In cultures where elders are valued, the greeting “You look old today” is seen as a compliment. This is not the case in the United States, where aging is often seen as an embarrassing decline into misery, especially for women. In... Read More

Suffused with genuine wonder and affection for the beauty of particle physics, "How to Love the Universe" is an informative and entertaining entry into a challenging field. Contrary to the implications of its title, "How to Love the... Read More

When Louise Wolfe’s boyfriend makes disparaging comments about Native people, she breaks up with him. After all, she is part of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and proud of it. But in the small Kansas town her family has lived in for just... Read More

Alex Temblador’s magical "Secrets of the Casa Rosada" follows Martha George, a sixteen-year-old girl whose rootless and impoverished life with her mother shifts. When Martha’s mom says they are going to Texas to visit her mysterious... Read More

Chad Morris and Shelly Brown’s "Squint" pulls off the seemingly impossible: it is an empathy-building novel with a message that’s fun to read. Thirteen-year-old Flint lives with his grandparents and wears special glasses that don’t... Read More

Somewhere in between destiny and chance, a man who has bitterly withdrawn from the world receives an invitation to rejoin it in Kim Hooper’s "Cherry Blossoms". Thirty-four-year-old sardonic Jonathan Krause plans to commit suicide after... Read More

Eli J. Knapp’s "The Delightful Horror of Family Birding" trots the globe with humor, insight, and deep-seated appreciation for nature and bird-watching. The essays jaunt through locales including Tanzania, Ecuador, and the Grand... Read More

"A Story Like the Wind" is an ethereal and powerful story about freedom. Fourteen-year-old Rami is at sea on a small boat with a group of refugees. He wears a red scarf and carries his only possession, a violin. His fellow passengers ask... Read More