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Guided by his uncle Adam Jack a pale-skinned boy with light hair ventures out onto a lake in hopes of reeling in a catch that’s large enough to feed his family. Back on shore his excitement turns to nervousness once he realizes that his meager haul might not satisfy the growing numbers of mouths to feed—the weekly fish frys are not a family dinner but a community event. “Then it hits me—the small catch! I was so excited to see everyone that I forgot we might not have enough.” The focus on extended family over the nuclear family sets this book apart from other books aimed at this age range. Jack fishes with his uncle leaves the cleaning of the fish to his grandfather helps his grandmother set the table plays with his cousin and invites his neighbors and friends learning that “no one goes hungry at a fish fry.” Sprtel’s warm color palette denotes fishing at dawn and wisps of a brush stroke carry the scent of frying fish to a neighbor.
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She calls herself Kikiloa but she’s better known as Mitochondrial Eve: the woman from whom all people now living are descended. Born in “the deep night of Africa’s great rift valley” some 200000 years ago she was betrayed by her father impregnated and enslaved. In the present day we find her living in San Francisco taking the form of a teenage girl with green eyes and impressively curly hair which is how she appears to her friend Hazel and her brother Lee who are wholly unaware of her true identity until she mysteriously vanishes. When “Kiki” then reappears it’s immediately clear to Hazel that there’s something a bit magical about her. In fact Kiki begins to suspect that Hazel has an extraordinary destiny to fulfill one that isn’t shared by the countless versions of herself who have lived and died in parallel worlds. But while Lee begins to fear that Kiki is deceiving her Paha (Kiki’s mentor) has turned trickster bent on sabotaging Hazel through violence. Kiki must uncover his true intentions while grappling with the reality that her own life—and the lives of all living things—must eventually end.
Larson’s debut reads a bit like Sarah Hall’s Helm crossed with Doctor Who if the latter story were told from the Doctor’s perspective. Characters grapple with the implications of their own near immortality and the unhappy reality that sometimes a person must die to prevent a timeline from breaking. Like Jasper Fforde or Douglas Adams Larson is one of a true minority of writers who can make cerebral science fiction both lucid and entertaining. The book’s relentlessly forward-moving style never once loses momentum in the course of its 400 pages. This feat is all the more impressive given the scope of the subjects under discussion which include prehistory the last Ice Age multiverse theory synchronicity and the end of all things. “At this moment” Kiki informs Hazel “I am connected to a trillion mes across a trillion branches of the multiverse”—a flash of the sublime that reads like an ancient account of a deity disclosing itself to mortals. The book’s thematic roots in the teachings of Carl Jung offer a refreshingly unconventional message: that embracing the most frightening parts of ourselves is the path to wholeness. “When we accept shame” says a “time surfer” named Akamai “we become ourselves. We think the unthinkable thought…We face our fears and discover beyond them bare fields enriched by fire ready for new growth.” This idea will be familiar to fans of Jung and Alan Watts but it’s rare to see it articulated at all—let alone with such power—in a work of popular fiction. This philosophical depth anchors the multiverse shenanigans in a tangible and very human reality.Read more...
Ruby Spencer has two missions: She works to free men who are wrongfully incarcerated and facing the death penalty and she searches for missing women. Mitchell Brown is the latest in a long line of death row clients some of whom she has saved many of whom she has not. In the small town of Pickleweed Georgia Mitchell’s story is not surprising: A Black man accused of murdering a white woman even though her body was never found he was arrested detained and beaten until he gave up a confession. Now he’s been sitting on death row for 10 years waiting for the inevitable end. His attorney brings Ruby onto the case with only two weeks to go until the execution date hoping her reputation as “the exonerator” will be proven true. Ruby relentlessly goes back through the crime the investigation Mitchell’s history—and discovers that he grew up in the same small Oregon town as her mother. His grandfather still lives there and when Ruby visits him he introduces her to a talisman the talking bone that seems to serve as a bridge between the spirit world and the world of the living. The bone represents the disappeared voiceless women Ruby is also called upon to seek including Mitchell’s mother and her own. It plays a major role in the denouement of the story adding a distinct flavor of the supernatural to what is otherwise a novel very much rooted in the grim realities of racism poverty and abuse. Denfeld skillfully navigates the tonal tension and despite the convenience of the final reveal the overlap between past and present voices is both poignant and satisfying. By giving the dead this power not only to speak but to influence outcomes Denfeld reclaims the lost and forgotten.
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The novel opens with narrator Jessica Morton a junior at Helshire College and a member of an age-old crime family taking Peter her younger cousin and fellow Helshire student on a climb—no not the recreational kind. It’s actually a midnight trek up the school’s tallest building from which Jessica ensures at Grandmother’s orders that Peter will plummet to his death. (Peter had “fallen into disfavor” with the family.) “My first kill before I’d even graduated” Jessica thinks with satisfaction after she’s completed her assignment. At Peter’s funeral which is at the Morton estate in upstate New York Jessica who is bisexual becomes smitten with Hiromi Kennedy a Japanese American artist she will get to know during a summer internship at a New York City gallery. The job leads to a cascading series of events of spectacular consequence to Jessica Hiromi and the extended Morton clan. This first collaboration between the married Larbalestier and Westerfeld who are best known for their YA novels serves up a robustly imagined world that stops just short of heightened but abounds with nods to horror and macabre symbolism (bones the color red). While the authors’ attention to atmospherics pays dividends there’s an oddly persistent slackness to the storytelling and given how much work is required of readers to keep track of Mortons living and dead their motivations and their secrets to say nothing of their specialized argot this long book is a heavy lift. Jessica may exude Wednesday Addams cool but she’s introduced as an unrepentant murderer and some readers may not stick around for her crisis of conscience which is to say her realization that she may actually have one.
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Wemlinger prefaces his fictional story with true accounts from his time as an Army captain. He watched dozens of women face discrimination harassment and abuse at the hands of the countless men who surrounded them; now 50 years later this treatment continues. The young woman in question is 22-year-old Sergeant Rebecca Farnsworth who works on the night shift at First Battalion headquarters. While performing a routine security check Rebecca is violently assaulted and drugged. When Rebecca awakens she stands “accused of dereliction of duty and drug use.” With a fierce women’s rights attorney by her side and tenacity in her heart Rebecca fights tooth and nail to claim both her freedom and her innocence. This realistic novel spans nearly 20 years of Rebecca’s life; in that time her family is lost and then regained her heart is shattered and then mended and her career is crushed and then reborn. At the same time the author also allows readers into the unbalanced minds of several other complex damaged or truly vile characters such as a serial rapist and the detectives determined to catch him. These taut threads weave together to create a novel that’s courtroom drama crime thriller and love story all in one. Wemlinger has constructed a well-plotted story with a clear sense of purpose that’s brimming with themes of resilience hope and justice. A range of complex topics—rape abortion gender discrimination and an unjust judicial system to name a few—are handled in a way that’s accessible to a general readership. Wemlinger vows that readers “will experience through the eyes of one young woman the time trouble and perseverance” it took to bring change to the world one step at a time.
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Fifteen years past college Emily finds herself horribly unsatisfied. She’s on maternity leave from her ho-hum job recovering slowly from a difficult childbirth and feeling increasingly isolated from her husband and friends. She remembers her college roommate Daisy as her one true soul mate but unfortunately the women lost touch after freshman year when Daisy got involved with drugs stripping and other unsavory activities. Now Emily’s desperate to track her down. After sleuthing at out-of-town strip clubs and visiting Daisy’s grandmother in a nursing home Emily discovers that Daisy’s been living nearby for years with a mysterious man providing a life of luxury. Daisy brings Emily into her strange and extravagant life which includes a vacant Park Avenue building where the women decide to create a high-end club for new mothers. The privileges Daisy shares with Emily get progressively murkier until Emily begins to wonder whether Daisy is who she thought at all. Narrated by Emily the book gets off to a slow start as her quest to find Daisy drags on and the plot feels like a low-stakes search for an old friend. After the two reconnect a third of the way through the story takes on more life and the oddities of the world they build together effectively increase the tale’s dark humor and suspense. Chozick does an admirable job of creating a strange microcosm of intense image-conscious Manhattan where the self-doubt loneliness and pressure of new motherhood are juxtaposed with the excess and superficiality of high society. While certain aspects of Emily’s life like her relationship with her husband lack detail Chozick provides extensive graphic descriptions in other areas such as the physical trauma Emily suffered during the baby’s difficult delivery and her ongoing pain and follow-up treatments.
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Sofia Mendoza injures her sister (after accidentally-on-purpose tripping her) so her father sends her to Forestjaw to reflect on her behavior. Things get off to a weird start: Monarch Forestjaw’s leader and seemingly only real adult greets the campers (or “candidates” as she calls them) with a terrifying mechanical vulture on her shoulder before confiscating their electronics and fitting them with mysterious pieces of wearable technology called rankles. The camp’s connections to the popular Sandbox online gaming world quickly become apparent and Sofia’s excitement grows when she finds out they’ll all be participating in a game that involves ranking and elimination. She’s the best Sandbox player around and quite certain she’ll come out on top. When the first candidate is eliminated carried off by one of Monarch’s vultures the stakes ratchet up and vicious Sofia is determined to do absolutely anything it takes to win. Readers searching for redemption will not find it here; the complications of Sofia’s abrasive personality and serially selfish decision-making build through a fast-paced tightly written high-action tale. Arroyo’s well-timed grayscale illustrations add depth and Sandbox’s similarity to Roblox will make this creepy witty techno-horror series opener a popular pick among kids. Names cue diversity among the cast.
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Joaquín and his friends Emma and Maya have a “Puerto Rican Ghostbusters vibe” going on. They love hunting for paranormal activity so they’re excited to hear about a house in their hometown of Jacob’s Barrow Massachusetts that’s been vacant since 1997 following the death of one of the family’s children. The trio are determined to locate evidence of the rumored haunting. The place certainly has the look of a haunted house with its peeling paint rotting walls and siding that’s “droopy and furry with splotches of moss.” But things get out of control when Joaquín accidentally brings the ghost of Max Guerrero Lopez home with him—in the form of a powerful poltergeist. Max who died at age 16 can’t remember the circumstances of his passing but he’s tired of being stuck in this limbo. Fortunately he finds a way to communicate by speaking through Joaquín’s AirPods. Marte Joaquín’s ex-boyfriend is sensitive to ghosts; recognizing that Joaquín is in over his head Marte hopes he can help Max cross over. The novel switches between Joaquín’s and Max’s first-person perspectives maintaining a good balance between substantial character growth and taut storytelling with well-timed revelations as the truth of what happened to Max unfolds. Marte is Deaf and his friends communicate with him using ASL.
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Dina Soto first lost her older brother Joel to tragic circumstances—and soon after her high school soccer coach father confessed to the murders of two of his students. Papi was sentenced to life in prison and Dina’s family was harassed and their home vandalized. These days they’re largely shunned by the residents of small-town Millcreek. Dina’s mother fearful for the rest of her family’s safety restricts the movements of Dina and her younger brother Mikey. Wanting a sense of normality and an escape from Mami’s overprotectiveness Dina sneaks out to spend the weekend with a friendly new student transgender Kai Thompson who’s cued Black and Puerto Rican and like Dina learned Spanish at home. They’ll be staying at the Thompsons’ cabin with Kai’s twin sister Kiki and a couple of their friends: brown-skinned cheerleader Carla Gutierrez and her white football player boyfriend Timothy Gibson. Given Dina’s father’s reputation she receives a mostly icy welcome from everyone besides Kai. As the getaway goes on painful events from the past come to light and sinister things start happening. Dina’s troubled family history lurks beneath the surface creating page-turning chills. Despite this the comforting tranquility of Dina and Kai’s budding relationship adds another layer to the atmosphere offering hope in dark times.
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Tween cousins Bea and Céline Bellerose who had Parisian adventures in The House of Found Objects (2025) are reunited in New York City where their Aunt Juliette a journalist is interviewing French actor Eva Rousseau about her first Broadway role. But when the Tiffany Yellow Diamond necklace Eva is borrowing goes missing Aunt Juliette is arrested and the girls investigate hoping to catch the real thief and prove her innocence. Someone is leaving the girls clues—but are they bringing them closer to the truth or are they meant to distract? Bea and Céline get help from Zane the hotel owner’s son (on whom Céline has a crush) as they rush around Manhattan following clues to landmarks like Grand Central’s Whispering Gallery and the Empire State Building. Technology plays a crucial role from trackers in suitcases to using a phone for research to surveillance footage. The girls have a lot of independence though Bea’s parents who live in New Jersey check up on them occasionally. Red herrings and Agatha Christie references abound in this zippy fast-paced mystery. The clashing personality differences between the cousins in the first book have eased; they’re kind and supportive to each other so the story’s tension comes from the developing mystery and high stakes as Aunt Juliette’s court date approaches. Main characters are cued white.
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Artist Joni rocker May and theater kid Tyler are normally inseparable but a dirt bike accident prevented May from joining them for their usual summer at Camp Rebel Arts. When Joni and Tyler return home they find May behaving strangely— “her wild rock-and-roll curls” are in a tidy bun and she no longer carries her drumsticks everywhere. May has been spending time with Charlotte Ann Gingham her “polished” new neighbor who’s a vision of 1950s girlhood. May isn’t the only one undergoing radical personality changes: Soon adults who attend Mr. and Mrs. Gingham’s book club are following regressive gender roles too. Wanting their old friend back rising eighth graders Joni and Tyler investigate the book club; what they find is of course sinister. Mr. Gingham’s rapid rise to power in Olive Springs part of his wide-reaching schemes provides high stakes while Joni’s emotional turmoil over losing May’s friendship (and her worries and self-reproach over going away to summer camp and leaving her behind) provides more personal grounding tension. The plot itself is popcorn science fiction; more adults fall under Gingham’s sway leaving the last kids standing for an action-packed set piece of a finale. Main characters present white and names signal diversity in the supporting cast.
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In the years following the end of World War II survivors of the Jewish Holocaust created “memorial books” (in Yiddish yizker bikher) designed to record the lives of those who passed and to give hope to those who lived on. Such volumes writes Rich—executive director of the Rowan University Center for the Study of the Holocaust Genocide and Human Rights—were “collaboratively authored place-based memorial books that represent a confluence of Jewish liturgical ethnographic and historical writing.” Through richly symbolic illumination the books told stories far more profound than words alone could. Illustrations of candles for example light ways through reminiscence and restoration; sometimes there are buildings shaped almost surrealistically against a sky like the work of an amateur Marc Chagall. And there are poems in these volumes: “If you pick up a book—my stare will be in it / In every single line and word.” Lines of verse accompany hand-drawn maps recalling towns that had been leveled. In a sense then this book is itself like a paper tombstone—the yizker bihker having been “created as a sacred object one that fulfills the obligation of remembrance and offers a connection to the people places and ways of life destroyed during the years of the Nazi genocide.” What the book reveals too is that the study of the Holocaust goes on not only in great archives or along the tracks of fields and forests but in the small personal products of everyday people. At a time when fewer and fewer people have the lived experience of capture and exile the book exhorts us all never to forget.
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Roxie Mitchell loves beating up guys at the gym and going on wild adventures. She doesn’t believe in love but she does believe in romance—at least as it’s concocted by her favorite author. A chance encounter with a mysterious panhandler and a meet-cute at the library make her wonder if her offhand wish to be the heroine of the next Anna Matthews novel might have come true. Then the man of her dreams tries to kill her which is definitely not a romance trope. In her race to escape him she carjacks a white sedan. While it’s unfortunate that this car has an Uber passenger in the back his knowledge of the conventions of crime fiction might just come in handy…Eberle spoofs on genre conventions while still delivering everything required of a romance novel. Grant Hoffman—the Uber passenger who reads mysteries—is a risk-averse college professor and he serves beautifully as both a complement and foil to daredevil Roxie. Their clashing personalities will be familiar to romance readers as will their difficulty trusting each other and their differing attitudes toward love. What Eberle adds to this formula is questions about what’s real and what only exists in the pages of the novel Anna Matthews is writing. This is a very silly book and Eberle has cleverly created a world in which she can blame a lot of silliness on Anna Matthews. That said the mechanics of the magic that shapes this story fall apart as the narrative advances. And while they’re trapped in a crime novel Roxie and Grant do some things that might be shocking and disturbing to a lot of readers looking for a lighthearted escape.
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In this work the author follows up The Canvas (2023) with the third installment in the Big Picture trilogy. Protagonist Emma Kelly is an art recovery agent. Her current mission is to locate 70 works that were originally bequeathed to the Vatican but have since been stolen. To complicate matters it’s unclear how many of the works were authentic. If any counterfeit items manage to find their way into the Vatican’s galleries “it would take centuries to restore [their] status.” (What truly drives Emma is her desire to find a Raphael painting titled Portrait of a Young Man that went missing during World War II.) Emma theorizes that “someone [is] waging and winning a global smear campaign against the Vatican” even if “the city-state usually [does] a fine job creating its own bad press.” The culprit behind this smear campaign seems to be related to the Medici family and “part of a conspiracy to take over” the papacy. (“Since money did not bestow legitimacy they had to find other ways to promote how they wanted to be seen: art marriages murder.”) However the line of Medicis most people would associate with the family name ended in the 18th century; in the present day “there are only descendants.” The story kicks off the day after a terrorist bombing in Rome one that took place at the Pantheon and was actually an attempt to kill Emma.
Emma (or Emmaline as she’s known to some) is hardly a mild-mannered art history buff—she lives a double life with a husband in New York and another husband in London. Her globe-hopping exploits yield a plethora of intriguing details; for instance readers learn about something known as the “Family Pact” an agreement signed in the 1700s that prohibited great works (everything “from the statue of David to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus”) from leaving Florence and helped to cement the city’s importance on the world stage for centuries to come. Readers follow Emma to the museum that contains the statue of David a place that sees some 4000 visitors a day and also contains the Gipsoteca a “hall of models with its hundreds of sculptures and plaster models and a few paintings.” It’s fascinating stuff but Emma also has a tendency to offer descriptions of less compelling administrative tasks (“I had an email from Florence Bracewell President and Chief Executive Officer of the Met. She wanted a lunch meeting”) that prove to be extraneous—such material can make the narrative drag. Fortunately the plot features plenty of elements like drones with “glass-shattering missiles” and attacks by “one hundred-pound Giant Schnauzers” to keep things lively. Taken together the work provides pleasures beyond those of the typical thriller. Emma may have her secrets and she faces her share of danger but the edifying welcome emphasis on art and art history is what truly shines throughout these pages.
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In his candid debut memoir Hotchkiss a magazine writer turned men’s life coach describes the life events that precipitated negative feelings of powerlessness around his associations with women. Germaine to this emotional problem was his parents’ divorce when he was a child being raised first by a single mother and then a controlling stepmother. Worse yet the dissolution of his father’s second marriage in 2005 caused his father to descend into depression and eventual suicide when Hotchkiss was in his early 20s. “My beautiful father had chosen death over me” he admits and these traumas caused the author to dysfunctionally consider women as his life’s “compass” guideposts gauging his worthiness as a man validating his desire and anchoring his identity. Terrified of being alone he remained depressed and shiftless womanizing and manipulating his way around the Manhattan singles scene in a self-described “romance roulette.” After a series of short-lived crash-and-burn relationships Hotchkiss writes he had “officially become my father” and contemplated suicide. He soon realized he suffered from a toxic relational impairment around women (and himself). The next decade became an exercise in psychological overhaul and reform where group therapy 12-step rehab meditation and a vision quest in the Sierra Nevada mountain range began healing the unresolved traumas plaguing him. It wasn’t an easy fix however and after several failed restart attempts he finally reached the catharsis he needed through a full confrontation with his grief and rage. The author has since parlayed this experience into a life-coaching practice teaching men how to establish healthy balanced relationships and overcome their vulnerability around and dependence on women. Hotchkiss elaborates on a variety of self-inquiry techniques that proved effective for him alternating between experimentally hokey (recommendations for all men to get “sober from women for a period of time”) and more traditional and proactive (psychological trauma processing with a professional “looking at our rage head-on”) depending on the reader’s acuity level and openness to healing.
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Forced into early retirement by a board looking to replace her with someone younger and cheaper Neeti Shah is bored. She misses both her late husband Ravi and the stimulating contact with the book-loving public she got from her job. She’s pleased to be able to provide a stable home for her niece Myra whose parents abandoned her when she made it clear she had no intention of marrying Shane the shiftless father of her own son Ved now 5 years old. So the death of her neighbor Rohit Solanki in what the police insist was a slip-and-fall provides her the perfect opportunity to put her research skills to work proving them wrong. Author Soni provides Neeti with a colorful multinational cast of collaborators and coconspirators in her quest. This series kickoff has some problems with pacing: It takes a painfully long time to reveal the backstory of Neeti’s prior relationship with Rohit as Soni drops the same hints over and over again. And the characters are often jarringly cartoonish especially when they’re being mean or stupid. Sometimes there’s more than one way to handle a dilemma.
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Pia a small caninelike character awakens with the urge to create a pine-cone person using objects from nature. Her dad suggests an excursion to a nearby pine forest and Pia agrees. While preparing to leave Pia giddily packs a lemon in place of the granola bar her dad requested and bursts in on him while he’s on the toilet. Pia’s energy only intensifies when the pair arrive in the woods; she grows wobbly with excitement upon spotting her “perfect pine cone” and stuffs a “Spiky Death Ball” (a sweetgum pod) into her satchel. Her enthusiasm gradually gives way to quieter awe as she uses her dad’s headphones and sound recorder to listen to birds rustling grasses and a waterfall. But when her hungry dad reaches into his bag and finds the lemon he loses patience: “Are you actually listening to anything I say?!” Pia stomps off and stumbles upon a fellow young naturalist with whom she enjoys a lovely interlude of imaginative nature play as they construct a fairy house. Pia’s childish wonder coupled with her humorously limited attention span reflects the temperament of many young readers while the pine forest is drawn with a light observant touch evoking its captivating charm. Backmatter on sound recorders and fairy houses closes the work.
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Seventeen-year-old white-presenting Felicity “Fliss” Keller and her best friend Izzy who’s cued Black are housesitting for Fliss’ father who recently returned to England from Paris while he honeymoons in the Maldives with his new wife Kim. The friends enrolled in a summer creative arts program for prospective students at nearby Blackwood University. The day before Dad and Kim’s departure the trio visit an estate sale where Fliss spots an unusual painting that her art historian father immediately identifies as a long-lost companion piece to The Four. This series of paintings is rumored to depict four women victims of a serial killer from early-20th-century New York City; the newly discovered work could be the murderer’s allegedly cursed self-portrait which thrills true-crime aficionado Fliss. Her dad wastes no time acquiring it for the university’s art gallery where its public unveiling at a reception ends in the death of a young woman. Determined to investigate Fliss delves into the history of the paintings and uncovers deeply disturbing ritualistic elements embedded in the art. Even as her knowledge of the case deepens more dead bodies turn up each bearing chilling echoes of the paintings. The original premise combining fine art and murder will engage readers as will the tense encounters and discovery of new clues. Fliss and Izzy are clever recognizing the dangers around them and trying to protect themselves even as they take risks.
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Napesni lives in South Dakota’s Cheyenne River Reservation where “dry dust” and the resinous “scent of Rocky Mountain juniper” cling to his fur. One day a truck and trailer arrive to take Napesni and his relatives to a new home. The trip is confining and confusing and upon being unloaded Napesni runs off through Minnesota’s “thick prairie dirt.” Alone and homesick Napesni evades humans before finally being coaxed over to a ranch where he reunites with his family. Napesni’s journey highlights differences in regional flora and fauna while reinforcing the presence of distinct and contemporary Native communities further reiterated through textual incorporation of Lakota and Ojibwe languages. Rendon’s sensory-centered portrayal of the young bison appropriately involves copious stamping sniffing and snorting and Zimmerman’s dynamic acrylic and ink artwork a pointillistic array of creams and tawny browns emphasizes the hearty texture of canvas beneath rolling green hills and an azure sky. Detailed backmatter underscores the cultural impact spiritual importance and environmental benefits of bison while also discussing the real-life events that inspired this story: the creation of a bison herd for the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota.
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In this debut business book Reedy offers her solution to a fundamental problem of the philanthropy sector: There’s no standard training model and no consensus on what makes a foundation and its employees good at the work they do. The author outlines five broad principles of philanthropy: Making change is often difficult; grantmakers give away both money and control when they fund projects; foundations face limited risk; philanthropists determine their organizations’ limitations; and philanthropic results are hard to measure. With these propositions at the core of her argument Reedy makes a case for specific ways in which foundations and their employees should set goals act strategically and pursue their founders’ agendas in concrete ways. (An appendix addresses issues specific to community corporate and family foundations and the author occasionally references a companion workbook.) The author’s straightforward tone and cleareyed approach to the strengths and weaknesses of the philanthropic sector make the book both accessible and informative particularly to those who are new to the industry. Reedy mostly avoids jargon while making standard terminology like “theory of change” easily understood. The book draws on the author’s own professional experience for many of its elements and incorporates case studies and anecdotes from a wide range of foundations demonstrating success and failure across a span of locations endowment sizes and philosophies. Another strength of the book is Reedy’s insistence that while there are inarguably some wrong answers each question about how a foundation should operate also has many right answers. As a result Reedy doesn’t attempt to prescribe to readers what their outcomes or processes should be; she instead guides them through a series of questions designed to help them find those answers that are best aligned with their specific needs.
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