Category: Books

Picture Books

Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle
Joseph Coelho and many illustrators
RFLBG

I like the 10-word tiny tales themselves, but I thought many of the illustrations pushed the tale in darker directions than I was thinking. Includes instructions for writing and illustrating your own tiny tales, so perhaps I need to re-illustrate some of the tales.

Ah! I see the subtitle now. The unsettling was planned.

Young Adult

Gather
Kenneth M Cadow
RFLBG

Like a snowball tumbling down a slope, this book accumulated more of my interest and compassion as it went on.

Reign
Katharine McGee

For most of the book, I wasn’t sure if this was the final chapter of the American Royals series or not. It was. McGee sewed up everything nicely, provided some surprises, and managed to find the perfect conclusion for the sometimes hard-to-like Daphne.

Everyone Wants to Know
Kelly Loy Gilbert

I really got sucked into Honors’s story. As the youngest in family of seven former reality TV stars, things aren’t easy. File this under tough lives of a privileged kid who never asked to be famous.

Every Time you Go Away
Abagail Johnson

Yeesh, these two. Both are tremendously scarred and unable to communicate. But with an intertwined childhood that had me rooting for them.

Courage to Dream: Tales of Hope in the Holocaust
Neal Shusterman and Andrés Vera Martínez
Read for Librarian Book Group

As Shusterman says, the Holocaust needs to be examined from all angles. This angle imagines the Holocaust through folk tales and then connects the stories to real-life situations.

Grownup Fiction

Mad Honey
Pichoult and Boylan

An eminently readable mystery with good New England vibes. I thought it was a good portrayal of how domestic violence reverberates through the years, even after the abuse has ended.

Grownup Nonfiction

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters
Priya Parker

Chapter by chapter, Parker walks us through evaluating why one would plan a gathering, planning the gathering, important things during the gathering, and how to end a gathering. This is a handy book for those of us who are trying to remember how the heck we used to gather.

Picture Books

Together We Swim
Valerie Bolling and Kaylani Juanita
RFLBG

This falls into that picture book category of too rhymey and the other picture book category of illustrations that don’t work for me. The lips were weird.

Say My Name
Joanna Ho and Khoa Le
RFLBG

Children from different parts of the world introduce themselves. This was a great author/illustrator pairing.

Wombat
Philip Bunting
RFLBG

Counting wombats. It’s annoying when two wombats are pictured in love/starting a family and one has to have a flower behind an ear and pink cheeks. As these are usually things that indicate something is female, does that mean we’ve only been male wombats throughout?

Gotta Go!
Frank Viva
RFLBG

Owen’s gotta go, and that leads to his grandfather showing him his pee dance. This leads to the two of them riffing on their pee dances.

I enjoyed the punny quote on the back cover.

You are a Story
Bob Raczka, Kristen Howdeshell, and Kevin Howdeshell
RFLBG

You are a lot of things. Among them a river and an astronaut.

Middle Grade

Julia and the Shark
Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Tom de Freston
RFLBG

Gorgeous prose and beautifully illustrated. The friendships, bullying, and Julia’s relationship with her parents felt very surface. I would have liked a deeper dive. (Ha!)

Remember Us
Jacqueline Woodson
RFLBG

Woodson’s stock in trade: slim volume, gorgeous prose, and memorable story. This one is set in a Brooklyn neighborhood where everyone sleeps with a robe and slippers at the end of their bed so they can move quickly if their home catches on fire. Because too many homes are catching on fire.

The Probability of Everything
Sarah Everett
RFLBG

Initially, this felt like someone watched the movie Don’t Look Up and decided to think about it from a middle school perspective. But then there was a turn that I found wholly unsatisfying.

Opinions and Opossums
Ann Braden
RFLBG

A short book that discusses religion and how it interacts with middle school students. Plus some good friend and parent navigation stuff.

No one should ever have to wear nylons!

Elf Dog and Owl Head
M.T. Anderson and Junyi Wu
RFLBG

While it’s not as wacky as The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge, it still builds a magical world that is also grounded in family relations and pandemic isolation. Middle grade and fantasy aren’t my favorite thing, so I initially was only going to read the first 50 pages. But then I got roped in.

Gone Wolf
Amber McBride
RFLBG

I used to beta read, and it was always interesting to see how a story wasn’t working. (There were occasions where stories were working, but they were rare.) It’s less interesting to see things not working in a published novel.

This begins with a weird and overwrought story, and then shifts into a different story with really terrible characterization (how realistic is it that a counselor would verbalize their internal dialogue?), magical saviors (Would the Big Sister do absolutely nothing wrong and push boundaries in the most perfect way?), and an unrealistic number of people walking around Charlotte on a weekday.

Young Adult

Hunger Games: the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes
Suzanne Collins

Did I need a prequal focused on Coriolanus Snow? I did not. Did I read this book because there was a movie about to be released? I did. Aside from not wanting to hang out in a bad dude’s head, Snow had no arc. In this very long book, we find him the same at the end as we did at the beginning: calculating and manipulating to get what he wants, which is to redeem and advance his family.

I also didn’t need to know the origin of the hanging tree song, and I really didn’t need Lucy Gray to fall in love with her captor. Overall, it was dissatisfying.

Two very slight wins for this book: it was interesting to see the Hunger Games in year 10. The whole thing was a pretty janky outfit. There’s also a massive changeup that happens that I did not see coming. This is possibly because I was reading an ebook and couldn’t measure with my index finger while reading how much of the story was left.

The Eternal Return of Clara Hart
Louise French
RFLBG

It’s the movie Groundhog Day but with the needed realization being that toxic masculinity is, well, toxic. It takes Spence a very long time to get there.

Young Nonfiction

America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History
Ariel Aberg-Riger
RFLBG

Really great: the visuals and the bite-sized pieces of history. Also discussions of Navajos, cars, and housing. This was probably the best intro text I’ve ever read as to why the current houseless problem is so persistent and widespread, not to mention pointing out how for most people “housing” means just one thing: the single family detached house.

Not so great: I really needed captions for pictures when the accompanying art included clear pictures. I also felt like there was an abrupt changeover from chronological events to issues.

More Than a Dream: The Radical March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long
RFLBG

An interesting read. It turns out the March on Washington has a bunch of details other than Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I learned a lot about Bayard Rustin and his incredible planning. I appreciated other details, especially those that discussed women’s roles and recognition.

Also: You used to be able to charter a train!

Dear Yesteryear
Kimberly Annece Henderson and Ciara LeRoy
RFLBG

Minimal text draws readers into this series of photos of Black Americans throughout history. Each page encourages readers to linger.

My Head Has a Bellyache: And More Nonsense for Mischievous Kids and Immature Grown-Ups
Chris Harris and Andrea Tsurumi
RFLBG

This book of poems transported me back to my childhood reading and rereading Shel Silverstein. The poems were wacky and delightful and there were a few poignant ones too. Highly recommended.

Grownup Nonfiction

Brat Pack America
Kevin Smokler

Smokler groups classic films from the 1980s into subjects and then weaves insightful essays about their common threads, the landscapes they inherit, and the social forces that shaped them. I found the section about the convergence of Los Angeles and the Olympics and how that put the City of Angels on a path to the LA riots especially enlightening.

In the category of judging a book by its cover, this went above and beyond packaging the book to look like a VHS tape.

A great Little Free Library find and recommended for anyone looking to expand or review 80s films

Picture Books

Grandma’s Tipi
S. D. Nelson
RFLBG

A summer visit to grandma and hanging out in a tipi is also a learning point for people not familiar with tipis. It was interesting information, and I enjoyed the consistent use of profiles in the illustrations.

In the Night Garden
Carin Berger
RFLBG

Dark blue palette evokes a feeling of night. It includes a black cat, so I’m a fan.

Our Pool
Lucy Ruth Cummins
RFLBG

Summertime in a big city pool. It felt as familiar as my summertimes spent in a small city pool. The illustrations are from the point of view of the narrator, rather than depicting the narrator.

Middle Grade

Parachute Kids
Betty C. Tang
RFLBG

Feng-Li and her siblings and parents come to visit the USA. She’s excited to see Disneyland and other things. Little does she know the trip is to set the kids up as parachute kids. From there, we see how her and her siblings pass their first year in the US.

Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir
Pedro Martín
RFLBG

Martin did a great job of evoking his 70s childhood and giving his large family distinct personalities. This is a road trip book with a lot of funny happenings, though I had to skip several pages with the deer.

You Are Here: Connecting Flights
Ellen Oh
RFLBG

The short stories were interconnected, but only on the most basic level, as befitting characters passing through an airport. The conclusion reached in the final story was not well supported by the many examples that came before it.

On the plus side, it’s a good intro to some Asian-American authors that might be unfamiliar.

Young Adult

I am Not Alone
Francisco X. Stork
RFLBG

Stork did a great job of getting me to feel for Alberto’s conundrum. His passages of descriptions are great. However, the dialogue was so stilted it detracted from the rest of the story.

Sunshine: A Graphic Novel
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
RFLBG

A graphic novel memoir that did a great job showing the anxieties and rewards of volunteering at a camp for sick kids. The cover is sunny, but the overall palette is darker, probably to reflect the situation.

The Silent Stars Go By
Sally Nicholls

Margot has complex feelings because she gave her child to her parents to raise when her WWI soldier fiancé was believed dead. Then he resurfaced. The historical fiction details included great descriptions of social structures and use of slang. The story itself was a bit overwrought.

Just One Day
Gail Forman

I ran out of physical books I hadn’t read and turned to this old friend. I’ve been mentally escaping from work all week by thinking about future vacations, so why not escape with Allyson and Willem?

Just One Year
Gail Forman

And the escape from reality continues with a re-reading of this second in the duology (with novella stinger). I still think this book sags in the middle–it takes Willem much longer to get himself together, but it’s worth it to get these two on the right path.

Just One Night
Gail Forman

And now, the ending, completing my escape from reality. If read right after Just One Day/Year, the background information designed to remind readers what has been going on feels overly repetitive, but also: Allyson and Willem together at last!

Just One Day/Year/Night
Gail Forman

Back in the day, I mapped out how to read the two stories chronologically. Having just finished the straight-through re-read, I started again and did the chronological version.

Grownup Fiction

Nettle and Bone
T. Kingfisher

A princess story with three impossible tasks and a quest. I didn’t love this at the beginning, but the good writing and enjoyable characters won me over.

Rough Around the Hedges
Lish McBride

Continuing on with the household clan (O! how McBride can write found families!), we follow Vanessa as she attempts to get her terrible father to sign off that she has basic skills. Plus, there’s Will. He’s great. I’m looking forward to the next one.

The Neighbors We Want
Tim Lane

A multi-perspective thriller with some fun twists and turns (The number of times I said, “Oh!” as I figured things out was three) and a great Portland setting. I gobbled it up in one day.

Mobility
Lydia Kiesling

Kiesling takes her lyrical focus on small details and applies it to one summer with a girl whose father is in the diplomatic corps. She then picks up once the girl has become an adult.

The description of the first job out of college was a perfect mirror to my current employment. So much so it was kind of spooky.

Young Nonfiction

How to Count to One
Caspar Salmon and Matt Hunt
RFLBG

This included many clever ways to keep people to counting to one and no higher.

Men of the 65th: The Borinqueneers of the Korean War
Talia Aikens-Nunez
RFLBG

A brief book about the Borinquenners. It might be a little too short. Some of the text included details and didn’t explain them. It also would have benefited from a list of people.

Still. There’s a lot to be said for a short read.

Grownup Nonfiction

Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops: A Bend-the-Rules Primer
Rebecca Ringquist

The great strengths of this book were the tutorials about adding embroidery to vintage embroidery and using a sewing machine to embroider and enhance hand-done work. I love the idea of creating your own patches.

The Gilmore Girls Companion
A.S. Berman

This book includes some insight behind the scenes of the beloved (though not by me) series. It also has an episode by episode breakdown. There are spoilers throughout the book, so this is aimed at people already familiar with the series rather than newbies. I waited until I was done watching to start reading, and I was glad I did.

Opening My Eyes Underwater: Essays on Hope, Humanity, and Our Hero Michelle Obama
Ashley Woodfolk

Woodfolk’s short essays springboard from quotes by Michelle Obama. They give insight to a highly motivated and smart woman (in this case Woodfolk admiring another highly motivated and smarter woman) and the advantages and disadvantages that come with being so.

Middle Grade

Squished: A Graphic Novel
Megan Wagner Lloyd and Michelle Mee Nutter
Read for Librarian Book Group

There are still families with many children and I’m always happy to see them depicted in print. This graphic novel showed off sibling dynamics and individuality.

World Made of Glass
Ami Polonsky
Read for Librarian Book Group

I’ve been calling for more novels that discuss AIDS in the 80s and Polonsky has provided. Iris’s dad has AIDS and it’s not a thing she has shared with her friends (for good reason.)

Young Adult

A Scatter of Light
Malinda Lo

A summer spent with her grandmother before college changes Aria’s life. I really enjoyed Aria’s poor but inevitable choices rendered in sparkling prose.

NerdCrush
Alisha Emrich

This was a nice little romance set among cosplaying teenagers.

Luck of the Titanic
Stacy Lee

It took two attempts to finish this book, mostly because I wasn’t up with a sinking that is much too familiar. But most of the book is Valora and her brother rebuilding their relationship plus the conditions for people of Chinese descent and how they were treated on the Titanic and in their lives. The sinking is a small part of the story. I found the ending rather brave. This book is filled with the historical fiction details that Stacy Lee is known for.

Grownup Fiction

Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner

A solid memoir with a lot of talk about Korean food. It’s a mom-has-cancer book, though, so be aware.

Legends and Lattes
Travis Baldree

It’s “Let’s put on a play!” but with an Orc. And the “play” is starting a coffee shop in a town where no one has heard of coffee. Given that coffee is an acquired taste for nearly everyone, I didn’t buy that everyone loved it on first sip, but this was an entertaining book.

Grownup Fiction

The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel

It took a long while for me to figure out where this story was going, but I didn’t mind as the writing and the characters were enough.

(August vacation Little Free Library contribution No. 1)

Memorial
Bryan Washington

A good own-voices perspective with a two person narrative that didn’t bounce back and forth chapter by chapter. (Win!) The writing was spare, enough that there were no quotation marks.

(August vacation Little Free Library contribution No. 2)

Bittersweet
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

I’m likely to enjoy a summer-at-the-lake book and this one had a mystery baked in. It got rather dramatic in an unsatisfying way at the end, but overall it was a good vacation read.

(August vacation Little Free Library contribution No. 3)

The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece
Tom Hanks and illustrator Robert Sikoryak

This goes deep into the lives of the people who come together to make movies. While not the most succinct read (one of the people is the kid who grows up to write the underground comic the movie is based on) it was probably the kindest book I’ve read this year. The narrator is someone who loves people and finds their lives worth talking about.

I have a feeling this is a fantasy movie set though. Or the platonic ideal.

Grownup Nonfiction

Alright, Alright, Alright
Melissa Maerz

I loved this book! For fans of Dazed and Confused (all of whom could guess the topic from the book title) this book weaves together interviews from seemingly all the people involved in the making of Dazed and Confused, plus some people who worked with Richard Linklater before and after the movie, including people who went to high school with him.

It’s packed with a ton of interesting facts (Jason Lee was also there for filming; he was dating Marissa Ribisi at the time and went as her chaperone. Ben Affleck was tired of being cast as a bully. Filming was like summer camp for the actors and was hell for Linklater.) I especially appreciated the chapter that focused on the women in the film both how they interacted with each other and how the film shifted focus from them as filming went on. This is essential reading for Linklater fans, people interested in how movies get made, and people who still have crushes on many actors of early 90s cinema.

Personal story: In college my roommates were trying to decide which VHS tape to watch. “Let’s watch alright, alright, alright,” said one. We all knew immediately what she was talking about. And I’ve thought of that as the title every since.

Taking Stock: A Hospice Doctor’s Advice on Financial Independence, Building Wealth, and Living a Regret-Free Life
Jordan Grumet

FIRE-esque financial book from the viewpoint of a hospice doctor. Grumet suggests three different paths to follow in a way that FIRE advocates usually don’t.

Middle Grade

School Trip
Jerry Craft
RFLBG

The gang we were introduced to in the earlier books heads to Paris. A (frankly unbelievable) prank shuffles the teacher chaperones resulting in the students’ planned chaperones not being their chaperones. This book has good conversations about race and privilege that grow organically from the situations.

When Impossible Happens
Jane De Suza
RFLBG

Set smack dab in the COVID lockdown, Swara has to adjust to staying in her home all the time and eventually to her grandmother’s death. But something weird is happening across the street.

Young Adult

Imogen, Obviously
Becky Albertalli

Imogen’s visit to college opens her eyes to her future life. Includes frustrating friend dynamics artfully rendered.

One Great Lie
Deb Caletti

Summer travel (Italy!) overlain with the normal problems of a young woman moving through the world. Woven through the book are chapter headings that spotlight Italian women writers of long ago, when it was even harder for women to move through the world.

Stateless
Elizabeth Wein
RFLBG

Wein balances a ton of characters for what turns out to be a flight-contest-related murder mystery. This is packed with the usual details of Wein’s excellent historical fiction.

A Long Stretch of Bad Days
Mindy McGinnis

As always, McGinnis’s small town tale packs a punch. Is there any YA author out there better a depicting small towns while ramping up the tension? I think not. This has solid good girl/wrong side of the tracks friendship and mystery.

My Flawless Life
Yvonne Woo

A bit of a Veronica Mars flavor, but less detective and more of a person who solves people’s problems. Mix in a fall from grace, a DC setting, and a mystery to solve and you’ve got a good read with sometimes clunky transitions. Plus, the brother of the main character didn’t speak until page 175, which was weird.

Grownup Fiction

The Idea of You
Robinne Lee

A May-December romance, with the woman taking the role of May! Plus a boy band! Halfway through the novel, I got tired of the expressed worry about the daughter finding out. (It’s so inconvenient when your mother starts dating your celebrity crush.) And the ending was rather abrupt. But overall, a good escapist read, albeit one that talks a lot about designer clothing.

Middle Grade

A First Time for Everything
Dan Santat
Read for Librarian Book Group

Santat takes us along on the trip to Europe he took in middle school. So much freedom those kids had!

Young Adult

Some Kind of Hate
Sarah Darer Littman

A very interesting premise that was bogged down by stilted dialogue and annoying omissions. Here are two: How does one make a spiked bat? How do you block security cameras? It seemed as if the author didn’t want to give us that information, but the show-don’t-tell rule still applies to things you don’t want your readers to do.

Different for Boys
Patrick Ness and Tea Bendix
Read for Librarian Book Group

A very of-the-moment book what with the self-censoring black bars across text to make a point. But also succinctly and briefly examines and explores being gay in high school.

Nigeria Jones
Ibi Zoboi

Nigeria’s grown up in “the Movement” a Black separatist household. Her mother is gone, and she’s navigating life and coming to terms with what she believes rather than what her father believes.

Saints of the Household
Ari Tison
Read for Librarian Book Group

Two brothers each give their perspective of the last semester of their senior year of high school and the aftermath of a fight. To find their way, they connect more with their Bribri (Indigenous Puerto Rica) heritage.

Warrior Girl Unearthed
Angeline Boulley
Read for Librarian Book Group

I love a main character who is an underachiever, and Perry is one such character. She also fully knows herself. That’s why learning more about NAGPRA rocks her world. This book is also a good mystery and readers will benefit if they have recently read Firekeepers Daughter.

Buffalo Flats
Martine Leavitt
Read for Librarian Book Group

Rebecca and her family are “settling” Canada in the 1890s and this book abounds with pioneer details and a sprinkling of love interests. This is a slim book that packs in a lot of detail.

I was Born for This
Alice Osman

A famous 18-year-old trio is wrapping up a word tour in London. Angel is a superfan who is finally going to meet the band. Told in alternating perspectives from Angel and Jimmy, one of the members of the band, we get a thorough examination of celebrity from both sides.

Grownup Fiction

Romantic Comedy
Curtis Sittenfeld

An engaging book that hit all my pleasure zones. So much so that I read it again immediately after finishing it. Aside from hanging out with a female writer of a sketch comedy show, I wrapped Sittenfeld’s long paragraphs and observations of subtle things around me like the warm blanket they are.

“It was a belated realization to have, but it occurred to me that perhaps this was how grownup conversations worked—not that you communication didn’t falter, but that you both made good-faith attempts to rectify things after it had.”

Curtis Sittenfeld, Romantic Comedy

Once More with Feeling
Elissa Sussman

This is a serviceable romance that unfortunately was next up after I read Curtis Sittenfeld’s book Romantic Comedy. While the main romance was served up as usual, I never got the feeling the main characters had anything to do with starring in a Broadway play. Whereas with Sittenfeld’s book, I felt like I was sitting in the writers’ room at a sketch comedy show.

Grownup Nonfiction

Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence
Ken Auletta

A deep dive into Weinstein and his various enablers. It includes his trial in New York City. Detraction: the book put a big focus on the size and condition of Weinstein’s body in a way I didn’t love. There are many gross things about Weinstein. There’s no need cast his body, which is similar to bodies of a wide variety of people—the majority of them good and kind people, as gross.

Picture Books

Nell Plants a Tree
Anne Wynter and Daniel Miyares
Read for Librarian Book Group

I’ve long been a fan of picture books that track the changing landscape and this book fits the bill.

Middle Grade

The Lost Year
Katherine Marsh
Read for Librarian Book Group

Set during the early days of the pandemic, this is actually the story of Matthew’s grandmother and her cousins who lived in Ukraine in the 1930s when Stalin was starving the Ukrainians.

Simon Sort of Says
Erin Bow
Read for Librarian Book Group

Simon is relived to move to a town where no one has access to the internet. (It’s a satellite thing.) He goes about making friends who aren’t going to know anything about his life before he moved to the town and that’s the way he likes it. This book was very funny, which was a pretty big tightrope to cross given the subject matter.

Young Adult

When You Wish Upon a Lantern
Gloria Cho
Read for Librarian Book Group

Liya is mourning her grandmother and spending a lot of time at her family’s Chinatown store. Things have been awkward with her friend Kai since she threw up on him when he might have been trying to kiss her. Plus Liya and Kai’s families are feuding. And the store isn’t doing so well. But Liya has a plan to fix things.

What Happened to Rachel Riley
Claire Swinarski
Read for Librarian Book Group

Anna’s new in town and she wants the topic of her school project to be finding reasons why no one at her school talks to a girl named Rachel Riley. A budding podcaster, she is stymied in her investigation by her teacher, her parents, and most of the kids in school.

Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim
Patricia Park
Read for Librarian Book Group

Alejandra Kim is the daughter of Argentinean immigrants who were themselves immigrants from Korea. She lives in Queens, but attends a fancy Manhattan prep school and she has a laser-like focus on attending an elite liberal arts school in Maine.

Chaos Theory
Nic Stone
Read for Librarian Book Group

Really good portrayal of mental health and addiction issues at the teenage level. Also, just a delight to read. Yay, Nic Stone!

Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Read for Librarian Book Group

Am I the only one who was surprised when this turned into science fiction halfway through the contemporary YA novel? I guess my anti-flap-reading m.o. tripped me up. Also, the cover isn’t leaning sci-fi.

Throwback
Maureen Goo

An excellent view of the 90s through the eyes of a contemporary teen.