All Reviews

FictionLiterary FictionHistorical FictionDebut Fiction

What I Know About You

Review by Laura Sackton

In his beguiling debut novel, What I Know About You, Éric Chacour delicately explores the complicated circumstances that create distance between people, and the limits of what anyone can know about those they love.

In 1980s Cairo, Tarek, a doctor from a Levantine Christian family, begins a relationship with a young man. Up until this moment, Tarek’s life has been a series of expected events. He grew up to become a doctor like his father, and took over the family practice after his father died. He has played the roles his wealthy family expected him to: dutiful son, successful professional. 

The young man, Ali, comes from a poor neighborhood, and enlists Tarek’s help when his mother becomes ill. As their relationship evolves, Tarek is not prepared for all the ways his love for Ali changes him. He doesn’t know how to navigate a relationship that he must hide from his community. Ali upends Tarek’s neat, ordered life, and the turmoil affects Tarek’s entire family.

Despite several dramatic plot elements, this is a quiet, internal novel. Its brilliance is in the way Chacour plays with point of view. The opening section is written in the second person, and while at first it reads like it is addressing the reader, it soon becomes clear that something more complex is going on. Who is the narrator? Who are they speaking to? How do they know such intimate details about Tarek’s life, his doubts, fears, desires and joys?

In sparse but beautiful prose, Chacour invites readers into the secret world that exists between the mysterious narrator and Tarek. On the surface, What I Know About You is an emotional family story, a queer awakening, a tumultuous romance. It’s a richly textured portrait of Cairo from the 1960s through the 2000s, and a nuanced exploration of queer relationships in Egypt during a time of intense governmental and societal homophobia. But even more compelling than all that is the story underneath: the why and the how of the narrative itself. As the narrator muses at one point, “there’s no way to stay outside your own story.” 

Éric Chacour’s debut is an emotional family story, a tumultuous queer romance and a richly textured portrait of ’80s and ’90s Cairo—with an intriguing narrative twist.
Mystery & SuspenseMysteryCozy Mystery

We Solve Murders

Review by Jamie Orsini

Fans of The Thursday Murder Club mysteries will devour the first book in Richard Osman’s newest series, We Solve Murders.

Amy Wheeler is a bodyguard for Maximum Impact Solutions, a British private security company. Her latest assignment has her protecting Rosie D’Antonio, a brash, bestselling author who offended a Russian oligarch with her latest book. As the women hide out on a private island, Amy realizes she may be in trouble: Three of her previous clients have been killed, all while she was nearby. Is someone targeting Maximum Impact Solutions? Or Amy herself?

After Amy narrowly survives an attack, the women go on the run, and Amy contacts the only person she trusts: her father-in-law, Steve. The former London cop is mostly retired, though he takes on private investigator jobs to stay sharp. Steve is a homebody at heart, preferring to spend his time with his cat, Trouble, though he never misses the weekly pub quiz with his friends. Still, when Amy needs him, Steve hops on a plane to help figure out who’s setting up Amy and why.

We Solve Murders is an outstanding mystery novel, rife with red herrings and numerous suspects, as well as Osman’s signature humor and heart. It’s a pitch-perfect blend of the cozy mystery and thriller genres: The sleuths are working out the intricately plotted mystery on their own, without the help of law enforcement; the overall tone of the book is breezy and fun, despite the body count; and the mystery takes the main characters all over the world, exposing them to danger and some unsavory individuals. There’s a little violence—Amy is a bodyguard and someone is trying to kill them, after all—but little to no gore. Steve is the quintessential cozy mystery sleuth, while Amy is a perfect choice to lead a thriller novel. In combining the two, Osman gives readers the best of both genres.

While the central puzzle is excellent and well-crafted, the heart of the novel lies with Amy, Steve and Rosie. Amy and Steve share a sweet bond, and both are battling trauma and loss in their own ways. And Rosie is in a league of her own: The older author is fabulous, brave and hilarious in equal measure. She helps Amy and Steve become better versions of themselves, and steals just about every scene she’s in. Another standout character is the mysterious “Francois Loubet,” the mastermind behind the killings. The novel is interspersed with messages from Loubet, who uses ChatGPT to further disguise his true identity. Readers will enjoy following Osman’s clues to figure out who Loubet is and why he’s targeting Amy and Maximum Impact Solutions.

Mystery fans have been richly rewarded with We Solve Murders, and will be happy to know that Osman has more in store for these characters.

In We Solve Murders, Richard Osman accomplishes the seemingly impossible: a cozy mystery-thriller mashup.
NonfictionMemoir

We Will Be Jaguars

Review by Anne Bartlett

Nemonte Nenquimo and her family lived within nature, with food from the river, the rainforest and their gardens. A monkey was her childhood pet. According to family lore, she knew she would become a spirit jaguar when she died. But things were changing fast: A huge metal tube had descended from the sky not too many years before she was born. The missionaries who emerged from it didn’t speak her language, but they persuaded her community’s leaders to put a mark on a paper in return for clothing and other gifts.

Within a couple of decades later, her river was black with pollution, much of her forest was cut down, her community’s men had been coerced into laboring for oil companies in exchange for pieces of paper their way of life had no use for. White people said Nenquimo and her community must worship their god. She and other children were herded into schools that forced them to put aside their traditions.

A Waorani woman from Ecuador’s Amazon region, Nenquimo co-founded the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance that scored a major legal victory in 2019, protecting half a million acres of rainforest from oil drilling. Nenquimo has been lauded internationally for her activism; now, with husband Mitch Anderson, an American environmentalist, she is telling her story in the inspired and rare We Will Be Jaguars: A Memoir of My People.

In this lyrically written memoir, Nenquimo takes us inside her world, with its tensions between her family’s shamanistic traditions and the initial allure of the Christian missionaries, who taught her to read and write in Spanish, allowing her to communicate more widely. But this education came at a cost that traumatized Nenquimo for years. She describes her emotional journey through a deeply spiritual perspective, including one remarkable scene in which drinking ayahuasca brings her a revelatory vision. 

Nenquimo sharply conveys the sheer confusion and terror of colonialism for the Waorani and other Indigenous peoples. Missionaries, oil executives and government officials used underhanded methods to wrest control of the region from families like Nenquimo’s. Ironically, the missionary education gave Nenquimo and others the tools they needed to fight back. Her story is one of fierce determination to claim a heritage that was nearly stolen from her. 

Climate activist Nemonte Nenquimo tells the story of her Waorani people in the inspired, beautifully written We Will Be Jaguars.
NonfictionSocial ScienceEssays

Want

Review by Laura Hutson Hunter

As Gillian Anderson prepared for her role as a sex therapist in the British TV show Sex Education (which this writer quickly added to her Netflix queue), she read the 1973 cult classic My Secret Garden, a compendium of fantasies collected by novelist Nancy Friday. In Friday’s book, Anderson writes, it was revealed that “. . . for some of us, the sex we have in our head may be more stimulating than the physical nuts and bolts of any coupling, no matter how hot. Unconstrained by assumed social conventions, self-consciousness, or perhaps the fear of making our partner uncomfortable, in our imagination we can indulge in our deepest, most transgressive desires.”

Inspired by Friday, Anderson put out an invitation for women and genderqueer people to write down their own fantasies and send them to her. She soon began amassing a “torrent of unbridled passion from around the world.” The result is Want: Sexual Fantasies by Anonymous, an extensive series of writings—some less than a page long, but most a page or two—detailing a multitude of diverse fantasies. What began as a platform for women to anonymously share fantasies has turned into something like a calling.

The polyvocality of Want means there’s something for everyone, but it also means that you’ll probably come across a fantasy you’ve never considered, as with Anderson, who writes that she was fascinated by the number of women with dreams of being milked like a cow. “The human imagination has few limits and our sexual desires and fantasies are no different, yet are still treated as taboo,” she writes in the book’s introduction. “Is everyone ashamed and pretending not to be?”

Anderson herself is among the anonymous writers here. There’s no hint at which of the many fantasies is hers; the only identity markers at the end of every essay are nationality, income, religion, sexual orientation, relationship status and whether the writer has children. “I was terrified of putting my fantasy down on paper,” she writes, “lest someone was able to discern which was mine.” But after reading more than 1,000 others, she finds that “sexual liberation must mean freedom to enjoy sex on our terms, to say what we want, not what we are pressured or believe we are expected to want.”

With luck, this provocative, original volume will help women and genderqueer people feel more empowered and less ashamed.

Gillian Anderson asked women to send her their sexual fantasies. The result is a provocative, original volume that will help women and genderqueer people feel more empowered and less ashamed.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

We Love the Nightlife

Review by Matthew Jackson

Quite often in fiction, the figure of the vampire has represented loneliness; readers are very accustomed to the particular kind of yearning that immortality and blood thirst can bring. We’ve seen it in the work of Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer and many more, but we’ve arguably never seen that sense of yearning quite the way Rachel Koller Croft portrays it in her new novel, We Love the Nightlife.

In Croft’s follow-up to her debut, the thriller Stone Cold Fox, the vampires of Nightlife are draped in yearning even as their never-ending revels mask what they really want. Croft’s protagonist, Amber, is frozen in her party girl prime, turned in the waning days of the 1970s by her maker, the beautiful and manipulative Nicola. Decades later, despite the comfortable life they share in a Victorian mansion, and Nicola’s ambition to open a new nightclub to be their personal playground, the old ways of doing things start to chafe at Amber. She begins to imagine what life might be like without Nicola, and considers what an escape plan might look like. But Nicola’s influence is powerful, her ambitions are vast and her appetite for control deeper than Amber ever imagined.

When we meet her, Amber is not physically alone, but she is lonely, trapped in a domineering friendship she’d rather leave, desperate for a way to change her circumstances and yearning for a different life. It’s a place most of us have been at some point or another, and despite her vampiric nature, Amber feels like one of us. This is mainly due to Croft’s skill; her conversational, warm and relatable prose depicts Amber not as a lonely monster, but as a person longing for freedom in a savage world covered in glitter and awash with pulsing music.

The real magic trick of the novel, though, is how Croft fleshes out the world beyond Amber’s view. Nicola’s perspective is also laced throughout the narrative, from her childhood more than a century earlier to her very particular desires in the present day. We get to see not just Nicola’s side of the story, but her own brand of yearning, giving the book an antagonist who’s not just remarkably well-developed, but human in her own twisted way. These dueling perspectives, coupled with memorable side characters and a beautifully paced plot, make We Love the Nightlife an engrossing, darkly funny, twisted breakup story that’s perfect for vampire fiction fans and fans of relationship drama alike.

We Love the Nightlife is an engrossing, darkly funny and twisted story about a friendship breakup—between two vampires.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Up, Up, Ever Up!

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

After reluctantly turning the final page of the beautifully illustrated Up, Up, Ever Up! Junko Tabei: A Life in the Mountains, readers will want to run outside and start hiking, pausing only to spread the word about the impressive woman at the heart of Anita Yasuda’s inspiring and poetic biography for young readers.

As a young child, Junko Tabei was enchanted by the natural world, especially the peaks that provided a dramatic backdrop to her home in Japan. As Yasuda writes, “Stories of mountains drifted all around her until silvery domes and icy peaks unfurled as far as she could see.” 

Tabei took the first step of her big mountain dreams at age 10 by climbing Mount Chausu (elevation: 4,643 feet) with friends. As she grew, so did her desire to ascend ever higher: She set her sights on becoming the first woman to summit Mount Everest (elevation: 29,032 feet). Naysayers emerged all around, from mountaineering clubs that excluded women, to sponsors who said mothers should stay home with their children. But Tabei found kindred spirits in her climbing aficionado husband and two children, as well as other adventurous women who shared her determination. Together, they felt unstoppable. 

Despite dizzying heights, gear that fit badly  because it was made for men, and even an avalanche, Tabei and her compatriots persisted. This exciting story of scaling great heights and blazing trails captures their trials and triumphs for those who will come after. Yuko Shimizu’s gorgeous, often fantastical illustrations—finely detailed via Japanese calligraphy brush, vibrantly colored, and rife with movement and texture—combine with Yasuda’s compelling, uplifting words to vividly convey Tabei’s indomitable spirit.

In the book’s back matter, Yasuda notes the numerous high points of Tabei’s life and expands on her environmental advocacy, a pursuit she engaged in until her death in 2016 at age 77. Readers of Up, Up, Ever Up! will surely agree that “Junko’s remarkable life inspires others to pursue their dreams, step by step, up, up, and ever up!”

Yuko Shimizu’s gorgeous, fantastical illustrations combine with Anita Yasuda’s compelling, uplifting words to vividly convey the indomitable spirit of trailblazing mountaineer Junko Tabei in Up, Up, Ever Up!
FictionGraphic Novels & ComicsDebut Fiction

Vera Bushwack

Review by Mariel Fechik

In the woods of Nova Scotia, Drew is building a cabin. Save for the company of their dog, Pony, Drew is alone—a fact that everyone seems to have an opinion or an assumption about, much to Drew’s exasperation. But Drew is determined to live their dream life in their cabin, so they go to work, accepting help from local men to chain saw the trees on their property.

Sans chain saw, Drew is unassuming and a little awkward. But rev the engine, and they become the fiery Vera Bushwack, resplendent in assless chaps astride a noble steed, chain saw brandished like a sword. Drew can’t always be Vera, though, and when they aren’t working, they cycle through memories—some of kindness, some uglier.

Sig Burwash’s debut graphic novel, Vera Bushwack, is about self-love, queer comfort and the importance of learning to trust again after trauma. Despite its vibrant cover image, Vera Bushwack is a quiet book. Much of the story is relayed without dialogue, through surreal memory reels and montages of Drew and Pony’s new life, which are at turns hilarious and heartbreaking.

Burwash’s illustrations are endearing and strange, even off-putting at times, which complements Drew’s story perfectly. Sparse black sketches over muted, monochromatic backgrounds capture a sense of space and isolation while also telling an incredibly intimate story. One of Burwash’s biggest strengths as an artist is facial expressions; Pony, who is all ears and tongue, is simply a delight, while Drew’s emotional range, from blasé to maniacally gleeful, is something to behold.

Readers may be surprised to learn that the book is a debut, not only because of the clear skill it displays, but also because it feels so lived in. That’s a testament to Burwash’s talent. Vera Bushwack is sure to be a meditative balm for any queer person who sees themself in Drew—or in Vera.

In Sig Burwash’s debut graphic novel, unassuming Drew transforms into the fiery Vera Bushwack, resplendent in assless chaps, with the rev of a chain saw. Vera Bushwack is sure to be a balm for queer readers.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

They Call Me Teach

Review by Jill Lorenzini

For most of us, it is easy to take education for granted: Slogging our way from kindergarten to graduation is something we just have to do. They Call Me Teach: Lessons in Freedom, written by Lesa Cline-Ransome and illustrated by James E. Ransome, takes us back to a time before the Civil War, when education was denied to many. As Cline-Ransome explains in her author’s note, They Call Me Teach is just one representation of what happened all over the South as enslaved Black Americans defied anti-literacy laws—an act that was both rebellion in itself and a part of their larger quest for freedom.

Cline-Ransome’s story focuses on Teach, an enslaved man given this whispered name by those he has taught to read. Written as if Teach is just matter-of-factly telling you about his day, the first-person narration is effortless and beautifully descriptive. Phrases like “a kitchen hotter than August” place you squarely in Teach’s world. There’s an easy storytelling cadence to this book that nearly—just nearly—hides its literary complexity, with lines that are simple yet weighed down with underlying meaning. 

Coretta Scott King Award-winner Ransome, the other half of this married duo, floods the page with deep, antique-feeling watercolors that instantly transport you back in time. Intricate details like a collection of wooden spoons, the shadows of folded clothes on a shelf and the frayed collar of Teach’s shirt pull you so far into the story, you could be standing in the back of the room. Impressive and engaging, They Call Me Teach is also somber—but not without rays of light and hope. Ransome’s art references that of the late illustrator Jerry Pinkney, whom he mentions in the dedication. Clearly, Ransome shares Pinkney’s gift for visual storytelling. 

They Call Me Teach is rich with information and opens a door to conversations about United States history, equality and the struggle for freedom and education. And while They Call Me Teach is geared toward children, older readers will find it just as powerful and moving. After all, when it comes to stories about perseverance, resistance and the power of reading, there is no age limit.

Impressive and engaging, They Call Me Teach opens a door to conversations about United States history and the fight for equal access to education.
NonfictionNatureEssays

This Is How a Robin Drinks

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

When Joanna Brichetto sees potato chips, she craves goldfinches. An offbeat association? Sure. One imbued with enthusiasm and nature-loving logic? Absolutely. You see, she explains, the goldfinch’s call sounds like “potato-chip, potato-chip,” and the Lay’s Classic Potato Chips bag is a yellow “not unlike a male goldfinch in breeding plumage.” 

That perspective-shifting, find-joy-in-daily-life revelation is just one of many the blogger and certified Tennessee naturalist shares in her wonderful, wonder-inducing debut, This Is How a Robin Drinks: Essays on Urban Nature.

Brichetto—a former BookPage contributor —believes that “by paying attention to the natural world we have a chance to figure out who, where, and when we are.” Fortunately, “nature is all around”—and in this almanac organized by season, she encounters and explores nature in places we expect, like parks and gardens and birdbaths. But what about thrift stores, grocery bags and abandoned mall parking lots?

If we stroll rather than stride through our yards and neighborhoods, Brichetto assures us, we can find nature everywhere, too—despite humans’ relentless efforts to constrain, pave over or poison it. Readers will relish her thoughtful essays rife with idiosyncratic humor and poetic reverence, like her observation that a purchased-turf lawn has been “gentrified by sod.” 

In her summer section, Brichetto is particularly reverent toward cicadas, which can fall prey to new construction (the Nashville-based author was treated to two overlapping broods this summer). “He will sing with the moon,” she writes of one, “but I have his skin, which once held the sun.” In fall, her pockets “surrender snail shells, turn out twigs of spicebush, fumble oak apples round and dry.” A red-tailed hawk transforms her from a winter commuter to “a character in a fairy story.” And she composes a spring ode to catalpa trees, which she suggests may be “admired by pressing one’s face into a pyramid of blossom.”

This Is How a Robin Drinks is sure to trigger an uptick in meanderings—urban or rural, day or night—suffused with new appreciation for and a renewed determination to preserve our endlessly fascinating yet increasingly vulnerable environment. And not a moment too soon; after all, Brichetto writes, “Spoiler alert: nature’s best hope is us.”

Naturalist Joanna Brichetto uncovers the beauty of urban landscapes in her wonder-inducing debut, This Is How a Robin Drinks.
Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society

Review by Stephanie Cohen-Perez

At first, C.M. Waggoner’s third novel appears to be quite the departure from the author’s previous fantasy narratives (Unnatural Magic and The Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry). Waggoner quickly immerses readers in the humdrum, day-to-day life of librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle, who resides in a quiet hamlet in upstate New York. The only out of the ordinary detail about Ms. Pinkwhistle is that she loves to solve a good murder mystery—not only those in the books she protects and enjoys at work, but also the real-life, grisly deaths in the otherwise sleepy little town of Winesap. Typically, Sherry, a quiet older lady with an uncanny memory and knack for detailed observations, solves these murders and assists the local sheriff from behind the scenes, a la Hercule Poirot. But when a string of local murders hits a little too close to home, Sherry realizes that she can no longer remain an unattached bystander. A demon, or several, might be at the heart of these ever-increasing deaths, and Sherry will need the help of her skeptical friends and her possibly-possessed cat to root out the evil in Winesap. 

 

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society is a stunning blend of genres, a dark supernatural adventure masquerading as a cozy mystery—and by the time readers realize this, they, like Sherry, are too deeply entrenched in the case to let it go. Previously, Sherry loved piecing evidence and testimonies together, identifying the murderer and moving on with her life. However, Winesap’s resident demon doesn’t seem to want that tried-and-true plotline to play out this time: Sherry soon finds herself unable to recall key facts or cross the borders of town. Thus, she forms a demon-hunting society with her closest confidants, a motley crew composed of such lively characters as the young parish priest, Father Barry; cosmopolitan Manhattan-transplant Charlotte; and Sherry’s quirky counselor friend, Janine. The plan is to work on the case at hand, while clandestinely unearthing a way to exorcize the demon from Winesap forever. 

 

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society reminds readers that there is possibility for the mystical and supernatural even in the most mundane surroundings. Waggoner infuses the pages with darkly humorous scenes and snappy dialogue, as well as unexpected magical touches that hearken back to the author’s previous fantasy novels, a combination that’s perfect for fans of horror tropes as well as lovers of mystery. Sherry Pinkwhistle is a sleuth to be reckoned with, and beneath her frumpy and soft exterior lies a pleasant surprise: a clever, determined heroine who will stop at nothing to protect the place she calls home and the people who live there.

A dark supernatural adventure masquerading as a cozy mystery, The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society is a genre-blending delight.
FictionHistorical Fiction

The Wildes

Review by Sarah McCraw Crow

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) is known for his comedic plays (The Importance of Being Earnest), fiction (The Picture of Dorian Gray) and for his trial and imprisonment for his homosexuality. Less well known is that he had a family: his wife Constance, who advocated for more practical dress for women, and their sons Cyril and Vyvyan. In The Wildes, novelist Louis Bayard focuses on Constance, Cyril and Vyvyan.

Like a play, The Wildes is structured in five acts. Act 1 opens in 1892 at a farm in the Norfolk countryside, where Constance and Oscar; their son Cyril; Oscar’s larger-than-life mother, Lady Jane Wilde; and their friends Arthur and Florence Clifton are spending a holiday. Soon, they are interrupted by the arrival of young Lord Alfred Douglas, nicknamed Bosie. The spoiled Bosie, a student at Oxford, seems to be one of Oscar’s “poets”—young, literary men eager to spend time with the great writer. This section, the longest in the novel, often feels like a drawing-room comedy—both Constance and Lady Jane Wilde are wits—but woven throughout is the slow dawning of Constance’s understanding about Oscar and her marriage, as she pieces together the reality of Oscar and Bosie’s relationship.  

Act 2 leaps forward five years, to a villa in Italy where Constance, Cyril and Vyvyan are living. The scandal of Oscar’s trial for gross indecency and homosexual acts, and his imprisonment, have forced Constance and the boys into exile, and they are hiding unhappily under a new last name. Acts 3 and 4 leap forward again, skipping over the tragedy of Oscar and Constance’s early deaths to episodes in Cyril and Vyvyan’s adulthoods—for Cyril, a pivotal day in the trenches in World War I France, and for Vyvyan, a theater outing with a family friend, on a night in 1925. Act 5 circles back to 1892 in that farmhouse in Norfolk, with a hopeful reimagining of this family’s life.

Although Bayard’s ending asks a little too much of Constance, the novel gives its heart to her; she’s a believable, loving, heartbroken character. In The Wildes, Bayard has built a story beyond the well-known tragedy, and though the novel never gives us Oscar’s perspective, we see him through Constance, Cyril and Vyvyan’s eyes—as an engaged father, loving but distant husband, self-absorbed keeper of secrets, and a terrified man unable to love openly.

 

In The Wildes, novelist Louis Bayard shows us Oscar Wilde through the eyes of his wife and sons—presenting a portrait of the poet and playwright as engaged father, loving but distant husband, self-absorbed keeper of secrets and a terrified man unable to love openly.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

The Thirteenth Child

Review by Jena Groshek

Erin A. Craig, bestselling author of House of Salt and Sorrows, takes readers on a journey through self-discovery and moral conflict in The Thirteenth Child. Hazel Trépas, the unwanted thirteenth child of a “foolish huntsman” and his “very pretty wife,” was promised to the Dreaded End—the god of Death—before she was even born. Years later, when Death comes to call on his beloved goddaughter, Hazel’s livelihood and aspirations change in a matter of hours. She is told she will become such a renowned healer that even kings will ask for her by name. Along with this new destiny comes a gift: the ability to foresee the cure to a patient’s ailment through simply cupping their cheek. 

Armed with this extraordinary power, Hazel begins healing the sick and wounded of her town, feeling a glorious new sense of purpose that she hadn’t been able to find in the shadow of her toxic family. However, she learns that this gift comes at times with a ghastly cost: When a patient cannot be cured, a deathshead in the shape of a grinning skull appears, signifying that they have been claimed by Death. With no other option, she must end their suffering for good. 

This poses an impossible dilemma for Hazel. When the deathshead appears, how will she balance her moral duty to heal with the will of her powerful, uncompromising godfather? Haunted by the lives she’s taken, Hazel reaches the hardest decision she has yet to face in her time as a healer when the deathshead appears over none other than the king himself. Does she follow the command of her godfather to avoid his wrath? But if she kills the king, won’t the resulting political turmoil lead to  far more death? No matter what she decides, Hazel will never be the same again after this choice

The Thirteenth Child encapsulates the reader in their own moral dissection of right and wrong, leading them to ponder whether the betterment of one may also lead to the betterment of others in this scenario.Craig is a master at developing her characters, giving them real-world obstacles to work through while adding a hint of magic to keep readers on their toes. The Thirteenth Child makes it difficult to predict where Hazel’s conflicting senses of responsibility and duty will lead her, and readers are sure to be drawn into their own internal debate about the incomprehensible burden of this gift that seems so beautiful on the surface.

Erin A. Craig is a master at developing her characters, giving them real-world obstacles to work through while adding a hint of magic to keep readers on their toes.
Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

The Top Spot

Review by Nicole Brinkley

An ibex stands on a mountain, peacefully grazing, until they are challenged for “the top spot.” In response, the ibex asks, “But what are we even fighting for?” When the ibex receives an attack instead of an answer, they flee from the challenge. Fleeing does not solve problems, however—and it certainly doesn’t get them the top spot. 

A scraggly goat might hold the answers as to how to claim the strange prize. Can the ibex take the goat’s advice, return to the ibex herd and outwit the others? And even if they do, what does winning the top spot really mean?

Frank Weber’s new picture book The Top Spot offers wry commentary on exceptionalism: Why claim the top spot at all? 

Perfect for fans of We Are Definitely Human, The Top Spot explores the strength to be found in cunning over size, as well as how the things we fight over may, ultimately, be pointless. Sparse text lets the artwork shine, leading its unconventional jokes to hit all the harder, with unexpected payoffs as the book progresses. 

Existentialist humor combined with expressive illustrations and a muted, earthy palette makes this picture book one that readers of Jon Klassen will particularly enjoy. Children will be encouraged to examine why they might be competitive with their friends and what, in the end, it actually gets them. The answer might surprise.

Frank Weber’s new picture book The Top Spot offers wry commentary on exceptionalism: Why claim the top spot at all?

Sign Up

Stay on top of new releases: Sign up for our newsletter to receive reading recommendations in your favorite genres.

Sign up now

Trending Reviews

All Reviews