Tomorrow’s Parade Day in Breezy Valley, a city populated by anthropomorphic animals, but its sick and injured residents still need help. At the hospital, doctors, nurses, and other vital personnel spring into action. As this fast-paced book unfolds, readers follow the activities of numerous hospital heroes as well as an especially important patient. Lemur, the […]
Bobby, a tan-skinned youngster with round spectacles, is smitten with his best friend, Eddie, a brown-skinned boy with a gap-toothed smile. Bobby and Eddie are inseparable. They ride bikes, they bake cookies, and for Halloween they even dress up together as a knight and prince. For Valentine’s Day, Bobby wants to show Eddie how much […]
It’s not indifference that drives Robbins to counsel letting go of things beyond one’s control, but instead acknowledgment that, as Buddhists say, “suffering comes from resisting reality.” The reality of the world is that everyone wants to rule it: We crave control, but that control is illusory, and people will for the most part do […]
In the 1970s, American women had very little control over their financial lives. After marriage, they frequently needed their husbands to help them establish lines of credit, and before marriage and after divorce, they were often denied access to credit for things like mortgages and loans. Hoping to create a space “where everyone felt welcome,” […]
Haslett’s third novel is partly narrated by Peter Fischer, a New York City lawyer working for a nonprofit handling asylum cases. There, and in the rest of his life, he handles things with assurance but little joy—his lover, Cliff, has little more depth than a dating-app hookup, and he avoids conversations with his snarky and […]
Pete Barnes finds a terrified young Black boy named Alex Broadnax—shivering from the cold and covered in blood—hiding in his father’s milk barn in Leakesville, North Carolina. Alex witnessed the murder of his entire family by the Ku Klux Klan and is now on the run. Poppa Barnes, despite his unabashed racism, takes Alex in […]
At the outset of World War I, agricultural communities in belligerent nations provided many of the soldiers who fought in the conflict. But a large number of those peasant farmers, especially in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, decided either to evade the draft or, once in uniform, desert. These “green cadres” took to the woods near their […]
Chelsea’s twin, Angelica, still follows her around nearly constantly despite having met an untimely death several years ago. Though 12-year-old Chelsea loves her sister, the situation leaves her feeling isolated. To make matters worse, the twins’ former friend Riley has relentlessly bullied Chelsea ever since Chelsea told Riley about Angelica’s paranormal presence. Unbeknownst to Chelsea, […]
Lila Kennedy thought she had the perfect family—a loving mother, a doting stepfather, two wonderful daughters, and a great husband. She even wrote a self-help book about repairing a marriage, which was published a mere two weeks before her husband left her. After her own mother’s sudden death, Lila finds herself an unexpected single mom […]
Death and complications define Angie Sheehan’s life. At 17, she witnesses her younger sister, Diana, die in a ski accident that also injures her own boyfriend, Julian. She eventually leaves to become an artist in New York City, but just as her career begins to blossom, her father develops cancer and Angie moves back to […]