Reviews of the Week
Most Wanted: The Revolutionary Partnership of John Hancock & Samuel Adams by Sarah Jane Marsh; illus. by Edwin Fotheringham Intermediate Little, Brown 80 pp. g 3/20 978-1-368-02683-3 $19.99 e-book ed. 978-1-368-06129-2 $12.99 Here readers meet the original American political odd couple: Samuel Adams, the serious and staunch patriot, and John...
Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold High School Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins 357 pp. 2/20 978-0-06-274253-3 $18.99 After a consensual (and vividly described) sexual encounter with her boyfriend that, to her surprise, ends in her beginning to menstruate for the first time, sixteen-year-old Bisou is attacked by a wolf on her...
Everyone’s Awake by Colin Meloy; illus. by Shawn Harris Primary Chronicle 48 pp. 3/20 978-1-4521-7805-9 $17.99 Meloy and Harris depict one family’s anarchical bedtime routine within their ramshackle lighthouse-esque domicile. Rollicking rhymes, narrated by a young family member, set the scene: “We all got / tucked in early. / A...
In Search of Safety: Voices of Refugees by Susan Kuklin; photos by the author Middle School, High School Candlewick 246 pp. g 5/20 978-0-7636-7960-6 $24.99 Hewing to a definition of refugees as “people who are forced to leave their country because they are being persecuted,” Kuklin profiles five such young...
The Phantom Twin by Lisa Brown; illus. by the author Middle School, High School First Second/Roaring Brook 206 pp. 3/20 978-1-62672-925-4 $24.99 Paper ed. 978-1-62672-924-7 $17.99 In this dark graphic novel with an unconventional cast and setting — an ode to outsiders, “freaks,” and misfits everywhere — Jane and Isabel...
Jules vs. the Ocean by Jessie Sima; illus. by the author Preschool, Primary Simon 48 pp. 5/20 978-1-5344-4168-2 $17.99 e-book ed. 978-1-5344-4169-9 $10.99 Intent on impressing her older sister at the beach, Jules plans to build a big sandcastle. When the waves foil her plans, she assumes “the Ocean” is...
Solar Story: How One Community Lives Alongside the World’s Biggest Solar Plant by Allan Drummond; illus. by the author Primary Farrar 40 pp. 3/20 978-0-374-30899-5 $18.99 Expanding his series of picture books on environmentally friendly community projects (see Green City, rev. 1/16; and Pedal Power, rev. 1/17), Drummond takes readers...
Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan Intermediate, Middle School Scholastic 254 pp. g 3/20 978-1-338-15786-4 $18.99 e-book ed. 978-1-338-15788-8 $11.99 Growing up in Santa Maria, a (fictional) country “somewhere in the Américas,” Maximiliano Córdoba is familiar with the legends of the Guardians and the Hidden Ones they led to safety —...
A New Green Day by Antoinette Portis; illus. by the author Preschool Porter/Holiday 40 pp. 4/20 978-0-8234-4488-5 $18.99 In this exuberant celebration of a summer day, readers engage with compelling page-turns to solve simple nature riddles. “Morning lays me on your pillow,” the book opens, “square and warm. Come out...
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