CCBC Weekly Book Reviews
My Antarctica: True Adventures in the Land of Mummified Seals, Space Robots, and So Much More
This dynamic account of author G. Neri’s 7-week venture to Antarctica blends a lively first-person narrative with abundant photographs and other visuals ... Neri made the trip as part of the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers program. His sense of curiosity and wonder is palpable ...
February 10, 2025The Maid and the Crocodile
A sparkling novel set in the same world as the author’s West African-inspired Raybearer series succeeds as a lively stand-alone. Small Sade (Black) is an orphan who’s aged out of the care system.
February 3, 2025Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson
A lyrical novel-in-verse about Rachel Carson begins with her childhood in rural Pennsylvania. Young Rachel delighted in nature; it also provided escape and solace as family members navigated difficult times.
January 27, 2025This Table
What began as a seed that grows into a tree ends up as a table, but that’s barely the beginning of this warm-hearted picture book about the table--and members of a single family--across years. It’s a table around which (and under!) the bustling, growing multigenerational family gathers for celebrations and quiet moments; art projects, puzzles and imaginative play; homework and grown-up work; and much more.
January 20, 2025The Fabulous Fannie Farmer: Kitchen Scientist and America’s Cook
Fannie Farmer loved cooking as a child. When she lost the use of a leg as a teenager due to polio, her love of cooking helped reshape her vision for the future; while she recovered, she cooked. Fannie noticed that the imprecise instructions and measurements in most recipes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g., “a suspicion of nutmeg”) made for inconsistent results.
January 13, 2025Adventures of Mary Jane
In the 1840s, 14-year-old Mary Jane lives on a trading post in the Minnesota Territory. A letter from Ma’s sister asking for a “helping hand” provides the impetus for Mary Jane (white) to head south.
January 6, 2025Gracie Under the Waves
Sixth grader Gracie’s dream is to snorkel in the Maldives, but for now she’s thrilled that her parents agree on a family spring break trip to Roatán in Honduras, where there is a marine park. Even her little brother Ben, who can be exhausting, can’t dim her enthusiasm. Unfortunately, Gracie (Korean American) cuts her leg on coral on her first dive after Ben accidentally bumps into her.
December 30, 2024Just Us
Every year during the winter holidays, the young narrator’s Grandma flies in to visit, and her aunts and uncles arrive at her house by car with all the cousins. “Every year we play charades, loud and rowdy. Then we light a fire in the fireplace and eat Grandma’s three kinds of pie. That’s what happens every year. It’s tradition.”
December 23, 2024Narwhal: Unicorn of the Arctic
“You are a narwhal—shy, swift, small (for a whale).” Full of sensory detail, this narrative focusing on the life and activities of the “unicorn of the Arctic” begins on a “biting-cold December day,” in the dark of the Arctic, as “you,” a male narwhal, clash your tusk with that of another male.
December 16, 2024The Brightwood Code
Edda, 18, has recently returned from working as a Hello Girl for the American Expeditionary Forces on the front lines of WWI. Now a telephone operator for Bell Systems in Washington, D.C., Edda (white) is weighted with guilt over an incident during her service: Despite her ability to quickly translate between French and English, and working hard to memorize codes that changed daily, she forgot a code word (“Brightwood”) at a critical moment and 34 soldiers died as a result.
December 9, 2024Orris and Timble: The Beginning
A love of stories and storytelling transforms an inauspicious meeting into a promising friendship in this early chapter book series opener. Orris, a rat, enjoys a solitary life in an abandoned barn, where he has furnished his nest with select treasures: a red velvet slipper, a yellow marble, and an unopened can of Imperial Sardines.
December 2, 2024A Star Shines Through
The school-age child narrator and their parents used to live in a city, in an apartment with a star-shaped cardboard lamp in the kitchen window. “When I returned home from music lessons … I could recognize our window from afar: a star shone through the cold November darkness.” When war begins, the child and their mother flee to another country.
November 25, 2024The Monarch Effect: Surviving Poison, Predators, and People
An engrossing, detailed work of nonfiction delves into not only the behaviors and characteristics of monarch butterflies, but also the long history of human fascination—and, unfortunately, interference—with monarchs.
November 18, 2024Where Wolves Don’t Die
Minneapolis teen Ezra longs to spend more time at Red Gut, the Ojibwe reservation where his extended paternal family lives. When his school bully, Matt, is killed in a house fire, Ezra is brought in for questioning; he’d punched a locker earlier that day after Matt threatened Ezra’s friend and crush, Nora. While he complies with the investigation, Ezra’s father also swiftly moves Ezra to live with his grandparents just over the Canadian border, in Red Gut.
November 11, 2024Little Shrew
Little Shrew, a silky rodent with a pointed nose and round eyes, lives a rather commonplace life with a well-established routine. He eats the same breakfast each day, brushes his fur with a hairbrush he’s had “forever,” and departs for his job at the currency exchange.
November 4, 2024- More Books of the Week