Booklistの Vol. 120, No. 3, 10/1/23 の目次

Banned Books Week is October 1–7, 2023. Please visit bannedbooksweek.org for resources and information that may be helpful as you and your colleagues navigate these difficult and challenging times for your library system. This site is maintained and updated by ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom in partnership with the Banned Books Week Coalition. This issue of Booklist also features informative articles on the topic, which we hope will be supportive to you and your colleagues. First, Booklist’s Adult Books Editor Donna Seaman’s “Banned Books and the First Amendment” (p.8) succinctly frames why content across ALA on this topic is so important: “Our hope is that by being well-informed, we, the readers, will be empowered.” Next, in his compelling essay, “Library Workers as First Responders” (p.14), acclaimed poet and novelist Chris…

An A–Z of Pasta: Recipes for Shapes and Sauces, from Alfabeto to Ziti, and Everything in Between. By Rachel Roddy. 2023. Knopf, $37 (9780593535394). Spinning sentences like an elegant twirl of spaghetti on a fork, Roddy will have pasta enthusiasts enthralled by this beautifully crafted guide to often simple, sometimes obscure, and always authentic mouthwatering recipes. For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food. By Klancy Miller. 2023. Harvest, $40 (9780358581277). In recipes and interviews, writer and pastry chef Miller celebrates Black women and femmes in food-related fields, from farm managers to cookbook authors. Have You Eaten Yet? Stories from Chinese Restaurants around the World. By Cheuk Kwan. 2023. Pegasus, $27.95 (9781639363346). Kwan’s extensive travels offer readers marvelous insights into how Chinese people have enhanced cultures and communities…

Older Readers The Brontës of Haworth Moor: How the Three Daughters of a Country Parson Became the Most Revolutionary Novelists of Their Time. By Diane Browning. Illus. by the author. Nov. 2023. 256p. Rowman & Littlefield, $34 (9781538172315); e-book, $32 (9781538172322). Gr. 8–12. 823.809. In the 1820s and 1830s, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne Brontë were growing up in the village of Haworth, Yorkshire. Their father, who had liberal views on educating women, sometimes sent his daughters to boarding schools and sometimes taught them at home. The children entertained themselves with creative play, walking on the nearby moor, and writing stories. As adults, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne each found work as a teacher or governess (the only suitable jobs available to daughters of clergymen) before writing novels that were published…

Are You Big? By Mo Willems. Illus. by the author. Union Square Kids, $17.99 (9781454948186). PreS–K. Feb. 2024. Fan-favorite Willems turns to nonfiction in this boldly illustrated concept book exploring the world of relative size and scale. Barracoon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo.” By Zora Neale Hurston and Ibram X. Kendi. Illus. by Jazzmen Lee-Johnson. Amistad, $18.99 (9780063098336). Gr. 5–8. Jan. 2024. With a careful hand and plenty of context, Kendi here adapts for young people Hurston’s account of her interviews with Cudjo Lewis, one of the last Africans to survive abduction from his homeland and enslavement in America. Heroes: A Novel of Pearl Harbor. By Alan Gratz. Scholastic, $18.99 (9781338736076). Gr. 3–7. Feb. 2024. Best-selling Gratz is back with another propulsive novel set…

Philosophy & Psychology Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment. By Susannah Breslin. Nov. 2023. 224p. Legacy Lit, $29 (9780306926006); e-book (9780306925993). 155.2. Shortly after her birth, Breslin was enrolled in the Block Study at the University of California, Berkeley, a 30-year study of human development. Having spent the first half of her life under this surveillance, Breslin grew up knowing herself to be a “human lab rat.” In this vulnerable memoir, Breslin goes over the course of her life and the obstacles the Block Study could neither predict nor prepare her for: her parents’ divorce, her battle with depression, a meandering career. While Breslin has worked as an investigative reporter for a significant chunk of her life, her inquiry into the Block Study could be more developed. The…

I met my wife during the pandemic. We got married, got pregnant, bought a house, and moved to Skokie, a small northern suburb of Chicago, and had a child in short order. Unremarkable in the way many suburbs are when you pass through them, Skokie is interesting in its diversity, with over 70 languages spoken in a small area. As the pandemic raged, my wife battled with postpartum symptoms, and I mostly looked on, trying my best to help but failing in that way that many men are still gifted at. And just when it seemed we would both go under, we plucked up the courage to go into the Skokie Public Library, which we knew about from local legend. After the extreme isolation, what a thing to step into…

Community Helpers For the youngest readers, series about jobs tend to focus on community helpers, with books dedicated to a single, common job. Creative Education’s Seedlings: Community Helpers series is one of the simplest for emerging and beginning readers. Short sentences in a large font describe basic job functions, while large photos depict community helpers in their work environment. Bus Drivers (2023) shows drivers with school, city, tour, and other buses and in a variety of settings and weather conditions. Jump!’s Meet the Community Helpers! series also looks at individual jobs, but in more detail. A Day with a Construction Worker (2022) follows a man and woman, both construction workers, as they build a house. Sentences with active verbs are enhanced with sight words identified in charming digital illustrations and…

New Series Animales interesantes (Interesting Animals). ABDO/Kids Junior. Individual titles, lib. ed. $31.36. PreS–Gr. 2. (6 titles) Los animales más grandes del mundo (World’s Biggest Animals). Rosen/PowerKids. Individual titles, lib. ed. $25.27. Gr. 1–3. (6 titles) Animales sudamericanos (South American Animals). ABDO/Kids Jumbo. Individual titles, lib. ed. $32.79. PreS–Gr. 2. (6 titles) Bichos peligrosos (Dangerous Bugs). Black Rabbit/Bolt. Individual titles, lib. ed. $37.10. Gr. 2–4. (6 titles) Los ciclos de la vida (My Life Cycles). Capstone/Picture Window. Individual titles, lib. ed. $27.32. K–Gr. 2. (4 titles) Curiosidad por las marcas favoritas (Curious about Favorite Brands). Amicus Learning. Individual titles, lib. ed. $24.95. Gr. 1–4. (6 titles) Curiosidad por los deportes (Curious about Sports). Amicus Learning. Individual titles, lib. ed. $24.95. Gr. 1–4. (6 titles) La esclavitud en Estados Unidos y…

Adult The Beast You Are. By Paul Tremblay. Read by Johnny Heller and others. 2023. 11.5hr. HarperAudio, DD (9780063069992). This anthology contains 15 of Tremblay’s unsettling short stories, which vary from the grounded to the delectably strange. Standouts include “House of Windows,” in which a building appears out of nowhere and begins to expand into its surroundings; “The Dead Thing,” in which a young girl contending with her parents’ destructive substance abuse is confronted by her little brother’s revolting secret; and “The Last Conversation,” in which a nameless protagonist awakens and begins an isolated rehabilitation guided by an unseen doctor, only to make a devastating discovery. The anthology’s eponymous story (the fourth to feature a giant monster!) is the only one original to this collection. Inspired by Watership Down and…

This list’s title is lifted from the indelible story collection, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, by William H. Gass, a ravishing Midwest classic. The books below illuminate the core of the region by dramatizing the ups and downs of life on moody flatlands and in looming cities. So open and stagelike is the land, so enmeshed are families, the Midwest, as you will see, has inspired multivolume sagas. Bedrock Faith. By Eric Charles May. 2014. Akashic. Parkland is a close-knit, gossipy, middle-class neighborhood at the edge of “Chicago’s vast South Side” established by African American migrants from the Deep South. When Stew Pot Reeves returns after serving time, he ignites smoldering conflicts and disastrous chaos. Caramelo. By Sandra Cisneros. 2002. Knopf. Cisneros recounts the adventures and…

What sorts of high-demand titles are we seeing for early next year? A little bit of everything—memoirs, crime fiction, book-group reads, exciting nonfiction—which is just how we like it. 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed. By Eric Klinenberg. Knopf, $32 (9780593319482). Feb. Sociologist and writer par excellence Klinenberg examines our recent past and the pandemic that needs no introduction through the lives of seven people. Anite de Monte Laughs Last. By Xochitl Gonzalez. Flatiron, $28.99 (9781250786210). Mar. A first-generation college student learns about a talented young artist’s mysterious death decades prior and becomes obsessed, recognizing shades of her own situation, in Gonzalez’s dual-perspective second novel. Anna O. By Matthew Blake. Harper, $30 (9780063314153). Jan. Buzz is building for this debut psychological thriller about a woman who…

General Fiction Again and Again. By Jonathan Evison. Nov. 2023. 336p. Dutton, $28 (9780593184158). Eugene Miles is a relatively healthy 102-year-old (his age is in some dispute) enjoying his golden years at the Desert Greens nursing home reading, doing jigsaw puzzles, and having lunch with his new friend, Angel, a young staffer. Eugene regales Angel with stories and has enough memories to fill several lifetimes. In fact, that is the premise of Evison’s tender and delightful latest, following Small World (2022). Eugene claims to have lived several lives, beginning with his time as a tenth-century pickpocket in Spain, where he met Gaya, the love of his lives. Eugene has spent subsequent lives, including one as part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, hoping to reunite with Gaya. Eugene also vividly…

The Best Jobs Ever (Rosen/PowerKids; 5 titles) Gr. 4–8. An eye-catching format encourages students to explore job options in the five areas of STEAM. Each volume presents 15 jobs through short passages with fun facts about the work environment, appealing digital graphics, color photos, and profiles of prominent individuals. Careers in the Gig Economy (ReferencePoint; 5 titles) Gr. 7–12. In response to the post-COVID economy, this timely series looks at the pros and cons of nontraditional job opportunities (including short-term, part-time, flexible, and remote positions) in such areas as the creative arts, social media, and transportation and delivery. Daring and Dangerous Jobs (Bookstaves/12-Story; 8 titles) Gr. 3–6. Each title enumerates 12 aspects of exciting jobs, from being a smokejumper or animal handler to a bomb squad technician. Brief text on…

Older Readers And Don’t Look Back. By Rebecca Barrow. Oct. 2023. 336p. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry, $19.99 (9781665932271). Gr. 9–12. Harlow and her mother, Cora, are always on the move, changing towns and changing names, fleeing from secrets Cora refuses to tell her daughter. This changes after they get into a car accident, leading to Cora’s death. In the aftermath, Harlow discovers a mysterious safety deposit box containing cash, a deed to a house, and photos of a family she didn’t know existed. Harlow decides that answers are more important than any dangers she might face from the past, so she returns to Cora’s hometown to find out the truth they’d been running from. But once Harlow starts digging, she begins to find out why her mother took pains…

The audiobook narration of information-heavy Nearer My Freedom makes a remarkable life vivid and compelling. Students eager to study more fascinating lives will relish these biographies with narrations that create compelling and humanizing portraits. Agent Most Wanted: The Never-Before-Told Story of the Most Dangerous Spy of World War II. By Sonia Purnell. Read by Caroline Hewitt. 2022. 5hr. Listening Library (9780593588161). Gr. 5–12. For fans of spycraft and strong women. Hewitt’s narration adds character voices and leaves listeners with a clear understanding of the importance of Hall’s work in defeating the Nazis. Dreaming in Code: Ada Byron Lovelace, Computer Pioneer. By Emily Arnold McCully. Read by the author. 2019. 3hr. Listening Library (9781984888990). Gr. 7–10. McCully performs smoothly, using a British accent for characters: Lady Byron is haughty and distant,…