Review of The Man Who Counted, by Malba Tahan

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Mathematical, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

The Man Who Counted

A Collection of Mathematical Adventures

by Malba Tahan
translated by Leslie Clark and Alastair Reid
illustrated by Patricia Reid Baquero

W. W. Norton and Company, 1993. First published in Portuguese in Brazil, 1972.
Review written September 14, 2021, from my own copy.
Starred Review

It was a delight to revisit this book, a tale of mathematical feats and curiosities performed in Baghdad by a man who began life as a humble shepherd.

The narrator of the story is a man traveling home to Baghdad who meets Beremiz Samir, a man who can count the number of birds in a flock as they fly by. But his mathematical agility goes beyond counting, as he solves mathematical puzzles for people and gains a post with the vizier in Baghdad.

The stories are told with middle eastern flourishes and the reader is entertained by the situation as well as the many puzzles. Here’s an example of the first puzzle solved:

We had been traveling for a few hours without stopping when there occurred an episode worth retelling, wherein my companion Beremiz put to use his talents as an esteemed cultivator of algebra.

Close to an old, half-abandoned inn, we saw three men arguing heatedly beside a herd of camels. Amid the shouts and insults, the men gestured wildly in fierce debate, and we could hear their angry cries:

“It cannot be!”
“That is robbery!”
“But I do not agree!”

The intelligent Beremiz asked them why they were quarreling.

“We are brothers” the oldest explained, “and we received these 35 camels as our inheritance. According to the express wishes of my father, half of them belong to me, one-third to my brother Hamed, and one-ninth to Harim, the youngest. Nevertheless, we do not know how to make the division, and whatever one of us suggests, the other two dispute. Of the solutions tried so far, none have been acceptable. If half of 35 is 17 ½, if neither one-third nor one-ninth of this amount is a precise number, then how can we make the division?”

“Very simple,” said the Man Who Counted. “I promise to make the division fairly, but let me add to the inheritance of 35 camels this splendid beast that brought us here at such an opportune moment.”

Beremiz presents a solution, and continues to present solutions to problems that come his way. He also expounds on fascinating facts about certain numbers and provides interesting history of mathematics. There are a wide variety of problems. I am especially fond of the liars and truth-tellers puzzle at the end.

I will say that Beremiz presents his calculations as if by magic – he doesn’t really explain how the reader, too, could have gotten the solution. So the book gives the impression that magical mathematical geniuses exist. However, for anyone who enjoys mathematical puzzles, the fun in this book will make up for that.

It was a delight to revisit this classic. It’s similar to The Number Devil, by Hans Magnus Enzensberger — perfect for people who like to play with numbers.

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Review of Trans History, by Alex L. Combs & Andrew Eakett

Audiobooks, Graphic Novel, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Trans History

From Ancient Times to the Present Day

by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett
read by a full cast

Listening Library, 2025. 3 hours, 36 minutes.
Review written February 10, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2026 Odyssey Award Young Adult Winner

The Odyssey Award is given each year for the best audiobook production, and I always make sure to listen to the winners and honor books, because they are without fail wonderful. As it happened, I already had the print graphic novel version of this book checked out, and I always wonder how audiobook producers can pull off converting a graphic novel to an audiobook.

Let me tell you, these folks went all in. They used music and sound effects to help enhance your understanding of what was going on. And when they say “Full Cast” – I don’t see an indication of how many different voices they used, but I have no doubt the number is high. (I think they read off names at the end of the audiobook, so they weren’t without credit.) Especially meaningful was that the last chapter features twelve modern-day trans folks, and these people spoke their own words on the audiobook.

I did take a look at the graphic novel – and I think that both formats offer something unique. But the audiobook production was so deserving of the award, don’t miss that version!

If you ever thought that transgender people are a recent phenomenon, this book will put that idea to rest. They cover trans history, yes, beginning in ancient times – with the caveat that the historical people they talk about would have used different words and wouldn’t necessarily have called themselves trans if they had lived today. But they make a clear point that diversity of gender expression has been around as long as humans have.

The chapters cover the ancient world, Europeans and colonialism, the rise of Sexology, the history of trans people in the United States, and then present day voices from the trans community.

In the preface, the authors say they have three goals for the book:

1. Help dispel the myth that trans people are a “new thing.”

2. Demonstrate that what it means to be trans varies greatly among trans people.

3. Empower trans people by helping them learn about trans history.

They met these goals well, and they also presented a fascinating history I hadn’t known much about, in an entertaining way. The production of this audiobook is stunning and the stories were riveting. May this super informative and helpful look at trans history break down myths and stereotypes and fight marginalization.

alexlcombs.com
candlewick.com

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Review of The Trouble with Heroes, by Kate Messner

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Trouble with Heroes

by Kate Messner
read by Mack Gordon

Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2025. 4 hours, 16 minutes.
Review written February 2, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I’m embarrassed. I have a print copy of this book, signed by the author, which I received at ALA Annual Conference last June and was eager to read. But somehow, with award reading, one thing and another – I didn’t get it read until my audiobook hold came in. However, all is not lost – the book was good enough that I will certainly want to read it again, and I do own a copy.

This audiobook packs a lot of punch into four hours. Finn Connelly was caught kicking over a headstone because his dad’s headstone wasn’t the kind you can kick over – and he’s in deep trouble. Turns out, he defaced the headstone of a beloved woman who had climbed all of the 46 High Peaks of the Adirondacks, and who had written letters to others who wanted to become 46ers, encouraging them in their paths. So the lady’s daughter says she’ll drop charges – if Finn will hike all 46 High Peaks that summer, and take her mother’s dog with him.

At the same time, Finn has a Language Arts poetry project he needs to complete in order to pass seventh grade. It’s supposed to be on the theme of heroes. The teacher suggests he write about his dad.

Finn’s dad was a firefighter who saved people on 9/11 and was captured in an iconic photo. And he went on to work overtime during the Covid-19 pandemic to save people. But Finn doesn’t buy the hero worship. Because he knows all too well how human his dad was.

The book is a novel in verse about Finn’s summer, climbing the 46 peaks with three different trail mentors. And the dog, whom he nicknames Drool-face. It’s told in Finn’s voice as he tries to complete poems for his poetry project. And it’s a whole lot of fun to watch his attitude slowly change – from thinking it’s all stupid and he’s a terrible person and heroes are all fake – to something much more optimistic. And at the same time, we watch him wrestle with who his dad really was.

And it’s all done in four hours! Honestly, I would have liked a little more. The story wasn’t incomplete, and plenty of details were filled in about these actual hikes – but I enjoyed my time with him and would have liked a little more of it. (This isn’t a real complaint – I think it’s fantastic to have good books for kids that aren’t ponderous tomes. But, yeah, I was a little sad it was so short.)

Oh, and the book will also make you hungry for cookies – as Finn devises a cookie to go with each of the 46 High Peaks. (Hmmm. I may have to look in the print book to try a recipe or two.)

A book that’s both powerful and heart-warming. At first, it made me want to go out and do some hiking, but the talk of rock scrambles and mud squelched that impulse to settle for enjoying reading about it.

katemessner.com

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Review of Overcoming Ménière’s, by Mark Knoblauch, PhD

Health, Nonfiction Review 0

Overcoming Ménière’s

How Changing Your Lifestyle Can Change Your Life

by Mark Knoblauch, PhD

Kiremma Press, 2018. 126 pages.
Review written December 20, 2025, from my own copy, ordered via Amazon.com.

I won’t say that I’ve been diagnosed with Ménière’s disease, because the doctor was rather careful not to use those words – since she’s not worried about my ability to drive, with my vertigo episodes few and far between – but I’m pretty convinced that’s what I have, and the doctor “discussed the possibility” – a possibility she didn’t seem to have much doubt about.

So of course I went looking for books on Ménière’s. I didn’t find much, but this one has been quite helpful.

This is the author’s story, and yes, that makes it anecdotal, but he does a good job of providing relevant background information, as well as plenty of reminders that everyone’s experience with Ménière’s is different. And I have to say that his attacks were much more frequent than mine, so much more devastating to his life. (I had four attacks in 2024, but only one in 2025. I also have constant rumbling tinnitus and pressure in my ears plus hearing loss.)

But his story is encouraging. Despite starting from a much worse place, he almost completely eliminated his Ménière’s symptoms with a low-sodium diet. He now is an Ironman in his quest to prove to himself that Ménière’s won’t limit his life.

So it’s an encouraging book to read. Although there is no “cure” for Ménière’s, that doesn’t mean that it will have a huge impact on my life forever. And besides his own story, there’s plenty of information about the disease itself and about the treatment options that do exist. And there’s even a low-sodium spaghetti recipe that I’ve been making frequently.

Sometimes it’s good to hear from someone who’s been through the same thing and come out the other side.

Edited to add: Since writing this review, I’ve gotten hearing aids (Hearing loss is another symptom of Ménière’s.), and I went on a diuretic that greatly helped reduce the rumbling – but also had intolerable side effects of muscle cramps and pain. So I’m trying a different one. But it’s good to have treatment besides the low-sodium diet, and I’m less discouraged about the whole thing.

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Review of Falling Like Leaves, by Misty Wilson

Contemporary, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

Falling Like Leaves

by Misty Wilson
read by Rebekkah Ross

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 8 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written January 19, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.

This young adult romance was completely formulaic and predictable – but totally sweet. I enjoyed the characters and the situation so much, I didn’t mind that I could pretty much tell what was going to happen.

Ellis Mitchell goes to a private school in New York City, and has an internship at her father’s media company. She’s goal-driven to do everything in her senior year to get into Columbia with a journalism major. So why does she browse the Fashion Institute admissions application?

But then her life falls apart, as her mother and father tell her they’re doing a temporary separation – and Ellis has to go with her mother to stay with Aunt Naomi and Ellis’s cousin Sloane in small-town Connecticut.

Bramble Falls, Connecticut, is all about Autumn! They’ve got Autumn Festival events every weekend, and since Aunt Naomi is the Mayor, Ellis has to help. And that throws her into contact with Cooper, the boy who was her best friend when she visited the summer after eighth grade. But their texting fell off when they got busy, and Ellis hasn’t seen him since – so why is he acting like he hates her?

There’s lots of good stuff here about Ellis figuring out what she really wants, and it’s all with the backdrop of an idyllic Fall Festival. Ellis makes some good new friends, has some misunderstandings and disappointments, and it all makes for a great story. Yes, there’s romance – the spiciness goes as far as making out, and the ups and downs of their budding friendship and relationship kept me listening eagerly. Lots of fun.

mistywilsonwrites.com

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Review of How to Hatch, written by Sara Holly Ackerman, illustrated by Galia Bernstein

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

How to Hatch

A Gosling’s Guide to Breaking Free

written by Sara Holly Ackerman
illustrated by Galia Bernstein

Alfred A. Knopf, 2026. 32 pages.
Review written February 6, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

I was a Hatch before I became an Eklund, so books with my former name in the title always catch my eye. When I sat down to read this book, I was completely delighted.

This straightforward nonfiction picture book shows the steps of a gosling hatching simply and clearly, with large and engaging illustrations.

Endpapers at the front (frontpapers?) show two geese building a nest, and the title page shows the mother goose smiling and revealing eggs beneath her. Then as the main book starts, we’re focused in on what’s going on inside a single gosling’s egg.

I like children’s books where I learn something. The very first step is something I hadn’t known. The main text, addressed to the gosling, goes like this:

Step One: BREATHE!

First you need to prick the air cell.
Aim your egg tooth. Jab. Inhale.

Ahhhhh. If that feels good, you won’t believe how much air is on the other side of the shell.

But that’s for another day.

The sidebar gives more detail (still simple and clear), explaining about the pipping muscle at the back of the gosling’s neck that starts twitching, about the egg tooth and the air cell, about how the embryo’s lungs start working – and that the embryo will need to rest after this, sometimes a whole day.

The rest of the pages follow this pattern – encouraging words telling the gosling what to do, with more detailed explanations on the side.

And we get the full story of what it takes to break out of an eggshell from the inside.

First you need a hole for air, then you need to turn and peck to open a way out. And lots and lots of resting in between.

And it’s all told about – so interesting – with a focus on what’s going on inside the egg. And ends up with adorable gosling pictures.

Many elementary school classrooms have egg hatching projects. This book will be a perfect accompaniment. It sticks to the topic, approaches it simply but full of facts, and shows the kid reader an amazing look inside an egg.

sarahollyackerman.com
dancingkangaroo.com

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Review of The Enchanted Greenhouse, by Sarah Beth Durst, by Caitlin Davies

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Enchanted Greenhouse

by Sarah Beth Durst
read by Caitlin Davies

Macmillan Audio, 2025. 13 hours, 33 minutes.
Review written February 7, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Enchanted Greenhouse is another cozy fantasy romance from Sarah Beth Durst, set in the same world as The Spellshop. Though this book was written after The Spellshop, I think you’d be able to read the books in any order. And if you enjoy one, you’ll enjoy the other. I was delighted to learn the origin of the sentient spider plant who was the friend of the main character in the first book.

However, enchanting that spider plant into life got our main character, Terlu, into deep trouble. She was a librarian in the Great Library of Alyssium, the Empire’s capital city, and she got lonely in the stacks with no one to talk to. So she enchanted a spider plant to keep her company. But the law declared that only sorcerers were allowed to do magic. Terlu was discovered and found guilty – and condemned to be a statue in the Great Library as a warning to others.

But then Terlu wakes up in a snowy forest. She’s not a statue any more. She goes searching for others and finds a giant enchanted greenhouse, with many smaller greenhouses inside of it, full of wonders. There is one gardener on the island in charge of it all. He’d expected that the statue he’d been sent and awoken was a sorcerer to help him solve the problem of the greenhouses failing after the death of the sorcerer who’d created them. Instead he got a librarian who’s afraid to do magic because she doesn’t want to be turned into a statue again.

But it turns out the gardener, Yarrow, is a kind man (and handsome!) and he gives her food and shelter for as long as she wants to stay. And then Terlu waters and awakens a small sentient rose plant who had been dormant. And this rose convinces her to seek a spell to awaken her fellow sentient plants who are all in an enchanted sleep. Between that and the failing greenhouses, Terlu realizes that she needs to figure out the old sorcerer’s spells to help these other beings. Fortunately, she’s skilled in multiple languages, though she might need a little help with code-breaking.

That’s the world of this book, and it adds up to another sweet and satisfying cozy magical story.

sarahbethdurst.com

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Review of Mister Impossible, by Maggie Stiefvater

Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Mister Impossible

by Maggie Stiefvater
read by Will Patten

Scholastic Audio, 2021. 10 hours, 44 minutes.
Review written August 24, 2021, from a library eaudiobook

This is the second book in the Dreamer trilogy, where Maggie Stiefvater continues to demonstrate her imaginative world-building.

In this book, Ronan is on the run with two other dreamers. Dreamers, also called Zeds, are able to dream objects and bring them back to reality.

But the Moderators want to track them down and kill them, because Visionaries have seen the world destroyed with unquenchable fire – because of Dreamers. They must be stopped.

Meanwhile, we’re also following some characters who are dreams themselves. They are destined to fall asleep if their Dreamer dies – except in this book we discover a possible way to escape that fate. Also, the ley lines that give power to Dreamers are getting weaker because of the proliferation of technology. Can the Dreamers fix that?

And the story of all this is complicated and surprising and unexpected.

You will want to read this trilogy in order. It would be tremendously confusing if you didn’t, but as it is each new revelation pieces into what you already know about Dreams and Reality and Destiny and Power.

maggiestiefvater.com

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Review of Will’s Race for Home, by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Will’s Race for Home

by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Little, Brown and Company, 2025. 196 pages.
Review written February 4, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review
2026 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2026 Capitol Choices selection

Here’s a Western with a Black kid as the protagonist. The book starts out in late 1888. Will lives with his parents and his grandfather on land they sharecrop in Texas, giving most of the profit to the owner. Father and Pa say it’s not much better than slavery.

So when Father hears about a coming land rush for land in Oklahoma, opening up on Monday, April 22, 1889, at noon, Father and Will join the crowd heading out to stake their claim. They’ve got their mule Belle hitched up to a wagon, and they hope to make it on time, because there are more people seeking 160 acres of land than there is land to give them.

And the journey is difficult. They find a friend who helps them, and then they need to help the friend. And they have to get their mule and wagon across the Red River on the border between Texas and Oklahoma. They face gunslingers and sheriffs who don’t want Black folks to claim land. Will gets to know his father better and then gets to know himself better, because by the end he has an important part to play.

It feels like children’s books are getting shorter lately, which is a welcome change. In under 200 pages, Jewell Parker Rhodes gives us a story full of danger and drama, as well as compassion and hope, and shedding light on a part of American history I hadn’t known a lot about. (My own great-grandparents had a homestead in Oklahoma – now I’m curious if they were part of that same land rush.)

jewellparkerrhodes.com
lbyr.com

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Review of 107 Days, by Kamala Harris

Biography, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

107 Days

by Kamala Harris
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2025. 9 hours, 58 minutes.
Review written January 27, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This audiobook made me wistful, nostalgic, and deeply sad for what might have been, but by the end filled me with hope and determination.

The content of the book is simple to describe: Kamala Harris tells about her 107 days running for president, from the day Joe Biden called to tell her he was dropping out to the night she got the news she had lost the election.

It renewed all my wishes that she had won. She cares about people and about trying to make government work for people. In her description of her days and her thoughts and emotions, she feels like a real person – a real person who is trying to do her best with what she has.

I think I relate to Kamala because she’s only a few months younger than me. (And Tim Walz only a few months older.) She’s also a likable person – down-to-earth and genuinely trying to use government power to defend those who need help and to bring fairness to our system.

I’ve seen criticism of this book that she didn’t take responsibility for the loss. But I think she did her best with the time she had. She does admit to some mistakes, and she points out mistakes by others (perhaps more than she should have, but it feels fair). This book shows how she gave it her best shot.

I still find myself wishing she’d had a little more investigation happen to irregularities in swing states’ voting machines, but she was determined to reinstate a peaceful transfer of power and not deepen the nation’s mistrust in voting results. And that was a powerful and hard thing she did. She said that only three other vice presidents have had to certify their own defeat – and Hubert Humphrey refused and had the president of the Senate do it in his place.

And she does hold out hope at the end. This was written before ICE moved so many troops into Minneapolis, so she focuses on the midterms and reminds us that the people still have power. May that be so. And may we as the people of these United States remember that we are the foundation of this government and make our voices known.

kamalaharris.com

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