the-merry-librarian

[the-merry-librarian]

A cute and colorful picture book, featuring a family preparing for a visit and a cat who does not want to be bathed. As the afternoon wears on, and the family tries to follow the list of chores laid out in magnetic letters, the cat finds himself in more and more chaotic situations as he rearranges words and letters to avoid the terrible B-A-T-H.

Genre: Fiction, Picture Book (Texas 2x2 List 2023)

Target Age Group:

Ages 3-6

Justification:

Alright, I’ll admit it; I’m a sucker for rainbows. My attention was drawn immediately by the bright colors and fun, round art, and when I realized that the family in the book is depicted as two dads—not something I see a lot in children’s books!—I decided I had to pick it up. This is another one of those books I saw circulating a lot at the beginning of the fall as parents tried to pick up everything on the 2x2 list, and I was excited to actually take it home for myself. (It took two tries; my hold ran out too quickly the first time and, of course, had to go somewhere else right away.)

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, tone, and language. David Roberts’ illustrations are colorful, bright and appealing. The verso page indicates that Roberts used pencil and watercolor to create these images, and while I’m sure some digital manipulation was used to perfect them, the precision and detail Roberts achieves with those two tools is astonishing. There’s a level of care to the illustrations that genuinely touches my heart; the family’s fridge has three pride flag magnets (the Inclusive Pride flag, the trans flag, and the agender flag), the narrator’s watch accurately shows the time as it advances through the story, and the detail in textures like Dad’s pants and Sarah’s hair is incredibly impressive. These illustrations are fun to look at for children and adults. The tone, meanwhile, is fun and playful. McGinty’s purpose is to entertain, not to overtly educate—the entire book is a game! The narrator’s frustration comes through in the illustrations, and while the text uses capital letters to express that feeling, it’s still more funny than anything else. I think, though, that the most educational or developmental value in this book is probably found in its language. The plot of the story revolves around words moving around, and the funny results of such a mix-up; it’s a great way to help kids learn words, especially verbs, since they can see what those verbs mean (and how silly it is to apply them to the wrong things). On the whole, the language of the book is simple and accessible, without being condescending or overly simplified. I loved this book. I loved this book. I absolutely added this to my list of books to get my children one day, and I’d recommend it to parents who are reading one-on-one to their children; it might not be a good public storytime book, though, just because it’s a little too long and complex for a group of toddlers to follow.

References:

Bathe the cat. Chronicle Books. (n.d.). https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/bathe-the-cat McGinty, A. B. (2021). Bathe the cat (D. Roberts, Illus.). Chronicle Books.

#bathe the cat #a: alice mcginty #i: david roberts #tag: children #g: picture book #g: fiction #tx 2x2 #tx 2x2 2023

[the-merry-librarian]

Described as an “anti-historical Regency-era romp” by the publishers, Queen Bee is a fun, romantic YA novel following Lady Ela Dalvi as she makes her debut in London high society—disguised as untitled heiress Lyra Whitley, as part of her plot to take revenge. Three years ago, her best friend betrayed her and left her life in ruins, and all over a boy. Ela’s plan is simple: infiltrate the ton, disgrace her former best friend, and break the heart of the boy who broke hers. It’s not long before her past—and the feelings she thought she left behind—start making that plan more difficult, and less desirable, than she counted on.

Genre: Fiction, Romance

Target Age Group:

Ages 12-17

Justification:

I found this novel while browsing the BookRiot Best Books for Teens 2023 list, and was immediately intrigued. My big secret—or maybe not that big—is that I love Regency-era historical fiction, especially nontraditional historical fiction; Queen Bee immediately appealed to me because of that, and since I needed a romance novel to fill out my YA section, I decided it would be the perfect fit.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating point of view, characters, and accuracy. The point of view here is interesting; chapters flip back and forth between present and past, indicating present-day chapters as “Lyra’s” point of view and past chapters as “Ela” to reflect the main character’s presented identity. The narrator often thinks of herself as having “killed” Ela to become someone new, and it’s interesting to be able to contrast the new, harder Lyra against the more naïve Ela before her downfall—although in truth they’re not very much different at all. The characters in the novel are unique, interesting and charming; while they appear at first to be a bit tropey, “Lyra” briefly makes light of this by assigning the boys nicknames based on their apparent roles, such as “The Rake” or “The Jester.” All of them are young adults in their late teens—Ela is eighteen in the present day, fifteen in the past—and while they lack a more layered, often politically-motivated depth that I find in adult Regency novels, they are nonetheless appealing and have individual personalities. They do, however, speak with a more modern syntax that is a little jarring. That leads nicely into discussing the accuracy of the novel; Queen Bee markets itself as anti-historical, and Amalie Howard states in her Author’s Note at the back of the book that this is “mostly because it features an entirely diverse cast” (p. 345). She goes on to explain that, while people of color and LGBTQ+ people were present in the Regency era, they were rarely written about; Howard discusses a few women of color who were part of Regency history, such as Princess Catherine Duleep, Sarah Forbes Bonetta, and Princess Sophia Duleep Singh. Aside from the diversity of the cast, however, the novel makes a great effort to be accurate, featuring real-life characters such as Lady Sefton & Lady Jersey and historically accurate settings like Vauxhall Gardens. Howard lists many of this research in her Author’s Note, and it’s impressive to read through it and realize how much effort she put in. While I definitely think I prefer Regency romances geared towards adults (and with more of a queer flavor), I enjoyed Queen Bee a lot. I’d recommend it for teens and perhaps for adults who are just getting into the genre.

References:

Doherty, A. (2023, October 5). The 20 best books for teens: 2023 picks. BOOK RIOT. https://bookriot.com/best-books-for-teens-2023/ Howard, A. (2023). Queen Bee. Random House Childrens Books. Random House Children’s Books. (2023, April 4). Queen Bee: Hardcover. Barnes & Noble. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/queen-bee-amalie-howard/1141727044 RH Childrens Books. (n.d.). Queen Bee by Amalie Howard. PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/696842/queen-bee-by-amalie-howard/

#queen bee #a: amalie howard #tag: young adult #g: fiction #g: romance

[the-merry-librarian]

Set in an apocalyptic, mythical future, after the death of the gods and the Collapse of the world, Threads That Bind is an intriguing, layered mystery. Io Ora is moira-born, a descendant of the three Greek goddesses of fate, and as the youngest of three, she is representative of Lachesis—or, more colloquially known, a cutter: a severer of the threads between people. Stumbling across the scene of a violent and unexplainable murder, Io is drawn into the teeming underworld of half-sunken Alante, and into a conspiracy that changes everything she knows about her life and her family.

Genre: Fiction, Fantasy

Target Age Group:

Grades 9-12

Justification:

I love Greek mythology. This is probably something that people can intuit about me very quickly, just sort of based on the kind of person that I am. I grew up with D’Aulaires Book of Greek Myths and devoured the Percy Jackson series as a middle schooler, so when I read the synopsis of Threads, I was captured immediately by the premise—descendants of the gods with peculiar, miraculous powers. As for how I found it, I was browsing the BookRiot list of Best Books for Teens 2023. (Pretty prosaic.)

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating characters, plot, and setting. I’ll admit, it took a while for me to warm to the characters in this book. In the beginning, Io feels a little generic; she’s the typical troubled YA protagonist, with powers that ostracize her from others, and her personality felt muted and a little too understated. However, as the novel went on, more facets of her personality were revealed—her humor, her compassion, her strong senses of loyalty and justice. Other characters are at first presented a little one-dimensionally and could be summed up with brief titles: The Love Interest. The Mob Boss. The Older Sister. By the end of the novel, though, all of these characters have a little more depth to them. Edei, the love interest, is a lovable but quiet boy, with his own demons to face; Bianca, the mob boss, is more than a swaggering threat; Ava and Thais, the older sisters, offer their own unique brands of familial love and betrayal. While each of the cast has room to grow, I think that Threads reaches farther than many YA novels in their characterization, and allows further development in the sequels (one of which is already published; I anticipate a trilogy). The plot is also more ambitious and far-reaching than many YA novels I’ve read. It’s a mystery that begins with a murder, but it’s far more than that—Io finds herself hip-deep in a conspiracy from over a decade before, the consequences of which are still rippling through the city. Without giving away too many spoilers, I found the plot of Threads to be genuinely engaging. Intrigue didn’t have to be manufactured, it was simply generated by every new fact and twist that we discovered through the protagonist. The only aspect I didn’t immediately enjoy was the romantic subplot, although I suspect that’s a matter of personal preference: I’ve never been a huge fan of the soulmate trope. Finally, the setting of this book absolutely blew me away. Hatzopoulou’s description of this postapocalyptic world is rich and riveting—a moon that shattered into three, continents drowned under tides, cities that flood in the onslaught of neo-typhoons, isolated city-states that jealously guard resources, swarms of chimera-like beasts that crawl from the seas, and wars over the last clean water in the form of icebergs… and that’s everything that’s talked about in any kind of detail. There are references to parts of this world that haven’t even been explored in text, such as the Flying Orchards, but Hatzopoulou does such a good job of establishing the state of the world that once the Orchards are mentioned it’s easy to guess what they might be. The existence of other-born, humans with some kind of ancestry from a god or goddess, is almost unremarkable when compared to the rest of the world; it’s just a part of this new world, one that Hatzopoulou clearly put just as much thought into as the rest of it. I really enjoyed this book. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t hooked right away—it did take me a while to get into. But, I think, if one can get past the first fifty pages or so, it’s worth finishing. I absolutely recommend it to fantasy-loving teens, readers of mystery stories, and anyone interested in new interpretations of mythology.

References:

Doherty, A. (2023, October 5). The 20 best books for teens: 2023 picks. BOOK RIOT. https://bookriot.com/best-books-for-teens-2023/ Hatzopoulou, K. (2023). Threads That Bind. Penguin Young Readers Group. Penguin Young Readers. (n.d.). Threads that bind by Kika Hatzopoulou. PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/713492/threads-that-bind-by-kika-hatzopoulou/

#threads that bind #a: kika hatzopoulou #tag: young adult #g: fiction #g: fantasy

[the-merry-librarian]

The Girl from the Sea is a romantic, mystical little coming-of-age story, centering on fifteen-year-old Morgan Kwon as she navigates being a high schooler, the child of a divorce, and—although she can’t let anyone, anyone find out—preferring girls to boys. When a mysterious girl saves Morgan from drowning after an accident on a rainy night, Morgan’s world abruptly changes, and she finds it more challenging than ever to keep all the parts of her life in their neat, separate boxes.

Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novel

Target Age Group:

Ages 12-18 (Grades 7-12)

Justification:

While I’ve never read much of Molly Knox Ostertag’s work, her name is familiar to me, both as a library worker and—to be quite frank—as a queer person on the internet. (Ostertag’s wife is ND Stevenson, creator and executive producer of Netflix’s She-Ra reboot; Stevenson has been vocal about Ostertag’s influence on the show.) I’ve noticed this book a few times, and since it has so many of the things I love (gay youth! beautiful art! Irish mythology!), I was ecstatic to find it on the 2022 Top Ten list of ALA Great Graphic Novels for Teens.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, plot, and tension/mood. Ostertag’s art is colorful and fluid, and beautifully laid out; she uses color intelligently and intuitively to invoke moods like calm, fear and anger—soothing shades, vivid cool tones and warm hues. Layout and composition is used to great effect—some of my favorite panels from this novel were scenes of Morgan and her mysterious new girlfriend enjoying themselves neighboring panels of Morgan’s friends talking to each other without any response from Morgan. In terms of plot, I found this a very charming coming-of-age story, with a mythical twist. Aside from the mythological elements, which draw from Irish selkie lore, the story at its core is a story about growing up and, I think, being scared to do so; Morgan is more than anything afraid, and is constantly hiding her secrets from her family and her friends. Though in the end she finds the courage to open up to both groups, Morgan’s fear of ostracism and of what it means to be someone different is very relatable to what I remember of my teens. This story is only emphasized by the mythology present in the novel, and in some ways, the parallel of choosing to wear or shed one’s skin applies to both Morgan and the selkies. Both the plot and Ostertag’s art work, with great affect, to provide great tension and mood; while both Morgan and her new girlfriend have secrets and plans of their own, they’re each revealed one by one throughout the story—Morgan is at one point outed to her family by her brother, and the reader learns the mysterious girl’s real reason for approaching Morgan long before Morgan ever does. The pages of Morgan’s group text juxtaposed against her actions in real life is a wonderfully effective way to show that tension: Morgan’s friends all wonder what she’s doing, doing their best to include her and speculating what could be keeping her so quiet, and have no idea that she’s so busy spending time with another girl. (Spoilers: they’re fine with the girlfriend, but not so much the hiding.) The Girl from the Sea was a delicious read—like I said before, it includes so much of the things I love that I don’t think I had a chance not to like it. I would definitely recommend it to young queer teens, but I plan to find a copy of my own to take home.

References:

2022 great graphic novels for Teens top ten. Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). (2022, February 7). https://www.ala.org/yalsa/2022-great-graphic-novels-teens-top-ten The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag. The Scholastic Parent Store. (n.d.). https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/the-girl-from-the-sea-9781338540574.html Ostertag, M. K. (2021). The Girl from the Sea (M.K. Ostertag, Illus.). Graphix.

#the girl from the sea #a: molly knox ostertag #i: molly knox ostertag #tag: young adult #g: graphic novel #g: fiction

[the-merry-librarian]

Artistic, eye-catching, and informative, The Science of Light is a very basic introduction to different sources of light, natural and artificial, featuring richly detailed paintings that use different techniques and styles to mimic different types of light.

Genre: Nonfiction, picture book

Target Age Group:

Ages 4-7

Justification:

The Science of Light has caught my attention before now; the illustration on the cover is nothing less than breathtaking, and I’ve paused to admire this book numerous times as it’s passed through my hands. When researching nonfiction books for this project, I discovered Science on the 2023 list of Orbus Pictus honors for Nonfiction and was delighted to check it out. Although this book is classified as a picture book in many library systems, including my own, I still found it a valuable nonfiction piece for very young children.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, style and language, and design and layout. Every illustration in this book is a wonder; Peot’s art is vivid and lively. She uses multiple techniques to illustrate each kind of light source, using softer fan brushes to blend out a gentler glow, spatters of paint to represent distant stars, and harsh scraping—maybe from a palette knife—to illustrate a lightning’s flash. All of these illustrations are eye-catching and bright, and could easily stand on their own as paintings for display. The language is simple and accessible, since this book really is the most basic entry-level introduction to light and its sources. It offers new words for young children to learn language and learn what words can describe different types of light; a fire burns, the Aurora Borealis glimmers. In addition, it introduces readers to some concepts they may not have heard of before (the Aurora Borealis, Mycena singeri—a type of luminescent mushroom, and dinoflagellates—bioluminescent plankton), and offers pronunciation guides for young children to sound out each word. Concepts like fire, lightning, the aurora, and bioluminescence are explained at the end of the book. The design and layout of this book is exquisite. Each illustration of a type of light is a full-spread painting that takes up two pages, allowing readers to see the detail in each painting. This particular edition is published with a cover illustration of a crystal jellyfish (also featured in the book on pages 22-23) which glows in the dark. While this book is very simple, I found it a great pleasure to read.

References:

Holiday House. (n.d.). The science of light by Margaret Peot. PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/708710/the-science-of-light-by-written-and-illustrated-by-margaret-peot/ Libguides: Children’s Book Awards: Orbis pictus award. Orbis Pictus Award - Children’s Book Awards - LibGuides at Youngstown State University. (n.d.). https://maag.guides.ysu.edu/childrensbookawards/orbispictus Peot, M. (2023). The Science of Light: Things that shine, flash, and glow (M. Peot, Illus). Holiday House Inc.

#the science of light #a: margaret peot #i: margaret peot #tag: children #g: picture book #g: nonfiction

[the-merry-librarian]

A colorful, charming picture book that depicts one beautiful day in the life of a dog from New York City. On a particularly sweltering day in the city, a pet dachshund has had enough of the heat, so his understanding owner takes him to the beach, where he can run to his heart’s delight and have small adventures of his own.

Genre: Picture Book (Caldecott Medal)

Target Age Group:

Ages 4-8

Justification:

I’ve seen Hot Dog many times this past autumn—on the Caldecott lists that parents give us to request all the books, copies coming in and out to fulfil holds from those parents, and even on my shelving cart a time or two when all the holds are miraculously filled. The cover art always charmed me; while I’m not familiar with Doug Salati’s name, I’ve seen his illustrations on many picture books, and his style has always made me smile. I jumped at the opportunity to take Hot Dog home as part of this project.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, mood, and style and language. Every illustration in this book is beautiful, expressive and fluid; on the first verso, the publisher notes that the images in the book were “created using a combination of pencil and gouache on paper and Photoshop.” The pencil lines are slightly sketchy, bringing real life and motion to drawn characters. While the majority of the illustrations are composed of pencil drawings with gouache to color in bright, solid blocks of color, several illustrations are primarily gouache and are truly paintings. Salati sets the mood primarily with his choice of color, using a palette composed almost entirely of warm, saturated colors to illustrate the hot city—the page where the titular dog has had quite enough is made up of oranges, reds, and yellow, conveying the oppressive heat. In contrast, the beach to which he and his owner escape is rendered with a much more balanced color palette, where vivid greens and blues are tempered by pale pinkish sand and the orangey-red color of the dog himself (as well as his owner’s vivid red hair). It feels refreshing, clean, and balanced in a way the bright warm city doesn’t. The language of Hot Dog is nothing short of poetry. Most pages have only one or two lines; at the beginning, when the narrator—the dog—is growing uncomfortable and upset in the heat, each line is short, conveying a brief spark of feeling with each line. Salati uses a few elemental writing techniques in the text, such as alliteration (“steamy sidewalks/concrete crumbles/sirens screech”, [Salati 2022, p. 1]), metaphor (“unfolding sky” [Salati, p. 14]), and personification (“sun sinks down, swallowed by the sea” [Salati, p. 26]), which, besides being very effective, may introduce already-literate children to techniques like this. Frankly, I adored this book. I might just have been having a bad week, but the simple joy of a dog running on a beach made me tear up a little. Salati's illustrations make it clear how much the dog's owner loves him and how happy he is to be racing around on his own. While I definitely plan to have this for my children (once they're old enough to understand poetry a little), I might get a copy for myself just to look at.

References:

RH Childrens Books. (n.d.). Hot Dog by Doug Salati. PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/659445/hot-dog-by-doug-salati/ Salati, D. (2022). Hot Dog (D. Salati, Illus.). Alfred A. Knopf.

#hot dog #a: doug salati #i: doug salati #tag: children #g: picture book #g: fiction #caldecott medal winner #cm winner 2023

[the-merry-librarian]

Before the Ever After is a poignant and personal verse novel, told from the point of view of a young man whose father is a former professional football player. Set at the turn of the millennium, when many football players were experiencing memory loss, aggression, migraines, confusion, and other symptoms without a clearly defined cause, Ever After follows Zachariah Junior (nicknamed ZJ) as he watches his father slowly lose himself to a disease that no one wants to suggest might be linked to his former career.

Genre: Fiction, Verse Novel (Coretta Scott King Author Award)

Target Age Group:

Middle Grade – Grades 5-9

Justification:

In order to fulfil the CSK Author Award category of my project, I sought out a list of winners through the past several years; Ever After was the winner in 2021 and caught my attention because of the subject matter. Loss of a parent to mental illness, specifically dementia and other diseases which affect memory, is a very personal topic to me. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ever After was a verse novel—after I’d already borrowed it from my library—but I chose to evaluate it for the CSK category.

Evaluation:

Every character is unique, given details to make them stand out from one another in both broad ways and subtler details. One of ZJ’s friends, Ollie, is an orphan found abandoned outside of a church; Darry loves to dance; Daniel is a risk-taker. Characters are also defined with smaller details, like ZJ’s mother, who “only eats candy bars/when she’s worrying,” because “Chocolate[…]helps her think.” (p. 88) The theme of music is woven throughout the novel as ZJ writes songs, for and about his father, and into the format of the novel itself—many of the poems are songs that ZJ writes. The pacing of Ever After is both fast and slow—looming, impending, a disaster in slow-motion. The narrative begins in 1999 and continues through the spring of 2001; two years of Zachariah’s slow unraveling, happening too quickly to stop and dragging on agonizingly slow. It reflects very accurately the feeling of watching a parent’s decline. The mood is sorrowful, hopeful, nostalgic; ZJ always hopes that there’s a way for his father to get better, and is always remembering better days. My mother passed away in April of 2020, following years of mental decline; she suffered from Lewy body dementia, which was only diagnosed after I went to college, but she first started exhibiting symptoms when I was eleven or twelve. Multiple times during this book, I had to stop reading, because it brought too much back—ZJ’s dad not remembering his name, ZJ’s confusion and feeling of being lost, the quiet fearful helplessness of not knowing what’s wrong. Ever After is a beautiful book, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, but I don’t think I can ever read it again.

References:

2021 Coretta Scott King Book Award winners and honorees. Brilliant Books. (2021, August 5). https://www.brilliant-books.net/2021-coretta-scott-king-book-award-winners-and-honorees Penguin Young Readers. (n.d.). Before the ever after by Jacqueline Woodson: 9780399545443: Penguinrandomhouse.com: Books. PenguinRandomhouse.com. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/535796/before-the-ever-after-by-jacqueline-woodson/ Woodson, J. (2020). Before the Ever After. Thorndike Press, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.

#tag: children #g: fiction #g: verse novel #coretta scott king award winner #csk winner 2021

[the-merry-librarian]

Odder is a verse novel following the titular Odder, a southern sea otter, and narrates her life as she grows up, hunts, and frolics in the Monterey Bay. Swept away as a pup, Odder is raised in captivity and released into the wild, growing up to be a playful and reckless otter; however, as an adult, she remains fascinated with the humans who raised her, and a terrible accident when defending her friend Kairi sends her back to the aquarium all the humans hoped she would never return to.

Genre: Fiction, Verse Novel

Target Age Group:

Ages 8-12

Justification:

I’m not at all familiar with verse novels; while I understood the concept, I’ve never sought one out—or, to my memory, read one prior to this project, although I may be misremembering. To find a book to fulfil this category, I consulted the National Council of Teachers of English list of Notable Verse Novels, selected by the NCTE’s Award for Excellence in Children’s Poetry Committee. Odder caught my eye for a very silly reason—we’ve had a copy which belongs to a local school for several months, lurking on our send-back shelf waiting for someone to come retrieve it, and familiarity combined with intrigue. (I still checked out my own copy, though.)

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating style and language, character, and point of view. Free verse is always a bit of a gamble; it can sometimes come off as a monologue that’s just bizarrely formatted, as if the writer wrote a simple line of prose and then threw in some line breaks. Odder does not have that problem. The poems are lovely to read aloud, and have an inherent lyricism and rhythm that makes it poetry and not just narration. At the same time, the poems avoid excessive repetition that could make them feel childish, and evoke imagery in quick bursts rather than long, drawn-out similes—“[…] fretful dreams/where they can’t crack open a mussel,/frantic as a student who’s forgotten/their locker combination.” (Applegate, 100) In terms of characterization, I was completely blown away. Applegate has a knack for anthropomorphizing and characterizing animals, but in Odder it’s particularly charming to me. Each otter has their own personality without becoming so complex or so human that it feels unrealistic or exaggerated—and isn’t it incredible that Applegate is making me say “oh, this is totally what an otter would say in this situation”? The otters are playful, quiet, nervous, brave, jaded, inquisitive, and so much more. Applegate’s narration for the titular Odder makes her playful in both dialogue and action, drawing her out from the page so that the furry protagonist feels as real as any human person telling us her story. The point of view in this book is very interesting to me; for the most part, we remain with Odder, seeing the world in her limited third-person with occasional asides to the limited views of other otters; a few poems in the first part of the book are from the very limited point of view of a hungry shark. More often, Applegate switches the narration to the viewpoint of the humans in the Monterey Bay Aquarium who rescue and rehabilitate otters, but the narration here is noticeably different from the point of view of the otters; when following humans, the narration is semi-omniscient, as if we’re viewing the humans from the outside. This skillfully allows us to view scenes and events from a more familiar point of view, while also keeping the reader slightly removed from the humans in the book—the focus is always the otters. In her author’s note at the close of the book, Applegate explains that the plot and characters of Odder are inspired by real events, blending together the stories of several otters that were part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium SORAC program in the late 90s and through the 2000s. That delights me no end; not only is Odder a fun, engaging story, with charming characters and lyrical verse, it’s informative without being “educational” or condescending. I adored this book. Now I can’t stop thinking about an ocean-themed book display with Odder front and center.

References:

Applegate, K. (2023). Odder. Welbeck Publishing Group. Excellence in poetry for children. National Council of Teachers of English. (2023, November 28). https://ncte.org/awards/excellence-in-poetry-for-children-living-american-poet/ Odder. Macmillan Publishers. (2021, July 20). https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250147431/odder

#tag: children #a: katherine applegate #odder #g: fiction #g: verse novel #NCTE notable verse novel

[the-merry-librarian]

King and the Dragonflies is a richly detailed, compelling and heartbreaking novel about a young Black boy’s life in a small Louisiana town as he grieves for his older brother and grapples with questions about his own identity. Believing that his brother Khalid has transformed into a dragonfly after his death, Kingston searches the banks of the bayou for Khalid, stumbling across his former best friend Sandy in the process—former because Khalid told him to end their friendship after overhearing a secret; that Sandy is gay, and he doesn’t want anyone thinking his little brother might be gay too. Now that Khalid is gone, King struggles with the prejudices of those around him and the prejudices that he’s learned, attempting to reconcile conflicting lessons about bigotry, race, sexuality, and masculinity.

Genre: Fiction, LGTBQIA+ (National Book award winner 2020)

Target Age Group:

Grades 3-7

Justification:

King and the Dragonflies caught my attention in several ways. I found it on two lists; the National Book Award list, and a list of commonly banned books in school districts. While I review it here to fulfil the LGBTQIA+ category of my project, I chose it for its award status and its status as a commonly banned book—and, unfortunately, as a queer person in the South, I can understand why certain parents believe the material is inappropriate or should be challenged.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating setting, character, and theme. Kacen Callender’s description of setting is nothing short of exquisite, with sensual descriptions of the Louisiana swamp that sent me standing on the road next to King. From the very first page of Chapter 1: “I like to look for my brother […] on the long and hot and sweaty walk back from school, down the hard dirt road that weaves between the thorny bushes with their big fluffy leaves, and through the trees with their moss and vines, cicadas making their noise and birds whistling their tunes” (Callender 2020). Callender pours detail into descriptions of locations, marking plastic coverings on favorite chairs and the swell of noise in school libraries. A house with a dead son is a graveyard; the house of a beloved aunt is a church. The characters are just as richly detailed in appearance and in personality. Mikey Sanders, the older brother of King’s former best friend, is introduced as part of a group of other white boys, described with light hair “so pale it might as well be white too” (Callender p. 2, 2020). King’s friend Darrell is “shorter than everyone around but will beat anyone at basketball (and then laugh in their face when he’s won)” (Callender p. 19). As the novel goes on, characters reveal themselves to be flawed and realistic, as King’s father struggles to handle his own grief and the idea that his surviving son might be gay and King himself betrays his friends’ trust in an effort to keep himself and everyone around him safe. Though not all characters are likeable, they are believable, and in a way loveable for that. The theme here is complex and difficult to sum up in one or two thoughts. At its heart King and the Dragonflies is about intersectionality, about the different influences and struggles that a single person can deal with—being Black in a prejudiced white world, being gay in a community that frowns upon it, and processing grief on top of it all. A single sentence to summarize all of these ideas is challenging, and I think that might be the point: King isn’t just overcoming racism or homophobia or mourning. He is navigating identity and discovering strength in himself, in his family, and in his community. I read King and the Dragonflies in its digital version through Axis360, provided by my local library. I personally felt that the digital version didn’t suffer at all from digitization—in fact, it was much easier for me to read since I was able to access it more or less on demand. With a different book, perhaps one with illustrations, I might have struggled more, but I enjoyed the digital version of King. This was the last book I read before posting my reviews, and I think I’m still processing it. It’s bittersweet in a way I can’t identify, and Callender’s lush language and descriptions will follow me for quite some time. Though I don’t know whether younger readers would absorb the book as well, I would definitely recommend King for readers between nine and thirteen. Older readers and adults would likely enjoy it as well.

References:

Callender, K. (2020). King and the Dragonflies. Scholastic (US). King and the Dragonflies. The Scholastic Teacher Store. (2020). https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/king-and-the-dragonflies-9781338129335.html

#tag: children #a: kacen callender #king and the dragonflies #g: fiction #g: lgbtqia+ #national book award winner #nba winner 2020

[the-merry-librarian]

The first novel in a series revolving around the seventh most haunted town in America (per capita), Blight Harbor, The Clackity introduces twelve-year-old Evelyn “Evie” Von Rathe and her aunt Desdemona, advice columnist for those struggling with the local paranormal entities. The Clackity revolves around Evie’s journey through an eerie, surreal world to rescue her aunt, after Desdemona is abducted by the ghost of a serial killer and Evie makes a deal to save her—with an ancient, deranged spirit known as The Clackity, who lurks in the old slaughterhouse on the edge of town.

Genre: Fiction, Horror (Lone Star 2023)

Target Age Group:

10-12

Justification:

I first saw The Clackity while shelving at work, and was immediately intrigued by the cover. I grew up reading fantasy and horror, and I got into Stephen King at far too early an age, so I was interested to see what modern children’s horror looks like. When I looked up The Clackity, I found it was part of the 2023 Lone Star Reading List, and was delighted to add it to my list to review.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating the style and language, the characters, the setting, and additionally the illustrations. The style is relatively simple prose, appropriate for the selected age group, but complex enough to maintain interest and not appear condescending to younger readers. Lora Senf does not shy away from vivid imagery or advanced vocabulary; early on in the novel she both uses and defines the word abattoir in character, as Evie casually throws in that it’s “just a fancy word for a slaughterhouse” (Senf p. 18, 2022). Speaking of characters, the cast of The Clackity is surprisingly small; there are only a handful of important characters, consisting of Evie, her aunt Desdemona, their friend Lily, and the antagonists The Clackity and John Jeffrey Pope, the long-deceased serial killer. While other minor characters appear, only a few have speaking roles and only three show up more than once. The Clackity’s characters may not have the same complex depth as characters from other series, but Senf does a good job of establishing strong character details that clearly sketch out the cast. Backstory tends to be more of a focus than personality and interests, especially when Evie enters the other realm, but I tend to align that with the qualities of a gothic plot—a focus on the haunting past rather than the living present. Where the characters may lack, Senf’s setting does not. Blight Harbor is consistently and humorously referred to as the seventh most haunted town in America (per capita), described briefly but lovingly by the names of its shops and the ghosts and hauntings which pervade the town. The slaughterhouse—or abattoir, if you will—is described almost like a character in itself, as “defiant” and “intimidating” (Senf p. 19, 2022), and the other world that Evie enters is described with many senses, marking the cooler temperature of the air and the gasoline smell of the broken grass (Senf p. 59-61, 2022). Briefly, I want to also touch on the illustrations. Beyond the jacket art, The Clackity has multiple watercolor illustrations scattered through its pages, courtesy of artist Alfredo Cáceres. Senf’s writing occasionally acknowledges them with “It looked like this:” followed by a small watercolor drawing (Senf p. 53, 2022). The art itself is technically beautiful, effectively utilizing a limited palette of black and grey to convey depth and contrast. The Clackity absorbed me, and I ended up reading it in the span of about two hours. I definitely recommend it for kids into horror, and it may even be appealing to younger teens around 14 or so. While the simpler style may not entirely capture the attention of an adult, I personally enjoyed it very much, and will be looking for the second Blight Harbor book when it releases in October 2023.

References:

The Clackity. Book by Lora Senf | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster. (2023). https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Clackity/Lora-Senf/Blight-Harbor/9781665902687 Senf, L. (2023). The Clackity. Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

#TAG: children #a: lora senf #the clackity #lone star list #lone star 2023 #g: fiction #g: horror #i: alfredo cáceres

[the-merry-librarian]

            Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is a bittersweet, beautiful graphic novel about being a teenager in love with someone who can’t seem to stop breaking your heart. The novel follows Freddy Riley, a young lesbian on the cusp of adulthood, navigating her relationship with her friends, her family, and her on-and-off-again girlfriend Laura Dean, who’s broken up with her three times (even though it never, ever lasts). Though Laura Dean is certainly a queer book, its focus is on recognizing toxic relationships, making tough decisions, and the relatable experience of struggling in one’s first love.

Genre: Graphic Novel, Fiction, LGBTQIA+ (Michael L. Printz 2020 Honor Book)

Target Age Group:

14-18

Justification:

This novel has been on my to-read list for a long time, and I was delighted to find it on the Printz Honor list. The cover is marvelously eye-catching, and I confess I have a weakness for the color pink – it’s the only color used in the illustrations in the book. Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me was a must-read as soon as I found out about it.

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating the illustrations, characters, and theme. As a graphic novel, obviously, the illustrations are arguably the most important part, and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell’s fluid and precise art truly elevates the book to a new level. Characters’ expressions are subtle but expressive, with subtle details like freckles or changing earrings that give each character a lovely understated piece of personality. Pale pink is used throughout as an accent color, standing out starkly against black, white, or gray. Though most lettering throughout the novel is typewritten, Valero-O’Connell uses handwritten cursive script to emphasize dramatic dialogue, making the text stand out and yet integrating it overall into the soft, flowing style of the art. Mariko Tamaki, meanwhile, writes characters that shine. The protagonist, Freddy, is flawed and stubborn and insecure, and creative and hopeful and loving—all details provided by Tamaki’s carefully written dialogue, which combines with Valero-O’Connell’s illustrations to reveal character insights that prose alone might not have conveyed. Each character feels unique and realistic, with tiny details given that strengthen our impressions of each character: Laura Dean’s mother is never shown, Freddy’s mother never took her father’s last name, Doodle’s father only refers to his child as Deirdre. These are the characters we see the least of in the story, but these small pieces of information give them a brilliant shape, enhancing our understanding of them as Freddy interacts (or doesn’t) with the adults in her life. The theme is perhaps the most important part, at least to me. Unlike other YA novels with queer themes, the theme of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me is not inherently queer. Many novels in the same genre are focused on expressing the queer experience, either attempting to echo the experiences of queer teens or make their experiences more relatable and understandable to a non-queer audience, but Laura Dean’s theme is young, toxic love, and freeing oneself of those relationships. That is a theme that endures throughout sexualities and ages, and while homophobia and other queer issues do arise throughout the course of the novel, the focus is on a teenager’s experience with teenage life. It expands the queer experience beyond this is what we experience as queer people and into this is what we all experience, it just happens to be a queer story on top of it all. In short, everyone should read this book. Teens going through heartbreak, teens who feel like no one’s had the same experience, adults who have dealt or are dealing with toxic relationships, anyone who loves beautiful art. Laura Dean is a book I’m going to be thinking about for a long time.

References:

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. Macmillan Publishers. (2021, July 20). https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626722590/lauradeankeepsbreakingupwithme Tamaki, M., & Valero-O’Connell, R. (2020). Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me. Groundwood Books.

#TAG: young adult #a: mariko tamaki #i: rosemary valero-o'connell #laura dean keeps breaking up with me #michael j printz honor book #mjp honor 2020 #g: graphic novel #g: lgbtqia+ #g: fiction

[the-merry-librarian]

The Storyteller is a picture book that illustrates the Moroccan tradition of public storytelling, weaving it into a narrative about a young boy and a long drought. As the fountains dry up in the drought, so do the storytellers disappear, until a young boy discovers the last storyteller and listens to his tale. Through many days and many stories, the boy discovers the magic of storytelling, until he and his fellow citizens use that magic to bring the drought to an end.

Genre: Picture Book (TX Bluebonnet Award 2017-2018)

Target Age Group:

Ages 4-8

Justification:

I originally found this book on a list of TX Bluebonnet Award winners, one of the required genres for this semester-long project. The Storyteller originally caught my eye because of its cover; colorful, fluid and lively, the cover illustration is beautifully simple, especially in comparison to the elaborate illustrations inside the book itself. The author and illustrator, Evan Turk, has also previously won the Ezra Jack Keats Award (The Storyteller, 2016).

Evaluation:

For this review, I will be evaluating style and language, setting, and the illustrations. The language used is lyrical and antiquated, evoking an older style of prose that has long since passed. Repetition of language makes the text almost ritual, mimicking traditional Moroccan storytelling – “that is a story for another day” and “come back tomorrow” being the signifier that a tale is done. The setting of the book is lushly and lovingly illustrated, with a beautiful patterned map decorating the endpapers at the beginning of the book. While the setting is only ever described in the text as “the Kingdom of Morocco” and “the Great Square” in “the hot, dry south of the kingdom” (Turk, 2016), the poetical rather than specific description of the setting adds to the folkloric aspect; it is specific enough to make us aware of where the story takes place, but general enough to feel as if it could happen anywhere. Finally, the most obvious aspect of the book is its illustrations. Dynamic and textural, with traditional Moroccan patterns woven into the designs and layout, the illustrations both serve to enhance the storyline and reveal facets of the tale that are not in the text; at the very end of the story, the boy himself becomes a storyteller, an aspect that is only evident by looking at the illustration. Turk also contrasts thick, bold lines with watercolor washes to indicate newness and youth versus age or fadedness. As part of the dedication, Turk tells us to “look for a blue glimmer of hope to appear around each story” (Turk, 2016), and every illustration features at least a hint of blue, the color growing more and more prominent in every illustration until the very last image in the book. This is, quite frankly, a beautiful book. I’ve read it several times now, often noting new details in the illustrations that I didn’t notice on a previous read-through – keep an eye on the patterned frames around every illustration and see how the colors and patterns change! The Storyteller is a delight to read as an adult, and almost immediately after finishing it, I put it on my list of picture books to buy for my own future children. It was an absolute treat to read.

References:

The Storyteller. Book by Evan Turk | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster. (2016). https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Storyteller/Evan-Turk/9781481435185 Turk, E. (2016). The Storyteller. Simon & Schuster.

#TAG: children #a: evan turk #the storyteller #bluebonnet winner #bluebonnet winner 17-18 #g: picture book #i: evan turk