A standout collection of clever, engaging poems about animals and insects living in the Sahara begins by setting the desert scene, where sun “blinds the sky / and scrapes the land / clean like a butcher / with his favorite knife.”
2025 books
The Rose Bargain
It’s 1848, and cruel fae queen Mor has ruled London for centuries, allowing each of her subjects to make a single bargain with her. Most young women do so during their debutante season, trading something of value—a body part, a memory, a talent—in exchange for a quality that will boost their marriageability.
Bad Badger: A Love Story
Septimus is a fastidious, solitary badger living in a little cottage by the sea. Because he has spots instead of typical badger stripes on his nose, prefers the seaside to the traditional forest habitat of badgers, and likes drinking tea and listening to opera, he considers himself a “bad badger.” Sometimes he wonders if he even is a badger.
How to Reach the Moon
In the summer, Emilio (Latino) leaves the city and travels past a landscape of pointed mountains to the forest, where his abuelo lives in a house among the trees. There they eat dinner outside by lantern light, and afterward, in the dark, Abuelo treats Emilio to fantastical stories. Seeing the moon in the sky one night, Emilio asks whether it is “true that the moon has a face we never see.” In fact, it “has many faces!” says Abuelo.
Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown
Opening with a description of the gruesome scene that confronted U.S. troops after the mass deaths of Jonestown residents in 1978, this account delves into the history of Jim Jones and his cult.
Come Home to My Heart
In small, conservative Fisherton, South Carolina, high school seniors Gloria (white) and Xia (Chinese American/white) have little in common. Gloria is a devout Baptist who tries to control her same-sex attraction by limiting herself to five minutes per day on her blog, where she adds photos of girls and then scrupulously clears her browser history, knowing her dad will check it later. A social outcast and closeted lesbian, Xia is simply hanging on until she can escape her parents and small-town life for the more diverse, queer, and intellectual crowds in college.
Will’s Race for Home
After decades of backbreaking, thankless sharecropping work in Texas, Will’s father, who was enslaved as a child, is “grim and dull,” and Will longs for a closer relationship with him. When they hear of the Oklahoma Land Rush, they recognize it as the chance of a lifetime. With a wagon of supplies pulled by their mule, Belle, Will and his dad join thousands of others racing to stake out their own land.
Fireworks
For the two children at the center of this immersive picture book, a blissful July day is capped with a spectacular show.
Hick: The Trailblazing Journalist Who Captured Eleanor Roosevelt’s Heart
In the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Lorena Hickok was a skilled and popular journalist, chronicler of the Depression for the U.S government, and intimate friend of Eleanor Roosevelt. This fascinating biography begins with Hickok’s childhood.
All Better Now
What if a disease could make people happier and kinder? Crown Royale (CR) is a virus that kills one out of every 25 people infected. But the majority who contract it not only recover but also feel contentment in the aftermath.