Reviews written by Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer

Sebastian Wight has always seen ghosts, at least ever since both of his parents were shot dead in front of him. His memories of that are vague, and his Aunt Dahlia has taken good care of him, so he doesn't want to tell her about his alarming abilities. It's hard...

During the summer before high school, things are not going exactly the way Louis would like. His father is a fisherman, and needs Louis to walk Old Man Dan's dog so that Dan can go out and work on the boat. Both Dan and his dog, Amos, are both rather...

Noah Nicholson has an absolutely disastrous day when he has to give a speech for the class president election at East Hills Middle School in Albany, New York. He has a plan. A good plan. It involves becoming class president, doing well on the bowling team, going to Harvard like...

Sophia Winslow lives on a street of older homes in New Hampshire, and her busy parents operate a real estate company out of their breezeway. Her good friend Ralphie Mariani lives across the street with his five brothers and sisters, his doctor father and mother who is a really good...

In fifth grade, Nora, Bea, and Millie were inseparable friends who attended the Shire School, a hippyish sort of school on Manhattan's Upper East Side. They spend a lot of time hanging out together, making fortune tellers with their Write Your Destiny marker set. After a falling out of a...

Liv resides with her mother, a busy charity manager, and her father, an artist who works at home, in England. Her father's ninety year old mother, Bubbe, lives nearby, but is having lots of memory problems and has locked herself out of the house on several occasions. The mother, whose...

Patty Cisneros Prevo, herself a paralympian basketball player, highlights fifteen athletes who have overcome challenges that many people do not face, in addition to the grueling training required to excel at their various activities. There is a shorter, rhyming story that continues throughout the book, as well as one page...

You may know Cece Bell from her popular and award winning middle grade graphic autobiography, but I have to say that Animal Albums is a singular tour de force of poetic quirkiness that completely blows that book out of the water. This starts on...

Blackburn starts this book with a note acknowledging that Chinese American history, and the experience of Chinese Americans, isn't something that is monolithic. Even the identification of being "Chinese American" can pertain to a wide range of people. Still, because of the dire lack of information about this population (which...

Augusta Baker grew up in Baltimore listening to her grandmother's stories, which fed her imagination. She grew up to be the first Black person to earn a degree in library science from SUNY Albany, and went on to be a children's librarian in New York City. She realized that while...

After the death of her grandfather, Honey's grandmother is distraught, and wants to take off in their ice cream truck on a big adventure. Because things are not good in the world, the rest of the family packs up and goes along for the adventure. The mother is an editor,...

Born in 1940 in Troy, Alabama, John Lewis grew up in a large family with supportive parents. There were many struggles, however, as the family tried to earn a living farming but was given trouble at every step of the way. Lewis was not able to get as much schooling...

A little boy lives in an older house on a busy street, and invites the reader in to discover what goes on inside. While the kitchen is where the family, cooks, it's also where they learn to work as a team. The dining room sees some tomfoolery as well as...

A little girl is sad that her birthday is over and that she will have to wait another whole year until she gets to celebrate again. She learns that waiting is a lot easier when broken down into smaller chunks, and that there are plenty of other reasons to be...

Art wants to go to the park, but his father can't shake a bad cold. The two decide to take the train to the farmer's market and get ingredients for some fresh juice. They get carrots and greens, but can't find the ginger that Art's teacher has recommended. Each store...