The narrative focuses on the “brilliant eccentric unsettlingly precise” Gödel a figure whom the author in an introduction compares to Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin and describes as not only a mathematician but also a “philosopher of mystery” who found new puzzles in settled certainties. “In any system that’s powerful enough to talk about arithmetic” Navarro writes “there will always be true statements that the system can never prove.” As a way to pursue these questions further the author imagines Gödel journeying to a series of afterworld locations to have conversations with a wide variety of famous artists and thinkers from the past. Gödel talks with fellow philosophers of course but he also chats with such figures as painter Jackson Pollock (“‘Logic and paint’ Pollock mused ‘both dance around the unknown’”) and even Jesus whom he asks about the incompleteness at the heart of mathematics: “If I left no room for doubt then there would be no true faith” Jesus tells him. “Faith must be chosen.” In each encounter Gödel doggedly inquires about the nature of belief and certainty and looks into the possibility of quantifying morality and doubt. It’s a familiar but inspired storytelling device and Navarro uses it skillfully delicately navigating the dramatics of presenting each conversation and his indefatigable main character’s overarching philosophical quest. Socrates for instance asks the protagonist whether one can ever fully grasp truth and readers are told that Gödel “had always admired [mathematician Blaise] Pascal’s mind not only for his rigorous approach to mathematical truth but for his willingness to engage with the ineffable.” Philosophical discussion dominates the narrative; as a result some historical figures end up sounding more alike than they likely would have in real life. This slight shortcoming is a result of the book’s pedagogical nature but it never entirely blunts the fun.

A talented guitarist Melody Li arrives in Cassette City with her walls up and her headphones firmly on—but this analog town has other plans. A mushroom named Taki and a green raccoon called Snackwich will need help if they want to win the Battle of the Bands. Though Melody’s a loner she’s eager to bring down the insufferable ginger cat Styles who fronts Taki and Snackwich’s rival act and she agrees to lend a hand. The eventual addition of Atikus a robot provides the band its final missing piece. Sitter’s art is masterful. A palette of burnt orange teal and muted gold channels peak-era alternative comics while confident linework gives every character vivid distinct personality. Panel variation is deployed with skill and wit; a bravura double-page spread arranges failed auditions as a cascading collage of snapshots each musician dismissed with a deadpan speech bubble and on another spread a tape unspools across the page connecting the scattered bandmates in their separate worlds. Clever dialogue crackles throughout but beneath the laughs real emotional stakes thrum: Melody nursing the wound of a mother who walked out on the family; Snackwich paralyzed by the memory of dropping his drumsticks onstage and failing Taki; Atikus simply trying to be his true self. Melody is cued East Asian.

Laura is lucky—she’s recently received a Young Artists Grant to write her novel right on the edge of turning 30. No one she remembers from high school writing classes or graduate humanities classes is making a living by writing. Despite her grant Laura takes on odd jobs like teaching high school writing workshops. For 85 euros she accepts an assignment to write a 5000 character feature about a book. She lives with her mother and pinches pennies at a budget gym alongside her friends. Laura grew up in Lisbon a city that is rapidly changing becoming less livable for people like her. Laura’s life rhythms will be familiar to many creatives or underemployed people. Mosi sticks to rounded line drawings to reflect the monotonous nature of Laura’s life. She needs to write but she also needs creative fuel and the constant hum of social media isn’t helping. While Laura stares down an empty document and tries to start writing she’s constantly surrounded by social media panels daily Sagittarius horoscopes and internet searches. Between her trips to the gym and memories of her past phys ed classes Laura tries to determine what she thinks about the world. When she meets up with her married lover she opens up a little but still chooses to go off on her own instead of spending the night. Throughout Laura replicates a common pattern: doing anything but writing to inspire her writing.

Following an award-winning memoir fiction for adults and children a two-volume history of Canada and 12 Canadian National Magazine Awards Gillmor shows he has yet another trick up his sleeve. His first crime novel is narrated by police detective Jamieson Abel a white law school dropout who gets along with exactly nobody on the corrupt Toronto force and is constantly in danger of getting canned before he can make it to retirement. He’s recently been partnered with Davis a smart well-spoken Black woman who’s the department’s only claim to diversity and its frequent media representative. As the novel opens two high school track stars have been brutally murdered in St. James Town a decaying high-rise community at the heart of multicultural Toronto: "The languages spoken in St. James Town in descending order of percentage are: English Tagalog Tamil Unspecified Chinese Mandarin Korean Spanish Russian Serbian Bengali Urdu French and Other." Under tremendous pressure from the mayor and media to solve this crime Abel and Davis embark on a wild goose chase to locate the single rather shaky suspect a boyfriend of one of the girls. Meanwhile mayhem in the area is on the rise: a sex worker is killed one of the towers is burned to the ground a local thug is the target of a jailhouse hit large-scale new graffiti is going up nightly. Abel’s instincts tell him that somehow everything is connected—and real estate values have something to do with it. As he obsessively tracks down leads he sustains himself with martinis espresso and delicious meals for one. Food-loving readers may find themselves trying to replicate his sheet-pan salmon and a salad for which he “tossed together black beans Kalamata olives a sharp cheddar that had been aged for eight years red pepper and arugula then made a dressing with olive oil lime jalapeños and cumin.” Gillmor really knows his stuff—in a dazzling range of areas.

Webster was once an average lab monkey confined to a cage but his life changes when a radioactive spider bites a teen on a science field trip to the laboratory (presumably the boy heads out the door to become Spider-Man). Webster gobbles down the altered arachnid and superpowers ensue. That night an explosion destroys the lab. Webster escapes while other lab animals are transformed into ominous sharp-toothed mutants: A mild-mannered rhino becomes an otherworldly menace a shark and a lizard merge into the Shizzlerd and a pink octopus a dopey platypus and the doctor who ran the lab are fused into Doctor Octoplatypus! Webster battles the lot in a series of comic book–style capers scaling tall buildings slinging spiderwebs and occasionally accepting help from other animal allies. The lightly sketched plot allows readers plenty of room to enjoy Baltazar’s gleefully goofy artwork and happy-go-lucky hero whose antics remain steadily slapstick throughout. The author/illustrator initially created Webster as a send-up of superhero tropes; this committed creative exercise happily offers kids a gateway into the genre even as it revels in its winking homage.

As the sun rises little critters do their thing. “Hen’s chicks / did magic tricks.” “Horse’s foal / scored a goal.” “Goat’s kid / tried out a skid.” But Platypus’ youngster (known as a puggle) remains curled up asleep in a clump of grass. Puppies play soccer and a giraffe calf balances an ice cream cone on its long prehensile tongue to the amusement of onlookers. Cat’s kitten knits and Bear’s cub Alpaca’s cria and Sheep’s lamb are all active but the puggle snoozes. Suddenly the day comes to a close and under a full moon the puggle joins other nighttime critters: Aardvark’s pup Nightingale’s chicks Chinchilla’s kits Hedgehog’s hoglet Wolf’s whelp Owl’s owlet Porcupine’s porcupettes Koala’s joey and Leopard’s cub. The animals dance sing and make merry until the moon sinks the sun rises and the puggle again calmly cuddles. The rhyming text is cute if sometimes strained and filled with energy sure to induce youngsters to join the nighttime fun crew. Adults may wonder why the mother platypus remains awake given that these creatures are nocturnal but it’s a small point. The cartoon-style illustrations heavily anthropomorphize the animals; all are adorable especially the puggle with its broad bill dense fur and claws.

Hannah “Cookie” Cooke is a New England–based interior designer whose two specialties are constructing painstaking scale models of crime scenes like the Lizzie Borden house which doesn’t pay much and restoring upscale houses which pays a lot more. Her business the Ministry of the Interior gets a commission from neurosurgeon Chuck Halsey and his wife Lana founder of Lana Pura home textiles which is challenging from the get-go. Lana’s determination to enlarge the house’s kitchen is thwarted by the placement of its chimney which can’t be touched because it’s integral to the whole structure. Together with mason Harry Deluca who has a complicated history with her Cookie devises a workaround but it doesn’t work well enough to prevent the kitchen from filling with smoke. None of this bothers Chuck whose affair with Cookie ends when he’s found stuffed into the chimney and burned to death after his housewarming party. Will Cookie ever get another job? Absolutely: hospital Communications Director Wendy Teller insists she update the office of her husband psychiatrist Simon Teller. Simon himself has no interest in the project but he’s definitely interested in Cookie. As Cookie’s unsettlingly adulterous pattern solidifies the ensuing complications extend from a second death to an international drug smuggling scheme to a reopening of the Lizzie Borden case. Some readers will feel exalted and uplifted by these wide horizons; others will merely feel baffled.

For years they’ve cared for each other Lyla with her stories and Ilsette with her songs. When Ilsette’s voice accidentally attracts Cato’s attention and he recognizes her half-human parentage—putting her at risk of execution for trespassing—Lyla sacrifices herself to protect her sister. With Lyla now pale-skinned Cato’s bride Ilsette’s only chance of saving her sister is to recover an ancient talisman from a faraway realm. As Ilsette ventures through different lands armed only with stories and songs she encounters interesting characters some familiar to fans of the series opener Nettle (2025). Meanwhile Lyla must rely on her powerful tales of anger love heartbreak and betrayal—each of which is complemented by a beautiful black-and-white avian illustration from Shutterstock—to distract the Owl King and delay his theft of her magic. But as Cato returns to her night after night seeking new stories she finds she may stand to gain and lose more than she ever imagined. The sisters must decide where they belong and how much they’re willing to sacrifice for love. This enthralling narrative features robust worldbuilding although the story moves so quickly that the romantic relationships feel underdeveloped. Brown-winged Ilsette and black-winged Lyla are racially indeterminate.

Soon after their meet-cute collision high school juniors Sam and Franny who live in the mill town of Chestnut Woods Pennsylvania become inseparable. With one another they can confide their worries and troubles as well as their dreams and hopes. Theirs is an all-consuming love—some may even call it too intense. When an unimaginable tragedy strikes Sam and Franny can’t help but try to hold on to their love forever. But can they defy death? Will they succeed where Orpheus and Eurydice failed? Through lucid dreaming white-presenting Sam and Franny who appears Asian can be together—but the astral world is only meant to be a stopgap between life and death. The story coalesces into a sensitive and visceral exploration of loss and selfless love even as their dreams become horrific nightmares when their reluctance to let go comes to a head. Recurring elements like Greek mythology and Sam’s search for chestnut trees that survived the blight echo the protagonists’ arcs. The expressive artwork powerfully conveys the emotional intensity of these teenagers in love and crisis. Those who reread the story armed with foreknowledge of a major twist will enjoy an especially rich experience of Lee’s narrative and appreciate Pham’s clever choices in the illustrations.

Before Princess Roselyn the Reticent can articulate what she needs her parents (the king and queen) and the people of her kingdom anticipate it for her. “Was that a speck of dirt? ‘Run a bath for the princess!’” And when they think she wants a treat? Time for “ALL THE ICE CREAM IN THE LAND.” Preparations of epic proportions ensue: a larger-than-life bowl and spoon a massive cabinet to hold them and oodles of cows to provide the ice cream’s primary ingredient. But how will Roselyn consume such a gargantuan treat? Wizards are summoned to cast a spell making Roselyn larger. At last when everything is prepared Roselyn speaks—and reveals that all she wanted was a slice of pizza. Brimming with over-the-top absurdity the story will delight young readers with each outlandish new step. Relying heavily on repetition Kastner’s storytelling calls back to classic fairy tales with pleasing results; her charmingly cartoonish illustrations include thoughtful details and evoke a medieval setting. Roselyn is tan-skinned and red-haired while her mother is pale-skinned and red-haired and her father is brown-skinned with a white moustache. The townspeople vary in skin tone.

Trip’s baseball roots run deep: His dad’s team won the Little League championship when he was 12 and Grandpa was a minor-league ballplayer. Trip is well aware of the family legacy of baseball but he feels the heavy expectation to achieve and struggles to carve out a legacy of his own. After his father who’s a Marine is deployed overseas Trip shoulders responsibilities on the field as captain and at home where Dad tells him to “Take care of your mom and your sisters.” He assumes these roles with great seriousness but troubling news about his father adds stress and his team leadership is tested when Samantha “Sam” Callahan joins them and teammate Dylan makes derisive remarks. Trip questions whether he can give his all to both baseball and family. The authentic first-person narration shows him facing pressures and reassessing the importance of family. His relationship with Sam is nuanced: Dad Coach and Trip are supportive of girls’ inclusion and believe in girls’ equality but Trip’s admiration for Sam’s talent stirs up feelings of jealousy and self-doubt. As the season unfolds Trip confronts uncomfortable realities and learns to be guided by his conscience shaping a legacy that extends far beyond the baseball diamond. Main characters are cued white.

As the book opens its primary narrator AWOL—named for his penchant for escape attempts—is 14 and the story follows him over the next few years. The structure is relatively episodic with the two main threads being AWOL’s own coming-of-age and the efforts of Watts an insightful staff member to improve the lives of his charges. “Watts had prided himself on knowing when there was still a kid on the inside” AWOL says—but Bond also includes allusions to Watts’ own struggles and flaws. Bond’s close attention to detail including his use of the word “peer” to describe the home’s residents gives a precise sense of the language and routines of the place such as residents being assigned chores in the kitchen and finding stories by Dickens in old issues of Reader’s Digest in the library. AWOL uses the word “peer” from the first page without explaining its context a device that helps the reader see life through the eyes of these young men. And every once in a while AWOL makes an observation that breaks your heart: “I’d see teenagers and wonder if I could still be one.” AWOL’s own skill at helping his fellow teens write letters suggests one path forward for him but his reckoning with what adult life might entail—including the realities of class and public hostility toward “juvenile delinquents”—helps explain his tendency to flee whenever he has the chance. And as the narration makes clear the realities of the teens’ lives feed their desire for escape: “We ran when our cousins were killed and Watts wouldn’t let us go to the funeral. We ran when peers made fun of our teeth.” This is a slow-burning but moving account of adolescence under duress.

After her husband Paul Auster died on April 30 2024 award-winning poet novelist essayist and scholar Hustvedt felt mired in loss and grief. Books about bereavement therapy and the consolations of family and friends hardly assuaged a state of mind she calls “cognitive splintering” where “the logic of time and space” seemed scrambled. As she navigates widowhood reflecting on a 43-year marriage to a man she adored she realizes that she “can’t crawl into the box labeled PAUL and live there.” Her memoir then is her attempt to “hunt for my lost partner by writing about him” and to pay homage to their life together. Emails to their friends and journal entries chronicle his life after being diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in January 2023. The diagnosis came after a terrifying year: In 2021 his 10-month-old granddaughter was found dead; his son was arrested for negligent homicide; and in 2022 the son overdosed while released on bail. Buffeted now by a devastating illness Auster faced harsh treatments and debilitating side effects. Although surgery had been his “best hope” that hope was dashed in May 2023 because immunotherapy had severely damaged his lungs. Besides recounting his final illness Hustvedt creates a palpable portrait of Auster as lover and husband father and grandfather through his own writings including seven letters to his infant grandson Miles to be read by “the future young man.” The warm letters share family history especially of Miles’ mother—Auster’s and Siri’s daughter Sophie—and the man she married. Auster could be stubborn and tactless Hustvedt admits but also kind and sentimental. Their bond was physical emotional and deeply intellectual. He told Hustvedt he wanted to return as a ghost; she honors that desire in this intimate memoir.

When Alex Murdaugh’s wife and youngest son were murdered on their thousand-acre property in South Carolina’s Low Country in 2021 Lasdun was working on a novel whose central character fails to recognize the evil in front of her. Covering the Murdaugh saga for the New Yorker became a way for him to wrestle with his own inability to accept the existence of evil at its most extreme in a “family annihilator”: a locally famed patriarch convicted of killing his own wife and child. Lasdun is lured into the entirety of Alex’s web from his deep community ties and intense familial loyalty to his sinister series of interconnected misdeeds: unexplained (or unsatisfactorily explained) deaths of community members extreme drug use and possible gang entanglement and extensive financial theft. The author’s desperate quest is to understand what could possibly drive a man to kill his own family and he pursues his mission with an obsessive dogged and sometimes speculative fullness unwinding every spool of the Murdaugh family’s persistently ascendant generational wealth and its insulating facade of invincibility in a place increasingly marked by destitution drugs and decay. Lasdun’s bewilderment and dissatisfaction with every element of the murders and the legal case seeps palpably to the page drawing readers into an investigator’s obsession though the text does miss an opportunity to address the twisted appeal of such deranged stories of true crime. There is a distinct regional flavor to the story with prayerful juries marshy landscapes and an abundance of guns and good ol’ boys but the picture of an “exceptionally crooked man with some alarming ways of handling pressure” that emerges not only exceeds southern stereotypes and wealthy villain caricatures but defies any understanding of limits to human depravity.

When 17-year-old Benton Young deep in thrall to a girl who has challenged him to imagine what he really wants for the world makes a video that he hopes will impress her it never occurs to him that it will go viral and become the catalyst for an electoral upheaval that unseats adult heads of state all over the world replacing them with teens. This funny novel blends action sequences with journal entries and heartfelt portrayals of realistic relationships. Benton has felt abandoned by his mom who’s cued white ever since she divorced his Black father and remarried. He comes to understand how important his two best friends Jax and Freddy are to him as they stick by his side through all the chaos he’s experiencing. The author realistically captures the massive frustration and anger felt by young people toward politicians who have neglected the planet and their constituents in pursuit of their own power. Although this thriller eventually branches into something that feels almost fantastical it’s very much grounded in real world ideas and is populated with sympathetic characters. The varied and colorful graphic design of the pages is appealing adding visual interest and enhancing the story’s atmosphere.

Basil Beedon an astute precocious kid and Terry Clegg his reading-reluctant neighbor whom Basil has been tasked with tutoring recently returned from a whirlwind adventure within the volume of fairy tales they were reading together. Unfortunately after one whole week of life in the real world they’re soon to be sucked into another fantastical catastrophe. While reading a book of fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm they discover certain words missing from a story and decide to use a magical bookmark to transport themselves into the book. There they discover chickens are disappearing from stories left and right! A thorough albeit bumbling investigation by Basil Terry and some legendary allies (including Briar Rose and Gretel who are also their respective love interests) reveals deep dissent brewing within an organization dedicated to modifying gruesome and gory storylines as well as a covert campaign in the works to demand better treatment of overlooked animal characters. The titular plot holes spread when a story is over-altered and indeed the risks of their expansion are enormous with so many players working at cross-purposes. This sequel to Losing the Plot (2025) is another fun fantasy for those who enjoy whimsical riffs on classics and for young storytellers who enjoy imagining the effects of story craft upon its characters. The human characters are cued white.

Margot Cooper’s perfect life as the wife of an A-list Hollywood actor and as a lifestyle influencer implodes one morning in 2024 when her husband’s sexual indiscretions are shared over social media. With her teenage daughter Skye Margot flees to her childhood home in Pittsburgh now inhabited by her older sister Julia. As Margot and Julia take the opportunity to sort through their parents’ possessions in the attic Skye pulls out a box of newspaper clippings and photos that suggest her grandmother Ginger Daughtry might have been the notorious Lady X who in 1977 committed violent acts against abusive men—possibly including murder. Skye and Julia a journalist are eager to investigate further. The narrative then flashes back to that gritty summer when the “Son of Sam” terrorized the Big Apple and disco ruled the dance floors. Ginger and her roommates Rachel and Faye uneasily navigate New York life which is dominated by predatory men until one of them is sexually assaulted. When the police are unresponsive the women decide to take matters into their own hands with cans of spray paint and Lady X is born. Author Fader sets up an intriguing premise that doesn’t quite work in its execution. The 1977 sections with their evocative depictions of a bankrupt city on the edge and the power of female friendship against a patriarchal system overshadow the meandering modern-day plotline. Margot the epitome of wealthy white privilege is off-putting in her narcissism feeling sorry for herself instead of trying to understand her mother’s rage and the male characters are cardboard cliches from the gay best friend to a villainous cop.

When his stepcousin Celine finds her sister Mona dead in the garden of Oak Lodge Julian naturally calls Bea Abbot whose business running an employment agency has a long history of being upstaged by criminal investigations to come out from London to help. And no wonder since the Axton constabulary are practically invisible and Julian can’t take a leading role: his household is beset by more pressing issues. Now that Oak Lodge is a crime scene Celine and her brother-in-law Marcus who married Mona while he was still a billionaire have to find somewhere else to lodge. But Marcus has disappeared and house-rich cash-poor Julian can’t possibly put up Celine in the manse he’s slowly rehabbing since there’s barely enough livable space for his wife Polly and their two children. In addition Julian has to deal with the armed thieves who’ve been stealing the healing waters on his property marketing them as Marston Spring Water. The thieves will stop at nothing: One runs Polly’s car off the road and another dumps a lorry full of manure at Julian’s gate. Not to be outdone Polly’s poisonous father Mr. Colston who’s never approved of her daughter’s marriage to a changeling and former charity student of his storms into church and interrupts the service by denouncing her and her family at the top of his lungs. Even though there are surprisingly few suspects for Mona’s murder the relatively straightforward whodunit will have to wait its turn in a long queue.

In Glen Vale High’s marching band the percussion section and color guard are bitter rivals. Senior Hazel Buchanan whose mother—a former Glen Vale Marching Knights trumpet player—pours on the pressure to succeed is captain of the unfortunately mediocre color guard. Recently her junior high friend and secret crush Max Coleman moved back to town—and he’s grown distractingly hot. However not only does he play percussion for unknown reasons he’s taken against Hazel. While mean pranks and an ill-conceived bet fuel the band rivalry at home Hazel’s parents welcome Max’s mother back into their Dungeons & Dragons game—and the parents assume the two will hang out together like they used to. Can D&D offer Hazel and Max who present white a path back to friendship—and maybe more? Fans of both marching band and D&D will find much to love in the detailed descriptions of both activities and how they resonate through the characters’ lives. While the band rivalry feels somewhat contrived Max and Hazel’s personal challenges ring true. As Max struggles with his parents’ separation Hazel faces her mother’s crushing expectations trying to train and bond her rookie team and being a first-time Dungeon Master. The romance between these two overly competitive ex-friends is sweet.

In this follow-up to the author’s Moodtopia (2018) Silverstein turns her attention to the application of holistic plant medicine (and its mood-altering effects) to children’s maladies. The earlier book concentrated on “helping women find emotional balance in a chaotic world”; as readers responded to the work the author became increasingly aware that children are navigating that same world and might benefit from her approach which she claims allows one to control one’s moods (rather than letting moods take the driver’s seat). Drawing on her three decades of experience treating clients and her parenting of her own seven children Silverstein presents anecdotes and advice for using such things as herbs aromatherapy and essential oils (“potent extracts derived from various aromatic plant parts”) to help children deal with hyperactivity academic stress sleeping problems weak concentration impulse control emotional regulation and ADHD. The author details the various herbal remedies she advocates like roasted sea sponge extract which is used as a remedy for coughs. She follows up with basic discussions of physiology and simple health initiatives like drinking plenty of water (she notes that the human brain is 75% water—“That’s why even small changes in hydration have outsized effects on mood learning and behavior”). Unlike many proponents of homeopathy Silverstein largely refrains from overstating its strengths (there’s virtually no clinical proof of the therapeutic value of most “essential oils” for instance). Rather she passionately and convincingly positions homeopathy in a broader holistic approach to well-being asserting that her natural treatments “represent a compassionate and individualized method to address the unique needs of each child.” Claims about the benefits of aromatherapy and some other natural remedies (using chickweed and milk thistle to “calm” ADHD for instance) may strike some readers especially anxious parents as much too close to folklore to be persuasive but Silverstein’s emphasis on paying close attention to children’s emotional well-being is welcome.