Review of Bad Witch Burning, by Jessica Lewis

Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bad Witch Burning

by Jessica Lewis

Delacorte Press, 2021. 340 pages.
Review written January 17, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2021 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Paranormal Teen Fiction

This book is so, so creepy!

I’m not usually a fan of creepy books, and if I hadn’t been reading it as a Cybils Finalist, I might have quit. I’m so glad I finished – this book is amazing.

The set-up is that sixteen-year-old Katrell has discovered she can help people communicate with their dead loved ones. All she has to do is write them a letter. The letter will catch on fire, and the loved one will appear. Okay, it gives Trell a headache, but she can make money that way. And she needs money, because her mother lost her job and her mother’s boyfriend Gerald likes to eat, and it’s up to Trell to pay the rent.

But then Gerald shoots Trell’s beloved dog Conrad – and in her anguish, Trell writes Conrad a letter, asking him to come back – and he does! Will this same thing work on humans? There’s a whole lot more money in resurrection than there was in simple communication with the dead.

No surprise, though – there are awful consequences to bringing people back to life.

This book is full of suspense and tension and horror – in the best possible way. Normally, when my time reading a book is full of mentally screaming to the main character, “Don’t do that! Don’t do that!” – normally, I would think it was either unrealistic or the character is just stupid. In this case, although maybe Katrell didn’t exercise the best judgment, the author made me understand how strong her motivation was to continue. Never having had enough money makes money a pull, and being threatened by a powerful drug dealer is strong motivation, too.

I found myself completely caring for Katrell, and wanting her to get a break, to trust the people who care about her – and not be killed by the out-of-control Revenants she’d brought back from death.

Amazing that this is a debut novel. Can’t wait to read more from this author!

authorjessicalewis.com
GetUnderlined.com

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Review of Answers in the Pages, by David Levithan

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Answers in the Pages

by David Levithan

Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. 170 pages.
Review written September 15, 2022, from a book received at ALA Annual Conference and signed by the author.
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 General Children’s Fiction

This is a children’s novel about censorship, and it’s very well done. Sadly, the author is among those with the most book challenges in America, so he knows what he’s talking about. This book looks at the issue of censorship from a kid’s viewpoint.

We get three stories in this book. One is a fictional book that a boy named Donovan is reading with his class. The book is called The Adventurers and we only get excerpts, but it’s a wild adventure of two boys named Rick and Oliver working together on a team with a girl named Melody to defeat a criminal mastermind, including escapes from alligators and a trap over a geyser and other frightening situations like those.

The problem comes from the last sentence in the book: “At that moment Rick knew just how deeply he loved Oliver, and Oliver knew just how deeply he loved Rick, and the understanding of this moment would lead them to much of the happiness and adventure that came next.”

When Donovan’s mother sees his book lying around and picks it up and reads that last sentence, she decides it’s a book promoting homosexuality and is not appropriate for fifth-graders. She gets the community involved and it all works toward a book challenge and a showdown at the school board meeting.

The other story being told is about a boy named Gideon in a different class than Donovan, reading the book Harriet the Spy in his class. There’s a new kid named Roberto who sits in front of him, and Gideon is happy as they start getting to know each other better.

I like the way the separate stories come together at the end.

But I also like the way different characters defend the book against the challenge. Here’s what the teacher says to the class when it’s first challenged:

“It doesn’t matter how you identify Rick or Oliver, or what you think their relationship is or ultimately will be. If we’re going to defend this book — and I promise you, I plan on defending this book — the proper line of defense is not ‘But they’re not gay!’ Because that implies that there would be a legitimate problem if they were gay. The proper defense is ‘It doesn’t matter if they’re gay. The characters can be whoever they are.’ And I know some of you might think I’m saying that because I myself am gay. But I am not saying this as a gay man, or as a gay teacher. I’m saying this as a human being who believes that all human beings should be treated with respect.”

I also like what Donovan says to his Mom:

“I don’t know what world you think we live in, Mom. There are plenty of gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and nonbinary people on YouTube and TikTok and all the other things we watch. And other books I’ve read have had gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and nonbinary characters. Kira in our class has two moms, and there are other kids in our school with two moms or two dads or two parents who just want to be called parents. Some kids have nonbinary older siblings. And there’s even a gay kid in my class.”

I won’t say more of how that discussion goes, but I thought it was portrayed well. And ultimately, the book showed that trying to keep kids from knowing about the world around them doesn’t do the job and it harms the kids who are in that group grown-ups are trying to pretend doesn’t exist. Because, as the characters point out, if you can’t know you’re gay in fifth grade, then how can you know you’re straight?

Besides telling about this all-too-relevant issue, the book tells a good story as well, about some kids being kids.

rhcbooks.com

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Review of Year of the Reaper, by Makiia Lucier

Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Year of the Reaper

by Makiia Lucier

Clarion Books, 2021. 324 pages.
Review written November 9, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

When I was more than halfway through this book, I looked at some ads for other books in the back and realized that this author also wrote The Isle of Blood and Stone, which I had enjoyed very much during my Newbery reading, but ended up being more Young Adult than Children’s. There’s something about her writing that captivates me. I’m going to look for more of her books.

This book takes place after war and plague have ravaged a medieval world. A prologue shows us a delegation from Brisa, including Princess Jehan and her maid Lady Mari. She is going to Olveras to marry the king — and stop a war that’s been going on for fifty-two years. But on the way, they left behind guards who came down with the plague, until finally the ambassador himself, Lady Mari’s father, succumbed. He sent her on with a small party. Because nothing is more important than stopping the war.

The main book starts a year later, featuring Cas, a nobleman coming back after three years in a Brisan prison. He didn’t get out because of the new peace. He got out because everyone in the prison caught the plague, and Cas survived. On his way home, we learn that Cas can see ghosts. He tries to pretend he can’t, so they won’t try to talk with him, but sometimes he gives himself away.

He has some adventures along the way, including a woman stealing his horse and then him needing to save her from a lynx with the plague. But when he arrives in his home city, he learns the king and his new queen are there, and it is their son’s naming day. But when Cas sees an assassin in a tower shoot an arrow at the prince’s nurse, Cas is the one who is quick enough to save the baby from the lake. But the assassin escapes.

The story that follows includes Cas trying to get used to living among people again, as well as trying to keep the royal family safe from whatever the assassin has planned.

I’ll admit that I saw a major twist coming right from the start — because a very similar twist happened in a book I’d recently read. But that was merely coincidence. I thought it wasn’t obvious if you hadn’t just read a similar book.

The characters in this book won me over — they’re flawed, and they’re dealing with tremendously difficult things. But you watch them, for the most part, making good choices and caring about people. It’s a story that won my heart.

makiialucier.com

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Review of Open and Unafraid, by W. David O. Taylor

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Open and Unafraid

The Psalms as a Guide to Life

by W. David O. Taylor

Nelson Books (Thomas Nelson), 2020. 230 pages.
Review written December 15, 2022, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I’ll be honest, the reason I ordered this book was that I was looking for competitive titles to go with my own book that I’ve written about Psalms. And I was delighted with this one. I do believe that the two can go together, more complementary than competitive. They have different approaches, but someone who enjoys one book will also enjoy the other, because both books are focused on that amazing book in the center of the Bible, a book that engages your emotions and gives examples of people bringing their lives before God.

In the Introduction, the author tells us his hopes for the book:

I’ve written this book so readers would become excited to embrace a prayer book that has been deeply influential, not just for Jesus and the apostles and for monastic and cathedral practices of prayer but also for the hymns of the Reformation, the spirituals of African American slaves, and the songs of the global church. My hope is that church leaders and laypersons, and even seekers and “nones” (those claiming no religion), would understand that they are never alone in their sorrows, angers, doubts, joys, thanksgivings, or questions about life and death.

I love the title of the book, because it reflects the psalmists’ stance before God — Open and unafraid. The psalms are amazing in their honesty and the openness of their emotions before God. In fact, as David Taylor approaches the Psalms by looking at many different themes, he begins with the theme of “Honesty.”

What the psalms offer us is a powerful aid to un-hide: to stand honestly before God without fear, to face one another vulnerably without shame, and to encounter life in the world without any of the secrets that would demean and distort our humanity. The psalms, then, are for those who know that they spend much of their life hiding secrets; they are also for those who know that standing in the presence of God “is the one place where such secrets cannot and must not be hidden.”

The other themes the author takes up to look at the Book of Psalms are Community, History, Prayer, Poetry, Sadness, Anger, Joy, Enemies, Justice, Death, Life, Nations, and Creation. Every chapter includes Questions for Reflection and Exercises, all of which run deep, so this book would be wonderful material for a small group to work through together.

The psalms invite us to risk the love of God and neighbor and of the world that surrounds us with the reassurance that we do not venture this risk alone. We venture it together with an extraordinary company of fellow pilgrims across the ages.

Dive into the psalms with this book. Like the author, I hope it will encourage you to spend time reading the Book of Psalms again and again as you come to understand why they have been beloved by God’s people for thousands of years.

thomasnelson.com

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Review of Gibberish, by Young Vo

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Gibberish

by Young Vo

Levine Querido, 2022. 36 pages.
Review written April 16, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 General Picture Books

Gibberish reminds me of The Arrival, by Shaun Tan — but for young elementary school readers. I may have had to hold back a tear when I read this book at work — it’s heart-melting.

Here’s how the book begins:

First Dat sailed on a boat,
then flew on a plane,
and today Dat will be on a school bus.

“When people speak it will sound like gibberish, Dat.
Just listen, and do the best you can,” Mah said.

Next we see Dat introduce himself to a bus driver. The bus driver answers with symbols that aren’t words and ends with “Dav?”

Dat nodded.
But he didn’t really understand.

Then the teacher talks to the class with Dat at the front — and we see gibberish coming out of her mouth, ending with the word “Dan.”

The illustrator draws everyone Dat doesn’t understand as a black-and-white cartoon space alien. With scribbles of gibberish in the air. Dat doesn’t understand anything.

But at lunchtime, after eating alone, “something unexpected fell from a tree.” It’s a cartoon girl with a lunch box. She takes Dat’s hand and plays with him.

After a tough afternoon back in the classroom, Dat is sitting alone on the bus. And then the girl drops in again! She draws on a pad and talks with Dat. As her words begin to make sense, her picture in the book gains color and becomes less cartoonish. She’s the first person who uses Dat’s actual name, and Dat learns that her name is Julie — just in time to introduce her to his mom when he gets off the bus.

This book is a wonderful way to help kids understand what it would be like to come to a new country where you don’t understand the language. A beautiful story for building empathy as well as encouraging kids in that situation to stick it out.

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Review of Lakelore, by Anna-Marie McLemore

Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Lakelore

by Anna-Marie McLemore
read by Vico Ortiz and Avi Roque

Recorded Books, 2022. 6 hours, 29 minutes.
Review written October 25, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

In my years of reading speculative fiction for the Cybils, I’ve become a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore. I didn’t think of myself as a fan of magical realism until I started loving her books. They also often include wonderfully nuanced representation of transgender characters.

Lakelore features two transgender teens. Bastián is a transgender boy and Lore is transgender nonbinary. Both have brown skin, and both have encountered discrimination and bullying.

Both kids have also dealt with brains that don’t work like other people’s. Bastián has ADHD and has learned to manage his thought processes so he can function. As part of that management, his brother taught him to make alebrijos, fantastical creatures made of wire and papier-mâché. When something is bothering Bastián so much he can’t stop thinking about it, he makes an alebrijo and puts that energy into it. Then he releases the alebrijo into the world under the lake, the one no one else knows about, and it gets out of his mind.

Well, almost no one else knows about the world under the lake. One day when they were nine years old, Lore was visiting the lake on a field trip and ran from a bully. She ran past Bastián, and much to both of their surprise, the world under the lake opened up for Lore as well, and she was able to hide there until the bully had stopped looking for her.

Now they are sixteen, and after a disaster at school, Lore’s family has moved to the town by the lake. It’s summer, but when she encounters Bastián, they both remember. Lore has dyslexia, and that has added to the bullying she’s encountered.

But after Lore shows up in town, the world under the lake starts coming to them. The alebrijos come to life and swim through the air to find them. The walls in Lore’s new home echo with a ghostly laugh that only she can hear, and she sees water coming up from the lake.

What does it all mean? And what does it have to do with the parts of themselves they’re hiding from one another?

This book gives a wonderful portrayal of how it feels to be transgender, as well as how it feels to live with ADHD and dyslexia. The paranormal context make it much more interesting than a problem novel, though. Really beautiful writing and a wonderful story of friendship and learning to reach self-acceptance.

annamariemclemore.com
fiercereads.com

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Review of Amari and the Night Brothers, by B. B. Alston

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Amari and the Night Brothers

by B. B. Alston

Balzer + Bray, 2021. 408 pages.
Review written January 6, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Children’s Speculative Fiction

I thought I was jaded about stories of kids discovering they have magic and getting training with others – but Amari and the Night Brothers delighted me.

Yes, a lot of elements in this book call to mind Harry Potter, but there were enough imaginative elements and interesting characters to make it feel fresh.

As the book opens, Amari’s in trouble because she shoved a girl who’d been bullying her. She’s going to lose her scholarship. Amari has never fit in at that private school, but she knows she disappointed her Mama. But Amari loses it when kids say that her big brother Quinton is dead. Quinton’s been missing for months, but she knows he’s not dead.

I used to swear up and down that Quinton was some super-secret spy like James Bond. But he would just give me this little smirk and say, “You’re wrong, but you’re not totally wrong.” Whenever I tried to get more out of him he’d just laugh and promise to tell me when I got older.

See, Quinton is smart smart. He graduated valedictorian from Jefferson Academy and got full scholarship offers from two Ivy League schools. He turned them both down to work for whoever he was working for. When he went missing, I was sure his secret job had something to do with it. Or at least that somebody who worked with him might know what happened. But when we told the detectives about his job they looked at me and Mama like we were crazy.

They had the nerve to tell us that – as far as they could tell – Quinton was unemployed. That there were no tax records to indicate that he ever had a job of any kind. But that just didn’t make sense – he’d never lie about something like that. When Mama told them he used to send money home to help out with bills, the detectives suggested that Quinton might be involved in something he didn’t want us to know about. Something illegal. That’s always what people think when you come from “the Wood,” aka the Rosewood low-income housing projects.

So when Amari gets a magical invitation from her brother, she can’t help but follow it. She ends up at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs as a trainee. The Bureau’s job is to keep secret all the magical and supernatural creatures and objects from the mundane world.

Amari’s brother invited her into that world. She’ll train in the summers until she is eighteen, but has to pass tryouts in order to train for a specialty. It turns out that Quinton was a celebrity, along with his partner, Maria Van Helsing, who was from a family ensconced in the supernatural world. Together they had captured the most evil magician of all time. Maria’s younger twin siblings are trainees with Amari, but the popular sister looks down on her, just like the kids at the Academy did.

It turns out that Amari, like her brother before her, is assessed with the highest possible potential – a moonstone badge. However, when the Crystal Ball evaluates her talent to enhance one supernaturally, it’s revealed to the entire supernatural world that Amari is a Magician, which is illegal.

So Amari’s in a familiar situation – people think she’s a bad person simply because of who she is. The book is about her quest to find her brother, but also to prove herself and to earn a place in the tryouts. Oh, and all that happens while battling an evil magician with plans for tremendous destruction.

There are lots of fun imaginative details in the supernatural world. I especially love Amari’s roommate, who is a weredragon and can read people’s emotions. Their supernatural games include Sky Sprints that let them walk through the air and Stun Sticks, which immobilize people and then make them giggle.

There’s lots of fun in this fantasy along with saving the world from great evil and a girl everyone underestimates discovering she has enormous potential. I’m looking forward to telling kids about this book.

harpercollinschildrens.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 Learning to Pray, by James Martin, S.J.

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Learning to Pray

A Guide for Everyone

by James Martin, S.J.

HarperOne, 2021. 386 pages.
Review written January 7, 2023, from my own copy.
Starred Review
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Christian Nonfiction

I thought I knew a lot about prayer. After all, I’ve done it all my life. But Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, opened my mind to new ideas and new ways of praying.

He puts the thoughts about prayer in the context of his own life, telling his own story as he goes. But then besides offering different ways to pray, he answers many different questions about prayer. From chapter titles alone, I see “Why pray?,” “What is prayer?,” “What happens when you pray?,” “How do I know it’s God?,” and “Now what?” at the end. You can see from this that he doesn’t simply give formulas or rote ways to pray. You will find in this book explorations about every possible aspect of prayer.

And I appreciated his thoughts on ways to pray, some of them taken from Ignatian practices of the Jesuits. These included things like the daily examen, but also using your imagination to place yourself in a gospel story or going on a retreat with guidance from a spiritual director.

Above all, he challenged me to go beyond a simple list of requests and think about God’s response when I pray.

This book challenged me in multiple ways and I hope will influence my life and my prayer going forward.

Father Martin calls this book A Guide for Everyone, and here’s his Invitation in the very first chapter:

Learning to Pray is written for everyone from the doubter to the devout, from the seeker to the believer. It’s an invitation for people who have never prayed. It’s designed for people who would like to pray, but are worried they’ll do it the wrong way. It’s meant for people who have prayed and haven’t found it as satisfying as they had hoped. It’s also aimed at people who might be afraid of prayer. As I said, prayer can frighten us. It’s unfamiliar territory for some and can be frightening even for believers, because God can seem frightening….

By the end of this book I hope you’ll have a better knowledge of prayer. More important, I hope that you will have started to pray. Finally, I hope that your prayer will lead you to either begin, explore, or deepen your relationship with God, for prayer isn’t an end in itself: God is. The goal of prayer is deepening one’s relationship with God.

This book will challenge and inspire you in your personal journey with God.

jamesmartinSJ.com
harpercollins.com

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Review of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, retold by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Animal Characters, Folk Tales, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

retold by Mac Barnett
illustrated by Jon Klassen

Orchard Books (Scholastic), 2022. 48 pages.
Review written December 19, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Hooray! Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen have done my favorite fairy tale — the book I didn’t know I needed!

I’m not quite sure why, but “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” has long been one of my favorite fairy tales to retell to children — since before I had kids of my own, when I would sometimes tell stories to entertain my many younger siblings. (And I mean many — I’m third of thirteen kids.) But after I had kids, this storytelling (and the fun part is the big mean troll’s voice, “WHO’S THAT STOMPING OVER MY BRIDGE?”) became a family game. You see, we lived in Germany for ten years. And one of our favorite nearby castles had a bridge over, well, not a moat but a ditch. And the kids thought it was tremendous fun for one of us to pretend to be the troll and the others to go over the bridge.

Now, the only problem with this book is that here the troll says:

“Who seeks to reach the grassy ridge?
Who dares to walk across my bridge?”

But hey, we could work with it! And it’s very fun that after the goat answers, the troll describes with rhyming couplets the ways he likes to dine on goat.

After the first goat gets by by telling the troll his bigger brother is coming, the troll chuckles to himself:

“I can’t believe I tricked that goat
into telling me about his big brother.
I’m so smart!
And fun and handsome.”

This gives you an idea of how this pair adds to the character of the troll, who’d been subsisting on his own earwax and belly button lint.

You probably know the story — the first two goats get by after telling the troll to wait for their bigger brother. In this book, the biggest billy goat gruff is so big, only his legs show on the page. And yes, he does away with the troll.

So much fun! Now thousands more families will find out about this fairy tale, a wonderful one about the little guy making his way.

scholastic.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 Weight of Blood, by Tiffany D. Jackson

Contemporary, Paranormal, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Weight of Blood

by Tiffany D. Jackson

Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins), 2022. 406 pages.
Review written December 15, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Cybils Finalist, Young Adult Speculative Fiction
2022 Sonderbooks Stand-out, #4 Teen Paranormal Fiction

I’m usually not a fan of horror novels, but I read this one for the Cybils, and had to admit it’s wonderfully executed.

The author warns you right from the start that there’s going to be carnage. Chapter 1 begins with an excerpt from a podcast called “Maddy Did It,” and that begins with sworn testimony from “The Springville Massacre Commission.” That testimony from a mother ends this way:

Only two kids survived Prom Night at that country club. Cole was one of them. They say when you go through something like that, your instincts kick in. So his mind must’ve told him to come on home. He walked over two miles through the mud with one shoe, covered in the blood of other children.

When I asked him what happened . . . he just kept mumbling, “Maddy did it.”

Then we go back in time to May 2014. Maddy Washington is horrified that in gym class she has to run in a sudden rainstorm that has come up, despite her checking the forecast three times, as her Papa demands. Sure enough, when her hair gets wet, her hair expands into an Afro, and the entire school learns that her mother was Black.

It’s a small southern town. They don’t think they’re racist, but they’ve always had two separate proms, one for white kids and one for Black kids. And when Maddy suddenly sprouts an Afro, kids laugh and throw pencils into her hair, marveling that she doesn’t even notice.

Maddy’s always been an outsider. She keeps to herself and doesn’t say much in class. She lives alone with her Papa who makes her pray for hours in a closet with pictures of beautiful white women on the walls that her sin will not come out. She wishes she could be like normal kids.

But when she’s humiliated in class, something strange happens. The chairs float, there’s some kind of earthquake, cellphones quit working, and all the kids get terrible headaches.

Before the cellphones quit working, someone filmed the taunting and posted it on the internet. Now everyone’s talking about the racist small town in Alabama.

Wendy is a senior who feels guilty about it all. She’s not the ringleader of the group bullying Maddy, but her best friend is, and Wendy went along with it. Wendy’s boyfriend is Kenny, the star of the football team. He’s Black, but doesn’t hang out with the other Black kids. Wendy doesn’t like how he’s sticking up for Maddy, and she doesn’t like how she comes out looking like a racist, too.

So Wendy gets the bright idea of combining the white prom and the Black prom. She wasn’t going to go anyway, but she’s organizing the whole thing. And what could be more noble than asking her boyfriend, the town all-star, to take Maddy to the prom?

Of course, we know from the podcast excerpts that open the chapters that this decision will lead to disaster. And meanwhile, Maddy is learning about the power of telekinesis. Could this power have come from her missing Mama?

This book is a hard one to put down. The author shines a light on racism that pretends it’s not racism and gets you firmly on Maddy’s side, despite knowing that something terrible is about to happen. That mild-mannered, socially backward recluse was the wrong person to bully!

A truly masterful story of a downtrodden girl coming into her power.

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