Review of The Forbidden Book, by Sacha Lamb

Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Forbidden Book

by Sacha Lamb

Levine Querido, 2024. 251 pages.
Review written February 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Sidney Taylor Young Adult Silver Medal

The Forbidden Book is another brilliant paranormal story playing off Jewish folklore, as with When the Angels Left the Old Country that I enjoyed so much. This one is set in medieval Eastern Europe.

As the book opens, a lumber merchant’s daughter named Sorel is about to be married to the rebbe’s son from the nearby city. She knows she feels like the girl dressed up in the wedding clothes is a stranger, and she wants to leave. But it’s when she hears a voice in her head saying that they’ll go with her that she leaps out the window and flees.

She steals the stable-boy’s clothes where he stashed them in the stable, along with a knife. She cuts her hair short and sets out, feeling oddly free.

I thought it was a story about a young transgender man, but it turns out there’s more to the voice she heard than her own wishful thinking. When asked her name, Sorel comes up with Isser Jacobs, and before long, she gets attacked in an alley by thugs looking for Isser Jacobs and something he stole. But a giant black dog interrupts the attack and Sorel escapes.

But she’s worried about the girl, a friend of the real Isser, that the thugs mentioned. One thing leads to another, and Sorel and a small group of others are trying to find out what happened to Isser and looking for a magic book that he stole, which was written by the Angel of Death.

The book is full of that touch of magic and reads like a mystical folktale. Sorel has some encounters with spirits before she’s through and needs to think about what she actually wants for her life.

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The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Joy Luck Club

by Amy Tan
read by Gwendoline Yeo

Phoenix Books, 2008. 9 hours, 5 minutes. Original book published in 1989.
Review written December 1, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’m going to go ahead and call this an Old Favorite, though I only read it once before – sometime before I started writing Sonderbooks in 2001. I remember that we watched the movie based on the book when my second was a baby – and felt like it should have a warning label because a baby dies in the movie. I revisited the book because my friend Suzanne mentioned it when she signed up for Book Talking with Sondy. I then discovered that my library has an eaudiobook version available and put a hold on it.

The book is wonderful. It features four Chinese women who immigrated to America and their four American daughters. The women met monthly for a Joy Luck Club where they played Mahjongg, but now one of them has recently passed away, and her daughter has been invited to join the game. And the women in the club have a surprise for the daughter – they have found her long lost twin sisters, and have gotten her tickets to China to meet them, fulfilling her mother’s dearest wish.

The rest of the book gives us stories – stories of the mothers, and stories of the daughters. We eventually learn how the twin babies were lost so long ago during war time. We see how the mothers and daughters lived very different lives and don’t fully understand each other. We see that the daughters have more in common with each other than they ever realize.

The reader did a fine job of consistently giving the characters in this book their own unique voices – but I had trouble in the audio version keeping track of whose story I was hearing and which daughter went with which mother. Unfortunately, the part of the chapter heading that showed in Libby did not include the character’s name, and I listened to this while driving to a new place, and missed some crucial details. I did remember how it worked from having read it before, so I feel like I still appreciated the book.

And this remains a classic novel about mothers and daughters and the experience of being an immigrant. With each character having different experiences in their journeys, literal and figurative, it shows how every immigrant’s experience is unique – yet gives us a window on what the challenges they face, which even their own children may not fully understand.

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Review of Coach, by Jason Reynolds

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Coach

Track, Book Five

by Jason Reynolds
read by Guy Lockard

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 5 hours, 14 minutes.
Review written December 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Coach is the fifth book in Jason Reynolds’ Track series for middle grade readers, each one featuring a different member of the Defenders track team – talking about all the good things about competing on a team while also giving us a window into life situations that weren’t always easy. It looks like I only reviewed the first two books, Ghost and Patina. Though this is book five, it’s effectively a prequel – since this book covers when Coach was a kid, discovering track himself in the 1980s.

This book is narrated with great enthusiasm by Guy Lockard. The reading was basically the same character as in Jason Reynolds’ Stuntboy books, a boy with ADHD. And that didn’t feel wrong for this book, though Coach – then known as Otie Brody – wasn’t formally diagnosed with ADHD and was a bit older than Stuntboy. But he was enthusiastic about things and did sometimes get distracted.

Otie’s enthusiasms make for great reading. His dream is to run in the Olympics and win a gold medal like his hero, Carl Lewis. And also to build a time machine like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. But after he gets mocked for letting his hair get out of shape – his dad being out of town – Otie tries to fix it himself – and accidentally shaves his eyebrow off. His mother helps him concoct a plausible story that it reduces drag and makes him faster – and shaves his whole head to sell the story.

That’s the beginning of Otie’s antics and obstacles as we see him trying to do his best, dreaming of winning glory, and dealing with some family issues – that all go into making him the empathetic coach he’ll need to be later.

Another solid feel-good choice for middle school and upper elementary readers, you don’t have to read the first books to enjoy this one. So glad that there’s one more!

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Review of The Teacher of Nomad Land, by Daniel Nayeri

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Teacher of Nomad Land

A World War II Story

by Daniel Nayeri
read by Daniel Nayeri

Listening Library, 2025. 3 hours, 23 minutes.
Review written December 12, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner

Ahhhh. The Teacher of Nomad Land is my favorite Daniel Nayeri book so far. And he’s already won the Printz Award and Newbery Honor. Traditionally, it usually turns out that the winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature does not win the Newbery Medal. Will this year break the pattern?

But about the book. As the subtitle indicates, this is a World War II story, and it’s set in Iran. Iran wasn’t the main stage in World War II and was officially neutral – but that made it a place where people from all over the world could meet one another – with lots of room for misunderstandings.

Our story begins in Isfahan when Babak’s father has recently been killed by the Russian army. His father had been visiting the nomads in their summer home, teaching their children, and the army fired at them, thinking they were insurgents. Babak promises his little sister Sanna that even though they are orphans, he won’t let them be split up, but their relatives don’t give them any choice.

So Babak works as an errand boy for a year, trying to save money to take Sanna away with him so they can be together. They will ask the nomads to take them in before they leave for their winter home.

After a year of saving, the money doesn’t work out, but Babak and Sanna set out anyway. Babak brings along his father’s blackboard, rigged with leather straps to carry on his back. He offers to teach the nomads’ children and tries to be as good a teacher as his father was, but his first attempt isn’t enough for the chief of the nomads.

But then the adventure really begins. As Babak and Sanna try to find their way back to Isfahan, staying together no matter what, they encounter a ruthless Nazi spy who takes all their food. Later, they meet the Jewish refugee boy from Poland that the German is looking for. Together, they try to make their way to somewhere safe, but there’s lots of misunderstanding along the way, not to mention the need for food and water.

The most brilliant scene of all is when Babak figures out how to facilitate communication between the nomads, British soldiers, and Russian soldiers – using I think it was five different languages.

Along the way, Babak learns to emulate his father and think like a teacher, gleaning plenty of wisdom as he does so.

I also love that the book isn’t overindulgent in its length, despite the heavy topic of war time – under four hours in an audiobook! – just right for a children’s book. Yes, it’s about war time, so there are dangerous and scary situations, but the kids at the center of it come through brilliantly.

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Review of Happy Land, by Dolen Perkins-Valdez

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Historical 0

Happy Land

by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
read by Bahni Turpin and Ashley J. Hobbs

Books on Tape, 2025. 10 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written November 21, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

First, a big thank you to Suzanne, who recommended this book when she signed up for my email newsletter, Book Talking with Sondy. My hold finally came in, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

This is a book that combines characters you care about with little-known history and present-day injustices. There are two perspectives and two narrators in this audiobook. First, in the present day, Nikki has been summoned unexpectedly from her home in DC to her grandmother in North Carolina. Nikki hasn’t seen her grandmother since her mother and grandmother had an extreme falling-out. Now Nikki’s own daughter is at loose ends after graduating from high school without a plan going forward, and Nikki hasn’t been doing well in her career as a real estate agent. But she doesn’t know why her grandmother has summoned her to the mountain where their family has lived for generations.

The second perspective is Luella, Nikki’s grandmother’s great-grandmother. Luella was born in slavery, but after gaining freedom, her community was in danger from the Klan in South Carolina. So the entire community, led by her father, a preacher, traveled to a mountain on the border with North Carolina. At the urging of William Montgomery, a charismatic young man who asked her to marry him – they founded not just a community, but a kingdom. And William was elected the king and Luella the queen.

At first, the folks of the kingdom rented the land from a widow who needed their help running her hotel, but they worked toward owning the land. There were many obstacles along the way and much personal turmoil. And this is all based on an actual “kingdom” that existed in America not long after the Civil War.

Meanwhile, in the present, Nikki learns about the kingdom – but that her grandmother is in danger of losing the land, where she’s lived since she was born on the premises. And along the way, she sees how connected her grandmother is to the land and to the community – but needs to find out more about why her grandmother and mother stopped speaking to each other. Can she mend the generational rift? Can she save the land that her family has owned for 150 years?

I didn’t completely understand the law that allows people who inherit one portion of property to sell off other portions of property at auction without folks who live there knowing about it. Since I was listening, I didn’t even catch the name of this type of law, but the author names it as a major way that land has been stolen from African Americans, destroying generational wealth. So one of the big conflicts in the book has to do with an actual current issue.

And it’s all told in a compelling story. Luella’s life wasn’t easy, even though she was a queen. And Nikki, after her, has some choices to make as she learns about her connection to royalty and the Kingdom of the Happy Land.

The author’s blog points to a fascinating webpage about the actual Kingdom of the Happy Land. Amazing stuff!

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Review of The Davenports, by Krystal Marquis, read by Joniece Abbot-Pratt

Audiobooks, Historical, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Davenports

by Krystal Marquis
read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written April 29, 2023, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

The Davenports reminds me of a Jane Austen book – a wealthy family trying to get their kids married off – only this one is set in 1910, and the family are successful Black Americans in Chicago. The father of the Davenport clan was born enslaved, but after escaping, ended up making a fortune with a carriage company. And he’s happily giving his family a much better life – maybe sheltering them a little too much.

Now the two daughters and one son are at an age to be married – but nobody falls in love with the person their parents want and expect them to marry. And it’s quite fun watching it happen.

There are four viewpoint characters: Olivia Davenport is getting ready for her second season and really needs to find a husband this time around. When Jacob Lawrence shows up from England, everyone thinks she’s found one. But then she stumbles into meetings of activists when she’s doing charity work and learns the plight of her people in the South.

Olivia’s friend Ruby has been in love with Olivia’s brother, John Davenport, since they were kids. Her father is running for mayor of Chicago, and her parents want Ruby to go ahead and get him to propose. Maybe if she makes him jealous….

Younger sister Helen Davenport is never happier than working in the garage on the modern horseless carriages. Maybe she can help John convince their father to expand the business to automobiles. But instead, her parents hire an etiquette tutor to bring Helen into line.

The final viewpoint character is Amy-Rose, long time friend and maid to the Davenport girls. She’s been saving her money, and now she’s almost ready to start her own business and open a salon.

I thought I knew where this book was going, but all the romances run into snags toward the end of the book, and the author’s note hints at a sequel. So I’m looking forward to more time with the Davenport family in the future. The author’s note also tells us that the family was based on an actual family led by a formerly enslaved Black man who got rich in the carriage business. She wondered what life might have been like for his daughters. And her wondering gave us this delightful book.

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Review of The Bluest Sky, by Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

The Bluest Sky

by Christina Diaz Gonzalez

Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. 314 pages.
Review written September 11, 2025, from a library book.

The Bluest Sky is the story of Hector, a Cuban boy in 1980 who dreams of getting on the National Math Olympiad Team. But he wonders if the politics of his father, who spent time in prison and now lives in America, will outweigh that of his grandmother, who is a high official in the Communist party.

There are rumors that the government is allowing more people to leave Cuba. But they are rousing communities against the non-patriotic scum who would do so. Hector loves his country and his friends and doesn’t understand why anyone would leave.

And then his mother tells him that she has applied for exit visas to join his father, whom Hector hardly knows.

The story that follows is full of ups and downs and conflict. It builds toward the Mariel boat lift, when Cuban prisoners were added to the boats of refugees.

This book is a window into a difficult time and tough decisions. I had heard of the Mariel boat lift, but hadn’t realized it was so recent – and that Hector would have been younger than me, so folks from that episode of history are still alive in America today. I appreciate that fictional eyes can help kids understand what it must have been like to live that historical moment.

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Review of The Alchemy of Moonlight, by David Ferraro, read by Will Watt

Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Alchemy of Moonlight

by David Ferraro
read by Will Watt

Dreamscape Media, 2023. 9 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written September 16, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Is it just me, or does anyone else get a crush on eaudiobook narrators with dreamy voices? As soon as I heard the first few sentences from Will Watt, I was hooked on listening to this book – never mind that he was talking about a young marquis discovering a severed hand next to the path on the estate where he was hiding out as a servant.

This book riffs off the gothic classic The Mysteries of Udolpho, except with a gay man named Emile as the protagonist instead of a young lady named Emily. (I’ve never read the original, but I have read Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey that spoofed it, and I checked Wikipedia for the basic plot after a castle called Udolpho was mentioned.)

There’s a love triangle in this version involving our marquis and the local doctor’s apprentice, as well as a count attached to the estate where Emile is serving. But Emile’s pose as a servant must not be found out, because his aunt is in charge of his own estate until he comes of age. If he doesn’t give up his fondness for men and marry, she will have him committed to an asylum.

And things get even more complicated. The reader will be much quicker than Emile to figure out the connection between body parts on the path and the fact that family members send almost all the servants away once a month, but those who remain administer injections all night long as they suffer and writhe in their beds.

I won’t say much about the plot. It’s based on a gothic novel, and yes, it’s over-the-top. But I think it helped to listen to a skilled narrator (with a dreamy voice) reading about the events completely in character, completely startled when supernatural things happen. Hearing his skepticism – but inability to discount the evidence of his own eyes – helps the listener keep their own skepticism at bay. I was with them every step of the way.

This book is an adventure with many gruesome moments, but if you’re in the mood for some melodrama at all, you’ll have a great romp with this. Not having read the original, I’m still quite confident that the ending in this version is quite different. And it certainly surprised me.

I do recommend listening to this one. (Is it just me? That voice!)

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Review of The Cassatt Sisters, by Lisa Groen

Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Cassatt Sisters

A Novel of Love and Art

by Lisa Groen

Black Rose Writing, 2025. 260 pages.
Review written November 5, 2025, from my own copy, ordered via Amazon.com
Starred Review

Full disclosure: The author of this book is a friendly acquaintance of mine. She was a regular customer back when I worked at Sembach Air Base Library in Germany, and we became Facebook friends, and I read and enjoyed her first book, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being.

So when I heard that she’d written a novel about the Impressionists, of course I preordered a copy!

Now, I didn’t know a lot about the Impressionists except having been thrilled to enjoy their work in Paris at the Musée de l’Orangerie and the Musée d’Orsay – which together are my favorite museums in Paris, or, yes, in the world. So I enjoyed finding out more – and especially about Mary Cassatt, the only American woman among the Impressionists.

This book covers her life beginning in 1877. Mary Cassatt had already been living in Paris, working to establish herself as an artist, living with her sister Lydia and her parents. They had settled in Paris as well, to support her. Mary’s close relationship with Lydia is a primary thread all through this book. Lydia was her muse, and often the subject of her work.

But the book begins with her admiring the work of Edgar Degas, meeting him, beginning to work with him – and starting a romantic relationship.

Now, honestly, if that were all there was to it, the book might have been a little trite. Let’s just say the relationship doesn’t last, and Mary coping with that – while grappling with who she is as an artist – deepens and enriches the book.

And life as an artist wasn’t the same for Mary as it was for the male Impressionists. Nor was it the same as for Berthe Morisot, who was a mother. This story of Mary Cassatt’s life, work, loves, and ambitions, makes the reader think about women and our place in the world – and how things have changed and not changed in 150 years.

I did laugh when Mary called Monet’s Water Lilies glorified wallpaper – apparently an actual comment of hers. The book included black-and-white reproductions of the specific paintings that got mentioned, which added richness to the narrative, since art was such an important part of Mary’s life. Another thing I thought was funny was when Mary used her nieces and nephews as models – and then her mother wouldn’t let her “sell the grandchildren.” She was more limited than the men in whom she could use as models – and then her mother didn’t want her to sell the paintings of family. What’s a woman to do?

By the end of the book, I felt like I’d spent time in Paris – only in such a way that I really need to go back as soon as possible. I will look at the Impressionists’ art with new eyes, now feeling like they are interesting individuals with personalities, instead of one big group. This book, as happens with the very best historical fiction, made these great artists of history come alive in my mind.

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Review of That Self-Same Metal, by Brittany N. Williams, read by Patricia Allison

Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

That Self-Same Metal

by Brittany N. Williams
read by Patricia Allison

OrangeSky Audio, 2023. 10 hours, 31 minutes.
Review written August 4, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

That Self-Same Metal is a historical fantasy set in the time of Shakespeare, in fact, among Shakespeare’s acting company, The King’s Men. This book happens in 1605, shortly after King James has taken the throne – and the patronage of Shakespeare’s company. Our heroine is Joan Sands, a Black girl with a magical ability to manipulate metals, a gift given to her by her Head Orisha, Ogun. She not only makes swords for the company, but she stages their swordfights. Her twin brother James is an apprentice with the players, taking women’s roles, because of course it’s illegal for women to perform on stage.

Joan and James, as followers of the Orisha, have always been able to see when the Fae are among them, because they give off a glow under their skin. But they know that Fae cannot harm humankind. However, Joan’s godfather tells her that he needs to renew the pact between the Fae and the new king – and then he is arrested. The pact is not in effect, and Fae very much begin to harm people.

When Joan defends herself and others using blades she’s coated in iron, she makes some powerful enemies, both among the Fae and in the royal court. Can she protect her family and those she loves from these enemies?

It’s all played out in a well-drawn historical setting, with Shakespeare himself one of the characters, and his plays going on in the Globe theater. It turns out the characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream are based on actual Fae, but they are quite different than he portrayed them. Joan’s adventures include needing to step in and act when James is injured, hoping no one will notice the difference, and watching another play with the queen and her ladies, who treat her like an exotic pet. And she’s not sure what to make of her attraction to one of the handsome players as well as to a mysterious girl who asks for her brother’s help.

It’s all woven together in a way that hooked me, and the narrator’s British accent is a delight. The author clearly did her research – naming the characters who were actual people at the end of the book.

My one word of warning is that there are some excessively gory scenes, so you may not want to listen if you get squeamish easily. They did establish that the stakes were very high.

There is a reversal at the end, and yes, I will want to read or hopefully listen to the next installment.

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