Review of The Duck Can’t Sleep, by E. B. White, art by Melissa Sweet

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Duck Can’t Sleep

by E. B. White
foreword by Martha White
art by Melissa Sweet

Quill Tree Books, 2026. 44 pages.
Review written October 5, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This little picture book is published for children, and I think children will like it, but in many ways its true audience is thoughtful adults who have ever experienced insomnia.

The text of the book is a poem that E. B. White published in The New Yorker when he was a young writer living in the city. His granddaughter writes in the foreword that he often went for a walk around the Central Park reservoir when he had something to think through.

This book tells about one of those strolls that happened at midnight – when he also found a duck awake and swimming around.

He has fun thinking about why the duck is up and about so late.

I wondered if he’d left his kind
Because of something on his mind.
A midnight sail to clear his vision
And help him reach some duck decision.

Eventually, he concludes that the duck simply can’t sleep. But the fun is in getting there.

And the illustrations by Melissa Sweet are what make this book pop. She’s poured love into them (see her picture book biography of E. B. White, Some Writer!), and each page is a beautiful work of art. The poem is simple and basically in a single setting, but she puts different angles and backgrounds on each page. I like the way you can tell it’s happening at night, but the subjects (duck and man) are lit up.

Will kids love it as much as I do? Try it out on your kids and tell me in the comments!

melissasweet.net

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Secure, by Amir Levine

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth 0

Secure

The Revolutionary Guide to Creating a Secure Life

by Amir Levine, MD

Tarcher, 2026. 264 pages.
Review written August 30, 2026, from a library book.

I’m a little ambivalent about this book. When I read Attached, back in 2012, I thought Aha! That’s what went wrong in my marriage! I have an Anxious attachment style and he had an Avoidant one.

But hold on. At the end of our relationship, my husband was having an affair. So yes, I was Anxious about our relationship. Yes, I noticed all kinds of little clues that something was wrong. And yes, he was avoiding closeness. He was trying to keep me from finding out the truth. This doesn’t mean it’s an enduring truth about me.

I’ve had two short-term boyfriends since getting divorced. With the first one, I was, honestly, looking for a new husband and a little quick to conclude maybe I’d found one. In that scenario, is it any wonder he came across as Avoidant, and I came across as Anxious?

But funny thing, in the next relationship, I was never completely sure we were a good match (and ultimately was the one who decided we were not) – and I had absolutely no trouble at all with Anxious behaviors. You could say it’s because I didn’t really Attach, but through the whole thing I felt Secure. I enjoyed the time we had together, but I wasn’t overly concerned whether it was going to continue or not.

In this book, they admit right off the bat that different relationships will have different levels of security. They’ve got a little test to rate yourself on different relationships. They do have a general test of your attachment style – and not being in a relationship at all, I came out as Secure, by that measure.

So I guess I’m trying to say that conclusions you may have made about yourself based on the original book about Attachment Theory really may depend on the situation.

This book is about helping make your attachments more secure.

Interesting to me, as part of #Sonderbooks25 celebrating 25 years of writing Sonderbooks, I’ve been reading quotes I posted on my Sonderquotes blog in 2008. Many of those quotes were from Codepent No More, by Melody Beattie, and The Little Book of Letting Go, by Hugh Prather – and the general drift of so many of the quotes that struck me when I was in the midst of healing from being cheated on were similar to the advice here about becoming more secure if you have a tendency to be anxious.

So it’s not bad advice. There are good nuggets here. With the distance of years, I’m thinking that at times there are reasons your attachment may become insecure that aren’t a reflection on your “attachment style.”

The fundamentals of a Secure life that he presents are surrounding yourself with people who are CARRP – Consistent, Available, Responsive, Reliable, and Predictable. So I think what I’m trying to say is that if you are attached to someone who suddenly stops being those things (like a cheating husband), your attachment to them will stop being secure. This book helps you feel more secure in yourself and helps you know when to let go as well as when to be willing to attach (for those tending toward avoidance).

He’s got some more detailed ways to help you adjust in different situations, and tips to help keep out of pitfalls for the different attachment styles. There are several situations presented, and I did well on the little quizzes, so maybe I have learned to be secure.

So this book goes a little further into attachment styles. It doesn’t merely diagnose, but also gives ideas and strategies for becoming more secure. I think I might have found it more helpful if I were currently in a romantic relationship.

amirlevinemd.com

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Review of Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore, by Diana Peterfreund

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ellen Poe

The Forgotten Lore

by Diana Peterfreund
read by Marli Watson

Hachette Audio, 2026. 7 hours, 19 minutes.
Review written September 11, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.

I love Diana Peterfreund’s books, especially For Darkness Shows the Stars, so I was happy when the library got this new series on audio. This book begins the story of teen Ellen Poe Reynolds. Her family claims that they are descendants of Edgar Allan Poe and a maid he had a fling with before his death.

Ellen and her father have always been skeptical of the stories. But now Ellen is living with her aunt in the family home in Poe-obsessed Baltimore, while her dad is out west trying to earn some money for a place of their own. Aunt Marie is trying to turn the old family home into a Poe-themed Bed and Breakfast, so Ellen has to put up with things like a stuffed raven in her bedroom.

Is it any wonder she has nightmares? But when one of the dead people in her recurring dreams shows up as a new kid at her high school, her exclamation, “You’re dead!” gets badly misinterpreted. However, the boy is intrigued, because he recently died but was revived. How did she know?

At the same time this is going on, in the clutter of boxes, Ellen finds an old journal with the initials E. A. Poe. When she takes it to school, she starts seeing the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe following her. He talks to her – but only using lines from his writing.

The journal is in code, but when Ellen decodes it using a decryption website, she finds what may be unpublished poems of Edgar Allan Poe. If she can prove it, their money troubles will be over. At the same time, the poems contain clues that lead her to the middle of some kind of treasure hunt involving a mysterious group in the city.

And while she’s working on that, it turns out the dreams may be warning of danger.

This is a fun story with code-breaking and puzzles to solve, with lots of Poe trivia on the side. Ellen’s a likable character in the tricky situation of seeing a ghost who isn’t visible to anyone else. I’m pleased that the next book in the series is coming out in October.

dianapeterfreund.com

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Ready for Autumn Reading

Book Talking with Sondy 2

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book.  It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

— Juliet Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

#Sonderbooks25

As it happens, as part of #Sonderbooks25, I’m listening to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and it’s proving every bit as delightful as I found it when I wrote the review in 2009.

This last month, I did finish rereading reviews and other posts from 2008 and wrote up those reflections.  And I am very close to finishing 2009.  I also reread (via audio) Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card, and with it, too, loved it every bit as much as when I made it a Stand-out after first reading it.

And so this project is making the list of books I want to reread much longer and unmanageable.  I will probably mostly get around to the ones that our library has as eaudiobooks.  If you see me walking around with a little smile on my face, it may have to do with immersing myself in a truly great book that is also an old friend.

And reading the old blog posts reminded me that 2009 was when I attended my first KidLitCon and participated in my first 48-Hour Book Challenge.  And as I happen to be behind in my reading – I’m taking a day off to do another one next weekend!

Wild Goose Festival

But September was also the month I went to Wild Goose Festival!  I got to talk about my book and met several progressive Christian authors whose books I love, and I wrote about it – and the storm that interrupted my session – on my Sonderjourneys blog.

Library Insider Info

I’m getting excited about the second-grade field trips.  I’d heard about them last month, but was thinking more of what a lot of work library staff will have to do to make them a success.  Now, having been to a virtual session with the planners, I’m impressed by how well they’ve planned it and the resources available to branch staff – a complete script for visits and planning checklists.

Here’s the background: The plan between our county schools and library is that every second grade class will attend a field trip to a public library.  Each student will check out one book on their special-access library card.

I heard some numbers.  There are over 11,000 second graders in this county, and 535 second grade classrooms.  They are thinking they can make it happen with 304 field trips.  (With more than one class coming at a time.)  So it is an ambitious project!

I work at Technical Operations, on the back side of a regional library.  We saw a school bus in the parking lot, so I chose that moment to walk to the branch and return a couple books.  I saw one group of second graders in a meeting room listening to the Youth Services Manager (on his last day before retirement), and then in the library itself, a line of second graders were all holding a book each to check out.

What made my heart truly happy was seeing the chairs across from the circulation all filled with second graders happily reading.  They didn’t pay any attention to me because they were all looking at their books.

Now, my professional worry is that some of the smaller branches will run out of the books that appeal to second graders.  But I saw a list of books checked out on those special cards on the first day of field trips – and they cover a complete range: picture books, graphic novels, chapter books, beginning readers, and nonfiction.  So because they have a wide range of interests, and we offer a wide range of materials, I think that even by the last field trip, they will be able to find books they are excited about.  (And I will keep an eye on those lists as the year progresses.)

A report from one of the second grade teachers is that the kids couldn’t wait, and they were all reading in the bus on the way back to school!

Reviews to Check Out

I posted 19 reviews in September, and wrote 17 new reviews – so a little less backlog.  🙂  I currently have far too many interesting nonfiction I’m working on – so I’m reading a little bit at a time for a bunch of them, and it’s all taking longer.

But let me draw your attention to some especially good books I posted about last month:

In the order they were posted:

The Neverfear, by Katherine Rundell.  This is the third book in the Impossible Creatures series, and I will go so far as to say I think it is the best fantasy series for kids I’ve read in a long time.

Translation State, by Ann Leckie.  Another brilliant science fiction novel in a mind-bending world, this time a thriller as well.

Work in Progress: Confessions of a Busboy, Dishwasher, Caddy, Usher, Factory Worker, Bank Teller, Corporate Tool, and Priest, by James Martin, SJ.  An entertaining memoir about the very wide variety of jobs he’s had in his life.

The Late Mrs. Willoughby, by Claudia Gray.  I’m trying to catch up on this series, where the children of Jane Austen characters solve mysteries involving other Jane Austen characters.  Super fun! [And check out my Austenalia page if you like Jane Austen knock-offs.]

Holloway, by Elana K. Arnold, features an autistic teen from 2021 time-traveling back to 1946 France and getting put in an asylum which is surprisingly an actual refuge.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez.  I heard this author speak at Wild Goose Festival, and I have already begun her new book, Live Laugh Love, about white Christian women.  This earlier book is a history of white evangelical culture and how it got all tangled up with rugged masculinity and led to supporting Donald Trump and ideas like those in Project 2025.

There are plenty more reviews for all ages on Sonderbooks.com!  And don’t forget you can subscribe to the blog to get daily, weekly, or monthly reviews.  (This post is the monthly version.)

And I finished off September by attending Patapsco Literary Festival in Ellicott City, Maryland.  I didn’t attend very many sessions, but unlike the National Book Festival, it was not crowded and it was lovely.  I bought some books from the authors I heard, and plan to get there earlier next year.

How about you?  Read anything good lately?

Thanks again, so much, for your support!

As always, Happy Reading!

Sondy

Sonderbooks.com

Review of Who Is Amy Schneider? by Amy Schneider

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Who Is Amy Schneider?

Questions on Growing Up, Being Curious, and Winning It Big on Jeopardy!

by Amy Schneider

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 150 pages.
Review written June 1, 2026, from a library book.

Who Is Amy Schneider? is the Jeopardy! champion’s autobiography, adapted for young readers from her adult book, In the Form of a Question.

Yes, the book explains what it takes to win on Jeopardy! – growing up a curious kid and doing lots of practice tests, among other things. But this book is especially good for a simple story of what it felt like for Amy to come out as transgender. She was an adult when she did that, but she does talk about difficulty as a child being the boy she was expected to be.

Fun fact: I once tried out for Jeopardy! That was when they went around the country doing in-person tests. I didn’t get past the test phase. Now they have the tests online, and it turns out, Amy Schneider didn’t pass her first online test either. But she kept trying.

This is a chapter book, written at a level for elementary school or middle school kids. It shows readers that curious kids can end up going far.

simonandschuster.com/kids

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Review of Thornhedge, by T. Kingfisher

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Thornhedge

by T. Kingfisher
read by Jennifer Blom

Macmillan Audio, 2023. 3 hours, 43 minutes.
Review written April 28, 2026, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2024 Hugo Award Winner
2024 Locus Award Winner

What if the beautiful princess sleeping in the tower absolutely should not be woken?

This delightful and immersive novella is narrated by Toadling. Toadling was born human, a princess even, but when she was only an hour old, fairies stole her from her crib and replaced her with a changeling. She was brought up by loving water sprites. She learned magic from them, took on many of their characteristics, and can turn into a toad at will.

We first meet her watching over a tower for hundreds of years, hoping against hope that humans have stopped telling stories about it and that the thick thorn hedge and the brambles she set about it will keep all humans away.

But then, after years of quiet, a poor rundown Muslim knight comes and camps near the thorn hedge. He has read about a princess in the tower, and his curiosity compels him to find out if it’s true. But then he meets Toadling and becomes the first person to speak to her in hundreds of years – and he won’t be warned away.

As Toadling deals with this unexpected and hard-to-dissuade intruder, we learn more about her story and why she’s guarding the tower. And we, too, come to hope that the princess will not be woken.

Yes, there’s some danger and darkness in the middle of this tale, but we come to love the characters and the way it wraps up in the end is absolutely perfect. This is a tale to treasure.

redwombatstudio.com

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Review of You and Me on Repeat, by Mary Shyne

Award Winners, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

You and Me on Repeat

by Mary Shyne

Henry Holt and Company, 2025. 220 pages.
Review written February 17, 2026, from a library book.
2026 Morris Award Finalist

It’s graduation day… again. Yes, this is a time loop graphic novel. It won me over on the first page when, instead of going through the process of the main character figuring out they’re in a time loop, the book starts on Loop 20.

Chris is convinced he’ll get out of the loop if he manages his first kiss with his girlfriend that he was trying to orchestrate at the party after graduation – that keeps getting interrupted in every loop.

But Chris admits that someone else was in the loop first. Alicia, whom he’d been friends with before high school, is the one who pulled him into the time loop. She volunteers to help him get that perfect kiss, though she doesn’t think it’s going to work out.

And it’s just a fun story. They try to divert themselves in various entertaining ways as they repeat graduation day over and over. And when there’s only one person who remembers what you did the day before, you’re going to grow closer.

This book does attach the time loop to physics and even goes for a pseudo-explanation. I don’t buy time loops at all if my mind gets involved – but they’re still lots of fun to read about and just let the explanation go.

maryshyne.com

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Review of The Bats on the Bus, by Alison Jackson, illustrated by Scott Magoon

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Bats on the Bus

by Alison Jackson
illustrated by Scott Magoon

Christy Ottaviano Books (Little, Brown and Company), 2026. 40 pages.
Review written August 17, 2026, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book makes me want to do a library story time again! And specifically, a story time for Halloween.

The idea is simple, and the execution is classic. We begin with:

The Bats on the bus hang
UPSIDE DOWN,
UPSIDE DOWN,
UPSIDE DOWN.

The Bats on the bus
hang UPSIDE DOWN . . .

All around the town.

Are you able to read that without singing it? I wasn’t.

Next, the Ghosts on the bus shout BOO! BOO! BOO! The Witches on the bus scream WHERE’S MY BROOM? The Giants on the bus stomp UP AND DOWN! And so on.

It ends when the Children on the bus yell TRICK OR TREAT! They lift their masks and we see that all the scary creatures on the bus were children in masks headed to a Fright Fest. (Well, except those bats hanging upside down.)

This book has all the elements of a Story Time Hit.

scottmagoon.com
alison-jackson.com

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Patapsco Literary Festival

Conference Corner 0

I attended Patapsco Literary Festival in Historic Old Town Ellicott City yesterday!

For months, a friend from my gaming group who works in Ellicott City has told me I should visit and that I’d love the bookstore there. But I always balked, since it takes more than an hour-and-a-half to get there from my house. And with working full-time and church plus gaming on Sundays, Saturdays are the only days when it would be feasible – but that’s also my day to get household chores done, work on my website, and sleep late.

But then my friend Jill told me about the book festival coming up. And yes, I wanted to do some work on my website. And my home is a mess. But what better reason to see Ellicott City? On top of the urging from Jill, as it happens, Ellicott City was my very first home – it’s listed on my birth certificate as where my mother lived.

I did still sleep late. So I wasn’t there for very much of the Literary Festival. But I got to hear two sessions. And there were no crowds – which is better than the National Book Festival, which took most of the day and because of crowds, I only got to hear two sessions anyway. And I enjoyed it so much, next year I will try go again, but not sleep late this time.

The first session I attended was “Beyond the Margins: Literary Careers Outside of Authorship,” featuring translator Mojdeh Bahar, illustrator Phyllis Saroff (pictured above). The moderator had insightful questions about how translating poetry is like making art, and illustration is a form of translation. I purchased a book, Song of the Ground Jay: Poems by Iranian Women, translated by Mojdeh Bahar. I’m going to look for science picture books illustrated by Phyllis Saroff on the library vendor website. (It’s a smaller publisher, but she says they’ve gotten good reviews from School Library Journal, and I could see the excellence in her work.)

Edited to add: When I got to the library and checked our catalog, it turns out we have almost all of the books she’s illustrated! The only exception I could find is the most recent one, Return of the Terns: How Scientists Are Saving Island Birds, so I’m going to put it in an order.

The second session I attended featured Alma Katsu, being interviewed by Jill’s friend Becky. Alma was fascinating to listen to. In the past, she worked for the CIA, including papers about deep fake technology – before the explosion of the public using AI, and how it can be used for nefarious purposes. She has several historical horror novels out, her first one being about the Donner Party being followed by a sinister force. She has another that sounds interesting about the Japanese interment, based on her husband’s family’s experience. I am not a horror fan, so I opted to buy the spy novel she had available, Red London. Though she and the moderator both said her books are lighter on the horror, so I will probably try one if I like the spy novel (as I expect to). She said her spy novels are different in that they are not set during World War II, and they feature the experience of women, as she met many interesting women when she worked for the CIA.

So despite the over three hours in the car on a wet day (but at least no thunderstorms), I was glad I took the time to go. Main Street at Ellicott City is lovely, and it struck me that my parents were probably familiar with the very same buildings. I loved it that there was no chain store in sight, and each shop had plenty of character. I bought a couple other books, too. And, yes, it cost me more than ordering from Amazon, but it came with such a lovely experience.

Review of Jesus and John Wayne, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Christian, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Jesus and John Wayne

How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Liveright Publishing, 2020. 356 pages.
Review written September 25, 2026, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com.
Starred Review

I don’t remember which of many recommendations prompted me to order my own copy of Jesus and John Wayne right around the time it first came out, but I know there were many, and I was happy to order it. Once I had it, I’m afraid it competed with the library books I had checked out, but didn’t have a due date. (This is something I often have to contend with.) This is also a history book, and a little dense. Yes, it’s a history of what Christians were doing, but it didn’t seem right for devotional reading, which often jumps to the top of my queue.

But then after my proposal was accepted and I got to be a co-creator at Wild Goose Festival, I saw that Kristin Du Mez was going to be there, too! And her new book, Live Laugh Love sounded similar, but talking more about “Christian femininity” than the focus on masculinity in Jesus and John Wayne. So I preordered the new book, and decided I really should get the old one read before the festival.

Well, I was halfway through Jesus and John Wayne when I went to Wild Goose Festival and got to hear the author speak twice. She talked about both books, and now I’m all the more eager to read the next one, which arrived on the publication date this week.

This is a history book about white evangelicalism in America, and how the movement got carried away with the idea of rugged masculinity epitomized by John Wayne.

The book starts with the early twentieth century and looks at people like Billy Sunday, Billy Graham, and John Wayne. It finishes in 2020 and Donald Trump – who got support from 80% of white evangelicals.

Along the way, we see a turn toward rugged masculinity as the way God designed men and complementarianism as God’s plan for marriage, and overall structures of authoritarianism as God’s design for society.

I grew up pretty deep in evangelical circles. I attended Christian schools through college (I was a little disappointed that my alma mater, Biola University, wasn’t mentioned.), and went to Bill Gothard’s Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts seminars before I was even a teen.

However, I got more and more progressive in my politics after college, and from 1996 to 2006, lived in Germany with my husband in the military – and thus completely missed the rise of Fox News and some of these other developments. Reading this book was fascinating to me, because so much was familiar, yet a lot I hadn’t noticed at all.

Another interesting thing to me was that while I was physically reading this book, a chapter at a time, I was listening to the audiobook version of Ibram X. Kendi’s latest book, Chain of Ideas, about right-wing political parties all over the globe. There were times when I was listening that I thought, “Yeah, they just mentioned that” – and I realized, no, I’d read about it in the other book (or vice versa).

This book also dovetails well with Sheila Wray Gregoire’s writings on marriage and Marissa Franks Burt’s writings on parenting, because both marriage and parenting are affected by the developing teaching that men are to be authority figures in the church and in the home.

It’s also interesting reading for me as someone coming out of evangelicalism, having my eyes opened to some trends I went along with and didn’t see. Sheila Wray Gregoire had already opened my eyes about books like Love and Respect, but this book helped me notice the militaristic background to John Eldredge’s writings that had blown right past me.

Back in 2016, I was incredulous that the same folks who told me that Bill Clinton should not be president because of his immorality were now supporting Donald Trump, who bragged about “not even asking” women before he sexually assaulted them. This book helped me understand the way the culture of evangelicalism and all its trends slowly changed so that Donald Trump epitomized exactly what people were looking for.

At Wild Goose Festival, the author explained that her editor told her she had to end on a hopeful note, but she had trouble coming up with anything. Here’s how the book finishes:

Although the evangelical cult of masculinity stretches back decades, its emergence was never inevitable. Over the years it has been embraced, amplified, challenged, and resisted. Evangelical men themselves have promoted alternative models, elevating gentleness and self-control, a commitment to peace, and a divestment of power as expressions of authentic Christian manhood. Yet, understanding the catalyzing role militant Christian masculinity has played over the past half century is critical to understanding American evangelicalism today, and the nation’s fractured political landscape. Appreciating how this ideology developed over time is also essential for those who wish to dismantle it. What was once done might also be undone.

You’ll find detailed, well-researched history here, supported with 32 pages of small-print citations at the back. As someone who grew up in that world, I gained wider understanding of how it morphed to what it is today. I can’t wait to read her next book, focusing on women!

kristindumez.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/jesus_and_john_wayne.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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