(2) K-3 Ready to Read: Monster Og series. Illustrated by Elio. Picture book author Dyckman (Wolfie the Bunny, rev. 3/15; How Dinosaurs Went Extinct, rev. 3/23) steps into the beginning reader market with this book for the earliest readers. Og is a turquoise monster with puffy hair, blunt horns, and one tooth -- not even a little frightening. The book uses simple words, short sentences, and a lot of repetition ("This is Og. Og is nice") to ease children just starting to sound out words into this story about the day some sort of creature appears stuck in a block of ice. Og is scared but also determined to get the creature out. Og tries bonking the ice with a log, and when that doesn't work, it's time for a new strategy: "Og can think and make a plan!" For its simplicity, the text has a gentle rhyme scheme and pleasing sense of rhythm that reward the work of decoding. Elio's cartoon-style illustrations are bright, cheerful, expressive, and clearly composed, creating a path for readers who may be struggling with early phonics skills to follow the story. Once Og finally releases the creature from the ice, a new friendship is formed, and readers get a setup for future adventures with this duo.

Reviewer: Adrienne L. Pettinelli | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Illustrated by Karen De la Vega & Marcus Williams. Former NHL player Aliu made headlines in 2020 when he shared stories of the racism and hazing he faced as a person of color in professional hockey. The son of a Nigerian father and Ukrainian mother, Aliu was born in Nigeria and spent his early years in Russia before his family immigrated to Canada and he discovered his love for hockey. His adoration of the sport was tested by persistent and devastating racism throughout his adolescence and beyond. This graphic memoir follows him from childhood through his exit from the NHL and to the formation of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which makes hockey accessible to "children from diverse communities ­underrepresented in the sport." The narrative is notable for its emotional clarity and the strength with which the concise text carries both Aliu's pain and his resolve. Dynamic comic-panel art serves the story with expressiveness of motion and feeling. Grabbing readers at the intersection of sports and social justice, this is a welcome addition to the graphic-memoir genre.

Reviewer: Anne St. John | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Olivier Tallec. Three besties--Rabbit, Duck, and Big Bear--are always together, frolicking and having fun in their forest home throughout the seasons. While they are keen to explore, as a group the intrepid trio has never ventured down "the long, winding path." One winter day, however, as Rabbit is learning to ice skate (but not yet how to stop), she finds herself alone and "barreling down the path, not knowing where she is headed." She ends up in front of "the grandest fir tree she has ever seen." Her first thought: "If only my friends were here to see this." Once her worried pals find her, Rabbit excitedly shares her discovery, but it turns out that both Big Bear and Duck know the idyllic spot well. "I come here when I feel like being alone," Big Bear says. Duck likes to visit the tree on still mornings and think. Rabbit is confused and hurt at first ("we do everything together") but comes to understand the need for each of them to feel the tree's restorative magic individually sometimes. Brun-Cosme's spare, straightforward text captures the simple joys of childhood relationships and of growing up. Tallec's pencil and acrylic paintings feature expressive cartoonlike animal characters in lush surroundings. Spot and sequential art add humor and energy to verdant, almost impressionistic landscapes. A smart and subtle glimpse at social-emotional learning and appreciation for the natural world.

Reviewer: Luann Toth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Abhi Alwar. "Summer is for cousins. Mom and Dad, two uncles, two aunties, Thatha and Pati, seven cousins. All of us are together." This energetic family's summer vacation, with a full schedule of daily activities, encapsulates the inevitable combination of ritual and change that permeates life. In a first-person narrative, Ravi explains how his whole extended family descends on a house near an ocean and a lake. From there, the story launches into a flurry of sandcastle building, swimming, hiking, and more. Ravi is eager for a replay of all the summers before, but his beloved oldest cousin now seems more grown-up, and Ravi worries that their relationship may have changed too. This concern is punctuated by the frustration that he can no longer find their mutual favorite ice-cream flavor. The summer starts and ends with ice cream, the circular story arc highlighting that despite growth and change, the best parts of old rituals can become new ones with a little effort. Active compositions in the warm, textured art glow with golds and purples, making the joys of summer palpable. The figures of the family, sometimes together and sometimes dispersed around the pages, are full of movement. This story, with its irresistible atmosphere, shows how to realize and share the delights of the season.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Todd Stewart. "Listen! / Lake Superior / sings a winter song." Getting all bundled up, two children set off early on a cold morning to go ice skating. Fog rises from mysterious Superior, and along the way they find wolf tracks, but the older sibling can tell that the tracks are old, a "story" written in the snow. Canadian author Pendziwol writes evocatively about the immense and imposing lake and the sounds the ice makes vibrating under the children's feet as they skate: "mysterious magical music / as old as the earth... / We join the song, / skating / on the wild ice / of a vast / inland sea." (She also makes sure to mention that the ice on the lake is very thick.) Illustrator Stewart uses a range of blues and greens, from the intense turquoise of the frozen lake to a chilly blue against the snowy whites. His technique of drawing digitally, editing in Photoshop, and adding textures with scanned screens gives the book a vibrant and often majestic feel, ending with a wolf looking straight at the reader.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(2) 4-6 Translated by Julia Marshall. Illustrated by Anna-Clara Tidholm. At the start of this chapter book, three children ("Jack, Max and me, Ida") playing by a creek accidentally float away on an ice floe. The creek becomes a river, which then becomes sea; they wake surrounded by ice and decide to walk home -- but which way is home? After walking for two days, they reach land and find a dilapidated hut with cans of food, a stove, and warm animal skins. Here they spend the winter, but when spring arrives, a storm tears the hut apart. They use the wood to build a boat, then set sail, survive a terrifying storm at sea, and ultimately find their way back home. "You might not believe it's true, and we didn't believe it ourselves, not even while it was happening. But this is how it was..." Whether imagined or not, the survival tale is entirely engrossing and memorable in Ida's detailed, matter-of-fact, smoothly translated telling. The illustrations are equally successful at showing the children as small figures against vast icy backgrounds and close-up and cozy in their hut. A thrilling polar adventure for armchair travelers.

Reviewer: Jennifer M. Brabander | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 On the ice, twelve-year-old Chinese American girl Maxine Chen is a fearless figure skater in pursuit of an Olympic dream. Off the ice, she grapples with fitting in at school and balancing her classwork with her athletic training. What's more, a bully subjects Maxine to bias-based harassment by using a racial slur, mocking her eyes, and promoting stereotypes of Asians as hyper-intelligent and perpetual foreigners. Maxine's self-esteem wavers even more when an old friendship fades and a new skilled skater emerges, leaving Maxine feeling isolated and eclipsed mere weeks before a crucial competition. Shen depicts a determined, spirited tween working toward overcoming insecurities and finding her voice. Asian American figure-skating heroes (e.g., Michelle Kwan, Kristi Yamaguchi, Nathan Chen) provide Maxine stories of belonging, countering her "othered" experience as a minority in her majority white hometown. When a fellow skater shows her techniques gleaned from Asian makeup experts on YouTube, Maxine learns to see her once-mocked eyes anew: "My eyes, my eyes, the lids I hate so much, their shriveled curves, the ugly slits. Now they are almost pretty." Set in the dazzling world of competitive figure skating, this is a heartwarming story of perseverance and self-acceptance.

Reviewer: Kristine Techavanich | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

(2) 4-6 The lives of two twelve-year-olds intersect for a brief time, with long-lasting positive effects. In suburban Boston, Izzy is struggling with her former best friend's defection to the mean girl crowd. In New Hampshire, Wren is preparing for an upcoming figure skating competition. They meet when Izzy's parents decide to make a little extra money by renting out their home for school vacation week (they'll camp out in the apartment over the garage) and Wren's family moves in so they can be near Wren's little sister as she undergoes a life-saving operation. The situation is awkward for both girls, made even more so as they attend the same theater camp, Wren plotting nonstop to find some ice to practice on. Tension builds and an enduring friendship forms as a desperate Wren goes skating on an unsafe pond and Izzy pulls her out of the freezing water (shades of Little Women, the play the theater-camp crew is rehearsing) and as the two girls join forces to upend a social trap the mean girls set for Wren. Blecher (Out of Place, rev. 7/19) creates two authentic tween characters in quiet, artistic Izzy and tough, determined Wren. The family situations are believably portrayed, and the prose, though restrained, nonetheless gets right to the heart of things. "It was an opening, a crack in the door. Izzy could kick the door open and ask her mom what she meant, or leave it closed. Izzy chose closed."

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(2) K-3 Twenty-one humorous poems, each with an accompanying whimsical illustration (an emperor penguin sitting on a throne, wistfully looking at birds in flight, for example), introduce readers to Florian's (Friends and Foes, rev. 9/18; Poem Depot, rev. 7/14, and many more) survey of the polar regions. Here readers will find four selections about the land, sixteen about the animal inhabitants, and one devoted to the threat of climate change to the regions. Wordplay abounds: Antarctica is "an ICE place to visit!" The polar bear "slum-bears when / the year is late / (but doesn't truly / hi-bear-nate)." "Blue whales eat krill by the millions: / Millions! Billions! Trillions! Krillions!" Informative facts about the regions and animals appear as mini notes below each poem, letting readers know, for example, that a blue whale, Earth's largest creature, is "as long as an Airbus A319 jet and can weigh up to 200 tons" and that seals can remain underwater for fifteen minutes. Florian's signature impressionistic illustrations in colored pencils and oil pastels add verve. Appended with a bibliography of adult and children’s books and internet resources.

Reviewer: Betty Carter | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2021

(2) 4-6 After winning the title of U.S. Juvenile Girls Champion in figure skating, twelve-year-old Ana-Marie Jin is ready to start a new season on the ice, competing at a higher level and commuting most days from San Francisco to a new rink in Oakland. It also means ­working with a new choreographer who is not only strict but requires all female skaters to wear skirts, even to practice. Ana starts to notice that "girly" things at which she had previously never blinked an eye, such as being referred to as "Miss Ana-Marie" and wearing a bedazzled costume for competitions, now make her cringe. With help from new friend Hayden, a transgender skate student she meets at the rink, Ana begins to see her gender in a new, fluid way: "Uncertainty feels like less of a burden and more of an opportunity." Ana's family (a single-parent Chinese American Jewish family) is not one frequently represented in middle-grade stories. For all of the protagonist's discomfort, the tone of the story remains hopeful as she works toward a new understanding of herself. She decides to continue using her given name and pronouns--a helpful reminder that there is no one way to identify as nonbinary. The personal connection of the author, a figure skater who identifies as nonbinary, to the story is evident within its pages in both the nuances of figure skating and Ana's interrogation of gender, and is explained in a thoughtful note at the end.

Reviewer: Hill Saxton | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

(3) YA In Halcyon Lake, Minnesota, Holland Delviss feels endless pressure to prove she's earned her spot as the only girl on the boys' varsity hockey team. Biren's feisty protagonist faces high-stakes challenges--including a make-or-break interview that will determine her small-town team's chance to play in a nationally televised "HockeyFest" game--and the more personal dilemma of whether to follow her no-dating-teammates rule or her heart.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger

(2) 4-6 Alice's storytelling dad is in a psychiatric hospital, having lost the ability to distinguish story from reality. Wild animals start appearing in town, seeking Alice to save the threatened Story Web she discovered when she was little. Blakemore skillfully uses shifting points of view in this complex and captivating tale. A realistic, honest consideration of the impact of mental illness commingles effectively with the fantastical elements.

Reviewer: Monica Edinger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2019

(4) 4-6 Ultimate Sports Road Trips series. Following a rah-rah introduction about the featured sport, each entertaining, if superficial, volume highlights seven or eight stadiums or sites that would make great road trips for super-fans. The four- or six-page sections provide basic place facts (including name, location, date opened, capacity), overviews of the teams' or participants' histories, and captioned photos. A trip map is appended. Reading list. Glos., ind. Review covers these Ultimate Sports Road Trips titles: Ultimate NHL Road Trip, Ultimate Soccer Road Trip, Ultimate NBA Road Trip, Ultimate MLB Road Trip, Ultimate NASCAR Road Trip, Ultimate College Basketball Road Trip, Ultimate NFL Road Trip, and Ultimate College Football Road Trip.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(2) 4-6 In her second adventure, Peasprout Chen is convinced there's a spy at Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword. Then the Empress Dowager announces Peasprout must herself be tried as a traitor. Luckily, Peasprout has good friends on her side--her brainy brother Cricket and talented martial artist twins Doi and Hisashi. The strikingly vivid setting is rife with coiling water-dragon threats, manga-esque school fads, and physics-defying skate flips.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2019

(2) K-3 Translated by Noga Applebaum. Illustrated by Yael Albert. In 1944, Francesco Tirelli (a real person) hides Jews from the Nazis--many in his closed-for-the-season Budapest gelateria. While in hiding, teenaged Peter (Meir's father-in-law) creates a menorah using a chocolate mold and cooking oil. The illustrations' rosy tones give way to shadowy blues, allowing the menorah's light to stand out. The gentle, smoothly translated text doesn't offer many details but should work well as a discussion starter. A hopeful tale of kindness, resourcefulness, and comfort in traditions.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2019

(3) 1-3 Ana & Andrew series. Illustrated by Sharon Sordo. In each of these short chapter books, siblings Ana and Andrew enjoy family and learn a bit about their history. With extended family, they visit the National Museum of African American History, celebrate Carnival, make snow cream, and visit their grandparents in Savannah, Georgia. The books feature breezy dialogue, text-supporting illustrations, and informative if not in-depth storytelling. Review covers these Ana & Andrew titles: Dancing at Carnival, A Day at the Museum, A Snowy Day, and Summer in Savannah

Reviewer: Maeve Visser Knoth

(4) K-3 Spot Sports series. Each slim easy reader opens with a photo glossary highlighting four sport-specific vocabulary words, accompanied by instructions: "Look for these words and pictures as you read." The following spreads are organized around these keywords, with bright stock photos and a smattering of facts. The volumes are light on substance but effectively reinforce the meaning of a small number of relevant terms.

Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.

(3) YA The product of a webcomic Kickstarter campaign, this sweet (and swear-filled) graphic novel introduces pie-baking former figure skater Eric Bittle and his bro-filled college hockey team, including handsome, tormented captain Jack. "Bitty" and Jack's tender romance unfolds alongside college shenanigans, vlog asides, and hockey triumphs, all charmingly illustrated in neat panels. Even as the book mines personal dramas, readers never question the characters' essential goodwill.

Reviewer: Dorrie Karlin

(3) K-3 Pebble Plus: Great Asian Americans series. Using short, simple sentences and engaging photos, this early-reader biography introduces the Chinese American figure skater. Key moments in Kwan's professional life are covered briefly and chronologically, accompanied by a cumulative timeline. Ample white space around the text and large pictures make for an attractive and supportive layout for new readers. This series fills a gap for children's biographies about Asian Americans. Reading list. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Amy Seto Forrester

(3) PS Illustrated by Bob Kolar. "I'm a little ice cream truck, / my driver's name is Lou. / Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling, / we're headed to the zoo." Cuyler's fourth rhyming ode to a little truck (following The Little Fire Truck) has its predecessors' same snap and vim, plus a sweet treat at its center. A zoo, park, and neighborhood party--Kolar's super-chunky, eye-popping art turns them all into visual candy.

Reviewer: Nell Beram