Review of The Littlest Drop, by Sascha Alper, illustrations by Jerry Pinkney & Brian Pinkney

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Littlest Drop

by Sascha Alper
illustrations by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney

Anne Schwartz Books, 2025. 40 pages.
Review written November 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

This picture book retells a folk tale the author originally heard from the environmentalist Wangari Maathai. Brian Pinkney tells us that his father had left behind sketches that were almost complete, but he hadn’t started painting yet. Brian lovingly completed them with a result that’s a beautiful combination of both of their styles.

The story is of a hummingbird who lives in “a vast, beautiful land that was a home to all of the animals.” After she builds her nest, a spark starts a fire not far away.

All the animals flee to the river and huddle frightened by its side. But the hummingbird wants to do something.

And so the hummingbird flew to the river and filled her tiny beak with just the littlest drop of water, for that was all that it would hold.

When the other animals tell her she’s too small to put out the fire, she answers, “I am doing what I can.”

And that prompts the elephant to do what she can. And soon all the animals are working to put out the terrible fire. And the last drop that puts out the fire comes from the hummingbird.

It’s a lovely tale about each of us doing our bit. Who knows? You may inspire others to all work together to help everyone.

justjerrypinkney.com
brianpinkney.net
rhcbooks.com

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Review of Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine, read by Eden Riegel

Children's Fiction Review, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Sonderbooks25, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Ella Enchanted

by Gail Carson Levine
read by Eden Riegel

Listening Library, 2000. 5 hours, 42 minutes.
This review written August 25, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Original review posted February 25, 2002.
1998 Newbery Honor Book
Starred Review
2002 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #4 Young Adult and Children’s Fantasy Rereads

To this day, I am proud that I discovered Ella Enchanted *before* it won Newbery Honor. I have a first edition, without the sticker. I don’t know where I got it, but in 1997 I lived in Germany, and I wanted to be a children’s writer. Somehow I got some copies of some publisher catalogs. I was taken with the description of Ella Enchanted – I always love fairy tale retellings – and must have ordered my copy from Amazon. I loved it and was delighted when it won Newbery Honor.

In honor of my 25th year of writing Sonderbooks, I’ve been celebrating #Sonderbooks25. My plan was to reread my reviews of all my Sonderbooks Stand-outs over the years and choose one book to reread from each year. Well, that was a good plan! Instead, I’ve started rereading *all* my reviews and have found the old favorites that my library has on audio and have revisited many. I started at the beginning of 2025, and am still working on 2003. I tell myself it will go more quickly when I don’t have to convert those older pages to phone-friendly format (after 2005) – but hey, the only deadline is my own, and I’m having lots of fun.

It was a delight to enter the world of Ella Enchanted again. At last, we understand why Cinderella let her step family boss her around so horribly – she was cursed at birth with the “gift” of obedience – when someone gives her a direct command, she has to obey.

Gail Carson Levine added many other delightful details as well. It’s a magical kingdom where ogres can charm humans and make you do whatever they want. And it’s also inhabited by kindly gnomes and giants. Ella has a gift of languages, and she gets to know Prince Charmant well before the ball – but he doesn’t recognize her because it’s a masked ball. Besides the romance, the plot involves Ella trying to break her curse.

I put my original review in Young Adult Fiction, but this time around, I have to bow to the fact that despite Ella being a teen who’s old enough to marry, the book is really written for children in the middle grades. The romance isn’t about physical attraction so much as it is about making each other laugh. It all adds up to a sweet story that will make you smile, whatever age you are when you discover it.

gailcarsonlevine.com

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Review of Cherished Belonging, by Gregory Boyle

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Cherished Belonging

The Healing Power of Love in Divided Times

by Gregory Boyle

Avid Reader Press (Simon & Schuster), 2024. 212 pages.
Review written December 2, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

If you haven’t yet read one of Fr. Gregory Boyle’s books, I strongly recommend that you do so as soon as possible. You will be encouraged and inspired. If you have read the others, you will be as happy as I am that a new one is out.

Gregory Boyle is a Jesuit priest who works with gang members and former gang members in downtown Los Angeles (not far from where I used to live when I was in grad school at UCLA). In this book, as in his others, he tells stories of the beloved people he works with – and how their lives are transformed by having a place where they belong and where they are truly cherished.

This book challenged me. Fr. Boyle truly believes that everyone is unshakably good. That evil is a manifestation of illness, un-wholeness. And he believes that God sees us all that way, too. And seeing as God sees transforms our way of being with people.

We are invited to love what God loves, which is quite different from doing things that please God.

All his stories show the power of cherishing one another.

The moral quest has never kept us moral; it’s just kept us from each other. So maybe we should abandon the moral quest, since it’s an Old World map, and embrace instead the journey to wholeness, flourishing love, and defiant joy…. Yes, we want to do the next right thing, but what is the next right thing and who is able to choose it? Only the healthy person can. So we help each other, not to make better choices but to walk home to well-being and deeper growth in love. Cherishing leads us to this warm embrace of the journey to wholeness.

I promise that reading this book will uplift your spirit. I marked a few dozen quotations to post on my Sonderquotes blog. (It will take a long time, since I’m marking quotes more quickly than I’m posting them, but that will give me a chance to revisit this book for a long time to come.) Let me close this review with another good one:

The goal is not to save our soul but to spend it. Our authentic discipleship, then, is to grow in love, not goodness. Growth is not about becoming less sinful, but more joyful.

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Review of Dan in Green Gables, by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre

Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dan in Green Gables

A Modern Reimagining of Anne of Green Gables

by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre

Penguin Workshop, 2025. 252 pages.
Review written October 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

You know I had to read this book because of what an L. M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables fan I am!

This is not a retelling of Anne of Green Gables – it didn’t have very many parallel incidents or try to stick to the storyline (which is honestly pretty episodic, anyway). But the set-up parallels Anne’s situation:

Red-haired and freckled, 15-year-old Dan has been moving from place to place with his mother all his life. One day without warning, she takes him to the Tennessee home – complete with green gables – of his dead father’s mother and father – his Mawmaw and Pawpaw. Mawmaw is warm and welcoming, but his grandfather is immediately put off by Dan’s obvious queerness.

When his mother leaves without warning the next morning before Dan wakes up – Dan has to find his place there. Like Anne, he asks a lot of questions at church. Like Anne, his flamboyant presence at school makes a stir. Like Anne, Dan is rather dramatic in expressing himself. Though the details for all those things are quite different with a queer kid in 1995 small-town Tennessee instead of an orphan girl in 1800s small-town Prince Edward Island.

But like Anne, the beauty of the story comes in watching Dan settle in, make friends, find a home, and win the love of his two elderly caretakers – even the cantankerous one.

This is a graphic novel, so it’s a quick read – but packs a heart-warming punch.

rexogle.com
PenguinTeen.com

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Review of Butt or Face? Super Gross Butts, by Kari Lavelle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Butt or Face?

Super Gross Butts

by Kari Lavelle

Sourcebooks Explore, 2025. 36 pages.
Review written November 17, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Kari Lavelle has got a good thing going, and I’m glad she’s not stopping. And I can’t seem to stop reviewing them. The fact is, you’ve already got ingredients that add up to a huge hit with kids for librarians book talking:

— The word “Butt”
— A simple interactive quiz where kids can shout out the answer (Bonus: One possible answer is “Butt”!)
— Photographs of animals
— Intriguing animal facts about unusual animals

And with this third book in the series, she’s added one more sure winner:

— Many of those facts about animals are super gross.

Some examples are the greater short-horned lizard that squirts blood from its eyes, the silver-spotted skipper caterpillar that catapults its excrement at predators, and the tortoise beetle larva that makes armor out of poop.

The format is the same as the earlier books: Show a close-up picture of part of an animal. Then ask: Is it a BUTT or a FACE? Turn the page to see the full picture of the animal and the answer to the question. There are additional text boxes on the picture headlined “Face the Facts” or “Beyond the Backside.” A chart and map at the back shows where each animal comes from, their scientific name, and what they eat.

There are plenty of kids out there who love learning strange or better yet super gross animal facts. This one adds lots of fun to the mix. See if you can resist guessing which pictures are butts and which are faces. (I got most of them right, but not all of them.)

karilavelle.com
sourcebookskids.com

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Review of The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris, by Evie Woods

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Romance, Starred Review 0

The Mysterious Bakery on Rue de Paris

by Evie Woods
read by Breffni Holahan

One More Chapter, 2025. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written December 1, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Here’s a lovely feel-good romance – with the special touch that it’s set in Paris! Except, wait a minute, it’s not set in Paris. I made the same mistake the protagonist Edie made when she answered an ad to work in a Boulangerie on Rue de Paris and thought of course it’s in Paris – but no, it’s on Paris Street (the “Rue de Paris” – of course!) in Compiègne, a town an hour away from Paris. Okay, but it is true that Edie is from Ireland, and the narrator reads with an Irish accent.

Edie’s mother recently died, and she spent her first decade as a young adult mostly caring for her mother during her long illness, so now in her thirties, Edie is at loose ends, and couldn’t resist the chance to go to Paris – or so she thought.

The owner of the bakery where she’s working is secretive and gruff, and Evie’s not sure she can do the job. But over time, and with a bit of a magic ingredient, Evie makes some friends, including a handsome man who’s a bit mysterious himself.

The story feels a little bit predictable, but the journey there is delightful. Yes, the small business is in danger of going under. Yes, there’s conflict with the handsome young man. No, they don’t tell each other everything when they first meet.

There’s also a small paranormal element to the book, plus rich historical detail – I didn’t realize that Compiègne was an important historical site in both World War I and World War II. We learn this via one of the bakery customers who speaks English and leads tours, and we’re as interested as Evie. But the bakery itself also has an important history during World War II.

And that’s all I should say, to give you a little bit of surprise. Yes, it’s predictable, but the story is sweet, and can fulfill a vicarious dream of running off not to Paris, but at least to France and finding love and purpose and joy.

eviewoods.com

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Review of The Eternal Return of Clara Hart, by Louise Finch

Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart

by Louise Finch

Little Island, 2023. First published in the United Kingdom in 2022. 260 pages.
Review written August 7, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart, no surprise, is a time loop book. And yes, it seems that every time Spence goes through that momentous day over again, it begins with Clara Hart hitting his car in the high school parking lot and ends with Clara Hart dead. But then Spence wakes up, again having spent the night in his car, and it happens all over again.

It wasn’t a day that Spence even wanted to live through once – it’s the anniversary of his mother’s death. His rugby friends don’t remember it’s a rough day for him. And he decides to get through the party they end the day with by drinking himself into oblivion. The first time, at least.

There are little changes, though. And then Spence decides to see if he can make changes himself. And get through the day without Clara dying. Surely, she must be the key. If he can save her life, maybe he can get to the next day of his own life?

To add to the fun, his philosophy class professor is talking about Nietsche’s thought experiment about eternal return: “the idea that this universe and our lives recur in an identical form an infinite number of times.”

This is not a truth, of course, but a thought experiment. If this were true, would we react with joy or despair? Would we affirm life or not? And if we had to live our lives over and over again, what implications would there be for our moral choices?

I didn’t like Spence at the start of the book. A character drinking himself into oblivion while his friends mistreat girls isn’t the way to win my heart. But by the end of the book, I liked him very much. He shows lots of character growth as the book goes on. The book has a lot in common with the film “Ground Hog Day,” but in a high school, as the character takes his repeated days to grow to care about others and examine what he took for granted.

The book warns the reader that there’s sexual assault in its pages. There’s also repeated death. But the author takes those situations and shows a high school boy learning to care about others and be a better person.

louisefinch.co.uk

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Review of Fish Fry Friday, by Winsome Bingham and C. G. Esperanza

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Fish Fry Friday

written by Winsome Bingham
illustrated by C. G. Esperanza

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. 44 pages.
Review written November 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Fish Fry Friday strikingly reminds me of the Caldecott Honor Book My Daddy Is a Cowboy, with pictures by the same illustrator. Both books feature a little girl rising before dawn to go on a special outing with a relative. Both have vibrant, bright, colorful pictures, many at nontraditional angles, showing happy, loving people interacting.

In this case, the girl is setting out with Granny to catch fish.

There are plenty of other people at the pier and they all greet Granny enthusiastically, telling the girl that her Granny is the fish magnet queen.

And then they start catching fish after fish. Granny declares each one her favorite and thanks God for the blessing.

After their bucket is full, they go home to prepare for the Friday night Fish Fry.

We clean fish,
scaling and skinning,
cutting and gutting.

And when that’s done, Granny slowly slides the knife from the top to the tail. “Beautiful fillets,” she says, shaking them. “My favorite.”

They coat the fish in batter, fry it, and even make hush puppies. Each part is Granny’s favorite. And it all builds to a big, happy family, in bright colorful clothes, sitting around the table, happily enjoying each other.

“Spending the day with you, baby,” Granny says,
“is my favorite, favorite, favorite part!”

“Well, my favorite, favorite, favorite part,” I say,
“is eating fried fish with you on Fridays.”

Reading this book with a kid may just end up being someone’s favorite. Few books exude so much joy.

binghamwrites.com

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Review of Cabin Head and Tree Head, by Scott Campbell

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Delightfully Silly, Starred Review 0

Cabin Head and Tree Head

by Scott Campbell

Tundra, 2025. 88 pages.
Review written November 21, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Normally, I’m the annoying person who points out holes in world-building or failures in internal logic. “That wouldn’t work,” is my frequent criticism.

Let’s be clear: There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the beginning graphic novel Cabin Head and Tree Head would not work and that this world is completely ridiculous. But because it is so over-the-top, it is utterly hilarious and dazzlingly brilliant.

The first chapter, “Hellos,” is perfect for letting us understand the concept. First, we meet the two main characters. (The lines below are in speech bubbles.)

Hello, Cabin Head!

Hello, Tree Head!

I see that your peeps are home and having a hot meal. That must be nice.

Haha, right you are! The smoke gives it away.

I notice things about my best friend.

I notice that you’ve got a small child in your tire swing there.

Haha, right you are! Just swinging away!

It is good to see that tire swing get so much action.

The two characters in question are Tree Head, a greenish creature with arms, legs, eyes and mouth – and a tree growing out of their head, and Cabin Head, an orangeish creature with arms, legs, eyes and mouth – and a small house on their head.

After this, Tree Head gets a case of the HELLOS, so he goes out and greets more creatures and we come to understand this world. He meets, among others, Mail Truck Head, Bench Head, Wishing Well Head, Fountain Head, Automobile Heads, Mossy Rock Head, Telephone Pole Head, Doghouse Head, Pool Head. Construction Head has too much noise to hear their Hellos, but Outhouse Head offers to bring greetings. And then they startle Volcano Head, so he erupts. But they save the day by using Catapult Head to fling Boulder Head, who plugs Volcano Head.

It’s all just so silly! And that’s only the first story!

Another story is about Cabin Head making pictures of his friends and posting them on Brick Wall Head. And then there’s one about digging for treasure. Cabin Head helpfully makes a map – without burying anything – so that Tree Head will do it the right way. Then in the story about hiding – we learn that the planet itself is on a creature’s head. The next chapter is about Tree Head getting a bad Leafcut. And then we’ve got a chapter about saying good-by. Neither one wants to turn away first.

There are bonus pages at the end from Pool Head – How to have a Pool Party, and Box of Crayons Head – Drawing Time. And on the last page, we get the promise, “Cabin Head and Tree Head shall return for more wonderful book times.” I’m so glad about that!

So how does this world work? What is the point of an automobile on top of a creature’s head? How do people get from one head to another? It’s best not to get bogged down by those questions and enjoy this delightfully silly humor.

Altogether, this book is perfect for a kid who’s ready to think about reading chapter books. As a graphic novel, there’s not an abundance of text, and the language is simple – but the humor makes it all rewarding to decode.

The good news is: It’s short enough to win the Geisel Award for beginning readers. I haven’t read as many of those as the committee has (nor do I have as much background in what makes a Geisel winner), but this one has my vote. And the bonus, of course, is that older kids will enjoy this book, too. And adults like me aren’t able to resist reading it aloud to my co-workers.

Hahahaha! As I close the book after writing this review, I notice that on the back, there’s even a Barcode Head.

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Review of Eucontamination, by Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Eucontamination

Disgust Theology and the Christian Life

by Paul Hoard and Billie Hoard

Cascade Books, 2025. 221 pages.
Review written November 18, 2025, from my own copy ordered via Amazon.com
Starred Review

When I heard about this book, I preordered it eagerly because I’ve long followed Billie Hoard on Twitter. She’s a transgender Christian, and everything she posts is uplifting and encouraging.

Billie’s brother Paul is a psychology professor, and the book ends up being academic, philosophical, psychological, and a little hard to absorb. (Am I losing my ability to read academic stuff in my old age?) I will try to explain the main point of the book, and I am still trying to absorb these ideas in my life.

The first paragraph of the Introduction is provocative:

This is a book about disgust and contamination. And Jesus. We would dare to assert that few if any other texts on theology and the Way of Jesus spend as much time talking about poop as the one you are reading. However, if you are willing to move towards your disgust, we hope you just may find Jesus in the last place you expect, but the very place he said he would be.

It turns out that a big part of polarization – of dividing people into us and them – is about disgust.

We aren’t so much afraid of one another as disgusted – a much harder truth to face. We don’t resist the foreigner, orphan, and widow out of fear for our lives and well-being so much as out of a fear that they will contaminate us – change us into something we do not want to become. It’s a very human and very normal reaction but not one that Jesus seemed to follow. The Way of Jesus runs in the opposite direction of the exclusion that disgust instigates: it welcomes instead of rejecting, integrates instead of segregating, and loves instead of fearing. . . . We needed a term, a concept, to represent this anti-disgust way of engaging the other that Jesus modeled.

The term they landed on is eucontamination, contamination for good. The initial chapters explore the concepts of disgust and eucontamination, and then look at the life and teaching of Jesus from the framework of John 14:6.

How might each of these: way, truth, and life, be vectors of eucontamination – contaminants to or self-understanding and social realities that lure us back to Christ?

So that’s the main thread of the book. The “Way” is intentionally covered last of the three, so that thought will precede action. But the whole book is a powerful teaching against us-versus-them thinking and purity codes that look down on people. I love the teaching that God is not disgusted with us, and Jesus became a human because God was not disgusted.

A core vocation of the church is to stand in solidarity with the stigmatized and disgusting – remembering that it is not the people who are disgusting, but society who is disgusted. Like our Lord, we should be “reckoned with the lawless” (Luke 22:37) such that at every stage of the disgust cycle, the church is standing with the stigmatized and is leveraging any power, privilege, or influence it has on their behalf, fully knowing that this means casting our lot with a targeted and scapegoated community.

An overarching message of this book is that getting to know the “others” – the people in groups we feel alienated from – will indeed contaminate us – and that’s a good thing. It’s also about being open to listening and learning.

And they aren’t blind to boundaries.

By highlighting the beauty of eucontamination, we are not advocating the abandonment of boundaries. Recognizing the problems of disgust does not mean that threats no longer exist. Instead, we hope that recognition allows one to hold effective and humane boundaries. We are inviting you to resist the lure of dehumanization that comes from disgust, not asking you to ignore all boundaries. Dangers exist in the world. Not all people can be trusted. Power dynamics are real and must be taken into consideration. As you do though, notice how disgust may sometimes be used to make holding those boundaries easier. Jesus continually calls us back to see the image of God in everyone, even while holding them accountable.

So those are some of the beautiful and challenging ideas you’ll find in this book. Lots to think about as we attempt to follow the way of Jesus.

Added on the day I’m posting this: I’m currently reading a fourth book by Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who works with gang members in Los Angeles, Cherished Belonging. Fr. Boyle models eucontamination. He sees the gang members he works with – indeed every human being – as unshakably good. That’s the opposite of disgust, and working with gang members has indeed contaminated him into a more loving and compassionate human.

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