Beautiful. Inspiring. Heartwarming. Dear Librarian is a story of family, hope, and finding a place to call home that brings creative nonfiction in children's literature to a whole new level.

I absolutely love the way this story warms my heart and brings tears to my eyes each and every time I read it. Sigwarth does such an amazing job of taking the beautiful and sometimes messy story of childhood (her full story told on This American Life) and crafting it into a touching and uplifting children's story. Like she notes in the back of the book, every person's story is unique but sharing these stories helps bring experiences together, as well. 

The illustrations in this book are beyond beautiful. I love the style and bright, vibrant colors being used. They truly help bring this story to life and make the reader feel like they are part of something really special. 

As someone who grew up in libraries and is currently working to becoming a librarian, this story really touched my heart, and I hope to one day be at least half of the librarian that Lydia and Deb have been.

**Thank you to NetGalley, author Traci Sorell, and Charlesbridge for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

This is a powerfully moving collection of words that brings the stories of American Indigenous voices together. The story commences in a classroom with background information about how the land and rights of Native Nations were stripped away by unfair and broken treaties, and the story ends with a powerful illustration of the children in the classroom each presenting a poster on one of the twelve topics. 

The structure of each presentation is consistent and powerful. Beginning with the child's name, followed by the term and an explanation of how that term impacted Native Nations. Beautiful illustrations complement the story and make the voices of each presenter come to life. 

The repetitious use of "We are still here." can shake the ground, and I hope that it does. This book is powerful, and I hope that I, and other librarians, will be able to use this book in the future to educate and change our society. 

**Thank you to NetGalley, authors Jessica Dee Humphreys and Rona Ambrose, and Kids Can Press for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

This is a beautiful book full of the stories of strong, powerful, brave, and inspirational young girls who are out to make a change in the world. I love that this book takes the stories of real girls around the world and shares their brilliant efforts at making a change in the community for which they live. 

I absolutely love that this story begins and ends with the metaphor of growing a garden and becoming the gardener for the garden that is our world. 

The only hesitation I have about this book is in the beginning there is a constant reference to half the world being girls. It just feels like this is an undersupported thought that could have been better executed, though I understand what they were trying to accomplish. 

Thank you, Flora, Hana, Abuya, Liliya, Sokanon, Mallika, Keeya, Zarah, Aster, and all the amazing, brave young children out in the world pushing for change. 

As many have said before me, this is a great book for ALL children and families. I definitely see myself sharing and recommending this story in the future. 

**Thank you to NetGalley, author Morgan Rogers, and HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing (U.S. & Canada): Park Row for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

Honey Girl started out as a hesitant read for me, but it quickly turned out to be a beautiful story about love, determination, family struggles, and self-discovery. 

I will say that I struggled to get into this story. It took me about three times of rereading the first couple of chapters to really get into the story. I cannot fully pinpoint what it was that was tripping me up, but I think it had something to do with that explanation of the Vegas plot in the first couple of chapters and then connecting the main plotline of the story. I felt like I was missing something. 

With that aside, however, I ended up finding this story to be heart-wrenching and heart-warming at the same time. Grace, the main character, is extremely complex and dynamic. Her story and plot lines are engaging and made me want to see what she would decide next on her life's journey. There are a few times that I wanted to roll my eyes with the decisions she made, but thinking about the real world and even how I would have handled said situations, it is not hard to see why she makes those choices. 

I also really adore the relationships between Grace and Ximena and Agnes and Grace and Yuki. The relationships between all of these characters are complex and messy, making them feel like real-life connections. No path was perfectly paved and they each work hard at something to make their lives fulfilled. Rogers did a nice job developing and connecting all of the characters within her story. 

Overall, this book didn't blow me away, but I am glad I gave it a chance. 

- Beautifully crafted story
- Incorporation of the Indigenous Cherokee language with the American English language make the book's themes and topic more prominent and upfront for readers. I appreciate the phonetic spelling for the Cherokee words as this helps readers, like myself, become more educated and pronounce the words in the correct way
- Beautiful exploration of Cherokee culture
- Illustrations complemented the story
- The information in the back of the story helps further explain some of the definitions within the story as well as provide the Cherokee Syllabary. 

- Wonderfully told Peruvian Indigenous story about environmentalism and the impact humans have had on the rain forest
- Strong illustrations to help tell the story; brings emotion and life to the words
- Child perspective main character is helpful to make the topic connect more with younger readers
- Lots of information in the back of the book; love the explanation and showcase of Zonia's friends as well as the translated story

**Thank you to NetGalley, author Alain Serres, and House of Anansi Press Inc.: Groundwood Books for the eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.**

This is a children's book that shares an extremely powerful message. The message is that children have the right to speak up for their planet, their lives, and their futures. The book talks about the Convention on the Rights of Children and how, by signing this agreement, the majority of world leaders have declared "A child's best interests must always be respected. that matters more than anything else." This is such a valuable declaration that children should be taught and made sure to understand. This book's powerful message has the ability to inspiring children everywhere to stand up for their rights and the rights of our planet. The only thing I would have liked as an addition would be more illustrations that included children. I think visuals in children's books are so powerful, so having children represented as standing up for their rights and being taught how they can make their voices heard would be a great addition.

- Unique illustrations help to tell the story
- Solid information broken down by panel-like sections on the page. This made all of the information seem less overwhelming
- Really enjoy that each page begins with a question. This can make the information more engaging for the reader as they begin with the question in mind and are able to either make some assumptions about it before reading or dive into the text to explore the answers right away.
- Offers craft idea for readers to participate in to help the honeybees.
- Sidenote: I love the feel of the pages. They almost feel like cardstock and I think they are great to use in picture books

- Solid information presented in a "traditional" nonfiction book style. By this, I mean the realistic pictures surrounded by individual paragraphs of text to explain what is happening in the pictures. 
- Can serve as a nice children's book but also might be useful for curious readings just looking to learn more about the honeybee.

- Good representation of visible and invisible disabilities
- Nice conversational style to make the information stick
- Strong vibrant illustrations
- Would be nice to see a few more, maybe less common, disabilities
- The term "disability" should not be shied away from
- Love the metaphor of building a garden and relating that to how unique each individual is