Author: Tasha

News to Wake Your Brain Cells Dec 20

| Tasha

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

5 children’s books that celebrate our holiday season – Datebook

5 reasons I always get children picture books for Christmas – The Conversation

15 children’s books celebrating food – EcoWatch

Andrew Clements, author of best-selling children’s book ‘Frindle,’ dies at 70 – The Washington Post

The best books of 2019 to teach kids about identity and acceptance – Mashable

The best children’s books for 2019 for all ages – The Guardian

The best Jewish children’s books of 2019 – Tablet

The Caldecott Medal needs an international makeover – The New York Times

Favorite children’s books of 2019 – Brain Pickings

‘Goodnight Bubbala’ and other Hanukkah-themed children’s books for the holiday season – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Kids’ books to read again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and… – NPR

Prepare for winter with these cozy reading recommendations – ALSC Blog

LIBRARIES

How the Calgary library’s new language centre will help Indigenous children find themselves in literature – The Star

How the Library of Congress unrolled a 2,000-year-old Buddhist scroll – Atlas Obscura

Is my library liable for fake news? – American Libraries

LA libraries will stop charging late fees and forgive your past-due sins – LAist

No holds barred: policing and security in the public library – In the Library with the Lead Pipe

Why it’s time to quantify the library’s role in the reading marketplace – Publisher’s Weekly

YA LIT

The 10 best YA books of the year (and the decade) – Entertainment Weekly

20 queer YA books for your 2020 TBR – BookRiot

34 promising new YA books to look out for in 2020 – PopSugar

The book truck brings free books to thousands of LA students – SLJ

The decade in young adult fiction – Slate

To outsiders, YA is eating itself; to insiders, it’s bettering itself – BookRiot

Upcoming Netflix teen drama ‘All the Bright Places’ is a love story about two suicidal teens – Yahoo

Review: My Winter City by James Gladstone

| Tasha

My Winter City by James Gladstone

My Winter City by James Gladstone, illustrated by Gary Clement (9781773060101)

Experience the wonder of a snowy day in the city with this picture book. Told in poetic text, the story invites you to journey with a child and their father through the snowy streets early in the morning. There is slush and moving buses, plenty of footprints from other people. The bus is crowded and steamy as it takes them to the sledding hill. There they sled and have plenty of snowy fun, even stopping to make snow angels in the park. They return home, sleepy from all of the cold activities outside.

Gladstone’s text really makes this a special day. He creatively shows the beauty of snowfall in the city, including all of the sights and sounds of the experience. Readers will love the descriptions of “crinkly ice crystals” and “light powder pillows” of snow. At one point, they walk past a greenhouse which is “like a warm, rainy summer in a country far away.” All of these small elements and quiet touches add up to a full experience of a wintry day.

Clement’s illustrations embrace the falling snow from a variety of perspectives. He makes sure that the urban setting is central to all of the images, showing the bustle and busyness around the pair of characters. There is a sense of warmth and community here as well.

A snowy day filled with urban delights. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Wintercake by Lynne Rae Perkins

| Tasha

Wintercake by Lynne Rae Perkins

Wintercake by Lynne Rae Perkins (9780062894878)

Thomas lost his basket of dried fruit for his wintercake that he had planned to make for Winter’s Eve. His friend, Lucy, the cardinal heads off into the growing snowstorm and takes shelter at a tea house. There she sees another animal with Thomas’ basket of dried fruit. She just knows that he has stolen it to keep for himself! So when he leaves the restaurant, Lucy follows him, all the way to Thomas’ door, where he returns the fruit and the basket. Realizing how wrong she was, Lucy and Thomas decide to make a wintercake for the stranger. They follow his footprints in the snow to an empty hollow where he sits alone in front of a small fire. The two friends approach, accidentally scaring everyone and drop the cake. But there is still cake to be shared and new friends to meet.

Perkins creates her own solstice-like celebration with animals in a forest setting that will work equally well for other winter holidays. She tells a detailed story, showing how assumptions about strangers can be very wrong and also showing how to make up for thinking that way about someone. The sharing, giving and friendship shown here are rich and detailed. It is a picture book that celebrates new friends and new traditions built upon old friends and long-standing traditions.

Perkins’ art is interesting. There is no real clarity of what sort of animal Thomas is, rather like a bear or a groundhog type of creature. The stranger is more of a weasel, which works well with the story. That lack of clarity is part of the charm of the book. Perkins has also created a warm neighborhood of tea houses and cozy homes in trees. The bare hollow is shown in real contrast to those other spaces, making it all the more cold and lonely.

A lovely addition to holiday books. Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Bodega Cat by Louie Chin

| Tasha

Bodega Cat by Louie Chin

Bodega Cat by Louie Chin (9781576879320)

Explore the life of a New York City bodega cat in this picture book. Chip is the cat who lives in the Matos family’s bodega. He keeps an eye on everything from the breakfast rush, where he knows everyone’s orders, to the stock on the shelves, that he loves to hide and sleep in. He helps with deliveries too. In the evening when Damian comes home, they play superheroes together, dashing through the neighborhood along with the cat from the grocery store across the street. Dinnertime comes with a Dominican meal shared with neighbors and friends. The bodega never closes, so Chip’s job never ends!

Chin, a native New Yorker, pays homage to his city through the lens of the importance of bodegas and small grocery stores in neighborhoods throughout the city. He cleverly uses the iconic bodega cat as the perspective from which to view the store. Chip is a delight of a character, offering pride, a knowledge of his neighborhood, and a dedication to the people they serve.

The illustrations are done in a comic-book style that works particularly well. They are bright, busy and filled with the bustle of a store. Chip himself hides around the store, offers help, and is in the midst of everything.

A great book about a vital part of New York City. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

| Tasha

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz

Sick Kids in Love by Hannah Moskowitz (9781640637320)

Isabel loves to ask everyone else their opinions. In fact, it’s what she does for her high school paper column. It helps her make sense of a world where her mother just walked out of their family a few months earlier, leaving Isabel with her father who works most of the time as a hospital administrator. Isabel also spends a lot of time at the hospital, both because it’s where she gets to see her father most, but also because it’s where she gets her treatments for her rheumatoid arthritis. While at the hospital one day, she meets Sasha, a boy who also has his own non-fatal illness. The two hit it off, not dating though because Isabel has rules about dating. Soon Sasha and Isabel are spending a lot of time together. They adventure in New York City but also take lots of naps, don’t walk too far in the cold, and handle a lot of nosebleeds. Now Isabel must figure out if she’s going to start dating for the first time, or stick to the rule.

I have to mention that I worried I was in for a tear-jerker of a book and that it would be a lot like John Green’s A Fault in Our Stars. Those fears went away as I realized that Moskowitz was tackling invisible illnesses, the ones that people have but that don’t threaten their lives, just impact them in a variety of ways. This novel is so lovely, filled with first love, the pressures of whether to change for the other person, and the gorgeous connection that can happen again and again with another person. It’s a novel that balances beautifully the impact of being sick with the delight of being alive. 

Isabel and Sasha are both great protagonists. Isabel is wonderfully prickly and sarcastic, unwilling to change for a boy but also worried about the sort of person she is inside. Sasha too is sarcastic but very different from Isabel. Their two families are different too, Isabel left behind by her mother to live mostly alone and Sasha surrounded by a loving family who boisterously support him and what he needs. Yet the two of them make sense, clicking in a way that only the best romantic couples in books do.

A great romance that grapples with illness alongside love. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from e-galley provided by Entangled. 

Review: Just in Case You Want to Fly by Julie Fogliano

| Tasha

Just in Case You Want to Fly by Julie Fogliano

Just in Case You Want to Fly by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Christian Robinson (9780823443444)

This poetic picture book invites children to take a journey, up into the sky with the some wind, a feather, and a butterfly’s wing. On the adventure, there is are other things offered just in case. Just in case you get an itch, here’s a scratch on the back. Here is a fork and a spoon, a rock and a wish. There are jokes, bells that ring, and your toothbrush too. Honey for tea, a pillow for bed, a blanket, a dream and kisses on the head.

This book is exhilarating and filled with dreams of journeys large and small. It makes a regular day seem like it is full of magical moments, where pennies are wishes, bells ringing are special, and snacks are gifts. At the same time, it doesn’t look away from larger magic like rhinos on the pages, favorite giraffes and umbrellas in the bath. It’s a book full of delights and wonders.

Robinson’s illustrations add to Fogliano’s poetry. He embraces the whimsical nature of the text, creating beauty in the every day too. His pages are filled with characters of different races, all merrily playing together and eventually heading to bed.

A marvelous bedtime read all set to create gorgeous dreams. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy provided by Holiday House.

 

Review: Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

| Tasha

Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal (9781626727465)

Told in a repeating format explaining all of the things that fry bread is, this picture book celebrates an iconic food in Native American families. Fry bread may be first and foremost a food, but it is also about family. In this picture book, a diverse Native family comes together to make fry bread together. Children of all ages participate in forming the bread and then listen together as it fries in the pan. Fry bread looks different depending on how long you fry it, tastes different depending on the recipe and the cook. It brings families together to celebrate their heritage, but also to realize where fry bread came from and how it relates to the massacres of Native peoples in the United States.

This picture book is about far more than a delicious family treat. Maillard looks at its connection to our nation’s history, the damage caused by the European invasion, and what fry bread means today. Much of the real detail of this is in the Author’s Note at the end of the book, but even the briefer read-aloud part of the book offers this connection to children. The nuance of a food being both celebratory and yet also indicative of what happened to an entire people, is an important one. This is a celebration that Native Americans have survived and live on, continuing to gather, eat and celebrate.

The illustrations of this book are so warm and merry. They show a diverse group of family members gathering to cook together. There are all sorts of skin tones, hair and ages represented here, the air tinged with love and connection around them.

A beautiful and inclusive picture book that takes a deep look at food, family and history. Appropriate for ages 3-6.

 

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: A Big Bed for Little Snow by Grace Lin

| Tasha

A Big Bed for Little Snow by Grace Lin

A Big Bed for Little Snow by Grace Lin (9780316478366)

This follow-up to the award-winning A Big Mooncake for Little Star focuses on wintry weather. Little Snow is given a great big bed by his mother, perfect for jumping on! His mother tells him not to bounce on it though and just sleep on it. But Little Snow just can’t resist bouncing and jumping a little bit. When he jumps, feathers fall out of the big bed and drift down. Little Snow does sometimes get a bit more excited and then jumps so hard that the bed bursts open and a lot of feathers come out. By the end of the winter, the bed is entirely empty, just a shell of what it once was.

In the same playful way as the first book, Lin captures a natural phenomenon with a gentle joy. Both books have the attentive mother, who sets rules which are broken by the children. But in both instances, the mothers are fully aware of what is actually happening and the tone is one of merry acceptance rather than frustration.

The illustrations here show exactly what is happening long before the larger reveal of snow falling on earth. The bed is shaped like a large blue cloud and the snowflakes on everyone’s clothes make it very clear as well. The use of the white background with the clothing that disappears into it is beautifully done, offering a magical border-free feel.

Another winner from the multi-talented Lin. Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

| Tasha

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy (9780525518587)

Eva is a princess whose magick is tied to blood and marrow. She’s the first royal with that magick combination since Queen Raina, who massacred thousands of the native populations hundreds of years ago. Because her magick is so rare, Eva hasn’t learned how to use it yet, something that is particularly problematic when you are destined to fight your sister to the death in order to be the next Queen. Eva loves to travel incognito into the city at night to dance and forget her destiny for awhile. But when she is attacked by an assassin, she gets her first taste of her magick really working thanks to the blood she is drenched in. Eva now must find the key to her powers and discovers a legendary Fey warrior who just may have the answers for her. For the first time, she thinks she may just have a chance, but it won’t be easy as those around her become targets for her enemies too. 

Joy’s fantasy novel has strong roots in North Africa. She has created a magical fantasy realm filled with several different races with their own powers. Humans are the interlopers, who killed many on their way to both the throne and coming into their own magick powers. There is a strong sense of justice in the novel, where it is clear that the current Queen and Eva’s sister have never questioned what brought them the lives they have. Eva on the other hand has many questions, mostly about the races of the land but also about her own powers and what they say about her as a potential Queen and the bloodshed that may follow.

This novel is at its best during the action sequences where Eva is battling enemies and trying out her new powers on allies. In these scenes, the writing is tight and weaves a clear image of what is happening with breathtaking speed. The romance scenes are well written and an important element in the overall storyline. Joy focuses on characters and action, not lingering overly long on descriptions of the setting, which makes this a fast and intense read.

Full of bloody battles with a female protagonist who kicks ass, this book is a great read. Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from library copy.