Clever wordplay immediately elevates Smith’s story beyond mere moralizing about the value of a growth mindset: “Habit” is the name of a tropical island, home to the eponymous creature, a large, rabbitlike being who prefers the tried-and-true to the new and unfamiliar. A “very small creature,” a bespectacled blue sphere with skinny limbs, encourages the […]
Little received his first camera from his father when he was 9 years old. With that serendipitous gift, he embarked on an impressive career as a photojournalist that spanned 40 years. He largely worked for Time, Incorporated and was given the opportunity to photograph everything and everyone—Cary Grant, the Rolling Stones, presidents, and Playboy bunnies. […]
Thirteen-year-olds Eowyn Becker and Jules Marrigan became best friends during their first Wisconsin camp summer. Over the years, though, their friendship has developed cracks. Talented Eowyn suffers from severe stage fright, desperately misses her deceased mother, and resents her doctor father and Broadway-star brother, who have little time for her. She covets Jules’ supportive family […]
The first book in this seven-volume novel series introduced readers to Tara Selter, a bookseller who has mysteriously been forced to relive November 18th over and over. In that book, Tara chronicled her sometimes desperate efforts to recruit her husband for clues about the rationale behind her predicament. As the second book opens, a year […]
Sadyk is born in the mountains of Azerbaijan, and on the very day he begins his tumultuous life, he loses his mother. He’s raised by his father, Nadzhaf, who sells muskmelons grown on the village’s collective farm, and his Aunt Medina. One day, with little ceremony, Nadzhaf announces that he’s sold the family’s cow and […]
Following an injuryas a competitive runner during his senior year of high school, Tao learned about the field of physical therapy and found it to be a “profound, eye-opening experience.” By 2020, he’d taken the most difficult, but potentially most rewarding first step in his career: residency at a health clinic in San Francisco. As […]
In “The Contagion,” the Dreiyer family’s annual road trip includes a stop at a bed-and-breakfast—that’s where 7-year-old Sylvia peeks into a trunk of dolls, one of which, she swears, moves on its own. Decades later, when looking for inspiration for a TV show she’s working on, she returns to the inn and makes a startling […]
A couple of dramatic prologues and some early exposition bring readers up to speed about the mysteries and players of Hemlock Falls. Winnie Wednesday, Erica Thursday, and Jay Friday have formed a clue-gathering trio collectively known as the WTF triangle. The three agree to work together to uncover the truth behind mysteries involving Winnie’s missing […]
These inquisitive strands of commonalities form the basis for Gervais’ eclectic bilingual word book, a hodgepodge of animals, vehicles, everyday items, and natural phenomena. Each spread opens to a catalog of things—faithfully rendered via stencils and brushes against mostly solid color backgrounds—collected around a declarative statement in all caps. “THINGS THAT SMELL GOOD” boasts a […]
In what is in many ways a bookend to 1Q84, Murakami blends science fiction, gothic novel, noir mystery, horror (think Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s film Pulse), and coming-of-age story. His protagonist and narrator, as the novel opens, is a 17-year-old boy aswoon in love with a 16-year-old girl. “At that time neither you nor I had names,” […]