A thorough, evenhanded illumination of a contentious topic imbued with compassion and cleareyed data.
A comprehensive analysis of gender identity and the debates it continues to provoke.
Few topics have fueled the culture wars during the past decade like gender. “Hardly a day goes by across media outlets without reference to a gender-related issue, usually about children and adolescents,” write clinical psychologists Ehrensaft, author of The Gender Creative Child, and Jurkiewicz. Gender creativity is the idea that children should be able to explore their own genders in ways that make sense to them. “Human minds are creative and complex, so binary thinking is not the only way,” write the authors, who declare their allegiance to gender-diverse youth and their families while also rigorously educating readers on the bigger picture. As psychologists, they lead their discussion with a preponderance of data. “The misinformation presented in the media,” they write, “creates an unnecessary and added burden to those already carrying so much.” The authors thoughtfully examine how and why gender has become a pressing concern for today’s youth; why so much anxiety surrounds the topic (“People don’t understand what is going on as they experience…seismic shifts in gender, and the unknown feels threatening”); the lifesaving consequences of the gender-affirming model; the claims that a disproportionate number of children designated female at birth are transgender or genderqueer; and how parents can raise their children in a gender-healthy manner. Ehrensaft and Jurkiewicz also parse the controversies of gender in sports, education, and medicine, and they urge readers to engage in self-reflection to confront their own prejudices about the issue, noting how it’s a “lifelong” process to attain literacy. “We shouldn’t be aspiring to gender neutrality, but rather gender inclusivity,” they write. “It’s not ‘down with gender,’ but rather down with constricting gender rules and regulations.”
A thorough, evenhanded illumination of a contentious topic imbued with compassion and cleareyed data.Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781891011559
Page Count: 304
Publisher: The Experiment
Review Posted Online: April 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.
Portraits in a post-pandemic world.
After the Covid-19 lockdowns left New York City’s streets empty, many claimed that the city was “gone forever.” It was those words that inspired Stanton, whose previous collections include Humans of New York (2013), Humans of New York: Stories (2015), and Humans (2020), to return to the well once more for a new love letter to the city’s humanity and diversity. Beautifully laid out in hardcover with crisp, bright images, each portrait of a New Yorker is accompanied by sparse but potent quotes from Stanton’s interviews with his subjects. Early in the book, the author sequences three portraits—a couple laughing, then looking serious, then the woman with tears in her eyes—as they recount the arc of their relationship, transforming each emotional beat of their story into an affecting visual narrative. In another, an unhoused man sits on the street, his husky eating out of his hand. The caption: “I’m a late bloomer.” Though the pandemic isn’t mentioned often, Stanton focuses much of the book on optimistic stories of the post-pandemic era. Among the most notable profiles is Myles Smutney, founder of the Free Store Project, whose story of reclaiming boarded‑up buildings during the lockdowns speaks to the city’s resilience. In reusing the same formula from his previous books, the author confirms his thesis: New York isn’t going anywhere. As he writes in his lyrical prologue, “Just as one might dive among coral reefs to marvel at nature, one can come to New York City to marvel at humanity.” The book’s optimism paints New York as a city where diverse lives converge in moments of beauty, joy, and collective hope.
A familiar format, but a timely reminder that cities are made up of individuals, each with their own stories.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781250277589
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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