Topic: Friendship

Soul Riders: The Legend Awakens

According to ancient myths, when the Soul Riders and their horses are gathered together, they will be able to defeat the evil that threatens the island. But Lisa and her friends don’t quite understand this yet. And now that Lisa’s horse, Starshine, has been stolen from Jorvik Stables and her father has disappeared, there’s no time to think about old stories. Together with Alex and Linda, Lisa embarks on a dangerous journey into Jorvik’s magical landscape to save Starshine, and to find the answers they are searching for.

At the same time, Anne is on her own mission. She must find her horse, Concorde, who seems to have been transported to the strange and dangerous world of Pandoria. But someone keeps whispering dark lies into Anne’s head that make her doubt if there’s any hope at all for the four girls. . .

The Legend Awakens explores the nature of good and evil; however, after the four Soul Riders realize they have powers, they are confused as to how to use them. The girls do not understand the mythology of Jorvik, yet they are committed to defeating Garnok. Even as the girls fight Mr. Sands—who Garnok has granted eternal life—they don’t understand who Garnok is. Plus, there are several evil beings who serve Garnok, but it is unclear exactly what they are. While the magical world has some interesting elements, the character’s confusion and lack of knowledge will frustrate readers.

The adults helping the soul riders continuously remind the girls about the importance of working together. Despite this, the girls quickly go off on their own mission and lose touch with each other. The multiple viewpoints, along with the quickly changing perspectives gives the story a fast pace. However, some readers will have a difficult time keeping track of the various plot threads.

The story’s complicated plot, unexplained concepts, and lack of character development make The Legend Awakens a confusing story. Nevertheless, readers who are interested in the supernatural may enjoy The Legend Awakens. If you’re looking for an entertaining series about horses, The Legend Awakens will leave you disappointed. Horse-loving readers who want a fast-paced story that revolves around horses should add The Rose Legacy Series by Jessica Day George to their reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Sands steals Starshine and puts him in an electrified cage. The horse “was tied in place with heavy chains and a shiny stainless steel halter.” When Lisa tries to rescue Starshine, Mr. Sands locks her in a cage next to her horse.
  • Meteor is horse-napped. When Lisa first sees him, she wonders if he is dead. “The crane with Meteor’s lifeless body dangled from the end rolled slowly along. . . He was alive! But he was badly injured. At least one of his hind legs looked broken, and his skin was covered in deep sores.” Lisa uses her magic to heal Meteor.
  • One of the spirit’s horses, Khann, tries to stop Alex and her horse Tin-Can from fleeing. Alex uses her power. Alex “let a bolt of lightning flash out of her and land near him. He whinnied and his black eyes almost rolled into his head. Then he galloped into the woods. . .”
  • When Sabine tries to hurt Linda, Alex attacks with lightening. “The lightning bolts were accompanied by a rumbling noise and a sharp flash of light. . . the lightning hit Sabine but bounced off her like a rubber ball. . . Sabine lifted Linda up by her long, thick braid and spun her around in the air, grinning.” Eventually the lightning effects Sabine and she “fell over the stair railing. Alex heard Sabine curse angrily before she hit the floor with a hard thump, then silence.” The battle is described over three pages.
  • Shadows attack Anne and her horse Concorde. “Concorde whinnied, a prolonged and tormented sound . . . Then came the shadows. They coiled their way around her like a wreath. She realized that the shadow creatures had arms, legs, and big heads that slowly swayed back and forth as they took everything from her that made her who she was. . . And now they were upon her, arms growing, menacing shadows. They tugged at her legs now, groping at Concorde, who desperately tried to rear up and get free. . .” Ann stops fighting and expects to die. The scene is described over two pages.
  • Later, Anne defeats the shadow people. “She took control of the sun, of the clear pink water, of the slowly swaying vines that had made her dizzy before. It all became hers. The ground and the air, and the strange statues that whispered that the world was bigger and more amazing than could have ever suspected.” Anne creates a portal like a “reddish-pink tornado” and leaves the Pandoria and the shadows.
  • Evil beings, including Ketja, chase the four friends into the mountains. Ketja says an incantation and then, “the boulders on the slope were rolling downhill, heading straight for them. . . When the first boulder was only a few seconds away from smashing into them, it exploded. [Anne] closed her eyes and screamed in fear, loudly, a scream that echoed throughout the entire forest.”
  • To escape Ketja and her evil friends, the girls make a bridge collapse. “Anne turned to look back and saw the horses’ legs moving, the riders’ shocked faces as what was left of the bridge gave way underneath them and they all fell, plunging downward along with fragments of the collapsing bridge.” Their pursuers disappear into the ravine. The scene is described over four and a half pages.
  • An owl attacks Anne “ripping at Anne’s hair. . . A big tuff of her long, blonde hair ripped out, caught in the bird’s claws, and she screamed in pain.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Oh my God is used as an exclamation three times.
  • Linda thinks that the people who lived in the 1800s were idiots.
  • Heck and darn are both used once.

Supernatural

  • The Soul Riders are told about Aideen, who “brought light to the island, and life and hope poured forth out of the cold emptiness.”
  • Pandoria is a “world that co-exists with ours. Pandoria’s unreality seeps into our reality and vice versa. That is the essence of magic.”
  • The soul riders are “chosen girls who share a special bond with their horses. Through that bond, they acquire special powers to help them fight against evil.”
  • The girls discover that Mr. Sands has been alive for hundreds of years. Mr. Sands “had met Garnok several hundred years ago and had been granted eternal life then so that he could successfully accomplish just this: the liberation of Garnok.” Garnok is evil; however, it is unclear who or what Garnok is.
  • Jessica is an evil spirit, who has taken a human body. “She hated being stuck in this body. When Garnok was finally set free, she needed to be as well. . . Jessica longed to return to the dark star, back to her life beyond a body, beyond the earth.”
  • One of the girls finds a book titled “Garnok: Truth or Myth.” The book says that Garnok is “a sea monster” that “steals the sailors’ souls.”
  • Later, someone tells the girls that “Garnok is all that is evil. He comes from a place where chaos reigns, and he wants to return there. But before he returns, that chaos and destruction would also be spread through our world.”
  • One of the evil spirits uses the power of her mind to speak into Anne’s consciousness.
  • When an evil spirit chases Linda, Linda hides. “The moonlight flowed into her now and she disappeared in the shade of the far side of the moon. The moon had a back side, and that is a perfect hiding spot.”
  • Fripp is a “cosmic being” that looks like a squirrel. “If you can imagine a blue, slightly overgrown squirrel.”
  • While in Pandoria, Anne uses the sun to help her horse Concorde. “And Anne reached out her hands and took the sun and moved it even deeper into Concorde’s slumbering soul. It was hers to take. She knew that now. It was hot, but it didn’t burn. Nothing could hurt her as long as she had the sun on her side.”
  • While in a swamp, a bright light uses Lisa’s mother’s voice to call to her. “Then she heard it again, the summoning voice. It embraced her heart. She was bewitched by the flickering white flare of light over the dark water. It was so beautiful . . .” Lisa goes into the water. Before she can drown, Alex “shot lightning at the swamp, but the bolts rebounded, veering around in the air with the will-o’-wisps.” Lisa’s friends save her. The scene is described over four pages.
  • Later in the swamp, the horse Calliope falls into the mire. All of the girls “screamed for Calliope now. . . Her legs flailed in panic, creating big ripples in the water, and she screamed, screamed louder than they were screaming, pleading to be rescued.” When Calliope gives up, she “vanished below the surface.”
  • The girls are sent to find a magical apple.

Spiritual Content

  • Linda tries to escape from Sabine, an evil spirit. As she runs, “she locks the door behind her and said a grateful prayer for those extra seconds” which allowed her to avoid Sabine.
  • After being injured, Linda sees Alex and says, “I prayed you would come and you did!”

 

Firefly Hollow

There are certain things that are taught to the young fireflies and crickets of the Hollow. But Firefly doesn’t only want to learn how to fly—she wants to fly to the moon. And Cricket doesn’t only want to sing about baseball games—he wants to play in one.

Their dreams seem too big for the Hollow, and as Firefly and Cricket chase them beyond the trees, they stumble upon a giant, like the ones they have always been warned about. But this giant is different—he’s miniature, and his name is Peter.

Peter is in need of friends, even small ones, even if his dad thinks they are imaginary. But Firefly and Cricket are actual, not imaginary. And so are their dreams. And sometimes dreams, like friendships, lead to something extraordinary.

In the Hollow, both fireflies and crickets have been warned to stay away from humans, who are dangerous. “The worlds of tiny creatures and humans were unbridgeable, or at least that’s what crickets and fireflies were always told. But every once in a while, there was one—sometimes two—who ventured out of firefly nation, out of the cricket nation, to test the waters on their own.” Despite their fear, Firefly and Cricket leave the hollow and become friends with Peter. In the process, they learn that friends—no matter how small—can come in unlikely places.

Firefly Hollow shows how dreams can come true in unexpected ways. Unlike most of the Hollow’s creatures, Peter doesn’t make fun of Firefly’s and Cricket’s dreams. Instead, he helps them achieve their goals through encouragement and advice. Through the three friends’ experiences, readers will learn that true friends are kindred spirits who accept you as you are. As Vole says, “A kindred spirit is someone who understands the deepest dream of your heart.”

The Hollow is portrayed in a magical way through beautiful illustrations. Both black and white drawings and full-color illustrations appear every 3 to 7 pages. Most of the black and white illustrations focus on the characters. The colored illustrations show the beautiful light from fireflies as well as the scale of Firefly and Cricket compared to their surroundings. While younger readers will love the story, they may need help with the book’s advanced vocabulary which includes words like carapace, heedless, disintegrate, circumnavigated and kindred.

Firefly Hollow is a must-read because it is a beautiful story about friendship that shows the importance of determination, preservation, practice, and trying new things. The story also explores the idea of death by focusing on how people are missed after they die. Even though Firefly and Cricket are bugs, they are completely loveable and relatable. Readers will fall in love with the two friends who remind us that dreams are never too big.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The Museum of Giant Artifacts has items from the human world. In the museum, “the Jar that was especially horrifying to the firefly nation. The Jar! It contained actual firefly corpses!”
  • A cricket named Gloria is injured by a human. “One lollipop stick flung carelessly from the hand of a miniature giant and now there she is—one front leg and one wing permanently damaged.”
  • Vole’s nation was washed away. “The giants who lived upstream had struck down a beaver dam. This caused the river to rise up in fury, swamping the fishing boats of the river voles and sweeping both boats and voles downriver, never to be seen again. All except one. Vole.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Many think that Cricket and Firefly are “nuts” or “crazy.” For example, when Cricket says he’d like to catch a baseball, someone asks, “Are you nuts?”
  • At one point, Peter’s father says that Firefly is insane.
  • A cricket is talking about Cricket when he says, “He’s weird and he’s a pain, but we miss him anyway.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • An elder asks Firefly, “Did you know that when fireflies get very old, they turn into stars? And what that means is that if the day ever comes when I’m not here, I’ll be up in the sky. . .Just remember that,” he said. “Remember that one of the stars in the sky will be me, and I’ll be watching over you.”
  • After crickets die, they “turn into music and we are everywhere. . .They turned into the sound of the wind, rustling the leaves on the trees. The crunch of an acorn in the fall.”

Once Upon a Camel

Zada is an achy, old camel with a treasure trove of stories to tell. She’s won camel races for the ruling Pasha of Smyrna, crossed treacherous oceans to new lands, led army missions, and outsmarted a pompous mountain lion.

But these stories were before. Now, Zada wanders the desert as the last camel in Texas. But she’s not alone. Two tiny kestrel chicks nestled in the fluff of fur between her ears and a dust storm the size of a mountain take Zada on one more grand adventure – and it could lead to Zada’s most brilliant story yet.

Readers will fall in love with Zada as she protects two kestrel chicks from a windstorm. Zada’s patience is never-ending, and she uses beautiful stories to keep the chicks occupied. However, some readers may become annoyed by the chicks’ constant chirping and complaining. Despite this, the relationship between Zada and the birds is super sweet, and readers will relate to the chicks who are anxious about being separated from their parents.

The wind, which attacks Zada and her friends, is described as a living beast. For example, “As if they were waiting to grab one of the chicks, the willy-willies and the dust devils, the samiels and simoons, danced all around Zada. They swiped at her ankles, raced ahead of her, rose and fell, then rose and fell again, reminding her of ocean waves.” Through the story, readers learn about the weather, which adds depth to the story.

Once Upon a Camel is best suited for advanced readers because of the constant back and forth between present day and the past. Each chapter begins with the name of a place and the year, which will help readers know if the events are one of Zada’s stories or not. Some readers may be confused by the advanced vocabulary and the Turkish words, such as simoons, samiels, muster, escarpment, festooned, denizens, and dissipate. Detailed black and white illustrations appear every 8 to 16 pages, and a one-page glossary appears at the end of the book.

Each story Zada tells is full of magic. Zada demonstrates how stories can help us deal with an array of emotions. Zada’s love for her original country shines, and readers will catch a glimpse of Turkey’s culture through her stories. Even though Zada was born into a caravan of prized racing horses owned by a Turkish pasha, in 1857, she sails the seas and lands in Texas, where she discovers she will be a pack animal for the U.S. Army. Some readers may be disappointed with the lack of details about how the camels helped the army.

While Once Upon a Camel highlights the magic of storytelling, younger readers may struggle with the constantly shifting time period, advanced vocabulary, and Turkish words. By the end of the story, the chicks’ “tap-tap-tap-KICK, tap-tap-tap-KICK,” and “peeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeeppeepeep” becomes frustrating. However, Zada’s point of view is interesting and unique, and she isn’t afraid to jump in a potentially dangerous situation to help those in need. In the end, no matter how difficult a situation is, Zada is determined to “become the brightest star.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Like human siblings, the two baby chicks argue and peck at each other.
  • When the camels traveled to Texas, they upset the horses. “The combination of hollering and gamboling set the resident equines into a frenzy of bucking and snorting. They reared up onto their hind feet, kicked each other, even cracked a bunch of teeth and jawbones.”
  • Pecos de Leon, a mountain lion, would hunt for prey. “He would spot an unsuspecting pack rat from ten feet away, then boom! Four paws off the ground and no more pack rat. Even snakes weren’t safe from his stalking prowess. He liked their spicy flavor.”
  • A group of boys sees Zada and her friend. “The boys and horses surrounded the camels, and for no reason whatsoever, started pelting them with rocks. Whap, whap, whap! Ouch ouch ouch!”
  • A flock of Kestrels attacks a coyote puppy. The puppy “was trying to tuck itself underneath a mesquite bush. Its front paws were covering its eyes, and it was shaking from nose to tail. . .[the birds] swished by and scraped the coyote’s ears with their sharp little talons. The coyote kept yipping and yapping and whimpering. The kestrels kept dive-bombing.” Zada chases the birds away.
  • The birds attack the coyote puppy because it ate some kestrel eggs. “They made a quick breakfast for the hungry pup.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Zada goes to the races and sees amazing things, including travelers who carried wine.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When the birds get separated, the bird’s father Pard thinks his family will be at the mission. Pard “was praying that Perlita [the bird’s mother] was already there.”

Bo’s Magical New Friend

Bo Tinseltail loves going to Sparklegrove School with the other unicorns. Every unicorn has magical power. Bo is a Wish Unicorn with the power to grant wishes. Bo has lots of friends, but one thing Bo wants more than anything is a best friend. When a new unicorn named Sunny Huckleberry pops into the forest, will Bo’s big wish finally come true? And what will Sunny’s unicorn power be?

Young readers who are ready for a glittery-good new series need to check out Bo’s Magical New Friend. The first installment of The Unicorn Diaries Series introduces all the unicorns and their magical powers. As part of the early chapter book line, Branches, the text is aimed at newly independent readers. Bo’s Magical New Friend is told in a blend of diary entries and speech bubbles. The blended text makes each page manageable for young readers. Plus, some of the words appear in bright pink text for added emphasis.

Bo wants a best friend, so he’s especially happy when Sunny appears. To earn a patch, all of the unicorns need to use their magical power to help someone. Bo really wants to use his power to help Sunny. However, Sunny gets upset because he thinks Bo is pretending to be his friend to earn a patch. In the end, Sunny and Bo talk about their conflict and discover that friendship is more important than badges.

Bo’s Magical New Friend is packed full of magic. However, in the next book, Bo and the Dragon-Pup, the unicorns are able to problem solve without relying on magic. Readers will fall in love with the unicorns’ world which comes alive in brightly colored illustrations. Bo’s world is “glitterrific,” and readers will happily imagine a place where sunbeam ice cream, dream dust, and twirl drops are served for dessert.

The story revolves around a relatable conflict and fun characters—Sunny and Bo. When Mr. Rumptwinkle introduces Sunny, he reminds the class, “I’m sure you remember how scary everything was when you were new. So please be kind to Sunny and help him find his way around.” Even though Sunny has a hard time discovering his magical power, he always looks on the bright side and makes others laugh. If you’re looking for a book series that will captivate readers, The Unicorn Diaries will not disappoint.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Trolls capture Bo and Sunny. “We got swept up in a net.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • All the unicorns have a special power. Bo is a Wish Unicorn that “can grant one wish every week.” The other unicorns have powers such as flying, healing, shapeshifting, size-changing, etc.
  • Unicorns do not have parents. “We’re not born like other creatures are. We just pop into the world on really starry nights.”
  • Rumptwinkle turns into a mouse.
  • Sunny discovers that his unique power is turning invisible.

Spiritual Content

  • None

I Am Not Starfire

Mandy Anders is the daughter of Koriand’r/Kory Anders, otherwise known as the superheroine Starfire from Teen Titans. For most of her life, Mandy has lived in the shadow of her mother’s fame as a superheroine, and Mandy’s lack of superpowers only enhances her stress. Kids at school constantly pester her for information on her mom. They look for Mandy’s superpowers. They even theorize about her online. Combine that with high school and it’s easy to say Mandy’s life is a bit of a disaster.

Mandy’s only real friend is a boy named Lincoln, she has a crush on popular girl Claire, and she walked out on her S.A.T which her mother is completely unaware of. After walking out on the test, Mandy has become more distant with her mom. What appears to be a normal, yet rocky mother-daughter relationship devolves into a massive fight over Mandy’s future and her life.

I Am Not Starfire is told from the perspective of Mandy and follows her life at a normal high school in Metropolis until it is upended by the arrival of Blackfire, Starfire’s sister. Readers get to follow Mandy’s emotions as the story progresses, as well as experience her relationship with her mother from her point of view. Mandy’s story centers on learning to not take her mother for granted, understanding the importance of her connection with her mother regardless of her being Starfire the superhero, and taking risks in all manners of life.

Some readers may relate to Mandy’s struggles with school, college, being unsure of what she wants to do in the future, as well as her rocky relationship with her mother. Queer readers will especially relate to Mandy as she has a crush on a female peer, Claire, and her attraction and eventual relationship to Claire is presented as normal– not something that requires a grand “coming out of the closet” moment. However, some may find Mandy’s dialogue and thought process too edgy and sometimes misogynistic. For example, Mandy makes a comment about her mother’s outfits: “She wears less than a yard of fabric to work every day, yet somehow, I’m the one who’s dressing weird.”

I Am Not Starfire has beautiful art that readers will find attractive. The character’s faces are expressive, and the color composition of certain scenes highlights the emotions Mandy feels in that particular moment. Readers may also appreciate the outfits in I Am Not Starfire. Starfire and Blackfire’s outfits are modern, the kind that the targeted audience would recognize, but they are presented in a way that will make them timeless.

I Am Not Starfire is a quick read with simple vocabulary and pretty pictures. Each page has about fifty or fewer words, all of them either in speech bubbles for dialogue, boxes for the characters’ thoughts, or rounded rectangles for text messages. However, I Am Not Starfire doesn’t have a good plot or good character development. While the graphic novel provides a good entrance to the DC universe, it falls flat on its message: the people around you don’t define who you are, and you can be whoever you want to be.

Anyone who is looking to get into its massive and ever-expanding universe will find I Am Not Starfire entertaining. New fans will be incentivized to investigate DC as a whole and learn more about Starfire and the Teen Titans. However, readers who are already fans of DC comics will find this graphic novel very disappointing as it has inaccurate information on Starfire’s powers, goes against DC’s established lore, and overall is written poorly. If you’re looking for a fun, well-written graphic novel with a positive message and an LGBTQ character, Pumpkin Heads by Rainbow Rowell & Faith Erin Hicks would be a good choice.

Sexual Content

  • A guy at school yells from the background, “Hey Mandy! Like your mom’s tits.”
  • Mandy recalls a summer camp romance experience where she kissed a girl. “I did have this girl who kissed me at camp one summer.”
  • In a two-page spread, Mandy and her crush, Claire, kiss for the first time.

 Violence

  • When Starfire tells Mandy about her past on Tamaran, she brings up that her sister killed their parents. Their death is not shown. “Our parents…were killed by The Citadel.”
  • Blackfire and Starfire battle against each other to determine Mandy’s fate. However, Starfire loses to her sister which causes Mandy’s powers to awaken. Mandy fights Blackfire in her mother’s place and wins. The fight lasts for about 16 pages. The illustrations are kid-friendly, and the characters end up with a few scratches and cuts with a little bit of blood.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Lincoln calls a group of Teen Titans fans assholes for not respecting Mandy’s boundaries.
  • Multiple characters often use the word “shit” and other variations of the word. For example, Lincoln says Claire’s friends “are shitty but [Claire] seems okay.”
  • When Mandy’s mom wants to talk about Mandy’s college plans, Mandy says, “Fuck.”
  • After Blackfire has knocked out Starfire, Mandy says, “Why don’t you just fuck off and die?!”

Supernatural

  • While not exactly supernatural, the story features aliens; Starfire is an alien from the planet Tamaran and thus, Mandy herself is an alien. Starfire’s sister, Blackfire, also appears in the book.
  • The Teen Titans make brief appearances in the book. Beast Boy is a green metahuman (human with powers) who can turn into any kind of animal and Raven is a superheroine who is a Cambion (half human and half demon).

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Emma Hua

Soul Riders: Jorvik Calling

Soul Riders tells the heroic tale of four young girls who have been chosen by destiny to save the world from the ancient demon, Garnok, and his band of dangerous Dark Riders. Lisa is a teenage girl coming to terms with the tragic loss of her mother in a riding accident, who has sworn never to go near a horse again. That is, until she met Starshine, a mysterious blue-maned steed who comes to her in dreams.

New on the island of Jorvik, Lisa befriends Alex, Linda, and Anne. Under the guidance of mystical druids, they discover they each have a special bond to their horses that gives them magical powers. While trying to balance school, family, and friendships, they have to figure out what it means to be a Soul Rider. They are attacked by the Dark Riders and the mysterious Mr. Sands and discover that their horses are in danger. Instead of relying on their combined strength, they decide to split up on their quest to find answers. Will it be too late before they realize their mistake?

Jorvik Calling has a unique premise, but the worldbuilding is choppy and confusing. The story focuses on Lisa. However, the story is told in the first-person point of view, but it jumps from each girl’s perspective. Even though there are four narrators, the girls’ voices are not easy to distinguish from each other. In addition, the perspective often changes within a chapter. The change in perspective adds confusion, breaks up the action, and makes the overall story disconnected.

Even though the book is based on the Star Stable video game, readers who haven’t played the game will enjoy the book. However, the video game players will instantly connect with the book because it gives insight into the lore of Jorvik and the myth of the Soul Riders.

All the girls—Lisa, Alex, Linda, and Anne—are unfamiliar with Jorvik’s lore, which allows the reader to learn about the ancient myth. Because of this, the girls are confused when magic begins coursing through them. Despite this, the girl’s supernatural abilities will capture readers’ attention. The unique blend of horses, magic, and the fight between good and evil will make readers curious about what will happen in the next book in the series, The Legend Awakens.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Some boys were bullying Alex’s brother. One day, “she found her brother tied to one of the goal posts with jump ropes.” When Lisa saw a bigger boy, she gestured to him to stop. “The moment Alex raised her hand, she felt a burst of energy, there was a bright flash and the guy staggered back as though he’d been pushed.” The boy falls, and when he gets back to his feet, he runs away.
  • A man in a van chases Anne and her horse Concorde. “The headlights shone like death rays in her eyes. . . The terror at the thought of being run over had left her numb. She saw a pink glow behind her eyelids. It was seeking her out, that light.” Anne embraces the light and then, “the SUV ran through her and Concorde—but she wasn’t there. It was as though she was standing outside herself, looking on.” Anne and Concorde are able to escape.
  • Lisa’s dad, Carl, eavesdrops on his boss. Then, “Carl could see two long shadows. . . And then they were on top of him. Two burly men grabbed him by the arms and dragged him toward the ramp. . .” Carl’s whereabouts are unknown, but Lisa just thinks he is working on an important project.
  • When Derek was going home, a girl on horseback tries to ride him down. Derek realizes “she was in fact aiming to force him off the road . . .He could feel the horse’s searing heat against his leg.” Alex appears and Jessica grabs her arm. “Lightening exploded from Alex’s palm and hit Jessica, who collapsed on the ground.” Alex is left with a bleeding arm.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation three times. For example, Lisa’s father almost hits a girl on a horse. The girl says, “Oh my god, I’m sorry. I didn’t think there would be any cars out this early!”
  • God is used as an exclamation once.
  • A man uses “by the light of Aideen” as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • The book begins with a creation story about a girl on horseback. “As she rode slowly across the sea, her horse’s hooves tamed the wild waves beneath her. . .She lay the light down on the island, and life and hope poured out of the cold nothingness.” The island had both light and darkness. “A great darkness hides in the depths of the ocean, biding its time, waiting just a little longer.”
  • Pandoria is a “world that co-exists with ours. Pandoria’s unreality seeps into our reality and vice versa. That is the essence of magic.”
  • The soul riders are “chosen girls who share a special bond with their horses. Through that bond, they acquire special powers to help them fight against evil.”
  • Sabine puts a spell over Herman, who owns the stable. Then Sabine “murmured something, and Lisa’s horse, Starshine, collapses.”
  • When Lisa’s horse, Starshine, collapses, Lisa heals him by placing her hands on him. “She placed them on his clammy neck and lay down with her face next to his. . . The birthmark on her cheek prickled and burned. A melody, at once strange and familiar, flowered through her like a trickling brook.” As she sings, Lisa feels an energy that “shimmered blue, pink and purple.” The energy heals Starshine.
  • Starshine breaks his leg. Lisa thought about calling for help, but “then a glow began to fill the air. . . The strange glow slowly rose through the air in twisting tendrils.” The lights dance in a pattern. “Now a strong light was shining from the palm of her hand. . . Beneath her hand, she could feel Starshine’s leg aligning. There was crackling, trembling, and dancing underneath his skin.” Starshine is completely healed. The scene is described over two pages.
  • Lisa meets a woman in the woods. Afterwards, Lisa hears a voice say, “This is your gift. To heal and care for the injured and sick. Use your gift well.”
  • An evil man can speak to Garnok directly through a portal. The man “wants to see those miserable horses (the Soul Rider’s horses) devoured in the eternal prison of Pandoria.” It is not clear who Garnok is.
  • Lisa and her friends take a night ride where they “were going to ride in Aideen’s footsteps and seek the Flame of Jor, the spark that, according to legend, brought life to the island.” The girls talk about the legend. “During an excavation in the Northern Mountains, carvings showing four riders were found on the cave wall . . . a local historian at Jorvik University later identified [the symbols] as a sun, a star, a moon, and a lightning bolt. The symbols are thought to be the source of the Soul Riders’ power and strength.”
  • Lisa sees a vision of her dead mother. “Lisa ran as fast as she could, but she saw her mother fade away before her very eyes.”
  • Linda, one of the Soul Riders, “had known things she shouldn’t have been able to know. . . [Her aunt] called it a premonition, a gift from the gods.” Later, “a darkness spread through Linda. Suddenly, she was no longer in the warm club room . . . but far out to sea. It was dark and cold.” When her friend calls her name, Linda snaps out of the trance.
  • Alex’s horse, Concorde, becomes transparent and slowly fades away. Later, Alex learns that he is in another realm.
  • Anne meets Fripp. “The creature’s fur was blue and shiny; its eyes were large and almost entirely black. Its tail was big and fluffy. If she had to describe it, she would have said it looked like an unusually big squirrel.”
  • Anne discovers that she can create a portal to Pandoria.
    Spiritual Content
  • The Soul Riders are told about druids. “They’re called the Keepers of Aideen and are philosophers, you might say, with a close relationship with the four elements: fire, water, air and earth. . . They live in the service of the goddess Aideen.”

 

Fair and Square

In Chapter 1, Unicorn and Yeti talk about their favorite shapes—stars, squares, and circles. Using these shapes, the two friends create a village in the snow. Yeti likes triangles because “lots of my favorite things are triangles, like trees and ice cream cones.”

In Chapter 2, Unicorn and Yeti are both painting, but they paint differently. Yeti looks at Unicorn’s picture and feels bad about his own paintings because he thinks they look messy. But Unicorn likes Yeti’s paintings. She says, “My paintings only look like what we see. Your paintings are fancy. They look like magic!” Even though the two friends paint in different ways, both of their artwork is beautiful.

In Chapter 3, Unicorn and Yeti are sharing a pie. Yeti cuts the pie in half, but Yeti cannot eat all of his pie. Yeti offers the rest to Unicorn, who is hungry. Unicorn worries that “I will get more pie than you. That will not be fair.” In the end, Unicorn eats the rest of the offered pie because, “If I eat your pie, then we will both be full. Fair and square.”

Children who are learning to read will enjoy reading about Unicorn and Yeti’s adventures, which teach about friendship. The text is easy to read and when each character talks, their words appear in different colored quote boxes. Each page has a full page of illustrations and contains three or fewer sentences. Beginning readers should be able to read the text alone and will enjoy flipping through the story multiple times to look at the colorful pictures.

The Unicorn and Yeti Series is perfect for all young readers, even the ones that become a little bit wiggly after a short time. Each book shows readers how to be a good friend, and encourages readers to embrace their own uniqueness. Fair and Square will introduce shapes, sharing, and show that things do not need to be the same to be beautiful. The story uses simple language to introduce important topics and each story is so much fun that readers won’t get bored.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Blue Moon

Bobbie Jo didn’t set out to buy a limping blue roan mare—she wanted a colt she could train to barrel race. But the horse is a fighter, just like Bobbie Jo. Now all she has to do is train the sour, old mare whose past is unknown. While she nurses the horse back to health, Bobbie Jo realizes that the horse, now called Blue Moon, may have more history than she first thought. With the help of the enigmatic Cole, she slowly turns the horse into a barrel racer.

From the very first page, Blue Moon sets up the conflict in a fast-paced story. Bobbie Jo clearly loves horses and readers will quickly be pulled into her world. Even though Bobbie Jo isn’t well developed, readers will be interested in her life. When Cole begins working on her family’s ranch, Bobbie Jo doesn’t trust him. When the two are forced to work together, Bobbie Jo realizes that Cole’s bad attitude hides his true nature. Bobbie Jo and Cole’s relationship adds interest to the story and readers will enjoy watching their friendship grow.

Blue Moon is specifically written for teens who want to read short, interesting novels. The book has large font and short chapters which will appeal to reluctant readers. The easy-to-read story revolves around Bobbie Jo’s horse and family which makes the story relatable to many teens.

The story is told from Bobbie Jo’s point of view, which allows the reader to understand her thought process. Her relationships with her family, Cole, and her horse give the story enough depth to keep the reader turning the pages. The ending has a surprise that emphasizes doing what is right. More advanced readers may be disappointed in Blue Moon because of the simple plot and lack of character development. However, both struggling readers and horse-loving readers who want a quick read will enjoy Blue Moon.

Sexual Content

  • Bobbie Jo and Cole are in a truck talking. Bobbie Jo’s sister taps on the window and then says, “you guys steamin’ up the windows in there or what?”

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Bobby Jo and her parents have a conversation about Cole’s father. Afterward, Bobby Jo wonders, “Why didn’t anybody ever see this Mr. McCall around? Maybe he was a hopeless drunk who just sat home drinking up the grocery money. . .”
  • Cole’s family was in a car accident. Cole says, “One night we were comin’ home for the city in a thunderstorm and a drunk driver hit our truck. We all got hurt.”

 

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Winter Wonders

It’s Christmas time at Whispering Pines, and everyone is buzzing with excitement—especially since Cat and Mr. Henry are getting married! Delia and Willow have been appointed junior bridesmaids, and there’s a flurry of things to do.

The counts are whipping up a sweet feast of desserts, and they’re determined to top it all off with an extra-special gift for the couple. Meanwhile, Delia can’t wait to share Saugatuck’s festivities with Willow. But when the wedding treats go missing and a blizzard collapses the Food Pantry roof, can Willow and Delia keep Christmas from snowballing into a disaster?

Bake delicious recipes alongside Delia and Willow, as the entire Bumpus clan teams up to save the day in the final installment of this scrumptious series.

Delia and Willow want to give Cat and Mr. Henry the perfect gift, but they just can’t seem to agree on anything. Most of the story comes from this conflict, in addition to Willow being afraid to cook because of a previous disaster. While their family makes quick appearances, readers who have not read the previous books will not connect with them. Unfortunately, most of the family’s appearances do very little to move the plot forward.

Winter Wonders shows the importance of helping those who are less fortunate. Delia and Willow both help at a food pantry and are eager to make Christmas treats to share with those in need. However, their young age makes some of the events unbelievable. For example, the two girls make enough food for a hundred guests.

Cheerful black and white illustrations appear every 2 to 5 pages. While the illustrations focus on Delia and Willow, they also include many of the family members. One character uses several puns and Cat uses fun sayings such as, “I’ll be back, quick as a snowman on ice skates.”

Young readers who love to cook will find Winter Wonders interesting and will enjoy learning new recipes that celebrate winter. However, the slow pace and lack of conflict may cause readers to become quickly bored. If you’re looking for some winter fun, Diary of an Ice Princess by Christina Soontornvat will take you to a magical world while it teaches positive lessons.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The girls wanted to make a lobster dinner for Cat and her fiancé, but when the lobsters arrive, the girls didn’t expect them to be alive. Willow’s dad explained, “They’re supposed to be alive before we cook them. Then when the pot is nice and hot, we drop them into the boiling water.” The girls decide not to cook the “creepy crawlers.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Out of Place

Cove Bernstein’s life has gone from bad to worse. After her best friend Nina moves from the island of Martha’s Vineyard to New York City, Cove is bullied more than ever by her classmates, Amelia and Sophie.  Without Nina, Cove has become the center of a bullying campaign. Cove tries to find a way to leave the island, but her mother refuses to leave, saying places outside of Martha’s Vineyard have “the never-ending pressure to be a certain person.”

Cove finds the chance of a lifetime to visit New York by entering herself in a kids-only fashion competition. Cove has little experience in sewing, but her friend in the retirement home, Anna, teaches her the basics. The plot thickens when Jack, a boy from her school, starts appearing wherever she goes. Then, she makes a terrible mistake – one that she thought she could not undo.

Told in an easy-to-read fashion, Out of Place truly captures a long-distance friendship as well as a friendship found in an unexpected place. Many readers will relate to Cove as she starts the school year without many kids to call friends. Despite their distance, Cove and Nina remain friends by writing letters to each other. The letters between Cove and Nina show their enduring friendship and summarize the events in their respective lives, which helps the reader understand the effort needed to keep a long-distance friendship.

Nina is less developed since she primarily appears through letters, but the letters about her life in New York City allow the reader to take a break from Cove’s days at school and to later reengage in the happenings of Cove, back at Martha’s Vineyard. Black-and-white spot art appears at the start of each chapter. The illustrations in Cove’s letters show the influence of the island’s residents on her, which is contrasted by Cove’s desire to leave the island through any means while dealing with Amelia and Sophie’s bullying. The theme of friendship holds stronger than the theme of bullying because the story focuses on Cove’s development into a more self-assured person. One instance of her development is when she wins a “stuffed scarecrow contest” and makes the scarecrow in the art room. As she looks at the finished product, Cove says to herself, “The letters are wobbly and Anna would never approve of the stitches—they’re way too uneven—but the message is clear. Anyone who wants to sit next to [her] scarecrow is more than welcome.”

Unlike many stories, Out of Place deemphasizes the bully’s mean behavior. Cove becomes invested in her passions, not as an escape, but to figure out her place in her hometown. Through the story, readers will come to a better understanding of a subtle approach to standing up against bullies, all while being one’s true self. Out of Place does end with a hopeful happily-ever-after, but perhaps most importantly, the story shows how friends — old and new – can make a difference in a person’s life.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Nina splashes dirty water onto Sophie and Amelia, who have been taunting her and Cove. “There is a moment when the foamy, dirty water floats in the air. Then it lands in Sophie’s and Amelia’s laps. And all I [Cove] hear are screams.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Sophie refers to Cove as “Rover” because Sophie had decided that Cove “looked like a dog.”
  • Many characters use the word “stupid” to describe an unlikable person or situation. For example, in a letter to Cove, Nina writes about the people and situations that she considers “stupid.”
  • Jack helps the art teacher and another classmate stuff straw into a scarecrow’s body. Jack says, “Horses must be pretty freaking tough.”
  • Cove’s mother yells at Cove’s stepfather. She calls him “naive. . . and stupid. And irresponsible.”
  • Cove tells Jonah, a college student, about her bullying. He says, “Damn. . . I forgot how tough growing up can be.”
  • Cove’s stepfather is late to meet Cove’s mother. He says “crap.”
  • Nina writes that the shirt design for Amelia and Sophie’s shirts “totally stinks.”
  • When Cove is practicing her sewing, she says it “stinks.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Cove’s mother believes in spiritual things, mostly that people have a “spirit” and that the events that happen in life affect them. Additionally, she believes in karma and fate.

by Jemima Cooke

Clark the Shark

Clark is a shark with zing, bang, and BOOM. Clark zooms into school, crashes through the classroom, and is rowdy at recess. Clark loves life and always means well—but when his enthusiasm is too much for his friends, Clark’s teacher (Mrs. Inkydink) helps him figure out a way to tone it down.

Clark the Shark celebrates boisterous enthusiasm—and knowing when it’s time for indoor voices! The picture book is fun to read aloud because it uses rhyming, alliteration, and fun wordplay such as when Clark makes up a new game called “tail-whump-a-lumpus.” Another positive aspect of the story is that when Clark has a hard time remembering the rules, he turns the rules into a rhyme. “In class, when lessons got exciting, Clark wanted to bounce up out of his seat. Instead, he told himself: ‘When teacher’s talking, don’t go walking.’”

Clark’s struggle to “stay cool” comes to life in bright, full-page illustrations that show Clark and an array of other classmates—a fish, a crab, a jellyfish, and an octopus. The sea creatures are adorably cute as they take on human characteristics such as wearing clothes, reading books, and sitting at a desks. One fish even wears glasses! Clark’s facial expressions are sometimes silly, but they show the shark’s wide range of emotions.

Each page of the picture book has 1 to 7 sentences. Some of the text is large and bold to illustrate the idea that Clark is yelling. Even though Clark the Shark is a picture book, the story is intended to be read aloud to a child, rather than for the child to read it for the first time independently.

Get ready to use silly voices as you read Clark the Shark to your little reader. The book is a perfect introduction to going to school and following the rules, which include staying still during class, not yelling, being gentle with your classmates, and not munching a bunch of your classmates’ lunches. Clark the Shark uses humor to teach readers about controlling their impulses. If you are looking for picture books that use sharks to teach about friendship, you should also add The Pout-Pout Fish and the Bully-Bully Shark by Deborah Diesen and Shawn Loves Sharks by Curtis Manley to your reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Cheer Up

It’s winter and Unicorn and Yeti want to spend time together because they are each other’s best friend. When Unicorn gives Yeti a gift, Yeti wants to give Unicorn a gift too! Then, after Yeti is crunching icicles, Unicorn decides to eat icicles too! The icicles are yummy, but they make Unicorn so cold! Yeti has a solution—he’s going to knit Unicorn a hat, a scarf, and leg warmers for a gift. After Unicorn is warm, the two friends take a walk in the forest.

Unicorn and Yeti is a fun series designed for children who are learning to read. Cheer Up contains easy-to-read text. Each page has a full page of illustrations and contains no more than three sentences. When each character talks, their words appear in different colored quote boxes. Beginning readers should be able to read the text alone and will enjoy flipping through the story multiple times to look at the colorful pictures.

Cheer Up is the perfect book for all young readers—even the ones that become a little bit wiggly after a short time. As the fourth installment in the series, it can be read as a stand-alone story. Unicorn and Yeti show how friends can be different from each other and still enjoy a special friendship. The two friends react to things in different ways and their friendship helps them see another side to the situation. If you’re looking for a fun book that shows the importance of friendship, Cheer Up is a winter-themed book that will warm readers’ hearts.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

After the Shot Drops

After the Shot Drops follows the story of a friendship between two high school sophomores, Bunny and Nasir. Although they have been best friends since childhood, their friendship begins to deteriorate after Bunny transfers from Whitman High to a private, affluent, less-diverse school. Bunny, a rising star in high school basketball, has a dream for making it to the NBA. He is noticed for his athletic prowess, but the path to making his basketball dream may lead him to losing Nasir as both a friend and confidante.

Besieged with problems of his own, Nasir must prevent his impoverished cousin, Wallace, from becoming homeless. Wallace is in debt and on the verge of homelessness. In order to make money quickly, Wallace bets against Bunny’s team in the upcoming basketball state championships. However, thanks to Bunny’s amazing basketball skills, this plan quickly falls apart with terrible consequences for Wallace, Nasir, and ultimately Bunny.

After the Shot Drops is told in an alternating pattern of first-person accounts, thus weaving together a narrative about the lives of both main characters, Bunny and Nasir. Each chapter shifts between both characters, which allows the audience to create a sympathetic connection to each of them. Each character must find themselves amidst their drama making their struggles highly relatable. Although Bunny and Nasir become increasingly distant, the audience is treated to both the joys and sorrows from each of their perspectives.

Through the lens of basketball, Ribay demonstrates the awesome, yet sometimes divisive power of competitive ambition. In this touching story of friendship, readers will learn about the difficulties facing people of color in America. While the book does not directly address racism, certain instances and scenes poke holes in prevailing stereotypes in order to defy them. While there are a few violent scenes and swear words, Ribay strategically uses these devices to intensify the story’s drama.

After the Shot Drops is a face-paced, intense, and often empathetic story that highlights the difficulties of balancing friendships. Ribay’s exciting descriptions of basketball games and character building lead the audience towards forging a real and very moving connection with each character.

Sexual Content

  • Bunny and his girlfriend, Keyona, exchange intimate kisses while standing next to traffic. “Some passing car beeps its horn, and then another car honks at us, and then another like it’s become a thing everyone’s doing. We start laughing even as we’re still kissing”
  • While at the victory party, Bunny fantasizes in a direct, suggestive manner about his new friend Brooke. “To be honest, I try to not look at her butt, but it’s right there and it’s looking real nice in those jeans”

Violence

  • In an act of revenge against Bunny’s betrayal, Wallace convinces a hesitant Nasir to paint the front of Bunny’s house with a smattering of eggs. Wallace “cocks his arm back and chucks the egg. It hits the brick of the Thompsons’ row house with a small but oddly satisfying ”
  • After making a few bad bets on local sports, Wallace is punched in the face at a party by one of the gamblers as a warning. “[The stranger’s] fist cracks into the side of Wallace’s jaw, and Wallace drops to the ground like a sack of bricks”
  • To sublimate his guilt, Nasir plays a shooting video game in which he kills Nazi zombies. “I pull the trigger the moment the Nazi zombie shambles out of the darkness and into my crosshairs. Head shot. Blood, brain matter, and skill fragments spray the wall.”
  • After falling further in debt with the gamblers, Wallace tells Nasir that he faces pretty fatal consequences unless he is able to pony up the money. Specifically, Wallace reflects on the story of a former late classmate as he says, “Word on the street is that the bullet he caught by accident was meant for someone who fucked with these guys.”
  • During the heat of the third quarter in the state championship game, Bunny takes an elbow directly to the face. The opponent “looks to the outside like he’s going to pass but then pivots, swinging his elbows—clocks me right in the nose.” He was knocked unconscious with a nearly broken, bleeding nose.
  • A heated shouting and punching match begins between Bunny and Wallace. Bunny sees “Wallace standing there, holding something and pointing it at me – he shifts, and it glints, catching the light from one of the faraway streetlamps. It’s a gun.” Wallace aims and shoots Bunny straight in the chest. Bunny is quickly rushed to the hospital after massive blood loss but eventually makes a full recovery.

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • While skipping out on class, Bunny’s peers at St. Sebastian’s attempt to get him to smoke weed for his first time.
  • After going to the movies with Nasir, Wallace lights up a joint. Wallace “fishes a blunt from his pocket and lights up right there in front of the theater.”
  • Nasir and Wallace attend a house party in which many guests are using drugs and alcohol. “Most [people here] look like they’re college age, and most have a drink in one hand and a cigarette or blunt in the other.”
  • After winning a game without Bunny playing, the St. Sebastian’s team celebrates by throwing a classic high school party laden with cheap alcohol and drugs. “There are red cups arranged in a triangle at either end. Two guys are trying to toss a Ping-Pong ball into the cups on the opposite end.”
  • After winning the state championship, Nasir and Bunny catch up in their neighborhood but are approached by a drunk Wallace, who is brandishing a gun. Nasir notices Wallace approaching “… as soon as I see his tall figure making its way toward us, kicking up the snow like a playground bully kicking over some kid’s block city, I know something’s not right. He’s swaying, clutching a bottle in a paper bag in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.”

Language

  • While Nasir and Wallace are at the cinema, they encounter Bunny and his girlfriend Keyona, whom Nasir had a crush on. Wallace finds Bunny, Nasir and Keyona and says “There you are, Nas. Shit, I thought you abandoned my ass.”
  • After coating Bunny’s house with eggs, Wallace tells Nasir to “[g]et this shit out of your system, or I’ll empty the rest of this carton on his house myself.”
  • Inside the Thompsons’ row house, Bunny and Keyona are studying while they hear the muted thumping of eggs against the side of the house. Keyona says, “I’m sorry that people can’t let it go. That you have to deal with this ignorant shit.”
  • Wallace rebukes Bunny in an attempt to further ingratiate himself with Nasir. “Wallace spits. ‘Man, fuck Bunny.’ And even though he’s expressed similar sentiments before, his words feel laced with a new level of malice.”
  • While driving Nasir to a party in their neighborhood, Wallace colorfully expresses his frustration with the lack of available parking. “Wallace slams his fists on the steering wheel. ‘Goddammit, motherfucking, bitch-ass, motherfucker,’ he mutters around the cigarette.”
  • Wallace tries to convince Nasir to befriend Bunny again in order to make him lose an upcoming game as he says “I know this isn’t easy for you, Nas, and I know I can be a dickhead some of the time – okay, a lot of the time – but I appreciate you trying to help out me and G[randma].”
  • With words flitting through his anxious mind, Nasir reflects on his plan to force Bunny to sit out for the rest of the season. “ Fearful. Friendless. Fucked.”
  • After a string of seemingly unfair calls made by a basketball referee, one of Bunny’s teammates exclaims loudly, “Bullshit!”
  • In the state championship game, Bunny believes the referee is making unfair calls and cries, “Bullshit!”
  • At the park, an inebriated Wallace confronts Bunny saying, “Fuck you.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • To renew their friendship, Bunny takes Nasir to St. Sebastian’s and to the school’s library, which is large. Nasir says, “What’s up there. . . God?”

 by Daniel Klein

 

Danbi Leads the School Parade

Danbi is thrilled to start her new school in America. But a bit nervous too, for when she walks into the classroom, everyone goes quiet. Everyone stares. Danbi wants to join in the dances and the games, but she doesn’t know the rules and just can’t get anything right. Luckily, she isn’t one to give up. With a spark of imagination, she makes up a new game and leads her classmates on a parade to remember!

Throughout Danbi’s school day, Danbi feels sad because “no one played with [her].” During lunch, Danbi tries to teach a girl how to use chopsticks. This doesn’t work, but it gives Danbi an idea and soon the classroom is full of noise—Ting! Ding! Ti-Ding! Boom Boom Boom Tap Tap Tap! Even though the class gets “a little wild,” the teacher doesn’t discipline the students; instead, she allows Danbi to lead everyone outside so they can continue their musical play.

Unlike most picture books, Danbi Leads the School Parade starts on the back of the front cover and continues all the way through to the back cover. Danbi’s story begins with her hugging her grandmother goodbye and traveling far away on an airplane. All readers will be able to relate to Danbi who is excited, but nervous to start school. Danbi’s feelings are described in ways that young children will understand. For example, on the first day of school in America, Danbi’s heartbeat goes “Boom. Boom.”

Each illustration is full of bright colors and movement. Each child is adorably cute and the classroom shows a diverse group of students. Young readers will enjoy exploring every picture and finding the small details that make each illustration fun. Danbi and her classmates’ emotions are clearly portrayed through the illustrations. Each page has 1 to 4 short sentences full of fun onomatopoeias that make the story fun to read aloud. Even though the picture book has a simple plot, readers will be enthralled with Danbi’s story.

Danbi Leads the School Parade won an Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Honor Book. Anna Kim immigrated to American when she was young, and she used her experience to create a heartwarming story about friendship. Danbi Leads the School Parade shows that friendships can bloom even if you are from different cultures and speak different languages. In addition, Danbi Leads the School Parade encourages acceptance, kindness, and trying new things. Parents who want to encourage these traits should add All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold to their children’s reading list as well.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Roll with It

Ellie’s a girl who tells it like it is. That surprises some people, who see a kid in a wheelchair and think she’s going to be all sunshine and cuddles. The thing is, Ellie has big dreams. She might be eating Stouffer’s for dinner, but one day she’s going to be a professional baker. If she’s not writing fan letters to her favorite celebrity chefs, she’s practicing recipes on her well-meaning, if overworked, mother.

But when Ellie and her mom move so they can help take care of her ailing grandpa, Ellie has to start all over again in a new town at a new school. Except she’s not just the new kid—she’s the new kid in the wheelchair who lives in the trailer park on the wrong side of town. It all feels like one challenge too many, until Ellie starts to make her first-ever friends. Now she just has to convince her mom that this town might be the best thing that ever happened to them!

The story’s plot has three main threads: Ellie’s cerebral palsy, Ellie’s grandfather’s dementia, and Ellie going to a new school. All of these events are told from Ellie’s point of view. Like most teens, Ellie just wants to be “normal.” However, because of her disease, she will never be like everyone else. However, Ellie has great talent in the kitchen. Ellie loves cooking and often writes to famous chefs. The letters give the reader an opportunity to understand Ellie’s feelings.

Roll with It shows how cerebral palsy affects Ellie on a daily basis and will help readers understand the hardships of living with a disability. While the story has many unique characters, Ellie is the only one who is well-developed. Many readers may have a difficult time relating to Ellie and her friends, who are outcasts at school; the story implies that Ellie and her friends will always be looked down upon because they live in a trailer park. In addition, the divergent plots do not meld well together and are underdeveloped. Because of these issues, Ellie and her story will be quickly forgotten.

One positive aspect of the story is that it teaches that “the best plan is the one you don’t make for yourself.” However, if you’re looking for a story that shows the difficulties of living with a disability, you may want to skip Roll with It and instead read Sumner’s more engaging book Tune It Out.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Ellie’s grandfather is in the hospital, Mema says, “Lord, the amount of smoking that goes on outside this hospital, mind you, makes you wonder all over again at the state of our health care.”

Language

  • Lord is used as an exclamation twice.
  • One of Ellie’s friends has birds in the house and “they crap on the furniture.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Ellie thinks about God and “what it means to ‘live a life according to your convictions,’ as my grandma’s pastor would say.” Ellie contemplates God over two pages. During her musings, she thinks, “I like the idea that baking can be another way of talking to God. So maybe when I bake, it counts as praying and God understands where I’m coming from.”
  • When Ellie’s grandparents began dating, Mema thought “he looked like ‘God or the devil’ when he rode up to her dressed all in black from head to toe. . .”
  • Ellie’s friend is upset. She tells Ellie, “You do not get to pull the cripple card. I am singing the national anthem in front of God and the entire middle school, and I want my best friend there to witness.”
  • Ellie’s grandparents go to church.
  • When Ellie’s grandpa gets in an accident, Ellie “prayed for Grandpa to be healed and for Mom to settle down. . .”
  • When Ellie wakes up in a hospital, she prays, “Please, God, don’t let it have been a seizure.”
  • Ellie’s mother is looking at a retirement home. When Ellie sees the brochures, she wonders if her mother would ever get sick of her and put her in a home. Ellie says, “God wouldn’t want you to give up on me.”
  • Ellie wants to win a baking competition, but she has no idea what to make. She prays, “Please help me find the perfect pie, that one that’s most me.” Her prayer lasts for a page.

Agnes and Clarabelle

Agnes the pig and Clarabelle the chicken are best friends throughout every season. Whether it’s planning the perfect birthday party in the spring, spending a summer day at the beach, braving a big department store in the fall, or making the very best pizza in winter, they help each other through every up and down. For Agnes and Clarabelle, everything is better when they’re together.

Agnes and Clarabelle is broken into four short chapters. Each chapter is a new story, which makes the book perfect if you’re looking for a quick bedtime story.

Each story focuses on a conflict that young readers will relate to. In chapter 1, “Spring: Surprise Party,” Clarabelle is worried that not everyone will be able to come to her birthday party. On the day of the party, one friend does not show up, but Clarabelle has a wonderful time despite this. In chapter 2, “Summer: Beach Day,” Agnes is “scared of a wave knocking me over or a Frisbee hitting my head.” Clarabelle comes up with a creative solution that takes Agnes’s fears into consideration. In chapter 3, “New Sneakers,” Clarabelle gets lost in a mall but is found. In chapter 4, “Winter: Perfect Pizza,” the two friends make the perfect pizza that is too pretty to eat.

Agnes and Clarabelle’s stories come to life in adorable, full-colored illustrations that show the friends’ varied emotions. Various sized illustrations appear every 1 to 3 pages. The illustrations portray a range of animal characters from a bear security guard to an alligator working at the mall. Readers will have fun finding the brightly colored birds that are on almost every outdoor illustration. Large text and simple sentences make Agnes and Clarabelle easy to understand.

Beginning readers will enjoy Agnes and Clarabelle’s adventures. The stories don’t show perfect solutions to every problem. Instead, Agnes and Clarabelle teaches readers what a healthy friendship looks like. Agnes and Clarabelle is a cute and engaging story that teaches important values. If you’re looking for another book that features friendship lessons, check out the Unicorn and Yeti Series by Heather Ayris Burnell.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Slaves of Socorro

Hal and his fellow Herons return home to Skandia after defeating the pirate captain Zavac and reclaiming Skandia’s most prized artifact, the Andomal. With their honor restored, the Herons turn to a new mission: going to Araluen. But soon after they arrive, news comes of a Skandian wolfship attacking a village and enslaving twelve people.

With the help of the ranger Gilan, the Herons set off to track down Tursgud—leader of the Shark Brotherband and Hal’s constant opponent. Tursgud has turned into a pirate and a slave trader, and the Herons are determined to save the twelve Araluen villagers from him. The Heron crew sail into action. But finding Tursgud and freeing the slaves proves more difficult than the Herons ever imagined.

The Slaves of Socorro begins slowly, as it starts with the Herons returning home. When they are given a mission, the Herons travel to Araluen. Along the way, they see Tursgud’s ship and give chase, but Tursgud is able to slip away. Determined to find Tursgud, the Herons travel to Socorro. This causes the first half of the book to lack action and suspense, and readers will be glad when the Herons finally arrive at their destination.

The pace picks up in the second half of The Slaves of Socorro. Flanagan vividly builds the world of Socorro, which adds interest to the story. As the Herons come up with a plan to free the Araluens, Ingvar agrees to pose as a slave. His imprisonment shows his willingness to make sacrifices for strangers. Ingvar’s kind nature and loyalty are admirable. The Herons also highlight the importance of working as a team, as well as embracing each person’s strengths.

Fans of the Ranger’s Apprentice Series will cheer as Gilan joins the Herons on their mission. However, fans will be frustrated when several scenes depict Gilan in an uncharacteristic way. Gilan is not the only new character added to the story. Kloof, a misbehaving dog, joins the crew and adds humor to the otherwise serious story.

In typical Flanagan style, the book concludes with an epic battle that is somewhat bloody. Tursgud and his crew all die; however, their deaths are not celebrated. Even though many people die at the hands of the Herons, they intentionally try to disable their enemies instead of killing them when possible.

Slaves of Socorro may start off slowly, but the second half of the book is full of action as the Herons save the Araluens from slavery. The story’s difficult vocabulary and detailed sailing scenes make the Brotherband Series best for strong readers. Readers will enjoy the friendship between the Herons, Thorn’s gruff behavior, and the unexpected plans that Hal comes up with. Readers will be eager to begin the next book in the series, Scorpion Mountain, which will add another character from the Ranger’s Apprentice Series.

Sexual Content

  • When Lydia finds out that Karina and Thorn are going to a celebration together, Lydia sings, “Karina and Tho-orn, sitting in a tree-ee. Kay-eye-ess-ess-eye-en-gee.”
  • Thorn asks Karina to the celebration. Later, Thorn tells Hal, “Just wanted you to know, there’s been no . . . funny business between me and your mam. No . . . hanky-panky, if you know what I mean.”
  • Before Thorn sails off on a mission, Karina “threw her arms around Thorn’s neck and kissed him soundly on the mouth. For a moment, Thorn was caught by surprise. Then he responded eagerly.”
  • One of the saved Araluens thanks Hal and then “leaning in, she kissed him on the cheek.” When Lydia snorts, Thorn asks, “What’s got your undies in a twist, princess?”

Violence

  • The Oberjarl, Erak, sees Tursgud, “and half a dozen of his unsavory crew members” drinking ale. Tursgud’s “eyes were bleary and he was very much the worse for drinking ale.” When the boys are disrespectful, “Erak raised the cask high, then slammed it down on Kjord’s head. The bottom of the cask gave way and showered the remaining ale down over Kjord’s body and shoulders. . . He [Kjord] sat upright for a second or two. Then Erak grabbed his collar and jerked him up and back off the bench with one convulsive heave.” Kjord is knocked unconscious. Erak tells Tursgud, “‘Now pick that piece of garbage up.’ He jerked his head at Kjord, who was moaning softly. ‘And get out of my sight.'”
  • A man shows up in Cresthaven looking for help. The man says slavers “hit us after dark and caught us totally by surprise. Killed three and took twelve prisoners. The rest of us ran. . . [They] drove us off and sat around drinking and feasting on our food and ale—and burning down houses and barns.”
  • A group of men attacks the Herons. In the fight, Hal uses a large crossbow. “The force of the shot jerked the man’s leg out from under him, and he fell, dropping the bow and clutching at his injured leg.” The Herons create a shield with their bodies. “Four of the attackers went down in the first impact, as the Skandian axes, and Thorn’s mighty club-hand smashed into them. . . The leader looked back in an attempt to rally his men. . . [a crossbow bolt] hit him squarely in the chest. The impact hurled him backwards and crashed into two of his men, dead before he hit the sand.” Many of the bandits are wounded or killed in this eight-page fight.
  • While Ingvar is imprisoned in the slave market, another Slave named Bernardo, bullies him. “Each of his questions was accompanied by a vicious elbow jab into his [Ingvar’s] ribs.” Bernardo’s head jerked back with the first punch. . . Ingvar heard the sound of bones cracking as the man’s nose broke. Bernardo uttered a choked cry, dazed from the rapid sequence of devastating punches.”
  • To create a diversion, Gilan starts a fire in the gold market. As he is leaving, someone sees him and Lydia and calls for the guards. The guards attack and “Lydia took a pace forward and punched her dirk into the soldier’s upper arm. The heavy blade sliced through the man’s chainmail shirt like a hot knife through butter. He felt the sudden burning pain in his arm.” Several of the guards are injured.
  • As Gilan and Lydia flee, the guards continue to follow. “Gilan’s sword shot forward. . . the guard felt the impact, felt the point penetrate his chest and almost immediately withdrew. He felt the hot gush of blood that spelled the end.”
  • Hal and some of the Herons break into the slave quarters in order to free them. When they enter a room, a guard “began to rise, just as Thorn kicked the heavy table over. The two on the side nearest Thorn were caught by a quick back-and-forth sweep of his club, thudding into their skulls and sending them sprawling to either side.”
  • As the slaves try to escape, soldiers “began shooting at the fleeing slaves. . . the would-be escapees began to fall, some crying out in pain, others ominously silent.”
  • While trying to escape, a group of guards corner the Herons and slaves. Hal’s dog Kloof attacks. The guard “yelped in fear as Kloof’s jaws clamped shut on his sword arm with all the force of a bear trap. . .” Then the Herons rush the guards. “Thorn’s small shield slammed full into his face, breaking his nose and cheekbone. The sergeant stumbled backward, blinded by blood and tears, his hands to his face, sinking to the cobblestones, huddled over in agony.”
  • One of the Herons stabs a guardsman who “fell sideways, staring in horrified disbelief at the blood welling from the wound. His chain mail and his sword clattered as he crashed onto the cobbles.”
  • To prevent Tursgud from following the Herons, Hal secretly ties ropes to Tursgud’s ship. When Tursgud tries to follow, the ship is ripped apart, and “the water rushed in and the boat filled and sank. . . One or two heads bobbed on the surface and they could hear their desperate cries. Then they fell silent.”
  • As the Herons flee Socorro, guards use a catapult to throw huge boulders at the ship. The Herons use their own catapult to launch jars filled with pottery shards. The pottery shatters, hitting a guard. The guard “took a jagged, five-centimeter piece in the forehead. It tore a huge flap of skin from his head. Blood gushed out, blinding him, and he threw both hands to his face in pain.” Gilan and Lydia shoot arrows at the guards.
  • A guard accidentally hits a trebuchet, and a boulder fell on the commander who “was still hurling curses at the little ship as it slid past. . . when the huge, crushing weight landed on him. He screamed once, then he was silent.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Hal’s mom soaks a “slab of meat. . . in a mixture of red wine and oil.”
  • At a dance celebrating the Heron’s return, wine and ale are served to the adults. “The band seemed to have mastered the art of drinking deep drafts of ale in sequence, so that the music continued, uninterrupted.”
  • The Herons go to Cresthaven to relieve a Skandian crew of duty. Someone tells Hal, “the ale is wonderful.” Before they leave, the villagers throw a party for the Skandians, who drink plenty of ale.
  • Smugglers bring brandy from Gallica into Cresthaven.
  • Wine is served at the gold market.
  • Tursgud and his men had been banned from “several drinking places.” So Tursgud went into a different tavern and “spent the night there, hunched over a table in the corner, repeatedly calling for his ale cup to be refilled.”
  • When the Herons return the Araluens, the village throws a party and offers their guests ale. The Herons drink coffee instead.

Language

  • The Skandians often use their gods’ names as exclamations. For example, when a dog eats a brush, Hal yells, “Let go, you fool! . . . Orlog blast you!”
  • When the Herons approach a damaged ship, Hal says, “Oh Gorlog’s socks, they think we’re going to attack them.”
  • Someone calls the Oberjarl a “silly old fool.”
  • Two brothers argue and call each other names, such as idiot and blithering twit.
  • Several times someone is called an oaf or an idiot.
  • Damn is used once.
  • A guard calls his commander a “son of a pig.”

 Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The Socorrans build prayer towers for their gods. Hahmet is the god of war. Jahmet is the god of love. Kaif is the god of good harvest, fair weather, business and success, and family matters. The Socorrans pray three times a day.
  • The Hellenese believe in the goddess Ariadne.
  • When the Herons rescue slaves, one of them tells Hal, “May the gods bless you for coming.”
  • Someone says, “By Ergon’s tears,” which refers to an obscure Araluen god.

Seedfolks

In a neglected and unkempt empty lot in a Cleveland neighborhood, a young Vietnamese girl named Kim plants a seed to honor her dead father. Although her gardening was meant to be a secret, her actions are detected by a curious neighbor, and Kim’s small seed ignites a change throughout the neighborhood; soon the community strives to revitalize the lot and transform it into a beautiful garden. Neighbors from all sorts of backgrounds come together to grow things, sharing gardening tips and growing closer as a community.

Seedfolks is a heartwarming story that demonstrates the power of simple actions, and how change is possible. Each chapter follows the perspective of a different neighbor with a unique background and a new story to tell. For example, Gonzalo watches his Tío plant seeds and feels closer to the earth as he remembers life in Guatemala. Virgil’s father from Haiti wants to grow lettuce for money. And Sam, although too old to garden himself, talks to his neighbors as they grow their fruits, vegetables, and flowers and unites the community through conversation.

Ultimately, Seedfolks is a story that celebrates diversity. Although the neighbors originally use the garden separately without communicating, they eventually begin to help one another grow things and learn from each other’s similarities and differences. Even when the winter comes, they have the promise of the garden to bring them back together again.

Although the garden is at the center of the book, the real story comes from the lives of the people using this revitalized space. Each chapter introduces a brand-new character and includes a black and white sketch to give a sense of who they are. While some characters speak broken English, their perspectives are understandable and personal. There is no coherent plot in the novel as every chapter follows a new perspective, but some of the same characters reappear in the background of other’s stories. With this format, the central theme showcases how even small actions, like planting a seed in a vacant lot, can produce big changes that bring people together. In the end, the neighbors that once coexisted separately from one another are united with a common space and goal to grow.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In the past, Wendell’s boy was “shot dead like a dog in the street.”
  • Gonzalo explains it isn’t safe to sit outside or “some gang driving by might use you for target practice.”
  • Sae Young was robbed and assaulted at her dry-cleaning store. The thief had a gun and “he take out money, then push me [Sae Young] down. He yelling at me. Very bad words. Then he kick me. Break cheekbone. Then he kick me again, head hit hard against wall and I go to sleep.”
  • Amir hears a woman scream because “a man with a knife had taken her purse.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Before the garden, there were “men with no work drinking from nine to five instead, down there in the lot.”
  • Sam hires a young boy to plant his garden. The boy “wanted to grow marijuana, to sell.” Instead, they agree to plant pumpkins.

 Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Sam calls the garden “a small Garden of Eden.”
  • After visiting the garden, Wendell is reminded of the Bible verse, “And a little child shall lead them.”

by Elena Brown

Camille’s Mermaid Tale

Camille loves the ocean—the warm sand, the pretty shells, and the sparkling waves that tickle her toes. Sometimes she even imagines that she’s a mermaid with whales and dolphins for friends. When the other WellieWishers see how much Camille misses her summers by the sea, they want to help. . . but how can four girls turn a garden into an ocean?

Camille’s friends plan the perfect surprise for Camille. Even though the readers know what Camille’s friends are hiding, they will still understand Camille’s feelings. “Camille was pretty sure the other WellieWishers were hiding something from her, which made her feel left out and lonely and sad.” Even though Camille is upset, she doesn’t get angry at her friends; instead, she spends her time writing mermaid stories.

Young readers will enjoy the story’s rhyming words and ocean-themed puns, such as when Aunt Miranda says, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. It’ll be easy: I’ll just clam up.” Another fun story element is when the girls sing songs. For example, Camille sings a song to the tune of “Yankee Doodle.” She sings, “Acrobats and rainy picnics, Boats with lots of doodles, Starry skies, and fireflies: We really used our noodles!”

The WellieWishers are introduced through pictures that appear on the first page. The diverse group of girls wears adorably bright clothes and wellie boots. All of the girls’ different personalities blend to make a wonderful friend group. Almost every page has a brightly colored illustration that helps the readers understand the plot. The girls’ facial expressions will also help the readers understand the girls’ emotions.

Young readers will want to grab Camille’s Mermaid Tale because of the adorably cute pictures and the high-interest topic; however, they will also be entertained by the story and learn important lessons about friendship. The book ends with a section “For Parents” that gives ideas of crafts that correspond with the book. Camille’s Mermaid Tale will encourage readers to use their imagination as it reinforces the idea that “you are never too big to imagine you’re a mermaid.” The Purrmaids Series by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen will also delight readers who love mermaids.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Power of One: Every Act of Kindness Counts

A young girl is devastated after a boy yells at her. Fortunately, another girl sees the confrontation and decides to act. The story shows how “one [person] is a lot bigger and more powerful than you think.” To emphasize this point, each sentence starts with the word one. “One good listener can make even the smallest voice heard. One shy smile can lead to a friendship.” The picture book shows that one person and one act of kindness can start something beautiful.

The story follows three kids—two girls and a boy who is a bully. None of the characters have names, and when the boy yells his words appear as scribbles in a quote box. A small plant represents the two girls’ growing friendship and shows how “one caring friend can open the door for several more.” The bully eventually apologizes, and the girl forgives him. The boy’s words appear as flowers in a quote box. By not showing the boy’s words, Ludwig leaves an opening for parents or teachers to discuss different ways to apologize.

The Power of One’s message is made clear through both the text and the lovely illustrations. The kids in the illustrations have many skin tones. The kids wear neutral colors which allow the red flower (a symbol of friendship) to pop off the pages. On some of the pages, the negative parts of the illustrations appear in shades of gray. Again, this focuses the reader’s attention on the acts of kindness.

Each page has 0 to 1 sentence. The picture book is intended to be read aloud to a child, rather than for the child to read it for the first time independently.

Everyone can relate to the kids in the illustrations because everyone has had their feelings hurt, and everyone has used mean words. The Power of One’s message is simple: One person can make a difference and help build a kinder community. “Acts and words of kindness do count.” The picture book gives young readers ideas on how they can make a positive difference. For example, “Acknowledging others presence, so they don’t feel invisible. Standing up to put-downs.” The back of the book includes recommended books and websites so parents can find more resources to teach about kindness.

The Power of One is a must-read because it will allow teachers and parents to start a discussion on acts of kindness and making a positive impact on others. Other books that show the importance of kindness are I Am Enough by Grace Byers and All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold. Each book will help parents and teachers encourage children to think about the power of their words.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

One Girl

One girl sits outside in the dark when a bright book falls from the sky. “One spark. Faint and fading in the dark. Flicker . . . Flicker. . . Flicker. . . Glow.” The book is brimming with ideas, knowledge, and imagination. The “one girl” goes on a magical journey through the book. “One girl. One spark. Glowing. Growing in the dark. Burning. . . Burning. . . Burning. . . Fire.”

Beaty uses poetic text to tell an abstract story showing that “today, more than 130 million girls are denied an education. The story begins with one of these girls. It also begins with one book. The girl reads, and the world opens up to her. She discovers other places, other lives, and other possibilities.”

When the girl goes to school, she is “filled with wonder. Heart takes flight. Words like comets through the night.” One Girl does not have a plot, the text is confusing, and it isn’t until the very end that Beaty explains the idea behind the book. While the book’s purpose is noble, the picture book’s message will be lost on young readers.

While the text is confusing, the illustrations are amazing, beautiful, and full of imagination. Through a book, the girl is able to imagine new worlds, new careers, and new ideas. The fanciful pictures are full of rich colors and clearly shows the girl’s wonder at the world that a book opens up. When the girl goes to school, her class is full of diverse students. Each page has 1 to 6 words that appear in poetry format.

Even though One Girl is a picture book, most young readers will have a difficult time sitting through a reading of the book. While the pictures are amazing, young readers may lose interest in looking at them because the concepts they portray are abstract. One Girl has an important message to tell, but the message gets lost on younger readers who won’t grasp the deeper meaning behind the words and pictures. Parents looking for a picture book with educational value may want to check out Andrea Beaty’s other picture book series. the Questioneers Collection. The Amazing Scientists Series by Julia Finley Mosca would also make an excellent choice for parents who want to inspire their children to reach greater heights.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years—from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding. It puts the violence, fear, hope, and faith of the country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war. In war, personal lives—the struggle to survive, raise a family, and find happiness—are inextricable from the history playing out around them.

Mariam and her mother live as outcasts. With little contact with the outside world, Mariam dreams of a time when her father will accept her. When Mariam’s mother dies, Mariam has no choice but to show up at her father’s house. Her father quickly arranges for Mariam to marry Rasheed. At first, Mariam is hopeful that living in a new city with a new husband will be the beginning of something good. But after a string of miscarriages, Rasheed becomes violent and forbids Mariam from seeking friendship.

Meanwhile, Laila grew up with parents that believe everyone deserves an education, including girls. While Laila’s childhood is far from perfect, she is surrounded by loving people. Then, just when her family plans to leave their war-torn city, Laila’s parents are killed. With no family or friends left, Laila isn’t sure where to turn. When Rasheed offers marriage, Laila reluctantly agrees to become his second wife. However, she wasn’t prepared for his first wife’s hate or Rasheed’s violence.

A Thousand Splendid Suns has worked its way onto many schools’ required reading lists because the story helps readers understand Afghan history. More importantly, it is a story of family, friendship, and hope. Mariam and Laila’s friendship gives them strength to live in a brutal environment, where their husband is cruel and abusive. Through their plight, readers will begin to understand the role women play in Afghanistan and how the Taliban changed their world overnight.

Readers will be deeply moved by the story’s events. However, the brutality of war, the massacre of innocent people, and the harsh physical abuse of both Mariam and Laila is graphic and disturbing. Hosseini paints a realistic picture of living in a war-torn country, and the images of death will remain with readers for a long time after they close the cover of the book. Even though A Thousand Splendid Suns has a positive message, sensitive readers will find the descriptions of Rasheed’s abusive behavior and the constant death upsetting.

Before you read A Thousand Splendid Suns, grab a box of tissues because the story will bring you to tears. Because of Laila’s friendship, Mariam makes a decision that will forever alter both of their lives. Through Mariam’s experiences, readers will come to understand how powerless women were under the Taliban’s rule, but they will also see how friendship and kindness have the power to change one’s life.

Sexual Content

  • After Mariam’s mother got pregnant, the baby’s father told his wives that her mother had “forced” herself on him.
  • Mariam is forced to marry a much older man. Before the marriage, Mariam thinks about her mother’s words. “It was the thought of these intimacies in particular, which she [Mariam] imagined as painful acts of perversity, that filled her with dread and made her break out in a sweat.”
  • One night, Mariam’s husband comes into her room. “His hand was on her right breast now, squeezing it hard through the blouse. . . He rolled on top of her, wriggled and shifted, and she let out a whimper. . .The pain was sudden and astonishing. . . When it was done, he rolled off her, panting.”
  • Mariam finds pornography in her husband’s room. The women in the pictures, “their legs were apart, and Mariam had a full view of the dark place between.”
  • Mariam’s husband desires intimacy. “His appetite, on the other hand, was fierce, sometimes boarding on violent. The way he pinned her down, his hand squeezes at her breast, how furiously his hips worked.”
  • Laila’s feelings for her best friend, Tariq, begin to change. She wonders “what would it be like to kiss him, to feel the fuzzy hair about his lips tickling her own lips?” Later, they have sex. “Laila thought of Tariq’s hands, squeezing her breast, sliding down the small of her back, as the two of them kissed and kissed.”
  • Laila hears a story about three sisters who were raped and then “their throats slashed.”
  • After Laila’s parents die, an older man asks Laila to marry him. He implies that if she says no, she may have to work in a brothel. Laila agrees to marry him because she is pregnant.
  • After Laila and the man are married, he has sex with her. “Laila had a full view of his sagging breast, his protruding belly button. . . she felt his eyes crawling all over her.” They have sex several times, but the action is not described in detail.

Violence

  • The book often describes the violence of war. For example, someone says that the Mujahideen forces boys to fight. “And when soldiers from a rival militia capture these boys, they torture them. I heard they electrocute them. . . then they crush their balls with pliers. They make the boys lead them to their homes. Then they break in, kill their fathers, rape their sisters and mothers.”
  • After Mariam goes into town, she comes back and sees “the straight-backed chair, overturned. The rope dropping from a high branch. Nana dangling at the end of it.”
  • After Mariam has a miscarriage, her husband becomes different. It wasn’t easy tolerating him talking this way to her, to bear his scorn, his ridicule, his insults. . . [Mariam] lived in fear of his shifting moods, his volatile temperament, his insistence on steering even mundane exchanges down a confrontational path that, on occasion, he would resolve with punches, slaps, kicks. . .”
  • Russians took over Afghanistan and people talked about “eyes gouged and genitals electrocuted in Pol-e-Charkhi Prison. Mariam would hear of the slaughter that had taken place at the Presidential Palace.” The president was killed after he watched the “massacre of his family.”
  • Mariam’s husband was angry because of her cooking. “His powerful hands clasped her jaw. He shoved two fingers into her mouth and pried it open, then forced the cold, hard pebbles into it. Mariam struggled against him, mumbling, but he kept pushing the pebbles in, his upper lip curled in a sneer . . . Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars.”
  • A teacher would slap students. “Palm, then back of the hand, back and forth, like a painter working a brush.”
  • A boy shoots a water gun, spraying a girl with urine.
  • After a girl is bullied, her friend fights the bully. “Then it was all dust and fists and kicks and yelps.”
  • A rocket hits one of Laila’s friend’s houses. “Giti’s mother had run up and down the street where Giti was killed, collecting pieces of her daughter’s flesh in her apron, screeching hysterically. Giti’s decomposing right foot, still in in its nylon sock and purple sneaker, would be found on a rooftop two weeks later.”
  • A rocket hits Laila’s house. “Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air. . . Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground.” Laila sees her dead parents.
  • Laila hears a story about soldiers “raping Pashtun girls, shelling Pashtun neighborhoods, and killing indiscriminately. Every day, bodies were found tied to trees, sometimes burned beyond recognition. Often, they’d been shot in the head, had their eyes gouged out, their tongues cut out.”
  • Rasheed, Laila’s husband, hits both of his wives often. “One moment [Laila] was talking and the next she was on all fours, wide-eyed and red-faced, trying to draw a breath. . .” She drops the baby she was carrying. “Then she was being dragged by her hair.” Her husband locks her in a room and then goes to beat his other wife. “To Laila, the sounds she heard were those of a methodical, familiar proceeding. . . there was no cussing, no screaming, no pleading. . . only the systematic business of beating and being beaten, the thump, thump of something solid repeatedly striking flesh.”
  • When the Taliban take over Afghanistan, they kill the Afghanistan leader. The Taliban “had tortured him for hours, then tied his legs to a truck and dragged his lifeless body through the streets.”
  • After Rasheed hits Laila, she “punched him . . . The impact actually made him stagger two steps backward. . . He went on kicking, kicking Mariam now, spittle flying from his mouth. . .” At one point Rasheed put the barrel of a gun in Laila’s mouth.
  • Rasheed gets upset at Laila and begins “pummeling her, her head, her belly with fists, tearing at her hair, throwing her to the wall.” Mariam tries to help Laila but Rasheed hits her too.
  • After an old friend comes to see Laila, Rasheed gets angry. “Without saying a word, he swung the belt at Laila. . . Laila touched her fingers to her temple, looked at the blood, looked at Rasheed, with astonishment. Rasheed swung the belt again.” Rasheed begins to strangle Laila. “Laila’s face was turning blue now, and her eyes had rolled back.”
  • In order to save Laila, Mariam hits Rasheed with a shovel. “And so Mariam raised the shovel high, raised it as high as she could, arching it so it touched the small of her back. She turned it so the sharp edge was vertical . . . Mariam brought down the shovel. This time, she gave it everything she had.” Rasheed dies from his wounds.
  • When an Afghanistan leader is killed, Laila thinks about some of the violence that he caused. “She remembers too well the neighborhoods razed under his watch, the bodies dragged from the rubble, the hands and feet of children discovered on rooftops or the high branches of some tree days after their funeral. . . “

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone is given morphine after being injured.
  • Laila overhears a story about her husband. He was drunk when his son “went into the water unnoticed. They spotted him a while later, floating face down.” The boy died. Someone says, “This is why the Holy Koran forbids sharab. Because it always falls on the sober to pay for the sins of the drunk.”

Language

  • Profanity is rarely used. Profanity includes ass, piss, shit, and damn.
  • As a child, Mariam’s mother reminds her that she is a bastard because she was born out of wedlock.
  • Mariam yells at her half-brother, saying “he had a mouth shaped like a lizard’s ass.”
  • Mariam pleads with her father, asking him not to make her marry a stranger. He yells, “Goddamn it, Mariam, don’t do this to me.”
  • A child yells at a bully, saying, “Your mother eats cock!” The child does not know what the words mean.
  • Someone calls Laila a whore. Later, Laila’s husband also calls her a whore.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The story focuses on characters who are Muslim. They often pray.
  • Mariam’s mom said she had a difficult labor. She said, “I didn’t eat or sleep, all I did was push and pray that you would come out.”
  • Mullah Faizullah teaches Mariam about the Koran’s words. He tells her, “You can summon them [God’s words] in your time of need, and they won’t fail you. God’s words will never betray you, my girl.” During difficult times, Mariam thinks about verses from the Koran.
  • Mariam asks Mullah Faizullah to convince Mariam’s mother to let her go to school. He replies, “God, in His wisdom has given us each weaknesses, and foremost among my many is that I am powerless to refuse you, Mariam.”
  • Mariam’s mother tells her, “Of all the daughters I could have had, why did God give me an ungrateful one like you?” Later that day, her mother commits suicide.
  • After Mariam’s mother commits suicide, Mullah Faizullah says, “The Koran speaks the truth, my girl. Behind every trial and every sorrow that He makes us shoulder, God has a reason.” Later, he tells Mariam that Allah “will forgive her, for He is all-forgiving, but Allah is saddened by what she did.”
  • After Mariam’s father forces her to marry, her father says he will come to visit her. She tells him, “I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old. . . I didn’t know that you were ashamed of me.”
  • When Mariam learns that she will have a baby, she thinks about a verse from the Koran. “And Allah is the East and the West, therefore wherever you turn there is Allah’s purpose.”
  • When Mariam has a miscarriage, she gets angry, but thinks, “Allah was not spiteful. He was not a petty God. . . Blessed is He in Whose hand is the kingdom, and He Who has power over all things, Who created death and life that He may try out.”
  • When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, flyers were passed out with new rules including “all citizens must pray five times a day. . . If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can be seen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned. If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, you will be executed.”
  • A man tells Mariam, “God has made us differently, you women and us men. Our brains are different. You are not able to think like we can.”

A Thousand Questions

Mimi has a lot of questions, like why is her mother taking her to Pakistan to meet her grandparents? Why did her father leave Mimi and her mom? Where is Mimi’s dad now? Visiting Mimi’s grandparents in Pakistan might not answer all her questions, but she’s determined to figure some of them out.

Sakina wants nothing more than to attend school. Unfortunately, she has to help her father clean Mimi’s grandparents’ lavish house to make ends meet, so going to school for Sakina feels like a pipe dream. Plus she must pass the English language exam to even attend, and Sakina has no one to practice with. That is, until Mimi and her mother arrive from America.

In a meeting of cultures, Mimi and Sakina learn much from each other and eventually become friends. The family and class dynamics surrounding their lives present new ways of looking at the world and their places within it.

Split between Mimi and Sakina’s perspectives, A Thousand Questions tackles topics like class struggles, family relations, and cultural barriers. Mimi is from Houston, and although she and her mother don’t have a lot in the States, Mimi’s grandparents are wealthy in the Pakistani city of Karachi. Sakina is employed, along with her father (Abba), as a servant in Mimi’s grandparents’ household. The friendship between Mimi and Sakina isn’t encouraged at first, and often the differences in class come up when Mimi has more freedom (both financially and socially) than Sakina. Instead of fostering dislike between the two, Sakina is motivated to improve her English and attend school however she can.

Language is a large part of the book. Many of the characters speak Urdu, and Urdu and Arabic words are used throughout. Faruqi does an excellent job of giving contextual clues, so the language-hopping never feels confusing. A glossary is also included at the end of the book to help aid readers. Language is also used as a plot point. Mimi’s Urdu isn’t great, and Sakina’s English is ok, so the two teach each other. In this exchange of languages, there is also an exchange in cultures. The bond that Sakina and Mimi form is heartwarming, even if they don’t always see eye to eye.

Mimi also has a journal where she writes questions to her father. She misses him, and her letters are part of the narrative. Much of the book details her emotional journey as she learns about her parents’ lives and why her father left. At the end of the book, Mimi is able to reach a resolution and seems to make peace with her father’s leaving.

A Thousand Questions tackles important topics regarding culture, friendship, and family, and both Mimi and Sakina grow as people as they learn about each other. This book will appeal to people who are already familiar with Pakistan as well as to people who want to read about a strong friendship and culturally nuanced book. In A Thousand Questions, Mimi and Sakina’s friendship opens their eyes to the world around them, and it will certainly do the same for the reader. This book is a must-read for its diverse content and its ability to tell a moving story about friendship and family.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When Mimi was little, she “crashed [her] bike in the street outside [their] Houston apartment . . . and broke her leg in three places.”
  • When Mimi was five, she writes letters to her father who left her and her mother. Mimi never sends them. One day she writes, “Do you ever get angry? Not annoyed or irritated, like most people, but a deep angry that makes you throw something at the wall and watch it crack.” Mimi has not actually done this.
  • Sakina’s Abba has diabetes and collapses in the kitchen one day. Sakina, Mimi, and Nani hear “a loud crash” and they rush to get him to the hospital.
  • Sakina explains that Raheem, her neighborhood “goonda” or “gangster,” is “going around ordering people to vote for his candidate. Screaming, destroying things.”
  • Raheem broke into a neighbor’s house with his stick and broke things inside. Sakina describes, “Broken chairs and tables, a cracked mirror on the wall. Clothes strewn about on the floor.”
  • The goondas in Sakina’s neighborhood rob Sakina’s family. They don’t physically hurt anyone, but Raheem threatens to “tear [the house] down” if they don’t hand the money over.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mimi’s family’s driver smokes. Sakina explains in English that the smoke “makes [her] eyes water.”
  • Mimi’s great-uncle smokes a cigar, and Mimi “wrinkles her nose at the smell.”

Language

  • Words like dumb, stupid, nuts, shut up, and weird are occasionally used.
  • Mimi’s grandmother, Nani, screams at one of the gardeners and accuses him of killing her rose bushes. She calls him a “ulloo-ka-patha.” Mimi doesn’t know what this means, and it isn’t explained further. The glossary in the back explains that it means “son of an owl; used as an insult” in Urdu.
  • Mimi’s mom calls Mimi’s father a “deadbeat.”
  • Mimi’s grandmother calls Sakina a “lazy oaf” and “fool.”
  • Mimi sometimes refers to Nani as “the dragon lady” because of Nani’s fierce temper.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Mimi has a traditional Pakistani dress that she wore twice for “the two Eid celebrations.”
  • Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr are two major Islamic holidays.
  • When things go wrong, Sakina’s father never gets worried. He always says, “It’ll be all right. God will provide.” Sakina doesn’t buy this, saying “God listens to rich people, not to people like Abba [her father] and [her].”
  • Abba frequently thanks God for the good things in their life.
  • The mosque down the street from Mimi’s grandparents’ house uses a loudspeaker to announce prayer times. Mimi describes, “a loudspeaker crackles to life, and a melodious sound fills the air around us. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. God is great. God is great.” This happens a few times throughout the book.
  • Mimi thinks to herself, “Maybe if I help Sakina with her admission test, God will reward me by bringing my dad back. And maybe pigs will fly.”
  • Mimi and Sakina talk about why poverty exists. Sakina says, “Abba says it is the will of God.” To this, Mimi replies, “How can God allow some people to have everything and others to have nothing? How can He be the Creator of both Pakistan and America? The two are like day and night. God is supposed to love us equally. Isn’t He?”
  • Malik, the family driver, joins in Mimi and Sakina’s conversation about God. He says, “God gives each of us free will to do whatever we want. Sometimes human beings are bad to each other. They steal and hurt and lie. They don’t take care of the less fortunate.”
  • Malik goes to do the “maghrib prayer” one evening.
  • Sakina and Mimi also attend the maghrib prayer. Mimi describes the scene, saying, “I wrap my scarf around my head and follow [Sakina’s] actions. Standing, sitting, prostrating. It’s familiar and strange at the same time, as if I’ve done this a thousand times in a dream. Oh God, if you’re there, send Dad to me. Please. Just for a few minutes, so I can hug him one time.” Mimi finds that she enjoys prayer time.
  • Sakina admits to Mimi that she hasn’t prayed “in a long time” because she finds “it hard to believe in God these days.”
  • Sakina lies to gain access to Mimi’s father’s workplace. Sakina thinks “the God that Abba believes in—the God I felt around me in that marketplace mosque—will forgive me.”
  • Mimi insists that her mom should be looking for Mimi’s father. Mimi’s mother replies, “He left us . . . Why would I go chasing after him? Why would I ever want to find him for God’s sake?”
  • Various characters make comments using “God” and “Allah” throughout.
  • Sakina’s mother, Amma, sees the money that Mimi and her mother have left for them. Amma says, “Mimi and her mother are angels of God.” Sakina isn’t as certain about this but does see the money as “a miracle.”
  • Before her exam, Sakina says “a quick little prayer under [her] breath.”
  • Occasionally, characters will say, “Alhamdolillah,” which means, “All praise to God” in Arabic. They also sometimes say “Inshallah,” which means, “God willing” in Arabic.

by Alli Kestler

 

The Rainstorm Brainstorm

It’s Aunt Miranda’s birthday! The WellieWishers want to give her something special, but they can’t agree on what it should be. Then, Kendall discovers the Tomorrow Pile. What looks like a bunch of old, dirty, broken-down things to the other girls looks like cool stuff with lots of potential to Kendall! Can the girls use it to make something wonderful?

Kendall’s friends play with her tools, but they forget to put them away. The next day, Kendall is upset because her tools are “muddy, messy, and ruined.” Once her friends see how upset Kendall is, they clean the tools and paint them so they look new. Kendall quickly forgives her friends and encourages them to use her tools to finish making Aunt Miranda’s surprise.

The Rainstorm Brainstorm shows how everyday items can be repurposed. As the girls work, they aren’t afraid to scrub, and clean, and cut vines. When the girls give Aunt Miranda her birthday gift, she says, “Thank you for clearing out that pile of old stuff for me—that’s a great present, too! The pile is gone, the stuff in the pile was reused, and I love the presents that you all worked together to make for me.”

The WellieWishers are introduced through pictures that appear on the first page. This diverse group of girls wears adorably bright clothes and wellie boots. All of the girls’ different personalities blend to make a wonderful friend group. Almost every page has a brightly colored illustration that helps the readers understand the plot. The girls’ facial expressions will also help the readers understand their emotions.

Young readers will want to grab The Rainstorm Brainstorm because of the adorably cute pictures. They will also be entertained by the story and learn important lessons about friendship. Young readers will enjoy the story’s rhyming words and how the girls sing songs. The book ends with a section “For Parents” that provides crafts ideas that correspond with the book. The Rainstorm Brainstorm will encourage readers to find everyday objects to turn into useful items such as a weather-vane, garden statues, or a birdhouse. Through the characters’ interactions, readers will learn the importance of sharing, working together, and forgiveness.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. ...
  5. 6
  6. 7
  7. 8
  8. 9
  9. 10
  10. 11
  11. 12
  12. 13
  13. 14
  14. 15
  15. 16

Latest Reviews