Innholdsfortegnelse for Vol. 118, No. 8, 12/15/21 i Booklist

Letter from the Editor George Kendall As with any year, 2021 brought us triumphs and tragedies, progress on many fronts, and disappointing setbacks. The year was framed by the dogged persistence of the virus and the anticipation that perhaps with vaccines and boosters, and vigilance on the part of so many, its devastating impacts will fade. A positive recurring theme this year, for me at least (and I’m very much speaking personally here), is togetherness. That may sound odd considering the divisive political climate and issues surrounding censorship (see the ALA statement on opposition to censorship at ala.org/news/press-releases/2021/11/american-library-association-opposes-widespread-efforts-censor-books-us). In spite of political polarization and the pandemic, it’s been a year of heartfelt closeness and community with friends and family. Togetherness extends to our interactions with libraries. I’ve mentioned this in…

Youth Fiction Older Readers Act Cool. By Tobly McSmith. HarperCollins/Quill Tree, $18.99 (9780063038561). Gr. 9–12. Coming out as trans to his parents goes poorly, so August leaves home to follow his acting dreams in New York City. All Kinds of Other. By James Sie. HarperCollins/Quill Tree, $17.99 (9780062962492). Gr. 9–12. Two teen boys—one trans, both gay—find their burgeoning relationship at risk due to the cruelty of others. All Our Hidden Gifts. By Caroline O’Donoghue. Candlewick/Walker, $19.99 (9781536213942). Gr. 8–10. Maeve finds a pack of tarot cards in her school’s basement and wishes her ex-best friend would disappear—and she does. Any Way the Wind Blows. By Rainbow Rowell. St. Martin’s/Wednesday, $19.99 (9781250254337). Gr. 9–12. There’s a new Chosen One in town in this satisfying conclusion to the Simon Snow Trilogy. Aristotle…

Around the Table Sharing food and community is at the heart of these picture books that range in tone from quiet and contemplative to boisterously joyous to wry and silly. A feast for any appetite! Chez Bob. By Bob Shea. Illus. by the author. Little, Brown, $17.99 (9780316483117). PreS–Gr. 2. Attempting to lure birds into his mouth, Bob the hungry alligator finds a home in the bird neighborhood surrounding his snout. Dumplings for Lili. By Melissa Iwai. Illus. by the author. Norton/Young Readers, $17.95 (9781324003427). PreS–Gr. 3. Preparing to celebrate a happy event, each granny in Lili’s grandmother’s apartment building prepares a different dumpling dish to share. Let Me Fix You a Plate: A Tale of Two Kitchens. By Elizabeth Lilly. Illus. by the author. Holiday/Neal Porter, $18.99 (9780823443253). PreS–Gr.…

ADULT NONFICTION Philosophy & Psychology Dark and Magical Places: The Neuroscience of Navigation. By Christopher Kemp. Jan. 2022. 256p. Norton, $26.95 (9781324005384). 153.7. How do we know where we are? Molecular biologist Kemp interviews numerous neuroscientists to identify the mechanisms of orientation, spatial skills, and human navigation and discusses important regions of the brain and the neural pathways involved in how we traverse our environment. The hippo-campus has a starring role in both memory and navigation, while the caudate nucleus functions as “the brain’s autopilot.” Specialized place cells, head-direction cells, and grid cells facilitate our sense of where we are and where to go. Tantalizing subject matter sprouts up throughout: the internal compass, the reaction of brain waves to the Earth’s magnetic field, dead reckoning (navigating environments without landmarks, like…

YOUTH FICTION Older Readers African Town. By Irene Latham and Charles Waters. Jan. 2022. 448p. Putnam, $18.99 (9780593322888). Gr. 9–12. Inspired by the true story of the last American slave ship, African Town is an epic novel in verse told from multiple first-person points of view, each one written in a different verse form. The story begins in 1860 when Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Alabama riverboat captain, makes a $1,000 wager that he can illegally smuggle a ship’s worth of enslaved workers back to Mobile without the authorities’ knowledge. The action then moves to the West African kingdom of Dahomey, where readers meet 19-year-old Kossola, the story’s protagonist, who will become one of 110 Africans kidnapped and sold to Meaher’s representative. After a hideously arduous 40-day voyage aboard the…

Fiction General Fiction 2034: A Novel of the Next World War. By Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis. Penguin, $27 (9781984881250). Former Marine Ackerman and four-star admiral Stavridis present a compulsively readable speculative and cautionary tale of geopolitical escalations following the inexplicable sinking of a U.S. navy ship by the Chinese. Afterparties. By Anthony Veasna So. Ecco, $27.99 (9780063049901). The nine magnificent and electrifying inter-connected stories in So’s posthumous debut create a nuanced Cambodian American community in California’s Central Valley. All Together Now. By Matthew Norman. Ballantine, $27 (9781984821096). A witty and charming exploration of what can happen when adult lives are put on pause and teenage impulses meet a billionaire’s resources. All’s Well. By Mona Awad. Simon & Schuster, $27 (9781982169664). Forced by a painful undiagnosed illness into a nightmarish fog of…

What Tom Lin Wants You to Read The American West Out of Bounds We invited the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence finalists to share lists of books that have resonated with them. Here’s what Tom Lin, author of the Carnegie shortlist title The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu (Little, Brown), wants you to read: E. Pia Struzzieri Annals of the Former World. By John McPhee. 1998. Empire’s Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad. By Manu Karuka. 2019. Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad. By Gordon H. Chang. 2019. In the Distance. By Hernan Diaz. 2017. Outlawed. By Anna North. 2021. Telephone. By Percival Everett. 2020.…

Playing with Space-Time Time loops, pauses (sometimes for very long stretches), and follows parallel paths in these titles, which range from quiet picture books to mind-bending YA novels.Black Was the Ink. By Michelle Coles. Lee & Low/Tu, $21.95 (9781643794310). Gr. 8–12. While visiting his family’s farm, Malcolm is transported to 1866, where he experiences Black victories and struggles during the Reconstruction. The Darkness outside Us. By Eliot Schrefer. HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen, $17.99 (9780062888280). Gr. 9–12. Two teenage boys from warring countries embark on an interplanetary rescue mission in this moving space opera. The Electric Kingdom. By David Arnold. Viking, $18.99 (9780593202227). Gr. 8–12. In a post-apocalyptic New England where humanity has been nearly eliminated by ravenous “Flu Flies,” Nico sets out in search of a miraculous portal. Memory Jars. By Vera…

ADULT FICTION General Fiction Joan Is Okay. By Weike Wang. Jan. 2022. 224p. Random, $27 (9780525654834). Complicated intergenerational relationships have long fueled fiction, with immigration notably adding further challenges to parent-child understanding and bonding. Wang’s provocative sophomore novel (after Chemistry, 2017) again centers on an accomplished Chinese American Harvard graduate with uneasy social, professional, and familial connections. Here Wang dissects the titular Joan’s singularity, interrupted by seeming demands from her hospital co-workers, her over-friendly new neighbor, and, most urgently, her immediate family comprised of wealthy older brother Fang, their late father, and surviving mother. “Hitting is love, berating is love,” is the Chinese adage her parents used to mold her. At 36, U.S.-born Joan is an exemplary ICU doctor in New York City, committed to her career. Her father’s funeral—her…

AUDIO Adult Beautiful Country. By Qian Julie Wang. Read by the author. 2021. 10hr. Books on Tape, DD, $76 (9780593455531). Qian Julie Wang narrates her powerful memoir of growing up in New York City as the child of undocumented immigrants. In search of a better life, seven-year-old Wang and her family move to Brooklyn in 1994. To their dismay, her parents, both academics, find they have left a comfortable life in China only to live in poverty while working menial jobs in the United States. The family moves into a one-room apartment, and with only a twenty dollar-a-week food budget, they often go hungry. At school, young Qian strives to prove her intellect, make friends, and convince those around her that she was born in America; unfortunately, she often finds…

Graphic Novels Adult And Now I Spill the Family Secrets. By Margaret Kimball. Art by the author. HarperOne, paper, $18.99 (9780063007444). A revelation about her mother’s attempted suicide prompted years of curiosity about Kimball’s family, leading to this years-in-the-making graphic memoir. The Autumnal: The Complete Series. By Daniel Kraus. Art by Chris Shehan and Jason Wordie. Vault, paper, $19.99 (9781939424792). Kat and her daughter move to friendly Comfort Notch, but is it as welcoming as it seems? Eerie happenings and dark secrets suggest the answer is no. Dying for Attention: A Graphic Memoir of Nursing Home Care. By Susan MacLeod. Art by the author. Conundrum, paper, $20 (9781772620610). With an acute understanding of the complexities of elder care, MacLeod’s account of navigating assisted living shines light on a health-care sector…

Native Voices Native voices are still vastly underrepresented in youth publishing, and while there’s plenty more work to be done, this year brought a surge in exceptionally good books by Native authors in a variety of genres and subjects.Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids. Ed. by Cynthia L. Smith. HarperCollins/Heartdrum, $16.99 (9780062869944). Gr. 4–6. Sixteen short stories, two poems, and visual art present the experiences of Native youth attending an intertribal powwow. Borders. By Thomas King. Art by Natasha Donovan. Little, Brown, $24.99 (9780316593069). Gr. 5–8. A trip over the U.S.–Canada border turns absurd when a Blackfoot tween and his mother find themselves in bureaucratic limbo in this spare, pithy graphic novel. Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua. By Gloria Amescua. Illus. by Duncan Tonatiuh.…

Fat-Positive Representation Bodies come in all shapes and sizes, but fat characters have for too long been relegated to the sidelines. These titles feature fat characters front and center, and no one has to change their body in order to be their best self.Bodies Are Cool. By Tyler Feder. Illus. by the author. Dial, $17.99 (9780593112625). PreS–Gr. 2. This joyous, uncompromising, vividly illustrated picture book celebrates the various physical aspects of bodies of all kinds. Eat Your Heart Out. By Kelly deVos. Razorbill, $17.99 (9780593204825). Gr. 8–11. Six teenagers at a weight-loss camp in Arizona battle fatphobia and a horde of hungry zombies. Every Body Shines: Sixteen Stories about Living Fabulously Fat. Ed. by Cassandra Newbould. Bloomsbury, $18.99 (9781547606078). Gr. 9–12. This multigenre anthology of 16 short stories places fat…

Youth Audio Nonfiction Black Birds in the Sky. By Brandy Colbert. Read by the author and Kristyl Dawn Tift. 5.5hr. HarperAudio, DD, $20.99 (9780063056695). Gr. 8–12. The grounded calm in Tift’s narration is an essential tool that helps to illuminate Colbert’s stellar history of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The Other Talk: Reckoning with Our White Privilege. By Brendan Kiely. Read by the author. 5hr. Simon & Schuster Audio, DD, $17.99 (9781797123660). Gr. 7–12. The listening experience definitely elevates the message here as Kiely uses empathy and an inclusive tone to build bridges for his listeners. Fiction Allergic. By Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter. Read by a full cast. 2hr. Scholastic, DD, $41.99 (9781338751048). Gr. 4–6. The engaging graphic novel about a girl whose allergies keep her from having…

YOUTH NONFICTION Older Readers When Can We Go Back to America? Voices of Japanese American Incarceration during WWII. By Susan H. Kamei. 2021. 736p. illus. Simon & Schuster, $22.99 (9781481401449). Gr. 9–12. 940.53. This comprehensive and compelling compilation seamlessly weaves together meticulous historical research with the voices of more than 130 of the 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned during WWII. The first half covers the time before, during, and after incarceration, detailing how prisoners endured atrocious camp conditions, protested their incarceration, enlisted in the U.S. military, and, later, were gradually released after the war’s end. The book also chronicles the Japanese redress movement for a formal apology and payments of reparations, of which the author, an attorney, was an instrumental part. All throughout, Kamei intersperses personal accounts from those incarcerated, many…

Classics Corner Classics Corner highlights new recordings of classic titles. C. S. Lewis Essential Audio Library. By C. S. Lewis. Read by a full cast. 2021. 38.5hr. HarperAudio, CD, $48.99 (9780063136687). This massive, nearly 39-hour audio rendition of nine classic works from the famous evangelical theologian, C. S. Lewis, is a treat for audio fans, whether they are new to Lewis or have read his works for years. Starting with Lewis’ most seminal work, Mere Christianity, published during WWII, and spanning through his more obscure work on his spiritual mentor and fellow author, George MacDonald, the broad span of Lewis’ intellectual thoughts are relayed in various English accents and voices. These nine works are brilliantly narrated by a chorus of actors: Julian Rhind-Tutt, Joss Ackland, James Simmons, and Douglas Gresham,…

Podcast Connection Miracle and Wonder: Conversations with Paul Simon. By Malcolm Gladwell and Bruce Headlam. Read by a full cast. 2021. 9hr. Pushkin, DD, $64 (9781735803258). The title of this book, gleaned from Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble” on 1987’s Graceland, is as much a summary of Simon’s process of continual creative reinvention as it is a description of the aura created by this expansive, immersive examination of the work of a master of American songwriting. Gladwell and coauthor Headlam, hosts of the podcast Broken Record, move chronologically through Simon’s work in this innovative audio-exclusive title. This production, though laudatory, does address tension points. Early on, Simon sounds wounded over 1970’s “Bridge over Troubled Water.” “It felt to me like it wasn’t even my song. It was mine, then…