Book reviews by library staff and guest contributors
Ten-year-old Magnolia Wu's parents own Bing Qi Ling Bubbles Laundromat in NYC. Instead of going to the ocean or taking a trip to an amusement park, Magnolia usually spends the summer helping out around the business and sneaking popsicles that are intended for paying customers. She is not happy about summer and wishes her life were more adventurous.
Every month there are new titles purchased for the Too Good to Miss collections at our libraries. If you're not familiar with TGTM (as we call it here in library-world), it's a special collection of popular books that are truly too good to miss. Some are new and popular titles, others are older titles that might not have had as much media attention as a bestseller or celebrity book club selection but are still great reads that deserve another look.
Are you anxiously awaiting the cicada hatching of monumental proportions this late spring? This librarian is! And so is her incredibly curious, question-asking 4 year old. Where do cicadas come from? Why do they make that noise? Do they bite? (No!). This beautifully illustrated, whimsically rhyming book is full of all the answers. With informative pictures of cicadas in all their forms, this book will walk small readers through their full life cycle, explain how helpful they are to their ecosystem, and dispel some fears that a massive hoard of bugs may bring.
AI is all the buzz right now across a lot of platforms and there is much debate about whether the technology is actually a good thing or not. Me? I'm in wait and see mode - seeing some good applications, some bad ones and some that are downright weird.
Wanda's big brother is the bravest kid she knows, but when her turn comes to match his feats of bravery, things are a lot harder than she thought. The monkey bars don't agree with her, the giant hill he biked down is a LOT bigger now, and forget about going to camp.
When Wanda's friends cajole her to join them on the Coaster of Doom, she is relieved that she is still too short to ride. She wants to be brave though, so she spends all year practicing. She bikes and sleds down hills, tiptoes into the dark basement, and even tries out a climbing wall with a look of determination.
I dropped into The Nigerwife without expectations. It was a book picked by the Lakeview Mystery Book Group members, from a list of suggested titles (created by me), last fall. But the picking of this year's books happened months ago and I didn't have much memory of why I'd put it on a list of suggestions back then. So when I picked it up now to read for the group, I just dove in.
A mother and child are at the zoo. As they look at the animals, she says things like, "If you crawled like a gecko up the wall, I would still love you best of all." Each animal is a new opportunity for the caregiver to express her love. Repetition and rhyme would make this a lovely bed time story. One that is reminiscent of The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown.
Davi is living her own version of Groundhog Day. But instead of going to sleep and waking to the same day over and over, Davi is trapped in a fantasy realm attempting to save the Kingdom. And each time she fails and dies (often tortuously), she is woken by a wizard and has to start all over again. She doesn't know why she's trapped in this world, she just knows how many lives she's lived in the past 1000 years and that nothing she's tried up until now has worked to free her. So Davi decides on a new tack.
The "whispers" refer to the voices you hear urging you to follow your gut instinct. Sometimes it's large scale. Should I take that job? Move to that city? Buy a house? Have a child? Sometimes it's smaller. Should I go to that party? Trust that person? Walk down that dark road?
In the newest picture book in Andrea Beaty's Questioneers series, we finally get the story of Lila Greer, who we know as the Grade Two teacher from previous books.
We first see Lila as a baby with a curl on her head, one that "fills her with dread", and as she grows older the What Ifs still get her:
"They made her heart race. Put knots in her stomach. A frown on her face."
Follow the hush and magic In the Night Garden by Carin Berger. Blue, green, and black illustrations invite us in with the glow of fireflies and a sprinkling of stars. A quiet cat walks through each page and “tiptoes across the roof”. We experience the sights and sounds of the garden through the seasons. A swirling of wind blowing, bullfrog melodies, murmurings of a stream, and calls from an “occasional hoot owl.” The book feels both dreamy and earthy – filled with all sorts of natural plant and animal life.
Every month there are new titles purchased for the Too Good to Miss collections at our libraries. If you're not familiar with TGTM (as we call it here in library-world), it's a special collection of popular books that are truly too good to miss. Some are new and popular titles, others are older titles that might not have had as much media attention as a bestseller or celebrity book club selection but are still great reads that deserve another look.
Even the smallest specks on this planet have to figure out where they belong. This story traces the journey of tiny baby barnacles as they stream through the ocean, floating away from their parents and into the vastness to discover where they will make their home. Some travel together and others travel alone, but every single baby barnacle manages to swim its way to "a place to stay, and grow, and thrive. Something every speck needs." Vivid watercolor illustrations show a vibrant, active underwater landscape, punctuated with the small, glowing dots of the baby barnacles on their journey.
Let’s talk pockets, shall we? Is there anything worse than “rotten pockets”? The fake ones, the tiny ones, the missing all together ones? Pockets have a long and checkered history in dresses and skirts. It was understood that trousers needed decent, sizable serviceable pockets. But dresses? Why on earth would pockets be needed in dresses. Besides, it might be possible for the wearer to squirrel pro women’s voting tracts in pockets and sow “sedition”. When dress silhouettes shifted from wide to narrow in the early 1900s, the loss of pockets was felt universally.
I was late to The Guncle party and truthfully only got it read because I needed to read this sequel. So here I am having read both in quick succession which had pros and cons as a reading experience. Before I get into those pros and cons, let me set the scene.
Prior to 2020, if you knew anything about Formula 1—or even knew what it was—you were a tiny minority of the population. You were also likely to be a gearhead, a motorsports obsessive or a European—probably all three, really. 2020, however, was a year to remember, and not just because of a global health crisis. It was the year Formula 1 went mainstream, all thanks to a series called Drive to Survive on Netflix.
Once upon a time, Elizabeth of York was a little princess who enjoyed playing with the family dogs. When she turned 18, her father gave her a puppy of her own, named Susan. Susan, a Pembroke Welsh corgi, became Elizabeth’s constant companion. She was supportive when Elizabeth joined a women’s regiment during WWII. Susan stowed away in the bridal carriage taking the princess to be married, and she comforted Elizabeth when her father died. Soon Elizabeth was crowned queen. After Susan’s death, she owned a succession of corgis and regarded them as family.
Each profile features a fantastic poem by a different author who also has something in common with the young activist. Different types of poems (hello, curriculum!) and a succinct truth bomb about activism on each page ("In your city or state, who has the power to make things change? Write them a letter and ask for what you need.") drive home the message that all voices are powerful and unique, and that even the youngest voices can make a big difference!
This book should come with a warning - it is going to make you hungry. I ordered take out when I was about half way through, and again when I finished and I would like to try pretty much everything mentioned in this book.
Grace Lin does a fantastic job combining food, history, myth, and personal stories in this collection of stories of Chinese and American Chinese cuisine.
With summer just over the horizon, who doesn’t love a good family road trip story? In this sequel to Huda F Are You?, the Fahmy family travels to Disney World, where hijinks and chaos ensue – including a fight between Huda and a boy who makes fun of her hijab. Huda F Cares is an easy-to-love graphic novel, every bit as hilarious, heartwarming, and thoughtful as its predecessor.
--reviewed by Ros
