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Review: Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout

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Song of a Blackbird by Maria van Lieshout

Song of a Blackbird
Maria van Lieshout
First Second
Published January 21, 2025

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About Song of a Blackbird

Fictionalized but based on true events, Song of a Blackbird has two intertwined timelines: one is a modern-day family drama, the other a thrilling tale of a WWII-era bank heist carried out by Dutch resistance fighters.

In the present day, teenage Annick is desperate to find a bone marrow donor that could save the life of her grandmother, Johanna. She turns to her family history and discovers a photograph taken by Emma Bergsma.

Decades earlier, Emma is a young art student about to be drawn into what will become the biggest bank heist in European history: swapping 50 Million Guilders’ worth of forged bank notes for real ones―right under the noses of the Nazis! Emma’s life―and the lives of thousands, including a young woman named Johanna―hangs in the balance.

In this stranger-than-fiction graphic novel, Maria van Lieshout weaves a tale about family, courage, and the power of art. Deeply personal yet universal, Song of a Blackbird sheds light on an untold WWII story and sends a powerful message about compassion and resistance.

My Review

I love that the narrator of the book is a blackbird representing the spirit of resilience and the power of compassion. The scenes alternate between two timelines: 1943 and 2011. In 1943, we follow Emma, a young woman who has just joined the Dutch resistance and agrees to help hide Jewish children scheduled for deportation. She winds up helping print forged ration cards and bank certificates as part of a heist plot.

In 2011, we follow a teenage girl whose grandmother has just learned she was one of the children hidden in Amsterdam and adopted by a non-Jewish family. Oma has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant, which makes it crucial that Annick, her granddaughter, help to track down her biological family.

Annick follows clues in a series of prints on her grandmother’s walls. Each section of the book begins with one of those prints and shows Annick’s research, as well as Emma, the artist who created the prints, and her work to hide Annick’s grandmother aid the resistance movement.

The use of the prints and the presence of artists in both time periods emphasize the importance of art as resistance and the powerful impact it has on its creator and viewers. Emma’s prints tell the story of her work, ensuring that history isn’t forgotten.

The illustrations are in grayscale except for a reddish-orange color. I love the way the author uses that orange to draw attention to certain elements. It also reminds me of sunrise, which made the color seem like a symbol of hope and resistance in and of itself.

The back of the book has some historical notes about each person who inspired characters in this graphic novel. Photographs of each person appear there, but Lieshout has also strategically placed photographs throughout the scenes of the book.

Concusion

I’m really blown away by how powerful this story is. I wasn’t sure I’d like the bird narration, but I really ended up loving it. The notes that piece together the truths that inspired the story are such a great addition. This is a story I’m not going to forget.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used very infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Allusion to the attraction between two people. One panel shows two teenagers kissing.

Spiritual Content
A priest helps hide several Jewish boys in his church.

Violent Content
References to deportations and rumors of execution at concentration camps. Mass arrests. Resistance workers know they can be arrested and interrogated or tortured. A man temporarily escapes soldiers, but has a gunshot wound that leaves his legs paralyzed. One scene shows a group of men (resistance members) executed by firing squad.

Drug Content
Panels show adults smoking and drinking alcohol in some scenes.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I borrowed a copy of this book from my local library. All opinions are my own.

Review: As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow by Zoulfa Katouh

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As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow
Zoulfa Katou
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published September 13, 2022

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow

A love letter to Syria and its people, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, burning with the fires of hope, love, and possibility. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief and Salt to the Sea.

Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her older brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life. 

Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her imagined companion, Khawf, who haunts her every move in an effort to keep her safe. 

But even with Khawf pressing her to leave, Salama is torn between her loyalty to her country and her conviction to survive. Salama must contend with bullets and bombs, military assaults, and her shifting sense of morality before she might finally breathe free. And when she crosses paths with the boy she was supposed to meet one fateful day, she starts to doubt her resolve in leaving home at all.  
 
Soon, Salama must learn to see the events around her for what they truly are—not a war, but a revolution—and decide how she, too, will cry for Syria’s freedom.

My Review

It was hard for me to read some of the chapters in the book because they detail an up-close look at the revolution in Syria. It’s intense, with Salama fearing for her life at every turn and dealing with the ongoing trauma of the losses she’s experienced and the flow of patients visiting the hospital after being wounded by the warfare.

Salama lives in fear of what will happen to her family members and herself. Every time she leaves her apartment, she faces the possibility of death. She sees so many children harmed by the war. Khawf may be the product of her fear and trauma, but he is as cruel as her circumstances. He forces her to relive her losses, threatening to torment her with more vivid hallucinations if she doesn’t take steps to leave the country.

Meeting Kenan brings some brightness to her life. The two share a sweet romance, one that respects the customs and values of their culture, and shows their deep feeling for one another. They bond over a shared love for Studio Ghibli films and their dreams of writing stories or animating films.

The contrast between the lightness of their relationship and the heaviness of life in war-torn Homs really stood out in this story. Salama feels so torn between needing to help her people and yet still longing for joy and wanting to craft a life with a future for herself. It was easy to feel every emotion she experienced through the writing and descriptions.

Conclusion

I’m so glad I read this book, even though some parts made me uncomfortable. It was good to sit with the reminder of how ugly war is and the high cost for the civilians living in a war-torn area. I recommend the book for readers interested in stories about Syria and the Middle East. It’s also a great choice for anyone interested in YA with a protagonist with medical expertise.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing.

Spiritual Content
References to Islamic prayers and holidays.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. References to rape and torture. (Not shown on scene.) Salama relives fractured memories of her loved ones’ deaths. Salama helps treat civilians (including children) who are victims of bombing, sniper attacks, and chemical warfare. A soldier executes a child and mother. Soldiers repeatedly hit someone and start to assault a young woman. (Someone stops this from happening.)

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I borrowed this book from the library. All opinions are my own.

Review: Night by Elie Wiesel

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Memoir, Nonfiction, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , ,

Night (Night Trilogy #1)
Elie Wiesel
Translated by Marion Wiesel
Hill and Wang
Published January 16, 2006 (Orig. 1956)

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Night

Born in the town of Sighet, Transylvania, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he and his family were taken from their home in 1944 to Auschwitz concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald. 

Night is the terrifying record of Elie Wiesel’s memories of the death of his family, the death of his own innocence, and his despair as a deeply observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.

This new translation by his wife and most frequent translator, Marion Wiesel, corrects important details and presents the most accurate rendering in English of Elie Wiesel’s testimony to what happened in the camps and of his unforgettable message that this horror must simply never be allowed to happen again.

My Review

I first read this memoir years ago, but Wiesel’s words have stayed with me since. It’s been on my list to reread this book for a long time. This year seemed like the right time.

The author describes some horrifying things in plain language, describing a situation and reflecting on how he felt in the moment or immediately afterward. A few of the descriptions are hard to read, especially those involving children. While Wiesel doesn’t graphically describe these cruelties, his words are shocking, and we feel his own shock as he witnesses them firsthand.

This isn’t a long book. In less than 150 pages, the author briefly describes the small town where he grew up, his family, and the closing in of his world as his family and his Jewish neighbors are forced into ghettos and then deported to concentration camps in other countries. There, they face torture, starvation, and neglect. Elie Wiesel was fifteen when he entered Auschwitz.

As I read, I kept having to pause and close the book. To think. To let the echoes of the author’s words ring out over me. I wanted to resist knowing the depth of the horrors he described, yet I needed to bear witness to his account.

This is a hard book to read, and an essential one, alongside Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and Boy from Buchenwald by Robbie Waisman (who knew Elie Wiesel and was at Buchenwald with him when the camp was liberated).

If you want to know more about what happened to the teen boys who were liberated from Buchenwald, I highly recommend Robbie Waisman’s book for that as well.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27, 2026, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s meant to be a day that we honor and remember the victims of the Holocaust. Remembering what happened, understanding the route that led humanity to that dark place, is necessary not only to honor those who died but to prevent these atrocities from happening again.

We cannot prevent this from happening again without acknowledging the truth of history and carrying that torch forward.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
One homophobic comment and a few uses of the G-slur.

Romance/Sexual Content
One vague reference to child trafficking within the camp. In one scene, Eliezer sees a camp officer having intercourse with a woman. The scene is quick and not detailed.

Spiritual Content
The memoir details Wiesel’s desire as a child to study his faith deeply. During his time in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, he wrestles with anger toward God for what has happened to him and others.

Violent Content
Brief, horrifying descriptions of the murder of children, including babies. Descriptions of cruel and inhumane treatment of those imprisoned in the camps. Brief descriptions of prisoners, including a child, executed by hanging. Wiesel describes deep shame as he makes decisions based on self-preservation rather than compassion for others, including his father.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I purchased a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

MMGM Review: Eureka by Victoria Chang

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Eureka
Victoria Chang
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux
Published January 27, 2026

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Eureka

A novel-in-verse by poet Victoria Chang that relates the tragic events surrounding the 1885 expulsion of Chinese Americans from Eureka, California.

Love illuminates the dark.

The year is 1885. San Francisco is dangerous for Chinese immigrants like twelve-year-old Mei Mei. She must venture on her own, without her family or friends, to Eureka, California, where it is supposedly safe.

But 300 miles from home, Mei Mei misses her Ma Ma’s kindness, helping out in her Ba Ba’s store, and playing hide-and-seek with her best friend, Hua Hua. Despite her fear and the increasing violence against her community, she finds hope in an unexpected friend, the giant Redwood trees, and a new learning how to read in English. As the world around her grows more scary, Mei Mei discovers her own power, as well the joy of found family, the importance of courage, and the nature of freedom.

My Review

This is the second historical novel-in-verse that I’ve read this month, and the second about a moment in history that I’m not as familiar with as I’d like to be. I love that authors are bringing these stories to the page.

Mei Mei faces some intense circumstances, but the descriptions and her understanding of what’s happening stays appropriate for a middle grade audience. She finds friends and builds community even when she moves far from her family. It’s easy to root for her and cheer her on as she faces difficulties.

While the story identifies some of the cruel and racist things that happened to Chinese immigrants in 1885, the novel also highlights the power of hope and the importance of taking care of one another. Mei Mei helps others when she can, and others look out for her at different points in the story, too.

If you enjoyed Lion of the Sky by Ritu Hemnani, a novel in verse set in the 1940s during the British Partition of India, add this book to your reading list.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 9 to 12.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
None.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
A thief steals items from Mei Mei’s parents’ store. Dangerous people come to the shop looking for Mei Mei, planning to kidnap her in exchange for her parents’ debts. Mei Mei witnesses someone mistreating household staff. Someone locks her in a closet to punish her. Mei Mei worries about anti-Chinese sentiment that could lead to violence against her or others.

Mei Mei’s mother’s feet have been badly damaged due to the practice of foot binding that was common in her generation in China. Walking is painful for her, which limits what she’s able to do.

Drug Content
Mei Mei witnesses an adult who’s been drinking alcohol.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday

I’m sharing this post as a part of a weekly round-up of middle-grade posts called Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday. Check out other blogs with posts about middle-grade books today on Marvelous Middle-Grade Mondays at Always in the Middle.

Review: The Gender Binary is a Big Lie by Lee Wind

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The Gender Binary is a Big Lie: Infinite Identities Around the World (Queer History Project)
Lee Bind
Zest Books
Published August 6, 2024

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About The Gender Binary is a Big Lie: Infinite Identities Around the World

What if you discovered that the whole concept of a gender binary is an illusion?

While many people identify as men or women, that is not all there is. The idea that all humans fall into one of two gender categories is largely a construct created by those who benefit from that belief. The reality is that gender is naturally diverse, falling inside and outside of those boxes, and more expansive ideas of gender have always existed.

In the second book of the Queer History Project, The Gender Binary Is a Big Lie: Infinite Identities around the World, author Lee Wind uses historical evidence and primary sources―poetry, ancient burial sites, firsthand accounts, and news stories―to explore gender roles and identities. Gender identities and physical bodies are as diverse as the human experience. Get ready to shatter those preconceived notions of nothing but a gender binary and dive deep into expressions of gender―both past and present―that reveal the infinite variety and beauty of everyone’s gender.

My Review

Last year, I read the book Genderqueer by Maia Kobabe, and I feel like that left me with a lot to think about. So, when I saw a copy of this book available for review this year, I felt like it was great timing.

I’ve been increasingly aware of the fact that I live at a particular point in history and in a particular place. Lots of the rules and values I encounter are heavily influenced by this truth. It impacts even the way we interpret things like the Bible, and I think we don’t give enough thought to that.

At any rate. So. The Gender Binary is a Big Lie. Let’s talk about it.

The book begins with a lengthy introduction that gives readers a framework for how to talk about intersex and transgender people. This section defines terms and offers some insight into why certain words are not used anymore. It also gives a high view of some important historical discoveries that support the books core idea: that many cultures have not subscribed to a limited gender binary across history and the globe.

After the introduction, the book focuses on a few examples of cultures with well-defined outside-the-binary gender identities. I thought this was the coolest part of the book. References appear throughout the text. (The backmatter lists more than fifty pages of source material.)

The last chapter is also great information. One of the things I have had multiple conversations with people about is the existence of intersex people, so it is very helpful to have some references for myself to refer back to or to refer others to for more information.

Conclusion

While I’m sure this is not an exhaustive text, it’s a great introduction to thinking beyond our American, 21st century experience with identity and gender norms. Though the chapters are long, the text is broken down into shorter sections that make the information much easier to digest. I highly recommend this text for readers looking for more information on identities beyond the gender binary. I’m excited to read a few of the books listed in the backmatter as well.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 12 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.

Romance/Sexual Content
References to romantic relationships of real historical people. One chapter offers facts and information about intersex people (people whose genetic biology doesn’t fit a gender binary).

Spiritual Content
One chapter shows teachings from Classical Judaism. Another section offers some information about Australian First Nations traditions. A different chapter talks about Hindu beliefs and the hijra community. One chapter talks about Hawaiian and Tahitian traditions and identity.

Violent Content
Some explanation of how colonialism impacted indigenous communities and belief systems. In the chapter on intersex identities, the author explains that historically (and still sometimes currently) people are forced to have medical surgery to alter their bodies to fit a gender binary. This chapter also mentions death by suicide.

Drug Content
None.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

Review: Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen

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Her Name in the Sky
Kelly Quindlen
Roaring Brook Press
Published January 27, 2026

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Her Name in the Sky

Hannah wants to spend her senior year of high school going to football games and Mardi Gras parties with her tight-knit group of friends.

The last thing she wants is to fall in love with a girl–especially when that girl is her best friend, Baker.

Hannah knows she should like Wally, the kind, earnest boy who asks her to prom. She should cheer on her friend Clay when he asks Baker to be his girlfriend. She should follow the rules of her conservative Louisiana community–the rules that have been ingrained in her since she was a child.

But Hannah longs to be with Baker, who cooks macaroni and cheese with Hannah late at night, who believes in the magic of books as much as Hannah does, and who challenges Hannah to be the best version of herself.

And Baker might want to be with Hannah, too–if both girls can embrace that world-shaking, yet wondrous, possibility.

My Review

This book originally came out in 2012 but is being re-released in 2026. This year, I read it for the first time. Kelly Quindlen is a new author for me as well. I’d heard of her books, but hadn’t read them before.

The thing that I think this book does absolutely brilliantly is to capture Hannah’s emotional and spiritual journey. We see her wrestle with her faith and her identity in heartbreaking, anguished scenes. I love that Quindlen shows this, not once, but as an ongoing process for Hannah.

I also like that the book shows characters with a spectrum of beliefs. Some support Hannah immediately, while others seem to want to opt out of responding to her at all, and others target her with cruel words.

The relationship between Hannah and Joanie, her sister, was really nicely done. Joanie absolutely had my heart by the end of the book. If there’s ever a spinoff novel about her, I need to read it. The way that she and Hannah navigate their estrangement and reconciliation felt so much like true sisterhood.

The only thing I struggled with was how much time the characters spent drinking alcohol. In fairness, some of those scenes weren’t really about casual drinking, but showed an unhealthy pattern that involved drinking or needing to be drunk in order to do certain things. So from a plot perspective, it was an integrated part of the story and evidence of some destructive behavior. (Mainly an attempt at shame-avoidance.)

There’s a scene toward the end where a dad confronts a man who’s saying some homophobic things, and I need more dads like this in young adult literature and everywhere. I cheered at how both parents handled one moment in the book.

Reading this book was such an emotional roller coaster, in all the ways it was meant to be. I feel like I bawled through almost half of the story. It’s really moving. Definitely grab you some tissues for this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Strong profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing. Brief descriptions of and references to sex.

Spiritual Content
The main characters attend a Catholic school. The school’s priest speaks about spiritual topics. Hannah wrestles with questions about whether her identity as a lesbian makes her bad and shameful. The priest’s teaching says it does. Another teacher tells her it doesn’t.

Violent Content
Some homophobic statements and behavior. A girl shoves another girl. Two boys get into a fistfight that starts a brawl.

Drug Content
Teens drink alcohol in several scenes. One teen drinks alcohol as part of a self-destructive spiral and nearly ends up hospitalized.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use but help support this blog. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.