2book

Dying to get away

Feature by Heather Seggel

Good company, beautiful scenery, false pretenses and uninvited guests make for nerve-rattling, riveting armchair travel in these two thrillers.

At the beginning of Kimberly McCreight’s Friends Like These, five friends reunite for a bachelor party in the Catskills. The sixth member of their group, Alice, died by suicide in college, and they’ve kept secrets about the events surrounding her death ever since. But the trip has a more serious purpose that’s yet another secret to keep: The group plans to hold an intervention to convince one of their number, Keith, to check into rehab.

But when the weekend is over, someone is missing, someone is dead and Julia Scutt, a local detective, is tasked with prying the truth from people so insulated by privilege, they’re shocked to find themselves affected by anything, let alone a tragedy of this caliber. And Julia has a tragedy in her own past that may be clouding her judgment.

The community where the party’s host, Jonathan, owns an opulent country house is in an economic slump, which results in a tense dynamic where “weekenders” like this group are both hated and needed. It can be hard at first to distinguish the individual members of the clique; the specifics of their relationships and connections could fill a wall chart with connecting strings. But their collective self-absorption makes it that much more satisfying when some comeuppance is finally distributed.

An intricate resolution involves performance art, the mafia, armchair detectives addicted to true crime podcasts and three big twists. (The third is a doozy.) As each character narrates their version of events, new pieces of information bring you closer to the truth . . . if only there weren’t so many lies mixed in. The false leads and big cast of characters make Friends Like These an entertaining puzzle. Take this book on your vacation and be glad you’re not on their vacation.

Getaway drops three women, two of them sisters, into the Grand Canyon for some adventurous hiking and unforeseen terror. Sisters Imogen and Beck have made the trip before with their family, but in the intervening years, Imogen suffered two major traumas that have turned her focus inward. Beck hopes the trip will restore her sister’s courage and also help mend Imogen’s rift with their mutual friend Tilda, a less experienced hiker who waits until they’re well into the hike to tell them as much. That would be bad enough, but soon all three women begin to have the sneaking suspicion that they are not alone on the trail.

Author Zoje Stage (Baby Teeth) gives this horror-tinged thriller emotional depth through a careful layering of big themes and tiny details. Stage has hiked the Grand Canyon herself, and her characters’ descriptions of the hike have an immersive, absorbing effect. The violence in this novel is truly frightening, more so because of how it contrasts with the beauty of the canyon’s vistas, sounds and silences.

Something as insignificant as a sliver of granola bar wrapper in an unexpected location can actually mean a great deal, but only if the people you’re traveling with and counting on listen to and believe you when you point it out. When there are three people in a challenging setting, two are almost always aligned while the third feels left out, and that can shut down communication and make it difficult to solve problems. Empathetic Imogen has the sense that she knows what’s really going on and how best to help, but there’s a chance her compassion is blinding her to how dire their situation really is. 

Getaway plays with shifting loyalties, old hurts and the potential for reconciliation in a way that’s emotionally affecting but never slows down the plot. A truly devilish thriller, it balances gut-twisting suspense with heartfelt connection. 

Good company, beautiful scenery, false pretenses and uninvited guests make for nerve-rattling, riveting armchair travel in these two thrillers.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Tips for Teachers: A welcoming spirit for the new school year

Feature by Emmie Stuart

Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

As a teacher, a new school year means a clean classroom and a fresh start, as well as the end of mornings sleeping past 5 a.m. and days spent reading by the pool. As a student, however, excitement and nerves always kept me awake on the night before the first day. My first-day outfit and fresh school supplies were often overshadowed by worry. The idea of walking into a classroom filled with new classmates, strange routines and a teacher I’d never met was downright terrifying.

These three books reminded me that many students aren’t thinking about summer reading assignments or new lessons during the first weeks of the school year. Instead, they’re worrying about entering or reentering a world where the potential for rejection seems to be around every corner. They’re worrying that their personality, interests or appearance won’t live up to the elusive standards set by their peers or by popular culture.

Sharing stories about characters who also experience these fears will validate students’ concerns about acceptance and identity. These books also remind students who are heading into a new school year without such concerns that their kind words and welcoming smiles can be lifelines for their new and uncertain classmates.

Little Bat in Night School by Brian Lies book coverLittle Bat in Night School
By Brian Lies

Little Bat is excited to begin attending night school for the first time, but when Mama Bat drops him off at a classroom full of various nocturnal animals, he discovers that school isn’t quite what he thought it would be. After two other students reject him (“‘We’re already playing—’ one said. ‘—with each other,’ the other one added.”), Little Bat flies into a cubby to hide. There, he meets an opossum named Ophelia and they become instant comrades. Bolstered by their new friendship, the pair rejoins the class and spends the rest of the night participating in classroom activities such as storytime and recess. Brian Lies’ illustrations are infused with personality, and his straightforward text and witty asides convey an important message with lightness and humor.

  • Creative writing

Pair Little Bat in Night School with another book in Lies’ series of picture books about bats. Bats in the Library is particularly beloved among my students. As a class, decide on a place where you would take a group of bats (for example, to an amusement park, the movie theater or the White House). Lead the class through a creative writing exercise. Provide students with guiding questions, including:

  • What does this place look like at night?
  • What will the bats wear?
  • What will they eat?
  • What will the bats do?
  • Who will they meet?

Afterward, let students work in pairs to write and illustrate their own stories about the bats at the chosen location.

  • Nocturnal animal research

Briefly discuss the other animals in Little Bat’s class, then prompt the class to tell you why these specific animals are Little Bat’s classmates (hint: because they’re all nocturnal animals). Make a graphic organizer on a piece of chart paper. Over the course of a week, read a variety of nonfiction books about these nocturnal animals. As you learn about each  animal, add to the graphic organizer and discuss the animals’ similarities and differences. At the end of the week, read Little Bat at Night School again. Ask the class, “Do the facts we learned over the past week help us better understand Little Bat or his classmates’ personalities, behaviors and classroom activities?”

  • Open art building

One of Little Bat’s favorite classroom activities is building a car out of various odds and ends. Gather a variety of materials (paper towel rolls, pipe cleaners, old CDs, plastic containers and bins, drinking straws, foil pans, fabric scraps, clay, bottle caps, toothpicks, egg cartons, paper plates and so on) and provide plenty of masking tape. Give students free rein to emulate Little Bat and craft a unique creation.

Bird Boy by Matthew Burgess book coverBird Boy
By Matthew Burgess
Illustrated by Shahrzad Maydani

Nico is nervous as he approaches his classroom, and it feels like his backpack is “full of stones.” When he arrives, he is the new kid, an outsider among his classmates. Nico is “a little lost,” but he finds creative ways to spend his time. He sits peacefully in the sun and befriends a flock of birds, which earns him the nickname “Bird Boy.” Initially a little hurt by his nickname, Nico decides to embrace it and imagines himself having a variety of bird adventures. Eventually, Nico’s kindness draws others to him, and he makes two friends who join “the wild flights of his imagination.” Gentle and surprising, Bird Boy celebrates the joy and freedom that comes with being delightfully different.

  • Personal nickname art

I love doing this activity at the beginning of the school year, when classroom culture and class bonding is essential. After discussing Nico’s nickname, give students time to reflect on their personal hobbies and interests. What is something they enjoy that is unique to them? Help them turn this into a personal nickname.

Type each child’s name in a large font at the top of a sheet of paper. At the bottom, type their chosen nickname. In the middle of the page, students will draw, paint or collage a visual interpretation of their nickname. Mount the sheets on colorful paper and laminate them. Give time for each student to share and explain their nickname to the class. Hang their creations along the top of a classroom wall for the entire school year.

  • Birding adventures

Nico imagines what he would do if he were various types of birds. He cruises the coastline like a pelican, hovers among the flowers like a hummingbird and dives off an iceberg like a penguin. Provide students with books that contain information about different kinds of birds. Invite students to choose a bird, then give them time to research it. Using their research, they will write about an activity that coordinates with their bird’s specific traits. For example, “I imagine that I am balancing like a flamingo,” or “I imagine I’m a peacock, strutting through the streets of India.”

  • Classroom culture conversation

Nico is the new student in his already established classroom. Sit in a circle and ask students to think about a time when they were new, like joining a new sports team, attending a new school or participating in a new activity. Ask, “How did you feel when you were the new one or faced an unfamiliar experience?” Allow time for students to share their memories and reflections. Then ask, “Who or what made this experience easier or harder for you?” Record students’ thoughts on the board or on a piece of chart paper. Next, ask students how this discussion can help make their classroom a more welcoming place for new students and for those who feel lonely or on the outside. Students will have lots of ideas. Record their ideas on chart paper and laminate it. Display the list in the classroom and refer to it often.

This Is Ruby
By Sara O’Leary
Illustrated by Alea Marley

Ruby “can’t wait to share her day with you.” Her bedroom is brimming with books, building supplies, paint and other materials, because “there are so many things she wants to do and make and be.” Ruby’s curiosity drives her to make a volcano, watch plants grow, take apart a watch and create a potion. She travels back to the era of the dinosaurs and visits the future in a time machine that she invented. When her busy day comes to an end, Ruby looks forward to tomorrow because she knows there is “no end of things to do.” Questions directed at readers (“If you could travel anywhere in time, where would you go?” and “What kind of things are you curious about?”) encourage self-reflection. Engaging and playful, This Is Ruby is an ideal read-aloud for getting to know new classmates and building classroom community.

  • Career aspirations

Ruby’s interests have her dreaming of many different careers. Of course, “she hasn’t decided yet.” If your school has a guidance counselor, collaborate with them to provide resources that contain information about a wide variety of careers. If possible, invite a few classroom caregivers or members of the school community into the classroom to share with students. Extend the exploration by hosting a career fair. Ask students to research an occupation, then create a visual aid and a brief (60 seconds or less) oral presentation. On the day of the fair, invite students from other classrooms to visit and walk around listening to students’ oral presentations.

  • Book of smells

Ruby makes a book of smells for her dog, Teddy. Bring in a variety of items students can use to create their own book of smells, such as finger paint, herbs and spices (add a bit of water to spices and make a paste), juice, mustard, essential oils, scratch-and-sniff stickers, cooking extracts, coffee, dried flowers and unlit scented wax candles. Fold and staple two pages of construction paper to create books, or use a single page of oversize paper. Students will use the materials to create scent samples on the pages, then create a cover for their books. Don’t forget to add labels under each scent!

  • Time-travel adventures

Ruby travels back in time and forward to the future. Read aloud other books about time travel. I recommend Dan Santat’s Are We There Yet? and Jared Chapman’s T-Rex Time Machine. Afterward, invite students to choose a day or an era in time for their own time-travel adventure. Students will do research or ask family members for details about their chosen destinations, then turn their research into a creative writing piece. The writing can be narrative, fictional or epistolary.

As a teacher, a new school year means a clean classroom and a fresh start, as well as the end of mornings sleeping past 5 a.m. and days spent reading by the pool. As a student, however, excitement and nerves always kept me awake on the night before the first day.

Mystery

Detective debuts

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

Everybody loves a good origin story, right? If you’re fans of S.D. Sykes’ Somershill Manor or William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor mysteries, then you’re in for a treat. Both authors—after years of adventures with their respective sleuths—have turned back the pages of time to present their characters’ earliest adventures.

In Sykes’ The Good Death, set primarily in 1349, a teenage Brother Oswald de Lacy, who will one day become Lord Somershill, embarks on his first foray into detection after he discovers a petrified and abused young woman, Agnes Wheeler, in a forest. Agnes flees from him, and is subsequently swept away by a nearby river’s rapids and drowns. Upon returning her body to her own village, Oswald learns that she is but one of several young women who have gone inexplicably missing.

Oswald is in the process of becoming a monk at Kintham Abbey when Agnes’ death seemingly shatters his faith. Determined to learn who assaulted Agnes and what may have happened to the other women, Oswald embarks on his own investigation, much to the chagrin of both his own family and those in the brotherhood. After learning that Agnes may be his own brother's daughter, Oswald’s already tenuous devotion to the cloth is tested even further. With clues pointing to another monk at the monastery, Oswald grows increasingly unsure about who he can trust.

With the Black Death roiling through the countryside and forcing communities into isolation for fear of spreading the deadly disease, Oswald’s investigation becomes increasingly more difficult. Thankfully, especially for readers who want to avoid being reminded of the COVID-19 pandemic, the plague is only depicted on the fringes of events and is not a main element of the action. Instead, Sykes firmly plants readers in Oswald’s perspective throughout the story, easily evoking sympathy for his confusion, as well as his determination to discover the truth. Occasional chapters set 21 years later find Oswald revealing the sordid story to his mother on her deathbed, showcasing a deep connection between mother and son and their devotion to family, secrets and all.

In Lightning Strike, Krueger entices his legions of fans with a trip back to 1963, showing how Cork O’Connor developed his nose for the truth. At just 12 years old, Cork’s idyllic, carefree lifestyle in Aurora, Minnesota, is shattered when he discovers his mentor, Big John Manydeeds, hanging by a rope from a tree at the titular location, a cabin on the shores of nearby Iron Lake that was destroyed by lightning. The Indigenous Ojibwe people believe the destruction of the cabin was a sign from the spirits that the surrounding forest is sacred and shouldn’t be touched.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is sheriff of Tamarack County and seems convinced by the evidence at hand that Big John took his own life. A cache of empty beer bottles is found at Big John’s residence and his blood alcohol content is well over the legal limit, pointing to the inevitable conclusion that the man, who was recovering from alcoholism, must have fallen off the wagon again.

Cork, whose mother was Ojibwe and Irish American, isn’t so sure. For one thing, a shadowy sense of Big John’s spirit has begun to haunt him and several other Ojibwe people. For another, Big John had been sober for several years. Liam does little to discourage Cork’s questions about the death, perhaps because he has his own doubts about the circumstances surrounding it and perhaps because he sees something in Cork of the man he will become. He allows Cork to follow the breadcrumbs and let the facts lead him, pieces of advice that fans of the series will be thrilled to recognize as ones that follow Cork into manhood when he becomes sheriff.

But neither Cork nor his father, it seems, is quite prepared for the rising tensions between those on the Ojibwe Iron Lake Reservation, who knew Big John best, and the white community around them. Krueger deepens the mystery at every turn, ratcheting up both the plot reveals and pace of the story relentlessly before the stunning conclusion.

While longtime Krueger fans may long for another mystery featuring a grown-up Cork, they will quickly be won over by and embrace this excursion into Cork’s formative years. Krueger expertly blends his trademark mystery skills with a coming-of-age story that examines family, place and race.

Authors S.D. Sykes and William Kent Krueger—after years of adventures with their respective sleuths—turn back the pages of time to show their characters’ very first cases.

NonfictionFood & DrinkCookbooksArts & Culture

Lifestyles: October 2021

Feature by Susannah Felts

The best lifestyles books of the month will give you a creative boost from the workplace to the kitchen.

★ Creative Acts for Curious People

Tell the story of your worst first date using only LEGOs. Design an ad campaign for bananas. Describe an ability you’d use to survive a zombie apocalypse. Ask someone to tell you the story of their name. These are but a few of the assignments in Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways, developed from the teachings of Stanford University’s well-respected design school (known as the d.school), where students collaborate and innovate in fresh, surprising ways for the greater good. Need a change of perspective on a project or an escape hatch from routine thinking? Want to encourage your team to loosen up, give helpful feedback or challenge biases? Look no further. “In the face of current challenges—those here today and those yet to come—we all need ways to prepare to act even when we are uncertain,” writes d.school executive director Sarah Stein Greenberg. Whether you’re an independent artist seeking new approaches to your work or a leader aiming to mentor and galvanize your people, this book has an experience for you. I plan to put it to use in my own nonprofit leadership and personal creative projects.

The Tiny Kitchen Cookbook

Annie Mahle spent many years cooking for groups of 24 in the galley kitchen of a schooner, so you could say she’s earned her small-space stripes. In The Tiny Kitchen Cookbook: Strategies and Recipes for Creating Amazing Meals in Small Spaces, Mahle gathers recipes requiring little cookware or fuss, including one-pan dinners, toaster oven-friendly bakes and small dishes that can serve as snacks or light entrees. She shares tips for making the best of your (limited) workspace and, in a genius section called “Use It Up,” offers ideas for what to do with ingredients that tend to linger, like buttermilk, cauliflower and pumpkin puree. In the tiny (vacation) house of my dream-future, this will be the only cookbook on hand, but for now it will be a welcome addition to my home kitchen, with its charming lack of counter space.

Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys

I happen to live in the same state as Sandor Katz, and he’s the sort of fellow Tennessean that makes me proud to call this place home. Katz gained an international following with his 2003 bestseller, The Art of Fermentation, the success of which took him across the globe. Now he’s back with Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Journeys: Recipes, Techniques, and Traditions From Around the World, which explores microbial activity in the culinary traditions of China, Peru and other places far, far from Cannon County, Tennessee. Think tepache in Mexico, sour cabbages in Croatia, pickled tea leaves in Burma, koji in Japan and much more. Part travelogue, part cookbook, part chemistry experiment, Katz’s new book is a fascinating look at fermented foods the world over, and it aims, always, to be a respectful one.

The best lifestyles books of the month will give you a creative boost from the workplace to the kitchen.
YA FictionYA

Something witchy this way comes

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Coming-of-age goes supernatural in three spellbinding YA books featuring teen witches with amazing abilities and major magic. Toil, trouble and the curses of adolescence are no match for their power!

Edie in Between by Laura Sibson book coverEdie in Between

In Laura Sibson’s Edie in Between, Edie Mitchell treasures the silver acorn pendant her mother gave her, but she avoids nearly every other aspect of her heritage. Edie comes from a long line of witches, but the 17-year-old considers magic something to be avoided rather than embraced.

Since her mother’s recent death, Edie has been living with her grandmother, GG, in the small town of Cedar Branch, where she refuses to touch the herbs and small bones hanging in the kitchen or interact with the inquisitive ghosts of her ancestors who like to float around the houseboat they share with a cat named Temperance. Her mother is a ghostly presence, too, but Edie won’t chat with her like GG does; she’s “a constant reminder of what I’ve lost.”

Edie manages her longing for her former Baltimore home and her uncertainty about the future by going on daily runs with her new friend, Tess. But when a threatening force is accidentally roused, Edie’s reluctance to embrace magic becomes a liability. She must get up to speed on her powers before something terrible befalls her and those she cares about—including the beautiful and appealing Rhia, an aspiring witch who’s delighted to share with Edie what she’s learned about magic thus far.

The discovery of her mom’s old journal proves pivotal to Edie’s rushed education. Each entry hints at something Edie must find or do and opens a window into her mother’s life before she became pregnant. Sibson (The Art of Breaking Things) draws the past into the present with empathy and skill, respecting the pain of Edie’s grief while allowing her to know her mother in a way she might not have otherwise.

Edie in Between is a winning portrait of a girl’s evolution from embarrassment to openly embracing what makes her different, including celebrating her magical kinship with the witches who came before her.

The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith book coverThe Witch Haven

When 17-year-old seamstress Frances Hallowell discovers her powers in The Witch Haven, she is horrified, relieved and hopeful. It’s 1911 in New York City, and after a violent attack on her life, Frances is appalled to realize she may have killed her attacker with her emotions. Thankfully, two nurses suddenly appear on the scene and whisk her away to Haxahaven Sanitarium, helping her avoid police suspicion and catapulting her into an astonishing new chapter of her life.

That’s because the nurses are witches and Haxahaven isn’t a medical facility. Instead, it’s a 200-year-old school for the magical, complete with dramatic architecture, noisy dining hall and imperious headmistress. Now that Frances’ powers have been awakened, Haxahaven will help her use them for good.

And that’s where the hopefulness comes in, as magic holds both the promise of a better future and the solution to a more immediate problem: Can Frances’ new powers help her find out what happened to her brother, William, who was found dead in the East River four months ago? Her grief is ever-present—“like a punch to the gut fifty times a day”—as is her desire to solve his murder and prevent others from suffering as he did.

Debut author Sasha Peyton Smith has created a compelling character in Frances. She’s smart and often funny, impulsive and occasionally frustrating as she makes decisions born of naivete and desperation, often with new friends Maxine and Lena in tow. The arrival of William’s friend Finn offers a way for Frances to learn meaningful magic (disappointingly, Haxahaven focuses on housekeeping-centric spells) and to investigate William’s death. There’s romantic potential between them, too, but Finn belongs to a gentlemen’s club full of power-hungry wizards. Should she judge him by the company he keeps?

The Witch Haven is an immersive excursion into early 20th-century New York City. Beneath the grit and darkness of the period, Smith layers in a supernatural underworld that intrigues Frances as much as it endangers her. The result is an atmospheric and mystical adventure that offers a realistic exploration of grief and a memorable take on coming-of-age tropes.

Bad Witch Burning by Jessica Lewis book coverBad Witch Burning

Katrell Davis suffers greatly in debut author Jessica Lewis’ Bad Witch Burning, enduring wrenching emotional pain, violent beatings and overwhelming exhaustion. Even so, the 16-year-old stubbornly insists on survival even when her options are meager and dangerous. She works 30 hours a week at a burger joint, trying to pay the rent and bills for the decrepit townhouse where she lives with her neglectful mother and her mother’s abusive boyfriend, Gerald. She has a side gig, too: Using her magical powers, she conjures up her clients’ dead relatives, even though it causes her physical pain.

Her best friend, Will, loves to chat with her late grandma Clara, who warns Katrell that she must stop her seances: “You’ll burn down not only yourself, but everyone and everything around you.” Katrell pays Clara no mind; she’s got work to do. But when her hours at the burger joint are cut and Gerald kills her dog, Katrell’s anguish and rage burn hotter than ever, leading her to discover an even more powerful ability than merely communing with the dead. So what if people are crawling out of their graves and walking around? It’s a huge risk, but Katrell will figure it out, and she’ll monetize it.

A series of resurrections earns her more cash than she’s ever had—but more attention, too. As threatening types close in and Katrell realizes her powers aren’t completely under her control, Lewis’ story becomes an even wilder ride, its horror tinged with the darkest of humor as Katrell’s life hangs in the balance.

Bad Witch Burning is a powerful debut, a moving gift of a story from a writer who, per an author’s note included with advance editions of the book, worked through her own valid anger and emerged stronger on the other side to create a book “for girls who need to scream but smile instead.” It’s an exciting, harrowing supernatural tale filled with thrills, poignancy and heart.

Coming-of-age goes supernatural in three spellbinding YA books featuring teen witches with amazing abilities and major magic. Toil, trouble and the curses of adolescence are no match for their power!

Mystery & SuspenseCozy Mystery

Cozies: October 2021

Feature by Heather Seggel

Not one, not two, but all three of the books in this month’s cozy column received starred reviews!

★ Mango, Mambo, and Murder

Miriam Quiñones-Smith has just relocated from New York City to tony Coral Shores in Miami. A former food anthropologist, she lands a gig teaching Caribbean cooking on a morning show and works to grow a social circle, but at her very first meeting of a women’s club, one of the attendees keels over. Mango, Mambo, and Murder has everything you look for in a cozy mystery but also feels like a breath of fresh air. Author Raquel V. Reyes fills this story with details that make it feel real, despite there being a character named Sunny Weatherman. Cuban American Miriam and her family, friends and co-workers are well-rounded personalities whom readers will be eager to learn more about. Miriam’s attempts to find a killer take her to strip malls filled with questionable folk healers and incredible restaurants serving Cuban American standards like ropa vieja and pollo a la plancha. Reyes incorporates Spanish into characters’ dialogue throughout, adding authenticity, while subtly providing context so that readers who aren’t Spanish speakers won’t miss a beat. Dig into this inviting, suspenseful feast for the senses.

★ The Man Who Died Twice

It’s impossible to single out any one feature that makes The Man Who Died Twice such an absolute treat. The plot is a crackling mystery: Septuagenarian retiree and amateur sleuth Elizabeth gets a coded message from someone in her past asking for help, as he’s stolen a lot of diamonds from some very angry people. When two people are killed, the hunt is on for the killers and the diamonds. English TV presenter and comedian Richard Osman creates real magic with his characters. They are frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious but also entirely real and three-dimensional. There’s also dogged police work, tradecraft most devious, a lot of cocaine and those diamonds. If possible, this sequel is even better than the Osman’s charmer of a debut, The Thursday Murder Club. This series is both a load of fun and an ode to how the power of friendship is important throughout one’s life but especially during the final stretch. Don’t miss it.

★ Seven-Year Witch

Seven-Year Witch finds Josie Way settling into life as a librarian in rural Wilfred, Oregon, and deepening her powers as a witch, thanks to letters left to her by her grandmother. The old mill in town is set to be turned into a lavish retreat center, but rumors that the site is cursed raise local hackles, especially when the disappearance of one of Wilfred’s inhabitants is followed by the discovery of a bloody weapon. Josie’s love interest, FBI agent Sam Wilfred, returns to town, but things between them are complicated by the news that he’s married with a baby. Author Angela M. Sanders uses the eerie atmosphere to great effect and also plays with the assumed charms of a small town. For example, the locals lose some of their warmth when there’s a killer in their midst. Josie’s witchcraft plays into solving the mystery, but the story feels realistic overall. Full of false leads and truly surprising reveals, this terrifically plotted mystery is hard to put down.

Not one, not two, but all three of the books in this month’s cozy column received starred reviews!

RomanceContemporary Romance

All’s fair in love and work

Feature by Dolly R. Sickles

Enemies to lovers is a favorite romance trope, and two new titles up the ante by making their central couples not just personal rivals but professional ones as well.

The prolific Meg Cabot is an expert in matters of the heart, having written love stories between characters from middle school to middle age. In No Words, the third book in her Little Bridge Island series, readers are once again whisked away to the lovely Florida Keys for a little sun, fun and romance.

Jo Wright is a children’s author who recently received an invitation to speak at Little Bridge Island’s first book festival. She’s successful and beloved by her legions of young readers, not just for the adventures in the books she writes but for the way she interacts with and treats them.

The lure of good money is hard for Jo to resist, but she wants nothing to do with one of the festival’s other invitees: arrogant novelist Will Prince, the man who once maligned Jo’s work to the New York Times. When she hears that Will is going to be out of the country that week, visiting the set of a film adaptation of his new book, she agrees to attend. Too late she discovers that not only does Will own Little Bridge Island, he is bankrolling the festival and very much in attendance.

Worshipped by the legions of women who read his angst-filled dramas, Will’s the Nicholas Sparks to Jo’s Judy Blume. She’s not interested in an apology, but the Will she meets on Little Bridge Island is awkward and sweet, and willing to go to great lengths to make amends. In a refreshing twist on the trope, he’s an enemy who begins the book hoping to change their status and ready to put in the work.

No Words doesn’t have much in the way of tension or conflict, making it a quick, easy and lighthearted read (despite the huge cast of side characters). Cabot is a whiz at writing dialogue that’s both charming and believable, and she riffs on her years of experience in the publishing industry in snarky, silly ways that will bring readers plenty of laughs alongside this love story.

Julia London’s It Started With a Dog is a fun rom-com full of dog puns and good-natured, never mean-spirited competition that pits two like-minded coffee aficionados against one another.

When Harper Thompson and Jonah Rogers accidentally swap phones, neither knows that the trajectory of their life will be changed forever. In the process of getting the phones back to their rightful owners, Harper and Jonah learn that they have much in common, from favorite movies and food to their love of dogs and coffee. Both even have professional nemeses: each other.

Harper’s shiny new coffeehouse, Deja Brew, is bad news for the Lucky Star coffee shop, which is owned by Jonah’s family. The town isn’t big enough for two coffee shops, and something must be done. Harper and Jonah decide to organize a delightful battle of the baristas, but one for a good cause. As a way to raise funds for a local dog shelter, each shop will foster a rescue dog and urge their patrons to vote for their adorable new mascot to be named King Mutt.

London does a great job of developing characters who are likeable, engaging and relatable. Harper’s Type A personality is tons of fun (in London’s capable hands, she’s never irritating or unbelievable), and Jonah’s ability to step in and save the day for his family is a perfect example of how attractive sheer competence can be. It Started With a Dog is almost as good as a lavender latte.

Enemies to lovers is a favorite romance trope, and two new titles up the ante by making their central couples not just personal rivals but professional ones as well.

RomanceFantasy Romance

Romance: October 2021

Feature by Christie Ridgway

A duke falls in love with his secretary, a fairy-tale romance gets a second chance and fate brings two people together in this month’s romance column.

★ The Duchess Hunt

A no-nonsense duke is secretly crushing on his no-nonsense secretary in Lorraine Heath’s utterly delicious Victorian romance The Duchess Hunt. Upon becoming Duke of Kingsland, Hugh Brinsley-Norton built back the family fortune with the help of his trusted and long-serving secretary, Penelope Pettypeace, who has quietly become his best friend. Now he’s asked her to find him the perfect duchess, even though he’s increasingly fascinated with Penelope. Penelope knows she’s in love with Hugh, but her loyalty to him means she will dedicate herself to selecting the wife of his dreams from the eager ladies of high society, despite the fact that it will break her heart. With desperate secrets on the verge of being revealed and an engagement announcement ball on the horizon, will true love win? Smart characters with shadowy pasts, great sexual tension and steamy love scenes create a grand romance.

★ Eight Perfect Hours

As Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis begins, Londoner Noelle Butterby is just getting by. She deferred her dreams of becoming a florist several years ago in order to take care of her mother after she had a stroke, and now Noelle has also recently ended a serious relationship. Under it all, the loss of her best friend, Daisy, when they were teenagers has troubled her for years. Out of the blue comes a charming meet cute: During a snowy traffic jam, her car is stopped beside that of Sam, an American on his way out of the country. They hit it off, talking for hours until they’re free to go their separate ways. Noelle can’t stop thinking of him, and then he serendipitously comes back into her life. Again. And again. Until they both begin to wonder if something larger is at work. Louis’ sense of place is marvelous, vivid and lived-in, whether the couple is stuck on a road or sharing confidences in a laundromat. Suspend disbelief and just sit back for this tender kisses-only journey from heartache to happily ever after.

Once More Upon a Time

Bestselling YA fantasy author Roshani Chokshi pens her first adult romance in Once More Upon a Time. Married and enchanted with each other, Prince Ambrose and Princess Imelda thought they had it all, until Imelda fell ill and Ambrose gave up their love to a witch in order to save Imelda’s life. A year and a day later, the same witch offers them a chance to recover their lost love if they’ll retrieve a potion for her. Ambrose and Imelda aren’t completely convinced they want to fall in love with each other again, but as they team up to fight cannibals and changelings, they come to appreciate things they never really knew about each other. Amusing and imaginative—particular proof is a dry-witted horse of many uses and a walnut that opens to reveal magic dresses—this novella is told from the perspective of the lovers but also that of the witch, who has fabulous taste in handbags and looks great for her age (or so she says). This kisses-only fantasy road trip is lots of fun.

A duke falls in love with his secretary, a fairy-tale romance gets a second chance and fate brings two people together in this month’s romance column.

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Sweltering summers, sliced through with cold terror

Feature by Laura Hubbard

While set in very different worlds and starkly different eras, Summer Sons and Revelator are marvelous modern additions to the Southern gothic canon, full of paranoia and the grotesque (as well as the occasional jump scare).

★ Summer Sons

Lee Mandelo’s Summer Sons opens in tragedy. After the death of his adoptive brother and best friend, Andrew is left with a legacy he never asked for: Eddie's money, Eddie’s sports car, Eddie’s house, the American Studies graduate program at Vanderbilt in Tennessee that Eddie picked out for the two of them and even Eddie’s roommate. Driven by grief and convinced that there is more to Eddie’s death than meets the eye, Andrew slides into the life that Eddie prepared for him, discovering all that Eddie had tried to conceal. As Andrew dives deeper into a world of sun-soaked men, racing and trouble, he is forced to deal with another unwanted legacy. Eddie’s revenant won’t leave him alone, and neither will Eddie’s research into their shared supernatural experience, a topic they had agreed to let lie. Summer Sons is raw and chaotic, driving readers through the disordered grief and anger of its main character. Mandelo’s visceral writing tugs at readers’ hearts as well as their amygdalas. Alternating between discussions of identity and sexuality, the horror of grief and an actual haunting, it is part The Fast and the Furious, part The Shining and part Ninth House.

★ Revelator

While Summer Sons deals in the present, Daryl Gregory’s Revelator is a story of ancestry and ancient powers. Set in the 1930s and ’40s, in the mountainous triangle where Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia collide, it follows Stella Birch: moonshiner, businesswoman and Revelator and prophet to Ghostdaddy, the god under the mountain. The red splotches across Stella’s face signaled this title when she was born and sealed her destiny. She would be the one to go under the mountain and commune with Ghostdaddy, bringing his word out to be recorded and interpreted by the men of her family. That is, until tragedy and rebellion struck. Stella fled, leaving her role and god behind. But when her grandmother Motty’s death calls Stella back to her childhood home and to Motty’s adopted daughter, Sonny, whom Stella has long ignored, she will have to deal with her past if she is to have any hope of a future.

Full of matter-of-fact descriptions of unthinkable horror, Revelator is both weird and wonderful. On the one hand, it tells a story familiar to Southern literature: the chaos resulting from the death of a matriarch. And on the other, it tells the story of a creature so alien that it’s difficult to wrap your head around. Perfect for fans of Lovecraft Country and anyone who wished the 2000 film Songcatcher had a few more monsters, Revelator is full of surprises both fascinating and stomach-clenching.

Both Summer Sons and Revelator serve a slice of cold terror, paired with a view of humanity that is equal parts revelatory and humbling.

Two new novels put their own horrifying spin on the Southern gothic.

Mystery & SuspenseThrillerMystery

Speculative and spectacular

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

Career criminals crisscross Europe as they tread a perilous path to revenge, and FBI agents race to solve bizarre murders plaguing an historic Southern city. But otherworldly forces lurk around the edges, turning these two thrillers into something else altogether.

The Nameless Ones

John Connolly’s The Nameless Ones is a bleak, unflinching look at the ways in which the effects of war ripple ever outward, endlessly destructive, never truly resolved. In places where this kind of conflict is never-ending, there are some—such as Serbian brothers Spiridon and Radovan Vuksan—who might decide that crime does pay. After committing countless atrocities in the 1990s Yugoslav wars (Spiridon prefers hands-on torture, Radovan is a hands-off strategist), the men now lead a crime syndicate and have amassed money, power and influence.

But these things don’t render them invincible, especially where Louis and Angel are concerned. These fan-favorite characters, a loving gay couple who happen to be an assassin and a thief, are front and center in this 19th installment of the Charlie Parker series, though Parker makes cameos here and there. Louis and Angel are on a mission to avenge the death of De Jaager, a Dutch fixer whom the Vuksan brothers and their colleagues murdered, along with three others, in Amsterdam.

De Jaager’s death is the latest in a round robin of revenge that’s decreasing the likelihood of the Vuksans ever returning to Serbia as free men. Connolly delves into the logistics of organized crime while illustrating how escalating pressures are fraying the Vuksan brothers’ contentious relationship. Complicating matters is Parker’s late daughter, Jennifer, who appears to Louis and Angel in their dreams, plus a woman named Zorya whose presence is discomfiting and mystifying. Will she help or hinder the Vuksans as Louis and Angel, enraged and determined, draw ever closer?

Multiple characters and points of view factor into the complex plot, offering history and context for the sociopaths, narcissists and opportunists that populate The Nameless Ones. There are moments of wit and wisdom, too—and sinister questions that will leave fans eager for the next installment.

★ Bloodless

This November, it will have been 50 years since people first began asking, “Who the hell was D.B. Cooper?” Fans of Aloysius X.L. Pendergast will be delighted that Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have chosen to mark the anniversary of Cooper’s famously unsolved skyjacking in Bloodless, the 20th title in their bestselling series featuring the unusual and inimitable FBI special agent who’s solved more than 100 cases and counting.

The book opens with a closer look at what might’ve happened during Cooper’s fateful crime in the sky, and then it fast-forwards to the present day wherein Pendergast, his companion Constance Greene and his partner Armstrong Coldmoon are embarking on a weird new case. They’ve been called to Savannah, Georgia, where a body has been found completely drained of blood, and the residents have no insight or information to offer. (Or do they?)

In short order, there are more victims who look “like alien creatures or wax manikins” and a continued and confounding lack of clues, much to the dismay of an obnoxious senatorial candidate who pushes the FBI and local police for a quick resolution. Other complicating factors include a brash documentary crew, with dubious ethics, in town to chronicle the city’s alleged paranormal activity; rumors that the elderly Chandler House hotel proprietor Felicity Frost is actually a vampire; and kooky residents and tourists who keep things messy.

And then things get really messy, as whoever is killing people ratchets up the gruesomeness, splattering the charming historical city with blood and gore while infusing the humid air with abject terror. History, mystery, action and the unexplainable collide as the FBI team draws closer to their prey while trying to avoid being hunted themselves.

Bloodless is rife with inventive scenarios, amusing exchanges (especially between oft-impatient Coldmoon and eternally placid Pendergast) and tantalizingly spooky mysteries, topped off with a gloriously wild finale that is as action-packed as it is memorable.

Horrors both supernatural and all-too-human haunt two new installments of popular, long-running series.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Tips for Teachers: Food stories

Feature by Emmie Stuart

Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

The chef and writer Julia Child once mused, “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you?” We know when a dish or a meal has been prepared with intentionality and love, and part of what we enjoy when we eat it is the feeling of assurance that we are cared for and valued.

I remember many Saturday afternoons spent perched on a kitchen stool as I helped my paternal grandfather make chicken and dumplings, pear preserves and fried okra, and many wintry mornings spent twirling around on the bar stools in my maternal grandmother’s kitchen, watching as she prepared toad in a hole (fried eggs cracked into pieces of bread with the middle cut out) and cream of wheat topped with heaps of brown sugar.

In a class discussion with my second graders last year, I asked them to share a beloved family food. Their responses were robust and enthusiastic. They were all eager to describe their favorite dishes in great detail, from comfort foods such as snowy potatoes and cheesy noodles to regional specialties such as Coca-Cola cake and clam donuts. My students’ love for these foods was audible in their voices.

Our favorite dishes don’t evoke such strong feelings because of the recipes we follow when we make them or even because of the way they taste. They’re our favorites because they connect us to the people we love most, who have expressed their love for us through food.

These three books skillfully explore themes of cooking and food and but gain deeper emotional resonance thanks to the intergenerational relationships at their hearts. Share them with your students, and be sure to allow for extra time so they can share, in return, their own cherished culinary memories.

Dumplings for LiliDumplings for Lili
By Melissa Iwai

Lili loves baos, Chinese dumplings that are “bundles of warm, doughy, juicy yumminess,” so she is thrilled when Nai Nai, her grandmother, invites her to help make them. As they begin to cook, Nai Nai discovers that she is out of cabbage and sends Lili up to the sixth floor of her building to borrow some from Babcia, a white-haired grandmother who is making pierogi. Babcia, too, is missing an ingredient she needs and sends Lili down to the second floor to see whether Granma has any potatoes she could spare.

The pattern continues as Lili fetches and delivers missing ingredients to Abuela, Nonna, Granma and Teta, up and down the floors of Nai Nai’s apartment building. When Lili has finished all her errands and the baos have finished steaming, she and Nai Nai gather at a big table outside with the building’s other residents, who all bring the dumplings they’ve made. The celebration is complete when Lili’s parents arrive with Lili’s newborn brother, a “little dumpling treasure” of her very own. Readers who loved Oge Mora’s Caldecott Honor book Thank You, Omu! will love this story that brims with warmth as it captures a slice of life in a diverse community.

  • Room reflections

The decor in each of the apartments that Lili visits reflects its owner’s cultural heritage. Revisit these illustrations with your students. Ask them to tell you what details they notice in each apartment. How do the decorations, furnishings and dishes each woman is cooking reflect their culture?

Invite students to consider what an individual’s room or house might reveal about their personality and identity. Explain how objects around your classroom reflect you and your background.

Give students sheets of drawing paper and art supplies, such as crayons or colored pencils. Ask them to imagine and draw a living space, like a kitchen or a bedroom, and to fill the room with objects that reflect their hobbies, interests or family/heritage.

  • Culinary research

Provide books, magazines or online resources that contain information about traditional foods from many countries and cultures. Give students time to explore them, then ask them to choose a dish and a culture to research further and then deliver a presentation about. Create a guideline sheet that outlines the information they must include, such as the history of the dish, what time of day or year it is traditionally eaten, how it is prepared and so on. Allow the option of using either digital presentation tools or physical ones, such as poster board.

  • Apartment stories

Depending on your community, your students may be unfamiliar with the concept of apartment living or would enjoy reading more books about characters who live in apartments like they do. Read more books about apartments and other forms of communal housing. Some of my favorites include Ezra Jack Keats’ Apt. 3, Mac Barnett and Brian Biggs’ Noisy Night, Eve Bunting and Kathryn Hewitt’s Flower Garden and Einat Tsarfati’s The Neighbors, which was translated by Annette Appel.

Let Me Fix You a Plate by Elizabeth LillyLet Me Fix You a Plate
By Elizabeth Lilly

Every year, the narrator of Elizabeth Lilly’s Let Me Fix You a Plate leaves the city with her sisters and parents. They drive first to Mamaw and Papaw's house in the rural mountains of West Virginia. In the morning, they enjoy a delicious breakfast of sausage and toast with blackberry jam, then they help Mamaw make banana pudding. A few days later, they hug goodbye, get back in the car and drive to Abuela and Abuelo’s bright orange home in Florida. Here, they enjoy eating crispy tostones, arepas with queso blanco and flan, but soon they are saying goodbye again and heading back home to their own family feast of waffles and syrup before they fall into bed. Lilly’s detailed and colorful illustrations reflect the cozy presence of love in all three of the homes she depicts. Joyous and appealing, Let Me Fix You a Plate is a satisfying tale that celebrates road trips, family and food.

  • Food traditions interview

Ask students to think about a family member or person in the community who has prepared a traditional dish or meal for them. Most of my students chose a grandparent, but two students wanted to interview the owners of restaurants and bakeries in our community. If you have students for whom interviewing family members won’t be possible, ask teachers at your school if they would be willing to serve as interview subjects.

As a class, think of five or six questions that students will ask in their interviews. Create a simple form that contains the questions and space for students to record answers. Discuss interviewing techniques and etiquette and give students time to practice with their classmates.

Older students can extend this activity by crafting their interviewees' responses into a piece of reflective writing. Invite them to add visuals to their writing, then put their pieces together and publish a classroom food traditions memoir.

  • Same, same, but different

I use this exercise all the time because it shows students that while the details of families, homes, cultures and traditions may appear to be very different, many commonalities exist among them, and differences and similarities are all beautiful and worth celebrating.

As a class, revisit the illustrations in Let Me Fix You a Plate. Write down all the differences you can spot between the grandparents’ two houses that the narrator visits, then go back and write down the commonalities. Finally, examine the illustrations that depict the narrator's family’s own home and see what students notice.

Soul Food Sunday by Winsome Bingham book coverSoul Food Sunday
By Winsome Bingham
Illustrated by C.G. Esperanza

When a boy arrives at Granny’s house on Sunday, he follows her to the kitchen. “Time for you to learn,” she says, how to prepare a traditional soul food Sunday meal. The boy dons his grandfather’s chef’s jacket from when he was in the Army and listens as his grandmother affectionately explains the steps of the meal’s many dishes, including macaroni and cheese, greens, chicken and ribs. Although he finds it challenging to work on the dishes ("My hand hurt. My arm aches. But I don’t quit."), he perseveres and even prepares a pitcher of sweet tea to add to the feast. After all, Granny says that “unless sweet tea is on the table, it’s not soul food Sunday.” Illustrator C.G. Esperanza’s layered oil paintings capture the energy and love of a big family meal through bright, colorful illustrations. This joyful picture book celebrates soul food and the nourishment of gathering around the table with loved ones.

  • Sounds of home

Soul Food Sunday is filled with onomatopoeia and words related to sound. Read the book again and make a chart of these words. Ask students to consider how these words add sensory detail, energy and atmosphere to the story.

Read other books with examples of onomatopoeia, then task students with a “sounds of home” challenge. Give them index cards and ask them to write down the sounds of their afternoon and evening, from the bus ride home to their evening meal to the sounds of their bedtime routine.

  • Miniature murals

Esperanza’s oil paint illustrations draw inspiration from street art and murals. With your students, visit Esperanza’s website. Explore his portfolio and read his picture book, Boogie Boogie, Y’all, a fantastical tale about graffiti coming to life. Guide students through a discussion of Esperanza’s art. Questions I like to pose during this exercise include:

  • How do these illustrations make you feel?
  • What things do you think about when you see these pictures?
  • What do you think the artist used to create this art?
  • What makes you say that?

Read more books about street art and murals. I recommend F. Isabel Campoy, Theresa Howell and Rafael López’s Maybe Something Beautiful and Ian Lendler and Katie Yamasaki’s Everything Naomi Loved.

Give students oversize pieces of paper and let them sketch and design their own miniature murals. After they’ve settled on their designs, provide them with oil pastels or paints and brushes so they can add color and texture. Combine their miniature murals into a single, large mural in the hallway.

The chef and writer Julia Child once mused, “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you?” We know when a dish or a meal has been prepared with intentionality and love, and part of what we enjoy when we eat it is the feeling of assurance that we are cared for and valued.

RomanceContemporary Romance

Let’s get physical

Feature by Carole V. Bell

These contemporary romances are ensconced in the world of professional athletics and fitness, but emotional lifting takes greater precedence than squats.

In The Dating Playbook, the second rom-com in Farrah Rochon’s knockout Boyfriend Project series, a personal trainer with a struggling practice teams up with a high-profile former NFL player facing multiple hurdles to give him a second chance at playing pro ball.

Taylor Powell has always felt like the black sheep in her high-achieving family. While her siblings soared, school meant suffering and panic attacks for Taylor. She squeaked by in high school, but her lack of college degree has been the deciding factor in several lost professional opportunities. Now she works as a personal trainer and has a tight circle of female friends, a sisterhood of women (introduced in The Boyfriend Project) who all learned through social media that they were dating the same sad-sack, low-rent player. And yet, despite their generosity and support, their professional prowess exacerbates her feelings of failure by comparison, a situation made worse by Taylor’s undiagnosed ADHD.

Jamar Dixon, on the other hand, is used to being a star. He excelled at football and got a dream job playing professionally right out of college. But an injury in his first season cut his career short. Taylor’s relative anonymity will help Jamar keep his training a secret, away from the prying eyes of the press and the public pressure to come back better than ever. And apart from the overdue bills that this lucrative gig will help Taylor pay for, being the architect of a successful comeback for a football star could be just the career-making boost she needs. To make sure Jamar’s training remains a secret until he’s ready to return and she’s ready for the spotlight, they agree to pretend to date in order to throw everyone off the scent.

It’s a great setup and well executed, with each character scratching just the right itch for the other. They both have a lot riding on their professional partnership and ample reason to keep it under wraps. Like the best rom-com couples, Taylor and Jamar are much more than the sum of their individual parts. They’re absolutely lovely together, making Rochon’s choice to have the friend group play a lesser role in this installment a wise one. The Dating Playbook is a gentle and relatively low-angst romance that makes a great comfort read in stressful times.

The comedy is a bit broader and the chemistry is more volatile in Alexis Daria’s crazy, sexy, cool second-chance romance A Lot Like Adiós.

After a young lifetime of being badgered and bullied by his parents, Gabe Aguilar was desperate to get out of the Bronx and away from his judgmental and domineering father. In an act of defiance, unbeknownst to Michelle Amato, his best friend and next-door neighbor whom he always had a crush on, Gabe applied to UCLA, got a scholarship and left everything behind, including the friendship that sustained him for most of his life. Thirteen years later, Gabe is a physiotherapist and co-owner of a successful Los Angeles gym called Agility. Michelle and Gabe are thrown together again when Fabian, Gabe’s business partner, sees a splashy marketing campaign that Michelle designed and recruits her to work on the launch of their first East Coast branch.

Gabe and Michelle have a ton of unresolved sexual tension, and they’re both curious about and longing to see each other. The main challenge, apart from the fact that he thoroughly ghosted her in order to make a fresh start in LA and never really explained why, is that Gabe isn’t ready to deal with being back in New York. Even beyond his issues with his family, not knowing how to push back against other people’s expectations has long been a problem for him.

Michelle’s terms for accepting the job include Gabe staying with her on this trip, so they can hash out their differences. She wants closure, so she engineers a little forced proximity to force the issue. To say that the scheme works is an understatement. Gabe and Michelle share a connection that is instinctual and hot like fire—not just habanero or scotch bonnet hot, but ghost pepper hot. In the bedroom, at the zoo, in the basement gym, everywhere they go, there’s heat. Daria masterfully blends that steam with character building and emotional connection from the start. Their love scenes are nothing short of spectacular, full of communication and creativity as well as physical spark.

Daria portrays Gabe with particular sensitivity. His character is specific and concrete, his wariness, dysfunction and emotional pain palpable on the page. In an effectively cringeworthy scene, Gabe’s worst fears come true when he and his father finally come face-to-face. It’s tender but also funny in a Larry David-esque way, excruciating and human all at once. Unfortunately, the story skims over his path to healing, narrowing the steps Gabe takes to mend his psychological wounds to one significant epiphany with not much in the way of follow-up. Readers’ mileage may vary when it comes to the resolution and HEA, which lean hard on embracing the love and support of family, making it almost sound like a miracle cure. It’s a curious note in an otherwise truly irresistible arrangement.

These contemporary romances are ensconced in the world of professional athletics and fitness, but emotional lifting takes greater precedence than squats.

Children's & YAPicture Book

Tips for Teachers: Embrace your silly side

Feature by Emmie Stuart

Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

I rely on books with powerful messages and strong curricular content for the foundation of my lessons. But as I looked at my students recently, I realized they needed some levity and laughter. Setting aside standards and pacing guides, I shifted gears and pulled out Peggy Rathman’s Officer Buckle and Gloria, Ryan T. Higgins’ Mother Bruce, Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown’s Creepy Carrots and my entire James Marshall collection. Using my silliest voices and making sure to pause in just the right places, I read the books aloud. Their masks did not mask my students’ laughter. Their delight was evident in their twinkling eyes and relaxed body language.

Teachers know when their students are feeling anxious, somber or weary. When you sense heaviness in your classroom, gather your students around you and share these three books. They are lighthearted. They are well executed. They are unexpectedly tender. And they are silly. Your students’ spirits will be lifted as they briefly forget their worries and share moments of humor and cheer with their teacher and friends.

Have You Seen Gordon by Adam Jay Epstein and Ruth Chan book coverHave You Seen Gordon?
By Adam Jay Epstein
Illustrated by Ruth Chan

Gordon, a purple tapir, lives in a world buzzing with the activities of busy anthropomorphic animals. Have You Seen Gordon? begins like a normal seek-and-find book, as an upbeat narrator asks readers if they can find Gordon—but then this quirky story takes a turn for the unexpected. Initially, Gordon cooperates, behaving like the typical subject of a seek-and-find book, hiding in plain sight among illustrator Ruth Chan’s bustling spreads, but he becomes disillusioned with hiding and places himself in easily spotted locations. When the narrator accuses him of “not hiding at all,” Gordon declares, “I don’t want to hide anymore. I’m proud of who I am. From now on, I want to stand out.”

The narrator selects another animal for readers to find, this time a blue rhinoceros who is a construction worker. But she quickly interrupts the narrator and announces, “I have a name. It’s Jane. And I’m kind of shy. I don’t like a lot of attention.” Teeming with humorous details and energy, this witty and winsome adventure will win students’ affection. Be prepared for repeat readings!

  • Foundational skills

Fostering early literacy skills is an area of instruction that I tend to overlook when I’m planning lessons and talking about books with pre- and emerging readers. The energetic and detailed scenes in Have You Seen Gordon? provide a fun and engaging opportunity for students to work on early phonemic awareness skills. This can be a whole-class activity if you have a way to display the book’s scenes enlarged, such as with an overhead projector or smart board device, or a small-group activity if you have several copies of the physical book. Here are the prompts I used with my students.

  • Can you find three things that start with the letter G?
  • I wonder what we can find that starts with the “ch” sound?
  • I spy something that rhymes with the word rain. What do I spy?
  • How many bikes are in this illustration?

 

  • Wordplay

Have You Seen Gordon? is packed with humorous semantic devices. Begin by offering students a brief definition of wordplay. I used Merriam Webster’s definition, “the playful use of words,” followed by my own explanation: “Wordplay is when letters, words and sounds are creatively used to make us laugh.” Show students examples of various forms of wordplay including puns, idioms and spelling manipulation.

Reread the book and see how many examples of wordplay students can spot. Point out and explain instances of wordplay that are unfamiliar for younger students. Older students can extend this activity by creating and illustrating wordplay of their own.

  • Collaborative scene

Gordon and friends are depicted in a range of different environments, from a city street to an art museum, a mall and a campground. Make a comprehensive list of all the settings. Ask students if they can think of other distinct settings they could add to the list. Next, narrow the list down to four settings and let students vote on which scene to create collaboratively.

Roll out a piece of butcher paper and let students work in pairs to illustrate the background of the scene. When they’re not working on the background, students will draw and color their own creatures. Once the background is finished, position the students’ creatures on the butcher paper to create a full scene similar to those in Have You Seen Gordon?

Vampenguin by Lucy Ruth Cummins book coverVampenguin
By Lucy Ruth Cummins

After waking up early one morning, the Dracula family heads to the zoo. Their first stop is the penguin house, filled with all different kinds of penguins. It’s here that the youngest Dracula, whose skin is paper white and who wears a black cape and yellow shoes with a matching yellow pacifier, slides out of the stroller and enters the penguin enclosure. Meanwhile, a small penguin takes the child’s place in the stroller. The rest of the Dracula family, oblivious to the switch, continues their zoo expedition.

Author-illustrator Lucy Ruth Cummins’ straightforward text continues to recount the family’s day without acknowledging the switcheroo, while the illustrations depict the shenanigans of the youngest Dracula and the little penguin. Replete with vampire jokes, the silly antics in Vampenguin elicited audible giggles from my students.

  • Words and pictures

Explain how in some picture books, the story depends on the pictures and the pictures depend on the words. Some picture books can be understood without their illustrations, but many cannot. I love to demonstrate this interplay by asking students to imagine a picture book we have just read being adapted to an audiobook.

This concept is expertly executed in Vampenguin because Cummins’ text tells one story and her illustrations tell another. Read the book again without showing the illustrations to the class as you do so. Invite students to share what is missed in the absence of the pictures. Does the story make sense? Is it even the same story? Explore other picture books with strong text and illustration interdependency.

  • Creative writing

Ask students to brainstorm which zoo exhibit they would like to join for a few hours, like the youngest member of the Dracula family does. (Begin by establishing that zoo creatures cannot harm or eat students for the purposes of this exercise). Provide books about animals commonly found at the zoo and give students time to take notes about animal behavior. Students will blend their research and their imagination to write first-person narratives of an afternoon in an animal exhibit. Turn on some zoo cams for inspiration as students work on their stories.

The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess by Tom Gauld book coverThe Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess
By Tom Gauld

In this tale of sibling loyalty and love, cartoonist and New Yorker cover artist Tom Gauld weaves together old and new, funny and tender. The king and queen are happy as they rule their kingdom, but they long for children. An inventor and a witch step in and bequeath them with “a wonderful, intricate little wooden robot” and a princess magically brought to life from a log in the witch’s basket of firewood. Unfortunately, the princess’s enchantment comes with a catch: Every night, she turns back into a log until she is awakened with some magic words. One morning, an overzealous and uninformed maid spies the log in the princess’s bed and tosses it out the window.

Filled with grief, the princess’s wooden-robot brother immediately leaves on a quest to find her. His journey contains “too many adventures to recount here,” but his perseverance—driven by his love for his sister—is rewarded. The princess demonstrates her love, too, when she courageously saves her brother on their way home.

Like most fairy tales, this familiar yet novel picture book will captivate young imaginations, but it achieves something more. Its young heroes suggest to children how their lives are also stories and they can also live with courageous and persevering love.

  • Shape art

Tom Gauld’s simple-seeming cartoon illustrations are filled with geometric shapes. Go on a “shape hunt” in the book and find ways that Gauld uses simple shapes to create characters and settings.

Using paper punches and paper to make shapes of varying sizes, colors and patterns. Group the shapes on paper plates and let students choose several shapes to transform into a setting or a character. Give students time and space to trade shapes with one another or to gather additional shapes as they work on their creations.

  • Exploring theme

Theme is one of those elusive concepts that is embedded in most English-language arts educational standards. I often struggle to teach students how to differentiate between a story’s main idea and its theme, but The Little Wooden Robot and Log Princess has a definite theme: the loyal, selfless love between siblings.

After determining the theme, ask students to identify details in the story that support the theme. With older students, discuss how fairy tales treat themes differently than other fictional storytelling forms or even nonfiction. Ask students how The Little Wood Robot and the Log Princess might help them understand how to be a better sibling or friend?

  • Fairy tale elements

The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess contains many familiar fairy tale tropes. Before reading the book aloud to your students, discuss common elements of fairy tales. This is the list I discussed with my third graders:

  • A beginning and an ending
  • Good versus evil
  • Repeating numbers
  • Magic
  • An antagonist
  • A moral

Share a few additional fairy tales (I recommend Paul O. Zelinsky’s Rapunzel, Rachel Isadora’s Hansel and Gretel and Ai-Ling Louie and Ed Young’s Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story From China) and fill in a graphic organizer. After reading The Little Wooden Robot and Log Princess, compare it to other fairy tales. What is the same? What is different? Fill the graphic organizer and discuss the most prominent similarities and differences.

Teachers know when their students are feeling anxious, somber or weary. When you sense heaviness in your classroom, gather your students around you and share these three books. They are lighthearted. They are well executed. They are unexpectedly tender. And they are silly.

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