Review of Give Me a Sign, by Anna Sortino, read by Elizabeth Robbins

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Give Me a Sign

by Anna Sortino
read by Elizabeth Robbins

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 21 minutes.
Review written September 23, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Give Me a Sign is a story about Lilah, a 17-year-old who’s hard of hearing and looking to find her place in both Hearing culture and Deaf culture. Her school friends seem to get tired of repeating themselves when Lilah doesn’t understand, but they also aren’t careful about letting her see their lips when they talk so she can use lip-reading to help. When Lilah lands a summer job at a camp for the Deaf and Blind that she once attended as a camper, she looks forward to increasing her American Sign Language fluency – but when she arrives, she wishes she could pick it up more quickly.

There’s not a whole lot of plot to this book, but there’s enough to keep it going. Will the potential summer romance with that cute Deaf counselor work out? Will the camp get enough funding to continue, or will this be its last year of existence?

What drives the book, though, is Lilah’s interactions with the world around her. And that window into her world is fascinating enough to make this book a great read (or listen). She has some hearing, so she struggles whether she’s even “allowed” to call herself Deaf. And her family never taught her to sign, so can she learn, or should she continue to just try to fit in with the hearing folks around her?

Lilah encounters people from many different backgrounds in this book, and there’s a strong message that people have different responses to their own hearing loss, and each person should get to make their own choice about how they want to live in the world, whether hearing aids or cochlear implants or sign language, or some combination of all of the above. She also learns to speak up for herself and not be ashamed of being Deaf and to tell her friends what she needs.

And all of this is wrapped up in a fun story of summer camp, so its strong message doesn’t feel like medicine, but like an interesting window into someone else’s world. I also imagine that for many Deaf teens out there, it may provide the delightful experience of seeing someone like themselves as a protagonist. The author reminds us at the end that Lilah’s experience isn’t representative of every Deaf person’s experience. But the book itself does a lovely job reminding us that we are all individuals and we should all be able to make our own choices.

annasortino.com

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Review of New From Here, by Kelly Yang

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

New From Here

by Kelly Yang

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. 361 pages.
Review written September 12, 2022, from my own copy, received at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.
Starred Review

Here’s a pandemic book that tells a bigger story.

Knox is the middle child in an American family living in Hong Kong to be near their grandparents in China. But when Covid-19 begins to spread in China, his parents decide that they will move the kids back to America, to live in the house where they usually spend summers, inherited from their other grandparents. After all, surely they’ll be safe from the disease in America! (There were several places where as a reader I cringed, knowing what was coming.) Their mother goes along with them, thinking she’d work remotely, but loses her job with the distance, so their father still in Hong Kong is trying to support them.

They get into American schools, glad that they can attend school in person instead of remotely from Hong Kong. Knox has ADHD, and sometimes his impulsive choices don’t turn out the best, though I love the way he and his friend learn that ADHD includes a super-focusing ability. They simply have to be interested, and then they can focus better than anyone.

Their mother is busy looking for work in America, but the kids want to get their family back together. They decide to make a Linked In profile for their dad and surprise him by finding him a job.

Once the virus starts spreading in America, anyone who finds out they came from Hong Kong doesn’t want anything to do with them. That’s why they explain they’re “New from here.” After all, they were born in America!

I like the way they decide to help out their friend’s Chinese restaurant by delivering food on their bicycles for tips (to bring their dad to America), and they decide to wear full-body dinosaur suits to protect themselves from the virus.

The interactions between Knox and his family are all spot-on. And the particularity of the situation all rings true. When I finished the book, I learned that the author based it on their own family and what they had done to unsuccessfully try to escape the pandemic. No wonder all the details seemed right. And I appreciate that though the mother is an important part, the perspective is firmly with Knox.

kellyyang.com
simonandschuster.com/kids

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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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Review of Everything Belongs, by Richard Rohr

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Everything Belongs

The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

by Richard Rohr

Crossroad, 2003. 186 pages.
Review written January 8, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

I always have trouble summing up Richard Rohr books. I’ve decided that’s because they’re written more for our heart than our head. Someone in my small group had suggested studying contemplative prayer with our next book. So when I saw this book existed, I bought myself a copy to preview it. Well, it isn’t a how-to guide to contemplative prayer, so I didn’t feel like it was exactly what we were looking for. This gives more of the why of contemplative prayer than the how.

And I’m more of a head person than a heart person! Though I would like to grow in that. So I’m not even sure how to pitch this book. It’s worth reading, and I marked out many quotations to post over on my Sonderquotes blog. Let me give a couple of them here, to give you the idea.

The following of Jesus is not a “salvation scheme” or a means of creating social order (which appears to be what most folks want religion for), as much as it is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world. Jesus did not come to create a spiritual elite or an exclusionary system for people who “like” religion, but he invited people to “follow” him in bearing the mystery of human death and resurrection (an almost nonreligious task, but one that can be done only “through, with, and in” God.)

We should not be surprised or scandalized by the sinful and the tragic. Do what you can to be peace and to do justice, but never expect or demand perfection on this earth. It usually leads to a false moral outrage, a negative identity, intolerance, paranoia, and self-serving crusades against “the contaminating element,” instead of “becoming a new creation” ourselves (Gal. 6:15).

And here’s a part that shows where the title comes from:

Everything belongs; God uses everything. There are no dead-ends. There is no wasted energy. Everything is recycled. Sin history and salvation history are two sides of one coin. I believe with all my heart that the Gospel is all about the mystery of forgiveness. When you “get” forgiveness, you get it. We use the phrase “falling in love.” I think forgiveness is almost the same thing. It’s a mystery we fall into: the mystery is God. God forgives all things for being imperfect, broken, and poor. Not only Jesus but all the great people who pray that I have met in my life say the same thing. That’s the conclusion they come to. The people who know God well – the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God – always meet a lover, not a dictator. God is never found to be an abusive father or a tyrannical mother, but always a lover who is more than we dared hope for. How different than the “account manager” that most people seem to worship.

So I always recommend Richard Rohr. But pick up this book if you’re ready for some meditative writing that is not about thinking, but that will nevertheless challenge your thinking and will uplift your heart.

cac.org

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Review of Icarus, by K. Ancrum

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Icarus

by K. Ancrum
read by Kirt Graves

HarperTeen, 2024. 8 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written January 14, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Fiction

Oh my goodness. After the CYBILS Award Finalists were announced, I put all the books on hold (I do a program for other librarians about award winners, and this *probably* gives me a head start for ALA award winners), and this was one of the first audiobooks to come in. And it is amazingly good! If the other Finalists are anywhere close, the second round judges are going to have a difficult time.

This isn’t a retelling of the Greek myth, but it borrows themes from the myth. Our hero is indeed Icarus, a teen who lives alone with his father, but he lives in modern times. He and his father are both expert artists – but they’re also expert thieves. Icarus has been trained all his life to steal objects of art from the mansion of Angus Black and replace them with forgeries. And now that his father’s hands have begun to shake, all the active work falls on Icarus.

At school, Icarus makes a point of having one friend in each class – so that he’s not part of a friend group that expects him to do things with him after school. He’s never had anybody over to his house, and he never can have anybody over to his house. His goal is to stay under the radar.

But then some of those classroom friends start noticing that he can’t stay awake. They seem to care, which Icarus isn’t sure he can handle.

At the same time, Icarus gets spotted when stealing in the Black mansion – Angus Black’s son is there, with no phone and no internet and a cuff to keep him in place. They develop a friendship that looks like it’s going toward romance – and as the reader, I got awfully worried about how it would turn out once it was revealed that the son’s name is Helios. Because I know how that story ends.

So there’s lots and lots of tension in this book, and teens in tough situations – but there are also beautiful portrayals of friendship. Icarus learns how to be a friend and how to accept friendship. And all of the interactions and character growth make this book shine brightly – while keeping up the tension throughout the whole book. And yes, tender romance. Oh, and the audiobook is wonderfully done, too. This book will linger with me for a long time to come.

kancrum.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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Review of Yasmeen Lari, Green Architect, written by Marzieh Abbas, illustrated by Hoda Hadadi

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Yasmeen Lari, Green Architect

The True Story of Pakistan’s First Woman Architect

written by Marzieh Abbas
illustrated by Hoda Hadadi

Clarion Books (HarperCollins), 2024. 40 pages.
Review written January 13, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I’ve gotten used to high-quality picture book biographies, so I tend to resist reviewing them unless that are something extra-special. This book features the life of Yasmeen Lari, who not only was Pakistan’s first female architect, she also is a pioneer in the use of sustainable and low-cost materials that withstand floods and earthquakes.

This picture book has wonderful art, using colorful collage techniques to show the structures Yasmeen created and studied. As a child, she lived through Partition and saw the creation of Pakistan as its own country. Her father was an architect, and she followed in his footsteps. But the book shows how, after her success as an architect, she became a force for conservation and restoration of historic buildings. And then after catastrophic floods and earthquakes, she looked at the way those historic buildings had lasted centuries and used the ideas to help rebuild.

Yasmeen designed and sketched.

For the earthquake-prone areas, she suggested bamboo crisscrossing lattice sandwiching mud-lime brick walls from ground to ceiling.

For the flood-prone areas, she proposed hexagonal structures of mud-lime brick walls to be positioned on bamboo stilts, eight feet high.

The book shows her making prototypes for durable, low cost, zero carbon, zero waste buildings.

Yasmeen had an idea – cocreation!

She would train the poverty-stricken villagers to build their own houses.

Then they would travel to other villages and train more villagers.

In this way, she was responsible for building over 40,000 disaster-resistant homes.

The back matter has photos of this remarkable woman, who is still living, and her work. I am happy to have learned about her, and am glad for this book so kids will learn about someone who excelled in her profession, and then used that excellence to make the world a better place for many more.

marziehabbas.com
hoda-hadadi.com
harpercollinschildrens.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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Review of Twenty-four Seconds from Now…, by Jason Reynolds

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Twenty-four Seconds from Now . . .

A LOVE Story

by Jason Reynolds
read by Guy Lockard

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 4 hours, 28 minutes.
Review written January 7, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 CYBILS Award Finalist, Young Adult Fiction
2025 Capitol Choices selection

Yes, this is a book about a seventeen-year-old boy having sex for the first time. And it turns out to be very sweet.

I was afraid it would go into detail about each second building up to the moment of connection. But no, it’s much more interesting than that. It does open with “Right now” where the teenage boy, Neon, is in the bathroom of his girlfriend Aria’s house, looking at a picture of her dog – a dog he dislikes that is now living in his own house – and feeling extremely nervous about what’s supposed to happen in approximately twenty-four seconds from now.

But instead of going into excruciating detail about those seconds, the story backtracks to 24 seconds before that – when they were kissing in her bedroom, and he had to excuse himself to go to the bathroom, he was so nervous.

But then we look at 24 minutes before that – when he was using the whole note knocker on her front door (made by his family’s door knocker company), bringing her the chicken nuggets that she loves.

And then it switches to 24 hours before that – when he was interviewing other students for their high school’s video yearbook, which Aria also works on. And he was having his sister make a special door knocker for Aria to take to college with her. And his sister has some good advice about what’s going to happen.

And then we move to 24 days before that – when he walks with his Gammy and that same dog to visit his grandfather’s grave and he hears Gammy tell the story of how they met, and gives Neon some advice about love. And he’s talking with Aria because they want to have sex, but they want to make it special. And his mother has some good advice.

And then we see 24 weeks before that – when Neon took the dog off Aria’s hands, because her mother didn’t like his barking – and Gammy fell in love with that dog. And his father has some good advice.

And finally we see what happened 24 months ago, when Neon was at his grandfather’s funeral, and an out-of-control dog interrupted them, and he met Aria, and his life was never the same again.

Before we finally come back to the present and what’s about to happen.

And all of this shows us the story of these two teens and their families. And how much they care for each other and care about each other. And there’s some good advice in what Neon hears.

And no, it doesn’t describe the details. This isn’t a how-to manual. But it shows the thought and care and love that went into the decision these two teens make. A decision that’s ultimately, as it should be, about the two of them.

I don’t think of this as a book that promotes teens having sex so much as a book that promotes teens giving thought and care into their decisions about when and whether to have sex. And it tells a good story, too! The strategy of going backward in time piques our interest and is used extremely effectively.

jasonwritesbooks.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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Review of Touch the Sky, by Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic and Chris Park

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Touch the Sky

by Stephanie V. W. Lucianovic and Chris Park

Carolrhoda Books, 2024. 36 pages.
Review written January 15, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Okay, this is a picture book that needed to exist. It’s wonderful. It’s perfect. It’s about learning to pump and make a swing go.

Our hero is Vern, a kid with long hair (the better for streaming out behind him) who loves to twist and spin on the swings, but doesn’t know how to pump. Some of the other kids laugh, but finally a girl sees him trying and offers to help.

It takes a lot of explaining and lots of encouragement.

It feels hard until you get it, and then it’s not.

And yes, we see all of Vern’s struggles – his awkward twists, out-of-sync movements, and even falls. And maybe there’s somebody out there who learned to pump on their very first try, but I, for one, was transported back to childhood and remember how hard it was before it was easy.

And the illustrations! Those transported me back, too. The swooping! The gliding! That feeling when your toes touch the sky! It’s all captured here on the page.

This picture book isn’t a how-to manual for learning to pump a swing, but it does offer plenty of tips. And most of all, it models persistence, along with taking and giving a helping hand. And the glorious joy of a new skill and the ability to touch the sky.

stephanielucianovic.com
chrisdpark.com
lernerbooks.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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Review of Gamer Girls, by Mary Kenney

Biography, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Gamer Girls

25 Women Who Built the Video Game Industry

written by Mary Kenney
illustrated by Salini Perera

RP Teens, 2022. 148 pages.
Review written January 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Wow! I had no idea so many women were fundamental to developing the video game industry. Yes, there are 25 featured women, but each feature has at least one “Side Quest” about a woman who achieved similar things to the featured person, and often more than one. So if anybody has any doubt that women can do great things with video games, this book completely obliterates those doubts.

Each story was fascinating. Many of the women are contemporaries with me, and so I watched most of these innovations to video games happen in my lifetime. We’ve come a long way – and I’d had no idea how many women were responsible for that. Oh, and I also loved that the author included more than one trans woman, without making a big deal of them, but including them in this book featuring accomplished women, where they belong.

Yes, there’s a lot about how innovative ideas – for example, actually making video games targeted to women, who’d have thought? – led to huge popularity, and how women overcame prejudice and stereotypes in their own creative lives. So this is especially a book to inspire girls who love computers or video games, but it’s also for anyone interested in the history of how video games developed.

I have two peeves with the book itself. The first is the horrible use of a neon orange font for headings and for the Side Quests. So terribly hard to read! I had to use a ruler slid down the page to read it at all. Maybe just a problem for my old eyes.

My second peeve is that I still have no idea why the women are presented in the order they are. It’s not alphabetical. It’s not in order of their births. It’s not in order of when they worked in the industry (which is part of the headline for each woman). I’m thinking it can’t possibly be random, but I still can’t figure out what the reasoning is, and that was distracting.

I read this whole book very slowly, a few pages and one profile at a time. It was very enjoyable that way, though perhaps if there was an overarching organization, I lost sight of it. The women did start to run together in my mind because I hadn’t figured out how to organize the information in my own brain – but mind you, I was super interested as I was reading each page.

Here’s how the author summarizes her goals for the reader in the Epilogue:

You might not remember every name, studio, and game featured in this book, and that’s okay. What I hope you do remember is this: A profound sense of joy and purpose. The knowledge that there is work to be done in this beautiful, messy field, and that you could be part of it. I hope this book dispels your fear. I hope you see a future that is growing brighter with every new developer who decides to make games. And I hope you realize that developer could be you.

I think she’s hitting those goals with this inspiring and interesting book.

marykgames.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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Review of The Last of the High Kings, by Kate Thompson

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Last of the High Kings

by Kate Thompson
read by Marcella Riordan

Clipper Audiobooks, 2009. 5 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written December 7, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’ve been meaning to listen to this book ever since I listened to The New Policeman back in 2011. But in those days, I listened to audiobooks on CD and never as eaudiobooks, but that was the only version the library had of this sequel. I’d been so taken with the Irish music mixed into The New Policeman audiobook that I wasn’t going to settle for reading it in print.

Well, sadly The Last of the High Kings doesn’t have any Irish music in the audiobook, though it does include the delightful Irish accent of the narrator. We’ve got the same main character, J. J. Liddy, but fifteen years have passed since he first visited Tir na nOg, and now he’s a father with a family.

And his eleven-year-old daughter Jenny never wants to stay indoors and can’t seem to follow directions. She can see and talk with the ghost who guards the ancient beacon at the top of the hill. She laughs when he thwarts archaeologists from digging into it. But she can also talk with the pooka who masquerades as a goat, who also seems to have designs on the old beacon.

Meanwhile, their old neighbor Mikey says he’s the last of the High Kings of Ireland. He wants to visit the top of the mountain one last time – maybe by helicopter? J. J.’s too distracted to make it happen, but his son Donal tries to see what he can do.

And those are the bare bones of what’s going on, but we’ve got more Irish magic and ultimately the fate of the world depending on some cleverness. But I especially like that the entire Liddy family gets involved in the magic that happens in this book. And there’s plenty of music and dancing.

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Review of Whalesong, by Zachariah OHora

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Whalesong

The True Story of the Musician Who Talked to Orcas

by Zachariah OHora

Tundra, 2024. 44 pages.
Review written December 30, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This is a picture book version of the true story of how a scientist and a musician discovered that orcas would respond to music played to them.

The story begins in 1971, when the musician and his two kids moved to Vancouver Island in British Columbia and discovered they loved to go to the aquarium there. They noticed a scientist playing music to the orcas and got the idea of the musician, Paul Horn, playing his flute to them. When the orcas responded, everyone was amazed, and the family made a habit of going to the aquarium and playing to the orcas.

But while Paul Horn was away on a trip, one of the orcas died, and the remaining orca was listless and refusing to eat. When Paul came back and played happy music, over time, they were able to coax the bereaved orca to eat again.

It all makes a lovely picture book, with the kids’ participation making the story all the more fun. I’ve always been a fan of Zachariah Ohora’s illustrations, and I love the way they illuminate this true tale. He’s also got a gift for telling the story simply.

I also like that the scientist involved, Dr. Paul Spong, went on to found an organization that studies orcas in the wild and works to free all captive orcas. I learned that on the last page of the picture book text, with more details for adults in the back matter.

I love that kids who read this book will never question that orcas can communicate – and can even communicate with us.

fuzzy.town
penguinrandomhouse.ca

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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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