Review of Toes, Teeth, and Tentacles, by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Toes, Teeth, and Tentacles

A Curious Counting Book

by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

Little, Brown and Company, 2025. 36 pages.
Review written November 18, 2025, from my own copy, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

I’ve long been a big fan of the work of Steve Jenkins and his wife Robin Page, so I was saddened by his death in 2021. I’m glad that Robin Page is keeping his memory alive by creating new books with his art (and it’s not clear how much she’s contributed to the art side).

Steve Jenkins is the one who makes incredibly realistic images of animals using cut paper techniques. Then his books are the ever-popular books full of facts about animals. Yes, I’d already noticed that some of the images have already appeared in other books. In this case, I don’t know how many of the images are new and how many are reused, but whatever the source, the result is delightful.

I tend to think that most animals have similar features to humans – two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth. Two arms, two legs, five fingers and toes on each limb. Sure, I know about octopuses and spiders and insects, but there’s a basic pattern, right?

Well, this book disrupts those ideas of mine. It’s a counting book – of animal features.

We start with the one glowing spine on the angler fish, one sac in the nose of the hooded seal, one ear of the praying mantis. Then we look at the moray eel with two sets of jaws and the slow loris with two tongues. Then the squid with three hearts, the tuatara with three eyes, and the Jackson’s chameleon with three horns.

And so it goes. For each number up to ten (which includes the rattlesnake’s rattles and the sea pig’s legs), we’re given four or five examples. Then we’re told about several animals with bigger numbers of things, like the twenty-two tentacles that ring the nose of the star-nosed mole and the 18,000 teeth of the giant African land snail. A chart at the back gives more details and facts about each animal featured.

Books of strange animal facts are always a hit with many kids, and this is a fun and surprising way to organize those facts.

stevejenkinsbooks.com
robinpagebooks.com
lbyr.com

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The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Historical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Joy Luck Club

by Amy Tan
read by Gwendoline Yeo

Phoenix Books, 2008. 9 hours, 5 minutes. Original book published in 1989.
Review written December 1, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’m going to go ahead and call this an Old Favorite, though I only read it once before – sometime before I started writing Sonderbooks in 2001. I remember that we watched the movie based on the book when my second was a baby – and felt like it should have a warning label because a baby dies in the movie. I revisited the book because my friend Suzanne mentioned it when she signed up for Book Talking with Sondy. I then discovered that my library has an eaudiobook version available and put a hold on it.

The book is wonderful. It features four Chinese women who immigrated to America and their four American daughters. The women met monthly for a Joy Luck Club where they played Mahjongg, but now one of them has recently passed away, and her daughter has been invited to join the game. And the women in the club have a surprise for the daughter – they have found her long lost twin sisters, and have gotten her tickets to China to meet them, fulfilling her mother’s dearest wish.

The rest of the book gives us stories – stories of the mothers, and stories of the daughters. We eventually learn how the twin babies were lost so long ago during war time. We see how the mothers and daughters lived very different lives and don’t fully understand each other. We see that the daughters have more in common with each other than they ever realize.

The reader did a fine job of consistently giving the characters in this book their own unique voices – but I had trouble in the audio version keeping track of whose story I was hearing and which daughter went with which mother. Unfortunately, the part of the chapter heading that showed in Libby did not include the character’s name, and I listened to this while driving to a new place, and missed some crucial details. I did remember how it worked from having read it before, so I feel like I still appreciated the book.

And this remains a classic novel about mothers and daughters and the experience of being an immigrant. With each character having different experiences in their journeys, literal and figurative, it shows how every immigrant’s experience is unique – yet gives us a window on what the challenges they face, which even their own children may not fully understand.

amytan.net

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Review of True True, by Don P. Hooper

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

True True

by Don P. Hooper

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin Random House), 2023. 368 pages.
Review written October 20, 2023, from my own copy, sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

True True is the story of Gil, a Black teenager from Brooklyn with Jamaican roots, who transfers for his senior year to a prep school in Manhattan to be on the robotics team. But once there, he gets confronted by racism – a football player and two teammates start a fight with him, and Gil is the only one who gets suspended and put on probation.

On probation, he’s not supposed to work with the robotics team for a month. But he knows he can help – is it worth doing if he can’t take any credit?

The racism is quite blatant, but still unacknowledged. Gil fumes and figures out how to get those opportunities his grandma and mother sacrificed for, while still showing his friends in Brooklyn that he cares about them. The sensei at his dojo has a copy of The Art of War, and Gil tries to use the principles found there to battle the racism so strong at school.

It’s all portrayed in such a way that it feels real, and we are with Gil as he tries to juggle friends, family, classes, martial arts, robotics, all while trying to battle racism in the most savvy way. He makes many mistakes along the way, which gets us all the more firmly on his side.

This book has so much heart, it doesn’t feel like an issue book. It’s a book about a teen trying to deal with what life throws at him.

DonHooper.com
PenguinTeen.com

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Review of Coach, by Jason Reynolds

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Coach

Track, Book Five

by Jason Reynolds
read by Guy Lockard

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 5 hours, 14 minutes.
Review written December 18, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Coach is the fifth book in Jason Reynolds’ Track series for middle grade readers, each one featuring a different member of the Defenders track team – talking about all the good things about competing on a team while also giving us a window into life situations that weren’t always easy. It looks like I only reviewed the first two books, Ghost and Patina. Though this is book five, it’s effectively a prequel – since this book covers when Coach was a kid, discovering track himself in the 1980s.

This book is narrated with great enthusiasm by Guy Lockard. The reading was basically the same character as in Jason Reynolds’ Stuntboy books, a boy with ADHD. And that didn’t feel wrong for this book, though Coach – then known as Otie Brody – wasn’t formally diagnosed with ADHD and was a bit older than Stuntboy. But he was enthusiastic about things and did sometimes get distracted.

Otie’s enthusiasms make for great reading. His dream is to run in the Olympics and win a gold medal like his hero, Carl Lewis. And also to build a time machine like Marty McFly from Back to the Future. But after he gets mocked for letting his hair get out of shape – his dad being out of town – Otie tries to fix it himself – and accidentally shaves his eyebrow off. His mother helps him concoct a plausible story that it reduces drag and makes him faster – and shaves his whole head to sell the story.

That’s the beginning of Otie’s antics and obstacles as we see him trying to do his best, dreaming of winning glory, and dealing with some family issues – that all go into making him the empathetic coach he’ll need to be later.

Another solid feel-good choice for middle school and upper elementary readers, you don’t have to read the first books to enjoy this one. So glad that there’s one more!

jasonwritesbooks.com

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Review of God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, by Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us

40 Devotions to Liberate Your Faith from Fear and Reconnect with Joy

by Rev. Lizzie McManus-Dail

Tarcherperigee, 2025. 222 pages.
Review written December 17, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I don’t remember which book I was looking at on Amazon when this book came up as a suggestion – but the title delighted me, and I ordered it on the spot. I liked it even more than I expected to.

This is a book of 40 devotionals, with the final one about Easter – so it would be a good choice for Lent. But I enjoyed it at a totally different time of year, reading a devotional every few days. And I’ve recommended it to my church small group to read when we start up after the holidays. We’ll stretch it out through Spring, taking a break to do a churchwide study for Lent.

The message is, as you’ll guess from the title, affirming and uplifting. The devotionals are based on Bible stories, with a large number of them being stories about women. They end with a prayer. They aren’t about striving and gritting your teeth and trying not to disappoint God – they remind you how much God loves you already.

The Introduction talks about deconstruction and disillusionment with traditional theology, so yes, that’s partly why I liked it. Here’s a section from that Introduction:

So how do we melt away the fear?

I believe it begins here: by looking at the heavens, and looking at the dandelions in the cracks, and looking at scripture, and looking at God, and trying an older and wilder way of trust. It begins by saying: God did not make me to hate me; God made me to love me. God made me out of desire. God made me out of joy.

God is not so small-minded or vindictive as to make people in order to just . . . hate them. I mean, look at the sheer multitude of galaxies in the universe. The membranes of butterfly wings. The way a toddler’s teeth make the most crooked and sublime smile when they laugh. The dreamer-upper of these things isn’t an asshole. I just don’t buy it. The Bible doesn’t sell it, either; while full of challenging and complex stories that do dip into the lament and wrath of God, scripture on the whole has an undercurrent and over-arc of God’s delight in God’s people.

Something else I liked about this book was the author’s ability to help me see old stories in new ways. One example, talking about the story where Jesus told his disciples he was giving them his blood to drink, she reminded anyone who’s given birth that our babies feasted on our blood when they were in the womb, and blood converted to milk after their birth. We know about sustaining others with our very being. And that’s an image of how Jesus sustains his followers.

And, yes, this is another book I’ve marked up to make posts on my Sonderquotes blog. It will probably take me a long time to get all of them up, but it will give me more opportunities to mull on the wisdom found here. I do highly recommend this as a devotional book that will uplift and encourage you – and help you believe that God delights in you.

revlizzie.com
penguinrandomhouse.com

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Review of Legendary Frybread Drive-In, edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Legendary Frybread Drive-In

Intertribal Stories

edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith

Heartdrum, 2025. 7 hours, 46 minutes.
Review written December 20, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Seventeen authors and seven narrators have created this delightful work of art. Here’s how editor Cynthia Leitich Smith describes the magical place at the center of these stories:

Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a liminal (or in-between) space that feels like home, welcoming Indigenous young heroes and their chosen kin. It’s a refuge, a place of reconciliation, of romance, a warm meal, an Elder’s hug, and artistic inspiration. The grandparents who run it offer happiness, hope, and healing with frybread on the side.

The list of seventeen authors who collaborated on this book is impressive. The four I’d already read award-winning young adult novels from – Darcie Little Badger, Jen Ferguson, Byron Graves, and Angeline Boulley – did not disappoint, but neither did any of the other authors.

The idea behind the book is that Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-In is a place outside regular time and space. And indigenous people – teens in these stories – can find their way to Sandy June’s from wherever they are in Turtle Island. The path will open up for them when it’s needed. And the food is the best anyone’s ever tasted.

The stories bring together people across generations, show us teens finding true love, grappling with loss, and finding self-confidence and direction.

I probably should have read the book instead of listening (and I still may some day) – but it was easier for the book to get to the top of my audiobook queue than my visual reading queue. But I may have to visually read it again to catch more of the characters who show up in more than one story – and to appreciate it from the beginning as I understand better how the paranormal drive-in works. Or just for the fun of reading it again! This is a set of feel-good stories from a bunch of stellar indigenous authors.

cynthialeitichsmith.com

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Review of The World Entire, by Elizabeth Brown, illustrated by Melissa Castrillón

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The World Entire

A True Story of an Extraordinary World War II Rescue

by Elizabeth Brown
illustrated by Melissa Castrillón

Chronicle Books, 2025. 64 pages.
Review written November 17, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

The title of this book is taken from a quotation in the Talmud – “He who saves a single life, saves the world entire.” This book is a picture book biography of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who saved the lives of approximately 10,000 refugees during World War II.

Aristides was a Portuguese diplomat who worked at a consulate in France. When refugees poured into Bordeaux fleeing the Nazis, he was ordered not to give any visas to enter Portugal. After talking with a rabbi and three days of soul-searching, Aristides instead began an assembly line granting visas to everyone.

After the Nazis came to Bordeaux, he went to Bayonne to help make more visas. He even helped refugees find a place to cross the border where those visas would be accepted.

And when he got back home to Portugal, he was arrested for defying orders.

This whole story is dramatized beautifully, with a long author’s note and timeline at the back, giving further details. This book celebrates a man who defied his own government to save people’s lives. He faced many consequences of his actions, but said, “I could not have acted otherwise, and I therefore accept all that has befallen me with love.”

elizabethbrownbooks.com
melissacastrillon.co.uk

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Review of The Woman in Suite 11, by Ruth Ware

Fiction Review, Mystery, Starred Review, Suspense 0

The Woman in Suite 11

by Ruth Ware
read by Imogen Church

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 15 hours, 11 minutes.
Review written December 5, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Woman in Suite 11 is Ruth Ware’s first sequel, a follow-up to The Woman in Cabin 10, set ten years later. The Woman in Cabin Ten was the first Ruth Ware book I listened to. It was 2018, when I was reading for the Newbery Award, and listening to a Ruth Ware thriller was the perfect way to cleanse my palate, as they’re pretty much the opposite of the children’s books I was reading for the award.

This follow-up was wonderful. I love that life is going well for Lo Blacklock. She’s happily married, living in New York City with her husband and two kids. But because of having kids and the unfortunate timing of the pandemic, her career as a journalist has stalled.

So Lo is surprised when she gets an invitation to the opening of a premier hotel in Geneva, owned by the Leidman group. Her husband urges her to go while he takes care of their two little boys. And Lo can visit her Mum in England on the way back.

But Lo is even more surprised when she sees three people who were on that fateful voyage of the Aurora ten years ago. And then when she gets summoned to owner Marcus Leidman’s room late at night – Suite 11 – she assumes it’s his eccentric way to finally grant her an interview. But the door is opened by the very same woman she saw in Cabin 10.

And from there? All hell breaks loose. Again there is murder before the book is over. Again there are very powerful people involved. Again there’s a mystery as to how it all went down – and this time Lo is a suspect, and she’s also keeping secrets.

I’ll say no more about the plot, but it keeps you going all the way. I kept checking how much of the audiobook was left to confirm that no, this seeming resolution probably wasn’t actually a resolution. And sure enough, there were new causes for tension all the way to the end.

Do read the The Woman in Cabin 10 first – you’ll enjoy this one all the more. I was so happy for Lo – her husband is awesome (and spoiler alert – he survives the book. It’s so good to see a wonderful supportive husband in a thriller, especially one who survives.), her kids are wonderful, she’s got her mental health under control, including no more drinking problem. When she talked about missing her little boys and had her husband let her listen to them sleeping, my own heart melted.

I have to say that I really do hope for Lo’s sake that she will not feature in any more thrillers. But if she does, I will want to be first in line to read them!

ruthware.com

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Review of The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich, by Deya Muniz

Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich

by Deya Muniz

Little, Brown and Company, 2023. 250 pages.
Review written June 20, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

The Princess and the Grilled Cheese Sandwich is a delightfully fun and light-hearted graphic novel about a young noblewoman named Cam who must pose as a man in order to inherit her father’s estate. She moves to the capital city to be far away from the people who knew her before her father’s death – and catches the princess’s eye.

The two of them do many things together, including enjoying grilled cheese sandwiches. (Everyone in the capital city has a name that’s a type of cheese.) As they fall in love, Cam realizes she can’t take things any further because she needs to keep her secrets. And nobody likes to find out the one they love has been hiding who they really are.

I was rather amazed this is a debut. The drawings are wonderful – I especially loved all the outfits. Cam keeps her hair long but wears fake sideburns and nice suits when posing as a man, and it wasn’t too hard to believe that she could have fooled people. (Maybe a little hard. But not too bad, because she did look like a well-dressed young man.) There’s variety in the panel sizes, and the story keeps moving at a nice pace. It only took me about an hour to read, and left me smiling.

I’m writing this before discussing anything with the Morris committee, so my opinions are entirely my own, and I’ll have to wait to publish this review until after we’ve made our decision. But I am looking forward to more from this author, and I think teens are going to love her work.

lbyr.com
theNOVL.com

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Review of The Woman in the Moon, by Richard Maurer

Biography, Mathematical, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Woman in the Moon

How Margaret Hamilton Helped Fly the First Astronauts to the Moon

by Richard Maurer

Roaring Brook Press, 2023. 254 pages.
Review written December 15, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

It’s always good to read about a female mathematician who excelled in her field. Margaret Hamilton studied math in the 1950s and learned computer programming while working with the meteorologist Edward Lorenz, who discovered the Butterfly Effect in meteorology. Margaret ran his computer simulations at MIT, and later moved to the lab that worked on the computer software that would go into space with the Apollo missions. Margaret, in fact, was the person who coined the term “software engineering” to reflect that writing the computer code was as much a feat of engineering as constructing the wiring – though in fact some of that code was wired into the physical computers.

This book takes us through Margaret’s life as she was consistently the only woman in her field. It goes into lots of interesting detail about the Apollo missions, all that they were up against, and how Margaret was responsible for making the software work. An abundance of relevant photos help keep the text moving, and the whole thing captures the sense of wonder that humans actually made it to the moon – with 1960s technology.

Historians believe a key reason that American astronauts got to the Moon first (Soviet space travelers never got there at all) was America’s lead in computer technology. There were computers at the launch center, computers at Mission Control, computers at the contractors, computers at the tracking stations, and of course the miniature AGC in the spacecraft. Among all these electronic brains, the only computer that never failed was the AGC. In thousands of hours of manned spaceflight, no software errors were known to have occurred. The achievement is unique in computer history. “Nobody can believe it to this day,” Margaret noted.

Margaret was the one in charge of the software for the AGC, the Apollo Guidance Computer, which was in the command modules in flight. This was a behind-the-scenes job, so it’s good to see this entire book about her, giving some much deserved recognition (besides the Presidential Medal of Freedom she got in 2016). Now kids and teens can learn about her accomplishments.

This book is geared to a middle school audience, but there’s nothing in it that would make high school students feel it’s too young for them, so I decided to post this review on my Teen Nonfiction page instead of my Children’s Nonfiction page, even though in the library we have it as a Juvenile Biography. It’s at a much higher level than the many picture book biographies I post on that page. aLearn about the woman who wrote the software that got humans to the moon.

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