Review by Deborah K Frontiera The Stormy Kromer Kitten by Erin Byrnes Bailey is a historical fiction picture book tells how the Stormy Kromer caps might have come to be. Set in 1903, George and Ida Kromer came up with an idea for a warm hat that would not blow…
Review by Mack Hassler Tantae molis erat Romanem condere gentum “How hard it was to found the race of Rome” Near the end of Book I, Vergil The Aeneid, written close to Christ’s birth I love the interplay in this epigraph between the language play in ancient thought given to…
Review by Deborah K Frontiera A Is for Agates is a great alphabet book that, literally, has it all—for the child being read to and the adult reading it to a child, or children. Words roll easily out when reading it aloud—rhymes and rhythm flow without any tongue tripping. So…
Building Kathy Ann By Robert “Buzz” Johnson Review by Deborah K Frontiera ISBN: 979-8-8956-054-8 Modern History Press, 2025, PB Ret. $21.95 If you’ve never thought about how much is involved in building a boat from the keel up, you will more than appreciate the many technical skills involved by the time…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera What can you do with a wordless picture book? Oh, let me count the ways! First, a parent or other adult can let a child, or children make up the story, and there can be many stories going on in the progression of the illustrations….
Rescuing Crash, The Good Dog: A Novel By Sue Harrison Review by Deborah K. Frontiera ISBN 979-8-89656-015-9, Modern History Press, 2025, Ret. $18.95 paperback In Rescuing Crash, The Good Dog, eleven-year-old Britta had life smack her in the face. Her mother has left the family to chase her own dreams. Dad is…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The book’s title-poem, “Roots in Water” does not appear until close to the end of the book. It is about snipping a shoot from a bush and placing it in a pickle jar of water to grow a new plant. Simple, but also complex, since…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The Story of Journey, an informative picture book is great for the older end of the picture book range. Filled with well researched facts about how baby owls are raised might be a bit too much for pre-k and Kindergarten children. But it is great…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera What makes us “sane” or “insane”? That is the question poet Ellen Lord explores in her collection of poems, Relative Sanity. The opening poem, “Muse”, speaks of thoughts coming to us out of silence. Then there are memories of the poet’s childhood and her unbalanced…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera If you have not read Sharon Kennedy’s first two in this series, The SideRoad Kids, and The SideRoad Kids: A Summer of Discovery, it won’t matter since the final volume has plenty of backstory to pull you into these characters as adults. It has been…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera This wonderful adventure of a day at the beach, told through the letters of the alphabet, not only involves words beginning with each letter but exposes children to a lot of natural science and wonder about the world around them. It even includes bits of…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera In J.D. Austin’s The Last Huck, two brothers, Nick and Jacob (who is in prison during the main time of the story) and a cousin, Pete, are faced with the necessity of selling the last bit of family land in Upper Michigan’s Houghton County. They…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera Filled with metaphor, reading like a prose poem, the author of Who Am I? speaks through a mother and her young daughter to teach the youngster about the interconnectedness of life on Earth. The child asks who she is and the mother answers with a…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera This nonfiction travelog/personal story The Palace of the Snow Queen by Barbara Sjoholm details her inward and outward journeys over three winter trips above the Arctic Circle in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. Originally published by Counterpoint Press in 2007, the new edition by U of…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera In her new book Impermance: Life and Loss on Superior’s South Shore, Sue Leaf details the constant change in Lake Superior’s south shore through memoir-like phases of her own life and relationship with the lake in an artistic way with vivid descriptions. Both people’s lives…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera The middle-grade novel Voodoo Shack is not just for kids. Adults who grew up in the 1960s will remember, fondly or otherwise, their growing-up years. Parents of today’s middle-grade readers may comment, “So that’s what it was like for my parents, and it’s pretty much…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera It is a bit sad to reach the end of Sigrid Undset’s epic, Olav Audunssøn, with the fourth subtitled Winter. For readers not familiar with Undset’s work, do not be afraid to start with this one. The author includes enough backstory so a reader does…
Review by Deborah K. Frontiera Boat’s Can’t Jump: The Story of the Soo Locks is a delightful nonfiction picture book explains with words and illustrations why the locks at Sault Ste. Marie were built and how they work. Young children learn from both pictures and words, and this author/illustrator pair…
