Table of contents for Vol. 119, No. 1, 9/1/22 in Booklist

Where will you find a broad, far-reaching mix of topics ranging from pickleball to “Charles Dickens Reimagined” to “Island Tales”? Well, right here, in Booklist, of course! But there’s more in this issue, too, like our “Listen Up: Sure Bets in Spanish,” by Maria del Carmen Cifuentes; a Writers & Readers, by Fred Bowen, and well, too much to list (OK, I could list every feature, but I’m working with a limited word count!). We thus begin our new volume year with diversified selections that also include a Spotlight on Sports, Focus on Board Books, Fall Youth Preview, Focus on Audiobooks in Spanish, and Publishers’ Fall Announcements. Speaking of announcements, we have some of our own that we’re excited to share. For several years, we’ve published our Starred Reviews issue…

General Fiction The Age of Doubt. By Pak Kyongni. Tr. by Sophie Bowman and others. Sept. 2022. 288p. Honford Star, paper, $11.99 (9781739822521); e-book (9781739822538). Considered one of Korea’s greatest novelists, Pak (1926–2008) is revered for her multivolume epic Toji (The Land, 1969–1994), designated among the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works. She began publishing autobiographical short stories, inspired by tragic post-Korean War experiences, exposing the high cost of survival, especially for women. Presenting works written from 1955 to 1968, this seven-story collection opens with her debut publication, “Calculations,” about a woman with unrealistic expectations for love (and life); it concludes with two later stories—“The Era of Fantasy,” a novella about a young girl’s challenging coming-of-age in colonized Korea, and “The Sickness No Medicine Can Fix,” about the detrimental effects of…

Middle Readers Listen Up! Exploring the World of Natural Sound. By Stephen Aitken. Sept. 2022. 56p. illus. Orca/Footprints, $21.95 (9781459827103). Gr. 4–7. 534. This introductory book on the auditory senses of animals opens with the evolution of hearing. Life began in water, where fish started to adapt their method of staying upright into a way of detecting sound waves. Later, certain land animals, such as elephants, began using their feet to sense vibrations traveling through earth, and bats learned to fly in darkness, guided by echolocation. Different animals developed forms of hearing that suited their needs and helped ensure their survival. A biologist and a science writer, Aitken mentions research suggesting that plants also appear to hear sounds. The book includes information on noise pollution in the ocean, in cities,…

Nostalgia can be a tricky project—so often, it presents a picture of the past that glosses over the rougher, less pleasant parts of history. That can be anodyne, of course, but on a larger scale, nostalgia risks replacing a true accounting of the past with a constructed version composed of only bits and pieces of a much larger and often heavier truth. Blackall’s latest picture book cleverly and subtly engages with that problem through the story of an old farmhouse in upstate New York. A large family lives in a well-loved house, and they’ve truly left a mark—the walls are hand-painted with colorful flowers; the beds in a row upstairs lie beneath pictures and photos overlapping on the slanted ceiling; height markings tick up along a doorway. In a charmingly…

What if the next big thing in inclusivity, access, equity, and serving more of our community members in a better way didn’t require new training, tech, or budget lines? In a library climate in which we are often pushed toward expanding our collections with newer, tech-forward, innovative options, sometimes the best option is one we’ve always had—one that libraries have ample experience acquiring and housing, and one that our users across demographics can appreciate and enjoy. From format-agnostic millennials to screen-weary remote workers, large print books are finding younger, more diverse audiences in libraries. As librarians reposition these collections, moving them out of their corners and into the spotlight, they’re displaying the new reality that large print collections are current, in high demand, and available for everyone. While much conversation…

Journalism & Publishing Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation among America’s Community Newspapers. By Dave Hoekstra. Oct. 2022. 200p. Agate, paper, $18.99 (9781572843165). 071. Newspapers used to blanket the nation from coast to coast, with a paper or two for every rural, suburban, and urban community devoted to covering the town or county’s goings-on and advertising the merchants who sustained local commerce. Even in enclaves too small to support a radio or television station, it would be easy to find stacks of newspapers documenting local events, births, deaths, weddings, church socials, high-school athletics, the arts, and local government activities. But in more recent history, even the largest newspapers found themselves targets of predatory capital, shrinking to wraiths of their former selves. Journalist Hoekstra (The Camper Book, 2018) crisscrossed the…

This year’s top 10 sports titles, reviewed in Booklist from September 2021 through August 2022, focus primarily on a variety of athletes who have overcome obstacles, both personal and institutional, on their way to success. —Bill Ott Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete’s Dream. By Anthony Ianni. 2021. Red Lightning, $20 (9781684351541). Ianni’s unimpressive statistics over three seasons on the Michigan State basketball team mask a career unique in college sports: he was the first person known to be on the autism spectrum to play Division 1 basketball. A memoir of boundless, manifold inspiration. The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham. By Ron Shelton. 2022. Knopf, $30 (9780593319772). Shelton combines two biographies in this jaunty memoir, one detailing the making of the movie Bull Durham, which he wrote…

Booklist Reader, Coming Soon in Print! We’re thrilled to share that our new publication, Booklist Reader, will soon be available for bulk ordering in print! Booklist Reader puts Booklist’s lists, features, and interviews directly in the hands of patrons, making diverse readers’ advisory recommendations for all ages truly a breeze. Find out more about Booklist Reader at bit.ly/3vuupvU, and if you’ve already heard enough and want to fill out our no-obligation interest form for print today, visit bit.ly/booklistreaderinprint. Anniversary and Special Editions: Gail Carson Levine’s Newbery Honor Book, Ella Enchanted, turns 25 this year, and HarperCollins is celebrating with a new paperback edition featuring updated cover art and an essay by Levine about the book’s impact. Available both as individual titles or in a slipcase set, four classic Frances Hodgson…

Personal and social hurdles are overcome by female, queer, and disabled athletes taking the field and challenging stereotypes in these top 10 sports books for youth, reviewed between September 1, 2021, and August 2022. —Ronny Khuri The Corinthian Girl: Champion Athlete of Ancient Olympia. By Christina Balit. Illus. by the author. 2021. Otter-Barry, $19.99 (9781913074722). Gr. 2–5. In this Olympian Cinderella story based on historical fact, a girl grows up enslaved in ancient Greece, only to become a formidable champion in the woman-only Heraean Games. Hardcourt: Stories from 75 Years of the National Basketball Association. By Fred Bowen. Illus. by James E. Ransome. 2022. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry, $19.99 (9781534460430). Gr. 4–8. This history of the NBA, brought to life by action-packed illustrations, takes readers from the league’s early…

The end of the year is closing in, but there are still some excellent titles by best-selling and award-winning authors yet to come. —Sarah Hunter Better Than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World. By Frederick Joseph and Porsche Joseph. Candlewick, $19.99 (9781536224528). Gr. 7–12. Oct. Empowering and galvanizing interviews with a wide range of public figures fill pages of this guide for teens interested in social and political action. Bloodmarked. By Tracy Deonn. Simon & Schuster/Margaret K. McElderry, $19.99 (9781534441637). Gr. 9–12. Nov. Bree is still learning to control her powers in this sequel to Deonn’s best-selling Legend  born. Will she master them in time to defend her people against a dangerous force? The Luminaries. By Susan Dennard. Tor Teen, $18.99 (9781250194046). Gr. 9–12. Nov. An eerie fantasy…

This announcement section offers Booklist readers a selected preview of especially notable new titles for young adult, middle-grade, and young readers. All titles will be published in the fall 2022 and winter 2023 seasons. Young Adult Nonfiction American Murderer: The Parasite that Haunted the South. By Gail Jarrow. Astra/Calkins Creek, $24.99 (9781684378159). Gr. 6–10. Sept. Better than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World. By Frederick Joseph and Porsche Joseph. Candlewick, $19.99 (9781536224528). Gr. 7–12. Oct. Big Lies: From Socrates to Social Media. By Mark Kurlansky. Illus. by Eric Zelz. Tilbury, $22.95 (9780884489122). Gr. 6–12. Sept. Boys Will Be Human: A Get-Real Gut-Check Guide to Becoming the Strongest, Kindest, Bravest Person You Can Be. By Justin Baldoni. Harper, $14.99 (9780063067189) Gr. 6–9. Oct. Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific…

FLOATING COLLECTION STATIC COLLECTION Books stay at the location where they were returned. Books return to their home location after checkout. Patron holds directly impact the on-shelf collection. Patron holds indicate trends for the direction of the collection. Collection development staff oversee in order to maintain balance. Collection development staff curate collections specific to each building. Emphasizes local favorites and popular genres. Offers opportunities to highlight “under the radar” or up-and-coming trends.…

Andscape is a Black media platform dedicated to creating, highlighting, and uplifting the diverse stories of Black identity. Magnified by the power and reach of ESPN and The Walt Disney Company, the Andscape umbrella includes an editorial division, book publishing arm, film and television division, and music publishing group—each united by the shared mission of illuminating the culture and experience of Blackness. Titles under the imprint will explore themes of race, culture, and identity intersecting with sports, fashion, the arts, health and wellness, popular culture, social issues, and more. Books to be published will fall within the categories of narrative nonfiction and memoir for adults and will also feature a line of young adult and children’s titles. “Andscape is excited to come together with Disney Publishing Worldwide to publish books…

Oct. 2022. 560p. Harper, $32.50 (9780063251922). “A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing.” So says young Damon Fields, who’s destined to be known as Demon Copperhead, a hungry orphan in a snake-harboring holler in Lee County, Virginia, where meth and opioids kill and nearly everyone is just scraping by. With his red hair and the “light-green eyes of a Melungeon,” Damon’s a dead-ringer for his dead father, whom he never met. More parent to his mother than she was to him, he’s subjected to hellish foster situations after her death, forced into hard labor, including a stint in a tobacco field, which ignites one of many righteous indictments of greed and exploitation. Damon funnels his dreams into drawings of superheroes, art being one of his…

Years ago, when I was a sports-obsessed kid, I spent countless hours in my backyard throwing a tennis ball against the wall of our family home in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Once, a neighbor asked my mother how she could stand the constant thump, thump, thump against the house. But my mother never stopped my play. “You looked so happy out there,” she told me years later. I was beyond happy. I was joyous. Running after the ball in the afternoon sun, I wasn’t just practicing my fielding with my baseball glove, I was making up stories and characters in my head. I even remember the names of some of my characters: Johnny Bragg … Ron Montana … Jimmy Sickles. The characters and stories were much like those in the Chip Hilton…

Adult A Court of Thorns and Roses. By Sarah J. Maas. Read by a full cast. 2022. 6hr. GraphicAudio, DD (9781685082758). When Feyre kills a faerie in wolf form, she is given the choice of death of living the rest of her life in the lands of the faeries. Choosing to live, she discovers inhabitants of the faerie lands cursed by a blight that is diminishing faerie magic and headed to the human realm. This steamy romantic fantasy is the first half of book one in the Court of Thorns and Roses series. The action-packed and character-driven writing is well suited to the graphic-audio format, which promises a “movie in your mind.” Performed by a full cast with sound effects and a music track, this book provides a listening experience…

“We know now that relying solely on patron requests for large print hasn’t been good enough. It reflects the preferences of those whose voices are the loudest, but the unfortunate reality is that sometimes not everyone in a community feels like they have a voice at the library.” 1 Set small, quantifiable goals. For example, content by or about underrepresented communities will make up half of all titles in large print displays. 2 Open up your selection process to more people. Include input from more frontline staff who work with readers. 3 Seek out influencers across your community. Look outside the library walls to local leaders in school, religious, book club, or recreational communities; let them be library ambassadors. 4 Evaluate your efforts and revisit your goals. Try new approaches,…

Fort Bend’s patrons are adept at using the catalog system to place holds. So much so that Franklin has used this patron behavior pattern to help shape the collection at each branch. The collection floats, so it’s significantly driven by patterns in patron holds but also gets infusions of fresh titles on a regular basis to pinpoint high-interest titles across fiction and nonfiction genres. They’ve found that the Black Voices selections, titles popular with book groups, and those with social media buzz circulate particularly well. Franklin finds, through monitoring the patterns of holds, that large print seems to be a preferred format for many of her patrons across neighborhood demographics. “The branches with high circulation [of large print] have commercial areas, apartments, schools, and subdivisions near them. The communities surrounding…