Review of Beauty, by Robin McKinley

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

coverBeauty

by Robin McKinley
read by Charlotte Parry

Recorded Books, 2013. (Print book originally published in 1978.) 7 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written July 29, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

As part of #Sonderbooks25, celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks, I’ve been rereading books by one of my very favorite authors, Robin McKinley. When doing so, I was surprised to discover that I’d never written a review of several of her books – turns out I read them before I began writing Sonderbooks in 2001. Now, I do own copies of every one of them – but the easiest ones to fit into my queue were the ones my library has as eaudiobooks. I’m happy to say that, even after all these years, Beauty still has a holds list.

Beauty is a sweet retelling of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” – and is one of the books that made me realize I love fairy tale retellings. This was Robin McKinley’s debut book, and is a totally positive take on Beauty and her family. Even her sisters – who in the fairy tale are selfish and grasping and lazy – are wonderful and kind. After the family’s financial disaster, one sister’s fiance takes the family away to his home town by a magical forest – and they all build a good life together there. The other sister’s fiance was lost at sea along with their father’s ships, and the family has nothing but love for Beauty, the youngest.

This book was written long before it was acceptable to put sex into young adult novels, so the romance between Beauty and Beast is built on shared activities rather than blistering attraction – and indeed Beauty must overcome repulsion at the idea of him even touching her. This Beast is honorable and says he never would have killed her father – Beast would have sent him home if Beauty had refused to come – but he tells her that she would have been eaten up with guilt over sending him to what she thought was his death.

The book does not even broach the subject of Stockholm syndrome or how maybe Beast isn’t all that honorable if he’d deprive someone of their freedom. It doesn’t broach the vast disparity in their ages.

But what we’re left with is a sweet fairy tale with a heroine we can’t help but love. Yes, like the Disney version, Beauty loves to read. She also has a magnificent horse that only she can handle. And she’s someone who makes the best of things.

Read this book for a feel-good Happily-Ever-After tale. And it’s a great introduction to the grand mistress of fantasy’s work.

Note: It doesn’t look like the audiobook is currently available, but do check your local library.

robinmckinley.com

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Review of Incredibly Fast and Not at All Fun, by Tadgh Bentley

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Incredibly Fast and Not at All Fun

by Tadgh Bentley

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written August 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I love roller coasters, so the cover of this book made me laugh out loud.

Here’s the set-up, that takes up the first few spreads:

Many summers ago
the world’s first roller coaster
was invented almost entirely by mistake.

All Bear wanted was a quick
and easy way to get from
the stillness of home . . .

to the calm of his beehives.
One that avoided the hustle and bustle
of the chattering woods below.

Bear called his invention the Honey Runner.
It was a bit steep.

The corners took some
getting used to.
And it was way too fast.

But he needed the speed to get up the slopes.

During all of these, we see a beautiful autumn forest with roller coaster tracks popping up between a vertical pillar where bear lives and a place on the forest floor with his hives. The start of the track is a vertical drop from bear’s house. There’s another hill and a bend before the track ends.

To Bear’s great surprise, his neighbors – from squirrels to moose, want to try out his invention. And even though they scream with terror, they want to do it again! What’s going on?

Bear tries signs:

It is incredibly
FAST
not at all
COMFORTABLE
and definitely not
FUN

But that doesn’t work at all.

He tries making rules against screaming or riding at night. That also doesn’t work.

Then he tries making the ride even scarier, with loops and twists, but that only brings bigger throngs.

I don’t know if this will delight the hearts of people who, like Bear, don’t understand the appeal of roller coasters – but it delighted me. (I have a theory that if you are exposed to roller coasters when you are in junior high, when your good sense is outweighed by your desire to try new things that your friends are doing – you will love roller coasters forever. I was at that crucial age when I first went upside down in a roller coaster and decided that nothing could scare me after that.)

Bear finally gives up and leaves his invention to the forest creatures who keep swarming it – and finds a new location for his home and hives that have a waterfall between them.

Bear’s cluelessness in not understanding the love other folks have for fast rides is shown rather than told – and it’s a delight! Check this one out to see for yourself and your kids.

TadghBentley.com

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Review of Unclobber, by Colby Martin

Christian, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Unclobber

Rethinking our Misuse of the Bible on Homosexuality

by Colby Martin

Westminster John Knox Press, 2022. 218 pages.
Review written August 6, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I’ve owned this book for quite some time, and since I am attending Wild Goose Festival this coming September, and the author will be there – I wanted to make sure I finally got it read.

This book would have been helpful to me several years ago when I was thinking through the Bible’s teachings on homosexuality. As it is, I am so glad this resource exists.

My background is similar to Colby Martin’s – I grew up a conservative evangelical, and my life was about my faith. I did not become a pastor – because I was a woman, so of course not. He was a pastor at a large evangelical church, so when he started questioning his church’s blanket condemnation of gay people, he got fired.

This book tells about his journey. And in alternating chapters, he talks about the six “Clobber” passages in the Bible that are used to condemn homosexual people. And he makes a strong case that modern day readers are taking them out of context and not interpreting them in a legitimate way.

He didn’t come to this because of anybody in his life who was gay. He began researching the topic because it seemed like a discrimination issue to not allow same-sex couples to get married, whether or not you think it’s sinful.

I appreciate his approach, because I, too, felt in my heart that it wasn’t right to condemn same-sex couples, but wasn’t sure how to square that with the Bible. I like the way he looks at each passage and lays out the case that they are being misused.

I am at least twenty years older than Colby Martin, and this wasn’t as big an issue (or rather one I could ignore) in the churches I attended when I was young. As an adult, I gradually changed my way of thinking with the help of books like God Believes in Love, by Gene Robinson, and Paul Among the People, by Sarah Ruden.

I didn’t think it affected me, but when Caitlin Jenner came out as transgender, I thought it through and realized that I didn’t believe for a second that’s contrary to Scripture. I was glad I thought it through, because it wasn’t long after that when my own adult child came out as transgender. And a few years later, my home church decided to make it part of their church constitution that LGBTQ people are sinning. I wrote a whole blog series about why I think churches should welcome LGBTQ people, especially transgender people. I called it Transcending. I used some ideas from Austen Hartke’s, a transgender pastor’s, wonderful book, Transforming. My emphasis is similar to Colby Martin’s here. What does the Bible have to say about transgender people?

All of this ties in with a book I recently reviewed, Better Ways to Read the Bible, by Zack Lambert. If you are interpreting the Bible so it can be used as a weapon to clobber people, rather than to build people up with love, joy, peace, and the other fruit of the Spirit – then something is wrong with your interpretation. Colby Martin shows us how we can rightly divide the word of truth and also be more loving people.

colbymartinonline.com

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Review of Old Bones, by Aaron Elkins

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

Old Bones

by Aaron Elkins

Open Road, 1987. 209 pages.
Review written June 18, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review
1988 Edgar Award Winner, Best Mystery Novel

When I told my friend Paul that I was going to Mont Saint-Michel on vacation and had signed up for a tour of the bay, he told me I needed to read this book. So I bought myself a copy, and since it is paperback, I brought it on my trip, and it’s the first book I read.

Right at the start, someone dies by drowning when he gets stuck in quicksand in the bay when the tide comes in. That’s not the main mystery of the book, though. His family manor was in the area, and he had ordered his family to come visit, because he had something important to tell them.

But while the family is gathered, some workmen had come to update the cellar – and found a skeleton. Good thing Gideon Oliver, the Skeleton Detective of America, was speaking at a law enforcement conference in nearby St. Malo.

Gideon isn’t actually in law enforcement himself. He’s got a PhD in the study of bones, and, well, he has a habit of getting mixed up in detective cases. The cover informs me this is the fourth novel about him. But since he’s in town, he gets called in to consult on the case, and notices plenty about the bones that escapes the attention of others.

And the skeleton seems to be from 1942, when some of the family members were in the Resistance, and some… weren’t. Tensions are still high 45 years later.

But as Gideon is looking at the bones, there’s a present-day murder, as well as attempted murder, and more people almost die in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel.

When I went on the tour, we learned how to escape quicksand. I asked the guide if the scenario of getting stuck in quicksand is realistic, and she confirmed that it can happen. I was glad I was with a guide! (It was SO cool!) The tide comes in very quickly, but we got out right after it went from ankle deep to thigh deep – and we were right near the island at that point.

Besides the amazing setting, this is a cozy mystery with fun characters and an interesting puzzle with historical roots. I may look up more books in this series.

Oh, one funny thing: The cover says this was the 1998 Edgar Winner, which didn’t match the publication date. So I looked it up, and the cover is wrong, it won in 1988.

aaronelkins.com

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Review of Red Star Rebels, by Amie Kaufman

Audiobooks, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Red Star Rebels

by Amie Kaufman
performed by Max Meyers, Jessica Almasy, and a full cast

Listening Library, 2026. 7 hours, 33 minutes.
Review written August 14, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred review

The audio production for this book is amazing. It’s to the level of a radio play. There’s even a music soundtrack throughout. Occasionally, when the music turned happy in the romantic parts, it felt a tiny bit hokey, but mostly it dialed my tension way up. At one point I turned it off a couple times to make sure that machine sound wasn’t coming from inside my own home. This was a good thing – you’re completely immersed in the story. This one was hard to stop at any point in the story, and had me so riveted, it maybe wasn’t the best background listening if I was trying to do anything else. (But I didn’t miss any turns or get into any accidents while driving, so it all worked out.)

Red Star Rebels is set in a United Nations station on Mars – one of the last and lowest budget bases that was built on Mars. We have two viewpoint characters. First is Cleo, who got to Mars as a hitcher when she was trying to escape debt collectors after her for medical debt from the illness that killed her father. Since Cleo isn’t registered to be there, she’s got tricks for places to hide and stashes of food. And a pressure suit in case there’s ever an evacuation – because the system doesn’t know she’s there and rovers won’t wait for her.

Our second protagonist is Hunter Graves. He’s the billionaire grandson of the man who got to Mars first and put a compound there, breaking rules, but also breaking new ground. Hunter didn’t let his mother and sister know that he was coming, and used his money to keep them from finding out. He has just arrived at the UN station and wants to arrange passage to the Graves compound, but is told that a dust storm will make it impossible to travel for a few days.

And then an alarm goes off. A voice repeats a message in several languages that everyone needs to get to the evacuation rovers because a toxin has been identified in the air, and the station is going to be vented. Trouble is, Hunter wasn’t registered yet, so the system doesn’t know he’s there, so the evacuation rovers for visitors don’t wait for him. Fortunately for him, after he puts out a Mayday call (blocked by the dust storm from anyone outside the station), a girl with red hair wearing a pressure suit comes to him bringing a second pressure suit. (And on the audiobook, her voice sounds like it’s coming from a microphone in a suit.)

But after Hunter thinks this girl Cleo has saved his life, the station doesn’t start venting after all. In fact, some Rovers pull up to the station on the opposite side from where the evacuees left. A group of people enter the station and come to the command center. Cleo and Hunter hear them say there are six hours left before everything blows, and they see them doing something with the computer system.

Hunter and Cleo don’t make their presence known right away. Can they figure out a way to escape the station before it gets blown up to erase the evidence? And what, exactly, are these people planning?

There are different phases to the story as Cleo and Hunter grapple with changing situations, revisions in their information, and a dawning knowledge of what the intruders are planning to do.

Meanwhile, Cleo has every reason to hate anyone from the Graves corporation, who produced the medicine that her father needed and couldn’t afford. And Hunter has every reason to hate hitchers, since a group of them from “Mars For All” killed his father. Nobody has ever been there for them before, but they may need to rely on each other to get out of this alive.

I don’t want to say much more than that except that the tension doesn’t let up for a minute. When you think they’ve overcome one obstacle, something new happens to threaten them. But as they’re working for survival, it turns out they’re both good at thinking on their feet. Cleo’s knowledge of the base – from living in secret for months – is crucial, and so is Hunter’s knowledge of the computer systems used by all the bases on Mars. And it’s an awful lot of fun to hear about.

The story was excellent and made me believe that could be what life on Mars is like in forty years, including the part about rich people not caring about the lives of others, sadly. I’m going to strongly recommend if you read this book, do it via audiobook. The production was that good. Be prepared for high tension, though!

amiekaufman.com

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Review of Me & the Magic Cube, by Daniel Fehr, illustrated by Golden Cosmos

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

Me & the Magic Cube

by Daniel Fehr
illustrated by Golden Cosmos
translated from German by Marshall Yarbrough

NorthSouth Books, 2025. Originally published in Switzerland by NordSüd Verlag. 44 pages.
Review written October 27, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Like the book Ernö Rubik and His Magic Cube, written by Kerry Aradhya, illustrated by Kara Kramer, this picture book tells the story of Rubik’s Cubes, which I’m very surprised are still popular with kids. (My niece can solve one in less than five minutes!)

This one only mentions the inventor in passing, though. It takes a story approach to the topic, showing us three fictional kids who find a Magic Cube. I’m still calling this book nonfiction, though, because the book is primarily interesting facts about the cube, how it’s put together – and the beginning fundamentals about how to solve it. There’s a fantastic illustration of the cube all taken apart.

Like the curious kids portrayed in the story, this is a good choice for kids curious about the Magic Cube and who are interested in learning how to solve it.

And kids like my niece who already know how to solve it can learn lots of fun facts about the Magic Cube and how it’s put together.

northsouth.com

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Review of A Day Off School, by Oliver Jeffers and Kevin Waldron

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

A Day Off School

by Oliver Jeffers and Kevin Waldron

Philomel, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written August 12, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Herbie has the sniffles. He gets a day off school! Before his dad even checks on him, he eats breakfast in a sofa fort, plays Space Blasters, races his cars, draws a giant dinosaur, practices his yo-yo tricks, bounces a ball, and watches some cartoons. [Of course there are pictures to go with all of these activities.]

After lunch, everything seems boring. [I love the bored slump to his body in the pictures of his attempts at fun.]

Then… he starts thinking about school…

What if something really good happened there today?

Like an extra playtime?
Or a dog loose in the corridor?

From there, his imagination takes off. (And the pictures for this part are glorious.) So much so, that when his sister gets home, he wonders if that’s a space helmet hidden in her backpack from the rides the aliens gave the kids on their spaceship.

The next day, he gets to go back to school. It’s really boring.

Or is it?

As usual with Oliver Jeffers, the wild imagination presented in a matter-of-fact way strikes the perfect note. (Stuck is still one of my all-time favorite picture books.)

oliverjeffers.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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Review of One Word, Six Letters, by Adib Khorram

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

One Word, Six Letters

by Adib Khorram

Henry Holt and Company, 2026. 213 pages.
Review written August 11, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I’ve got a soft spot for Adib Khorram’s writing because his Morris-Award-winning debut novel, Darius the Great Is Not Okay, was published the year I was on the Newbery Committee. Although Darius did not win the Newbery (and is really more of a young adult book than a children’s book), it was a 2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out – in a year that I read ALL the best children’s and young adult books of the year and read most of them at least twice. So, yeah, I love his writing.

This book is about the effects of bullying language. The word referred to in the title is never printed on the page, but the cover tells us it starts with F and we know that one of the students is afraid people are saying it about him because they think he’s gay.

We’ve got two perspectives in this book, and both are presented in present tense, addressed to “you.” Usually I hate present-tense novels, let alone second-person – but Adib Khorram pulls it off, and it didn’t bother me a bit. I’ll give you a taste with the starting paragraph of each character.

For Dayton:

You know you’ve messed up when you get marched into the principal’s office.

For Farshid:

You’re so used to people saying your name wrong, you don’t realize it at first. After all, people have been messing up Farshid for as long as people have been saying it. Even the teachers who get it (mostly) right can’t quite do the ar, which is sort of halfway between air and are.

The situation is that both boys are freshmen in high school. They barely know each other, but have a class together. In an all-school assembly, a visiting poet was speaking, and a guy named Reggie bet Dayton to shout that word. Dayton wanted the $20 to buy some food (He hadn’t eaten breakfast.), so he did it. And it affected his whole school year. And Reggie never paid up.

Farshid wasn’t singled out by Dayton, but he’s afraid everyone was thinking of him. He insists to himself that he’s not gay. He focuses on lifting weights, working out, and watching his diet. His best friend, a girl named Nour, drags him to the Rainbow Coalition to show solidarity after the incident in the assembly. Farshid hopes people know he’s going as an ally.

Dayton gets in-school suspension the same time as another kid, named Brody. Dayton’s told to write an apology letter, and he knows he only did it for the bet – but no one else at school sees it that way. Dayton’s former friends don’t want anything to do with him, so his new best friend is Brody, who isn’t as picky about his language and doesn’t hold that mistake against him.

We go through the whole school year with these two boys. The incident has surprisingly long-lasting effects – which they eventually have to face up to.

And it’s all written engagingly, so you care about both boys, even the one who shouted the slur, as he learns a lesson about trying to repair your mistakes.

adibkhorram.com
fiercereads.com

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Review of Basket Ball, by Kadir Nelson

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Basket Ball

The Story of the All-American Game

by Kadir Nelson

Little, Brown and Company, 2026. 104 pages.
Review written August 10, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Like Kadir Nelson’s stunning We Are the Ship from many years ago, his oversize paintings of players are the stars of this book. The book is large and square, as big as a picture book, but packed with text that’s full of information. The detailed text is broken up with a large, magnificent painting on every spread, as if the players are standing there ready to throw you the ball.

He’s got information about how basketball was invented and how it caught on, how and why the rules changed, how it slowly became integrated, and the various leagues over the years. One section highlights star players over the history of the game.

There’s a chapter at the end about women’s basketball. My one quibble is I would have liked this information included with the rest of the book. The author did a good job covering the times when there were separate leagues for African Americans – it would have been interesting to mention how Women’s Basketball fit into that in the same timeline.

But that’s a minor quibble for this strikingly beautiful book. I make no secret that I’m not a sports fan – but reading this had me riveted. I learned much about basketball that I didn’t think I cared about before picking up this book.

kadirnelson.com

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Review of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Paranormal, Romance, Starred Review 0

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

by Sangu Mandanna
read by Samara MacLaren

Penguin Audio, 2022. 9 hours, 59 minutes.
Review written June 12, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’m so glad that after I read A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping, I looked for more books by the same author. This cozy paranormal romantasy is like a warm hug. Well, okay, it’s a somewhat sexy hug – but the main point of the book is feel-good warmth.

[As it happens, the love interest in both books was a handsome librarian. I can get behind that!]

As the book opens, Mika Moon is a witch who’s used to being isolated. The witches of Britain only get together every few months for a couple hours, and they change the location every time. Too much power in one place will attract attention, and that can lead to disaster.

But then she gets a job offer for a job she hadn’t been looking for. There’s a hidden house in the country inhabited by an older gay couple, a fifty-something lady caretaker, a handsome librarian – and three little girl witches. The adults are looking for a witch to teach the girls magic. They tend to have magical accidents and need to learn to control their power before a lawyer comes by the day after Christmas. The owner of the house is a witch herself who took these girls in, and she’s been in South America for quite some time. Or so Mika is told.

So there are all the ingredients of Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp. Two of the girls are easily won over, as Mika shares her love of magic, but the other is more challenging.

And the romance part is difficult. All witches are under a curse, or at least a spell gone wrong, and become orphans soon after their birth. Mika had a witch as her guardian, but she was raised by nannies and tutors whose memories were wiped when they figured out what Mika was. So Mika has spent her life moving from one place to another, never getting close enough so that people will find out what she is and want to use their magic for themselves.

And if the head witch of the local society finds out that four witches are living under one roof, Mika knows they’ll be split up. So it’s better to try not to get too fond of this feeling of family and home.

The characters filling the house help make this book the delight it is. Each of the girls has a personality, and all the adults have built a loving family for them. Mika herself shines with her love of magic and a desire to do good things with it.

sangumandanna.com

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