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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Letter from the Editor

May 1, 2023 Volume 119, Issue 17 The American Library Association and Booklist Publications are deeply saddened to share the news of the death of Bill Ott on April 8th, 2023, after a brief illness. Bill brought a deep love of books, expertise in librarianship, editorial creativity, and conviction to his work with both Booklist Publications and ALA during his 39 years on the Booklist staff, 30 of them at the helm. Please find more information about Bill’s remarkable career in a press release issued April 11 (ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/04/ala-remembers-bill-ott-1947-2023-booklist-editor-and-publisher). When I began as Editor & Publisher in June 2019, I wrote the following in my first editorial published in the July 2019 issue: “I recently finished Grit by psychologist Angela Duckworth. ‘Grit,’ Duckworth writes, ‘is about working on something you care…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 True Crime Books

The Angel Makers: Arsenic, a Midwife, and Modern History’s Most Astonishing Murder Ring. By Patti McCracken. 2023. Morrow, $29.99 (9780063275034). Auntie Suzy was a friendly village midwife in Hungary a century ago; she was also, as McCracken reveals, the leader of a ring of women who committed dozens, maybe hundreds, of murders. Con/Artist: The Life and Crimes of the World’s Greatest Art Forger. By Tony Tetro and Giampiero Ambrosi. 2022. Hachette, $29 (9780306826481). Art forger Tetro explains how he created virtually perfect copies of works by Rembrandt, Dali, and Rockwell and was charged in the 1980s with more than 40 counts of forgery. The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder. By Edward Humes. 2022. Dutton, $28 (9781524746278). Humes chronicles a 1987 double murder of…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Spotlight on Mysteries & Thrillers

Blow Up. By Ellen Crosby. May 2023. 240p. Severn, $31.99 (9781448308033); e-book (9781448308040). In the third series entry, photojournalist Sophie Medina continues to search for the truth about the death of her CIA agent husband, not believing the official version. During a jog, Sophie and her friend Jack find Supreme Court Justice Everett Townsend close to death and call for help. Complicating matters, her young friend Javi is missing, possibly on the run, and a woman attempts to blackmail Sophie’s family, claiming she was married to Sophie’s famous photographer grandfather and they never obtained a divorce. Sophie works to unravel her grandfather’s past and searches for Javi, whose disappearance is connected to the attack on Townsend, and she ultimately learns facts about her husband she would rather not have known.…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Podcasters in Crime Fiction

The sleuths of yesterday could be spotted by their trench coats and fedoras. Nowadays, it’s iPhones and selfie sticks, and it was inevitable that the world of truecrime podcasts would insinuate its way into crime fiction. This list brings together a sampling of the many thrillers and procedurals over the last few years that have featured podcasters or podcast devotees. It used to be a little tricky to keep coming up with believable reasons why sleuths would bother taking the time to dig into cold cases when the warmer ones offered better rewards. Cold cases, on the other hand, are podcasters’ bread and butter. It’s a marriage made by clicking the record button. Confidence. By Denise Mina. 2022. Little, Brown/Mulholland, $28 (9780316242721). True-crime podcasters Ana McDonald and Finn Cohen are digging…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

SERIES NONFICTION SHOWCASE

Bright Minds Series. Scholastic/Children’s Press. Gr. 3–5. (4 titles) Charles Drew: The Innovator of the Blood Bank. By Aaron Talley. Illus. by Subi Bosa. 2023. 40p. lib. ed., $29 (9781338865349). 617.092. George Washington Carver: More Than “The Peanut Man.” By Janel Rodríguez. Illus. by Subi Bosa. 2023. 40p. lib. ed., $29 (9781338864205). 630.92. Lewis Latimer: A Brilliant Inventor. By Janel Rodríguez. Illus. by Subi Bosa. 2023. 40p. lib. ed., $29 (9781338864175). 621.32. Madam C. J. Walker: The Beauty Boss. By Janel Rodríguez. Illus. by Subi Bosa. 2023. 40p. lib. ed., $29 (9781338865318). 338.7. Books in the Bright Minds series feature people of color who made noteworthy contributions to society. The writing is concise and straight-forward. Visual elements include captioned, black-and-white photos, which can be rather small, as well as colorful digital designs…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Focus on Early Reading

Bear and Bird: The Picnic and Other Stories. By Jarvis. Illus. by the author. May 2023. 64p. Candlewick, $15.99 (9781536228328). K–Gr. 3. Four short, episodic stories about best buds Bear (a cuddly brown bear) and Bird (an adorable bluebird) make up this irresistibly funny beginning chapter book for early fluent readers, the first in a new series. Jarvis’ soft, rounded illustrations are invitingly childlike, and they amplify a situation’s humor or sweetness. Even with the repetition of key words, the narrative’s writing flows nicely, and the text generally fills half of the page. In the first story, Bird topples into a flower and gets stuck, only for Bear—who is not the brightest bulb in the box—to stumble upon the bloom and believe he’s discovered a talking plant. The next tale…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Crime Is in the Air(waves)

More than just a collection of novels that incorporate elements of the seemingly indefatigable true-crime podcast format into their narrations, these recent YA titles turn a critical eye to that format itself. Podcasts like My Favorite Murder and Crime Junkie—and those are just the tip of the iceberg—have garnered millions of monthly downloads and spawned fan clubs, catchphrases, and merchandise. But amid all that buzz, what often gets lost is that these are real cases about real people, many recent enough that the people connected to them are still alive. While the true-crime-podcast trend shows no sign of slowing down, neither does this trend of YA thrillers that feature characters who are not only caught up in mysteries of their own but grappling with the very nature of those mysteries.…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers on Audio

All the Dangerous Things. By Stacy Willingham. Read by Karissa Vacker. 2023. 10hrs. Macmillan Audio, DD (9781250880871). In an attempt to find her missing son, Isabelle connects with a true-crime podcaster, but all is not as it seems. Vacker does a remarkable job keeping the tension high. Babysitter. By Joyce Carol Oates. Read by a full cast. 2022. 17.5hr. Books on Tape, DD (9780593627891). In mid-1970s Detroit, a serial killer who preys on children sets off a dark and devastating chain of events. Cassandra Campbell voices main character Hannah in quiet, whispery tones. The Cage. By Bonnie Kistler. Read by Piper Goodeve and Chris Andrew Ciulla. 2022. 10.5hr. HarperAudio, DD (9780063089198). Two women step into an elevator; one emerges alive. Goodeve and Ciulla offer dual narration for this modern-day locked-room…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Adult Nonfiction

Philosophy & Psychology Body Neutral: A Revolutionary Guide to Overcoming Body Image Issues. By Jessi Kneeland. June 2023. 432p. Penguin Life, paper, $20 (9780593491768); e-book (9780593491751). 155.2. Many of us have love/hate relationships with our bodies. Former personal trainer and current life coach Kneeland, who identifies as queer and nonbinary, spent years trying to help clients make the changes they felt they needed to like their bodies. But something was still missing. With body neutrality, the emphasis is shifted away from the physical body. Instead, practitioners search for the underlying unmet needs and unresolved psychological issues that underlie their unhappiness with their bodies. Kneeland identifies four avatars or symbolic representations to promote healing. “The Self-Objectifier” focuses on gaining power, “The High Achiever” focuses on proving personal worth, “The Outsider” focuses…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Focus on True Crime

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession. By Michael Finkel. June 2023. 240p. Knopf, $28 (9780525657323). 364.1523. Finkel (The Stranger in the Woods, 2017) presents a roller-coaster read of hubris and romance, contradiction and despair. French art thief Stéphane Breitwieser’s story is full of epic highs that seem never-ending and crucial questions regarding his mental state and motivation. He is a man who “exempt[ed] himself from the rules of society.” Over nearly eight years, Breitwieser stole a work of art once every dozen or so days, amassing over 300 objects, including engravings, weapons, tapestries, and paintings. Acting on instinct, often spontaneously, improvising, and thrilled by the challenge, Breitwieser seems to have reveled in the exhilaration aroused by taunting the authorities. But he also comes…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers

After the Lights Go Out. By John Vercher. 2022. Soho, $26 (9781641293310). In the tragic tale of mixed-race MMA fighter Xavier Wallace, Vercher delivers a compelling look at a brutal and crime-ridden sport and an unflinching portrait of the ravages of dementia. All the Dangerous Things. Stacy Willingham. 2023. Minotaur, $27.99 (9781250803856). Isabelle Drake hopes to mobilize the true-crime community’s armchair detectives to find her son, Mason, who was abducted from his bedroom a year earlier. A superb mix of true-crime tropes and domestic suspense. Anywhere You Run. Wanda M. Morris. 2022. Morrow, $17.99 (9780063082502). Morris brings the summer of 1964 in Jackson, Mississippi, to vivid life in this stunning novel about two Black sisters on the run, one victimized by an egregious crime and both guilty of simply wanting…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Read-alikes

In Andrew Cartmel’s Paperback Sleuth, reviewed opposite, Cordelia Stanmer cares only for vintage paperbacks, but the sleuths in the bibliophile thrillers below covet rare books of all varieties, and their passions lead them into all manner of capers. Paralleling the tone of Cartwel’s gritty but delightfully witty story, we’ve limited the field here to thrillers and hard-boiled fare, leaving out the many cozy mysteries starring booksellers and librarians, a category that could fill several more columns. The Burglar in the Library. By Lawrence Block. 1997. Dutton, $23.95 (9780525943013). Thief and Greenwich Village bookseller Bernie Rhodenbarr is on a busman’s holiday—a charming weekend at an Upstate New York B&B—but his real reason for being there is to steal a first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (not just any first…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Youth Fiction

Older Readers The Alchemy of Moonlight. By David Ferraro. May 2023. 384p. Page Street, $18.99 (9781645679721). Gr. 10–12. Set in France in 1873, Ferraro’s mash-up of gothic romance and horror finds 17-year-old Marquis Emile St. Aubert masquerading as a servant to the wealthy Montoni family in order to hide from his evil aunt, Madame Cheron, who plots to have him institutionalized for loving men so that she can steal his inheritance. Emile plans to remain in hiding until his eighteenth birthday, when he will come into that inheritance. Before that, however, while still in disguise, he meets the apprentice doctor M. Valancourt and is immediately smitten. But to complicate matters, Emile is assigned duty as valet to the handsome young Count Morano, who, it turns out, also loves men and…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Spotlight on Mysteries & Thrillers

Older Readers Garden of the Cursed. By Katy Rose Pool. June 2023. 352p. Holt, $19.99 (9781250846662). Gr. 9–12. Marlow Briggs is a cursebreaker: like a magical detective, she seeks out curses and the people who buy and cast them. She frees the targets from the harmful magic—for a fee, of course. A year ago, her mother disappeared, and along with her, Marlow’s life with the rich and powerful. When her exfriend, heir Adrius Falcrest, seeks out her services, Marlow is drawn back into the throngs of the richest and most fashionable people once more. Worse, she has to pretend to date Adrius, whom she used to crush on, in order to get close to solving the mystery of an ancient, outlawed curse. But it’s worth it if she can figure…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Audio

How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures. By Sabrina Imbler. Read by the author. 2022. 5.5hr. Hachette Audio, DD (9781549187056). Imbler makes both print and audio debuts with a spectacular collection of essays that spotlight the lives of 10 remarkable sea creatures whose existences somehow parallel Imbler’s defining experiences as a mixed-race Chinese American queer writer navigating challenging environments. Imbler recalls her adolescence into early adulthood through the pet goldfish whose life is truncated in a tiny bowl, but shows remarkably adaptive growth and longevity. She examines the legacy of her mother’s complicated relationship with food by documenting a purple octopus—deemed “mother of the year” in the animal kingdom by Reuters—who starved herself over 53 months to protect her eggs. Investigations into sperm whales contain the…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Spotlight on Mysteries & Thrillers

Adult All That Is Mine I Carry with Me. By William Landay. Read by a full cast. 2023. 11hr. Brilliance, DD (9781469227320). November 1975. Mother of three Jane Larkin goes missing, irreparably changing the lives of her family. The situation divides loyalties and forever corrupts the relationships of Jane’s children, as the younger two believe their father is guilty but the oldest child does not. Forty years later, the case remains unsolved, and a writer friend of the family investigates. The story is told in four parts and the different narrators add psychological suspense to the intricately plotted story line. While the missing-person case is critical to the plot, the introspection of the characters drives the story. The openended conclusion is thought-provoking, encouraging listeners to consider the nature of parental…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Booklist Backlist

Moms! We know moms; we have moms; we are moms. To quote Connie Wang, author of Oh My Mother!, “to write about your mom, especially if it’s your job to write, is to reveal that you have nothing much to write about in the first place.” Her point is that the subject couldn’t be more mundane, but we know the truth: there’s no limit to the shapes a mom story can take, the directions it can go, the out-of-nowhere weeping it can cause. And there are certainly infinite ways to read mom stories. Featuring extraordinary moms (and one grandma!) who are also funny, quotable, superhuman, super-capable, and even “mean and crazy,” these novels and nonfiction works are our most memorable mom stories from the last few years. Fiction Confessions of…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

High-Demand Hot List

This month’s Hot List is here for you with the newest books from faves and big-buzz first-time authors. —Susan Maguire Amazing Grace Adams. By Fran Littlewood. Henry Holt, $27.99 (9781250857019). Sept. A woman facing down middle age walks across London to regain her status as “amazing” from her husband, her teenage daughter, and herself in this funny debut being compared to Where’d You Go, Bernadette and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. The Breakaway. By Jennifer Weiner. Atria, $28.99 (9781668033425). Aug. Old hurts are confronted and new truths revealed in this tale of an engaged, plus-sized woman leading a bike tour from New York City to Niagara Falls, who discovers among her charges a former one-night stand with whom she still has electric chemistry, and her overbearing mother. Black AF History:…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Adult Fiction

General Fiction Adrift. By Lisa Brideau. May 2023. 352p. Sourcebooks/Landmark, paper, $16.99 (9781728265681); e-book (9781728265704). In the near future, a woman wakes on a sail-boat, ill and disoriented. When she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t recognize her reflection nor does she remember anything at all. She can do things, she knows how to sail, but she doesn’t know how she knows. A warning note on the table tells her not to look to the past. Thus starts the story of Sarah, who calls herself Ess, and her journey to fill in the gaps about who she is. Climate change has devastated the world: coastlines are flooded, towns have disappeared under the sea, storms are historic. Canada, where Ess lives, is still inhabitable, but experiencing mass immigration. Ess finds…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 Debut Mysteries & Thrillers

Cruz. By Nicholás Ferraro. Tr. by Mallory N. Craig-Kuhn. 2022. Soho, $27.95 (9781641293969). Ferraro strips the gangland novel to its gruesome core, portraying a crushingly bleak hellscape where “hope and torture are the same word.” Unremittingly violent, but written with unabashed realism, breathtaking power, and a narrative ferocity that never lets up. Dirt Creek. By Hayley Scrivenor. 2022. Flatiron, $27.99 (9781250834768). This brilliantly crafted debut tracks the disappearance of a high-school student in rural Australia. The gut-wrenching tale moves back and forward in time and is brimming with mind-bending surprises. The Gatekeeper. By James Byrne. 2022, Minotaur, $27.99 (9781250805768). This cleverly written thriller about a retired mercenary who foils assassination attempts and busts open conspiracies is everything fans of over-the-top adventure love. In a subgenre packed with burly, think-on-your-feet heroes,…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Youth Nonfiction

Older Readers America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History. By Ariel Aberg-Riger. Illus. by the author. May 2023. 304p. HarperCollins/Balzer+Bray, $24.99 (9780063057531). Gr. 9–12. 973. In this interactive, visually stunning compilation, Aberg-Riger assembles some of the stories U.S. history textbooks typically leave out. Iconic American catchphrases and myths give titles to 21 thematic chapters. “Traditional Family Values,” for example, begins with the Kansas Free Fair of 1920, which showcased livestock, washing machines, and Ferris wheels—in addition to holding best-families contests in the eugenics building. A candid overview of the American eugenics movement follows, highlighting how it targeted women of color and in poverty, especially through illegal sterilizations. Chunked into short, poignant sections, the text reverberates with such staggering facts as an estimated one quarter to one half of…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

High-Demand Hot List for Youth

Everyone Wants to Know. By Kelly Loy Gilbert. Simon & Schuster, $19.99 (9781665901369). Gr. 7–12. June. Honor Lo confronts family secrets in a painfully public way in this thoughtful yet searing account of the price of reality-TV fame from award-winning Gilbert. Going Bicoastal. By Dahlia Adler. St. Martin’s/Wednesday, $20 (9781250871640). Gr. 8–12. June. Natalya must choose between two options for her summer, and they play out in alternating time lines in this clever novel from acclaimed author Adler. How Does Santa Go down the Chimney? By Mac Barnett. Illus. by Jon Klassen. Candlewick, $18.99 (9781536223767). PreS–Gr. 3. Sept. Bringing their usual blend of dry, off-kilter humor and bold illustrations, Barnett and Klassen explore the question of how, exactly, Santa gets into all those houses. The Library of Broken Worlds. By…

1 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers for Youth

Betrayal by the Book. By Michael D. Beil. Illus. by Torborg Davern. 2023. Pixel+Ink, $17.99 (9781645950509). Gr. 5–7. When a writer is found dead on Swallowtail Island, 12-year-old Lark is on the scene, determined to discover the murderer in this thoroughly engaging mystery. Bianca Torre Is Afraid of Everything. By Justine Pucella Winans. 2023. Clarion, $18.99 (9780358721642). Gr. 9–12. In this witty, campy whodunit, a reclusive teen accidentally witnesses a murder by way of their bird-watching telescope and gets drawn into finding the killer. Duet. By Elise Broach. Illus. by Ziyue Chen. 2022. Little, Brown/Christy Ottaviano, $16.99 (9780316311359). Gr. 3–6. While a boy plays a Chopin piece on the piano, a goldfinch sings along, creating an enchanted, inspiring moment. Together, they seek out one of the composer’s mysteriously missing Pleyel…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

True Crime on Audio

Ghost Club. By Kate Winkler Dawson. Read by the author. 2023. 4 hr. Books on Tape, DD. Such cultural luminaries as Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife, Harry Houdini, and William Butler Yeats were all members of an illustrious London club that delved into reported ghost sightings and investigated a number of ways to commune with the dead. This audio original by the podcaster behind Tenfold More Wicked and Wicked Words is a straight-ahead narration about this longstanding and eerie club, examining the unexplained and uncanny as well as the dubious nature of some of the spiritualists who were all too able to take advantage of family members grieving for lost loved ones, especially in times of war. Dawson has a pleasant voice for narration and is…

3 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Classics Corner

Green for Danger. By Christianna Brand. Read by Derek Perkins. 2023. 7hr. HighBridge, DD (9781696611435). In a classic Golden Age novel set during WWII, narrator Perkins brings to life the Columbo-like character of Inspector Cockrill (played by Alastair Sim in the 1946 film adaptation) as he seeks to unravel the mysterious deaths at a British hospital. The suspicious deaths of a patient injured as a casualty of war, as well as an innocent hospital nurse, cause suspicions to fall on the six individuals most closely involved on the scene of the dastardly crimes. As the inspector conducts his interviews, intrigue surrounding a pair of past deaths narrows the center of attention. The lilting brogue of the storyteller quickly sets the tone for this eclectic tale. However, readers may find it…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Listen-alikes

Crime fiction audiobooks by authors with roots beyond our borders are bountiful, with Juan Gómez-Jurado’s Red Queen as a prime example. Across the mystery genre, first-rate narration offers an immersive and often eye-opening way to experience suspense, thrills, as well as new takes on international society. Argentina Repentance. By Eloísa Díaz. Read by Richard Burnip. 2022. 9hr. Orange Sky Audio. Burnip strikes the perfect tone for this dual–time line noir of murder and disappearance in Buenos Aires during the 2001 economic collapse and 1981 military dictatorship. England Take It Back. By Kia Abdullah. Read by a full cast. 2020. 11.5hr. Macmillan Audio. A poignant legal thriller that looks hard at contemporary London, intensified by an arresting, diverse, multi-cast performance. Ghana The Missing American. By Kwei Quartey. Read by Robin Miles.…

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Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers for Youth on Audio

Drew Leclair Gets a Clue. By Katryn Bury. Read by Devon Hales. 2022. 6.5hr. HarperAudio, DD (9780358669357). Gr. 5–8. Drew, a true-crime fan, encounters her own mystery when an online bully takes over her middle school. Hales gives Drew a snarky, gumshoe voice. Firekeeper’s Daughter. By Angeline Boulley. Read by Isabella Star LaBlanc. 2021. 14hrs. Macmillan Audio, CD (9781250779519). Gr. 10–12. Caught between her Ojibwe tribe and her desire to help the FBI, Daunis is faced with difficult choices when she witnesses a murder. LaBlanc’s reading is sensitive and tension-filled. Jennifer Chan Is Not Alone. By Tae Keller. Read by a full cast. 2022. 7hr. Listening Library, DD (9780593559987). Gr. 4–7. After Jennifer goes missing, her notebook becomes a key to her disappearance. A full cast helps differentiate “now” and…

2 min

Booklist|Booklist, Vol. 119, No. 17, 5/1/23

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