Review of King Alfred and the Ice Coffin, by Kevin Crossley-Holland, illustrated by Chris Riddell

Children's Nonfiction Review, Folklore and Literature 0

King Alfred and the Ice Coffin

by Kevin Crossley-Holland
illustrated by Chris Riddell

Candlewick Studio, 2024. 88 pages.
Review written April 9, 2025, from a library book.

King Alfred and the Ice Coffin is a heavily illustrated retelling of a tale from an Old English manuscript. It’s not a graphic novel (no speech bubbles), but with illustrations on every spread (but not words on every spread), it has the feel of a graphic novel. Since the book retells an old story and gives the history of Alfred the Great – who had this tale written down – it’s shelved in juvenile nonfiction, where I’m afraid not as many kids will find it.

The overarching story is about Alfred – who never expected to be king, as the fifth son of the royal family. He loved learning, and had books in Latin translated to English, so his people could read them – and at the same time collected tales from travelers who came to his court.

This is one of those tales about a man who sailed to a far-off kingdom with the unusual custom of preserving their king who died in an ice coffin for a month, before a race that would determine who would inherit his goods.

The story is more pictures than words, and those beautiful pictures give the book a spirit of adventure.

I hope kids will find this tale of kings and seafarers, even though it’s tucked away in the nonfiction section.

candlewickstudio.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 Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels, by Beth Lincoln, read by Nikki Patel

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Swifts

A Dictionary of Scoundrels

by Beth Lincoln
read by Nikki Patel

Listening Library, 2023. 9 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Swifts is a story about an adventurous family that sets themselves apart from common folk by taking their names from the family dictionary. Shenanigan Swift is a child in this family, and she’s constantly told “You can’t help your name.” People continually expect shenanigans from her, and they are not disappointed.

She and her sisters Phenomenon and Felicity live in the ancestral Swift estate while their parents are off adventuring. But adventures happen at home when Aunt Schadenfreude calls a grand Reunion of Swifts to look for the treasure hidden long ago somewhere on the estate by Vile Swift.

But this time, the Reunion is plagued by murder and attempted murder. Gumshoe Swift is obviously not up to the task of finding the culprit, so Shenanigan and her siblings — along with their nonbinary cousin Earth — take up the task.

The mystery is full of misdirection, sinister clues, and a bit of silliness, along with Shenanigan pondering whether your name is actually your destiny.

I listened to this audiobook mostly while getting way too absorbed in a jigsaw puzzle, and it provides a fun mystery adventure the whole family will enjoy (with the warning that there are some deaths). The author wasn’t going for realism, and ended up with delightfully quirky.

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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 Watership Down, by Richard Adams, read by Peter Capaldi

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Old Favorites, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Watership Down

by Richard Adams
read by Peter Capaldi

Blackstone Publishing, 2019. Novel first published in 1972. 17 hours, 31 minutes.
Review written May 3, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Earlier review written in 2001.
Starred Review
2002 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Fiction Rereads

Ah, it was so good to revisit Watership Down! This wasn’t the one book I chose to reread from my 2002 Stand-outs as part of my #Sonderbooks25 celebration of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks – but that motivated me to notice that my public library had an available copy of an eaudiobook – and then I couldn’t keep myself from again enjoying the epic adventures of Hazel and Fiver and Bigwig and all the rest.

It’s funny – I’ve always thought of it as an adult novel. The library has it in the adult section. But my ex-husband did read it to our kids when they were young, and Overdrive has the audiobook listed as Juvenile. I’m going to fall back on the fact that it’s truly for all ages. There is plenty of life-and-death violence, and the reading level is adult, but I think that for listening to the story, this is a perfect family adventure.

So if you’ve never read Watership Down – it’s an epic adventure of a band of rabbits. Hazel’s runt brother Fiver has a vision of death and destruction, so they leave the old warren with a few others and set off across the dangerous countryside to a sunny place on a hillside. Along the way, they meet dangers from predators, but also from other rabbits, encountering two troublesome rabbit societies. And once they arrive, they have the problem that they need some female rabbits, or the new warren can’t survive.

And especially wonderful about this book are the tales told about El-ahrairah, the mythical rabbit hero and trickster. His exploits inspire their own adventures in life-or-death situations.

And, yes, this book about rabbits is full of tension and heroism, and you come to love the very rabbity characters. They feel like real rabbits with authentic rabbit interests.

And I was so happy to revisit this tale! It was fun to hear it told with a British accent. Yes, there’s some sexism, but since it’s about rabbit does, it feels like something I can overlook. Other than that, it completely stands up to the passage of time and I was simply happy to spend time with Hazel and company again. I decided to write a new review so I’ll have one in the new phone-friendly format. This is a book I will recommend all my life long.

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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 Enter the Body, by Joy McCullough

Audiobooks, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

Enter the Body

by Joy McCullough
read by a full cast,
including Joy McCullough, Valerie Rose Lohman, Annie Q, and Victoria Villarreal

Listening Library, 2023. 4 hours, 23 minutes.
Review written April 23, 2023, from a library eaudiobook

Joy McCullough’s debut novel, the amazing Blood Water Paint was published the year I was on the Newbery committee, so when I hear she’s written another book, I make sure to read it. This one has more of her innovative work, looking at history in a completely new way. Of course, in this case, it’s invented history — invented by Shakespeare.

The book is centered in a trap room beneath a stage. We’ve got Shakespeare’s tragic heroines spending eternity there. All of them died horribly.

Most of them go off into corners, but Juliet, Ophelia, and Cordelia get to talking. They tell their stories from their own perspectives. All of them died tragically, because of men.

But then the part I like is where they decide to make their own choices and rewrite their stories as they want them told.

I listened to this book, and the audio production is very well done, using separate voices for the different girls. But I suspect I would have enjoyed it more reading the print version, because it’s easier to notice the author’s craft — such as when the lines start going in iambic pentameter.

In the Author’s Note she mentions that Shakespeare was known for taking established work and making it his own, so she feels she’s following in his footsteps with this book.

joymccullough.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 My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda, by Bibi Dumon Tak

Animal Characters, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

My Presentation Today Is About the Anaconda

by Bibi Dumon Tak
illustrated by Annemarie Van Haeringen
translated by Nancy Forest-Flier

Levine Querido, 2025. First published in the Netherlands in 2022. 223 pages.
Review written April 29, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book: Packed with information, and ever so much fun! Also the kind of book that I ordered for the library with a note: “Show to Sondy” so I could figure out if it’s nonfiction or fiction. The answer ended up being Fiction, since it’s full of talking animals. But those animals are telling you Facts! I also immediately placed the book on hold so I could read the whole thing.

Here’s how the book begins:

To Start Off…

These are oral presentations given by animals about other animals. That’s because oral presentations can really be fun, especially when they’re not being given by the human species for once. After all, humans can make presentations super boring.

Why?
Because humans only look at things through their own human eyes.
Every single time.

Human after human.
Kid after kid.
Class after class.

YAWN!

So it’s time to take a fresh look:
Animal after animal.
Here we go!

So what follows is a bunch of animals talking about other animals: A cleaner fish talks about the shark. A blackbird talks about the rose-ringed parakeet. A midwife toad talks about the koala. A zebra tells us about all the pure black-and-white animals. A death’s head hawkmoth talks about the squirrel monkey.

Altogether, twenty animals give presentations about other animals. And the reports are quirky, each from the perspective of the particular animal giving it, sometimes telling more about that animal than about the subject of the report.

After most presentations, there’s time for questions from the animals listening, and those are quirky and interesting, too.

Perfect for kids ready for chapter books, this is all very silly, but packed with facts at the same time.

I usually only find out about translated books after they win Batchelder Award Honor. This time, I’ve got an early favorite for this year’s winner. Find out a bunch of facts about animals and do some laughing, too.

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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 Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Mystery, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Inheritance Games

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
read by Christie Moreau

Hachette Audio, 2020. 10 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 24, 2023, from a library eaudiobook

Thanks to my friend Lisa for recommending this series to me. I’d seen the hype about the fourth book coming out this summer.

The Inheritance Games begins a series about a billionaire who died and who left puzzles for his family after him.

The biggest puzzle of all is why he left his entire multi-billion dollar estate to Avery Grahams, a teen who’d been living in her car before she got the news, in order to avoid her sister’s abusive boyfriend.

But Avery gets called to the reading of the will of Tobias Hawthorne, along with the whole family. She’s never met any of these people before. So she’s as shocked as anyone when she learns he’s left the bulk of his estate to her, passing over his grandsons, the four Hawthorne brothers.

There is a condition: She has to live in Hawthorne house for one year. It’s an enormous place, so it shouldn’t be difficult. But then someone apparently tries to kill her. And there’s the question of how she feels about the Hawthorne brothers. And she’s warned about the last girl at her new private school who lived at Hawthorne house and turned up dead.

Along with all that, the Hawthorne brothers tell her that their grandfather was always setting puzzles for them, and the letters left to them are obviously another puzzle. Avery thinks the solution to the puzzles may explain why he picked her to inherit.

But the question is: Is Avery’s existence at Hawthorne House just a part of the puzzle, or is this amazing inheritance due to something special about her?

This puzzle novel is fun, though I was a little disappointed that the clues weren’t such that the reader could really play along. Fun to watch them get solved, though. And I’m proud to say that I saw a twist at the end coming long before it happened.

And although they did solve a major puzzle in this book, the ending hints that there are more puzzles to come. The series was originally advertised as a trilogy, but book four is coming out this summer. I think I have been enticed into reading more books. And who doesn’t like a Cinderella story where a worthy but poor heroine comes into great wealth?

jenniferlynnbarnes.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 Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries, by Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne S. LaPierre

Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Desegregation in Northern Virginia Libraries

by Chris Barbuschak and Suzanne S. LaPierre

History Press, 2023. 206 pages.
Review written April 30, 2025, from my own copy, signed by the authors.
Starred Review

First, I owe my friends, authors Chris and Suzanne, a big apology. I attended their book launch in 2023 and got a signed copy – but I didn’t get it read until 2025. My excuse was that I was on the Morris Award committee in 2023, reading only debut young adult books – but that’s not a very good excuse in 2025! On top of that, Suzanne is the very most faithful advocate for my reviews, always liking my review posts on Facebook. So anyway, let me tell you about their wonderful book!

Yes, of course I’m biased. Chris and Suzanne both work in the Virginia Room at the City of Fairfax Regional Library branch of Fairfax County Public Library, where I worked as Youth Services Manager before I got my current position as Youth Materials Selector. I often got to spend an hour or two at the Virginia Room desk as needed – and came to appreciate their expertise and skills as researchers.

This book shows meticulous research, uncovering the history of segregation in Northern Virginia libraries, both explicit and implicit, and the brave Black activists who made desegregation happen even when a Supreme Court ruling wasn’t enough.

The book happened because one of the Fairfax County Library Board trustees, Dr. Sujatha Hamptom, challenged the established answer that FCPL had been open to everyone since its founding in 1939. Chris and Suzanne were asked to dig deeper and did the deep research in local archives that led to this book. I loved the way in their book launch they told stories of the individuals who stood up for everyone’s right to read – with legal challenges, sit-ins, and the like.

The book looks at six different Northern Virginia library systems, at notable cases elsewhere in Virginia, and at service in Washington, D. C. Even though Virginia passed a law in 1946 that libraries had to provide service to all residents – most jurisdictions still tried to meet that with separate services. And each jurisdiction had to fight for their rights in their own neighborhoods. And even when libraries were officially desegregated, there was still some time before Black people felt welcome enough to visit formerly white-only facilities.

The beautiful part of this book is how many different individuals took steps to make a difference in their own communities – and how in the long run, they succeeded, despite some individual setbacks. That’s a heartening message to read about today, when the idea that folks should be free to read what they want is being newly threatened. It’s good to read about the ordinary people who were heroes in the past by standing up for their own rights to library access.

historypress.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 Kill Joy, by Holly Jackson

Audiobooks, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Kill Joy

by Holly Jackson
read by Bailey Carr, Raymond J. Lee, and Bruce Mann

Listening Library, 2023. 2 hours, 37 minutes.
Review written March 12, 2023, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Kill Joy is a prequel novella to A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. It is just plain fun. I was relieved about that, having recently finished Holly Jackson’s utterly terrifying Five Survive. This one is actually not scary.

What we’ve got is the story of how Pip chose her senior capstone project that led to her investigating the murder of Andie Bell, which started the events in the A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy.

It all begins with a murder mystery party.

The party happens toward the end of Pip’s junior year. Her friends are there — friends whose names I recognize from the series. It happens at Connor Reynolds’ house, and his big brother Jamie runs the mystery and plays the part of a Scotland Yard detective.

I was waiting for the mystery party to turn sinister, and, well, I won’t tell you about that. But let’s just say that unlike any other Holly Jackson book I’ve read, this one was more fun than scary.

So that’s why I think this is a good book to read after you’ve read the whole trilogy. It’s fun to get more insight into the characters and have some fun with them and understand how it all began. If you start with the prequel, you’re going to be very misled about the level of tension in the later books. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Oh, and the audio version has the same excellent production as the trilogy, with multiple voice actors and the same theme music at the beginning and end. A great listening experience!

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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.

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Review of An Ugly World for Beautiful Boys, by Rob Costello

Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

An Ugly World for Beautiful Boys

by Rob Costello

Lethe Press, 2025. 376 pages.
Review written May 1, 2025, from an Advance Reader Copy sent to me by the author.

Toby Ryerson is flamboyantly gay in a small town that doesn’t know what to make of him. This book is written as a letter to his dead mother, who died of an overdose when Toby was a little boy. At the time, Toby’s big brother Jimmy put his life on hold to take care of Toby. Now that Toby is seventeen, he’s convinced that Jimmy doesn’t really see him. Toby’s sure he’s just like their mother – destined for meaningless sex with lots of people. Jimmy dreams of sending him to college, but Toby dreams of moving to New York City and becoming part of the party scene.

And then in a gas station convenience store, Dylan, the boy Toby loves and secretly has sex with at the Marsh Trail – he says terrible things about Toby’s dead mother to his tough-guy friends. Toby decides a fitting response is to tell those thugs what he and Dylan have been up to. And when they in turn start beating Toby up, a tall handsome stranger comes to his rescue – but it turns out he’s not such a stranger after all.

And that all starts a chain of events that rapidly gets way out of Toby’s control.

I read this book because the author sent it to me after I loved the anthology he edited, We Mostly Come Out at Night. And I’ll be honest, it’s not a book I would have picked up otherwise. Toby makes a whole lot of bad choices in the course of the book, and the “gritty” description on the cover is apt. It comes to be clear that Toby feels responsible for his mother’s death and many other things as well. So when bad things happen, he feels like that’s what he deserves.

However, Rob Costello is a good writer, and he makes me care deeply about Toby, even while reading about his bad choices. It convicts me, because in real life I might have dismissed Toby as deserving what he got – but by reading his perspective, I understood better how it could happen, I really cared about what was happening, and was super thankful for the appropriately hopeful ending.

Here’s an excerpt from an Author’s Note at the back of the book that explains why this book is important, with all its grit:

Teenagers need and respect truth, even when it’s upsetting. Even when it makes adults uncomfortable. At a time when there are growing calls for censoring even the most innocent of queer books, queer teens urgently need stories that address the specific traumas many of them still face. When we shy away from telling such stories, we reinforce the terrible message of the censors that certain queer experiences are shameful and should be kept hidden. That the queer teens who endure them are problematic and don’t matter.

In this book, Toby deals with homophobia, bullying, outing, sexual predation, and assault. His world includes pervasive alcoholism and substance abuse, promiscuity, homophobic slurs and violence, and even suicide. Toby’s story is not for everyone. Ultimately, however, he discovers his inner strength, leading him to a place of family and forgivenss, self-respect and love. He learns that it’s never too late for hope. He finds his way.

This is a book for readers who need it, and who need it for that classic reason: to know they are not alone. I want those readers to draw their own strength from Toby’s story. I want to say to them, “I see you. I love you. I honor your struggle, and I know that you will find your way.”

Even though I would have said this story wasn’t for me, I feel the richer for having read it, more empathetic, and more caring about lives very different from mine – lives full of value.

cloudbusterpress.com

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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.

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Review of Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim, by Patricia Park

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Imposter Syndrome

and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim

by Patricia Park

Crown, 2023. 294 pages.
Review written March 4, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

Well, today I learned a lesson that I also learned when I was on the Newbery: Read the author bio *first*!

Here’s the thing: I’m on the Morris Award Committee this year. Our mission is to find the best Young Adult Debut book of the year. The trouble is, our definition of “debut” is different from the publishing industry’s definition of “debut.” It can’t be just an author’s first young adult book — it has to be their very first published book.

So, I was reading this book on a Saturday off, and I’d turned down an invitation so I could spend my day at home reading. I was three-fourths of the way through and was thinking that the book is excellent and might be worth nominating for the award (This means the entire committee will read it.), and then I glanced at the author’s bio on the back flap and read the words, “and the author of the acclaimed adult novel Re Jane.” Oops!

But my time wasn’t wasted — this was an excellent book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, and, yes, I finished it. And now, since it’s not eligible for the Morris Award, I can tell you about it.

The narrator catches your attention with her opening paragraph:

When you have a name like Alejandra Kim, teachers always stare at you like you’re a typo on the attendance sheet. Each school year, without fail, they look at my face and the roster and back again, like they can’t compute my super-Korean face and my super-Spanish first name. Multiply that by eight different teachers for eight periods a day, and boom: welcome to my life at Quaker Oats Prep.

We learn in her “Origin Story” first chapter that Alejandra was born in America, but both her parents were born in Argentina, and all of their parents were born in Korea. So she’s from Latinx culture, with Korean appearance.

She’s a scholarship student and a senior at a Quaker-sponsored prep school. Her father died eight months ago, and her mother is working extra jobs to help pay 10% of Alejandra’s tuition. Now that she’s a senior, Ally just wants to get into a good college (she has one in mind) and get away from New York City.

Then a big name author comes to teach their Creative Writing class, and when he sees Alejandra’s name, makes a veiled racist comment. Later, when Ally’s best friend hears about it, she takes up her friend’s cause — without asking Ally — and makes a big issue out of it.

Meanwhile, her best friend in the neighborhood has returned from visiting his grandmother in the Dominican Republic — and he has somehow gotten much more attractive while he was gone. But Ally keeps her two worlds apart and doesn’t know how much to tell him about what she’s dealing with at school.

None of that sounds as interesting when I summarize it as it did when I was reading it. If you like books about contemporary teens at all, this one pulls you into the story of an Argentine Korean American who’s missing her dad, and thinking about how she wants her life to go beyond high school in a world that doesn’t know what to make of her.

patriciapark.com
GetUnderlined.com

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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 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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