Marvelous nature poems, sentences that ground you in the world of growth, life, and abundance. Read these outside, with your lungs full of fresh air and your ears full of birdsong.
Wickerwork by Christian Lehnert, (List Price: $18, Archipelago, 9781962770248, April 2026)
Reviewed by Emily, Thank You Books in Birmingham, AL
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Well, one thing I’ve learned is not to over describe. The tendency is to think, the more description, the more clarity. But I don’t think that’s true. Say I want to describe a vision of three green apples floating in mid-air above a sunlit table. Right now, a first-blush image has appeared in my head, and in yours. But if I go on and tell you that the apples are in a black bowl, that the bowl is also floating, that the table is white marble, and that the sunlight is coming from a dormer window above the table… the more I pile on, the more you have to go back and revise your initial image.
You want to give just enough detail, then let the reader fill in the rest. You’re trusting your reader this way, giving them agency. Reader, you and I are creating this book together. Too much description risks alienating them.
–Jaime Quatro, InterviewFiction Matters
What booksellers are saying about Two-Step Devil
About Jaime Quatro
Jaime Quatro is the New York Times Notable author of I Want to Show You More, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, and Fire Sermon, a Book of the Year for the Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, LitHub, Bloomberg, and the Times Literary Supplement. Quatro’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, the New York Review of Books and Ploughshares. She is the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, and Maison Dora Maar, and teaches in the Sewanee School of Letters MFA program. Quatro lives with her family in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
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"Daddy’s joy is bigger than him. It’s a wide, gap-toothed smile and a deep rumbling laugh that shakes the dinner table kind of joy."How can a book that begins this way not be wonderful? And it is. Muhammad receives a prayer rug for his 7th birthday and is nervous about what others will think of him observing salat at school. Heartwarming and significant, this is picture book perfection.
Salat in Secret by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow, (List Price: $18.99, Random House Studio, 9781984848093, June 2023)
Reviewed by Elese Stutts, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
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So often, when people are asked what they would wish for, they reply “World Peace.” In The Kindest Red, Faizah wishes for “World Kindness,” and isn’t that really the first step to world peace? This simple picture book with a big message is just perfect for families or classrooms looking to celebrate diversity and personal responsibility.
The Kindest Red by Ibtihaj Muhammad, (List Price: $19.99, Bloomsbury YA, 9780759555709, February 2023)
Reviewed by Angie Tally, The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines, North Carolina
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I’m always interested in a good memoir about religious experience. God’s Ex-Girlfriend did not disappoint. Amodeo’s time with Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) was full of revelations about how the movement can trap young people at their most vulnerable time: college and the days beyond. Amodeo seriously adopted the evangelical ideas, but found it wasn’t the support she needed to find her true self. A real eye-opener!
God’s Ex-Girlfriend by Gloria Beth Amodeo, (List Price: $18.95, Ig Publishing, 9781632461476, February 2023)
Reviewed by Linda Hodges, Fiction Addiction in Greenville, South Carolina
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Ahmed masterfully weaves together so many difficult topics that it’s hard to say what this book is about in any concise way. It’s painful, it’s beautiful, it’s haunting. It shines a light on horrific topics with sensitivity and grace and does so through the lens of two characters that are some of the most realistic I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Safiya didn’t really know Jawad, and she still felt the pain of his loss deeply. Upon finishing this book, I too feel his loss as if I knew him. I cannot remember ever reading a book so impactful, so relevant, and so emotionally gripping. If I had my way, everyone would read this book
Hollow Fires by Samira Ahmed, (List Price: $18.99, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 9780316282642, May 2022)
Reviewed by tee arnold, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, North Carolina
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