Sarah McCoy's charming seventh novel, Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?, combines a lush, compelling story of young love and Hollywood glamour with a quiet, nourishing narrative of a woman who found her true vocation thousands of miles from stardom. McCoy (The Mapmaker's Children) explores the motivations that led a rising young starlet to abandon her career for a lifetime tending gardens--and her own soul--in the woods of Connecticut. Inspired by several real-life actresses turned nuns, including Mother Dolores Hart, McCoy's novel asks important questions about one's calling, love, and whose opinion really matters.

In 1990, Lori Lovely's niece and namesake, Lu, travels to the abbey where Lori lives to interview her aunt about her abrupt career change and her life as a nun. McCoy chronicles the young ingenue's transformation from Lucille Hickey to Lori Lovely. McCoy creates a thoroughly detailed mid-century world, as Lori goes out dancing at London nightclubs or shoots scenes in an Italian villa. In the later Hollywood scenes, the movie glitter is mixed with a hefty dose of darkness, a sharp contrast to the eventual peace of the convent and its bucolic setting.

As Lu presses her aunt for answers about her life, she unearths a few hard-won insights about her own--both her past and her uncertain post-college future. Meanwhile, Lori reflects on her life and the choices--large and small--that made her the woman she eventually became. Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely? draws the reader in with an unlikely gown-to-habit costume change, but its true appeal is in its quiet contemplation of choices, challenges, and how they shape a person's life. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a novel as expansive, funny, and poignant as its title promises. With his signature wit and irreverence, Rabih Alameddine (The Angel of History; The Wrong End of the Telescope) charts decades of Beiruti history and trauma through the life of his narrator, Raja, a reclusive, aging teacher of French philosophy.

The novel opens and closes in 2023, when Raja shares his apartment with his overbearing but deeply endearing mother, Zalfa. The bulk of its sections jump back in time: to the pre-civil-war 1960s, Lebanon's civil war in 1975, the banking collapse and Covid-19 epidemic, and Raja's ill-fated trip to the United States for an artists' residency in Virginia. Raja is a knowing, purposeful narrator, defending his story's chronological shifts: "A tale has many tails, and many heads, particularly if it's true." Self-aware and self-deprecating, Raja names himself the Gullible, the Imbecile, the Neurotic Clown, the Dimwit.

The reader learns of Raja's troubled childhood as a gay younger son, bullied by much of his family. During the civil war, in his teens, he is held captive for weeks by a schoolmate and soldier with whom he begins a sexual relationship that is part experimentation, part Stockholm syndrome. He describes his accidental path to teaching, 36 years of it; his care for his students and, even more, theirs for him will become gradually apparent. He and his mother bicker constantly, foul-mouthed but fiercely loving. Bawdy, rude, and impossibly sweet, with "a laugh so delightful, so impetuous, so luminous," Raja's mother is the indomitable star of this loving, heart-wrenching novel. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Women, Seated marks Chinese writer Zhang Yueran and notable literary translator Jeremy Tiang's third collaboration, after Ten Loves and Cocoon. Within its spare page count is an engrossing, precise exposé of the fleeting uncertainty of power and privilege in modern China, and the intricate collateral damage of potential downfall.

Yu Ling's meticulously planned spring outing with her seven-year-old charge, Kuan Kuan, is actually an impressively orchestrated kidnapping attempt to access some of Kuan Kuan's parents' impressive wealth. A breaking radio news announcement en route, however, reveals the boy's grandfather is under official investigation, which has far-reaching ramifications for the extended family. Both Kuan Kuan's parents are unreachable (for ransom or otherwise), and Yu Ling has no other option but to return to the family mansion--with a goose Kuan Kuan has acquired--even as the substantial staff has already disappeared, absconding with easily transportable valuables. Yu Ling won't abandon the child as everyone else seems to have already done. Uncertain about either of their futures, Yu Ling has little choice but to live each day, caught up in Kuan Kuan's childish needs and innocent (for now) imagination. At least in the deserted estate, she can sample some of the luxury she's only witnessed.

Zhang expertly confronts relentless social, political, economic, and gender inequity issues, blending them into a dynamic domestic drama without easy answers. Extenuating circumstances reveal people's true natures--caring, greedy, responsible, exploitative. With so much in flux, Yu Ling continues to fascinate--torn between the immediate needs of the child and a possibility of her own personal freedom. --Terry Hong

Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia's slender novel On Earth as It Is Beneath is a relentlessly brutal examination of inhumanity, translated by award-winning author Padma Viswanathan, who deftly captures Maia's unblinking, haunting prose. The titular "beneath" refers to "the enslaved people living here [who] were mostly tortured and killed"--then buried--over a century ago. After farming and livestock failures, the eponymous "earth" housed "a penal colony to serve as a model to the rest of the country, and from where not a single prisoner would ever escape."

Shortly after opening, faraway orders turn the Colony "into a place of extermination." On this cursed land, a man called Melquíades plays God, hunting prisoners on a regular schedule, "slaughtering [them] like he was slaughtering cattle." When the kill orders cease in preparation for decommissioning the property, 42 men remain, but Melquíades continues his murderous culling. For a while, the few men left believe the promised official will arrive to close the Colony and arrange their transfers elsewhere (some even to freedom). These final days are what Maia spotlights, uplifting the survivors' humanity despite their heinous pasts.

Maia unflinchingly, fearlessly exposes the hypocrisies of lazy labels: morality, rules, good, evil--none of that exists. Melquíades carries his father's Bible in his uniform pocket; prison guard Taborda blindly follows Melquíades's orders. Maia uses crisp phrasing and unadorned writing to contain the terror, as if extra words might unnecessarily prolong the inhumanity. With one man standing, she leaves readers with at least a single glimmer of hope. --Terry Hong

Tantrum is a novel to be devoured in one sitting and then pondered long after. Thea is a mother doing her best, living in the New Mexico high desert with her husband and three young children. But her baby girl is developing impossibly fast, rapidly gaining motor skills and an apparent penchant for violence, and leaving Thea wondering what, exactly, she gave birth to. Rachel Eve Moulton has written a truly strange and mesmerizing story of monstrosity and motherhood.

Moulton takes readers on a wild ride and delivers an unforgettable ending as both baby and mother develop through the story from potentially dangerous to explicitly-fanged and supernatural. Despite the next-level intensity of the novel's events and its serious underlying themes of abuse and female rage, Thea's acerbic tone lightens the mood. She spends her mornings avoiding her friendly neighbor, who speed walks with "that flappy turkey wing shit with her arms that speed walkers do, and I can tell she thinks it makes her sporty."

Moulton writes with sharp-tongued humor layered with emotional depth and honesty. The novel progressively circles Thea's childhood trauma and her damaging relationship with her own mother, exploring generational inheritance. Thea struggles with the belief that there's something deeply wrong with her and fears that her flaws might ruin the lives of her children. Tantrum poses questions about maternal guilt, depicting what happens when the monstrous thing inside one woman is finally let loose. --Carol Caley, writer

Stephanie Reents's quietly propulsive first novel, We Loved to Run, illuminates the experiences of a women's cross-country team at a small liberal arts college through the collective voices of its six top runners. Reents's narrative delves into team dynamics, body image, and the balancing act of being a student-athlete, plus the complicated feelings each team member has about running itself.

As the team plunges into an intense fall season, star runner Kristin is struggling with an experience she had over the summer, while Chloe is nudging Kristin for the top spot. Team captain Danielle is trying to keep everyone focused while hiding her own secrets, and Harriet, Liv, and Patricia are each considering their own internal challenges. All of them are weighing--sometimes literally--their constant need to go farther and faster against the limits of their abilities and the (occasional) need to rest and recover. Reents brilliantly evokes the competing priorities each girl must manage: eating enough but not too much; honing their fitness without wearing themselves out; pulling decent grades while still having a social life; and  handling everyone's expectations--their coaches', their parents', each other's, their own.

Told in a first-person-plural style, Reents's narrative examines the impossible standards young women set for themselves and sometimes impose on each other; the deep bonds of friendship complicated by competitive instincts; and the sheer exhilaration of a winning race or a satisfying workout. We Loved to Run is a sharp, bold exploration of young womanhood and a tribute to running's complex, enduring appeal. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

An 82-year-old man with cataracts and a limp is bound to be in a wistful mood. Such is the case with Nico Gamurra, the narrator of The Old Man by the Sea, a bittersweet novel by Domenico Starnone (Ties; Trick; Trust), translated from the Italian by Oonagh Stransky. Yes, the title is a reference to The Old Man and the Sea; except for a young boy Nico befriends, the stories diverge, with Starnone's achievement focused on its protagonist's reminiscences. For the past 13 days, Nico, a Neapolitan author with four children, six grandchildren, and spouses he abandoned, is renting a house by the dunes south of Rome. When he isn't walking the beach, he laments the difficulties of his writing career--"by the age of twenty, every single sentence I wrote felt like an immense burden and struggle"--and remembers his dressmaker mother, a woman so refined she'd wear her own creations and "walk out of our low-income building looking like a rich movie actress."

Precipitating his beautifully rendered memories are the people he meets at the seaside town, primarily a 24-year-old shop clerk named Lu. When he sees Lu paddling her canoe, he realizes "she's more or less the same age my mother was when my father fell in love with her." Nico's other encounters include the 60-ish owner of a high-end boutique and her husband, and other denizens. "When does desire end?" Lu asks Nico late in the book. That question imbues every element of this magnificent work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer

Elizabeth Bass Parman's charming second novel, Bees in June, follows a 20-something woman struggling to find a path forward--with a little help from her uncle's mysterious bees.

In the summer of 1969, Rennie King Hendricks is reeling from the death of her infant son and trying to manage her husband's explosive temper. Working at the local diner, Rennie rediscovers her passion for baking and starts to dream of new possibilities. But her uncle Dixon's failing health worries her, as does the presence of his handsome new neighbor, Ambrose. When Dixon's bees start sending Rennie messages, she wonders if she's losing her sanity--or if the bees (and Dixon) can help her imagine a different life.

Parman (The Empress of Cooke County) infuses her gentle narrative with Southern charm, mouthwatering descriptions of Rennie's desserts, and fabulism in the form of Dixon's bees, which glow softly as they guide Rennie and narrate brief interludes of their own throughout the book. The small town of Spark, Tenn., is filled with women who embody quiet strength, including Rennie's boss, Arden, and her cousin and best friend, May Dean. Rennie's aunt Eugenia, now deceased, also provides a model for staying true to oneself in the face of public gossip. As the town buzzes over the impending moon landing, Rennie begins to take her own small steps forward. Brimming with summer flowers, honey cake, and sweet tea, Parman's novel is a winsome portrait of a woman finding the bravery to build the life she wants. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Jo Morey takes readers deep into the hot, tangled jungles of Belize in her mesmerizing debut novel, Lime Juice Money, creating a story with a richly imagined setting and complicated family dynamics. Laelia Wylde, named after one of the orchids her father loves so dearly that he has retired to the jungle of Belize to live near them, is losing herself. Recently divorced and experiencing hearing loss after an injury, she's just been fired from her job in an upscale London kitchen following a preventable mistake. Her doctors tell her that hearing loss can cause memory issues, and her grip on facts feels tenuous, her memories fuzzy. So when her father collapses from a stroke at his own birthday celebration, it seems the obvious choice to extend her trip to Belize indefinitely, staying on to tend to her father's jungle home and making sense of the chaos she finds there.

The jungle becomes a character unto itself in Morey's care, as she brings to life "an abundance of lush self-protection, teeming with life upon life upon life. But everything rots faster in the heat." Laelia's father's isolated house is no exception; it's falling into disrepair and surrounded by danger of both human and natural varieties: snakes, betrayal, gaslighting, jaguars, greed, violence, guns, unstable men, creeping vines, secrets, and lies. Amid all this, Laelia is the best kind of unreliable narrator, uncovering long-buried secrets about her family and herself alongside readers in a well-paced and believably convoluted narrative. Lime Juice Money is a captivating story of a woman seeking the truth and coming into her own--by any means necessary. --Kerry McHugh, freelance writer

Author David Levithan (The Lover's Dictionary; Every Day) and Swedish singer-songwriter Jens Lekman combine insightful prose with artful lyrics in Songs for Other People's Weddings.

"If you ever need a stranger/ To sing at your wedding/ A last-minute choice, then I am your man/ I know every song, you name it." J's song, "If You Ever Need a Stranger (to Sing at Your Wedding)," sums up his singular career. J creates a personalized song for every couple for their wedding, and his lyrics aim to capture what makes each relationship special. His songs highlight a charming, striking, or sometimes peculiar aspect of the love and people J encounters. Songs for Other People's Weddings highlights all different types and forms of love as J sings for couples of all ages, genders, and backgrounds.

While thinking, writing, or singing about love every day, J wants the most to figure out his own love life. J and his girlfriend V have shared witty banter and maintained a steady relationship for two years. But V's sudden move to New York for work adds distance, tension, and uncertainty to their relationship. With every day that passes without V, J tries to understand what love really is and how to navigate the obstacles separating him and V. Songs for Other People's Weddings is a celebration of love, but it doesn't fail to recognize the bittersweet, messy, and heartbreaking moments that come with it. Levithan's story and Lekman's songs join in beautiful harmony to describe, question, and dissect love. --Clara Newton, freelance reviewer

The Containment Zone is anything but a normal neighborhood. The compound, center of Zones A, B, and C, is where zombies are contained. Nearly 20 years ago Edie Brandstrup hid in the attic of her home while her parents died fighting off zombies in the First Breach. Now, no alarm sounds, but judging by the one running toward her, the zombies have escaped once again.

While attempting to warn her neighbor Chad, Edie fights a zombie using only a burrito to defend herself, resulting in Chad coming to her rescue instead. Confused by her ever-mysterious neighbor's strikingly calm reaction, Edie begrudgingly takes shelter in Chad's underground bunker. But things get even weirder. Edie discovers that Chad--whose real name is Gaston Maxime "Max" Boucher--is actually a super old (and super sexy) vampire. Failed attempts to reach the Containment Zone hotline to warn the other residents leave Edie with no choice but to alert others herself. Max, not wanting her to go alone, insists on joining her.

Olivia Dade's wickedly funny writing creates a remarkable and enticingly entertaining cast of characters in Zomromcom. Edie's uber-friendly personality and body-positivity draw in Max and others they meet on their journey. Dade offsets high stakes with hilarious moments, nods to pop culture, and extra scintillating intimate moments. As Edie and Max begin to uncover what caused the second breach and how they might be able to stop it, they wonder if they can make it out alive, and with each other. --Clara Newton, freelance reviewer

Raymond Antrobus's first nonfiction book, The Quiet Ear, takes up the themes of his poetry--being deaf and mixed-race, losing his father, becoming a parent--and threads them into an outstanding memoir that integrates his disability and celebrates his role models.

Even with hearing aids, Antrobus (All the Names Given; Signs, Music) explains, he catches just 60% of conversations; the rest he must fill in. He was diagnosed with high-frequency deafness at age seven. "My superpower has become lip-reading and perfecting my listening face." What has he been missing? What has he gained in return? These questions drive the touching exploration of his coming to terms with Deaf identity.

The several strands of inquiry include his family history (a Jamaican father experiencing alcoholism; a matrilineal lineage of English painters and ministers), the development of deaf education (Thomas Braidwood opened the U.K.'s first deaf school in Hackney, London--where Antrobus grew up--in 1783), and teachers and Deaf public figures who have inspired him, such as singer Johnnie Ray. He recounts his hobbies of competitive swimming and performance poetry, and early dead-end jobs. As a teenager and young adult, he felt so ashamed that he would leave his hearing aids out and eschew sign language. Now, he recognizes his good fortune to have "lived between the deaf and hearing worlds" and earned not just "an art, a history, a culture" but "much hard-won strength and insight."

This frank, fluid memoir of finding one's way as a poet illuminates the literal and metaphorical meanings of sound. --Rebecca Foster, freelance reviewer, proofreader and blogger at Bookish Beck

Debut author Karleigh Frisbie Brogan has written a remarkably assured memoir with Holding, an account of her addiction and recovery that reads like a beautiful mosaic of broken glass: sharp, painful, and filled with glints of light.

Uncomfortable in her own skin from an early age and craving warmth from her emotionally distant mother, Brogan found the comfort she craved with heroin after begging her boyfriend, Dale, already a user, to inject her. Full-blown addiction followed soon after. At 20, Brogan and Dale moved into his parents' Northern California home. They intended to stay for a couple of months but lived there for two years. Along the way, Brogan developed a complicated relationship with Dale's mother, Glorianne, whom she came to love but also stole from and lied to constantly. Brogan's addiction worsened, as did the situations she found herself in trying to finance it. Brogan hit several rock bottoms before finally beginning her circuitous but ultimately successful path to recovery.

The quality of Brogan's prose and her deep understanding of her addiction and her own human condition make Holding a standout among similarly themed memoirs. She is frank and insightful about how much she loved her drug of choice and how it enabled her to disconnect from her need for anything else. Her descriptions of shooting up, working as a sex worker, and betraying her loved ones are as lyrical and exquisitely wrought as they are hard to read. That she survived and went on to thrive is a testament to her resilience, and that she was able to create this art from her experience is readers' good fortune. --Debra Ginsberg, author and freelance editor

In June of 1985, a small private plane, a Piper Cub, crashed on its owner's property in northern Georgia. The pilot, Lamar Chester, was killed. His only passenger, his five-year-old daughter, AJ, sustained severe injuries but lived. In death, Lamar escaped prosecution as a marijuana smuggler. His widow, hoping to protect her child, removed the young AJ from the life she'd known, isolating them from family and friends who had been involved in the smuggling business. AJ grew up to be Artis Henderson (Unremarried Widow), and her eventual readiness to examine the truth of her father's life, their brief but loving relationship, and his end has resulted in No Ordinary Bird: Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth, which combines investigation and personal excavation in a searing, moving memoir.

From their few years together, Henderson remembers her father as loving and beloved, and deeply charismatic, although his attitudes toward women in particular appear problematic through a modern lens. She's thoughtful about such judgments, and careful in considering her father's upbringing as a factor in his life. And a wild life it was, with a colorful career as a pilot, smuggler, and ostentatious party boy in 1970s Miami. Lamar became involved in ever-more-risky ventures, until he faced federal prosecution and the plane crash that killed him.

Henderson's work is investigatory and personal. No Ordinary Bird is both research-based inquiry--involving travel to Miami, Georgia, Colombia, Nicaragua, Iran, and beyond--and also a memoir of family, love, and risk. Henderson excels at the subtlety required by such a story, and her telling is intriguing, painful, and cathartic. --Julia Kastner, blogger at pagesofjulia

Prominent influencer Lee Tilghman, better known as @LeeFromAmerica, was one of the first successful influencers when the term itself was still new. Tilghman once earned nearly $300,000 a year through her Instagram feed of pictures of beautiful salads and smoothie bowls. She stepped away after increasingly critical comments on her posts severely impacted her mental health. Followers accused her of overcharging for workshops, illegally picking California poppies and posting about it, and more. In her tell-all memoir, If You Don't Like This, I Will Die, Lee documents not only the beginning and eventual downfall of her influencer career but also shares personal stories of disordered eating and substance abuse that occurred behind the camera.

Although it is unlikely to win over readers who were already critical of Tilghman and her online persona, If You Don't Like This, I Will Die is nonetheless a fascinating memoir about a distinct era in social-media culture. Readers who witnessed the inception of influencer and Internet wellness cultures in the mid to late 2010s will enjoy the peek Tilghman offers in an honest and straightforward way. Readers will see the behind the scenes of what brand deals looked like, and how much PR and gifts an influencer can receive.

Tilghman's Instagram posts and selected follower comments are scattered throughout, adding context for readers unfamiliar with the platform or with Tilghman's account, showing both the seeds of the now-ubiquitous influencer lifestyle and her unfiltered reaction to criticisms. While influencing and wellness cultures have evolved since Tilghman's heyday, If You Don't Like This shows their origins in an engaging, if sometimes enraging, manner. --Alyssa Parssinen, freelance reviewer and former bookseller

In Anatomy of a Con Artist: The 14 Red Flags to Spot Scammers, Grifters, and Thieves, Johnathan Walton recounts his friendship with the charismatic Mair Smyth, who he thought was an Irish heiress until she stole his life savings and shattered his peace of mind. This harrowing experience and his long quest for justice inspired in Walton a new calling to help victims of fraud. Here, he offers critical relationship red flags to watch out for, guidance on what to do if one has been scammed, and tips on "pitching" a criminal case to the police.

Reality TV producer Walton hosts the popular true-crime podcast Queen of the Con. Each of the real-life stories he features in this book contains multiple red flags; if the victims knew to look for these warning signals, they might have prevented the fraud. When in doubt, Walton advises, a basic Internet search with a consumer background-check service is a good starting point.

Walton delves into the fascinating psychology of con artists, explaining how they use emotions to gain entry into their targets' lives. They don't "outsmart" their marks; instead, they "out-feel" them by making them care deeply about the con artist or their cause. Professional scammers can even be someone a victim has known their entire life, as in a case Walton recounts of a 50-something IT professional who was defrauded out of $365,000 by a high school friend.

Walton is an engaging storyteller, and his tools for spotting potential con artists are priceless resources because, ultimately, these dishonest individuals "don't just take your money, they take a piece of your soul." --Shahina Piyarali

Since the discovery of a piece of a finger bone in a Siberian cave in 2010, the story of how humans populated the earth has undergone a significant change, ultimately revealing an entirely unknown group of hominins--the Denisovans--related but distinct from both Neanderthals and Sapiens.

In The Secret World of Denisovans, paleoanthropologist Silvana Condemi and Pour la Science (the French edition of Scientific American) journalist François Savatier present a compelling investigation into details of the Denisovans' emergence and their contributions to the scientific understanding of human history. The authors meticulously piece together genetic analysis, archeological evidence, and comparative studies with Neanderthals and early modern humans, illustrating the physical ways (such as their teeth) in which they differed from other early humans, and their interesting genetic legacy in modern human populations, most particularly in Asia and Oceania.

Condemi and Savatier explore with insight and depth the implications of Denisovans interbreeding with Neanderthals and Sapiens, challenging previous understandings of human migration and interaction. The Secret World also delves into the daily lives of the Denisovans, drawing inferences from the sparse archeological record to paint a picture of the ways they used tools, their hunting strategies, and their other adaptations to the environment.

Beyond the scientific revelations and debates, The Secret World of the Denisovans conveys the sense of excitement and intellectual detective work that underpins paleoanthropology. It's an excellent read for anyone with an interest in human evolution, genetics, or simply a good scientific mystery. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.

The title of Jane Morton's Shedding Season insists upon change, evoking the idea in both the cyclical nature of a season and in the shedding of one's skin, like a snake. The poems in Morton's beguiling collection similarly insist on the idea of evolution, of one thing unwittingly becoming another. In "Tiktaalik," she uses the 375-million-year-old fossil of a creature somewhere between a fish and a four-legged animal to make the concept concrete, saying, "we know/ only what we have// become: the eaters of flesh./ We are famished./ We swallow whole all things// we don't know, a slow digestion/ of the self." Hunger, too, and desire--these all sound like an alarm throughout Morton's work, a confident debut from a poet unafraid to use language like a sharpened blade.

In the first "Snake Lore" (there are three poems with this title, one in each section), the poem's speaker likens her body to a snake: "Now watch: I'll open up/ past the edges, unhinge// from my body like a snake's jaws." But the desire captured here does not feel rooted in pleasure; instead, fear and pain live inside it, just as they live inside so many of the poems. Morton draws heavily upon nature, but she is no pastoral poet, urging readers toward some peaceable kingdom. Instead, the natural world is held close, a suffocating, menacing thing--the cut of a thistle, the peck of a rooster, the venomous bite of a cottonmouth. Like desire itself, the poems stretch out in wanting, Morton tapping into something hard and true like a stone. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian

Sixth graders get a taste of college life in Schooled, an insightful and absorbing coming-of-age middle-grade novel by Jamie Sumner (Roll with It).

Six months ago, 11-year-old Lenny's mom died of skin cancer. Since then, Lenny and his dad, Professor Benjamin Syms, have struggled to navigate their relationship. Now, they are moving from New Jersey to Lewis Hall on the campus of Arrington University in Tennessee, where his dad teaches. At the college Lenny attends the experimental "Copernican School," composed entirely of four other sixth graders who are the children of Arrington faculty. The classes and "hippie-dippie meetings"--which include subjects like philosophy and group visualization--are led by the kids' parents. As can be expected from a school with no chairs, tables, or desks, the teachers "aren't here to hand you the answers"--Lenny and his classmates are expected to take charge and lead their own studies. Lenny does form tentative friendships and learn about topics that interest him, but he also struggles with his grief and finding his place in a lonely world.

Schooled is a fascinating exploration of education, sorrow, and the tensions of adolescence. Lenny loves the freedom his mostly unsupervised education allows, but despite the school's lofty goals, Lenny and the other kids all still struggle. Sumner brilliantly imagines a caring alternate educational path yet highlights the universal nature of insecurity and stress; Schooled is a heartfelt reminder that growing up can be painful but, luckily, it doesn't have to be done alone. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer

Shannon Hale, whose Real Friends graphic memoir series (illustrated by LeUyen Pham) has sold more than two million copies, collaborates with illustrator Marcela Cespedes for the first time to introduce Cassie Carpenter, an imaginative and upbeat girl, in the satisfying and spirited middle-grade graphic novel, Dream On.

It is 1984, and Cassandra "Cassie" Lucinda Carpenter usually sees the bright side of everything. But as one of six auburn-haired kids, getting Mom and Dad's attention feels impossible. Worse, her best friend Vali, the sole person who "really gets" Cassie, has befriended Stesha, a girl in their grade who calls Cassie and Vali's pretend fairyland fun "a baby game." When a magazine sweepstakes form arrives in the mail with promises of grand prizes (a waterbed, a VHS player, a 15" color TV), Cassie fills it out, imagining everyone will go crazy over her winnings. Instead of fabulous prizes, though, Cassie gets teased by Stesha, ignored by Vali, called "sensitive" by her family, and a subscription bill for $19.95.

Hale's remarkably relatable, comforting graphic novel fantastically captures that confusing time in childhood when kids transition to older play. Cespedes, with colors by Lark Pien, illustrates Cassie's beautiful imagination through curvy-lined panels that overlap and break into the "real life" grid of neatly lined panels; Cassie's emotional lows are made exceptionally clear by Pien's use of angry reds, sad blues, and lonely grays. Cassie knows she has big emotions but also loves "that wonder feeling" born of her sensitivity. Dream On is a luminous reminder that feeling things strongly also means truly enjoying the good parts. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer

For Latinos and Hispanic people across the world, El Cucuy is a shadowy monster who will eat young children whole if they don't listen to their parents. In The Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy, the titular creature is one of many, this one rendered as a monster-in-training: a cute, tiny, and fanged furball on his first mission to scare a boy who won't go to bed. Ramón, new to Seattle, however, is more scared of his first day of school than any monsters hiding under his bed. Newberry Award-winner Donna Barba Higuera (The Last Cuentista) balances literal potty humor and deep emotional resonance in this charming chapter book dotted with Spanish phrases and brimming with cultural appreciation.

El Cucuy, unable to scare the boy at bedtime, joins Ramón at school to learn what the child finds scary. Higuera's convincing world, where cucos and cucas revel in the stinky, rotten, and horrible, uses the monster's perspective to hilarious effect. "On the teacher's desk at the front of the room sat a vase filled with bright yellow... flowers! What a dump!" It's these silly moments that bring levity to the parallel narratives of new kid Ramón and the inexperienced Cucuy, both of whom are searching for a place to belong in worlds they don't quite understand. Together Ramón and El Cucuy find the courage to face the unknown and try something new.

Juliana Perdomo illustrates Higuera's whimsical scenes with a black, white, and purple palette and a scratchy line, depicting both fearsome monsters and giggle-worthy activities. Both text and illustration find a comfortable harmony between silly and sweet in this charming book that feels tailor-made for--what else?--bedtime. --Luis G. Rendon

A fantastical tale of empathy, Victor and the Giant by Rafael Yockteng (Lion and Mouse, with Jairo Buitrago) imagines what happens when a city-sized giant takes an ill-placed nap. Victor's day begins quietly with "milky hot chocolate" and his mother sprinting out the door to work. Once he is alone, a sudden quake sends Victor to the window; there he discovers a giant sprawled across his ruined city, "having a peaceful nap." The colossal giant, green and hairy, dominates the landscape, his groin modestly veiled by clouds. Victor remains calm. He downs his cocoa, marches into the wreckage, and tugs on a nose hair to wake the slumbering giant.

Rather than cowering, Victor questions the giant: "Why did you eat the whole city?" He patiently explains that a city is for living in, not for snacking on. Yockteng uses humor rooted in exaggeration and absurdity to deliver visual gags (a city recovered via giant vomit) and emotional weight (Victor's tears when he misses his mother). The illustrations play inventively with scale: one dramatic spread shows Victor dwarfed in a ruined landscape, a swirl of tornadoes and the curve of the giant's body engulfing the scene.

Victor is an unforgettable protagonist, small but unshaken, practical, and compassionate. Yockteng's text, smoothly translated from the Spanish by Elisa Amado, strikes a balance between the surreal and the sincere. There's humor in the gross-out moments, but readers will also recognize the quiet bravery it takes to speak truth to power, even when that power has nose hairs the size of tree trunks. --Julie Danielson

The Blue Velvet Chair combines eloquent language with cozy illustrations to deftly convey a child's view of the world outside their window, perceived from the comfort of a favorite chair.

When a Black child wakes in the morning, the first thing they do is "streeeeetch [their] arms up beside [their] ears and climb the blue velvet chair" located by a window in the living room. Today, it's winter in the city, and the child sees white snow, brown branches, and their own "tiny cloud" of breath on glass. Sometimes it's spring and "the roof across the street is wet with rain." Sometimes a "black cat licks its paws"; other times, people are dancing. When the glass is warm, "that's summer." In autumn, the trees in the garden "turn orange and yellow and make crunchy piles," but the "roof across the street is quiet." As day winds down, the child stretches their arms up beside their ears and imagines "all the little ways the world might change tomorrow."

Poet and picture book author Rio Cortez (Golden Ax; The ABCs of Women's History) writes a flowing text that is a pleasing tumble of child-friendly musings. Sensory descriptions emphasizing the variable nature of the outside world tenderly express the message that time is always changing, and so are we. In Aaron Marin's sophomore work of picture book illustration (Amoya Blackwood Is Brave) he uses fully saturated colors with few outlines to highlight the warmth of the home and the closeness of its family. The Blue Velvet Chair offers an excellent excuse to snuggle up with a loved one for storytime or some world-watching. --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author