While housesitting for her grandmother, young Willow has been dealing with some of the grosser items on her to-do list, like shoveling manure. She’d rather invite a friend over for a sleepover, but her pal Sam Squirrel (introduced in the series opener) is tied up with school. But before Willow can start cleaning the chicken coop, the birds erupt into chaos with the appearance of a rude queen bee who loves stealing other people’s homes. The only known beekeeper in the Quiet Woods is an allegedly fearsome stink badger. Determined to solve her own problems without calling in Mother Nature, Willow sets out to find the stink badger and oust the queen and her swarm from the coop before it’s too late. Her journey is gently amusing as she discovers strengths (like a gift for songwriting), confronts weaknesses (her practically nonexistent sense of direction), and figures out ways to resolve conflicts. Finally, when everyone else is too afraid, Willow must ignore (literal) warning signs to ask for expert help. Along the way, she makes a misunderstood friend. Though older readers may find the story’s resolution a bit predictable, all will enjoy getting to know the charmingly self-aware Willow as Selfors drops in a few hints about her backstory. Spotlight illustrations showcase adorably anthropomorphized animals. Willow is depicted with paper-white skin and described as having silver hair.

After a quartet of 4-year-olds built a block tower together at a Drag Queen Story Hour during Provincetown’s Family Week, their parents—an interracial, interfaith (Asian/white and Jewish) lesbian couple, an interracial, interfaith (Black/white and Jewish) gay couple, and a single lesbian mother (presumed white)—all decided to vacation together henceforth. But this Family Week, they’re bringing more emotional baggage than luggage. Milo (who’s academically gifted as well as trans) and his twin sister, Lina, are struggling with Milo’s upcoming departure for a fancy boarding school. Avery is heartbroken over her fathers’ impending divorce and the forthcoming baby sibling (Daddy’s new female partner is pregnant). Meanwhile, Mac, who’s been attending summer school to avoid repeating seventh grade, is just trying to figure out what he’s good at, especially in comparison to the gifted and people-pleasing Milo. With each weekday forming its own chapter, this short book packs in a lot and relies on overwhelmingly long sentences; as a result, the characters, conflicts, and emotions end up feeling rushed and underexplored. The breathless pace also means that each family feels more like a rough sketch rather than fully fleshed-out individuals. Milo and Lina are biracial (Asian and white), Avery’s biracial (Black and white), and Mac presents white.

Irish poet and novelist Rooney creates a well-researched account of the eventful, peripatetic life of journalist, photographer, and fiction writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach (1908-42). The strong-willed, glamorous daughter of a wealthy Swiss silk-manufacturing family, Schwarzenbach grew from a young tomboy into a daring, ambitious, yet troubled woman. To Thomas Mann, the restless Annemarie seemed a “rebel angel.” In a family that supported the Nazis, she was violently opposed. Her controlling mother, who had a 30-year relationship with a prominent female opera singer, could not countenance Annemarie’s lesbian liaisons. Distancing herself from her mother, Rooney asserts, became her life’s work. Rooney chronicles Schwarzenbach’s love affairs; her marriage of convenience to a French diplomat, which afforded her a coveted diplomatic passport; and her friendships, the most enduring of which was with Mann’s children Klaus and Erika. Klaus, a frequent travel companion, introduced her to the gay underworld of Berlin, rife with drugs. By 1932, she was a morphine addict. Psychologically fragile, she was in and out of psychiatric clinics, attempted suicide, and taxed the patience of friends with her overwhelming neediness, as she spiraled deeper into addiction and alcoholism. Writing and traveling, Rooney asserts, served her as “lodestones in time of crisis”: reporting, photojournalism, and even archaeological digs took her through Europe—Paris, Venice, Zurich, Nice—and the Middle East, Persia, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, and the Balkans; she traveled to the U.S. three times. During her last trip there, in 1940, she met the newly hailed young novelist Carson McCullers, who became besotted with her, an attraction that was not reciprocated. Despite her mother’s burning her letters and diaries, Rooney mines ample German, French, and English sources to inform a thorough biography. 

In his debut novel, the author introduces readers to his bass-playing FBI agent, Gus Wheeler, who’s in the prime of his career, working as a field agent in Boston and pursuing his musical interests in a touring band. His newest case involves two longtime friends, murdered in quick succession in (fictional) Kendalton, Massachusetts. Gus and his partner, Vanessa Lambert, head up there just in time to examine the second crime scene, where they discover a surprising signature from the killer—an old photo of a girl, Rebecca Munroe, who died by suicide as a teenager some years ago. When Gus and Vanessa ask the victims’ friend group about Rebecca, they’re met with clear deception, as the women claim they barely knew her. Gus, a small-town native himself, knows this can’t possibly be true in a place the size of Kendalton. The narrative shifts, then, to spend time with each of the women in the group, and readers come to learn about their unique history as childhood friends. They also find out that Rebecca was no stranger to these girls, and that her death is not as straightforward as it initially seemed. As Gus and Vanessa scramble to find the killer and uncover secrets, the murderer’s rampage goes on. Although conventions of the genre abound in Dingle’s novel—the requisite will-they, won’t-they between FBI agents, the one evil friend who pushes the others into complicity—the action is well paced enough to keep readers turning the pages. The prose is occasionally striking, such as when it addresses the very act of writing itself: “And it was with this feeling of apprehension, of loss, that she stared at the blank page that would, at some point, contain the words that, woven together, would become the eulogy.” Fans of classic mysteries and FBI thrillers in particular will be happy to race this one to the finish line.

After Ellis’ best friend, Lora, disappears from Clearwood Home for Orphans, the only clue is Lora’s bookmark, upon which she’d written the phrase “The Forests of the Night.” Soon after, Ellis is assigned as guardian to new resident Pip, who doesn’t speak. Both girls feel a strong connection to the massive Ghost Tree—the fossilized remains of the only tree that didn’t rot away in the Blight. Ellis even hears the tree talking to her. After she and Pip see a huge, birdlike creature pecking at the tree, the girls are sent away to a summer camp, where kids are forced to mine an energy source that powers evil scientist Mother Dear’s creations. Dealing in “bio-hybridization, paleo-genetics, robotics, [and] artificial intelligence” as part of her plan to rule the world by replacing nature, Mother Dear must destroy the last natural space on Earth: the forests of the night. If Ellis and Pip can’t get there first, all will be lost, but luckily, they have the Ghost Tree on their side. The book’s very slow first half lays a minimal foundation for the book’s overall mystery. Persistent readers may feel rewarded in the second half, which features more clarity and exciting plot elements. Ellis has little agency throughout, mostly doing as she’s told, which makes for a largely unengaging narrative. Most characters are cued white.