Innehållsförteckning för Vol. 121, No. 1, 9/1/24 från Booklist

Voting this November is one concrete action those eligible will take to make their voices heard. It’s helpful, as I must remind myself, to be knowledgeable about what’s at stake prior to heading to the polls. ALA’s Reader. Voter. Ready. campaign (www.ala.org/advocacy/reader-voter-ready) offers information and resources related to everything from voter registration to learning more about the issues. One of our goals at ALA and Booklist is to be useful to you, your patrons, and your community as we navigate these critical weeks that will, ultimately, determine the next four years. Book banning and censorship are major concerns many of you have struggled with, and they are certainly top of mind for us at Booklist and ALA. You can learn more about our involvement at ALA’s Banned and Challenged Books…

Mammoths still roamed the tundra when Sumerian tax collectors and poets figured out how to make the spoken word visible. This visible word has enlightened and encouraged our spirits but also inflamed them ever since, leading to stonings, knifings, and immolations, both of the books and of their writers. Today in America, we’re experiencing a frightening wildfire of assaults on books, writers, and librarians. Thousands of titles have been banned or challenged from school and public libraries; librarians are vilified in public places as well as at their board meetings. Citizens and members of library and school boards who fight back face terrifying pushback. Leila Green Little took on her Llano County, Texas, board when its members tried to close the library because the librarian refused to remove 801 titles…

Plants are ubiquitous, from grass to shrubs, flowers, and weeds, inducing many of us to overlook them or take them for granted, even though flora wild and cultivated are essential to life on Earth, including the existence of humankind. The books below, many elegantly illustrated, awaken readers to the wonders and munificence of plants as well as the environmental conundrums that endanger them. These works call on us to pay more attention to plants and how we interact with them and delineate exactly why we need to value and protect the entire sustaining yet imperiled green world. Around the World in 80 Plants. By Jonathan Drori. 2021. Laurence King, $24.99 (9781786272300). With Lucille Clerc’s Audubon-like illustrations, Drori’s portrait gallery of 80 key plants is erudite, educational, aesthetically pleasing, and verdant…

Older Readers It Won’t Ever Be the Same: A Teen’s Guide to Grief and Grieving.  By Korie Leigh. Illus. by Michelle Lee Lagerroos. Sept. 2024. 144p. Free Spirit, paper, $16.99 (9798885543842). Gr. 8–12. 155.937083. Grief is never easy, and it’s especially hard for children and teens. With decades of experience in the field, Leigh provides a visually engaging book full of extremely helpful information to help teens through grief and the grieving process. Including firsthand accounts from teens about their experiences of grief, the book is laid out in a way that makes it easy for the reader to identify moments to reflect, try something new, set intentions, or sit with their feelings. Like a therapy session, the reader is encouraged to pause reading and complete those moments so that,…

A century after his great-great-grandfather Saint Abernathy was publicly executed with a railroad spike for inciting a miners’ rebellion, trans autistic Miles is a proud 16-year-old socialist still seeking justice for his family. He is infuriated by the way his people, the rural poor, are treated by those with power in Twist Creek County, West Virginia. Though a hundred years have passed, the longstanding feud ensures that everyone knows what it means to be an Abernathy: it means trouble, and it means that, for their own good, people look the other way. And Miles is tired of being denigrated while no one in the county does anything about the problems plaguing them all. After coming out to his parents as trans, Miles sneaks off to a graduation party, armed with…

Journalism & Publishing Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me. By Glory Edim. Oct. 2024. 288p. Ballantine, $28 (9780525619796); e-book (9780525619802). 028. Edim, author and founder of Well-Read Black Girl, a popular literary community dedicated to Black women, writes about and explores the books that inspired, shaped, and changed her in this heartfelt and absorbing memoir. To say Edim is an avid reader is an understatement. As she writes in her ardent prologue, “Books have been my ladder, my stepping-stones, my therapist, my teacher, my medicine, my parents, my religion, my lover, my fool, my instructional manual for life.” She centers each chapter around specific books and ties them to distinct times in her life, beginning with growing up with her Nigerian immigrant parents in…

The best sci-tech titles reviewed in Booklist over the past 12 months range in subject from the lives of Earth animals to the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and from the essential roles of oceans and a mighty river to the dangers of AI. Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. By Ferris Jabr. 2024. Random, $30 (9780593133972). Jabr delivers an exquisitely detailed examination of life on Earth, looking back on multiple cycles of new life, mass extinctions, land formation, and ice ages; and to the present and how human activities are disrupting natural planetary cycles. Cry of the Wild: Eight Animals under Siege. By Charles Foster. 2024. Doubleday, $32.99 (9780857529381). In imaginative zoological fables about the lives of an orca, gannet, fox, otter, eel, mayfly, and others, Foster reveals…

The Davenports: More Than This. By Krystal Marquis. Dial, $19.99 (9780593463369). Gr. 9–12. Nov. In this follow-up to Marquis’ blockbuster debut, the children of the powerful eponymous Black family experience romantic intrigue, dangerous secrets, and family drama in the early twentieth century. Everything Is Poison. By Joy McCullough. Dutton, $19.99 (9780593855874). Gr. 9–12. Jan. With a format similar to that of her acclaimed Blood, Water, Paint, McCullough takes on the story of Giulia Tofana, rumored to be the manufacturer of an infamous poison sold to victims of domestic abuse in 1600s Italy. Inkworld: The Color of Revenge. By Cornelia Funke. Scholastic/Chicken House, $19.99 (9781338758931). Gr. 3–7. Nov. Funke returns to the world of her popular Inkheart trilogy with this story set five years after the events of Inkdeath, when Dustfinger’s…

Adult Fiction Can’t Spell Treason without Tea. By Rebecca Thorne. Read by Jessica Threet. 2024. 11.5hr. Macmillan Audio, DD (9781250350817). When Queen’s Guard Reyna has a chance encounter with Kianthe, the Arcandor Mage of Ages, their lives are forever changed. After two years of secret meetings and covert communications, Kianthe and Reyna finally manage to escape their old lives. The girlfriends travel to the quaint village of Tawney with the desire to set up a cozy book and tea shop. Threet’s distinctive accents give voice to the engaging and atmospheric world. The sapphic romance is brought to the forefront through Threet’s emotional depth and compelling lilt. The suspenseful parts of the storyline are well balanced with humorous asides and internal dialogue. Come along for an epic romantic adventure as the…

This month’s hot list features memoirs, new novels from award winners, and lots of ever-popular fantasy stories. Cher: The Memoir, Part One. By Cher. Dey Street, $36 (9780062863102). Nov. The musician’s life is so full and influential she’s taking two books to tell the whole tale. This first volume of Cher’s first memoir will cover her growing up with dyslexia and meeting and marrying Sonny Bono. Freedom: Memories, 1954–2021. By Angela Merkel. St. Martin’s, $40 (9781250319906). Nov. In a memoir that covers a childhood in a divided Germany as well as her 16 years leading the country, Merkel reflects on her personal and political life and makes a plea for democracy and freedom. Last Twilight in Paris. By Pam Jenoff. Park Row, $28.99 (9780778307983). Feb. Jenoff (Code Name Sapphire, 2023)…

General Fiction The Banned Books Club. By Brenda Novak. Sept. 2024. 352p. MIRA, paper, $18.99 (9780778369592); e-book (9780369748539). Novak’s latest (after Tourist Season, 2024) will be an instant hit for her fans. Gia Rossi returns home to small-town Iowa after her sister, Margot, begs her to assist with their ailing mother. Unbeknownst to Gia, Margot had another reason for asking her sister to come home: Margot was planning on running away from her controlling husband. Unfortunately, Gia’s homecoming isn’t a welcome one thanks to an incident from her past. Former teacher Mr. Hart was fired after Gia accused him of sexual misconduct, and he was the reason Gia fled when she turned 18. The town remains divided over whom to believe, though the banned-books club Gia started in high school…

If you think sci-tech sounds boring, think again. These top-tier titles (reviewed in Booklist between September 1, 2023, and August 1, 2024) involve astronaut chimps, aliens, dinosaurs, and daredevil inventors. The Astrochimps: America’s First Astronauts. By Dawn Cusick. 2024. Chicago Review, $19.99 (9781641608954). Gr. 4–7. Cusick’s riveting and reverent history, packed with fascinating details and archival photos, focuses on often-forgotten players in the Space Race: chimpanzees, aka America’s first astronauts. Dive! The Story of Breathing Underwater. By Chris Gall. Illus. by the author. 2024. Roaring Brook, $19.99 (9781250823953). K–Gr. 3. This beautifully illustrated picture book accessibly traces the development of underwater breathing apparatuses from ancient times through the modern day. The Great Lakes: Our Freshwater Treasure. By Barb Rosenstock. Illus. by Jamey Christoph. 2024. Knopf, $19.99 (9780593374351). K–Gr. 3. In…

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. By John Le Carre. Read by Simon Vance. 2024. 12hr. Dreamscape, DD (9781666659825). In this enduring classic of the British Cold War spy-novel genre, retired secret intelligence officer George Smiley re-enters the scene facing the enemy and inspecting the mind-boggling predilections of human nature. A Soviet mole is secretly wreaking havoc on MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence of the 1970s. Vance handles with confident mastery the multifaceted task presented by this slow-burn thriller fueled more by conversation than by typical spy-novel action (restrained Smiley presents himself as a fictional “real-world” answer to James Bond). The reader keeps a measure of detachment, providing space for the listener to collect the precious pieces of the puzzle while enjoying the fireworks of the author’s dry wit and the “madness of…

It’s easy to find a face in a building, with windows, doors, porches, and other architectural elements forming expressive features, but these picture books give those buildings feelings, dreams, and voices—voices that tell stories about anxiety, loneliness, hope, and self-acceptance and encourage little ones to see the buildings in their lives from fresh perspectives. House Finds a Home. By Katy S. Duffield. Illus. by Jen Corace. 2022. Viking. PreS–Gr. 2. A sturdy little house watches many families come and go within his walls over the years, and while he feels sadness when one family leaves, each new resident brings more love to his heart. The House of Grass and Sky. By Mary Lyn Ray. Illus. by E. B. Goodale. 2021. Candlewick. PreS–Gr. 2. After a bustling family moves away, a…