Review 5 star

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Esme’s Gift is the second book in the Esme Trilogy by Elizabeth Foster. 15-year-old Esme now knows her mother, Ariane, is alive, locked in a sleep in the magical, water-imbued land of Aeolia. When her father refuses to believe anything she says, Esme plunges back into Aeolia to help her mother on her own. Ariane’s deep sleep is getting worse because her powers were tampered with by the sinister Nathan Mare. Esme’s special Gift lets her use water to see the past and there’s a lost recipe from a previous Keeper, Thomas Agapios, that could save her mother’s life. Along with loyal friends Daniel and Lillian, she goes on a quest to find ingredients for the missing medicine. But who is this new boy to whom she has an unexplainable aversion? And could an ill-natured old professor’s essay assignment put her on the trail of a forgotten evil enchanter?
 
Esme’s Gift explores a grittier, darker, and at times more beautiful Aeolia. Elizabeth Foster’s strong world-building cultivates a story that’s even more mysterious and layered than Esme’s first swim into Aeolia. While a thriller element is woven into the fantasy plot in a way that kept me on the edge of my seat at times, where the book really stands out is in the characters. Upping the action a bit from the first book, Esme, Daniel, and Lillian take on a lot of personal growth tasks suitable to their ages, from majestic dragons to terrifying oracles, medical secrets, Aeolia’s violent history—and the ghosts who tell it--and the sometimes accident-prone development of their own special Gifts. Esme’s Gift captures the angst, growing pains, and courage of adolescents, while threading in some gentle moments of true friendship and affection. It’s a YA fantasy story about crossing into another world and visualizes that world vividly.

Review 5 star

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You Could Be a Police Officer! by Patricia Harman is an educational picture book about the exciting job of working in law enforcement. Marcela Estrada’s cheerful, bright illustrations emphasize women and people of different ethnicities working together as police officers, showing how accessible and interesting police work is for girls and what an equal opportunity workplace it is for everyone. Police officers are presented in an encouraging way as helpful members of the community who attend a special school and receive special training so they can assist others. The book introduces kids to several categories of police work: traffic, security, K-9 units, crime investigation, answering emergency calls, police supervisors, and more.
 
You Could Be a Police Officer is an excellent, straightforward, very clear book for teaching young kids about police work. Although police officers are adults, they are described in a way that makes children feel close to them. Police activity in daily life with children, traffic, and animals is emphasized as kids will be encouraged to look around them and recognize the police officers they see each day. Patricia Harman effectively uses familiar town, school, and event settings (such as policemen on motorcycles at parades) to add color and sparkle to a very serious profession so children will see it can be a fun path in life as well. Who wouldn’t want to fly a helicopter for their job? A lot of young children might not be aware how many things police officers really do and after reading this book they could find something about police work that they’d be interested in pursuing as a career. 

Review 5 star

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Seasons of the Soul is a collection of philosophical poetry by Nidhi Kaur. It has many eloquent, often short poems that show a relationship between a woman seeking love and a beloved she longs for and can also be used to describe a deeper search for peace and meaning in the stages of life. The book summarizes four “seasons” or life stages in the love journey and these four seasons are examined through intricate sets of poems that are paired with pictures, predominantly of leaves and flowers, to create a strong sensory experience. The seasons—Season of Longing; Season of Remembrance; Season of Love; and Season of Enlightenment—take the narrator and reader through a life journey of finding love.
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The poetical quality of Seasons of the Soul is delicate and gentle. The broader spiritual growth that can be applied to this cascading waterfall of poems gives them a lot of depth and Nidhi Kaur’s writing merits close attention for the quiet elegance that is structured into each set of poems and images. While many poetry books use images effectively, few do so with as much skill as this one because the pictures act as little verses of their own, accompanied by individual longer poems or by tiny, brief verbal fragments strung along together to create a sophisticated experience. The comparison of the growth of love to the life cycle of a flower as it sprouts, bud, and blooms is carried through the whole book with strength and energy, and there are touches of beautiful lyricism, as in the lovely verse “I have translated all of your silence into poetry.” Seasons of the Soul is a good expression of the inner spirit of a life that is continually growing.