Review of The Legend of Auntie Po, by Shing Yin Khor

Children's Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Historical 0

The Legend of Auntie Po

by Shing Yin Khor

Kokila (Penguin Random House), 2021. 290 pages.
Review written November 4, 2021, from a library book
National Book Award Finalist

The Legend of Auntie Po is a graphic novel set in 1885 in a logging camp in the California mountains. Mei is thirteen, and her father is the cook for the camp. The owner of the operation treats them as friends, and Mei’s best friend is the owner’s daughter, but overall the Chinese workers aren’t treated as well as everyone else.

However, Mei makes the best pies and tells the best stories. She makes up stories about Auntie Po, a giant Chinese matriarch who looks out for her people, with the help of Pei Pei, her blue water buffalo.

But when trouble comes to the logging camp, Mei actually sees Auntie Po helping them.

The historical detail in this graphic novel makes you feel like it could have really happened. Mei’s a lovable character, and it’s lovely as her horizons open up as she and her father get through some tough things with friendship and determination.

penguin.com/kids

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn, by Sally J. Pla, read by Gail Shalan

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

The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn

by Sally J. Pla
read by Gail Shalan

Quill Tree Books, 2023. 6 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written May 20, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2024 Schneider Family Book Award Winner, Middle Grades

Oh, I love this one! I’m so glad I finally got around to listening to this award winner — the Schneider Family Award is given annually to books with the best portrayal of a disability. Awards are given for three age levels, along with Honor books, and this one won the award for Middle Grades.

The featured character in this book is Maudie McGinn, a 13-year-old girl with autism. She’s supposed to spend the summer with her Dad in his cabin in northern California. But while they are out to dinner, a wildfire sweeps in, and they have to evacuate. They find a place to stay in the coastal town near San Diego where her Dad grew up, so they’re staying in a trailer in a campground on the beach.

But Maudie’s Dad has friends there, and Maudie begins to make friends there — something she didn’t do in Texas, where she lives during the school year with her mother and stepfather. Maudie has two terrible secrets, but everything with Dad and the ocean helps her relax and begin to understand her own value. Her father has many neurodivergent traits, like Maudie, and he never puts her down for them or scolds her for them. The fact that Maudie thinks this is of note makes us wonder about her life with her mother, and plenty of flashbacks round out the picture of how much better and safer she feels with her father.

But the ocean helps Maudie put all that out of her mind. She even starts learning to surf! And she decides to surprise her father by entering the beginners’ surf competition at the town’s big end-of-summer Surf Bash. Yes, I know that might sound unrealistic in a book summary, but it builds gradually, and yes, we’re with Maudie all the way. (Though as the reader, I did have reservations about her idea of surprising her Dad.)

Maudie’s neurodivergence is sensitively and beautifully portrayed from the inside. And the flashbacks about how her mother responds to her are viscerally painful. The narrator does a wonderful job with the audiobook, giving each person a voice that fits how they’re described in words.

The ending feels almost a little too tidy — but goodness, I would have been so angry if Maudie didn’t have happy times ahead to look forward to. And it wasn’t *every* single thing that worked out for them. I fell in love with this kid while I listened to her story, and I love how she learned that keeping secrets isn’t the road to happiness.

sallyjpla.com

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Review of Borders, by Thomas King and Natasha Donovan

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Borders

story by Thomas King
illustrations by Natasha Donovan

Little, Brown and Company, 2021. 184 pages.
Review written October 22, 2021, from a library book

This short graphic novel is presented as a boy remembering what happened when he was twelve. He and his mother set out from their home in Canada to visit his sister in Salt Lake City, who had moved away some years before.

But when they cross the border and get to the United States entry point, the guard asks their citizenship. His mother answers, “Blackfoot.”

No matter what the guard asks and how they explain, his mother doesn’t claim any nationality except Blackfoot. Finally they’re turned back.

But when they try to get through the guard station to go back to Canada, the same thing happens.

And so they’re stuck in the small area between the borders with the food they brought with them plus what they can find at the duty-free shop.

The story is simple, but thought-provoking. It was adapted from a short story published in 1993, and I think the graphic novel format makes it even more engaging, especially for kids.

lbyr.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James, by Ashley Herring Blake

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James

by Ashley Herring Blake

Little, Brown and Company, 2019. 370 pages.
Review written January 22, 2020, from a library book
Honor Selection of the City of Fairfax Regional Library 2020 Newbery Book Club

I read this book in January 2020 because one of the girls in my Newbery Book Club nominated it as a contender. I was sorry I hadn’t read it sooner.

The book begins as Sunny St. James is ready to have her heart transplant. She has plans for her new life with a new heart: Do awesome amazing things she could never do before; find a new best friend; and find a boy and kiss him.

Well, the first two things are easy enough. Though Kate, her guardian since her mother gave her up when she was four, is very cautious about what she will allow Sunny to do. She’s so used to being worried about Sunny’s heart.

Then Sunny meets Quinn, a girl on the beach who’s visiting for the summer. She will make a wonderful new best friend. She doesn’t know that Sunny’s old best friend told the whole swim team that Sunny sometimes wondered about what it would be like to kiss a girl. Quinn doesn’t know about that, and Sunny makes it clear she’s looking for a boy to kiss. It doesn’t help that the first time Sunny gets near a boy that summer, she accidentally breaks his nose.

But Sunny’s mother also comes around for the first time in eight years when she learns about Sunny’s heart transplant. She wants to get to know Sunny, and Sunny’s not sure about that. But it turns out that her mother isn’t nearly as cautious about what she’ll allow Sunny to do as Kate is.

In tone this book reminded me very much of the author’s recent book, Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World, so I wasn’t at all surprised that Sunny might rethink her plan to kiss a boy. So I didn’t get a surprise, but I did like the way the story was carried out with some realistic ups and downs among fallible people trying to love each other well.

This book is the story of a middle school girl trying to figure out life with a new heart. Like Sunny, the book shines.

lbyr.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Orris and Timble: The Beginning, by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Carmen Mok

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

Orris and Timble

The Beginning

by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by Carmen Mok

Candlewick, 2024. 80 pages.
Review written May 8, 2024, from a library book
Starred Review

This is the start of a new beginning chapter book series by Kate DiCamillo, and it’s tender and sweet and brilliant.

Orris the rat lives in an old abandoned barn. We see his treasures: A red velvet slipper, a yellow marble, and a sardine can. The sardine can is for “Imperial Sardines” and has the picture of a fish wearing a crown and saying, “Make the good and noble choice!!”

That phrase haunts Orris when he discovers a young owl with his claws caught in a mousetrap nailed to the floor, crying for help. Owls eat rats, so at first Orris leaves the owl struggling and goes back to his own home. But in spite of himself, he wants to make the good and noble choice.

I like the way when Orris decides to save the owl, whose name is Timble, Orris is obviously frustrated with himself and says, “For the love of Pete!”

And this book tells, in simple but evocative language, how Orris rescues Timble, and how this becomes the beginning of their friendship.

This book is lovely – beautifully illustrated and with a warmly relatable story as we see Orris make the good and noble choice despite great fear – and then reap the consequences.

katedicamillo.com
carmenmokstudio.com
candlewick.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 A Place to Belong, by Cynthia Kadohata

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

A Place to Belong

by Cynthia Kadohata
read by Jennifer Ikeda

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019. 9 hours on 7 discs.
Review written January 31, 2020, from a library audiobook

A Place to Belong opens at the end of World War II, with Hanako, her little brother Akira, and her parents on a ship going to Japan. Her family was imprisoned in camps during the war because of their Japanese heritage, and after the war, her parents were pressured to give up their American citizenship. Now they are headed to a village outside of Hiroshima, where Papa’s parents still live. On the way there, Hanako sees people and places devastated beyond her wildest imaginings.

Adjusting to Japan is difficult. And she is torn by the people – even children – begging for food. If she gives them rice, what if there’s not enough to feed her own brother? In school, she’s different from the other girls. Can she ever get them to accept her? Woven throughout the stories are memories from their family’s time in the camps and her resultant mixed feelings about America.

This was a part of the story of Japanese Americans that I hadn’t heard before, so I was fascinated by the details. I have to admit that the book felt long and didn’t have a driving plot – they were simply trying to survive, taking each day as it came. The love coming from Hanako’s grandparents toward the grandchildren they just met was a continuing warm bright spot, and did make me glad I stuck it out and listened to the entire book.

cynthiakadohata.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Coyote Lost and Found, by Dan Gemeinhart

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Coyote Lost and Found

by Dan Gemeinhart

Henry Holt and Company, 2024. 275 pages.
Review written April 29, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book is a follow-up to the amazing and wonderful book The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, and the sequel is equally amazing and wonderful. I think you can enjoy the second book without reading the first, but why would you? If you have not read the book that introduces us to Coyote and her dad Rodeo, please do so as soon as possible!

As this book opens, Coyote and Rodeo have been settled down in a small town in Oregon for about a year. Coyote hasn’t exactly fit in well at her new school. And in her spare time, she likes to hang out in their old bus, Yager.

Then, one day, Coyote makes a momentous discovery. Fallen behind a bookcase, she finds a special box. And that box has her mother’s ashes in it. Coyote’s mother and her big sister and little sister all died in a car accident before the events of the first book, and those deaths were what prompted Rodeo to hit the road with Coyote. When Coyote confronts Rodeo with her discovery, he said that yes, they buried her sisters, but her mother had wanted to be cremated, and she had told Rodeo the location where he should bury her ashes in one of her favorite books.

But when Coyote goes to find the book — it isn’t there. She’s sure it was one of the books she dropped off at a thrift store somewhere on their journey last summer. But she doesn’t have the heart to tell Rodeo. One thing leads to another, and they set out again in Yager. Rodeo thinks that Coyote’s mom set them a journey, but Coyote is going back to the thrift shops from last summer, particularly the four she wasn’t able to reach by phone.

And the journey is much like the first one. Again, they pick up fellow travelers along the way. Again, they get into adventures both humorous and poignant. And again, they’re dealing with the past, but learning to look forward to the future.

This book wrenched my heart in all the best ways. You can’t find better travel companions anywhere than Coyote and Rodeo.

dangemeinhart.com
mackids.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 Stand Up, Yumi Chung! by Jessica Kim, narrated by Greta Jung

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Stand Up, Yumi Chung!

by Jessica Kim
narrated by Greta Jung

Penguin Random House Audio, 2020. 6 hours, 57 minutes.
Review written July 4, 2020, from a library eaudiobook

Yumi Chung hoped to spend her summer working on her comedy routines, studying her favorite YouTube star, Jasmine Jasper’s directions. Instead, her parents’ Korean Barbecue restaurant is struggling, and they want Yumi to win a scholarship to stay at her private school, even though Yumi isn’t happy there. So they sign Yumi up for an intensive study class and tell her to go straight to the library after class.

But a new comedy club has opened up across the library parking lot. When Yumi peeks inside, she sees Jasmine Jasper herself! And she’s leading a summer camp to train kid comedians – and thinks that Yumi is the missing Kay Nakamura who didn’t show up the first day.

What’s a girl to do? If Yumi goes along with it, she gets to learn about comedy in person with her hero. She also makes new friends at the camp. But are they really friends if you don’t tell them your real name?

Yes, things do fall apart for Yumi before the end of the book. A strength of the book was how she dealt with it and her relationships. I thought the original coincidence – that Yumi’s YouTube hero would show up in person and be running a camp – was way too big for my personal suspension of disbelief. But I did like the characters and that Yumi’s parents, while being overly pushy immigrant parents, did show more depth when Yumi took the time to talk with them.

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Source: This review is based on an eaudiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

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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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Max in the House of Spies, by Adam Gidwitz

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Max in the House of Spies

A Tale of World War II

by Adam Gidwitz

Dutton Children’s Books, 2024. 320 pages.
Review written April 26, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a World War II book that’s a whole lot of fun – not sure if I’ve ever said that before.

Max Bretzfeld is a Jewish boy born in Berlin, and in 1939, he got sent to England for his own safety from the Nazis. He is taken in by a rich Jewish family headed by Lord Montagu. But Max wants to get back to Berlin to protect his parents. In England, Max encounters more antisemitism and bullying at the snobbish private school where Lord Montagu’s children attend.

But what keeps this from being a sad story about an oppressed kid is that Max is a genius. He is clever with radios, he knows how to plan a serious prank, and he knows how to get the attention of Lord Montagu’s brother, who works for British Intelligence. Max wants to go back to Berlin to protect his parents – why not go as a spy?

Oh, and did I mention? Max has two immortal creatures sitting on his shoulders. A dybbuk and a kobold joined Max when he left Germany. Only Max can see them and talk with them. They are less than thrilled about him going back to Germany.

The majority of this book is about Max’s training to be a spy. It’s unorthodox training for an unorthodox spy. And yes, all along the way, the adults question their choice about sending a Jewish child back to Nazi Germany.

So what we end up with is a cross between a spy novel and The Great Brain. Like I said, a whole lot of fun. And the Author’s Note at the back reveals that he took great pains to get historical details right, and inserted many actual historical people into the tale.

The first page of this book is a wonderful introduction to Max, so I’m going to copy out the whole thing here:

Once there was a boy who had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders.

This was the fourth most interesting thing about him.

The first most interesting thing about Max – that was his name – was that he was a genius. He could make a working radio from the junk at the bottom of a trash can, and he could usually predict what someone was going to say ten minutes before they said it.

The second most interesting thing about Max was that, when he was eleven years old, his parents sent him away from Germany, where he was born and grew up, to England. All by himself. Even though he’d never been there, didn’t know anyone there, and barely spoke any English.

The third most interesting thing about Max was that, when he got to England, he fell in with spies. Real, honest-to-goodness spies. A lot of them.

And the fourth most interesting thing about him was that he had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders.

The story does not end with this volume, even though it comes to a good stopping place. I’m definitely hooked and want to find out what will happen to this resourceful kid next.

adamgidwitz.com
Penguin.com/kids

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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 When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Keller

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

When You Trap a Tiger

by Tae Keller

Random House, 2020. 297 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor
2021 Newbery Medal Winner

As the book opens, Lily and her big sister Sam are being taken by their mother to move to the Pacific Northwest to live with their Halmoni, their Korean grandmother. Lily and Sam aren’t thrilled about this sudden move, which changes all their summer plans. As they get near Halmoni’s house, Lily sees a giant tiger in the road, a tiger that looks just like the one that appeared in the tales Halmoni used to tell. Her mother and Sam don’t even see the tiger, and nothing happens when they drive through that part.

It isn’t too long living there before Lily learns Halmoni is very sick. And it turns out the tiger is willing to make a deal with Lily, in exchange for some stories Halmoni stole long ago. But Halmoni has taught Lily never to trust a tiger.

At the same time, Lily is trying to make friends in the new community, and Sami is sometimes nice, sometimes harsh, and she’s so worried about Halmoni.

I wasn’t crazy about the way the fantasy in this book was handled, because I could find logical holes. However, it does nicely leave you wondering what’s real and what’s Lily’s imagination. The overtones from Korean mythology, along with thoughts about the importance of stories, add richness to this book.

taekeller.com
rhcbooks.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book from Fairfax County Public Library.

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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.