Tag Archive | self-image

Together on THE LAST BEST QUEST EVER! by F.T. Lukens (YA book review)

May26
In a forest clearing, a teen girl lies on her back and looks up, holding a hunting knife to the neck of the royal young person looking down into her eyes while they point an arrow at her heart. Above them, the book title The Last Best Quest Ever, by F.T. Lukens

Dragon vanquished,
giant spiders dispatched –
sort of…

At 17, Ellinore the Brave is tired of finagling her way through quests to entertain the royals. No one knows that she’s won every quest with problem-solving instead of swordplay.

She’s earned enough money for her parents to retire, so it’s time to quit and go visit the dragon she relocated instead of slaying (shhh…)

Except that her impulsive twin brother Zig tried to scam the wrong mages and instead earned a death curse. Now she has to locate and bring back a truly mythical item in a short time or the mages will remove Zig’s heart!

As for Princet Aven? Fed up with finishing second to Ellinore on every quest, they swiftly find her and Zig at home, eager to assist in this near-impossible quest to find the never-seen mythic Elder Beast.

Along the way, the trio is joined by a teen fan-girl who’s had a few quarterstaff lessons and a young scholar (very intent on debunking the bards’ songs about Ellinore’s daring feats) who agrees to take them to his grandfather’s secret knowledge trove.

As the group encounters magical beings and treacherous territory, it gets harder for Ellinore to keep her secrets and ignore her long-standing attraction to Aven. They may be last in the royal line of succession, but are still far above her commoner status.

Oh no! The other questers of the realm have also heard about the Elder Beast and will do anything to get there first! Wherever there is…

Does the Elder Beast truly exist?
Can Ellinore and Aven keep their inexperienced quest-mates safe?
Can she save her brother’s life?

By the author of
In Deeper Waters https://booksyalove.com/?p=12378
So This Is Ever After https://booksyalove.com/?p=12989
Spell Bound https://booksyalove.com/?p=13689
Otherworldly https://booksyalove.com/?p=14421
Love at Second Sight https://booksyalove.com/?p=15085

Happy book birthday to The Last Best Quest Ever – if Lukens writes it, I want to read it!

Which of your pals would you choose for your quest team?
**kmm

Book info: The Last Best Quest Ever / F.T. Lukens. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2026. [author site https://www.ft-lukens.com/thelastbestquestever] [publisher site https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Last-Best-Quest-Ever/F-T-Lukens/9781665950978] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Who is MAKING WAVES now?! tween cruise ship drama, by Lee Heart (MG book review)

May20
Silhouetted against the ocean and setting sun, a tween girl with ponytail and tween boy are talking on cruise ship deck, below book title Making Waves by Lee Heart.

First the beautiful wedding,
now the cruise all together –
it’ll be perfect, right?

Since their widowed mom and her divorced dad started dating, Hannah and Lucy have constantly teased Emma.

Now they’re all on a cruise in the Caribbean to bond as a family after the wedding. The twins mock Emma’s enthusiasm for all the ship’s activities and that she’s taller at 12 than they are at 13, but she tries to take it in stride.

Oh, the cutest boy dances with Emma at the bon voyage party! Hopefully they can spend some time together, but it’s a such a huge ship…

Their parents tell the girls to stick together in the evenings and absolutely no Teen Club, but Hannah and Lucy go there anyway!

Emma makes friends at Kidz Korner and sees Justin a few times – only a few days to figure out if he likes her or is just being polite.

Why is Lucy being so mean to her?
Do the twins always disobey their mom?
Will she ever get to spend some time with Justin?

The ship is sailing smoothly, but Emma’s life isn’t!

Has your family been on a cruise together?
**kmm

Book info: Making Waves (a Spotlight Sprinkles book) / Lee Heart. Simon Spotlight, 2026. [publisher site https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Making-Waves/Lee-Heart/Spotlight-Sprinkles/9798347103584] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Quit school? Oh, no, no! UNEXPECTED LIVES OF ORDINARY GIRLS, by J. Anderson Coats (MG book review)

May13
A tween girl in braids wearing long dress and carrying a satchel looks up through elegant gates at a busy city street with horse-drawn carriages and book title The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls, by J. Anderson Coats, with embroidered flowers in lower corner.

School is a haven,
reading takes her everywhere…
someday she’ll really go!

In their Colorado mining town, girls from Slovene families grow up and have families – no other options even in 1910. Stanislava escapes by reading from the tiny “penny library” near their Bohunk Town neighborhood. Oh, this story of an immigrant girl who changes her name and is sponsored at a lovely college is the best book ever!

Older sister Stina had to quit school early to take care of newborn Stanislava and the babies who came after. When she leaves to marry (not another Catholic – scandalous), Stanislava is expected to do the same!

Papa come all this way to America for freedom 20 years ago, and now he won’t allow her the opportunity to keep going to school – no!

The tween sneaks aboard a boxcar and heads to Denver to find Stina and her new husband. But they’ve already left town, and a priest wants to send her home – can she find a school to help her?

Instead she encounters a magnificent library that welcomes all and decides to stay there in its warmth and security. In the newspaper room looking at help wanted ads, she sees that the library has a training course test very soon.

Visiting different parts of the library every day, introducing herself as Sylvia when a young Slovene mother needs help, hiding at closing time, waiting for the test day…

Can she stay hidden and safe?
What if she doesn’t pass the test?
Where else can she go?

Another strong young heroine from the author of
The Loss of the Burning Ground (recommended at https://booksyalove.com/?p=14937)
A Season Most Unfair – https://booksyalove.com/?p=14170
The Night Ride – https://booksyalove.com/?p=13684
R for Rebel – https://booksyalove.com/?p=9958
The Wicked and the Just – https://booksyalove.com/?p=91

Which library is your favorite?
**kmm

Book info: The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls / J. Anderson Coats. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2025. [author site https://www.jandersoncoats.com/the-unexpected-lives-of-ordinary-girls] [publisher site https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Unexpected-Lives-of-Ordinary-Girls/J-Anderson-Coats/9781665968614] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the author and publisher.

OF THE SUN: a Poem for the Land’s First Peoples, by Xelena Gonzales & Emily Kewageshig (Picturebook)

May5
In front of a bright sun, an indigenous person looks to the right where an eagle soars. Both are surrounded by branches of flowers and berries, with book title Of the Sun: a Poem for the Land's First Peoples, by Xelena Gonzales

“Child of the sun, you’ve been blessed since birth…”

So begins a poem celebrating the First Peoples of the Western hemisphere, from the Yamana at the far tip of South America to the Ben Za in Central America to the Inuit in North America’s Arctic regions.

The artist uses saturated colors and bold outlines with motifs from many Indigenous cultures of the Americas and Caribbean – eagle and bison, butterfly and dreamcatcher, Plains beaded embroidery, dancers and native produce.

“Child of the sun, on this land you are home.”

As you read along, listen to the poet recite this heartfelt work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDjOnJGQJE

Includes notes on the Native peoples named in the poem, plus wonderful letters to the reader from the poet and the artist.

I live on lands of the Caddo and Kickapoo people, shows https://native-land.ca/
On whose land do you now live?
**kmm

Book info: Of the Sun: a Poem for the Land’s First Peoples / Xelena Gonzales; illustrated by Emily Kewageshig. Barefoot Books, 2025. [author site https://www.xelena.space/about] [artist site https://www.emily-kewageshig.com/] [publisher site https://www.barefootbooks.com/of-the-sun] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

Z is Zuzanna Celej illustrating THE VASE WITH THE GOLDEN CRACKS by Fran Nuno (Picturebook) #A2Z

Apr30
A young Japanese boy drops a piece of paper into a round flower-painted vase with cracks highlighted with gold, on book cover of The Vase with the Golden Cracks, by Fran Nuno.

In the vase were the words,
in the words were the meanings,
in those meanings is the story.

His father kept Japanese words in a beautiful vase, words whose meanings didn’t exist in other languages, and would read a new one to him every day.

The boy’s favorite was ikigai, referring to our mission in life, “the one that makes us wake up every day with joy.” (pg. 7)

One day, the boy accidentally breaks the vase, his father mends it, and the word-filled vase is more beautiful than ever.

A lovely addition to this story of why its author became a writer is the list of other words kept in the vase and their meanings.

This book is printed on “Stone Paper” which isn’t made from trees (https://www.cuentodeluz.com/pages/stone-paper-2) so its pages turn with a weighty yet fluid feel unlike most picturebooks’ shiny color-printed paper.

What word with special meaning would you add to your vase?
**kmm

Book info: The Vase With the Golden Cracks / Fran Nuno; illustrated by Zuzanna Celej; translated by Jon Brokenbow. Cuento de Luz, 2024. [author site, in Spanish https://www.frannuno.es/BIOGRAF-A/] [illustrator info https://theplumagency.com/illustrators/zuzanna_celej] [publisher site https://www.cuentodeluz.com/products/9788419464958?_pos=1&_sid=32c21897a&_ss=r] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.

X is for LEON THE EXTRAORDINARY, by Jamar Nicholas (MG Graphic Novel) #A2Z

Apr28
A sneaker-clad Black boy wearing green gloves, goggles, cape & utility belt is in mid-air in front of city skyscrapers with 2 different superheroes far behind him in the partly cloudy blue sky, below book title Leon the Extraordinary, by Jamar Nicholas

Superheroes – yay!
Supervillains – boo!
Ordinary people… yawn.

In a town filled with superheroes and supervillains, Leon is just…not-super. Best friend Carlos draws amazing comics, and Carlos’ mom is a super baker, but ordinary Leon can’t even convince his mom to get him a cellphone.

Wearing superhero garb to school can’t give the fifth grader superpowers, but he can feel his common sense tingling when there’s a problem situation.

Uh, oh. Clementine and her hall monitors are charging kids money to get to class safely? And she invites Leon to her superhero birthday party just to make fun of him! Grrr…she’s a problem that Leon can’t solve (yet).

Yikes! This new game Bholder has kids glued to their cellphones, making them act like zombies – real zombies who are ordered to get Leon!

Somehow Leon and Carlos must team up with Clementine to solve this problem before everyone in town with a cellphone is part of the mob.

Which of Leon’s inventions can help them free their classmates?
Who is behind this terrible game app?
Why are some people superheroes and others supervillains?

First in the series, followed by Leon: Worst Friends Forever (book 2) and Leon and the Big, Big Problem (book 3, releasing January 2027).

Who’s your favorite less-known superhero?
**kmm

Book info: Leon the Extraordinary / Jamar Nicholas; color by Bonaia Rosada. Graphix/Scholastic, 2022 [author/artist site https://jamarnicholas.weebly.com/jamar-nicholas.html] [publisher site https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/leon-the-extraordinary-1-9781338744156.html] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

W is for WINGING IT as new kid, far from friends, by Megan Wagner Lloyd & Michelle Mee Nutter (MG Graphic Novel) #A2Z

Apr27
A moving van is behind a Black tween girl laden with satchel, duffel bag, and rolling suitcase. Above her is book title Winging It and a luna moth flying away.

Moving to Virginia?
Leaving all her friends in California?
Oh, Dad….

Luna’s mom died long ago, so the 12 year old only has photos to remember her by and definitely didn’t inherit her love of nature and the outdoors.

Staying with so-strict Grandmother until they find their own place near DC is going to be rough – so many rules! No shoes indoors, don’t touch this, always do this.

At least the neighbors have kids – same-age Oliver who wear hearing aids and younger Sophie who wants to be a detective. One of their moms is Black and one isn’t, like Luna’s dad and mom were.

Grandmother lets her look through Mom’s collection of nature journals, and Luna decides to start her own. Big goal – see a Luna moth in the wild next spring!

Month by month, Luna gets used to having seasons, meeting with the Environmental Club at her new school, gardening with Grandmother.

Seventh grade is a hard time to start over, but Luna makes the best of things in this big-hearted graphic novel.

What’s your favorite part of nature?
**kmm

Book info: Winging It / Megan Wagner Lloyd; illustrated by Michelle Mee Nutter. Graphix / Scholastic, 2025. [author site https://meganwagnerlloyd.com/winging-it/] [illustrator site https://michellemee.com/] [publisher site https://shop.scholastic.com/parent-ecommerce/books/winging-it-9781338818529.html] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

V is for VERN: CUSTODIAN OF THE UNIVERSE, by Tyrell Waiters (YA Graphic Novel) #A2Z

Apr25
A young Tshirt-clad Black man holding a mop in bucket strides out of a billowing planet-studded cloud into a dark starry sky, toward book title Vern Custodian of the Universe, by Tyrell Waiters.

Mop and bucket,
always on call,
gotta save the multiverse?!

Burned out from fruitless job hunt in California, Vern heads to Florida where his grandmother has a position lined up for him… as janitor at a tech company seeking a new home for humanity before climate change destroys the planet.

The young Black man knows that Granny and his late Grandpa met at Quasar, but he’s not sure that cleaning up space goo filled with eyes or upside down rooms is for him.

Oops! Vern might have unplugged that old clunky computer, so he plugs it back in and is instantly transported to the furthest edge of the multiverse where The Void asks “What is the point?” and sends him back to Quasar to get the answer.

Except it’s not his Quasar and not his universe! He learns that whenever Quasar scientists on any of the Earths think they’ve found a suitable planet, The Void is there to stop them.

Now Vern has to jump through several universes and unplug each identical machine there like the one he accidentally activated on his Earth before the universes collide!

When will The Void summon Vern to answer the question?
How is Quasar really using their space technologies?
Why does Granny keep saying that Grandpa is always watching over Vern?

Every universe that Vern encounters has its own unique art style in this astronomically good graphic novel. Check out the first pages on the publisher’s website, for free: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714042/vern-custodian-of-the-universe-by-tyrell-waiters/

Where would you like to instantaneously travel to in space?
**kmm

Book info: Vern: Custodian of the Universe / Tyrell Waiters. Flying Eye Books, 2025. [author site https://www.tartwurk.com/] [publisher site https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/714042/vern-custodian-of-the-universe-by-tyrell-waiters/] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

S is THE BLOSSOMING SUMMER, safe from war, finding herself, by Anna Rose Johnson (MG fiction book review) #A2Z

Apr22
A dark-haired young teen girl wearing a 1940s short-sleeved plaid dress stands on a windy hillside above a sparkling lake beneath a sunny blue sky with high white clouds as well as military airplanes. She holds a bouquet of flowers tightly against herself with her elbow as she looks left, into the wind.

Separation and reunion.
Travel amid war!
Secrets…big family secrets.

Fleeing the London blitz in 1940, Rosemary’s parents gather up the children from relatives’ homes across England and take them to America, to stay with the grandmother in Wisconsin they’ve never met. After three years apart, the 13 year old wants to be a good big sister, but isn’t sure how.

From rationing and blackout curtains to a gigantic house and gardens straight from her dreams! She’s relieved and happy, until she meets their snooty same-age cousin (not one pimple – how unfair) and is treated like a child by Aunt Ann.

Dad left this beautiful place on purpose, changed his last name – why didn’t he ever tell them that his family was French and Indian?!

Grandmother is determined to win the flower and vegetable show at the county fair – will local boy Jacob lose his gardener’s job if Rosemary and her brothers help out?

As they work in the gardens, Grandmother teaches Rosemary about traditional Objiwe plants and their names in Anishinaabemowin – could her family be transplanted here as easily as the tiny violet plant that she brought from her best friend’s garden in England?

Maybe Dad will help them in the garden and canoe with them on the lake and become happy here by county fair time… during this lovely summer, even as war’s shadows come closer.

By the Native American author of The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry, recommended here: https://booksyalove.com/?p=14384 .

What’s your favorite garden plant?
**kmm

Book info: The Blossoming Summer / Anna Rose Johnson. Holiday House, 2025. [author site https://annarosejohnson.com/the-blossoming-summer/] [publisher site https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/777259/the-blossoming-summer-by-anna-rose-johnson/] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

R is history repeating BARBED WIRE BETWEEN US, reverso poem by Wenjen & Encarnacion (Picturebook) #A2Z

Apr21
Two young girls, standing back to back, look at the viewer from behind a barbed wire fence. On the left is a short-haired Japanese-American girl, on the right a Latin American girl with long dark hair held by a patterned headband, on the book cover of Barbed Wire Between Us by Mia Wenjen and Violeta Encarnacion.

Forced from home,
separated from family,
children now behind barbed wire!

A Japanese American girl scans the dusty internment camp where everyone in her community has been taken during World War II, hoping for better days when they’ll finally be able to go home.

Decades later, a Latin American immigrant girl escaping with her family from bad conditions is taken to the same dusty internment camp, her hopes of better days now dimmed.

This reverso poem tells the two girls’ different/similar stories with a single set of phrases, like going up a musical scale and then back down.

“In this land of promise, we hoped to find a place to belong.” The phrase that begins the first poem ends the second poem.

“Where darkness is, light will shine again. From behind barbed wire, new life will begin.” The phrase that starts the second poem is the final line of the first.

Muted colors evoke the dreary setting of the camp, children and parents often separated by barbed wire, far away from pleasant places.

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been a prison camp for those considered different, from Geronimo and his Chiricahua Apaches in the 1880s to Japanese Americans during World War II to immigrant children since 2014.

What keeps you hopeful in the face of such things?
**kmm

Book info: Barbed Wire Between Us / Mia Wenjen; illustrated by Violeta Encarnacion. Red Comet Press, 2026. [author site https://miawenjen.com/barbed-wire-between-us/] [illustrator site illustrator site https://www.instagram.com/violeta.encarnacion/] [publisher site https://www.redcometpress.com/picturebooks/barbed] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.