With a strong Nantucket setting, Downright Dencey by Caroline Snedeker (published 1927) is the story of a developing friendship between a Quaker girl and the young, poor orphan boy who lives on the outskirts of town. More deeply, however, it is a sweet old-fashioned story of Christian conversion and what it means to find forgiveness and develop a relationship with God. That sounds so nice, but oh how disappointed I was in this book that Beverly Cleary named as one of her childhood favorites! (In Cleary’s defense, she did add that it wasn’t quite appropriate today.) While it is not as ..read more

Across So Many Seas by Ruth Behar (Nancy Paulsen Books, February 2024) is an epic historical fiction middle grade novel about Sephardic Jews, jumping from Inquisition Spain in 1492 to Turkey, Cuba, and Miami in more recent years. With narration transitioning among four young girls during these times, the novel highlighted music as a way to connect culture and Jewish tradition through the many years. I had not learned much about the situation of Jews in Inquisition Spain. Thus, the beginning scenes with young Benvenita in 1492 Toledo was my favorite part. I felt empathy for the agony and diff ..read more

Max in the House of Spies: A Tale of World War II by Adam Gidwitz (Dutton Books for Young Readers, February 2024) is a unique World War II book as our young Jewish main character only wants to return to Berlin, not stay in London. The great news is that, with a spy in the house, there is a great chance Max can find his way, if only he can too become a spy. Max is a completely loveable boy and his story is so far fetched that it is completely loveable too. See, Max, who arrived in England thanks to the Kindertransport, wants to return to Nazi Germany. But not only does he live with a spy, he ..read more

Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James (published 1926) is an animal book telling of one young horse from the day he was born until his old age retirement. Smoky learns in a free, mountainous home for his early years, is broken in as a cow horse by a loving cowboy, spends years rounding up cattle, finds himself on the rodeo circuit, and then . . . well, I shouldn’t spoil it all for you, should I? Smoky does focus, for most of the book, on Smoky’s “thoughts.” The author doesn’t assign words to the horse’s conversations and learning moments, so it still feels like a realistic fiction animal story a ..read more

Tree. Table. Book. by Lois Lowry (Clarion, 2024) features the friendship between two Sophies: one who is eleven and the other is 88. With a unique and memorable narrator, Lowry’s deceptively short newest offering touches on deep issues such as aging, childhood experience, and the formation of memories. In fact, there was so much in it that I really wished Sophie-the-younger’s journey was stretched out a bit longer to let me see more of the friendship and Sophie’s understanding of memories that matter. Our narrator, the younger Sophie, is a spunky girl with confidence, sure that she not on ..read more

Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman (first published 1925) is a collection of stories taking place in China and featuring Chinese traditions. Although some of the tales are interesting reading, the lack of authenticity and subtle racism of the past make it a questionable book to give young children today. There are many better “Chinese Stories for Children” today that should be read before this one. The stories contained some magical myths and others were tales of clever people. Some tales gave background stories to the invention of kites, chopsticks, and fine China, to name a few. B ..read more

One Big Open Sky by Lesa Kline-Ransom (March 2024, Holiday House) is a free verse historical fiction novel about Black covered wagon pioneers in 1879. It features a young Black girl and her family, told from her perspective and that of her mother and another young woman. They journey from a sharecropping atmosphere in Mississippi to the open territory of Nebraska in a covered wagon. The journey is dangerous and difficult, but these young women find the strength to persevere and stand up to the men around them as they succeed in their journey and face the future. It’s such a great premise ..read more

The Voyagers: Being Legends and Romances of Atlantic Discovery by Padraic Colum (published 1925; reissued 2022 by Smidgen Press) was awarded a 1926 Newbery Honor. The subtitle describes the book very well. With a framework of Henry the Navigator viewing the Atlantic from a tall tower, various medieval scholars tell the tales of the lost islands of the sea, most of which are certainly fictional inventions. The second half of the book describes a few of the actual explorers who traveled to the Americas, mostly retold in a romantic voice and the fictionalized perspective of tradition. They nic ..read more

The origin of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast (an ancient tradition for native Alaskans) is retold in the magical middle grade novel Eagle Drums by Nasugraq Rainey Hopson (Roaring Brook Press, 2023). Piŋa is a resourceful and helpful young man for his father and mother, but when he goes to the mountain to collect obsidian rock, he is kidnapped by a majestic golden eagle. In the man-eagle takes him to his even more remote Arctic aerie, where Piŋa is, where he is taught to sign, drum, and dance. With his isolation and training, Piŋa learns that he is to take these arts to his people, encourag ..read more

The Dream Coach by Anne Parrish (illustrated by Dillwyn Parrish; Macmillan, 1924) is a collection of a poem and four stories that are named the dreams of four children around the world. The children include a princess, a boy from Norway, a young Chinese boy “emperor,” and a French boy in the countryside. Each story is framed as a “trip” in the Dream Coach. As is often the case with short story collections, the stories here are uneven and although the book is okay overall, along with the sugary-sweet poem and subtle racism in two of the stories, it is a book I’d hesitate to hand to children ..read more