Review of King of the Neuro Verse, by Idris Goodwin

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

King of the Neuro Verse

by Idris Goodwin
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 3 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written August 12, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is a young adult novel in verse, so it’s short, and perfect for neurodivergent thinkers like the protagonist.

Pernell is stuck going to summer school for his third time in high school, and all his nerves are jangled. Fortunately, a friend gave him a digital voice recorder, so he’s letting off steam by telling all his difficulties to “the future.” It’s 1999, so he’s not sure if the world will end when Y2K hits.

He’s got to take English – and then it turns out that the very teacher who made him go to summer school is teaching the class. She’s made up her mind about Pernell and is portrayed as a bully who humiliates him regularly. Though Pernell honestly has trouble paying attention.

Fortunately, at lunch time, every year a group of students do a rap circle they call the Cypher. Last year’s Cypher King graduated, and Pernell is determined to win the crown himself.

So why does playing with language in rap make so much more sense to him than writing essays in class?

My one little quibble with this audiobook is that a couple of times Pernell refers to ambient noise, and I wish the production had gone to enough trouble to simulate that, since it pulled me out of the book when I didn’t hear it. Supposedly, he’s recording the whole thing. In a print book, we don’t miss the ambient noise and trust that it’s there, but in an audiobook, I wish they’d attempted to make us think this was Pernell’s actual recording. The author is a rapper himself, so he reads the words well.

But that was a minor quibble. The story itself helped me understand how it feels to be a teen with ADHD just trying to do his best – and be King of what he actually cares about.

idrisgoodwin.com

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Review of Diamond Fever! by Steve Sheinkin

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Diamond Fever!

A True Crime Story in the Wild West

by Steve Sheinkin
with comics and art by Jon Chad

Roaring Brook Press, 2026. 240 pages.
Review written August 30, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a true crime story told with all the drama of a novel. It’s suitable for middle school or upper elementary kids, though teens will like it, too. I’ll list it on the Children’s Nonfiction page, but this isn’t a picture book – it’s an adventure tale of the Wild West.

The story is of a dramatic and complicated swindle involving a diamond mine. We know it’s a crime from the title, and the author doesn’t hide that from the beginning, but we don’t know what was done or how they pulled it off until the end.

Interesting to me is that the criminals got away with it. Essentially, they duped famous and powerful people, who didn’t want it to get out that they had been swindled. It’s a long and involved swindle, and Steve Sheinkin takes us every step of the way.

He starts us off with two men in San Francisco in 1870, bringing a bag of rough diamonds to a mine investor for safe keeping. They say they found a diamond field when out prospecting. The investor checks, and these are real diamonds.

And so begins a long adventure involving multiple investors and multiple expeditions to the secret diamond field in the middle of the country. Before it’s done, they’ve pulled in the rich and powerful and have throngs in San Francisco interested in investing, planning to strike it rich. They even have to be stealthy about visiting the site, because others will want to stake a claim first.

How is it a crime? Who’s responsible? How did they pull it off? Where did the actual diamonds in that bag come from? The author skillfully spreads out the answers to keep us wanting to find out more. And there’s some nice pointers about not falling for scams at the end. It can even happen to the rich and powerful!

Some of the key scenes are shown with comics, and this tale is spun in a way that keeps you turning pages.

stevesheinkin.com
jonchad.com

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Review of Austenland, by Shannon Hale

Austenalia, Fiction Review, Romance, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Austenland

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, 2026. 326 pages.
Review written August 29, 2026, from my own copy, ordered via Bloomsbury.com and signed by the Author at the National Book Festival
Review of original edition written in 2013.
2007 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#2 Romance Fiction
Starred Review

Shannon Hale has revised Austenland and Midnight in Austenland! So of course I had to buy new copies. And rereading it fits in perfectly with my plan for #Sonderbooks25, celebrating 25 years of writing Sonderbooks, to reread selected Sonderbooks Stand-outs from previous years. The fabulous news is that she did the revisions in preparation for writing a third volume, Christmas in Austenland, coming out this Fall, which of course I already have preordered.

She says it started as just a little editing to update the technology, but ended up as a full-on revision. It’s been long enough since I last read Austenland – 2013 – that I didn’t really notice the differences, but I thoroughly enjoyed the story and still wish someone would make this place in real life. And yes, I read into the wee hours of the morning finishing it because it was too hard to stop. Even knowing what’s going to happen.

The premise is that there’s a country house in England where wealthy women can go and be immersed in the world of Jane Austen. They’re promised a romantic experience and get to attend a ball at the end. Handsome actors all make up a house party in Regency England.

Our heroine in this first novel, Jane Hayes, isn’t rich enough to pay her own way, but she is obsessed with the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth. Her great-aunt Carolyn learns her secret – and in her will leaves Jane a trip to Austenland.

Once there, Jane’s journey loosely parallels Pride and Prejudice, complete with some clever banter, interesting first impressions, and a Wickham-like character. Some fun moments include Jane being asked to play the pianoforte and launching into “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater.” And the house party decides to put on a theatrical production (as in Mansfield Park), which puts couples together.

Something I love about the new edition is that it includes 48 pages at the back telling of Shannon Hale’s experience making the movie Austenland and getting to be present on the set in England. (The movie is great fun – of course I own that, too.) What a dream come true seeing her words come to life! She captures the magic of the experience beautifully.

When I was in line at the National Book Festival to get this signed, the person next to me was a Jane Austen fan and a Shannon Hale fan, but hadn’t heard of these books. Anyone this describes needs to read Austenland! And now they’re updated, with more volumes on the way!

shannonhale.com

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Review of Wildspeak, words by Sangma Francis, pictures by Lexi Vangsnes

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Wildspeak

words by Sangma Francis
pictures by Lexi Vangsnes

Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, 2026. 36 pages.
Review written August 13, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

Wildspeak is a wondrous and wonder-filled picture book about creativity and exploring the natural world.

We see a mother and two girls heading off on a nature walk. All three have brown skin, and a dog is happily bounding along with them.

In the wide, wide world with its wide, wide skies,
there are wild, wild words waiting to be spoken.

First, the book highlights some imaginative words that describe nature, like “dragonflies,” and “waterweeds.” But then they begin making up words of their own, like “Sunglitter,” to describe the scatter of light off water. And then they make a game of it:

“What’s the word for the shininess of pebbles underneath?” Cora asks.

It’s time for Wildspeak! On the next spread, they shout the words, “Stonelight,” “Bottomshimmer,” “Rockglisten,” and “Goblingems.”

And so the book continues. I’m not sure where they find so many different spaces for their nature walk – meadows, beach, mountain, forest – but in each space they highlight some existing wild words, and then make up new ones of their own.

For example, when a wave goes out and leaves sea stones drying in the sun, the girls call it, “Beachcrackle,” “Foamdry,” “Poolfizz,” and “Stonebreath.”

At the end of the day, they write their new words in their nature journal.

The end papers are fun, showing that nature journal, and including a taped-in glossary of some of the existing wildspeak words encountered earlier in the book.

This book is more for young elementary school kids than preschoolers – kids that can write down their new words. But preschoolers can get in on the imagination and wonder.

asangmafrancis.com
lexivangsnes.com
sourcebooks.com

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Review of Princess Academy: The Graphic Novel, by Shannon Hale and Victoria Ying

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

Princess Academy

The Graphic Novel

by Shannon Hale
illustrated by Victoria Ying
color by Elena Dall’aglio

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2026. 284 pages.
Review written August 23, 2026, from a copy ordered via Amazon.com and signed by the author.
Starred Review

I ordered two copies of this book for my two 11-year-old nieces (different families) in time to have them signed by Shannon Hale at the National Book Festival. And – I had to wait in line so long, I got the entire book read!

I read and loved the original Newbery Honor-winning book back in 2005, and listened to the audiobook in 2008, so it’s been a long time, but I know the story well. I enjoyed the graphic novel, and I can’t think of anything important that it left out, though of course it’s much quicker to read than the original book.

I like the way they show that people from the village of Mount Eskel like to sing, but having words for songs and musical notes dancing across the pages, especially starting each chapter. That reminded me… and sure enough I checked, and each chapter of the original book also begins with a song. The addition of musical notes and the words flying in the air makes them come across more as songs than poems in the graphic novel.

I also like how the graphic novel portrays quarry speech – when the villagers of Mount Eskel can speak to one another across distances through the special stone of their home. In the graphic novel, these show as golden bubbles, with pictures and words inside them, but you get more of a feeling of what’s going on, and the author doesn’t need as many words of description.

Other than that, I’m not sure how well the book works as a stand-alone graphic novel, since I’m reading into it everything I already know about the story. But as far as I can tell, it gets the same ideas across in fewer words because of the visual impact of the pictures.

And the pictures are well done. I can keep better track of the various characters than when I was only visualizing them in my own head. They show Mount Eskel as a beautiful and brightly colored place.

I’ve forgotten to tell what the book’s about. A small mountain village is disrupted when the kingdom’s priests have performed divination and determined that the future princess will come from their village. So all the girls within a few years of coming of age are taken to a princess academy to learn skills like reading, writing, arithmetic, etiquette, and diplomacy. At the end of the year, there will be a ball and the prince will choose his bride.

Our protagonist Miri enjoys learning at the academy, and hopes to help her village with what she’s learned. She’s not sure she wants to leave her mountain. Besides, she has a handsome friend at home that she’s maybe having feelings for. Does she want to marry a stranger in exchange for power?

I do still hope that people (my nieces) will want to move on to the plain text book. It necessarily has more nuance – but the story did translate well into this new medium.

One other note: I put the original book on my Young Adult page because, after all, it’s about young people getting married. This graphic novel is a little more explicit that the marriage won’t happen until the chosen princess comes of age, and the style of the illustrations is more geared to middle grades than to high school, so I’m going to list this on the Children’s Fiction page.

shannonhale.com
victoriaying.com

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Review of Good Writing, by Neal Allen and Anne Lamott

Creativity, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, Writing 0

Good Writing

36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences

by Neal Allen and Anne Lamott

Avery (Penguin Random House), 2026. 200 pages.
Review written August 18, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com.
Starred Review

I already loved Anne Lamott. Her vulnerable writing with self-deprecating humor and relatability won me over long ago. Now she’s written a book with her husband about how to write better, and preordering my own copy was a no-brainer.

Preorder? But this book has been out a few months. Yes, well, it’s the perfect book for reading a chapter a day (most days) and trying to absorb the wisdom. It’s also going to be a book I want to keep handy for when I’m revising my writing. I’m self-conscious about the rules I’m breaking in writing this review – but it’s not about squelching writing, it’s about making writing better, about improving sentences. (Anne does recommend pulling it out on the third draft of a book, which she calls the “dental draft” for in-depth cleaning.)

The set up of the book is 36 short chapters with writing rules from Neal’s years of experience as a journalist. And then in each chapter, Anne chimes in. She does some teasing and a little sniping, but the two writers’ love and respect for each other shines through and is a delight to read even if it wouldn’t help your own writing.

I like how Anne explains it in the Introduction:

My teaching has mostly been about the attitude of writing: gaining the confidence to get your stories told, to stop not writing, to tell the truthiest truth, make the plunge into empathy, and, mostly, to develop the habit of keeping your butt in the chair every day. Neal tends more toward encouraging people to write better sentences and paragraphs. Hence this book, and my own fixation with the best possible sentences I can write.

The rules you’ll find here are basic but universal: “Use Strong Verbs,” “Don’t Show Off,” “Trust Your Voice,” “Drop ‘Very’ and Other Crutch Words,” “Jettison [All Those] Tiny Words.”

Neal makes the case that you’ll find these rules helpful even if you don’t think of yourself as a writer:

These rules of good writing don’t exist only on the written page. They inform all types of communication, including everyday speech. We enjoy being entertained and persuaded in conversation, on film, through headphones, in private, and out in crowds. Instead of reading, people are listening – to books, yes, but also to experts on podcasts. As those experts script or improvise their words, they’re following many of the rules of rhetoric and persuasion that lifted Pericles two millennia ago and later, Shakespeare. Strong verbs keep the listener’s attention exactly the same way they keep the reader’s. I can’t prove it, but I tend to believe that the rules of persuasion and sentence-making will survive any changes in media, and may always assist us in refining the words we use to understand the human experience.

And I love Anne’s take on that:

Neal shared these thirty-six rules with me on our fourth or fifth date, and while their simplicity and brilliance were not the main reason I agreed to marry him a couple of years later, they didn’t hurt. His rules helped me become a better writer, and if you follow them, your writing will get better, too. Your work will get more economical, sharper, and more riveting. It is possible that it will become both more fun for us to read and more fun for you to write. Our hope is that you will be able to edit your work in a more focused and efficient way. Long, boring descriptions, out; generic verbs, out; endlessly inserted adjectives and adverbs, out out out. And clichés, feh! You can do better.

Writers, if you haven’t yet read Anne’s Bird by Bird, you absolutely need to do that! After that book gets you to write and to get your shitty first draft down on paper, this book will help you make that draft much less shitty.

And we’ll all be happier to read your writing.

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Review of We Carry the Sun, by Tae Keller, illustrated by Rachel Wada

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Science, Starred Review 0

We Carry the Sun

by Tae Keller
illustrated by Rachel Wada

Norton Young Readers, 2025. 48 pages.
Review written 2/6/26 from a library book.
Starred Review

This is a nonfiction picture book about the history of solar power. The illustrations are lavishly beautiful, and I like the way the author addresses the reader as we – talking about humankind’s collective efforts to harness the power of the sun.

And I had no idea the long history and the wide scope of efforts to produce solar power. She mentions ancient peoples who built their homes to be cooler in summer and warmer in winter. And then goes on to the people who figured out how to make solar panels – and the many people after them who kept refining the design.

It’s a story of people working across the globe, using ideas of others, improving on them, for the good of all. Tae Keller and Rachel Wada capture this idea in their “We”-centered text and stunning illustrations.

There’s a timeline at the back that gives more information about the specific scientists featured. Especially interesting are recent developments – including a scientist in Mexico who makes biodegradable solar panels and scientists in Korea, Germany, China, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore working with perovskite solar panels which are transparent and can be used in place of glass.

All sorts of fascinating information here – told in a way children can understand – and be inspired to wonder what they might do to add to the progression of science improving our lives.

Here’s the last page of the main text:

How does an idea grow?
With people bouncing off one another
like photons,
teaching and inspiring,
listening and learning.
Across the world,
we turn to one another and say,

We are incredible.

Look at all we can do.

We reached into the sky
and carried the sun home —

and what if we could do even more?

rachelwada.ca
taekeller.com
nortonyoungreaders.com

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Review of Brigands and Breadknives, by Travis Baldree

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Brigands and Breadknives

by Travis Baldree
read by the Author

Macmillan Audio, 2025. 8 hours, 25 minutes.
Review written July 13, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Brigands and Breadknives is the third cozy fantasy novel for adults that I’ve read from Travis Baldree, and now I’m sad that I’ve read all three he’s written so far. I’m happy, though, to discover an author whose books I love so much and who seems to be young enough to write lots more.

This is not a romance – it’s a tale of friendship and adventuring and navigating a sort of midlife crisis.

Do read the other two books before this one, because there are hints dropped of what went before. This one features Fern, the Ratkin who sold her bookshop in the seaside town where she first met her friend Viv the Orc lady to move to Thune and start a new bookshop there, right next to Viv’s coffee shop, Legends and Lattes.

But after Fern moves and her new bookshop in Thune is doing fine, she’s still discontented. It still feels like there’s a hole in her life. She doesn’t know what she wants, but it’s not this. She gets drunk and makes a promise to tell Viv how she’s feeling and apologize for all the trouble Viv had to set Fern up here.

But instead of telling Viv that night, Fern falls asleep in a cart – and a day and a half later wakes up to find she’s in a cart driven by a fabled adventurer known as the Elf Maiden. She’s 500 years old, and Fern has sold books about her. She’s got a chaos goblin in the cart and is currently on a mission to deliver the goblin to another town in exchange for a very high bounty.

And one thing leads to another, and Fern ends up going along on the quest, and even helping during life-threatening situations. Because the bounty is so incredibly high, there are many other adventurers who want a piece of the action. Even more threatening is the orc who doesn’t want any bounty but just wants the goblin dead. Along with anyone who will keep them from killing her.

So there’s lots of adventure, including fixes you’re afraid they really can’t get out of. (When I find myself reminding myself it’s a book and there’s no way the author will let that character die – will they? – I know the author has done a great job of raising the stakes.) But it’s also an exploration of friendship and life purpose, and simply a wonderful story.

I’ve decided that the new label of “cozy fantasy” is exactly what I was looking for when I started reading young adult fantasy as an adult – but now YA fantasy has moved away from. It’s not super dark, isn’t bogged down with world-building details, and has the feeling of ordinary people doing ordinary things – with a dash of magic involved. (In this case, there’s no obvious magic, but the fantasy characters make it firmly a fantasy world.)

Oh wait, did I say no magic? The elf maiden has a sword, an Elder Blade that was forged with the spirit of a warrior, and which talks. Well, after meeting this sword, we then discover that the chaos goblin has somewhere picked up an Elder Blade that’s now a breadknife. An Elder Blade in Reduced Circumstances, so to speak. So yes, there’s plenty of humor in this tale as well.

Why is it for adults and not teens? For starters, Fern is over forty years old and has adult concerns. I still find this refreshing in a tale. But there’s no need for content warnings if a teen picks it up. Nice and cozy – and a joy to listen to.

Oh, and the author was already an audiobook narrator before he wrote his own books, so he does a fantastic job reading his own work.

travisbaldree.com

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Review of Beauty, by Robin McKinley

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

coverBeauty

by Robin McKinley
read by Charlotte Parry

Recorded Books, 2013. (Print book originally published in 1978.) 7 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written July 29, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

As part of #Sonderbooks25, celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks, I’ve been rereading books by one of my very favorite authors, Robin McKinley. When doing so, I was surprised to discover that I’d never written a review of several of her books – turns out I read them before I began writing Sonderbooks in 2001. Now, I do own copies of every one of them – but the easiest ones to fit into my queue were the ones my library has as eaudiobooks. I’m happy to say that, even after all these years, Beauty still has a holds list.

Beauty is a sweet retelling of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” – and is one of the books that made me realize I love fairy tale retellings. This was Robin McKinley’s debut book, and is a totally positive take on Beauty and her family. Even her sisters – who in the fairy tale are selfish and grasping and lazy – are wonderful and kind. After the family’s financial disaster, one sister’s fiance takes the family away to his home town by a magical forest – and they all build a good life together there. The other sister’s fiance was lost at sea along with their father’s ships, and the family has nothing but love for Beauty, the youngest.

This book was written long before it was acceptable to put sex into young adult novels, so the romance between Beauty and Beast is built on shared activities rather than blistering attraction – and indeed Beauty must overcome repulsion at the idea of him even touching her. This Beast is honorable and says he never would have killed her father – Beast would have sent him home if Beauty had refused to come – but he tells her that she would have been eaten up with guilt over sending him to what she thought was his death.

The book does not even broach the subject of Stockholm syndrome or how maybe Beast isn’t all that honorable if he’d deprive someone of their freedom. It doesn’t broach the vast disparity in their ages.

But what we’re left with is a sweet fairy tale with a heroine we can’t help but love. Yes, like the Disney version, Beauty loves to read. She also has a magnificent horse that only she can handle. And she’s someone who makes the best of things.

Read this book for a feel-good Happily-Ever-After tale. And it’s a great introduction to the grand mistress of fantasy’s work.

Note: It doesn’t look like the audiobook is currently available, but do check your local library.

robinmckinley.com

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Review of Incredibly Fast and Not at All Fun, by Tadgh Bentley

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Incredibly Fast and Not at All Fun

by Tadgh Bentley

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written August 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I love roller coasters, so the cover of this book made me laugh out loud.

Here’s the set-up, that takes up the first few spreads:

Many summers ago
the world’s first roller coaster
was invented almost entirely by mistake.

All Bear wanted was a quick
and easy way to get from
the stillness of home . . .

to the calm of his beehives.
One that avoided the hustle and bustle
of the chattering woods below.

Bear called his invention the Honey Runner.
It was a bit steep.

The corners took some
getting used to.
And it was way too fast.

But he needed the speed to get up the slopes.

During all of these, we see a beautiful autumn forest with roller coaster tracks popping up between a vertical pillar where bear lives and a place on the forest floor with his hives. The start of the track is a vertical drop from bear’s house. There’s another hill and a bend before the track ends.

To Bear’s great surprise, his neighbors – from squirrels to moose, want to try out his invention. And even though they scream with terror, they want to do it again! What’s going on?

Bear tries signs:

It is incredibly
FAST
not at all
COMFORTABLE
and definitely not
FUN

But that doesn’t work at all.

He tries making rules against screaming or riding at night. That also doesn’t work.

Then he tries making the ride even scarier, with loops and twists, but that only brings bigger throngs.

I don’t know if this will delight the hearts of people who, like Bear, don’t understand the appeal of roller coasters – but it delighted me. (I have a theory that if you are exposed to roller coasters when you are in junior high, when your good sense is outweighed by your desire to try new things that your friends are doing – you will love roller coasters forever. I was at that crucial age when I first went upside down in a roller coaster and decided that nothing could scare me after that.)

Bear finally gives up and leaves his invention to the forest creatures who keep swarming it – and finds a new location for his home and hives that have a waterfall between them.

Bear’s cluelessness in not understanding the love other folks have for fast rides is shown rather than told – and it’s a delight! Check this one out to see for yourself and your kids.

TadghBentley.com

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