A softened primary palette reflects the gentle nature of this picture book about two brothers facing and overcoming back-to-school anxieties. Pip is starting first grade; he’s worried that his little brother, Archie, won’t need him... Read More

In the charming graphic novel Time Buddies, a spin-off from the Cat Ninja series, a schoolboy and a talking owl traverse millennia. On a museum field trip, Bentley is fascinated by hieroglyphics and sees one image that resembles him. In... Read More

Influenced by Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Zackary Vernon’s novel "Our Bodies Electric" is a story of self-discovery set on Pawley’s Island, South Carolina, in the early 1990s. The book begins the summer before sixth grade, when... Read More

A startling examination of eight influential Supreme Court cases, "The Supreme Court Footnote" describes the increasing importance of footnotes in signaling the justices’ thinking and direction. This astute book covers Peter Charles... Read More

N. S. Nuseibeh’s "Namesake" is a brilliant collection of essays threaded together by reflections on an early Muslim warrior. Nuseibeh’s family members believe they are direct descendants of Nusaybah bint Ka’ab, one of the first... Read More

A girl becomes enchanted by American modernist painter Florine Stettheimer in this picture book for budding creatives. On a visit to a museum, the girl is drawn to the Stettheimer self-portrait, whom she bears a resemblance to; she later... Read More

A woman learns about her frightening family connection to gods and demons in L. B. Hazelthorn’s novel "Rare Birds". Rom knows almost nothing about her grandfather, Jasper, save that he was obsessed with the supernatural—or... Read More

Matthew L. Harris’s exposé of one religion’s role in US race relations, "Second-Class Saints" covers an ill-understood episode in Mormon history. The book charts the history of Mormonism’s infamous “priesthood ban,” a... Read More