Review of The Hand on the Wall, by Maureen Johnson

Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Hand on the Wall

by Maureen Johnson

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2020. 369 pages.
Review written March 17, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

The Hand on the Wall is the third and final book in the Truly Devious mystery series, and ties everything up beautifully. Yes, you have to read these books in order. You will be rewarded with an exquisitely crafted series.

In this trilogy, each book gives you pieces of the mysteries in the past and in the present, and each book gives you parts of the solution. You get information about the past mystery in flashbacks as our hero, Stevie Bell, figures out clues. You also have at least one death in each volume. In this book, Stevie and the reader figure out what happened.

This book also has the added drama – perfect for a mystery – of a bunch of students blizzard-bound at the ever-so-interesting isolated Vermont campus created by the eccentric millionaire Albert Ellingham. A blizzard always makes a good backdrop for murder! Can Stevie figure out the solution before the snow melts and she has to go home?

I so appreciate all the atmosphere and nods to great detective fiction that Maureen Johnson slipped into this book. Both mysteries – past and present – have layers to them so that even stretched over three books, they didn’t lag. And enough happened in each book to feel that it deserved to be a book and not just cram the whole thing together.

But the final volume, pulling everything together, was indeed the most satisfying. This is a mystery series with teens taking the starring roles, including the brilliant detective and the person getting a little too close to the truth for her own good. Mystery and danger both! And the fantasy of a school where you can study what you’re good at – even if that talent is finding a murderer.

maureenjohnsonbooks.com
epicreads.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/hand_on_the_wall.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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 Imagine, by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo

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

Imagine

by Juan Felipe Herrera
illustrated by Lauren Castillo

Candlewick Press, 2018. 32 pages.
Starred Review
Review written November 2, 2018, from a book sent by the publisher
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#6 Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

I confess – when I first read this book at the library, I looked through it hastily and wasn’t impressed. But when the publisher sent it to my house, I gave it another look, knowing what it was, took my time, and this time was touched by its beauty.

This picture book is an illustrated poem – an autobiographical poem addressed to the reader and intended to inspire.

It’s short – I admit that it’s easy to dismiss if you don’t take your time with it and stop to look at each picture.

Juan Felipe Herrera was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2015 to 2017. This poem shows us his humble beginnings, and his journey to become a poet.

Each stanza ends with the word “imagine” and covers a double-page spread. Here are the first few stanzas:

If I picked chamomile flowers
as a child
in the windy fields and whispered
to their fuzzy faces,

imagine

If I let tadpoles
swim across my hands
in the wavy creek,

imagine

If I jumped up high
into my papi’s army truck
and left our village of farmworkers
and waved adios
to my amiguitos,

imagine

You see the boy gradually getting bigger in the pictures. The poetry also talks about his experiences:

If I moved
to the winding city
of tall, bending buildings
and skipped
to a new concrete school
I had never seen,

imagine

If I opened
my classroom’s wooden door
not knowing how to read
or
speak in English,

imagine

It takes him through writing stories and poetry, singing in front of people, and finally reading out of his own poetry book in front of the Library of Congress as the Poet Laureate of the United States of America.

And then, finally, the book finishes all the sentences:

imagine what you could do.

Inspiring and beautiful – and there’s also a treat under the paper cover! (The stars of the cover are embossed in gold foil on the book with the title.)

candlewick.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/imagine.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a a book sent by the publisher.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Lift, by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Lift

by Minh Lê
illustrated by Dan Santat

Disney Hyperion, 2020. 52 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful picture book told in comic book format with not a lot of words and with fabulous richly colored illustrations.

The book begins with a small family getting into an apartment building elevator. We focus in on the little girl. She says:

Hi, my name is Iris.
When I’m feeling a bit down, there’s one thing that always cheers me up:
PUSHING ELEVATOR BUTTONS.

Luckily, that’s my job. Up or down, our floor or the lobby,
I always get to push the button.

But then one day, her baby brother pushes the button. And her parents are happy! Betrayal! In her rebellion, Iris pushes ALL the buttons.

Later, one of the elevators is out of order. Iris sees the repairman throw an old elevator call button into the trash. She fishes it out and later tapes it to the wall in her room so she has a button to push.

And it’s then that her adventures begin. For when she pushes the button, to her surprise it gives a Ding and lights up. And when she opens her closet door, she discovers magical worlds to explore.

Now pushing the button gives her a lift in a whole new way.

There’s some more family dynamics in the rest of this book, a wonderful celebration of adventure and imagination and family and small things that give you a lift.

And Dan Santat is so wonderful at making imagination come to life in his pictures. Another perfect pairing of author and illustrator.

minhlebooks.com
dantat.com
DisneyBooks.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/lift.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Mathematical Colors and Codes, Episode Six — Binary Codes and Booktalks

Mathematical, Prime Factorization 0

Episode Six of Mathematical Colors and Codes, my Virtual Program Series for the library is up!

Episode Six now looks at the Base Two number system, binary, and puts that into a code. To finish up the series, I talk about more books that play with mathematical ideas.

Like all the other videos in the series, this one has a downloadable coloring page. This one has a chart for a Binary Code.

Here’s this week’s video:

Here are links to the entire Mathematical Colors and Codes series:

Episode One, Prime Factorization
Episode Two, Prime Factorization Codes
Episode Three, Nondecimal Bases
Episode Four, Color Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Five, More Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Six, Binary Codes and Booktalks

Review of A More Christlike Way, by Bradley Jersak

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

A More Christlike Way

A More Beautiful Faith

by Bradley Jersak

CWRpress, 2019. 252 pages.
Review written July 27, 2020, from my own copy
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Christian Nonfiction

A sequel to his wonderful book, A More Christlike God, here Bradley Jersak takes a look at how Christians live out their faith – and how they can be more like Jesus as they do.

This work rests on the foundation that God is a God of love, and that Jesus displayed that. Within that, he looks at some counterfeit ways of doing Christianity, and then seven facets of a more beautiful faith: Radical self-giving, radical hospitality, radical unity, radical recovery, radical peacemaking with radical forgiveness, radical surrender, and radical compassion with radical justice.

He presents the Jesus Way as a journey – not something anyone will ever accomplish perfectly. This means that every Christian can find something to work on in this book.

I love his Finale. He took passages from Isaiah, from Micah, and from Jesus’ words to tell us about the dreams our Abba dreams for us.

Our focus is to be single-minded and clear-eyed on Abba’s dream for our world as our first agenda. Our now agenda.

It has nothing to do with grandiose claims of outer-galactic revivals or “the next big move of God.” It’s about watching the mustard seed grow by Grace and participating in what Grace is up to . . .

One poor person at a time,
One naked person at a time,
One prisoner at a time,
One stranger at a time,
One hospital visit at a time.

ptm.org

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/more_christlike_way.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The One and Only Bob, by Katherine Applegate

Animal Characters, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The One and Only Bob

by Katherine Applegate
read by Danny DeVito

HarperCollins, 2020. 4 hours.
Review written July 25, 2020, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

The One and Only Bob is a sequel to Newbery-winning The One and Only Ivan. It doesn’t pack as much of a punch as the first book, but I’m glad it doesn’t. Because the first book had the characters fighting a bad situation, and I don’t want these beloved characters up against injustice again.

This time, though, they’re up against a hurricane. The little dog Bob, wonderfully voiced with attitude by Danny DeVito, was with his humans visiting Ivan at the zoo when a hurricane and then a tornado struck. Bob didn’t stay with the humans – in fact, he flew through the air. In the story that follows, Bob is involved both in rescuing other animals and in being rescued. He also does some coming to terms with his past.

I thought the summary of what went on in the first book went on a little long. Surely it’s safe to assume that anyone reading this book has read the earlier book. However, once it got past that, Bob’s a fun dog to hang out with. There’s a glossary of doggy terms at the front which have a very believably doggy attitude. The fact that Bob and Ivan used to watch the Weather Channel on Ivan’s little TV at the mall means that Bob believably knows quite a bit about hurricanes.

There were some coincidences, yes. But it all makes for a fun story, and it’s great to spend time again with Bob, Ivan, Ruby, and their humans. We root for resourceful, though small Bob as he takes on a hurricane.

katherineapplegate.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/one_and_only_bob.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. 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 Gravity of Us, by Phil Stamper

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Gravity of Us

by Phil Stamper
narrated by Michael Crouch

Listening Library, 2020. 9 hours, 21 minutes.
Starred Review
Review written June 26, 2020, from a library eaudiobook

Here’s a story of Cal, a teen who already had a large social media following on “Flash Fame” and plans to be a journalist, who has his whole life uprooted when his father is chosen to be an astronaut for NASA’s mission to Mars.

The whole mission has its own reality show, Star Watch, which is basically responsible for the fact that the project got funding in the first place. But Cal is uneasy about their lives going under a magnifying glass when they have to leave New York City for his father’s opportunity and go to Houston.

Cal knew all about the other astronaut families from Star Watch, so he already knew that Leo was incredibly handsome. But he didn’t know that Leo’s sister follows his Flash Fame posts and Leo thinks he’s cute. Their romance makes Cal begin to think Houston might not be so bad.

But as Calvin comes into conflict with Star Watch and their coverage turns more negative, can Calvin use his own following to turn things around?

This story was engaging and wonderful to listen to. I enjoyed that nobody batted an eye or made a big deal about the boys’ gay romance, and it was a nice romance with believable obstacles and misunderstandings along with the excitement and joy. On the audio, the Star Watch portions had a full cast, which did make it sound like you were listening in on a professional show.

I was a little drawn out of the story because they used dates in the present for the Star Watch broadcasts. They started out at the end of 2019, and progressed to hearing a date in August 2020. I wish they had set it about five years in the future, so it would be easier to believe it could really happen. Since obviously, NASA hasn’t put any of this in place yet, and what’s more, the book of course made no mention of any pandemic. So that was a glaring reminder that this is fiction.

But as fiction goes, this story gave me realistic and thoughtful romance, a believable family situation with – this was a surprise – parents who fight a lot at the beginning who grow together when the father gets his dream-come-true job, and even inspiring thoughts about the space program. Add in a teen protagonist figuring out what he wants out of life and working to save the day, and this all came out to a wonderful listening experience.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/gravity_of_us.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an eaudiobook 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.

What did you think of this book?

Mathematical Colors and Codes, Episode Five — More Codes with Nondecimal Bases

Mathematical, Prime Factorization 0

Episode Five of Mathematical Colors and Codes, my Virtual Program Series for the library is up!

Episode Five looks at more ways you can use nondecimal bases to make coded messages.

This video, like all the others has a downloadable coloring page. This one has charts for a Base Six Code and a Base Five Code.

Here’s this week’s video:

Here are links to the entire Mathematical Colors and Codes series:

Episode One, Prime Factorization
Episode Two, Prime Factorization Codes
Episode Three, Nondecimal Bases
Episode Four, Color Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Five, More Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Six, Binary Codes and Booktalks

Review of Hey, Kiddo, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

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

Hey, Kiddo

How I Lost My Mother, Found my Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction

by Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Graphix (Scholastic), 2018. 312 pages.
Starred Review
Review written June 26, 2018, from an Advance Reader Copy.
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#5 Longer Children’s Nonfiction

Here’s a graphic novel memoir by a bestselling graphic novelist, so it’s sure to be popular. This one, though, isn’t sweetness and light, and the issues addressed go a lot deeper than friends and cliques. We do have a happy ending – Jarrett Krosoczka has achieved success with his art. The book is marketed for 12 and up, so it’s for a somewhat older audience than those who love Lunch Lady.

Jarrett tells about his life. His mother was a heroin addict, and he didn’t know his father. His mother’s parents raised him, and they had their own quirks, being older than his friends’ parents.

Jarrett explains his family history. His grandparents had five kids, and he wasn’t a whole lot younger than his youngest aunt. He lived with his mother the first years of his life, but she couldn’t stay off heroin and out of trouble, so eventually he was permanently with his grandparents.

This book takes Jarrett through elementary school and high school, all the way up to applying to art school for college. He credits the teachers and friends who helped him along the way, as well as offering many tributes to his grandparents, without hiding their prickliness and quirks. His persistence, despite coming from an unconventional family, ended up paying off, and notes at the back bring us to the present.

This book speaks from the heart about a kid growing up in a family with challenges, but a lot of love. He learned to grapple with that, push boundaries, uncover truth, and above all use his art to throw light on shadows.

scholastic.com/graphix

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/hey_kiddo.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a book sent by the publisher.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Mathematical Colors and Codes, Episode Four — Color Codes with Nondecimal Bases

Mathematical, Prime Factorization 0

Episode Four of Mathematical Colors and Codes, my Virtual Program Series for the library is up!

Episode Four now takes the Nondecimal Base systems we talked about in Episode Three and uses them to make coded messages.

This video, like all the others has a downloadable coloring page. This one has a chart for choosing your own colors and making your own coded messages with nondecimal bases.

Here’s this week’s video:

Here are links to the entire Mathematical Colors and Codes series:

Episode One, Prime Factorization
Episode Two, Prime Factorization Codes
Episode Three, Nondecimal Bases
Episode Four, Color Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Five, More Codes with Nondecimal Bases
Episode Six, Binary Codes and Booktalks