Part of what makes "Sudden Spring" so compelling is that Rick Van Noy is not a scientist who studies climate change; rather, he writes from the perspective of a curious, concerned citizen who wants to understand its impact. With a... Read More

Jennie Liu’s "Girls on the Line" is a gut-wrenching story of sisterhood and perseverance. Early 2000s China, in the throes of family planning policies and massive industrialization, isn’t kind to orphaned girls like Luli and Yun, who... Read More

Red Dove is the adolescent heroine of this thoughtful historical novel for middle grade readers set in the Dakota Territory in 1890-91. She is the daughter of a white settler and a Lakota Sioux mother, though she and her half-brother... Read More

Actual events from the life of famed cartoonist Winsor McCay are combined with fantasy and science fiction elements to create a unique hybrid in the graphic novel "McCay". Winsor McCay is revered among fans of comic strips, perhaps best... Read More

In "Out of the Woods", Julia Corbett writes about nature and the environment around her with a sense of wonder but also a kind of self-reflective melancholy. She recognizes, for example, that despite seeing and hearing the birds in her... Read More

"Without Jenny" is a heart-wrenching depiction of a parent persisting after the loss of her child. Mark Gunther’s devastating novel "Without Jenny" traverses five years of a mother’s grieving, gracefully portraying a family’s... Read More

A troubled young boy is sent to his grandmother’s seaside cottage for a summer of reflection in Heather T. Smith’s Ebb & Flow, an emotionally charged YA verse novel that explores the corrosive nature of grief and regret alongside... Read More

Full of sorrow and longing, Adam Garnet Jones’s "Fire Song" is a beautifully written story about self-discovery and navigating the difficult path between dreams and responsibility. Shane is an Anishinaabe teenager from Ontario torn... Read More