Twin sisters Hassana and Husseina’s home is in ruins after a brutal raid. But this is not the end but the beginning of their story, one that will take them to unfamiliar cities and cultures, where they will forge new families, ward off dangers and truly begin to know themselves. […]
Read MoreCultural/Regional
Blaze Island, Catherine Bush
Climate change is both an external and internal phenomenon in Catherine Bush’s brilliant new novel, Blaze Island. Set on an island off the coast of Newfoundland, its cast of characters includes a renegade climate scientist and his young daughter Miranda. They are self-made castaways who can’t get far enough away […]
Read MoreSeasonal Series, Ali Smith
Echoing Keats’s famous ode, the book is punctuated by placid country scenes of grain being harvested, birds flying south, days growing shorter and nights longer and colder. So familiar is this picture of autumnal transformation that readers are easily lulled into a false sense of comfort. But it slowly becomes […]
Read MoreLimbo: A Novel about Jamaica, Esther Figueroa
Flora Smith, Jamaican scientist and head of tiny NGO Environment Now, dedicates her life to getting Jamaicans to care about the natural environment. At the opening of Limbo, Flora is confronted by the nagging reality of not having enough money to keep her organization afloat. When sand is stolen from […]
Read MoreTiger Boy, Mitali Perkins
When a tiger cub escapes from a nature reserve near Neel’s island village, the rangers and villagers hurry to find her before the cub’s anxious mother follows suit and endangers them all. Mr. Gupta, a rich newcomer to the island, is also searching—he wants to sell the cub’s body parts […]
Read MorePotiki, Patricia Grace
‘Destroy the land and sea, we destroy ourselves.’ On the remote coast of New Zealand, at the curve that binds land and sea, a small Maori community live, work, fish, play and tell stories of their ancestors. This novel was republished in February 2020 by Penguin Classics and was featured […]
Read MoreThe Unpassing, Chia-Chia Lin
With flowing prose that evokes the terrifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, Lin explores the fallout after the loss of a child and the way in which a family is forced to grieve in a place that doesn’t yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is […]
Read MoreSassafrass, Cypress & Indigo, Ntozake Shange
As with many ecofeminist novels, the structure is not linear and contains many asides, recipes, spells, letters and other ephemera. Shange explores the relationship between the main characters and their homeland, South Carolina, as well as their more distant connection to Africa through the Black Arts Movement. –Carnegie Library Goodreads […]
Read MorePani Mar Raha Hai, Amna Mufti
With her latest novel on water crisis, “Paani Mar Raha Hai”, Mufti has not only contributed to the bourgeoning field of Literary Environmental Studies, but has also proven that creative writers are not always oblivious to their surroundings. –Daily Times, Pakistan Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
Read MoreThe Yield, Tara June Winch
Profoundly moving and exquisitely written, Tara June Winch’s The Yield is the story of a people and a culture dispossessed. But it is as much a celebration of what was and what endures, and a powerful reclaiming of Indigenous language, storytelling and identity. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
Read MoreAccidentals, Susan M. Gaines
When Gabriel’s immigrant mother returns to her native Uruguay, he takes a break from his uninspiring job to accompany her. Immersed in his squabbling family, birdwatching in the wetlands on their abandoned ranch, and falling in love with a local biologist, he makes discoveries that force him to contend with […]
Read MoreThe Inland Sea, Madeleine Watts
Written with down-to-earth lucidity and ethereal breeziness, this is an unforgettable debut about coming of age in a world that seems increasingly hostile. Watts explores feminine fear, apathy and danger, building to a tightly controlled bushfire of ecological and personal crisis. Goodreads Reviews Back to GoodReads
Read MoreThe World on Either Side, Diane Terrana
Reviewed by Kimberly Christensen Young Adult Fiction Content Warning: This book includes descriptions of death, depression, attempted suicide, animal poaching, animal cruelty, forced migration, human trafficking, war, genocide, child soldiers, and rape. Following the death of her boyfriend, high school senior Valentine falls into a severe depression and nearly overdoses […]
Read MoreThe Last Wave, Pankaj Sekhsaria
Ever the aimless drifter, Harish finds the anchor his life needs in a chance encounter with members of the ancient and threatened – Jarawa community-the ‘original people’ of the Andaman Islands and its tropical rain forests. As he observes the slow but sure destruction of everything the Jarawa require for […]
Read MoreStrange Birds, Celia C. Pérez
Selected as one of our January features for Turning the Tide: The Youngest Generation, Strange Birds: a field guide to ruffling feathers is Florida-based juvenile fiction. Abstract: After Ofelia, Aster, Cat, and Lane fail to persuade a local girls club to change an outdated tradition, they form an alternative group […]
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