Chris Monroe picture book to be published in fall

Chris Monroe adds to her menagerie of adorable, if slightly off-kilter, animals this fall when Carolrhoda Books publishes "Bug on a Bike." Monroe is the author of the "Monkey With a Tool Belt" series, as well as "Sneaky Sheep" and "Cookie the Walker."

Her new book follows a parade of wide-eyed creatures — not just a bug, but a mouse, cat, butterfly, lizard, toad and pickle (also, a nickel) — on a bike ride. Monroe lives in Duluth, where she draws the comic strip "Violet Days" and occasionally illustrates work by Kevin Kling.

Also …

• "Sweetness No. 9," a debut novel by Stephan Eirik Clark, will be published in August by Little, Brown. Clark, who teaches at Augsburg College, is the author of the short-story collection "Vladimir's Mustache," a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.

• "Perfectly Good White Boy," a young-adult novel by Carrie Mesrobian, will be published in October by Carolrhoda Lab. Mesrobian's first book, "Sex & Violence," won a 2014 Minnesota Book Award.

• "Zoo Mom: The Life Story of Arlene Scheunemann" has been published by Casey II Publishing. It is the story of zoo docent Arlene Scheunemann, who died in 2013; she fostered more than 200 wild animals for St. Paul's Como Zoo and helped establish the docent program. Proceeds will help support the zoo.

• "Sometimes You Barf" by Minnesota writer and illustrator Nancy Carlson will be published in October by Carolrhoda Books. Her "Armond Goes to a Party: A Book About Asperger's and Friendship" has been published by Free Spirit Publishing.

• "Deep Map Country: Literary Cartography of the Great Plains," by Susan Naramore Maher, has been published by the University of Nebraska Press. Maher is dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

• "Esko's Corner: An Illustrated History of Esko and Thomson Township," has been published by the Esko Historical Society. The coffee-table book — edited by Davis Helberg — includes more than 150 photographs.

• "Who Bombed the Train?" by Judith Yates Borger has been published by 40 Press, the third in her Skeeter Hughes mystery series.