Table of contents for April 2023 in Booklist Reader

Spring is a hopeful, affirming time. As everything thaws in the Chicago area, robins build nests (in the most awkward of places!), fawns bleat, and birds call amid vivid, fresh flowering and greening. I cherish these sights and sounds that lead us into summer, but I realize this is an idyllic perspective. T. S. Eliot referred to April as “the cruellest month” in “The Waste Land.” When that poem was written, Europe was reeling in the aftermath of WWI. With ongoing wars today, we continue to live in precarious times, times fraught with frustrations and concerns. Still, our focus here, on First Novels & Poetry, is attuned to and harmonized with the hopeful season of renewal. How appropriate it is to celebrate new voices and concepts in first novels. And…

All the Flowers Kneeling. By Paul Tran. 2022. Penguin. Tran’s darkly intelligent and exquisite collection centers around trauma, both as the speaker experiences a particular incident and the ways trauma permeates a person’s sense of self. One poem adopts the distant tone of a police report and demonstrates how the bureaucracy of criminal justice flattens and formalizes even the most awful experiences: “The form said Name of victim. //The form named me. //The form was a form of naming. //Naming gave me form.” Bluest Nude. By Ama Codjoe. 2022. Milkweed. Codjoe’s hotly burning poems collapse themes of color and body into a lyrical supernova, with reiterated questions about the role of women and art at its center. In one poem, she depicts the transformational nature of womanhood, “Like an organ…

Bindle Punk Bruja. By Desideria Mesa. Read by Frankie Corzo. 2022. 14hr. HarperAudio. Jeepers! Corzo is the bee’s knees narrating a 1920s historical fantasy debut. She transports the listener to a world of flappers, prohibition, magic, and changing social mores. A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting. By Sophie Irwin. Read by Eleanor Tomlinson. 2022. 9.5hr. Books on Tape. In this Regency romance, Tomlinson portrays the realistic personalities of Irwin’s characters. Listeners meet the pious and judgmental, hear the sarcastic and snippy, and laugh at the antics of a worrywart. Last Summer on State Street. By Toya Wolfe. Read by Shayna Small. 2022. 6hr. HarperAudio. In a mesmerizing performance, Small infuses each character with warmth and respect, channeling strength and resilience as they navigate death and abuse, faith and survival in…

The Best Liars in Riverview. By Lin Thompson. 2022. Little, Brown. Gr. 4–7. In rural Kentucky, white Aubrey sets off on a journey to find themself as well as their missing best friend, Joel. A heartfelt coming-of-age journey that explores identity and friendship. The Civil War of Amos Abernathy. By Michael Leali. 2022. Harper. Gr. 5–8. While working on a project to highlight queer figures in history, two gay boys struggle against the homophobia in their community. Freewater. By Amina Luqman-Dawson. 2022. Little, Brown. Gr. 4–7. Fleeing enslavement, 12-year-old Homer and his little sister discover Freewater, a secret community of escapees in the swamplands. A lyrical story of hope, strength, and ingenuity. Hell Followed with Us. By Andrew Joseph White. 2022. Peachtree Teen. Gr. 9–12. In the end of days,…

Amber and Clay. By Laura Amy Schlitz. Illus. by Julia Iredale. 2021. Candlewick. Gr. 5–8. Though enslaved Rhaskos and privileged Melisto live separate lives in ancient Greece, they’re bound by fate. This astonishing work of historical fiction in verse is anchored by literary devices from epic poems and classic Greek plays. Blood Water Paint. By Joy McCullough. 2018. Dutton. Gr. 10–12. In careful, sophisticated verse and prose poems, Mc-Cullough follows the heartbreaking but inspiring story of Roman painter Artemisia Gentileschi and her harrowing months-long rape trial during a period when women had little agency. Bull. By David Elliott. 2017. Clarion. Gr. 9–12. This striking reexamination of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur employs a variety of poetic forms: rigid fourline stanzas for architect Daedalus, childlike rhymes for minotaur Asterion,…

Big Girl. By Mecca Jamilah Sullivan. 2022. Norton/Liveright. With grace and patience, Sullivan invites the reader into the interior world of young teenager Malaya, whose body is constantly scrutinized and commented on, and her rapidly changing exterior world in 1990s Harlem. Black Cake. By Charmaine Wilkerson. 2022. Ballantine. A mother’s final bequest, an audio recording and a homemade Caribbean black cake stowed in the freezer, unearths a story that spans decades, upending everything her grieving children thought they knew about their family and themselves. Calling for a Blanket Dance. By Oscar Hokeah. 2022. Workman. The story of Ever Geimausaddle, told through the perspectives of 12 Native American and Mexican family members, becomes a profound reflection on the ways familial and cultural trauma can threaten every generation while those very connections…

Adult The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. By Nikole Hannah-Jones. Read by a full cast. 2021. 19hr. Books on Tape. The Pulitzer Prize–winning book’s audio interpretation lacks the photographs of the print edition, but oh, does the poetry sing! After nonfiction sections, poems and fiction—sometimes read by their notable authors—bring heart and resonance to this new look at history. The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Ed. by Caroline Kennedy. Read by full cast. 2015. 3hr. Hachette Audio. With personal anecdotes and fond memories, Caroline Kennedy introduces her mother’s favorite poetry. Famous voices including Viola Davis and B. D. Wong read selections ranging from patriotic hymns to children’s verse. This edition includes an archival recording of Ted Kennedy and Robert Frost reading “The Gift Outright” at John F. Kennedy’s…

Emi Watanabe Cohen The Lost Ryū Describe your book in one sentence, using as much alliteration as possible. A notoriously naive boy and his noble new neighbor neglect to notify their understandably unnerved parents upon taking a terribly tiring and time-sensitive train trip in search of the fabled, feared, fantastical dragons found only in their flights of fancy. Would you rather have as a companion a dragon or a golem? Definitely a dragon! Golem stories rarely have happy endings. Worst-case scenario, a dragon might eat my ears or steal my jewelry, and I can live with either of those outcomes. Best dragon ever? Mushu from Mulan, followed closely by Cassie from Dragon Tales and the Legendary Pokémon Dialga. What’s your pie-in-the-sky publishing dream? I have a really fun idea for…

That summer I was feeling particularly restless. I had been out of college a few years. It was 1980 and I was on my third job in Columbus, Ohio. It seemed as if I was unable to fasten myself to a career trajectory. I was working at the Heritage House, a Jewish cultural center. One of the promises I had made to myself was that upon receiving my paycheck every other week, I’d buy myself a hardback book. Even though I majored in urban planning in college, the literature courses I took made me giddy. Professor Marian Musgrave had told us stories about writers in New York City, writers in Paris! So there I was, gliding into the SBX bookstore on N. High Street in Columbus, scanning the shelves and…

Hunter: You’ve gone out of your way to capture the sonic tone and lyricism of the original poem in this comic; why was this an important part of the project for you? Weinersmith: Thank you! My view is that if you’re going to adapt a poem, you have pretty much got to keep it as a poem. Beowulf just isn’t Beowulf if you don’t have that pounding alliterative sound. In my experience, people (including kids) don’t know that they want the sound a certain way, but when it sounds right, they recognize it. In Tolkien’s unfinished alliterative verse rendition of The Fall of Arthur, he has these lovely lines: “On the houseless hills ever higher mounting/vast, unvanquished, lay the veiled forest.” There’s just this tonal difference between saying, say, “unoccupied…