Review of Together We See, by Ari Tison

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Together We See

by Ari Tison

Farrar Straus Giroux, 2026. 310 pages.
Review written July 24, 2026, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

I suspect the publisher sent me Ari Tison’s new book because I was on the 2024 Morris Award Committee that chose her debut novel, Saints of the Household, as a finalist, and they knew I’d love it. They were right. I was already a huge fan of Ari Tison’s work, and I think she’s gotten even better with her second novel.

Ulá lives with her mother in Wisconsin, making plans for after high school. She’s excited to see her brother, coming home from time in Costa Rica, but is less than thrilled when their dad shows up along with him.

Their dad lives on Bribri territory in Costa Rica after years as an activist. As far as Ulá is concerned, he’s got a long history of not keeping his promises, and that’s reinforced when he gets a flight back to Costa Rica after only two days.

But then they get the news that he died of a heart attack only a couple days after going back. Ulá and her brother go to attend his funeral, in keeping with the Bribri ways. But then things turn up that suggest maybe his death wasn’t from natural causes as the police believe.

We end up with a gripping mystery, and a story about family and community, with plenty of historical background information about injustices against indigenous people in general, and Bribri people in particular.

There are chapters interspersed from the perspective of Ulá’s ancestors, watching over her, seeing what’s happening on the land.

And all of this is told about characters you quickly care about, with relationships that are complicated, as in real life.

And yes, as the cover hints, there are venomous snakes in this book.

aritison.com

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Review of My Bicentennial Summer, by G. Neri, illustrated by Corban Wilkin

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

My Bicentennial Summer

True Adventures from the Most Epic Family Road Trip of All Time

by G. Neri
illustrated by Corban Wilkin

Candlewick Press, 2026. 88 pages.
Review written July 21, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

First, sorry about not getting this read before the Semiquincentennial.

As he did in My Antarctica, G. Neri makes his own travels the center of this nonfiction story, illustrated with plenty of photos, but also illustrations drawn over them. However, this time the travels happened when he was a kid. His family took six weeks and drove and camped all across America in honor of the Bicentennial in 1976.

Now, I was twelve years old in 1976. (It looks like the author is just a bit younger than me.) I remember all the hype about the Bicentennial. It makes me a little sad that not nearly as much happened for the 250th. But our family didn’t do an epic road trip like this, and it was super fun to read about and remember the hype.

I love the way the author points out the people and the cool things they saw as they drove through so many states. He talks about the history behind the Bicentennial, the ideals of democracy that we’re still striving toward, and brings it together with fun things about his own experiences in a pop-up camper with his family.

The end result is that as well as reading a fun story that’s surprising in many places – and true – you also come away proud to be part of this great big, quirky, and diverse country. We’ve come a long way in fifty years, but we’re still an incredibly diverse bunch of people with interesting local traditions in every part.

gregneri.com

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Review of This Story Might Save Your Life, by Tiffany Crum

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

This Story Might Save Your Life

by Tiffany Crum
read by Julia Whelan and Sean Patrick Hopkins

Macmillan Audio, 2026. 10 hours, 39 minutes.
Review written July 15, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This audiobook had me riveted from start to finish. I was in the middle of things last night, and when I woke up in the morning, my first thoughts were about this book. I made sure I found times to snatch a listen until it was done.

The book is a tale of two best friends who run a podcast called “This Story Might Save Your Life.” One of Joy or Benny introduces a life-threatening situation, based on a true tale of survival, and the other one ad-libs ideas for what they would do to survive. With banter and lots of humor at the terrible ideas. They finish when the person who researched the story tells how the actual person survived or what experts say you should do to survive in such a case. The podcast is crazy popular because listeners can sense the spark of devoted friendship and respect between Joy and Benny, who met not long after college.

We can tell the book begins on a momentous day, because they call it “Day 1.” The sinister Santa Ana winds are blowing, and they do the start of a podcast together. Joy slips Benny a note to come back and talk with her alone, but we don’t find out why. The next day, Joy and her husband Xander, the producer of the podcast, are missing.

The mystery is this: Where are Joy and Xander? What happened to them? We’re fed information in an exquisitely suspenseful way. Alternate chapters go back in time by giving us excerpts from a memoir Joy was writing with Benny about their friendship. I don’t dare say anything about the crucial developments in the story, because the author so expertly feeds us background and current information at exactly the right pace.

I will say some things we learn right at the start. Joy has narcolepsy, and has had it since high school. She takes a wide variety of medicines to manage it, but she still is known to fall asleep anywhere. This human failing of Joy’s makes her all the more likable from the beginning.

We also learn that the previous year has been tough. Their podcast is wildly popular, and Xander’s trying to arrange a lucrative deal with a production company. But Joy has had a stalker. She hasn’t left her house in six months. There are references to difficult things that happened, but we don’t get the details right away.

And Benny feels terribly guilty about what he said to Joy when they met at her house the night before she disappeared. What did he say? Does it have to do with her disappearance? And where are they now? And why is he hiding Joy’s computer from the police?

I wish I could say more! But when the plotting is just so very good, I don’t want to risk messing it up. I read in Libby that there are some extras on the audio version – the podcast that came at the end of the book is a fun bonus. And there are some nice sound effects thrown in. They include different people’s voices calling in to a Tipline about the missing people. So I’m going to recommend listening to this book if you get the chance.

tiffanycrum.com

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Review of Zebra and Yak: The Backwards Alphabet Book, by Paul Friedrich

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Zebra and Yak

The Backwards Alphabet Book

by Paul Friedrich

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025. 48 pages.
Review written May 4, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This picture book is the kind of clever idea that makes you surprised you haven’t seen it before.

The book begins, “Are you ready to start the alphabet? Let’s go!” When you turn the page, you see “Z is for Zebra.”

There’s a cartoon picture of Zebra on a lounge chair. He throws what I think is a table and a glass (might be a phone), and a speech bubble says “What?” On the opposite page are four comic book panels of Zebra asking why he didn’t hear the cue of X for Xylophone.

The book continues with the narrator’s words in very serious type, and the rest in comic book format with hand-drawn speech bubbles. After Zebra explains how things should go, the narrator says:

Apple wasn’t around.
We’re starting with Z instead.

Zebra’s response: “This is ridiculous! We need to find Apple!”

On the next page, Yak, too, isn’t ready, because he hasn’t seen the x-ray machine.

The two of them wander through the alphabet backwards, with plenty more silly situations. At the start of the alphabet, they’re wondering what took so long.

When they finally get to Apple, he’s very upset that he thought this was happening next week, so he went on vacation. An Alligator deals with him.

So this is one of those silly books that benefit from looking at something old in a new way. It will be better for kids who already firmly know their alphabet – I’d hate to really mess up any future library pages being able to shelve books. (They should also be old enough to be okay with a sentient apple getting eaten.)

I found the book when I saw Zebra and Yak are featured next in a Backwards Counting Book. That doesn’t feel as unusual, but I’m guessing it will still be silly.

paulfriedrich.com

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Review of Better Ways to Read the Bible, by Zach W. Lambert

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Better Ways to Read the Bible

Transforming a Weapon of Harm into a Tool of Healing

by Zach W. Lambert

Brazos Press, 2025. 202 pages.
Review written July 15, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Better Ways to Read the Bible is full of beautiful wisdom – beautiful in the sense that it promotes love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and other fruit of the Spirit, as Zach says our Bible interpretation should do.

He starts by pointing out that everybody who reads the Bible interprets it. We don’t speak the same language or come from the same culture or time as when the Bible was written, so we can talk about “the plain reading of Scripture” – but we’re actually reading a translation during a time far removed from the original writers.

Everyone who reads and interprets the Bible does so with a set of assumptions about what the Bible is and how it’s supposed to work. This set of assumptions functions like a filter or a lens through which the reader attempts to make meaning. Although everyone reads the Bible through a lens (or set of lenses) – there is no neutral or unfiltered way to read it – many people are unaware that they’re doing so and have never stopped to take stock of the assumptions they bring to the text and how those assumptions impact interpretations.

I’m going to insert some of my own comments here. I accidentally learned about this back in the 1990s. I was reading books by George MacDonald and it dawned on me that George MacDonald, a man who clearly loved the Bible and knew it well, believed that hell is not forever. How could he possibly believe that? That’s not what the Bible says! And then I read the whole New Testament removing that filter – thinking Could this possibly be true?, and I saw how I could read passages completely differently. And focus on different passages, which with a fresh filter seemed to plainly say that all will be saved.

Or even when I was a teen and memorized John 9, where Jesus heals a blind man. The religious leaders say to the blind man, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” Even as a teen, I saw that those leaders were “proving from Scripture” – or their understanding of Scripture – that Jesus was not from God. It made me forever after be willing to question my interpretation.

And this book gives the reader tools for questioning their interpretations. He asks the reader to question the lenses they’re bringing to reading the Bible. He starts with lenses that cause harm (and he has plenty of examples from real people): “The Literalism Lens,” “The Apocalypse Lens,” “The Moralism Lens,” and “The Hierarchy Lens.”

And then he talks about four lenses that promote healing: “The Jesus Lens,” “The Context Lens,” “The Flourishing Lens,” and “The Fruitfulness Lens.” And yes! These chapters fill me with the joy of recognition. Back to applying it to where I first diverted from my Evangelical upbringing, I was told that believing in universal salvation was just wishful thinking, too good to be true. But isn’t our faith supposed to be good news? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

And yes, he applies that to people who have been rejected by churches. That doesn’t fit any of the healing lenses above.

The Bible has always been the church’s book. It belongs to the people and is best interpreted within a healthy and diverse community. That’s how I know that the lenses I’ve been talking about promote healing rather than inflicting harm. Not because a scholar said so or because I cracked some code, but because I’ve seen them bring healing, wholeness, and flourishing to our community at Restore for a decade.

So I highly recommend this book. If you’ve ever been harmed by someone’s use of the Bible, there’s healing here. And if you love the Bible, you’ll find reasons to love it more.

zachwlambert.org

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Review of The Last Best Quest Ever, by F. T. Lukens

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Last Best Quest Ever

by F. T. Lukens
read by Lindsey Dorcus

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2026. 11 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written June 5, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

F. T. Lukens’ stories are always full of magic and full of fun. This one features 17-year-old Ellinore, who is known in the kingdom as Ellinore the Brave, and has been winning the kingdom’s quest competitions since she was thirteen.

It all started when she was twelve and a reckless knight lured a giant magical bear into their village. After Ellinore picked up the knight’s fallen sword, the bear fell on her – and luckily for her, impaled itself on the sword. At her next quest, when she was thirteen, she was supposed to get rid of the golden dragon that was plaguing a village. Well, Ellinore befriended the dragon, whose name was Dave, and convinced him to hide out in a different place, only fly at night, and take out his penchant for practical jokes on Ellinore.

Dave gave her a golden scale to take back to the king, and since then, he helped her win further quests – finding ways to make deals and talk reasonably instead of hacking and killing.

But the pressure of the lying was wearing Ellinore down, so after she earned enough bags of gold to move her parents to a nice cottage by the sea, she decided she was going to retire from questing.

But then her twin brother Zig foolishly made a bargain with a couple of mages in a tavern. In exchange for a big bag of gold, Ellinore had to bring them the horn of the Elderbeast. The catch: If she doesn’t succeed in sixteen days, the mages will take her brother’s heart.

Zig can be annoying, but Ellinore will do anything to keep him alive. So she sets out on a quest to find the Elderbeast’s horn. She usually works alone, but this time, she ends up gaining some companions: her brother, who insists on coming along; Aven, the attractive second-best quester in the kingdom; a royal young lady who wants to learn from Ellinore the Brave; and a young bard who has a map that shows the whereabouts of the Elderbeast.

But there are multiple rivals and multiple obstacles, and as the clock is ticking (or rather the candle is burning), Zig gets weaker and weaker. But the trouble with going on a quest with other people is that she can’t let them find out she’s a fraud.

This book has all the fun things I’m used to from F. T. Lukens’ books – magic, adventure, friendship, romance, danger, a refreshingly queer-normative society, and characters I love spending time with. I think there’s still a couple of their books I’ve missed, so I will for sure be looking those up. Their books always leave me smiling.

ft-lukens.com

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Review of Notre-Dame, by Lynn Curlee

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Version 1.0.0
Notre-Dame

The World’s Cathedral

by Lynn Curlee

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written July 7, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here is another book by artist Lynn Curlee about one of the important structures of the world. Although it is illustrated with big, beautiful paintings, those accompany a full text, so this book is more for upper elementary and middle school readers than your usual picture book crowd.

Is it safe to say that most people who have seen Notre Dame de Paris love this cathedral? I don’t think it’s just me. I’ve visited it several times, and each memory of that place is precious. So my heart was broken when the cathedral burned in 2019.

This book begins with the fire, explaining how it happened and the heroic efforts to save as much as possible. Then it goes back and gives the history of the cathedral. I didn’t realize it was the first truly Gothic cathedral, and we get detailed explanations of what that means.

Gothic cathedrals are among the most complex and ambitious structures ever conceived. It is simply mind-boggling to realize that they were constructed completely by manual labor, without the aid of machines of any kind. There were obviously no computers for design work, mathematical calculations, or virtual modeling, and no electric, hydraulic, or steam-powered devices to make things easier. All they had were hand tools like chisels, mallets, handsaws, levers, winches, and pulleys. Building materials were transported by boat or by oxcart. Probably the most complicated device they used was like a big hamster wheel, large enough for several men to operate by walking inside, for hoisting heavy loads high into the air.

Notre Dame has been around for nine centuries, and was ransacked at different times and then restored and added to. The French Revolution left it in disrepair, but then Victor Hugo’s popular novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, aroused interest in restoring it. That restoration was when the gallery of chimeras was added – the wonderful gargoyles on the bell towers.

The book concludes by telling of the amazing restoration work after the fire, with paintings of workers suspended from ropes.

The catastrophe of April 15, 2019, and the campaign of reconstruction riveted the attention of people from all over the world. By almost losing it forever, we gained a new appreciation of Notre-Dame’s importance as the ultimate example of a Gothic cathedral. As a monument of three different eras – the Middle Ages, the nineteenth century, and now the twenty-first century – the newly refurbished cathedral has reclaimed its official place as the Cathedral of Paris, a symbol of France, a great milestone in the cultural heritage of humanity, and one of the most popular tourist attractions on Earth. And unofficially, more than ever before, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame may be celebrated as the World’s Cathedral.

This tribute to the World’s Cathedral makes you feel like you’re there.

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Review of Lady Tremaine, by Rachel Hochhauser

Fairy Tale Variant, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Lady Tremaine

by Rachel Hochhauser
read by Bessie Carter

Macmillan Audio, 2026. 12 hours, 42 minutes.
Review written June 30, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Oh, this one’s brilliant! I’ve made no secret that I love fairy tale retellings. This is something of a feminist retelling of Cinderella – with plenty of depth. I’m going to list it under Historical Fiction rather than Fantasy Fiction, because it takes out the magic in the tale, and looks at the plight of a twice-widowed woman in medieval times trying to protect her daughters.

The book is published for adults, not because of “adult” content, but because the focus is not the young women trying to find husbands, but the mother and stepmother in the tale.

And why did we not notice that Etheldreda Tremaine has a story? Woven through the present of the story, we get Ethel’s back story – how she met and married a man who loved her and they had two daughters, for whom she would do anything.

But when her husband died, his family was going to marry off her daughters and send them away without her, even though they were only 7 and 8 years old. So she found another man to marry, this one with a title.

She tried to be a mother to his motherless daughter, but the girl was resistant. After this husband died, Ethel was left with the estate – but no money to keep it up. His daughter Ellen had a dowry that she couldn’t touch until she got married.

Ethel and her daughters worked hard to put food on the table, but keep up appearances in order to keep the girls’ prospects for marriage open. Ellen? Not so much. She’s used to being a gentleman’s daughter and prefers to stay in her room, reading. As the book opens, Ethel is hunting with the falcon her first husband left behind. Her daughters are diligent – one keeping the books and managing sales of apples, with the other making skilled creations with her embroidery.

At first, I thought it was a simple up-ending of the tale with Cinderella shown to be actually the less hard-working sister. But it goes a lot deeper than that.

When Ellen gets invited to the ball, but her stepsisters don’t, Ethel has to dredge up things from her past to fix matters. But she’ll do anything for her daughters.

And then Ellen misses going to the ball with her stepsisters because she was supposed to make her own dress (with expensive materials provided) – and simply didn’t get it done. It’s not a godmother who helps her show up later, but she does get help.

It’s after Ellen seems to have gained the affections of the Prince that the story turns darker than the fairy tale. Ellen’s going to need her stepmother’s help, and Lady Tremaine is willing to go to the ends of the earth for her stepdaughter.

I can’t give anything away, but the ending is perfect and hugely satisfying – and leaves me with a look at the old fairy tale that I greatly prefer.

rachelhochhauser.com

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Review of Spindle’s End, by Robin McKinley

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

Spindle’s End

by Robin McKinley
read by Justine Eyre

Tantor Media, 2019. 12 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written May 31, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I was surprised to realize I never reviewed this Old Favorite on Sonderbooks. I was looking for Robin McKinley books the library has as eaudiobooks, thinking I’d be rereading books from the early years of writing Sonderbooks – and found Spindle’s End. It wasn’t until I looked for the old review on Sonderbooks that I discovered there wasn’t one. Amazon now tells me I purchased a hardcover copy of this book on May 5, 2000 – so I read it a year before I started writing Sonderbooks.

And I honestly hadn’t remembered how good it is! This time through was a delight. I loved the narrator – with a delightful English accent – much more than the narrator of my two favorite Robin McKinley books, The Blue Sword, and The Hero and the Crown. Am I so shallow that I require an English accent? I do think it seems appropriate for a fairy tale retelling. Anyway, I loved this narrator.

Spindle’s End is a very loose retelling of “Sleeping Beauty.” Very loose, with many significant details changed. I think the first time I read it, I couldn’t quite forgive those changes. This time, I knew they were coming, and I was simply caught up in the wonderful tale.

One significant change makes the story make a whole lot more sense – The evil fairy who curses the princess explicitly states that while she originally planned her curse for the princess’s 21st birthday, she could make it happen at any time. So this is why the princess must go into hiding.

I like the way the book begins by focusing in on 15-year-old Catriona, a young fairy learning from her aunt. She’s handed the baby princess and gets the responsibility of hiding her and bringing her home. Along the way, Catriona, who can talk to animals, gets help from animals who arrange to feed the baby.

And these are the sort of delightful details Robin McKinley has added to the fairy tale. The kingdom is packed full of magic, so much so that ordinary folks have ways of dealing with it to avoid the inconvenience of things transforming unexpectedly. First we focus on Catriona, bringing up baby Rosie as an ordinary village girl with the help of her aunt. Then as Rosie grows, the focus shifts to her, as her 21st birthday approaches and it appears that the evil fairy has finally found her.

The story is lovely, but you won’t find any princess passively waiting for a prince to save her. I like the way they subverted some of the fairy “gifts” bestowed at birth by, for example, not ever teaching Rosie to embroider, so her being supernaturally good at it wouldn’t be noticed. They didn’t have to worry about the magically perfect ringlets in her hair, because Rosie cut her hair short even as a small child.

So, yes, the frame of the fairy tale is there, but the delightful particularity comes entirely from Robin McKinley, who’s especially good at making characters who are far from perfect, but get you completely on their side. They work for their happily ever after, and you’ll be with them all the way.

robinmckinley.com

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Miriam and Her Dancing Shoes, by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, illustrated by Joani Rothenberg

Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Miriam and Her Dancing Shoes

by Sandy Eisenberg Sasso
illustrated by Joani Rothenberg

Apples & Honey Press, 2025. 40 pages.
Review written April 28, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Miriam and Her Dancing Shoes is a delightful expansion on the Bible story of the parting of the Red Sea.

The paintings that go with the book have rich, beautiful colors. The people are leaving Egypt, but still complaining.

“ENOUGH COMPLAINING!”
Moses held up his hands.

“TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU CAN AND HURRY!”
There was no time to argue,
no time for bread to rise.
The people carried bowls of
sticky dough on their shoulders.

But not Miriam!
She carried a timbrel
and her dancing shoes.

I love Moses’s response:

“Give me strength,”
sighed Moses.
“We are running for our lives,
not planning a party!”

But as the people are going through the Sea of Reeds after Moses parts it, they are afraid and begin complaining again. Moses is so far ahead, they can’t even see him. And of course Pharaoh’s army is behind.

So Miriam shouts for them to follow her.

FOLLOW MY DANCING SHOES.

And when they slip and slide and get stuck in the mud, she tells them to lift up their feet like they are dancing. She plays her timbrel, and they walk to the rhythm.

Moses looked back
and was amazed.

The people were following
Miriam’s dancing shoes and
the music of her timbrel.

They were not complaining.
They were not grumbling.
They were singing.
They were dancing!

Miriam assures him this is the song of freedom, the sound of hope.

And this whole wonderful story is told with glorious paintings. I’m now thinking of this old story in a completely different way.

There are nine pages of back matter at the end of this picture book. I had a hard time deciding whether to put the book in nonfiction with some other Bible stories or with the picture books. I ultimately decided on picture books because the story it tells is so wonderful, and I think it will find more readers.

The back matter includes a wonderful song, written and performed by David Sasso, which you can find at www.davidsasso.com/freedom-walks-in-dancing-shoes. It’s based on the book and uses paintings from the book, and listening to it added to my delight with the whole project.

There are also a couple of craft projects in the back, including “Make a Freedom Tambourine,” and then notes about the story of the Exodus and the history of traditions that have grown up around Miriam, the sister of Moses.

You don’t have to be Jewish or Christian to love this story.

rabbisandysasso.com
applesandhoneypress.com

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