ONCE UPON A BOOK by Grace Lin and Kate Messner and THE TENTH MISTAKE OF HANK HOOPERMAN by Gennifer Choldenko

We were all glad that we had two winners for May! We began with our picture book, Once Upon a Book by Grace Lin & Kate Messner. We loved the illustrations and the story of a little girl, Alice (!!) who is bored on a rainy day and is beckoned by a white rabbit to join him inside the pages of a book, where she is invited to 'turn the page and come in' by a variety of animals (and some clouds) who share their humid, rainy, hot, wet, airy, stormy habitats with her. Each page turn leads to another experience in another place, ending up in the sky, close to the moon, but when she has had enough, Alice is invited to a place of coziness and warmth -- home! -- and a loving family and a bowl of dumplings is there waiting for her. We loved how the white rabbit was shown on ever page, as well as the other details in the very brightly-colored gouache paintings.  A couple of readers thought the text wasn't so interesting, but others felt that young readers/listeners would enjoy the repetition and would soon 'join in' as the story progressed. We also felt there were many details in the illustrations that lent themselves to further discussion. This book was seemingly an homage to Alice in Wonderland and Where the Wild Things Are, and we were sure that young readers would enjoy it.

Many of us felt that our novel, The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman by Gennifer Choldenko, had a very slow start, and looking at the cover illustration we feared it might lead to the (now very common) trope of the travails of middle school. But! -- NO! We were all ultimately captured by this very compelling story of 11-year-old Hank and his 3-year-old sister, 'Boo', whose mother has left and after a week still hasn't returned. The kids are hungry and scared, and the remainder of the story centers around Hank's resourcefulness as he tries to find a way for both of them to be safe, and ultimately to have a good normal life. We thought all of the characters were well-drawn, and we loved the realistic voice that put us inside of Hank's head as his devotion to his little sister and his resilience led him to trust other adults throughout the twists and turns of the plot. A couple of the readers felt that some of he middle part of the story meandered, and perhaps could have been shortened. We thought young readers would stay engaged in this heart-warming, life-affirming story, and that it needed to be on every library shelf, because of its realistic treatment of a situation in which, sadly, many youngsters find themselves today.