Review of Everything We Never Had, by Randy Ribay

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Everything We Never Had

by Randy Ribay
read by Ramón de Ocampo, Jesse Inocalla, Manny Jacinto, and J. B. Tadena

Listening Library, 2024. 6 hours, 42 minutes.
Review written April 29, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
2025 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature Winner
National Book Award Longlist

Everything We Never Had is a story of four generations of Filipino-American men. The first was Francisco, who came after World War II and tried to make money to send home to his family – but found instead prejudice, hatred, and low wages.

Francisco’s son Emil hated the way his father was never home, always traveling to organize the farm workers. He chose a different path and planned to go to college and make something of himself.

Emil’s son Chris wanted to play football and study history. But his father wanted him to focus on studies that would get him a good job some day.

And Chris’s son Enzo is dealing with anxiety. There’s talk of a pandemic, and his father asks him if he will give up his room so Lolo Emil can stay with them instead of in the retirement community. Enzo knows that Chris doesn’t like being with his father, and Emil doesn’t like being with them, but they can’t let him get sick and die.

I liked the way this book gives us insights into the things each generation had to deal with, including lots of history – and how it led to misunderstandings. The stories are interwoven a bit at a time, so I didn’t get the insights on most until after I’d already seen ways they weren’t a very good father. So this is an interesting exercise in learning to see from new perspectives.

Each man as a father tries to give his son everything he never had. Some are more successful than others. In the present-day pandemic, three generations need to learn to get along.

randyribay.com

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Review of What Kind of Paradise, by Janelle Brown

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

What Kind of Paradise

by Janelle Brown
read by Helen Laser and Peter Ganim

Books on Tape, 2025. 11 hours, 42 minutes.
Review written April 27, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Alex Award Winner

Here’s another eaudiobook I only placed on hold because it won an Alex Award. These are given every year to ten books published for adults that are of interest to teens. I almost took this one off my holds list, because the cover didn’t stand out. I couldn’t figure out what the picture was even depicting. (Now I think it’s supposed to have a crack as on an old photo – just of a wilderness, with a lake, forest, and mountains.)

Once I started listening, though – I was mesmerized.

As the book opens, we have an adult woman who’s been tracked down by a reporter after changing her name because her father has been recently in the news. The reporter asks for an exclusive interview, but the woman refuses and tells the listener it would take much more than a magazine article to understand – and then she gives us the book version.

Jane and her father lived on their own land off the grid in Montana starting in 1982 when she was four years old. He tells her that her mother died in a car accident, and he had to get away, but doesn’t tell her much more about her mother. Her father has home schooled her, reading philosophy and learning calculus, and he’s taught her how technology rots the brains of people out there and will bring about the end of civilization. He publishes a zine to spread his views to others, and every few months they go into Bozeman to drop some off at the bookstore there. But readership of his zines is falling off, and in the 90s, the bookstore wants to make room for a tech section.

By this time, Jane is a teen, and getting more and more curious about the outside world. So when her father brings home an old computer and wants Jane to make a website to publish his manifesto against technology, she learns how to do it – but also how to access the internet when her father is gone on one of his mysterious trips.

Jane’s curiosity also extends to her mother. She finds an old photo of her with her mother – but the name of the baby written on the back is not Jane. Was everything her father told her about her past a lie? Her father let slip that they were in Silicon Valley, so she wants to figure out a way to leave, go to Silicon Valley, and find out if her mother is still alive.

I don’t want to give away too much. Even all that I described, which is only the beginning of the book, is full of tension as we watch Jane put together that something’s wrong. When she talks her father into taking her with him on one of his trips so she can escape – well, she does escape, but she’s also an accomplice to a crime.

After that, Jane makes it to Silicon Valley and gets a low-level job with an up-and-coming tech firm. She tries to navigate this new world, find out who she is and if her mother is alive, and at least keep herself from going to jail. Or should she turn her father in?

Another engaging aspect of the book is that tech futurists in the 90s are talking about how we will eventually be able to hold computers in the palm of our hands and how artificial intelligence will be the ruin of us all. You can’t help but think they might be right.

The entire novel had me tense from start to finish, but at the same time, my heart was with Jane trying to navigate adulthood after her extremely unusual childhood. Absolutely brilliant writing, this book is a treat.

janellebrown.com

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Review of Buffalo Dreamer, by Violet Duncan

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Historical, Starred Review 0

Buffalo Dreamer

by Violet Duncan
read by Ashley Callingbull

Listening Library, 2024. 2 hours, 10 minutes.
Review written February 16, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 National Book Award Finalist, Young People’s Literature
2026 American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book, Middle Grades

Buffalo Dreamer is short and sweet and packs a lot of power.

12-year-old Summer and her family are traveling to Canada to the reservation where her mother grew up for their annual vacation. Summer’s looking forward to wonderful times, riding horses with her cousin and enjoying her grandparents and her extended family.

But when she crosses the border into Canada and nears the reservation, she starts having vivid dreams about a girl running away from a residential school. Meanwhile, modern equipment has been brought to the residential school where Summer’s grandfather went to school – and they have found bodies of kids buried there.

Could Summer’s dreams be showing her what really happened?

This book navigates the line between talking about horrific abuse in the past and expressing confident joy in the present – and the power of connection between the generations.

violetduncan.com

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Review of Silenced Voices, by Pablo Leon

Graphic Novel, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Silenced Voices

Reclaiming Memories from the Guatemalan Genocide

by Pablo Leon

HarperAlley, 2025. 240 pages.
Review written February 17, 2026, from a library book.
2026 Pura Belpré Honor Book, Young Adult
2026 Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
Starred Review

Silenced Voices is a graphic novel with children on the front – that covers a horrific part of history, so this is firmly for teens, rather than children. The historical event was a genocide carried out by the Guatemalan government in the 1980s against indigenous people they claimed were helping the guerrillas.

The graphic novel focuses on the story of one character at a time. First, a boy in America who hears about a genocide trial of a former Guatemalan military leader and asks his mother about it – who’s never said much about growing up in Guatemala.

Then the bulk of the book is his mother’s story – how she barely escaped, with the help of her sister, when soldiers came and wiped out their whole village in horrible ways. But before she could get to safety, she and her sister split up, and they never saw each other again.

And there’s more in the present and in the past tying up that story. (I won’t give it away.)

This is a graphic depiction (literally) of a family and culture traumatized and victimized – showing the fallout into the next generation. But I appreciate the positive and optimistic framing of letting voices that were once silenced speak up and that injustice won’t stand forever. All in a compelling and powerful story.

artsypabster.com
harperalley.com

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Review of Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, by Bob the Drag Queen

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Historical, Science Fiction 0

Harriet Tubman

Live in Concert

by Bob the Drag Queen
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 4 hours, 18 minutes.
Review written February 16, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Alex Award Winner

I would have never listened to this audiobook if it hadn’t won an Alex Award. The Alex Awards are given each year to ten novels published for adults that will be of interest to teens. I hadn’t listened to any of the winners this year, so I was trying to make up for that – and I was completely enchanted with this book.

The story is told by Darnell, a hip-hop producer who’s been out of work for fifteen years when he meets his hero, Harriet Tubman, in real life.

We learn that people have been bringing back certain historical figures. I love that the book never explains why or how it’s supposed to work. Because that would rapidly get into ridiculous territory and as readers, we’d realize it doesn’t work. Instead, we’re caught up in the wonder of Darnell meeting his hero.

And what Harriet Tubman wants to do – along with “the Freedmen” she’s brought with her – is create a hip-hop album and go on tour to tell her story to the modern generation.

The process of Darnell learning more about Harriet’s life – from her own voice – and processing the lessons of it makes a simply lovely story. And along the way, Darnell needs to process his own coming-out journey, because Harriet senses that here, too, is someone she needs to lead to freedom.

I recommend listening to the audiobook performance of this book – especially because it ends with two of the songs written for Harriet to perform, consolidating lessons from her life.

bobthedragqueen.com

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Review The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond, by Amanda Glaze

Historical, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond

by Amanda Glaze

Union Square & Co., 2022. 362 pages.
Review written November 26, 2022, from my own copy, sent by the publishers for the Cybils Awards.
Starred Review

The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond is a historical paranormal novel about twins who inherited their mother’s gifts of interacting with the Dead who have crossed beyond the Veil. Violet can open the veil between life and death and communicate with spirits there, and Edie can cross into the spirit world. The Second or Final Death is when spirits go beyond. But spirits who have recently died often linger on the other side of the veil, and Edie and Violet can interact with them.

But the process isn’t without danger. Their mother was working with an unknown client a year ago, and Edie saw her use belladonna to force a spirit into the beyond — and her mother went with the spirit. After their mother’s death, their father threatened to save them by sending them to an asylum. That night, they tied bedsheets together and escaped.

Now they’re traveling with a company putting on shows of spiritualism. Most of what they do is fake — but not all of it. Part of Edie’s act is to deliver speeches on current issues — claiming to “channel” dead white men — whom people are interested to hear. (This was a real thing at the time!)

But their show has brought them back to Sacramento — close to the home they ran away from. A handsome young reporter is nosing around. And Edie senses something disturbing at the nearby asylum. She goes to a speech about the rights of women — and how a husband or father could consign a woman to an asylum with just his word.

And some Spiritualists are going missing. It comes close to home when a girl from their own traveling show goes missing, and Edie sees her beyond the veil.

It’s all put together in an absorbing way. I like all the actual history that’s thrown in — with an Author’s Note explaining it at the back. And I love her line in the Acknowledgments — “No librarians were harmed during the making of this book, but many were consulted.” I was impressed when I discovered this is a debut novel. I felt like there were a few too many coincidences as things came together, but on the other hand, everything was neatly tied together.

Overall, the theme of the connection between sisters made this a heart-warming book. I hope this author writes many more.

amandaglaze.com
unionsquareandco.com

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Review of The Lions’ Run, by Sara Pennypacker

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Lions’ Run

by Sara Pennypacker

Balzer + Bray, 2026. 275 pages.
Review written March 9, 2026, based on an Advance Reader Copy, signed by the author, and a published copy from the library.
Starred Review

Yes, it’s true – I almost finished my Advance Reader Copy of this book before it was published, but not quite. Why did I not read a book by *Sara Pennypacker* first thing when I got that copy? Well, I wanted to, but I got to thinking that it’s certain to be a Sonderbooks Stand-out, and it would be awkward to make it a Stand-out in a year when it hadn’t even been published yet, so I read some others of my loot first. Then I was reading award winners from 2025 for a program I was doing. Then I at least *started* it before publication!

And, yes, this book is as wonderful as I was sure it would be. This is a book set during World War II. I keep thinking that writers will run out of new ideas for that setting, and they continue to surprise me. Our protagonist is Lucas DuBois, an orphan who lives in an abbey in France under the Nazi regime. The Nazis treat all the French with contempt, and particularly orphans like him. But Lucas has a job delivering for the greengrocer, including to the Lebensborn – where pregnant girls are sent to give birth to good Nazi babies. The girls are pampered with fresh fruit and vegetables, and one of them tells Lucas she’s going to go find her baby after the war. Lucas doesn’t want to tell her she won’t have a chance.

Meanwhile, Lucas is ashamed of what a pushover he is. When some bullies drown a cat’s kittens, Lucas tries to stand up for them, but settles for fishing the bag of kittens out of the river and hiding the kittens in a secluded barn. But someone else is already hiding a horse there.

Alice is the daughter of a British racehorse trainer. She knows if the Nazis find her horse Bia, they’ll requisition Bia to fight in their war. So she’s hiding Bia and making plans with a trainer in Kentucky to ship Bia there. She’s got the forged paperwork, but it has to wait a few weeks.

At first, Alice tells Lucas he can’t keep the kittens there. But they come to terms with the situation, help each other keep secrets, and build a friendship.

And tired of being taunted for weakness, Lucas begins finding other ways to resist the Nazis.

This book reminded me somewhat of the Max books by Adam Gidwitz, because both feature a boy against the Nazis. This one was easier for me to believe, because unlike Max, adults resisted sending Lucas into danger, and his actions stemmed from his own kindness and his own desire to make a difference. Yes, there were some fortuitous circumstances, and if this book was real history, he might have died horribly – but it felt more within the scope of what a boy might actually do. Besides, in a children’s book, I expect the protagonist to be victorious, and it was well-fought.

sarapennypacker.com
mackids.com

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A Sea of Lemon Trees, by María Dolores Águila

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

A Sea of Lemon Trees

The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez

by María Dolores Águila

Roaring Brook Press, 2025. 291 pages.
Review written February 17, 2026, from a library book.
2026 Newbery Honor Book
2026 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book
2025 National Book Award Longlist

A Sea of Lemon Trees is a novel in verse about an event that took place in 1930 and 1931, when a school district in California decided to make the Mexican American kids go to a separate “Americanization” school from the white kids.

The Mexican community fought back, with the Mexican embassy hiring lawyers for them. They chose a 12-year-old boy who was a good student, Roberto Alvarez, who was fluent in both English and Spanish, to be the lead plaintiff. This is his story.

I’m quite sure I already read Roberto’s story in a nonfiction picture book. (Sure enough! Google pointed me to the 2021 book by Larry Dane Brimner: Without Separation: Prejudice, Segregation, and the Case of Roberto Alvarez. I even reviewed it, but it was a blog-only review.)

This book is for middle-grade readers, and goes more in-depth, and being fiction, tells us more about how Roberto might have felt. And it gives us more information – telling us about Roberto’s best friend, whose family got deported. Back matter informed me that deportations – even of American-born citizens – are not a new phenomenon.

All these factors [the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and more] led to the Mexican Repatriation, which began in 1929 and continued through 1939. During this time, both Mexican nationals and their American-born children were deported to México, most often without due process, to free up jobs for Americans. This policy was begun by the administration of President Herbert Hoover. The exact number of people forcibly deported is unknown, but estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million, most of them children and American citizens.

By telling us this story from the perspective of a child who was in the thick of it and just wanted to go to school, readers can appreciate how bewilderingly unjust the whole thing was. May it also encourage those readers to stop and think how more modern government actions might feel from the perspective of the marginalized.

mariadoloresaguila.com
mackids.com

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Review of The Man Who Counted, by Malba Tahan

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Mathematical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Man Who Counted

A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

by Malba Tahan
translated by Leslie Clark and Alastair Reid
illustrated by Patricia Reid Baquero

W. W. Norton and Company, 1993. First published in Portuguese in Brazil, 1972.
Review written September 14, 2021, from my own copy.
Starred Review

It was a delight to revisit this book, a tale of mathematical feats and curiosities performed in Baghdad by a man who began life as a humble shepherd.

The narrator of the story is a man traveling home to Baghdad who meets Beremiz Samir, a man who can count the number of birds in a flock as they fly by. But his mathematical agility goes beyond counting, as he solves mathematical puzzles for people and gains a post with the vizier in Baghdad.

The stories are told with middle eastern flourishes and the reader is entertained by the situation as well as the many puzzles. Here’s an example of the first puzzle solved:

We had been traveling for a few hours without stopping when there occurred an episode worth retelling, wherein my companion Beremiz put to use his talents as an esteemed cultivator of algebra.

Close to an old, half-abandoned inn, we saw three men arguing heatedly beside a herd of camels. Amid the shouts and insults, the men gestured wildly in fierce debate, and we could hear their angry cries:

“It cannot be!”
“That is robbery!”
“But I do not agree!”

The intelligent Beremiz asked them why they were quarreling.

“We are brothers” the oldest explained, “and we received these 35 camels as our inheritance. According to the express wishes of my father, half of them belong to me, one-third to my brother Hamed, and one-ninth to Harim, the youngest. Nevertheless, we do not know how to make the division, and whatever one of us suggests, the other two dispute. Of the solutions tried so far, none have been acceptable. If half of 35 is 17 ½, if neither one-third nor one-ninth of this amount is a precise number, then how can we make the division?”

“Very simple,” said the Man Who Counted. “I promise to make the division fairly, but let me add to the inheritance of 35 camels this splendid beast that brought us here at such an opportune moment.”

Beremiz presents a solution, and continues to present solutions to problems that come his way. He also expounds on fascinating facts about certain numbers and provides interesting history of mathematics. There are a wide variety of problems. I am especially fond of the liars and truth-tellers puzzle at the end.

I will say that Beremiz presents his calculations as if by magic – he doesn’t really explain how the reader, too, could have gotten the solution. So the book gives the impression that magical mathematical geniuses exist. However, for anyone who enjoys mathematical puzzles, the fun in this book will make up for that.

It was a delight to revisit this classic. It’s similar to The Number Devil, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger — perfect for people who like to play with numbers.

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Review of Will’s Race for Home, by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Will’s Race for Home

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Little, Brown and Company, 2025. 196 pages.
Review written February 4, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review
2026 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2026 Capitol Choices selection

Here’s a Western with a Black kid as the protagonist. The book starts out in late 1888. Will lives with his parents and his grandfather on land they sharecrop in Texas, giving most of the profit to the owner. Father and Pa say it’s not much better than slavery.

So when Father hears about a coming land rush for land in Oklahoma, opening up on Monday, April 22, 1889, at noon, Father and Will join the crowd heading out to stake their claim. They’ve got their mule Belle hitched up to a wagon, and they hope to make it on time, because there are more people seeking 160 acres of land than there is land to give them.

And the journey is difficult. They find a friend who helps them, and then they need to help the friend. And they have to get their mule and wagon across the Red River on the border between Texas and Oklahoma. They face gunslingers and sheriffs who don’t want Black folks to claim land. Will gets to know his father better and then gets to know himself better, because by the end he has an important part to play.

It feels like children’s books are getting shorter lately, which is a welcome change. In under 200 pages, Jewell Parker Rhodes gives us a story full of danger and drama, as well as compassion and hope, and shedding light on a part of American history I hadn’t known a lot about. (My own great-grandparents had a homestead in Oklahoma – now I’m curious if they were part of that same land rush.)

jewellparkerrhodes.com
lbyr.com

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