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Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
Elena lives in Utuado, Puerto Rico with her Abuela, her Papi, and her younger brother Benito in the shade of a mango tree where she picks fruit for a snack and listens to the coquí frogs each night:
CO-QUÍ, CO-QUÍ, CO-QUÍ
Mika Moon pretends to be a witch in her social media videos and enjoys the sense of community she has with her followers. But unbeknownst to those she's met online, Mika really is a witch. And no one can know. Primrose, the woman who “raised” Mika is very firm on the rules for witches. And rule number one is tell and show no one. That rule has led to a peripatetic life and no long-term connections for Mika. Until now.
As far as Violet was concerned,
only one person in her class raced like the wind.
Only one had a leaping laugh.
Only one made Violet's heart skip.
“All of us do things we wish we hadn’t done,” reads the first line of The Best of Iggy. Especially when we are 9 years old. Some things really aren’t so bad… we just wish we hadn’t gotten caught. Some things aren’t so bad… buuuuut we probably shouldn’t have taken things quite so far. But some things. Some things we just really really wish we hadn’t done. Iggy does all of these things, with all the hilarity you might expect. (This is a snort-laugh out loud while reading in public sort of book - be warned!) But also with the humility and remorse that comes after.
"The kid is born with two shadows"
In spare, poetic language Marisa Crane draws you in from the first sentence and then holds your heart in their hands until the last page. They explore what it means to parent under the figurative shadows of loss and grief and the literal shadows imposed on their characters by a totalitarian government in this dystopian debut.
From the Jacqueline Woodson and Rafael López, creators of The Day You Begin, comes a new story about using your imagination to soar. Stuck inside on a rainy day, two siblings are told by their grandmother to use their minds, to "close your eyes and take a deep breath, and believe in a thing." No longer stuck in their apartment, they soar over the city, each season escaping from their boredom, their arguments, and their loneliness, just as their ancestors who also flew with their beautiful and brilliant minds.
Inheritance, from Pura Belpré-winning Elizabeth Acevedo's most famous spoken-word poem, was named a 2023 Odyssey Honor Audiobook by the American Library Association on January 30. The Odyssey Award is given for the best audiobooks produced for children and young adults, available in English in the United States.
I get some of the best book suggestions from the people who come into the library. I was helping a lady the other day who had a charge on her account for a lost book. Don't worry - she had just put it in the book return. She knew it was overdue, but her little one loved the book so much that they just couldn't stop reading it. With a recommendation like that - I just had to read it myself.
After reading Sometime Cake I understand why they had trouble returning it!
Caldecott medalist Michaela Goade's new picture book is a gorgeously illustrated tale of family and land that warmed my heart and felt so cozy.
On an island at the edge of the sea, a young girl learns from her grandmother how to live on the land, picking berries of all kinds from the forest:
Are you a reader of biographies? Then check out the longlist for the 2023 Plutarch Award. This is the 10th annual award given by the Biographers International Organization (BIO). "Named after the famous ancient Greek biographer, the Plutarch is awarded to the best biography of the year by a committee of five distinguished biographers from nominations received by BIO members and publishers."
