The world of Terra is populated by five human clans, known as the Tigers, Birds, Raccoons, Shadows, and Foxes. Long ago, the godlike Patrons gave each clan different magical powers, called “cannys.” Over time, the cannys disappeared—at least for most people. After Jasper, a 15-year-old Fox boy, secretly sets a dangerous shape-shifter free, it takes Jasper’s form and kills its original captors. The Tigers accuse Jasper of murder and take him into custody. DeBarco, the sinister head of the Tigers, persuades Harissa, a Tiger teenager and the only female trainee in the Chame-lion program, to bear false witness against Jasper. Harissa’s testimony is especially convincing because she has a canny that allows her to add thoughts and images to other people’s memories. After Jasper is found guilty, he’s taken to the coliseum to be hanged, but he escapes with the help of his father, Argus, and the shape-shifter, Gallium. In the process, he discovers his own canny—the rare ability to generate and cast a flaming substance called “chasma.” As Jasper journeys onward, he makes even more shocking discoveries about his world, his ancestry, and his fate. Meanwhile, Harissa uncovers troubling information about DeBarco and sets out on her own journey to reclaim her path. DiDesidero’s book is split between Jasper’s and Harissa’s close third-person perspectives, and both are equally engaging. Although some readers, particularly younger ones, may have some trouble keeping the lore and accompanying terms and concepts straight, the ideas themselves are compelling and unusual. DiDesidero supports the fine characterization and intriguing settings with expressive prose: “Harissa lay in a well of gravity so deep that time oozed by. Her limbs had no muscle. The dizzy world had her glued in place like a taxidermy person stuffed with cottony drugs.” It all results in an immersive, fast-paced reading experience.

Mama and Papa Duck celebrate the hatching of their eggs, only to find that one is gone. Papa stays with their nine new ducklings, while Mama sets off to find the missing tenth. Along the way, she discovers four eggs hidden in nests, but instead of ducklings, they hatch a baby alligator, a python, a sea turtle, and a bald eagle. The author repeats a playful refrain that builds anticipation before every reveal: “Pretty soon she felt a wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. She heard a crack, crack, crack. She jumped up to look and…” Just as she’s about to give up, Mama Duck spots her errant egg and hatches duckling number 10, completing the happy family. This uncomplicated and clearly written read-aloud story manages to be educational without feeling didactic. Numbers up to 10 are introduced and reinforced, the concept of oviparous animals is explained, and an illustrated snail appears on most pages to provide an extra visual detail that young readers will enjoy spotting. This picture book succeeds because of its simplicity, clarity, and charm. Kids will delight in the surprise of unexpected animals hatching from the eggs; adults will appreciate the fun learning moments. Rogova’s full-page, endearing illustrations complement the narrative perfectly.

After Adam Barnett of Defiance, Arizona, is struck by lightning, he awakens with a gap in his memory and an unfamiliar dog licking his face, whom he calls Mop. Shortly afterward, he’s attacked by “something out of a nightmare” that he’s unable to identify. He manages a narrow escape with Mop, who turns out to be a runaway government research animal linked to a dangerous web of secrets. Simultaneously, Maj. Blain Jacobson, a U.S. Army Ranger with extensive combat experience and high-level analytical skills, uncovers more than he bargains for when he looks into a fatal incident at a government research facility in North Scottsdale, Arizona. Elsewhere in the state, Victoria Stewart, the daughter of a deceased U.S. Marine veteran and the survivor of an attempted car bombing, desperately searches for a man she knows only as “Dark,” whose voice haunts her in her dreams, as he orders the killings of real people who later turn up dead. These three strangers’ fates intertwine as they try to root out the truth of their tangled predicaments—but, in each case, one misstep could prove fatal. Ewing excels at immersive, pulse-pounding action scenes with visceral detail. The clipped, no-nonsense language works alongside meticulous attention to specifics: “He was in the northwest corner. If he headed toward the south lobby, he might run into whomever or whatever had shut off the lights. The loading dock was behind the killers to the north, so that was out.” As the characters sustain significant injuries that affect their ability to function at top capacity, the stakes become clearer. The book occasionally has trouble juggling its three complex, integrated plotlines, and it sometimes meanders; some characters’ interactions feel awkward at times as well. But the various players’ motives are sympathetic enough to sustain the plot, and a satisfying conclusion leaves room for the story to continue.

Henig, an industrious author of books on Black history, chronicles the remarkable life of Ron LeFlore, who was in prison before starring with the Detroit Tigers. Drawing on his interviews with LeFlore, the player’s 1978 memoir, and other sources, Henig evokes his subject’s tough boyhood in Detroit, a city hindered by discriminatory housing and job markets, industrial decline, and decreasing tax revenue. The six people in LeFlore’s family shared a one-bedroom apartment, where the children witnessed their father, a heavy drinker, beat their mother. At 10, LeFlore was drinking and smoking pot. He stole from local stores and eventually was convicted of armed robbery. Serving three-plus years in a Michigan prison, LeFlore distinguished himself on multiple fronts. Henig’s research reveals that, in addition to excelling in team sports, LeFlore notched a “genius caliber” score on an intelligence test. LeFlore “had never played catch with his father” or suited up for a high school baseball team, but foot speed, hard work, and the backing of a fellow prisoner with influential friends earned the Tigers’ attention. LeFlore’s story is inspiring, but Henig avoids hagiography, especially in his overview of LeFlore’s big-league career, which was the subject of a made-for-TV movie starring LeVar Burton. LeFlore had notable success as a hitter and base-stealer—and a knack for “sabotaging his own success” by partying, showing up late for games, and failing to stay in shape. Henig’s prose usually does the job, but he can be imprecise. He calls paid minor leaguers “future professionals” and credits LeFlore with 30 “consecutive hits” when he means that the player had base hits in 30 consecutive games. Baseball pedants will wince, but this book is otherwise sturdy.

In the mid-1970s, Gary Stewart seemed destined to burn up the charts, with a string of drinking and cheating songs from a singularly possessed talent. He sang “Your Place or Mine,” “Out of Hand,” “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles),” and other hits with an unearthly quaver that made damnation sound awfully tempting. By 1980, he had burned himself out, at least as a country hitmaker, all but disappearing from the public eye. Journalist McDonough decided to track him down to his Florida trailer home for one of those whatever-happened-to pieces, which the Village Voice published in 1988. His extended visit to coax Stewart back into action included verbal challenges, substance abuse, a thrown knife, and some brutal honesty on both sides. It also included McDonough’s deep dive into a vault of unreleased taped performances that convinced him that Stewart’s hits had barely scratched the surface of his artistry, that Stewart was one of the greatest American musical artists of all time. When McDonough took his leave, Stewart “encouraged me to write the story as I saw fit: ‘Don’t puss out on me, bud. Tell it the Jimmy way.’” McDonough would go on to apply “the Jimmy way” to a series of critically incisive, occasionally controversial biographies—Neil Young, Tammy Wynette, Al Green et al.—but the Stewart story is the one he couldn’t let go. He leaves nothing out here: OxyContin (“or ‘hillbilly heroin,’ the media nickname Gary preferred”), moonshine, meth and quaaludes; a volatile marriage and a familial history of drugs and dysfunction; suicides, car crashes, and skirmishes with the law. The result is more than 500 pages of mayhem and revelation, a narrative that is often hilarious, occasionally horrific, and inevitably grim.