by Esteban Rodriguez
The moving vignettes in Esteban Rodríguez's ninth poetry collection, The Lost Nostalgias, contrast the hardships and accomplishments in his Mexican American family's history.
Looking back on his Texas upbringing, Rodríguez (Lotería) feels a mixture of pride and shame. "Tongue" notes how, as a teenager, he was critical of his parents' occasional difficulties with the English language ("esplain," "breatheded"). He wishes he had been more tolerant, of his mother in particular: "I should have
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by Jihyun Kim, trans. by Polly Lawson
Korean author/artist Jihyun Kim exquisitely transforms a child's ordinary morning into an appreciative meditation in Blue Sky Morning, her second picture book, following her wordless 2022 debut, The Depth of the Lake and the Height of the Sky. Here Kim adds narrative text, gently translated by accomplished polyglot Polly Lawson.
Unlike most mornings, "you're not in a hurry today." A voice rings out over the neighborhood, the leaves just beginning to reveal fall colors: "Wake up, Eunny! It's a beautiful, blue
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by Sister Monica Clare
Five-year-old Claudette Powell, watching The Nun's Story on TV, announced to her horrified mother, "That is what I want to do." In A Change of Habit, her inspiring, detailed memoir, Sister Monica Clare (Powell's saint's name) describes her circuitous, determined path to the convent, from her Southern Baptist roots through years of detours that never derailed her dream.
"I spent the first forty-six years of my life convinced I was on the wrong path. Everywhere I went I felt like a fish climbing a tree. But
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by Pablo Cartaya
Darkness, grief, and generational trauma are carefully probed in Pablo Cartaya's audacious and fascinating Rubik's Cube of a novel, A Hero's Guide to Summer Vacation. Cartaya's format contains layers of stories within stories and clever parallels that combine to create a daring and sophisticated middle-grade read.
Thirteen-year-old Gonzalo Alberto Sánchez García "never considered himself to be the hero of his own story." After his father died at the beginning of seventh grade, the year passed
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by Eliza Reid
As Iceland's first lady from 2016 to 2024, Canada-born Eliza Reid (Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World) was a bridge between two nations. In her first novel in a planned series, Death on the Island, an old-school mystery so gratifyingly bendy it delivers multiple twists, Canadian-Icelandic relations could really use her unifying spirit.
One not-so-dark and stormy night, a small Canadian delegation of diplomats are attending a private dinner at an upscale
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by Morgan Dick
The premise of Favorite Daughter, Morgan Dick's debut novel, is an uncomfortable one. Mickey's absent, alcoholic father dies and unexpectedly leaves her a large sum of money, with a catch: she must complete seven therapy sessions to get the funds. The session vouchers he's left her take her to a specific therapist, Arlo, who is grieving the loss of her own father--who just so happens, unbeknownst to either of them, to be Mickey's father also.
As their sessions unfold, their web of interconnectedness becomes
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