(2) 4-6 When contemporary twelve-year-olds Henry, Frances, and Lukas dig up an old radio in one of their backyards, they find themselves speaking with children of the same age, and at the same location, in 1944. Alice, Lawrence, and Artie do not know the outcome of World War II, and they certainly do not understand the consequences of interfering with a timeline. Soon enough, small, seemingly heroic actions, such as stopping a fire at a beloved candy shop, start to mess with history in very serious ways. The U.S., in 2023, changes overnight to a nightmarish new reality in which the Nazis won WWII and now control the country, renamed Westfallen. The kids from the present and the past must team up to undo the colossal damage that has been done, stopping a spy and thus righting their mistakes, before Westfallen becomes a permanent reality. But that escapade is only the beginning of an adventure that will challenge readers to consider the past, the future, and the nature of history itself. Fascinating time-travel theories collide with historical fiction to set the scene for a story that is suspenseful, complex, and at times humorous. Rapid shifts between past and present might be confusing at first, but as the plot picks up, the details coalesce to form one seamless narrative. The cliffhanger ending will leave readers eager for the next installment in a projected series.

Reviewer: Sarah Berman | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(1) K-3 Illustrated by Joaquin Camp. In this vibrant and absurdist Argentinian import, young Elisa cries so loudly that her narrator sibling says she sounds "like a fire truck instead of a baby," and all the neighbors in their apartment building are disrupted. As her wails grow throughout the night, the adults around her offer increasingly creative attempts at soothing (piggyback rides, flowers, stories, etc.) until the boundaries between reality and fantasy blur into whimsical chaos: e.g., a storybook character cries with her; Elisa is featured on a jumbo screen in a bustling city "on the other side of the planet." When her grandmother moves Elisa's legs "as if she were riding a bicycle in the air," the baby finally gets relief; her humongous fart blasts the apartment complex up like a rocketship and then back to Earth, where it lands upside-down. Relieved, Elisa (and everyone else) finally gets some sleep. The narrator remains unseen until the story's final pages, where they are depicted with the same bizarre playfulness, shown along with the rest of the cast dozing atop frozen desserts. The rich, humorous text is full of similes, and the illustrations appear to be rendered with markers, offering a layered and textured style. Blue nighttime hues contrast with brighter colors, centering action while exaggerated forms deepen the fantastical elements. Dazzling and dreamy.

Reviewer: Elisa Gall | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) 4-6 Chung and Majoka offer a wordless graphic novel for younger readers that presents dystopian science fiction through a gentle, nearly amicable viewpoint. After a brief sepia-tone introduction showcases a classroom of students assembling a time capsule (complete with a retro viewfinder), readers are presented with a time jump by way of a futuristic spacecraft soaring across a cosmic double-page spread of swirling purples and blues. Inside the craft is a young astronaut traveling from planet to planet in search of geological specimens. Lonely, the adventurer sets coordinates for home; however, a detour leads to a very Earth-like planet. There the explorer finds abandoned buildings, crumbling infrastructure, and an abundance of luminescent, mushroom-like growths. Only after the protagonist discovers the aforementioned viewfinder can the history of the planet be puzzled together through photo-flashbacks -- and the story culminates in a near-encounter with the viewfinder's original owner. Drawn by Chung and digitally painted by Majoka, the cinematic cartooning has a polished, animated aesthetic composed of endlessly intriguing and imaginative scenes of an abandoned planet, heightened by moments of mild action and skillful lightning effects. A luminous, thought-provoking adventure.

Reviewer: Patrick Gall | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) 4-6 Henry Lightfoot has always been the "earthworm" to her father's "social butterfly," more interested in making art at home than joining him on far-reaching adventures. But after he wanders out of Quinvandel Forest on her twelfth birthday -- the same forest into which he'd disappeared exactly one year earlier -- she ventures into the woods to determine where he had been and prove her bravery. Henry quickly finds herself in a Neverland-like realm referred to as simply "This Place" by its inhabitants, who are all lost beings trying to find their way back. Cole revels in developing the delightfully arbitrary rules of This Place (e.g., no one needs food to survive, and a native berry makes human-animal communication possible). Meanwhile, equally strange yet increasingly sinister occurrences are indicative of a new mysterious instability to which Henry, along with fellow lost children Wolfson and Ndidi, must discover a solution. "Home is the best North Star," writes Henry's father, a man whose initial charm Cole gradually complicates, causing Henry to acknowledge his more callous traits. Home may be no paradise for Henry, Wolfson, or Ndidi, but Cole contends that only through embracing where they are from -- and who they resolve to become -- will they find guidance, safety, and healing from literal and figurative loss.

Reviewer: Ed Spicer | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) YA Kincade Webster, a Black star wide receiver for the mostly white Neeson Preparatory Academy in Virginia, has ambitions of attending The Ohio State University and going on to the NFL. He puts up with racism at his school (and online) and tries to keep his head in the game. But when he takes the bus home one day, a white woman accuses him of grabbing her, and fellow passengers take her side, causing Cade to make a quick exit. Ducking into a pawn shop (where, unbeknownst to Cade, otherworldly forces are at work), he says to the shopkeeper, "I wish everyone would stop acting so scared around me." This wish sends Cade on an unwanted and terrifying journey on the Ruin Road between life and death and an association with his neighborhood's evil slumlord Arvin Skinner, who long ago made a bargain with the Night Merchant: years would be added to Skinner's life in return for Skinner's causing pain and suffering to others (including murder). Skinner's influence is now everywhere in Cade's life, endangering him, his friends, his neighborhood, and Neeson Prep. Giles's horror thriller is expertly crafted and indeed truly horrifying, weaving many threads into this tapestry of evil: Cade's father's lung cancer; violence by the local gang; bomb threats called in to his school; issues of racism, wealth and privilege, and family. Pair this with Giles's The Getaway (rev. 11/22) for a double-header of evil and mayhem.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(2) 4-6 At twelve years old, Rosie is a violin prodigy who can hear whole works of music in her head and has played Carnegie Hall twice. She also has synesthesia and can see music in colors, textures, temperature, and taste, but she keeps it to herself, because her mother already finds her prodigy brain "weird" and "dangerous." Their relationship is strained, as Mom is overly involved in managing Rosie's musical career. Tired of being known as "the girl with the violin," Rosie decides to quit playing in order to find herself and spends the summer at her grandparents' home in Connecticut, where her grandmother is dying. Wandering the property, she enters an abandoned shed, where she discovers a girl who turns out to be her mother when she was Rosie's age. Through repeated encounters, Rosie learns more about her family's history, including her great-grandparents' experience in Auschwitz and in a displaced persons camp after WWII. Suddenly, her mother's obsession with the violin is put into a larger family context that intersects with a hidden history of musical talent, neurodivergence, and a Jewish identity that was kept secret. An emotionally moving story about the ways that generational trauma can affect parent-child relationships and how the past persists into the present.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Emily Gravett. When Summer, a detached and frustrated fourth grader, shouts at her foster father, "You're not my dad," a sinkhole opens in the living-room floor, and everything starts to get out of hand. Beneath the floor, in a huge cavern, Summer discovers a dragon, a sword in a stone, and a potential treasure. She eventually finds herself in possession of the treasure: a bottle with a witch inside and a "DO NOT OPEN" label. This warning goes unheeded, and once released, the witch promises to grant Summer three wishes. Still struggling to establish her place in school and with her foster family, Summer has plenty of big wishes ready to go, but unfortunately, they come at a cost. Interjected throughout the dramatic story are comic breaks provided by the witch's smug cat, Tobias. Gravett's moody, fantastical art punctuates the chapters with extra personality, deftly building tension or slowing it down at key plot points. With the support of well-drawn secondary characters, including true friend Aishwarya and librarian Mrs. Brathwaite (who is well-versed in the tricky history of witches and the power of words), Summer stands up to the trouble she has created for herself and for those she cares about. Summer (unwittingly) marches new fantasy readers through a number of tropes that will introduce them to the genre as she discovers that many wishes can be fulfilled without the aid of magic.

Reviewer: Julie Roach | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) YA The Buddhist belief that the soul goes through "a state between life and rebirth" for forty-nine days before crossing over provides the intriguing structure for Lee's debut graphic novel. The story straddles the worlds of the living and the dead, beginning with a Korean American girl named Kit awakening by a shore. She treks along the deserted beach toward an unknown destination, only to wake the next day in the same spot where she'd started. Repeated excursions lead to a seeming demise as she slips off a boulder or gets swept away by a powerful tide. As the scenes progress, they begin to include flashbacks, with memories of the communal activity of preparing kimchi providing glimpses of the ties of family. A parallel plot shows Kit's family in the present day coping with their grief. Each story line has its own soft palette (grays for Kit's wandering, muted orange for the memories, reddish brown for Kit's family now), with wordless panels appearing frequently and showcasing the bold, dark line drawings. Juxtaposed disparate shots challenge readers to infer the narrative continuity and meaning in between panels. The forty-nine rapidly paced chapters unpack a tale of grief, loss, love, and healing through a metaphysical journey of redemption and self-discovery. An author's note touches on the broad spectrum of Buddhist traditions regarding death.

Reviewer: Jerry Dear | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) YA Finn and Ezra, both thirteen, are destined to relive their bar mitzvah weekends, from Friday through Sunday afternoon, countless times. While their overlapping plights initially seem coincidental, as they progress through more and more inescapable loops, their stories become increasingly intertwined. On the surface, the boys are very different from each other, but through their trials trying to get to Monday, they discover commonalities and universal truths. Ezra's life within an insular Orthodox community is presented in contrast to Finn's more worldly outlook, and both boys grapple with judgment and occasionally with jealousy of each other. Many aspects of traditional Jewish life and culture are explained through the lens of Finn's encountering them for the first time, with a lightly informative rather than preachy approach. Themes of trust, friendship, family, and growing up are thoughtfully interspersed with madcap adventures involving physicists, bank heists, and elaborate lies. Ethical dilemmas within a fantastical premise nonetheless raise real questions about how adolescents can decide what kind of people they want to be. An unexpectedly poignant resolution offers the main characters a chance to prove that they made the most of their time, while not-so-subtly encouraging readers to do the same.

Reviewer: Miriam Steinberg-Egeth | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) 4-6 Furious at her father's plans to move them to the Northland away from her home in Tasmania (sea-level rise is making the island uninhabitable), Nyx scrawls an angry missive and shoves it into a knothole in her favorite pine tree, the only tree still alive in her battered neighborhood. The note reaches Bea, a lonely "weirdo" bullied at school, who is also about to be involuntarily moved away from Tasmania. The two begin a correspondence, but when several attempts to meet go awry, they discover an unbelievable truth: Nyx lives seventy years in Bea's future. Now, with Nyx's unwanted but necessary escape route from wildfires, floods, and critical food shortages cut off, Bea attempts to overcome her own social alienation and rally her school to create a shelter and cache of food in time to save Nyx in the future. The time-slip reveal is intriguingly teased out with hints and incongruencies that readers will eagerly pick up on, and both Nyx's bleak life and Bea's specifically Tasmanian leafy suburb are convincingly drawn. And although (as with most time-travel plots) one must willingly overlook a few plot holes, and Bea's transformation from bullied weirdo to climate change activist is rather rapid and wrinkle-free, the climactic scenes should motivate eco-minded readers to plant their own gifts for a hopefully less dystopic future.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA Illustrated by Rovina Cai. Cryptids and Fae abound in the slightly off-kilter version of 1970s Texas that serves as the setting for this prequel to Elatsoe (rev. 9/20). Seventeen-year-old Shane and her mother, Lorenza, work with their bloodhounds (and one ghost hound) to track lost people. But when the search for missing brother and sister Bobby and Donnie results in Lorenza vanishing as well, Shane rushes to the site of the rogue "mimic" fairy ring that apparently took her mother, only to have a stray thought whisk her to Donnie's location. With Lorenza and Bobby still missing, Shane sets out to research the mimic. Her investigation raises new questions: if Bobby had wished to be reunited with his late parents, could the mimic have sent him Below, where the dead reside? Could Lorenza have followed him there? Shane's ability to call animals from Below, as well as folk wisdom from her Lipan Apache ancestry, guide her on her journey to rescue them, which is interwoven with flashbacks to Shane's own tragic family history. This inventive, well-constructed fantasy adventure with grayscale chapter-opening illustrations can be read independently of the first book but will likely send readers scurrying to the shelves to read (or re-read) that one next.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) YA Fourteen-year-old Harriet is convinced she's responsible for her older brother Tunde's tragic death and wishes more than anything that she could take back the cruel words she spoke to him that fateful morning. Others' efforts to surround Harriet with community (her mother transfers her to her cousin Nikka's school) and to look out for her (Tunde's friend Luke promised to) prove less than helpful. Harriet's solace is swimming, but that small joy is shattered when she begins to see her brother's face in the pool and is pulled underwater by an unknown force. New classmate Alisia seems to be an ally, but there's something strange about her. In an attempt to discover the truth, Nikka and Luke join Harriet in an underground journey into a fantasy world. As the line between what's real and what isn't begins to blur in Harriet's mind, she dreams of a new world for herself -- one where she is forgiven. In this moving work, Rhuday-Perkovich has created characters whose internal struggles are palpable and an intriguing narrative with both tension and introspection that delves into themes of guilt, redemption, and the possibility of second chances.

Reviewer: Eboni Njoku | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) YA Leopold Berry lives in Los Angeles in a world like our own, but since his mother's death when he was twelve, he has experienced dissociative episodes in which he sees unbelievable things, such as a winged parking attendant or a rain cloud chasing a fruit vendor. He thinks of these moments as "Seeing into Sunder" after the short-lived TV show Max's Adventures in Sunderworld, on whose VHS tapes he fixates. Now seventeen, Leopold is adrift, a constant disappointment to his emotionally abusive father, until a raccoon hands him a token for a decommissioned Angels Flight Railway tram that takes him and his best friend to the not-so-imaginary land of Sunder Hill. There Leopold leaps at the chance to prove he's a channeler, the "most powerful magical being on the planet," but things go horribly, publicly awry. Just when everything seems lost, a note from Leopold's late mother sends him on a treasure hunt through his childhood memories, leading to a discovery that changes everything. Fast-paced and inventive, this gateway fantasy has the grubby, off-kilter realism of a Chuck E. Cheese and a satirical nod to reality TV, with first-rate characters that will hook and charm readers. The treasure hunt celebrates L.A. landmarks, and constant new developments keep readers on the edges of their seats, hoping for Leopold's vindication -- and waiting for the next episode in this projected new series.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA Illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie. When Christopher finds a wounded baby griffin in a Scottish lake, his grandfather reveals that he is (and Christopher will be, when he comes of age) a guardian of the "waybetween" to an archipelago where the creatures of myth still live. Then Mal, a citizen of the Archipelago and the target of a deranged murderer, arrives in Christopher's world to reclaim her griffin, and Christopher chooses to go back to the Archipelago with her to protect her. There they chance upon Fidens Nighthand and the crew of the Neverfear. Nighthand is a Berserker sworn to protect the Immortal, the only being who can tend the source of the ancient magic upon which all creatures of myth depend. But a century ago the Immortal took a potion to forget the pain of existence, and every Immortal incarnated since then doesn't know their own fate. Suggestions that Mal is more than she appears to be grow into a plot of resolute earnestness, where the characters serve a noble purpose that binds them into a closely knit ensemble. Rundell successfully pulls off a powerful drama filled with self-sacrifice and great-heartedness and achieves full reader buy-in. Epic and interpersonal elements balance each other out, and the fresh take on fantastical creatures, in such sure and capable hands (with Mackenzie's black-and white illustrations interspersed), is entrancing and refreshing.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) 4-6 Lola, ten, lives in Mexico City in a house built around the Tree. The Tree is full of life, and spirit-like beings called chaneques protect it. One day, Lola notices gray splotches on the Tree and in the garden. The spots spread to Lola's brother Alex, covering him in gray patches and making him ill. With the help of the chaneques, Lola sets out to save the Tree and Alex. Through a panel in her closet, she enters the kingdom of Floresta, now afflicted with the Stillness, where "the cycle of life and death simply stops." Lola needs to find the newly appointed young queen, who is grieving the recent death of her mother, and persuade her to reverse the Stillness -- to convince her that "change is everything." In the process, Lola discovers something unexpected about herself. Valenti (Lotería, rev. 11/21) skillfully incorporates magical realism into this captivating tale, taking the reader on a memorable journey through a different world. She addresses the weighty topic of death in a hopeful manner, encouraging readers to view death as a new phase, a transformation, rather than an end. The strong bonds between siblings are central to this heartwarming story, and love perseveres. Occasional black-and-white illustrations contribute to the mystical atmosphere (some final art unseen). An appended author's note and a glossary enrich the material.

Reviewer: Yesica Hurd | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Junyi Wu. Clay and his family are suffering the accumulated ­tensions of a "global sickness" shutdown. Online school, isolation from friends, financial worries, too much togetherness--Clay needs escape, and he gets it via a charming elf-hound who has wandered up from the fairy Kingdom Under the Mountain. The dog also gives Clay access to a new friend, Amos, an owl-headed boy who inhabits a different parallel world that resembles a Puritan village. Once these worlds start to leak into one another, chaos is loosed upon Clay and his family. The tone is largely cartoonish, as set pieces of hilarious slapstick involve, for example, an out-of-control wool sweater that reverse-evolves into its original sheep. It's a veritable plum pudding of energetic action and witty delights, but a ­foundation of traditional folklore elements--standing stones, half-buried sleeping giants, fairy mischief, portals to the underworld, the Wild Hunt, and predatory wyrms--creates an underlying hint of genuine menace. One of the guests at the big Midsummer's Eve supernatural shindig is Death ("When he calls, we must go. But knowing that the night may be cut short is what makes it so sweet"). Balancing this chill is the devoted relationship between Clay and his dog companion, a theme that stands sturdily in the middle of the mayhem. Black-and-white full-page pencil illustrations contribute to both coziness and eeriness.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2023

(2) YA In 2019, the night before she plans to flee Mexico for the U.S. seeking safety and her father, Sitlali discovers a conch in ocean waves. Five centuries earlier, in 1521, Calizto, who is under threat from Spanish invaders in the Aztec Empire, finds the same sacred conch, associated with the goddess of the moon. Magically connected, at first through thoughts and then with physical senses increasing with the moon's waxing, the two teens separated by time form a friendship that blossoms into a smoldering, centuries-defying romance. The fantastical elements of the conch and Sitlali's ability to see spirits enhance the deeply human experiences of love and perseverance through strife but do not alleviate the historical and present-day horrors wrought on the teens by colonialism and its effects, via conquistadors and ICE. The novel's in-depth battle scenes, war strategizing, and world-building will appeal to fans of fantasy and action (though other readers may find them too numerous). Modern-day teens will recognize the trials in Sitlali's life as she tries to battle systemic injustice and to forge a relationship with the father who abandoned her years earlier. Acts of violation and brutality are excruciatingly captured, but so are scenes of tenderness and transcendence. By turns heartfelt and heart-pounding, this story will grip readers to the final pages. Front matter includes a glossary of Nahuatl terms and information on gods and legendary and historical figures.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) 4-6 Secrets of the Sky series. Fourth-grade fraternal twins Kinjal and Kiya couldn't be more different. Kiya, "Lady Logic," is all facts, while Kinjal believes magic is real and is often accused of being a "chaos monster" who gets into trouble. When their dog is taken from the backyard by a swirling gray cloud, they set out to find him and are transported to another dimension in the multiverse called the Sky Kingdom, which is populated by magical creatures from Bengali folklore. The twins find assistance from several pakkhiraj (winged horses), who give them a larger mission of saving endangered bees. Without the bees' honey, the pakkhiraj and other mythical beings will die. In this fast-paced adventure, the twins learn that their immigrant parents are magical beings from another world who were exiled from their homeland. Lighthearted in tone, full of sibling banter, and composed of short, easy-to-digest chapters with interspersed grayscale illustrations, this book gives readers much food for thought about the role of myth in the everyday and the importance of conservation. In the afterword, the author posits that "string/multiverse theory...feels in keeping with the immigrant experience" of feeling out of place and "not really knowing where you come from." DasGupta's (The Chaos Curse, rev. 5/20, and sequels) thoughtful first installment of a new Kingdom Beyond–set multiverse series will leave readers eager for what comes next.

Reviewer: Julie Hakim Azzam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) YA When Sora, a Japanese-Caucasian (hafu) teenager, was eleven, a Fukushima-esque earthquake -- known in Japanese folklore as a catfish rolling beneath the islands -- fractured the land into zones where time slips faster or slower than it normally would. That day, Sora lost her mother and ojiichan (grandfather). Now, she sees her father lose his memory as he enters these time-twisted areas to conduct research. Sora feels aimless and alone. She recently graduated from high school and her close male friend and love interest is away at university. While conducting illegal tours of the zones, she meets researchers like her father (one of whom, Maya, might also become a love interest), who help Sora discover her ability to accurately assess the passage of time just by observing her world. If only understanding the people around her were as easy. With her past a traumatic blur, her present a constant source of stress with her father now missing, and her future disappointingly uncertain, Sora must conduct her own research and discover how she wants her time to unfurl. Told in clear yet pensive prose, Sora's story unfolds in pieces that flit forward and back in a disorienting and ambitious yet compelling narrative. Occasional visual motifs, appearing as chapter openers, feature seasonal elements -- waves, cherry blossoms, stones, leaves -- to complement the story's unstoppable passage of time.

Reviewer: J. Elizabeth Mills | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(1) 4-6 Twelve-year-old July Chen has lived a lonely life. Her classmates and teacher constantly forget her ("Are you a new student?"), and her father is too tired and preoccupied to pay much attention to her. Ghosts, however, can see her, and unlike most people, she is able to see and communicate with them. July finds an unexpected friend in William Xiao, a wandering soul of a boy who has already survived several near-death experiences. On the night of the Hungry Ghost Festival, the two are chased by a death god and several zombie-like ghosts; they travel to the Underworld to find a way to protect themselves permanently. This graphic novel adventure effectively highlights the importance of friendship, family love, and remembering lost loved ones. Lai weaves many aspects of Chinese folk religion and Taoism into the plot while also creating colorful, memorable characters in both the living and spectral worlds (monstrous and friendly spirits who look like animals; blob-like aliens). She also infuses plenty of humor into a narrative that deals with mortality and the supernatural. An entertaining, engaging read with echoes of Miyazaki's film Spirited Away.

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2023