Publishers Weekly Created after the truce that ended the Korean War in 1953, the Korean demilitarized zone split the country in two, dividing its population and separating families. In the swath between the countries' barbed wire borders, though, the natural world flourishes: "When spring comes to the DMZ,/ green shoots spring up in the meadows." South Korean peace activist Lee celebrates the animals that thrive despite the political tension...More
School Library Journal PreS-Gr 3-Using intricate illustrations supported by spare dialogue in an invented language, Ellis elegantly weaves the tale of several square feet of ground in the insect world as the seasons pass. Multiple story lines intersect: a mysterious plant bursting from the soil, the rise and fall of a spectacular fort, and a caterpillar's quiet then triumphant metamorphosis into a shimmering moth. The illustrations demand to be pored ...More
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by illustrated by Bryan Collier, written by Laban Carrick Hill
School Library Journal K-Gr 4-The life of an astonishingly prolific and skilled potter who lived and died a slave in 19th-century South Carolina is related in simple, powerful sentences that outline the making of a pot. The movements of Dave's hands are described using familiar, solid verbs: pulling, pinching, squeezing, pounding. Rural imagery-a robin's puffed breast, a carnival wheel-remind readers of Dave's surroundings. The pithy lin...More
Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas by John Scalzi
Library Journal Scalzi is best known for his military sf (Old Man's War), but he's also written some lighter sf (Android's Dream; Fuzzy Nation). His new book is an entertaining look at a universe that will be familiar to fans of a certain 1960s television show. Ensign Andrew Dahl is excited to begin his tour of duty aboard the Universal Union flagship Intrepid. But he and other new crew members soon notice certain odd practices: old hand...More
Publishers Weekly Strout's follow-up to her 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner Olive Kitteridge links a trio of middle-aged siblings with a group of Somali immigrants in a familiar story about isolation within families and communities. The Burgesses have troubles both public and secret: sour, divorced Susan, who stayed in the family's hometown of Shirley Falls, Maine, with her teenage son Zachary; big-hearted Bob, who feels guilty about their father...More
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond
Library Journal Desmond's (sociology, Harvard Univ.) eye-opening and revelatory book clearly conveys that one will never truly understand poverty without grappling with the crisis of precarious housing. The narrative follows the lives of several families and individuals living in some of the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee and tracks their harrowing searches for affordable shelter. This nearly futile pursuit of home is made worse by an uncaring bur...More
Book list Mantel fictionalizes the life and times of Thomas Cromwell, crafty architect of Henry VIII's annulment from Catherine of Aragon, the execution of Sir Thomas Moore, Henry's schism with the Church of Rome, and the Reformation. Delving deeply into the psychology of the man behind the throne, she paints a portrait of a brilliant schemer, bullied by his brutish blacksmith father determined to rise above his circumstances by dint of his own wi...More
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