Review of Snapdragon, by Kat Leyh

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Snapdragon

by Kat Leyh

First Second, 2020. 224 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Snapdragon is a girl who all the kids at school think is weird. She lives with her mom and her dog, Good Boy. When Good Boy goes missing, she looks at the house of the old witch, who’s rumored to eat pets. She does find Good Boy, and he’s been patched up after a car hit him.

The next day some boys are playing with the body of a dead possum and trying to gross out Snapdragon. But she finds the possum’s babies and goes to the witch’s house to get help taking care of them. It turns out the witch is a lady named Jacks who harvests roadkill and ends up selling their reticulated skeletons on the internet.

Snapdragon is fascinated by that and keeps coming for help with the possum babies and learning about the skeletons, and then it turns out that Jacks really is a witch. So now it’s time to learn about magic.

That summary doesn’t begin to convey the richness of the characters in this graphic novel. Jacks is not at all a stereotypical witch anymore than Snapdragon is a stereotypical outsider kid. Challenges come up, and even though magic comes into play, it feels like the challenges are dealt with realistically.

As a graphic novel, the book is short, but I enjoyed every minute I spent reading it.

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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 book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

*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 The First State of Being, by Erin Entrada Kelly

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The First State of Being

by Erin Entrada Kelly

Greenwillow Books, 2024. 253 pages.
Review written April 18, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book opens with a kid named Michael Rosario in August 1999, on his eleventh birthday, stealing canned peaches from a grocery store to save for his mother after the world ends with the Y2K bug.

Michael’s mom lost her job at that same grocery store because she’d called in to take care of him when he was sick. (His fault, obviously!) Now she works three part-time jobs and is almost never home. She pays an older teen named Gibby to watch him a few days a week.

But when Michael and Gibby go out of the apartment to feed the cats who hang out by the dumpster, they see a strange teen named Ridge wearing strange clothes. He talks strangely, using slang awkwardly, and asks weird questions like what the dumpster is for and what plastic is and what year is it?

The next time they see him, he tells them he’s from the future. And gives them convincing proof without telling them anything they’d be able to change.

And adventures follow. Ridge wasn’t actually supposed to use the Spatial Teleportation Module. His brother goaded him into it. But now that he’s here, he wants to see a mall. Michael wants to find out how he should prepare for Y2K – but Ridge doesn’t dare tell him anything that might change the future.

To be fair, I am the wrong audience for this book. I don’t actually believe that time travel is possible. I don’t believe in alternate universes. And I did computer programming before the year 2000, and my eyes are still rolling about the gloom and doom people were predicting as Y2K approached. (The whole day on January 1, 2000, I kept saying, “I knew it! I knew it wouldn’t be a problem.” Though I also knew that programmers were right to do lots of work fixing accounting programs and the like. But they did that, folks.) So I didn’t have much sympathy for poor anxious Michael. Though we got glimpses into the Spatial Teleportation Summary Book and the reader also knows that though the Millennium Bug caused widespread panic, that ultimately no disaster came to pass.

But Erin Entrada Kelly hits exactly the right note for a beginning time travel book. It ends with a very light touch of paradox, but the main story is about a group of relatable kids in an ordinary situation that turns out to be extraordinary. With a lesson thrown in about living in the present.

erinentradakelly.com

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

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of I Am Every Good Thing, by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

I Am Every Good Thing

by Derrick Barnes
illustrated by Gordon C. James

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin Random House), 2020. 32 pages.
Review written September 15, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

I Am Every Good Thing is by the same people who created the picture book Crown that won multiple awards, and like that, this book vibrantly and joyfully celebrates black boyhood.

I tend to dismiss picture books about self-esteem, unless they tell a good story. This one does not. It’s purely inspirational. But it does a wonderful job of being inspirational.

The colorful paintings show black boys doing many different things. The accompanying text is the voice of the kids pictured telling how wonderful they are:

I am
a nonstop ball of energy.
Powerful and full of light.
I am a go-getter. A difference maker.
A leader.

I am every good thing that makes the world go round.
You know – like gravity, or the glow of moonbeams
over a field of brand-new snow.

I am good to the core, like the center
of a cinnamon roll.

Yeah, that good.

The paintings are wonderful and varied. There’s a kid wincing after scraping his knee skateboarding and getting up again. There are kids swimming, playing music, looking through a microscope, and much more.

The book ends with an adorable boy smiling broadly at the reader. The words say:

And without a shadow
of a doubt,
I am worthy
to be loved.

I am worthy
to be loved.

And that was the moment when tears came to my eyes. Because it shouldn’t need to be said. But yes, it needs to be said. That black boy pictured there – and every black boy – is worthy of love, as is every child on earth. But this book helps me see the beauty, the lovability the inherent worthiness in one set of beautiful children.

And in seeing the particular, it spreads love to the universal.

derrickdbarnes.com
gordoncjames.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 book from Fairfax County Public Library

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

*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 Nearing a Far God, by Leslie Leyland Fields

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Nearing a Far God

Praying the Psalms with Our Whole Selves

by Leslie Leyland Fields

NavPress, 2024. 195 pages.
Review written April 18, 2024, from my own copy, purchased via amazon.com
Starred Review

Okay, confession up front: I purchased this book in a bit of a panic after a writer friend alerted me that she had heard about its publication. You see, I am currently trying to find a publisher for my book, Praying with the Psalmists: Open your Heart in Prayer Using Patterns from Psalms — and the descriptions of the books sound remarkably similar. (While I’m doing blatant self-promotion, you can learn a bit more about my book on my Sonderjourneys blog.)

But friends talked me down. Of course our books aren’t going to be exactly the same, they will find different audiences, and by the time I find a publisher and get my book published, this book won’t be brand-new anymore. Instead of panicking, I shifted my thinking to realize it’s a wonderful thing that I’m not the only one encouraging Christians to use the Psalms in their own prayers. What’s more, now I have a comparable title for my Book Proposal that’s much closer than anything else I’ve found. Both of us want people to know he richness of emotion found in the Psalms, and are encouraging people to use Psalms as a way to get closer to God.

My one quibble is that I don’t like the subtitle, because I think the Psalms show God is not far off. But this book is all about drawing near to God through Psalms, and I feel like we are fellow workers in this endeavor, and I’m happy this message is getting out there!

The books are truly similar, but Psalms are personal, and each of us tells our own story along with talking about the types of Psalms. Leslie Fields tells about coming to Christ, studying in grad school, starting a family. I talk about when my world fell apart when my husband left me and all that followed as I put my life back together. But in any life, there are so many places where the Psalms show us how to cry out to God, and that’s what we have in common.

We both approach the topic by type of Psalm. Leslie Fields covers seven types of Psalms, looking at a few examples of the type covered by each chapter. My book is a little more in-depth, dividing all 150 Psalms into ten types, and presenting a Reading Plan so you can read all the Psalms in a twelve-week study, reading each type along with a matching chapter.

Both of us want our readers to soak in Psalms to get them into their hearts. As exercises after each chapter, Leslie Fields suggests writing out the Psalm you’re going over, with the act of writing helping the words sink in. She also has suggestions for embodying the Psalm by reading aloud with gestures. On my part, I’ve got a chapter about memorizing Scripture, having memorized the entire book of Psalms myself. But both of us are after the same thing — putting those words in the readers’ hearts beyond casual reading.

Her approach to praying through Psalms is a little simpler than mine — she suggests writing out the Psalm, but adding your reactions and prayers after each verse. My approach is to start off by talking about Hebrew poetry and parallelism and encouraging the reader to try that. And with each type of Psalm, I show that specific type’s form or key concepts. So you can write your own (small letter p) psalm, matching each different type.

So it’s a slightly different approach, but both of us are urging the reader to try it themselves. Read the Psalms, yes! Pray the Psalms, yes! Let the Psalms soak into your heart, yes! But also use them as a pattern of crying out to God when in trouble, of thanking God after deliverance, and of praising God’s glory.

And I can only be happy that this message is getting out!

leslieleylandfields.com
navpress.com

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

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Sonderling Sunday – Das nachfolgende Abenteuer

Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! The time to be nerdy and play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books – sort of a silly phrasebook for unserious travelers.

And this time – I actually have a trip booked to go back to Germany for my 60th birthday, happening in a month and a half! So all the more reason to revive these posts! Want to get the tune of German in my head again.

This week, I’m going back to one of my favorite novels of all time, Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale, in German Das Buch der Tausend Tage.

[And hey, Book of a Thousand Days is one of the best young adult fantasy novels ever written – I mean that completely – and if you’re local to me and have a Fairfax County Public Library card, we just purchased a simultaneous use eaudiobook license for a year to the audiobook on Libby (along with many other backlist titles). This is a full cast production and is amazing. Check it out!]

What I do with Sonderling Sunday is look at sections of the book with interesting German translations. I try not to give away the plot, but do try to pique your curiosity.

Last time we looked at this book, we finished Part One, with the two of them trapped in a tower for not quite a thousand days. We are now on “Part 2 The Adventure Thereafter” = Zweiter Teil Das nachfolgende Abenteuer

“I decided to start numbering the days at one again to mark the time when we began anew.”
= Ich beschloss, mit der Nummerierung der Tage wieder bei Eins anzufangen um den Neubeginn deutlich zu machen.

“Who can sleep when there’s real air to breathe?”
= Wer kann schon schlafen, wenn es richtige Luft zum Atmen gibt?

“the news” = der Neuigkeit

“relieved” = erleichtert

“waffled” = schwankte

“tetchy” = ungeduldig (“impatient”)

“a sulky sheep” = ein unwilliges Schaf (“an unwilling sheep”)

“It was nearly dawn.” = Die Dämmerung nahte.

“My lady kept her eyes squeezed shut.”
= Meine Herrin kniff die Augen zu.

I like that schlepped is really a German word:
“I dragged her inside.”
= Ich schleppte sie wieder in den Turm.

“hoarse” = heiser

Love those long words:
“grain husks” = Getreidehülsen

“tossed” = beiseitewerfen (“beside-threw”)

“brushes and ink” = Pinsel und Tinte

“moan” = jammern

“shadow world” = Schattenwelt

“I draped a blanket over her head”
= Ich legte ihr ein Tuch auf den Kopf

“stumbled” = taumelte

“strange” = sonderbar (I did mention it’s not always a nice meaning of “special”?)

“whispers” = Geflüster

“her brain awry in her head and her understanding tilted steep
= ihr Hirn liegt schief im Kopf und ihr Witz ist hinten rübergekippt
(“her brain is crooked in her head and her wit is backwards”)

“a gray smudge” = eine grau verwischte Linie
(“a gray blurred line”)

A word for this in German:
“the trees that line the road” = der Bäume am Straßenrand

“crept” = schlich

“As I climbed atop the heaping rubble”
= Als ich den Geröllberg erklomm

“teemed” = gewimmelt

Last sentence from Day 5:
“She is not well.”
= Es geht ihr schlecht.

That’s it for today. We’re finishing up on page 118 in the English edition, Seite 130 auf Deutsch.

On my vacation in June, I’m looking forward to seeing der Bäume am Straßenrand!

Bis bald!

Review of Drawing on Walls, by Matthew Burgess, pictures by Josh Cochran

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Drawing on Walls

A Story of Keith Haring

by Matthew Burgess

pictures by Josh Cochran

Enchanted Lion Books, 2020. 60 pages.
Review written October 3, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This extra-large picture book biography of Keith Haring is exuberant and joyful – like the subject’s work.

It emphasizes how much Keith related to children and how much he valued the reactions of people to his work. The book begins with action:

Here is Keith Haring painting a mural with hundreds of children in Tama City, Japan.

Keith draws the outlines and the kids fill them in with their own designs.

It goes on to tell about his childhood and drawing together with his dad. Even when he was young, his art spilled out and all over the place.

Different phases of his life are told about with bright and colorful pictures. We see him ignoring boundaries and following his dreams. The book nicely communicates what was important to Keith in a few sentences and episodes like these:

Keith especially liked painting on the floor by the open door where the sunlight poured in.
People passing on the street would stop to watch or talk with him about what he was making. Keith loved it!…

One day in the subway, Keith noticed blank panels where advertisements used to be.
Suddenly, he zipped up to the street, bought a box of white chalk, dashed back downstairs…
and began drawing on the walls.

People paused as they rushed from here to there.
For Keith, this was what art was all about – the moment when people see it and respond.

Maybe it makes them smile,
maybe it makes them think,
maybe it inspires them to draw
or dance or write or sing.

This is a lovely celebration of an artist who painted with joy.

enchantedlion.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 Lunar New Year Love Story, by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham

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

Lunar New Year Love Story

written by Gene Luen Yang
art by LeUyen Pham

First Second, 2024. 350 pages.
Review written March 27, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This graphic novel is sweet and wonderful. Last night, I intended to just dip into it for a few minutes — and came up for air about an hour later, when I’d finished it.

It’s the story of Valentina, a junior in high school. She loved Valentine’s Day when she was a kid and made elaborate valentines with the spirit only she can see, Saint V. But back when she was a freshman, she had a disastrous Valentine’s Day. After that horrible and memorable day, she changed her feelings about Valentine’s Day, and Saint V stopped appearing to her as a sweet cherub, and more like a frightening ghost.

Now Saint V has given her one year to find true love – until next Valentine’s Day. He’s asking for her heart — if she gives her heart only to the old spirit, she can escape her family’s curse of suffering with love.

She finds a wonderful boy when she joins a group of Lion Dancers. But why won’t he call her his girlfriend? There’s a lot going on as she looks for love, and it’s tied together with her own family history, with lion dancing, with friends who have different attitudes toward love, with spirits, and with Val choosing her own path.

I really enjoyed seeing LeUyen Pham draw older characters than what I’m used to. I can still recognize her basic style, but it’s softened, and the result is truly beautiful images. In graphic novels, I like to be able to tell the characters apart, and she achieved that well.

I did not at all begrudge my unplanned hour reading this book, and closed it with a smile. A truly lovely graphic novel.

geneluenyang.com
leuyenpham.com

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

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Catch That Chicken! by Atinuke, illustrated by Angela Brooksbank

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 0

Catch That Chicken!

by Atinuke
illustrated by Angela Brooksbank

Candlewick Press, 2020. 32 pages.
Review written October 3, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

I hope I will get a chance to read this book in a storytime some day. It’s set in a compound in Africa where Lami lives. The compound has lots of chickens, and Lami is the better than anyone at catching chickens.

The language is lyrical and has drama and will engage kids’ attention.

Lami leans!
Lami lunges!
Lami leaps!
And Lami catches her!
Lami is the best chicken catcher in the village.

But one day, Lami is going a little too fast and a little too recklessly. She chases a chicken up a baobab tree. Then she slips and falls and sprains her ankle. So she can’t chase after the chickens.

But there’s a nice little twist at the end when Lami thinks of another way to catch chickens, so she’s still the best chicken catcher in the village.

candlewick.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 Butt or Face? Revenge of the Butts, by Kari Lavelle

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Butt or Face?

Revenge of the Butts

Can You Tell Which End You’re Looking At?

by Kari Lavelle

Sourcebooks eXplore, 2024. 48 pages.
Review written April 19, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

They’re back! The wildly popular kid-pleaser Butt or Face? has a sequel!

Kari Lavelle didn’t change the winning format. You’ve got close-up photographs of an unusual creature’s front end or back end. And the question is posed:

Is it a BUTT or a FACE?

Turn the page for the reveal, where you see the full animal, including how the part you’ve already seen fits into the whole. Pertinent facts are displayed about the animal and how it’s particular butt or face helps it live its life (if this is known).

The animals featured in this book include such goodies as a warty frogfish, a dugong, an axolotl, and an alien butt spider.

I like the Author’s Note at the back that tells us the author got the idea when she read about farmers in Botswana painting eyes on the behinds of cattle to scare away lions.

These books are a fantastic way for your child to pick up trivia about wild animals and have giggling fun while they’re doing it. Who could ask for anything more?

karilavelle.com
sourcebookskids.com

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

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Harlem Grown, by Tony Hillery, illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Children's Nonfiction Review, History 0

Harlem Grown

How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood

by Tony Hillery
illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Paula Wiseman Books (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), 2020. 36 pages.
Review written October 7, 2020, from a library book

Harlem Grown is a simple picture book about a community farm in the center of Harlem. It’s a true story, and written by the creator of the farm. However, the picture book text focuses on a young girl who attended the elementary school across the street from the vacant lot where the kids got to start the farm.

Nevaeh called it the haunted garden. It was cluttered with wrecked couches, old TVs, broken bottles, and empty cans.

The picture book takes us through the process of cleaning up the lot, and then the kids in the school being shown how to put seedlings into the ground. We’re even told that the first planting didn’t do well, so the sponsor, Mr. Tony, built raised beds for the plants.

The kids took their green beans and carrots and cucumbers home to their families for dinner.

A note at the back, with a photograph, explains that the neighborhood where the first Harlem Grown farm was created was also a neighborhood with no stores where you could purchase healthy food. Now there are twelve urban farms across Harlem that grow thousands of pounds of food, given back to the community free of charge. So they provide food for the community as well as giving the children a chance to tend living things.

I realized that many of these students growing up in the concrete jungle didn’t know where a tomato came from until they were introduced to Harlem Grown’s farms. Now, they happily eat fresh vegetables because they’re proud to have grown them themselves.

So besides being a nice picture book story, it’s also an inspirational true story of kids helping to make the world a better place.

harlemgrown.org
simonandschuster.com/kids

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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!