5 stars An absolutely beautiful time capsule of a book that captures both heartwarming and heartbreaking moments of lockdowns, quarantines, and the spread of Covid-19. Pham’s artwork perfectly captures the happiness, stress, hope, sorrow, and frustration of the time. Through empty streets, flourishing wildlife, and homebound scenes, Pham shows some of the changes to the…
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3 stars A cute rendition of Usagi Yojimbo complete with Miyamoto Usagi in chibi form along with Chibi Tomoe and Chibi Gen. The three friends meet a dogu and help save the dogu village from the evil Salamander King. Nice story of friendship and helping others. Also includes some interactive and educational materials at the…
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5 stars A delightful ghost story centered around friendship and growing up. This book is absolutely beautiful! I loved every moment of it. It is sweet, relatable, gut-wrenching, and heartwarming all rolled into one gorgeous package. The artwork is fantastic. I really enjoyed the cozy art style and Yee perfectly captures the emotions of her…
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3 stars A fun epistolary series for young readers. Told entirely through letters, notes, newspaper articles, and reports, this book is full of mischief, humor, and blossoming friendships. A writer who hasn’t written in 20 years, a ghost who wants to be published, a boy whose paranormal-researcher-parents distance themselves from his assertions that ghosts are…
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3 stars Written as part of her Master of Fine Arts project, this book gives glimpses into El Sayed’s life, both from childhood to adolescents and into adulthood. The book tackles many topics including cancer, parental expectations and double standards, racism, bullying, divorce, friendship, religion, and moving to a different country. It deals largely with…
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3 stars A powerful coming-of-age story. This novel-in-verse takes a young poet, a forbidden love interest, a strict, religious mother, an apathetic father, a secretive brother, a supportive best friend, and an encouraging teacher, mixes them together, and presents a story of hardship, hope, and healing. This book tackles so many issues such as mother/daughter…
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5 stars A fantastic follow-up to the first book. Wonderfully written with unforgettable characters. Same charm as the first book with additional characters (along with old favorites), new adventures, and new problems to solve. In this one, the Vanderbeekers forge new friendships, reunite with established friends, make some unexpected discoveries, and band together to beautify…
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4 stars Another fantastic volume featuring Charlie and Nick. I really enjoyed getting to see more of the side characters in this one. Of course, Darcy and Tara are adorable as always, and it was exciting to see Elle and Tao finally face their feelings. We also see a little more of Aled. Hoping to…
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3 stars An interesting story centered around the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. This is the first book that I’ve read in the Girls Survive series and overall I enjoyed it. The writing is pretty simple and lacks some finesse, but I think it does a good job of making history appealing to young readers….
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3 stars Hooray for the first girl lead in the series! Tarshis does address this in the backmatter but… Personally I wish Tarshis would stop hanging onto the explanation that she wanted to write books her sons would read and they weren’t interested in girl characters. I hate this excuse. Can we all just admit…
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