Common Sense Media

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Reviewed by Monica Wyatt
Constantly changing predicaments, strange creatures, and the watercolors are very child-friendly.... Read the full review

All the Blues in the Sky

This book is a Common Sense Selection (Common Sense recognizes outstanding entertainment with an official seal for quality and impact. Common Sense Selections include age-appropriate media with the potential to spark family conversations, entertain families of all kinds, and have a positive, lasting effect on society.) Parents need to know that the novel All the Blues in the Sky, winner of the 2026 Newbery Medal, is written in a combination of verse and prose by Renée Watson, the New York Times-bestselling author of Ways to Make Sunshine and Newbery Prize and Coretta Scott King Award winner for Piecing Me Together. The main character is 13-year-old Sage, a Black teen living in Harlem, who is grieving for her best friend, Angel Rodriguez, who died on Sage's birthday. Sage, the first-person narrator, describes her feelings and the conversations she has with classmates in a grief group, and with family, teachers, counselors, and the boy in the neighborhood who's taken a romantic interest in her. A girl is killed in a hit-and-run accident by a drunk driver. Relatives of characters died in different ways before the story begins: killed by police, a heart attack, cancer, and of old age. No deaths are described graphically. Romance is limited to a crush and a first kiss. Read the full review

Anatole

Reviewed by Patricia Tauzer
The story is heartwarming and important, the characters sympathetic, and the illustrations engaging. ANATOLE is about honor and one anthropomorphic mouse's search for self-respect... Read the full review