A library serving a community of any kind… enriches that community, which would be impoverished and weakened if that library did not exist.
— Michael Gorman, Our Own Selves: More Meditations for Librarians, p. 191
I’m writing today from North Carolina! Yes, I’m attending Wild Goose Festival, a kind-of out there festival based in progressive Christianity about spirituality and activism and other good stuff.
I wimped out today. After a 9 to 5 pre-conference in 96-degree heat (but we were in a tent, with fans), I went back to the hotel and got cool. And I’m not camping like the real devotees. I guess I know my limits. Anyway, the preconference was a lovely time with a Methodist minister who is an indigenous practitioner, talking with six of us about prayer. I’m looking forward to two and a half more days of goodness (and heat). I’ll be leading a group on Saturday writing their own psalms of lament.
New format!
Yes, I’m planning to continue posting Book Talking with Sondy as a monthly newsletter, sent to subscribers in their email.
But I’ve decided to also post them as blog entries. I like being able to refer back to what I’ve written. So if you subscribe to my blog for the reviews, you can unsubscribe to Book Talking with Sondy. You can find all three options on the Subscribe page of the blog.
#Sonderbooks25
Yes, I’m making progress on #Sonderbooks25, celebrating 25 years of writing Sonderbooks as of this month.
I very quickly made a new page of 2008 Stand-outs in the phone-friendly format. But then it dawned on me that not only did I start the Sonderbooks blog in 2007, I also started the Sonderquotes blog and the Sonderjourneys blog then. So I started reading not only the old book reviews, but also those other posts from 2007 and 2008.
And then I found out that somewhere along the way (I think when I switched web hosting companies), the files got corrupted with some special characters. I got it cleaned up at the time in the main blog, but I couldn’t resist cleaning up the old entries in Sonderquotes and Sonderjourneys while I was rereading them – so it’s taking a little longer, but I’m having a lot of fun. Very soon, I’ll get a summary post up about my 2008 reading year. Sonderquotes especially reminded me of the books that helped me get through that year. And the books reminded me how thrilled I was to actually be working as a librarian. The quotation above was from Sonderquotes in 2008.
Library Insider Info
The latest interesting thing in our county is that the schools had the very good idea that all second graders should go on a field trip to the public library and check out a book.
This is a wonderful idea. It did not come with additional money or staff for the library, however. But we are making it happen.
And where I come in as Youth Materials Selector, is I’ll try to order more books that second-graders will want to check out. For all of our twenty-two branches.
The hard part is that second graders have a very wide range of reading levels. My plan is to mainly focus on graphic novels, because those appeal to all second graders, regardless of reading level.
We have some gift money and will get some additional graphic novels. An interesting thing is that we have a special type of library card for public school students who don’t have a card of their own. As the year goes on, we can check which books are being checked out on those cards – it will be mostly second graders using them – and see if we need to adjust the books we are ordering.
Reviews to Check Out
I got 26 reviews posted in August, so even more than July. And I only got 23 new reviews written, so little by little, I’m catching up my backlog.
Actually, speaking of catching up, I completed a milestone just this past week and posted my last review written in 2025, so now my 40 backlog reviews were all written in 2026.
But I got some more good ones posted this last month! Let me mention some of my favorites:
In the order they were posted:
Heronry, by Barbara Herkert, art by Gordy Wright. This is a children’s nonfiction picture book, but I am a heron addict, so I loved it.
The Crooked Places Made Straight: Reflections on the Moral Meaning of America, by Raphael G. Warnock, is about the moral issues of seeking justice.
Busted, by Dan Gemeinhart, read by Mark Sanderlin, is a kids’ book that pulled all my heartstrings. It begins with a kid bribed to break an old guy out of a nursing home and help him complete a bucket list. Hijinks ensue.
Sabriel, by Garth Nix. This is an updated, phone-friendly review of one of my 2004 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. A YA Fantasy classic reread with pleasure for #Sonderbooks25.
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna, read by Samara MacLaren. A cozy fantasy for adults, this features a young witch who gets roped into tutoring three volatile witch children in an unconventional home.
Basket Ball: The Story of the All-American Game, by Kadir Nelson. Another children’s nonfiction book, but with more text than a picture book, this one tells the history of basketball, accompanied by stunning paintings.
One Word, Six Letters, by Adib Khorram. The story of a year of high school, it shows the impact of a slur shouted at the start of the year on two students, one of whom did the shouting.
The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers, by Carlos Barragán. Why the scammers are almost as trapped as the people they’re scamming.
Red Star Rebels, by Amie Kaufman, performed by Max Meyers, Jessica Almasy, and a full cast. A YA thriller set on Mars with an amazing audio production.
Beauty, by Robin McKinley, read by Charlotte Parry. An Old Favorite YA Fantasy classic retelling of the fairy tale.
Brigands and Breadknives, by Travis Baldree, read by the Author. A cozy fantasy novel for adults, this one an adventure tale.
Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences, by Neal Allen and Anne Lamott. A new classic on writing from the author of Bird by Bird – and her husband.
Austenland, by Shannon Hale. This is an updated-in-2026 edition of the book for adults about what’s essentially a Jane Austen theme park for romantically inclined women. The first edition was a 2007 Sonderbooks Stand-out.
And that reminds me, in August, I visited the National Book Festival in Washington, DC. A lot of waiting in line, but it was still fun.
Have you noticed that I have trouble picking out highlights? This is a side effect of only reviewing books I like. (I did skip writing reviews of a couple books last month, honest!) But I did leave plenty for you to discover on Sonderbooks.com
How about you? Read anything good lately?
Thanks again, so much, for your support!
As always, Happy Reading!
Sondy