Linda-Marie Barrett, the executive director of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, will step down at the end of 2026. She joined the SIBA team in 2017 as the assistant executive director and became exec director in 2020. The board of directors is currently developing a search committee for the next executive director and will release more details soon. 

Linda-Marie Barrett (photo: Jon Mayes)

During her tenure with the organization, "membership has more than doubled; staffing has been expanded to include social media, membership, and sales positions; existing programming rebranded and updated; and new programming, like the Anti-Racism Toolkit and Indie Press Socials, launched," SIBA noted.

In addition, SIBA entered into two successful collaborative partnerships: with RAMP, the Regional Association Marketing and Promotions consortium; and with the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) for New Voices New Rooms online and in-person programming. In 2025, SIBA completed an extensive update and rebranding project, "A Bright Future," which involved a new logo, website, and association management system. 

"This feels like the perfect moment for me to pass the baton on to the next executive director, who can keep moving SIBA forward in ways that serve and energize our growing membership," Barrett said. "I have loved my time with SIBA; it's been the best job in the world and an honor to serve alongside an amazingly talented and hardworking staff and board. As to what's next for me, after the publication of Creating a Salon in 2025, I'm looking forward to devoting more energy to writing projects and prioritizing family time." 

The 78th Frankfurt Book Fair was noticeably smaller and quieter than most previous iterations, with Hall 6 closed and English-speaking exhibitors in two buildings. But most participants with whom Shelf Awareness spoke indicated that business was good, and many had the usual full days of back-to-back meetings.

Fair organizers said that there were 65,000 trade visitors from 130 countries on the first two, trade-only days of the fair--"at the same strong level as in the previous year." There were 4,000 exhibitors, and more than 3,800 events took place at the fair and in the city.

---

Lauren Stewart (l.) and Allison Belan

At EDItEUR's 47th International Supply Chain Seminar, held the day before the fair, the program was, as EDItEUR executive director Graham Bell said, "Very AI heavy. It's all anyone wants to talk about this year."

Allison Belan, executive director of the Book Industry Study Group, and Lauren Stewart, president and CEO of BookNet Canada, recounted the results of the most recent survey of AI use in the North American book industry, launched this past summer, which follows an initial survey done in summer 2025. (Robert Gray wrote up the survey details earlier this month in Shelf Awareness.)

Among key findings that Beland and Stewart reiterated:

• Larger organizations are significantly more likely to use AI and have formal processes around it.
• AI use is most common in sectors that "don't touch creative," such as administration and operations.
• The major concerns about AI involve trust, concerns about accuracy, and the protection of intellectual property.

Belan and Stewart said that they will continue to survey AI use in the book industry, and expand findings to encompass more of North America by working with representatives of the French-language book world in Canada as well as the book industry in Mexico.

---

Robin Fang

Also at the International Supply Chain Seminar, Robin Fang, co-founder of Fox & Fable, an online bookstore in the U.K. that opened last year, outlined the store's unusual approach in one area--aiming to tap into AI assistants' book recommendations and fulfill orders stemming from those recommendations. Fang gave an example of someone telling their AI assistant that they had "an argument with their partner." The assistant might give relationship advice, mention resources, and recommend a book. By working with AI companies like OpenAI, Fox & Fable can be the obvious place to buy that book. "We embrace AI search," he said. The company's focus was predominantly on backlist because that it "where most historical data comes from."

"If ChatGPT recommends book, why buy it from us rather than anyone else?" Fang asked. "Because we are a source it can read, and readers keep choosing us. That trust builds slowly and can't be bought."

Under the company's model, it buys on a nonreturnable basis from publishers and works with them on special print runs. It has 33 publishing partners and plans to expand into the U.S. and the open market in Germany.

---

Mehmet Toral, chief operating officer and general counsel for the research publisher Frontiers, reported in a Wednesday afternoon panel about AI and scientific, technical, and medical publishing, that Frontiers currently has a rejection rate of about 60%. The publisher began investing in AI tools as a starting point to be more efficient, he explained, but now "it's an arms race." Publishers are faced with AI-generated papers in such numbers that you "cannot deal with them in AI-generated tools." 

It is a "huge volume issue" that is constantly accelerating. It can also be "uncomfortable" in the sense that you may have a legitimate paper that was translated with AI sitting beside another paper "where all the data may be synthetic." It has become such a "complex area" that it is difficult to give authors a "single, simple answer" about AI use. Frontiers advises them to use the tools they like but to use AI responsibly. 

In the same panel, Chris Reid, senior director of product management at Wiley, said that while there are still some "financial arguments" for AI being a bubble, the technology is "transformative enough" that it will "stick around for some time." Demand is "growing very quickly," and he identified a shift from an "agentic discovery world," where users task AI with finding content and synthesizing it, toward an "agentic consumption world," where users are getting machines to do specific tasks.

On the subject of AI companies licensing content, Caroline Sutton, CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers, said licensing could give STM publishers some leverage when dealing with AI companies. They could stipulate ways in which that content should be used, rather than having the model be "scrape and leave." Sutton stressed that if publishers don't try to create these stipulations, AI companies will do whatever they want with the content. "If they want to do it, they'll do it," she said.

---

Shida Bazyar (photo: Christof Jakob)

On the eve of the fair at a ceremony in Frankfurt, Die Lücken (Omissions) by Shida Bazyar, published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, won the €25,000 (about $28,000) 2026 German Book Prize, honoring the best German-language novel of the year and sponsored by the Börsenverein's Foundation for Book Culture and the Promotion of Reading, the Deutsche Bank Foundation, the Frankfurt Book Fair, and the City of Frankfurt.

The jury wrote: "At home in Heimesbach--is that possible? Through the fates of individual characters, Shida Bazyar's novel Die Lücken (Omissions) reflects on nearly a century of the ambivalence of life in Germany. There were neighbours who watched as Jewish people disappeared from the streets. There are neighbours who make decisions that determine whether people with migrant backgrounds feel at home. The author employs compelling literary strategies: the perspective of a dead narrator and the text's kaleidoscopic structure enable the novel to move between different periods, as well as to create intimacy and distance. The close interweaving of fictional and documentary elements, of invented and historical figures--who are also given a voice--adds to the book's powerful resonance. A novel that stands against indifference."

Bazyar is also the author of The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran, which was nominated for the 2026 International Booker Prize.

---

In a panel discussion Wednesday afternoon on the future of travel publishing, Lonely Planet publisher Piers Pickard said it was an "amazing time for travel," with 2025 being the "biggest year of travel ever," and the travel industry projected to grow from $5.5 trillion today to $9.6 trillion over the next decade. He noted that the growth is expected to come not only from more people traveling but also from people investing in higher-cost, more immersive "experiential travel."

Mairdumont editorial director Christine Brisch said her company's mission is no longer about giving information but providing "orientation." With travel content available all over social media, lack of information is "not the problem." Travelers need curation and guidance. She emphasized that orientation is "only worth something" if it can be trusted. Trust in a brand is built over years, and as AI content proliferates, that trust becomes increasingly valuable. Pickard agreed, saying that people don't need more recommendations, they need a way of turning recommendations into a great trip. 

Both Brisch and Pickard said their companies are creating travel-related books that are not guidebooks. Mairdumont has been publishing travel literature for years, and recently has started to produce travel romance. Lonely Planet, meanwhile, has released a number of gift books like Toilets of the World: 100 Strange and Spectacular Thrones, Commodes, Loos, and Latrines and Where to Cheat on Your Cat: The Cat Lover's Guide to Travel.

---

Students Shama Emma Mohamed (left) and Isabella Veras (right) with Carlos Carrenho.

On Thursday morning at the Frankfurt Book Fair, publishing consultant Carlo Carrenho offered insights into book markets around the world and discussed some of the fixed book price systems used in different countries.

Carrenho called Norway's system "one of the most radical," as it dictates that audiobooks cannot go on streaming services until a year after release. Fixed book prices are being discussed in both Poland and Brazil, with the proposed Polish system including, among other things, a cap on wholesale discounts at 45%. Carrenho, who is from Brazil but currently lives in Sweden, said he has a "controversial" stance on the proposed Brazilian system. 

The most heavily discounted books in Brazil, he said, are typically bought by people in poorer socioeconomic groups. If discounts disappear, those titles could become much less accessible, and the country would be making popular books more expensive "so that higher classes can buy Dostoevsky." Asked what would have to change in Brazil to make the system viable, he replied drily: "The whole economic distribution in the country."

He added that protecting independent bookstores and independent publishers is important, but creating fixed prices is not the only way of doing that. Independent bookstores could receive tax exemptions or government grants, and large publishers could be made to give equal terms to retailers, he suggested. --John Mutter and Alex Mutter

Rolling Rabbit Books, a children's bookstore in Byron Center, Mich., has more than doubled in size, and recently hosted a community party to celebrate its expansion, WOOD reported. The shop, which opened in 2023, had initially taken up only 900 square feet of the 2,200-square-foot space.

Rolling Rabbit owner Gina Rabitoy

"We knew when we moved in (that) it was going to be too expensive to try and renovate the full 2,200 square feet, because it was very unfinished. It needed a lot of work and a lot of love," owner Gina Rabitoy recalled, adding that she initially focused on renovating the front part of the space. "My dad had the creative idea to divide the space, and so we put in some temporary panels that kind of made a wall."

Since launching the bookshop, she has worked to save money and get established in the community, noting: "Eventually, after about two and a half years, it felt like we were outgrowing the 900 square feet," she said. "So we started working every single weekend." Renovations began earlier this year and continued for almost five months. The space needed flooring, lighting, ceiling work, "a lot of paint," along with other cosmetic upgrades.

When the newly renovated store was finally revealed at the community gathering, Rabitoy said it was "the best day ever," as well as the best sales day in the store's history. "It was so fun just to get the feedback from people and see the kids enjoying the space," she added. "It was incredible."

She called the expansion "a dream come true.... This has been on my mind ever since we opened. I didn't want to make that jump before I really felt like the business was ready, but I'm just, like, over the moon that it's finally happened."

Rolling Rabbit Books has added a wide selection of toys, along with more seating and a "quiet closet," which Rabitoy described as "a cute little cozy nook." There is also much more space for events, like holiday-themed parties. "We really wanted to be able to offer more variety and just be a place where people can gather," she said.

Barnes & Noble is launching a new, 12,000-square-foot bookstore today, October 14, in the Midtown Miami complex at 3201 N Miami Ave., Ste. 111. During the store's official opening, author L.J. Shen will cut the ribbon and sign copies of the third book in her Society of Villains series, Fallen Rook. 

"The Midtown Barnes & Noble graces Miami's Design District with an exceptionally attractive bookstore," B&N said. "Our new bookstores in Florida have been wonderfully received, and it is exciting to continue that growth in such a creative part of the city."

Sidney Offit, "the affable son of a Baltimore bookie who became a fixture in the New York literary establishment and whose work supporting authors and journalists extended beyond his friendships with luminaries such as Kurt Vonnegut," died October 3, the New York Times reported. He was 97.

Offit was the author of more than a dozen books, including two memoirs and two novels (He Had It Made and The Other Side of the Street). His children's books include Cadet Attack, illustrated by Peter Burchard; The Adventures of Homer Fink, illustrated by Paul Galdone; and The Boy Who Made a Million, illustrated by Mercer Mayer. 

He was also a guiding force to other writers. Pulitzer Prize winner Robert A. Caro called him "the central figure in the world of writers in New York for 40 years.... He knew every writer in New York. I remember when I didn't have a place to write, he helped me find a little office space. When I'd sometimes be discouraged about my work, he'd always have the helpful, perfect word to keep me going, and he did that for writer after writer."

Offit was a founder of the Authors Guild Foundation, the educational and charitable arm of the Authors Guild, and was the foundation's president for more than 10 years. He was also a v-p of the PEN American Center. From 1972 to 2009, he served as curator of the George Polk Awards, and taught writing at the New School and New York University. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was a familiar face on WNEW-TV's 10 O'Clock News, as half of a current-events debate segment opposite conservative commentator Martin Aben.

Offit was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut years earlier by legendary publisher Roger Straus. Vonnegut wrote him into his semi-autobiographical novel Timequake (1997). A four-volume set of Vonnegut's novels and short stories for the Library of America, published after his death, lists Offit as the editor. He also wrote the foreword to Look at the Birdie (2009), a collection of Vonnegut's stories.

His father was one of Maryland's biggest bookmakers, and in Memoir of the Bookie's Son (1995), Offit described watching his father fight off a gang of kidnappers, an episode that Hal Goodman, reviewing the book in the New York Times Book Review, said was "terrifying at the time but terrific in the retelling."

Offit attended Valley Forge Military Academy, where he met future playwright Edward Albee. Years later Offit wrote in his other memoir, Friends, Writers and Other Countrymen, that in the late 1990s--after Memoir of the Bookie's Son had come out--he had run into Albee, who asked: "When am I going to read your next book? Has it been more than five years since that very good memoir?" the Times wrote. Offit said that one of his former students overheard the exchange and remarked: "I suspect that you, like me, would be a more productive writer if you didn't go to so many parties."

He wrote for the student newspaper at Johns Hopkins University, where the editor was future Times columnist Russell Baker. In a 2022 interview, Offit recalled that "everybody at Hopkins had thought I should be a stand-up comic or an actor." He moved to New York in 1950 after graduation, and became friends with the talk-show host Joe Franklin. "I'd go around with him, and he'd introduce me as 'the leading entertainer in the country,' " Offit recalled. "But I didn't want to be an entertainer--I wanted to be a writer."

Jeff Kinney, High Five Books owner Lexi Walters Wright, Tony DiTerlizzi

High Five Books, Florence, Mass., hosted Wimpy & Wumpy: A Spooktacular Evening at the Academy of Music in Northampton. About 600 readers helped celebrate the launch of The Wump (Dial Books) by Tony DiTerlizzi and Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Spooky Stories 2 (Amulet Books) by Jeff Kinney.

Of the wildly entertaining event, DiTerlizzi reported: "We did a drawing contest, sketching our worst fears (Jeff's was a man hiding under his bed, mine the Grim Reaper), were wrapped up as toilet paper mummies, wore top hats filled with bugs and--for the grand finale--participated in a version of the show Hot Ones, where we ate gross stuff... including me eating a tarantula! You read that right. (I'm still picking hairy legs from my teeth.)"

And the next day, High Five Books celebrated Angela DiTerlizzi's new picture book, A Very Scary Book (Quill Tree Books), which she wrote with her illustrator husband, Tony DiTerlizzi. No bugs were consumed at the costumed storytime. 

Steve Semken, founder and publisher of Ice Cube Press, has been focusing on Midwestern books from his base in Iowa for more than 35 years. He is a familiar face at the Heartland Fall Forum, but this year he ventured further west during trade show season to help showcase new titles that have a different regional theme at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association's FallCon in Denver, Colo.

At MPIBA's FallCon: (l.-r.) authors Caryn Carruthers, Betsy Gaines, Stephen Collector, bookseller Dara Landry, Annette McGivney

"This fall was my first Mountains & Plains Independent conference, and after 35 years of publishing, the timing could not have been better," Semken said. "I came to Denver with Stephen Collector's new No Do-Overs in Paradise: Journeys Through Wild Places and Inner Landscapes, set across every corner of the Mountains & Plains region; and our new reprints of Russell Chatham's Dark Waters and The Angler's Coast. All three books carry the West in their bones, and FallCon was the right room to launch them."

On the final morning of FallCon, Colorado author Collector was one of several writers featured at The Deep Dive: Nonfiction Author Speed Round Breakfast, which had the guest authors present their titles by answering a series of rapid-fire questions about themselves and their work to attending booksellers. 

Among those participating were (pictured, l.-r.) authors Caryn Carruthers (Bowl Theory, The Collective Book Studio); Betsy Gaines Quammen (This Haunted Land, Torrey House Press); Stephen Collector (No Do-Overs in Paradise); event host and bookseller Dara Landry of Class bookstore in Houston, Tex.; and author Annette McGivney (Plastic Shaman, Torrey House Press).

Martha Stewart spoke with three indie bookstore owners "to learn the etiquette mistakes you should never make while searching for your next read." The booksellers were Angie Venezia, owner of Golden Hour Books, Newburgh, N.Y.; Naomi Chamblin, co-owner and co-founder of Napa Bookmine, Napa, Calif.; and Jason Locy, co-owner of Good Books, Cornwall, N.Y. The no-nos include:

1. Don't ask for a book recommendation just to buy it elsewhere
2. Don't complain about book prices
3. Don't place books back wherever you want
4. Don't let children damage books or other merchandise
5. Don't just stick to one section of the store
6. Don't hesitate to ask the bookseller questions
7. Don't skip purchasing a book if it's the last one on the shelf

Locy said of #7: "We appreciate the consideration, but yes, please buy it. That book has been waiting for you. I'm glad you found each other."

Ink & Paper Bookstore in Cazenovia, N.Y., shared a video list of "actual things customers have said that leave us dead," noting: "All of these have been said today, in fact."

Fraser Tanner, CEO of Batch for Books, is retiring at the end of the month. He played a central role in the development and launch of Batch in the U.K. more than 25 years ago and was the driving force in bringing Batch for Books to the U.S. in 2020.

Izzy Carlile, who took over as managing director of Batch Ltd. from Tanner two years ago, will also assume responsibility for Batch for Books following a full handover.

Today:
Fresh Air: Rana Foroohar, author of Sea Change: America's New Great Game in the Arctic Circle (Crown, $33, 9798217088829).

Tomorrow:
Today: Jasmine Guillory, author of  It's Only Dancing (Scholastic, $15.99, 9781338749434).

Drew Barrymore Show: Nara Aziza Smith, author of Homemade (Morrow Cookbooks, $35, 9780063459083).

Jennifer Hudson Show: D.L. Hughley, author of Charlie's Boy: A Memoir (Mariner, $30, 9780063435438).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Eric Idle, author of Idle in Provence: A Brief History of Thyme (Harper Select, $29.99, 9781400256761).

The first trailer has been released for the Greta Gerwig-directed adaptation of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, "a modernized retelling of C.S. Lewis's first book in The Chronicles of Narnia," Deadline reported. The film hits theaters February 12 and Netflix on April 2.

The cast includes David McKenna as Digory Kirke, Beatrice Campbell (Polly Plummer), Emma Mackey (White Witch/Jadis), Daniel Craig (Andrew Ketterley), Meryl Streep (voice of Aslan), and Carey Mulligan (Mabel Kirke), along with Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Denise Gough, and Susan Wokoma.

Narnia: The Magician's Nephew is produced by Mark Gordon, Amy Pascal, Vincent Sieber-Smith, and Gerwig. Executive producers include Patricia Whitcher, Racheline Benveniste, Christine Crais, and Douglas Gresham and Melvin Adams for the C.S. Lewis Estate. Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt wrote an original score, and George Drakoulias serves as music supervisor. 

Finalists have been selected for the 2026 Cundill History Prize, which honors a work of history written in, or translated into, English. It is administered by McGill University. The winner receives $75,000 and the two runners-up $10,000 each. The winner will be named October 23. This year's shortlisted titles are:

Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea's Personality Cult by Jonathan Cheng (Knopf)
The First Ghetto: Venice and the Jews by Alexander Lee (Picador)
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law by Beth Lew-Williams (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)

Chair of the jury Emily Greenwood commented: "This year's three finalists have written vivid historical accounts of complex subjects, and all three books have strong resonance and staying power."

Chital Mehta (photo: JP)

Chital Mehta is a South Asian writer whose stories center on motherhood, family dynamics, and immigration. Her novel, Have You Seen Romit? (University of Nebraska Press, October 1, 2026), was the winner of the 2025 James Alan McPherson Prize for the Novel, judged by R.O. Kwon. Mehta won the Bill Boggs Fiction Contest for her story "Damaged Gifts," and her story "The Weight of Happiness" was a finalist for the Pinch Literary Awards. She lives in Delaware with her husband and children.

Handsell readers your book:

Have You Seen Romit? is about a middle-aged mother, Usha, who defies her husband and sets out on a journey to find her missing son in the forests of southern India. Usha is a woman who has never stepped outside of her hometown. For the first time, she must break the boundaries that protected her.

I wrote this book because I was raised in India, where I often saw how women are expected to hold back. I wanted to explore what happens when a mother steps outside of societally and culturally imposed limitations.

On your nightstand now:

Flesh by David Szalay. I love his sentences more than anything. I am also reading Scavengers by Kathleen Boland, whose immersive prose has taken me by surprise. I love the mother-daughter tension that keeps me turning the pages.

Favorite book when you were a child:

I was 13 when I started reading to copy my friend. We'd pick books from the school library. I was dazed by Enid Blyton's Malory Towers. I read the entire series under the yellow light from a bathroom because we lived in a small house and I couldn't turn on the bedroom light. Reading turned out to be a magical experience since then.

Your top five authors:

These are authors whose prose helped me write or whose work helped me develop the writer's mindset: Alka Joshi, Steve Almond, Thrity Umrigar, Angie Kim, and Emma Donoghue.

Book you've faked reading:

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. I started reading and enjoyed the prose. I couldn't finish it because of kids being home during the summer break. My reading pace slowed down. I am hoping I'll return to it someday.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Letters to a Young Writer by Colum McCann. This book is my guide for life and writing. I turn to it any day my writing doesn't go well. Each page of the book talks to me. I'd love to buy a copy for any writer who is interested in honing their craft and developing the writer's mindset. So much about writing and publishing is about mental strength.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. The book itself is amazing, but I loved the cover. The title's font and the color blue stood out to me. The book has water for settings, and the cover does complete justice.

Book you hid from your parents:

Sidney Sheldon's Tell Me Your Dreams. I read a lot of Sheldon's novels in my teens. I'd hide a novel in a book of religious texts. Once, the maid told on me, and that didn't go well with my relatives. Novel reading was considered a sin at the time.

Book that changed your life:

Paulo Coelho's Like the Flowing River. This book helped me believe in my dreams. I read the book at least three times, and I have copied the quotes into my journal. The book changed my outlook toward life and writing.

Favorite line from a book:

"She said the words I had secretly longed to hear for years. The words I had waited all this time to hold in my cupped hands. I felt a heavy burden simply burst; what mattered was I was with Homa, what mattered was I loved my friend and would love her until the end of our days." --Marjan Kamali, The Lion Women of Tehran

Five books you'll never part with:

These are the books I have read more than once, and I still reach for them as these stories kept me up at night: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, Twist by Colum McCann, Audition by Katie Kitamura, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. I read this book in three days, and I was amazed by the plot and the tension. I'd love to experience that feeling again with this book.

Book you wish you had written:

I loved reading Parini Shroff's The Bandit Queens. Shroff is amazing at creating powerful protagonists you can't forget after putting the book down. I'd love to create something in terms of plot where women are attacking men.

When the best artist in the seventh grade's creativity gets blocked, he must embrace imperfection to find his way back to his craft and his voice. Grant Snider (Blue Floats Away) delivers sincere scribbles, gravity-defying gummy worms, and a dose of persistence in the imaginative, introspective middle-grade novel-in-verse The Year I Stopped Drawing.

Adam's parents are fighting over his dad's drinking, prompting his dad to move out. The new girl at school has drawing talent to surpass Adam's own, causing him to wonder why he should bother pursuing art anymore when, even if he tries his hardest, he'll "never be the best." Meanwhile, a bully has it out for Adam, making snide comments every time he makes even a small mistake. Adam's feelings are so enormous that he finds it hard to talk at all, let alone creatively express himself: "I can't tell anyone/ what's happening to my family./ So what's the point/ of talking?/ I can't show anyone/ what's happening inside of me./ So what's the point/ of drawing?" His art, his "portal," has vanished. In short, "puberty is like drawing/ a horse riding a bicycle"--an absurd, self-conscious balancing act that nonetheless demands that Adam "hang on." As he tries various methods to escape his stress and sadness (including band, track, and writing on sticky notes), he finds freedom in showing up worried and unsure, persisting in a beautifully awkward way.

Snider reveals Adam's interior world through his evolving art style: a self-portrait in light pencil when he feels barely there; heavy, unsteady abstract squiggles when he's frustrated. When Adam contemplates a cubist still-life painting, he imagines how his own still life would depict the elements in motion and chaos, "the vase--shattered" and "the apple--sauced." Adam's struggles to speak are also reflected in the formatting of the illustrated page itself--it's shown scribbled out, torn up, and crumpled--and the text, which at times becomes translucent and disappears from the page altogether.

The unlikely miracle of a gummy worm that remains stuck on the ceiling all year encapsulates Snider's approach in the novel, which seeks and appreciates little bits of weird in the everyday. The Year I Stopped Drawing is a demonstrative, heartening narrative about the highs and lows of creative expression. It is a quirky, poignant, and always thoughtful story about the interplay between talent, self-conceptualization, and perfectionism. The Year I Stopped Drawing will surely capture readers who experience art as both question and answer. --Ari Mackoff, bookseller

Shelf Talker: A seventh-grade artist fights through his blocked creativity by trial and error in this imaginative, introspective middle-grade novel-in-verse full of scribbles and sticky notes.