Review of Zero Zebras, by Bruce Goldstone, illustrated by Julien Chung

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

Zero Zebras

A Counting Book about What’s Not There

by Bruce Goldstone
illustrated by Julien Chung

Orchard Books (Scholastic), 2022. 36 pages.
Review written January 8, 2023, from my own copy.
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Silly Fun Picture Books

I love this book in so many ways! In fact, many more than zero ways!

Here’s how the book begins:

I see one wallaby . . .
. . . and zero zebras.

Two tuna splish
and splash
and splosh . . .
. . . with zero zebras.

You get the idea!

As things progress with various jazzy animals, there’s wordplay and visual play:

Ten tigers tiptoe —
that’s how many.

What about zebras?
There aren’t any.

Eleven llamas
like to spit.

It’s zero zebras
that they hit.

But the fun really begins after we pass twelve turtles on the page.

What’s next? What’s here?
What do you see
perching in this tree?
Why, look at that!
By now you’ve guessed.
Zero zebras — obviously.

But that’s not all that isn’t here!
Do you see zero eagles?
You’ll find them next to zero pigs
and zero barking beagles.

Then we’ve got two more spreads with rhymes about all the things pictured that they are zero of.

The finishing thought is this:

So when you want to count a lot,
don’t count what’s there. Count what’s not.

Try counting zeroes with your friends.
The list of zeroes never ends!

The final pages have thoughts from the author about zero and infinity.

So there you have it. A delightfully silly picture book that invites play and imagination and all kinds of fun — while getting kids thinking about the important mathematical concept of zero.

I did quote a lot of this book, but please let that invite you to see it for yourself, because a picture book is always best with the words and pictures together.

brucegoldstone.com
scholastic.com

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Review of Bad Witch Burning, by Jessica Lewis

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

Bad Witch Burning

by Jessica Lewis

Delacorte Press, 2021. 340 pages.
Review written January 17, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2021 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Paranormal Teen Fiction

This book is so, so creepy!

I’m not usually a fan of creepy books, and if I hadn’t been reading it as a Cybils Finalist, I might have quit. I’m so glad I finished – this book is amazing.

The set-up is that sixteen-year-old Katrell has discovered she can help people communicate with their dead loved ones. All she has to do is write them a letter. The letter will catch on fire, and the loved one will appear. Okay, it gives Trell a headache, but she can make money that way. And she needs money, because her mother lost her job and her mother’s boyfriend Gerald likes to eat, and it’s up to Trell to pay the rent.

But then Gerald shoots Trell’s beloved dog Conrad – and in her anguish, Trell writes Conrad a letter, asking him to come back – and he does! Will this same thing work on humans? There’s a whole lot more money in resurrection than there was in simple communication with the dead.

No surprise, though – there are awful consequences to bringing people back to life.

This book is full of suspense and tension and horror – in the best possible way. Normally, when my time reading a book is full of mentally screaming to the main character, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” – normally, I would think it was either unrealistic or the character is just stupid. In this case, although maybe Katrell didn’t exercise the best judgment, the author made me understand how strong her motivation was to continue. Never having had enough money makes money a pull, and being threatened by a powerful drug dealer is strong motivation, too.

I found myself completely caring for Katrell, and wanting her to get a break, to trust the people who care about her – and not be killed by the out-of-control Revenants she’d brought back from death.

Amazing that this is a debut novel. Can’t wait to read more from this author!

authorjessicalewis.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Review of Year of the Reaper, by Makiia Lucier

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

Year of the Reaper

by Makiia Lucier

Clarion Books, 2021. 324 pages.
Review written November 9, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

When I was more than halfway through this book, I looked at some ads for other books in the back and realized that this author also wrote The Isle of Blood and Stone, which I had enjoyed very much during my Newbery reading, but ended up being more Young Adult than Children’s. There’s something about her writing that captivates me. I’m going to look for more of her books.

This book takes place after war and plague have ravaged a medieval world. A prologue shows us a delegation from Brisa, including Princess Jehan and her maid Lady Mari. She is going to Olveras to marry the king — and stop a war that’s been going on for fifty-two years. But on the way, they left behind guards who came down with the plague, until finally the ambassador himself, Lady Mari’s father, succumbed. He sent her on with a small party. Because nothing is more important than stopping the war.

The main book starts a year later, featuring Cas, a nobleman coming back after three years in a Brisan prison. He didn’t get out because of the new peace. He got out because everyone in the prison caught the plague, and Cas survived. On his way home, we learn that Cas can see ghosts. He tries to pretend he can’t, so they won’t try to talk with him, but sometimes he gives himself away.

He has some adventures along the way, including a woman stealing his horse and then him needing to save her from a lynx with the plague. But when he arrives in his home city, he learns the king and his new queen are there, and it is their son’s naming day. But when Cas sees an assassin in a tower shoot an arrow at the prince’s nurse, Cas is the one who is quick enough to save the baby from the lake. But the assassin escapes.

The story that follows includes Cas trying to get used to living among people again, as well as trying to keep the royal family safe from whatever the assassin has planned.

I’ll admit that I saw a major twist coming right from the start — because a very similar twist happened in a book I’d recently read. But that was merely coincidence. I thought it wasn’t obvious if you hadn’t just read a similar book.

The characters in this book won me over — they’re flawed, and they’re dealing with tremendously difficult things. But you watch them, for the most part, making good choices and caring about people. It’s a story that won my heart.

makiialucier.com

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Review of Open and Unafraid, by W. David O. Taylor

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Open and Unafraid

The Psalms as a Guide to Life

by W. David O. Taylor

Nelson Books (Thomas Nelson), 2020. 230 pages.
Review written December 15, 2022, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I’ll be honest, the reason I ordered this book was that I was looking for competitive titles to go with my own book that I’ve written about Psalms. And I was delighted with this one. I do believe that the two can go together, more complementary than competitive. They have different approaches, but someone who enjoys one book will also enjoy the other, because both books are focused on that amazing book in the center of the Bible, a book that engages your emotions and gives examples of people bringing their lives before God.

In the Introduction, the author tells us his hopes for the book:

I’ve written this book so readers would become excited to embrace a prayer book that has been deeply influential, not just for Jesus and the apostles and for monastic and cathedral practices of prayer but also for the hymns of the Reformation, the spirituals of African American slaves, and the songs of the global church. My hope is that church leaders and laypersons, and even seekers and “nones” (those claiming no religion), would understand that they are never alone in their sorrows, angers, doubts, joys, thanksgivings, or questions about life and death.

I love the title of the book, because it reflects the psalmists’ stance before God — Open and unafraid. The psalms are amazing in their honesty and the openness of their emotions before God. In fact, as David Taylor approaches the Psalms by looking at many different themes, he begins with the theme of “Honesty.”

What the psalms offer us is a powerful aid to un-hide: to stand honestly before God without fear, to face one another vulnerably without shame, and to encounter life in the world without any of the secrets that would demean and distort our humanity. The psalms, then, are for those who know that they spend much of their life hiding secrets; they are also for those who know that standing in the presence of God “is the one place where such secrets cannot and must not be hidden.”

The other themes the author takes up to look at the Book of Psalms are Community, History, Prayer, Poetry, Sadness, Anger, Joy, Enemies, Justice, Death, Life, Nations, and Creation. Every chapter includes Questions for Reflection and Exercises, all of which run deep, so this book would be wonderful material for a small group to work through together.

The psalms invite us to risk the love of God and neighbor and of the world that surrounds us with the reassurance that we do not venture this risk alone. We venture it together with an extraordinary company of fellow pilgrims across the ages.

Dive into the psalms with this book. Like the author, I hope it will encourage you to spend time reading the Book of Psalms again and again as you come to understand why they have been beloved by God’s people for thousands of years.

thomasnelson.com

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Review of Learning to Pray, by James Martin, S.J.

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Learning to Pray

A Guide for Everyone

by James Martin, S.J.

HarperOne, 2021. 386 pages.
Review written January 7, 2023, from my own copy.
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Christian Nonfiction

I thought I knew a lot about prayer. After all, I’ve done it all my life. But Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, opened my mind to new ideas and new ways of praying.

He puts the thoughts about prayer in the context of his own life, telling his own story as he goes. But then besides offering different ways to pray, he answers many different questions about prayer. From chapter titles alone, I see “Why pray?,” “What is prayer?,” “What happens when you pray?,” “How do I know it’s God?,” and “Now what?” at the end. You can see from this that he doesn’t simply give formulas or rote ways to pray. You will find in this book explorations about every possible aspect of prayer.

And I appreciated his thoughts on ways to pray, some of them taken from Ignatian practices of the Jesuits. These included things like the daily examen, but also using your imagination to place yourself in a gospel story or going on a retreat with guidance from a spiritual director.

Above all, he challenged me to go beyond a simple list of requests and think about God’s response when I pray.

This book challenged me in multiple ways and I hope will influence my life and my prayer going forward.

Father Martin calls this book A Guide for Everyone, and here’s his Invitation in the very first chapter:

Learning to Pray is written for everyone from the doubter to the devout, from the seeker to the believer. It’s an invitation for people who have never prayed. It’s designed for people who would like to pray, but are worried they’ll do it the wrong way. It’s meant for people who have prayed and haven’t found it as satisfying as they had hoped. It’s also aimed at people who might be afraid of prayer. As I said, prayer can frighten us. It’s unfamiliar territory for some and can be frightening even for believers, because God can seem frightening….

By the end of this book I hope you’ll have a better knowledge of prayer. More important, I hope that you will have started to pray. Finally, I hope that your prayer will lead you to either begin, explore, or deepen your relationship with God, for prayer isn’t an end in itself: God is. The goal of prayer is deepening one’s relationship with God.

This book will challenge and inspire you in your personal journey with God.

jamesmartinSJ.com
harpercollins.com

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Review of The Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D. Jackson

Contemporary, Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Weight of Blood

by Tiffany D. Jackson

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2022. 406 pages.
Review written December 15, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #4 Teen Paranormal Fiction

I’m usually not a fan of horror novels, but I read this one for the Cybils, and had to admit it’s wonderfully executed.

The author warns you right from the start that there’s going to be carnage. Chapter 1 begins with an excerpt from a podcast called “Maddy Did It,” and that begins with sworn testimony from “The Springville Massacre Commission.” That testimony from a mother ends this way:

Only two kids survived Prom Night at that country club. Cole was one of them. They say when you go through something like that, your instincts kick in. So his mind must’ve told him to come on home. He walked over two miles through the mud with one shoe, covered in the blood of other children.

When I asked him what happened . . . he just kept mumbling, “Maddy did it.”

Then we go back in time to May 2014. Maddy Washington is horrified that in gym class she has to run in a sudden rainstorm that has come up, despite her checking the forecast three times, as her Papa demands. Sure enough, when her hair gets wet, her hair expands into an Afro, and the entire school learns that her mother was Black.

It’s a small southern town. They don’t think they’re racist, but they’ve always had two separate proms, one for white kids and one for Black kids. And when Maddy suddenly sprouts an Afro, kids laugh and throw pencils into her hair, marveling that she doesn’t even notice.

Maddy’s always been an outsider. She keeps to herself and doesn’t say much in class. She lives alone with her Papa who makes her pray for hours in a closet with pictures of beautiful white women on the walls that her sin will not come out. She wishes she could be like normal kids.

But when she’s humiliated in class, something strange happens. The chairs float, there’s some kind of earthquake, cellphones quit working, and all the kids get terrible headaches.

Before the cellphones quit working, someone filmed the taunting and posted it on the internet. Now everyone’s talking about the racist small town in Alabama.

Wendy is a senior who feels guilty about it all. She’s not the ringleader of the group bullying Maddy, but her best friend is, and Wendy went along with it. Wendy’s boyfriend is Kenny, the star of the football team. He’s Black, but doesn’t hang out with the other Black kids. Wendy doesn’t like how he’s sticking up for Maddy, and she doesn’t like how she comes out looking like a racist, too.

So Wendy gets the bright idea of combining the white prom and the Black prom. She wasn’t going to go anyway, but she’s organizing the whole thing. And what could be more noble than asking her boyfriend, the town all-star, to take Maddy to the prom?

Of course, we know from the podcast excerpts that open the chapters that this decision will lead to disaster. And meanwhile, Maddy is learning about the power of telekinesis. Could this power have come from her missing Mama?

This book is a hard one to put down. The author shines a light on racism that pretends it’s not racism and gets you firmly on Maddy’s side, despite knowing that something terrible is about to happen. That mild-mannered, socially backward recluse was the wrong person to bully!

A truly masterful story of a downtrodden girl coming into her power.

writeinbk.com
EpicReads.com

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Review of Those Kids from Fawn Creek, by Erin Entrada Kelly, read by Ramon de Ocampo

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

Those Kids from Fawn Creek

by Erin Entrada Kelly
read by Ramon de Ocampo

HarperAudio, 2022. 6 hours, 17 minutes.
Review written September 5, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

There were twelve kids in seventh grade in the small town of Fawn Creek, Louisiana. That is, there were twelve until the day that Orchid Mason showed up.

Usually the twelve seventh graders were careful to leave their faces blank and expressionless. No one wanted to be the first to admit they were excited about anything. But this — a real-life new student, a real-life new anything — was far more interesting than any science experiment. People from Somewhere Else just didn’t come to Fawn Creek. Certainly not unannounced. The next closest thing was Mr. Agosto, who was born in Venezuela and was the only non-white face in almost every room. But he had moved to Fawn Creek when he was three years old, because his dad got a job at Gimmerton, and — like Greyson, Dorothy, and virtually everyone else — he had never traveled outside of south Louisiana since then. The farthest he’d gone was Baton Rouge to go to Louisiana State, and that was just two hours away. Small towns are like magnets, Greyson’s mother once said. They pull you in and don’t let go.

Orchid says she was born in New York City and moved to Fawn Creek from Paris. She wears a flower in her hair. Nobody knows what to make of her.

Then the two kids with the lowest social standing, Greyson and Dorothy, invite Orchid to eat with them. Orchid suggests the wildly innovative idea of taking their lunches outside. She tells the other kids stories of her travels and about her boyfriend, Victor, and her adventures with him in Paris.

But at least one kid isn’t happy about Orchid’s inclusion in their class. Janie used to be the most important seventh-grader in Fawn Creek, since her father ran the plant. And Janie’s best friend Renni isn’t happy, even though she moved from Fawn Creek to the much larger Grand Saintlodge. She’s used to knowing everything about everyone and deciding who’s important and who’s not. When Janie tells Renni that the boy she broke up with is going to ask the new girl to the dance, Renni is not happy.

But Orchid’s the most interesting person Greyson and Dorothy have ever known. They’ve known everyone in their class forever, and they have no surprises. But Orchid looks at things differently and helps them see things differently.

But it’s not good to make an enemy of Renni.

When this book started with a story of how mean Greyson’s older brother had been, pinching him and calling him a girl for not wanting to go duck hunting, I wasn’t sure I’d like it. Erin Entrada Kelly is skilled at showing just how cruel families can be to one another. But in this book, although there were some painful episodes, I like the way things worked out and were resolved.

Both I and those kids from Fawn Creek are better off from having known Orchid Mason, a girl who is both imaginative and kind.

erinentradakelly.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Review of Garlic & the Vampire, by Bree Paulsen

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Garlic and the Vampire

by Bree Paulsen

Quill Tree Books (HarperCollins), 2021. 154 pages.
Review written January 9, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Garlic and the Vampire is a fun graphic novel suitable for early elementary school kids. The book opens with bulb of garlic with a body oversleeping and being teased by her friend Carrot when she’s late. They’re part of a whole group of sentient vegetables made by kindly Witch Agnes. Garlic and her friends help Agnes tend her garden and sell the produce in the village market. They happily interact with the people in the village.

Garlic has some anxiety about doing her job well. Witch Agnes tries to reassure her and encourage her that she’s doing fine.

But then somebody moves into the castle overlooking the valley. Agnes’s magic mirror shows them that a vampire has returned. The vegetables go into a panic. What about the people in the village?

But everybody knows that vampires are afraid of garlic, so they decide that Garlic should confront the vampire.

Witch Agnes gives her tools to help her, but it takes all Garlic’s courage to do the job.

And things turn out like no one expects – in a fun and child-friendly way.

A delightful, quirky, and very sweet story about a little bulb of garlic being brave.

harperalley.com

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Review of From Dust, a Flame, by Rebecca Podos

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

From Dust, a Flame

by Rebecca Podos

Balzer + Bray, 2022. 400 pages.
Review written November 12, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Wow. This is one of those books I can only describe as intricately woven.

The story begins simply enough. It’s the eve of Hannah’s seventeenth birthday, and what she wants is to get to go to summer school to improve that one B she got. But her mother insists they can’t afford it, even though she’s dragged them all around the country until Hannah got into Winthrop Academy. Then her big brother Gabe lets down their birthday tradition by not staying awake until her birthday hits. But those annoyances fade to insignificance when, on her birthday, Hannah wakes up with yellow eyes, slitted like a snake’s.

But before they can do anything, the next day she wakes up with a new deformity, ranging from fins to scales to claws. They always go away in the night, and she always wakes up with something new.

Hannah’s mother takes the problem to heart. She says she knows a specialist who can fix the problem, and Hannah and Gabe should stay in their apartment. She’ll be back in a few days.

Instead, their mother is gone for weeks. So when they get a mysterious note telling them about their grandmother’s death — a grandmother they didn’t know existed — they show up to sit shiva with a big Jewish family they knew nothing about.

After they get to the home of relatives, we start getting occasional chapters telling us about what happened when Hannah’s mother was seventeen and why she left her mother’s house, never to return. And that story has to do with her mother’s mother, the one who recently died, and her history in Prague before the war, as well as stories she brought with her, and maybe something more tangible.

There are stories within stories here, and ultimately deep danger to Hannah and everyone she loves. This book is wonderfully woven and involves golems and sheydim and amulets from Jewish folklore.

rebeccapodos.com
epicreads.com

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Review of How to Keep House While Drowning, by KC Davis, LPC

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

How to Keep House While Drowning

A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing

by KC Davis, LPC

Simon Element, 2022. 152 pages.
Review written January 8, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Standout:
#2 General Nonfiction

Oh, how I wish this book had existed when I was a young wife and young mother!

Now? Well, I’m not drowning so much as I was then — but I still have some mental hang-ups around housework, and this book helps soothe them, even though that soothing isn’t quite as desperately needed.

And this book is so soothing! And so gentle! And so soul-feeding!

The basic message of this book is this: “Care tasks are morally neutral.”

And underlying that message is calling them “care tasks” instead of “chores” — thus taking away a sense of duty.

I also love that she doesn’t try to shame you into getting your space more organized. She doesn’t prescribe a certain way of doing things and acknowledges that everyone is different and what’s functional for you is what works.

When I viewed getting my life together as a way for trying to atone for the sin of falling apart, I stayed stuck in a shame-fueled cycle of performance, perfectionism, and failure.

When will we learn that shame and scolding and punishment is not a good way to improve? This book is full of gentleness that will inspire you.

Doing care tasks is not a duty, but a kindness to future you. All part of self-care.

And the book is full of kind tips for helping yourself do those care tasks and live a functional life.

The way the author ends the Introduction is beautiful and healing, and will give you an idea of what you’ll find in this book:

I’ll say it again: you don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.

In this book, I’m going to help you find your way of keeping a functional home — whatever “functional” means for you. Together, we are going to build a foundation of self-compassion and learn how to stop negative self-talk and shame. Then, and only then, can we begin to look into ways to maneuver around our functional barriers. I have so many tips for how to clean a room when you are feeling overwhelmed, how to hack motivation for times when you feel like doing nothing, how to organize without feeling overwhelmed, ideas for getting the dishes and the laundry done on hard days, and lots of creative hacks for working with a body that doesn’t always cooperate. And we are going to do it without endless checklists and overwhelming routines.

As you embark on this journey I invite you to remember these words: “slow,” “quiet,” “gentle.” You are already worthy of love and belonging. This is not a journey of worthiness but a journey of care. A journey of learning how we can care for ourselves when we feel like we are drowning.

Because you must know, dear heart, that you are worthy of care whether your house is immaculate or a mess.

I highly encourage you to check out this book if you have any level of emotional baggage with care tasks.

strugglecare.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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