“So, being apart happens.” Despite a page design best described as utilitarian, this series entry offers clingy young readers and their concerned parents both a reassuring message and some helpful tools for getting past the angst. Huebner offers a lengthy catalog of animal parents who, much like human ones, “go to great lengths to keep …
After 12-year-old Cameron Poole arrives at Camp Pontchartrain in Louisiana, his anxiety kicks in. Last summer, he and his friends in the Order of the Stones (Karl MacArthur, Leonard O’Malley, Elisa Jarreau, and Bobby Longbottom)battled to save Earth from Malphas, the Demon Lord of Agartha. Now, Cameron sees sinister images in the trees: “A shadow …
This slim, artful novel by Prufer, a poet, imagines a world consumed by a peculiar viral phenomenon—communities are struck by the “Sinaloan condition,” mysterious but brief attacks that force people to collectively nod off for a minute or more. Tornado sirens have been repurposed to sound the alarm when the “sleeps” are coming, but they …
Unsuspecting sailors aboard the USS Eldridge in 1943 are the subjects of an experiment conducted by the United States Navy in which their ship physically disappears then reappears; the experiment goes awry, killing many and wounding several others, including Third Mate Peter Smithwick, whose legs must be amputated at the knees. The narrative flashes forward …
Ester Prynn, whose mother named her in admiration of Hawthorne’s passionate heroine, lives in the small coastal town of Half Moon Bay with her husband and two teenage sons. One morning, at the convenience store where she works for an angry, misogynist boss, a masked robber barges in, violently threatening her and her co-worker, making …
In Paris, a van carrying two “briefcase-size parcels” to the U.S. Embassy is ambushed, sparking an international crisis. The driver of the van is beheaded in the assault, suggesting merciless terrorists are involved. Enter American Tom Rivers, a CIA officer who formerly worked in Army intelligence. With his Luminox watch and ability to take a …
In a lush green woodland, a light-skinned child sets up a tent and hungrily opens a red lunchbox. Aaargh! It’s crawling with insects and spiders! “No thank you! I will NOT eat that! This is not my lunch box. This lunch box belongs to the…” A page turn reveals the answer: “downy woodpecker.” Over the …
Viktor Koch, a 67-year-old Catholic missionary from the United States, lives in a monastery with his fellow monks of the Passionist order in Schwarzenfeld, “a backwater village nestled in the rambling, pine-covered hills of southeast Germany.” He is a beloved member of the community, having previously employed all the unemployed workers of the village in …
After mother and son attend church, the child sheds his restrictive clothes for something light and comfy. The boy plays outside before the two take the bus home, where the child bathes and gets ready for bed. The stylish mother is always on the same page as her child, never embarrassed, even when others judge …
Surveying a pile of half-packed moving boxes filled with all the things the family will need, the child wonders, “What about the things my heart will miss?” In the next room, the protagonist’s Aaji is hard at work on her sewing machine, making a kurta for the child. But this isn’t just any kurta; it …
