Los Amigos Books, a Spanish and bilingual children's bookstore, opened a bricks-and-mortar storefront last week in Chicago, Ill., Block Club Chicago reported.

Now located at 2207 N. Western Ave. in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood, Los Amigos Books has its roots as an online store and pop-up. It carries Spanish and bilingual titles for children and teens sourced from publishers in the U.S., Latin America, and Spain.

Owner and founder Laura Rodríguez-Romaní, who previously worked as a dual-language teacher in the Chicago area, held a grand-opening celebration Friday afternoon with the Wicker Park Bucktown Chamber of Commerce. Afterward, the store held its first storytime session.

"It's really hard to raise bilingual kids in this country, especially if you don't know where to look for the resources to be able to accomplish it," Rodríguez-Romaní told Block Club Chicago. "I know that firsthand because I have my son, and I'm trying to do the same with him, and having easy access to books in a physical location where you know you can get them, and they're high quality, that's super important."

Rodríguez-Romaní's desire to open a bookstore grew from her experience sourcing Spanish-language titles to bring to schools. Particularly, a visit to the Guadalajara International Book Fair was eye-opening. "I really enjoyed that process of getting to know what our school’s library needed and going out and scouting for those books and bringing them back."

In 2021, Los Amigos Books made its debut as an online store. That same year Rodríguez-Romaní started appearing at the Logan Square Farmers Market, and in 2022, she opened the store's first physical location inside of a business incubator called the Berwyn Shops. The farmers' market appearances underscored the value of having a physical presence in the community, she explained, and from there "it just snowballed."

A storefront window at Auntie's Bookstore, Spokane, Wash., was smashed overnight last week, which prompted the bookstore to issue an appeal to the community for support, KHQ reported. The bookshop was closed Saturday, but reopened Sunday. 

In a Facebook post, Auntie's noted: "Ok, well we had a window broken this week. So we are asking all you fine @auntiesbooks supporters to come on down this next week and help us out by buying books and goodies. We don't need crowd funding or all that. We just want to see your loving faces in store helping the cause. These windows are expensive, and it's a tight year, so we would love your help and support."

Black Cat Books & Oddities in Medina, Ohio, has expanded into a neighboring building at 9 Lafayette St.

Both the expansion and the original space at 420 S. Court St. are divided into themed rooms. The expansion added four new rooms, bringing the total across both buildings to 10. The new rooms are: Narnia, a Chronicles of Narnia-themed events space, featuring a hand-painted mural as well as a silver throne chair; Pemberly, which is inspired by the Regency era and features all sorts of romance books; Frankenstein's Lab, featuring a "steampunk and mad scientist vibe" along with the store's horror and sci-fi sections; and the Shire, a room dedicated to the fantasy genre with decorations honoring the work of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Co-owners Alicia and Max Frazier held a grand opening for the expansion on Saturday, June 22. The first 40 guests received a free tote bag featuring a new store design.

The Fraziers opened Black Cat Books & Oddities in August of last year.

This past weekend at the American Library Association's 2024 Annual Conference in San Diego, Calif., the Coretta Scott King Book Awards Round Table held the 55th annual CSK book awards breakfast. The CSK Awards honor "African American authors and illustrators for outstanding contributions to literature for children and young adults." CSKBART chair Janice Newsum noted in her opening remarks that it is "the dedication and creativity of these authors and illustrators that make this wonderful event possible."

Jade Adia (photo: Alexus Amaka Uchendu)

Many CSK speeches over the years have been marked by expressions of strong emotion and deep gratitude, and the 2024 winners and honorees continued this tradition, displaying what makes this particular event such a touching celebration. Jade Adia, the CSK-John Steptoe Author Award winner for There Goes the Neighborhood (Hyperion), opened with appreciation: "Thank you for seeing something tender in this very unconventional book." There Goes the Neighborhood is about how a flawed, young Black woman tries to fight the rising tide of gentrification in her community. The protagonist's fictional neighborhood was based on Adia's own, and the author spoke about the importance of the buildings, parks, streets that mark our everyday: "Places hold a sort of magical quality," she said. "They can act as portals... they can act as anchors." A place that made the transition from Adia's Los Angeles to the Los Angeles of the book was the Liquor Bank, where her protagonist "used to buy sour belts and chile mango pops." Speaking of the Liquor Bank brought Adia to tears: "In real life, just a couple weeks before the one-year anniversary of the publication of There Goes the Neighborhood, the [real] Liquor Bank" was knocked down. "I didn't anticipate how quickly There Goes the Neighborhood would become an archive for my changing city and particularly my experience of my city."

Briana Mukodiri Uchendu, who won the CSK-John Steptoe Illustrator Award for We Could Fly, written by Rhiannon Giddens (Candlewick), began something of a theme for the rest of the speeches by speaking about her mother. She was tearful as she recounted creating her illustrations while her mother suffered with cancer: "She told me she was proud of me, and I would do great things. I wish so badly she could be here now." Shannon Wright, who received an Illustrator Honor for Holding Her Own: The Exceptional Life of Jackie Ormes, written by Traci N. Todd (Orchard), used her time to mirror the subject of her book: "Jackie Ormes was a pioneer for women. Despite all the obstacles that put her art career in danger, she still put pen to paper and said the quiet part out loud." And so, Wright went on to say, "I hold this award and feel disheartened that Palestinian families, the families of Congo and Sudan, Indigenous families and all those in turmoil are being robbed of celebrating the very things we're celebrating today." Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey, who won an Illustrator Honor for There Was a Party for Langston, written by Jason Reynolds (Caitlin Dlouhy Books), took turns giving their speech. "We were of two minds," Jerome said. "We were going to illustrate a Jason Reynolds book. Imagine what we could do! At the same time, we had to illustrate a Jason Reynolds book. What were we going to do?"

Jeffery and Carole Boston Weatherford (photo: Alexus Amaka Uchendu)

Vashti Harrison won both a CSK Author Honor and a CSK Illustrator Honor for her picture book Big (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers), which also won the Caldecott Medal, making Harrison the first Black woman receive the award. Big was "born of a need to express something deep inside that had been growing for over 30 years," she said, but "I didn't have the words to describe it." Carole Boston Weatherford also received two CSK Honors: an Author Honor for Kin: Rooted in Hope, illustrated by Jeffery Boston Weatherford (Atheneum), and an Author Honor for How Do You Spell Unfair?, illustrated by Frank Morrison (Candlewick). Kin, which she worked on with her son, Jeffery, is about reclaiming her ancestor's lost journeys: "Knowing your history is generational wealth." As a surprise to the author, her son took the stage to speak about her Honor for How Do You Spell Unfair? "We've all had the pleasure of watching my mother grow over the past 29 years," he said. "And I have had the blessing of watching her grow firsthand. My mother is not just a mother to me, she's a mother to Black children's books."

LaKeshia Darden and Dare Coulter (r.) (photo: Alexus Amaka Uchendu)

Dare Coulter, winner of the CSK Illustrator Award for An American Story, written by Kwame Alexander (Little, Brown), approached the mic saying, "Y'all, I am verbose and loquacious. Ya girl can talk. I'm so excited." The real award, she said, "is to be honored by all of you. I am so grateful for every closed door that led me to this moment." According to Coulter, she is the second-youngest person to win the CSK Illustrator Award, and the youngest in 25 years. "I'm 31 years old today," she said, "I can't tell you about life, but I can say thank you." This award, she mused, is about legacy. It is about community, about joining a family, about sharing: "This is a lifetime commitment and obligation, it is a North Star. I am grateful to be standing on the shoulders of those who came before me, I am grateful to be standing on the platform that you built." And, simply, books matter: "Black books matter. Books that enable us to see ourselves and reflect our humanity matter. It's important to control the narrative that we were written into."

Ibi Zoboi (l.) with LaKeshia Darden (photo: Alexus Amaka Uchendu)

Like Adia, Ibi Zoboi, CSK Author Award winner for Nigeria Jones (Balzer + Bray), wrote a YA novel about a flawed, young Black woman holding onto and letting go of her community. The protagonist, Nigeria Jones, is raised as part of the Movement, a Black separatist group based in Philadelphia. Nigeria is homeschooled and vegan and "participates in traditional rituals to connect her and other kids from the group to their ancestors." Pan-African spaces, Zoboi said, are not "stereotypes of the '60s"--they exist today and are thriving parts of American culture. "I was born in Haiti. English was not my first language. Where I come from, writers are silenced or sent into exile." Growing up in the United States, Zoboi heard and saw "some of the worst portrayals of Haiti in the media. As I grew older, I learned that pejorative stories about Haiti are also pejorative stories about African people in this country and all around the world." And so Zoboi wanted to live, work, and raise children in "spaces that celebrate our culture, our children, and our elders." Our children, she said, deserve to grapple with self, community, nation, legacy, and "to question our ideas and forge their own paths." Specifically speaking about Black girls, Zoboi said, "We are intelligent, we are articulate, we are well-read, we love our families and our people, and we are invaluable to the founding of this country even though we were never written into its constitution or laws. Liberate a girl, liberate a people."

The final award of the morning was the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement, which went to Christopher Paul Curtis, who won the 2000 Newbery and CSK for Bud, Not Buddy (Delacorte) as well as three Newbery honors and a second CSK award for Elijah of Buxton (Scholastic). Like Uchendu, Curtis's mother was a focus of his speech. Curtis spoke comfortably, jokingly, happily about joining what he called the "Mount Rushmore of Black authors of books for young people": "To say I'm honored is not enough. I am beyond thrilled." Curtis noted that there had been many tributes to mothers over the course of the morning, "so, I have to pay tribute to my father. Thank you so much, Dad. But, as many of us are fortunate enough to know and appreciate, there's something special about Mom." Curtis's mother, Leslie Jane Curtis, who died in 2012, was the first Black female student to live in the dorms at Michigan State. Although she must have experienced terrible racism and bigotry while there, she never shared these stories with her children. "Wisdom comes slowly," Curtis said. "It's taken me all these years to appreciate all the sacrifices my mother made for me. She knew hatred is the heaviest and most destructive of all crosses to bare." --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness

This past week, Shelf Awareness sent our monthly pre-order e-blast to more than 980,000 of the country's best book readers. The e-blast went to 982,183 customers of 254 participating independent bookstores.

The mailing features 11 upcoming titles selected by Shelf Awareness editors and a sponsored title. Customers can buy these books via "pre-order" buttons that lead directly to the purchase page for the title on each sending store's website. A key feature is that bookstore partners can easily change title selections to best reflect the tastes of their customers and can customize the mailing with links, images and promotional copy of their own.

The pre-order e-blasts are sent the last Wednesday of each month; the next will go out on Wednesday, July 31. Stores interested in learning more can visit our program registration page or contact our partner program team via e-mail.

For a sample of the June pre-order e-blast, see this one from the Books on Main, Friendship, Wis.

The titles highlighted in the pre-order e-blast were:

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston (St. Martin's Griffin)
Hum by Helen Phillips (S&S)
The Palace of Eros by Caro de Robertis (Atria/Primero Sueno Press)
Bite: An Incisive History of Teeth, from Hagfish to Humans by Bill Schutt (Algonquin)
Voyage of the Damned by Frances White (Mira)
Scattered Snows, to the North: Poems by Carl Phillips (FSG)
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones (Bloomsbury)
The Complete Cook's Country TV Show Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen (Cook's Country)
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult (Ballantine)
Wierdest Weekend Ever by Wanda Coven and Anna Abramskaya (Simon Spotlight)
Unico: Awakening by Samuel Sattin, Osamu Tezuka, and Gurihiru (Graphix)

Ismail Kadare

Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, who explored Balkan history and culture in poetry and fiction spanning more than 60 years, died July 1. He was 88. Writing under the shadow of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, Kadare "examined contemporary society through the lens of allegory and myth in novels including The General of the Dead Army, The Siege and The Palace of Dreams," the Guardian reported. "After fleeing to Paris just months before Albania's communist government collapsed in 1990, his reputation continued to grow as he kept returning to the region in his fiction." Kadare's books have been translated into more than 40 languages.

Albanian President Bajram Begaj praised Kadare as the country's "spiritual emancipator.... Albania and Albanians lost their genius of letters... the Balkans (lost) the poet of its myths, Europe and the world (lost) one of the most renowned representatives of modern literature." 

"A giant of international literature, many of his works are already considered classics and will continue to be read far into the future," Harvill Secker's publishing director Liz Foley said. Canongate Books noted that Kadare "was one of the great writers of our age and we've no doubt that his books will live on for a very long time."

Kadare published his first collection of poetry when he was 17. After studying at Tirana University, he won a government scholarship to study literature at the Gorky Institute in Moscow, which inspired a novel about two students reinventing a lost Albanian text. When he published an extract in a magazine, it was banned, the Guardian wrote. 

"It was a good thing this happened," Kadare said in 2005. "In the early '60s, life in Albania was pleasant and well-organized. A writer would not have known he should not write about the falsification of history."

When he published The General of the Dead Army (1963), a novel about an Italian general who travels across Albania in the 1960s to recover the remains of Italian soldiers who died during World War II, Albanian critics attacked it for the lack of the socialist realism required by Hoxha's regime, but when the book was published in France in 1970, it caused a sensation, the Guardian noted.  

Kadare spent the next 20 years charting a course between artistic expression and survival. After his political poem "The Red Pashas" was banned in 1975, he painted a flattering portrait of Hoxha in his 1977 novel The Great Winter. In 1981, he published The Palace of Dreams, which was banned. 

When Hoxha died in 1986, the new president, Ramiz Alia, began to take tentative steps towards reform, but Kadare decided after meeting with him that there was "no possibility of legal opposition in Albania" and that "more than any action I could take in Albania, my defection would help the democratization of my country." In Paris, Kadare began to publish work tackling totalitarianism more directly, with titles like The Blinding Order and The Pyramid.

He received the Légion d'Honneur as well as the inaugural Man Booker International prize, then a lifetime achievement award, in 2005; the Prince of Asturias Prize for the Arts in 2009; the Jerusalem Prize in 2015; and the America Award in Literature for a lifetime contribution to international writing in 2023. Kadare also produced poems, essays and screenplays.

"For a writer, personal freedom is not so important," Kadare once said in an interview. "It is not individual freedom that guarantees the greatness of literature, otherwise writers in democratic countries would be superior to all others. Some of the greatest writers wrote under dictatorship--Shakespeare, Cervantes. The great universal literature has always had a tragic relation with freedom. The Greeks renounced absolute freedom and imposed order on chaotic mythology, like a tyrant. In the west, the problem is not freedom. There are other servitudes--lack of talent, thousands of mediocre books published every year."

Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, Wash., hosted Amin Ghaziani, author of Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution (Princeton University Press), in conversation with author Kemi Adeyemi.

"Book it to the bookstore. Ride the wave this way." That was the sidewalk chalkboard message outside Barrier Island Books & Art, Stone Harbor, N.J., which noted: "We are super stoked to be super stocked with NEW books--fiction and nonfiction hotter than this recent heatwave (okay maybe not AS hot)--stop by pick up a read for your beachside or poolside chill session!"

"Happy 4th of July week! Really feeling like summer now. We'll be open a special 10-2 on Wednesday the 3rd, if you'd like to come say hi. Hope you've got lots of fun BBQing and splashing in some water lined up!" Ratty Books, Jeffersonville, N.Y., posted on Facebook. 

At Macmillan:

Shawn Foster has joined the company as v-p, children's sales.

Jennifer Edwards has been promoted to v-p, field sales, diversified sales & sales strategy.

---

Will Plunkett has been promoted to digital sales manager for Simon & Schuster. He was previously national account manager, Amazon.

Today:
Fresh Air: Ian Karmel, co-author of T-Shirt Swim Club: Stories from Being Fat in a World of Thin People (Rodale Books, $28, 9780593580929).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Lauren Roberts, author of Reckless (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, $21.99, 9781665955430).

The View repeat: George Stephanopoulos, author of The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis (Grand Central, $35, 9781538740767).

Stampede Ventures (Ordinary Angels, Space Cadet) has acquired Flavio Nuccitelli's debut novel Frenesia for development as an Italian-language series. Deadline reported that the book was originally published in 2021 by Italy's Fandango Libri and was honored at Rome's 2022 Rainbow Awards, which recognizes LGBTQIA+ works. Nuccitelli will collaborate with Stampede Ventures on the adaptation.

John-Paul Sarni, executive v-p., head of international content and IP acquisitions, Stampede, commented: "Flavio has created a fantastic lead character in Valerio--who, like so many students his age, is caught between the beauty of ancient Rome and a darker underground side of the city. A place where family, religion, and politics are omnipresent. We saw incredible celebrations around the world during Pride month this year and in continuing to support the community year-round, it's important to showcase a story that explores so many powerful themes of identity and self-discovery." 

The Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators announced winners of the 2024 Crystal Kite Awards, which are peer-selected and voted on by SCBWI members from local regions. The prize recognizes excellence in the field of children's literature in 15 U.S. and international regions. This year's Crystal Kite regional division winners are:

Atlantic: Woven of the World by Katey Howes, illustrated by Dinara Mirtalipova
California/Hawaii: A River of Dust: The Life-Giving Link Between North Africa and the Amazon by Jilanne Hoffmann, illustrated by Eugenia Mello
Midsouth: Creep, Leap, Crunch! A Food Chain Story by Jody Jensen Shaffer, illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal
Midwest: Willow and Bunny by Anitra Schulte, illustrated by Christopher Denise
New England: Wombats Are Pretty Weird: A [Not So] Serious Guide by Abi Cushman
New York: Big by Vashti Harrison
Southeast: I Ship: A Container Ship's Colossal Journey by Kelly Schmitt, illustrated by Jam Dong
Southwest: Song After Song: The Musical Life of Julie Andrews by Julie Hedlund, illustrated by Ilaria Urbinati
Texas/Oklahoma: Glitter Everywhere! Where It Came From, Where It's Found & Where It's Going by Chris Barton, illustrated by Chaaya Prabhat; and Animals in Surprising Shades: Poems About Earth's Colorful Creatures by Susan Johnston Taylor, illustrated by Annie Bakst 
West: A Stone Is a Story by Leslie Barnard Booth, illustrated by Marc Martin
Australia/NZ: Hanukkah Upside Down by Elissa Weissman, illustrated by Omer Hoffman
Canada & North America: Deep, Deep Down: The Secret Underwater Poetry of the Mariana Trench by Lydia Lukidis, illustrated by Juan Calle
Europe & Central, South, and Latin America: Lucky Me! by Lawrence Schimel, illustrated by Juan Camilo Mayorga
Middle East/India/Asia: The Light Within You by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Kamala Nair
U.K./Ireland: Windows to the World by Alice Bianchi-Clark, illustrated by Chloe Chang

---

The shortlist has been selected for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award, which honors "the novel of the highest literary merit which presents Australian life in any of its phases." All the shortlisted authors receive A$5,000 (about US$3,325) each, and the winner, to be announced August 1, receives A$60,000 (US$39,920). The shortlist:

Only Sound Remains by Hossein Asgari
Wall by Jen Craig
Anam by André Dao
The Bell of the World by Gregory Day
Hospital by Sanya Rushdi, translated by Arunava Sinha
Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright

Though most Americans who follow politics are transfixed by the daily swirl of events in Washington, D.C., their everyday lives are often more directly affected by controversies closer to home. That's what makes journalist Sasha Abramsky's Chaos Comes Calling such an important and disturbing book. In this fine-grained account of political and social turmoil in two small communities riven by disputes over the Covid-19 pandemic, George Floyd's murder in May 2020, and the 2020 presidential election, he illustrates how the intense conflict in these outwardly placid places is a microcosm of the polarization in the nation at large and illustrative of the difficulty of transcending it.

Abramsky (The House of Twenty Thousand Books) focuses his attention on Sequim, Wash., a town of about 8,000 residents on the state's Olympic Peninsula, and largely rural and small-town Shasta County, in Northern California. After the onset of Covid-19 in March 2020, in both locales, discontent over lockdowns and the imposition of mask and vaccination mandates quickly sparked resistance that mushroomed into pervasive and often violent threats against public health officers and elected officials struggling to contain the pandemic.

A similar cycle ensued when nationwide protests erupted after George Floyd's murder and after Donald Trump began spreading his false claims about rigged voting machines and voter fraud that he insisted cost him the 2020 election. Baseless rumors quickly spread that Antifa-inspired mobs soon would be invading these quiet communities. In Shasta County, county supervisors with impeccable conservative credentials found themselves neutralized by newly elected QAnon true believers and, in one case, removed from the board in a recall election spearheaded by local militia members. In an especially terrifying scene, Abramsky describes how Doni Chamberlain, a "diminutive grandmother" and former print journalist who persistently criticized these far-right elements in an online publication, was physically assaulted when she attempted to cover one right-wing gathering.

Abramsky's sympathies clearly lie with local residents opposing the excesses of hard-right extremism, but he relies on interviews with participants and observers from all perspectives to describe with commendable objectivity what he calls this "stranger-than-strange political moment." He examines, for example, how dangerous rumors initiated on and spread by social media provide both the tinder and the match for potentially explosive confrontations, and reveals the challenges facing those who attempt to restore a measure of sanity to the political process. While the 2024 presidential contest will draw most of the attention as the race intensifies, he makes clear that, long after it's over, some of the fiercest and most consequential battles to determine the future of American democracy will be fought in our own backyards. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer

Shelf Talker: Journalist Sasha Abramsky takes a close look at the rise of right-wing extremism in two small West Coast communities and the challenge of opposing it.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Love & Whiskey by Fawn Weaver
2. Love Unwritten by Lauren Asher
3. Haunting Adeline by H.D. Carlton
4. Twisted Love by Ana Huang
5. Scandalous by L.J. Shen
6. Honey Cut by Sierra Simone
7. Off to the Races by Elsie Silver
8. The Gist of Bid Whist by Lamont Jones
9. The Inmate by Freida McFadden
10. Throttled by Lauren Asher

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]