Review of Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Thornhedge

by T. Kingfisher
read by Jennifer Blom

Macmillan Audio, 2023. 3 hours, 43 minutes.
Review written April 28, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 Hugo Award Winner
2024 Locus Award Winner

What if the beautiful princess sleeping in the tower absolutely should not be woken?

This delightful and immersive novella is narrated by Toadling. Toadling was born human, a princess even, but when she was only an hour old, fairies stole her from her crib and replaced her with a changeling. She was brought up by loving water sprites. She learned magic from them, took on many of their characteristics, and can turn into a toad at will.

We first meet her watching over a tower for hundreds of years, hoping against hope that humans have stopped telling stories about it and that the thick thorn hedge and the brambles she set about it will keep all humans away.

But then, after years of quiet, a poor rundown Muslim knight comes and camps near the thorn hedge. He has read about a princess in the tower, and his curiosity compels him to find out if it’s true. But then he meets Toadling and becomes the first person to speak to her in hundreds of years – and he won’t be warned away.

As Toadling deals with this unexpected and hard-to-dissuade intruder, we learn more about her story and why she’s guarding the tower. And we, too, come to hope that the princess will not be woken.

Yes, there’s some danger and darkness in the middle of this tale, but we come to love the characters and the way it wraps up in the end is absolutely perfect. This is a tale to treasure.

redwombatstudio.com

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Review of The Bats on the Bus, by Alison Jackson, illustrated by Scott Magoon

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Bats on the Bus

by Alison Jackson
illustrated by Scott Magoon

Christy Ottaviano Books (Little, Brown and Company), 2026. 40 pages.
Review written August 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book makes me want to do a library story time again! And specifically, a story time for Halloween.

The idea is simple, and the execution is classic. We begin with:

The Bats on the bus hang
UPSIDE DOWN,
UPSIDE DOWN,
UPSIDE DOWN.

The Bats on the bus
hang UPSIDE DOWN . . .

All around the town.

Are you able to read that without singing it? I wasn’t.

Next, the Ghosts on the bus shout BOO! BOO! BOO! The Witches on the bus scream WHERE’S MY BROOM? The Giants on the bus stomp UP AND DOWN! And so on.

It ends when the Children on the bus yell TRICK OR TREAT! They lift their masks and we see that all the scary creatures on the bus were children in masks headed to a Fright Fest. (Well, except those bats hanging upside down.)

This book has all the elements of a Story Time Hit.

scottmagoon.com
alison-jackson.com

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Review of Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Christian, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Jesus and John Wayne

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Liveright Publishing, 2020. 356 pages.
Review written September 25, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com.
Starred Review

I don’t remember which of many recommendations prompted me to order my own copy of Jesus and John Wayne right around the time it first came out, but I know there were many, and I was happy to order it. Once I had it, I’m afraid it competed with the library books I had checked out, but didn’t have a due date. (This is something I often have to contend with.) This is also a history book, and a little dense. Yes, it’s a history of what Christians were doing, but it didn’t seem right for devotional reading, which often jumps to the top of my queue.

But then after my proposal was accepted and I got to be a co-creator at Wild Goose Festival, I saw that Kristin Du Mez was going to be there, too! And her new book, Live Laugh Love sounded similar, but talking more about “Christian femininity” than the focus on masculinity in Jesus and John Wayne. So I preordered the new book, and decided I really should get the old one read before the festival.

Well, I was halfway through Jesus and John Wayne when I went to Wild Goose Festival and got to hear the author speak twice. She talked about both books, and now I’m all the more eager to read the next one, which arrived on the publication date this week.

This is a history book about white evangelicalism in America, and how the movement got carried away with the idea of rugged masculinity epitomized by John Wayne.

The book starts with the early twentieth century and looks at people like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, and John Wayne. It finishes in 2020 and Donald Trump – who got support from 80% of white evangelicals.

Along the way, we see a turn toward rugged masculinity as the way God designed men and complementarianism as God’s plan for marriage, and overall structures of authoritarianism as God’s design for society.

I grew up pretty deep in evangelical circles. I attended Christian schools through college (I was a little disappointed that my alma mater, Biola University, wasn’t mentioned.), and went to Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts seminars before I was even a teen.

However, I got more and more progressive in my politics after college, and from 1996 to 2006, lived in Germany with my husband in the military – and thus completely missed the rise of Fox News and some of these other developments. Reading this book was fascinating to me, because so much was familiar, yet a lot I hadn’t noticed at all.

Another interesting thing to me was that while I was physically reading this book, a chapter at a time, I was listening to the audiobook version of Ibram X. Kendi’s latest book, Chain of Ideas, about right-wing political parties all over the globe. There were times when I was listening that I thought, “Yeah, they just mentioned that” – and I realized, no, I’d read about it in the other book (or vice versa).

This book also dovetails well with Sheila Wray Gregoire’s writings on marriage and Marissa Franks Burt’s writings on parenting, because both marriage and parenting are affected by the developing teaching that men are to be authority figures in the church and in the home.

It’s also interesting reading for me as someone coming out of evangelicalism, having my eyes opened to some trends I went along with and didn’t see. Sheila Wray Gregoire had already opened my eyes about books like Love and Respect, but this book helped me notice the militaristic background to John Eldredge’s writings that had blown right past me.

Back in 2016, I was incredulous that the same folks who told me that Bill Clinton should not be president because of his immorality were now supporting Donald Trump, who bragged about “not even asking” women before he sexually assaulted them. This book helped me understand the way the culture of evangelicalism and all its trends slowly changed so that Donald Trump epitomized exactly what people were looking for.

At Wild Goose Festival, the author explained that her editor told her she had to end on a hopeful note, but she had trouble coming up with anything. Here’s how the book finishes:

Although the evangelical cult of masculinity stretches back decades, its emergence was never inevitable. Over the years it has been embraced, amplified, challenged, and resisted. Evangelical men themselves have promoted alternative models, elevating gentleness and self-control, a commitment to peace, and a divestment of power as expressions of authentic Christian manhood. Yet, understanding the catalyzing role militant Christian masculinity has played over the past half century is critical to understanding American evangelicalism today, and the nation’s fractured political landscape. Appreciating how this ideology developed over time is also essential for those who wish to dismantle it. What was once done might also be undone.

You’ll find detailed, well-researched history here, supported with 32 pages of small-print citations at the back. As someone who grew up in that world, I gained wider understanding of how it morphed to what it is today. I can’t wait to read her next book, focusing on women!

kristindumez.com

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Review of Holloway, by Elana K. Arnold

Historical, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Holloway

by Elana K. Arnold

Clarion Books, 2026. 330 pages.
Review written September 11, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

After I heard Elana Arnold speak about this book at the National Book Festival, I put it on the top of my TBR pile. I’m going to call it Historical fiction, but it could also be called Paranormal or Science Fiction.

Our protagonist is Nora, an autistic teen whose senior year happened during the pandemic. Now she’s backpacking in France on her own in 2021, looking for a place to scatter her anti-vax mother’s ashes.

After a stranger disrupts her campsite, Nora wanders into a Holloway without her phone or her gear. When she meets a nice young man with a dog the next day, he agrees to take her to the village. There are some odd things along their journey. When Nora gets to the village and realizes that it’s 1946, she doesn’t respond calmly.

Nora gets taken to an asylum. As a reader, I thought that was a disaster and the book would be about escaping. I’d heard in the National Book Festival talk that the asylum was a real place, and the characters Nora meets were real people – patients and staff – who lived there.

There are no locks on the doors of the asylum, and it turns out to be a place of refuge, as something called “asylum” should be. Nora meets people who are also dealing with losses and horrors from the past year. She realizes that her mother had long been trying to make Nora act like everyone else, and Nora’s learning what it means to be herself. The result is immersive, thoughtful, and beautiful.

Maybe time, like love, isn’t a straight line. Maybe it’s a curve and an arc and a spiral, too. Maybe it’s a cord wrapped around the neck of a half-birthed child. Maybe time is a cave, so deep there seems no end. Maybe it’s a constellation, each moment a sharp bright point, revealing its meaning only if one can step back, back, back again – or in, closer and closer, and closer, still. Maybe time is a breath, held and released.

elanakarnold.com

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Review of Mary Morland in the Time of Dinosaur Discovery, written by Jane Kurtz, illustrated by Giselle Potter

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Mary Morland in the Time of Dinosaur Discovery

written by Jane Kurtz
illustrated by Giselle Potter

Beach Lane Books, 2026. 48 pages.
Review written September 18, 2026, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

Mary Morland in the Time of Dinosaur Discovery is a picture book biography of a woman scientist who didn’t get much credit in her time. It’s told in a conversational style.

Mary Morland was born in a time of ribbons and lace, when small girls were seen as dainty, delicate decorations to make a room pretty.

Did she perch on her chair like a prim little miss?

Well, what would you do if the whole world was waiting outside?

Mary tromped around, exploring.

Wouldn’t you?

We learn how after Mary’s mother died, she went to live with a scientist and journaled about his collection of fossils and shells and went to discover her own. She sent specimens and drawings to a famous scientist, impressed him, and started a correspondence.

Then she met and married a man also interested in fossils. She did drawings for him, organized his collections, and helped with his work.

Did William say, “I am so fortunate that my wife is not a cork brain”?
Did he say, “Let us make sure your name is on these papers so the world will know your part?”
Did he say, “Without you, my dear, my work would be a shemozzle”?

No.
No, he did not.

In those days, women couldn’t vote, couldn’t own property, couldn’t go to college.
Mary did important work for science, but she worked in the shadows.

The Author’s Note at the back explains that it’s mostly through the writings of two of her children that we know how much Mary contributed to the work that her husband got credit for. This book shines light on those contributions in a way that children can understand and enjoy.

I think my favorite spread is about Mary’s housekeeping. (It pictures nine children – I would have liked details in the back matter, but I did get the idea.)

Mary chose to be in charge of a household of chaos.
Every room was stuffed with science books and papers and dusty rocks. One time, she said, she tried to clean things up.

Never again.

If you tiptoed down the hall, past cages full of snakes and green frogs, would you see an elegant and neat dining room?

Not at all.

Is that a pony running around the table with three of Mary’s laughing children on its back?

Yes. Yes, it is.

janekurtz.com
gisellepotter.com

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Review of Kaho’olawe, by Kamalani Hurley and Harinani Orme

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Kaho’olawe

The True Story of an Island and Her People

written by Kamalani Hurley
illustrated by Harinani Orme

Millbrook Press, 2025. 32 pages.
Review written February 4, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Asian/Pacific American Literature Pasifika Picture Book Award Winner

I read this book because it won the Asian/Pacific American Literature Pasifika Picture Book Award – and I wasn’t prepared to learn a story that’s completely new to me.

It turns out, there’s an island named Kaho’olawe in the middle of the Hawaiian Islands that was used for target practice by the U. S. Navy for over fifty years, beginning the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

But this book doesn’t start with that. It begins when the island was formed, and tells us about early settlers and abundant growth on the island. And it tells how, even before the bombs, bringing goats to the island devastated its natural habitat.

Twenty years after the U. S. military took over the island, people started protesting. Many pages of the book are taken up with their brave and peaceful protests to restore and heal the island.

But when the military moves out,
it leaves a terrible mess behind!

Debris from the bombings litters the land
where plants and grasses used to grow.
Kaho’olawe’s reefs are covered in red dirt, and
marine animals and plants struggle to live there.

Kaho’olawe endures.

The book goes on to tell us about the volunteers who lovingly are still working to restore the island.

There’s a lot of love and hope in this book, with facts backing it all up in smaller print. An inspiring winner.

kamalanihurley.com
harinani.org

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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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Review of One Mad Cat and the Missing Book, by Vicky Fang

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

One Mad Cat and the Missing Book

by Vicky Fang

Candlewick Press, 2026. 58 pages.
Review written September 16, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I’m writing this review in honor of my six-year-old great-nephew Hayden, whom I recently met for the first time, and who is learning to read. This book achieves that tricky combination of simple language, lots of picture clues for decoding, and an engaging story with a fun plot twist at the end to reward the beginning reader.

Best of all, there’s a #1 on the side of this book, so it’s the first book in a series.

In this book we meet Cat. She is mad. We learn the things she doesn’t like (with pictures): toys, hugs, and jokes. Then there’s a whole spread with other things, and small pictures: dust, noise, parties, wall-to-wall carpeting, bad art, rain, sock puppets, stripes, sneezing, car trips – “Well, you get the idea.”

The only things Cat does like are
snacks,
naps,
and puzzles.

Oh, and her friends!

So when one of her friends, Hedgehog, has a missing book, Cat sees it as a puzzle she can solve. She asks questions and finds clues. She even diagrams a little map of how to get through her school to the library. Some of the things she finds along the way make Cat mad, but she keeps looking to help her friend.

And when Cat solves the puzzle, it’s a surprise for everyone. But we’re not surprised when Cat gets mad about it.

There are six chapters in this small book with about five spreads per chapter, and not a lot of words in each spread. It’s the perfect opportunity for a kid just beginning to sound out words to read a real chapter book. Maybe with a little help, but with enough clues that they’ll probably be able to do it themselves the second or third time around. And this is one that the parents won’t get sick of hearing. In fact, like the best beginning readers, it’s one that older kids will enjoy for the story, even if they already know how to read.

vickyfang.com

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Review of Work in Progress, by James Martin, SJ

Biography, Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Work in Progress

Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest

by James Martin, SJ

HarperOne, 2026. 352 pages.
Review written June 11, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I just finished reading a book by the same author about the life of Jesus – in the context of the author’s trip to the Holy Land. It was packed full of spiritual insights and meaningful applications from the Bible and blessed me on every page. This book was completely different.

Don’t get me wrong – Fr. Martin is a great writer, and I enjoyed this book thoroughly. But it’s a memoir about growing up in Philadelphia – and all the different jobs he tried and what he learned from them. Yes, there’s some wisdom along the way (mostly what he didn’t learn as a kid) – but this is a just plain fun story.

The subtitle gives you a hint at the variety of jobs he covers. And he tells about them with a full dose of humor at the kid he was, doing good work, but mainly wanting to have a good time.

I enjoyed the stories – beginning with when the Bicentennial Wagon Train went by the Ice Cream Inn where he was working, he cleared all the tables while the customers were out watching it, not realizing what was going on. Fr. Martin is apparently only a few years older than me, so I remembered being young during those same years.

Honestly, there were few hints that this kid – who he freely admits was partying, drinking, and smoking pot – would end up becoming a priest. He covers that calling in the last chapter, and yes, we get some spiritual insights to go with the fun there.

But mainly this is a story of student jobs in the America of the 70s and 80s – in the hands of a skilled and personable writer. A lot of fun to relive the escapades with him.

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Review of Like Glass, by Jen Ferguson

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Like Glass

by Jen Ferguson

Heartdrum, October 6, 2026. 322 pages.
Review written July 10, 2026, from an Advance Reader Copy.
Starred Review

A year ago, Tatum Nova Lambert’s big sister, Bronwyn Moonbeam, died of a brain aneurysm in Chamonix, in the French Alps. Their father, a world-class chef, decided to open a restaurant there in her honor. Now Tatum has come to Chamonix over Spring break for the opening of the restaurant – and to get her father to come back to Toronto.

It doesn’t begin well: He forgets to pick her up from the bus station. They’re staying in what used to be Bronwyn’s apartment, and Tatum finds Bronwyn’s necklace there – the one they buried with her sister. Her father doesn’t really talk with her, he grew out his beard, and Tatum’s pretty sure he’s drinking again.

But as Tatum explores Chamonix, she meets people who help her gain perspective. There’s Beetle, the kid who pickpocketed the necklace before she confronted him and got it back. And then there’s Agatha, who’s training to be on the U.S. Olympic Team as a ski jumper. Agatha gets her. But how much trouble will she get into if Tatum knocks her out of her training schedule?

This isn’t a gripping plot book, but it is, like all Jen Ferguson’s books, nuanced and meditative and full of people you enjoy spending time with, including queer people and people with indigenous heritage.

It’s also about Art and about Identity. Tatum’s art teacher back home doesn’t think her art is Native enough. But what does that even mean? And how does he, with settler heritage, have any right to say that?

And it’s about Grief. Bronwyn was never good about answering Tatum’s postcards, and Tatum’s finding out all she didn’t know about her sister’s life.

I like the way the book comes together at the end, though I won’t give away the many threads that involves. They aren’t tied up in a neat bow, but Tatum got some good interior work done on her trip, and it was a pleasure to get to bear witness to it.

jenfergusonwrites.com

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