(2) K-3 The "half mouse and half elephant, with just a dash of flamingo" Barnaby (The Barnabus Project, rev. 1/21) sits in his box at the Perfect Pets store, along with other collectibles, hoping to find a "perfect family." One day he catches the attention of a little girl who takes him home, and soon the pair becomes inseparable: going on walks, playing dress-up, and watching TV (including their favorite show, Barnaby and Friends). All this attention leaves him with an inflated ego; however, when the girl's interest turns toward a newer-model "Rainbow Barnaby," his bubble quickly bursts. Ignored and unappreciated, Barnaby runs away and has a series of eventful encounters, culminating in a new friendship with two squirrels unconcerned with fame or perfection. As the seasons change, Barnaby develops a stronger sense of his own worth, making his eventual reunion with the girl all the sweeter and more satisfying. The story moves at a gentle pace, taking regular breaks from the action to offer reflective moments. ("The park was very quiet. Only the leaves whispered their secrets to the night air.") The Fan brothers' hand-drawn and digitally colored illustrations exist somewhere between classic and contemporary, confidently moving through an array of layouts, all the while constructing a smartly self-referential visual world.

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

(2) 4-6 Cruzita Tayahua ends sixth grade with a D in Spanish, which is embarrassing considering her family's Mexican roots. But being fluent in Spanish isn't a priority for Cruz, who dreams of being an American pop music superstar. Her summer plan: visit the music theme park Encore Island and enter the Rising Star Contest. A trip to Hollywood isn't part of Cruz's parents' plans, however. They need her help in the family's struggling panadería in the Pacoima neighborhood of Los Angeles, which has been losing customers since her tio Chuy's death a month earlier. When her grandmother gives Cruz a violin "that once belonged to my great-grandpa" and signs her up for mariachi lessons, Cruz is reluctant: "So I'm supposed to learn to speak Spanish and play the violin at the same time?" She's surprised to find that she can sing in Spanish and to discover that she likes being connected to her culture. An unexpected opportunity means she has to choose between her dreams and obligations to family and new friends. Cruz's inner conflict and search for identity are sensitively drawn, and Granillo weaves a believable sense of community pride into the heartfelt and enjoyable story.

Reviewer: Yesica Hurd | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2024

(2) 4-6 In the five years since her parents divorced, twelve-year-old Holly has lived in and visited lots of places with her actor father; she is used to not feeling rooted in any one spot. Now her father has flown off to San Francisco for his "big break" in A Midsummer Night's Dream while Holly goes to Burlington, Vermont, "a city she'd never heard of in a state she'd never been to," to stay with her uncle Vincent for a month. Holly hasn't seen him since three Christmases ago, but she remembers a lot about him: he's gay; is a year younger than her father; lives alone in a small town outside Burlington; and runs a bookstore, where he is "drowning in books." The beautiful cover illustration and even Holly's name refer to her love of plants, and the metaphor will not be lost on readers: Holly yearns for roots in her life, and Uncle Vincent and his community just might be the ones to help. And, sure enough, she does find much of what she's looking for. Holly is a well-drawn, likable protagonist dropped into a New England setting, where she thrives. A gentle, uplifting, and memorable story.

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

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Kristina Kister. Mandala artwork by Ben Guterson. With his parents away on a research trip, Zander Olinga is spending five weeks with his grandmother at the Number Nine Plaza, the wondrous department store she owns in the Eastern European-esque city of Novatrosk. The building possesses wish-fulfillment departments to tempt any young shopper—nineteen floors of pet stores, magic shops, bakeries, reading rooms, art museums, and ice cream parlors, with a giant Ferris wheel on the roof. Zander would enjoy it all immensely but for the looming threat of Darkbloom, an evil spirit who invades the minds of the weak, once conjured by his great-great-great uncle Vladimir. A magical plate bearing a sandstone mandala that gave the Nine its exceptional ability to enchant has been missing for ninety-nine years, and Zander hopes to recover it before Darkbloom’s minions can use it to destroy the Nine. If the plot is a little MacGuffinish, the setting and mystery are constructed with great skill, with Zander and his friend Natasha dodging acts of sabotage that have plagued the department store and seeking out a series of nonsensical inscriptions that Uncle Vladimir left behind. Readers will enjoy trying to puzzle out the cypher coded in the inscriptions and will cheer Zander’s attempts to conquer his acrophobia, a bit of personal development that comes into play at the climax. Despite the ongoing threats and danger, the story has built-in guardrails that keep the action from getting too intense, giving younger readers the security to wallow in the sparkling fantasy Guterson invents, of a store more magical than Santa’s workshop, without fear. Final interior art not seen.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam

(2) YA Thirteen-year-old Deena Rahman's world revolves around spending time with her friends, creating art, and appeasing her Pakistani American family. Deena also helps her mother run a clothing boutique selling Pakistani outfits, hoping to alleviate tension in their home over finances. Deena often overhears her parents fighting about money and feels guilty for their having to spend it on things she needs, such as dental work. She also hesitates to tell them about things she and her brother, Musa, would benefit from, such as art classes for her and talent scouts to further Musa's chances at a soccer scholarship. She tries to ignore the daily nausea and gnawing in her stomach, but soon the physical manifestations of stress demand attention. Both Deena and her parents must confront her anxiety issues and the importance of support. With helpful friends and an artist mentor, she learns to deprioritize others' expectations and advocate for herself, including pushing back against her parents' reluctance to allow her to see a school psychologist. A sensitive look at the effects of anxiety and the pressures of today (including social media) on young people's mental health.

Reviewer: Sadaf Siddique | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) 4-6 Arthur Popper is a diffident, slightly anxious eleven-year-old who lives with his parents and younger sister above the family business, a thriving, capacious secondhand store in Boulder, Colorado. He works shifts in the store and is valued for being "good at customer service" but longs for another area where he can truly shine. When some family members' and friends' jewelry starts disappearing, he takes on the mystery-solving challenge. He receives advice from a ghost mouse who lives in a teacup on his bookshelf, the single touch of fantasy in an otherwise naturalistic novel. The detective narrative, which is tidily composed and plausible, provides the scaffolding for a story of family and community relationships that is a tour de force of small, beautifully calibrated effects. Arthur's best friend is Veda, who is Latinx, but things go sideways for them when Arthur's grandfather expresses a prejudice against "certain kinds of people." Freeman doesn't provide easy answers to the problem of a bigoted family member, nor does she give Grandpa an easy epiphany. Instead she portrays a realistic, flawed family with all its tensions. She allows Arthur to encounter and grapple with the concept of white privilege on his own, in age-appropriate terms, keeping the focus firmly on the child characters and their strengths.

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

(2) 4-6 In this sequel in verse to In the Beautiful Country (rev. 7/22), we follow Ai Shi Zhang--American name, Anna--and her family in the suburbs of Los Angeles as they struggle to carve out a place in the American Dream. They buy an American-made Buick. They sign a lease on their store. Then the Zhangs discover that they missed their window to renew their immigration visas. A summer free of plans is quickly altered: Ai Shi's mom must go to San Diego to work and save enough money to pay for an immigration lawyer, while Ai Shi must spend every day working at the family's shop. In order to join Speech Club at junior high next year she has to write a speech; the prompt, "What America Means to Me," serves as the theme of the novel as Ai Shi grapples with that very question. Despite their difficult circumstances, Ai Shi and her parents navigate their world with relentless optimism, perseverance, and an earnest belief in their dreams.

Reviewer: Gabi K. Huesca | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2023

(2) K-3 Translated by Lawrence Schimel. Illustrated by Juan Palomino. An unnamed narrator relates how she learned to read as a child in her coastal Afro-Colombian pueblo. In Palenque: "Letters were in kitchens, on tables, and right in front of everyone's noses, but nobody read them," except for Señor Velandia, owner of the only shop in town, depicted stoically reading a newspaper. Along with the weekly boat delivery of provisions for the town arrive love letters addressed to the narrator's older sister, Gina, from a long-distance admirer. Spurred by her curiosity about the letters' contents, the narrator entreats Señor Velandia to teach her to read in exchange for help in his shop. Slowly but determinedly, using the names of relatives and customers, she learns the letters of the alphabet and passes on the gift of literacy to others--an endeavor she continues into adulthood--by drawing letters with charcoal on the ground. Letters are ubiquitous in Palomino's earth-tone digital illustrations, from newsprint to a "Welcome to Palenque" sign along the riverbank to the colorful embroidery on Gina's holiday dress. The historical context underscoring the narrative and the significance of the setting--Palenque is a village founded by people who escaped enslavement--is explained in Vasco's author's note and reinforces this quietly empowering ode to literacy.

Reviewer: Jessica Agudelo | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2023

(1) 4-6 Cho's riveting work of historical fiction begins on April 29, 1992, when four Los Angeles police officers are acquitted in the brutal beating of a Black man, Rodney King. Twelve-year-old Jordan Park's parents close their liquor store early, bracing for the unrest to come. They expect Koreatown to be targeted by protesters since, two weeks after television footage showed King being beaten, a fifteen-year-old Black girl, Latasha Harlins, was shot and killed by a Korean American store owner. With his parents busy at the store, there's no time for Jordan to tell them that he's been suspended from school for cheating on a ­Spanish quiz (again). Having had an argument with his father and been told he is a disappointment, Jordan tries to atone by setting off on a dangerous and fraught journey: bringing his father a gun to use for self-defense, if necessary. ­Jordan's first-person narrative offers a fresh Korean ­American perspective on what were then called the L.A. Riots; on racism; and on immigration. This debut middle-grade novel by Cho, well known for his acting work, achieves a complexity of theme that is welcome for this audience. It's an important, even profound, story, yet related with a light touch. Jordan's journey will have readers following right alongside him as he navigates the vicissitudes of this moment in history and his place in his family. Back matter includes an extensive and informative author's note.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2022

(2) K-3 It's 1931 (per a wall calendar in an illustration), and Shirley's family is struggling to get customers to try their store's speciality: "The neighbors don't know from good gefilte fish," declares Mama. Shirley has "LOTS of big ideas" but is deemed too young to help...until she's left temporarily in charge and gambles successfully on the power of free samples. Initiative-taker Shirley is easy to root for, and the engaging narrative voice ("Shirley wasted no time. She straightened. She decorated. She modernized. She advertised") keeps the tale moving. Loose-lined illustrations (pencil sketches over-drawn and then colored digitally) incorporate collage details that include what are presumably family photos; the author's bio explains that Cohen's grandparents owned a grocery store in a diverse immigrant neighborhood like Shirley's. Back matter includes a glossary for the occasional Yiddish terms, and background on and a recipe for gefilte fish. Try it; you'll like it!

Reviewer: Shoshana Flax | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(2) 4-6 When his (widowed) mother, a professor of rhetoric, has a stroke and can no longer speak, social misfit ­twelve-year-old William Wyatt Orser, nicknamed Worser, feels "utterly alone. Cold. Helpless." Obsessed with words, the boy carries in his backpack a loose-leaf binder he refers to as his Masterwork, which contains 321 pages of lists of words and observations and questions about how they work. ("If ­terrific can mean the opposite of terrible, why isn’t horrific the opposite of horrible?") But all that doesn't mean he is good at actually using words. He is no Cyrano with the girl he has a crush on, and he is impatient, even caustic, with the aunt who is trying to take care of him and his mother. But Ziegler ably delineates how words help Worser to find a place in the world and evolve from Worser into "Worder," as he and his nerdy-wordy Lit Club friends carve out a refuge for themselves at a local bookstore. If Worser is not especially ­likable at first, he and his new friends--including the brusque bookshop owner--find ways to grow and be there for one another.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2022

(2) YA Since "the asteroid hit"--Aaron's term for when his brother died of an opioid overdose--the only book Aaron can bring himself to read is one about the extinction of the dinosaurs. He's sure the catastrophes that have befallen him are as inevitable as that asteroid strike had been for the dinosaurs: the breakup of his parents' marriage, the decline of his family's bookstore in rural Washington State, his own stagnation. But as Aaron, who took ownership of the store on his eighteenth birthday, gets ready to sell the building, he finds new friends (notably Chad, a classic "bro" type who's newly a wheelchair user after a snowboarding accident) and unexpected help (as a group of unemployed lumberjacks starts repairing the store despite his protestations). Aaron is an observer, deeply cynical and highly literate, regularly making assessments of friends and family (his father is "the human incarnation of The Giving Tree"). His close narration leaves readers nearly as in the dark as the protagonist about the angles he's missing (the options available to him, and others' efforts and willingness to help him), which allows for a surprising emotional payoff. ­Forman (I Was Here, rev. 1/15; I Have Lost My Way, rev. 5/18) excels at pacing, and the rich cast of well-defined secondary characters lends plenty of depth.

Reviewer: Sarah Rettger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2021

(2) 1-3 Illustrated by Paula Franco. Even though the titular sisters first seen in Twig and Turtle: Big Move to a Tiny House (rev. 7/20) have now settled into their home in Happy Trails, Colorado, they still have a couple of crises to solve. The owner of a new toy store initiates the story's action by announcing a naming contest. Twig is at first reluctant to reduce her chances of winning by telling her friends about the competition. Although the situation resolves itself, the idea of tension between what she wants to do and what she should do is born. Later, when Twig accepts a doll from a friend and thus breaks their household's five-toy rule, she lets a "big old mountain of want" dictate her actions. Jacobson again shows her strength in creating problems seemingly specific to one setting but experienced by many children; without a hint of didacticism, she allows Twig to reach a creative ­solution to the problem. Short chapters, generous use of dialogue, and text-­supporting spot art scaffold the reading for newly independent chapter book readers. This series ­reaffirms the old adage that good things come in small packages.

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

(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

(2) YA Interned during WWII, the Katsuyama family was forced to sell its flower shop and spent years earning enough to buy it back. Contemporary teen CJ Katsuyama, who works in the family shop, fights for the shop after learning it might be sold to a corporation. The story paints an engaging picture of a girl facing the past--both her family's and her own--in service of her future. Ind.

Reviewer: Christina L. Dobbs | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2019

(2) 4-6 Illustrated by Erin McGuire. Eleven-year-old Lark is empathic and imaginative; her twin Iris is assertive and practical. When they are assigned to separate fifth-grade classrooms, both girls are miserable. Meanwhile, objects begin disappearing all over town after a strange antique store appears, run by a man obsessed with finding his lost sister. The book is packed with thought-provoking material, exploring such themes as girls' power, healthy versus unhealthy relationships--and the cost of magic.

Reviewer: Martha V. Parravano | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2019

(3) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Flor reluctantly agrees to participate in her hometown's Honey Festival pageant, competing alongside her former-friend-turned-enemy, Candice. Despite some family drama, it isn't the terrible summer Flor imagined; an elderly townsperson teaches her how to "bee beard" for her pageant talent, and she and Candice find common ground. This sweet and gentle story's quirky bee theme allows for the inclusion of some fascinating bee facts.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith

(3) 1-3 Illustrated by Poly Bernatene. Despite having been adopted by bookstore owners when she was five, eleven-year-old Property Jones is (secretly) illiterate. Fortunately, she is also extremely observant, which enables her to thwart the swindlers who are bent on cheating her family out of the commodious, almost-magical book emporium they've just won in a contest. This pleasant fantasy, enlivened by Bernatene's cartoon illustrations, will engage young book lovers ready to take on denser chapter books.

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(4) K-3 Illustrated by Katy Wu. The famous Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company narrates its own story and stresses the value of books in text unevenly rhymed but with offbeat appeal. The free-spirited American store proprietor, Sylvia Beach, stocks the building with "...books, from ceiling to floor!" Soon, early-twentieth-century literary luminaries (of whom brief biographies are appended) come for tea, readings, and lively conversation. Colorful digital illustrations capture the bookstore's bohemian spirit.

Reviewer: Carolyn Shute

(3) YA Three Alabama teens spend the summer working at Unclaimed Baggage, a store that sells the contents of luggage left behind at airports. Local girl Doris is a talented finder of things, Nell is a Chicago transplant desperate for a job, and Grant is a former football hero struggling with addiction. The lost-and-found metaphor is an apt one for a summer of self-discovery and newfound friends in this thoughtful, nuanced novel.

Reviewer: Rachel L. Smith