All the Small Wonderful Things

February 21, 2024February 28, 2024

All the Small Wonderful Things by Kate Foster
Published by Candlewick Press ISBN: 1536225800
Genres: Animals, Juvenile Fiction / Animals / Horses, Realistic Fiction
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars

In the middle grade novel All the Small Wonderful Things, Alex, an eleven year old living with autism, is sure that the way to become friends with the most popular kid at his school, and avoid future bullying, is to prove his worth by winning an award. Alex decides the best way to achieve his goal is to enter his dog Kevin in Australia’s best dog show, P.A.W.S. The novel follows Alex’s joys and struggles as he trains Kevin and hopes to make a true friend before the next school year.

Like most kids who are transitioning from elementary to middle school, Alex faces the familiar stresses of fitting in at school, developing friendships, and wanting to truly be understood. By experiencing the story first person through Alex, readers will be able to gain insight into how people with autism may interpret stimuli and make interpersonal connections. Neurotypical readers can feel empathy for Alex that may encourage social emotional connections with children whose neurodivergent experiences differ from their own. While everyone’s experience with neurodivergence will vary, readers with autism may be able to identify with Alex and the positive disability representation provided in the story.

All the Small Wonderful Things will appeal to elementary and middle grade readers who are interested in feel good stories with happy endings, friendship stories, and animal lovers.

Reviewed by Sarah Hartje, Lewiston Public Library, Lewiston

The Girl From Earth’s End

February 17, 2024

The Girl from Earth's End by Tara Dairman
Published by Candlewick Press on March 14, 2023
ISBN: 1536224804
Pages: 384
Genres: Fantasy
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars

Twelve years ago, the Orange Boat brought an unexpected delivery to Earth’s End, a forgotten corner of the Gardenia Isles archipelago. Neither of Henna’s papas expected to receive a baby in the mail. Henna loves everything about her life gardening with Papa Niall and Joaquim until Papa Niall’s resurgence of a terminal illness. Determined to save him, Henna embarks on a secret mission at St. Basil’s Conservatory, an elite horticulture boarding school where she hopes to find and steal a heavily guarded nightwalker seed, a plant rumored to produce a miracle healing elixir.

Dairman builds a fantastical setting. P, Henna’s genderfluid friend, provides a comic element. Their roommate, Lora, who uses a wheelchair for mobility, enables the story to provide an awareness of barriers for physically challenged people. Care is taken to affirm all the multi-dimensional characters without being moralistic, concluding with a pragmatic, bittersweet ending. I would be remiss if I did not comment about the beauty of the book jacket and the floral pattern that edges the corners of each page. Recommended for grades 4-6, especially for anyone who enjoys gardening. Recommended for Cream of the Crop.

Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library

Betty and the Mysterious Visitor

February 13, 2024

Betty and the Mysterious Visitor by Anne Twist, Emily Sutton
Published by Candlewick Press ISBN: 1536234869
Genres: Adventure, Mystery, Realistic Fiction
Format: Picture Book Fiction
Goodreads
five-stars

Betty’s favorite place in the whole world is a community garden behind her grandmother’s house. Betty and her grandma spend summers together gardening, picking fruit, and making delicious jam to sell at the local farmer’s market. One night, the garden is ransacked by a mysterious visitor – a badger that has learned where to find delicious treats, with plans to come back for more. Betty rises to the occasion, fashioning a scarecrow to scare away the badger and save the garden. This book is a delightful read and celebrates family, community, and nature. The illustrations are gorgeous and full of bright colors and charming details. The fruits of Betty’s garden are definitely “Cream of the Crop” worthy. Recommended for ages 4-7.

Reviewed by Jenn Mead, Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library, Lovell

What’s Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon?: And Other Questions About Moths & Butterflies

February 13, 2024

What's Inside a Caterpillar Cocoon?: And Other Questions About Moths & Butterflies by Rachel Ignotofsky
Published by Random House Children's Books on July 20, 2023
ISBN: 059317657X
Genres: Animals
Format: Picture Book Nonfiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars

A companion book to What’s Inside a Flower?, which I believe was a Cream of the Crop book in 2022. This book is equally engaging, answering readers’ questions about caterpillars, moths, and butterflies. Unlike other books about lepidoptera, this one imparts much more information about what occurs inside the cocoon or chrysalis stage. It goes on to compare butterflies and moths, the differences between cocoons and chrysalis, and the importance of these insects are as pollinators. Particularly attractive are Ignotofsky’s signature graphics, stylized illustrations with flat colors and intricate details. Many pages could easily be stand-alone posters. Varied page design helps with the organization and makes the whole more absorbing. Different species pictured are labeled with the common name in tiny but legible uppercase lettering. A beautiful informational book that every library will want to have a copy.

Barb Rehmeyer, Liberty Library

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz

February 11, 2024

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz by Jeremy Dronfield
on 01/17/2023
ISBN: 0063236176
Format: Chapter Book Nonfiction
Goodreads
five-stars

Adapted for younger readers from Dronfield’s adult version by the same name, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is a narrative account of the Jewish Kleinmann family, living in Austria during World War II. Fourteen-year-old Fritz and his Papa, Gustav, are taken to Buchenwald concentration camp where they endure innumerable brutalities. When Gustav is set to be transferred to Auschwitz, Fritz decides he cannot leave his dear father, and ensures they make the transfer together. Several chapters are dedicated to Fritz’s brother Kurt and his acceptance into America as a refugee.

This is an excellent addition to middle school nonfiction collections serving as a necessary contribution to the record of Holocaust stories. The resilience, hope, courage, and love exemplified in the actions of the Kleinmann family in the face of such horrors is thought-provoking and powerful.

Dronfield provides readers with some background information about how this book came to be and his interactions with Kurt. An author’s note to parents and teachers, a timeline of events, a glossary, suggestions for further reading, and works cited are included.

Grades 6-8

Recommended for Cream of the Crop.

Kerrie Lattari, York Middle School, York

Biology’s Beginnings

February 1, 2024February 2, 2024

Discovering Life’s Story: Biology’s Beginnings by Joy Hakim
Series: Discovering Life's Story
Published by Penguin Random House on September 12, 2023
ISBN: 1536222933
Genres: Non-Fiction
Format: Chapter Book Nonfiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars
Volume one of author Joy Hakim’s Discovering Life’s Story series, designed to explore human discovery as it applies to our own existence, as it was understood though the ages. For readers familiar with the format of her previous series’, they will find it similar and comfortable; chock full of colorful, relevant illustrations, sidebars that range from detailed and informative to irreverent (but still informative!) Hakim’s narrative style is conversational and always engaging. Chapters, and the sub-sections with them, are short enough to hold the interest of the reader, but long enough to give a satisfying amount of information. Source notes, bibliography, and a list of resources for further reading are all included.

Written for older middle grade readers and teens, this is an excellent and highly recommended addition to a library collection.

5 stars/cream

Reviewed by: Jenny Martinez Nocito, Maine State Library, Augusta

A Study in Drowning

February 1, 2024February 1, 2024

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
Published by HarperTeen on September 19, 2023
ISBN: 0063211505
Pages: 378
Genres: Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Folklore, Magical Realism
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars
Ava Reid’s YA debut is an atmospheric, dreamy fantasy that dances the line between what is real and what is believed to be real.

Effy Sayre is one of the highest scoring students ever to enter the Llyrian University, but, as a woman, she is not allowed to study literature, so she ends up in the Architecture college instead. Lonely and unhappy, she seeks solace in her well-worn pages of Angharad, Emrys Myrddin’s epic masterpiece about the love between a mortal girl and the bewitching – but malicious – fairy king. When Myrddin dies, a contest is announced to redesign his estate. A contest which Effy, a first-year architecture student, inexplicably wins. She travels far south, to the most distant reaches of the land, where she finds herself isolated by geography, superstition, and land-swallowing storms. Her host is the son of Myrddin, and it is clear he is harboring a dark secret. Effy’s only ally is a fellow student from the university, there with his own secret mission, of proving Myrddin a fraud. Together they peel back layer upon layer of the mystery behind Angharad, and, in turn, Effy herself, who it turns out had her own brush with the Fairy King as a child, and has been stalked by him ever since.

Drowning is in turns creepy, desolate, disturbing, deeply magical, and fascinating. Two threads to be aware of: there is an oft-referred to incident of abuse at the hands of a professor that happened just before the beginning of the story. Also, Effy’s mother believes she is mentally unstable and forces her to take meds to control her visions and anxieties – both of which she ultimately discovers to be real, and the result of her lifelong entanglement with the Fairy King.

Perfect for fans of fantasy that draws on dark magical themes while having one foot in a recognizable world, such as Melissa Albert’s Hazel Wood. A great addition to library shelves.

5 stars

Reviewed by: Jenny Martinez Nocito, Maine State Library, Augusta

Three Tasks for a Dragon

February 1, 2024February 2, 2024

Three Tasks for a Dragon by Eoin Colfer, P.J. Lynch
Published by Candlewick ISBN: 1536229997
Genres: Fairy Tale
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars
Upon his father’s death, Prince Lir’s evil-villain of a step-brother Delbayne neatly tricks him into undertaking a dangerous quest, sure that Prince Lir will perish in the process, and the kingdom will be his. The studious and caring young prince has been tasked with – he believes – saving a hapless maiden from a fearsome dragon. In truth, Delbayne has sent the maiden to the dragon’s island as bait, and magicked the dragon into compliance.

But things do not go as planned – the maiden is no helpless girl, nor is she discontented with her lot on the dragon’s island. And the dragon, while truly fearsome, has resisted full enchantment by Delbayne. Prince Lir invokes his right, as a Questor, to perform three tasks for the dragon to win the maiden, rather than fighting to the death, and the dragon, intrigued, agrees.

The three tasks are done; the dragon is pleased; Lir and the girl, Cethlenn, have become friends. Delbayne hears that his plan has failed and launches a second attack, which is foiled by the three allies, at considerable cost. But all does not end there; dark years pass before the poignant and beautiful ending of this tale.

A gorgeously illustrated, wholly original fairy tale with a subtle but pleasing feminist slant. Language and storyline are middle grade; this book might need some hand selling due to it presenting like a (very thick) picture book at first, but the author’s fame will help to promote it.

Highly recommend. 5 stars, cream.

Reviewed by: Jenny Martinez Nocito, Maine State Library, Augusta

The Labors of Hercules Beal

January 17, 2024

The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt
Published by Clarion Books on May 23, 2023
ISBN: 0358659639
Pages: 352
Genres: Realistic Fiction
Format: Chapter Book Fiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads
five-stars
A heartwarming, genuine, miraculous middle grade novel that will nestle its way into your heart. When the Beal brothers lose their parents in a car accident, life is shaken up. Older brother Achilles abandons his job traveling the world to write for magazines, returning home to run Beal Brothers Farm and Nursery, and 12-year-old Hercules must leave public middle school to attend the Cape Cod Academy for Environmental Sciences, which is much closer to home. Both characters are struggling with grief and loss, but the book is told exclusively in Hercules’s voice as he navigates the new normal. When Hercules’s teacher Mr. Hupfer, a retired marine lieutenant colonel, creates a full-year assignment specifically designed for each student in his class, Hercules is, naturally, assigned the 12 labors of the mythical demigod.

Perplexed about how he can possibly complete the labors in a mortal world, Hercules proceeds slowly. This is where Schmidt’s masterful plotting steps in. As Hercules lives his life and faces challenges that are presented to him, he finds connection with one labor after another, but not in a completely obvious way. Mr. Hupfer requires that each student write a reflection on their project as they complete steps and tasks. These short reflections followed by the feedback from Hupfer are the heart of the book. The reader travels with Hercules, watching as he recognizes his inner strength, accepts help from his community, and gains insight into his brother’s life and heart. He also learns to let go of the intense survivor’s guilt and find peace. A beautiful book with moments of heart-stopping action, humor, sadness, sweetness, and light.

Recommend for Cream of the Crop.

Reviewed by Jill O’Connor, Falmouth Middle School

If I Have To Be Haunted

January 17, 2024

If I Have to Be Haunted by Miranda Sun
Published by Harper Teen on September 14, 2023
ISBN: 0063252767
Genres: Fantasy
Format: Fiction
Goodreads
four-stars
Sixteen year old Chinese American Cara Tang is a ghost speaker – which means she can see and talk to ghosts, and even help them to pass on – just like her grandmother, Laolao and her mother. Only her grandmother is in fact a ghost, and her mother doesn’t want anything to do with her powers. And she would prefer Cara keep her head down, focus on school and forget about her powers as well. Which becomes impossible when she finds the body of her nemesis, Zach Coleson, under a tree in the woods behind her house. They’ve been sworn enemies since they were little, but Zach has been bitten by the Signet Snake, a monster of chaos determined to end the world, and Cara is the only one who can save him. After a brutal fight with her mother, and with a little help from Laolao, Cara and Zach’s ghost set off on a quest to find the antidote in seven days before it’s too late for Zach to be resurrected. This is a great fantasy YA read with its snappy dialogue, lush world building, romantic tension, magic and monsters. Cara’s struggles with self acceptance and growth, especially as it relates to growing up with a Chinese tiger mom is another highlight of the story. A solid pick.

Recommended for grades 7 – 12

Recommended for Cream of the Crop

Lee Remick, York Middle School, York