Review of You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This, by Aaron Starmer

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review 0

You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This

by Aaron Starmer
read by Nikola Hamilton

Listening Library, 2026. 5 hours, 57 minutes.
Review written October 9, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Here’s a spooky middle grade novel that’s intricately crafted with exactly the right amount of creepiness and wonder to keep you avidly reading or listening.

Honestly, there’s no way in the world I would have listened to this audiobook if it hadn’t gotten nominated for Capitol Choices. (And I am one of many members – I’ll just tell you my opinion.) It looked way too creepy for me. And then it started out so creepy I was glad I was listening at a time that I had to take breaks. And then the plot took bizarre turns (How in the world did Aaron Starmer think of these things?) and then things I thought were throwaways from earlier became important in the story – and it ended up amazing.

Roman Barnes is the youngest of several cousins, and all his older cousins have long loved to listen to Grandpa Henry’s tales of the Toe Beast. But it scared Roman, and he always went into the other room when Grandpa was telling the story.

Then one day, Roman sees Grandpa messing with a big padlock on the shed in the back and talking about the Toe Beast trying to get free. The next day, Grandpa Henry had a stroke and died.

Since Roman is twelve years old and has nothing to do at the end of summer vacation, his parents give him the job of packing up Grandpa Henry’s stuff. When he finds a key to the shed, does he dare open it?

What he finds is only the beginning of bizarre and creepy stuff and stories from both parents about both sets of grandparents. It all has an incredible beginning and impacts Roman in surprising ways.

And there’s not too much I can say about what happens without spoiling the surprises. But it’s scary and mind-bending along with completely brilliant and giving us a kid who shows courage and resourcefulness.

aaronstarmer.com

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Review of Sundown Girls, by L. S. Stratton

Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

Sundown Girls

by L. S. Stratton

Nancy Paulsen Books, 2026. 293 pages.
Review written October 19, 2026, from a library book.

Less than a year ago, Naomi Ward had lived alone with her mother. Sure, they moved around a lot, but she was surprised one day when her mother was arrested for kidnapping her when she was a baby – and she had to go live with her “real” family, with a sister and brother and a new name.

Now it’s summer, and the family is vacationing in southwestern Virginia, just outside a town that was once a sundown town – where Black people weren’t allowed to be in the borders after the sun went down, or they’d be met with violence.

Naomi smells an awful stench in the air when she gets near the town, which no one else seems to notice. And then she starts seeing a ghost girl outside her window in the woods trying to tell Naomi something. But that pales in comparison with the casual racism her family encounters, including a truck that seems to want to run them off the road. And there are missing posters for a girl that no one seems to care about. And then Naomi finds the car of some neighbors gone down the side of the mountain, with their daughter missing.

The very first chapter foreshadows Naomi trapped in a basement with two other girls, so we know all these sinister forces – distressed ghosts, missing girls, and racism – are working toward a thrilling conclusion. And along all of it, Naomi is trying to deal with her parents who love her but don’t know what to make of her and think she’s overreacting to the sinister omens.

And I learned more than I wanted to know about Sundown Towns along the way.

PenguinTeen.com

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Review of The Girls Who Grew Big, by Leila Mottley

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Contemporary, Fiction Review 0

The Girls Who Grew Big

by Leila Mottley
read by AhDream Smith, Erin Spencer, and Khaya Fraites

Books on Tape, 2025. 11 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written April 15, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
2026 Alex Award Winner

This isn’t a book I would have picked up, except that it won a 2026 Alex Award, which is given to the previous year’s ten best books published for adults that are of interest to teens. The award process ensures that these books are well-written, and I haven’t regretted putting them on hold. (This one is popular enough, it took a long time for the hold to come in.)

The Girls Who Grew Big is about a gang of teen mothers who hang out together in the town of Paduah, on the panhandle of Florida. “Gang” probably isn’t the right word, though that’s probably how the town sees them. More than once the audiobook describes them as a coven – though the only magic is the magic of community.

There are three viewpoint characters. Simone’s the one who started the group when she gave birth to her twins in the back of her red truck. Now the kids are five years old and they live in the truck, parking where they won’t get tracked down by Child Protective Services, and often hosting the rest of the girls in the group. Simone can give tips for getting babies to nurse or other tricks of parenting. The twins’ father is around just enough to pay attention to them now and then – but also to keep the authorities off their backs.

Simone’s brother Jayden is in love with Emory, who recently gave birth to his son. The school counselor wants to push her to a special school with accommodations for teen mothers, but Emory is determined to finish her senior year as valedictorian and go on to college. She brings her baby to school in a sling, and the teachers will just have to deal with that.

And then a new girl comes to town from Indiana named Adela. Her parents sent her to her grandmother’s place when she got pregnant. She can have the baby, give it up for adoption, and their rich friends need never know. She can go back to competitive swimming and maybe regain her hope (or at least her dad’s hope) of swimming in the Olympics. But when she gets to know the girls, life starts looking different.

So that’s the pot this novel starts with, and very soon, the pot gets stirred. These girls that folks from the town dismiss or look down on are figuring out what they really want in their lives and how they’re going to get it. And along the way they’ll learn that they are not people to be dismissed.

leilamottley.com

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Review of Another Tongue, by Yevgenia Nayberg

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Another Tongue

by Yevgenia Nayberg

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2026. 36 pages.
Review written September 23, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This picture book explains simply to children what it’s like to move to a country where they speak a different language from the one you were born hearing.

Here’s how it begins:

This is your tongue. [Picture of a kid sticking out their tongue]

This is your mother’s tongue. [Picture of a woman holding a toothbrush and sticking out her tongue.]

The first language you learn is also called a mother tongue!

It is the first language you hear as a baby.

The book goes on to talk about how you learn all the words in your mother tongue.

Different countries have different mother tongues.

When you come to a new country, you may not understand the language at first.

Your ears may get tired of listening to the new language.

The new language may taste funny on your tongue.

There are amusing pictures with all of that, and collaged letters flying around the pages.

It goes on to talk about learning the new language, some words being easier than others, and often making mistakes.

But little by little,
the new words will
begin to make sense.

They will connect.
They will feel
like your own.

And from then on, you will be bilingual. Which means someone with two tongues!

What’s your mother tongue?

It’s all so simple, and by addressing the entire book to the reader, you feel the frustrations and triumphs of trying to get another language right. The pictures are imaginative, and the examples are silly (“Vampire State Building”), and it’s a delightful story about an abstract concept becoming understandable to kids.

Added later: I love the book all the more after looking up the author and discovering she’s Ukrainian.

nayberg.org
HolidayHouse.com

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Review of The Fall of Iris Henley, by Jennifer Graham

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Mystery, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Fall of Iris Henley

by Jennifer Graham
read by Eva Kaminsky

Macmillan Audio, 2026. 8 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written October 20, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I put this audiobook on hold because it was very popular with our library customers, and it turns out that was a good tip. The Fall of Iris Henley is about a senior in high school who’s top girl on her cheer squad – the top of the pyramids and a flyer who does tricks in the air, caught by her squadmates.

But this year, their football team isn’t starting out in great form. They’ve lost a star player, Rocky, who was Iris’s boyfriend, and the cheer squad has lost the former top girl, Lynette, who had been Iris’s best friend. They were found together, dead, with the gun in Rocky’s hand. They’d been sleeping together behind Iris’s back, but nobody knew why Rocky would have killed them both.

And then an anonymous poster on their school’s private social media app comes up with a new theory – Iris did it. And that theory gains traction throughout the school. At first, her cheer team backs her up and sticks by her side, but something happens to challenge even their loyalty.

Iris was at a cheer sleepover the night in question, so she should have an alibi. Trouble is, after Rocky accidentally sent her a text that she knew was meant for some other girl, Iris got so drunk, she has no memory of the rest of the night.

The book is filled with cyberbullies and real-life bullies, constant questions for Iris about whom she can trust, and of course a conclusion filled with danger. Gripping suspense right from the beginning that feels all too realistic as cyberbullying gets way out of hand.

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Review of Yulu’s Linen, by Cao Wenxuan, illustrated by Suzy Lee

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Yulu’s Linen

by Cao Wenxuan
translated by Helen Wang
illustrated by Suzy Lee

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026. 44 pages. Originally published in South Korea in 2020.
Review written September 30, 2026, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

My favorite thing about this picture book is the luxurious feel of its pages. Let me explain:

Yulu’s Linen is about an eight-year-old girl who has been encouraged in her love for art since she was small. Her own father wanted to be an artist, but opened a fabric shop instead. He has gotten tutors and famous artists to teach Yulu, and now she is ready to make her first self-portrait.

When they go to the art store, the shopkeeper shows them a piece of the highest-grade canvas, already cut to portrait size.

It’s yu-lu-ma – rain-dew linen,” said the shopkeeper.

It was Yulu’s turn to smile. “That’s my name.”

The shopkeeper fetched the piece of rain-dew linen.

Yulu stroked it gently. “Dad, I like this one,” she said.

The canvas was originally ordered by a master in oil painting, but he moved away before picking it up.

Yulu happily takes the canvas home. She’s a little afraid to start painting, but she spends a week painting, and her parents are so happy with it, they invite their friends and Yulu’s art teacher to come see it.

But in the night, the paint runs and the painting is a mess.

Yulu does seven more tries, trying various things. Her mother throws away the canvas at one point, but Yuli recovers it. She’s determined. Apparently the canvas doesn’t want to be the background for a beginner.

With every try, Yuli drapes one of her father’s beautiful fabrics over the painting. But the final time, she tries something different.

And through the whole book, we only see the ruined paintings – until the final page, when Yulu’s self-portrait is smiling back at us.

This is an odd story. I’m not sure it has a message except persistence. But the art is beautiful and varied – with different angles on the painting and the characters in each scene. And the paper! I couldn’t find a note on what kind of paper they used, but it feels like linen, with even a feeling of a weave on the pages. The cover, too, is made of this luxurious high-fabric-content paper. It’s the perfect accompaniment to this story. I kept running my hands along the pages, and was haunted (in a good way) by the story when I closed the book.

It’s too bad this book isn’t eligible for the Caldecott Medal, but it should be eligible for the Batchelder Award, given to translated books originally published in another country. I’d love to see it on the list in January!

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Review of Birdy, by N. West Moss

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 2

Birdy

by N. West Moss
illustrations by Carrie Shyrock

Christy Ottaviano Books (Little, Brown and Company), 2026. 282 pages.
Review written October 9, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

First, a great big thank you to Colby Sharp. His heartfelt recommendation was what got me to check this book out again and put it on the top of my pile of books to be read this time.

And this is a heart-warmer and an eye-mister. The story follows the tradition of classics Anne of Green Gables, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Pollyanna but with a modern update. As the book opens, newly orphaned eleven-year-old Birdy and her little brother Mouse are going from New York City (where they’d been staying with a neighbor since their mother’s funeral) to live with an elderly couple in the country. The social worker has said this will only be for six months, on a trial basis, so of course their fate is hanging in the air the whole time.

This couple is related somehow, but Birdy (whose real name is May) doesn’t know quite how. They arrive on the day the man, who goes by Shadow, has broken his foot, and his wife Mitzi is in a flutter about it. But she welcomes the kids and they start getting to know their new environment.

Birdy is deeply shy and has learned how to not be noticed. But that strategy doesn’t work in some of the new situations she faces. And then the kids’ Uncle Clay turns up – their mother’s little brother they didn’t even know she had. He brings a pet raccoon and a goat and he’s only planning to stay a couple weeks. So Birdy is afraid to get too close.

Is there some neurodivergence going on with Birdy? Possibly. Or maybe she’s a kid who’s recently gotten through traumatic events just trying to protect her heart from more loss.

It’s all exquisitely told from Birdy’s perspective. I agree with Colby Sharp – This book has Newbery potential, and whether or not it gets recognition that way, I recommend experiencing it for yourself. These characters will win your heart.

nwestmoss.com
christyottavianobooks.com
lbyr.com

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Review of The Librarians, by Sherry Thomas

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery, Suspense 0

The Librarians

by Sherry Thomas
read by Louisa Zhu

Books on Tape, 2025. 13 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 24, 2026, from a library book.

Can I resist a book with this title and a picture of a smoking gun (with a face in the smoke) on the cover? No, I cannot.

Yes, this is a thriller with the main location being a small branch library in Austin, Texas. When two of the library’s patrons turn up dead on the same night as a library board game program, four of the library workers are embroiled in the mystery. No, not all of those four workers are actual librarians with a master’s in library science, but someone blithely states early on that it’s all the same to the public.

Usually when I read a book set in a library among librarians, I quickly notice many strange details. This one wasn’t too bad that way except for how much people blithely showed up to work when they weren’t scheduled. (Who does that?) They also didn’t seem to have any volunteers or Friends of the Library groups. Honey, that’s who should deal with piles of book donations, not library staff – and absolutely not on their time off.

But that didn’t bother my enjoyment of the book. Maybe they just weren’t good at using volunteers. The prologue shows us a man who’d embezzled millions of dollars going through books in this same library, and hints that his widow will turn up there. Then we flash to the present day and meet the four featured library workers.

Sophie is the branch manager. She’s Black and the single mother of an accomplished teen and she holds herself apart from her coworkers. Jonathan is a gay man who’s big and sturdy and a great help to the other library staff with his solid presence. He grew up in Austin. Blonde Astrid speaks with a Swedish accent. Six months ago, she had a fling with a library patron who then ghosted her, and she’s still sore over it. And Hazel is brand-new to the library. She came to live with her grandmother, whose health isn’t what it once was, but her grandmother urged her to get a job so she wouldn’t be in her hair at all hours.

We quickly learn that all four of these people are keeping secrets. The author consistently uses flashbacks all the way through the book to tell us about those secrets and other relevant developments. When two patrons turn up dead the same night the library hosted a board games program, it turns out that all four featured library staff were embroiled in some way with the victims or with the suspects of the crimes.

And that’s where the believability was strained for me. The connections between them mount, and it seems like that would require some big huge coincidences. Yes, some of them being in Austin are directly because of that embezzled money – but not all, and that doesn’t cover all of the interconnections.

Also, neither of the dead patrons was killed with a gun, but I assure you that the promise of the cover picture is fulfilled – at least one gun goes off before the end of the book.

So, yes, the book strained believability, but it was still a whole lot of fun. I liked the characters, I enjoyed their love interests, and it was fun reading about the secrets in their pasts. The murder mystery was solved with a thrilling conclusion. Of course, it then took two more hours of the audiobook to wrap up the details – but it was still a fun ride.

sherrythomas.com

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Review of The Duck Can’t Sleep, by E. B. White, art by Melissa Sweet

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Duck Can’t Sleep

by E. B. White
foreword by Martha White
art by Melissa Sweet

Quill Tree Books, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written October 5, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This little picture book is published for children, and I think children will like it, but in many ways its true audience is thoughtful adults who have ever experienced insomnia.

The text of the book is a poem that E. B. White published in The New Yorker when he was a young writer living in the city. His granddaughter writes in the foreword that he often went for a walk around the Central Park reservoir when he had something to think through.

This book tells about one of those strolls that happened at midnight – when he also found a duck awake and swimming around.

He has fun thinking about why the duck is up and about so late.

I wondered if he’d left his kind
Because of something on his mind.
A midnight sail to clear his vision
And help him reach some duck decision.

Eventually, he concludes that the duck simply can’t sleep. But the fun is in getting there.

And the illustrations by Melissa Sweet are what make this book pop. She’s poured love into them (see her picture book biography of E. B. White, Some Writer!), and each page is a beautiful work of art. The poem is simple and basically in a single setting, but she puts different angles and backgrounds on each page. I like the way you can tell it’s happening at night, but the subjects (duck and man) are lit up.

Will kids love it as much as I do? Try it out on your kids and tell me in the comments!

melissasweet.net

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Review of Pufflings Fly Free! by Colleen Paeff, illustrated by Linda Ólafsdóttir

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Pufflings Fly Free!

A Rescue Tale from Iceland

by Colleen Paeff
illustrated by Linda Ólafsdóttir

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2026.
Review written September 18, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Pufflings Fly Free! is a sweet picture book based on real events that happen every year in the Westman Islands of Iceland.

The book starts with a girl named Freya, the youngest in her family, going out late on a full-moon night on Puffling Patrol.

More than a million puffins come to the Westman Islands every year to breed. The parents leave their chicks – their pufflings – when they’re barely able to fly. Most of the pufflings make it to the ocean, where they live on the water, feast on fish, and their wings grow strong. But some unlucky babies accidentally end up on the land of the islands. There, the pufflings are vulnerable to cars, predators, and even starvation.

So – families like Freya’s go on Puffling Patrol. They capture frightened pufflings and place them safely in grass-lined boxes for the night.

Tomorrow they will check its health with a local scientist, then release the bird over the ocean. There, it will learn to fly and dive for fish, like all adult puffins. But tonight, it will stay at Freya’s house, safe from cars and cats and other kinds of danger.

Freya is good at spotting pufflings. But when it comes to catching them, she gets flustered when they flap and nip and can’t seem to hold onto them. Everyone else seems better at it than she is.

But when they’re almost done for the night, a little bird dives into the mouth of an excavator claw – an opening where only Freya can follow. This time, she speaks calming words to the puffling and to herself, and she gathers the baby up without fumbling.

The next day after the scientist checks and bands the birds, Freya gets to set her rescued puffling free to fly out over the water and grow strong.

Six pages of back matter give us more information about puffins and the Puffling Patrol. This is a lovely story packed with real-life facts that will make you want to visit Iceland.

colleenpaeff.com
lindaolafsdottir.com

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