King and the Dragonflies by Kacen Callender won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature at the 71st Annual National Book Awards presented by the National Book Foundation! Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what […]
Read MoreCultural/Regional
Forest World, Margarita Engle
Middle Grade Fiction Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen Edver and his mother left Cuba when he was just a baby. His father stayed behind and Edver hasn’t seen him since. But when relations between the United States and Cuba finally permit unrestricted travel between the two countries, Edver’s mom sends him […]
Read MoreMargarita, Anni Kytömäki
Margarita won Finlandia Prize for the best fiction book of the year. “I have dedicated this book to the silent ones of water and earth – the ones that are in danger to be left behind in our society and in the face of [the global] ecological crisis. –Twitter Kun […]
Read MoreCrosshairs, Catherine Hernandez
Set in a terrifyingly familiar near-future, with massive floods leading to rampant homelessness and devastation, a government-sanctioned regime called The Boots seizes on the opportunity to round up communities of color, the disabled, and the LGBTQ+ into labor camps. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
Read MoreDeath of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan
Aljaz Cosini is leading a group of tourists on a raft tour down Tasmania’s wild Franklin River when his greatest fear is realized—a tourist falls overboard. An ordinary man with many regrets, Aljaz rises to an uncharacteristic heroism, and offers his own life in trade. Trapped under a rapid and […]
Read MoreBetty, Tiffany McDaniel
“A girl comes of age against the knife.” So begins the story of Betty Carpenter. Born in a bathtub in 1954 to a Cherokee father and white mother, Betty is the sixth of eight siblings. The world they inhabit is one of poverty and violence–both from outside the family, and […]
Read MoreThe Veins of the Ocean, Patricia Engel
Set in the vibrant coastal and Caribbean communities of Miami, the Florida Keys, Havana, Cuba, and Cartagena, Colombia, with The Veins of the Ocean Patricia Engel delivers a profound and riveting Pan-American story of fractured lives finding solace and redemption in the beauty and power of the natural world, and […]
Read MoreThe Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones
This book follows four childhood friends ten years after an elk hunt gone wrong. Some of them leave the rez, while others stay, and the spirit of Elk Head Woman is seeking revenge against them all. The book has blood and gore, thrilling chase scenes and suspenseful psychological horror. But […]
Read MoreElatsoe, Darcie Little Badger
Little Badger’s debut novel, “Elatsoe”… is a young adult fantasy about a 17-year-old Lipan Apache girl who can awaken the ghosts of dead animals and sets out to solve her cousin’s murder. –New York Times Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads
Read MoreCrooked Hallelujah, Kelli Jo Ford
Crooked Hallelujah tells the stories of Justine–a mixed-blood Cherokee woman– and her daughter, Reney, as they move from Eastern Oklahoma’s Indian Country in the hopes of starting a new, more stable life in Texas amid the oil bust of the 1980s. However, life in Texas isn’t easy, and Reney feels […]
Read MoreDr. Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest, Rebel Girls
From the world of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls comes the historical novel based on the life of Dr. Wangari Maathai, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning activist from Kenya. Wangari lives in a magical place in rural Kenya where the soil is rich for planting, the trees abundant, and the […]
Read MoreAnimal’s People, Indra Sinha
Indra Sinha’s Animal’s People looks at the Bhopal gas explosion in India – one of the most horrific environmental disasters of the 20th-century. A poisonous gas leak from a US-owned pesticide plant killed several thousand people and injured more than half a million. –The Independent Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads
Read MoreForbidden Fruit, Stanley Gazemba
The idea for Forbidden Fruit came to me in the expansive garden of an old colonial bungalow in Nairobi’s Lavington Estate, where I was then working as a gardener. Although the book was first published in Kenya in 2002 as The Stone Hills of Maragoli, it reverted to its working […]
Read MoreThe Octopus and I, Erin Hortle
A stunning debut novel set on the Tasmanian coast that lays bare the wild, beating heart at the intersection of human and animal, love and loss, and fear and hope. Goodreads Reviews Back to Goodreads
Read MoreThe Seed Thief, Jacqui L’Ange
Jacqui L’Ange’s debut novel, The Seed Thief, will be made into a film. According to The Reading List, rights to the novel have been bought by indie producer Rodrigo Chiaro for an “international co-production, with links to Brazil, Panama, Europe, Singapore, as well as South Africa.” –Brittle Paper Sometimes the thing you […]
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