Review of We Deserve Monuments, by Jas Hammonds

Award Winners, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

We Deserve Monuments

By Jas Hammonds

Roaring Brook Press, 2022. 375 pages.
Review written January 26, 2023, from a library book
2022 Capitol Choices Selection
2023 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent
Starred Review

We Deserve Monuments is about a Black lesbian teen named Avery who suddenly got uprooted from her home in DC at the start of her senior year of high school. Avery’s grandmother is dying of cancer in rural Georgia, and her mother decided that the family needed to be with her – never mind that the last time they visited was when Avery was five.

Mama Letty doesn’t even seem glad to see them. She calls Avery “Fish” because her lip ring makes her look like a fish on a hook. She’s prickly and isn’t exactly grateful for the family swooping down because she’s dying.

But other things go surprisingly well for Avery. The girl next door and her white friend take her under their wing, and she’s quickly got better friends than she had in DC, including the girlfriend she recently broke up with.

But there are complications. Avery learns for the first time about her grandfather who was killed by Klan members before her mother was born. And then it turns out those Klan members are related to her new white friend. And she is attracted to the girl next door, but has no reason to think those feelings are returned.

All this is going on while she’s trying to get to know Mama Letty, but learns about family trauma and hurt. And why can’t her mother and grandmother ever have a conversation without fighting?

I like the way the author shows us a family with lots of flaws but also lots of love.

Jashammonds.com
Fiercereads.com

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Review of Liturgies for Resisting Empire, by Kat Armas

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Liturgies for Resisting Empire

Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World

by Kat Armas

Brazos Press, 2025. 205 pages.
Review written January 24, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I’ve been reading this book slowly, a section at a time, as part of my devotionals over the last several weeks. I’m not sure I grasped everything, but I like the way it opened up my thinking and showed me how much of the way I look at the world is shaped by empire-building.

At the front and back of the book, there’s a liturgy, with an Invocation and Benediction – and prayers, reflections, and readings in between. Each chapter begins with an Invocation and Reflection – a folk tale from an indigenous people group – and ends with a Prayer of Resistance and a Benediction. Each chapter is about something in Empire to reject, and something in Christianity to embrace. For example: “Rejecting Lies, Embracing Reality,” “Rejecting Hierarchy, Embracing Kinship,” “Rejecting Dualism, Embracing Paradox,” “Rejecting Sameness, Embracing Wholeness,” “Rejecting Dominance, Embracing Connection,” and “Rejecting Violence, Embracing Peace.”

This is another book I’ve marked up with quotes for Sonderquotes. It’s full of food for thought, challenging assumptions I’d carried and didn’t even realize I was holding. Let me type out a few examples to give you the flavor, rather than trying to summarize:

But the Bible itself reveals a truth often overlooked: Divine wisdom is not confined to one culture or people. Many of the sayings in the Bible’s wisdom literature echo the insights of neighboring ancient societies. Take Proverbs 22:17-24:22, which parallels the Instruction of Antenemope, an Egyptian wisdom text dating back to at least the twelfth century BCE that offers guidance on how to live with humility, integrity, and care for the vulnerable. The Hebrew authors did not reject these principles but instead wove them into their sacred texts.

In doing so, they remind us that wisdom transcends boundaries, that truth can be found in unexpected places, even beyond our own traditions. This is a quiet decentering of exclusivity, a recognition that knowledge belongs to no single people. Instead, it is a gift to be shared and honored across cultures. Perhaps this is the heart of wisdom itself: an openness to learning from the “other,” without fear, in a sacred exchange that resists the grasping hand of empire.

The last chapter especially shows us how Jesus brought the opposite of empire.

When empire used the cross to subdue, Jesus used it to restore. This is restorative justice: healing through relationship and repair. In Christ, justice is not the hammer of empire but the mending of what is broken – the gathering of the lost, the lifting of the fallen, the restoration of dignity where it has been stripped away. The cross does not demand allegiance through fear but invites transformation through love.

And in this sacred reversal, reconciliation finds its true meaning. Enemies are no longer enemies; the estranged are drawn into belonging, woven into a community where love breathes life into existence. Christ’s self-giving redefines our very identity, calling us into a peace that heals and binds and makes whole. Here, in the shadow of the cross, we step into divine reality – a place where love transforms empires and grace redraws the boundaries of what it means to belong. Here, we find shalom.

I’m going to hold onto this book to read again – hoping more will sink in each time I read it. This book acknowledges that the Way of Christ is not the Way of Empire and helps us see the difference.

katarmas.com

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Review of The Corruption of Hollis Brown, by K. Ancrum

Award Winners, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Corruption of Hollis Brown

by K. Ancrum
read by Andrew Gibson

HarperCollins, 2025. 8 hours, 20 minutes.
Review written January 7, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
National Book Award Longlist

This book begins with Hollis Brown getting beat up. He starts fights on purpose – knows how to say what will set people off – but this one got him hurt pretty bad. His only friends are two other seniors, Annie and Yulia, but they’ll be going off to college at the end of this year. They live in a small town with a defunct factory where everyone’s too poor to leave. Hollis’s own father is rarely home because he’s working in the city.

And then something strange happens when the seniors decide to spend the night in the abandoned part of town that’s reportedly haunted. Annie’s ex-boyfriend, whom she just broke up with, gets stabbed. And Hollis gets blamed for it because the guy was mad he was there with Annie, and Hollis was the only one with enough presence of mind to take him to the hospital. At that point, I thought the book was going to be about whatever mysterious thing was going on in the abandoned part of town.

And then – after Hollis cries in the woods about the unfairness of it all – he meets a strange boy who appears to be homeless and gives the boy his coat. After Hollis agrees to meet the guy again – a spirit comes out of the stranger’s dead body and inhabits Hollis’s body.

Hollis can’t control his body at all. He can talk to the spirit and tell him to wipe his shoes before he goes into the house and faces Hollis’s mother. But nothing else.

The spirit – whose name is Walt and turns out to have grown up in the same town a long time ago – has ideas about how Hollis should dress and act. He even gets Hollis making new friends. But at night, when Walt is asleep, Hollis works on controlling his own hand. If he can just reach his phone without waking up Walt….

But things from there continued to not go as I expected. As Hollis and Walt slowly come to know and understand one another, situations change.

Ultimately, this is a book about love and friendship and hope. But comes at it with an approach like nothing I’ve ever read before.

kancrum.com

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Sonderbooks25 – 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs

Sonderbooks25 0

It took me a long time, but I’ve finished reading all the reviews I wrote in 2004 and made a new phone-friendly webpage of the 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

I began #Sonderbooks25 at the start of 2025 – celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks by revisiting my old Stand-outs. My original plan was to just go over the reviews of the Stand-outs and choose one book to reread from each year. But, well, it got out of hand. I read all my reviews posted in 2004. They cover Sonderbooks #70 through Sonderbooks #90. This was before I started the blog – or had even heard of blogs – and was posting ezine “issues” every two or three weeks.

And ah! 2004! This was the year before my then-husband started his affair and my life blew apart. I’ve also reread my posts about that year in Project 52 – this post about the start of 2004, and this post about the second half of 2004. There’s a super painful side to those posts, as I was so clueless that my husband was on a path out of our marriage – but on the other hand, it was a wonderful reading year!

I read some fabulous books that year. I’m envious of my past self only working half-time and having significantly more time to read.

I’ve been mostly rereading Stand-outs I can find as eaudiobooks with my library system. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke was the one book I chose to reread for this project, and ended up being a little disappointed, as you can read about in my new review. I also reread Sabriel, by Garth Nix, which was not disappointing, though I haven’t posted the new review yet. And I reread all the Picture Book Stand-outs, and was rather impressed that they lasted well enough that my current library system still has a copy of each one of them.

But oh my goodness, there are so many books I want to reread from that year! Little by little, I’m planning to work a few of them into my future reading, even though this project will move on to my 2005 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

But I’ve gotten great joy out of reading those old reviews. It reminds me of a great joy of my life – reading – at a time when I was young and happy. I’m so glad I started writing Sonderbooks and can relive what those books meant to me. And let me encourage you to browse those 2004 Stand-outs – you might find some new favorites of your own. For the most part, these ones have stuck with me, and it was a treat to revisit that joyful part of my life.

Review of All the Blues in the Sky, by Renée Watson

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

All the Blues in the Sky

by Renée Watson

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025. 182 pages.
Review written January 27, 2026, from my own copy, given to me at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.
Starred Review
2026 Newbery Medal Winner

I was happy when the Newbery Medal Winner was announced – and it was a book sitting by my bed in one of my TBR piles, signed by the author. And yes, I’d heard the author speak before I got it signed at ALA Annual Conference, and I was very excited about reading it.

I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t read it yet. (So many books, so little time! I wanted to read it right away, but there are so many books in those piles, plus award reading, plus I just blew it.)

However, the good side was that it made perfect Snow Day reading. In between walks in the snow, I lounged by the fire, and as a novel in verse, it wasn’t long before I had this beautiful book read.

Here’s the first page of the text:

I didn’t know
best friends could die.

Yes, this is a book about grief. The narrator is Sage, and on her thirteenth birthday her best friend was walking to her house and was hit by a car and died.

Sage is in a grief group after school with four other kids. Two of them lost a loved one suddenly, and two lost a loved one slowly, after a long process. Sage feels like that’s not the same, since she didn’t get a chance to say good-by.

But there are ups and downs after loss. And sometimes the sadness and happiness come at the same time. Sage wants to be a pilot, and she’s going to a program about learning to be one, and she thinks about all the different shades of blue in the sky – and all the different shades of grief.

The poetry in this book is beautiful. We feel with Sage, grieve with her, but also rejoice with her. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself shedding some tears while reading it. (Especially at the rejoicing with her part.) And the book brings us to a place where we know she’ll be able to carry on, feeling all the emotions.

An Author’s Note at the back tells us that Renée Watson lost fifteen people she loved, including her mother, in the space of two years. This didn’t surprise me, because she brings authenticity to the story. And ultimately, hope. She ends the Author’s Note and the book like this:

I hope this book gives every reader permission to feel real emotions, to admit when life is hard.
I hope this book reminds every reader that in the midst of sadness and grief, there can be joy and goodness.

And Renée models that – because out of her own deep loss, she brought forth this wonderful book.

reneewatson.net

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2026 Youth Media Awards!

Award Winners 0

Today the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards were announced!

For the last couple years, I’ve done a program for other Youth Services librarians in February, highlighting award winners – so for this month I’m going to try to madly read the winners I’ve missed. But I did want to take a moment to celebrate the wonderful books I did read and love before they got their due recognition.

The picture above is the wonderful way I spent a bit of my snow day – reading the Newbery Medal winner, All the Blues in the Sky, by Renee Watson. I was given a signed copy last June at ALA Annual Conference, and fully meant to read it, but it didn’t have a due date! So that way it was all ready for me to read today.

But which ones did I catch? First, I love that I had a review of the Sibert Medal Winner, Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa, by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal, all queued up to post today.

Another book that I only recently discovered was Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, André: André Leon Talley – A Fabulously Fashionable Fairy Tale, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders, illustrated by Lamont O’Neal.

But how did my 2025 Sonderbooks Stand-outs do?

First, I’m super happy about the success of my #3 Stand-out in Teen Speculative Fiction, Legendary Frybread Drive-in, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. This book won the Michael L. Printz Award and the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book and an Odyssey Honor for audiobooks.

Another triple winner was Candace Fleming. Not only did she win the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award for her latest book (My #2 Stand-out in Teen Nonfiction), Death in the Jungle, she won YALSA’s Margaret Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults and ALSC’s Children’s Literature Legacy Award for a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.

And a double winner was Whale Eyes, by James Robinson, my #1 Stand-out in Children’s Nonfiction, which won the Schneider Family Young Adult Award and an Odyssey Honor for audiobooks. (Since a strength of that book was how he showed you what it’s like to see the way he does – I really wonder how they pulled that off in an audiobook.)

Another double winner was my #2 Sonderbooks Stand-out in More Teen Fiction, Sisters in the Wind, by Angeline Boulley, which was a Printz Honor Book and an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book.

The rest of my Stand-outs that won things won only one thing each. Let me go by category:

Last year’s #8 in Speculative Teen Fiction, Sheine Lende, by Darcie Little Badger, was also an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book. (These are given in even years.)

Another Printz Honor went to Song of a Blackbird, by Maria van Lieshout, a book I reviewed and loved but didn’t quite make my Stand-outs list.

#5 in Children’s Speculative Fiction, The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, by Aubrey Hartman, was a John Newbery Medal Honor Book.

#2 in More Children’s Fiction, The Teacher of Nomad Land, by Daniel Nayeri, was also a John Newbery Medal Honor Book.

#3 in More Children’s Fiction, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze, by Derrick Barnes, was a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book.

#9 in Children’s Nonfiction, The Book of Candles: Eight Poems for Hanukkah, written by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Leanne Hatch, won a Sydney Taylor Silver Medal for Picture Books.

#2 in Picture Books, the brilliant Every Monday Mabel, by Jashar Awan, was a Randolph Caldecott Medal Honor Book. (I got a signed copy of that at ALA!)

#8 in Picture Books, Chooch Helped, by Andrea L. Rogers, illustrated by Rebecca Lee Koonz, won last year’s Randolph Caldecott Medal, and this year’s American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book. (These are given every other year.)

And my Stand-outs are not selected for the art alone, so I am indeed delighted with this year’s Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner, my #9 Sonderbooks Stand-out in Picture Books, Fireworks, by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien.

Yes, I did need a moment of silence for my Sonderbooks Stand-outs that did not win any awards today – but all of them have my deep love. And all of the choices are truly wonderful. So it’s worth taking time to celebrate these amazing books. Huzzah!

And for the next month, you can expect to see more reviews of award winners – and they may well show up on next year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Review of Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa, by Sara Andrea Fajardo, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa

by Sara Andrea Fajardo
illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Roaring Brook Press, 2025. 40 pages.
Review written January 23, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review
2026 Robert F. Sibert Medal Winner

I checked out this book because it was listed on Horn Book Magazine‘s Calling Caldecott blog as a possible contender for the Caldecott Medal (which will be announced on Monday, January 26). And wow! I’d be delighted if it shows up as an honoree (even if my personal favorite is still Cat Nap, by Brian Lies).

Edited on January 26 to add: Hooray! Today this book won the Robert F. Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book for children! (I’m a little sad Cat Nap didn’t show up in the awards – but very happy about this one.)

This is a picture book biography, and the illustrations, done by a previous Caldecott honoree, are wonderful, making us feel like the featured Alberto Salas is a friendly uncle, foraging through a beautiful countryside.

But his story is also amazing. Alberto Salas was on a decades-long quest to find wild potatoes (papas) in the Andes mountains of Peru before they were gone. Since he was from the mountains himself and spoke both Spanish and Quecha, he could ask locals for help and was better than anyone else at finding specimens.

Alberto brings specimens to the International Potato Center genebank.

Scientists study each papa’s superpowers and create new varieties that can grow everywhere, from salty swamps to icy mountain peaks, maybe even one day on Mars.

But potatoes are under threat. Temperatures are rising, bringing insects and diseases that devour them.

Alberto’s goal is to find them all – and protect them – before they’re lost for good.

The main story is told simply, explaining the importance of these potatoes and Alberto’s skill. Then eight pages of back matter fill in details.

And have you guessed? “Paka Paka” is hide-and-seek. Alberto keeps a playful spirit and plays hide-and-seek with the native potatoes – and everyone wins.

sarafajardowrites.com
juanamartinezneal.com

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Review of The Queen’s Secret, by Jessica Day George

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Queen’s Secret

Rose Legacy, Book Two

by Jessica Day George

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2019. 250 pages.
Starred Review

This is the second book in a planned trilogy about a land of exiles where people can communicate with horses. And our heroine, Anthea, has an especially strong bond, able to communicate with all the horses, not only Florian, the stallion who’s bonded to her.

I enjoyed this book more than the first one. In that one, the set-up of magical telepathic communication with horses seemed a little bit too much like generic wish-fulfillment.

In this book, the set-up is done, and I enjoyed seeing the people and horses trying to work together. The horse communication seems horsey, not just the thoughts of people attributed to horses.

The Horse Brigade has the favor of the queen – but the king is not so easily won over. As the book opens, they are trying to prove themselves by carrying messages and trying to be useful in the king’s service. However, as things develop, it appears that someone is working against them.

Then an outbreak of illness starts – in the exact places where the horses had been. For a country that already thought horses bring disease, trying to win support for the Horse Brigade just became much more difficult.

The book does end on a disastrous note. We will have to wait for the next book to see how Anthea and the horses of Last Farm can overcome a major setback.

These books are perfect for fantasy-lovers who also love horses. It takes the idea of becoming one with your horse to the next level.

jessicadaygeorge.com
Bloomsbury.com

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Review of The Lost Bookshop, by Evie Woods

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Historical, Paranormal, Romance 0

The Lost Bookshop

by Evie Woods
read by Avena Mansergh-Wallace, Olivia Mace, and Nick Biadon

One More Chapter (HarperCollins), 2023. 12 hours, 1 minute.
Review written December 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I put a hold on The Lost Bookshop because of how much I enjoyed the author’s The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris. This one was very similar, and I also enjoyed it. In both, we’ve got one historical thread combined with a romance in the present, and the perspectives of both the man and woman involved in the romance, plus the perspective of the character in history whose actions affect the present.

Our characters in this book start with Opaline, in the early twentieth century, whose brother was forcing her to marry a man she hadn’t even met after their father died. Opaline flees to Paris, and there starts working with Sylvia Beach in the famous Shakespeare & Co. bookshop. She later moves to Dublin and starts her own bookshop – until her brother gets her committed to an insane asylum.

In the present, we’ve got Martha, who’s fleeing her abusive husband and looking for a job in Dublin. She lands a job as a housekeeper for an eccentric old woman in a historic home. Then one day she sees Henry scrutinizing her windows and thinks he’s a peeping Tom. But he is looking for a bookshop with an address right next to her house – that doesn’t seem to exist. But Henry is a rare book dealer and has a letter that says that bookshop has Emily Bronte’s lost second manuscript.

One thing leads to another, and you can tell where it’s going – but it’s fun. Opaline’s story – in Paris and especially in the insane asylum – is riveting.

I have to say that this book had more paranormal elements than The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris – and for me this one crossed the line into unbelievability. It wasn’t only the bookshop that only appears to those who need it (or true believers? or something), but also mysterious otherworldly messages, and several more things.

However, despite a few too many paranormal bits for my taste – I still enjoyed these characters. Henry always seems to say the wrong thing, but he’s earnest and kind. Martha fleeing a truly horrible abusive situation had all my sympathy as well. (I saw my ex-husband for the first time in a decade when I was in the middle of listening to this book and was reminded of how we program ourselves to love someone, and that’s hard to turn off, even when their behavior means they don’t deserve or want your love any more. Not that mine was as bad as Martha’s husband. But still, she had my sympathy.) And Opaline’s situation was also fascinating in an awful way, tying in with what I’d read in Ten Days a Madwoman, by Deborah Noyes. It wasn’t all that long ago that men could lock women up in insane asylums.

Fortunately, this story ends happily for all our main characters. This is a feel-good romance, a little too enthusiastic with the paranormal elements, but you can be sure that all the stars align for them in the end.

eviewoods.com

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Review of Here Comes Lolo, by Niki Daly

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

Here Comes Lolo

by Niki Daly

Catalyst Press, 2020. Originally published in 2019 in Great Britain. 78 pages.
Review written November 27, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

I read these beginning chapter books about Lolo out of order, and still love every one of them. This is the first one, where Lolo is introduced. She lives with Mama and Gogo (her grandmother) in South Africa. As all good beginning chapter books, the stories about Lolo reflect the interests of a young child beginning to learn to read. What’s fun about Lolo is that living in South Africa makes her concerns a little different than they might be if she were an American child — yet her personality and adventures are relatable.

There are four short stories in the book:

“A Gold Star and a Kiss for Lolo” is about her desire to win a gold star for reading from her teacher, but the setback that happens when she does.

In “Lolo’s Hat,” Lolo falls in love with a floppy hat in a shop window — but it isn’t there when she and her Mama go back for it.

“Lolo and the Lost Ring” begins like this:

Whenever Mama, Gogo, and Lolo went for a walk, Mama would look up and say, “I love the clouds against the blue sky.” Gogo would look around and say, “I love those trees,” or “What a nice dress that woman is wearing.” Stuff like that.

Lolo liked looking at the ground where flowers grow and where there were cracks to jump over on pavements.

And that’s where she found it: a ring lying in a crack in the pavement!

“Lolo and a Dog Called Hope” is about a dog that lives next door and is being mistreated. What should she do?

Lolo deals with small problems with flare — and with the help of Mama and Gogo.

Often with beginning chapter books, I read just one to get the idea of the series. But with Lolo, I wanted to read them all.

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