(1) 4-6 Fong's deeply moving graphic novel opens with an intriguing premise: Pia Xing, a reserved and lonely middle schooler, says goodbye to her father and embarks on a multi-day bus tour through the desert with a bunch of strangers. Their destination is the subterranean bioluminescent Cessarine Lake, billed as having mystical, wish-granting powers. During stops at diners and kitschy roadside attractions, Pia gets to know her fellow passengers, all of whom have their own reasons for making the journey. Pia isn't ready to share hers -- not even with new friend Sam, who's grudgingly accompanying her tour-guide mom. Daily phone calls home to her father and flashbacks from the previous year gradually reveal what led to this solo trip, including the tragedy that left Pia and both her parents mired in grief. In varied panel and full-page illustrations, Fong's spare cartoon style is well suited to the setting and the main character's bleak emotional landscape. The trip offers moments of peace and lightheartedness: "I'm actually having a lot of fun! It kind of feels like being part of a big family." The story begins to take on elements of magical realism the closer the group gets to the lake, making the impossible begin to seem possible. Pia's miracle looks different from what she set out looking for, but the magic is transformative all the same. With a sympathetic protagonist navigating unimaginable pain, fully realized and engaging secondary characters, and a skillfully crafted narrative, this is a remarkable debut.

Reviewer: Kitty Flynn | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) PS Illustrated by Erin Stead. Big Bear and Little Bear enjoy a summer idyll. It starts with a joyous declaration from Big Bear -- "I'm just in the mood for fishing" -- that [cf2just encapsulates a child's immersive enthusiasm. The two bears get dressed, find their poles, bake blueberry scones (of course; as Big Bear observes, "Fishermen need nice, warm blueberry scones"), and pack a storybook. These preparations traverse several beautifully orchestrated page-turns, each new necessity building listeners' anticipation. Big Bear's warm confidence coaxes Little Bear past some apprehension at the dock; in the boat at last, they "dip their poles" and wait, nibbling scones and reading stories until a fish finally appears, then swims away, leaving Big Bear and Little Bear to retreat contentedly to their hammock. Stead's delicate pencil and watercolor paintings depict beguiling details -- Big Bear's bunny slippers, the honeybees on the wallpaper, the echinacea in bloom -- without ever distracting from the total delight these bears have in each other. In their gently hairy bulk and the tender tilts of their heads, they recall Sendak's Little Bear and his mother. The text is equally gentle in its phrasing. Dialogue is set in italics rather than enclosed in quotation marks; pre-readers may not notice, but the unusual typographical choice will draw the attention of adults and older children to the warm, brown letters and the creamy negative space. It's hard to imagine a nicer day than this.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Matthew Cordell. A mouse with nautical aspirations realizes her dream. Wee Mabel gazes with longing at the cunning model ship fashioned by the man who lives in the lakeside cabin where she makes her home. It is the man's "prized possession," the product of many months of painstaking labor; he is so possessive that he won't even let the boy who lives with him touch it. Then one blustery night the cabin door is blown open and Mabel gets her chance. Using a mouse-sized block and tackle and some tiny logs as rollers, she lowers the boat and pushes it into the water to sail it all night long. When the man panics at the ship's loss but then sees it under sail with Mabel at the helm, man, boy, and mouse are united in awe and glee. Jonker taps into many children's delight in miniatures; they will thrill along with Mabel at her adventure. Cordell's scratchy ink and wash illustrations have a faded look, their sepias and pale blues giving the tale an old-timey feel that a gooseneck desk lamp only slightly diminishes. Mabel and the boy each wear a knitted watch cap, hers a pale red and his blue; when he lifts her in his hand at the end of the story, they smile at each other, fast friends. The illustrations mix full-bleed spreads with vignettes; the latter are framed in knotted rope. Sweet wish fulfillment.

Reviewer: Vicky Smith | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Stephanie Graegin. A lesson in mindfulness is couched in a cozy story about a much-anticipated visit with extended family. At first, the child protagonist struggles with a seemingly interminable "today": "Today stretches long...when you're counting weeks to summer, counting days to your trip, counting hours until you'll see Pop-pop and your cousins again." With these lines, Snyder cleverly initiates a second-person narration to align readers with the protagonist. Then, when the child's parents finally stop their "yak-yak-yak[ing] with the neighbors," the family drives to a picturesque lake house, where Pop-pop, cousins, and other relatives await. Graegin's rendering of the peaceful, idyllic setting and her matter-of-fact depiction of an affectionate, multiracial family are warm and welcoming. Now time races by as the child frolics in the lake with cousins and later watches fireflies dot the yard, visually echoed by a string of fairy lights. A wasp sting is the only trouble spot to mar this happy, fleeting day, but grownups and sympathetic cousins ease the child's pain. Fireworks cap off "the today you've been waiting for," and then, staving off sorrow at book's end, closing text reminds the child and readers alike that our favorite days can continue as "a memory you can visit again and again." Thoughtful back matter offers tips for "appreciating the here and now" and using positive memories to ease anxiety and worries.

Reviewer: Megan Dowd Lambert | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(1) 4-6 Open-water marathon swimming (any continuous swim over ten kilometers) is not for the faint of heart and is typically done with meticulous planning, careful consideration for the weather and water conditions, and a skilled kayaker and other safety supports in place. But when her mother abruptly leaves and doesn't come back, Tully impulsively decides to swim the 12.1-mile Lake Tahoe Marathon, a.k.a. "the Godfather swim." At twelve, she will be the youngest person to complete the swim, and she is doing so in risky weather conditions, with an inexperienced kayaker, and without her father's knowledge. Tully's mom, an endurance athlete, was her daughter's swim coach whose obsessive exercise kept her depression at bay, and Tully believes that "this swim [is] going to bring my mother back." Written in verse, including occasional concrete poems, the book is organized in chapters by the hours into the swim (Hour One, Hour Two); as Tully gets further along, there is a peeling-of-the-onion effect, where with each passing hour more is revealed about her mother's mental health and the lies Tully told herself to mask more painful truths. This touching and deeply affecting novel takes on difficult topics such as maternal abandonment and codependency and gives readers a peek into the feelings and thoughts that underpin childhood trauma.

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

(2) 4-6 Because her mother is in the late stages of a high-risk pregnancy, Ava has been sent to stay with her grandparents at their cabin on a lake. In her state of worry, Ava persuades herself that the fates of her mother and her about-to-be-born twin brothers depend on various secret bargains that she makes and on rituals she performs, including the successful rearing of two baby robins. An initially annoying neighbor kid provides ballast to her adventures. Barillaro convincingly captures the kind of magical thinking that results from deep distress and lodges his story firmly in an eleven-year-old's consciousness. For example, Ava saves a woodpecker's feather as a talisman: "Maybe keeping it made her weird, but maybe she had always been weird and didn't know it until right then." The writing is clear, unpretentious, and particularly rich in details about boating, fashioning homemade noodles, digging for worms, performing life-saving techniques during a water emergency, how to cope with a power outage, and confusion about whether administering CPR counts as kissing (i.e., heroic or ick?). Delicate watercolor decorations on each page enhance the gentle, slightly otherworldly feel of the text. A fine, original example of the "summer at the cottage" middle-grade novel trope.

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

(2) 4-6 It's an unhappy summer in the town of Sycamore Lake, where the lake itself, which the town depends on for tourism, has been drained to prevent the dam from collapsing. Lolo, having failed a state test, is stuck in summer school with "mean" Mrs. Cryer. She's also worrying about her mother's precarious pregnancy and, along with the rest of her family and especially her grandmother, grieving the recent loss of her grandfather. There's one problem Lolo believes she can solve: Hank, her grandfather's foster dog, is now in a new placement across the lake for reasons she thinks are her fault, so she sets out to retrieve him. The resulting adventure--told mostly in Lolo's affecting first-person narration, with interspersed journal entries from the classmate who is Hank's new owner--involves a fair amount of humor (a skunk plays a significant role). But the emotional core of the novel lies in the acknowledgment that life isn't perfect, and the reassurance that Lolo doesn't have to be, either. Bittersweet and heartwarming.

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 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) K-3 Illustrated by Abigail Halpin. Faye and her father arrive at a cabin by a lake. Her first-person narration addresses someone who's not there: "Your chair is empty...The quilt you made smells like you." Faye doesn't identify her mother, but it's clear that's who she's missing. "Dad does everything different." Longing to feel close to her mom, Faye takes out Faye & Mama's Mouseboat just as thunder rumbles in the distance. As the storm begins in earnest, Faye feels her mother all around her. "The clouds sweep in fast and bring me so much more of you." After the storm passes, Faye returns to shore, where her father is waiting for her. Halpin's digital, watercolor, and colored-pencil illustrations create a dreamlike atmosphere that perfectly captures the story's mood. Dark blues and grays dominate the scenes when depicting sadness; warm reds telegraph comfort and safety. A good book to help children cope with loss and to help them discover fresh starts even during the most challenging times.

Reviewer: Weileen Wang | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2023

(2) 4-6 Swallowtail Legacy series. Lark Heron-Finch is back at her family's house on Lake Erie's Swallowtail Island for the first time since her mother's death. With her younger sister, stepfather, and three stepbrothers also there, the limits of Lark's temper are tested on a regular basis. She finds a purpose for the summer by becoming a research assistant to family friend Nadine, who is working on a book about the island's history. Nadine introduces Lark to Dinah, a ninety-three-year-old woman who is one of the island's oldest residents, and to the story of Nadine's grandfather's death, decades earlier, in a boat wreck that might not have been an accident after all. As Lark dives into investigating the mystery, her impulsiveness continues to present problems, but it also allows her to save the day. While some of the mystery's twists may not be that surprising, the overall execution is a success. The evolution of Lark's relationship with her stepfather and siblings is well done, giving the book's fully realized secondary characters a chance to develop along with the protagonist. Even Lark's soccer-field nemesis turns out to be more complex than the classic bully he'd seemed at first. The book concludes with revelations about another island-related mystery, leaving readers eager for the next installment.

Reviewer: Sarah Rettger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(1) K-3 This wordless picture book about a city child visiting the country pays tribute to the wonders of the natural world. The cinematic illustrations begin on the front endpapers with an overhead view of a busy city. After the title page, we see a child and a dog playing on the floor of a cozy bedroom while the adults prepare for a trip. Zooming out once again, we follow the family's car as it travels out of the city and into the countryside, where the family is welcomed to a small cottage by an older couple. There the adventure truly begins, as the child explores a forest path, encounters giant ferns, swims to the bottom of a clear pond to greet fish among the kelp, sunbathes on a dock, and finally returns to the cottage to eat dinner and gaze at the stars. The illustrations were "entirely drawn and painted using writing ink and slow-dry blending medium," resulting in a dreamy gray, white, and blue palette that complements the tranquil tone. The lack of text adds to the sense of reverence; a brief author's note explains the inspiration for the story. Vivid facial expressions and body language tell the viewer all we need to know about the child's inner life, while the beauty of the landscape speaks for itself.

Reviewer: K Rachael Stein | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) YA Two teens--both brown, trans, and neurodivergent--reunite years after a chance meeting and find themselves bound together by their most personal experiences and by the magic of a local lake. Bastián copes with ADHD and the next step of their gender transition by creating alebrijes--brightly painted, fantastical, papier-mâché creatures--and sending them into the lake. Lore, who is dyslexic and was bullied at their old school, moved to town after a devastating fight. As the lake's magic breaks its usual boundaries, seeping into Bastián's and Lore's lives on dry land, they realize that it is responding to the painful emotions they've released into the water (Bastián via alebrijes, Lore through cans of paint) and that they can't reject their own pain or imperfections. The book is committed to its characters' gender, racial, and neurodivergent identities; while this focus can feel overworked at points, the intimacy and seriousness with which it addresses neurodivergence in particular is welcome. McLemore (The Mirror Season, rev. 5/21) successfully binds the novel's fantasy elements to the inner lives of their characters, strengthening the narrative effects of both the mundane and the magical. Readers with identities in common with the protagonists will find relief and recognition in this impassioned book, and teens in general should feel welcomed by its warmly open storytelling.

Reviewer: Anne St. John | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2022

(2) 4-6 In this vivid graphic novel, adventurous thirteen-year-old Iris believes that she has explored every last corner of her small hometown with her best friend, the trepidatious Sam. She acutely feels Bugden's limitations and how they hinder her boundless ambitions. After a fight with her mom, Iris camps out at the river, her place of solace and possibility. Sam finds her in the morning, peering down at the strangely dried-up riverbed. Iris ropes Sam into exploring the riverbed, which soon leads them to the dripping remnants of a once-submerged town. The more Iris investigates, the more she realizes how cautious (and complacent) Sam has become, and this frustration culminates in an outburst that separates the two friends just as the first traces of true danger appear. A skilled animation artist, Pamment balances his plentiful and cinematic sequential storytelling with bright, personality-building dialogue to create a cohesive and immersive narrative in both art and text. Detailed visual motifs and many potent sound effects handily extend the narrative beyond the page and activate readers' senses. Hand this mesmerizing tale about hidden histories and friendship growth spurts to cautious and intrepid young explorers alike.

Reviewer: Niki Marion | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

(2) 4-6 After their mother disappears, to distract from their worry, Max and his sister Rosie are sent with their grandmother, Mozelle, to help close up her lake cabin, a place where their mom spent her childhood summers. Without electricity, they go to bed early and experience the phenomenon of "second sleep," where people spend some time awake in the middle of the night (Max goes outside and stargazes) before falling back asleep. According to Mozelle, the children's mother said she "dreamed more vividly during her second sleep, and that her dreams were sweeter." Their first night there, Max learns what she means: thinking he's awake, he meets Lila, a girl from a neighboring cabin who takes him to the lake, where a group of kids hang out unsupervised. Some of the older ones are teaching Rosie to play chess, and he sees how it boosts her confidence. On waking, he realizes it was a dream--and Rosie's had the same one. Over the week the siblings spend at the cabin, the kids in the dream community (which doesn't exist synchronously in real life) assist Max in sorting out his symptoms of anxiety and inspire his art. They even help him figure out why his mom has gone missing. This gentle but uplifting tale is very much an internal journey, with calmness and creativity at heart; but enough mystery is sprinkled throughout (who are the lake kids? where is Max and Rosie's mother?) that the pace never stagnates.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2022

(2) 4-6 This quickly paced gothic tale takes us to England's Lake District, 1899. Twelve-year-old Lady Agatha Asquith's elderly father has just died, and the new Earl of Gosswater, her sleazy cousin Clarence, summarily boots Aggie from her home. Even more outrageously, Aggie is told that the old earl wasn't really her father; in his will he decreed that she now live with her birth father, Thomas, a farmer she has never met. And even as she struggles to adjust to her new status, and learns to respect and trust Thomas, she's pursued and tormented by Clarence. He's certain Aggie knows the whereabouts of the legendary Gosswater opals and will perform any cruelty to get them. The story is stuffed with wintry adventures in small boats, icy treks over mountain passes, rose-fragrant visitations from a ghostly maiden, and ill-advised schemes. Characters are sharp, extreme, and sometimes colorfully eccentric, and the action moves toward an explosive and unpredictable finish. At heart, though, this is the tale of Aggie finding a loving family and friends, at last.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(3) 1-3 Illustrated by Nancy Meyers. The fifth standalone adventure in the Geisel Honor–winning series finds dog King and girl Kayla visiting Grandma's lake house. When a lost dog, Fred, is discovered, King uses deduction to reunite Fred with his people at a nearby campground. King's enthusiasm is, as always, hilarious. With alternating sentence lengths, strong word repetition, plot-reinforcing illustrations, and plentiful white space, this is a supportive early chapter book.

Reviewer: Amy Seto Forrester

(3) PS Music arranged by Cheryl Eissing. Children will enjoy the sly humor and the chantable repetition of this twist on the classic cumulative folk song, "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea." In Long's bold, full-spread illustrations in deep, mossy greens, a turtle and a little snail provide additional visual comedy. Sing-aloud musical notation and lyrics are appended.

Reviewer: Cyrisse Jaffee

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Levi Pinfold. During their final visit to an abandoned Northumberland, England, settlement before a dam floods the valley, a young fiddler and her father make music inside the boarded-up houses. The narrative, based on a true story about real-life folk musicians Kathryn and Mike Tickell, is elegiac and melancholy; dark and moody pictures in shades of gray and sepia break into joy with a serene blue lake reflecting a light-filled sky.

Reviewer: Sarah Ellis | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2018

(3) PS Illustrated by Eda Kaban. In this charming follow-up to Old MacDonald Had a Truck, the farm's mister and missus use an electric saw ("With a BUZZ BUZZ here and a BUZZ BUZZ there"), a hammer ("BANG BANG"), and more to spruce up an old boat and build a ramp for the book's grand finale. The art teems with farm animals, many of them unexpectedly handy--and dexterous on water skis.

Reviewer: Nell Beram

(4) 4-6 With Paul Mantell. Fifth in Jeter's loosely autobiographical series about his childhood, this novel concentrates on his search for role models during the summer of his eleventh year. Derek's aspiration to be a good person and a great ballplayer would be overly cloying if we didn't know that's just what he grew up to be. The story's messages are padded with plenty of baseball action.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin