Innholdsfortegnelse for Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23 i Booklist

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Letter from the Editor

Booklist Reader: The Superlative Reading Companion for Your Patrons We’re excited about our newest product, Booklist Reader, so we’ve sent you a copy along with Booklist’s fantastic June 1 & 15 issue. Booklist Reader is a new monthly print and digital magazine for library patrons and for library workers, especially those involved with readers’ advisory. If you haven’t already seen Booklist Reader, you’ll discover that it’s loaded with expert and diverse recommendations for readers and listeners of all ages. Each issue showcases books library visitors can read and check out now from your library. The Booklist team will be circulating Booklist Reader at ALA’s Annual Conference, June 22–27, in Chicago. I know that not all who subscribe to and read Booklist will be able to attend. That’s why I wanted…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

The Booklist Carnegie Medal Interview

Stephen Sposato, Content Curation Manager for Chicago Public Library and the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence selection committee chair, had some questions for Ed Yong, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction for An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms around Us. Here is their conversation. Sposato: One of the joys of An Immense World is the way it reveals a sensory spectrum so much vaster than our human senses. Was it a challenge to write about those senses that go beyond the human? Yong: Absolutely. Our senses influence our perception, our way of thinking, and even our language. Writing about, say, a turtle that perceives the Earth’s magnetic field is incredibly challenging because we lack an intuitive grasp of what that field…

3 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Top 10 Memoirs

From algebra to the arts, the dirt beneath our feet to the outermost universe, grief to hard-earned wisdom, these ten outstanding memoirs, reviewed in Booklist from June 1 & 15, 2022, through May 15, 2023, take readers just about everywhere. The Best Strangers in the World: Stories from a Life Spent Listening. By Ari Shapiro. 2023. HarperOne, $28.99 (9780063221345). In this by turns humorous, introspective, and deeply serious memoir, the host of NPR’s All Things Considered shapes his own stories around the fascinating individuals he’s met. Birdgirl: Looking to the Skies in Search of a Better Future. By Mya-Rose Craig. 2023. Macmillan/Celadon, $28 (9781250807670). Craig details how birding saved her family and led her to become an environmental activist with a focus on involving other young people of color in…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

The Booklist Carnegie Medal Interview

Stephen Sposato, Content Curation Manager for Chicago Public Library and the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence selection committee chair, had some questions for Julie Otsuka, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for The Swimmers. Here is their conversation. Sposato: The Swimmers begins as a vibrant portrait of a unique community. Was the theme of community something you consciously decided to focus on? Otsuka: Yes, for years I’d been wanting to write about the odd fellowship of fanatic swimmers at a community pool. People who not only love to swim, but live to swim. It was just such excellent subject material, with room for a lot of humor. But I wasn’t sure how to make this work as a novel. It wasn’t enough to simply describe…

4 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Graphic Novels

Adult Boys Weekend. By Mattie Lubchansky. Art by the author. June 2023. 232p. Pantheon, $28 (9780593316719). 741.5. “I’m the best man” is usually not a fear-inducing announcement, except maybe for transfeminine Sammie, who’s been out to college buddy (and groom) Adam for two years already, but they’re “still stuck in male friendship mode with him and all those guys.” Now they’re all gathering for a hedonistic weekend in El Campo, “the premier party location in the entire south Atlantic Ocean.” Sammie’s dreading “hav[ing] to go guymode,” although their partner has managed to sneak Sammie’s favorite dress in their luggage with an encouraging love note: “Don’t be afraid to be yourself.” Beyond boozy brunch, a party submarine, a sex-with-clones bar, and clone hunting, Sammie’s the only one to notice (more) monstrous…

12 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

News & Views

ALA Annual Come see Booklist editors and staff on their home turf in Chicago for this year’s ALA Annual conference. We’ll be in booth #3729, and we’ll be fully stocked with issues of Booklist and our patron-facing publication, Booklist Reader, as well as the latest edition of Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries. On Friday, June 23, we’ll also be hosting a book giveaway with Chicago Review Press when the exhibit hall opens. Awards Ceremonies Booklist is proud to cosponsor several ALA media awards, and the following ceremonies honoring this year’s winners will occur during the conference: • Printz Awards: Join YALSA and Booklist to fête the 2023 Michael L. Printz Award winner, All My Rage, as well as the Honor Book awardees on Friday, June 23, at 8:00…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Spotlight on Biography & Memoir

Older Readers Disappearing Act: A True Story. By Jiordan Castle. Aug. 2023. 336p. Farrar, $19.99 (9780374389772). Gr. 8–11. 811.6. Looking back on her early teen years, Castle (All His Breakable Things, 2020) explores—from practical and emotional perspectives and with plenty of introspection—the events around her father’s arrest and incarceration. Told through compelling and accessible verse, Disappearing Act primarily offers young Castle’s perspective, though occasionally sees adult Castle speak to her younger self. Alongside thoughtful dissection of her feelings around her father’s actions and consequences, the text also dips into consideration of her Jewish background. Caught between her parents, Castle often heightens tension by describing her role as a middleman in their interactions, as well as her sisters’ relative absences. In an author’s note, Castle describes her motivation for writing the…

20 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Youth Fiction

All That’s Left to Say. By Emery Lord. July 2023. 400p. Bloomsbury YA, $19.99 (9781681199412). Gr. 9–12. During her junior year of high school, Hannah MacLaren is a focused public-school student, an accomplished debater, an art lover, and a long-distance runner. Though they inhabit different universes, her favorite person is her cousin Sophie, who attends posh Ingleside Country Day School and dreams about saving the world. At the end of Hannah’s senior year, she’s an Ingleside student sitting in the headmaster’s office on prom night after ruining the event—and possibly her future. In the year between, Hannah’s whole world exploded: Sophie died of an opioid overdose at an Ingleside party when Hannah, who knew her best, didn’t even know she was fighting substance-abuse disorder. Overwhelmed by her grief, Hannah all…

59 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Spotlight on Audio

Adult The Book Proposal. By KJ Micciche. Read by Kelli Tager and Nick Mondelli. 2023. 9.5hr. Dreamscape, DD (9781666635836). A pair of engaging narrators anchor debut author Micciche’s friends-to-lovers romantic comedy starring flawed but relatable protagonists. When recently dumped romance author Grace Landing drunkenly emails her high school crush, divorced lawyer Colin Yarmouth, she’s shocked when he responds. The pair strike up a friendship that quickly becomes something more when Colin provides Grace with material for her new book—but both soon discover that bigger things might be at stake than Grace’s publishing future. In alternating chapters, Tager and Mondelli portray the perspectives of the two leads and breathe life into their banter-filled exchanges, with Tager’s clipped, energetic tone contrasting nicely with Mondelli’s slower, plainspoken cadence. Though Grace and Colin occasionally…

11 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Spotlight on Biography & Memoir

Adult Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker. By Stacy A. Cordery. Read by Alex Picard. 2023. 20hr. Books on Tape, DD (9780593739716). Alice Roosevelt Longworth’s biography is based on information revealed through her diary, letters, and other papers, offering an intimate look at this “American Princess” and her widely publicized life. Alice’s early years were spent with her Aunt Bye, sister to her father, President Theodore Roosevelt, after the death of her mother, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Her love and admiration for her father may have led to her attention-seeking behavior, which did not always sit well with him, producing the often quoted phrase, “I can be President of the United States or I can control Alice—I can’t do both.” Though she always claimed…

14 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Booklist Backlist

If you can’t be in in the water to hang out with your fishy buddies, immerse yourself in a book instead! Also, octopi have arms, not tentacles. Better to hug you with… Fiction The Pisces. By Melissa Broder. 2018. Hogarth. After breaking her ex-lover’s nose and possibly attempting suicide with nine Ambien and too many donuts, Lucy arrives at her sister’s Venice Beach glass fortress to dogsit Annika’s diabetic foxhound. That young surfer she meets? Well, he’s actually an ancient merman. Remarkably Bright Creatures. By Shelby Van Pelt. 2022. Ecco. No one understands aquarium-resident and wannabe-escapee Marcellus quite like Tova—both are getting up in years and plan to move on. Tova’s alone; her husband’s dead and her son drowned decades ago. But before she can leave, she’s gotta train deadbeat…

3 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Adult Nonfiction

Philosophy & Psychology Controlling Mental Chaos: Harnessing the Power of the Creative Mind. By Jaime A. Pineda. July 2023. 232p. Rowman & Littlefield, $30 (9781538179802); e-book (9781538179819). 158.1. According to Pineda, a professor of cognitive science, neuroscience, and psychiatry, we are born with an “original mind” that is open, eager, and without preconceptions. But life experiences have a way of disrupting this natural flow. Gradually we begin to overthink, analyze, and worry, creating a monkey mind that leads to obsession and unease. The mind turns from without to within, the world becomes smaller, focus centers on the future and the past instead of the present, and we lose creativity. Pineda blends years of scientific study with the tenets of Zen Buddhism to create a plan to reset the mind and…

41 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Spotlight on Biography & Memoir

August Wilson. By Patti Hartigan. Aug. 2023. 592p. Simon & Schuster, $32.50 (9781501180668). 812.54. “Blood’s memory” is what playwright August Wilson identified as his ancestral inspiration. The dramatic language of his characters flow from the history of the African American diaspora, from slavery to emancipation, Jim Crow to the Black power movement. Theater critic Hartigan, who conducted many interviews with Wilson and people who knew him, succeeds in capturing the multi-layered complexities of one of America’s greatest playwrights—winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and one Tony—through rigorous research and deep knowledge of his work. She constructs the foundations of Wilson’s dramatic masterpieces—the 10 plays in the American Century Cycle, set in Pittsburgh, his hometown—in rich detail, mapping the DNA of each play from Jitney (1982) to Radio Golf (2005). Hartigan chronicles…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Hip-Hop Biographies & Memoirs

Hip-Hop celebrates its 50th anniversary on August 11, 2023, marking the day in the Bronx in 1973 when music changed forever during a back-to-school party as Clive Campbell, best-known as DJ Kool Herc, used two turntables to create a continuously looping beat, launching nothing less than an artistic and cultural revolution. The books below tell the stories of outstanding hip-hop innovators and their consciousness-raising achievements. 3 Kings: Diddy, Dr. Dre, Jay-Z, and Hip-Hop’s Multibillion-Dollar Rise. By Zack O’Malley Greenburg. 2018. Little, Brown, $28 (9780316316538). Greenburg offers a keen perspective on Sean (Diddy) Combs, Andre (Dr. Dre) Young, and Shawn (Jay-Z) Carter, detailing the thinking of these three tastemakers as artists and corporate entities as they shaped people’s lives and the business world on a grand scale. Bad Fat Black Girl:…

4 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Read-alikes Bittersweet Summer

There are so many facets to consider in Ann Patchett’s Tom Lake, from acting and summer stock to love, family, and a Michigan family orchard. Each of these novels offers a different perspective on some aspect of these redolent themes. At Night We Walk in Circles. By Daniel Alarcón. 2013. Riverhead, $18 (9781594632839). When a controversial theater company in an unnamed South American nation casts actor Nelson in a traveling production, he immerses himself in the world of the play until things personal and political converge. The Bitter and Sweet of Cherry Season. By Molly Fader. 2020. Graydon, paper, $17.99 (9781525804557). When battered Hope and her silent daughter, Tink, show up at Hope’s Aunt Peg’s Orchard House in northern Michigan, lonely Peg agrees to take them in if they’ll help…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Graphic Novel Biographies

Adult Funny Things: A Comic Strip Biography of Charles M. Schulz. By Luca Debus and Francesco Matteuzzi. Art by Luca Debus and Francesco Matteuzzi. Aug. 2023. 440p. Top Shelf, $39.99 (9781603095266). 741.5. Once, maybe it was surprising that a comic strip steeped in anxiety, failure, and melancholy and centered on precocious children would become the most beloved in history. While Peanuts is undeniably a cornerstone of culture and comics, it’s hard to know whether a biography told in comic strips would’ve delighted or infuriated Peanuts creator Schulz, who never felt like the medium (nor he as a cartoonist) garnered the proper respect. Appropriate to the form, this is more “a creative interpretation of Schulz’s story,” and coming in at over 400 pages, the trick is balancing the narrative flow of…

5 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Carte Blanche On Writing Biography

As a reader, I’ve always had a penchant for literary biography. I’ve also had the pleasure of writing two author biographies of my own, one about Margaret A. Edwards Award recipient Robert Lipsyte (Presenting Robert Lipsyte), published in 1995, and the second about Walter R. Brooks, author of the Freddy the Pig books for children (Talking Animals and Others), published in 2009. The experiences were similar in some ways but quite different in others; for one, Lipsyte is very much alive, while Brooks died in 1958. For another, the geneses of the two books were very different: I was invited by the publisher to write the Lipsyte biography, while I wrote the Brooks bio on spec, hoping that I could find a publisher eager for a biography of the great…

4 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Top 10 Biographies & Memoirs for Youth

This list of the top 10 biographies and memoirs for youth, reviewed in Booklist between June 2022, and May 15, 2023, includes the stories of several prominent and lesser-known Black Americans. Arthur Who Wrote Sherlock. By Linda Bailey. Illus. by Isabelle Follath. Tundra, $18.99 (9780735269255). K–Gr. 3. This entry in the Who Wrote Classics series introduces Arthur Conan Doyle as an impoverished but imaginative child, an indifferent student, a struggling doctor, and the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Holding Her Own: The Exceptional Life of Jackie Ormes. By Traci N. Todd. Illus. by Shannon Wright. Scholastic/Orchard, $21.99 (9781338305906). Gr. 2–5. Bright art and well-researched text combine in this celebratory and deeply informative biography of Jackie Ormes, the first Black woman to have a nationally syndicated newspaper comic strip. Just Jerry: How…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

High-Demand Hot List for Youth

Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends behind Your Favorite Foods. By Grace Lin. Illus. by the author. Little, Brown, $24.99 (9780316486002). Gr. 3–7. Sept. With her trademark art and writing style, Lin blends folktales and history in this intriguing exploration of classic American Chinese food dishes. The Collectors: An Anthology. Ed. by A. S. King. Dutton, $18.99 (9780593620281). Gr. 9–12. Sept. A cadre of award-winning and best-selling authors—including Jason Reynolds, Anna-Marie McLemore, and M. T. Anderson—contributes stories to this anthology edited by Printz-winning King. Forty Words for Love. By Aisha Saeed. Penguin/Kokila, $18.99 (9780593326466). Gr. 7–11. Aug. Yasmine and Rafay reside in a town touched by magic, and as their long-standing friendship grows into something more, they must contend with prejudice, particularly directed at Rafay, who’s considered an outsider.…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

The Booklist Odyssey Interview Scholastic Audio

Scholastic Audio’s The Honeys is a gripping YA tale full of mystery, suspense, grief, and terror written by Ryan La Sala and narrated by Pete Cross. Executive producer Melissa Ellard talked with Booklist about her long career and first Odyssey win for this YA novel that sounds wholly unlike most of its peers. Booth: Can you talk a bit about your background and role as a producer at Scholastic? Ellard: I’ve been working at Weston Woods Studios for 32 years now, starting as a production assistant in 1991. By 1996, when we became part of Scholastic, I’d gained enough experience to work my way into producing and co-producing our video and audio adaptations of children’s picture books. As the number of audio titles we publish each year began to grow,…

3 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Podcast Connection

So Many Steves: Afternoons with Steve Martin. By Steve Martin and Adam Gopnik. Read by the authors. 2023. 3hr. Pushkin, DD (9798985080216). Over a period of several months in the early 2020s, esteemed New Yorker essayist Gopnik recorded many insightful interviews with his pal, the multifaceted comedy legend Steve Martin. This enjoyable production collects their candid, warm conversations about the various aspects of Martin’s career, from magician to immensely successful stand-up comedian, from film actor to award-winning banjo player. Martin emerges as a restless spirit, honest about why he grew disillusioned with doing comedy routines in packed arenas and felt lost in the big movie-making (and later Broadway musical) machine. Using immersive sound effects and audio snippets from Martin’s comedy records, films, and bluegrass songs, the presentation has the sound…

1 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

High-Demand Hot List

New fiction from some of our most acclaimed authors, debuts from social-media stars, and memoirs from not one but two Saturday Night Live geniuses? Please read on! —Annie Bostrom America Fantastica. By Tim O’Brien. Mariner, $30 (9780063318502). Oct. In his first novel in 20 years, the author of the award-winning classic The Things They Carried sets an unlikely bank robber and his hostage on a cross-country odyssey. Down the Drain. By Julia Fox. Simon & Schuster, $28.99 (9781668011508). Oct. Actress, model, and candid social media star Fox has publicly called this memoir, a journey through her turbulent early life and young adulthood, a “masterpiece.” The Exchange. By John Grisham. Doubleday $29.95 (9780385548953). Oct. This sequel to Grisham’s blockbuster debut, The Firm, takes place 15 years later, with Mitch McDeere, now…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Top 10 Biographies

Activists, musicians, writers, and a Roman empress are all riveting subjects in these exceptional biographies, reviewed in Booklist in the last 12 months. An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created. By Santi Elijah Holley. 2023. Mariner, $32.50 (9780358588764). This captivating biography explores the history of the Shakur family, activists and revolutionaries whose legacy stretched from the founding of the New York Chapter of the Black Panthers through the socially conscious lyrics of the late rapper Tupac Shakur. Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon. By Melissa L. Sevigny. 2023. Norton, $30 (9780393868234). Intrepid, long-overlooked Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter embarked on a formal botanical survey of the Colorado River, and their 600-mile journey is documented in…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Adult Fiction

General Fiction The Absolutes. By Molly Dektar. July 2023. 336p. Mariner, $30 (9780063282704); e-book (9780063282728). Dektar (The Ash Family, 2019) is back with another haunting work of literary fiction. An American teen living in Turin, Italy, Nora meets Nicola, a dashing young Italian from an influential family. Nora can’t name the feelings that come along with their connection: desire, lust, hunger. He’s deeply charismatic, but that charisma has a dangerous side. Nicola can convince Nora to do or accept things that she normally wouldn’t, like being involved in a scheme to sabotage Nicola’s father. All that Nicola asks of risk-averse Nora doesn’t just feel risky, but mandatory. Their affair, which spans across time and across continents, is a gorgeous portrait of love, desire, treachery, and intellect. Dektar’s language is sensual…

94 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Self-Published Books Showcase

These books are recommended by BlueInk Review, a fee-based review service. Every month, BlueInk will compile a list of their favorite self-published titles for Booklist, as a service to librarians hoping to incorporate self-published work into their collections. BlueInk was founded by Patti Thorn, former book review editor of Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, and Patricia Moosbrugger, a literary agent who represents several best-selling authors. The company delivers professional, unbiased reviews of self-published books written by critics drawn largely from major mainstream publications and by editors from prominent publishing houses. Stars reflect the decisions of BlueInk reviewers and editors. Booklist is happy to bring this curated collection of the best in self-publishing for adults and youth to our audience. from Adult Bright Blue Planet. By Kim Catanzarite. 2023. 256p. Forster, paper,…

9 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Youth Nonfiction

Older Readers In My Feelings: A Teen Guide to Discovering What You Feel So You Can Decide What to Do. By Vidal Annan Jr. July 2023. 140p. Free Spirit, paper, $15.99 (9798885540001). Gr. 7–10. 155.5. This self-help manual for teens is written by a clinical psychologist. After years of practice, Annan maintains that many teens just don’t understand what’s going on when they experience unfamiliar or intense emotions, which often results in irrational or unhelpful responses. He posits that “most teens can figure out what to do once they figure out what they feel” and so tries to help readers identify and manage various feelings. After a few introductory chapters about self-awareness and emotional intelligence, he looks at nine emotions in detail (love, anger, sadness, anxiety, jealousy and envy, guilt…

5 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

SERIES NONFICTION SHOWCASE

The Big Game Series. Cherry Lake/45th Parallel. Gr. 3–6. (6 titles) Ticket to the NBA Finals. By Martin Gitlin. 2023. 32p. lib. ed., $32.07 (9781668919569). 796.323. Ticket to the Tennis Grand Slam. By Martin Gitlin. 2023. 32p. illus. lib. ed., $32.07 (9781668919514). 796.342. Ticket to the Triple Crown. By Martin Gitlin. 2023. 32p. illus. lib. ed., $32.07 (9781668919552). 798.4. Ticket to the World Series. By Martin Gitlin. 2023. 32p. illus., lib. ed., $32.07 (9781668919538). 796.357. The books in The Big Game series discuss a variety of popular sports by way of their associated championship games. Featuring colorful photographs and historic moments, the books will capture sports fans’ attention with engaging details and a fitting feeling of excitement. In NBA Finals, readers will get a feel for the structure of the…

8 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Talking with Shannon Gibney

Shannon Gibney never seems to do the same thing twice. She’s written for middle-grade readers and young adults; she’s penned essays for compilations and picture books for kids. And yet, much of her work circles the same themes: of belonging, of working toward healing from deep trauma, of giving language to a story rarely told. Her latest endeavor (The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be, 2023) is, according to its subtitle, a YA “speculative memoir of transracial adoption,” in which Gibney draws from pieces of her own history to craft side-by-side narratives: one of Shannon Gibney, a mixed-race Black girl adopted by white parents; and the other of Erin Powers, the girl she might have been if her white birth mother had not placed her for adoption. In…

9 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Read-alikes The 2023 Printz Winners

This month, the Michael L. Printz Awards, administered by ALA’s Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division and sponsored by Booklist, will hand out its awards at the 2023 Annual Conference. Join us on Friday, June 23, at 8:00 p.m. in Chicago for the celebration as the top prize goes to Sabaa Tahir’s All My Rage. Honor Book status will be bestowed upon A. L. Graziadei’s Icebreaker, Eliot Schrefer’s Queer Ducks (and Other Animals), Lily Anderson’s Scout’s Honor, and Sacha Lamb’s When the Angels Left the Old Country. More teen readers will be finding these five outstanding novels; here’s how to extend their reading with similar titles. All My Rage, by Sabaa Tahir (Razorbill). As his mother dies, Salahudin faces both her loss and the loss of the family motel.…

6 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

The Booklist Odyssey Interview Simon & Schuster

The 2023 Odyssey Winner for Children, Stuntboy, In the Meantime, was produced by Taryn Ocko Beato for Simon & Schuster Audio. A lifelong booklover with a background in media studies and production, Beato says producing audiobooks “felt like coming home.” Booth: How did the concept for this audiobook emerge? Beato: I’ve had the honor of producing the audiobooks for multiple Jason Reynolds novels, but Stuntboy was an entirely new challenge, turning a heavily visual book into an auditory experience. Raul the Third’s illustrations were key; they gave me a starting place for the sound design. The visuals created a richness in Portico’s world, and a texture I knew I wanted to capture in an auditory way. Ultimately the question for me was, if I close my eyes, what do Raul…

3 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Top 10 Biographies & Memoirs on Audio

Read by the author” are three words you’ll see a lot of on this list of standout memoirs and biographies featuring actors, authors, athletes, and more. Biting the Hand: Growing up Asian in Black and White America. By Julia Lee. Read by the author. 2023. 7hr. Macmillan Audio, DD (9781250882585). Revealing with insight, raw with confessions, radiant with fury, Lee’s meticulous writing is already stupendous, but the unguarded emotion that flows through her candid voice is a remarkable enhancement. Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama. By Bob Odenkirk. Read by the author and a full cast. 2022. 8hr. Books on Tape (9781984885296). With unflinching honesty, the raspy-voiced, multifaceted actor details his roller-coaster-ride of a career. A captivating must-listen for comedy fans. Coming Up for Air. By Tom Daley. Read by the author.…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 19/20, 6/1/23 and 6/15/23

Talking with Camille T. Dungy

Camille T. Dungy, author and narrator of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, first turned to audiobooks to prepare for teaching a class in 2016. “These were classics I’d read multiple times, but I loved the fact that I could fit reacquainting myself with beloved novels into my busy schedule. While commuting to work, or gardening, or doing the dishes, I immersed myself in the worlds these great writers created. Once I figured out how well audiobooks fit into my life, I started listening to new-to-me books as well. Now I engage with a significant portion of my books via audio. It’s probably the only reason that the tally of books I’ve completed during the first decade of my daughter’s life has remained so high.” Booklist talked with…

5 min