What’s unsaid often leaves the strongest impression, as Tye suggests in this unflinching account of growing up in 1970s Texas. The book’s title nods to the Austin neighborhood where his father moved him and his brother, Kenny, in June 1970. But the author’s hopes for stability there—after attending eight schools and living in 10 different […]
Fourteen-year-old Mikayla Grebe is days away from taking the Fulfilled Genetic Potential test and proving she’s worth society’s investment. The fear of losing Elite status and becoming a Defective or an Expendable always looms. She knows that “you can lose everything in a moment”—like her friend Carmen, who vanished with her family one day. But […]
It’s 1985 in Southern California, where Samuel McCammon is the devout and fiercely observant only child in a volatile household rife with alcoholism, discord, and domestic abuse. In his strict religious school, his demonic visions have already made him notorious. As children begin disappearing from the neighborhood, Samuel’s visions grow darker and more disturbing, and […]
In today’s political landscape, individual politicians, rather than institutions and organizations, garner the lion’s share of public attention and trust. Sonnevend, author of Stories Without Borders, argues that this development has transformed politics into “a site of performance.” As a result, personal charm—“personal magnetism that rests on proximity to political ‘tribes’”—has become an increasingly important […]
Rockler presents an overview that’s separated into chapters on anxiety, social media, body image, cyberbullying, and getting and providing help. While many stressors have long been around, social media and isolation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic are new. The author summarizes important findings showing how the pandemic has adversely affected how teens socialize and negotiate […]
Months after the events of The Claiming (2023), Summer faerie princess Lady Dew Drop, nicknamed “Dewy,” remains a captive of the Winter Fae. They’re confining her to their Winter Court until Spense Ferrous, an apprentice mage in the human kingdom Telridge, tracks down a missing Heir—the child of exiled Princess Snow. It’s a seemingly impossible task […]
Ray hands out life advice using the framework of observing and caring for rocks. After all, “it’s hard to ignore a rock.” This observation is true whether they’re the big ones that invite you to climb upon them or the small ones you stuff in your pockets. You can do lots of things with rocks, […]
Writing in oratorical language, Salomon begins with her subject’s childhood in Mississippi, where “hate ran as deep as the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers,” but the love she received from her aunt and grandmother “flowed stronger than hate and river currents.” Young Myrlie showed the strength of character necessary to confront white bullies and later to […]
When Crystal Giordano, who’s Puerto Rican and Italian American, recognizes new student Aaron Fortin as the Speaker—the masked streamer her friends obsessively follow—she blurts out that fact at their lunch table, not realizing the havoc that will follow her revelation. Aaron insinuates himself into the friend group, easily winning over “Extremely Online” Harmony and standoffish […]
In Philadelphia, a construction supervisor inspects a large underground space beneath a worksite and finds a mid-18th-century laboratory filled with beakers, oil lamps, hand cranks—and his two dead co-workers sitting in chairs. Then he’s attacked and killed by a man looking for an engraving of a kite and a key. Thus begins this oddball thriller […]