking ants and cats, sheep who perform aerial stunts, animals escaped from a wildlife park, and even two time-traveling dinosaurs—all eager to be included as characters in his story. After she finishes her work with the plumbing, Errol’s mom comes to the garden to listen to the story he’s been working on, which includes all of the animals in the backyard—but she doesn’t seem to be able

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 93 O’Hara’s watercolor illustrations have a retro feel, with lighthearted views of the seaside hotel, Mabel and Madame—and some mermaids. madame badobedah

to see them. While Errol is telling the story, the illustrations woman, hair “red and crunchy, like a candy apple without the move from full-page, fairly soft-focus bleeds to sequentially stickiness,” arrives with a great deal of baggage, two dogs, two paneled cartoons with dialogue balloons and sound effects cats, and a tortoise who skitters “along the floor like a man on like those found in comic books. (Readers in the U.S. will note a mission,” Mabel dubs her “Madame Badobedah (rhymes with that a cat character in Errol’s story wields what it calls a “cata- ooooh la la).” Mabel is certain that the new occupant of Room pult”—the British term for a slingshot, which may require a bit 32 is a fugitive criminal, perhaps “an international jewel thief.” of explanation from adults.) After the story ends, prompts are Mabel peeks in through the keyhole. But, invited in for tea, provided to encourage readers to make up their own stories. Mabel tells Madame Badobedah about the pirate Anne Bonny, A nifty way to encourage imaginative play and story- and the two imagine a wild escapade on the high seas. Mabel telling. (Picture book. 4-7) learns that Madame Badobedah had been a ballerina and had “crossed the sea on a big ship, because there was a war.” Dahl’s voice for Mabel is young and amusingly opinionated. O’Hara’s ALL ABOARD THE watercolor illustrations have a retro feel, with lighthearted MOONLIGHT TRAIN views of the seaside hotel, Mabel and Madame—and some Crow, Kristyn mermaids. All the characters are white. The appeal of Mabel’s Illus. by Won, Annie fanciful take on the older woman’s past grows along with their Doubleday (32 pp.) friendship, transforming the poignancy and losses of old age $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Mar. 31, 2020 into something sweetly adventuresome and glamorous. 978-0-525-64543-6 A warmhearted tale of intergenerational connection. 978-0-525-64544-3 PLB (Picture book. 4-9) Not sleepy? Then grab your ticket to the ride of a lifetime. Young railroad enthusiasts with a reluctance for bedtime AWESOME DOG 5000 VS. will heartily embrace this gentle trip on the ultimate ani- MAYOR BOSSYPANTS mal train line. A small, Asian-presenting child reaches from a Dean, Justin locomotive-shaped bed to snatch a ticket from the air, which Illus. by the author spirits them to a train where “wild things await,” quite literally. Random House (224 pp.) Whether it’s the toucan ticket taker, the elephant working the $13.99 | $16.99 PLB | Mar. 3, 2020 engines, or the warthog waiters in the dining car, there’s some- 978-0-525-64485-9 thing to enjoy around every corner. And after all the delights 978-0-525-64487-3 PLB have been sampled, the train drops the child off, safe and sound, Series: Awesome Dog 5000, 2 at home with a final “Good night, good night, Moonlight Train!” Won infuses her art with lighthearted, luminous energy. There Awesome Dog 5000 and the Zeroes is the titular moonlight, certainly, but also starlight, the light of Club return for another wacky adventure. hot coals, and cozy interior lamplight. Sharp-eyed spotters will After an advertisement for the sequel of the kids’ favorite enjoy finding the animals strewn about the child’s bedroom that video game—starring Sheriff Turbo-Karate, who attacks with show up on the train and its line at various times. Rhyming text “infinity farts”—the story provides readers an explicit recap of maintains a regular rhythm in keeping with a chugging night- series opener Awesome Dog 5000 (2019), reintroducing new kid time train. Every four-line stanza, with the exception of the Marty Fontana, daredevil Skyler Kwon, and trivia-spouting Ralph last, ends with the call “All aboard the Moonlight Train!”—and Rogers. Soon a threat emerges in the form of Mayor Manny sleepytime readers will be hankering to obey. Bossypants, a Napoleonic megalomaniac. When the unveiling of Part zoo, part train, all bedtime. (Picture book. 2-5) a giant statue of the mayor goes badly and Awesome Dog 5000 saves the day, he declares war on the heroes so that the spotlight will be his alone. Meanwhile, the heroes learn that the new video MADAME BADOBEDAH game’s affordable version, the “meh edition,” isn’t worth buying— Dahl, Sophie but if they win the school science fair, they’ll be able to afford Illus. by O’Hara, Lauren the “gold deluxe” version. When their early science-invention Walker US/Candlewick (56 pp.) attempts fail, they gamble on concealing Awesome Dog in their $18.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 machine, which leads to chaos as the mayor’s forces zero in on 978-1-5362-1022-4 them. Along the way there’s a quickly resolved friendship plot and a message about responsibility that meshes surprisingly well Is the newest resident of the Mer- with the silliness. The ending reveals a secret message hidden in maid Hotel “an ancient supervillain on the illustrations, which depict the characters rather as though the run”? they were cartoon Legos. Diversity among main characters is Mabel, the young narrator, is an primarily conveyed through naming convention; Skyler’s implied adventurer who likes to go barefoot, pockets full of small pack- Asian while Marty and Ralph present white. ets of marmalade and butter for snacks. When an imperious old A silly sugar rush of a story. (Science fiction. -7 11)

94 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | WHEN GRANDPA GIVES YOU just as he spots the merry-go-round. Finally, Malo reaches the A TOOLBOX ride, but he is not at all happy. Instead, he goes back to Poto in Deenihan, Jamie L.B. the hope that he might make things right. Dek’s fablelike text Illus. by Rocha, Lorraine offers enough detail that readers will be a step or two ahead of Sterling (32 pp.) Malo as he learns his lesson (and they will love the slapstick). $16.95 | Mar. 3, 2020 Its moral clarity, coupled with vibrant watercolor images against 978-1-4549-3232-1 white space, makes this picture book a good text to use with groups. A child changes their mind about A warm story about the importance of companionship a previously unwanted gift through a and forgiveness. (Picture book. 3-7) humorous and unexpected course of events. “You wanted a special house for your dolls. But, surprise! It’s a…toolbox.” So begins this playful story, featuring a nameless EVERYONE LOVES A PARADE!* young protagonist with straight black hair and brown skin. After Denish, Andrea a severe disappointment on their birthday when Grandpa offers Illus. by Franco, Guilherme an unwelcome present, the second-person narration offers Boyds Mills (32 pp.) helpful suggestions on how to accept the off-base gift with $17.99 | Apr. 28, 2020 grace: be polite, patient, and appreciative. But “do not: launch 978-1-63592-140-3 it into outer space, feed it to a T. rex, or tie it to a wrecking ball.” The main character promptly puts the spurned present out of Doesn’t everyone love a parade?

mind until a sad bird with a windblown nest motivates them Beginning with Veteran’s Day, generally the first parade in young adult to dig out the toolbox and try their hand at a birdhouse. Soon, the school year, and progressing chronologically, Denish and an intergenerational construction team is born, to the delight Franco capture the joyful chaos of long-standing parades like of neighbors in need of a new doghouse and a repair for their Thanksgiving, Chinese New Year, and Fourth of July as well as mailbox. All the hard work and learning pay off, both for the more recent or localized parades such as Pride Mardi Gras or young woodworker’s community and for the child. Encouraged the celebration of a sports championship. Most events are rec- by their successful projects, the protagonist decides to “buil[d] ognizable from illustrative or textual clues, but an informational exactly what [they] wanted: a special house for [their] dolls.” paragraph about each parade in the backmatter clearly identi- Fans of When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree (2019) will love fies each parade and its history. Vibrant, full-bleed illustrations Deenihan and Rocha’s second effort, with its familiar message show a diverse, multigenerational community participating in about perseverance and open-mindedness. and enjoying each parade. Four lines of rhyming text describe A lighthearted look at surviving disappointment and each parade’s distinctive sights (“Friendly faces floating high. the secret joy of learning new things. (Picture book. 5-10) / Unicycles whizzing by. / Jazzy kickers, / Candy lickers”) and sounds (“Ladies clogging, clicks and claps”; “Firecrackers! Boom. Fizz. BAM”). The book’s title acts as a refrain for each MALO AND THE spread. But wait! There’s an asterisk at the end of the title— MERRY-GO-ROUND why? There are two reasons. Readers will discover the first at Dek, Maria the end of the main text and will want to carefully review the Illus. by the author illustrations in Where’s Waldo? fashion now that they know the Princeton Architectual Press (34 pp.) one sort of person who does not love a parade. A careful read of $17.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 the author’s bio provides the second reason, in the description 978-1-61689-875-5 of her preferred way to enjoy a parade. A festive celebration of America’s more common In this French import, Malo the parades. (Picture book. 4-8) rodent has promised his best friend, Poto, that he will help make pickles, but Malo would much rather chase beetles instead. Poto suggests a compromise: After Malo helps him make pickles, he says, they can both go play at a new merry-go-round at the pond in the forest. Poto gets no response, as Malo has already sneaked away in search of the merry-go-round. Along the way, a wild boar approaches Malo and asks for his help removing a tick that is biting him. Malo refuses, as he’s in a hurry to get to the merry-go-round. Malo also lies to a group of forest turtles who ask if they can join him, and he is rude to a cuckoo whom he initially asks for help. Things grow progres- sively worse for Malo, who slips on a dung beetle’s ball of dung

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 95 PETER’S WAR the lead (the laws of physics need not apply). Both get a sense A Boy’s True Story of Survival of how it feels to walk in each other’s shoes, especially when in World War II Europe Little Shadow inadvertently lets a door close on Little Chee- DeSaix, Deborah Durland & Ruelle, tah’s tail, something about which Little Shadow had previously Karen Gray complained. The pair decides that walking side by side is best— Illus. by DeSaix, Deborah Durland until they reach a dark tunnel. Darkness erases the gray, trans- Holiday House (40 pp.) parent Little Shadow, so the solid, vividly orange Little Cheetah $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 takes the lead, flashlight in hand. These empathetic characters 978-0-8234-2416-0 make thoughtful efforts to gain perspective and understand each other in this earnest and sweet (but never cloying) story Sympathetic and brave French citizens help a Jewish boy from the author of Otto and Pio (2019) and The Lion and the Bird survive World War II. (2014), two other tender tales of friendship. Dubuc’s colored Born in Germany to comfortable and nonobservant Jew- pencil–and-watercolor illustrations on spacious, uncluttered ish parents, Peter Feigl has a good life. When Hitler comes to spreads depict a tiny, intimate village of anthropomorphized power, however, they move to Czechoslovakia, Austria, Bel- creatures; Little Cheetah’s home is particularly cozy. gium, and finally France in search of safety. When, ultimately, What compassion looks like—without a shadow of a Peter’s parents are deported to Auschwitz, Peter finds shelter doubt. (Picture book. 4-7) with French families on La Montagne Protestante, among a community of Huguenots. What follows is a harrowing time of hiding, tricking German soldiers, and finally being spirited RED RED RED to safety in Switzerland. Peter kept two diaries in which he Dunbar, Polly recorded his feelings and activities, excerpts from which appear Illus. by the author throughout. In an epilogue and notes, the authors provide Kane/Miller (32 pp.) more detailed and very accessible background information on $14.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 French Resistance activities, the diaries, and the Holocaust as it 978-1-68464-026-3 affected one Jewish child who was in fact baptized. The account of their interviews with Peter should fascinate readers and per- This British import serves up lessons haps encourage them to undertake similar projects. Graphite- in emotional regulation, with a side of biscuits. and-watercolor illustrations complement the inclusion of many The young protagonist of this picture book has light brown black-and-white photographs. This is a valuable addition to the skin, curly dark hair, and a taste for biscuits. (This British term shelves of Holocaust literature, highlighting both the single- for what Americans call cookies is preserved in the American minded determination of the Germans and the heroic efforts of edition.) Via first-person narration, the child thinks out loud one French community. Peter, who is multilingual, worked with while climbing a stool to reach a cookie jar high on the shelf— the French Resistance and eventually moved to America, where until “CRASH! BANG! BUMP!” Mum (who shares the child’s he frequently speaks to groups about his wartime experiences. coloring) comes running to provide comfort, but she can’t head An important, well-written account of survival against off her little one’s ensuing fit. Upset about the fall, the child overwhelming odds. (map, bibliography, recommended rages, “My socks are down. My pants are twisted. / I want...I resources) (Biography. 8-12) want...I WANT A BISCUIT!” A climactic spread gives the protagonist of Molly Bang’s When Sophie Gets Angry—Really Really Angry (1999) a run for her money. It depicts the child in a full- LITTLE CHEETAH’S SHADOW blown tantrum, spiky red lines emanating forth to dominate Dubuc, Marianne the page and bold, block letters filling one half of the spread Illus. by the author to evoke furious yelling. Patient Mum intercedes and helps her Princeton Architectual Press (32 pp.) child count to 10 to calm down while Dunbar’s art, typography, $17.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 and symbolic scribbly lines combine to depict the child even- 978-1-61689-840-3 tually relaxing. A scene of deep breathing precedes the final reward of a biscuit, and then another to stave off any risk of A shadowy revelation makes for additional tantrums. a gentle story about friendship and Help for coping when the cookie crumbles. (Picture book. understanding. 2-5) Little Cheetah’s shadow (fittingly named Little Shadow) has abandoned him. When Little Chee- tah finally finds his companion, he learns that Little Shadow has felt neglected. Little Cheetah, his shadow says, is always in the lead and gets to choose where they go. Rather than respond defensively (“That doesn’t sound very nice at all,” he says instead), Little Cheetah quite literally lets his shadow take

96 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Dunklee writes a story that will feel familiar to readers who have younger siblings and sometimes need a little alone time. william’s getaway

WILLIAM’S GETAWAY tentaclelike movement and ensuing chaos are, as the narrator Dunklee, Annika says, “downright disgusting.” The cartoon illustrations, like the Illus. by Kang, Yong Ling odd premise, are reminiscent of an animated show on commer- Owlkids Books (32 pp.) cial TV—one can imagine sound effects. Bernard is biracial, and $16.95 | Mar. 15, 2020 his family is interracial; his dad and grandpa present white while 978-1-77147-337-8 his mom has brown skin, as do many figures at Bernard’s school. For readers with a taste for the bizarre. (Picture book. 3-7) William needs a break from his younger brother. William’s younger brother, Edgar, HAPPY loves to play with him. And sometimes William likes to play A Beginner’s Book with him too. But today, Edgar is too loud and destructive, and of Mindfulness William wants to be alone. The only place he can be alone is Edwards, Nicola up high in his hot air balloon. Edgar is usually too afraid to Illus. by the author climb up, but today he wants to come along. William is dis- Rodale Kids (32 pp.) appointed but doesn’t refuse. On his approach to the ladder, $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 Edgar freezes, with queries about what if he gets hungry, thirsty, 978-0-593-12119-1 or cold, grabbing snacks and toys for comfort. William finally stops Edgar from frantically assembling these items and helps Young readers are encouraged to stop him to be brave. Dunklee writes a story that will feel familiar and “smell life’s sweet roses” in order to find happiness.

to readers who have younger siblings and sometimes need a Despite the saccharine opening, this title provides a mostly young adult little alone time. William is a great role model, demonstrating solid collection of mindfulness minipractices. Each spread how kindness can overcome annoyance and create a fun shared features one sensory or emotional focal point, such as listen- adventure. The watercolor-and–colored-pencil illustrations are ing, feeling, and appreciating. Irregular lines of rhyming text adorable, capturing a child’s vast imagination with a light touch. set atop lush illustration provide context for how to practice; Kang transforms their suburban house into a beautiful outdoor a question or statement encouraging reflection provides direct world to explore. The tiniest details give hints to the truth of instruction. For example, five diverse children snuggle up near William’s hot air balloon. William and Edgar have peach skin, a fire in a room tinted red for the spread that focuses on love. black hair, and rosy cheeks, and they negotiate their play with- The text prompts readers to consider that happiness grows out adult intervention. from acts of kindness. The concluding question asks, “Have you A sweet sibling story. (Picture book. 3-8) given someone a smile or a hug today?” Though giving smiles and hugs isn’t necessarily a mindfulness practice, it is a way to encourage kindness and compassion. Connection with the nat- BAD BROWS ural world is emphasized through the illustrations’ idyllic rural Eaton, Jason Carter setting. Though it falls into many of the same traps as others Illus. by Petrik, Mike in the growing genre—conflating mindfulness with happiness, Abrams (40 pp.) lumping multiple social-emotional learning strategies together $16.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 under the name of “mindfulness,” and romanticizing isolation 978-1-4197-2537-1 from day-to-day city and suburban life—the overall utility of this book is strong. Eyebrows run amok. A fine resource for sharing moments of mindfulness, Bernard wakes up one morning to dis- empathy, and reflection with young children. (Picture book. cover that his normally reasonable eye- 4-8) brows have gone “BAD.” His dad asks, “What’s with the goofy face?” and his mom warns him to stop “making funny faces.” Bernard assures everyone that it’s not him, it’s the strangely THE PRINCESS AND THE assertive eyebrows. Throughout the day, the brows morph into PETRI DISH different zany shapes, expressing emotions that mask Bernard’s Fliess, Sue actual feelings. His frustrated principal explains that “your Illus. by Bouloubasis, Petros eyebrows are your face’s way of telling other people how you Whitman (32 pp.) feel.” The barber and the doctor can’t help even as the eyebrows $16.99 | Apr. 1, 2020 become dangerous, growing so long that they trip people and 978-0-8075-6644-2 make mischief. A knock on his bedroom door signals the return of his “real” eyebrows, back from vacation. He vows to never After numerous setbacks, Princess Pippa achieves her again take them for granted, practicing “many exciting expres- dream of becoming a groundbreaking scientist and inventor. sions that night.” This frankly weird book requires readers will- Even though she lives in a castle, Princess Pippa is not inter- ing to go with the outlandish premise. The eyebrows’ eventual ested in becoming just another curtsying royal. Instead, she

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 97 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Lily Williams & Karen Schneeman

THEIR GRAPHIC NOVEL, GO WITH THE FLOW, IS AN EMPOWERING TAKE ON HIGH SCHOOL FEMALE FRIENDSHIPS, ACTIVISM, AND MENSTRUATION By Kate Scelsa aige Billings Grey Hawkins In Go With the Flow This seems especial- (First Second, Jan. 14), a ly important for Brit, new middle-grade graph- whose painful periods ic novel by Lily Williams have started interfer- and Karen Schneeman, ing with her life. Her with illustrations by Wil- situation is something liams, menstruation is that people don’t nec- presented as an integral essarily understand part of a story about high if it’s not something school, friendship, and they’re personally go- standing up for what you ing through. Karen Schneeman believe in. New girl Sasha LW: I have endometrio- meets sophomores Abby, sis and fibroids, so my periods have been very much like Brit, and Christine when Brit’s. We didn’t wrap Brit’s story up with a bow, because Lily Williams she gets her first period there’s no cure for these issues. In the book they talk about at school and finds herself the possibility of seeing a specialist and getting a diagnosis, without a pad or tampon. The girls come to her rescue, but and we actually had to adjust that because I got a diagnosis Abby is outraged by the fact that the pad and tampon dis- right when we were going into the inking phase. And then I penser in the girls’ bathroom is perpetually empty. What fol- had a surgery in the middle of the deadline, so I was kind of lows is Abby’s crusade for menstrual equity, in which her ac- going through it with Brit. tivist methods test the limits of her friendships. Here, Wil- liams and Schneeman, who became friends while studying at Who do you hope buys the book and where would you California College of the Arts, answer some questions about like to see it end up? the book and their goal to fight the stigma around talking KS: I would really hope that parents use it as a point to start about periods. a conversation. And all of the “know your body” teen guides get stolen from libraries consistently because kids are too How did the idea of friendship factor into your idea to embarrassed to check them out, or they want to keep them write about menstrual periods? as a reference. So libraries are a big one for us, just to get that Lily Williams: When we started talking with each other information out there. about periods, a big component of it was the idea that when LW: I really hope a lot of boys read it too. It’s so important you’re friends with people who have periods, you get to this for everyone to be talking about this. safe space where you can talk about it. Karen Schneeman: The age that we’re targeting with this The book is such a fun read, I imagine that it wouldn’t be book is such an awkward phase where a lot of girls and boys as intimidating as picking up some kind of health guide. stop talking to their parents as much about stuff. So we KS: We didn’t want it to feel like we were trying to teach wanted to emphasize that, yeah, everyone’s going through someone something. We wanted to say, this is just part of life this, and it’s OK to talk about it with friends and share that and each of our characters have other things going on with experience and normalize it. each other and with their families.

98 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | It’s such an interesting moment to be putting out a book like this, especially when the conversations about reproductive health are… KS: …so depressing.

Do you feel like the conversation is changing at all? LW: The conversation about periods is definitely more out in the open than it ever has been. I don’t know that it’s always as geared toward kids, so I am interested to hear how spends hours in her laboratory, dreaming of making discover- our book goes over in that way. But it’s hard to be working ies that will win her prizes. Lofty ambitions notwithstanding, the majority of Pippa’s chemical forays have been disastrous: on a project and to be hearing in the news where things are In the past, she’s invented brittle bubble gum, soap that turns going backward when we need to be going so much further fingers blue, and bad-smelling mouthwash. Finally, one night forward. at dinner, inspiration strikes. After much experimentation— using a pea, a cocoa bean, and the titular petri dish—Pippa creates peas that tastes like chocolate, so tasty that everyone Do you have messages about activism that you want in the entire kingdom takes to sprinkling them on all of their readers to take away? food at every meal. But just when Pippa is about to celebrate, KS: I do think one of the things that we’re trying to do is to the pea vines grow faster and faster, spreading beyond the castle walls. Pippa’s scientific prowess is put to the test one show that you have power regardless of how people might more time, when she must invent something to slow down the respond to you. Abby does get kind of beaten down a little plants’ growth—and still preserve the delicious peas the king- bit initially, and it’s easy to give up. So I think we’re giving a dom has come to love. Fleiss’ lilting, rhyming abcb verse is a delight to read, and Pippa’s quirky perseverance stands as an message of, if it’s important to you, keep trying. endearing example for young budding scientists of all genders. LW: You can find a way to speak up for things that you feel Bouloubasis’ fantastical illustrations are vibrant with move- are unjust or unfair. Giving kids that agency allows them to ment, color, and detail, but few characters in this kingdom are feel like they’re not just like a hopeless cog in the machine. diverse. The royal family is white.

A silly, inspiring story of a princess who makes her sci- young adult entific dreams come true.(Picture book. 3-7) Kate Scelsa is a playwright and the author of Fans of the Impos- sible Life Go With the Flow . received a starred review in the Nov. BATMAN 15, 2019, issue. Overdrive Fontana, Shea Illus. by DiChiara, Marcelo DC (136 pp.) $9.99 paper | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-4012-8356-8

A teen Bruce Wayne fixes up an old car. Obsessed with finding the answers to the mystery behind his parents’ murders, Bruce Wayne doesn’t have many friends. He spends his days brooding and being waited upon by his butler, Alfred. The one thing Bruce looks forward to is getting his driver’s license on his 16th birthday. Inspired by a picture of his father standing beside a (fictional) 1966 Crusader, Bruce decides to restore the vehicle after finding it in storage. In doing so he meets Latinx teen mechanic Mateo Diaz and the mysterious Selina Kyle, who seems to be white, like Bruce. As the trio works to repair Bruce’s Crusader the teens develop a friendship and uncover startling revelations about the Wayne murders. This middle- grade graphic novel is the latest in DC’s run of colorfully illustrated attempts to draw young readers into the world of DC Comics. While the action is crisp and the characterization is strong, there’s a problem here that other DC heroes don’t have: Teenage Bruce Wayne is pretty hard to like. Moody and spoiled, Bruce Wayne is a real drag. The authors seem to know this; Bruce starts to moonlight as a masked vigilante pretty quickly, and the bat motif shows up faster than expected. This is one character who doesn’t benefit from the “this is what they were like when they were a teen!” lens. A decent piece of graphic storytelling with a bad head- liner. (Graphic adventure. 9-12)

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 99 FLIGHT FOR FREEDOM eventually the wall comes down to reveal that the other side is The Wetzel Family’s Daring full of children just like her. The book has a promising begin- Escape From East Germany ning, centering a brave, dark-skinned, South Asian girl deter- Fulton, Kristen mined to right an injustice, all in simple and appealing prose. Illus. by Kuhlmann, Torben Unfortunately, though, the plot implies that real, valid anger Chronicle (56 pp.) at injustices must be shaped into arguments that are quiet and $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 gentle to actually make a change. This is particularly troubling 978-1-4521-4960-8 given that Usha is a girl of color, possibly from the global south, and therefore already at risk of being socialized to ignore her An East German family escapes to very understandable rage. the West in a homemade hot air balloon. Well meaning but flawed.(Picture book. 3-6) This account of a family’s clever escape from the German Democratic Republic opens by painting a picture of young Peter Wetzel’s East German world. From the beginning, Fulton A STOPWATCH does not show much confidence in her young readers, eschew- FROM GRAMPA ing meaningful age-appropriate discussion of government sup- Garbutt, Loretta pression and violence for complaints of “scratchy uniforms” and Illus. by Mok, Carmen the baffling suggestion that East Germany did not have chil- Kids Can (32 pp.) dren’s television programming. Readers watch through Peter’s $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 eyes as his parents slowly and secretly build a hot air balloon to 978-1-5253-0144-5 take them to the West. This surprising true story is accompanied by warm, accomplished illustrations that conjure a strong Something as simple as a stopwatch sense of place and time. There is some evocative description in can start, stop, and restart a lifetime of memories. the text, such as the shocking loudness of a car door when one A young child with pale skin and dark hair holds a stopwatch is trying to be quiet. However, the overall tone feels affected and slumps, despondent, on a porch. Grampa has recently and never quite climbs to a level of tension suitable for the sub- passed away, and the child is in the throes of sadness and loneli- ject. The author even leaves a potentially nail-biting moment— ness. Together, they had used the stopwatch to record various the Wetzels give up on the balloon only to be forced to make a activities in minutes and seconds, like the child’s eating bubble- final attempt under threat of discovery by the secret police—to gum ice cream, Grampa’s snoring on the couch, both eating the backmatter. Also hidden in the backmatter is the dubious oatmeal-raisin cookies, and more. Those seconds and minutes implication that Ronald Reagan was ultimately responsible for represented a deep, intergenerational friendship, the absence the fall of the wall. of which is keenly felt by the young child. Unable to bear this Despite the cozy illustrations and interesting source loss, the child buries the stopwatch in a drawer and experi- material, this tale doesn’t thrill. (historical notes, author’s ences anger, bargaining, denial, even depression—rarely so note) (Informational picture book. 5-10) clearly characterized in picture books for young readers. Time heals most wounds, and, as the seasons pass, the time comes at last when new memories can be made using Grampa’s favorite USHA AND THE STOLEN SUN stopwatch. Told in honest, first-person prose, this story gently Galbraith, Bree confronts this first journey through loss, offering sensitive con- Illus. by Bisaillon, Josée versation starters for families. Muted, poignant illustrations Owlkids Books (32 pp.) rendered in paint and both colored and graphite pencils effec- $17.95 | Mar. 15, 2020 tively depict this difficult yet all too common experience. The 978-1-77147-276-0 child’s face in particular, though simply drawn, evokes a range of emotions—at once poignant and comprehensible. After years of darkness, Usha is An excellent and understated portrayal of grief from a determined to recover the sun. child’s perspective. (Picture book. 4-7) The only one in Usha’s town who remembers sunshine at all is her grandfather, and even he is starting to forget what it was like. The only thing he can tell Usha is that when he was a child, someone—he isn’t sure who—built a giant wall that blocked out the light. Determined to help her grandfather remember the feeling of sunshine on his skin, Usha sets out to find the wall. When she arrives at it, she unleashes her rage, commanding the bricks to come down. She remembers, then, that her grandfather said that yelling hadn’t stopped it from going up. She therefore tries whispering and singing. Voices on the other side of the wall respond, and

100 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Gianferrari plays with words, especially action verbs, to introduce an unusual array of animals. play like an animal!

MR. TIGER, BETSY, AND THE describe what the depicted animals are learning. Playing tug of BLUE MOON war, wolves learn fair play. Both elephants and dolphins practice Gardner, Sally cooperation through play. Other examples are monkeys, ravens, Illus. by Maland, Nick river otters, dolphins, kangaroos, gorillas, and keas. In the back- Penguin Workshop (192 pp.) matter the author explains why readers should play, how they $16.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 should “play by the rules, like these animals do”: stepping away 978-0-593-09516-4 if hurt; apologizing; accepting the apology. Finally, there is a further, fairly dense paragraph about each of the featured animals. A fantasy series opener from the Illustrator Powell used paints, handmade textures, and digital author of Carnegie Medal winner Maggot techniques to create her appealing images. Most spreads show Moon (2013). the animals in a natural scene, but a few show a diverse set of Betsy K. Glory lives on a small island five children and the artist’s own black-and-white dog. (On the with her ice-cream–making dad, who owns a cafe; her ocean- jacket-flap bio she invites readers to look for him.) dwelling mermaid mum pays them weekly visits. When Betsy A lively addition to the animal shelf. (Informational picture and Mr. Glory deliver his latest concoction to an ice-cream– book. 4-8) fancying toad, the amphibian reveals that she is Princess Albee, self-exiled from her home on Gongalong Island after her giant- ess half sister, Princess Olaf, made a wish that turned her into A PERSIAN PRINCESS a toad, a wish Albee is unable to overturn. While confirming Goldin, Barbara Diamond Mum’s assertion that Gongalong Island’s berries, when made Illus. by Doneva, Steliyana

into ice cream, grant wishes, Albee says they must be picked Apples & Honey Press (32 pp.) young adult during a blue moon. Sadly, no one knows how to turn the moon $17.95 | Apr. 1, 2020 blue. Worse, Princess Olaf has fenced off most of their island 978-1-68115-553-1 for her own use, making it nearly impossible for the remaining resident Gongalongs (tiny humanoids) to escape. When A celebration of Purim with an Mr. Tiger and his oceangoing circus, which features Gongalong appropriate Persian flavor. acrobats, arrive on Betsy’s island, he hatches a plan to free the Raya is happily baking cookies for Gongalongs and Princess Albee. With an elaborately silly plot Purim with her grandmother, Maman joon. They are called and flimsy characterization, the story feels rudderless; it lacks koloocheh and are from the family’s Persian Jewish heritage. thematic heft. A few moments sparkle, though, and the abun- Unfortunately, Raya is too young to be in the school play, in dant, imaginative illustrations (executed in blue, to match the which her older brother will play Mordecai. Maman joon pauses blue type) provide continuity and quirky charm. Human and cooking in order to adjust his costume and beard. She can do human(oid) characters default to white. even more for her granddaughter, though. In a trunk in her bed- Should please Anglophiles fond of cozy, English cul- room is a wide assortment of sparkly jewelry and brightly col- tural references and nonstop whimsy. (Fantasy. 6-9) ored scarves—just perfect for a little girl who wants to pretend to be Esther. Maman joon has saved them from the time that she lived in Hamadan, a city in Iran. Together, the costumed girl PLAY LIKE AN ANIMAL! and her grandmother share their baked treats with the neigh- Why Critters Splash, Race, bors, and Raya explains that she is a “Persian princess” just as Twirl, and Chase Esther was. Even better, Raya decides to invite everyone to the Gianferrari, Maria house, where she will perform the story of Purim. It is a joyous Illus. by Powell, Mia time, indeed. Goldin’s sweet story offers readers a celebration Millbrook/Lerner (32 pp.) of Purim that is both familiar and different to that observed by $19.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 Ashkenazic Jewry and more commonly seen in U.S. children’s 978-1-5415-5771-0 books but that can be enjoyed by all. Doneva’s delicate cartoon illustrations are suitably colorful and depict a neighborhood of Just like human children, animals love to play, both to prac- various ethnicities. tice adult skills and to have fun. Family traditions and intergenerational love are strong Gianferrari plays with words, especially action verbs, to and endearing in this fresh look at Purim. (author’s note) introduce an unusual array of animals. “Plonk, dig, slide” and (Picture book. 4-7) “rub, plop, blow” are the sounds of collared peccaries and rhinos in the mud. “Nibble-fumble, hurdle-tumble, ready to rumble” describes wrestling rats. These playful words and phrases appear in large uppercase letters set at a slight angle to represent movement on the page. A straightforward short sentence identifies the animal and its actions. Boxed explanations add information—ungulates are mammals with hooves, for example—and

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 101 Accessible and seemingly simple similes and metaphors form a vibrant and sophisticated ode to nature. summer song

UNDER THE LILACS blueberry poo (Bear’s contribution) that, to the amazement of Goodale, E.B. all, instantly attracts, as Owl puts it, “Fast foooooo…foooooo… Illus. by the author fooooood!” Bear and Rabbit agree that everyone’s “normal HMH Books (32 pp.) on the outside” and “weird on the inside”—“And that’s OK.” $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 Woodsy duotone scenes on nearly every page feature comically 978-0-358-15393-1 wide-eyed creatures of diverse size and species looking amazed, panic-stricken, or, in Owl’s case, disarmingly cute. A declaration to run away from home A pointed jab at wanton fearmongering, lightened by a leads to an awfully cozy escape. bit of philosophy and rather a lot of gas. (Animal fantasy. 6-8) Kate’s sister, Hannah, has shut the door on Kate’s toe, and Mom is giving flute lessons to neighborhood kids. What more reason would one need to run away? So, determined, Kate PAPER PLANES gathers duct tape and cardboard and proceeds to construct a Helmore, Jim little home under the lilacs in the neighbor’s yard. And because Illus. by Jones, Richard Mango the cat might miss her sister and her mother, she’ll build Peachtree (32 pp.) them additional rooms as well. Soon enough Hannah, Mom, $17.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 and even one of Mom’s flute students show up on Kate’s card- 978-1-68263-161-4 board doorstep, happy to live under the lilacs, “At least for a little while.” Goodale keeps the text short and sweet from the Can a friendship survive an overseas initial line, “Sometimes I want to run away,” to the penultimate move? declarative sentence, “Yes, I think I could stay here, under the This is the story of Mia and Ben, two friends who grew up in lilacs.” And some canny young readers may well pierce the veil side-by-side houses and enjoyed the same hobby: making paper around Kate’s protestations that it is Mango who will be miss- airplanes together. One day, however, Ben’s family must move far ing Hannah and Mom. The illustrations combine print, drawing, away. Losing a friend due to a move can be very challenging, and and digital techniques, making for a truly attractive mélange the ordeal can sometimes feel like a great betrayal. Such is the case that evinces early spring days, green fields, and blue skies swept for Mia, whose friendship with Ben is tested severely; her feel- with clouds. After reading this book, who wouldn’t want to try ings volley between hurt and anger, only to be soothed by dreams their own hand at a little independence? Kate, Hannah, and about meeting Ben again. One day, however, she receives a pleas- Mom have pale skin and straight, dark hair; Mom’s flute student ant surprise in the mail: Ben has built a plane halfway and now has brown skin and puffy brown hair. seeks her input for completing the remaining half. She happily Running away never looked so good. (Picture book. 3-6) obliges. In this touching, sparely written story about friendship, author Helmore makes the best out of a difficult and potentially traumatic experience—a separation. While the story, enhanced by ATTACK OF THE SNACK Jones’ symbolic, beautifully chalky illustrations, has a bittersweet Gough, Julian beginning, it has a positive and uplifting ending. Parents and edu- Illus. by Field, Jim cators will especially appreciate how the protagonists’ feelings are Silver Dolphin (112 pp.) depicted in a realistic and convincing manner—and the validation $9.99 paper | Apr. 7, 2020 that sadness and anger are OK. The book’s inspiring ending makes 978-1-68412-617-0 it a good resource for children experiencing separation issues. Mia Series: Rabbit & Bear has brown skin and black, bobbed hair, and Ben presents white; their shared neighborhood appears to be in rural North America. A sudden new arrival prompts a flare A beautiful and sensitive treatment of a common child- of xenophobia in Bear’s excitable lapine hood experience. (Picture book. 4-8) buddy. Any resemblance to current affairs must, of course, be coin- cidental. Once the tiny feathered stranger who has crashed SUMMER SONG into a tree and fallen unconscious is identified as an owl, Rab- Henkes, Kevin bit, who has never met one before, is terrified. “Owls…eat you Illus. by Dronzek, Laura ALIVE! And the next day they BURP UP YOUR BONES!” he Greenwillow (40 pp.) shouts. “Lock her up!” Failing in her effort to defuse the panic $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 (“One bone at a time, or all of them at once?”), Bear sadly wan- 978-0-06-286613-4 ders off in search of blueberries as Rabbit proceeds to whip the other forest creatures into a frenzy. Happily, all ends well Henkes and Dronzek evoke the after Owl wakes up and calmly explains that she is a small bur- sights, sounds, and joys of summer, com- rowing owl who eats only fruit and bugs—mostly dung beetles. pleting their celebratory seasonal quartet. Embarrassed, Rabbit and the rest apologize and pitch in to Captivating poetic text begins like a stream of conscious- furnish the owl with a comfy new home…liberally daubed with ness: “The Summer sun is a giant flower, / and the flowers are

102 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | like little suns. / Little suns of all different colors.” Brilliantly WEST COAST WILD BABIES woven together, these accessible and seemingly simple similes Hodge, Deborah and metaphors form a vibrant and sophisticated ode to nature. Illus. by Reczuch, Karen Readers will drink in the delicious cool shade, feel the swelter- Groundwood (36 pp.) ing sun, and revel in the lush green garden. Henkes hears sum- $19.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 mer’s song everywhere—in the wind through the grass, the 978-1-77306-248-8 birds in the sky, and the oceans and lakes. Onomatopoeia fills the air with the sounds of bees and dragonflies, juxtaposed with In this Canadian import, baby ani- the silence of the glowing firefly. Uncomplicated acrylic paint- mals and birds of the Pacific West Coast ings done in a primary palette will appeal to young animal lovers. region are introduced with brief descrip- Deeply saturated blues and greens capture the essence of the tions of their birth environments. season, Dronzek’s characteristically firm black outlines help- The introductory pages show a human father and his baby ing animals, flowers, birds, insects, and humans pop. A multira- near the shore of the Pacific Ocean, with a pair of raccoon cubs cial cast of kids tend pets, cool off in the sprinkler, play in the peeking out from the roots of an enormous tree. In a subtle sand, and watch clouds. As the season wanes, there’s delicious framing device, the final spread shows a human mother with anticipation for autumn’s change. This lovely read-aloud will be her baby, observing a mother raccoon and her two little ones savored, just like a summer’s day. on the beach. The human characters present white. The ani- Captures the magic of childhood summers, when col- mal and bird babies are presented through a structured format ors are a song and a backyard can sing the wonders of the in subsequent double-page spreads, with a large trim size that world. (Picture book. 3-8) effectively showcases the dramatic illustrations. The appealing

animals and birds stand out in scenes filled with the soft blues young adult and greens of outdoor settings interspersed with trees, wild- A NEW KIND OF WILD flowers, and ferns, and a variety of perspectives and motion Hoang, Zara González enhance interest. The names of the babies are set in large type Illus. by the author followed by a paragraph of text detailing circumstances of birth, Dial (32 pp.) early growth, and other details such as diet or migration pat- $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 terns. One or both parents are shown tending to their young, 978-0-525-55389-2 sometimes with surprising tenderness, as in the illustration of a sea otter pup nestled on its mother’s chest. This informative When a child moves to the city, he introduction will be especially useful in the Pacific West Coast misses the friendly sounds of the rainfor- region, but it has a wider appeal to a broad audience in both est in Puerto Rico. locale and age. Ren lives with his mother and grandmother on the fringes A succinct and satisfying first look at some fascinating of el Yunque, the rainforest in Puerto Rico. There, his days are creatures. (author’s note, bibliography) (Informational picture “filled with green and dirt and rocks and mud.” It’s an idyllic book. 3-8) “place of endless possibility, where anything he imagined became real,” and so Ren plays with dragons, unicorns, fairies, and kings, and he goes to sleep to the croaks of the coquís. All this changes SPACE MICE when he moves with his mother to the city. Its loud mechanical Houran, Lori Haskins sounds crowd his head and leave no room for wild, making him Illus. by Alpaugh, Priscilla feel lonely. Meanwhile, Ava, a girl who lives upstairs, is “never Whitman (32 pp.) lonely. She loved her building and she loved her city.” So when $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 Ren tells her why he’s not happy, Ava is determined to make him 978-0-8075-7553-6 see the city with different eyes. With her encouragement, Ren eventually finds in the city “a new kind of wild,” proving that With that big ball of cheese hanging friendship often goes a long way toward curing homesickness. so temptingly in the sky, what’s a pair of Hoang’s color-filled illustrations incorporate fanciful views of hungry mice to do? mythical creatures into the rainforest and equally whimsical Marching to a pared-down rhyme of just three or four robots and ETs into the very diverse city as Ren learns to see words per line, Alpaugh’s cute and capable mice determinedly with Ava’s eyes. Ren and his family are white; Ava and her family gather tools and materials, design and build a rocket, and are black; all characters seem to be Latinx. blast off. They touch down on a surface more like Roquefort A wise and gentle lesson on making and helping friends. than regolith and emerge from the capsule, equipped with a (Picture book. 5-7) cleverly designed lunar backhoe: “Landing, standing / on the moon. / that’s one small step— / and one big spoon!” After they’ve stuffed themselves, there’s nothing left for an astonished young human astronomer back on Earth to see but a thin crescent. Presenting white, this child gapes up at the suddenly

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 103 no-longer-full moon as the mouse astronauts tow their reentry CHILD OF THE capsule—and one last piece of moon—off the page. There’s lots UNIVERSE of humor on the pages, from the mice wielding full-size human Jayawardhana, Ray tools to a cheese-loving stowaway ant. A Right Stuff head-on Illus. by Colón, Raúl view of the spacesuited mice, helmets under their arms, is par- Make Me a World (40 pp.) ticularly chuckleworthy. The venture recalls Andy Mansfield’s $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 Journey to the Moon (2015), with its similarly cheesy climax, but it 978-1-5247-1754-4 also pairs well with other extraterrestrial trips such as Dan Yac- carino’s Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I’m Off to the Moon! (1997; tragically, A child “made up of stars” finds their place in the universe. out of print) and Nancy Shaw and Margo Apple’s Sheep Blast Off! “The universe conspired to make you,” a father tells his child (2008). as they gaze out at the moon one night from the child’s bed. As A winner for young sky watchers with stars…or cheese… the father goes on to wax poetic about his love, the art takes in their eyes. (Picture book. 5-7) readers on an intergalactic journey. Nebulae, galaxies, planets, and stars populate breathtaking, high-contrast double-page spreads that feature the curly-haired, brown-skinned child out THE SUNKEN TOWER in the universe. One spread depicts a silhouette of the child Howard, Tait while the text reads, “The iron in your blood, the calcium in Illus. by the author your bones, / are made up of stars that lived long ago.” Another, Oni Press (136 pp.) wordless spread depicts the child at the center of a giant atom. $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 Astrophysicist Jayawardhana’s picture-book debut effectively 978-1-62010-687-7 and eloquently affirms the importance of a single life amid the vastness of the universe—a small lesson under the blanket of Three unlikely heroes must escape a parental love. Though framed by the child’s first-person nar- creepy subterranean city. ration, the story is primarily driven by the father’s monologue. Homeless and orphaned, Dig is often Colón’s art, created in his signature scratched–colored pen- hungry. Searching for unattended food cil technique, revels in the details. The soft, cool tones of the in a busy market one day, he is captured by a strange-looking, Earth scenes provide a wow of a page turn as the colors explode red-cloaked lizard creature. He finds himself in a dungeon and with warmth in subsequent spreads. Gold foil stars speckle the there meets statuesque Iana and her girlfriend, Crina. The cover. There’s hardly room—or need—for white space in a book scarlet-clad reptilian dungeon keepers are members of a mys- this grand and glorious. terious blood cult, intent on sacrificing the trio in hopes of res- Out of this world. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture urrecting an evil monster. Dig, Iana, and Crina must navigate book. 4-8) their dangerous underground surroundings and try to make a break for the titular tower, through which they believe they can reach the surface. Howard’s graphic novel is a fun stand-alone THOMAS JEFFERSON AND that would certainly lend itself to further adventures. His art THE TRIPOLI PIRATES is big and bright, with an aesthetic quality reminiscent of the The War That Changed cartoon Steven Universe. Many of his action sequences are fast- American History (Young paced and full of giggleworthy gross-outs sure to keep pages Readers Adaptation) flying. The worldbuilding is accessible and inventive, but it is Kilmeade, Brian & Yaeger, Don the attention to character detail that sets this apart; Howard’s Viking (176 pp.) characters, both main and secondary, are all differently concep- $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 tualized: Some are animals, some are human, some are monsters, 978-0-425-28895-5 but most are diverse in skin color, height, and build. Main characters Iana and Crina’s relationship is at the forefront. Dig has The slimmed-down version of a 2015 ivory skin, Iana has peach skin, and Crina has pink skin. account of the United States’ first war with the “Mohammedan An auspiciously quirky and inclusive fantasy. (Graphic world.” fantasy. 8-12) Casting the Muslim lands of what were then dubbed the “Barbary States” as our young country’s “first enemy,” Fox News commentator Kilmeade and co-author Yaeger, who previously collaborated on George Washington’s Secret Six (2015) recount the course of this first, indecisive clash from the capture of the merchant ship Dauphin in 1785 to the 1805 treaty with the bashaw of Tripoli. (The second, more permanent clash in 1815 is covered in a brief footnote.) Jefferson was secretary of state and president for much of that period, but he seems rather dragged into the episode, coming off as a strong voice for a military solution

104 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | The real delight is the ease with which the protagonist’s disability is slipped into the illustrations. my ocean is blue

to the conflict but never directly involved in events or negotia- MY OCEAN IS BLUE tions. Moreover, though much is made of how captured Ameri- Lebeuf, Darren can crews were enslaved by the treacherous, greedy local deys, Illus. by Barron, Ashley there is no mention that Jefferson himself was a slaveholder. As Kids Can (32 pp.) the treaty was not won in battle, the authors deem it “tainted, $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 but the conflict did demonstrate that “Americans were not to 978-1-5253-0143-8 be trifled with” and allowed the U.S. to feel that “military force had helped regain national honor.” Small, sparse period illustra- A companion to Lebeuf and Barron’s tions are sometimes irrelevant or improperly placed. Wide mar- previous outing, My Forest is Green (2019). gins, lots of blank pages, and eight perfunctory appendices pad A young tot with short blond hair, pale skin, and a wondrous the page count. fascination with the ocean looks forward to spending the day A superficial remake, still agenda ridden, simplistic, at the beach. Incidental to the text but prominent in the illus- and overblown. (cast of characters, timeline, endnotes, trations, the child also uses forearm crutches. Cut paper that’s index) (Nonfiction. 11-14) been textured with watercolor, acrylic, and pencil crayon creates the scenes of pebbled sand, frothy waves, and quiet tide pools. The child sees the ocean as a multitude of opposites. AFTER THE RAIN Sometimes it is “big” (with a vast, endless horizon), and some- Koehn, Rebecca times it is “small” (a tiny hermit crab pokes out its head). Some- Illus. by Krüger, Simone times it is “dry” (a large piece of driftwood), and sometimes it is Beaming Books (32 pp.) “wet” (a splashing water fight). Lebeuf gradually builds to more

$17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 lyrical phrases. Sea gulls, whales, and dolphins playfully cavort young adult 978-1-5064-5451-1 while a motorboat slides by: “My ocean splashes and crashes / and echoes and squawks. // My ocean laughs and hums.” The A young boy who longs to play with real delight, besides the intentional focus on detailed observa- his toy boat is thrilled when the rain tions, is the ease with which the child’s disability is slipped into stops and the gutters and downspouts the illustrations. At times, the crutches are laid aside, showing gush. the tot swimming, kneeling, or playing in the sand. Any possible Levi watches from his nautically decorated bedroom as the preconceived limitations are dashed—instead, childlike wonder last drops of rain fall, quickly donning his yellow raincoat, boots, and curiosity shine. and hat and grabbing his boat when he spies the water overflow- A joyful marine romp. (Picture book. 3-6) ing the gutters. Krüger mixes wide-angle views with vignettes and close-up, ground-level perspectives to get readers right into the action with Levi as he stomps through puddles. The river HERE WE GO DIGGING FOR of water from the downspout to the drain in the sidewalk pro- DINOSAUR BONES vides endless fun for the boy and his toy boat…until Polly arrives Lendroth, Susan and claims the stream as her own. The angry visage on the tot, Illus. by Kolar, Bob who wears a raindrop-decorated poncho and red boots, sets the Charlesbridge (32 pp.) stage for a battle that involves splashes and tossed mud, expres- $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 sions speaking volumes. But when both kids realize the water is 978-1-62354-104-0 drying up, they call a truce and set about creating a mud, rock, leaf, and stick dam. The subsequent lake is a great place to play: To the tune of a familiar ditty, budding paleontologists can “Battle begun but not won. // Building together is much more march, dig, and sift with a crew of dinosaur hunters. fun.” The imagination on display will inspire readers, though Modeling her narrative after “Here We Go ’Round the Mul- the battle’s end is more serendipitous than strategic and won’t berry Bush,” Lendroth (Old Manhattan Has Some Farms, 2014, teach kids much in the way of problem-solving. Levi is dark etc.) invites readers to add appropriate actions and gestures as skinned, Polly light. they follow four scientists—modeled by Kolar as doll-like fig- Pull this out on the next rainy day and have boots, slick- ures of varied gender and racial presentation, with oversized ers, and boat at the ready. (Picture book. 3-6) heads to show off their broad smiles—on a dig. “This is the way we clean the bones, clean the bones, clean the bones. / This is the way we clean the bones on a warm and sunny morning.” The smiling paleontologists find, then carefully excavate, transport, and reassemble the fossil bones of a T. rex into a museum display. A fleshed-out view of the toothy specimen on a wordless spread brings the enterprise to a suitably dramatic climax, and unobtrusive notes in the lower corners capped by a closing overview add digestible quantities of dino-detail and context. As in Jes- sie Hartland’s How the Dinosaur Got to the Museum (2011), the

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 105 Lichtenheld’s sibling lovefest launches right from the clever endpapers. when my brother gets home

combination of patterned text and bright cartoon pictures of to make ends meet. One day at school, when it’s time to draw a scientists at accurately portrayed work offers just the ticket to portrait of each other, “they opened their eyes and observed.” spark or feed an early interest in matters prehistoric. Readers might think Eunice and Kate are going to notice their A common topic ably presented—with a participatory physical differences—Eunice is white with brown hair, and Kate element adding an unusual and brilliant angle. (Informa is black with tall, puffy hair. But it’s their friend’s dreams that they tional picture book. 4-7) question. Eunice draws Kate as a ballerina, and Kate draws Eunice as an astronaut. When they exchange drawings, each says, “That’s not me.” That night, after their mothers recognize some accuracy WHEN MY BROTHER in the portraits, each girl decides to make a new drawing, featur- GETS HOME ing both of them combining their dreams. The text alternates Lichtenheld, Tom between the girls at each page turn, which mostly works but some- Illus. by the author times feels a bit forced, as do the pages about their mothers; the HMH Books (40 pp.) structure is not quite enough to give the story a cohesive feel. The $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 cartoon illustrations dramatize thoughts and feelings with expres- 978-1-328-49805-2 sive faces, close-ups, and a range of layouts. Despite some structural weaknesses, a thoughtful What’s better than a big brother? A big brother who asks, treatment of what it means to be a friend. (Picture book. 4-8) “So what do you want to do?”! A ponytailed little sister impatiently searches for any sign of the school bus. Propped against a tree, she anticipates the EXPLOSION AT THE death-defying exploits she and her brother will embark upon— POEM FACTORY after feeding their loyal subjects. Will they ford the mighty Lukoff, Kyle Amazon, or will they find themselves locked in a fierce struggle Illus. by Hoffmann, Mark against a snarling alligator? As the feisty sprite conjures up a Groundwood (44 pp.) round-the-world trip on their very own jumbo jet, the school $18.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 bus is turning the corner…“MY BROTHER’S HOME!” Lich- 978-1-77306-132-0 tenheld’s sibling lovefest launches right from the clever endpapers. The bus route is plotted in black dashes from the school A nonsensical illustrated primer on to the tree—broken up halfway home by the story itself. As the prosody. refrain, “When my brother gets home,” is repeated, a childlike One of the most memorable scenes crayon drawing clues readers in to the bus’s progress. Each rep- in Lukoff’s madcap picture-book debut, etition is followed up by thought bubbles depicting their very A Storytelling of Ravens, illustrated by Natalie Nelson (2018), next adventure—maybe it will be a daredevil plunge into a rag- involves hippos racing to investigate an “explosion at the cup- ing waterfall! From the striped, marmalade cat to the scruffy, cake factory.” Here Lukoff reprises this notion of industrial-sized up-for-anything dog, everyone is supercharged and ready to catastrophe, revealing in the author’s note that it was inspired go—not a screen to be had on any of the pages. Both kids have by a college friend’s award-winning intentionally bad poem. This brown skin and black hair, and their imaginations make their background helps drive the wacky poetic in-jokes adorning this ordinary suburb quite extraordinary. inventive exploration of the mechanics of poetry as the endear- The characters’ energy explodes from this endearing ing Kilmer Watts finds employment at Amalgamated Verse & tribute to sibling interactions and affection. (Picture book. Strophe, a thriving factory that ships “everything from odes to 4-7) epithalamiums to markets across the land.” Kilmer takes quickly to his new vocation, learning how to “operate the meter meter and empty the cliché bins,” though not without the occasional EUNICE AND KATE mistake, resulting in some oversyllabified haikus and “several Llanos, Mariana sheets of blank verse” coming out “entirely blank.” Hoffmann’s Illus. by Napoli, Elena playfully expressive double-page illustrations feature views of Penny Candy (44 pp.) sausage-shaped humans amid wild visions of cogs and wheels. $16.95 | Feb. 11, 2020 They heighten Lukoff’s guffaws, extending the wordplay; the 978-0-9996584-7-5 enjambment machine is cleverly marked with the labels “EN / JAMB / MENT,” for instance. When the forecasted factory disas- Eunice and Kate are always together, ter comes to pass, Kilmer finds an even better role for poetry and but each must learn to appreciate the himself in town, providing a glimpse beyond verse’s structure to other for who she truly is. its meaning. Rich backmatter on poetic structure and a glossary Eunice and Kate live in “side-by-side apartments,” where their make this a solid reference as well. mothers do laundry in the same basement and chat while Eunice Lukoff’s sophisticated silliness hits the sweet spot for and Kate share their dreams. Eunice dreams of being a ballerina; lovers of wordplay. (Picture book. 6-9) (Note: Lukoff is a freelance Kate dreams of being an astronaut. Both girls’ loving moms work contributor to Kirkus.)

106 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | CLARENCE’S BIG SECRET the surprises are more satisfying than the actual jokes. The low MacGregor, Roy & Cation, Christine point is when Clarence picks up soil instead of oil. Even the MacGregor narrator often seems surprised, with comments like, “Seriously, Illus. by Cinq-Mars, Mathilde Clarence? WHAT are you thinking?” If those exclamations are Owlkids Books (32 pp.) a little too intrusive, the surprises in the artwork are wonder- $17.95 | Mar. 15, 2020 fully nontraditional. They reverse the usual big-head, big-eyes 978-1-77147-331-6 style of cartooning. Most of the animals have long, lanky bodies and pinprick eyes. But the best surprise is what a joyful found Imagine learning to read when you’re family the animals make at Shabbat dinner. nearly 100! Jaded readers will love this crafty twist on the holy fool. Meet Clarence Brazier. Mortified on his first day of school (Picture book. 3-8) when he couldn’t spell his name (he hadn’t learned the alphabet) and was mocked by other pupils, Clarence ran home and never returned. Shortly afterward, Clarence’s father was blinded in an THE BEDTIME BOOK accident, and the boy took over the family farm. Before Clar- Marendaz, S. ence married, he confided his illiteracy to his fiancee, making Illus. by Gledhill, Carly her promise to tell no one. When his wife died, Clarence was Tiger Tales (32 pp.) 93, alone, and lost; how would he manage? He taught himself $17.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 to read, devising homemade primers from mail and packag- 978-1-68010-186-7 ing. Eventually, he told his daughter, a retired teacher, and she

tutored him. Clarence died in 2012, aged 105. This is a well-writ- Mouse needs her favorite bedtime young adult ten ode to motivation, perseverance, and the idea that it’s never book now! too late, but readers may wonder why no one taught Clarence Poor Mouse is very upset, so she reaches out to good pal to read outside of school or why his wife did not teach him— Frank the dog. Mouse left her favorite bedtime book outside these points are not raised in the story. Nevertheless, young- her flowerpot home, and now it’s missing. Frank, having just sters who are readers should feel empowered, and those who are roused himself from bed, extends a concerned paw and checks not—yet—will take hope. The soft shades of the charming, tex- for himself. His keen nose discerns a trail leading to mutual tured, expressive illustrations aptly convey an old-time–y feel. friend Bella the cat, who concedes she left Mouse’s book near Clarence is white; a final scene depicts him reading to diverse Owl’s house. The trio hurries off, but…no book. And it turns schoolkids. An informative author’s note includes a photograph out that Owl has given the book to Baby Hedgehog. Disconso- of Clarence and sobering data about worldwide illiteracy. late Mouse doesn’t have the heart to retrieve her book from the Commendably inspires respect for an older person but baby, so everyone returns home. Frank attempts to fall asleep leaves some questions unanswered. (Picture book/biography. again, but, struck with a sudden idea, he rushes off to Mouse. 5-8) The idea? Kindly Frank’s brought his favorite nighttime book to share with her. As Mouse listens, it sounds familiar: She and Frank have the same favorite bedtime book, so Mouse gets to CLARENCE’S TOPSY-TURVY hear her favorite story after all! This British import is simple, SHABBAT sweet, and gentle—if also thin and predictable. Sharp young- MacLeod, Jennifer Tzivia sters will wonder why clues about the book’s cover design, men- Illus. by Poh, Jennie tioned earlier in the story, didn’t tip Frank off sooner that his Kar-Ben (24 pp.) and Mouse’s favorite bedtime books are identical. Collagelike $17.99 | $7.99 paper | Apr. 7, 2020 illustrations enhance the charm, with endearing, wide-eyed ani- 978-1-5415-4242-6 mal characters posed against black or dark-green backgrounds. 978-1-5415-4243-3 paper Though unoriginal, this is a bedtime book kids will likely want to keep. (Picture book. 3-6) Clarence the raccoon might be the anti–Amelia Bedelia. There’s a long tradition of lovable fools, like Amelia Bede- lia and Lazy Jack, who are so sweet that everyone adores them even when they get things hopelessly mixed up. When Amelia Bedelia dresses a chicken, it ends up wearing a charming outfit, and, in this picture book, Clarence seems to follow the same school of thought. When he’s baking challah bread for the Jew- ish Sabbath, he comes home with a bunny instead of honey and a beast instead of yeast. But Clarence is much more cunning than his progenitors. The animals turn out to be a fantastic baking team. The beast, for example, is an “absolutely terrific” kneader. Almost every page of the book has an unexpected twist, and

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 107 FOLLOW THOSE ZEBRAS personality traits to find which jobs might be right for them. Solving a Migration Mystery This oversized volume is attractively illustrated and represents Markle, Sandra a diversity of skin tones and hair textures. The thoughtful Millbrook/Lerner (40 pp.) details about each career are helpful and thorough, and the first- $31.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 person narration is inviting. However, the police dog handler’s 978-1-5415-3837-5 job description will unsettle some readers: The dog is trained to Series: Sandra Markle’s Science Discoveries apprehend “suspects by biting them on the arm and holding on until I give the command to let go,” a detail that won’t escape Scientists solve the mystery of a disappearing zebra herd. children who know incarcerated adults or who are already afraid A herd of plains zebra regularly vanishes from the Chobe of police—yet the woman of color who speaks says the hardest River flood plains in Namibia and Botswana during the dry sea- part of the job is staying fit to keep up with the dog. son, but until Robin Naidoo and other scientists fitted some of An overall valuable volume with a major oversight. these animals with GPS trackers, no one knew where they went (Nonfiction. -8 12) or why. Markle (The Great Shark Rescue, 2019, etc.) ably describes the species, its habitat in the Serengeti Plain, the phenomenon of migration, the science research, and its surprising results: a SPACEMAN “record-holding zebra migration” to the grasses in Botswana’s The True Story of a Young Nxai Pan National Park, which have extra nutrients for the Boy’s Journey to Becoming mares and the foals they bear there. Her clear explanations are an Astronaut (Adapted for accompanied by well-chosen and informatively captioned pho- Young Readers) tographs from a variety of sources. The lively design includes Massimino, Mike a striking zebra-coat background surrounding boxes with addi- Delacorte (288 pp.) tional information and images. Maps help American readers $17.99 | $20.99 PLB | Apr. 7, 2020 locate this migration in southern Africa. One that includes the 978-0-593-12086-6 tracked migration routes of eight females demonstrates the 978-0-593-12087-3 PLB astonishing directness of the 155-mile journey undertaken by seven (the meandering route taken by the eighth is unexplained). A 2016 memoir from the first astro- The author concludes with concerns about the possible effects naut to tweet from space, lightly tweaked for younger readers. of the changing climate and how conservation groups are plan- Along with some reworking of the prose, Massimino drops ning to help the zebras so that they can continue to travel unim- chapters on his father’s death and his schooling in NASA fund- peded and find water on their way. raising and media relations. As a result, though this edition isn’t A hopeful and helpful addition to any nature library. significantly shorter or easier to read than the original, his valo- (author’s note, fast facts, glossary, source notes, further rization of teamwork, maintaining a positive attitude, and over- reading, index) (Nonfiction. -8 11) coming past struggles and reverses through determination play out less in his private life than in his roller-coaster ride through school, astronaut training, and two missions into space. For- I LIKE ANIMALS… tunately, he also paints vivid word pictures, whether capturing What Jobs Are There? the heady experience of playing with an Astronaut Snoopy as a Martin, Steve child (“I still have him, only now he’s been to space for real”) or, Illus. by Blefari, Roberto memorably, the removal of what he repeatedly describes as “111 Kane/Miller (48 pp.) very tiny screws” from a failed device on the Hubble Space Tele- $15.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 scope. Readers will feel his profound shock, but also relief, upon 978-1-61067-989-3 learning (in a segment pointedly titled “Russian Roulette”) that Series: That’s a Job? the shuttle Columbia had come apart upon reentry on the mission just after his. Yes, he writes, it’s very nearly impossible to Children who like animals may find a become an astronaut, but: “I wanted to grow up to be Spider- new dream job in this informational volume. Man—and I did.” Photo illustrations not seen. A two-page introduction describes some basic “qualities Readers of either edition will be in for a grand, inspir- and skills for working with animals,” such as “a kind, caring ing, sometimes hilarious ride. (Autobiography. 11-13) personality” and “a real passion to help them.” Each successive spread then introduces one or two jobs or careers, including the familiar neighborhood veterinarian, entomologist, and pet portrait artist, via a fictional representative’s narration. Each snapshot begins with an overview of why they came to this job and how they became qualified for it, continues with their daily tasks, and notes the “best” and “worst” parts of the job. A guide at the end helps readers trace their own skills, interests, and

108 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Brie’s journey is a nuanced exploration of how to reconcile faith and identity. in the role of brie hutchens…

THE FOREST MAN Luis struggle to build rapport, but determined to give one The True Story of Jadav another a second chance, the families decide on a hike. When Payeng the children are accidentally separated from the adults, they Matheson, Anne must learn to work together despite their differences in order Illus. by Widdowson, Kay to make it to their rendezvous point safely, in the process learn- Flowerpot Press (40 pp.) ing to confront problems and think with empathy and creativity. $16.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 With chapters switching narrative focus between the two pro- 978-1-4867-1816-0 tagonists, their inner turmoil is handled with sensitivity, creating a character-driven tale that doesn’t skimp on plot. While This picture-book biography of Jadav Payeng, hailed as “the Luis’ issues with severe allergies are explicit, Sutton’s struggles forest man of India,” details his effort to single-handedly refor- with emotional expression and sensory overload are never given est his river island home. a name, though they are likely to resonate with readers on the In the opening pages of the book, 14-year-old Payeng is dis- autism spectrum. Luis is mixed-race Latinx and white, Sutton traught by the destruction that deforestation and erosion are is white, and the supporting cast includes Asian and LGBTQ causing in his community, an island on the mighty Brahmaputra friends and neighbors. The notable representation of female River in northeastern India. Every day after taking care of his characters in diverse STEM fields is heartening. chores, he plants trees on a sandbar laid bare by erosion. For Minor perils and likable characters make for a cozy and over 35 years he does this, planting first bamboo trees and then enjoyable read. (Fiction. 8-12) other species. Today, Molai Forest is a lush woodland that is no longer desolate: It is home to elephants, rhinoceroses, deer,

wild boars, vultures, and tigers. Widdowson’s simple, brightly IN THE ROLE OF young adult colored art unfolds as the text does, showcasing stark, eroded BRIE HUTCHENS... shorelines and stranded animals in the opening pages, then Melleby, Nicole verdant coastal forests and smiling animals at the book’s close. Algonquin (272 pp.) Additional backmatter details Payeng’s continued commitment $16.95 | Apr. 21, 2020 to the revitalization of this fragile ecosystem along with further 978-1-61620-907-0 biographical information, such as his receiving one of India’s highest civilian awards, the Padma Shri. This is the second such From the author of Hurricane Season picture book about Payeng, following The Boy Who Grew a Forest, (2019) comes a story about the lengths to by Sophia Gholz and illustrated by Kayla Harren (2019). Payeng which people go to avoid the discomfort is a member of the Mishing, a marginalized tribal community in of change. India; as climate change greatly affects Indigenous and vulner- Aspiring actor Brie, 13, loves soap able communities, this coverage is both welcome and necessary. operas, with their dramatic plot twists and complex webs of An excellent, child-friendly introduction to a global relationships. Brie does not love school: Her mediocre grades, issue. (fast facts, glossary, further reading) (Picture book/ “organization issues,” and ambivalence about religion dismay biography. 5-8) most of the teachers at her co-ed Catholic middle school. But after her mom accidentally learns that Brie likes girls, not boys, Brie attempts to become an A student and a more devout A FIELD GUIDE TO Catholic to “keep [her] mom’s focus away” from this develop- GETTING LOST ing discovery. The problem is that being a “good girl” is not so McCullough, Joy easy as Brie’s perfect, pious classmate Kennedy makes it seem, Atheneum (224 pp.) and in trying to be like Kennedy, Brie realizes they might have $17.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 more in common than she thought….Unlike the soap operas 978-1-5344-3849-1 Brie devours, this is no rehashing of stale tropes. Brie’s journey is not one of escape from a stifling Catholic girlhood but is a McCullough, who was a Morris YA more nuanced exploration of how to reconcile faith and iden- Debut Award finalist for Blood Water tity. Melleby’s clear, honest voice expertly captures the frustra- Paint (2018), draws inspiration from her tion, awkwardness, and fear of being vulnerable—as well as the hometown of Seattle in her middle- potential rewards. Brie, Kennedy, Brie’s best friend, and their grade debut. families appear white; Wallace, “one of three black kids in their On the surface, Sutton and Luis could not be more differ- grade,” is a well-developed secondary character. ent. Sutton is a logic-ruled robot coder with a passion for hard This funny, tender, and heart-wrenching story will science while Luis is a fantasy writer who uses his pen to go have readers calling for an encore. (Fiction. 8-13) on adventures that his allergies prevent him from undertak- ing in real life. Both are from single-parent homes, and when their parents’ nascent romance grows serious, they are thrust together. Their first encounter is a bit of a bust as Sutton and

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 109 It breaks no new ground, but even the worms are smiling. one little lot

FREE FOR YOU AND ME friends, and to “use your strength to shine a light / on what is What Our First wrong and what is RIGHT.” A white tiger with multicolored Amendment Means stripes encourages further growth: “To your spirit you’ll stay Mihaly, Christy true, never sorry to be you. / But CHANGE YOUR STRIPES Illus. by Montoya, Manu / if they don’t suit you. / Dare to swap them—we’ll salute you.” Whitman (32 pp.) Most spreads contain a complete four-line rhythmic and rhym- $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 ing stanza in second person. A variety of other animals join 978-0-8075-2441-1 the tiger in its shining moment. The book’s open commercial appeal doesn’t mask its effectiveness. A simple explanation of the rights Congratulatory cheerleading and wise whimsy to cel- laid out in the First Amendment, with examples historical and ebrate accomplishments of all sorts. (Picture book. 4-8, all ages) otherwise showing them in operation. Mihaly, an experienced lawyer and author of a nonfiction series on human rights, restates each constitutional right in ONE LITTLE LOT plodding but easy-to-understand verse (“Freedom of assembly The 1-2-3s of an Urban / means Americans can show— / with marches and with rallies— Garden / what they want the world to know”), with each right allotted Mullen, Diane C. one to three double-page spreads. Dramatized tableaux with Illus. by Vidal, Oriol speech bubbles provide interpretation or context. George Charlesbridge (32 pp.) Washington responds to a Jewish questioner concerned about $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 freedom of religion; readers meet Congressman Matthew Lyon, 978-1-58089-889-8 who was arrested in 1798 for bad-mouthing President John Adams (and reelected from jail); a fictive group of schoolchil- One empty lot needs two helping hands, three days of dren peaceably gathers to protest the planned closing of a local cleanup, and so on to become a community garden “full of playground. In the interest of keeping it simple, she does veer delicious!” into some gray areas; most notably, in an exchange between two In, mostly, aerial or elevated views, Vidal’s bright, painted children that consists entirely of “You can’t say that!” “Yes I can! illustrations track the lot’s transformation from a (tidy-looking, It’s a FREE COUNTRY!” she implicitly leaves room for unpro- admittedly) dumping ground behind a rusty chain-link fence. tected libel and hate speech. A prose closing section provides Echoing the multiethnic and multiracial nature of the group further information. Most of Montoya’s carefully individual- of neighbors who gather to do the work (white-presenting fig- ized human figures are or look like children, even the historical ures are in the minority), the eventual crops include bok choy, ones, and she includes some characters with visible disabilities collard greens, and kittley along with beans, bell peppers, and and people in religious dress in her racially diverse cast. cherry tomatoes—all of which end up incorporated in the cli- Staid but timely, valuable as a gateway to further study. mactic spread into a community dinner spread out on tables (resource lists) (Informational picture book. 7-10) among the planting boxes. Typically of such garden-themed picture-book tributes, the spirit of community and joy at the eventual bounty elbow out any real acknowledgement of the GO GET ’EM, TIGER! necessary sweat equity (there’s not even a glancing reference to Moyle, Sabrina weeding here, for instance) or the sense of an entire season’s Illus. by Moyle, Eunice passing between planting and harvest. Also, as that public feast abramsappleseed (32 pp.) is created by considerably more than “Ten newfound friends,” $16.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 the counting is just a conceit. Mullen closes with notes on the 978-1-4197-3964-4 actual garden in Minneapolis that inspired her and on making Series: Hello!Lucky gardens bee-friendly. It breaks no new ground, but even the worms are smil- Go ahead. Judge this book by the cover. ing. (Picture book. 6-8) On a softly psychedelic background, a cartoon-style tiger greets readers with a wonderfully cheesy smile that is every orthodontist’s dream. A sticker reads: “The PERFECT gift for every milestone!” In text uniformly presented in the second person, each spread inside gives readers a boost. “Because you’re / FIERCE. / A rising star! / You’ve earned your stripes. / You’ve come so far! / No matter who you choose / to be, you’ll be / TERR-IFIC. / Wait and see!” (Even though the text is in verse, it’s not always laid out accordingly.) Readers are encouraged to “find your place” and to “do your part” but also to “be humble,” to “land on your paws” in times of trouble, to help new

110 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | GOODNIGHT, VEGGIES who will not venture down the mountain out of fear of these Murray, Diana humans who look so much different. After sharing their mutual Illus. by OHora, Zachariah misconceptions, Hasan and the ghoul realize that they can still HMH Books (32 pp.) be friends despite their differences. Children will giggle at both $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 the ghoul’s physical ridiculousness (it looks like a shaggy purple 978-1-328-86683-7 cyclops with an endearingly goofy grin) and the colloquy that reveals important truths: “But…ghouls are vegetarians.” This Even veggies get tired, it seems. Jordanian import has great potential to serve caregivers and Illustrator OHora’s adorable anthro- educators in facilitating discussions about perceiving—and pomorphic veggies star in this bedtime more importantly, accepting—the “other” despite differences ramble. The illustrations, appropriately created with 100% and initial assumptions. vegetarian paper and acrylic paint, portray veggies in brilliant A stimulating and funny fantasy about acceptance. (Pic realistic colors with thick, black-line details that pop against ture book. 3-8) a pale sky or textured brown earth. A pink-segmented worm guide with a rakish hat and one sock and sneaker winds its way through an urban rooftop community garden as day ends, visit- THE BOY AND THE ing every veggie preparing for bed or “snoozing, / beneath the WILD BLUE GIRL moon so bright, // for nothing’s more exhausting / than growing Negley, Keith day and night.” In Murray’s playful rhyming text, “tuckered-out Illus. by the author tomatoes” hum lullabies, cauliflowers cuddle, “beets are / simply Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (40 pp.)

beat,” and “celery is snoring / as sunset disappears.” With just $17.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 young adult two to nine words per page, the story makes for quick reading, 978-0-06-284680-8 but its steady rhythm, whimsical rhymes, abundant alliteration, and hand-lettered sleep-appropriate sounds to share like Who’s gusting around town and “zzzzz” and “snore! snore!” extend the read-aloud experience. cheerfully blowing things hither and yon? The illustrations are equally charming, smiling faces on most Poul’s “curious about the wild blue girl.” Poul, a redheaded of the vegetables matching the worm’s grin. One rhubarb stalk white boy, stands holding a pinwheel while another kid disap- improbably holds a book, reading aloud to some broccoli. The pears off the page nearby—someone with streaming blue hair eggplants are revealed to have expansive dreams! Familiar gar- and blue pants with blue suspenders. In fact, everything about den creatures also hide in plain sight on most garden spreads. her is blue, including her big blue grin and the blue rosiness The human gardener, seen tangentially at the beginning of the of her cheeks (her skin is the white of the background paper). story, has brown skin. She’s the same size as Poul, but her strength and influence A bedtime veggie feast for the eyes and ears. (Picture book. aren’t: Everywhere she goes, hats and flowers blow away, hair 3-6) gusts sideways, and no pile of leaves is safe. The townspeople, a multiracial group, consider her “a nuisance,” but Poul adores her and sets out researching her powers, “study[ing] and THE GHOUL measure[ing], test[ing] and buil[ding].” He erects a windmill— Najjar, Taghreed for she is, of course, the wind. Negley’s watercolor pencils and Illus. by Manasra, Hassan cut-paper collage (of solid paper, patterned paper, and news- Trans. by Moushabeck, Michel print) create a breezy, buoyant setting with ample air and an Crocodile/Interlink (36 pp.) exuberant feeling even during the (mild) chaos. The text never $17.95 | Feb. 4, 2020 identifies the wild blue girl as the wind, but readers will get 978-1-62371-925-8 it. However, what they won’t understand, unless they already know about windmills, is the turbine Poul builds. The art The story of Hasan, a young and shows turbines, but neither art nor text explains a thing about courageous boy from a small village who them (until the author’s note introduces 19th-century Danish decides to brave the unknown. scientist/inventor Poul la Cour). Inspired by Arab folklore, the story revolves around life in a This celebration of renewable power is all about the quiet and peaceful village somewhere in Arabia, where the only manic pixie wind girl. (historical photograph) (Picture book. thing disturbing the surrounding peace is the ghoul living up 3-8) the mountain—a monster everyone dreads and fears. While nobody has actually seen it, all the villagers are worried that it might eat children, so they tiptoe and whisper lest they draw its attention. Perplexed by the idea of a monster that nobody has seen or heard, Hasan decides to defy his parents and investigate for himself. To his surprise, he finds a creature that is just as afraid of humans as they are of it, an estranged being

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 111 THE LONELY HEART OF following year, plagued by poor management, failed to sum- MAYBELLE LANE mit also and resulted in four deaths. Fifteen years later, in 1953, O’Shaughnessy, Kate Charlie Houston tried again. Olson writes with assurance and Knopf (288 pp.) empathy, detailing the nearly unbelievable hardships borne by $16.99 | $19.99 PLB | Mar. 3, 2020 the climbers and narratively balancing the individuals’ obses- 978-1-9848-9383-3 sion to summit against the humanity of the so-called “broth- 978-1-9848-9384-0 PLB erhood of the rope”—climbers are roped together, therefore literally dependent on one another for their lives. He takes care On a road trip to Nashville to sing in to include the porters and Sherpas of these early expeditions— a competition judged by the father she’s too often considered merely as servants by the wealthy white never met, 11-year-old Maybelle Lane men who hired them—by including photographs and giving finds courage she didn’t know she had— them equal credit in his narrative. and it’s contagious. Gripping, well-researched, superb entertainment. The panic-prone narrator’s mother warns her: “noth- (author’s note, sources, notes) (Nonfiction. 10 -18) ing good will come” from learning anything more about the father she’s only known as a radio voice. But when she hears about his role in the upcoming contest, she can’t resist signing GHOST SQUAD up. Unexpectedly, her neighbor Mrs. Boggs agrees to drive her Ortega, Claribel there from their trailer-park home in Louisiana. Mrs. Boggs Scholastic (256 pp.) is the strictest teacher in her school, but she has a heart. She $17.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 even allows Tommy O’Brien, a detested classmate with a dif- 978-1-338-28012-8 ficult home life, to come along after he stows away in the RV. These are well-developed, complex characters who all grow and After unwittingly unleashing dead change over the course of their road trip. The two children are spirits on St. Augustine, Florida, Lucely white; Mrs. Boggs is an African American widow, still mourning Luna works to restore the city with the her husband but strong in other ways. She addresses a stranger’s help of friend Syd and the spirits of her casual racism directly and quellingly, explaining to Maybelle: family. “If you’re going to control twenty wriggly eleven-year-olds, you Dominican American Lucely Luna better know how to command a room.” Lonely Maybelle is a lives with her family. Her father, Simon, runs a ghost tour busi- budding musician who collects sounds on her old-fashioned ness. The rest of them are deceased but are still very much in tape recorder, labeling the collection she makes on their trip her life, their spirits appearing to her as cucuyos, or fireflies. “the sound of happiness,” reflecting her growing maturity in the Alarmingly, after one ghost tour, the spirit of Lucely’s grandma, face of the mission’s mixed success. Mamá, goes dim. At school, Lucely learns of Las Brujas Mora- A rich and rewarding debut. (Fiction. 8-12) das, witches who fled Spain during the Inquisition and who were reputed to have a lost spell book. Lucely and her best friend, Syd, decide to look for a spell that can awaken the dead INTO THE CLOUDS so they can wake Mamá up, so they prowl through the library of The Race To Climb the Syd’s grandmother Babette, who owns an occult shop. When World’s Most Dangerous they recite a spell they find there, they accidentally awaken Mountain other—evil—spirits of the town. Lucely and Syd join forces Olson, Tod with Babette and Lucely’s spirit family in the fight to save St. Scholastic Focus (288 pp.) Augustine and Mamá. Lucely’s action-packed and ghost-filled $18.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 adventures unfold briskly, with seamlessly incorporated and 978-1-338-20736-1 unitalicized Spanish. While it’s undeniably a ghost story, Luce- ly’s love for her family, both corporeal and spirit, carries the nar- Olson details the first three attempts rative, giving it warmth and depth. Readers will root for Lucely by Americans to summit K2. and Syd as they try to save St. Augustine and Lucely’s cucuyos. K2, at 28,250 feet, is the second- Both girls present black on the cover. highest mountain in the Himalayan chain and is considered by A warmly spooky middle-grade debut. (Fantasy. 8-12) climbers the most difficult of the over-8,000-meter peaks, of which Everest is the highest. In 1938, when Olson’s gripping tale begins, no one had climbed K2. Medical student Charlie Houston and his handpicked team were tasked by the American Alpine Club to scout a route up K2 so that another team headed by climber Fritz Wiessner could summit the following year. Enduring frigid cold and danger, Houston and another climber reached 26,000 feet before descending. Wiessner’s attempt the

112 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Like the woods, this book is an immersive experience that invites repeated visits. hike

HIKE it with empathy and dignity. Hanna’s encounters with women Oswald, Pete of the nearby Ihanktonwan community are a treat; they hint Illus. by the author at the whole world beyond a white settler perspective, a world Candlewick (40 pp.) all children deserve to learn about. A deeply personal author’s $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 note about the story’s inspiration may leave readers wishing for 978-1-5362-0157-4 additional resources for further study and more clarity about her use of Lakota/Dakota. While the cover art unfortunately A brown father-and-child pair leave evokes none of the richness of the text and instead insinuates the city behind for a day together in the insidious stereotypes, readers who sink into the pages behind mountains in this wordless picture book it will be rewarded. by the illustrator of The Good Egg, by Jory Remarkable. (Historical fiction. -8 12) John (2019). The sun sets on a suburban row house with a fenced yard and a jeep outside. A man tucks a child into bed in a room filled THE BIG BOOK OF with outdoor gear. The next morning comes quickly, and the BIBLE QUESTIONS child jumps out of bed to gets dressed and packed for a day in Parker, Amy & Powell, Doug the great outdoors. The two drive out of the town and park at Illus. by Tempest, Annabel a trailhead. Backpacks on, they hike a trail that leads through Tyndale House (144 pp.) thick woods populated by animals, only some of which reveal $14.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 themselves. Binoculars, camera, trail mix, walking sticks, and 978-1-4964-3524-8

even rope and helmets come in handy along the way as they young adult explore, but the highlights are the wondrous view from the sum- Powell, a veteran of adult apologet- mit and the act of planting a tree together there. Dusk ushers ics, teams up with Christian children’s the father and child out of the woods, and it is dark by the time author Parker (Night Night, Zoo, illus- they arrive home and share cookies over the family album in trated by Virginia Allyn, 2019, etc.) for this colorful compen- their pajamas. The blue- and green-themed art rewards readers dium of Bible questions. who look closely. The relationship between the father and child Starting with basic theology presented in accessible lan- makes this not just a picture book set in the outdoors, but a guage and engaging illustrations, the authors progress through warm expression of how memories are created and bonds form. the Old and New Testaments, answering questions that follow Like the woods, this book is an immersive experience along with the traditional Christian ordering of the books of that invites repeated visits. (Picture book. 2-8) the Bible. Though more-difficult passages and characters from the source text are glossed over, the authors do an admirable job of presenting Bible stories and doctrinal teaching in a way PRAIRIE LOTUS that is kid-friendly and leaves room for questions the text does Park, Linda Sue not have a firm answer for. Because of this deft flexibility while Clarion (272 pp.) remaining true to the canon, this book will have broad appeal $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 in a variety of homes and for those curious to learn about core 978-1-328-78150-5 concepts of Christian theology. The pitying attitude expressed toward adherents of non-Christian beliefs, set opposite photo- A “half-Chinese and half-white” girl graphs of an Indian bharatanatyam dancer, a Buddhist monk, a finds her place in a Little House–inspired woman in niqab, a child in a kippah, and a professorial-looking fictional settler town. white man (a representative atheist?), among others, makes plain After the death of her Chinese its evangelical roots, however. While Tempest’s illustrations mother, Hanna, an aspiring dressmaker, depict diverse believers, most artwork featured is from West- and her white father seek a fresh start in ern traditions, and several Bible characters appear white rather Dakota Territory. It’s 1880, and they endure challenges similar than Middle Eastern even though the text explicitly points out to those faced by the Ingallses and so many others: dreary travel these origins of the Bible stories. There is no backmatter. through unfamiliar lands, the struggle to protect food stores Many Christian families will want to make room on the from nature, and the risky uncertainty of establishing a liveli- shelves for this big book. (Religion. 7-12) hood in a new place. Fans of the Little House books will find many of the small satisfactions of Laura’s stories—the mouthwatering descriptions of victuals, the attention to smart building construction, the glorious details of pleats and poplins—here in abundance. Park brings new depth to these well-trodden tales, though, as she renders visible both the xenophobia of the town’s white residents, which ranges in expression from microaggressions to full-out assault, and Hanna’s fight to overcome

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 113 Illustrations are graphically simple, with cheerful cartoon animals contributing to the upbeat mood. morning, sunshine!

MORNING, SUNSHINE! wonder why this text calls what every American child learns Parrack, Keely about as the “water cycle” the “hydrologic cycle” instead. The Illus. by Bajet, John survey is digitally illustrated with stylized images that colorfully North Atlantic (32 pp.) support the text. On a final spread describing positive efforts to $17.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 solve environmental issues, the illustrator shows a diverse group 978-1-62317-385-2 of children sitting on a tree branch made of two different kinds of trees, with roots that also connect. It’s a nice touch. Many This picture book combines poetry books that break complex subjects down for young readers with with facts about nature. general statements and attention-catching examples can leave a Using the arrival of morning as its focus and theme, this few false impressions. This survey shares that flaw. nonfiction book provides information about animal, insect, and Not “everything you need to know” but a well-inten- bird life along with some general natural science. From birds’ tioned effort. (glossary, selected sources, index) (Nonfiction. singing in the morning through moths’ finding quiet spots to 9-12) rest as the sun rises to the daily routines of rabbits, foxes, and other animals, readers will discover fascinating facts about Earth’s creatures. Combining entertainment and information, THE FORT this book not only features the lives of animals, but it also Perdew, Laura explains why the sky changes color throughout the day and how Illus. by Lirius, Adelina the Earth’s rotation creates the phenomena of day and night. Page Street (32 pp.) Each double-page spread highlights a different creature or nat- $17.99 | Apr. 21, 2020 ural phenomenon; there’s a haiku on verso and on recto, a mod- 978-1-62414-925-2 erately sized paragraph with both commonly known and more unusual facts. Highlighted words stand out as obvious vocabu- Two children unwittingly—and unwill- lary builders; readers can learn their meanings in the appended ingly—share a fort in the woods, until one glossary. The illustrations are large-scale and vivid, with the pal- day their paths cross; will they fight or unite? ette lightening over the course of the book as morning takes The prince, a white boy, struts toward his “castle,” planning hold. Illustrations are graphically simple, with cheerful cartoon his feast—only to discover, among other pirate effects, a trea- animals contributing to the upbeat mood. An added bonus is a sure map scribbled on his invitation and an eye patch on the page at the back encouraging readers to write their own nature floor of his great hall. He rids the place of the pirate things and haiku. continues planning his royal feast. The next day, the pirate, a The combination of haiku, attractive illustrations, and black girl, dreams of travel and treasure as she parades toward interesting information makes this a keeper. (Informational her “ship”—but she discovers a feast invitation, a crown, and picture book. 6-8) table settings. She tosses out the royal items and tidies up on deck. Each finds the unwelcome changes on their next solo visit too, but on the day of the feast, the prince and the pirate come OUR ENVIRONMENT face to face. When each discovers their intruder, a fight over Everything You Need To Know the space with shouts of “No pirates allowed” and “No royalty Pasquet, Jacques allowed” gives way to a new use for the fort: spacecraft. This is Illus. by Dumont, Yves a vision the two children can, and do, share. The illustrations Trans. by Tanaka, Shelley bring the children’s imaginations to life on the page, turning Owlkids Books (56 pp.) the fort into lush scenes depending on the beholder, leaving it $18.95 | Mar. 15, 2020 simple and ragged only when the two argue. The values of imag- 978-1-77147-389-7 ination and collaboration are conveyed without a heavy hand. Two caveats: The interracial casting does not reflect real-world We need to know about our environment—water, air, soil, power dynamics, even among children, and one unfortunate energy, and climate—in order to understand how and why it is imaginary scene sees the white boy presiding over a group of changing. subjects of color. A French-Canadian writer for young people takes on this Mostly delightful. (Picture book. 3-8) complicated subject, splitting it into parts and presenting them in short, accessible-looking bits. Each major component gets a chapter; each spread covers a single topic with headings and subheadings. He moves logically from topic to topic and provides some connections. Concluding with the idea of climate change, he makes clear that “human activities…are largely responsible for [it].” Some vocabulary may prove challenging, but important words and phrases are bolded and defined in a glossary. Some choices are downright puzzling: Readers will

114 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | A BEAR NAMED BJORN visual formats actively involve kids in thinking about scientific Perret, Delphine concepts. The last page explains how Johannes Kepler’s discov- Illus. by the author ery about 400 years ago regarding the Earth’s path has led to Trans. by Shugaar, Antony some of our confusion and also gives instructions for a simple Gecko Press (64 pp.) experiment. Joulia presents white, as do the two other humans $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 depicted. While other, diverse characters would be welcome, 978-1-776572-69-4 it’s good to see a capable girl excited about science. The seasons are those readers in the northern U.S. will recognize, although A thoughtful bear has tranquil forest Joulia explains how variations occur near the equator and in the adventures. Southern Hemisphere. In a faraway wood, Bjorn, a bear A breezy, information-packed, visually attractive with a kidney-bean–shaped head who often stands on two legs, explanation of an important elementary school science lives “in a cave. / The walls are very smooth. / The floor is pretty topic. (Informational picture book. 6-8) comfortable.” Over six episodic chapters, Bjorn has a variety of whimsical escapades, including winning a sofa that does not quite fit his cave’s aesthetic, borrowing clothes from a human THE LITTLE ENGINE campsite (and returning them, of course, with a thank-you note) THAT COULD for a carnival with his animal friends, and preparing himself for 90th Anniversary Edition his annual hibernation. Bjorn and his compadres encounter Piper, Watty problems both animal and human, such as trying to select just Illus. by Santat, Dan

the right forest object to mail to a human pen pal or visiting Grosset & Dunlap (48 pp.) young adult self-appointed forest physician Owl for an annual exam. French $18.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 author Perret’s tale is serene, moving along languidly like the 978-0-593-09439-6 calming flow of a brook through the woods. Bits of text reside alongside simply wrought thin, black-line illustrations on cool Thinking it can for its 90th year, an old friend receives a mint-green pages in this graphic-novel hybrid. While the story shiny new update. itself makes for a pleasant read-aloud, the small-scale, unassum- Fifteen years after Loren Long’s 75th-anniversary interpre- ing art may better serve independent readers than groups. Chil- tation, Caldecott winner Santat tries his hand at this work of dren drawn to quieter animal fare imbued with warm humor classic children’s literature. Once more a train filled with toys and accompanied by a gentle nudge toward nature should find and goodies for all those “good little boys and girls on the other kinship here. side of the mountain” can only be saved by the smallest, most A meditative tale with a homespun feel, best for determined engine of them all. As no part of the text has been thoughtful readers. (Graphic/fantasy hybrid. 6-10) changed (the “jackknives” for children remain intact in the train’s inventory), Santat’s challenge is to bring the engine into the 21st century visually. Now the “funny little clown” is actu- THE REASON FOR ally small instead of adult-sized, and one of the dolls depicted THE SEASONS has brown skin and straight, dark hair (the other is white with Peterson, Ellie Shirley Temple ringlets). In Santat’s version, when the Little Illus. by the author Blue Engine pulls away from the engine that broke down, one Boyds Mills (40 pp.) of the toys waves goodbye, and it looks on in relief. Some scenes $17.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 directly reference the earlier editions, such as a shot of the Lit- 978-1-63592-136-6 tle Blue Engine pulling over a bridge as animals run alongside. Series: Joulia Copernicus Kids will enjoy small details, like the toy plane that appears in almost every spread. Adults will enjoy the generous format and Joulia Copernicus, a young scientist Santat’s lovingly rendered landscapes. Notes from Dolly Parton in a white lab coat and safety goggles, returns to help readers and Santat bookend the story. learn why seasons exist. Can you love another update? We think you will, we In the jaunty first-person narration readers will remember think you will, we think you will…. (Picture book. 3-6) from series opener It’s a Round, Round World! (2019), Joulia tells why many think the Earth has seasons: its orbit around the sun and its rotation. She demonstrates why these theories are incor- rect and then introduces the answer: the role of Earth’s tilt. The logical structure starts with misconceptions and moves toward understanding, but it is the full-color illustrations, bristling with fun details pertaining to the seasons and anthropomorphic planetary bodies, that make this book stand out. Joulia’s obvious enthusiasm, accessible language, and the use of sequential

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 115 THIS RAINDROP Ocho inside a barrel, and even a Chapulín Colorado marionette Has a Billion Stories To Tell all make the cut. Readers ignorant of these specifics will not feel Ragsdale, Linda left out: The busy pages filled with interesting characters and Illus. by Bassani, Srimalie intriguing bilingual signage make readers wish they could jump Flowerpot Press (40 pp.) into the pages and experience the bustling town. Bay’s comic $16.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 book–style coloring and creative textures provide a deep cul- 978-1-4867-1817-7 tural exposure to the lavish array of Mexican food throughout the spreads. After enjoying the story, readers will keep going An unnamed drop of water shares stories of where it’s been back to savor all the minuscule details. and why water is important. A delectable bilingual experience. (Picture book. 4-7) Since the era of dinosaurs, the little raindrop has existed. From the very first ocean wave to the rain on rooftops of houses today, the raindrop has traversed the world and continues to be RESCUING THE DECLARATION an invaluable part of nature. It seeps into the ground, “cuddled OF INDEPENDENCE as a puddle,” and is reborn as dew on orange and yellow flowers How We Almost Lost the on the next page. Water is more than just precipitation: It con- Words That Built America nects people and places, from “poets and pirates” to “friends, Redding, Anna Crowley fisherman, sailors, soldiers, and seekers.” With its personified- Illus. by Fotheringham, Edwin raindrop narrator, the story attempts to be informative and Harper/HarperCollins (40 pp.) engaging but struggles with the latter due to overuse of allit- $17.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 eration and overall wordiness. While the heart of its message 978-0-06-274032-8 is complemented by vibrant and eye-catching illustrations, it is not enough to outweigh the stilted language and (ironically) The British are coming—again! failure to flow. Backmatter including descriptions of the water When lowly clerk Stephen Pleasonton receives a note from cycle and water conservation provides much-needed defini- his boss, Secretary of State James Monroe, everything changes. tions for some of the more complex vocabulary used. Children It’s 1812, and Washington, D.C., is at risk from the British—even will be frustrated that the “sagas and secrets of travelers” that though the U.S. military doesn’t seem to think so—and Pleason- “raindrops are fully versed in” are only hinted at and not revealed. ton has been instructed to “remove the records,” meaning that A beautiful but insubstantial book on the importance he should save the original documents that helped the United of water. (further information, suggested reading) (Infor States develop as a nation. Exaggerated but appealing illustra- mational picture book. 5-8) tions show the sequence of events while descriptive, action- filled text narrates the tale. Fotheringham’s drawings have the look of old-time editorial cartoons, and the text pops with ¡VAMOS! LET’S GO EAT strategically placed emphases. While the story itself may be a Raúl the Third mere footnote to history, it inadvertently reveals how the world Illus. by the author with Bay, Elaine has changed (paper documents and records being much less the Versify/HMH (48 pp.) norm today) and seeks to convey the awe many feel in regard to $14.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 primary sources and artifacts. A reminder of a more innocent 978-1-328-55704-9 age when patriotism was taken for granted, this rollicking tale Series: ¡Vamos! gives a nice sense of the time period. It also emphasizes how the actions of a less-than-famous but determined individual can Little Lobo is tasked with nourishing nine famished have great effect and demonstrates that each person’s role in luchadores. history—even one that focuses on packing up government files Following ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market (2019), author/illus- and papers—is important. trator Raúl the Third and colorist Bay create a second install- Budding historians as well as those unfamiliar with ment in their bilingual series, ¡Vamos!, here following Little history will both enjoy this pleasant, fast-moving selection. Lobo’s journey as he provides sustenance to hungry lucha libre (endnotes, timeline, bibliography) (Informational picture book. stars. The cheerfully energetic anthropomorphic wolf reprises 5-10) his role as a bike courier when he receives a message from El Toro and makes his way to el Coliseo, winding and weaving through busy streets. A mouthwatering experience follows as Little Lobo—accompanied by dog Bernabé and rooster pal Kooky Dooky—picks up tacos, diced fruit, freshly made tor- tillas, flan, and buñuelos from a gathering of food trucks. As in his other work, Raúl the Third imbues his pages with real-world and pop-culture references. An homage to Picasso’s Guernica, recognizable Ciudad Juárez–El Paso landmarks, a Chavo del

116 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Reynolds’ new series debut is nonstop comedy, poking fun at everything from animal rights groups to the education system. the incredibly dead pets of rex dexter

THE INCREDIBLY DEAD PETS two double-page spreads to get everyone sorted out. Through- OF REX DEXTER out, Schwarz’s bright, cartoon art depicts the octopus family as Reynolds, Aaron rounded, downright cuddly beings in bright hues that capture Disney-Hyperion (224 pp.) the lively spirit of the text. $16.99 | Apr. 28, 2020 Silly, wiggly, giggly fun. (Picture book. 2-5) 978-1-368-05183-5 Series: Incredibly Dead Pets of Rex Dex- ter, 1 RISE UP! The Art of Protest Haunted by the ghosts of dead pets, Rippon, Jo a kid must right their wrongs. Charlesbridge (64 pp.) All sixth grader Rex wants is a “real- $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 live” pet of his own—preferably a chocolate Labrador. Everyone 978-1-62354-150-7 he knows has a pet. His best friend, Darvish, a “pet hoarder,” has four—maybe five. In answer to Rex’s constant pleading, his Published in collaboration with parents give him a “practice pet”: a chicken. One hour and 14 Amnesty International, this book com- minutes after the chicken enters Rex’s life, it becomes a real- bines protest art spanning two centuries dead pet. Things go from bad to worse when, after losing a mys- with a strong message of encouragement to young activists all terious carnival game called The Reaper’s Curse he finds on the over the world. sidewalk, Rex can not only suddenly see the ghosts of dead ani- In her foreword, Mari Copeny, who drew President Barack

mals, but speak to and understand them. The chicken—Drum- Obama’s attention to the Flint water crisis in 2014, exhorts young adult stick—is the first of many to communicate with Rex. As a de young people to “speak up for ourselves because it’s our present, facto animal “afterlife errand boy,” can Rex help these ghosts and our future, that are at stake.” Each chapter deals with a spe- rest in peace? Reynolds’ new series debut is nonstop comedy, cific issue, including women’s rights, racial justice, peace, youth poking fun at everything from animal rights groups to the edu- rights, LGBTQ rights, and environmental issues. A short essay cation system. Rex’s first-person narration—heavily unreliable introduces each topic, prefaced by inspirational statements and hyperbolic—smartly utilizes direct address to implicate from key activists and politicians, including Gloria Steinem, readers in the ridiculous plot. Though several jokes only just toe Nelson Mandela, Ban Ki-moon, and Jane Goodall. The accom- the line, one punny reference to “spirit animals” goes a bit too panying posters are the main event, most selections covering far. Most of the human characters are white by default; Darvish several decades. Each artwork is accompanied by a detailed cap- is Pakistani American. tion explaining its significance and the historical situation that Laugh-out-loud ludicrousness. (Fiction. 8-12) inspired it. The statement from David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, sums up the core message of the book. “If you don’t make your voices HOW TO PUT AN OCTOPUS heard in the real world, nothing will change.” From the fight for TO BED women’s suffrage to Black Lives Matter, this book will be a use- Rinker, Sherri Duskey ful tool for students exploring the story of activism. Illus. by Schwarz, Viviane An effective survey of art that speaks truth to power. Chronicle (40 pp.) (Nonfiction. 10-14) $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 978-1-4521-4010-0 DOUG’S DUNG Playful bedtime reading, with octopuses. Rooks, Jo Protagonist Floyd is a rambunctious, anthropomorphic Illus. by the author octopus child who’s quite a handful. Even with their com- Magination/American Psychological bined 16 arms, his Mommy-O and OctoPop can’t contain Association (32 pp.) him. Of course, “giggly, squiggly, oh-so-wiggly” Floyd has eight $14.99 | Mar. 21, 2020 arms of his own, and they never stop moving. The characters’ 978-1-4338-3237-6 anthropomorphism extends to the degree that they appear Series: Once Upon a Garden to live in a space that isn’t underwater (though perhaps it’s a submerged submarine of sorts?), and part of Floyd’s bedtime A budding artist searches for his routine includes taking a bath. He fills a massive, three-tiered strength. tub, and all three of them end up soaking wet. Tooth-brushing Doug the brown dung beetle appreciates nature. The other is a frothy mess, but getting Floyd into his pajamas proves the dung beetles say he needs to be “strong” and have “power.” They most challenging with so very many arms and armholes to nego- take turns lifting a brown dumbbell. When Doug tries, he can’t tiate. “Get ready for the nightly rumble…the OCTO PAJAMA lift it, and the others tease him. Belinda the butterfly encour- TANGLE TUMBLE!” reads the emphatic type, and it takes ages Doug, reassuring him that he’s “strong in another way.”

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 117 Rusch unites a passion for democracy with a belief in the power of young people to help restore it. you call this democracy?

Petals floating on the breeze give Doug an idea. He covers a YOU CALL large ball of dung in an intricate petal mosaic. For another work THIS DEMOCRACY? of dung art, he uses a heap of bright yellow pollen. He continues How To Fix Our to make unique art out of the brown spheres, building a little Government and Deliver gallery to display his work. At first, he’s still met with jeers, but Power to he stays “determined” to do this thing that makes him happy. the People Eventually, the whole garden comes to appreciate his art, and Rusch, Elizabeth the other dung beetles even make a sculpture to celebrate Doug HMH Books (288 pp.) and ask for lessons on creativity. The text avoids any crass poop $19.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 jokes, not even defining “dung.” Key message words (“determi- 978-0-358-17692-3 nation,” “resilience,” etc.) appear repeatedly in boldface within the modest text, making the moral clear. The minimalist art Detailing how threats to democracy— gets its job done effectively. Predominant visual symmetry from some long-standing, others recent—deprive Americans of all page to page (the characters always face forward) makes for political stripes of the power to participate in their governance, easy sight recognition for young readers. The large-eyed insects this users’ manual offers new and future voters ways to make their composed of simple shapes appear friendly while the earth- voices heard and their ballots count. toned dung beetles cheerfully complement the brights of the The challenges are sobering, and Rusch lays them out garden—and thus Doug’s art as well. clearly. Citizen voters don’t elect presidents; the Electoral Encouraging and judgement-free. (Picture book. 3-6) College does, and twice in 20 years it has elected the candidate who lost the popular vote. Like sparsely populated, early-primary states, “battleground” states essential to secur- A SEARCH FOR THE ing Electoral College victory play an outsize role in selecting NORTHERN LIGHTS presidential candidates; meanwhile, other states get little Rusch, Elizabeth & Rusch, Izzi attention. Each state has two senators, regardless of popula- Illus. by Lee, Cedar tion; today, half the Senate represents just 16.2% of the U.S. West Margin Press (40 pp.) population. With election spending now a financial arms race, $17.99 | Apr. 14, 2020 issues wealthy donors care about are prioritized over those 978-1-5132-6290-1 of other constituents; time politicians must devote to fund- raising leaves significantly less for legislating. Gerrymander- A young girl and her mother chase the aurora borealis. ing, with a long, bipartisan history and now technologically After viewing a solar eclipse, Alix worries that she’ll never weaponized, engineers House legislative districts to ensure see anything so wonderful again. Her mom’s passing comment one-party control. Voter-suppression efforts target youth and that auroras are “pretty cool” gets the girl researching, and minorities. Rusch has some hope to offer: To address these before long, she’s managed to tag along on her mom’s Alaska and many other challenges, initiatives for restoring democ- work trip (Alix pays for her own ticket). The two pet a reindeer racy—some from teen activists—are described and resources calf (though its antlers indicate it’s at least 3 years old in the provided. Effective infographics and references support the illustration) and go dog sledding, but they see only a faint green streamlined text. Rusch unites a passion for democracy with a glow in the sky. Undaunted, they visit Glacier National Park, belief in the power of young people to help restore it. where they see a green arch overhead, but it’s right in their own A riveting must-read. (bibliography, online resources) Pacific Northwest neck of the woods that they see the- spec (Nonfiction. 10-16) tacular light show they longed for, aided by an app that sends out aurora alerts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of science facts are found only in the dense, text-heavy backmatter, which ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE explains the science behind eclipses and auroras, describes how THE OTHERS to hunt for them and the best conditions for seeing them, and Saltzberg, Barney provides further resources. Lee’s nature scenes can be lumi- Illus. by the author nous, the colors at their best seeming to glow on the pages and Neal Porter/Holiday House (40 pp.) beckon readers in. In contrast, the indoor scenes and views of $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 the white-presenting mother and daughter can be awkward and 978-0-8234-4560-8 pull readers out of the wonder that is the great outdoors. A mixed introduction to the aurora borealis that never- Saltzberg upends traditional spot-the-difference design. theless may have readers itching to start hunts of their own. A carefully chosen set of four objects is offered—most (Picture book. 5-8) similar but not quite the same and sometimes vastly different. Three cows and one elephant? The titular phrase comes in handy. “One of these is not like the others.” But the page turn reveals all four clasping hooves and trunk and celebrating: “And that’s just fine with us.” Three dogs and one cat? “One of these is

118 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | not like the others.” The cat’s nervous mien prompts misdirec- CROCODILE’S CROSSING tion to assumptions of stereotypical cat-and-dog relationships. A Search for Home “But we can still be friends.” Saltzberg goes on to compare more Slegers, Yoeri surprisingly visually similar items, such as three cowboy hats Illus. by the author and a fish rising from a puddle, mouth agape, to mimic the out- Flyaway Books (32 pp.) line of the headwear. The fish is then wearing all the hats in the $17.00 | Apr. 14, 2020 following spread: “Because you can never have too many hats.” 978-1-94-788821-0 Placed on a blank white canvas, the sets are simple and uncluttered. Young readers will jump at the chance to point out the In this Belgian import, Crocodile differences. But those differences are what are celebrated! It’s must leave his home when “the trouble” impossible to not hum the Sesame Street song of similar wording, comes. but instead of not belonging, the different objects are accepted “ ‘Everything will be better where I’m going!’ he thought. and embraced. “Some of us are a little different. // And that’s the ‘But where is that?’ ” Crocodile’s journey across the sea takes way we like it!” him to towering cities, arid deserts, and sparse countrysides, Subversive and clever, this book challenges readers to each more different and unwelcoming than the last. Wherever change habits of thought. (Picture book. 3-7) he lands, he finds hardship in many forms from various peoples, with clears signs warning him that this is “NOT YOUR LAND.” He dreams himself back to “safe and happy” memories spent TO THE MOON AND BACK with friends and family, before misfortune arose and food FOR YOU shortages became the norm. Still, Crocodile moves on, and he’s

Serhant, Emilia Bechrakis becoming “so, so tired.” Then a community of mice takes him young adult Illus. by Keller, E.G. in, and Crocodile slowly integrates into their society, new expe- Random House (32 pp.) riences building fresh, happy memories. All that’s missing is $17.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 one crucial piece: family. As a refugee narrative, Crocodile’s tale 978-0-593-17388-6 offers young readers a safe, comfortable way to broach a complex subject. In the uncredited translation, the text takes care A poetic ode to women who became to delineate Crocodile’s journey such that it stirs compassion, mothers despite the challenges they faced. just hinting at horrors left behind. Slegers’ artwork, meanwhile, Whether navigating the roughest seas, crossing the hot- contributes the most to this narrative, capturing the turmoil test deserts, or pushing through painful brambles, the moth- and uncertainty of a refugee’s journey in moody blues and shad- ers in this book know their long, hard journeys were worth ows. Crocodile’s teeth are prominent, but his demeanor is never the effort. There might have been failure and doubt, but now ferocious. What’s left unsaid in the text is made explicit in the that it’s all over, they know they’d “do it all over again. For you.” illustrations, mainly how prejudice pops up all too easily. First-person narration expresses in metaphor the extraordinary A wide-eyed, open-hearted evocation of a refugee’s lengths some mothers will go to achieve their dream of hold- experience. (Picture book. 3-7) ing a child in their arms. Sentimental and flowery, the text is broad enough to apply to the journeys of many mothers—even though the text is gender neutral, the illustrations clearly center THE SKY IS THE LIMIT the mother’s experience. At times another figure, often male- A Celebration of All the presenting, is shown alongside a mother. Soft, jewel-toned illus- Things You Can Do trations peppered with textures depict families with a variety of Swerling, Lisa & Lazar, Ralph skin tones and hair colors/textures. The assortment of mothers Illus. by the authors shown demonstrates the universality of the message, but it also Chronicle (60 pp.) contributes to the absence of a strong visual throughline. In the $14.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 concluding author’s note, Serhant shares her personal struggle 978-1-4521-7982-7 to conceive her child, which included fertility treatments and IVF. Ultimately, although the sentiment is lovely, the message A simple exhortation to young chil- is too abstract to be understood by children and will be better dren to do all things. received and appreciated by parents. Through this rhythmic narrative, young readers will be Though it looks like a book for longed-for children, it’s tantalized by the activities that are within their reach. Typical really for their parents. (Picture book. 3-5) suburban, middle-class childhood activities are portrayed, such as riding bikes, swimming in lakes, and playing in treehouses. Additionally, messages about citizenship in action, like mending fences and volunteering for causes, provide children with ideas of how to contribute to the world they live in; themes of working together and imagination are present throughout. There is so much to do and so much yet to come: “Lessons to learn / and

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 119 books to be read… / each holding a glimpse / of what lies ahead.” UNDER MY TREE Bright and clean-cut cartoons dominated by sunny yellow, blue, Tallandier, Muriel and green will infuse readers with feelings of happiness and Illus. by Fujisawa, Mizuho simplicity. While the rhythmic list depicts a great variety of Trans. by Klinger, Sarah activities, however, characters are all white as paper, with little Blue Dot Kids Press (32 pp.) to no diversity implied beyond gender presentation cued by ste- $18.95 | Apr. 14, 2020 reotypical dress and hairstyle. Both the upbeat celebration of 978-1-7331212-3-1 possibility and a spread of characters in graduation gowns place this book as a conceptual companion to Oh, the Places You’ll Go! A city girl falls in love with a tree and However, with its avoidance of diversity, it feels very much out marvels at its wonders. of step with the times. Susanne looks forward to vacations at her grandparents’ An uplifting book about unlimited potential that’s, house in the country. On a walk in the forest with her grand- sadly, pretty limited. (Picture book. 4-6) mother, Susanne discovers her “big, beautiful tree,” like something out of a fairy tale. Every day, she visits her tree and notices something miraculous and new: the view from the topmost THE WISH AND THE PEACOCK branches, the sound of the wind through the leaves, a family of Swore, Wendy S. owls, insects that march along the truck. As she delights in each Shadow Mountain (336 pp.) discovery, leaf-shaped callout boxes in page corners encourage $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 readers to discuss, explore, and interact. (Some boxes present 978-1-62972-608-3 facts, but no sources are cited.) Even when she returns to the city, Susanne thinks often of her beloved tree. The stylized A young Idaho girl tries to save her illustrations use a variety of perspectives—close up, bird’s eye, family’s farm. profile—to create a page-turning dynamic as action drives read- Since her father’s death, 12-year-old ers from left to right. Solid colors and patterns of the modern Paige has been taking on all the farm world contrast with translucent, tissue-paper–like leaves, plac- chores, determined to keep her father’s ing the emphasis firmly on the natural world. Like the illustra- regular farming schedule. When her tions, Susanne’s detailed first-person narration is tree-centered, mother and grandfather bring in a real estate agent to try to sell leaving little room for character development. Originally pub- the farm, Paige enlists her younger brother, Scotty, and some lished in France, the lyrical text is not always served well by the friends to try to sabotage the sale of the farm. Simultaneously, a translation, most notable in the awkward toggling between past wounded peacock shows up on the farm, which Paige and Scotty and present tenses. All characters appear white. secretly nurse back to health. Heartfelt and funny, the story An interactive, modern-day The Giving Tree without the captures the lives of often underrepresented farming families, creepy self-sacrifice.(Picture book. 4-8) and though the trope of children scheming to save something beloved that’s in peril through hijinks and humor is familiar, it engages in a deeper discussion of the threat development poses THE BEAR IN to farmland. The story is set on the Shoshone-Bannock Reser- MY FAMILY vation in southeastern Idaho; Paige, who is white, is best friends Tatsukawa, Maya with Kimana, a Shoshone-Bannock girl who’s also her robotics Illus. by the author partner, and Mateo, who is Latinx and whose family owns the Dial (32 pp.) neighboring farm. All characters are fully realized, and the book $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 offers authentic views of rural kids navigating long distances 978-0-525-55582-7 between friends’ houses on dirt bikes and to and from school via bus as well as some very visceral calf birthing. Swore, who A young boy describes the bear that lives on the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation, includes brief lives with him. narratives from two Shoshone-Bannock friends in her author’s The story opens on the face of an unhappy kid who lives note; there is no mention of the catastrophic Dawes Act of 1887, with a bear. The protagonist goes on to show a diagram of the which enabled non-Natives to buy property on tribal lands, bear, who has “sharp teeth,” “mean eyes,” and “strong arms.” however. The bear is loud, roaring when the narrator is trying to sleep. An impressive tale carrying universal themes of grief, The bear is “messy,” “bossy,” and “always hungry,” even stealing change, and letting go. (Fiction. 8-12) the narrator’s food. The bear is “strong” and plays a little rough. The kid tries to tell Mom, but she dismisses the protagonist, suggesting some outside play in the park. At the park, three big- ger kids start bullying the narrator, who suddenly wishes there were a bear to help out—and there’s the bear! After this rescue, the kid realizes that sometimes having a bear can be pretty great. It seems having a bear in the family is a lot like having an older

120 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | The text is filled with vivid language that perfectly enhances the action. me and mcgee

sibling. Tatsukawa writes and illustrates a metaphorical but ME AND MCGEE completely accessible tale for any child who has an older sibling. Uhlberg, Myron Displayed in a combination of printed text and hand-lettered Illus. by Sosa, Daniela speech bubbles, the writing is simple and straightforward. The Whitman (32 pp.) illustrations have a textured-paper look, with cute details, such $16.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 as the protagonist’s bee sweater and the lion, snake, and shark 978-0-8075-5028-1 sweaters the bullies wear. Narrator and family present Asian, and the other kids have a variety of skin tones and hair colors. Last year McGee walloped a grand- A thoroughly charming take on sibling relationships. slam home run to win the championship (Picture book. 3-7) for the Apple Valley Catbirds. The pitcher who threw that “fat and lazy” ball has had a long, miserable winter reliving that moment and feeling responsible MORE THAN MARMALADE for the loss. Determined to overcome the disappointment and Michael Bond and the Story see a different outcome in the next season, this young pitcher of Paddington Bear sets out to practice, practice, practice, until every pitch is per- Tolin, Rosanne fected and each of the 108 stitches in the baseball is completely Chicago Review Press (176 pp.) understood. In the last game of the new season, the pitcher $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 again faces the Catbirds. Again it is two out in the ninth inning, 978-1-64160-314-0 bases loaded, and McGee is up. Will it be a repeat of last year’s defeat? Uhlberg allows the pitcher to tell the story, focusing on

The first stand-alone profile for the emotional ups and downs from season to season and during young adult young readers of the man behind the both championship games. The text does not rely on the usual bear. baseball jargon but is instead filled with vivid language that per- Bond is a regular entry in collective fectly enhances the action. Sosa’s brightly hued illustrations are biographies of authors, but from the evidence, he was such a carefully constructed to allow the main characters to express private man and led such a quiet, uneventful life that Tolin their emotions in body language while keeping their physical resorts to invented scenes and conversations (closely based, she appearances neutral. For they are both McGees, and the nar- claims, on published sources) to fill out this slim volume. She rator is the delightful Molly McGee, the younger sister of the retraces his childhood, World War II experiences, early career fearsome batter, as readers learn on the very last page in what is as a cameraman for the BBC, and eventual fame (after multiple clearly meant to be a clever twist. rejections, etc.) as a children’s author. Sounding a timely note, Charming, but why would young readers still be sur- she also weaves in as a recurrent theme experiences with and prised when girls are excellent athletes? (Picture book. 5-9) lifelong sympathies for immigrants—from Jewish Kindertrans- port refugees and children evacuated from London during the Blitz to later contacts with Afro-Caribbean and West Indian BATHING IN THE FOREST arrivals in London—that informed his most famous creation’s Uyá, Nívola & Ayats, Marc character and overseas origins. On the other hand, aside from Illus. by Uyá, Nívola brief mention of Olga da Polga she skips an opportunity to Trans. by Brokenbrow, Jon explore his true range by saying little to nothing about his Cuento de Luz (32 pp.) bawdy, comical Monsieur Pamplemousse mystery series or any $16.95 | Mar. 1, 2020 of the rest of his works. Readers will come away with a warming 978-84-16733-58-3 if not nuanced impression of a low-key man whose best-known creation reflects his own fundamental decency. Readers who are “feeling gray” are In the end, alas, not all that much more than marma- encouraged to come into the forest. lade. (map, photos, source list, index) (Biography. 9-11) A rose-cheeked child in green, leaf-patterned clothes and bare feet calls herself “the little girl of the forest,” welcoming those who enter her domain. In succession, a man, woman, and boy walk through the forest, all troubled in their own ways. The girl invites each one “to bathe in the forest,” and each finds relief in the embrace of nature. It’s unclear exactly what a forest “bath” entails until the end of the narrative, when the little girl encourages readers to relax and open their senses to the natural healing experience found in wooded areas. Whether the girl is a forest sprite or human is unclear, though her efforts to share her passion for natural spaces are equally valid with either interpretation. Uyá paints a fanciful atmosphere with organic shapes and selective background details. The visitors, all family

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 121 A must-read for the modern, viral-content age. trending

members, are rendered all in gray shades until they accept the TODAY IS A BEACH DAY! young girl’s invitation, then they burst into color. (Their sur- Viau, Nancy names differ slightly: either Grayshadow or Greystone; this Illus. by Alder, Charlie inconsistency will plague some young listeners.) The art’s vari- Whitman (32 pp.) ous green hues and pops of color must compete with the stark $16.99 | Apr. 1, 2020 white backgrounds, which do overpower at times. Appended 978-0-8075-9396-7 is a link to a downloadable booklet with activities “to immerse yourself in nature,” such as doing texture rubbings or following It’s a perfect beach day for four kids on an outing. a wandering insect. The sky and ocean are the bluest of blues, and the sand is Ultimately insubstantial, though its heart’s in the right golden. Following application of sunscreen, the children play in place. (Picture book. 4-8) the waves, float on inflated beach toys, and search for “pebbles, seaweed. / Shells to grab” before scooping up a crab. They lick ice cream treats and build an elaborate sand castle complete TRENDING with moats and boats before taking a rest and exchanging How and Why Stuff smiles. All is harmonious, and even the toppling of a scoop of Gets Popular ice cream has a happy ending when one child generously shares Vermond, Kira theirs with the other whose treat is in the sand. Each spread Illus. by Hanmer, Clayton contains one or two lines of a rhyming couplet, often with Owlkids Books (48 pp.) alliteration, sounds, and action words (“Floating left and bob- $17.95 | Mar. 15, 2020 bing right— / SPLISH! SPLASH! JUMP! Hold on tight!”), but 978-1-77147-325-5 inconsistencies in stress pattern and number of syllables per line make reading aloud awkward. Two adults, a black woman An overview of trends, how they are born—or made—and and a white man, chaperone the children, but their relationship their dangers. to the multiracial group of children and to each other is unclear; After contextualizing trends and fads with an introduction they could be as easily interpreted as a nuclear family or a group focusing on how a silly 17th-century fashion trend—the bea- of friends and neighbors. Most of the cartoon-style illustrations ver-felt hat—had drastic and far-reaching consequences that show the children facing readers, with the children’s eyes cut included genocide, the book’s four chapters focus on what fads sharply to the left or right, awkwardly indicating interaction are, how fads spread, how they can be manufactured, and how among the children. much damage they can cause. Complex material is broken down An active beach day without the usual rhythm and spar- into accessible language and explained with lively example sto- kle of the waves. (Picture book. 3-6) ries, allowing for a surprisingly sophisticated overview. Each chapter is primarily organized into two-page spreads covering separate ideas: Pokémon Go illustrates the temporally linked rise STORIES OF THE SAINTS and fall of a fad; stock market crashes and the rise of popular res- Bold and Inspiring Tales taurants are both exemplars of an “information cascade”; Star- of Adventure, Grace, and bucks’ Unicorn Frappuccino allows exploration of systematic Courage strategies in corporate-driven trends; slime-making YouTubers Wallace, Carey demonstrate the power of the social media influencer; and the Illus. by Thornborrow, Nick anti-vaccine movement exposes the persistence of logical falla- Workman (232 pp.) cies. The design—punctuated with peppy cartoon drawings and $24.95 | Mar. 31, 2020 comic-book pages that introduce each chapter—helps the book 978-0-7611-9327-2 bounce along. Despite the book’s cautionary elements—how companies secretly use people’s internet browsing histories A modern book of the saints. to manipulate their purchases and the ways that propaganda Wallace presents the stories, actual or spreads hate—the text also offers empowerment, showing kids apocryphal, of 80 men and women who how not to be manipulated, and concludes with a call to action served God so well that they were elevated to sainthood after to harness the power of trends for positive ends. their deaths, arranged chronologically from Polycarp (69-156 A must-read for the modern, viral-content age. (index, C.E.) to Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997). Each two- to three-page sources) (Nonfiction. -8 14) account includes where the saint lived, who they are considered patron of, and their emblem and feast day. The saints included span centuries and cultures, including well-known figures such as Joan of Arc and Thomas Aquinas, more obscure ones like Mary of Egypt and John Nepomucene, and those from non- Western cultures such as Josephine Bakhita, who originally came from Sudan, and Martin de Porres, a mixed-race Peru- vian of African and European descent. Wallace points out in

122 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | her introduction that while some saints’ stories are historically A TIGER WITHOUT STRIPES documented, others, particularly the very early ones, are more Whitbread, Jaimie along the lines of folktakes. “Just because we can’t be sure a Illus. by he author story really happened doesn’t mean it isn’t true in another way.” The Innovation Press (40 pp.) That’s good, since some of them are frankly gruesome—Lucy $16.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 with her eyes plucked out and handed to her on a dish, calmly 978-1-943147-71-7 reinserts them and can still see—as well as perplexing. Wallace presents them all with quiet confidence that the stories- mat In this modern fable, a young tiger ter, and she convinces us that they do. Thornborrow’s illustra- leaves her family to find a way to earn the stripes she was not tions combine traditional iconography with modern graphic art, given at birth. effectively dramatizing each tale. On her own, the tiger braves the blazing sun, the dark for- Unusual, well done, and useful in many settings. (Reli est, and a rainstorm in search of her stripes, but each time when gion. 8-adult) what she believes are stripes appear—shadows, scrapes, streaks of mud—they soon disappear. Finally, she climbs as high as she can and screams into the sky, demanding an answer as to why THE BOY WHO THOUGHT she was not given stripes like every other tiger and what she OUTSIDE THE BOX must do to earn them. In response, a voice tells the tiger that The Story of Video Game it gives all tigers stripes as a gift and that they do not have to Inventor Ralph Baer earn them. Perplexed, she slips off alone and ponders what, if Wessels, Marcie anything, is her gift. The next morning, the tiger ascends back

Illus. by Castro, Beatriz to the high place and says, “Thank you,” to the sky for the gift young adult Sterling (48 pp.) that she realizes she was given: her striving. Through warm $16.95 | Mar. 3, 2020 washes of orange and yellow, trees, bushes, and leaves take on 978-1-4549-3259-8 the appearance of tiger stripes, a treat for observant readers. Series: People Who Shaped Our World The disembodied voice in the sky is never named or explained, leaving readers to ponder it along with the tiger’s understanding Jewish inventor Ralph Baer never stopped pursuing his pas- of her unique gift—a lesson readers may not need to struggle as sion for learning, tinkering, and building, whether to solve prob- hard as the tiger to achieve but is still gently oblique. lems, advance technology, or find new ways to spread fun. A beautifully illustrated tale of self-acceptance. (Picture Beginning with his childhood in Nazi-era Cologne, Ger- book. 4-8) many, this biography follows Baer’s journey to becoming the “Father of Video Games.” Throughout his life, new problems and puzzles pushed him to seek solutions. He helped his family WHAT DO SCIENTISTS DO immigrate to the United States in 1938 and rebuild their lives. A ALL DAY? childhood fascination with his construction set turned into an Wilsher, Jane interest in the workings of developing technology. Baer saw pos- Illus. by Li, Maggie sibility in what others criticized, including television, which he Wide Eyed Editions (64 pp.) imagined as a platform for games. Wessels narrates the story of $22.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 Baer’s inventive history in a conversational tone, using exclama- 978-0-7112-4978-3 tion marks and posing rhetorical questions. Active and expressive cartoon illustrations accompany the text. Perseverance and In the spirit of Richard Scarry, creativity in the face of challenges recur as important themes Wilsher and Li offer glimpses of people and keys to Baer’s success. Moreover, Wessels emphasizes engaged in 102 science or science-related activities. Baer’s curiosity in the process of creation, not simply the result. Take the “all day” bit as poetic license. Along the same lines While the narrative remains focused, the sense of Baer’s age as Wendy Hunt’s What Do Animals Do All Day? (illustrated by and the year are disconnected. The few touchstones for time Studio Muti, 2018) but closer to reality, eight tiny figures—ren- provide no more than a loose progression of events and their dered in Li’s neatly drawn illustrations with skin of diverse historical context, making the book most suitable for pleasure hues but Eurocentric work dress—in each of 14 generic locales and a gateway for further research. describe their interests or occupations in a sentence or two. A personable and energetic introduction with a positive Viewers are challenged to identify them from these descrip- message. (author’s note, additional reading, selected bibli- tions using visual clues in a populous unlabeled scene such ography) (Picture book/biography. 7-12) as a hospital, an aerospace center, or a nature preserve. The author loosens the definition of “scientist” enough to include two schoolchildren taking scientific notes, a tree surgeon, a co- pilot, and a jackhammer operator (“Expert on Drilling”). The author also occasionally fudges (a marine biologist at an Arc- tic research station poses next to a “Research Scientist” who

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 123 “is studying to become a marine biologist”) or creates artificial POWERLESS distinctions, such as “Mechanical Engineer” and “Maintenance Wolfram, Amy Engineer.” Nevertheless, the identification game may give the Illus. by Garbowska, Agnes with abilities of budding sleuths a workout in addition to the notion Brys, Silvana that science encompasses a broad range of occupations. DC (144 pp.) The premise is mostly a pretext, but it should appeal to $9.99 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 younger STEM-winders. (Informational picture book. 7-9) 978-1-4012-9361-1 Series: DC Super Hero Girls

PETER AND THE Teen girl superheroes tangle with a TREE CHILDREN blackout. Wohlleben, Peter The Super Hero Girls are a formi- Illus. by Atkinson, Cale dable team of teen heroes: Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Zatanna, Greystone Books (40 pp.) Green Lantern, Supergirl, and Bumblebee fight crime by night $17.95 | Apr. 21, 2020 and go to high school by day, all the while doing their best in 978-1-77164-457-0 both spheres. But after the city’s power grid fails and the cloud- computing technology gets knocked out, the band of heroes Writing a fictionalized version of must face a startling new foe: a complete lack of technology. himself, naturalist Wohlleben gives les- No smartphones! No gadgets! A cafeteria that only takes cash! sons to orphaned talking squirrel Piet as The breezy graphic novel captures the tone of the popular TV they search for tree families in this stripped-down storybook series perfectly. Fans will be delighted, but newcomers will version of The Hidden Life of Trees (2016). find plenty to adore here as well. The bright colors and sharply Both Peter and Piet have cartoonlike faces with round, black composed panels present the humor and action the brand is eyes, and the scenery—bright with earth tones and generic foli- known for perfectly. The characterization of each supergirl isn’t age—also resembles bland commercial animation. While Peter particularly strong (all the girls speak in the same bubbly tone), presents as a ruddy-faced white man sporting a gray beard, the but the diversity of skin tone is a welcome change from other only other named human—Dana—is a woman of color, dressed DC teams that are almost exclusively white. (Batgirl, Supergirl, in overalls and engaged in sustainable forestry. Kudos for this. and Zatanna are white, Green Lantern is Latina, Bumblebee Otherwise, the text tries too hard to intersperse interesting is black, and Wonder Woman has olive skin.) With mangalike facts about trees and squirrels—some rudimentary, others stylings—in particular, enormous eyes—that give these teens a relatively obscure—into a simplistic plot: Lonely squirrel seeks distinctly juvenile look, this is a comic ideal for younger read- family; takes walk with Peter; still feels lonely; gains Peter as ers, particularly those keen on the DC heroes but not ready for family. Among other things, young readers learn that trees often the more mature YA fare. It may not be great literature, but it’s need the protection of older, taller trees to grow up properly; great fun. that heavy equipment compacts earth too hard for seeds to get A rush of energy and charm. (Graphic fantasy. 7-10) started; that hawks prey on squirrels; that squirrels help start beech seedlings; that some trees release an orange-smelling distress signal. Oddly, Peter gives no credit to people planting DAVID JUMPS IN saplings in the wake of deforestation, since these unprotected Woo, Alan trees will “have a hard life” without families. Can You Hear the Illus. by Maurey, Katty Trees Talking? (2019) superbly adapted Wohlleben’s bestseller for Kids Can (24 pp.) middle graders; this patronizing attempt to bring it to a still $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 younger audience fails. 978-1-77138-845-0 Overworn coattails. (foreword, endnotes) (Picture book. 3-5) A classic game on the playground becomes a vehicle for a young boy to make friends. It is David’s first day at his new school. “He didn’t know anyone. / He had no friends / To hang out with / Or trade tuna fish sandwiches.” As he observes his new surroundings, “bundled up deep in his pocket: / A string of rubber bands [waits] / Knotted and ready / For a game of elastic skip.” The recess bell rings, giving David the chance to see what his classmates play. Many of the activities of choice may carry a touch of nostalgia for adult readers, with students playing ring around the rosy, red rover, and hopscotch or skip- ping rope. As David spends ample time exploring his options,

124 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | Can sharing art be a bridge between two different cultures? ellie makes a friend

he even finds some kids playing video games, reading, or sim- ELLIE MAKES A FRIEND ply “Blowing dandelions into / A galaxy of stars.” Eventually he Wu, Mike finds a group of “classmates / Tired of hopscotching / Back and Illus. by the author forth / And forth and back.” David jumps at the opportunity Disney-Hyperion (40 pp.) to offer up his elastic skip, explaining the rules successfully to $16.99 | Apr. 7, 2020 “create a new playing field” of friends. Maurey is strategic with 978-1-368-01000-9 detail, paring ample use of negative space with soft gradients Series: Ellie of pastel color. The result is a whimsical tone that matches the controlled, poetic text. David presents as Asian with classmates In the fourth book of the series, Ellie the elephant observes diverse both racially and in ability. An author’s note follows that the new critter at the zoo—Ping, the painting panda. briefly touches on the Chinese origins of elastic skip. Not to be confused with pandas of the kung fu sort, Ping A gentle tale of courage and friendship. (Picture book. 5-8) brings a friendly black-and-white brightness to the zoo. Her image is full of contradictions that make her unusual to the group of zoo animals. Sharp eyes belie her soft roundness while BO THE BRAVE her wide girth gives way to tiny hands that create graceful and Woollvin, Bethan interesting brushwork. She is definitely not a local, and Ellie Illus. by the author and her friends cannot understand her language. Ping must pick Peachtree (32 pp.) up her bamboo brush and paint her words (characters that read- $17.99 | Apr. 1, 2020 ers of Chinese will readily recognize). While the animals marvel 978-1-68263-182-9 at Ping’s artwork, Ellie begins to feel overshadowed, as the cal-

ligraphy is so different from her multicolored paintings. When young adult A little sister follows her two older Ping reaches out to offer Ellie a bamboo brush, the elephant brothers out into the big world of awkwardly declines. “Maybe my paintings aren’t that special,” monster-hunting. she whispers to herself. Indeed, the inclusion of Ping’s pictures Bo lives with Erik and Ivar in a castle. The boys, lofty adds contrast and stylistic interest to Wu’s ebullient watercol- hunters setting out to catch an unspecified monster, scoff at ors. The gorilla named Gerard once again dispenses wisdom to Bo’s request to come along. Undeterred, she sneaks out of the the sweet elephant, encouraging her to learn more about Ping castle after they’re gone “to catch a monster of her own.” She and her art. Can sharing art be a bridge between two different encounters a series of creatures—griffin, kraken, dragon—each cultures? By the end, Ping and Ellie seem to think so. of which she initially assumes is a monster but realizes is not. Thumbs up for an easy tale of overcoming difference Bo learns quickly that the unfamiliar creatures (one of whom through art and curiosity. (Picture book. 3-7) is a parent and therefore explicitly adult) not only are not monsters, but are so harmless that she can let them literally carry her. Being polite, offering directions, or needing a child’s help are WHERE THE BEST the signals that immediately prove their trustworthiness, which STORIES HIDE may horrify safety-minded adults thinking about stranger dan- Yasiejko, Roman ger. Child readers won’t care, but nor will they find vigor in Bo’s Illus. by Whitehouse, Ben tale. The prose is tepid: “These creatures are helpful and nice Beaming Books (32 pp.) and caring. We shouldn’t be hunting them!” The illustrations, $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 done in gray, pink, teal, and dull orange, have a flattened per- 978-1-5064-5401-6 spective that gives this “land of mountains and forests” a com- pressed, two-dimensional sameness to each spread. Limited A young boy who vexes his teacher with palettes are sometimes gems, but this one—lacking saturation his doodling proves the value of stories. changes or compositional zest—only continues the sameness as Bored in the back row among robotically posed classmates pages turn. Football-shaped eyes barely vary with expression; who are diverse racially if not in their facial expressions, Nick the humans are white as paper. turns his imagination loose and doodles, quickly losing track of Here be no dragons. (Picture book. 3-6) what he should be doing and attracting the teacher’s ire. “Stay inside not outside the lines, Nicholas. / Don’t doodle or scribble. Don’t make such a fuss. / Just color the pictures. They’re simple and plain.” But Nick can’t rein in his doodlings, and the teacher finally puts him on the spot to draw and tell a tale for the whole class. Daunted at first, he quickly spins a tale that not only enraptures his classmates, but wins over his teacher: “I didn’t know doodles / had stories that hid / outside all those lines / till I saw what you did.” And the class spends the rest of the day drawing and spinning stories of their own. “And Nicholas, well— do you know what he did? / He showed everyone where the best

| kirkus.com | children’s | 15 january 2020 | 125 Looking at these challenging compositions feels exhilarating— like standing, happily drenched, in a swirling storm. the weather’s bet

stories hid.” Readers may be befuddled at this declaration, as century. It was further developed during the Ming (14th to stories’ hiding places are certainly not clear from either the text 17th centuries) and Qing dynasties (17th to 20th centuries). or the simplistic cartoon illustrations. Nick is white; his anti– This book showcases Beijing as it was during the Qing period, role model of a teacher has very light brown skin and glasses. China’s last royal dynasty. Like many traditional Chinese cities, Kids’ imaginations can find stories in better places Beijing was built symmetrically, with a central axis that forms than this. (Picture book. 5-8) its backbone. Major buildings were placed on either side of the axis, with the Imperial Palace, also known as the Forbidden City, at the center. Yu takes readers on a walking tour along the nearly THE WEATHER’S BET 5-mile-long central axis, starting at the south end of the city and Adapt. by Young, Ed with ending in the north. Stops include old Beijing’s business district, Cowan, Steven Tiananmen Square, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony, where Illus. by Young, Ed business, official ceremonies, and banquets took (and still take) Philomel (32 pp.) place. Colorful, finely detailed illustrations are placed, often $18.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 symmetrically, over double-page spreads; one double gatefold 978-0-525-51382-7 depicts the Forbidden City’s grand architecture. The illustrations are breathtaking, but unfortunately, the text is not. Read- Three heavenly powers look down ers learn that on either side of the central axis, “buildings share upon a shepherd girl and bet which one the same color scheme and style but differ in size and height.” can knock her cap off. The author tries to liven up the somewhat dry descriptions and Young’s atmospheric, textured artwork conjures the natural recitation of historical facts with sidebars of “Fun Facts” and forces vying to mess with a mortal’s cap in this loose retelling of “Knowledge Tips,” but the small, dense text, set in italicized, an old Aesop’s fable. Photographs, fabric, and paper (sometimes low-contrast, brown type, can be a chore to read. torn, sometimes cut) cohere in evocative collages that capture Beautifully rendered drawings are a feast for the eyes, both the expansive powers of Wind, Rain, and Sun as well as the but engaging historical context is lacking. (timeline, glos- young girl’s brown skin, cheekbones, eyelashes, and strands of sary, afterword, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14) ebony hair. Weather blows, mists, and shines in teeming double- page, full-bleed spreads. Occasional sharp lines and solid color (the red cap serves as a cardinal beacon) give readers sound THE ODE TO THE GODDESS footing to navigate the complex collages. Distinguishing land- OF THE LUO RIVER masses, sheep, the girl, and sky from one another sometimes Adapt. by Yu Zhiying requires squinting, but looking at these challenging composi- Illus. by Ye Luying tions feels exhilarating—like standing, happily drenched, in a Minedition (78 pp.) swirling storm. Cowan’s simple, consistent rhyme provides reas- $35.00 | Jan. 1, 2020 suring scaffolding that keeps readers from blowing away. Upon 978-988-8341-94-8 hearing the pleasing verse “For with the passing morning storm, / She laughed her cap off as she got warm,” young people will In this retelling of an ancient Chinese poem, a writer imag- feel warmth spread in their little souls too. Frontmatter expli- ines the doomed love between the earthly and heavenly in this cates the symbols assigned to Wind, Rain, and Sun, which were oversized picture book for older readers. created using Chinese pictograms and appear throughout. Returning from a visit with the emperor, poet Cao Zhi passes Awe-inspiring artwork as powerful as any force of by the River Luo. “As the ancient tale goes, underneath the river nature. (Picture book. 4-10) lives a beautiful goddess”—so, as a writer, Cao decides to put forth his own story of a different goddess of the majestic river. Cao’s goddess is ethereal: “she dazzles like the sun rising in the morning… BEIJING she’s as luminous as the lotus that grows in the shallows.” Love is A Symmetrical City instant between poet and goddess, but with love comes hesitation Yu, Dawu and worry. Ultimately, the goddess concludes that “the world of Illus. by the author humans and gods could never exist together.” Readers unfamiliar Trans. by Tai, Crystal with the poem will likely find the level of narrative detail insuf- 1 Plus Books (42 pp.) ficient, and consequently the melancholy ebbs rather than flows $19.99 | Mar. 30, 2020 forth. Ye’s illustrations, however, are lush in detail and lovely in 978-1-949736-03-8 strangeness. The illustrator injects traditional elements of Chi- nese paintings with a modern playfulness and whimsy. Big-eyed Part architectural tour, part intro to fish, fantastical creatures, and odd flora and fauna fill the pages. Chinese history and culture, this book Elements of the natural world adorn the Goddess of Luo to evoke showcases one of China’s most famous landmarks. the otherworldly. Instead of being enrobed by traditional Chinese Beijing is one of the world’s oldest cities, and its architec- clothing, a flowing cape ending in a fish tail drapes over her body. tural layout was begun during the Yuan dynasty in the 13th Strands of pearls surround her and come to life as fairies. Four

126 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - - 1) - 5) - 356 - Mr. Bear’s Little Bear’s Mr. 03631 - 1 - up picture book. 3 Little Numbers Bear’s is Mr. - An interactive bathtime checklist. An interactive MIKI TAKES A BATH MIKI TAKES Babin, Stéphanie $12.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 7, $12.99 | Jan. Twirl/Chronicle (10 pp.) Twirl/Chronicle Illus. by the authors Illus. Trans. by Hardenberg, Wendeline A. Wendeline by Hardenberg, Trans. 978-2-40801-597-8 (Mr. Bear’s Little Shapes: 979 Little Shapes: Bear’s (Mr. 3) - Nope! I’ll use soap to clean my face. And my arms. And my And my arms. And I’ll use soap to clean my face. Nope! No No substitute for hands-on instruction, but it’s hard to Though more of an intellectual exercise than a practical A pleasing, well-designed book readers can return to. books, the pages go beyond the number 10, introducing chil- bath mat in sight, well, maybe lions dry off by running around both three- and two-dimensional shapes, including spherical beautifully designed, touch-friendly elements. kind of index for thetiny authorfingers.Unfortunately, mixes ” If there’s nary my bottom.” there’s If And a towel or my back. a And tummy. up all over, scrubs legs and feet, and finally leaps out in a wild imagine cheerier guidelines. (Pop will not be able to count to 100, the pictures still give them well: The well: numbers are embossed with a pebbly texture, encour reminders delivers a splashy soapy, agenda just right for newly independent bath-takers. In response to prompts, Miki, a lion mostly, in gratifyingly broad and natural-looking motions. anything, forgetting you “Are easy: and free likewise is France) in more educationally sound and more fun for young readers as items items chosen are accessible, and the pages are cleverly tabbed items such as balls and the moon for circle and tents and pyr shampoos his improbably sumptuous mane, methodically soaps methodically mane, sumptuous improbably his shampoos tool tool since it’s not printed on water-resistant stock, this set of translation (this Hardenberg’s was originally tummy. published tell tell apart when the book is closed. cub, first lets water into the tubtoo (“Not hot, nottoo cold!”), ceding that climax, sliding large tabs back and forth results, outside. on the edges with die-cut shapes that together serve as a clever appealing visually—both stylish and fun. aging children to trace their shapes while also counting the a sense of the relative quantities in a fun and interesting way. and watery pop-up explosion. In the four cartoon scenes pre- amids for triangle, requiring caregivers to back and fill on the quirky collections of items. Unlike many beginning counting dren to 20, 30, 40, 50, and Although 100. most in the audience duckie bobs in one image; in the next his paws rub soap onto his onto soap rub paws his next the in image; one in bobs duckie details. Additionally, the details. circle Additionally, and oval tabs are impossible to from simple circles and triangles to stars and semicircles. The Shapes is a catalog of basic and more advanced shapes, ranging Miki’s forepaws massage shampoo through his mane as a rubber a as mane his through shampoo massage forepaws Miki’s Miki? The neon color palette and cartoonlike pictures are incredibly (Board book. 1 Mr. Bear’s Little Bear’s Mr. 127 2020 | | 15 january books | kirkus.com | board & novelty 14) - 6) - This colorful, tactile French import import French tactile colorful, This In In Lali’s hands, an ordinary feather When Lali first finds a feather in a field, in a feather finds first Lali When becomes something fantastic. becomes introduces introduces children to numbers and MR. BEAR’S LITTLE NUMBERS MR. BEAR’S LALI’S FEATHER LALI’S Zia, Farhana Zia, Peachtree (32 pp.) Peachtree $17.99 | Apr. 1, 2020 Apr. | $17.99 $12.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 $12.99 | Feb. Twirl/Chronicle (22 pp.) Twirl/Chronicle Illus. by the author Illus. Illus. by Coleman, Stephanie Fizer by Coleman, Stephanie Illus. 978-1-68263-129-4 979-1-03631-355-4 Aracil, Virginie Aracil, (Picture book. 3 Lavish illustrations elevate this adaptation of a classic. Three cheers for this feisty girl of color and her big In In both this book and its companion, birds such as Chicken, Duck, and Jay laugh at her feather, until Lali until feather, her at laugh Jay and Duck, Chicken, as such birds perfectly supporting the quick-moving protagonist. perfectly supporting the quick-moving imagination. whole new set of adventures. Zia expertly code-switches between multipage stunningly gatefolds capture both the movement in the illustrationsthe scale of the tale. and is predictable yet surprising. The pictures accompanying the text shows them all the magical things it can do: write a note, sweep she asks all the birds she knows if it belongs to them. But Rooster, gust of wind swooshes Lali’s feather leaving away, her devastated. turn down Lali’s feather, followed by three turnbirds feather, who down discount herLali’s the narratorial voice pleasantly tinue distinct. this cultural The mix: Brown-skinned Lali illustrations wears a bindi - con on her the floor, tickle her father, andmake her sister sneeze.A strong orange shorts. The author’s use of the rule of threes—three birds counting. are full of color and motion, depicting a lush, rural landscape and feather’s feather’s usefulness—strikes a beautifully balanced storyline that forehead, a traditional Indian blouse, gold bangles, and fluorescent and bangles, gold blouse, Indian traditional a forehead, Crow, and Peacock don’t claim it, so Lali takes it for herself. At first, At herself. for it takes Lali so it, claim don’t Peacock and Crow, , Aracil introduces readers to preschool concepts through concepts preschool to readers introduces Aracil , Shapes By now, all the birds are eager to help. The book happily ends with all the birds are eager help. to By now, Lali discovering another discarded object—one that promises a (glossary, (Picture notes) book. 9 Indian Indian language–inspired slang and standard English, rendering board & novelty books & novelty board WHOSE BABY IS THIS? of special Passover servingware, highlighting the terminal word in Babin, Stéphanie each rhyme, a device that will boost emergent literacy. It seems Illus. by Tisserand, Camille odd that the Seder isn’t mentioned at all, but otherwise this speaks Trans. by Hardenberg, Wendeline A. well to the routines and rituals that many children hold so dear. Twirl/Chronicle (14 pp.) Matzah lovers rejoice—this one’s for you! (Board book. $12.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 1-4) 978-2-40801-596-1

Some babies look like their parents—but some do not! WHO LOVES BOOKS? In this fetchingly illustrated, slide-the-tab book from A Flip-Flap Book France, young readers learn about insects, birds, and animals Boyd, Lizi that inhabit a range of familiar ecosystems, including ponds, Illus. by the author forests, meadows, and mountains. On each page, children slide Chronicle (18 pp.) a tab with a labeled picture of a creature early in its life cycle $12.99 | Feb. 11, 2020 to reveal what the creature will look like as an adult. Babin 978-1-4521-7097-8 includes a variety of intuitive choices, such as otters and their pups, as well as less predictable pairs like tadpoles and frogs and Squirrel pairs each wild animal with dragonflies and larvae. (The “kid” that grows into a “sheep” may just the right reading matter in this raise eyebrows.) The text is cleverly integrated into illustrations paean to the pleasures of print. of animals, insects, and birds in their habitats and is rendered in Boyd brings back the cast of Hide- the first person, implying that each creature is speaking directly and-Sleep (2019) and also employs the to readers about its habitat, feeding habits, and life cycle. A same alternating full- and split-page baby otter, for example, says that it is a good swimmer like its format to set up a simple guessing game. mother; a caterpillar says that when it gets older it will grow Floating into view in a boat loaded with wings. Each two-page spread is packed with facts that are per- books, Squirrel holds up one volume with a carrot on the cover: fect for very young naturalists. The use of baby animals as nar- “A book for you!” For whom? The only visual cue is a pair of ears rators combined with the slide-the-tab design makes this book sticking up from behind a rock—until the flap is flipped to incredibly inviting to young readers, although the lack of nar- show Rabbit, reading happily. The distribution goes on, as the rative structure may make it challenging for group read-alouds. next “book for you!” which displays a nest with an egg, goes to… An innovative approach to teaching children about eco- Bird, followed by one with an image of a flower for Butterfly, systems and life cycles. (Board book. 1-4) a water lily for Frog, and on until the last reader to be served, Owl (a tree adorns its cover), calls out “Whoo-whoo-whoo loves books?!” The answer, obviously, is: “Everyone!” Each page turn I LOVE MATZAH reveals more and more brightly colored and simply drawn crea- Biniashvili, Freidele Galya Soban tures, even fish, noses buried in their reading. In the final pic- Illus. by Scudamore, Angelika ture all have climbed into the S.S. Book Boat, and who would find Kar-Ben (12 pp.) the author’s closing “All aboard!” an invitation anything short of $6.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 irresistible? 978-1-5415-5727-7 Every book its reader, as the old meme goes, and vice versa. (Novelty picture book. 4-6) Eating matzah is a delicious Passover tradition for one happy kid. In this ode to the unleavened foodstuff, a young preschooler THE ITSY BITSY ANGEL noshes on the Passover specialty throughout the day in various Burton, Jeffrey yummy iterations, whether it’s crumbled in yogurt, spread with Illus. by Rešček, Sanja jam, or alongside fish and carrots. Confined to a child’s snug Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (16 pp.) domestic world, all the action takes place within the home, and the $5.99 | Sep. 17, 2019 simply rendered kitchen, dining-room, and bedroom scenes place 978-1-5344-4340-2 all the focus on the curly-haired child’s smiling face as yet another meal with the familiar, favorite food approaches. The book ends The Nativity story is retold to the humorously with the family giggling at baby brother, who is wear- tune of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.” ing, not eating his treat, and a wish for readers to have a “Happy Burton and Rešček’s latest attempt to exploit the popularity Passover!” Joyful illustrations are flat and bright, and there are lit- of the familiar nursery song shares many of the same problems tle touches of Judaica sprinkled throughout that will make Jewish found in their previous efforts (The Itsy Bitsy School Bus, 2018, children feel seen: a Star of David mobile, a kippah-topped teddy etc.). The text tries to match the rhyme and meter of the tra- bear, and a cheery “Got Matzah?” bib. Relayed in sprightly rhym- ditional verse, but there are just too many syllables. “Out came ing couplets, the text emphasizes the many tasty treats and the use a Star / to chase the clouds away” works, but good luck singing

128 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult - (Board

3) - Two pirates and their parrot companion parrot their and pirates Two GO, GO, PIRATE BOAT PIRATE GO, GO, Charman, Katrina Charman, Bloomsbury (24 pp.) $7.99 | Oct. 1, 2019 $7.99 Illus. by Sharratt, Nick by Sharratt, Illus. 978-1-5476-0319-0 (2018), Charman and Sharratt and Charman (2018), Jeep Truck, Car, Car, 3) - Read this one for the lovely lunar illustrations. Bisaillon’s Bisaillon’s art takes center stage as readers follow along Following Following A perfect piece of treasure it is not, but shiver me tim bers, fun. it’s (Board book. 1 book. 1 buccaneers and their parrot spend a day at sea engaged in such boldly colored and eye-catching. The pirates themselves are be lost. illustrations—in Bisaillon’s cut pastels, - paper, watercol light-brown light-brown skin. Most of the ocean creatures have anthro- looking for the moon in different objects, beginning with the humanlike humanlike noses and smiles eyebrows (and, for oddly, the - octo head of the pocked, gray nail,” surface its clearly shiny, a minia- home. rhyming Charman’s text has a nice cadence, and thanks up buried treasure. At the end of the day—which culminates pomorphized features—a mostly successful choice with the pus). Overall, this one holds high appeal for little readers, and rhymes work neatly into the tune so that it reads easily the not obviously gendered; one presents white and the other has reread. requested nicate nicate meaning to readers. This works out in the case of “the represented with gender stereotypes (heads and facial features maritime activities as scrubbing the deck and hoisting the in a nonviolent walk across the two plank—the pirates return sail along with quintessentially piratical chores like digging shiny hubcap), while others are more obscure (a tooth, a pillow). a tooth, (a obscure more are others while hubcap), shiny team team up again for this swashbuckling, musical tale. The two the nature rhyming of text will the make singsong-y, it a highly ture moon. For others, such as the “apple pie,” it’s harder to find to harder it’s pie,” “apple the as such others, For moon. ture concept the Because depicted. object the in likeness moon’s the to the show-stopping opening and closing wintry forest scenes, through a window across the bedroom. child’s are Humans not up for it. tions mostly make to the cover note to sing along Row, to the tune Row, of “Row, titular statement. Some are fairly obvious (a pail of milk, a embark on adventures to the tune of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” Your Row Row, tune of “Row, the embark on adventures to exception of the jellyfish and octopus, shown awkwardly with of a metaphor is a big one for board-book dif- readers, when it’s ors, pencils, and digital collage—are trulyaddition stunning. In a real standout shows a bird’s-eye view of glow the castmoon’s are largely excluded), but all visible skin reads as white. Overall, readers. young to metaphors convey to effort successful largely a first time through. Sharratt’sblack-outlined illustrations are ficultto see an resemblanceto object’s the moon, the idea may Even though they don’t all quite work out, the beautiful illustra out, the beautiful work - all quite though they don’t Even These metaphors rely heavily on artwork Bisaillon’s to - commu Your Boat,” it moves along at a the nice most clip. part,For the Your - - - y, rhyming text will make text rhyming y, 3) - go, go, pirate boat pirate go, go, - 129 2020 | | 15 january books | kirkus.com | board & novelty this a highly requested reread. highlythis a requested 3) The singsong - This richly illustrated board book Series: New Books for Newborns Books for Newborns Series: New HAND IN HAND Orca (24 pp.) Cassidy, Sara Cassidy, Capucilli, Alyssa Alyssa Satin Capucilli, Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (16 pp.) Little Simon/Simon & Schuster $10.95 | Sep. 10, 2019 | Sep. 10, $10.95 $7.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 7, | Jan. $7.99 THE MOON IS A SILVER POND THE MOON IS A SILVER Illus. by Bisaillon, Josée Illus. Illus. by Murray, Sheryl by Murray, Illus. 978-1-4598-1864-4 978-1-5344-4172-9 Both the song and Bible story are better in their origi A A young toddler enjoys a day “hand in hand” with a loving, A lyrical celebration of an ordinary outing and the While their relationship is never stated, the Asian-presenting the stated, never is relationship their While bonds between loving adult andchild. (Board book. 1 baby Jesus—are pale, though there are a few secondary angels board pages may stand up to rough handling, but with limited ball,carousel. and perching on the playground between between the duo is palpable. While this offering is part of the lullaby, the lullaby, palette, busy compositions, and age of the featured nal versions. (Board book. 1 uses the moon to explore metaphor. uses the moon to which has the look and feel of pencil, pen, and ink, projects a most of the characters—the titular angel, shepherds, Magi, and Magi, shepherds, angel, characters—thetitular the of most seasonal appeal it’s likely seasonal to languish likely appeal more This it’s often than not. simplified and sanitized attract however, retelling caregiv may, steps. steps. Those children will thrill to see the fun they’ll have once youngster is youngster a diminutive version of the grown-up, right down to guide their way.” Similarly, guide rhyming Similarly, their “world” way.” and “girl” requires the next line: “and three wise men looked up / and let the Star trations of the desert Holy Land are greeting-card sweet, and they are on steady their feet, playing on the slide, running a after the chin-length bobbed hair and bangs. The dyad enjoys a walk through the park, a snack on a park bench, some active play on toddler tired the home, back foot on trip the and playground, the two / Hand in hand / Through and through.” Murray’s soft art, ers looking for religious stories to share with toddlers. share with toddlers. to ers looking for religious stories of color. The story begins with the angel announcing the tidings the announcing angel the with begins story The color. of Sturdy original. the of complexity the out leaving birth, Jesus’ of child makes it feel more appropriate for children taking their first their taking children for appropriate more feel it makes child cozy warmth despite a mostly cool, pale color scheme. The bond a mostly warmth scheme. despite pale cozy color cool, carried by the loving adult. The rhythmic lovely, text is a series We, / of rhymes made up of You one to four / words per line: “Me energetic caregiver. energetic caregiver. a leap of faith. no For apparent reason, some words are set in a different-colored different-colored type from those around them. ek’s č illusReš New New Books for Newborns series, with text reading like a gentle Like food-truck fare, it goes down easily. frankie’s food truck

WINTER DAYS SPRING DAYS and cutesy mouths. Presumably this is intended to give this Colley, Kate fictional visit to the doctor a lighthearted air, but the device Illus. by Goble, Dale Nigel could be confusing to literal-minded youngsters. The spread on Orca (26 pp.) vaccines (a representative virus particle within the serum also $10.95 | Sep. 24, 2019 has googly eyes, plus a superhero cape) reassuringly states that: 978-1-4598-2109-5 “Most vaccines are shots, so it might hurt a little, but only for a second. Take a deep breath and know you are brave for keep- In this two-in-one board book, dis- ing your body safe!” While this offering doesn’t show the actual cover the joys of various seasons. doctors, waiting rooms, or examination tables that most going- With one half of the book dedicated to winter and the other to-the-doctor books include, it does provide answers to many half to spring, the two sections are bound back to back, necessi- of the “why” questions older toddlers and preschoolers express. tating a turn upside down in the middle. While some books use Googly eyes aside, an upbeat, science-based primer of this two-part format in innovative ways that enhance the story, human anatomy. (Board book. 2-4) this flip feels cumbersome, as it adds no real richness and serves only to slow readers down. As a read-aloud, it stumbles as well, as the meter in the short couplets is off in places, and even when FRANKIE’S FOOD TRUCK the rhyme does scan, lines such as “snowman to make / ponds Illus. by Gaggiotti, Lucia to skate” are none too exciting. Flat, graphically simplified Candlewick Entertainment (12 pp.) illustrations feature a multiracial cast of characters with round $9.99 | Oct. 8, 2019 faces, black dotted eyes, and small, semicircular smiles, mak- 978-1-5362-0687-6 ing them look like mildly exaggerated emojis. Sometimes these depictions of people work; other times they look misshapen, Frankie’s food truck makes the like oddly proportioned clothes perched upon a personified rounds every day of the week, mixing lightbulb. Better are the richly colored and stylized close-ups gastronomy with geometry in this inter- of seasonal objects like colorful cups of cocoa, red-and-white active guide to the shapes of things to eat. striped socks and vividly black-and-gold bumblebees. These This volume serves up a tasty variety of vocabulary, includ- bright, rounded objects are adorable, especially those with cute, ing the days of the week, basic shapes, and various foodstuffs kawaii-style happy faces. A companion book dedicated to sum- that young readers and their caregivers are invited to identify. mer and fall is slightly stronger, with catchier rhymes and lots of Frankie is an undeniably cute kitten with an oversized head and seasonal brightness. a smile to match. He parks his food truck in the same spot every Though the flippable format doesn’t add much, the day of the week; the cityscape in the background never changes. illustrations are eye-catching. (Board book. 6 mos.-2) (Summer The one thing that is dramatically different from day to day is Days Fall Days: 978-1-4598-2106-4) the menu, organized around daily geometric themes: “Today is Monday, when Frankie serves squares.” This is not a jab at Frankie’s patrons; it describes his fare, served on the facing page MY DOCTOR’S VISIT on four empty-looking plates with square-shaped, flapped pan- Florance, Cara els that open to reveal several delicious, square-shaped foods: Illus. by Florance, Jon waffles, toast, ravioli, and cheese. Triangles are Tuesday’s order Sourcebooks Explore (24 pp.) of the day; three triangular flaps reveal slices of pizza, pie, and $9.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 watermelon. A circular flap hides a doughnut; the text inside 978-1-4926-9399-4 the flap reads, “Nope! No circles till tomorrow!” Frankie him- Series: Baby University self is rendered differently in each picture, but only slightly so; finding the differences from picture to picture may add an ele- A friendly introduction to the annual medical checkup for ment of fun. little ones. Like food-truck fare, it goes down easily. (Board book. 1-3) In one to two second-person paragraphs per double-page spread, the chatty narration describes the various tests doctors perform while indicating the body part each is meant to examine. Simple diagrams appear against white backgrounds to illustrate the concepts and feature faceless silhouettes of toddler bodies in a variety of skin tones accompanied by simple representations of internal organs. Medical instruments, such as a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer (or blood-pressure cuff), float among the text and diagrams, sometimes commenting on the narration in the fashion of a Greek chorus. Several of these instruments and a good number of the internal organs, like the heart and lungs, have googly eyes, expressive eyebrows,

130 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult (Who Says

2) - , asks Hop? Hippity Who Says (Boardbook. 6 mos. 9) - Three babies play peekaboo with 914 - Series: Baby Mirror Board Books animal friends in this simple question- WHO SAYS PEEKABOO? WHO SAYS Highlights Press (14 pp.) Press Highlights Highlights for Children Highlights $7.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 | Feb. $7.99 978-1-68437-913-2 4) - 8437 - 1 - Lighthearted and wholly engaging nonsense of the first The simple and repetitive format of this board book gives A pleasant-enough diversion, but the game without the bookhas morestaying power. ball sitting on the toilet.” Each time, the response is the same: which also includes a mirror at the end. It is both nonsensical in nonsensical both is It end. the at mirror a includes also which with an invitation for readers to say “PEEKABOO” too. The readers which animal says the titular phrase, passing up various response is a resounding, “Yes WAY!” “Yes response is a resounding, its premise and less engaging for infants and toddlers than the . more versatile Peekaboo illustrations feature photographs of babies (none with dark in. Thankfully, the babies and animals are adorable, because it high appeal for very young readers, who also get to play along. play veryfor appeal high to it get also who readers, young skin) and animals against background with clip-art– an all-white style props such as a box and a beach bucket digitally collaged these embellishments are decidedly The lackluster. repetition companion title, A the end. book’s that can do math, a tomato that sings, a hockey-player pickle, order. (Boardorder. book. 1 of the text and the familiarity of the peekaboo game make it an of the peekaboo game make and the familiarity of the text enjoy gazing at themselves and their caregivers in the mirror at appropriate appropriate read for infants and young toddlers, who will also answer, “Baby answer, says, PEEKABOO!” are repeated with three dif- and-answer board book. and-answer and a skateboarding cupcake, for example. The final question is, question final The example. for cupcake, skateboarding a and farm animals until readers land on the correct hopping creature. hopping correct the on land readers until animals farm ferent baby-and-animal pairs. The finalpage features a mirror Easter baskets and eggs accompany the photographs in this one, this in photographs the eggsaccompany and baskets Easter Hippity Hop?: 978 Hop?: Hippity The question “What game does baby want to play?” and its “have you ever seen…”: “a flying toothbrush”; “a dancing cookie”; dancing “a toothbrush”; flying “a seen…”: ever you “have glasses” “a and wearing “poop course, of and, tomato”; singing “a The drawings WAY!” “No are adorable, peopled with broccoli the caregiver); from tickles light (cue baby?” a tickling “Someone - Poop Riding a Poop 131 2020 | | 15 january books | kirkus.com | board & novelty (Informational novelty. Call-and-response hilarity and a bit A A graphic artist’s view of a small, by flaps, inside views, cut-paper and mixed garden’s seasonal round, enhanced enhanced round, seasonal garden’s mixed IN THE GARDEN Giuliani, Emma Giuliani, flowers. Princeton Architectual Press (16 pp.) Press Architectual Princeton Orca (32 pp.) $27.95 | Apr. 7, 2020 7, Apr. | $27.95 Gravel, Elise Gravel, Illus. by the author Illus. $10.95 | Oct. 8, 2019 $10.95 978-1-61689-893-9 A POTATO ON A BIKE A POTATO Illus. by the author Illus. 978-1-4598-2320-4 This sweet little board book is a surefire favorite thattod- In In Giuliani’s composed, quietly harmonious scenes, young Visually and conceptually idyllic. 9) - book is rife with specialized vocabulary (“involucre,” “pedun- ble-page spread is keyed to a particular moment in the season, happy-go-lucky bowel movement on wheels. Ironically enough, plants, stages of growth, and good (organic) horticultural prac proper times sow seeds, repot plants that wintered over in the page, which asks: “Have you ever seen a carrot taking a BATH?” BATH?” a taking carrot a everseen you page,asks:“Have which poop or a so potty, this will surely be a hit with young toilet with a large picture of Plum and Robin on verso. In blocks of illustrated, oversized album to fuel winter dreams and schemes. fuel winter oversizedillustrated, album to sented fairly simplistically, there are still generous enough funds enough generous still are there simplistically, fairly sented ridiculous potential sightings are suggested, all introduced shapes, Giuliani describes in some detail the parts of seeds and imagining that the pedaling brown blob on the cover is indeed a indeed is cover the on blob brown pedaling the that imagining silhouettes—tidy up their patch after its winter sleep, then at greenhouse, water and greenhouse, nurturewater seedlings, set up poles for beans givers alike. tices. If some tices. of If those practices, such as “install[ing] a beehive” trainers. The format is straightforward, set forth on the opening the on forth set straightforward, is format The trainers. there are two images in the book that do in fact feature either of botanical information and practical advice in this elegantly or pouring milk around garden repel borders rabbits, to are pre- commentary alongside smaller, posterlike images of common cle”) that’s either defined in text or clearly illustrated. Each dou- Each clearly illustrated. or text in defined either that’s cle”) cover clearly states a it’s potato—no one could fault a child for of potty humor make this and a care- read-aloud delight for tots of potty humor make and stakes for tomatoes, then at last, in autumn, gather ripe fruits and veggies before putting the garden back to bed. The dlers and their adults may well be referring to as On recto, the response is writ large and loud: “No WAY!” Other WAY!” “No loud: and large writ is response the recto, On flora and fruits on and under flaps cut into natural or geometric or natural into and cut flora fruits flaps under and on Plum and her little brother Robin—both depicted as solid black solid as depicted Robin—both brother little her and Plum 6 Bicycle for years to While come. that is clearly erroneous—the HE’S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD “galleon.” Many of the vehicles are alphabetized by modifiers IN HIS HANDS that denote function (“ice-cream truck”), appearance (“jumbo Illus. by Ho, Hanh Dung jet”), or ownership (“naval ship”). Wondering about Qq and Xx? Tiger Tales (16 pp.) Think “Queen Mary” (the ship, not the monarch) and “express $9.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 train” (the only vehicle whose name doesn’t begin with the let- 978-1-68010-587-2 ter it illustrates). A well-curated things-that-go abecederary. (Board book. The pages of this board book offer 1-3) colorful interpretations of each verse of the traditional song. The pictures feature diverse groups WELCOME, BABY! of family and friends engaged in child- Katz, Karen friendly activities such as camping, picnicking, and celebrating Illus. by the author a birthday together. The rhyming text, which will be familiar Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (14 pp.) to many caregivers raised in the United States, can be either $6.99 | Dec. 17, 2019 sung or read: For those unfamiliar with the song, the words are 978-1-5344-3071-6 rhythmic enough to be interesting to read even without a tune. With the possible exception of a final cityscape, landscapes A short and cozy lift-the-flap book are mostly European or North American, though one double- catalogs ways families welcome and care page spread celebrating nature includes a mishmash of tropical, for new babies. savanna, and temperate woodland flora and fauna. The lyrics Addressing young listeners directly, a declarative sentence are italicized and featured prominently but are also strategi- on the verso states how the narrator cared for “you” as an infant: cally placed so as not to interfere with the illustrations. Starting “We wrapped you in a snuggly…” reads one, while the answer of from the first page, the human characters in the pictures rep- “blanket” hides under a blanket-shaped flap. After listing various resenting the lyrics are diverse in terms of skin color, age, abil- items a baby needs to thrive, a final fold-out page shows dot- ity, religion, gender, and body type. The artist uses a vibrant but ing adults giving babies the most important thing of all: love. not overwhelming palette and soft brush strokes to infuse each Sweetness abounds, from the familiar cheery Katz art, with illustration with a soothing, playful feeling and to fill the char- heart-shaped lips and oversized heads, cuddly, doll-like babies, acters with movement, expression, and joy. The level of detail in and lively, colorful patterns that decorate the flaps and pages. each illustration allows adults and kids alike the opportunity to All the pages feature different family constellations, and the discover something new every time they look at it. diverse male and female caregivers appear nurturing and warm. This sweet, gentle interpretation of an African Ameri- The use of the phrase “when you came home” is inclusive of can spiritual features a notably diverse cast. (Board book. 2-6) adoptive and foster as well as birth families. What’s mystifying is its designation as a “lift-the-flap-book for new babies,” as the text refers to infancy as past, and new babies don’t make guesses VEHICLES ABC or handle flaps. Toddlers preparing for a sibling may enjoy this Illus. by Ho, Jannie title and will appreciate the book’s interactivity. Small glimpses Nosy Crow/Candlewick (26 pp.) of the answers will help cue toddlers, though some of the terms $6.99 | Dec. 24, 2019 (a “bassinet” as opposed to a crib; a “baby bottle” in a home 978-1-5362-0815-3 accustomed to breastfeeding) may be difficult for some viewers to guess. An alphabet-based vocabulary builder Though this board book isn’t especially innovative, it’s organized on the theme of “things that go.” unquestionably warmhearted. (Board book. 6 mos.-2) It’s tough rating one book of this sort “outstanding” in contrast to the countless similar offerings on the market, but this one rates at least a “pretty good.” The presentation is appealing EGGS ARE EVERYWHERE in its simplicity. Each of the 26 pages features its respective let- Illus. by Kirwan, Wednesday ter in both upper- and lowercase; these are hand-lettered in a Chronicle (10 pp.) blocky print and colored to contrast with the background. Each $10.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 letter appears with a vehicle, name clearly printed on the page; 978-1-4521-7457-0 in all but one case, the vehicle begins with the corresponding letter. The bright, colorful artwork is not particularly realistic, An interactive egg hunt with turning- but it hits all the right signals for easy recognition by toddlers. wheel and lift-the-flap elements. All of the old favorites are featured: ambulance, bulldozer, dig- This board book begins by directing readers to find the hid- ger, and helicopter, for example, but part of the book’s appeal is den eggs. Each wheel—there are four in all set into the interior in its thoughtful vocabulary-expanding selections as well. Cc is pages—has several different eggs on it, and turning it reveals for “carriage,” for example, Ee is for “electric car,” and Gg is for an egg in a little die-cut window. Spinning it further hides the

132 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | The art pops—and pops up. i love you (almost always)

egg behind one of two lift-the-flap panels—two baskets, for TOUGH CHICKS LOVE example—and readers must guess behind which they’ll find the THEIR MAMA egg they have chosen to track. A diagram on the back provides Meng, Cece instructions for use, likely more helpful to caregivers than to Illus. by Suber, Melissa little ones. There is no narrative in this book; it’s simply page HMH Books (12 pp.) after page of different directives along the lines of “Guess $8.99 | Dec. 17, 2019 which door!” As a result, the focus is really on manipulatives 978-0-358-12653-9 and the illustrations. Fortunately, Kirwan’s spring-themed art- Series: Tabbed Touch-and-Feel work is gorgeous. The backdrop of each page is flower- and leaf- themed with warm spring hues, echoing the artwork of Eastern With the help of farm-animal friends, three little chicks European hand-stenciled Easter eggs, two of which appear at bake their mother a cake and save it from ruin. the end of the book. The animals, like the smiling snail and mis- In this tactile board book, baby chickens Penny, Polly, and chievous mice, are reminiscent of classic European fairy-tale Molly are determined to show their love for Mama by baking creatures. The only human in the book is a dark-skinned child her a cake. Other baby farm animals get in on the action, help- with tight, curly hair. The moveable pieces largely work, though ing haul supplies and decorate the cake. When the enormous at times the necessary white space under the flaps interrupts cake nearly topples, the chicks come up with a way to keep it the illustration awkwardly, as when the child’s hands suddenly intact, demonstrating to Mama both their love and their quick develop large oval holes if the spinner is not in the correct posi- thinking. What’s unclear from the story is what makes these tion. Overall, it’s more game than book. three chicks the titular “tough.” They’re certainly quick, inno- There is no real story, but the moving parts are fun, and vative, and persistent, but beyond the cutesy play on words, it the illustrations are beautiful. (Board book. 2-4) doesn’t mean much. The book includes various touch-and- young adult feel elements: a fluffy foal’s tail and a fun-to-touch sticky spot of cake frosting. There are, however, unnecessary tabs on the I LOVE YOU right-hand side of the book. A little mouse appears before each (ALMOST ALWAYS) page turn with reader-participation questions. “Can you moooo A Pop-Up Book of Friendship like a calf?” it asks. These mostly work, but they’re not needed. Llenas, Anna Suber’s illustrations are sweet, the animals cartoonish. They Illus. by the author help explain and move the story along, particularly showing Sterling (22 pp.) how the cake is saved at the end. Mostly there is just too much: $24.95 | Feb. 4, 2020 tabs, flaps, participatory directions, touch-and-feel elements. 978-1-4549-3950-4 Less would have been more. Tries to do too much and doesn’t quite succeed. (Board Insect friends find ways of coping with each other’s book. 1-3) differences. As with Llenas’ The Color Monster (2018), the magnificent art will prove a stronger draw than the sketchy storyline. Ralph is TRAINS a “roly-poly” with a hard shell, a gift for camouflage, and a pref- Prénat, Sophie erence for being in charge. Rita is a firefly—quick, flashy, and Illus. by Schleef, Vinciane extroverted. At first such differences don’t matter, but in time Trans. by Hardenberg, Wendeline A. they prove irritating enough to lead to a brief falling-out. With Twirl/Chronicle (14 pp.) the willingness to make a few accommodations, though, the $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 two find their relationship strong enough to survive and flower 979-1-03631-358-5 into, at the end, a closing smooch. Gatefolds, inset booklets, Series: Ultimate Spotlight immense multilayered pop-ups that seem to burst up as they open, and pull tabs that create big, broad movements enhance How modern freight and passenger illustrations created from layers and assemblages of large and trains look and go, with flaps to offer small cut-paper bits, all further energized with transparent inside views. colors and added scribbly lines. Though Ralph and Rita have As exercises in bland generalities go, this French import buglike attributes, they look like humans (both white) in cos- stays solidly on the rails—pairing labels or colorless comments tumes. Younger audiences will likely pay more attention to the (“The engine car is the only part of the train with an engine”) tabs and pop-ups than the theme, but both pals are drawn with to impersonal painted views of toylike trains. These all look large, expressive faces that make it easy to track the ins and outs inert, whether en route through artificial-looking settings or of their close, if occasionally stressed, relationship. sitting at platforms amid diverse clots of small human figures, The art pops—and pops up. (Pop-up picture book. 5-7) all with smiles and dot eyes, strolling or scurrying past. A spare assortment of flaps and pull tabs open sliding doors, show rows of empty or occupied seats, depict a select gallery of freight- car types, or allow glimpses of wheels, electrical arms, and the

| kirkus.com | board & novelty books | 15 january 2020 | 133 Clear backgrounds, a large clean type, and thick pages turn this simple paean to love into a useful instruction manual for the youngest yogis. i yoga you

engineer in the cab. Aside from a postage-stamp–size image of tickles with the other, drinks cocoa, takes a walk and flies a a “Peruvian mountain train” and the barest nose of a maglev, the kite, rides a bike, and is playfully swung in the air before a bath. trains on view, named or not, are all European (or partly, in the Much of the action is communicated only by the pictures. The case of the Trans-Siberian Railway). tender rhyming verses focus on the wonder of familial love. A routine, juiceless candidate chugging straight for the Every other stanza ends with the refrain: “This world of ours storage yard. (Informational picture book/novelty. 6-8) is full of love / when you are here with me.” Curiously, although this cub has two present, caregiving adults, the narrative, presumably addressed to the child, uses the first-person singular. HIDE-AND-SEEK AT THE The baby bear is presented as gender-neutral, first in orange- CONSTRUCTION SITE and-green polka-dot pajamas and then in blue jeans with a white A Hidden Pictures® Lift-the- shirt graced with yellow ducks. Although neither adult bear is flap Book gendered in the text, the illustrations use stereotypical cues: Roemer, Heidi Bee One wears a yellow dress decorated with hearts; the other wears Illus. by Ho, Jannie a striped shirt (and no trousers). No one can miss that the baby Highlights Press (10 pp.) bear is the adults’ little darling. $9.99 | Nov. 5, 2019 Sweet—but more for adults than children. (Board book. 978-1-68437-650-6 1-3) This oversized lift-the-flap board book is reminiscent of Richard Scarry’s classic titles. I YOGA YOU Four lines of rhyming text highlight the function of the Santos, Genevieve equipment seen on each spread. Unfortunately, the rhyme is Illus. by the author sometimes forced; “trees” does not rhyme with “debris,” unless Little Simon/Simon & Schuster (26 pp.) “debris” is mispronounced. A concluding couplet—“What is hid- $8.99 | Dec. 10, 2019 ing? Take a peek. / Lift the flaps for hide-and-seek!”—repeated 978-1-5344-5489-7 on each spread directs readers to eight flaps hidden on each spread. Their small cutouts are almost too small for tiny fingers. In this rhyming board book, 13 cheer- Oddly, it is only after opening the flap and revealing the hidden ful children move through a day of yoga object that readers are asked, “Can you find the _____?” These postures, from a morning sun salutation tiny objects have no relation to either their hiding places or to a bedtime “sleeping pose.” construction. A piece of cake lurks beneath a wheelbarrow; a The opening lines mirror the cadence of the old song “Skin- dump truck hides a pencil. The lack of contextual clues makes namarink”: “I love you in the morning / when you salute the this book one to share with somewhat older readers, who may sun. // I love you when you stretch out straight. / Our day has learn some new vocabulary but probably won’t be much chal- now begun!” Unfortunately, the rhyme and scansion deteriorate lenged. Still, there is much to see and talk about. (Don’t miss the as the verse continues. “I love you in the garden / when we say construction worker anxiously waiting to use the port-a-potty. hello to plants and trees” is fine, but it’s followed by the- tor That might have been a flap worth opening.) Animal workers tured “I love you when you make me laugh— / you’re full of such of many species labor on this construction site. One is referred sillies,” and rhyming “down” with “proud” is a huge stretch. Still, to as “she,” the only pronoun used in the book; two of the three the 13 children shown incorporating yoga into everyday play are adult caregivers depicted in a final spread wear dresses. a diverse bunch. The adults helping the children dress, garden, There’s lots of detail, but it’s poorly organized. (Board play, meditate, fly, manage emotions, and explore are equally book. 2-4) varied in terms of age and race, though there are no characters with visible disabilities. Any book lover will appreciate the penultimate stanza: “I love you / when we read book… / after book… ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD / after book until the end of the day.” The final line abandons the Salzano, Tammi meter completely. “It is time for bed, sleepyhead. / Namaste.” Illus. by Fleming, Lucy The last spread labels the poses modeled by each of the children. Tiger Tales (22 pp.) Clear backgrounds, a large clean type, and thick pages turn this $9.99 | Dec. 24, 2019 simple paean to love into a useful instruction manual for the 978-1-68010-603-9 youngest yogis. Mindfully executed (mostly). (Board book. 1-4) A doting pair of adult bears follows a baby bear through a busy day. These fully engaged caregivers are clearly awed by the little cub, starting with “You’re the morning sunshine” and ending with “you sleep so peacefully / beneath the twinkling stars.” In between, the baby bear paints a picture, sings with one adult,

134 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | I LOVE YOU, LITTLE MOO isn’t looking so beastly to the child, either. But what to feed the Temple, Tilly guests? Maybe “Chocolate Fingers” without actual fingers? The Illus. by Deo, Laura monsters all have a wonderful dinner. And Dinner does too. Tiger Tales (10 pp.) Gourmands, armchair or otherwise, with strong stom- $9.99 | Dec. 24, 2019 achs will smack their lips. (Novelty picture book. 6-8) 978-1-68010-624-4

Animal caregivers show affection for little ones with the help of sturdy movable flaps. The titular “little moo” is a brown calf who appears on the continuing series opening double-page spread in a field facing away from an adult Holstein with horns and eyelashes. The calf is on a shaped flap, and when the flap is opened, the youngster appears to move back DEATHSTRIKE across the field to nuzzle its caregiver. On subsequent pages fur- Chen, Jeff ther animals are animated by the flip of a flap and given nick- Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins (288 pp.) names based on their sounds. A pig and a piglet (called “little $16.99 | Jan. 14, 2020 oink) wallow in the mud; a duck enfolds two ducklings with its 978-0-06-280269-9 wings; a horse and foal gaze at each other; and a cat and kitten Series: Ultraball, 2 curl up together for bedtime. Each of these double-page spreads (Science fiction. -8 12) is accompanied by four lines of rhymed, sentimental verse with the final line appearing under the flap. Done in a harmoniously SPEEDAH CHEETAH young adult muted palette, Deo’s appealingly stocky, wide-eyed creatures Cummings, Troy and simplified backgrounds suit the feel of the text. Many of Illus. by the author the young critters don’t match the coloring of their full-grown Scholastic (96 pp.) caregivers, allowing this title to work for families in a variety of $4.99 paper | $24.99 PLB | Feb. 4, 2020 configurations (children who were adopted, children in foster 978-1-338-31472-4 paper care, etc.). Toddlers will likely respond to the extra-sturdy flaps, 978-1-338-31473-1 PLB which will survive robust interaction. Series: The Binder of Doom, 3 A thoughtful, versatile celebration of love that allows (Fiction. 6-8) for playful toddler handling. (Board book. 6 mos.-3) SILVERBELLY BEAST FEAST Dahlstrom, S.J. Paul Dry Books (182 pp.) Yarlett, Emma $9.95 paper | Feb. 11, 2020 Illus. by the author 978-1-58988-143-3 Kane/Miller (32 pp.) Series: The Adventures of Wilder Good, 6 $14.99 | Mar. 1, 2020 (Fiction. 8-12) 978-1-68464-005-8

A child captured by a hungry monster CECE LOVES SCIENCE turns out to have some unusual ideas about preparing dinner. Push and Pull Though the concept is not altogether new, this trickster tale Derting, Kimberly has some special features of its own to offer—most particularly Illus. by Johannes, Shelli R. a set of outstandingly gross recipes like “Eyeball Sushi” and Greenwillow (40 pp.) “Cockroach Cola” (“1. Pop the cockroaches in your mouth and $16.99 | $4.99 paper | Feb. 25, 2020 crunch until blended. 2. Spit”) that give way at the end to dishes 978-0-06-294609-6 that sound revolting but have edible, even delicious, ingredients. 978-0-06-294608-9 paper With Sir Gutguzzler and other monstrous friends all sending Series: Cece Loves Science formal RSVPs, each missive a glued-in, folded feature for little (Early reader. 6-9) fingers to tease apart, Beast is looking forward to a memorable repast. But “Dinner,” a small child with light brown skin and an engaging mop of reddish curls, keeps suggesting improvements. Instead of fattening Dinner up with “putrid swill,” how about some chocolate cake? Rather than adding just a sprinkle of salt and a bare dip into a tub of slime, why not enjoy delightful outings to the sea and the local swamp? Soon Beast is thinking that Dinner doesn’t look like dinner any more…and Beast

| kirkus.com | continuing series | 15 january 2020 | 135 WHO NEEDS A CHECKUP? FINDING HOME KODIAK Feuti, Norm Kingsbury, Karen & Russell, Tyler Miles, Ellen Illus. by the author Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster Scholastic Paperbacks (96 pp.) Acorn/Scholastic (48 pp.) (320 pp.) $5.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 $4.99 paper | $23.99 PLB | Feb. 4, 2020 $17.99 | Feb. 25, 2020 978-1-338-57217-9 978-1-338-28144-6 paper 978-1-5344-1218-7 Series: The Puppy Place, 56 978-1-338-28145-3 PLB Series: Baxter Family Children, 2 (Fiction. 7-10) Series: Hello, Hedgehog!, 3 (Fiction. 8-12) (Graphic fantasy. 6-9) DAVID ATTENBOROUGH SUPER POTATO AND THE Sánchez Vergara, Maria Isabel JAZZ FLY 3 MUTANT ANIMAL MAYHEM Illus. by Noh, Mikyo The Caribbean Sea Laperla, Artur Frances Lincoln (32 pp.) Gollub, Matthew Illus. by the author $14.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 Illus. by Hanke, Karen Trans. by MacTire, Norwyn 978-0-7112-4564-8 Tortuga Press (40 pp.) Graphic Universe (56 pp.) Series: Little People, Big Dreams $18.95 | Feb. 1, 2020 $27.99 | $8.99 paper | Feb. 4, 2020 (Picture book/biography. 4-7) 978-1-889910-54-3 978-1-5124-4024-9 Series: Jazz Fly 978-1-541558701-4 paper HEARTSONG’S MISSING FOAL (Picture book. 4-8) Series: Super Potato, 4 Sanderson, Whitney (Graphic fantasy. 8-12) Illus. by Tejido, Jomike WE’RE RED, WEIRD, AND Jolly Fish (72 pp.) BLUE! MINDY KIM AND THE LUNAR $4.99 paper | Jan. 1, 2020 WHAT CAN WE DO? NEW YEAR PARADE 978-1-63163-392-8 Gutman, Dan Lee, Lyla Illus. by Paillot, Jim Illus. by Ho, Dung Series: Unicorns of the Secret Stable, 1 Harper/HarperCollins (144 pp.) Aladdin (96 pp.) (Fantasy. 6-8) $5.99 paper | Jan. 7, 2020 $16.99 | $5.99 paper | Jan. 14, 2020 978-0-06-279684-4 978-1-5344-4011-1 BEE HEARTFUL Series: My Weird School Special, 6 978-1-5344-4010-4 paper Spread Loving-Kindness (Fiction/Humor. 6-10) Series: Mindy Kim, 2 Sileo, Frank J. (Fiction. 6-9) Illus. by Keay, Claire THE STORY OF CIVIL WAR Magination/American Psychological HERO ROBERT SMALLS BIG BIRD’S BIG BAD DAY Association (32 pp.) Halfmann, Janet Manning, Craig $17.99 | Jan. 7, 2020 Illus. by Smith, Duane Illus. by Mathieu, Joe 978-1-4338-3157-7 Lee & Low (80 pp.) Sourcebooks Wonderland (32 pp.) Series: Bee… $9.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 $10.99 | Feb. 1, 2020 (Picture book. 4-8) 978-1-64379-016-9 978-1-4926-9462-5 Series: The Story of… Series: Sesame Street TIME WARP (Biography. 8-12) (Picture book. 3-7) The Seventh Journey Through Time THE STORY OF THE ESCAPE FROM THE TWIN Stilton, Geronimo ENVIRONMENTALIST TOWERS Scholastic Paperbacks (318 pp.) WANGARI MAATHAI Messner, Kate $16.99 | Feb. 4, 2020 Johnson, Jen Cullerton Illus. by McMorris, Kelley 978-1-338-58742-5 Illus. by Sadler, Sonia Lynn Scholastic (144 pp.) Series: Geronimo Stilton Lee & Low (80 pp.) $5.99 paper | $25.99 PLB | Feb. 4, 2020 Journeys Through Time, 7 $9.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 978-338-53794-9 paper (Fantasy. 8-12) 978-1-64379-012-1 978-338-53795-4 PLB Series: The Story of… Series: Ranger in Time, 11 THE STORY OF OLYMPIC DIVER (Biography. 8-12) (Fiction. 7-10) SAMMY LEE Yoo, Paula Illus. by Lee, Dom Lee & Low (80 pp.) $9.95 paper | Feb. 1, 2020 978-1-64379-014-5 paper Series: The Story of… (Biography. 8-12)

136 | 15 january 2020 | children’s | kirkus.com | young adult

These titles earned the Kirkus Star: ALL THE PRETTY THINGS Arsenault, Emily Delacorte (352 pp.) A PHOENIX FIRST MUST BURN ed. by Patrice Caldwell...... 139 $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-9848-9705-3 TIGERS, NOT DAUGHTERS by Samantha Mabry...... 148 Seventeen-year-old Ivy Cork unearths EARTH DAY AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT some long-simmering secrets when she by Christy Peterson...... 150 digs into the recent death of one of her MOST LIKELY father’s employees. by Sarah Watson...... 153 With her older brother, Jason, off at college, Ivy is her dad’s right-hand WHEN YOU WERE EVERYTHING by Ashley Woodfolk...... 153

woman at Fabuland, the Danville, New Hampshire, amusement young adult park he owns and operates and where most of Ivy’s friends work, including her best friend since sixth grade, Morgan Froggett. WHEN YOU WERE When Ivy returns to town after a short trip with her mother EVERYTHING (her parents are divorced), she’s told that Morgan has been Woodfolk, Ashley missing since the previous night. Recently 19-year-old Ethan Delacorte (400 pp.) Lavoie, a Fabuland employee with Down syndrome, fell to his $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 death from a train trestle while walking home from the park, 978-1-5247-1591-5 and Morgan was the one who discovered his body. After Mor- gan is found in a state of distress sitting atop Fabuland’s Ferris wheel, Ivy is the only one who can talk her down. When Ivy asks Morgan how she got up there, Morgan replies cryptically “Ask Ethan.” Morgan’s strange answer—and her precarious state of mind—inspire Ivy to investigate the events leading up to Ethan’s death, all while helping her demanding and mercurial father run Fabuland. The amusement park setting is intriguing; however, the mystery is thin, and the meandering narrative is peppered with two-dimensional characters and clunky dialogue. As a result, the eventful final act, featuring a cascade of weighty revelations (including a #MeToo subplot), doesn’t feel earned. A white default is assumed. Underwhelming. (Mystery. 13-18)

BETWEEN BURNING WORLDS Brody, Jessica & Rendell, Joanne Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (688 pp.) $19.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 978-1-5344-1066-4 Series: System Divine, 2

Chatine, Marcellus, and Alouette learn that their planet, Laterre, and its people are under threat by the very man charged with protecting it. A radical group called the Red Scar rapidly gains momentum among the Third Estate while the

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 137 ya takes on toxic masculinity

YA is known for tackling time- mysteries and thrillers, but he ly social issues, so it’s no surprise moves with ease into realis- that recent years have seen a tre- tic fiction, focusing here on a mendous rise in the number of ti- young man who accidentally tles with #MeToo themes. They signs up for a purity pledge at center the journeys of strong fe- church while daydreaming over male protagonists and are right- his unrequited crush. Mean- fully praised for being relevant while, his older sister has be- and necessary; I only dream of come a popular feminist vlog- the day when they are curious his- ger challenging many of the torical relics and young readers messages he has absorbed. Del scratch their heads in disbelief that such stories were is charming and believable— ever needed. and he’s surrounded by peers However, these books are only part of the story. who are doing their best in a world where adults’ ex- There has long been a need for works that speak di- pectations can be baffling and contradictory. This ac- rectly to young men who may not know how to rec- cessible, engaging book is a sheer pleasure to read, and ognize, let alone push back against, toxic masculinity. the insights and revelations around toxic masculinity Fortunately, three titles coming out this winter help fill are all the more potent for being delivered with a light this gap, in the process deepening and enriching the touch. It’s an ideal book club choice. pool of stories available to teen readers. They fill a crit- The titular character in The New David Espinoza ical hole in the literature, and I hope that they will be by Fred Aceves (HarperTeen, widely read and discussed. Feb. 11) struggles with muscle Now That We’re Men: A Play and True Life Accounts dysmorphia. It’s still all too of Boys, Sex & Power, edited by Katie Cappiello (Dot- rare to encounter a treatment tir Press, Jan. 14), blends a theatrical script—featuring of what happens to boys who five New York City high school boys talking about gen- succumb to eating and body der and sexuality—with tools image disorders. This #own- for educators, including tips voices title, written by an au- for leading conversations, dis- thor who knows the pain of cussion prompts, and advice this experience firsthand, is for using the play in English a gift to teens. A particularly classrooms. The second half cruel incident of bullying mo- of the book contains personal tivates David to try to change essays, monologues, and inter- his naturally skinny physique, views by contributors of many but the bodybuilding world leads him into a steroid different backgrounds—in- addiction that alienates him from supportive relation- cluding Eve Ensler and young ships. Toxic masculinity is an inherent part of David’s men from the original cast— battle—what does it mean to be strong? To be a man? reflecting on consent, gamer This intense book does not shy away from honestly culture, male bonding, porn, portraying this often unrecognized condition and the and related subjects. This is a rich resource with po- ways it is intertwined with societal messages. It will tential to support courageous exploration among high leave an indelible impact on readers. —L.S. school and college students. A hilarious, insightful book to hand to every high Laura Simeon is the young adult editor. schooler you know is Not So Pure and Simple by Lamar Giles (HarperTeen, Jan. 21). Giles is known for his YA

138 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | #BlackGirlMagic indeed. a phoenix first must burn

established Vangarde rebels seek information about a myste- A PHOENIX FIRST rious weapon commissioned by Gen. Bonnefaçon. Narrative MUST BURN perspective jumps between the three teen protagonists as they Sixteen Stories of Black each experience profound moments of growth that ultimately Girl Magic, Resistance, and lead them back to one another with the courage and conviction Hope to sabotage the general’s evil plot. Alouette learns about the par- Ed. by Caldwell, Patrice ents who abandoned her and the women who raised her; Mar- Viking (352 pp.) cellus questions the ongoing conflict between his home, Laterre, $18.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 and nearby planet Albion; Chatine, trapped on the prison moon 978-1-9848-3565-9 Bastille, reevaluates her own identity. In the tradition of Star Wars and The Hunger Games, the trio’s heroic efforts are sup- Sixteen #ownvoices authors offer up ported and challenged by a motley crew of new friends and foes, fantasy and science fiction short stories who (thankfully) complicate the previous book’s love-triangle centering black girls. dynamic. Subtle descriptors of hair texture and color suggest In her introduction, editor Caldwell extols the importance that several new friends may be people of color; however, skin of representation and storytelling in black communities and color is not explicitly described. The expanded cast of complex, asks “Where is my fantasy, my future? Why don’t Black people predominantly female characters successfully carries elements exist in speculative worlds?” The diverse contributors to this of both buddy comedy and sociological critique. vibrant and varied collection include acclaimed YA authors A compelling, surprising, and entertaining saga that’s such as Elizabeth Acevedo, Dhonielle Clayton, Justina Ire- literally out of this world. (map) (Science fiction. 12-18) land, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Ibi Zoboi. Their stories run the

gamut from lighthearted to intense. Some use fantastical or SF young adult elements to explore relevant and timely issues such as color- RULES FOR BEING A GIRL ism, violence against black communities, and abuse of minor- Bushnell, Candace & Cotugno, Katie ity groups. Multiple stories are delightfully queer. There’s the Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins (304 pp.) girl working as an alien interrogator on another planet who’s $19.99 | Mar. 11, 2020 starting to think things might be more complicated than she 978-0-06-280337-5 realized in Amerie’s (editor: Because You Love To Hate Me, 2017, etc.) “When Life Hands You a Lemon Fruitbomb.” In Alaya A teen has a feminist awakening after Dawn Johnson’s (contributor: Three Sides of a Heart, 2017, etc.) being assaulted by her teacher. “The Rules of the Land,” the daughter of a sea woman makes a Marin is a pretty ordinary high deal with her powerful and enraged kin to save her people. All school student—she is navigating senior these well-spun tales are enjoyable and accessible to readers of year and relationships, studying hard any background. Magical and real, this collection lives up to its to get into her dream school, and aspir- goal with stories as diverse as the black experience. ing to become a journalist. She and her best friend, Chloe, are #BlackGirlMagic indeed. (Fantasy. 14-adult) co-editors of Bridgewater Prep’s school paper, and they spend their free time in the newspaper office with their adviser and favorite teacher, Mr. Beckett. Bex, as all his students call him, is SUPER ADJACENT not like other teachers—he is young and gregarious and doesn’t Cestari, Crystal keep his private life a secret. Both Marin and Chloe think Bex Disney-Hyperion (368 pp.) is cute and are a little obsessed with his sex life. After Bex offers $18.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 Marin a ride home from school and then kisses her without con- 978-1-368-02398-6 sent, Marin wonders what she did to give him the wrong signals. When neither Chloe nor the school’s board believes her, Fandoms and feelings collide in this Marin starts fighting back against the unwritten rules for girls. epic tale of superhero plus ones. The book shines a light on the pressures of being a girl and the Summer break sees purple-haired, double standards that readers will immediately recognize and 17-year-old Claire vying for a highly com- appreciate or learn from. The writing is complicated in the way petitive internship with Warrior Nation, that female friendships can be. Although the authors include a a group of superheroes. But none of the passage about intersectionality, with all major characters seem- fan theories she devours could prepare her for falling for the ing to be white, it feels like an afterthought. group’s youngest recruit, a “hot, teenage girl” named Joy, aka A light read about a heavy topic. (Fiction. 14-18) Girl Power. Meanwhile, fellow teen Bridgette wants to make a name for herself as an artist without banking on the fame of her superboyfriend, 20-something Matt, aka Vaporizer. When a supervillain kidnaps Warrior Nation’s heroes, Claire and Bridgette must step up and save Chicago in their stead. But can they uncover the villain’s identity before it’s too late? Cestari’s

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 139 Dramatic and intense. spindle and dagger

(The Fairest Kind of Love, 2019, etc.) latest packages internet fan BROWN GIRL GHOSTED culture alongside corporatized superhero culture for a smartly Das, Mintie contemporary twist. The narrative shifts between Claire and Versify/HMH (304 pp.) Bridgette, interspersing text messages, tweets, and excerpts $17.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 from fake media. While basic criminal motivations make for 978-0-358-12889-2 an ultimately weak resolution, the text is buoyed by its quick plot, contagious tone, and banter-filled romance. The pressure When the school bully is murdered, on heroes to develop personal brands invites surface-level dis- Violet Choudhury is tasked with finding cussion of the impossible standards placed on women. Though her killer. two heroes of color make up Warrior Nation’s quartet (Vapor- As one of the few kids of color in her izer has “dark chocolate eyes” and “caramel” skin; Earthquake small Illinois town, Violet works hard to is cued as black), the story is primarily driven by white main blend in. She’s an expert at flying under characters. the radar, joining the right clubs, maintaining the right grades, Sky-high superfeels. (Science fiction. 14-adult) and staying on powerful mean girl Naomi Talbert’s good side. But despite pretending to be ordinary, Violet has a secret life: She’s a descendant of the Aiedeo, Assamese warrior queens. For SPINDLE AND DAGGER years, the ghosts of her ancestors trained her in their ancient, Coats, J. Anderson supernatural techniques by putting her through a series of Candlewick (304 pp.) deadly tests of strength and will. In seventh grade, after almost $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 dying, Violet refused to continue with her lessons. But when 978-1-5362-0777-4 Naomi is murdered the Aiedeo tell Violet that it’s up to her to find the culprit, a ravenous demon. Violet wants to refuse, but An unruly, bloodthirsty band of war- if she doesn’t find Naomi’s killer, the Aiedeo will kill her so her riors rampages through 12th-century powers can’t be taken over and used against them. Das (Storm Wales. Sisters: The Frozen Seas, 2017, etc.) deftly weaves an intricate and They are led by the murderous believable set of parallel worlds, expertly using Violet’s rela- Owain ap Cadwgan, who attempts to tionship with the Aiedeo and her own powers to explore tough vanquish the equally warlike Norman issues of racism, misogyny, and sexual assault. Unfortunately, invaders headed by Gerald of Windsor. The narrator, Owain’s the prose is often heavy-handed and preachy, and the charac- girlfriend, Elen, saves her skin by convincing him that he can- ters lack much development until the final quarter of the book. not be harmed because he is protected by her namesake, Saint An ambitious, socially conscious fantasy that needs Elen. Elen is dragged along, mostly against her will, with the war more showing and less telling. (Fantasy. 14-18) band. She has PTSD from an earlier incident that is revealed in brief flashbacks to have been the death of her baby sister. The story reaches a climax when Owain abducts Nest, his enemy’s THE YEAR AFTER YOU wife, and her children. Owain’s aggressive action gets him in de Pass, Nina trouble with his father, Cadwgan, and Owain is banished to Delacorte (368 pp.) Ireland with Elen in tow. Elen is heartbroken to be separated $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 from Nest’s children, with whom she has formed a close bond. 978-0-593-12076-7 Although at times a little hard to follow, this gritty narrative brings a little-known period in history to life. A historical note A grieving young woman finds help at gives the context and sources for this story, which is loosely a Swiss boarding school in this realistic based on the “Chronicle of the Princes,” written some time novel. after the events it relates. Frontmatter includes a chart of the Seventeen-year-old Cara arrives at Welsh royal houses, a map of Wales in 1109-1110, and a pronun- Hope Hall feeling as if she’s been flung ciation guide, useful given the inclusion of some Welsh words, as far as possible from her previous home presented in italics in the text. near San Francisco. Months earlier, a car accident, in which she Dramatic and intense; not for the fainthearted. (His was the driver, killed her best friend, G, and left Cara struggling torical fiction. 12-16) with anxiety and agonizing in a deep well of self-blame. She’s surprised and touched, if wary, that her new roommate, Ren, is patient and empathetic, and Cara is reluctantly drawn into her tight, complicated friendship with Fred and Hector, two other students. There are poignant and genuine moments in Cara’s introspective first-person narration, and many readers will enjoy the idyllic setting in the mountains of Switzerland and the pan-European cast of characters: Cara lived in England before her parents’ abrupt divorce led to her mother’s marrying an

140 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | American and fleeing the country, Hector is Spanish and Eng- APOLLO 13 lish, Ren is French, and Fred is Swedish. They are all white; Ren A Successful Failure is also gay. Cara’s experience of her grief is realistically messy, Edge, Laura B. but some readers will find its blending with a romance with Twenty-First Century/Lerner (136 pp.) Hector too pat and the slow build of her coming to terms with $37.32 PLB | Mar. 3, 2020 the actual events leading up to G’s death too melodramatic. 978-1-5415-5900-4 An engaging, at times moving, debut that doesn’t always quite ring true. (Fiction. 12-18) A detailed account of the Apollo 13 space mission. This book brings to life the period of uncertainty surrounding the return of Apollo 13 by taking readers step by step through the astronauts’ journey, the efforts of the Mission Con- trol team in Houston to bring them home safely, and the anticipation of family members and the entire world as they watched and waited to see if things would worsen or if the astronauts would be saved. Chapter 1 sets the scene with the explosion in space that compromised the mission; Chapter 2 explains the context of the space race and previous successful projects; and chapters 3 through 8 return to the situation on Apollo 13, young adult

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 141 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Anna-Marie Mclemore

HISTORY AND FANTASY CONVERGE IN DARK AND DEEPEST RED, THE AUTHOR’S WILDLY IMAGINATIVE NEW YA NOVEL By Ana Grilo

Christina Grout magic,” they say, “because I had already decided I wanted to write about ‘The Red Shoes’ and the dancing plague, and here was history whispering that they belonged together all along.” Speaking of belonging, the four main characters’ story arcs have a lot to say on the subject as they interconnect across time and space. “[Mexican American] Rosella’s cursed red shoes make her confront how she’s measured herself and her body by white beauty standards,” McLemore explains. “The family history that haunts Emil causes him to reexamine the Ro- mani heritage he’s learned to downplay. Lala conceals her own Romani heritage from a city that outlaws her very existence, but it’s in defining who she is for herself that she learns to fight back. Alifair gets by as a trans boy in medieval Strasbourg by making sure he never makes waves, but by the end of the story, he’ll help determine the future not only for himself and Lala, but for a whole community.” Juxtaposing a bizarre historical event with a fairy tale to tell the lived experiences of marginalized people of col- In 1518, a dancing fever plagued the city of Strasbourg or and LGBTQIA people in a way that is empowering to (in modern-day France), causing hundreds of people (pre- these communities is standard practice for this award-win- dominantly women) to dance for days without stopping. ning author whose own queer Latinx background informs Many died from exhaustion, heart attack, or stroke. their writing. In fact, after receiving a Stonewall Honor This historical episode, and two young characters who from the American Library Association in 2017 for When live through it, is one of the threads in Anna-Marie the Moon Was Ours, they say they “went all in writing about McLemore’s astonishing new YA novel, Dark and Deepest my identities. I felt both a freedom to be who I was and Red (Feiwel & Friends, Jan. 14). The other is a reimagining a responsibility to tell the queer, brown, trans, nonbinary of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes” featuring stories I wanted to tell.” two teenagers living 500 years later in America. McLemore talks openly about how Dark and Deepest McLemore’s fascination with the medieval Alsatian Red, a book about characters interacting with history, “be- dancing plagues led them to Strasbourg to research in situ, came about me interacting with it, too.” The author’s note and that is where they found out that Andersen’s tale “has is left unchanged from when it was first written, describ- some likely but little-known historical connections to that ing the author, who now identifies as nonbinary, as a girl, a specific dancing plague. That was a moment of absolute woman, and Latina rather than Latinx. “So often, our iden-

142 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | tities are works in progress,” McLemore says, “and this gave me the unexpected chance to be an affirming voice for readers who are on those journeys too.” McLemore’s retellings of traditional European fairy tales typically are framed as magical realism. In Dark and Deepest Red, we know it’s 2018, but not a 2018 that is recognizable to us in its vague mix of modern and traditional. “Magical realism is a home to me as a Latinx writer,” describing in detail the moments until it landed on Earth and the astronauts were reunited with loved ones. Final chapters McLemore says. “Magical realism is where I talk about profile space travel after Apollo 13 and its legacy. Historical things that are always there in fairy tales, even if the origi- photographs throughout enhance the text. Readers will need to pay close attention in order to follow all of the challenges nal fairy tales don’t dare to speak of them.” the astronauts faced and the actions they had to take, but most As a funny aside, the author shared how they missed major dangers are clear, such as the integrity of the heat shield the call about the Stonewall Honor because “I was mak- and the availability of oxygen and water. The high stakes make this quite a page-turner. Some readers will skim over technical ing out with the trans guy I’m lucky to call my husband; it terms; others will devour every detail. might have been the gayest moment of my life up to that A powerful narrative of an awe-inspiring event. (time - line, glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, further point.” It’s very clear that for McLemore, this pride and reading, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 13-18) joy in one’s identity is part and parcel of their writing too— where visibility and representation truly matter: “I want THE SMALL CRIMES OF readers to know they deserve happy endings in their own TIFFANY TEMPLETON lives, that we deserve to be not only accepted, but loved for Fifield, Richard who we are, and that means showing characters like them Razorbill/Penguin (320 pp.) $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 having happy endings on the page.” 978-1-9848-3589-5 young adult

A grieving teen lashes out in this Ana Grilo is co-editor of The Book Smugglers blog and co-host dark comedy. of the Fangirl Happy Hour podcast. Dark and Deepest Red In a small town in Montana, 15-year- old Tiffany Templeton is “the toughest received a starred review in the Dec. 1, 2019, issue. girl in the trailer park”—but no one knows she keeps a typewriter case filled with secrets hidden behind the laundromat. Tiffany used to be bullied for how fat her parents were, but then her father died unexpectedly last year. Her mother had bariatric surgery and now tracks her weight loss on the price sign in front of the town’s only gas station. Tiffany stays busy working on a play she wrote about young prostitutes who died in a fire in 1911—directed by her gay best friend and acted by a group of senior citizens. In scenes that flash back and forth in time, Tiffany reveals the events that led to her being sentenced to three months in juvenile detention. Fifield The( Flood Girls, 2016, etc.) succeeds in delivering a cast of quirky, unpredictable characters and an intriguing plot, especially when he focuses on the unspooling of Tiffany’s backstory. However, the uneven pace and several unfortunate flippant and insensitive remarks that misfire as humor are at odds with the otherwise strong writing. All main characters are white except for Tiffany’s probation officer, who is black. An ambitious tale that mostly falls flat.(Fiction. 12-18)

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 143 Poetic, fairy-tale flavored imagery. frozen beauty

FLY LIKE A GIRL three sisters plus Boyd and a troubled newcomer named Patrick, One Woman’s Dramatic Fight this mystery winds its way through their backstories, revealing in Afghanistan and on the that Kit had been behaving strangely in the months leading up Home Front to her death. The imaginative, vividly described passages can at Hegar, Mary Jennings times feel a bit florid, but they effectively establish an undercur- Philomel (304 pp.) rent of almost poetic, fairy-tale flavored imagery. A late twist to $17.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 the story handily wraps up the plot, and readers with a taste for 978-0-593-11776-7 romance will thrill to Lilly’s attraction to archetypical bad boy Patrick. Whiteness is situated as the norm, and all main charac- A young woman powered by her ters are white; one of Lilly’s best friends is gay. dreams and love of country takes on sex- A compelling, lyrical twist and turn through sisterhood ism in the military as an officer and civil- and secrecy. (Mystery. 14-18) ian activist. In this young readers’ adaptation of Shoot Like a Girl (2017), Hegar takes readers on an intimate narrative of her journey to IPHIGENIA MURPHY becoming a decorated Air National Guard pilot who served Hosey, Sara three tours of duty in Afghanistan. A litany of obstacles failed Blackstone (272 pp.) to deter her, including physical injuries, personal and profes- $18.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 sional setbacks, isolation, and sexism in many forms, from overt 978-1-9826-1829-2 to subtle. Growing up in Texas as a cherished stepdaughter following a traumatic early childhood in a household of domes- An exploration of how, and why, girls tic violence, Hegar, who is white, effortlessly weaves dialogue can vanish in plain sight. and vivid action sequences into her first-person narration. She High school sophomore Iphigenia shies away from little, including reflection on her own mistakes, Murphy has a plan. Her father ignores while celebrating her successes and acknowledging male allies. her, her stepmother abuses her, and her The narrative presents a compelling, exhilarating view into stepbrother has been raping her with one of the U.S. military’s most entrenched areas for improve- tacit all-but-approval. Iphigenia—Iffy, to ment—fully embracing women. Hegar honestly presents her some—decides that it’s time to find her mother, who left when experience with sexual assault by an Air Force physician, but Iffy was younger, and try to build a new life with her. Loaded she is surprisingly unreflective about Afghans she encounters up on survival gear, the Italian/Irish teen heads to Forest Park, and does not delve deeply into gender dynamics with other in Queens, home of childhood memories and the last known women in the military. She notably contributed to an American location of her mother. Iffy survives scary nights in the park Civil Liberties Union lawsuit that reversed a ban on women in and starts her search during the day, events described in convo- ground combat. luted prose in need of tightening. She’s aided by her new friend An honest portrayal of one woman’s battles in and out Corinne, a white girl with matted hair described as dreadlocks of combat zones. (author’s note, discussion questions, Q&A who is also a runaway. Corinne’s trans history comes up once with author) (Memoir. 13-18) and is never referenced again save for a single line of questioning from Iffy’s new, similarly rootless boyfriend, Anthony (who’s tired of being one of the few black people in Monticello, New FROZEN BEAUTY York, though his racial identity never intersects with the plot Hillyer, Lexa again). Despite the high stakes and heart-wrenching conclusion, HarperTeen (368 pp.) the story manages to be somewhat laborious since neither Iffy $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 nor her comrades come across as fleshed-out, intriguing charac- 978-0-06-233040-6 ters but rather devices to drive the ideas forward. Readable but more successful as a lesson than a novel. Grief and confusion surround two (Fiction. 14-18) young women whose sister has just died under mysterious circumstances in this suspenseful novel by Hillyer (Winter Glass, 2018, etc.). When Kit is found in the woods with a head injury, dead of hypothermia, her younger sisters, Tessa and Lilly, struggle to comprehend what’s happened. Adding to their grief is the fact that their adored neighbor Boyd, who has long been like a protective brother to them, is in jail, accused of her murder. Alternating narration between the past and present, in poems and diary entries and from the perspectives of all

144 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | SPARROW teen can be, as all the characters are so crippled with anxiety Jackson, Mary Cecilia and overthinking that the story advances at a snail’s pace. Its Tor Teen (368 pp.) strength lies in the normalization of negotiating the complex $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 social structure of teenage friendships and relationships, but it 978-0-7653-9885-7 is also reminiscent of watching a documentary or reality show about awful people that was largely, painfully unedited. Nandan A gifted young ballerina confronts is Indian American, and there is diversity in the supporting cast. her dark childhood after the violent cul- Frustratingly long-winded and rambling. (Fiction. 14-18) mination of an abusive relationship. Preparing for the role of Odette in Swan Lake for Virginia’s Appalachian THORN Conservatory Ballet is a joy for 17-year- Khanani, Intisar old Savannah “Sparrow” Rose, until she becomes consumed HarperTeen (512 pp.) with her boyfriend, Tristan. Her closest friends, including her $18.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 dance partner, Lucas, remember him as a schoolyard bully 978-0-06-283570-3 and are concerned. Perhaps inevitably, their volatile romance, Series: Dauntless Path, 1 defined by Tristan’s jealousy, violent temper, and controlling ways, ends in tragedy: Tristan assaults Sparrow, putting her into A reluctant princess must decide a coma. Sparrow eventually awakens, and though her body is between a life of anonymity and facing recovering, nightmares of her deceased mother still plague her, dangerous foes.

and she disengages from her family and friends. To truly heal, Despised by her mother and abusive young adult she must face both the dark legacy that her mentally ill and brother, Princess Alyrra of Adania has physically abusive mother left as well as how her well-meaning little choice but to accept a proposal to marry Prince Kestrin, family’s failure to confront it shaped her life. Meanwhile, Lucas son of the ruler of the powerful kingdom of Menaiya, despite feels like he failed Sparrow and spirals into destructive acts. concerning rumors of violence and curses. On the journey to A three-month time jump soon after Sparrow begins dating her betrothed, she is ambushed by her resentful handmaiden, Tristan slightly shortchanges character development, but Jack- who uses magic to assume Alyrra’s identity in a plot to entrap son, through Sparrow’s and Lucas’ dual narratives, ably explores the prince. Alyrra has never wanted the life of a noble and seizes Sparrow’s healing journey and its effects on those who love her the opportunity to forge a new life as a commoner. However, without sugarcoating the path. All major characters are white, interactions with Kestrin and learning about issues affecting but Sparrow’s therapist is cued as black. the Menaiyan people, particularly women and children, leave A heartbreaking yet hopeful debut. (Fiction. 13-18) Alyrra grappling with guilt over shirking her duties rather than effecting real change. When violence strikes those close to her, Alyrra must strive to correct her wrongs before it is too late. WE ARE TOTALLY NORMAL Debut author Khanani’s immersive and captivating retelling Kanakia, Rahul of “The Goose Girl,” originally self-published in 2012, depicts HarperTeen (288 pp.) a protagonist who operates from her experience of trauma $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 and aches for justice. Some plot inconsistencies and character 978-0-06-286581-6 motivations are questionable and detract from an otherwise well-woven tale. People of Adania have light coloring while Nandan is perpetually lost. Menaiyans have dark hair and brown skin; there are subtle allu- Confused about his sexuality, his sions to Arabic-derived terminology. social status, and how he feels about the Despite some shortcomings, an appealing retelling other high school students he calls his that draws in fans of fantasy and slow-burn romance. (Fan friends, Nandan manipulates and maneu- tasy. 14-18) vers his way through social interactions, hanging out with people he doesn’t really like. Nandan hooks up with Dave, who “was actually kind of hot,” but “maybe folks didn’t see it because he was Asian.” He feels disgusted about it later and wonders if he only did it to try and impress the popular crowd. These teens include Pothan and Ken, who are both bullies and gaslighters as well as sexist. The book includes a character who feels like being gay would make him cool, blasé and sarcastic use of the term “microaggressions,” teenage alcohol abuse, many unhealthy relationships and friendships, and an entire conversation by boys about how to manipulate a girl into sleeping with you. It is reminiscent of how exhausting being a

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 145 INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Gibby Haynes

A YA NOVEL BY THE FRONTMAN OF THE BUTTHOLE SURFERS, WITH A DEAD DOG THAT COMES BACK TO LIFE, IS JUST AS PSYCHEDELIC AND WEIRD AS YOU’D EXPECT By Michael Schaub Daniel EhrenhaftDaniel rupt cops and a crazed government contractor who believes that Mr. Cigar is “an immortal clairvoyant dog given to John F. Kennedy by the leader of the Soviet Union.” Fans of Haynes, the frontman for the legendary rock band Butthole Surfers (best known for their 1996 breakout hit “Pep- per”), won’t be surprised by the book’s bizarre twists and turns, but they might be surprised to hear about its inspiration. “The terrier that was buried and digs his way out, that happened,” Haynes said via telephone from his New York home, recalling that he read about the quasi-resurrection years ago in a “News of the Weird” item in the Austin Chronicle. The story appealed to Haynes, a dog lover who wishes all mutts could live forever. “It’s such a drag when they die,” he says. “They’re like fucking flowers, man. They last for like a week and then they wilt before your eyes.” Dogs frequently meet with sad ends in literature for young people—see Where the Red Fern Grows, and many more—but Haynes was determined not to add to that trend. “Old Yeller—fuck, man, the dog always croaks,” Haynes In the first 20 pages of Me & Mr. Cigar (Soho Teen, Dec. says. “In after-school specials, the dog always dies. Everything 1), the debut young adult novel from psychedelic rock musi- dies. The teenager dies of fucking leukemia. Goddammit. cian Gibby Haynes, the following things happen: A young boy The running back dies. Well, there wasn’t a dog in Brian’s Song, named Oscar adopts a terrier he encounters in the woods; the but [if there were], it would’ve died.” boy is attacked by bullies who beat him and kill the dog; and Haynes makes no secret that Mr. Cigar lives to see anoth- the dog comes back to life, accompanied by a mysterious fly- er day—the dog will feature in his next book as well. (There is ing creature who, in a fit of pique, bites Oscar’s sister’s hand a twist that we won’t reveal here, though.) Haynes based the clean off. dog partially on two terriers he owned, one named Donut and Because of Winn-Dixie this ain’t. Me & Mr. Cigar is a fever one named, yes, Mr. Cigar. dream of a book following Oscar, now a 17-year-old “MDMA- The real Mr. Cigar (itself named after a cat owned by Butt- dealing rave promoter,” and the titular dog as they travel from hole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary) died years ago of cancer and was Texas to New York in order to rescue Oscar’s sister, who’s be- buried in the backyard of Ween guitarist Mickey Melchiondo. ing held hostage by mysterious bad guys. They’re accompa- “Mickey moved,” Haynes says, “but I’ve been wanting to nied by Lytle, Oscar’s best friend, and are forced to dodge cor- go to this house and knock on the door and ask if I could visit

146 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | the grave of my dog. That would freak them out. Or just be in their backyard when they wake up in the morning, crying and looking down at the dirt. That’d get me 48 hours on [psychiatric] hold.” Me & Mr. Cigar is just as psychedelic as Haynes’ music, with Oscar spending much of the book under the influence of MDMA, which a DJ covertly slips into his energy drink. But WITCHES OF ASH & RUIN readers hoping for sex, drugs, and rock and roll will only find Latimer, E. two of the above in the book. Freeform/Disney (384 pp.) “I stayed away from sex, but I went to the drugs pretty $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-368-05225-2 heavily,” Haynes says with a laugh. “I didn’t go for the sex. That’s Hello, God, It’s Me, Emily territory. Or whatever that A coven of modern witches seeks book was.” Told the correct title of Judy Blume’s 1970 book, power from ancient Celtic gods. Dayna Walsh may be a witch, but Haynes muses, “I’d like to write Hello, Margaret, It’s Me, God. magic is just one of the ways she’s Starring a thinly veiled Satan as God.” othered in her small Irish town: She struggles with OCD and was just outed Until then, he’s got the sequel to Me & Mr. Cigar to write. as bisexual—an especially painful revelation given that her Haynes says he has the outline for the book down pat, so all father is the reverend of the local church. Dayna has more that remains is the writing. than enough trouble to deal with even before a group of rival witches shows up. Chemistry sparks between Dayna and “The next one is even more fun,” Haynes says. “It’s not re- the group’s quasi-leader, a girl named Meiner; their romance ally a spoiler, because it happens in the first couple of pages, blooms with charm and realism. The vivacious, twisty plot but it starts with bodies falling from the sky. I’m really horri- brims with satisfyingly dark magic supported by a diverse and well-developed cast of characters, including Dayna’s friend fied by that thought.” Reagan, who is dark-skinned and whose Nigerian mother young adult In the meantime, he plans to promote Me & Mr. Cigar, attends mosque. The Irish setting, however, reads as bizarrely unresearched; on every level, from the linguistic to the cultural, hoping that booksellers and librarians will help get the novel this is a North American small town transplanted in whole to into the hands of young adults. He says he talked to one li- another country. North American references and slang abound, brarian who read an excerpt from the book and told Haynes, but the descriptions of religious life ring most hollow: Dayna’s father is leader of a formerly Catholic church yet is called “rev- “This will be great for our hard-to-reach kids.” erend” and, of course, is married and has a child. Modern-day “That’s the demographic I want,” Haynes says. Ireland is still haunted by a dark history of sectarian violence; ignorance of that history feels especially offensive in a story of clashing magical traditions such as this. Michael Schaub is an Austin, Texas–based journalist and regular con An entertaining diversion into queer witchcraft and tributor to NPR. dark magic marred by ignorance of its setting. (Fantasy. 14-18)

ANNA K A Love Story Lee, Jenny Flatiron Books (400 pp.) $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 978-1-250-23643-2

A slow-burn epic tale of love in modern-day Manhattan high society. Anna K, a 17-year-old from a wealthy family, falls for the handsome Alexia “Count” Vronsky and strives to stay loyal to her Greenwich, Connecticut, OG boyfriend of three years. Her partying brother, Steven, rebels against their father’s strict, traditional views while his friend Dustin excels in school but is new to affairs of the heart. Kimmie, Steven’s girlfriend’s sister, tries to be a regular teen after training as an Olympic ice dancing hopeful and also struggles with inexperience in love. These are just the major characters in a cast filled with convoluted relationships. Taking place over the course of a school year, the characters move from party to nightclub, heart-to-heart

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 147 Will haunt—and empower—readers. tigers, not daughters

to Coachella, with their ever changing relationships as the cen- TIGERS, NOT tral focus. The distant writing style and pervasive dropping of DAUGHTERS brand names slow the narrative and weaken its analyses of love, Mabry, Samantha racism, social standing and wealth, sexism, addiction, and men- Algonquin (288 pp.) tal health. Despite getting off to a slow start, this is a gripping $17.95 | Mar. 24, 2020 story with sympathetic characters struggling through the mire 978-1-61620-896-7 of modern relationships. The ending, while slightly predictable, comes to a satisfying conclusion. Anna and Steven are Korean A ghostly tale of revenge and the and white; Dustin is black, adopted into a white Jewish family; strength of the sisterly bond. other main characters are white. References to Anna’s “exotic” The four Torres sisters have fasci- beauty are not contextualized. nated the boys in their San Antonio Stick with this modernization of Anna Karenina; it pays neighborhood for years. Each with her out in the end. (cast of characters, author’s note) (Fiction. own quirky personality, they all suffer from the suffocating hold 15-18) their widower father has over them. While attempting to sneak out, Ana, the oldest, fatally falls from a tree. A year later, her angry spirit begins to haunt their home. The novel alternates THE KINGDOM OF BACK between a first-person perspective by an unnamed narrator— Lu, Marie one of the boys across the street—and the points of view of each Putnam (336 pp.) sister, narrated in the third person. The chapters jump from $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 past to present, dropping hints about what truly happened and 978-1-5247-3901-0 why Ana is haunting her old home. The Torres sisters mourn in their own ways—Jessica tries to become Ana, even dating her The year clavier prodigy Maria Anna abusive boyfriend; Iridian stays inside reading Ana’s romance Mozart’s younger brother, Wolfgang novels; and Rosa attends church and hopes to commune with Amadeus, begins to show an even more animals. The author adeptly portrays the claustrophobia of liv- astonishing musical genius, a mysterious ing in a small town and being under the watch of an overbearing boy from a fairy land enters her life. patriarchal figure—in fact, the male gaze is the true enemy in Lu (Rebel, 2019, etc.) interweaves this novel, and it’s only when the young women join forces that 18th-century historical figures and events with a fantasy they’re able to break free of its oppressive ties. Mabry’s (All the land called the Kingdom of Back, an alternate world actually Wind in the World, 2017, etc.) third novel has echoes of The Virgin invented and named by the real Mozart siblings, Nannerl and Suicides. The protagonists are Latinx. Woferl, where trees grow upside down and a prince and princess The evocative language and deft characterization will are missing. Hyacinth, a beautiful, shadowy boy, pale and blue- haunt—and empower—readers. (Magical realism. 14-adult) eyed, is the go-between who offers Nannerl figurative immor- tality in return for her help. As Nannerl craves her father’s attention and wishes to escape the inevitable anonymity that THE DEGENERATES womanhood promises, she agrees. Over the next decade, she Mann, J. Albert straddles both worlds, performing, composing, and navigating Atheneum (288 pp.) relationships with Woferl and her domineering father in one $18.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 while battling supernatural foes for Hyacinth in the other. But 978-1-5344-1935-3 as she grows, so do her doubts. Is Hyacinth the benevolent fairy he claims to be? Is success at her brother’s expense really what Mann (What Every Girl Should Know, she wanted? Lu’s melding of history and fantasy is a clever idea, 2019, etc.) tackles the eugenics move- but the Kingdom of Back and its denizens feel like stock figures ment of the 1920s. compiled from generic fairy tales in contrast to her portrayal of Students of the Massachusetts the real Mozarts’ lives, which is much more remarkable, emo- School for the Feeble-Minded—disabled, tional, and compelling than the fantasy land. gay, Indigenous, and other marginalized A historical fiction/fantasy mashup with crossover people—never graduate. Categorized as idiots, imbeciles, and appeal. (maps, author’s note) (Historical fantasy. 12-18) morons, these “degenerates” are subject to strict routines, cruel punishments, and menial labor. But street-wise, cynical orphan London—unmarried and pregnant—is sure she can escape. However, when she reluctantly befriends Maxine; Maxine’s younger sister, Rose, who has Down syndrome; and Alice, who has a club foot, she realizes that more lives than hers are at stake. Each teen’s perspective unfolds in alternating third-person chapters. Maxine’s forbidden mutual attraction to Alice mingles with hope, homesickness, and shame. Alice, who is singled

148 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | out for harsher punishment for being black and lesbian as well THE ART OF as disabled, doesn’t dare express love. Though Rose’s portrayal DUMPSTER DIVING skirts the “cuddly disabled child” trope, she’s refreshingly savvy. Moses, Jennifer Anne A heavy plot contrivance notwithstanding, the author portrays Turner (224 pp.) the movement’s prejudice, racism, and violence with brutal real- $14.99 paper | Mar. 17, 2020 ism; an author’s note explains that the doctors’ dehumanizing 978-1-68442-462-7 dialogue comes verbatim from real medical notes. Crucially, she reminds readers that such prejudice still exists. She also explains Two brothers’ lives unravel until they all named characters’ diagnoses, which range from hydrocepha- are left with only each other and the lie lus to autism, and considers her own spinal disability and white they believe will keep them safe. privilege. Maxine, Rose, and most secondary characters appear James lives with his extended family to be white. London, who has southern Italian origins, has a in small-town Louisiana, but following dark complexion. several tragedies he and his brother are soon left alone with Respectful, unflinching, and eye-opening. (historical only their mother. He’s scrawny and unpopular save for his best note, author’s note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 14-18) friend, Gabriel. Gabriel is mocked and ridiculed by peers and regarded as intellectually challenged but reads as likely being on the autism spectrum. He’s lumbering and embarrassing A LIFE, REDEFINED but a true friend, which is exactly what James needs when he Meyer, Tracy Hewitt comes home from school to discover his mother’s lifeless body. BHC Press (200 pp.) Gabriel hatches an outlandish and dismal plan to hide the fact

$21.95 | Mar. 12, 2020 that 15-year-old James and his 12-year-old brother, Danny, are young adult 978-1-64397-012-7 now alone in their home so as to keep the brothers together Series: Rowan Slone, 1 and out of the foster care system. It involves hiding her body, scrounging food from garbage cans and dumpsters, and con- Rowan Slone’s future looks promis- vincing a troubled and desperate woman to move into their ing, offering a much-needed escape from home. The story is engrossing in the way of a train wreck, at her small town in Appalachia. times feeling like it teeters on the edge of exploitative with no But with new secrets revealed about real benefit. Trauma permeates the pages with no character her family and past, she must move for- left untouched. To be sure, this is a story of survival and survi- ward or risk being pulled back into the very darkness she is vors, but there is no hope to be found in it. Danny’s distress is trying to escape. A junior in high school, Rowan is on track to expressed in part through racist and homophobic hate speech, graduate and go to college, and she dreams of eventually becom- but these terms are not sufficiently contextualized. All main ing a veterinarian. The death of her baby brother 7 years ago characters are white. sent her into a spiral of self-harm, but she managed to stop cut- Relentlessly dark from start to finish.(Fiction. 14-18) ting herself a few years ago. Things start to look up when she is paired with her longtime crush, Mike Anderson, for their biology project. There are hints of a budding romance between the WE ARE ALL HIS CREATURES two, and Mike even asks her to prom. However, life at home Tales of P.T. Barnum, The takes a turn for the worse, and Rowan finds herself reaching for Greatest Showman a razor. With everything she has suffered, readers will find them- Noyes, Deborah selves cheering for Rowan, hoping she makes it through. Meyer Candlewick (288 pp.) (The Reformation of Marli Meade, 2018, etc.) astutely captures the $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 horrors of self-harm and domestic violence. However, the story 978-0-7636-5981-3 would have benefited from more character development of the protagonist’s family and other secondary characters. All main Noyes (Tooth and Claw, 2019, etc.) characters are assumed to be white; Rowan’s father’s racism is explores P.T. Barnum’s career from the explored to some degree. perspectives of his family members, per- A searing portrayal of a teen navigating her dysfunc- formers, and acquaintances. tional family that leaves readers hopeful. (Fiction. 14-18) Barnum, the “Prince of Humbug,” rose to fame by exhibiting—and exploiting—a collection of human and animal “wonders.” But here, Jumbo the elephant and the Fejee mermaid aren’t the showman’s only “creatures.” In 11 intertwined, third-person stories spanning from 1842 to 1891, the author imagines the perspectives of those in Barnum’s narcissistic shadow—from his belittled, overwhelmed wives and overlooked daughters to such celebrated performers as the little person Charlie Stratton, aka General Tom Thumb, who pays

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 149 for his fame by losing his identity. The disparate cast is united BONE CRIER’S MOON by similar themes: loneliness; the simultaneously empowering Purdie, Kathryn and disempowering nature of performing; and the pressures of Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins living in the public eye. Though the stories create a vivid, dark (480 pp.) impression of Barnum’s personality, many other characters’ $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 development is shallow and disjointed. Further details of char- 978-0-06-279877-0 acters’ lives are scattered among other characters’ stories, and Series: Bone Grace, 1 keeping track of the crowded cast across a multigenerational time span is an occasionally taxing, ultimately underwhelming In a world where sirens must kill exercise. Several characters’ fates are rather abruptly summa- their soul mates for honor, one wants to rized, and expository prose and dialogue dull poignant emo- do the exact opposite. tions and backstories. A slightly supernatural plot thread is left Bone Criers—Ferriers among the dangling. Most characters appear to be white. Archival photo- Leurress—guide the dead to their afterlives in Elara’s Night graphs introduce each story. Heavens or Tyrus’ Underworld, thus protecting mortals from An earnest but unfocused glimpse behind the curtain their wrath. But to become a Ferrier, one must endure the rite of Barnum’s career. (author’s note, image credits) (Historical of passage and sacrifice their amouré—one true love—to the fiction. 13-18) gods. Ailesse, daughter of the Leurress’ matriarch, plans to kill her amouré immediately and avoid falling in love altogether. On the night she plays the bone flute to summon him, she meets EARTH DAY AND Bastien—a boy thirsting for vengeance after witnessing his THE ENVIRONMENTAL father’s death by a Bone Crier. After she is abducted by Bastien MOVEMENT and his friends, her friend Sabine promises to rescue Ailesse, Standing Up for Earth even if it means sacrificing animals and disobeying Leurress Peterson, Christy elders. Chapters alternate points of view, offering insight into Twenty-First Century/Lerner (120 pp.) the individual protagonists, but ultimately the characters are $37.32 PLB | Mar. 3, 2020 not well developed and are bound to the tropes Purdie (Frozen 978-1-5415-5281-4 Reign, 2018, etc.) assigns them: Ailesse, an heiress who longs to please her obviously deceitful mother; Bastien, the predict- A comprehensive overview of the able enemy-turned–love interest; and Sabine, the best friend environmental movement from its who disappoints despite every opportunity to shine. The sud- inception to the present day. den appearance of a French dauphin during a messy climax sets Despite the book’s retro, somewhat stodgy look, this is readers up for another love triangle (the first involving Ailesse, stimulating—and critical—reading. Peterson (Cutting-Edge Bastien, and his friend Jules). The cast is mostly white. Hubble Telescope Data, 2019, etc.) clearly and thoroughly guides A sparkling new fantasy dulled by an unconvincing readers through the idea for and inception of the first Earth romance. (map) (Fantasy. 12-17) Day on April 22, 1970. While the sheer amount of information relayed could be mind-numbing in less adept hands—the narrative presents the legal battles and stutter-steps through the LOOK last six presidential administrations and earlier—it is told in Romanoff, Zan manageable bites interspersed with plenty of fascinating side- Dial (368 pp.) bars. Readers will understand the legal processes by which laws $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 are enacted, an empowering move that counteracts the inevi- 978-0-5255-5426-4 table feeling of frustration at the infinitesimally slow forward progress. If readers forget the dates and timelines, they will for A Los Angeles private school student sure come away with this one thing: that a group of dedicated and social media it girl discovers femi- people can make, and have made, a difference despite political, nism and queerness. industrial, and social obstructions. The narrative commendably Lulu Shapiro has 10,000 followers on discusses the historical roots of racial bias among environmen- Flash, a Snapchat-like platform, thanks talists and environmental groups (the Sierra Club and Audubon to a scandalous video that was never sup- Society “had strong ties to…racist and classist viewpoints” of posed to go public. She embraces her quasi-fame, giving the those who “believed that poor and minority communities were followers what they want with sexy snaps of her life while keep- directly responsible for declining wildlife numbers”) and doesn’t ing a wall up around her closest IRL friends. When Lulu meets take a partisan political stance, presenting facts evenhandedly. Cass, a fellow private school girl who’s adjusting to her family’s Essential reading. (glossary, source notes, bibliography, recent wealth, she finds herself drawn to the pretty redhead further information, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 12-18) as well as to Cass’ best friend, Ryan Riggs, an up-and-coming teen real estate scion whose older brother dropped out of high school to found Flash. Lulu and Cass develop a friendship that

150 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | All paths lead to heartbreak. the midnight lie

quickly becomes more at The Hotel, a Riggs family building AUTUMN’S DAWN where phones are not allowed. But just as Lulu, who previously Sigafus, Kim only kissed girls at parties, wonders if she is ready for more, 7th Generation (120 pp.) Ryan reveals a nasty surprise that has Lulu questioning the $9.95 paper | Mar. 25, 2020 implications of a life lived online and the possessive nature of 978-1-939053-25-1 the male gaze. Romanoff’s (Grace and the Fever, 2017, etc.) writ- Series: PathFinders ing is compelling and her subject matter timely, but the novel’s arch, jaded voice doesn’t quite ring true for its teen characters, A contemporary Ojibwa girl navi- sophisticated as they are. Lulu is white and Jewish, and Cass and gates bullying and young love during Ryan are cued as white; there is ethnic diversity in secondary summer school. characters. In Sigafus’ (White Earth Ojibwa) A searing take on sexuality better suited to an adult follow-up to Nowhere To Hide (2019), audience. (Fiction. 14-adult) Autumn prepares to spend part of the summer getting tutored for her dyslexia. As if summer school weren’t bad enough, she learns she will be attending with Sydney, who bullied her all last THE MIDNIGHT LIE year. Though at first Sydney seems to leave her alone, all that Rutkoski, Marie changes when the new boy, Adam—a tall, Native guy with long Farrar, Straus and Giroux (368 pp.) black hair and blue eyes—shows an interest in Autumn. Despite $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 her own hesitation to open up and get close to someone and Syd- 978-0-374-30638-0 ney’s attacks, Autumn begins a relationship with Adam. But just

Series: Midnight Lie, 1 as things seem happy, renewed conflict between her divorced young adult parents threatens Autumn’s newfound hope. Moments such as Memory and illusion, truth and lies— when Autumn removes her moccasins after a day of shopping all paths lead to heartbreak in this first of provide the cultural nuance readers have come to expect from a fantasy duology. #ownvoices stories. Although readers new to the series might “It is as it is.” That’s always the benefit from experiencing Book 1, the ambitious plot unfolds response in isolated Herrath when either too quickly or in snippets too small to satisfy. Addition- anyone questions the oppressive caste system. Once that was ally, tensions and conflicts resolve before they adequately build, enough for Nirrim, who is plagued by visions of a different creating static characters that fail to draw in the reluctant read- past; but after meeting the cocky, nosy, and confusingly attrac- ers who are the intended audience. Except for Autumn’s mother tive traveler Sid, Nirrim discovers how dangerous it can be to and Aunt Jessie’s boyfriend, who are white, the remaining char- want. Set some 20 years later in the same world as Rutkoski’s acters are identified or assumed to be Ojibwa. acclaimed The Winner’s Trilogy, the baroque (almost purple) Promises a new dawn but unfortunately never rises. prose begins in medias res, which Nirrim’s naively unreliable (resources) (Fiction. 12-16) narration does little to clarify. Although clever and kind, her passivity and desperate neediness make brown-skinned, green- eyed Nirrim an atypical YA heroine. While fans of the earlier WE WERE PROMISED books will easily guess her secrets, dark-eyed, fair-haired Sid SPOTLIGHTS presents at first as careless, arrogant, and as confident in her sex- Sproul, Lindsay uality as Nirrim is shocked by Sid’s attraction to other women. Putnam (288 pp.) But this facade eventually proves to be another “midnight lie”: $17.99 | Mar. 24, 2020 a truth intended to mislead. When their almost instantaneous 978-1-5247-3853-2 mutual desire develops quickly into a prickly friendship and (discreetly) consummated romance, both acknowledge it can- A small-town coming-out story. not last. Yet the relationship’s development—combined with Taylor Garland is the star of Hopu- the genuinely shocking revelation of Herrath’s history—leads onk, Massachusetts, and the newly Nirrim to a horrific choice…one that will leave readers clamor- crowned homecoming queen—just like ing for the next entry. her mother was in 1978. With features Lush, swoony, painful, enraging, and as cathartic as a that are “impossibly perfect” and a mystery dad who may or may good cry. (Fantasy. 14-18) not be a famous actor, she is an object of desire. Taylor has chosen homecoming king Brad, but the only reason she’s with Brad is because he is attractive to girls and she’s attracted to them. Taylor has been in love with one girl in particular since middle school—her best friend, Susan, and Susan has liked Brad for the same amount of time. It’s senior year, and Taylor’s life is full of uncertainties: sex with Brad, telling Susan the truth about her feelings, coming out. Even graduation isn’t a given because she

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 151 is struggling to keep her grades up. The one thing she is cer- ALL YOUR TWISTED SECRETS tain about is her need to get out of Hopuonk. Since the story is Urban, Diana set in 1999, readers may not recognize some of the references. HarperTeen (400 pp.) The storyline involving the identity of Taylor’s father feels like $17.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 a plot device that ultimately serves no purpose. All characters 978-0-06-290821-6 are assumed white, and character development of the supporting cast is weak, with many of them fitting high school stereo- Debut author Urban’s high-pressure types. However, the coming-of-age lesbian aspect of the novel revenge thriller puts a sinister twist on is explored with humor and tenderness. the escape room motif. An enjoyable debut. (Fiction. 16-18) Amber is a recently popular high school senior who, after years of avoiding social entanglements, is suddenly THE JUNE BOYS thrust into the popular circle. Her musical ambitions lead her Stevens, Court to team up with queen bee Sasha to compose the score for an Thomas Nelson (352 pp.) upcoming school play. Though Sasha appears outwardly friendly, $18.99 | Mar. 3, 2020 Amber slowly learns the machinations of the in crowd and the 978-0-7852-2190-6 manipulation required to attain and maintain their social hierarchy. The story of Amber’s rise is told in flashbacks as she and A girl struggles to uncover the iden- a motley crew with tenuous ties try to escape from a terrifying tity of a kidnapper before her cousin’s room in which they have been commanded to kill one among time runs out. them in order to save the rest. Each flashback provides clues Almost every June, three Tennes- to the relationships between and potential motives of each per- see boys disappear. They’re kept in an son locked in the death trap. Confusingly, relationships that are underground bunker for 13 months alluded to in the present never appear in the flashbacks, and before being released; 12 have been taken so far. The mysteri- other important plot elements seem thrown in after the fact by ous kidnapper is known as the Gemini Thief: an adult of aver- way of explanation rather than following logically from the pre- age height and weight dressed in a welding helmet and a black ceding action. Though an unreliable narrator is to be expected, racing jumpsuit. Thea believes the Thief took her cousin, Amber’s character is nothing if not inconsistent, leaving the Aulus McClaghen, the year before and that he was not a run- reader to question who the real bad guy is and if they have just away. When the body of a known Gemini Thief victim turns been gaslighted yet again. Amber and Sasha are white; there is up with Aulus’ keychain, fear escalates—and her eccentric some diversity in the cast, but the portrayals lack substantive father immediately comes under scrutiny as the last person texture. to see Aulus before his disappearance and the one who gave A mixed bag. (Mystery/thriller. 14-18) him the distinctive keychain. The two had been working on Thea’s father’s passion project, a castle he claimed God asked him to build. Despite the pain of evidence pointing toward HELLO NOW her father’s guilt, she’ll stop at nothing to find Aulus. Two dis- Valentine, Jenny tinct narratives unfold through Thea’s first-person perspective Philomel (208 pp.) and Aulus’ letters written within the bunker. Though the final $17.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 reveal is surprising and chilling, both Thea’s and Aulus’ jour- 978-0-399-54695-2 neys feel meandering until they finally reach sudden crescen- dos. Each red herring is a bit too hammered in, and truly tense A lonely London teen is swept up in a moments are few and far between. One of Thea’s friends is logic-defying romance. black while all other characters are white. When Jude’s mother once again A slow-burn story that could do with more sparks.(Fiction. relocates the two of them—this time 14-18) to a remote, “far-as-the-eye-could-see whites-only seaside town”—Jude is dejected and pessimistic. That is, until Novo appears. The boy possesses inexplicable and undeniable powers, which include everything from benignly influencing the actions of people and animals to stretching out a single moment of time. His abilities are so intrinsic that Jude immediately accepts them (“I knew straightaway that something impossible was happening”). Novo is also cosmically tied to Jude, and the two begin a blissful, whirl- wind romance heavily influenced by Novo’s abilities. Though much of the story is devoid of conflict, by the end Jude faces a heartbreaking choice. Valentine (Fire Color One, 2017, etc.) dives

152 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | Skillfully voices the pain of unexpectedly losing a close friend. when you were everything

deep even while playing in to the oft-trod wish fulfillment of senior year with great aplomb in Watson’s debut. When their a protagonist finding true love with a supernatural boy. The senior rite of passage, carving one’s name into the jungle gym author deftly handles themes of living in the moment, embrac- at a local park, is threatened by a city council that wants to ing change, and moving forward after loss. While the conclu- demolish the park, the girls rally to save the place where they sions drawn don’t necessarily break new ground, readers will became friends. This is far from their only problem: Though nevertheless walk away with a lot to think about. Jude remains each is talented, they struggle this year with emotional, aca- ungendered throughout the story, leaving the door open to vari- demic, social, and financial issues. Latinx artist Ava, who lives ous interpretations while not actively committing to a gender- with depression, desires to find her birth mother and attend art queer protagonist. The cast is presumably white. school against her mother’s wishes; white cross-country athlete Short, sweet, and satisfying. (Magical realism. 13-18) CJ, who is self-conscious about her body, can’t crack the SATs, so she strengthens her college application by volunteering with disabled children; biracial (black/white) student journal- WE ARE THE WILDCATS ist Jordan lies about her age to interview a handsome council- Vivian, Siobhan man’s aide, and a mutual crush develops; STEM-focused white Simon & Schuster (352 pp.) lesbian Martha, named for her ancestor Martha Washington, $18.99 | Mar. 31, 2020 worries that her family can’t afford MIT. Over the course of 978-1-5344-3990-0 the year, the friends weather obstacles and realize the power of their friendship. Their relationship prepares one of the girls “The girls who played varsity last sea- to become president of the United States, and the twist ending son each still nurse a secret wound, the will come as a surprise. The characters are superbly drawn; por-

thinnest of scabs capping a mountain of trayed as whole people, the various elements of their identities young adult scar tissue.” are not the entirety of who they are. The intense pressure that Coach Inspiring and heartwarming. (Fiction. 12-16) exerts on these former field hockey champions is far less than what they place on themselves. They are tormented by last season’s championship loss: Ali and Kear- WHEN YOU WERE son choked; Mel, the leading scorer, didn’t score at all; and EVERYTHING Phoebe limped off the field. This year, the West Essex Wild- Woodfolk, Ashley cats—including new members Grace and Luci—are willing to Delacorte (400 pp.) give up romance, free time, and family for the privilege of being $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 a Wildcat. At sleepovers before weekend games the girls enjoy 978-1-5247-1591-5 dinner, movies, and bonding, but on this night, the first before the new season, devastating secrets are revealed. Anyone who Relationships are complicated, but raised a high school championship trophy—or dreams of doing what happens when the bond that so—will find Vivian’s Stay ( Sweet, 2018, etc.) book powerfully brought you solace unravels just when familiar and sink deeply into this juicy read. The writing is both your parent’s marriage falls apart? poetic and blunt, just like the badass Wildcats. The pace may Cleo Baker wanders the streets of frustrate—it takes a while to grasp that the book is not about New York City, drowning her sorrows in jazz-age music and the the season but a series of perspectives and shocking reveals over words of Shakespeare as she mourns the loss of her best friend, the course of one long night. The end, while satisfying, lacks Layla, a pain reminiscent of the grief felt for her late grand- sophistication. Most main characters are white; Ali is Korean mother. It felt like fate when they met, and she thought it was American, and Luci is Argentinian and white American. in the stars for them to be together forever, but in sophomore A fresh, beautifully written look at high school sports year, Layla joined chorus and, over time, chose those girls over that sparkles with strong female athletes. (Fiction. 12-16) Cleo. Cleo was hurt but tried to give Layla her space…until she no longer recognizes her and instigates a vengeful feud. Now Cleo urgently wishes to overwrite the memories of their friend- MOST LIKELY ship, but that’s difficult when she’s assigned to be Layla’s tutor. Watson, Sarah Feeling adrift, she works through the crumbling of her family, Poppy/Little, Brown (384 pp.) navigates a friendship that has grown apart, and learns to trust $17.99 | Mar. 10, 2020 new friends and see them for who they are, not who she expects 978-0-316-45483-4 them to be. Told in the first person, Woodfolk’sThe ( Beauty Series: Most Likely, 1 That Remains, 2018) novel seamlessly interweaves alternating timelines while making Shakespeare relevant to teens. The The future is female: Her name is author skillfully voices the pain of unexpectedly losing a close President Diffenderfer. friend and explores the choice to remain open despite the risk Best friends since kindergarten, Ava, of future heartache. Cleo is black and Layla is Bengali. CJ, Jordan, and Martha tackle their A well-crafted story of resilience. (Fiction. 13-18)

| kirkus.com | young adult | 15 january 2020 | 153 Elicits questions of memory and creative liberty as well as addressing equity and race. dragon hoops

DRAGON HOOPS they may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. Spot- Yang, Gene Luen on observations about society’s problematic, repressive, and Illus. by the author violent treatment of women and girls pepper the narrative, and First Second (448 pp.) the powerful message that women should support and love one $21.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 another is bolstered by a female-centric cast who unfailingly 978-1-62672-079-4 have each other’s backs. This entry lacks some of its predeces- sor’s spark, but a few twists keep the pages turning and leave The trials of a high school basketball plenty of loose threads for future installments. Mena, Annal- team trying to clinch the state title and ise, and Brynn seem to be white, Sydney is black, Marcella has the graphic novelist chronicling them. brown skin, and there’s some diversity in secondary characters. The Dragons, Bishop O’Dowd High There is a same-sex romance. School’s basketball team, have a promising lineup of players A food-for-thought dystopian with a strong feminist united by the same goal. Backed by Coach Lou Richie, an alum- message. (Dystopian. 13-18) nus himself, this could be the season the Oakland, California, private Catholic school breaks their record. While Yang (Team Avatar Tales, 2019, etc.), a math teacher and former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is not particularly sporty, he is intrigued by the potential of this story and decides continuing series to focus his next graphic novel on the team’s ninth bid for the state championship. Yang seamlessly blends a portrait of the Dragons with the international history of basketball while also OTHERLIFE tying in his own career arc as a graphic novelist as he tries to bal- Segel, Jason & Miller, Kirsten ance family, teaching, and comics. Some panels directly address Delacorte Press (304 pp.) the creative process, such as those depicting an interaction $18.99 | Nov. 12, 2019 between Yang and a Punjabi student regarding the way small 978-1-101-93940-6 visual details cue ethnicity in different ways. This creative com- Series: Last Reality, 3 bination of memoir and reportage elicits questions of storytell- (Adventure. 12-18) ing, memory, and creative liberty as well as addressing issues of equity and race. The full-color illustrations are varied in lay- FORCE COLLECTOR out, effectively conveying intense emotion and heart-stopping Shinick, Kevin action on the court. Yang is Chinese American, Richie is black, Illus. by Foti, Tony and there is significant diversity among the team members. Disney Lucasfilm Press (384 pp.) A winner. (notes, bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 13-18) $17.99 | Nov. 19, 2019 978-1-368-04558-2 GIRLS WITH RAZOR HEARTS Series: Journey to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, 2 (Science fiction. 12-18) Young, Suzanne Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster (400 pp.) $19.99 | Mar. 17, 2020 978-1-5344-2616-07 Series: Girls With Sharp Sticks, 2

After a daring escape from Innova- tions Academy with the help of Leandra, the headmaster’s wife, Mena, Sydney, Marcella, Brynn, and Annalise set out to destroy the architects of their repression in the follow-up to Girls With Sharp Sticks (2019). They’re free for now, but the headmaster will soon be looking for them. After all, they’re worth millions to the school and, its investors. Leandra enrolls Mena and Sydney in Ridgeview Prep in Connecticut to root out the son of an investor who may have the power to stop Innovations. To their dismay, the girls discover that misogyny and sexism are rampant in the outside world, but they could have an ally in the form of a talented hacker named Raven. However, it soon occurs to Mena that

154 | 15 january 2020 | young adult | kirkus.com | indie These titles earned the Kirkus Star: THE PINK BLANKET Ady, J. Lynn FriesenPress (409 pp.) STORIES TO SING IN THE DARK by Matthew Bright...... 157 978-1-5255-4519-1 978-1-5255-4520-7 paper NOWHEREVILLE ed. by Scott Gable & C. Dombrowski...... 161 Ady’s debut novel explores the intrica- HALL OF MIRRORS by Craig Gralley...... 164 cies of moving on from an abusive marriage. As the story opens, Taya Logan is THE LIQUID BORDER by Jonathan Reeve Price...... 172 having a paralyzing nightmare—one of many stemming from the domestic abuse she endured at the hands of her

violent husband, Nate, whom she escaped months ago. Soon young adult after her return to Chicago from Italy, she meets and becomes smitten with entrepreneur Jonathen Tate, “Chicago’s top successful bachelor,” and he soon falls for her. He recently experienced a bitter divorce, but he’s anxious to rediscover love and commitment, and he quickly considers Taya to be “a drug I’m addicted to....One, I can’t get enough of.” However, the threat of Taya’s abusive spouse is ever present, and when Nate eventually appears, the melodrama hits its highest notes. Readers will be swept up in Ady’s suspenseful narrative right from the start, and the author does an impressive job of getting inside Nate’s mind as well, showing him to be a very troubled, very powerful, and highly manipulative man. Things get more complicated when Jonathen’s ex-wife, who also has ties to Nate, joins the fray. Ady’s prose, as filtered through Taya’s and Jonathen’s alternating perspectives, can be lushly evocative, but it’s sometimes awash in adverbs, overly expository, and excessively descriptive. Although the novel as a whole is somewhat overlong, fans of romantic suspense will still embrace its over-the-top aspects. Overall, it’s an engrossing story of a battered woman trying to reclaim her life and find true love, and it features characters of impressive authenticity and emotional depth. A highly charged romance with plenty of intrigue and danger.

STORIES TO SING IN THE DARK Bright, Matthew Lethe Press (288 pp.) $17.00 paper | Oct. 20, 2019 978-1-59021-704-7

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 155 mama-rama

Many children’s picture books THE BLUES CRY FOR focus on young characters and their A REVOLUTION adventures. The characters’ parents, Allen, Rashaun J. if they appear at all, are usually back- Royal Blue Publishing (58 pp.) ground figures. On occasion, though, $14.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Jan. 21, 2020 kids’-book authors will make them 978-0-9830096-7-2 the subject of their work. These three books, all reviewed by Kirkus Indie, A volume of poems explores the specifically focus on mothers—and fears and hopes of contemporary blacks they may offer young readers new per- in America. spectives on the women in their lives. “Black face— / your mask is your skin. / Cops will shoot you and claim you ignited suspicion.” Donald Jacobsen’s 2019 picture book Mighty Mommies So begins “Brevity of a Black Boy,” the first poem in Allen’s A( , featuring illustrations by Graham Ev- and Their Amazing Jobs! Walk Through Brooklyn, 2012, etc.) combustive new collection of ans, puts the spotlight on various poems that directly tackle the state of blackness in America. mothers’ professions, primar- From the history of oppression to the Black Lives Matter move- ily in STEM-related fields. For ment, the poet examines the large and small ways that racism example: “Paisley’s mommy is manifests itself in the lives of African Americans. In “Ten Rea- a programmer. She works on a sons,” he uses an innocuous list format to commemorate black victims of police violence. It begins, “I am killed: / Carrying computer. If you need help writ- a fake gun1/ Selling CD2/ Routine traffic stops3” and continues ing code, she’d make an awesome all the way to 10. The footnotes at the bottom reveal the peo- tutor!” Kirkus’ review calls it “A ple hidden in the statlike superscripts: “1 Tamir Rice / 2 Alton nice mix of careers that may be Sterling / 3 Samuel DuBose.” In “For Black Cops Who Bleed inspiring to young readers.” Blue,” Allen takes a more essayistic approach, writing in prose: “I respect your position and understand your crisis filled work Mommy’s Big, Red Monster weeks still might not be enough to pay for your child’s college Truck by Alison Paul Klakowicz, also published this year, tells tuition. But your quiet is deafening.” Some poems are more a tale of a young boy and his mother as they take a road trip in personal in nature, like the lyric “A Melody On Repeat,” which the mom’s massive, noisy titular gives readers a look into the inner life of an artist: “Peek into vehicle. Along the way, the main my rebirth. / Cramped, / elevator music is spinning in my mind characters encounter a diverse / I am / inspired by syncopated rhythms / digging / fiendishly range of other mothers who pro- for a gold standard vision.” The poems vary widely in quality, vide their kids with “hugs, kisses, in part because Allen adopts so many different strategies. The less successful offerings tend to be wordier and academic, like bedtime stories, and more.” It’s “Language Is Color Now”: “Casual colorism is rampant amongst “lively, vigorous, and well suited my peers and I / … / Language is meant to communicate but no to kids who adore cool moms one is listening / Opinions should hold less weight than facts.” and their vehicles,” according to Many books of poetry published in the last five years tackle this Kirkus’ reviewer. same subject, and some of them do so with a bit more virtuosity Jessica Williams’ and precision than this volume. But Allen displays a willingness Mama’s to take risks, and readers will likely feel stirred by the senti- Cloud (2018), illustrated by Mateya Ark, features a young ment of many of these poems even if the verses themselves do girl who notes that “sometimes Mama can’t smile” when “a not always wow. dark cloud…settles over her.” The child imagines herself as An energetic and varied collection of poetry that a wizard and a superhero, among others who might make speaks to institutional racism in America. the cloud disappear. But she finally accepts that she’s “only me” and gives her mom a hug. Kirkus notes that the “poetic, child-friendly text tackles hard-to-discuss ideas about mental health and depression, acknowledging that it’s not the child’s job to fix it and embracing the hope that one can help just by being oneself.” —D.R.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.

Ghosts, space travel, and murderous Two decades after the collapse of civ- movie censors are among the obstacles ilization, two resourceful survivalists try to gay love in these phantasmagoric tales. to protect a new city-state persevering in In his first short story collection, a savage future dark age. Bright (co-author: Between the Lines, “The end had not come as one defin- 2019) mixes strands of magical realism, SF, steampunk, noir, ing gestalt moment; rather it had come as a slight change in gothic horror, and homages to literary classics, filtering it all the wind” begins Catlin’s post-apocalypse action debut. In through a gay sensibility. These tales are boldly imaginative: A the not-too-distant future, a combination of factors—climate new hire at a cosmic library indexes lost works recovered by change, resource and food depletion, wealth inequality, plagues, time-traveling collectors—never finished novels, a teenager’s and, finally, wars—has destroyed organized society. Twenty-two poetry jottings, books burned by Nazis—and begins an affair years later, in the remains of California, Thomas Wolf, a savvy with French writer Jean Genet; a scientist in a seedy Los Ange- survivalist roaming the urban wastelands haunted by preda- les applies his anti-gravity technology to a string of lovers; a tor gangs and cloistered holdouts, finds a natural ally in Allen

modern-day Dorian Gray moves uninfected and forever young Damewood, another gentleman warrior with helpful talents in young adult through San Francisco’s AIDS epidemic while his partners die weaponry and technology. They set up housekeeping in a for- off. In a rollicking takeoff on the children’s book The Wind in tresslike dwelling where Wolf’s armaments include a thoroughly the Willows, a tough-talking rat, mole, badger, and gender- armored, weaponized, and computerized airport-facilities bending toad ricochet through a furry criminal underworld. In vehicle dubbed the Rig. The two imagine themselves isolated other inventive tales, a man realizes that he is the stereotypi- among roving packs of enemies and small, subsistence-level cal tragic gay character in an Edwardian period movie whose colonies. They are thus amazed when a reconnaissance heli- other characters panic when he declines to commit suicide as copter crashes nearby. Though the crew perished, the copter scripted; the lesbian concubines of a Chinese empress travel in seems to come from an advanced and functional human settle- her tomb on a steam-powered voyage to a distant planet—and ment somehow rising from the ashes nearby, and the two men consider cannibalism when the food runs out; and a tomb raider take the Rig to investigate. Indeed, they do discover the future and her brothel madam daughter hitch a ride on an airship and equivalent of an impossible Shangri-La. But they also encounter dodge British soldiers and zombies to purloin a pharaoh’s soul. a deadly threat to the stronghold. The rest of the series opener A striking concluding novella finds an Englishman accompany- turns into a fairly exciting battle, enough to keep pages turning his lover to a shadowy family manse in Germany, where he ing. Catlin breaks little new ground in the “prepper” military- unearths a past of perverted cruelty. Bright combines vigorous Armageddon genre, but he tells the muscular story well, with narratives with prose that is atmospheric, slyly humorous, and a couple of likable and smart bromantic leads—think Butch saturated with evocative imagery. (“If my phantom watchers in and Sundance with RPGs, battleground strategy, and combat the windows opposite are looking, they will see us as we rise software moxie. In some quiet spaces, characters persuasively into the sky, one man clinging tight to another as they ascend lament the tragic yielding of community and goodwill to barba- like balloons that have slipped from your grasp, until the atmo- rism and total war, a cautionary tale for contemporary readers. sphere becomes rarefied and thin, and breath freezes before our The Rig itself is a cool creation, if a bit of a deus ex machina in faces.”) The result is a wildly entertaining set of yarns that com- the most literal sense. In addition, a ravishing redhead in the bine thrills with soulful reflection. oasis is predictably available for Wolf. Enough loose ends hint A dazzling collection of literary fantasy with never a at sequel possibilities, although this rousing volume can be read dull moment. as a stand-alone. This solid actioner with heart follows in the tank treads of a well-worn genre.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 157 POHOI AND COMANCHE SLEEP PROBLEMS SPIRIT POWER Food Solutions Chalfant, J.L. Cheney, Diane Holloway iUniverse (324 pp.) iUniverse (436 pp.) $29.95 | $19.95 paper | $5.99 e-book $28.99 paper | $3.99 e-book Mar. 22, 2013 Jun. 15, 2017 978-1-4759-7337-2 978-1-5320-2505-1 978-1-4759-7336-5 paper A guide focuses on alleviating insomnia A Comanche teenager violates tradi- through diet, exercise, and self-management. tion in order to save her mother and her Prolific author and psychologist people in this debut YA novel. Cheney’s (Autobiography of Lee Harvey West Texas, 1860. The looming Civil War has intensified the Oswald, 2008, etc.) inspired book opens with a personal his- bad relations between Native Americans and their Texas neigh- tory of her medical training in Dallas. She relates how her work bors—and revived the tribes’ hopes of driving the whites from treating patients with psychoactive medications radically dif- the land once and for all. Fifteen-year-old Pohoi, the daughter fered from her research into sleep disorders and the discovery of a Comanche father and a white mother, is curious about of natural remedies to treat them. From the manual’s depth, the Spirit Power sacred to her people, the Kwahadi Coman- it’s clear that the author went much further than just explor- che of the Llano Estacado. Her medicine woman aunt, Hunts ing the consequences of sleep deprivation. Cheney’s expansive Medicine, warns her that Pohoi’s desire—or that of any young narrative is loaded with intriguing nuggets about sleep through- woman—to seek the power is taboo. The precocious Pohoi, out human history, children and naptime, dreaming and REM who is already seeing visions, is prepared to buck tradition. cycles, and how family snoozing arrangements vary widely Then tragedy strikes: A group of Texans murders Pohoi’s father across global cultures. The text doesn’t skimp on the artfulness and abducts her mother. When the warriors of her tribe appear of slumber either. Poetry, literary references, and accessible, reluctant to rescue her mother, Pohoi, filled with a desire for uncomplicated sweet and savory recipes, some from as far back vengeance, takes up the task herself. She uses the Comanche as the Elizabethan era, share space with practical advice on how Spirit Power to transform into a Ghost Warrior of legend and to improve sleep through diet and changes in personal patterns. heads off to rescue her mother from the men who stole her. She The author’s guide expands further to decipher the fascinating is led by the ghost of her father, assisted by her friend—and cycles of light and darkness as related to Earth’s distance from crush—Yellow Bear, and accompanied by Little Rattler, a Mexi- the moon, the complexities of circadian rhythms, and the many can captured in a raid who is the son of her aunt. She will have catastrophes that have been blamed on a lack of quality sleep, to move quickly, as her visions seem to predict the destruction like 1986’s Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, the Exxon Valdez not just of her family, but her entire people as well. Chalfant’s oil tanker disaster in 1989, and, more recently, the 2016 crash detailed prose is well tailored to her protagonist’s rhythms of a New York City commuter train that caused one death and and worldview: “As she ran, she heard chattering voices begin more than 100 injuries. Cheney notes that sports teams are now to echo throughout the village. Dogs yapped amid the sudden commissioning “sleep physicians” to help keep players’ health burst of the warriors’ excited shouts inside the council lodge and field performances at ideal levels. The negative effects of while Pohoi relished the comforting sound of mothers, no lon- insomnia and sleep deprivation are also being studied, she notes, ger fearful of the thunder, cooing to their crying babies.” The through the work of critical response and rescue personnel like tensions between the characters and their relationships to their firefighters, police forces, and emergency medical profession- own roles within Comanche society make for some intriguing als. The narrative eventually circles back to dispense more wis- drama, though the story takes a while to get going. But the dom on enhancing the quality and duration of sleep, which will immersive setting and Pohoi’s plucky personality do much to prove most beneficial to those who find themselves unexplain- sell the novel, and readers will be more or less content to follow ably exhausted throughout the day. While her recommenda- her wherever the Spirit Power leads. tions don’t break any new ground, they indeed serve as worthy A rewarding, if conservatively paced, coming-of-age reminders of the importance of getting optimum rest. She tale set on the Texas plains. advocates consuming herbal tea close to bedtime to stimulate slumber and eating several easy, sleep-inducing snacks that produce melatonin or tryptophan. These suggestions may turn out to be effective alternatives to more traditional drug therapies. History, lore, and valuable advice blend in a sleep manual that promotes a productive life.

158 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Conway tells an exciting story that appeals on several levels: as a mystery, an adventure, and an ecology parable. madame x and the world beneath

MADAME X AND THE themes and techniques featured in his debut book. Whether WORLD BENEATH inspired by the music of Rosanne Cash, Mama Cass, Leonard Conway, Eileen Cohen, Sarah Brightman, or Andrea Bocelli or by national trag- Illus. by Angelovic, Kelly edies like the Challenger explosion in 1986 or the terrorist attacks Zealot Publishing (216 pp.) of 9/11, the author is able to construct thought-provoking texts $12.99 paper | $2.99 e-book in a concise manner. For example, in the prose piece “The Oct. 10, 2019 Bridge,” he manages to connect disparate moments spanning 978-1-73317-178-6 several decades within the space of three pages: hearing news of the Chappaquiddick scandal in 1969 while working in Venezu- A young detective takes on the case ela; spotting the infamous bridge from an airplane 10 years later; of her missing parents in this debut mid- interacting with Edward Kennedy during the 1980 presidential dle-grade novel. campaign; and watching the 2017 film about the tragedy. Indeed, Despite her conventional name, 10-year-old Susan Jones is the author’s extensive travels provide many opportunities for no ordinary kid. As Madame X, she’s a private eye, solving such observation and interpretation. Notably, solid Spanish skills mysteries as a lost phone or stolen toys. Her parents aren’t rou- are on display in his translations of a relatively long graffiti text tine either; they’re marine biologists, famous for their TV spe- spotted in Havana and a conversation with a cab driver in San cials, who travel the world hoping to save the oceans. When they Juan. An encounter with a street cleaner in Havana, recounted disappear, Susan has a new case to solve—which soon becomes in the tale titled “Diego,” encapsulates the Mariel boatlift from wrapped up in another mystery. Susan; her best friend, Johnny 1980 and an ignominious return to Cuba years later. In terms of Peters; and his 7-year-old brother, Teddy, discover bizarre elfin poetry, readers with a keen eye and an attuned ear will appreci-

creatures called Thingamabobs living underground in Susan’s ate the consonance and assonance in his description of an earth- young adult town. They claim to be purely beneficial to humans, but a note quake: “The room moves / Like a rag doll / In a big dog’s mouth.” has warned Susan that “They have your parents.” A Thingamabob Cruess illuminates more mundane events in verse as well, such leader promises to help if Susan can find an errant Bob—but all as spending a humid Easter weekend in Miami’s Little Havana: is not as it seems. Following clues, Susan and her friends inves- “Bed sweating wet / in the light of / a tropical / moon sucking tigate beneath the town, where they discover that the area’s breezes / through coconut palms.” Through creative use of septic issues are related to Bob activities. The Bobs are trying line breaks, indentation, and gaps within lines, his verse often to take over the entire underground and destroying the ecosys- invites multiple readings. He also juxtaposes poems to great tem above. A desperate note from her parents gives Susan her effect, such as “Old,” “My Dad on his 86th,” and “Papa, must mission: “If you can save the creeks, you can save us.” Susan and her I die?” The first represents the common experience of turning friends undertake a wild and often gross quest in underground into one’s parents. In the second, he gazes down mournfully at sewers and creeks, hoping to save the Joneses and their town his elderly father. And in the third, a father speaks to a child before it’s too late. In her novel, Conway tells an exciting story about death, closing with two tender lines: “Without thinking that appeals on several levels: as a mystery, an adventure, and an twice / I would choose this time with you.” ecology parable. In addition to the striking plot, the characters A worthy collection full of memorable anecdotes and are strong; Susan’s voice is a fresh and funny pleasure, as when meditative verse. describing being caught in a maelstrom of chilly sewer water: “It was like being in an evil, cold Jacuzzi.” Susan grows as she appreciates her ability to change the world, and she shows ini- DEFINING THE TIMES tiative, courage, and good instincts in her detective work. Also Barack Obama compelling are debut illustrator Angelovic’s images, which have Duncan, Patricia a cool retro style that captures the book’s energy and originality. Photos by the author An entertaining coming-of-age tale with a serious envi- IJABA Publishing (344 pp.) ronmental message. $44.00 | Sep. 1, 2017 978-0-9847316-4-0

ON ONLY NIGHTS A look back at the presidency of Cruess, Robert Barack Obama. Out Reach Books (122 pp.) Denver, Colorado–based photographer Duncan (A Defining $6.99 paper | Dec. 13, 2018 Moment, 2010) got a front-row seat to history when she began 978-1-79161-678-6 documenting then U.S. Sen. Obama’s journey to the White House for local African American newspapers in 2006. She A volume explores nature, history, photographed the candidate and his supporters at numerous mortality, and the wonder of living in events in the Rocky Mountain state, including the 2008 Demo- poetry and prose. cratic National Convention in Denver. After his election, she In this collection of 66 short works, continued to document his career nationwide. In this hand- Cruess (Time Is All We Have, 2017) revisits some coffee-table book, she couples striking, full-color photos

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 159 with the full text of many of Obama’s most notable speeches, ever see the book, in chronological order.” One day, representa- including his famous 2008 speech on race, his victory-night tives of King Broderick Dartmoth come to inspect the Book. speech that same year in Chicago, his 2009 and 2013 inaugu- The endgame of Cole Wynton and his men is to confiscate and/ ral addresses, and his 2017 farewell address. Because the book or destroy all magical artifacts and weapons in Osh. Fane hopes focuses heavily on Obama’s many visits to Colorado, it some- to keep his enchanted ax a secret for as long as possible. And in times neglects other important events. Two Air Force Academy the royal capital of Syerfordge, the king and his council plan to commencement addresses are included, for example, while his quell orc violence to the south once and for all—by firebombing remarks on the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in the city of Angkor-Toll. 2010 and on the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery In this dark series launch, Emrey (Millennium Stone, 2015, civil rights march are notably absent. Some speeches by other etc.) chooses a fertile time period, post–Great War, for the set- political figures are included as well, such as Hillary Clinton’s ting of his epic of heroism and race relations. As a royal, Dryden acceptance of the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination has access to era-specific technology, like a single-prop fighter and U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ speech at the 2008 Democratic con- plane and a Motor K automobile. He also has the privilege of vention. Supplementary material includes a list of Obama’s springing himself from jail whereas the marginalized Astanava accomplishments; information on the presidential limousine, ends up at the mercy of Ser Dex Morton, a licentious prison nicknamed “The Beast,” and Air Force One; and Electoral Col- warden. The author maximizes the scope of his narrative by lege maps. But it’s the numerous, revealing photos that are the having chapters follow Dryden, Astanava, and Fane down per- main draw, including one image of a smiling Obama walking sonalized alleys that converge after the stakes have risen. A onstage to accept his party’s nomination and another of the humiliating flogging leads to Astanava’s accessing latent - pow jubilant faces of his supporters on election night in 2008. The ers that Lt. Shpava, leader of an elf rebellion, deems invaluable. book even provides an inside look at the White House, as Dun- Angkor-Toll, once a hopeful city but now a ghetto, is filled with can shares photos that she took during the 2014 Holiday Recep- the downtrodden of every race. Blue and red fire dust, stand- tion, during which she got a few candid shots of the Obamas’ ins for heroin and crack, have warped orc society and given dogs Bo and Sunny. The author’s sincere admiration for Obama King Broderick and his militant brother, Sawyer, their excuse shines through in this collection, which effectively commemo- for more war. Among the royal siblings, including Liliana, with rates a historic presidency. whom Dryden is closest, only the globe-trotting prince argues Readers who are nostalgic for the Obama years will that “dust is the problem,” not those addicted to it. Astanava’s appreciate this unique tribute. transformation into a more empowered, if ghoulish, character is thrilling to behold. Fane and Dryden develop along entertaining, if slightly more predictable routes. Emrey’s greatest success INFERNO DAWN lies in maintaining a shared spotlight for all three of his pro- The Final Name tagonists. On the verge of a second Great War, each character Emrey, Jacob Andrew is poised to drive the sequel toward steeper dramatic heights. Koehler Books (434 pp.) A remarkable fantasy series opener built on bold char- $29.95 | $21.95 paper | Nov. 15, 2019 acters and startling real-world parallels. 978-1-63393-845-8 978-1-63393-843-4 paper THE GREAT HEALING In this fantasy, humanity has used Five Compassions That Can technology to defeat several magical Save Our World races, but total victory is not yet secure. Erickson, Stephen with Berry, Wendell & In the city of Silverfell, a man called Fuhrman, Joel & McArthur, Jo-Anne & Dryden visits the Silver Tongue tavern. Lewis, Alan There, beautiful elf women—and some men—sell their bodies TGH Press (480 pp.) alongside mugs of ale. Such is their plight after humanity used $24.99 paper | $14.99 e-book guns and mechanical might to defeat elves, orcs, and goblins Sep. 18, 2019 almost a century ago in the Great War. Dryden meets Saya 978-1-73320-270-1 and Astanava, two elf women, while drinking. As he becomes hopelessly smitten with Astanava, he witnesses Earl Edard Ken- A debut ecology book examines agri- ton and his knights enter the tavern and harass Saya. Dryden’s culture’s role in global warming and proposes individual and col- secret—that he’s a Dartmoth prince traveling incognito—could lective responses to avert a human-made sixth extinction. halt the situation if asserted publicly. Instead, he attempts fisti- In the climate crisis, Erickson, a screenwriter and film- cuffs, which ends with him and Astanava landing in jail and Saya maker, finds potent drama: “A fight for our lives” and a ticking getting raped. Meanwhile, in the town of Osh, Fane Ganbaatar clock. His cast: disparate creatures, including Hazel the triple- is an orc sheriff. Osh hosts the Book of Destiny in the temple wart sea devil, Thomas Q. Piglet, Lucinda Monarch, Earl the complex of Issik Kul. The Book contains “a running list, thou- Worm, Pat the Pooper (a microorganism), farm animals, meer- sands of pages long, of the...names of every person that would kats, and numerous people—all facing different challenges but

160 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | The collection’s offerings vary widely in tone and style, but they are universally thought-provoking and engaging. nowhereville

the same fate. The plot: unmask the “Arch-Villain” behind the 50,000 selective service records, she went on the run. Margaret interconnected crises of rural decline, unhealthy food, chronic Wilzbach—that was the name on the new ID in her pocket— illness, and climate change. The author pens poignant stories slept in hideouts in cities like Detroit and Birmingham, Ala- before deploying facts and figures. Children near factory farms bama, feeling increasingly disillusioned with “the Revolution.” suffer asthma. A piglet, ripped from its mother, never spends a Later, as Judith Jablonski, she found sanctuary in Atlanta—and day outdoors. A teen battles obesity. Family farmers confront a lover. Eventually becoming Alexa Emily Freeman, she made it policies tilted against them. Midway through, Erickson con- all the way to San Francisco, where the work of liberation was firms “Industrial Agriculture. And factory farming…Big Ag. just beginning. Under various identities, in multiple cities and This is our Arch-Villain.” Concentrated animal feeding opera- decades, the author found herself a soldier for the cause of free- tions are not only inhumane; their hormones and antibiotics dom—a cause that itself wore many guises. Collectively, these breed resistant pathogens. Monocrop methods, with pesticides, threads tell a story that gets right to the heart of the generation herbicides, and tilled fields left bare, destroy the soil’s micro- that came of age in the ’60s. Freeman writes with a sincerity biome, nature’s most effective carbon storage system. Large- of purpose, unspooling a narrative that is part travelogue, part scale regenerative organic farming, the author argues, could “notes from the underground,” and part coming-of-age tale. “No offset current carbon dioxide emissions. He advocates “com- one in my life has real names anymore,” she realized at one point. passionate activism”—raising awareness of farming and food “With every mile, my former life disappears. I’m on the run, in issues, using purchasing power to reduce meat consumption a Mercury Marquis, traveling down to a safe house in the deep and increase healthy options, and harnessing voter pressure to south. It’s impossible to turn back now. I close my eyes, remem- rewrite the Farm Bill and enact a Green New Deal. The ambi- bering who I was.” The author never separates herself from her tious book’s five chapters highlight compassionate approaches politics, but readers easily can: The figure who emerges is one of

toward animals, self, the land, community, and democracy. youthful rebellion played out to its furthest logical extent. This young adult Erickson’s writing displays passion, clarity, and a grasp of every work is both a compelling profile of a subculture and a reveal- topic he tackles. He is also verbose and prone to repetition. His ing portrait of someone who gave everything to shape it—and, refrains may delight some but annoy others. But his analysis perhaps unintentionally, was shaped by it in return. is solid, and his sourcing is supported by 900-plus endnotes A captivating and often affecting account of an activist and four expert contributors (Berry, Fuhrman, McArthur, and outside the law. Lewis) credited on the cover. An index and bibliography would enhance future editions. Erickson’s ability to connect climate science, copious data, and public policies with the lived experi- NOWHEREVILLE ences of people and other creatures sets this book apart. His Weird Is Other People emphasis on humane and caring methods reminds readers that Ed. by Gable, Scott & Dombrowski, C. winning hearts and minds is a prerequisite to capturing carbon. Broken Eye Books (302 pp.) An inspired synthesis of environmental, cultural, eco- $19.99 paper | Dec. 17, 2019 nomic, and political calls to action. 978-1-940372-48-8

A short story collection provides FAILURE TO APPEAR mixed-genre, speculative fiction, with Resistance, Identity and Loss the tales bound together by mutual love, Freeman, Emily L. Quint fear, and fascination with the concept Blue Beacon Books by Regal Crest and mystique of the city. (262 pp.) As Gable’s introduction puts it, “weird” fiction lies somewhere $20.95 paper | $9.95 e-book between the “Impossible” heights of fantasy and the “Inevitable” Mar. 1, 2020 depths of SF. This anthology, edited by the team of Gable and 978-1-61929-426-4 Dombrowski (Welcome to Miskatonic University, 2019, etc.), aims to blend these elements—not to confuse readers but to present In this debut memoir, a writer them with something that feels true in their uncertainty. Cities, recounts her life as an underground then, form the perfect backdrop, as they feature constant cycles activist in the 1960s and after. of new growth, preservation, and demolition as well as juxtaposi- Linda J. Quint grew up comfortably in 1950s Los Angeles, tions of wealth and poverty, high and low culture, and a melting pot but by 1965 the Berkeley sophomore had become a budding of people, languages, and ideas. Cities represent the concept that radical. “My generation was getting down, getting high, get- anything can happen at any time while imparting the knowledge ting busy with confronting this country’s long-standing wrongs, that true divergence from the quotidian is rare. The tales range as like racial segregation and the shameful war in Vietnam,” she widely as the cities in which they take place, from Enugu, Nige- remembers. As if she hadn’t outraged her parents enough, ria, to a futuristic urbanscape called Punktown. Some, like Nuzo Quint revealed she had fallen in love with a girl, causing her Onoh’s “Walk Softly, Softly,” in which a mysterious shadow haunts father to cut her off financially. Following graduation, she dis- the dreams of men and steals their genitals, invoke a sort of fabulist appeared into Chicago’s activist left. After she helped destroy horror to take on complex social ills. Others, like “Y” by Maura

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 161

INTERVIEWS & PROFILES Jerry Craft

AUTHOR JERRY CRAFT DISCUSSES PRIVATE SCHOOL, RACE, AND THE LONG AND WINDING ROAD TO PUBLISHING SUCCESS By Walker Rutter-Bowman Hollis King books I did for others, I probably did over three dozen books over a 20-year span,” he says. Craft’s first graphic novel, New Kid, found a home at Harper, a traditional publishing house. It found acclaim, too, winning the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. In its starred review, Kirkus calls New Kid an “engrossing, humorous, and vitally important graphic novel that should be required reading in every middle school in America.” In their statement, the Kirkus Prize judges called it “a laugh-out-loud combination of art and story that showcases the beauty of graphic novels.” The protagonist of New Kid is Jordan Banks, an African American boy growing up in Washington Heights. When Jordan’s parents enroll him in River- dale Academy Day School, an upscale and predominantly white prep school, Jordan wonders if he can belong to both worlds: his familiar neighborhood and the unfamiliar academy. The book is informed by Craft’s own experience attending Fieldston, an independent school in the River- dale section of the Bronx. For Craft, who grew up in Washington Heights, the transition to a prestigious private school wasn’t easy. “My parents had no idea what awaited me,” Craft says. Craft and his wife, who live in Connecticut, sent More than 20 years ago, Jerry Craft tried to pub- both of their sons to a private school in New Canaan. lish his first book and got nothing but rejections. All “Our sons had the benefit of my wife and I being pri- of them hurt, but a few were particularly harsh. “Some vate school kids,” he says. “We were able to sit down editors took the time to say, ‘Listen, this is not good and say, OK, this is what’s going to happen. The first now, and it’ll never be good,’ ” Craft recalls. “They time [the teachers] talk about Black History Month or were so discouraging that I gave up on ever trying to civil rights, the other kids are going to turn and stare be traditionally published.” at you.” But Craft wouldn’t give up on his art. He decided Though New Kid deals frankly with race, it’s large- to self-publish and started his own company. Aspiring ly about being a middle school kid. “I always wanted writers sent him their manuscripts; Craft read them, to have African American kids as regular kids…who edited them, illustrated them, got them printed and didn’t have the weight of the world” on their shoulders. bound. “Between the books I did for myself and the “I didn’t want another gritty book. When you read

162 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | books featuring people of color, you expect something television programs of his youth—Fat Albert, School bad to happen to a character you love.” house Rock—with helping him discover his own artistic Craft occasionally interrupts the main story with mission: to entertain and educate. “It’s very difficult excerpts from Jordan’s sketchbook. One page, “Judg- for me to write something that doesn’t teach,” he says. ing Kids by the Covers of Their Books,” makes fun of And what’s Craft’s lesson? Kindness, above all. “We those “gritty” titles by making one up: The Mean Streets could all do a little better to make each other feel a lot of South Uptown, in which “DaQuell ‘Scooter’ Jackson better,” he says. must decide if he will pursue his dream of being in the NBA or join a notorious gang.” Walker Rutter-Bowman is a writer and teacher living in Another sketchbook page presents “Jordan’s Tips Washington, D.C. New Kid received a starred review in the for Taking the Bus,” a sequence of panels that takes us Nov. 1, 2018, issue. through the neighborhoods of his commute:

Fitting in on the ride to school is hard work! I have to be like a chameleon. For example, in Washington Heights, I try to look tough. Inwood is a little different, so I can lose the hood. Kingsbridge is where all the public school kids get off, so it’s okay to take off my shades. I can even draw! Last comes Riverdale, where I do my best not to look cool AT ALL!...I don’t even like to draw ’cause people might think I’m going to use the markers to “tag the bus”! young adult

Jordan’s drawings are black and white, with looser lines to suggest he’s still fleshing out his impressions. The pages contrast nicely with the colorful, carefully arranged panels of the principal story, told in illustrations that capture Jordan’s perspective by zooming out for wider views of scene and ensemble, then zooming in for intimate close-ups. Sometimes, Jordan’s subjec- tivity even warps the visual landscape in wonderfully provocative ways. A few years ago, Craft began to see signs that the publishing industry was changing. There were more opportunities for new voices. In 2014, Scholastic asked him to illustrate Zero Degree Zombie Zone by Patrik Henry Bass. Craft noticed the We Need Di- verse Books campaign and the #ownvoices hashtag; he saw the success of other writers of color—Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, Derek Barnes, Eric Velas- quez. Their books, like Craft’s, were about regular kids—“not based on misery,” he says. He decided to try again. He pitched his book, and this time, the feedback was positive. He turned the feedback into edits; he found an agent. The book landed at Harper Collins. Now, it’s winning awards. There’s more of Jordan’s story to tell: A New Kid sequel is coming at the end of 2020, and Craft has a trilogy planned. He has more to teach, too. He credits the

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 163 McHugh and “Nolens Volens” by Mike Allen, throw their pro- skein of agreements and acrimonies. Her mastery of the histori- tagonists into situations where they have little or no control over cal period is superb, and her portrayal of the social nuances of how things will turn out, their impossible choices mirroring real- the day, painstakingly authentic. In addition, the relationship life traps. Meanwhile, in Jeffrey Thomas’ “Vertices,” humans must between Anne and Louis—romantically strong but politically contend with aliens who’ve merged with their own lost explor- disharmonious—is brought to vivid life (Louis’ “mind wandered ers, raising questions about adaptation and the cost of change. to Anne. Would she remain loyal to him, should she find out one Throughout these and other stories, the beautiful, horrible, and, day that he had promised Claude to Francis? He could bear a above all, the strange intermingle, producing a host of different rupture with Ferdinand, the Borgias, the Venetians, or the Flo- sorts of surprising tales. The offerings vary widely in tone and style, rentines, but he couldn’t bear the thought of one with his wife”). but they are universally thought-provoking and engaging. What’s This is a delightful blend of historical rigor and dramatic enter- more, they complement one another in a way that’s rare even for tainment delivered in easily companionable prose. collections by single authors, much less an anthology delivering Impressively well-researched historical fiction con- 19 disparate voices. Indeed, the effect of this collection is not so veyed with dramatic verve. much that of a set of loosely comparable episodes but of a kaleido- scope: variegated and multifaceted yet all of a piece. Remarkably powerful urban tales, each one brilliantly HALL OF MIRRORS in harmony with the others. Virginia Hall: America’s Greatest Spy of World War II Gralley, Craig ANNE AND LOUIS: RULERS Chrysalis Books (240 pp.) AND LOVERS $24.95 | $19.95 paper | Feb. 26, 2019 The Middle Years of Anne 978-1-73354-150-3 of Brittany’s Marriage to 978-1-73354-153-4 paper Louis XII Gaston, Rozsa This debut tells the story of Virginia Renaissance Editions (401 pp.) Hall, an American spy for the Allies in $2.99 e-book | Dec. 12, 2019 World War II. Hall (1906-1982) was a real woman and an amazing one. But In this third installment of a series, rather than tell the story as straight history, Gralley has chosen to Anne of Brittany and her husband, Louis turn it into a novel with Hall as the protagonist and first-person XII, the king of France, struggle to agree narrator—an inspired decision. As if her life would not prove chal- on a future husband for their daughter, a lenging enough, early on, Hall lost her lower left leg in a hunting choice with high political stakes. accident. As a result, she gained an intimate lifelong companion, Initially, the decision regarding the marital future of Prin- a wooden prosthesis that she named Cuthbert. It was, needless cess Claude of France is amicably made in the early 16th century to say, a love-hate relationship. She would sometimes encourage by her parents. Both Anne and Louis select Charles of Lux- Cuthbert, but more often, she would berate him. Hall spent the embourg, not quite 2 years old, to one day marry their infant early years of the war under various guises as a spy based in Lyon. daughter. Their reasons for picking Charles, while different, are The northern half of France was German occupied; the south- borne out of political strategy, lucidly depicted in this histori- ern half—the Vichy government—was also under German con- cal novel by Gaston (Anne and Louis: Passion and Politics in Early trol but existed under the thinly veiled illusion that it was free. Renaissance France, 2018, etc.). Anne pushes the idea, knowing Danger was a constant. Right off the bat, Hall’s “pianist,” her Charles is destined for great power: He’s the son of Philip of “covert radio operator,” was found out and killed. The high point Burgundy, archduke of Austria and heir to the Holy Roman in the story is her escape into Spain, trudging over the Pyrenees Empire, and Joanna of Castile, the daughter of Ferdinand, the in winter, the Gestapo hot on her trail. There is no question that king of Spain. Since Charles will one day become the Holy Hall was indefatigable. But Gralley’s treatment really brings that Roman emperor and Claude the duchess of Brittany, he surely aspect home. We get to know Hall firsthand, in all her tortured would prevent the French usurpation of Brittany, preserving its and scary moments. What pervades the novel like a miasma is sovereignty, a cause close to Anne’s heart. And Louis hopes that the sensation of being a spy, a deceiver, to be always—always—on Ferdinand will support his interests in Italy. But Louis harbors guard. She has the human feelings that we all have, but she can- a “secret desire” for Claude to wed Francis d’Angoulême, the not indulge them, and this, too, eats at her. The fact of Cuthbert son of a dead cousin, in order to maintain the throne within has shut off avenues to advancement, but there is also the fact his own bloodline. Even after brokering the arrangement with that she is a woman. Time and again she has to prove herself (and Philip and Joanna, he furtively authorizes the composition of prove herself she does), but it seems never enough until a final a new will that ensures the future matrimony of Claude and triumph. She receives commendations from Britain and her own Francis, risking the astonished ire of Anne. In this engrossing country but dodges the accompanying ceremonies, having fur- volume of the Anne of Brittany series, the author deftly re- ther work to do. creates the complex political landscape of Europe, an entangled A fascinating, electric account of a heroic woman.

164 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Grima offers a wonderfully edifying portrait of Pakistani people in their native country and of those in exile from it. talk till the minutes run out

TALK TILL THE MINUTES portrait of Pakistani people in their native country and of RUN OUT those in exile from it. An Immigrant’s Tale at A consistently engrossing work of literature filled with 7-Eleven beautiful expressions of despair. Grima, Benedicte HigherLife Publishing (288 pp.) $15.95 paper | $9.95 e-book | Dec. 1, 2019 ZERO PERCENTERS 978-1-73322-898-5 Grusky, Scott T. Furthest Press (284 pp.) A Pakistani exile in the United States $14.99 paper | Dec. 9, 2019 is tortured by a prolonged absence from 978-0-9651190-4-7 his family and homeland in Grima’s (The Performance of Emotion Among Paxtun Women, 1992) novel. Returning from a nature sabbatical, a Nur Ali grew up in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, a young environmentalist finds almost all place that he considered “idyllic” before the Taliban comman- of humanity transformed into blissful deered it. These conquerors were eventually pushed out, but digital life forms in Grusky’s (Silicon Sun the Pakistani soldiers who replaced them were equally brutal set, 1998) SF tale. and corrupt governors of the land. Nur eventually left Pakistan In 2024, fantastically successful tech in order to make a better living for his family, and his departure tycoon Chris Lapin and his team launch their latest innovation: unexpectedly lasts for 15 years, and his separation from his fam- a computer algorithm that simulates organic tissue. Lapin’s

ily is an implacable source of anxiety and depression for him. 25-year-old naturalist daughter, Anja Lapin, finds the idea of young adult He spends most of his time working at a 7-Eleven convenience her father’s company’s raking in more riches repugnant, as the store—an astonishing 84 hours a week, and each and every day ills of income equality affect the entire planet. She goes on a he lives frugally so that he can send every possible penny to his sabbatical in the Transylvanian wilderness, causing her to be family. From his near-constant perch at the store, he does his cut off from civilization. Meanwhile, Lapin’s group sees no rea- best to run his household in Pakistan, nervously grilling his wife, son to stop at making replacement organs; their algorithm can Shahgofta, for information and trying hard to project a sense of completely digitize an entire, live human, consciousness and leadership halfway across the globe: “From a world away behind all. Anja returns from her meditative trip to find that billions his 7-Eleven counter, once again the exiled head of family had of people have chosen to become digital—or “zero percent- resolved a major family crisis and maintained the balance of ers”—over the course of just days. Thus, a peaceful world no forces within the clan.” But as problems mount—his grand- longer faces hunger, illness, aging, or even sleep, and everyone daughter falls ill, soldiers harass the family, and his brother inhabits shape-changing new bodies that eliminate any need for steals money and effectively takes over his home—Nur finds commerce or environmental exploitation. However, it turns out that fulfilling his duties as head of the family, a revered qaida“ ,” that Chris and most of his workmates are dead from a mysteri- becomes nearly impossible. ous drone attack. And because anti-capitalist Anja is regarded Grima worked for a decade as an ethnographer in the Swat as the inspiration for her father’s making the process freely Valley, and she writes from deep reserves of scholarly exper- available, people are hailing her as the savior of the planet—and tise and personal experience, both of which radiate from each promptly elect her president of the new World Council. Yet she page. She not only draws a gripping picture of the Swat Valley’s faces the dilemma of whether to remain a mortal, vulnerable, culture, before and after the war on terrorism transformed it, flesh-and-blood person herself—a situation that’s further com- but also of a tightknit community of Pakistani exiles in the plicated with the appearance of Gunnar Freesmith, an attrac- United States—a network that Nur all but runs, in a lovingly tive, athletic man who also isn’t a zero percenter yet. avuncular fashion. As he grows old and his health begins to The story is narrated by “Vicia Cassubica,” who readers come fail, he desperately wants to return home, and he finds meager to understand is actually Anja’s newly assigned “concierge”—a consolation for his “exiled existence” in memories of a happier, faithful smartphone that’s been upgraded into a shape-shifter less complicated time. The United States presents its own set factotum (and whether Vicia has a soul becomes a matter of of problems for him—he encounters vitriolic prejudice, and much discussion). Clearly, the tale isn’t based in hard science but the store is regularly robbed—and the author smartly and rather in science that’s indistinguishable from mysticism. With unflinchingly describes his less-than-utopian circumstances. utopia basically achieved in the book’s opening chapters, the Nur’s nostalgic pain is almost unbearably poignant at times: author faces something of a problem—much as Richard Mathe- “I swear, we have nothing left. Our homes are destroyed, our son did in 1978’s What Dreams May Come: how to describe heaven families dispersed. There are no men to look after the women and how to create dramatic conflict in a place that passes for or farm the fields. We have nothing left, and yet they still come paradise. Yes, there is a villain slithering through this version of after us.” Grima’s prose is largely Spartan in style, unadorned Eden, but both Anja and the author keep that character as ill- by poetic embellishments but powerfully direct—creating defined as possible. There’s also the inescapable notion that Anja a feeling that unalloyed truth is on offer, without excessive and Gunnar will eventually find themselves in roles of the biblical sentiment or melodrama. It also offers a wonderfully edifying Eve and Adam; however, they manage to talk their way around

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 165 the matter until circumstances render it moot. Overall, the mate- TATTLE TALES rial is a close relation to the philosophical fantasy of bestselling Tattoo Stories and Portraits author Richard Bach of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (1970) fame; Isadora, Brandy just as Bach’s repertoire returns, time and again, to backdrops of Photos by the author flight and aviation, Grusky offers scenes of mountaineering and Brandimar (151 pp.) skiing, with a meticulously described description of a hike in the $19.95 paper | Nov. 5, 2019 Chilean Andes. However, this choice effectively relegates the 978-1-73358-200-1 startling transfiguration of allHomo sapiens to background detail. A cloud-minded but detailed spiritual parable that Every tattoo tells a story in writer, eschews the trappings of hard SF. photographer, and musician Isadora’s debut work. The author notes that she’s long been fascinated by tattoos and by people who “were so confident that they knew what ALZHEIMER’S THROUGH they wanted to have permanently inked on their bodies.” After THE ALPHABET meeting many heavily tattooed people, she decided to combine One Journey of Ups her skills as a photographer and writer to create this attractive and Downs book. In it, her many interview subjects talk about their tat- Hergert, Leslie F. too decisions, the meanings of their body art, and how their Archway Publishing (112 pp.) ink has affected how others perceive them. They come from all $11.99 paper | $4.99 e-book walks of life, and some have art that covers most of their body. Mar. 22, 2018 Michael, a schoolteacher who first got inked at 15, says that his 978-1-4808-5964-7 tattoos give him “more credibility” with his students and help him connect with their parents, as well—as many of them also A writer looks at the many facets of have tattoos. Priyanka, a biologist, explains that her tattoo of dealing with Alzheimer’s. the Om symbol is “an anchor to remind myself what my cultural In her nonfiction debut, Hergert begins by reminding her heritage is.” Aside from a short introduction and a note at the readers that the Alzheimer’s journey is not necessarily a grim, end, Isadora lets her subjects speak for themselves throughout exclusively downhill slide into darkness but rather “a jumble of the book. Some explain why they choose to cover their tattoos events and feelings that shift from moment to moment.” The while others express a belief that hiding their body art would author is personally familiar with that jumble; in the early 2000s, obscure a part of themselves. One woman describes how gether husband, Ralph, began showing unmistakable signs that ting tattooed adversely affected her career as a belly dancer, but something was wrong with his memory and cognition. His con- many have largely neutral or positive reactions to their body art, dition worsened over the years to the point where, at the time of as tattoos have become increasingly mainstream in the past few her writing this book, he was being cared for in a nursing facility. decades. Isadora’s impressive, full-color photos often provide Hergert distills her long experience into alphabet form, starting close-ups of the subjects’ ink, and tattoo aficionados, in particu- with “A is for Activities” and ending with “Z is for Zest.” In each lar, will appreciate the opportunity to check out the artwork in of these segments, the author combines clinical observations detail. Many other readers will get new insight into those who about the nature of Alzheimer’s and its progression with personal choose to permanently change their appearances. Indeed, Isa- lessons learned from her time with Ralph. The “O” chapter, for dora’s book does much to dispel stereotypes about who gets tat- instance, turns on the word “overwrought” and talks about how tooed and why. Alzheimer’s sufferers often become distraught and start rant- An intriguing and enlightening overview of tattooed ing when confronted with ordinary routines they once enjoyed. people’s lives. (Ralph would yell and lash out when water from the shower hit his face, and he took to rambling aimlessly in the house, worrying Hergert that he would make it out the front door and wan- THE FUTURE OF DESIGN der around the neighborhood.) Many of these chapters are shot Global Product Innovation through with humor despite their grim tidings; in “K,” for exam- for a Complex World ple, the author recalls a neurologist’s commenting early on that Justice, Lorraine Ralph was still “moderately kempt.” Although this was a foretell- Nicholas Brealey Publishing (160 pp.) ing of things to come, Hergert notes that she and Ralph laughed $32.95 paper | $15.99 e-book about the word for years. The unpredictability of the alphabeti- Jun. 4, 2019 cal approach facilitates these shifts of mood and tone; it works 978-1-4736-8467-6 to remind readers that Alzheimer’s is an odyssey, one with many ordinary and even some funny moments. Readers dealing with An overview of the principles of Alzheimer’s will take great encouragement from the many “joy in design focuses on globalization and tech- the moment” tales the author relates. nological developments. A straightforward and curiously uplifting collection of In this business book, Justice (China’s Design Revolution, living-with-Alzheimer’s stories. 2012) looks at product design in the context of the global

166 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Karim’s arguments are persuasive and expose a significant hole in the mainstream view of American slavery. liberty’s jihad

economy. The author concentrates on products sold inter- among some American slaves, Karim goes into a history of the nationally and leads readers through the process of designing religion in Africa and its state at the time of the trans-Atlantic and testing. Justice pays particular attention to making sure slave trade. He then profiles three known Muslim slaves in the design fits the needs and preferences of customers in each America: Job Ben Solomon (Ayyub bin Suleiman), who was born regional market. The book teaches readers to develop and in Senegal and ended up in Maryland; ‘Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima, apply design thinking skills and “the nuances of design reason- a nobleman from Guinea who was known as “the Prince of Nat- ing” throughout the planning process and to understand how chez” during his time in Mississippi; and Ben Ali (Salih Bilali), the result aligns with overall business goals. The author also born in Mali and transported to Georgia. By examining their explores ways in which technology is changing both the world narratives and highlighting their relationships to their faith, the of design itself and how people expect to interact with prod- author sheds light on a long-overlooked corner of the American ucts. The book emphasizes the possibilities of a design-driven experience. Karim concludes the book by examining the com- future and the ethical responsibilities creators must embrace plex place Islam holds in American life today, within the black (“Designers and other disciplines related to technology will community and outside of it. Islam continues to be depicted as need to take a prominent role, with values and ethics as a key a boogeyman by Donald Trump and his political allies even as part of their education”) in order to make it beneficial. Justice opponents of the president who wish to counter that narrative incorporates many anecdotes and examples from her own work hold up Muslims as increasingly valued participants in Ameri- (for instance, modifying a focus group format in Hong Kong to can life. make participants comfortable sharing their opinions) and that The author’s prose is scholarly without being dry, and dur- of other designers, providing illustrative stories that constitute ing the slave narratives, in particular, he reveals himself to be one of the volume’s strengths. On the whole, the book is well an adept storyteller: “We also know that he wore a fez and long

organized and covers a substantial amount of territory despite coat in the style of Muslims in Africa and fasted in Ramadan. young adult its short length, though much of it is presented at a high level He had at least twelve sons and seven daughters, all of whom rather than in significant detail. But the author points readers bore Islamic names. He was a powerful and inspiring man, to plenty of additional resources with further information, both whose capabilities were recognised by his owner, Thomas Spald- throughout the text and in extensive endnotes. Justice also does ing.” Karim successfully weaves a number of historical trends an excellent job of explaining that design exists within a cultural together, from Yarrow Mamout to Muhammad Ali to 9/11 to context, and both regional differences and technological devel- Khizr Khan, showing how often Islam has been seen by its prac- opments may require creators to regularly adjust their thinking titioners and opponents as something at odds with the Ameri- (“What you think of as good design attributes may change in can status quo. The author’s perspective is fairly Islamocentric, the future based on what becomes culturally important”). and he is perhaps more interested in establishing the existence A skillful, comprehensive, and complex look at design of a Muslim tradition within the U.S. than in, say, resurrecting as it’s shaped by technology and culture. the backgrounds of these slaves for the mere sake of accuracy or multiculturalism. While Karim makes no pretense of objectiv- ity, his arguments are persuasive and expose a significant hole LIBERTY’S JIHAD in the mainstream view of American slavery. History fans of all African Muslim Slaves and backgrounds should be intrigued to learn of the surprises and the Meaning of America complexities still hidden in this nation’s past. Karim, Munawar Ali A compelling and illuminating call for recognizing Diptote Books (258 pp.) America’s earliest Muslims. $21.99 paper | Nov. 15, 2019 978-1-912892-23-5 DEEP ROUGH A work of historical criticism advo- A Pastor Stephen cates a thorough investigation of Islam’s Grant Novel impact on U.S. slavery. Keating, Ray Most people probably don’t associate Self (453 pp.) American slaves with Islam. But as Karim explains in his debut $18.99 paper | $8.99 e-book book, Islam was an influential force within Africa and a con- Jul. 12, 2019 tinuing presence in the lives of many African American slaves. 978-1-07-308843-0 “The study of African Muslim slaves and their impact upon the various aspects of slave culture, African-American and Ameri- In this 11th installment of a thriller can culture in general, has remained wanting,” writes the author series, a combat-trained pastor helps pro- in his introduction, arguing that ignoring this area of history tect a Chinese golfer and his cleric father. simplifies African American identity and reinforces Orientalist Xin Chen is a talented golfer currently on his first PGA notions of a clear divide between East and West. After offer- Tour and admirably representing his home country of China. ing an account of the way that various figures within academia But some in the Chinese government are upset that he told have been receptive or hostile to investigating the Islamic faith the American media about the “hostility” his father, Ho Chen,

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 167 has faced as a Lutheran pastor. Police officers later arrest Ho into the world to stir up negative emotions. Jackie’s best pal, at his Shanghai church. Believing Xin is now in danger, United Jason, wants to be more than friends. David, a young seminar- States President Adam Links recommends that CDM Interna- ian, tries to entice Jackie back to church. She is conflicted: Can tional Strategies and Security, a team run by former CIA opera- she master her emotions, or will the shell she’s made for herself tive (and his secret fiancee) Paige Caldwell, protect the golfer. crack apart? In this series opener, Keltner (Obsession, 2013, etc.) Shockingly, Chinese Ministry of State Security agents target writes simply but effectively in the third person, crafting char- and critically wound Xin’s friend and caddy, Les Donaldson. As acters from small details while striking a good balance between no one at CDM knows much about golf, Paige enlists pastor the story’s paranormal and personal threads. Jackie’s Russian Stephen Grant, an old CIA pal, as Xin’s new caddy and body- background adds unobtrusive depth to her situation. The fact guard. Chinese President Bo Liang already has Xin in his sights that neither she nor her mother speaks Russian—while her but now has further incentive, as two decades ago, Stephen and great-grandmother doesn’t converse in English—evokes an Paige were part of a CIA operation in Taipei that killed the lead- assimilation that contrasts with Jackie’s being made an outer’s half brother. While Paige wants to send CDM members to cast for nonethnic reasons. Jackie’s religious upbringing makes China to extract Ho from prison, covert MSS teams in America her shun her powers, and this question of self runs through all become assassins aimed at Stephen, Xin, and any loved ones aspects of her life. In terms of romance, the interlocking love in their proximity. As in preceding volumes, this book is jam- triangles (Jackie-Jason-Trish; Jason-Jackie-David) seem quite packed with characters, most of whom are returning players. natural in their shifting patterns. The dialogue sits well. All Keating (Shifting Sands, 2018, etc.) proficiently manages them told, Jackie’s story moves quickly and engagingly, and though along with appealing new faces, such as the Chens and Don- the ending is perhaps a bit chaotic, teen readers will find much aldson. Correspondingly, there are intimidating foes, including to like here. MSS officer Kang Wu, who survived the Taipei mission and is A knotty and evocative search for identity. just as tenacious as Liang. But while the author churns out his typically tight, enjoyable action sequences, stretches of the narrative center on golfers in the field. These brisk scenes are never THE CREATIVE ADVANTAGES tedious, but they probably won’t attract new fans to the sport. OF SCHIZOPHRENIA Nevertheless, when the action does hit, it’s exhilarating, and The Muse and the Mad Hatter Stephen proves once again he’s as capable in fights as he is in Kiritsis, Paul quieter times of prayer and worship. BookBaby (133 pp.) A fast-paced, exuberant outing for the virtuoso clergy- $119.95 | Jun. 1, 2019 man and his numerous comrades. 978-1-5275-3165-9

A scholarly analysis explores the link POSSESSED between psychopathology—in particular, Keltner, JoAnne positive schizotypy—and creativity. Self (333 pp.) As debut author Kiritsis observes, creativity has long been $13.99 paper | $3.99 e-book associated with “divine madness” and the inspired artist with Jan. 30, 2019 tortured insanity. He aims to make the case that there is, in 978-1-79165-741-3 fact, a “connection between the schizospectrum, bipolar, and substance abuse disorders and creativity.” More specifically, A teenage girl with psychic powers the author investigates the possibility that psychosis and cre- must deal with persecution and rela- ativity “share polygenetic roots” and that “the inner mental tionship issues in this coming-of-age YA processes experienced as delusional beliefs and hallucinations paranormal novel. by the inwardly disordered may also be the fountainhead and Seventeen-year-old Jackie Turov is raw underpinning of creative thought.” Kiritsis focuses on known at school as “Goth Girl” or “Virgin Queen,” the latter positive schizotypy, which characterizes “highly imaginative” because she had a vision in church when she was 12, one that and “internally preoccupied” people who tend to hold beliefs tragically came true, the former because she now dresses in about the world that are unconventionally drawn to the mys- goth style, trying to distance herself from the notoriety of that tical and supernatural. The author furnishes a rigorously syn- incident. The problem is Jackie’s prescience wasn’t a one-off. optic history of schizophrenia and its treatment, including an She picks up on emotions and cannot help “reading” any person edifying discussion of the modern tendency to overinterpret it or object she touches. Among her peers, she is a pariah—a freak. as a “brain disease” and handle it accordingly by pharmaceuti- Even her father can’t cope with her strangeness. He divorced cal means. He raises provocative questions about the peculiar Jackie’s mother and moved away. Despite this, Jackie has found evolutionary resilience of schizophrenia, which, he argues, sug- her place. She has good relationships with her mom and great- gests that creativity is among its “compensatory advantages.” grandmother. She has a small but tight group of friends. But this As Kiritsis points out, his study has “profound clinical and is about to change. After a bad solar storm leaves the town rife social implications,” not just for the understanding of psycho- with psychic energy, Trish, one of Jackie’s friends, calls a demon pathology and its treatment, but also as a potential means to

168 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Leclercq introduces elements of daily life in Kribi naturally, giving readers an insider’s view. kiki and the sneaky chameleon

disabuse the “profusion of ignorance around mental illness” so couple become caught in a walk-in freezer. Sexual innuendos are common today. Furthermore, the work also points the way to a misinterpreted; calls get recorded; company cellphones harbor less idolatrous embrace of “the hegemony of the Western-mind compromising photographs; hickeys raise eyebrows; and tem- sciences,” which, as a consequence of an unbridled materialism, pers flare. But overall, the stories amount to good, clean fun immediately classifies spiritual experiences as aberrant halluci- even if they are at the expense of employees who sometimes nations. The book is brimming with haunting images by debut forget they’re at their place of employment. The book’s second illustrator Christos Stamboulakis, the author’s cousin, and oth- half is decidedly a bit racier, with episodes of narcotic misap- ers, many of which depict the struggle with psychosis. Kiritsis’ propriation, porn surfing at work, and trouble with tricky com- study is painstakingly argued—he furnishes a model of experi- pany emails. Of course, the generally provocative nature of the mental meticulousness. In addition, the analysis is not just sci- tales as a collection ebbs and flows, with some pieces reading entifically exacting, but reasonable as well—he draws on both more like dirty jokes than actual events. Still, the entertainment his work as a “burgeoning clinician” and his experiences as an factor is consistent and the laughs should come easily for read- “untutored eyewitness.” The subject matter is drawn from Kirit- ers who fancy the awkwardness of workplace weirdness. sis’ doctoral dissertation and often reads precisely like that: A collection full of office disasters, ideal for readers who long, crashing sentences brimming with gratuitously technical need a refresher course on the consequences of impropriety. jargon turbidly conveyed. But beneath the topsoil of academic- speak, there is a genuinely intriguing exploration of creativity. Despite some dense prose, this work offers a stimulat- KIKI AND THE ing investigation into an important scientific topic. SNEAKY CHAMELEON Leclercq, Fleurie

NDE Media Group (38 pp.) young adult NAUGHTY SHORTS $9.99 paper | $2.99 e-book True Stories of Sex and Bad Jun. 19, 2019 Judgment at Work 978-1-949757-03-3 Lawler, Jesse Rockhampton Press (140 pp.) A young African girl learns to love more than just her favor- $10.99 paper | Oct. 17, 2019 ite color with the help of a chameleon in this series opener. 978-1-7340799-0-6 Kiki lives in the small fishing village of Kribi, Cameroon. One beautiful day, she requests her favorite red dress, which A debut collection offers bawdy true she wears almost all the time. When Kiki plucks fruit from the stories of workplace misbehavior. cacao tree, one of them feels strange. It’s no fruit—it’s a cha- Lawler draws from a 30-year career meleon. Kiki shows her mother and a friend, and each time she in corporate employee relations to share looks for the chameleon, she discovers it has changed color to these fact-based vignettes chronicling red-faced embarrass- blend in with its surroundings. When she and her friend expose ments at work. He believes most “Americans are bound together the chameleon to a rainbow, Kiki decides that she should love by three common experiences: working, sex, and intermittently all the colors, not just red. Through simple, somewhat lengthy bad judgment.” The 32 tales he shares—some no longer than a text and the brightly colored, uncredited, digital cartoon page in length—reinforce this opinion and explore themes of images, readers encounter Kiki as an irrepressible young girl. In the interpersonally inappropriate, the messy office affairs, and this picture book, Leclercq (Snow Flower and the Panther, 2018, the self-sabotaged careers at the “intersection of Bad Choice etc.) introduces elements of daily life in Kribi naturally, giv- Boulevard and Sex Drive.” The stories’ titles alone allude to ing readers an insider’s view of Kiki’s experiences. The story is what’s in store for readers (“Nipple Clamps in the Mailroom”; accompanied by a fanciful description of how rainbows form: “You Gonna Eat That?”), and much of the subject matter ranges “Mist and sun / Mix up in the sky. / Makes a pretty rainbow / As from the innocent office faux pas to the full humiliation of colors pass by.” Though the tale has a distinct and vivid setting exposed employee fraternization. In the opening tale, a disgrun- that may be new to many readers, Kiki’s adventures and choices tled, passive-aggressive, 50-something senior buyer is caught will resonate. on camera licking the car doors of her office nemesis. The next A cheerful, slice-of-life Cameroon story with tidbits of story focuses on a long-standing mailroom supervisor’s alarm at science and vibrant digital illustrations. the discovery of a box of sexual accessories sent to the office by a clueless employee. Elsewhere, calling the boss’s boss a dildo has repercussions for a human resources expert, and a wrong- ful termination lawsuit exposes details of covert polygamy. Lawler’s tenure in human resources for a commercial bakery provided fodder for more scandalous tales. A production worker on the layer cake line faints after relating the intimate details of two co-workers’ public fondling session; a female employee gets an uncomfortable reminder about proper hygiene; and a frisky

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 169 WEST OF SIN EMBRACING HEALING A Thriller A Slow Down Thirty Lewis, Wesley S. Day Practice Red Granite Press (336 pp.) Murphy, Christina $25.99 | $15.99 paper | $3.99 e-book BalboaPress (48 pp.) Feb. 4, 2020 $8.99 paper | $3.99 e-book | Jan. 22, 2019 978-1-73401-570-6 978-1-5043-4861-4 978-1-73401-571-3 paper A winsome debut collection of apho- A debut novel features Las Vegas ristic reflections. casinos, the Russian mob, and a greedy In this slim, calendrical book, Murphy, a wellness coach sex worker. and Lyme disease sufferer, offers 30 brief, daily meditations for The first part of this tale exemplifies the grim adage that if people struggling with chronic illness or simply stressed out by hapless heroes didn’t have bad luck, they’d have no luck at all. their hectic lives. As such, the entries touch on many familiar Jennifer Williams is in Vegas for a commercial real estate con- wellness themes. Day 3’s positive-thinking message enjoins vention. Having caught her lover in bed with another woman, readers to “Think of one blessing you have and celebrate that.” she rushes blindly out of town only to stumble onto a robbery Day 7 extols everyday pleasures, and Day 23 praises everyday in progress at a convenience store in Pahrump, Nevada. Enter courtesies (“A smile, a nice gesture or a small pleasantry in the day Matt Crocker, an impromptu hero, who kills three thugs who can be uplifting”). Day 13 offers tips on getting things done while work for Russian mobster Vladimer Dudka. Now the Rus- Day 11 recommends periodically not getting things done (“We sian mob is after the duo to recover some serious money and all need a day to be lazy”), and Day 9 even sings the praises of wreak vengeance. The Russians have also managed to kidnap goofing off. Some entries strike a philosophical mood, as in Day Ashley Thomas, Jennifer’s co-worker. Rescuing her involves 5’s entry, which urges readers “to watch the sun set or the moon rise” a very complicated scam to be pulled off at the Stratosphere and observes that “all of nature is affected by the course they take,” Tower on the Strip. And it works. In the meantime, the pro- and Day 16’s mystical meditation on being and time (“Consent tagonists are hiding out at the Prickly Pear Ranch, where they to be late at times. A strict itinerary is not an act of living. Life meet Vegas and Scarlett, two sex workers who enhance and is. It just is. Be and breathe”). To tempt readers into abandoning advance the plot. Just when it seems that Jennifer and Matt are an overly strict itinerary, each page offers a large drawing of a getting a break, Scarlett, in it for herself, betrays them, and they mandala full of complex, flowery swirls that beg to be colored are back in Dudka’s murderous hands. More troubles ensue, in. Murphy’s prose is sometimes pithily blunt (“Talk slower or including shootouts and desperate escapes that are quickly don’t talk”), but it’s also often delicately lyrical (“When I worked thwarted. This is a very impressive first novel, offering rigor- at a museum, one day I laid in the grass like I was going to make a snow ously researched details. Some of the ingredients—Las Vegas, angel and just let the apple blossoms fall and truly listened to the birds”). the Russians, a hunky hero who blushes on cue, lawmen who The book doesn’t contain unique or particularly deep thoughts. pepper their speech with acronyms—are clichéd but to be However, readers who take the time to ponder them will likely expected in a thriller. Fortunately, Lewis knows how to deliver start off their day on a warmly encouraging note. plot twists, things most astute readers will not see coming. His Cheerful, homespun nuggets of wisdom with engaging prose style fits a caper set in Vegas. Call it hard-boiled (think coloring opportunities. Raymond Chandler and John D. MacDonald) and street-smart with a fillip of flipness (“ ‘It’s an awesome plan.’ Scarlett’s tone was indignant. ‘The FBI has no jurisdiction in Mexico. I have a APPROACHING FREEDOM friend who’s been down there since she was indicted for selling An Exile’s Quest for a ecstasy. She turns tricks at this dive bar in Ensenada. I’m going New Self to buy the bar…and spend my days drinking piña coladas on the Nodarse, Maria A. beach’ ”). Vegas—the sex worker—deserves special mention. Self (382 pp.) She is an appealing character: sweet as a favorite sister, perky $17.99 paper | $6.99 e-book as a cheerleader, strangely innocent, and an expert in cool stuff Nov. 16, 2018 like parachuting and casino security. 978-1-73289-290-3 A rousing, well-researched thriller by an author who should be encouraged. A Cuban political refugee recalls her arrival in 1960s America in this debut memoir. Nodarse and her mother were chatting on their front porch in Havana when the family received a telegram saying that Loren, the author’s brother, had absconded with equipment from the Georgia Military Academy. He intended to join Fidel Castro’s rebellion against Cuban President Fulgencio Batista.

170 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Paolicelli offers enough excitement—especially in the pirate action scenes—to keep the story dynamic and fresh. a jíbaro’s miracle

As a 12-year-old, Nodarse had a sense that tensions were rising history of coffee left to him by his father. Soon after, Ephraim in Cuba, with exploding Molotov cocktails becoming a regular meets a mysterious coffee trader named Amal, who gives him occurrence. With Havana “on the brink of open warfare,” the some magic coffee beans that miraculously grow overnight into family spent Christmas 1958 in Mexico and on New Year’s Eve many mature trees. Ephraim realizes his father’s dream and starts learned of Batista’s overthrow. Nodarse and her family returned his own hacienda that becomes so successful that he soon travels to Havana, but when her father lost his job, they left Cuba for to Europe for a coffee contest. When Ephraim’s ship is attacked Miami, later relocating to New Jersey. The author struggled to by pirates, he must face danger and make deals to survive. He gra- assimilate, was marked as an outsider, and heard malicious ques- ciously reconciles with Mr. Dominicci, who admits his sins and tions such as “Did you wear shoes in Cuba?” Growing older, she becomes a force for good in his community. Supplementary infor- attended Columbia University and, rebellious in nature, became mation includes a glossary, map, and historical photographs. In a political activist. She also became fixated on her identity and some ways, Paolicelli (Lightkeepers to the Rescue!, 2012, etc.) tells a the possibility of reconnecting with her homeland. Nodarse classic tale of the poor boy who advances through sweat, honesty, has a zesty narrative style, which is immediately endearing. On and faith, with a supernatural twist coming from the miraculous receiving the telegram about her brother, she notes that the “tall coffee beans. It’s a touching story that emphasizes family, gener- scrawny” delivery boy “could have punched me in the stomach. osity, and other virtues, and it can get a little didactic. Ephraim is I’d seen enough World War II movies to know telegrams were sometimes too saintly to be true, but there’s enough excitement— bad news.” She also employs dialogue to great effect, weav- especially in the pirate action scenes—to keep the story dynamic ing it seamlessly into the narrative. Here she recalls her first and fresh. Young readers have a chance to learn about coffee and encounter with her future partner, Bernard: “ ‘Do I detect an its history, the hacienda system and jíbaros (peasants), Puerto accent?’ he asked as he draped his trench coat over his arm. It Rico, and Caribbean piracy. The book is attractively presented

must have been the way I pronounced ‘Nodarse.’ ‘I’m Cuban,’ I and thoughtful, featuring a burlap background for many of Daly’s young adult said, with hauteur.” This passage also reflects the author’s keen (Lightkeepers to the Rescue!, 2012) expressive, lively illustrations in eye for detail and elegant word choice. While well written, the charcoal and pencil. memoir would have benefitted from more precise signposting An entertaining, heartwarming coming-of-age story regarding exact locations and dates—this information is com- with a Puerto Rican flavor. municated vaguely throughout, although this misstep does not detract greatly from the text. Nodarse’s story may not have the suspense and scope of similar works, such as Finding Mañana by DNA NATION Mirta Ojito, but it remains a valuable first-person account of a How the Internet of Genes Is pivotal moment in Cuban history. Changing Your Life A stylish and eloquent examination of Cuban identity Pistoi, Sergio and outsiders. Crux Publishing (262 pp.) $13.99 paper | $7.99 e-book Oct. 18, 2019 A JÍBARO’S MIRACLE 978-1-909979-90-1 The Tale of Ephraim, a Young Puerto Rican A guide focuses on direct-to-consumer Country Boy, and His genetics and the genomic social network. Great Coffee Adventure Pistoi (Il DNA Incontra Facebook, 2012) Paolicelli, Marisa de Jesús begins this edifying work with an explora- Illus. by Daly, Susan E. tion of his own DNA. He fills a test tube with spit and sends it A Caribbean Experience Con Amor off to 23andme.com, a company that offers direct-to-consumer (164 pp.) genetic services. For the price of $99, he will learn about his $24.00 own genetic profile. The author admits that, as someone who 978-0-9797641-2-7 has studied the genetic material of other people for years (he holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology), it feels a bit strange for him A gift of coffee beans helps a Puerto Rican boy rise from to be looking at an analysis of his own. Yet this is the state of peasant to hacienda owner in this children’s book. present-day technology. Consumers who pay for such a process After his father’s death, 12-year-old Ephraim Montalvo helps can join a social network of genetic relatives, discover common support his mother by picking coffee cherries for the Hacienda ancestors, and even delve into more esoteric topics like the idea Dominicci. Much hard work has enabled Ephraim to pay off his of following diets based on their DNA. Of course, this all comes father’s debt to Mr. Dominicci, money Mr. Montalvo had hoped with a price, whether it is the complications of genetic privacy to use for his own plantation. Ephraim finishes repayment, but or unscrupulous businesses attempting to cash in on ideas with- his cheerful nature is crushed when the hacienda owner con- out a lot of scientific backing. In the end, Pistoi warns that, temptuously refuses to acknowledge this, and it seems he and his though the technology is thrilling, “genetics is not destiny and mother will always be trapped in poverty. Seeing her son’s despair, DNA is not prophecy.” The manual strikes a highly readable bal- Mrs. Montalvo gives him an encouraging letter and a book on the ance between excitement and caution. Although readers initially

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 171 get more detail about the specifics of the author’s spitting into / how uncertain.” Price is as adept with his poetry as he is with a tube than they may have bargained for (“My spit tube is only his pictures, and the combination is a moving testimony to the half full and my salivary glands are already dry”), the impressive struggle of those who yearn for a better life elsewhere. book explores territory that is both easy to understand and A mournful, beautiful, and original synthesis of word enlightening. From a discussion of alleles (“Each allele is a dif- and image. ferent flavour of the same gene that exist in a population…we inherit two alleles of each gene and their combination affects our traits”) to describing the ways in which genetic testing can BLING aid law enforcement, topics are underscored with useful infor- A Story About Ditching the mation. For instance, on the ever controversial subject of race, Struggle and Living in Flow Pistoi points out that the concept is generally understood to be Seth, Andy a social construct. As the author notes about genetic markers Flow Books (234 pp.) in different populations, “none is found only in one or another, $24.99 | $16.99 paper | $6.99 e-book making it impossible to establish any category that is remotely Sep. 23, 2019 scientifically accurate.” What then, can be gleaned from human 978-1-5445-0553-4 DNA? A lot of illuminating things, it turns out, but certainly 978-1-5445-0552-7 paper not everything. An indispensable resource for understanding the com- A despondent rapper gets his groove plex world of over-the-counter genetic testing. back with the help of an Indian guru in this debut novel–cum–self-help guide. A-Luv, an American rap superstar and son of Indian immi- THE LIQUID BORDER grants, enjoys a Malibu, California, mansion along with “an iced- The Rio Grande From El out Rolex, massive diamonds in his ears, and countless rings and Paso to the Gulf of Mexico bracelets.” But his bling-obsessed ethos has saddled him with Price, Jonathan Reeve depression, loneliness, drug addiction, and a creative drought. Illus. by the author His agent steers him to the Indian town of Laxman Jhula, by the The Communication Circle (40 pp.) holy River Ganges in the Himalayan foothills, and to Guddu, a $7.95 paper | $2.99 e-book | May 15, 2019 jeweler and spiritual leader of a yoga retreat center. Guddu has an 978-0-9719954-3-7 “inner glow that feels pure” and a thunderous laugh—“AH ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!”—that echoes through the book. A-Luv agrees Price’s new poetry collection centers to learn about his “high vibe lifestyle,” based on Hindu and Bud- on the nature of borders. dhist philosophy. Central to the creed is a mystic metaphysics, How do you cut a river in half? You can’t, of course—which which maintains that “everyone is made of energy, which means makes the paradox of the Rio Grande even more painful in we’re all the same inside, and connected,” and advocates the qui- Price’s thoughtful, poignant new book of poetry and digital art. eting of the egoistic, ever distracted “monkey mind” through the The poet refers to that river, which makes up much of the physi- cultivation of the soul’s awareness by meditation. Guddu’s fetch- cal border between the United States and its southern neighbor: ing assistant, Nikki, puts A-Luv through meditative exercises, like “Throughout most of the river’s run to the Gulf of Mexico,” Price staring at a candle flame. Soon, his awareness and powers of con- writes, “the border is in the middle of the flow, invisible, but real.” centration burgeon along with his attraction to Nikki. A danger- That border has become a source of significant international con- ous whitewater rafting trip down the Ganges with Guddu teaches flict in the modern era, as immigrants hoping to cross it have run A-Luv more lessons on the “Five Fingers of Life,” a doctrine that up against the will—and in a few places, the wall—of a presiden- emphasizes being present in the moment, accepting and dealing tial administration intent on keeping them out. Price’s volume with the world even when it’s capsizing your raft, and treating life seeks to map that liminal space in imagery and verse. Roughly as a flow of playfulness and creativity. Seth, an entrepreneur and half the book is given over to digital images; in them, the artist music producer, conveys the warmhearted book’s sometimes- stitches together cartographs, photographs, and satellite images, esoteric Eastern wisdom in a down-to-earth way. The mechanics many of them altered, to evoke the strange space between the of meditation are illustrated in a straightforward fashion (“Focus two countries. Price calls these pieces “imaginary” maps and on the rhythm and the sensations of your breathing. The warmth argues that they document “something close to reality, but not all of the air, the sensations in your nose”). And the basic insights— there.” Accompanying the visuals are roughly a dozen thoughtful, focus, avoid neurotic rumination, take things as they come—are poignant poems, many of which capture the torturous experi- couched in pragmatic Western tones (“You can’t eliminate head ence of those seeking entry into America. For instance, one of trash without changing your beliefs”). The author’s prose is a bit the later entries opens, “Wet and cold we crossed the island to didactic, but A-Luv’s common touch—“Almost every person I the deeper river, / stepped in, and, the guides told us, passed the admire has meditation as a common denominator….I was like yo, invisible border, / but all we saw was clouds and those cliffs, so tall, maybe this is for real”—keeps things reasonably fresh. / steep, and slippery, rocks sliding down, / shoving us back down, An engaging tale about the meditative life whose hip- clambering back up. / How hard our first steps into America were, hop stylings make the enlightenment lighthearted.

172 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Spivak offers a useful overview of project management as well as an in-depth examination of PMO governance. pmo governance

THE SEVENTH LEVEL PMO GOVERNANCE Transform Your Business Practical Strategies To Through Meaningful Govern Portfolio, Program, Engagement With Your and Project Delivery Customers and Employees Spivak, Eugen Slavin, Amanda FriesenPress (270 pp.) Lioncrest Publishing (252 pp.) $59.99 | $49.99 paper | $47.99 e-book $14.99 paper | $9.99 e-book Jul. 30, 2019 Oct. 20, 2019 978-0-9959618-5-2 978-1-5445-0580-0 978-0-9959618-3-8 paper

A brand consultant makes a case An expert examines the inner work- for employing an “engagement framework” to attract and ings of the Project Management Office. retain customers. Whether a business organization thinks of its needs in terms “We are settling for a one-way conversation when we could of projects, programs, or portfolios, there is a standardized probe building more meaningful and more profitable connec- cess for management that should funnel through a centralized tions,” claims Slavin in this engrossing debut. To meet this PMO. Spivak, whose background encompasses extensive proj- challenge, the author believes companies need to reach “the ect management experience as well as management consulting, seventh level,” a degree of engagement in which, she says, “your dissects and explains the optimum functioning of the PMO in audience’s personal values and beliefs deeply align with yours.” this excellent debut. The book offers a useful overview of proj-

Essentially, this book is about the journey to that highest level. ect management as well as a practical, in-depth examination of young adult Slavin guides readers through three phases (Attract, Engage, all aspects of PMO governance. The author outlines functional Delight), discussing each of the seven levels in some detail, rely- responsibilities and governance of the PMO, describes project ing heavily on her own firm’s methodology and client examples. management methodologies, and addresses process maturity In that sense, the work may be viewed as a bit of a sales pitch. levels. In a discussion of specific project-related career positions, Still, the content is intriguing and applicable to any business. In Spivak doesn’t merely put forth a job description for program fact, the author broadens the volume to include employee as manager, PMO director, and other jobs—he very effectively well as customer engagement, so it does double duty as both outlines the core competencies necessary to excel at each role. an internal and external motivational guide of sorts. While the The final three chapters of the volume will probably prove the core notion of engagement is frequently discussed in marketing most valuable to business leaders. They cover PMO best prac- books, dividing the concept into levels is an idea that has merit, tices, leadership, and overall implementation. The author offers primarily because it facilitates defining the specific actions his “very important guidelines” for achieving PMO effective- required to make progress from one stage to the next. The lev- ness, each of which is based on his experience, and uses relevant els naturally escalate from “disinterest” (Level One) through examples. He also provides specific guidelines for portfolio, “self-regulated interest” (Level Five) to “literate thinking” (Level program, and project management, clearly delineating the dif- Seven). To keep up the pace, the author uses an unusual tech- ferences as well as “Guiding Statements” for building effective nique: She relates each of the seven levels to the relationship ups PMOs. A particularly intriguing section of the work, espe- and downs of the two lead characters in the 1989 movie When cially for larger organizations, concerns the implementation of Harry Met Sally. Slavin does such a clever job of incorporating “megaprojects” (initiatives with $1 billion-plus budgets). As for the film’s key moments that this gambit creatively humanizes leadership, Spivak wisely covers team building as well as per- the levels of engagement. Admittedly, some senior executives sonal, interpersonal, and professional traits of exceptional proj- may find this concept too cute, but it should appeal to a younger, ect management leaders. The last chapter presents a short but media-oriented audience. Another solid aspect of the volume is illuminating PMO business case based on one of the author’s the use of a single fictional company as a case study to illustrate clients. The content is intelligently organized and expertly writ- how each level operates. The compelling book is clearly written ten, making liberal use of examples. Each chapter concludes in language appropriate for business managers, and the author’s with a bulleted summary of key points. Spivak willingly shares enthusiasm for the topic is almost palpable. his knowledge throughout the book. For example, he details A fresh, enlightening perspective on customer engagement. nine strategic recommendations for PMO improvement, contrasted with nine common pitfalls, with helpful recommendations for avoiding them. Authoritative and comprehensive; a highly relevant guide written specifically for project management professionals.

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 173 EMBRACING SUFFICIENCY engine and manned flight while his overview of advertising, “a Stadtmiller, Joseph major force in many capitalist economies,” demonstrates a keen Self (405 pp.) understanding of marketing techniques and media, in particular $15.99 paper | Nov. 17, 2019 the emergence of television and the internet. The second half of 978-1-7340731-0-2 the meticulously researched book concentrates more directly on consumption, broadly defined by the author to encompass A former electrical engineer and the use of all of the planet’s resources, including fossil fuels, retired teacher offers a sweeping study water, and food. Stadtmiller writes: “Consumption levels of the of global human consumption. world’s wealthiest countries…are draining the remaining stock- Stadtmiller (Those We Touch Along the piles of critical nonrenewable natural resources at untenable Wa y , 2017, etc.) considers consumption rates; the disparities of this consumption are glaring. Twenty from a historical perspective, tracing the percent of the population from the highest income countries usage of Earth’s resources from early humans through today. consumes 86% of all private consumption.” The first half of this illuminating work presents an abbrevi- That startling statistic is but a single example of the com- ated version of the salient points of human history, including pelling facts the author shares to dramatize the impact of the development of tools and weapons, the creation of clothing, modern consumption. Several chapters highlight some of the domestication of plants and animals, the exploration of the humanity’s most egregious environmental abuses. “The Prom- world, the use of various resources to generate power, the advent ise of Polymers,” for example, clearly discusses the relatively of the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of consumerism. The recent invention of plastics with particular attention to their author summarizes key global occurrences of the millennia in toxicity. Stadtmiller knowledgeably writes about the shortcom- largely readable prose, although some sections are dense and ings of the plastics recycling system and the bodily hazards of a bit too heavy on historical details. Stadtmiller’s engineering BPA. Another engaging chapter addresses the pros and cons background contributes to technical but not uninteresting of genetically modified organisms, particularly with respect to descriptions of such innovations as the internal combustion food production. One of the more eye-opening chapters delves into “Mount Waste-More,” the author’s clever name for the world’s trash crisis: “Globally, garbage waste is accumulating at 2.12 billion tons per year, 555 pounds of garbage each year per each global citizen.” On the positive side, he wisely observes This Issue’s Contributors that some American communities are adopting a “completely # new concept of a world without garbage” called “Zero-Waste.” ADULT Also pertinent are the five profiles (Brazil, India, China, Russia, Maude Adjarian • Paul Allen • Rebecca Leigh Anthony • Mark Athitakis • Eleanor Bader • Colette Bancroft • Joseph Barbato • Adam benShea • Sarah Blackman • Amy Boaz • Catherine Cardno the United States) provided as examples of energy and environ- Lee E. Cart • Kristin Centorcelli • Carin Clevidence • K.W. Colyard • Devon Crowe • Perry Crowe mental usage by individual countries. Stadtmiller’s lucid dis- Dave DeChristopher • Kathleen Devereaux • Amanda Diehl • Melanie Dragger • Bobbi Dumas Daniel Dyer • Lisa Elliott • Kristen Evans • Mia Franz • Harvey Freedenberg • Michael Griffith Janice cussion of a “Nature-Conscious Consumer” reflects a sensible Harayda • Natalia Holtzman • Kerri Jarema • Laura Jenkins • Jessica Jernigan • Skip Johnson depiction of human accountability. With a rather remarkable Jayashree Kambel • Chelsea Langford • Tom Lavoie • Louise Leetch • Judith Leitch • Chelsea Leu eye for detail, he takes a broad view of human consumption, Peter Lewis • Don McLeese • Gregory McNamee • Clayton Moore • Molly Muldoon • Jennifer Nabers • Christopher Navratil • Sarah Neilson • Liza Nelson • Mike Oppenheim • Scott Parker • Sarah neatly dividing the topic into understandable segments while Parker-Lee • Jim Piechota • Margaret Quamme • Carolyn Quimby • Michele Ross • Lloyd Sachs • Bob relating them to the whole. The author employs the occasional Sanchez • E.F. Schraeder • Polly Shulman • Rosanne Simeone • Linda Simon • Clay Smith • Wendy meaningful example for illustration and supports the text with Smith • Margot E. Spangenberg • Rachel Sugar • Jessica Miller • George Weaver • Wilda Williams Laura H. Wimberley • Kerry Winfrey • Marion Winik a liberal use of carefully chosen statistics. An impressive, impassioned call for fundamental CHILDREN’S & TEEN change in the way humans interact with their world. Lucia Acosta • Maya Alkateb-Chami • Autumn Allen • Alison Anholt-White • Elizabeth Bird Marcie Bovetz • Linda Boyden • Kimberly Brubaker Bradley • Christopher A. Brown • Jessica Brown Timothy Capehart • Patty Carleton • Hicham Chami • Ann Childs • Alec B. Chunn • Amanda Chuong • Jeannie Coutant • Cherrylyn Cruzat • Julie Danielson • Elise DeGuiseppi • Luisana Duarte SECOND SON Armendáriz • Eiyana Favers • Amy Seto Forrester • Rebecca Garcia • Laurel Gardner • Carol Goldman • Melinda Greenblatt • Vicky Gudelot • Tobi Haberstroh • Julie Hubble • Shelley Hun- Taylor, Pamela tington • Kathleen T. Isaacs • Darlene Sigda Ivy • Elizabeth Leanne Johnson • Danielle Jones • Betsy Black Rose Writing (183 pp.) Judkins • Deborah Kaplan • Megan Dowd Lambert • Hanna Lee • Lori Low • Pooja Makhijani • Joan $15.95 paper | $3.99 e-book | Jul. 19, 2018 Malewitz • J. Alejandro Mazariegos • Kathie Meizner • Mary Margaret Mercado • Daniel Meyer J. Elizabeth Mills • Sabrina Montenigro • Lisa Moore • Katrina Nye • Tori Ann Ogawa • Hal Patnott 978-1-68433-063-8 Deb Paulson • Rachel G. Payne • John Edward Peters • Susan Pine • Rebecca Rabinowitz • Kristy Raffensberger • Amy B. Reyes • Nancy Thalia Reynolds • Erika Rohrbach • Leslie L. Rounds • Katie In this debut historical novel, a Scherrer • John W. Shannon • Lenny Smith • Rita Soltan • Mathangi Subramanian • Jennifer Sweeney Pat Tanumihardja • Tharini Viswanath • Bean Yogi young lord is held captive and recalls pivotal moments in his life. INDIE It is a time of peace, and Alfred is Alana Abbott • Kent Armstrong • Darren Carlaw • Charles Cassady • Michael Deagler • Stephanie Dobler Cerra • Steve Donoghue • Jacob Edwards • Megan Elliott • Joshua Farrington • Eric F. Frazier the king’s grandson. He’s also the second Justin Hickey • Ivan Kenneally • Collin Marchiando • Joshua T. Pederson • Jim Piechota • Alicia Power son of a second son, making him “twice Sarah Rettger • Mark A. Salfi • Jerome Shea • Barry Silverstein removed from the advantages of inheritance.” And yet, the king

174 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | Terranova’s story triumphantly fuses fantasy with real-world relationships. gemini ascending

adores Alfred for his interest in animals, kind disposition, and and attains greater strength as well as a slightly altered physi- potential for greatness. Just over a year ago, he married Lady cal appearance. Meanwhile, John has heard voices for years, but Gwendolyn from the northern Kingdom of the Lakes. A sharply psychiatrists, like Dr. Katherine Duhring, quickly learn he may curious girl, she’s interested in more “than just sewing and danc- not be insane. With John under hypnosis, Zach emerges—not ing,” making theirs a match based on intellectual and emo- an alternate personality but a separate entity residing in John’s tional compatibility. Her presence in his life makes up for John, subconscious. Enigmatic Dr. Adolphus Junger has his eyes on Alfred’s loutish older brother, who cares only for drinking and both men, with an apparent extrasensory perception allowing stirring up trouble. Eventually, the king sends Alfred on a mis- him to watch James in Malaysia. But James and Winston soon sion. He ventures west, toward the unorganized territories, to return to the United States in hopes of freeing the former’s help his Uncle Harold build a dam. Alfred must also investigate imprisoned fraternal twin, who’s an immortal gorgon. Though the movements of the disgraced knight Ranulf and his villain- James isn’t short on enemies, his biggest threat may be Abdul- ous sons. But when the dam builders’ camp is attacked, Alfred is lah, a mysterious individual who could prove a menace to Sui- taken prisoner. His captor, a man named Ralf, is determined to Leng and her boys. earn a ransom by taking the king’s grandson farther and farther Terranova’s (Gemini Ascending: Book 1: Eternal Twins, 2017, west. Even if he escapes, can Alfred traverse hostile country etc.) sequel begins with Chapter 22, following a summary of and survive? Taylor crafts a slender but detailed series opener the preceding installment’s 21 chapters. The succinct summary that unfolds mainly through flashbacks. While captive, Alfred adequately details the earlier plot but doesn’t clarify everything. remembers the highlights of his teenage years, including sword For example, it’s unclear how Junger has been “manipulating” practice; taming his colt, Star Dancer; and losing his virginity James’ life or how he can “steer the fate of the world.” This to a barmaid at John’s behest. Valuable lessons come from the book nevertheless clearly elucidates other plot points, like what

king, such as, “Only when survival is assured can a man consider specific danger Earth is possibly facing and Junger’s somewhat young adult such things as improving his status in life” and “Only when he’s cryptic but still engrossing genesis. Though much of the narra- reasonably comfortable can he...consider greater contributions tive is dialogue, Terranova’s concise prose generates memorable to society.” Perhaps most appealing to modern audiences is the scenes. James’ mental and physical trials at Snake Temple, for king’s kindness toward Alfred. The monarch tells the young one, include regular beatings and exposure to snake venom. The man he can refuse to marry Gwen if he feels no spark for her. doctor monitoring John’s subconscious sees “a dirt crossroads Battlefield intrigue and the medical expertise of monks add in a lush valley,” surrounded by “streams, fields, and farm land.” pleasant intricacies to the narrative. The splendid finale closes The story triumphantly fuses fantasy with real-world relation- the author’s introduction to her medieval world and provides ships: Junger and Katherine’s association is complicated since good bones for the sequel. they’re former lovers; SuiLeng isn’t keen on James’ telepathic A fine-grained and emotionally satisfying medieval link to his twin, especially during private spousal moments. But adventure. Terranova’s novel isn’t quite the “self-contained” story that he asserts it is in his preface. Though the Book 1 recap eases new readers into the tale, it still feels like part of a larger saga. The GEMINI ASCENDING sequel opens with subplots in progress (for example, John’s hyp- Tempting Eternity nosis) and leaves numerous plot threads untied for, presumably, Terranova, Mark John a future installment to pick up. Regardless, the strong ending Outskirts Press will likely spark readers’ interest in continuing the series. $4.99 e-book | Nov. 24, 2019 A captivating, otherworldly sequel that should appeal 978-1-977207-86-9 to both new and returning readers. 978-1-4787-8013-7 paper

An immortal and a psychiatric patient THE CAUSES OF PEACE may be the only ones who can stop a What We Know Now potential catastrophe on Earth in this Ed. by Toje, Asle & Steen, Bård Nikolas Vik second installment of a fantasy series. Nobel Symposium Proceedings (438 pp.) James Montgomery is a centuries-old immortal with abili- $39.99 | $19.99 paper | $9.99 e-book ties such as telepathy. Fate has linked him with John Parella Jr., Oct. 22, 2019 who, in the mid-1990s, is undergoing psychiatric treatment 978-1-5445-0505-3 in Pennsylvania. Evidently, both men are on quests that may 978-1-5445-0504-6 paper restore balance in the world. If they aren’t successful, Earth will face an “unimaginable fate” affecting the entire universe. James A collection of articles delivers an is on his way to Penang, Malaysia, with his wife, SuiLeng, and overview of the major intellectual trends her two sons. His destiny entails evolving into a more powerful in contemporary peace studies. being. He begins his “transmogrification process” at Snake Tem- In this volume, the Norwegian Nobel Institute provides both ple, with one of four stages of transformation. With help from scholars and the public with an exhaustive survey of contempo- his brother-in-law, Winston, James endures a few torturous days rary peace studies that features the work of over a dozen leading

| kirkus.com | indie | 15 january 2020 | 175 academics and intellectuals from around the globe. Embracing the ANACAONA ambitions of Alfred Nobel to find ways in which “the peace of the The Golden Flower Queen centuries would be assured,” this book presents 15 chapters that Torres, Viviana S. offer “the most fruitful points of entry into the causes of peace.” Illus. by Ocampo, Maria Though mostly crafted by academics, the contributions are delib- Cayena Press (32 pp.) erately written in an accessible way that attempts to narrow the $17.99 | Oct. 12, 2019 divide between theoreticians in ivory towers and real-world diplo- 978-1-73313-921-2 matic practitioners. Moreover, by deliberately selecting a group of authors from myriad disciplines, the work seeks to break down bar- A debut picture book depicts a well- riers among academics of different methodological backgrounds. known leader from the history of Haiti While all of the articles, in diverse ways, endeavor to explain the and the Dominican Republic. causes of peace, many present conflicting interpretations. This is This work presents a bilingual biog- by design and reflects a primary objective of the book, edited by raphy of Anacaona, a cacique, or chief, on the island of Quisqu- Toje (Will China’s Rise Be Peaceful?, 2018, etc.) and Steen (co-author: eya (Hispaniola) at the time of European contact. The book, Nuclear Disarmament, 2019), to highlight the nuances and complexi- which presents the text in English and Spanish on facing pages, ties of contemporary peace studies. For example, Richard Lebow begins with Anacaona’s birth and childhood, continues through (King’s Coll. London) and Simon Reich (Rutgers Univ.) argue that her successful leadership of the community and her death at American hegemony “is a fiction” used by the United States to the hands of the Spanish, and concludes with an assessment of justify military intervention. Alternately, Jeffrey Taliaferro (Tufts her portrayal in Haitian and Dominican culture in the centu- Univ.) suggests that American hegemony is a force of global sta- ries since her rule. The narrative has the feeling of a legend that bility. While differences in interpretation are embraced here, the has been passed down through generations, with a clear sense inclusion of a chapter on Henry Kissinger by conservative provo- of destiny from the moment Anacaona is born to parents who, cateur Niall Ferguson (Hoover Institution at Stanford Univ.; Har- though they had other children, felt something “was missing in vard Univ.; and Tsinghua Univ., Beijing) is curious. In a departure their lives.” Her achievements follow naturally from that begin- from the rigidly intellectual foundation of the other chapters, Fer- ning, and the ending, while tragic, fits entirely into the tale’s guson simplistically reduces anti-war advocates to pacifist straw framework. Torres has a firm grasp of Anacaona’s history and men ignorant of the realpolitik of international diplomacy and does an excellent job of highlighting key moments and making outlandishly claims that since the 1970s, “the study of diplomatic them accessible to young readers. (The text includes descrip- history all but ceased at major institutions of higher education.” tions of cruelty and violence that are not excessive but may be This would come as a shock to the University of Pennsylvania and too intense for some children.) The 10-year-old author’s writ- other colleges around the globe that continue to offer courses in ing in both English and Spanish is strong and elegant. And the diplomatic history. Despite the outlier of Ferguson’s chapter, this brightly colored images by debut illustrator Ocampo comple- volume is a significant contribution to the peace studies category. ment the text and bring the story’s Caribbean setting to life. An accessible and impressive collection of contempo- A bilingual tale deftly illuminates the life of a famous rary theories and approaches to peace studies. figure in the history of the Americas.

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176 | 15 january 2020 | indie | kirkus.com | INDIE Books of the Month

MS. NEVER BLOOD FIRE Colin Dodds VAPOR SMOKE Existential dread Shann Ray takes on new mean- Incisive and riveting ing in a fantasti- tales with a diverse cal tale of shifting cast courtesy of a realities, second- skillful, expressive chance romance, and author. unwanted business partners.

A WOUNDED FRONTAL MATTER young adult DEER LEAPS HIGHEST Suzanne Samples A uniquely poetic C.P. Mangel memoir with dark An impressive seg- humor and profound regation tale—not insights. comforting by a long shot but true to its era and an intriguing experiment in textual form.

WHAT WE TAKE THE THEORETICS FOR TRUTH OF LOVE Deborah Nedelman Joe Taylor An impressive envi- An intelligent, deeply ronmental tale with felt, quirky, and origi- an engaging heroine nal novel that lives up from a talented new novelist. to its ambitions.

| kirkus.com | books of the month | 15 january 2020 | 177 Seen & Heard

By Michael Schaub Alain Jocard-AFPAlain via Getty Images NOBEL LAUREATE PETER HANDKE SPARS WITH PRESS Nobel Prize–winning author Peter Handke, who in October vowed never to speak to the press again, spoke to the press again. The Austrian novelist answered questions—kind of—from reporters one day before his inaugu- ral lecture to the Swedish Academy. Handke’s win has proved controversial, with critics noting that the author has in the past spoken in defense of Slobodan Milošević, the late Serbian president who died in 2006 while on trial for war crimes. Peter Maass, a reporter for the Intercept, asked Handke whether he believed that the 1995 Sre- brenica massacre—in which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian soldiers—had actually happened. Maass said that Handke then “became combative and insulting” and recounted being sent a letter from a detractor that included used toilet paper. “I tell you, I prefer the anonymous letter with toilet paper inside to your empty and ignorant questions,” Handke told the reporter. After Maass attempted to ask another question, Handke dismissed him, saying, “I don’t want to answer you.” Jonathan Beckerman JEFF KINNEY IS BIG IN FRANCE It’s official: The French love wimpy kids. Jeff Kinney, the author of the wildly popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid children’s books, is now an officer of France’s Order of Arts and Letters (or, if you want to get all French about it, Ordre des Arts et des Lettres), Agence France-Presse reports. “I fully expected Diary of a Wimpy Kid would be rejected,” Kinney said. “So I think it’s crazy it’s in 64 languages now, and I’m thrilled that it’s translated into French. I grew up in Maryland, and I studied French when I was in seventh grade, and I never could have imagined coming here and being honored in this way.” More than 200 million copies of the Wimpy Kid books have been sold worldwide, with 3 million flying off the shelves in France alone. Other écrivains to be inducted into the Order of Arts and Letters have included Jorge Luis Borges, Julian Barnes, Seamus Heaney, Ray Bradbury and William S. Burroughs.

LUCY ELLMANN STIRS PARENTING CONTROVERSY David Levenson-Getty Image Lucy Ellmann, author of the one-sentence, 1,000-page novel Ducks, Newburyport, is raising eyebrows with her three-sentence, 62-word take on parenthood. In an interview with the Guardian, Ellmann remarked: “You watch people get pregnant and know they’ll be emotionally and intellectually absent for 20 years. Thought, knowledge, adult conversation, and vital political action are all put on hold while this needless perpetu- ation of the species is prioritized. Having babies is a strong impulse, a forgivable one, but it’s also just a habit, a tradition, like weddings or putting butter on popcorn.” Her comments seemed tailor-made to ignite an explosion on social media, and Twit- ter did not disappoint, with reactions ranging from measured support to unbridled anger. @NatPurser observed, “This Lucy Ellmann interview is like a master class on elitist faux- feminism.” @TheLincoln tweeted, “You really want all your artists to just start speaking like media trained sports stars mumbling anodyne clichés in interviews?” Meanwhile, @Hannah- Beckerman noted, “Does she say the same about fathers? No, she does not.”

178 | 15 january 2020 | seen & heard | kirkus.com | Appreciations: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth Turns 20

BY GREGORY MCNAMEE Roderick Field It’s 1975, and in sleepy London town, punk is about to explode. So is an electoral campaign that will bring racists out from under every rock on the island, making war zones of places like Brixton and Willesden. Politicians such as “E. Knock someone or other”—Enoch Powell, that is—have been promising that if immigration continues unabated, Britain’s streets will run red with blood, but even so, people of different cultures, religions, and hues are getting along pretty well, making the best of their lives in rainy old Blighty. Everyone, that is, except Alfred Archibald Jones, who, as Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, opens, is spending New Year’s Day trying to do himself in. Just now he’s sitting in his fume-filled car not far from the city center, waiting for the carbon monoxide to do its job. It isn’t particularly nice to leave a mess for the neighbors, but even so, he isn’t about to go out into the countryside to hang himself from a tree. “The way Archie saw it,” writes

Smith, “country people should die in the country and city people should die young adult in the city. Only proper.” That’s about as close to a decision as Archie will come to. He’s a dreadfully mediocre, indecisive chap. His Italian war bride wife, sick of it all, has ended their marriage, and at 47, he’s convinced his life is over. But not today, for a Muslim halal butcher interrupts his suicide attempt, shouting, “If you’re going to die around here, my friend, I’m afraid you’ve got to be thoroughly bled first.” Archie’s fortunes turn. He marries Clara, a Jamaican woman nearly half his age, and soon a mixed-race baby comes into the world. Irie is shy and has self-esteem issues, but as the 1970s shade into the ’80s and beyond, Archie and Clara’s world—a place where blacks and whites and Indians and all sorts of people mix and mingle—becomes her own. Archie is, as ever, complacent, while his best friend, a Bengali Muslim named Samad, is convinced that England has been going from bad to worse since the war ended. He still resents not having been able to prove himself a hero, and not for want of trying. Their lives are bound up in complications, as lives will be. Some of the neighborhood kids become fundamentalist militants while others go to work for a Jewish-Catholic paterfamilias doing cancer research even as others join a radical animal rights group to save the poor white lab mice. Mix in Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Smith’s overstuffed Lon- don street becomes a madcap free-for-all. It all makes for a pleasing, funny, empathetic, and on-the-mark look at the curious critters we humans are. Zadie Smith, the daughter of a white Englishman and a black Jamaican, delivered a first novel 20 years ago that was part broad comedy, part roman à clef. Born in 1975, Smith has gone on to publish other novels, each as good as her debut. But that first book,White Teeth, full of humane good humor, is still the place to start reading her.

Gregory McNamee is a contributing editor.

| kirkus.com | appreciations | 15 january 2020 | 179