"Tales of the Astonishing Black Spark" is a wickedly funny adventure told from the perspective of a comic-book-savvy black superhero. It succeeds both as a superhero story in novel form and as an entertaining, funhouse-mirror view of... Read More

Insider observations become the way to resurrect a doomed community in "Report from a Place of Burning". The accounts of a widow, adulterer, mother, detective, prophet, and widower merge into a comprehensive report of the town, where... Read More

In the taut and compelling "Left", a small, troubled universe of friends, family, and lovers tries to find twenty-nine-year-old Natasha Bell, whose disappearance on a stormy summer night left few clues and a mystery that may never be... Read More

"Quiver" is a compelling story about an unlikely friendship between two teens from very different backgrounds. Libby—the eldest daughter of her family, whose life is filled with Bible study and helping care for her siblings—is... Read More

On the day that her family is evacuated from their home, eleven-year-old Cara’s dog, Mike, goes missing. The family rushes to escape the spreading flames, taking only those things that they cannot live without. Though she had packed... Read More

In Kate DiCamillo’s beautiful follow-up to Raymie Nightingale, Louisiana Elefante is back, and she and her granny are out to face the family curse. When they stop to sleep in a small Georgia town, Louisiana is left to wander on her... Read More

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky grapple with identity, fear, self-discovery, and progress against the surreal backdrop of their novel, "The Snail on the Slope". This is a novel of opposite perspectives. The first is that of Peretz, a... Read More

Tova Reich’s "Mother India" relies on Meena to tell her family’s story through its women’s stories, from her mother’s to her daughter’s to her own. Born into a famed rabbinical family in Brooklyn, she’s now a lesbian... Read More