This story follow Fi and Shane, two strong young adult female characters, on their trip to break a curse that was placed on Briar Rose, a sleeping prince, place one hundred years before. This story has very good world building, characters, and engaging plot.
Category Archives: Reviewer’s Library Type
Dark and Shallow Lies
The main character, Grey, moves back down to Louisiana to solve the mystery of her missing best friend, Elora. Even in a town full of psychics, no one seems to have the answer, and everyone is holding on to secrets.
How Moon Fuentes Fell in Love with the Universe
Moon and Star Fuentes are twin sisters who are loving opposites of each other. Star literally is a social media star, an influencer among the Christian circles who gets freebies and travels the country promoting herself using products. Moon is her photographer, framing Star for the perfect pics while staying in the shadows. When Star gets an offer travel to multiple locations with multiple influencers over the course of the summer, Moon’s summer plan get derailed as her mother insists she follow Star. Over the course of the two months, Moon will meet people who not only make her feel like the center of attention, but allow her to question her role in her family and what her future could hold. Moon begins as a teen who does not like her body, just accepts her fate as flawed, but she will emerge a confident mariposa, out of her cocoon and ready to fly away from her home life that is not nearly as supportive as it should be. Interlaced with magical realism and traditional hispanic lore, Rachel Vasquez Gilliland’s story is lovely and highly recommended for school libraries.
The Life I’m In
This is not Black joy. This is Black frustration, Black grit, Black abuse, and Black redemption. Char, the bully from Draper’s The Skin I’m In, is being sent to her grandparents after both parents had been murdered and her older sister found it difficult to provide any sense of normalcy. Char boards the Greyhound to Alabama but only makes it about 1/2 the way before disembarking with a baby in tow. Trying to be the adulting mother she so desperately needs herself, Char gets groomed into human trafficking.
This story is raw. This story made me mad. Why did Sharon Flake even need to tell Char’s next chapter after her award-winning book from two decades ago? The question of why Char was such a bully to Maleeka is not answered per se but readers see the weakness of Char and she is allowed to be redeemed in Maleeka’s eyes. Maleeka and Char are both stronger characters by the close of this text. Char does survive, but not without scaring readers along the way.
Sharon Flake wrote this book to get under the skin that you’re in – no matter what color. And it will.
The Vanishing Stair
Book 2 of the Truly Devious series, The Vanishing Stair continues the story of Stevie, a person who is taken out of her private boarding school for her own good by her parents as she got sucked into trying to solve a mystery that put her in danger in the process. Stevie also happened to fall for David in book 1. Early in book 2, Stevie is manipulated by said boy’s dad, Edward King, who will get her back into the school if she keeps an eye on his son. Boy plus mystery still unsolved = Stevie’s perfect day. In a parallel plot, readers navigate their way back to old school Elligham, where 3 other characters slowly build the mystery of this academy. I agree with many reviewers that this old-school setting and characters could have been its own book. Who doesn’t love a good murder mystery with cliffhangers? This reviewer didn’t. I didn’t feel compelled to follow characters into the tunnels, I didn’t like how dumb Stevie acted around David and I knew there would be a book 3 so I felt like I was wading through quicksand of switchbacks between the then and now time periods. I was disappointed that this book didn’t click for me but as a freebie for my library, I can’t complain too loudly.
Wutaryoo
It tells of a small unspecified animal who was the only one of her kind, who didn’t know what she was called or where she came from, so when other animals in her community ask, “wutaryoo,” she simply repeats it back at them, and listen as all her animal friends tell their origin stories. Eventually, tired of not having her own story to tell, she sets off to search for it. Along the way, she meets several creatures she’s never seen before, but eventually finds herself back where she started. At first sad and disappointed, she now finds herself facing new questions: Are you all right? Where did you go? What did you see? What did you hear? And this time she has her own story to tell, not about where she came from, but about where she went and what she did.
About a Song
It’s a celebration of the ways music can uplift our lives. The text is simple, about a father and son’s day out, and the son sharing all his dad has shared with him about all the different things a song can do for us. The slightly vintage-looking illustrations do a good job of enhancing the text: when the text says that a song can remind us of the past, we see an older couple gathered at a piano, surrounded by memories upon their walls; when it says a song can reveal our feelings, we see a sad young boy laying on his bed and listening to his earphones while surrounded by fliers for his missing dog… In the back of the book, the author/illustrator offers commentary on some of the illustrations that offer context to young readers who might not notice some of the historical and musical references they include.
The Brave Little Gorilla
It’s got a really good message about not making judgments without all the facts. It tells about a little gorilla who’s been sent by his grandfather to pick up some eggs that crane offered to leave for them. But unfortunately a mischievous monkey decides to follow along and watch him from afar, and all along the journey that monkey misinterprets what he sees. Worse yet, the monkey shares his accusations with other jungle dwellers who accept them at face value. By the time the little gorilla is about to arrive home with his precious cargo, the others are ready punish him for a list of crimes he didn’t commit. Luckily he is rescued when a giant hippo emerges from the river with his little bird who corrects the accusatory monkeys by announcing he’d been up close and personal to all the gorilla’s transactions, and scolds them for making accusations based on things they have not seen with their own eyes and heard with their own ears. Though I like the message, I thought both the telling of it and the illustrations were a bit flat.
The Message
I highly recommend this book. I learned stuff I didn’t know. It takes something we’re all so very familiar with and yet most of us really don’t understand, sending a text to the other side of the planet, and explains it. And when I say it explains how it happens, I mean it starts with the microscopic hairs inside your ears that detect a disturbance in the air that your brain interprets as a ringtone that causes you to look at the incoming text you’re about to reply to. It almost draws parallels between the human parts that talk to each other to send messages from eyes to brain to fingers along your nervous system and the hardware parts on the global communications infrastructure to send the message along wires and fiberoptic cables. The whole thing is so complex and yet all happens in a matter of seconds a bazillion times a day, and we all take it for granted without really thinking about it. This book makes you think about it. Even as it explains things really quite clearly (despite great big vocabulary words), it makes the mind boggle at the same time. The illustrations really do a great job of communicating the process and supporting all those great big vocabulary words (like radiating electromagnetic photons). It’s a marvel!
The House of Love
As someone who grew up in a large family I totally appreciate this story about a young girl spending Valentine’s Day at home alone with her mom, while her six siblings are out for the day with their dad. Together they get the household chores done before breaking out the Valentine’s Day decorations setting their creativity loose to make the day special for the rest of their family. The main character’s name is Mia Valentina (i.e. my valentine), so she revels in her favorite day while making valentines and baking cupcakes, but then the day is tarnished when she notices that no one made a valentine for her, until at bedtime she finds the one her mom made for her tucked under her pillow. Throughout the story the old house is almost another character, with cracked windows and peeling wallpaper making it clear that the family maybe didn’t have a lot that was shiny and new, but overflowing with love that finds joy in simple delights. The story is warm and cozy and sentimental, and the illustrations capture and add to that tone beautifully.