If you can find nothing in the national rhetoric that sounds even faintly like the christian “golden rule,” then this book offers some real inspiration and hope. In the face of this particularly bleak period in American history where the…
Category: Environment
Retelling the Life of St. Francis: A Review of A Wolf at the Gate
Every October 4, Catholics around the world celebrate the Feast of St. Francis, which honors the life of the 12th century friar who founded the Franciscan Order and became the patron saint of animals and the environment. Mark Van Steenwyk’s…
CREEK-FINDING A TRUE STORY, a book for EARTH DAY
CREEKFINDING A TRUE STORY about a true kind of treasure, for Earth Day — Buried treasure … who doesn’t want to read a good book about buried treasure? This marvelous picture book, CREEKFINDING, A TRUE STORY written by Jacqueline Briggs…
“The Sky Throne” by Chris Ledbetter
“The Sky Throne” by Chris Ledbetter Teen-aged Zeus doesn’t care much about becoming a goat herder like his mother, Amalthea, and even less about school on Crete. After two years at the local academy, he is still being treated like an…
I Like, I Don’t Like by Anna Baccelliere, Ale + Ale, Illustrator
There was a skit on Saturday Night Live a while back of whiny critics of the then-newly-released iPhone 5 facing the Chinese “peasant workers” who had manufactured them. The complaints suddenly appeared not only whimsical but downright misanthropic as the…
Being Different and Confronting Change: A Review of The Someday Birds
Twelve-year-old Charlie, the second of four children, is struggling with his journalist father’s hospitalization, the result of a brain injury in Afghanistan. Charlie, who is autistic, remembers how therapists worked to help him communicate, but now his single father and…
Confronting Patriarchy and Abuse: A Review of Rani Patel in Full Effect
To close out my year, I offer the second of two reviews of William Morris Award finalists. The award is given by the Young Adult Library Services Association of ALA (YALSA) to outstanding debut YA novels, and this deserving finalist…
Want to Know. Whales by Barbara van Rheenen
Want to Know.Whales is a text that seeks to communicate in many different ways. My litmus test for a book is always, Did I learn something important. (The book is aimed at readers 4 years old and up, which includes…
December Picture Book Roundup
And here we go, from some of my favorite independent presses, some really fantastic picture book offerings this winter season…. From Groundwood Books, The King of the Birds by Agree Graham Macam and pictures by Natalie Nelson, a biographical story about a young…
Rad Women Worldwide
A year and a half ago, we featured Kate Schatz in an interview about her first book, Rad Women A-Z, along with a guest post about one of her favorite books. Now Kate is back with a new book, Rad…