Review of The Superpower Field Guide: Moles, by Rachel Poliquin, illustrated by Nicholas John Frith

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Superpower Field Guide

Moles

by Rachel Poliquin
illustrated by Nicholas John Frith

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. 96 pages.
Review written April 2, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#4 General Children’s Nonfiction

I checked out this book thinking it would work well for booktalking in the schools. I was absolutely right, but now that schools are closed I’m going to have to wait another year to do it. So let me tell you about it.

I never dreamed a book about moles could be so entertaining! This author uses a conversational tone and really emphasizes the Wow factor of many strange characteristics of moles. One way she does this is by describing nine mole superpowers: Astonishing Architect of Dirt, Indefatigable Paws of Power, Double-Thumb-Digging Dominance, Arms of Hercules, Super-Squidgibility, Early Whisker Warning System, Headless Hoarding, Saliva of Death (Maybe?), and Blood of the Gods.

She describes moles in ways you can understand, such as shaped like a potato. And gives scientific terms more vivid names. The prepollex is given the name Weird Fake Thumb, or WFT for short. Scientists say that moles’ blood has high oxygen affinity. This author says they have the Blood of the Gods.

Here’s an example of the writing style in this book, taken from the beginning, after she’s explained that moles are shaped like a potato:

Now, potato-shapeliness is definitely too dowdy to be a superpower. But believe it or not, it’s a MOLE’S SECRET WEAPON.

Let me explain.

Scientists say moles and potatoes have cylindrical bodies. Cylindrical is a fancy way of saying “shaped like a tube.” But if you look at a potato, you’ll notice it is not shaped like a tube so much as shaped to fit inside a tube. And that is the important thing about potato-shapeliness – it helps moles fit in tubes. A giraffe would not fit in a tube. Neither would a poodle, nor a chicken, nor any other animal with long legs and a long, bendy neck. Big floppy ears would also not be good in a tube. Take it from me, if you’re going to live in a tube, it’s best to be shaped like a potato.

Of course, moles don’t live in any sort of tube. They live in underground tunnels. And not just any underground tunnel. Moles are MASTERMINDS OF UNDERGROUND EXCAVATION! They are ASTONISHING ARCHITECTS OF DIRT! They are TUNNELING TORPEDOES! Which brings me to ROSALIE’S FIRST SUPERPOWER.

The cartoon illustrations also fit the tone perfectly.

So there you have it – I now know about the wonders of moles. I read an entire book about moles and enjoyed every moment of it. Who knew science could be so much fun?

rachelpoliquin.com
nicholasjohnfrith.com
hmhco.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 Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Hidden Life of Trees

What They Feel, How They Communicate

Discoveries from a Secret World

by Peter Wohlleben

HarperCollins, 2016. 7 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written September 25, 2020, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#6 General Nonfiction

I finally read this book by listening to it on an eaudiobook. I had read the Young Readers’ Edition, Can You Hear the Trees Talking?, which includes the general ideas presented here, along with glorious full-color photographs.

On audiobook, the narrator’s pleasant voice and British accent makes for a nice listening experience, though I don’t absorb facts as well by listening as I do by seeing. Still, this was just as fascinating as the children’s version, with many more interesting details.

I learned more information about how the forest is connected through fungi in the soil. Trees can even feed other trees that are in distress through the fungi. I learned about how trees communicate through scent – by producing chemicals – and through the fungi. I learned that trees can learn and how “mother” trees train their children to grow slowly at first, and how that helps them to live longer lives. I learned how the forest is interconnected and it’s actually a disservice to trees to clear out old rotting stumps. I also learned that they have discovered stumps cut down centuries before that are still alive because their neighbors feed them. And many other fascinating details like that.

This did make me look at forests with new eyes. Trees are living things and although their ways of communicating and learning and adapting are completely different from ours, scientists are learning that they do these things. And Peter Wohlleben is particularly skilled at passing on that knowledge.

He also has some theories about how walking in the forest makes us feel good. It turns out that’s more true in a healthy forest. It made me want to run out and walk in a forest right away.

Now that I’ve started, I’m going to read more of his books.

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Review of Dangerous Alliance, by Jennieke Cohen

Austenalia, Historical, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dangerous Alliance

An Austentacious Romance

by Jennieke Cohen

HarperTeen, 2019. 429 pages.
Review written September 25, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#8 General Teen Fiction

Here’s another fun variant on Jane Austen! This one is a romance for teens set in England during the time that Jane Austen had published the first four of her books, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, and Emma.

Our heroine, Lady Vicky Aston, has read and loved Jane Austen’s novels and relates her own life to the events in those books. But there’s a dark side in Vicky’s life that we don’t really see in Jane Austen. Vicky’s sister Althea has fled from her husband, Lord Dain, because he is horribly abusive. The same day that she comes back to the family home, Vicky is attacked in the countryside and fortunately rescued by Lord Halworth, a young man she grew up with but who lived for years on the continent and didn’t answer her letters.

Vicky’s father is determined to get Vicky a divorce, but it’s going to be difficult. At the same time, they need to get Parliament to make Vicky his heir instead of Althea, because if Althea is the heir, the estate would be under Lord Dain’s control. However, Vicky can’t be the heir unless she gets married. So her parents give Vicky a mission: to find a husband during her season in London.

Meanwhile, there are some more attacks. There are misunderstandings. There are accidents that don’t seem like accidents. There are odious suitors and a couple of very nice suitors. But who can Vicky trust? And who is behind those attacks?

It’s all in good fun – while at the same time showing us glimpses of the dark side of the Georgian era and how little agency women actually had.

Another delightful excursion for Jane Austen fans.

jenniekecohen.com
epicreads.com

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Review of The Imaginaries, by Emily Winfield Martin

Art, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Imaginaries

Little Scraps of Larger Stories

by Emily Winfield Martin

Random House, 2020. 80 pages.
Review written July 11, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is a worthy addition to the tradition of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, by Chris Van Allsburg. What you have are a set of fantastical paintings, each with a scrap of text, with the text usually shown as actually written on a scrap of paper.

The caption that goes with the picture that appears on the front cover is “Lily wanted to be a good place to land.”

One of my favorites shows a monkey holding a key and says, “Ask the monkey what he knows.” It’s written on the back of an envelope.

There’s a picture of five children wearing dresses at the edge of a forest, and they have the heads of animals. The caption says, “Their parents never knew the secret.”

A few characters seem to appear in more than one picture.

A note at the front from the author says that she found these scraps of words and pictures over the years, “illustrations for stories that do not exist,” in various places.

I found one in a lighthouse, one in a packet of seeds, one in the trunk of a hollow tree.

There was one tucked in the corner of a forgotten diorama, one hidden like a pearl in an oyster shell . . . one forgotten in a paperback from a used bookstore in Paris.

These pictures will send your imagination circling as you browse them, and may provide seeds for all kinds of stories.

A wonderful offering.

rhcbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book.

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 Swashby and the Sea, by Beth Ferry, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Swashby and the Sea

by Beth Ferry
illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 32 pages.
Review written July 7, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Standout:
#8 Fiction Picture Books

Swashby and the Sea is a charming story of an old sea captain who likes living alone, by his friend the sea. His little boat is even called El Recluso. But when neighbors move in, a little girl and her granny, the girl doesn’t respect Swashby’s boundaries. She climbs on his deck and spreads out on the beach near his house.

Swashby knows what to do.

Swashby battened down the hatches,
hid when the doorbell rang, and fed their oatmeal cookies to the gulls.
He didn’t need neighbors.
He didn’t want neighbors.
Neighbors were nosy, a nuisance, annoying.
So, in return, he left a message written clearly in the sand,
NO TRESPASSING
which the sea fiddled with, just a little bit.

“SING,” the girl read.
And did just that.
She sang every song she knew while dancing up and down Swashby’s deck.

There are more messages in the sand, and the sea keeps fiddling with them. Something I like about this book is that I didn’t figure out how the sea would transform the message – but then when I saw it, it was perfect.

There’s maybe a predictable adventure that gets Swashby finally truly committed to friendship, but the whole thing is a charming story of an old crusty sailor and a little Black girl bubbling with joy. I should add that the pictures are consistently wonderful and convey the characters’ personalities and the magic of the sea.

bethferry.com
juanamartinezneal.com
hmhbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a 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 Edge of Anything, by Nora Shalaway Carpenter

Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Edge of Anything

by Nora Shalaway Carpenter

Running Press Teens (Hachette), 2020. 362 pages.
Review written December 21, 2020, from a book sent by the publisher
Starred Review
2020 Cybils Finalist
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#7 General Teen Fiction

The Edge of Anything is a friendship story, and a powerful one. Len has never really had friends, except her sister, and now she’s avoiding calls from her sister after something terrible happened. She’s finding herself extra sensitive to dirt and germs, and kids at school think she’s a freak.

But when Sage’s life turns upside-down, Len is the person who sees what she’s going through. Sage faints after a volleyball game, and thinks it was low blood sugar. But it turns out to be something that can keep her from playing sports ever again. Volleyball was her passion and her whole life.

It turns out that Len is dealing with something that’s also huge, but the reader and Sage don’t find out what that is until well into the book. But we do come to understand why Len is better at understanding what Sage is going through than her other friends.

That’s the skeleton of what happens in this book, but the beauty is in the carrying it out as Len and Sage become friends and figure out how to be good friends to each other, when neither one wants to face what’s going on.

This book gives a good look at mental illness as an illness, not something you can shake by being strong.

noracarpenterwrites.com
runningpress.com/rpkids

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Review of Sounds All Around, by Dr. James Chapman

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Sounds All Around

A Guide to Onomatopoeias Around the World

by Dr. James Chapman

Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2020. 165 pages.
Review written November 13, 2020, from a book sent by the publisher
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#3 General Children’s Nonfiction

Here’s what it says on the page at the front of this book:

Let’s Make Some Noise

Learning the sounds animals make is an essential part of language learning. Spending hours and hours pretending you’re a chicken or a dog is not only great fun, it’s educational, too. If you grew up speaking English, you probably already know your woofs and meows from your clucks and quacks – but how does the rest of the world describe sounds?

[This next part has cartoon animals.]
In Japanese, cats don’t go MEOW. “NYAN!”
In German, pigs don’t go OINK. “GRUNZ!”
In Hindi, frogs don’t go RIBBIT. “TARR!”

There’s a whole world of words for all the sounds you know and love! (And even some words for sounds that don’t show up in English.)

The words that imitate sounds are known as “onomatopoeia.” These words are a wonderfully strange and interesting part of language. After all, we hear the same sounds, but we interpret and write them differently in different languages.

If you sing “Old McDonald Had a Farm” in French, your farmyard ducks go “coin coin” instead of “quack quack,” and in Russian they go “krya krya.” From the sound of a speeding car, to the sound a dog makes, to the sound of rain, there are almost as many words for these sounds as there are languages!

The format of this book is chapters of types of sounds with spreads looking at one certain type of sound in multiple languages. It’s in graphic novel format, so we see the sounds in speech bubbles coming from cartoon animals or characters or things. The chapters are “Animal Noises,” “On the Farm,” “In the Zoo,” “Loud Noises,” “Natural Noises,” “Noisy Machines,” “Sounds of the Human Body,” and “Sounds of Emotion.”

We learn fascinating things, such as “Kusukusu” being the Japanese word for “Ha Ha” and “Tagaktak” being the Filipino word for “Splat” and “Vzheeh” being how Russians say “Zoom.” It’s all mind-expanding to think about the many different languages, but also mind-expanding to realize how many different words we have in our own language for sounds.

This isn’t a book that fits neatly into a curriculum anywhere. You couldn’t use it to learn a language. But it’s super fun to read and to think about. This is a book that could easily capture a child’s imagination. I know it captured mine.

The one little thing that I wish it had is a pronunciation guide, since I know in some languages, English letters don’t make the same sounds. Though perhaps they left that out because once they started, it would have gotten tricky with so many languages used. This keeps it light and fun, but still informative.

andrewsmcmeel.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 Before the Ever After, by Jacqueline Woodson, read by Guy Lockard

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

Before the Ever After

by Jacqueline Woodson
read by Guy Lockard

Listening Library, 2020. 2 hours, 15 minutes on eaudio
Review written January 4, 2021, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review
2021 Capitol Choices selection
2021 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#8 Children’s Fiction

This is a novel in verse written from the perspective of twelve-year-old ZJ, talking about his Dad, a professional football player.

His Dad is a star, with a Super Bowl ring. Or at least he was – before. When ZJ goes through his memories, we learn that his Dad was also a wonderful, active, loving father. He did lots of things with ZJ and ZJ’s friends.

But then one day, he didn’t play a game they expected him to play. He started getting awful headaches, forgetting their names, and acting strangely. And they didn’t know what was going on. Different doctors had different ideas, but nothing was working.

The way the book covers “Before,” your heart breaks with ZJ when his Daddy starts to change.

Normally, I think I enjoy novels in verse more by seeing the poetry with my own eyes. It’s easier to catch what the author’s doing. In this case, I did enjoy listening to the warm voice of the narrator, and I did figure out it was a novel in verse before I looked at the book.

This is a heartbreaking tribute from a kid to his dad.

jacquelinewoodson.com
penguin.com/middle-grade

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Review of Cemetery Boys, by Aiden Thomas

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Cemetery Boys

by Aiden Thomas

Swoon Reads (Feiwel and Friends, Macmillan), 2020. 344 pages.
Review written December 18, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 National Book Award Finalist
2020 Cybils Finalist
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#8 Teen Speculative Fiction

I’ll confess right up front that I was predisposed to like this book because it features a transgender main character in a paranormal fantasy. But as I read, it’s also a well-written paranormal fantasy even if that weren’t true.

Yadriel has grown up in a Latinx culture in East Los Angeles where his family trains to become brujos and brujas. But when he got to be fifteen years old and refused to become a bruja, his family wasn’t ready to take him through the ceremony to make him become a brujo.

So the book begins with Yadriel and his friend Maritza going through the ceremony on their own. Lady Death indeed blesses him and bonds him to his portaje, the ritual dagger of a brujo.

As soon as the ceremony finishes, though, all the brujx sense the sudden death of one of their own, Yadriel’s cousin Miguel. But no one can find his body. So, to prove himself, Yadriel summons Miguel’s spirit – and ends up summoning someone else entirely – a kid from his school named Julian. Still trying to prove himself, Yadriel unsuccessfully tries to help Julian pass on to the other side, but Yadriel’s portaje won’t cut Julian’s tether to an object he cares about.

Still Julian agrees to go nicely if Yadriel will first help him check on his friends. It looks like there might be a connection between Miguel and Yadriel, because both their bodies are missing. But there’s a deadline – Dia de Muerte is coming, and Yadriel wants to prove himself by then and join with the other brujos.

Most of the book is the complications of hanging out with an irrepressible spirit and trying to solve the mystery of what happened. And of course trying to keep the spirit hidden from the other brujos who won’t like that Yadriel summoned him on his own. It’s all told in a compelling way, and the reader cares more and more about Yadriel and Maritza and Julian – and more sorry that Julian’s dead.

This is an own voices book, coming from a queer trans Latinx author who shows us both the beauty and frustrations of being part of this culture. They don’t tell us how much of the magical part is based on truth.

aiden-thomas.com
swoonreads.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 The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity, by Amy Alznauer, illustrated by Daniel Miyares

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity

A Tale of the Genius Ramanujan

by Amy Alznauer
illustrated by Daniel Miyares

Candlewick Press, 2020. 48 pages.
Review written July 11, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#3 Nonfiction Picture Books

The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity is a longer-than-usual picture book biography of the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan. The book focuses on his growing-up years with his constant thinking about mathematical ideas and passion for it that couldn’t be contained.

Here’s how the author talks about the young Ramanujan’s thoughts:

What else is small? Ramanujan wondered. He remembered the legend of the single egg that cracked open to reveal the entire universe. He thought about a mango.

A mango is like an egg. It is just one thing. But if I chop it in two, then chop the half in two, and keep on chopping, I get ore and more bits, on and on, endlessly, to an infinity I could never reach. Yet when I put them back together, I still have just one mango.

He loved this idea, small and big, each inside the other. If he could crack the number 1 open and find infinity, what secrets would he discover inside other numbers? It felt like he was setting out on a grand chase.

Numbers were everywhere. In the squares of light pricking his thatched roof. In the gods dancing on the temple tower. In the clouds that formed and re-formed in the sky. Every day he wrote numbers in the sand, on his slate, on slips of paper, his slender fingers flying, each number a new catch.

The book tells about Ramanujan’s life in India before he finally got an answer from the mathematician G. H. Hardy and was invited to England. It captures his obsession with numbers and his difficulty in doing other things. His parents tried him in a new school every year, because he didn’t fit into the molds they wanted. Eventually he failed college because all he would think about was math.

I love that the author is also a mathematician, and I think she does a great job expressing Ramanujan’s genius, overflowing ideas, and desire to be heard. The artist paints wonderful illustrations to go with the text, showing us an imaginative boy dreaming about numbers and living in a land with lots of sunshine.

The book ends as Ramanujan travels to England:

As he rocked on the steamer and gazed up at the great night sky, so full of stars that it looked like a glittering infinity, he never could have guessed that someday scientists would use his ideas to help explore that sky and that his work would change the course of mathematics forever. One hundred years later, people would still search his notebooks in wonderment, trying to discover what he was thinking.

candlewick.com

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Source: This review is based on a 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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