(2) 4-6 In this Southern Gothic horror story, a twelve-year-old boy mourning the loss of his mother goes to live with an aunt he barely knows and her new husband. Orphaned Roddie finds that his family's ancestral home, Dogwood House, is more of a "monster of a place out in the middle of nowhere" than a residence. While there, he learns several things about his mom and her upbringing, including that she grew up adhering to hoodoo, an African American spiritual practice. The plot centers around hoodoo beliefs about the need to burn shed hair to avoid "evil spirits" and the ability to rely on ancestors for help. Roddie rejects these tenets until he discovers the inherent risks of tossing shed hair aside and finds notes left behind by his mom that lead him to shocking discoveries. The tween finds it confusing that his mother never mentioned the house she departed as a teenager, leaving her younger sister behind. Royce (Conjure Island, rev. 7/23) effectively builds suspense around this question and the odd things that happen at Dogwood House while cleverly interweaving facts about hoodoo. She also provides a realistic portrayal of the way grief ebbs and flows amidst a kid-friendly scary story that includes a quest for answers, a confrontation with a monster, and a house that transforms to reveal family secrets after dark.

Reviewer: | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2024

(1) YA Translated by Bill Nagelkerke. Illustrated by Annette Fienieg. Silke and her twin brother, Janis, are fated to cause each other's demise, or so predicted Madame Petrova when she read the cards for Papa and Mama before the children's birth. Now orphaned and afraid their grasping cousins will make them fulfill this terrible destiny, Silke and Janis flee. With only a handwritten volume of their mother's juvenile poems as a guide, Silke tries to lead Janis through an uncertain world, but to where? A spell with a traveling fortuneteller entangles them in debt; a rural innkeeper is happy to enlist their help cleaning up after rowdy soldier guests, but she can't keep them forever. Then Silke thinks to send a letter to the grandparents whose names conclude their mother's book of verse. The story's preindustrial rural setting, with its wandering orphans, fortunetellers, and snowy forests, hints at the magic of a fairy tale, but Hof's Silke is the work of realism -- in her burden of anxious responsibility, her intermittent fractiousness, and especially her yearning for care. "Never to have to think about anything again," is her desire when she finally finds a home. The disassembling of Madame Petrova's curse is skillfully rendered and surprising, but no more so than the dismantling and reassembling of Silke's understanding of her very being. Hof entices us with the winsomeness of folklore and offers canny humor and a valiant, persistent love that emerges from loneliness and neglect.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(2) 4-6 Though others may call it "an accident...I know the word for someone who goes to science class to dissect earthworms and gets sliced in the forehead by an earthworm-juice-encrusted blade and has to get two stitches: CURSED." Middle-school protagonist Hannah Lee relates in her journal all the things that have gone supernaturally wrong or been left unexplained over the course of eight days when she is "hexed by ancient evil." Her nose keeps bleeding, her front tooth falls out (the dentist finds silverfish in her gums, shudder), her brother falls into a coma. She records each occurrence in her diary...and the malevolent spirit begins to write back. Lai's (Ghost Book, rev. 9/23) visual style -- incorporating copious, plot-furthering illustrations within the main text -- is here displayed on spiral notebook looking lined pages with spiky, sketchlike art ("by" Hannah), mostly black and white with some splotches of blood red, capturing the increasingly weird, and sometimes genuinely frightening, goings-on. Allusions to the power of storytelling and an impending author's visit are threaded throughout, both used as foreshadowing to an attention-grabbingly eerie ending.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2024

(2) YA Freya June Sun, a seventh grader grappling with grief eight months after her father's death, clings to Chinese superstitions for connection. The superstitions, passed down by her father, frequently disrupt her reality, making a pair of red birds or upright chopsticks in rice bowls harbingers of luck or misfortune. Desperate to continue meeting her father's expectations, Freya forces herself to keep playing the viola although she secretly hates it. Quiet, introspective Freya is overlooked in her household and kept at a distance from her older sister, climate activist May, who is constantly at odds with their mother. Unable to find much comfort with her childhood best friends, Freya befriends her former nemesis, Korean American Gus Choi. As they navigate a school assignment together, Gus's culinary skills and unwavering support spark a passion for baking in Freya. (Two recipes for baked goods that evoke pleasant memories of her father are appended.) In an author's note, Shen shares her personal story of experiencing loss at a young age, offering a message to anyone who has had a similar experience: "I'm proud of you for pushing on. Like Freya's red birds, I hope you continue to soar." Touching and tender, Shen's novel delightfully captures the vibrant personality of a thirteen-year-old coping with grief by learning new ways of honoring a loved one.

Reviewer: Kristine Techavanich | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2024

(2) K-3 Illustrated by Dan Santat . With each spread decorated as a simple stage, photo collages of two goggle-eyed, bespectacled hands-as-puppets enter on verso and recto. The one on the left is clad with a cuff at its neck (the wrist) emblazed with the letter L for "Lefty," while the right one's cuff has an R for "Righty." Separated by the gutter, Lefty informs Righty in speech-balloon text, "There was a time when people could get into trouble...FOR BEING LEFT-HANDED!" Righty's incredulous response, "HUBBA WHAAAA!?!?", fills the spread, inviting laughter from readers who may be similarly mystified by this revelation. Aided by illustrations that adopt different styles to indicate other historical eras, Lefty details past superstitions and prejudices against fellow lefties, remarking that "even in ancient times, left-handed people pretended to be who they weren't and hid their left-handedness." As the text proceeds, it's clear that this dialogue about how "handedness is just one part of how you were born" can apply to other parts of life, too, culminating with Righty exclaiming, "And you can't be born WRONG...RIGHT?" Willems and Santat's collaboration provides an engaging conversation starter to help ensure that no child feels the need to hide any part of themself. What could be righter than that?

Reviewer: Megan Dowd Lambert | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2025

(1) YA Illustrated by LeUyen Pham. In this unique and engaging graphic novel, Vietnamese American high schooler Valentina Tran has always loved giving handmade cards to her widower father and classmates on her namesake holiday. She is assisted by her "best imaginary friend," Saint V (for Valentine), initially shown in the illustrations as a classic winged baby surrounded by cartoon hearts. This year her spirits are crushed when her dad storms off, and a classmate, Jae, trashes her card. Worse, Grandma reveals that Valentina's father lied about her mother's supposed death and, later, that their entire family is romantically cursed. Valentina despairs until she meets two cute lion dancers at a Tt (Lunar New Year) celebration and dates one of them (who happens to be Jae's cousin). Is the relationship real? Or will Valentina give her heart to Saint Valentine to be safe from the pain of love? Yang (Dragon Hoops, rev. 5/20) and Pham (Friends Forever, rev. 9/21) do a wonderful job of weaving fractured families and romantic yearning with fantasy elements that show emotional states and growth as well as plenty of humor throughout. Pham's digital illustrations adeptly mix realistic scenes with celestial animals and ghosts. Her gorgeous, kinetic depictions of Chinese and Korean lion dancers are joyful, and the section in which Valentina first learns about Tt and meets her love interest is especially vibrant.

Reviewer: Michelle Lee | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2024

(2) YA In this novel in verse, Maya and Chaya are identical seventh-grade twin sisters. Maya is hard on herself, always demanding perfection, while Chaya, chatty and impulsive, is "the goofball." Both have a passion for music, are advanced in classical piano, love their summer music camp, and have serious "twin telepathy." While these twins may seem like mirror images of each other, there are cracks in the surface: Maya experiences severe anxiety and believes that, because she broke a mirror, she's at fault when bad things happen, while Chaya feels unseen in her more accomplished sister's shadow. When Chaya decides that Maya's anxiety is due to sibling competition, she quits all the activities they did together, causing a rift between the once-inseparable duo. LaRocca (Red, White, and Whole, rev. 5/21) explores the irony in the fact that, in trying to help and support the ones we love, we may actually hurt them. The book alternates emotionally intense, earnest poems between the two sisters' perspectives. The poems have many memorable lines and engage with sophisticated formal elements such as thoughtful line breaks, italics, white space, and concrete poetry. A shocking twist ending reveals the lengths to which the twins will go to preserve their unique bond. While all eventually ends well, this nuanced novel explores complex aspects of family and sibling dynamics and will give readers much to ponder.

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

(2) 4-6 Seventh grader Freddie is jinxed by a family curse. Bad luck follows him "like toilet paper stuck to my shoe," whether he's tripping over his own feet and falling flat on his face or losing his pants. One day, Freddie finds what looks like an ancient coin in his garage. It turns out to be a family heirloom in which the spirit of his great-granduncle Ramon is trapped. Determined to free Ramon, Freddie has just thirteen days to outsmart the evil spirits that have been casting misfortune on his life--and that are now bent on trapping Freddie. Badua's intriguing and humorous debut novel integrates snippets of Filipino American history into the plot alongside elements of the supernatural and contemporary-kid life. Intergenerational conflicts arise between Freddie's parents and his lovable, superstitious grandma, Apong Rosing, leaving our protagonist and his quick-witted cousin, Sharkey, to defeat the Ruiz family curse once and for all. Weaving together mystery, folklore, history, magic, and intrigue, Freddie's adventures are an entertaining delight.

Reviewer: Jerry Dear | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

(3) 4-6 In Jakarta, Indonesia, Nia's food-vendor widower father is mired in poverty and alcoholism while the young teenager cares for her little brother. When Nia survives a minibus accident, superstitious locals believe that she has miraculous powers, which aspiring-writer Nia uses to raise money for her schooling. Readers will cheer Nia's real powers--her storytelling talent and her resiliency--in this vividly set story. Glos.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(3) K-3 Growing up in Russia, left-handed Anya is forced to use her right hand. But she refuses to use it for drawing, her special talent, and imagines she's in a secret society with famous left-handed or ambidextrous artists. When Anya immigrates to the U.S., she can use her left hand freely and becomes an artist herself--as demonstrated by this whimsically illustrated picture book based on the author/illustrator's childhood.

Reviewer: Melinda Greenblatt

(4) 4-6 Fred Bowen Sports Story series. Middle schooler Trey Thompson believes he made the Ravens baseball team thanks to a lucky piece of blue sea glass. When he loses it and goes into a playing slump, caring adults and teammates encourage him to rely on practice, not superstitions, to become a top-notch player. Lots of game action lightens the story's messaging; an interesting addendum highlights superstitions of past baseball greats.

Reviewer: Jack Forman

(2) 4-6 In Elric's superstitious feudal village, people think children born with disabilities--like Elric's younger sister, Wynn--are changelings. After their mother dies, Elric and Wynn journey through the forest in search of a peaceful place to live; Wynn insists that clues in their mother's song will lead them to fairyland. As much a thoughtful study of human care and relationships as it is a fairy tale.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2017

(2) YA Rumors of a curse on the Devonairre Street Girls circulate in Haydu's alternate-2008 Brooklyn. When a series of tragedies convinces the street's inhabitants that the Curse is real, narrator Lorna and her mother resist their neighbors' increasingly cultish mentality, building to a devastating conclusion. Magical realism and a parallel-world setting enhance this wrenching novel's lyricism--and make the pain somewhat more bearable.

Reviewer: Katie Bircher | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2017

(4) YA In a post-apocalyptic Southwest United States, lovers Sarah Jac and James are on the run after a farming accident is mistaken for murder. Pretending to be cousins, the pair hopes to find refuge on a supposedly cursed Texas ranch. At once lyrical and gritty, this magical-realism-flavored dystopian novel loses momentum once the central romance fizzles.

Reviewer: Jessica Bushore

(3) 4-6 Searchlight Books: Fear Fest series. Chilling paranormal tales abound in this series. Each volume focuses on a specific type of paranormal activity and provides accounts from throughout history. The texts wisely ground the series in science by including debunkings and realistic explanations for the stories. Illustrations and photographs accompany the text on each page and help set the spooky mood. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind. Review covers these Searchlight Books: Fear Fest titles: Mysterious UFOs and Aliens, Spine-Tingling Urban Legends, Chilling Ancient Curses, Eerie ESP, Spooky Haunted Houses, and Frightful Ghost Ships.

Reviewer: Antonio Trujillo

(4) 1-3 Black Lagoon Adventures series. Illustrated by Jared Lee. Each slight entry in the long-running series revolves around one of neurotic narrator Hubie's exaggerated fears or insecurities, which he overcomes in bizarre and unexpected ways. Abundant pen drawings accompany the brief chapters, accenting the absurdities with snakes, spiders, "cooties," and other creepy creatures commenting from the margins. There are five other spring 2017 books in this series. Review covers these Black Lagoon Adventures titles: The Amusement Park from the Black Lagoon, The Class Picture Day from the Black Lagoon, Friday the 13th from the Black Lagoon, The Summer Camp from the Black Lagoon, and Trick or Treat from the Black Lagoon.

Reviewer: Gail Hedges

(4) 4-6 In Ireland (previously published in paperback as Lucky Me), superstitious thirteen-year-old Meghan travels throughout Ireland to break a curse and finds family instead. In Hollywood, besties Ginger and Payton zip around Hollywood looking for an ailing great-aunt's hidden life savings and making harmless mischief. Like Callaghan's others (Lost in London, etc.), these are breezy though slight romps through well-described landscapes populated by memorable characters. Review covers the following titles: Lost in Hollywood and Lost in Ireland.

Reviewer: Lana Barnes

(4) 4-6 Legendary World of Sports series. Sports fans are presented with superlative-like trivia in clear prose illustrated with photos on uncluttered layouts. The series features themed moments from the history of a wide variety of sports, both popular team sports (baseball, hockey, basketball, etc.) and individual competitions such as auto- and horse-racing. Unfortunately, the overall coverage slants heavily toward male athletes. Reading list. Glos., ind. Review covers these Legendary World of Sports titles: The Most Notorious Curses of All Time, The Oddest Superstitions of all Time, The Most Dominant Dynasties of All Time, The Most Amazing Sports Moments of All Time, The Greatest Coaches of All Times, and The Biggest Upsets of All Time.

Reviewer: David Elzey

(4) 1-3 Adventures of Sophie Mouse series. Illustrated by Jennifer A. Bell. In her seventh chapter book, mouse Sophie finds a four-leaf clover while painting. When, instead of good luck, she starts having very bad luck, Sophie wonders what's happening. Could her classmate's rumor about the Clover Curse be real? The tame, gentle story of friendship and school includes sweet black-and-white illustrations on nearly every page.

Reviewer: Grace Worcester Greene

(3) YA Sixteen-year-old Ivy lives in superstition-fueled Rowan's Glen in the Missouri Ozarks, where, twenty-five years ago, Birch Markle killed the queen of the May Day celebration; he's rumored to still roam the woods. When decapitated animals start appearing, everyone knows Birch is back--and Ivy's cousin, Heather, is the new May Queen. Macabre atmosphere and terror abound in this thrilling, bloody mystery.

Reviewer: Sian Gaetano