It’s 2025, and Hannah, a frustrated young fusion scientist vacationing in Scotland’s Western Isles, is visited by a disfigured young man who was born in a colony on Mars and has come back from the future to help her perfect fusion technology in time to save Earth from runaway climate change and civilizational collapse. Now …

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Jessamine Bricker has a history of succeeding even in the worst of circumstances. When her teen mother opted out of raising her, Jess’ Nana Blanche “clipped coupons like a fiend” to pay her tuition at Wren Hill Day School for Young Ladies, where blue-collar Jess rubbed elbows with Nashville’s old-money princesses. Jess went on to …

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Emma Moskowitz has a lot going for her—she’s a licensed marriage and family therapist who’s just turned in the first draft of a book on maintaining healthy relationships; she has a successful YouTube channel; she lives in a very nice Los Angeles apartment; and she’s happily planning her wedding to Ryan, a man she loves. …

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A relentless bully who posts popular videos of his humiliating attacks, and a bossy new classmate aiming to replace her as leader of the Detective Club, may seem like tough challenges for Minerva Keen, but what really gets her attention is how her once-friendly language arts teacher, Claire Voyant, has abruptly turned harsh and dismissive—almost …

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Kinsey’s taut novel tells a straightforward story, but it’s the voice that stands out most. The note of regret its narrator takes when recalling a woman named Asha hints that the story we’re about to hear won’t be a happy one. “I was afraid if I thought about her, her voice would wake up on …

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Emily, an anthropomorphized button the color and texture of a strawberry, is happy dancing and twirling her blue ribbon in the privacy of her craft-box bedroom. Her friend Becky, a yellow button, enters them both in a talent show, but Emily doesn’t want to dance in public—she’s very anxious about making a mistake (“I might …

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The story begins by likening words to people: specifically, the way each word is unique and lovely just the way it is. Every word does something no other word can, and when different words meet, “Words are like kids / Who see each other / And begin to play.” The author underscores the anxiety words …

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A woman named Caty finds a box of mementos kept on a back closet shelf that helps her piece together the story of her parents. The narrative then shifts to 1970s Berkley, where readers are introduced to Caty’s father, Paul Leroy “Roy” Robertson, and her mother, Lenore “Len” Whitaker, when both are students. Roy, a …

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Alex and his mother (both portrayed with pale skin), along with their dog, Nico, sometimes go on adventures together—but often, “Mommy…wants to play with us but her body can’t.” Over a week, Mom experiences a new symptom each day—her specific illness isn’t disclosed—which Alex then explains to Nico, using easy-to-understand similes: “Mama can’t hike with …

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In 1926, a man named Robert Thomas and a male friend, both Black, had to fight off a white female usher, white manager, and six riot officers to be allowed to take the orchestra seats they had purchased rather than be banished to the balcony at Harlem’s Loew’s Victoria Theatre. This was just one of …

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