Riot New Media – Page 62

032724-TheLostBookshop-CAGiveaway

Post author By Vivek Patel
Post date March 27, 2024

We’re giving away three copies of The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods to three lucky Riot readers!

Enter here for a chance to win, or click the image below!

The Keeper of Stories meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets.

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder… where nothing is as it seems.

What's Up in YA

Books for Fans of GUTS, Enemy Strategists, and More YA Book Talk and News: March 28, 2024

Post author By Kelly Jensen
Post date March 27, 2024

Sponsored by

Hey, YA Readers!

We’re in spring break mode in my house this week, which of course, means it has been cold and snowy (after weeks of 50, 60, even 70-degree days, it was bound to happen!). But even with lingering snow on the ground, the daffodils are still poking up, and the bright yellow against the white makes them pop even more. I hope wherever you are, you’re finding those bits of spring/autumn that make your heart soar.

Want to make your book club the best club? Sign up for our In the Club newsletter. In the Club will deliver recommendations for the best books to discuss in your book clubs. From buzzy new releases to brilliant throwbacks, the books highlighted in this newsletter will drive your book club discussions. We’ll also share some book club-friendly recipes and interesting bookish updates from all over. If you become a paid subscriber, you get even more recommendations, plus community features. In other words, we’ll keep you well-met, well-read, and well-fed. Sign up today!

Let’s get into all things YA paperbacks and YA book news for the week.

Bookish Goods

Bookish Bunnies Bookmark by CozyReadsShop

‘Tis the season of all things bunnies, so why not snag one of these cute bunny bookmarks? I’m obsessed with everything from the color to the bunnies themselves. $4.50+, depending on whether or not you want a tassel.

(Psst, this bookmark made me realize I could offer everyone a special picture treat at the bottom of the newsletter, too!)

New Releases

While this week’s new hardcover releases were not superabundant, especially compared to earlier weeks this month, the paperback options were.

Find two of this week’s great paperbacks highlighted below. You can peruse the full list over here. The spring edition of the paperback roundup will be published shortly, and as always, know you might need to toggle your view at the links below to access the paperback version of the title.

Into The Light by Mark Oshiro

Manny is wandering the western United States after being kicked out of a place where he’d been living. He and his sister Elena have been in the foster care system since they were young, so not having a settled place isn’t new territory for him. But what is new is being part of the Varela crew, consisting of adults and teens who are traveling up and down the highway. It’s as close as Manny has ever gotten to a family and he has found himself feeling some romantic feelings toward Carlos, one of the fellow passengers.

During pit stops, Manny cannot stop trying to see the TV and the infomercials about a camp he knows very well. A camp where he and his sister went. A camp from which he was expelled. And now, as he learns, a camp where a dead body has been found. Manny is convinced it’s Elena’s body and that she’s been killed for not following the orders of the camp leader. So now he’s bound and determined to get to Idyllwild and find out, once and for all, if Elena is alive or dead.

At heart, this is a mystery. Who is the girl who died at the camp? Is it Manny’s sister? But this is also a mystery about Manny. Who is he? How did he become who he is? What kind of world has he experienced that has made him shut himself off from both others…and himself? Why is he without a home or family?

Strike the Zither by Joan He

There’s a puppet empress on the throne while the realm is breaking into three separate factions, with three warlordesses itching to get their hands on power. It’s the Xin Dynasty, year 414.

Zephyr sees the battle as being pretty cut and dry. She herself was orphaned very young and became one of the smartest and savviest strategists in the land. As such, she’s served under Xin Ren, one of the warlordesses. Ren is loyal to the empress but Zephyr doesn’t necessarily see this as a bad thing…nor a good thing.

Now with their world being upended, Zephyr needs to infiltrate an enemy camp in order to save Ren’s followers. The problem is that Zephyr meets Crow, an enemy strategist who keeps her on her toes. Now the two of them are going head to head on who can be strongest, smartest, most cunning…so long as, well, feelings don’t get in the way.

This is the first in a duology, and the second book, Sound The Gong, will hit shelves on April 30.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

YA Book News

I think the news is also taking spring break this week since there’s not a whole lot to share.

The Davenports was picked up by Prime for a television series. This will be so good.
The Children’s Book Council of Australia has announced their shortlists of best books of the year. Here’s the list of YA books.
This is a little insider-y publishing stuff, but interesting nonetheless. Scholastic invested in an entertainment company called 9 Story recently, which means we’ll begin to see more adaptations of Scholastic titles. There are tons of younger children’s books that make for the perfect fit, but there will be YA titles among them, too.
I don’t share much book ban stuff here since I have a whole newsletter for that (if you don’t get it, it’s Literary Activism!). But this piece on how prolific book banner Bruce Friedman is obsessed with targeting the comic Banned Book Club is a really good read. (Friedman has gotten my book banned in Clay County, and let’s just say he makes himself look as unhinged here as he is).
What to read if you’re obsessed with Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS. It kind of hangs heavy on Jenny Han—whose books are great!—but know you’ll see her series pop up a few times.

I promised a little treat at the end, so here it is. This is my rabbit Goldie with her favorite of the kitties. That cat has two brain cells fighting for third place, but he is very pretty.

Thanks for hanging out. We’ll see you on Saturday with some book deals.

Until then, happy reading!

–Kelly Jensen, currently reading Snowglobe by Soyoung Park, translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort

True Story

Graphic Memoirs About Family

Post author By Kendra Winchester
Post date March 26, 2024

Sponsored by

It’s spring break, and my spouse and I are visiting his family out west. I always love visiting family, seeing people we haven’t had the chance to see in a while, and catching up on all the goings on in their lives. The kids are taller. The adults have a few more gray hairs. And we all have some great conversations. Some of my favorite books are about families. There’s love, messiness, and tough choices to make, just like in real life. So today, I’m sharing a couple graphic memoirs about families set during tumultuous times in history.

But first, it’s time for bookish goods and new book releases!

Bookish Goods

a photo of a bookmark that look like a teabag. It's made out of sewn cloth and a cord

Tea Bag Bookmark by AChapterOfTea

Whenever I come out to see family, I always like to bring gifts. This adorable, tea-inspired bookmark caught my eye. $10

New Releases

Rabbit Heart: A Mother’s Murder, a Daughter’s Story by Kristine S. Ervin

Kristine S. Ervin was only eight when her mother was abducted from a parking lot at the mall and murdered. The family never learned what happened. Now, as an adult, Ervin decides to finally find out what happened to her mother all those years ago.

There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib

There’s Always This Year is one of my anticipated book releases of the season, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here! Poet and cultural critic Hanif Abdurraqib grew up in Columbus, Ohio, during the 1990s. He watches basketball stars like LeBron James rise from places he could recognize. In There’s Always This Year, he discusses ideas around who we think deserves success and what society decides is exceptional.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

a graphic of the cover of Good Talk by Mira Jacob

Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations by Mira Jacob

In Good Talk, Mira Jacob describes how her son asked her why his Jewish paternal grandparents would vote for Trump, a man who hated immigrants, like Mira and her parents. This question launches her into even more questions that she’s not quite sure how to answer. She works through these conversations in Good Talk, illustrating them on the page and giving readers a fuller picture. I read this graphic memoir while waiting for a delayed flight at the airport. I felt consumed, and barely even noticed spending the extra four hours surrounded by disgruntled passengers.

Baddawi by Leila Abdelrazaq

Leila Abdelrazaq’s grandfather was one of the thousands of Palestinians who fled Palestine after the creation of Israel and the war of 1948. He and his family spent the next several decades moving from one country to another, facing constant discrimination as they tried to make a life for themselves. At first, they thought that their exile was temporary, but as the years passed, they began to lose hope that they would ever see Palestine again.

a photo of a mountain creek. The mountains in the background are covered in the snow. — Taken Near Grand Teton National Park

That’s it for this week! You can find me over on my substack Winchester Ave, over on Instagram @kdwinchester, on TikTok @kendrawinchester, or on my podcast Read Appalachia. As always, feel free to drop me a line at kendra.d.winchester@gmail.com. For even MORE bookish content, you can find my articles over on Book Riot.

Happy reading, Friends!

~ Kendra

Giveaways

032624-MarchEACPushes-2024-Giveaway

Post author By Vivek Patel
Post date March 26, 2024

We’re teaming up with Papercutz to give away $400 towards an annual Owl Crate subscription to one lucky winner!

Enter here for a chance to win, or click the image below!

Here’s a bit more from our sponsor: Papercutz is dedicated to publishing great graphic novels for all ages. Join us to see the newest graphic novels from Disney, The Smurfs, and more! Connect with our community and characters, discover new original stories, and get access to free digital books, downloadable activities, reading guides, and more!

Past Tense

Incredible Casts in Historical Fiction Audiobooks

Post author By Rachel Brittain
Post date March 26, 2024

Sponsored by

Hi, historical fiction fans,

I didn’t get as much reading done this last week as I hoped, but I did manage to dive into a new physical book and audiobook while I was traveling over the weekend. Travel days are some of my best reading days since there’s not much else I can focus on except a good book and getting where I’m going. When do you have your best reading days?

Bookish Goods

Canvas tote bag featuring a teal colored vintage typewriter with a paper coming out of it with typed text that reads "no matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."

Typewriter Tote Bag from Fly Paper Products on Etsy

I love a good tote bag, especially a bookish one. Just think how many books you could carry around in this typewriter tote bag! $20

New Releases

All the World Beside by Garrard Conley (March 26, 2024)

In Puritan New England, two men develop a bond that exists beyond words and beyond the norms of a religiously restrictive society in 18th-century America. Torn between their families, their dogmatic beliefs, and their feelings, they try to imagine a future beyond the confines of life as they know it.

Double Lives by Mary Monroe (March 26, 2024)

Twin sisters with a penchant for getting up to trouble in Depression-era Lexington frequently switch places to fool boyfriends, bosses, family, and even racist police. But when Fiona wants a break from her passionless marriage, wild child Leona finds she doesn’t mind the security of having a husband and home. Meanwhile, Fiona is finally able to explore what it means to be independent and maybe even fall in love.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

I love a good audiobook—and I’ll brook no arguments that they don’t count as “real reading” from pedants—especially when they feature compelling narrators and large casts of characters. Here are two I particularly recommend.

Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange

Books with multiple POVs are often very fun to listen to in audiobook format because they really distinguish between the voices and personalities of the characters. Wandering Stars follows generations of a Cheyenne family from the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and beyond, charting the inheritance of systemic trauma.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Book Cover

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

This is another book I was introduced to the first time in audio, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Some books are just particularly suited to being read aloud, and this is one of them. The epistolary format is perfect for audio, and the narrators really bring the eclectic cast of characters to life.

That’s it for now, folks! Stay subscribed for more stories of yesteryear.

If you want to talk books, historical or otherwise, you can find me @rachelsbrittain on various social media platforms.

Right now, I’m reading A Sweet Sting of Salt by Rose Sutherland. What about you?

Unusual Suspects

5 new mystery novels whisk readers around the globe

Post author By Jamie Canaves
Post date March 26, 2024

Sponsored by

Hello, mystery fans! I’ve been in search of something funny and I finally found it in the hilarious, smart, and silly show Girls5eva (Netflix). If you like the type of sitcoms that poke fun at things while also being found family and pop culture-y, definitely watch it. Bonus: the episodes are under 30 minutes, so you probably won’t need to make time to watch one, unlike all the four-hour movies. Just sayin’.

Bookish Goods

a white mug with a detective holding a red fish with text "this isn't a clue it's a red herring"

Mystery Novel Mug by CoffeeCupDoodles

If you like dad jokes, hot drinks, and twisty mysteries, here’s a mug! ($16+)

New Releases

cover image for The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties (Aunties #3) by Jesse Q. Sutanto

For fans of comedy of errors, big bickering and loving families, and accidentally getting roped into crime!

Meddy Chan started her life of crime in the first book when she accidentally killed her date in self-defense, and then her family spent a weekend trying to keep the body hidden while planning a wedding. Now Meddy is newly married and she’s brought her husband Nathan to Jakarta, where he is going to meet a lot of relatives at once during Chinese New Year. While Meddy is at first nervous that he’s going to not understand her culture and family, her worries soon shift to crime when an old beau of her aunts, now in organized crime, decides to woo her again. Except something, of course, goes wrong during the courtship, and now Meddy, her mom, her aunties, and Nathan are in the crosshairs of a business rivalry that will put them in danger…

The audiobook series is narrated by Risa Mei, who does a great job with all the big personalities!

If you want to start at the beginning, pick up Dial A For Aunties.

cover image for You'd Look Better as a Ghost

You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace

For fans of female serial killer leads, revenge, dark humor, and past and present storylines!

Claire kills people who piss her off and has managed to not get caught. But when she’s shortlisted for a prize, and then the follow-up email informs her it was a mistake, she has a new target, one that puts a target on her!

After her kill — he was not apologetic at all — Claire has to join a bereavement group because her doctor won’t give her meds for her headaches, thinking they are caused by her grief over her father’s recent passing. So off she goes, only to discover that one of the grievers in the group witnessed Claire’s killing and is going to tell the cops if Claire doesn’t join her blackmailing business. What’s Claire to do?

I picked this up based solely on the title, knowing nothing about it, and was not disappointed! Grab this one if you like dark humor and not feeling bad about “liking” a fictional serial killer.

The audiobook is narrated by Fiona Hardingham, who has a ton of work under her belt, including Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes series!

(TW child abuse, mostly emotional/ suicide, suicidal thoughts scene, almost attempt/ dementia/ bereavement groups: discussion of loved one’s deaths including parent death from cancer/ memory of mental health facility abuse/ elder abuse/ panic attack/ recounts past miscarriages, not graphic)

Looking for more new releases? Check out our New Books newsletter!

Riot Recommendations

If you’re out here shooting for the stars, I thought I’d help with two suggestions for PopSugar’s read harder challenge in the “advanced” section! (One book actually crosses off two prompts!)

X (Kinsey Millhone #24) by Sue Grafton

I’m going to give you one book for TWO of the prompts: “The 24th book written by an author” AND “A book with a title that starts with the letter ‘X'”

California PI Kinsey Millhone has two cases she’s working on that will, of course, spiral out and have plenty of depth into the clients’ lives: Kinsey’s friend Ruthie Wolinsky hires her to look into paperwork belonging to her murdered PI husband, and Hallie Bettancourt hires her to find the baby she gave up for adoption as a teen who has recently been released from prison…

If you want to start at the beginning of this excellent series, pick up A Is for Alibi.

cover image for The Woman in the Purple Skirt

The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura, Lucy North (Translator)

“A book with 24 letters in the title”

This is a psychological character study that places readers in the voyeur seat as you follow closely the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, who is obsessed with The Woman in the Purple Skirt and watches her constantly — going so far as to leave a job advert to entice her to her own place of work. Soon they are both working at the same hotel, one seen and one unseen.

News and Roundups

How The BookmarkED/OnShelf App, Created to Help Schools Ban Books, Fuels Them Instead

Jessica Biel to Star in Peacock Limited Series The Good Daughter Based on Karin Slaughter Novel

50 Cent to Release New Book This Fall — See the Cover Here

11 Great Shows Like Will Trent And How To Watch Them

Happy Valley Is A Masterpiece, One Of The Truest Detective Shows Ever Made

Cillian Murphy ‘Definitely Is Returning’ for Peaky Blinders Movie, Series Creator Says: ‘We’re Shooting It in September’

Neil Gaiman’s Dead Boy Detectives is getting the Netflix treatment

Diarra From Detroit Creator Says Show Is a “Beautiful Growing Up” of the Mystery Genre

5 new mystery novels whisk readers around the globe

Browse the books recommended in Unusual Suspects’ previous newsletters on this shelf. See upcoming 2024 releases and mysteries from 2023. Check out this Unusual Suspects Pinterest board and get Tailored Book Recommendations!

Until next time, keep investigating! In the meantime, come talk books with me on Bluesky, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Litsy — you can find me under Jamie Canavés.

If a mystery fan forwarded this newsletter to you and you’d like your very own, you can sign up here.

Read This Book

Read This Book…

Post author By Kendra Winchester
Post date March 26, 2024

Sponsored by

Welcome to Read this Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that needs to jump onto your TBR pile! Sometimes these books are brand new releases that I don’t want you to miss, while others are some of my backlist favorites. This week, I’m featuring a recent release about an author’s experience of grief after she loses her best friend.

Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley met her best friend Russell when he hired her to work as a publicist for a well-known paperback imprint at a major publishing house. At first, their relationship was awkward — strange, even. But eventually, Russell became her best friend. Sloane remembers how she would visit Russell and his partner at their country house outside the city. She remembers long, boozy lunches full of office gossip and scandal. But when Russell dies by suicide, her whole life feels like it’s been turned upside down.

Around the same time Russell dies, Crosley’s apartment is broken into, and several expensive pieces of jewelry are stolen. She somehow feels that if she finds a way to recover at least some of the jewelry, she’ll be okay. These two events — Russell’s death and the robbery — become inextricably twisted together in Crosley’s mind, impacting the way she grieves for her friend.

Crosley’s grief doesn’t make sense to her. She keeps pausing, wondering if this is how she should be feeling. She keeps asking, how do you process a friend’s death when they were the one who chose to end their life? Why does she care about jewelry that she didn’t even really like anyway? Why does everything in her life feel so wrong now?

Crosley lays out her messy grief process on the page. She doesn’t have all of the answers. She’s not even going to pretend to. Instead, she’s honest about the ups and downs of grief, the highs and the lows of it. Crosley structures her book around the stages of grief, but if anything, her memoir proves that the process of grief is never that straightforward.

Happy reading, Friends!

~ Kendra

Swords and Spaceships

A Dark Duo of New Releases

Post author By Alex Acks
Post date March 25, 2024

Sponsored by

Happy Tuesday, shipmates! It’s Alex, and I’ve got a rather dark duo of new releases to start you off. Put it down to my week beginning with a winter storm that dropped five inches of snow on top of an inch of sloppy slush, so it felt like getting catapulted back into the depths of winter. The recommendations are at least less dark and more…dreaming. Which seems like the short fiction theme this week! May you have not started your week off with wet shoes like I did. Stay safe out there, space pirates, and I’ll see you on Friday!

Let’s make the world a better place, together. Here are two places to start: Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund, which provides medical and humanitarian relief to children in the Middle East regardless of nationality, religion, or political affiliation; and Ernesto’s Sanctuary, a cat sanctuary and animal rescue in Syria that is near and dear to my heart.

Bookish Goods

The Map of Mathematics by hunarnim

One of the books has “math” in its title so I wanted to find something related. This isn’t fictional as such, but it’s a really neat cartoon map of how mathematical disciplines fit together. (This is a digital download to print yourself.) $4

New Releases

Diavola by Jennifer Thorne

The annual family destination vacation is something Anna has learned to survive over the years, and that’s easier said than done when she’s the only person in the family who doesn’t fit in. This year, the family’s renting an enormous villa in a tiny village, but things start going off the rails quickly and in a very gothic, haunted way.

The Angel of Indian Lake by Stephen Graham Jones

This is the final book of the trilogy that started with My Heart Is a Chainsaw. Jade Daniels has been in prison for the last four years after taking the fall for her family and best friend. There are a lot of things the residents of Proofrock, Idaho, don’t want to face, but the greatest of those shadows is the curse of the Lake Witch, and it’s not going to wait any longer.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

Today, we’re looking at a couple questions of the weird, the dreaming, and the queer.

Cover of Infinity Mathing at the Shore & Other Disruptions

Infinity Mathing at the Shore & Other Disruptions by M. Lopes da Silva

This collection leans very into the surreal and the weird…sometimes in a very chilling way. Expect altered landscapes of consciousness and unlikely hauntings.

Two Moons: Stories by Krystal A. Smith

Two Moons gives us stories that are more gentle in their dreaming and surreal concepts, focusing on the magic of Black women living and loving each other.

See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.

The Kids Are All Right

Wordplay, Friendships, And More Great Kids’ Books!

Post author By Margaret Kingsbury
Post date March 25, 2024

Sponsored by

Happy Tuesday, kidlit friends! Last week, Kelly wrote a fantastic write-up about an Illinois school district banning a book award judged by students. I thought about that and how fantastic these awards can be for discovering new books and getting kids excited about reading this week. My daughter’s school district is currently participating in a similar award, and I checked out a bunch of books on the list to read together. Last night she chose one on the list—Honeybee Rescue—for bedtime reading, and we read it five times in a row! It’s not a book I would normally have chosen for her. While she has been reading more nonfiction lately, she still prefers fiction, and she’s never shown any interest in bees. If her school district hadn’t participated in this award, she probably never would’ve read it.

Anyway, I know I’m preaching to the choir, but wow are book bans endlessly ludicrous and detrimental to kids.

Today, I review books with fun wordplay and two great new releases.

Bookish Goods

Bookish Outdoor Signs by CurioObscurio

If you’re adding any decor to your yard this summer, these bookish signs would be fun! This isn’t a listed option, but I would probably have mine customized to say “Where the wild things are.” $50+

New Releases

Sourgrass by Hope Lim, illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani

This is such a sweet and beautiful picture book about friendship, moving away, and pen-pals. Sofia and May are best friends and neighbors. They love playing together in the field of sourgrass just beyond their yards. Then May moves away, and the field becomes quiet. The two write letters back and forth between one another, and when the sourgrass blooms the following spring, Sofia plays in it and remembers her best friends. The illustrations are so luminous in this.

Shark Princess: Surfin’ Sharks by Nidhi Chanani

My daughter and I are both huge fans of the Shark Princess early reader graphic novel series. This is the third book in the series, though they can all be read out of order. Mack is participating in a shark surfing contest and aims to win. Kitani looks forward to watching and cheering her best friend on. When it turns out there are sharks better at surfing than Mack, he despairs. But Kitani and some other sharks know something Mack doesn’t—winning isn’t everything. Back matter includes a search-and-find, underwater volcano facts, and a drawing tutorial.

For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.

Riot Recommendations

Several fun wordplay-themed children’s books have been released this month, so I thought I would round them up for review, as well as a forthcoming one.

Was it a Cat I Saw? by Laura Bontje, illustrated by Emma Lidia Squillari

This palindrome-filled picture book also celebrates friendship. Hannah speaks only in palindromes. When a new kid asks for her help in finding his lost cat Otto, she happily agrees. A cat with a palindrome name, just like Hannah! The two weave in and out of the neighborhood in their search for the missing cat. When they finally find the cat, however, they realize they’re lost! Thankfully, Hannah’s felicity with palindromes reminds her of a way to find home. All the palindromes in the book are in bold. Laura and I are critique buddies and friends, and I’m so happy that everyone can read her debut now!

The Book That Almost Rhymed by Omar Abed, illustrated by Hatem Aly

This funny picture book celebrates rhymes, storytelling, and siblings. Big brother is writing the perfect rhyming story, but little sister keeps interjecting with her spins on the story that don’t rhyme! The brother gets more and more annoyed as the story gets out of hand. A knight doesn’t fight armadillos! Why would a knight and a detective be on a pirate ship!? However, it turns out little sister knows exactly how the rhyming game works. This would be great to read in classrooms studying rhyming words.

Taro Gomi’s Big Book of Words by Taro Gomi

This is a whimsical vocabulary primer for toddlers and preschoolers full of diagrams, comic-style explorations of a word, funny faces, and more. I love the randomness of the words Gomi chooses. This isn’t the typical vocabulary primer that lists colors, feelings, shapes, etc. Gomi chooses many other words to explore in addition to those basic concepts—like different types of flowers, the parts of a cow, all the ways the word ‘fish’ can mean something different—which gives this book a sense of joy and playfulness. It’s pretty long, too, at 64 pages.

Colossal Words for Kids by Colette Hiller, illustrated by Tor Freeman

Even though this middle grade vocabulary booster doesn’t release until May, it’s such a perfect addition to this list I had to include it. It’s a very clever collection of poems, accompanied by silly illustrations, that define big words. While entries are listed in alphabetical order, they can be read in any order. Hiller opens with “acquiesce,” ends with “zest,” and includes many other words like “garrulous,” “effervescent,” “meander,” “volatile,” and more, 75 in total. I spent a delightful hour or so reading the poems, which so brilliantly define the words.

Please enjoy this iridescent glob of bubbles from a science experiment we conducted the other day. While bubbles pop on the patio when it’s dry, they collect in great heaps when the patio is wet. A great introduction to surface tension. Yay for science and bubbles!

If you’d like to read more of my kidlit reviews, I’m on Instagram @BabyLibrarians, Twitter @AReaderlyMom, Bluesky @AReaderlyMom.bsky.social, and blog irregularly at Baby Librarians. You can also read my Book Riot posts. If you’d like to drop me a line, my email is kingsbury.margaret@gmail.com.

All the best,

Margaret Kingsbury

New Books

Hooray, It’s Time for New Books!

Post author By Liberty Hardy
Post date March 25, 2024

Sponsored by

Happy Tuesday, star bits! It’s almost April, if you can believe it. I have had an incredible reading year already. My favorite books of 2024 so far (that are available now) include Rainbow Black, The Other Valley, Wandering Stars, Headshot, Martyr!, Interesting Facts About Space, and The Book of Love. What new releases are you loving these days? Maybe you’ll find it in this newsletter! For you today, I have a mystery about a missing woman, a tense novel about the (possibly literal) horrors of being a parent, and a highly anticipated debut about a woman’s past relationship with a famous author.

As for other new releases, at the top of my list of today’s books that I want to get my hands on are The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang, Rabbit Heart by Kristine S. Ervin, and A Great Country by Shilpi Somaya Gowda. You can hear about more of the fabulous books coming out today on this week’s episode of All the Books! Patricia and I talked about books we are excited about that are out this week, including Says Who?, Worry, and There’s Always This Year.

Like Happiness by Ursula Villarreal-Moura

Tatum is a young woman living a quiet, satisfying life in Chile with her partner. But her happy existence gets shaken up when the past comes knocking. A famous author she knew from college, whom she met after writing a fan letter, has been accused of sexual misconduct. Tatum had spent ten years in his orbit. And now reporters want to know about her relationship with the author. Tatum must not only fight to keep her past from damaging her present and her future, but she begins to examine that decade and the power dynamic she had with the author. Was she in control of what was happening? Was it wholly appropriate? And how can she get past this scandal and back to her own life?

Backlist bump: Complicit by Winnie M Li

Monsters We Have Made by Lindsay Starck

This is an intense novel with a Slenderman-type monster at its nougat center. When Faye was a child, she attacked her babysitter, supposedly at the behest of the Kingman, a monster she read about on the internet. Now 23, Faye is missing, gone without a trace and leaving behind her child. Her mother, Sylvia, will have to revisit the pain and horror of that incident 13 years ago in order to find her. As Sylvia falls down a rabbit hole looking into the Kingman, and what internet lore might mean to Faye’s disappearance, she’ll have to face ugly realities about parenting, the bonds of love, and their limits. Will she find Faye before she reaches her breaking point? Because, just maybe, the Kingman might be real. (Also, this might be my favorite cover of the year.)

Backlist bump: Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

What Happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan

Speaking of parents with big problems: this is a “he said, she…is missing” mystery. By all accounts, Simon and Nina are a great couple. So when they go on vacation in Vermont, and only Simon returns, it’s a shock. Nina’s parents don’t think Simon’s explanation for her disappearance makes sense. Simon’s parents might not either, but they’ve got a lot of money to pay for expensive lawyers. The lawyers turn Nina’s disappearance, and soon her life, into a media circus. As Nina’s parents fight to find out what happened to their daughter, they are close to being pulled under a wave of lies and obstruction. In a public carnival of armchair detectives and Simon stans, it shows them just how much the truth doesn’t matter. Not when you don’t have money.

Backlist bump: Before and After by Rosellen Brown

close up of orange cat asleep with one blue eye behind glasses in the corner of the image; photo by Liberty Hardy

This week, I am reading Sharks Don’t Sink: Adventures of a Rogue Shark Scientist by Jasmin Graham and Under the Bridge by Rebecca Godfrey. I didn’t get to any TV this week (except for the Celtics, of course), but I hope to watch a movie tonight. I’m thinking either Poor Things or Killers of the Flower Moon. I really want to watch All of Us Strangers, because I heart Andrew Scott, but I don’t think I’m ready. I hear that it’s devastating. The song stuck in my head this week is “Here is a Heart” by Jenny Owen Youngs. And here is your weekly cat picture: I’m creeping while Zevon’s sleeping.

That’s all for this week! I appreciate you more than I can say, friends. Thank you for joining me each Tuesday as I rave about books! I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, whatever situation you find yourself in now. And yay, books! See you next week! – XO, Liberty

“When mountains are formed, they are forced up by deep geographical forces over millennia—the top is ages older than the bottom. Ascending, in many ways, is less like moving upward through space than it is like moving backward in time.”—Nicholas Binge, Ascension