Review of The Last Cuentista, by Donna Barba Higuera

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 2

The Last Cuentista

by Donna Barba Higuera

Levine Querido, 2021. 320 pages.
Review written April 6, 2022, from my own copy, purchased via amazon.com
2022 Newbery Medal Winner

The Last Cuentista won the Newbery Medal. Everyone should read it. The writing is lyrical, lush, and gorgeous. It talks about the power of Story, greater than anything.

As the story begins, Petra and her family are getting ready to leave earth. She misses her grandmother Lita, who told her a story about Halley’s Comet as a fire snake with bad eyesight that accidentally hit its mother, earth, and destroyed it.

It feels wrong to be sneaking off Earth while so many are left behind. They don’t even inform my parents of our destination until the day before. Dad says Pleiades had been storing their ships in a massive underground facility at the old Denver airport — they weren’t supposed to leave Earth on their first official trip for another two years. The maiden test flights into nearby space a few months earlier had been successful, but because we’re now leaving so suddenly, this will be the first interstellar journey.

If a solar flare hadn’t shifted the comet off course a week earlier, we’d be watching Fire Snake harmlessly pass Earth in a few days like it had since the beginning of time.

Petra and her brother Javier are prepared to go into a stasis pod. They will sleep for three hundred and eighty years and wake up ready to go to a new planet, named Sagan, where another ship has already gone to terraform. Scientists like Petra’s parents will help set up life on the new settlement — and Petra and Javier have custom programming that will go into their brains while in stasis, so they will wake up scientific experts as well.

As they go into stasis, Petra learns that her desired elective — storytelling — was overridden by her parents. She doesn’t want to be a scientist. She wants to be a Cuentista like her grandmother.

Not everyone on the spaceship will be in stasis. The Monitors will spend their lives in space making sure that those in the pods are safe.

But something goes wrong from the very start when Petra is supposed to go to sleep. And when she wakes up, near the planet, she discovers the Collective has taken over. They expect her to answer to the name Zeta-1 and serve the Collective.

The story is compelling and beautifully written. But I had problems with it that I’ve had with other dystopian fiction. I couldn’t get around my questions of why? Why would the Collective want to ban memories of earth and ban stories? The explanation given was that earth was a place of war and they were starting over, but I didn’t buy it. I didn’t think people leaving their home planet would want to forget everything.

I also couldn’t really bring myself to believe in the magic technology that could reprogram brains — and somehow didn’t work on Petra. And Petra could make people remember despite that. So although I see the amazing craft in the book, I could never quite suspend my disbelief and really believe it would happen that way.

But it won the Newbery. So there are many people who didn’t have any problem with those things. Try it yourself! Read this beautiful story and then tell me what you think: Were you pulled into this tale of the last survivors of humankind?

levinequerido.com

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Review of I Must Betray You, by Ruta Sepetys

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

I Must Betray You

by Ruta Sepetys

Philomel Books, 2022. 319 pages.
Review written March 12, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This is another book that’s sobering to read during the war in Ukraine. I wish this was ancient history, but I remember well when it happened.

I Must Betray You is set in Romania in 1989, during the last days of the Ceausescu regime — but seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu doesn’t know they are the last days. All Cristi has ever known is his family’s bleak apartment, waiting in lines for goods, having to speak softly for fear of being overheard, pictures of the Ceausescus overlooking everything, and knowing that anyone might be an informer.

But when Cristian is called into the principal’s office, he hadn’t been prepared that now he needs to be an informer. His mother cleans the house of an American diplomat. Cristian is to accompany her and befriend the diplomat’s teenage son and report back. The reward? One he can’t give up – medicine for his grandfather, who is dying of leukemia. But the leverage is that the agent who interviews him knows about a dollar bill he got from an American from selling a stamp. That is illegal, and they threaten prosecution — unless Cristian does what they want.

But once he starts as an informer, he doesn’t know who he can trust. And then, when the girl he’s had his eye on for ages actually shares a Coke with him — State Security finds out, and she accuses him of being an informer.

And that’s only the beginning. Through associating with the Americans to spy on them, Cristian finds out about protests in other Eastern European countries. Maybe Romania doesn’t have to be this way?

Several awful things happen in this book. The fight for freedom in Romania wasn’t easy. But this book tells the story from the perspective of a young person trapped by the regime, but who dares to dream of a better life.

I also appreciated the Epilogue, which showed that overthrowing the Ceausescu regime didn’t instantly resolve all problems. There are also historical photos at the back, taken in Romania in the 1980s.

rutasepetys.com

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Review of The Tide Pool Waits, by Candace Fleming, pictures by Amy Hevron

Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Tide Pool Waits

by Candace Fleming
pictures by Amy Hevron

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 27, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

The Tide Pool Waits is a beautifully simple picture book about a complex scientific topic. I learned things I didn’t know about tide pools, and it was presented in a way that even small children can understand.

The main text is simple. We meet many different kind of creatures in the tide pool. After each one is presented, we see the words, “They wait.”

Here’s the last group:

There are others, too.
Under rocks.
In the tangle of floating, fanning seaweed.
Beneath the sand and between patches of sponge.

They all wait.

And wait.

And wait.

But then the waves crash! They wait for just the right time to sweep over the shore.

They surge over barnacles, mussels, and snails,
stir the tangle of seaweed,
shake the crevice-cracked rocks,
rise higher and higher and higher until . . .

the pool is part
of the sea once more.

The tide has come.
The wait is over.

Then the book looks at those same creatures we already met, and we see that they do different things now that the tide has come in. Sea anemones bloom, barnacles open their shells and eat, various animals hunt, and some return to the open sea.

There’s a flurry of activity until the tide goes out again.

At the back of the book, there’s “An Illustrated Guide to This Tide Pool.” We learn more about the specific animals featured and their place in the tide pool and how their behavior changes when the tide is in or out. There’s even an illustration on the last page showing which creatures live in which zone of the tide pool — where different zones get different amounts of water.

So the main text is simple language, suitable for storytime. But the back matter fills out the information for curious older readers like me. The illustration style is bold and simple — and does make the different creatures easy to distinguish.

A marvelous beginning science picture book.

HolidayHouse.com

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Review of Lawn Boy, by Jonathan Evison

Contemporary, Fiction Review 0

Lawn Boy

by Jonathan Evison

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2018. 312 pages.
Review written May 28, 2022, from a library book

Okay, I’ll be honest — the only reason I read this book was to find out what all the fuss was about. After another library in our system included this title in a display of banned books, a resident protested, and Fox News picked it up — and people from all over the country called our library and complained. I particularly remember a man from Arizona yelling at me and telling me that I approve of pornography.

So let me tackle the objections head-on. My first reaction after actually reading the entire book is disgust — disgust at the book banners, not at the book.

First, let me point out this is a book for adults. It is published for adults and marketed for adults. However, it features a 24-year-old protagonist who’s figuring out how to make a living and move out of his mom’s house, so it may well be of interest to juniors and seniors in high school who are thinking about their future. It won an Alex Award, which is specifically for adult books that have appeal for teens. So it is appropriate for high schools to carry it. Not middle schools, but I doubt that’s even an issue.

And I have read so many adult books that are much, much more explicit in sexual content. The difference? Most of those other books involve heterosexual relationships, and I can’t help but think it’s the same-sex relationship that bothers the book banners.

But — get this — there is absolutely no “on-screen” sex in this book. I’ll give a little bit of a spoiler that the main character finds a wonderful and affirming relationship with another man and spends the night with him. But the book pretty much fades to black and he simply wakes up in the morning next to his partner. Absolutely no description of having sex.

And I don’t hear much about that. What the banners seem to object to is that the main character mentions some experimentation with another boy in fourth grade. The other kid’s idea, but it was a mutual activity, and not by any stretch of the imagination does it constitute “pedophilia,” as the caller from Arizona seemed to think. The narrator does talk about it using coarse language, and he’s a tiny bit more detailed when he talks about losing his virginity with a girl six years before the book opens, but it’s funny how the banners don’t mention that.

Yes, the book is full of profanity. It’s talking about working-class families where this is how they talk. It would feel very inauthentic if they talked like a suburban mom. Now, I personally prefer novels where characters do talk like me, a suburban mom, and don’t use profanity. But sometimes it’s good to read about lives I wouldn’t otherwise know anything about and build some empathy.

Let me, finally, talk about the story. It’s about a kid named Mike Muñoz who loves landscaping. He even has a talent for topiary. But he currently works for a company that watches his every move and makes him pick up dog droppings (not referred to so delicately), and he has enough, so he quits. But he’s already living with his mom, who works two jobs, and caring for his three-hundred-pound older brother with special needs. It’s not easy to find something new. And meanwhile, there’s a waitress he has his eye on, but how can he impress a girl without having any money?

The book follows his efforts and his stumbles. He encounters various people who seem like they’re going to help but then let him down. About halfway through the book, I told myself I was only finishing it because I wanted to know what I was defending. However, I was glad I did finish. As the book progresses, Mike does learn from his mistakes and his setbacks — even the ones that weren’t his fault. And he really grew on me.

I’ve already given away that there’s a same-sex romance — that happening is the first Mike realizes he’s gay. The portrayal of that relationship is beautifully done and it’s lovely to see Mike relating to someone who builds him up instead of exploiting him. Outside of that, Mike figures out who he is and what he wants — and yes, the book has a happy and deeply satisfying ending, and I’m so glad I didn’t stop in the middle.

I’ll admit this novel is not for everyone. In fact, it’s not the sort of book I typically recommend. But I ended up very happy I’d expanded my horizons by reading this book and gaining empathy for someone whose life is quite different from mine.

So I do recommend putting this book on hold at your local library. Chances are good you won’t find it on the shelves because with all the attention it’s been getting, the Holds list is long.

algonquin.com

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Review of In Search of Safety, by Susan Kuklin

Biography, Current Issues, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction, True Stories 0

In Search of Safety

Voices of Refugees

written and photographed by Susan Kuklin

Candlewick Press, 2020. 246 pages.
Review written July 5, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Like the author’s book Beyond Magenta, which featured the stories of transgender teens, this book takes an in-depth look at individual refugees stories, with photographs. This paragraph at the front of the book explains it well:

Refugees are people who are forced to leave their country because they are being persecuted. From 1980 to 2018, the number of refugees resettled in the United States each year was between 50,000 and 100,000 people. In 2019, that number dropped to 30,000 people, and in 2020 it dropped again to 18,000. Many of them are from Southeast Asia, the former Soviet Union, Bosnia, the Middle East, and Africa. Some have resettled in the Midwest because housing there is reasonably priced and jobs are relatively plentiful. The five refugees featured in In Search of Safety are from Afghanistan, Myanmar, South Sudan, Iraq, and Burundi. One refugee had been a translator for the U. S. military. Another recently escaped the horrors of captivity by fundamentalist militants. And three spent years in refugee camps, growing up in countries other than their homeland. They all survived wars. They all were carefully screened by several security organizations, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United States State Department, and the United States Department of Homeland Security. They have all been resettled in the state of Nebraska, where they have been warmly welcomed. This book tells their stories

Some of the stories here are indeed horrific. But hearing detailed stories puts a face on a desperate situation and helps the reader understand that refugees are by no means just looking for a hand-out.

The five stories are told with multiple chapters each, with many photographs, and in the refugees own words. The group that sponsored them to come to Nebraska, Lutheran Family Services, is also featured, and we see what good work they do.

These stories will tear at your heart, but also make you rejoice that people in need were welcomed to a new home.

candlewick.com

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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.

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Review of Here We Come! by Janna Matthies and Christine Davenier

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

Here We Come!

written by Janna Matthies
illustrated by Christine Davenier

Beach Lane Books (Simon & Schuster), 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 26, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Okay, I just recently got news that I landed my dream job of Youth Materials Selector for my library system — and this is the first picture book I’ve read since that news that makes me sad I’ll no longer be doing storytimes. (I anticipate lots of picture books like that in the future.) However, the good news is that I have one last storytime next week, and this book is going to be featured. *Update* – the day I’m posting this is the same day I did my last storytime ever – and used this book.

Here We Come! has the kind of rhythm and rhymes that beg to be read aloud. The illustrations portray a joyful fantasy parade at night.

It starts with a boy heading out the door on a moonlit night playing a musical pipe with his teddy bear marching behind him.

The only line on that first spread is:

Here we come with a rum-pum-pum

When we turn the page, we see a dog peeking out of its doghouse with the teddy bear beckoning. The caption is:

Wanna come?

From there, we’ve got a parade and a cumulative rhyme going. Next is “a pick and a strum.” Then “Little Lu on her thumb with a swish-swish bum.” And so on. After each new line is added, we see another creature ready to join and the question, “Wanna come?”

The action is reminiscent of the classic We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, because we do have something that prompts the group to run back home — in this case, it’s rain and thunder. But instead of going right to bed, there’s a nice meditative bit at the end that continues to rhyme and finishes up with “Here we come!”

This book is almost impossible to read silently as the rollicking rhymes bring out the joyful exuberance of the illustrations. Although I’m going to use it in Baby Storytime, I think the ideal audience would be toddlers, who would surely start marching around the room. Check it out and read it with a child.

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Review of Invisible Acts of Power, by Caroline Myss

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 0

Invisible Acts of Power

Channeling Grace in Your Everyday Life

by Caroline Myss

Atria (Simon and Schuster), 2004. 269 pages.
Review written April 26, 2022, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

I read this book slowly, trying to absorb a small section each day. This is a book that works well for that.

The “Acts of Power” in this book are about personal power and grace to bless others. The author solicited stories from contributors, asking them to tell about times that other people had blessed them.

Here’s how she talks about those stories. You can hear how they touched her life — and they will touch her readers’ lives as well.

In the course of writing this book, I solicited stories from readers and subscribers to my Web site about their experiences with grace and life-changing acts of service. I was honored and overwhelmed to receive twelve hundred letters within six days of making my request. I discovered that it is one thing to talk abstractly about human goodness and our potential to be kind, but it’s quite another to come into direct contact wwith hundreds of real stories of real people exercising their power to heal, to help each other, to make a difference. I felt saturated in the caring and warmth of being human that these stories convey. They are solid evidence that the great power of compassion, honor, and grace still exists, even in the middle of national and world crises. They also prove that we are not alone in this world and that even in the direst times, our prayers are heard and answered.

The stories are divided up by seven chakras — essentially how deeply the recipient was touched, going from purely physical help to deeply spiritual help. She explains how this arose naturally from the letters:

As I considered how grace, intuition, and power worked together in the stories of the people who wrote me, I noticed that most of the writers quite unconsciously categorized their letters for me by using the same or similar turns of phrases. For example, people who received assistance out of nowhere from a stranger referred to either the person or his or her story as “The Good Samaritan.” After I organized all the letters, seven categories emerged….

When seven categories emerged out of one thousand two hundred letters, I wanted to see if they might correspond with the meaning of the chakras. At first I did this out of curiosity, not really expecting that I’d find a new perspective on the architecture of the human energy system. Yet when I finished this little exercise, I discovered that just as there is a hierarchy of power, there is also a hierarchy of grace. And I realized that the call to be of service to one another, the intuition that prompts us to use our power to help others, is wired into our physical and spiritual nature.

Reading this book gave me a much deeper awareness of how my life can touch others and made me want to be more aware of intuitive promptings to be a help to other people. A very uplifting book. Reading this book was itself a blessing.

myss.com

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Review of The Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Ogress and the Orphans

by Kelly Barnhill

Algonquin Young Readers, 2022. 392 pages.
Review written May 3, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This book is by the Newbery-winning author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon. I think I actually liked The Ogress and the Orphans even better.

This is an old-fashioned fantasy tale, with just a touch of magic here and there and fantasy characters like an ogress and a dragon. We learn about the village of Stone-in-the-Glen, which used to be a lovely place. But since the library burned down, things haven’t been the same. After that the school burned down, and a sinkhole opened up at the park, and people started to keep to themselves. An ogress lives on the edge of town, an ogress who likes to make delicious treats for the townsfolk to leave on their doorsteps at night. There’s also an Orphan House in the village, where fifteen orphans live. The town used to provide money for the Orphan House, but it’s been a while since anything has come in. Another important person in the story is the mayor.

The town of Stone-in-the-Glen had a mayor, and everyone loved him very much. How could they not? He cut a fine figure and had a blinding shock of blond hair and a smile so bright they had to shade their eyes. He glittered when he spoke. He was well mannered and seemed so sensible. When people went to him with their problems, well, they came away feeling so fine that they completely forgot what had vexed them in the first place. And isn’t that, really, what a mayor is for?

The fifteen orphans are delightful characters. Their names are alphabetical, with the oldest being Anthea, then Bartleby, then Cass, so you can keep them straight. The Orphan House is run by Matron and her husband Myron, and the children all help look after one another. Some of the books from the old library got transferred to the Reading Room of the Orphan House, and some of the orphans have learned surprising things, such as how to speak Crow.

There’s a lot of setting the stage, but tension builds when the people in town decide the ogress must be at fault for a recent problem. It’s up to the orphans to save the day and set things to rights while they’re at it.

When I finished this book, I had a big smile on my face. My only complaint was that it took a very long time to actually finish it. It seems long for a simple story suitable for young readers.

However, I think this book would be truly perfect for a read-aloud. It would be wonderful for classroom after-lunch reading sessions or nightly bedtime stories. And it would work for a wide range of ages. In that case, the length would be a feature — all the more reading sessions! The chapters are short, so you could decide how many to cover each night with lots of flexibility. The voice of the narrator is a storyteller’s voice, and I find myself wishing I had a child to read it to myself.

kellybarnhill.com
AlgonquinYoungReaders.com

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Review of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, by Holly Jackson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

by Holly Jackson
read by Bailey Carr, Marisa Calin, and a full cast

Listening Library, 2020. 10 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written April 29, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Big thanks to my coworker Lisa for telling me about this series!

High school senior Pippa decides to use her Capstone Project to investigate a local murder. Everyone in town knows that when pretty and popular Andie Bell disappeared five years ago, it was her boyfriend Sal Singh who killed her. After all, he texted a confession and killed himself shortly after, his body found with her phone.

But Pip remembers Sal. He was a kind person. Could he really have done that? Doesn’t it deserve a little more investigation?

The first person she interviews is Sal’s younger brother, Ravi. He has believed Sal is innocent all this time, but no one in town will talk to him. His whole family is despised because of Andie Bell’s murder. Now Pip is trying to clear his brother’s name, and Ravi has some information that might help.

Pip finds out pretty quickly that Andie wasn’t as sweet and innocent as the stories implied after her death. And as she digs, she starts getting threats that she needs to stop. How persistent will she be? And at what cost?

With a full cast presenting the story, this audiobook is perfect for fans of murder mysteries. How much sleuthing can a high school student do? I found myself believing that Pip’s perspective as a kid at the same high school gave her insight that the police had overlooked.

Now that the mystery is solved, I’m wondering what’s left to find out in the next two volumes of the trilogy, but I’m definitely going to find out.

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Review Pura’s Cuentos, Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Magaly Morales

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Pura’s Cuentos

How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories

by Annette Bay Pimentel
illustrated by Magaly Morales

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021. 36 pages.
Review written April 16, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a lovely and lively picture book biography about the librarian who helped start a trend of bilingual storytimes, and whom the award for children’s books by Latinx creators is named after.

The book begins with Pura’s childhood in Puerto Rico and how much she loved her abuela’s stories. Then she came to New York and became a librarian, but she didn’t find the stories from her childhood on the library shelves. All the same, she enjoyed telling stories.

Oh, Pura can tell a story! She hisses . . . murmurs . . . roars. Children lean forward. They giggle . . . shiver . . . sigh.

She is allowed to tell only stories that have been printed in a book. That’s the rule. So she always tells stranger’s stories.

But Pura knows that not all the stories worth telling are in books. She wants to make children giggle at silly Señor Gallo and cry over Pérez the mouse. She wants to tell Abuela’s stories!

Pura decides: She will break the rule.

The book tells how Pura got permission to shake things up by demonstrating her storytelling skills. And after that step, she began telling stories in Spanish as well as English, to bring in more of the neighborhood children.

As the years went by, she got children more and more involved, even making puppets to tell the stories. Eventually, she collected stories from her childhood in published books.

The Author’s Note at the back gives more information about Pura Belpré’s illustrious career. For me, it’s nice to know about the person honored forever after by the award. For kids, this is an enchanting picture book biography about how everyone’s stories are important.

annettebaypimentel.com
abramsyoungreaders.com

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