THE BOOK FROM FAR AWAY, by Bruce Handy. Illustrated by Julie Benbassat. (Minerva, $18.99, ages 4 to 8.) In this wordless, mystical time-lapse poem of a picture book, a human child with transfixed orbs for eyes and an extraterrestrial child who’s all sunshine find they share traits once they exchange reading objects.
THE WALKING SCHOOL BUS, by Aaron Friedland and Ndileka Mandela. Illustrated by Andrew Jackson Obol. (Greystone, $18.95, ages 4 to 8.) Interviews Friedland conducted with children in rural Africa and India inspired this moving tale of two enterprising siblings determined to find a safe way to get to school.
HOPSCOTCH, by Marie-Louise Gay. (Groundwood, $19.99, ages 3 to 6.) A beguiling, anxious ragamuffin whose parents’ nomadic lifestyle lands her at a school where everyone else speaks French learns that imagination can heal. At recess she draws a “giant magic hopscotch,” and the hopscotch draws new friends.
FLORA LA FRESCA & THE ART OF FRIENDSHIP, by Veronica Chambers. Illustrated by Sujean Rim. (Dial, $17.99, ages 8 to 12.) The nickname of the 10-year-old Panamanian American heroine of this first book in a fiction series based on the author’s own daughter says it all: Flora is “fresh” in every sense of the word.
AGENTS OF CHAOS: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s, by Sean Howe. (Hachette, $30.) A dashing countercultural figure, Forçade helmed the Underground Press Syndicate, a collaboration of radical magazines and High Times, a marijuana-themed magazine, within a decade. Howe charts his rise and fall in this gritty investigation.
THE END OF AUGUST, by Yu Miri. Translated by Morgan Giles. (Riverhead, $35.) While training for a marathon, the heroine of this novel summons her grandfather, a distance runner whose hopes to represent Korea in the 1940 Tokyo Olympics were dashed. Other ghosts follow in this expansive saga of occupation and resistance.
WAR AND PUNISHMENT: Putin, Zelensky, and the Path to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, by Mikhail Zygar. (Scribner, $30.) A journalist who fled Russia after petitioning against the war in Ukraine explains the political forces that led to the invasion, from centuries of Ukrainian independence sentiments to Putin’s imperial ambitions.
THE DEVIL’S TREASURE, by Mary Gaitskill. (McNally Editions, paperback, $18.) The acclaimed writer intersperses a short story about a 7-year-old girl who steals from the Devil with commentary on that story and the author’s own approach to writing.
Follow New York Times Books on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, sign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar. And listen to us on the Book Review podcast.
Source: Read Full Article