Book list *Starred Review* Ireland delivers a necessary, subversive, and explosive novel with her fantasy-laced alternate history. America is changed forever when the dead begin to prowl battlefields during the Civil War. The horror births a new nation and a different type of slavery, in which laws force Native and Negro children to attend combat schools and receive training to put down the dead. Jane McKeene attends Miss Preston's School for Combat i...More

School Library Journal PreS-Gr 2-It's sunset on a Friday night, and a child narrator and his father head out on a motorcycle through the darkening city streets toward a school. Inhaling the scent of lilacs as they enter the school lot, the narrator poignantly explains, "We pull into our space./Dad hauls out a ring of keys/as big as the rising moon./He opens the door,/and the building sighs./Come, it whispers to us." The boy's father is t...More

School Library Journal Gr 1-5-Through a simple text and vivid mixed-media collage art, the author evokes the life and work of the Brooklyn-born Basquiat, who was nurtured in a loving family and schooled in the museums and streets of New York City. Incorporating found materials into the illustrations, Steptoe captures the originality and urban vibe of a charismatic artist whose talent revealed itself early on and matured into a powerful social and politica...More

Library Journal Saad has written an important book about taking ownership of racist behavior and making changes that are not easy, convenient, or comfortable. The book, with a foreword by Robin DiAngelo (White Fragility) was inspired by Saeed's Instagram challenge, #meandwhitesupremacy, and her digital Me and White Supremacy Workbook. Saeed offers steps for beginning work towards antiracism that feel as honest, straightforward, and actionable as they ...More

School Library Journal Gr 4-6-Using real documents from an estate appraisal dated July 5, 1828, Bryan has created beautiful portrait paintings for 11 people who were named and priced as property on the Fairchildses' estate (the documents are reproduced fully in the endpapers and in segments throughout the work). Relying on narrative poetry to explore each figure's inner and outer life, Bryan gives voice to their history, their longing for freedom,...More

Library Journal Johnson's North Korean tale is a mixture of adventure and romance, managing epic and intimate scales simultaneously. Pak Jun Do, a relative innocent, slowly rises from the work camp for orphans run by his father (he has to pose as an orphan) to soldier, kidnapper, sailor, spy, and more while falling in love with his country's most famous actress. Johnson depicts life in North Korea in vivid detail but presents his political t...More