Review of Growing Up Under a Red Flag, written by Ying Chang Compestine, illustrated by Xinmei Liu

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Growing Up Under a Red Flag

A Memoir of Surviving the Chinese Cultural Revolution

written by Ying Chang Compestine
illustrated by Xinmei Liu

Rocky Pond Books, 2024. 40 pages.
Review written April 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Growing Up Under a Red Flag is a memoir in picture book form, which makes it easy for children to grasp what’s going on. It’s geared to upper elementary kids.

The book begins with the author a little girl in China in the 1960s. Her parents were both doctors, and her father taught her English and told her stories of America and corresponded with a doctor in San Francisco.

My mother wasn’t always pleased with me because I didn’t behave like a traditional Chinese girl – speaking in a low voice, playing piano, and learning the fan dance. But my father loved my curiosity and strong spirit. He answered my endless questions and clapped with me when I sang English folk songs at the top of my lungs.

But then the Cultural Revolution came. They couldn’t speak English inside their home and listened to Voice of America in secret. And then a soldier moved into her father’s study.

They ended up burning all their English books and notes – but it wasn’t enough, and her father was arrested anyway.

The book shows the hardships of the years that followed, the scarcity of food and necessities, and the struggles without her father.

I did love that by the end of the book, her father was released, and she finishes with the whole family gathered years later in San Francisco. That way, despite the difficulties depicted, readers are left with the way things turned out good in the end. Which makes for a cheerier picture book. Kids can grasp the injustice of the hard times that happened, but the story ends on a happy note.

Yingc.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/growing_up_under_a_red_flag.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Hemlock & Silver

by T. Kingfisher
read by Jennifer Pickens

Macmillan Audio, 2025. 11 hours, 50 minutes.
Review written April 17, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

So far, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every T. Kingfisher book I’ve read. This one has the added bonus of a self-described “middle-aged” heroine, and that’s always nice for a change. This is cozy fantasy with a dash of creepiness – if mirrors in the dark already spook you, this could make it worse.

Anja is a specialist in poisons and studies them looking for antidotes. She keeps a venomous snake and regularly milks its venom to use to speed up the heart as an antidote for other poisons. Of course she tests it on herself – after roosters, but before trying it on patients.

And then, one day, the king walks into her workshop.

The king believes that his daughter Snow is being poisoned and wants Anja to find a cure. Snow has been unwell since the day the king killed the queen – when she was cutting their other daughter’s heart out.

Anja doesn’t feel skilled in working with people, and especially not 12-year-old girls. But she is good at solving mysteries and figuring out poisons. So she goes with the king to the palace where Snow is staying, along with two bodyguards, in case the poisoner doesn’t want to be found out.

Anja finds Snow eating a strange-looking apple. Naturally, she tests it on herself – and then falls through a mirror into another, reflected world. It stirs her scientific heart, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to figure out why Snow would effectively poison herself. And how does the mirror world work.

I wouldn’t call this a retelling of “Snow White” – but many of the elements are there, and it does have that fairy tale feel. There’s a dash of romance thrown in as well, along with some mystery and danger. I blame this book for me staying up far too late the other night while working on a jigsaw puzzle.

redwombatstudio.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/hemlock_and_silver.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Heart of the World, by Amie Kaufman

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Heart of the World

by Amie Kaufman
read by Nikki Patel, Homer Todiwalla, Suzie Rai, Vidish Athavale, Mela Lee, and Steve West

Listening Library, 2024. 11 hours, 22 minutes.
Review written March 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have to say that I love the new trend of writing duologies instead of trilogies. There’s still some suspense waiting for the next volume, but you don’t have to do it all over again and wait for a third volume.

The Heart of the World finishes the story begun in The Isles of the Gods, about a prince and a sailor girl involved in international politics, doing magic, and meddling with the gods.

There’s no way to really set up this book without giving away what happens at the end of the first book, so let me speak in general terms. You’ve got five main viewpoint characters all voiced with different narrators. In this book, the gods find a way to show up in the human world, channeling some of their power through our protagonists and antagonist. And the gods are spoiling for a fight.

The last time the gods fought, an entire country was turned into a barren wasteland. Can our heroes stop the gods? Do they even want to, or is the gods’ influence too great?

A nice touch in this volume is that Selly is able to help Leander bear the load of the goddess’s power.

The audio production for both books is outstanding, with all the narrators excellent, and my all-time favorite audiobook narrator, Steve West, voicing the prince. The characters I was getting tired of in the first volume got more interesting when empowered by a god and when planning a double cross. Oh, and there’s a scholar who tries to save the world through research – with several great lines about how awesome librarians are.

This is a tale well-told of magic and power and love. May our characters keep the world from getting blown apart.

amiekaufman.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/heart_of_the_world.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Now You Know Your ABCs… (Or Do You…?) written by Caspar Salmon, illustrated by Matt Hunt

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Now You Know Your ABCs…

(Or Do You…?)

written by Caspar Salmon
illustrated by Matt Hunt

Nosy Crow, 2026. 32 pages.
Review written April 20, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Hooray! The creators of the amazing How to Count to One (And don’t even THINK about other numbers) have created another interactive and utterly silly parody of a basic concept book – this time taking on the alphabet.

The book begins simply enough with A is for Apple, B is for Ball, and C is for Castle. But when the narrator starts in and tries to do D is for Dog – the “dog” turns out to be a wolf – a Dangerous, Dangerous wolf!

So what are you to do but cry out EEEEEEEEEEK in fear and run all the way to France?

The nearest French person is no help, because they do not speak your language, so you Go and seek shelter inside a tree house.

The adventure that follows gets zanier and zanier as you try to outwit the wolf and get back home – all the way through the alphabet.

It all adds up to an extremely silly book that begs to be read aloud, preferably with a group that indeed already knows their ABCs so they will appreciate the surprising ways each next letter is brought into the story.

matthuntillustration.com
nosycrow.us

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/now_you_know_your_abcs.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Casters and Crowns, by Elizabeth Lowham

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Casters and Crowns

by Elizabeth Lowham
read by Nick Mondelli and Jess Moran

Shadow Mountain Publishing, 2024. 12 hours.
Review written April 14, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Casters and Crowns is a sweet young adult fantasy and romance novel. I think of “Romantasy” as having sex scenes, so I’m not going to call it that, but there’s love across obstacles.

The setting is a kingdom where magic users are scorned and literally branded. And if shapeshifters are discovered, they are killed on the spot – though it is believed that they only turn up once every hundred years, so killing a shapeshifter forty years ago should have saved the kingdom for another sixty years.

There was one Caster in court – the widow of a nobleman. After her son is killed as a spy, she starts causing trouble against the king. Crown Princess Aria wants to prove herself as ready to rule, so she decides to visit the widow and negotiate peace. And then she gets cursed for her trouble. If she doesn’t find a way to break the curse in one hundred days – without being able to talk about it to anyone – she and all her family will die.

There was one other Caster at court, Guillaume Reeves, the other viewpoint character of this audiobook. His father recently died, but the king hasn’t yet allowed him to officially take his father’s position – because how could they allow such an honor to a Caster? Especially with the widow stirring up trouble?

But Aria meets Guillaume and wonders if she can learn from him enough about casting and curses to break the one on herself. Never mind that he’s handsome and kind. But both of them are keeping secrets from one another.

The book does have the trope of the harsh king with an heir who wants to turn things around. But I did find it refreshing that this time the heir was a young lady and the romantic interest oppressed by the king was a nobleman in his own right. (I’ve seen some with the opposite gender situation and it starts to feel like an abuse of power. None of that here.)

The characters are the kind you like to be around, with motivations like Aria wanting to prove herself and Guillaume wanting to protect his younger brothers. I like the thought given – even in a fantasy kingdom – to how governing should work. I enjoyed this one thoroughly.

elizabethlowham.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/casters_and_crowns.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of Omnibird, by Giselle Clarkson

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Omnibird

An Avian Investigator’s Handbook

by Giselle Clarkson

Gecko Press, 2025. 96 pages.
Review written May 12, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Omnibird: An Avian Investigator’s Handbook is packed with entertaining and informative content to help kids learn about the birds all around them.

The “Omnibird” idea is reflected in spreads on bird anatomy that identify the parts of a bird, inside and out. Many are labeled “Optional,” such as caruncles (featherless fleshy bits), spurs (sharp points for fighting), and a comb. Several parts refer to a display of many options on another page – such as the aforementioned caruncles, as well as beaks and feet.

Inside, we see how birds are quite different from us, with their small hindbrain and forebrain, their gizzard, their many neck vertebrae, the syrinx (voice box), and optional crop.

All this information about birds in general takes up the front half of the book, and then we get to see spreads about specific types of birds. It’s all told with humor, speech bubbles, clever drawings, and is super interesting and engaging. There are lots of practical side cartoons, such as “How to Usher a Bird Outdoors” “How to Act Around a Scary Bird,” and “How to Pick Up a Chicken.”

Yes, this book will help kids identify particular birds, but more importantly, it will make kids want to identify them. Reading this book presents birds as fascinating creatures who live all around us and whose bodies and behaviors reflect how they live.

A possible drawback is that the book is too large for a kid to take outside with them on a whim, but all the information packed on the large pages is worth the trade-off. This book is perfect for kids who love to pore over big books of facts – and then they can apply what they’ve learned to investigate the birds in their own neighborhoods.

giselledraws.com
geckopress.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/omnibird.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

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

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/what_kind_of_paradise.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of My Tiger, by Joy Cowley, illustrated by David Barrow

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

My Tiger

by Joy Cowley
illustrated by David Barrow

Gecko Press, 2026. 32 pages.
Review written May 6, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Reading this picture book at my desk made me laugh out loud and push it on my coworkers. Not to give anything away, but this is going on my Pinterest board with the title “Books Where Someone Gets Eaten.” (I once had a librarian coworker whose favorite picture books were all in that category.)

The story here is simply and beautifully told. We see a child – a Black kid who wears glasses, a striped shirt and shorts, and a pleasant smile on his face – and his tiger, who is about ten times as big as he is.

There aren’t many words on each page, and the story is effectively told with the help of the pictures. The first spread says, “My Tiger loved cake.” And the picture is of the kid pointing ahead as they pass a Patisserie with an abundance of cakes in the shop window.

The next page says, “I took him to the cake shop.”

As the tiger eats, the baker asks if he’s dangerous.

“No,” I said, “He only eats cake.”

But alas! After consuming large quantities of cake, the tiger gets a bad tooth. So the kid drags him to the dentist.

A haughty dentist asks the same question as the baker and gets the same answer. The kid has quite a time (shown in the pictures) of getting the tiger to sit in the dentist chair. The tiger howls and growls as the work is being done.

After she finishes up, the dentist tells the kid that the tiger must eat no more cake.

“Then what can he eat?” I said.
“The same as other tigers,” she said.

What happens after that is what made me laugh out loud.

So – this isn’t a book for parents who are trying to teach their children that they can’t survive on cake. Probably not for children afraid of the dentist, either. (Or maybe it would be therapeutic?) But for kids and grown-ups who enjoy a silly story with beautiful pictures and a fitting ending? This picture book is just right.

joycowley.com
geckopress.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Book/my_tiger.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

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

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/buffalo_dreamer.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?

Review of The Faraway Inn, by Sarah Beth Durst

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Faraway Inn

by Sarah Beth Durst
read by Soneela Nankani

Listening Library, 2026. 11 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written April 21, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’ve loved Sarah Beth Durst’s books for years, so I’m delighted that now they’re hugely popular at the library. The only catch is that it takes longer for a hold to come in. Today I ordered more print copies for the library than my initial purchase because demand was so high – I’m happy that others have found this wonderful author.

The Faraway Inn is an inn deep in the wilds of Vermont. Sixteen-year-old Calisa hasn’t been there since she was very small, when her Mom Kate had a falling-out with Calisa’s great-aunt, Auntie Zee. But now Calisa needs a refuge after she discovered her long-time boyfriend cheating on her. She needs to rethink her whole future and where she’ll apply to college – because it’s not going to be with him. Mom Kate suggests Calisa stay at the Faraway Inn and help out Auntie Zee for the summer.

But apparently Auntie Zee was not in on the plan. She tells Calisa she’s going to have to leave, then gives in that she can stay three days. This is despite the fact that she can obviously use some help. The yard and garden are completely overgrown, inside is rundown, the front porch breaks when Calisa steps on it, and the only staff is Jack, the son of the groundskeeper. The groundskeeper left on a supply run and hasn’t returned.

Auntie Zee tells Calisa there are two rules in the inn: No opening doors without permission, and no asking questions. Calisa quickly accumulates lots of questions. She tries asking Jack, but he’s evasive.

The beginning of the book felt slow to me, because it took Calisa forever to figure out there was magic going on. I had to remind myself that she didn’t know she’s a character in a fantasy novel, so she wasn’t primed for it like I was as a reader. But the book becomes delightful after the magic becomes impossible to ignore, and it’s more a matter of finding out how it works to solve some tough problems – like finding Jack’s dad. And getting the inn in better shape for guests. Yes, there’s some romance, but it stays sweet and low-key.

There’s also some fun magic wildness in the guests from other realms, and it ends up being a happy story full of magical possibilities. And like Sarah Beth Durst’s other books (Go back and read them if you’re only discovering her now!), it’s a whole lot of fun.

sarahbethdurst.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/faraway_inn.html

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.

Subscribe for more reviews and talk about books.

Join the conversation: What did you think of this book?