Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry

by Ada Limón

At the close of her term as the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate, Ada Limón (The Hurting Kind; You Are Here) delivered a final lecture at the Library of Congress on April 17, 2025. Published in book form (and dedicated to former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, "who is the best of us"), Against Breaking: On the Power of Poetry is an invocation and invitation. Limón calls on poets such as Lucille Clifton and Mary Oliver and William Butler Yeats as she attempts to "do at least one thing: make a case

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We (the People of the United States)

by Joshua Bennett

To hear Joshua Bennett's spoken-word poetry performed is to feel something erupt inside the structure and syllable of language. It is a conflagration, each line thrusting errant sparks into the air and threatening to ignite. That same energy and rhythm live in We (the People of the United States), a book-length work in two parts that searches for "the self not mine but ours," a line from A.R. Ammons in the epigraph.

The first section, "We," features a slim six poems about family, a familiar form of "we." In

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Names and Faces: A Graphic Memoir

by Leise Hook

In the nine interlinked sections of her thought-provoking, poignant debut graphic memoir, Names and Faces, Leise Hook grapples with "what it means to have a mixed identity in a world that insists on its impossibility."

Hook beautifully marries the verbal and visual representation of her internal struggle, using predominant shadings of blue and salmon pink, with full-color renderings reserved for flashbacks or moments of clarity. In the introduction, she sets the stage for the tug-of-war within, a U.S.-born

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A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic: Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm

by Philip C. Stead

Author/illustrator Philip Stead (A Sick Day for Amos McGee; The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine) makes his first solo excursion into middle-grade with an enchanting work of nonsense so grand it requires 24 morals. And 24 goats.

At six years old, orphan Bernadette was "plucked... from the side of the road" by the Royal Hiring Committee "to feed and water" the 24 goats holding up the king's castle. Though Bernadette believes she is not "capable of anything unexpected" of her, she is kind, inventive, and works

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Mousestache Moosestache

by Rowboat Watkins

Mousestache Moosestache by Ezra Jack Keats Award-winner Rowboat Watkins (Rude Cakes; Go-Go Guys) is a delightfully rhythmic, rib-tickling picture book about a mouse and a moose who together encounter an abundance of zany facial hair.

Readers meet Mousestache, a tiny gray mustachioed mouse, and Moosestache, a gargantuan brown moose with a thick black 'stache, as they bow down to each other in salutation ("How do you DO-stache?"). What follows is a cyclical series of spreads with comic-style vignettes, each

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Girl Reflected in Knife

by Anica Mrose Rissi

Girl Reflected in Knife is a psychologically harrowing YA novel that follows a vulnerable teen as she navigates a breakup and the grief-fueled disassociation that ensues.

Seventeen-year-old white Destiny Black has "never been lucky in anything"--her mother has a history of addiction, she's suffered abuse, and a childhood "game of make-believe" as a trauma response "crossed from survival mechanism into full-blown delusion," landing her in psychiatric treatment. Destiny expects more of the same when her recently

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