Aurora begins to hope that the eccentric doomsday preppers’ mansion could be her forever home but when the endless rains come she begins to have doubts. Niko and Jada have BOBs or “Bug-Out-Backpacks” stashed in different rooms and they train Aurora in disaster survival techniques all while repeatedly moving to higher floors in their home to avoid the rising water. Aurora hopes they’ll take her with them when they finally leave—but one morning she wakes up alone in the flooded mansion. Violent men break in but Aurora escapes out a window with her BOB taking off in a boat. She meets a younger boy Kota and the two try to find the rumored safe haven called The Hill. Based on various clues it might be where Niko and Jada went when they abandoned Aurora. This fast-paced novel with dystopian elements will keep readers invested in its action-packed plot. A reoccurring mystery that’s hinted at throughout the narrative leaves ample room for the sequel that’s sure to be in high demand. Most main characters read white. Pale-skinned Kota who has “sleek jet-black hair” is cued as being of Japanese descent.

One month ago 16-year-old Jamie left Bible Hill Nova Scotia to earn a living playing the fiddle in Halifax. Noah’s parents spend their evenings driving to Halifax to look for Jamie so Noah’s grandmother arrives from Cape Breton Island soothing Noah with warm hugs serving him chocolate cake for breakfast and tending to his cold with home remedies. Unlike wild child Jamie whose exploits are legendary “good kid” Noah excels academically and swims competitively but he feels overlooked—and lonely. New girl Alysha Toussaint befriends him but Noah is hurt when Alysha and Jessica Noah’s swimming rival and sometime bully become romantically involved. Noah’s conflicts all come to a head when he sets out alone to look for Jamie bringing the tale to a poignant conclusion. Balancing the larger issue of Jamie’s disappearance with Noah’s need for normalcy and longing for friendship Schwartz Fagan’s well-paced narrative convincingly portrays the anxiety of a family dealing with crisis the pleasures of having a loving grandparent and the typical—yet still excruciating—ups and downs of adolescence. The maritime province’s small-town setting adds flavor and dimension with lyrics from traditional East Coast Canadian songs interspersed. Most characters read white; Alysha’s last name hints at diversity.

Carter Rogers is on the case. His specialty? Looking into deceased and missing class pets. After his class pet a naked mole-rat named Mr. Pebbles mysteriously died Carter teamed up with the snarky rodent’s disembodied spirit to find out why. Now Carter must track down a reptile gone rogue. A milk snake named Milkshake Carter’s older brother JJ’s classroom pet fled her enclosure while JJ was preparing her lunch (a frozen baby mouse). Although skeptical of Carter’s spirit connections JJ nonetheless enlists his assistance. With the help of a magical necklace Carter speaks with Mr. Pebbles and Rootbeer (a spectral snake and Milkshake’s former tankmate) to uncover Milkshake’s whereabouts. Their search leads them to the cafeteria to the teacher’s lounge and finally to a warm bowl of chicken soup. Compared with the first installment this title features slightly less mystery and far more sibling rivalry—in particular Roberts draws effective parallels between Carter and JJ’s relationship and Rootbeer’s bond with Milkshake her adopted sister. The tale also provides ample hallway adventures and slapstick silliness brought to life by Roberts’ lively cartooning. Carter JJ and Lester an interloping classmate who wants in on the spirit conversations are Black; the supporting cast is diverse.

People are ticked off these days observe Culpepper and Lee with “enormous wellsprings of pent-up democratic pressure just looking for a way to get out.” As their narrative opens they examine a predecessor event that uncorked similar pressure: namely the reaction against the meat industry when in 1906 Upton Sinclair published The Jungle documented the “ground-up poisoned rats” and putrefied canned meat that slaughterhouses were foisting on consumers. Two things are worthy of note there the authors hold. The first is that rebellion against the status quo begins with a muckraker an “obsessively committed individual who could focus inchoate public anger around a specific set of demands”—in that case for safe food. The second is that the target of that anger is a corporation an entity capable of being criticized by people with “shared moral outrage.” So it was that Dieselgate came down in 2015 when an American engineer calculated that German auto manufacturers were cheating on emissions standards and after consumer protests drew down fines against Volkswagen alone totaling more than $32 billion. Goldman Sachs and Enron collapsed around scandals while the Cambridge Analytica case brought about significant legislative reforms around privacy. As the authors note not every scandal seems to have legs: Although U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse uncovered a “smoking gun” that showed that Big Oil was well aware of deleterious climate change half a century ago the public has not exploded in response. Still corporations do best the authors assert when they “stick to what they are good at” delivering goods and services without muddling the political landscape with special pleading leaving political questions the “subject of informed debate between voters not determined by the whims of the leaders of large companies.”

Aya awakens steps out of her hut and sits by the campfire with her grandparents for breakfast. It’s a special day. Today Grandpa will take Aya into the forest to see a bear—a first for her. They mount their horses and make their way through the woods keenly aware of indicators of the shifting seasons among them the changing colors of leaves and birds flying south for the winter. As Grandpa and Aya reach the top of a hill they take their places and wait…and wait. Eventually a mother bear and her three cubs appear and curl up to take a nap on an old abandoned mattress surrounded by trash. After the bears leave Aya and her grandfather burn the garbage to discourage the animals’ dependence on humans—an example of environmental stewardship in action. Warm softly blended colors create detailed portraits of Aya her grandfather and the various animals they encounter. Blackcrane's gentle appealingly straightforward narration sets a steady pace that reflects the story’s theme of patience. Backmatter offers more information on the Oroqen an ethnic group that resides in the forests and mountains of northern China.

Raised by her father in Silverpine Oregon after her mother moved halfway across the world Dani’s separation anxiety ran deep long before Parker ghosted her so when she runs headfirst into him at a bar in New York City she promptly runs out rather than reopen a door for the former best friend who’d loved and abandoned her. She had been just “six when…Mom packed up her easel and art supplies and flew back to Taiwan.” Losing Parker—the friend with whom she’d felt an “immediate spark—a seamless connection between two seven-year-olds as if they’d known one another in a past life”—that might have been even harder. It made Dani harder too. Dani and Parker had been connected for 13 years from elementary school through college on opposite coasts (Parker got a scholarship to play football at Oregon while Dani pursued her writing dreams at Columbia) until Parker’s no-show on Christmas Eve opened a wound that wouldn’t heal. But now when Dani finds herself drawn to Parker against most of her instincts for self-preservation she doesn’t begin an extended game of cat-and-mouse. Parker may be a former star athlete turned sports-marketing wunderkind and Dani a nerdy writer who lives inside her head but it’s Dani who has the agency to grab Parker by the lapels and take what she’s long wanted. And when they rekindle the friendship this time with plenty of steam it’s drawn in artful detail and both the chemistry and banter are fire.

Writing in first person from the point of view of light itself (“I spin the wheel of life”) Herz compares his subject to a rolling marble and an ocean wave. With nods to X-rays radio waves and other forms of “traveling energy” he describes the topic first in simple terms and then in greater detail in a follow-up section. Light illuminates everything earthly and astronomical. Moreover Herz goes on light has been long cherished as a symbol of a “guiding presence” glowing atop candles and in places of worship as a reminder “that there is something greater out there.” Using long-exposure photo shoots López once more finds an inspired way to depict the physical phenomena that the author personifies in his two-tiered explanatory narratives. Her artwork has impressionistic elements depicting a pair of tan-skinned children and a sometimes-animate plush bunny as they celebrate sunbeams and a rainbow gaze into mirrors swish in a pool to show how light bends in water and point to the nighttime sky. Despite a bit of poetic license in the claim that all living things depend on light (since there are some dark-dwelling creatures that don’t) this eloquent elegant testimonial offers much to engage heads as well as hearts. “Until the stars dim I show the way. I AM LIGHT.”

How does a person survive a trauma-filled childhood to rise to the top of a scientific field?As a child to neglectful drug-addicted parents Sussillo writes that he did most of his growing up in group homes where he learned to survive amid stern houseparents and abusive housemates. Luckily for him he found joy in arcade and computer games which soon offered him opportunities to understand the inner workings of computer programs. “Computers made you like an army general or master chef” he writes. “You gave the PC carefully written recipes and it executed those recipes faithfully and without complaint forever and ever.” In adolescence he became enthralled with things he learned about from popular science magazines and television shows ideas that further fed his intellectual curiosity. His story ping-pongs from the many terrible role models in his life to the occasional angels—friends relatives and teachers—who show Sussillo how friendship love and shared interests can make life worthwhile. The author sprinkles in well-written and engaging asides on scientific topics that fascinated him as a youth such as physics coding and neuroscience and that foreshadow his career path which centers on understanding complex systems. His smarts and inquisitiveness certainly served him well and he also credits years of psychoanalysis as a key factor in becoming the person he is today. Sussillo is clear-eyed about how his tumultuous past gave him a unique perspective on the world. He writes “The very chaos that had once seemed like an insurmountable obstacle could be a source of strength resilience and especially creativity.”

The mouse who narrates this tale seems cautiously intrigued when a human parent and child (both of whom present white) move into a house where the rodents have been living under the floorboards. But the other mice are alarmed; after all they’ve all heard Uncle Rupert’s tales. People “are three THOUSAND times bigger than we are” they “make us run in wheels for their own entertainment” and they have “brightly colored fur” (this last is paired with a fresh and contemporary image depicting a trio of kids with hair dyed different hues). We follow the mice as they sneak out at night to explore the contents of the moving boxes making a mess. The next day the child sets a glass jar over a hole in the floorboard and catches the narrator. Initially scared the rodents come to the protagonist’s rescue and soon discover the child’s benevolent purpose: building a “Mouse Land” from the emptied boxes. Just as the mice are about to celebrate a menacing-looking housecat shows up sending the rodents scurrying nixing the possibility of cross-species friendship and bringing the tale to an abrupt end. Mixed-media illustrations recalling the artwork from Emily Arnold McCully’s mouse books set a cozy tone while effective use of composition and layout differentiate the human and rodent realms. The narrator’s exuberant voice marked by enthusiastic asides is endearing and images of the mice romping will enchant even the most rodent-averse.

Audrey Adams is a barista in a Brooklyn coffee shop. She can’t help but be attracted to Theo Sullivan a painfully shy customer who doesn’t remove his KN95 mask even to drink his coffee. One day Theo tries to help Audrey with an aggressive customer but the woman retaliates by ripping the mask off his face revealing a large disfiguring facial scar. Theo flees the shop and doesn’t return leaving only his sketchbook behind. A few weeks later Audrey spies him on the street and encourages him to come back. The two begin dating and quickly fall in love. Audrey had moved to New York for college after being raised by a foster mother in Tampa Florida. Now 24 she is just one semester shy of finishing her degree in electrical engineering at NYU. Theo grew up in New York. His parents divorced and while his late father was a mechanic his mother is a lawyer from a wealthy powerful family. Theo never fit in with his mother’s clan preferring to work in his father’s garage. He eventually pursued art and design instead of law school making him even more of a black sheep. Even though there are interesting opportunities for friction and conflict in Audrey and Theo’s relationship—for example class differences or their eight-year age gap—the novel’s only source of tension is Theo’s refusal to tell the story of his life-threatening accident. Harris makes several disjointed narrative decisions. The body of the novel is told exclusively from Audrey’s point of view except for a 35-page flashback of Theo’s accident. Even more unusual is a 74-page epilogue that retells most of the major plot points from Theo’s perspective which has the unfortunate effect of making this lonely broken man seem sidelined in his own story.

On the afternoon of April 18 1775 a stable boy takes off “like speed is his soul / and wind is an enemy / he can defeat.” He’s running to inform Paul Revere that British soldiers are on the march. An unnamed witness confirms the news: “Yes. / It’s true. / It’s time. / It’s now.” Revere sends two friends up a ladder to flash a message from the steeple. Two more friends help him row beneath the moon to a Charlestown dock. There Revere finds Brown Beauty—a horse loaned by his friend John Larkin—and sets off to spread the news. Meanwhile the British cross the Charles River and eventually catch Revere. In the dawn light a Lexington teen plays a tune of hope and courage something “all of us can hold.” Thomson and Henderson’s unique collaboration fractures a historical moment usually attributed to one person into a broader variety of sixteen characters. Henderson’s textured illustrations beautifully evoke the low light of the evening ride while Thomson’s fast-moving verse captures the night’s excitement. Time-stamped and written in first person each poem begins with a note of historical context then ends with a quote from a real person. The mixture of imagined dialogue and real facts necessitates further context but a helpful guide to each voice rounds out the experience.

Roz and Vin have been together for eight years but a ghastly car accident a year ago has caused what feels like an insurmountable rift in their relationship. Though Vin has taken to sleeping in the guest room Roz still hopes that time will heal this wound. Unfortunately her optimism takes a hit when she sees a lease for a new apartment on their kitchen table. When Roz literally stumbles into a figure-drawing class it becomes more than just an excuse to leave the house. She finds a small community and a kind of therapy in her art. Vin’s inevitable move-out date hangs like a dark cloud over Roz’s head and as she starts to let go he surprises her by offering to be her nude model for drawing practice. Roz’s best friend Raffi is Vin’s younger brother and he was also affected by the car accident. All three have lasting physical and emotional scars with Roz having assumed the role of caretaker while Vin and Raff healed from their more serious injuries to the detriment of her own mental health. This book is a slow burn with lots of tension in tight spaces. After all Vin and Roz still live together. Miscommunication or just the absence of communication is what leads to Roz and Vin’s issues which make it feel like they’re continually circling a drain made up of their own grief and trauma. Roz openly expresses her emotions though she struggles with admitting the seriousness of her post-traumatic stress disorder. Vin is often the opposite having difficulty clearly stating his wants and needs. Like all of Bastone’s romances this one is high in emotional turmoil but it feels particularly drawn out.

Seventh grader Olivia feels out of place. Everyone in her life is focused on crushes and relationships but she’d rather spend her time drawing and watching her favorite YouTuber. Her brother Malcolm who’s gay is prioritizing his new boyfriend; her friends are obsessed with a new social media app called KruShh; and everyone’s talking about who’s taking whom to the fall formal. The more Olivia who’s cued Black feels pressured to “like” people the more invisible she feels until she actually starts to flicker in and out of corporeality. Only tan-skinned Jules her nonbinary classmate and purple-haired white-presenting Ms. Amelia the new school librarian can consistently see and hear her. Through a book club the pair who are ace introduce Olivia to the idea that she might be aromantic and asexual. As she grapples with her identity her interpersonal relationships and her invisibility Olivia must decide if she’ll give in to allonormative peer pressure or find a way to be seen as she truly is. Burch deftly portrays the challenges of shifting middle school friendships effectively using the fantastical element of invisibility to highlight Olivia’s experience with external and internalized aro- and ace-phobia (Jules also periodically experiences invisibility). Olivia and Malcolm’s parents are enthusiastic allies.

On Washington State’s Orcas Island in 1918 18-year-old Lucy Nowhere enjoys the nature surrounding her but dreams of leaving seeing the world and attending the University of Washington. Discovered adrift in a canoe as a newborn Lucy was taken in by the wealthy reclusive shipbuilding magnate Mr. Dakon Sanders who made her a servant—and gave her an education—on his large estate which he named Nowhere. Blond blue-eyed Mr. Sanders disapproves of her going to college. He shocks Lucy with the revelation that he knew her father—and promises to tell her more if she stays. That evening she finds Mr. Sanders’ decapitated head floating in the marina and her hopes of finding answers about her identity are dashed. When it emerges that Lucy will inherit everything she realizes she must stay and uncover what’s going on. With a growing list of suspects more suspicious events occurring on the island and rumors of the involvement of the “half eagle and half fish” demon Orkus and his army of “sea wolves” Lucy must uncover secrets and find the killer before she becomes the next victim. Against a beautifully described natural setting Lee creates a dark haunting suspense-filled atmosphere with a touch of the supernatural. Combining science and myth this is an exciting story with a multiethnic cast that explores identity friendship trust and caring for nature.

Told entirely in Ruby’s voice the story centers on the young pachyderm’s uncertainties around her Tuskday ceremony: a rite of passage that celebrates the appearance of an elephant’s front teeth. In the first-person narration Ruby’s feelings—her anxieties about her emerging tusks her traumatic memories of poachers and her fears about growing up—all feel immediate. Judge’s watercolor illustrations are extraordinary capturing the emotional landscape of elephant life through body language and expressive eyes. Daytime scenes at the sanctuary where Ruby lives are bathed in warm golds and greens; vignettes focus on some of her more intimate moments. A particularly stunning nighttime spread depicts Ruby gazing at a luminous moon surrounded by her herd’s protective circle—the deep blues and silvery whites creating a sanctuary of light against darkness that mirrors the book’s central theme. The vertical lines of the trunks and soft-edged massive elephant forms work together to create a sense of visual calm and safety grounding Ruby’s emotional journey. Readers will organically absorb facts about tusks mud baths and herd behavior while also confronting deeper fears about loss and belonging. Applegate’s text may be a bit dense for the youngest listeners but it serves as an effective introduction to the characters from her One and Only novels.

While preparing for ballet class Neela spies her Indian dance clothes. She loves ballet and the new friends she’s made since moving from India but she misses the jingle of her ankle bells. They remind her of the raga her grandmother sang and the bansuri flute her uncle played—and of Kathak an Indian classical dance. At her dance studio’s annual showcase she chooses to perform a Kathak dance. It’s been a long time since she danced Kathak and she fumbles while practicing but slowly the tinkling of her ankle bells centers her. On the day of the showcase the rhythm of the bells fills her with music and she’s flooded with memories of picking fresh mangoes making garlands with aunties and drawing rangolis with loved ones in India. Neela then incorporates ballet moves into her performance as she creates a dance fusion that celebrates both her homes. Rao-Robinson’s affirming sensory-rich text flows evocatively while Prabhat’s vibrant illustrations make vivid use of shadow and gesture to capture the energy of the dance and create joyous movement.

Set seven years after Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (2025) Tsujimura’s sequel follows Ayumi the mysterious go-between as he continues his work arranging fated meetings between the living and the dead. Now a young man working as a toy designer in Tokyo Ayumi must balance his real-world and beyond-the-real-world responsibilities. More mature and capable in his role he helps five different people. An up-and-coming actor tries to set up a meeting for a friend—a familiar face from the first book—but instead reconnects with his estranged father. A museum employee wants to meet with a forgotten 16th-century historical figure who has captivated his attention. Two devastated mothers hope to meet the daughters they lost far too early—one hoping to be absolved and the other hoping to show how her grief has reshaped her life. Finally after decades of trying an elderly chef believes it’s his last chance to reconnect with the girl he loved from afar (“It’s a gift to live in the world at the same time as the person you have in your heart”). If some of the meetings feel less emotionally resonant than those in the previous novel the sequel’s biggest strength is the way it develops Ayumi’s story as he navigates more familial loss; experiences “firsts” as the go-between; and builds a relationship with the Torino family who own a small but respectable woodworking business. Drawn to them because they had worked with his father Ayumi becomes increasingly close with the father and Nao his daughter. The closer he becomes with them the more Ayumi wonders how he can find true connection while harboring a secret life. As in the first book this novel can feel repetitive at times but ultimately it’s a poignant portrayal of death life and the magical place where the two overlap.

Ernest and Juliette his fiancée and prospective partner think they’ve been invited to a meeting at Huxley’s Bank in Sydney to secure a loan that will underwrite their agency. Of course not bank director Winston Huxley informs them scornfully; he wants them to investigate the disappearance of his brother Edward Huxley the bank’s co-director who vanished two days after changing the codes necessary to open the vault. Since the bank would be ruined if Winston let the authorities know it can’t access its own resources it’s all up to Ernest with a little help and more than a little pushback from Juliette. No sooner have they settled in than a masked thief enters Huxley’s and takes everyone in the bank hostage. In a way that’s poetic justice since every single hostage—from TV producer Remy Allard to unspeaking priest Father Gabriel to gravely ill 20-year-old Cordelia Bright and Laverna Bright her grandmother and caregiver—turns out to have stolen something and at least one of them is guilty of murder too. Making throwaway deductions at a breathless pace en route to the climactic “parlour scene” Ernest who introduces himself in a flashforward that shows him locked in that vault with a limited air supply saves plenty of ratiocination for this denouement where he solves puzzles that many of his most devoted fans won’t even have recognized as puzzles at all.

And with that Clementine H. Hopeful an 11-year-old queer-coded boy living in a small Idaho town leaps from the page. Clementine’s story is part Peter Pan part Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland part Coraline and at the same time wholly unique. Gifted with a fabulous imagination and the ability to see “angels”—unusual insectlike entities—Clementine ends up on the radar of 12-year-old Beetle who goes by “Bug” another imaginative boy who seems to live by his own rules. With Bug’s friend the equally peculiar Anise and his sister Cricket in tow the foursome set out on a series of escapades learning about mermaids and “all sorts of murderous magical creatures” and visiting the moon for a sleepover. But are these adventures real? Clementine isn’t sure at first and when he eventually learns the answer it makes him wonder if it might be possible to find his missing older sister Persimmon. Like all good adventures the story is tinged with the right amount of creepy darkness and debut author Corey carefully dangles hints and suspicions which should keep fantasy-lovers enthralled as the story meanders and weaves. Most plot points are not resolved by the end—and many more questions arise in the final pages—tantalizing readers with hints of the sequel to come. Most main characters are cued white.

While making a glittery art project at school Tracy notices something strange. Odd symptoms—trouble hearing glitter and obnoxious sounds emanating from her ear—become bothersome so her parents bring her to Dr. Lewis who diagnoses her with “Acute Fantastical Impaction.” (Translation: “There’s a teeny-tiny unicorn in your ear.”) Apparently copious amounts of glitter attract these mythical creatures. When the good doctor’s interventions fail she shares a pamphlet filled with ideas and Tracy tries strategy after strategy in attempts to coax the unicorn out. Her obstructed hearing leads to hilarious misunderstandings; Mom’s suggestion of a dance party is greeted with a bemused “Pants safari?” Leist’s playful illustrations are infused with whimsical details from the scribbly fog surrounding Tracy’s curly orange mane to the unicorn free at last emerging from Tracy’s ear with a gleeful “WHEEEEEEEEEEE!” Squiggles and splashes of pink add to the magical undertones while the quirky humor gives the tale a uniquely funny flair. Tracy and her mother have paper-white skin; her father and Dr. Lewis are brown-skinned.