Casey Lyall’s Whale, That Was Unexpected (Tundra, 48 pages, hardcover, $25) is a hilarious cumulative poem for children ages 3-7.

The story of Jonah and the whale is retold through the adventures of crusty seafarer, Maude, and her trusty pooch, Claude. Their boat is swallowed by a whale, which then downs an octopus, a sandwich, a seal, a goat and more. Kathryn Durst’s wry illustrations show a stoic Maude planning her ultimate farewell party in the belly of the leviathan.

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Fake Gnus (Groundwood, 36 pages, hardcover, $22) teaches 3-6 year olds critical thinking — a skill that can’t be taught early enough these days.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama is known for regularly sharing his reading lists on social media, and now the 44th president will share his love of books in the form of a podcast.

A Great Book with Barack Obama will launch on Audible on Sept. 24 in conjunction with the Obamas’ Higher Ground production company, and will feature six episodes, each with a featured guest and a discussion on a different literary work that “shaped his worldview and our society:” Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré and All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.

Obama posted his summer reading list on social media on July 29, which featured books such as Kin by Tayari Jones, Whistler by Ann Patchett, Vigil by George Saunders and Transcription by Ben Lerner.

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He’s busted ghosts, wailed on a harmonica in sunglasses, created a vodka brand sold in a skull-shaped bottle and dabbled in the Niagara Peninsula wine industry. And now Ottawa-born actor and comedian Dan Aykroyd is trying his hand in a new field — writing fiction.

Aykroyd’s literary debut Soulhider lands in bookstores Oct. 27 via HarperCollins, falling squarely into the paranormal/science fiction genre, while bringing the Ghostbusters and Saturday Night Live star’s inevitable touch of humour.

The novel follows an insurance adjustor in New York State recruited by aliens to hide human souls they’ve harvested — and invariably getting caught up between warring alien factions.

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In the minimalist poems of her collection, Wound Archive (The Porcupine’s Quill, unpaginated, $20), Anna Veprinska scores the page with shattering fragments, accruing an archive of “Language/ tossed/ from uvula to uvula/ like a pinball/ on which we choke.”

Invisible chronic illness and the concurrent end of a romantic relationship stretch the possibilities of language and its relation to the page. While Wound Archive in part chronicles the “Syllables/ extracted/ like teeth:/what language cannot do,” rather than breaking, they open to new connections and ways of understanding.

These poems transform language, image and poetic convention by abrading the page with syntax compressed almost to the point of implosion. “The compulsive relearning/ of grief —/ it’s creas ed wetness.// Raw writhing/ flesh — laughing haunted.” In the third line, Veprinska breaks “creased” and folds it, scoring the page to reinforce the semantic meaning of the line. This, along with the visual alliteration between “wetness” and “writhing,” and the aural alliteration between “raw” and “writhing,” ground the poem in viscerality, which is in tension with the invisibility of heartbreak and chronic illness as well as the delicate way Veprinska scores the page.

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Get excited, Sarah J. Maas fans — the publication date for the romantasy author’s sixth, as-yet-unnamed book in the A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) series drops this fall, and McNally Robinson Booksellers is now selling tickets to a midnight release party taking place Monday, Oct. 26 at the Grant Park location.

Doors for the ticketed, all-ages event open at 9:30 p.m.; there will be giveaways, entertainment and more, and those who are coming are encouraged to arrive in costume.

Admission is $35.28 including fees and includes a copy of the book; tickets are available at wfp.to/iMi.

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