Dirtball Pete
Eileen Brennan, Random, $15.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-375-83425-7
Debut writer Brennan’s wonderfully stolid narrative voice establishes its authority from the get-go: “Dirtball Pete looked like something the cat dragged in,” it starts. “It was a fact.” Pete’s stay in the bathtub before his school’s “Fifty States and Why They’re Great” presentation is a long one (“I’m going to leave that auditorium proud of you,” his mother says grimly, scrubbing him with a brush), but, mysteriously, he still smells terrible afterwards. “Oh, no!” his mother says. “Pet ferrets must stay home!” Jittery digital cartoons show Pete with a big head, spindly appendages, scrabbly hair that refuses to be tamed, and tic-tac-toe dirt stains spattered liberally across his mug. Unexpectedly, though, Dirtball Pete outdoes himself at school that night. He’s the best Pennsylvania ever--broadcasting facts about the state while the rest of his cardboard-clad classmates whisper and mumble--despite the fact that an unexpected search for his speech leaves him looking like his usual dirtball self. It’s tough to make a book sardonic and heartwarming at the same time, but Brennan nails it. Ages 4–7. (Aug.)

Play Their Hearts Out: A Coach, His Star Recruit, and the Youth Basketball Machine
George Dohrmann, Ballantine, $25 (424p) ISBN 978-0-345-50860-7
Dohrmann, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter for Sports Illustrated, spent eight years chronicling the struggles and triumphs of a select group of California youths who chased their dream in his wonderful and immaculately reported first book. Dohrmann largely focuses his work on Demetrius Walker, the hoops phenom who seems destined for stardom at a young age, his travel team from California, and the club's complex and bombastic coach, Joe Keller. Dohrmann began reporting on the book back in 2000, when Walker and many of his teammates were only 10 years old, and followed them through to their high school graduation. Along the way, he shows the brutal nature of "grassroots" basketball, in which coaches can view their players as "investments," the power of sneaker companies in youth basketball, and the cutthroat antics of collegiate recruiting. But this is equally a story about relationships and the sad deterioration of many of them, whether it be among teammates, parents and son, or coach and player. It's a brilliant and heart-wrenching journey, and a cautionary tale to any basketball player who thinks the path to the NBA is a slam dunk. (Oct.)

The Wilding
Benjamin Percy, Graywolf, $23 (272p) ISBN 978-1-55597-569-2
Percy's excellent debut novel (after the collection Refresh, Refresh) digs into the ambiguous American attitude toward nature as it oscillates between Thoreau's romantic appreciation and sheer gothic horror. The plot concerns a hunting trip taken by Justin Caves and his sixth-grade son, Graham, with Justin's bullying father, Paul, a passionate outdoorsman in failing health who's determined to spend one last weekend in the Echo Canyon before real estate developer Bobby Fremont turns the sublime pocket of wilderness into a golfing resort. Justin, a high school English teacher, has hit an almost terminally rough patch in his marriage to Karen, who, while the boys camp, contemplates an affair with Bobby, though she may have bigger problems with wounded Iraq war vet Brian, a case study in creepy stalker. The men, meanwhile, are being tracked by a beast and must contend with a vengeful roughneck roaming the woods. A taut plot and cast of deeply flawed characters--Justin is a masterwork of pitiable wretchedness--will keep readers rapt as peril descends and split-second decisions come to have lifelong repercussions. It's as close as you can get to a contemporary Deliverance. (Oct.)

Newman's Unquiet Grave: The Reluctant Saint
John Cornwell, Continuum, $24.95 (276p) ISBN 978-1-4411-5084-4
When John Henry Newman converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, it represented something of an anticlimax in the career of an Anglican divine and his efforts, through the influential Oxford Movement, to bring the English church back to its Catholic roots. A renowned scholar and thinker, Newman produced thousands of pages that some have considered the finest theological writing of his time. Even today, Newman continues to shape the thoughts of aspiring theologians. But as Cornwell, prolific author of works on Catholicism, suggests, the good cardinal had his detractors. The author suggests that there may be sufficient contradictions in, and perhaps enough unanswered questions about, his subject's life to call into question Newman's upcoming beatification, expected in September. Newman's spiritual and, indeed, philosophical journey serves as a fascinating template for understanding the 19th-century Catholic Church and its trajectories into England. This is a wonderfully realized study of a complex man, required reading for every student of English history and its rich Christian tradition. (Sept.)

Werewolves of Montpellier
Jason, Fantagraphics, $12.99 paper (48p) ISBN 978-1-60699-359-0
Deadpan dialogue, drawings that move from panel to panel with the strange and deliberate force of kung fu performance art, and a subtle interweaving of humor and angst come together to make this a brief knockout of a book. Jason's cast of sober-faced dogs, rabbits, and birds interact with self-deprecating style, and the slight, absurd story, in which Sven masquerades as a werewolf and thus invites the attention of actual werewolves, holds it all loosely together. Meanwhile, Sven spends time with his neighbor, Audrey, as their relationship shifts and changes. In one scene, Audrey comforts him for his romantic loneliness. "Do women come from another planet?" she asks, rubbing his shoulders. "Yes, women come from another planet," he answers. The call and response dialogue escalates in humor while perfectly expressing the familiar tenderness between the two. Norwegian-born Jason is author of The Left Bank Gang and I Killed Adolf Hitler. His drawings and page design are genius in their simplicity and hold the attention like a Zen koan. The surface simplicity of a Jason story obscures how much is really here. (July)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson, read by Bernadette Dunne, Blackstone Audio, unabridged, five CDs, 5.5 hrs., $19.95 ISBN 978-1-4417-3426-6
Since the mysterious death of four family members, the superstitious Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood, her ailing uncle Julian, and agoraphobic sister Constance have lived in a bizarre but contented state of isolation. But when cousin Charles arrives in search of the Blackwood fortune, a terrible family secret is revealed. Bernadette Dunne's reading is flawlessly paced and suspenseful. The voices she provides the cast of characters are spot on: precocious Merricat is haunted and increasingly desperate; Constance is doting but detached; Uncle Julian is both pleasantly dotty and utterly unnerving; and Charles is the conniving villain listeners will love to hate. A treat for fans of mystery and suspense. (June)