by Alexi Zentner
Inspired by incidents from Alexi Zentner's (The Lobster Kings) childhood, Copperhead is set in the fictional town of Cortaca, a stand-in for real-life Ithaca, N.Y. The novel's protagonist, 17-year-old Jessup Collins, lives there in a double-wide trailer with his thrice-married mother and younger sister. His stepfather, David John Michaels, has just returned from serving a four-year prison sentence for attempting to cover up his son Ricky's killing of two African American university students that began as an
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by Isha Sesay
In Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram, British journalist Isha Sesay transports readers to the remote Sambisa Forest in northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram is suspected of holding abducted schoolgirls. Through the stories of four girls and their parents, Sesay brings attention to the 276 mostly Christian students who were violently taken from their boarding school in the village of Chibok in 2014. She highlights not only their continuing plight--many
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by Timothee De Fombelle, trans. by Sam Gordon, illus. by Isabelle Arsenault
"I am Captain Rosalie. I'm disguised as a little girl, five and a half years old." Since her father is away fighting in the war, Rosalie's mother must work in the local factory while Rosalie stays at school. Every day, she huddles in the back of the classroom with her sketchpad, confident that no one realizes she is a "spy," sussing out information for her "secret mission." Rosalie is observant, noting the way her teacher, the war veteran, "smiles as though having just the one [arm] is quite something," or
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