Fred and Norah’s persistent pursuit to figure out where the monarch butterflies migrate to in the winter is the epitome of how curiosity and wonder can lead to brilliant discoveries.

Just when Francisco finds a caring teacher or a thoughtful friend, the picking season is over and his family must pack up and move to the next migrant tent city.

Lydia Corry crafted such a beautiful graphic novel about Emily Dickinson.

If you have middle school students, I highly recommend reading both Stealing Home by J. Torres & David Namisato (2021) and Seen and Unseen: What Dorothea Lange, Toyo Miyatake, and Ansel Adams’s Photographs Reveal About The Japanese American Incarceration (2024).

Bao doesn’t want to lose her beloved forest, but she is more enraged at the hypocrisy of her school and community leaders.

My kids and I read this book before our recent trip to Costa Rica. Not only is this nonfiction picture book published by National Geographic (my favorite news source!), but it also received the 2025 Illinois Monarch Award from the Association of Illinois School Library Educators.

Book Deal Announcement!

I’ve been busy with some new writing deadlines in my future, so this week I am highlighting old posts and reflecting on a recent adult book.

Truth be told, I don’t have much to say this week.

With all of these life experiences in mind, I have curated a list of some of my favorite election books.Please e-mail me with some of your favorite election books! We will be reading a lot in the next few weeks.

The top three contributors to climate change are: China, the United States, and food waste. Want to take climate action? Compost!

This story blends the power of kindness and the power of nature in such a sweet, simple way. You will not regret grabbing this new picture book at the library! 

Tis the season! Election season, that is! That means it is time for everyone to brush up on their disinformation, fake-news and conspiracy-theory-spotting-skills.

I am taking an August recess with my biweekly book reviews. I plan to read many, many more picture books, chapter books and middle grade books. So, keep your eyes peeled for my fall book reviews!

Lena is a fictional character set in a very real part of history. She lives a safe life with her family in Greenwood - a flourishing black town that Booker T. Washington named the “Negro Wall Street of America.”

Small Places Close to Home is inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt’s remarks to the United Nations in 1958: “Where, after all, do universal rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world.”

This is a simple story of a little girl, Mevan, who loves her home in Kurdistan, Iraq. The food. The nature. The family. The community. Then, one day, due to ethnic and political persecution, her family flees.

A Place for Rain is such a lovely, lyrical picture book.

Do You Know Them? is a historical fiction picture book. Lettie is a smart, industrious girl who has newly-acquired freedom. As an enslaved child, Lettie was uprooted from her family, but the end of the Civil War and the freedom of enslaved peoples has given her a beam of hope.