Black Bear: A Story of Siblinghood and Survival

by Trina Moyles

Trina Moyles's stunning second memoir, Black Bear, is an exploration of the fraught connection between humans and bears, and a tender account of her complex relationship with her brother.

Moyles (Women Who Dig) probes the complicated bond humans share with black bears. Moyles's interest in the black bear grew when she spent several seasons as a fire lookout in the Albertan boreal forest. As she watched the nearby forest for smoke, she began to identify and eventually develop relationships with several black

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Beth Is Dead

by Katie Bernet

Young adult literature has no shortage of riffs on Louisa May Alcott's classic Little Women. The best of these converse fluently with Alcott's novel while adding new perspectives that seem essential. Katie Bernet's audacious debut, Beth Is Dead, is an astonishingly successful addition to their ranks.

The 21st-century-set novel opens as Jo and Amy March find the body of their sister Beth near the house of Jo's friend and Amy's clandestine hook-up, Laurie. Bernet nimbly moves among the POVs of all four March

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Casanova 20: Or, Hot World

by Davey Davis

For some folks, beauty is like Halloween candy: great while it lasts, but it leaves a wistful feeling when it's gone. If only beauty--and good health--were as easy to replenish as a candy dish. That's what the protagonists of Davey Davis's graceful novel Casanova 20 discover, with heartbreaking brutality. California native Adrian has a problem many people might kill for: he's astonishingly beautiful. As a kid, all that beauty yielded attention from strangers that included "amorous postcards, billets-doux,

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The Queen of Swords

by Jazmina Barrera, trans. by Christina MacSweeney

Mexican author/publisher Jazmina Barrera and translator Christina MacSweeney reunite for a fourth lauded collaboration, Queen of Swords, winner of the independent bookseller-selected Cercador Prize for translated literature. Barrera originally intended to produce "a modest biographical essay" on Mexican writer, playwright, screenwriter, and poet Elena Garro (1916-1998), but instead "spent two years, six months, and two days" creating this hybrid, genre-defying biography/memoir, as delightful as it is disturbing.

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Diagnosis Detectives: Tummy Trouble

by Ben Elcomb, illus. by Terri Po

A tiny, powerful investigative team of body cells uncover the mystery of a young girl's gastrointestinal illness in Tummy Trouble, the first title in Ben Elcomb and Terri Po's delightfully engrossing nonfiction picture book series Diagnosis Detectives.

When healthy Sophia least expects it, evil Queen Tox ("Antigen team: Flu virus") attacks, leaving Sophia curled up on the couch in distress. The detective cells--including immune system members neutrophil, T-cell, B-cell, and monocyte--are assembled in the Gastric

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Persephone's Curse

by Katrina Leno

Katrina Leno (Summer of Salt) lyrically brings together the hallmarks of myth, gothic narratives, and the enduring bildungsroman of Little Women in Persephone's Curse, a retelling of the Persephone legend that takes place in a spellbound New York City.

The Farthing sisters are descendants of Persephone and know their lineage is a gift: Bernadette, the eldest, is a talented writer; Evelyn, the second eldest, is an excellent musician; Clara, the youngest, paints beautifully; and Winnie, the third, can see the

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