Picture Books
Together We Swim
Valerie Bolling and Kaylani Juanita
RFLBG
This falls into that picture book category of too rhymey and the other picture book category of illustrations that don’t work for me. The lips were weird.
Say My Name
Joanna Ho and Khoa Le
RFLBG
Children from different parts of the world introduce themselves. This was a great author/illustrator pairing.
Wombat
Philip Bunting
RFLBG
Counting wombats. It’s annoying when two wombats are pictured in love/starting a family and one has to have a flower behind an ear and pink cheeks. As these are usually things that indicate something is female, does that mean we’ve only been male wombats throughout?
Gotta Go!
Frank Viva
RFLBG
Owen’s gotta go, and that leads to his grandfather showing him his pee dance. This leads to the two of them riffing on their pee dances.
I enjoyed the punny quote on the back cover.
You are a Story
Bob Raczka, Kristen Howdeshell, and Kevin Howdeshell
RFLBG
You are a lot of things. Among them a river and an astronaut.
Middle Grade
Julia and the Shark
Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
RFLBG
Gorgeous prose and beautifully illustrated. The friendships, bullying, and Julia’s relationship with her parents felt very surface. I would have liked a deeper dive. (Ha!)
Remember Us
Jacqueline Woodson
RFLBG
Woodson’s stock in trade: slim volume, gorgeous prose, and memorable story. This one is set in a Brooklyn neighborhood where everyone sleeps with a robe and slippers at the end of their bed so they can move quickly if their home catches on fire. Because too many homes are catching on fire.
The Probability of Everything
Sarah Everett
RFLBG
Initially, this felt like someone watched the movie Don’t Look Up and decided to think about it from a middle school perspective. But then there was a turn that I found wholly unsatisfying.
Opinions and Opossums
Ann Braden
RFLBG
A short book that discusses religion and how it interacts with middle school students. Plus some good friend and parent navigation stuff.
No one should ever have to wear nylons!
Elf Dog and Owl Head
M.T. Anderson and Junyi Wu
RFLBG
While it’s not as wacky as The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, it still builds a magical world that is also grounded in family relations and pandemic isolation. Middle grade and fantasy aren’t my favorite thing, so I initially was only going to read the first 50 pages. But then I got roped in.
Gone Wolf
Amber McBride
RFLBG
I used to beta read, and it was always interesting to see how a story wasn’t working. (There were occasions where stories were working, but they were rare.) It’s less interesting to see things not working in a published novel.
This begins with a weird and overwrought story, and then shifts into a different story with really terrible characterization (how realistic is it that a counselor would verbalize their internal dialogue?), magical saviors (Would the Big Sister do absolutely nothing wrong and push boundaries in the most perfect way?), and an unrealistic number of people walking around Charlotte on a weekday.
Young Adult
Hunger Games: the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Suzanne Collins
Did I need a prequal focused on Coriolanus Snow? I did not. Did I read this book because there was a movie about to be released? I did. Aside from not wanting to hang out in a bad dude’s head, Snow had no arc. In this very long book, we find him the same at the end as we did at the beginning: calculating and manipulating to get what he wants, which is to redeem and advance his family.
I also didn’t need to know the origin of the hanging tree song, and I really didn’t need Lucy Gray to fall in love with her captor. Overall, it was dissatisfying.
Two very slight wins for this book: it was interesting to see the Hunger Games in year 10. The whole thing was a pretty janky outfit. There’s also a massive changeup that happens that I did not see coming. This is possibly because I was reading an ebook and couldn’t measure with my index finger while reading how much of the story was left.
The Eternal Return of Clara Hart
Louise French
RFLBG
It’s the movie Groundhog Day but with the needed realization being that toxic masculinity is, well, toxic. It takes Spence a very long time to get there.
Young Nonfiction
America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History
Ariel Aberg-Riger
RFLBG
Really great: the visuals and the bite-sized pieces of history. Also discussions of Navajos, cars, and housing. This was probably the best intro text I’ve ever read as to why the current houseless problem is so persistent and widespread, not to mention pointing out how for most people “housing” means just one thing: the single family detached house.
Not so great: I really needed captions for pictures when the accompanying art included clear pictures. I also felt like there was an abrupt changeover from chronological events to issues.
More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long
RFLBG
An interesting read. It turns out the March on Washington has a bunch of details other than Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I learned a lot about Bayard Rustin and his incredible planning. I appreciated other details, especially those that discussed women’s roles and recognition.
Also: You used to be able to charter a train!
Dear Yesteryear
Kimberly Annece Henderson and Ciara LeRoy
RFLBG
Minimal text draws readers into this series of photos of Black Americans throughout history. Each page encourages readers to linger.
My Head Has a Bellyache: And More Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups
Chris Harris and Andrea Tsurumi
RFLBG
This book of poems transported me back to my childhood reading and rereading Shel Silverstein. The poems were wacky and delightful and there were a few poignant ones too. Highly recommended.
Grownup Nonfiction
Brat Pack America
Kevin Smokler
Smokler groups classic films from the 1980s into subjects and then weaves insightful essays about their common threads, the landscapes they inherit, and the social forces that shaped them. I found the section about the convergence of Los Angeles and the Olympics and how that put the City of Angels on a path to the LA riots especially enlightening.
In the category of judging a book by its cover, this went above and beyond packaging the book to look like a VHS tape.
A great Little Free Library find and recommended for anyone looking to expand or review 80s films