Review of Rain Reign, by Ann M. Martin

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Rain Reign

by Ann M. Martin

Feiwel and Friends, 2014. 226 pages.
Review written September 16, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Mathical Honor Book

It took me a long time to get around to reading this highly acclaimed middle grade novel, but I’m glad I finally did.

Rose is happy to have a name that’s a homonym (Rose, rows) and to have a dog Rain whose name is a triple homonym (Rain, reign, rein). Rose is in fifth grade, and she’s on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum. She has an aide to help her remember not to shout when someone breaks a rule, and to remind her that not everyone is interested in homonyms.

Rain lives with her father, who has trouble getting impatient with her at times, but she also has her dog Rain to turn to. Her uncle Weldon lives down the road and drives Rose to and from school. But when a hurricane hits and her father lets Rain out without her collar, Rose is distraught when she can’t find her after the storm. Could she have been swept away down the swollen creek?

But Rose makes a plan and gets help from some new friends.

The plot of this story is fairly simple, but it’s heartfelt, and does take a surprising and poignant turn at the end. Rose tells her own story, and hearing things from her perspective, we don’t think she’s weird – and we feel pain when other people do. But we also feel joy when she finds that having a loving dog can bring people together.

mackids.com

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Review of Two Tribes, by Emily Bowen Cohen

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel 0

Two Tribes

by Emily Bowen Cohen
with colors by Lark Pien

Heartdrum (Harper Alley), 2023. 252 pages.
Review written September 21, 2023, from a library book.

This graphic novel is about Mia, a middle school girl who has recently started attending Jewish school after her mother remarried and is getting serious about Judaism. Mia is enjoying many things about the new traditions, but she feels like an outsider because her skin is brown, inherited from her father. Her father is a member of the Muscogee nation. He left their family when Mia was 3 and now lives far away from them with a new wife and kids in Oklahoma.

Mia wants to find out more about her indigenous heritage. She checks out a book from the library and sees awful stereotypes.

So she comes up with a plan to use money from her Bat Mitzvah to take a bus to visit her father in Oklahoma. But she tells her mother she’s going to Shabbaton, a special Jewish camp.

She has a wonderful time in Oklahoma and learns much about her heritage. But it’s inevitable that her mother will figure it out….

Overall, this book is heart-warming. There are some tough moments for Mia, but most people she encounters are good-hearted and willing to correct when they make mistakes. It’s a lovely story about coming to grips with a dual heritage, and the graphic novel format pulls the reader right in.

emilybowencohenauthor.com
harperalley.com

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Review of We’ll Prescribe You a Cat, by Syou Ishida

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

We’ll Prescribe You a Cat

by Syou Ishida
translated by E. Madison Shimoda
read by Naruto Komatsu and Natsumi Kuroda

Books on Tape, 2024. 7 hours, 8 minutes.
Review written January 2, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

There seems to be a new genre of books being written in Japan: A quirky place where people from disparate lives go to receive something that changes their lives. It’s a charming and lovely genre, but since this is the third such book I’ve read in three months, I think I need a break from them to more fully appreciate the charm.

The first such book I read, at the recommendation of my friend Suzanne, who subscribes to Book Talking with Sondy, was What You Are Looking For Is in the Library, by Michiko Aoyama. I was utterly charmed. So when the reviews on Libby said that it was similar to Before the Coffee Gets Cold, I put that one on hold. Then my sister Wendy, who has lived in Japan in the past, told me she was reading What You Are Looking for Is in the Library and loving it – and that it reminded her of the book We’ll Subscribe You a Cat. So I immediately put this book on hold. I indeed enjoyed it very much – but do feel I need a break from this genre for a bit.

This one has a stronger paranormal element than the other two, even the time-traveling Before the Coffee Gets Cold. There’s a “Clinic for the Soul” in part of Kyoto that people can only find if they’re specifically looking for it (and sometimes not even then). It’s run by one doctor and one unfriendly nurse. And after the doctor listens to the patient’s troubles, he prescribes them a cat. He writes a prescription and they take it to the reception desk and get a cat in a carrier, and some gear and food to care for the cat for a specific number of days.

The book is about several people with very different lives who come to the clinic and whose lives are transformed by the cat they are prescribed.

I still like the book featuring a library the best of the books in this genre. Perhaps I was a bit defensive, because I no way no how want to adopt a cat myself. And rolled my eyes a little at how easily a spouse’s cat allergy was resolved with medication. But other than that, it was another delightful and charming book. I think cat lovers will love it as much as I loved the book about the mystical library.

There were some surprises – like the way the man who had trouble with insomnia and bad dreams about his new supervisor was cured by the cat keeping him up all night. None of the cat cures was completely predictable, in fact. And the different ways the prescriptions play out makes for interesting storytelling.

As with the other books mentioned here, this is a feel-good story that will certainly leave you with some smiles.

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Review of Kareem Between, by Shifa Saltagi Safadi, read by Peter Romano

Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Kareem Between

by Shifa Saltagi Safadi
read by Peter Romano

Listening Library, 2024. 3 hours, 22 minutes.
Review written February 15, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Winner
2024 CYBILS Award Winner, Novels in Verse
2025 Capitol Choices Selection

Kareem Between is about a child of immigrants born in America who loves football and wants to play on his middle school team. But when his best friend moves away on the day of tryouts, he doesn’t do his best and doesn’t make the team.

So when the coach’s son – who did make the team – promises to put in a word with his dad if Kareem will do his homework, Kareem thinks it’s probably worth it just this once. But it turns out that it becomes an expectation.

Now, I’m too much of a rule-follower to have a lot of sympathy for Kareem as he dug himself into a deeper and deeper hole. But then his mother goes to Syria to try to bring her ailing parents back with her to America. His doctor father can’t go, because any Syrian man will be conscripted into the army during war time. It’s the start of 2017, and I remembered what a bad time that was to travel to Syria.

Meanwhile, with his mother gone leaving the whole family on edge, a Syrian refugee family has moved to their neighborhood with a boy Kareem’s age named Fadi, and Kareem is asked to help him at school. But when the coach’s kid starts bullying Fadi, Kareem doesn’t want to get caught in that negative attention.

Well, thankfully Kareem does finally get pushed to the edge and figures out he needs to try to make things right. But as that is happening, Trump’s Muslim ban goes into effect, causing great pain and heartache, and they can’t even reach Kareem’s mother in Syria.

This book is far too timely right now, putting a face and heart to a story of a child of immigrants feeling in between both cultures – and being part of what truly makes America great.

shifasafadi.com

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Review of Reasons We Break, by Jesmeen Kaur Deo

Contemporary, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Reasons We Break

by Jesmeen Kaur Deo

Hyperion, 2025. 406 pages.
Review written November 24, 2025, from a book sent by the publisher.
Starred Review
2025 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 More Teen Fiction

Good girl Simran tutored Rajan in math all through high school. She was the first math tutor he could tolerate. After high school, Rajan shows up in her life again as a mentee in a program for helping troubled youth with community service. The rumors in their Sikh community say that he killed someone. Rajan’s visiting his probation officer as scheduled and trying to stay clean.

Then his old gang picks him up to pull him back into the gang – and grabs Simran, thinking she’s his girlfriend, as leverage. But that ends up turning out the opposite of expectations, as Simran volunteers to replace the gang’s bookkeeper (who recently got arrested) just long enough to pay off Rajan’s debt, so he doesn’t have work for them and break the conditions of probation.

Of course, once Rajan finds out about that, he’s not going to stand by and let Simran be in danger. But Simran is already intrigued by the puzzle of trying to figure out a rival gang’s code.

One thing keeps leading to another, and we gain insight that everyone can have life events that break them and lead them to choices they might not otherwise have picked.

It was interesting reading this book at the same time I was reading Gregory Boyle’s book, Cherished Belonging. Gregory Boyle works with gang members in Los Angeles, and is incredibly good at seeing their good hearts – and showing those good hearts to his readers. This story was fiction, but it also takes a compassionate look at teens caught up in gangs and all the difficulties of getting out.

The book also gives insight into the Sikh religion and that immigrant community in British Columbia – while delivering a suspenseful thriller about people we come to care about.

JDeoWrites.com
HyperionTeens.com

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Review of Island Storm, by Brian Floca, pictures by Sydney Smith

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Island Storm

by Brian Floca
pictures by Sydney Smith

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2025. 48 pages.
Review written December 29, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #10 Picture Books

This picture book story is told in second person, which I usually don’t like, but it works beautifully here.

The wonderful pictures start even before the text. On the title page, there’s a boy and little sister standing at a window looking out. Then the dedication and copyright spread shows a woman collecting clothes blown from a line, plus a cloudy sky and gray sea.

Then we’re looking through a dark hallway to a bright doorway with the kids now wearing boots. And the text says:

Now take my hand
and we’ll go see
the sea before the storm.

The pictures and text show what they pass along the way and the waves smashing on the rocks.

But after this, and after several other interludes, there’s a refrain:

And then we ask, is this enough, or do we try for more?
You pull on me, and I pull on you, and we decide to go on.

And so they keep going on, passing homes with boarded up windows, their neighbor finishing one last walk with her dogs, the town empty of people after folks have finished stocking up.

When the thunder finally starts, they run home, planning on a shortcut through the woods – which ends up being harder in the storm than they’d thought it would be.

You can see the relief on the face of the grown-up with the flashlight who finds them and hugs them. Then they watch the storm through the windows – and the book ends the next day with the sun shining and the sea calm – “And you and I go on.”

I have to say that the amazing pictures, combined with the immediate text, make this book feel like you’re walking with the kids in the storm. This one is much better than I can capture with words alone – so let me encourage you to check it out!

brianfloca.com
sydneydraws.ca

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Review of True True, by Don P. Hooper

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

True True

by Don P. Hooper

Nancy Paulsen Books (Penguin Random House), 2023. 368 pages.
Review written October 20, 2023, from my own copy, sent by the publisher.
Starred Review

True True is the story of Gil, a Black teenager from Brooklyn with Jamaican roots, who transfers for his senior year to a prep school in Manhattan to be on the robotics team. But once there, he gets confronted by racism – a football player and two teammates start a fight with him, and Gil is the only one who gets suspended and put on probation.

On probation, he’s not supposed to work with the robotics team for a month. But he knows he can help – is it worth doing if he can’t take any credit?

The racism is quite blatant, but still unacknowledged. Gil fumes and figures out how to get those opportunities his grandma and mother sacrificed for, while still showing his friends in Brooklyn that he cares about them. The sensei at his dojo has a copy of The Art of War, and Gil tries to use the principles found there to battle the racism so strong at school.

It’s all portrayed in such a way that it feels real, and we are with Gil as he tries to juggle friends, family, classes, martial arts, robotics, all while trying to battle racism in the most savvy way. He makes many mistakes along the way, which gets us all the more firmly on his side.

This book has so much heart, it doesn’t feel like an issue book. It’s a book about a teen trying to deal with what life throws at him.

DonHooper.com
PenguinTeen.com

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Review of The Love Match, by Priyanka Taslim

Contemporary, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Love Match

by Priyanka Taslim

Salaam Reads (Simon & Schuster), 2023. 386 pages.
Review written February 10, 2023, from my own book, sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

The Love Match is a light-hearted rom-com novel set among the Bangladeshi Muslim diaspora community of Paterson, New Jersey, where the author grew up.

Zahra Khan has recently graduated from high school and is sad that she’s going to have to let go of her acceptance to Columbia, but with her father’s recent death, she needs to keep the family going. Her best friends are happily making college plans, while she keeps working and setting aside money. Her mother doesn’t respect Zahra’s dreams of being a writer and wants to find a nice Bangladeshi boy to marry Zahra and take care of her.

When her mother sets her sights for Zahra on a Bangladeshi boy from a rich family, neither Zahra nor the boy, Harun, are excited about the idea. But neither wants to disappoint their parents. So instead, they make a plan to convince their parents that this match can’t possibly work.

But while they are doing their fake dates, a new Bangladeshi starts working at the shop where Zahra does. He seems to understand her dreams in a way Harun doesn’t. But he doesn’t have any money or family, so how can Zahra ever get her family behind that romance?

The cover means we’re not surprised by the love triangle. It all plays out in happily predictable ways – a completely fun ride, with all the details about Bangladeshi culture making it all the more interesting. Zahra’s a character readers will be happy to root for. I enjoyed every minute I read this novel.

priyankataslim.com
simonandschuster.com/teen

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Review of Dan in Green Gables, by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre

Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dan in Green Gables

A Modern Reimagining of Anne of Green Gables

by Rey Terciero and Claudia Aguirre

Penguin Workshop, 2025. 252 pages.
Review written October 9, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

You know I had to read this book because of what an L. M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables fan I am!

This is not a retelling of Anne of Green Gables – it didn’t have very many parallel incidents or try to stick to the storyline (which is honestly pretty episodic, anyway). But the set-up parallels Anne’s situation:

Red-haired and freckled, 15-year-old Dan has been moving from place to place with his mother all his life. One day without warning, she takes him to the Tennessee home – complete with green gables – of his dead father’s mother and father – his Mawmaw and Pawpaw. Mawmaw is warm and welcoming, but his grandfather is immediately put off by Dan’s obvious queerness.

When his mother leaves without warning the next morning before Dan wakes up – Dan has to find his place there. Like Anne, he asks a lot of questions at church. Like Anne, his flamboyant presence at school makes a stir. Like Anne, Dan is rather dramatic in expressing himself. Though the details for all those things are quite different with a queer kid in 1995 small-town Tennessee instead of an orphan girl in 1800s small-town Prince Edward Island.

But like Anne, the beauty of the story comes in watching Dan settle in, make friends, find a home, and win the love of his two elderly caretakers – even the cantankerous one.

This is a graphic novel, so it’s a quick read – but packs a heart-warming punch.

rexogle.com
PenguinTeen.com

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Review of Fish Fry Friday, by Winsome Bingham and C. G. Esperanza

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Fish Fry Friday

written by Winsome Bingham
illustrated by C. G. Esperanza

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2025. 44 pages.
Review written November 18, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review

Fish Fry Friday strikingly reminds me of the Caldecott Honor Book My Daddy Is a Cowboy, with pictures by the same illustrator. Both books feature a little girl rising before dawn to go on a special outing with a relative. Both have vibrant, bright, colorful pictures, many at nontraditional angles, showing happy, loving people interacting.

In this case, the girl is setting out with Granny to catch fish.

There are plenty of other people at the pier and they all greet Granny enthusiastically, telling the girl that her Granny is the fish magnet queen.

And then they start catching fish after fish. Granny declares each one her favorite and thanks God for the blessing.

After their bucket is full, they go home to prepare for the Friday night Fish Fry.

We clean fish,
scaling and skinning,
cutting and gutting.

And when that’s done, Granny slowly slides the knife from the top to the tail. “Beautiful fillets,” she says, shaking them. “My favorite.”

They coat the fish in batter, fry it, and even make hush puppies. Each part is Granny’s favorite. And it all builds to a big, happy family, in bright colorful clothes, sitting around the table, happily enjoying each other.

“Spending the day with you, baby,” Granny says,
“is my favorite, favorite, favorite part!”

“Well, my favorite, favorite, favorite part,” I say,
“is eating fried fish with you on Fridays.”

Reading this book with a kid may just end up being someone’s favorite. Few books exude so much joy.

binghamwrites.com

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