Recent Releases for Your Bookshelf

Publishers tend to declare a new releases break over the holidays, but it looks like they really just saved some amazing titles for January. We have children misplaced between worlds, bunnies and foxes playing hide and seek together, self-help for perfect timing, and more.

Read away and tell us your favorites in the comments.

Green by Sam Graham-Felsen

In 1992, David Greenfeld was one of the few white kids at Boston's Martin Luther King, Jr., Middle School. He's the outcast: he's either teased or ignored by other students, and his hippie parents won't buy him Nikes and won't allow him to transfer to private school. Surprisingly a loner from the public housing project on the corner of David's own gentrifying block defends David in the school cafeteria, and they become firm friends. Which starts David's discovery of the opportunities he gets but his new best friend does not.

Author Sam Graham-Felsen was the chief blogger for the Obama campaign when he thought of Green. During an NPR interview he said, "And I realized, hey, you know, I have this fairly unique experience as a white kid who went to mostly black schools growing up, and maybe if I dive as deep as possible into my own past, I can kind of understand what happened to me better, and maybe a little bit better about what happened to my city, and even my country." Forget that it's a Young Adult novel if you need to, but read this challenging book.

The More Known World by Tiffany Tsao

The first book in Tiffany Tsao's Oddfits series slipped under the radar for most, but it shouldn't. In her first novel, The Oddfits, she welcomes us to the More Known World. It's a parallel world where things are just that little bit different and only accessible by Oddfits: those humans that just don't seem to fit in to the everyday world. In the second novel, we continue with Murgatroyd. Someone is killing the Questers and Murgatroyd's mentor Ann is sent to investigate, thus taking Murgatroyd along. The More Known World continues the Neil Gaiman-like style, but if you're just discovering the series, start with The Oddfits, but read both.

Beneath The Sugar Sky by Seanan McGuire

We have in our hands the standalone fantasy tale from Seanan McGuire's Alex-award winning Wayward Children series. The series is about children who travel portals between worlds, worlds where they feel more at home than ours. Occasionally, they fall back into our world and feel lost, ending up at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children where they can be with other children like them. Discover Cora, who's struggling to return home where she's a mermaid, along with Rini, Nadya, Christopher, and Kade.

Robots vs Fairies by Dominik Parisien

Featuring an amazing author lineup including John Scalzi, Catherynne M. Valente, Ken Liu, Max Gladstone, Kat Howard, Jonathan Maberry, and many more, Robots vs. Fairies seeks to answer the ultimate question of which is more awesome. It's a unique anthology of all-new stories, but which will it be? Team Fairies or Team Robots?

Everybunny Count! by Ellie Sandall

The littlest munchkins will love Everybunny Count! The bunnies and foxes have an unlikely friendship and play hide and seek together. "Take your places, everyone. Ready or not, here we come! The search for fox has just begun. Everybunny count to ONE!" With adorable illustrations and delightful prose, Everybunny Count is perfect to read with children or for early readers to read alone.

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

If you were told the date of your death, how would it shape your present? That's the question posed in Chloe Benjamin's new book. It's 1969 and the four adolescent Gold children sneak out to hear their fortunes. The story then follows them for the next 50 years, where their life choices are influenced by their teen fortune-telling event.

When: The Scientific Secrets to Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink

Daniel H. Pink is back mixing science with real-life behavior and academics to help us be better people. This time he's teaching us timing. When should we quit jobs, get married, go to the gym? He's found the science that optimizes our lives and helping us make decisions at the right time.

Read more by Bianca Smith