Category: Books

*Book Group Selection | Bolded means favorite

Picture Books

*The Teeny-Weeny Unicorn by Shawn Harris

Middle Grade

*Alterations by Ray Xu
*Mascot by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell

*Not Quite a Ghost by Anne Ursu

Just the right amount of middle-grade creepy. (Which is my top threshold for creepy.) I was feeling “The Yellow Wallpaper.” Were you?

Young Adult

*Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline
*Conditions of a Heart by Bethany Mangle
*Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros
*Louder Than Hunger by John Schu
Ellie Haycock Is Totally Normal by Gretchen Schreiber
*There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia

Young Nonfiction

*Climbing the Volcano: A Journey in Haiku by Curtis Manley and Jennifer K. Mann

*The Observologist: A Handbook for Mounting Very Small Scientific Expeditions by Giselle Clarkson

This is my kind of tiny-detail science book.

Grownup Fiction

Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty
The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker
Business or Pleasure by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Grownup Nonfiction

Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World’s Most Notorious Diaries by Rick Emerson

Probably not compelling at all if you aren’t familiar with Go Ask Alice. Incredibly gripping if you are familiar.

*Book Group Selection | Bolded means favorite

Picture Books

*Jimmy’s Rhythm & Blues: The Extraordinary Life of James Baldwin by Michelle Meadows and Jamiel Law
*My Block Looks Like by Janelle Harper and Frank Morrison

Middle Grade

*We Still Belong by Christine Day
*Not So Shy by Noa Nimrodi
*Eagle Drums by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson
*The Fire, the Water, and Maudie McGinn by Sally J. Pla
*The House of the Lost on the Cape by Sachiko Kashiwaba, Avery Fischer Udagawa
(Translation), Yukiko Saito (Illustrations)
*Between Two Brothers by Crystal Allen

*The Dubious Pranks of Shaindy Goodman by Mari Lowe

Really gets into those lonely middle school feelings. Cover art gripe: the girls are wearing roller skates, not rollerblades.

*The Jake Show by Joshua S. Levy

I really felt for Jake; it’s tough to be saddled with parents whose vision of their child doesn’t take into account the child’s vision. I needed to suspend my disbelief for a major plot point, but a great read overall.

Young Adult

Shut Up, This Is Serious by Carolina Ixta
*Pardalita by Joana Estrela; Lyn Miller-Lachmann (Translator)
*In Limbo by Deb J.J. Lee
*Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez

*Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler

Two different romances in one novel? Yes, please!

*Only This Beautiful Moment by Abdi Nazemian

Stories of three young men (sneaky historical fiction: two are from prior decades.) Period details were solid, including the contemporary ones. Also good: the journeys of the characters.

Young Nonfiction

*She Persisted: Wilma Mankiller by Traci Sorell
*Log Life by Amy Hevron
*Everywhere Beauty Is Harlem: The Vision of Photographer Roy DeCarava by Gary Golio and E.B. Lewis

*Book group selection.
Favorites are bolded.

Picture Books

*Benita and the Night Creatures by Mariana Llanos
*Rock Your Mocs by Laurel Goodluck and Madelyn Goodnight
*Forever Cousins by Laurel Goodluck and Jonathan Nelson
*Hanukkah Upside Down by Elissa Brent Weissman and Omer Hoffmann
*Fox Has a Problem by Corey R. Tabor
*Henry, Like Always by Jenn Bailey and Mika Song
*Later, When I’m Big by Bette Westera and Laura Watkinson (Translator)
*Not He or She, I’m Me by A. M. Wild and Kah Yangni
*Dancing Hands: A Story of Friendship in Filipino Sign Language by Joanna Que, Charina Marquez, Fran Alvarez (Illustrator), and Karen Llagas (Translator)

*A Letter for Bob by Kim Rogers and Jonathan Nelson

Oh man, I can remember every single time the old family car was traded in for the new family car.

*How Do You Spell Unfair?: MacNolia Cox and the National Spelling Bee by Carole Boston Weatherford and Frank Morrison

Rage-inducing re: spelling bee, and I felt such a sense of loss reading that Cox spent her working life as a domestic employee. Such a waste.

Middle Grade

*Something Like Home by Andrea Beatriz Arango
*Kin: Rooted in Hope by Carole Boston Weatherford and Jeffery Boston Weatherford
*Ruby Lost and Found by Christina Li
*Cross My Heart and Never Lie by Nora Dåsnes and translated by Matt Bagguley
*A Sky Full of Song by Susan Lynn Meyer

Young Adult

*The Collectors edited by A.S. King
*Salt the Water by Candice Iloh
*Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Åstot and Eva Apelqvist (Translation)
*Forever Is Now by Mariama J. Lockington
*I’d Rather Burn Than Bloom by Shannon C.F. Rogers

*Stars in Their Eyes: A Graphic Novel by Jessica Walton and Aśka

I found the hip mother and her relationship with her child incredibly grating. No teenager is that much of a comedy team with their mom. And about sixty percent of the story was incredibly artificial conversations written to fill in backstory for the reader. Also annoying: not using the names of the copious pop culture references. We know what is being discussed when a character references Bader and the Duke. So just use Vader and Luke.

The graphic part of the graphic novel did a great job conveying what it’s like to navigate a con with a prosthetic leg.

*The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption by Shannon Gibney

It’s early, but I’m betting this is the youth media award winner that is the most literary fiction-ish.

*Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings

Centers the story around the neurodivergent kids.

*The Long Run by James Acker

I’m a sucker for teenagers exploring outside their boxes, so this book warmed the cockles of my heart.

Children’s Nonfiction

*Jovita Wore Pants by Aida Salazar and Molly Mendoza
*Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series by Traci Sorell and Arigon Starr

*Holding Her Own: The Exceptional Life of Jackie Ormes by Traci N. Todd and Shannon Wright

Without picture book biographies, how many fewer interesting people would I not know about?

*Read for Librarian Book Group. Favorites are bolded.

Picture Books

*A Walk in the Woods by Nikki Grimes, Jerry Pinkney, Brian Pinkney
*Autumn Peltier, Water Warrior by Carole Lindstrom and Bridget George
*The Truth About Dragons by Julie Leung and Hanna Cha
*The Artivist by Nikkolas Smith
*Afikomen by Tziporah Cohen and Yaara Eshet

Chapter Books

*The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo and Julie Morstad

Young Adult Fiction

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

One of my reading quirks is that I find song lyrics rendered in novels incredibly cringey. I usually skip them, though I couldn’t do that for this story because there is a lot of singing that advances the plot.

Unnecessary Drama by Nina Kenwood

Sometimes an overly anxious main character makes for an overly anxious reading experience. Kenwood is great at constructing awkward and funny scenes that kept me chortling.

Children of Ragnarok by Cinda Williams Chima

This book has been the best part of my January. I could have used an ending that was an ending (even if another book is coming) but otherwise this was an adventure of the best sort. The world building was just right, and I loved Reigann’s practicality throughout.

This Town is On Fire by Pamela Harris

Harris captured that point in friendship where the friendship has died, but the residual feelings are still swirling around.

And now, because I’m me, the following things didn’t work for me. I didn’t understand the band/dance team setup. Is the band not a marching band? Wouldn’t they do a halftime marching band show at the football game? Also, it seems weird to start the halftime dance routine in the stands because the home team audience can’t see what’s going on in the stands next to them very well. Then the dancers and the band transition to the field to finish the routine. But again, this isn’t marching band?

Also, perhaps in rural Virginia bowling is still popular, but anywhere else, the bowling alley owners seem to do their best to stay in business, rather than roll in the dough.

This Winter by Alice Oseman

I’ll Tell You No Lies by Amanda McCrena

*Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest

Grownup Fiction

One Day I Shall Astonish the World by Nina Stibbe

A furious torrent of words. I understood why her stepdaughter covered her ears upon first meeting. Like enjoying tea with a very chatty and long winded companion.

Prophet by Sin Blaché and Helen Macdonald
Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

Duplicate Keys by Jane Smiley

It’s a book about the girlfriend and friend of a band that had a record deal once upon a time, and it is entirely uninterested in the music of the band or anything to do with the recording industry. The kind of detailed writing about the minutia of life that I love. Plus a double homicide.

A great Little Free Library find!

Young Nonfiction

*How Old is a Whale?: Animal Life Spans from the Mayfly to the Immortal Jellyfish by Lily Murray and Jesse Hodgson
*Good Books for Bad Children: The Genius of Ursula Nordstrom by Beth Kephart and Chloe Bristol
*Hidden Hope: How a Toy and a Hero Saved Lives During the Holocaust by Elisa Boxer and Amy June Bates

Grownup Nonfiction

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

January 22, 2024:
“Typical First Year Professor” is still a great essay. Gay spent a lot of time laminating the state of women’s access to birth control and abortion. Things are much worse now.

The Imagineering Field Guide to Disneyland by Alex Wright and the Imagineers

Picture Books

Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle
Joseph Coelho and many illustrators
RFLBG

I like the 10-word tiny tales themselves, but I thought many of the illustrations pushed the tale in darker directions than I was thinking. Includes instructions for writing and illustrating your own tiny tales, so perhaps I need to re-illustrate some of the tales.

Ah! I see the subtitle now. The unsettling was planned.

Young Adult

Gather
Kenneth M Cadow
RFLBG

Like a snowball tumbling down a slope, this book accumulated more of my interest and compassion as it went on.

Reign
Katharine McGee

For most of the book, I wasn’t sure if this was the final chapter of the American Royals series or not. It was. McGee sewed up everything nicely, provided some surprises, and managed to find the perfect conclusion for the sometimes hard-to-like Daphne.

Everyone Wants to Know
Kelly Loy Gilbert

I really got sucked into Honors’s story. As the youngest in family of seven former reality TV stars, things aren’t easy. File this under tough lives of a privileged kid who never asked to be famous.

Every Time you Go Away
Abagail Johnson

Yeesh, these two. Both are tremendously scarred and unable to communicate. But with an intertwined childhood that had me rooting for them.

Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust
Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez
Read for Librarian Book Group

As Shusterman says, the Holocaust needs to be examined from all angles. This angle imagines the Holocaust through folk tales and then connects the stories to real-life situations.

Grownup Fiction

Mad Honey
Pichoult and Boylan

An eminently readable mystery with good New England vibes. I thought it was a good portrayal of how domestic violence reverberates through the years, even after the abuse has ended.

Grownup Nonfiction

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Priya Parker

Chapter by chapter, Parker walks us through evaluating why one would plan a gathering, planning the gathering, important things during the gathering, and how to end a gathering. This is a handy book for those of us who are trying to remember how the heck we used to gather.

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