MADreads Reviews

Step into this colorful book adventure! Authors Grace Lin & Kate Messner pull us into the pages in Once Upon a Book. A young girl wishes it wasn’t “so frozen and gray” and – suddenly! – finds herself stepping into the pages of a tropical wonderland. Flamingos, colorful flowers and more greet her. In exploring each new world (from riding a camel through the desert to swimming in an underwater reef to soaring with the clouds in the sky) she realizes that what she wants most of all is to be back in her cozy home with her mom and dad.

In this near-ish-future novel cloning has become possible. And the cloning is such that if someone has died as an adult their "person" can be put into a fully formed version of themselves and all they lose is a few days of memory from around the time of their death. Okay, I know that sounds kind of impossible, but for the sake of this dark, sharp novel, just go with it. 

Milo está aburrida en la tienda de plantas de su abuela, deseando jugar con alguien. Cuando su abuela le sugiere que busque tesoros que no espera, Milo va a explorar con curiosidad. De repente, ¡una cola anaranjada con negro aparece entre las plantas... es un tigre! Milo le da el nombre de Niko a su nuevo amigo y juntos exploran la selva todo, buscando, navegando, y vigilando todo el día. Se divierten tanto que ni siquiera se dan cuenta cuando abuela cierra la tienda, y ella tiene que gritar, "Miloooooooooo."

David Grann is an author who doesn’t like to rush into releasing work—his last full-length book appeared in 2017—but he continually proves that whatever he writes is worth the wait. The bestselling author of Killers of the Flower Moon and The Lost City of Z has a knack for finding little-known but intense and compelling stories in the dustiest corners of history, and his latest is no exception.

This book is dedicated by Sara Greenwood “for the child I was and the child you are - hope, healing, love, light.” When Sara’s brother was away in prison when she was growing up, this book did not exist. Yet, like the little girl in this story realizes when they go to visit her big brother, “I see I’m not the only one whose brother is away.” In the children’s book world, we talk of books both as windows and mirrors - windows to better understand the experiences of those different from us, and mirrors to see our own experiences and feelings reflected and supported.

New Kid Jordan Banks is back with his friends from Riverdale Academy Day School and they are headed to Paris for their eighth grade school trip. All of the students and teachers are divided into groups based on their travel interests and things go bananas when there's a mix-up with teacher itineraries, plane tickets and purchase cards. The teachers and students scramble with international travel requirements and restrictions and the trips veer wildly off course.

In Gillig's fantasy debut a young woman has to hide the magic she wields, and the monster that gives it to her, or else find her life forfeit.

I stumbled across this young adult gem as a read-alike to Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen. A smart, exciting mix of Regency and fantasy, "Newt" refers to Lady Truthful Newington and her "emerald" is a magical heirloom stolen during a family party on her eighteenth birthday. The precious stone's properties are properly harnessed only by the owning family which puts the Newington's in peril of misfortune and possibly worse if the jewel gets into the wrong hands.

"Hoarders. Scavengers. Clever foragers. Bringers of new life." 

Elena quiere aprender a montar en bici, pero cada vez que lo intenta... ¡CATAPLAM! ¡CATAPLOM! ¡CATAPLUM! Después de su tercer intento y su tercer choque, Elena está lista para rendirse, pero un amigo la anima a intentarlo de nuevo y ¡adelante! Este libro de primer lector es un recuerdo de que la única forma de mejorar en algo es practicar.

También disponible en inglés / also available in English

Rodney was Bernadette’s old pal. Older than Bernadette, older than her dad, even older than Great-Aunt Clara! Day after day, year after year, Rodney was there. With such a loyal and constant companion and friend, it is so hard for Bernadette to adapt to a world without him when he dies. “She crawled deeper and deeper into her shell until all of Bernadette seemed to disappear.” Talking with a kiddo about the loss of a pet or a loved one can be so hard for a caregiver.

I’m not crying, you’re crying. It definitely was not me sitting at the reference desk crying happy, joyful tears while reading this book. You must be thinking of a different children’s librarian. This is a book about walking to school, easy peasy, how can that be a tear jerker?? But the simple love the little boy in this book has for his mama, his Gogo (grandma), his Tata (grandpa),and the small but meaningful differences in each walk will warm your heart. But the days he loves best are when his Papa takes him to school.

I flew for the first time since the pandemic last week and I'd forgotten how much reading I can get done when I'm trapped in my seat on a crowded plane. Almost one book on the way out and another on the way home. In the first of them, a blurb describes The Housekeepers as a cross between Downton Abbey and Ocean's 8 - a description that appealed to me on all fronts. 

Celine Bangura dreams of landing a coveted spot in a prestigious mentorship program. Her grades are tops and her popular conspiracy theory TikTok attracts thousands of followers. Unfortunately, there's one thing standing in her way: Bradley Graeme. Best friends for years, Celine and Brad parted ways when Brad wanted to expand his friendship circle and Celine felt heartbroken and left behind. Making matters worse, Bradley's friends treat Celine horribly.

“In the back corner of the little synagogue in the shtetl that was so small and out of the way it was only called Shtetl, there was a table where an angel and a demon had been studying Talmud together for some two hundred years.”

I read the first book in Naomi Novik’s Scholomance trilogy, A Deadly Education, last year and loved it. Harry Potter meets the Hunger Games with a scrappy, angry underdog protagonist and an odd-couple romance sprinkled throughout? Yes, please!

Andy Warhol and Truman Capote planned to write a smash Broadway play together in 1978. The two friends recorded approximately 80 hours of their conversations as an artistic experiment. The project was never completed and the tapes were filed away and inaccessible to the public at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. After Andy Warhol's death in 1987, over 3,000 cassettes recorded on Andy's Sony Walkman were discovered. The tapes were undated and had little or no notations and had been recorded by somewhat stealthy means so were not "legal" to listen to until 2037 under New York law.

Since spring doesn't seem to want to get here, I went looking for a warm and snug read and was reminded of The Last Marshmallow by Grace Lin.  This cozy book is one in a series of four wonderful board books that introduce math concepts - such as number sense and division, spatial sense, measurement and geometry - in fun and engaging ways to young children, ages 2-4. In The Last Marshmallow, two friends, Mei and Olivia, have been playing outside in the snow.

In his debut novel Nick Medina blends mystery, suspense and a touch of supernatural horror in a story that focuses on the disappearance of indigenous women. At the heart of the story is Anna Horn who is finishing high school and trying to figure out her place on the rez and in her tribe. While grappling with her own struggles, and feeling haunted by a entity of ancient myth, Anna is forced to reckon with a larger battle. Women on the reservation are going missing and no one seems to care. It becomes personal, and more immediate, when two women in Anna's life are lost.

This book opens with two kids drawn in graphite - one with teal highlights and one with yellow - arms crossed, facing away from each other, with text that defiantly states,

"i really don't care what you think of my hair or my eyes or my toes or my nose."