Industrialization has ravaged Earth, and the Concerns (i.e., corporations) that govern the planet are desperate for resources and locations to colonize. Everyone or everything must be of use to the Concerns, or they’ll be discarded. So the scientific team in orbit around Shroud, a moon with an extraordinary amount of electromagnetic radiation and what actually […]
Rocco Vittori, a fallen star of Formula 1, is desperate to reclaim his place on the podium. Nico Angelini, a fiercely talented and trailblazing driver, is determined to rise to the top of a sport that’s long shut out women like her. The pair’s rivalry kicks off in the public arena of social media and […]
An unseen narrator reminds Alpaca to “pack-a a snack-a.” Then Alpaca and Mom walk to the bus stop and wait. (Mom will be fine while Alpaca’s at school, the narrator reassures readers.) At school, the sounds of footsteps going “click-clack-a” reverberate through the hallways; Principal Quack-awelcomes everyone. Alpaca’s a bit worried—will the teacher, Miss Yak-a, […]
Holt, a journalist who has written several books about overlooked women in history, here turns her attention to an odd gap in the world of natural history—namely, the lack of any formal record of the giant panda, “whose whereabouts, habitat, and behavior were still unknown” other than by anecdote outside China. Indeed, when Kermit and […]
The first entry, “A Gringo Died Today,” kicks things off in a village in Guatemala. As the title suggests, the dead body of a foreigner is discovered on a beach; the story of how that dead body came to be there is one that lands a local in some serious trouble. In “The Eagle of […]
Aye-Shan City has already been reduced to ashes, its few remaining survivors sent scattering in the opening pages of Hong Kong brothers Chi-Ho (the author) and Chi-Kit (the illustrator) Kwong’s sweeping and kinetic saga about the nature of war. Aye-Shan City may have been destroyed by the dastardly Zhehe people, but that just means that […]
She’s bookish and friendless and barely speaks in public. Her sole companions are the imaginary dragonflies that silently guide and encourage her. Faced with the prospect of a yearlong move to New York with her parents and brothers, Guppie finds her anxiety manifesting as a frightening dragon only she can see. Inspired by a teacher’s […]
Now in his late-30s, author Anglade notes in the book’s opening lines that he “had a relatively good life, despite being born in one of the poorest countries in the world.” As recounted in the memoir’s harrowing opening chapters, the author’s childhood home was broken into twice by armed burglars during the night, prompting his […]
In the early 20th century, Frona grows up as the responsible oldest daughter in a hardworking family, troubled by her many appetites and guilty about the reproving looks she thinks are given to her by the family icon of Mary and Jesus. Betrothed at 14, she moves at 18 to a new village with the […]
Clarke recaps the Gospel Nativity story through the perspective of Maor, an old mouse living in the Bethlehem stable where Joseph and Mary take shelter and Mary delivers Jesus. (Other barnyard animals are present, including a nervous dove called Mendel, a stentorian goose called Gettel, and a cow called Rebecca, whose feed trough makes a […]