Review of Once There Was, by Kiyash Monsef

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Once There Was

by Kiyash Monsef
read by Nikki Massoud

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2023. 11 hours, 28 minutes.
Review written July 3, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 William C. Morris Award Finalist
2024 Odyssey Award Honor Book
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #3 Children’s Speculative Fiction

Once There Was is a contemporary fantasy tale interwoven with Persian stories that begin, “Once there was, once there wasn’t…”

Marjan is 15 and owns a veterinary clinic after the violent death of her father a few weeks ago. The police don’t have any clue who did it, and Marjan feels detached from it all, trying to keep the clinic running.

Then a mysterious woman sends her plane tickets to London to visit a griffin. When Marjan places her hands on the griffin, she senses everything the griffin is feeling, and he is very sick. And that is how she learns that one of the stories her father told her is true – and she inherited a gift from her father going back to an ancestor who was pierced by a unicorn’s horn. Oh, and besides that – griffins and other magical creatures are real.

But then Marjan gets entangled with more than one powerful group who wants to control who has access to these amazing creatures, and she wants to be on the side of the creatures, but which side is that? In her efforts to help, she has some amazing adventures, while trying to understand her place in all this, keep the clinic afloat, and figure out who killed her father – all while trying to keep her friends from worrying about her.

She gains some allies along the way, including a rich boy from London whose family has hosted the griffin for centuries and a teenage witch whose familiar is ill – and needs a place to stay. It’s good she has help, because it turns out that everything is riding on the fate of these magical creatures, and Marjan and her friends are going to need to save the world.

My one little complaint about the book is that the big climactic world-saving action happens with still more than an hour left in the audiobook. But the things that follow are pretty crucial to Marjan’s story, too, so I don’t think I’d want it changed – or put off and resolved in another volume.

The publisher is marketing this for children (ages 10 to 14), but Marjan is 15, in high school, and dealing with adult things like running a business, and has a friend who drives. So I think teens will enjoy the book, too.

I didn’t begin this eaudiobook until it was almost due to expire, so on the last day, I pulled out a jigsaw puzzle and listened to the last 4 hours (sped up a tiny bit), and thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in this book. I love the way the interspersed Persian tales illuminate the story and keep the feeling of magic strong.

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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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Selection Adventures – The William C. Morris Award

Award Winners, Selection Adventures 0

This year, I’ve had the privilege of serving on the committee to select the William C. Morris YA Debut Award. This award is given to the best YA debut book of the year, published between November 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023.

I’m happy to say that at least two committee members read (or read the beginning of) every one of the over two hundred eligible books. When I say “read the beginning of” — we were allowed to stop when we were sure the book would not be a finalist, usually at least fifty pages in. We have chosen our five Finalists, and they will be announced soon. The one winner will be chosen from among those and announced at the Youth Media Awards on January 22, 2024.

One note: When we say “debut book,” it has to be the author’s (and illustrator’s, if there is one) very first book published. If it’s their “YA debut” but not their actual debut, it’s not eligible. So that eliminated some books we got sent.

When I was on the 2019 Newbery Committee, I blogged a lot about the process. I haven’t done that as much for the Morris Award. Maybe I’m getting used to award committees?

It was a different experience from the Newbery. That year, I had really set aside much of my life to focus on the Newbery reading. This year, not as much. But although the Newbery books were shorter, about three times as many books were eligible, so that was necessary.

My stats for the Morris year:
Publishers sent me 136 books.
I read 126 books (or parts of books).
That added up to 20,843 pages read plus 150 hours of listening.

Of course, I can never tell how close some books came that ended up not getting chosen as Finalists. After our Finalists get announced, I plan to start posting reviews of many of the other lovely debut books I got to read this year. As always, I want to commend the authors, whether they won an award or not. And start spreading the word about these great books!

And when you find out which ones are our Finalists, get your hands on them and read them — you’re in for a treat!

Review of Wildoak, by C. C. Harrington

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

Wildoak

by C. C. Harrington

Scholastic Press, 2022. 324 pages.
Review written February 21, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review
2023 Schneider Family Award Winner, Middle Grades

Wildoak is set in 1963 in England, featuring Maggie, a girl who stutters. Maggie goes to drastic measures to avoid speaking aloud in class, and three schools have told her parents her disruption isn’t welcome. Her father seems ashamed of her. But in a last-ditch effort before sending her to an institution, her mother sends Maggie to her grandfather in Cornwall for two weeks.

Maggie has always been able to talk to animals without stuttering and has a small menagerie of animals she loves, but the only ones she can bring with her are two snails. Her grandfather encourages her to explore the woods, though the local landowner is planning to bulldoze one of the oldest forests remaining in England. But meanwhile, a wealthy society lady has released into that very forest a snow leopard cub she was given as an exotic pet.

Maggie sees the snow leopard, and later rescues him from a cruel trap. But her grandfather doesn’t believe her, because of course there aren’t leopards in Cornwall. It’s up to Maggie to help the cub recover from his wound and then defend him when the townsfolk start sighting a “monster” in the woods.

The book tells a gentle story about the small standing up to the powerful and about Maggie learning to use her voice, even if it won’t always do what she wants it to.

ccharrington.com

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Review of Maizy Chen’s Last Chance, by Lisa Yee

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

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance

by Lisa Yee

Random House, 2022. 276 pages.
Review written February 17, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
2023 Asian/Pacific American Literature Award Winner, Children’s Literature
2023 Newbery Honor Book
2022 National Book Award Finalist

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance is about a girl who’s spending the summer with her mother at her grandparents’ place in Last Chance, Minnesota. She didn’t know her grandparents before this summer, but her grandfather is very sick, so her mother came to make peace.

In Last Chance, her grandparents run a Chinese restaurant, which has been in the family for more than one hundred years. As Maizy spends time with her Opa, he begins telling her the story of his grandfather, Lucky, and how he came to America and started running this very restaurant. Maizy also does her own research about some pictures up in the restaurant. They turn out to be pictures of “paper sons” who immigrated to America under fake papers, but got help getting on their feet with Lucky in the Golden Palace restaurant.

In the present, Maizy needs to get her bearings and make some summer friends. And then the giant wooden bear that’s been standing in front of the restaurant gets stolen, with a nasty note with racial slurs left in its place. Can Maizy get the bear back and figure out who did it? Maizy also spends time getting to know her grandparents — and writing better fortunes for the fortune cookies that everyone expects in a Chinese restaurant.

This book has a nice weaving together of the past and the present. Lucky’s story is told by Maizy’s Opa in short bits that keep you — and Maizy — wanting more. And she ends up proud of her family and their place in America.

LisaYee.com
rhcbooks.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 Just a Girl, by Lia Levi

Award Winners, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Just a Girl

A True Story of World War II

by Lia Levi
with pictures by Jess Mason
translated from Italian by Sylvia Notini

Harper, 2022. Originally published in Italy in 2020.
Review written February 24, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
2023 Mildred Batchelder Award Winner

The Mildred Batchelder Award is given every year to a children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States. It’s given to the publisher, to encourage them to find and translate such books.

Just a Girl is a gently told early chapter book about a terrible time. The author Lia Levi was a girl living in Italy in 1938, having just finished first grade. The book begins as she’s told she won’t be able to go back to school this year, but will have to go to a Jewish school.

As the war progresses in Italy, her father loses his job. They think things will get better after Mussolini is put out of power, but then the Germans come and things get worse. Lia and her sisters have to hide in a convent boarding school and use fake last names.

The author does a good job of telling about bad things, but also reassuring the reader with insertions as her older self. She does acknowledge that she was luckier than many others and does highlight the unfairness of her family being targeted for who they were. And through all of the story, the worries and troubles are punctuated with stories of kids finding ways to have a good time.

And in the last chapter (I don’t think this is a spoiler.), she wrote a letter to a radio station and began with, “I am a Jewish girl.” She was surprised when her mother tore it up.

What terrible mistake could I have made? And even if I had made a mistake, couldn’t we have fixed it?

Mama’s face isn’t serious, though.

Now she’s happily tossing all those bits and ripped-up pieces of paper everywhere as though they were confetti at Mardi Gras.

“You’re not a Jewish girl,” she says, smiling. “You’re a girl. Just a girl.”

What’s this all about? For years now, they’ve been shouting and writing female student of Jewish race next to my name everywhere.

I know perfectly well that the laws against the Jews have been repealed. But what is this about not being a Jewish girl?

Mama laughs.

“You’re mixing things up. Of course you’re still Jewish,” she says. Then her face gets very serious and she tries to explain. “You’re Jewish, but that’s something personal. It doesn’t need to be a label you wear on your forehead. You’re Jewish, you have two sisters, you go to school, you like going to the movies. . . . These are all facts about you. If you want to, you can tell others, but only if you choose to. These facts are no longer of any importance to the State, to the authorities. They have to let you go to school, to the gym, to the library, to your tennis or dance lesson, without saying: she can, but she can’t; he can, but he can’t.”

A lovely story that gives a gentle way for young children to learn about discrimination.

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 Solito, by Javier Zamora, read by the author

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Biography, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Solito

A Memoir

by Javier Zamora
read by the author

Random House Audio, 2022. 17 hours, 8 minutes.
Review written May 2, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Alex Award winner

The Alex Award is for books written for adults that will appeal to teens. Solito is a worthy winner, since in the entire memoir the author is nine years old. It’s the intense subject matter that put this book into the adult market.

Solito is a memoir — and the story of the author’s journey from El Salvador to the United States all by himself in 1999 when he was nine years old. His grandfather took him on the first leg to Guatemala. But then Javier was entrusted to a “coyote,” supposed to be taken safely to Mexico and then the USA to be reunited at last with his parents.

The trip was supposed to be relatively simple, taking a maximum of two weeks. Pretty early on, the plans got messed up. I won’t tell you how many weeks or how many tries it took before he was reunited with his parents, because I don’t want to mess up the suspense — but it was more than one try and much more than two weeks.

The journey was harrowing. In boats, in cars, buses and vans, and on foot through the desert. The author remembers details from a child’s perspective, doing what people told him, and making up names for the desert plants and animals. He is especially grateful to the adults who took him under their wing when plans went terribly awry, pretending he was part of their family to get him safely past officials.

The author doesn’t tell you what to think about the journey. But my reaction is that this is terrible. No child should have to go through such an arduous journey just to have to be with his parents.

But no matter what you conclude, this amazing story will have you riveted and will touch your heart.

javierzamora.net

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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 Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 2

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver
read by Charlie Thurston

HarperAudio, 2022. 21 hours, 3 minutes.
Review written June 30, 2023, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner
2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner

I’ll be honest: When I was in the middle of this long audiobook, I wasn’t enjoying it much. It tells the story of Demon Copperhead — a kid named Damon, who, like the father who died before he was born, had red hair. He was born in the very rural Lee County, Virginia, to an addict Mom, and bad things just kept happening to him, so the book was somewhat depressing. I kept listening, because it was written by Barbara Kingsolver, who is a truly amazing author.

There was abuse from a stepdad, overdose death of his mother, terrible foster home situations, and eventually getting addicted himself. The narrator had such an authentic rural Virginia accent, I was surprised when he spoke at the end of the book in the “thank you for reading this book” section without the accent.

Something the author does to make all this terrible stuff tolerable is telling the story from the perspective of an older Demon telling about his life. So we know he’s going to survive and get through these awful things. And when things take a particularly bad turn, there’s plenty of foreshadowing, with him wondering if he had done things differently in the events leading up to the disaster, if that would have helped. Or talking about how he didn’t fully appreciate it when things were good — so you know his troubles aren’t over.

When I was in the middle thinking I was tired of listening to it and that I don’t enjoy listening to a rural southern accent as much as a British one — that was when the kids in the story noticed that the media portrays to the world that rural southerners and hillbillies are stupid. Touché! As I began thinking I didn’t really like spending all that time in Demon’s life — then he naturally in the story pointed out that’s how the media wants me to think.

The book also showed the opioid crisis and how it gained full steam. (I’m going to call it Historical because it begins in the 1990s.) The drug companies actually looked for populations likely to get hooked and sent their representatives there, giving doctors kickbacks if they prescribed the addictive painkillers. Damon got hooked after a football injury — beginning by only taking exactly what was prescribed. The whole awful situation is told in a way that reminds the reader that these are people’s lives that were destroyed, not some kind of lazy subhumans who deserved their fate.

And yes, by the time I’d listened to all 21 hours of this book, I was glad I did. I ended up having a much higher view of the folks in the communities portrayed, and I was pleased and proud to have spent so much of my time with a kid who got way more than his share of tough breaks in life, but whose heart shines like gold.

barbarakingsolver.net

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Review of Seen and Unseen, by Elizabeth Partridge and Lauren Tamaki

Award Winners, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Seen and Unseen

What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About the Japanese American Incarceration

by Elizabeth Partridge
illustrated by Lauren Tamaki

Chronicle Books, 2022. 124 pages.
Review written February 26, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review
2023 Sibert Award Winner

Seen and Unseen won the Sibert Award for the best informational book for children published in 2022. The book tells the story of the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II, especially looking at the testimony of three photographers.

Here’s the beginning of Dorothea Lange’s section:

In the San Francisco Bay area, Dorothea Lange was asked to photograph the roundup and forced relocation of all Japanese and Japanese Americans on the West Coast. Officials wanted documentary photos to show it was being carried out in a humane, orderly way.

Dorothea was horrified by the government’s plan. The prisoners would be held without charges filed against them and without the right to a trial. That was illegal in the United States. But there was a war on, and Japanese Americans’ rights were suspended.

Dorothea could have refused, but she ws eager to take the job. She wanted her photographs to show what the government was doing was unfair and undemocratic.

We see many of the pictures she took in the pages that follow, along with descriptions of what was going on. But most of the ones we see are labeled “Impounded” — they were withheld from the public during the war, to try to hide the brutal conditions of the imprisonment of American citizens.

Meanwhile, photographer Toyo Miyatake was imprisoned in the camps. He smuggled in his camera lens and took photos, giving a starker and more realistic picture of life in the camp.

Later in the war, he was asked to open an official photography studio to document special events like weddings and funerals. But in a silly and humiliating bit of red tape, they wouldn’t let him press the button on the camera and they hired a white American to do that.

The final photographer featured is Ansel Adams. He came in 1943, paid by the government, to support “loyal” Japanese Americans being resettled in other parts of America. They showed him happy faces — not necessarily the true story.

This book as a whole shows how a terrible national tragedy was presented to the public in general at the time. The book is full of illustrations as well as photographs and vividly presents what happened.

I thought this page was particularly striking, with a picture of a father talking to a little boy:

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to your mother and me,” future US Congressman Norman Mineta’s Issei father told him and his four siblings. “But just remember: All of you are US citizens and this is your home. There is nothing anyone can do to take this away from you.”

He was wrong.

elizabethpartridge.com
laurentamaki.com
chroniclekids.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 American Murderer, by Gail Jarrow

Award Winners, History, Science, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

American Murderer

The Parasite That Haunted the South

by Gail Jarrow

Calkins Creek, 2022. 159 pages.
Review written January 15, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review
2023 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist
2022 Cybils Award Finalist, High School Nonfiction

I’m squeamish, so I didn’t expect to enjoy this book from the “Medical Fiascoes Series” as much as I did. But Gail Jarrow, a past winner of the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award, makes the story of this medical mystery fascinating.

It’s all about a parasite. Scientists in Europe discovered that hookworms were making people sick in the late 1800s. But in 1902, a scientist named Charles Wardell Stiles discovered a distinct type of hookworm in America. He named it Necator americanus, which means “American murderer.”

But after discovering the new parasite came the dawning realization that more than 40% of rural southern families were infected with it, up to 2 or 3 million people.

Afflicted people complained of diarrhea and a bloated abdomen. Their skin was paler than normal. Children were physically underdeveloped. Adults didn’t have enough endurance to perform even minor work, and they were usually poor because they couldn’t earn a living. Some people had experienced these symptoms for years, and family members had died with the same ailments. None of them knew why they’d been plagued for generations. They just accepted it.

The rest of the community considered these people sluggish and lazy. Because pica was a common symptom, the infected were often mocked as “dirt-eaters.” No one understood that the symptoms were not a sign of weak character or low mental ability. They were evidence of a tiny worm — actually hundreds of worms — slowly sucking blood from a victim’s small intestine.

Living during the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s easy to understand why most of this book is about convincing people — and doctors — that hookworm was real and convincing them to get treatment. Scientists also worked to get them to change things about their everyday lives. The worm gets into people through skin — mostly when people walk with bare feet on infected ground soiled with infected human feces.

So besides getting people to get tested and treated, there was also a campaign for sanitary privies. But those were expensive, as were shoes for growing children.

But the whole story of fighting the bug is an amazing success story with millions of lives saved and improved. I especially liked the many photos of infected people before and after treatment. The last chapter covers ways parasites still endanger people today, yes, even in America.

Overall, this is an abundance of clear information about a major public health problem from a hundred years ago that I previously knew absolutely nothing about. Almost every spread has photos or side bars, and the story is riveting as Gail Jarrow tells it. An amazing achievement.

gailjarrow.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 All My Rage, by Sabaa Tahir

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

All My Rage

by Sabaa Tahir

Razorbill (Penguin Random House), 2022. 376 pages.
Review written February 13, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
2023 Printz Award Winner
2023 Walter Award Winner, Teens
2022 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner
2022 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award Winner, Fiction and Poetry
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Fiction

What a beautiful book. I closed the book completely understanding all the awards and acclaim this book has received.

All My Rage tells the story of two Muslim seniors in high school who have been best friends for most of their lives — until recently when they had a fight after Noor told Salahudin she had feelings for him and wanted something more. He said she’d ruined their friendship.

But they come back into each other’s lives when Salahudin’s mother Misbah dies with failing kidneys — a problem she couldn’t afford to treat because they don’t have health insurance, running their own motel.

Both of them have more problems than they can cope with after Misbah’s death. Salahudin’s father numbs his mind with alcohol, so it’s up to Salahudin to figure out how to pay the bills and keep the motel, the place his mother had loved.

Misbah was like a foster mother to Noor. She came to America after all her family but her were killed in an earthquake in Pakistan when she was a second-grader. Her uncle who was studying in America found her, digging her out of the wreckage of their family home. But he couldn’t find any other living relative to take care of her, and now he runs a liquor store near the army base where he’d first found work in America. He doesn’t want Noor to go to college, but work in the liquor store so he finally can go to college. She secretly submitted seven applications, but without Salahudin to help her with the essays — she’s getting rejections. Will she never be able to leave the small desert town?

Their problems and misunderstandings get much much worse as the novel goes on. I will only say that although hard things happened, and some of the characters made bad decisions along the way, the ending was tremendously satisfying. Don’t give up on it as a depressing and discouraging book! The difficulties they face makes the story all the more of a triumph.

And the writing is lyrical and beautiful. Along with the stories of Noor and Salahudin, we get his mother’s story, beginning with when her parents told her she was getting married. Captions at the beginning of the parts come from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art,” which is about “the art of losing.” As our characters cope with one loss after another, the reader gets pulled into the story, rooting for them and suffering with them. These are characters I will never forget.

SabaaTahir.com
PenguinTeen.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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