Geo Librarian

  THE MONSTER AND THE MAZE Monkey King and the World of Myths #1 written and illustrated by Maple Lam G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024 ISBN: 978-0-593-52463-3 Source: purchased Ages 9-12 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK Percy Jackson meets Dragonball in the first book of this adorable, funny, and action-packed graphic novel series! Follow along as the legendary Monkey King tries to save the world from a mysterious new threat—and smashes his way through the world of ancient Greek mythology in the process! A long-forgotten evil has reemerged, determined to transform everyone—humans, beasts, and gods alike—into monsters. And there’s only one being who can stop it, or at least that’s what he thinks. Sun Wukong, aka the Monkey King, is said to be the mightiest of all beasts, and he’s made a deal with the gods. They will grant him his greatest wish and make him a god too. All he has to do is battle ...

  ASH'S CABIN written and illustrated by Jen Wang First Second, 2024 ISBN: 978-1-250-75406-6 Source: purchased Ages 14 and up All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover & summary provided by the publisher through Goodreads.com. ABOUT THE BOOK Ash has always felt alone. Adults ignore the climate crisis. Other kids Ash’s age are more interested in pop stars and popularity contests than in fighting for change. Even Ash’s family seems to be sleepwalking through life. The only person who ever seemed to get Ash was their Grandpa Edwin. Before he died, he used to talk about building a secret cabin, deep in the California wilderness. Did he ever build it? What if it’s still there, waiting for him to come back…or for Ash to find it? To Ash, that maybe-mythical cabin is starting to feel like the perfect place for a fresh start and an escape from the miserable feeling of alienation that haunts their daily life. But making the wilds your home isn’t easy. And as much as Ash wants ...

  FRANK AND THE BAD SURPRISE by Martha Brockenbrough, illustrated by Jon Lau Levine Querido, 2022 ISBN: 9781646140886 Source: publisher for review for CYBILS Ages 6-9 All opinions expressed are solely my own. Book cover provided by publisher through Goodreads.com. REVIEW Frank, the cat likes his life just the way it is, thank you very much. He has "a nice house, lots of toys, all the Whiskies he could eat, and a window that looked out at the world". So Frank's not happy when his humans (same-gender couple) bring home a puppy.  In fact, he's downright outraged, especially when the puppy interrupts his nap and he swats her and gets in trouble.  After typing a couple of letters to his humans in protest, Frank sets out to find a new home. But things don't go quite according to plan.  After several misadventures Frank realizes that maybe home can still be home even with a puppy for a companion. While the story isn't new, the author and illustrator make it feel fres...

THE GENIUS UNDER THE TABLE Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Eugene Yelchin Candlewick Press, 2021 ISBN: 978-1-5362-1552-6 Source: purchased Ages 9-12 All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK With a masterful mix of comic timing and disarming poignancy, Newbery Honoree Eugene Yelchin offers a memoir of growing up in Cold War Russia. Drama, family secrets, and a KGB spy in his own kitchen! How will Yevgeny ever fulfill his parents' dream that he become a national hero when he doesn't even have his own room? He's not a star athlete or a legendary ballet dancer. In the tiny apartment he shares with his Baryshnikov-obsessed mother, poetry-loving father, continually outraged grandmother, and safely talented brother, all Yevgeny has is his little pencil, the underside of a massive table, and the doodles that could change everything. With equal amounts charm and solemnity, award-winning author and artist Eugene Yelchin recounts in hilarious detail his childhood...

POISON Deadly Deeds, Perilous Professions, and Murderous Medicines by Sarah Albee Crown Books for Young Readers, 2017 ISBN: 978-1-101-93223-0 YA Nonfiction Ages 14 and up Source: purchased All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK For centuries, people have been poisoning one another--changing personal lives and the course of empires alike. From spurned spouses and rivals, to condemned prisoners like Socrates, to endangered emperors like Alexander the Great, to modern-day leaders like Joseph Stalin and Yasser Arafat, poison has played a starring role in the demise of countless individuals. And those are just the deliberate poisonings. Medical mishaps, greedy "snake oil" salesmen and food contaminants, poisonous Prohibition, and industrial toxins also impacted millions. Part history, part chemistry, part whodunit, Poison: Deadly Deeds, Perilous Professions, and Murderous Medicines traces the role poisons have played in history from anti...

These two books cover the same subject and they do it very well. But one is much more thorough, and thus shocking, than the other. But I highly recommend both of them.  This is a subject of great importance. Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience During World War II by Albert Marrin Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2016 ISBN: 9780553509373 Ages 14 and up Source: Purchased All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK   On the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor comes a harrowing and enlightening look at the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II— from National Book Award finalist Albert Marrin Just seventy-five years ago, the American government did something that most would consider unthinkable today: it rounded up over 100,000 of its own citizens based on nothing more than their ancestry and, suspicious of their loyalty, kept them in concentration camps for the better part of four years. H...

MOTOR GIRLS How Women Took the Wheel and Drove Boldly Into the Twentieth Century By Sue Macy, foreword by Danica Patrick National Geographic, 2017 ISBN: 978-1-4263-2697-4 Source: publisher for review Ages 12 and up All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Come along for a joy ride in this enthralling tribute to the daring women - Motor Girls, as they were called at the turn of the century - who got behind the wheel of the first cars and paved the way for change. The automobile has always symbolized freedom, and in this book we meet the first generation of female motorists who drove cars for fun, profit, and to make a statement about the evolving role of women. From the advent of the auto in the 1890s to the 1920s when the breaking down of barriers for women was in full swing, readers will be delighted to see historical photos, art, and artifacts and to discover the many ways these progressive females influenced fashion, the economy, politic...

Today is the day!  The 2018 CYBILS Finalists have been announced.  I am honored to have helped choose the following finalists.  The other finalists can be found here . Junior High Non-Fiction Bound by Ice: A True North Pole Survival Story by Sandra Neil Wallace Calkins Creek Books Nominated by: RebeccaGAguilar A tropical ocean at the North Pole? Lieutenant Commander George De Long, in 1879, agreed to pilot the steamer Jeanette to the Arctic to discover this unusual phenomenon. Sandra and Rich Wallace have penned a thoroughly absorbing account of this ultimately unsuccessful quest. Using primary sources, the whole book leaves readers feeling like they are there on this doomed voyage, battling weather, thirst, hunger, and the fear of never seeing home again. Well-captioned historical photographs and actual etchings cement that you-are-there feeling. Louise Capizzo, The Nonfiction Detectives Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal’d by Mary ...

THE FIREFLY CODE by Megan Frazer Blakemore Bloomsbury, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-61963-636-1 Middle grade speculative/fantasy Ages 9-12 Source: publisher for Cybils All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Mori and her friends live a normal life on Firefly Lane in their utopian community, Old Harmonie. In a world this safe and perfect, they've never had to question anything . . . never had to wonder about how their lives came to be. Until a new girl named Ilana moves in. She's so perfect that Mori and her friends are curious . . . Where exactly did Ilana come from, and why does she act so strange sometimes? When Ilana's secret is revealed, the kids on Firefly Lane must decide: is it finally time to start questioning the only world they've ever known? REVIEW While not the most exciting book, The Firefly Code is certainly a thought-provoking read.  As Mori and her friends look to the future and deciding what 'latency' they want (a p...

GOBLIN'S PUZZLE Being the Adventures of a Boy with No Name and Two Girls Called Alice by Andrew S. Chilton Alfred A Knopf, 2016 ISBN: 978-0-553-52070-5 Middle grade speculative (fantasy) Ages 9-12 Source: purchased All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Brimming with dragons, goblins, and logic puzzles, this middle-grade fantasy adventure is perfect for readers who enjoyed The Princess Bride or Rump. THE BOY is a nameless slave on a mission to uncover his true destiny. THE GOBLIN holds all the answers, but he’s too tricky to be trusted. PLAIN ALICE is a bookish peasant girl carried off by a confused dragon. And PRINCESS ALICE is the lucky girl who wasn’t kidnapped. All four are tangled up in a sinister plot to take over the kingdom, and together they must face kind monsters, a cruel magician, and dozens of deathly boring palace bureaucrats. They’re a ragtag bunch, but with strength, courage, and plenty of deductive reasoning, they just m...

THE EVIL WIZARD SMALLBONE by Delia Sherman Candlewick Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-0-7636-8805-9 Middle grade speculative/fantasy Ages 9-12 Source: purchased  All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK In a hilarious tale reminiscent of T. H. White, a lost boy finds himself an unlikely apprentice to the very old, vaguely evil, mostly just grumpy Wizard Smallbone. When twelve-year-old Nick runs away from his uncle’s in the middle of a blizzard, he stumbles onto a very opinionated bookstore. He also meets its guardian, the self-proclaimed Evil Wizard Smallbone, who calls Nick his apprentice and won’t let him leave, but won’t teach him magic, either. It’s a good thing the bookstore takes Nick’s magical education in hand, because Smallbone’s nemesis—the Evil Wizard Fidelou—and his pack of shape-shifting bikers are howling at the borders. Smallbone might call himself evil, but compared to Fidelou, he’s practically a puppy. And he can’t handle Fidelou alone. W...

THE VOYAGE TO MAGICAL NORTH by Claire Fayers Henry Holt and Company, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-62779-420-6 Middle grade speculative (Fantasy) Ages 9-12 Source: publisher for Cybils All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Twelve-year-old Brine Seaborne is a girl with a past--if only she could remember what it is. Found alone in a rowboat as a child, clutching a shard of the rare starshell needed for spell-casting, she's spent the past years keeping house for an irritable magician and his obnoxious apprentice, Peter. When Brine and Peter get themselves into a load of trouble and flee, they blunder into the path of the legendary pirate ship the Onion. Before you can say "pieces of eight," they're up to their necks in the pirates' quest to find Magical North, a place so shrouded in secrets and myth that most people don't even think it exists. If Brine is lucky, she may find out who her parents are. And if she's unlucky, everyone on...

SHADOW MAGIC by Joshua Khan Disney Hyperion, 2016 ISBN: 978-148473272-4 Middle grade fantasy/speculative Ages 9-12 Source: purchased All opinions expressed are solely my own. ABOUT THE BOOK Thorn, an outlaw's son, wasn't supposed to be a slave. He's been sold to Tyburn, an executioner, and they're headed to Castle Gloom in Gehenna, the land of undead, where Thorn will probably be fed to a vampire. Lilith Shadow wasn't supposed to be ruler of Gehenna. But following the murder of her family, young Lily became the last surviving member of House Shadow, a long line of dark sorcerers. Her country is surrounded by enemies and the only way she can save it is by embracing her heritage and practicing the magic of the undead. But how can she when, as a girl, magic is forbidden to her? Just when it looks like Lily will have to leave her home forever, Thorn arrives at Castle Gloom. A sudden death brings them together, inspires them to break the rul...