Middle school crushes, competitive sports games, and teenage shenanigans play out on Jupiter’s ice moon Europa in Myles Christensen’s "Frozen Secrets". Thirteen-year-old Max and his family move to Europa for his father’s job.... Read More

Video gamers as environmental activists? Alenda Y. Chang doesn’t think it’s as counterintuitive as it sounds. In her trenchant and wide-ranging "Playing Nature", she analyzes the potential of gaming’s huge audience to become nimble... Read More

Amid the phantasmagorical developments of Marian Womack’s "The Golden Key", which include spiritualism, changelings, and cracked doors between worlds, a parable against privilege arises. At the turn of the twentieth century, three... Read More

Mark Rader’s "The Wanting Life" is a cross-generational novel focused on happiness, fulfillment, and love. Father Paul Novack is dying. Foregoing chemotherapy, he’s resigned to letting the cancer run its course. He and his sister,... Read More

Math class is the stuff of nightmares. The unfortunate fact is that all too many youngsters fear their math teachers as much as the monster under the bed—or maybe those students imagine their math teachers under the bed all along.... Read More

In Benjamin Markovits’s novel "Christmas in Austin", the Essinger family gathers for the holidays, its siblings traveling from England and the East Coast back to Texas, where festive lights twinkle amid agave plants and the air smells... Read More

Will McGough’s irreverent memoir "Swim, Bike, Bonk" is about surviving the Ironman triathlon. The Ironman involves 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and 26.2 miles of running. It is an epic race attempted by only the most... Read More

Matthew L. Schuerman’s measured "Newcomers" examines gentrification and how it impacts cities for good and ill. Terms are defined with care in the text, which argues that new people moving into older urban neighborhoods don’t create... Read More