Review of Cat Nap, by Brian Lies

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Cat Nap

by Brian Lies

Greenwillow Books, 2025. 48 pages.
Review written October 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Fun fact: I met Brian Lies, because he won his Caldecott Honor for The Rough Patch in 2019, the year I was on the Newbery committee. So I met him at a pre-awards reception and got to talk with him a little bit. Still, these days I am resistant to reviewing picture books, because I’m still trying to catch up on posting reviews I’ve written. But Cat Nap charmed me so much I can’t keep quiet. And between you and me, this book screams Caldecott! (Though you never know what the actual committee will decide.)

Cat Nap is the story of a kitten chasing a mouse through art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. There’s a fun refrain:

Does Kitten follow?
Of course he does.

But what makes the book stunning is the art. As in The Three Pigs, by David Wiesner, the cat’s portrayal changes on each spread to match the art where he is currently hunting.

So that would be interesting enough if it were simply different styles of drawing – but Brian Lies actually uses sculpture in many frames – when the cat interacts with a ceramic dog and a mask with a bird. He made actual stained glass windows when the cat interacts with a medieval stained glass pane.

There’s an extensive Author’s Note at the back with the works of art identified. And pictured without the cat. I was awed by these paragraphs from that note:

It would have been easy to create the illustrations in this book on a computer – to take a photo of an original artwork and edit Kitten in digitally. It was a greater challenge, and a whole lot more fun, to see if I could actually make pieces of art that looked like the originals in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and blend Kitten’s headlong pursuit of the mouse into them. Everything you see Kitten encountering and exploring in this book was handmade, using acrylic and oil paints, gouache, ink, plaster, wood, gold leaf, clay, paper, glass, lead, and more. Some of the techniques I used were ones that I’d done before, and some were new to me.

So yes, it could have been done digitally. And now, artificial intelligence even allows us to enter a description of what we want, and in seconds, the computer spits out an image. But wheres the satisfaction in that? The computer created it, not us.

If you like making things, practice. Practice makes better! It takes time to develop skills so things turn out the way you want them to; the way you see them in your imagination – you can’t simply leap ahead and skip all that work. But it’s fun to write stories and to make pictures and build things, and I hope you’ll do these things because they’re satisfying. Focus on the enjoyment you get while your skills are coming along. You can make pretty much anything you want to, if you teach yourself how.

If people before us could do it, why not me? Why not you?

Oh yes, and besides that wonderful Author’s Note, the book gives an engaging story. What’s not to like about a kitten chasing a mouse through entertaining obstacles? I love the way the kitten finds his way back home – the sound of cat food being poured into his bowl.

brianlies.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Review of A Dangerous Idea, by Debbie Levy

History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

A Dangerous Idea

The Scopes Trial, the Original Fight over Science in Schools

by Debbie Levy

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025. 278 pages.
Review written October 8, 2025, from a copy I was given at ALA Annual Conference, signed by the author
Starred Review

Lest we think that controlling what kids are taught is a new idea, A Dangerous Idea lays out for teens the media circus that happened in 1925 over a few lines about evolution in a high school biology textbook.

Debbie Levy lays out the whole case from roots to verdict and aftermath. She gives us the background of the two big-shot lawyers who faced each other in the Scopes trial. John Scopes was simply a young high school biology teacher who agreed to be a test case after Tennessee passed a law forbidding the teaching of evolution. The real media attention came because of the lawyers – William Jennings Bryan, who had run for president three times and drew huge crowds on the lecture circuit, versus Clarence Darrow, who had publicly challenged Bryan already and had taken famous cases trying to bring down the death penalty.

Although I’d heard of the case, (Of course I had!) I’d had no idea how much was involved and how huge it was in the attention of the entire country – even in the days before television. Thousands of journalists descended on the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, and spread the word about the trial.

So Debbie Levy is able to bring us a multitude of photographs from the time and newspaper clippings and editorial cartoons, and plenty of other material to illustrate the story and help it come alive. It turns out the jury didn’t even hear most of the trial, because much of it was the argument that evolution isn’t actually contrary to Scripture – but the judge ruled all that mattered was if the law was broken.

I do like the way the author connects the dots between the Scopes trial and backlash against science today. This is from the Epilogue:

Today, complaints about science in the classroom go well beyond evolution. Some parents and lawmakers don’t want schools to teach about climate change. They don’t want laws and policies to address climate change, either, because they think it’s a hoax or not caused by human activity. This is contrary to scientific evidence. Cimate-change deniers found a friend in the White House in President Donald Trump. “I don’t believe it,” he said in 2018. “One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers” in climate change.

The COVID-19 pandemic, starting in 2020, also spurred epic resistance to science among large swaths of the American public and their leaders. When leading scientists – the preeminent experts on infectious and viral diseases – tried to guide the public on how to protect themselves from the novel coronavirus, President Trump called them “idiots.”

And so, hgere are two persistent threads lifted from the pattern woven a century ago. First: ridicule. Anti-evolutionists at the time of the Scopes trial made fun of scientists because, as Will Bryan scoffed, “They cannot agree with each other.” Will’s mockery was a cheap shot – just as it was a cheap shot, a century later, to mock scientists for altering their advice, in response to new and evolving discoveries, on how to protect against getting sick or dying from the coronavirus. That is what happens in science as a result of ongoing observation, experimentation, and, yes, disagreement among scientists: knowledge evolves.

And second: lumping together science and belief, by couching science as something you “believe” in, or not. Forcing, or even strongly urging, people to “believe” in a creed (science) that doesn’t appeal to them – that’s a bad thing to do, isn’t it? It’s un-American, isn’t it? But science isn’t a religious creed. And religion isn’t science.

I like that this book is aimed at teens – exactly the age of people the original Tennessee law was trying to protect. Give them the full story – and we may find teens are more discerning than adults think they are.

debbielevybooks.com
bloomsbury.com

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Review of The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze, by Derrick Barnes

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze

by Derrick Barnes

Viking, 2025. 254 pages.
Review written October 7, 2025, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Longlist

The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze is a modern tall tale crossed with a serious discussion of current issues.

The star of the show is Henson Blayze, a thirteen-year-old with incredible gifts. He’s about to play varsity football in his first game as an eighth grader, and the entire small town idolizes him.

But after an amazing and flashy first half of the game, Henson learns that his little buddy, ten-year-old Menkah, is in the hospital, after being beaten bloody by some troopers. Henson leaves the game and doesn’t leave Menkah’s side until he’s better. The town is now as angry with Henson as they adored him before. When Menkah’s better, Henson has to decide if he still even wants to play football.

Henson is larger than life, and this story is larger than life to match. Henson’s ancestors have lived in this Mississippi town for generations, and if Henson is ever harmed, well, let’s just say that they protect him. There’s magical realism in this story so that no harm done to Black folks is permanent. This helps the book be suitable for children, despite the heavy topics, and honestly, it’s nice to see.

Henson’s a sweet kid, not spoiled by all the adoration, and just wanting to help folks out. You’re rooting for him all the way.

I don’t usually like it when authors spell out what they’re trying to do. Can’t the story carry the weight of it? So I kind of wish that Derrick Barnes put his Author’s Note at the back of the book instead of at the beginning. But the fact is, the Author’s Note packs a punch. What he was trying to do is write a version of Maniac Magee where the protagonist is a Black boy. But he also is telling something that doesn’t hurt being spelled out. Here’s a bit from that note:

This is a story about – along with other pertinent themes – America’s strange obsession with the Black body: for labor and for entertainment.

He talks first about slavery, then goes on to say this:

Many thought that African Americans could coexist with white people if we assimilated, and one way of doing that was to provide entertainment. We danced, we made them laugh, we sang, and we performed great athletic feats.

You can still see that today, in American sports. Black athletes are treated like gods by the greater white population. It’s a strange dynamic. On one hand, they see the Black athlete only as an entity – a tool that brings their favorite team a victory. But on the other hand, there is an acceptance of this living character as a hero that’s not like the negative, stereotypic ideal of a Black person that they’ve ben taught – especially if that athlete never speaks on “politics,” a word that has been used to veil issues surrounding race. But as soon as that athlete does something or says something that they deem inappropriate, makes them feel uncomfortable, or removes them from the escapism of simply enjoying their favorite sport . . . things change. Historically, when Black athletes have shown themselves to be more “Black” than “athlete,” there is a disruption of that fantasy where they are not supposed to lean into issues that directly affect them, like racism. Immediately, they have been shunned, ostracized, and blackballed (see Tommie Smith and JOhn Carlos, see Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, see Colin Kaepernick, see Craig Hodges).

He continues that he’s especially talking to Black children to not sell you soul. And he asks all of us:

You must also become as well-read and educated as you possibly can. Deand respect. Be your most human self, and work on improving yourself every single day. Be kind, and most importantly, be a difference-maker. Be dead set on making this world a better place – not just for yourself or only for people who look like you, speak your language, or worship your religion, but for all of us.

So, yeah, I think Derrick Barnes could have gotten away with not spelling all that out. We love Henson because he’s a kid who is trying to live those very values.

But you know what? It’s a good message, and I’m going to let him make sure no one misses it. And meanwhile, enjoy this wonderful story.

derrickdbarnes.com
Penguin.com/kids

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Review of Annie’s Ghosts, by Steve Luxenberg

History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Annie’s Ghosts

A Journey Into a Family Secret

by Steve Luxenberg

Hyperion, 2009. 401 pages.
Review written October 6, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

It’s a fun story how I happened to read this book: I met the author!

Back in April, I gave myself a retreat at Blackwater Falls Lodge in Blackwater State Falls, West Virginia. The lodge has a large common room, with an abundance of big, round tables. Someone had started a jigsaw puzzle on one of them – a trap for me! I started working on the puzzle after dinner, before carrying out my plan of reading and writing in my room, and got hooked. Other people came to join me – among them was a nice couple. The puzzle was of a giant library, and it came out that I was a librarian – and this gentleman was a writer! His wife was a retired school librarian. He was also an associate editor for the Washington Post. Well, it was nice doing the puzzle with them – and then they invited me to play a game of Upwords with them. And instead of a “productive” evening reading and writing, I had a lovely social evening playing Upwords with this obviously highly intelligent journalist and his wife.

When I got home, I checked out his books, then decided to read the older one first. It’s taken me a long time – mostly one or two chapters per week (because I read lighter stuff at bedtime, which is my main reading time). I did not find myself forgetting what went before when I picked it up each week – it’s memorable reading – and I finally finished off the last five or six chapters in one sitting last weekend. This is by no means light reading, but it’s absorbing, and it’s super interesting.

So now let me tell you about the book this nice man wrote. It’s the story of discovering his mother had a disabled sister she kept a complete secret after she married. He first heard a rumor of it when his mother was hospitalized, and then confirmation after her death. So then began the process of researching this aunt, Annie, whom he hadn’t known about.

At first, he assumed she lived away from the family most of her life, but Annie wasn’t moved to a state institution until she was twenty-one years old. She was born with one leg shorter than the other, that wouldn’t grow properly, and had possible mental retardation and mental illness. Annie spent the rest of her life – decades – in the institution, yet his mother had told everyone she was an only child.

So this is the story of Steve Luxenberg digging up the truth. And finding out why his mother kept this secret. It gives a window into mental health care in the 1940s and how much it has changed. We even learn about the experiences of his mother’s cousin, who was the only one of her immediate family to survive a massacre in a Ukrainian village during the Holocaust.

The secret seems simple on the surface – a disabled sister who’d been put into an institution. But the story ends up being sprawling, as Steve Luxenberg works to understand his mother’s motivation in keeping the secret. This involves attitudes at the time toward mental and physical disabilities, treatment options at the time, and even politics at the time as it involved state institutions. Then there was the bureaucratic paperwork to even have access to the records, if they existed, and the effort of tracking down people who’d known his mother as a child – when her sister lived with the family – and afterward. How many of them knew of the secret? Unfortunately, many of them had already passed. He got more information piece by piece, and the book is something of a detective story, as well as a broad work of history – mixed with journalism and memoir.

The whole thing was fascinating reading, but my favorite part came in a vignette toward the end. He begins most chapters with his own memories with his mother, and this one was about playing her favorite board game with her – Upwords. That made me smile. Made me feel like I had a tiny piece of the experience of this book. And Steve Luxenberg and his wife still play Upwords.

steveluxenberg.com

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Review of The Dagger and the Flame, by Catherine Doyle

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Dagger and the Flame

by Catherine Doyle
read by Emily Carey and Freddy Carter

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 13 hours, 23 minutes.
Review written July 21, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is another eaudiobook I decided to put on hold because so many other people had done so. Maybe they were onto something! I saw that the sequel is out soon, and it already has lots of NotifyMe tags in Libby – I decided to see what the fuss is about, and was glad I did.

This is a romantasy with a dash of violence, but a unique set of fantasy world-building. Seraphine has grown up on a farm with her mother, a smuggler of Shade – a magical substance with an affinity for shadows. But the Prologue tells us about a strange experiment her mother didn’t want her to see, when something she did with Shade turned their cat into a monster.

There are two groups in the city that use Shade, but Sera’s mother only sold to the Cloaks. The Cloaks wear cloaks woven and sewn and created with Shade that enable the wearer to turn invisible in shadows. They are a guild of thieves, hired by those who desire their services. Sera’s mother told her to go to them if she is ever in trouble.

So when Sera comes home to find her mother dead, their farm burned, and sees a member of the other guild, the Daggers, standing over her – Sera runs to the Cloaks. She knows she may be next if she can’t find sanctuary. Can she fit in with them and learn to be a thief? She’s used to Shade, but not to wielding it.

After establishing all this, we hear from our second viewpoint character – Ransom, a Dagger who has indeed been tasked with assassinating Seraphine. He’s in no hurry, but finds himself more intrigued by his mark than he’s accustomed to. Daggers actually drink a potion made of Shade. It’s said that drinking Shade eventually eats out their hearts, but they can actually wield shadows and kill with impunity.

And then some monsters start appearing in the city, killing people with much less finesse than the Daggers used – but the same symptoms on their bodies. Does it have something to do with Sera’s mother’s experiments? And then when Ransom tries to carry out his assignment – she discovers the necklace her mother gave her has a strange power.

The history of the city, the guilds, and shade, is all woven into the story. Both characters have strong friendships in their guilds that help guide their actions and choices. It all builds to a crisis that leaves things unsettled, but with a new kind of power to explore. I’m definitely wanting to find out what happens next – coming in September! (And I’m currently in line for the eaudiobook. Note: I think it’s related to the author being Irish, but the ebook and eaudiobook are available to the library before the print book, which comes out in December.)

catherinedoylebooks.com

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Review of Birdlore: The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey, written by Jess Keating, illustrated by Devon Holzwarth

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Birdlore

The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey

written by Jess Keating
illustrated by Devon Holzwarth

Alfred A. Knopf, 2025. 40 pages.
Review written July 21, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I love it when picture book biographies tell me about a person who lived a remarkable life and changed the world – but whom I’d never heard of before. This is one such book.

In 1889, Florence Merriam Bailey wrote the first field guide to American birds ever published. She talked about the wonders of birdwatching and popularized it for everyone.

This picture book tells her story with gorgeous art – as befitting a book about beautiful birds. (As a bonus, at the back, there’s a spread showing Florence’s favorite bird species and asking if you can find all these birds in the pages of the book.) It begins with her childhood in the countryside, when she would delight in finding them. When she got old enough to study birds as a scientist, she didn’t like the normal method at the time of examining dead birds and making them into specimens. So she would take notes on living birds in the outdoors.

When she went to university, Florence made friends with other women interested in birds and showed them her method of taking notes on birds in the wild. The women were scandalized together at the common fashion choice of the time – wearing dead birds on ladies’ hats.

It began a quest to share with people the wonder of birds in the wild – and helped pass the Lacey Act in 1900 that protected birds from illegal trade.

The way the story is told lifts your hearts with the birds and will add to your own appreciation. A lovely book about a woman who helped protect these lovely creatures.

jesskeating.com
devonholzwarth.com
rhcbooks.com

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Review of Pedro and Daniel, by Federico Erebia

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Pedro and Daniel

by Federico Erebia

Levine Querido, 2023. 425 pages.
Review written July 28, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

The author gives us a hint of what we’re in for in an Introduction:

This novel is a work of fiction based on my memorable relationship with Daniel, my brother. Other characters, and some scenes, are composites, and/or fictional. All other names are fictional.

We know from the start how the book will end:

After Daniel’s death in 1993 at age thirty, the seeds of this novel were planted within the fertile grounds of the controlled chaos of my mind, where they germinated – constantly calling out for the light of day, to be written down, to be shared with others.

Yes, this is the story of two brothers, Pedro and Daniel, close in age and close in spirit. They have a frighteningly abusive mother, who especially targets Pedro with her physical and verbal abuse.

I’m going back and forth thinking whether this book is an epic tapestry of the lives of two brothers, or if it’s a slightly self-indulgent set of memories that were only partly shaped into a novel. It’s interesting that it’s marketed for young adults, because there’s more about the brothers’ childhood and after-college years than the time they spent in high school and college, when they were separated.

But as I reflect, I’m leaning more toward thinking of it as an epic tapestry. I remember how I eagerly began, but bogged down in the middle where it got a little slower, a little more meditative. We feel their bond, and the different ways the two of them approach life. Both are gay, though Pedro took longer to admit it to himself. Daniel wants to be a priest, and Pedro wants to be a doctor. This becomes poignant when Daniel contracts HIV which progresses into AIDS, and Pedro knows medically what he’s going through, but still didn’t have any effective treatment to help him.

I enjoyed the Dichos that Daniel loves – Mexican proverbs. They’re given throughout the book, with translations. An index at the back is fun to read through. I have to say that he caught many biblical references, but I did find four biblical proverbs that were listed as “Origin unknown.” Oh well, if Daniel had been the one writing the book, he probably would have known.

This is not an action-packed novel. It’s a literary novel that covers the boys’ entire lives, with plenty of social commentary along the way. They were born about the same time as me, and I appreciated the little details that reminded me of my very different childhood. Give this to teens who like to read and think deeply. And I hope that gay boys who read it will find kindred souls in Pedro and Daniel.

levinequerido.com

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Review of All the Colors of the Dark, by Chris Whitaker

Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker
read by Edoardo Ballerini

Books on Tape, 2024. 14 hours, 37 minutes.
Review written September 15, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I don’t remember where I found the recommendation that prompted me to put this eaudiobook on hold, but I laughed when I recognized the cover. It turns out, I heard the author speak at ALA Annual Conference 2024, and received a free copy of the print book, signed by the author. But it’s still easier for me to get around to reading it if it’s in my eaudiobooks holds queue. (What can I say? Books I own don’t have a due date, and I can listen while I’m doing other things.)

In the middle of this book, I was going to report that it’s a super sad book, with lots of people making bad choices. But almost unbelievably, it turns out to all come to a satisfying conclusion at the end. I’m saying that up front to encourage other readers to persevere.

It’s a sweeping saga beginning with an unusual boy and girl from small-town America who are each other’s only friend. Patch has only one eye, and his mother helped him deal with that by encouraging him to embrace the identity of a pirate. Patch sometimes steals things, and he’s not popular with the other kids. But when he’s the only person who answers a girl named Saint’s open invitation to visit her beehives – using someone else’s invitation – the two become friends.

But when they’re thirteen, Patch sees a man attacking the girl who’s the queen bee of their class. Patch intervenes, and the girl gets away – but Patch disappears. The only one who continues to look for him – without regard for her own safety – is Saint. Over months, she follows every lead, insistent that Patch is still alive and out there somewhere.

Patch, on his part, is being kept in a completely dark room. He can’t see anything. But there is also a girl there – a girl who tells him how to stay alive, unlike the other girls who were there before him. And in the many hours they’re alone together, she paints pictures in his mind of places she’s been. Her name is Grace, and she is his tether to reality.

But when Saint finally finds Patch, the person who captured him isn’t found – presumed dead, because there’s a fire. But Grace is also missing.

The doctor tells Patch’s mother – who lost the ability to cope with life while Patch was missing – that his mind invented Grace while he was imprisoned in the dark. But that wouldn’t explain all the places Grace described that Patch had never seen before. And it turns out, there are missing girls from those places. So Patch sets out on a quest to find Grace – and the other missing girls as well.

The story’s a saga, and there’s lots more to the book than that. Most of our characters make some bad choices along the way, and fall in love with the wrong people. We follow Patch and Saint across years of searching and years of dealing with the things life throws at them.

And I was surprised how satisfied I was with the ways it all comes together in the end! Believe it or not, even telling you that much, I don’t think I’m giving anything away – that’s just the beginning of how their lives’ courses are set.

So read this book when you’re ready for a saga about friendship and love and persistence and guilt and punishment and protection and painting and the mind’s eye.

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Review of Fresh Start, by Gale Galligan

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel 0

Fresh Start

by Gale Galligan

Graphix (Scholastic), 2025. 282 pages.
Review written May 27, 2025, from a library book.

I continue to believe that a graphic novel is the perfect format for the semi-biographical middle school story. You can show all the emotion, all the conflict, all the embarrassment, and even the imagination.

Fresh Start joins the many classic stories that fit that description. Our hero is Ollie (not the same name as the author this time), and her family has just moved from Germany to Virginia – much like my own family did (but I was an adult, though my youngest was not). This is only one of many moves for Ollie’s family, and she’s a little rattled when her parents announce they’ve decided to settle down. Ollie may have to actually make friends.

And of course that isn’t easy. And there are mistaken first impressions and other difficulties to navigate. Ollie is also half Thai, and her mother wants her to get involved in the Thai community that turns out to be there – including Ollie’s blonde classmate she thought was the perfect American.

So this is a graphic novel about navigating a new school, pressures from family and friends, and navigating blended cultures. So it’s similar to many books along this line – but Ollie has her own unique quirks and she will find an audience ready to be her friend.

galesaur.com

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Review of Truth Is, by Hannah V. Sawyerr

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

Truth Is

by Hannah V. Sawyerr

Amulet Books, 2025. 474 pages.
Review written September 23, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy signed by the author.
Starred Review
2025 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Longlist

I’m definitely biased about this book, since it came with a hug! Hannah Sawyerr was one of the debut authors who was a Morris Award Finalist the year I was on the Morris committee, and we got to have lunch with the authors after the award ceremony. So when I was in line at ALA Annual Conference this year to get this Advance Reader Copy, Hannah recognized me at once and gave me a hug! It had me smiling all day because she is a genuinely great author, and being on the Morris feels like we’re discovering authors – even though the Walter Award committee and the Cybils committee also recognized her first book, All the Fighting Parts.

So I was thrilled when her second book showed up on the National Book Award Longlist. I had just gotten around (finally) to reading the ARC. It shows that I may be biased, but I am certainly not wrong in thinking that her writing is good!

Truth Is is about a girl named Truth Bangura who is a slam poet in Philadelphia, starting her Senior year, and trying to decide what to do after she graduates.

And then she discovers she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend. She wrestles with the decision, but chooses an abortion. That brings consequences especially in her relationship with her best friend. But it doesn’t bring regret.

Truth is hiding a lot of things from her mother, including her pregnancy and abortion, but also her participation on the slam poetry team. So when her performance of a poem goes viral – about the abortion and about how she’s scared to tell her mother – her mother is not happy.

I love the Author’s Note at the front of the Advance Reader Copy (I hope it will be in the finished book!), especially this part:

Truth Is is a pro-choice novel in every sense of the phrase. Truth’s choice to move forward with an abortion is made early on in the novel, and the majority of the novel focuses on her life and her choices after the abortion. My intention behind this was always to show readers that life continues after big decisions.

For young people who decide to read Truth Is, it is important to me that you know that, like Truth’s poetry, life is filled with many deliberate choices and a whole lot of revision. A lot of questions and heartbreak. But a lot of gain and victories too. You have the power to make new decisions every day and can always choose to revise and write a new story.

Hannah Sawyerr beautifully pulls off this theme, as besides navigating her senior year and her relationships, Truth is learning to be a slam poet. We see the three poems Truth ends up taking to the slam poetry competition at the end of the year – and how Truth revises them along the way.

The book takes us through three trimesters of the school year, and Truth’s choice at the end about what she should do next. Like All the Fighting Parts, this story is told with power and beauty.

hannahsawyerr.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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