Publishers Weekly | January 25, 2021

There were four Caldecott Honor Books: A Place Inside of Me: A Poem to Heal the Heart, illustrated by Noa Denmon, written by Zetta Elliott (FSG); The Cat Man of Aleppo, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, written by Irene Latham and Karim Shamsi-Basha (Putnam); Me & Mama, illustrated and written by Cozbi A. Cabrera (S&S/Denene Millner); and Outside In, illustrated by Cindy Derby, written by Deborah Underwood (HMH).

The Robert F. Sibert Award for the most distinguished informational book for children went to Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera, written by Candace Fleming and illustrated by Eric Rohmann (Holiday House/Neal Porter Books). There were three Sibert Honors: How We Got to the Moon: The People, Technology, and Daring Feats of Science Behind Humanity’s Greatest Adventure, written and illustrated by John Rocco (Crown); Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, written by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera (Abrams); and All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick).

Three King Illustrator Honor Books were chosen: Magnificent Homespun Brown: A Celebration, illustrated by Kaylani Juanita, written by Samara Cole Doyon (Tilbury House); Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera, written by Suzanne Slade (Abrams); and Me & Mama, illustrated and written by Cozbi A. Cabrera (S&S/Denene Millner Books).

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The Horn Book | January 25, 2021

In the early morning, a young unnamed Black girl tiptoes through the house and past various sleeping family members, to be greeted by the smell of cinnamon and her mother’s good-morning song. Even though the day is rainy, it’s a wonderful time “to be everywhere Mama is.” Throughout her day, the child makes clever observations about the similarities and differences between herself and her mother. While she has less toothpaste on her toothbrush, both she and Mama know to brush “round my teeth with little circles.” As they prepare to go outside to take a nature walk, it’s noted that “Mama’s rain boots are / bigger than mine. / And they’re red”—however, both pairs make an excellent splash in puddles. The girl is also keen to acknowledge how she and her mother care for each other—after her hair is combed, she returns the favor, accentuating her mom’s thick curls with “the purply pink barrette…She calls it fuchsia.” At the end of her day (“Our day is done earlier than / Mama and Papa’s / It’s just that way when you’re growing”), mother and daughter read stories to each other. Drifting off to sleep, the young girl is content to dream, knowing “there’ll be me and mama.” Celebrating the beautiful dark brown skin of the duo, and surrounded by various hues of blue, Cabrera’s color-saturated illustrations, a mix of single pages and double-page spreads, add to the gentle charm of the conversational text. Large and small pairs of everyday objects appear on the endpapers, bolstering the celebration of the mother/daughter relationship.

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The Wall Street Journal | January 22, 2021

Picturing the Jazz Age with the classic story of American self-invention.

Something’s always lost when a book gets translated into a film, stage show or graphic novel. But something’s often gained, too, as is manifestly the case with K. Woodman-Maynard’s illustrated adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” (Candlewick, 232 pages, $24.99). The book is rendered in luxe colors of rose, gold, amethyst and aquamarine, making us feel as though we’re watching the events of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel through gems held up to the light.

Having been altered and condensed to suit the graphic-novel form, this “Gatsby” won’t be ideal for newcomers, but as an adjunct or a fresh way of experiencing a canonical story, readers ages 14 and older will find it hugely rewarding.

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Booklist | January 7, 2021

Throughout Lauren Francis-Sharma’s saga, she gives readers a cast of characters whose stories are drawn from the tangled beginnings of the Caribbean and the early American West, detailed with subtexts of racism and colonialism. Central to the story is Rosa, a strong-willed Trinidadian woman, who, as the story begins, is the wife of Edward Rose, a Crow Chief in 1830s Wyoming. How did she get here and what secret does she carry with her that affects not only her future but her son’s? Taking a circu-linear path, the players and places combine to unravel this history’s mystery. Narrator Robin Miles takes it to a higher level through her oral presentation, truly crafting a sweeping story experience. She captures the essence of each character, breathing added believability into their bones, demonstrating an amazing range of vocalizations. With a “narrator” voice that works as a plain canvas, she then paints a wide variety of accents and languages (American, Caribbean and British English, French, Spanish, and those of several Native Peoples of North America), including nuanced local dialects appropriate to the time period; she is able to effortlessly sound male and female, youthful and elderly. This is an exceptional audio production that doesn’t need any flashy special effects. Highly recommended.

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Kirkus | January 6, 2021

A 2005 classic charting hip-hop’s rise to global prominence—while navigating the entanglements of race, class, politics, and poetics that lie at its heart—gets a long-overdue redux.

Two veteran cultural critics bring the history of hip-hop to younger readers in 2021 as the infinite futures of the genre continue to expand. Readers can feel the seeds of Chang’s cultural organizing within the storytelling of this tour de force while Cook brings his decades of experience as a pioneering hip-hop journalist to give new color to this edition. They write of hip-hop’s birth in the figurative and all-too-literal fires of Kingston, Jamaica, and the South Bronx before becoming the world’s most significant youth cultural influence. Hip-hop founding father DJ Kool Herc reminds readers of the dualities of fun and responsibility at its core in the introduction. Chapters comb through the movement’s antecedents in the 1960s, traveling from coast to coast, through the South and all around the world. The authors show the oft-underrepresented ways that Black women have shaped hip-hop, and new chapters chart its championing in the 21st century as a lifestyle built around being anti-establishment grappled with commercial success, political influence, and social change during the 2020 summer of Covid and mass protest. In addition to satisfying committed fans, this stellar work could function as a supplementary text within any social studies narration of the post–civil rights–era U.S.

Required history for young hip-hop heads—and everyone else.

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New York Public Library | January 4, 2021

2020 has been an extraordinary year (as in very much outside of the ordinary) but also a great year for readers. The New York Public Library's Best Books Committees have read widely and rigorously, searching out the most innovative, vibrant, and relevant books for New Yorkers today. Today we are proud to announce our Best Books of 2020—our annual lists of recommendations for kids, teens, and adults.

Astronauts: Women on the Final Frontier
Meet the first women in space! Journey with three fearless astronauts, Sally Ride, Mary Cleave, and Valentina Tereshkova, as they change the world by leaving it.

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Mystery & Suspense | January 2, 2021

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

That’s my takeaway after reading this. That, and I’m glad I don’t know anyone like the characters in this spicy little thriller.

Sophie O’Neill and her husband and young son, originally from Chicago, are new to a small town in Texas. It was time for the family to get away from the hustle and bustle of suburbia. However, Sophie quickly finds herself bored. When she happens to come across the Facebook profile of socialite Margot Banks, she is preoccupied by the thought of befriending her.

This is a fast-paced tale that ramps up pretty quickly. I hope everyone else who reads this has a fun time trying to keep up with the shenanigans as they guess who could be a murderer, and why. This is the first book I’ve read by author May Cobb, but it surely won’t be my last.

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Booklist | January 1, 2021

Throughout the year, Booklist’s Adult Books reviewers have bestowed stars upon books across our wide reviewing spectrum and editors have selected titles for our subject-area and genre Top 10 lists. We now present the 2020 master list, the very best of the best, arranged in eight broad nonfiction categories and two encompassing fiction categories, one for general and historical fiction, the other for crime, fantasy, horror, romance, and science fiction. We are elated to be able to celebrate these exceptional books, given all the struggles of 2020.

Book of the Little Axe
Francis-Sharma’s original and intricate novel revolves around Rosa, who never fit in among the free Blacks in 1790s Trinidad and ends up living in the Crow Nation of Montana, married to a chief, until their son spurs her to journey back to her roots.

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Harper's Bazaar | December 29, 2020

2020 came and went fast, but fortunately, the publishing industry kept pace with the passage of time with a slew of the year’s most anticipated titles. Here, take a look back at the best new books that arrived this year—and add them to your 2021 reading list if you haven't dug into them yet.

My Mother's House
It’s a rare work of fiction that draws comparisons to Toni Morrison at the height of her power, so it’s all the more impressive that Francesca Momplaisir’s debut novel has netted such formidable praise. When Lucien immigrates to New York City with his family, he hopes for a fresh start and a way to provide other Haitian émigrés in the city with support and shelter. But it soon becomes clear that Lucien’s old traumas have followed him into his new life—and everyone around him will soon pay the price.

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Kirkus | December 18, 2020

Exhilarating—as well as hilarious, enraging, or both at once depending on the reader.

How women got mad, busy, and finally, reluctantly, accepted into NASA’s corps of astronauts.

Recast by the creators of Primates (2013) from NASA oral-history interviews with ex-astronaut Mary Cleave and other eyewitnesses, this likewise lightly fictionalized memoir takes its narrator from childhood interests in science and piloting aircraft to two space shuttle missions and then on to later educational and administrative roles. The core of the tale is a frank and funny account of how women shouldered their way into NASA’s masculine culture and as astronaut trainees broke it down by demonstrating that they too had both the competencies and the toughness that added up to the right stuff. Highlighted by a vivid series of scenes showing Cleave with a monkey on her chest, then a chimpanzee, an orangutan, a gorilla, and finally a larger gorilla to symbolize the G-forces of liftoff, Wicks offers cleanly drawn depictions of technical gear, actual training exercises, eye-rolling encounters with sexist reporters and clueless NASA engineers, iconic figures (such as a group portrait of the watershed astronaut class of 1978: “Twenty-six white guys and nine…well…people who were not. Pretty diverse for NASA”), and astronauts at work on the ground and in space. They capture both the heady thrill of space travel and the achievements of those who led the way there.

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Esquire | December 17, 2020

If this year in cookbooks could be summed up in one neat phrase, we'd have to say it was the year of origin stories. We interpret that broadly. The books we devoured in 2020 retread ancient history, revisited homegrown habits, and reexamined roots. These books gently reminded us that looking backwards isn't a foolish endeavor, especially when the rest of the world is stuck in this horrible present. Sometimes, a good memory is the best meal prep. That and a deep breath, especially when you're standing in the kitchen with a slew of ingredients in front of you and a hungry table awaiting your final dish.

Meals, Music, and Muses
Smalls began his adult life by tearing it up onstage as an opera singer (a baritone) and then pivoted to an illustrious career as a chef and restaurateur in New York. Quite the journey, no? His newest cookbook reflects it, leaning on stories and recipes from his early years in the South, as well as his musical heritage. Put more plainly, each chapter's recipes, from okra skewers to roast quail in bourbon cream sauce, is themed around a genre of music and the tales Smalls can tell about it—gospel for greens and serenades for dessert, for example.

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Booklist | December 15, 2020

This engrossing, engaging account bills itself as a history of hip-hop, but it’s so much more. Divided into four roughly even, chronological sections beginning in 1969 and spanning into 2020, the book reviews social and political history in light of the myriad individuals and influences that created this vibrant culture. East Coast, West Coast, Black lives, gang wars, civil unrest—all are framed within the context of how they influenced, and were influenced by, the evolving hip-hop scene. Companies blacklisted artists and cancelled contracts, album releases were delayed, and songs were censored, all in testimony to the growing power of this gloriously defiant art form that gave voice to marginalized populations. This young adult version is an update to the 2005 adult edition, and terms that are generally considered to be offensive have been removed. There are also exhortations for young people to work together for positive change, beginning with DJ Kool Herc’s introduction and carrying through to the final chapter, “Black Lives Matter.” There’s new material about the current generation of women rappers and their body-positivity messaging, the #MeToo movement, and the impact of COVID-19 on the hip-hop community. The book ends with age-appropriate discussion questions that will help young readers grasp the tremendous influence hip-hop has had on current society.

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Popsugar | December 11, 2020

After devouring Jean Hanff Korelitz's novel, You Should Have Known and binging the smash success that is HBO's The Undoing, readers — myself included! — are eagerly searching FOR where to get their next thriller and suspense fix. Whether you're craving more psychological thrillers centered around complex marriages and intricate female friendships or novels balancing an unsolvable crime case and passionate love affairs, we've got you covered! Ahead, take a look at our best recommendations for thrillers like You Should Have Known. From forthcoming novels to newer releases, we guarantee these will hold you over until Nicole Kidman's next spine-chilling project, Nine Perfect Strangers (also a novel by Liane Moriarty), hits Hulu.

For the Best:
After a night of too much drinking and unconscious behavior, Jules Worthington-Smith's wallet is found at a crime scene, casting her as the prime suspect of a murder case. A well-polished and established woman in the community, Jules believes she is innocent and begins her own investigation. This whirlwind embarkment in Vanessa Lillie's For the Best won't only test the limits of the media and justice, but will force her to evaluate demons she's suppressed all her life.

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BookBub | December 10, 2020

From swoon-worthy romances like One Last Stop and Act Your Age, Eve Brown to fantastic fantasies like Hall of Smoke and The Gilded Ones, 2021 is packed with exciting releases. Here are some of the most anticipated books of 2021.

The Hunting Wives:
For Sophie O’Neill, moving with her family from Chicago to small-town Texas leaves something to be desired when it comes to excitement. That all changes when she’s introduced to the Hunting Wives, a club of women known for their partying and love of target practice. And when a teenage girl turns up dead, Sophie suddenly finds herself involved in something much more sinister. You’ll want to carve out plenty of time for yourself before picking up May Cobb’s latest novel — this thriller is impossible to put down.

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Vulture | December 9, 2020

This was a tough year for publishers and authors: Independent bookstores closed their doors, publishing dates were delayed, and authors scrambled apologetically to promote books they’d worked on for years, which now threatened to vanish from public view without leaving a ripple. None of it is fair. I wonder if we’ll look back on 2020 as the year of Lost Great Books; perhaps there will be a future curriculum organized around this principle. I hope so. Here are ten that ought to be on it.

5. My Mother’s House, by Francesca Momplaisir
A torrential, Faulkneresque tale of evil and love among multiple generations of Haitian immigrants living in New York. The most hard-core novel of the year.

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Mystery & Suspense | November 25, 2020

In Daniel Pyne’s Water Memory, we meet Aubrey Sentro, a black-ops specialist suffering from serial concussion syndrome. She has been experiencing frequent memory loss while on the job, and is forced to take a desperately needed vacation. However, while on the high seas everything comes to a standstill when pirates highjack the cargo ship. What the pirates don’t consider during the takeover is Sentro.

While excelling in the black-ops world, Sentro ends up lacking in the family world. While on this ill-fated cruise, battling memory loss, and the will to return to her children, Sentro utilizes every tactic she’s learned to get back to her family, and save the ship.

This is a must-read for any thriller fan looking for a different angle into the black-ops world. Water Memory has all the action of a thriller, but with an extra layer of personal struggle.

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Book Riot | November 23, 2020

Hip hop is one of the most dominant and influential cultures in America, giving new voice to the younger generation. It defines a generation’s worldview. Exploring hip hop’s beginnings up to the present day, Jeff Chang and Dave “Davey D” Cook provide a provocative look into the new world that the hip hop generation has created.

Based on original interviews with DJs, b-boys, rappers, activists, and gang members, with unforgettable portraits of many of hip hop’s forebears, founders, mavericks, and present day icons, this book chronicles the epic events, ideas and the music that marked the hip hop generation’s rise.

I read this one in adult form and am SO excited to see this adapted for young readers!

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PopSugar | November 6, 2020

Now that 2020 is almost in our collective rearview mirror, it's time to look ahead to a brand-new year full of books that we're all going to be obsessed with in 2021. Despite how unsettled 2020 was, it served up plenty of unforgettable reads, from the stunning and timely The Vanishing Half to the warm and witty Beach Read. But 2021 is here to tell 2020 to hold its bookmark, because this coming year is absolutely stacked with highly anticipated novels from the likes of Taylor Jenkins Reid, Kristin Hannah, Talia Hibbert, Stephen King, and Casey McQuiston. And it's not just the big-name authors who are preparing to wow readers; there are already a number of 2021 debuts generating major buzz, too.

#34: The Hunting Wives by May Cobb

Sophie O'Neill's quiet, rural life is completely upended in May Cobb's sharply observed thriller The Hunting Wives. After moving with her family from Chicago to Texas, Sophie becomes friends with a glamorous woman whose alluring hunting club may be responsible for the death of a teen girl.

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