Review of What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

by Michiko Aoyama
read by Hanako Footman, Susan Momoko Hingley, Kenichiro Thomson, Winson Ting, and Shiro Kawai

HarlequinAudio, 2023. 7 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written September 9, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

First, a great big thank-you to my friend Suzanne LaPierre for recommending this book! I loved it in every way! She recommended it in an answer to my new email newsletter, Book Talking with Sondy, so let me encourage more of my readers to sign up for Book Talking with Sondy and recommend books back to me!

What You Are Looking For Is in the Library is a translation of a Japanese book, set in a neighborhood of Tokyo. We get five interlocking stories – a 21-year-old working in a department store and not happy about it, a 35-year-old salary man who wishes he could open an antique store, a 40-year-old who got demoted while she was on maternity leave, a 30-year-old NEET (not in employment, education or training), and a newly retired 65-year-old.

All of these people are thinking about their lives and their work and what it all means and what they want and what they’re stuck with – or are they actually stuck? All of them find their way to a small community library with a very large librarian, Sayuri Komachi.

I did love that these folks found a path to meaning in a library – my one quibble being that this librarian had time to take up a hobby and make felted objects while she waits behind a screen for customers to show up.

But this particular librarian has mystical powers – and she gives each of our featured characters the books they ask for, plus one seemingly unrelated book that makes all the difference. She also gives each one a bonus gift – a small felted object that ends up having special significance to that person and helps to change their life.

And all of our heroes find paths to new meaning after their encounter with the almost magical librarian. So that might be hard to read for someone struggling with similar issues themselves – except that the author treats all of the characters and their situations with deep respect, showing plainly that their life and their value goes much deeper than their current work situation.

Just a wonderful and uplifting book. And look! Our library has ordered another book by this author – The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park. I have already placed a hold.

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Review of Death in the Jungle, by Candace Fleming

Audiobooks, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Death in the Jungle

Murder, Betrayal, and the Lost Dream of Jonestown

by Candace Fleming
read by Karen Murray

Listening Library, 2025. 9 hours, 47 minutes.
Review written September 8, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I checked out this eaudiobook, not because I was interested in Jim Jones, but because everything Candace Fleming writes is fascinating. This book was no exception. It was not pleasant listening, but once I got started, I couldn’t look away.

This book tells the whole story of Jim Jones and Jonestown – and the murders and suicides of over 900 people. (Yes, murder. Some people did not drink the poison, but were injected with it.)

Knowing basically how the story ends, it was horrible to watch it unfold, but fascinating. By necessity, the author got her information from interviews with survivors and survivor accounts, so the main folks whose perspective we got to hear from were people who survived, which made the story a little less gut-wrenching.

I was a teen when the Jonestown tragedy happened, so I didn’t know a lot of the details. I didn’t even realize that Jim Jones ordered the assassination of a congressman who was investigating the commune in Guyana – and his assassination spurred the other deaths, as the people had been told the American government wanted to destroy them.

But I also hadn’t known how the People’s Temple started – with good works and social work against poverty and racism in the 1960s. The People’s Temple had a mix of Blacks and whites when other American churches excluded minorities. It was hard to hear what good things they started with, putting other churches to shame.

But clearly, from the beginning, Jim Jones was after power and manipulation. He faked faith healings to build followers. Later, after he had people under his sway, he repudiated the Bible and Christianity – it had been all part of his show.

And things got worse and worse as Jim Jones gained power over people. He was also addicted to various drugs and not at all healthy, mentally or physically. Once he got his followers to Guyana, where he could keep them from escaping, he could control their lives in every way. Perhaps that’s why the congressman’s visit – and the fact that some people tried to leave with him – was so threatening.

The book is sobering, because yes, the good works the church did at the beginning would have gained my admiration. I also began to understand how hard it was to leave once you were plugged in. And Jim Jones’ power to gain a devoted following? People who are willing to lie and manipulate can gain all kinds of power that’s hard to shake. Dare I say that this reminded me of our current president?

So it’s not like this book is pleasant reading. But it tells the full story of a dark incident in our history. And maybe it will help teens think twice about promises from a charismatic leader. Pair it with the book Cultish for insights on how to tell if a tight-knit community is good for you or is destructive.

candacefleming.com

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Review of Chickenpox, by Remy Lai

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Chickenpox

by Remy Lai

Henry Holt and Company, 2025. 235 pages.
Review written July 15, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

You’d think stories about chickenpox would lose their popularity now that today’s kids are almost all vaccinated. But this graphic novel is hugely popular at the library – a fictionalized version of the author’s family when all five of them came down with chickenpox.

We’ve got the perspective of Abby, the oldest – who is horrified at the thought of ten days with her siblings when they all come down with chickenpox. When the younger ones squabble, Abby as the big sister is generally the one who’s told she should calm things down.

And while Abby’s out of the action, there’s some friend drama at school – which of course her younger siblings only make worse if they get the slightest whiff of what’s going on.

But most of my fondness for this graphic novel came from nostalgia. Because when I was in second grade, my older sister brought home chickenpox, and the other four of us all caught it and stayed home from school together for two weeks. I was third, not oldest like the protagonist – and my parents went on to have eight more kids. But when we had chickenpox, there were five kids, just like in this book – and yes, the chaos seems accurate.

I still say there’s nothing like a graphic novel for conveying the chaos and intense emotions of middle school. Turns out, it’s also great for showing the chaos of a big family of kids all home with chickenpox.

remylai.com

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Review of Lies We Sing to the Sea, by Sarah Underwood

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Lies We Sing to the Sea

by Sarah Underwood

HarperTeen, 2023. 420 pages.
Review written March 12, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

Ah! This is the sort of book I was hoping to read by being on the Morris committee! (It came after two in a row that I didn’t finish.)

I’m not sure if Lies We Sing to the Sea is based on an actual Greek myth or embellished as a history of Ithaca after the story of Odysseus. But the premise is that Ithaca was cursed and every year has to offer twelve maidens to Poseidon, or the sea will ravage the island and kill many others.

As the book begins, Leto, the daughter of the last oracle, has received the mark of Poseidon – scales around her neck – so she’s sentenced to be hung with eleven other maidens. She almost escapes at one point, and of course we think that’s going to happen, because it’s the start of the book. We get the perspective of the prince as well, who hates to oversea the deaths of twelve girls every year.

But it actually happens. Yes, she meets eyes with the prince – but then Leto actually dies by the noose and her body is swept into the sea.

The next chapter, though, introduces us to Melantho. She lives alone on an island. She has become Poseidon’s creature. And she takes twelve bodies out of the water.

But then one of the dead girls opens her eyes – as one has done many times before, but decades ago. Leto is the twelfth girl to wash up alive on Melantho’s island. And it will be up to her to break the curse – by killing the prince.

We know it won’t be easy. After all, the prince is a viewpoint character, not some nameless evil guy. He doesn’t even want to order the killings.

And then Leto manages to bring Melantho with her as she leaves the island, something that’s never happened before. Together, they go back to Ithaca, posing Leto as the prince’s betrothed from Athens, and equipped with the power of Poseidon over the waters of the sea. Leto needs to kill the prince, and she needs to do it in the sea.

The story from there is woven expertly with twists and turns. Each character has secrets and back story that come out only gradually. They all want to break the curse, but will they be able to do it?

Fair warning, there’s some sex in this book, but not very closely described. Something that struck me as interesting was that this was the second young adult book I’ve read recently where a main character loves two people – but it’s not presented as a love triangle or even a choice she has to make – she simply loves both of them. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, but in this particular book it worked out believably.

And the writing in this book is lyrical and beautifully woven – appropriate for a mythological tale.

I’m writing this review at the start of my Morris reading, but now I know that whatever we pick, they’re sure to be excellent – because this is one of the choices. It’s always wonderful in committee reading to find that first book you would be proud to include as your winner – and know that our choices are only going to expand.

sarahunderwood.uk
EpicReads.com

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Review of Jim! Six True Stories about One Great Artist: James Marshall, by Jerrold Connors

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Jim!

Six True Stories about One Great Artist: James Marshall

by Jerrold Connors

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2025. 72 pages.
Review written September 3, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

The perfect picture book biography exists, and I have just read it!

Jerrold Connors takes six stories that give us the essence of James Marshall’s life, and he relates them with words and art that perfectly mimic James Marshall’s style. The stories even have the punch of a George and Martha story!

I adore the George and Martha books, and this book borrows their format in a brilliant homage to their creator. The stories are numbered, as in George and Martha. They are: “The Book,” about creating Miss Nelson Is Missing with his friend Harry; “How Cute!” about how annoying it was to have his work called cute and his history as a classical musician; “Friendly Competition,” about his friends Maurice (Maurice wears a “Wild Thing” shirt.) and Arnold, who were also writers; “The Award” about how he would have liked to win an award but how his partner Billy reminded him that great art is about putting yourself in your work; “The School Visit” about his second-grade teacher who told him he’d never be an artist and served as the inspiration for Viola Swamp; and “The Hospital,” about how kids will remember him, because kids are really smart.

An Author’s Note ties it all together with more details about James Marshall’s life, but please be aware that my summary doesn’t begin to convey the charm of this book. Anyone who loves George and Martha (and who could possibly not?) will be absolutely delighted with this book.

jerroldconnors.com

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Review of Austen at Sea, by Natalie Jenner

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Austen at Sea

by Natalie Jenner

St. Martin’s Press, 2025. 304 pages.
Review written August 25, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Like the author’s wonderful earlier book, The Jane Austen Society, this book wasn’t so much a retelling of one of Jane Austen’s classics as it was a story about her legacy. In both books, something I loved was the characters discussing the fine points of Jane Austen’s novels as true aficionados. Other Janeites will enjoy that part as much as I did.

And we’ve also got Louisa May Alcott as a character in this book! That was a nice surprise. Here’s the set-up: In 1865, two sisters from Boston and two brothers from Philadelphia are on a ship crossing the ocean to visit the elderly Admiral Frank Austen, Jane Austen’s surviving brother. The two parties hadn’t known about each other, but both had written to the admiral about their love of Jane’s writings. And the admiral got some match-making ideas.

And another person traveling on the ship from Boston is Louisa May Alcott, accompanying an elderly friend to Europe to regain her health after the Civil War (as she in fact did). On the ship, the ladies decide to put on a theatrical production as a benefit to charity, with Lu in charge – as she had often done with her sisters, and as the characters do in Mansfield Park.

I was honestly a little disappointed that, although there is plenty of romance in this book, the admiral’s schemes don’t bear fruit. The book ends up being very much about women’s rights – and how women lost them when they married. Though it turns out that the laws were different on opposite sides of the Atlantic. But I’d never thought about what it meant that a woman marrying no longer had property rights.

So – I enjoyed the story, loved the characters (especially Louisa May Alcott!), delighted in the discussions of Jane Austen’s books and the visits to the places she lived, and learned things as well. This is definitely another good one for Jane Austen fans like me. (And do check out my Austenalia page while you’re at it!)

nataliejenner.com

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Review of Sisters in the Wind, by Angeline Boulley

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Sisters in the Wind

by Angeline Boulley

Henry Holt, 2025. 367 pages.
Review written September 2, 2025, from an advance reader copy signed by the author that I got at ALA Annual Conference.
Starred Review

I was happy to actually get an advance reader copy read before the publication date – and then I’m writing this review on the publication date, so it was just barely before. However, today I purchased a copy of the eaudiobook for the library, and I put it on hold to listen to, even though I just read it. It’s that good.

Sisters in the Wind takes place in between the author’s two other books, Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed. There’s no plot overlap between them, so you can read them in any order, but you’ll find out a lot that goes on in Firekeeper’s Daughter, so I think it’s better to read that one before this one. (If you missed that one, absolutely go read it as soon as possible!)

I read this book on a weekend I’d meant to do a 48-Hour Book Challenge that kind of got stymied – but getting this one book read made the whole thing a win. Sisters in the Wind features Lucy, an 18-year-old part-Native girl who’s been in the foster care system for three years, since her father died.

As the book opens, she meets a man who turns out to be Jamie from Firekeeper’s Daughter. He’s now a lawyer trying to help Native kids who have been in the foster care system against the protections of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Lucy asks him why he’s been following her since New Year’s Eve, but that wasn’t him.

Lucy acts like she’s going to follow up, but she knows it’s time to run. She packs her backpack and goes to work one last time – but then a pipe bomb at the deli where she works puts her in the hospital.

Jamie and Daunis show up to take care of Lucy as she recovers. It turns out that she’s the half-sister of Daunis’s best friend Lily, who was killed in Firekeeper’s Daughter. (Not a spoiler, it happens fairly early. But there are other spoilers in the book.) The rest of the book takes two threads – one of her time in a hotel with Jamie and Daunis watching over her as her broken leg heals, and the other thread the story of how she wound up in foster care and why she’s certain that someone’s angry enough with her to plant a bomb.

Along the way, as with Angeline Boulley’s other books, we learn in a natural way about a current issue involving Native Americans. In this book it’s about how the Indian Child Welfare Act was established to try to stop Native kids from being exploited. However, being established is one thing and being enforced is another.

Angeline Boulley always tells a good story. As in the others, we get characters we love and a situation that builds to life-and-death danger.

At first, when I read Firekeeper’s Daughter and learned she’d been working on the story for over a decade, I thought no wonder it’s so good! But now she’s published two follow-ups that are just as wonderful that she didn’t spend even close to a decade writing. Nope, that’s not it – she’s simply a crazy-talented author.

angelineboulley.com

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Review of Not Quite a Ghost, by Anne Ursu

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

Not Quite a Ghost

by Anne Ursu
read by Eva Kaminsky

Walden Pond Press, 2024. 6 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Capitol Choices Selection

This is the second book I’ve read recently where a kid gets a mysterious chronic ailment with intermittent dizziness and weakness, and they try to please the adults around them and not be “lazy” and things get worse and worse – and honestly, it makes me cringe, but in a sympathetic way.

In this case, the kid in question is Violet Hart, who’s just beginning 6th grade and middle school, and whose family has just moved into a big old house where Violet’s sister sticks her with the creepy attic room with the hideous wallpaper.

Fortunately, Violet’s mother and stepfather believe her when she dares to tell them that she’s not feeling well, but they take her to more than one doctor who thinks she’s just got anxiety about middle school. And even her friends start wondering.

On top of that, her two best friends only have one class with her – and it’s gym class, where she doesn’t feel well enough to participate. And they want to expand the friend group to include two more popular girls, and things get awkward.

But while Violet is in the library during gym class, she meets a boy who’s not taking gym class at all, and is doing a project on ghost hunting.

So ghosts are in her head when she’s stuck in her attic room, feeling awful, and she starts seeing movement in the hideous wallpaper. Is all of it just in her head?

This book immersed me in Violet’s world right from the start. Anne Ursu beautifully captures family dynamics and friendship dynamics and a kid who just wants to stay under the radar and find something she can count on when everything’s changing around her, including her own body.

The not-quite-a-ghost doesn’t really come into the story until late in the book, so it’s not necessarily what you want to hand a kid who simply wants a ghost story. But for a great story about the ups and downs of navigating changes of middle school, this book beautifully fills the bill.

anneursu.com

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Review of Go to Sleep (I Miss You), by Lucy Knisley

Humorous, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Go to Sleep

(I Miss You)

Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood

by Lucy Knisley

First Second, 2020. 178 pages.
Review written March 29, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

What fun! Lucy Knisley, a noted author/illustrator of graphic memoirs, has had a baby! This book is the result.

My own babies are 32 and 25 years old, but I still couldn’t keep from laughing with recognition as I read this book. She nails the ambivalences of parenthood – all the way from the intoxicating smell of their hair to the desperation when they won’t stop crying.

She covers so much! The trials of nursing, the baby equipment, the inventions we really need, the outfits they go through (ours and theirs), adventures in eating, and so much else.

This might make a fun baby shower gift for a new Mom. Though I’m not sure if you really want to warn them! I am sure that as they’re going through it, the laughter will provide comfort, as will the knowledge that they are not alone.

And for an old mom like me, we get the delight of being reminded of that time with our precious babies – and why it’s also a relief to be done with that time.

lucyknisley.com
firstsecondbooks.com

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Review of Drown Me with Dreams, by Gabi Burton

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Drown Me with Dreams

by Gabi Burton
read by Dami Olukoya

Bloomsbury YA, 2024. 12 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written August 17, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Let me say again that I love the new trend in fantasy books of publishing duologies instead of trilogies. Drown Me with Dreams completes the duology begun in Sing Me to Sleep (a 2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out), following the siren Saoirse, who’s the only one of her kind in the kingdom of Keirdre, after the king slaughtered them all as monsters. (An advantage to listening to the book is now I know how to pronounce that.)

Things have changed for Saoirse in this book – I don’t want to give too many details and give away the first book, but now Saoirse is living openly as a siren, and she finds a way to cross the barrier to leave Keirdre. But she won’t be able to come back if Hayes doesn’t bring the barrier down – and that could have terrible consequences.

In this book, besides doing some sleuthing and plotting for the good of the kingdom, Saoirse also learns not to be afraid of her power – and that she doesn’t have to use it to kill.

In the first book, I got a little bogged down with the world-building – a kingdom enclosed by a barrier that not even birds can get through? I have trouble believing it. But in this book, I was used to the idea, and the focus was more on how could they bring it down without starting multiple wars. There was also speculation about what makes a good ruler. Can a good man be a good ruler to a kingdom that was founded to reward ruthlessness?

I’m also a little skeptical of Saoirse’s ability to taste other people’s emotions. Because how does it get in her mouth instantly? I mean, if it were a smell, it could waft in the air, but these were described even as tastes in the back of her throat. Again by this time, I was used to the idea, and the descriptions were so creative, never mind details like that. The emotions weren’t described as simply salty or spicy or sweet, but through a wide range from cinnamon to orange to old stew going rancid. It turns out that with this power, Saoirse can tell when someone is lying, which did make sense.

For most of the book, Saoirse is across the barrier from the one she loves – but she can dream walk to see him. There’s another world-building detail that was a little hard for me – they can touch and feel each other, but it’s only a dream. So when Saoirse talks to Hayes in the dream walk – what is her actual body doing? Apparently nothing. It’s all a little murky – but the romance is beautifully done, and questions of trust are explored. And then the beads she uses to dream walk stop working exactly when it causes the most possible misunderstanding. (Which is precisely how coincidences should work in fiction – cause problems, and we’ll believe it. Solve problems, and it feels way too convenient.)

So – without giving details, this second book made me love the whole duology more. The first book was a debut novel I read when on the Morris Award Committee – and this second book is even stronger – full of tension and intrigue, and finishes off the story in a satisfying, but not predictable way. The author has already grown in her writing in just one book. I look forward to seeing what she will do next.

gabiburton.com

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