Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi. This is a book I wish I’d had as a kid. It’s a book I want all kids and parents to read now. It’s informative and unflinching but also wholly accessible and engaging for young readers and ultimately hopeful. -Stephanie

Bad Best Friend, by Rachel Vail. Almost nothing in this world would make me want to jump back into middle school. But if I could hang with Holly, I just might. When Niki is dumped by her best friend (not) Ava, being paired with Holly for a class project is the start of a new journey. Hang in there, girls. -Rosemary

The Book of Anna, by Carmen Boullosa, trans. Samantha Schnee. An infinitely creative and expansive successor to Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, one with a deep appreciation for its originator and playful sense of metafiction that examines the meaning of stories. Part historical fiction, part literary criticism. -Justin

Simon the Fiddler, by Paulette Jiles. Like her splendid earlier novel, News of the World, Paulette Jiles’ Simon the Fiddler is set in a post-Civil War Texas in which everyone is looking for normalcy in chaotic times. I was instantly charmed by this beguiling tale, equal parts of adventure yarn, love story, and candid chronicle of life after great conflict. -Clara

Death in Her Hands, by Otessa Moshfegh. Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel flows with an urgency rare in current fiction. From chapter one, I was caught by the book’s web. The ending hits like an anvil, and I was pleasantly squashed. -James

The Last Taxi Driver, by Lee Durkee. Fabulous! One day in the life of a cab driver on the edge of sanity as he careens along the highways, by-ways and back alleys of North Mississippi carting junkies and thieves and grandmas to their next stop in life and death. Will you be an accomplice? -Bobby.

Thin Places, by Jordan Kisner. Jordan Kisner has undertaken an incredibly admirable effort and executed it beautifully. Uncertainty and ambiguity have always been difficult areas for humans to navigate, and we’ll be grappling with them until the end of time. But this book is beautiful because it doesn’t attempt to grab you by the hand and march you towards certainty, it beckons you towards the thin places, and asks how you feel being enveloped in them. -Nate