Review of One of the Boys, by Victoria Zeller

Award Winners, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

One of the Boys

by Victoria Zeller

Levine Querido, 2025. 331 pages.
Review written February 11, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review
2026 Stonewall Young Adult Award Winner

Grace Woodhouse is a senior in high school who thought she had to give up football last summer after she came out as trans. When everyone thought she was a boy, she was a kicker for their team and ranked the eighteenth best high school kicker in the nation as a junior. Even though she still thinks about the kick she flubbed that stopped them from going to State championships, it’s still hard to watch her team go on without her.

So when the teammate replacing her asks for help, she gives in and gives him some pointers. But they all know that she could do a better job – so the football captains ask Grace to come back to the team.

So, yes, this is the story of a trans athlete, but in this case it’s about a trans girl playing with the boys. The team captains are supportive, but not everyone on the team is, and yes, she faces transphobic slurs at games. And her new girlfriends aren’t always understanding of the time that playing football takes away from hanging out with the girls.

I loved this book. I’m not a football fan and didn’t know much about the position of kicker, but this book got me into the head and heart of the person doing the kicking. She was up against plenty, on the field and off, and this book showed us a nuanced character, trying to figure things out, trying to be accepted for who she is, and trying to help her team.

I appreciated that Grace wasn’t able to articulate very well for anyone why she was trans – it makes her feel all the more real, not just a spokesperson. But she never questioned that she was trans. The questions were more how could she live her life and help out her team and can she keep this up in college? Does she want to?

The book is full of football players trying to avoid “feelingsball,” but with feelings happening all over the place. I loved the characters in this book, the realistic conflicts, and the many kindnesses as well.

victoria.monster

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A Sea of Lemon Trees, by María Dolores Águila

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

A Sea of Lemon Trees

The Corrido of Roberto Alvarez

by María Dolores Águila

Roaring Brook Press, 2025. 291 pages.
Review written February 17, 2026, from a library book.
2026 Newbery Honor Book
2026 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book
2025 National Book Award Longlist

A Sea of Lemon Trees is a novel in verse about an event that took place in 1930 and 1931, when a school district in California decided to make the Mexican American kids go to a separate “Americanization” school from the white kids.

The Mexican community fought back, with the Mexican embassy hiring lawyers for them. They chose a 12-year-old boy who was a good student, Roberto Alvarez, who was fluent in both English and Spanish, to be the lead plaintiff. This is his story.

I’m quite sure I already read Roberto’s story in a nonfiction picture book. (Sure enough! Google pointed me to the 2021 book by Larry Dane Brimner: Without Separation: Prejudice, Segregation, and the Case of Roberto Alvarez. I even reviewed it, but it was a blog-only review.)

This book is for middle-grade readers, and goes more in-depth, and being fiction, tells us more about how Roberto might have felt. And it gives us more information – telling us about Roberto’s best friend, whose family got deported. Back matter informed me that deportations – even of American-born citizens – are not a new phenomenon.

All these factors [the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and more] led to the Mexican Repatriation, which began in 1929 and continued through 1939. During this time, both Mexican nationals and their American-born children were deported to México, most often without due process, to free up jobs for Americans. This policy was begun by the administration of President Herbert Hoover. The exact number of people forcibly deported is unknown, but estimates range from 300,000 to 2 million, most of them children and American citizens.

By telling us this story from the perspective of a child who was in the thick of it and just wanted to go to school, readers can appreciate how bewilderingly unjust the whole thing was. May it also encourage those readers to stop and think how more modern government actions might feel from the perspective of the marginalized.

mariadoloresaguila.com
mackids.com

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Review of The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal, by Ambika Vohra

Award Winners, Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Sticky Note Manifesto of Aisha Agarwal

by Ambika Vohra

Quill Tree Books, 2024. 353 pages.
Review written December 29, 2025, from a library book.
2026 Mathical Book Prize Honor Book, Grades 9-12

Here’s a light-hearted novel about a senior in high school who’s trying to get out of her comfort zone for the sake of her Stanford application.

And of course there’s guy drama. Brian was her best friend in middle school before he moved away. When Aisha got a scholarship to the same private high school Brian attends, he turned out to have become hot. But he also barely acknowledges Aisha’s existence, despite her growing crush. So when the picture in his locker of his girlfriend comes down – and he asks Aisha to the winter formal, she thinks her dreams have come true.

But when she arrives at winter formal, she doesn’t see him anywhere. And then his mother – of all people – calls Aisha to say that Brian is sick with the flu. Aisha flees the festivities, but doesn’t know who to call to get a ride home. Her mother didn’t even know she’d planned to be there with a boy. She’s standing next to a clarinet player from a jazz band who happens to be her best friend’s boyfriend’s grandmother. The grandma is waiting for a promised ride from her friend’s grandson, who hasn’t shown up. So she has some wise words for Aisha about being stood up.

But the grandma doesn’t keep waiting around and calls a cab. Shortly after she leaves, a kid pulls up in a Volkswagen Jetta, apologizes for being late, and tells her to hop in. Clearly he’s mistaken Aisha for the clarinet player, but in the spirit of the advice she’s been given, Aisha hops in.

But before long the story comes out. This guy, Quentin, is a good listener. Since Aisha’s all dressed up, they go for ice cream, and eventually reach a deal: Aisha will tutor Quentin in precalculus, so he won’t fail, and Quentin will help coach Aisha into doing activities outside her comfort zone for the Stanford application and to actually live life. And yes, her goals get transferred to sticky notes.

So that’s the set-up. And yes, it plays out with the reader understanding that Aisha’s got a crush on the wrong guy long before she does. Quentin ends up having a lot more back story than came out at first, and we’ve got friend drama, high school drama, family drama – all in a sweet feel-good story that makes you care about this girl who cares a little bit too much about getting into Stanford. Reading about the things that wake her up is a heart-warming ride with a set of delightful people.

ambikavohra.com

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Review of The Secret Astronomers, by Jessica Walker

Award Winners, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Secret Astronomers

A Novel in Notes

by Jessica Walker

Viking, 2025. 304 pages.
Review written December 12, 2025, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review
2026 Mathical Book Prize Honor Book, Grades 9-12

The Secret Astronomers is, as the subtitle tells us, a novel in notes. The book is a facsimile of an 1888 textbook on astronomy – which someone has started writing in, doing art over the pages, and putting post-it notes in.

At the front of the book we see a note taped in (the tape and note paper are in the image) with this written on it:

Find the oldest book in the Green Bank High School Library. Hidden inside are the secrets that are being left behind forever. If you’re smart enough to figure out the message, then you have a right to know why a small town in the-middle-of-nowhere West Virginia is the center of intelligent life in the known universe.

We come to realize that the art and notes in the following pages are from a girl who’s been forced to move to Green Bank to stay with her grandparents after her mother’s death. The textbook everything’s written over is the oldest book in Green Bank High School Library.

The writer complains about living in Green Bank, where the Internet is forbidden because of the radio telescopes, and talks about what it’s like (with pictures) – when someone else joins the conversation, using Post-it notes instead of writing directly in the book. This new person begins with:

Hey would you PLEASE stop destroying this book? I know these pages are as old as Methuselah, but it’s one of the only astronomy textbooks in our library and I need to reference it for my college application essay.

After that, the two get a conversation going. After some discussion and sharing about their lives, they decide to remain anonymous to each other. They call each other Copernicus and Kepler, and agree that they won’t try to meet in person.

And then we learn about their lives and their Senior years in Green Bank. About their crushes and family drama. But they also slowly solve the puzzles and codes that Copernicus’s mother left behind when she was a high school student in Green Bank, and that involves some clever twists.

Both want to get out of Green Bank – Copernicus to go back to San Francisco to be with her Dad, and Kepler to go to college (still worried about that application essay).

The art on the pages plus the hand-written notes do make this book an amazing reading experience. I’m glad our library doesn’t have the eaudiobook, because this is one I’m glad I experienced visually.

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Review of Adventures in Math, written by Carleigh Wu, illustrated by Sean Simpson

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

Adventures in Math

How to Level Up Your Math Game

written by Carleigh Wu
illustrated by Sean Simpson

Kids Can Press, 2025. 80 pages.
Review written January 5, 2026, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review
Mathical Book Prize Honor Book, Grades 6-8

I love what the author is doing here. Instead of giving you specific techniques for solving certain math problems, this book tells you how to think about doing math and gives you techniques based on psychological research for approaching math problems successfully.

There are five chapters, each giving a simple principle and busting a myth about math. And short biographies are given of mathematicians whose lives bust the myths.

The first myth is that you have to be born with a math brain to be good at math. The truth is that everyone can work at it to get better, and the author explains a growth mindset. We learn about great mathematicians who didn’t start out good at math.

Next they tackle the myth that you should be able to solve math problems by yourself.

Math is social. It’s better together.

The mathematicians here worked with collaborators. One of the tips in this section is about an interesting study done that if you physically move closer to a problem, it will seem more difficult, but if you take a step back, it will seem easier. This encourages kids to see the big picture.

Another myth tackled is that if you make mistakes, you’re not smart. A whole chapter emphasizes how important mistakes are to help you learn. They give an example of astronauts who need to make zero mistakes in space – so they train in simulations on earth, where they can make lots of mistakes and perfect their techniques. Another example that most kids can relate to is video games. Most kids don’t think they’re bad at video games if they lose a life quickly the first time they play. They keep playing, and get better each time. Other fields – including math – are like that, too.

And there’s much more in this book. There’s discussion of using diagrams to solve problems, thoughts on how there are usually multiple ways to solve math problems, how creativity can help with math problems, and an example of out-of-the-box thinking about a contest to design toilets without plumbing or electricity.

This book makes me think of The Willpower Instinct, except for kids, because it’s about how to think about math in order to get better at doing it. I’d love to give this to a kid who doesn’t think they’re “good at” math.

carleighwu.com
seansimpsonillustration.com

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Review of The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli, by Karina Yan Glaser

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli

by Karina Yan Glaser
read by Sira Siu and Brian Nishii

HarperCollins, 2025. 10 hours, 1 minute.
Review written January 31, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Newbery Honor Book

The Nine Moons of Han Yu and Luli tells two stories, 1200 years apart. Han Yu is a boy living in China in the year 731, during the Tang dynasty. He sells steamed buns in the market with his father. But when his entire family gets put into isolation because of his sister’s case of the illness sweeping the countryside, Han Yu decides to accept the commission intended for his father and travel along the trade routes later known as the Silk Roads to deliver the goods and make more money than his family can make in a year.

Alongside that story, with alternating chapters, we learn about Luli, who lives in 1931 Chinatown in New York City. Luli’s family owns a restaurant that used to be bustling and busy, but now hard times have fallen and business is slow, and they are in danger of losing the building that houses their restaurant and their home.

The parallels in the story are skillfully executed, though the children’s lives are so far apart in time and space. Both children start selling steamed buns to help their families. Both face difficulties and hardships with a parallel flow through the alternating chapters. Despite the cliffhanger chapter endings, I never found myself annoyed to switch characters, because I was equally interested in each character’s adventures.

Han Yu has a way with animals that they come to him and turn to him. And rumors say that a tiger protects him. Along the way, he meets a young poet who becomes his best friend. Luli, too, has a dog who protects her, and friends who help. Her whole class visits the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and they also visit the Chinese art treasures that Luli’s neighbor keeps in their building at the gift shop.

What ties the two stories together? There’s a piece of silk that has been handed down in Luli’s neighbor’s family for generations. It has a poem written on it in Chinese characters. So we’re ready to hear the story of how it came to be.

I have to say that both characters have some awfully good luck that keeps disaster averted – but in a children’s story, I think we all have more tolerance for that. (I certainly needed those kids to get a happy ending!) And the kids themselves both have plenty of opportunities to display courage and resourcefulness.

It’s not every author who can tie together two stories of children from 1200 years apart who never meet and have it work beautifully. This story, steeped in actual history, gives the reader a deep appreciation for Chinese culture along with the joy of a story well-told.

karinaglaser.com

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Review of We Deserve Monuments, by Jas Hammonds

Award Winners, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

We Deserve Monuments

By Jas Hammonds

Roaring Brook Press, 2022. 375 pages.
Review written January 26, 2023, from a library book
2022 Capitol Choices Selection
2023 Coretta Scott King John Steptoe Award for New Talent
Starred Review

We Deserve Monuments is about a Black lesbian teen named Avery who suddenly got uprooted from her home in DC at the start of her senior year of high school. Avery’s grandmother is dying of cancer in rural Georgia, and her mother decided that the family needed to be with her – never mind that the last time they visited was when Avery was five.

Mama Letty doesn’t even seem glad to see them. She calls Avery “Fish” because her lip ring makes her look like a fish on a hook. She’s prickly and isn’t exactly grateful for the family swooping down because she’s dying.

But other things go surprisingly well for Avery. The girl next door and her white friend take her under their wing, and she’s quickly got better friends than she had in DC, including the girlfriend she recently broke up with.

But there are complications. Avery learns for the first time about her grandfather who was killed by Klan members before her mother was born. And then it turns out those Klan members are related to her new white friend. And she is attracted to the girl next door, but has no reason to think those feelings are returned.

All this is going on while she’s trying to get to know Mama Letty, but learns about family trauma and hurt. And why can’t her mother and grandmother ever have a conversation without fighting?

I like the way the author shows us a family with lots of flaws but also lots of love.

Jashammonds.com
Fiercereads.com

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Review of The Corruption of Hollis Brown, by K. Ancrum

Award Winners, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Corruption of Hollis Brown

by K. Ancrum
read by Andrew Gibson

HarperCollins, 2025. 8 hours, 20 minutes.
Review written January 7, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
National Book Award Longlist

This book begins with Hollis Brown getting beat up. He starts fights on purpose – knows how to say what will set people off – but this one got him hurt pretty bad. His only friends are two other seniors, Annie and Yulia, but they’ll be going off to college at the end of this year. They live in a small town with a defunct factory where everyone’s too poor to leave. Hollis’s own father is rarely home because he’s working in the city.

And then something strange happens when the seniors decide to spend the night in the abandoned part of town that’s reportedly haunted. Annie’s ex-boyfriend, whom she just broke up with, gets stabbed. And Hollis gets blamed for it because the guy was mad he was there with Annie, and Hollis was the only one with enough presence of mind to take him to the hospital. At that point, I thought the book was going to be about whatever mysterious thing was going on in the abandoned part of town.

And then – after Hollis cries in the woods about the unfairness of it all – he meets a strange boy who appears to be homeless and gives the boy his coat. After Hollis agrees to meet the guy again – a spirit comes out of the stranger’s dead body and inhabits Hollis’s body.

Hollis can’t control his body at all. He can talk to the spirit and tell him to wipe his shoes before he goes into the house and faces Hollis’s mother. But nothing else.

The spirit – whose name is Walt and turns out to have grown up in the same town a long time ago – has ideas about how Hollis should dress and act. He even gets Hollis making new friends. But at night, when Walt is asleep, Hollis works on controlling his own hand. If he can just reach his phone without waking up Walt….

But things from there continued to not go as I expected. As Hollis and Walt slowly come to know and understand one another, situations change.

Ultimately, this is a book about love and friendship and hope. But comes at it with an approach like nothing I’ve ever read before.

kancrum.com

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Review of All the Blues in the Sky, by Renée Watson

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

All the Blues in the Sky

by Renée Watson

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025. 182 pages.
Review written January 27, 2026, from my own copy, given to me at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.
Starred Review
2026 Newbery Medal Winner

I was happy when the Newbery Medal Winner was announced – and it was a book sitting by my bed in one of my TBR piles, signed by the author. And yes, I’d heard the author speak before I got it signed at ALA Annual Conference, and I was very excited about reading it.

I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t read it yet. (So many books, so little time! I wanted to read it right away, but there are so many books in those piles, plus award reading, plus I just blew it.)

However, the good side was that it made perfect Snow Day reading. In between walks in the snow, I lounged by the fire, and as a novel in verse, it wasn’t long before I had this beautiful book read.

Here’s the first page of the text:

I didn’t know
best friends could die.

Yes, this is a book about grief. The narrator is Sage, and on her thirteenth birthday her best friend was walking to her house and was hit by a car and died.

Sage is in a grief group after school with four other kids. Two of them lost a loved one suddenly, and two lost a loved one slowly, after a long process. Sage feels like that’s not the same, since she didn’t get a chance to say good-by.

But there are ups and downs after loss. And sometimes the sadness and happiness come at the same time. Sage wants to be a pilot, and she’s going to a program about learning to be one, and she thinks about all the different shades of blue in the sky – and all the different shades of grief.

The poetry in this book is beautiful. We feel with Sage, grieve with her, but also rejoice with her. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself shedding some tears while reading it. (Especially at the rejoicing with her part.) And the book brings us to a place where we know she’ll be able to carry on, feeling all the emotions.

An Author’s Note at the back tells us that Renée Watson lost fifteen people she loved, including her mother, in the space of two years. This didn’t surprise me, because she brings authenticity to the story. And ultimately, hope. She ends the Author’s Note and the book like this:

I hope this book gives every reader permission to feel real emotions, to admit when life is hard.
I hope this book reminds every reader that in the midst of sadness and grief, there can be joy and goodness.

And Renée models that – because out of her own deep loss, she brought forth this wonderful book.

reneewatson.net

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2026 Youth Media Awards!

Award Winners 0

Today the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards were announced!

For the last couple years, I’ve done a program for other Youth Services librarians in February, highlighting award winners – so for this month I’m going to try to madly read the winners I’ve missed. But I did want to take a moment to celebrate the wonderful books I did read and love before they got their due recognition.

The picture above is the wonderful way I spent a bit of my snow day – reading the Newbery Medal winner, All the Blues in the Sky, by Renee Watson. I was given a signed copy last June at ALA Annual Conference, and fully meant to read it, but it didn’t have a due date! So that way it was all ready for me to read today.

But which ones did I catch? First, I love that I had a review of the Sibert Medal Winner, Alberto Salas Plays Paka Paka con la Papa, by Sara Andrea Fajardo and Juana Martinez-Neal, all queued up to post today.

Another book that I only recently discovered was Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book, André: André Leon Talley – A Fabulously Fashionable Fairy Tale, written by Carole Boston Weatherford and Rob Sanders, illustrated by Lamont O’Neal.

But how did my 2025 Sonderbooks Stand-outs do?

First, I’m super happy about the success of my #3 Stand-out in Teen Speculative Fiction, Legendary Frybread Drive-in, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith. This book won the Michael L. Printz Award and the American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Young Adult Book and an Odyssey Honor for audiobooks.

Another triple winner was Candace Fleming. Not only did she win the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award for her latest book (My #2 Stand-out in Teen Nonfiction), Death in the Jungle, she won YALSA’s Margaret Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in writing for young adults and ALSC’s Children’s Literature Legacy Award for a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children.

And a double winner was Whale Eyes, by James Robinson, my #1 Stand-out in Children’s Nonfiction, which won the Schneider Family Young Adult Award and an Odyssey Honor for audiobooks. (Since a strength of that book was how he showed you what it’s like to see the way he does – I really wonder how they pulled that off in an audiobook.)

Another double winner was my #2 Sonderbooks Stand-out in More Teen Fiction, Sisters in the Wind, by Angeline Boulley, which was a Printz Honor Book and an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book.

The rest of my Stand-outs that won things won only one thing each. Let me go by category:

Last year’s #8 in Speculative Teen Fiction, Sheine Lende, by Darcie Little Badger, was also an American Indian Youth Literature Award Honor Book. (These are given in even years.)

Another Printz Honor went to Song of a Blackbird, by Maria van Lieshout, a book I reviewed and loved but didn’t quite make my Stand-outs list.

#5 in Children’s Speculative Fiction, The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest, by Aubrey Hartman, was a John Newbery Medal Honor Book.

#2 in More Children’s Fiction, The Teacher of Nomad Land, by Daniel Nayeri, was also a John Newbery Medal Honor Book.

#3 in More Children’s Fiction, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze, by Derrick Barnes, was a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book.

#9 in Children’s Nonfiction, The Book of Candles: Eight Poems for Hanukkah, written by Laurel Snyder, illustrated by Leanne Hatch, won a Sydney Taylor Silver Medal for Picture Books.

#2 in Picture Books, the brilliant Every Monday Mabel, by Jashar Awan, was a Randolph Caldecott Medal Honor Book. (I got a signed copy of that at ALA!)

#8 in Picture Books, Chooch Helped, by Andrea L. Rogers, illustrated by Rebecca Lee Koonz, won last year’s Randolph Caldecott Medal, and this year’s American Indian Youth Literature Award for Best Picture Book. (These are given every other year.)

And my Stand-outs are not selected for the art alone, so I am indeed delighted with this year’s Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner, my #9 Sonderbooks Stand-out in Picture Books, Fireworks, by Matthew Burgess, illustrated by Cátia Chien.

Yes, I did need a moment of silence for my Sonderbooks Stand-outs that did not win any awards today – but all of them have my deep love. And all of the choices are truly wonderful. So it’s worth taking time to celebrate these amazing books. Huzzah!

And for the next month, you can expect to see more reviews of award winners – and they may well show up on next year’s Sonderbooks Stand-outs.