Review of Thunderhead, by Neal Shusterman

Science Fiction, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Thunderhead

Arc of a Scythe Book 2

by Neal Shusterman

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2018. 504 pages.
Review written January 25, 2018.
Starred Review
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 Teen Speculative Fiction

This book was a bad choice to bring to Silent Book Club — I wanted to shout when I got to the last page. I did NOT see that coming! (And it’s perfect!) And I doubt that any reader will see it coming, even if I warn you.

But let me back up. This book is a sequel to Scythe. One thing I liked about Scythe was that I wouldn’t have even known it was a Book One if the flap cover hadn’t said so. It wrap ups nicely, and you think good is winning.

Ummm, let’s just say that Good has many setbacks in Book Two.

This series is set in a future earth where mankind has conquered death. They have also eliminated government, and the world is run by the Cloud – which is now known as the Thunderhead. And the Thunderhead is a perfect ruler.

But because it’s not sustainable to have the population keep growing forever, some people need to die. They didn’t want to leave that choice into the hands of a machine, so that’s why the Scythedom was developed. Scythes must hold themselves to high standards and ten commandments. Their responsibility is to glean people and end their lives.

There is strong separation between Scythe and State. So even though the Thunderhead knows something is going terribly wrong with the scythes, it cannot intervene directly.

This book shows that something is indeed going terribly wrong.

I used to tell people that besides apparently having a grim reaper on the cover and being about two teens becoming apprentice scythes, the first book was more thought-provoking than grim. The second book, I’m not going to say that! Some truly horrific things happen in this book, as well as some enormous surprises.

But they are all brilliantly done and I really really really want to read the next book!

Since I won’t be able to post this review until a year after I write it, maybe the next book will be out and I can finally find out how this all turns out. (If this ends up being longer than a trilogy, I may scream.)

Added in March 2019: Nope, not yet! No next book yet. I want to add that this was probably the best-plotted book I read in 2018. In my opinion, though, it is not a children’s book. Teens will enjoy it, yes, but the book appeals to the part of them that is becoming an adult. The characters have chosen careers (grim ones) and are living on their own or with a mentor. And again, they are dealing with some truly horrific events and choices.

But wow! For young adults and old adults – this series will make you grapple with lots of big and profound life-or-death right-or-wrong questions you might never have even thought to propose before.

storyman.com
simonandschuster.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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Review of The Mad Wolf’s Daughter, by Diane Magras

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Mad Wolf’s Daughter

by Diane Magras

Kathy Dawson Books (Penguin), 2018. 280 pages.
Starred Review
Review written April 7, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 Historical Children’s Fiction

As this book begins, Drest tries to warn her brother and her father that she sees boats coming to their lair, but they’re convinced she’s dreaming. They know different when attackers burst upon them.

Her father, the war band leader, gets her to flee and hide. But she sees him and all her brothers taken away. She is determined to save them – even if it means reviving the knight who got thrown down a cliff by one of the other knights.

This is a wonderful historical fiction novel – set in medieval Scotland about a young girl who’s small but fierce and resourceful. Her brothers have trained her well. But she only has six days to get to the castle to save her family, and her journey is not uneventful.

You come to love Drest’s fierce, fighting spirit, which is tempered by compassion for those who need help.

Here’s where Drest approaches the knight at the base of the cliff:

Tears sprang to Drest’s eyes. “Your toad-witted people took my da and my brothers. And I didn’t throw you down here; one of your own men did.”

The young knight’s voice quivered. “What a filthy lie. Those are my most faithful men.”

His despair gave Drest courage. She crept closer. “Maybe some of them, but not the one who was up on the cliff with you. I watched him fight and push you down here.” The mist was thickening around them. Drest looked back to find the trail. “Do you know where they’ve taken my da?”

The young knight’s eyes widened. “To Faintree Castle. Do you even know who we are?”

“Nay,” said Drest, “why should I?”

“Everything in this part of the lowlands – including this headland – belongs to Faintree Castle.”

“Is that the truth? Strange. I’ve always known that my da owned this headland and all the lowlands.”

That’s only the beginning of Drest’s surprising adventures.

Fair warning is that while this book finishes at a good stopping-place, not everything is resolved, so I trust there will be more adventures to come. But this book has enough to make this lass become a legend.

dianemagras.com
penguin.com/middle-grade

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Review of The Stuff of Stars, by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Ekua Holmes

Award Winners, Contemporary, History, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Stuff of Stars

by Marion Dane Bauer
illustrated by Ekua Holmes

Candlewick Press, 2018. 36 pages.
Starred Review
Review written September 25, 2018, from a library book
2019 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 General Picture Books

The Stuff of Stars is a gorgeous and glorious book.

The book is an extra large square, so it’s got a weighty presence. All the pages use marbled papers in swirly patterns. The front cover has the title in gold-sparkled lettering like star clusters.

Here’s how the book begins, on black paper with other dark swirled colors and one white dot:

In the dark,
in the dark,
in the deep, deep dark,
a speck floated,
invisible as thought,
weighty as God.
There was yet no time,
there was yet no space.
No up,
no down,
no edge,
no center.

It goes on to poetically talk about the Big Bang on the third spread. And slowly how the stars and worlds formed. Christians, there’s plenty of room to explain to your child that God’s responsible for that Big Bang.

I like when it talks about what isn’t there yet:

And throughout the cosmos
stars caught fire.
Trillions of stars,
but still no planets
to attend those stars.
And if no planets,
then no oceans,
no mountains,
no hippopotami.
No violets blooming
in a shady wood,
no crickets singing
to the night.
No day,
no night.

Next, planets are formed, and even Earth, “one lucky planet, a fragile blue ball.” And it talks about the creatures that were formed on earth, from mitochondria to sharks, daisies, and galloping horses.

And then there’s a shift of gears:

Then one day . . .
in the dark,
in the dark,
in the deep, deep dark,
another speck floated,
invisible as dreams,
special as Love.

Waiting,
waiting,
dividing,
changing,
growing.
Until at last,
YOU burst into the world.

And it builds to the cozy image of two people cuddling together, the same as on the cover.

The random list of earth’s creatures combined with the glorious swirling images is a perfect pairing.

You
and the velvet moss,
the caterpillars,
the lions.

You and the singing whales,
the larks,
the frogs.

You,
and me
loving you.
All of us
the stuff of stars.

A marvelous and wondrous book.

candlewick.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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Review of Snow Lane, by Josie Angelini

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Snow Lane

by Josie Angelini

Feiwel and Friends, January 2018. 197 pages.
Starred Review
This review written December 7, 2017 from an advance reader copy.
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Historical Children’s Fiction

I’ve often complained that I’m not really represented in children’s books, because there simply aren’t too many books with large families. I’m third of thirteen children. And even when big families are portrayed, they often romanticize them as a big barrel of fun.

The narrator of this book is Annie Bianchi, the youngest of nine kids. I like her reaction when people ask her if it’s fun to always have someone to play with.

Someone to play with? When you’re the youngest of nine kids, you aren’t a player. You’re the ball.

(I am now very frustrated I can’t post that quote on Facebook for my siblings to laugh at now in December 2017 when I’m writing this review. All in good time.)

Annie is ten years old as this book begins. Her oldest sister is nineteen, so, whew! Those kids are consistently much closer together than my family. You figure out very early on that some of her older sisters are just plain mean to her. Not cutesy mean, but abusively mean. This makes the book less pleasant, but it’s also more realistic.

The book is set in 1985. I’m not sure why it’s not set in the present. Things were mentioned that happened in 1985, such as the launching of the space shuttle Challenger and the Cabbage Patch doll craze, but that’s probably a little more fun for those of us who lived through those years than for kids today.

Not that my family was as bad as the Bianchi family, but Josie Angelini gets a whole lot of things right about big families: The overall, pervasive neglect, sibling rivalry on a whole new level, what a big sister leaning over you from an upper bunk looks like, shoes with holes in them, hand-me-down clothes, not having people over so they won’t see your house, mess on a whole new level, older siblings playing a parental role, and nobody monitoring your school assignments. Yep, I strongly suspect the author has personal experience with big families. (Sure enough – I checked her blog and she was youngest of eight. Yes, she gets it.)

Reading this book was really sad for me. Some things happened that were much worse than anything I ever faced, but some of the feelings they pulled up – let’s just say I could relate, all too well.

So the writing is brilliant. She nails the description of a big family – overall, as well as including quirky and real individual characters. But despite the tough things that happen, you can’t help but liking Annie.

Annie’s somewhat scatterbrained and has trouble reading because she’s dyslexic. But she’s a quick thinker and in the Academically Creative and Talented class. In that class, they start off fifth grade with a question about Destiny. So Annie spends the year trying to figure out her destiny. While dealing with friends and her crazy big family and how the worlds of school and home can overlap – or not.

The story does build to a crisis. Some big decisions and revelations are made. The book ends on a note of hope, and you find that you’re rooting for Annie Bianchi, who’s a good listener, a good sister, and a good friend.

josephineangelini.com
mackids.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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Review of So Tall Within, by Gary D. Schmidt

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

So Tall Within

Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom

by Gary D. Schmidt
illustrated by Daniel Minter

Roaring Brook Press, 2018. 48 pages.
Starred Review
Review written October 2, 2018, from a library book
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

Here’s a picture book biography of Sojourner Truth, focusing on how she spoke up for Freedom.

The words used are poetic and the pictures are full of beautiful resonance.

Many spreads have a panel on the left side beginning with “In Slavery Time…” or “In Freedom Time…” along with an image.

For example, the book begins like this:

In Slavery Time, when Hope was a seed waiting to be planted,

Isabella lived in a cellar where the windows never let the sun in and the floorboards never kept the water out.

The book takes us through her many years in slavery, and then the story of how she got her freedom – and sued her former master because he sold her son out of the state of New York.

But in Slavery Time, Broken Promises were like leaves on a tree.

It tells about how she changed her name and began walking around the country speaking about Freedom and Truth.

In Slavery Time, when Tiredness stood at the doorway,

Sojourner Truth walked all the way to Washington, D. C. There she met Abraham Lincoln, and she told him he was “the best president who has ever taken the seat.”

But the panels change after emancipation.

In Freedom Time, when Hope kindled a fire in the dark and Happiness winked over the horizon,

Soujourner Truth told an audience in Massachusetts, “Children, I have come here like the rest of you, to hear what I have to say.” And what she had to say was plenty.

This book powerfully and poetically portrays a woman who rose from slavery to stand tall and change America.

mackids.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 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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Review of We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, by Ryan T. Higgins

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

We Don’t Eat Our Classmates

by Ryan T. Higgins

Disney Hyperion, 2018. 40 pages.
Starred Review
Review written June 20, 2018 from library book
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Picture Books – Silly Fun

Before I looked at the copy of this book that had come to the library for me, I heard my co-worker laughing over it in the next cubicle. We ended up getting everyone else in that section of the office to read it. The tone and pictures are brilliant.

I’ll give a little taste, though you really need to check this book out to see the pictures that go with it. By the way, there’s a picture of Penelope on the title page saying, “Hey kids! You will never be eaten by a T. rex. They are extinct. I promise!”

The book begins:

Penelope Rex was nervous. It’s not every day a little T. rex starts school.

She’s worried whether her classmates will be nice and how many teeth they will have. But when she gets to school:

Penelope Rex was very surprised to find out that all of her classmates were CHILDREN!

So she ate them.

Because children are delicious.

“Penelope Rex!” said Mrs. Noodleman,
“WE DON’T EAT OUR CLASSMATES! Please spit them out at once.”

So she did.

The picture of the angry children covered in drool and digestive juices is delightfully disgusting.

More pictures as Penelope tries to make friends show things like waiting at the bottom of the slide – with her mouth open. Penelope starts to notice that the other kids don’t want to get near her.

No problems-at-school book would be complete without a conversation with the parents.

When she got home, her dad asked about her first day of school.

“I didn’t make any friends!” Penelope cried. “None of the children wanted to play with me!”

“Penelope Rex,” her father asked, “did you eat your classmates?”

“Well . . . maybe sort of just a little bit.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to make friends,” said her dad. “Especially if you eat them.”

“You see, Penelope, children are the same as us on the inside. Just tastier.”

The next day, a lesson comes for Penelope in an unexpected way.

This book is too much fun! In fact, I’m sad that it came in one week after we finished booktalking this year. It’s already going on my list for next year. Very silly. Very fun. There’s nothing quite like a picture book that makes you laugh out loud.

ryanthiggins.com
DisneyBooks.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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Review of The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle, by Leslie Connor

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Truth as Told by Mason Buttle

by Leslie Connor

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2018. 326 pages.
Starred Review
Review written February 4, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher.
2018 National Book Award Finalist
2019 Schneider Family Award Winner
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Contemporary Children’s Fiction

Okay, I love this book, and I love Mason Buttle! I’m writing this at the beginning of my Newbery reading year. I may read many more books I love this year, and I may be the only person on the committee who loves this book – but I am so encouraged that such a wonderful book exists.

Mason Buttle is the biggest and tallest kid in seventh grade. And he has a disorder, so he sweats. A lot. And he has dyslexia, so he’s not very good at reading or writing.

As you may guess, a kid like that with a last name like “Buttle,” will get teased a lot, and bullied. But Mason takes it matter-of-factly.

His family’s gone through a lot lately. Mason’s grandpa died. Then his mother was killed in an accident, so only his grandma, Uncle Drum, and Mason are left. And then Mason’s best friend Benny died.

Benny died after he fell from their tree fort when the top rung of the ladder broke. The sheriff keeps wanting to talk with Mason about it. But he interrupts Mason, and it’s hard for Mason to get his words out. Mason has told the sheriff everything he knows.

But there’s a wonderful teacher at school named Mrs. Blinny. (Mrs. Blinny, too, is quirky and wonderfully described.) She’s got a new machine that Mason can talk into – and it will write down his words for him. Now at last, Mason can write his story.

Meanwhile, Mason makes a new friend, Calvin Chumsky. Calvin gets bullied, too. But the two together start a project together and become friends.

That’s only the bare bones of how the book begins. There’s a lot more going on – things with Mason’s family, things at school, the bully’s nice mother and the bully’s nice dog that Mason dog-sits, the family orchard that Uncle Drum has been selling off, and of course the mystery of what really happened when Benny died and why do so many people in town give Mason a sad-to-see-you look?

But Mason isn’t the type to feel sorry for himself. I challenge anyone to read this book and not just love this kid. Here he is in the very first chapter after he misspelled stopped as STOOPID in a spelling bee and someone put a t-shirt with the word STOOPID in his locker.

Matt Drinker loves when something like that happens. That’s why I’m guessing he put this STOOPID shirt inside my locker. He must have picked my lock to do it. Funny thing is I knew what the shirt said because of the two Os in the middle. I knew in two blinks.

Matt doesn’t know it but he did me a big favor. I always take two shirts to school. Unless I forget. I change just before lunch. This is because of how I sweat. It is a lot. Can’t stop it. Can’t hide it. I need to be dry at the lunch table. Otherwise I’m a total gross-out of a kid.

Well, today was a day that I forgot my extra shirt. So I’m wearing this one that says STOOPID on it. It’s big and it fits me. It’s clean and dry. I’m going to keep moving. Maybe nobody will see what it says.

And if they do, well, tell you what. Plenty worse has happened.

leslieconnor.com
harpercollinschildrens.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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Review of Blood Water Paint, by Joy McCullough

Award Winners, Historical, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Blood Water Paint

by Joy McCullough

Dutton Books, 2018. 304 pages.
Starred Review
Review written April 16, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher.
2019 Morris Award Finalist
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 General Teen Fiction

Wow. This book is amazing.

Now, the central event of the book is a rape – so I, personally, don’t think that’s “presentation for a child audience” [though that is only my personal opinion and I haven’t discussed it with anyone else on the Newbery committee]. But by the time I figured that out, there was absolutely no way I was going to stop reading.

This is a verse novel, which usually I don’t have a lot of patience with. But this verse spoke with a compelling voice that pulled me in immediately.

We have the perspective of Artemisia Gentileschi, who was seventeen years old in 1611 in Rome. Her mother died when she was twelve. She worked for her father, an artist, grinding pigments, preparing paint – and creating paintings for him, even though they bore his name.

In that world, women were used by men. Her mother had told her stories of the ancient heroines Susanna and Judith – they stood up to men and were vindicated, though it was not easy for them. Those stories, woven through the book, are the only parts that are not written in poetry. Yet they quickly make you feel what it must have been like for those ancient women – in a way that men who have never felt powerless cannot understand.

And then a young man hired to teach Artemisia perspective rapes her. And she tells the world what he did – but the resulting trial comes at great cost to Artemisia.

The powerless woman, used by men, stands up to the powerful, like Susanna and Judith before her. Though none of them spoke up without cost.

And the amazing part is that Artemisia is an actual woman, an artist, and her trial in 1611 actually happened.

Being verse, this book is not long. But its effect is long-lasting indeed.

They tell me I know
about perspective now.
Too well.
They say I’m standing
at the start of a long road,
looking out into the distance.
What do I see?

joymccullough.com
PenguinTeen.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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Review of The Girl Who Drew Butterflies, by Joyce Sidman

Award Winners, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies

How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science

by Joyce Sidman

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. 144 pages.
Starred Review
Review written March 7, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher.
2019 Sibert Medal Winner for best children’s nonfiction book of the year
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 Longer Children’s Nonfiction

This book has a prologue, with the heading, “The Girl in the Garden.” Quoting from it will tell you the background of Maria Merian’s life.

A girl kneels in her garden. It is 1660, and she has just turned thirteen: too old for a proper German girl to be crouching in the dirt, according to her mother. She is searching for something she discovered days ago in the chilly spring air. As she combs the emerald bushes, she looks for other telltale signs – eggs no bigger than pinpricks, or leaf edges scalloped by the jaws of an inching worm. . . .

But for years she has gathered flowers for her stepfather’s studio, carried them in, and arranged them for his still-life paintings. She has studied the creatures that ride on their petals: the soft green bodies of caterpillars, the shiny armor of beetles, the delicate wings of moths. She has looked at them closely, sketched and painted them. In learning the skills of an artist, she has learned to look and watch and wonder.

Imagine this girl, forbidden from training as either a scholar or a master artist because she is female. Aware that in nearby villages women have been hanged as witches for something as simple as showing too much interest in “evil vermin.”

Yet she is drawn to these small, mysterious lives. She does not believe the local lore: that “summer birds,” or butterflies, creep out from under the earth. She thinks there is a connection between butterflies, moths, caterpillars, and the rumpled brown cocoon before her, and she is determined to find it.

This is her story.

The biography that follows tells of a woman far ahead of her times. She was both an artist and a scientist. She was an artist because she assisted her father and her husband and learned from them – she wouldn’t have been able to study on her own merits. She was a scientist by virtue of her own patient observations. She learned which caterpillars transformed into which moths or butterflies and which cocoon or chrysalis went with each.

She made her observations known by painting them. She would paint creatures on the same plant where she found them, and she would paint a butterfly with its egg, caterpillar, pupa, and chrysalis in the same picture.

This book is lavishly illustrated with Maria Merian’s own paintings as well as photographs of caterpillars, moths, and butterflies. Quotations from Maria’s writings are included, set off in a box and printed in script. Every spread has something colorful to catch the eye.

The structure of Maria’s biography follows the life cycle of a butterfly, with chapter titles: “Egg,” “Hatching,” “First Instar,” “Second Instar,” “Third Instar,” “Fourth Instar,” “Molting,” “Pupa,” “Eclosing,” “Expanding,” “Flight,” and “Egg” again. Joyce Sidman has written a poem for each chapter, placed next to a photo of a caterpillar or butterfly at that stage.

Maria’s unique combination of observation plus art left a mark that affected scientists after her. After her death, Carl Linnaeus used her book to classify and name more than one hundred insects – names we still use today.

The exquisite paintings and detailed photographs make this a beautiful book worth browsing – even if it weren’t packed with facts about an important scientist, a woman far ahead of her time.

joycesidman.com
hmhco.com

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Source: This review is based on a book sent by the publisher.

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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Review of Dreamers, by Yuyi Morales

Biography, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Dreamers

by Yuyi Morales

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2018. 40 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 6, 2018, from an advance F & G.
2019 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award Winner
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#1 General Picture Books

Oh, this is such a gorgeous and timely book.

Mixing English and Spanish (without a glossary), Yuyi Morales tells her immigration story with glorious paintings and collages loaded with symbolism. A note at the back fills in the details.

She came to America with her baby, to get married. She felt bewildered and an outsider. She didn’t understand the language.

But almost the very center spread of the book is the place that changed both her and her child’s lives – the public library.

We see specific books on the shelves, but also wonders pouring out of the books she opens. All the rest of the spreads are about libraries and the wonders of books.

Thousands and thousands of steps
we took around this land,
until the day we found . . .

a place we had
never seen before.
Suspicious.
Improbable.

Unbelievable.
Surprising.

Unimaginable.

Where we didn’t need to speak,
we only needed to trust.
And we did!

Books became our language.
Books became our home.
Books became our lives.

We learned to read,
to speak,
to write,
and
to make
our voices heard.

The text alone doesn’t do this book justice. The joy of the mother and child as the world and imagination opens up is glorious to behold.

In the note, where she fills in details of her story, she explains that her child was not a Dreamer in the political way the word is used today, about undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

Kelly and I were Dreamers in the sense that all immigrants, regardless of our status, are Dreamers: we enter a new country carried by hopes and dreams, and carrying our own special gifts, to build a better future. Dreamers and Dreamers of the world, migrantes soñadores.

Now I have told you my story. What’s yours?

She includes a list of books that inspired her at the back.

Oh, such a lovely book! And it doesn’t hurt that it’s a song of thanks to libraries.

HolidayHouse.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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