MORE 'REVIEWS' POSTS
In Zia Erases the World author Bree Barton takes on that challenge. Her concept is small, even silly, when you hear it. But the implications? You may find yourself grasping for words to describe them.
Review of the Day: Book of Questions / Libro de las Preguntas by Pablo Neruda, ill. Paloma Valdivia
|A bilingual production, the book is as physically beautiful as it is mentally engaging. For the know-it-alls amongst us, turns out Mr. Neruda still has something to teach us, young and old.
The heart of this book isn’t walls or floors or windows but the people that lived alongside them. Speculation yields a carefully, even meticulously rendered story of an average white farm family, living life in a home, until time takes its toll and we all have to wrestle with what that means.
The Last Mapmaker offers readers proof positive that you can write succinctly, sacrificing nothing, while showing your readers absolutely everything.
A book about sexual abuse by trusted family members. Or, put another way, a messy, complicated, unique, necessary creation for those who will need it most.
Review of the Day – Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi
|With care, grace, and not a little cleverness, Zoboi doesn’t just introduce Butler to kids in the book Star Child. She makes it very clear from the get go that young Octavia was one of us. A supremely relatable person with a drive and output that far outstripped her times.
An accounting of a family and a tight knit community dealing with the repercussions of a hate crime, this book expertly navigates between taking into account the seriousness of the content while also punctuating it periodically with joy, laughter, and light.
I don’t do it very often, but sometimes, when the right one comes along, I’ll even review board books. Today I have discovered the wonder and beauty of Laura Gehl and Gareth Lucas’s Odd Birds.
Beware the mobs. Beware joining them. Beware and aware of what they’re capable of, and don’t disregard them either. But beware your worst instincts most of all.
What happens when a book takes tall tales and liar’s tales and then ties all of that into some of the finer examples of trash talk and blacktop exaggeration? The Legend of Gravity by Charly Palmer is that link.