dec24-upload

NonfictionHistoryBlack HistoryAmerican History

Resist

Review by Natalia Berry

From the Scottsboro Nine to Black Lives Matter, Black youth have positioned themselves at the center of the battle for civil rights for the past 100 years. In Resist: How a Century of Young Black Activists Shaped America, award-winning Nigerian American journalist Rita Omokha makes an unwavering push to put these young Americans’ stories at the forefront of the public record. 

Omokha’s research was spurred partially by the tragic murder of George Floyd and the unprecedented wave of protests around the country. A master of storytelling with a knack for thoughtful investigative journalism, Omokha has created a shining reexamination of history through a Black lens. For example, most of us learn about the Scottsboro Nine—the nine Black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931—by reading the outlines of their case and legal proceedings, but how many of us see the ordeal from the Nine’s perspectives, or realize how thousands of students organized for charges to be dropped? It’s here where Omokha excels, providing a ground-level look at how young people were often thrust into organizing for civil rights. “Crucially, the most illuminating insights from history were not solely defined by actions but by the fervent optimism of the young. . . . Young ones who have intentionally learned from history, cautious of its perils, ready with their folded chairs at the table.” 

Omokha draws a clear line from these young people to the Black youth activists of today, exploring how technology has helped resurrect Black liberation movements in the past 20 years. When George Zimmerman was acquitted of second-degree murder for killing Trayvon Martin, three Black women—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Ayo Tometi—“declared what seemed spiritual, a sacred psalm in three simple words preceded by a hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter.” Resist includes the stories of Darnella Frazier, the woman who videotaped George Floyd’s murder, and Johnetta Elzie, a co-creator of the Mapping Police Violence project, who launched into action after the shooting of Michael Brown. With the help of Omokha’s meticulous reporting, their stories go beyond the headlines and hashtags.

Ultimately, Resist is a must-read for anyone looking to dive into the collected history of Black youth activism and its immense impact on America—and perhaps learn how to take action themselves.

Rita Omokha’s Resist is a must-read for anyone looking to dive into the history of Black youth activism and its immense impact on America.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Springtime Storks

Review by Alice Cary

One sunny day as she’s flying high above a patchwork of rolling farmland, a sudden blast changes Katerina the stork’s life forever. Felled by a hunter’s bullet, she lays helpless in a field, with her beloved mate Luka squawking in distress, until a farmer and his granddaughter scoop her up and carry her home.

At first, the duo tend to Katerina’s injured wing in their living room; later, they help her to a nest they’ve created inside their barn. All the while, Luka hovers outside, peeking through every window to reassure himself Katerina is safe—and ensure that Katerina knows he is, as ever, close by. But as winter looms, the storks know they soon must part. “He would not bear the coming cold,” Katerina explains. “I could not bear the flight. And so we said goodbye.”

In some romantic-yet-tragic tales, a couple’s story might end with that inevitable, wrenching separation. But in author Carol Joy Munro’s moving and hopeful debut Springtime Storks: A Migration Love Story, the storks’ separation transforms into a new beginning. Like the real-life birds that inspired Munro to write this story—a pair of Croatian storks named Malena and Klepetan, as detailed in the Author’s Note—Katerina and Luka adapt to their new reality and continue their love story in an unexpected but no less wonderful way. 

Chelsea O’Byrne’s beautiful, often fanciful, chalk pastel and colored pencil illustrations cleverly convey Katerina’s longing for Luka during their first year apart: At night, a stork-shaped silhouette swoops through the stars, and by day, as Katerina stretches her wings, Luka-shaped clouds encourage her from above. O’Byrne’s emotive art colorfully captures the storks’ joyful reunion and parental pride in their three chicks, as well as the beauty of nature present all year round. 

Budding naturalists will flock to Springtime Storks and its memorable celebration of loyalty and devotion, call to protect and conserve wildlife, and heartfelt reminder that love can prevail despite unanticipated challenges. 

Budding naturalists will flock to Springtime Storks and its memorable celebration of loyalty and devotion, call to protect and conserve wildlife, and heartfelt reminder that love can prevail despite unanticipated challenges.
NonfictionMemoir

Raised by a Serial Killer

Review by Alice Cary

Although the title Raised by a Serial Killer sounds provocative, the memoir by April Balascio, daughter of Edward Wayne Edwards, is sensational only in terms of its excellence.

Edwards was a man of contrasts: an outgoing, life-of-the-party figure to outsiders, but a physically and emotionally abusive tyrant to his wife and five children. Balascio, the oldest, “never felt safe under his roof—ever.” And yet, she writes, “Because he was impulsive, playful, and fearless, we had adventures that other children could not have had.” 

By age 11, Balascio understood that her father was not only “a really, really bad father” but a “bad man.” Her childhood haunted her as an adult, “like a jigsaw puzzle I couldn’t put together because there were too many missing pieces.” Balascio writes, “We were poor, often hungry, moving from one dilapidated and filthy rental house to another, sometimes living in tents and campers and, once, in a barn.” They moved all the time—Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—sometimes cramming suddenly into a U-Haul truck with no warning. 

Long before being convicted of murder, Edwards published his own memoir, Metamorphosis of a Criminal, about the time before marrying Balascios’ mother. During his book tour, he appeared on TV and talked, “looking bashful and sweet,” about robbing a bank, escaping prison twice, being on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list and spending five years in a federal prison. He claimed to have left that life behind, portraying himself as a reformed family man. 

Balascio left home as soon as possible, but her father “never ceased to be the center of my universe, even as I tried to get out from under his control.” In 2009, Balascio, now a wife and mother, was surfing the internet when she realized that her father may have been responsible for the “Sweetheart Murders” of two 19-year-olds in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1980. After she called the cold case hotline, Edwards was eventually arrested and imprisoned, found responsible for at least five killings between 1977 and 1996, possibly more. 

Balascio delivers page-turning tension as she describes her childhood, her later realization about her father’s crimes and finally, her search for additional victims. Like Tara Westover (Educated), she is a savvy survivor and a courageously skilled narrator. And as with Edward Humes’ The Forever Witness—another unputdownable book about solving a cold case—readers will find themselves utterly immersed.

 

The daughter of Edward Wayne Edwards tells how she helped put her father behind bars in the unputdownable Raised by a Serial Killer.
FictionLiterary FictionFamily Drama

Rental House

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

Weike Wang’s first novel, Chemistry, followed a struggling 20-something doctoral student; her second, Joan Is Okay, depicted a lonely 30-something scientist. Rental House, Wang’s ode to marriage and early midlife, expands the view to two main characters: Keru and Nate, who are 35, and five years married.

As Rental House opens, Keru, Nate and their sheepdog Mantou have begun a monthlong stay in a rental on Cape Cod; they’ve invited both sets of parents to visit, though not at the same time. Chinese-American Keru is concerned about her parents’ rigid standards of safety and cleanliness; and the Appalachian-born Nate worries about his parents’ xenophobia and racism. Nate and Keru are both bemused and aggravated by their parents’ expectations for the vacation, and by their in-laws’ beliefs about work, marriage and family.

The novel then zooms forward five years to another rented house in another vacation spot, an interlude that’s soon interrupted by odd new acquaintances, along with other family members. Nate and Keru are now 40, their relationship with each other both steady and fraught, and their relationships with some of their family fractured. But if this vacation leads to a breakdown, it also leads to a new beginning for Keru and Nate, and a bold step into the future.

Wang brings a dry humor to the narrative, which moves seamlessly between Nate’s and Keru’s perspectives as the two try to balance the mix of emotions they feel about their parents—love, ambivalence, guilt and embarrassment. Wang is especially good with dialogue, most notably in scenes with in-laws (and in each character’s remembered dialogue with parents), scenes that made me laugh out loud. And though the novel might be called quiet, Wang threads elements of surprise throughout, with unexpected actions from Keru, Nate and other characters that move the story forward.

Rental House is brief, only around 200 pages, and Wang’s writing tends toward the spare. But within this short space, the novel reports on a host of issues: the mingled comfort and uncertainty of marriage in midlife, the intricacies of class and culture differences, how one generation’s attempt to make a better life for their children can both inspire and infuriate the next generation, and what grown children and aging parents owe one another.

Read our Q&A with Weike Wang about Rental House.

Weike Wang’s excellent dialogue, especially in scenes with in-laws, will make you laugh out loud as her third novel, Rental House, examines what grown children and aging parents owe one another.
NonfictionSocial ScienceEnvironment

Power Metal

Review by Harvey Freedenberg

When we bring our mobile phone to life with a tap or settle in behind the wheel of our car, few of us give much thought to the raw materials required to make these sometimes miraculous- seeming devices work. Journalist Vince Beiser has reflected deeply on that subject, and the result, Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape Our Future, is a sharp cautionary tale about the dilemmas facing humanity as we advance deeper into what he calls the Electro-Digital Age, especially as we pursue the essential transition to an energy-renewable future.

Everything comes with a cost, Beiser reminds us, even when it comes to the use of so-called critical metals like lithium, cobalt and nickel. These resources are fundamental to the massive expansion of electric cars and the clean energy sources (namely solar and wind power) that are necessary to combat climate change. What makes that truth problematic, he argues, is that the inevitable price of progress often falls most heavily on the residents of impoverished countries who bear the burden of first extracting these materials and later disposing of the batteries and printed circuit boards, for example, in which they’re used.

Beiser’s journey to this insight takes him from the streets of his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia, where he tracks an “urban miner” digging through dumpsters for salvageable products like copper wiring, to a lithium mining operation in Chile’s Atacama desert, to a garbage dump in Lagos, Nigeria, where “e-waste scrappers” work in hazardous conditions to recycle electronic products. Power Metal is a concise, but thoroughly researched, work crammed with eye-popping statistics—among them the fact that 75 pounds of ore must be mined to build one four-and-a-half ounce iPhone. It investigates highly touted technologies like sea mining, whose promised benefits may conceal massive environmental risks. 

In the final section of his book, Beiser offers some prescriptions to reduce the planet’s insatiable demand for resources that go beyond costly and energy-intensive recycling, including broadening the scope of right to repair laws, making urban spaces more friendly to bicyclists and deeply questioning our infatuation with the automobile. Whatever one thinks of the practicality of some of his proposals, Beiser has performed a vital service by alerting both policymakers and ordinary citizens to some of the critical choices facing us. 

Power Metal sounds the alarm on the environmental and social consequences of electronic and digital energy—and how the ways we are combating climate change come at a cost.
FictionSpeculative FictionDystopian Fiction

Private Rites

Review by Lauren Bufferd

Julia Armfield’s Private Rites is part speculative novel, part domestic drama, as three feuding sisters seek closure after their father’s death while the city they live in is slowly destroyed by heavy rains and flooding. 

Sisters Isla and Irene, and their much younger stepsister, Agnes, inhabit a London-like city where it has been raining longer than anyone can remember. All three are survivors of a traumatic upbringing: Their father, Stephen, was a harsh man, pitting the two older girls against one another and mocking their weaknesses. After divorcing Isla and Irene’s mother, Stephen, a notable avant-garde architect, quickly married again. But when Agnes was born, her mother disappeared, leaving all three girls to be brought up by their father. The sisters are resentful and jealous of one another, rarely getting together as adults. Bossy Isla is trying to keep her psychiatric practice going despite losing patients, and Irene spends her time scrolling through internet forums where people role-play the pre-apocalypse world: “I’d pick you up in my car because I have a car,” reads one post. Agnes, who’s used to drifting between sexual partners, meets a girl at the coffee shop where she works and is startled by the intimate relationship that develops. Meanwhile, as the rain continues, whole neighborhoods are lost to flooding, and their inhabitants are forced to move to higher and higher ground.

The fragile ties between the sisters further disintegrate after Stephen’s death. Harsh words are exchanged at Stephen’s funeral, and when the will is read, the two older sisters find that the family house has been left to Agnes, who doesn’t want it. The intense sibling drama can’t hide the fact that there are some very weird things going on besides the weather—the absence of their mothers, Agnes’ spotty memories and hazy dreams, and how strangers constantly recognize the three sisters when they are out in public. 

Private Rites excels as a spooky character study, moving seamlessly between the sisters and their partners and creating a rich narrative despite its brevity (barely over 200 pages). Following its clever echoes of King Lear (an overbearing father, three bickering daughters, endlessly howling storms) and all-too-believable evocation of climate apocalypse, the novel’s resolution unfortunately feels like a misstep. Until the end, however, Armfield goes deep into the damaged psyches of three unusual women who search for connection despite their father’s cruel legacy.

Private Rites excels as a spooky character study, with clever echoes of King Lear—an overbearing father, three bickering daughters, endlessly howling storms—and an all-too-believable evocation of climate apocalypse.
NonfictionArtLifestylesArt

Luncheons on the Grass

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

Edouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe, or Luncheon on the Grass, is often called the first modern painting, and the paintings compiled in Luncheons on the Grass: Reimagining Manet’s Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe are like a time machine connecting modern and contemporary art. The 1863 painting, which is in the collection of Musée d’Orsay in Paris, shows a nude woman sitting with two clothed gentlemen in a wooded glade. In the foreground is an overturned picnic basket. In the background, another woman bathes in a stream. In 2021, art dealer and gallerist Jeffrey Deitch asked around 30 leading contemporary artists to respond to Manet’s masterpiece, and the resulting works—as well as several pieces that weren’t commissioned specifically for the show but refer to Le Déjeuner Sur L’Herbe—are collected in this volume. Deitch’s own essay about Manet’s painting includes insight into its history, from its nude model Victorine Meurent to the inspiration the artist drew from Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Diego Velázquez. The inclusion of interviews with artists about their works and Manet’s influence is particularly illuminating. In an interview with Nina Chanel Abney, for example, the artist says, “I pulled from Manet’s beautiful landscapes, scenes, and epic compositions to make a painting that centers Black queer people, creating a new narrative in which I feel seen.” Some artists did away with Manet’s references almost entirely, focusing instead on more obscure ones. It’s here that the interviews become particularly insightful, as in one with artist Ariana Papademetropoulos: She explains that by focusing on the bather in the background of Manet’s painting, she’s able to think about what it means to have a picnic and bring domesticity to the natural world. Some other pieces discussed include work made prior to the project, most famously Robert Colescott’s 1979 painting of the same name, but also a 1965 photograph of a family of nudists by Diane Arbus, which takes on new life here.

The illuminating Luncheons on the Grass asks 30 artists to create new works inspired by Manet’s eponymous masterpiece.
RomanceContemporary Romance

Pick-Up

Review by Dolly R. Sickles

Nora Dahlia hits the ground running with her debut rom-com, Pick-Up. If you’ve ever languished in the car pool lane, been dismissed by teachers and administrators, or wondered if the other parents on field trips are judging you (because as we all know, they are), this is the book for you.

A modern romance with relatable characters and a catchy narrative style, Pick-Up is told from the perspective of three first-person narrators: single mother Sasha Rubinstein, single father Ethan Jones, and Kaitlin, a fellow parent at the school all three characters’ children attend who was a childhood friend of Sasha’s.

Why Nora Dahlia broke with romance tradition.

Sasha is your typical harried, always-on-the-go single mother. Ethan is your typical handsome, clueless single father, seemingly too busy to be personable. Or so it seems. Once the story gets going, Dahlia opens the window into the reality of two people wrapped up in their identities as parents, juggling responsibilities while still searching for a soulmate, who spar over sweatshirts for their kids and spots in after-school programs. Ethan is especially relatable with his mental to-do lists, which are constantly changing based on how his day’s going and how he feels about whatever’s left to check off.

Kaitlin fills in the blanks for the reader like a classic Greek chorus, helping us see beyond Sasha’s and Ethan’s perspectives as the story—and their relationship—unfolds. It’s Kaitlin, for example, who first informs us that Sasha’s now ex-husband, Cliff, disappeared to Hollywood after hitting it big as a screenwriter, the fallout of which the tight-knit school community witnessed through closely observing Sasha. As the book goes on, the two women rediscover their friendship and Kaitlin proves to be a good companion for Sasha, providing a calm stability she didn’t realize she needed. However, Kaitlin’s perspective is at times a distraction, and it can feel as if Dahlia either doesn’t trust or is unable to let Sasha and Ethan tell their love story on their own.

Dahlia is a lifestyle writer living in New York City, and her crisp, punchy voice shines throughout Pick-Up, giving the city as much character as the characters themselves. It’s an enjoyable romance where it’s easy to root for a happy ending.

If you’ve ever wondered if the other parents on field trips are judging you, Nora Dahlia’s debut rom-com is the book for you.
NonfictionBiography

Ira Gershwin

Review by Roger Bishop

Ira Gershwin has long been regarded as one of the major lyricists of the Great American Songbook. Many of his contributions to Broadway shows, movies and recordings from the 1920s to the 1950s remain popular today. Three of his songs were nominated for Academy Awards but did not win. Today, those songs “The Man that Got Away,” “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” and “Long Ago (and Far Away),” are standards. Among the artists who have released all-Gershwin recordings in recent years are Willie Nelson, Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Brian Wilson and Michael Feinstein.

The celebrated and much beloved George Gershwin, best known for his “Rhapsody in Blue” and the “folk opera” Porgy and Bess, was Ira’s younger brother and frequent collaborator. George developed a brain tumor and died at age 38. This devastating turn of events not only was a profound personal loss for Ira but also made him the custodian of George’s estate. While continuing to pursue his own career with other composers, he had to contend with long-disputed legal and financial aspects of this inheritance.

In Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words, the first full-length biography of its subject, Michael Owen beautifully captures the life and times of the Gershwin brothers as they crafted musicals for Broadway, including Of Thee I Sing, for which Ira received the Pulitzer Prize in Drama 1932 for his lyrical contribution; George missed out on the award, for there was not a prize for music at this point. Owen writes that Ira “was honored to be recognized but was equally perturbed by the ignorance of the committee that discounted the inventiveness of the music, which allowed his words to come to life.”

So too does Owen’s engaging and insightful portrait illuminate Ira’s life. Ira Gershwin is meticulously researched, thoughtfully drawing from a wide range of sources to take us behind the scenes of the highs and lows of writing for stage and screen. Through Ira’s musings, personal letters, production notes and business correspondence, as well as interviews with those who knew him, we see how this low-key, erudite and keen observer of life and language became not only an outstanding wordsmith, but also the chief archivist of his and George’s musical achievements.

There are numerous theatrical and academic projects inspired by and named for the Gershwins. The best known is the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for American Popular Song. The award, established in 2007, recognizes the important place popular song has in our country. Among the recipients are Paul Simon, Carole King, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Garth Brooks. And, of course, the Gershwin songs continue to be heard and enjoyed.

Michael Owen’s thoughtful, engaging biography illuminates the life and work of Ira Gershwin.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Island of Whispers

Review by Mariel Fechik

On the remote island of Merlank, shoes belonging to the recently dead are brought to the Ferryman so that he can shepherd their spirits across the sea to their final resting place. If they choose to linger instead of climbing the Broken Tower and leaving the earthly realm, they push at the edges of the veil that separates the living and the dead, causing destruction. Thirteen-year-old Milo is the Ferryman’s younger son. His older brother Leif will take up the mantle when their father passes: The Ferryman has always said that Milo is not suited to the role because he is too susceptible to emotions—his own, and the dead’s. 

But when the Lord of Merlank’s daughter suddenly dies, the Lord is unwilling to let her go, and what begins as a peaceful negotiation for his daughter’s shoes turns deadly. The Lord’s guards murder the Ferryman and capture Leif, and Milo flees with the shoes, knowing that the burden of the dead has now fallen on him. With the Lord and his terrifying magicians in close pursuit, Milo sets sail for the Broken Tower, knowing that he must follow in his father’s imposing footsteps—but that he must also become his own version of the Ferryman.

Island of Whispers, author Francis Hardinge’s middle grade novella with drawings from children’s illustrator Emily Gravett, is a subtle, dreamlike fable about grief, letting go and carving your own path along heavily trodden ground. At only 120 pages, the story itself is brief, but far from lacking in depth. Hardinge writes with the deft, light touch of classic writers of fairy tales, her prose and imagery enchanting yet spare. She balances the novella’s weighty themes of denial and grief with a linguistic accessibility that makes the book feel welcoming for younger readers, while still appealing to a wide audience.

The story is illuminated by Gravett’s gorgeous black and white illustrations, which are reminiscent of Scandinavian woodblock prints or even Wanda Gág’s lithographs. The images bolster the out-of-time feeling that the rest of the story is imbued with, and add to the subtle magic that is woven throughout. Island of Whispers is a quiet book, but it’s also a resonant one; it would be wholly unsurprising to find it, decades from now, nestled on a shelf of worn and loved classics.

Island of Whispers is a quiet book, but it’s also a resonant one. It would be wholly unsurprising to find it, decades from now, nestled on a shelf of worn and loved classics.
FictionPopular FictionDebut Fiction

I Made It Out of Clay

Review by Stephenie Harrison

In her debut novel for adults, I Made It Out of Clay, author and playwright Beth Kander delivers an imaginative and emotionally charged contemporary Jewish fairy tale that explores themes of grief, survival and self-discovery.

For the first time in her life, Eve Goodman isn’t looking forward to the impending holiday season. She’s mourning the recent loss of her father, worried about losing her job and—to add insult to injury—her younger sister’s Hanukkah-themed wedding is scheduled for Eve’s 40th birthday. A wedding to which terminally single Eve defiantly RSVP’d saying she’d be bringing a date. In short: Eve’s life is a giant mess.

Everything changes, however, when a disturbing incident reminds Eve of the old legends her bubbe used to share about golems, fierce protectors of Jewish people made from clay who will obey their creator’s every command. Following a drunken night out and a failed attempt at inviting her dreamy next-door neighbor to the wedding, Eve sculpts a golem of her very own. At first, it seems like Eve’s golem is the answer to her prayers, but she soon finds herself questioning whether she has created the perfect man—or the perfect monster.

Kander’s spirited writing is clever and funny, but despite the romantic elements, I Made It Out of Clay is darker and more complex than a Jewish Bridget Jones’s Diary with a fantastical twist. The focus is on Eve’s grief at her father’s loss and resulting estrangement from her family, and Kander does not shy away from depicting antisemitism. The result is a provocative, multifaceted narrative that, while entertaining and ultimately uplifting, also unsettles at times, but is all the better for it.

Though entertaining in the vein of Bridget Jones’s Diary, I Made It Out of Clay is darker and more complex, following a Jewish woman grieving the loss of her father who creates a golem when she can’t secure a date for her sister’s wedding.
NonfictionMemoir

Ingrained

Review by Priscilla Kipp

As Ingrained: The Making of a Craftsman opens, Callum Robinson and his father are trekking deep into a Scottish forest on a quest for timber. As we follow them, we are newcomers in this unfamiliar territory of dappled sunlight, damp air and still silence, surrounded by “hulking Scots pines [that] lurk in their own long shadow.” Along with his woodworking tools, Robinson brings his skills as a wordsmith; his writing is startlingly sensual and as vibrant and lush as the terrain he walks. He evokes the smell and feel of the “dry, earthy, fungal miasma” among the “woodland behemoths” that surround him.

Ingrained is as much the story of these woodlands as it is Robinson’s own journey from wayward teen to impassioned master woodworker. But he didn’t fully understand how much his virtuosic father had taught him, and how much he had, albeit reluctantly, learned, until he left home to find his own way. With his indomitable wife and business partner, Marisa, Robinson opens a storefront in Linlithgow, and business grows quickly—too quickly. Robinson finds himself frustrated behind a desk, fretting over near calamities and financial cliffhangers, instead of a workbench. When he comes to realize he prefers a workshop in the woods over paperwork and corporate bosses, Robinson finds his purpose.

The details are everything here, and in his own devotion to craft, Robinson leaves few out. On that trek deep into the woods, he goes “treasure hunting” at a mill and sorts the sought-after boards by their grain, look and feel. Robinson invites the reader into his workshop to smell the sawdust and wince when learning how a lathe can wreak havoc.

Best of all, thanks to the self-deprecating sense of humor in Robinson’s impressive storytelling, readers come to understand that you don’t need a crafty bone in your body to appreciate and celebrate the work of a master craftsman, or, as Robinson’s father taught him, to respect the creative mind at work. Ingrained makes an excellent case for doing exactly that, whether working with wood, words or, as so beautifully exemplified here, both.

In his sensual, vibrant memoir, Ingrained, Callum Robinson shows off his skills as a woodworker and wordsmith.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Grace Notes

Review by Deborah Hopkinson

Former Young People’s Poet Laureate Naomi Shihab Nye is one of the most distinguished and celebrated poets writing today. Grace Notes, her magnificent, evocative new poetry collection, is dedicated to the memory of her mother, Miriam Naomi Allwardt Shihab, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 94. 

In her introduction, Nye shares how she first came to creating poetry about families, and the ways in which she encourages young writers. She tells readers, “I honor my beautiful, brave mother and know she might take issue with a few of my perspectives, but that’s okay. . . . I hope that anyone who reads these poems has occasion to think about their own family members even more than mine. It’s our lifetime project. It helps us keep living.”

While the masterful poems in Grace Notes evoke the specific history of her mother’s life and, later, the author’s grief at her passing, Nye never leaves readers out of the frame. Throughout, the poet encourages readers to ask questions and think deeply. In the very first poem, “How Parents Get Together Anyway,” she describes her parents’ meeting and marriage, then asks, “What about you? How did your parents / end up in the same spot?” 

A powerful, deeply felt book that will make a thoughtful gift for both teens and adults.

While the masterful poems in Grace Notes evoke the specific history of her mother’s life, Nye never leaves readers out of the frame, encouraging them to ask questions and think deeply.

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Features

All Features