Reply
Hans Christian Andersen is known for his stories about misfits, the poor, and especially a little mermaid who gave up her voice for the love of a prince. The man behind the stories suffered hardships of his own during life, and experts now believe that he was likely on the autism spectrum.
The True Ugly Duckling: How Hans Christian Andersen Became a Swan by Sandra Nickel, introduces young readers to the young boy, then the man, who would struggle to find acceptance in his world. Hans persevered through many setbacks, trying to make a living through his creative talents, until he finally found success.
At last, he found an audience with children, who loved the paper cutouts he created while he told stories. Eventually, adults came around too, and Hans became so popular he even performed for the royal court in Denmark.
The True Ugly Duckling is a great story for children to learn about perseverance and finding a voice even when it differs from the mainstream. Illustrations by Calvin Nicholls are beautiful paper sculptures, fitting for a story about a man who was known during his time for his own paper sculptures. Nicholls’s work portrays depth and texture while creating Hans’s world.
It’s an interesting story, and an author’s note at the back talks more about Andersen and his work. There’s also a select bibliography for anyone interested in discovering more about this beloved author.
Every night when Zackary goes to sleep he uses his magic pacifier to enter the realm of the Rat King, an evil ruler who oppresses all in his kingdom. While there Zackary becomes Zicky, a superhero who fights off the king’s hordes before returning to his bed by morning.
When young Zackary talks about his adventures to his family, they chalk it up to fanciful dreams. His older brother and sister make fun of him. His parents indulge him. But one night the Rat King finally captures Zicky and steals his magic pacifier, giving him entrance to the real world. Zicky has to find a way home before the army of rats destroys the world he lives in.
Zicky: Wrath of the Rat King is an adventurous graphic novel written by Darin S. Cape and featuring the art of Zeno Decrux and Hiorsh Gabotto. Like all good superheroes, Zackary and his place in keeping the world safe are unknown to those closest to him. Who would believe that a preschooler could have special powers? Zicky knows, however, that completing his noble mission is better than any recognition he could have from others.
Zicky is fun and fast moving. Any reader who has felt misunderstood by people in their family will feel the connection with Zackery’s frustration and cheer him on as he fights for what’s right.
The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
Some of my favorite things to see at an aquarium are jellyfish. Watching their rhythmic moves is almost meditative for me. And I’m always fascinated by the different sizes, shapes, tendrils, and colors. All on animals with no brains!
Karen Jameson shines light on these fascinating sea creatures in her picture book, The Secrets of the Jellies: Amazing Jellyfish and Their Surprising Talents. Rhyming text is fun to read out loud and each page focuses on different aspects of jellies. For instance, the book starts with these lines:
Jellies pulse, jellies ride, gracing water as they glide.
They teem through all the ocean zones.
But did you know they have no bones?
A fun feature of each page is that the last word appears in giant letters, which lets readers focus on one specific characteristic of jellies. And the illustrations by Marie Hermansson bring the underwater world to life by depicting not only the jellies but also fish and kelp and sharks and other things that live in the sea.
For young inquiring minds, the back of the book contains lots of facts about jellies doled out in bite-sized pieces. There’s also a guide to several different kinds of jellyfish and how they live. The Secrets of the Jellies is both fun and educational, and I can imagine children memorizing the lines as parents read the text over and over again.
The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
Lola Gillette needs a second chance. After she is caught shoplifting, her parents bring her to spend the summer with her reclusive uncle, who lives in a crumbling castle on the Connecticut River that has been in the family for generations. It turns out her uncle needs a second chance too, as he has withdrawn from society after the death of his wife.
Lola makes friends with Kya, who lives nearby on the same property, but she doesn’t tell her about the trouble she’s in or that her parents want to send her to boarding school or, worst of all, that she feels responsible for her twin sister’s accidental death.
As the summer progresses and Uncle Milo sinks even lower into depression, a new threat comes from the town. Neighbors want the property condemned to make way for new development. Can Lola save the family home and help her uncle find new purpose in life while also saving herself?
Lola Gillete and the Summer of Second Chances by Kimberly Behre Kenna explores issues around grief and friendship and family bonds. Some areas of the story were not developed enough for me, like how a thirteen-year-old would believe that magic would get her out of boarding school, and the timeline for action seemed too short. But overall I liked the story of a girl who finds courage to take action and set in motion a chain of events that heals not just herself but her loved ones as well.
The author provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
It’s early 1930s Germany and Hitler’s Nazi Party is just beginning to gain power. People turn to him because he seems to have answers during tough economic times. The trouble is, his answers often involve blaming others, particularly Jews, for hardship.
The Spider Strikes by Michael P. Spradlin brings this tense time to life through the eyes of 12-year-old Joshua, a Jewish boy who lives in Germany. When Joshua’s family goes to their summer home in Austria he takes two friends with him, Ansel and Rolf. Once there, he starts to notice small harassments, like a shopkeeper who refuses to sell Joshua’s dad supplies.
When the three boys get permission to spend a week in a cabin in a remote mountainous area near Vienna, they plan to fish and practice the skills they learned as scouts. But when a group of Hitler Youth arrive intent on causing havoc, they must put their survival skills to the test.
Joshua’s voice is fresh and honest, and through his eyes readers see how small bigotries can snowball into bigger hatreds. It’s a chilling account, especially considering the horrors that come in the years ahead. The Spider Strikes is a fast-moving tale that will sweep readers along even as it holds them spellbound with the plight of this group of young friends. I recommend it for readers aged 9 to 14.
The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
The Lasting Effects of the Opioid Crisis on Children and Families: Talking About a Stigmatized Topic
A parent’s job is to prepare their children for what happens in life, not to shield them from it. Easier said than done, right?
My family watches TV using streaming services, which means we control exactly what we see. My kids’ grandparents, however, have cable TV, often turned on and playing in the background. When my two children were very young, I remember lunging for the remote as the news came on. I couldn’t turn it off fast enough. I wanted to protect them from stories like a traffic stop gone wrong or the death toll from a weather event or people dying from drug overdoses on the street.
But the reality is that children witness the world around them. For some children, that reality hits close to home. I was struck by this when I worked as a medical editor and watched the opioid crisis play out in real time. The focus was on the people who were dying, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the kids who were left behind to witness the effects of the crisis.
A recent study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported that during the decade from 2011 through 2021, over 320,000 children lost a parent to overdose. In an interview for NPR, NIDA’s director, Dr. Nora Volkow, said “we don’t really speak much about” the impact of the overdose epidemic on children. I have seen this firsthand.
Last fall, I was an attending author at the Louisville Book Festival in Louisville, KY. Nearly every person who visited my table knew a friend, family member, or neighbor who had been affected by the opioid crisis. An author at the table next to me—also a mom—had written a memoir about her experience coming out of opioid addiction (The Nature of Pain, by Mandi Fugate Sheffel). One mom told me that her ten-year-old son had been asking questions about opioid use, because his friend’s dad died of an overdose.
“I don’t know what to tell him,” she told me.
Children impacted by the crisis might not want to talk about having lost a parent to an overdose. They might feel stigmatized at school or among their friends. A framework for having challenging conversations can help families, schools, and communities affected by the crisis. Books provide a safe space for having such discussions.
Barbara Kingsolver wrote the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Demon Copperhead because she “wanted to write a novel about the epidemic of opioid use disorder that was tearing apart the place and people I love.” She has strong ties to Appalachia, having spent part of her childhood in rural Kentucky. She recently wrote an introduction to a photo essay in The New York Times (“The Opioid Crisis Never Ended. It Was Inherited by the Children.”) in which she observes that addiction is “a condition that nobody has ever asked for.”
“If you came to visit me, I could walk you down our country roads and point out all the houses where grandparents are raising little ones whose parents are incarcerated, sick or dead of addiction.” She notes that the hardest stories are the ones that begin in the mother’s womb. In West Virginia, according to West Virginia University researchers, from 2020 to 2022, nearly one in eight babies was born exposed to drugs—ten times higher than national rates.
It is important that we understand these statistics, but it is even more important to recognize that hundreds of thousands of young people in our country have first-hand experience of the opioid crisis. If we can talk about opioid use and bring this stigmatized topic out into the open, it can help the kids affected by the epidemic feel less alone.
Bio: Lauren Bomberger Fischer was born and raised in Indiana, graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and lives in Chicago with her family and rescue cats. She edited many articles about the opioid epidemic while working as a science editor at The JAMA Network. She advocates for LGBTQ and disability representation in children’s fiction. Her debut middle grade novel, Orphanland, was published in November 2025. Find her online at https://www.laurenbfischer.com, @authorlaurenfischer (Instagram), and at Lauren Bomberger Fischer, Facebook author page.
The City Spies are adjusting to life in a new home, satisfied that criminal mastermind Le Fantome is in a high security prison. But then MI6 intercepts messages that discuss bombing high level targets across Europe with the goal to win Le Fantome’s release.
The messages are all in code, and this is where the City Spies show their strength. Working together, the team deciphers targets in Rome, Paris, London, and Amsterdam. Then they split up and travel to each city so they can identify all the precise locations and prevent the attacks. It’s a fast-paced adventure with high stakes that shows personal growth for each member of the team.
City Spies: Europa is the seventh installment of this bestselling series from author James Ponti. While this is my first read in the series, it captivated me right away and kept me turning pages until the end. Ponti does a great job of making the story accessible to those who know the characters as well as those who don’t.
And who wouldn’t love a squad of five young sleuths working with the same organization that housed James Bond. Because of their age, no one suspects them of surveillance or having skills like defusing bombs. All of their personalities come into play as they look for clues and solve codes. It’s a lot of fun to follow along while also learning about some of the major cities of Europe. I highly recommend it for ages 8 to 12.
The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
Maysoon Zaid was the youngest of three daughters, born with a condition called cerebral palsy that sometimes caused her to shake in ways she couldn’t control. Though she faced challenges and discrimination for her condition, she and her family always saw her as someone who could achieve whatever she decided to achieve and work hard for. Her story is told in The True Story of… Maysoon Zayid, The Girl Who Can Can.
Written by Dr. Seema Yasmin and illustrated by Noha Habaieb, Maysoon Zayid launches the Muslim Mavericks series, which aims to provide positive, uplifting and encouraging narratives that highlight Muslim identity and notable contributions the community has made to society.
Raised in a family that treated her like everyone else, Zayid was surprised to find that others saw her as different. At first denied enrollment at the same public school in New York that her sisters attended, she and her dad fought for her acceptance. Zayid dreamed of being an actress, comedian, and dancer.
Yet many times in her life she encountered people who were unable to look beyond her disability. They told her her dreams were impossible. Zayid persevered, and today she has achieved many of the dreams she set out to accomplish from the time she was a child.
Based on interviews with Zayid, the story written by Yasmin will have young readers cheering the can-do spirit that has defined her life. Maysoon Zaid, The Girl Who Can Can is sure to inspire readers of all religious persuasions to believe in themselves. I recommend it for ages 6 to 10.
The publisher provided a copy of this title in exchange for my honest review.
