Review of Beyond the Limit, by Joan Spicci

Fiction Review, Mathematical, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Beyond the Limit

The Dream of Sofya Kovalevskaya

by Joan Spicci

Tom Doherty Associates (Forge), 2002. 490 pages.
Review written June 8, 2025, from my own copy.
Originial review written September 1, 2003.
Starred Review

I’m celebrating my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks with #Sonderbooks25. My plan was to reread one book from each year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs and post about the process. Well, things got complicated because I couldn’t confine myself to that – but the fact remains that Beyond the Limit was the one book I chose from my 2003 Sonderbooks Stand-outs to reread. And I’m writing a new review, not because that one isn’t still valid, but to include a blog post and have a review in the new phone-friendly format, while reflecting on the book after a reread.

This is still my absolutely favorite novel about a mathematician. Okay, I haven’t read a lot of novels about mathematicians – but it’s still the book I bring up any time anyone asks about mathematical books for adults, and it’s always been included on my Sondermath page.

The crazy thing about this historical novel is that it’s all true. Joan Spicci learned Russian and translated books and letters by Sofya Kovalevskaya before writing this book – and then she put what she learned into a novel. And okay, it’s not a work of nonfiction and we can’t promise she got everybody’s motivations and words correct – but oh my goodness, it’s a compelling story. And checking the Wikipedia page suggests that all the big dramatic events of the story actually happened.

The story tells the quest of Sofya Kovalevskaya to be the first woman to get a doctorate in Math. She was born in 1850, and the book begins with her a teen in Russia, studying with tutors, but not allowed to go to university at all in Russia. And she can’t leave the country without permission from her father or a husband. So her sister and a group of friends start looking for a man who will enter into a fictitious marriage with one of them, intending to sponsor the other friends as well. They find Vladimir Kovalevsky, and he agrees to enter into such a marriage with Sofya – but realizing that a fictitious marriage was considered criminal sacrilege in Russia at the time. Vladimir himself was a scientist and a publisher, having published Darwin’s books in Russian.

And then the novel shows Sofya and Vladimir falling in love. But she doesn’t dare live as his actual wife, because if she were to get pregnant, that would end any chance for studying at a university. And she faces all kinds of prejudice anyway, eventually finding a mentor who has to tutor her privately in her PhD work.

But along the way, the historical backdrop is amazing. She goes with Vladimir to London and meets Darwin and his wife. And later, her sister gets involved in the Paris commune portrayed in Victor Hugo’s work, and Sofya herself gets involved working in the hospital in besieged Paris – and her sister and her husband get arrested. This was another thing that, if it were known, could have ended her academic career.

On this second reading, I got pretty annoyed with her sister. She scorned any idea of Sofya falling in love with Vladimir – and then later married a man for love herself. But the whole novel shows us Sofya trying to please her sister, no matter how her sister treats her.

The whole story is gripping and makes me appreciate my own education much more fully – and gets you cheering for Sofya and the many obstacles she faced simply to get to exercise her brilliant mind and do mathematics. I still highly recommend this amazing historical novel.

joanspicci.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 When Alexander Graced the Table, by Alexander Smalls and Denene Millner, art by Frank Morrison

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

When Alexander Graced the Table

by Alexander Smalls and Denene Millner
with art by Frank Morrison

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 36 pages.
Review written June 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a gorgeous picture book telling about when chef Alexander Smalls made his first pie for his family’s Sunday dinner.

Every spread is lavishly illustrated, and we start out with a view of the hustle and bustle around Sunday dinners – the highlight of Alexander’s whole life.

His Mom and Dad and sisters and Papa and Grandma and Auntie and Uncle and cousins would all gather and enjoy them together.

The week may have been long and a little tough, but Sunday dinners meant family was there for you. They gave faith in tomorrow.

And then, one Saturday night, Alexander’s Mom gives him permission to make his own franks and beans – and they turn out delicious! But his father didn’t want any.

So – Alexander makes something special for Sunday dinner – especially to please his father. He uses graham crackers, sugar, butter, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and lots and lots of lemons, fresh off the tree.

And then we have a wonderful figurative drum roll when Alexander graces the table with a pie he made all by himself.

There’s a close-up of his father’s face for the moment of truth.

The recipe is at the back of the book – with a note that it’s the first pie the chef ever made. Clearly the joy of making people happy led Alexander to his life’s work.

And this window on that inspiration will make you feel like you’re there.

alexandersmalls.com
denenemillner.com
morrisongraphics.com

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Review of The Moonlit Vine, by Elizabeth Santiago

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Moonlit Vine

by Elizabeth Santiago

Tu Books (Lee & Low), 2023. 360 pages.
Review written November 6, 2023, from a book sent by the publisher
Starred Review

The Moonlit Vine is a contemporary story of Taína, a 14-year-old descendant of Taíno women from Puerto Rico, combined with the story of those ancestors and a touch of magical realism with an amulet and zemi they handed down to her.

In the present, Taína’s older brother was recently in trouble for fighting and has been sent to live with their father, who has been living apart from them since he was sent to jail a few years ago. Her mother is working hard, leaving it to Taína to care for her younger brother, 7-year-old Luis, and watch over their abuela with Alzheimer’s.

And then Taína gets in trouble herself at school when she speaks up for herself a little too forcefully. On top of that, there’s gang activity in her neighborhood and she can’t get a straight answer from her brother what happened between him and the friend she has a crush on.

Taína’s modern-day problems are interwoven with stories of the women who went before her, starting with a great cacique of the Taíno people, Anacaona, who welcomed Columbus and worked to protect her people. Anacaona was the one who created the contents of the box that has been handed down all the way to Taína’s abuela.

The story is beautifully done, pulling in themes of community and family and standing together for change. The light touch of magical realism gives us an image of her foremothers standing with Taína. There’s an impressive amount of back matter about the Taíno people, who are definitely not extinct. This author did her research!

leeandlow.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 Candle Island, by Lauren Wolk

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Candle Island

by Lauren Wolk

Dutton Children’s Books (Penguin Random House), 2025. 340 pages.
Review written June 12, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

Wow. Lauren Wolk has done it again – a powerful middle grade novel that gives you all the feels. It turned out it was the perfect length to read on a flight from Virginia to Portland, Oregon – and it left me in awe. (I’m going to leave it behind with one of my nieces in Oregon – they’re in for a treat!)

This is a novel about secrets. We get a list in the Prologue:

Six mysteries waited for me on Candle Island.

One involved a bird.

The second, a hidden room.

A song the third.

A poet the fourth.

A cat fifth.

A fire sixth.

Each of them exciting in its own way.

But none more interesting than the mystery I took with me.

The book opens as Lucretia Sanderson and her mother arrive on Candle Island in Maine. They’re coming in summertime, but they’re not summer people – they’ve bought a furnished house, and they’re planning to stay.

They’d left their home in Vermont after Lucretia’s father died in a car accident, hoping to get some distance from painful memories. But they also left to get away from journalists who have been hounding her artist mother after a New York gallery sold a Sanderson painting to the First Lady, and it’s hanging in the White House.

The first mystery – finding an abandoned baby bird not in a nest and figuring out what kind it is – is the simplest, and gets Lucretia exploring the island. They find lots of tension between the summer people and the island kids – and the island kids are pretty skeptical of Lucretia and her Mom. It doesn’t help that they’ve moved into the house of a girl who lived there three years ago and whose parents died after she moved out.

We do find out about Lucretia’s secret about halfway through the book, and it’s indeed the most interesting, and the most momentous one. Can she keep her secret? Can she make new friends if she does? And what about the secrets other people are keeping?

So this is a book about mysteries and secrets and knowing whom to trust – and feeling safe enough to share your secrets with people who have earned that trust.

And bottom line, this is a beautiful book set on a beautiful island off the coast of Maine. It will linger in your heart.

laurenwolk.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 Everything Is Tuberculosis, by John Green

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Everything Is Tuberculosis

The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

by John Green

Crash Course Books (Penguin Random House), 2025. 198 pages.
Review written June 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

I am a fan of John Green’s turning to writing nonfiction. He thinks long and hard about so many aspects of his topic. The catch is that it’s hard to decide where to put this review. History? It’s full of that, but I put most adult History nonfiction in “True Stories” – which it also has. Musings? There’s plenty of thinking about what tuberculosis means to us humans and how things got that way. But I think I’ll settle for “Current Issues” – because ultimately the whole book shows us that we can choose to fight tuberculosis – or let it mutate and get more drug resistant and increase the number of people it kills every year.

I was a little bit familiar with the problem of drug-resistant tuberculosis spreading in poor communities because of having read Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, an amazing book that John Green refers to multiple times. This book is in that tradition – but honestly more readable and digestible. My theory is that John Green being a young adult novelist first is how that happened. The result is a compelling history of tuberculosis and humans’ relationship with it in a book that never lags.

John Green goes back in history – tuberculosis has plagued humans for thousands of years and has killed more people than any other disease – and shows us how attitudes toward the disease have changed, and tells us about the quest for a cure. Along the way, he interweaves the story of Henry, a teen in Sierra Leone who had been suffering from tuberculosis for years.

And yes, the story of tuberculosis is the story of prejudice. In years before the cure, many believed that non-white people didn’t get tuberculosis.

In Europe and the U.S., most white doctors believed that phthisis – as it was inherited by those with great sensitivity and intelligence – could only affect white people, and it was sometimes known as “The White Man’s Plague.” One American doctor, for instance, called it, “a disease of the master race not of the slave race.”. . .

Acknowledging that consumption was common among enslaved, colonized, and marginalized people would have undermined not just a theory of disease, but also the project of colonialism itself.

Now, though, tuberculosis is much more of a problem where there is poverty. Inflated drug prices keep poorer countries from using the most effective medication – which results in more drug resistant strains of tuberculosis, and may one day be everyone’s undoing.

My summary, though, isn’t nearly as interesting as John Green’s narratives, showing how everything is interrelated, and how tuberculosis has affected every aspect of human civilization. In the present, millions still die from tuberculosis every year – even though we have effective cures. This book explores all the sides of why that happens and gives us ideas for helping to stop it and eradicate TB once and for all.

johngreenbooks.com
tbfighters.org
youtube.com/@Tuberculosis-l1jSurvivorHenry

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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 If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come, by Jen St. Jude

Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come

by Jen St. Jude

Bloomsbury, 2023. 406 pages.
Review written May 29, 2023, from my own copy, sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come begins on Avery Byrne’s nineteenth birthday morning. She’s walking to the river on campus, where she plans to drown herself. She’s written good-by letters and is ready to go.

But she’s interrupted by the news that a giant asteroid is going to strike the earth in nine days. It’s looking likely that not just Avery, but everyone she loves is about to die. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work.

Avery’s at an ivy-league university in New Hampshire, but she gets a call from her best friend Cass – at Pratt Institute in New York City – to meet in Boston. And Avery can’t help but promise to be there. She ends up traveling in a van with her roommate, Nigerian-born Aisha, and the professor who failed her first semester, along with his dog.

After some adventures meeting up with Cass in Boston, most of the book is set in Avery’s home town of Kilkenny, where her parents think they can make a bunker in the basement and survive the catastrophe. The asteroid is going to hit in Arizona, so it’s possible they might make it, if they can stockpile enough supplies.

The story plays out in the days leading up to the asteroid strike. And no, we don’t find out if they survive – not knowing and how you would live not knowing is what the book is about. The stories of the present are interwoven with stories of the past and what led to Avery’s deep depression.

Part of that is she’s long been in love with Cass, but wasn’t able to come out to herself as lesbian, let alone her family and friends. When the future is uncertain, somehow that seems more important.

The characters are nineteen, and there’s a somewhat detailed lesbian sex scene, so this isn’t necessarily for younger teens. This book is primarily about depression and seeing all you have to live for, as well as the importance of living for yourself, and not simply for others.

There are no pat answers in this book, but it’s beautifully expressed. I have to say that the writer shows Avery’s emotions so effectively, the book was a little sad to read. But it also realistically showed Avery coming to terms with her own attitudes that helped lead to her depression. And we believe in her plans to get a therapist and maybe take medication – if they all survive.

But I can’t express how beautiful and uplifting this book is despite all that. Avery does find joy and reasons to live. I was reading this book for the Morris Award, but my first time through, was so immersed in the book, I didn’t take much time to think critically about it. Whatever our committee ends up deciding, I highly recommend this book.

jenstjude.com
Bloomsbury.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 Continental Drifter, by Kathy Macleod

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Starred Review 0

Continental Drifter

by Kathy Macleod

First Second, 2024. 216 pages.
Review written February 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Asian/Pacific American Literature Award Winner, Middle Grades
2024 Cybils Finalist, Elementary/Middle School Graphic Novels

This is one of those wonderful middle school memoirs in graphic novel form – the perfect way to express the angst of middle school. In Kathy Macleod’s case, she feels pulled between two continents. During the school year, she lives in Bangkok, Thailand, where her mother is from. And this summer they’re going to Maine, where her father is from.

Kathy speaks English at her International school in Bangkok and she watches American TV shows, so she hopes that she’ll belong better in America. And this year, she finally gets to go to summer camp.

But at summer camp, there are girls who know each other already, and everyone has white skin, and they think she’s from Taiwan, and once again she has trouble feeling like she belongs.

This story expresses the ups and downs of being between cultures and gets you thoroughly on Kathy’s side as she drifts between continents.

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Review of A Book of Maps for You, written by Lourdes Heuer, illustrated by Maxwell Eaton III

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

A Book of Maps for You

written by Lourdes Heuer
illustrated by Maxwell Eaton III

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2025. 40 pages.
Review written June 3, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Well, I ordered this picture book for our library, but have discovered I didn’t order nearly enough – all copies are checked out and there are more than that many holds, so today I ordered more. I checked out the book myself (having placed a hold that came in) to see what the fuss was about. I was charmed.

Yes, this picture book gives kids an idea of how maps work – but even more wonderful is the warm and friendly story it tells.

I didn’t really notice when I first opened the book that the title page shows a boy in a big empty top floor room working at a table by a window. There’s a skylight in the slanted roof to one side, and a cat sleeping on a rolled-up carpet.

The next page focuses in on the table where the boy is working. It says, “I made a book of maps.” And below those words is the same book we see on the cover of this book, with the title “A Book of Maps for You.”

It starts with a map of town, also mentioning the orange groves that bloom every year. Then it zooms in to a map of a particular street and tells about the particular people who live in each house on that street, including nice things these people have done. Further maps include a little farm in town, the school, the library, a pirate map from a story in a book in the library, the park behind the library, main street, and more.

So every spread has a map, and every map has personal details about that place, so we get to know the town and the people an all the fun things you can do there.

And then at the end we are looking out the front porch, and the Book of Maps is taped right in front of the door, and the kid is getting into a car behind a moving van. Then on the next page we see a new kid sitting on the front porch, looking at the book – and moving boxes are in the living room, and we see that her family is moving into the house that the other kid just moved out of. And that was when I turned back to the title page and saw what I might have noticed right away – that the first kid made this whole lovely book to welcome the new kid to town.

And the whole thing left me with a warm and friendly feeling. What a way to get a start in a new place. And kids who read the story may find themselves making their own maps, even if they’re not moving away.

lourdesheuer.com
maxwelleaton.com
HolidayHouse.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 My Mechanical Romance, by Alexene Farol Follmuth

Contemporary, Mathematical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

My Mechanical Romance

by Alexene Farol Follmuth
read by Amielynn Abellera and Christopher Salazar

Recorded Books, 2022. 8 hours, 46 minutes.
Review written December 14, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 Mathical Book Prize Honor Book, ages 14-18

My Mechanical Romance is a super fun high school romance tale about a new girl named Bel who turns out to be good at robotics. After her thrown-together egg drop project is the best performer of her class, her teacher says her grade won’t get docked if she tries out for the robotics team and joins AP Physics.

Teo is captain of the robotics team and captain of the soccer team, too. He begrudgingly allowed auditions for the team, even though they already have enough seniors. When Bel wows them with an again thrown-together project, she gets a spot on the team, even though the only other girl on the team doesn’t think she knows what she’s doing.

Bel and Teo start getting to know one another in a lovely slow-burn romance. Bel’s switched schools her senior year because of her parents’ divorce. Teo’s dad is a high-powered software developer, and Teo takes for granted the weight of their expectations.

I did not like the voice the narrator used for Bel’s best friend, a Valley girl accent. But since the book takes place in the San Fernando Valley, where that accent came from, I probably shouldn’t complain.

I loved the portrayal of what women in STEM are up against. I didn’t like, though, that a couple times Bel called herself “not a math person.” Usually I’d think math and robotics go together, and Bel’s taking Calculus, so I wish she’d gotten a little pushback for that. Bel’s portrayed as learning about robotics from tinkering with machines in her dad’s workshop and building and welding things since she was small, so it’s more of an intuitive sense of mechanics. Not to give spoilers, but I loved the way the book ended, too, and the portrayal of adjusting future plans with an epilogue set two years later.

I listened to this book on a Sick Day when I was getting obsessive about a jigsaw puzzle and listened to the whole thing in one day. Completely delightful. And go, women in STEM!

alexenefarolfollmuth.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 Bad Badger, by Maryrose Wood

Audiobooks, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Bad Badger

by Maryrose Wood
read by Chris Devon

Dreamscape Media, 2025. 2 hours, 41 minutes.
Review written April 24, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Maryrose Wood is good at writing straight-faced stories that gradually get sillier and sillier. This one is perfect for kids ready for chapter books.

Bad Badger is about a badger named Septimus who is afraid that he’s not very good at being a badger. Instead of stripes, he has spots. Instead of living in the forest, he lives in a cottage by the sea. He loves listening to operas in Italian on his phonograph, collecting shells, making omelets, watching the sunset, and other activities not at all usual for badgers.

But then Septimus makes a friend. A seagull comes to his house every week on Wednesday. Gully doesn’t say much besides “Caw,” but Septimus feels their friendship grow and become tremendously important to him – so they share things they each enjoy most.

But when Gully goes missing, Septimus doesn’t know how he will find him, simply that it must be done.

This sweet story is about true friendship and not letting others define who you are.

maryrosewood.com

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