Books

When you gaze at the quilted cover of A Flag for Juneteenth, you will want to reach out and touch it. The artwork depicts a girl wearing a fuchsia dress and kerchief standing proudly in front of a flag, the bright colors of her outfit vibrant against the flag’s soft yellows and greens. The girl’s

The Rainbow Round Table is part of the American Library Association. It started in 1970, and every year, it awards both the Stonewall Awards and the Rainbow Book List. The Rainbow Book list is in recognition of exceptional LGBTQ children’s and teen’s books of the previous year. It also provides an annotated list of notable

“We are all just hearts / beating in the darkness.” In All the Beating Hearts, poet Julie Fogliano and illustrator Cátia Chien take readers on an impressionistic journey through a single day, capturing the interior and exterior worlds of humans.  Fogliano’s text captures joy, wonder, tedium and sorrow. “Each day starts with the sun /

The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World (12 hours) begins with a perilous escape attempt from Auschwitz and expands into a larger story about Rudolf Vrba, the first Jewish person to escape from the notorious concentration camp.  British author Jonathan Freedland (known for both his thrillers and work

On February 28, 2003, as President George W. Bush prepared to authorize military action, he turned to his advisers and asked if they had thought enough about “what they hoped to achieve in Iraq.” Plans were made and carried out, but in a short time, the Iraq policy went awry. Historian Melvyn P. Leffler explores

I’ve been in the unofficial fan club of author and illustrator Maira Kalman for years—along with many of you, no doubt. I can’t pass up the opportunity to applaud her latest work, Women Holding Things, which combines original paintings with both free verse and prose. Women, Kalman notes in this tender and revealing book, must

It can be fun to speculate about nature versus nurture, to consider which of our quirks might be innate and which might have been shaped by where or with whom we grew up. While we’re at it, we can also ponder that well-known question of Shakespearean origin: What’s in a name?  But Shenanigan Swift, the

Two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Marla Frazee brings her considerable talents to a timeless celebration of birth and life in In Every Life, a wonder of a picture book.  In an introductory note, Frazee shares the long history of her book’s inception. In 1998, she witnessed a call-and-response-style blessing for a new baby. She’s made a

Goldie Taylor’s absolutely stunning memoir is dedicated to “the women who made me.” Taylor’s mother, her Auntie Gerald, Auntie Killer and Grandma Alice come to shimmering life in this tough and tender book. The Love You Save depicts Black life in East St. Louis in the 1970s and ’80s, evoking Taylor’s family’s voices and experiences

It’s already the end of January 2023, and I haven’t even made a dent in my TBR pile. I made the mistake of looking at the new isekai manga releases for 2023, and…well, let’s say the idea of Other Worlds is MORE than appealing. It’s not just other worlds; I love the whole aesthetic: change

Audible Originals are a type of audio content only available from Audible. They are written for Audible and produced in the Audible studios. There are books, podcasts, theater productions, courses, and journalism, all available exclusively on Audible. Every level of membership has access to Audible Originals in the Plus library, but some Originals must be

Bodyguard romances provide an excellent opportunity for a unique dynamic. You have your physical (and sometimes emotional) well-being in the hands of a bodyguard. They commit to keeping you safe from others and, sometimes, from your own reckless choices. There is a tension that develops then, between the protector and the person they are protecting.

Great historical fiction is immersive. As a kid, it often made me feel like I’d time traveled. Karen Cushman’s middle grade novels from the 1990s, The Midwife’s Apprentice and Catherine, Called Birdy, transported me. Historical fiction also made me realize what I had in common with people from the past and which social issues still

I sometimes fear that if I don’t buy a book, I’ll forget about it and it will be lost in the great chasm of time and space. That even if I add it to my Want-To-Read shelf on Goodreads, it will fall into the depths, never to be seen again (which is a possibility; I

Daphne Du Maurier’s career was long and storied; her life was equally so. Her books were huge bestsellers when they were published, and many live on in edition after edition. Du Maurier was a novelist, a poet, a playwright, an essayist, a literary critic, a nonfiction writer, and a biographer. In short, she was a

Nonfiction books are my jam, and nonfiction science books? Especially so. What I love is how broad the genre is. Science can include things like medicine, nature, ecology, marine biology, conservation, psychology, chemistry, microbiology, and much more. It can also include personal essay and memoir, and may weave in history. For me, that’s the beauty