One kid – Two Jobs! The Interpreter by Olivia Abtahi

Lynn: Some background here. I spent my career in a district with a very large ELL population. We’re not big – 7000 kids but 1200 of them are English Language Learners. Over 33 different languages other than English are spoken in our kids’ homes.

SO, I am familiar with searching for resources for our kids, their teachers, AND their families, and there hasn’t been a lot out there. I am heartened by what is being written lately! But, having said that, this extraordinary book touches a chord that will be so deeply heard by kids like ours across the nation. Children are often more capable of learning a new language than their parents, and they are frequently called upon to interpret for them. It is a fact of life in schools and towns in our country, and it puts an immense burden on these students.

Olivia Abtahi nails the issue with her new picture book, The Interpreter (Kokila/Pengin Random, 2025), and while she does it with humor, the truth of it is anything but funny. As she says from the first page, ” Some kids had one job: to be a kid. Cecelia had two.” The young girl in our story loves helping her parents and doing this important job. But it is hard to be this grown-up “professional” interpreter AND be a kid! It is exhausting – and maybe she should have said something earlier. The resolution is hopeful and offers other helpers out there, with parents realizing that their child needs to be a child too.

This is getting long, but I don’t want to leave without highlighting the brilliant illustrations by Monica Arnaldo. Created with watercolors and crayons, Arnoldo uses color masterfully. Pay attention to the color of the speech bubbles, the color green that dominates in the over-reliance on Cecelia in an adult role and in the exaggerated perspectives on the end papers. This is a very kid-appropriate book, but the depth offered in both text and illustrations takes it to another level. I hope the committees are watching this one because it is stellar. Please note too that Cecelia’s oversized green suit waxes and wanes as her responsibilities alter.

This is a book that will speak to so many kids and that librarians and teachers have been wishing for. A must purchase, whether your population is non-English speaking or not.

Readers Will Agree – Everything is Tuberculosis

Lynn: John Green is angry and by the time readers finish this new venture into adult non-fiction, Everything is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection (Crash Course/Penguin Random, 2025), they will be angry too! Green, a true star of YA literature, has moved lately into adult books and this non-fiction examination of tuberculosis, its history, impact, and on-going global dominance, is eye-opening and disturbing. It is also a very personal story about Green’s meeting with Henry, a young TB patient in Sierra Leone. Green becomes friends with Henry and the progression of his disease is a centerpiece for the book.

TB has been part of the human story for as long as humans have been around. Signs of it were found in Egyptian mummies and it was present in ancient China and the pre-Columbian Americas. It affected culture, fashion, politics, and literature and it was not clearly understood until the late 1880’s when its cause was identified as a bacteria. It took until the 1950’s before it was curable with antibiotics and the number of cases dropped sharply.

And yet, TB is still present and over one million people will die of tuberculosis this year alone! The disease, its evolution to an antibiotic-resistant strain, and its ongoing stigma are horribly impacting large populations of the world – especially places with war, poverty, racism, and scarce medical facilities. People are dying who shouldn’t, and by and large, the Western world doesn’t care enough to send help. That situation has intensified with the Trump cuts, and Green’s frustration is sure to be shared by every reader.

This is a fascinating story and a horrifying one. It is packed with historical and medical details that demand to be shared. It is a “listen-to-this” book and anyone reading it will start to see how tuberculosis is indeed everything in our past and current history.

While published adult, this is a great choice for teen collections.

Want to Escape? Try The Zebra’s Great Escape!

Lynn: Many of us may be looking for books about escapes, good over evil, and with touches of humor, now more than ever.

Katherine Rundell’s latest, The Zebra’s Great Escape, (S&S, 2024), is a perfect example, her first for a younger audience, and it is a delight. Longer than the usual picture book, this is divided into 3 parts, which makes handy stopping points for a younger child’s bedtime reading. But who will want to stop???

Meet Mink, a child who doesn’t believe in bedtimes. Out late playing, she meets a baby zebra and discovers he and all animals can talk through colors and feelings in her mind. When the baby begs for help, Mink takes him home where he tells her his story of his parents being stolen by an evil man and taken away in a cage. Gabriel, for that is the zebra’s name, has been searching ever since.

Mink, with the help of the grumpy dog next door and other nearby animals, discovers the zebras are being held in a faraway country house by an evil man, Mr. Spit. They are off to the rescue.

Rundell uses words with magical skill. She respects her young readers and her vocabulary choices are challenging but the meaning is made clear through context. The story is paced to increase the readers’ engagement and suspense and she provides a terrifically evil villain they will love to hate. The conclusion is delightfully satisfying.

Enhancing the story are Sara Ogilvie’s illustrations, which have a slightly Edward Gorey feel to them. She uses digital and hand-drawn illustrations, rich colors, and details with a perfect humorous touch.

The entire package is a delight and one that is bound to be read over and over. I missed this one when it came out but please grab this for a your own great escape.