Lynn:
Students and teachers across our country have seen active shooter drills become a regular event. All of us have reeled with the reality of school shootings in our nation and most of us cannot understand the senseless deaths of the innocents who have fallen to this epidemic. Why the issue of guns cannot be dealt with is a gaping wound. But here’s another important question to ponder. What happens AFTER the tragedy to the children who somehow survive it? Erin Bow addresses this tragically relevant question in her newest book, Simon (Sort of) Says (Disney/Hyperion, 2023).
Twelve-year-old Simon is the lone survivor of a horrific school shooting and after a year of therapy and home-schooling, is returning to school. But this school is in the town of Grin and Bear It, Nebraska where Simon and his family are making a fresh start. Simon wants to put the shooting behind him and he also wants to put the incessant media focus behind him with the looks, the whispers, and the sympathy. He just wants to fly under the radar and be a normal kid.
Grin and Bear It is the ideal place because it is a National Quiet Zone where internet, cell phones, TV, and all media are banned in order to not interfere with the Radio Telescope arrays and the astrophysicists listening for signals from space. It couldn’t be more perfect. He makes friends, acquires a service dog puppy to socialize and things are looking good. Simon is a bit concerned about his friend Agate’s intentions of providing an alien message to encourage the scientists whose funding may be in jeopardy and he suspects his teacher may know about his past from the sorrowful looks she gives him. Mostly life seems to be going as he hoped. But Simon should know from experience that life seldom does what you expect.
This is an extraordinary character-driven story with moments of hilarity and a cast of characters so richly developed that they feel like family. The humor is perfectly dialed in for tween readers and some of the action is rather manic—also perfect for the tastes of young readers. But the core of this story is a subject tragically timely and handled with masterful sensitivity and ringing with truth. What is it like to live with such terrifying trauma and what is it like to be the object of overwhelming pity? What does it feel like to be reminded every minute of the past by the reactions of strangers to your very presence? Through Bow’s skillful and sensitive prose, readers experience what Simon feels and the experience is shattering. I know I will never think about trauma and the reactions to trauma in the same way.
On a lighter note—I loved the portrayal of the adults in the story—particularly Simon’s parents who have also suffered trauma and are recovering in their own ways. Simon’s coffee-loving mortician mother and deacon/sackbut playing father are worthy of a book by themselves as are his friends, Agate and Kevin. The cover of this book picks up on the humor in the story but I think it misses the deeply empathetic focus of the book.
This is an early-in-the-year publication but I think it will reside firmly at the top of my best list this year. Brilliantly written and immensely entertaining as well as perception-changing, this incredible story deserves awards.
Lynn: I have a tendency toward morose reflection in the last week of a waning year. An antidote is needed and I found an outstanding one in Jon Scieszka’s The Real Dada Mother Goose: A Treasury of Nonsense (Candlewick, 2022). This delightful book is just what the reading doctor prescribed for diverting gloom and eliciting laughter.
I can’t celebrate Picture Book Month without reviewing an Alphabet Book! Long-time readers know it is one of my favorite types of picture books. My love of them began farther back than I’d like to admit and in fact, I still own my battered copy of Hillary Knight’s ABCs purchased for me by my father before I was even born. I’ve loved them ever since and have quite a collection. For me, alphabet books are a testament to the extraordinary creativity that illustrators continue to bring to what could be a mundane genre. They continue to be ever-fresh and brilliantly original.
What does it mean to be human? Does it mean the ability to wonder, to hope or to be scared? Does it mean recognizing that you have emotions? Jasmine Warga’s newest book explores that important question and she does it in a way that is intriguing, unusual, and compelling. A Rover’s Story (Scholastic, Oct. 2022) began when Warga’s young daughter asked her to turn on the TV to watch the Mars Rover Launch in November 2022. After watching in fascination together, one of her daughters asked Warga, “Mama, do you think the robot is scared?” And a book was born.
We love the original Enola Holmes books by Nancy Springer! If you haven’t found them or the Netflix series, Enola is the much younger sister of the famous Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. On her 14th birthday, Enola awakens to discover that her mother, a woman of very eccentric beliefs for her time, has disappeared. When her brothers arrive, they decide they must send Enola away to boarding school to become a proper lady. Enola has very different ideas and runs away to London where she sets shop as a private investigator while also searching for her mother.
With four starred reviews, you may have already heard about this sports-themed graphic novel, but if not, you’ll need to get on your starting block and race to get a copy. Bree is starting middle school in a new state and is dismayed to learn that swimming is a big deal at her new Florida school. When the only elective that fits her schedule is not Math Games as she’d hoped, but Swim 101, she’s unnerved. Bree never learned to swim. A neighbor at her apartment, who is an alumnus of Bree’s school and its swim team, jumps in the deep end to help Bree not only learn to swim but to be good enough to be tapped for the struggling swim team. 
Aiza dreams of becoming a Squire and then a Knight in the powerful Bayt-Sajii army that controls a vast area. Aiza is poor and of a despised minority, the Ornu, and the army is her only route to citizenship. Aiza conceals her cultural tattoos with wrappings and, with the help of a motley array of allies and enemies survives the intense training, reaching her goal of becoming a Squire. But along the way, Aiza begins to understand the true nature of the country she serves and begins to question where her loyalty and her heart lie.
am a skeptical audience for animal fantasies. Some I love and some I dislike intensely. I may be the only person on the planet to loathe Watership Down but I adored the Brian Jacques books. I also am a fan of Gregory Maguire’s adult fantasies and was unsure how his sharp clever style would translate into a middle-grade book. After a bit of a slow start in his new book, Cress Watercress (Candlewick, 2022), Maguire settles into a masterful style and pace that brings something new to the genre and is perfectly attuned to the young audience.
Our Winners are Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson for their stellar picture book, The 1619 Project: Born on the Water published by Penguin Random/Kokila and illustrated by Nikkolas Smith. “
Honor winner is Linda Sue Park for her verse novel, The One Thing You’d Save published by Clarion Books and illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng. 
have a treat for all the map-loving kids you know! Each of the books we’re highlighting today bring a fascinating new look at maps, the impact of the often arbitrary lines drawn to created country boundaries and so much more.
Cindy: We have raved here in the past about Atinuke’s beginner reader books featuring Anna Hibiscus, a young girl from Africa, amazing Africa, but this book was completely off the map for me in 2020 and we want to make sure you don’t miss it as well. 
Cindy: When the package with Pam Muñoz Ryan’s new book arrived, it took my breath away. Inside the packing box was a huge monarch butterfly, its wings closed over an advance reader copy of 
Sarah Prineas’ new book, 
Simon Covington is an assistant to Charles Darwin on the USS Beagle, playing fiddle and labeling specimens on the scientist’s famous voyage to the Gallapagos Islands. When he is lost at sea after helping to rescue Darwin, he winds up on an unexplored island with an active volcano. He soon learns that the volcano is not the only thing breathing fire on the island. With the help of his fiddle (from which Simon hears advice and sarcasm) and a lizard he names Farthing, Simon manages rescue and returns to London. There he continues to help Darwin with his specimens but also to deal with his own—a set of eggs he rescued and that are now starting to hatch! Simon’s character is based on a real boy of the same name who aided Darwin on this voyage and details of Darwin’s life and work are woven into the story, but it remains an adventure focused on what may be the last dragon eggs in the world. Might Darwin have found dragons in addition to finches and tortoises if he’d looked in the right place? We may never know. I was willing to let the story unfold as a possibility. Young fans of dragon stories and young naturalists are going to enjoy this science-based adventure. Maybe it’s not fantasy at all….if the dragons are/were real? Hmmmmm….
bookendsblog.net 