Book Reviews
Not all deserving books bring home ALA awards. Our annual Mind the Gap Awards pay tribute to our favorite books that didn’t win. Here’s how we reviewed our 2019 winners. A Parade of Elephants by Kevin Henkes; illus. by the author Preschool Greenwillow 40 pp. g 9/18 978-0-06-266827-1 $18.99...
Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience edited by Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond Middle School, High School Triangle Square/Seven Stories 183 pp. 3/19 Paper ed. 978-1-60980-907-2 $15.95 ebook ed. 978-1-60980-908-9 $13.99 Poems as piercing and reflective as the shards of a shattered mirror offer stunning...
Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, an event that laid the groundwork for the first Gay Pride parade and celebrations that have evolved into a month-long recognition of LGBTQ+ identities and communities.During my 1990s childhood in a pervasively conservative, Christian, Southern environment, I...
The Iliadadapted by Gareth Hinds; illus. by the adapterMiddle School, High School Candlewick 264 pp.3/19 978-0-7636-8113-5 $27.99Paper ed. 978-0-7636-9663-4 $16.99As with his treatment of The Odyssey (rev. 11/10), Hinds offers an ambitious and compelling comics adaptation of a Homerian epic. This complex, winding tale picks up in the tenth year...
To Night Owl from Dogfishby Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg WolitzerIntermediate, Middle School Dial/Dutton 311 pp. g2/19 978-0-5255-5323-6 $17.99At the start of this epistolary (via email) novel, twelve-year-olds Bett Devlin, an adventure-loving California girl of African American and Brazilian descent, and Avery Bloom, a tightly wound New Yorker whose single...
Helloby Fiona Woodcock; illus. by the authorPreschool Greenwillow 40 pp.5/19 978-0-06-264456-6 $17.99In Look (rev. 7/18), Woodcock strung together a series of words with double os, more or less one per page, to tell a story of a brother and sister visiting the zoo. In this companion, double ls get the...
Dissenter on the Bench: Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life & Workby Victoria OrtizMiddle School, High School Clarion 184 pp. g6/19 978-0-544-97364-0 $18.99e-book ed. 978-1-328-63990-5 $9.99Since her appointment to the Supreme Court in 1993, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a hero to many Americans for her progressive positions on cases involving free...
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Meby Mariko Tamaki; illus. by Rosemary Valero-O’ConnellHigh School First Second/Roaring Brook 298 pp.5/19 978-1-250-31284-6 $24.99Paper ed. 978-1-62672-259-0 $17.99This relatable, heart-wrenching, and often funny graphic novel opens with seventeen-year-old Frederica (“Freddy”) Riley’s email to advice columnist Anna Vice. “For almost the past year I’ve been...
Ogilvyby Deborah Underwood; illus. by T. L. McBethPreschool, Primary Godwin/Holt 40 pp.5/19 978-1-250-15176-6 $17.99Ogilvy, a wide-eyed, line-drawn bunny, is excited to make friends in a new town. But upon arrival, the rabbit’s sartorial choices are challenged; Ogilvy, clad in a knit article of clothing, is asked: “Is it a sweater...
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