Midway through Sonkina’s latest book, her narrator pauses to wonder whether her aunt Larissa’s “stories about Soviet life [were] true or fictions that she herself believed? Did it,” she wonders further, “matter?” Larissa is, of course, the titular character of this many-layered novel; now elderly, living in Ukraine with visa restrictions, she and her Canadian-émigré niece have met up in Montenegro for a brief respite. They spend each day walking to the market, buying kilos of strawberries, and walking back to their rented apartment while Larissa smokes cigarettes and reminisces about her past. And while Larissa’s niece has tried to plan a loose itinerary of tourist attractions, Larissa resists: She’s intent on her storytelling. That storytelling is where the bulk of the book—and, in any case, its best bits—lies: The reader is simply subsumed into Larissa’s memories (and, less often, her niece’s) of Soviet bureaucracy, antisemitic violence, world war, Siberia, several marriages, and the various accoutrements of a life lived to the utmost. The reader is occasionally returned to the present day by lines like this one, when Larissa and her niece are first reunited (for the first time in decades): “She looked at me intently, then quickly averted her gaze, as if we both agreed to conceal our mutual shock at time, this surreptitious and relentless sculptor that had betrayed us both.” But Sonkina’s tone is as often playful, witty, and boisterous as it is plaintive or wistful. Occasionally the narrative slackens slightly (usually in passages devoted to the present day), but for the most part, you’ll want to stay close to Larissa and her strawberries and cigarettes.

In Daviau’s second novel, Nina Simone Blaine addresses Dr. Tabitha Chen, who diagnosed Nina with A12 Fibrillin Deficiency Syndrome when Nina was 11 years old, and whom Nina has chosen to be the adoptive mother of the newborn she calls Sigrid Alma. Forty years and six weeks old, Nina expects to die within hours of giving birth to the child she never expected to have. Like “Marfan on steroids,” A12 endows its carriers—most of them the children of men older than 60—with missing fingers, bulging eyes, loose skin, crooked bodies, troubled hearts, and early deaths. For Nina, A12 meant rejection by her mother, Tracy, a former beauty queen who took her second husband’s side rather than her daughter’s in a sexual assault court case; when she was a girl, only Nina’s father, Eddie Blaine, who died when she was 7, called her beautiful. Once known as Sandy Blattner, Eddie gave up crooning on the Catskills circuit to attempt stardom in Hollywood and left behind a few mostly forgotten albums and Nina’s memory of his love. Seeking affection as devoted as her father’s sends Nina from her home in Connecticut back to Los Angeles and into the arms of Cole Courchaine, one of the “Good Thumbs,” a small circle of people with A12 supporting each other through their last days. Cole is grandiose, manipulative, and violent; given his grotesquely abusive behavior, Nina’s entanglement with him can be hard to take. The novel’s conclusion is both celebratory and satisfying in its ambiguities, as most of its large cast of characters are revealed to be complicated, capable of a flawed kind of love, and, with few exceptions, also somewhat mean.

When children go to bed on Christmas Eve, they dream of presents left under the tree by the jolly, magical person we call Santa. Everyone knows the story, but is it really possible that so rotund and aged a man could skip across rooftops and slip down chimneys with such nimble ease? Wimsett proposes an altogether more plausible possibility: Santa is, in fact, a ginger tabby, and his sleigh is pulled by five enchanted mice (“The mice are fed, / A special milk, / With honey spread on top”). Mrs. Katie Cat, a longhaired grey tabby, is in charge of logistics. Through her network of blinking and winking household cat spies, she keeps track of what presents are wanted by children around the world. She plots Santa Cat’s course on Christmas Eve and tracks him via satellite, checking her list to see that no child is left out. When children leave gifts of milk for Santa Cat, he takes some home in his flask to share with Mrs. Cat. The author narrates this new take on the Christmas legend through well-measured iambic heptameter; the rhymes are mostly unforced, and the meter remains consistent (the reader is occasionally obliged to drawl an extra syllable into words such as “smiles” and “Ireland”). The central conceit is both whimsical and joyous—very much in keeping with the Christmas spirit—and is brought to life by Fouchard’s dreamy, digitally painted illustrations. These are resplendent in their Christmas colors and evoke the slightly pixilated, soft-focus blur of greeting cards. In addition to depicting endearing central characters, Fouchard renders unique and imaginative background details, such as the toys of Santa Cat’s workshop or the flames in Santa and Mrs. Cat’s fireplace. Children are few in the story but reflect a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Where darker backdrops preclude the natural placing of black-inked text, a striking contrast is achieved by setting said text within superimposed snowdrift bubbles.

When her friend needs help, a young girl (unnamed in the text) doesn’t hesitate to offer her a large, literal word “YES” from the pile she maintains. (“It was a BIG YES. I can spare it, she thought.”) The kinder the girl is to others, the less kind she is to herself, and the less able she is to provide meaningful assistance as she struggles to keep up with the growing list of people asking for her help. One day, the people disappear, and the girl retreats to her home in defeat, feeling exhausted, lonely, and empty. She decides to take a step back and cultivate a small, unique YES just for herself. Armed with this YES, the girl learns to face a world full of problems in a healthier way. This follow-up to A Thousand No’s (2020) is a concise tale about setting boundaries that demonstrates healthy emotional habits in a way that children of a variety of ages can follow. The girl’s eventual solution will offer a glimmer of hope to any young readers feeling overextended. Dougherty’s illustrations bring a quirky, fantastical Victorian aesthetic that highlights all the YES’s in color; the characters and backgrounds are rendered as black-and-white drawings.

Steffens strives mightily to balance the achievements of his subject with other aspects of Trump’s character, such as his “anti-intellectualism,” his “love of splendor and magnificence,” and the behavior that some label as that of “a schoolyard bully” (and others see as evidence of a “fighting spirit”). Steffens dates to 1987 Trump’s public declaration that tariffs burden foreign producers rather than U.S. consumers. Avoiding the word lie, he notes Trump’s predilection for “exaggeration,” and tactfully describes his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic as “unsteady.” He does repeatedly label as “false” Trump’s claims of a stolen 2020 election, however. The book acknowledges the economic successes of the first Trump years and covers his reshaping of the Supreme Court and support from working-class people. Major omissions include accusations of racism and the racial demographics of his supporters as well as his xenophobia, unpaid bills, bankruptcies, failed businesses, self-confessed and adjudicated sexual misconduct, and false claim that Ukraine started the war with Russia. Other overlooked topics—some perhaps due to timing—are Project 2025, DOGE’s failure at cost-cutting, and attacks on free speech, due process, education, and birthright citizenship. Nevertheless, there’s enough material here to spur readers to conduct their own investigations. Steffens won’t please everyone, but he aims for objectivity and sticks mostly to verifiable facts.