The Best Book I Read This Month: Lost Boy by Christina Henry

Christina Henry has become one of my favorite authors. I love her retellings of Alice in Wonderland and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. So it’s no surprise that the best book I read this month was her take on Peter Pan.

Lost Boy is a prequel to the Peter Pan story we know. It’s an account of how Captain Hook, Pan’s mortal enemy, became Captain Hook.

Jamie, the boy who would become Hook, is the narrator and main character. The story grows darker as Jamie awakens to the true nature of Peter Pan, the island, and what it means to be a Lost Boy. Along the way he forms a surrogate family, one that he defends and protects as a parent would.

The story has all the magic one would expect from a Peter Pan story, as well as many of the familiar elements of Neverland. Henry adds a few inventions of her own, as well, that add to growing darkness of the story.

It all works to tell an engaging, compelling tale—and posits the idea that maybe Captain Hook really wasn’t a villain after all.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

The best book I read this month was a haunting story by Katherine Arden called The Warm Hands of Ghosts. I picked up the book for two reasons: I loved Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale and this book was set during World War I, one of my favorite settings for historical fiction. I was not disappointed. In fact, The Warm Hands of Ghosts rocketed past The Bear and the Nightingale to become my favorite of Arden’s books.

The story deals with loss, both at the war’s western front and in Halifax in the aftermath of the 1917 explosion. Some of the characters have turned to spiritualism to cope with their losses. The main character, Laura, turns to work. She is combat nurse who was sent home after being injured in a bombardment. When her brother goes missing at the front, she returns to duty to search for him.

On their journeys, both Laura and her brother cross paths with a mysterious violin-playing hotelier who offers escape from the horrors of their lives. That escape, of course, comes at a price.

But there is more than just loss and horrors in the story. There is also love: familial love, romantic love, and platonic love. It’s a rich tapestry in a dark story that ends on a note of hope.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

The best book I read this month was a pop culture delight. If you’re at all familiar with Scooby Doo cartoons, the title of Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids gives away the premise: a group of kids and their dog solve mysteries.

In Cantero’s version, the kids really were kids—tweens—when they solved their mysteries (as opposed to the older Scooby Doo gang) and their last case comes back to haunt them many years later.

Cantero’s detectives are not a 1:1 match to the Scooby Doo gang—the dog, for example, is a Weimaraner, not a Great Dane—but they were known for unmasking a monster to reveal it was an angry older man who did, indeed, call them “meddling kids.” And it all took place in a town near the Zoinx River. It’s a fun homage to Scooby and the gang. There are shout-outs to other pop culture properties, too, but I don’t want to give them away.

The story centers around the gang’s realization that their last mystery sent an innocent man to prison and their efforts to right that wrong by finding the real perpetrator. Along the way, they encounter old friends, old enemies, and dangers both real and supernatural. The story is fun and suspenseful, one that appeals not only to fans of Scooby Doo but also to those who love Stranger Things.

The Best Book I Read This Month: The Day Leap Soared by Blair Braverman

I have been in a reading slump the last few months. I started three books and did not finish them—not because of the books but because my brain could not focus. But last week, I read a book that brightened my day and my mood. It’s a picture book by Blair Braverman called The Day Leap Soared.

I’ve been a fan of Braverman’s for a while. I’ve read her memoir, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, about her time a Norwegian folk school, and her book Dogs on the Trail, about life with her sled dogs in northern Wisconsin. This is her first picture book, and it is delightful.

The story focuses on one of Braverman’s sled dog puppies, Leap, and features other members of her team. Puppy Leap looks at the grown-up dogs around her and notices their special talents and wonders what her special talent will be. It’s an adorable story about finding yourself.

Olivia When’s illustrations are cute as heck and whimsical and capture each dog’s unique personality. (I loved When’s art so much that I bought some postcards from her shop.)

On the whole, Braverman’s book looks beautiful and shares a beautiful message about being true to yourself. It’s worth checking out.

The Best Book I Read This Month: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch

The best book I read this month was a hard but powerful read. Prophet Song by Paul Lynch imagines an Ireland plunging into authoritarianism. We watch this descent through the lens of a single family’s experience.

The Stack family are an ordinary middle-class family living in Dublin. Larry is a teacher and union representative. Eilish is a scientist in a biomedical firm. They have four children: teenagers Mark, Molly, and Bailey and infant Ben. Eilish is also caring for her dementia-ridden father, who lives on the other side of town.

The story opens with a late-night visit from the police, who are looking for Larry. Things get worse from there. As the country’s authoritarian leaders clamp down, life in Dublin becomes more difficult—food grows scarce, travel is limited. The country becomes torn by civil war. Eilish struggles to keep her family together as the danger escalates.

It’s a dark story and one that does not offer much, if any, hope. Like other dystopian stories, it’s inspired by things that have happened (in this case, the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis) and a warning of what could be. Living here in the United States, it all hit just a little too close for comfort. Still, it is a worthwhile read, a reminder of the human cost of an authoritarian power grab and of the humanity that exists and persists under authoritarian rule.