The Accidentals

by Guadalupe Nettel, trans. by Rosalind Harvey

Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel's The Accidentals contains eight poignant first-person stories of people seeking to make connections and right the wrongs of the past.

In "Imprinting," a woman stumbles on her estranged uncle while visiting another patient at the hospital. Will the bond they form be enough to heal a long-running family feud? Several stories have a similar focus on dysfunctional families. The narrator of "The Fellowship of Orphans" recognizes a man from a missing person poster and calls the man's

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On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters

by Bonnie Tsui

In the spirit of Better Faster Farther by Maggie Mertens, On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui (Why We Swim) takes readers on more than a simple anatomical journey. Along with descriptions of what muscles do and why they matter, Tsui shares stories of growing up with a physically active father and learning to love moving her body. Filled with conversations with experts such as Jan Todd, a kinesiology professor and power lifter who once famously lifted the Scottish Dinnie Stones (which have "a combined weight of 733 pounds"),

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El Niño

by Pam Muñoz Ryan, illus. by Joe Cepeda

Children's Literature Legacy Award-winner Pam Muñoz Ryan (Mañanaland) delivers a sweeping, lyrical work of middle-grade magical realism about resilience, nature, and human connection. Ryan crafts a mythical story, illuminating the ways in which El Niño shapes both the environment and personal destinies.

It's the summer before Kai Sosa's eighth grade year, and he has been selected to compete on an elite swim team, the Aquarius Aquatics. He hopes that he will be able to live up to his family's

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Awake in the Floating City

by Susanna Kwan

Artist/writer Susanna Kwan turns her native San Francisco into a watery wasteland in her elegiac debut novel, Awake in the Floating City. After seven years of rain, the third floor is now the ground floor in the high-rise where Chinese American artist Bo rents a 77th-floor studio. Most everyone she knows has left, "gone to Greenland or Siberia or Maine." Her cousin Jenson, in British Columbia, wants to extricate her, ever since "the big storm" swept her mother away. Her art has completely stalled.

But

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Cranky, Crabby Crow (Saves the World)

by Corey R. Tabor

A stern-tempered corvid guards an astonishing secret in the disarmingly adorable, sneakily hilarious picture book Cranky Crabby Crow (Saves the World) by Caldecott Honor winner Corey R. Tabor (Mel Fell; Papilio).

Crow, a small blackbird with an oversized head and stick legs, stands in his place on the power line and glares from under his floating unibrow. A host of twee, conventionally adorable would-be animal friends arrive one by one, only for Crow to banish them with a severe "KAW!" Eventually Cat warns

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Hurricane

by Jason Chin

In Hurricane, Caldecott and Sibert Medalist Jason Chin (Watercress; Life After Whale) delivers another sensational work of creative nonfiction that features precise details and exacting illustrations.

"A storm is raging over the Atlantic Ocean." But it's no ordinary storm, it's a hurricane, with "howling winds, raging waves, and torrential rains [that] can cause terrible destruction." And it's heading toward the east coast of North America. Luckily for people who live in its path, the storm is being watched

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Intraterrestrials: Discovering the Strangest Life on Earth

by Karen G. Lloyd

More than a look at tiny organisms living within the earth, Karen G. Lloyd's Intraterrestrials is a thrilling jaunt through scientific research and the experiences of a scientist. Lloyd's delight in her work shines across the pages and generates appreciation and excitement for even the most tedious aspects of research.

Lloyd, who is professor of earth sciences and the Wrigley Chair in Environmental Sciences at USC, eases readers into a world many people tend not to think about as she describes the habitat

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