Reviews written by Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer

Things are hopping at Meadowview Middle School, and this time it's Norm's friend Jordan who is at the center of the social media whirl with his viral pranks. Norm is the victim of one when a vast quantity of glitter falls out of his locker at him, and he's a...

Alex "Norm" Norman is having an unusually good first day of middle school. Over the summer, he had his wisdom teeth out, and his father (normally a boring therapist) posted a video of Norm dancing and shouting "whoop whoop" when he was coming out of anesthesia. This went viral, and...

Born in California in 1908, Alice belonged to the Numu (Paiute) community. Her parents were supportive of her education, so when she wanted to attend the new Big Pine School instead of the Big Pine Indian School, they promised to help her fight to attend. At the time, many Indian...

A little boy starts at a new school, and is a little apprehensive. A voice over asks the students in his class to look out for him in specific ways. It's hard to know where everything is, so new classmates should help him find where to hang his coat. It's...

The pages of this book seem extra thick, so will hold up to the most agressive infant chewing, and since there are few pages to turn, and few words on each page, this will be in frequent rotation by parents who have set a limit on number of books, not...

Natalie, who appeared briefly in Harper and the Horse Show Sabotage, has to spend the summer at Windy Creek Stables with her mother, Traci, since her father has to spend time in Antartica studying fish. This is not something that Natalie wants to do, and she is sure she is...

In this graphic novel, Kenzie's father, Adrian, married Quinn's mother, Bethany, after the death of Kenzie's mother when both girls were fairly young. Quinn's father sometimes visits with her, but the two are definitely sisters in every way that counts. Lately, their parents have been fighting nonstop, which is very...

Follow a stream-of-consciousness cute overload discussion of all things cute and get caught up in the progression from palm sized bunnies to bonzai trees to singing lemurs! This nicely small 5” x 7” book is packed with adorable photographs of fuzzy animals that are often augmented with cute illustrations, The...

This was a very well done sports graphic novel covering one particular game, in 2022, or Messi's career. I enjoyed the style of artwork (which sometimes lapsed into some vintage inspired panels!), the turquoise blue and red color palette, and the general formatting. THe text is in a good size,...

Education is best when there is an element of fun to it. Even I am not going to sit down with a one year old and try to directly teach charts and graphs. This is where this book is brilliant. In fun, rhyming text, a lot of different concepts are...

Blue Collins lives in Santa Monica, California in 1929. Her parents own Blue Beach, a black beach located close to a white neighborhood. They have a snack stand on the beach, and live in a house close by. While not everyone wants them there, the local markets and even the...

Tony, Mia, and River are all in Mr. Ortega's fourth grade class at Sycamore Elementary School in Los Angeles. When he has a "surprise us" day, River (whose real name is Walter, but who wants to be a star worthy of his new name) brings in sparkly shoes from his...

Palmer is an avid soccer player who has torn his ACL and is out for the season. Luckily, Coach Harris and Coach T of the Jayhawks understand how important the sport is to him, and let him tag along as a "manager". His teammate Al hates having girls on the...

Tessa Lundgren has always known she was left at a fire station right after her birth and adopted, and is happy with her parents, but when she turns 18, her best friend El gives her a DNA test. The two had always thought about who Tessa's biological parents might have...

Hans Christian Andersen starting telling stories when he was very young, but didn't always get positive feedback for them. When he was old enough, he left his small village to travel to Copenhagen to try to break into the theater , but was kicked out. He didn't do well at...