Review of The Fish of Small Wishes, written by Elana K. Arnold, illustrated by Magdalena Mora

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Fish of Small Wishes

written by Elana K. Arnold
illustrated by Magdalena Mora

Roaring Brook Press, 2024. 36 pages.
Review written March 25, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This lovely picture book tells a modern version of an old fairy tale that’s child-centered and satisfying.

As the book opens, Kiki Karpovich notices that all the other kids in her neighborhood are playing together, and she’s pretending not to mind. Then she sees a large goldfish floundering on the sidewalk. The fish moves its dry lips, asking for help, so Kiki springs into action.

She picks up the fish, rushes up the stairs into her home, puts the fish in the bathtub, and fills the tub with water.

Then the fish thanks her! With quiet watery, bubbly words.

The fish says he can grant her a wish to thank her, but when she wishes for lots of friends, he sadly reveals that he is a fish of small wishes. Her wish is too big, and she’ll have to think of something smaller.

Kiki thinks of two more wishes, always with the same answer. By that time, the fish is outgrowing the tub. Kiki gets to work trying to dig a pond for the fish in the courtyard. When the task is too big, she has the courage – for the fish’s sake – to ask for help. The whole neighborhood comes together to make a new fishpond.

And Kiki’s wishes are granted!

It’s just lovely the way Kiki’s helpful kindness is it’s own reward. Lots to talk about here, a satisfying story arc, and bright, colorful pictures all make this picture book a great big win. It’s targeted to young elementary kids, but the language is simple enough for preschoolers to enjoy it just as much.

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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 All the Days Past, All the Days To Come, by Mildred D. Taylor

Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come

by Mildred D. Taylor

Viking, 2020. 483 pages.
Review written November 12, 2020, from a library book

All the Days Past, All the Days to Come continues the story of Cassie Logan and her family that Mildred Taylor wrote about in her previous books, including the Newbery winner Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. It’s been awhile since I read that one, and that’s the only one of her books I’d read, but she gives enough information so I didn’t feel lost.

This book covers Cassie’s start into adulthood. In fact, I think the only real reason this book is in the YA section is because the earlier books were for kids and teens, and this is the same family. The book has a Prologue in March 1944, and then covers 1945 through 1963. Many members of the family, including Cassie, move to Toledo, Ohio. From there, she spends some years in Los Angeles (I enjoyed that I knew the area that part described much better.) and also in Boston. Throughout the book, they go back to Mississippi where their family has land.

And everywhere they go, throughout the book, they encounter discrimination and segregation. Relentlessly and repeatedly, even in the north. By writing this as a sweeping family story over years, I felt the pain of that more than when it’s simply described to me. They never were able to escape it. The fifties and sixties brought some particular fights, with some victories but also some losses.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and was pulled into the story. At the same time, it was depressing and discouraging. Regarding the incidences of racial discrimination, I think that discouragement shows that the book pulled me into the story. However, I was also disappointed that the author didn’t give Cassie a happier life! She had some terrible losses that seemingly happened at random. And the book doesn’t really come to a place of resolution at the end, simply stopping at a place where their struggle continues.

They’d been fighting voter suppression and do end with an Epilogue about going to the inauguration of Barack Obama. For me as a reader knowing who got elected eight years later, that’s not quite as triumphant as I would wish.

This is a powerful story, and it does stir the reader up about injustices based on skin color. So it’s probably appropriate if it feels a little depressing. I’m also sure that readers who have read the earlier books will be excited to find out how Cassie’s adult life starts out.

penguinrandomhouse.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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of ¡Ay, Mija! by Christine Suggs

Biography, Graphic Memoir, Teen Nonfiction 0

¡Ay, Mija!

My Bilingual Summer in Mexico

by Christine Suggs

Little, Brown and Company, 2023. 328 pages.
Review written April 27, 2023, from a library book

¡Ay, Mija! Is one of those wonderful creations – a graphic novel memoir looking back on what it was like to be a teen figuring things out.

In this book, Christine Suggs tells about traveling on their own to visit their mother’s family in Mexico. Their Spanish wasn’t very good at the start, but they loved these people, and that love was returned. We see them carrying out more interactions as the visit goes on.

They also, naturally enough, have questions about their identity. They see things in their Mexican family that they’ve inherited, like a love of pan dulce. But their father is a pale white American, and their skin is lighter than any of their relatives in Mexico. And their Spanish isn’t very good, so they don’t always understand what their relatives are saying.

I love their drawing style, simple and loose. I could mostly keep track of who was who, and I enjoyed the little character they used to express their own thoughts and feelings in dialog.

I have never taken a Spanish class, though when I was in grad school I lived in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood of Los Angeles, and part of the time reading this book felt like that. I started to let the Spanish words rush over me. Though I think that accurately reflects how the author felt.

I do think this book would be perfect for someone who’s studied Spanish a little bit and would help them progress. There are a few English translations given, but mostly what’s on the page progresses as Christine progresses – and I was left a little behind by that. Though in a graphic novel, the pictures convey enough of the story, I didn’t feel lost. So I do think this strategy worked for this book, even though for me personally I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I would have if I felt like I understood more of the words used.

But even with my lack of Spanish slowing me down, I still thought this was a lovely story of making family connections and a teen making their way outside their comfort zone.

christinesuggs.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 Encyclopedia of Strangely Named Animals, Volume One, by Fredrik Colting & Melissa Medina, illustrated by Vlad Stankovic

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

Encyclopedia of Strangely Named Animals

Volume One

by Fredrik Colting & Melissa Medina
illustrated by Vlad Stankovic

Moppet Books, 2020. 52 pages.
Review written November 14, 2020, from a library book

This book is too much fun not to write a review. This “Encyclopedia” is for young readers. It lists twenty-eight strangely named animals. Each animal gets at least a page, sometimes two, with a large picture and a short and simple paragraph about the animal. It’s straightforward – but so much fun to browse.

Here’s an example, without the impressive pictures:

Sarcastic Fringehead

The Sarcastic Fringehead is a small fish with a very big mouth that makes its home in empty shells off the coast of California. When two Sarcastic Fringeheads get into a territorial argument over a shell, they settle it by pressing their huge mouths against each other. And just like sarcastic people, whoever has the biggest mouth is the one who wins the argument.

Other strangely named animals listed here include the Chicken Turtle, Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla, Sparklemuffin (a kind of Australian spider), Pleasing Fungus Beetle, White-Bellied Go-Away Bird, Pink Fairy Armadillo, Boops Boops, Tasseled Wobbegong, and Striped Pajama Squid. This book is a delight for curious people of all ages.

moppetbookspublishing.com

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What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

2024 Walter Awards Celebration

Award Winners, Celebration 0

On March 13, 2024, I got to attend the Walter Dean Myers Awards Celebration at Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC. The Walter Awards are presented by the organization We Need Diverse Books, begun ten years ago by Ellen Oh and other like-minded people.

Ellen Oh started us off, honoring ten years of the Walter Awards. The theme this year is: “There Is Work to Be Done.” I didn’t get the quote down exactly, but I believe she said that last year in children’s and young adult publishing, 45% of newly published books were diverse in some way. So yes! We have made great strides in having more diverse books available in our diverse country. But we all know that book banners are pushing back, and there is still work to be done.

Elizabeth Acevedo was the moderator this year. She’s a former Walter Award recipient herself, and she did a beautiful job moderating the discussion and giving out the awards.

But I was there to see Ari Tison and Hannah V. Sawyerr!

Why? Because they are two of “our” Finalists for the 2024 Morris Award, and I read their books two and three times and helped select them as Finalists. And love, love, love their books. Ari Tison, author of Saints of the Household, is pictured above. She was the winner of the 2024 Walter Award for Young Adult Literature, and as such she got to give a speech.

Highlights from Ari’s speech:

Of course, she first talked about how much she appreciates this honor and said that previous award winners were her mentor texts.

Life is sacred in a world with so much ugly. Her book is about art, family, monsters, brotherhood, and intertribal relationships. (I love this list, because I made a similar one on a sticky note when I was planning how to talk about this book with the Morris committee.) This book made her braver.

“Through books, we are woven together.”

“We write so young people can hold the world more fully.”

We see ourselves and the mosaic of life in books.

There are only five Bri Bri people (an indigenous group from Costa Rica) in the entire U.S. right now.

Diversity is reality. We (humanity) contain multitudes.

Keep going, so that the world of books looks like the world.

Next up was Jacqueline Woodson, who won the Children’s Literature Walter Award for her book Remember Us. First, Elizabeth Acevedo acknowledged that Jacqueline is the GOAT.

In Jacqueline’s speech, she spoke about her neighbor in Brooklyn, Walter Dean Myers’ granddaughter, Kazay. (I’m probably spelling that incorrectly.) She sees a future. She’s grinning, proud and grateful.

After that came a wonderful panel discussion moderated by Elizabeth Acevedo. The two winners were joined by the Honor Book Authors, Hannah V. Sawyerr (young adult) for All the Fighting Parts, and Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow (children’s) as one of the four co-authors of Grounded.

The panel discussion was wonderful. I’ll repeat what I got written down in my notes.

The first question was in keeping with ten years of the Walter Awards, and was “Where were you ten years ago?”

Jamilah: She was the mom of a 4-year-old and a baby, and she was falling in love with picture books. But she wanted to see Black Muslim children. She started writing in 2015.

Jacqueline: She’d just won the National Book Award with Brown Girl Dreaming. It was time for change. She had a five-year-old. And people were taking a hard look at young people’s literature.

Hannah: She was a Senior in high school. She was annoyingly passionate, and always writing in the margins when in class. She was obsessed with open mics and really loved words and poetry.

Ari: She was also a Senior in high school and also annoying. [I got to thinking that 10 years from high school to award-winning debut novel is fantastic for both women.] Her reaction to difficulties was being an overachiever, after a scholarship to college. She bought herself a two-month novel-writing workshop. She had tenacity and annoyingness.

Next question: What do you hope this book shows readers and what did it show you?

Jacqueline: Her character loves basketball and gets bullied. We have so much more than what the world sees in us. It made her grateful for the past. This is a journey, a movement.

Ari: It’s important to have hope in books for young people. She learned about PTSD – wanted to show you can get past trauma. She showed opportunities for healing: Art, friendships, community.

Hannah: Her book is a Me, Too, novel. She’d experienced shame and self-blame. Her book is about believing: It was not your fault. She hopes that message gets to readers.

Jamilah: It’s an important book for their community, a fun book in a space (an airport) that’s often fraught for Muslims.

Elizabeth: Sometimes the way we define success is different than the world. How do you define success?

Ari: We all come from storytellers. Her people haven’t had their stories told. In Bri Bri, Story = History = Wind = Knowledge. It helps her get grounded. Everything is a gift. She’s here because of something beyond the physical.

Hannah: Her writing is selfish – to figure things out and address honestly. Writing is taking risks. Success is wrapped up in integrity. (But later she did say that her book is not Autobiography. It’s “Auto-fiction.” Her character is not herself.)

Jamilah: Success is feeling like her work is opening spaces for other authors. When others take inspiration from her writing, that feels very successful.

Jacqueline: Success is doing what she loves, and making that choice to do it, even though her family told her not to. (Because Black people don’t make a living writing books.) Mentors began the journey and many are no longer here. Folks of color don’t live as long as white folks. Still being here and doing the work is success. She loves her people and she loves writing.

Elizabeth (to Hannah): Part of the journey is passing it on. [Then Jacqueline made her tell the story of, as a teen, prompted by her middle school teacher Phil Bildner, writing a letter to Angela Johnson about the book Heaven. She didn’t get an answer — until the book The First Part Last came out, dedicated to her. It was the first time she saw her name in print.] Healing is also part of fighting back. How do you make space for the many definitions of it?

Hannah: Her journey in the court system was eight years long. She came forward about abuse her senior year of high school. For a long time she didn’t think she was a fighter, and felt very small. Her biggest accomplishment was finishing the first draft. Many times, she was tempted to drop out. She got the contract on her book before she got the verdict in court. You get so fed up with the process. She survived that event, but it doesn’t define her. She’s so much more than that and is carrying on. (And the secondary character, who didn’t take the abuser to court, was fighting, too.)

Elizabeth (to Jamilah): How did the story come together with four authors?

Jamilah: Lots of credit to Aisha Saeed – it was her original idea. She wanted representation of different Muslim voices. There’s lots of diversity within their diversity. They each took from their own communities. They wrote Grounded during the pandemic to help feel grounded. They met every couple weeks on Zoom, wanting to escape.

Elizabeth (To Ari): Some of the Bri Bri stories you used in your book had never been put into English before. How did you work them into your narrative?

Ari: There were three levels of colonization in Costa Rica. She also learned Spanish when there in their territory. For Native people, story is a big way they survived. She cited a study that if Native teens know their creation stories, they are less likely to self-harm. She was looking for ways to make the story bigger than hers alone. Her ancestors’ stories are there, too. Folklore gives us insight into our own lives, and it was important to include those, too.

Elizabeth (to Jacqueline): Why that neighborhood and background?

Jacqueline: Bushwick started out as Irish and German. When Black folks moved in, the landlords started setting fires to get insurance money. Now, it’s an artist-hipster neighborhood. Folks talk about “discovering” Bushwick, which erases the history that went before. There were no trees when she grew up there. Now destruction is still happening, but now it’s through unhousing people by building expensive housing. We don’t have to recreate the wheel for social justice.

Okay, after that the teens attending got to ask question. They had brought in students from local high schools, and it made my heart happy to see how excited they were about the books and to talk with the authors. After all our discussing the books on the Morris committee, I loved seeing that teens love the books, too.

After that was a signing. I was anxious by this time. I’d been told I could go to the Awards ceremony, but I should get back for our department staff meeting at 1:30.

But I had to meet Ari and tell her how much I loved the book! It made her smile to see the Morris Finalist sticker on the front of mine!

I got in Hannah’s line next, but finally had to give up. Both Ari and Hannah were spending time talking with each person (mostly teens) who got a signature — and that was beautiful to see, so I couldn’t begrudge them.

So I took a picture of the happy crowd before I left. Then I was late back (and Constitution Avenue was blocked off, so I had to take a detour past the just-beginning cherry blossoms of the Tidal Basin) — but the meeting had been cancelled! I wish I’d checked email before I left that morning – and stayed in Hannah’s line!

But the whole thing was a fabulous celebration of diversity in young people’s literature. May this legacy continue!

Review of Girls Who Build, by Katie Hughes

Art, Children's Nonfiction Review, Photography, Starred Review 0

Girls Who Build

Inspiring Curiosity and Confidence to Make Anything Possible

by Katie Hughes
illustrated by Kay Coenen

Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2020. 258 pages.
Review written June 8, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is amazing and inspirational. It’s a high-quality photo book full of photographs of girls who build. Each featured girl has information about them – first name, age, location, and where they learn – and then a short interview about their history with building and how building makes them feel. Many of the girls present a project they’ve made, and instructions follow to make the project.

The book has a glossary and extensive instructions about building at the front. The importance of competent supervision and safety gear are stressed.

The author and photographer, Katie Hughes, is the founder of Girls Build. I absolutely love the story she tells at the end of her introduction which explains about the camp she runs, teaching girls to use tools:

On the last day of camp, when the girls are wild, loud, and somewhat preposterous as they tour their parents and guardians around, I make sure to position myself near what is commonly called the chop saw a stationary tool that sits on its own stand and features a 12” blade. Formally, it’s known as a sliding compound miter saw. To operate it, girls must reach up to the handle, hit the trigger, and lower the blade through a piece of wood. To parental eyes, it can look terrifying. It’s time to show off, though, and each girl walks up confidently.

She does all the prerequisite measuring and safety steps, and finally rests her fingers on the trigger, ready to cut. It’s at that moment that her parents, who have clearly been holding back, look to her and say, “Are you sure you can use this?” It’s like they waited until the last second, knowing they sent her to camp for this very tool, for this very lesson, and for her to use it with confidence. They can’t help themselves – they even hate themselves for it – but the words escape their mouths almost involuntarily.

Then comes the response.

No matter if she is ten or fourteen, she simultaneously huffs and slowly, meticulously, delivers the best eye roll imaginable.

“Of course I can use a chop saw,” she mutters, as if a chop saw were a pencil or tricycle or one of those little cars kids push with their feet. Of course she can. Duh.

She then hits the trigger, her shoulders thrown back in slight defiance, her cut as perfect as if I’d cut it. Then she blows off the sawdust with a little extra swagger.

I love that swagger. And I’ve started to think of the eye roll as the Girls Build litmus test.

Did she roller eyes at her parents for doubting her ability to handle the 12” sliding compound miter saw? Yes?

Mission accomplished.

What follows are photos of and interviews with those confident girls, explaining what building does for them, encouraging other girls to build, and explaining how they made some projects.

If you give this book to a girl, be prepared to help her find a place where she can learn to build.

I didn’t use the book to learn to build (though I was tempted), but I read the whole thing for the delight of seeing those confident faces.

girlsbuild.org
blackdogandleventhal.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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of Sisters of the Lost Marsh, by Lucy Strange

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Sisters of the Lost Marsh

by Lucy Strange
read by the author

Scholastic Audio Books, 2023. 6 hours, 9 minutes.
Review written March 11, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
2024 Odyssey Honor Book
Starred Review

I put Sisters of the Lost Marsh on my eaudiobook holds list because of its Odyssey Honor win for one of the best audiobooks of the year, and I was not at all disappointed. What a delightfully creepy, wonderful book! The author reads her own book with a wonderful British accent, and I was carried along through the story.

Willa is the third of six sisters, and at twelve years old she’s really the one who runs Grammy’s farm in the middle of the marshlands. As the book opens, her father, who spends most of his time drunk, has made a deal with an old neighbor that the neighbor can marry Willa’s oldest sister Grace in exchange for a fine horse named Flint.

The father is convinced in the truth of a local rhyme declaring that it’s a curse to have six daughters. Marrying one off should break the curse.

Grace does not want to marry the neighbor, and when the three oldest sisters go to the Full Moon Fayre (with Willa sneaking out to join her sisters), a frightening warning from a fortune teller suggests that Grace should run away as soon as possible.

When Grace disappears the next day, things start to fall apart. Nobody wants to give up the horse, but the neighbor insists he’s stolen if he doesn’t get his bride, and has his eyes on the next sister, Freya. Willa’s sure that Grace ran off with the Fayre, which left the same day she did. So she sets off across the marsh with Flint to warn Grace to never come back.

But there are obstacles and eerie things going on, and tales told about the marsh, a dangerous place. Nothing is as it seems at first. Willa must show great courage along the way, and the listener is right there with her. Willa must learn to discern between superstition and actual things to fear. I was rooting for Willa all the way in this satisfying read with a touch of magic and the feel of a folk tale.

lucystrange.org

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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 Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin

Austenalia, Biography, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Jane Austen

A Life

by Claire Tomalin

Vintage Books, 1999. First published in 1997.
Review written July 6, 2021, from a library book

Okay, I’ve been posting back reviews without a page on my main website, but this one gets a page, because it needs to go on my Austenalia page.

In June 2021, I got to attend a virtual symposium on Jane Austen, sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Jane Austen Summer Program. This book was the assigned reading for this year’s program, along with a volume of Jane Austen’s letters.

I wish I had finished the assigned reading before the symposium! I would have done better in the trivia game. It’s been a long time since I was in college, and I’ve gotten out of the habit of worrying about deadlines.

This book is a thorough look at Jane Austen’s life and her world. It’s fascinating – at least if you’re a Jane Austen fan. I think I actually enjoyed it more because of having first read The Jane Austen Project where time travelers go back in time and insinuate themselves into Jane’s life in order to try to get copies of the letters her sister destroyed and the finished copy of The Watsons. The details of her life from that fictionalized version stuck in my head more completely, but this helped fill in details.

The Jane Austen Summer Program also helped me understand nuances of her life. Even virtual, they sent goodies to those who ordered the extra package. So I learned how to make a fashionable Regency turban and learned how to write with a quill pen with authentic ink. There were also context corners about things like celebrities of Jane Austen’s day, attitudes toward motherhood at the time, the art she would have seen at the Exhibition, and other kinds of amazing details. I got to be in a discussion group led by an English professor who’s written a book on the Regency.

Again, I wish I had finished this book before the program, because I would have had more to bring to the discussion. But I did finish it soon after, and have a much deeper understanding of how amazing her accomplishments were for a woman of her time.
Oh, and I’m slowly reading her letters as well. I think those would be almost incomprehensible without reading this book as well – because I now know whom she’s talking about and what situations she was in. I can more thoroughly appreciate her wit and eye for story.

vintagebooks.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 Prisoner’s Throne, by Holly Black

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Prisoner’s Throne

A Novel of Elfhame

by Holly Black
read by Barrett Leddy

Hachette Audio, 2024. 11 hours, 58 minutes.
Review written March 18, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Okay, I confess. We don’t order ebooks or eaudiobooks until the day they’re published (because they don’t require physical processing), and I used my insider knowledge to check out this eaudiobook from our library the same day it came out. I didn’t do as I was tempted and stop my previous audiobook in the middle, but as soon as I started listening to this one, it was every bit as good as I’d expected after reading The Stolen Heir.

And yes! This sequence is only a duology! So no more suspense — the story is finished. (Though there are hints at where we might find drama for the next book.) And wow.

Yes, you should read The Stolen Heir first. And while you’re at it, you should read the entire trilogy that introduced us to Elfhame that begins with The Cruel Prince. I probably should have used this as an excuse to do some rereading, especially to remember side characters and how the different enchantments work, but it didn’t take long to feel like I at least generally knew what was going on.

I don’t want to tell any plot points, because that would give away things from earlier books. So let me talk about what I like in this book and in this series.

In the series in general, I like the romance, but I also like the politics. Which doesn’t sound like as much complete fun as you’ll find here, so let me reword that — I like the court intrigue. It works out to plots and counterplots and trying to figure out whom to trust. There’s a whole lot of that going on in this duology, as Oak is the heir to the High King of Elfhame, and Wren is heir to the Court of Teeth — which was supposedly defeated. In this book, we learn that Prince Oak has been cultivating people who are conspiring against the High King in order to thwart their plans — but he neglected to tell the king and his sister the queen what he was doing. So any little amount they find out makes him look treacherous.

I like that The Stolen Heir was told from Wren’s perspective, and The Prisoner’s Throne from Oak’s perspective. I also like that we can’t be sure for either title exactly which main character the title refers to. Wren has been a prisoner before, and Oak is a prisoner as the book opens. Both are heirs to a throne, and there’s a sense where you could say each is stolen away.

I like the romance in this book, building on the previous book. I like the way it’s based on who they are and what they’ve learned about each other — even when appearances don’t look good for them.

And I like that I don’t have to wait impatiently for the next book — although I very much hope there will be one, about some different characters. But I like that Oak and Wren’s story was resolved.

This series has shaped up into an amazing saga, spanning the mortal world and the world of faerie and how it all works. There is a lot of death and destruction, but you appreciate that Oak and Wren are both trying to do the right thing in this violent world. They both want to find someone who sees them, knows them, and loves them.

If you haven’t started the series yet, I highly recommend it.

blackholly.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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of We All Play, by Julie Flett

Contemporary, Good for the Very Young, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

We All Play

kimêtawânaw

by Julie Flett

Greystone Kids, 2021. 40 pages.
Review written May 29, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

We All Play: kimêtawânaw is exactly the kind of book I try to find for Baby Storytime: Just a few words per page, plus images of children and animals on the pages.

The pictures are animals playing. Here’s the first verse, covering several pages:

Animals hide
and hop [Little rabbits on this spread]

and sniff
and sneak [Little foxes]

and peek
and peep [Little owls]

We play too!
kimêtawânaw mîna [Now there are children]

That’s the pattern for three verses, and then in the final verse, the animals go to sleep, and we do, too.

The language being used is Plains Cree, and there are only a few words in the text, but I like the chart at the back. It’s got all thirteen animals that appear in the book, as well as “child” and “baby” and gives the Cree words for One, More than One, and for “Younger, Smaller, Cuter.” There’s also a pronunciation guide at the back, so if I use this in story time, I’ll be able to say the Cree words in the text.

I love Julie Flett’s art! It’s quiet and calming, with subdued colors, but the children and animals playing do convey joy.

This book is simple, and it’s playful and lovely, with lots of room for talking with your little one about what they see – and then playing!

greystonebooks.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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