Table of contents for Booklist, Vol. 120, No. 18, 5/15/24 in Booklist

Philosophy & Psychology The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier. By Kasley Killam. June 2024. 256p. HarperOne, $28.99 (9780063289116); e-book (9780063289130). 158.1. There are plenty of studies telling you how to be physically and mentally healthy. But the missing pillar, according to Killam, is social health. Building relationships with family, friends, coworkers, and community, she finds, is the remedy for the loneliness and isolation that are plaguing our world. A basic standard is 5-3-1, i.e., connect with five different people each week; maintain at least three close relationships; spend one hour each day in social interaction. The trick is determining one’s “social health style”—butterfly (frequent, casual connection), wallflower (infrequent, casual connection), firefly (infrequent, deep connection), evergreen (frequent, deep…

General Fiction 15 Summers Later. By RaeAnne Thayne. June 2024. 304p. Canary Street, paper, $17.99 (9781335009333); e-book (9780369748027). Madi, self-conscious about her physical differences resulting from a brain injury, is nonetheless working full speed to make the no-kill animal shelter she has established in a small Idaho mountain town sustainable. She feels betrayed by her sister, Ava, who wrote a book detailing their captivity and harrowing escape as teenagers when their widowed father joined a survivalist cult in the wilderness. Madi is horrified and furious that Ava’s book, an international best-seller, is exposing the worst time in her life to not only her community but the whole world. Ava’s husband has left her, hurt and angry that she had never shared her traumatic past with him. Their escape and the…

The most excellent and resonant historical fiction reviewed inBooklist over the past 12 months takes readers around the world and into lives of valiant and innovative individuals. Absolution. By Alice McDermott. 2023. Farrar, $28 (9780374610487). McDermott creates a bubble of Western privilege, racism, and misogyny in Saigon just before the war in which two divergent American women embark on a risky do-good scheme. The American Daughters. By Maurice Carlos Ruffin. 2024. One World, $28 (9780593729397. In Ruffin’s imaginative variation on the slave narrative, Ady discovers the American Daughters in New Orleans, an underground network of Black women and girls working to undermine the Confederacy from within. Finding Margaret Fuller. By Allison Pataki. 2024. Ballantine, $30 (9780593600238). Pataki’s sweepingly urgent, inspiring novel seeks to elevate the astonishing life of Margaret Fuller,…

Adult Adults’ Picture Book: New Edition, v.1. By Kei Itoi. Art by the author. Tr. by Stephen Paul. 2024. 160p. Yen, paper, $15 (9781975375898). 741.5. This gentle story about grief, found family, and what it means to love another person is an excellent read-alike for those who enjoyed Waka Hirako’s My Broken Mariko (2020) and Gengoroh Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband. When his friend Haruki dies, adult manga artist Kudou finds himself taking care of Haruki’s daughter, Kiki. Overwhelmed with new responsibility and grief, Kudou randomly proposes to a woman at the bank. Shockingly, that woman, Fusako, accepts. Kudou’s flashbacks to his time with Haruki show that his feelings for him were more than friendship, and the burgeoning relationship among the new family is delicate and nebulous. Emotional connections are complex…

Adult The Fox Wife. By Yangsze Choo. Read by the author. 2024. 14.5hr. Macmillan Audio, DD (9781250329516). The author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Night Tiger (2019) returns with a captivating story of revenge, folktales, and mystery in Manchuria in 1908. Snow, a fox, is able to transform into a beautiful woman who holds mysterious powers over other humans. On a mission to avenge the death of her daughter, she becomes entangled in the lives of the cursed owners of a prominent medicine shop and a detective named Bao who can detect lies. Yangsze Choo again takes on narration duties herself, and delivers an enchanting reading. Her mellifluous tone enhances the atmosphere of the slight unreality of this folktale-slash-detective story. The tale switches between Snow’s and Bao’s points of…

The finest debut historical novels reviewed in Booklist over the past 12 months reimagine classics from women’s perspectives and take fresh approaches to infamous eras of tyranny and courage. The Berry Pickers. By Amanda Peters. 2023. Catapult, $27 (9781646221950). In 1962, an Indigenous Mi’kmaq family is in Maine to pick summer blueberries when four-year-old Ruthie disappears. Peters’ Carnegie Medal–winning debut follows the painful and complicated reverberations of her disappearance across five decades. The Carnivale of Curiosities. By Amiee Gibbs. 2023. Grand Central, $29 (9781538723937). When formidable illusionist Aurelius Ashe and his popular Carnivale of Curiosities return to Victorian London, cruel and powerful Odilon Rose reopens old wounds as he pursues access to Ashe’s otherworldly abilities. Every Rising Sun. By Jamila Ahmed. 2023. Holt, $28.99 (9781250887078). Ahmed offers a beautifully rendered,…

With 40 years of publication history, Dragon Ball is a timeless fan-favorite with an overwhelming number of volumes in print. The recent, untimely death of Dragon Ball’s dedicated and talented mangaka, Akira Toriyama, is likely to boost interest in this popular series. If you’re wondering where to start, read on to help get this classic on your library shelves. Dragon Ball follows Son Goku and his family, his friends, and a host of colorful characters. It starts as a humorous, fetch-quest series where Goku and his friend Bulma gather the seven dragon balls that will summon a dragon god, who will grant a wish. As the series progresses, it becomes more about fighting and training in martial arts. There are several time skips where Goku grows up, has a family,…

Older Readers 10 Things I Hate about Prom. By Elle Gonzalez Rose. May 2024. 320p. Random/Joy Revolution, $19.99 (9780593705179). Gr. 9–12. It may seem like the most important event of high school, but prom can create a lot of drama between friends. This realistic story follows Ivelisse and Joaquin, neighbors and close friends who start to feel a strain in their relationship as prom approaches. Ive is taken aback when Joaquin, a star baseball player and her secret crush, asks popular (and, to Ive, irritating) cheerleader Tessa Gordon to be his date, partly because they’re at the same level of their high school’s hierarchy. As Joaquin scrambles to impress Tessa with a fancy promposal and Ive deals with her frustration and feelings for him—especially when Joaquin asks for her help—the…

Lyn Miller-Lachmann excels in offering teens intense stories set during the Cold War era. Her latest, Eyes Open (2024), is a verse novel following Sónia, a teen poet living in Salazar’s Lisbon, Portugal, in 1967. Sónia is forced to leave school and work in a hotel laundry when the government shuts down her family’s restaurant. There, she befriends Zuleika, an immigrant from Cabo Verde (an island country of West Africa, which in 1967 was still a colony of Portugal). Beyond her novels, including the award-winning Torch (2022), which follows three teenagers who rebel against the Soviet regime in 1969 Czechoslovakia, Miller-Lachmann also works as a translator, most recently of the Batchelder Honor–winning graphic novel Pardalita, by Joana Estrela (2023). We recently corresponded with Miller-Lachmann to discuss her work. Carstensen: What draws…

Adult Fiction The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder. By C. L. Miller. Read by Emilia Fox. 2024. 11hr. Simon & Schuster Audio, DD (9781797169385). In this debut mystery, listeners follow former antiques hunter Freya Lockwood, who receives a request for help from her estranged mentor Arthur and is drawn back into the life she had sworn off 20 years previously. When Arthur is found dead, Freya teams up with her eccentric Aunt Carole to dive into the details of the painful past and the puzzling present, both entwined with missing items and an array of shady characters. This satisfying and cozy debut has a slow-burning beginning and an ending that leaves open the possibility of more sleuthing opportunities for Freya and Carole. Listeners will value Emilia Fox’s ability to create…

These top 10 reference books were reviewed in Booklist between May 15, 2023, and May 1, 2024, and represent useful resources for libraries of all sizes. African American Activism and Political Engagement: An Encyclopedia of Empowerment. Ed. by Angela Jones. 2023. Bloomsbury Academic, $107 (9781440876318). Scholarly essays are followed by more than 200 entries on a wide range of people, organizations, and cultural aspects of the history of Black liberation, with an emphasis on intersectionality. The Design of Books: An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers. By Debbie Berne. 2024. Univ. of Chicago, $22.50 (9780226822952). This entertaining guide demystifies the design process for authors and book nerds alike, from printer’s specifications to typography, layout, and cover design, including flowcharts and advice. The Encyclopedia of Cut Flowers: What…

Older Readers Whose Right Is It? The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equality. By Hana Bajramovic. June 2024. 240p. illus. Holt, $24.99 (9781250225276). Gr. 9–12. 342.7302. In the second installment in her Whose Right Is It? series, Bajramovic presents a concise and accessible narrative of the creation, fluid interpretation, and impact of the Fourteenth Amendment. Beginning with the full text of the amendment and a short introduction, including an overview of the processes that drive the federal courts, the book covers the origin and construction of the U.S. Constitution, ways the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment in the past, and ways the American people have argued for expanding its official protections. Bajramovic brilliantly and clearly lays the groundwork not only for understanding the Constitution, but also the…

Covering everything from ancient Aztec civilizations to the aftermath of 9/11 in America, these historical fiction novels, reviewed in Booklist between May 15, 2023, and May 1, 2024, lay bare the human condition in times of turmoil. All You Have to Do. By Autumn Allen. 2023. Penguin/Kokila, $19.99 (9780593619049). Gr. 9–12. An intense, character-driven narrative connects two Black men struggling for acceptance and equality—one in 1995, the other in 1968. Amil and the After. By Veera Hiranandani. 2024. Penguin/Kokila, $17.99 (9780525555063). Gr. 4–6. In post-Partition Bombay, 12-year-old Amil and his twin sister struggle with the aftermath of their arduous move from Pakistan and the tensions of their new lives. The Blood Years. By Elana K. Arnold. 2023. HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, $19.99 (9780062990853). Gr. 9–12. In a novel that juxtaposes transcendent insight with…