Emmett has a wife and two children, a cat, and a duck, and he wants to know what life is about. Every day he gets up before dawn, makes a cup of coffee in the dark, lights a fire with one wooden match, and thinks. What Emmett thinks about is the subject of this wise and closely observed novel, which covers vast distances while moving no further than Emmett’s hearth and home. Nicholson Baker’s extraordinary ability to describe and celebrate life in all its rich ordinariness has never been so beautifully achieved.

“Recommend this to fans of John Green’s books.”—Booklist Leon Sanders has a mug that looks like it should be hanging in a post office with the caption WANTED FOR SHOPLIFTING AND CREDIT CARD FRAUD. His new locker neighbor is Melody Hennon—class outcast and certified freak. Everyone at school keeps their distance from Melody because she was burned in a childhood accident. Leon has avoided her too, until the day he takes a chance, tells her a bad joke, and makes her laugh. No one, least of all Leon, could have predicted that Melody would turn out to be a funny, smart, and interesting person, or that he and Melody would become good friends . . . and later, more than friends. But when junior class hottie Amy Green asks Leon out after he saves her from getting detention, his devotion to Melody hangs in the balance. Leon tries to find a way out of this nasty dilemma without hurting anyone, but soon he realizes—a little too late—that playing with someone’s heart is as dangerous as playing with matches. A 2009 ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults

A VOGUE and Secular Times Best Book of 2022 So Far A NYLON, Chicago Review of Books, and Kirkus Best Book of the Month A Debutiful Best Debut Book of 2022 So Far “Unflinching, yet achingly humorous. . . . proving we can become the gods and goddesses this world truly needs.” —Paul Beatty An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a powerful portrait of a family—Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch. When Mitya was two years old, he swallowed his grandmother’s sewing needle. For his family, it marks the beginning of the end, the promise of certain death. For Mitya, it is a small, metal treasure that guides him from within. As he grows, his life mirrors the uncertain future of his country, which is attempting to rebuild itself after the collapse of the Soviet Union, torn between its past and the promise of modern freedom. Mitya finds himself facing a different sort of ambiguity: is he a boy, as everyone keeps telling him, or is he not quite a boy, as he often feels? After suffering horrific abuse from his cousin Vovka who has returned broken from war, Mitya embarks on a journey across underground Moscow to find something better, a place to belong. His experiences are interlaced with a retelling of a foundational Russian fairytale, Koschei the Deathless, offering an element of fantasy to the brutal realities of Mitya’s everyday life. Told with deep empathy, humor, and a bit of surreality, Little Foxes Took Up Matches is a revelation about the life of one community in a country of turmoil and upheaval, glimpsed through the eyes of a precocious and empathetic child, whose heart and mind understand that there are often more than two choices. An arresting coming of age, an exploration of gender, a modern folktale, a comedy about family, Katya Kazbek breaks out as a new voice to watch.