Table of contents for April 2024 in Booklist Reader

These days there is a constant flow of headlines about technology, with all its potential and danger, and warnings of a not-too-distant future when AI dominates. (Will it destroy humankind?) Flip the channel (or page, or tab!) and you’re bombarded with polarized news about the election. Flip again and encounter war news. It’s all rather disheartening and gloomy. One of the best ways to escape is through reading or writing poetry. I enjoy immersing myself in the rhythm of the lines, the lyricism, meaning, word choice, metaphors, and the structure and form of the poem. For me, those elements synchronize and paradoxically elevate readers beyond language itself, into realms of feeling, emotion, and sense. When I read poetry, the persistent march of time seems to slow, allowing for deeper insights…

In April, PBS Books celebrates Poetry Month and Earth Month. In celebration, PBS Books National Director, Heather-Marie Montilla, sits down with the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limón, to discuss You Are Here: Poetry In the Natural World, a singular collection of poems reflecting on our relationship to the natural world by 50 of our most celebrated contemporary writers. As the editor and author of the introduction, Limón talks about her work to create this extraordinary book, which challenges what we think we know about “nature poetry” and illuminates the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing. This inspirational book features 50 previously unpublished poems from such accomplished poets as Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, and Paul Tran. Each poem engages with its…

Bellies. By Nicola Dinan. 2023. Hanover Square. Writing with insight, compassion, and quiet authority, Dinan offers a love story between a highly empathic couple who breaks up when one transitions, before an opportunity for rapprochement arises. Between Two Moons. By Aisha Abdel Gawad. 2023. Doubleday. During one hot, hungry month of Ramadan, two teenage sisters in Brooklyn imagine their futures, deal with post-9/11 Islamophobia, and adjust to their brother’s early release from prison. Chain-Gang All-Stars. By Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. 2023. Pantheon. Adjei-Brenyah’s relentless reality-adjacent tale takes place in a not-so-unfamiliar alternate America, where prisoners are coerced and tortured into joining Criminal Action Penal Entertainment for a chance at freedom. The Forbidden Territory of a Terrifying Woman. By Molly Lynch. 2023. Catapult. Lynch’s magical debut constructs a dreamlike dystopia populated by…

The Asking: New and Selected Poems. By Jane Hirshfield. 2023. Knopf. Hirshfield’s mindfully measured inquiries into the mysteries and fundamentals of being alive are pared down in structure, yet lushly observed and deeply questioning as well as nimble, imaginative, witty, and poignant. Fog and Smoke. By Katie Peterson. 2024. Farrar. Climate concerns and the precariousness of the living world are Peterson’s subjects in agile poems featuring abrupt imagery and playful turns, adding up to a triumph of observation, intimacy, and awareness. Grand Tour. By Elisa Gonzalez. 2023. Farrar. In this burning debut, Gonzalez devises bright lyrical narratives that illuminate the speaker’s deceased brother, abusive father, and her own bisexual identity, as well as nature and classical literature. I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times. By Taylor Byas. 2023. Soft Skull.…

Booth: Tell us a bit about your background and how you got involved in audiobook narrating. Ballerini: In college, at Wesleyan University, I had a professor suggest I read my writing aloud. Not for professional purposes, but as a tool to better understand my own literary efforts. I went a step further and started listening to spoken-word recordings, mostly poets, primarily T. S. Eliot, and got hooked on voices. Then I became an actor in film and television, not a writer or a narrator. I didn’t know narration was even a possibility. The industry was very niche back then. But when I finally got into a booth for the first time, I felt right at home. That seed that had been planted all those years ago finally started to bloom. Booth:…

Cayla Fay Ravensong Describe Ravensong in one sentence, using as much alliteration as possible. Grumpy ginger god meets merry new neighbor, fights fiends, fails to flirt. Would you date a god? Seems dicey. I definitely wouldn’t. I’ve read myths and folklore from all over the world, and the general takeaway is that it rarely ends well for the human involved. Sometimes it does! But I’m a little too risk-averse to play those odds. Favorite fantasy trope(s)? I am such a sucker for “the sunshine one x the grumpy one,” especially when one of them is a monster. There’s something about one character refusing to let the other get stuck in the cycle of grimdark angst that is just catnip to me. If you could live in one fantasy universe, what…

Akira. By Katsuhiro Otomo. Kodansha. Gr. 11–up. One of the first manga ever to be translated into English, Akira is the inspiration behind the transformative 1988 film of the same name. Set in a postapocalyptic “Neo-Tokyo,” the manga centers on biker-gang leader Kaneda and resistance-fighter Kei as they attempt to prevent Kaneda’s former best friend and gang member, Tetsuo, from using his violent new psychic abilities to destroy Neo-Tokyo and awaken “Akira,” a mysterious entity. Cinematic and action-packed, the manga goes into far more depth and takes different paths from the film, which is a revelation to most anime fans. The Apothecary Diaries. By Natsu Hyuuga and Nekokurage. Square Enix. Gr. 9–up. Maomao is an apothecary who has been kidnapped and sold into service to the inner court. When she…

American Mermaid. By Julia Langbein. 2023. Doubleday. English teacher Penelope Schleeman is stunned and thrilled when her debut novel, American Mermaid, a feminist eco-thriller, goes viral and she ends up in Hollywood. But does she want her heroine, an introspective science student grappling with her asexuality, turned into a superficial teen action hero? A Burning. By Megha Majumdar. 2020. Knopf. After witnessing a gruesome train-station attack, Jivan responds to a Facebook post. Days later, she has been beaten, jailed, and accused of terrorism. Majumdar’s electrifying debut serves as a barometer measuring the seeming triviality of human life and the fragility of human connections. Fake Accounts. By Lauren Oyler. 2021. Catapult. While in Berlin, a writer for a New York–based website falls for another American, but their romance quickly dwindles after…

My earliest memories of Guaraní—one of two official languages in Paraguay, along with Spanish—are split between foreign and domestic. At home, my father tied up the landline for hours barking into the handset, his inescapable volume due partly to an innate conversational intensity. But the connection was also incredibly poor, relayed from our house in exurban Central Illinois, bounced between any number of international operators, and finally routed to the public phone booth in downtown Villarrica where, with luck, a tío or primo was stationed to answer the call. Whenever the call dropped, my father returned to the fridge door, located whichever calling card retained the most minutes—a calculation requiring maths still indecipherable to me—and dialed again. It’s strange to contemplate the sheer luck required to connect with family in…

Find out more at www.LibraryReads.org TOP PICK The Husbands: A Novel Holly Gramazio (Doubleday) Lauren, who’s single, comes home to find that not only is she married, but she doesn’t recognize her husband. She discovers that by sending a husband to the attic, she can replace him with a new model—and there seems to be a never-ending supply. The quirky nature of the book, humorous writing, charming characters and the unbelievable situation will have readers completely engrossed. —Douglas Beatty, Baltimore County Public Library, MD NoveList read-alike: The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston The Rule Book: A Novel Sarah Adams (Dell) Nora lands her first client as a sports agent, and it happens to be her ex-boyfriend from college. Derek, a tight end pro football player, needs all the help…

All You Have to Do. By Autumn Allen. 2023. Penguin/Kokila. Gr. 9–12. In chapters alternating between time lines, two young Black men are connected through their struggles for acceptance and equality, one in the 1960s and the other in the 1990s. Constellations. By Kate Glasheen. Art by the author. 2023. Holiday. Gr. 8–12. In 1980s Troy, New York, teenage Claire is ordered by the court to attend addiction rehab, where they must come to grips with both their alcoholism and their gender identity. The Davenports. By Krystal Marquis. 2023. Dial. Gr. 7–10. In 1910 Chicago, though the Davenports are a rare example of a wealthy Black family with status—inspired by true history—the three children face various racially charged obstacles. Fire from the Sky. By Moa Backe Åstot. Tr. by Eva…