MADreads Reviews

A young boy takes on the legacy of farming from his Papa/grandpa in The Last Stand by Antwan Eady and Illustrated by Jarrett & Jerome Pumpherey (Alfred A. Knopf, 2024). Papa sells pumpkins, peppers, plums, and eggs at the local Farmer’s Market. But, each year the market has fewer and fewer stands – until - Papa’s stand is the very last one. Papa takes his job of farming very seriously and steadfastly harvests crops and eggs every Saturday. “Papa’s hands are black and wrinkled. And each wrinkle tells me a story.

Rachel Gillig hit big on BookTok with her

When Belle's class draws owls, Ms.

This quiet series of bestselling books translated from the Japanese provide comfort and closure through food.

Every month Madison Public Library hosts a variety of book discussions and each of them warmly welcomes newcomers.

English mystery author Ann Cleeves has, over her forty-odd year career, developed a devoted following through her v

Sounds of the desert come together to form a song that takes the reader through a night full of memories and familial connectedness. The illustrations beautifully accompany the text and make the story feel like a hug.

The book begins at the end of a day with the sun brushing the tops of the mountains and follows the course of a night until the sun rises again. The author and illustrator move in tandem to tell the beautiful story of family, tradition, and the landscape of the desert. This is a beautiful story that I would recommend to any family!

Someone whose taste in books runs parallel to mine kept raving about this book, so I've been wanting to read it for a while. I'm so glad I finally did.

World-renowned humanitarian and chef José Andrés's love of cooking started as a boy in Spain cooking paella for family over an open fire.  As he grew older, attended cooking school, and traveled the world, he dreamed of the stories he could tell with food.  While feeding sailors on a famous Spanish Navy ship, José wished that everyone everywhere had enough food to eat. 

Avast me hearties! What adventure awaits today? Cleaning the living room? NO! Not when there’s a storm a-brewing and the ship needs sailing.

Miss Hortense has lived in the Birmingham suburb of Bigglesweigh since she emigrated from Jamaica in 1960. She's lived in the same house for decades and is a retired nurse.

A handful of new picture books feature characters and stories from popular books for older kids, introducing these worlds to younger readers!

Aaron Becker once again proves how powerful wordless picture books can be. The Last Zookeeper tells the story of Noa, the last robot of a crew of seawall construction team, as he works to save abandoned animals at a flooding zoo. Full of imaginative ingenuity, Noa builds a boat and sails away into the horizon with the animals.

Will he be successful in saving them all? Will they simply survive, or is there something wonderful awaiting them? Be sure to read this gorgeous and heartwarming story to find out!

I've loved Sarah MacLean's historical romances, so I was eager, and a little nervous, to read her change-of-pace contemporary novel, These Summer Storms.

The publishing calendar starts to heat up in May, as shelves start to fill with titles the industry hope to see readers packing into their summer vacation luggage. This May is esp

This picture book is a black, white, and neon pink look at a classroom skeleton named John who retires and moves to the country to live with Grams and Gramps in a cottage in the woods.  Grams and Gramps have lived in this cottage for a long time, and it is described as a little bit crooked and a little bit under the weather.  This perfectly describes what my fixer-upper home is like, with an inspired twist on words.  John the Skeleton is a book in translation, and as such, it opens the reader to concepts, words, and illustrations that have a distinct Northern European flair.  Gramp

This gorgeously illustrated nonfiction picture book shows the unique ecosystem of a whale fall. A massive blue whale dies, and her decomposing body nourishes various marine life, from scavengers to microorganisms, on the ocean floor over more than a century. Jason Chin’s watercolors beautifully depict the process in all its phases.

Abbott's new novel is both a thriller and an exploration of the sibling dynamics of the Bishop sisters.

Joy comes in many forms in The Yellow Bus by Loren Long. We see the new yellow school bus carrying children from home to school. “And they filled her with joy.” Then, the bus has a new life driving older riders to the library and to country parks. They, too, “filled her with joy.” The illustrations show the sunshine yellow of the bus and everything in and around the bus drenched in color. Beyond these bright colors, the rest of the page is muted and in greyscale. This makes the yellow bus always pop off the page.