Review of Popcorn, by Rob Harrell

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

Popcorn

by Rob Harrell

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2024. 270 pages.
Review written February 27, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Schneider Family Award Winner, Middle Grades

Popcorn is about a kid named Andrew who has OCD and Anxiety – who has a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. And it’s so awful it’s funny – but the story is told with compassion, so we are feeling it along with Andrew – and both Andrew and the reader come through it all encouraged.

It’s School Picture Day. Andrew’s wearing his favorite shirt (a new one, which isn’t easy for his Mom to afford), and his Mom even thinks to have him pack an extra one. Mom is starting her first day on a new job, and a friend of the family is staying with Andrew’s grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s.

And as soon as he gets to school, things happen to mess up Andrew’s appearance. A ripped shirt. A black eye. The things are only loosely Andrew’s fault – I mean, he could have let the bully copy off his paper, but we’re definitely feeling for him. Then we think he’s safe because the shirt gets mended, but no, Andrew is never safe! The things that happen to mess up his appearance only get worse.

And in the middle of the day, he learns that his grandma has gone missing, and they weren’t able to reach his Mom by phone. This is not a good thing to hear for someone who has anxiety. Andrew has a gauge like a popcorn kernel – the heat builds up until he knows he’s going to pop.

Andrew’s had two panic attacks in the past, but one of his greatest fears is having one at school. And that fear itself for sure doesn’t help.

The whole thing adds up to a story told with humor and compassion about a kid watching what he thought was the worst possible thing actually happen – and he gets through it, and friends and teachers help him through.

The story of how that all happens is a fun ride indeed.

robharrell.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Bone Weaver, by Aden Polydoros

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bone Weaver

by Aden Polydoros

Inkyard Press, 2022. 428 pages.
Review written November 25, 2022, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher for Cybils judging
Starred Review

Bone Weaver begins with a girl named Toma sewing back the finger of her sister, Galina. Before long, we realize that Galina is not alive. She’s an undead upyr, and she loses body parts if she’s not careful. But when Toma sews them back, using patterns from her mother’s rushnyk, an embroidered cloth she left with Toma — the parts heal back as if they were never lost.

And Toma quickly gets another chance to use her stitches when she finds an injured man in a downed airship. She drags him home and stitches his wound. He’s horrified by her family of upyri — who have been caring for Toma the last six years since she was left traumatized and alone. But it turns out the rescued man is Mikhail the young tsar — and a usurper named Koschei has stolen his magic.

But then some men in another airship come after the tsar — but find Galina and decide to take her to Koschei to win his favor after losing the tsar. Toma cannot let her sister fall into the hands of someone who experiments with the undead, so she sets out after them in the company of the tsar, who wants to find allies to try to win the country back.

Along the way they see examples of terrible things done by those in power — tsarists and rebels alike. Will Mikhail take those things to heart? Will Toma be able to save her sister?

I happened to be reading this book while I was in the middle of listening to another book that dealt with bringing people back from death. In the other book, it was seen as something that can bring no good thing — not so much in this book, but I lean toward that feeling, that death is something it’s probably best not to mess with, especially bringing people back.

But I did like the way this book played off Russian and Slavic folklore, encountering various undead creatures and Toma seeing the humanity remaining in them.

There’s lots of death and undeath in this story, but it’s a compelling tale about a girl with power and heritage she doesn’t even realize. As she helps others, she comes to understand herself better, deals with her own past trauma, and gets ready to face living people again.

AdenPolydoros.com

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Review of The Joy Document, by Jennifer McGaha

Musings, Nonfiction Review 0

The Joy Document

Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight

by Jennifer McGaha

Broadleaf Books, 2024. 196 pages.
Review written February 28, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com

When I saw the book The Joy Document, it was just after I had finished going through Champagne for the Soul, by Mike Mason, with my church small group. I’d previously gone through it in probably 2017 with a different small group – and it’s still my favorite book for small group study. It’s all about Joy – with 90 meditations for 90 days of looking for Joy, including a Bible verse about Joy on each day. Reading and discussing the book got my group noticing and talking about our Joys each week.

So when I saw The Joy Document, I thought, Wonderful! It’s a secular version of Champagne for the Soul! But I’m afraid it wasn’t that. So my expectations limited my appreciation a little bit.

What is it? Well, it’s also about noticing things in an ordinary life that surprise, delight, or intrigue you. The book is a collection of short essays – the kind I like to call “musings” about ordinary things. Yes, they left me smiling. And yes, I appreciate her practice of looking a little deeper at the details of life, finding her way to wonder.

And I think my favorite part was the list at the back of questions to ask in order to make your own Joy Document.

In fact, that helps me put my finger on what might be the difference between the two books. In Mike Mason’s book, every short entry, besides being about his experiences, was also about how the reader can apply the ideas. In this book, we got all fifty musings – and then at the end were ideas for applying the thoughts from the rest of the book.

But for both, the underlying thought is this: There are many reasons for Joy out there, if we will open our eyes to them.

And this book, too, helped me do just that.

jennifermcgaha.com
broadleafbooks.com

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Review of This Rebel Heart, by Katherine Locke, read by Kathleen Gati and Steven Jay Cohen

Historical, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

This Rebel Heart

by Katherine Locke
read by Kathleen Gati and Steven Jay Cohen

Books on Tape, 2022. 11 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written November 20, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

This Rebel Heart is an absorbing, atmospheric look at the Budapest student uprising of 1956, when the Soviets left Hungary for a week. The book is full of supernatural elements, which at first I thought were figurative, but ended up being a fundamental part of the story. For example, since the Soviets came, the city has lost its color. The blue sky was the last to go. People can barely remember the names of colors, and marvel when they begin to come back.

Another example is in the back story of our main character, Csilla. During the war, when the Jews were being rounded up and shot next to the river Duna that runs through Budapest, Csilla’s father led their family into the river, and they lived in its waters for the rest of the war, protected from the Nazis. And now the river constantly talks to Csilla.

As the book begins, Csilla’s parents were recently exonerated and reburied. Csilla’s father had been important in the Communist party, but he was falsely accused of treason and Zionism and executed years before. Now he has been publicly exonerated — but the authorities seem to have used his funeral as a cover to crack down on students at the university.

Csilla has tickets to get out of Hungary with her aunt Ilona — her only surviving relative after the Holocaust. But despite that immanent escape, Csilla gets pulled into the cause of the rebels. She becomes friends with a young man whose lover was recently executed by the secret police for homosexuality. And starts thinking about his cause and all that is wrong with Hungary under the Soviets. And then someone leaves her father’s journals at her doorstep, and she reads about his vision for Hungary. Is it even possible to right the wrongs he committed in support of that vision?

And then Csilla meets a handsome young man who tells her he is an angel of death. He is an angel of death who comes to be with children who are facing death. So why has he been pulled to Budapest?

This is an evocative novel, rich with the atmosphere of Budapest. I visited Budapest years ago, and the words of this book pulled me right back to that beautiful city, dominated by the presence of the Duna River. It was easy for me to believe the river would speak to one of her children.

katherinelockebooks.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Review of Rebel Witch, by Kristen Ciccarelli, read by Grace Gray

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Rebel Witch

by Kristen Ciccarelli
read by Grace Gray

Listening Library, 2025. 13 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written March 4, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Fabulous news! The Crimson Moth series is a duology! So we don’t have to wait for another volume!

And she pulled off a very satisfying conclusion to the story.

Once again we’ve got the conflict of a witch and a witch hunter in love with each other, but on opposite sides. In fact, the book starts out with Gideon planning to assassinate Rune on the distant island where she fled. He’s jealously watching her at the party where her engagement to a prince is being celebrated. But Gideon hesitates…

And one thing leads to another, and they end up traveling together back to their home island – with neither one in good graces with their ruler. They’re basically each planning to betray the other… or are they?

Who’s in danger and what they’re planning seems to go back and forth in this book, but I appreciated that it was all in a way that made sense to me as a listener. The trouble is that both sides in the conflict have a ruthless, terrible leader, so we don’t root for either leader to succeed – but we do root for Gideon and Rune’s love to somehow win out.

And I probably shouldn’t say a lot more about the plot. There’s lots of death and danger, and, yes, some sex, and Rune and Gideon each find allies and enemies in surprising places.

And I’m so glad the author didn’t leave our heroes in danger, waiting for another installment!

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Review of A Plate of Hope, by Erin Frankel, illustrated by Paola Escobar, read by Luis Carlos de la Lombana

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

A Plate of Hope

The Inspiring Story of Chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen

by Erin Frankel
illustrated by Paola Escobar
read by Luis Carlos de la Lombana

Dreamscape Media, 2024. 15 minutes.
Random House Studio, 2024. 48 pages.
Review written January 31, 2025, from a library book and eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2025 Odyssey Winner, Children’s Audiobook
2024 Cybils Finalist, Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction

I don’t normally listen to 15-minute audiobooks. But I do make a point of trying to listen to all the Odyssey Award Winners and Honor books. The award is given for the best children’s and young adult audiobooks, and they are always outstanding. Even knowing that, I was impressed with this short but amazing audiobook.

The original book is a picture book biography of the life of Chef José Andrés, how he grew up in Spain loving to be part of making food and feeding people, went on to work in an innovative kitchen, and was taken with the promise of America. Of course, it especially looks at how he developed World Central Kitchen to step in with good food immediately after a disaster. He gets folks in quickly after a crisis making good, local food when folks have lost so much else.

And the audiobook has music playing in the background throughout the whole book with judicious use of sound effects, such as sizzling food and chirping birds. The narrator’s Spanish accent combined with the music gives the story a lilting and joyful feeling. Of course, I recommend checking out both the audiobook and the print book so you can enjoy the pictures as well.

erinfrankel.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Scout’s Honor, by Lily Anderson

Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Scout’s Honor

by Lily Anderson

Henry Holt, 2022. 403 pages.
Review written October 24, 2022, from a library book
2023 Printz Honor Book

Scout’s Honor is the story of Prudence Perry, a legacy scout with the Ladybirds. The Ladybird Scouts are a secret society that to the world outside appears to be about having tea and serving cookies to students taking the SAT. But in actuality, they are about fighting monsters — specifically, mulligrubs that come from another dimension and feed on people’s emotions. Only legacy scouts and those who drink the Tea of Seeing can see the grubs, but everyone feels the effects. The Ladybird scouts patrol and fight grubs to keep their neighborhoods safe.

Most mulligrubs just zap your energy when they consume your emotions, but if they become carnivorous, they consume people. And three years ago, when Prudence was thirteen, she saw a carnivorous grub do exactly that, when her friend and sister scout died in the jaws of a scranch.

Prue quit the Ladybirds after that. She felt responsible and continued to have PTSD about the incident, which her friends think was a mountain lion attack.

But her mother wasn’t happy about Prue withdrawing from the Ladybirds. And this summer, with two new scouts turning thirteen and ready to be trained, after Prue gets caught sneaking out, the punishment is that she is responsible for training the new recruits.

Right from the start, there’s a fiasco and some of Prue’s other friends drink the Tea of Seeing. But during the summer, Prue learns from her now three new recruits and wonders if there might be a better, gentler, less competitive way to be a Ladybird. Though all along she worries that the babybirds don’t realize how dangerous fighting mulligrubs can be.

The book is entertaining and just a little bit silly, as it portrays the Ladybirds being about all things pink and bloodthirsty fighting techniques. Some of the little details of the world-building didn’t quite work for me, but if you take it as entertainment, with thoughts thrown in about gender roles and responsibilities, it’s an awful lot of fun.

mslilyanderson.com
fiercereads.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros, read by Rebecca Soler

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros
read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding, and Jasmin Walker

Recorded Books, 2025. 23 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written February 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I’m going to sound like a bit of a curmudgeon in this review, so let me begin by saying that I don’t review books I don’t like. And I certainly don’t spend 24 hours listening to a book I don’t like. So I did enjoy this book, and I’m very engaged with this series and will be reading the next book. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first two, though.

First off, this series doesn’t waste any time catching up the reader on what went before. It’s very much a continued story, not “companion novels.” It had been a year since I listened to the previous book, and I didn’t really remember the many characters, who was a dragon rider as opposed to who was a griffin flyer, for example. (Though, funny thing, the people I remembered least were the ones most in danger of dying – they felt like the red shirts of the story.)

So I’m only going to speak in general terms about what happens. It’s the continued story of Violet Sorengale – a cadet at Bezgaeth War College who is bonded to two powerful dragons. Oh, I should say that I loved the portrayal of Andarna as an adolescent dragon. Her whiny tone was delightful! A continued strong point of this series is the characters and the bonds they’re forming with each other.

First, there’s lots and lots of sex. I did laugh when Violet and Xaden broke furniture again. Though it’s kind of their trademark. But I also laughed about two-thirds into the book when they were obviously going to have sex and they closed and locked a door (using lesser magic) – and then the author actually ended the scene! I felt like that was a progression in Violet’s experience. She no longer had to gasp at every touch.

A good chunk of this book was a group of them exploring some distant islands, looking for allies and for more dragons of Andarna’s kind. That was an interesting development. But then each island served a different god and had different unusual customs and hoops that visitors had to go through – and that felt silly and unlikely after a while.

Speaking of contrived things, I recently finished another book using the trope of Everyone-Has-A-Magical-Power – and there are always ways that particular trope doesn’t work for me – you really do have to not think about it too hard. Because I’m sorry, but shadows do not have substance! The whole shadow-wielding idea – that you can make shadows hold someone up while having sex or choke someone in a battle – yeah, I have trouble believing that would work. And some of the other “signets” are problematic for me as well. But mostly, in the middle of the story, that’s not a big issue, and I’m caught up in the tale.

Now, the last big climactic battle took three hours of the audiobook. And that’s after a whole lot of fighting in the book already. So this is an audiobook where the narrator is describing lots of fighting and lots of sex – and it must have been exhausting for her! But by the time I was listening to the final battle, the narrator’s voice expressing excitement kind of flew past me. Exciting thing after exciting thing – and it stopped being exciting for me.

Now, I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things, so to really remember what’s going on, before the next book comes out, I should probably try rereading the entire thing in print. Trouble is, I doubt I’d want to give that much time to it – so I’ll probably be content with enjoying the story but maybe being a little confused – as I was with this one.

Speaking of confusion – the ending is kind of the opposite of a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger ending leaves you wondering what will come next. This ending left me wondering what just happened.

Without giving anything away, the big final battle took the last three hours of the book – and the final part of it was when we got to hear from three more narrators, for a nice change of pace and more perspectives on this enormous fight. At the end of the battle, Violet passed out. The story starts again twelve hours later in a different location, and Violet is told several very surprising things – but we don’t know why or how they happened. And then the book ends.

So by the time the next book comes out, I’m not sure I’ll remember what I was confused about. I’m also not at all sure where it’s going next – but I am sure that I’m going to want to go along for the ride.

rebeccayarros.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Into the Bloodred Woods, by Martha Brockenbrough

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Into the Bloodred Woods

by Martha Brockenbrough

Scholastic Press, 2021. 354 pages.
Review written October 18, 2022, from a library book

In this very dark and atmospheric fairy tale-esque young adult novel, we’ve got fairy tale tropes all interwoven throughout a story that implies here’s what really happened, and the tales you’ve heard were changed for an audience of children.

There’s a storyteller featured in short interludes between the parts, weaving tales that become truth as they are repeated. But the book promises us the real story at the start:

This is the story of a werebear and her brother, one of whom will inherit a kingdom . . .

It’s the story of another werebear who wanted to burn it all down . . .

Of a sister who traded everything to spin grass into gold . . .

Of an angry musician who loved a gentle werewolf . . .

Of a girl who loved a singing forest more than life itself . . .

And of a kingdom shattered like a mirror, the pieces of which can be put back together, but only by someone brave enough to look.

The book has its heart in a singing forest, a forest just outside a kingdom.

The forest started singing when a girl named Esme struck a bargain in exchange for the magic that she needed to save her sister’s life. And that was necessary because their father had lied to the king to make himself seem important; he’d claimed that he had a daughter of surpassing beauty who could spin grass into gold.

And what was that bargain? (I told you the book is dark.) Esme traded her womb for magic. She buried it in the soil of the forest, and the forest taught her to spin grass into gold.

So her sister married the king and had twin babies, a boy and a girl. The girl was born first, though it wasn’t traditional for a girl to inherit the kingdom. This set them up for a rivalry.

But many things happen before the children become teens. Esme flees from the king to the forest where she has a daughter of her own, Capella. And the main characters of the book are Hans and Greta, the children of the one woodsman in the forest, and the king and queen’s children, Ursula and Albrecht. Ursula is a werebear, and Hans is a werewolf.

In this kingdom, werecreatures are treated as lesser citizens, and even Ursula must sleep in a cage at night. And when Hans and Greta’s parents die of a fever, they go to the kingdom to buy provisions, but get taken as servants to the castle.

Albrecht uses Hans to help him make mechanical creatures. He dreams of ruling the kingdom, protecting it with an army of mechanical soldiers. If he can only get the mechanisms right.

Albrecht is fascinated by how things work and what makes creatures alive. Aren’t those alive who can feel pain? He thinks about ways of causing pain….

And the kingdom is funded by the gold given as the queen’s dowry. But this gold has a weakness — it disintegrates when touched by human blood.

Throughout the book, many themes from fairy tales get pulled into a twisty atmospheric tale of powerful evil and those who would stand up against it.

marthabrockenbrough.com
scholastic.com

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Review of A Little Like Magic, by Sarah Kurpiel

Award Winners, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

A Little Like Magic

by Sarah Kurpiel

Rocky Pond Books (Penguin Random House), 2024. 44 pages.
Review written February 28, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Schneider Family Award Winner, Younger Children

Here’s a gorgeous picture book that features a kid in a wheelchair.

The child and their mother (probably a little girl, but the gender is never specified) are headed to an ice festival to watch the sculptors work, but they don’t want to go.

I don’t like heavy coats
or itchy hats
or boots that don’t let me bend my ankles.
I don’t like cold wind
or icy roads.
Most of all, I don’t like going places that I’ve never been before.

Still, they go, bringing a special toy horse in their pocket. They watch the sculptors work, using chainsaws, drills, chisels, picks, torches and steaming irons.

They watch until they are too cold, then have hot chocolate together. The child isn’t convinced it’s worth it to make sculptures that are going to melt anyway.

And to their dismay, the little horse is no longer in their pocket when they get home.

But then the next day they go back after dark. Now the sculptures are finished, and they’re magical and wondrous.

The cold and crowd melt away. There is only light and ice and stars and Mom and me.

And, yes, they find their toy horse – along with a special surprise. That’s the best part of all.

In the end, they realize that even though the sculptures melted, they never really went away because they’ll always remember their magic.

This is one of those quiet, lovely, wonderful books that you love more each time you read it.

sarahkurpiel.com

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