Review of How to Two, by David Soman

Contemporary, Mathematical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

How to Two

by David Soman

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2019. 36 pages.
Review written October 4, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

Counting books are a staple for parents to share with young children, and this is a beautiful one. You’re counting children playing!

First, we see one child launching off a playground slide, and the words read:

How to one.

That’s pretty much how the text goes. “How to two” shows two kids on a seesaw.

At six, there’s a rainstorm, and the six kids play duck, duck goose under a shelter. The kids go further afield as the numbers get bigger, with “How to eight” involving Hide-and-Seek, and “How to ten” being a grand game of tag.

As the sun sets and parents take all the kids home again, the numbers go back down more quickly. And I almost missed it — but the endpapers at the back show animals to go back and count for each number.

The art is beautiful, the kids are exuberant, and the book does the job of teaching counting from 1 to 10.

davidsoman.com
penguin.com/kids

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Review of Bright Red Fruit, by Safia Elhillo, read by the Author

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bright Red Fruit

by Safia Elhillo
read by the Author

Listening Library, 2024. 7 hours, 55 minutes.
Review written September 16, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This book reminds me of The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo. In both books, we’ve got a young poet author writing about a teen poet growing as a poet and learning to perform her poetry – but also in conflict with her mother about a relationship.

In this book, our teen poet is Samira, whose family moved to DC from Somalia. Through no fault of her own, Samira has a reputation with the aunties as a Bad Girl, and she’s tired of her mother not sticking up for her. But when a poet in his twenties shows an interest in Samira and in her work, she feels like here’s finally someone she can talk with about things that matter.

As Samira gets close to Horus online, her girlfriends don’t understand how much he’s come to mean to her. Meanwhile, her aunt encourages Samira’s interest in poetry, but doesn’t know that Samira is using an open mic to meet Horus in person.

There are lots of red flags in the relationship, but we understand why Samira has pulled away from the people who would have helped her see that. I do like the way the book navigates the situation when trouble comes.

All along in the book, there’s a metaphor about Persephone. Persephone doesn’t have a whole lot of agency in the myth and is fooled into eating the bright red fruit of the underworld that dooms her. But the story is told as a struggle between Persephone’s mother and Hades. I like the way this book – and this poet – explores more deeply what it might have been like from Persephone’s perspective.

If I haven’t made it clear, even though I listened to the audiobook version, I could tell that the book is beautifully written in verse. This is one it would probably be worth reading in print form as well as the audiobook to better appreciate the art of the poetry.

safia-mafia.com

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Review of The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman, by Gennifer Choldenko

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

by Gennifer Choldenko

Alfred A. Knopf, 2024. 309 pages.
Review written August 13, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Okay, disclaimer first. My timing with this book was most unfortunate. I read this one immediately after finishing And Then… Boom! by Lisa Fipps. The books set up a plot that is way too similar – both involving a mother who abandons her kids and a grandma who dies. Okay, in this one, Grandma died (recently) before the start of the book, but together with Louder than Hunger, by John Schu, which I read earlier this year, I’ve had quite enough of Grandmas dying, thank you very much! Can we put a pause on that?

This book and And Then… Boom! are both excellent middle grade novels, dealing with a super hard topic that honestly should be dealt with, and both do it well. But I do *not* recommend reading the books back-to-back. Both end happily, as they absolutely need to do for a middle grade audience, but both main characters go through a kid’s worst nightmare – the abandonment by their own mother, and having to face that their own mother is not responsible enough to take care of them.

The books are different. I prefer prose to novels in verse, because you get more detail, so I liked this one a little bit better, but I would not want to be on the Newbery committee this year, because I suspect there will be arguments about which one is more distinguished, and have a feeling some will gravitate to one and some to the other. (I could be totally wrong about this.)

Anyway, this book I read has a big bright spot in the character of Boo, Hank Hooperman’s three-year-old sister. It’s because of Boo, well, that and an eviction notice, that twelve-year-old Hank can’t keep trying to go it alone after his mother leaves and doesn’t come back.

So after some effort to figure out what in the world to do, Hank looks up the name Mom put on his field trip permission slip as an Emergency Contact, and it’s Lou Ann, a lady who was friends with his Grandma.

Lou Ann is happy to take care of Boo – she even does day care for preschoolers out of her home – but she isn’t so happy about taking care of Hank. She contacts Child Protective Services and gets Hank and Boo caseworkers. Meanwhile, while they’re trying to find Hank’s Mom and wondering how long Lou Ann will put them up, Hank attends a new school in the district where Lou Ann lives. He makes new friends and gets recruited for the basketball team, but he doesn’t want to tell anyone why he’s not sure how long he’ll stay.

Once again, let me assure you that it does end happy — because it would all be way too much to take if it didn’t. In many ways, it’s a tough read, and Hank is a kid you just want to make things better for. I kind of hate that Hank is hyperaware of the mistakes he makes because, doggone it, a kid shouldn’t have to have so much responsibility, and his mother doesn’t seem to be aware of her own mistakes at all.

So, yes, this is a powerful book, with characters you’ll care about, and believe it or not, plenty of humor and kindness to get you through the hard things. But be ready for some gut wrenching along the way.

gennifercholdenko.com

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Review of Somehow, by Anne Lamott

Musings, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Somehow

Thoughts on Love

by Anne Lamott

Riverhead Books, 2024. 194 pages.
Review written August 27, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Yes, when Anne Lamott brings out a new book, I need to read it. They are a little bit about faith, a lot about life, and always inspiring and encouraging.

Anne Lamott has a quirky perspective, and she knows how to bring the reader along with her, so we look at things a different way. She’s also self-deprecating and never makes you feel bad for being spiteful, angry, or whiny, because she tells hilarious stories of when she was all those things, too, and really, who wouldn’t be?

Anne Lamott writes about the human condition and helps us realize how much we have in common and that we’re all in this together.

I didn’t mark quotations in this one. There are lots of great paragraphs, but they’re generally all from a longer story and the power of her words is in the path she leads you down to get you there.

So I think for this review, I’m going to give you the first and last paragraph, to give you the flavor. Here’s how the book begins:

My husband said something a few years ago that I often quote: Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can be experienced on any ten-minute walk. Even in the darkest and most devastating times, love is nearby if you know what to look for. It does not always appear at first to be lovely but instead may take the form of a hot mess or a snoring old dog or someone you have sworn to never, ever forgive (for a possibly very good reason, if you ask me). But mixed in will also be familiar signs of love: wings, good-hearted people, cats (when they are in the right mood), a spray of wildflowers, a cup of tea.

And here’s the last paragraph:

I’ll tell you what Blake actually wrote more than two hundred years ago: “And we are put on earth a little space, that we may learn to bear the beams of love.” If the younger ones in our lives can remember only this one idea, that they are here, briefly, a little space to love and to have been loved, then they will have all they need, because love is all they need, rain or shine – love, cough drops, and one another. Good old love, elusive and steadfast, fragile and unbreakable, and always there for the asking; always, somehow.

In between you’ve got the wonderful musings of Anne Lamott. I read a chapter each day and they always leave me feeling uplifted and more hopeful. If you haven’t read an Anne Lamott book yet, it’s time to dive in!

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Review of One of Us Is Lying, by Karen M. McManus

Contemporary, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

One of Us Is Lying

by Karen M. McManus
read by Kim Mai Guest, MacLeod Andrews, Shannon McManus, and Robbie Daymond

Listening Library, 2017. 10 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written June 9, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

So — I finally got this wildly popular teen thriller read after hearing an interview with the author about her 2024 book, Such Charming Liars. I enjoyed this one tremendously.

The set-up is that five high school students get detention with the notoriously technophobic teacher at the school because someone planted a phone in their backpack – all five of them.

And then one of the students has a fatal allergic reaction after drinking water. They try to save him, but his epi-pen is missing, and all the epi-pens have been removed from the nurse’s office. It turns out there was peanut oil in the cup.

All four of the remaining students are suspects. It turns out that they, along with many other students at the high school, had strong motives for killing Simon. He ran a gossip website that was always accurate — and all four of them had secrets queued up on his admin site, ready to post.

There are four narrators to this audiobook because all four of the teens get to give their perspective. Their secrets have repercussions, and the pressures of the school finding out those secrets affect their lives beyond the murder investigation. And of course, there’s a murder investigation going on, too. The four kids include the girl who gets good grades and has her plans for Yale under control, the jock who’s getting recruited to play baseball, the rich girl who runs in the popular crowd, and the social outcast who’s already on probation for drug dealing. Because they’re all viewpoint characters, they all get our sympathy, and we become invested in the question of which one is the murderer.

This is an excellent thriller about interesting characters, and I’m happy to see it ended up being the start of a series, so I’ve got more books on my list immediately.

karenmcmanus.com

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Review of Crossing on Time, by David Macaulay

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Crossing on Time

Steam Engines, Fast Ships, and a Journey to the New World

by David Macaulay

Roaring Brook Press, 2019. 128 pages.
Review written May 6, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This new large-format David Macaulay book is amazing. Full of his detailed illustrations, it tells the story of steam travel, combined with his own story of crossing the Atlantic and moving to America aboard what was then the fastest ocean liner in the world.

This story of his own family making the trip when he was ten years old gives a deeply personal touch to a book packed with historical facts.

After the short introduction of his family setting out to move to America, where he planned to see the Empire State Building, then the tallest building in the world, the book tells us the history of steam power. And since this is a David Macauley book, along every step of the way we get diagrams explaining precisely how the various steam engines worked. We can appreciate each new innovation and how it expanded on earlier ideas.

Then we get into steamships, and the race to build faster and faster ships to cross the Atlantic. We see all the ships that won the Blue Riband – an award for the ship with the fastest time crossing the Atlantic in the westward direction. We also hear about a shipbuilder who dreamed of winning that award.

And then we shift to that shipbuilder finally getting a chance to build an enormous ocean liner, the em> United States that would indeed win the Blue Riband. There is an incredible fold-out cross-section of United States that spreads out to six pages long and has 100 items detailed in the diagram.

The United States was the very ship that took young David Macauley and his family from England to America, so the book finishes bringing us back to his story. I especially like the paintings from their voyage and the photographs in the notes in the back.

This wonderful book is packed with information and leaves you with warm feelings about the curious kid who grew up to create amazing books.

mackids.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

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 Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Volume 4, by Beth Brower

Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion

Volume 4

by Beth Brower

Rhydon Press, 2021. 191 pages.
Review written July 27, 2024, from my own copy, purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

Oh, how I love Emma Lion! I have to again thank my sister Becky for introducing me, but this volume 4 is the first one I purchased on my own after Becky gifted me the first three. It’s pretty sneaky – each volume is only about 200 pages long, so you think it won’t take you any time at all, but then you find yourself reaching for the next book as soon as you finish. I’d forced myself to read a book in between Volumes 3 and 4, but I’ve had enough of that and will be picking up Volume 5 tonight. By the time I’ve finished all seven volumes I currently own, I’ll have read more than a thousand pages – all in bite-size pieces.

Emma M. Lion is a twenty-year-old young lady of St. Crispian’s region in London, and this set of her journals covers September 1, 1883, to October 31. And yes, St. Crispian’s has some interesting traditions for All Saint’s Eve.

I said after Volume 1 that I wasn’t sure whom Emma is going to end up marrying, but by now I have hopes. However, this book is remarkable in that it portrays a young lady building a solid and wonderful friendship with three eligible young men at the same time – and those men are friends with each other.

In this volume her aunt is out of town, so Emma’s freed up from most social engagements, though plans are still going for her cousin’s upcoming Season in which she is to get six or seven offers of marriage, according to the plan. But meanwhile, the scoundrel Jack takes her up on her side of the bargain she made, with amusing and slightly scandalous results. But as the book ends, her friends help her deal with the burial of her lost love’s remains, when his family gets those back from Afghanistan. The poignancy of that part carried the book far beyond the wit and situational comedy of so much of the journals.

I won’t say much because yes, you have to start with Volume 1. But yes, this saga will pull you in and delight you.

bethbrower.com

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Review of The Ship in the Window, written by Travis Jonker, illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Ship in the Window

written by Travis Jonker
illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Viking (Penguin Random House), 2024. 40 pages.
Review written September 6, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

First, I have to give a disclosure: The author of this book, Travis Jonker, is a friend of mine, or at least a librarian acquaintance. When we see each other at library conferences, we smile and say Hi! So — I’m for sure going to like his books, and I continue to be excited for him that he’s writing books that are getting published.

But let me tell you about his latest. The illustrator is Caldecott Winner Matthew Cordell – so you know it’s going to be good!

The story is simple. Who among us hasn’t looked at an intricately crafted miniature ship and wondered if it could actually sail? In this book, the participants find out!

The story opens in wordless pictures before the title page. We see house close to the shore, and then inside the house, a man is carefully crafting a miniature ship. We see a boy by his side, looking on, and if you look closely, you’ll also see a mouse.

When the story opens, we get the viewpoint of the mouse, Mabel, who lives in the house with the man and the boy – and the magnificent untouched ship in the window.

Mabel knew it was the man’s prized possession because she had watched him spend months building it, carefully perfecting every last detail.

He wouldn’t even let the boy help.

Mabel wonders if it could sail like a real ship. She daydreams about being the captain of this ship. She can see that the boy shares in her wondering.

And then one night, the door gets left open, and Mabel sees her chance to find out!

This book is about Mabel’s adventure that night and what happens when the man discovers the ship is gone. (His alarm is expressed, but the ending softens it beautifully.)

This is simply a lovely little book about imagination and adventure. And new friends.

TravisJonkerBooks.com
MatthewCordell.com
Penguin.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 Hearts That Cut, by Kika Hatzopoulou, read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Hearts That Cut

by Kika Hatzopoulou
read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Listening Library, 2024. 12 hours, 20 minutes.
Review written June 27, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Let me start out by saying that I love the recent trend of fantasy duologies instead of trilogies. Honestly, I’m probably more delighted with it because I’d gotten used to trilogies, so every time I pick up a second book expecting a dark middle act and instead get a triumphant ending and don’t have to wait for more – I’m almost giddy with delight.

I’ve also found that books where I had reservations about the first one in the series, especially world-building details (How would that really work?) – I forget about those reservations when I read the second book probably because I’ve gotten used to the ideas and am now ready to treat them as underlying assumptions. This happened recently with Ghostsmith and happened again with Hearts That Cut. I don’t think this is a flaw in the authors’ world-building. I think it’s my tendency to be highly critical of world-building when it’s first presented to me. In the case of this book’s predecessor, Threads That Bind, it was hard for me to get on board with a world where invisible threads connect people with everything they love. Our heroine, Io, has the ability to see those threads – and cut them. All I could think about was how hopelessly tangled those threads would get. But in this book, I’d already accepted the idea and the magic governing it, and wasn’t worried about that.

Another quibble with the original is the existence of the Otherborn – descendants of gods with specific powers. First off, there are just a multitude of different types of Otherborn, all with a different color shining in their eyes when they exercise their powers, and how would anyone remember them all? But more unrealistic is that certain Otherborn – such as Io’s family – always have a certain number of siblings. And it’s not like Io and her sisters were triplets. What if their parents hadn’t actually wanted to have three kids? Would Io’s older siblings not have gotten their powers? And how are there so many different Otherborn with specific numbers of siblings? Like the nine Muse sisters, for crying out loud? How does that work out?

But I actually didn’t think much about all that when I was listening to this book. (I thought about it again when I went to write this review. Probably shouldn’t have!) And I ended up loving this book. There’s some time manipulation involved in the plot (because of specific powers by certain individuals), and I usually don’t like that – but in this case it was handled well, as a problem to be solved, and I loved how it all came together.

As the book opens, Io is traveling through the Wastelands with Bianca, the former Mob Queen of Alante, who has been turned into a wraith with a severed life thread. She’s trying to track down the gods who ordered the deaths at the end of the last book, and she has hold of a gold thread leading her in that direction. But that plan gets stymied.

She’s left behind Edei, the young man she’s connected to with a Fate thread, and worries that the thread is fraying. Does Edei not want to be with her? And does he feel manipulated into loving her?

I like the way the plot progresses – though I don’t want to give away anything from the first book. I like the community spirit in the Wastelands that Io and Bianca find among people fleeing the many natural disasters gripping their continent. And I like the scrappy band of folks who eventually assemble and who try to make things right against all odds.

So whatever you may think about the likelihood of a world featuring fabulously gifted descendants of the gods in a post-apocalyptic landscape – Kika Hatzopoulou gives us plenty of depth and insights about such a world. I was a bit ambivalent after the first book, but I’m so glad I read on, because now I’m convinced the two make a magnificent story about the resilience of humanity itself.

kikahatzopoulou.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 Splinter and Ash, by Marieke Nijkamp

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Splinter & Ash

by Marieke Nijkamp

Greenwillow Books, September 2024. 345 pages.
Review written July 7, 2024, from an Advance Reader Copy.
Starred Review

Oh, this book is a delightful start to a middle grade fantasy trilogy. The title characters are both twelve years old. Princess Ash has just come back to her kingdom after years learning with her aunt. And the court doesn’t seem to think that she measures up. She has joints that always want to pop out, her health is fragile, and she walks with a cane and wears braces. In our world, I think we’d say she has Ehler-Danlos syndrome, but in her world she’s called a cripple, and not good enough to be a princess by the unkind. Even her own brother is disappointed in her.

Splinter wants to be a squire more than anything. But everyone says that girls can’t be squires. Splinter doesn’t feel like a girl, and the word “boy” isn’t quite right for them either – but Splinter does know that being a squire feels absolutely right and they want to protect the princess.

There is a war going on, and some nobles may be taking the side of the empire against the queen. When Ash becomes a pawn in intrigues against the crown, both Ash and Splinter get a chance to prove themselves – but it’s not going to be easy.

Not only did this book give us a great story about characters we’re rooting for, it also set up situations for the rest of the trilogy with the kingdom possibly in the balance.

The only trouble with starting a trilogy with an Advance Reader Copy is I’m going to have to wait far too long to hear more about these characters.

mariekenijkamp.com

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