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Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Impossible Creatures

Review by Nicole Brinkley

When circumstances force Christopher to spend time at his grandfather’s house in the middle-of-nowhere in Scotland, he expects it to be a bore—until he discovers the Archipelago. Home to creatures of myth and items of magic, Christopher’s family has protected the door to the Archipelago for generations. When a young girl named Mal breaks through the entrance and begs Christopher to help save her life and the lives of all magical creatures, his “allegiance” to “wild and living things”—and his own curiosity—leads him to follow her back into the Archipelago.

With its immortal protector missing, dangerous creatures swarming and a strange force trying to take the world’s magic for its own, the Archipelago is no place for children. But Christopher and Mal are the only people who can save it, even if that means working with pirates, peculiar scientists, odd dragons and sphinxes that could easily kill them. If they survive, it will be quite the story to tell. If they fail, everything will fall to ruin.

Bestselling author Katherine Rundell returns to middle grade with the powerful and charming Impossible Creatures, a modern fantasy with a classic feel. It’s hard not to fall in love with the Archipelago: From Mal’s unique flying coat to the myriad of magical creatures, there is much in the world-building to enjoy. Artwork from Ashley Mackenzie highlights the story’s most fantastical moments, adding to the book’s classic adventure feel and immersing readers in its magic. A fully illustrated guide to the mythological creatures in the back matter fleshes out the fictional world, expanding upon little details only hinted at in the text.

Mal and Christopher serve as alternating narrators before the book settles into Christopher’s point of view, which may leave Mal’s early fans a little in the lurch as they hope for more of her perspective. Her role in the story, however, becomes one of utmost importance, and though the book comes to a satisfying conclusion, readers will be itching to see if and how her arc continues in the rest of the series.

Impossible Creatures is an ode to children’s ability to hope and to make hard decisions. As one character puts it, “Children have been underestimated for hundreds of years.” Younger readers who don’t handle dark moments well should wait until they are older to pick this up: The battle of goodness against despair involves death and does not stray away from a harsher narrative. 

But for readers who devour adventure fantasy stories like The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill as well as classics like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Impossible Creatures is a must-read.

Bestselling author Katherine Rundell returns to middle grade with the powerful and charming Impossible Creatures, a modern fantasy with a classic feel.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

In Praise of Mystery

Review by Jill Lorenzini

This book about space, featuring words that will literally travel through space, is existentially brilliant. In Praise of Mystery is based on the eponymous poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limon that is inscribed on the Europa Clipper, a space probe bound for Jupiter’s moon, Europa. It’s an evocative and powerful tribute not only to Earth and space, but also to what brings us together and makes us dream.

There is no mistaking the artwork of Peter Sis, who has been a staple in the children’s book world since the 1980s. Sis often uses unique perspectives and a hint of the fantastical to tackle complex, profound topics, making him the perfect choice to illustrate a book like this one. In Praise of Mystery is like falling into a dream—vibrant and vast, joyful and curious. It is a blur of fantasy and reality: A single drop of rain carries a tree blossoming with life; the moon finds itself within the abstract shape of a whale. There are myriad references and tiny details that would take ages to fully explore and deconstruct. There’s even a nod to Van Gogh, in a subtle homage to our human need to capture the marvels we see. 

Readers can jump to the back of the book to find the full text of “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” Limon’s alliteration, descriptions and precise language are flawless, and you’ll want to read the poem out loud multiple times to let the stunning words sink in. Limon writes of wondrous things above, below and within all of us; the poem is both immense and intimate and will leave you in awe. A brief author’s afterword also gives just enough tantalizing information to send you on a hunt to learn more about Jupiter and the Europa Clipper.

The Clipper will take approximately six years to reach Jupiter and its moons. Countless historical events will happen and countless new lives will be born while the poem travels to a place no human has ever been. For readers of all ages and from all walks of life, In Praise of Mystery is a chance to partake in a small piece of this wonder.

 

Based on the eponymous poem by Ada Limon that will be carried into space by the Europa Clipper, In Praise of Mystery is like falling into a dream—vibrant and vast, joyful and curious.
NonfictionMemoir

Health and Safety

Review by Joy Ramirez

Emily Witt sets her arresting memoir, Health and Safety: A Breakdown, in New York City from 2016 to 2021, charting her entry into the city’s techno scene with its mind-altering drugs, ecstatic music and community of people sometimes embracing, sometimes resisting a changing new world. In her book’s first section, she describes learning the “geography of nightlife,” writing gauzily about raves and parties she attends, the drugs she takes and the general euphoria that blankets her life for several months as she falls in love with a fellow raver, Andrew. 

When the Trump presidency begins, we are thrust back into the waking world with her, and the story takes on much darker hues. Still, she continues to party until she can’t: COVID-19 hits the city with ferocity. Gone are the raves and the DJs and the scene itself, “and with it the illusion of health and safety.” Witt invites us to relive a tumultuous era in the country’s history through the eyes of a keen observer.

Witt, a staff writer for the New Yorker and author of the acclaimed exploration of nontraditional sex, Future Sex, relays her experiences covering watershed moments and national tragedies: the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, protests after the death of Breonna Taylor, and the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. She reflects on the country’s collective heartbreak and rage alongside her own personal losses, like her tumultuous romantic entanglement and breakup with Andrew, which throws her world into chaos. And she deftly analyzes her role as a journalist in a mad world where her work feels, at times, ineffectual. 

Witt looks back at this time of experimentation with wisdom, writing that she used hallucinogens to “psychically rearrange a world I understood to be so deeply corrupted . . . that I sought a chemical window to see outside.” In the end, readers who prefer a tidy memoir that culminates in a single awakening may find Health and Safety wanting; it’s more like a spider web glistening with many realizations that branch out in connecting threads. This sharp, deeply personal work is all the better for it.

Emily Witt’s sharp, deeply personal memoir, Health and Safety, invites us to relive a tumultuous era in American history through the eyes of a keen observer.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Heir

Review by Yi Jiang

Set two decades after the events of Sabaa Tahir’s blockbuster An Ember in the Ashes quartet, Heir entices readers back to a familiar landscape of the Martial Empire, just as Empress Helene plans to end her reign. Her nephew and successor, Quil, dreads his impending coronation, but a dire threat posed by the embittered nation of Kegar forces him to confront his duty to his people. Thrown into a perilous journey, he crosses paths with the exile Sirsha, who has sworn a magic oath to track down a mysterious child killer. In a riveting, large-scale narrative, Tahir weaves their storylines together with that of Aiz, an orphan from the Kegari slums, as she struggles against a cruel air squadron commander trying to assert control of her country. 

Writing a spinoff to any beloved series is risky, but National Book Award-winner Tahir (All My Rage) avoids getting lost in the mire of her past success by continuously offering readers something thrilling and new, while not losing sight of the original. As a result, Heir feels wholly generative. Each possessing distinct motivations, Aiz, Quil and Sirsha hold their own alongside previous fan favorites, who themselves have grown in organic yet revelatory ways.

Tahir’s characters grapple with the scars of past tragedies and rail against suffocating circumstances with nuance that will engage readers both new and returning to the series. Furthermore, evocative—but not overly intrusive—world-building allows Heir to be easily understood as a standalone novel. Kegar’s situation, as a country that is food-scarce and depends on raiding for resources, contributes depth to the novel’s core conflict, which goes beyond simplistic good and evil. How far can one go to save one’s people?  

“Ultimately, at the heart of everything I write is the question: Why do we treat each other this way?” Read our Q&A with Sabaa Tahir. 

Without losing momentum, Tahir brings this energetic book to a satisfying conclusion, while dropping enough cliffhangers to leave readers hungry for the sequel. Heir offers a welcome blend of mystique and weightiness—plus a dollop of romance—that will delight anyone seeking more complexity in young adult fantasy.  

 

Heir offers a welcome blend of mystique and weightiness—plus a dollop of romance—that will delight anyone seeking more complexity in young adult fantasy.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Godfather Death

Review by Alice Cary

Godfather Death is a lively retelling of a Grimm fairy tale about a poor fisherman looking for a godfather for his newborn son. The fisherman rejects God’s offer because he doesn’t feel God treats people fairly, especially since the fisherman and his family live in such poverty. He is smart enough to also reject the devil’s offer—but when Death comes along, he believes he has finally found an honest man. After the christening, Death lets the fisherman in on a scheme that makes him a rich man, but ultimately backfires in a tragic way.

As the fisherman’s captivating quest unfolds, Sally Nicholls weaves in plenty of humor: Christening guests stare at Death—a skeleton with his silver scythe and long black cloak—as “everyone tried very hard to be polite to the baby’s godfather.” When this skeleton figure eats food, “everyone wondered where it went.” 

Julia Sarda illustrates the tale in a limited palette of orange, mustard yellow, dark green and black, imbuing the book with an intriguing, stylized vibe reminiscent of old fairy tales. Her eye-catching illustrations will help readers understand that this is a tale meant to impart wisdom. Note that, like the original, the ending is abrupt and not at all happy. Nonetheless, Godfather Death is a memorable story that’s bound to encourage interesting discussions about life, death and honesty. 

 

Based on a Grimm fairy tale, Godfather Death is a memorable story that’s bound to encourage interesting discussions about life, death and honesty.
NonfictionLifestylesArt

Great Women Sculptors

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

In her introduction to Great Women Sculptors, curator and scholar Lisa Le Feuvre doesn’t use the term “woman” until well into the essay. Even then, it is included only to highlight a historical lack of institutional support, rather than anything inherently female about a particular artwork, subject matter or medium. Instead, the sole commonality of the artists collected in Great Women Sculptors is that they made art while being marginalized by structural misogyny. “Rather than expanding the canon, this book is an index that ruptures the received account of sculpture,” Le Feuvre explains. That distinction is important, because even as Great Women Sculptors brings together more than 300 artists throughout 500 years of art history, women artists are still marginalized; the patriarchy didn’t just shrivel up, much as we’d wanted it to, after Linda Nochlin published the seminal essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in 1971. This encyclopedic volume includes entries on established artists like Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois alongside a younger generation of stars like Lauren Halsey. Even the most well-read art scholars will find something new—or old, as in Baroque-era Spanish sculptor Luisa Roldán. The breadth of the book’s coverage is tempered by its focus on a single work per artist, an image of which is printed beautifully on heavy-duty paper and fully contextualized by a slate of 46 art experts. 

The beautifully printed, encyclopedic Great Women Sculptors brings together more than 300 artists who have been excluded from institutions and canons on the basis of gender.
NonfictionPhotographyLifestylesAnimals

Faithful Unto Death

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

A pet cemetery can be much more than fodder for horror stories and Ramones songs. It can also be a way to dig deep (pardon the pun) into the ways that people live and grieve. Paul Koudounaris’ thoroughly researched book, Faithful Unto Death: Pet Cemeteries, Animal Graves & Eternal Devotion, is an investigation into the bonds between pets and their owners. It begins by explaining that, although people have kept animals close since ancient times, the modern conception of a pet is fairly contemporary. As people left rural areas in the wake of 19th-century industrialization, they brought their animals with them. In these new, smaller quarters, they grew ever more intimate. Faithful Unto Death is as much about how people love their pets as it is about how they mourn them. For a book that’s ostensibly about death, it’s not overly macabre: Passages about grief and Edna Clyne’s famous “Rainbow Bridge” poem are interspersed with images of a dog named Ah Fuk and a tomb for a beagle named Tippy, “the Elvis dog,” who was sung to by The King himself in her puppyhood. With archival photos and illustrations featured alongside Koudounaris’ portraits of headstones and informal altars, Faithful Unto Death will appeal to those interested in cultural rituals and the human-animal bond; what’s more, readers who have lost their own pets will feel acknowledged in their grief. 

 

Faithful Unto Death is a thoughtful investigation into the bonds of pets and their owners that chronicles the ways in which we grieve and remember the animals we love.
NonfictionMemoirLGBTQ+

Frighten the Horses

Review by Jessica Wakeman

The publishing industry tends to shine a spotlight on memoirs by transgender people who are already famous: actors, models, Jeopardy! champions. Their transition stories hit similar beats as those of other trans people, but the circumstances of their lives do not. This makes Frighten the Horses by Oliver Radclyffe stand out—the author was a typical suburban stay-at-home parent when he transitioned. Any parent can understand how researching “phantom penises’’ ended up low on Radclyffe’s to-do list when raising four young children.

Growing up upper-class in Britain, Radclyffe lived a privileged but sheltered life: boarding school, conservative parents and little exposure to queer culture. Although he was curious about sex and gender, his fear, shame and denial kept him in a gilded cage well into adulthood. We meet him in his 40s, as a female-presenting parent of four, married to a conventional cis man who works in finance. From the outside, Radclyffe’s Connecticut family looks perfect, but he’s in therapy trying to figure out why he is losing hair, has no appetite and is prone to extreme mood swings. 

Once Radclyffe realizes he is trans, and begins to transition, his physical presentation is not the only thing that changes. His experiences with sex, relationships and friendships are all impacted, and Frighten the Horses weaves together many narratives. It’s the story of a marriage falling apart when one spouse refuses to see the other clearly, of a parent who desperately fears that each new change might affect his children’s happiness, and of finding both acceptance and rejection in some surprising places.  

Accompanying Radclyffe’s journey is his self-education about queer history and gender politics. (Bluestockings, a Lower East Side bookstore located a train ride away from his Connecticut home, is integral to this.) He learns about the marginalization of trans people, which helps him understand why he lacked a compass for much of his youth. Frighten the Horses is warm, moving and most importantly, inspiring for anyone who needs a reminder that it’s never too late to be one’s authentic self. 

Oliver Radclyffe’s Frighten the Horses is a powerful standout among the burgeoning subgenre of gender transition memoirs.
FictionLiterary Fiction

Entitlement

Review by Michael Magras

Boy, the sacrifices some people will make to get ahead. It’s understandable to see another person’s shiny baubles and desire similar luxuries—but at what cost? This conflict of ambition provides the dramatic impetus for Entitlement, Rumaan Alam’s slyly provocative fourth novel.

Brooke Orr, the novel’s 33-year-old Black protagonist, is a born-and-raised New Yorker who rides the subway every day, even knowing that there is a “lunatic at large who was jabbing unsuspecting commuters with a hypodermic.” One of the adopted children of a white lawyer who runs an organization dedicated to reproductive justice, Brooke studied art history and spent several years teaching at a charter school but left it disillusioned because the school “only cared about STEM.” Brooke wants a more elegantly ornamented life. 

Then, a glimpse of a shiny bauble: In 2014, during the comparatively halcyon days of “Obama’s placid America,” she gets a job at the Asher and Carol Jaffee Foundation, dedicated to giving away 83-year-old Asher’s billions. Asher earned his money by taking over an uncle’s office supply store and then expanding into catalogs, real estate and malls. Asher comes to see Brooke as a protégé, in part because she reminds him of his daughter, Linda, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and was killed on 9/11.

Soon, Asher is seeking Brooke’s advice on everything from gifts for his wife to candidates to favor with his riches. And Brooke discovers that she likes riding in Asher’s Bentley and wearing fancy clothes. As one character remarks, however, “Nobody gets something for nothing,” and as Brooke makes more and more uncharacteristic decisions, she learns that lesson all too well.

Entitlement isn’t as deeply felt as Alam’s previous novel, the brilliant Leave the World Behind, but anyone suspicious of the luster of capitalism and its promises will find much to mull over in this excellent work.

Anyone suspicious of the luster of capitalism and its promises will find much to mull over in Entitlement, Rumaan Alam’s slyly provocative fourth novel.
Mystery & SuspenseMystery

Exposure

Review by Alice Cary

“The air was still cold as I readied myself to begin another morning in my paper suit.” Those words come from Rita Todacheene as she narrates Exposure, Ramona Emerson’s second book in her projected trilogy of mysteries starring the Navajo forensic photographer. The first, Shutter, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and from the very first page, Exposure is equally—if not more—electrifying than the first, allowing both fans and newcomers to jump right in.

It’s winter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Emerson uses the season to great effect, with shivering investigators and frozen bodies, which the double entendre of her perfect title nods to. Rita has been summoned to a particularly brutal crime scene, where a retired police detective, his wife and six of their seven children have been murdered, with the oldest son being questioned as a suspect. Earlier in the night, she had been awakened by the ghost of one of the dead, a little girl who announces, “We’re waiting for you.” It’s a chilling, explosive start, and this unsettling young voice gives Rita surprising insights into the murders.

For Ramona Emerson, humanizing the victims of violent crimes is more than just a profession: It’s a calling.

Be forewarned: Emerson’s crime scenes are viscerally authentic—she worked as a forensic photographer herself—although Rita’s empathy and compassion are always at the forefront, and there’s even occasional humor to be found from the ghosts. As in Shutter, Rita’s paranormal gifts continue to not only aid her police work, but also help her unmask often uncomfortable truths, including police corruption. However, the long hours, unbearable sights, endless voices are pushing Rita over the edge. She laments, “The dead were everywhere, and I couldn’t unsee them. Their souls gathered inside me.” Rita also faces big life changes: Someone she loves dies, and an intriguing new character appears. Rita’s beloved grandmother and a medicine man, Mr. Bitsilly, soon come to her aid. As Mr. Bitsilly realizes, “Something has her soul in its grasp. It could be one thing or a lot of things, but it will kill her if we let it stay.”

Emerson, a Diné writer and filmmaker who hails from Rita’s own hometown of Tohatchi in the Navajo Nation, masterfully commands these tightly wound plot strands, varying the tension and pacing with comforting moments with Rita’s beloved elderly neighbor, Mrs. Santillanes. Lots of lives—and souls—are on the line in the evocative Exposure, and Emerson adroitly takes on a variety of weighty themes. Rita Todacheene is a gritty, believable character with a heart that is equal parts steel and soul. Readers will immediately be clamoring for more.

Exposure is equally—if not more—electrifying than Ramona Emerson’s debut, the National Book Award-longlisted Shutter.
FictionGraphic Novels & Comics

Djinnology

Review by Alice Cary

If you’re in the mood for some spine-tingling stories, cozy up to Djinnology: An Illuminated Compendium of Spirits and Stories From the Muslim World, a fictitious (or is it?) compendium that is both fascinating and creepy, and made all the more so by Pulitzer Prize-winner Fahmida Azim’s striking illustrations. 

Seema Yasmin, a journalist, professor and physician, has created a fictional narrator named Dr. N, a taxonomist and ontologist who has traveled the world to investigate the sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent djinn. Djinn, Dr. N writes, have been “haunting humanity since pre-Islamic times.” They are “shape-shifting beasts who grant wishes, inspire poetry, and snatch away innocent children.” “To the world’s nearly two billion human Muslims,” he writes, “djinn are as real as tax returns and as frightening and captivating as an electrical storm.” 

He submits the fruits of his research to his academic committee, apparently to explain his long and unexplained absence from class, in this volume of stories from around the world that capture the long history and great variety of djinn. Many of these stories are related to human events, such as one concerning a ghostlike horseman who allegedly appeared in Cairo’s Tahrir Square at the height of the Arab Spring. Another terrifying tale of more dubious origins takes place in London, when a woman delivering her husband’s specimen to an IVF clinic spots what she thinks is an abandoned baby in the middle of the road. She stops, of course, but things do not go as she expects.

Djinnology is beautifully designed, with maps, English and Arabic inscriptions and more, gamely selling a high-octane, between-two-worlds vibe. Most of all, Azim’s haunting illustrations in smoky colors perfectly portray this menagerie of spirits. Readers will find themselves looking over their shoulders.

 

In the vibrantly illustrated Djinnology, a fictional scientist travels the world to learn about sometimes malevolent, sometimes benevolent spirits of Muslim folklore.
NonfictionSocial ScienceLifestyles

Eerie Legends

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

Eerie Legends: An Illustrated Exploration of Creepy Creatures, the Paranormal, and Folklore From Around the World arrives like Halloween candy, just in time for the spookiest season of the year. Austin, Texas-based artist Ricardo Diseño’s bold, offbeat illustrations don’t simply complement these spine-tingling stories, they lead the way. Each chapter blends elements of fiction and nonfiction, and includes a corresponding full-page illustration that stands on its own as a fully realized piece of art. The horror elements here are plenty scary, but skew toward the creature-feature end of the spectrum—think Universal Studio monsters, or even Troma’s The Toxic Avenger. The chapter on Krampus details the yuletide terror’s appearance with frightening specificity: “Part man, part goat, and part devil. . . . His tongue is red, forked, creepy, and always whipping around.” Diseño’s hoofed monster, straight out of the Blumhouse cinematic universe, is shown in the midst of abducting a child. Each chapter ends with a campfire-style tale about the designated monster, written with Lovecraftian zeal by Steve Mockus. As an added incentive, the cover glows in the dark—a feature I hadn’t noticed until after I fell asleep with it on my bedside table. Talk about eerie.

 

Bold, offbeat illustrations by Ricardo Diseño lead the way in the spooky-fun Eerie Legends.
NonfictionGraphic Memoirs

Brittle Joints

Review by Freya Sachs

In Brittle Joints, Maria Sweeney illustrates the complexities of living with chronic pain, trying to find comfort when healing is impossible and as the medical system repeatedly fails her.

As a child, Sweeney started counting her broken bones. It seemed as if they would just happen. After she was diagnosed with Bruck Syndrome—a rare progressive disease—the fragility of her bones and the pain in her joints had an explanation, but no possibility of a cure. So, in beautifully colored, evocative frames that reflect her effort to adapt to her advancing condition, Sweeney takes the reader through parts of her journey as she looks for relief.

For Sweeney, doctor’s appointments are often frustrating: either doctors do not know what to do, or they seem unaware of the pain they cause her; traditional pain relief comes with severe side effects and risks; people question her use of a wheelchair as someone who can—painfully—walk when needed. Through it all, her relationships with her boyfriend and friends provide comfort and understanding. Sweeney includes the story of her adoption from Moldova, adding another layer to how she understands and communicates her sense of self.

The graphic memoir as a form proves effective here; the images—in particular as Sweeney illustrates herself from childhood to adulthood—reveal her emotions as words on their own could not. Each mark on the page seems defiant, showing all that she has overcome to use the pen, to tell her story in word and image.

In beautifully colored and evocative frames, Brittle Joints shares illustrator Maria Sweeney’s experiences living with a rare disability.

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