The fresh perspective and distinctive voice of poet Villarreal (Beast Meridian) drive this smart collection. The power of fantasy stories looms large in these essays, as in “After the World-Breaking, World-Building,” where Villarreal argues that the genre acts as a conduit for conceiving of more equitable ways to organize society. Picking up this theme in “The Fantasy of Healing,” Villareal contends that in the video game Witcher 3, the option to use “feminized folk practices to heal victims, homes, and communities” in lieu of enacting violent retribution on wrongdoers raises the possibility of alternative forms of justice rooted in healing rather than punishment. “In the Shadow of the Wolf” suggests that Nordic mythology’s ascendant popularity during the Obama era can be attributed to a “cultural desire” for “the return of white male dominance, free from colonial baggage or accountability.” Other selections are more personal, as when Villarreal recounts how in high school her white boyfriend’s mother sought to drive a wedge in their relationship by hiring her as a maid. The sharp commentary on Assassin’s Creed, Horizon Zero Dawn, and other video games prove the under-analyzed medium is ripe for rigorous intellectual engagement, and the meditations on fantasy narratives incisively probe how fictional worlds reflect and intersect with the real one. Readers will be spellbound. Agent: Amanda Orozco, Transatlantic Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Little House on the Prairie actor Butler delivers a sweet if superficial debut memoir about his early life and acting career. Born in British Columbia in 1956, Butler grew up in Northern California, where his first performances were in an elementary school show choir. He chalks up his eventual turn toward acting to a job announcing high school basketball games (“Everything that has happened since can be traced back to that moment when Mr. Cochran pointed me to the microphone”). The bulk of the book sheds light on Butler’s screen credits, beginning with the 1978 adaptation of Judy Blume’s Forever and focusing primarily on his five-year stint, from 1979 to 1983, as Almanzo Wilder in Little House on the Prairie. He shares regrets about his lack of sensitivity to the eight-year age difference between him and series lead Melissa Gilbert, who played his love interest (“Today that... difference is a tiny gap, but forty-five years ago, it was the Grand Canyon”), and muses on his complicated relationship with costar Michael Landon. Other behind-the-scenes sections, covering Butler’s work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and numerous documentaries, generate occasional interest, but there’s not a lot of substance. This is for die-hard Little House on the Prairie fans only. Agent: Danita Florace, AEF Talent. (June)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

In the gonzo latest from Edgar winner Burke (Harbor Lights), detective Dave Robicheaux’s friend, P.I. Clete Purcel, gets caught up in the bizarre pursuit of a bioweapon in late-1990s Louisiana. Clete wakes one Sunday to find three men disassembling his Cadillac in search of contraband. During a brief confrontation, the men knock Clete unconscious, and from there, the story spins out in a dizzying array of directions. One of Clete’s assailants turns out to be a member of an occult neo-Nazi group; the men appeared to be on a mission that also involves slimy millionaire Lauren Bow and his actor wife, Clara. They’re all after a bioweapon called Leprechaun, which may or may not have been in the Cadillac. Clete gets help from Robicheaux, sheriff Helen Soileau, and Joan of Arc, who appears in prophetic visions to steer him from further harm. Readers will delight in Burke’s sterling prose (Louisiana is “an antediluvian place that could have been formed on the first day of Creation, then forgotten, feral and threatening”) and take heart amid the surreal proceedings in Robicheaux’s assertion that “mysteries exist. The denial of them is an absurdity.” This is a winner. Agent: Anne-Lise Spitzer, Philip G. Spitzer Literary. (June)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

In this scintillating collection from Indigenous Canadian author Belcourt (A Minor Chorus), queer Cree men grapple with the legacy of colonialism. “Being Indigenous in the twenty-first century can mean that a single hour can be governed simultaneously by joy and sadness,” says the narrator of “Lived Experience.” Such conflicting emotions play into his ambivalence about sex, but after swearing off encounters with other men, he falls for a painter named Will, and shows up at Will’s art gallery opening wearing a denim jacket emblazoned with the phrase “GAY 4 PAY JK ABOLISH WORK.” Amorous and economic concerns also overlap in “Poetry Class,” about a poet who believes in the “revolutionary demand” of his craft, while his ex was obsessed with satisfying the market. In the gritty and moving “Outside,” a restless young man named Jack beats a drug trafficking charge, returns from jail to his grandmother’s trailer on the reservation, and matches on Tinder with a neighbor named Lucy. Throughout, Belcourt sheds light on the transformative potential of love, describing, for instance, how Jack is changed by Lucy when she invites him into her life, which “open[s] space inside his mind for different memories” and drives him to “give [himself] over to new pasts, future emotional histories.” These wise and open-hearted stories astonish. (May)

Reviewed on 05/03/2024 | Details & Permalink

Mount Shasta, Calif., high school senior Izumi Tanaka is a normal 18-year-old American girl: she enjoys baking, watching Real Housewives, and dressing like “Lululemon’s sloppy sister.” But Japanese American Izzy, conceived during a one-night stand in her mother Hanako’s final year at Harvard, has never known the identity of her father. So when she and her best friend find a letter in Hanako’s bedroom, the duo jump at the chance to ferret out Izzy’s dad’s true identity—only to find out he’s the Crown Prince of Japan. Desperate to know her father, Izzy agrees to spend the summer in his home country. But press surveillance, pressure to quickly learn the language and etiquette, and an unexpected romance make her time in Tokyo more fraught than she imagined. Add in a medley of cousins and an upcoming wedding, and Izzy is in for an unforgettable summer. Abrupt switches from Izzy’s perspective to lyrical descriptions of Japan may disrupt readers’ enjoyment, but a snarky voice plus interspersed text conversations and tabloid coverage keep the pages turning in Jean’s (Empress of All Seasons) fun, frothy, and often heartfelt duology starter. Ages 12–up. Agent: Erin Harris, Folio Literary Management. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Kelkar’s (Bindu’s Bindis) novel features Oceanview Academy middle schooler Sonali, whose stoicism contrasts with her love of Bollywood movies’ melodrama. Stuck in a Los Angeles home with constantly arguing parents and her sensitive nine-year-old brother Ronak, Gujarati American Sonali, 11, tries to make sense of her world through the Hindi movies she’s seen all her life. Ever since an earnest public attempt five years ago to stop her parents’ fighting led to widespread embarrassment in front of family, Sonali has resolved to hide her emotions and do her best to ignore her parents’ arguments. But her efforts prove futile when her parents decide to try the “nesting” method of separation, where they take turns living in the house with Sonali and Ronak. The contemporary narrative takes an entertaining fabulist turn as Sonali’s life begins to transform into a Bollywood movie, with everything she feels and thinks made apparent through her “Bollywooditis.” Sonali’s first-person perspective is sympathetic as she navigates friendship and family drama, and Kelkar successfully infuses a resonant narrative with “filmi magic,” offering a tale with universal appeal through an engaging cultural lens. Ages 8–12. Agent: Kathleen Rushall, Andrea Brown Literary. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

When she was six, Justice Kasric watched her blue-eyed merchant father play chess with the Faerie King. Now 15, Justice believes the event was merely a dream. She spends her days yearning for adventure, watching from the sidelines while her 16-year-old sister Faith, as slender and golden-haired as Justice but not as curious, becomes the toast of Victorian London society. One night, however, their father shatters their comfortable lifestyles when he forces the family—Justice, Faith, their younger brother Henry, and their constantly medicated, distant mother—into a locked carriage that takes them to a shadowy mansion. Justice’s discovery that the Faerie have invaded the human world and are targeting her family gains further urgency when she learns that her parents are on opposite sides of the conflict. Together, the Kasric siblings—including older brothers Benedict and Joshua—must find a way to save their family. While characters lack depth at times, and insufficient historical details don’t fully evoke the Victorian setting, Klaver’s (the Supernatural Case Files of Sherlock Holmes series) rich, lyrical descriptions augment the fantastical source material in this engaging series starter. Ages 13–up. Agent: Lucienne Diver, the Knight Agency. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Nine years before this novel begins, eight-year-old best friends Esme Randal and Kayla Price snuck out of their cabin at Camp Pine Lake in Texas. They swore never to discuss the terrible events that followed, but when the girls, now 17, return to the camp as counselors-in-training from their hometown of Lewisburg, Pa., that proves easier said than done. Someone begins sabotaging camp activities, and ominous—and increasingly public—threats appear, referencing that fateful summer. The only other person who knows Esme and Kayla’s secret is a local girl named Lillian Campbell, whom they left to fend for herself that night in the woods. They’re loath to voice their suspicions of revenge lest they get in trouble or look bad in front of hunky fellow counselors Jake and Olly, but as events escalate, they realize they may not have a choice. Narrating from Esme’s increasingly apprehensive first-person perspective, Preston (The Twin) pays homage to classic summer camp slasher films. The underdeveloped, predominantly white cast relies heavily on stereotype, and the clichéd tormenter’s motive feels unearned, but horror fans will likely appreciate this paranoia-fueled tale’s gruesome, shocking close. Ages 12–up. Agent: Jon Elek, United Agents. (Mar.)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

Inspired by her own family’s refugee journey from Vietnam to Hong Kong, Văn’s (If You Were Night) spare picture book, powerful in its deliberate simplicity, follows a black-haired, pale-skinned child as they, their guardian, and two younger siblings join other asylum seekers for a perilous maritime voyage. In a third-person voice, Văn anthropomorphizes objects, relaying their wishes: “The dream wished it was longer,” one spread reads, as a balding, mustached guardian holds the protagonist close, and a guardian with a bun rouses the second child to dress them. “The clock wished it was slower,” the subsequent pages read, as the two children tearfully hug their mustached guardian goodbye. The narrative continues as the now family of four make their way onto the boat and beyond. A final-act switch to first-person perspective drives home the journey’s personal nature. Intricate, lissome fine-lined art by Ngai (Dazzle Ships) recalls classical Asian compositions, Japanese woodblock prints, and an evocative sensibility in a gradated, surrealistic color palette. A seamless interweaving of elegant prose and atmospheric art marks this affecting immigrant narrative. Back matter includes heartfelt author’s and illustrator’s notes. Ages 4–8. (May)

Correction: A previous version of this review misquoted the book's text.

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink

In a straightforward picture book debut by Meloy (the Apothecary series), a red-orange octopus is “happy in his cave,” until a human, portrayed as a pale hand, tricks the cephalopod into occupying a glove and subsequently takes him to “a glass house that wasn’t a cave.” Though the octopus is offered interactive tests and activities—including building blocks, a jar to unscrew, tight passages to navigate, and a camera to photograph visitors to his aquarium home—his days lack differentiation, and the pining octopus soon devises an intrepid plan to return home. The sympathetic prose is rhythmic, allowing readers to see the octopus’s perspective at every step of the process: of the glass house, “There were no waves. No little shivery ones. No big tumbling ones.” Sala (Green on Green) contributes vibrant art rendered in gouache, watercolor, and pastel on paper; particularly effective are spreads of the sinuous subject’s ocean life, with its richly varied flora and fauna. The Finding Nemo–esque adventure follows a predictable arc, but the tender narrative is gratifying and may serve as an effective jumping-off point for discussions about animal captivity. Ages 3–7. (May)

Reviewed on 05/07/2021 | Details & Permalink