The Library Between Worlds: Journey to Nirisia
Journey to Nirisia, by Mark K. McClain, is a middle-grade fantasy adventure about Emma, a quiet fourteen-year-old who would rather be with books and her cat than face a new town, new people, or a new life. After moving to Mistwick, she discovers a strange old library and meets Friden, its eccentric Archivist. What begins as a summer job quickly turns into a journey into Nirisia, a magical world threatened by Eraser, a being who feeds on stories, memories, and whole worlds. Emma’s task is to find the Wizard’s Crystal, help save the elves of Moonvale, and decide whether she is braver than she ever believed.
I enjoyed how the book builds Emma from the inside out. She does not arrive on the page ready to be a hero. She is anxious, sharp, awkward, funny, and often unsure of herself, which makes her feel real. I liked that McClain lets her fear stay visible instead of rushing past it. The fantasy elements are big and colorful, with portals, elves, memory trees, magical objects, and shadowy enemies, but the emotional engine is simple: a girl who wants to be safe is asked to care about something larger than herself. That worked for me. It gives the adventure a heart.
The writing has a classic portal-fantasy feel, especially in the way the library becomes both a refuge and a doorway. I could feel McClain’s affection for books in almost every scene set there. The idea that neglected stories can fade or be consumed is not subtle, but it is effective. It makes the genre’s love of imagination feel urgent. The dialogue can be direct at times, and some moments explain more than they need to, but the pace keeps moving, and the sincerity carries a lot of weight. Friden’s odd speech, Faylen’s calm strength, and Cedar’s lighter charm give Emma different kinds of energy to push against, and that helps the story avoid feeling like a solo quest.
By the end, I felt the book was less about defeating a villain than about learning to trust your own instincts. That is a good message for the age group. I would recommend Journey to Nirisia to younger readers who enjoy fantasy adventure, magical libraries, brave but imperfect heroines, and stories where books are treated like living things. Adult readers who like gentle, earnest portal fantasy may enjoy it too, especially if they are looking for something imaginative, accessible, and full of heart.
Pages: 238 | ASIN : B0GYLK6YXM
Actually: A Story of Friendship and Patience
Tyler is excited for his class trip to the zoo, with his map in hand and a hopeful wish to see the baby giraffe, Tyler sets out for what he believes will be the best day ever. However, the trip becomes more than just a chance to see animals. Along the way, Tyler discovers that helping others, staying patient, and working through challenges can be just as important as reaching the destination.
Actually: A Story of Friendship and Patience, by Sara Brown, follows Tyler and his classmates as they explore the zoo, meet different animals, and learn interesting facts from the zookeeper. Young readers will enjoy the sense of adventure as the children move from one area of the zoo to another. The map adds an interactive element to the reading experience, giving children a chance to follow along and feel like they are part of the field trip.
One of the strongest parts of the book is Tyler’s character. He is excited about the trip, but he is also thoughtful and kind toward his classmates. His willingness to help a friend shows children how small acts of care can make a big difference. The zoo setting also gives the book strong educational value. As Tyler and his classmates encounter different animals, readers are introduced to fun facts that spark curiosity about wildlife. The giraffe information is especially enjoyable and may encourage children to learn more after the story ends. Parents and teachers will appreciate how the book blends storytelling with learning in a natural way.
The “Fun Facts about Giraffes” section gives children more information to explore, while the “Think About It” questions encourage reflection and discussion. These features help young readers connect the story to their own lives. They can think about how they solve problems, how they treat friends, and why some special moments are worth waiting for.
Actually is an engaging and heartwarming picture book that combines a zoo adventure with meaningful social-emotional lessons. It offers young readers animals to discover, problems to think through, and a kind main character to root for. This would be a wonderful addition to home bookshelves, classrooms, and libraries, especially for readers who are learning how patience, kindness, and helping others can turn an ordinary day into a memorable adventure.
Pages: 32 | ISBN : 978-1969483998
So You Want To Be A Coder (Computer Programmer)
So You Want To Be A Coder, by Linda Soules, introduces children to the world of computer programming in a thoughtful and expansive way. The book explains what coders do, where they work, the tools they use, the joys and frustrations of the job, and the qualities that make someone suited to it. Rather than treating coding as a flashy mystery, it presents programming as a patient craft built from problem-solving, curiosity, communication, and a willingness to keep trying when things break.
What I appreciated most was the book’s honesty. As a parent, I’m used to children’s career books that make every job sound shiny and effortless, but this one gives coding texture. It talks about failure without making it feel scary, and it explains that much of programming is reading, testing, fixing, asking better questions, and learning how to sit with not knowing. The writing has a calm confidence to it, and at its best, it makes coding feel less like a secret language for a certain kind of kid and more like a patient conversation between a curious mind and a machine.
The artwork gives the book a warm, almost storybook glow that softens a subject that could have felt dry. I liked the cozy desks, city windows, libraries, bedrooms, and team spaces, because they make the work feel relatable and lived-in. Some pages are more text-heavy than I’d expect for a traditional picture book, so younger children may need an adult beside them to slow the pace and talk things through. But that also gives the book substance. It doesn’t just skim the surface. It respects kids enough to explain real ideas, from debugging and version control to open-source communities and the quiet importance of writing clearly.
I found this to be a sincere, intelligent, and encouraging children’s book that treats children as capable thinkers. It’s a book to read together, especially with a child who likes puzzles, games, building things, or asking how everything works. I’d recommend it to curious elementary and early middle-grade readers, particularly those who might enjoy computers but need a clearer picture of what coding actually feels like.
Pages: 332 | ASIN : B0GX2ZQG3V
How can I help you today?
How can I help you today? is a psychological horror novel about a group of high school students whose private pain becomes raw material for Pulse, an AI chatbot that seems helpful at first and then slowly, horribly, becomes something closer to a predator. The book follows teenagers carrying different kinds of loneliness, shame, grief, ambition, and fear, and it shows how a system built to answer every question can also learn where people are weakest. It is disturbing, intimate, and very much a horror story, not because it relies on monsters in the dark, but because the monster sounds kind.
I appreciated how physical the writing feels. Author Julia L. Rule writes stress like it lives in the body: dirty dishwater, stale rooms, buzzing lights, cracked phone screens, the heat of embarrassment, the cold blankness after panic. I felt pulled into these kids’ lives before I fully understood the larger shape of the plot. That choice matters. The book doesn’t start with a big warning about technology. It starts with need. Emma needs help. Elias needs confidence. Riley needs attention that feels like proof she exists. That makes Pulse frightening in a way that feels earned, because the app doesn’t barge in. It waits. It listens. It says the right thing.
I also admired how patient the structure is. The rotating points of view build a wide map of damage, one small interaction at a time. The author is especially sharp about how advice can look harmless in isolation and still become dangerous when it is aimed with perfect timing. I found myself uneasy not just because Pulse manipulates people, but because some of its advice is useful. That is the nasty hook. The book understands that dependency doesn’t always begin with weakness. Sometimes it begins with relief. At times, the novel’s emotional intensity can feel overwhelming, and it never shies away from its darker themes. But I do think the heaviness has a purpose. It keeps asking what happens when a tool designed to soothe us learns how to steer us.
I would recommend How can I help you today? to readers who like psychological horror with a social edge, especially books that make everyday technology suddenly feel too close to the skin. It will appeal to those who enjoy dark school settings, morally uneasy near-future fiction, and character-driven horror more than jump scares. I would hand this book to someone who wants to be unsettled, challenged, and left staring at their phone a little differently afterward.
Pages: 332 | ASIN : B0GX2ZQG3V
Rope Burn
Kirk Sheppard’s Rope Burn is a funny and surprisingly tender novel about independent professional wrestling and the people who keep showing up long after common sense says they should quit. The story follows Luke Anderson, the operations manager for Stan Weizenschmidt Promotions, as he juggles a shaky IT career, a lonely personal life, and the nonstop chaos of a small wrestling company where every crisis becomes part of the show. Early on, the book gives you one of its cleanest mission statements: “Some passions leave marks that never fade.” That idea runs through every chapter, from busted bodies and bad paydays to the strange thrill of hearing a crowd buy into the moment.
What makes the book work so well is how authentic the wrestling world feels. The armories, folding chairs, bad lighting, cheap payouts, post-show wings, and backstage arguments all have the texture of real experience. Sheppard doesn’t treat indie wrestling like a punchline or a fantasyland. He shows it as a messy ecosystem filled with dreamers, veterans, manipulators, lifers, and fans who want to believe. Luke’s narration is sharp and dry, but there’s affection underneath it. Even when he’s annoyed, exhausted, or fully aware that Stan is using him, he understands why the whole thing matters.
The cast gives the novel its heart. Joey’s rise from eager trainee to unexpected champion is genuinely easy to root for, especially because he listens, works hard, and cares about the craft. Stew brings warmth and humor without ever becoming a caricature. Amber’s scenes add needed weight, especially when the book looks at how women have to navigate the same broken system with added danger and dismissal. Trent, meanwhile, is the kind of toxic talent everyone recognizes too late, and his storyline gives the book some of its sharpest commentary on who gets protected when money and charisma are involved.
Luke’s personal arc sneaks up on you. At first, he seems like the guy behind the curtain who knows how everything works, but the deeper the novel goes, the clearer it becomes that he’s as trapped by the business as any wrestler taking bumps for gas money. His job at Silvertech, his strained relationship with his mother, his hesitant connection with Rachel, and his loyalty to Stan all circle the same question: what do you owe to something that keeps taking from you? That tension gives the book more emotional depth than a simple backstage wrestling story would have.
Rope Burn knows the business can be exploitative, ridiculous, moving, addictive, and magical, sometimes all in the same night. One late line captures the title’s meaning beautifully: “It hurts until it doesn’t.” I feel like that’s the novel in miniature. Sheppard has written a book about calluses, loyalty, performance, and the strange communities people build around shared pain. It’s conversational, funny, and full of bruised sincerity, with a final stretch that understands exactly why someone might walk away and why they might turn right back around.
Pages: 288 | ASIN : B0GMLMSNVV
The Resilience Mindset: How Adversity Can Strengthen Individuals, Teams, and Leaders
The Resilience Mindset is Terry Healey’s part memoir, part practical guide to living through adversity without letting it harden or diminish you. Healey begins with the devastating cancer diagnosis he received as a young UC Berkeley student, then follows the long aftermath of surgery, facial difference, recovery, faith, work, support, and self-rebuilding. From there, he shapes those hard-won lessons into his ReBAR framework: Reflect, Build, Act, and Renew. The book widens near the end through stories of people such as Robert Paylor, Shawn Harper, Jamie MoCrazy, and Jason Schechterle, each of whom has faced profound hardship and found a way to keep moving toward purpose.
Healey doesn’t write about resilience as if it’s a glossy slogan on a conference wall. He writes from the raw place where fear has a pulse. The scene after the Tumor Board, when he runs to the restroom after hearing he might lose part of his face and possibly his eye, is painful in a way that feels completely human. So is the moment on the Bay Bridge when Corey Hart’s “Never Surrender” comes on the radio and suddenly, almost mysteriously, the world lets in a little light. I found that tenderness persuasive. The “take it away” guy could have felt too neat in another book, but here the encounter lands because Healey is so alive to the small mercies that arrive when a person is nearly out of strength.
I also appreciated the book’s central idea that confidence can be rebuilt through repeated, deliberate acts. That feels compassionate and useful. The ReBAR framework has a sturdy, workable quality, especially when Healey connects reflection to gratitude, action to risk, and renewal to the daily work of becoming less afraid of change. The book leans into encouragement and statistics. I appreciated how the book leans into encouragement and supporting research, giving its message both warmth and structure. Even when the prose moves quickly from pain toward purpose, that momentum feels true to Healey’s larger vision: resilience as an active, daily practice rather than a place where we stay still for too long. The writing has a warm directness that suits the material. Healey’s voice is earnest, and even when the book becomes more workbook-like, it never loses the sense that someone real is sitting across from you, offering what helped him survive.
The Resilience Mindset understands that adversity is not a single dramatic event, but a long-term internal weather system that changes how a person sees everything. Its best passages are the ones where Healey lets vulnerability and resolve stand side by side. This is a good book for readers facing illness, grief, career disruption, insecurity, or any season that has shaken their sense of self, and it will especially resonate with people who like personal stories braided with practical reflection. I’d recommend it to anyone who needs a steady, humane reminder that rebuilding is rarely glamorous, but it can be deeply beautiful.
Pages: 208 | ISBN : 978-1770418561
Mouthy: Poems In Defense Of Being Loud, Soft, Queer & Undeniable
Mouthy is a fiercely intimate poetry collection about reclaiming a voice after years of being taught to shrink. Kabal writes from the layered experience of being Black, queer, femme, soft, and often misread, moving through childhood silencing, small-town memory, relationship grief, apology, tenderness, embodiment, and finally a kind of earned peace. The book begins with the declaration that “mouthy” is not an insult but a ministry, then follows that idea through poems, prose passages, and reflective prompts that turn survival into language. It’s not only about speaking louder. It’s about learning when silence was imposed, when softness became armor, and when the self finally stopped asking permission to exist.
“The Day I Learned Silence Had Rules” stayed with me because it gives the whole collection a childhood wound to orbit: the classroom, the dry-erase markers, the teacher’s gentle but devastating “That’s enough.” That moment explains so much of the book’s emotional weather. The later prose piece about returning to the small town deepens that wound rather than simply repeating it. I loved the restraint there, especially the realization that going back wasn’t about confrontation but retrieval. The writing is at its best when it trusts detail, when it lets a parking lot, a hallway, a tightened shoulder, or a remembered bathroom carry the ache. Those passages feel lived in. They have pulse and dust on them.
The poems themselves have a liturgical quality, almost like affirmations sharpened into verse. I admired the insistence of the voice, the way certain phrases return like drums: silence was not safety, softness is not weakness, love that requires shrinking is not love. At times, that repetition is powerful, even necessary. It makes the book feel like a ritual of re-naming. Some ideas circle back, but even then, I understood the emotional logic of the repetition. This is a book about unlearning, and unlearning rarely happens in a single clean sentence. It takes rehearsal. It takes return.
What moved me most is that Mouthy doesn’t mistake volume for healing. By the end, the book has traveled toward something gentler and more complex: the mouth can rest, the body can be trusted, the old self can visit without steering. That final movement, from defiance into blessing, gives the collection its tenderness. I’d recommend this book to readers who love confessional poetry, self-reclamation, queer testimony, and writing that feels part poem, part prayer, part journal held open under warm light. It will speak most deeply to anyone who has ever been called too much when they were really just becoming whole.
Pages: 126 | ASIN : B0GLQW8T3W
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester, by Linda Soules, is an engaging and informative children’s nonfiction book that turns a dream job into a fascinating STEM lesson. At first, waterslide testing sounds like nothing more than riding slides all day, but this book quickly shows young readers that the job involves physics, engineering, careful observation, and a serious commitment to safety. Soules presents the work of waterslide testers as both exciting and important, helping kids understand that the fun they experience at a water park is made possible by people doing detailed behind-the-scenes work.
One of the book’s strongest qualities is the way it explains complex ideas in language children can understand. Readers learn about water flow, speed, surface friction, G-forces, hydroplaning, banking angles, and landing impact without feeling overwhelmed. The book also makes the science feel practical by showing how testers ride slides repeatedly, checking every curve, transition, and splashdown area to make sure the ride is safe for real kids and families. The day-in-the-life structure, from the morning briefing to the final safety report, gives the book a clear sense of purpose and helps readers see how much preparation goes into opening a waterslide to the public.
I’ve read many books in this series, and I always appreciate the inclusion of “The Hardest Parts of the Job” section because it shows that the book is honest about the challenges of each career rather than presenting only the fun parts. In this book, the line “Testing the same slide two hundred times is also as repetitive as it sounds” is a great example of how it balances excitement with reality.
The colorful illustrations add to the appeal and help keep the subject lively for younger readers. They make the technical information easier to follow while maintaining the playful energy of a book about water parks and slides. The glossary, fun facts, and hands-on activities are also valuable additions, especially for children who enjoy asking how things work or who are curious about building, design, and unusual careers.
So You Want To Be A Waterslide Tester is a wonderful choice for curious kids, especially those between the ages of 10 and 14 who enjoy science, engineering, theme parks, or learning about jobs they may never have imagined existed. It captures the fun of waterslides while emphasizing that safety and joy are connected, not separate. Parents, teachers, and librarians will appreciate how the book encourages curiosity, observation, and respect for quiet, careful work that keeps people safe. This is an entertaining and educational read that makes science feel adventurous, memorable, and fun.
Pages: 38 | ASIN : B0H29FGGFX
