The Brightness

by Chad Harbach

Happy news for anyone who enjoys getting riled up over novels about hot-button issues: that fight-or-flight response will skyrocket thanks to The Brightness, Chad Harbach's excellent follow-up to 2011's The Art of Fielding. Like John Irving, Harbach is a maximalist whose specialty is to serve up a literary feast, with multiple characters and intersecting storylines over more than 600 pages. For this sophomore novel, Harbach returns to Wisconsin's fictional Westish College. College baseball players Mike Schwartz

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Monsters of Ohio

by John Scalzi

"Rabbits don't do existential," but even the rabbits know something deeply weird is going on in John Scalzi's imaginative, adventurous Monsters of Ohio. Scalzi (When the Moon Hits Your Eye; The Kaiju Preservation Society) is the king of irreverent, humorous novels with a science fiction flair, and Monsters of Ohio is no exception.

The new administration forced Mike Boyd into a deferred resignation from the USDA. Since jobs in Washington, D.C., are scarce these days, he heads back home to Richland, Ohio, where

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Tyrant Lizard Queen: The Love, Life, and Terror of Earth's Greatest Carnivore

by Riley Black

Riley Black (The Last Days of the Dinosaurs) immerses readers in the prehistoric world of the Tyrannosaurus rex in Tyrant Lizard Queen. Black introduces Snaggletooth, or "Snag," as she first gains consciousness and begins to hatch from her egg, then follows Snag's life: playing with her nestmates, being sent out on her own into the world, making a frenemy, and, finally, laying her own first clutch of eggs. Purposefully eschewing the tendency to default to male pronouns, especially for large carnivores, Black

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The Polar Bear Day

by Park Jihee

The Polar Bear Day, a sublimely executed, wordless debut picture book by Park Jihee, describes a gentle, wonder-filled imaginary friendship and reveals an environmental message through subtle visual hints.

A child plays alone until a polar bear knocks at the door. The child--of course--invites the bear in and the pair shares some sweetly mischievous playtime. When the kid's caregiver comes home, the bear quietly hides out of sight. After the adult tucks the little one into bed, the child and bear snuggle and

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Poppy

by Kevin Henkes

A 10-year-old budding artist navigates changes in her family over an eventful holiday break from school in the quietly powerful slice-of-life chapter book Poppy, written and illustrated by Caldecott Medal and Newbery Honor recipient Kevin Henkes (Still Sal).

Youngest Miller sibling Poppy is "glowing inside... as if she had a firefly in her chest and it was pulsing with flashes of light": her big brother, Billy, a college freshman, is coming home for Thanksgiving. She wants the world to stay the way it was

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Thirst

by Darren Simpson

A teen discovers the horrifying truth behind his town's healing river in Thirst, a disturbing, highly immersive YA horror novel from U.K. author Darren Simpson, makin his North American debut.

Every year the people of Maimsbury sacrifice an animal to the River Yeelde. In turn, the Yeelde will "guide boats and tend to springs," allowing Maimsbury wealth and safety far surpassing that of neighboring towns. Fourteen-year-old Gorse wishes the river would bring back his friend, Burdock, who disappeared five years

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