Author: Gene Ambaum

Umami by Jacob Grant. Viking, 2024. 9780593624067. Umami (a penguin) is tired of eating cold fish, so she sets out on an adventure. She travels and eats foods with lots of different flavors, and then she decides to bring those […]
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Questions Without Answers by Sarah Manguso, illustrated by Liana Finck. Hogarth, 2025. 9780593733622. 160pp. The book is full of the best questions kids have ever asked. They’re profound and strange, and arranged into the following subjects: people, animals, things, big […]
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This Year, A Witch by Zoey Abbott. A Caitlyn Dlouhy Book, 2025. 9781665956024. The little girl narrating this tale is done with cute costumes! She’s ready to be a witch! And this is amazing because of the bright colors in […]
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Jazzy The Witch In Broom Doom by Jessixa Bagley. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 9781665922326. 232pp. Includes an author’s note and an excerpt of the next book in the series. Jazzy’s moms and granny are very excited […]
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Motherlover by Lindsay Ishihiro. Iron Circus Comics, 2025. 9781638991465. 307pp. Motherlover is the story of two moms becoming friends and then falling in love. Alexis is a single mother who just moved home with her daughter; she seems terrible at […]
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Low Orbit by Kazimir Lee. Top Shelf, 2025. 9781603095525. 336pp. Azar lives in Vermont with her mother, in an apartment inside a house where her friend Tristan and his father Shannon also live. Azar’s father is still in New York […]
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The Field by Dave Lapp. Conundrum Press, 2024. 978772620948. 552pp. In the book’s first episode, young David Lapp, inspired by his friend Edward, draws dirty pictures and puts them on the edge of the vocabulary board in Ms. Lewis’s class. […]
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Lion Dancers by Cai Tse. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024. 9781665927739. 299pp. including a note from the creator at the end. The book opens two years ago at the Twelfth Asian International Lion Dance Championships, where the […]
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Spectators by Brian K Vaughan and Niko Henrichon. Image, 2025. 9781534331211. 344pp. After Val is killed in a Manhattan movie theater, her spirit emerges into the black-and-white world where those who haven’t moved on can do nothing more than observe. This isn’t […]
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Free Piano (Not Haunted) by Whitney Gardner. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 9781665938136. 252pp. The end of the book includes notes on the Prophet-5 keyboard, a Hall of Fame, and some early sketches. Margot likes making songs […]
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