Ella, a young girl growing up in Compton, California has psychokinetic abilities that allow her to see into the future. This is more of a curse than a blessing. And, as she grows older, her Thing, as she refers to it, will allow her to do more than simply see into the future.

Her younger brother, Kev, is born in the early hours of the riots that erupted in South Central Los Angeles in the spring of 1992. With their neighborhood destroyed, their mother moves Kev and Ella to the East Coast and Harlem. Life is hard for people of color in Harlem, and Kev is no exception. He is regularly and repeatedly harassed by the local police officers with little or no cause.
Ella and Kev are unhappy with the world in which they are forced to live. And they may be the ones to finally make the changes that need to be made.

In Riot Baby, Tochi Onyebuchi provides an unflinching and unvarnished look at life for people of color in the US. This is a difficult read. It is grim and, at times, tragic. But it is also surprisingly hopeful, looking toward a day when equality is more than a word, where understanding is realized, and freedom is achieved, even if characters with supernatural powers are required to create that world (rather than continuing to wait for it to happen for them).

This is a journey worth taking.

In the anticipated fifth installment of the Wayward Children series, Seanan McGuire returns to Eleanor West’s School for Wayward Children and picks up the story of Jack, Jill, and the Moors.

If you have read the previous Wayward Children novellas (Every Heart a Doorway, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, Beneath the Sugar Sky, In an Absent Dream), you are probably thrilled to hear a new novella is available. If you have not yet read them, this is the perfect reason to pick up the first one and read them all in preparation of this month’s addition to the series.