School Library Journal Gr 9 Up-The son of a snake-handling preacher imprisoned for possessing child pornography, Dill escapes his controlling mother and social ostracism with the help of his two friends, Lydia and Travis. As the trio round out their senior year, it becomes overwhelmingly apparent the different paths their lives are going to take-Travis is content working in a lumberyard and diving into a fantasy world from a book series in his spare time, while Lydia runs a popular fashion blog and is intent on attending New York University. As for Dill, he yearns for more than Forrestville, TN, can offer, but he feels compelled to honor his father's legacy and his mother's domineering wishes. As Dill grapples with a crush on Lydia and a mother who wants him to drop out of high school, a YouTube clip of Dill singing and playing guitar begins to garner attention. Dill must decide among what his heart wants, what his family needs, and his own desire for a life outside of their small town; "If you're going to live," he says, "you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things." Zentner offers a contemporary young adult novel that explores many issues common with teenagers today-bullying, life after high school, and the coming together and breaking apart of high school friendships. Thorough characterization and artful prose allow readers to intimately experience the highs and lows of these three friends. VERDICT Recommended for fans of John Green and Rainbow Rowell.-Amanda C. Buschmann, Atascocita Middle School, Humble, TX © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Kirkus A touching debut chronicles the coming-of-age of three high school seniors, misfits and best friends. Neither Dill, Travis, nor Lydia feels at home in Forrestville, a small Tennessee town named after the founder of the Klu Klux Klan. Lydia's loving, prosperous parents have given her the tools to create a popular blog and the glittering prospect of college life in New York City. Travis, on the other hand, escapes his father's drunken brutality and his own heartbreak over his soldier brother's death by retreating into a fictional fantasy world. And Dillard Early Jr. can't escape his name: his snake-handling preacher father became notorious in these parts when he was incarcerated for child porn. SomeDill's mother among themblame Dill for his father's conviction. Lydia is determined to realize her dreams, and she is equally determined that the boys dream, too. Dill just wants Lydia to stay. Writing in third-person chapters that alternate among the three characters, Zentner covers the whole of their senior year, with heartbreak and a hopeful conclusion. Characters, incidents, dialogue, the poverty of the rural South, enduring friendship, a desperate clinging to strange faiths, fear of the unknown, and an awareness of the courage it takes to survive, let alone thrive, are among this fine novel's strengths. Zentner writes with understanding and gracea new voice to savor. (Fiction. 14 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Book list In small-town Forrestville, Tennessee, broody musician Dill Early begins his senior year with a general feeling of dread because it means his best friend, Lydia, will be leaving for college once they graduate. As the son of a snake-handling Pentecostal preacher currently in prison, Dill is unable to escape his father's shadow. Lydia, on the other hand, is an outspoken blogger and fashionista, who can't wait to get out of Dodge. Completing their trio is Travis, a gentle giant who carries a staff and is obsessed with fantasy novels. In chapters that shift among the teens' perspectives, Zentner effectively shows the aspirations, fears, and dark secrets they harbor during their final year together. A musician himself, Zentner transitions to prose easily in his debut, pulling in complex issues that range from struggles with faith to abuse to grief. Refreshingly, this novel isn't driven by romance though it rears its head but by the importance of pursuing individual passions and forging one's own path. A promising new voice in YA.--Smith, Julia Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Forrestville, Tenn., named after Ku Klux Klan founder Nathan Bedford Forrest, isn't exactly a welcome place for slightly ouside-the-mainstream folks like friends Dillard, Lydia, and Travis. Dill is a high school senior whose snake-handling preacher father is currently incarcerated; Lydia, a successful fashion blogger, plans on attending NYU after graduation; and Travis, large of body and gentle of soul, loses himself (and the pain of his father's physical and emotional abuse) in a fantasy series called Bloodfall. While Dill finds comfort and beauty in music, Travis's innate kindness belies his circumstances, and Lydia's incandescent, gleefully offbeat personality draws them together. As the novel, Zentner's debut, builds to a shocking act of violence that shatters the friends' world, this sepia-toned portrait of small-town life serves as a moving testament to love, loyalty, faith, and reaching through the darkness to find light and hope. Zentner explores difficult themes head on-including the desire to escape the sins of the father and the fragility of happiness-while tempering them with the saving grace of enduring friendship. Ages 14-up. Agent: Charlie Olsen, Inkwell Management. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Book list In this wordless picture book, schoolchildren are transported to the moon on a space shuttle resembling a bus, and one space-suited child discovers that, although the moon has been explored, there is always something new to discover. While the other kids stick to the field trip itinerary, this child finds a quiet spot to sit with some crayons and draw the Earth and is thus accidentally left behind. As the bus disappears into space, the child resumes coloring, which draws out a group of gray rock-like moon people who humorously interact with the crayons, doodling on themselves as well as a nearby boulder. The fun ends when the bus returns and the moon people hide, each still holding a crayon. Homeward bound, the child (whose gender is undefined) uses the only remaining crayon a gray one to draw a picture of the moon people. A perfectly paced paean to imagination, Hare's auspicious debut presents a world where a yellow crayon box shines like a beacon.--Karen Cruze Copyright 2019 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly Told through wordless spreads, a classroom of child astronauts takes a yellow school bus rocket to their destination. One student lags behind the others, sketch pad and crayons in tow, and finds a quiet moon rock to sit behind while drawing (and napping). In a gaspworthy moment, the young astronaut realizes that the ship has left. But the consummate artist continues drawing, attracting the attention of a small group of friendly aliens—whose skin tones perfectly match the dusky gray of the moon’s surface and who marvel at the crayons’ varied hues. Readers may have mixed feelings about the eventual rescue (the aliens seem like a lot of fun), but a final spread showing the child’s face for the first time (a shaggy-haired kid with just a single gray crayon left) makes the story all the more relatable. A clever and noteworthy tale of lunar adventure. Ages 4–8. (May)

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School Library Journal PreS-Gr 2-Hare's picture book debut is a winner. His wordless tale in acrylic paint depicts a typical class field trip to the moon-the school bus ship, the trek across a gray lunar surface, the leap over a big chasm, a lecture on craters, and the one kid who lags behind. In this case the kid who lags behind is armed with crayons and a sketch pad. After wandering off to sketch the Earth and accidentally napping, the child awakens to discover the bus ship leaving! Despite some initial panic, the youngster settles in to draw and wait for its return, unknowingly attracting a crowd of gray aliens fascinated by the colored crayons. A hilarious fun fest of aliens drawing-on paper, on rock, on one another-ensues until the bus returns and they fade back into the moon dust. The happy reunion is marred only when the teacher notices the drawings on the rock that the child must remove before they leave. It is only on the final page that the face of the protagonist is revealed to be that of a dark-haired girl. Hare flawlessly and convincingly depicts the emotions of his characters - the desire to draw, the panic of being left behind, the joy of being remembered, and everything in between-all while they are wearing space suits with black, opaque face shields. His gray yet surprisingly detailed moonscape is both the setting and a character in its own right; his depiction of the aliens as gray humanoids amazed by color is genius. -VERDICT A beautifully done wordless story about a field trip to the moon with a sweet and funny alien encounter; what's not to like? A must-have for most libraries.-Catherine Callegari, Gay-Kimball Library, Troy, NH © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn't as lifeless as it looks.While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare's wordless but cinematic scenesas do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayongray, of courseleft in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Library Journal Entertainment journalist Alice Scott thinks that she might be finally getting her big break. She has managed to track down Margaret Ives, the notorious and reclusive media heiress who hasn't been seen in decades, and snag an invite to Margaret's home on a tiny island in Georgia, where she hopes to secure permission to write Margaret's biography. The catch is that Margaret has also invited Pulitzer-winning journalist Hayden Anderson and wants to give both Alice and Hayden one month to make their respective pitches for her book. Neither Alice nor Hayden is thrilled with this arrangement, especially once they realize that Margaret is telling each of them a completely different tale. The ever-present attraction between the two of them doesn't help matters either, as they compete for the chance to write Margaret's story—and wonder if their own can end happily. Readers will love Alice and Hayden's grumpy/sunshine dynamic, and Margaret's life is equally riveting. VERDICT Both longtime Henry (Funny Story) fans and new romance readers will devour this rivals-to-lovers slow burn, one of Henry's best to date. Also good for fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid.—Whitney Kramer

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Book list Journalist Alice Scott has the career-making opportunity of her life: Margaret Ives wants to tell her life story. For the last 30 years, Margaret, heir to an infamously scandalous, tabloid-hounded family, has been a recluse, but through some inspired digging, Alice has tracked Margaret down to Little Crescent Island. However, upon arriving at Margaret’s home, Alice discovers she has some competition, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer Hayden Anderson. Margaret decides to give both Alice and Hayden one month to meet with and interview her, after which she will decide who will get to share her story with the public. It is a competition Alice needs to win, and she will do whatever it takes to best Hayden, even if the grumpy writer is turning out to be much nicer—and hotter—than she expected. Henry (Funny Story, 2024) continues to burnish her reputation for fashioning sublimely satisfying love stories with another perfectly calibrated, delectably witty tale featuring endearingly quirky, thoughtfully nuanced characters, including the redoubtable Margaret, whose family’s history is deftly relayed in snippets stitched into the story line.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With lots of media buzz, readers are primed for the latest from best-selling Henry.

From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Publishers Weekly What begins as a charming if standard rom-com evolves into a hauntingly beautiful meditation on what makes a life well lived in the latest showstopper from Henry (Funny Story). Thirty-something entertainment journalist Alice Scott jumps at the chance to interview an octogenarian claiming to be the infamous Margaret Ives, descendant of American media royalty and a “Tabloid Princess” of yore. Alice heads to Little Crescent Island, a small coastal Georgia town, with dreams of Margaret’s biography being her big break. She’s not the only one vying for the job, though: Pulitzer winner Hayden Anderson is also in the running. They have a month to each separately interview Margaret then pitch their proposals. But Margaret’s stories don’t quite add up, leading Hayden and Alice toward each other as they search for answers. Flashbacks to Margaret’s glamorous past are threaded throughout the contemporary narrative, offering a candid glimpse into loves and lives lost and serving as a poignant counterpoint to the romance between Hayden and Alice. There’s also plenty of Henry’s trademark wit and even a hint of mystery as the sparring hearts probe the veracity of Margaret’s tales. This is a stunner. Agent: Taylor Haggerty, Root Literary. (Apr.)

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Kirkus Two journalists compete for the chance to write the biography of an aging heiress. Alice Scott works for a pop-culture website, but she hopes writing a biography of Margaret Ives, a reclusive heiress known as the Tabloid Princess, will boost her career to the next level. One problem: Margaret Ives is incredibly hard to track down. Make that two problems: When Alice finally finds her on a small island off the coast of Georgia, another journalist is there, too—Hayden Anderson. They both want this job, and Margaret wants to be sure she can trust the person telling her story, so she proposes an unusual deal. Both Alice and Hayden will stay on the island and work with Margaret for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll decide who gets to write her book. Hayden couldn’t be more different from Alice—while she’s optimistic and friendly, he’s cynical and standoffish. She’s desperately seeking her family’s approval and thinks she can get it by writing a book, and he’s a Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer. The two of them sign ironclad NDAs, but it’s a small island and they can’t help running into each other—and then, against all odds, they even start to like each other. Alice and Hayden’s unlikely attraction is only one of the book’s timelines, however. Although Henry is known as the queen of contemporary romance, here she explores the world of historical fiction as Alice interviews Margaret and learns about her family’s history—going back to the gold rush and the early days of Hollywood—and finally the tragic love story that led her to retreat from the public eye. Alice also begins to unravel her own family history and learns that the stories she’s been telling herself may not have been true after all. Alice and Hayden’s romance is a delightful slow burn and Henry, as always, shines when exploring family drama, but the emphasis here is on Margaret’s past and how it ties into everyone’s future. Both a steamy romance and a moving look at the sacrifices people make for love. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.