June Recommendations

Novels:

KING OF SCARS, by Leigh Bardugo, is a compulsively readable fantasy set in the same Grishaverse as her Shadow and Bone trilogy, Six of Crows duology, and a short story collection, The Language of Thorns. In KING OF SCARS, Nikolai Lantzov, the charming king of Ravka, has a demon lurking inside, and it's literally turning him into a monster. Zoya Nazyalensky is his powerful Grisha general, devoted to protecting Ravka’s sovereignty. And Nina Zenik is a spy, working in the neighboring country of Fjerda to save as many Grisha as she can from its hostile government. The three of them form the triumvirate of an action-packed tale of gods and monsters, magic and power. (YA)

Picture Books:

In FLOATY, by John Himmelman, cranky Mr. Raisin doesn’t like anything other than sewing, but when a floating puppy is left in a (covered) basket on his doorstep, things begin to change. A tale delightfully told and illustrated.

OTTO AND PIO, by Marianne Dubuc is another unlikely friendship story. When squirrel Otto stumbles upon a strange green ball outside his treehouse and it hatches into a small, round, furry creature, adjustments, both welcome and not, are in order. It's charmingly offbeat and and heartwarming with Duboc’s always lovely colored pencil and watercolor art.

In MOTH, AN EVOLUTION STORY, Isabelle Thomas and Daniel Egnéus endow their picture book about the transformation of the peppered moth (Biston betularia) with a sense of wonder that elevates it to the realm of myth. It’s a deeply fulfilling look at the ups and downs of natural selection, rendered in stunning art that manages to feel soft and organic, yet also, when it needs to, intricate and precise.

WE ARE GRATEFUL, OTSALIHELIGA, by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Frané Lessac, is a rumination on the way Cherokee people express their gratitude “daily, throughout the year, and across the seasons.” The prose is lyrical, informative, and inviting, and the art is vibrantly expressive.

HEDY LAMARR’S DOUBLE LIFE, written by Laurie Wallmark and illustrated by Katy Wu, describes how a child who loved science and technology, while being “crazy about motion pictures,” grew up to become a glamorous movie star who was also a passionate inventor. Even now, her greatest invention "helps keep our cell phone messages private and defends our computers from hackers.” This is an inspiring look at following—all of—your dreams.

--Lynn

Shelf Awareness--Small World

PB Review: Small World

Small World by Ishta Mercurio, illus. by Jen Corace (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 32p., ages 4-8, 9781419734076, July 2, 2019)

When Nanda is young, "the whole" of her world is composed of comforting circles. Just after she's born, this means being "wrapped in the circle of her mother's arms." As a toddler, the meaning expands to include "the circle of her loving family" and, as a girl of elementary-school age, there is room for "a bubble of giggling playmates."

It's not long before Nanda's world encompasses other shapes, as well. Nanda gets "bigger and bigger," and her world grows with her. It opens up to include not only the natural wonder that is "a sway of branches," but also human creations like "scaffolds of steel" and "cables and cogs." Nanda's world continues to increase in size as she rides a train from the "sun-kissed maze of wheat" near her hometown, past "pinecone-prickled mountains and the microscopic elegance of fractals in the snow," all the way to the "symphony of glass and stone" that defines her college years.

Nanda's lifelong love of science "spool[s] through spirals of wire and foam" at school, where she helps to create "a human-powered helicopter" with her classmates. Still, Nanda and her world continue to grow. As Nanda gets "bigger and bigger and BIGGER," her world becomes "the roar of twin engines, a glittering ocean far below, and the curve of the planet beneath her." Nanda's world expands even more, to include "a sea of stars, moonless and deep," as her feet touch "foreign soil" in outer space.

Mercurio's gorgeously poetic text effortlessly balances the wonders of the natural world with the wonders created by scientists and engineers. Her repeating refrain as Nanda gets bigger and bigger ensures that this story is comforting to its youngest readers, while including enough variation to inspire older ones. Corace's gouache, ink and pencil spreads are always warm and bright, anchored by geometric shapes and patterns. Of particular importance are those comforting circles--on the very first spread, baby Nanda forms the bottom half of a circle which is completed by her mother's loving arms, a strong image that is mirrored at the end by two distinct half circles that form the "softly glowing" Earth, "a circle called home." The illustrations reinforce the text's premise that, with encouragement and self-motivation, Nanda will continue to feel secure in her "safe, and warm, and small" world, even as its boundaries expand. An author's endnote relates how the inspiration for this story came from a photograph taken at the Indian Space Research Organization showing five women "celebrating after they had helped put a satellite into orbit around Mars." Small World, like that photograph, depicts the joy there is to be found when young girls and women "all over the world" follow their dreams. --Lynn Becker, blogger and host of Book Talk, a monthly online discussion of children's books for SCBWI.

Shelf Talker: As Nanda grows, so does her world, in this sweet and inspiring story about perspective and following your dreams.

June's Book of the Month--The Parker Inheritance

June's book of the month is THE PARKER INHERITANCE, by Varian Johnson.

When 12-year-old Candice Miller moves to Lambert, South Carolina, for the summer, she imagines it will be horrible. She wants her real room in her real house in Atlanta. But soon after meeting bookish Brandon Jones from across the street, Candice decides Lambert might not be so bad, after all. The two go hunting for something to read in the attic, where Candice finds an old letter that lays out a “puzzle mystery” with clues that lead to a hidden fortune, and the summer really takes off.

Candace knows her grandmother, after receiving this very same letter ten years earlier, was forced to resign from her job and leave Lambert in disgrace. Now, Candace and Brandon become caught up in solving a mystery that might have the power to “make right what once went so utterly wrong,” beginning when the Washington family was run out of Lambert decades earlier, “victims of the city’s long-standing discrimination against black people.” Candice and Brandon become the very best of friends as they work their way through the clues, taking the words of Candice’s grandmother to heart: Find the path. Solve the puzzle.

This is a really engaging middle grade mystery that pays homage to that puzzle-rich classic, The Westing Game, while layering in plenty of issues that should interest today’s readers. Front and center are matters of racial tension and intolerance, bullying, and the right of any kid/person to be gay, straight, or whatever without ridicule or harassment. Divorce and its aftermath figure in, as well, but the story is upbeat and action-heavy, despite references to these “real world” problems. At its heart, it’s a tale of friendship and kid smarts.

Have you read THE PARKER INHERITANCE? What do you think?

--Lynn