List

The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation’s preeminent scholars on the subject.

In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day.

An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured “coolies” who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. Over the past fifty years, a new Asian America has emerged out of community activism and the arrival of new immigrants and refugees. No longer a “despised minority,” Asian Americans are now held up as America’s “model minorities” in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States.

Published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the United States’ Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 that has remade our “nation of immigrants,” this is a new and definitive history of Asian Americans. But more than that, it is a new way of understanding America itself, its complicated histories of race and immigration, and its place in the world today.

Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award
for literature that confronts racism and examines diversity

Winner of the 2017 Chautauqua Prize

Finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

A New York Times Notable Book
"Riveting and luminous...Like the best books, this one haunts the reader well after the end."--Jesmyn Ward

" A] complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning."--NPR, Best Books of 2016

"Intense and dreamlike . . . filled with quiet resonances across time."--The New Yorker
Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience.

Inhabiting four lives--a railroad baron's valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor; Hollywood's first Chinese movie star; a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes the Asian American community; and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption--this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive--as much through love as blood.

"A prophetic work, with passages of surpassing beauty."--Joyce Carol Oates, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award citation

"A poignant, cascading four-part novel . . . Outstanding."--David Mitchell, Guardian

"The most honest, unflinching, cathartically biting novel I've read about the Chinese American experience."--Celeste Ng

From the bestselling and award-winning author of novels Bone and Steer Toward Rock, Fae Myenne Ng's Orphan Bachelors is an extraordinary memoir of her beloved San Francisco's Chinatown and of a family building a life in a country bent on their exclusion

In pre-Communist China, Fae Myenne Ng's father memorized a book of lies and gained entry to the United States as a stranger's son, evading the Exclusion Act, an immigration law which he believed was meant to extinguish the Chinese American family. During the McCarthy era, he entered the Confession Program in a failed attempt to salvage his marriage only to have his citizenship revoked to resident alien. Exclusion and Confession, America's two slamming doors. As Ng's father said, "America didn't have to kill any Chinese, the Exclusion Act ensured none would be born."

Ng was her parents' precocious first born, the translator, the bossy eldest sister. A child raised by a seafaring father and a seamstress mother, by San Francisco's Chinatown and its legendary Orphan Bachelors -- men without wives or children, Exclusion's living legacy. She and her siblings were their stand-in descendants, Ng's family grocery store their haven.

Each Orphan Bachelor bequeathed the children their true American inheritance. Ng absorbed their suspicious, lonely, barren nature; she found storytelling and chosen children in the form of her students. Exclusion's legacy followed her from the back alleys of Chinatown in the 60s, to Manhattan in the 80s, to the high desert of California in the 90s, until her return home in the 2000s when the untimely deaths of her youngest brother and her father devastated the family. As a child, Ng believed her father's lies; as an adult, she returned to her childhood home to write his truth.

Orphan Bachelors weaves together the history of one family, lucky to exist and nevertheless doomed; an elegy for brothers estranged and for elders lost; and insights into writing between languages and teaching between generations. It also features Cantonese profanity, snakes that cure fear and opium that conquers sorrow, and a seemingly immortal creep of tortoises. In this powerful remembrance, Fae Myenne Ng gives voice to her valiant ancestors, her bold and ruthless Orphan Bachelors, and her own inner self, howling in Cantonese, impossible to translate but determined to be heard.

A New York Times bestseller! Beloved author Sandra Boynton--and a very exuberant chicken!--have an important message to share in this inspiring and highly giftable all-ages picture book for every life milestone.



Whether you are learning to skate, baking a cake, or even making a mistake, this hilarious and heartfelt rhyming book reminds us that trying our best is reason to celebrate. From children trying to master new skills to adults who had a hard week at work, we all get overwhelmed sometimes and need reassurance. And who better to offer it than a chicken exclaiming: "WOO HOO! YOU'RE DOING GREAT!"



The ideal gift to cheer on kids and adults through life's milestones--both big and small--including moving up ceremonies and graduations, birthdays, testing out a hobby, starting out somewhere new, and so much more.

In this charming middle grade graphic novel, orphan twins Elliot and Liza find themselves taking on a series of mysterious raven quests in order to make money and survive--only for Liza to be mortally injured during one of their adventures. Now, Elliot must team up with a mysterious dark mage in order to save her.

Twin siblings Elliot and Liza only have each other. Their parents are gone. Their home was taken, and to survive on their own, they're forced to scrounge up plastic and metal to trade for coin within an abandoned garbage heap. Desperate to escape the vagabond cycle that they're trapped in, the answer to their plight seemingly appears when they stumble upon a Raven Quest--magical tasks offered by mysterious message-carrying ravens that when successfully completed, promise the victors coin and untold riches.

In a gamble to change their fates, Elliot and Liza follow the trail of Raven Quests to the kingdom's capital, where the greedy rulers of the Kawumiti Kingdom reign and young people are enlisted to train as royal mages for the kingdom's army. But the Ravens Quests aren't as they seem, and the King is on a mission to hunt down vagrant participants like the twins.

When a quest goes terribly wrong, Liza is poisoned, and Elliot finds himself racing against the clock to find the cure. Now the only way to save his sister is to join forces with a royal apprentice and a dark mage with mysterious motives of her own--even if it means sacrificing everything.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • When a notorious thief is out for priceless treasure (gems! cats! general decorum!)—who're you gonna call? An elite team of crime-fighting underdogs, that's who! The Misfits are on the case in this hilarious illustrated series from Newbery Honoree Lisa Yee and Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat!

“For any kid who’s felt like a misfit, this crackling adventure packs a wallop!” —Lincoln Peirce, creator of Big Nate and Max & the Midknights

Olive Cobin Zang has . . . issues. And they mostly aren’t her fault. (No, really!) Though she often slips under the radar, problems have a knack for finding her. So, imagine her doubts when she’s suddenly dropped off at the strangest boarding school ever: a former castle turned prison that's now a “reforming arts school”!

But nothing could’ve prepared Olive for RASCH (not “rash”). There, she’s lumped with a team of other kids who never quite fit in, and discovers that the academy isn’t what it seems—and neither is she. In fact, RASCH is a cover for an elite group of misfits who fight crime . . . and Olive has arrived just in time.

Turns out that RASCH is in danger of closing, unless Olive’s class can stop the heist of the century. And as Olive falls in love with this wacky school, she realizes it’s up to her new team to save the only home that’s ever welcomed them.

A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year * An Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award Nominee * A New York State Reading Association 2023 Charlotte Award Winner

Award-winning author-illustrator Drew Sheneman brings budding paleontologists the truth about dinosaurs in this informative and hilarious nonfiction picture book that will teach kids everything they didn't know (and never thought to ask) about their favorite subject--dinosaurs!

A long, long time ago, planet Earth was full of dinosaurs. Giant dinosaurs that ate plants, meat-eating dinosaurs that walked on two feet, dinosaurs with armored frills--all KINDS of dinosaurs.

Until an asteroid appeared in the sky. A big one. A hot one. A moving-very-fast one. When it hit, most of the plants and animals on Earth went extinct. It was the end of the dinosaurs . . .

. . . Or was it?

Actually, the latest research shows that the dinosaurs didn't all go extinct. They're still around us now. In fact, you've probably seen dinosaurs at the park, eaten dinosaurs for dinner, and maybe even cleaned dinosaur poop off your family's car.

Who are these dinosaurs living all around us? Find out in this informative, hilarious, and 100 percent factual nonfiction picture book by award-winning author, illustrator, and beloved syndicated cartoonist Drew Sheneman.

An uplifting and empowering illustrated anthology of joyful contributions from 52 contemporary Black voices, including chess grandmaster Maurice Ashley, scientist Dr. Raven the Science Maven, and award-winning author Patrice Lawrence.



Curated by award-winning author Jamia Wilson, A Year of Black Joy celebrates the joy, talent, and contributions of 52 Black people from around the world. By sharing the many layers and dimensions of Black life and contributions that exist outside of trauma, readers of all backgrounds will be empowered to share their joy too. Each contributor is an expert in their own field, and the book covers a multitude of topics, from astrology and astronomy to beekeeping and baking.



The collection includes an entry for every week of the year, and each contribution is tied to a particular season, event, or celebration. An illustrated, nonfiction component to each entry--such as a guide to healing plants or a tour of the night sky--lets readers dive further into the activity. Presented in a beautiful hardcover format and featuring stunning full-color illustrations from Jade Orlando, A Year of Black Joy is a book to be treasured for years to come.

Learn about and be inspired by the unfrequented stories of Ona Marie Judge, Vicente Guerrero, the Black Panthers, the Haitian Revolution, Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and more. Perfect for middle-grade readers!

Black history is a robust and multifaceted chapter in world history that is often watered down. History books tend to highlight whitewashed versions of African enslavement, the Civil Rights Movement, and other “safe” topics that, while important, do not fully encapsulate the experiences of the Black and African diaspora. By telling the stories that are often omitted from history, Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids sets out to show that the Black experience is not only defined by marching and boycotting, but also through rebellion and resistance.

Learn about little-known facets, events, and figureheads from Black history, including:

• Vicente Guerrero, the first Black North American president
• One Marie Judge and her escape to freedom from George Washington
• Dr. Carter G. Woodson and the real reason he created Black History Month
• The history of the “dap” and its roots in African tradition
• Mansa Musa and his travels throughout the continent of Africa
• And many more exciting stories!

Written by an expert educator highly experienced in historical analysis and diversity, Resistance Stores from Black History for Kids is the ultimate lesson in Black history that will empower and inspire the youth through its retellings of the stories often left by the wayside.

Teen chef and food justice advocate Michael Platt's Recipes for Change "beautifully weaves together important Black history with delicious recipes" (Kwame Onwuachi, James Beard Award winner and Top Chef contestant)--featuring full-color illustrations by Alleanna Harris.



From the Montgomery bus boycott to the Black Lives Matter movement, food has played a vital role in strengthening and shaping Black empowerment. Join Michael Platt on a stunning visual journey as he retells moving and authentic accounts of 12 months in Black history. Featuring mouthwatering recipes accompanied by biographies of important figures, Recipes for Change will inspire leaders of the future with real stories of trailblazers who helped to change the world.



Recipes include:

• The Black Panther Party's Creamy Grits
• The Greensboro Sit-In's Cherry Protest Pie
• The Selma March's Carry-On Cornbread
• The Underground Railroad's Freedom Fish
• The Freedom Riders' Gumbo
• Juneteenth's Red Ice Pops
• Bakers Against Racism's Sweet Potato Hand Pie
• Martin Luther King's Favorite Pecan Pie
• Paschal's Fried Chicken
• The Black Power Salute's Olympic Gold Cookies
• The Christmas Sacrifice's Banana Pudding
• The Montgomery Bus Boycott's Pound Cake

A young boy learns that he is walking in the footsteps of greatness through a vibrant, lyrical retelling of Black history—both a love letter to Black children and an anthem empowering them to know their God-given worth.

You came bustling into the world,
a mighty bundle of energy, ready to do great things.
And no wonder.
You stand on the shoulders of those who came before,
and you, too, were born to shine.

Starting with his birth, the boy’s father lays out the history of his son’s ancestry: from the love and warmth of a big family, to the change makers and status shakers, the inventors and engineers, the astronomers, philosophers, and storytellers, the leaders and the doctors. The father details the legacy and impact of Black ancestors whose determination, strength, dedication, creativity, and leadership contributed to making the world better.

Throughout the story, the boy discovers the rich heritage of those that have gone before him and learns how he embodies that same greatness. He, too, has the power to change the world by embracing exactly who God made him to be.

You Come from Greatness includes illustrations of Black historical figures such as Wangari Muta Maathai, Ellie Mannette, Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and more, with twenty short biographies at the end of the book.

Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award winner Renée Watson continues her bestselling young middle grade series starring Ryan Hart, a girl who is pure spirit and sunshine.

Middle school is just around the corner for Ryan Hart, which means it's time to start thinking about the future--and not just how to prank her brother, Ray!

During Black History Month, Ryan learns more about her ancestors and local Black pioneers, and their hopes for the future, for her generation. She wonders who she wants to be and what kind of person her family hopes she becomes. Drawing on the ambitions of those who came before her and her own goals, Ryan is determined to turn her dreams into reality.

Grow and shine and share with Ryan Hart in this series that brings ever more humor, more love, and more fun.

Acclaim for Ways to Make Sunshine
A New York Times Best Children's Book of the Year | A Parents Magazine Best Book of the Year | A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year | A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year | A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year | A WORLD Magazine Best Book of the Year | An Amazon Best Book of the Year

Chosen as a Most Anticipated Book of 2024 by Oprah’s Book Club, Elle, Reader's Digest, The Rumpus, Kirkus Reviews, The Millions, Lit Hub, and more

“Fans of The Underground Railroad, The Water Dancer, and Let Us Descend will devour this lyrical and surreal saga.” —Oprah Daily

From a writer of singular voice and vision, a mesmerizing epic that reimagines the past to explore the true nature of freedom

In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.

It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.

Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.

REESE'S BOOK CLUB MAY 2023 PICK

BOOK OF THE MONTH MAY 2023 PICK

A multigenerational saga that traverses the glamour of old Hollywood and the seductive draw of modern-day showbiz

When Kitty Karr Tate, a White icon of the silver screen, dies and bequeaths her multimillion-dollar estate to the St. John sisters, three young, wealthy Black women, it prompts questions. Lots of questions.

A celebrity in her own right, Elise St. John would rather focus on sorting out Kitty’s affairs than deal with the press. But what she discovers in one of Kitty’s journals rocks her world harder than any other brewing scandal could—and between a cheating fiancé and the fallout from a controversial social media post, there are plenty.

The truth behind Kitty's ascent to stardom from her beginnings in the segregated South threatens to expose a web of unexpected family ties, debts owed, and debatable crimes that could, with one pull, unravel the all-American fabric of the St. John sisters and those closest to them.

As Elise digs deeper into Kitty's past, she must also turn the lens upon herself, confronting the gifts and burdens of her own choices and the power that the secrets of the dead hold over the living. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? is a sprawling page-turner set against the backdrop of the Hollywood machine, an insightful and nuanced look at the inheritances of family, race, and gender—and the choices some women make to break free of them.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • USA Today Bestseller • Washington Post’s The Twelve Best Thrillers of the Year • TIME’s 100 Must Read Books of the Year • Goodreads Choice Award Nominee • USA Today’s Best Reviewed Books of the Year • BookPage's Best Mystery of the Year • Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of the Year • New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Cover of the New York Times Book Review • Barack Obama’s Summer Reading List • The Financial Times’s Best Crime Books of the Year • ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction Longlist • SIBA’s 2024 Southern Book Prize Finalist • Starred Publishers Weekly • Starred Library Journal • Starred BookPage • Starred Booklist
“Fresh and exhilarating. . . Cosby keeps his eye on the story and the pedal to the metal.” —Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.

The new novel from New York Times bestselling and Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author S. A. Cosby, "one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction.” —Washington Post.

“An atmospheric pressure cooker.” —People

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Charon is Titus’s home and his heart. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction” (The Washington Post).

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023

“A murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel . . . Charming, smart, heart-blistering, and heart-healing.” —Danez Smith, The New York Times Book Review

“We all need—we all deserve—this vibrant, love-affirming novel that bounds over any difference that claims to separate us.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

From James McBride, author of the bestselling Oprah’s Book Club pick Deacon King Kong and the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.

As these characters’ stories overlap and deepen, it becomes clear how much the people who live on the margins of white, Christian America struggle and what they must do to survive. When the truth is finally revealed about what happened on Chicken Hill and the part the town’s white establishment played in it, McBride shows us that even in dark times, it is love and community—heaven and earth—that sustain us.

Bringing his masterly storytelling skills and his deep faith in humanity to The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, James McBride has written a novel as compassionate as Deacon King Kong and as inventive as The Good Lord Bird.

A New York Times Notable Book
“You’re in for a treat. The Reformatory is one of those books you can’t put down. Tananarive Due hit it out of the park.” —Stephen King

A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida

June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.

It's murder in paradise as a woman uncovers a host of secrets off the rocky California coast in a gripping novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Rachel Howzell Hall.

Colette "Coco" Weber has relocated to her Catalina Island home, where, twenty years before, she was the sole survivor of a deadly home invasion. All Coco wants is to see her aunt Gwen, get as far away from her ex as possible, and get back to her craft--writing obituaries. Thankfully, her college best friend, Maddy, owns the local paper and has a job sure to keep Coco busy, considering the number of elderly folks who are dying on the island.

But as Coco learns more about these deaths, she quickly realizes that the circumstances surrounding them are remarkably similar...and not natural. Then Coco receives a sinister threat in the mail: her own obituary.

As Coco begins to draw connections between a serial killer's crimes and her own family tragedy, she fears that the secrets on Catalina Island might be too deep to survive. Because whoever is watching her is hell-bent on finally putting her past to rest.

A Good Morning America Buzz Pick, a Best Romance of 2022 by The New York Times and The Washington Post, and a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Oprah Daily, Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, Thrillist, Essence, Good Housekeeping, Glamour, Marie Claire, Parade, Bustle, BuzzFeed, Refinery29, Business Insider, The Guardian, Financial Times, PopSugar, Book Riot, LitHub, Bookish, LGBTQ Reads, and more!

“A deeply heartfelt romance novel.” —Marie Claire

“An unabashed ode to living with, and despite, pain and mortality.” —The New York Times Book Review

A New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and “one of our greatest living writers” (Shondaland) reimagines the love story in this fresh and seductive novel about a young woman seeking joy while healing from loss.

Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again.

It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.

She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits—his father.

This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love? Akwaeke Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.

A Best in Fiction Book for 2023

"[A] sharp, charming and passionate debut." --New York Times Book Review

A Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Elle, USA Today, Bustle, Ebony, Harper's Bazaar, PopSugar, New York Post, The Skimm, and The Millions.

A Best Book of 2023 by Marie Claire, Esquire, Vogue, them, Autostraddle, Betches, Gay Times, and Cosmopolitan.

An insightful, propulsive, and deeply sexy debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her coveted job in media and pens a searing manifesto about racism in the industry.

Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter, but, for now, her days are filled with listicles about lip gloss and click-bait articles about celebrity haircare. Still, the job is flashy and her girlfriend is steady and supportive. The path may be long, but Mickey's well on her way, and it's far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Everything finally seems to be falling into place--until she finds out she's being replaced.

Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism she's endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, even from her usually-encouraging girlfriend, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is, she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run: her hometown.

Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her hometown--and the flirtation of a former flame--but she soon learns that you can't outrun your past. In the newfound quiet, she is forced to reflect on the sacrifices she'd made for an industry that never loved her back and pick up the pieces of the life she thought she'd left behind for good. After all, when the walls of success you've carefully built around yourself come crumbling down, what--and who--are you left with?

A meditation on identity, self-worth and the toll of corporate racism, Homebodies is a portrait of modern Black womanhood with a protagonist you won't soon forget.

The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own. • “A new and necessary American voice.” —Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly-popular, highly-controversial, profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.

In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death-matches for packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, she considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games, but CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.

Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review).

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! • A Today Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick • A February 2023 Indie Next Pick

"Sparkling." —The New York Times

"An utterly charming and deeply moving portrait of the joys—and the guilt—of trying to find your own way in life." —Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Our Missing Hearts

"Lively, funny, poignant . . . Prepare to fall in love with Maddie. I did!" —Bonnie Garmus, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry

Maame (ma-meh) has many meanings in Twi but in my case, it means woman.

It’s fair to say that Maddie’s life in London is far from rewarding. With a mother who spends most of her time in Ghana (yet still somehow manages to be overbearing), Maddie is the primary caretaker for her father, who suffers from advanced stage Parkinson’s. At work, her boss is a nightmare and Maddie is tired of always being the only Black person in every meeting.

So when her mum returns from her latest trip, Maddie seizes the chance to move out of the family home and finally start living. A self-acknowledged late bloomer, she’s ready to experience some important “firsts”: She finds a flat share, says yes to after-work drinks, pushes for more recognition in her career, and throws herself into the bewildering world of internet dating. But when tragedy strikes, Maddie is forced to face the true nature of her unconventional family, and the perils—and rewards—of putting her heart on the line.

Smart, funny, and affecting, Jessica George's Maame deals with the themes of our time with humor and poignancy: from familial duty and racism, to female pleasure, the complexity of love, and the life-saving power of friendship. Most important, it explores what it feels like to be torn between two homes and cultures―and it celebrates finally being able to find where you belong.

"Meeting Maame feels like falling in love for the first time: warm, awkward, joyous, a little bit heartbreaking and, most of all, unforgettable." —Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely-entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

It’s 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It’s strictly the straight-and-narrow for him — until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated – and deadly.

1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney’s endearingly violent partner in crime. It’s getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook – to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole county is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney’s tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.

CROOK MANIFESTO is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson Whitehead’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.

Julia Rothman's series of Anatomy books (549,000 copies in print) are beloved by children and adults alike. In Wildlife Anatomy, Rothman captures the excitement and distinctive attributes of wild animals around the world. The book is packed with hundreds of her charming, original illustrations, detailing the unique features of animals of the rainforest, desert, grasslands, oceans, and much more. From lions, bears, and zebras to monkeys, mongoose, bats, elephants, giraffes, hippos, and much more, Rothman's visual guide covers all the key features, right down to the anatomy of a lion's claw and a wild horse's hoof. All the illustrations are accompanied by labels, intriguing facts, and identifying details, such as: When is a Panther Not a Panther? and What Makes Aardvarks So Odd? Rothman's characteristic combination of curiosity and an artist's eye makes this wildlife treasury rich and full, and promises new discoveries every time it's opened.

With lessons from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and examples from the acclaimed education network Remake Learning, this book brings Mister Rogers into the digital age, helping parents and teachers raise creative, curious, caring kids.



Authors Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski know there's more to Mister Rogers than his trademark cardigan sweaters. To them, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood isn't just a children's program -- it's a proven blueprint for raising happier, healthier kids. As young people grapple with constant reminders that the world isn't always kind, parents and teachers can look to Fred Rogers: an ingenious scientist and legendary caregiver who was decades ahead of his time.



When You Wonder, You're Learning reveals this never-before-seen side of America's favorite neighbor, exploring how Rogers nurtured the "tools for learning" now deemed essential for school, work, and life. These tools can boost academic performance, social-emotional well-being, and even physical health. They cost almost nothing to develop, and they're up to ten times more predictive of children's success than test scores.



No wonder it's been called "a must-read for anyone who cares about children." With insights from thinkers, scientists, and teachers -- many of whom worked with Rogers himself -- When You Wonder, You're Learning helps kids and the people who care for them do what Rogers taught best: become the best of whoever they are.

Karen Gershowitz is officially a travel addict--one with more than ninety countries under her belt. In these engaging stories, she brings readers along as her companions as she explores, laughs, and marvels at the richness of other cultures. Whether she's picking through the worst meal ever in the wilds of Tanzania, eating a transcendent strudel in Vienna, meeting the locals in an isolated opal mining hamlet in Australia's outback, or learning to make noodles in a Chinese village, she invites you to share in her experiences.

Whatever kind of traveler you are, novice or experienced, or even if you prefer sitting in your armchair, these stories will transport you deep into other ways of living in the world--and, hopefully, inspire you to set out on your own journeys!

A panoramic revisionist portrait of the nineteenth-century invention that is transforming the twenty-first-century world

“Excellent . . . calls to mind Bill Bryson, John McPhee, Rebecca Solnit.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker

The bicycle is a vestige of the Victorian era, seemingly at odds with our age of smartphones and ride-sharing apps and driverless cars. Yet we live on a bicycle planet. Across the world, more people travel by bicycle than any other form of transportation. Almost anyone can learn to ride a bike—and nearly everyone does.

In Two Wheels Good, journalist and critic Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous machine, an ever-present force in humanity’s life and dream life—and a flash point in culture wars—for more than two hundred years. Combining history, reportage, travelogue, and memoir, Rosen’s book sweeps across centuries and around the globe, unfolding the bicycle’s saga from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a “green machine,” an emblem of sustainability in a world afflicted by pandemic and climate change. Readers meet unforgettable characters: feminist rebels who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a prospector who pedaled across the frozen Yukon to join the Klondike gold rush, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, a cycle-rickshaw driver who navigates the seething streets of the world’s fastest-growing megacity, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity aboard the International Space Station.

Two Wheels Good examines the bicycle’s past and peers into its future, challenging myths and clichés while uncovering cycling’s connection to colonial conquest and the gentrification of cities. But the book is also a love letter: a reflection on the sensual and spiritual pleasures of bike riding and an ode to an engineering marvel—a wondrous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine.

The instant New York Times bestseller | A Washington Post Notable Book | One of NPR's Best Books of the Year

“Expert storytelling . . . [Pollan] masterfully elevates a series of big questions about drugs, plants and humans that are likely to leave readers thinking in new ways.” —New York Times Book Review

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants—and the equally powerful taboos.

Of all the things humans rely on plants for—sustenance, beauty, medicine, fragrance, flavor, fiber—surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate or calm, fiddle with or completely alter, the qualities of our mental experience. Take coffee and tea: People around the world rely on caffeine to sharpen their minds. But we do not usually think of caffeine as a drug, or our daily use as an addiction, because it is legal and socially acceptable. So, then, what is a “drug”? And why, for example, is making tea from the leaves of a tea plant acceptable, but making tea from a seed head of an opium poppy a federal crime?

In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan dives deep into three plant drugs—opium, caffeine, and mescaline—and throws the fundamental strangeness, and arbitrariness, of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs while consuming (or, in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants. Why do we go to such great lengths to seek these shifts in consciousness, and then why do we fence that universal desire with laws and customs and fraught feelings?

In this unique blend of history, science, and memoir, as well as participatory journalism, Pollan examines and experiences these plants from several very different angles and contexts, and shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively—as a drug, whether licit or illicit. But that is one of the least interesting things you can say about these plants, Pollan shows, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. Based in part on an essay published almost twenty-five years ago, this groundbreaking and singular consideration of psychoactive plants, and our attraction to them through time, holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds, and our entanglement with the natural world.

Discover the secret method used to build the world...

For millennia, humans have used one simple method to solve problems. Whether it's planting crops, building skyscrapers, developing photographs, or designing the first microchip, all creators follow the same steps to engineer progress. But this powerful method, the "engineering method", is an all but hidden process that few of us have heard of--let alone understand--but that influences every aspect of our lives.

Bill Hammack, a Carl Sagan award-winning professor of engineering and viral "The Engineer Guy" on Youtube, has a lifelong passion for the things we make, and how we make them. Now, for the first time, he reveals the invisible method behind every invention and takes us on a whirlwind tour of how humans built the world we know today. From the grand stone arches of medieval cathedrals to the mundane modern soda can, Hammack explains the golden rule of thumb that underlies every new building technique, every technological advancement, and every creative solution that leads us one step closer to a better, more functional world. Spanning centuries and cultures, Hammack offers a fascinating perspective on how humans engineer solutions in a world full of problems.

Perfect for readers of Adam Grant and Simon Winchester, The Things We Make is a captivating examination of the method that keeps pushing humanity forward, a spotlight on the achievements of the past, and a celebration of the potential of our future that will change the way we see the world around us.

This entertaining companion to the massively popular history podcast tackles everything from Alexander the Great to Agatha Christie, the Wars of the Roses to Watergate--with a unique blend of wit, wisdom, and good old-fashioned banter



The Rest Is History podcast brilliantly distills major moments in human history, covering everything from the Trojan War to a historical ranking of the greatest dogs. Now, this official tie-in book brings the chart-topping podcast's charms to the page, offering readers a fresh, wide-ranging tour of humanity's essential, and essentially weird, moments, including:

- Did the Trojan War actually happen?

- What was the most disastrous party in history?

- Was Richard Nixon more like Caligula or Claudius?

- How did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill's cover?

- Why did the Nazis believe they were descended from Atlantis?



Featuring an introduction from podcast hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, this book cleverly demonstrates that the past--from modern to ancient and every time in between--is both closer to us than we might realize and bafflingly strange, all at once. So run your Egyptian milk bath, strap up your best Spartan sandals, and prepare for a journey down the highways and byways of the human past.

From a New York Times bestselling historian, the "truly revelatory" (Wall Street Journal) story of how the alphabet ordered our world

A Place for Everything is the first-ever history of alphabetization, from the Library of Alexandria to Wikipedia. Once we've learned our ABCs as children, few of us ever think of them again, but alphabetical order plays a material role in our adult lives. From school registers to electoral rolls, from dictionaries and encyclopedias to library shelves, the alphabet has ordered our lives, often invisibly. Yet the birth of alphabetization was a constant struggle: Medieval clergy felt that its use would upend the divine order of creation; elite institutions like Harvard and Yale long ranked students by the social status of their parents, rather than ordering them from A to Z. But eventually alphabetical order triumphed.

With wry humor, historian Judith Flanders offers a fascinating history of how the alphabet ordered our world.

A “gripping” (The Washington Post) account of how the major transformations in history—from the rise of Homo sapiens to the birth of capitalism—have been shaped not by humans but by germs

“Superbly written . . . Kennedy seamlessly weaves together scientific and historical research, and his confident authorial voice is sure to please readers of Yuval Noah Harari or Rutger Bregman.”—The Times (U.K.)

According to the accepted narrative of progress, humans have thrived thanks to their brains and brawn, collectively bending the arc of history. But in this revelatory book, Professor Jonathan Kennedy argues that the myth of human exceptionalism overstates the role that we play in social and political change. Instead, it is the humble microbe that wins wars and topples empires.

Drawing on the latest research in fields ranging from genetics and anthropology to archaeology and economics, Pathogenesis takes us through sixty thousand years of history, exploring eight major outbreaks of infectious disease that have made the modern world. Bacteria and viruses were protagonists in the demise of the Neanderthals, the growth of Islam, the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the devastation wrought by European colonialism, and the evolution of the United States from an imperial backwater to a global superpower. Even Christianity rose to prominence in the wake of a series of deadly pandemics that swept through the Roman Empire in the second and third centuries: Caring for the sick turned what was a tiny sect into one of the world’s major religions.

By placing disease at the center of his wide-ranging history of humankind, Kennedy challenges some of the most fundamental assumptions about our collective past—and urges us to view this moment as another disease-driven inflection point that will change the course of history. Provocative and brimming with insight, Pathogenesis transforms our understanding of the human story.

The best-selling author of Stiff and Bonk explores the irresistibly strange universe of space travel and life without gravity.

Space is a world devoid of the things we need to live and thrive: air, gravity, hot showers, fresh produce, privacy, beer. Space exploration is in some ways an exploration of what it means to be human. How much can a person give up? How much weirdness can they take? What happens to you when you can’t walk for a year? have sex? smell flowers? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a space walk? Is it possible for the human body to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour? To answer these questions, space agencies set up all manner of quizzical and startlingly bizarre space simulations. As Mary Roach discovers, it’s possible to preview space without ever leaving Earth. From the space shuttle training toilet to a crash test of NASA’s new space capsule (cadaver filling in for astronaut), Roach takes us on a surreally entertaining trip into the science of life in space and space on Earth.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story--and fascinating mystery--of how humans migrated to the Americas.

ORIGIN is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. ORIGIN provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.

20,000 years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records--and scant archaeological evidence--exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed. A study of both past and present, ORIGIN explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

An instant New York Times bestseller!

From the bestselling author of But What if We’re Wrong, a wise and funny reckoning with the decade that gave us slacker/grunge irony about the sin of trying too hard, during the greatest shift in human consciousness of any decade in American history.

It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn’t know who it was. By the end, exposing someone’s address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn’t know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we’re still groping to understand. Happily, Chuck Klosterman is more than up to the job.

Beyond epiphenomena like "Cop Killer" and Titanic and Zima, there  were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived: the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. On a 90’s Thursday night, more people watched any random episode of Seinfeld than the finale of Game of Thrones. But nobody thought that was important; if you missed it, you simply missed it. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.
 
In The Nineties, Chuck Klosterman makes a home in all of it: the film, the music, the sports, the TV, the politics, the changes regarding race and class and sexuality, the yin/yang of Oprah and Alan Greenspan. In perhaps no other book ever written would a sentence like, “The video for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was not more consequential than the reunification of Germany” make complete sense. Chuck Klosterman has written a multi-dimensional masterpiece, a work of synthesis so smart and delightful that future historians might well refer to this entire period as Klostermanian.

A New York Times Editors' Choice Book
Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Literary Hub and Goodreads

A playful history of the humble index and its outsized effect on our reading lives.

Most of us give little thought to the back of the book—it’s just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find Butchers, to be avoided, or Cows that sh-te Fire, or even catch Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne. Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.

Charting its curious path from the monasteries and universities of thirteenth-century Europe to Silicon Valley in the twenty-first, Duncan uncovers how it has saved heretics from the stake, kept politicians from high office, and made us all into the readers we are today. We follow it through German print shops and Enlightenment coffee houses, novelists’ living rooms and university laboratories, encountering emperors and popes, philosophers and prime ministers, poets, librarians and—of course—indexers along the way. Revealing its vast role in our evolving literary and intellectual culture, Duncan shows that, for all our anxieties about the Age of Search, we are all index-rakers at heart—and we have been for eight hundred years.

An inspirational and bold memoir from the most successful woman ever to compete on Jeopardy!—and an exploration of what it means to ask questions of the world and of yourself.

In eighth grade, Amy was voted “Most likely to appear on Jeopardy!” by her classmates. Decades later, this trailblazer finally got her chance. Not only did she walk away with $1.3 million while captivating the world with her impressive forty-game winning streak, but she made history and won an even greater prize—the joy of being herself on national television and blazing a trail for openly queer and transgender people around the world. Now, she shares her singular journey that led to becoming an unlikely icon and hero to millions. Her super power: Boundless curiosity and fearless questioning.

In the Form of a Question explores some of the innumerable topics that have fascinated Amy throughout her life—books and music, Tarot and astrology, popular culture and computers, sex and relationships—but they all share the same purpose: to illustrate, and celebrate, the results of a lifetime spent asking, why?

A Pulitzer Prize finalist's bizarre journalistic journey through the world of fringe medicine, filled with leeches, baking soda IVs, and, according to at least one person, zombies.



It's no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you can't afford doctors, or don't trust them? In this book, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments -- including some that are really non-traditional.



With costs skyrocketing and anti-science sentiment spreading, the so-called "medical freedom" movement has grown. Now it faces its greatest challenge: going mainstream. In these pages you'll meet medical freedom advocates including an international leech smuggler, a gold miner-turned health drink salesman who may or may not be from the Andromeda galaxy, and a man who says he can turn people into zombies with aerosol spray. One by one, these alternative healers find customers, then expand and influence, always seeking the one thing that would take their businesses to the next level--the support and approval of the government.



Should the government dictate what is medicine and what isn't? Can we have public health when disagreements over science are this profound? No, seriously, can you turn people into flesh-eating zombies? If It Sounds Like a Quack asks these critical questions while telling the story of how we got to this improbable moment, and wondering where we go from here. Buckle up for a bumpy ride...unless you're against seatbelts.

PORCHLIGHT BOOKS JUNE 2022 NONFICTION BESTSELLER

“I can see this book helping estranged parties who are equally invested in bridging a gap—it could be assigned reading for fractured families aspiring to a harmonious Thanksgiving dinner.” —New York Times

“Like all skills, these techniques take practice. But anyone who sincerely wants to bridge the gaps in understanding will appreciate this book. Guzmán is emphatic about making an effort to work on difficult conversations.” —Manhattan Book Review

We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions.

Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own built-in curiosity.

Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding one another is hurting our relationships and our society.

In this timely, personal guide, Mónica, the chief storyteller for the national cross-partisan depolarization organization Braver Angels, takes you to the real front lines of a crisis that threatens to grind America to a halt—broken conversations among confounded people. She shows you how to overcome the fear and certainty that surround us to finally do what only seems impossible: understand and even learn from people in your life whose whole worldview is different from or even opposed to yours.

Drawing from cross-partisan conversations she’s had, organized, or witnessed everywhere from the echo chambers on social media to the wheat fields in Oregon to raw, unfiltered fights with her own family on election night, Mónica shows how you can put your natural sense of wonder to work for you immediately, finding the answers you need by talking with people—rather than about them—and asking the questions you want, curiously.

In these pages, you’ll learn:

• How to ask what you really want to know (even if you’re afraid to)
• How to grow smarter from even the most tense interactions, online or off
• How to cross boundaries and find common ground—with anyone

Whether you’re left, right, center, or not a fan of labels: If you’re ready to fight back against the confusion, heartbreak, and madness of our dangerously divided times—in your own life, at least—Mónica’s got the tools and fresh, surprising insights to prove that seeing where people are coming from isn’t just possible. It’s easier than you think.

The captivating, little-known true story of a group of scientists and the methods and technology they developed to uncover the secrets of avian migration.

For the past century, scientists and naturalists have been steadily unravelling the secrets of bird migration. How and why birds navigate the skies, traveling from continent to continent--flying thousands of miles across the earth each fall and spring--has continually fascinated the human imagination, but only recently have we been able to fully understand these amazing journeys. Although we know much more than ever before, even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher may not know how we got here, the ways that the full breadth of scientific disciplines have come together to reveal these annual avian travels.

Flight Paths is the never-before-told story of how a group of migration-obsessed scientists in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries engaged nearly every branch of science to understand bird migration--from where and when they take off to their flight paths and behaviors, their destinations and the challenges they encounter getting there. Uniting curious minds from across generations, continents, and disciplines, bird enthusiast and science writer Rebecca Heisman traces the development of each technique used for tracking migratory birds, from the first attempts to mark individual birds to the cutting-edge technology that lets ornithologists trace where a bird has been, based on unique DNA markers. Along the way, she touches on the biggest technological breakthroughs of modern science and reveals the almost-forgotten stories of the scientists who harnessed these inventions in service of furthering our understanding of nature (and their personal obsession with birds).

The compelling and fascinating story of how scientists solved the great mystery of bird migration, Flight Paths is an unprecedented look into exciting, behind-the-scenes moments of groundbreaking discovery. Heisman demonstrates that the real power of science happens when people work together, focusing their minds and knowledge on a common goal. While the world looks to tackle massive challenges involving conservation and climate, the story of migration research offers a beacon of hope that we can find solutions to difficult and complex problems.

Lawrence Krauss explores the greatest unanswered questions at the forefront of science today, and likely for the coming century and beyond.

Internationally known theoretical physicist and bestselling author Lawrence Krauss explores science’s greatest unanswered questions.

Three of the most important words in science are “I don't know.” Not knowing implies a Universe of opportunities—the possibility of discovery and surprise. Our understanding of science has advanced immeasurably over the last five hundred years, yet many fundamental mysteries of existence persist: How did our Universe begin? How big is the Universe? Is time travel possible? What’s at the center of a black hole? How did life on Earth arise? Are we alone? What is consciousness, and can we create it?

These mysteries define the scientific forefront—the threshold of the unknown. To explore that threshold is to gain a deeper understanding of just how far science has progressed. Covering time, space, matter, life, and consciousness, Krauss introduces readers to topics that will shape the state of science for the next century, providing us all passport to our own journeys of exploration and discovery.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A dramatically new understanding of human history, challenging our most fundamental assumptions about social evolution—from the development of agriculture and cities to the origins of the state, democracy, and inequality—and revealing new possibilities for human emancipation.

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike—either free and equal innocents, or thuggish and warlike. Civilization, we are told, could be achieved only by sacrificing those original freedoms or, alternatively, by taming our baser instincts. David Graeber and David Wengrow show how such theories first emerged in the eighteenth century as a conservative reaction to powerful critiques of European society posed by Indigenous observers and intellectuals. Revisiting this encounter has startling implications for how we make sense of human history today, including the origins of farming, property, cities, democracy, slavery, and civilization itself.

Drawing on pathbreaking research in archaeology and anthropology, the authors show how history becomes a far more interesting place once we learn to throw off our conceptual shackles and perceive what’s really there. If humans did not spend 95 percent of their evolutionary past in tiny bands of hunter-gatherers, what were they doing all that time? If agriculture, and cities, did not mean a plunge into hierarchy and domination, then what kinds of social and economic organization did they lead to? The answers are often unexpected, and suggest that the course of human history may be less set in stone, and more full of playful, hopeful possibilities, than we tend to assume.

The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.

Includes Black-and-White Illustrations

With the whimsy and heart of The Soul of an Octopus and the surprising details of the very best science writing, The Curious World of Seahorses brilliantly captures the ocean's most charismatic and mysterious inhabitant.

"When God created the seahorse," says one marine biologist, "he may have had one too many."

Of all the creatures in the ocean, there are none more charming and magical--or more strange--than the seahorses. Masters of disguise, graceful dancers, and romantic lovers, seahorses are found not only in the seagrass meadows and mangroves of the world, but also throughout the annals of human history and culture--surfacing everywhere from chess and Greek mythology to Disney movies like The Little Mermaid and Pokémon games.

Equipped with a pouch like a kangaroo, a long snout like an anteater, and complete with a crown unique as a human fingerprint, the seahorse defies easy categorization. The only fish to swim in an upright position, seahorses are terrible swimmers, but they make up for it with an incredible talent for holding onto seagrass or coral. They have no stomach or teeth--only intestines. Most seahorses are monogamous, and meet with their life partner every few weeks to perform a dance that can last up to nine hours. The most unique aspect of the seahorse is their reproductive cycle, as it is the male of the species who becomes pregnant.

In this entertaining and informative book, science writer Till Hein shares the most tantalizing findings from the world of seahorses, and the role they have played in human culture. He reveals their secrets, from their intriguing biological features and hunting strategy to their use in medicine throughout history, their appearances in Greek and Celtic mythology, and even the medieval belief that they descended from dragons.

Endlessly fascinating and charmingly approachable, The Curious World of Seahorses will captivate any reader looking to learn more about one of the most incredible creatures on Earth.
 

Bacteria were the first life on Earth. But what do we really know about them? In this captivating, science-driven book, you'll learn everything you need to know about these often misunderstood--and incredibly interesting--microbes.

In this engagingly written and scientifically rigorous book, author and scientist Ludger Wess introduces an eclectic collection of impressive, useful, weird, and dangerous bacterial species. Wess reveals everything he knows about bacteria, including their ability to survive almost anywhere, to "sleep" for millions of years before becoming active again, to maintain their own immune systems (a discovery that has led to medical breakthroughs for humans), and to--hypothetically--live on other planets.

In part two, Wess moves on to his curious compendium of bacterial species, presenting fifty fascinating portraits grouped by useful categories: bacteria that are record holders, extreme-habitat dwellers, unusual consumers, people-helpers, and people-harmers. Beautiful black-and-white illustrations accompany each portrait. At the end of this engrossing read, Wess recognizes how much we still don't know about bacteria. But by starting here, we can come closer to understanding the first life on Earth.

For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart--not the brain--was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed as people sought to understand the life forces it contains. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography.

This book traces the evolution of our understanding of the heart from the dawn of civilization to the present. Vincent M. Figueredo--an accomplished cardiologist and expert on the history of the human heart--explores the role and significance of the heart in art, culture, religion, philosophy, and science across time and place. He examines how the heart really works, its many meanings in our emotional and daily lives, and what cutting-edge science is teaching us about this remarkable organ. Figueredo considers the science of heart disease, recent advancements in heart therapies, and what the future may hold. He highlights the emerging field of neurocardiology, which has found evidence of a "heart-brain connection" in mental and physical health, suggesting that ancient views hold more truth than moderns suspect.

Ranging widely and deeply throughout human history, this book sheds new light on why the heart remains so central to our sense of self.

"A popular writer shows that the Bible is a permission slip to anyone who wants to ask questions-it is full of questions from God, to God, and among humans"--

INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

The BELOVED STAR OF FRIENDS takes us behind the scenes of the hit sitcom and his struggles with addiction in this “CANDID, DARKLY FUNNY...POIGNANT” memoir (The New York Times)

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK by Time, Associated Press, Goodreads, USA Today, and more!

“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.”

So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.

Named a Best Cookbook of the Year by NPR, Epicurious, Library Journal, and more, and a Best Cookbook of Spring 2023 by Bon Appetit, Forbes, and more.

From Sarah Kieffer, the beloved baker behind the bestselling 100 Cookies and Baking for the Holidays, and the popular Vanilla Bean Blog, here are 100 recipes for perfect starts to the day.

One hundred morning treats to start your day with smiles: These baking projects will bring delight to your family breakfast, a Sunday brunch or bake sale, a morning at the office, or kids' soccer practice. Whatever your preference alongside your morning cup of coffee or tea--sweet or savory, buttery or flaky, hot off the griddle or taken to go--you'll find a recipe for it here, from coffee cakes to danishes, doughnuts, scones, quick breads, quiches, and muffins galore!

Filled with more than 120 inspiring photographs, including how-tos for doughs and shaping, and instructions for prepping the night before and baking in the morning, 100 Morning Treats is truly a cookbook for all bakers and a must-have for lovers of 100 Cookies and Sarah's inventive recipes.

ACCOMPLISHED AUTHOR: Sarah Kieffer is the beloved blogger behind The Vanilla Bean Blog, past winner of Saveur Reader's Choice Best Baking & Desserts Blog. Her pan-banging cookie technique went viral on the New York Times website. The author of three cookbooks, she has been featured by Food52, The Today Show, Mashable, The Kitchn, America's Test Kitchen, Huffington Post, and more. Sarah also has international reach, having worked with brands like Le Creuset, Betty Crocker, Lodge, Mauviel 1830, Nordicware, Icelandic Provisions, Valrhona, Kerrygold, and more.

DELICIOUS SUCCESS: With more than 130,000 copies sold, 100 Cookies is a resounding success, and the seasonal follow-up, Baking for the Holidays, is beloved by bakers nationwide. 100 Morning Treats returns to another year-round baking book with a variety of accessible, reliable, delicious recipes for a wide range of home cooks. Praise for Sarah's previous books:

100 Cookies:
"Sarah Kieffer is the one who broke the Internet with her pan-banging cookies, large, chocolate-rich, and rippled like sandbars. And this book offers plenty of bangers, with a whole chapter of crinkly treats for those who like to make some noise on the way to dessert. Baking them all could be your winter challenge."
-The Boston Globe

"Kieffer's book is a baker's baking book, but it's also completely unpretentious. There are cookies for when you just want a good cookie, and more ambitious recipes for when you want to attempt palmiers or break out a culinary torch."
--Food & Wine

Baking for the Holidays:
"In this cheerful collection, Kieffer, founder of The Vanilla Bean Blog, shares dozens of sweet recipes perfect for the holiday season. . . . Avid holiday bakers should put this on their wish list."
--Publishers Weekly

SARAH IS KNOWN FOR MORNING BAKES: Sarah got her start baking morning treats in the coffee shops in which she worked. Her very first cookbook, The Vanilla Bean Baking Book, had an entire chapter on morning baking that was well received and well loved. Her readers have been asking for this very book--and now here it is!

GREAT GIFT: With anyone-can-do-it recipes, this is a perfect anytime gift (birthday, Valentine's Day, Easter, housewarming, etc.) alongside a cute apron or baking product. Package this book together with 100 Cookies and Baking for the Holidays to create an adorable 3-in-1 set for a lucky baker in your life.

Perfect for:

• Home bakers of all levels
• Fans of Sarah Kieffer's blog, Instagram, or previous cookbooks
• Owners of Dorie's Cookies, Dessert Person, Snacking Cakes, or Pastry Love
• Early birds who like to bake
• Shoppers looking for a hostess or housewarming gift for bakers and breakfast lovers

Enjoy the fun, quick, easy, and out-of-this-world-delicious Asian recipes in Cooking with The CrunchBros.

Hundreds of millions of people have had fun watching the playful kid-and-dad duo, Jordan and Jeff Kim—better known as The CrunchBros—make, eat, and enjoy amazing Japanese- and Korean-style meals and treats on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. With 65 easy recipes, you too can cook and eat like them with their easy-to-make recipes in this bright and colorful book. 

Perhaps you would like to introduce kids in your family to Asian cooking in an upbeat, funny, and positive way that will make them hungry, give them more variety in their diet, and might even turn them into home cooks themselves. If so, this delectable and accessible book is just the ticket.

Or, if there are no kids in your household, perhaps you would just like simple and delicious meal ideas. With most recipes having just four or five steps, this cookbook is great for everyone and anyone whether you’re new to the kitchen or not.

The CrunchBros serve up healthy and vibrantly flavored recipes in abundance, from Korean treats to scrumptious Japanese dishes, with recipes such as:
 

• Ramen Salad
• Mochi Pizza
• Spicy Tteok Skewers
• Shoyu Chicken
• Galbi Hamburger Steak
• Misoyaki Salmon
• Macbokki
• Jalapeño Garlic Pork
• Miso Corn

Cooking with the CrunchBros offers a lifetime of enticing treats for diners either young, like Jordan, or grown-up but young-at-heart like his father, Jeff.

"A riveting, unsettling crime novel that will keep you turning pages well past your bedtime. Is Anna O a sleeping beauty or a sleeping killer? Matthew Blake's tension-filled thriller is as elusive and mysterious as sleep itself."--Nita Prose, #1 New York Times author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

Joining the ranks of Gillian Flynn, A. J. Finn, and Alex Michaelides, Matthew Blake delivers the thriller of the year: a dark, twisty, and shocking mystery about a young woman who commits a double murder while sleepwalking, and then never opens her eyes again.

THE WORLD WILL KNOW HER NAME

What if your nightmares weren't really nightmares at all?

We spend an average of 33 years of our lives asleep. But what really happens, and what are we capable of, when we sleep?

Anna Ogilvy was a budding twenty-five-year-old writer with a bright future. Then, one night, she stabbed two people to death with no apparent motive--and hasn't woken up since. Dubbed "Sleeping Beauty" by the tabloids, Anna's condition is a rare psychosomatic disorder known to neurologists as "resignation syndrome."

Dr. Benedict Prince is a forensic psychologist and an expert in the field of sleep-related homicides. His methods are the last hope of solving the infamous "Anna O'"case and waking Anna up so she can stand trial. But he must be careful treating such a high-profile suspect--he's got career secrets and a complicated personal life of his own.

As Anna shows the first signs of stirring, Benedict must determine what really happened and whether Anna should be held responsible for her crimes.

Only Anna knows the truth about that night, but only Benedict knows how to discover it. And they're both in danger from what they find out.

This myth-busting book finally reveals the true story behind the beloved children's classics.

Generations of children have fallen in love with the pioneer saga of the Ingalls family, of Pa and Ma, Laura and her sisters, and their loyal dog, Jack. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books have taught millions of Americans about frontier life, giving inspiration to many and in the process becoming icons of our national identity. Yet few realize that this cherished bestselling series wandered far from the actual history of the Ingalls family and from what Laura herself understood to be central truths about pioneer life.

In this groundbreaking narrative of literary detection, Christine Woodside reveals for the first time the full extent of the collaboration between Laura and her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane. Rose hated farming and fled the family homestead as an adolescent, eventually becoming a nationally prominent magazine writer, biographer of Herbert Hoover, and successful novelist, who shared the political values of Ayn Rand and became mentor to Roger Lea MacBride, the second Libertarian presidential candidate. Drawing on original manuscripts and letters, Woodside shows how Rose reshaped her mother's story into a series of heroic tales that rebutted the policies of the New Deal. Their secret collaboration would lead in time to their estrangement. A fascinating look at the relationship between two strong-willed women, Libertarians on the Prairie is also the deconstruction of an American myth.

Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

A New York Times Bestseller

What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? In their “captivating” (The Wall Street Journal) book, the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, show that the answer to these questions may be closer than you realize.

What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.

The invaluable insights in this book emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard Study as they were followed year after year for their entire adult lives, and this wisdom was bolstered by research findings from many other studies. Relationships in all their forms—friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, tennis partners, book club members, Bible study groups—all contribute to a happier, healthier life. And as The Good Life shows us, it’s never too late to strengthen the relationships you already have, and never too late to build new ones. The Good Life provides examples of how to do this.

Dr. Waldinger’s TED Talk about the Harvard Study, “What Makes a Good Life,” has been viewed more than 42 million times and is one of the ten most-watched TED talks ever. The Good Life has been praised by bestselling authors Jay Shetty “an empowering quest towards our greatest need: meaningful human connection”), Angela Duckworth (“In a crowded field of life advice...Schulz and Waldinger stand apart”), and happiness expert Laurie Santos (“Waldinger and Schulz are world experts on the counterintuitive things that make life meaningful”).

With “insightful [and] interesting” (Daniel Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness) life stories, The Good Life shows us how we can make our lives happier and more meaningful through our connections to others.

A LAMBDA LITERARY AWARD FINALIST

"The feelings in this one are dialed up so high you almost can't look at them directly: It would be like staring into the sun... Like Rosie Danan or Kate Clayborn, Barrett has a way of making palpable the full journey of a relationship" -New York Times

"Simply put, The Romance Recipe is a treat." -USA TODAY

Amy Chambers: restaurant owner, micromanager, control freak.

Amy will do anything to revive her ailing restaurant, including hiring a former reality-show finalist with good connections and a lot to prove. But her hopes that Sophie's skills and celebrity status would bring her restaurant back from the brink of failure are beginning to wane...

Sophie Brunet: grump in the kitchen/sunshine in the streets, took thirty years to figure out she was queer.

Sophie just wants to cook. She doesn't want to constantly post on social media for her dead-in-the-water reality TV career, she doesn't want to deal with Amy's take-charge personality and she doesn't want to think about what her attraction to her boss might mean...

Then, an opportunity: a new foodie TV show might provide the exposure they need. An uneasy truce is fine for starters, but making their dreams come true means making some personal and painful sacrifices and soon, there's more than just the restaurant at stake.


Carina Adores is home to romantic love stories where LGBTQ+ characters find their happily-ever-afters.


Book 1: Hot Copy
Book 2: The Romance Recipe
 

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

How is it possible for the chemistry between two chefs to be hotter than a ghost pepper yet colder than liquid nitrogen?

When THE Tatum Elliott shows up to run the catering kitchen at my family's farm and event center, I don't trust her anymore than I did back in culinary school.

But like it or not, she's here. On my territory. My turf. In the kitchen that shares a building with my farm-to-table restaurant.

And she can't seem to keep her hands off my parmesan.

Our old rivalry flares to life faster than a flambé, but there's something else flaming between us too. And it's heating up quicker than anything we're making in the kitchen.

But I can't forget that Tatum is the daughter of Christopher Elliott-America's most famous chef. She belongs in a big city, in a restaurant with her name on it. Not running the catering arm of Stonebrook Farm.

Whatever her reasons for being here now, I can't see her permanently walking away from the fame and fortune her father can offer her, no matter how well she fits in on the farm-how well she fits with me.

She'll leave eventually-I'm sure of it. I just have to make sure that when she does, she doesn't take my heart with her.

It's enemies to lovers foodie edition in this fast-paced, banter-filled romcom from bestselling author, Jenny Proctor.

“Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly.” —People

From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families in rustic Minnesota, and the legacy of love and tragedy, of hardship and hope, that unites and divides them

Mariel Prager needs a break. Her husband Ned is having an identity crisis, her spunky, beloved restaurant is bleeding money by the day, and her mother Florence is stubbornly refusing to leave the church where she’s been holed up for more than a week. The Lakeside Supper Club has been in her family for decades, and while Mariel’s grandmother embraced the business, seeing it as a saving grace, Florence never took to it. When Mariel inherited the restaurant, skipping Florence, it created a rift between mother and daughter that never quite healed.
Ned is also an heir—to a chain of home-style diners—and while he doesn't have a head for business, he knows his family's chain could provide a better future than his wife's fading restaurant. In the aftermath of a devastating tragedy, Ned and Mariel lose almost everything they hold dear, and the hard-won victories of each family hang in the balance. With their dreams dashed, can one fractured family find a way to rebuild despite their losses, and will the Lakeside Supper Club be their salvation?
In this colorful, vanishing world of relish trays and brandy Old Fashioneds, J. Ryan Stradal has once again given us a story full of his signature honest, lovable yet fallible Midwestern characters as they grapple with love, loss, and marriage; what we hold onto and what we leave behind; and what our legacy will be when we are gone.

Grace and her friends must protect a newly hatched dragon from mysterious evildoers.

When Grace moves to Hong Kong with her mom and new stepdad, her biggest concern is making friends at her fancy new boarding school. But when a mysterious old woman gifts her a dragon egg during a field trip, Grace discovers that the wonderful stories of dragons she heard when she was a young girl might actually be real--especially when the egg hatches overnight.

The dragon has immense powers that Grace has yet to understand. And that puts them both in danger from mysterious forces intent on abusing the dragon's power. And now it's up to Grace and her school friends to uncover the sinister plot threatening the entire city!

"This charming and brilliant novel is superbly plotted and will win over readers . . . Phoebe's voice is dead on and authentic, as are those of her friends. The author's masterful prose and style serve the story instead of merely taking center stage . . . This author and novel are ready for prime time and the big time." --Publishers Weekly, BookLife Prize Critic's Report

Meet Phoebe Katz, a twelve-year-old foster kid from New York City who's been bounced around the system her entire life. Things happen around Phoebe, but it's not like they're her fault But when a statue of Athena comes to life, Phoebe gets the stunning news she's the daughter of Zeus, has a twin brother named Perseus--and was sent away from ancient Greece as a baby to stop a terrible prophecy that predicted she would one day destroy Olympus.

Athena warns Phoebe to stay in hiding, but when the vengeful god Ares kidnaps her beloved social worker, Phoebe has no choice--she has to travel back to ancient Greece and rescue him There, Phoebe and her friends Angie and Damian discover a new prophecy, one that may fix everything. The catch: Phoebe has to collect talismans from six Greek monsters, including the fang from a nine-headed hydra, a talon from the Nemean lion, and a feather from the sphinx. No problem for a girl with the power to call up lightning bolts and change the weather But can Phoebe collect them all and stop the prophecy before she destroys Olympus?

Percy Jackson meets Tristan Strong in this hilarious middle grade “edge-of-your-seat adventure” (James Ponti, New York Times bestselling author of City Spies) that follows a young boy as he journeys across China to seal the underworld shut and save the mortal realm.

Zachary Ying never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage. His single mom was busy enough making sure they got by, and his schools never taught anything except Western history and myths. So Zack is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open.

The mission takes an immediate wrong turn when the First Emperor botches his attempt to possess Zack’s body and binds to Zack’s AR gaming headset instead, leading to a battle where Zack’s mom’s soul gets taken by demons. Now, with one of history’s most infamous tyrants yapping in his headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor’s incredible water dragon powers.

And if Zack can’t finish the mission in time, the spirits of the underworld will flood into the mortal realm, and he could lose his mom forever.

Experience the action-packed first book in #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson's laugh-out-loud middle-grade fantasy series like never before—now in paperback with all new covers!

AN ANCIENT RIVALRY REAWAKENS.

Everything I'd known about the world was a lie.

On my thirteenth birthday, I, Alcatraz Smedry (yes, I got named after a prison, don’t ask) received my inheritance: a bag of sand. And then I accidentally destroyed my foster parents’ kitchen. It’s not my fault, things just break around me, I swear!

I thought the sand was a joke until evil Librarians came to steal it. You’re probably thinking, “Librarians are nice people who recommend good books,” but that’s just what they want you to think! It turns out they’re actually a secret cult keeping the truth from you—a hidden world filled with magical eyeglasses, talking dinosaurs, and knights with crystal swords!

Or so my Grandpa Smedry claimed when he suddenly showed up to rescue me. So now I have to go with him to invade the local library and get that sand back, before it's used to conquer the world. And Grandpa says how I keep breaking things is actually an amazing talent. There’s no way that can all be true, right?

Will I ever make it back home alive?

"An excellent choice to read aloud to the whole family. Funny, exciting, and briskly paced." —NPR

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Best-selling author Rick Riordan introduces this fantasy adventure by New York Times best-selling author, Roshani Chokshi, inspired by the great epics she grew up on.

Twelve-year-old Aru Shah has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales, she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?

One day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie. They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.

But lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and it's up to Aru to save them.

The only way to stop the demon is to find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers, protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?

Six kids search for a new place to call home in this middle grade graphic novel debut by comic creators Cait May and Trevor Bream, for fans of Marvel's Runaways and The Witch Boy by Molly Knox Ostertag. Another Kind is not your average monster story.

Tucked away in a government facility nicknamed the Playroom, six not-quite-human kids learn to control their strange and unpredictable abilities. Life is good--or safe, at least--hidden from the prying eyes of a judgmental world.

That is, until a security breach forces them out of their home and into the path of the Collector, a mysterious being with leech-like powers.

Can the group band together to thwart the Collector's devious plan, or will they wind up the newest addition to his collection?

An ALSC Graphic Novel Reading List Title

A boy discovers his destiny could totally stink in this riotously funny fantasy-adventure

Risk-averse Greg Belmont is content with being ordinary. He's got a friend--that's right, just one--at his fancy prep school, and a pretty cool dad (even if he is obsessed with organic soaps that smell like a mix of salted pork and Icelandic bog). The problem is, Greg isn't ordinary . . . he's actually an honest-to-goodness, fantastical Dwarf!

He discovers the truth the day his dad brings home a gross new tea--one that awakens bizarre abilities in Greg. Then a murderous Bro-Troll kidnaps his dad and Greg is whisked away to the Underground, where Dwarves have lived for centuries right beneath the streets of Chicago.

With the help of some awesome new friends and a talking ax, Greg learns all about the history of the Dwarves, which has been marked with tales of epic failure since the dawn of time. However, the return of the magic they once wielded means big changes are afoot, escalating tensions with the Dwarves' sworn enemy: the Elves.

Brimming with humor and action, Chris Rylander's The Legend of Greg turns dwarf lore on its head, delivering an adventure readers won't be able to resist.

A young girl, a winged horse, and a war of epic proportions make for an adventurous start to an exciting new trilogy.

When Pegasus crashes onto a Manhattan roof during a terrible storm, Emily’s life changes forever. Suddenly allied with a winged horse she’d always thought was mythical, Emily is thrust into the center of a fierce battle between the Roman gods and a terrifying race of multiarmed stone warriors called the Nirads. Emily must team up with a thief named Paelen, the goddess Diana, and a boy named Joel in order to return Pegasus to Olympus and rescue the gods from a certain death.
Along the way, Emily and her companions will fight monsters, run from a government agency that is prepared to dissect Pegasus, and even fly above the Manhattan skyline—all as part of a quest to save Olympus before time runs out.

"Ben may only be pretending to be the 'Chosen One'—but I’ve definitely chosen this one as my favorite new fantasy series.”
—Max Brallier, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Last Kids on Earth series

How far would you go to play the hero? One seventh grader gets way more than he bargained for when he is swept into the fantasy quest of his gaming dreams in this funny illustrated series full of adventure and twists.

It’s not so easy being the Chosen One (or in Ben Whitlock’s case, pretending to be the Chosen One). Sure, when you’ve been mistaken for a long-prophesied hero by a teenage girl/mysterious assassin and transported to a fantasy realm you're supposedly destined to save, you don’t have to worry about things like math homework. But when flying narwhals are trying to blast you into oblivion (gulp) and a bunch of old mystics in flip-flops want you to enter something called the Gullet of Eternal Torment (double gulp), suddenly a C in algebra doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

Back in the real world, Ben preferred to escape into fictional adventures and role-playing games. But the more he learns about his true quest, the more he realizes that being a hero goes way beyond rolling a few dice. . . .

See that girl, the one with the bright red hair, overstuffed backpack, and aura of grumpiness? That's Charlotte Mielswetzski. And something extra-ordinary is about to happen to her.

Oh, it's not the very cute kitten that appears out of nowhere and demands to go home with her. It's not the sudden arrival of her cousin Zee, who believes he's the cause of a mysterious sickness that has struck his friends back in England. It's not her creepy English teacher Mr. Metos, who takes his mythology lessons just a little too seriously. And it's not the white-faced, yellow-eyed men in tuxedoes, who follow Charlotte everywhere.

What's so extraordinary is not any one of these things....It's all of them. And when Charlotte's friends start to get sick one by one, Charlotte and Zee set out to find a cure. Their quest leads them to a not-so-mythical Underworld, where they face rhyme-loving Harpies, gods with personnel problems, and ghosts with a thirst for blood.

Charlotte and Zee learn that in a world overrun by Nightmares, Pain, and Death, the really dangerous character is a guy named Phil. And then they discover that the fate of every person -- living and dead -- is in their young hands.

In her dazzling debut for young readers, Anne Ursu weaves a tale of myth and adventure, danger and magic that will keep readers engrossed until the very last secret is revealed.

The adventures of Artemis Fowl, criminal mastermind, begin.

Twelve-year-old criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl has discovered a world below ground of armed and dangerous—and extremely high-tech—fairies. He kidnaps one of them, Holly Short, and holds her for ransom in an effort to restore his family’s fortune. But he may have underestimated the fairies’ powers. Is he about to trigger a cross-species war?

"The runes have spoken. We have our champion...Matthew Thorsen."

Matt hears the words, but he can't believe them. He's Thor's representative? Destined to fight trolls, monstrous wolves and giant serpents...or the world ends? He's only thirteen.

While Matt knew he was a modern-day descendent of Thor, he's always lived a normal kid's life. In fact, most people in the small town of Blackwell, South Dakota, are direct descendants of either Thor or Loki, including Matt's classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke. No big deal.

But now Ragnarok is coming, and it's up to the champions to fight in the place of the long-dead gods. Matt, Laurie, and Fen's lives will never be the same as they race to put together an unstoppable team, find Thor's hammer and shield, and prevent the end of the world.

In their middle grade debut, K.L. Armstrong and M.A. Marr begin the epic Blackwell Pages series with this action-packed adventure, filled with larger-than-life legends, gripping battles, and an engaging cast of characters who bring the myths to life.
 

A thrilling fantasy adventure that explores friendship and queer identity, perfect for fans of Amari and the Night Brothers and Rick Riordan's Trials of Apollo series!



When Juniper Harvey's family moves to the middle of nowhere in Florida, her entire life is uprooted. As if that's not bad enough, she keeps having dreams about an ancient-looking temple, a terrifying attack, and a mysterious girl who turns into an ivory statue. One night after a disastrous school dance, Juniper draws a portrait of the girl from her dreams and thinks, I wish you were here. The next morning, she wakes up to find the girl in her room...pointing a sword at her throat!



The unexpected visitor reveals herself as Galatea, a princess from a magical other world. One problem--her crown is missing, and she needs it in order to return home. Now, it's up to Juniper to help find the crown, all while navigating a helpless crush on her new companion. And things go from bad to worse when a sinister force starts chasing after the crown too.



Packed with adventure and driven by a pitch-perfect voice, this middle grade debut from Nina Varela is about one tween forging new friendships, fighting nightmarish monsters, and importantly, figuring out who she is and who she ultimately wishes to be.



"Juniper Harvey is a heartwarming and hilarious journey across worlds that will prime readers for their own adventures."

--Kwame Mbalia, New York Times bestselling author of the Tristan Strong series

One of the most beloved stories from The Walt Disney Parks is now a romping middle grade adventure series! High-tech wizardry, old world legends and a little bit of Disney magic all shine through in Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl, the first book in the Society of Explorers and Adventurers series from renowned best-selling author, Julie Kagawa.


"One cannot fight destiny, boy. Even if one did not ask for it. The idol calls for you, and you must answer its call..."

Shinji Takahashi is just an ordinary kid. An ordinary homeschooled smart-alecky kid being raised by his globe-trotting aunt Yui. But when a magical guardian decides to use him as a conduit to awaken its power, Shinji's life takes a turn for the anything-but-ordinary. Captured by the menacing Hightower Corporation, which is bent on using the guardian's magic for its own nefarious purposes, Shinji must team up with a brilliant young tech whiz named Lucy and her robot mouse, Tinker, in order to escape.

Together the two turn to the venerable Society of Explorers and Adventurers and its ragtag cast of spelunkers, hackers, mapmakers, pilots, and mythology experts (among other things) to return the guardian to its rightful home and release Shinji from its magic--which seems to be draining his life force. Time is ticking, the Hightower Corporation is in hot pursuit, and success or failure might depend on one small thing--Shinji finally coming around to the belief that he is anything but ordinary.

Based on the Society of Explorers and Adventurers lore that exist across the Walt Disney Parks, Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl is the first book in an all-new action-adventure series that brings S.E.A. into the twenty-first century through a blend of science and magic.

Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents Indigenous fantasy writer Rebecca Roanhorse's thrilling adventure about a Navajo girl who discovers she's a monsterslayer.

*"Fans of Hugo and Nebula winner Roanhorse will appreciate her fast-paced prose, page-turning chapter endings, and most of all, strong female protagonist."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Lately, seventh grader Nizhoni Begay has been able to detect monsters, like that man in the fancy suit who was in the bleachers at her basketball game. Turns out he's Mr. Charles, her dad's new boss at the oil and gas company, and he's alarmingly interested in Nizhoni and her brother, Mac, their Navajo heritage, and the legend of the Hero Twins. Nizhoni knows he's a threat, but her father won't believe her.

When Dad disappears the next day, leaving behind a message that says "Run!", the siblings and Nizhoni's best friend, Davery, are thrust into a rescue mission that can only be accomplished with the help of Diné Holy People, all disguised as quirky characters. Their aid will come at a price: the kids must pass a series of trials in which it seems like nature itself is out to kill them. If Nizhoni, Mac, and Davery can reach the House of the Sun, they will be outfitted with what they need to defeat the ancient monsters Mr. Charles has unleashed. But it will take more than weapons for Nizhoni to become the hero she was destined to be . . .

Timeless themes such as the importance of family and respect for the land resonate in this funny, fast-paced, and exciting quest adventure set in the American Southwest.
 

"Monsters, mayhem, and a little family magic will have readers rooting for Valentina!" -- Kwame Mbalia, New York Times bestselling author

It takes a special person to end up in detention on the last day of school.

It takes a REALLY special person to accidentally burn down the school yard while chasing a fire-breathing chipmunk.

But nothing about Valentina Salazar has ever been "normal." The Salazars are protectors, tasked with rescuing the magical creatures who sometimes wander into our world, from grumpy unicorns to chupacabras... to the occasional fire-breathing chipmunk.

When Val's father is killed during a rescue mission gone wrong, her mother decides it's time to retire from their life on the road. She moves the family to a boring little town in upstate New York and enrolls Val and her siblings in real school for the first time.

But Val is a protector at heart and she can't give up her calling. So when a mythical egg surfaces in a viral video, Val convinces her reluctant siblings to help her find the egg before it hatches and wreaks havoc. But she has some competition: the dreaded monster hunters who'll stop at nothing to destroy the creature... and the Salazar family.

"Fans of books like The Lightning Thief will enjoy this fast-paced mythological fantasy, and will beg for more adventures with Abby. Sure to be a hard title to keep on the shelf." --School Library Journal

Twelve-year-old Abby Beckett is proud to come from a long line of elite Viking warriors known as the Aesir. She's spent her entire life training to hunt the horrific creatures known as Grendels-the ancient foe of the Aesir-just like her mother did before she died. But there's just one, small problem: No one has seen a Grendel in centuries, and the Viking Council wants to disband the Aesir . . . forever.

When her father is injured in an attack that leaves him in a coma, Abby is forced to take refuge at Vale Hall, a mysterious school in Minnesota where nothing is quite as it seems. She soon discovers the tables have turned and a Grendel is hunting her, but when she tries to alert the Viking Council, they accuse her of making up stories for attention . . . just like her mother did.

Desperate to protect her father and clear her mother's name, Abby goes on a dangerous quest to discover the truth--a journey that brings her face-to-face with some unlikely foes, including a Ping-Pong-playing sea monster with a wicked backhand, and a dark Valkyrie with a fondness for bingo. Abby quickly realizes that someone at the school is trying to stop her progress and destroy the Aesir for good. And only she can unravel the sinister plot before it's too late.

In this epic new adventure series that is sure to keep lovers of Rick Riordan running to the shelves Sam London is recruited by the Department of Mythical Wildlife and sent on a covert mission when the secret that legendary animals are real is in danger of being exposed (School Library Journal)!

Haunted by a dream of a mythical gryphon, Sam London uncovers an ancient secret that will change the way he sees the world forever. Recruited by Dr. Vance Vantana, an eccentric zoologist and park ranger sent by the government, Sam is whisked away on an adventure that takes him to the farthest reaches of the globe. Along this journey, Sam learns an incredible truth: mythical creatures are real and living among us in our national parks. A special department in the U.S. government ensures that their existence remains hidden.
But Sam's dream is an omen that the secret may now be in danger. Someone seeks the power to expose these creatures and overthrow humankind--and that power can only be found in a magical talisman known as the gryphon's claw.

A death-defying, globe-spanning adventure, packed with creatures out of folklore and myth....[Guardians of the Gryphon's Claw is] a solid series opener and debut for Gallicano, who stocks his story with engaging characters, human, and otherwise.-Publishers Weekly

"So original and exciting. This is the best fantasy-adventure novel I have read in some time."--Martin Olson, New York Times bestselling author of The Adventure Time Encyclopaedia

This exciting and adventurous start to a middle-grade trilogy follows a queer boy and his family as they try to halt the chaotic effects of a mysterious ring, drawing upon Jewish mythology to navigate magic, mayhem and the search for pride in one's identity.

The little beachside town of San Pancras is not known for anything exciting, but when Zach Darlington buys a mysterious ring at the local flea market, his quiet little hometown is turned topsy-turvy by monsters straight from Jewish folklore and a nefarious secret society focused on upholding an apocalyptic prophecy.


Zach discovers that the ring grants him strange powers, and he's intrigued; maybe he can use the ring's strengths to halt the slew of anti-Semitic and homophobic bullying he's experiencing at school. But soon the ring brings unexpected visitors--Ashmedai, King of Demons, in the guise of a preteen boy named Ash, and the local chapter of the Knights of the Apocalypse, a secret society intent on completing a creepy prophecy that will bring three monsters to Earth to start the events of the end of times.


Now responsible for the ring and its consequences, will Zach and his friends, with the help of Ash, be able to stop the Apocalypse and save the world?

Oh My Gods!, the first in a new middle grade graphic novel series, reads as if Raina Telgemeier and Rick Riordan teamed up to write a comic, and offers a fresh and funny spin on Greek mythology. When an average girl moves to Mt. Olympus, she discovers her new classmates are gods and mythological creatures are actually real--as if junior high isn't hard enough!

Karen is just an average thirteen-year-old from New Jersey who loves to play video games with her friends and watch movies with her mom. But when she moves to Greece to live with her eccentric, mysterious father, Zed, suddenly everything she thought about herself--about life--is up in the air.

Starting a new school can be difficult, but starting school at Mt. Olympus Junior High, where students are gods and goddesses, just might take the cake. Especially when fellow classmates start getting turned to stone. Greek mythology . . . a little less myth, a little more eek! And if Karen's classmates are immortal beings, who does that make her?

"Gods and thunder. Brothers and betrayal. Death and rebirth. Original Viking tales of Asgard, Thor, Loki, Odin, and Baldur come to life in a full-color, action-packed graphic novel that's perfect for young readers who crave adventure. Prepare yourself for sibling rivalry, ancient prophecies, and epic battles--and enter the weird, wild world of Norse mythology like you've never seen it before."--

From the very beginnings of the Universe in Greek myths to the incredible Labours of Heracles, explore this enchanting and complex world through beautiful storytelling by expert Marchella Ward, and breathtaking artwork from Sander Berg.

Take a journey through Ancient Greece and delve deep into its mythology in this stunning compendium of tales. From the heros of Athens and Sparta to Orpheus and Persephone in the Underworld, take a magical illustrated journey through the Mediterranean to learn about the places where each story took place.

This exceptional retelling of Homer's classic epic poem recreates the stories of the battle of Troy--where gods and goddesses divide and the Trojan Horse was born--Aphrodite and the golden apple, Odysseus, and the Amazons, for a whole new generation

With bold imagery and an ear tuned to the music of Homer's epic poem, Gareth Hinds reinterprets the ancient classic as it's never been told before.

"Gareth Hinds brings THE ODYSSEY to life in a masterful blend of art and storytelling. Vivid and exciting, this graphic novel is a worthy new interpretation of Homer's epic."
--Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series

Fresh from his triumphs in the Trojan War, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, wants nothing more than to return home to his family. Instead, he offends the sea god, Poseidon, who dooms him to years of shipwreck and wandering. Battling man-eating monsters, violent storms, and the supernatural seductions of sirens and sorceresses, Odysseus will need all his strength and cunning--and a little help from Mount Olympus--to make his way home and seize his kingdom from the schemers who seek to wed his queen and usurp his throne. Award-winning graphic artist Gareth Hinds masterfully reinterprets a story of heroism, adventure, and high action that has been told and retold for more than 2,500 years--though never quite like this.

Mia Thermopolis is pretty sure there's nothing worse than being a five-foot-nine, flat-chested freshman, who also happens to be flunking Algebra.

Is she ever in for a surprise.

First mom announces that she's dating Mia's Algebra teacher. Then Dad has to go and reveal that he is the crown prince of Genovia. And guess who still doesn't have a date for the Cultural Diversity Dance?

The Princess Diaries is the first book in the beloved, bestselling series that inspired the feature film starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.

When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.

In the realm of very scary faeries, no one is safe.

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces the sixteen-year-old back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms—a struggle that could very well mean her death.

Holly Black's enormously powerful voice weaves teen angst, riveting romance, and capriciously diabolical faerie folk into an enthralling, engaging, altogether original reading experience.

This modern classic takes on an iron-fisted drug lord, clones bred for their organs, and what it means to be human. Winner of the National Book Award as well as Newbery and Printz Honors.

Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium—a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt’s first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster—except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself.

As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón’s power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn’t even suspect.

Kate DiCamillo's first published novel, like Winn-Dixie himself, immediately proved to be a keeper—a New York Times bestseller, a Newbery Honor winner, the inspiration for a popular film, and most especially, a cherished classic that touches the hearts of readers of all ages. It's now available in a paperback digest format certain to bring this tale's magic to an even wider circle of fans.

The summer Opal and her father, the preacher, move to Naomi, Florida, Opal goes into the Winn-Dixie supermarket—and comes out with a dog. A big, ugly, suffering dog with a sterling sense of humor. A dog she dubs Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, the preacher tells Opal ten things about her absent mother, one for each year Opal has been alive. Winn-Dixie is better at making friends than anyone Opal has ever known, and together they meet the local librarian, Miss Franny Block, who once fought off a bear with a copy of WAR AND PEACE. They meet Gloria Dump, who is nearly blind but sees with her heart, and Otis, an ex-con who sets the animals in his pet shop loose after hours, then lulls them with his guitar.

Opal spends all that sweet summer collecting stories about her new friends and thinking about her mother. But because of Winn-Dixie or perhaps because she has grown, Opal learns to let go, just a little, and that friendship—and forgiveness—can sneak up on you like a sudden summer storm.

New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult tells the story of a girl who decides to sue her parents for the rights to her own body in this riveting story that tackles a controversial subject with grace and explores what it means to be a good person.

Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally powerful story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister’s Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child’s life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME  •  NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first.

Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal. In this celebration of nonconformity, Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the perils of popularity and the thrill and inspiration of first love.

Don’t miss the sequel, Love, Stargirl, as well as The Warden’s Daughter, a novel about another girl who can't help but stand out.
 
“Spinelli is a poet of the prepubescent. . . . No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion.” —The New York Times

Russel Middlebrook is convinced he's the only gay kid at Goodkind High School.

Then his online gay chat buddy turns out to be none other than Kevin, the popular but closeted star of the school's baseball team. Soon Russel meets other gay students, too. There's his best friend Min, who reveals that she is bisexual, and her soccer–playing girlfriend Terese. Then there's Terese's politically active friend, Ike.

But how can kids this diverse get together without drawing attention to themselves?

"We just choose a club that's so boring, nobody in their right mind would ever in a million years join it. We could call it Geography Club!"

Brent Hartinger's debut novel, what became first of a series about Russel Middlebrook, is a fast–paced, funny, and trenchant portrait of contemporary teenagers who may not learn any actual geography in their latest club, but who learn plenty about the treacherous social terrain of high school and the even more dangerous landscape of the human heart.

Ember is the only light in a dark world. But when its lamps begin to flicker, two friends must race to escape the dark. This highly acclaimed adventure series is a modern-day classic—with over 4 MILLION copies sold!
 
The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to dim. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she’s sure it holds a secret that will save the city. Now, she and her friend Doon must race to figure out the clues to keep the lights on. If they succeed, they will have to convince everyone to follow them into danger. But if they fail? The lights will burn out and the darkness will close in forever.
 
Nominated to 28 State Award Lists!
An American Library Association Notable Children’s Book
A New York Public Library 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing Selection
A Kirkus Reviews Editors’ Choice
A Child Magazine Best Children’s Book
A Mark Twain Award Winner
A William Allen White Children’s Book Award Winner
 
“A realistic post-apocalyptic world. DuPrau’s book leaves Doon and Lina on the verge of undiscovered country and readers wanting more.” —USA Today
 
“An electric debut.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred 
 
“While Ember is colorless and dark, the book itself is rich with description.” —VOYA, Starred
 
“A harrowing journey into the unknown, and cryptic messages for readers to decipher.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred

The first novel in the wildly popular #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, from the author of The Whole Thing Together and The Here and Now.

Some friends just fit together.
 
Once there was a pair of pants. Just an ordinary pair of jeans. But these pants, the Traveling Pants, went on to do great things. This is the story of the four friends—Lena, Tibby, Bridget, and Carmen—who made it possible.
 
Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself.


"Funny, perceptive, and moving." --USA Today

 “An outstanding and vivid book that will stay with readers for a long time.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred, Flying Start
 
 “The loving depiction of enduring and solid friendship will ring true to readers.” —The Bulletin, Recommended
 
 “A feel-good novel of substance.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred
 
“Uplifting.” —Seventeen

The first book in Deborah Ellis's riveting Breadwinner series is an award-winning novel about loyalty, survival, families, and friendship under extraordinary circumstances during the Taliban's rule in Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Eleven-year-old Parvana lives with her family in one room of a bombed-out apartment building in Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city. Parvana's father -- a history teacher until his school was bombed and his health destroyed -- works from a blanket on the ground in the marketplace, reading letters for people who cannot read or write. One day, he is arrested for the crime of having a foreign education, and the family is left without someone who can earn money or even shop for food. As conditions for the family grow desperate, only one solution emerges. Forbidden to earn money as a girl, Parvana must transform herself into a boy, and become the breadwinner. The 15th anniversary edition includes a special foreword by Deborah Ellis as well as a new map, an updated author's note, and a glossary to provide young readers with background and context. All royalties from the sale of this book will go to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan. Parvana's Fund supports education projects for Afghan women and children.

Identity crises, consumerism, and star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains.

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.

It's late summer 1793, and the streets of Philadelphia are abuzz with mosquitoes and rumors of fever. Down near the docks, many have taken ill, and the fatalities are mountain. Now they include Polly, the serving girl at the Cook Coffeehouse. But fourteen-year-old Mattie Cook doesn't get a moment to mourn the passing of her childhood playmate. New customers have overrun her family's coffee shop, located far from the mosquito-infested river, and Mattie's concerns of fever are all but overshadowed by dreams of growing her family's small business into a thriving enterprises. But when the fever begins to strike closer to home, Mattie's struggle to build a new life must give way to a new fight -- the fight to stay alive.

A young boy named Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque Du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human/half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers-- Mr. Crepsley-- is a vampire! Steve remains after the show finishes to confront the vampire-- but his motives are surprising! In the shadows of a crumbling theater, a horrified Darren eavesdrops on his friend and the vampire, and is witness to a monstrous, disturbing plea. As if by destiny, Darren is pulled to Mr. Crepsley and what follows is his horrifying descent into the dark and bloody world of vampires. This is the beginning of Darren's story.

A timeless, unforgettable riches to rags immigration story and beloved, award-winning modern classic, perfect for fans of Kate DiCamillo and Rita Williams-Garcia.

Esperanza thought she'd always live a privileged life on her family's ranch in Mexico. She'd always have fancy dresses, a beautiful home filled with servants, and Mama, Papa, and Abuelita to care for her. But a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard work, financial struggles brought on by the Great Depression, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When Mama gets sick and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances--because Mama's life, and her own, depend on it.

"Witty, wise, and disarmingly tender. I am hopelessly devoted to this summer dream of a book." —Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

The guy of her dreams... or the girl in her heart?

Lara's had eyes for exactly one person throughout her three years of high school: Chase Harding. He's tall, strong, sweet, a football star, and frankly, stupid hot. Oh, and he's talking to her now. On purpose and everything. Maybe...flirting, even? No, wait, he's definitely flirting, which is pretty much the sum of everything Lara's wanted out of life.

Except she’s haunted by a memory. A memory of a confusing, romantic, strangely perfect summer spent with a girl named Jasmine. A memory that becomes a confusing, disorienting present when Jasmine herself walks through the front doors of the school to see Lara and Chase chatting it up in front of the lockers.

Lara has everything she ever wanted: a tight-knit group of friends, a job that borders on cool, and Chase, the boy of her literal dreams. But if she's finally got the guy, why can't she stop thinking about the girl?

Dahlia Adler's Cool for the Summer is a story of self-discovery and new love. It’s about the things we want and the things we need. And it’s about the people who will let us be who we are.

Perfect for fans of Morgan Matson and Ruta Sepetys, this sweet, summery romance set in Nantucket follows seventeen-year-old Abby Schoenberg as she uncovers a secret about her grandmother's life during WWII.

Seventeen-year-old Abby Schoenberg isn't exactly looking forward to the summer before her senior year. She's just broken up with her first boyfriend and her friends are all off in different, exciting directions for the next three months. Abby needs a plan--an adventure of her own. Enter: the letters.

They show up one rainy day along with the rest of Abby's recently deceased grandmother's possessions. And these aren't any old letters; they're love letters. Love letters from a mystery man named Edward. Love letters from a mansion on Nantucket. Abby doesn't know much about her grandmother's past. She knows she was born in Germany and moved to the US when she was five, fleeing the Holocaust. But the details are either hazy or nonexistent; and these letters depict a life that is a bit different than the quiet one Abby knows about.

And so, Abby heads to Nantucket for the summer to learn more about her grandmother and the secrets she kept. But when she meets Edward's handsome grandson, who wants to stop her from investigating, things get complicated. As Abby and Noah grow closer, the mysteries in their families deepen, and they discover that they both have to accept the burdens of their pasts if they want the kinds of futures they've always imagined.

Perfect for fans of Morgan Matson and Netflix/Hallmark Channel rom-coms, this is the story of a girl who decides to give in to the universe and just say yes to everything, bringing her friendship, new experiences, and, if she lets her guard down, true love.

The perfect book to kick off summer! For as long as Rachel Walls can remember, she's had capital-G Goals: straight As, academic scholarship, college of her dreams. And it's all paid off--after years of following the rules and acing every exam, Rachel is graduating at the top of her class and ready to celebrate by . . . doing absolutely nothing. Because Rachel Walls has spent most of high school saying no. No to dances, no to parties, and most especially, no to boys.

Now, for the first time in her life, there's nothing stopping Rachel from having a little fun--nothing, that is, except herself. So when she stumbles on a beat up old self-help book--A SEASON OF YES!--a crazy idea pops into her head: What if she just said yes to . . . everything?

And so begins a summer of yes. Yes to new experiences and big mistakes, yes to rekindled friendships and unexpected romances, yes to seeing the world in a whole new way. This book is a fresh and fun take on the coming-of-age novel that explores the quintessential themes of growing up: taking risks, making mistakes, and, of course, love. And who knows? Lindsey Roth Culli's hilarious and heartwarming debut may just inspire your own SAY YES SUMMER.

Inspired by the Greek myth of Iphigenia and the Grimm fairy tale "Brother and Sister," Michelle Ruiz Keil's second novel follows two siblings torn apart and struggling to find each other in early '90s Portland.
 
All her life, seventeen-year-old Iph has protected her sensitive younger brother, Orr. But this summer, with their mother gone at an artist residency, their father decides it’s time for fifteen-year-old Orr to toughen up at a wilderness boot camp. When their father brings Iph to a work gala in downtown Portland and breaks the news, Orr has already been sent away against his will. Furious at her father’s betrayal, Iph storms off and gets lost in the maze of Old Town. Enter George, a queer Robin Hood who swoops in on a bicycle, bow and arrow at the ready, offering Iph a place to hide out while she tracks down Orr.

Orr, in the meantime, has escaped the camp and fallen in with The Furies, an all-girl punk band, and moves into the coat closet of their ramshackle pink house. In their first summer apart, Iph and Orr must learn to navigate their respective new spaces of music, romance, and sex-work activism—and find each other before a fantastical transformation fractures their family forever.

Told through a lens of magical realism and steeped in myth, Summer in the City of Roses is a dazzling tale about the pain and beauty of growing up.

A swoon-worthy story about five best friends on a whirlwind trip through Europe, perfect for fans of Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins, and Jennifer E. Smith.
American expat Aubrey has only two weeks left in Europe before she leaves for college, and she's nowhere near ready. Good thing she and her best friend, Rae, have planned one last group trip across the continent. From Paris to Prague, they're going to explore famous museums, sip champagne in fancy restaurants, and eat as many croissants as possible with their friends Clara, Jonah, and Gabe.

But when old secrets come to light, Aubrey and Rae's trip goes from a carefree adventure to a complete disaster. For starters, there's Aubrey and Gabe's unresolved history, complicated by the fact that Aubrey is dating Jonah, Gabe's best friend. And then there's Rae's hopeless crush on the effortlessly cool Clara. How is Rae supposed to admit her feelings to someone so perfect when they're moving to different sides of the world in just a few weeks?

Author Cecilia Vinesse delivers a romantic European adventure that embraces the magic of warm summer nights, the thrill of first kisses, and the bittersweet ache of learning to say goodbye to the past while embracing the future.