With sparse, rhyming text, Lester L. Laminack perfectly captures a day in the life of a typical neighborhood cat in A Cat Like That, a fun read-aloud with engaging illustrations by Nicole Wong.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Kaya of the Ocean

In Gloria L. Huang’s fantastical, heartfelt coming-of-age tale Kaya of the Ocean, the protagonist’s gradual willingness to trust herself will resonate with readers on their own journey to self-confidence, magic-infused or otherwise.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Make a Pretty Sound

Make a Pretty Sound highlights the life of musical pioneer Ella Jenkins, whose message continues to be vibrant and vital.

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Children's, Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade Children's

Home Away From Home

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

In Home Away From Home, Newbery Honor author Cynthia Lord returns to some of her signature storytelling themes: displacement, friendship, families, animals and summer. Fans of Rules, A Touch of Blue and Because of the Rabbit will enjoy learning about the intriguing animal at the novel’s center, a white gyrfalcon typically seen in the Arctic.

Eleven-year-old Mia loves visiting her grandmother in coastal Maine every summer, but things are different this year, because Mia’s mother isn’t joining her. She’ll be back in Ohio, getting their old house ready to sell, as she’s buying a new home with her boyfriend, Scott. Mia worries about leaving the only house she’s ever lived in and the possibility of having to change schools, even though her mom has promised she won’t have to.

Mia also isn’t sure she likes Cayman, the know-it-all neighbor boy who spends so much time with Grandma. Mia already must share Mom with Scott, and Dad has his new wife and baby, so “Grandma was the only person [Mia] didn’t have to share with anyone else.” But as Mia and Cayman’s friendship begins to gel, she realizes that he has problems of his own, including an absent father and a mother navigating alcoholism and depression.

When Mia and Cayman spot the magnificent gyrfalcon near an eagle nest, the novel’s action quickly ramps up. Mia posts a picture on a birding website, and soon numerous eager birdwatchers arrive, leading to disaster. Lord adeptly handles Mia’s parents’ concerns about her screen time and online activity, and the birding plotline excellently illustrates how a seemingly innocuous post can gain a life of its own. Mia feels horribly guilty about the ramifications of her post, and she identifies with the gyrfalcon, realizing that “she was young and a long way from home and maybe things would never be the same for her. And I knew exactly how that felt.”

Lord’s fluid prose and Mia’s lively, likable narration make Home Away From Home a riveting middle grade novel. Descriptions of the gyrfalcon as it soars near nesting eaglets transport readers to Maine’s rocky coast. Mia’s interactions with birdwatchers and a game warden add to the experience, while Mia’s, Grandma’s and Cayman’s attentions to a stray cat nicely bolster the displacement theme. Readers will be left feeling reassured, like Mia, who concludes: “This trip hadn’t been what I expected—and it kept surprising me. But even though change is scary, it brings new things, too.”

Fans of Rules, A Touch of Blue and Because of the Rabbit will enjoy learning about the intriguing animal at the center of Home Away From Home: a white gyrfalcon typically seen in the Arctic.

Children's, Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade Children's

Lo and Behold

Review by Norah Piehl

by Norah Piehl

Twelve-year-old Addie is still working through the aftermath of a family crisis when her dad, a futurist, decides the two of them need a change of scenery for the summer. He’ll oversee a university research lab where talented students are experimenting with using virtual reality as a tool to teach everything from nutrition to empathy. While her dad is engaged with his work, Addie is more than happy to retreat into the VR headset she borrows from the lab. Entire days go by as she explores a virtual world without ever leaving their small campus apartment.

Virtual reality is easy and fun, but real life and real relationships can be scary, and Addie is initially hesitant to form a friendship with her new neighbor Mateo. His life, filled with family, hobbies and volunteer projects, seems so uncomplicated compared with Addie’s. But as Addie begins to open up to Mateo, she’s inspired to hatch a plan for a new way to use VR to make other kids’ real-life anxieties a little more manageable.

Bestselling children’s author Wendy Mass (The Candymakers, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life) has more than two dozen books under her belt, so it seems funny to refer to her as a debut author, but with Lo and Behold, she’s making her graphic novel debut. The book is a collaboration with comics artist Gabi Mendez, who’s also a first-time graphic novel illustrator, and the two work well together. Mass has always been skilled at portraying the hidden thoughts and emotions of young people, and Mendez is adept at capturing Addie’s changeable moods, from loneliness and worry to excitement and elation, in her expressive face and body language.

Mendez also excels at depicting the virtual reality worlds that Addie explores, creatively using background colors and patterns to differentiate the VR world from the real one. Mendez’s rich, vibrant artwork beautifully expresses the natural world, too, and her evocation of the play of light and shadow under a tree is especially effective.

Readers who, like Addie, are excited about the potential of virtual reality technology won’t want to miss the incredibly cool augmented reality feature included in the book, which further enriches an already full and complex story.

Bestselling author Wendy Mass’ first foray into graphics follows a girl who retreats into virtual reality rather than navigate the complications of real life.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Nigeria Jones

Review by Mariel Fechik

by Mariel Fechik

Nigeria Jones is a teenager. She’s a warrior princess. She’s a sister. She’s a stand-in mother. She’s a queen. She’s a student. Within the Movement, the Black separatist utopian community founded in West Philadelphia by her parents, Kofi Sankofa and Natalie Pierre, Nigeria is all of these things and none of them. Alongside the Movement’s members, whom Nigeria knows as aunties and uncles, sisters and brothers, Nigeria has spent her life being home-schooled and learning about Blackness—its traditions, its histories, its struggles, its triumphs. The Movement isolates itself from the world, divesting from white supremacist systems, all in service of a vision for the future in which Black communities can thrive, independent from oppressive forces.

But Nigeria’s mother has left, disappeared, and without the woman under whose care and attention the Movement thrived, Nigeria is floundering and filled with doubt. She has internalized her father’s teachings, from his loving, community-oriented leadership to his ire toward all systems, including education, corporate capitalism and health care. Then Nigeria discovers that her mother secured a spot for her at a wealthy private school, and she begins attending classes there. As Nigeria embarks on a journey of self-discovery, she also learns about the world outside the Movement and meets other teens, some Black, some not. As Nigeria moves further from everything she’s ever known, she’s forced to ask: Who is Nigeria Jones?

The best word to describe acclaimed author Ibi Zoboi’s Nigeria Jones is heavy. The novel depicts the horrors of generational trauma while also placing the personal traumas of one girl, one family and one community within a national and even global context. All the while, Zoboi (Pride, Punching the Air) strikes a delicate balance with the story’s political topics, never moralizing or seeking to provide answers but also not leaving things so open-ended as to appear ambivalent. Through Nigeria and her peers’ interactions with the complex, nuanced subjects they encounter, Zoboi offers a flawless depiction of Generation Z’s activist relationship to such topics.

Nigeria’s upbringing and experiences are unique, and her inner world, her thoughts and reactions, feels exceptionally true to life. Zoboi tells a singular story of a singular girl, and Nigeria Jones opens wide and welcoming arms.

In this story of a girl who questions her parents' Black separatist utopian community, author Ibi Zoboi strikes a delicate balance with weighty themes.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Ode to a Bad Day

Review by Callie Ann Starkey

by Callie Ann Starkey

Have you ever known it was going to be a bad day from the moment you woke up? Crusty eyes, soggy cereal, itchy tags in your clothes—everything seems to go wrong. And that’s all before you even get to school! A line cutter in class! A missing pudding at lunch! A terrible case of the hiccups!

Some days are just plain bad, and Chelsea Lin Wallace and Hyewon Yum have captured all that goes wrong for one child in Ode to a Bad Day. With each turn of the page, readers are presented with a new rhyming ode to misfortune: “Oh Oops, / whoops!” begins the lyric to a ruined painting in art class. “Oh Yucky, / your slimy sauce does not smell yummy” goes the ode to a disappointing spaghetti dinner. There’s even a verse to an elusive “Cricket in My Room” that can be heard but never found. (But keep looking! Careful readers will love hunting for the little green bug on nearly every page.)

Just when we feel “so annoyed,” we are reminded that we are “not destroyed.” After all, the “best part of a baddish day / is when it ends, and I’m OK.”

Hyewon Yum, author-illustrator of the award-winning picture book Mom, It’s My First Day of Kindergarten!, brings her signature style of watercolor and colored pencils to this bad day. She transforms the protagonist’s face into dramatic expressions of frustration, with frowns, pouts and big open-mouth wails. There’s even a perfectly hilarious spread of a classic meltdown in the grocery store’s cereal aisle—something all parents have certainly witnessed.

While most pages show all the things going wrong around the protagonist, Yum cleverly uses occasional spreads to highlight the child’s emotions. In these visually striking moments, the child is shown on their own, their feelings palpable as they stride across a stormy cloud, or grimace amid a shower of rainbow pencil strokes.

Reminiscent of Judith Viorst’s classic Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Ode to a Bad Day is wholly relatable and highly engaging, with lively, rolling poetry and rich, charming illustrations. No matter what kind of day it has been, don’t be surprised if young readers want to read this book over and over.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Some of These Are Snails

Review by Julie Danielson

by Julie Danielson

Carter Higgins delivers another superb concept book in Some of These Are Snails, a natural companion to her elegant 2021 creation, Circle Under Berry. Higgins invites readers to linger over these pages as they classify, sort and organize simple shapes in bright colors.

The book opens with a double-page spread dominated by two circles: one green, one yellow, with simple embellishments that transform the green into a turtle, the yellow into a snail. “Turtle is a circle,” we read, then, “circle is a snail.” The next spread features six green and orange circles on the verso, while the recto repeats the images of the turtle and the snail, then introduces a yellow square. “Circle circle square” rests below these three shapes. In the spread that follows, the yellow square becomes an elephant; next to it, a square, now blue, is an owl.

As we continue to turn the pages, Higgins’ text encourages readers to sort by color and shape, and to ascertain how these classifications overlap. We see nine variously colored circles arranged in a three-by-three square; a square whale; triangle birds and mice; a series of circles grouped by both size and color; and more. Occasionally, Higgins addresses readers directly: “can you sort by color? can you sort by size?” then, striking a playful note, “can you sort by shape or find the animal with eyes?” Perhaps the most sophisticated puzzle of all features six animal shapes and asks, “what is one? what is some? where is all and where is none?”

Though the text includes sparse punctuation and no capitalization, it’s satisfyingly rhythmic and filled with pleasing rhymes, both true and slant. It absolutely begs to be shared aloud. Meanwhile, Higgins renders the shapes and the creatures built from those shapes with vibrant collage illustrations. The figures rest on copious white space and evoke the palette and textures of the work of Eric Carle. It all makes for an utterly delightful, visually rich package that will have readers engaging in the types of classification work that form the basis of math skills and enhance memory and problem-solving abilities, too. Best of all, they’ll learn to see the world and its patterns in eye-opening ways. Some of These Are Snails is a must-have for every young reader’s bookshelf.

Discover how Carter Higgins’ created the ingenious art in ‘Some of These Are Snails.’

This must-have picture book for every young child is an utterly delightful, visually rich creation that invites readers to classify, sort and organize shapes.

Children's, Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade Children's

Squire & Knight

Review by Mariel Fechik

by Mariel Fechik

Squire is the brainy sidekick to the brawny Sir Kelton, a knight whose reputation precedes him but never quite seems to prove itself. Regardless, while Sir Kelton is heralded as a hero, Squire stands quietly by, more interested in books and knowledge than sword fighting and rescuing. When the two come across a desolate village that appears cursed by the presence of a dragon, Sir Kelton vows to slay the beast and rides off to save the town. Squire, preferring to stay behind, notices something amiss. Interest piqued by the townspeople’s strange stories, he begins to investigate, and soon, little pieces begin to fall into place.

Prolific cartoonist Scott Chantler’s middle grade graphic novel Squire & Knight is a short, sweet story about the power of curiosity and the idea that strength and confidence aren’t everything. Chantler illustrates in a simple yet bold style, using only neutral shades and orange tones. The lone ruddy hue pops against otherwise monochrome backgrounds, guiding the reader’s attention through the subtly comedic storyline.

Chantler employs classic fantasy tropes—the sidelined sidekick to the daring knight, a treasure-hoarding dragon—while also subverting expectations. Squire, whose accomplishments and intelligence are frequently ignored by his noble employer, is the true brains behind their entire operation, while the dragon, despite appearances, just wants to collect his treasures in peace. The voices of the characters are dynamic and easy to hear in the reader’s mind. (For this reader, the dragon sounds exactly like Billy Crystal.)

Squire & Knight may not be revolutionary in form or subject, but it’s certainly an enjoyable read that champions the shy, the brainy and the inquisitive. This is the first volume of a planned duology, so we can look forward to at least one more adventure of Squire and his knight.

Squire & Knight may not be revolutionary in form or subject, but it’s certainly an enjoyable read that champions the shy, the brainy and the inquisitive.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Tadpoles

Review by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Matt James demonstrated his skill for writing about hard subjects in a reassuring way in The Funeral (2018), his first picture book as both author and illustrator. He does so again in Tadpoles, which follows a boy who ponders his own changing habitat as he explores a pond formed by rainfall with his father.

There’s no dearth of children’s books about the topics James explores here—divorce, changing seasons, the life cycles of frogs—but he nimbly imparts a fresh take on all three in an enticingly rich and thoughtful creation. Tadpoles is not quite a science book and not quite a divorce book, in the best possible ways.

James accomplishes this through the strong voice of his narrator. He establishes the boy’s conversation tone from the very first line: “A kid in my class says she saw a two-headed frog.” The boy reveals that his father disagrees: “My dad says . . . that Sita probably just saw two frogs.” The boy is experiencing all manner of changes, including the arrival of spring rains that create a huge puddle in a field near his school. The boy notes that the field contains “neat old junk that people just left lying around,” such as glass bottles, a rusty bicycle and an upright piano. There’s even an old farm silo, which prompts the boy to confess, “Once, when my dad first moved to his new place, I stood in the silo and yelled every single swear word that I know. I guess I was worried that he wouldn’t love me anymore, but my dad says that some things never change.”

James’ moody art is filled with dark clouds and a wide variety of raindrops, which readers will almost feel splattering against the pages. Flashes of pink, green and the bright yellow of the boy’s raincoat guide the eye as the boy and his father study the pond’s tadpoles and discuss their evolution in detail (endnotes offer additional information). Movement on every page—swimming tadpoles, swirling clouds, curlicues on the back of a metal chair and more—adds interest. The backdrop of ongoing transformation in both the natural and manmade worlds dovetails neatly with the boy’s reflections about his father and their relationship. James’ illustrations show that the neighborhood is changing too, with high-rise buildings and a construction crane near smaller homes and green spaces. As the book ends, the skies are clear and blue as the boy and his father head home. One of the book’s many strengths is James’ comfort with leaving things unsaid and allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.

Tadpoles is a reassuring reminder that change can bring positive new developments, and that parental love remains constant, even amid great upheaval.

Tadpoles offers a reassuring reminder that parental love remains constant, even amid great upheaval.

Children's, Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade Children's

The Book of Stolen Dreams

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

When Rachel Klein was born 12 years ago, Krasnia’s oceanside capital of Brava was a lively, lovely place dotted with palm trees and populated by citizens who reveled in living there. Sadly, in British screenwriter and playwright David Farr’s The Book of Stolen Dreams, lightheartedness is long gone from present-day Brava.

A tyrannical man named Charles Malstain and his army invaded the city shortly after Rachel was born. The emperor of Krasnia was executed in the town square, and Brava was systematically destroyed. Under Malstain’s rule, public spaces are only for adults, posters declaring that “a seen child is a bad child” are plastered everywhere, and children are only permitted to leave home to go to school, where they must study government-issued materials and muddle through dreary days.

But Rachel’s parents, Judith and Felix, create a warm, supportive home for Rachel and her older brother, Robert, where laughter is allowed and creativity is encouraged. On Rachel’s birthday, Felix offers the kids a treat in the form of a visit to the library where he works. What begins as an illicit jaunt soon becomes something the kids never could’ve expected: an urgent, terrifying mission to protect The Book of Stolen Dreams, an ancient magical tome long treasured by good people yet zealously coveted by Malstain, who will stop at nothing to obtain the book and use it for evil.

From an opulent hotel to a mysterious old bookshop, from tenement housing to a massive silver airship, the siblings’ exhilarating and dangerous journey swoops from thrilling to terrifying to heartwarming and back again. Suspenseful action scenes and gasp-worthy surprises abound as Rachel and Robert strive to evade capture while attempting to find the Book’s vitally important but missing last page, which unlocks life-altering magic, before Malstain can.

Farr’s beautifully crafted, thought-provoking story isn’t an easy-breezy read, but Farr is intimately acquainted with its stakes: The Book of Stolen Dreams was inspired by his own German Jewish family’s escape from Nazi Germany between 1935 and 1938. The novel grapples with tough, weighty questions: Is happiness possible under government oppression? When is a risk worthwhile? What do we owe our fellow citizens?

Farr’s characters experience fear and grief right alongside delight and wonder. As his omniscient narrator observes with the mix of hard-won acceptance, hope and love for humanity that echoes throughout The Book of Stolen Dreams, “Such is life, my friend. There is no joy without accompanying sorrow. There is no despair so dark that a sliver of light cannot abate it.”

Two siblings must protect a magical book from the tyrannical ruler of their country in this novel inspired by the author’s family’s experiences during WWII.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

The Isles of the Gods

Review by Jill Ratzan

by Tami Orendain

Five teenagers, spread across two rival countries, each have a story to tell in The Isles of the Gods, the first book in a fantasy duology from Australian author Amie Kaufman.

Selly is an Alinorish sailor whose magician’s marks never matured, leaving her without the ability to communicate with elemental spirits. Alinor’s Prince Leander knows that he should have fulfilled his royal obligation—sailing to the Isles of the Gods to make an important sacrifice—a year ago, but he delayed making the journey for reasons of his own. In neighboring Mellacea, Laskia will do anything to convince her older sister, Ruby, the head of a bustling but illicit business empire, that she’s not a little kid anymore. And while Jude needs to stay in Ruby’s favor to keep his sick mother alive, Keegan is desperate for the chance to study at the world-renowned Bibliotek. All the while, Alinor’s goddess, Barrica the Sentinel, keeps watch over her twin brother, Macean the Gambler, god of Mellacea, for if he wakes, war between their lands is all but inevitable.

Fantasy readers who favor fast-paced, intricate plots will find much to love here, including a multitude of characters and settings, explorations of the intersections between religion and politics, a proliferation of scheming and counter-scheming, a healthy dose of moral ambiguity and plenty of action, including some intense moments of violence. A budding romance between initial enemies leads to zesty sparks, and unexpected friendships form among teens with contrasting social identities (the popular party kid, the nerdy bookworm).

Kaufman builds her world gradually, trusting readers to put its myriad parts together as her characters’ paths intersect. Automobiles exist side by side with playful water spirits, gods walk among and communicate directly with mortals, and nightclubs, marketplaces and ship’s decks can all be places where the extraordinary can happen.

Readers left bereft by the novel’s ending and in dire need of its planned sequel are advised to reread the prologue, set 501 years before the story’s main events. In just eight pages, Kaufman offers up a vivid warning about the most dreaded outcome of her novel’s human hostilities: a war between the gods.

Fantasy readers who favor fast-paced, intricate plots will find much to love in Amie Kaufman’s The Isles of the Gods, the first book in a planned duology.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

The Train Home

Review by Jill Lorenzini

by Jill Lorenzini

The subway train runs right past Nari’s lively New York City apartment building, and she imagines riding it to far-flung destinations that offer quiet spaces away from the bustling city and her boisterous family and neighbors. A beach, a forest, outer space—Nari envisions what it would be like to visit all these places and more. But the farther Nari travels, the closer she feels to home and the people there who love her. Author-illustrator Dan-ah Kim’s The Train Home is a creative adventure, a charming homage to New York City and a sweet reminder that home is truly where the heart is.

Kim’s prose is straightforward and unassuming, underpinned with subtle assonance and alliteration that will make it a pleasure to read aloud. It also contains a few moments of splendid and clever descriptive imagery, as when Nari’s apartment building “grumbles with neighbors left and right, above and below.”

Kim employs a variety of styles and media to create her visually distinct illustrations. She incorporates small pieces of cut paper and thread into images composed with pencil, gouache and acrylic. Nari herself is a simple outlined figure clad in loose yellow clothes, and she appears in stark contrast against busy, textured backdrops. Full-bleed, colorful spreads pull us into Nari’s real and imaginary worlds, while minute details offer much to explore and savor.

Many of the places Nari imagines visiting on the train refer to real places connected by subway in New York City, including the American Museum of Natural History and the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library. New Yorkers and NYC fans will love spotting familiar sights such as Patience and Fortitude, the library’s famous lion statues. Subway signs included in many illustrations tie everything together and transform a mundane form of transportation into something filled with wonder.

Many picture books follow journeys “there and back again,” and strong artwork and tranquil storytelling make The Train Home a worthy addition to the tradition.

Nari imagines all the places she could travel on the subway in this sweet “there and back again” picture book.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Warrior Girl Unearthed

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Angeline Boulley burst onto the YA scene with her bestselling, Michael L. Printz Award-winning debut, Firekeeper’s Daughter. Now the author returns to Sugar Island, Michigan, with Warrior Girl Unearthed. In this riveting companion thriller, Boulley places the niece of the protagonist of Firekeeper’s Daughter at center stage.

Sixteen-year-old Perry Firekeeper-Birch has really been looking forward to spending her “Summer of Slack” fishing, reading and generally taking it easy. But then she accidentally crashes the Jeep she shares with her sister, Pauline (aka “the nice twin”), and Auntie Daunis insists that Perry join Pauline at her summer internship to earn the funds to pay for repairs.

When Perry meets her supervisor, Cooper Turtle, at the tribal museum, she’s unsure what to expect and still disappointed about having lost her leisurely summer. Her reluctance about the job transforms into purpose when Cooper brings Perry to a meeting at Mackinac State College, where she encounters two life-changing acronyms: MACPRA, the Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance, and NAGPRA, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a federal law that requires museums and educational institutions to return human remains and cultural artifacts back to Indigenous groups.

Perry is appalled to learn that, due to legal loopholes, the college has not returned the sacred items in its collection to the tribes, treating them as objects to hoard rather than honor. Even worse, the college’s collection of ancestral remains are treated the same way, including a set of bones stashed in a metal box and shoved onto an office shelf: the titular Warrior Girl.

With her own inner warrior girl awakened, Perry marshals support from a host of winning characters, including her sister, their fellow interns, the irrepressible Granny June and the handsome new kid in town, to help her uncover the truth about the origins of the items and remains. She wants to return them to their tribe and expose those who have surely committed thievery and desecration.

Heightened tension, dynamic action scenes, a complicated heist and plenty of revelations ensue as Perry and her cohort contend with generational trauma, delicate political dynamics and even murder. Through it all, Boulley, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, urges readers to consider: Who owns the past?

Warrior Girl Unearthed is an edifying and deeply moving read that reminds us, in the words of Cooper Turtle, “Everything is connected, Little Sister. The past. The future. The beginning and ending. Answers are there even before the question. You’re supposed to go back to where you started. And if you step off the path, you better keep your eyes wide open.”

Firekeeper’s Daughter author Angeline Boulley returns to Sugar Island with a thriller that urges readers to consider: Who owns the past?

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Where You See Yourself

Review by Luis G. Rendon

by Luis G. Rendon

It’s the first day of senior year, and Euphemia “Effie” Galanos already wishes that high school were over. Effie has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and her last year of high school is not off to a good start. The accessible door openers at the building’s entrance don’t work, an obnoxious couple keeps using one of the hallway ramps as a makeout spot (“Swapping Spit Slope”) and the school’s incompetent student accommodations coordinator fails to log part of Effie’s accommodation plan, which results in her locker being emptied by a janitor and all her belongings being sent to the main office.

As the school year gets underway, Effie continues to struggle to speak up to the principal about her concerns with on-campus accessibility problems that should have been resolved a long time ago. Repeating her needs and bringing attention to what makes her different—over and over again—is embarrassing and exhausting. It feels like her friends and classmates get to do so much without even realizing it, and Effie longs for her own taste of freedom. She’s “ready to move on . . . to something bigger. Something that gives [her] that this is it feeling.” She thinks that Prospect University, a beautiful and prestigious college in New York City, might be the answer, but her mother isn’t sure that Effie is ready for such a big change.

In Where You See Yourself, debut author Claire Forrest creates a moving portrait of a teenager finding her voice and developing the courage to advocate for herself and others. Like Effie, Forrest has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and she renders Effie in such sharp focus that readers will instantly connect with her experiences and dreams for the future.

The novel’s frank depiction of a world that dismisses accessibility solutions as “too complicated” or “too much to ask for” and treats disabled people as “obstacles” may be eye-opening for some readers, and Forrest approaches such injustices with energy, determination and a spirit of hopefulness. She doesn’t skimp on fun, either, filling Effie’s final days of high school with parties, promposals and a sweet friends-to-lovers romance. Where You See Yourself is an effervescent, emotional story with all the makings of an instant YA classic.

‘Where You See Yourself’ author Claire Forrest reveals what she wishes she could have told herself on graduation day—and what she’d say to the class of 2023.

This debut novel follows a disabled teen as she develops the courage to advocate for herself and others. It has all the makings of an instant YA classic.

Children's, Children's & YA, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Memoir, Nonfiction, Picture Book, Poetry

Nonfiction Fiction Children's & YA Poetry Picture Book Memoir Literary Fiction Historical Fiction Children's

5 books to read for AAPI Heritage Month

Feature by BookPage staff

How to Not Be Afraid of Everything

At a reading in 2022, I heard poet Jane Wong describe her obsession with time-lapse videos of rotting fruit. Her poetry collection, How to Not Be Afraid of Everything, is full of the physicality of food, informed by Wong’s research into the Great Leap Forward, which was a stage of Mao Zedong’s reforms that led to the starvation of 36 million Chinese people. Wong’s great-grandparents died during the Great Leap Forward, and several poems ring with their voices. In others, the speaker reckons with the contrast between the relative abundance in her life—the apples “rotting on the ground,” an egg thrown onto pavement just to hear the “sumptuous splat”—and the false promises of the American dream for herself and her parents. Lucky for me, and you, Wong has a memoir coming out this month, so you can pick up Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City when you finish her breathtaking book of poetry.

—Phoebe, Subscriptions

A Burning

Megha Majumdar’s debut was one of the most important social novels of 2020—highly political, furiously propulsive and ruthlessly unsparing—but if you, like so many readers, spent that year sticking to lighter fare, now is the time to go back and see what you missed, because A Burning still hits hard. In contemporary India, a young woman named Jivan unthinkingly voices criticism of the government in a Facebook post, and she is immediately labeled a terrorist and sent to prison, where she awaits her trial. Two other main characters provide additional perspectives on these events: the luminous wannabe Bollywood star Lovely, a transgender woman who was learning English from Jivan; and PT Sir, Jivan’s resentful former gym teacher who gets involved in nationalist politics. Each character is ambitious in their own way, but within this world marked by the tyrannies of rampant corruption, racism, poverty and inequality, their fates are often outside their control, and the few choices available to them are murky at best. This novel is a short shock that leaves a lasting burn.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

Eyes That Kiss in the Corners

Author Joanna Ho and illustrator Dung Ho each made their publishing debut in the first week of 2021 with Eyes That Kiss in the Corners, a radiant picture book that became an instant bestseller and launched both creators’ successful careers. To read it is to immediately understand why. Its first-person narrator is a girl who explores, via gorgeous, lyrical prose, how her eyes connect her to her mother, grandmother and little sister and to their shared heritage. Meanwhile, the book’s digital illustrations positively glow as every spread seems suffused with sunshine. Read this aloud to savor similes such as “my lashes curve like the swords of warriors”; then read it again and pay special attention to how the characters in every spread look at one another. You’ll see one of the most moving renderings of love made visible on the page that I’ve ever encountered.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Speak, Okinawa

Elizabeth Miki Brina’s form-bending memoir starts with her personal history—contending with her mother’s alcoholism as a child, feeling ashamed of her Japanese heritage in her predominately white hometown, expanding her horizons on the West Coast as a young adult—and spirals out to engulf not only her parents’ story bu also the history of Okinawa, the island in Japan where her mother grew up before meeting Brina’s father, a white American stationed there during the Vietnam War. After years of conflict with her mother, Brina found compassion as an adult for the trauma her mother experienced when she left her homeland for a culturally and linguistically isolated life in a hostile new country. As Brina spells out Okinawa’s past, from an independent land to a pawn in Chinese-Japanese-American relations, readers get a sense of the generational trauma that has shaped her and her mother’s lives as well. It’s a story that encompasses both the broad horrors of colonialism and racism and the deeply personal details of forgiveness and familial love.

—Christy, Associate Editor

This Burns My Heart

Heartfelt and emotional, Samuel Park’s moving debut novel is a must-read for fans of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or the K-drama “Crash Landing on You.” Set in 1960s Korea, This Burns My Heart features a resourceful heroine torn between love and duty in the wake of partition. Soo-Ja meets Yul and immediately feels a connection to him—a confusing development, since she has just decided to marry another man. Unwilling to disgrace her family by going back on her promise, Soo-Ja rejects Yul to marry Min, a decision she will revisit and regret for the next 20 years. Yul and Soo-Ja see each other only periodically and usually by chance, but their fraught encounters are tense with the passion of unconsummated love. Full of poetic observations and memorable lines, This Burns My Heart will leave you pondering the “what ifs” in your own life.

—Trisha, Publisher

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! To celebrate, we’re shining a spotlight on some of our favorite stellar reads by Asian American authors.