With sparse, rhyming text, Lester L. Laminack perfectly captures a day in the life of a typical neighborhood cat in A Cat Like That, a fun read-aloud with engaging illustrations by Nicole Wong.
With sparse, rhyming text, Lester L. Laminack perfectly captures a day in the life of a typical neighborhood cat in A Cat Like That, a fun read-aloud with engaging illustrations by Nicole Wong.
In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.
In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.
Must-reads for May include the latest from bestselling historian David Grann and romance superstar Emily Henry, plus the long-awaited second novel from Abraham Verghese.
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Our Migrant Souls is one of the most important pieces of Latino nonfiction in several decades. Turning the last page, you will feel the weight of history on your shoulders.
Abraham Verghese, probably the best doctor-writer since Anton Chekhov, upends all of our expectations again and again in his long awaited follow-up to Cutting for Stone.
David Grann’s narrative nonfiction masterpiece about an 18th-century man-of-war that ran aground in South America reveals humanity at its best and worst, from heroism to cannibalism.
Julia Lee’s piercing discussions of Asian American identity are likely to challenge readers across the ideological spectrum. In fact, she even challenges her own views.
Paraic O’Donnell inserts touches of humor and insight without lessening the tension in his breathtaking gothic historical mystery, The Naming of the Birds.
Caldecott Medal winner Matthew Cordell skillfully captures children’s enthusiasm for their interests through elegant illustrations and plain language in To See an Owl.
Must-reads for May include the latest from bestselling historian David Grann and romance superstar Emily Henry, plus the long-awaited second novel from Abraham Verghese.
Carter Higgins has worked in school libraries, visual effects and motion graphics—and all that experience shows in Some of These Are Snails. This ingenious concept picture book with bold and vibrant artwork that expands on the approach Higgins took in her 2021 book, Circle Under Berry, which asked readers to consider shapes, colors and prepositions such as over, between and above. In Some of These Are Snails, Higgins turns our attention to explorations of grouping, sorting and classification. At just over 200 words, the book may seem simple, but as Higgins reveals, it’s anything but.
You’ve mentioned that your favorite children’s author is Ruth Krauss, whose books include The Carrot Seed, A Hole Is to Dig and The Happy Day. In fact, you even wrote a picture book about her called A Story Is to Share. Can you talk about her influence on these books? Krauss’ influence on my life both as a reader and a writer has always felt clear and connected. When I was working on Circle Under Berry, I pitched it as “Hervé Tullet meets Ruth Krauss.” Occasionally, I tend toward overwriting or can get too abstracted to make sense, so I’m always looking to Krauss’ unfussy, authentic language for reminders of writing I respond so deeply to. I hope Some of These Are Snails similarly captures logic and poetry in a playful way.
Can you talk about the beginnings of this book and how it began to take shape from there? I see what you did there! The editorial process on Circle Under Berry exploded with concepts that could have fit in that world, just not in a singular book. Lots of juicy visual ideas were left on the cutting room floor, so I was able to pick up the scraps (so to speak) and create what might come next.
What qualities were important to you to give the text of the book? The text needed to be sticky: the kind whose rhythms stay in your head for a while, sounds really great out loud but is also doing some unusual things. I’m always writing for sound design, like the echo-y assonance of snails and squares or the consonance at the end of circle and purple. With the book’s relatively limited vocabulary, I was cautious about too many true rhymes that might lead a reader to assume they are reading a rhyming book, only for it to . . . not. It can’t feel like a mistake. One of the greatest things about our language is how fantastic kid-facing words sound. Try these out loud: Octagon! Elephant! Oval! Wiggly! It’s good clay to smash around from the start.
“There’s something so mesmerizing about a circle. They are also very elusive and tricky to draw, so it’s satisfying to get that right every once in a while.”
Excluding the jacket and front matter, the book’s text only uses three types of punctuation marks: question marks, a set of hyphens and some apostrophes. How did you arrive at that choice? Poetry gets to play fast and loose with grammatical conventions, and ultimately that’s what we have here. It’s essentially a song, a rhythm, a cadence—not bound by the same punctuation rules as prose. It’s interesting to note that there are question marks but no other sentence-ending punctuation. Maybe that’s a metaphor for this book asking questions of you but not offering precise solutions.
The apostrophes solved a rhythm problem, deploying a contraction to turn two syllables into one. And it’s just so delightful to think of the conversations that happen around a book-making table: “Should it be ‘tweet tweet tweet’ or ‘tweet-tweet-tweet’?” I don’t remember why we landed on the hyphens, but I love them.
Did you begin these illustrations with sketches or doodles, or by working directly with cut paper? I did very simple sketches in Procreate, a drawing app for the iPad. At that stage, it was primarily the basic shapes: an orange circle for a tiger, a blue square for an owl. Knowing how each picture would change from spread to spread helped ensure the text is equally surprising and playful.
Did you experiment with different papers or painting tools (brushes, sponge brushes, fingers)? Are the colors we see single shades of paint or multiple shades mixed together? I painted large sheets of newsprint with acrylics using a very popular process for preschoolers: scrape painting. You squirt the paint directly on the paper and use a scraper of some sort to pull the paint around. I usually chose no more than two colors to make any one piece of paper, but the only color mixing was what happened right on the paper as a result of the scraping. Most of the papers for this book were painted with plastic pizza ads a local restaurant mails out, the kind that snap out like your library card or grocery store rewards cards.
This is a question I think many children will be interested in: Did you use stencils or outlines to cut the shapes, or did you wing it? Yes, I am a big fan of stencils! The bottom of my pencil cup made the snails’ bodies. A Post-it pad for the elephants. If I needed to make something from scratch, like an octagon or oval, I used postcards.
“One of the greatest things about our language is how fantastic kid-facing words sound. Try these out loud: Octagon! Elephant! Oval! Wiggly! It’s good clay to smash around from the start.”
How did you assemble the finished illustrations digitally? Once their design was figured out, I created the individual pieces of art: all the ladybugs at once, all the yellow squares, all the worms. After that, I scanned them and made the final compositions in Photoshop. Everything was handmade and physically exists, but the final pictures were assembled digitally.
The book has so many great color moments—pages or spreads where it’s clear that you’re interested in the contrasting or complementing interplay of colors as well as in shapes. Can you tell us about one of your favorites? Thank you for noticing this! Being intentional with color feels similar to being intentional with the sound of the language. The first four spreads primarily feature green, orange, yellow and blue, so when purple and red are both introduced on the fifth spread, it feels like such a treat. You’ve got a sense of how the book is working, so we suddenly start to experience it differently.
What is one of your favorite shapes and why? There’s something so mesmerizing about a circle. They are also very elusive and tricky to draw, so it’s satisfying to get that right every once in a while. (But I’ll still happily use my pencil-cup stencil!)
You worked as a school librarian for 10 years. What insights did you gain from that work that you were able to bring to this book? One of the best things about being a librarian is constantly growing up with your students. You don’t pass them along to the next grade level in the same way classroom teachers need to. A kindergartener and that same reader in fourth grade? Wildly different, very much the same. For this book, I wanted to create a few different experiences depending on the reader’s age, whether you are a toddler or a big kid.
If you could become a fly on the wall during a library storytime in which someone was sharing this book with children, what would you hope to see the storytime provider doing? What would you hope to see the children doing? You know, I hope it’s a little noisy. I hope kids are shouting out answers and discovering new ways to see something, and that the storytime provider is just happily in the thick of it.
Claire Forrest’s first YA novel, the effervescent and emotional Where You See Yourself, follows its protagonist, Effie Galanos, through her final year of high school. As a wheelchair user, Effie has been treated as an “obstacle” by her school, and she hopes that things will be different at a prestigious, big-city college. To get there, she’ll have to find the courage to speak up about what she wants—and what she needs. In this essay, Forrest recalls her own commencement ceremony and offers some advice for this year’s graduating seniors.
The year is 2009, and I sit wearing a bright purple polyester gown at my high school graduation. One of my classmates delivers the commencement speech, something about how grades aren’t the be-all and end-all of life. I try to take it in, because this is the moment, right? Everything I feel, every decision I make from here on out, feels vitally important.
When I remember my high school graduation now, I think about how the district chose a venue that wasn’t accessible to everyone. One of my classmates and I had been told that sitting in the cushioned auditorium seats, with our wheelchairs in the aisle next to us, would be a fire hazard. Instead, we were assigned seating across the room, away from our peers, and we weren’t allowed to march in procession with our class. We decided to go against what we had been told and, choosing to miss the ceremony’s opening remarks, rolled through back hallways and down the aisle like we should have been allowed. There was no pomp and circumstance for us.
At the time, though? I pushed that down. This was my graduation day, and just once, I wanted to be “normal.” It took many years of unlearning what society taught me to realize that being disabled is normal. The long process of learning that I can hold “disabled” and “normal” in both hands is what led me to write Where You See Yourself.
And so, with all due respect to our class speaker, although I agree that grades don’t define you, I wish that day that I could have told myself some other things instead.
Adults all around me said that college would be “the best years of your life.” I would have told myself that there would be no singular best years of my life. Every year has had its own mix of joy, heartbreak, challenges, memories and uncertainty. I would tell myself to make the most of my next four years, but that they won’t define me.
“The long process of learning that I can hold ‘disabled’ and ‘normal’ in both hands is what led me to write ‘Where You See Yourself.'”
Instead of focusing on my fear of moving away from dear friends, I’d tell myself to focus on the fact that I hadn’t yet met everyone who was going to love me. I will never be done making friends. There are so many inside jokes yet to be made, so many hourslong phone calls to be had.
I wish I’d known that those friendships would ebb and flow. That I would learn how to bless and release those relationships that have particular seasons that run their course, and that’s OK. I would advise myself to see things not just from my side but from my friends’ viewpoints as well. Like Effie and Harper, the best friends in my book, I would need to learn how to humble myself and apologize to those I love dearly when I was in the wrong. I also would need to learn how to express my needs so that those friendships could continue to grow and to change.
When it comes to being disabled—yeah, that thing I was pushing deep down in my pursuit of “normal”—I would have told myself that the people who love me would do the wrong thing sometimes, or wouldn’t speak up when I wished they had. There would be times I’d wish I would’ve spoken up for myself, too. Advocacy of any kind involves making mistakes. I would cringe. I would learn. I would do better next time.
I wish I’d known that a college professor would say the word ableism in class one day, and it would be the first time I’d ever hear of it. Later, when I’d Google it in my dorm room, it would crack my heart open in a way nothing ever had before. Learning about that would be the key to unlearning so many things in my life.
I wish someone had told me that being in a wheelchair doesn’t make me undateable. I wish someone told me that being dateable doesn’t define my worth.
I would tell myself that I was not, in fact, starting on the singular path to the rest of my life. I would always be pivoting, and for as many times as I’d start over—in my jobs, my relationships, the stories I’ve left unfinished—none of those new starts would wipe my slate clean. I would never be starting from scratch. I would learn as much from every wrong turn as I would from every right one.
I would tell myself that as much as I want to leave high school in the rearview mirror, my memories and feelings about that time would have a way of popping up again, much like how the songs from Taylor Swift’s Fearless album that I blasted through my headphones as a teen would get remastered and remixed when I was in my 30s. That I would start to think about how what we were told about fire hazards at graduation, and all the other inaccessibility issues throughout my schooling, really was just plain wrong. I would wish I knew then what I know now, and to address those complicated feelings, I would start to write a book. I might have been done with high school, but high school wouldn’t be done with me.
I wish I could have told myself all of this that day as I sat in the aisle in that hideous purple gown. I’m also glad I knew none of it.
So to readers embarking on their life after high school, I’ll say this: When it comes down to it, all you can do to figure out the rest of your life is to start. Your future is before you—everything, all of it. Go write your first page. But do so with the comfort of knowing you can always, always revise it.
Vashti Harrison, creator of Little Leaders, the bestselling illustrated nonfiction series, makes her fiction debut with Big, a simple yet immensely significant picture book. Harrison marshals her considerable talents for a story that celebrates a young Black girl’s aspirations and highlights how words have the ability to empower or to cause suffering.
The book opens as an adorable baby reaches up to touch a mobile of multicolored stars that hangs over her crib. “Once there was a girl / with a big laugh and a big heart / and very big dreams,” reads the spare text on the opposite page. As the baby becomes a toddler and then a girl, Harrison considers the shifting connotations of the word big in her life. At first, when she’s very young, the girl receives praise from adults who call her “a big girl,” and the word rewards her growth and accomplishments. But the word soon takes on hurtful dimensions that culminate in a playground scene inspired by Harrison’s own childhood. When the girl is unable to get out of a swing, her classmates rain down taunts and an adult scolds, “Don’t you think you’re too big for that? You’re in big trouble!”
Harrison uses powerful visuals to explore the effect of others’ opinions on the girl. Though the girl is illustrated in vibrant shades of brown and pink, everyone else in the book is drawn in shadowy monochromes. Their words hurtle forcefully across the page, and Harrison conveys their negative impact as the girl gradually grows disproportionately large in relation to the people around her. In one scene, she stands twice as tall as her dance instructor, who uses a paint roller to cover the girl’s pink tutu with a shade called “husky blue.” Eventually, the girl becomes so large that she pushes against the very edges of the pages themselves before curling up in a ball, turning her back to the reader and beginning to cry. In the pool of tears that forms around her, the girl discovers words of affirmation (“creative,” “graceful,” “kind”), as well as the words that caused her so much pain. What follows is a beautiful journey of healing, transformation and self-love.
In Big, Harrisoninvites readers to reflect on how we treat others based on their body size and to consider the implicit biases we hold about which kinds of bodies are “acceptable.” Her sophisticated use of color, design and space make for an outstanding reading experience. In a moving and personal author’s note, Harrison writes of her hopes that the book will especially resonate with “those of us who are Black girls in big bodies.”
Straightforward enough for even very young children to understand and appreciate, but with a vital message for adults too, Big is one of the year’s most exceptional picture books.
In one of the year’s most exceptional picture books, bestselling author-illustrator Vashti Harrison considers the shifting connotations of the word big in a young girl’s life.
Noah doesn’t know what to do since his best friend, Lewis, died in a car crash—not that anybody else knew Lewis by that name. Like Lewis, Noah is transgender, but it was a secret they kept just between them, and with Lewis gone, Noah can’t talk about his feelings with anybody . . . except, maybe, Mothman.
Lewis believed in the cryptid, a humanoid figure with enormous wings first spotted in West Virginia in 1966, but Noah didn’t. Now Noah has come up with the perfect way to honor Lewis’ memory: He’s going to prove that Mothman is real for the sixth-grade science fair. He sets up an old camera to record potential appearances, researches Mothman sightings near his Pennsylvania town and writes letters to Mothman to try and get to know him better. But as Noah starts to think he understands a little of what it means to be a monster, he finds his efforts increasingly mocked by his classmates—except for three new friends who want to help. If Noah is brave enough to trust them with the truest parts of himself, maybe Mothman will show his face—or maybe Noah will find the strength to go looking for Mothman himself.
Robin Gow’s novel in verse is destined to join the growing ranks of queer children’s literature classics. Told through Noah’s thoughts and notes to Mothman, Dear Mothman is an affirming ode to queerness and a haunting, beautiful story about what it means to be different.
Noah’s fascination with Mothman begins as a desperate attempt to remain connected to the only person who truly understood him, but it comes to represent what it means to be a creature hiding in the world. Through his project, Noah finds the strength to move beyond a passive existence and do what Mothman cannot: show himself to the world. “What can I do / to show them what Mothman is like? / What I am really like?” Noah wonders. “Then, do I really want to show my class everything? // To show them everything / not just about Mothman / but what being a monster means— / how it’s like being a queer person? / That I’m a queer person. // The beauty of the unknown darkness / and wild magic / of a creature / so few people get to see.”
Queer and neurodivergent childhood experiences deepen this stunning exploration of identity. Noah’s new friends role-play as wolves on the playground despite being “too old” for such activities. Noah worries about his friends judging his emotionally overloaded outbursts and frets that they won’t want to hang out with him anymore. The whole group struggles to explain to their parents how differently they feel from the other children in their class—and how differently they feel from their parents.
Dear Mothman offers a beautiful and moving glimpse into the world of a child who deserves understanding and appreciation, but far more importantly, it’s a breath of fresh air for any queer reader. Noah’s journey honors all parts of the queer experience, regardless of how public that experience may be. This is a book that will make readers feel seen and, ultimately, leave their hearts full.
When his parents decide they need private time to “talk,” 11-year-old Simon and his sisters, Talia and Rose, end up at their grandmother’s century-old house for the week. Nanaleen’s house used to be a comforting place, but now it feels wrong: It smells like wet towels, there’s a scritch-scritch-scritching sound in the walls, and the water stain above Simon’s bed keeps getting bigger. Worst of all, Simon could swear there’s a ghost. He sees it in the shadows of photographs and the dark corners of rooms, and he knows it’s coming for them.
In order to save his family, Simon convinces his sisters to hunt for ghosts, the way they did when they were younger. But sleuthing feels impossible amid Simon’s anxieties about his family, Talia’s abandonment of him to spend time with a cute new friend and Nanaleen’s worsening forgetfulness. Then Simon finds an old photograph of Nanaleen’s sister Brie, who went missing during her senior year of high school. Maybe she’s the ghost that’s haunting Simon—or maybe it’s all that’s gone unspoken in this stressed-out family.
“Too often, when adults talk about ‘protecting’ kids from certain things, it really feels like they’re just trying to protect themselves from having a slightly uncomfortable conversation.” Read our Q&A with Lin Thompson about The House That Whispers.
There are no real ghosts in Lin Thompson’s The House That Whispers. Instead, the novel is a thoughtful, satisfying exploration of how secrets can weigh on the soul. Many concealments weave in and out of the narrative: Simon’s gender identity and new name, which he has yet to share with his family; Talia’s Sapphic feelings for her friend; Nanaleen’s declining health; and the underlying threat of a potential divorce between Simon’s uncommunicative parents.
Initially, the metaphorical haunting gives Simon a distraction from addressing all the problems around him, but eventually it leads to the discovery of his queer family legacy. His great-aunt Brie’s spiritual presence becomes a comfort for Simon (and Talia), proving the power of queer history to strengthen and encourage. Though not the spooky tale that some kids may wish for, The House That Whispers will still please readers of emotional middle grade fiction.
There are no real ghosts in Lin Thompson’s The House That Whispers. Instead, it’s a thoughtful, satisfying exploration of how secrets can weigh on the soul.
Of all the creatures in Milkweed Meadow, the most gifted storyteller is Butternut. She’s one of nine rabbit siblings and by far the most anxious of the bunch. With “brambles” of disaster scenarios running wild through her mind, Butternut knows she has to use her intelligence—what her protective grandmother calls her “milkweed”—to survive in a world where she could be attacked by dangerous predators.
Butternut, however, can’t stop thinking about the creatures in the world around her and how their lives affect one another. When she tries to help some squirrels in need, a rascally blue jay steals one of her warren’s treasures, and Butternut’s defensive brambles momentarily disappear in a fit of fury. Although she considers herself a coward, Butternut climbs a fence and steals the treasure back, and along the way makes friends with a robin fledgling.
As other creatures in the meadow begin to listen to her stories, Butternut finds herself questioning some of her grandmother’s advice and begins to build interspecies bonds despite the prejudices of her family—and the families of her new friends. And when disaster strikes, she must put aside what she’s been told in order to do what she knows is right.
With charming black-and-white illustrations from Caldecott Medalist Doug Salati (Hot Dog), Elaine Dimopoulos’ middle grade novelreckons with the realistic challenges of an untamed animal’s life while preserving the magic of wilderness. Butternut narrates the cozy woodland story with cheeky asides to the reader about how stories work: how she’s going to hold some information to build tension, and how she hopes you’ll love her cast of characters. Ultimately, readers will be left with the impression that, if they can be brave and put aside their stigmas, they too can have an adventure worthy of an audience the size of a meadow.
Young readers who squirm when bad things happen to animals will need to avoid this one: The novel starts with a blue jay stealing and eating a robin’s egg, and later, a car strikes a young mother coyote and leaves her pups orphaned. Children who understand the risky truths of living wild, however, The Remarkable Rescue at Milkweed Meadow will be left with a deep desire to become wildlife rehabilitators—and maybe convince their parents to start on that journey too.
Readers will be left with the impression that, if they can be brave, they too can have an adventure worthy of an audience the size of a meadow.
Chloe Savage’s debut picture book opens with a map of the Arctic Circle. By the time I had oriented myself to this unusual perspective on the globe (and spent a moment appreciating how close the continents—and their diverse cultures—really are), I was in love.
The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish follows Dr. Morley’s mission to find the elusive titular creature. While searching, she and her crew discover many marvels of the Arctic—except the one they’ve set out to find. Will they leave without completing their mission? This is certainly the story of a quest, but it is also about determination, teamwork, hard work and the beauty of the natural world. And it is really, really cool.
Savage’s brilliant art is slightly muted, with colors that have a retro feel despite the contemporary setting (we see laptops in some scenes), giving the expedition a legendary aura. Early spreads provide a sense of preparation: The title page has a classic flat-lay image of well-organized Arctic exploring gear, and the fully stocked ship is shown in a fascinating cut-away, revealing charming and humorous details and telling myriad stories of life aboard. Throughout the book, we return to these cut-aways to observe the crew of scientists, divers, sailors and the captain as they read maps, eat cakes and wait in line for the shower.
The story is told in present tense, with the direct and determined spirit of a captain’s log. Savage captures the depth of Dr. Morley’s passion and courage, her crew’s faith and frustration, and the pride she has in her team. Despite being surrounded by frigid waters and potential dangers, life aboard the ship feels cozy and safe. But the boat has nothing on the mesmerizing world that surrounds it—the flora and fauna, the colossal icebergs and enchanting northern lights. Savage’s underwater images, awash in deep, saturated blues, are worthy of framing and hanging.
With stunning artwork, just the right amount of narration and a hint of irony, The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish is the story of a female captain working to discover and appreciate all that the Arctic Ocean has to offer. Dr. Morley’s quest may continue, but the search for your next favorite picture book ends here.
The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish is the story of a female captain working to discover and appreciate all that the Arctic Ocean has to offer.
In When You Can Swim, readers explore the joys of swimming in various bodies of water—oceans, ponds, lakes, rivers and more—in a text set primarily in conditional statements (the “when you can swim” of the title), as spoken by a parent to a child. This phrase is a refrain that conveys the abundant possibilities and delights of moving in the water: the “clinking / of waves passing in and out / of a million pebbles,” the ripples on a pond, the whitecaps on a river, “the smoke on the lake” and much more.
In Jack Wong’s breathtaking watery landscapes, strong currents surge beneath “rushing waterfalls,” and sunlight shimmers on ocean waves and the surface of a river. Text and illustrations merge seamlessly to illuminate the ways in which swimming animates all the senses, and Wong writes with beguiling lyricism and figurative language: “When you can swim, / you’ll reach landscapes as foreign as the moon / no spaceship required / except the craters are squishy and filled with reeds / ready to swallow loose sandals / but like good explorers, we’ll leave only footprints.”
Wong’s playful perspectives are captivating. In one spread, from the perspective of lying on our backs in the water, we see “treetops drift by” and a dragonfly buzz near. In another, we turn the book for a stunning vertically oriented image of two girls who dive down after breaking the surface of a lake. A rich apricot-colored light adorns the top of the spread with darkness below, and Wong describes “tannin-soaked lakes / pitch dark from tree bark / like oversteeped tea.” The book’s ending features the same child in the book’s opening, ready to take swimming lessons at a public pool.
An appended note from Wong, striking in its tenderness, explains his hesitancy as “an immigrant kid” in Canada to swim at public pools and his desire to tell a story with “differently colored characters” because “representation is power”—a point he makes incisively and beautifully in this splendid picture book.
The text and illustrations of When You Can Swim merge seamlessly to illuminate the ways in which swimming animates all one’s senses.
Anthony “Ant” Stevenson has done everything on the list. First base, second base—heck, he’s hit a home run, rounded all the bases and done it all more than once for good measure. The question of whether he’s lost his virginity, however, remains unanswered. When does that actually happen for boys, he wonders. And who gets to decide?
Meanwhile, at school, Ant and his two pals are reunited with their former friend turned drama geek, Jack, who definitely, probably is gay. Being gay is fine or whatever (right?), but Jack’s presence triggers a flickering response from Ant and his cohort, forcing them to confront the raw edges of their masculinity and reveal who’s been going around the bases with whom.
A quick read with numerous emotional revelations that pack a hefty punch, Different for Boys is almost too intimate, like taking a peek into Ant’s private diary. He is at once brave but conflicted, romantic but still a teenage boy “with teenage hormones.” Acclaimed author Patrick Ness’ spare prose allows readers to fly through the story, hungry to dive deeper into Ant’s sexual reckoning.
Teenagers have sex in this novella, but you won’t actually read anything about it in the pages. Ness deploys a fourth wall-breaking technique in which a majority of the sexual and/or profane words are not only redacted by black boxes but also commented on by the novel’s characters. “It’s that kind of story,” says Ant. “Certain words are necessary because this is real life, but you can’t actually show ’em because we’re too young to read about the stuff we actually do, right?” This narrative choice means readers can only imagine what’s being said or described behind these redactions, which simultaneously brings readers closer and holds them at a distance. It also inspires us to reflect on what words and ideas are considered acceptable to articulate, aloud or even just to ourselves, and how those limits reflect what we value as a society.
For all that is missing from Ness’ text, Tea Bendix’s thoughtfully rendered illustrations more than fill in the gaps. Their loose, unfinished style is reminiscent of sketches in a teenager’s notebook, perfect to enhance the intimacy and tension of Ness’ prose. Emotional and with just enough cheek, Different for Boys feels like the voice of a new queer generation.
Emotional and with just enough cheek, Different for Boys feels like the voice of a new queer generation.
Seventeen-year-old Honor Lo and her tightknit family are reality show celebrities, but life in the spotlight has taken its toll. Their show, “Lo and Behold,” is no longer on the air, so Honor’s parents and older siblings make their money from endorsements, brand sponsorships and book deals. To maintain that cash flow, they must present an image of togetherness and likability, which becomes nearly impossible after Honor’s parents announce their separation. The family becomes the subject of criticism in online forums and gossip magazines, and Honor even cuts off ties with her two best friends because she thinks one of them sold her out to People magazine.
Honor doesn’t want anything to do with a public persona; the pressure of fame has even led to panic attacks. She’d rather make art—miniature clay food—and spend time with her family, even as divided as it is. She meets a boy at school, Caden, who is experiencing his own family dysfunction, but his personal struggles leave her feeling insecure. And just when things are at their worst, the family receives devastating news that alters their whole trajectory.
Kelly Loy Gilbert’s fourth novel is an incredible exploration of celebrity obsession, consumerism and the way even “wholesome” reality TV can exploit children, all told through the story of a loving family that has lost its way. Honor’s mother pushes her kids to maintain their brand and “control [their] narrative,” while her dad constantly speaks like he’s giving a TED Talk. Though some people may deem the Los’ pursuit of fame exploitative, Honor’s parents view their success as an embodiment of the American dream, particularly since Honor’s Chinese ancestors worked tirelessly so their descendants could thrive.
The members of the Lo family feel like real people whom Gilbert has simply observed and described, even as she goes deeper and questions their culpability. For example, how much privacy are they entitled to if they put their entire lives online? Complete with realistic dialogue and achingly wrought emotion, Everyone Wants to Know is a thought-provoking novel about empathy, individuality and toxicity that reminds readers of social media’s power to distort reality, and that behind the accounts are real people whose real stories you know nothing about.
Kelly Loy Gilbert’s fourth novel is an incredible exploration of celebrity obsession and consumerism, told through the story of a family that has lost its way.
Meeting new people in new places is definitely not Gael’s thing. But his best friend, Nicole, a sophomore in college, is the leader of Plus, a gathering of LGBTQIA+ teens, and she thinks the group would be good for Gael, a transgender boy who attends a conservative high school in Tennessee. Nicole introduces him to Declan, a boy in his AP Literature class whom Gael hadn’t previously gotten to know.
As Gael explores a world of friendship and socializing that he hadn’t realized he’d been missing, he also contends with unexpected feelings of attraction. Are trans boys like him “allowed” to also be gay? Can he be desired for who he really is? Can he really share his heart, when his depressed mother and absent father have led him to believe that love will always hurt? And, in the larger world, will fundraising and actively courting sponsors be enough to keep the endangered Plus from permanent closure?
If I Can Give You That feels like a worthy homage to one of the first young adult books to feature a gay relationship, John Donovan’s I’ll Get There. It Better Be Worth the Trip. Gael, like Donovan’s Davy, is just beginning to be aware of his own thoughts and feelings. Declan and Nicole, like Davy’s friend Altschuler, serve as wise companions. Gender dysphoria, generalized anxiety, depression and complex family dynamics are portrayed thoughtfully and compassionately, and Gael’s desire to live in the moment will strike a chord with teen readers who are frustrated by the need to think ahead about college and careers.
Author Michael Gray Bulla, who was the 2017 Nashville Youth Poet Laureate, grounds his debut YA novel in contemporary concerns. The current politics of being transgender in Tennessee, health care hoops to jump through and classroom debates about bathroom bills (Gael isn’t allowed to use the men’s restroom at his school) connect the fictional story to our difficult reality. Declan, who wants to be an English professor, tells Gael that “the best literature does what it’s writing about.” If I Can Give You That fulfills this description, modeling multiple possible ways to be an queer teen, an activist, a family caretaker and a friend.
This thoughtful debut novel models multiple possible ways to be a queer teen, an activist, a family caretaker and a friend.
Eighteen-year-old Imogen Scott obviously knows who she is. She’s a top-tier people pleaser and “the kind of person who has a favorite adverb (obviously, obviously).” She’s straight but a visible ally, having attended every Pride Alliance meeting at her high school and consumed as much queer media as she can.
As Imogen, Obviously opens, Imogen is spending her spring break visiting her childhood best friend, Lili, at Blackwell College. There, Imogen learns that Lili has, in an effort to fit in with her new group of ride-or-die queer friends, told a lie: that she and Imogen used to date. Suddenly, Imogen is pretending to be bisexual, a role she didn’t expect to find so comfortable—until meeting Lili’s friend Tessa. Three nights later, Imogen can’t help asking herself, “One girl can’t topple your entire sexuality, right?”
Bestselling author Becky Albertalli’s latest novel offers a gentle, hilarious and authentic look at figuring out who you are on your own timeline. A heartfelt letter from the author to the reader included with advance editions of the book fills in anyone unfamiliar with Albertalli’s own coming-out story, and it’s easy to see how writing this novel must have been a cathartic way to allegorize her experience.
Each of the book’s nine parts constitutes a different day of Imogen’s visit with Lili, and this structure, combined with her intimate first-person point of view, provides an almost stream-of-conscious quality to the narrative. It also makes it nearly impossible for the reader not to love Imogen. As in Albertalli’s previous books, the dialogue is realistic, and text message conversations sprinkled throughout add humor and depth. Pop culture junkies will eat up all the But I’m a Cheerleader references (including the book’s gorgeous cover) and feel genuine disappointment to discover that the rom-com Shop Talk isn’t real.
There’s no shortage of coming-out novels, but there is always a need for more. Imogen’s coming out is unique, just as Albertalli’s was, and any reader will be able to identify with Imogen’s desire to be her true self while battling her fear of others’ judgment. Imogen will obviously be welcomed into the lives of Albertalli’s fans and new readers alike.
Bestselling author Becky Albertalli’s latest novel offers a gentle, hilarious and authentic look at figuring out who you are on your own timeline.
Randy Ribay explores several generations and their different relationships to Filipino American identity and culture in his expansive family saga, Everything We Never Had.
