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Picture Books

All Things Bright and BeautifulAshley Bryan.S&S/Atheneum, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4169-8939-4

Five-time Coretta Scott King Award—winner Bryan (Let It Shine) interprets Cecil F. Alexander’s 19th-century hymn with cut-paper art defined by swirling geometrical shapes in neon hues, contributing to a pervasively jubilant atmosphere. Every spread is a riot of colors, movement, and natural splendors: a gray whale that recalls Haida artwork is the centerpiece of one of the “All creatures great and small,” scenes. In another, a rainbow presides over rushing waterfalls and rivers that flow from “purple-headed” mountains amid small villages. Bryan notes that he created the artwork using his late mother’s embroidery scissors, which are pictured on the endpapers, lending a personal dimension; a biographical sketch of Alexander and musical notation are also included. The hymn’s traditional roots are exquisitely juxtaposed against Bryan’s global and contemporary scope (skin tones that range from deep brown to taupe are all seen in the hands of a creator, which reach down from the heavens beneath the line, “All things wise and wonderful: The Lord God made them all”). Bryan taps into the hymn’s celebratory nature to produce a triumphal vision of creation. Ages 2—5. (Jan.)

Hot Rod HamsterCynthia Lord, illus. by Derek Anderson. Scholastic Press, $16.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-545-03530-9

The metallic cover of Lord’s (Rules) first picture book, along with the image of the hamster hero waving a checkered flag, will draw readers inside this clever, rhythmic story. When a hamster decides to find a junkyard car to enter in a race, it must choose its car, tires, and so on, and readers are asked for their input (“Smooth wheels, stud wheels, driving through the mud wheels,/ Fat wheels, thin wheels, take her for a spin wheels./ Which would you choose?”). The answers, however, aren’t always readily discernable from the text or illustrations. When the hamster is racing against bigger competitors (“Stare face, scowl face, frowning grouchy-growl face.... Which would you choose?”), it answers, “GRRR. I’m built for speed!” Anderson’s (the Little Quack books) acrylic artwork is consistently action filled and comical. Full of entertaining details, the illustrations of the enthusiastic hamster, the wary bulldog who owns the junkyard, and miscellaneous mice and rats that appear develop the characters in ways that the exuberant text does not. Still, when it comes to kid appeal, the book’s interactive format should get impressive mpg. Ages 2—6. (Feb.)

Too Purpley!Jean Reidy, illus. by Geneviève Leloup. Bloomsbury, $11.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59990-307-1

Debut author Reidy’s couplets about a fussy dresser deliver their message with maximum economy. Leloup’s persnickety toddler looks like a paper doll; she’s a two-dimensional cutie-pie with dots for eyes, pigtails, and an awesome collection of outfits. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like any of them. “NOT THESE CLOTHES!” she yells at her mother, who enters carrying an enormous pile of options. “Too purpley,” the girl continues, as she is seen dressed in a purple pullover and jumper, against purple wallpaper (even her pet turtle is purple). The complaints add up: “Too tickly, too puckery, too prickly,” she wails, as the toddler laughs at a big furry sweater, tries to smooth out a wrinkly outfit, and holds her arms out so her cactus sweater doesn’t stick her. Neatly constructed rhymes carry through to the girl’s selection of sneakers, a pullover, jumper, and pair of pants—she rejects all the Fancy Nancy finery for sensible everyday wear. “So comfy!” she finishes. “Just right!” Both art and text have a somewhat generic feel, but they’re tidily executed, and a clothing-obsessed readership awaits. Ages 3—5. (Feb.)

Mattoo, Let’s Play!Irene Luxbacher.Kids Can, $16.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-55453-424-1

Luxbacher (the Starting Art series) offers a friendly story about a rambunctious girl who can’t understand why her fuzzy black cat, Mattoo, isn’t interested in playing with her. Children will quickly pick up on the fact that the girl’s style of play is the problem (Luxbacher shows her clanging pans and cymbals, jumping on the bed, and taking a noisy imaginary “Space Flight to Pluto,” while Mattoo hides beneath a spotted blanket or inside a football helmet). Incidentally, it’s through even more imaginative play with her friend Clemente—in which the duo pretend to explore a jungle—that the girl finally realizes how cats like to play. (They carefully approach Mattoo, who appears as “the fiercest, most wild, most wonderful creature of all—the mysterious spotted king of the jungle!”) Luxbacher works mainly in acrylic ink, her speckled black palette accentuated by colorful collaged bits. The fantasy scenes are rendered in especially rich detail (the jungle, dense with vegetation and exotic animals, has an almost cubist feel), underlining the power of the imagination. A nondidactic approach to playing nicely with animals. Ages 3—7. (Feb.)

A Beach TailKaren Lynn Williams, illus. by Floyd Cooper. Boyds Mills, $17.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-59078-712-0

At the beach with his father, Greg strays from his beach umbrella, but stays calm and remembers the two things Dad told him: “Don’t go in the water, and don’t leave Sandy.” Sandy is a lion Greg has drawn in the sand, and because Greg hasn’t lifted the stick with which he has drawn Sandy’s long, long tail (circling, as he goes, a jellyfish, a horseshoe crab, and other beachside marvels), he’s able to retrace his steps to find his father, who’s delighted to see him. Cooper (The Blacker the Berry) draws a startlingly real Greg in a series of tight closeups; readers will feel they can reach out and touch him. Grainy pastel and washed-out color evoke the seashore’s bleached palette, while Greg’s reverent attention to the treasures he finds is the focus of every page. The representation of an African-American father and child in a nonurban setting is welcome, while Williams’s (Four Feet, Two Sandals) even pacing and soothing text reassure children without losing momentum. Most valuable, though, is Williams’s belief in Greg and his resourcefulness; quiet satisfaction pervades his story. Ages 3—7. (Feb.)

Race You to BedBob Shea.HarperCollins/Tegen, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06-170417-8

Even before the title page in this lively romp of a bedtime book, a white rabbit challenges readers to a race to bed. The rabbit’s adventures are initially conventional (“Up to bed.../ down to bed...”), but quickly become silly (“All around a goat to bed”). The wide-eyed, irrepressible rabbit goes through poison ivy, swings across a river of crocodiles, and endures outlandish adventures full of non sequiturs (“Sneeze to bed!/ Grilled cheese to bed!/ Angry, angry bees to bed”). In a clever bedtime-friendly ending, it announces, “Looks like I beat you!... Oh, you’re already in bed?/ You were way up ahead?/ Okay then, race you to sleep!” Shea’s illustrations of the rabbit—with purple kewpie doll eyes, pink ears and belly, and cottony fur—are a tad saccharine, and its expressions are somewhat repetitive, but like the high-energy narrator of Shea’s New Socks (a book he pictures the rabbit reading), this zippy rabbit gets the last laugh as it winks at readers to indicate it’s only pretending to sleep. Ages 4—7. (Feb.)

Here Comes the Garbage Barge!Jonah Winter, illus. by Red Nose Studio. Random/Schwartz & Wade, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-375-85218-3

The message is the medium in this zany fictionalized version of the 1987 story of a garbage-laden barge that left Long Island for North Carolina after local landfills closed. To create the book’s innovative artwork, Red Nose Studio, aka artist Chris Sickels, photographed sets he fashioned from recycled materials, found objects, and garbage (the characters are made from acrylic clay). He chronicles this process on the inside of the jacket—a crafty double use of paper in keeping with the theme. Winter’s (Barack) bombastic narrative exposes the folly of the six-month journey, as the “Cap’m” of the tug pulling the stinky barge is turned away from port after port. Winter revels in dialogue throughout (“Dere’s dis guy down in Mexico—he owes me a favor,” the captain’s boss tells him), and the artwork is equally gleeful (in Florida, elderly residents floating in inner tubes angrily shake their fists, refusing to let the barge dock). Though kids aren’t likely to miss the message, a sign on a buoy shouts it out: “Moral: Don’t make so much garbage!!!” Funky in every sense of the word. Ages 4—8. (Feb.)

The BoysJeff Newman.Simon & Schuster, $15.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4169-5012-7

Newman’s story opens with a picture of a moving van and one piece of information: Tuesday. That day, a blond boy stares out at a city park where kids play baseball and four elderly men share a bench. Drooping his head and dragging a bat, the boy approaches the bench and plops down. Wednesday, the boy leaves his sports gear behind and feeds the pigeons. The old men shrug. Thursday, the boy wears retiree-style plaid pants. The men eye each other. That weekend, the boy arrives to an empty bench: his pals are on the playground, showing him, to hilarious effect, how the business of being a kid is conducted—namely riding bikes and playing on the jungle gym. A game of baseball with the men finally gives the boy confidence to approach people his own age. Employing sly visual humor, Newman (Hippo! No, Rhino) presents the narrative in sketchy, retro-flavored gouache brushstrokes on a white background. This is a quirky book, but sensitive readers will appreciate the child’s shyness and the men’s efforts to help him remember what it means to be a kid. Ages 4—8. (Feb.)

The Red ScarfAnne Villeneuve.Tundra, $17.95 (40p) ISBN 978-0-88776-989-4

This nearly wordless tale, a gentle slapstick routine, draws attention to a Quebecois illustrator whose work is not well known in the U.S. (Villeneuve’s art for this book won a Governor General’s award when it was first published in French in 1999.) Turpin, a taxi-driving mouse, finds himself in the middle of a circus performance as he tries to return a red scarf to the magician who took his cab to the circus. The protagonist’s Everymouse qualities can be read in his calligraphic ink outlines; he’s always drawn in black and white despite the color that explodes around him. Villeneuve draws the horror, fright, bravery, doubt, embarrassment, and gratification that cross Turpin’s face with a few deft strokes. His mission turns out to be no easy task; he negotiates with a lizard on a unicycle, gets swallowed by a lion, and chases a monkey across a tightrope before finding the magician. Luminous artwork captures the circus’s hot spotlights, and the big red scarf serves as the perfect MacGuffin. Villeneuve’s creation brims with insouciant charm; it’s a lovely addition to a bookshelf. Ages 5—7. (Feb.)

Our Farm: By the Animals of Farm SanctuaryMaya Gottfried, illus. by Robert Rahway Zakanitch. Knopf, $17.99 (40p) ISBN 978-0-375-86118-5

The inhabitants of a real-life refuge for abused farm animals inspired this collection of poems and watercolor portraits. Zakanitch (who collaborated with Gottfried on Good Dog and Last Night I Dreamed a Circus) captures his subjects in a variety of moods and modes. There are almost formal poses (the florid, impressionistic poultry are noteworthy), more impressionistic works (turkeys distilled to red wattles and reverse-silhouetted bodies against a green field); and casual, occasionally naïf-styled sketches, complete with sound effects like “oink” and “cluck.” It’s aesthetically intriguing and fun—readers are never quite sure what awaits on the next page. Gottfried fares less well: her conceit is that the free verse is written by the animals themselves, as in this poem by a turkey named Whisper: “See our magnificent dance in the grass./ We are so graceful, like a ballet class.” But aside from some familiar animal personality tropes (a sheep is imperious, chicks are giddy, rabbits are skittish), there’s little in the verse that conveys a unique voice or experience. Instead, the poems feel like they’re all cut from the same dreamy, earnest cloth. Ages 5—8. (Feb.)

Black MagicDinah Johnson, illus. by R. Gregory Christie. Holt/Ottaviano, $15.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-8050-7833-6

If never quite reaching the realm of “magic,” this expressive book combines well-matched text and pictures to pay tribute to the myriad qualities of blackness. Buoyant yet reflective, Johnson’s (Hair Dance!) free-flowing verse presents an imaginative girl’s musings on the essence of black, which she sees as containing multitudinous, even oppositional, dimensions (“Black is big like a star-filled sky/ and tiny like the sparkle in my daddy’s eye/ when he hugs me with his strong black arms”). Most associations involve sensations, emotions, or sounds, but several focus on the tangible: “Black is silky like my puppy, Ebony./ Black is shiny like my brother’s new car” (which is, as it happens, red). The narrative also takes some fanciful leaps, as in “Black is majestic like a baobab tree that you can see/ if you go with me to Mali/ in my dream.” With vibrant colors offsetting velvety black images, Christie’s (Bad News for Outlaws) acrylic gouache illustrations playfully tweak perspective and scale, echoing the verse’s energy and fluidity. There are moments of pensiveness and uncertainty, but the overall atmosphere is of possibility and cheer. Ages 5—9. (Jan.)

Saving the Baghdad Zoo: A True Story of Hope and HeroesKelly Milner Halls and William Sumner.HarperCollins/Greenwillow, $17.99 (64p) ISBN 978-0-06-177202-3

This eye-opening tale of compassion and cooperation chronicles the mission of an international team of military personnel, zoo staffers, veterinarians, and relief workers to rescue neglected animals in Baghdad. Sumner, an army major who was deployed to Iraq in 2003 as a civil affairs officer, spearheaded the effort to round up the creatures from the heavily looted Baghdad Zoo, as well as a smaller nearby zoo and the abandoned palace of Saddam Hussein’s son. The animals all found new homes at the main zoo, which was extensively renovated and reopened to the public (“the opening was a sign of hope, a glimpse of normal life”). The collaborators detail several remarkable rescues, including the recovery of 16 rare purebred Arabian horses that had been stolen and hidden in a racetrack’s stables. Sidebars offering facts about various species, historical background, and Sumner’s emotional commentary supplement Halls’s (Dinosaur Parade) narrative, which doesn’t sidestep the ever-present danger. Sobering and uplifting photographs—many taken by Sumner—underscore both the direness of the situation and the spirit of hope that drove the project. Ages 8—up. (Feb.)

Fiction

Kyle’s IslandSally Derby.Charlesbridge, $16.95 (192p) ISBN 978-1-58089-316-9

Picture-book writer Derby (No Mush Today) sets her first novel in a quieter time, placing it on the gentler end of the middle-grade spectrum. Kyle, a solid, loving, and responsible (nearly) 13-year-old in the 1970s, lives for his summers by the lake in upstate Michigan, where his family converges on his grandmother’s tiny cottage and spends lazy days fishing, swimming, reading, and sketching. But now his grandmother has died, his father has moved out, and his mother has decided they cannot afford to keep the cottage. Furious with his father for leaving them, Kyle nevertheless strives to be a good big brother to seven-year-old Josh and to get along with his sisters. Kyle’s love of rowing and fishing pervades the novel; calm scenes on the water offset his emotional turmoil. When an obese older neighbor employs him to take him fishing every morning, Kyle realizes he may be able to earn the money to keep the cottage. Kyle and his siblings often seem unnaturally mature and empathetic, but overall Derby creates a realistic rendition of family life, with a smattering of adventure, in this tender coming-of-age story. Ages 10—13. (Feb.)

Leaving Gee’s BendIrene Latham.Putnam, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-399-25179-5

Debut author Latham offers an accessible piece of historical fiction, drawn from the real-life quilting traditions of Gee’s Bend, Ala. Ludelphia Bennett—a strong-willed 10-year-old living in the small sharecropping community in 1932—may be blind in one eye, the result of a wood-chopping accident, but she both adores and excels at quilting. “Mama always said you should live a life the same way you piece a quilt,” she says. “That you was the one in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to decide how your story turns out.” When her mother falls ill, Ludelphia takes off for Camden to find medical help, while trying to avoid Mrs. Cobb, the widow of the sharecroppers’ boss, who has become unstable after the deaths of her husband and niece. Latham offers numerous heart-stirring moments, though while her story is heartfelt, several characters feel lacking in depth and complexity. Ludelphia is a determined heroine, but her internal monologue—“Mama, if this here needle can make it across the Alabama River, you can make it too”—tends toward the treacly. Ages 10—up. (Jan.)

Dirty Little SecretsC.J. Omololu.Walker, $16.99 (224p) ISBN 978-0-8027-8660-9

Debut author Omololu gives a disturbing appraisal of how a mother’s obsessive hoarding affects her teenage daughter in this frank novel that spans a tense 24-hour period. The grief 16-year-old Lucy experiences when her mother dies suddenly at home is overshadowed by her dread that paramedics and the general public will learn her family’s secret: they’ve been living amid piles of filth due to her mother’s refusal to ever throw anything away. (“The last repairman didn’t get past the front hallway before realizing the place was too full of crap to even get near the hot water heater,” Lucy remembers.) Lucy’s decision to clean up the mess before notifying authorities may seem ill-founded and unbelievable to some, but readers will feel compassion for her as she recalls how her mother’s compulsive behavior has cost her friendships and a normal social life, as well as posing health risks. Tension intensifies as the clean-up process proves even more overwhelming than Lucy imagined. Her determination to erase the past may lead to debates about whether Lucy’s motives are rooted in selfishness, shame, or love. Ages 12—up. (Feb.)

LockdownWalter Dean Myers.HarperCollins/Amistad, $16.99 (256p) ISBN 978-0-06-121480-6

Maurice “Reese” Anderson is sentenced to 38 months in Progress, a juvenile detention center in New York, for stealing prescription forms for use in a drug-dealing operation. After 22 months, Reese, now age 14, is assigned to a work-release program at Evergreen, an assisted-living center for seniors. There he meets racist Mr. Hooft, who lectures him on life’s hardships (having barely survived a Japanese war camp in Java), which causes Reese to reflect on his own choices. More than anything, he wants to be able to protect his siblings, who live with his drug-addicted mother, before they repeat his mistakes (“The thing was that I didn’t know if I was going to mess up again or not. I just didn’t know. I didn’t want to, but it looked like that’s all I did”). Reese faces impossible choices and pressures—should he cop to a crime he didn’t commit? stick out his neck for a fellow inmate and risk his own future? It’s a harrowing, believable portrait of how circumstances and bad decisions can grow to become nearly insurmountable obstacles with very high stakes. Ages 12—up. (Feb.)

Little Miss RedRobin Palmer.Penguin/Speak, $7.99 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-14-241123-0

Sophie is obsessed with the Devon Devoreaux romance series, imagining herself as the heroine in such novels as Lassoed by Lust and Battered by Betrayal, in which Devon meets millionaire playboys or dates South American dictators. Sophie’s real-life love life pales in comparison, as she’s stuck in a listless relationship with her boyfriend, Michael. But after Michael “push[es] the pause button” on their relationship, Sophie, on a flight to Florida, meets Jack, a boy who seems ripped from the pages of her beloved romances (“Not only was he the hottest guy I had ever seen in person, but as I stood up to let him get to his seat, our arms touched and I immediately knew we were soul mates”). Unfortunately, both of Palmer’s (Geek Charming) romantic leads are rather unlikable, with Sophie portrayed as awkward and naïve and Jack as clueless and cheesy. The humor tends toward the corny, and Sophie’s character can be summed up through her observation: “There was only so much a girl could focus on when a hot guy was holding her hand and scrambling her brain.” Ages 12—up. (Feb.)

They Never Came BackCaroline B. Cooney.Delacorte, $16.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-385-73808-8

A forgotten scandal surfaces when 15-year-old Cathy Ferris, who’s taking an intensive summer Latin class in Greenwich, Conn., is accused by another student, Tommy, of being his long-lost cousin, Murielle Lyman. Murielle’s parents embezzled millions of dollars and fled the country without their daughter five years earlier, affecting several people in the community. This includes the families of several of Cathy’s classmates, who are all left wondering—is Cathy really Murielle? Cathy keeps the answer secret (though not from readers), but she’s left with some big questions and choices regardless: her resemblance to Murielle has attracted the attention of the FBI, which hopes to use her to ensnare the Lymans. Cooney’s (The Face on the Milk Carton) tightly constructed thriller teems with suspense and has a touch of romance. The third-person narration initially switches between Cathy and 10-year-old Murielle, who is coping with her parents’ flight, but like the story itself, it evolves and grows in complexity. Through a large cast of convincing characters, Cooney expertly plumbs the lingering emotional aftereffects of the Lymans’ actions, raising difficult questions about family, loyalty, and self. Ages 12—up. (Jan.)

The Iron KingJulie Kagawa.Harlequin Teen, $9.99 paper (368p) ISBN 978-0-373-21008-4

In this first book in the Iron Fey series, Meghan Chase is turning 16, and odd things are happening. Her four-year-old half-brother, Ethan, is clingier than usual, and a tutoring session with the school hunk goes horribly wrong. But her best friend, Robbie, is always there for her, even when Meghan comes home to find her mother unconscious and her brother snarling like an animal. Robbie knows what’s happened: Ethan has been taken by the fey, a changeling left in his place, and the only way Ethan can be brought back is if Meghan embraces the truth—that the fey are real and that she is half-fey herself. She agrees, but her agreement is nearly the most active part she plays in her own adventure. After that, Meghan generally gets help from a series of male characters and is towed along by their decisions and actions. It’s an odd, throwback faerie tale, and while first-time author Kagawa is a talented writer and her descriptions are lush, Meghan’s ongoing passivity disappoints, though she has the potential to develop more fully in later books. Ages 13—18. (Feb.)

The Last Summer of the Death WarriorsFrancisco X. Stork.Scholastic/Levine, $17.99 (352p) ISBN 978-0-545-15133-7

Characters that are just as fully formed and memorable as in Stork’s Marcelo in the Real World embody this openhearted, sapient novel about finding authentic faith and choosing higher love. Seventeen-year-old Pancho Sanchez is sent to a Catholic orphanage after his father and sister die in the span of a few months. Though the cause of his sister’s death is technically “undetermined,” Pancho plans to kill the man he believes responsible (“How strange that a feeling once so foreign to him now gripped him with such persistence. He could not imagine living without avenging his sister’s death”). When D.Q., a fellow resident dying from brain cancer, asks Pancho to accompany him to Albuquerque for experimental treatments, Pancho agrees—he’ll get paid and it’s where his sister’s killer lives. D.Q. is deeply philosophical, composing a “Death Warrior” manifesto about living purposefully; through him, Pancho gradually opens to a world that he previously approached like a punching bag. Stork weaves racial and familial tension, tentative romances, and themes of responsibility and belief through the story, as the boys unite over the need to determine the course of their lives. Ages 14—up. (Mar.)

Finnikin of the RockMelina Marchetta.Candlewick, $18.99 (416p) ISBN 978-0-7636-4361-4

In her first fantasy work, Printz Award—winner Marchetta (Jellicoe Road) spins a sprawling yet intimate tale about a doomed kingdom and its struggle for reclamation. Years ago, Lumatere’s royal family was brutally murdered, an imposter king placed on the throne, and a curse levied on the land, forever locking it away from the rest of the land of Skuldenore, with many of its inhabitants cast out to the winds. Finnikin has spent the decade after Lumatere’s fall traveling, collecting stories of his scattered people and trying to ease their plight. Then he and his mentor are called to safeguard Evanjalin, an enigmatic young woman who claims to know the location of Lumatere’s long-missing heir, who can break the curse and bring the exiles home. As Finnikin and Evanjalin seek to reunite Lumatere’s far-flung people and restore their land, they face betrayals, horrors, and ethical crises. Magic, romance, intrigue, and adventure all play their parts as this dense, intricate epic unfolds, and flawed, memorable heroes fight for their kingdom’s redemption. Ages 14—up. (Feb.)

PossessedKate Cann.Scholastic/Point, $16.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-545-12812-4

In this spooky mystery, Rayne Peters and her family live in a tiny apartment in East London, part of a decayed urban development where troublemakers thrive and expectations are low. Needing to break away from the sticky summer, her possessive boyfriend, and her uncertain future, Rayne accepts a live-in tearoom job at Morton’s Keep, a manor far from home. There’s an ominous aura of power around the Keep, and Rayne often feels like she’s being watched. Rituals are being performed in the woods; she discovers talismans and black candles strewn about outdoors; and Rayne’s new friends seem a little too interested in the Keep’s bloody history. Rayne’s gritty London life is so far removed from the magical paganism of the deep countryside that it feels like an entirely different world, highlighting how far Rayne is out of her comfort zone, particularly as she’s drawn into a consuming new relationship. Cann (Mediterranean Holiday) persuasively uses that disquiet to shape an unsettling sense of menace and a creepy atmosphere. Unanswered questions pave the way for a sequel, available in the U.K. Ages 14—up. (Feb.)

The MarkJen Nadol.Bloomsbury, $16.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59990-431-3

Nadol debuts with a thoughtful exploration of fate and free will. Cassie is 16 when she realizes she can tell that a person will shortly die. She has seen an aura surrounding people for years, but its meaning is made certain when she follows a “marked” man and witnesses his demise. After she fails to prevent her grandmother’s death, she’s sent to live with an unknown aunt halfway across the country. Even there, she continues to see marked people and feels powerless to help them, until she sees the glow on her boyfriend, Lucas, and manages to avert his death. Lucas encourages Cassie to try to change others’ fates, but strangers are scared by her predictions, and she struggles with the ethical ramifications of her actions. Nadol’s story is more than a modern take on the Cassandra story of Greek myth, and the author uses her protagonist’s moral torment (and a philosophy course she takes) to touch on schools of philosophical thought, from Aristotle to Plato. As in life, there are no tidy endings, but the engrossing narration and realistic characters create a deep, lingering story. Ages 14—up. (Jan.)

The Good Girl’s Guide to Getting KidnappedYxta Maya Murray.Penguin/Razorbill, $16.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-59514-272-6; $9.99 paper ISBN 978-1-59514-341-9

Fifteen-year-old Michelle Peña is a good student and track star, living with her gay foster father. She has her sights set on a scholarship to a prestigious prep school, but is dogged by her past. She’s the offspring of gang leader parents in East L.A., and her brother, Samson, former “King” of the Snake Brothers gang, is in jail, as is their mother. Caught between two worlds, Michelle often asks herself, “Who was I anyway? The girl I was making up in my head? Track star, Ivy League—bound? Golden Child? Or... the girl I was born?” The gang’s new king has a debt to settle with Samson, who owes him drug money, resulting in the kidnapping of Michelle and her best friend. In the process, Michelle is reunited with her childhood love, Silver, and they both struggle over whether to be loyal to their gang families or break free. Adult author Murray’s YA debut is action-packed, as it raises relevant questions of identity and loyalty. This fast-paced story, heavy with street dialogue and slang, should have ample teen appeal. Ages 14—up. (Jan.)

The Less-DeadApril Lurie.Delacorte, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-385-73675-6

In Austin, Tex., 16-year-old Noah “despises church and religion and phony youth pastors who think it’s their job to save your soul.” Noah’s acts of rebellion have gotten him sent to an “alternative school for juvenile delinquents,” where he meets Will, a gay, homeless kid with whom he connects through a shared interest in music and poetry. When several gay teenagers are strangled and found with crosses carved into them and Bible passages nearby, Noah blames evangelical Christianity for contributing to an atmosphere of hate. And after Will becomes the next victim, Noah investigates the murder to avenge him. In her compelling mystery, Lurie (The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine) draws attention to the prejudice and hatred many gay teens face (the title is a reference to the idea that the deaths of youths like Will count less). While fundamentalism-fueled homophobia is central to the story, Lurie doesn’t dismiss or caricaturize Christianity either. Though the book’s politics can feel heavy-handed (an author’s note offers rebuttals to scriptural stances against homosexuality), readers should still find it suspenseful and emotional. Ages 14—up. (Jan.)

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