This Ramadan, neither Malak nor her Teta will be fasting—Malak’s too young, and Teta’s on a new medication. So they decide to find another way to make the holy month special. Malak asks her grandmother to show her how to prepare iftar, the meal eaten to break the fast each evening. But what to cook? Their Palestinian family’s favorite meal—makloubeh! The dish contains layers of meat, rice, and fried vegetables, but everyone prefers a different kind. Malak’s grandfather likes eggplant makloubeh best, while her mom’s favorite is cauliflower. As the ingredient list grows, Malak worries: “What if everything doesn’t go together?” But, as Teta points out, “Every makloubeh is unique…Just like each family.” Soon, the meal is nearly ready, and Malak’s uncle places a tray over the simmering pot and, per tradition, flips it upside down before serving it (indeed, makloubeh is Arabic for “upside down”). While many children’s stories about Ramadan emphasize fasting, this charming tale, rooted in the author’s own experiences, notably shifts focus to the iftar. Issa’s cozy, digital illustrations exude familial warmth and feature deeply meaningful threads of cultural identity such as the traditional Palestinian thobe, keffiyeh, olives, and keys hanging on the wall, symbolizing the right of return.

A child with two black buns, whom readers may recognize from Forman and Figueroa’s Like So (2024), is thrilled to greet the day. Accompanied by Mama, the young narrator frolics through lush grass, dances a butterfly ballet, and wades in the sea; at last, the two cuddle together by the shore. Magic and movement are all around, and the child’s body language reinforces the confidence, security, and pride that the little one feels. On one spread, mother and child recline on a blanket outside, surrounded by sparkly swirls (“I’m made of the same stuff as stars…the ancestors got together and each threw in their best dreams”); on the next, they’re brought back to reality. “I belong to this world now,” a world packed with affirming goodness. Forman’s poetic text has an irresistible rhythm that blends delightfully with Figueroa’s immersive illustrations. Rich tones of “pink and orange, peach and blue” and changing perspectives throughout make Mother Nature feel like another character in the story, inviting readers to draw connections to their own sensory experiences in nature. Whether adults read this one aloud with preschoolers or share it with a snuggler on their lap, little hearts will swell each time they chirp along to the refrain: “Do I love you? Yes I do!”

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Lichtblau focuses on Orange County, California, “a petri dish for young white supremacists anxious to take back their culture from minorities they see as an existential threat.” There, one young man—disaffected, taught by his conservative father to despise gay people, obsessed with Nazi ideology—targeted a classmate, gay and Jewish, and murdered him. Sam Woodward, now imprisoned for life, wasn’t the first neo-Nazi killer on the block. Indeed, Southern California abounds in white nationalist gangs, for, as neo-Nazi/KKK leader Tom Metzger declared, “This may not be the Mecca of white separatism…but it is the breeding ground.” The neo-Nazi drama plays out, in Lichtblau’s fast-paced account, against a backdrop of national politics and demographics: Enrollment in white supremacist organizations accelerated dramatically with Barack Obama’s election, and violent action spiked with Trump’s. “While Trump always denied any suggestion that his ugly, racist rhetoric was fueling violence,” writes the author, “dozens of his supporters made that connection explicit in unprovoked hate crimes that invoked his name and mimicked his language.” Emboldened, supremacist groups are spilling out of Southern California and the Deep South and growing nationally. Perhaps ironically, Lichtblau notes, those very places are becoming less white and more ethnically mixed, giving rise to the “Great Replacement Theory” and the fervent support for Trump that led to the January 6, 2021, insurrection, most of whose participants “hailed from counties where the proportion of the white population was shrinking rapidly compared to that of non‑whites.” The author’s thorough reporting makes it plain that things are likely to become still worse, for, with Trump’s second term, supremacists’ numbers and actions are rising, while violent hatred has become “the sad state of normalcy in modern‑day America.”

The key lines and uplifting sentiments chosen for this “erasure poem” sometimes show their age, but they still make inspiring reading. The text floats on Lewis’ evocative images of opening doorways and marching footsteps, of small figures standing on a mountaintop or rising through clouds, and of hands shaping a heart or holding a tool. “I want to suggest things that should be in your life’s blueprint,” King said. He went on to speak of believing in being Black, beautiful, and good; of staying in school; of rising up like Marian Anderson and Muhammad Ali; of choosing nonviolence over hate (“Our slogan must not be ‘Burn, baby, burn’”); and of transforming injustice into justice. Most of all, he urged, “DON’T SET DOWN / ON THE STEPS / ’CAUSE IT’S / HARD. / KEEP MOVING.” Duncan explains how readers can watch a video of the original talk and provides instructions for making an erasure poem; she closes with a quick summary of the Civil Rights Movement’s hard-won triumphs. It’s uncomfortable to consider how much of that last will be news to today’s middle schoolers.

Invisible illnesses like endometriosis, Lyme disease, and long Covid typically present as a constellation of vague, sometimes intermittent symptoms that include pain, chronic fatigue, and brain fog. As different as these conditions are from each other, they are also similar in how misunderstood they are in the medical community. Drawing on cultural history and interviews with scientists, policymakers, and activists (many of whom suffer from chronic conditions), Mendenhall argues for transforming the health care system by recognizing the experiences of complex patients as “legitimate sources of knowledge.” A large part of the problem comes from the fact that complex patients and doctors “speak different languages” and do not understand each other. Patients may feel unseen by clinicians who lean into authoritative discourse and a “one size fits all” approach to diagnosis, while clinicians may not fully comprehend the patient’s (often very individualized) experiences. In discussing endometriosis, for example, the author shows how female complaints get labeled—and ultimately dismissed—as functional neurological disorder (FND), an updated version of the Hippocratic notion of hysteria or “wandering uterus” syndrome. She argues that symptoms for this and other chronic ailments must be considered in context of what she terms a patient’s “bodymind,” since body and mind, along with the patient’s environment, are “deeply integrated.” Only then can the chronically ill begin to more successfully navigate their conditions and remake their lives in more substantive ways. Elegantly written and rigorously researched, Mendenhall’s book offers a much-need challenge to a monolithic health care system to respond in more humane and holistic ways to the suffering of those facing complicated, long-term health issues.