Review

Tabor, Corey R.  Mel Fell. Corey Tabor, Illus. Picture Book. Balzer & Bray, 02/2021. [40]pp. $17.99. 978-0-06-287801-4. OUTSTANDING. GRADES. PRE-3. One day a young kingfisher bird named Mel decides it’s time to learn to fly. [continue reading]

Pinkney, Brian. Time for Kenny.  Brian Pinkney, Illus. Picture Book. Greenwillow, 01/2021. [40]pp. $17.99. 978-0-06-073528-9. OUTSTANDING. GRADES PRE-1. Two-time Caldecott honor winner Pinkney is both author and illustrator of this book. His artwork (acrylic and [continue reading]

Smith, Pauline Vaeluaga. Dawn Raid. Fiction. Levine Querido, 03/2021. 217pp. $17.99. 978-1-64614-041-1. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 4-7. Sofia, whose father is Maori and mother is white, is intrigued by her older brother’s involvement with the Polynesian Panthers [continue reading]

Paulsen, Gary. Gone to the Woods: Surviving a Lost Childhood. Biog. Farrar, 01/2021. 357pp. $17.99. 978-0-374-31415-6. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 7-12. Gary Paulsen, author of Hatchet (Atheneum, 1987), offers this unusual episodic memoir written in third person [continue reading]

Little Badger, Darcie. Elatsoe. Rovina Cai, Illus. Fiction. Levine Querido, 08/2020. 368pp. $18.99. 978-1-64614-005-3. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 7-12. Ellie is a Lipan Apache teen with the hereditary gift of raising spirits, but primarily the spirit of [continue reading]

Alston, B. B. Amari and the Night Brothers. Godwin Akpan, Illus. Fiction. Supernatural Investigations Series; bk. 1. Balzer & Bray, 01/2021. 416pp. $17.99. 978-0-06-297516-4. OUTSTANDING. GRADES 4-7. Amari, one of the few Black girls at [continue reading]