🤩 Among The Stars: January Update
- Jennifer LaGarde
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
It's that time again. For the moment, anyway, our curated starred review spreadsheet is up to date, y'all.
As a reminder, Martha Hickson and I curate and collate the starred reviews from six trade journals:
We realize, of course, that other sites/blogs award stars, too... but these are the journals we've chosen to focus on.
Forgive Me, But...
I need to rant, y’all. It’s been a minute since my last update, and while I’m perpetually behind on this work, this has also been a stressful time for the curators of this spreadsheet. Let’s get into it.
Back in November, our feedback form was hacked. I knew something was up when I started receiving dozens of notifications about “missing reviews.” Luckily, I recognized the URLs being shared as suspicious, so I didn’t end up downloading any malware, etc., but I did have to turn off the form. However…
In the process of navigating all of that, we were also alerted to the fact that we’d been missing reviews from SLJ Xpress, a side publication focused solely on reviews that are published online. This is super frustrating, because there doesn’t appear to be a way, even as an SLJ subscriber, to be alerted when these reviews are published. That leaves us searching manually for them. (And by “us,” I mean Martha, who has taken on the work of both updating our backlog and making sure these reviews are captured moving forward.) All of that said, if someone from SLJ is reading this, please reach out if you know of a way to help us make this task less onerous.
Then our drop downs (the ones that record dates) stopped working. For spreadsheet nerds, I’ll go into the problem and solution below. For those whose nerdiness doesn’t extend to spreadsheets, here’s the short version: it took a while and was super frustrating, but the problem appears to be fixed now.
Spreadsheet drama:
I think the issue is that Sheets is very heavy handed when it comes to dates. Even if a cell is formatted as plain text, Sheets recognizes date patterns and tries to validate the data throughout your sheet and across tabs (this will be important later).
As part of my detective work, I noticed that when I clicked on a cell in which a drop down was already selected (such as Mar 26), the backend looked something like this: 3/26/2026 or 3/26/2025.
My theory is that as Sheets tried to validate the data, those “dates” didn’t match the rules for the drop down, so the results were rejected. Honestly, this is all guesswork on my part. What I did to fix it was try to fool Google into viewing the dropdown as text (rather than a date) by adding an apostrophe to each option. So now, instead of Mar 26, it reads Mar ’26.
The bad news is that I’ve noticed the drop downs in the 2025 tab are also no longer working. So, if my fix sticks, at some point I’ll have to go in and fix all 1,907 reviews on that tab.
Anyway, I’m not sure when I’ll turn the feedback form back on, but I know for sure it won’t be until after all the SLJ Xpress reviews have been captured. In the meantime, please be patient with us.
The Stars So Far!
As the calendar turns over, it’s tempting to think of this as the final update to the 2025 starred reviews tab. Chances are, however, that we will continue to update this tab as reviews come in, especially after the Youth Media Awards are announced at the end of the month. At that point, some publications may find that they didn’t review a winning title or two. To correct this, new reviews for books published in 2025 will be written and shared, and Martha and I will do our best to get them added to the spreadsheet.
In the meantime, here’s the current 2025 data as it stands:
Of course, we are also continuing to collect starred reviews for books published in 2026, too. We’ve added 160 reviews to the 2026 tab since my last update.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been curating this spreadsheet for four years now. I’ve been calculating the stats related to this data since 2024. You can take a closer look at all the spreadsheet-related data by checking out the tabs labeled “stats” at the bottom of the spreadsheet.
What's On My Radar?
Next month, I’ll do my annual comparison of how the Youth Media Awards compare to the starred reviews (last year’s results were so much fun to reflect on), but for now, here are a few books publishing in 2026 that I’m excited about!
The Moon Without Stars by Chanel Miller:
Some of you may remember that I was a massive fan of Chanel’s first middle grade novel, Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All. Like Although I haven’t read The Moon Without Stars yet, this Kirkus review has me looking forward to getting to know main characters Luna and Scott. Their jouney sounds like the kind of friendship story many middle school readers need! Big thanks to Philomel Books for sending me an ARC!
The Lions’ Run by Sara Pennypacker and Jon Klassen:
Sara Pennypacker has a long track record of writing middle grade novels that trust young readers with big ideas, and this one has been on my radar for a while. I haven’t read The Lions’ Run yet, but this starred Kirkus review has me especially curious about how Pennypacker approaches historical fiction. PLUS! It's illustrated by Jon Klassen - color me intrigued! Again, big thanks to Balzer + Bray for sending me an ARC!
Seven Million Steps: The True Story of Dick Gregory’s Run for the Hungry by Derrick Barnes and Christian Gregory; illustrated by Frank Morrison:
It’s no secret that I am a Derrick Barnes STAN. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t recommend one of his phenomenal books. That said, the true story of Dick Gregory’s run for the hungry sounds like the kind of history that resonates with young readers in both heart and urgency, especially right now. I haven’t read it yet, but this Kirkus review has me eager to see how the text and art together bring Gregory’s vision to life.
Here Come the Aunties! by Cynthia Leitich Smith and Aphelandra:
Again, I love Cynthia Leitich Smith, so it’s no surprise that I’m really looking forward to this picture book. Not only does it appear to be a joyful celebration of the many ways “aunties” show up in kids’ lives, but books that emphasize connection and joy feel especially important right now. I haven’t read Here Come the Aunties! yet, but this Kirkus review has me eager to dive in.
Wake Now in the Fire by Jarrett Dapier and AJ Dungo +
Skating Wilder by Brandon Dumais and AJ Dungo:
I will read just about anything illustrated by AJ Dungo. His book In Waves completely transformed me from someone who thought they didn’t enjoy graphic novels into a person who absolutely adores the format. That said, Wake Now in the Fire is a fictionalized account of true events related to intellectual freedom and book banning, while Skating Wilder is a nonfiction celebration of skateboarding, the sport both Dungo and Dumais clearly adore. I seriously cannot wait to get my hands on both of these books!
What Did I Miss?
As I mentioned above, our form for reporting missed reviews is currently closed. I'll let you know when I open in back up. In the meantime, feel free to:
Notice our mistakes
Keep them to yourself (for now!) :)
