School Library Journal Gr 2–5—The world can be a lonely and confusing place, but with the right companionship, it can be more easily navigated. Paj Ntaub and her Hmong family move into a new house with a swing and a garden, just in time to welcome her new baby twin brothers into their home. Her family befriends the elderly couple across the street, often waving back and forth, especially when things are overwhelming inside the houses. Over the...More

Publishers Weekly Without providing a backstory for the eponymous pair's curious meeting, Idle (Nighty Night, Noah) imagines a wordless encounter between a lithe, sultry flamingo and a pudgy little girl in a bathing suit, swim cap, and flippers. The call-and-response nature of their dance-the flamingo poses in a series of sinuous movements on the left, Flora does her awkward best to mimic them on the right-produces a series of beautifully lighth...More

Book list *Starred Review* The Gaither sisters Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are newly returned from a summer spent in California with their mother, Cecile, and the Black Panthers (One Crazy Summer, 2010). But life in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, with Big Ma and Pa is nothing like the freedom of Oakland, even if the girls carry back independent streaks. And while their summer may have been crazy, autumn is not exactly tame: Pa's wearing cologne and whistling now...More

Book list This novel is a rare treat in several ways. First, it is translated from Chinese, a language from which the West doesn't often get provocative science fiction. Beyond that, this highly deserving blockbuster in China serves as a crash course in both the historically important Cultural Revolution of the mid-twentieth century and the basics of astrophysics. The title itself refers to the complications of calculating gravity's effects on mul...More

Library Journal Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Angels and Demons; The Da Vinci Code; The Lost Symbol) returns in another thriller that invokes history, architecture, science, and conspiracy. Langdon wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of the last two days. He's surprised to find himself in Florence, Italy, and even more shocked to discover that someone is out to kill him for something he knows. The doctor treating him helps him to esc...More

Library Journal In the late 1890s, Wilmington, NC, was a successful mixed-race community with a strong African American middle class that actively participated in a government comprising Republicans and Populists. Then white supremacist Democrats used a black newspaper editorial to foment unrest aimed at overthrowing Wilmington's elected officials, eventually dispatching 2,000 armed night riders to terrorize the populace. At least 60 black men were ki...More