"Sammy’s Monsterous Thoughts" is a positive picture book in which a young inventor works through her toughest challenge yet. In Derek Pedersen’s charming picture book "Sammy’s Monsterous Thoughts", a young inventor entertains... Read More

We can convince ourselves that we know Midwestern soil, a stream bank, the stillness of a cedar fence post, but Ted Kooser shows otherwise in this collection of eighteen poems, his fifteenth collection. He is a Pulitzer Prize winner,... Read More

In Michael Daley’s novel "Telémachus", a painter seeks to learn about Mac, the father who abandoned him. This update of the tale of Ulysses’s left-behind son includes a flight from accountability, a heroic cycle, and testimonies... Read More

Fans of the bestselling Italian novelist Elena Ferrante will delight in her new collection of eloquent, revelatory essays about what motivates (and bedevils) her as a writer. These Ferrante lectures, commissioned by the University of... Read More

Cobbling together the story of a place from local lore, fairy tale remnants, and natural memories, Irene Solà’s novel "When I Sing, Mountains Dance" is intoxicating. Homesteads dot a mountain high in the Pyrenees, climbing up to a... Read More

Inspired by actual family travels, Kellie McIntyre’s "The Passport Project" follows the adventures of a five-month international family trip with ebullience. Sisters Delaney and Riley are going into the seventh and eighth grades. They... Read More

A young boy carves a path through grief in this moving picture book. The color scheme is simple to complement the complex subject matter: grayscale with mindful touches of red. The cloak of loss over the house is made clear in subtle... Read More

Watercolors and digital paints in every hue under the stormy sky are used to tell the story of an underappreciated forest dweller: mushrooms. Dreamy illustrations portray a variety of mushrooms with an eye for detail, and the titular... Read More